Best of the UK Parent Blogs: Ten at Ten (69)

Our Ten at Ten guide to the best blog posts from UK parent blogs this week comes from Adele at Circus Queen, who is taking the opportunity to introduce us to 10 of her very favourite Mum and Dad bloggers.

Adele writes:

A little-known fact about me is that I am freakishly flexible, and not in a sexy way. I can hold out my hands palm down and flex my fingers back to make the shape of a bowl. Yes, imagine it.

I’m supposed to now give a joke but I just don’t do jokes. The ones I remember wouldn’t make sense outside of a Trinidadian context. This tweet last Friday by @h00tings made me giggle though: “Ethnic minorities, hippity hop, bangra, hand holding, boys in dresses, lesbianisms…Danny Boyle causing Tory heart attacks the nation over.” Not funny? Sorry… Anyway…

It’s pretty much a given that this roundup has to start with The Olympics. My Mumdom wonders whether you let your children watch the opening ceremony. Looking at it through the eyes of her children, it was both magical and slightly unsuited to a general audience. She hopes they remember it with pride though.

The world’s greatest sports event has had quite the effect on the Ghostwritermummy household too. She admits that she went from not really caring about it much at all to becoming completely sucked in to this piece of British history.

This week is not just about The Olympics though. It’s also World Breastfeeding Week. Mummypinkwellies explains why it’s so important and shares her own heart-wrenching breastfeeding journey with her premature baby. She takes us from the devoted pumping to the first latch at six weeks to breastfeeding beyond a year.

Speaking of babies, Motherventing confesses that she would like to have another. It’s just not that straightforward in her situation and she’s pretty clear that she would not want to do the newborn thing on her own. She considers the idea in her usual style: humourous, thought-provoking and moving.

Meanwhile, Simply Hayley reflects on her first year of being a mummy of two. She’s surprised that it’s not been as difficult as she’d imagined. She’s found herself a much more confident mother the second time around and has fortunately escaped postnatal depression this time.

Also looking back, Attachment Mummy remembers what it felt like to be the outsider at school and suggests that the way some PR’s treat bloggers may encourage this kind of hierarchy in the blogging community. Hot discussion follows in the comments.

Joanne the Coach turns her attention to bloggers this week too, offering ten ways to make money from your blog without running sponsored posts, in case that feels too much like selling your creative soul. She concludes that the return you get on blogging is often disproportionately small and that most of the money is in running networks and events.

Some of us may be thinking through the “business” side of blogging but Mother’s Always Right is busy making us green with envy over her holiday. She and her family have been glamping down in Cornwall on a review trip. The photos would make anyone give her the evil eye.

Holidays don’t last though and sooner or later we’ve got to think about returning to normal life. For some that means thinking about school. WAHM-BAM compares private school, state school and home education, wondering what route she should choose for her children.

For others, questions about education look different. Mummy Central hosts a guest post from Tricky Customer who wonders how she should respond when people who don’t understand special needs when they ask whether her son, who has Aristaless Related Homeobox, will go to a “normal school”.

About Sally

Sally Whittle is founder of the Tots100, Foodies100, BlogSummit and the MAD Blog Awards. When she's not working, she can be found blogging at Who's the Mummy, or having fun with her 7 year old daughter, Flea.