Tag Archives: Mum knows best

I am Seriously long dinner Mum

Posted in children, family, parenting, swear words by

S-Mum is foooooked. 😩😩😩
Tonight’s dinner took 1 hour and 13 minutes.
1 feckin HOUR and 13 soul-destroying minutes.😠
It went like this.
Her:  I don’t like Chicken.

Me: Yes you do.

Her:  You KNOW I don’t like chicken.

Me: Yes you do.

Her: No I don’t. (Pushes chicken off plate.)

Me: Please put that chicken back on your plate.  Now, stop your nonsense and eat your dinner. (Inside scream.)

Her: I don’t LIKE chicken.

Me: You ate chicken in Granny’s on Monday.

Her: That was Gwanny’s chicken. 

Me: (You have to be feckin joking me.) Eat your dinner please pet. 

Her: WHY. are. there. CARROTS. on. my. plate? (Impressive tone there Mini-Me.)

Me: Eat your dinner.  Look.  Princess is eating her dinner. (Futile sing songy voice)

Her: These potatoes are BORING.

ME: (FUCK ME….) The potatoes are special magic potatoes that give you super powers.

Her: I don’t like chicken. 😡😡😡😡😡
Repeat this x 17.
Add in a few top parenting lines such as: 
“If you eat your dinner, you can have TWO bedtime stories.”  (I’m amazing aren’t I?)
“Did you know that eating your dinner makes your muscles bigger than Daddy’s?”

(JUST EAT YOUR BLOODY DINNER!)
“Look. Your baby sister is almost FINISHED HERS. She’s such a big girl.” (Yup. I know. I’m terrible.)
“Potatoes make you big and strong.” (Yes.  I said it. Despite the interweb telling me last week that this line will fuel negative body image. Seriously?)
“Mummy wears glasses because I didn’t eat carrots when I was little.”  (EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT….SWEET JEEEEEEEEESUS, JUST EEEEEEEEAT!)
“YOU WILL SIT AT THAT TABLE UNTIL YOU’VE EATEN THOSE POTATOES.” 

Dirty looks.😈
Princess had started hers, fallen asleep in her highchair, had a 20 minute nap, woken up and finished hers in the meantime.  😇😇😇
“Right. Scooby Doo is going off.” (Imagine that I would have cartoons on during dinner?  I know.  Go ahead.  Phone social services.  I’ll dial for you shall I?)
The telly was turned off. 

She wailed like a shitfaced banshee.

I turned my attention to the food covered fudge monster in the high chair…

I ignored her snarling…

And she finally gave in.
(She probably got hungry! 😂😂😂)
It took one blast in the microwave and 1 hour and 13 minutes, but she EVENTUALLY ate the stupid potatoes.
THEN.
THEN, she bounced off the chair, scraped and put her own fricken plate in the dishwasher, skipped over to me, gave me a kiss and said “Two stories.  That’s SOOOOOO KIND OF YOU MY MAMMY BEAR!”
I may give up now.  I don’t stand a chance.
So anyway.

How was your day?

😘😘😘
#SMum #Mammyblogger #Mummy #MiniMeAndPrincess #RealStruggles #FML  #dinner

I am Switching-around-the-furniture Mum

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

Today was a very productive day.
We spent the afternoon moving furniture around and rearranging rooms! 😆

I can’t tell you the joy this gives me. It makes me happy when The Him is home and actually gets to USE those muscles 💪💪he works so hard on at the Jim. (Yes, I refer to our gym as a person.👤 He is after all a member of the fricken family.)

The Him with the muscles however is not so keen on my biannual moving of the furniture. 😐
He doesn’t GET that it makes S-Mumming much easier when there’s a certain amount of organisation and order in our very messy home.

