Category Archives: family

I am Sunday Fun In W5 Belfast Mum. (Review)

Posted in blog, children, family, parenting, reviews, toddlers by

Yesterday was the last Sunday of the summer holidays (and indeed of my maternity leave 😣), so we decided to take a spin to Belfast to check out W5.

Mini-Me is Dinosaur Crazy and I’d seen on their website that they had a Dinosaur themed exhibition. So off we went.

On a Sunday it opens at 12pm.

We arrived at the Odyssey at around 12.20pm and parked close to the door. There were huge bouncy castles and slides in the foyer. Mini-Me wanted to go on the inflatable slide. It was £2 for 5 slides.  She did it once then freaked out that it was “too SCAWY!” and the guy supervising it handed the Him back the money, which was unexpected but very kind. So good start!

There was no queue for W5, the staff were friendly and helpful and £32 later, we entered. (In fairness, we are now 3 adults and 2 kids. Our Bloke is 18 on Friday so gone are the days of a family pass into ANYWHERE!😅)

Immediately, the kids are entertained. Smoke signals, hot air balloons, lava lamps, interactive screens… it’s interesting from the first room.

The first floor had a brilliant exhibition of sciency stuff.  What was most surprising to me, was how entertaining it all was, even to the adults.  It’s one of those places that really does cater for ALL AGES. Mini-Me and our Bloke were equally intrigued by some of the stands! 👇👇👇

We did lots of tests and of course, with S-Mum and The Him involved, it got competitive! 😂Balance test, grip test, heart rate, strength etc. And we both lost YEARS on the “What’s your real age?” test! 😂

The Costa dock on the 2nd floor was clean and the young man was efficient and very polite. The climbing pod for kids there is AMAZING! Seriously, EVERY coffee shop should have one of these!

There is a brilliant play area for under 8’s with water features, interactive boards and floors, a huge train track, dolls’ house, doctor’s area, play shop and pretend cafe.  Waterproof aprons are available to allow kids to really get their hands stuck into the water feature. Oh, and the toilets in this section are kiddy sized!

Up on the next floor is the Dinosaur exhibition. The Interactive Screen was FABLIS! Not just for kids…we ALL got in on the action here!

I did expect a few more models of dinosaurs to be honest, but the two displays there were impressive. There were loads more games and features on this floor too, again, interesting to everyone.

Oh! And the views of Belfast from up there are beautiful.

The venue is clean, well laid out and there are lifts to each floor so it’s accessible to all. Bathrooms and Baby change areas were well sign-posted snd clean. Staff were very helpful and although it was quite busy by the time we were ready to leave, it’s a very safe and family friendly place.

Our ticket was valid until 6pm so if we had wanted to go out to one of the restaurants in the Odyssey, we could have come back in.

We left after 3 hours, but really could have spent another 2 easily. (We realised how close we were to the Disney Shop and so HAD to pop in to the City Centre!)😅

So overall, we were impressed.  I think Mini-Me will enjoy it even more as she gets older.  For Princess, there wasn’t much apart from the Under 8 area, but she IS only 9 months old! She was more than entertained looking around her and listening to the sounds.

When we left at 3.15pm, there was a queue of approximately 70 people outside, so it is definitely somewhere to go early.

We enjoyed it.  The kids enjoyed it. We were suitably impressed and we shall indeed be back.

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Also on Instagram @the.s.mum

#SMum #Belfast #W5

I am Sunday before September Mum

Posted in blog, family by

​Well is it a Sauvignon Sunday or a Shiraz Sunday in your house?
It’s Screw-it-it’s-the-last-Sunday-I-can-have-a-glass Sunday here.🍷🍷
Final-Dash-Walton-style-Family-Day-Out was very successful. 👪

W5 is fricken BRILLIANT for a day out. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it AND it’s edumacational and EVERYTHING!

(I’ll put a wee review up tomorrow.)
We DID make it to the Disney Shop and UNFORTUNATELY I fell into Zara on the way past. 😲😲
There was a very inconvenient (perfectly timed) downpour (joyful rain) that caused The Him🕵 to duck into the doorway which just happened to be ZARA… (YAAAAAY! Baaaahaaaaaaa!)

So I HAD to have a quick look around while it rained (joyful rain…joyful joyful rain!) and some tops FELL off the rails and insisted that I adopt them.

So being a very AngelinaJoliesque lady, I obliged.

I adopted them.

And technically, it was HIMS own fault because HIM dragged us all in.
Don’t you love Irish weather? 😂😂😂


I’m seriously considering breaking my “My kids won’t need screens in the car” rule.

The only thing that saved our sanity today was that our Bloke was between the two CrazyFrogs in the back seat, so he fielded the mayhem from us a bit. (Poor Cretur!) 😂🕵😂
This week is going to be nuts.

