Just a Normal Mummy

Now I’m on my 5th festive period as a parent… I’ve pretty much stopped thinking about myself at Christmas. My children are almost five and two, and since 1st December all I’ve done is rearrange all the baubles my toddler tries to feed to himself/my cats, eat my bodyweight in chocolate, and develop a tick every time I hear the word ‘Hatchimal’… But despite the fact …

I’ve been thinking about how I was ‘before parenthood’ a lot lately… I’m not really sure why… Maybe because a lot of my friends are starting to have babies, or maybe because mine don’t seem to really be ‘babies’ anymore. No. With one having just started school, writing her name and singing nativity songs (oh yes… constantly… *twitches a bit*), and a small one who spends most days punching me …

I admit it. I was complacent. I was smug. I thought to myself… I’ve done toddler. I’ve toddlered before. I know about toddlering. Second time round… I’ve got this toddler shit down. But. Oh how wrong I was… The truth is. My second toddler appears to have viewed his sister’s toddler days from the womb, like some kind of ‘toddler trial’, which needs to ‘bettered’. …

You know what. I’m just not one of those mums. You know what I mean… The ones who’ve actually got it together. That arrive places ‘on time’. With all the stuff they need. With lipgloss on. Without a hangover… It’s almost mystifying… I’m more of a… I don’t know what that stain on my left shoulder is, yes – this is a nursing top even though I stopped breastfeeding …

Tonight. The husband and I are managing an actual ‘date night’. In the midst of a kitchen refurb. Without any children.  With plenty of wine. (If your pelvic floor allows you to, please feel free to clap at this point…) And don’t worry – this isn’t going to be some twatty attempt at advising you on a happy marriage – as we all already know… …

So hey. We’re now officially on week 4 of our first school year, and obviously total pros at this school-run thing now… But it’s been an ‘adjustment’ to say the least. Here’s my 7 Phases of School Run Acceptance for you all to laugh/cry/nod along/drink to…   1. Week 1, Day 1: Oh God… my baby’s off to school… I can’t believe this day has arrived… every time …

I’ve ummed and ahhed over this post all week. I’ve begun writing it several times… then each time read back the first paragraph, and thought it made me sound like a bit of a soppy dick to be honest. So I’ve kept deleting it. But then it occurred to me that not every post on here has to be me banging on my excessive motherhood-related-gin-tolerance. …

So finally the weather is turning… The coats are coming back out and the heating is going back on, and luckily you know this because everyone is announcing it on Facebook. THANK GOD. And you can relax once again as you hide your razor, dig out your Ugg boots and for a moment, just a moment… begin to think that because it’s darker for longer your children …

I can’t quite believe that my ‘baby’ is starting school. I mean… I believe it; as in I know it’s happening. But I’m a bizarre mix of excited, terrified, guilty and sad all at the same time… Which is kind of parenting summed up to be fair… That and the flappy fanjo, never having nice things and eating cold, congealed fish-fingers over the kitchen bin washed …

Now obviously I would never shamelessly jump on the bandwagon of a major sporting event, and certainly wouldn’t even attempt to work the official #Rio2016 hashtag into the first line of a blog post in the hope people Googling to find pictures of Tom Daley’s dive partner’s bum might stumble across this instead… Nope. So now that’s clear, on with a list of events that …