Smells like Heaven

They did a test recently on a TV programme to see if a mother could tell her baby's nappy just by smell. Sounds gross huh? There were four mother and child teams, each mother fed her child the same food, they wore the same nappies and clothes and when the business was completed the blindfolded mothers were asked to pick which nappy belonged to their child. Each and every mother got it right! I'm not surprised, I suppose it's a series of biological processes.



So it got me thinking, our sense of smell is so important to us, but we neglect it don't we? We revel in our other senses, tasting wonderful food and drink, listening to beautiful music, looking at wonderful art or touching our lovers skin. Losing any of these four senses would be terrible, but do we treasure our sense of smell to the same extent? Some people lose their sense of smell through smoking, my aunt lost her sense of smell several years ago ( her sense of taste has been damaged too) she doesn't know how it happened, just did!


I know I treasure all my senses but my sense of smell is one I really love. Personally I love the smell of my loved ones, my kids, my husbands skin, his scent (currently Amen by Philosophy), I love my mum's scent and when she cuddles my kids they smell like Anais, Anais! My maternal grandmother always used Max Factor pressed powder and I love the way it smells, when I smell it I am giving her a big hug, or putting the curlers in her blue rinsed hair. I love the smell of certain foods, Christmas morning in my folks house, roast potatoes, sprouts, the sherry from the trifle and the slight smell of whiskey off my dad's breath. I love the smell of the portable gas stove we used to bring on picnics, then the sizzling smells of the fry we'd have, mopping up the juices with big chunks of bread and butter. The smells of old books fill me with mixed emotions, my dad had a selection of old books he'd scavenged over the yeas and I'd spend hours flipping through them, but the old book smells also reminds me of the little mites (don't know what they were) that lived in the books...... Then the other smells, the smell of incense and hash that reminds me of rebellion, slightly scary, but exciting!

I'm gonna try and enjoy my sense of smell a bit more, relishing in the smell of a bottle of wine, my Sunday newspaper or the smell of my favorite pastry shop. Maybe we all should?

Snakes on a worktop!

This afternoon we had a new arrival and we are now a family of six! The bank balance is now two hundredish euro lighter and we have a little red snake, about a foot long and about the width of a biro, living in a little tank (v.secure) in the corner of the living room!

He is so cute, the one in the picture looks a lot like Sammy No Shoulders, except he quite unusually has no marks on the bottom of his body (piano keys), he is sticking his little head up occasionally but every time I get the phone close enough to take a picture he goes all camera shy!

So here is a photo of his environment, this tank will last him for about 6 to 12 months before he grows out of it and we are planning on installing a bearded lizard when he moves into his grown up home......I know, once you start it's addictive!

His birthday is 7/7/2007....weird, and he's to be fed every Thursday, so on a Thursday from now on I'll be driving over to Walkinstown to buy a frozen baby mouse (pinky mouse) from Mr Tattoo!

Oh next stop on my strange midlife crisis is another tattoo, I'm trying to decide between shoulder and thigh as a location!

100th post!

Okay, so this is post number one hundred, I started this blog on the 1st of May this year my youngest was less than a month old and it was meant to keep me sane in the first few months (years) of his life! So here I am months later now writing on two blogs and really enjoying the chance to moan, oh I mean express myself :-) I've met some nice people through the blog and I feel less likely to go postal!



So for my hundreth post I've been debating what to do, top 100 sexual positions? Top 100 Household hints? Top 100 things I hate about being a mother/woman? So, bearing in mind my positive mindset that I've been trying to embrace this is my "Top 100 things I love" (very general I know....)



So in no particular order.......



1.My husband's shoulders

2.My children when they are asleep

3.My parent's "is everything OK?" every time i phone them

4.My brother's fecklessness - it makes me look fab!

