As I was being woken up by the cats this morning, purring all over me, nudging me and wanting cuddles and generally making a big old fuss of me, it occurred to me how much nicer to you cats are, than kids.

First, I need to mention I have 4 cats (and a dog but he has the IQ of a sprout so he doesn't count. He also smells like one a lot of the time but I digress...), and 3 kids.  Now, on the 2nd cat, that's right, cat no 2, people started calling me Crazy Cat Lady. Then on getting my third, people looked AT me crazy, raising their eyebrows to show how clearly crazy they thought I was, whilst calling me Crazy Cat Lady but it occurred to me that when I'd had 3 kids, no one called me Crazy Kid Lady or told me I was clearly insane! Why is that? Cats are a lot easier than kids to look after! But are they? I don't know.  I mean, if you put it down on paper, are you crazier having 4 cats, or 3 kids? So it made me stop and think for a minute....

So, cats wake you up much nicer than kids in the morning do.  Nice purrs and cuddles Vs "Mum, I want Ready Brek NOW!", "Mum, Mental just pinched Sensible and stole his Lego head!", "Mum, Sensible said I can't have the blue bowl for breakfast and I want the blue bowl or I'm leaving home!", "Mum, can you wipe my bum? I've made a real mess!" And so on...

BUT cats poo. A lot. And they can't wipe their bums, nor do they flush it away down the loo and wash their paws with antibacterial soap.  Nope, they poop in litter trays (if you're lucky and they haven't misjudged), sometimes out of litter trays, and you have to go excavating with the little trowel until you've scooped it all into little bags, at which point you have to brave the cold and rain (I live up North, it rains daily. Hourly mostly) to chuck it in the outdoor bins! 

BUT kids vomit a lot. And they do it everywhere, and especially on carpets and bedding, resulting in an entire bed strip down in the middle of the night. When cats vomit, its usually a furball, and is small, in one area, and takes a simple wipe and a few squirts of Dettol. And it doesn't even look like sick! 

BUT cats need feeding cat food. Cat food is basically the work of the devil, it smells BAD and its the only thing that comes out looking the same as it went in. This happens on a regular basis and the messy buggers usually end up with it all over the rug. Whereas preparing kids food is so much nicer and you can have a little nibble while you're doing it! And the kids sometimes are quite grateful and say thank you, whilst cats push everyone out of the way, wolf their food and then usually poop it straight back out, resulting in the lovely clearing up of poo, again.

BUT kids need lots of entertaining. Your average cat is happy to loll around on a bed, licking itself, purring for no reason, or playing with a balled up piece of tinfoil. I'm pretty sure if I gave the kids a piece of foil to play with and told them to go and sleep all day I would be met most likely with a punch from Satan, and withering looks from Sensible...Mental would probably do it, giggling away to himself all day to be honest.

Cats love to sit on your knee without asking for a single thing, happy just to be cuddled and stroked, demanding nothing more than a therapeutic massage, which is generally quite a quiet and stress free affair for their owners too! Whereas with kids, by 7pm everyone has had enough and then melts down and the kids have to be sent to bed for everyone's sanity. I've never had to send a cat to bed or put it on the naughty step.

So reading all these, it kind of sounds like cats are better than kids, right? They don't answer back, they massage you, you stroke them producing hormones apparently which combat stress, but on the other hand they poo a LOT, have to be rescued occasionally from the conservatory roof, and their breath is pretty disturbing.

Kids whine, moan, argue, fight, hit, pinch, punch, wake you up by hitting you in the face with plastic objects (or metal ones such as bike pumps - thanks for that Mental, I'm never letting that one go!), spew ON you, make a mess, demand constantly, cost a fortune and leave you tired, stressed and grey! 

BUT there's one thing cats can't do that our little humans can. Even with all the bad stuff, when we are exhausted and at the end of our tether, kids have the power to make everything seem totally okay when they wrap their warm, squidgy arms around your neck, squeeze you hard and whisper "I love you, you're the best Mummy in the whole world, ever, and I love you to the moon and back!". THAT'S when kids rule, that's WHY kids rule....as much as we love our cuddly fur babies, there is nothing in the world like a cuddle and kiss and a few loving words from our little tiny humans. Kids RULE! 

X

Hi there Slummy Chummies! (Shlummies? Chlummies?!)

Anyhoo....so as you all know, because I've been moaning all over Twitter and Facebook, I've been ill! Well, still am actually! Was fully expecting the doctor to say "it's just a virus, deal with it and leave me alone to treat genuinely ill people and not hypochondriac wusses!" (Or something a bit more polite!). But no, it was worse! They decided I was genuinely ill, and were "worried" by how quickly this severe chest infection had come on with my history of Pneumonia etc.  I hadn't been worried myself until that point, because who wants a doctor to say they're worried?! Still, she popped me on horse pill sized antibiotics which I'm sure will kick in....any day soon....

So, as the doctor said I should be resting and taking it easy, I took this to mean, Film Night!

