Mama's Haven

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Christmas Gift Guide: A Swimmer’s Dream

Published by Oana

As promised, my Christmas gift guide this year is going to be highly unconventional, especially when it comes to gifts for children.

I support learning through play as an educator and Emma does get toys at Christmas but I do think that our children need to develop other skills in parallel: confidence is definitely one of them!

Emma was send this month not one but two brilliant swimming aids: an Aqua Sphere pair of goggles and a SwimFit, the brilliant floating device everyone is talking about!

We did put them to test at the pool and we are writing this review to tell you why they would make brilliant Christmas gifts!

The Aqua Sphere goggles were brought to my attention in a local children’s magazine. I did approach the PR in charge with the promotion campaign within the UK and they happily agreed to send Emma a Vista Junior Clear Lens pair.

What makes Aqua Sphere different from other goggles, you ask?

Like all Aqua Sphere’s goggles, the Vista Junior has curved lenses for 180 degree vision (much wider than traditional flat lens goggles) and the Softeril seal, which is really comfortable on the face. The EZ Adjust side buckles let you adjust the fit whilst the goggles are on the face – making them really easy and fast to fit.

No fiddly on-off! We were able to testify to that yesterday. In the big pool where Emma and I were puddling about we witnessed a grandfather using about half of his swimming time with the grandchildren adjusting his granddaughter’s goggles. Since Emma was having a splash about, she kindly agreed to let the little girl use the Aqua Sphere goggles. They finished their swimming lesson with ZERO fiddling times and the little girl was very excited to have used them and asked her grandpa to buy her a pair as well!

The goggles are latex free,offer 100% UV protection and according to Emma and the other little girl who put them to the test yesterday, these are the best goggles on the market for children aged 6 – 12!!

The Vista Junior goggle by Aqua Sphere retails at £19.99.

As much as she loved her goggles, Emma couldn’t have done without her SwimFin yesterday!

She had swimming lessons this summer with her daddy in the sea but since she hadn’t been in the water for a number of weeks, her water confidence had almost disappeared and the SwimFin came in really handy!

How does the swim fin do and how does it work?

As the name says it, the Swim Fin is a device that pretty much looks like a shark fin. It gets attached on the back of the child by two sturdy straps and works as a floating device, with the very important difference that it leaves the child’s hands free and allows them to concentrate on and enjoy fully the swimming experience.

Emma had no problem jumping into the big pool, knowing that her body will not submerge fully. She did get her water confidence back almost immediately and by the end of our time at the pool, she was trying to remember abut breathing and putting her head under the water.

I have attached the video produced by SwimFin Australia below so you can get a better idea of how it works:

The SwimFin comes in seven attractive colours, to suit both boys’ and girls’ preferences and retails for £21.99 on the UK website.

The lovely SwinFin team are offering our readers the chance to win one SwinFin of their choice, just in time for Christmas! Simply follow the Gleam link to enter the giveaway!

Professional Blogger Tips and Advice

Published by Oana

Ha, when I first started this blog, three years ago, I would have never even dreamt that Mama’s Haven would one day come to be classed as one of the top mummy and inspirational blogs in the UK!

Then this month, a number of things happened.

For starters, I realised that my ultimate dream of living off my blog has become reality! I did not make the amount I need to live off in cash but I did make it in review products and partially, remuneration! A great point to be at and definitely, a big reason to get out of bed each morning, knowing that my work will bring in satisfaction and rewards!

October 2015 has also been the month that saw Mama’s Haven chosen as one of the top 5 parenting blogs in the UK by the Blogging Edge community (by the way, voting is still open until tomorrow and does take literally one second, do stop by and give us a loving vote, please!) which has been a huge honour and the confidence boost.

And last, but definitely not least on my achievement list this month, is that fact that Rebateszone published their own top 50 mummy blogger in the UK list and infographic, declaring Mama’s Haven to be in the second place, following closely the absolute legend (and friend!) that Vicki Psarias is!

As I said, I would have never dared giving blogging advice before any of this happened but just incase you are wondering, here are the things that make Mama’s Haven a success (well, they say it, not me!):

Professionalism

I have watched Alex, who has been self-employed the whole length of our marriage, deal with clients and I have learned so much from him, in terms of how to deal with PRs, publishers and my readership.

I always respect deadlines, I do my very best to deliver the quality the clients request and I am ALWAYS courteous in my communication, to everyone I come in contact with.

This has lead to several great things and plenty of opportunities over the years. Repeat business, word of mouth and great working relationships are some of them.

