EmmaCC

We're looking for someone to look after our two children aged 8 and 10 after school 3 or 4 afternoons a week starting in September, Mondays- Thursdays. For the last two years we have had a great student who did the job around her studies which worked really well. Our children are at Kilmorie Primary School, Forest hill and we live 5 mins walk from the school. We need someone responsible and caring to collect the children from school at 3.30, walk home with them, prepare a simple meal and supervise their homework. Some nights they have activities which they will need taking to and/or collecting from. Our children are full of energy and lots of fun so the role would suit someone active who would enjoy taking them to the park and their various sporting activities. We get home around 6.30/7pm. Please do get in touch if you're interested. Thanks, Emma

We're looking for someone to look after our two children aged 8 and 10 after school 2 or 3 afternoons a week starting immediately - Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. For the last year we have had a great student who did the job around her studies which worked really well. Our children are at Kilmorie Primary School, Forest hill and we live 5 mins walk form the school. We need someone responsible and caring to collect the children from school at 3.30, walk home with them, prepare a simple dinner and supervise their homework. Some nights they have activities which they will need taking to and/or collecting from. Our children are full of energy and lots of fun so the role would suit someone active who would enjoy taking them to the park and their various sporting activities. We get home around 6.30/7pm. We're happy to consider someone who is only available short-term (but at least until the start of the school summer holidays) or someone who would like to stay with us into the next academic year Please do get in touch if you're interested. Thanks, Emma

We're looking for someone to look after our two children aged 7 and 10 after school 3 or 4 afternoons a week starting in September. We can be flexible on days. For the last year we have had a great student who did the job around her studies which worked really well. Our children are at Kilmorie Primary School, Forest hill and we live 5 mins walk from the school. We need someone responsible and caring to collect the children from school at 4.30 (Mondays) and 3.30 (Tuesday to Thursday), walk them home, give them dinner and supervise their homework. Some nights they have activities which they will need taking to and/or collecting from. Our children are full of energy and lots of fun so the role would suit someone active who would enjoy taking them to the park and their various sporting activities. We get home around 6.30/7pm. We can increase the hours for the right person by adding in some additional hours of light household chores if that works for you. Ideally we need someone who can stay with us until at least July next year. Please do get in touch if you're interested. Thanks, Emma

We're looking for someone to look after our two children aged 7 and 10 after school 3 or 4 afternoons a week starting in September. We can be flexible on days. For the last year we have had a great student who did the job around her studies which worked really well. Our children are at Kilmorie Primary School, Forest hill and we live 5 mins walk form the school. We need someone responsible and caring to collect the children from school at 4.30 (Mondays) and 3.30 (Tuesday to Thursday), walk them home, give them dinner and supervise their homework. Some nights they have activities which they will need taking to and/or collecting from. Our children are full of energy and lots of fun so the role would suit someone active who would enjoy taking them to the park and their various sporting activities. We get home around 7pm. We can increase the hours for the right person by adding in some additional hours of light household chores if that works for you. Ideally we need someone who can stay with us until at least July next year. Please do get in touch if you're interested. Thanks, Emma

We're looking for someone to look after our two children aged 6 and 9 after school 3 days a week starting asap. We can be flexible on days. For the last year we have had a great student who did the job around her studies which worked really well. Our children are at Kilmorie Primary School, Forest hill and we live 5 mins walk form the school. We need someone responsible and caring to collect the children from school at 3.30, walk them home, give them dinner and supervise their homework. Some nights they have activities which they will need taking to and/or collecting from. Our children are full of energy and lots of fun so the role would suit someone active who would enjoy taking them to the park and their various sporting activities. We get home around 7pm. We can increase the hours for the right person by adding in some additional hours of light household chores if that works for you. Ideally we need someone who can stay with us until at least July next year. Please do get in touch if you're interested. Thanks, Emma

Annabel is fantastic. She's been an invaluable support to me in helping me in the never ending dilemma of balancing a demanding career with family life. She absolutely understands the competing demands on working parents and by listening, encorouging and advising where needed she somehow enabled me to find solutions I wouldn't have considered without her professional guidance. Would highly recommend.