5. Kentucky fried chicken spicy fillet tower burger, no mayo.

6. The smell of jasmine

7. Bison Grass vodka and apple juice

8. Heinz salad cream

9. Beetroot

10. Number eight and number nine above together in a sandwich

11. My tattoo - it reminds me I have control over myself

12. Buses - reading and people watching, what more could a body ask for

13. Smoking - although I don't do it and it's gross it is sexy, think black and white movies!

14. Sex - for obvious reasons (also smoking and sex seem to fit together)

15. Rain- I love rain, at night tucked up and it's pelting down outside

16. Superquinn Danish bread cut thickly, toasted, real butter!

17. Paris

18. Fancy Dress Parties

19. Making costumes for fancy dress parties (for me now...feck the kids)

20. Freedom (I think I remember what it is)

21. Reading

22. Laughing (preferably until I cry)

23. Picnics - gas stove, fry up in the open air....bliss

24. Milk

25. Shoes

26. Make Up

27. Lush

28. Fishnet tights (I love the stockings but with my lack of grace tights are a better option)

29. The Bare Naked Ladies

30. That my parent's are in the funeral business - I'm very good at living

31. That my mum worked when I was a child

32. That my maternal granny was my second mother - I was blessed to love her and be

loved by her

33. Ice

34. Open fires (totally rock my boat)

35. I like Pina Coladas!

36. Walks in the rain

37. Love clean sheets

38. Hotel rooms

39. Knitting

40. Freesias

41. Chocolate

42. Guinness (but it doesn't like me)

43.Tayto crisp sandwiches (if we are kinda broke we live on these while the kids eat normally)

44. Studio 60

45. I enjoy hair removal.....plucking shaving or whatever..it reminds me I'm alive

46. Growing older, I hated my twenties

47. Chicken noodle soup

48. Red wine

49. Red the colour

50. Red the fraggle

51. Music - lots

52. Talking

53. Walking

54. I love 52 and 53 combined

55. Shopping

56.Ireland

57.Marshmallow fluff

58. Reece's Peanut butter Cups

59. Homemade brown bread, just cool enough to eat

60. Dresses

61. Biblical studies, new testament in particular

62. Reading cookbooks in bed

63. Cuddles

64. Porn

65. Brief Encounter

66.Chip sandwiches with batch bread, ketchup and butter

67. The sea

68. NewGrange

70. Black

71. The smell of a match when you light it

72. The Burren

73. Cold chicken

74. Robins

75. Underwear - the nice sexy ones...not the grey ones!

76. Whiskey

77. Jewellery

78. The Phoenix Park

79. Amber

80. My eyes - my favorite feature, also I think the feature I've passed on to my children

81. The look and feel of books

82. Coffee

83. Cakes.....yummy yummy cakes

84. Queen of Tarts - best place for 82 and 83 above

85. Collins barracks museum

86. Friendship

87. Real Gourmet Burger (the Holey Moley burger)

89. Tea when I have a hangover

90. Coriander

91. A good cry

92. A good row

93. Cabbage

94. A good Fry up - I love black pudding (Rudds)

95. Making people happy

96. Babysitting

97. Prawn cocktail crisps

98. Crappy sour jellys

99. Markets

100. Dundrum Town centre

Snakes on a (parallel) Plane!

Hey I'm getting a snake! Take that mid life Crisis! I've written about it here, check it out!

Mammy's little helper.

I think I need some kind of drug, some Prozac or tequila or something, is gin mothers little helper? Today I wish I'd never had children.....any children, not the first the second or the third! Some days I feel like this, usually because my little guys have driven me demented from morning to night, today the baby was still struggling with his teeth (if one more elderly woman asks me if he has any teeth I'll bite her myself!), my daughter is going through a year long tantrum which morphs from anger at the food I'm (attempting) to feed her to how she wants to go to bed "NOW", how long before it's the situation in Iraq that's "SO UNFAIR"? And my nine year old son, what did he do to upset me, well apart from losing his new jumper only three weeks into term he's just silently sulking, taking 90 minutes to do half an hours worth of homework.These things are enough to have me clawing at my hair (which is rapidly disappearing) but today something else pushed me over the edge.....other people, in particular other peoples children!



Today I had a play date with one of the nice mothers at the Montessori, her little boy is in my little princesses class, she has a sevenish old boy and is pregnant with her third! Now I like this woman, she like me doesn't "do" the mummy thing, we are the same age and I get the feeling she kinda fell into motherhood like I did, but even then I have to do the whole baking a cake, buying the bloody natural company jellys and never offering bloody squash! Why? Will ours kids explode if they are exposed to the "unnatural" colours and flavours....? They taste like nothing....I remember the sweets when I was young, ones that exploded in our mouths (spacedust?) sherbet dabs, wham bars, I'm sure these were bad for us (good news for the dentists though) but they were fun, when my mum had kids over for tea we had a bag of Tayto (oh no, think of the saturated fat) and a banana sandwich, then as many sweets as we could eat before we got bored (or sick). The mum brought over the kids today and I made a yummy orange and chocolate (of course organic Green and Blacks) cake we had organic juice and the natural jellys, kids worked themselves up to a frenzy, when she dragged her kids out of the door, my daughter was OK because her other friend had popped in, but when she left......OH MY GOD! Temper tantrum!

