I am Survival List Mum

Posted in children, family, Uncategorized by Maria Rushe - Blogger and Writer

“Surviving Christmas,” “Christmas Survival Tips for the Working Mum”, “How to Survive Christmas”…

I googled this last night.

Some of the “advice” online is nothing short of HILARIOUS. I fear most of it may have been written by one of the following:

🎄Mary of the Poppins herself

🎄Someone without kids

🎄A Man… 😂😂😂
Here are some of the best pieces I gleaned, followed by my honest and polite response: Buckle up Bitcheepoos…😙😉
1. “Be Prepared.”

No shit Sherlock. As opposed to waking on Christmas Eve and remembering to buy a turkey and gifts? Seriously…
2. “Buy gifts throughout the year and wrap them as you go.”

Now this one I can partially agree with, except S-Mum’s would read “Buy gifts throughout the year, put them somewhere safe and then forget all about them until the week before Christmas, when you have all the gifts bought and then open a box or bag or suitcase and find all the PawPatrol jigsaws you bought in July. Or even better, find them when you’re putting the decorations away in January!”
3. “Choose a theme for your gifts to add that personal magic”.

Here’s a theme. Shut the fuck up. Most of us just about manage to buy for everyone we have to buy for. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll remember someone on Christmas Day and freak out with guilt and embarrassment and mumble some crap about it not being delivered on time before popping to the loo to order on Amazon with next day delivery. (But if you doooooo want to add a personal touch and be remembered fondly by your loved ones, put glitter🦄 into all of the cards and gifts so that their floors get clattered and you are applauded for spreading the magic of Christmas. Go ahead, I dare you! 😂😂)
4. “Place delicate or expensive ornaments on higher branches.”

Ok this one, I can empathise with. Especially if you have toddlers or dogs. 🐶But in reality, put delicate or expensive decorations in the ATTIC and leave them there until 2023.
5. “Ice the Christmas Cake 2 weeks before Christmas”

Or in real life, remember on the 23rd that for some reason you need a Christmas cake and either pop to M&Spensive or decide not to bother with cake this year. Either way, it doesn’t really matter does it?
6. “Decorating the home should be a family occasion followed by a family meal.”

Oh really? Should it really? If by “family meal” you mean a bottle of wine after the kids have all gone to bed, then yes…yes this is true. 😅 Decorating the home is, for most, a painful and highly stressful process which generally takes more than one afternoon and involves tears, mess and even declarations of divorcing children and husbands. If you can get the actua tree up in one go, save yourself the stress and put everything else up by yourself, on your own, without the rest of the family annoying your head. After bedtime is ideal.😘😉
7. “Keep alcohol locked away.”

Out of the reach of children yes, but keep the key in your frilly fecking apron.
8. “Stock up on essentials: batteries, bread, milk and cream.”

Why there is no gin or wine on this list, is beyond me.
9. “Go Christmas Shopping without children. Bring a drink and a snack with you.”

Who the hell wrote this? If you can get someone to mind the minions for an hour, OF COURSE, go Christmas shopping without them. Have a gin and eat chocolate.
10. “Create a cleaning schedule for your home to keep on top of things this Christmas”.

There aren’t enough swear words for this one. A Cleaning Schedule? Who the hell has time to write a cleaning schedule? In the time it would take me to write a cleaning schedule, I would probably have half the cleaning done. If you can keep floors lego free and counters salmonella free, you’re doing great! You deserve a treat. 💚
There were a few little nuggets in fairness. Some of the better advice included “Scale down your expectations”, “Invent your own traditions”, and “Give yourself a break.”

Another gem that I completely agree with is “Buy disposable baking trays”: I stock up on aluminium turkey trays every year and everything is cooked in them. It’s a life saver!

The lists and articles largely did what they always do however; put undue pressure on already busy parents to stress themselves to create a picture perfect Christmas card-esque scene that in reality, is nonsense.

Do what YOU want to do. Buy what YOU can afford. Cook what YOU like to eat. If you don’t like mince pies, don’t fricken buy them. If you want to let your kids open all of the presents on Christmas morning, do it! If you like to wrap all the everything, do so. If you don’t, DON’T!

It’s that simple. We don’t need a survival list to survive Christmas, we need to give ourselves a break and enjoy it, because if you take a second to stop and look around you, often in the midst of lost presents and superfluous food shopping, you can see a little bit of magic without having to buy it.
What is your favourite “Survival tip” and why?

