Some of the best new bloggers of 2013

It’s Easter so I’ve been crafting! Actually that’s a complete lie, because I am firmly of the “can’t craft, won’t craft” variety, much to my daughter’s disgust. Which is why I read posts from Margot Tries the Good Life only after bedtime, when she can’t see how someone else has managed to create real chocolate eggs! The lengths some people will go to is unfathomable to me, and very impressive – if you love to craft, and love chocolate even more, this is the post for you – let me know if you manage it!

I’ve become very engrossed in Abstract World of Lucas recently. She describes her family individually with such love that I was searching for the part about her – the ‘about me’ of Lucas. It turns out she didn’t have one, but when I asked on Twitter she obliged me! However, if you search her blog for a while, you get an incredible insight into the lovely and intelligent woman she is. This post about how she faces every day really says a lot about her. Go read, I think you’ll be hooked and clicking in no time.

Parenting could be viewed as a sequence of really difficult decisions, and none more so than the question of how much you share with the outside world about your family. One mother facing the prospect of sharing more than she’d like with her daughter’s school is Raisie Bay, who is agonising over whether to bring her daughter’s autism out into the open. In the long run it may help her child to achieve her potential, but she worries about the judgements of others. I’m sure she’d appreciate a read and a comment to help her think it through.

Blue Shadows is not your average parenting blog. Written very differently, every single post is gripping. I’ve picked this one about relationships and pressure to please simply because it struck a chord – but then most of them do. Very easy and quick to read, much less easy to leave unaffected, and very memorable – this is a new blog that will not fail to leave an impact on you.

Who does the chores in your house? Powered by Tea and Gossip has Man Flu, and whilst snuffling under the duvet she has been minded to consider the unstereotypical differences between herself and her husband. I can sympathise, seeing as I am the only person in our house capable of DIY – I wonder if there is a niche in the market for spouse-pooling, where we all just share our other halves out for their skills…?

At the end of the day parents – for all the dilemmas and frustration we face with our little ones – are the luckiest people in the world. As The Mummy Scripts points out, there is always a cuddle in it for us, and a cuddle can compensate for any hardship you care to mention!

I leave you with the welcome news that those killer-cake missiles called flapjacks have finally been banned from the playground. Apparently James Bond always had one in his smoking jacket just in case, but Izzie at The World According to Izzie thinks we are being too soft. After all, who needs a flapjack when every nursery class has a hammer and a saw available for play, right?

About Helen Wills

Helen Wills is a mum of 2 children in primary school and blogs at Actually Mummy on parenting issues, school, travel, and life according to the kids. Since starting her blog in 2011, Helen has won 2 national awards, and puts a lot of her success down to the amazing online community of bloggers at BritMums. As her children grow older, her writing is increasingly influenced by their opinions, and her blog reflects this drive to get the most out of family life. Helen works from home in copywriting and social media. She is on Twitter @actuallymummy.