Once the kids were (finally) in bed, albeit not asleep or anything, generally doing their herd of elephants impression, I treated myself on Sky to The Fault In Our Stars. Oh my good god. SUCH a bad decision! I mean, I'd read the book right? I knew what it was going to be about, but I found the book kind of happy about sad things, if that even makes sense? 

I don't want to give away the storyline just incase you have been living in the Sahara Dessert for the last year, or being brought up by apes in the jungle, but you know, I knew there was going to be sad bits in it.

I'm a very emotional person but I hide them well. The last time I cried at a film, I was 7 and watching Watership Down when the rabbit went to bunny heaven. Even though it was clearly a cartoon and not based on a real life story or anything... On the rare occasion that I get a bit teary over something sad on TV, I do that thing where my eyes start blurring and I pull out my lower eyelid to get the tears back in before they get out, or sneeze/blow nose/pretend I have an eyelash in my eye etc. You know what I'm talking about....

So last night I watched The Fault in our Stars, which was very true to the book just incase you're interested. I got to the sad bit. The sad bit I knew was coming. The eyes started watering so, thankful the kids were in bed (although jumping up and down on the bed, but the point being is I had no witnesses, which is the most important thing!), I dabbed the rogue tears with a tissue. And then the girl in the film started sobbing. I sniffed and snivelled and dabbed, desperately determined to end this NOW, and then, it happened. The thing I'd spent all my life dreading. I literally started bawling my eyes out! I mean, I was sobbing! Proper, real life, noisy sobs! Tears would not stop, and then, thanks in no part to my cold fuelled swollen sinuses, snot starting dripping down my face! Actual snot! Tears, mixed with snot, sobbing so hard that I started to dribble too!! I sat with a massive wedge of tissues dabbing fruitlessly at my entire face, to find I just could not stem the flow of ANY of my bodily (facially wise!) fluids! Its like, once I started, I couldn't stop after 33 years of suppressed film induced emotion (having determined since Watership Down I would never let it happen again!). I spent the rest of the film just letting myself sob, snot and dribble, all noisily....whilst hoping none of the kids came downstairs or they would be scarred forever wondering what the hell I was so upset about...once the film ended, I allowed my sobs to subside and sat there in shock at my reaction to this film!

It WAS an amazing film, totally true to the book, but I would strongly recommend watching it on your own unless you want the piss ripped out of you forever by your family members or friends, or scare your kids! I still feel drained today.

I'm hoping its never going to happen again, but am now wondering if, now the floodgates have opened, will this happen with every sad bit in films from now on?! I really hope not! My sinuses were already knackered as it was from the Cold From Hell, sobbing my eyes out did not particularly help! 

Watched Maleficent tonight with the kids, knowing that at least I wouldn't cry. Am having to reevaluate every film I watch with them from now on, just incase. How do you explain to your children, whom you've reassured so many times that its "not real", that despite this, you feel the urge to cry at the made up sad film? No wonder kids are screwed up, how confusing are grown ups?!? 

X

Hi there my fellow Slummies! 

Haven't been around this week as I've been basically dying of some coldy fluey type bug. Like a cold but with way more suffering! First it was the razor blade throat, then the bunged up, ready to explode sinuses, and just as they start to clear the cough starts. And this is where it becomes evident that I did not do my pelvic floor exercises, as I'm standing hacking up a lung in the playground, whispering to my friend that I just literally nearly wee'd myself! Apparently, when something hideous or embarrassing happens, my brain sends the message to my mouth to tell the whole world about it! Traitor! But with all that, the aching, headache, sweats, well, let's just say it's been a long old week! 

I had a few sleepless nights with this cold, and the nights I fell into an exhausted coma, I was awoken by a cat purring and rubbing her arse in my face. Not the nicest way to be woken up to be fair! I'd much rather a coffee, some toast, maybe even the Milk Tray Man (oooh a man that goes to the ends of the earth to bring me chocolate! Give me that over cats arses any day!).

For those of you thinking "gah you wuss!" I have issues with colds and coughs due to declaring nearly 3 years ago that I had a 'bit of a sniffle', only to find myself in an ambulance the next day, CHRISTMAS bloody day I might add, being rushed to hospital with Pneumonia and Pleurisy! It was all a nightmare and I literally nearly karked it, its all very boring so I won't waffle on, but it did involves one septic lung, one pierced artery, an internal bleed and my back cut open to remove a brick sized blood clot and black septic tissue peeled off my blackened, collapsed lung. Oh and a month in hospital. My life is just one long party! Anyway, colds make me really ill now, coughs make me wish they'd just removed my lung and stuck a freezer bag in instead! 

So anyway, I've literally been shocking in the parental department this week, the kids have been surviving on biscuits and toast and generally taking advantage by stealing lots of food out of the snack cupboard and doing all the naughty things I don't let them do. Because to be frank, moving is like running 10 miles at the minute, but without the health benefits!

So this morning after dragging a brush through the kids hair and just about making sure they were dressed, and vaguely clean(ish), I slumped in sweaty exhaustion just prior to the school run (oh more hell!). Suddenly, out of the blue, Satan, my long awaited blonde girl who I couldn't wait to dress up and braid hair and do girly sparkly things with, who then decided to be a tomboy and would only wear her brothers clothes (including pants. There's just something so wrong about wearing your brothers pants!), asked me to put her hair up. 