21Nov2016

I am Slippy Feet Mum

Posted in children, parenting, Uncategorized by Maria Rushe - Blogger and Writer

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

30Sep2016

I am Smashed Cup Mum

Posted in blog, children by Maria Rushe - Blogger and Writer

What do you get when you cross a cup and a bin lorry?

Let me tell you a story on this Fablis Friday evening…
Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Princess Mini-Me. One day, OVER a year ago, Granny brought Mini-Me to a pottery cafe.

Mini-Me painted a cup, much like the one in the image below. As Mini-Me was just about to become a Big Sister, they decided that the cup would hereforth be known as “Big Sister cup”.

Cute so far eh?
Mini-Me brought her new cup home and for 3 whole months, the Big Sister Cup sat in the cupboard, where Mini-Me pretty much ignored it, apart from the odd day when she took a notion to ask for it.
Then, one fateful, cursed day, Mini-Me dropped the cup and it smashed into 3 million Smithereens, all over the kitchen floor. Cinderella’s glass slipper didn’t have a look in and THIS fairy Good-GOD-mother, didn’t have a CHANCE of fixing it.
And so the Big Sister Cup went to the big cupboard in the sky. OK, I exaggerate. It went INTO the bin, AWAY in the Bin Lorry and OUT of our minds…

A few months later, it was mentioned again out of the blue.
We drove past a Bin Lorry. She started to shout “Follow THAT BIN LOWEEEEE!” and “BIG SISTER CUP!”

We laughed (Hahahaha!) and hugged her and gently explained, once again, that the cup was BROKEN and it was GONE.

And they all lived happily ever after…

Until this evening.
8 MONTHS LATER…As the Poor Queen S-Mum collected Mini-Me from school, she was summoned by the very lovely teacher, who informed her that Mini-Me had cried for 45 minutes after breaktime. She was VERY upset apparently, and try as she might, Teacher could NOT figure out what had caused the Tootsy One’s meltdown.

“She kept talking about a cup for her sister?” said Teacher.

“Huh?” said S-Mum. (Not a single clue.)

“And something about a bin lorry?”

(Penny drops. Oh. DEAR. GOD…)

“Aaaaaah! Darling, did you see a Bin Lorry at Breaktime?” ventured S-Mum.

“Yush Mammy and I wanted my Big sister cup back…”
Well I won’t go into the verbal diahorrea that began projecting from my mouth to try to explain to Teacher why my Daughter had FALLEN APART at the sight of a bin lorry. 😐😐😐
Because, it’s just too fricken weird and too hilariously ridiculous and is YET another example of how S-Mum may get used to feeling COMPLETE MORTIFICATION AND CONFUSION for the foreseeable future.

It seems to come with the territory.

It should be part of the instructions on the Pregnancy test… “Pee on stick, Wait for line, Get used to being confused about EVERYTHING.” 😂😂
So what do you get when you cross a cup with a bin lorry?
An ABSOLUTE TRAUMA which will continue to cause Mini Meltdowns WELL into the teenage years apparently.
I smell grapes.🍷🍷🍷
Happy Friday Lovelies.💖

Watch out for the Bin Lorries. 😂😂😂

27Sep2016

I am Say Hello to Floor Mum

Posted in blog, family by Maria Rushe - Blogger and Writer

Let me introduce you to my friend Floor.
“Miss Bedroom Floor” to give her full title.
Mummy misses Miss Floor. 😭

We have a complicated relationship.

We often go for months without seeing each other.

We can spend weeks apart, not talking, not asking how the other is doing, seemingly not caring aboit each other.
When Floor and Mummy fall out, it’s usually over clothes and shoes.

We have the same taste see.🤐

Floor also has a lot to deal with.

Mummy neglects her.

I do.

Since the kids came along, Mummy just doesn’t have the same time to spend with her. You could say she has been abandoned, dropped on, forgotten by Mummy.

I walk all over her really.

There is a layer of cobweb on our relationship, and it’s horrible.😭😭😭
And of course, there are the OTHER Floors… Floor MUST be jealous as Mummy keeps the other floors generally tidy.

SOMETIMES, (believe or or not), Mummy even MOPS the Other Floors.

I know.

I’m awful.😲

So I really can’t blame Floor for hiding from Mummy and ignoring me sometimes.
But like any TRUE FRIENDSHIP, when distance grows between us, we both feel sad.