I can highly recommend Annabel - www.acexecutivecoaching.com. She's a career/executive coach and is brilliant! She lives locally, is extremely professional but friendly and full of fantastic ideas...many of which I'd never have thought to explore without her help. She's a mum of two young children too so she completely gets the work/life conundrum.Her email address is [email protected]. Good luck! Emma

Hi, I'm looking for a handyman/ woman who could come to our house in forest hill and fit 5 x John Lewis blinds. The blinds need cutting down to the right size (which is supposedly straight forwards) but having spent hours and hours trying to fit one ourselves last year, we really need someone a bit better at this sort of thing to help out. Please contact me on 07872 927325 if you can help or email me if you recommend anyone. Thanks

Yes, great idea Ed

Have PM'd you as we have a Spanish au pair arriving in August Emma

We also have a Spanish au pair arriving the last week in August. Can anyone reommend any local language classes? Or if anyone has an au pair who might want to meet up with her then please let me know! Thanks

Ole- agree entirely...I work 4 days a week but in reality feel like I'm working 5- was told by my boss that my target remains the same as when I was working 5- not sure of the rationale behind that?! Just had chart sent round work showibg that over the last 6 months I recorded more chargeable hours than my colleagues who are contracted for 5 days a week- feel like asking for my salary to go back up to what I was earning when I was full time!! Funny how I still feel that I should be grateful for being 'allowed' to come in late and work late or do an early day so I can actually take my children to nursery! Can we have it all? Yes we can but its bloody tiring, emotionally and physically draining and (after paying nursery fees) not financially rewarding! Sorry slightly off topic...!

I went with my 2 year old and 4 year old on Thursday and it was a bit cooler than they're used to (usually go to Beckenham spa) but they loved it and spent over an hour in there- no wet suits but a small baby might be better in one...

Oh dear... I'm now beginning to think it's a bad idea!!

We have just (2 days ago) put our two year old son and four year old daughter into bunk beds for similar reasons to you - though we do have a spare room, it's nice to keep that for the grandparent's visits and I actually really like that they share a room - they seem to enjoy it too. Anyway, 4 year old is on the top bunk - we got Ikea ones as they were nice, but fairly cheap and most importantly I didn't think the top bunk was too high for my daughter. Interestingly the instructions do say the top bunk is for 6 years plus but my daughter gets up and down the ladder very easily! There are also quite high wooden bars along the side of the top bunk so there is no way she could fall out. Anyway, she absolutely loves it on the top bunk so no problems with her. The two year old has been a bit more tricky - only done 2 nights so far - first night was fine, didn't try to get out or wake up at all in the night but last night he got up 4 or 5 times just as I'd put them to bed. I suppose it's to be expected as he's always been in a cot and probably can't believe his luck that he can get out of his bed himself! Have to say that last night the sight of him appearing at the bottom of the stairs (in his sleeping bag having sat on his bum all the way down) did make me laugh though I've a feeling that I'll tire of it pretty soon if he carries on. On the plus side he's slept through the last two nights and we were going through a period of him waking up so I'm hoping he likes his bed so much it might also help this problem.. that might be wishful thinking but I'm hoping he feels less "trapped" and therefore won't wake up screaming to "get out!"... who knows but I'm keeping my fingers crossed... One thing to look out for when buying the bed is to check whether the bottom bed has any kind of bar/ wooden bit round the side to stop the younger one falling out. Have to say that I didn't really think of this and it was only once we assmebled it that we thought this could be a problem as he could easily roll out having been used to just rolling up to the cot bars. We have wedged a soft chair next to the end he sleeps at as a temporary measure but I know other people who have bought bars that you can attach... I'm sure there must be bunks out there that have some kind of build in side like the top one does...

Just wanting a bit of advice from mums or dads who have been through this already - my daughter starts school in September - hopefully at one within walking distance of our house in Forest Hill. My 2 year old son is currently in a nursery - which we have to drive to. I am thinking about trying to move him to a nursery really close to home and v close to my daughter's school. The only issue being that the hours at the new nursery are term time 9-4. Drop offs are fine as my husband and I can sort between us but we are likely to need someone two nights a week to collect my daughter from school at 3,30 and then my son from nursery afterwards so probably 3.30-6.30. Is it realistic that I will find someone willing to just do 2 evenings a week and only for a few hours each evening? We can offer babysitting in the evenings and more hours in the school holidays (daren't even think about how we're going to cover all of those at the moment!).. I know it's a bit of a random question but would love to hear anyones view - the alternative is that I leave my son where he is and my daughter can go in the after school club BUT I would much rather drop them both off locally and don't see the point in paying for my son to be in nursery 52 weeks a year when I'll need to arrange care for my daughter during the school holidays anyway.....Thanks in advance!

