I want to be you when I grow up!

I am very quickly becoming a bit of a lot of a blogging addict. Not just writing, I'm somewhat shit at that bit, but reading and stalking other parenting blogs.

What I have realised by reading all these wonderful people's posts is that they are all who I want to be when I grow up!

That might seem ridiculous as I will soon be turning 30 and I have wrinkles on my boobs belly face, but I don't feel like a grown up.

I have 2 gorgeous babies who are not turning out to be total delinquents (yet, give it time) and a wonderful husband.. and a dog, and a cat and a mortgage.

I should feel like a grown up. According to the tax man I am a grown up. But I still look at others, sometimes younger, and think "Shit! They have really got it figured out!"

I have seen wonderful instructional posts about how to be a good blogger, about how I should find my niche and offer words of wisdom. Honestly, I don't have any. The only thing I can offer is my honesty. Is my parenting truth. About how I fuck up, don't have it figured out and don't really act like a grown up.

I have Funday Wednesdays, I do sit on my child and use comply or cry, I go to the toilet for the sole purpose of catching up on social media, and more often than not I put the kids to bed early so I can drink my wine!

 I am already a mummy and I am quickly learning how to be a good one not too shit one but I still don't yet feel like I could call myself a grown up!I admire those of who do, you are who I want to be when I grow up!

I do like my kids really!

So most of my posts so far have made me sound like I don't really like my kids. That is so not the case. I adore my children. They are my favourite people.

But, my children are the biggest frustration of my life. I am frustrated by my toddler's complete unwillingness to try and learn when I teach him, and I am completely infuriated when he then demonstrates that 'unlearned' knowledge at another and un-witnessed time.

I develop a migraine before we eat out with the stress of everything that can go wrong and resign myself to being 'that mum' in the restaurant that can't control her children, and then am blown away when they behave beautifully.

I don't have mum guilt. My husband and I were, apparently,  both absolute arse-hole children so why should we expect better? By all accounts ours actually are better. Our baby barely makes a peep unless she is hungry, my brother is actually convinced she is one of the animatronic babies from 'call the midwife' and our toddler although really fucking loud can be an absolute superstar.

That doesn't though stop the fact that sometimes he is the most frustrating little fucker I have ever come across. My love and devotion to him does not stop me wanting to drop kick him out our kitchen window. It merely stops me from actually doing it.

To me talking about being a parent is to actually acknowledge all parts of it. Without guilt. Without censorship. And without saying what I think others should think I should say. Being a parent is hard but it's fun and funny!

So I do bitch about my kids, I do joke about wanting to beat them with sticks or give them away (they would be given back pretty quickly) but then I put them to bed and have a glass of wine and miss them while they are sleeping!

Parenting is the biggest contradiction of them all!

Trials of an intensive 2 weeks with a toddler!

So the last week and a half I have been trying hard to make up for the two weeks quarantine by being out and doing 'stuff' everyday.

There are 2 things that I will take away from this action packed 10 days.

  1. Being a mummy is knackering and
2. kids are assholes. (At least one of mine is can be)!

These are both things that I kind of knew but nothing like a series of day trips to really hammer it home!!

I have discovered that my usually fairly feral but normally relatively well behaved toddler transforms into this shrieky disobedient little hellion if he misses a nap now which is not cool.

But on the plus side it appears that for every percentage increase in shitty behaviour there has been a new word or skill to compensate. So although I have a toddler that has flown right of the chart of 'pain in the arse' he can now tell me which colour crayon he has put all over the walls and calmly count to ten for me!

I have also discovered that sometimes the over whelming urge to slam a small child into a wall is completely to be expected.. But always to be ignored. They will do something endearing soon enough.

So if you have not at some point stood behind the fridge door eating chocolate or swinging from a bottle whilst flicking your kids a V one of you is doing it wrong!

If you have read this and think I am completely out of order and you will never be this kind of mummy... Give it time! X X

Funday Wednesday!

Funday Wednesday is the best day of the week!

Funday Wednesday is a day that I spend with my maayte.

Funday Wednesday started about 18 months ago, just after I finished breastfeeding my son.

My maayte and I were trying to decide what we were going to do one Wednesday. We were in a bit of a funk, the weather was gash and there is not a massive amount to do with small babies on a rainy day. We were desperate to get out of our houses (and each others) and were hitting a bit of a wall.

"We could just go to the pub!" My maayte laughed.

"Ha, Ha! I wish" I replied.

And then...we realised..Why the fuck not?

We weren't sick, we weren't skieving work, we were on maternity leave. We were 2 grown-ass women with babies small enough to sleep in a pram while we had a glass of wine. We spent all day caring for children, keeping the house, doing shit that needed to be done, didn't we deserve a treat too?

We looked at each other, a twinkle of excitement in our eyes.

Let's do iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!!!

And we did! And it was great. It became a regular treat for us, not every Wednesday but a lot of Wednesdays.

I don't feel guilty. I have guilt over many many things and many many parenting fails but I don't feel guilty about having Funday Wednesday. I say in with pride, I consider it my badge of honour.

Parenting is laden with judgement.

We judge ourselves, we judge our children, and we judge each other. In the early days of being a new parent I was so consumed with what other people (parents) would think about me. I think a lot of the judgement I felt was in my head, I mistook the tired gazes of other mummies as stares of judgement. The constant anxiety over whether I was doing a good enough job was exhausting. The fear that I couldn't live up to this non-existent standard of mummyhood.

Funday Wednesday liberated me from an imaginary oppression that I had created for myself.

I am not advocating getting shit faced in the middle of the day every day and being incapable of caring for your child but let your hair down, give yourselves a treat, and don't give a fuck!