Hi there my fellow Slummies!

Well I don't know about you, but in this run up to Christmas, the amount of chores and "To Do's" become so long & time consuming that you end up going to bed just before you get up - which is pants in anyone's world, and I really REALLY need my beauty sleep! I need a crap load of plastic surgery to be honest, but lets be realistic - if I can't afford the mortgage I need just to pay my Gas & Electricity (£170 a month! A MONTH!! Its not like we live in a mansion either!), plastic surgery is looking increasingly unlikely. So, I really NEED my beauty sleep, oh and cake. Nothing reverses ageing like cake. Its true. It makes you fat, admittedly, but that's how it reverses ageing - my little wrinkles are all plumped out now! You can roll me down the street mind, but I can look younger while I'm rolling!! 

Anyway, the point I was getting to (eventually) is just how crazy home life becomes, there is just NO time! Its like people expect you to have had 12 months in which to prepare for the sudden unexpectedness of Christmas! Ahem.....

So tonight, I was flagging just thinking about what I had to do, so I thought, ok, I need to take some shortcuts here. One simple one was thinking what a good plan it would be to shower the kids instead of bathing them! Now bathing them can be fairly quick, unless its a hair wash night. My youngest acts like you're trying to disembowel her instead of washing her hair, she flips right out. I have no idea why, but its the bane of my life. So tonight was hair wash night and I thought, stuff it, a shower will be quicker and easier and much less stress on my completely knackered back! I told the kids this, to be met with a tantrum from Satan who proceeded to cry like I'd asked her to burn all her My Little Ponies & feed Barbie to the dog. I told her she could have a girly bath with Mummy's expensive bath bomb on Friday, followed by christmas films in cuddly robes and she gave in. I'm so not happy that she's stealing my bath bomb though, I'm on rations here! 

So I proceeded to chuck the kids in the shower, but having not been fond of showers & therefore tending to stick only to baths, they didn't quite seem to know what to do and spent the whole time trying to avoid the water, which makes showering pretty difficult....they just didn't GET it ("But Mummy, the waters getting on me!"). They have had showers before, mainly at the swimming pool, they know how it works! But apparently what was a great adventure at Butlins, was child torture at home. Which reminds me of the stupidest thing I ever heard - once on a holiday abroad, I jumped (stepped in slowly & was a right old woman before that freezing chest dunk which makes you gasp like a fish) into the outside swimming pool. All the others who came with us were about to do the same, all standing there in their swimming cozzies, when it started to rain. As they grabbed towels and legged it indoors, I shouted out to them "Where are you going? Aren't you going to come in?", I received the reply "Oh, no chance, its raining! We don't want to get wet!" And they all ran inside! Now, forgive me for being a bit thick, but surely, when you get in a swimming pool, you GET WET!!?? Or am I missing the point? I stayed in, it was lovely, but how daft do you have to be?! Don't see them anymore, holding a conversation was like talking to a brick wall! Except I got more intelligent answers from the wall...😉

By Satans turn, I was dripping from head to toe, sweating profusely, with severely frizzy humid hair. Satan proceeded to freak out when any water touched her, and stood sobbing while I felt like the worst mother in the world, rather than a Mum just trying to get her kids clean and shiny! I admit to probably leaving a fair bit of conditioner on her hair because the whole concept of putting her head under the shower head just completely bypassed her & led to actual screams. I mean, I wasn't trying to force them into child labour or anything, it was just a shower! How can a shower be so traumatic?! For me I mean, I'm mentally scarred from the whole episode, Satan just pretty much hates everything randomly. At least she's not prejudiced though, she hates equally and indiscriminately! Finally dragged her kicking and screaming OUT of the shower and as I was stood there with a small child, who was sobbing and giving me evil looks with snot dripping down her face onto my best towel (the others are in the washing queue...), wiping my sweaty, red, tomato-like face with the snotty towel, feeling sweat trickle down my back and poorly muscles hurting, with a soaking wet T-shirt and a bathroom covered in water, I concurred that perhaps, just maybe, I might just stick to baths in the future!

Although, to be fair, as much as I now needed my own shower to recover from the hot, steamy, sweaty, sauna-like bathroom struggle, technically, the showers did take less time than bathing! Technically. 

I don't have the energy now for a shower so think I'll go for a long soak in the bath, the chores can wait! Oh, the irony....

X

P.S. don't forget to enter my Big Christmas Giveaway! It's pretty fab even if I do say so myself!

Hi there my Slummy Chummies!

Pictured above are the prizes that one lucky winner will receive in this big Christmas Giveaway! Its another collab with Beauty Loves and to find out how to enter, and for the rules of the competition, please visit the Big Christmas Giveaway over on My Beauty Loves.
It's important to read the rules carefully to see how, and how many times to enter - please do read ALL the rules, as we would hate to disappoint any of our readers, as this giveaway is to give a big THANKS to all of you for following us and reading our blogs! 

