For those who are expecting a baby in and around St- Patricks day,  CONGRATULATIONS you are just about halfway your pregnancy, so you are  20 weeks pregnant and give or take 20 weeks to go! St Patricks day is on the 17th of March !

You might wonder why on earth I am thinking about St- Patricksday, as we are all preparing for Halloween, and slighly further down the road, Christmas and New Year!

Well, it’s just when you are 20 weeks pregnant, your babies hearing develops, and one of the products I carry – a Mexican Pregnancy Bola – contains a littlte xylophoon ( = I’ll call it a  bell from now on).

www.ecotreasures.ie largest choice of Pregnancy Bolas in Ireland

The chime hangs over the belly of a pregnany lady, and the idea is that the baby can hear the bell when you move it.

By wearing the ball regularly, low on the belly, the baby will grow familiar with the chiming sound of the bell. The baby will experience the special sound as soothing, both before and after birth. There is a variety of designs, and colours available. We have just added some new models!A nice little gift for a mum-to-be. Comes with a cotton necklace, and a little card explaining the purpose of the Mexican Pregnancy Bola.

Once baby is born, it still has a purpose, as it ’s a nice piece of jewellery and many women use it to entertain their baby whilst feeding, as babies love grabbing and listening to the chime!

To celebrate your halfway journey, I have two pregnancy chimes to give away, all in the Green, Irish theme.

One with a clover

Silver coloured pregnancy chime

And one with dark green and light green circles

Great Choice of Pregnancy Chimes

So how can you get yourself a free one?

Just say hello to us on our facebook page, and tell us which one you would like, and then I’ll send it to you!!

You can find our facebook page here

Enjoy the rest of your pregnancy!!

XX

Katleen

It’s been ages I have  added a post to my blog.. apologies:)

I have been in bed for the last week with serious lower backpain.

Not sure exactly what happened, but between feeling a twinge in my lower back and then something really hurting really badly at the bottom of my spine, I ended up in bed, horizontally, as that was the only way I was comfortable.

Once the medication  kicked in, I was able to get up again, and as the anti inflammatory were hurting my stomach, I decided I had to change tactics.

I hobbled downstairs to fetch my beloved cherry stone pillow! It was the first product in my range of natural products, and it’s one of  these products that you’ll rarely use, but when you do, you’ll be grateful you have it! As it can be heated in the microwave/oven and will sooth your strained muscles, and make you more comfortable.  It’s natural, contains dried and cleansed cherry stones, and once heated, will stay warm for an hour or so, and is a great pain  reliever for backpain ( or period pain)

There is a few different ones, and depending where you ache, you have a choice of one for the neck, for the back, or a smaller which is probably best used if you are suffering cold feet in bed! Just click on the image !

Thermal Heat Theraphy

Treat with heat, it works

Keep your feet warm, heat up your baby's bed

Hoping to be back to normal soon, and I am sure I’ll be going up and down those stairs a few more times with my Cherry Stone pillow!!

Katleen

Why not check out our ever so popular solar powered /wind up torch! It’s pretty robust and a must have in the car( or garden shed) It can be either wound up or leave it in the sun for a while and then the sun will charge it!
And if you order in the next 5 days, we’ll throw in two bars of mouthwatering Fair Trade Organic Belgian Chocolate absolutely free!!!!

So hurry to get yours today!
check out this Video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to order today

50 % off all non-organic Tricot Slens
50% off Bobux Slippers
And some other Great Deals
We are moving all our stretchy wraps to organic ones, so those that aren’t organic are discounted by 50%!
They are all perfect, and a great way to carry your baby around. Remember one size fits all, and comes with a great instruction manual. Here are a few colours we have in stock at discounted rates:

Click here to check out all our specials!

Check out these great instructions:

The launch of the first Birth Centre in Ireland ( Alukura House in Dublin) is an exciting new departure in Irish maternity care that offers increased choice in place of birth and the opportunity of a unique birthing experience for women and their families.

