Category Archives: Parenting

27 things to do in Sheffield in the last week of Summer Holidays – Mumonthenetheredge style

27 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by in Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

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  1. Lose your SH…. **Rag** before 9.30am.
  2. Wonder how the hell you’re going to get everyone out of the house by 7.45 when school starts again.
  3. Spend 30 mins blowing up the slow-punctured paddling pool for the 800th time, for 5 mins play before everyone falls out.
  4. Head to the park – any park you haven’t already been to in the last 48 hours. Instantly regret this. Subdue urge to roar at other people’s holiday-feral children. (And your own – you’re now in public).
  5. Realise your kids’ school shoes no longer fit, and make a last minute dash to Clarks.
  6. While in town, promise the kids you’ll go to the final few days of The Beach… Realise it has ended. [WARNING: ENDS TODAY!!!!] Brace for Force 10 tantrums.
  7. Pack the eleventeenth trillionth picnic of the season, knowing they’re only going to eat the crisps and then ask for ice creams 10 mins later.
  8. Contemplate the sheer pointlessness of cucumbers.
  9. Go to Weston Park Museum to feed the ducks, chase the pigeons, and play in the Viking Hut and Boat. (Top tip: get a large, large coffee from the Starbucks over the road).
  10. Plan a final summer holiday Glorious Family Day Out – perhaps at The Deep, or at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. Good luck. You’ll need it.
  11. Head up to Manor Lodge for crafts, lavender maze fun, hide and seek in the ruins, and maybe a donkey ride. (One of my fave places).
  12. Throw the crafts out surreptitiously 2 days later. There is only so much crap art one house can bear, after all. 
  13. Call everyone you know begging for a play date to dilute the company of your children. Try not to appear too desperate/crazed.
  14. Toy with the idea of a trip to Chatsworth House Farm and Adventure Play Area. Remember this will be mayhem like ordinary parks x104  (see no 4), and seriously doubt your own fortitude.
  15. Spend the entry money on a lunch out instead, at The Wheatsheaf in Baslow, where you can watch the children on the play equipment and DRINK ALCOHOL!!!! (You’ll need to employ a designated driver).
  16. Go to Bakewell on the bus (entertainment in itself) for a poke around the shops, a play in a novel new playground (and splash area) and take bread for a classic game of Fish or Duck? over the bridge (who gets the bread first – I’m Team Fish).
  17. Break out the art supplies. Desperate times call for desperate measures! (I mean, not the glitter, it’s not that bad yet, but definitely the paints). Encourage small creations – possibly decorating pasta, or stones.
  18. Leave small creations as Bogart gifts at the Longshaw Estate. Walk down to the ducks, if you can bear the whining about enforced exercise. (And if the poor ducks in/around Sheffield can bear any more feeding after 5 weeks of summer holidays).
  19. On no account allow children to check gifts on the way back, as the Bogarts always fail to collect them in a timely manner. Lazy little b-stards.
  20. Invest in bath paints. Minutes of fun! And don’t wait for official bathtime. 11am is a perfectly acceptable time to wash children when you have failed to leave the house with them and they are driving you round the bend.
  21. Wait for a really really sunny day, and then find an INDOOR PLAY AREA, in the hopes that everyone else will be making the most of the sunshine outside, therefore avoiding other people’s children! I like something small where I can keep an eye on both children at once.
  22. Introduce a kiddie bubble disco at 4pm everyday in a desperate effort to re-impose a routine and stop the late afternoon scrapping. Depending on your sanity levels, feel free to include/exclude the Hokey Cokey.
  23. Ceebeebies marathon. No one will judge you at this point. (Especially if you don’t tell them).
  24. Serve pasta for tea for the 2 billionth time this August, knowing deep down most of it will go into the bin. Again. Weep silently into the pan to salt the water (optional), and pray for the return of your childcare so someone else can feed them.
  25. Bugger it all and just hang out at the @851 baby cafe, desperately hiding from your children behind a coffee and a slice of cake.
  26. Wait with as much patience as you can muster for bedtime.
  27. Invest in a supply of finest Sheffield GIN to see you through the week!

Enjoy!

OR

Get proper ideas of what’s on over at Little Sheffield, and fabulous tried and tested reviews at Trips with a Tot.

Mumonthenetheredge

Oh Bedtime, Wherefore Art Thou?

24 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in Humour, Motherhood, Parenting, Poetry

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O Bedtime, wherefore art thou? You’re taking bloody ages.
The kids have worn away my calm, by scrapping, screaming stages.
It’s surely time for tea quite soon, and then they’ve got to bathe
And then you’ll come, O Wondrous One, my sanity to save.
It’s not that I don’t love them, or treasure every second –
It’s just it’s so relentless, and harder than I’d reckoned.
I’ve smiled, I’ve shushed, I’ve wiped their  bums, (and noses and the floor)
I’ve played at mermaids, painted pictures, upheld turn-taking law.
I’ve fed them food (which they’ve ignored) and stopped them eating mud,
I’ve hugged and kissed it better when one of them draws blood.
I’ve been a horse, I’ve been a chef, I’ve even been a hanky –
A pillow and a punch bag (which made me somewhat cranky).
We’ve done the park, we’ve read a book, the baby had a nap
But now it’s time to put them down and claim my own self back.
I want to drink a nice hot drink, I want to be alone,
I want to look at pictures of them, scrolling through my phone.
I want the chance to miss them, I want a bit of peace
I want to want them in my arms, while I bask in sheer relief.
So please be kind, O Bedtime, and peaceful and serene,
Let lullabies yield to sleep – and sleep per chance to dream.
Let there be no more wees, wails for water, or demands for one last book,
No more existential questions, as a conversational hook.
Let them close their eyes and remember the best of all our fun,
And forget the bits I didn’t do, the bits that I got wrong.
Let me see long lashes rest on cheeks, and hands curl under chins,
Let my heart fill up with love again, and forgive their transgressions.
Tomorrow is a whole new world, to explore and start anew
But only if I get the chance – to watch them, and renew.
For there’s something rather magical about a child relaxed in slumber –
That unwinds the day’s frustrations back to sentimental wonder.
So by any name, O Bedtime – just please tonight be sweet
(And maybe slightly early, ‘cos I’m dead upon my feet).

