Partners in Crime

I made a deal with the Mummy that we would take it in turns getting up with the Baby this weekend so the other could have a lie in. The Mummy was feeling a bit under the weather so I took the first night. Bad move. The Baby woke up at 11’40, drank then woke up at 3am for over an hour and then every half hour after that until I gave in and got up.

The Baby is a morning person and usually in high spirits upon awakening. I celebrated this by taking a rare opportunity to leave the room without his screaming and chasing me. I popped into the adjoining kitchen to make some much needed coffee and wash his bottles.

I was congratulating myself on remembering his complicated morning routine and being in a good mood despite it being before 6 am when I suddenly realized it was quiet. Too quiet.

Muttering curses I threw the half washed bottles into the sink and high-tailed it back into the other room, praying no lasting damage had been done lest the Mummy never feel able to sleep in again.

For a heart stopping instant  couldn’t see him. Oh crud, I lost the Baby.

Never fear, a muffled noise drew my attention under the table.

Don’t mind us- just enjoying a tissue snack.

 

The Dog, who has been in trouble for this before, immediately knew she was for it and ran away to hide. The Baby nonchalantly cast me an uninterested glance and then continued pushing tissues into his already bulging cheeks.

‘Um…would you like some breakfast, guys?’

 

What trouble have your tots been getting into when they were ominously quiet?

 

Viva España!

The visa gods smiled down on us and bestowed a Schengen tourist visa upon the Mummy. The Poop Rainbow household (minus the Dog) will be gracing the shores of sunny Spain to see the British grandparents in 6 weeks!

This means that I am going to finally come to terms with the fact we are facing two 7 hour flights and a one and a half hour flight in a 22 hour period. With an almost one year old.

At the moment I intend to survive this ordeal through the application of meditation, medication, in-flight drinks, kids movies and repetitions of phrases like ‘think of the babysitting’ and ‘this is all excellent blog fodder’.

We might be making an appearance in the tabloids during that period with any of the following headlines:

Another family asked to disembark plane after baby wont stop crying.

Mother incarcerated after ‘reacting violently’ to a fellow passenger who ‘threw shade’ at her baby.

Mother goes mental a mile high.

Baby allowed to crawl on dirty plane floor after mother declares ‘I can’t take it anymore!’

Mother hands screaming baby to a stranger who’s reading light woke him up.

 

Advice for travelling with a one year old or offers to swap your first class seats with us and look after the baby in cattle class would be much appreciated.

Also probably best to avoid flying Bangkok-Spain mid-July.

 

 

 

 

The Magic of Shark Week

AKA: Having my period

Shark week is a magical time.

 

Eating salad and fruit turns into eating pizza and chocolate.

Going swimming turns into lying on the sofa watching TV.

Drinking water turns into drinking beer.

Being medication-free turns into guzzling aspirin by the fistful.

Bouncing out of bed in the morning turns into dragging an achy, unforgiving body into the shower.

Nice and friendly turns into cursing with a side of sarcasm.

Smooth skin turns into teenage, volcanic, pus spewing craters.

Forgiving, generous driving turns into racing, expletives and inappropriate hand gestures.

Yeah. Very effing magical.

How to Throw a Great Kids Party

Recently a friend, who is an amazing mother of three, and her husband schooled me in how to throw an amazing kids birthday party.

She warned us before we attended that her family tended to go all out for birthdays and I began to feel worried. Really, when was the last time you truly enjoyed a kids party? Also, as a school teacher my idea of hell is spending another day surrounded by loads of kids hopped up on sugar and excitement. I started getting an eye twitch in the run up similar to my normal ‘November/December in a Kindergarten Class’ PTSD.

Turns out I was wrong. Really really wrong. This party was AH-MAZING for everyone who attended. So here are some tips I gleaned on how to throw a kids party that wont make all the adults want to put their fingers deep into their eye sockets and shoogle them around.

1. Pick an easy, flexible theme.

My friend’s daughter chose ‘Under the Sea’. Perfect. For the scrooges/insanely busy people who want minimal effort a surfer/beach bum ‘costume’ can be created from every day clothes. Little girls (or mums…or dads) can live out fantasies of being mermaids. First time and Pinteresting mums (like me) can get creative with a sewing kit. Everyone’s a winner.