You've no idea how long I've waited to put a pony tail in and hair clips! So why did she have to ask when I could barely lift my own hands?! I did the best I could. It was fairly neat, shiny, bouncy....it lifted my heart to finally have my little girl with pretty hair! Then I picked her up after school. Judging by her appearance, someone had pulled her along a mud covered path by her hair, then rubbed some leaves in it, whilst standing in the middle of a hurricane back combing it. Bad hair was not the word! Poor girl clearly has inherited my frizz prone mop (which looks like an actual mop. Not one of those spongy square ones, the good old fashioned white string mops). And now, now I get to do it again tomorrow and try and sort out the candy floss she comes home with! Here's a little pic which doesn't show the true hell of her hair thanks to the very forgiving flash! But you get the idea, right?

The rest of this strange week will be making it onto my pages when I have more strength in my fingers.....just getting the knots out of Satans hair has half killed me! And my joie de vivre has vanished into the bin along with about 5 snotty, used loo rolls! So I'm currently about as much fun as a monk in a brothel (a monk that doesn't want to be in a brothel that is, obviously some of them actually DO want to be in a brothel, even though theyre not supposed to actually want to - I am most definitely NOT that monk!).

Oh God, I can feel a coughing fit about to start, I need to run! With my legs crossed!! 😳
#TenaLady

Coming next time......pictures of cats.....

X

Hi there my slummy chummies!

For today's discussion, I am talking about magic children.  That's right, children who are magic.  And I mean who have magic powers.  Because there is no other explanation!

I went upstairs last night to find the cat chomping on a custard cream on my bedroom floor.  Not the most hygienic but then I don't think anyone else was planning on eating a dusty, hairy, licked custard cream.  What I want to know is, how did it get there??

The biscuit tin in the kitchen is an old fashioned metal tin, purely so I can hear it being opened.  I heard it being opened last night and snuck up on Satan who was attempting (badly) to get in the tin silently.  I thwarted her efforts and checked her hands - she was at that point only dressed in pants because god forbid my kids wear nighties or pyjamas - so she had NOWHERE to hide anything.  Well, that is, the only place really could've been her pants.  And as much as she loves biscuits I think even SHE would draw the line at eating biscuits that had been stored next to her bum!  And yet there were custard creams on my bedroom floor!  How?!?  The only answer is magic.  She teleported them to my room.  I can't think of any other way!

My middle child, Mental, used to have a thing for shoe boxes.  Well, he still has a thing for shoe boxes, I'm hoping its just a normal child thing as opposed to some kind of kinky foot fetish.  One day he wanted to take this bright orange shoe box to school.  School doesn't let kids bring in toys and to be honest, I couldn't even think of how to explain why my son had a shoebox at school, so I took it off him.  Then I helped and watched them all get in my car with just book bags and drinks.  So why, when we got out at school, was Mental holding the orange shoebox?!? How the f**k did he smuggle out a fairly large orange box, while I was watching?!  Its not like it was small enough to hide under his coat or in fact anywhere!  There would have been a distinct box shape and there simply wasn't one!  Again, it had to be magic!  Only answer!

My kids have always had this ability.  Mental is some kind of kleptomaniac, he used to sneak toys from other people's houses (this is probably why there was a chunk of his life where he had no friends....just saying), so I had to frisk him as we left people's homes.  I'd check his hands, his sleeves and all pockets.  When we got home, I'd turn round to see him with a lap full of toys that he had magicked out of his friends houses!

It clearly runs in the family.....my eldest started young.  One day after nursery I went to change his nappy.  Imagine my surprise and moment of sheer panic when I found a stainless steel teaspoon in his nappy!  It was a good job it was just a wet nappy otherwise I'd've thought he could poop cutlery!  Turns out he'd stolen it and been trying to shove it in his back pocket and had shoved it down his nappy by mistake.  Then spent all day with a cold metal spoon stuck to his arse.  This wasn't magic by the way, I'm talking about the whole kleptomania thing.....

Why couldn't they steal useful things like wads of cash from the bank, gold and diamonds, that kind of thing?  Who wants a shoebox full of sweaty cutlery and custard creams?  Well, I can answer that one, no one!  No one wants a shoebox full of sweaty cutlery and custard creams! 

If anyone has any other kind of explanation that doesn't involve magic, do feel free to tell me, otherwise I'll have to just resign myself to the fact that they are going to grow up to be drug mules - successful ones I've no doubt judging by their smuggling skills, but I'd rather they made much more normal career choices.......

X

Hi there fellow Slummies! 

Just a quick post (for once!)!

Just incase you've been kidnapped/dropped out of reality and missed it on Twitter, we picked the winner to the Beauty Competition!  Using only the latest technology (names scribbled on bits of screwed up paper, shoved in a jug, and picked out by Satan), the winner of this most fabulous (in my opinion) competition is Liz Hardie!

Well done Liz, will get it over to you ASAP once I've managed to extract myself from the clutches of a poorly 5 year old! 

