One Step Mum Forward, Two Step Sons Back

I had another blog post scheduled for today, but sometimes it’s the day to day minutia that create the most important message – today, I felt was one of those days. Normally the reserve of an Instagram post, I’ve decided to start giving some of my more War & Peace style captions their own space – where they can be found, referenced to and just make someone (even if it’s just me) feel a bit better when the shit hits the familial fan.

It was a mere week ago, Mother’s Day, that I wrote of the magic (and tribulations) of being a step-mum – I often feel a responsibility to round-off my honesty with a dose of hope, to bring my ramblings full circle – ‘sure it’s shit, but it’s shit for everyone and we’ve got this!’ It’s almost a bad habit. And last week I did exactly that with THIS post. Well, in the essence of honest balance I’ll willingly admit today, being a step-mum, was really pretty shit, and that alone.

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The Great Xbox Embargo

It’s become known as the day I thought they’d finally turn on me, that my own children would want to stab me in the eye with their overpriced, scented Smiggle pencils. T’was the first Saturday of the Christmas holidays, which may explain my naive, fuzzy optimism getting out of hand, however, ‘shouty mummy’ had already reared her scary head and unleashed the fury of a thousand toddlers denied “choc-choc”! I’d heard enough shouting “replenish my health” down headsets/into the next room/to the brother sitting 67cm away to last me a parental life time (thankfully shorter than the average due to Xbox induced stress levels and general sleep deprivation – there’s 3 parental years to the standard singleton year!); been told “…but I’m in a game!” like it was the answer to every possible request I could make of my children and seen the cherubic faces of my offspring for a whole 13.5 minutes (while they scoffed vital food supplies) in an 8 hour period.

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Why We ARE Doing Presents This Christmas

Last year when I boldly declared “we’re not doing presents” I felt relieved, wholesome and that my soul had been relinquished from the consumerist-Demogorgans that feast on the festering flesh of Christmas morning aka our children. A touch dramatic? Perhaps! But hopefully this conveys the modicum of hope this brought to my festive season of 2016. I’d, of course, hoped this would become our Christmas tradition and our children would shed their greed nourished, Philistinian skins to reveal Swallow & Amazon-esque delights – charmingly feral, lacking in materialistic desires; but then I realised I’m not 21 and my pelvic floor is shattered, so promptly readjusted my expectations.

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Feeding Boys with HelloFresh Family Box | #Ad

I’m not going to pretend we, as a family, have a gold-star culinary repertoire. While we don’t have any vegetarians, vegans, pescatarians, macro-biotics, gluten/dairy intolerants, sugar free or raw only eaters, what we lack in marvelously millennial food-groups we make up for in fussy eaters!

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Our Stay at Ladram Bay, South Devon Family Holiday

A modern home away from home, private beach and a plethora of activities for the kids… I don’t know about you, but when I’m looking for a break with the 5 boys in tow these features rate highly.  “Staycation” can induce the fear that the weather won’t cooperate like a petulant Greek demi-god with an attitude problem. It can bring back memories of glamping with two toddlers in 2010, having to purchase our own body weight in fleece lined goods and thermals, hearing the words “I can’t feel my toes!” before they’ve even got out of bed. But after a week at Ladram Bay at the end of August and summer holidays, it’s fair to say the aforementioned positives far outweighed my initial meteorological woes. It’s no mean feat to find a holiday destination that keeps our all our brood, dare I say it, happy – but I’d go as far as to claim that Ladram Bay not only kept the kids entertained and well fed, but us adults relaxed and de-stressed, without a scary price tag!

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