healthy after school snacks

If your children are anything like mine as soon as they have walked through the door after school you are more likely to be bombarded with ‘what can I eat?’ before they have even said hello! They often won’t have eaten anything since lunchtime so it is important to give them something to tide them over until your evening meal.

I will admit sometimes it is a case of my kids just grabbing a biscuit(in the UK sense of the word) from the tin and although this isn’t ideal as they are just full of sugar and fats, just occasionally won’t hurt them. Here is a list of my favourite healthy afterschool snacks:

A piece of fruit

A small handful of dried fruit

Yogurt

Crumpets

Toast

cheese(with or without crackers)

A small handful of seeds or nuts

Healthy muffins

Homemade pancakes

Banana Pancakes

This is one recipe that I use a lot to make banana pancakes. I know in the US these are probably classed as a breakfast food, but serve them in small sizes with some apple slices instead of butter and syrup and they make great snacks. They are also very quick and easy to make!

You can even make these before hand, I usually cool them on a rack so they don’t go soggy underneath. If you want to freeze, just keep them between layers of greaseproof paper to stop them sticking. They will defrost in a few hours, or put them in the microwave for 2 minutes (depending on your microwave of course)

Ingredients

1 cup of plain flour (all purpose)
2 Tablespoons of sugar (you can drop this to 1 tablespoon or even add a substitute)
2 teaspoons of baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 egg
1 cup of milk
2 tablespoons of melted butter (or oil works just as well)
2 bananas mashed or chopped

Method

In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, make sure this is mixed thoroughly. Make a well in the centre.

In a separate bowl lightly whisk the egg, add the butter/oil then the milk and stir together.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk together until thoroughly combined.

Stir in the mashed/chopped bananas.

Melt a little butter or oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. I use a 1/4 cup measure for the batter to make small, snack size pancakes.

Turn over when you see some bubbles appear on the surface then cook for a further minute or two on the other side.

I also like to change things up a bit sometimes by slicing some of the banana then frying it in some butter till it browns. I put one of the slices in the frying pan, where the centre of each pancake will be before pouring the batter  over the top. You then just cook as usual.

Do your kids go on the rampage for snacks when they come home from school? What do you usually give them to tide them over till tea time?

 

What would you do with three hours off?

I recently happened to find myself with three whole children free hours. I know, jealous right? This was the first time in 11 months that I have been alone, literally. How did I find myself child free I hear you ask. Did I abandon them somewhere just hoping to find their own way home? Not quite.

A combination of my parents working full time and O being solely dependant on me to feed him has meant that it was pretty impossible for me to leave him before. But O is less dependant on me now so it was a lovely surprise to get a random phone call first thing in the morning from my mother offering me some ‘me time’ and on her day off too. I have to be honest I jumped at the chance!

I thought the fact that LV was home from school might have thrown a spanner in the works, but I’d only kept him off as I thought he was getting conjunctivitis and in her own words ‘he can have bad eyes in this house too’. I actually think that it may be more hayfever related as they have stayed bloodshot and watery but they didn’t get gunky at all. I’ve given him antihistamines since and it has seemed to improve a little.

So after having the obligatory cuppa and gossip about all and sundry, I fed O just to top him up and left. When I pulled up at my house just a few minutes later I opened the back door as usual to get O out of his carseat, then had to pretend that I was looking for something so my next door neighbour didn’t think I was going off my head! At least it wasn’t the other way round and I’d left him in there huh?

So what exactly did I do with my three hours? Let my give you a run down.

1. I sat on the sofa to eat my lunch and have a cup of tea without worrying that this will happen again. There were NO toys strewn across the floor around me!

2. I watched an episode of Haven, from beginning to end, without having to pause it or pretend not to be watching it while playing with O.

3. I ate the last slice of lemon meringue pie without having to hide or share it.

4. I wrote this article about maternity clothes without stopping and it wasn’t even nap time. I even got to press the publish button too!

5. I peed, alone, without anyone looking at me, wanting to sit on my lap, or feed, or look between my legs, or try to climb the shelves, or eat the toilet brush.