Thanks for entering everyone and to all my amazing followers - keep posted for lots of Mini Giveaways and comps leading up til Christmas (just because I'm ace like that!) and of course watch out for new posts!

Catcha laters! 😘 XX

Today, we are going to talk about lies.  Lies we tell our children.  And we have to accept that in order to be good parents, we need to be total hypocrites! 

We bang on and on to our children about how they must tell the truth, always, and yet when they come out with the inevitable "why is everyone here so old?", "why is that lady so fat?", "why is that old lady in a pushchair, is she like a baby?" (Oh dear god the humiliation!), why do we act surprised and tell them off for being rude?! WE are the ones who said they must only ever tell the truth! 

We even lie about lying!  If I want to know if my kids are lying, I tell them to show me their tongue because their tongues turn blue after they lie!  Yes, blue!  I did not inform my kids of this, their well meaning grandparents did, so I had to go along with it or THEY'D look like liars!  Although, that being said, when someone has done something, I know who it is as they won't show me their tongue (seriously, their IQ is that low??  Did I drop them on their heads as babies?! Surely they know they can never win, right?!). 

So effectively saying "who lied? Show me your tongues! You're hiding your tongue so I know its you/you're tongue is blue so you've lied!"!  So we force them to tell us the truth by actively lying to them!  I mean, we are all just hypocrites!!  And if you say you're not, you're a liar which makes you a hypocrite, so you can't win either! Hah! 😏

And there's the other lies we tell our children, some ones I'm not going to mention just incase a small child happens upon this post and it ruins their childhood dreams forever.  So disregarding the big and obvious ones that I refuse to mention as I could never live with the guilt, we tell our children:

1.  A giant bunny rabbit hops round to ALL the houses at Easter and puts chocolate eggs in the bushes.  Lets think for a moment of the terrifying reality of a child's imagination, when if we, as parents and adults, looked out of our window and saw a giant bunny or a strange person dressed up as one, with a magic supply of eggs (as the basket has to service all the gardens in the world!), sticking them in bushes where the cats pee and poo, I for one would be calling the police and wouldn't touch the chocolate for fear of getting Toxoplasmosis!  So how is this story supposed to make our children behave and be good, its a threat, not a treat?!

2.  When they show us a picture we say "wow, that looks great! Is that....is that me? Oh, the dog? No? Your brother? Well what is it then?!" usually to be met with dirty looks as even children know that if we can't tell what it is, then its totally rubbish!  This reminds me actually of a little story.....my middle child, we'll call him Mental, painted a lovely picture for his Grandma.  All the colours had combined, as they do, to a dirty brown, so it was a brown splodge on paper.  Grandma muttered that it looked like someone had taken a shit on the paper.  When asked what it actually was, Mental said, extremely proud of himself "its a poo Grandma! I want you to stick it up on your wall!"  And so Grandma, every time we were due round, had to put a painting of a turd on her wall.  Full marks for that one, I would've 'had an accident' with it.  As it was poo, its quite feasible that the dog would've eaten it, so I'd probably used that as the LOC (Lie Of Choice.).

3.  We tell them that if they don't eat their greens they won't grow big and strong.  Blatant lie,  no kids eat their greens (apart from a few odd ones!) and yet it hasn't affected our world by making the majority of the population small, skinny, weak, pale skinned, sickly adults!  

4.  We tell them that their hair will grow curly if they eat their crusts,  This one backfired on my mum as I had curly hair and wanted it straight so I never ate my crusts,  my kids are also all curly and hate it so they don't eat their crusts either.  If I'd just said "eat the goddamn crusts, its a waste of food and there are kids starving in other countries who have to eat mud for their tea you ungrateful little sods!", they probably would've ate them.  But I can't admit to the lie because if I do, the floodgates will open, all hell will break loose, they'll be telling lies left, right and centre "because Mummy lies!" and I will no longer have the moral high ground!  Which is all I have left in the BOBUC! (Battle of Bringing Up Children).

5.  When another child hurts our child we tell them that the best thing to do is just ignore it and tell the teacher.  If this was in fact the best thing to do, then bullying and fighting would never happen.  It does.  After my eldest (lets call him Sensible) was bullied in Reception, we told him the same lie "the best thing is not to fight back, but to go and find a teacher".  Then one day a boy pulled him off the climbing wall, he banged his head and we ended up on an overnighter at the hospital with concussion.  After a complaint to the school, (which was dealt with brilliantly I might add, plus there were never any problems after that day, and in fact my son is quite friendly with the boy now!), I decided to tell my son how to handle himself.  I went into school and told one of his teachers "right, I've told Sensible that if anyone hurts him or is nasty to him that the best way of dealing with it is to punch them in the face, knee them in the groin and THEN tell the teacher once his opponent is crumpled on the floor!".  I had in actual fact also taught him how to defend himself and the best places and ways of punching.  I told the teacher that if it ever happened then to know that Sensible wasn't being a violent little shit, because I'd told him it was best and I'd told him he wouldn't get in trouble, and they'd have to take it up with me.  Funny thing was, the teacher actually agreed with me as two of her children had been bullied too!  Yet again, truth saved the day!  There's a message somewhere in this story....

