Parenting tips from a regular mum this autumn!

I consider myself a fairly average mum that works part-time, which few mums seem to do these days; I have a husband and 2 children, as I'm not yet sure how to get the 0.4 of a child required to exactly meet the average; I eat out and order takeaway more than I think I should and beat myself up about it*; I wash and iron everyone's clothes before my own; I rarely go out with girlfriends; manage a professional manicure about once a year; have opted out of salon colouring and have a strong relationship with Nice N Easy which I will love forever as long as it continues to lie to the world about my hair colour which is clearly brunette and not white at all! And I spend far to much time watching rubbish TV, albeit on Sky+ which cuts out the ads and saves me money but means I have no idea what innovations are hitting the highstreet.

So, with that in mind, here's a much longer list than I originally intended of the things that make my crazy normal life a little easier at the moment and will hopefully help you.

1.  Fork out for School dinners.  The children get a hot meal for £2 a day which I could never emulate.  And I can pick them up and be 'picnic mum' at tea time, not concerned with meat and veg, only with cold sausages, cheese and crackers, dippy egg and beans on toast.  My daughter is testing me this week and wanting to try packed lunches.  It's taken me until 9pm to get them to bed and then make appropriate lunches for tomorrow.  Usually I've done the ironing by then which is still sitting there grumbling at me... grrrrr.

2.  Always have the following either in your bag or easily accessible in the car:  plasters, germolene, a sticker/activity/colouring book, crayons, drinks, snacks, spare nappies (even if the kids are out of them, they are the best at absorbing any large spills quickly!), wipes (whatever age they are), a couple of nappy bags (good for rubbish which gravitates towards mum, if nothing else),  a spare outfit per child including socks and pants** (you'll thank me when you need it).

3.  Children don't tend to like doing tasks that they 'have' to do, like teeth brushing.  I have recently invented the "Teeth Monster" in our house.  Tell them he's lurking and that they need to brush their teeth quick and that you'll help.  Do some little growls, play acting, whilst brushing, then just as you are finishing their teech say, "Quick!  I can hear him!  I'll go and look! and pop out of the bathroom.  Then immediately come back in with arms in, what I like to call the 'T-Rex position', with fingers clawing, and say "I'm the Teeth Monster!  I'm coming to eat up everyone with mucky teeth!" look at their teeth and immediately look disappointed...."oh, that's not fair!  I'm hungry but you have lovely clean teeth so I can't eat you!  My tummy's grumbling...  Is there anyone else?"  In our house the children normally get away but then the Teeth Monster finds my hubby (or vice versa) and says "Hurray, you have Very mucky teeth" and tries to eat their arm, which the children find hilarious and enjoy fighting off the monster!  My children actually ask me to brush their teeth now instead of running away!

4.  Invest in an in car DVD player with 2 monitors for the backseats.  Ours was £50 from Curry's Clearance Store and worth every penny during the 8 hour drive to France on holiday.

5.  Save TV time until 4pm.  The children are tired and hungry by this time, so if limiting TV absolutely limit it to this time slot to enable you to cook in relative ease.

6.  Invest in Sky+ if you ever want to watch programmes of your own again.  Unless you have a much better memory than me and can manage to set the VHS/DVD recorder regularly.

7.  And one final tip for very new mothers;  don't panic if all you feel like doing is crying during the first few months of looking after your first child.  The culture shock alone is enough to throw anyone off kilter, and if you throw in crazy hormones and lack of sleep you have to expect that you won't be at your best.  It'll get easier and more fun as time goes by and as you begin to find ways of managing this new life.  I have cried buckets in my time, literally over spilt milk.  Don't worry about it, that's one aspect of child rearing that's most definitely a given!

And that'll do for now.  Let me know if it was helpful, boring, rubbish, funny etc.... and I'll try better next time!


* not literally of course, mentally.  No need to write in.
** that's knickers if you're in America.  Trousers are trousers in the UK.  Knickers are pants!

Yummy Mummy? Really?

I now know that I am officially a "Mummy".

I know this because my 3 year old daughter reminds me at least 100 times a day. "Mummy, can I have a snack?", "Mummy, can I have a drink?", "Mummy, will you play with me?", "Mummy, I don't want to wear my trousers today", "Mummy, I need a wee wee......", "Muuummmmmyyyyyyy".