6. I had another cup of tea, while it was still hot!

7. I made my bed. Nicely. Not just flung the duvet over it.

8. I took clothes out of the tumble dryer, transferred nappies from the washing machine to the tumble drier AND got new clothes in the washing machine all in one go, without having to carry a baby strapped to my back or anything.

9. I sorted the shoes and threw out a load of holey, too small ones that have been hanging round for way too long.

10. I swept downstairs, even under the dining table (go me!)

11. I took the dog out for a walk, just the two of us.

12. I gave the highchair a good old scrub which was way overdue.

13. I hoovered the rug.

14. I made another cup of tea!

15. I almost finished one blog post and started another one(this one)

16. I put another episode of Haven on and checked my emails and all my social media bits and pieces like twitter and facebook.

It’s good to bear in mind that numbers 7-13 took less than an hour and I didn’t rush. It would usually have taken me all day and many stops to wrangle something out of O’s mouth or feed him, or change him etc. etc. The writing is usually impossible during the day, if you read this post about O’s lack of sleep you will understand why.

So even though I had a leisurely afternoon I was actually quite productive. Yes I could have been much more productive and spent my time deep cleaning the kitchen, taking stuff to the tip, scrubbing the floors. But quite frankly I just didn’t want to and that’s the excuse I’m sticking with!

I really enjoyed my time alone but it was lovely to see my two smiling boys again!

                                             

Oh and I know you will read this so thank you Mam, shall we do it again sometime? 😉 x

Do you get many days off from your children? What do you like to do with your time? Or, if you have yet to experience your first few hours without your precious little ones, what do you imagine you would want to spend your time doing?

Update on O’s scalded arm

If you read this post you will know that O managed to grab hold of my tea and scald himself 11 days ago. It was awful but he is truly on the mend now. He had a bandage on for two days and honestly? He was really good with it. I put a babyleg over it to keep him from picking at the tape and to keep it clean but he didn’t bother with it at all. He did however enjoy batting the poor dog over the head with it at every chance he got.

When the bandage came off his hand was still very pink but that has subsided a lot now. The skin on his hand was shiny and quite wrinkly and he had some marks on his arms that seem to be where the hot tea trickled up his sleeve and sat there, These were blistering when they put the dressing on. This photo was taken last week, his hand was actually quite a few shades pinker than it looks in the picture but my phone camera isn’t great.

I need to rant a little here, but I will end will a lovely story and an impromptu review so bear with me!

Whenever any of my kids have needed stitches or dressings removed or changed we are always told to go to the nurse in our GP’s surgery or go back to the A&E department if we can’t. I have never been able to get an appointment with the nurse, unless we wanted to wait well over a week so we’ve always ended up back in A&E.

This time was no different but I’m not sure what was happening in the local area, there must have been a cloud of bad luck over the county as come 10 am Tuesday the waiting room was packed! It took us 2 hours of waiting only then to have a male nurse tutting at me when he was trying to take the bandage off, I presume he’s not used to treating screaming, squirming 11 month old little boys!

*I just need to add that I’m not knocking male nurses, our Paediatric Assessment Unit and Children’s Ward have at least two male nurses that I know of and they are both wonderful with the kids. I have also met female nurses who are far from compassionate and understanding where young children are concerned. I guess this is why some choose not to work paediatrics!*

Anyway, this nurse never came closer than a foot away, apart from his hands. Even when he was supposed to be examining O’s arm he just peered from a distance, announced there were no blisters told us we could leave and then just left us in the cubicle!

A little taken aback at what just happened I left. I hadn’t even gotten to the car when I could see some small blisters in the crease between his thumb and finger, also in the crease of his wrist. I contemplated going back but then figured they were such small blisters that they would probably not do anything apart from tell us to keep an eye out for infection. So that what I did.

