The Importance of Playtime!

So . . the Summer Holidays are over. Some of you will be sad, some of you are no doubt happy to have some peace and quiet. But I am sure the majority of you like me feel a bit of both. I love the structure and the fact that life is more organised once the holidays are over, but I miss the freedom of spending quality time with my children during the holidays.

And that leads me nicely to the thing I want to talk about today - Playtime. During the summer Holidays I lost count of the times I took my children to the playground. Now their ages are 11 months, 3 years and 12 years but all three of them loved it! But, do you know what surprised me? It was how many older children I saw who did not know how to work a swing! We have also been to a few children's parties this summer and again it has shocked me how many children did not know how to play basic games like musical chairs! What is going on?!

Now don't get me wrong I have nothing against electronic toys or games. Believe me our house is full of Wii, Nintendo, Xbox, Playstation, and even a few retro things like game cube, sega game gear and think somewhere we even have an old Dreamcast (oh dear). And I am not against children watching the telly. I know the theme tune to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse off by heart (sorry if you are now humming it to yourself!).

But what has happened to outside play? Now I know that in this modern world that we seem to be busier and also safety is important as we don't want to send our children out on their own to play. But outside play is vital for children's development. Outside is the best place for little ones to develop their motor skills like running and jumping, balance and coordination. Also, think of the health benefits. . outside is where our children are most likely to burn off calories to help keep obesity at bay.

Also our little ones (and older ones alike) learn a lot through their senses. Now think of all the different sounds, smells and textures our children come into contact with while outside - birds and animals - the smell of flowers (or worse!) - the feel of grass under their feet or feeling the bark of a tree as they climb. I read somewhere that children who spend a lot of their time acquiring their experiences through televisions and other such things are in actual fact only using two of their senses, that being hearing and sight, and this can seriously affect their perceptual abilities.

And finally outside is where our children can really let their imaginations go wild! It always amazes me how many new games they invent while playing outside. When I first set up Daisies and Bluebells I promised myself that I only wanted to ever sell toys that were either traditional and more importantly would inspire imagination. The same went for the clothes. I wanted to sell children's clothes that were just that - children's clothes and not shrunken versions of adult clothes. Clothes that children would love, that would inspire their imagination and also most importantly be comfortable to play in, and I think our Hooligan range meets all of these requirements, I hope you do to!
Thanks for reading!

Women Shop, Men just buy!

Adding our new baby shoes to our website the other day {African Footprints} reminded me of going Shopping with my little girl a few weeks ago.

Now the whole experience made me realise two things: One - I now have a new found sympathy for my husband when he takes me shopping and Two - the differences in men and and women when it comes to shopping would seem to be in us from birth!

Now my eldest son is twelve and if I take him either clothes or shoe shopping it usually starts the same way with him saying "do I have to come?" to which I respond "of course you do! how else will I know if it fits?" but that is usually the maximum amount of drama involved, because as soon as we get to the shops I show him an item of clothing or a pair of shoes and I get the usual response of "yeah OK" so job done!!

But this now brings me to my daughter....oh boy...the difference is amazing! Now she has only just turned three, so those of you without daughters are probably thinking she is just a little girl, how bad can it be? Surely it cant be as bad as shopping with your wife or girlfriend right? Well let me tell you about a day a couple of weeks ago when I took her shoe shopping. . .

Now she needed shoes. Plain and simple shoes, not trainers, not wellies and not sandals (the reason i am giving you this detail will soon become apparent!) So, I decide to take her to our local shopping centre. There are plenty of places here that I can buy little girls shoes, so I mistakenly think this will be a quick outing...how little did I know!! 

So we enter the first shop and I begin to show her some shoes to which she quickly responds "No! It doesn't fit!" (even though she has not tried any on) or points to a wellie boot or trainer saying "that one, its pretty!" even though that's not what we are there to buy. So we leave this shop and go to the next one, and the next one and so on, each time getting the same response. All the time I am getting more and more frustrated, especially at the look of horror I get when when I suggest a pair of cute little girls shoes to her. The look that says "how can you even suggest that I wear that!!" (sound familiar husbands and boyfriends?) We next go into Clarks, a shoe shop that accurately measures little girls and boys feet...now this was a mistake! She screams down the shop! And after the lady has measured her feet the only way I can get her to stop crying is to promise that we will not buy anything from this shop and that we will go to another shop.

