YHTL Weekly Highlights – 2 to 8 Jan 2017

What a week it’s been in You Have To Laugh Land! A veritable smorgasbord of blog posts, interviews, jokes and chit-chat and all with one thing in common – designed to make parents have a little chuckle, because looking after small people can very, very occasionally be quite hard work! In case you have missed any of the highlights from the past 7 days here is a little reminder for you – why not have a little explore for the next 20 minutes?!

Blog Posts

First up we had Daddy Poppins making his second appearance on the site – here he recounts his first week in the blogosphere and the unexpected excitement of taking on a new persona – which turned out to be somewhat more popular in the social media world than his real one!

Then there was the very slight oversight of going to town seemingly without a pram – a rookie mistake if ever there was one!

Next up there was a never-been-seen-before post from a never-been-published-before writer – all very exciting I’m sure you’ll agree! It was about the subject of dating as a single parent having spent a bit of time getting used to the solo lifestyle.

I’m sure we all remember that dating is never easy – especially when there are some real oddballs out there in the dating pool that you may end up stumbling upon! It was a tale of hope interspersed with some slight setbacks!

We then looked back to New Year’s Day, where Anne-Marie from The Mummy Years let us experience the relaxing, joyous, stress-free occasion that was her meal out with the family!

She had hopes and dreams that the new year would bring with it the much-envied ability to take a toddler out for dinner without it ending in disaster – maybe next year it will come to fruition!

Finally we ended the week with Katie from the Squirmy Popple talking about the thing that most parents dream about – a toddler that sleeps through the night.

Unfortunately, as Katie found, you can’t really dream about something if you can’t physically get to sleep yourself!! There are perhaps few things in life more annoying than being surrounded by a snoozing, snoring family when you just can’t get to sleep yourself – although it’s hard to feel sorry for someone who has a sleep-trained toddler!

Interviews

We started our thrilling mini-series this week, titled ‘So You Think You’re Funny?’ It’s basically a collection of very funny people trying to make the best out of a series of pretty bland questions that have been put to them. For our first week we smashed onto the scene with a double-header – Sarah from Mumzilla and Celine from Bell From Bow. As you will see, both of them made a very valiant effort of bringing the questions to life through the medium of comedy and both of them talked about penises – if you haven’t read them yet you really should have a read! And if you think you are funny, why not take part yourself? You’ll get to be featured on the site as part of the series and have your name in lights! If you are interested just drop us a line via our Contact page!

Jokes

Jokes are an important part of You Have To Laugh – after all, nothing lightens the mood quicker than a well-timed one-liner, especially if you know it’s sooooooo bad that you really shouldn’t be laughing at it! This week we had some classics and here they are – prepare yourself for split sides and an overworked funny bone!

Other Funny Stuff

We also like to spread the love on You Have To Laugh. If we see other funny posts from across the webiverse we feel it’s our moral duty to share them with you so that you can enjoy them too! Some are from our regular SmileSquad contributors, some are from other bloggers we love, and some are just (very) random things that we have found dotted about the internet! Here are some of our favourites from the past few days for your viewing ‘pleasure’.

First up, this post from Suzanne at ‘another ten things’ about all things Disney:

Then we had Sam from Mouse Moo, Me Too with her blog recommendations for 2017 – very important, because both Fran and James are featured:

https://www.facebook.com/MouseMooMeToo/posts/388974184773066

We had Fran at Whinge Whinge Wine’s ‘helpful’ guide to fixing damaged doll hair:

Then there was a video from Australia of perhaps the most underwhelming New Year celebration ever captured on live TV!

And finally, we had this thing – this ABOMINATION!!

Next Week

That’s almost it for this week, but we have some unnervingly exciting things planned for the coming week. On Monday we will be launching the hashtag to end all hashtags. Yes, we will be bringing you #100crappydays

We love all the positive vibes circulating around social media with the 100 days of happiness challenge – and yes, if you look hard enough there is of course lots to be happy about every day. However, if you hunt really, really hard you might also find something a bit crappy each day! Perhaps your little one has got inside the Rice Krispies and hurled them around the kitchen? Maybe, they have decided that today is the day when they must beat their record for the highest number of pointless tantrums achieved in a single day? Or maybe you’ve spent your evening being chased around the living room by a remote-controlled forklift operated by a crazed toddler?

Whatever it is that has made you think ‘OMG’, ‘WTF’, or even ‘FML’ why not share it with complete strangers through the medium of #100crappydays on Twitter or Facebook?! We’ll retweet / share the ones that make us laugh and even feature some on next week’s roundup, so get photographing and tagging your ‘special’ moments!

We’ll also have another cracking interview on Monday, this time with the lovely Kimberly from Media Mummy. Let’s see if she also talks about penises. There’ll be more jokes that will make you groan and cringe in equal measure, and of course there will be a whole host of blog posts to entertain you, from some pretty awesome writers!

Last but not least, if you fancy getting involved with You Have To Laugh there are soooooooooo many ways you can do it! You can take part in one of our interviews. You can write an amusing parenting post and submit it to us for inclusion the following week. You can send a joke to us so we can feature it. You can take part in #100crappydays or you can pop along to Twitter at 7.30pm every Thursday for our YHTLchat question!

Thanks for your incredible support so far and we can’t wait to see you all again next week!

James & Fran