2. Good quality content AND pictures

I always strive to deliver the best possible piece of writing, no matter how mundane or ordinary the review product is or how tired I may feel, given the fact that most of my blogging is done very early in the morning or late at night.

I have followed and admired many fantastic photography blogs over the years (Annie’s photographic progression at Mammausaurus/Fable and Folk has been a huge source of inspiration as has the verve and good-humour at Captured by Lucy, along with the fabulous photography tips) and my photography has improved as a consequence.

3. Organic growth

Good things take time to grow. I have never rushed into anything and I have always known that, if the effort and dedication go into it, the results will come, in their due course.

4. Self-confidence

The only thing that kept me going, at the worst of times, whether with my blog or in life in general, has been a trust in myself and my talents.

I know I can write well. I know I can deliver a post within deadlines. I know I have something to say and give to others.

These are the three things that resonate in my head clearly and loudly, every single time doubt creeps up.

I have also chosen to remove myself from external quantifying lists, like Tots100, for example, as I did not find the aleatory ranking criteria comprehensible nor justifying the anxiety over falling two places(or 100!!!) it was creating in my life on a monthly basis.

I am confident enough in myself now to know what my blog is worth, without having to rely on stressful monthly external assessments and rankings.

5. Appreciation

This may not seem to go hand in hand with the above, but it actually ties in perfectly with knowing your worth.

I NEVER take any review or blogging opportunity for granted and am always very grateful for work.

I never forget that, even if my blog is doing well, it has started as the ramblings of a stay at home mum whose sole readership was her hubby and a handful of friends :-).

Everything that has come out of my blog, all the amazing opportunities, public recognition and friendships I have formed in the bloggosphere over the years are all a BONUS, not something I deserve or feel entitled to have.

Amazing privileges? Yes.

Entitlement? No!

6. Have fun!

I can honestly say that I have fun every single time I write professionally on my blog. I do also personal blog posts and those are a different kettle of fish and act more like therapy than enjoyment but all my product review posts have given me great joy to write and I think people can definitely feel the happy vibes!

Hope you have found this blog post inspiring. If you are a beginner blogger, hope it gives you the courage to carry on. If you are one of my frequent readers, hope you are rejoicing with me over the last achievements. If you are contemplating starting a blog, hope it has given you the encouragement you needed to get going!

What other advice would you add to the list, professional bloggers? I am honestly interested in your opinion!

Luxurious Christmas presents with a difference

Published by Oana

I told you the other day, this is going to be one interesting month here, on the blog, as I have so many gorgeous products to tell you about!

We all have at least one special person in our lives for whom buying the right Christmas present always proves a challenge. Not necessarily because they are fussy with what they like and prefer but because we love them so much, we want to present them with that unique, special gift that conveys our message of love and appreciation to them!

So I thought of putting together a few ideas of Christmas presents that would communicate a message of lavish love to those special people in our lives:

1. Handmade, locally produced gorgeousness

Etsy is the perfect place to start looking for one of a kind, personalised presents that are guaranteed to enchant.

Mel, a lovely friend I met through the wonderful world of blogging, and with whom I forged a strong friendship that comes from love of books and shared experiences and worldviews, has launched at the beginning of the year a wonderful line of handmade products called Melvis Makes.

In her own words, “Melvis Makes means unique, handmade homewares, cosmetic bags, storage solutions, gifts and more, all created from beautifully bright, wonderfully colourful and fabulous funky fabrics.”

Mel has created a couple of very special, unique items for our family already. Last year, she sent us a gorgeous little Christmas decoration to hang on the tree and remember our sweet boy by:

This summer, I carried my essentials in a bespoke toiletry bag that looked fab and made everybody comment on its quirky patterns and practicality:

Mel is at the moment creating Christmas stockings with a personal tint and when she wrote to me saying she would make one for Emma and enquire of her colour preferences, I knew we were in for a big treat! And I was right, Mel not only found the perfect shade of purple for Emma’s stocking, she also found the perfect material and story to go with our family. “Guess How Much I Love You” is one of the books Emma and Georgie were read by daddy while in the hospice last year and this stocking will be a very treasured reminder of our love as a family, a love that transcends time and space:

I told Mel that her shop has a huge potential, because of the personal detail she is so good at capturing, and I do expect to see her creations in Harrods soon!

Mel has been very kind and is offering my readers a 10% discount on her Etsy shop, until the end of November with the specially created code MAMAH10. Do get in touch with her as well if you want something extra special for your loved ones, as I said above, Mel is always certain to deliver that touch of gorgeousness and love!

Melvin Makes’ Christmas stockings are priced at £19.50, which you would agree with me, is a reasonable price for such a high quality, handmade and personalised present that would last a child their whole childhood and beyond!