There are many many more instances but I don't want to ruin lives, or draw too much attention to the fact we lie to our children, but to make them feel good and to give them some much needed magic in their lives.  Show me a parent and I'll show you a liar, but its all for the greater good.  And just remember people, its NOT cool to let kids think its ok to have a strange person dressed as a giant bunny in your garden and you must always call the police if it ever happens;  if your kid is shit at art its probably best they learn now than when they are taking the entrance exam to the Royal Academy of Arts;  if your kids won't eat veg they need to know they won't turn into a weakling and die;  eating your crusts will just make you less hungry;  the best thing to do to bullies is to punch them, hard, on the nose - that'll stop the little sod; and finally that if someone's tongue is blue, you should call an ambulance! 

X

Well I've not posted much the last few days because my iPad has fallen out with my website builder and nothing seems to want to work!  So as a shameless plug, follow me on 
Facebook where you can often find me doing mini posts, or on Twitter where I basically sit and moan a lot or read other blogs.

So anyway, my weekend!  Well it started Friday after school where for once I was "the best mum ever!" as I took the brood to sit actually IN McDonalds, which is a rare treat for them, along with theirs and my friend.  Then double treat, we went to their house afterwards and let them play and none of them broke anything, ate everything in the cupboard or had any kind of accident, which in my book is nothing short of miraculous!  But of course, we had the ultimate bribery - School Disco!! 

There's nothing like a school disco to strike fear into the hearts of every parent, every teacher & TA, and every member of the PTA.  It is essentially unpaid overtime, but not in a fairly calm controlled classroom environment.  Oh no, nope.  In a large, hot and sweaty room full of hundreds of very small people.  Small people who have drunk 3 pints of highly sugared coke or lemonade, eaten sweets, sweets and some more sweets, fast food, more sweets, highly excited by the flashing objects, glow sticks, listening to their favourite songs, jumping up and down in manic joyfulness, being handed pound after pound by the parents who are attempting to sit, ignore, and gossip because, lets face it, this is the only socialising that happens these days....these poor people have to endure this AND loud music without even the escape of a nice glass of wine (our school used to be licensed, the problem was, the parents enjoyed the discos far more than the children and sat around getting pissed while the kids sat in the corner jangling the car keys and begging to go home.  People smuggling in their own cheap cans of cider put the final nail in the lid of the drinking coffin.  Bastards!! Don't they know I still have another 6 years of sober school discos left?!).

So anyway, 3 hyper, sticky, crazed kids later, we finally went home, I was declared the best mum in the world ever (although I know its a shortlived momentary lapse in the memories of little people) and made it home and to bed in time for the sugar crash.

For the rest of the weekend, I've been left with the fallout from £30 worth of coke (the drink as opposed to the street drug of the same name) and sweets.  The morning after, I found myself standing at my doctors surgery queuing up with three hyper kids, to get my flu jab.  With approx 200 other people, all of whom were over the age of 70.  I know this to be true as the surgery estimated the average age times the jabs given and came up with the total of 35,000 years going through their doors that morning.  Or well actually, as I'm "only" 40 (only?!? How the hell did I get to 40??!), that figure would be closer to 34,970 years.  But I digress...

Do you have any idea of the tension you feel standing in a queue of 200 70 year olds with a five year old with Tourette's?  She doesn't actually have Tourette's but I think I might get her tested.  Although having said that, she may get it from me.  Every now and then when I'm driving down the road I tend to randomly shout "dickhead" out the window, although they usually are dickheads, so I don't know if its Tourette's or just a lack of diplomacy and tact.

So 5 minutes into our queuing time of a very very long 30 minutes, the 5 year old (we'll call her Satan for protection purposes in this case) pipes up with "Mummy, why is everyone old?".
"Sorry??" I almost whispered back at her, hoping I had misheard her, and if I misheard her then the 200 OAPs stood a good chance of mishearing her.
"Mummy, everyone here is SO OLD! Why are they all SO OLD??"

You think you know how to handle things when your kids pipe up with the embarrassing and quite frankly, non-PC comments that they're prone to making, but no one really prepares you for 200 grey topped or bald heads all turning round and staring at you at the same time.  It was pretty creepy to be honest, I felt like I was the only human in the Invasion of The Bodysnatchers film.  I expected them to extend their arms and start screaming at me.  Quite clearly they expected me to say something, but my quickly scrabbled around for answer of "its very rude to talk about people's ages you know, the reason they're all old is they all came for their flu jabs and didn't die of flu!" probably wasn't quite what they were expecting.  To be fair that wasn't quite what I was expecting to come out of my mouth either, I think if my mouth had stopped after saying it was rude to talk about ages, that would have been quite enough.  My mouth never quite knows when its ahead though, it rarely quits when its there!  By the looks I was getting it was clearly felt that I should take Satan to one side and batter her senseless old school stylee.  But who is stupid enough to batter Satan - I don't give in to peer pressure.  And besides which, Satan can be quite violent and scary once she gets going.  So I settled for the EMG (Evil Mummy Glare) instead, along with the tightly gripped hand clearly showing I wasn't about to let her loose on the crowd.