So just to let you know what you will win, it will be all the items in the picture which add up to the value of just over £140, and are as listed below:

1. Size 12 hot pink Lipsy bodycon-style minidress with removable straps
2. New Look black patent quilted handbag 
3. Inglot Freedom Palette with 5 eyeshadows - chosen by me, 4 mattes and 1 shimmer, to be all you'll ever need for a daytime or evening look, with the superb quality known from Inglot
4. Benefit Fine One One brightening cheek & lip colour for lift, shape & pop
5. Rimmel's famous Stay Matte face powder in Transclucent
6. Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Cherish/devotion

There is an important Christmas message to share with you, which is over on the post on My Beauty Loves, so please do make sure you read the post before entry!

Remember, check the rules of entry HERE and good luck, I hope the winner feels like a Yummy Mummy instead of a Slummy one for once!

Take care Chummies and see you over on Twitter and Facebook! 

X

Hi Chummies!

I was thinking about something Christmassy to write about today, but as everyone I know is putting up their tree and decorations - in NOVEMBER! - I thought I'd wait until the actual month Christmas is in. Don't infer by my sentence that I'm a Scrooge, nope, I LOVE Christmas which is why I keep our tree up in January! Which has nothing at all to do with the fact that I really can't be bothered to put all the decs away and find real homes for the Christmas presents.....nothing to do with that at all...I'm just full of Christmas cheer is all!

Instead I started thinking about how often my kids tell me off! I seem to revert so some strange inner child/teenager when rowing with the kids. Instead of adult calm, reasonable talk, I usually answer "because I said so and I'm boss, so I rule, right?" & then stick my tongue out. I think this is because I'm clearly trying to get down to a child's level in order to crack them. I'm essentially a child terrorist, and all the things that drive me to distraction, I throw right back at them! Take THAT eh?

But I often wonder who the parent is....obviously my kids don't swear (apart from that incident at nursery with Mental at age 3, when he swore loudly 3 times - just incase we could find a way to talk our way out of the first 2 - then there was the time I picked him up and laughing loudly at their music playing in the classroom said "Ah, the theme to Big Cook, Little Cock! We love that in our house! Haha". Yes, cringe, because thats what I did, the EVILS I got, like I MEANT to shout out the names for a male member on purpose! We moved nurseries soon after, I don't think we were the clientele they were after...).

But my kids have the ability to hear me swear, even if I whisper, out of range, or just make the noise of the word, or simply MOUTH the word to my friends! They are like lip-reading ninjas with bionic hearing! "Aw Mummy, that's a swear!! You can't say that!!", hands on hips, like they're the Mum police.

I reply, as always, in my most adult, calm manner "Actually, yes I CAN swear, because I'm an adult. You are kids so you can't swear, and I tell you what to do so shh. Or you'll get no Christmas presents from Santa!" 😏 I know right, bringing Santa into it, ingenious! 

I was driving along the other day and its fair to say I have my fair share of road rage, nothing abnormal, just you know, when people aim and drive at my car or refuse to acknowledge my existence on the roads just because I own a small car! (My baby, Fiat 500, pale blue, with a disco ball on the aerial, of course!)

Some idiot cut me up as usual and I had to slam the brakes on. "Indicate!!" I shouted out at the top of my voice, to hear my eldest take a gasp and shout out "Mummy!!"
"Er, yes Sensible, that's my name!"
Sensible: "You just said a swear!"
I racked my brains and was pretty sure I didn't drop the F bomb..."Er, no I didn't!"
"Yes you did Mummy!"
"No I bloody well did not!" (The irony was lost on him...)
"You DID Mummy!"
"Ok then Cleverclogs, what did I say??!"
"I can't say it Mummy, its a swear!"
"But I didn't say a swear!"
"Yes you did!"
"Didnt!"
"Did!"
"I did not, but I'm about to! Tell me the swear, you won't get in trouble this time because I'm asking you, because I don't recall any swear words coming out of my mouth!!"

I was so confused at this point and thinking "please don't say the F word oh innocent child of mine!"
"Mummy, you said.....indicate!"
"Er, that's not a swear...."
"Yes it is!"
"No, it most definitely is not!"
"Tis"

It went on for some time, turns out because I'm cross with the other driver and shouting out the word 'indicate' quite a lot, usually followed by a muttered "idiot" which although not a swear word, IS a banned word in this house unless I'm making a joke about any villages missing theirs....so, because I only ever used the word when shouted it every time someone nearly wrote off my car, he thought it must be a swear word (incidentally, the amount of people trying to drive into you is quite high here in Cheshire, I used to feel paranoid then realised that whoever had designed the road systems round my way clearly did so when they were totally, paralytically drunk, on drugs or blatantly missing vital areas if their brain. Either way, they clearly wanted cars to regularly collide!)! 

I remember my dad going spare the first time I dropped the F bomb in front of him when I was 18 and refused my argument of the fact I was now legally an adult so could do what I want. Now I've gone over to 3 little people going spare if I so much as say something with the wrong tone to it! I constantly feel like a sulky 14 year old again, not allowed to say what I want! I'm being controlled by people 30 years younger than me!! And half my height! I feel like I'm being policed by Oompa Loompas!

