I Eat My Kids Easter Eggs

Hey did you know that its Easter next week? Yeah. For reals. It is Easter next week. How did that happen? I still have a box of Christmas decorations sitting on the landing waiting to go up in the loft.

I've committed a terrible sin against my son this year and asked people to steer clear of buying him too much chocolate. Not because I don't believe in chocolate for kids. I believe in it as a genius bribe and distraction technique. But because at Easter there is always such an excess of chocolate, family, nursery, friends - everyone's pelting chocolate eggs in his direction and he only ends up eating some of it, over that Easter weekend. And then do you know what happens? I eat it, well the good bits anyway. Yes, I eat his decent chocolate from the Easter Bunny (and from Santa as well). I know, I'm a terrible Mother. He's only two, he can't count past four, he's doesn't realise some are missing.

I also eat the cakes from his party bags, he never remembers.

So my plan this year is to stage an Easter Egg hunt for him using Aldi's FREE Activity Egg Hunt Printable which you can find here. It contains pre-written clues and blank ones so you can make up your own. Plus some handy arrows and START and FINISH signs. I'm going to pick up some plastic coloured eggs and fill them with different treats, some will have little chocolates like the Mini Beanie Eggs from Aldi and some will contain Thomas Mini's or Peppa Pig stickers.

Hopefully he wont get too much chocolate from the other Easter Bunny's in his life, I don't think my waist line could take it.

*This post was sponsored by Aldi but its all true inc. the Christmas decorations and what a terrible fat mother I am*

The Mothers Day Interviews : My Friend, Charlotte

This year to celebrate Mothers Day, I've interviewed a group of Mums that I particularly admire. They are all Mothers with different experiences, views, stories and opinions. Some are from the blogging and social media world whilst others are ones I know in real life. I'm running the series through out this week and we'll be talking about birth stories, parenting advice, sleep deprivation and much, much more!

This interview is with my friend Charlotte, we've known each other since we were nine years old. She's not a blogger or a social media fanatic, she's an actual real life person(!). Charlotte and her husband Alex had their first baby, William in November last year and are adjusting to being new parents.
If you've ever Googled "can you die of sleep deprivation?" at 4 am, you want to read this interview.

Can you tell us about your birth experience?
Well to be honest it was rather horrendous. I naively went into it thinking I would have a water birth and try hypno-birthing for pain relief. after all I thought, I had a high pain threshold and how bad could it really be if the human race is still thriving with most women happily having had more than one child?  Don't get me wrong I thought it would hurt but I wasn't really prepared for just how badly it would hurt or how crap I would feel afterwards.
To start, I went overdue which was rather depressing but apparently quite normal. For your information - curry and pineapple juice to induce labour do not work but feel free to try them if you're overdue and it makes you feel better! My contractions started on a Wednesday night at ten o'clock, they were coming every 5-10 minutes at first and didn't end until my baby boy arrived sixty-two hours later. Yes I did say, 62 hours. It was NOT like  mild period pain either, it was sixty-two hours of agonizing contractions.

Despite going to hospital on Friday morning I was sent home as I was only 3cm dilated! I think this was possibly one of the most depressing moments of my life. By the early hours of Saturday morning, the contractions were coming every three minutes, so we went back to the hospital. I was examined (quite roughly) by a midwife who proclaimed in a surprised voice "Oh your 8cm dilated! Well done, so do you want some pain relief now?"  By this stage I hadn't had so much as a Paracetamol so yes please I did want some pain relief! I was also informed that all the birthing pools were occupied. I didn't get the chance to try to hypnobirthing because by this point it was well out of the window along with my dignity!

Why I'm Redefining Having It All

This post was originally featured on Littles Magazine.

The concept of having it all, is in my opinion a strange one. It's the idea that the woman, the Mother should strive to have an excellent career and a contented family life and that these things should exist in harmonious balance with one another. It's the idea that this is what all women want or at least should want, because its now (apparently) all available to us.

Ugh. How patronising.

