Branded by experience.

You would think wouldn't you that by the the time you have your third child you are no longer excited or impressed by things like prams? Well in our case you'd be totally wrong!

Every parent wants the perfect prams for them and their child but in reality it does not exist. I've found it difficult to balance conflicting needs, I don't drive so need something easy & light but am unwilling to compromise on the child's comfort and hate the facing away from me. This time we settled on a lovely silvercross system, British company (well used to be) high quality, comfy and adaptable and a buzz chassis alone to use as a travel system when the need arose.

What we did not foresee was our newborn daughter suffering from severe reflux and it being exacerbated by both these items. The silvercross carrycot is flat unless you use it in pushchair mode but then the over the shoulder harness seems to be a problem for her. The angle of the car seat is not upright enough to help either so every trip out becomes an opera of screaming and vomiting. However we were totally stuck as the market leader (probably) which encompasses all the features we needed is extremely pricey. Although I'm a massive ebay fan its not really possible to sell the car seat and pram you are using before you have an alternative. So it was Grandma to the rescue she kindly stepped in to buy us the new system while we sell the 'old' stuff to pay for the upgrade.

So you can see a sleepy chilled infant courtesy of Grandma, saviour of the day!

An inspired by facebook day....

Well, a short time ago a new facebook application caused a stir and a flurry of debates on another online community I frequent and that was: council estate gifts.

Living on a (mostly) ex-authority estate with a fairly bad reputation I found it hilarious I must say. The ability to send your friends 'white dog poos' and the like really made me smile!

So in that vein today, after the children's first trip to the dentist I decided to make a day of it + keep them both off for the rest of the day (not at all influenced by the 2 hour long round trip on public transport to my eldest's school...). So out we went with new babe in what I have lovingly termed my 'chav pram'. A whopping silvercross effort in beige with gold + silver embroidery on it, I love it but more importantly babes love it and sleeps, well, like a baby in it. I won its name when I took my much adored pram to baby clinic to find every other make & model of silvercrodd trotting through the door as well, all with frilly footmuff in situ (yuck).

Being a bit limited by weather and finances we had a most the most stylish day available, I trooped the kids out in our (unintentionally) matching beige coats, with our big bustling beige pram and faced the freezing cold and rain. 'Did' the whole dentist thing then marched on to find the kids some treats for being good to the highly celebrated establishment known as 'the pound shop'. After that we went to the town's most high class eatery - Morrision's cafe- to feast on sausage sandwiches, with kids and ketchup with blackcurrant and a mini packet of biscuits.

I think though I probably lost council estate bonus points for sitting breast feeding and not cracking open a ready-made carton of SMA gold.

The kindness of strangers...

More baby purchases arrived this week, not without their trials of course.

Having splashed on the phil & teds vibe (pics & review coming soon) we realised this was actually not a good choice for public transport which is how I get around most of the time as I can't drive. So we set about finding a reasonable addition that would be easy to fold & unfold and ideally worked with our car seat (the maxi cosy cabrio) fitted to it.

We decided in the end on the quinny buzz, the thought of a pram that springs its self open when I have a newborn in a car seat on one hand and a 3 year old in the other, and possibly a 6 year old held between my teeth if she is not at school was just so attractive. Attractive and expensive though. So we set about trying to find one on ebay for less. Competition was steep especially as we wanted the newer version with a proper plastic catch to prevent it springing open in your face.... but eventually we did manage to secure a bargain. Not only did we manage to get a buzz 3 for much less that in the shops but it also had the extra set of wheels allowing us to use it as a buzz 4, as well as including a cosytoes, raincover, mosquito net and alsorts of other gadgets (strap extension kit, spare press studs..) we were very excited!

Of course that didn't last long. After sending a begging e-mail to colleagues to ask them to organise paper work for me so I could wait all day Tuesday, nothing arrived. After my husband and I racing around like lunatics making sure someone was in all day Wednesday; nothing arrived. After DHL's 48 tracking malfunction it finally came back online on Thursday morning. I was tempted to cry when I saw it had been delivered at 15:01 on Tuesday... to someone else.

Many irate phone calls and e-mails followed, the seller did believe we hadn't received it, but didn't know how to help us as the courier company refused to accept a lost item claim because it had been signed for and had the correct address on the label. After much hand wringing we accepted we had lost the pram, and the money that paid for it and I would have to use a sling on the bus (I should add that we ironically sold a lightweight buggy we had used for our son to make room/ make funds for one we could use with the car seat we have).

Then on Friday afternoon with glum faces my husband and I set off for the schools (miles apart as they are) that our children attend to pick them up before the weekend, only to get home to discover that in our absence a big white van had turned up and delivered our buzz to our next door neighbour!

The courier company (parcels2go who I have already previously struck off my 'will ever use again' list because of their incompetence and shocking customer service) refuse to admit they sent it to the wrong address and picked it up and re-delivered it. All the tracking information and barcodes had been removed from the packaging when we received it all that was on it our hand-written address and a tiny DHL label with no tracking code.

So we must thank the person who received it for their honesty in reporting it (guess they didn't want pushchairs cluttering up their hall unlike in our house....) and hope that one day companies like parcel2go learn to do business in such an honest way.

Mini-review: bababing play mat

As we are expecting our third child we are currently on the look out for any product that will make life easier to slot this baby into life with 2 other children who both already have social and education commitments, without being too costly of course!

This week (after much online reading and soul and bank account searching) we took delivery of the bababing playmat (and diaper bag but that's another story...). We thought about getting this product basically because we go out, we go to friends houses and often babies just need somewhere to lie to have a stretch out especially if they've been captive in a car seat for a while. Yes the same could be accomplished with a simple blanket I suppose but this little device has some fab features which make it ideal...

It arrives rolled up for easy storage, its evident that the material is high quality as well as the finish. Velcro straps secure it in position and there is a convenient carry handle, perfect for slipping it onto the stroller handle.









It also has integrated buckles which allow it to strap onto the also available day hiker backpack. We have decided against this bag but its a great option for more outdoor-sie families. The backing material is waterproof (great if you have other children who spill drinks or do want use it when you are out & about & the ground may be damp) and very hard-wearing.






In contrast the inner red unisex blanket linning is soft & comfortable ans has a cute company logo embroidered on it. Its not a tight fit to the zips onto the backing material so toddlers slip-sliding may be possible, but it also means after washing it is not going to shrink beyond the reaches of the zip and be un-usable.













The inside cover zips off and is machine washable for convenience, the hardwearing backing is wipe clean and hand wash only.

















The re-rolling processing is fully labelled for those moments where you forget how to do anything from lack of sleep, of course the labelling is on the back so you don't see you've done it wrong until you start but its still a helpful pointer...

The only slight downside we have seen is when re-rolling its easy to miss the securing straps by rolling it too tight, which is opposite to what we expected.