What we want to do next, on our own street:

No – seriously. Who’s with me?

What we did instead, today, on someone else’s road:

They had scooters to borrow!

We ran a workshop at a kids’ festival today so got in for free and found this brilliant activity going on. Totally one to steal for our own garden, or for the pavement outside our house.

More on our workshop later. Because I’ve only just got home. The car broke down outside the venue, stuffed full of cardboard boxes and tubes. And organising hundreds of scissor-wielding kids, all day, pregnant, while juggling your own two-year old, when you can’t have a gin and tonic at the end… UGGGGG.

Maybe it’s the sunshine, but this week we have mostly been thinking about holidays.

Our budget and tropical beaches don’t quite match but it feels like we’re long overdue some ‘nothing’ time –  a week without distractions or pressures. A bit of time to focus on being in each others’ company, a bit of space to try some new recipes and take time over eating together instead of bolting down our meals, a bit of quiet wilderness in which to stomp and poke sticks at new discoveries without yanking on each other’s arms and pacing along to the next engagement.

So forget Ko Pi Pi, this year it’s all about Carmarthenshire. We’re embracing the ethos of the Slow Holiday. We’ve booked a tiny cottage in the middle of the Welsh countryside in two week’s time. No wifi, no TV, no billboards or shoppings centres. Just a stove, a stream, some Welsh blankets and wellies, some novels and a pile of cook books.

It’s beautiful, rural, and incredibly, jaw droppingly cheap. My mother’s coming, so we’ll have some great conversation and middle eastern food (her speciality) plus we’ll all get a few afternoons of independence from the kiddo to do our own thing. Johnny will get to meet his Welsh great-grandmother, my Grandma, for the very first time.

Who knows if he’ll be as keen to ‘go slow’ as we are. Only one thing’s certain: we can’t bank on much sunshine…

For  all our American readers, for whom the joys of Wales in the drizzle can only be an exotic dream, here’s a featured post about saving money on your own family holiday. There’s some very useful advice for Brits on a shoestring too. Enjoy!

How to Save Money on Great Family Vacations

When the economy took a bit of a nosedive, people scrambled to find ways to save money. As families searched for ways to still have vacation family time, the ‘stay-cation,’ staying home and doing local vacation activities became a popular idea and selling point. As the economy gradually recovers people are beginning to return to their travel vacation plans – but doing it a little smarter and using some of the money-saving ideas they have learned over the last few years.

Hidden Gems

The wonderful thing about the world today is there are so many opportunities and ways to accomplish whatever goals you have, even if that goal is taking your family on a great vacation without having to sell one of your children to do it. Sometimes you have to “think outside the box” and realize what you may have already available that can help you. Parenting.com writer Lixandra Urresta shares four eye-opening ideas for saving money on a family vacation.

#1: Use privileges you already have.

- A Bank of America ATM card is good for FREE admission to about 120 zoos, botanical gardens, science centers, and museums across the US.

- AAA members can save on car rentals, and 40% on theme park tickets.

#2 Pack the apps.

- Download ‘the lowest gas prices finder’ for just $2.

- “Mobile Magic” tracks Disney ride times.

#3 Consider cruising.

- Reduce expenses and stress with all-inclusive cruises.

- Ships offer babysitting and age-appropriate “zones” for kids to have fun while you relax.

#4 Teach and save.

- Full-time teachers and faculty at accredited schools can apply for an International Teacher Identity Card which is good for all kind of travel discounts.

Mobile Homes

There are a number of amazing places to travel in the US, but it can get costly staying in hotels. To help cut costs, a fun family activity that you can do locally or as you travel, is camping. You can go online and find great discounts on all kinds of camping gear from sites – such as Campmor.com with Campmor promo codes and deals. By saving HUGE on overnight accommodations, you can do more, or stay longer wherever you travel.

For a truly unique experience, try some of the breathtaking beach campsites suggested by Jennifer Plum Auvil of TravelChannel.com:

- Assategue Island National Seashore.

- Jalama Beach County Park.

- Long Key State Park.

- Myrtle Beach.

- Padre Island National Seashore.

