Parenting news archive

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Archived Newsletter	Quote of the Week
19 Nov 2009	moaningminniewhingesagain comes over all worshipful: "Our Mumsnet, who art in cyberspace, Hallowed be thy URL, Thy Dysons come, Thy will be done (unless we are slatterns), on earth as it is in Boden, Give us this day our daily Style and Beauty, And forgive us our unreasonableness, As we forgive those who give their children Fruit Shoots, And lead us not into Greggs, But deliver us from MN New, For thine is the product tests, and the recipes, Forever and ever [but may be removed after 90 days in Chat], Amen"
12 Nov 2009	WhatFreshBLOODIsThis spots the most optimistic Freecycle ad ever: "Wanted: world peace. Also large cardboard boxes for house move."
05 Nov 2009
29 Oct 2009	SolidGhoulBrass cautions passing posters of the sweaty-palmed persuasion: "You need to be aware that an MN thread which starts off about sex will often divert abruptly into a squabble about footwear or wallpaper and then someone might offer you a sausage roll. There will not be any erotic overtones to this offer."
22 Oct 2009	AitchTwoOh is intrigued to hear that Gordon Brown re-read his Mumsnet webchat over the weekend: "I have visions of Sarah reading it over his shoulder and going, 'See?!! This is what I have been TELLING YOU.'"
15 Oct 2009	fircone recoils at her health visitor's rumpy-revving tip: "She leaned conspiratorially towards me and said, 'Do you know how to make love? Properly? My hubby and I have a wonderful sex life. I feel it's due to our caravan.'"
08 Oct 2009	GetOrfMoiLand has a Good Housekeeping moment as she reminisces about watching Cagney and Lacey: "I was always shocked at the filthy state of the precinct toilets. Oh, how Mumsnet am I?"
01 Oct 2009	PuppyMonkey remembers how her dreams of a beautiful baby went up in soap smoke: "Phil Mitchell. That was my first thought. She improved with age..."
24 Sep 2009	pushmepullyou's eavesdropped classic: "Old couple on a park bench sharing an ice cream. Man: 'So, do you want to be buried or cremated then?' Lady: 'I don't know love, surprise me.'"
17 Sep 2009	JeremyVile on why mirrors just don't reflect one's true loveliness: "God yeah, I spend the entire time at the hairdresser's squinting and avoiding eye contact with myself. It's like being on a really shite date."
10 Sep 2009	RambleOn loses patience with Emma's Diary: "Her bloody pregnancy is sooooo far removed from mine. I hope in the next edition, she finds out at week seven that her lovely supportive Nick is shaggin' a 17-year-old in the back of their van."
03 Sep 2009	Sidge squirms at the news that prolific parent Michelle Duggar is pregnant with her 19th baby: "Flipping heck, her innards must be pâté."
06 Aug 2009	whoisasking has no truck with those who are searching for self-revelation: "My ex had terrible problems 'finding himself' until I pointed out to him that he was probably still at the pub."
30 Jul 2009	LadyGlencoraPalliser gets a lesson in manners-management from her 12-year-old: "The cat jumped up on the kitchen counter and started to eat a piece of ham. I removed the cat and put the ham in his bowl. Cue DD: 'Do you really think you should have done that? You're just rewarding him for his bad behaviour, you know.'"
23 Jul 2009	TheProfiteroleThief explains the cons of adding PhD to your name: "The downside is you will be expected to perform CPR if anyone has a heart attack."
16 Jul 2009	whomovedmychocolate explains why the female of the species should get this swine flu nonsense firmly in perspective: "Man flu is worse than swine flu as no woman will ever experience that sort of pain."
09 Jul 2009	HenryWinkler swaps Fonz cool for fnar-fnar double entendre in an aside he may well come to regret: "I've never done Graham Norton. He seems like a lot of fun."
02 Jul 2009	Bucharest on the potentially perilous pitfalls of pregnancy: "You get so used to grown men whose first names you don't know shuftying about up your nethers that you have to chant to yourself, like a mantra, in the dentist's waiting room, "Don't take your pants off, it's just teeth this time."