I also, now know, that the idealised version of motherhood I had in my head before my husband and I had ‘the’ discussion, and opted to start our family, was clearly blurred by hazy childhood memories of happily playing in paddling pools in my mums' back garden all summer long. I don’t remember noticing my mum getting frazzled by the constant demands for attention, food, drink, cuddles, etc. Neither do I remember her ever really telling me off. Of course she has recently told me the frazzled stories, but only after we had already had our first daughter. Bit late mum?.

We have 2 girls; 3 years, and 10 months. I love them to bits. But I am annoyed at the media portrayal of what is now termed “Yummy Mummies”. Who are these “Yummy Mummies” anyway? In the hopes of trying to discover for myself how it is, or maybe it isn’t, possible to be a mummy, and also to be yummy, I have started this blog to share my thoughts and perhaps shed some light on the matter.

I, as you have probably already worked out, am quite often slightly frazzled. No, scrap that. I’m very frazzled, almost all of the time. This, in the quiet hour after the girls have gone to sleep, is usually my “collapse in front of the telly with hubby” time. But in the interests of gaining some me time (for us both - he’s in the gym), I am treating myself to some cathartic ramblings.

I thought I’d share a story about today’s minor breakdown. It started simply enough. My husband asked if it was OK for him to go and cut the lawn. Nothing wrong there. He asked me - he’s incredibly polite and thoughtful, and it was a dry day - a rare treat this summer so obviously the timing was appropriate. I think the only real problem was that I hadn’t expected it. I’d got the rest of the day planned out roughly in my head, and my hubby disappearing to cut our lawn hadn’t featured. (He would now point out that he had warned me he’d try and do it this weekend on Friday night - so sorry hun - I’m clearly a frazzled mummy with no brain cells left!)

I thought about it, had a minor freak out (I knew the job would take all afternoon - it’s a huge lawn and he’d left it a while), and told him to go and do it, of course.

So, all’s well so far. The youngest is having an afternoon nap. Only the eldest to contend with. Fine.

I tried to make a cup of tea. Not once. Not twice. But four times. Over the course of an hour. I never got that cup of tea. The eldest wanted to play. Then she wanted a drink. Then she had an ‘accident’ and we had to find new trousers. Then she wanted to play some more. Then we went outside to ‘help’ daddy cut the lawn by picking up the grass cuttings in our little wheelbarrow and watered the plants with out little watering can. That was my genius half hour that. I was, still am, proud of that. She loved it, but got so engrossed playing; making cups of tea with her tea set and the watering can; that she had another ‘accident‘. She is supposedly potty trained, but has crazy days like this sometimes.

Our youngest woke up. Now this, I think, is where it started to go a bit downhill. They don’t particularly play well together. Our youngest wants to eat everything (including her older sister) as she’s teething. The eldest wants to play with her dressing up table and jewellery, but won’t let her sister near it. If the youngest just toddles over for a look, her sister shouts and screams and runs across the room to find another corner to play in.

So literally 15 minutes after the youngest woke up; I have her screaming for attention, and for the use of at least one toy. The eldest taking all toys off the youngest, because as soon as she’s got it sister wants it. Me trying to get the eldest to help me tidy up. And the eldest screaming because I asked her to stop kicking me.

Cue Naughty Step. More screaming. A tantrum (in my head). Another more hysterical tantrum (The eldest this time). The youngest picking up the tune. An apology. And a very upset mummy shouting for daddy "any chance you can be finished about now?".

I might not have made it clear but I held it together (outwardly) right up to the apology. Then, once it was all done and back to normal (The youngest's usual crying whilst changing her nappy I could cope with normally), I broke down in tears.

I have never cried so often as since I had children. So here I ask, and it’ll be the first of many times I ask this I suspect, how can you be ‘yummy’ when you’re too busy giving out so much of yourself that you end up in tears?

And then, more tears, as I walked back into our playroom after drying my eyes to find that the eldest had tidied up. “There you are mummy” she said. “It’s all tidy now” and she came and gave my a big unsolicited cuddle.