You look really well

Managing to shower and wash my hair on a daily basis has obviously paid off, Everyone keeps telling me how great I look........two things come to mind either i really looked so crap while pregnant that anything was an improvement, or that I look really crap now and they feel sorry for me!

Actually I think I do look well, but I think it's important that I do look my best at the moment, it's bad enough feeling a bit overwhelmed, I don't want everyone to know that! Now don't get me wrong I'm not Liz Hurley I'm a size hero not a size zero but I'm making an effort. My jelly belly and saggy boobies are scary but when I dress in the right way you can't tell!!

Mothers at the school who are expecting their third child keep asking me how I'm managing it, what do I say? "Run Run Now!" or "Oh, you'll be grand!" Well what would you say?

Home Alone

I can't do this, how do we mothers do this? Baby is a month old and my hubby has had his first night working away tonight, I was dreading it obviously, but I had no idea how badly it could go!
My other half is great in the evenings when he gets home from work he will sit with the little one and baby loves that and usually drops off for a couple of hours, but I don't have the same effect on him. I think it's that my boobs get in the way and he's not as comfortable as on my hubby!

So today the kids and I spent a very active day, football, visiting family and a good four hours wandering in Dundrum Centre, Bambino was awake for most of the day so I was convinced tiredness would get the better of him and He'd conk out at the normal time. but no, it's half eleven at night and he hasn't closed his eyes since five this evening, so screaming, some crying( he has real tears now, they don't get them until they are about a month old) some moaning and some happily awake.

I am so tired, the other two kids were shattered and asleep earlier than usual but he's just bopping around, It is Saturday night so maybe he'll be just a total party animal when he gets older.

He is lying in cradle now so I jumped at the chance and poured a glass of wine and opened up the lap top, As he gets older I should be having some me time, and believing this I bought my Good Food magazine thinking I'd get to read it. It's still in the bag!

I know having three little people in the family instead of two would make things more complicated but I definitely wasn't prepared for how complicated! With every child that I give birth to I have less and less me time,and now there is no me time at all, I'm grateful for ten minutes in the morning to shower and get dressed! But i know, I know it'll get easier!

On an up note he's so cute, smiling and grunting little chats! He's the image of his big brother, and as my mum said today if he's half as good as his big bro he'll be a dote!

Table for five part two

I posted on Thursday evening that myself and my other half were bringing the three little piggys out to breakfast Friday morning. Well we did and we survived, it actually was quite enjoyable but people definitely looked at us strangely. Maybe families with three children are unusual in South County Dublin!

But funny looks aside we all managed to eat breakfast and finish our coffees, the two older midgets didn't spill anything or drop anything, they managed to stay in their seats and didn't have a huge row over who had the bigger piece of toast or the best seat. We've faced our fears and done it anyway so that's one more hurdle cleared!

Table for Five.

Tomorrow morning my hubby and I are taking the three little piggys out to breakfast in the morning. It will be our first outing as a party of five (I used to love that programme), we've always brought the kids out to eat several times a week even if it's just a snack (but not fast food), I know we are very sad, very middle class! So tomorrow is an important first, can we last through coffee and porridge? I always think it's important to bring them out from an early age so they are used to socialising with people, even just sitting still for the time it takes to eat, not running around screaming and saying please and thank you! I've been feeling a bit isolated and claustrophobic for the last week so I think I need to get out and back to normal.

The smallest midget is a month old now, he's started to smile, and the nights are getting easier. But it's difficult to adjust to my new life. Every time you have another child your life changes again, each time you think it won't make that much of a difference, but each time it's like you are living in a snow globe and everything's been shook up! I know it gets easier and I know it won't last for ever but at the moment it just seems so overwhelming. So even small things like breakfast in a cafe takes on huge significance.

What Did We Do Before?

Picking my eldest little midget up from tennis practice last week I was chatting to one of the other "Yummy Mummys" and comparing our schedules, who had to be dropped where and picked up when. I sighed dramatically and looked up to heaven, she continued cheerfully, "What did we do before we had kids?". I laughed and replied "well, I don't know about you but I had a life!" Judging by the look on her face it was totally the wrong thing to say! My hubby tells me that I can't judge by appearances and that some of the perfect women that I meet at the schools and montessori, at after school activities and birthday parties, might feel the same way I do and that it is all an act and some of them are freaky mothers like me. Maybe that's true, but maybe when you pretend to be perfect for long enough you start to believe it (and live it) and you honestly think gymboree is great for networking! Maybe if I try really hard I can change from a slummy mummy to a yummy mummy! But do I really want that?

Stuck in the middle with poo!

This is my first post and my last attempt at regaining my sanity! As I type this with one hand I'm holding my baby boy in my other arm, he's four weeks old tomorrow and a perfect child. If he's so perfect why am I so stressed that I'm blogging to save my sanity? Alone he's a little dream but when I add in my other two darlings things get complicated. There's number one son who's really caring and loving but also extremely intelligent and challenging and my middle child, the princess of our household, who's dealing with the arrival of baby boy with reverting back to behaviour she left behind twelve months ago, bottles and nappies.

So I love my family completely but sometimes I just need to vent, to express my frustrations at the job I've been doing for almost ten years now with no promotion, cost of living salary increase and truth be told no holidays, apart from a few long weekends. Recently I've been driving my partner crazy with my rants about how invisible mothers are in modern Irish society. I've been both a working and a stay at home mother, both of which are largely ignored and exploited. Both have their positive and negative aspects, which I'm sure I'll rant about in the weeks to come! My partner being male and therefore a problem solver set me up with and blog so he will be spared my soapboxing when trapped in the car in gridlock or that happy lunchtime phone call that leaves him feeling drained.

