The Birds and the Bees

Do you know where babies come from? We bought a book for our then eight and two year old kids to explain what was going on in mammy's rapidly expanding tummy when I was pregnant (now the book would be "When mammy met Mr Ben and Mr Jerry on her way to Hazelbrook Farm"). Today parents are encouraged to answer their children's questions in an age appropriate manner, using the proper words like womb, penis or (gulp) vagina! We have nick names in our house for those things, I can only imagine the damage I'm doing to the kids by not referring to things by their proper names. So bearing this in mind we went to buy the book, there was a lot of choice, and eventually I found one that was age appropriate and didn't have any awful words in it (some I looked at actually covered the process of how Mr smith and Mrs smith "joined together" to make the baby), we decided on " Where Willy (calm down) Went", A book about a little sperm or squirm as my three year old calls him, and his adventure trying to win the race and get to the prize (the egg).


We were really excited to read it for the first time to our kids, so with baited breath we snuggled down in the bed for story time, waiting for the questions after we finished.....nothing at all! Questions came up in the course of my pregnancy and we answered her questions in a way she could understand, but the book about the squirm didn't prompt any questions. My experiences of the birds and the bees were interesting, I was told babies were found not in the cabbage patch but under the rhubarb in the back garden! As for the facts of life? At aged ten my mammy came into the bathroom when I was having a bath sat down and said she wanted to have a chat with me, her opening gambit was, "now you know Santa Claus isn't real? And from now on once a month you are going to bleed, and have terrible pains in your tummy!", then she gave me a book called Have you started yet? . Then she gave me a hug and left the room, I was in shock....Santa wasn't real?


I don't know which approach is better, my mum telling us nothing (later the only other sex education was "If you ever come here pregnant I'll throw you out", seriously, or our modern approach of being totally open with our kids (while trying not to feel selfconcious) and possibly giving them too much information. I can just imagine trying to explain to my little girl why I'm putting condoms in her lunchbox when she's thirteen? Or am I being naive, will she know exactly what it's for? Whereas at thirteen I believed that if you used tampons you weren't a virgin any more....didn't really know what a virgin was, apart from Mary mother of Jesus being a virgin. Or my friend who told me tampons could get "lost", inside you? Scary!

Confessions of a teenage Curehead!

I have been reading over my previous posts and I realise that i sound miserable! I'm not at all, I'm actually happy enough with my little lot (I would like to be taller-I'm only 5'1') but apart from that I'm actually quite a positive person, at least compared to the teenage me!

It was the 80's, things were kinda miserable, I wore a lot of black, red lipstick and talc on my face to make me look even more deathly white (I'm not a tanned person) and eyeliner? I used to go through it at an alarming rate (two Constance Carroll eyeliners for a pound in the pound shop).

As I am so short my Doc martens came up to my knees, so you couldn't see much of my heavy knit woolly tights, in fact only my underwear was white...my mum wouldn't let me buy black underwear, only bad girls wore black underwear!

Now obviously I didn't always wear my curehead clothes they were only for hanging around on a Saturday in Stephen's Green smoking (that was as exciting as it got), so the rest of the time I was a normal enough Jeans and t-shirts girl (I got my first pair of jeans at fourteen, my mum thought they were unladylike - she hates it that my kids live in them). So my appearance would change but my attitude of polite disinterest in the world always remained the same, you know; people are horrible; the world is doomed; I'm never having kids; the bomb is gonna kill us all (and it wouldn't be a bad thing); love is a lie etc!

So what happened? Well I met the man who is now my hubby and fell in love! I changed from black and moody to pink and perky! Love fool huh? So while I left that behind 17 years ago some of the angst has remained and I think too much, therefore sometimes my posts can be a bit blue (black) but don't worry it's obviously just my Gothic tendencies!

Foxy

I don't know if this is worthy of a post (or if anyone else has noticed) but the foxes in South County Dublin sure get a lot of sex....noisy sex!

Went to be early the other night and left the window open, after about ten minutes there it was, the erotic sounds that foxes make when they do it! Now I don't know if you've ever heard it but to me it's terrifying, it sounds like a dog and a cat doing it with a Banshee!

I hate it when hubby is away, as even though I know what it is it's still really freaky, we've a huge very bushy back garden which apparently is the Club 92 for the foxes of the area! Recently we've installed a few lights, and activity seems to have increased. I can just see it now, male fox looks at vixen and says hey babe you look almost auburn in this light, then ten minutes of the most hideous noise ever! Maybe I should leave some leaflets on safe sex around or perhaps I can cash in with a strategically placed fox condom machine?

What you lookin' at?

Do you like my T-Shirt? It's gotten a lot of attention. Now this isn't my actual T-Shirt, cos I'm too stupid to take a picture and load it into my blog! But it's basically like this but pink! Now I'm a thirty four year old woman, I don't think I dress inappropriately, I'm not mutton dressed as lamb or anything!

Some of the yummies at the Montessori have raised a few eyebrows, staring at the logo on my chest, but not actually saying anything! Generally the uniform with these women is MBT shoes, expensive jeans and juicy leisurewear tops, oh maybe (designer) sunglasses! So 80's TV T-Shirts are not on the menu!

I was telling my hubby this last night and he (quite pervy) said "maybe they were looking at your boobs!" Seriously what is it with guys!!!! A group of women together...hmmm...must be lipstick lesbians (not real ones, they are scary, ie. don't need men!)

Or maybe he just isn't getting out enough? One thing is bothering me though when we get old together and he's in his seventies will he be lusting over the other grannies at the bowling club? Or will it be young ones which could be his daughter- and which is preferable?

Rest In Peace!

If you've read my post about my "motherist" tendencies you'll know I don't like being pigeon holed as just someone's mother. Aisling left a comment on my last post saying I'd obviously overcome this, but I suppose it's been more a case of self loathing- any club that would have me as a member etc! This is a post I've been putting off writing because it's something quite personal and was upsetting to me when I thought about being open about it.




Yesterday was a horrible day, generally I hate Tuesdays anyway, people really don't understand this, but I've always hated Tuesdays. On Monday I still have the energy from the weekend, but Tuesday it just dies and it seems really far from the next weekend, and there is never anything on the TV, also as a kid we used to always have liver on Tuesdays! But today was just a horrible day, even if it hadn't been a Tuesday, my son had swimming early this morning and we were running late, he made it just about but it was close (he's always last).



I didn't have time wash the dishes and my hubby hadn't done them and we started the day arguing, we are sleep deprived and therefore the tiniest thing sets us off! So by the time my morning run around was over and I'd dropped everyone to Montessori, school and work, and the babe in arms and I made it home I was feeling weird, mild panic in my chest, lonely and needy. It was recycling day so I loaded up the bottles (a lot of wine and beer since last week- but ice cream remains untouched), the paper and cardboard and the plastic, (Dun Laoghaire Rathdown family of five - picking up the recycling once a month doesn't work).



I drove to the recycling centre and started to unload the stuff! While doing this I had an uncharacteristic change of heart and called my hubby to say of course he should go out last night, so I was talking to him on the phone and I burst into tears. Just standing in the car park of the recycling centre, the little guy asleep in his car seat and a piece of my puzzle just fell into place. I realised why I'm so sad at the moment (and angry) - I'm in mourning, when my little guy was born that day, eight weeks ago today, on my birthday, the old me died.