25 Jun 2009	HeliumBee bats away the self-loathing body dysmorphics: "I have body eu-morphia: I think I look like a babe and realise when I see pics that I am actually a right minger."
18 Jun 2009	norksinmywaistband takes talk about the food police a mite too literally: "A helicopter is hovering over my house. It's been there nearly ten minutes. Is this what happens if you let the children have two ice creams in one day?"
11 Jun 2009	othersideofthefence berates her husband for his surrealistic take on 'sorting the ironing backlog': "I was expecting to go upstairs and find it all done. Imagine my delight at finding... you had actually bought me an extra laundry basket, so (and I quote) 'you don't need to worry about the unironed clothes overflowing now'."
04 Jun 2009	SheherazadetheGoat wonders why so many parents feel the need to schedule 'fun' activities for their kids: "My dd is perfectly happy playing with her wooden hoop and practising her Slovakian folk-dancing in a nearby meadow. We don't have a TV and knit our own hair."
28 May 2009	BalloonSlayer on her toddler trolley-tethering technique: "When I had DS1 and DD in a double-seated trolley, DS1 went through a phase of hitting DD to pass the time. If I unbuttoned one cuff of his denim jacket and rebuttoned it around the handle I could effectively restrain his hitting arm. Mindful of his human rights and all that, I only did it to one arm, not both. So he managed to hit her with the other one, but it took the force out of his swing a bit."
21 May 2009	KingCanuteIAm spies the silver lining behind the black cloud of recent MN downtimes: "Luckily for me, you have managed to keep most of them inside school hours or after bedtime, so I have not had to do too much interacting with my family."
14 May 2009	Sycamoretree takes fright after innocently clicking on the Waldorf Steiner thread: "I feel like I've peered around a door expecting to see some teachers in cords sipping bad coffee and, instead, stumbled across some terrifying cult. It's like frickin' Rosemary's Baby in here!"
07 May 2009	MrsWobble on parents who take the fad for matching sibling names a touch too far: "I once worked with a girl whose boyfriend had two sisters who were both called Margaret. When she queried it, she was told that it wasn't a problem because they were named after different aunts."
30 Apr 2009	AustinPowers on why she won't be keeping her children off school because of swine flu: "At home 24 hours a day, they'd be in more danger of being murdered by me."
23 Apr 2009	OrmIrian muses about where she places herself on Mumsnet: "I suspect I belong to the 'Oh-FFS-does-it-really-matter' splinter group. MN is a broad church. Or is that a broads' church?"
16 Apr 2009	mollyroger's gnomic observation on a thread about the political correctness of letting kids wear clothes with skulls and crossbones on: "To err is human. To arrr is pirate."
2 Apr 2009	Policywonk after forgetting to put Gizmo's question about renewables to energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband at a G20 press conference: "I've let you down, I've let Mumsnet down, but most of all I've let myself down."
26 March 2009	LewisFanIsOnADiet predicted an influx of new members after her local radio made MN its Site of the Week. This prompted slayerette to prepare "The Reduced Mumsnet Company's production of Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Mumsnet But Were Afraid to Ask: Cod-she-who-must-not-be-named-frootshoots-Gregg's-sausage-rolls-the-bat-private-v-state-breast-v-bottle-leave-him-stay-with-him-sleep-with-him-don't-sleep-with-him-Moldies!"
19 March 2009	Wallace on her doomed attempts to stop putting things off: "I just saw that link to the article about procrastination and thought, 'That looks interesting - I'll read it later.'"
12 March 2009	Dittany on the Myersons going public about their son's drug problems: "This whole thing has almost turned into a national version of an AIBU thread. 'My 17-year-old son smoked too much dope, used to come home at all hours, was abusive to me and my husband and came to Sunday dinner in his underpants so we threw him out of the house and let him survive on his own. Now I've written a book about him to put my side of the story. Am I being unreasonable?.'"
5 March 2009	MayorQuimby on Cadbury's Dairy Milk going Fairtrade: "They better not feck with the taste regardless of who has to die and how much the planet has to suffer."
