Mummy Method: Wrap Christmas up for next year

Why yes please!

Hello, it's me again with some tips on how to make next Christmas a bit easier on your wallet/purse and also on your schedule. A bit early to be thinking of next year? Hells to the no! Now is the best time to start! All card shops are trying desperately to shift stock without losing profit by just throwing them out- Christmas cards, wrapping paper, decorations.. anything Christmas themed, snap it up now.

A card shop near me (local though, not like Birthdays or anything) was having a huge sale where it was 10 rolls of wrapping paper for £1. Remember a week ago it was about £1 for one roll? Make the most of the stock clearing, over buy so you're well stocked for next year and possibly the year after.

Mummy Method: Cutting down on expenses, wthout cutting anything out

Meneki Hello-neko. Helping aid you in good fortune!

  It's Christmas, things have been very very tight moneywise and I can say with great pride that I know how to help save a wee bit of money.  Nappies are a must and apart from food, the most often purchased item for your wee one, (unless you use non-disposables which is a whole other matter.... ^^;;;), here's what I've been doing the past few months to help ease the pinch.

Mummy Reviews: Waybaloo

Waybuloo is a pre-school British and Canadian children's television series originally created by Dan Good and Absolutely Cuckoo. It was commissioned by Michael Carrington at the BBC, and first aired on CBeebies in May 2009. The 100-episode show is filmed by he Foundation in Glasgow (Scotland) and animated and directed by Gallus Entertainment for Decode Entertainment. Post production, including audio, sound design & editing is done by Platform Post Production. in Toronto (Canada). Line produced by Matt Porter and the series producer is Simon Spencer, part of the independent company, RDF Media's subsidiary The Foundation. The program makers describe it as "...a philosophy for a happy life, and is like nothing children will have ever seen before".
Waybuloo is set in the land of Nara. The main characters are the four Piplings, 3D CGI animated creatures with large heads and eyes, placed on a filmed background, with the second half of each twenty-minute show featuring human children ("cheebies").

 

 Any parent, babysitter, unemployed person or student will know as a fact that kids tv is repetitive, stupid and annoying (at the best of times). You have the drama of the Tweenies (Bella's being a bitch again..) the stupid talking of the Tellitubbies (and they're meant to learn what from Henry the hoover?!) and dear god forbid those ones full of grown ups talking like they have a something wrong with them.


Reluctantly, a few months ago, I sat little one down infront of CBeebies. I had a lot of work to do but couldn't carry her from room to room. So there she sat in her big old media centre (safe as houses) and flipped through channels. And I saw this lovely chilled out piece of entertainment. Little squishy, cute things with round eyes floating about talking in soft voices, giggling.

Her eyes went wide and she started to "oooh oooh oooh" in excitement and she watched quietly and happily as I did the old white tornado around the house. There was no sudden "let's dance music", no repitition, no drama and no repitition =P

It soon became that I would sit and watch it with her. My favourite is De Li, typical eh? Me liking the cat ^~^ . The way these wee guys speak is simplistic, good for teaching children early language skills. Basic grammar is good "De Li sing!" instead of "Del Li wants to sing".

Basically I'm aesthetically, aurally and educationally surprised and amazed by this tv show, I've never felt so happy about one since Lazy Town! I can't wait till she's old enough to tell me her favourite and do some yogo with me.

"Knock knock, open wide, see what's on the other side

Knock knock, any more, come with me through the Magic Door"
Ah this reminds me of childhood. Sitting in the kitchen watching RTE.

For those who don't know of the adorable Bosco, here's an official telling of Bosco's story from the Official website:

"Bosco was born in Donnybrook, Dublin 4, in 1978.

Bosco actually started out as an educational programme involving the puppet and two teachers. This in the words of Bosco producer and director Michael Monaghan “did not work”. With a bit of help from puppeteer Paula Lambert, the format changed to Entertainment and Bosco set off on the path to fame and ehm, what probably should have been fortune!

There were 386 Bosco programmes made in total, all of which were broadcast on RTE2 (and Network2) many, many times (the “Faulty Towers effect” that’s why you always thought there were more!). In later years, Bosco was the programme before ‘Dempsey’s Den’ and Bosco and Ian struck up a firm friendship.

Of course, Bosco had many friends during the television hay-days. There was Marian, Frank, Mary, Grainne, Liam, Peter and Bosco’s best friend Philip, who sadly passed away in 1987 and is still very much missed. There were also the hangers on and groupies; Gregory Graineog, the Spuds, the Plonsters, the Tongue Twisters. Ah yes when you’re on the box, everyone wants to be your friend.

In 1983 Bosco recorded his first 12″ LP – Bosco Sings. It did really well and had Bono worried!

But in 1987 Bosco went the way of many RTE greats, Miley, Carrie Crowley, Derek Davis, and lost his show. Not to be defeated, he shacked up with 2FM jock Barry Lang and his sidekick Majella Nolan to present Action Station Saturday on Saturday mornings. That lasted 3 seasons and you might remember Bosco had the challenging job of trying to remember the name of every child in Ireland who had been sick that week.
After season 3, things went bad for Bosco again. This was a dark time and our hero ventured out ‘ar an tiles’ a little more then recommended at that time. Luckily, the Gaiety Theatre was one of his regular haunts and Bosco developed a keen interest in theatre, realising it had so much more to offer then the 2 dimensional existence on TV (its true, just ask Carrie Crowley!).

And so Bosco took to the stage – playing the length and breadth of the country. Initially Frank Toomey joined him on the road but he went back to RTE to work on Bull Island. Maria McDermottroe (Glenroe, Killinaskully currently Gaiety panto) stepped into Frank’s shoes and then Conor Lambert.

Bosco’s new found love of live performance lead him, unfortunately, to the UCD Fresher’s Ball. Bosco kindly agreed to make a special guest performance at a student’s union event, naïve to the fact that it was a trap. After his performance, Bosco was accosted and bundled into a waiting van.

His bumbling captors dragged him across the globe, in ruthless pursuit of 5 minutes of fame, sending photos to the press every so often; Bosco at the Sydney Opera House, Bosco at the Golden Gate Bridge…

Although Bosco was in fear of his life, he soon realised his captors were, well, as Winnie the Pooh would say, “bears of very little brain” and he made his escape. The perpetrators were never brought to justice, but still, all these years later, Bosco gets letters from girls, who say the boys hang around in nightclubs using “I kidnapped Bosco” as a pathetic chat-up line.

Anyway, after a period of recovery, Bosco decided to pick himself up, dust himself off and go back to showbiz. Though a lot of people seem to think he retired years ago, we know that’s totally unrealistic with a mortgage to pay…the box and the magic door, these things don’t pay for themselves."

As you may have gathered, Bosco is an Irish childrens' tv show that was shown on RTE, which both Northerners and Southerners can get.



A nice bit o' nostalgia there. Can't say I remember it overtly, but I've definately watched it on manys an occassion when I was about 4-ish. There was a recent petition to bring Bosco back, and there's a tv show on RTE soon that I guess will be documenting the life and times of the oul thing ^^