Since my eldest was born nine years ago my life totally changed, it was at least a year before i felt some sort of normality (reality) return, then when we were lucky enough to have our daughter there was change again but not as severe as before, and weekends away, nights out and returning to work (eventually) made me feel like there was hope for the future, hope that I would be the person I was (or had the potential to be) as the kids grew up.


Then last year when I discovered that the rhythm method is not a reliable method of birth control I slowly began to acknowledge that life would never be the same again. I'm never gonna be that person again, my life is different now, I spend my days changing nappies, my timetable is my kids timetable of feeds, naps and where they need to be when! Even when they are older it's not gonna change and I'm gonna be doing different things for them but my life will always revolve around them (until they leave me penniless in Leas cross).



I wouldn't change a thing, I'm so blessed and all of my children are amazing (amazingly annoying sometimes), but I am sad, sad that I have to let the old me go, like she died, or never existed. I'm striving for happiness in my new life, making mother friends, doing activities outside and away from the family but it's a long road, and sometimes i get angry that I have to change so much when my husband's life has changed but the person he is hasn't (confusing I know), this is possibly why we argue so much!



So I'm starting this journey, I'm hoping it's gonna get easier to let go of the past as I go forward into the unknown, but who knows.

Drummy Mummy

My Hubby was working away on Saturday and the two older munchkins were in their granny's so the littlest guy and i visited Dundrum on Sunday morning, along with every other parent in the south Dublin area (am I a Drummy Mummy?) Why do we all gravitate towards this mecca of materialism on a Sunday morning? I'm ashamed to say I go there a lot, to meet friends for coffee, or to pick up a few nice groceries in marks and spencers, or if I'm feeling like I'm gonna wig out totally it's nice to be in public where it's less likely to happen and if it did they would take care of the kids while the men in white coats carted me away.

I think being a parent of a young child is both isolating but also can act as a gateway to approachability. A mummy or (on a Sunday more likely to be) daddy is woken at some ungodly hour by a little person, you kill a couple of hours at home playing, feeding, changing, washing and feeding again. Then what do you do? You can't phone anyone or meet anyone (unless they have young children too) as all normal people are in bed. So at ten to eleven there we are chomping at the bit to get into Dundrum, you can wander around have a coffee, maybe the little one will sleep in the buggy and you can read a bit of the paper!

I feel slightly less isolated there, surrounded by other pale, pasty looking parents nursing weeping babies and pacifying hyper toddlers with smarties cookies and juice, "just let mummy drink her cup of tea and we'll go on the slide in Daisy and Tom". As I said it can also allow people to approach you when you have a little one and I've often had very frank discussions with people sitting near me in the cafe or in a lift!

So yesterday there we were wandering around H&M kids dept. I was picking up a present for my neighbour who's baby is due, I noticed a tall woman looking at we strangely, she pushed her buggy in front of mine so I was trapped (I thought she was gonna accuse me of shoplifting). "I know you, I was in the bed beside you in Holles St.", I looked closer, could this radiant young woman be the same woman who was put in my cubicle in unit 3? (they were doubling up beds, due to overcrowding) Yes!

She'd been terrified at the time, it was her first baby, but there he was, born three hours after my little guy, Joesph, they could be twins she said, and she was right, the two of them are little podges with cheeky grins, but mine's a baldy and hers had a lovely head of curly golden locks! We chatted and compared notes until the little ones got narky, then we said our goodbyes and I thought how wonderful it is to be a mother, and to have experienced it all three times. I wouldn't change a moment of it (good or bad) because it's made me a rounder (literally) person and a member of a club, I think all women are amazing of course, but mothers- we are absolutely fecking fantastic!

Is 9 a teenager?

I love my darling eldest boy, he's always been a real sweetheart, loving and caring and really clever! Recently he has started to act very oddly, he's moody and doesn't want to take showers, or wash his hair. Don't talk to me about his bedroom, it's like a dump, never mind the fact that it's all messed up with books and toys and clothes he brings up food and drinks to his room. So I go in the mornings to wake him up and there are food wrappers on the ground and in his bed, there are half empty glasses of rank milk on his window sill and squeezed up mini cartons of juice on top of the PlayStation, I found Easter egg wrappers under the futon during the week! It drives me crazy, until now he's been tidy but now he seems to have changed into another child.

He's growing into a young man, he's nearly too big for his midi bunk bed thingy! He wants to wear gel in his hair all the time now and after i gave him a little sample bottle of Gucci pour Homme he wants to buy scent for himself. The other day we went shopping for shoes and now his feet are only one size off mine! It's not gonna be long before he's locking himself in the bathroom for hours on end ( squeezing spots i hope) and leaving horrible giant smelly trainers around the house!

When I was a teenager my brother was a few years younger than me, My mum would go up to his room and find food hidden everywhere, wrappers of chocolate bars and crisp packets, she even found a full box of fresh cream cakes under his bed at one stage! He used to dump dinners he didn't like in the top of the wardrobe with his hidden porn collection! mashed potato and rashers, peas and casserole going green on top of the only soft porn magazines available in Ireland at the time!

I'm not looking forward to it, I'm already mourning the loss of my little guy in a way,and I'll have to get to know the strange sulking, hulking giant who'll be living under my roof eating all my food!!!

Suck it in girls!

Forget the flesh coloured sausage, I've discovered something much more effective (and amazingly sexy), I bought a corset, it's bloody amazing. My jelly belly is rock hard in it, my waist smaller and my boobs all lifted and oompy!!! I walk differently in it, my posture is better and i feel much more confident!
I wish I looked as good as Dita in my corset, but hell it makes me feel like I do so that's good enough for me. I'm happy to say I ordered another one on line the other day, so if you see me and think I'm looking fab, look a bit closer if my face is slightly blue then it's the corset!

Stitch and Bitch

I went to my first stitch and bitch group on Thursday night, it was excellent. I went with my American friend and apart from the two lovely owners of the shop I was the only Irish girl there, which I thought was interesting, it's obviously the nuns fault, we were forced into learning to knit and as a result we are letting this hobby all by the wayside. Think of all the local wool shops that have closed down over the last ten years.

It's a really relaxing hobby, sitting around chatting easily with these women I'd only met five minutes ago,having a cup of tea and working on the blanket I'd started six months ago. Surrounded by all the beautiful yarns it was difficult not to be inspired, I can't wait to finish my blanket so I can start the next project! I'm recommending it to everyone now, come on Irish girls, step up to the plate! Our European and non European sisters know it's okay to knit, we don't have to give up our women's rights! You never know you might enjoy it!

Yuck!

This makes me feel ill! But not as ill as I felt the other day in Eddie Rockets (I know yuck, but sometimes only eddies will fill the grease yearning inside me), it was just me and the three weenies, so it was impressive that I managed to get my veggie burger (they aren't the same as the old veggie burgers) eaten before the tiniest one woke up. result!

So now I just had to convince the other two guys to eat at more than a snails pace. That's when I saw it, my little princess eating her burger chips and chocolate malt. She was taking a chip dipping it in the chocolate malt and then eating it, I nearly barfed, then I watched as she took her burger up, dipped it in the malt and took a bite! Seriously! I didn't say anything cos the mother part was appalled but the woman looking for a quiet life was just happy that she was eating quietly! Anyway it's really a form of food combining isn't it?

My new picture!!!