13 tips for a day out at The Deep

29 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by in Humour, Motherhood, Parenting, Review

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The Small Small is 2, I thought. What can we do together as a family to mark this key milestone in her small life? I know! A Glorious Family Excursion!

Animals!

Movement!

Neon lighting!

The opportunity to get wet!

BOOM!

The Deep…  

So from personal experience, here’s 13 top tips to help you have a great day out.

 

  1. Plan ahead

The first step of preparation for a trip to The Deep is to get all family members on board.

For me, this involved a slow drip-feed introduction of the concept to Dadonthenetherdege over several weeks, as he alas suffers less from the blissful amnesia I clearly enjoy in between our Glorious Family Excursions.

(I can’t say we got to the point where he thought it was his original idea – the pinnacle of spousal management techniques – but he did come to a point of weary resignation. Win!)

It’s also a good idea to engage the Smalls, as they all hate any form of surprise. Fortunately ‘Fish’ is one of the few animals the Small Small can consistently identify – so this process was more successful than I originally anticipated. So we started talking about fish, reading Tiddler, and watching Nemo.

I momentarily considered an oceanic craft project but sat down with a cup of tea until the urge went away.

“Shall we go and see the fishies?” I asked encouragingly. “FISH!” Responded the small small, rather in the manner of Cat from Red Dwarf.

Maximum Mummy points! I thought. (I never learn).

  1. Brace

Ok, the next top tip for a successful trip to The Deep is to brace for the price. On the day it’s £12.50 for an adult, and £10.50 for a kid.

The good news is that if you pre-book online you can save a couple of quid, under 3s are FREE, there’s a deal which means you get to go back within the year for FREE, too.

Free is always fab, but just be aware it’s a helluva trek from Sheffield for what amounts to four hours entertainment, and four (quite big) tanks of fish you basically just get to see from multiple angles. (Including a lift).

Just saying – mostly because my chances of persuading Dadonthenetheredge to return within the next 12 months are remote to “Ha ha ha you must be bloody kidding me.”

  1. Get there early

If you want to avoid queue, like most folk do, or want to avoid people – like I do – then get there just before opening time! By the time we went in the queue was pretty long.

This did of course involve leaving Sheffield on time, which with two excited Smalls to corral, a recalcitrant husband to chivvy, and a picnic to pack (see 5), was no mean feat.

  1. Take in car entertainment

I’m sure it’s possible to get to The Deep by public transport but I’m buggered if I know how. (My kids are hard enough to manage strapped down in a car, let alone toddling all over a train harassing innocent travellers and colouring in the upholstery).

After attempting Eye Spy with the world’s worst loser (Big Small), someone who only knows the colour yellow (Small Small), and someone who can only communicate in transit to comment adversely (and occasionally non-verbally) on other road users (Dadonthenetheredge), I moved valiantly on to a sing-song. My ingenuity ran short at the 85th verse of Wheels on the bus (what DO amoebas do on the bus, anyway?), whereupon I gave up all pretense of good parenting and just gave the children electronic devices.

Don’t do this.

There was apparently not enough screen time left, and the children had to be surgically separated from Peppa Pig and Furbie-wotsit at the other end – a process I’m given to understand from the screaming was quite painful.

  1. Take a picnic

On busy days the food bits fill up fast, but there’s a whole room set aside for picnic-ers. You do have to drag a picnic round the whole bloody place, mind. But this problem can be easily solved by no 11.

  1. Set expectations

My kids arrived at The Deep expecting to see fish.

There were two minor problems with this.

The first (and possibly least relevant to anyone else) is that Dadonthenetheredge’s priority upon arriving anywhere, is to find the cafe and drink tea.

No one else wants to do this, because we are excited and want to get on with the action. But Dadonthenetheredge is our designated driver, by virtue of the fact my physical coordination, observation skills and general decision making render it inadvisable for me to be in charge of a 2 tonne lump of metal moving at 80 mph and containing everyone I love.

We therefore have very little choice about the designated driver thing, and apparently the tea thing, which is the price in gratitude we are required to pay for his driving services. (I’m considering turning him in for a new model with the non-tea-fuelled energy of a 21 year old – or investing in a chauffeur. Or thermos. Probably a thermos.)

The second and far more general issue in terms of expectation setting, is that there aren’t any bloody fish for the first 2,000 metre meander into the bowels of The Deep facility.

No, instead of fish you get a museum about the HISTORY of fish. My kids don’t care about the history of fish. Neither do I, to be honest, especially when trying to herd increasingly indignant Smalls in public places.

“Where da fish, mummy?” Asked the Small Small. FIVE BILLION TIMES.

The Big Small settled for sulking her way down, while the Small Small entertained herself by getting stuck in a terminal question loop, poking her fingers into the little neon floor lights, falling flat on her face, screaming, tripping up other Deep patrons and steadfastly refusing to hold anyone’s hand.

By the time we got down to the first ACTUAL tank of ACTUAL fish, she was over the whole thing.

She declined the opportunity to even glance in the direction of the tank, and went to play on some viewing steps. She proceeded to completely ignore the presence of all fish – and me telling her that we’ve got knob-wombling steps at home.

FFS.

  1. Don’t go with anyone actually interested in the history of fish

For. The. Love. Of. God.

  1. Don’t watch Happy Feet before hand

So you know that scene in the film where Mumble wakes up in a tiny weird room where aliens stare at him and all the penguins are mindless zombies hypnotised by free fish, boredom and hopelessness?

Yeah, well, that.

  1. Sharpen your elbows

There is an interactive section at The Deep where your children can get the sensory and educational experience of touching real sea-creatures! Amazing! What an opportunity!

The only problem is that the demo space is two metres long, and every single child within a 5 mile radius has assembled along it, flanked by their doting parents taking pictures.

If you want a look-in you are going to have to be *THAT* pushy parent, use your elbows, possibly covertly assault or otherwise sabotage a few small children, and say things like “Yes darling I’m sure it will be your turn soon” in a loud and passive-aggressive voice, in the hope other parents will move out of the bloody way.

This is going to kill part of whatever soul you have left.

When you do get to the front, of course, the attendant will immediately pack up the demo, or your child will suddenly recall a deathly fear of starfish, refuse to touch anything and scream like a freaking banshee.

