Enhance paediatric first aid training review

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Disclosure : I was given the opportunity to do this course for free in exchange for a review on my blog.

It is every parents nightmare  for their child to get ill. The thought of your baby stopping breathing or starting to choke is enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up on end.

So the best thing we can do is not spend time worrying about it, but to prepare for how you would handle such an event should it occur.

Enhance first aid services  booked me onto the 12 hour paediatric first aid course. It took place over 2 Saturdays or it is available as an evening course over a longer period.

It costs £65 and at the end of the course you do both a practical exam and a multiple choice paper. If these are passed the you are a certified first aider. This qualification lasts for 3 years and then must be re taken to remain certified and up to speed with current best practice as medical procedures change.

The course was informative and covered:

Allergic reactions
Asthma
Bleeding
Burns
Choking
CPR
Diabetes
Epilepsy
Head injury
Hypothermia and heat stroke
Meningitis
Poisoning
Shock
and sprains and strains

It was taught in a very hands on way and was easy to digest and understand.

The over all thing for me was the confidence I  now feel in the event of an emergency. Despite having done paediatric first aid before I had always worried at the implications of doing it wrong.

CPR in particular. But very plainly put if a child has stopped breathing they are DYING. If their heart has stopped they are technically DEAD.You cannot make them more DEAD but you can save their life by administering those rescue breaths and chest compressions. The worry here is breaking a child's (or adults for that matter) ribs but better to be alive after receiving CPR and with damaged ribs than dead with the ribs intact.

Sorry to put it so bluntly but it really hit it home to me what a valuable skill first aid is, not just as a nursery nurse but as a parent too.

If you have no idea what to do in an emergency should it arise then read up or do a course. It could just be the most valuable lesson you have ever learnt.

These are my views and experience of my first aid training. Training should always be given by a first aid specialist.

(Oh, and by the way I PASSED!)

Wooden sandpit ***review***

*We were sent this item for free in return for a review

We love wooden toys in this house. So when I was approached by the lovely Wooden toyshop to sample whatever I liked (within a set budget) for a review I didn't hesitate and chose this  sandpit for our garden.

Monty is so enamoured with his sandpit we often find him playing outside early in the morning before nursery. Which does then equate in a sandy nursery uniform but never mind.

It's just the right size for our very small garden, and being wooden blends nicely with our decking and doesn't intrude in the way a garish plastic one would.

I was very surprised at the £44.99 price tag which includes the cover as well. We just had to add the sand! Great value for money and would make a great gift for a child with a summer birthday.

My only bug bear is the soft cover is quite hard to pull over the hexagonal shape. I seem to get one side sorted and then the other side pops off and have often ended up straddling the sandpit with my butt in the air trying to get all the sides covered. Also, if it has been raining, which it has this month when removing the cover the rain invariably ends up in the sandpit.

Other than that small moan it is a  great value , classic toy. Easy to put together and will give Monty and Blossom years of enjoyment.

Rainy days with my children

This month has seemed to have more wet days than any other I have experienced and to say I have irrational hatred for this month of June would be vastly understating the point.

June 2011 was  a total washout and an utter plonker and needed to have a word in it's own ear and buck up and dry out and just basically sort it out.

Thanks goodness we have sunshine today or I would have developed some sort of weather directed tourettes and been the mad lady shaking her fist at the sky. Actually we do have a tourettes chap that lives by us so for pure originality's sake I'd have to come up with a different mode of attack.

Anyway.

These are the things that have made me happy this sodden month

You see rainy days are perfect for making colourful splodges on paper and whilst we're waiting for our art to dry well it would be rude not to make biscuits wouldn't it?

And unfortunately we always seem to eat them all before Daddy gets home. Sorry about that.

String

Monty seems to be infatuated with joining things together. He constantly requests ''Mummy can you get me just a little bits of rope because I just have to tie some things together.''

The toy boxes are full of cars joined together with string. The boy loves the stuff so much I just took this photo of him in bed with his beloved string.

