Review: Walkers Hoops and Crosses

My kids like eating crisps but, in my well-meaning motherly way, I’d rather they didn’t. They think happy thoughts; I think tooth decay and the obesity epidemic. Yet I’m a firm believer in not denying food stuffs that err on the naughtier side as long as it’s in moderation and stops my kids from developing a forbidden fruit complex. It was with excitement and some trepidation then that I let a new crisp product through my door and into the mouths of my kids.

Walkers Hoops and Crosses are a new baked corn snack aimed at children but also at parents like me who are keen to have their guilt allayed by the promise of wholegrains (a wholesome 56% in the case of Hoops and Crosses). Apparently some kids don’t get enough wholegrain – unlike my offspring who are able to consume their own body weight in Cheerios. If you’re less than 4 foot tall and easily seduced by something in a shiny packet then it might as well be a snack that gives a nod to the dark side of healthy. Hoops and Crosses are free from artificial colours and preservatives and are only 85 calories a bag – tick, tick, tick.

Monkey not always included.

My 4-year-old and 2-year-old didn’t need much persuasion to give Hoops and Crosses a go, particularly as they’re shaped like … hoops and crosses. (Novelty factor – tick!) We got our grubby mitts on the Roast Beef flavour and, once we’d discussed that not every packet comes with a toy monkey (thanks Walkers!), the packet was almost evenly divided between brother and sister. Sister was full of praise: “yummy”, “they taste like carrots” (errrr …) and “no, NO, they’re mine!” Her brother doesn’t say much yet but I assume his silence was evidence of both happiness and a rather full mouth.

You can even eat them out of shoes.

After wrestling the packet from the children, I also tried a few. I couldn’t taste roast beef, although I rarely can in a non-meat format. I wouldn’t buy Hoops and Crosses to eat myself but I can see why my kids enjoyed them.  They are also pleasantly free of the voluminous (and luminous) crumb dust that other well-known children’s snacks emit – the death knell of many a white t-shirt. I’m not overly convinced though by the flavours that Walkers have chosen: roast beef, prawn cocktail and salt and vinegar. I would have preferred the blander classics like cheese and ready salted. After all, kids relish bland, as evidenced by the roaring trade in those tasteless little ricecakes.

Would I buy Hoops and Crosses again? Yes. I’m not sure they will replace our beloved Pom-Bears (another product that proves that kids like shapes as much as, if not more than, taste) but Hoops and Crosses will be an appealing alternative. If my kids will on occasion insist on turning their noses up at fruit in favour of crisps then I say “hooray” for a snack that will force a little element of something good into them.  And who am I to argue with this face?

 

This is a sponsored post for Walkers crisps and I received the products pictured as well as compensation for writing this review. However, all opinions are my own and I was under no obligation to write a positive review.

Saturday is Caption Day!

It has been a while since I’ve gone all linkified on a Saturday. Maybe it’s the sunshine that’s made me go a little bit wild this weekend. Thank you to Butterfly World for the photo below. My son, however, clearly isn’t thanking anyone. Captions please! (And for more photos do head over to the lovely Mammasaurus’ blog for all the #SatCap entries ….)

Sad (or School Allocation Day)

The last few days have been anxious ones for parents as they waited for news of where their little darlings will start their formative years in education. Primary school allocation day. Nerves have not been so frayed since this year’s mamas and papas twisted their hair and scuffed their Doc Martens waiting for exam results. The anxiety isn’t helped by what is seen to be a complicated (and seemingly random) allocation system. It’s another challenge on the rocky, emotional road that is parenting.

The wait between the application deadline and allocation date is a long one – three months. Quite what is happening during this period is uncertain. One can only imagine that FBI checks are being run, dustbins rifled through and shopping habits scrutinised. We were delighted to get our first choice (thanks to our close proximity to the school) but we still had three long months of not daring to count our chickens. Of course, none of the available schools are ‘bad’ but they do each have a different ‘feel’ that you need to be happy with. (Obviously, my choice was not at all swayed by the Convenience (C) equation: C = X + Y, where X equals eXtra time in bed and Y equals Years of life spent on same stretch of pavement making sure kids don’t run into the road or step in dog poop.)