A reader of my blog who chooses to remain anonymous asked why I had such a sad picture for my profile, that it should be something more "inspirational", hence the new "greener" me!

Enjoy!

Psycho Bitch!!!!

Well it's happened, first period since baby was born....therefore first period in nearly a year!!!! OH GOD! Was feeling pretty awful but as my little guy is less than two months old I figure I'll be up and down for another few months. On Wednesday evening I had a couple of glasses of wine and decided to order my shopping on line (three kids and a smallish car makes regular shopping trips hellish, so a once a month mega shop delivered makes sense), I ordered all the nappies, formula and store cupboard staples, but then things stared to go a bit wrong. I ordered some ice-cream and ice pops, a little wine, some beer and cream cakes.

So last night I headed out with one of my friends to her stitch and bitch group (my first time, more about that later) and I left my husband in charge of the weenies and to receive delivery of the shopping. When my friend dropped me home I invited her in for a cup of tea and when hubby answered the door he said he had to show me the freezer (now remember two things, one, I'd been drinking when I ordered food, and two, that my friend was with me), oh God, it was like a sugar crazed shopaholic had gone berserk!

This was the sugary contents of our freezer, six tubs each of Haagen Dazs and Ben and Jerry's, one tub of iceberger ice cream, one multi pack of icebergers, one multi pack of choc ices, one multi pack of wibbly wobbly wonders, one multi pack of super splits, one multi pack of magnums and a pack of Mr Freeze! Then he opened the fridge, where there were many,many fresh cream cakes and in the hall? There was a huge box of Miller beer, and the wine rack was full....it has never been full! I'd ordered eight bottles! Then there were the months worth of nappies, the baby obviously is in nappies but so is the middle one, (we had a toilet training set back when baby was born), so it looked like we were obese alcoholics who ran some sort of Dickensian (there were several packs of porridge-my favorite food) creche, nappies, formula, ice-cream and booze!

I was mortified...my friend thought it was hilarious, It's drinking and clicking I suppose, that and the fact that I was getting my period! But the sad thing now is that it's here I can't even think about looking at the ice cream! All I want is porridge and painkillers!

It's awful, I'm so narky, I know I'm being narky but I can't stop it, I know I'm being needy but I can't stop it! I had totally forgotten how crap you feel! My lovely hubby is working away this weekend, probably for the better...I really should be given a straitjacket and locked in a padded room for the duration! In the orthodox Jewish community I believe, the women are kept away from their husbands while they are menstruating, they sleep in separate beds, and when the period is over they go to the temple and have a holy bath so they are no longer "unclean", and they are allowed to share their husbands beds. Part of me is appalled, that's so sexist, but still it defines the time as "different", which it is and it separates the men and women at a time when maybe that's not a bad thing?

On the positive side I had that "Thank God I'm not pregnant", feeling! I know that next week I'll feel like myself again, hopefully! Oh and a week of "free" shagging, Yippee!

From the mouth of babes!

My next door neighbour is pregnant, due tomorrow in fact and until recently we barely ever say each other other than a passing "Hi", or passing her post over the wall. Now that she's pregnant with her first baby though it's a different story, she's on maternity leave so I'm seeing her daily, everytime she tries to "pop" in for coffee though I'm out and about, she's commented on the fact that I'm in and out all day, montessori, school, swimming, football and parties! Of course I am, I'm a mother of three! I hope she has a realistic view of motherhood (none of us have!)



Last week I was walking up the garden path, babe in arms while my two older weenies were running in and out of the house with two of their hyperactive friends, and she asked when i was free for coffee and advice, I said anytime, but I didn't think I'd be much use in the advice stakes as I couldn't even control my own children (gestured to the crazy children!) Oh how we laughed.


At dinner that evening I was telling my other half the story and the bit about her wanting advice, I said to him "sure it's too late for the only advice I'd give her", ha ha! Hubby laughing and nine year old laughing, so I say, "what are you laughing at? You don't know what advice I'd give her!" "Yes I do", he says, " you'd tell her never to have children!" My hubby and him are breaking their hearts laughing... I'm laughing too! Afterwards though I thought I must be an awful mother!

No sex please, we're married.

I've had enough, since I posted about my little episode of coitus interuptus everyone who's read it (not that many people admittedly) have been commenting on it, not that she caught us out but that we were "doin the do". Why? Why are people shocked? Everyone does it, even parents, it's how we all wound up existing so why is it scandalous to speak about it when you are married?

At first I thought it was the whole shagging versus making love debate, if you are married then you are "making love" and therefore it's somehow special and shouldn't be spoken about. (I've never understood making love, it just doesn't ring my bell, it just sounds insincere and a bit cheesy, "hey babe I really want to make love to you", yuck! I'd much rather have an honest shag any day). On reflection though it's not that at all, because most of the women I know who have been married for a while, or living together talk about sex in a kind of dismissive way, like they have to do it but don't want to, almost born again virgins!

These same people had no qualms talking about their sex lives with passion before they were in committed relationships, but once the honeymoon period is over it becomes acceptable to dismiss sex as another domestic chore. Now, please don't get me wrong my sex life doesn't involve swinging from the chandeliers ( anyone who knows me would find that image hilarious) but it's great, a bit of fun and the closeness is so important, especially at a time like now when our baby is so young it's a great way to connect (oh missus) with each other.

My husband has read my blog and has no problem with my honesty, I don't see why he would. Is it the Madonna- Whore debate? A woman who's young and single can talk about sex (a lot of the single sex in the city type blogs) but a married mother can't? There is a problem there. I've seen women when they talk about their husband say things that imply they don't find each other attractive, that they aren't enjoying each other (at times I've even lied in the company of some of my mates about fighting off my hubby-why? ) I don't believe these women, I'd say they are having a ball, but why do we feel like we have to lie - shame?

Is it another product of tabloid society that a healthy sex life is in some way something to be ashamed of? is it our catholic guilt? Thank God I don't have to confess enjoying marital relations to some frustrated old man in a dark confession box once a month. Still though the guilt is there. It used to be that only married people could enjoy sex (and only then for the purposes of procreation). Now we've had a total change of circumstances, only the single folks can have any fun!

I love my husband, we are together because we fancied each other when we were teenagers in our prime, now we are wrinkly, grey and softer in the middle we still fancy each other, but it's different and deeper (oh missus!) I'm not ashamed of that, I hope my kids are as lucky as I've been and they manage to find something as exciting!

I've just read the post and i realise I sound like Barbara Streisand's character in meet the Fockers! I don't think that's a bad thing, it's better than saying I feel ugly or rejected by my partner. Now if my hubby looks as good as Dustin Hoffman at that age I'll be a lucky woman!

The lies we tell

I had coffee with a friend the other day, a good old chat and a catch up she is one of those really old friends that comes in and out of my life, we might not see each other for a year but when we get together it's like we saw each other last week. So we were chatting away, I was listing the litany of crimes my hubby had completed since the baby was born (well really since the dawn of time), we laughed a bit but then the tone changed as we dug a little bit deeper, talking about our real issues and problems.

My friend has one child and has been married less than half the time I have, but the arguments she has with her partner are exactly the same as the ones we have. Exactly. Even though both are partners are totally different personality types and my friend and I are very different, and we are in very different circumstances, it seemed that the problems are universal. We told each other basically the same stories, the circumstances were different but the issues and feelings were the same.

