Are your Macleans... - Giveaway

Hey, you know the Macleans jingle, right? Well I'm changing it. It will no longer be "Are your Macleans showing?" it will be known from this day forth as "Are your Macleans Glowing?". Sounds good, right? I'm be calling them today to let them know. I'm sure they'll be thrilled and offer me a bajillion dollars.

So, right, *ahem* on with the blog post:

I brush Tricky's teeth every day - have done since he got the first one and now he's got six. I'm slightly obsessed.

I'm obsessed because when I was two years old I had not one, but two tooth abscesses. They were caused by being given a bottle with (I think) a bit of cordial in it to go to sleep with and my teeth not being brushed properly. My parents were stressed out (having one of your daughters with a fatal heart condition can kinda do that) but I've got no doubt they did the best they could at the time.

What do they do to a two year old abscesses on her two front teeth? They yank 'em out. From age two until my adult teeth came through, it was gap central in my gob. And while it's not the best thing to happen, lemme just say, I rocked that look:

Naww, it's little Glow! You know you want to click to look closer!

So the moral of the story is: BRUSH YOUR KIDS' TEETH!

But what will you brush them with? Oh how 'bout all this Macleans stuff? Score!

The awesome people at Macleans, you know, the ones who brought the inspirational Kristin from Wanderlust all the way from Kansas to Sydney, are continuing on with their generosity and have given me a massive prize pack to give away to one lucky Where's My Glow? reader so that your teeth will Glow and you can sing my version of the jingle.

This massive prize pack contains:

• 2 Macleans Iso-active toothpastes (I've been using this type, it's nice and minty!)
• 2 Macleans Flex toothbrushes
• 2 Macleans Junior Jaws toothpastes
• 1 Junior Jaws toothbrush
• 2 600ml Ribena Blackcurrant Syrup + Ribena recipe cards
• 1 Pronamel Gentle Whitening toothpaste
• 1 Pronamel toothbrush

To win all you have to do is be a follower of Where's My Glow? and leave a comment below telling me what makes you show your Glowing Macleans smile? (My answer would be: seeing how freakin' cute I was as a kid hehehe). You can also Tweet "My Macleans are Glowing thanks to @Glowless http://bit.ly/h7rY6K " for another entry, but make sure you come back here and leave a comment so I know you've done it!

Then head on over to the brand new Macleans Mums Facebook page and check it out for all the tips and tricks on keeping your Macleans Glowing and for your chance to win 1 of 8 iPads!


TAC: Entry is open to Australian residents only. The draw closes at 8pm AWST on Thursday 14th of April. The winner will be chosen using a random number generator. The winner will be announced on the Where's My Glow? Facebook page and contacted via email - so make sure you enter using a valid email address. The winner has one week to respond before a redraw. The winner's name and address will be provided to Macleans for the purposes of delivery of the prize. The prize is provided by Macleans and is non transferable. 

Have you voted yet? Click the icon then click Like or Tweet

 

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Glowless rocked the Aussie Bloggers Conference thanks to

HealthyChart and Baby Goes Retro and Simply Colors

He Did What!? Wednesday - My Life In Mono

Not So Common Sense - Guest post by My Life In Mono

My Husband, M is off for 10 days and I thought I would catch up with some girlfriends without the Lil Tiger. So today I caught up with a bunch of girlfriends for coffee.

Before leaving the house, I expressed a bottle of breast milk for him to feed the Lil' Tiger if she gets hungry while I was out. I wrote down instructions on how to heat it up:

1. Boil water
2. Pour hot water in a cup
3. Put bottle in water for 2 minutes or until milk is warm

So off I went for 2 hours with my girlfriends. When I got home, I asked M if everything was ok and did the Lil' Tiger need the bottle and he said yes and all was good. Then I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water, I saw the stock pot out filled with water and the empty baby bottle on the side. Curious, I asked M why the stock pot is out.

"I used it to heat up the bottle," he said.

"What do you mean you used it to heat up the bottle?" I asked

"Well you said boil water and put the bottle in the hot water until the milk is warm" he continued.

"Ermm....I assumed that you would boil a kettle of water and pour it into a cup and put the bottle in there. Not boil a put of water and stick the bottle in there. I showed you once before and how did you manage to fish it out?" I said nearly burst out laughing.

