The V&A Museum of Childhood is hosting an exhibition From The Tiger Who Came to Tea to Mog and Pink Rabbit, which runs from 28 May – 2 September 2011. The exhibition offers a retrospective of Judith Kerr, whose vast body of work includes the popular Mog series and The Tiger Who Came to Tea, as well as her autobiographical novel When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, which charts her childhood fleeing Hitler’s Germany in 1933 with her family.

… which is all quite fabulous but what BrazenMom are really interested in is the exciting range of products produced in conjunction with the exhibition, from masks and stickers for children to enjoy to mounted prints to be hung on the wall, greeting cards and tiger tea and biscuits.

See below for some of the funky stuff on offer:

Kids Tiger Mittens

Tiger Umbrella

Tiger Food Toffee & Fudge Biscuits

The Tiger Who Came to Tea – Mounted Print

Knitted Tiger

Tiger Torch

Mog Paper Mask

For more info on the exhibition, CLICK HERE.

Zombie – a term that has embedded itself in my vocabulary since the birth of my fifteen-month-old daughter. I love my little lovely most dearly but she has done nothing to improve my complexion. Bags and wrinkles are the story of my life.

In light of the aforementioned I think that I can safely assume that cosmetic brand ZombieMomz is designed especially for moms like me – to remedy that all too familiar Night of the Living Dead look.

ZombieMomz is an online store that sells body lotions and creams, lip balms and, rather randomly, magnets and stickers. The punctuation on the site leaves little to be desired and the homepage seems a tad amateurish but I guess that’s not the point; the brand is really cool and even if the creams and lip balms happened not to work so well, you’d be the owner of a funky ZombieMomz container – awesome containers are always something worth spending money on says the woman with the small tub fetish.

Check out Zombiemomz.com to see what products are on offer.

At my baby shower, I was given a preggy roll by one of my friends. “What is a preggy roll?” you ask. Picture a large banana-shaped pillow. You sleep with one end between your legs, one end under your head, and the curve supporting your belly. It sounds a bit strange, but it’s amazing.

After the first night I used it, I couldn’t believe I’d spent seven months of my pregnancy without it. By that point I was so large and uncomfortable that trying to find a good position to sleep in was an exercise in futility. I’m still not sure how Hubby managed to sleep through my constant tossing and turning. (Probably the same way he sleeps through our daughter’s chattering on the baby monitor in the wee hours of the morning. On weekends he has the night shift, and I have to wake him to go settle the princess back to sleep.)

One afternoon I entered the bedroom to find Hubby trying out the preggy roll for himself. On waking, he proclaimed he also needed one. He’s used it several times since. I understand his envy – it really is comfortable to curl up with the preggy roll and drift off to dreamland. Our daughter is almost six months old and I’m still using the preggy roll.

Its use is not limited to sleep, however. The preggy roll makes a fantastic breastfeeding pillow. Sometimes Angelique gets so comfortable that I don’t need my hands to support her head, and as most moms know having the use of two hands at any time is a luxury to be appreciated.

You can also use your preggy roll to prop your baby up when she starts sitting. Angelique likes to lean back, her arms resting on the preggy roll and her legs crossed in front of her as if she’s on the beach. I have a feeling she’s going to love the preggy roll as much as her parents do.

But now it’s naptime. Excuse me while I go snuggle up with my preggy roll …

BrazenMom says that every funky baby needs a funky cat shirt. And Hello Kitty does not cut it on this occasion. Quirky, random, strange, offbeat, unconventional comprise the laws of ‘Funky’ – and exclusivity is not an essential. Street style is whatever you want it to be – it’s taking what is mass produced and wearing it with ATTITUDE. And believe me; even those with minimal hair and an appreciation for breast milk have plenty of A-TTI-TUDE to go around. A pair of skinny jeans and a ‘Jay-Z cat’ from NYC speak volumes!

The cat in the pic comes from Primark at the spectacular price of (drum roll please) £2. Who cares about quality when coolness is at stake?

I recently discovered a lovely little gem of a TV show. Here’s how it happened:

There is no TV in our household, so to my 13-month-old daughter the concept of ‘television programme’ is rather foreign. This, however, was about to change. The other day when my little princess (or ‘little gremlin’ on this occasion) was feeling rubbish and whiney, thanks to a dumbass cold she probably contracted after pawing a gross pole on the tube that had already been accosted by millions of disgusting germs that I do not care not to think about (RANT over – thanks for listening), I shoved her in front of the computer screen in the hope that BBC iPlayer would provide enough of a distraction to cease the winging for a few minutes. My sanity (and patience) had regressed from a sturdy rope to a rather flimsy piece of cotton by this stage. Any random programme, with no sex violence or dodgy imagery would do. Lo and behold! Tinga Tinga Tales came to the rescue.

The show was created for a global audience of 3 to 6 year olds and inspired by traditional African Folktales and the Tingatinga art of Tanzania. Tinga Tinga Tales is based upon animal creation stories from all over the African continent – the show brings to life tall tales of how your favourite animals came to be the way they are today. It reminds me of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So stories, which I adored as a child.Tinga Tinga Tales is produced on location in Kenya by Tiger Aspect Productions in conjunction with Homeboyz Entertainment, the show draws upon the inspiring talent of local artists and musicians and is expertly computer animated using beautiful, hand-painted imagery.

I just love it! Probably more so than my daughter. The stories are brilliantly creative and just too funny. Every animal has a different accent, from an Afrikaans sounding Rhino and a Jamaican Tortoise to an Aussie Chameleon and an American Hippo. Living in London, the multicultural capital of Europe, the show is a great way for my daughter to become accustomed to the multiplicity of accents that she is sure to encounter on a daily basis. As a South African expat, Tinga Tinga Tales also contains a little bit of home – a unique sense that I would love to pass on to my little Londoner. Perhaps my cultural context is the primary reason I find the show so utterly endearing.

