Category Archives: family

I am Still watching RTE Junior Mum!

Posted in blog, children, family, parenting, wine by

​Well.

How was your Friday Ladybelles?
Mine was pretty uneventful and rather enjoyable really.  

We spent the afternoon with my lovely sister and her babies on Walton Mountain.  It was noisy.  GOOD GOD it was noisy, but oh the fun.

They head off again tomorrow and then we shall miss all the noise immensely and be very sad, so today’s noise was precious and wonderful.
I have two cream-crackered little girls tucked up in bed now after all the noise and cousin fun.  
Have you ever been so glad of the quiet when you return to the living room after their bedtime, that you just sit there, staring at the TV…before realising after 10 minutes that you’re watching the “Holy Jesus Thank God it’s over…Right Minions, it’s bedtime!” RTE Junior Screen!?😂


Well that’s what I’ve just done.

Then, this popped up on my timeline and it was OBVIOUSLY a SIGN wasn’t it?


Afterall, it IS Friday. 💙💗
It’d be rude not to!

I don’t have prosecco but non-fizzy grapes will have to suffice.
(And I do have to celebrate as it’s now less than a week until the #LWIBloggies2016 awards, AND

I’ve just found out that a very dear friend is in the Bumpy Way and so I now need to toast her and her inability to drink grape juice for the next few months. More for me! 🍷😉)
So it’s time to turn the Tellybox over to something else, (Yup. The remote is on the other sofa!), and pop open a wee bottle. 😈

Obviously, Mini-Me and Princess shall sleep until at least 9.30am…

Yeah.
My arse!

But you can’t blame a girl for hoping can you?
Cheers Bitcheepoos!🍷

Have a Fablis Friday night and thanks to everyone who is reading and liking and sharing. It means a lot and makes me smile. 😘😘😘

I am So-mortified-AGAIN Mum! 😅

Posted in blog, children, family by

​Don’t you just LOVE kids?
4 and a half year olds are particularly adorable.
I have one you know.

 I’m really quite proud of the little toot.

She’s pretty, cute and funny and gives me endless hours of laughter and joy and of course the main one…utter and ABSOLUTE MORTIFICATION.
So frequently do I currently find myself wishing that the ground would open up, that one could mistake me for an archaeologist.

Except, I don’t want to uncover bones or history…

I want to climb in beside the bloody bones and turn back time.
Shop.

Today.

Well behaved Mini-Me being suspiciously sweet and quiet.💗

Then,

Check out.😈😈😈
We were waiting in the queue, behind a lovely lady who was possibly just out of the gym.

Her hair was scraped back and she was very tall and sans muckup.  She looked like a wonderfully normal woman, minding her own business.
The DOLLY looks up at her and I can suddenly see what is JUST ABOUT TO HAPPEN unravel before it actually does.

It’s slow motion… 😲😲😲😲😲
I try in vain to distract her and to change the subject before she opens her pretty loud little beak.

I fail miserably because, in the loudest WHISPER you have EVER HEARD, she announces:

 “Mammy it’s MISS TWUNCHBULL!”


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

It’s  out and before I get a chance to shush her, she misunderstands that I might not have heard her the first time, so she shouts it again…sans whisper.
I start some ridiculous sing song about reading James and the Giant Peach when we get home, praying she didnt hear, and eventually have to courage to look up at Miss-not-at-all-like-the-Trunchbull to see if she’s  going to seing me over the fence by my pigtails!
She seems oblivious and is paying the check-out attendant.  PHEW!
The attendant, however, is not oblivious.

He is trying with great difficulty to stifle his laughter.
The unknowing star of our Roald Dahl inspired show leaves the shop and he buckles. 😂😂

“OH GOD I’M MORTIFIED!” I say, scarlet faced.
“I’ve seen worse Love” he laughs.
I pay and leave with Mini-Me  trotting behind me, quite happy with herself and having NO CLUE how close she was to getting Mammy locked in the fricken Chokey.
And she’s lucky that there is no Chokey in S-Mumble Hill…
It’s Mortification Monday. 😅😅
How was your day? 😙😙😙😙