Cheaper With Just One Click

Donna L Montaldo sheds lights on a massive trend right now in her article for couponing.about.com when she states, “Manufacturers and stores are shifting their best coupons to the internet as subscriptions to newspapers decline”. Hot sites to check out:

- Coupon Network.

- SmartSouce.

- NerdWallet.

- RetailMeNot.

It is extremely simple, and very fruitful! What you do is go to your internet search engine and you type in something like, online promo codes at NerdWallet. When you click on the link you will see codes for just about anything you would need for vacation, including toiletries, clothing, entertainment as you travel, electronics, pet supplies, and even their “travel” selection offers deals on trip destinations.

Creative Money Making

No matter how much money you “save” on your vacation in deals, you still have to ‘save-up’ money for the vacation too. So backupcare.org shares some creative ways to save up for your family trip.

- Garage sale!

- Everyone keep ‘change jars’.

- Sell old ‘collectibles’ or things you don’t want.

- Eat more ‘home cooked’ meals.

- Cut energy costs.

- Encourage the kids to contribute.

- Hold a savings competition.

- Start a ‘no waste’ challenge.

- Have potluck get-togethers with friends to share costs.

Have fun planning a family vacation. Just use some of these smart money saving tips and you’ll be surprised at how much you can do for how little money.

I’m sitting in a café on our local high street where I’m supposed to be enjoying two hours of ‘me time’. Actually, my tea has gone cold while waiting for me to enjoy it. The first paragraph of the article I’m supposed to be proofreading has been re-read ten times. I have no idea what it says because I keep being distracted by imagined vibrations from the phone beside me. That’s right, it’s ‘settle in’ morning at nursery.

Johnny starts nursery properly – two full days a week – for the fist time next Monday. This week, we’re settling him in. So this morning I watched him put his little coat on a little peg for the first time and walk off with a nervous smile and his little, navy blue, uniform drawstring bag.

And now I’m in this café. Supposedly working. Actually thinking about my phone and staring into the middle distance.

It’s not easy, is it? We can’t survive on either mine or Tom’s income alone, so it was never questioned that I’d go back to work part time after maternity leave. I was lucky to be offered a three-day-week without any stress of quibbles when I came back to work. I was less lucky to be the only working mother on the team (the only woman, in fact). The only person for whom childcare meant I couldn’t work flexibly and couldn’t stay late to meet a deadline as I had to rush back to pick Johnny up from the nanny-share we used to have. And then redundancies came.

It’s not nice to feel you’re not pulling your weight, even if you know that six months spent juggling nappies, vomit, weaning and worrying has made you ten times more productive than you were back when you could stay till midnight to finish a project. But it’s even grimmer to worry that you’re not fully committing to you kid. To race off in the morning even though you think he may be developing a temperature and to stand, crushed, on a stalled tube willing it to move as bedtime ticks round and you’ve missed it. I had to work. I wanted to work. But sometimes it felt like everything about the working world was stacked against me.

Over the last year, for another project I’m working on, I’ve interviewed one hundred of Britain’s most senior women: from scientists to lawyers, designers, actresses and politicians. In the course of speaking to them, I’ve asked them all what they think needs to be done to improve the lot of working women. And the same three answers crop up again and again: better childcare, a more even distribution of the responsibility of parenting between fathers and mothers, and better provision for flexible working.

These days, my work is flexible, almost too flexible. And we’ve finally got Johnny into a good nursery – somewhere small and caring and friendly enough for me to feel happy leaving him there. So I guess that’s two of the three ticked off. But while my new freelance status might make me more flexible, my childcare isn’t. What happens if work comes in on a Wednesday and Thursday and I only have nursery care on Mondays and Tuesdays? What happens when we run out of money? What happens if and when I have to get a real job again? Because I’ve spent a LOT of time looking at the Guardian jobs site and they aren’t exactly giving part time jobs away.

I don’t know. I don’t have any answers. But I wish there were more services like workingmums.co.uk, the people sponsoring this post, who bring mothers together with employers who have some of the best flexible working policies in the UK. Through their top employer awards, they reward employers, big and small, who embrace the business benefits of flexible working and who are proactive about recruiting and retaining talented employees who want to combine successful careers with being a parent. And on their website, they doll out no-nonsense, practical advice for working parents.