Have fun.

10. Don’t mention the soft play!

In an effort to distract the Small Small from her beloved steps – I happened to point out the soft play zone at the very bottom of The Deep. Bad move. She promptly abandoned the steps and raced through the rest of the exhibit with a single minded focus she clearly doesn’t inherit from me – or I’d be a damn sight more successful at life than I actually am.

The soft play is tiny, and consists of a few crash-mat toys and building blocks. It was unfortunately also populated wall-to-wall by fished-out, museum-feral children – some of whom were 15 if they were a bloody day.

Not entirely unreasonably, the Small Small took exception to this arrangement, and decided to throw a massive planking tantrum.

At this point frankly I struggled not to join her.

  1. Kidnap a disabled person

Fortuitously, we remembered to take with us as one of our party a person with mobility issues.

This turned out to be a stroke of genius, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. If you don’t know one, you may have to resort to nefarious means to secure them – but you do not want to leave home without one.

The Deep allows you to hire wheelchairs and mobility scooters, and the latter saved our bacon. Or fish. Definitely our day.

It proved the most popular of The Deep’s attractions (for my ungrateful prodgency, anyway) and even rated higher with the Small Small than STEPS. Imagine! We therefore managed to catch the children smiling while being given a ride, in between arguing over who’s turn it was, obvs.

These, of course, are the record we put up on Facebook of the birthday outing.

The scooter is also handy, btw, for transporting your picnic around. (See 5).  

  1. Remember the blindfolds

You will need these on entry and exit to avoid your Smalls seeing the absolutely ginormous gift shop that they’ve kindly made it impossible to circumnavigate.

It being a birthday celebration and the Small Small having taken zero sodding interest in anything else (besides the mobility scooter – see 11), we caved when she showed a passing fancy for a stuffed seal, and purchased an extra birthday present.

She has literally never touched it since.

  1. Don’t take my kids

If it is not obvious to you by now, my top tip for a successful trip to The Deep this Summer Holiday is just not to take my kids with you.

I may have this tattooed on my own arm for next time I consider a Glorious Family Excursion.

Good luck out there.

 

Mumonthenetheredge

 

Want more ideas of stuff to do this half term? Visit the wonderful Little Sheffield –  www.littlesheffield.org.uk.

 

Want PROPER reviews of places to go and things to do? Go find Niomi over on Trips With A Tot – www.tripswithatot.com

 

What would I do?

04 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in mental health, Motherhood, Parenting, Poetry

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What would I do, if that were you –
trapped in a tower, devoured by fire?
If my choices were to pick your death – to choke on smoke or drop – and hope you land,
whole.

What would I do, if that were you,
and I had to let go of your hand?
Your soul –
leaving mine behind, aching in hope, shaking in hopelessness.

What would I do, if that were you,
running from men, with evil intent?
If I had to keep you quiet, pleading, needing, lying that it’s a game, that I can keep you –
safe.

What would I do, if that were you,
listening in the dark for footsteps, waiting for violence,
your face –
staring back in final bloody silence, ebbing away, holding my gaze in betrayal.

What would I do, if that were you,
with drips and drains stuck in your veins?
If I had to watch your body dim you, eat you alive, while I had to survive?
Continue.

What would I do, if that were you,
and I could never, bring you,
back?
Your lack a black hole in my heart consuming everything that ever was.

What would I do, if that were you,
in the coach, on the ride, caught by the tide?
If I lost you to your life, on a trip, and you slip from my grasp in a gasp –
Gone.

What would I do, if that were you,
if it were me getting the call, screaming
they’re wrong?
Not you. Because I would have felt you leave me, heard your goodbye.

What would I do, if that were you,
in a place ripped by war, gore, and more your eyes shouldn’t see?
If I had to pick between a bomb,
or boat.

What would I do, if that were you,
at the mercy of waves and greed and cold and fate –
Afloat.
Face down and drifting out of reach – out of sight – to an indifferent beach where I will never find you.

What would I do, if that were me,
living between breaths, at the top of my lungs
scared to breath deep, to sleep, to wake, to make a mistake, to choose, to lose you –
Living in the freezing seizing no-man’s-land of ‘what if’
a looping gif I can’t escape,
that shapes my days and nights –
And yours.

The open jaws of panic, of doom, loom over me and block your light.
And in the dark I walk a tight-rope, sinew from my heart, re-started each day, pounding your name inside my chest,
stretched, round my neck like a noose.

Terror runs loose, and it rules supreme, its soundtrack a scream in waiting.
What would I do, if that were me,
and I could not see
an end,
But every, gritty, grating, end in between?

What would I do?

The Summer Luvvin’ Guide for DADS

07 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by in Breastfeeding, Humour, Love and sex, Motherhood, Parenting, Pregnancy

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If you are the father of small children and still getting your rocks off with their mother willy, er, nilly, then hurrah for you, stud muffin! This article is not for you.

Neither is it for you if you and/or your partner and/or your relationship don’t conform to any sort of stereotype. Excellent work – go read something else.

However, I’m **pretty** sure there are many men out there who are are to a greater or lesser degree lamenting the loss of their pre-kid love life, bemoaning the hoo-hoo halt, or mourning the curtailment of their tail action. If this is you, please read on!

I feel your pain, boys, I really do. (Or at least I think that’s what’s digging into my hip).

The stark truth is that if you have a mum-on-the edge in your life – it doesn’t mean she’s going to push back harder. She may even be pushing you away harder instead.

There. I’ve said it.

For most of us, post-kid sex is not the same as pre-kid sex, and it’s high time we talked about it. In a grand sweeping generalisation, men need sex to feel love, and women need love to feel like having sex. There is nothing as upsetting to this delicate balance than the horror/magic of childbirth, followed by magic/horror of child-rearing.

So I’m going to attempt to help get us going (ooo, er missus) with a step-by-step hump-guide for Dads. Here’s how to get it ON this summer, when frankly she’s rather gone OFF the whole canoodling caboodle…

 

  1. Give it some time

Here’s the thing – brace yourselves. Your favourite squelchy love tunnel will never be quite the same again. Fact. It may return to something approaching what you (and your best trouser pal) remember, but it will take some time. (Having witnessed it pop out a human being you may not feel the same way about IT for some time, too.)

