AlisonCurtis's Blog

I am not much of a planner, if I am totally honest. There wasn’t really much of a game plan with my husband and I about whether we would have kids - it just sort of happened. What I mean is we were very lucky in that we only had to “try” a little and I was pregnant. Like with many first pregnancies, it is very much a case of living in the here and now; the utter consuming joy, happiness...

Joan celebrated her 5th birthday earlier this month on the 4th of May, and she did it in style! We were in Canada for two weeks just before her birthday and she had two parties while we were there; my mother’s side and my father’s side wanted to celebrate with her and it was lovely as it was her first birthday I was able to spend with my family. When we returned home she had three more...

Like Dusty Springfield once sang: "I Just Don’t Know What to do With Myself" , I find myself like that whenever my daughter and hubby go away together. Which is very very rare. Or even if I have a full day on my own, what did I do before I became a mum? The other day I spoke to a new mum on my radio show. Her baby had just turned nine months and she was off for a pampering girly night away...

My daughter, Joan, is at that age when my husband and I want to try new and interesting things. We started with a drama class last year when she had just turned four. It was every Saturday morning, while I was on air, so it was something for my husband and Joan to do together. After every class I eagerly awaited his call to see how it went. At first she was pretty reluctant to leave his side. She...

From December, us parents have a new partner in crime - a very small, all-seeing, hard-working, tattle-tale elf all the way from Santa's workshop. Each day they check in to see if our little ones are behaving and every night they report back to Santa as to whether our kids were good or bad. One of Santa’s elves visited us a few times last year, but, to be honest, Joan didn’t take much note...

We have a month of our new life under our belt now, and each day both Joan and I are feeling more ‘comfortable’ with school. She wakes up asking to go right away and she tells me to leave once we have her at her seat (as I’m leaning in for one last kiss, my face meets her elbow.) She talks about school when we aren’t there, and her teacher tells me each day she is getting more and more...

Starting school is such a big deal. This is the place where your child will be spending considerable time for the next 12 to 13 years, and beyond; the place that will form parts of their personality; the place that partly shapes their world view and where they will create lasting memories and friends. It’s a big, big deal and I don’t think I was fully prepared for it. My first hurdle was...

My daughter Joan turned four at the beginning of May and like a light switch, I feel I have a different child living under my roof – one who is rapidly and all too quickly heading towards the tween years. There are glimpses of what she might be like when she reaches those years; the facial expressions she uses, the things she finds funny and the way she interacts with people. And I can’t help...

I remember friends who had children before me always saying two things. First, when you have a child, you will experience a love for someone else like you never have before. Second be prepared to always feel guilty. Always. The first one sounded amazing but the second bit of wisdom, did not. I was someone who struggled with feeling guilty about the dumbest things to begin with, so how was I going...

There are so many questions to discuss when you are pregnant. Do you know if you are having a boy or a girl? Do you have any names picked out? Where are you having the baby? Are you aiming to do it naturally? Where are you buying your crib, your buggy, your changing table? And so on... One thing I don’t really remember talking about during those nine months was breastfeeding. I told my husband I...