So yeah, this is a sponsored post. Because even though we’re discovering the joys of spending less on ourselves, the gas man, water man and wifi man don’t seem to have entered into the spirit of it yet. And because I really, honestly think what workingmums.co.uk are doing is great.

How many of you share childcare with your partner completely fifty/fifty? How many of you seriously considered going back fulltime while your partner took the bulk of the childcare? When I was pregnant, we had conversations about Tom cutting his work back instead of me. But truthfully, I’m not sure either of us would have found that easy.

So until the structure and values of our society change radically, the burden of juggling work, childcare and the different kinds of fears and fulfillments that each offer will still weigh heaviest on mothers. And gin alone won’t fix that. For the moment, we need all the help we can get to walk that tightrope.

P.S: I just got Johnny back from nursery had to wrestle Johnny out of his nursery. He loved it. I wasted two hours of potential work time, a cup of tea and a toastie that tasted of guilt for nothing. Typical.

P.P.S: Just for added transparency and in case your eyes were glazing over at the end – THIS IS A SPONSORED POST for workingmums.co.uk. It’s the first I’ve ever felt happy to accept, because the organisation really fits the ethos of this blog. I really hope you agree.

The thing about making a new year’s resolution to avoid spending money in your kid’s life, is that it inevitably spills over into yours. It would be a bit off, wouldn’t it, if I were waving Johnny into the garden while tottering out of the front door in a brand new pair of Louboutins: “Enjoy making your own fun, darling. Mummy’s just off for a mani-pedi, a new iPad and a copy of Vogue.”

So for the last few months I’ve been swapping clothes or  - in the case of shoes – scouring community sites for bargain second-hands and holding out till my husband told me, on our romantic weekend to Brighton, that my ancient converse made me look, “very much like a tramp”.

(Okay, so this pic was taken after some gardening. They didn’t look quite this bad in Brighton. Quite.)

We’ve been making more food from scratch to cut costs (like bread and granola) and (Ma, if you’re reading, maybe stop here) making our own fun too. Because everyone who knows their birds, bees and educated fleas knows where too much free fun lands you in the end… That’s right, I’m pregnant.

That makes it sound like an accident, which it very much was not (one of the things I really excel in, you may have noticed, is over-thinking to the point of insanity). But even though this pregnancy was planned, it’s already thrown up some huge surprises.

Number one: think you know what pregnancy is like because you’ve done it before? Think again. Actually, hold your head over the loo, wretch awhile, and then think again. Nothing in the mild morning sickness of my first pregnancy prepared me for this. For three months I’ve felt so exhausted and car-sick it’s like someone ran me over then put me in the boot and drove me at speed over bumps and hair-pin turns while forcing me to read a book with really small print.

Do you know what really doesn’t make you want to plan free, interactive activities with your kid? THAT. Do you know what makes you fantasise about throwing him into a soft play centre so that you can rock softly back and forth in the cafe area? THAT.

But we didn’t. Instead, friends with kids rallied round and fed me biscuits while the kids ran amok. And I would regain my sanity, in short bursts, but for long enough to remember that this was better than soft-play, honestly. And then it started to lift. And I felt pathetically grateful to feel human again.

And suddenly it was time for the twelve week scan. The second time round is strange, isn’t it? You’ve walked down that corridor in the hospital before, you know how alien the cold sensation of gel hitting your stomach is going to be, and you recognise the machines around you. But, oddly, it’s almost more scary, more poignant than the first time.

I think it’s because last time round, I didn’t really understand what it all meant. But now, I know. I know what it means to have a massive love-bomb drop on your life, shatter the world around you and then rebuild it, beautifully but so that nothing looks or feels quite the same. I know that it does change and it does get easier but I also know that things don’t revert back to your old life over time: nothing will ever look quite the same and nothing will ever feel quite the same. And somehow, that knowledge makes the fear more acute that the thing that everyone is hoping to see emerge from the grainy interference on the screen won’t appear. And the terror and elation when it does – and a tiny, perfect astronaut bobs into view – is sharper too.