Did I say I wasn't a Scrooge?!? Well, bah humbug!! 

This may upset delicate stomachs, clean minds and contains swearing, exasperation, and a fair bit of faeces. I'm sorry, but my job is to be honest.....

As per last nights convo over on Facebook (do 'Like' my page, I promise my conversations are usually much cleaner than this! Honest!) about analytics, search, and the child that pooped and kicked it into a wall (I'm still not getting it but I'm am SO glad it wasn't my child!), and the fact my house is actually called "the house of poo" by many of my friends (I could get paranoid, but everyone here does shit on a fairly regular basis, and including the pets there are 9 living creatures living here, so someone at one point is shitting), there is just no escape! 

I'm getting seriously fed up of cleaning up poo! 

I thought I was DONE with that, but no....will it ever end?! 😫 Today seriously takes the biscuit....

My dog has had the squits today, about 10 times, all over the hardstand next to my house. My little shovel was not up to the job so I had to scrub the whole place down with soapy water and a brush.

My little kitten who was (WAS!!!) fully housetrained has been ill lately and has been squatting all around the litter tray to poo (when I say poo, I mean foul diarrhoea stuff!) 💩 - there's a poop emoticon here but not a green spewy face?! Anyhoo....

So I think, ok, maybe the other cat's using the tray when she wants to go, so I bought a new litter tray, placed it in the place she's been pooing, on top of a large bedmat just incase, and sat back and awaited a fully continent kitty. However, not only had kitty shit IN the brand new litter tray, she then overlooked the large clean litter tray next to it, scratched the bedmat out of the way, and shat under it. 3 fucking times. 😡

I'm starting to lose my cool....

I then come to bed to find one of my delightful children had snuck into my bed and done a little poop. In my bed. Poo, in my actual bed. It may have been a rabbit dropping, but it was still poop, and it was still in my bed.

I just wanted to go to bed!! 😖

So after a very thorough clean up operation (I'm starting to stockpile spewed on sheets and pooed on sheets, I'm going to run out of sheets!), finally a clean child in a clean bed, I pop for a wee and a tooth brushing. Only, I can't do that, oh no, did you think it would really be that easy?!?

Nope, if course it couldn't be that easy, don't you understand my life yet?! No, another child who suffers from constipation has had his weekly poop, and by poop I mean 2 foot long log. Followed by an entire rainforest worth of toilet tissue. I flushed, pretty hopelessly, and my toilet filled up with water, loo roll and a log. And refused to go down.

*sigh*

So, first port of call. A bucket full of water poured from a great height. Usually enough force to flush the bugger out - its a weekly event. I tried this 10 times and was virtually crying at this point, so I had to bring the big guns out.

The plunger.

The only way it was going down was to plunge the living crap, quite literally, out of the toilet. I plunged, I was splashed with shitty water. I plunged approximately 30 more times before I felt the sweet blessed relief, and noise, of a blockage clearing and sucking the water, loo roll and giant log down so violently I thought there'd be a backlash (or backsplash). But thankfully, it stopped there. 

I've now been continuously clearing up shit pretty much all day, but non stop for the last two hellish hours. My hands are like claws, dried out from the vigorous scrubbing in scalding water and disinfectant, many many times, just incase I put my hand near my mouth or anything. And two hours after I started my journey, I can finally go to bed! 

What a SHIT day, and nope, do NOT pardon the pun, its what my life is now...

If you ever come to my house, whatever you do, do NOT touch the plunger behind the sink in the bathroom......😱

So, you know how I mentioned I was a terrible cook and my kids even hated my hotdogs? (See HERE for the article) Well, tonight the majority of the kids requested hotdogs....so, fine, they normally have a sandwich for tea as they have cooked dinners at school, but ok, I can do hotdogs! Well, as good as I do any cooking....

So middle child, Mental, starts screeching "no, no, I hate hot dogs, I don't want any!" like I'd just requested a kidney off him.

I asked "but not even just the frankfurter? Its hot dogs in proper hot dog rolls?!" (Once I ran out of long hot dog rolls, and they ended up with frankfurters in baps instead, which was apparently the most treacherous thing you could do with frankfurters even though it was still bread but the wrong shape!), you know, just trying to cajole him into eating the same thing as everyone else - I'd had eldest off school sick for 2 days, had spent an inordinate amount of time scrubbing spew out of the new Solar System bedroom rug, and had been traipsing to and fro the vets with a sick kitten so really, I just wanted for once to make 4 of the same things instead of one Nutella sandwich without butter, one cheese spread sandwich WITH butter and one without butter, and a jam sandwich (always with butter, who could eat a jam butty without butter?!). But noooo.......he wanted a butty instead (Nutella, no butter, just incase you were wondering, although I'm sure you weren't, but I'm nothing if not thorough).

