Tag Archives: reality

Riddle Me This… HOW is the ‘Big Shop’ Suddenly Causing Meltdowns?

Posted in Lifestyle, parenting by

So if you follow me on Instagranny, you’ll have seen me having a huge rant/meltdown after doing my shopping yesterday.

Not because of anyone else.
Not because of anything negative.
Not because of the shop.

Just about me.

And the realisation that something as simple and “normal” as doing the “big shop” had reduced me to a nervous wreck.

Yip. Me.

The very weirdo who doesn’t mind being in a bar or crowded place alone, who can happily spend a full day wandering around London on my own, and often, whose very joy DEPENDS on wandering around Dunnays ON MY OWN, got into the car after doing the shopping yesterday and freaked the feck out.

My heart was racing.
I was out of breath.
I had the fizzy fingers that I used to get when my anxiety was being a bitch, and I needed to decompress before I could even think about driving.

It was like a tidal wave of relief CRASHED over me once I closed the door.

What used to be one of my favourite things to do, has become something that I dread.

I hate it.

I hate the silence.
I hate the lack of eye contact.
I hate the absence of small talk and polite hellos.
I hate the heightened awareness of EVERY move made by everyone.
I hate the fear of stepping too close to someone by accident.

I hate the apocalyptic soft voice over the intercom reminding me to stay safe… it reminds me of ‘Children of Men’…a movie which I once taught as futuristic dystopian escapism, but which rings far too true these days.

I hate the whole thing.

But mostly, I hate my own weakness and how something so normal can freeze me to my core.

I hate feeling so weak.
I hate wearing the mask.
I hate the fact that so many of my friends and family are working on various frontlines every day, wearing these masks, and I can’t help.

I hate the fact that I melt down after wearing it for 30 feckin minutes.

I felt weak that I was complaining about doing the shopping. I mean Jesus wept, seriously Maria. Aren’t you lucky you having little else to be stressing about? Poor you my arse.

Yip. Absolutely. And I hate feeling so pathetically weak and I hate that I allowed something trivial to upset me so much.

But then, I read the hundreds, and I mean HUNDREDS, of messages from followers last night and this morning.

From women (and men) just as usually confident and capable as me, for whom the big shop has also become a terrible gauntlet run that frightens and stresses them.

And I don’t hate my weakness anymore.

I’m certainly not alone.

And yes, I’ll get on with it, and I’ll continue to do it for as long as it’s deemed essential by the people who are working to keep us all safe.

And I’ll pull up my big girl knickers and keep doing it, (in turns with Himself mind!), because, kids need food and all that jazz.

And I’ll remember that were all in this together, even though we have to stay 2 metres apart.

And I look forward to the day when this is all over, because then, I can promise you, I shall be skipping through the aisles, singing and smiling and hugging EVERYONE.

And there’ll be nothing they can do to stop me!

Whispers on the Wind – a Bedtime Story

Posted in Being Mammy, parenting, poetry, Uncategorized by

Whispers on the Wind

Two little sisters played on the beach

And just when their parents had stepped out of reach,bwbeach

Wee Sis asked Big Sis in quiet hushed words,

“What’s going on Sis? What’s wrong with the world?

 

Everything’s changed in the last few days.

It seems like all that we do now is play.  

I miss my school teachers and I miss going to school.

I miss all my friends and I don’t feel too cool.

 

What happened to dancing, gymnastics and drama?

I just  want to cuddle my Granny and Granda.

I like it that Mammy and Daddy are here

It’s nice, and I like, but it’s getting quite weird.

 

So what’s going on Sis, what’s wrong with the world? 

I know something’s wrong but I don’t have the words.

I don’t like to see all our grown ups so sad

They say it’s OK, but I know something’s bad.”

 

The Big sister listened and squeezed her hand tight,

And she thought of how she could make all of this right.

For she was scared too and it all felt disastrous,

She missed all her friends and her teacher and classes. 

 

But she closed her eyes tight and for answers she longed,

To share with her sister and make them feel strong

And just as she was going to say “I don’t know”

A voice on the wind whispered into her soul.

 

It tickled her ears and it kissed her cold face

And suddenly everything fell into place.

She turned to her sister, she pushed back her hair,

And started to speak words she magically heard…

 

“The world has gone funny, and everything’s changed

But it won’t last forever, it’s only a phase.