26 February 2009	Squeaver starts to wonder if they need to get out more: "Dh said to me this morning 'ooh it's the University Challenge final tonight' and I 'oohed' in reply."
19 February 2009	Equalities secretary and women's minister Harriet Harman responding to your posts about the effects of the credit crunch and what the govt should be doing: "We shouldn't make policy without a Mumsnet check first."
12 February 2009	From the MN Toddlers Guide: "Can we go home now, Mummy? I want to play with my penis."
5 February 2009	Guadalupe shares her mother's approach to ganglions: "My mum hit hers with a Bible and it went. She also tried the same thing with what she thought was one on her foot and couldn't walk for two weeks.""
29 January 2009	KayHarker on discovering that Saint Anne, mother of Mary, is the patron saint of women in labour, and miners: "Oh, I dunno, makes a weird kind of sense. In my third delivery, they did send a canary up to check for poisonous gas."
22 January 2009	notnowbernard on shopping trips to Ikea: "I always find it's a bit like childbirth. It starts off all exciting yet manageable. But by the checkout you're screaming for a caesarean. And you're walking to the carpark swearing 'NEVER again'. Only six months later..."
15 January 2009	PurePurple on her daughter trying to make sense of the world around her: "As a toddler, she fell over in the garden and shouted, 'Call Claims Direct!'".""
8 January 2009	RubyRioja wistfully remembers sex before her children were too small to get out of bed: "At one point, we could manage foreplay and a finale in the time it took the Fisher Price mobile to run down. Ah, those were the days.""
18 December 2008	NotanOtter described her attempt at domestic goddessery: "I have bought five boxes of tiny baubles and just put them in a large flatish serving bowl in the hall at toddler eye height...dreamy...I see the babies looking in it and just think 'I hope they remember that when they are big'."
11 December 2008	JingleBennysandJooniper was tickled by a letter home about the school's Christmas party: "Classes 7 and 8 will be having their Christmas party ... In order to avoid 'crisp overload' the children have chosen an item to bring in. Your child has chosen to bring Crisps."
4 December 2008	In a discussion about the 'advice' MNetters have been given by health visitors, Pinkjennybellrock reported: "I am famous in local health visitor circles for being mad neurotic. I rang last week because I could 'feel dd's heart beating through her chest'. Health visitor told me to ring back if I couldn't feel it."
27 November 2008	Custardo described what she's getting her husband for Crimbo: "Wedding ring. I told him today - after I noticed our recycling bin had been stolen because it wasn't brought in and our normal bin was full because it hadn't been taken out - that I am going to have it engraved with 'Don't forget bin day'. He said: 'Don't you f****** dare!'"
20 November 2008	sfxmum on her how her DP would respond if she texted to say 'I love you': "Mine would think I had been taken hostage and it was code, police would be at the door enquiring after my welfare."
13 November 2008	BoffinMum on the funniest comment said to you while breastfeeding: "My funniest one was my dad (an engineer) looking carefully at me expressing some milk with a battery pump, and then commenting, 'Well, that looks pretty inefficient to me. You got two outputs and only one input.' He had a point!"
6 November 2008	Dog castration. Yes or no? Twinsetandpearls said no, but had been through a 'sticky patch' with her springer spaniel: "He loved dd's toy horse which was about his size and if pressure was applied in the correct place it would neigh, which I think the dog took as a compliment. Sometimes I would be working upstairs and I could see people outside looking at our house in shock/ amusement. I would know the dog was at it again and, sure enough, that neigh would follow."
23 October 2008	Peachy has a different perspective on your hoodie-clad teenage trick or treater: "He's not a beggar, he's a very scary booooooy."
16 October 2008	UnquietDad on why he doesn't fancy himself as the material girl's DH number three: "Christ, imagine being married to Madonna. I mean, no amount of hot kinky sex or lashings of money can be worth that much high-maintenance freakery and rampant muscly neurotic gym-bunny ninja weirdness.""
