The Only Girl in the House

Mummy Grumble: Another School Costume

Mummy Grumble: Another School Costume

Thank god for that- school’s out for Easter! At this point, most mums I know would be staring at me with puzzled looks at my jubilant sigh of relief that the holidays have arrived. Two whole weeks with my rabble is far from a mother-earth, bond with your kids kinda experience – more of a “I need a G&T!” by 10am kinda saga, as I become an on-demand dinner lady for a fortnight. So, my joy at no more school is not that I get some quality time with my munchkins (well, just a tad!) but the fact I no longer have to be super-mum for the school’s pleasure – no more fancy-dress days, Easter bonnet competitions, sponsorship forms, cake sales………

Anyone under the impression that by the time your little humans head off to school that your life will become easier has clearly never encountered a school newsletter, PTA email or school office text reminder. Once the two eldest boys started at our quaint, village primary school, I was all prepared for days filled with work, evenings preparing dinner and chatting about our days activities then skipping off to bed at a reasonable hour. Oh how wrong could one mama be?!

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Pre-Baby Friends Need to Know…

Pre-Baby Friends Need to Know…

I’m going to run the risk of upsetting a few of my pre-kid friends with this, but hey, they have an abundance of kid-free time to get over it and being my friends, they hopefully know it’s sentiment is well meant. Well, kinda! I became a mum at 21, relatively young in this whole mum game – certainly as most of my friends were still globe-trotting or interning at various media hotbeds at the time. But no, not me – I was married, mortgaged and up-the-duff before 22 hit. I think because of this I had relatively little time to contemplate motherhood , what it would be like, what my child might look like, my birth et al. Fast forward 10 years, and my well-travelled friends have nabbed themselves their “keepers” and are now planning their brood – the difference being, they’ve had plenty of time to consider their dream life once they’ve done the deed. But as a well-worn, old cynic in this motherhood thang, I’m here to shatter a few illusions and have a little whinge – sorry, not sorry!

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Mum Vs Roller-Disco

Mum Vs Roller-Disco

Every Friday, without fail, the 7 yr old skips out of school, with an eager face asking – “can we go to the roller-disco tonight, pleeeeeeeaaaassseee?”. It’s a blessing and a curse that our local leisure centre fling open their doors every Friday night for a weekly rave on wheels – super that kids have a great place to expend that end-of-week excess energy but a bloody nightmare for any adult tasked with accompanying them; leaving me with the resounding feeling I must have done something wrong in a former life!

Why?I hear you say, would an event where the kids get to roll around like the cast of starlight express on a methamphetamine induced high, burning energy, getting excerise all whilst socialising with their peers, be a bad thing?! Ha, the people asking that question have clearly never experienced a village leisure centre roller-disco as an adult – so let me take you on a sensory journey, my roller-disco hell which I experience every Friday night…

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Why I’m Dreading No More Playboy Nudity

Why I’m Dreading No More Playboy Nudity

The past week or so has seen seismic shifts in the world of showbiz, as iconic faces have passed onto better places. No longer will my children grow up in a world where David Bowie will take centre stage as a multitude of imaginative personas – giving the message: if you wear face-paint with conviction everyone will roll with it! Fortunately, both Rickman and Bowie ensured their work remain timeless and immortalised – at the flick of a switch I can show my children the importance of questioning if there’s life on Mars and the beauty of a man with eyeliner. But unlike many articles I’ve read in the past few days mourning the loss of Professor Snape and our Goblin King, it is in fact the “passing” of an institution that has me most concerned for the world my children are now going to grow up in.

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Mummy Shortcuts To Being a Domestic Goddess

Mummy Shortcuts To Being a Domestic Goddess

One thing that seems lacking in the world of stay at home mums is the “well done” at the end of a long day – it’s a pretty thankless task. I find myself missing the office environment whereby if I achieved something, even small-scale, there’d be someone there with a nice pat on the back or even a bit of commission as a “brava, you go girl!”. Of course, comes the lifelong achievement of having hand-reared small humans into, hopefully, reasonable grown-ups – with the vague hope that one day (in a far-off, distant future) they might turn round and acknowledge that you did an “alright job” and they actually enjoyed their childhood.

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