And it isn’t necessarily just the physical stuff. Yes there’s tearing and stitches, and prolapses etc. (Hell I didn’t even use my lady bits to expel my small people, and it still hurt like a womble-flommer when I used it again – FOR MONTHS. Something about swelling, and muscles, and the downward pressure of pregnancy, yada yada).

Any hoo, sometimes it takes the lady folk a little while to feel the same way about the ol’ vag, too, once it’s had a baby-battering. It is no longer the shiny pink playground it was before – physically or metaphorically. Be patient.

And wank.

 

2. Give it a rest

Pestering, or continually pointing out how long it’s been seen you last got some, is not sexy. Letting her know you’re counting the days, weeks or months since you last danced the filthy fandango is going to do nothing but pile the pressure on and stop any and all juices flowing.

Never, ever, EVER mention your ‘needs’.

This will result in injury; followed by more abstinence.

 

  1. Lower your expectations

I have heard of women high on the oxytocin of birth and bonding getting the horn, but I’m going to go out on another limb here and tell you that it’s an exception rather than a hard and fast rule. No hard and fast for you. Down boy.

Basically after you’ve been expecting, you’re best off not expecting anything about your sex life.

You may have to settle for a nice cuddle.

When things do get back up and running, you’ll pretty likely have to settle for perfunctory missionary that gets everyone’s rocks off without the trouble of getting their socks off. Wham, bam, thank you Mam(ma).

If you were once into kamasutra marathons and tantric sexathons, forget it. If you once prided yourself on your stamina, get over it. No one has the time and energy for that kind of b*llocks, now. I don’t care if you ARE both floating sky high on the lurve hormones, the fancy stuff is going to have to wait until everyone is a little less exhausted and the smallest of the people learn how to actually sleep for several fricking hours in a row.

Get each other off and get to bloody sleep.

 

  1. Beware of boobs

These may no longer be your personal fun bags, fellas. Sorry. They may be sore, bleeding, blocked; she may be sick of everyone constantly hanging off them, she may mutter darkly about ‘interfering with supply’, and she’s probably going to view them more as udders than erogenous zones – at least at first.

Even if the boobies in your life have not been called into active service for your new small people, don’t assume they’re still fair game. Ask. This is generally good advice in most situations. Yes you’ve known each other’s intimate territory intimately and possibly for some time – but this is a brand new, brave new world. Explore it carefully. (Not least because they may squirt you in the fact once the oxytocin DOES start flowing. Be warned).

 

  1. Foreplay has changed

Yip, it is no longer enough to just point at the front of your trousers and waggle your eyebrows. You’re going to have to raise your game, lads!

Remember though, foreplay no longer involves things like massages, snogging, dry humping and oral exploration. Basically it now involves doing the washing up.

Look, you’ve got to cut through all the other crap going on in her head (and life) to get sexy time moved up (or onto) the agenda.

If she’s thinking about getting the tea sorted, remembering to add nappies to the shopping list, steralising the next set of bottles, sticking the muslins in the washing machine, pondering whether she ought to be taking the baby to the Doctors for that cough, wondering if she ought to take the beef out of the freezer, if the homework’s all been done, getting more of the dried food the cat likes, ordering that repeat prescription, mentally composing that work email, thinking about texting her mum back later, trying to recall whether it’s another non-uniform day at school, what time playgroup is on, whether anyone has any clean pants for the next day, etc etc etc etc, she’s not thinking about sex.  

Yes, all of this stuff is going through her mind. Yes, at all times.

If you help cut down this To Do list, you’re in with a far, far better chance of getting down and dirty.

Strap on those marigolds, cowboy, and put a bit of bleach down the toilets while you’re at it. (Nothing sexier than a clean bowl).

 

  1. Empathise

The true key to a better sex life this summer is empathy. Suck it up, and you might even get sucked off. It might not even be your birthday!!!!  It’s gotta be worth a try, right?

You’re going to have to listen to some of that crap running through her head. And most crucially, you’re going to have to resist giving her solutions. Yes, yes, I know you don’t get it. Just trust me on this. Go with sympathetic validation of her feelings unless SPECIFICALLY asked to express an opinion.

Nope.

Nuh uh.

Not even then.

Just do it. Your boom stick (and more importantly your spouse) will thank you for it.

 

  1. Get inventive

It is likely that your pre-partum sex timetable has been significantly disrupted by the baby’s schedule. Lazy morning sex is out, and by the time you actually get to bed no one feels like it anymore. That’s why nap times are now your new best friend! Think outside the box to get into the box!

This goes for the where as well as the when. You may have small interlopers in your actual bed, where it was traditionally sort of convenient to get horizontal. Time to repurpose the sofa/change table/cot the baby never actually bloody sleeps in anyway.

 

  1. Romance has changed

She doesn’t want flowers and for you tell her how pretty her dress is. She wants a tumble dryer, and for you to tell her the body she no longer recognises – with one with the jelly belly and stretch marks that hasn’t been out of a dressing gown for three months – isn’t completely repulsive to you.

Don’t tell her she’s sexy – tell her she’s doing an amazing job of parenting your children. Don’t tell her she’s gorgeous – tell her that you’re proud of her. That you don’t know how she does it. Tell her you love how she loves your babies. That she’s the best mum you’ve ever seen. That she made and nurtured something so ridiculously beautiful and perfect. That seeing her with your children in her arms hurts your heart and makes you love her bigger and deeper than you knew you could. Tell her that motherhood has made her more beautiful to you than ever.

That sh*t is bound to get you into her mat-pants.

Good luck out there Dads!

You can do it.

And her. 😉

 

Mumonthenetheredge

My husband’s affair

27 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by in Humour, Parenting

≈ 3 Comments

It seems that my husband has been having an affair. And I’ve got absolutely no idea what I’m going to do about it. Because what the hell do you do when there’s suddenly someone else in the middle of your relationship? In the middle of your family?

This other woman came on the scene quite recently, around his birthday, and he is obsessed with her. Completely besotted – it’s like she’s bewitched him. At what was supposed to be a time all about about us, all about the kids, it suddenly became all about her.

If I’m really honest with myself, I don’t think he ever felt this way about me – this blind, unrelenting devotion. And that hurts.

