My H is getting older, taller and more independent with each passing month. One of the biggest differences, from even just a year ago, is how much he is eating now that he is growing fast. He eats much more than I do and needs regular snacks, as well as three good meals a day, to keep pace with his ever-stretching body. This inevitably means he is often eating at different times to me and is starting to help himself to food from the fridge or the cupboard. So I do try to make sure there are plenty of healthy choices easily available and whilst he does have a bit of a sweet tooth, he does pick out plenty of nourishing foods to eat too.
We always have milk in the fridge ready to drink: it’s there for cups of tea or mugs of hot chocolate, topping a breakfast bowl of cereal, or even just on its own as a glass of milk. Dairy is an important food group and we make sure that we include it each day in what we eat. Dairy is the one of highest sources of calcium and is important for growing children to support the growth and maintenance of normal bones and teeth. That’s why we have teamed up with Arla Goodness. Arla Goodness is a new milk from Arla Foods. It provides 50% of an adult’s daily calcium requirement in just one 250ml glass and contains 1% fat (which is less than semi-skimmed), but 30% more protein than semi-skimmed milk. It’s an easy way to make sure you and your family keep yourselves topped up with much-needed nutrients like calcium as you go about your busy lives.
Arla Goodness suggested we try a fun night in as a family and we were more than willing to give it a go. They sent us a kit of items to get us started and we had a lot of fun with them. To begin with we decided to get arty by decorating our hot chocolate mugs. H was keen to try out a couple of artistic ideas on the mugs. He began art classes at school last year, so he started off by using the Arla Goodness bottle for a still life subject. Then we moved onto a happy cheerful mug which seemed to sum up the mood of the evening with a happy smiley-faced sun.
For our night in we treated ourselves to hot chocolate with marshmallows, made with Arla Goodness milk of course, and yummy homemade popcorn (so easy to make in the machine, plus healthy too as it’s salt and sugar free).
Obviously a night in needs to have some entertainment and we settled for a game or two of H’s favourite board game: Skull. It’s an easy to pick up game, which can become very strategic and competitive, and I love the colourful cards that you play with.
Arla Goodness is available at selected Tesco and Sainsbury’s stores.
Disclosure: This post is in association with Arla Goodness.
Young Driver asked us earlier in the year if we’d like to work with them again and I jumped at the chance of H doing a short course of lessons. He’d enjoyed it so much the first time, so I was a bit surprised that he was a bit nervous about going again. A bit of digging revealed that he thought he’d forgotten all he’d learnt and he thought he’d have to start all over again. He was pleasantly surprised to find that wasn’t the case at all. Yes, it took him a few minutes to remind himself of what he needed to do, but it didn’t take long at all. In fact, the lesson wasn’t just about recapping what he’d done before, he was able to move onto new things too. Each time he has a lesson his record book gets updated and this helps him track his progress. I think it’s great to have a written record of what he’s covered and his competence levels. It’s also a confidence booster because he can see how he’s progressed and what he’s learned.
H’s first two lessons had been at the Merry Hill course, which is one of Young Driver’s smaller centres. We went there initially because it was our closest and most convenient centre. The course is laid out on an empty car park and it’s great for mastering the basics. We also went there for the first of our course of three lessons, but it was suggested to us by the instructor that he was ready to try out a bigger centre. H wasn’t so sure, but he gave it a go. As it turned out he really enjoyed driving around the proper road system at the Three Counties Showground in Malvern where he went for the next two lessons. We both really liked going to Malvern. For H there was the chance to drive on a clearly defined road system with plenty of room to practice manoeuvres and to build his skills in conditions as close to being on the roads as is possible for a 12-year-old. There’s a hut with some basic refreshments available and seating, as well as toilet facilities, so there’s somewhere for parents to sit rather than just their cars. Luckily on the two occasions that we went, the weather was kind and I was able to sit outside on one of the many benches and read my book or look at the wonderful views of the Malvern Hills.
They are available in three colourways: black, plum and urban grey. I opted for the black ones as I had a black ankle boot shaped gap in my wardrobe. Ankle boots are great for the in-between seasons of the year and these have fun faux snake panels with matt suede for the main boot. They have an adjustable side zip and lace closure, that fully opens for easy foot entry so if you have trouble getting your feet into shoes these might be the ones for you. I found though, that I could just use the zip to open and close the boots, which means that these are really easy to pull on and go. To do the laces up so they don’t come undone, I decided to find a knot that would stay done up, but that I could easily undo if ever I needed to. I’d recently read about an knot in an excellent book I read called The Sixteen Trees of the Somme.
