Category Archives: parenting

Get Set, Back to School

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So it’s time to finally get back into our grooves, however wobbly they may be this year, and return to normality and reality with everyone back to School, Childcare, activities and work.

I don’t know how you other Mammies are feeling this morning, but I for one am exhaustipated even thinking about beginning the balancing of all the plates. It’s been a long 5 months.

Even though the girls have been up at Stupid O’Clock most mornings over the past 5 months, suddenly having to have everyone out the door, fully dressed and even partially fed, is giving me the heebyjeebies. I may have to set their alarms for 5am to get out of the house by 8am.

It will take a few weeks to get back into the swing of it, but here are a few things that I do each year which do help, if only a little bit.

Meal plan: I do out a plan for the week of what meals we’ll be eating and then base the shopping list on what I needed for these.  I’ll get back into the habit of making extra dinner for me to have as lunch the next day too. Especially now as space and time will be limited in the staffroom. Ready to eat lunch boxes are going to be essential for me.

Planning the week’s meals might seem a bit boring, but it saves a fortune and allows me to plan meals around how much time I have each evening too.  Less waste and an empty fridge by the weekend.

Also, chop fruit (Melon etc) before you put it into the fridge as you unpack the shopping to allow for faster lunch making! Oh. And I have a keep the stuff they like in sandwiches in one container in the fridge so I just have to lift it out when making lunches.

2. All hail the Slowcooker: Unfortunately, with The Him and myself working 482 hours per week, family dinners are only a weekend thing here, so yes I usually end up cooking twice a day as the girls are often in bed before he’s home. When I’m off, this is not a problem, but now back at work, where you have to condense your whole day into 2 hours, it becomes one. And so my trusty slowcooker will be returned to regular use.  Also, big pots of curry/chilli etc can last a few days and freezing random portions allows for the evenings where my plan fails! 

3. Get up early: Yeah yeah, cliched I know, but it is so true. I’m an early bird; not because I like getting out of bed. No. I LOVE my bed. But I also love having an uninterrupted shower and a full hot cup of coffee. If I’m not up at least 45 minutes before the girls, morning melts into mayhem. But if I can be up, washed, caffeinated, dressed and have the lunches packed BEFORE the noise in the hall begins, things are a whole lot more peaceful. If all I have to do is to focus on getting THEM ready, we can do it with a LOT less stress than if we all fall out of bed at the same time.  

4. Daily Drawers: I introduced this little trick when Mini-Me was in Naionra and it’s worked a treat for the past 5 years. It’s now in my youngest’s room as she starts school. I bought this stack of drawers and labeled the front. Every Sunday, I put clean pants and socks into the drawers.

Year 6 of using these drawers. Tried and tested.

Her PE gear/swimming stuff goes into the day she has PE and her shoes go into the bottom drawer every evening when she takes them off and the uniform hangs beside it. She loves it and it means we don’t have the “Wherethefeckareyourshoesforgodssakewewillbelate” debachle every morning! It’s also great for encouraging them to dress themselves.

Begone Messy dumping of schoolbags on kitchen floor!

I have also invested in these shelves for the utility. So now, each of us has a place to keep school/gym bags, coats and shoes. I’m hoping it’s going to stop the kitchen floor or back hall being crammed with bags etc. Every little helps eh?

5. Clean on a Thursday night: Since I have been working, even before I had the girls, I have always tried to be in the habit of cleaning on a Thursday. I do whatever washing needs done, clean the bathrooms, hoover and mop, and give the kitchen a once over. It means that when we get home on a Friday evening, the house is more pleasant than usual. And while the breakfast dishes and mess from Friday morning might be waiting for us, the house itself is generally clean and so apart from throwing uniforms and work clothes in the machine on Friday night, Mammy can focus on important things when they go to bed on Friday night… like what I’m going to watch and whether I want red or white!

Now, do NOT get me wrong. Mary Poppins I am not, but these are 5 things that are GENERALLY easy to turn into habits. Apart from the odd week, I’ll manage to maintain most of these goals and therefore, most of my sanity!

If you have any other tricks of #parentingwin hacks, please share them in the comments.

The Moon and Me…

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I should have feckin known…


I’ve just managed to get the two hallion stallions to bed. They have been absolutely WIRED this evening. Not in a “cute and funny, had too much sugar in GannyGanda’s” way…More like in that “If you look in my direction I will hiss and snarl and shoot daggers from my pretty blue eyes that are so sharp they will sting your Bitch-head” way.

The dog is being a cantankerous shite too. He is refusing to come inside. He has turned his back on me 83 times today and didn’t even have the decency to look excited when I tried to play with him earlier. He is however too old and lazy to bother with anything other than a bored and lethargic eyebrow raise which translates into “Feck away off woman. Can’t you see, I’m not in the mood? Catch it yourself you twat.”

Me?Well I shan’t pretend to be Mary-of-the-fecking-Poppins.Nope. I’m like a coiled and rusted, extra sharp barbed wire. If you get too close or look at me in the wrong way, there is a chance that I’ll snap and you’ll need a jab of some sort, like a Tetnus injection, to counteract the utter venemous HORMENTAL that is cruising through my feckin veins.

My Bullshit Barometer is wonky at the best of times. Today, it’s shattered, Stay away.