  I have some getting Mini-Me ready for school to do, some VERY exciting meetings about my  October BUMP & BEYOND and of course, I’m back to school myself… (sigh.)😋😋

I also have 4 days to complete ALL of the jobs I had on my to-do list when I STARTED my maternity leave last September! 
Let’s see how much I can do lastminute.com! 🙌😙

Isn’t my new mug FABLIS?

Actually it’s more ladylike than a mug. 

It is a cup.

For I is a LAYDEE who sups Magic Bean Broth from A CUP. 

Pinky out please! 😅

And it has lovely inspirational words on it, so even while I’m supping my magic bean broth, technically I shall STILL be TEACHING AND INSPIRING my babbies.

Teacher Win.

#SMum  #badteacher #W5 #Belfast #Zara #blog

I am She cracks me up Mum 

Posted in blog, children, family by

​I am She cracks me up Mum.
Mini-Me before bed: “Mammy, What did the witto children in Afwica do when St. Patwick was chasing the snakes away?”
Me: 

Absolute silence…

(I was trying to figure out if this was a serious question or a joke she’d heard somewhere, in which case I’d have been wondering WHO the HECK I would have to be bollocking about such subject matter for conversation with a 4 year old?)
Mini-Me Me: “Mammy, what did the witto children…”
Me: (because I couldn’t actually think of ANYTHING to answer her with) “I don’t know Sweetie.  Do you want two stories tonight because you’ve been such a good girl?” 
Mini-Me: “YAY!”
Mammy win.

Distraction rocks… (Some might say BRIBERY…I will stick with DISTRACTION.) 
She is a funny little thing.😍😍

When asked today at camp what she wanted her face painted as, her reply was apparently “Elsa and the Hulk.”

Now, I pride myself on NOT allowing gender differentiation to be a factor in our home.  The girls have tractors and football and we’re all about the Superheroes.

Either I’m doing a wonderful job or I’m raising a badtempered, violent Princess.

We’ll see…

Regardless, she came home as a giraffe! 🐆

It was adorable.

However, there is now yellow facepaint EVERYWHERE and I can’t get it off properly so she has gone to bed looking like a jaundiced minion. 😂😂😂
SO, she is FUNNY, but also very ASSERTIVE and POLITE.
On Monday night, Granda was turning hay in the field next door after she’d gone to bed. I told her he’d be finished soon and to go back to sleep.

 On Tuesday morning, this 👇👇👇👇👇👇👇 was stuck to the inside of her bedroom window.


I didn’t take much notice really, thinking it was a note to her fairy.  She loves blutack and writes on everything.  (I was just glad she hadn’t written on the glass. 😅)
This morning The Him 🕵asked her what it was.
It says “Dear Granda.  NO FARMING AFTER BEDTIME. Thank you!”
Poor Granda was busting himself to literally ‘make hay while the sun shines’, but Madam Moralknickers had other ideas.

Well she’s polite if a bit bossy! 😂😍😍
I may have to start buying presents 🍷 for her new teacher…

Bribery?  

How dare you…it’s simply Distraction! 

😂😂
#SMum

I am Soooo could in the Olympics Mum

Posted in children, family, parenting, terror by

​Tonight’s story choice was Tangled or Beauty and the Beast.
Tangled is too scary apparently…

Why?

“Because Eugene cuts her hair!”  (Silly Mammy.)
Yes Darling because the huge, giant, fanged, bad tempered MONSTER and mysoginistic arsehole male protaganist in Bootay and the Beast is nothing compared to having your hair cut.

I give up.

Her nightmare tonight had BETTER be about a huge fricken scissors rather than the Beast.😂
We’re going through a nightmare phase, which means that she ends up between us at approximately 2am and no one gets anymore sleep until 5am when Him’s alarm clock evacuates Him from the bed and she decides to slumber with her heel in my back.  

It’s not cute. 😡

It’s a pain in the posterier.  

If she’d snuggle up and go to sleep between us, it’d be tolerable, but NO.

Mini-Me lies there with the eyes of a frightened BLUEBOTTLE staring at the ceiling and jumping dramatically each time there is a sound.

And I would NEVER blame The Him👤…

(Pointing out that he let her watch “The Avengers” last Saturday doesn’t count as directing blame.  I’m simply stating a random fact that just happens to coincide with the start of her nightmares. Im not BLAMING anyone…) 😲😲😲
Today, I am a DOMESTIC GODDESS People!
I’m talking Super-fricken-Mum. 😂
 I attacked the laundry and made it to round 2 before giving it the fingers and closing the utility room door once again.

The girls were fed AND BATHED today.😅

I did floors.