Talking to her I realised that we can never judge whats going on in other peoples relationships, I would have thought nobody fought as much or as ferociously as myself and my partner (passion is a wonderful thing but after nearly twenty years it can be draining), I know everyone thinks it's best to be honest but how often are we truly honest? We row with our partner but we would never admit it out of a fear of looking disloyal to our other half, or we have problems with our kids but we feel like we'll be judged if we tell anyone. but if everyone was more honest it would provide a network of support, and instead of thinking our relationship was in trouble because we felt this way, we would see that what we were feeling is quite common and maybe we would hold out more hope for what we had.

I know it's a cliche but it's all the film industry's fault (and mills and boon!) We aspire to perfection, a perfection that is impossible to achieve. Movies and books always focus on the lovely romantic falling in love start of the relationship or the sad , tragic ends of the relationship, they make the most interesting films but what about the day to day grey bits in between? Would you go to see a film about a middle aged couple who've been married a decade, just getting on with life? So the media only shows us the exciting bits, and as families are dispersed and community diluted we don't really see first hand other peoples relationships up close, so how can we know if what we feel and experience is good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, normal or abnormal?

I don't know, I'm not suggesting we all live in communes but a little bit more realism and honesty could go a long way.

Having a fat day!

Oh God, the only good thing about being pregnant (apart from the end result) is no periods! I haven't gotten mine yet but the hormonal build up is there. I am after putting on half a stone in two weeks (comfort eating due to stress and craving) my skin is somehow both dry and spotty and I feel rotten, ugly and bloated, nothing in my wardrobe makes me feel nice. Knowing my luck the inevitable time of the month will happen the week of the baptism so I'm so narky I alienate all my family and friends before the actual day, at least they won't see me, oozing out of the dress I bought for the day (hope my feet will still fit in the uber sexy red shoes I got), even my control underwear will not be able to tame my belly!

So it got me thinking as to how "they" do it? By they obviously I mean the celebrities, how when they have just had babies and are hormonal and feeling yucky do they manage to not only resist the urge to eat chocolate biscuits with visitors when they come to see the baby or eat chocolate biscuits in the middle of the night when feeding baby or eat chocolate biscuits when baby is crying and you are exhausted and hungry, but they actually lose their baby weight in six weeks? It takes nine months to reach the weight before you have the baby so how do they do it so quickly? They must just deny themselves everything, so it's just vegetables and fish!

I must admit (grudgingly) to having respect for their will power, I can't resist a cadbury snack sandwich at four in the afternoon when that sugar dip hits, or walking home from school I find it impossible to say no to a mint feast or an iceberger....yum! Celebrities' images are their currencies, so their motivation is much stronger than a stay at home size 18 mums. Obviously they aren't breastfeeding, as the hunger is overwhelming (one friend of mine managed to eat half a fruitcake daily on top of her normal diet).

Having said that in the hospital they use the weight loss feature of breast feeding as a carrot to mothers (I've never been very sucessful with breast feeding- a posting for another day) and perhaps if a celebrity fed and didn't eat the appropriate amount of calories required they'd lose weight at a rapid rate. But that couldn't explain the stomach muscles that are like a boxers, so they also start to exercise immediately too, so much pressure on themselves, how do they bond with their babies? Do they just view the children as obstacles to the perfect body?

The rest of us mere mortals look at the airbrushed photos (they never have stretchmarks do they?) And they can only be eliminated by photo editing) , and we feel inferior, we feel like we should have the self control and determination to look as good as we can within weeks of giving birth, never mind that we have to cope with the new baby (and any existing ones) and our hormones playing silly buggers, sleep deprivation and nappy brain, we have to look perfect.

It's too much, and I for one can't live up to it, maybe it's the hormones speaking but I'm proud of my flabby bits and strechmarks, they are badges of honour and I'm proud of mine, now my bingo wings, they're another story altogether!

Yummy Mummy?

My wonderful parents took the two older weenies for a sleepover last night, I'm getting a cold and with the whole daughter attempting to run away from home thing my mum thought it would give us a bit of a break. I'm always grateful that my folks are so kind and generous with their time when it comes to their grandkids.

So last night when hubby got home from work we had a pizza and a glass of wine, then one of our friends called over and while darling minded the baba we drank more wine, ate chocolate and talked until our voices were hoarse! It was exactly what I needed after the week I'd had and we had a great night, I hadn't laughed as much in ages (Lucky I've been doing my pelvic floor exercises,huh?) I stayed up until two in the morning.....so late, I felt like a big girl!

My friend is a mummy too (see I do have mummy friends) so obviously we talked about our kids (but not much) and everything else under the sun! One of the subjects was the rise of the "yummy mummy", and all that entails. Today I visited the Mecca of yummy Mummies, Avoca, amidst the beautiful china, amazing wrap tops and the simple wooden toys, I was a total duck out of water. I love the shop, the smells and the beautiful families with their designer babies in designer buggies.

The hubby and I arrived in our old banger and parked in the manicured car park that's nicer than our garden and parked between two huge SUV's , we loaded the bambino into the sling and in we headed with all the young upwardly mobile families, each of which consisted of a fashionably dressed slim highlighted woman and a beautiful baby in a quinny or a phil and teds buggy (I figured out that the ideal designer family only has one baby and that's why those phil and Ted buggy are popular with this set, one baby is hidden under the other so the perfect image is maintained), and then the male partner, also slim, perfectly coiffed hair and slightly homosexual clothes (my husband asked if he was way gay cos he liked the clothes there)! We browsed for a bit, got some yummy fudge, a pressie for my friends new home (the reason for our visit) and of course some lovely bread and cakes!

This experience got me thinking about the modern phenomenon of the yummy mummy, it is more the yummy family unit isn't it? Each part of the family is perfect, children clean and polite, parents are healthy and tanned. My family is nothing like that, kids are always a bit scruffy with the scabs on their knees, my partner and I are a bit pale and pasty and the bags under our eyes aren't designer!

Women fought for a long time for their freedom to live the life they desire. I remember laughing at an old song I remember about housewives putting on their makeup and doing their hair to look perfect before husband comes from work, because he is surrounded by all those attractive secretaries in work and you have to look your best. We fought to break these misconceptions, but it seems as if the new yummy mummy is just the fifties housewife in designer togs she has to cook like Nigella Lawson, keep her house like Kim and Aggie, have parenting skills that would make Supernanny jealous and look like a pneumatic size zero bimbo within weeks of giving birth, so what's changed?

She's leaving home

Yesterday was a horrible day...one of the worst since baba has been born. The little guy refuses to sleep during the day, grand cos he sleeps great at night but it's hard to get anything practical done, even just picking up the other kids becomes a huge problem as a screaming baby (he doesn't scream all the time, only when he's overtired) is not the must have accessory for picking up kiddies from Montessori or school or tennis or anything really.

A side effect of little guy being awake has been the middle monster who's three has figured out that she can use the fact that I'm distracted to her advantage. I'm feeding/nursing/changing the baby so she's destroying her room/writing on the wall/running away, yes that's right, yesterday my little princess had enough and seizing her opportunity (I was feeding baby, big bro had left door open when he came in from playing) she was gone!

