If you have a large or particularly generous family you can find yourself, come Easter Sunday, trying to calm down a sugar overloaded child.

And, at the risk of sounding like a bit of a party pooper, there feels something particularly wasteful about Easter eggs. All that packaging! All that money and they're hollow!

Instead, buck the trend and give a present this Easter that is different from the rest. Here's our list of alternative gifts.

A Catholic school has decided not to allow a pre-school child to enrol next year because her parents are lesbians.

Now the community has rallied to protest at the school's decision to uphold a policy not to let children of same sex parents attend.

The child already attends the school's preschool programme but it was recently decided not to allow her to move up to kindergarten next year.

Mothering Sunday is coming up, and don't we know it. There are many adverts extolling us to "make mum's day" by buying her a jacket for £69.50 from a High Street store.

Now while I love being spoiled as much as the next stressed and under-appreciated mum, I'm guessing that most of us won't be opening a present like that.

Although Emma has highlighted some thoughtful presents sometimes money can be a bit tight. I reckon we should forget all that and say thanks with something home-made.

We all know the drill -- as soon as we've packed the Christmas decorations up into the loft the supermarket shelves are groaning with Easter eggs.

It could be taken as another religious festival that's been commercialised, and yet another way of getting us to part company with our money.

Even if you're not a christian it's still a lovely festival to mark. After the long, hard winter we've had I'm looking at it as an excuse to celebrate spring with a handful of old and new Easter traditions on April 4.

We've all heard of Bring Your Child to Work Day and maybe some of us have actually taken part with our offspring. Hopefully it just involved them spinning on our swivel chair and sharpening a few pencils.

Not so for an air traffic controller who apparently let his young son direct planes at New York's John F Kennedy Airport five times. That sheds a whole new light on taking your child to work with you.

Thankfully no one was hurt in the incident. But it does bring home to you again how much we actually entrust to those who control the skies.

Here's the tape so you can hear it for yourself:

What is free, easy to do, takes just ten minutes a day, stimulates imagination and will help your child learn how to communicate and talk? Yes, reading to your baby.

It is never to early to start. You don't even need to go and buy any books (although it is nice to have a few around). Weekly trips to your local library will soon spark an interest and a love.

But a quick look on the library shelves or in a bookstore can leave parents scratching their heads. There are so many, which are best? With World Book Day upon us we've compiled a list.

I want to make my five-year-old daughter cute dresses. I once bought her a second-hand home-made dress from a nearly new sale and it was admired every time she wore it.

I'm tired of the grown-up clothes on offer to little girls and, around here, don't want her to look like all the other children sporting Mini Boden. So home-made it is then.

But there's a hitch. I can't sew. Enter Clothkits, offering skirts, dresses, jackets and dungarees in kit form but the question is, will I be able to make one?

When a pupil was issued with a school laptop to use at home, little did he realise it would be used spy on him, according to a lawsuit brought against the school.

Student Blake J Robbins was told by the school's assistant principal that she had evidence from the webcam that he had been "engaged in improper behaviour in his home".

Talk about Big Brother watching you. I thought the school's responsibility stopped at the end of the school day when parents took over.

We've all probably read the reports on supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who apparently didn't find it painful giving birth to her first child Benjamin in December.

For us lesser mortals it's not quite the same. If you're thinking of having your second child, or are pregnant with number two, you will know only too well what labour is exactly like.

And the question uppermost in your mind might be: will it hurt so much second time around?

Recently, a newly pregnant friend asked me a question that had me stumped. Not that I'm an expert on pregnancy at all, but I can usually be relied on to recommend a book on the subject – most subjects in fact.

But the world of having babies has moved on considerably since I was a soon-to-be first-time mum. Although it was 14 years ago that I proudly sported my first bump, it feels like light years away.

Not only have buggies got funkier, but the pregnancy section in my local bookshop is positively bulging with weighty tomes on the subject. So, what are the best pregnancy books?