I wasn’t prepared for how emotional today would be. Once the initial excitement of getting the school we wanted had passed, the significance of the moment started to set in. My little girl would be going to school. Really, truly. I even shed a tear or two, something I had not expected to do until she actually starts school. Four months of blubbing beckons for me as the build-up to September starts: buying her uniform, the school visits before the summer holidays, choosing a pencil case … Another chapter in my life as a parent is well and truly opening.

Am I ready for it? Excuse the selfishness but I think the girl will be fine – after all, her excitement today was focused around the colour of the uniform. The prospect of structure, PE and making new friends hardly factors. So back to me. Life is going to change. What are my concerns?

• Can I accept that my daughter is growing up? Will I start dressing my 2-year-old son as a baby again and push him around in a pram in a desperate attempt to keep at least one of my kids needing me. (Buying a cat is also an option here.)
• Will my precarious self-esteem survive life at the school gates? Will it be a bed of roses or the snake pit I’m led to believe it is?
• How the jiggins will I cope with having to feed her tea every day of the week? I currently struggle with being imaginative twice a week. Does tinned mackerel constitute a balanced diet? (The aforementioned cat would be in for a treat at least.)
• Will I be required to only leave the house in full make-up, possibly purchase Ugg boots, and, worst of all, join the ranks of the Ballet Mums skilled in the dark art of making other mothers feel uncomfortable?

My worries for my daughter are another blog post entirely. For the moment, I’m wallowing in my own regret at the speed with which time passes. Sometimes it’s difficult to focus on the parental joys you have already experienced and those that are yet to come. Every stage of being a parent involves some form of letting go and accepting that life is changing and changing rapidly. The pride that can bring is often tinged with sadness. As I watch my daughter head off for her first day at primary school I’m sure I’ll be grateful that it’s just her new found independence I’m worrying about and not the length of her skirt or the boy waiting for her at the school gate. That is all still to come. God help me.

Yummy Mummy or Boring Bob?

I am at an age where I’m old enough to be someone’s mother. I am actually a mother as I have two kids. What I mean is that I am now old enough to be the mother (maybe even grandmother) of the generation I consider to be ‘young’, the wannabes, the men and women who will be our next future. And that makes me feel old. Listen closely enough and I can sometimes be heard uttering the telling phrase: “Policemen are so young these days”. What’s a girl woman to do when she finds herself at the top of  a slippery slope grabbing on for dear life with her stubby fingernails?

I’m not a big fan of health and beauty magazines aimed at women. They’re very pretty to look at and sometimes even include an interesting feature amidst their trivialisation of women (under the guise of empowerment of course). They have the ability to tweak the love handles and poke the pimples of anyone harbouring a dash of insecurity. One day they could even be the cause of my daughter valuing lipstick over the human race. It was to my horror then that I found myself reaching for the latest issue of the Boots Health & Beauty magazine looking for inspiration and solace. Such depths of self-pity had I reached.

Egged on by the promise of “tiny and oh-so-doable steps” and just the hint of the chance to CHANGE MY LIFE, I stumbled across Louise Kearney whose goal was to “look glam at the school gates”:

“When I drop the kids off at school, the other mums always look so well turned out and cool – I wish I knew their secret! … I’d love to re-invent myself as a yummier mummy, but I’ve got no idea where to start.”

Louise may have been smiling in the photo but it was a desperate cry for help and it struck a chord. My two children are now old enough that I can start to reclaim my body safe in the knowledge that I’m not planning a pregnancy that will come and b*gger it all up again. Like Louise, I will become a school runner from September when my oldest starts to drag me daily into the snake pit that I’m led to believe the school playground to be. Oh clever, clever Boots magazine! Louise could be me. I was practically ripping open the laptop to order the magical products prescribed to cure lovely Louise of her baggy mumsiness.