So off we go to yet another shop! At this point I would like to say that this whole experience has taken nearly two hours and that I also have with me my 9 month old and 12 year old so  you can safely say I was near breaking point! So in we go to what I promise myself will be the last shop before I give up! We start looking at the shoes and straight away I start getting the same response. But then she sees a pair of sandals and declares at the top of her voice "that one! that one! they are pretty!" and that's when it happened...I caved...I brought her the sandals! and not just one pair, I brought her two! And so we walk out of the shop with one very tired mummy but one very happy little girl who insists on wearing one of her new pairs of sandals back to the car.

So here I am a few weeks later with a little girl who has two pairs of sandals but still needs a pair of shoes! But I can safely say that now I know her correct size I will just be ordering a pair online!

So men, the next time you take your wife, girlfriend, or daughter shopping and they get emotional, drag you round what seems like every single shop and often come home with something they either don't need or didn't go out to buy, please remember its not their fault! Just as we seem to have the inability to understand the offside rule in football, we cant help the way we shop...its in our genes! I also hope that our our online children's Boutique helps take the stress out of shopping for your children.

Mummies Never Pee Alone

Today as I went to use the bathroom, and as there was nobody else in the house to watch the baby, I had to take him in there with me, it suddenly dawned on me how much of our privacy and time we give up when we become parents.

Even when I have a bath there is usually a little hand knocking on the door telling me that she wants a bath or there is a knock on the door from a bigger hand (that being my almost teenager) saying he needs to use the toilet even though not ten minutes earlier I asked 'does anyone need the bathroom before I get in my bath' perhaps what I should ask is 'does anyone need the toilet in roughly about ten minutes time when I will be just about be beginning to relax in bubbles!'

And then there are the times when I need to sit down to do some work on our website. It is at this point our daughter will do one of two things, one she suddenly sees what I am doing and even though she has been very  happily playing with something else, it is at this point, in her own little way that she tells me it is of vital importance that she watches Mickey Mouse on YouTube right now! Or two, she will come over, press the 'off' button before I have had a chance to save my work, and I can't tell her off because she looks at me with a big grin on her face saying 'Look mummy I did it!'

Come on parents think about it - how many times have you eaten your dinner with one hand while holding, cuddling, or feeding your little one with the other? Or your baby goes down for their nap, so you take the opportunity to rush around the house to do some housework, doing the vacuuming and making noise, but its usually when you decide to take a break and sit down with a cup of tea that they decide to wake up!

'But surely that's just when your children are little' I hear those of you without children say? Not so! Our invasions of privacy just come in other ways, we find now, that as our eldest approaches his teenage years every conversation my husband and I have is usually interrupted by 'well I think', 'what does that mean' or 'no you should do this instead' at which point my husband and I give each other a knowing glance that means we will talk about this later after he has gone to bed, only to find that we are asleep in bed ten minutes after him.

But do we mind these constant invasions of our privacy? Well maybe, sometimes, but on the whole no, because think about it, we always feel needed, we are never lonely, the house is too quiet without them and lets face it fellow parents its usually these invasions of our privacy that give us our happiest memories and funniest stories to tell our friends.

Why Daisies and Bluebells?

So why have my husband and I started Daisies and Bluebells, the Children's Boutique (www.daisiesandbluebells.co.uk)? Well, put simply I want to work and at the same time spend more time with my kids. I also enjoy working with my husband (we make a good team ;) ) and this is a business we can do together.

So why the name? Well that again is simple: our daughters middle name is Daisy, and while I was sitting in the garden trying to come up with a name for the business she was happily going round the garden depriving it of the only good flowers I had growing in it by picking them.....and yes, that's right, you've guessed it they were bluebells! And so the name of our business Daisies and Bluebells was born.

Its an exciting time, hard also, staying up late at night after the kids have gone to bed learning about HTML code, SEO and Google attributes (I can already feel my headache coming back!) but so far we are enjoying every minute and we are looking forward to expanding our business. We hope you will join us in our journey and take a moment of your time to check in with us every now and then.

We will use this Blog not only to talk about our products, but also things that interest us and to talk about the constant surprises and funny moments raising children brings us.

Many thanks for visiting our Blog and we hope you come back soon.
Abigail, Paul and tribe!