We’ve gone from being busy and rushing and spinning

To not going anywhere, morning or evening.

 

Mammy and Daddy, who work all they’re able,

Are still working hard, from the one kitchen table.

And yes there’s a virus and yes, it is scary, 

But if we stay home and if everyone’s wary

 

We’ll hopefully stop it from getting too massive,

And the Doctors and heroes will manage to smash it.

So don’t you be worried, just know there are reasons

And this too will pass, it’s simply a season.

 

When all this is over, when all of this ends

We’ll get back to normal, We’ll play with our friends.

We’ll go back to our classes and have lots of fun, 

We’ll have parties and playdates and hug our loved ones. 

 

We just have to trust that the grown ups have got this,

And that they’ll do everything that they can to protect us.

Then Mammy’s voice called them with ”Girls, time to go!”

And they looked at each other, and they smiled in the know

 

That they would have lots of adventures together

On beaches, in sunshine, or in rainy weather.

They ran to their Daddy and called to their Mum

And as they were running, the clouds showed the sun.

 

For nature can comfort the fears that we’re feeling

And breezes keep whistling their secrets and healing;

And all of your worries will soon disappear

Like the wind on the faces of two little girls.

 

Maria Rushe 

March 2020 

Posted in Uncategorized by

I made it…Last night, Mammy was smart.Mammy went to bed early in order to be bright and fecking breezy for the first day of a shiny and glorious new term.Mammy had the uniforms and all that jazzle laid out and ready for her precious minions before her early night…Mammy smugly cozied under the quilt, blew kisses at the husband and muttered sweet Goodnights…Then Mammy lay awake for pretty much the whole huckin night, unable to drift off and with a brain that was doing 120 on a playground roundabout with 269 tabs open and a techno rave playing in the background.I swear I saw EVERY Fricken hour from 10pm until 4am…Between the wind battering the windows and my brain battering my insides, there was NO sleep.My veins were fizzing with adrenalin, probably a mix of anxiety about going back to work and a deep FEAR of sleeping in.And then, just as Mammy finally drifted into a stupor, the alarm went off at 5.30am…Mammy decided to cut her losses and got up a Stupid O’clock to wave Husband Dearest off to work.Then Mammy had coffee, did some gym admin, made a pot of chilli, made the lunches, did a load of washing, started the dishwasher, wrote a blog post and had a shower, before wakening her precious minions from THEIR quite peaceful slumbers.Princess was confused about why she was getting up in da night time after 2 weeks of daylight starts. She wanted to know “Are we going to Spain?” as apparently that is what happens when she goes in the car in the dark.
(Once. Once was enough for this to be a feckin thing in her head…)Mini-Me decided to unleash her inner She-wagon and complain at Mammy about EVERYTHING.
Why did you get me THIS shirt?
Why are my Harry Potter socks not dry?
Why is the water warm?
Why is there no jam?…”Just because that’s why!” Mammy may have bellowed before making all dirts of rubbish threats and grumbling under breath.And so we made it to school.
I made it to work.
I made it through many many classes.
I made it to Aldi-everything to buy food (*and forgot the jam)I even made it to the gym…And now, I’m making another effort at an early night, with the hope of getting some actual frickin sleep so that tomorrow can come and kick my bright and feckin breezy ass all over again.Hope you all made it too! 😘#sofeckinblessedthough
#reallifefun

My New Year Mam-tras…

Posted in Being Mammy, parenting, Uncategorized by

Happy New Year my Lovely Ladybelles.

By now, the trees are possibly down and the house looks alarmingly bare.

It’s back to uniforms and routine and lunches and gymbags…and after 2 weeks of hibernating with my little cubs, I for one am ready for normality.

I took my tree down on this morning and very quickly realised just how DIRTY my house is.

There is a layer of dust, of handprints and of pawprints and of glitter on every surface in my home and I have decided to give it a new name:  it is my “Layer of Love”.

Giving it a nice name like that makes it easier to tolerate.  Clever eh?  I don’t feel so bad about the dirt now, when I consider that it was my own little munchkins who happily caused it.

happy

In the midst of the New Year’s Resolution BS of January, here are a few precepts or mantras that I intend to try harder to follow this year.  They’ve been the same for the past few years; not resolutions, just notes to me, from me, with love.