Like all parents I am suspicious of silence so I popped into the hall( where she'd been playing destroy mammy new lipstick), babe in arms to check on her and she was no where to be seen, there were a lot of barbie dolls with pink lipstick on them but no little missy. Dropped the baby into the crib screaming her name at the top of my lungs, grabbed my keys and out the door. She was no where to be seen, now she's only little and i was very panicked, then i see her loitering behind a neighbours car, favorite barbie in her hand, You can imagine my reaction, as she saw (and heard) me she started to run but I swooped in, over the shoulder with her and into the house where I forgot my calm indoor voice and shouted at her I'm ashamed to say!

She was hysterical, screaming and shouting at me, "I'm gonna punch mama and then run away", I swear to God! I have no idea where that came from! She was like the crazy cat woman in the Simpsons mumbling about the world being against her!Throwing cats (well barbie dolls) at me!

She's finding it difficult to adjust and no matter how much time I give her on her own it's a huge issue going from the baby to the middle child. I realise I'm not doing a good job if she says something like "I'm a good girl mama", or " I'm great at helping you with the baby", it means even though I'm thinking she's being good I haven't said it out loud and she needs to hear it (mum needs to hear nice things too). So I'm trying to remember to notice everything good and ignore the bad bits, like when she puts her hand over babies mouth to stop him making noise while she watches TV!

It'll pass of course but it was scary yesterday, that she ran away and then that she was so crazed! I was telling the story to one of the mums at Montessori and her little girl (who is really really good all the time, seriously) did something similar yesterday and she had never done anything like that before, so maybe it's peer pressure, "you can't be in my gang unless you run away"! My little girl calls Montessori "Monstersory", maybe there is something in that, she's learning the skills for making my life a total misery!

All that said I love my little monster and I would hate her to lose her fire and spirit, it's difficult that the qualities we want our children to have as adults make them difficult to handle as children. Who'd want them to grow into dull, submissive easily manipulated adults but often we ask them to behave that way as children.

My mother always says don't break their spirits! (If only she'd felt like that when I was a girl and she was using the wooden spoon on my legs)! I'm just worried that the monsters will break my spirits!

What are you doing to mummy, daddy?

Oh God, we had a total carry on moment this morning! Hubby and I were making to most of the fact that the little ones were all still asleep and we had fifteen minutes to go before the alarm went off. So reveling in some morning glory we were having a bit of low impact aerobic exercise!

I was on top of my other half and he was at the pinnacle of pleasure when from the other side of the room we hear " what are you doing to mummy, daddy?", there was our three year old watching us, so it was the drop and roll and a quick retort, just having a lovely cuddle, so she walks over to my side of the bed, where she picks up the durex wrapper and says "why is this empty" (she had found them in my locker before and asked me what they were for)!

Oh God, it was awful, to make matters worse in my hurry to dismount the bloody thing came off and now I have the whole morning after pill to think about. I don't think I have to worry but wouldn't that just be bloody typical? The GP asked us to wait for a year before making a decision on sterilisation, I could have bloody triplets in a year!

I don't think any damage was done to the little woman(we were under the duvet), but then you never know, we might wind up paying for her therapy in twenty years time! I have no idea how she opened door ( and closed it again) without us noticing, our son is nine and he never came close to catching us! I think she has our room bugged! Evil genius in the making!

You look tired!

I got my slap done today, I should have known how it was gonna go as today started really badly(a different post), the little man slept great last night, so as a result he was wide awake and wired (to the moon) this morning. The poor girl did my make up while I jiggled the little guy on my knee, as he alternated between laughing and screaming, probably the weirdest make over she's ever done,maybe that explains why one eye looks OK but the other looks like my hubby punched me.

When she was finished she said now you look great not as tired, I could barely look in the mirror, she did use about four coats of foundation, applied admittedly not with a trowel but with a huge brush! I was hoping to get home to take off the slap before I went to the Montessori to pick up number two child but as the little guy was so narky the traffic was rotten so I didn't manage that.

I walked up to the other mums, one or two were looking at me strangely,one said I looked really tired had I had a bad night ? She even put her hand on my arm in a reassuring way!(maybe she thinks I'm hiding a black eye with the slap) I got back to the house an took a photo to show my hubby later....so he'll know what I'll look like in 15 years time!

I did enjoy the chat with the girl,(over baby crying, unbelievably he's still awake and narky now) and I bought myself a lovely pinky lipstick. But babies and make overs don't mix!

Where is the Love?

I was listening to the radio in the car the other day, there was a talking head discussing the treatments for adolescents in Ireland who develop mental health issues, when a thought occurred to me. Probably a mad thought but it's one of those ones I need to vent, so here goes!

The guy said he thought that young people and their families need support in the community, that's what is lacking from their lives. We lack the community support we used to have through living close to our extended families, and through the support of our churches. Everyone seems to live miles from their families now and on Sunday morning we are more likely to go shopping in an out of town shopping centre than go to mass.

But it's not just the teenagers who have mental health issues who need community support it's everyone, every family needs support and those supports just don't exist. So the thought that occurred to me was that the Internet is providing the support for some of us. These forums are the modern coffee mornings, as for myself I know I have found great support in this forum since my youngest was born six weeks ago.

There is a lot of coverage at the moment in the media of the poor woman in Letterkenny and her beautiful daughter who were found dead in their home on Monday and last month we mourned the death of an entire family. Why? everyone asks, well in my opinion we are so disconnected from reality, we are easily disappointed by it.

It's difficult to deal with the reality of being a parent if you are in good mental and physical health but if you aren't then how can we expect people to cope. The fear is always there too, if I can't cope or I'm feeling a bit down and I tell someone will they take my babies away? so while I can't understand why a mother would hurt her baby I can see all the pointers as to why it could happen.

So I think that the Internet could be a wonderful support for parents, it's an anonymous medium and confidential. We can voice our opinions, no one will judge us which I think is essential, sometimes if we just say what we really think and realise others feel the same it makes it easier to bear.

I have only been blogging for only a couple of weeks now and I feel so much lighter and freer,the few people who have read this have said they understand how I feel and they don't think I'm an awful mother which is a support, especially through these first hormonal weeks.

So I'm gonna keep blogging I think, and perhaps if more parents did we'd all feel more supported and accepted as the parents we want to be.

Make-Up gun set to Whore!

The lovely girl that I buy my moisturiser from has booked me in for a makeover tomorrow morning, I was in the shop about two weeks after my little monkey was born and she insisted that I let her make an appointment. So tomorrow morning my handsome little guy and I will have an hour of unimaginable fun. I love this girl, she is a lovely human being but she's by no means a make up artiste!

Last time I went for my make up session she airbrushed my foundation which is supposed to look subtle and take years off me. She also did some smokey eyes, you know the grey sultry look and to finish lovely Cleopatra eyeliner. Now maybe any one of these would have worked alone but together, no! The airbrushed foundation seemed to settle in my crows feet so instead of taking ten years off me I looked like Pat Butcher from Eastenders and the smokey eyes and eyeliner just added to the undead/street walker vibe.

The best thing about the make over is you don't see any of it until the final reveal when she lets you look in the mirror, and then the fight to make your shock look like pleasant surprise or you laughter look like delight is great fun. I buy an item, cos i like her (and they work on commission), usually the least offensive item, last time it was the clear lip gloss! Last time I was meeting the hubby and two kids afterwards, we all nearly wet ourselves (the two year old definitely did) my hubby took about ten pictures which the girls in work found hilarious!