9 October 2008	PortofinoPumpkin has some timely financial advice: "If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95, with HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50, £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5, but if you bought £1000 worth of canned beer one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214. So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and re-cycle."
2 October 2008	Lio asked if she was being unreasonable to want to use Bach's Goldberg Variations for pass the parcel at her five-year-old son's birthday party: "We would have to make the parcel 32 layers thick, which obv has environmental implications. Dh thinks the children would get bored. I say we use the Glenn Gould 1955 recording, which is very zippy."
25 September 2008	SmugColditz recalls her extreme PFB neuroses: "I rubbed neat Johnson's shampoo into my eyes to see if it really is tear free (it's not quite as painful as you would think)."
18 September 2008
11 September 2008
04 September 2008
28 August 2008	Quintessentialshadows on what not to say to your children when you're in the mountains teaching them survival skills: "OH MY GOD! THE MIDGETS ARE COMING! THEY ARE EVERYWHERE, AND THEY ARE GOING TO EAT US ALL UP!!!!"
31 July 2008
24 July 2008
10 July 2008
03 July 2008
26 June 2008
19 June 2008
12 June 2008
5 June 2008	CountessDracula retells a perfect example one of those things they come out with that make you cringe: "My father offering my niece a sandwich when she was 5 or 6; 'What are they?' 'Ham.' 'Oh no thanks I only like smoked salmon.' 'Really - where did you have that?' 'Claridges.'"
22 May 2008	By IorekByrnison discussing weird sex she never had, "I have never had sex in the back of a Ford Capri. Which is sad, as we do have a Capri. But now it's full of child seats and such like. It wouldn't seem right."
15 May 2008	By justabouthappy on the trials and tribulations on getting into the MN hall of fame: "I had a moment in the kitchen just now where I was putting a yoghurt-covered Tampax somewhere personal and I thought, now what I really need is for a child to wander into the kitchen and say something, then I could win quote of the week. But no. Toddlers, they're always at nursery when you need them."
8 May 2008	FrannyandZooey on her hatred of taking her children swimming: "I hate the smell, the noise, the OTHER PEOPLE and the awful moistness everywhere, it is like walking around inside a petri dish for an hour."
1 May 2008	Boco ponders reading ages... "Is it normal for your reading age to fall drastically in later life? Mine was quite high, I was pushing a reading age of 45 a few years ago, but now I really struggle around the 23 mark."
24 April 2008	By GrapefruitMoon reinforcing the importance of a strapless bra, "Can you imagine Grace Kelly with visible bra straps? Well then...."
17 April 2008	By MaloryTowers on the difficulties of sticking to the subject: "You know, you start a thread about vaginal discharge and within a few posts you find yourself recommending a reasonably-priced shed or telling all about the little hotel you stayed at in the Cotswolds."
10 April 2008	By Padboz on the effects of spending too much time on Mumsnet: "My sex life is suffering, my bladder capacity is significantly increased because I fail to take toilet breaks and I'm starting to lose interest in my personal appearance.... helpful supportive site for parents my arse".
03 April 2008	For Zippitippitoes it's all a question of getting the time and place right: "I quite like the idea that men are different in bed to how they are when you are visiting a National Trust property."
27 March 2008	Anorak commenting on the many tips and ideas posted on 'relaxed' parenting: "This is not idle parenting. It's energy efficient."
20 March 2008	Foxinsocks for her arch response to the Daily Mail's "shocking" revelation that 1387 registered sex offenders live within 20 miles of Shannon Mathews' home: "There are probably 5000 Daily Mail readers within 2 miles of me and they worry me far more."
13 March 2008	There's birth plans and then there's "Birth Plans"... So the salacious gossip that J-Lo spent what amounts to a lottery win for us mere mortals on her Hollywood production was bound not to go unnoticed on Talk... least of all by TheHonEnid: "<boggles at $1.4 million on the birth> What is she doing, having her episiotomy done in gold thread?"
28 February 2008	As some of you may have noticed, it's been a wee bit fraught on Talk recently. So our thanks must go to the magnificent PatrickMoore, for explaining why: "My dear Ladies, there was a total lunar eclipse just one week ago. You are all now suffering the fallout from that. Deep breaths till the cosmos resettles."