In the past two decades, Birth Centres situated independently of hospital maternity services have become a common feature of maternity services internationally. Today, there are 52 such Birth Centres in England; Wales has 10; while Scotland has 7 (www.babycentre.co.uk). They are also a feature of maternity services in most countries across Europe, North America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Check out their website to find out more! They are currently running 2 surveys, one for women, and one for midwives.

Katleen

It will be held on Saturday, February 26th from 10am-12:00pm at the Bawnogue Youth and Community Centre in Clondalkin.

We are asking every family to donate 5 euro to help pay for the hall and supplies. It is a large hall with plenty of room for the kids to run around. The mother and toddler group are kind enough to let us borrow their toys for the sling meet. There will also be a c…oloring table to entertain the young ones too.

Conor from Kelevra Imaging will be there to take family portraits. So make sure to dress nice if you want to get your picture taken! Check out Conor’s photos on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kelevra-Imaging/190034385364

There will be a few goodies, but please feel free to bring food and drink. There is a coffee shop at the centre with tea, coffee, juice, snacks, etc. The sling library will be there with plenty of slings for families to try. There will also be a For Sale or Trade table. A table to sell or trade preloved slings, so bring any baby carriers you are wanting to pass on to a good home. Hoping to have a few vendors there selling slings and things.

Sling meets are a great place to learn more about babywearing, try out different slings and meet other babywearing families.
Looking forward to seeing everyone. If you have any questions at all, feel free to send me a message.

Please send me a message on facebook or email me at dgurnard@gmail.com if you are planning to attend.
Thank you and hope to see you there!
-Denae

P.S. Please come on time. We cannot go over the set time of 12:00pm.

Though it’s getting near the end of the of Supervalu’s Baby event you can still enter!

Click on the above image  or Click on this link to enter!

Warm regards,

Katleen

Check out www.teethingsos.com

 I came across this website a while back and thought it would be of interest to those who have got teething babies and would like to find a natural alternative to ease the associated pain.

 At this stage our kids are 4 and 6 and  teething isn’t really an issue anymore( actually we are getting visits of the toothfairy instead!), but when they were teething, it was often stressfull, as they had these red cheeks, and often we had no idea what to do next..( except than Calpol, Teetah etc.)

If you’d like to find out about the benefits of using amber products to easy teething aches, check out  http://blog.teethingsos.com/  or join their facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Teething-SOS/154994724530966

I am also wondering what you’d think if I were to add these products to my website?

Have a nice day!

Katleen

Many dolls and toys were made at home during long winter months with materials that were at hand – wood, sheep’s wool and cloth scraps.
However, dolls still continued to be made at home and the simplicity and charm of these formed dolls stuffed with sheep’s wool ensured their survival despite the plethora of more sophisticated toys.
All of the Peppa Dolls are made in Fair Trade, and bear the attached Fair Trade Logo.

Harriet and Matt Rudd with their children Felix and Freddie (Vicki Couchman)Harriet and Matt Rudd with their children Felix and Freddie (Vicki Couchman) It is now more than a century since Sir Frederic Truby King wrote a bestseller advising women not to cuddle their babies or even look the little monkeys in the eye for fear of spoiling them. Ever since then, child guruing has been big business. With seductive titles such as From Crying Baby to Contented Baby, The No-Cry Sleep Solution and Teach That Damned Baby What’s What So You Can Get Back to Chinning Chardonnay Like the Good Old Days, they hook nervous, exhausted, desperate parents like dealers hook crackheads.

Harriet and I took an early decision to ignore the child gurus and do what came naturally. She always wanted to be an earth mother and I didn’t have to read lots of very boring, know-it-all books. Four and a half years after making that decision, what I can say is that it’s strange what you end up doing.

I’m 35 and I sleep in a children’s bunk bed. Can you imagine the fun the gurus would have with that?

You might end up co-sleeping. To us, this seemed a completely obvious and normal thing to do. You might also end up feeding the child when it’s hungry, not at four-hourly intervals, according to a strict routine. You might also decide to chuck the damned unwieldy buggy in the garden shed and use a simple sling instead.

