label/Single Parent Linky - Single Parent Pessimist

Moving Pets Onto New Homes (and Comforting Your Child!)

Claire — Sat, 19 Sep 2015 08:48:00 +0000

I write a private blog for Chunk in the hopes that one day he will get to read it and find out what we did in his younger years. I wrote a post today about moving one of his pets onto another home and thought I would share with you guys as you may end up in a similar position one day! So here it is: Yesterday we moved our third guinea pig Honey onto a new home. She had only been with us for three months, but she just didn’t seem happy and I think three was a crowd. She was always hiding and never interacted with the other two and I wanted her to be happier. Our Final Photo with Honey I found a lady who was looking for another pig as she was rescuing a girl that needed a friend so it was perfect. She has a little girl called Alex who will help look after the two piggies and they have a large house and garden and it sounds lovely for Honey. So I explained it to you and we had our final cuddles. You weren’t sure but you liked the idea that Honey would be helping another lonely piggie. You stroked her and seemed fine but when the lady turned up you wouldn’t look at Honey and when she left you ran into your bed and sobbed. It broke my heart to see you like that and it surprised me because truth be told you hardly ever acknowledge the guinea pigs, but I guess it is your first loss. I cuddled you and reassured you that she would be happy and we would get to see pictures of her in her new home. The lady seems really nice and sent me a photo that very same day! She is even offering for us to have some of her apple tree leaves that guinea pigs love to eat too! You were really brave and I am so proud of you for handling it so well. The other two girls seem more relaxed already and I have reassured you they will be staying with us as they have been with us nearly a year now! Love you to infinity and beyond little man, Mummy xXx Follow me on Twitter, Pinterest or Facebook

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My No (Added) Sugar Diet #sugarfreefoods

Claire — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 19:08:00 +0000

I’m sure you’ve seen or heard about Jamie Oliver’s recent Sugar Rush programme, and if you haven’t then watch it now! I had already started to find out about the effects of sugar on our bodies and minds watching other documentaries, but this really hit home to me as the first scenes were off a six-year-old child having six teeth pulled out due to sugar rot! What’s worse is that this is a regular occurence in Britain with 26,000 children a year having rotten teeth. This helps to explain why dentists are so oversubscribed and have huge waiting lists! The scariest thing is that sugar is added to so many different foods and drinks that most of us are unaware of the amount of sugar we are consuming every day. Adults are supposed to have under 7 teaspoons of sugar per day to maintain low levels of damage to our teeth, which sounds a lot but most people pass this amount at breakfast time eating what they think is ‘healthy’ cereals. I’m worried about Chunk’s teeth and also his health in general, because sugar is something the brain becomes addicted to and can add to weight gain as well as rotten teeth. I watched an amazing American documentary (Fed Up) which showed how the same part of the brain becomes stimulated when consuming sugar as it does when someone takes heroin or cocaine! Photo courtesy of Rolling Stones Online Magazine We are innately addicted to sugar, which apparently stems back to the cavemen era, so to maintain good health and energy, we need to keep the addiction at bay. I don’t want my boy to be overweight like me or to crave sugar whenever he is tired and head for the junk food. I want him to have a good knowledge of what is in foods so he can make healthy choices as an adult. I wish I knew all of this years ago and I would probably have been a lot healthier throughout my childhood. Jamie Oliver has created a petition to add a 7p tax to sugary food and drink which could then be given to the NHS to help with treating people with the effects of sugar and to also give some of the money to schools to better educate children on healthy living, so sign it if you agree! Tips to Reduce your Sugar Intake The best ways to reduce your sugar intake is to cook things from scratch as much as possible. This includes sauces for your pasta, lasagne and curries, because store-bought sauces can contain anything up to 20 teaspoons of sugar in them! Sweeteners are just as bad as sugar, and research has shown a link to cancer so avoid them where you can. If you need sugar in something, try to use natural sugars like fruits and agave syrup, but where possible even avoid these. Eat fruit or anything with sugar with your meal rather than as a snack to minimise the constant sugar hitting your teeth throughout the day. Drink water, milk and weak squashes rather than juice. Sugar Free Recipes So I’ve been looking at sugar free recipes to plan all of my meals and snacks for the next couple of weeks. I came across ITV’s Good Morning Britain’s recent Sugar Free Summer challenge. They have created meal plans which meant all I had to do was copy the recipes for the meals that I liked the look of and write a shopping list. I’m going to buy the ingredients this weekend and then post my progress during the next couple of weeks and I’m also going to post some of my favourite recipes including the sugar free biscuits I made with Chunk a couple of days ago! The hashtag #sugarfreefoods will be used whenever I post new recipes or photos on my social media so feel free to add things so I can try your recipes too! Follow me on Twitter, Pinterest or Facebook

The post My No (Added) Sugar Diet #sugarfreefoods first appeared on Single Parent Pessimist.

This Fortnight’s Single Parent Linky

Claire — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 06:30:00 +0000

Thank you so much to all of the lovely single parents who joined my very first #singleparentlinky two weeks ago, I am honoured and shocked at the amount of posts I got to read! As a single parent I love reading other single parent blogs as it can really help me see how other people cope in my situation and gives me so much inspiration! To make it easier to find all of these great blogs, I thought I would create a Single Parent Linky which runs fortnightly. It also means that if you enjoy reading my blog, you will get to find some other single parent bloggers and their great posts to enjoy too. All single parent bloggers can add up to 3 posts per fortnight about anything they want! In return, all you need to do is comment on at least two other people’s posts in the link-up. Just click on the little linky box below to add your links and away we go! Follow me on Twitter, Pinterest or Facebook

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My New Single Parent Linky!

Claire — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 08:33:00 +0000

As a single parent I love reading other single parent blogs as it can really help me see how other people cope in my situation and gives me so much inspiration! To make it easier to find all these blogs, I thought I would create a Single Parent Linky which will run fortnightly. It also means that if you enjoy reading my blog, you will get to find some other single parent bloggers and their great posts to enjoy too. All single parent bloggers can add as many posts as they want, about anything they want! In return, all you need to do is comment on at least two other people’s posts in the link-up. Just click on the little linky box below to add your links and away we go! Follow me on Twitter, Pinterest or Facebook

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