Teacher’s Gifts!

Do you or don’t you give Teacher’s Gifts?!?

 

I have only once felt that I wanted to give a teacher a gift as I thought she was outstanding and had really helped my daughter. So much so that I actually made her a Smallprint Keyring with ‘Best Teacher’ written by my, then 5 year old, daughter stamped into it. Other than that I don’t really feel compelled to give gifts, and think it is an expense that at this time of year we could do without. At the end of the day they are doing a job and it is not common practice to give gifts to someone for doing their job. However there does seem to be a growing trend of giving gifts at the end of the school year and on our playground there does seem to be an air of ‘keeping up with the Jones’!

 

The retail market have grabbed this opportunity with both hands and the shops now seem to be full of Thank you gifts for Teachers. But seriously, how many mugs, keyrings or teddy’s does a teacher want or need?!?! I wonder what they do with them all? I came under pressure from my children yesterday as people had already brought gifts in and so it had planted the seed that they should do it too! I was adamant that we were not going to go out and start buying gifts and I explained to them why. I suggested that if they really wanted to give the teacher something why didn’t they make something as it would be more personal. So we had a quick route through the cupboards and decided on homemade Honeycomb! I had never made it before, but it is a recipe that my daughter had earmarked in the cook book I got her at Christmas! I have to say, it was so quick easy and we had everything we need in the house! It looked great and tasted just like shop brought honeycomb!

The girls were brimming with pride as they left the house this morning carrying their little bags of homemade honeycomb to give to their teachers and I didn’t mind as it hadn’t really cost us anything to make! Turns out this was the perfect solution to the teacher gift giving debate! Plus now I have a recipe that I can do with the kids quickly and it would make the perfect gift to take to someones house when invited for dinner! Love it x

Seeing through the threat!

Yesterday I had to go through with a threat that has been the conclusion of a term long battle about……Hair! Yes hair, can you believe a six year old can argue with you everyday for a whole school term about her hair?!?!?

 

School has a very clear policy – if it’s longer than shoulder length it must be tied back. Simple! Wrong, it would seem not all teachers enforce this rule and in a class with a job share it seems that at the end of a long year anything goes. Don’t get me wrong I am not blaming the teachers, I take my hats off to them spending so many hours in a classroom of 30 five year olds. However, my daughter has fallen in love (to her it feels like love, to me it sounds like domination)! The apple of her eye is quite vocal about his likes and dislikes and having her flowing locks down is something he LIKES! This results in the 40 minute morning argument about putting hair up! Three weeks ago, on a particularly bad morning I threw out the threat…..’If you don’t tie it up for school I will cut it off!!!!!’ Nooooo came the cries, Charlie won’t love me anymore! So for the next few morning she went to school with her hair tied up. However, she never came home with it up! I spoke with both teachers who said they would try and encourage her to keep it up once she got to school, but it didn’t work.  The simple matter was that Charlie liked to twiddle with her hair during break so to keep him happy she takes it down.

Like any parent will know, threatening something in the heat of the moment is never wise! I am pretty good and like to be clear so once I had said it, I knew there was no going back. I gave her a couple of chances, but last week was the final straw. It is beyond me why she would want her hair down in such sweltering heat, but Charlie says, so Madi does! So this time it was a case of Mummy warned so Mummy is doing it! The hair dresser was booked and she took the news surprisingly well. Yesterday came round and Madi seemed almost happy with the idea of having her hair cut short. However, when our hairdresser arrived yesterday and Madi saw how short I asked her to cut it, the tears began to flow. A lump did form in my throat as she sat and sobbed ‘he won’t like me anymore’, but it had to be done. She gave me a look of pure hate and I felt so sad for her and sorry that I had made such a threat in the first place. With a little friendly distraction from the hairdresser, poor woman (she has cut Madi’s hair since she was a year so knows us pretty well) the hair cut was finished and Madi calmed down. Not sure what her reaction was going to be I took her to the mirror to have a look. Thankfully as she stared at herself a small smile started to grow across her face. She liked it! It isn’t drastic, just shoulder length. Personally I prefer it long, but it does look nice. When I got up this morning and she was excited about going to school to show off her new hair that she could now wear down without an argument I did wonder1 Who have I actually punished here, me or her? I’m the one who feels sad to have lost her lovely long hair that made her my little girl. Have I, in a round about way, given into her and let her get what she want’s – hair she can wear down!

Today’s lesson is definitely think the threats through before using them so you don’t end up punishing yourself!

 

 

Smallprint Introduces New & Exclusive range of Jewellery!

 

I haven’t posted anything recently, but I haven’t been far away. Life has been very hectic and thrown into turmoil by a very unexpected hospital stay for Noah earlier this year. Thankfully he is now fully recovered and we are back into a normal routine and pleased to say enjoying the sunshine!

One of the many projects that I have been working on are my samples for the new product launch for my franchise. Earlier this year Smallprint, the original silver keepsake company, launched a brand new addition to their Scribes collection – Initial tags and cufflinks!

You can now showcase the letters that represent YOU on Smallprint’s Initial discs and cufflinks. Exclusive to you in every way these gorgeous keepsakes are the perfect treat for yourself or someone you love. These are the perfect edition to our already beautiful collection of handcrafted, bespoke pieces, including pendants, charms, cufflinks and keyrings showcasing your child’s fingerprint, hand or footprint. I feel this exciting new addition to our Scribes collection offers customers something slightly different.

 

Don’t forget you can follow me on Facebook to keep up to date with all my Smallprint events and launches. I also post lots of information about local events and family activities. I love to chat so please pop over to my page and get involved!

Just a brief post today but hope to be back to regular blogging very soon xamily activities as well as the odd competition!