That was probably one of the longest queues I've ever been in, it certainly felt like it.  Another 25 minutes of holding onto Satan just incase she got the urge to go and kick old people, with my teeth gritted and jaw tensed, felt like a good 2 hours.  I've never been so grateful to be stabbed with a needle in my life, the sheer relief of getting in the car without being battered by OAPs is second to none.  There was one old lady who laughed but I don't thinks she knew where she was, let alone remembered what Satan had shouted out 10 seconds before.

So, now I'm sat here with a dead arm and a few aches and pains for my troubles, I think its clearly time to look into alternative doctors surgeries, somewhere where no one knows us.  This is what I have to resort to.  Thanks a lot Satan........

Well.  I mean, just well.  It's hard to really describe my day today.  Frustrating?  Gross(normal)?  Want to bang my head against a brick wall? 

Well first thing this morning my dog got to the kitty food and yakked on the floor, right next to the table the kids were eating breakfast at.  Now that's a lovely way to start the day not only for the kids but for myself, because there's nothing quite like rummaging around the cleaning cupboard for disposable gloves and cleaning products when your eyes are still firmly closed and your nose is hunting for the aroma of fresh coffee.  Ok, well, Nescafé at least!  This was not the aroma I wanted first thing and the consistency was certainly not anything my stomach could deal with - I don't know what's a worse sight for my kids in the morning, dog yakk right next to their feet while munching on cereal or their elegant, graceful mother cleaning up dog yakk whilst bent over and loudly retching and dribbling over the yakk (not in a "wow, look at that gorgeous cupcake, its making my mouth water just looking at it" kind of way).

So anyhoo, after school run and my 5 year olds attempt at surprising me by hiding until the bell went, resulting in a sulking child and a stressed out mum with her finger hovering over 999 to report her missing child (it was a LONG time ok?!), I watched an episode of Bad Bridesmaid and nearly wee'd myself laughing (Bobbie! Larping! Rylan Clark and knicker making! If you've not seen that episode you've not experienced true cringeworthy humiliation!), I had some errands to do.

Let's jump to my conversation with a policeman on a phone!  So I'm yattering away to them, as you do, because its not like they've got crimes or anything to solve, there's nothing better than a little chat about Jeremy Kyle and the youth of today....actually I was CRAPPING myself even though I only had a little query (don't start me on Red Van Man!! 😡), because, don't we all, whenever we see police, a police car, have to talk to them, or accidentally make eye contact?  Any or all of these just makes me want to jump up and down shouting "I did it!! It was me!! I'm guilty!! Take me away officer!"  Even when I've done nothing wrong.  NOTHING!  

So, as I was waiting, I attempted some light hearted chatter.  Meanwhile my dog, who had got to the wet kitten food this time, started to silently chunder next to me......."So, I don't suppose you get many phonecalls like mine do you? Haha!" (nervous giggle.  Nightmare when someone says their cat has died.  That happened.  No jokes).  

Mr Policeman "Well no, we don't.  Its usually something like there's a cat stuck up a tree!".

"Oh, really? Haha!  Well if it makes you feel better, my dogs just yakked up next to my leg!"

Yes, I said that.  Those exact words.  Remember Dirty Dancing? "I carried a watermelon?!?".  It was that kind of moment.  Silence fell.  There was only the sound of wind blowing tumbleweeds across the phone line.   My face turned so puce I looked like a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning.  I just couldn't speak.  I wanted to take it back and just say "I'll hold!".  Credit to Mr Policeman who eventually came back with a half hearted polite laugh and saying "lovely!".

In fact it was kind of like today's Bad Bridesmaid when Bobbie the Larper (wtf? Who knows! Don't question it, its TV gold!) told Rylan Clark he looked like an elf king, kind of woody, and like a tree.....his polite smile started to melt down his face as much as he tried to raise his eyebrows to pull his grin back into place, and you could virtually see him thinking "what?  I've not received Presenting Training in how to deal with this!  Er, just smile and say thanks! And then walk away.....do it Rylan, quick, you don't know what these nutters are capable of....I'm a tree?!".

In fact pretty much the same reaction as Mr Policeman....I very nearly shouted down the line "I did it!  It was me!  I'm guilty!" just to bring the conversation back to something vaguely normal.  Well, for him, not me.  I didn't do it, it wasn't me and I'm not guilty!

Its now time for me to chill out after my stressful day, so I'm going to rock a bit on my sofa while I contemplate the disturbing conversation i had this evening with a large well known company I owe money to (its cool to be in debt, its the latest thing!!*), who stated over and over again that my account was no longer held by them, yet couldn't explain why, if that was the case, they had put a £500 interest charge on top of the money owed, because they didn't hold my account.  But had charged me £500 in interest.....when I stated that using their current rate of interest I would be owing them roughly a million pounds when I died, I was met with the mind boggling statement of "No Madam, I don't think that is the case at all.  We simply cant tell when you are going to die, it could be next week in which case you'd only owe £500 more than your debt!"  Completely seriously.  