I also took this little rant to twitter, here is where a story of kindness comes in. The person(Sarah?) behind the twitter account @thespiritofaloe, sent me a message offering to send some of their Aloe Vera Gelly as they knew it would help O’s arm heal. Within two days an envelope with two little sachets drop through the letter box and I immediately put some on. These little sachets lasted for over a week! Here is how his arm looked 9 days after the accident:

It’s hard to see (remember what I said about the camera?) but his whole hand has peeled, it even looks like it’s had a bit of a tan! The red marks are almost gone completely and the blistering healed up within 24 hours of putting the Gelly on. But isn’t it looking fantastic!?!

I’m so grateful for Sarah and Quintin for sending me the Gelly, I’m sure the redness would still be much worse without it. I’ve used other Aloe products in the past but I will definitely be ordering a tube to keep in my medicine drawer ASAP!

Thank you for all of your kind messages about the accident. I wasn’t sure how it would be taken, but I didn’t have one unkind word. For that I am grateful x

Have you used Aloe Vera on burns or scalds? Did you find it helped?

Review and Giveaway – A School for Good and Evil

A School for Good and Evil is a novel by Soman Chainani. It is aimed at girls aged 10+, so when I was asked by Harper Collins to review a copy LM was so impressed when I told her she was the one who’d able to read this and help out!  I have to be honest though, she is a reaaaally slow reader so I have been waiting ages to actually finish writing this post 🙂 To be fair, going to a Welsh medium school, she has only been reading English for four years, so I’ll let her off!

Ever since the book arrived she has mostly been found like this:

So what is this book all about?

In LM’s own word’s, with spoilers removed:

“It’s about a place where every four years two children get stolen and taken to this school. There is really two schools, one for good and one for evil. The two girls who get taken are best friends. Sophie thinks that she is going to the school for good because she wants to be a princess. She thinks the other girl, Agatha is going to be the witch. But it didn’t go quite to plan!”

What was good about the book?

“I liked how things don’t turn out like you think. You read and read expecting one thing to happen then all of a sudden something completely the opposite does!”

“It was also cool because it’s like fairytales, but for big kids. There’s lot’s of adventure.”

What was bad about the book?

“Nothing was really bad, but sometimes it got a bit confusing because a lot of the time, when they are talking, people kept interrupting each other and the person talking kept changing. But it didn’t really tell you that someone else was talking or who it was, so I had to keep going back and figure it out.”

“There was also two swear words!” at this point she went fishing through the book because she wouldn’t say the words. Turns out there is a ‘Donkey’s ass’ and a ‘crap’ in there. I guess there may be a cultural divide where these are accepted words for youngsters in the US. I’m not bothered they are in there, although they are not words that my kids are allowed to use, not in front of us parents anyway!

***

If you have girls in this age range who love a good fantasy or fairytale you can buy the book from Amazon LM really can’t recommend it enough and has already got all her friends hooked, even a couple of the boys!

We were pleasantly surprised that we were also sent a copy of the second book in the series ‘The School for Good and Evil: A World Without Princes. You can check out the trailer for it below:

LM is so excited to read the next book, hopefully it won’t take her quite so long and I’ll be able to let you know how she liked that one too 🙂 As for now, my two 13 year olds and myself are battling out who will be next to get to read it!

Now for the giveaway!!!

If you would like to win a copy of this novel, all you need to do is reply below and let us know if you would want to be a prince/princess and go to the school for good or a witch/wizard and go to the school for evil and why!

Entries are only open to UK residents and will close on Friday 27th, when all the names will be put into a hat and chosen at random by LM herself. Please pass this on to anyone who would be interested.

Good Luck!!!

***we were sent a copy of the two books to review by Harper Collin’s but all thoughts and opinions are our own***

A warning to all parents – please keep hot drinks away from babies!

I am writing this post as a warning to all parents. It doesn’t matter how old you are, how much money you earn, how many children you have or how safe you think your house is. If you put a hot drink anywhere that a baby could possibly reach, even if you think they can’t, you are putting your baby at risk.