I am Stupid o’Clock Mum

Posted in children, family, parenting by

​Some of the things Mini-Me said last night between 11.30pm and 3.21am…
☆”Hulk is under my bed.” (Note to self…kick The Him if/when I get back to bed. Fecking stupid Avengers movies.
☆”I need bainne.” (Milk) (Nope because then you’ll be even more awake ANDneed a pee.)
☆”My room needs tidied.”  (Reeeeeeally? At 2am? THAT’s when you acknowledge that this room is a mess?)
☆”Look at theshapadiswoom!” followed by an eye-roll and a pretty impressive Tut tut. (And yet you still won’t clean it in the morning, which is nearly FECKIN HERE ALREADY!) 😢😢😢
☆ “The Sky’s awake, so I’m awake.” (If I ever get my hands on the prick who wrote that shit…it’s NOT SO ADORABLE AT STUPID O’CLOCK.)
☆ “I need water!” (“Mummy can’t go up to the kitchen when the alarm is on pet.” 

TAKE THAT MINI-ME!!! 

“Der’s water beside your bed Mammy.”  

DAMMIT! 😡😡😡
☆”I hear FOR!” (THOR) “He’s outside my window!” (No, he isn’t Sweetheart … as much as Mammy would LOVE to meet Thor and his hammer in the dark… 😂 😈😈😈)
☆ “I’ve alweady been to sleep TWO TIMES tonight!”  (Seriously…her logic and debating skills would make a politician look as useless as a chocolate teapot…)
☆ 3.20am “You can go back to your own bed now Mammy, I need to go to sleep.” 

(Are you serious?)


Then at 8am, (🎶singing🎶)…”Good Morning, Good Moooooorning, we’ve slept da whole night fruu!” in the hallway, just loud enough to ensure that Princess joins in with “Mamamamam!”

(Are you shitting me?)
 S-Mum kicks The Him 👤, who I know went to bed last night assuming it was his turn for a Sunday morning sleep-in.
S-Mum growls and hisses like a rabid badger, offers some obscenities and expletives about getting EVERYONE OUT, followed by “I only got to bed at 3.45…pleeeeeeeeease…I just need another hour!” 

(Why I still feel the need to exaggerate the time, necause 3.21am wasn’t late enough, I don’t know!)
And so, today, I’m knackered and SHE is like a bag of feckin rattlesnakes, coiled up and ready to attack ANYONE who dares speak to her. 😂😂😂
How fun…😅
Thank you to #glammymammy Nicole for sending me this image.

Enjpy the last few hours of the weekend S-mumblies. Xxxx

I am Start-getting-organised Mum!

Posted in children, family by

​So it’s time to get organised!
Tonighy, I am too exhausted to be wittiful or funniful, but I do hope to be slightly helpful. 😚
I started using this technique👇👇👇 when Mini-Me began attending Naíonra last year.  
Mornings are very stressful in every house, and while this won’t guarantee peaceful Little-House-on-the-Prairie scenes of family love and  peace and zen, it REALLY helps.
I put her clothes, clean vest, pants and socks in to each one and used the bottom drawer for shoes.  

Now that she’ll be in a uniform, it’ll be the underwear really, and her PE gear will be in whichever day she needs it.  

If you can get them into the habit of putting their shoes in once they are taken off, it saves THE BIGGEST NIGHTMARE each morning…the “GO AND GET YOUR FECKING SHOES!” debacle? (Drives me insane! 😂)
I was desperate to get some calm and routine into our house, so thought it was worth a try.

It was.
It helped HER to take a little bit of responsibility for herself.  🌟

 It helps instil an understanding of the days of the week as well as word recognition. 🌟

  It makes them feel grown up and most importantly, it made ME get organised!😂
For the first few weeks, I was Mary Fricken Poppins on a Sunday night. 😂  It didn’t last long, but I did remain in the habit of making sure that the drawer was full at bedtime each night. 

And it really did make mornings SOOOOOO much more relaxed. (I ALMOST bought one for myself! 😂)
Right now, it’s full of bibs and cloth nappies and God Knows What, but tomorrow we are going to make colourful new labels, because in fairness, compared to these 👇👇👇👇 two aesthetically pleasing examples, my white decorated with a Sharpie attempt (top right! 😣😣) is a bit shite isn’t it? 


So try it!

These drawers are easily found, and already in most homes, and to be honest, sticking labels on the wardrobe or chest of drawers they already have,works just as well!  

 Get them to help you make the labels so they have ownership of the whole project.
Kiddies are clever and love structure.

