mama Archives - The Only Girl in the House

Jess January, 2016

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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Jess January, 2016

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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Jess December, 2015

Older Mum vs Young Mum: My Experience

With older, new mums outnumbering young mums for the first time ever in 2014, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’ve changed as a person and a mother in the last ten years. Last week I turned 31, I know, not THAT old but certainly a lot older than the fresh-faced 21 year old that became a mother a decade ago. But since turning 30, I’ve had the best year EVER, I’ve absolutely loved it and I’m actually looking forward to 31 ‘cos the fab-ness just keeps on rollin’! 30’s rock, and becoming a new-mum again at 30 was, and is, bloody awesome.

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Jess December, 2015

Monday Must-Haves: Smellies for A Christmas Stocking

I’ll keep it short and sweet today, as not only is it a Monday morning and caffeine is calling – but we’ve all got Christmas shopping, ahem, I mean work to do, so I’ll get to the point…

There was a time, circa 1995, that getting “smellies” for birthday and Christmas presents was about as crap as it could get – it usually meant a satsuma scented, animal shaped BodyShop soap stuffed basket, topped up with a lot of straw to make it look even more full of shit than it really was. Oh how times have changed (as long as there’s no Sanctuary gift box in sight) if someone were to present me with any of the following “smellies” at anytime of year I’d be bloody chuffed; if they could also throw in a voucher offering 2-3 hours of child free time to indulge in the loveliness, then even better – but that’d just be asking a bit much methinks!

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Jess December, 2015

Ba-humbug to Baby’s First Christmas: Gift List

At the risk of coming across like the Grinch pissing on Santa’s parade, I’m going to admit I’m not a huge fan of going overboard for a little one’s first Christmas (each to their own though!). This has good and bad points for Casper: on the plus side – he will not be sporting a green and red, elf onsie, neither will he be found supping on Grandma’s xmas roast given the mini-blender treatment; on the downside, my poor little Tiny Tim will not be inundated with so presents he doesn’t know which one to bang/throw/dribble on first. Maybe I’m just incredibly cynical after a couple of 1st xmases, but new parents, I hate to put your cinnamon and clove scented candle out but your bubs will undoubtedly give a glassy eyed clueless look for a large portion of the day and, although a cliche – they WILL genuinely enjoy the box and packaging so much more!

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