This weekend was definitely one of our worst ever. Sunday I spent the evening first trying to cool down the scalded arm of my 11 month old. Then driving him to A&E screaming in his carseat. Followed by having to pin him down so the doctors and nurses could check him over and dress his wound.

Yes we have had our fair share of A&E visits, ambulance rides, kids with broken bits, skin needing stitches, concussions, dislocated joints even the odd nail in the foot and those days were awful too. But none of those things were our fault. Sunday evening was our fault.

We are always extra, extra careful with hot drinks and there was only a split second of misjudgement but that was enough for O to grab hold of my cup of tea, a freshly made one, and scald his hand and arm.

Even though O has never been able to reach back on the arm of our sofa my cup usually gets put on the table to cool a little just in case. This time my cup was right next to me on the arm, it had been there less than 30 seconds. Another few seconds and I would have realised and moved it. It was already too late. O grabbed at it and it tipped down over him.

As soon as I heard his scream I went into First Aider auto pilot mode.

I grabbed him, ran to the kitchen and ran the cold tap over his arm to cool his pyjamas and vest before we quickly took them off. I then stood there with him wrapped in just a towel for over 20 minutes to take the heat out of his arm. To calm him down I was standing on my tippy toes so he could nurse on and off. This really helped. I also gave him Ibuprofen to ease the pain.

Even though he screamed all the way there, it wasn’t until I was actually turning into the hospital car park that it finally sank in what had happened and I had to choke back the tears. We were lucky to go straight in to A&E and as soon as the nurse asked what happened the flood gates opened and I could barely get my words out.

Initially they used a dressing that smelled like tea tree oil, this seemed to help a lot and even though he was still upset he wasn’t screaming so badly. When the doctor took this off after about 10 minutes she looked at his arm and said it was looking really good considering. I think it could have been much worse but a few things helped save him. He had a long sleeve vest and long sleeved pyjamas on, both were quite fitted. We also don’t have a kettle but one of those hot water dispensers. The drinks aren’t quite as hot and seem to cool down quicker than kettle water.

The final dressing was a few layers thick, there was a really oily mesh first, then some padding before being wrapped in bandage. It took four of us to hold him still and dress his arm, let’s just say he was less than impressed! We were told to get the bandage removed no later than Tuesday.

It was already way past his bedtime when we left so he fell asleep quite quickly and even though he cried with pain he stayed asleep most of the night. He has also slept much more during the day. I guess his body is trying to get over the shock.

I have to honest here, I really didn’t want to write this post in case I was judged to be a bad mother, but I have shared so much with you all about our lives, it made me feel like I was hiding some shameful secret if I didn’t. But I also needed to get this out there, I wanted you all to think about where you put your hot drinks. Are they really as safe as they could be?

We’ve been having children for 13 years.  O is our fifth child and the first one this has ever happened to, never even had a near miss before. The doctor in A&E said they see it all the time so I guess we pushed our luck too far and it finally ran out.

babylegs – not just for legs!

 

Have you had this, or something similar happen in your family? I hope I have made you all make a little risk assessment about where you keep your hot drinks x

 

Why won’t this child nap!?!

This is my son at nap time today:

Does this look like a sleepy baby to you?

I have always been blessed with good sleepers. Sort of. Generally, my girls would nap twice a day, in their cots, till they were well past one. Then once in the afternoon till they were almost three!

LV dropped his morning nap earlier but still napped for at least two hours every afternoon till around two and a half.

O? Not so much. He is complete catnapper, he usually has a short – about 20 minute- nap around 8 or 9am, depending on how early he got out of bed. This nap can regularly be as short as 7 minutes, yes seven! I try and give him his lunch at 11.30 as by 12 he is getting hungry but also a little tired so wont eat, meaning he’s grumpy and overtired then wont sleep.

Sometimes he will nod off between 12.30 and 1pm, again this is a short nap of 10-20 minutes. If he stays cuddled up to me I can usually get 30-40 minutes out of him. But obviously I want to get things done while he sleeps so its a lose-lose situation!