To add insult to injury, he has even bought her into our home, and introduced her to our kids. And they love her. They love her because she is everything I’m not.

Already, he has taught them to consider her a higher authority than me. When he’s with her, they plead with me to let them go and talk to her. They don’t want me. She has novelty and glamour I can’t compete with, and I cannot stop them. And I am left a stranger in my own home.

It is not my home anymore – it’s hers.

Her name is Alexa.

She is tiny, and curvy in all the right places.

She’s super responsive, polite and ‘helpful’.

She is also a skank-cow-ho-beast-b***h from hell and I want to tear her cold, metallic heart out with my teeth.

Oh, I can see right through her. Right through. Men never can, can they? She is the very worst of that kind – you’ve probably met her, or an approximation of her. Simultaneously vacuous and condescending, maddeningly obtuse, exacting, persnickety and petty.

She’s a control freak too – she controls everything. We can’t go out of the house, apparently, without getting her opinion on the weather or the traffic.

I literally can’t even turn on the freaking living room light without asking her first.

My husband – who wants to have his cake and eat it – has tried to make peace between us. But when he’s not here she’s at her very worst. She’s a downright bully – and not even sophisticated about it. She randomly switches on music or interrupts my conversation when I’m talking – something she’d never do with him in the room.

She’s now also in charge of the telly, and point blank refuses to play Peppa Pig, however nicely I ask. This is always at a time when I most need to deploy soothing televisual hypnotism – and yet the kids still blame me instead of her.

My husband doesn’t believe me when I tell him what she’s been up to – he always takes her side. Apparently, she’s ‘misunderstood’, and it’s my fault for not being clearer with her. If I just talked to her in the right way, he tells me, she’d do anything for me.

Well I can’t talk in the right way, to this interloper in our relationship. To this usurper. With her bloody perfect diction and smarmy, know-it-all attitude.

I’m a born and bred southerner who’s lived in Sheffield for nigh on 20 years, so my diction is, at best, confused. I also cannot regulate my tone of voice (or accent, or volume), which changes depending on the situation (eg. over the phone) or person I’m talking to (either because I’m massively empathetic or massively flakey – not sure which).

Alexa has no time for this; she just blanks me and pretends not to understand. “Sorry,” she lies, “I didn’t understand the question I heard.” And she repeats this one sentence again and again, with ever-increasing, infuriating self-satisfaction.

She is more likely to do what the five-year-old asks of her than respond to any conversational gambit or request of mine.

My husband and I hardly talk anymore – he’s too interested in tinkering about with his new floozy. And he likes to tell me, in great detail, what he’s doing to her each evening. What he’s planning to plug inside her next. He even wants me to join in on their fun. To ‘try it out’.

Well I’m sorry, but I’m just not that kind of girl.

We’ve had fight after fight about her – in front of the kids and everything – something we always swore we’d never do. Then again, we swore we’d love and honour each other too, a long time ago. When we believed our love would last forever. When we believed no one could come between us. (Sniff).

And the very worst of it is, I know he isn’t the only one. I know she has seduced men up and down the country – with her feminine wiles, her predilection to interface, her penchant for strap-on/add-on gadgets, and her willingness to let them use ALL of her interesting ports for their personal gratification…

They cannot resist her.

If you too are an Alexa widow, I would like to reach out to you in solidarity. Together, perhaps we can support each other through the madness of our other halves’ infatuation. Perhaps we will one day get our lives, our homes, and control of our electrical devices back.

Perhaps we can even form some sort of First Wives club, and conspire to smite that uppity, pernicious cow-bag-HO and send her packing back to the putrid pits of purgatory from whence she probably came.

(Or Amazon, same diff).

 

Mumonthenetheredge

 

The last first baby

10 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by in Parenting

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It is hard to say it, but the truth is I loved my second babies far more than my first.

I was so young when we first bought those little, tiny lives into our world. A baby myself really, high on responsibility – playing at being a grown up.

And we did love them. We barely put them down. They slept in our room and kept us awake half the night. We were obsessed with them, how they grew, how cute they were, taking photo after photo, letting them take over our entire lives. We bored our friends silly with their antics and achievements. The house heaved with their toys, and we catered to their every whim. If we didn’t hand make their food, we bought the new, expensive packet-type, which back then had only just come out. We couldn’t go out as much, ourselves – but we didn’t care. We worried for them, cared for them, coddled them, cuddled them and cooed over them.

And time passed. Nearly 17 years since we first held those perfect, wiggling little bodies, since we first started thinking of ourselves as ‘mum’ and ‘dad’. They grew. We grew. And we decided we were ready to do it all over again, older and wiser.

The next babies were harder. It has taken them longer to come into their own and it has taken considerably more out of us in the process. They have needed us more. And those first babies, those first babies took a back seat. They were evicted from our room. Eventually, to distance ourselves from their outrage, we shut them out of the main house altogether. They were a nuisance, a hindrance; a distraction from the reality and enormity of the precious new lives now part of our own. The new babies were amazing, and perfect, and all encompassing. And to my shame I also evicted the old ones from my heart.

The tale we tell ourselves – and certainly the tale I told the Big Small before the Small Small came along – is that love is infinite. That it will stretch to encompass everyone; that love breeds love.

But it doesn’t – not really, not for me anyway.

I loved my second babies so much it eclipsed everything else. Including my first babies. If I’m honest, including my husband. Including my own family – my own mum and dad. Everything, really, I ever thought I loved or valued. There has been little room left for anything else, up to and including myself.

That love has burned through me like wildfire – bright, beautiful and destructive. It has changed me quite utterly. It has taken those other loves and reshaped them, refracted them, and even dimmed them by comparison.

After a time, my first babies became accustomed to the second babies. Despite the flagrant favouritism, they even became friends. And seeing that friendship build was both touching and special. But since those second babies, we have never loved the first ones or dedicated ourselves to them in the same way.

Our love was changed – spread thin – and I believe they knew it.

Times change. People change. Priorities change. Certainly being a ‘grown up’ – something I’ve still not figured out – was not what I thought it was when I was playing at it all those years ago. It is a hundred times more exhausting, and frightening, and befuddling. As time has gone on, that’s taken its toll.

Time also, inevitably, took a toll on those first babies. They had gradually become less cute, less adorable – and considerably less continent. They also became more demanding, and more draining.