I got married in my early twenties to my childhood sweetheart, now don't jump to conclusions, we don't live in the deep south and we didn't dropout of school at fifteen. We have both gone to third level education and my partner has a well paid job that allows me the luxury of not needing to work. I suppose the reason our relationship lasted (whereas all of our contemporaries relationships didn't) was because we always seemed to be looking in the same direction even if our paths took us away from each other. When we married it was just a natural progression after living together for several years, we both had no intention of starting a family, travelling and adventures were our priorities. We even uttered the fatal "We are never having children". Almost exactly a year to the day after we had our low key marriage ceremony we discovered why I'd been a total bitch and throwing up for the past month, we were expecting, my husband whooped with happiness, I sobbed with utter terror.

In time our son was born, needless to say both pregnancy and birth were horrendous and although delighted to meet the little guy I found the whole experience very unpleasant. My little guy was a puker and the first six months were hell, when he would cry I'd cry. At the time I thought it was the blues but it only applied to this one aspect of my life, and I loved my son instantly, I had no difficultly in bonding with him. Looking back I think it was a kind of post traumatic stress, the birth and subsequent total change of life being the cause. Another cause I think was the pressure to be perfect, as a young woman the pressures were to be clever and pretty but as a young mother I felt under pressure to be perfect in every way and also clever and pretty! As a result my husband and I decided not to add to our family.

Years passed and our baby grew into a fascinating little person, intelligent and interesting, full of surprises. When he stared school we missed his omnipresence in the house, my husband and I celebrated our thirtieth birthdays and as our friends were now starting their families we decided to try for a sibling. We were lucky and our daughter was born at Christmas, a beautiful blue eyed angel, the birth was wonderful and she stole our hearts the moment they but her squirming on my tummy. Now I understood what people meant when they described the overwhelming love they felt the instant they held their babies, which made me realise how much I'd missed out on with my son. The pressure to be perfect still existed but being older and wiser I had the confidence to stand by my mothering and enjoy my family.

After a couple of years my daughter went to Montessori and I had itchy feet and returned to the workforce, I was delighted to have my life completed by the feeling of independence and an identity outside of the home. Having been a stay at home mum for eight years it was difficult to get back out there but I loved it and the skills I'd honed over my years at home really helped, when dealing with difficult co-workers I reverted to mummy mode and treated them like a stroppy two year old. Our family was now complete and I felt like I'd entered a new exciting phase of my life.

In the summer of 2006 after our first foreign holiday in five years I started to feel ill, really ill. My instincts whispered that I was pregnant, against all the odds, my husband thought I was insane as there was no way I was pregnant. After a particularly vomity day I secretly bought a pregnancy test and told him I was going to do it. We left the kids watching Spongebob Squarepants and went up to the loo. Three minutes later we both stared at the two blue lines. Hubby said it must be wrong and disappeared to the chemist to buy another test, while I sat on the loo numb and incredulous.

So four weeks ago my beautiful son made his entrance into the world, extremely quickly! Our lives have changed again. Now it's back to four hourly feeds and sleepless nights. I've gone from a semi independent woman to a recluse who smells of poo and baby formula (I stopped breastfeeding after only a few days due to my desire to leave the house and my dislike of daytime TV). The baby is demanding as babies are but he's very easy going and has to fall in with my routine. This involves driving to school and Montessori twice a day, and the endless after school activities and social events that my son has in his diary and my daughter is starting to have in hers. Then there is the maintenance of our home, mum, dad and two point four children in a two up two down makes a lot of mess, and then the constant shopping for, preparation and cooking of food. Add to that a petulant prepubescent boy and a diminutive diva with an ego that makes Barbara Streisand look humble and I literally never stop. At the end of the day if I have an hour where all three children are asleep I have to make that difficult decision do I (a) catch up on my sleep; (b) spend some time catching up with my husband now that we are sleep deprived zombie ships that pass in the night or (c) take some me time and have a bath, read a book or phone a friend. What do I do? Well It's not gonna involve a or c. Past experiences have shown me how important it is to keep my husband close, we are parents but we still should be a couple, which involves time dedicated to each other (watching ugly Betty together doesn't count).

So with all these demands on me it's no wonder I feel like I'm giving away little pieces of myself every moment of the day. Every time I raise my voice to my darlings or let them have sweets to buy myself an extra five minutes of silence I feel guilty. When they refuse the organic porridge I've made and demand coco pops mega munchers (when did cereal turn into sweets?) I feel guilty, when I heat up the bottle for my baby instead of breast feeding I feel guilty and when I put another disposable nappy in the bin instead of washing a terry nappy I feel guilty! I'm hoping that writing down my silly little thoughts here I can look at them and see how silly they are, and that by doing this I'll force myself to take some "me" time now and again. Cos I know if I don't it'll be a long stay in St. Pats for me.

That was a long post, but it's my life to date and as such it's actually quite short and disappointing! I'll post again soon, Next time some old dear in the supermarket tells me why my baby won't stop crying, some teenager pushes past me the two kids and the baby in the buggy cos we are invisible or some middle class mother with one sleeping child in a designer buggy looks down her perfect nose at me as I give my daughter a (Shock Horror) lollipop.

So for now it's goodnight, My Daughter has just fallen out of bed and the baby is due a bottle. Life's a party at my house!