He agreed to move the furniture today on condition that I don’t rearrange the kitchen (again.)
All this did was put that idea into my head and onto my to-do list for tomorrow. 😈
I’ll take pleasure reminding him it was his idea when he’s swearing tomorrow night because he can’t find the black pepper.😂

Anyway, the BEST thing about the rearranging of the furniture was the moving of a double bed into Mini-Me’s bedroom.
S-Mum is being very clever and pre-empting such future events as sleepovers and “I need Mummy” nights of fever or whatever.  Instead of my arse hanging out the side of her tiny bed, I shall simply lie beside her. Clever mammy. 😗

But he BESTEST THING about the double bed is how ABSOLUTELY TINY my lanky, skinny 4 year old looks tonight as she sleeps in the huge bed.  She’s so small and tootsy and it’s a lovely feeling to see her so teeny, rather than looking at how big she’s getting and wishing time would stop.
Silly maybe.
But it makes me happy. 😇
And after the mayhem of rearranging the rooms, The Him took us out for dinner. (I think it was to stop me from moving the coffee machine into the bedroom really.)
Mini-Me ate everything in front of her.
So did I. 🍰
Princess smiled at everyone and battered our Bloke.  (He loved this really.)

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And then we had ice-cream.
So all is now right with the world.
I’m off to pour a glass of grapes.
I do need my 5 a day you know. Must keep the strength up for tomorrow’s kitchen rearranging!
Goodnight S-Folks xx

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I am SeelaSalaaCassello-Mum!

“SeelaSalaaCassello
SeelaSalaaCassello
SeelaSalaaCasselloooooooo
And so say all of us!”

This is what Mini-Me sings EVERY time she finishes singing “Happy Beffday”.
It’s completely ridiculous, but so cute that I don’t have the heart to correct her.  In fact, on Friday last, while her Aunty blew out her candles, everyone started to sing Mini-Me’s version of the song.  I have a feeling that it will be one of those things that will haunt her into adulthood.

And it got me thinking.  Why do we automatically correct some mistakes, while accepting others?
Why do I think it’s okay for her to change the entire lyric of a song, but yet when she says “Where is her?”, I immediately correct her with “Where is she!”?

It’s not like my own speech is perfect.
I sometimes talk really quickly.
Like, really quickly.
Or so I’m told.

I’m always aware that I need to slow down, especially if I’m speaking to someone new.
It can be full speed ahead, to the point that if you’re not from lovely Donegal, there’s a good chance that you’re smiling politely at me, but you’ve no idea what I’m saying.

Why do I do this?
I have no idea.

I do make an effort to slow down obviously, but if I’m nervous or excited, I speed up dramatically.
If I’m excited and I’ve had coffee, I go to superspeed.
If I’m excited and I’ve had wine, well you had better buckle up and try to keep up!

As an English teacher, I am constantly aware of the mistakes that we make in our everyday speech.  Indeed, outside of the classroom, I am happily able to slip into the colloquial dialect of my hometown.   I don’t apologise for it.

I’m am however, that person who is silently correcting your grammar.  I don’t mean any harm.  It’s my job I suppose.

When people mispronounce words, I cringe.  (I had a meeting once with a lovely lady who loved the word “specific”, but who pronounced it “pacific”.)
When my students make the (very Donegal)  mistake of “I seen him down the town,” I have been known to start singing “See-Saw, See-Saw, See-Saw!!!!!” at them.

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I want to throw people who like, say “like”, like a lot, out the like window.

So of course I try to teach my own girls to speak properly.

I find myself using the phrases “Slow down” or “Let me hear your words please” with Mini-Me quite frequently of late.

Her speech is generally very good.  It’s never been a cause for concern for me.
She drives my brother crazy saying “Lellow“.  He once spent 20 minutes teaching her “Ye-Ye-Yellow.”  She proudly ended the lesson with “Ye-Ye-Lellow!”
Everything is “Bery” good and she wears a “best” instead of a vest.
I don’t stress.  She’s three… (or free!).

She lost her first tooth last week and for a few days, her newly acquired lisp provided great entertainment to the adults in her life.  Of course, we didn’t make her aware of the humour she was providing to us, but we had a little chuckle at the cuteness among ourselves.  It passed after only a few days.