2. Threaten people with dodgy headwear to ensure they don costumes.

3. Make ridiculously strong cocktails.

I was half-cut just smelling my first blue margarita. It was also served in a dry-ice, smoking beer tower. ‘Nuf said.

4. Create a themed playlist which has adult and kid favorites intertwined.

The kids are boogying to tracks from ‘The Little Mermaid’ and in the next breath the adults are belting out ‘SAIL!” or drunkenly singing along to ‘Yellow Submarine’.

5. Organize games for the kids.

When the littles started getting rambunctious the games began. Water themed hilarity ensued, leaving the parents peace and quiet with their cocktails and free entertainment in the form of small children.

6. Fantastically cute, themed food.

Further ensure the parents are able to fully appreciate their cocktails by making the snacks so cute the kids eat without being forced and no attention is subtracted from the margaritas.

7. Ready a themed video that the kids haven’t seen before.

My friends chose a documentary about the ocean. The quickly tiring littles got a short period to recharge. The adults got more cocktail time.

8. Be awesomely enthusiastic, tireless and creative hosts.

Really this party was such a hit because of T. and J. I’m not convince anyone would look quite as good in a saucy mermaid costume as either of them or be able to be on the go, constantly for such a long period without breaking their smiles or hitting the sauce as hard as all the other adults present.

T. and J. if you are reading this, lower your expectations for the first party of mine you attend. Seriously. Nope, lower than that. Still lower, keep going.

Nappy Changing Wars

 

Since the introduction of a range of solids into the Baby’s diet his nappies have gone from unpleasant to ‘for the love of…! What in the…?!’.

It’s not nice for us and it can’t be nice for him. We at least can cross the room. The smell of hospital food teamed with rotten garbage with a side of dead animal follows the poor boy. So you’d think that he would be pleased that we sacrifice our noses and appetites in order to change his smelly butt. You’d be wrong.

Thankfully the days of having to worry about what his hose penis is up to seem to be behind us. As are the days of never ending magma poop the minute his nappy is removed. Honestly though, I’d return to those days to escape the nappy changing wars we have now.

We have a comfy, padded changing mat that was bought (by Grandma) from a fancy branded store. We even offer him some normally forbidden not-toy in an effort to occupy him. Regardless he will not lie on his back for longer than 15 seconds. If anyone is able to get into all the nooks and crannies and pick the dry, undigested pieces of food off his butt cheeks in that time period I’d love to know how. Seriously.

After 15 seconds he tries to spin and I try to stop him so he doesn’t spread poop EVERYWHERE. Then we wind up like this:

Seriously, help.

 

Voting for the MADS closes on the 27th at 5pm GMT, I’d love your vote under the Baby section. You just need your email address and my webpage address. Takes two minutes and gives me a warm glowy feeling. Thank you!

I’m Going to be a Mean Mother

Dear Baby,

I think you’re already starting to realize this but I’ll tell you anyway. Sometimes I’m going to be a mean mother.

 

 

I am not going to let you play until you are so exhausted you don’t know whether to laugh, cry or have a meltdown.

I am not going to only let you eat Cheerios for breakfast, dinner and lunch.

I am not going to let you play with everything you want to, including but not limited to: my phone, wires, plug sockets, knives, chemicals, rat poison and my pubic hair.

I am not going to give you everything you want.

I am not going to pay attention to you first and foremost, above all else, 24/7 for the next 18+ years.

I am not going to let you dive off the sofa.

I am not going to let you play in the toilet or touch the Dog’s butt hole, however tempting they may be.

I am not going to give you the really good sugary stuff until you are (much) older.

I am not going to let you get away with not eating your vegetables all the time.

I am not going to let you rot your little brain with those unprecedentedly annoying, accented nursery rhymes, all the live long day.

I am not going to spring into action to comfort you immediately when things don’t go your way.

I am not going to let you stay up late and watch Game of Thrones with us.

 

 

I am not going to let you do these things not because I am sadistic and enjoy being mean (all the time) but because I am your mother and, unfortunately that means I sometimes have to be the mean one lest you turn out like Verruca Salt.

Don’t worry, your grandparents will more than make up for it.