So tomorrow will be great, and who knows if the little man is awake and starts to cry and put her off I'll look even better, maybe Aunt Sally from Wurzel Gummage!

Euromillions!

Like everyone else in Europe I (try to remember) to do the Euromillions every Friday and my husband says if we win we can get a nanny and have a whole football team of babies, I always laugh. Today I did the big shop I do about once a fortnight, the one with baby formula, nappies and all the toiletries, as my hubby was working away today I had all the little people with me which is great fun! The little guy was narky and nothing would keep him happy beside him my only daughter was drawing on her colour doodle and my eldest was following the trolley around while reading a magazine and walking into all the vulnerable elderly shoppers!

It was sixty minutes of agony (I did see a woman with at least five kiddies between the ages of about eighteen months and seven which made my shop look like a trip to Disney land). I got to the register kids now going totally bonkers, small one now screaming like a fire alarm and the older two trying to open the ice pops. The girl zapped all my stuff and I bagged it all up, then she said that's two hundred and something euro, I looked at her, literally did a double take. I couldn't believe it, I'm not stupid and I know kids are expensive but this is ridiculous I am gonna have to win the Euromillions just to keep the kids I have already, or I'll have to sell one of them just to feed the other two!

Guilt!

OK, so for all of my complaining about them i adore my midgets, each of them are different and unique (I can't wait to see what secrets my littlest one is hiding behind those big blue eyes) and I will always try to encourage them. My eldest is into singing and on Saturday he was part of the choir, now I love to hear him sing and have sat through loads of services but on Saturday I was tired and just didn't want to spend over an hour in the church, so i asked my nine year old son if he'd mind if i missed this one, the lure of being alone in the car for over an hour with my book (which I haven't opened in the six weeks since number three was born) was too strong. He looked at me with his big blue eyes and asked if I didn't want to hear him sing, i felt like the worst mother in the world, but i persisted and explained how i felt, i walked him over to the church and then returned to the car.

The guilt was intense and I considered going into the church but sure he wouldn't know I was there, I phoned my hubby to have my guilt assuaged but he thought it was hilarious that i was upset. So I sat in the car reading my book (I nearly finished it) and I'd love to say that I didn't enjoy it and I regret it but I don't! My son came skipping out of the church having had a grand ole time (not emotionally scared because I missed him sing), I was happy relaxed and less stressed and the rest of the day was easier because I'd had an hour to myself.

Children are total megalomaniacs, as they should be they need this to survive and we wouldn't want our children to be any other way, to be doormats. but they just take and take with no thought for the sacrifice parents make, I clearly remember my mother not eating so we had food when I was younger and then lying to us and my dad that she had a huge lunch. As a child I don't think I was aware of how selfless she was, and still is.

I have made hundreds of sacrifices over the year for my children, some tiny some huge but when is it okay to put yourself first? And will the guilt ever go away?

Pox Party!

Well the play date was cancelled due to illness, well actually it morphed into a "Pox Party" but I just don't have the heart to purposely infect my little ones with chicken pox! Anyway I'd be the one running around filling baths with calamine lotion and wandering the aisles of a twenty four hour tesco like a zombie at one am buying calpol, orange juice and their favorite variety of ice cream, and thinking it's lovely to get out of the house!

So I escaped my fate for another week, I'm actually rather disappointed, part of me is hugely curious as to what goes on at these things, while the children are playing in the garden do the women discuss their husbands sexual prowess, their political opinions or even better their lovers prowess and political leanings! I Suspect it's more which primary school is the best "feeder" school in the area and maybe if there is wine consumed a discussion of who's had botox!

I am being cruel and facetious, truth be told the things we dislike or fear in other people are often the things we hate about ourselves and i know in my case this is true. My motherist leanings are a form of self hatred, when faced with these mummy's ( all yummy) I am looking at myself, when I complain about them discussing school places and gluten free diets I'm actually asking myself how many times I've bored others to tears with my lively banter about temper tantrums! I bore myself!

As a mother I should know that looks can be deceiving and people who see my home baked cakes and handmade blankets will perceive me as a mother so amazing I make Nigella Lawson look like Hansel and Gretel's stepmother, but if they saw me as I really am ( if they read anything in this blog) they would be horrified and probably huddle their children to their skirts as I passed by!

So who am I to judge, those perfectly coiffed mummys in the expensive jeans and SUV's might also lead exciting lives away from their weenies. But what if they don't? What if we all think we are more than just mammy but in actual fact that's it? If that's true then by avoiding facing other mothers I'm managing to escape a reality I just couldn't handle! On the other hand I might be avoiding meeting a kindred sisterhood of intelligent,vibrant women all living under their persona's of perfect wives and mothers, we'll find out next week at my rescheduled date, I can't wait!

I am a motherist!

My partner keeps telling me I have a problem, I'm a motherist! I have always avoided friendships with other mothers. Now of course I have friends who are mothers but we were friends before they became mothers, I was the first of my circle of friends to get pregnant and therefore everything just continued as it had before, nights out, dinner parties weekends away. It was only when my friends had their first children, when i was having my second that our friendships changed, I'd spent my twenties being a mother but always making sure I had a life, they spent their twenties having a life and then became mothers and stopped living.

OK, so I'm being over dramatic but normal women I've known for years suddenly become obsessed with cloth nappies and cracked nipples, taking thousands of pictures of their beautiful offspring. I adore all of my gorgeous children but within reason, I don't want to talk about their poo or temper tantrums (unless it's a funny story perhaps involving poo and a temper tantrum) so I definitely don't want to listen to my mate talk about her little darlings bowel movements! We used to drink bubbly from the bottle and dance around poles (sweeping brush handles) until it got bright outside, now it's all play dates and Pizza Hut, "but we're mothers now" they say with a look the virgin Mary would be proud of (if pride wasn't a sin), but I was a mother then! Does that make them better than me? Was I a bad mother cos once a month we'd get babysitting and go out clubbing or more likely have a house party.

Now those friends can't get babysitting, even though I have three weenies i can get sitters(obviously have no desire to go clubbing at the moment, but give me a couple of months), they can't contemplate getting away for an evening never mind a weekend,some couples who had their first three years ago haven't been without their little ones for a night, never mind a girls weekend they haven't been alone with their partner for a weekend in all that time. I feel sometimes like I'm in invasion of the body snatchers, where are my slightly mad mates gone? They want to get together drink tea and discuss whose child is tallest, cleverest or the best at picking their nose! That's another thing that bothers me, just because we are friends why do our kids have to be?

So I think that's at the root of my motherism, All the women who I know who became mothers lost their spark, maybe it's only temporary and in a year or two we'll be out shaking our (saggy and wrinkly) asses again!

How does my distrust of other mothers manifest itself? Well when I was pregnant with number three I started to feel really isolated, my hubby suggested i ask some of the women at the school or Montessori to go for coffee, I was distraught, that was all I had to hope for now if I didn't want to live a life of a hermit. It's the idea that because we've had kids we'll all get on, or cos our kids are the same age we'll have loads to talk about ( yeah what school is your junior going to?). Okay so I was hormonal and seriously over reacting, when I was in work or in uni I didn't mind that all we had in common initially was our shared environment, and it's the same with being a mother.

Rationally I know that all mothers aren't like my few friends, and that there are other mothers out there who feel the same as me that we are still multi dimensional women I just need to give them a chance. Either that or this is Stepford and I just missed out on the chance to have my lobotomy (sometimes I think that's why so many house wives in the past have become dependant on tranquillisers).