So I duly made his requested butty/sandwich/sarnie (depending on whereabouts you're from) and made hot dogs for the rest of us. As it turns out, I only had enough rolls for 3 of us so I thought that it was quite handy actually. So I sat down to eat my only meal of the day of 2 hotdogs. One bite. That was all I had. One poxy bite. I was STARVING. Well, I wasn't starving as in the actual definition of the word to be honest, as I've got enough fat reserves to keep a small village in Alaska going for the winter, but you know, I was pretty hungry! 

Mental looked at my plate and started to sob......upon asking what the random outburst of crying was for, I was then told that he didn't know it was THOSE hotdogs! 'Those' hotdogs being normal frankfurters in normal hot dog rolls, rolls that were the right shape and not baps, which were the wrong shape and made hot dogs inedible (apparently).

So I stared down at my 1 and 7/8ths of hotdogs left on my plate and forced myself to say "fine. Do you want my hotdogs?".

Never have I so wanted him to say "oh no Mummy, of course not, I'm perfectly full up on my butty of Nutella and no butter, you haven't eaten all day, please go ahead and enjoy the fruits of your labour".....or even a "oh thank you so much kind and generous Mummy, I'd quite like one but you MUST have the other!".

Needless to say he did not say either of those things and I handed over my plate, as all Mums would do of course. I felt a moment of pride for doing such a selfless thing when I had hunger pangs so bad it felt like a rat was gnawing on my insides, and then I thought...."Well, I'd best order myself a Dominos when the kids are in bed then!"

I felt kind of guilty thinking that, but you know, not THAT guilty....after all, I've already done my good deed of the day! 😉

X

Hi there my fellow Chummies!

It feels like FOREVER since I've posted, and it has been a while actually, but I was ill again at the end of last week, this time it was the random winter sick bug! You know, where the kids moan and groan but don't actually throw up, and the minute you're thinking "yeah, got away with THAT one thank god", you get hit yourself with it and make up tenfold for the lack of vomiting from the kids. I think the thing I was most annoyed at was the pure waste of the chocolate cake that I'd eaten. Gutted.

So, anyway, yesterday was parents evening. I say evening, it was supposed to be afternoon, from 3.50pm to 4.30pm - 10 minutes per child, 3 kids. Well it took me until 5pm to get out of school with my 3 delightful children, 1 hour and 45 minutes of torture from my kids. And yes, when I say 'delightful' I mean worse behaved than Lucifer, Satan, The Devil, The Dark Lord, whatever you call him, my kids would've kicked his butt big time!

So, the teachers actually praised my kids, telling me how well they were doing, hiding it badly when they tried their hardest to be diplomatic about their atrocious handwriting, but never the less very positive reviews of their work and how nice and polite and helpful they are at school. So I've taught them well, they can fool other people into thinking they're polite! Quick learners, my lot!

Now while I awaited my precious 10 minutes to bathe in the glory of the hard work I'd put into making my kids maths geniuses, we got to sit and look at all their school books. Is it just me, or do you always look for the inappropriate things they write? The winner of this years Accidental Swearing Award goes to my youngest, Satan, who wrote that her Learning Initiative was "Shat activities"! I don't know what they are but I'm pretty sure its not on the national curriculum. I also showed my own mature sense of humour (ha ha!) by asking her teacher, at the first opportunity, if she'd noticed that my daughter had written "Shat" in her book......Always goes down well, that one! A few years ago my son misspelt the word next to a picture of a sock and wrote "cock". What was even funnier is that there was a picture of a fan below it, making it look like he'd written "cock fan" which had me in stitches. Last year, after my divorce, it was middle child's turn. He didnt swear but he wrote a list of who was in our family, and although he remembered to put the family pets and siblings he hates, he glaringly obviously missed out his Dad. Which again, as I have a puerile sense of humour,, I found quite funny, so he was forgiven for missing out the Accidental Swearing.

So the part that was hell was, well, the kids are supposed to sit quietly with you, then carry on sitting quietly when you go in to see the teacher, right?? That's what they're SUPPOSED to do. What actually happened is they all went completely hyper and, along with some other hyper children, started tearing round the school hall. Which was a relief for me as I could then actually read their books and take sneaky photos of accidental swearing, like the good Mum I am (oh, I'm saving these all for their 21sts....😈). They were hastily kicked out of the hall approximately 4 times for being hyper and screaming. Apparently my pretending they weren't mine didn't really work either....so all the time every teacher was telling me how well behaved my kids were, they were all running round like little vandals on a sugar high, knocking people flying and yelling like Apache Indians....Satan was playing with a little girl who she managed to send flying into a bench, which was highly embarrassing as I'd been having quite a good chat with her Mum, who then clearly thought I was one of those people who couldn't control their kids (again, to be fair, I was just letting the noise ride over me, like I do at home!), and poor Mental came running in crying with his boxer shorts pulled up to his armpits, a la Simon Cowell, because Sensible had given him a wedgie, then every 5 minutes kept coming back in with various shoes missing as Sensible was stealing them and hiding them. In and out, yelling and squawking, then Satan performing death defying chair leaping stunts which left me with a tension headache as I envisioned her landing face first on the coat hooks and impaling herself on them. There was a whole storyline from 'Casualty' running through my head!