I'm still considering alcoholism....or possibly, a lobotomy.  That would not only stop me saying stupid things to policemen, but I could send it to the customer service department of a large, well known company to share with their staff....



*Its not cool to be in debt!  Its really sucky!  Don't get into debt or you'll have to have mind boggling conversations with brain dead morons that work for large, well known companies!  So just, you know, save up.  Or ask your Mum or Dad - at least they wont charge you £500 a month in interest!  But then you may be frozen out of the family forever if you approach them saying you can only pay them back at £1 a month, meaning you'll be roughly 739 when you pay the debt off......

I'm stealing one of my Facebook posts subject because basically I feel like death warmed up.  Except not that good.  And it's woman flu, which is like man flu, but real.  It's like when I got a VIP ride in an ambulance with septic pneumonia and pleurisy after saying all day "Im getting a bit of a sniffle".  True fact, this happened.  So anyway, moving onwards because who wants to hear about my near death experience?  (If you wanna hear about my near death experience, let me know, I'm right up for some sympathy!).  So, I thought it might make an interesting topic for a collab competition with my much more glamorous Beauty Loves blog site!  There's no talk of poo or vomit over there, it's the other side of my life.  The one I can only dream about, with beautiful makeup products, and long lost young fresh skin before I got fat, spotty and developed some seriously iffy facial hair.  Oh yeah, parenthood suits me 😏. 

Anyway, back to the subject.  I was saying, there's nothing better when you feel cruddy and cold than a long soak in a skin-scalding luxury bubble bath, chocolate, a hot drink and vegging round in a thick, fluffy dressing gown!

But, well, actually, that's a lie!  There's LOADS of things better when you feel cruddy and cold than a long soak in a skin-scalding luxury bubble bath, chocolate, a hot drink and vegging round in a thick, fluffy dressing gown!

1. Not being ill
2. Winning the lottery
3. A dream holiday of a lifetime
4. A brand new car of your choice
5. A credit card with no limit and not having to pay the bill
6. A girly holiday abroad (strictly no kids allowed!)
7. A luxury holiday abroad with your kids aswell as a girly holiday abroad, so you don't feel guilty
8. Living in a mansion.  With a cleaner.  And a cook!
9. Being adored by famous guys
10. Going out with famous guys
11. Marrying famous guys
12. Going back to being young, slim and fit again (or for the first time for those of us who failed it way back then..)
13. Going on an all you can carry shopping spree in Selfridges
14. Eating what you want and never putting on weight
15. Being really popular AND all of the above
16. Being able to sing.  Like Leona Lewis
17. Being able to dance.  Like a prima ballerina 
18. Being famous for being able to sing and dance
19. Meeting all the people you've wanted to meet in your life, EVER!
20. Having a Prince fall madly in love with you!

That's all I can think of for now!  Wow, who knew I aimed so low in life?!  Stuff this cold, I wanna marry a Prince, win the lottery and go on a singing and dancing holiday abroad!

So, how about, to enter my collab competition, you comment below with what YOU think is better when you feel cruddy and cold than a long soak in a skin-scalding luxury bubble bath, chocolate, a hot drink and vegging round in a thick, fluffy dressing gown!  

So comment below, and then make sure you are following both sites on Twitter on @BLBeautyLoves and @SlummyM - that's all you have to do to enter for a chance to win the package pictured below, and please make sure you comment and follow both on Twitter or your entry will be invalid!  And you don't want that!  That would be RUBBISH!  Oh and its only open to the UK because I'm way too poor to post abroad at the moment.  If only I'd win the lottery.  So basically, its the Lotteries fault this is a UK only comp!  I'd write and complain if I were you...

Prize!  All items listed HERE with dates & things (god forbid I remember to put them all in one place for easy reference) - there's a couple of items not listed.  Because I forgot.  Just couldn't find the energy to re-photo it....woman-flu........

Today I have a migraine (hence lolling round in bed til 11am.  Ok, actually, I do that every Saturday...).  Having got to CML (Critical Migraine Level) there came a point where I had to ask my 7 year old to run and fetch a bucket for me.
10 mins later as I sat hurling into the same bucket I soak pooey pants in (not mine!!), the dog buggers off, looking at me in disgust like I HAVE a choice, and my loving, caring children were heard to exclaim "ew! Mummy's being sick! Stay away from her!".

Er, excuse me children, I sat and cared for you during Norovirus knowing that in a days time that would be me.  I've sat and held my hands out for you to vomit into when there's been no other receptacle.  I've scooped sick out of the back seat of a car (not mine hehe 😏), and cleaned and changed 3 sets of bed sheets in the middle of the night when your projectile vomit hit both bunk beds AND the spare pull out bed! It also landed on my dads head as he was staying over, and it was in fact his screams that alerted me to said chundering, he's not stayed over since actually, but I digress. I've sat in the backs of cars with you and only a flimsy carrier bag with holes in to catch anything in, I've scrubbed carpets and accidentally flicked chunks at my ACTUAL face! And once......I can barely bring myself to say it.....it hit my lip.