21 February 2008	WanderingTrolley effortlessly dismisses the notion that a psychic can tell you if you're pregnant: "Did you pee on her and she turned blue? No? Then she is not an accurate pregnancy predictor."
14 February 2008	Forget roses and chocolates, with her robust critique of Kylie's latest single, Bobbiewickham reveals what women of a certain age secretly desire ... "Has she realised she is pushing 40? Have you heard the new song? 'I'm into you, I'm into you, just the way that you dance.' Presuming the bloke in question is about her age... Get a grip, love. You know you just want him to take the bin out without a row."
07 February 2008	Califrau for her particularly illustrative description of her personal hell: "I would be walking a vomiting Rottweiler and followed by a bagpiper playing arrangements of popular tunes. The whole place would smell of hops and broccoli. I would be naked but for a pair of cripplingly high heels (or crocs)."
31 January 2008	Emoticons; We at MNHQ feel strongly that our small but perfectly formed selection covers all eventualities - although it has to be said that, with her response to the "What new emoticons would you like?" thread, Talulasmum might have hit on a gap in the market... "[computer club hour at broadmoor]"
24 January 2008	More proof that MN makes life better for all: Rusty Bear on the best bit of MN advice she's ever received, "Humphrey Cushion told me very early on that it was a mother's duty to eat the last piece of chocolate cake. It's not greed, it's tidying."
17 January 2008	Kids floundering with a ludicrously difficult homework challenge? Wondering just how much you can help them before it's classed as cheating? Blu has the answer: "Homework is now defined as something that a child sitting alone can accomplish as long as his Mum and 11,000 Mumsnetters with a variety of professional experience in everything from astro-physics to Sanskrit poetry are on hand to help as they get the tea on."
10 January 2008	House sellers take note: the smell of baking bread has been soiled forevermore, and it's all Swedes2Turnips' fault: "Panini sounds like a pet name a family might have for a vagina. So a crostini might be a post-menopausal panini?"
20 December 2007	And talking of 'age appropriate toys', Humiliated (so not her real name, but it's Christmas so we won't divulge it...) on the alternative must-have toy for 2007 (and why she's asking Santa for a wall safe)... "DS has his friend for tea to enable his mum to complete Xmas shopping. I have just found them playing Ben 10 and using my vibrator as a ray gun. They were playing so nicely upstairs I left them to it."
13 December 2007	Sticks and stones and all that... SueBaRoomForAMincePie on why some people are oblivious to criticism: "It's because testosterone has magical properties which deflect any judgement particles floating about. So even if we were to think that Keith Allen, was, say, a feckless twat, it would simply drop to the ground a few metres away from him. Like those bullets in The Matrix."
06 December 2007	Swedes2Turnips1, for possibly the greatest putdown since Anne Widdecombe's "Something of the night about him"... "His face is suggestive of a love of Riverdance."
29 November 2007	Policywonk for her concerned observation that, having been locked in the shed for 364 days, an eight-hour pass to this weekend's Mumsnet Christmas party might prove too much for dear Tech... (Memo to selves: don't forget to tag him.) "It might be time to get Tech an underpaid work-experience assistant or something before he collapses from exhaustion in the manner of Lindsay Lohan."
22 November 2007	Talktothe bees, for her life coaching skills re' safely combining Mumsnet addiction with the outside world: "Write this down on a piece of paper and look at it every three to four hours: Have I fed the baby? Have I changed the baby? Can I remember where I put the baby?"
15 November 2007	And we wonder why today's kids aren't getting enough exercise ... QuintessentialShadow in 'cannibalism at the leisure centre terror': "I took my son to the swimming pool. There was an old lady sitting in a Jacuzzi. He looked in horror then he shouted, "Mummy, look, they are BOILING old ladies here".
08 November 2007	Fleacircus logs an early vote for the 2008 Man Booker Prize... "Highly recommend Eskimo folk tales - there's one in which the heroine is admired for her great strength but also for having 'a clitoris so large a whole wolf skin wouldn't cover it'. In others the women have a habit of turning their vaginas into kayaks so they can pop out hunting."
