Five Minute News

So I can finally tell you all what I have been working on for quite some time now. A Five Minute Mum book - GIVE ME FIVE - I mean, not literally, that’s just what is is called!

I have gathered up all the ideas that are on the blog and lots of new ones and popped them all into a recipe style, simple to read, easy to grab and play, actual book.

I am so excited and thrilled to finally be able to tell you and feel incredibly lucky that I have been able to work with such a brilliant team at Penguin (yes, I know, WOAH!) to turn the five minute stuff I do into real-life bound pages.

To be honest, I am asked almost daily on my messages if I will please write a book, because lots of us, me included, prefer to have something in our hands we can flick through. We are all sick of our phones aren’t we, and sometimes it’s lovely to just put them down and go a bit old school.

So that’s what I’m doing. It is in the process of being edited. I wrote the majority of it over the summer holidays - and I can tell you, the juggling act was quite something. Here’s me typing frantically in a noisy soft play on a rainy Thursday at the end of the school holidays. I mean, christ I always knew working parents were amazing but trying to balance it all gave me whole new levels of appreciation. My brain basically turned into one of the slushy blue drinks they sell in those places that makes the kids wide eyed and bounce tirelessly off the foam padded walls. I am so glad my games are only five minutes as that truly was the limit of my attention span most days!

But with lots of help from some wonderful friends (Hannah, Michaela, Elaine, THANK YOU), my fantastic family of course (Mum, Dad, Kenny, Willie love you all!), and the incredible #LetterOfTheDayTakeover gang, I managed to type out all the ideas that have been buzzing around my head for months onto my trusty laptop and …here it is. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0241443628 A link where you can pre-order my book with over 150 five minute ideas for kids aged 1-5. I’ve not sorted the cover quite yet, this is a temporary one (there is a fantastic design team working on it! yay!) The final one will be revealed shortly. The book itself will come out in February, so perhaps pop a cheeky order in now and surprise yourself for when you might need it most. It’ll hopefully land on your doorstep smack bang in the middle of winter, when we’re all out of ideas and cash post-Christmas!

Don’t worry, the blog isn’t going anywhere, but I very much hope the book will be a kind of realistic recipe book for guilt free parenting. When you’re stuck, you grab it to flick through, folding down the pages of games that your little one’s might like. I hope it’s left on coffee tables to read together, or used as a coaster because you’ve managed to grab a cuppa while the wee ones are playing a game from it. I hope it flops open on the page of the idea your kiddies enjoy the most, and is pulled out time and time again when you need an easy win, or have five minutes to spare. I hope it gives you five. I hope it means your kids give you five and most of all, I hope it makes the daunting toddler and pre-school years feel doable.

Whether you have followed me from the beginning or have only just hopped on board, thank you so much for reading my blog, and most importantly playing my games. I am truly so grateful to you all, and if you do buy it I hope you and your little people enjoy the book as much as me, Ewan and Florence have loved making it.