The world of Tinga Tinga opens up a fantastical world of colour, characters and imagination. I love that not one animal is true to its realistic form – the colours are bright and crazy and I really believe that the show is a great way to encourage small children to think outside of the box; elephants don’t have to be coloured in with a grey crayon, purple and pink spots on yellow elephant skin is totally okay!

Newly obsessed with Tinga Tinga Tales, I have done some surfing and can’t seem to find a Tinga Tinga DVD collection although there is quite a lot of show-based merchandise available – Amazon is the best place to look in this regard. I think that some Tinga Tinga books may find their way onto Amelia’s bookshelf (and maybe onto mine as well).

The Tinga Tinga website is just too delicious and definitely deserves some perusing. There are some fun online games on the site and a nice little explanation about the art and artists featured on the show. Check out Tingatingatales.com for an artsy, fun and frivolous sensory overload.

So this Christmas we are hanging out in some random little town in the south west, called Lymington. As with all random towns, Lymington required some exploration – mostly in aid of satisfying my obsessive craving for small-town preserves. Instead of preserves, I found a gorgeous treasure that is now in the possession of my one-year-old daughter.

I’ll end the nail-biting suspense right about now. It’s a Little Red Riding Hood Rag Doll. She is just lovely. I am not really a dolly kind of gal… well, the plastic kind at least. But I do have a thing for Little Red, and this dolly could not be resisted.

In fact, every cool baby girl needs one.

She has brown woolly hair, big black eyes, a pretty checked dress and a matching red cape. Upon opening Madame Red my little girl cuddled her boisterously (as is her manner) and then abruptly discarded her in favour of some brightly coloured wrapping that rudely invaded her line of sight, distracting her from my precious purchase. Nonetheless, I know that Little Red is beloved… by mommy more than daughter I think.

One of the coolest things in Amelia’s rather sparse toy box is a maracas with a beautiful face pained on it. I spotted it in Covent Garden’s Octopus shop a while back and Molly Maracas has been Amelia’s friend for the last eight months. Molly has kept Amelia company in Italy and Holland and forms an integral part of my one-year-old’s playtime in her London home. When Amelia notices Molly her little face lights up and beams with a happy smile. And, of course, Molly will always hold a special place in my heart because it was one of the first objects her little fingers learnt to grasp – the sentimental musings of a mushy mommy. I give myself permission.

Today I stumbled upon the most brilliant bargain; a Care Bear book priced at only 49p. OH THE JOY! Care Bears, launched in 1981 by American Greetings, are only a year older than I am, and as we were both made in the ’80s I feel a special affinity with the cuddly creatures that form a memorable part of my childhood.

With a goofy smile on my face, I took my treasured find to the till and noticed the cashier – a grey haired, hippy looking, metal music loving guy – handled the Care Bear book with interest. So I grabbed the opportunity to tell him that I was purchasing the the book for sentimental reasons. He nodded in genuine appreciation, which incited a further revelation on my behalf; I told the gentleman that I had recently discovered a Care Bear teddy in a charity shop. Over share? Too late. To which the man replied that, judging by the expression on my face, he imagined that I had skipped down the street in joyous delight with my purchase in hand – and he was absolutely right.

From Care Bears the conversation moved on to Teddy Ruxpin… what?… someone other than me, and my two brothers, knows about Teddy Ruxpin. My hero. The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin was a TV show I watched as a child, but also an animatronic talking bear. Somehow the conversation with Mr Hippy cashier ended with an imagining of a Teddy Ruxpin bear singing Metallica renditions – and we both agreed that the thought of any bear emitting James Hetfield vocals was too horrific for further contemplation.

I exited the shop with a big smile on my face and a plan in mind: I intend to indoctrinate my 11 month old baby girl in the awesomeness of Care Bear love by inflicting upon her as much Care Bear paraphernalia as possible, and brainwashing her with the Care Bears Count Down.

It is my daughter’s first birthday in a month, and at the risk of sounding like a broken parental record; I can’t believe it! Time is speeding by at an alarming rate.

Anyway.

I am totally excited for my Amelia’s birthday. I know that she will not remember it but we will. Not that we are planning an elaborate affair but there will be cake, friends and fun. While I was making birthday invitations I found a poem by Dr Seuss that made my laugh hysterically. The man’s writing is pure genius and I had to share:

If we didn’t have birthdays,
you wouldn’t be you.
If you’d never been born,
well then what would you do?
If you’d never been born,
well then what would you be?
You might be a fish!
Or a toad in a tree!
You might be a doorknob!
Or three baked potatoes!
You might be a bag full of
hard green tomatoes.

…who is you-er than you!
Shout loud, “I am lucky
to be what I am!
Thank goodness I’m not
just a clam or a ham
Or a dusty old jar of
sour gooseberry jam!
I am what I am! That’s a
great thing to be!
If I say so myself,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!”

This year was my daughter’s first Halloween. I was totally excited to dress her up as a fat orange pumpkin but when perusing this year’s costumes, my hubby fell in love with a cute kitty dress that would show our daughter off as ‘daddy’s little princess’. And who am I to deny a smitten daddy?

At the end of a full day as kitty princess, the boisterous antics of an 11-month-old had taken their doll on my baby’s dress; Amelia looked more like mommy’s little ragamuffin than daddy’s darling. The Halloween dress had transformed into a Camden inspired punk/grunge get-up boasting some stylish rips and tears. All she needed was a little pair of Dr Martins to match… and I have been eyeing a pair of turquoise pretties – got to take the chance to play dress-up while you’re still the boss. Bring on 2011! But first, Christmas…