01 November 2007	IntergalacticWarlock on discovering that, at the click of a button, she could change our "new look" Talk Board back to how it used to be... "Aaah, that's better. For a moment, MN was like a pair of towering 76348 inch spike heels with thin straps that give you corns. Now it is like my old comfy slippers again."
25 October 2007	Piggy in a muddle (memo to selves: keep this woman away from our Mumsnet Review section)..."I thought a quinny zapp was hair removal on your lady garden."
11 October 2007	Welliemum on why small kids need daily walks ..."In my opinion, toddlers are just labradors with less fur. We have a labrador too - and some days you'd be hard pressed to tell them apart."
04 October 2007	Katsma on what really gets her goat "...TV ads for sanitary towels that show them soaking up blue water from a test tube ffs. If I wanted to soak up blue water I'd buy a mop."
28 September 2007	Tiredemma's husband, for his mistaken belief that his journey to work this week would take longer than usual... (We're thinking geography/politics may not be strong points?) "...something is going on in Birmingham. Some monks are protesting and the army and police are out with tear gas, most roads will be closed I bet and it will be a nightmare for me. Where have the monks come from anyway?"
20 September 2007	Pyjamagirl with some sound advice ... "Do not go on Mumsnet whilst running a bath, then, 20 minutes later, wonder why your hallway ceiling is raining."
19 July 2007	Pirategirl hits on an alternative to pelvic cones for inner work-outs: "I never tried those cones, but often think of having a go. Maybe I could try those stacking cups my daughter used to have."
12 July 2007	Scampynoodle muses on the effects of early pregnancy, and how something so tiny can make you feel so foul: "While I'm chuffed that I'm pregnant I'm also wildly frustrated that I seem to have turned into Thora Hird (before and after her trip up the heavenly stairlift)."
04 July 2007	ANCHOVY ponders the ponce-rating and potential dangers of her daughter’s ballet class. “…apparently Miss Pip (who sounds like a luvvie ponce), in response to current environmental conditions, asked them to dance round like a swirling flood. According to DD, another child wet the floor. And the others danced in it. That's a dire warning of what can happen when you over-ponce yourself.”
28 June 2007	This week's honour goes to Boco for her depiction of School Fetes. "Spend £27 on guessing weight of cakes and number of smarties in jars and magic squares and raffles and guess name of ugly teddy and bouncy castes. Win nothing. Come home with dd2 with a black eye from being bounced on by a herd of year six boys on the bouncy castle, dd1 with an assortment of very small plastic tat, and a tin of marrowfat processed peas won on the tombola and all of us with early onset hypothermia and trench foot."
21 June 2007	Bishybarneybee reveals her secret to hassle-free gardening: “Buy a packet of wild flower seeds so you have an overgrown meadow type affair and then you will get loads of butterflies in your garden and you can pretend you are supporting wildlife whereas actual fact is you loathe gardening (which is in fact housework outdoors)”
07 June 2007	whomovedmychocolate reckons her family have rumbled her Mumsnet addiction "My MiL kept asking why I was snorting last week while ostensibly reading email. I admitted I was 'on mumsnet' and she asked if that was a pill for PND!!!!"
31 May 2007	Booboobedoo explains why she won’t leave the house without make up: “It's in case you bump into Johnny Depp at the Co-op. He will beg you to sleep with him, and you will refuse with a pitying smile, explaining that you are married, and you wouldn't want to hurt Vanessa. If you weren't wearing make-up he would just pay for his Toblerone and go.”
24 May 2007	SaintGeorge takes a break from fighting dragons to tell us why her children are called kids. “Kids are baby goats. Goats butt. My children 'but but but' a lot. Ergo my children are kids.”
17 May 2007	A car-bound Marina bemoans the incessant chatter of inquisitive offspring: “It was like having a metal bucket over your head and two people hitting it with sticks.”