But it got me thinking.
Over the past week, I’ve found myself paying attention to the little words she mispronounces or gets completely wrong.  And where I would usually automatically say the word correctly to her straight away, I’m trying to remember them.
She’s growing up so quickly and as she proceeds through the school system, those little mistakes will be rectified by her well-intentioned teachers.

Instead, when she announces that she wants another “escapode” of Peppa Pig, I smile and enjoy the fact that she’s can even try to say that word!

And for now, when she has the confidence to stand in front of a room full of people and sing “Seeeela Saalla Casello!” At the top of her voice, I let her.
(How “She’s a jolly good fellow” became “Seeeela Saalla Casello!”, I will never know).
But it is hilarious. It’s cute. It won’t last forever.

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(Sometimes however,  we must correct.
Like yesterday when she bumped her elbow and screamed “You hurt my Booobeeeee!”, I HAD to correct her.
I’m not even going to try to understand how she got those two particular body parts mixed up, but she did.)

Because she’s three.
And for  “Seeeela Saalla Casello!” And so say all of us!

I am  “SeeeelaSaallaCasello-Mum”. 😅

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Or on Twitter @Maria_Rushe

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I am Suspicious Mum

Posted in parenting, toddlers by

happy singing

Yesterday, something strange and wonderful happened in our house.  For the first time in months, there were no alarms set to go off.  Yesterday, we were blissfully able to waken up to the wonderful world in our own good time.

And while this good time is usually before 7am, yesterday morning, we found ourselves looking at 9.10am on the clock.

This is absolutely unheard of in a very busy house.

So unheard of actually, that the initial stretches and contented turning over in the bed quickly turned to suspicion…panic almost.

Have we slept in? Why wasn’t she up yet? Was she OK?  What was wrong? Because something must be wrong when Mini-me is still sleeping after 9am.

And then we heard it… the singing.

Poor, sweet, oblivious Husband smiles and says “Ah listen to her, the wee dote’s singing.”

Poor, suspicious Wife smiles and says “Mmmmmmhmmmmm…the wee dote’s peed the bed.”

He automatically frowns at me and asks “Now how can you tell that when she’s across the hall?” and as he gets up to go over to his wee dote, I snuggle back under the covers knowing how the conversation is going to go when he reaches Mini me’s bedroom.  How do I know?  Because I do.

Pink---MUM-KNOWS-BEST---Tops

Every morning, our little munchkin climbs out of her pink bed, toddles out of her pink bedroom and takes her pretty self up to the toilet in the not-pink bathroom.

But once in a while, usually after an epic long sleep, she awakens in a puddle.  And rather than jump out of bed, horrified that she’s lying in smelly peepee, she seems to find the warmth of this magical peepee puddle so lovely and cozy, that she just stays there.  And she’s clever enough to know that when the duvet is pulled off the bed, said magical warm nest will become cold and wet and uncomfortable.  So she stays there…singing…until Mammy comes in and ruins it.

“The bed wet my jammies Daddy!” she announces as he enters the bedroom.

“Did you have a wee accident?”

“No.  It was the bed!”

So the bed had an accident.  Mini Me enjoyed the cozy cuddles of the accident and within two minutes, had been lifted from one warm, wet puddle to another one, as I set her into a bubble filled bath.

Accident prone bed stripped, washing machine started, windows swung open…oblivious toddler blissfully continues singing in her bath.

We have to admire a toddler’s ability to see only the good in a situation like this.  To the adult, it’s a torture; wet bed, PJ’s stuck to skin, stench of pee in the room. To the toddlemonster, it’s quite enjoyable to wake in the morning.in a pre-heated cocoon!

So how did I know that the sweet, melodic singing that greeted our lovely alarm free morning, was in fact an alarm screaming Mum, the bed’s wet!?  How did I know that she was quite literally singing in the rain-puddles?

Because I’m suspicious Mum, and where my Mini-me is concerned, I’m usually right!

suspicious