So having said all that I have my first play date tomorrow, wish me luck?

I'm a flesh coloured sausage!

I mentioned body image in a couple of my previous posts, I'm generally happy with myself but after having my third weenie less than six weeks ago the jelly belly has been getting me down lately and even when I bought the lovely dresses yesterday I was aware of my belly wobbling under the fabric. I've been joking with my gal pals about it and the underwear department in House of Frasier had been mentioned on a few occasions so today I brought the aforementioned weenie on a trip to Dundrum.

OH MY GOD! underwear like I'd never seen before, I love underwear and they had some amazing stuff beautiful delicate dainties like I'd never seen before. But that wasn't the section I needed, no i needed the old ladies section, there it was flesh coloured and stretchy, I considered walking away pretending I was looking at the thongs or at least the boy shorts but a quick wobble of my jelly made my mind up for me. There they were the magic pants, the waist cinchers, the shorts that lift your ass and slim your thighs and something my I think i remember my granny hand washing called the "Hourglass".

It was an education and I finally decided on a waist slimmer thing, to pull in the jelly belly its like a flesh coloured sausage casing with boning in the sides, I decided against trying it on as I just wanted to get out of there before someone I knew walked past, like my old headmistress or the first guy who broke my heart, you know the kind of things that people laugh about but that really happen to me. You don't believe me, think I'm trying to be humorous, but believe me these things happen to me all the time, as you get to know me better you'll realise that. I managed to pay for it, get it into my bag and get out of the shop without being spotted, then I make it out of the centre without my bag bursting and the sausage casing falling at the feet of a group of rowdy teenagers!

Once safely at home i showed my partner my purchases (there were a few sexy bits there too that I hid the sausage under while I was buying it) with him egging me on I tried it on, I have to tell you it took the two of us ten minutes to get it on, over the head and slowly inch it down so it holds in the bits between my boobies and my knickers, worked a treat but I looked a bit like an over stuffed pork sausage! But once my clothes were back on it looked great, the jelly was definitely more firmly set.

I don't know how often I'll wear it, probably only when I need to feel extra confident as it's not the most comfy thing in my underwear drawer. now as I'm writing I'm drinking a glass of wine and eating dark chocolate so maybe I've fallen into the trap of just sucking it in, I'll be the size of a house in six months, but I'll be a house wrapped in a sausage casing!

Two dresses, a tantrum and a screaming baby!

My little guys baptism is in a few weeks and I'm going to a black tie wedding in July so I need a couple of outfits. Today after dropping my first born son at his second party of the day I decided to kill a bit of time wandering around the local shopping centre, with narky baby and overtired three year old in tow. I picked up a couple of things, things i never would have worn before but with Gok's fashion in mind and my resolution not to cover up my hourglass anymore I decided to try them on.

With the three of us squeezed into the changing cubicle the baby now wailing like a car alarm and my toddler trying to shove her dirty fingers in his mouth, then running away when I asked her to stop,I tried them on and really liked two of them, but they were too big so not only did I find two dresses that looked great and felt fab but I got to buy them in a smaller size so i was practically floating out of the cubicle. When I got outside I realised I had no money with me, but that was easily remedied.

I met my hubby who thought both dresses were fab, but he couldn't believe that with the crazy circumstances of my shopping trip that I bought anything let alone two outfits! Usually a wedding would induce panic and weeks of shopping, finding nothing that suits me and then feeling ugly and freakish, winding up wearing something old from my wardrobe! So I've decided that the secret to successful shopping is bringing no money, a screaming baby and a terrible toddler, I could offer it to other women, a sort of alternative personal shopper service!

How to look good naked!

I love that show, last year it was great and this year it's even better! It's such an antidote to the body fascism that the media is soaked in. In Ireland we have Off The Rails, which is true to the age old makeover show ethos of put the girl in a nice dress, get her hair done and put enough slap on her to make the pussy cat dolls blush and viola, why your beautiful Miss Jones. We should be grateful for the innocence of off the rails.

In America and the UK it's a totally different story, be it the Swan or Ten Years Younger, it's weeks of cosmetic surgery and teeth whitening and breaking the women down mentally before they put them in the dress and the new hair do. The moment of the big "reveal" when the women see themselves for the first time is always shocking, they can barely look at the stranger before them, there will always be tears and maybe screams. What happens to these women when they go home? What do their partners and children think of this strange woman with a different nose than mommy's nose and hard lumps where mummy's blooby boobies used to be, is her husband watching her every move around other men, after all if she was content in their relationship she wouldn't have had her ass lifted. How do these women maintain their new life?

I'm gonna say what every one thinks, if these women hated themselves before they had the "makeover" will they like themselves any more afterwards? If you look differently on the outside but what ever you have inside you that makes you feel ugly is still there it will slowly emerge until you are uglier than before. It's the hardest thing in the world to like yourself, and if you can't like everything then you have to accept that too. The media obviously works to prevent this cos there's no money in happiness! We all want our children to be happy with themselves, but as with most things in parenthood we have to lead by example.

Anyway back to "How to look good naked", it's a traditional make over show but with a refreshing positive attitude. Gok Wan who presents is all love and teeth, he is funny and upbeat but without the acidic putting down of the "ladies" that other shows rely on for laughs, as "Aunty Gok" helps each weeks chosen one to see herself as she really is ( how can she not see how beautiful her eyes are, or how great her legs look), he's talking to everyone of us sitting in our flannel pyjamas on the sofa, hiding our wobbly bits from our partners. He introduces us liberated women to the secret of underwear, good underwear that sucks it in and pushes it up, secrets your granny could have told you, and not a scalpel in sight. By the time she walks down the catwalk in her flimsy undies I want to throw off my towelling bath robe and walk down the aisle in my local debenhams in my best push up bra.

Another great aspect of the show is the naked vox pops where they talk about the things they like and dislike about their bodies, as my hubby said it's the only time you see real naked women on TV that haven't been airbrushed to death. I want more programmes like this on TV. It's uplifting( not just the underwear) and liberating to watch and anyone who hasn't seen it should, it's an education.

Wind

Why is it that my parents generation is obsessed with "wind"? Whenever a baby cries no matter what time of day or night it is my mother says "ah, he has wind", and starts to bang the little mite on the back. Sometimes it makes me wonder how I survived what must have been the constant "pats" on the back, does this explain the weird bone sticking out of my brothers chest when we were kids, mum says he was a windy baby who never stopped crying,God knows maybe if she'd stopped "winding him" he would have stopped crying!

It's obviously a generational thing because strangers of my mothers era come over when the little one is crying and they say two things, "He's hungry!"or "He has wind" (these are statements btw not questions). I'm not an expert, it's only my third child and I'm only in my early thirties so I don't like to correct these women, but from my limited experience even very young babies are slightly more sophisticated than this and cry for other reasons, dirty,tiredness, boredom or over stimulated.

Needless to say walking around a supermarket with a screaming baby is so much fun that some meddling pensioner sticking her face in front of mine to tell me I'm a bad mother for not feeding/ not winding, my baby can just push it over the edge and I wind up having so much fun I sob in the car! And that's without the pleasure of them tut tutting when my toddler has a tantrum!

Is it that their own children don't visit them enough so they have to interfere in strangers lives? If so I suppose I'll consider it social work! and try to smile through my teeth next time it happens, Oh and if anyone is reading this for god's sake visit your mothers!