10 May 2007	Morningpaper is delighted to hear that Mumsnet has reached a settlement of their dispute with Gina Ford but doesn’t quite trust herself not to put her foot in it again: “Yay! Glad that a resolution has been met. I may continue to impose my own personal ban though, to avoid incurring any further costs”
03 May 2007	OliveOil quickly dismisses Ellen McArthur in a discussion about role models “Anyone who sails round the world is mad imo…or avoiding the ironing.”
26 April 2007	Martianbishop sighs with exasperation at the youth of today : "I mentioned Beethoven in a lesson not that long ago. My sixth form thought I was talking about the large dog in the films."
19 April 2007	Spidermama is firm about footwear faux-pas: "I agree about crocs. It's like Dutch national costume but with a panto edge."
29 March 2007	Megglevache uncovers her husband's inner hippy, but somehow remains calm... "He was so stressed last night that he listened to my hypnobirthing cd. He told me this morning that he had fallen asleep safe in the knowledge that he had a beautiful ripe cervix and wonderful uterus. I didn't know whether to hit him or laugh, I opted for the latter."
22 March 2007	Annabel Karmel she ain't, Califrau goes a tad Hannibal Lecter on us... , "I amputated and served up the very, very, tip of my little finger. I was chopping frankfurters for a sauce and there was no way I could find the end of my pinkie - I figured none of them were vegetarians anyway..."
15 March 2007	SoupDragon on what constitutes a valid alternative... "Infant formula is a valid alternative to breastfeeding. It's not an equivalent replacement, it's not better but it is an adequate alternative. Just like Mumsnetting is a valid alternative activity to singing Row Row the Boat with your 13 month old baby. It's not as good but it's still an alternative."
08 March 2007	Tinkerbellhadpiles takes a pro-active approach in persuading a gaggle of disapproving grannies that breast is best... "...could you PLEASE stop rolling your eyes and close your mouths, you look like a trio of guppies!"
01 March 2007	Fortyplus unwittingly provides the answer to that age-old question, "Why can't men have babies?": "Pregnancy might not be an illness, but if you had half the symptoms and you weren't pregnant you'd think you were dying, wouldn't you?"
22 February 2007	NotQuiteCockney explains how to get the most from your homeopath… "Surely the trick with homeopathy is to see the homeopath for only a tiny amount of time, but shake a lot while you do it. Maybe go by on a pogo stick, and wave through the window?"
15 February 2007	Wickedwaterwitch reminisces on winning gold in the Neurotic New Mum World Championships... "We had ONE small stair in our hallway... and a stairgate on it."
08 February 2007	VioletBaudelaire muses on what form a Mumsnet "Badlands" would take: "...a VERY big soft play centre, with obligatory fruit shoots every half an hour... sort of 'drive-by fruit shootings'."
02 February 2007	Kookaburra comes up with the perfect excuse for all life's ills: "Our teacher had a quiet word with me when our five year old cheerfully and innocently asked in class, 'Who spilt the f**** water?'. I was mortified and said he must have heard it on the lyrics of a James Blunt CD."
25 January 2007	gemmiegoatlegs ponders whether nowt's safe from style's prying eye: "...does fanjo plumpness go in and out of fashion, like skirt lengths and childbirth theories?! I would be so upset if my husband measured mine (visually of course, not with his B&Q tape measure)."
11 January 2007	This is our first newsletter since receiving the tragic news of the death of Mumsnet member, ggglimpopo's two-year-old daughter, Maude. Our hearts go out to GGG and her family at this horrible time. With this in mind, this week’s quote is dedicated to Maude and is from the Mumsnetter who knew her best, her mum: "She was a bright shooting star that made all the other stars that she knew during her journey shine."
21 December 2006	MyTwoChocolateCoinsWorth reacts to the Mumsnet redesign... "I don't deal well with change. I had a nervous breakdown when they moved the pickle and sauces isle in Tesco. They found me curled up in the freezer hitting myself with the jumbo sausages, singing 'She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes'. This will kill me."
14 December 2006	A confused Fridascruffs on the 'size does matter' debate... "I couldn't find it... and was preparing not to show disappointment etc. when I suddenly realised that I'd mistaken it for his leg."
