I am Six-weeks-and-snuffly Mum

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

I’ve just realised that a six week old with a head cold is possibly one of the worst feelings in the world… for both baby and parent.

With Mini-Me into her third round with the nasty viral flu that’s been plaguing Donegal’s homes for the past few months, it was inevitable that Princess would pick up some version of it. She’s been threatening us with the odd sneeze and little cough for a few days, but this morning, she woke up as a Snufflupogus, with weeping eyes and all.

And it’s horrible.

My friend has always been unable to tolerate snoots up noses. She’s the kind of person who will squeeze a blackhead, even if it’s on someone else’s nose! She picks at her kids constantly; they never have a snoot stuck in a nostril or a piece of sleep in their eyes. She’s even quite happy to pick at other people’s kids. I kid you not.
And for years, I have teased her about it.

But tonight, I am very tempted to ring her to ask what type of snotter busting device she’d recommend for the detraction of those bad boys hidden deepest in the nostril. I’d happily drive an hour to the nearest 24 hour store to source the clever contraption than sucks up the snot. But I seriously doubt that a simple fix exists that can be used on a perfect little six week old snout.

And so we just have to perservere with cuddles and tissues. Every sneeze brings with it another gloopy lump of gunk and a few minutes of ease for Snufflepants. She’s currently cuddled up of top of Daddy, making all sorts of grumbly, snottery grunts. She sounds like Miss Piggy.

And in fairness, I think it’s upsetting him more than it’s bothering her.

Mini Me is also dosed, but at least she can tell us how she’s feeling and understands that she’ll get better. We can give her medicine to ease the discomfort, and most importantly, when we hold a tissue to her snottery nostrils, she now blows through her nose rather than through her mouth!

So it’s not quite as dramatic as the tiny one’s sniffles. And really, that ‘s not even that dramatic, because realistically, she has a good old fashioned head-cold. It’s minor in the larger scheme of things. She’ll be fine. But that doesn’t mean that Mammy and Daddy don’t grimace every time she sneezes. We want to pull all of the offending gunk out of her little sinuses so that she can breathe easily again. We’d both swap places with her in a heart beat. Because that’s what parents do.

Things might be snottery and sticky, but they could always be worse.

Now, I must go text my friend to see if she’ll come for tea tomorrow. You never know what snot busting tricks she’ll be able to show me!!

I am Six-weeks-and-snuffly Mum.

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22Sep2015

I am So-it-begins Mum

Posted in parenting, toddlers by Maria Rushe - Blogger and Writer

We’ve reached week four of pre-school and all was going well, until this morning.

As I dropped Mini-Me off, her lovely teacher smiled at me, chirping “This is for you Mummy!” I took the piece of coloured card from her, thinking that it must be a note from the school about something that she needs or did. Thanking smiling teacher and waving goodbye to my little one, I left.

When I got to the car, I looked at the piece of card…it was a birthday invitation.

And so it begins.

My initial reaction was one of shock. This is the first invitation she’s received to a party that isn’t one of her cousins. And then it inspired a mixture of feelings inside this inexperienced Mummy that I still can’t quite describe. I was initially delighted and a little part of me felt smug that she’d been invited. Having been one of those kids who watched others getting invited to the cool kids’ parties, a part of me felt chuffed that my Princess was popular enough to be invited to a party after only a few weeks!

Then I laughed at my own stupidity as I remembered a friend telling me that the parents in her daughter’s pre-school invite ALL of the kiddies to ALL of the parties. Most likely, all of the parents had been handed the pretty pink card this morning. I was no different, I just happened to be the last parent to get mines…and that’s when the fear hit me.

There are 22 in her class. This lovely, kind parent, who is going to the bother of possibly inviting (and obviously paying for), ALL of the kiddies to meet up on Saturday to play, may have just started a class tradition. Or is it a dilemma?

Am I the only Mummy who thinks ahead to my daughter’s birthday in a few months and now panics? If this “invite the whole class” pressure is now mounted onto us as parents, how does one stop the spiral?

Because I know that I for one, can’t even imagine being responsible for having 22 toddlers in my care for an afternoon, never mind being able to afford to pay for a party for the full class. And then there is the fact that this number will be added to the 8 cousins and 6 baby-friends that have made up her first three birthday parties!

Add parents. Add Grandparents. Add aunties and uncles.

Add valium.

As children, my siblings and I were always allowed 3 or 4 of our best buddies from school to come home on the day of our birthday for a small party. I’d imagined that I would do the same for Mini-me when the time came. I didn’t anticipate it beginning in pre-school. I didn’t anticipate it happening so soon.

I thought that I had a few years to go before I had to be “that mummy” – you know the one who bucks the trend and stands her ground by not giving into playground politics? Yeah, that’ll be me. I thought. Now I’m not so sure.

I read a thread on a local Mummy page today where another new-to-this-craic Mummy asked advice on inviting her 6 year old’s full class to a party for her son. The responses appalled me.

All of them were saying that yes, the whole class is usually invited and that the basic expectations include village halls, gifts for all the kids so that no one is left out, bouncy castles and hot food.

The responses terrified me and made me really understand that I am bloody well clueless and that my notions of being “that mummy” might just catapult me (and in turn Mini-me) back into that abyss of unpopularity.

So yes, mixed emotions.

Looking at the lovely invitation, I recognised the beautifully scripted name as that of the little girl my Princess sits beside (and whom she talks about non stop, attributing the title Best Fwend to her daily). So yes, of course I will happily take her to the party. It’ll be lovely to meet a few of the other pre-school parents…she’ll be with this group of kids through national and probably secondary school after all.