I ended up speaking to them through that smile, you know, the gritted teeth, wait til you get home kind of smile. If I wasn't divorced it would be a "wait til I tell your father" kind of smile. Either way, they knew they were in deep shit. 

One teacher refused to believe that the lovely, kind, gentle, caring little boy in her class was actually capable of giving his younger brother a wedgie or stealing his shoes. 

So I left there with 3 teachers thinking my kids were great, which is nice. The rest of the teachers thought they were little shites however, and they were frogmarched back to the car where I gave them a piece of my mind, followed by the ultimate punishment. Oh yes, yes I did! I banned the Xbox! Mwahahahaha! Take THAT you little gits, maybe next time you'll behave in public! Hah! You've thought I'd taken away their limbs! Or at least their thumbs, they sat staring at them, not quite knowing what to DO with them! What DID we do with our thumbs before computer games or texting?!

Next time I'm going to think ahead and do what everyone else did. Either get a babysitter, or take lots and lots of food, because if they're busy eating, then my middle child's shorts will stay where they are and he won't be left walking and talking with a squeak! 

Until next time Slummies.....

X

Hi there Slummy Chummies!

Now, you'll have to excuse this post, it's one I wrote earlier but for reasons unknown to me, would just NOT post on my blog so I published it on Facebook instead! But I still think its worthy of its own post as planned so I'm putting it on here.

It's also slightly unusual post from me in that it mainly isn't based on bodily fluids or having to clear them up (although there has been plenty of that today!), but its an almost serious post for once! These posts will happen, although few and far between, because its not that often I'm philosophical or actually sensible in any way. Really, its not. That's not to say its a SERIOUS post, just lacking the usual snips and sarcasm! So onwards with the post we go!

So......does anyone else have a "no rule day"?? Or is it just us? 

Every Saturday in my house is no rule day, for me, and for the kids,

They don't have to do homework, they can stay in PJs, they can play computer games or Lego, or stay in bed all day reading a good book. We don't eat normal breakfast, lunch, dinner. We eat when we are hungry. Sweets (to a degree!) are allowed, biscuit tins are a free for all, there are no chores, they don't even need to brush their hair. They can watch crap TV and eat crisps. We have takeaway for dinner, and have pudding too. We pay a silly amount that we can't afford, to get the buy before release films off sky and stay up late watching them. They play with the iPads in bed until they fall asleep and drop them on the floor.

Saturday is no rule day. No one takes the piss, arguments don't happen, everyone eats and gets washed, everyone chills out and feels relaxed. We don't go anywhere unless we want to. We all stay up late and snuggle under a blanket watching our late night films and eating chocolate or snacks. 

The other 6 days a week we get up, get washed and dressed, do our chores, tidy up, earn stars for pocket money and good behaviour rewards, do as we are told, argue, eat breakfast for breakfast, eat lunch for lunch and dinner for dinner, all at the proper times. We sort out uniforms, we do homework, we do baths and hair washes, we do laundry sorting, we do what we are SUPPOSED to do. 

Today is Saturday. It's now nearly 1.30pm. We are going to eat something shortly because we are hungry. We haven't had breakfast because we didn't want any. We are having breakfast cereal and lollipops for our late 'lunch'. And then we will wash our faces and brush our teeth. And whilst I may have washing to put on and washing up to do, everything else can sit and wait. For the other 6 days a week when it cannot. 

Saturdays are no rule days. And no rule days rule. 

Let it never change.

X

Saturdays are our real family time. Everyone's happy and there's never any rows on a Saturday. Everyone goes to bed happy and with a smile on their face. 

The rest of the time we are always rushing to beat deadlines - we have to be ready for the school run, we have to be at work on time, we have to get the uniforms ready on time, we have to feed the kids as soon as they are home so they don't waste away (apparently!), we have to return things, post things, pick up things, drop off things, wrap things, tidy things, sort through things, put things away, pay bills, go shopping, just DO things. 

One day a week where you take every single pressure off you and do what you want really recharges the batteries. Doesn't necessarily mean doing nothing, I fancied sorting out some of the toys today and Satan helped me, and a box of toys that have been sat in my front room FOREVER got sorted, we did it because we wanted to and we achieved something, there were no frayed tempers, because we didnt have to, we could have stopped if we wanted. 

Its funny how much you get done when you free your mind from your own self-imposed restraints. Start it next week. It will feel weird, wrong somehow, you'll tap your fingers thinking of all the chores you need to get done. Just hold back, don't give in, sit and watch your children, sit on their tiny chairs and colour in with them. Show them how to draw. When they ask for a bowl of chocolate for lunch, say yes, give them the bowl of chocolate! Tell them Saturday is no rule day! Tell them they can have roast dinner for breakfast, jelly and icecream for lunch, when they ask you to do something simple that you are normally too busy to do as you're rushing to "get the chores done so you can relax", say yes, why not? And do that with them. Chores are there forever, our Saturdays with our little ones are limited. In only a very few short years they'll be with their teenage friends and won't want you to sit and draw with them, or do silly dances, or teach them words to silly songs, and eat sweets for breakfast. There are only limited No Rule days left. Chores will be there forever. 