Anyway today was a crap day, tonight was better, I dished up pasta with tomato sauce to my hubby and kids (almost throwing the baby at him as he walked in the door) did the dishes, grabbed my lipstick, out the door to Dundrum where I met a friend for black coffee and conversation! Now my friend has no kids so our conversation was about men and handbags!

Bra Wars

So my husband decided to buy me some underwear last night.....sounds like the start of a really funny post about how he bought me two sizes too big or too small! But I'm sorry to disappoint you,but my hubby is one of those metrosexual males who knows my bra size (40D, in case you want to buy me something frilly), he also has no problem buying Tampax, vibrators or Always with wings!

So last night we were in Dundrum, I was fruitlessly searching for that perfect black dress, long sleeves, wrap around, V neck and knee length. My hubby was in Marks and Sparks and he called me, asked me to come down to see something, I was searching in H&M, just didn't have time, so twenty minutes later my hubby meets me, bag in hand. In the bag that he handed to me were three sets of underwear (yes three), they were all the correct size and different styles, all perfect. Later when the kids were in bed I tried on the underwear for him, he was pleased cos they were sexy (not crotchless knicker, red lace bra sexy- really sexy) I was happy because they were comfortable and sexy, classy sexy!

I have a problem, I like nice underwear, in fact I like matching sets of nice underwear, I hate to wear odd underwear, black bra and white pants etc! So my hubby made my day, gaining brownie points, and then today he was bringing in the washing from the back garden, he coughed behind me, I turned around and was face to face with a perfect pink rose from our garden, lost for words I grabbed it and inhaled the beautiful scent, then there it was emerging from the flower, a huge earwig, my hubby took the flower outside and got rid of the insect!

I'm so lucky, I know matching underwear and a rose....I know what you are thinking, What did he do? God, we are so suspicious!

Knocked Up!

Hubby and I went to see Knocked up, now usually our night to the cinema are fractious, he likes films in Latvian about some crazed dictator, I like the earlier funny stuff! So usually someone compromises, usually me, but last night even though my hubby really wanted to see The Bourne Ultimatum we went to see Knocked up...my choice...hands up!

It was hilarious, no I don't know what civilians would make of it, it showed relationships and pregnancy kinda the way they are! The scene where the baby is "crowning" is so realistic....I'd say show this to your teenage daughters and they will never, ever have kids! There was a pregnant woman in the cinema, now I have no idea what the circumstances were that surrounded her pregnancy but I sincerely hope it wasn't her first child because I'd say she was soiling herself at the thought of labour!

But what really grabbed me was the relationship between the lead character's (Izzy from Grey's Anatomy) sister and her husband (can't place him, but very sexy eyes). At one point he says that the reason is relationship is fecked is because his wife loves him so much she wants to spend all her time with him! Seriously! Everyone in the cinema laughed that could have been because he was also off his face on magic mushrooms! But it got me thinking.....

He lied to get time on his own that he could spend with his mates, his wife obviously assumed that he was having an affair! I feel like this is a genuine problem in the real world, I think a lot of women feel like they are giving 110% to their family and the husband is giving about 20%, a woman ( a stay at home mom anyway) is totally submerged in the family, they become her universe, but the husband still craves his own life, time with his friends, well the wife does too, but he has a life.....work! The stay at home mother is at home working away doing the invisible work no one sees! I know it seems awful, really jealous and petty, but that's what it's like, you are tired and frustrated, your husband does well, getting ahead in his career while you slave away!

Do I sound bitter? I suppose I am, I have three beautiful children but my husband has three beautiful children and an amazing career! I could have had both you say? Could I, really? I'm not the type to leave my kids in a creche, I just have too much guilt! So I stayed at home, it's been nine years now, most women my age have established careers ( if they have kids they have availed of childcare) So at 34 if I was to return to the workforce now I'd be an office clerk being managed by someone younger than me (like last year when I was an office clerk!)

Anyway, I hope my kids are happy, I try really hard to give them the best of me, but sometimes that's difficult! Sometimes I want to cry when my hubby says he wants to go out with his friends, I don't do it...but once 2am has passed I start with gentle nagging texts and then escalate to a phone call saying get home now or the doors are locked!

I'm angry and I need Sugar!