2. Traditional Presents With A Modern Twist

We all have that one person in our family for whom the smell of freshly pressed books and ink is proper heaven.

They are remnants of an era where proper paper and pen had its intrinsic creative value and I was thrilled to find out that they are having a comeback! Both the proper paper and pens AND that special kind of people who treasure handcrafted writing, that is!

The gifts I want to tell you about would suit them down to…an ink dot, so to say.

Pen Heaven is the ultimate definition of luxury gifting.

Offering a unique selection of branded items from Ferrari, Graf Von Faber-Castell, Moleskin and Diaries and Parker, just to name a few, the website is the go to destination for engraved, embossed and long lasting gift sets a stationery connoisseur would absolutely adore!

The website offers an amazing array and choice of writing tools, from the humble pen, lifted in some cases to the dignified status of a “suitable for engraving” gold trim slim pencil to the very specialised and extremely sophisticated fountain, calligraphy and feather quills and dip pens:

Parker-Sonnet-Stainless-Steel-Gold-Trim-Slim-Pencil-S0813980_2

There is also a vast choice of gorgeous leather journals, diaries, Filofax tablet cases (at the moment offering the special discount of 30% OFF the initial price) and leather wallets any self respecting gentleman would appreciate:

We were offered a taster of the two types of products on sale on the website, in the form of a gorgeous Green Fountain Pen and Ravello Small Leather Set, which left me ooohing and aaaahing over both the quality and the primary school memories of writing with a fountain pen:

Prices range widely on the website, as you can imagine, with something to suit every budget and taste. The journal and pen set we were offered is now reduced on the website from £40.80 to £29.90 and would make the perfect present for the stationery aficionado.

3. An Excellent Cup of Tea

I was raised in a country where tea was offered as an illness remedy and black tea was only rarely used to treat stomach upsets.

It took me a long time after I moved to the UK to grasp the social importance of the tea ceremony and even longer to come to appreciate a good cuppa.

It was only this year that I realised that I do not bat an eyelid anymore when one of our comprehension lessons in school is “instructions on making a great cup of tea” and when, thinking of great presents to get for some of our loving and faithful friends, tea comes up at the top of the list.

So, when the opportunity arose and I was offered the chance to review the award winning, press and media favourited (VOGUE Magazine nominated it as their choice of tea in the September 2015 issue) and truly lovely looking Jadu Tea, I, of course, had to accept!

Jadu Tea, an independent Global Luxury Tea Brand, is different not only in the sacrality with which the tea is hand picked to feature in their very small and choice collection of 10 teas but also in the way it is packaged, in ” a ground-breaking, sophisticated gift box, made using the most advanced methods of cutting, curling and gluing, and the sumptuous navy blue Royal Suede, which is embossed in gold with our logo.”

The boxes of 100 grams loose leaf tea retail at £19.00 and can be purchased on the website or in prestigious shops like Harrods, if you happen to be about.

Disclaimer: we were sent the products mentioned above for the purpose of this review. We thoroughly enjoyed reviewing them and in consequence, all opinions expressed in this blog post are truthful.

Which one of these luxury Christmas presents caught your eye? Which one would you love receiving yourself?

Christmas Gift Guide: Best Children’s Magazines

Published by Oana

I was planning to hold on with my Christmas gift posts until the first of November but I have so many beautiful things we have been reviewing lately and am itching to tell you about and so many lovely gift ideas have been suggested to us that I am caving in!

I am starting this year’s gift idea blog series with a less obvious Christmas present idea for a child, as I am sure there will be plenty of toy gift guides out there to pick and choose from!

One of the things I will be getting Emma this year is a magazine subscription, as this is the sort of present I know she would really appreciate and it is something that will keep on giving long after the festive wrapping paper has been scrunched up and recycled and the mince pies been eaten!

Emma is an inquisitive (very nearly!) six year old who LOVES facts and I think she would love getting the ECO Kids (the magazine I have in mind for her) in the post every four weeks. The wealth of information she will have at her fingertips will make for interesting reading sessions at bedtime and who knows, perhaps a future career in biology or science!

The annual subscription is £29.99 but you can purchase the trial offer of 4 issues for £9.99.

If reading this blog post has left you tempted and wondering which magazines are most popular with children at the moment, you can check the below infographic to get a better idea:

P.S.- the website has an amazing host of grown up magazines as well which would work perfectly as gifts for the ~~bookworm~~ reader of the family and which cater for a whole array of tastes and interests (oh, hello, there, Jamie Oliver!) so do have a peep at the grown up section as well, will you?