If this whole thing of doing what comes naturally starts to get out of hand, you might begin to feel uncomfortable that Pampers now markets nappies for seven-year-olds. You might just not bother with nappies at all. Yes, from the day your child is born. (The Chinese are very good at anticipating when a baby is about to poo. We took a messy few months to work it out.)

I have a quiet little bet with myself. A hundred years from now, people will look back on us the way we look back on the Victorians and many will find it astonishing that we treated children the way we do. The more extreme parenting strategies appear to deny the fact that we’re parents at all. The aim is to get back to our normal, child-free lifestyles as soon as possible.

Now I wonder if the guru-free approach was worth it. I’d like to say 100% yes, but if I’m honest, the co-sleeping is a right fag. For a good three years, Harriet and I didn’t go out together in the evenings. And while our eldest does sleep in the bunk in his room, our youngest shows no sign of wanting to leave our bed. He sleeps in a starfish shape. So does Harriet. Two starfish means no room for me. So I sleep in the top bunk. I’m 35 and I sleep in a children’s bunk bed. Can you imagine the fun the gurus would have with that?

Going nappy-free
Let’s ignore the whole issue of the nation’s landfills overflowing with soiled nappies.

Let’s also ignore the fact that before disposables were invented, children were toilet trained within a year. Let’s just focus on the main fact: it’s boring spending your life in the stinking family rooms at shopping centres. We stopped with the nappies at seven months. The first time we sat Freddie on the potty and did pooing impressions, he curled out a beauty. We never looked back (or indeed down).

The “elimination method” does involve offering them a wee quite often — maybe every hour, as you get to know their rhythm. Within a few weeks, you know them and they know what’s going on, too. I’m not going to lie to you, there are going to be misses (we had a memorable one at a wedding, right in the middle of the groom’s speech) and the carpets are going to suffer, but it’s worth it. There is nothing worse than trying to unpeel a heavy two-year-old’s poo bag. The wriggling, screaming, wall-splattering ritual of misery — we’ve witnessed it a thousand times with friends who think we’re mad to have done what we did. You can always leave a nappy on anyway to catch the spills — we did for our second child.

Co-sleeping
This is the big one, the one that makes people lick their teeth angrily and look at us as if we’re serial killers, but we did this from day one. Harriet’s mother is east European and it’s normal there. We tried, half-heartedly, a couple of times to move him into a cot, but after a traumatic birth, it never seemed right. And given that he was waking up every hour, and Harriet had had a caesarean, it was totally impractical.

We bought a bigger bed (an emperor, if you must know) and on some nights — okay, most nights — I retreated to the spare room. We established a happy, hippie routine that lasted until we had our second child 2½ years later. After that, Freddie and I moved into a room together — which was brilliant, honest — while the newborn got the full mummy treatment. Now, 18 months on, Freddie is completely happy on his own. There were times when we felt very tied to this and wished we could stick the little blighters off down a separate wing of the house, but we don’t have a separate wing and the benefits far outweighed the losses. You must take my word for it.

Breast-feeding for ever
Channel 4 didn’t help with that documentary, Extraordinary Breastfeeding, in which hardcore mega-hippies were still suckling their eight-year-old kids. But Harriet was still at it when Fred was two and I did begin to wonder how we’d manage if he went to a university that wasn’t within suckling distance. Then he stopped. I like to think he’s taller, stronger and better at maths than his bottle-fed peers, but so would every dad. Nevertheless, life without sterilising equipment is an awful lot more straightforward.