"I used the barbecue thongs. No wonder instruction no 2 didn't make any sense at that time".

At this point, I was laughing. I guess it made sense to him to boil water in a stock pot because I have been sterilising the Lil' Tiger's bottle in boiling water in a stock pot.

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The delightful Miss Feli is a legal secretary by day and blogger by night. She has been blogging at My Life In Mono since 2004!

She juggles full time work, blogging and her obsession with Twitter and Facebook at the same time as being a mama to the adorable Lil Tiger (naww, isn't she scrumptious!!!).

When she gets a minute to herself she dabbles in sewing, crafting and crochet and this year aims to find the meaning of Life, Love and Laughter all whilst balancing a baby on her hip.

Next Week: BMI-Don't Care reminds us that patience is a virtue

Send your S/He Did What!? submission to Glowless@wheresmyglow.com 
No one has sent me a She Did What yet and I'll feel awful after ranting on about sexism yesterday if I can't show both sides... 

Have you voted yet? Click the icon then click Like or Tweet

 

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Glowless rocked the Aussie Bloggers Conference thanks to

HealthyChart and Baby Goes Retro and Simply Colors

Sex(ism) Sells

There are some things in life I just don't understand; leggings as pants, the offside rule* and double standards.

Walking through my local shopping centre the other day I saw an ad for the latest Dr Lewinns's skincare range. I was disappointed and a little bit offended that something so sexist was allowed to go to print. Take a look:

Really? Simple and uncomplicated. Gee, thanks.

Yes I do realize they're probably trying to be funny or sarcastic but I think they've missed the mark.

Can't we have advertising that doesn't play to female stereotypes? If it's not gigantic boobs and legs that go all the way up it's dimwits and morons. Why do we put up with this?

It's a slap in the face to Feminists everywhere. Yes, I'm a Feminist. It's the other F word. Like Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler said, I believe that "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people".

But look a little closer...

This is the real ad I saw. It says men, not women (I know, I know, my photo editing skills are awesome, I'm expecting the graphic design job offers to come pouring in now).

If the ad genuinely said women were 'simple' there would have been women getting their knickers in a knot, and rightly so. But saying men are simple? Well that's just hunky dory because sexism doesn't count for men, right? Just like you can only be ageist if you're young and racist if you're white. Whatever.

If women don't like being called simple, why would men?

If the only way we can feel better about ourselves as women is by ridiculing men then we still have a lot to learn.

Do you think there a sexism double standard in advertising?

Have you voted yet? Click the icon then click Like or Tweet

 

*Please don't leave an explanation of the offside rule as a comment, I do actually understand the offside rule, I just don't understand the offside rule.

EDIT: I realize I do the He Did What!? Wednesday guest posts but if you look back at the original post, they're not about man-bashing. They're about venting on a partner. Men and women are welcome to submit about their male or female partners - as yet, only women have submitted a post about their male partners. 
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Glowless rocked the Aussie Bloggers Conference thanks to

HealthyChart and Baby Goes Retro and Simply Colors

Letter to Tricky - Ten months old

Dear Tricky,

This month you have figured out how to stand all by yourself. I thought it was still a few weeks away only to turn around and find you standing up in the middle of the lounge room. You won't do it when your Dad or I are next to you, only if we're on the other side of the room. This makes it kinda hard to capture on video to show your grandparents!

You will walk when we hold one of your hands but you're not ready to do it by yourself just yet. I can see you thinking about it; you look down, you look at where you want to go and then wriggle your leg... then you get a bit unsteady and sit down. It's won't be so scary for much longer, little one, you'll get there.

For almost a month now you've been responding really well to your Auslan signs. When we sign milk you crawl over at lightening speed to me and start pulling at my top - sometimes you'll do the sign yourself too which makes me so happy! The other sign you recognize, not surprisingly, is food; you shoot off to your highchair and try to climb in, complaining loudly if we're not quick enough to start shoveling the veges in.

You've got the hang of 'Mum' 'Dad' and 'Bub' but last week after a breastfeed I plonked you on your Dad's lap and rushed off before I could hear you say 'Milk milk' to your Dad. He got very excited and shouted out "Tricky just said 'Milk milk' I can't believe it!". He was so proud and I was a little sad I'd missed it. But then that night when we scooped you up out of the bath and handed you your duck to chew on while we dressed you, you said "Duck". Daddy and I looked at each other in shock, two new words in one day! But you haven't said them again since that first time... maybe the duck got your tongue?