I’m not changing anything. I simply try to employ these in order to try to keep my sh*t together.

These would the Rules of Mammying if I were Queen of the World.

  1.  Embrace the Layer of Love.  Yes, our houses must be safe and generally clean, but handprints on the glass or dust on the TV aren’t really good reason to stress, are they?
  2. Let it go. The things that bother you? The things you can’t change. The people who annoy you? The opinions that upset you? Are they really worth being bothered about?  If it’s outside of your own 4 walls, it’s not important.
  3. What people think of you, is none of your business.  If people don’t like you, it’s THEM who has the problem, not you.  You won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Stop trying.  The most important thing is that you like you. Work on that.
  4. Believe that you can.  Who says that you can’t?  Tell that committee of negative thoughts in your head to sit down and shut up.
  5. Stop Comparenting.  Comparenting is my favourite word.  It’s clever isn’t it? It’s when we compare our parenting to others.  And it’s never positive or productive, so stop it! (and especially don’t comparent yourself to Sanctimammies… another cool word eh? I should write a Parenting dictionary…)

I’m not going to change in 2020.

I’m quite happy with who and how I am already thank you.  I manage (just about!) to keep it all between the ditches just fine as I am. I will be focusing a bit more on balance.  I have a lot of plates spinning and it’s time to make them work for me a bit more, rather than me working for them.

I will continue to try to keep implementing these ideas in my daily life.

Especially the Comparenting one.  I don’t care if Shaniqua’s Mum lets her sit in the front seat.  I don’t care if Tarquin’s Mum gives him Football Special in his lunch.  I don’t care if Jezzabell’s Dad brings her to every dance class going.  Good for them.

Parent for your kids, in your home.

I hope your layer of love is only beautiful after the holidays.

mum

 

Stuff your “Survival Guides” with Holly…falalalalaaaa

Posted in Being Mammy by

It’s the weekend of Toy Shows and trees for many…
So I am posting my Christmas Survival Guide for the Mary of the Poppins types…

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

I googled these 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 responses: (Buckle up!)

1. “Be Prepared.”

No sh*t Sherlock. As opposed to waking on Christmas Eve and remembering to buy a turkey and gifts? Seriously… This is a useless piece of advice.

It’s like telling a woman to ‘calm down’. When in the history of the world has telling a woman to ‘calm down’, resulted in her calming down? Never. So telling a Mammy to “Be Prepared” for Christmas, is NOT helpful.

2. “Buy gifts throughout the year and wrap them as you go.”

Now this one I can partially agree with, except THIS Mammy’s version 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. ShutthefuckUp.
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.”

Go higher Jacinta…
Put delicate or expensive decorations in the ATTIC and leave them there until 2029. (if you have kids or dogs.)

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 to have in the kitchen which will never be cut or eaten.
Then you’ll either pop to Marks of the 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 actual 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 fricking apron Mammy Poppins.

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 I get to go Christmas shopping without the children, you can me DAMN sure that I am sitting this ass on a fancy seat and having someone called Barista CARRY me the drinks and snack that they have lovingly made FOR me.

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. 💚

Riddle me this Mammies? Why would you spend hours cleaning before opening the boxes of decorations that are going to cause the whole place to need hoovered and dusted again in an hour anyway? Why?

So there were the Top Ten pieces of advice from the various Perfect Mammy websites…

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!

Also, Yes to shopping lists. And sublists. (Any list! I do love me a list!)

Plan your meals for Christmas week and do the shopping based on the list. It will save you from buying piles of stuff that you won’t actually use. Will you actually use that goose fat or are you only buying it because it’s beside the cranberry sauce you’ve lifted…that no one in your house eats. I still have ALL of the spices I bought LAST YEAR, unopened and fresh and ready to not be used again this year. #notions

AND remember to factor in Christmas Eve Dinner too. Don’t do my speciality… realise you have a fridge full of food and nothing for the dinner when you finally get back to the house on Christmas Eve. This will lead to arguments about who is going to the shop AGAIN, or toast for dinner.

The “Preparing for Christmas” articles largely did what they always do however; they put undue pressure on already busy parents to stress themselves to create a Hallmark worthy 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.

A perfect family Christmas is like a Perfect Parent… all that’s REALLY needed is love and what works for YOU!

What is your favourite “Survival tip” and why?