What magazine subscription would tempt your little ones(or you!) most?

Disclaimer: Emma’s magazine subscription has very generously been offered to us in exchange for this review but the opinions expressed in this blog post are truthful and entirely our own.

To the mother whose child was just given the all clear…

Published by Oana

I rejoiced with you this week, when I read your good news.

I rejoiced with you from the darkness of my bereaved parent existence, knowing that you will never get to know my reality.

I rejoiced for your son and I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing the pain my son endured in the last two weeks of his life and that fact that yours was spared all that, and you the totally heart-wrenching feeling of helplessness of having to watch him die.

But your social media update, which was picked up by so many churches, individuals and even by a local newspaper, made me very sad too.

You see, your update, as hope giving as it is meant to be, (as I do suspect you see it now as your life “testimony” to the Church, a confirmation they so desperately seek of a God who can perform miracles), has totally left out several facts and a huge group of parents and believers who have fought “the good fight”, just like you, but never pulled the winning ticket of healing.

You have forgotten to mention that, as much as you want to attribute your son’s healing “miracle” to God, his healing has a lot (if not all) to do with medical expertise. Your son would have been healed by God IF as soon as he had been diagnosed, you would have taken him home and have the hoard of tens of thousands of faithful Christians pray for him, as they have done and after all that, and WITHOUT any medical intervention, your son would have recovered fully.

But the truth is that, and your public updates are testimony to my statement, there has been a medical team who looked after your child from day one. A wonderful medical team who advised on the best treatment, who did all the risky procedures (many times, at the risk of their own career and hearts!) and who, in the end, managed to perform the medical miracle we had all hoped to hear about. And a medical team, who, disappointingly, receive no praise nor testimony in your latest update…

Your public update this week, has also done a lot of hurting to another group too.

You also forgot to mention, in your rush to proclaim to the world the “miracle”, a whole group of us. You showed a total lack of consideration to us, the bereaved believers and parents who have been on that cancer ward, fought in as hard and as dignified a manner as you have had, but never got their “miracle”.

I can assure you that all the parents who once believed in a simple God of miracles and who lost a child to illness, have been left bruised and terribly hurt by your statement.

And although they are, I am sure, happy for you and your child, as much as I am, they have had, once again, the scabs violently ripped off their emotional wounds and brought back to the same tormenting questions that plague our existences now:

Why would God choose to heal her child and not mine?
Did He find me less holy?
Was my child a second-class Heaven citizen that didn’t deserve a life here, with us?
Were we punished for some horrible sin we committed in our over-churchy-and-very carefully-edited-in-order-not-to-offend-God-nor-the-Church-lives?
Did we not pray enough?
Should we have asked for more prayer from the worldwide church, was our church not holy enough to reach God’s ear and touch His heart?
Should we have done more than what we did when our son was diagnosed? And what is that thing that we missed that made the lifesaving difference? And why didn’t anyone tell US about it???

But the truth (and this is the truth you are most likely not aware of, as it is never preached in Church these days as it would be detrimental to the numbers and uplifting atmosphere) is different.

The truth is that, scientifically, your son’s cancer was manageable and possibly, curable. Some cancers are, some aren’t.

The big Truth, and I wish this post will reach each and every one of those bereaved parents whose hearts your update crushed this week, is also that God did not choose your son to live and ours to die.

In the last 15 months of agony, endless tormenting and questioning of everything sacred and absolute, I have come to realise that God is much more complex than what we are told in Church. That pushing Him into a miracle-maker box is limiting Him to a man-made image He will never belong into.

I have also come to realise, and written countless times about the subject, that, unfortunately, the Church is, at this moment in time, a circus who worships that man-made god and a place where real life issues like non-healing, chronic pain, death and grief simply do not belong.

This week, your testimony to me, as a bereaved parent, has not been one of healing. Your testimony to me and hundreds of other bereaved believers and parents has been one of exclusion and about a fabricated God who picks and chooses favourites.

Thank God, dear mother whose child has just been given the all clear, that, in my search and painful grief, I have come to know that your god is not the real God, as I have come to know Him…

Footnote: I request you kindly to respect this blog and its author when leaving a comment, especially on posts like the one above. I write my personal posts as a form of therapy(the only one I can afford at the moment, ha!). I do not hold anything against the family mentioned and I truly wish them all the very best in the future. I chose to write this post as a reaction and although I do know that there will be many a folk at the ready, prepared to wack me round the head with their Bible, I would politely request them to refrain from doing so and read this post for what it has been intended. And if you can,possibly learn something from the way they relate to bereaved people.