And of course, it comes with the territory. But I will be hugely interested to see if only a few of the kiddies have been invited or if the whole class and their entourages do indeed, arrive in force.

If that’s the case, the panic will be founded. If not, I’ll sigh a huge sigh of relief and rest easy for another while.

I quickly took a snap of the invitation and sent it to Hubby. His first reply was “Aw, her first invitation”…followed two seconds later by “And so it begins!” The latter text had a laughing emoticon at the end. But we’ll see who is laughing when it’s our turn to send out the invitations.

I am So-it-begins Mum.

14Sep2015

I am Sleepy Mum

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

“I am vewy disappointed in your behaviour!”

These are the words that I heard through the baby monitor at around 3am. I heaved my backside out of bed and waddled across the hall to see who exactly had disappointed my threenager at this ridiculous hour.

Mini-me was sitting upright in her bed, having assembled her dollies and teddy bears around her and was wide awake and quite happily giving orders and giving out to her audience.

“Are you Ok Baby?” I asked carefully.

“I’m the teacher Mammy,” she announced as if this was perfectly acceptable behaviour in the middle of the night.

“Percy Penguin had to go in the naughty corner cos he’s been very cheeky and I’m very disappointed wif his behaviour.”

In the dim light from the hall, I could see that poor Percy was lying, fluffy arse up, in the toy box, having obviously been launched across the room by Teacher.

What had he done? Who knows, but it was enough to warrant his banishment to the dark side. And Mini-Me was determined that he deserved his punishment.

“Aw Poor Percy. Will Mammy lift him up to you again?” I ventured.

“No! He is not being a very good penguin!” she scolded.

“Okay, okay. Can you please go back to sleep now Honey? It’s the middle of the night.”

“But Mammy, I have to be the teacher!”

“You can be the teacher in the morning.”

You can imagine the rest of the conversation. As I sat at the bottom of the bed, begging her to go back to sleep, I struggled not to laugh at the utter determination on her face as she completely and truly believed everything that was taking place in her imagination. And yet, I couldn’t help but stare and smile at how utterly beautiful her innocent little face was in the nightlight. Everything that was happening in her mind was absolutely real to her. And if it hadn’t been the middle of the night, I would have encouraged it.

Since starting Pre-school, Little Miss Bossy Pants has been blossoming by the day. Her imagination has exploded from already very vivid, to absolutely crazy. She’s mimicking her lovely new teachers. She’s turned her teddybears into her “students”. Even though she’s never seen me in the classroom, she’s playing the “School teacher” in a way that maybe only the daughter of one, can.

She eventually went back to sleep. I eventually got back to my own bed. As shattered as I was, it was a relief that she was awake for such silly reasons. She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t having bad dreams and she wasn’t crying. So I had nothing to complain about. I drifted back to sleep, laughing to myself at the ridiculousness of the conversations one can have with a three year old at 4am.

Maybe she’s doing me a favour. Maybe she’s so clever that she’s easing Mammy into the world of sleepless nights again in preparation for Babba number 2? Or Maybe Percy was quite simply being a bold penguin.

Regardless of what exactly caused her to leave her dreams and wake up for full-on playtime at stupid o’clock, she bounced out of bed this morning and happily lifted Percy Penguin from his exile. Putting him back on the bed, she announced “Now, I hope you’ve learned your lesson Percy. I don’t want to see that behaviour again.” Whatever his crime, she hadn’t forgotten, but she’d forgiven him.

In the same way, as parents, we quickly forget the pain of being ripped from our sleep in the middle of the night as long as our little rascals are Ok.

But tonight, if she decides to play Teacher, I hope that Poor Percy behaves himself!

I am Sleepy Mum. 🙂

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22Aug2015

I am Suspicious Mum

Posted in parenting, toddlers by Maria Rushe - Blogger and Writer

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.

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!

28Jul2015

I am Somedays Mum

Posted in family, parenting, time, toddlers by Maria Rushe - Blogger and Writer

Some days are for wearing whatever concoction of clothing Mini-Me decides she wants to wear.

Some days are for twirling in sparkly dresses; around and around; just because.

Some days are for snuggling into the soft mat and watching Sleeping Beauty – and all the extra features and trailers that we usually skip past.

Some days are for staying the PJs, for not even considering brushing hair or washing faces.

Some days are for stopping what I am doing to watch her dancing in her own wee world, instead of just being glad that she’s occupying herself for 5 minutes while I peel potatoes.

Somedays are for cracking eggs and baking cupcakes, and not worrying about the mess or how many pieces of shell end up on the counter.

Some days are for pretending to steal her little nose!

Some days are for not doing very much housework, but just chatting to a three year old. It’s amazing how the logic of our world can seem so ridiculous when a child explains how they see it. “Mammy, you get off that seat and go over there. I have to push that seat and you’re still on it cos Percy Penguin needs to go swimming!” Okay!

Some days are for cutting sandwiches into star shapes and making up stories about them.

Some days are for playing Hide n’ Seek. Not just counting to appease her and then pretending I don’t see her for a few minutes; for actually stopping what I’m doing and playing it. It’s amazing where this S-Mum can still fit when she puts her mind to it!

Some days are for just stopping to be glad that these Some days exist.

Some days are for making memories instead of catching them as they flit past.

Some days are for smiling. 🙂

I am Some days Mum.

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Tag Archives: toddlers