Working Parents Round-up: Celebrate good times; come on!

This week I have mostly been celebrating!

I know, makes a change from the usual tail chasing and chaos that surrounds me.

It was my daughters birthday, which was full of pineapple, princesses and pink icing. She is seven now. And I am so proud of the way she is growing up. Proud and scared all at the same time. Before you know it, she’ll have a boyfriend and will want to move out…

We also celebrated because I have been voted into the Top 100 UK business mums; and I am so pleased I may possibly burst. However, I shan’t, as I really don’t want poor Britmums to have to clear up the mess.

Because of this, I thought it would be nice to have a theme, for this week, of celebration, whether its celebrating success, an award, a new start, or just the beginning of autumn. I am conscious that guilt features a lot in working parents lives, so lets have a ban on that for this week at least!

To start us off, we have Chez Mummy; who had a rather fabulous idea which I wish I had thought of and now because she did I may very well never speak to her again… I know that you will all find this extremely helpful. She has launched a new website, Working Parents United. Its a one stop shop for all the questions, and answers that we all have, but were too busy changing nappies, dealing with teen angst or just too dam tired to ask. So well done to her too.

It was actually World Book Week as well this month. And Littlesheep Learning decided to celebrate this with a little bit of help from Middle sheep. He wrote a lovely little bio of the marvellous Julia Donaldson of Gruffalo fame. Utterly scrumptiously cute. When I was a kid, books were always with me; but there was something else too. I was a child of the 80s, so somewhere there was always a Rubik’s cube. And being able to complete it was always cause for celebration. Bizzy Mum‘s post about her Tech Boy and his ability to do it had me watching the screen open mouthed. Last month, he celebrated being 50th in the country at it; managing to do it in a 20 second record time. Quite frankly, I have to go sit down now.

Now if you are celebrating, you have a carnival, right? So for those of you that don’t know about the Business Mums Blog Carnival that BusinessPlusBaby organises every month, here is the September one from Baby Budgeting. It is always worth popping a post to them, as it can help traffic to your blog and your business. Not to mention that there are some great reads in there too.

Celebrating you and your business is important; and we mustn’t forget that. Its critical to our success; as Birds on the Blog said; if you are the one that “feels” the sexiest, you are gonna be the one that gets the guy (or the gal). And the same follows for your business, if you ooze confidence in it; you’ll have customers knocking you down to get a piece of you and it! When your business changes for the better, or your job, that’s a reason for celebration too. The Life and Times of the Working Mum is looking forward to her new flexible working times; she’ll be able to see her little Leo more. Good luck with it all.

One sure thing that isn’t going to make me look sexy is running. So Cranky Monkey’s half marathon success wasn’t really something that’s ever gonna feature on the KiddyCharts blog – but well done to her. She was looking fab with her medal; whereas I would probably be on the floor immediately afterwards, and in no fit state for a photograph…

It wasn’t just my daughter who had a birthday in the last month – there was a birthday at Dorothy & Theodore too; and they did a great job of remembering that it’s important to include other siblings in birthday celebrations too. Something that we were conscious of this week. However, its harder to involve a boy when everything he sees is pink, and he hates pink. I hope your eldest doesn’t adopt this attitude as your baby girl gets a bit bigger!

Chocolate – lets celebrate that. I am all for that; so thanks Best of Two Sisters for your utterly delicious post about Sister’s favourite chocolate chip cookies. And I couldn’t agree more.

This month sadly sees the end of the summer, and as my frozen toes clearly show; people’s heating is most definitely having to come on – though I am still in denial. So I am sat here in a rather unflattering cardigan writing this….

However, there have been some beautiful Silent Sunday’s celebrating autumn, not least because we had such a rubbish summer. So here’s to getting wellies on in the autumn rain and splashing in puddles, rivers and whatever else takes our fancy! Thanks Coombe Mill for the inspiration.

Finally, I am afraid that this has little to do with basking in glory, its all to do with wee…but you can’t have a round-up about parents without a bit of wee in it, so thanks mother.wife.me for finishing things off and celebrating the true meaning of working parenthood. Being happy to clear up after your kids, no matter what, and still managing to start to work (well I hope you did).

About Helen Neale

Helen is the editor of the working parents round up, a freelance writer and owner of personalised children's chart business, KiddyCharts. She was a business analyst, and then a tweed-skirted school librarian as she tried to find work that fitted in with the demands of motherhood. Mummy's Little Stars is where you will find her sometimes funny musings about life as a working parent, and mum to some over exuberant small people. She has only been blogging since January 2012, so go gentle with her; she might break. You can find Helen on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn; where she probably hangs out a bit too much.