I have lots of boys and girls clothes 0-3 years which I would like to give away to charity. I thought I remembered seeing details of a women's refuge on here? Any other recommendations? It's all good stuff and would like someone who really needs it to benefit... Thanks

I had major mum rage in goose geeen playground a few weeks ago. I was in there with my husband and 2 kids - my eldest daughter was on the swings with her dad and I was chasing my son, who is 17 months, round the playground. He spotted a football being kicked about by a group of boys/teenagers and ran over to try to play.. one of then kicked the ball away from him, hard against the wall, clearly annoyed that my son had tried to go near his ball. This really, really annoyed me for some reason so I went over to them, picked my son up and "playfully" tackled the ball off one of the boys... probably a stupid thing to do but I didn't expect the reaction I got from one of his friends which was "Why don't you punch her in the head...!". I'm afraid that at this comment I just completely lost it and said that "if any of you lay a finger on me I will punch every one of you!" and used some choice swear words to tell them what I thought of them and that they were too bloody old to be in the playground anyway...they didn't say another word... husband thought I'd overreacted which of course I had, and also thought it was silly of me to challenge them "in case one of them had a knife" but I just couldn't help myself .. I can blame the lack of sleep or lots of things but I think I just lost it for a moment and felt very protective of my son. It did completely spoil what should have been a lovely afternoon in the playground and I spent the rest of the day feeling like an idiot.., especially as I know lots of parents would have heard me shouting at them but wou;dn't have known what they said to me to provoke the reaction! Lesson learnt - don't try to be clever and pretend to be any good at football!

A small point but please don't be put off getting legal advice or using the panel firm because of what you've read about associate solicitors- I'm a solicitor working in a completely different field but have just been made an associate 10 years post qualification- my job title previously was 'senior solicitor' - different firms use different terminology but usually the most junior solicitors are 'assistant solicitors'. If you can get sone advice free then you really should do this- even a chat over the phone with a solicitor should provide you with some ammunition to use with your employers... I really don't understand anyone who posts on here defending the employer- what happened to solidarity?! It makes me so angry how difficult it is for 'middle income earners' to return to work cos of childcare costs- it seems that if you earn v little then you're encorouged with tax credits and if you earn loads then the childcare costs don't impact but for a lot of people in the middle there seems little incentive to go back. I know things have improved but they need to improve more so that women aren't faced with the dilemma of going back to work for no financial gain! Anyway, rant over- I really, really hope you sort this out- good luck!x

Sounds great- a weekday evening would suit me- from 8...

My husband insisted I try to tip the driver when we got our first Waitrose order- the driver refused to accept it - he was adamant that he would be in trouble if he did! Have recently started Internet shopping - used Waitrose and Saibsburys. Personally prefer Sainsburys as more choice-we actually found that Waitrose were worse for giving us veg etc near it's use by date. Most imprtantly I found sainsburys much cheaper. They were 10 mins late last week but today got my ?10 off voucher so will forgive them this time!

Loved the book- the tv series is just as good!

Just bought some great leggings from Topshop. Cheap and have washed really well so far. They probably do a few types there but the ones I've got are a really thick material with a wide waistband which really holds everything in- useful post babies... I know some topshop stuff seems to be made for 16 year old skinny girls but honestly I don't fall into that catagory and they're v flattering!

I know it's not strictly speaking a "family room" issue but wondered if anyone can recommend someone local - maybe even a mum who does this kind of work in the evenings. We're looking for someone to come to our house in the evening once the kids are in bed and do a full review of our finances, savings, mortgage, pensions etc... would be great to get a recommendation... thanks

Just to add another view- when I went back 4 days a week my daughte was 14 months. We had a brilliant Childminder who did the full 4 days and my daughter loved going there. However, when she reached 20 months we decided we should split the time and she should do 2 days at her Childminder and 2 days at nursery. I was convinced we needed to get her 'in' at a nursery or we'd miss out on a nursery place later down the line once we needed her to go. I have to say that with hindsight it was a mistake- all children are different of course but we have now realised that what my daughter really needed was consistency of care. She never settled properly at the nursery and I felt that this was cos she didn't know where she would be going each day even though we did explain to her each morning. My view is that whichever care you choose personally I would stick to the same one all week. I've just gone back to work after my second and my 3 year old and 9 month old have both gone to the same nursery 3 days a week and daddy/granparents are doing the 4th...think this is slightly different to sharing between nursery and a nannyshare but I'm a little nervous about how this will work as for logistical reasons the day with family falls in a Tuesday thereby splitting the week at nursery up- I really think 3 days in a row at the same place is better for them! However, life is not perfect, we all try to find the best childcare for our kids but in the end we can only do our best and if you're like me and all other working parents you will still feel guilty about some things! I honestly believe that as long as children get love and attention at home and that overall you are happy with the childcare in place then your child will be fine!! Good luck with everything...x