As always, we have a mothers day page brimming with ideas  for you, but thought we’d give you a few extras here as well…

• send Mum out on the town with other Mums so she can relax and be herself for a few hours.
• buy her some bulbs to plant for Spring colour, or some roses she can treasure for years, or a fruit tree she can appreciate with every bite – Garden express has over 2000 products apaprently so you should be able to find something Mum likes! And this is an environmentally responsible gift, too
• a book suits most Mums, as long as you choose the title with her in mind – don’t just think of novels when you can get a gardening book, some mouth watering cookbooks, herb books, business mum guides, money saving books, health/spirit books and language books.
• subscribe Mum to webflicks so she can catch up on those movies she missed
• send her a personlised card – you can be sure she doesn’t have one of those already!
• invest in her future with an investment account so she can trade and build a nest egg as markets improve over time
• comfort her with some dermatolgist-tested skincare products or some cosmetics/perfumes
• give her a mini-you! Mydolls will turn a photo of you (or your kids) into a unique sculpture so Mum can have a quiet, tidy version of her family at home all the tiem!

Children are the ones that keep the magic alive for Christmas as their belief and excitement feeds the cheer that brings the family together. It’s pretty safe to say that without children, Christmas would just not be Christmas.

We would really love to hear any good or funny stories about you and your children over your children’s favorite magical holiday or you could even visit our Christmas and Children page for ideas and ways to keep the kids entertained as well as yourself over the holiday season.

With more information and tips on how to recognise and possibly prevent this pesky sneezing we have several articles on allergies for your benefits.

If you run a blog, do you have it feeding anywhere else? Has it helped you get the message out to more people?

For more info about RSS feeds, our previous posts “What is an RSS feed?” and “Why offer Rss feeds on your blog?” may be of value to you

Usually these complications can be fixed. For more information and links visit our breastfeeding problems page.

Anyway, a mad lib is where you choose some randoms words – nouns, adjectives, verbs and so on – and they are inserted into a piece of writing. The end result is usually nonsensical, but funny – and especially so for children I suspect!

There is a website that asks for the words from you and then produces the story for you. I tried it, inserting various nouns and adjectives (in bold below), and got the following story as a result:

Do you think this is a useful tool in teaching children what a noun/verb/adjective/etc is? We’ll be testing this on our kids – well, giving them the chance to play with it anyway!

The people who bring you Real Mums are running Mums Night Out in Melbourne on Friday 16 May, along with the Real Mums Awards. Everyone who goes to Mums Night Out gets a goodie bag to take home – and each one has stuff valued at over $1,000 in it!

Hope you get to go along and have a great night of eating, drinking, laughing and talking! And maybe some dancing, who knows?! And then enjoy the weekend exploring your goodie bag!

One thing to note is that the juggling act changes over time, so don’t expect that what is working today will work next year or the year after. It might still work, but the juggling is much easier if you accept that change and disruption is part of the package when working around a young family.

Why would things change? For example, the amount of time available for your business with a young baby is likely to decrease when the child has fewer naps, makes more mess and needs more attention as a toddler. And other commitments vary, too, such as going on school excursions, planning for birthdays and Christmas, family emergencies and holidays all vary when you can work on your business.

The good news is that with so many parents running businesses and the power of the internet, you don’t have to feel alone or figure everything out for yourself. The following Australian resources are just the beginning of the support and information available to business parents and small business owners in general:

• Business information and articles – a Save Time Online Guide
• Business Victoria is a comprehensive online resource designed to help you start, run and grow your business 
•  Reduce home interfering with your business
• the Business Mums Network and magazine
• Kids Helping your Business
• read blogs written by other parents in business and/or other small business owners; for example, Word Constructions, Melissa Khalinsky and Tilda Virtual blogs all help with running a business, and there are heaps more blogs to find!
• Separate your home and office
• find blogs about business and parenting, or just business, by looking at some carnivals, such as the Mothers in Business Carnival  

Of course, the business section of Save Time Online also lists a number of suppliers and resources that can also be of assistance in your business life.

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about sticker shock! That doesn’t even touch college tuition.

But $160,140 isn’t so bad if you break it down.

It translates into:

* $8,896.66 a year,

* $741.38 a month, or

* $171.08 a week.

* That’s a mere $24.24 a day!

* Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is don’t have children if you want to be “rich.” Actually, it is just the opposite.

What do you get for your $160,140?

* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!

* Glimpses of God every day.

* Giggles under the covers every night.

* More love than your heart can hold.

* Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.

* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.

* A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate

* A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites, building sand castles, and skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain.

* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to:

* finger-paint,

* carve pumpkins,

* play hide-and-seek,

* catch lightning bugs, and

* never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:

* keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,

* watching Saturday morning cartoons,

* going to Disney movies, and

* wishing on stars.

You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother’s Day, and cards with backward letters for Father’s Day.

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for:

* retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,

* taking the training wheels off a bike,

* removing a splinter,

* filling a wading pool,

* coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness the:

* first step,

* first word,

* first bra,

* first date, and

* first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you’re lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great grandchildren.

You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match. In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so one day they will like you, love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price!

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren!!!!!!!