Most exciting of all was the discovery that I was already halfway there to achieving the status of aged, yet desirable, woman. I have a bob. There was me thinking I had a boring old haircut. But no, look in the mirror again and feel the power of the bob. According to Lord Trevor of Sorbie, Louise’s ‘hair expert’ in the article, a razored bob is the way forward: “Trust me – a shorter style will help turn back the clock”. I trust you Trevor, I trust you.

Content that I now had the tools to be gorgeous, I let my guard down and dipped into the rest of the magazine. Little did I realise that my new found confidence was about to be shaken. On page 24 I received the following slap in the face courtesy of the magazine’s columnist, soon to be 40-year-old (gasp!) Katy Regan:

“Plus I’ll ditch the bob, which my twenty-something make stylist informs me ‘is a look only women over 35 go for these days’!”

Only sad, desperate old women over 35. The bob: the blue-rinse for the 30-something generation. How we’ll laugh at them behind their backs when they ask for a cut a bit more ‘Ann Hathaway’ and we tell them that a bob would much better flatter their face shape. It hides the wrinkles and the jowls, darling. Know thy place.

The world of women’s magazines yet again reveals just how superficial it can be. Whilst I am frightened by the industry’s output and the negative impact it can have on self image, I am even more frightened that there are people (usually women) writing this content and failing to see the hypocrisy of it. Scarier still is if they are producing the content in full knowledge of their influence but are choosing to subjugate any twinges of sisterly solidarity. Of course these magazines have their place and should never be taken too seriously (indeed, I feel I am getting a bit serious here and may need to pause to adjust my blue stockings). But the potential of even the most lightweight and frivolous of magazines to do harm should never be underestimated. Especially by an old duffer with a bob like me.

Wedding fairs: fat women don’t get married

Everyone loves a good wedding. A touching ceremony followed by watching the happy couple’s life savings being eaten, drunk and danced into a sticky carpet. Picture the bride in the months before: doe-eyed, flipping through wedding magazines, pasting her ideas on Pinterest. Maybe she’ll surf the web for tricks to make her day just that little bit more special. Maybe she’ll do something far less virtual and visit a wedding fair – the chance to mix with other couples planning their own Big Day, visit supplier stands and generally watch your bank balance plummet. Unfortunately, wedding fairs are far from the glorious champagne-tinged day out with your soul mate that you would expect. Welcome to the pressure dome.

A colleague of mine recently visited the London Wedding Show, held in the most romantic of settings – London Excel. Rather than ending the day basking in the glow of romance, I sense that she returned with a look of bewilderment and a sense of fear. Extortionate prices, unaffordable (and probably undrinkable) champagne and being elbowed out of the way by women wanting wedding cakes in the shape of unicorns (yes, really) don’t make for a pleasantly memorable day. “But,” I asked, “I bet there were lots of freebies?” Apparently not. Unless of course you count the free sachets of low calorie sugar and diet pills. Yes, DIET PILLS. Tradition clearly hasn’t made it into the 21^st century.

Something to make me less fat. I can’t think of anything I’d rather have nestled in a sponsored plastic bag that my other half can carry around awkwardly as I ponder favours and they wonder what’s for tea. What better way to boost my confidence as I head towards one of the few days in my life when I will be the focus of everyone’s attention. Thanks to the diet pills – so kindly gifted – they won’t be focusing on my enormous derriere or the roll of flab that my bodice has shoved up under my armpits. Pop a couple of pills and my self-esteem will rise as high as the pure white doves we’ll be releasing.

What the jiggins were the organisers thinking?  Shame on the women loitering by the wedding cake stands – don’t you realise that cake will make you a fat and ugly bride?

The notion of crash dieting before a wedding in order to be ‘beautiful’ is, of course, no real surprise. I’m sure we all know someone who has done it. But that doesn’t make it right and those organisations selling the ‘perfect wedding’ really ought to open their disco ball-dazzled eyes and start acting more responsibly. Extreme dieting by women preparing for their wedding has even been given a name: brideorexia. (Search for that term on Yahoo and note the sponsored ads promoting weight loss that appear next to the articles – irony in motion.) Is it any wonder that what starts out as a campaign to look ‘good’ for one day can potentially lead to a serious long-term eating disorder?