I hate Mondays......My husband is here over the weekend so I have adult company and I get a little bit of time to myself, I can pop into my neighbour for a chat without bring the kids and all the stuff that we have to haul around when we go anywhere! Monday it's up at a stupid hour to get showered and dressed kids fed, lunches packed, then it's a series of very badly timed drop offs which end with me dropping my husband into work at around ten, then the baby and I head home together. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not working down a mine, I have no terrible illness (that I know of), I'm a lucky individual, but Jesus sometimes I hate my life....

Now I've said it (again, I don't want it to become a theme on my blog, but I know I've said it before), I feel a bit better when I say it. I don't hate my kids, of course I love them, they are my heart, I never thought it was possible to love so much, the more I love them the more love I have to give, but the stuff I have to do so our life flows along the way it does? I hate that! I often think if I didn't have to do so much I'd be able to enjoy my family life a bit more!

Baby hasn't stopped pooing all morning, I think he's brewing another one now, he is teething again I think, and isn't happy doing anything for very long, so I've committed the modern mortal sin....TV! I plopped him in front of the TV so I could clean the kitchen, hoover and wash the floor....I know it's wrong, I know people say it could cause ADHD....but I need a few minutes! I don't want my kids to get ADHD, but I also don't want to wind up in St Pats.....which is highly likely! So now telly is back on and it looks like I'll actually get this post finished in one sitting! Without a baby bouncing on my knee! I've even managed to have a cold coffee!

So this morning on the way to drop my hubby into work I was filled with my Monday melancholy and I got involved in a discussion with my husband about the DVDs we had out over the weekend (oh baby screaming now....knew it wouldn't last) So this discussion escalated into a row...over DVDs? It wasn't over that at all, it was that he thought I had all this time to spare where I could just pop down to the shop.....now there is no parking near the shop, so I have to park somewhere else and then drag the three kids down to the shop, once in the shop then it's can we get a film/popcorn/ice cream and a mobile phone?...You never "pop" anywhere when you have three kids! "Crawl" maybe?

So we had a mini row over this, so stupid! We kissed and made up, diffused the situation with humour as usual! My husband went into work, and I went home to the chores that waited for me. My husband is respected and well paid for the job he does, at the end of the day he is tired but because he loves his job it tends to be positive tiredness, I am a vegetable at the end of the day, my brain is fried and all I've done all day is menial chores, cleaning, cooking, seeing to the feeding, then cleaning up the resulting poop! I'm really selling it to you now aren't I?

Tonight we have a babysitter (we didn't go anywhere over the weekend) so we are going out for movie and food, or walk and food, whatever is possible in the time available. When I go out this evening I'll be shattered, like a vegetable, probably too tired to get changed or put on any makeup so I'll be like a zombie! Even if there is vomit on my top (baby vomit) I'll probably still wear it out! By the time I meet my hubby (after this afternoons activities -son has swimming, so added stress) it'll be nearly seven and I'll be narky, he'll have to ply me with caffeine and sugar just to get a smile! It's hard being a mum, when are we gonna get some recognition? Maybe free chocolate and wine along with our "mickey money" (children's allowance)!

Stranger Danger!

I'm an idiot, I'm the kind of woman who winds up on the nine o'clock news, found dead in her own home after inviting in her assailant! When I was a teenager I was in a little (gang) group of kids and we called ourselves "The happy Spas".....in my case it's still true. I'd talk to anyone, and apparently anyone will talk to me. I often wonder if I have a status message on my forehead "available for chat about, children, cat poo or the wearing of human skin as a fashion accessory!"

I am one of those people that people love to talk to, I obviously have a kind of "harmless" look about me, "ah, look at that lovely little fat girl over there, she won't mug me, she couldn't outrun me!", is that what the little old ladies think as they potter over, or "ah look at her, she must be desperately lonely, she's overweight, I'll approach her and suggest bizarre sexual acts!", is that what the weird guy in the nightclub thinks as he swaggers over?

So, what I'm getting at is that I'm over approachable, which I know is good, but it can have it's disadvantages (see above). When I was on my holiday in Maine I travelled by bus to and from the little town to Boston, so I spent lots of time sitting watching "RV" the Robin Williams film with no sound (I doubt the earphones would have made the experience any less harrowing, when the septic tank explodes on Robin everyone on the bus breaking out into mad laughter, i saw RV four times in total, can't believe they don't alternate the films.