Mammies are desperate and love calm.
Give it a go and let me know how you find it? Or share YOUR tips for Magically-Mayhem-Free Mornings?
S-Mum 😙

Posted in blog, children, family, parenting, time, wine by

​It’s here.
It’s horrid.

But, like everything, it’s happening whether I like ot or not, so I have to pull up my “Big Girl” knickers and get over it. 😂💗😂
It’s the night before I finally add “outside of the hoouse” work to all the “Stay at home Mum” work I already do.  

Over the past week, more than a few people have said things like “You’ll be glad to get back into routine”, “Sure you’ve been off for AGES,” and even “It’ll give you something to do again”.  It seems to be assumed that being at home with two kids is simply an extended holiday; easy peasy.
What people often forget is that when a Mammy (or Daddy indeed) goes back to work, none of the “SAHM” work goes away.  

It just gets ADDED to. 

The cooking, cleaning, washing, shopping, surviving… It’s simply condensed into LESS TIME.😥😥
And that’s before the playing, teaching, growing, reading, and loving that our kids need from us.
Being a SAHM is hard work.

Working AND being a Mum is hard work.

Because, technically, we’re both.  Although we go out to another building to do our jobs for a few hours a day, we’re still also Stay at home Mums, because Mums NEVER switch off! 
My Mum has been a SAHM for 35 years.  She’s the hardest worker I know and her “career” was and still is,  us.  

She never got a sick day. She rarely even gets a “Her day”.  

Her salary?

 Slobbers and smiles and a few successful “Proud Mammy” moments along the way. 😅😍😍

  Each of us owes who we are and what we’re achieving every day, TO HER, WORKING to be everything we needed.  She’s raised 6 of us and is now helping us to raise OUR babies.  She might not have had to answer to a boss or fill out paperwork or wear a uniform, but she left her job to do THE single most important job in the world…full time.
And while I would give ANYTHING to give my girls the same dedication and security, I can’t.

 That’s just life. 
I know from my short maternity leaves from my job, how absolutely heart wrenchingly lonely being a SAHM can sometimes be.  When the only conversation you’ve had in a day was with a grumpy, tantruming toddler or a Babby whose vocabulary stretches only to “Dadada”; when you answer Mr. FECKIN TUMBLE, OUT LOUD; 😅 (admit it Ladybelles, we’ve ALL done it!), then you know the importance of companionship, of colleagues, of friends.
I can’t imagine what it was like for Mums before social media etc. 

 One of the few things I am genuinely looking forward to is spending some time with my colleagues. 

I’m lucky to work with real friends. They’ve stayed in touch and kept me included in the year I’ve been off.  For that alone, I’m blessed.
My biggest fear tonight is how my Brain is going to cope with all the EXTRA stuff: the new routine, the work, the prep, the marking, the stress, the Mini-Me at Big school, the tiredness, the THINKING.  How I’m going to FIT all of that, (even though it’s what I’ve done for 15 years without a thought! ), into my head on top of the mayhem of our Crazy frog lifestyle as it is, I DO NOT KNOW.
And yet I will.

(There may be a grape shortage in the next 6 months, just to warn you! 😅🍷)
By tomorrow night, I’ll feel like I was NEVER away. I know I’ll soon get back into the swing of things. I’ll manage, like every Mummy with a job does.

  I’ll feel guilty every day. I’ll hate leaving.  I’ll have days where I function on no sleep.  I’ll have days where I’m at work wishing I was at home with my girls.  I’ll constantly remind myself that I’m working for THEM; because reality doesn’t allow me to stretch this precious maternity leave for even another day.


So while I spend most of today sobbing like a twat everytime I looked at Princess and Mini-Me, I also had a lovely day with them.  The Him even took a bit of time away from Jim to join us. 🕵 Jim is probably huffing tonight, but SOMETIMES Crazy,  Highly emotional Wife is more important! 😂😂
We spent a blissful afternoon at Oakfield Park, visited lovely friends and then I came home and burned the dinner while Princess found a marker and drew ALL OVER HER FECKIN FACE! 😣😣😣


So yes, a significant but pretty normal day really…
Finished obviously with a little tipple, to celebrate having had the chance to be a SAHM for even a while, and to make myself feel a little bit bloody better about going back to my “other job” tomorrow.
Bubbles it is.

Cheers to the working parents, both in the workplace and in the home. 

You’re FABLIS. XXXXX 
SAHM 😙😙