Statistics estimate that in the UK at least 1.1 million people suffer from an eating disorder. Most at risk of developing a disorder are young people aged 14-25 years. As someone who has experienced an eating disorder and as a parent, the idea of diet pills being handed out at a wedding fair fills me with disgust and a desire to shake some sense into someone. Of course, wedding fairs alone are not responsible for creating eating disorders but they do a damn good job of magnifying the negative self-imagery that can set women, men, boys and girls on a spiral of misery. I’ve seen my 4-year-old pull her t-shirt up in front of a mirror and tell me that she’s worried her tummy looks fat. A 4-year-old. I’ll do everything I can to ensure she loves the body she’s in but with so many external influences to contend with I am left wondering whether it’s a battle too big to truly win.

Review: Babasac baby sleeping bag

Sleep. Every parent’s favourite topic. My two have always slept somewhere between well and okayish on the dream scale. Ever since they were big enough, they’ve both been buttoned and zipped into sleeping bags with the aim of avoiding the problem of waking up with chilly protruding toes. The bags have lasted for two kids (pat on the back for thrifty mum, pity the boy who sleeps in his sister’s pink sleeping bag) and have served us so well that I’ve never bothered trying new ones. But then came the Babasac baby sleeping bag.

What struck me about the Babasac that led me to risk disturbing my 22-month-old’s pretty sound sleep? For starters, the Babasac is designed by Mama Designs Ltd who are behind (not literally!) the fabulous Mamascarf. When I was looking for a discreet breastfeeding cover, the Mamascarf revolutionised my experience of getting my boobs out in public. Not to undersell the design, but it’s amazing what a simple piece of material can do. Enough of my boobs though and back to the Babasac. To be honest, I wondered how different baby sleeping bags could be. Bag. Zip. Poppers. Obligatory cute animal. Job done.

For me, the exciting new thing about the Babasac is that it is multi-tog. Why take at least four sleeping bags a year to get your child through the first 3 years of their life when you can take half that number? The Babasac can be used either as a lightweight 1 tog bag, or, with its inner panels zipped in, a 2.5 tog vessel of cosiness. I was skeptical that this could be done securely but the neatly covered zips and industrial strength Velcro mean the panels aren’t going to budge. You can’t whip the panels in and out at speed but, quite frankly, if I could I wouldn’t be impressed. At first glance, the price of the bag may make you feel a little light-headed, ranging from £37.99 (0-6 months) to £39.99 (18-36 months), but if you consider that you’re getting two bags for the price of one then it’s a bit of a bargain. (Please don’t put the price up though Mama Designs!)

That’s the clever internal stuff and the price tag but the proof is of course in the wearing. When I first put my toddler into the bag I was a bit surprised to see that the shoulder fixings didn’t have two fittings like most other sleeping bags do. However, my disappointment was offset by discovering the gently elasticated neckline. This design actually seems more comfortable than other bags where the tightest shoulder fitting can seem a bit too snug and the looser fitting leaves a gaping neckline. Another plus point of the Babasac is that the zip around the outside extends beyond the foot end and up the other side by a few inches. My boy’s a wriggler so has an impressive ability to undo the zip with his feet and wail until they’re popped back in again. He hasn’t managed this yet with the Babasac. Nor has he unpopped himself and taken off his pyjamas like a mini-naturist, but time will tell!

The Babasac fabric designs are, if I’m not too old and square to use the word, groovy. Pink hearts, navy stars or green apples – a pleasant change from teddies and zebras and cheeky monkeys. I washed the bag before I used it (for the record it washed up nicely, laundry fans) but was a bit worried that it felt rather stiff. Once it was on though the thickness felt less uncomfortable and more like luxury. My boy was no doubt wondering what cheap rubbish he’s been dressed in for the last two years! The only slight hesitation I have is around the length of the bag. My son is a big lad for 22 months – he’s happy now in the 18-36 month sizing but I can’t see an awful lot of room left if he is to use it until he is 3 years old. A minor point for me as I’ll have moved him into a bed with conventional bedding well before then but something to consider if you have a BLT (Big Long Toddler).