I cleaned.

I tidied.

The minions are now safe and snug in bed, the bombsite is tidied again and the dinner is on. 💃💃
I am fricken fablis and I don’t even want gin tonight!

That’s how much my shit is together tonight Ladybelles.
Or maybe it’s because I’m watching the muscly gymnasts on the Tellybox and they’re making me want to worship my body like the shrine that it is and the possible Olympic winning gymnast that it could be in 4 years time…

I could you know!

Well, maybe not.

My one and only attempt at “the Horse” or vaulty thing as an 8 year old child with seriously BAD EYESIGHT resulted in a black eye, delivered beautifully by my own knee…so maybe not gymnastics.
Synchronised swimming?  Can’t swim…

Diving? Afraid of heights…
Ah I’ll find something to be fablis at.
Maybe being a Mammy should be an Olympic sport?

 I’ll surely have it perfected by 2020! 

Hahahah! 

For now, I’m going to enjoy sitting here watching the non-druggied, good and honest male gymnasts.

Those muscles… the bums… siiiiiigh! 💖
Hope you all had a Marvellous Mumday! 😙😙😙

I am Suspicious smell Mum

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

​FINALLY.

My arse is on a seat.
I WANT to say I’m cosied up in my PJs for the foreseeable future, with the remote to the androidy yoke, a large glass of bubbles and scented candles…
I HAVE to say I’m sitting down for 5 minutes to say hello to you before I start to tidy this bombsite and start dinner.

 The PJs are not on yet as that would require me going into the hall which might lead to the awakening of the monsters and frankly, I’d rather work on deepening the red track of the jeans around my belly! 

 Even with my obvious ninja stealth and carefully choreographed movement, those two are trained to pick up on ANY sound from the hall in the first 20 minutes of slumber. The hall is a NoGo area for another 17 minutes.  😪😪😪
 Scented candles?  The only scent I’m getting is a suspicious “pong du puke”. 

I have no idea where it’s coming from, but there is definitely a pungent whiff eminating from some crevice or hidden burp-cloth or lost bib…
I was delighted today to get a text from my friend to say that her husband had taken their Princess swimming, only for said Princess to shit in the swimnappy and by proxy, in the swimsuit.  💩💩💩

The lovely chemicals in the water created some sort of spontaneous combustion and altered the physical state of said shit into a consistency that babywipes could do nothing but slide over.  Hence her message ended with the words:

“He’s just text to run a bath because they’re both clattered in poo!”💩

I can not TELL you the JOY I got from reading this.   (Joy and obviously utter entertainment!)

After a week of purple plops of that same babywipe defying consistency, it made me happy to know that somewhere out there, another parent was dealing with the same shit…literally. 😂😂
And isn’t that the best thing about this interweb and these parenting blogs? That we can realise that

1. We’re not mental

2. We’re completely normal

3. Other people think and go through the same as us

4. There’s nothing wrong with sometimes asking for help, or admitting you’re scared, or crying.

5. Many other Mummies and Daddies need…sorry, like…wine and Gin and there’s a possibility that youre not actually a raving alcoholic.  You’re just a parent.

6. There is no manual and there is no perfect parent.  If you feed them and love your kids, you’re doing great.

7. Sometimes, being a parent is lonely.

8. Most times, being a parent is AWESOME.
Mini-Me has become obsessed with a new book.  MY 1ST ENCYCLOPEDIA.

Tonight I learned that: 

♡ There was a dinosaur bigger than a T-Rex called Gigantasaurus.  I did not know that.  I shit you not.

♡We also learned that your heart beeps and the skin keeps all of yoir blood from falling out.

♡We learned that Neptune is the coldest planet but the smarties who wrote the book are not geniuses like my daughter, because they forgot to include the fact that that is where the PENGUINS LIVE. 

DUMBASSES. 😂😂😂
On another note.

Phase 1 of #operationskinnyarse ended today.  For anyone who isn’t interested, have a great Friday and click away now…😚

…but for anyone who is interested, I’ve lost 9lb and 11cm off my waist in 6 weeks.

I’m just delighted with that and that’s all that matters. 🐮

I share simply to show that the determination and stubbornness that I gave my girls can sometimes help me as well as drive me fricken crazy.😂

(And I suppose I should thank The Him 👤 and hims Jim for helping me to get a good start on getting my sass back. Bring on phase 2!)
So to celebrate, I am going to have some bubbles.

They’re full of air which has like, no calories, so it’s grand!

Phase 2 starts tomorrow!
Hope you all have a fab Friday night.  

Feel free to share any exciting plans you might have… I’m off to find where this stink of puke is coming from. IT’S FECKIN HONKIN!
Over and Out! 💖💖💖