Secret Handshake.

I think we mothers should have a secret handshake for those days when we are feeling a bit crap. Those days when it's all feeling a bit much and you just want to tell someone but of course you don't want to betray your child by saying that they drive you crazy when they say they don't need to wee and then wee all over the floor or your new(ish) jeans. If we had a handshake it would mean that you could give it as a greeting to a mum at the shops or in the school yard and she'd understand without you having to say a word. It could replace the looks we so often shoot at each other when asked how we are, that slightly desperate feeling which we can sometimes detect.

I know I feel the immense pressure to be perfect, in particular because I stay at home, people seem to assume that I love it and I'm the perfect Stepford wife and mother. I'm a forgetful, disorganised and stressed mother, I have no time to myself, and what time I do have I'm trying to divide between six or seven different things, blog, book, phone friends and personal hygiene(my legs are like a gorillas). So sometimes at the school when one of the other mum's looks longingly at my little guy in his pram I have to fight the urge to ask them do they ever feel like running away, and sometimes I think I can sense it in the other mothers. So a handshake or secret code word would clarify matters and we could support our sisters in their time of need.

Exterminate! Exterminate!

My two older kids and my husband love Dr Who and while I can appreciate it on a visual level for David Tennant I am still terrified by it, totally! My little princess who's three isn't scared by it, and I try to find excuses not to be in the room when it's on! Last week I was trapped under a feeding baby so couldn't escape and I had to watch it, perhaps to distract myself from the scary scorpion human mutation, but I started drawing parallels between parenthood and Dr Who The children are the daleks single minded and evil, destroying everything in their path to get what they want, and like Dr Who we could escape when they couldn't climb stairs but once the learned to climb the stairs we are screwed. And the Cybermen, they are the parents empty shells of human beings, just programmed to tend to the children's every need and whim! But what I couldn't figure out was where David Tennant fitted into this, so I had to spend a good fifteen minutes (fantasising) thinking about him,but I didn't come to a conclusion that I was willing to share...

Are grandparents Satan's flying monkeys?

The two eldest kiddy winks stayed in their grandparents last night. As the saying goes what happens in Granny's house stays in granny's house......except it doesn't, it always overflows into our house!

Granny and grandad dropped them home this afternoon, granny had brought their lunch with her, chocolate muffins and monster munch, seriously! The kids were hyper after a very late night and enough sugar to turn a small country into diabetics, oh the tears when I said no to the menu provided, and that was just granny, she honestly thought it was acceptable to give them crap and she told them if they ate their lunch they could have a treat! What the hell was the treat? Sugar coated heroin!

I'd often wondered why it took the kids two days to come down after visiting the grandparents, now I know, the combination of lack of sleep, being allowed to run riot ("but we can jump on the furniture/ write on the walls / invade Iraq, in Nanny's house"), and a diet that consists of the neglected food groups of hydrogenated fats, high fructose corn syrup and dehydrated noodles in pots!

Needless to say these are my husbands parents, my own parents adore and are adored by my little ones, but they are too afraid of my reaction to over indulge them. I have never hesitated in telling them what to do or more likely what they are doing wrong, but with my in laws I can't be as candid as I'd like. The problem is I totally disagree with the way they treat the kids when they are in their care and I suffer for days when they come home, especially my little girl who is three, so loves pushing the envelope as far as she possibly can, but I need a break once in a while and I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of my sanity for a night child free and a lie on.. maybe even a weekend away once in a blue moon.

I think a lot of parents are in a similar position, some are dependant on their parents or in laws to provide regular childcare as both parents are working. I've never needed to depend on either sets of grandparents on a daily basis and I'm grateful for that. It must be extremely difficult to convince these grandparents that your rules and regulations aren't just trying to rain on granny's (candy and firearms) parade, but that you have your little ones best interests at heart.

A friend of mine is a lone parent and her mother thinks as such she as free reign to tell her daughter how to raise her child, and she takes every opportunity to tell her what to do! It's been that way since she gave birth. While in Holles Street recently, recovering after giving birth, there was a young girl in the bed beside me who'd just had her first child, a lovely little boy and her mum would visit her every night and while she obviously worshipped the little guy she never missed an opportunity to belittle and criticise her daughter. I was totally horrified what will her future as a mother be like? Surely as a mother herself the granny would want to encourage and nurture her daughter as she embarked on this new chapter in her life as a mother.

Maybe my mother just has learnt by experience that telling me what to do never works and a long time ago she just let me make my own mistakes. I respect her skills as a mother so I often ask her advice but she never forces her opinion on me. I know that takes a lot of self control on her part not to step in and tell me what to do but it also shows me she trusts me, and she knows if I make a mistake I'll admit it. My mum has always been my greatest support, she thinks I'm a great mother and that means a lot to me, I always feel like I can ask her advice and confide in her. I'm extremely lucky and extremely grateful!

Look what I got!

I was shopping the other day in Next, obviously for baby clothes, and this little statue caught my eye!
I wonder why? Just sort of sums up how I felt pushing an empty buggy as my little angel screamed in my arms and the older two wandered off or fought like wildcats!

I nearly bought the "How to baby proof your marriage"book, I picked it up and flicked through it! A lot about dealing with interfering granny's and such but of course I flicked forward to the section everyone talks about. The 3 minute solution- apparently Women after they have babies don't ever want to have sex again and all their husbands want to do is have sex! So the three minute solution is once a week you give your husband a blow job! The book was written by two mothers but I wonder.....

The authors say that if you sacrifice the three minutes it takes ( three minutes, Jesus, I must be doing something wrong!) your husband will be so grateful/delighted that he'll do the next middle of the night feed or stinky nappy change, hmm, I don't know seems a bit hokey to me. Apparently men think if a woman says she's not in the mood for sex that it means they don't love and find their partners attractive anymore, so she doesn't want sex but just put his dick in your mouth and his belief in your relationship will be rejuvenated.

This is bullshit! It insults both men and women, men aren't bloody morons who will leave their hassled, exhausted, breastfeeding wives if they refuse them their conjugal rights, and if they would then they are edjits and not worthy of an adult relationship. The authors lump all women into the frigid camp too, the feeling is that we are just delighted to have an excuse to turn down sex, which is rubbish, some do, some don't just like some men can't separate emotion and sex. Do they really think that three minutes a week of automated totally unspontanious oral pleasure will keep the spark alive.

Maybe they are correct and I'm totally wrong but I think three minutes of cuddling or three minutes of hard core sex or whatever the hell feels right is the best thing to do,maybe if I told my hubby I was giving him a good time for three minutes so he'd feel so grateful he would walk the floors with the little midget for two hours in the middle of the night he'd jump at the chance, but I doubt it. On the other hand I'm sure that a large percentage of men would have as many kids as possible if they thought they'd get unlimited blow jobs!

Then again I have always felt very attractive and womanly after giving birth, I don't think being a mother excludes the possibility of being sexual. I'm always amazed at the changes in my body, and each time it's different, even squeezing my jelly belly into my jeans makes me laugh!

God, I've gone on again, I didn't mean to talk about my sex life, well I didn't really tell you anything did I? And anyway sure no one is reading this so I'm just talking to myself.
The midgets are asleep so it's bed for me! Alone, cos my lovely hubby is working away tonight.