On my trip back from Linconville to Boston the bus filled up very quickly, a woman got on a couple of stops after me she had an awful birthmark, it took up half of her face, she sat down in the seat behind me, then a few stops later a big burly man with a little bag got on, "can I sit here please mam?", he asked the woman with the birthmark and he sat down. They strike up a conversation, this big burly gent turns out to have a little cutesy dog called Mr Fitz in the bag, who goes everywhere with him, he doesn't drive because he had a terrible accident in Bosnia, he was a solider and had seen some action and been involved in some "incidents". The birth marked lady went on to tell him her story and how she had been involved in a serious car accident several years ago and just can't drive anymore either, she worked for the church and felt she was blessed to have found in later life a wonderful husband and they had a miracle baby, her life sounded very "Touched by an angel". They started to discuss the war in Iraq, now I'd spoken to people about it while I was in the states and everyone I'd met was of a similar liberal position and didn't support George Bush, but this man was old school, he brought up Saddam and Afghanistan. The lady then piped up, "But you can't agree with this war, we should bring our boys home", now burly dog man didn't agree and said, "But mam, if we don't do it who will? We are the world's police force!"........oh God, I really wanted to turn around and say, "Hey dog boy, we don't need your interfering, believe it or not the American way of doing things isn't the best!" I didn't though, I just scribbled in my note book, "I'll show him....I'll blog about this two months after I get home!"

Anyway, sorry again for detour! So after this exchange they continued to chat away but I was now joined by a curly haired woman in her 40's, Joany, I've written about her in my "Future" post, she's married to the lobster man (hehe), she proceeded to tell me her life story and cry, telling me I was her angel, that she had been dreading travelling and I was sent by God to keep her company and brighten up her day, it was lovely to talk to her, she was a lovely woman. She gave me her email address and I gave her mine. I haven't heard from her but I think I'm gonna mail her tonight.

So sometimes my "available" status message is a good thing, I suppose if the other option is that people don't approach me I'll put up with the Wackos!

Music For Fridays!

Flash back central tonight, watching VH1 and on comes Altered Images and "Don't talk to me about love", from 1983, I was a prepubescent ten year old and Claire Grogan was so cool! Remember her from the episode of Father Ted when she played the mad rock star?

CAKE

I'm off to the Queen of Tarts tonight....yummy! I think I'm into cakes the way some people are into porn, I bring books about baking into bed with me, the looking at the books, deciding what to bake, buying the ingredients, preparing everything, then the actual baking it's all like foreplay, followed by the climax....eating the cake....cutting that first slice, the first bite.....heaven!

And tonight it's gorging time, I have a formal night out in 6 weeks and need to lose about half a stone to fit comfortably into my dress, so I won't even be saying the word cake, I'll be abstaining from all oral pleasure until after the big night so tonight will be a blow out!

Blast from my past!

I was watching the top 100 Pop Videos on Channel 4 tonight and one of my favorite bands of all time was featured, so here's something that (in a dark gloomy way) makes me feel all warm and squishy inside!

Forgive and Forget?

I was driving through the Phoenix park on Friday, just me and the baby (who was snoozing in his baby seat), I was pondering my life and the stuff (crap) that's playing on my mind at the moment. You see cos the kids and my hubby are always around although I'm often lonely and isolated I'm never really alone enough to think about anything important! So making the most of the silence I let my mind wander! I really shouldn't you know cos I had a revelation!

Forgiveness, what do you think about it? Is it the christian thing to do? What would Jesus do etc? I've been trying to forgive and forget some stuff recently, I say trying cos it should be difficult, shouldn't it? I think Jesus was right we should forgive anyone who wrongs us, but not so we can be "the better person" or take the moral high ground, but because forgiveness is a selfish thing, "Forgiveness is not something we do for other people it is something we do for ourselves so we can get well and move on!"

It is harder to obsess about some wrong that's committed against us, to use energy to relive it over and over again, complaining about it, reliving it, over and over again. It's easier to let go, to just release yourself from the torture, and release the other people from the guilt!

So I was struck by this in the middle of driving through the Phoenix park, I knew I'd forget it if i didn't pull over and call someone to tell them about this! So I pulled over to a ditch thing (I was on a tiny little road somewhere, I called my hubby, babbled I'm sure like an idiot about how forgiveness was a selfish act, my hubby listened to my crazy theory talked me down and then went off to a meeting! So I pulled out of the ditch and headed off again, I was driving for about thirty seconds when suddenly from the trees on my left appeared a deer, a perfect deer, like nothing I'd even seen before, like an animated deer, almost pink with white spots, then another deer followed from the trees,A tiny baby deer, just like the mother but tiny! My heart jumped in my chest, I felt like it was a sign, form God or Buddha or the universe that my revelation meant something and I should follow it through! So I am!