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Do you remember when you were younger and your mom would say "she is 12 going on 21" and typically you would roll your eyes and think it was just Mom being silly and dramatic? Unfortunately when I became a Mom myself, I find myself saying the same old cliche's I heard my own parents say but the worrying this is ..... my daughter isnt 12, she is 7.

Everyone says that children grow up faster these days and I frantically hold onto my daughter's childhood because once that innocence is gone, it is lost forever. With the introduction of technology into their little lives, they are exposed to different mediums of influence (a previous post shared my "love"  and consequent confiscation of the iPod) I was a little horrified to hear slight twangs of an American accent coming out of her mouth influenced from some of the programmes she watches and I long for the day when Fifi Forget Me Not was the programme she loved most!

This weekend everything was "boring" or "borrrrrrrring" if I am saying it correctly (am clearly down with the kids) and this is where I have to remember that I am the grown up. Sometimes her behaviour amuses me as I see her growing up and developing her personality but arguing with me is not amusing and we had quite a bit of that this weekend! She was certainly reminded about her boundaries!

I am sure I could start a whole new blog about how my 7 year old thinks she is a teenager but I am sure she will get to a point where she doesn't want me to write about her at all, so for now I will just say that she is "7 going on 17" and wait for her to roll her eyes at me, like I did when I was 12.

 

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I regularly blog about our Water Babies adventures and Nanny is delighted that on this new course there is another "Nanny" joining the classes this term. She has taken great pleasure on passing on her wisdom for ease of changing and approaching the lessons (anyone would think she is a dab hand at it these days!!).

So with the little fish usually being star pupil, Nanny was a little perplexed this week to find that she wouldn't go to Kate the swimming teacher and she cried everytime she went to approach her. Now knowing my youngest daughter can be a cheeky little monkey when she chooses to be, I did wonder if she was just wanting to spend her day with Nanny or if she was feeling off colour but Kate suggested it maybe a stage of seperation anxiety.

The little fish is now fiercely independant but still needs reassurance from time to time and this is typical of seperation anxiety. I spoke with the Water Babies Midshires team and they recommend allowing the little one time to process information as they are becoming independant but do not know how to be. I suspect that this is what has happened in our case.

They also say that the early stages of child development & new experiences can also cause anxieties and consequently the "water wobbles".  Things like:

• Starting to walk or crawl
• A new experience like nursery, new teacher, new baby in house, change of sleep times
• Mum goes back to work
• They have an extended break from lessons e.g. summer holiday

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Ten, maybe fifteen years ago, if you had told someone that you were going to do all of your shopping online, they would have probably looked at you strangely because shops opened on a Sunday, they had late night opening times, why would you want to order online? The reality is, our lives have got busier, we want accessibility at the touch of a button and we want to be able to get everything we need, from the comfort of our own homes.

In 2013 you can quite simply get almost anything delivered to your front door, no more traipsing round shop after shop, no more paying exorbitant parking fees and no more sore feet. The only problem now is selecting the right online retailer. Now we run our own boutique here at the Lilypad but it is a very specialised niche and we sit comfortably in our little corner of the internet, but what if you need to appeal to a wider audience? What if you are looking for an extensive range of branded products but not necessarily mass produced by the major chains? We were therefore delighted to be asked to look at the Internet Gift Store and found that it has a fabulous range of gifts to cover most genre's, occassions and tastes.

On the subject of taste, getting the right lunch bag for your child is certainly not child's play and with so many different characters and styles available, tempers have certainly been frayed in our house when choosing a lunch bag but the Internet Gift Store has a massive range of kids lunch bags to suit every age ( I am particularly fond of Elmo myself).

The world wide web provides a huge resource for consumers like you and I but with many big companies going into administration, maybe it is time to place confidence in the smaller boutiques and stores and give them a chance to shine. 

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I recently read about the MyFamilyClub Parent Pledge and couldn't help but be inspired. The principle of the campaign is easy, all you have to do is tell them how you pledge to spend at least 30 minutes each week doing something different, fun and thrifty with your children.

It got me to thinking about the time I spend with my girls and the "quality" of that time and I decided that there are small changes I could make, to make a difference to my children. Anyone that knows me, will know that I am never far from some form of technology, whether that be a laptop, tablet or phone. This love of technology is echoed by my own girls, even the little one has her own toddler apps but I never had those as a child, the closest I got was a Fisher Price wooden phone .... which is not really the same thing.

So here is my pledge:

I pledge that for 30 minutes a DAY (not a week) I will turn off all the apps, phones, laptops and tablets and enjoy reading an actual book, rather than an electronic one, we will do some physical drawing, rather than with a stylus and we will bake delicious cakes that we can actually taste, rather than look at on a screen.

Technology is fantastic and making sure that my children are competent in using it is a great skill for them as they grow up but it is easy to forget that there is life in the real world, waiting to be discovered. This weekend we may even go to an "actual" farm, not one that has been created online!

Don't get me wrong, we are not always stuck in an electronic world but it is easy to forget that the simplest things are often those that create the very best memories.

So will you consider making a pledge? If you do, don't forget to share it with MyFamilyClub as if they love your idea you could win a prize. Their favourite Parent Pledge will win a luxury family break in Cornwall, courtesy of the beautiful Sands Resort Hotel & Spa. 

What do you pledge?