Green & Blacks Organic Thin Bar

Send a pregnant woman an email asking if she'd like to try some chocolate for review and I think the majority would think like me 'say yes, eat the chocolate, worry about the review later'. If I get sent something and I don't like it, I email the nice person who sent it to me and say why I don't like it and then never hear from them again. This would be sad if it happened with chocolate but it was a risk I was willing to take. I had no need to worry the chocolate arrived and was delicious and better than anything from Green & Blacks I'd tried before. Big statement I know.

Thin Dark Chocolate 70%

Green & Blacks 70% Dark chocolate is the only plain chocolate I really like and the only one I would buy so I was totally thrilled to try the new Green & Blacks Thin 70% Dark Chocolate. The quality and taste of this is exactly the same but the new thin format is a big improvement. One or two squares is perfect with a mid-morning cup of coffee - really smooth and much more indulgent.

As for the whole new flavour Thin Salted Caramel, it is just the perfect side of sickly with the right amount of sea salt. At the beginning of the year when our cottage in Norfolk was finally finished and I spent a lot of time up there unpacking boxes of stuff that had been in my husbands family for decades and looked its age. A depressing and arduous task I took it upon myself to try every available milk chocolate/caramel/sea salt chocolate combination available in the North Norfolk area. I am qualified to tell you that this is the best I've tried.

Having been fairly disinterested in chocolate pre-babies I know find myself getting through bars of the stuff when pregnant (before this arrived an entire big bar of Galaxy went in over the course of one day. This is unheard of for me) - it's an annoying and expensive habit. With these new Thin bars I can have one or two squares and move on - that's the joy of the large flat squares, they last longer. You're not breaking off the next tiny square before you've finished the first mouthful. The Organic Thin Mint Crisp is exclusive to Waitrose until 2nd May and I will be getting a bar the next time I go there without a doubt. May even find an excuse to go out this afternoon.

They are £2.29 each, not the cheapest but great-tasting and seemingly long lasting. I've had these a week and they've survived the insatiable sweet-tooth of a pregnant lady. These new bars are absolutely worth a try. 

Thin Milk Chocolate with Salted Caramel

Potty Training part 1

I've never felt like I've failed as a mother. I had an epidural, a decision I believe a lot more women should feel able to make, it didn't affect my son and I was less traumatised by the whole thing afterwards which is better for him I think. I breastfed for 6 months but gave him top-up formula bottles from 6 weeks when it became clear that he was a hungry boy that wasn't getting enough. With this next bump I am planning to do top-ups from day 1. He started going to half days at nursery when he was 16 months and has enjoyed it and his speech has improved (his sharing hasn't). He has a dummy which I'm hoping to stop soon-ish and he had a bottle at bedtime until he was just under 2. He still has milk before bed if he wants it and a whole big sippy cup full in the morning, sometimes two.

He's a very happy, I think intelligent, little boy and has been deemed the politest boy the nursery have ever had. I think he is very adaptable to growing up (he accepted the switch from bottle to sippy-cup with little complaint) and is good at letting me know what he needs. So at 26 months when he would repeatedly cry in the mornings and struggle against having a nappy put on whilst shouting 'I don't want nappies anymore' I thought it best to start potty training. Originally I had planned to wait until he was at least 2 ½ so we could get it done in three or four days because he would have a better understanding of what was going on. But he was successfully using the training seat when sat on it and so we went out and chose some Thomas the Tank Engine and Peppa Pig pants and went home to start.

It started well with a few accidents but mostly success but a weekend away from home with certain unanticipated distractions and he completely relapsed. Hated going to the loo and said he wanted his nappies back. Having been a firm believer that once you had started you had to persevere I didn't want to quit but when he was just happily walking around in wet trousers on day 5 having just refused to go to the loo I though 'enough is enough'. I would never have started this early without him wanting to give it a try - it was making me frustrated and this frustration was beginning to show and I don't want this to become an ordeal for both of us that goes on for months.

So he's back in nappies and I feel like a failure. Yes I do think he's too young and I probably should have stuck with that belief. Was I selfish thinking it would be better to get this done before the new baby arrives and we move house? He's adaptable but those are big changes. Will he now be off the whole idea until he's 4 (too old in my opinion though some may disagree)? If he hadn't had a disrupted weekend would he have stayed on track or was success actually just luck because it was just me and him? Though I am always supported by my husband potty training is such a personal thing (many an hour spent playing in the bathroom over the last week) that I now feel very alone with my decisions. I'm not sure how long it will take me to pick up from this.