Mother’s Day

A few tips to keep your little darlings safe

Mother’s Day – the one day in the year when Mum can relax and let everyone else do the work… but is it really?

For those of you with small children it can be a day you battle through, biting your tongue and trying not to interfere as your darling angels prepare breakfast, make cups of tea and sort out lunch. By tea time, the novelty has usually worn off and Mum is back in charge, refereeing fights and cleaning up the kitchen following the day when the children were “looking after you”.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I often did wish I could just have a nice peaceful lie in, go out for the day on my own, and sit with a trashy book in a remote tea shop sipping tea from a china cup and eating homemade cake (heaven!). Alternatively, sipping prosecco, somewhere hot, on my own. Sorry kids!

My children have mainly all flown the nest now, but for those who have yet to sample the delights of burnt toast, spilt tea and a kitchen that looks like Storm Emma stopped by, here are a few tips to keep your little darlings safe on your special day, thus avoiding a special Mother’s Day family outing to A&E.

Help everyone out by planning

I know it is supposed to be your day but really, save yourself some stress and help everyone out by planning. Ideally you want to avoid any use of sharp objects or hot liquids altogether.

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Let them know that you “absolutely love” gift bags. They are pretty, simple and avoid the need for scissors and Sellotape. Not using these items can also prevent being presented with missing fingers or one child with half a head of hair…

Breakfast

You could suggest strongly (don’t try to be subtle – it doesn’t work) what you really like for breakfast to ensure that the little darlings follow the trail of breadcrumbs away from unsupervised cordon bleu projects to something simple like cereal or chopped fruit with yoghurt. You will need to chop the fruit the day before and pop it in a plastic pot in the fridge to prevent the little angels becoming knife wielding fiends and pretending they are Darth Vader at 6am.

Let them know that you no longer like tea or coffee in a morning, instead what you like is a nice glass of juice, or milk – leave the juice and glass out on the worktop the night before to prevent your darlings from clambering on chairs and seeing how high they can jump from.

If you really want to be careful – put the juice in one of their Tommy Tippee cups the night before – although this could cause difficulty due to angels arguing over who Mum likes most because she wants to use their mug. This could be a trying start on the day and may lead to novelty wearing off before breakfast rather than teatime!

On the day

On the day carrying said breakfast to Mum in bed has additional challenges. At 6am. On a Sunday.

Ideally this should be supervised or done for them but speaking from experience, this is not always possible. Therefore, make it easy. Honestly going with the yoghurt and fruit (pre-chopped as above) is the best option. Plastic doesn’t smash into fifty million pieces and yoghurt has a lid so if they drop said items, it is a relatively small event that can easily be cleaned. These items also weigh very little.

Ideally you want to go out at lunchtime – no, not by yourself somewhere remote to guzzle prosecco – but somewhere you can all dine out as a family and show the world that you are #blessed. Someone else will cook and you won’t be left with washing up. However, you will need to book, in August the previous year – if you want any chance of going somewhere you want to be!

I know it seems that this is a lot of work, but it will reduce your stress levels and keep your little angels safe and sound so that you can do it all again next year.

Victoria Hughes

BSc(Hons.), DipNEBOSH, EnvDipNEBOSH, MCMI, CertIOSH