Mummy misses Floor terribly.

When she is sad and isolated and upset, and the distance between us is great, Mummy could cry.

It’s all such a MESS. I feel like the whole house is falling down around me. I can’t get over her. I can’t get past missing her. I feel like my head is going to fucking EXPLODE.
This morning, my broken and disintegrating relationship with my friend Floor, became too much for me to deal with.

At approximately 7.45am, Mummy freaked out on The Him. 👤
I couldn’t DEAL with the absence of Floor any longer.
“I can’t deal with this situation any more. It’s driving me insane. I just can’t get the time need to find Floor!” were just a few of the things I ranted and rambled while trying to find the trousers Floor had hidden from me.

STRESS CENTRAL.
I went to work, promising myself that this evening, I WOULD make time for my Friend Floor. I WOULD fix this mess. I WOULD make her remember that she is loved and valued.
I would.
As I collected Princess from The Him after work, I was still determined to make amends with Floor.

As HIM drove off, he called “Try to get that Floor sorted this evening will you?”
He was waved off with less than 5 fingers and many obscenities, expletives and petnames muttered after him.

He will pay for that.
And then we came home and I opened the bedroom door to find THIS…

👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

NOT ONLY had The Him tidied up the room, he had rearranged the wardrobes to GIVE ME MORE SPACE!

I. Shit. You. Not.
I almost FELL on the floor in shock (and joy!)

I think I fell a little bit in lurve with Him all over again too.💙💙💙💙
Joking aside, I can’t find the words to express how much this simple, unexpected action meant to me today. It isn’t even the tidying that has floored me…(boom)… it’s the fact that he noticed how much it was stressing me out.

In a house where I sometimes feel like no one even HEARS ME most of the time, just to have something be noticed is amazing.
Tonight? If he bought flowers, diamonds, chocolates… none of that could compete with the utter joy of seeing Floor again.
The Him gets a tough time on here, so I must give credit where it’s due.

He is my Superhero.

My S-Him.

AND I’m NOT even going to REARRANGE the rearranged wardrobes!
(I’ll do that tomorrow!) 😂😘😘😘

26Sep2016

I am Sometimes I need my Mamma Mum 😚

Posted in blog, children, family by Maria Rushe - Blogger and Writer

Sometimes, S-Mum needs her Mamma too. 👭
This evening I HAD TO stay at Mum’s for a few hours after work.
See my driveway was full of lorries and diggers and workmen. It looked like the opening of “Fraggle Rock”, so I was FORCED to pop in to hers for an hour…or three!
She drank tea.🍵

I drank coffee.☕

We ate cake…(Seriously guys, she is THE BEST BAKER in the world. Click onto Cakes by Ann to see!)🍰
She cooked dinner.

Princess rearranged ALL of her cupboards.

Mini-Me provided a moment of immense achievement for Techy-Granny as her demands for Inside-Out caused Granny to figure out how to work the Brother’s Playstation as a DVD player!

I am in AWE of this woman.

I wouldn’t even know where the on switch is.😅
And then, I brought my Minions home and we have just had the most suspiciously calm and ordinary bedtime EVER…
This morning however?
This morning was not so calm.😭😭😭
We slept in.

I had NOTHING DONE before bed last night, because the smug TIT that is S-Mum had planned the usual 5.30am start and didn’t consider ironing uniforms or making lunches before bed. Clever Mummy.
We were running on the dodgy side of late.

I dropped Princess next door, realised I’d forgotten her dummies (not just 1 for my ruined rascal!), jumped back into the car to grab them from the house, spun the car BACK AROUND because of Big Digger SUDDENLY BLOCKING my driveway, ran back into Mum’s, kissed the Baby and apologised profusely for lack of dummies, jumped back in car, remembered I’d forgotten her bibs and FINALLY started on our journey to school…feeling UTTERLY FRICKEN USELESS! 😂
Mini-Me THANKFULLY announced that she wanted Quiet time, so I allowed myself to be soothed back into a more positive vibe with the familiar soothing tones of Donal K on the radio machine…
My train of thought followed this track:

“Snap out of it S-Mum.

You forgot her dummies, not her.

She’ll be fine.

Mum will get one from some magical place and Princess will not even know what a shit Mammy you are.

This is NOT a problem…

The S-Mum

…the superbly honest blog of a Thoroughly Modern Mammy

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