I just don't get it. But then again. Not many things small boys do make sense. Well, to anyone other than themselves of course.

Steps

It had to happen of course but taking steps is a skill my girl seems to have managed in the blink of an eye and we feel like she was born upwardly mobile.

Trips to the park have definitely taken on a whole new dimension and we seem to be on the cusp of a whole new element of fun. Running around after this small tubby gal is exhausting but exhilarating. She seems to travel at the speed of light and in the time it takes for me to fetch the wipes from the change bag she always seems to be in some kind of imminent danger.

With the steps come big girl shoes. But that is a whole other post entirely as I seem to hate most of the affordable girls shoes available and only fall in love with ridonkulously expensive footwear. Best foot forward and all that.

Don't hate me but...

I want to stay at home and be the one looking after my children.

This is not a post knocking working Mums, nothing of the sort but it is a post about choice.

 I haven't posted in a while.  And mostly it's been because the big money, work, childcare debate has been taking over mine and the gorgeous husbands lives. We need more money, but all I earn could be eaten up by childcare. And round and round and round again.

Huge arguments have been had.

When I was on maternity leave with Monty as my time off with him was drawing to an end I knew by the quickening of my heart and the panic setting in that I couldn't do it, couldn't leave him. Coupled with the fact I worked in childcare I felt sad at the thought of going to work to take care of other peoples children, when what I really wanted to be doing was taking care of my own.

So I set about registering as a home based childminder, it was the best decision for all of us and I loved it (aside from the fact my home resembled a nursery and I became a bit taken with cleaning.As people were paying me to take care of their kids- In my mind that meant my house had to sparkle!)

Monty started preschool and then Blossom came along and my childminding came to a close and I settled into my routine of another maternity leave this time with Blossom.

I love it, I thoroughly enjoy the beating of the drum that is what some might describe as the monotony of family life. I enjoy the baking and the painting and the snuggling on the sofa on rainy days with my two precious little people.

But we do desperately need more money.

I have recently obtained a qualification and this meant that I was able to apply for jobs that I wouldn't have been able to before. So I applied, and went to interviews and worked out financially that after tax, national insurance, childcare and petrol that my salary virtually halves.

The thought of leaving my children with someone else 4 or 5 days a week, then my policeman husband rarely getting a weekend off and THEN having little more to financially to show for it was a little too much to bear.

So, I'm continuing with the social media work that I've been doing with Claire, someone I've been hugely indebted to as this work has allowed me to be at home with Monty and Blossom. And I shall be going back to childminding.

I do wonder if I'm letting all the feminists down by not going out there into the world of work. But isn't feminism about choice?

But for now, this is right for me, and for my family.

And that's what it's all about right?

I'd love to know your views, were you deperate to stay at home with your kids or do you enjoy the independance you get from working? Do you work because you had to or did you want to go back? Is there ever a right choice? Is there really a choice? What do you think?

Creating traditions

The older Monty and Blossom get, the more I am realising that I want life to be about the experience of an occasion ( I'm talking Christmas and Easter here.) Rather than the stuff it brings (I'm talking piles of plastic crap and double figure of Easter eggs.) Not that they get much of a look in at the eggs as I eat them for them for medicinal reasons.

Anyway it is on that ilk that we spent Easter in a park hunting eggs.

The excitement Monty had at snaffling springtime treats from the trees was blissful to watch

Blossom watched her brother in bemusement. Already can't wait to see her with her basket next year.

This is a part of parenthood that I am seriously enjoying. Watching the magic and seeing them believe.

This summer the plan is to go camping and partake in a dusk fairy search. I want it to be the children wearing pyjamas, with torches, little lit tea lights, letters in elf scrawl and treats left by the fairies.

I can't wait.

(Monty's super cool trousers  were made by Nat at Sophie 4 Sophie - they were an Easter treat for both the kids and I love them. Because quite fittingly they make my children look totally Innocent. Which is exactly how it should be. Thanks Nat.)