I'm a full time working mother of one, with a husband who also works full time and co-parents with me in equal measures. Whilst I am not particularly qualified or financially well off, I would go as far as to call my vocation a career because it is specialised and I've been working on it for a long time.
Sounds like I've got it sorted doesn't it? Well some days I do, some days we get up, we get ready, I've made lunches the night before and everyone has clean underwear. Some days the toddler fully co-operates, he actually brushes his teeth and he lets us dress him without kicking Daddy in the balls. He's excited to see his Nanny or his friend Lily at nursery and he's bowling out the door with a huge grin on his face. On these days I've straightened my hair, I'm on time, I'm wearing that dress with the little brown belt and there are no ladders in my tights. These are the days that I, by definition look like I 'have it all'.

When Your Toddler Holds You Hostage In Superdrug

Sometimes I forget that I'm still a first time parent. I feel like I've been a Mum for a while, its not all shiny and new and I should just know the answers by now. I mean you get all that when you have a new born, that feeling of not knowing what you're doing, not knowing how to hold them without their head falling off. Unsure of the normal temperature, the normal colour of poo, the normal amount of crying. You're supposed to not know when they are new and you are new at being a parent, its expected, its accepted. Its ok to hold your hands up and say 'Sorry I'm new at this, I don't really know what I'm doing!'. 
Trouble is, I'm not really sure I can do that now my first baby is a new toddler. I mean I'm more confident with my parenting skills than I was in those first few months, his needs are easier to read, mostly because they are being screamed at me from across the supermarket. I can assess the right temperature because I've realised that its either just too fucking hot or too fucking cold, it doesn't matter if you're nine months old or ninety. I don't worry about the colour of poo, I no longer phone my Mum about it. Two and half years in, I've seen it all or at least please God, I hope I have. Its been on my hands, in my hair, on the carpet, there's nothing in the poo department that can worry me now. We've kept him alive and reasonably well behaved, we used to congratulate ourselves on what a 'good baby' he was.

Then three weeks ago, he held me hostage in Superdrug.

10 Reasons Why Being a Working Mother Sucks Balls

This is an article I've had half drafted for a while, but I could never quite finish it off. I was worried it would come across as a woe is me post, my life is so hard post, I'm so exhausted post. But after a particularly shitty fortnight and just generally feeling like a crappy Mum, I read this piece The Working Mother by Learning To Be Mrs C and it just made me feel a lot better. I completely related to it and just felt relieved that I wasn't the only one struggling with the work/life balance. This is exactly why I love blogging,  you start to realise that you are not alone. You are not the only one.

As Mothers of this generation, the game is varied, the choices are different and the guilt is greater.

Should I Work? Can I Work? Do I Want to Work?

Should I Stay At Home? Can I Stay At Home? Do I Want to Stay At Home?

But the ultimate truth is we're all dealing with the same shit, our struggle is the same - its just the context that varies.

So here's my ten reasons why being a working mother sucks balls. I'm not saying being a working mum is harder than being a stay at home mum - who knows, who quite frankly cares? I don't, I'm far too fucking exhausted to worry about what everyone else is doing. This shit is hard and regardless of our 'parenting context' we all deserve a fucking medal.
If your a stay at home Mummy - please can you write 'Ten Reasons Why Being a SAHM Sucks Balls?' Then lets get together, compare notes and consume vast quantities of wine.
First bottle is on me!

Grandparent Guilt

Three days a week Finley spends his day with his two sets of Grandparents. We drop him off in the morning and pick him after tea but he spends his whole day with them, all day long for about ten hours. This is because we both have to work full time and we are seriously lucky to have two sets of parents who can step in and help us in this way. I know there are a lot of people out there who don't have the help that we do and we are aware of how fortunate we are in this regard. 

However, I do think that society wants me to feel bad about this set up. In that I should feel guilty for abandoning my child, burdening our parents and skipping off to work without a care in the world. I get this vibe from the media, from other parents and from people who comment about how much time my son spends at my Mum and Dads house. The implication of course, is that our parents shouldn't have to raise their children's children. 

Well no, they shouldn't.