He has his tea around 5pm and by 6.30pm he is exhausted, but if I put him to bed then, he will be up after 30 minutes and still be awake after 10pm! I try and keep him calm, make sure he’s clean and dry, warm and fed before I even attempt to get him off. I don’t know what else to do, the room is dark – that picture up there? is in the middle of a very sunny day!

But the truth is, once his eyes close, even if only for the briefest of moments, that’s it, that’s all he needs to recharge his batteries! He can be awake for four hours on just four minutes sleep! But then needs me to keep him occupied for every moment that he is awake. This is why I enjoyed having twins, always someone else to keep them entertained for a few minutes!

I’m not sure what to try next. I think I need to get him to drop the morning nap but I’m not really sure how. He still seems to need it, but if he ever doesn’t have it for some reason he does sleep better in the afternoon. I need to think this through, bur being as he doesn’t sleep well most nights either thinking is my really strong point at the moment!

**This wasn’t the post I was planning on writing for today, I had a fantastic one planned, but I didn’t get chance to write it, can you guess why? So I’m afraid this is what you got!**

Is or was your child a catnapper? Have you managed to find a magical way of getting them to sleep longer that 30 minutes at a time (that DOESN’T involve leaving them cry alone)? I’d love to know your trick, I’ll even pay you with tea and scones if it works!:)

Adrenaline junkies and bee stings at Oakwood Theme Park!

Last week I wrote a post about what our plans were for the half term holidays. On Tuesday my eldest two were going on a school trip to Oakwood Theme Park. I also wrote about how E had designated herself ‘chief bag handler’ and had vowed to stay firmly on the ground and never set foot on any of the rides . I am writing this post under strict orders to update you on that trip!

First let me just show you a picture:

E                                         Ff

 

As you can see, there’s a full set of twins in that picture, neither are holding bags and their feet are certainly not firmly placed on the ground!

Yes, I am pleased to say that E managed to get persuaded onto one of the rides and once she was on, thoroughly enjoyed herself! They went on three out of the ‘BIG 4’ Speed(in the picture), Bounce and Drenched but they didn’t get time to ride Megafobia which they were a bit gutted about.

Listening to their excited chatter on the way home made me think back to the day when they were seven years old and we had taken them to the Fairground in Porthcawl. There is a small rollercoaster ride there that the three girls wanted to go on. Dadi ‘doesn’t do rides’ so he stayed with LV while I took the girls on. Being the smallest it made sense for LM to sit next to me with E&Ff in front of us. I spent the entire ride leaning forward holding on to E who was in near hysterics while Ff and LM had a wail of a time.

I also thought of the day when they were eight and on a visit to Folly Farm E completely freaked out and refused to go on the carousel that she ‘needed’ to go on and we had just queued ten minutes for! Needless to say, until last week I figured she was destined to always keep her feet firmly on the ground.

Now though?

I think I have another Adrenaline Junkie in the house. They have even been persuading LV that he wants to go to Oakwood for his birthday in August!

I almost forgot about the bee stings!

The picture above was taken on the very first ride they went on. They had been in the park for less than an hour. About a minute before this picture was taken poor Ff got a bee sting on her neck. The bee got stuck in her jumper and while she was trying to get it out, all while the ride is going, she got a smaller sting on her neck and a nasty one on her finger 😦 (I thought bees were supposed to lose their stings, maybe it was a wasp?)

She spent the entire day with her index finger throbbing and swollen to twice its normal size and a really sore neck. But she didn’t let it get her down and carried on regardless. Maybe the rides helped take her mind off the worst.

I was a little nervous of them going last week, but I’m so glad they went and had such a great time 🙂

 

Are you or your kids adrenaline junkies when it comes to rides? Or would you rather watch from the ground and hold on to the bags?

 

Word of the week – Memories

The word that sums up my week is:

 

 

All of E&Ff’s photos and most of LM’s were taken before digital cameras.  I would like to say that the best ones were all carefully selected and placed in beautiful photo albums that are brought out occasionally to be oohed and aahed over. Sadly, this isn’t the case. They are all kept in a box upstairs, only to be pulled out when someone is looking for something else and comes across said box!