Voting for the MADS closes on the 27th at 5pm GMT,  I’d love your vote under the Baby section. You just need your email address and my webpage address. Takes two minutes and gives me a warm glowy feeling. Thank you!

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My Baby Has PMS

Really.

You know when it’s nearing that time of the month and you find yourself crying over adverts? Or when you can’t find a parking space? Or when you run out of chocolate?

How about when something is so funny you laugh until you cry but then those tears morph into ugly sobbing but you have no idea why?

The Baby has been treating us to some great giggles recently. His mother’s comedic wit and originality, doing things like saying his name or bouncing a ball elicits laughter verging on hysteria. There is no set formula. Often what works one day will be met with a condescending look the next. The hilarity may ensue for anywhere between two minutes and twenty.

It’s cute and lovely. But then the PMS raises its ugly head and he starts crying out of nowhere. What in the what what?

Previously cherished toys encourage sobbing when offered. Funny stories have him speaking Whinese. Singing prolongs the agony (although with my singing that may be for another reason)

What do you do for a PMSing 10 month old?

Um… ice cream, chocolate, weepy movie, Glee, Friends, pizza, crisps more Cheerios?

Have you nominated anyone for the MADS awards yet? I’d love your vote under the Baby section. You just need your email address and my webpage address. Takes two minutes and gives me a warm glowy feeling. Thank you!

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A Mother’s Lie-In

It’s 7am. Your baby usually wakes at 5.30am but there is no noise from his room.

Do you…

A. Continue to sleep deeply, perhaps with a gentle snore and small river of saliva flowing down your chin.

B. Wake up at your usual time, enjoy a leisurely shower, style your hair, apply make-up and cook yourself a full English.

c: Wake up in a panic when you see how light it is. Know it is now impossible to go back to sleep, so pass the time thinking about all the things you could do but know the minute you start he will wake up….and wondering if he died.

Have you nominated anyone for the MADS awards yet? I’d love your vote under the Baby section. You just need your email address and my webpage address. Takes two minutes and gives me a warm glowy feeling. Thank you!

The Cost of Making Memories

Purple fabric dye: $2

Another purple fabric dye when the first doesn’t work: $1

Fabric paint $1

Four pairs of socks: $2

A t-shirt for when the cruddy socks don’t dye: free

A stained onesie: free

Four big plastic bottles: free

Metallic spray paint: $2

Four meters of ribbon: $2

Two pieces of black card: 50 cents

A needle and purple thread: 20 cents

Soft toy stuffing: free (found in cupboard, no idea where it came from)

Black shorts and t-shirts x2: free

Drinking straws: free

Goggles: free

Hours spent dyeing clothes, painting bottles, stuffing and sewing, painting clothes, sticking bottles together and making straps: too many to count.

 

Looking like a pillock but having fun at your first fancy dress party as a family: priceless.

PS. ‘Eight is a lot of legs, David’ which is why our little octopus has four. Clearly if you count his limbs plus the additional purple ones there are eight. It totally had nothing to do with the fact I couldn’t face trying to sew on eight. Honest.

Accidentally Giving My Baby Nightmares

I was on bedtime duty tonight. The Baby had a bath and he shared a little of the experience with me by soaking me. I wrestled a wiggly baby into a pajamas and his sleeping bag.

As I fed him his milk and tried to avoid getting stabbed in the nose with his finger I sang to him. I sang ‘Flower of Scotland’. Not because I’m a nutty nationalist but because although I know about 100 kids songs I don’t know any slow or restful ones.

After our relaxing rendition of Scotland’s unofficial national anthem I read him ‘Not now, Bernard’. In case you haven’t read it, it’s amazing. Spoiler Alert: It’s about a little boy who is ignored by his parents while he tries to warn them about a monster. In the end the monster eats the boy and the parents are so wrapped up in their own stuff they don’t even notice. Charming, huh?

After the end of the story I gave the boy a quick kiss and a cuddle, received a smack in the face in return and popped him into the crib.

‘Sweet dreams,’ I whispered as I closed the door behind me.

……..Hang on a minute.

 

 

What do you read or sing to your kid before they sleep? 

Have you nominated anyone for the MADS awards yet? I’d love your vote under the Baby section. You just need your email address and my webpage address. Takes two minutes and gives me a warm glowy feeling. Thank you!