Kill the buggy
So where are we: no nappies, no bottles, no cots… the fourth dimension in a stress-free, clutter-free parenting existence is to ditch the buggy. I struggled with everything else in this list at times, but using a sling instead of a pram has always been brilliant. The 4×4-style Bugaboos are heavy, expensive and cumbersome on a high street. They’re rubbish over stiles. They’re exhausting up an incline. We were given one, so I know. And we used it until we arrived one day at Luton airport for a flight to Spain. We had the buggy for our one precious child. We had bags. We had boxes. We had toys. We had, in short, an awful lot of crap. In front of us in the check-in queue was a Spanish woman with a baby sleeping peacefully in a sling. Her other two children were skipping around her feet being bilingual and charming. She had nothing but a purse and a tiny rucksack.

We haven’t used the bloody Bugaboo since. Well, not much, anyway. Harriet goes to Sling Meet, a group where parents can meet and drink Fairtrade coffee.

That’s a step too far for me, but it demonstrates the pressure you face from “normal” society when you adopt alternative parenting methods. Even sling-wearers have to meet and console themselves.

William’s Progress, Matt Rudd’s new novel, is out on July 8 (HarperPress £12.99)

Welcome to the Clarenbridge Charity Mock Wedding Official Facebook Page…

The tickets to the main event were sold before they were even printed….thats organisation for yea!!!
The evening tickets are €10 each…

Available in Paddy Burkes, Londis-Kilcolgan, Sherry’s and Jordan’s-Clarenbridge…
ON SALE NOW!!
THIS IS A STRICTLY TICKETED EVENT!!!

The Wedding Dress, The Bridesmaid Dress, The Flowergirls Dress and both of The Mothers Outfits are all bran new, they were all kindly sponsored and will be donated to a deserving Charity Shop after the event.

Here’s the line up for the Clarenbridge Charity Mock Wedding…..
Go threw our photo’s if you want to put a face beside the name!!!!!

Wedding Planner————–Jacqui Mulins.
Wedding Planner/DJ———-Brian Mitchell.
MC——————————Mike Kerrigan.
Priest—————————-Orla Mullaney.
Bride—————————– Clair Hogan.
Groom————————— John Forde.
Bestman————————- Dodo Forde.
Bridesmaid———————- Karena Boyle.
Pageboy———————— Larry Coen.
Flowergirl———————–Olivia Jordan.
Father of the Bride———— Kevin Donohue.
Mother of the Bride- ———-Edel Coen.
Father of the Groom- ———Ciaran Coughlan.
Mother of the Groom———-Anita O’Hare.

I would like to send out a MASSIVE Thank You to our Main Sponsors, mentioned below…

Tickets—————-€30
Date——————19th June 2010.
Time——————1900hrs…
Venue—————–Paddy Burkes-Clarenbridge.
Band——————The Oyster Boys- Clarenbridge.
DJ———————-DJ Mitch- Clarenbridge
Wedding Car———Brett Wedding Car Hire-Clarenbridge
Wedding Dress——Tracy Bridal- Galway.
Bridesmaid Dress—-Belladonna- Galway.
Flowergirl Dress—–Wedding World/Black Tie- Galway.
Mothers Outfits—–Mo Zarina- Claregalway.
Suit Hire————–Declan Rooneys,Menswear-Athenry
Invitations———–A&T Print- Athenry.
Girls Hair————–Hair By Stacey- Gort.
Girls Make up———A Womans World- Gort.
Photographer——–Deirdre Langan,Photography-Galway
Flowers—————-Flower Haven- Oranmore.
Cake——————-Lilies and Pearls- Gort.

Raffle Prizes and Donations KINDLY sponsored by the following….

Belgiantreasures.ie
John O’Brien.
Jordan’s Bar-Clarenbridge.
O’Regan Plant Hire- Watergrass Hill. Cork.
Maryville Fruit & Veg- Kinvara.
Xpress News- Briar Hill, Galway.
Tom Shortt – Templemore, Co Tipperary.
DID – Galway.
Kinneys Jewellers – Corbett Court, Galway.
Dingle Skellig Hotel – Dingle, Co Kerry.
Dingle Horseriding – Dingle, Co Kerry.
MJ Sports- Gort.
LTV- Market Hall, Gort.
Londis – Kilcolgan.
Kinnitty Castle – Birr, Co Offaly.