1. Use CBeebies and YouTube to virtually babysit your children

2. End up getting sucked in to said programmes... particularly the songs... which remain stuck in your head all day

3. Leave the house looking like a hobo. Most days.

4. Bore people with photos of your...

Something has changed recently - you've felt it and of course I have too. Our days together are often unpredictable and the routine you crafted around me so carefully - the net which kept both of us safe - has crumbled. You don't know where you stand all of a...

No sooner has the last of the Christmas wrapping paper been squished into the overflowing bin, the world turns its attention to talk of the things we need to change to become better humans.

I have been suckered in to the idea of New Year's Resolutions one too many...

If you don't have a Christmas Party to attend this year, because you are a stay at home parent or perhaps because your colleagues don't like you; you are in good company. Whilst other adults are sensibly spending the run-up to Christmas getting trollied on their work do and strutting...

Despite whisking their contestants by private jet to beautiful Australia and paying them bags of gold, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here is widely considered one of the tougher reality gigs for our good old celebs. As well as the usual fights, dramas and bids for...

Well, yes, that too of course...

But since making those vows - or more...

Do you know what I am starting to get really sick of: being fed all this twaddle about mothers not supporting each other. Every other parenting headline seems to be about some apparent bone of contention between women and the choices they make in parenting.

Let us not be rivals,...

To my little boy, and every parent who isn't perfect...

I snapped at you today. A few times actually - in the space of ten minutes - do you remember? I hope not. You were eating lunch and I had a work email I had to respond to quickly. I...

It is 3 PM on a weekday afternoon and I am Bone. Tired. Like: as weary as a badger, as knackered as a gnat.

I'd like to think I would be more effective with simile use if I were better rested. Probably.

I was up until late last night -...

Because making a baby isn't always as simple as 1 2 3...

1. Chat with boyfriend about having children - perhaps two or three of 'em. Imagine them growing up in a perfect bubble of bliss, or something. Agree you will try and make a baby as soon as married.

I love summer, of course. Everyone loves summer: spending more time outside is good for us and there is always more to do. Then, during the five or so days a year of 'proper summer' - AKA heatwave territory, things ramp up a gear and we get to feel like...

If you co-sleep when you do not want to co-sleep, but your baby makes you co-sleep, then your night may go a little something like this. Although for your sake, I hope that it does not.

11 PM: Start the night with...

Irrespective of the embarrassing sing-alongs, messy crafts and the often drafty locations, I really don't know what's not to love about baby and toddler groups. There's the morning of stimulation and energy burning for the tots, a chance for adult conversation (or at least attempting one in between play-related emergencies),...

We all know the importance of a balanced and healthy diet and the impact this can have on a person's wellbeing. The inclusion of five-a-day in your diet is essential because; healthy body, healthy mind, yes?

Then of course, as parents, it is even more important to consume the...

Formal exercise has never really been my idea of 'me-time' (or 'me-anything' really). So you would think that by aged thirty-lalala, I would know enough to realise joining a gym will not end well. Unfortunately, having a baby wiped out 80% of my memory so alas, thanks to the lure...

Parents; please know I do appreciate your frustration when I do not sleep, be it at nap time, bed time or middle-of-the-night time (your personal favourite I believe). I understand that me being awake means you being awake and that when you have fed me, changed me and soothed me,...

1. You spend an entire Bank Holiday weekend sober

2. A Big Night is watching a film in one sitting

3. You know all of the lyrics to the Tweenies, but none of the songs in the Top 40

4. You grumble about potholes and selfish parking

5. You plan...

It is early rising and midnight waking, it is wiping noses... and bums. It is the park all year round; it is play dough, sand and crayons. It is travelling heavy and never 'nipping out'; it is laughter - so much laughter.

It is a shift in your relationship, it...