So tonight after tucking my little darlings in, having made only 93 threats and swearing FMLs 39 times, I momentarily considered pouring a large Wodka. (Mammy doos not drink wodka…or vodka for that matter, nor does Mammy drink on Monday nights, unless it’s a VERY special occasion.)

I did not pour anything. Instead, I checked the moon for the craic, only to see that it is indeed a New Moon. I now feel much better, that it is NOT just me and that my children are NOT turning into actual demonic shebithces and my beloved dog does not in fact HATE me… it’s just a phase we’re all going through…

Himself?Yeah… he’s fine. He’s working. (or hiding possibly in the gym. I can’t say I blame him to be honest.)

Anyone else go full blow LUNAtic with the moon?Just me?

Soft Play Hell…or Heaven?

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Once upon a time, the words “Let’s meet at soft play” instiled a sense of dread in me.

I hated it.

Gasp… yes I just typed that out loud… HATED it.

All of it; The noise. The crowd. The which eats little people into pits of puff. The sensory overload. Crying, screaming… Yip. Hated it all.

But until the girls were a certain size, the joy of having to drag my adult arse through multicoloured jungle jaws into forests of foam to supervise or save a wobbler or toddler from the pits of hell…

Nope.

But being the mother of the fecking year that I sometimes am, I put MY dislike of it aside and brought them, sometimes. But unless I absolutely HAD to, I admit I avoided it. I was clever actually. I offered it as a fun activity for them to do with Daddy.

Pahahahah! Take that Daddy Bear. Off you crawl.

But I must say that once the toddler phase has passed and your little one turns into a more sturdy little Fuman bean, (human being) soft play can be JOY.

JOY I tell you.

For now, at the grand age of four year bold, my youngest can hold her own and happily throws her shoes at me as she runs in… in some cases never to be seen again, until hometime. Or until the thirst takes over and the rosy red panting leads her to come running for water…

I can now bring my laptop WITH me and if I position my adult arse correctly, I can write, watch them AND drink a coffee all at once.

Getting them OUT of the place is often a challenge, but hey. It’s one I’ll take. For they are happy and sweaty and exhausted.

And I’ve had a full hour of coffee.
And I’ve written this…

Thank you Soft Play.

I may now promote you from hell to heaven. (Well, baby steps eh?)

A Train to Somewhere Special…

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We’re going on da train Mammy.”

“Are we really?”

I do enjoy how much of a novelty the concept of a train is for my kids. Mini-Me will probably GET that ticket for the Hogwarts Express before we see trains in Donegal in fairness.


“Come on Mammy. Get on!”
“Where are we going?” Mammy asks.
“Somewhere special” answers my wee conductor.

The closest my Donegal Babies will get to a train is the Hogwarts Express


She’s turned the sofa into a train, using cushions to create compartments.
Quite frankly, I’m all for any game that involves Mammy getting to sit her arse on the sofa for a bit.

As I grab my cuppa and walk towards the sofa, sorry train, she is putting the passengers into their “carriages”.

“You sit in here Chase, aside Marshall.”

Aw.

She turns to the ponies… “You guys go in here togever.”

She puts two members of a Sylvanian Family of hedgehogs into the last carriage. “You girls go in here…”

I’m about to ask where exactly Mammy is supposed to go, seeing as that all the carriages are now taken by fluffy bottoms.

“Why don’t you put them in beside your PawPatrol…(sorry POP a Troll)… so I can sit in that carriage I ask.”

“Because of Cowona viwis…”

“Sorry what now?”

“COWONA VIWIS… Only bruvers and sisters can be togever Mammy. We can’t mix them up…”

Fuck.

“You sit here.” I plonk myself at the end of the sofa train and watch her jump on the other end and start to “drive” the train, choochoo sound effects and all.

And while she is off in her imagination, on her way to ‘somewhere special’, I sit at the back, a little bit broken that no matter how much I’ve tried to normalise and downplay the effect of this shitstorm on my wee angel, the impact of it and the reality of it is there in front of me, as plain as a big feckin train.

Fuck you very much Corona Virus.

I never did find out where the ‘somewhere special’ was… I suppose I was already there.

Pop A Troll?

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The pair of them are on the sofa, trying and failing to navigate some Paw Patrol videos on YouTube, while I work at the kitchen table.


I’m making an effort to let them do a bit of “surfing” as I genuinely do worry that my 1980s approach to technology is possibly going to leave them completely inept when the rest of their classmates are flying through tinterweb. Honestly, mine can use the tellybox remote, but that’s the height of scrolling here.

They’re on the search bar and Mini-Me is trying to type in what they’re looking for…It’s PAW PATROL! She starts to spell P…A…Princess (who is ALL about pretending she has a CLUE how to spell right now), interrupts:


“Pah – awww – pap” (pause for effect)

“Aaaaaaaaa”

“TROLL”.

“POP A TROLL…”

Sorry what now?

“What are you spelling Darling?” I ask. “Paw Patrol” she answers. There’s that look again. The one that is now daily occurrence. The ‘Seriously Mammy how do you NOT know this’ look.

“Say it slowly for me?” I’m trying not to laugh.
“Pop A Troll”

Aaaaaah OK. SO it seems that the cartoon that has been constantly on our tellybox and with which her bedroom is literally filled, has in HER head been called “Pop a Troll…”

I don’t think I’ll bother trying to explain this one. It’s too cute and now I can not unhear it!

Kind of reminds me of realising that Coronation Street was not in fact Corn Nation Street and that Emma Dale was not an actual person.