And now for a short rant.

Last week I saw my GP for the first time about this pregnancy. He asked me a lot of cheery questions (history of domestic abuse, drug addiction and contact with social services) and then sent me packing with two magazines. So we can assume that these magazines constitute the information that the NHS thinks most important and most useful for newly prospective parents to have. And aside from a few jolly features on pregnancy exercise and maternity wear, the rest is adverts. Adverts for all the stuff you’re going to ‘need’. Prams, slings, bottles, baby clothes, baby baths, baby shampoo…

Two days later we were sitting in the waiting room to be called for our scan. The NHS had thoughtfully installed a TV so that anxious couples can be distracted from the wait. And the TV plays adverts on loop. Adverts for prams, slings, bottles, baby clothes, baby baths, baby shampoo…

Do you know what I’d like the NHS to be advertising? I’d like a kind looking doctor, in person, in one of the magazines they’re handing out or on one of the television screens in their hospitals, to smile at me, look me in the eye and say:

“It’s okay that you’re nervous, it’s natural. It’s normal to feel like you’re not prepared enough for this enormous responsibility that’s about to enter your life, and it’s normal to focus on buying all this stuff as a way of feeling prepared and in control. And sure, buy some of this stuff if you want, some if it really might help a little. But I promise you that you will be enough.”

“I promise that if you’re anxious enough to care that you might not be good enough, then you are by definition going to be a caring, good enough parent. There wil be times when you struggle, whether you buy all the latest gear or none of it. But the impact you’re going to have on your child as a loving parent so vastly outweighs any benefit that any of these early accessories, or the toys and gadgets you buy later down the line, might possibly bring them, that it makes the whole lot of them pretty much negligible.”

“So buy some, if you want, but remember that they don’t hold the magic. You do.”

It’s official. Johnny is the only child in East London, possibly the world, who doesn’t have a micro scooter.

I honestly can’t think of a single one of his friends, or the children of our friends, who doesn’t have one. In the park, and in our local playground, it’s now an exotic rarity to spot a child walking on two legs. Everyone arrives at a perilous pace, tongue clamped between teeth in concentration, one foot thumping the tarmac and the other cruising bright blue, pink, red or green plastic.

I feel pretty ambivalent about this. On the one hand, I’m relieved not to be one of the mothering cart-horses, heaving buggy, trike, scooter and the kitchen sink on every outing. On the other… I feel guilty. Johnny loves these scooters. He’s never actually asked for one, seemingly content with borrowing other people’s when the opportunity arises. But he always makes a bee line for them when he sees them.

This isn’t like wishing I could buy him an electric tractor, or the vintage rocking chair I saw in a flea market last week. This is different because EVERYONE has one. I don’t want to single him out as different, even if he hasn’t noticed. I’ve noticed. And, pathetically, it hurts a bit.

The thing is, unlike everything else we’ve wanted so far, these things don’t come up on freecycle or community swapping sites. And I don’t have any real skills to exchange for something this expensive (anybody need a 500 word polemic on a short deadline?)

You can get them second-hand, of course, but not free. And it’s not like any old scooter will do. For some reason, around here, the micro scooter reigns triumphant. Turn up with a different brand and, well I’m not sure what would happen exactly because, bizarrely, nobody ever seems to try.

Would I shell out for one if it weren’t for this year’s rules? Probably, yeah. Even though they’re crazily expensive (fifty quid for a two poles and three, very small, wheels?), even though there are other brands at a fraction of the cost, even though there isn’t a scooter-shaped gap in his life.

He’s not bored, he’s got a great push-along bike that was found, unwanted on a street corner by some friends of ours earlier in the year and is currently rocking his little world. He’s not upset not to have a scooter. He doesn’t even appear to have noticed.

And while all the signs are there that he’s inherited his mother’s negative sporting ability and hand-to-eye coordination, I’m pretty sure, at his age and stage, that nature and the world around us provide him with all the opportunities he needs to improve them as far as possible (if my sport genes are undiluted, as far as the nearest available object to trip over).

So… why do I feel bad? Is he really missing out?