I would just like to point out that I had twins then went on to have a total of four kids aged five and under. Photo sorting was not a priority for me 🙂

This week I was actually looking for the photo box as I will be reviewing a phone case soon which has your photos printed on to it. I wanted to put some of the older kids when they were little on it. I also then had to dig out the external hard drive that holds the rest of LM’s and all of LV’s photo’s. See it doesn’t make any difference how the pictures were taken, they still end up at the back of a cupboard. Well, they do in my house anyway!

We have all had a wail of a time looking back at how they were when they tiny. So many memories come flooding back when I look at these pictures. I think about how tiny LV must have been having glasses. He’d already had them 8 months in this picture:

LV aged 2

I think about all the happy, silly faces I’d be greeted by when I went to get them out of bed in the morning:

E aged 1

And the amount of time they actually spent in cardboard boxes when they were little. Seriously, there’s barely a photo that doesn’t at least have a box in the background!

Ff aged 10 months

I also giggle at the all the dressing up and tea parties we seemed to have:

LM aged 1

I also looked back on some newer memories of O, like his first ever Christmas party:

O aged 4 months

I may not show it sometimes when they are pestering each other and all I want to do is go hide in a dark room, but I am so proud of my kids. They have grown so much since these photo’s, even O, and my love for them has grown too. You hold those teeny tiny babies when they are first born and the world seems to stand still. But before you know it they are teenagers and almost taller than you are.

 

Are you like me that you have to go searching for old photos before you can gaze over them lovingly? Or are you more organised and have your photos all sorted and displayed in albums, scrapbooks or actually framed? Oh and one last thing. Hold those babies extra tight and don’t wish away their lives. They will be up and grown before you know it x

So what shall we do in the half term holidays, that doesn’t cost anything?

Today has been a beautiful Bank Holiday Monday. We spent the afternoon at my parents house, my brother and his family were also there. The kids love getting together with their cousins and being as it was so warm they got to play out in the garden for the first time this year.

It was so sunny he has tears in his eyes!

The weather forecast looks promising so now I’m debating what to do for the rest of the week. Obviously Dadi is in work so it’s left up to me to keep the five kids occupied. Yay!(Did that come across as slightly sarcastic? Yes? Good, that’s what I was aiming for) O’s cough doesn’t seem to be getting better, in fact it sounds much worse during the night or when he naps, so I have a feeling a trip to the doctors may be in order in the next few days 😦

Tomorrow, Tuesday, E&Ff are going on a trip to Oakwood Theme Park. This is the first time they have ever been somewhere like this, neither Dadi nor I are adrenaline junkies by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve been trying not to show them exactly how nervous I am at the same time as telling them to be sensible and stay safe. There was an incident a decade ago where a teenage girl died on one of the rides there, so although I know safety measures have been increased I think I’m allowed to be a little wary!

I actually had to persuade E to go on the trip in the first place. She is a bit of a stress head and panics about a lot of things, I highly doubt she will be going on many of the rides and has designated herself official bag holder for the day. I do hope she picks up the courage to go on some though. I’ve been looking at the website and there are some tamer rides that I’ve been pushing her towards. Ff on the other hand wants to go on everything, EVERYTHING, she truly is a daredevil and is likely to give her poor sister a heart attack just watching her!

While they are gone, O’s cough permitting, I think I will take the two L’s in to Cardiff. They are in desperate need of some new clothes. E&Ff had a load for their birthday so are all set for summer. But these two barely have a pair of socks between them so I think we will be paying a well needed visit to Primark. As a treat I think we’ll get hot chocolate and some cake too.

As for the rest of the week? I’m not really sure. I don’t particularly want to spend much money as the trip and the clothes will have bankrupted me, almost, so the few possibilities I have planned that are free are:

Going out for walks. We live in such a beautiful valley yet through the winter we never really get to go out and see it in all its glory. It always feels like a nice surprise when the sun eventually comes out and we rediscover it all over again.