07 December 2006	JackieNoHoHo identifies a new sub-species, alive and well and living on the Wirral... "I believe the phenomenon is known as 'BOBFOC', i.e. Body Off Baywatch, Face Off Crimewatch."
30 November 2006	Sockmonkey on Soapbox's Christmas appeal: "To those who have given: Helping others is like wetting your pants, people can see what you have done, but only you get the warm feeling. I hope you all feel like you have wet your pants." We couldn't have put it better ourselves.
23 November 2006	Cappuccino offers sound, albeit somewhat terminal, advice to a fellow Mumsnetter seeking to dispel the smell of her five (count 'em, five) pet rats..."Ring the environmental health. You can't do much about rats with a Glade plug-in."
16 November 2006	God forbid that we be accused of favouritism, but Morningpaper (yes, her again)by way of reassurance to another (rather naughty) member worried she’d consumed her daughter’s hamster: "Hamsters don't DISSOLVE, you are getting them confused with Aspirin."
09 November 2006	harpsichordsgoingBANGandWHOOSH inadvertently casts doubts on whether or not THAT Iceland ad's production team extended to a stylist... "I know she's pregnant and all, but dear God...she looked like a sofa at a party that someone had thrown all the coats onto."
02 November 2006	Meowmix casts her vote for plastic dinosaurs in the 'most painful thing you can tread on' MN survey: "It's like evolutionary revenge... 'Oh ho strike us out with a meteor strike would you? We'll be back but this time we'll be small, spiky and plastic and just by the side of your bed...'."
19 October 2006	Motherinferior gets us all in a Christmassy mood : "If you're buying for your lovely adult friends, buy them the same thing each. That way you can dispose of them all with one click of a button. Rather like being President Bush."
12 October 2006	Tamum gives an insight into Mumsnet philosophy on surviving the "smart dinner party/nothing to wear" dilemma: "Just go with the norks/personality combo and you'll be fine."
05 October 2006	Oliveoil on virtual motherhood's superiority complex: "I think I am a far better judge as to whether your dd could go to school, peering at my screen and tutting, than a real life mother who knows her child."
28 September 2006	Hindsight is a dangerous thing... Blu mulls over how best to avoid circus-induced injuries: "DO NOT volunteer at the point where they ask for 'someone over 18 to sit on a horse'. "
21 September 2006	MrsBadger gets all John Le Carre on us (and somewhat surreal, if we're honest) re' how Mumsnet members might identify one another: "The long-eared bat flies in the night..." "...but the fish finds it difficult to type." "A picnic of sausage rolls is nothing without stolen grapes..." "...but no picnic is complete without a tablecloth."
07 September 2006
31 August 2006	Satine . If Mumsnet were really a bar... "...the bar staff would be fantastic at fielding calls from partners and children demanding to know when we're coming home. "Just hang on a minute...no, you can turn the TV on by yourself....you can't be that hungry, just wait a moment..."
03 August 2006	thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat: "I managed 25 years of life without knowing who Pele was. I managed 36 years without knowing a dodge was a kind of american car. dh managed 25 years without realising that the name The Beatles was a play on the word beat. How do educated well-read people manage stuff like this?"
06 July 2006	Moondog gets all judgmental re' the over-zealous use of UV sun tents. "Get a grip. It's Scunthorpe, not the bloody Gobi desert."
29 June 2006	UCM on putting embarrassing revelations into perspective "... then I thought, it's not as if I gave my tortoise a blowjob or anything."
22 June 2006	Moondog makes her feelings on the providers of poor packed lunches known... "I want to take said cheese strings and garotte the parents."
20 June 2006	SherlockLGJ on the unexpected free gift that comes with motherhood... "...once you deliver the placenta, they insert the guilt."
08 June 2006	Cappucino on her desire for a new emoticon... "to sum up that feeling of surprise, helplessness and terrible satisfaction felt when watching a piece of fuzzy felt going up the hoover"
25 May 2006
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9 February 2006

Mumsnet Talk

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