See if you can do it. One day a week. What a difference it makes to everyone. Tweet about it, tell us what things you are doing that you don't normally do, add #NoRuleDay
 
Today is Saturday. Saturdays rule.

😊 X X X

Hi Chummies!

I thought today I'd share you Mondays' betrayal, er I mean, "saving my feelings". Well, at first I got cross and thought "sneaky little buggers!", but then I thought, well its sort of nice that they're trying to not hurt my feelings! But that went swiftly back to "Sneaky LYING little buggers!".

Of course, this sneaking and hiding things had to do with one thing only....

My cooking skills. Or rather, lack of them.

I am a truly horrendous cook. It doesn't matter what I make, it tastes rotten. I don't know why, I can follow instructions, I like to make things up, you'd think there'd be ONE thing I could make, wouldn't you? 

After experiments, recipes, and even going down to the basic frozen kids food of Smiley Faces and Crispy Pancakes, or oven chips and fishfingers, my food turns out like crap. Crap on a plate. 

I once made what is now referred to in our house as "Butter Risotto". It was frankfurter risotto actually, but might have gone in a bit heavy handed with some butter, and sat and watched my ex and my Dad sitting there struggling until the heartburn got too much for even me and I told them to bin it. 

I then thought how easy it would be to buy a couple of ready made pizzas and do them for our Saturday night "takeaway" recently. How could they go wrong?! Someone else had made them, I just had to cook them until the cheese melted, right? So, I popped them in, turned them round halfway through the recommended cooking time, then when the recommended cooking time was up I noticed the cheese hadn't melted yet, so thought I'd just leave them in a bit longer. Kept checking to make sure they didn't burn.....it took AGES for the cheese to melt. So, it looked fairly appetising.....served it up.....then bit into it. Well, we ATTEMPTED to bite into it. Although I hadn't burnt it, the extended time in the oven had baked the base to a consistency of concrete. It wasn't just crispy, or crunchy, it was rock solid! I nearly broke my teeth! We all ended up scraping off the topping with our teeth and leaving the bases, then filled up on Saturday night snacks! 

As for my jacket spuds, well last time I was merrily microwaving away (who has the time to oven cook them?!), did them for the right amount of time, then the phone rang. So, I answered the phone and when I got off I thought I'd just heat through the spuds that had been sat cooling in the microwave. I put them on for a good few minutes to make sure they were hot enough to melt the cheese. So, I got them out and put them on the plate. I then attempted to cut them. And tried again. And got a sharp knife which wouldn't cut the surface, so I ended up stabbing the bloody things open! I thought, yeah, they're just a bit crispy, you can't overlook jacket potatoes.....hah.....when I finally cracked them open, instead of lovely fluffy potato inside, they pretty much did what the Griswolds dry, over-cooked Christmas Turkey did- see HERE at around 1.46 mins in. That was literally what happened to my spuds. They were so over cooked that there was just thick, rock-solid layers of hard skin and steam, and no potato! Literally none! Total disaster! 

My kids all burst out crying once, when I said I was cooking and no, they couldn't have a takeaway. In retrospect, it was clearly not the lack of takeaway that they were crying about, and more to do with my cooking. The fact they were sobbing "no Mummy, PLEASE don't cook!!" may have been a clue.

So I can't cook? It doesn't make me a bad person! Some people can't type, I can! Some people can't play the piano, I can! So I don't mind that I can't cook and my kids beg for sandwiches, they get healthy food without me cooking it to death. Elsewhere obviously - thank GOD for school dinners! 

So a couple of weeks ago I thought, stuff it, we'd have hot dogs. So I made hot dogs. And didn't cock it up! And the kids actually ATE them! So this Sunday just gone, I asked the kids if they wanted hot dogs again and they shouted out "yay, we LOVE hot dogs!"

I was onto a winner! Unfortunately they were out of hot dog buns so I had to make it in rolls. Because I had to cut the frankfurters in half, I ended put putting perhaps a teeny tiny bit too much ketchup on to stick the half cut frankfurters to the rolls. So as I sat happily munching, thinking it was jut mine that was a bit too saucy and going a bit red in the face, the kids sat happily munching too, making no sound, no complaining for once, cleared up their plates and popped them in the sink ready for me to wash up. I congratulated the kids on having nothing left on their plates, clearing up, and felt finally satisfied that they'd all actually eaten all of something I made for them!