Exploring local castles. We have a couple of castles within a 20 minute car ride away so we may take a picnic and visit them. My camera messed up and lost some of stunning photo’s at Ogmore Castle from E&Ff’s birthday, so I want to recreate a few.

Visit the local country park. It does cost a few pounds to park the car but our country park has great fields to play in, nature walks, Japanese gardens, a playground plus a lake with some ducks we could feed and a café to get an ice cream. We actually live only a few miles away so we could even walk there!

Playing outside. This one may seem like a cop out but my kids don’t need me to plan a million things to keep them occupied. They are happy enough to go out on the street and ride their scooters/skateboards/bikes. They love to play football, make daisy chains, go down the lane to visit the chickens, play with their friends. Even if the weather isn’t great it’s good for all kids to have free time to do what they want. Plus I’m a little lazy to plan much more.

Visiting the tip! Okay this one isn’t very exciting for the kids, but we are in desperate need to clear out the house. We will be having builders coming at some point this year to convert our attic so a big clear out is a must! With the older kids home it means that they can keep O entertained while I’m sorting. As a thank you for being in charge, E&Ff will then get to watch what they want on the TV while the younger three come with me to the tip, the two L’s can bring their DS’s. Do you that’s a decent enough incentive to persuade them? It may take biscuits too….

What do you have planned for the Half Term holidays? Do you have any other suggestions for free activities for kids? I’d love to hear them.

It’s a lift, not an elevator! And other annoying Americanisms

I often find myself despairing at the fact that my kids are slowly growing up into Americans!  I grew up watching Blue Peter and Grangehill, the most unusual dialect I listened to was on Biker grove!

But for my children? Almost every moment they spend in front of the TV is filled with American kids programs like Victorious or SpongeBob square pants. They don’t watch massive amounts of TV compared to some kids I know, but it’s still a fair amount especially through the winter when we all have cabin fever and are driving each other potty!

Even O, who spends very little time actually watching TV but he is in the room listening to the kids programmes or whatever we watch in the evenings. But I will admit that If I do need to get a few things done I can usually get him to watch an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba. I have a love hate relationship with this programme but that’s for another post.

So why is this all this American TV watching a problem? Well…

I am forever being bombarded with requests for cookies or chips instead of biscuits or crisps.

If we are out they want to press the button in the elevator ‘that will be hard sweetie, we are going in a lift!’

At what point did it become acceptable to call a series a season? I have a feeling the programme Lost may be behind that one.

‘Mami, LV isn’t walking on the sidewalk.’ Sidewalk? It’s a pavement(read in a very slow over-enunciated manner).

The baby wears a nappy NOT a diaper and he has never used a pacifier in his life, although he did use a dummy for a few months.

Rubbish goes in the rubbish bin we don’t have trash or a garbage can in this house.

‘No, you can’t have candy! You may not have sweets either, but you definitely can’t have candy!’

It’s bad enough that if I crochet or cook I have to decipher the recipe or instructions before I even start. Do we really need two different crochet languages, wasn’t one enough?(I have no idea which came first so cannot comment on that one) But now I also have to translate what my kids are saying too!

This isn’t just limited to my kids either. I have seen it amongst their friends and other parents have mentioned it too. So is this where language is going? Not only will we have text speak (really you don’t need to say LOL right after you actually laughed out loud) with words shortened to within an inch of their lives, but by the time our young teens are adults maybe the entire British English language will have been Americanised. With all of the borrowed ‘foreign words’ that have become a part of the English language – hamburger anyone? – so far maybe this is just another rung on the lingual evolutionary ladder.

I apologise to any Americans reading this, it is in no way a dig at you, this is just meant to be a humorous post.

Have your kids picked up some linguistic traits from TV programmes? Or maybe you have yourself, come on you can’t tell me you haven’t called a pushchair a stroller at least once in your life as a parent! Does it bother you as much as it does me, or am I the odd one out here? Also if you are American, with so many countries and different cultural influences maybe there is a US equivalent of this issue? I’d love to hear your thoughts.