I love My Bed: It's the Heart of Our Home

Our current bedroom

We love to sleep in this house and I am so grateful that I now have children who can (and will) sleep the night through, and even better they lie in sometimes too. It's taken a while to get here but the value of a really good bed contributing to a great nights sleep can't be underestimated.

In those early days when I was trying to feed baby twins in the middle of the night and deal with a toddler having night terrors or maybe a little accident, I wasn't getting much sleep and therefore the small amount I did, really had to count.

I've always been an advocate of investing in a super comfortable bed and great bedding, and our fabric bed is a really good example. I choose to view buying a bed as an investment that is going to last us around ten years and as such I don't mind spending a good amount of money on it.

I think I've passed my love of my bed on to all my kids though, and this isn't necessarily a good thing as they are always on it, or in it! It really has become the heart of our home. I was thinking back to how it became this way and to my horror, I realised I created it. When JJ was a pre-schooler I used to encourage him to go to our bed on a Saturday night with my husband and watch Doctor Who with him. Inevitably he'd fall asleep and we'd lift him out later.

How do you stop kids bickering?

Can anyone give me any wisdom please? Is it just part and parcel of family life, that my kids will bicker, argue and try to get one up on each other? Or is there some kind of parenting fail here?

I have 7 year old twin girls and an 11 year old boy and in particular one of my twins and my son will do whatever they can to wind the other one up. Going into the other ones rooms, leaving notes, taking things, making silly noises - just anything to bait the other one. It is a game I think they both secretly enjoy and to some extent I am keen not to rise to it and to just let them sort it out themselves but very quickly they become really quite noisy and one or the other ends up crying and shouting 'Muuuuum'.

My son gets involved in every conversation and we often have to remind him he is not a parent and whatever is going on is not his business. Then one of the twins will try and wind up the other one as she is an easy target and will end up playing the victim and whinging, without retaliating.

I watched the Railway Children the other day and was in awe of the respect and good behaviour demonstrated by the children in the film. I just dream of my children accepting what I say, not arguing back and being nice to each other. We have always had a mantra of it being better to be kind than to be right but kindness towards each other seems to escape them.

Don't get me wrong they are not terrible. I haven't got feral children or anything but I'd just love some ideas for them being nicer to each other. My husband and I seriously considering taking away all screens and tech for quite a period of time and making them play together and share together. This will surely mean they have to sort it out and start being nice to each other, what do you think?

I took the two main culprits for a walk together the other day and threatened them with a boot camp together and they both quite liked the sound of that! Here they are having some fun (ahem) together -

If you look, you'll see JJ has a stick he is threatening to throw towards Miss M. He had no intention of doing so but it was still enough to provoke a reaction! 

Then being the kind big brother, breaking off a large stick for Miss M to carry and play with

Photo bombed by JJ's fingers!

Helping each other jump the stream

There are of course some harmonious times but I really would like to see more of them, so if you have any good ideas then please do leave me a comment.

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Which Muppet are you?

Do you remember the Muppets?  I do, vividly, how I used to look forward to a Sunday tea time back in the late 1970's when The Muppet Show would televise.  My favourite bit had to be the opening scene as all the Muppets marched on and sat in their own little windows in the theatre and then of course my favourite character was Miss Piggy! I had to laugh when I took a quick look at a which Muppet are you like quiz?  as apparently I am like Miss Piggy. 'Hi Ya' and a chop of my arm!

For a couple of years now dh and I have likened Miss E to Beaker as she tends to whine and gets a bit stressed and makes these funny little noises, which sound exactly like him.  Until this weekend the kids had no real idea who Beaker was but after a trip to Leicester Square on Sunday morning they are now fully versed and have fallen in love with the Muppets too. 'When can we see the Muppets again Mummy?' is what I am hearing a fair amount at the moment and it is a fair point, bring back the Muppets!