The next day, after I'd dropped them at school, I came home and started to clear breakfast dishes (I know, right?? I usually don't start clearing up til 2.30pm!), I opened the compost to scrape the leftover cereal pieces into it, and what do you think I found? Yes, that's right, 6 complete rolls with all the frankfurters still in place, with a small bite mark on 3 of them! The little, lying, sneaky, toe rags had clearly taken a bite and then pretended to carry on eating before sneaking all of their food into the compost! The little....! I was SO pissed off! But then I thought, how kind that they pretended to eat my food and snuck it into the bin so they wouldn't hurt my feelings, which is pretty much what I do to any food they ever prepare, or handle, then give to me....who knows where those fingers have been?! Well, I do actually, which is why I pretend to eat it but end up chucking it in the compost....

I think I'll give up, sandwiches for tea on Sunday kids??

X

P.S. Don't forget to click HERE for details on how to enter my giveaway!

Hi Slummy Chummies!

Well, as promised, there is now another collaboration giveaway with Beauty Loves! All you need to do to enter for a chance to win the goodies in the picture below, is click HERE to take you to the simple instructions of how to enter this lovely, luscious giveaway, along with any Terms & Conditions! Simples!

Good luck guys, and while you're here, you may aswell read my latest post, called Funny Videos, Flipper Feet & Adolf Hitler!

I shall see you tomorrow in a new blog post! 

X

Hi my Slummy Chummies!

Long time no blog! I know, I know, you've missed my random wittering on, haven't you? Well, I've missed writing, I can tell you that! But why so many days in between this and my last blog? Simply, there aren't enough hours in the day with 3 kids, plus I spent approximately 3 days packing, unpacking and re-packing for my eldest's school 2-night stay at an activity centre. I didn't want to pack too much but I didn't want him to be left stranded without something vital! To be honest, I could've left some of the 12 pairs of socks, 8 pairs of pants and 6 outfit changes out and just stuck in biscuits and sweets! He came home tonight and I'm too scared to look in his suitcase so it's spending the night in the car boot. All I know is it came home about half the weight it went with.....I've got a strong suspicion that he's come home with only one shoe, along with most of the last minute clothes I bought and sent, but I can't deal with the mini-breakdown involved in discovering this fact to be true, especially as my unlucky kids have inherited my flat, wide feet and I have to get all their shoes from the expensive shop for kids with wide feet. 

I was never going to be a ballerina with my flipper feet. To be fair, the thighs from the horse riding didn't exactly sit well for ballet, and I wasn't really built for grace. I would like to thank my mum for making me go....oh I'm being SO sarcastic when I say that, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it might've been ME that wanted to go to ballet, but that's the point! My Mum should've said no to me! Just, no! My daughter wanted to do ballet. She's as gentle and graceful as a herd of elephants stampeding! I am not going to let her go to ballet and win the star role of being a.....ahem....'muscle man' in the Ballet Schools public - PUBLIC!! - performance! Which is not at ALL what happened to me....😳..... Moving swiftly on....

So yes, it's been busy! It's always busy but this week was busy busy! Exhausting busy! I-can't-lift-my-finger-up-to-type-on-my-ipad busy! 

So, following straight on from my last post - "You Told Your Kid He Had Ebola?!" - I thought I'd pop on a link to a video clip that really WAS funny! I don't know if that's mean of me, I'm not entirely sure I care, because its funny! This was American Host Jimmy Kimmel asking parents to pretend they'd eaten all their Halloween sweets (or Candy) and film the responses! Some are cute, some are funny, and some are just hysterical! 

Click HERE to see the funny Candy Stealing parents filming their offspring being told the meanest thing a parent can say to their child whilst still being passable as a fairly normal (but mean) parent, and remember, THIS is funny - telling your child he is likely to kark it from the latest nasty bug is NOT! Unless your child was Adolf Hitler in which case maybe they should've done that. Oh, maybe they DID do that and that's what turned him into a murdering psycho?! Quick! Get Ebola Kid a therapist!! 😱

Speaking of which, middle child, Mental, was having a discussion with my (Ballet-enabling) Mum about the World Wars a while back, and talking about why Hitler did what he did, and believed what he believed, when Mental piped up with the line that will haunt him to his 21st, which was "oh yes, his name was Adolf Hitler wasn't it! I know him! He's my friend Sam's best friend!" 

Is he?! Is he really?!? I can safely say on this one that Sam is not besties with Hitler. Unless they are all Mentals imaginary friends in which case, quick! Get my kid a therapist!!

X

When I contemplate, as I often do, on the many failings I feel I have as a parent (hey its our job to beat ourselves up, right?), no matter how shit I am at cooking, making things, miraculously sewing an amazing costume with one hours notice, you know, the usual.....no matter what, I will NEVER be as bad as the parents who tricked their kid into thinking he had Ebola!! Evil poxy mo*********rs!! (I didn't swear, I didn't! Truckers! I said truckers!)

No matter how grumpy, moody, mardy, tantrummy, ungrateful, bratty, picky, argumentative, annoying, sarcastic - well you get the picture - they are, I simply am not evil enough to pretend they've got a disease that might kill them!! 

