#ItsOK Bloggers Linky – Week 34

Hello and welcome to Week 34 of the #ItsOK Bloggers Linky!

How has your week been?

I’m STILL on the half days ‘settling’ in period of the four year old’s new school. 2.5 weeks of half days! Talk about dragging it out. Mind you, he is actually knackered and a bit emotional so I guess the school know what they’re doing. The twins are staying out of his way – by hiding in the wardrobe to watch the Kindle!

I’ve had a bit of a strange week and to be honest I could do with your help on a couple of things. Last Thursday I was shortlisted as a finalist in the Britmums Brilliance in Blogging Awards 2019. You may know that last year I won the Fresh Voice category (not that I go on about it ALL the time or anything), but this year I’m in the Readers’ Choice category which is a little bit scary. Zero chance of winning, but so chuffed to be nominated. Plus I love the fact that #ItsOK regulars Josie from Me, Them and the Others plus Jennie from GinGin & Roo are up for Fresh Voice. Good luck!

If you fancy being a lovely person and voting for me, you can do so here in this post. Thank you so much!

So that was the good news. The opposite to that is in another post I wrote –

This is about the 11 year old son of two of my bestest friends, Oliver. He has a rare form of blood cancer – so rare it affects only four in one million people worldwide. Over the last three years since being diagnosed, he’s had two stem cell transplants, countless biopsies and hideous chemotherapy, has been in isolation for seven weeks (twice) and had two 5.5 month stints in Bristol Children’s Hospital – which is 2.5 hours away from his home in Plymouth.

His parents have been told there’s nothing more that can be done for him, and everyone, obviously is absolutely heartbroken. Doctors said he only had weeks to live, and that was four months ago, so he’s battling it hard. My husband, and my friend (Oliver’s dad) are cycling from Land’s End to Bristol Children’s Hospital this week over four days to raise money for the Wallace and Gromit Grand Appeal. It’s a charity that supports the hospital in buying vital equipment, and funding play and art therapy, that kind of thing. It helped Oliver no end when he was there.

You can read about his story here in this post, and if you’d like to donate, I would be so grateful. They’ve raised a whopping £12,000 already.

Anyway, let’s get down to it. Thanks for joining us again at the #ItsOk Bloggers Linky if you’re one of our regular bloggers. If any of you are newbies – welcome, and if you have no idea what you’re doing, you’re in good company with me. Especially after the whole summer off. I’ve totally forgotten to even write, let alone run a linky.

We’re looking forward to reading your posts, but remember to keep them on-topic. Real life parenting stuff only please. No reviews, no crafts, no non-parenting waffle!

#ItsOK Linky! 

My lovely co-hosts are parent bloggers Kate from The Mum Conundrum, Carly from Mom of Two Little Girls, Nicole from Tales from Mamaville, and Jacqui from One Messy Mama. Although Kate is currently taking some time off but will be back soon. Woop woop!

Nicole hosted the linky last week and has chosen Team Stein post Back to Routine and Feeling a Little Lost Well done, Charlotte! You can grab your featured blogger badge here:

Hey, ‘It’s okay!’

If you’re a first timer to the linky, find out all about it here. We’re basically saying it’s okay to not be okay sometimes – particularly when it comes to parenting. Just do what you need to do to get through the day – and if that means cracking open the wine during the kids’ teatime at 5pm, then so be it!

THE RULES

We’re all pretty relaxed here at #ItsOK, but for the linky to work we have a few rules:

1.) You can add ONE of your posts to the link-up – any post you like, as long as it’s on a REAL LIFE PARENTING THEME and you haven’t posted it on the #ItsOK linky before.  But as parent bloggers, I’m guessing that’s pretty simple.

2.) Before you add your post to the link-up, make sure you pop the linky badge, using the html below, on your post. It’s not as scary as it looks, honest. Even I managed to do it!

3.) Make sure to comment on the host’s post, the post before yours, and one of your choice. We’ve noticed a lot of people aren’t doing this, and that’s pretty crappy.

4.) The linky will run every Wednesday morning at 7am until Thursday evening at 11.55pm.

Share the #ItsOk linky love

5.) Tweet us (@twinstantrums @MamavilleTales, @momof2lgs and @onemessymama4) with the URL to your post. Make sure you include the hashtag #ItsOK so that we know you’re one of those lovely parent bloggers types and tweet us your linky post, and not just telling us about your random day… Remember this step – if you don’t tweet us, it’s tricky for us to share.

6.) Carly is hosting this week so will comment on all your posts, and they will be retweeted and shared on Facebook. If your post is featured as one of our favourites then you are very welcome to display our lovely ‘#ItsOK Featured Blogger’ badge on your sidebar.

7.) Come and join our lovely Facebook group, and we’ll share your posts on there, as well as on the #ItsOK Facebook page – pop over to like and follow us where we’ll share the best parent blogger posts from each week’s linky too.

8.) Are you on Pinterest? Come on over and follow our #ItsOK board, we’ll share your posts and you can plunder all the super-useful/funny/interesting reads and finds we amass too.

PARENT BLOGGERS KEEPING IT REAL

The #ItsOK linky is all about celebrating real-life parenting. Please link up with posts on this theme ONLY. We’re not too keen on random sponsored posts, and we’ll delete anything non-parent related. We’re all about Mum (and Dad) life, warts and all.

Even I can follow these rules, so it can’t be that difficult! (Although getting my bloody badge to work is another thing entirely…) Any problems, just give us a shout.

It’s a great way of finding other blogs to read, and realising somehow or other we’re all in the same boat – and #ItsOK!

Happy linking!

Update: This linky is now closed but you can still read the linked up posts here.