The ultimate test of whether the babe digs the bag (and therefore whether the parents do) is how well they sleep in it. If there’s a sentence that sums up and recommends the Babasac then it’s this: Not a peep from the monitor.

Sleep well!

Thank you to Keira at Mama Designs Ltd who sent this product to me and expected nothing in return other than an objective review. Follow Mama Designs Ltd on Twitter: @MamaDesignsLtd. You can also visit their Facebook page.

Women: big business

Sometimes I wonder if top female business executives would be better off keeping their mouths shut about the issue of women in the workplace and the challenges they face. Do they actually do more damage to the cause in trying to support it? Hell’s bells, I hate to use the word cause. It shouldn’t even be a cause. Whilst a topic remains a ‘cause’ it will never become normalised. Are high-flying business women really all that inspirational?

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer at Facebook, used the opportunity to talk about the gender stereotypes that are holding women back in the workplace.  According to Sandberg, the more successful men get the more they are liked and the more successful women become the less they are liked.  It seems that people don’t like to see women outside of their stereotypical role of wife/mother and assuming the supposedly masculine traits needed to succeed in the cut throat world of business. So unladylike!

I’m very much with Sandberg in grimacing at this unfortunate by-product of centuries of gender stereotyping. However, in the interest of openness at work (and perhaps with a misguided nod towards the ‘normalisation’ of working parents), she went on to suggest that employers should be allowed to ask their employees whether they want to have children. On this point I have to disagree with her. That’s right, one of the most personal questions you can ask someone and the answer could be scribbled down on your employment record. Perhaps the employer will also tell you openly how many doors will be shut in your face depending on the answer you give. I’m all for a climate of openness and flexibility in the working environment to help parents but I question whether Sandberg’s suggestion would genuinely benefit both parties.

Differences aside, Sandberg did use a prominent stage to champion equality for women in the workplace and for that I salute her. But here I put on my weary face. We’ve heard this a million times before from women – or, more specifically, mothers – in top jobs. These are women who have made it to the top with immense effort but – and here’s the rub – they are also women who are exceptional in some way. Exceptional can mean a whole range of things:  they have voracious ambition (oops – I almost said like men), they have ninja business brains, they have made enormous sacrifices in their family life, they can afford dawn to dusk childcare, their partners have been the stay at home parent, etc, etc.  The list could go on. What I am trying to say is that women who make it to the top of their career bring something extraordinary to the table that (dare I say) ‘ordinary’ women (like me) don’t or can’t.  I would hazard a guess that whatever their unique quality is, it has the power to override any unfair treatment they might receive on their way up the ladder. (To be fair, the same applies to men. Not every man has, as this debate would sometimes lead us to believe, the innate ability to be a CEO just because they have different genitalia.)

Top business jobs do require an exceptionally talented candidate and when you get to such a narrow stratum of the business population is it really such a surprise that you don’t find representatives from every walk of life? Is there debate around discrimination against the unexceptional people in society? Those who are great assets to a business but cannot work until 2am in the morning? The people who say “I want to have a brilliant career and a brilliant family life in equal measure”? Perhaps we should be focussing on letting women get on with their careers and creating their own definition of success so that a woman running a multi-million pound company isn’t constantly marked out as the sole example of success in a man’s world. The women I would love to hear from are the ones who are happy, content and successful in their jobs and who have achieved a work-life balance. There are plenty of stories of women flying high because they’ve sacrificed something from their personal life or are so hard-wired to business that they started turning a profit selling tampons in the school toilets aged 11. I want to hear more from women who have achieved the Holy Grail of a perfect work-life balance – if such a thing indeed exists. That I would find inspirational.