My lip.

So is it too much to ask dear children, if maybe you just maybe asked "are you OK Mummy?".  I mean, would it?? Or even maybe not to run in the opposite direction, screaming?

To be fair, if I weren't their Mum, quite frankly I'D run in the opposite direction.  I mean, you would!  Wouldn't you?!

Today I found myself watching 'Bad Bridesmaid'...for those who don't know this show, the premise is that a completely random stranger (and these girls really put the strange in stranger!) comes along and the bride to be has to pretend they are a long known friend and bridesmaid, whilst said Bad Bridesmaid is being basically the bridesmaid from Hell, and if everyone is taken in, the bride and groom win a luxury honeymoon.

After watching the first episode my first thought was that I would rather honeymoon in the deepest fiery pits of hell surrounded by everything I am allergic to, than go through the embarrassment this poor bride endured!  I'm not sure if this random stranger is supposed to deliberately act like a total nut job or if they pick people who are natural nut jobs. 

My favourite part of the whole thing was the random stranger singing away at karaoke in what could possibly be the most humiliating and embarrassing manner she could dredge up from deep within.  You've got to give it to her, the girl had guts! 

Anyway, to the point of this long and rambling story.....The bride at this point, clearly a woman after my own heart, was literally crying and shaking with laughter.  When talking about it afterwards she uttered my favourite line (of the week - it's been a dry one), "she must've been quite insulted, I was laughing so hard I had tears rolling down my face, I was dribbling and everything!".

Clearly my soul sister (I think I might love her a little bit), she backed up my theory on the matter, which is, if you're not dribbling when you're laughing, then you're not doing it right!

In The Game of laughing, you get double points for a drippy nose and triple points when tears, snot and dribble merge into one long line and drip off your face.  You are declared the outright winner of The Game if you also wee yourself a tiny bit after crossing your legs and slowly lowering down to the floor.

Try The Game on your night out for guaranteed laughs aplenty, but you'll also soon find out who skimped on their pelvic floor exercises when they were pregnant.  If you really want to know (I can't imagine why but there are all sorts of weird people out there) and you're NOT on a night out (let's face it, there's no such thing as a social life with this many lives under one roof to look after, any babysitters would need whole teams and Health and Safety risk assessments), just throw your friend onto the nearest trampoline.  If she bounces twice, looks shocked and darts off to the loo, the words Pelvic Floor Exercises were blatantly ignored in antenatal classes.  Just saying.....

On that note, I'm off to wolf pizza and cake that I ordered as soon as I sent my kids to bed.  Early.  I was really hungry.

Cheerio! 😘 X

Well, today was interesting.  In fact the grotty gruesomeness of today actually made me decide to start this blog.  Because you just couldn't make it up!

This morning I popped to the cashpoint to draw money for my cleaners (hah, no I'm not rich and I'm not lazy either, lucky me has a completely knackered back where my children tried to kill me off so I can't reach into those nooks and crannies.  And nor do I want to).  To be told by the ATM that there were "insufficient funds".  Trying to make it look like I knew it was going to say that and was just checking, I shuffled away with my head hung in shame.

Luckily for me the cleaners know where I live and if I don't pay up by next week they're bringing the bag of rubbish back to throw all over my house.  Or beat me with a baseball bat.  It's hard to tell these days but either way, I'm sure I'll manage to pay next week!

This evening after school, my friend came round to visit with her son.  After a long old gossip and leaving the kids to entertain themselves, my friend suddenly points at one of my children and says "oh look! They're covered in Rocky Road!! Haha they've got it all over their pants!".

But no, no we don't have Rocky Road.  Neither is it chocolate.  No no my dear, that is NOT Rocky Road, it is poo.  That's right, poo!  My child had stripped down to her pants, pooed in them and then smeared it all over her body.  I have to assume this was an accident (because, why???) and also that the smearing was not intentional because if that was the case, I'm packing up and leaving!!  Who wants to live with someone who purposely poo's themself and smears themselves in it?  Not me!  So at the grand old age of 40 I had my first experience of hosing down said child in the shower, my god that stuff goes EVERYWHERE!  It was like some kind of Splatterfest hell in my bathroom!  My CLEAN bathroom!!

What was worse was that before I noticed that my child was covered in poo, they'd been trying to hand me my little chocolate cake 😱!!  I've been known to snatch chocolate off a baby, but nope, tell you what, I'll let you keep that one kid! 

Just as my friend was about to leave, and my dog was sat quietly chewing the wooden beading he'd just ripped off my kitchen skirting board, my friend clearly disturbed by the whole incident (I'm lying, she was crying with laughter), my cat sneezed against my window and subsequently covered it in cat snot.  And I mean it was a lot of snot for a cat.  I didn't even know cats HAD snot!  Well mine did and now its splattered all over the window.  My friend could barely contain herself at this point and crossing her legs declared that the cat snotting on my window was as funny as my driving (I only screamed that we were all going to die once, or maybe twice, whatevs....).

I am now strongly contemplating alcoholism.  Oh wait, nope, can't afford it, there's no money in my bank!! And I'm off chocolate for now...