Experimental MumScience + Children = Fun + Mess

As a Mum who works from home, I often find my working hours while the children are at school just zoom in. As the hours of 2.30pm till 8.00pm are taking up with family activities I spend most evenings on my laptop until the wee small hours.

I was therefore very interested to review Tanith Carey’s new book, “How to be an “Amazing Mum”, When You Just Don’t Have the time”. I was hoping to find some nuggets of advice that might just help me eek a few more minutes out of the day.

The book is broken down into easy to read chapters covering many aspects of living with children. I found the style of the writing, informative but witty and you really felt the tips were useable and written by someone who’d – been there, done that! Also, being a small, portable size, the book is easy to squeeze into your bag to dip into during those snatched minutes of the day.

There are some top tips in here and I’ll definitely be trying the vegetable oil on school shoe scuffs and I think drawing up some “House Rules” with the girls could be really beneficial.

Some parts made me laugh out loud, “Don’t let your child become a Blackberry Orphan” and “Beware of Smug Mummies” I found particularly funny.

Other parts of the book weren’t that relevant to me as my girls are that bit older now, but I did still find the tips in sections geared towards younger children very well thought out. I remember well the time involved in trying to leave the house with two children under three! In fact I’m going to pass on my copy of the book to my younger sister who had her first baby 6 weeks ago, I’m sure she’ll enjoy the tips too when he’s old enough to start messing up the house!

I thought I’d periodically review books that have encouraged our family to experiment.

This first review, isn’t a science book but it is a fabulous book for encouraging older children and teenagers to step away from the computer and explore the big wide world.

I reserved the book using my local libraries online “items recently added to stock” section, so I didn’t see the cover – I was sold on the title alone.

Written by Jo Schofield and Fiona Danks, “Go Wild! 101 things to do outdoors before you grow up” describes in 160 pages a ton of cool things to do outside.

Here an extract from the back cover:

Go Wild! Is about tempting teenagers outdoors to enjoy the natural world. The authors provide, clear, practical instructions for such activities as building a shelter, foraging for wild food, creating fire without matches and cooking on hot coals, learning to make tools and weapons from natural materials, and much more..

I had many favourite chapters but particularly enjoyed the sections on fire making and creating outside kitchens, although I can’t EVER see me skinning a rabbit!

The collecting and cleaning your water section are like little mini experiments in themselves, so we might give them a try in the back garden.

Freya can’t wait for it to snow so she can practice building an igloo, whereas Erynn, with her toilet humour, found the latrine making hilarious!

There is a fantastic website to accompany the book, Going Wild, and I for one will be looking out for their future books, Make It Wild and Run Wild.

In the meantime, I have reserved their earlier book, Nature’s Playground, from the library. Geared towards younger families, I’m sure we’ll get a lot out of it.

Photo Credit: Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd