Monthly Archives: November 2016

I am Study for your Mum degree Mum! 😅

Posted in Uncategorized by

​Grab a cuppa Bitchrepooooos.

  It’s a long one tonight!
My journey through the jungle of Mammyhood so far has many things. I am always learning and yet it feels like I never learn! 😅 Regardless of how you become a Mamma: pregnancy, IVF, adoption, fostering, marriage… if you are responsible for loving a child, you’re a Mammy.  And it’s quite a job.  A career.  A vocation even! 
Let’s face it.  If I want to embark on any career, I generally need to spend 3-5 years being educated to qualify me properly to attempt it.  Being a Mammy (and indeed a Daddy!) doesn’t require a degree, and yet it is the most challenging career in the world.

As parents, we become educated in life and often hilariously terrifying ways of the world that no university could ever teach…
but if they did…
IF there was a degree in parenting, here is what I imagine it would look like:
“Bachelor of the art of Perfect Parenting”

Semester 1

Module 101 – Pregnancy and Parenting: A beginner’s guide

Module 102 – Preparing for your new arrival – Required equipment

Module 103 – Food preparation for the healthy family
Semester 2

Module 201 – Techniques for sleep and Behaviour

Module 202 – Planning your child’s play and Sensory Scenarios

Module 203 – First aid for Mummies
Optional Modules 

😐Relationships; maintaining healthy romantic and familial relationships

😐Positivity, Mindfullness and Sleep Deprivation – How to deal with it.

😐Reliabilty of resources available.

😐Language and Speech Development.
And at the end, you would be a QUALIFIED parent.  You would have folders of notes, and a brain bursting with facts and figures, and lesson plans and medical references.
You’d be sorted. 😉
But as a Real Mammy, who knows that most of the above is utter crap, and that these headings only SCRATCH the surface of parenting, let ME suggest what a parenting degree outline should look like!
“Bachelorette of Thoroughly Modern Mammyness.”
Semester 1
Module 101 – Pregnancy and Parenting: A beginner’s guide – Life as you know it, ends here.  You only think you know what pain, fear and exhaustion are now.  Pregnancy is like a “One size” bra.  It fits some women better than others. Mine fit like a 4 man tent.  You may glow, or you may puke.  It’s great fun.  But at the end of it, there’s a wonderful thing.  And there’s  also the Love. I won’t even try to prepare you for that. I can’t. 💗💙💗💙💗💙💗
Module 102 – Change everything – The house, the layout of your rooms, the car.  Everything.  And enjoy your magazine perfect showhouse with your fancy candles and FengShui… That shit ends once your minion is able to move about on your once-but-never-again-clean rug.  All ornaments and valuables should be put up on a high shelf, or locked away for approximately 15 years.  Actually, just sell them.  You’re going to need the cash for the Stuff. 👇
Module 103 – All the Stuff.  Get your list of Baby Essentials.  Got it? Now, rip it up.  You do not need 250 steriswabs, or 5 pairs of scratch mittens.  The only thing on those lists that isn’t exaggerated, is the quantity of industrial sized sanitary nappies, sorry, towels.  Buy ALL of those bad boys.  And then buy extra.

 And as for the list of furniture, equipment and travel accessories?  Get your basics.  Car seat, cot, baby bath, changing mat.  Depending on YOUR own house and YOUR own situation, you’ll know what you need as you need it.  Do not buy all the everything!  Trust me, you’ll end up with a house that looks like a Baby shop has puked on it and, in approximately 8 months time, as you put the only-used-once-stuff in the attic, you’ll wonder why the hell you bought it in the first place. 

 Oh! And those lovely nursing chairs that we all want for our idealistic moments of feeding baby in the nursery?  They are the most glorified clothes storage devices in the world.  Your baby will more than likely be in your room for the first 6 years…sorry months… anyway, and when you ARE doing night feeds, you’re more than likely going to want to do them in the heat of your bed,  rather than in an empty room.  Yes, they’re lovely and I’m sure someone will disagree here, but that’s how I see them… A clothes horse.
Semester 2
Module 201 – Techniques for Sleep and Behaviour  –  Pray, wing it and go with your gut.  You can’t control your baby’s sleep.  You can’t control your baby’s behaviour.  You can only go with what you get on a daily basis and trust me, often, as cliched as it is, it IS just a phase.  And if you do find yourself genuinely struggling with either of these issue, ask for help.  There are brilliant (and actually qualified with real degrees) professionals in our community and there are SO MANY brilliant resources that Mums and Dads can access easily.  Google Parent Hub. Parent Hub, Donegal

You’ll be amazed at what they offer. Or talk to your PHN or GP.  
Module 202 – Planning your child’s play 

 Buy toys.  Watch child play with boxes, lunchboxes, remote controls and ANYTHING they shouldn’t have that could pose danger to them.  Shake head at the amount of educational crap in the toy corner and get out the saucepans and wooden spoons.  Oh and get down on your knees and play! 😅
Module 203 – First aid for Mummies – Have a meltdown everytime they cut themselves, bump their head, break a sweat, have a strange poo or get a temperature.  Slowly learn to recognise your own baby’s physical reactions and signs.  Google symptoms, freak out…ask on a Mammy forum…freak out… 

But seriously, we’re mums.  Unless you ARE a Doctor, if you’re concerned about Baby, GO TO A DOCTOR!  And follow your gut.  While it may be sick with worry, Mamma’s gut is always right.
Optional Modules 

Relationships – learning how NOT to murder your partner at 3am

Sex – You will want to think about it again some day… 😈😉😈

Alcohol – It shall be frowned upon, but some days, even the most Sanctimonious of Sanctimommies thinks about gin at 11am.  They just won’t admit it.

Swearing control – Any parent who has never sworn behind the back of their child, or at least mouthed a profanity when they hear “Mammy” for the 387th time that day, is either sedated or a liar…

Disney lyrics – because you will need to know them.
And so there you go. I hereby declare the Bachelorette of the Thoroughly Modern Mammyness open for application.

No previous experience or qualifications required. 

It’s a tight course, but the end result is something that no amount of paper or letters after your name can measure.  But if you really want to show off your qualifications, just start signing off like this…
  S-Mum (Mum.Mum.Mum.Mum.Mum.Mum.Mum.Mum.Mum…)
Suggestions for extra optional modules on a postcard please. 😙😙😙

How do you measure up? 😂😂😂

​I am Slippy Feet Mum

Posted in children, parenting, Uncategorized by

Well it’s officially Christmas.  


Jack Frost arrived this morning, the mischievous little fecker, and forced me to have to nearly break in to my own car.  He also forced half of Donegal to reduce their speed, which of course is never a bad thing, unless you reduce it from 100 to approximately 54km/hr on the very LARGE, STRAIGHT and very SALTED road into Letterkenny and hold up all of the rush hour traffic.  
In that case, you’re simply a twatsickle.   
But I digress.
I love Jack-of-the-frost, I do.  

I love the chilled air.  I love seeing breath clouds. I love the glitter. 
I loved seeing the clouds sitting ON the Swilly this morning.  I particularly loved Mini-Me’s expression when she saw this sight and exclaimed “Mammy! The Cwouds are touching the waaaater!”

Cutiepie. 
I was very organised this morning…completely prepared for the frozen car and slippery steps and extra time needed to get down off S-Mumble Hill.  
I’d love to say it’s because I’m Supermum and that it was my maternal instinct that told me, through osmosis obviously, that it would be a frozen morning, or indeed that, like Yeats, somone as infamous as Homer…ormin my case Jack Frost… “came whispering to my mind” warning me to jump out of bed and be a Winter Wondermum…
But in reality it was a text from The Him at 5.45am which read “ROADS SHITE GORGEOUS. BLACK ICE. DON’T BE RUNNING LATE. I LOVE YOU TO THE MOON AND BACK…XXXXXX”  (No you CAN’T prove that I’ve edited this or exaggerated the content of the text, so there! That’s what Him typed…honest like.)😂
And so I wrapped Princess up like  the fat little spanx-wearing Christmas pudding that she is, got Mini-Me into her new fingered gloves – (that’s another post ALTOGETHER! 😠😠) – and carried them both down the very slippery steps to the car, which I’d EVEN managed to have running for 5 minutes so I wasn’t putting the kids in a fridge.

I am a LION…HEAR ME ROAR! 🦁
Sorted.
I dropped Princess off and headed to drop Mini-Me to the bus. (at 54km remember?)
I was so proud of myself and already planning the accomplished and smug text to The Him when I reached school saying that I was early and that of course I loved him more etc., 😈😅and then as I drove into the carpark, I realised something.
I realised that I had CARRIED Mini-Me out of the house and set her safely into the car.
And then it dawned on me that I, or Himself, have probably ALWAYS carried her in and out of places if it was icy.

And so now, I was dropping her off to get OUT of the car, where she’d  have to WALK BY HERSELF TO the bus, which someone ELSE was driving,

And THEN she’d have to get OFF the fecking bus in a slippery playground and make her wasy to the door ACROSS the playground…
ALL.

BY.

HERSELF.
And my Blood chilled as if Jack-of-the-frost himself had kissed my chapped lips…
I stopped the car and actually had to take a few deep breaths.

How ridiculous am I? 
“This is NOT A BIG DEAL you Silly Woman!” said Mammy’s inside voice.

“Cop yourself on Woman” laughed Mrs Anxiety.

“But what if she falls?” answered Super-bubblewrap Mum.
My gut was telling me to ring work to announce that I had an emergency and that I’d be half an hour late so I could drive her ther myself.

Of course I COULDN’T let someone else drive a bus with my Precious (if sometimes terrifying) Minion on it… 

THAT would be NUTS would it not?
You’ll be glad to know that Common Sense slapped me across the face, because obviously, Mammy being MENTAL and CARRYING HER to the door of the school would be MUCH more embarrassing and have life long repercussions compared to her slipping on the ice and bumping onto the ground.
So I reminded her that said ground was REALLY SLIPPY and that the school yard would be EXTRA slippy and that she’d have to take small steps and walk slowly.  I made sure the gloves were still on so that at least if she DID fall,  it wouldn’t be too sore on her wee hands.  And then I walked beside her to the door and quite literally let her find her feet.
And she did.

She slipped a few times, and then like a little Bambi, found her balance before looking up at me and announcing “I’m just like Elsa Mammy.”


I nearly pushed her across a puddle just to see if she’d land like Elsa too, but I though better of it.
Here I was stressing the feck out about HER and she’s off being a Disney fucking princess in her own head.

STORY OF MY LIFE! 💗😂💗😂💗

(She sooooo gets that fromThe Him obviously.)
Hope you all had a Marvellous Monday xxxxx

I am She’s One Mum

Posted in Uncategorized by

​It’s here.  
Princess will turn one tomorrow.  

One.

12 whole months…

365 days…

1 funfilled amazing year has passed since her chubby little self bounced into our world.  Well, I say “bounced”… she didn’t bounce, but I did as the amazing surgeons tugged and pulled and lifted her out my sunroof! 😂 
But arrive she did. And as with the arrival of any little one, our lives have been changed utterly.
I’m a bit gobsmacked at how quickly the year has gone. 

I’m sitting looking at her wee party shoes 👇👇👇and I’m really not sure how I feel if I’m honest.


 It’s like I’ve blinked and she’s suddenly transformed from a chubby cheeked helpless new baby into a standing-alone, scoffy-laughing, Rambo-Hulk whose smile lights up the room and who has “Mischief” written all over her.
When Mini-Me turned one, we felt a huge sense of achievement.  We’d made it to ONE! We were fecking awesome! We were no longer NEW parents… We rocked!
With Princess, it’s more like a sense of Survival. 😂😂Because, we’ve done it! We’ve survived a year of being parents to TWO rascals! And although it’s wonderfully fun, it isn’t always easy.
Even now, as I’m preparing for her wee party tomorrow, I’m very aware of how much I’ve overcome as a new Mammy of 2 in the past year: from figuring out how to manoeuvre carseats up stairs while holding a toddler’s hand, to negotiations with said toddler when Baby required attention than she did, from figuring out two bedtimes in one routine, to managing to give both of them all my love and time… 
And it hasn’t been easy.

In the words of one of my colleagues, I try very hard to keep it all “between the ditches”.  Sometimes, I feel like I’m steering 14 cars at the one time. 😣
And yet, despite sharing MANY of my #mammyfails and #feckitupFridays on here, people still think I have my shit together.
I don’t.

Not one bit! 
I’m not Supermum.

I’m far from it.
I’m so far FROM it sometimes that I wonder how the hell I’m even going to make it to bedtime without banging my head off the wall.
I’m so far from it that even today, after the lovely job of buying Princess a pretty dress for tomorrow, I stood outside the shop on the phone to my husband telling him that I was “shitty mum”. 

 Why? 

Because both Me AND Mini-Me went off to school this morning upset and in tears. 

Because we’re both bad-tempered volatile little women, and Mammy needs to cop herself on and chose her battles.

Because I’m a human. I’m flawed and I’m sometimes fecking useless.
So there.
Yes, tomorrow we’ll have a lovely party to celebrate the first birthday of my precious little Fudgeybum. And we’ll enjoy every second of it.
The photos will hopefully capture the joyful celebration, but while some bloggers like to, or need to, pretend that their lives are perfect ALL the fecking time, I’m more than happy to admit that behind the smiles and photographs, some days are hard and some days are downright shite.
And EVERY Mammy needs to be able to say that out loud WITHOUT feeling weak for saying it…
To admit that it’s not all ok all the time.
To have another Mammy tell us “I do that too.” or “You should have been in MY house this morning!” (Words of another colleague who met my snivelling self in the carpark this morning. They’re a wonderful bunch my workmates.💙💗💙)
To admit that sometimes, the only shit we have together is the one floating in the unflushed toilet in your dirty bathroom… and that’s OK, because it WILL get flushed…eventually…briefly! 😅
But when the days are wonderful and when life is good enough to give us celebrations and blessings, put on your glittery shoes and enjoy them.
And take pictures and videos.

And try to be IN some of them too! 😎😉
Now, I need to scrape the blu-tack out of the dress Mini-Me wants to wear tomorrow and mop the floors so none of the other children catch Mad Cow disease off them.  And then, I’m going to have a bath, because I haven’t heated up today.  I’ve been freezing since 8am!

(Might have something to do with the fact that I got everyone else out the door warm and dressed this morning, but forgot my own coat!)
MammaBears eh? Who’d have us? 

Happy Friday Ladybelles.

😙😙😙😙

I am Soooo Mammarella Mum 😂

Posted in blog, children, family, parenting by

​Cinderella.  

You all know her.
The dolly who is a COMPLETE skivvy to everyone in her house and who gets a chance to go to the ball,  but has NO hope of going because of her fecking  To-do list and the constant pile of laundrey and sewing and cleaning and crap that grows and grows and grows, until her Fairy Godmother appears and BibbityBobbetyBoos her ass all the way to the ball.
Cinderella.
Well. Let me introduce you to the modern age Cinderella… 

MAMMARELLA.
The modern generation of Queens who sometimes get a chance to go to a fancy ball, but who wonder HOW THE HELL it’s going to happen because of the same reasons as Cinderella…being general skivvies, having to organise EVERYONE else in the house beforehand, and fecking  to-do lists that would knock poor Cinders off her glass slippers. 
On Monday, knowing that we had a super busy week ahead, but happy that it was going to end at a wonderfully glamorous affair, I took a breath and it was all systems go! 
THIS Mammarella however,  ain’t got no Fairy Godmother and so rather than being magically BibbityBobbetyBood from a pumpkin to a Princess, I had to cram a combination of grooming appointments and general maintenance, like you know, showering etc…into my already STUPID schedule.  
Do it I did,  with the help of my own fairies, and I EVEN managed to get my arse mahogonised in a spray booth.  
On Friday morning at 6am, I WAS Cindafuckinrella. 😂

 My To-do list was RIDICULOUS, because as well as making myself appear at the ball looking ALIVE, never mind FABLIS, I ALSO had to sort the minions, make a bed for the Granny, go to my JOB, fit in two meetings cook dinner for everyone else, write out baby routines, and keep everyone alive, pack bags and get to the hairdresser by 5pm….
The day was a whirlwind.

But we got there.

I put lines through that To-do list like an ugly sister on rollerblades.
And when I FINALLY got to the hairdresser, she used magic potions and lotions and turned me from sweaty, dishevelled, skivvy into a slightly #glammymammy. 
I got to the hotel, after being stuck in the most hilarious traffic ever, with ten minutes to spare, titsickle-taped myself into the dress and I was finally ready to go be a Princess.  
And The Him??
How did HE transform himself from a gym-gear wearing servantboy into a Handsome Prince?
He left work, took a shower, stuck on a tux that someone HANDED to him in a bag, and Bibbity Bobbity Boo! Turns into James Fecking Bond… 😲😲😂

But then he won and after all, he WAS the reason I got to pretend to be a Princess for a night wasn’t he?
Actually, Princess my arse… this Mamma Bear was a Queen for the evening. 

😂😂😂
So yes, Mammarellas.

Cinderella doesn’t have a CLUE! 😂😂😂
Wait until she has 2 minions and a Him to get out the door! 😙

​Sudocrem and last-minute-Mother-of-the-feckin-year mum

Posted in blog, children, family, parenting by

When Mini-Me started school, 2 months ago, I was determined to be Mother of the year.

No missed buses.

No forgotten lunches.

No homework at 8am.

No forgetting to wash school cardigan and having to lie that it’s in Daddy’s car…

No last minute projects. 😲
I would be Super Organised, Super slick, SuperMum…
2 LONG MONTHS LATER, my shit has ALL gone to shit.😂
Today, at her first PTM,  I hear the word “shoebox” being mentioned over the intercom…

And I had an awful realisation, right in front of the lovely teacher…
“She’ll have her shoebox in in the morning” I stammered…

Yeah Missy.  She sees right through you!
Shit shit shit shit shit…
Actually, if I’m honest, the growing pile of multicoloured Christmas shoeboxes taking over our own secretary’s office at work, has been subtly shouting at my subconscious all week that I must check something.  I have vague recollections of a brochure being taken from the school bag, like, yesterday (cough…no it wasn’t 3 weeks ago.  How very dare you..)
I get home and find the brochure. 

Final date 11th November. 😣😣
Fuck.
I COULD just leave it, and donate somsthing and not feel bad, but then Mini-Me will be in school knowing that Mammy is a toolbox.

😣

(And considering that she is already of this opinion, accusing me DAILY of losing an invitation from a classmate last month that APPARENTLY was in her bag but disappeared, even though I’m CERTAIN that the only invitation I took put of her bag was for her Cousin’s party, which I dumped because I already KNEW when the party was and it was OBVIOUS that she’d simply taken it to school like she does EVERYTHING… And it’s obviously just a COINCIDENCE that they have the same first names and she PROBABLY wasn’t ACTUALLY invited to the friend’s party so therefore didn’t miss anything because Mammy is a Toolbox really…) 😣😣😣
I digress.
Anyhooo. 
No. I can’t just leave it.  That would be terrible.
 So, I get my arse to work finding new or unused lovely things to put in, send The Him a text warning him NOT TO COME HOME without kiddie toothpaste and toothbrush and a pack of socks for aged 6.

Oh! 

And Christmas wrapping paper!
So it’s done. 😆

We doood it!


It was fine and we got to have very lovely conversations about how lucky she is ajd how it’s kind to share etc…

And I do love the concept of the project.  In fact, next year, I’m going to start the second the brochure arrives and we’re going to do LOADS of shoeboxes and I will be Supermum again… for 5 minutes.

My biggest difficulty tonight was getting the fecking sellotape off the roll with my lovely Cindafuckinrella nails that I got done yesterday for tomorrow’s ball…

Aren’t they lovely?

Note to self…

Lovely acrylic extension nails may look lovely, but changing shitty nappies and applying sudocrem suddenly becomes quite the adventure… 👇👇👇👇