This month you also went on a plane! You were an absolute star and batted your lashes at some of the flight crew, making them swoon all over you and bring you toys. Even though you won't remember it, you had a great little holiday and had lots of fun spending so much time with Daddy.

We're still visiting your Perth Pop every day and you have him wrapped around your tiny little finger - if he could, he would give you the world. It makes me so happy to see you enjoying each others' company, laughing and playing, even swimming together.

Another month of discoveries awaits you, my beautiful boy; can't wait to see what they are.

Love Mama xxx

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Glowless rocked the Aussie Bloggers Conference thanks to

HealthyChart and Baby Goes Retro and Simply Colors

Tricky Travels

I always planned to do a post about traveling with Tricky but I wanted to wait til all the fuss had died down a bit so that everyone wasn't so completely overwhelmed with conference posts that they'd just roll their eyes and click away; so here 'tis.

I was really worried about the flights because children and confined spaces don't really mix. Particularly confined spaces with pressure changes that happen to be hurtling through the air at 800km/h with no way to get off.

At the airport the people around us physically tensed on seeing a baby waiting for the same flight as them. For a moment there I became a mind reader; one look at a person and I could instantly hear their thoughts, as if by magic; "That kid better not be anywhere near me" and "That kid better not cry". It was a warm and welcoming reception of furrowed brows and pursed lips. I felt like telling them to piss off, at least they didn't have to hold the squirmy child for 5 hours.

But I needn't have worried. Tricks slept through take off, woke up for some breakky, had a play, then went back to sleep as we landed in Sydney. I was amazed. He then went straight to Sydney time unlike me who felt those three hours soooo much in the morning.

I was pretty impressed when I got to the hotel and there was a massive stack of goodies from Rock-A-Bye Baby Equipment Hire waiting for us!

The pram was a Quinny Zapp pram and it was brand new! It's really light weight, pretty easy to unfold and designed for travel - it's the smallest buggy when folded (and fits in it's own carry bag that is smaller than a tennis bag). It wouldn't suit an infant because it doesn't recline, but Tricky is old enough now that he doesn't need that. It came with a plastic cover which was heavily used - Map Guy and I walked around all day on Sunday, enjoying the strange wet stuff that fell from the sky - it's been a while since I've seen anything like that, but I think it might have been rain.

The Valco Traveler Portacot and Bubba Blue linen pack were Map Guy's domain - he's put together a portacot before and had much trouble, but this time he read the instructions and whaddayaknow, he got it, first time! Bravo, Map Guy!

By far the best thing though was the exersaucer. When you're staying in a room that isn't baby-proof, having somewhere you can put your kid while you go to the loo is really important and something that I hadn't thought of until we got there. I had just been thinking that it would be great to keep him entertained (which it was) but it served a much higher purpose and I was glad we got it. Pretty sure Tricks would have happily spent hours in the thing and I'm seriously considering buying one for home now that I know he likes it.

Checking out of the hotel we needed one of the concierge trolleys for our 2 suitcases, laptop, baby bag, pram in a bag, portacot in a bag and exersaucer. Kelley from Magneto Bold Too who was checking out at the same time did a double take and again I was blessed with the ability to read minds; "Fuck you guys brought a lotta shit!" (c'mon, it's MB2, you know she swore when she thought it!) so I got to do the whole "Oh nahhhh we didn't bring all this" sponsor plug.

Tricky fell asleep soon in to the plane ride home and the rest of the flight was uneventful unless you count the aborted landing and having to fly around for another ten minutes before we could try again. I'm not a very nervous flyer but almost touching down only for the engines to rev and the plane to jolt upwards kinda made me wish I'd worn brown pants.

So the first flying holiday with Tricky was a massive success mainly due to not having to take care of him for much of it (thanks Map Guy) or having to lug massive amounts of supplies over (thanks Rock-A-Bye Baby Equipment Hire)!

How do you go traveling with kids? Do you hire prams and the like or do you lug it all over with you?

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Glowless rocked the Aussie Bloggers Conference thanks to

HealthyChart and Baby Goes Retro and Simply Colors