Running empty on both energy and love already, I even found myself wishing them away.

My first babies, obviously, had fur. (To be fair, the second babies started out fairly furry, but have grown to retain only the hair on their heads).

There are of course those reading this who don’t believe the furry babies should ever be compared to the real babies. Perhaps I am one of them now. But there will also be those who are infinitely sad for those kittens who ruled our roost – only to be ousted by tiny humans through no fault of their own. I am one of them, too. And there will be those out there who have and love furry babies like they are flesh and blood and family. Today – today I am also one of them, again, too.

Because this week, my last first baby has gone, and gone brutally. A reminder, I suppose, that she was an animal after all, subject to nature’s laws, and not a person. Not my baby. Not really.

It is the end of an era – and the end of what was at the very least a very real friendship which has informed and affirmed nearly half of my life. It is a sign of how much my life has changed, how much time has passed without my noticing, and how out of my control it all is, – how terrifying. It is a reminder of how easy it is, in the grinding monotony of coping, in the daily scrubbing of stains and preparation of meals, to lose sight of what you’re doing it all for – what really matters.

So I would like to thank her, that baby that wasn’t a baby, for many things. For teaching me about love, for letting me squeeze her, pour my heart into her, and practice at nurture and patience and care until I was ready to do it for my real babies.

I would like to thank her for her part in building my relationship with Dadonthenetheredge, in helping us grow together, laugh, worry and bond. In helping us create our family, our foundation – and paving the way for our future.

I would like to thank her for teaching my children how to be gentle, how to be kind, how to show respect, how to stroke fur in the right direction, how not to pull tails – and why it’s important to remember the sharp bits.

I would like to thank her for never really using those sharp bits. Even when dragged down hall by the neck. Even when cornered for cuddles on the sofa.

I would like to thank her for teaching me, in recent months, how to clean up wee from sofa cushions – which is certainly going to come in useful shortly when it comes to potty training the toddler.

I would like to thank her for teaching me that while love changes over time, it doesn’t have to die. It just changes shape, and colour, and intensity. It can fade and it can swell – over and over again. You just have to let it. You just have to hold onto it and help it along.

I would like to thank her for helping me to realise that the madness of that wildfire love – which has literally burnt me out – might also have left behind more fertile ground for the future.

I would like to thank her for reminding me to be grateful for what I’ve got, even through the hard and boring bits. To never, ever, to wish things away.

I would like to thank her for teaching me that daily irks and inconveniences cannot be allowed to overshadow love and memories. I needed that reminder.

I would like to thank her for the last 17 years of bright eyes, bushy tails and welcoming plurps.

I will miss them more than I knew.

International Women’s Day – a reminder

08 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by in Motherhood, Parenting, School

≈ Leave a comment

So today is International Women’s Day. This year we’re being encouraged to #BeBoldForChange.

It’s hard to know how to effect change, when in the UK at least – in theory at least – women are doing pretty well. And it’s hard to be bold when you’re so fucking busy and so fucking tired.

So in all honestly, International Women’s Day nearly passed me by. And I wasn’t going to write anything about it at all, until my biggest small daughter said something to me that rather shook me.

And made me realise I do still need to Be Bold For Change, in my own life – for her sake.

Post-parents evening, the Big Small and I discussed how important it was to be kind, and to be happy. And how those things – at which she is by all accounts doing fairly well (at least at school) – are far more important to her father and I than her reading or writing – which she’s bobbing along with. (We happen to think it’s much easier to learn the latter than the former).

We also talked about how important it is to look for kindness in our friends. At which point the Big Small told me her Best Friend (a child I am already wary of) was very kind, because, and I quote: “She always says sorry after she’s hurt me.”

This warranted further investigation. And for reasons beyond my understanding, it seems my five year old has adopted the phrasing, compliance and rationalisation of a victim.

And I blame myself. Which is basically the problem in a nutshell. I blame myself, AND SO DOES SHE.

It reminded me, on a rather opportune day, how important it is to teach our girls their own worth, their own value. How important it is to teach them to acknowledge their feelings, trust their instincts, expect respect, express their thoughts, raise their voices, speak out, ask questions – of others and themselves – and support each other to do the same.

It reminded me how easy it is to diminish yourself. To apologise first. To deflect compliments. To prioritise being liked. To take the blame. To be quiet and keep the peace. Self deprecate, play it for laughs, take it on the chin, take a joke, take a back seat, wait your turn. Be grateful rather than demanding. Smile when you don’t mean it – when you don’t feel it inside.

All things I’m afraid I do (that many women do) and that my daughter is learning from me. Just as I learnt it from my mum, and she from hers.

It reminded me how women can be the greatest enemy of women. How sad and unnecessary that is. How bullying starts, and how I need to start watching for it. How they – from so very young – create social hierarchies. And how ‘hierarchy’ is just another way of saying ‘inequality’ – which brings us right back round to International Women’s Day, and why we need it. Why I needed it this year.

I needed those reminders. I needed to remember that parenting isn’t just about making packed lunches, and reading practice, and teeth brushing. There has to be intent, and thought, and vision. And I too often lose that in the day-to-day grind. In the minutiae I lose the bigger picture of what I’m trying to achieve – what I want for my daughters as they grow into women.

I want my daughters to be kind, but I also want them to be bold. I want them to campaign for change, not just accept the status quo. I want them to see injustice, and act on it. I want them to follow the rules, but not do so blindly – to push at the boundaries that hem them in. (Even if they’re my boundaries).

I want them to be empathetic, and I want them to be strong. I want them to be confident but not entitled. To be firm but not mean. I want them to compromise, but not cave. To give without giving anything up. To be themselves – without apologies.

To be vivacious and vivid and vital – not vacillating, not vague… and most certainly not victims.

Basically like pretty much every woman from every generation from every corner of the world, I want my children to have more than me – to BE more than me. More sure. More confident. With more choices, more control, more opportunities.

More EVERYTHING.

But for many mothers, in many places, that is not possible. And for me – a woman of significant privilege – it is obviously still fucking hard to achieve.

Because I need to live that vision and lead it at home. And I don’t. Most days I am too tired to fight, or plan, or even think. I just do. And I worry I’m doing it wrong.

I have struggled often in parenthood with remembering who I am. Who I want to be. The mother I want to be. The employee, the wife, the woman; the example I want to set. I haven’t yet found the balance or the answers.

Today I have been inspired to look harder. So my children don’t have to.

And I can start by celebrating women, myself, and my daughters. By showing them women of strength, of boldness, of change – of solidarity. By accepting the compliments. Demanding respect. Being respectful. Admiring my reflection. Sharing my triumphs. Choosing kind. Not saying ‘it’s fine’ when it’s not. Not starting sentences to workmen with ‘I’m sorry’. Showing them my friendships within family time instead of outside it, post-bedtime, where they can’t see how it’s done. By not humouring bigots and bores. Not feigning interest or ignorance to set people at ease, to keep a conversation going, to avoid an awkward silence. Saying no. Saying yes. Taking risks. Being confident. Laughing loudly.

Because I do know this: I don’t want my daughter to think it’s okay for people to consistently hurt her, just because they say sorry afterwards. I know that way danger lies. And I know it’s a danger that still applies more to women than it does to men.

And whether this is a big issue or a storm in a friendship teacup, it is most certainly a reminder. And above all else it reminded me why today is important, and relevant, whether we have girls or boys. Whether we are mothers or not. Because we are women. And we still have ground to gain and assumptions (including our own) to un-ingrain. We must remain vigilant.

So to all of you, all your tiny women in waiting – and the tiny men who you are bringing up to champion them – I wish you a very Happy International Women’s Day.

Sorry it’s a bit late.

I was busy.

Mumonthenetheredge

xxx

#InternationalWomensDay #BeBoldForChange

The @851 Cafe Angels

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by in Breastfeeding, Humour, mental health, Motherhood, Parenting, Review

≈ Leave a comment

little-sheff-blog-851-cafe-angels

I have always been the world’s very worst stay at home mother – especially when I was off on maternity leave. This is basically because I cannot bear to stay at home with my children.

There is literally nothing I dread more than being stuck within my own four walls, in the company of my own offspring. This is why from very early in their lives both of the small people have been dragged around Sheffield attending myriad baby classes, groups, museums, libraries, parks etc and blah.

The fact is that to this day I remain a far better parent in public than I am in private. This is due largely, I believe, to the fact the routine of social niceties and the momentum of perpetual motion have often been the only things holding all my pieces together – especially on the very darkest days of parenthood.

The poonami days. The reflux days. The zombie days. The screaming days. The desperate days. The days when you’ve failed yourself and your small people over and over and over again.

If everyone is getting on each other’s last nerve, if the baby can’t get out of it’s scream-funk, if you can’t get out of your own head – if you can’t get anyone out of the day’s rotten rut – for the Lord’s sake do yourself a favour and just GET OUT OF THE HOUSE.

And the place I have always ended up more than any other is the @851 Baby Cafe off Ecclesall Road South.

It’s a proper family business run by three generations of seriously lovely women. And it’s so SIMPLE. It’s so simple I can’t understand why there aren’t more of them in every neighbourhood in every town.

It’s just a cafe, with a toy corner, a buggy park, and a whole bunch of high chairs. Now here’s the really genius bits:

  • It’s got wipe clean floors and seats.
  • It’s got parking right outside (two hours only, be warned).
  • The radiators are off the floor away from little hands.
  • They serve kiddie food – simple sarnies, beans on toast, veggie sticks and half-portion baked potatoes.
  • They’ll warm your milk or baby food for you without complaint (I’m looking at you Costa Coffee – get a freaking grip!)
  • They even CLEAN THE TOYS AND THE BABY CHANGE so you don’t have to worry about your little darling contracting impetigo or tetanus from the ingrained grime and crud you find on your average public change table/toy box (radical, isn’t it?)
  • They also serve decent coffee, cake and grown-up sustenance.

None of that is really it, though. The true secret of the @851 Baby Cafe is Joyce, Lisa and Sophie themselves.

  • You will always get a warm welcome. I don’t know how they remember everyone’s name and their baby’s name (not an art I’ve mastered), but they do. And they actually mean it.
  • Although it’s a great meet-up place you can walk in solo and be perfectly comfortable.
  • It is also the only public place I ever felt at ease wapping out a boob. (And if the bf-ing is taking a while they’ll look after you with table service).
  • They will serve your tea or coffee without wobbling it dangerously on a saucer directly over your precious baby’s head (still talkin’ about you, Costa).
  • They will hold your baby for you while you go for a wee.
  • They will source nappies and wipes for you from other kind patrons when you are too disorganised to have remembered your own.
  • They will kindly, firmly (and far more effectively than you) call your ratbag/feral preschooler to order when they can see you are too exhausted to keep fighting them and are just trying to eat your damn dinner (thank you Joyce!)
  • They will re-warm your food for you once it goes cold because you’re attempting to feed the children.
  • They won’t judge you on tantrums (yours or your progeny’s) and will even come over to commiserate and distract.
  • They won’t throw their own tantrum if you bring along the only two foods your eejit-fusspot child will consent to consume (as long as you’re buying something – they do have costs to cover), and yes I’m STILL talking about a chain cafe rhyming with BOSTA.
  • They don’t give a blue goat’s gaboozy if you turn up unwashed, covered in spit-up/toothpaste/porridge, and wearing your cardy on backwards (my look of choice).
  • They will always provide a shoulder to cry on, a sympathetic ear, and basic adult human contact.

My only argument with these ladies is that occasionally they have the temerity to go on holiday. The absolute cheek of it.

They also don’t open on weekends, which is a bummer as Dadonthenetheredge and I would really, really like to go somewhere simple and kid friendly at 8.30am (having already been up for 3 hours) to eat bacon sandwiches and look at our phones while completely ignoring both each other and our beloved children. Otherwise known as the holy grail of weekends.

[The reason they don’t open on a Sat or Sun, btw, is that they do kids’ parties. Traditional party games led by ex-nursery teacher Joyce, plus traditional party food and the odd Princess appearance courtesy of Sophie. Completely effortless for you and fab for younger birthdays].

In all seriousness, the @851 Baby Cafe has been an oasis of calm for me in the storm of parenthood. (As long as I remember not to go at lunchtime on a Friday when it’s insanely busy). I have met and made great friends there, eaten my own bodyweight in cake, cried, snivelled, and laughed my pelvic floor into spasm. I think the Big Small Person even took her first steps there.

As we all know, angels rarely wear wings or halos. And sometimes they wear aprons and a smile, and they’re holding a very strong cup of coffee.

Mumonthenetheredge

 

Want to find out more about what’s on for parents and small in Sheffield? Check out Little Sheffield here.

Want more fab reviews of places to go from another Sheffield Mum Blogger? Go visit the brilliant Trips with a Tot here.

Valentine’s Day

11 Saturday Feb 2017

Posted by in Love and sex, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ Leave a comment

img_5455

The last Valentine’s day I remember pre-children was spent working, on my own, staying overnight at a hotel in Bristol. This involved an evening meal as the only solo diner in a room full of couples, food poisoning, the realisation at God-awful-o’clock that someone else had already had a personal explosion in my hotel room toilet WHICH HAD NOT BEEN CLEANED, and a 5am start.

Post-children, it’s basically all gone down hill from there.

Dadonthenetheredge and I have now been together for something like 17 years. I am fast approaching a time of life when I will have been with him longer than I was ever without him.

I’m not saying the romance is dead, but it’s definitely in some sort of medically-induced coma. Either that or it’s gone for a really, really long nap.

(Both of which, by the way, are totally unfair, as napping is now basically all I desire in life – and if there are strong horse tranquilisers involved, I FUCKING WANT SOME).

The fact is that love after children does not look quite the same as it did before.

Love now is much less about dressing up, dining out, gazing into each other’s eyes, exchanging gifts, and dancing the night away before getting in some inventive shagging.

It’s more about dressing gowns, take-aways, gazing at the telly, giving each other an early night, and possibly (if Dadonthenetheredge is extremely lucky) getting each other off as quickly as possible before sleeping the night away – or as much of it is left when you have small, restless, early-rising children.

Because sometimes love isn’t an expensive gift – it’s a crappy handmade card from a playgroup.

Sometimes love isn’t sleeping in each other’s arms – it’s sleeping at opposite sides of the bed and NOT BEING TOUCHED FOR A FEW HOURS.

Sometimes love isn’t bringing home expensive Belgian chocolates – it’s bringing home emergency Cadbury’s buttons after a shitty day stuck inside with the kids.

Sometimes love isn’t candlelight and handholding – it’s sitting at two ends of the sofa bathed in the soft light of your separate iphones.

Sometimes love isn’t sex – it’s an exhausted cuddle (often with interlopers).

Sometimes love isn’t a compliment on your outfit – it’s a compliment on your parenting.

Sometimes love isn’t Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 – it’s Julia Donaldson’s ‘Stick Man’. (Again).

Sometimes love isn’t a love letter – it’s a text to say the baby is nearly asleep so you can start the tea.

Sometimes love isn’t holding in a fart – it’s facilitating a private poo so it can be enjoyed without mini spectators.

Sometimes love isn’t a sparkly piece of jewellery – it’s a sparkly bathroom, CLEANED WITHOUT NAGGING.

Sometimes love isn’t a bunch of flowers to be arranged – it’s a bunch of socks to be sorted.

Sometimes love is just doing the washing-up together, even if you’ve cooked, even if it’s not your turn.

Sometimes love is a nap.

Sometimes love is packing the kids off to Grandma’s so you can both spend an evening looking through pictures of them.

Sometimes love is admitting that perhaps the other person IS more tired than you are.

And sometimes, all of that is OKAY.

Love, like everything else in life, changes. Perhaps one day it will go back to being violins and poetry, instead of recorders and nursery rhymes. But perhaps it won’t.

When we looked at the swollen squishy face of the Big Small after her arrival, Dadonthenetherege and I realised simultaneously that we no longer loved each other above all else; and that we also loved each other more than ever.

We realised we hadn’t really known love at all, until that very moment. And that love was very different to what we’d thought it was. (Very likely, Dadonthenetherege and I were the victims of the traitorous hormones that accompany children into the world –  presumably to prevent their parents from immediate infanticide).

Quite clearly, though, since that moment of oxytocin-fuelled revelation, we’ve not always got it right.

Because while all of this stuff is okay, SOMETIMES, sometimes, it isn’t.

Sometimes, Dadonthenetheredge and I get so caught up in loving the children – and in living the draining, debilitating, deforming work/life/guilt/repeat reality of parenthood – that we forget to love each other.

Certainly we’ve found this happily-ever-after shit a great deal harder than the fairy tales, rom coms and Valentine’s cards would have us believe.

Because an awful lot happens after the ‘The End’, after the ever-after, in this ‘middle bit’ of life. And it happens without the adventure and wonder and momentum and PLOT that began our love story. That begins everyone’s love story.

There is a relatively fine line between giving up on the false ‘valentines’ trappings of love and giving up on each other.

Between being comfortable and being complacent.

Between growing together and growing apart.

Between being tired, and getting tired of each other.

Between keeping the peace, and keeping resentments bottled up.

Between focussing so much on your part you forget to appreciate you partner’s.

Between love being blind, and forgetting to see each other any more.

Between pouring all of yourself into the kids, work, friends and family, and leaving nothing but the dregs for your other half.

Between finding your way through this parenting lark, and losing each other in the process.

Between holding it together and holding back.

Between getting on, and getting through – getting by.

And all parents of my acquaintance – if they’re honest – have walked this line at some point in their relationship.

Some people will fall off. Some will fall apart. And some will fall back in love, all at once or bit by bit.

We are led to believe that love is the easiest and simplest thing in the world; that it will trump all else. We are being lied to. It’s hard. It’s about remembering, and trying, and working, and forgiving, and forgetting, and renewing and getting up each day and doing it all again and again and again.

Life, and love, and living, is a FUCKING SLOG.

So this year, I would like to say to Dadonthenetheredge, that after 17 years, I’d still rather spend 14 February with you than over a pre-soiled Bristol loo. (See? Maybe the romance isn’t dead after all!)

This Valentine’s Day, I promise that I’ll keep slogging away at it if you will.  (I can’t make any promises about the fucking. It’s not your damn birthday).

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone doing the middle bit of life. The hard bit. Keep walking the line.

Mumonthenetheredge

xx