I have a very VERY warped sense of humour, I mean, as in I'm going to hell kinda warped - anyone who knows me knows that - they've usually booked the seat next to me.....but even I, just couldn't, wouldn't, and would never have even THOUGHT of doing something like that! I mean there was a time many years ago when I hadn't slept for two weeks that I felt like throwing my baby out of the window through sheer hallucinations & sleep deprivation, but I wouldn't have actually DONE it! (I checked with my health visitor to see if I'd turned into a mad psycho murderer and she said no, most mums whose babies suddenly decide they don't need to sleep feel that way too after a while, then she made me sleep train him....whole new story!)

I know I take the piss, damn, its part of the job description, but my kids ALWAYS know when I'm being humorous, playing a joke etc., and when I'm deadly serious.

Oh god, I sound all boring and preachy now! I don't like boring and preachy!

But hey, its not often I see such a bad example of parenting that it makes me feel like SuperMum, so I'm taking the smug, moral high ground while I can!! Its kinda like watching Eastenders - it makes you happy with your life when you think you too could have a crap, miserable existence, like all the inhabitants of Albert Square! 

What gets you all riled up and gets your Mummy feathers all ruffled up? Is it just me?!

Here's a link to the video, just because its going viral as "funny". I laugh a lot, and at all the crap jokes too, but either I'm growing up, having a humour malfunction, or my Mummy instincts are just not letting this one slide because I really cant see the funny side in even, for a split second, letting your child think he might die!! Please feel free to comment and tell me, before I start getting all deep or something! 😱

http://youtu.be/NbtsssN7r8w (see how its titled as Funny! Yeah as funny as the Grim Reaper pointing at you with a sign saying "you're next" at a funeral! Actually.....that could be quite entertaining....depends on the person....😏😈)

Night all, and feel free to tell me I'm being all wet and sensible/boring....although if you don't have kids you probably would actually find this funny, parents probably wouldn't. Unless they didn't like their kids in which case they might. I'm rambling, good night! 😴

X

Hiya my fellow Slummies!

I must apologise for not blogging much this week, but there's been this 'event' called half-term holidays. So I haven't had time to do much of anything this week, although I did find time to clear out the kids unused or unplayed with toys to sell to raise money for Christmas (that's the joy of single parenthood without financial support for the children! Just sayin.....).
So anyway, that commenced the battle of the toys as they insisted all of them were their favourite toys EVER and they'd apparently waited patiently since last Christmas for me to find them for them. This, as I explained to them, is highly doubtful. Because normally, should any toy go missing that they even vaguely like, hell hath no fury like my child without their toy, they turn into angry spoilt brats; the house, car, and any recently visited places must be turned upside down right this very minute until we find the toy. Finding that toy, holds such elation to me - it means my child thinks I'm the best mum EVER which is always nice to hear (who says mums don't have egos? We do and we like them stroked occasionally!), and I feel like I've won against the hiding toy. At this point I've usually given the toy imaginary personalities because it feels personal....it feels like its hiding on purpose and poking its tongue out behind you while singing "ner ner nee ner ner!". At this point, I want to find the toy, tie it to a chair and submit it to torture. At this point I HATE the toy with every fibre of my being! So they didn't get their old toys that hadn't even been opened....the ungrateful little...ahem.....and I sold them! Hah! Take that! I sold them, what do you think about THAT then eh? Stupid toys. Anyway, the money will go back in the Christmas pot to buy more presents that they can ignore for a year and I can sell next October ready for next years Christmas.

So, that happened this week. Then the other 'event'. Hell-oween. That night of the year that we encourage young children to go round knocking on strangers doors and asking for sweets. Yes, you can see the issue straight away here can't you? We spend 364 days a year telling our kids NOT to go near strangers and most definitely DONT accept sweets from them! No wonder our kids get confused! 

So anyway, back to Halloween....there's nothing worse than sitting in and knowing your door knocker is going to be knocked loudly every 10 minutes for a few hours and set the dog off barking, so we did what we always do - we went round someone else's house! My bestie has always hosted Halloween because, quite frankly, she's bloody good at it! This time though, I couldn't afford costumes for their trick or treating (does anyone ever get tricked? I remember years ago, if we had no sweets, we'd get eggs pelted at the door! But they are all so young and polite, they wouldn't know what a 'trick' was if it toilet papered around them), so I decided the only way I could manage to not disappoint my kids was to turn them into zombies, and concentrate on the makeup! 

This is where I came into my own! Ever since I got addicted to Pixiwoo - who are makeup artists and post tutorials on YouTube, I started training as a makeup artist. I still hope when my health's better, to be able to do this, although I want to specialise in Bridal Makeup and I don't think the Zombie look is quite what a bride-to-be would be looking for.....but anyway, due to my earlier jaunts I'd managed to amass a fair bit of Special FX makeup goodies, so I could really go to town! As you can see from the picture above. I ended up doing a few other kids who decided they wanted to be zombies too, but I had a whale of a time turning my kids into rotting corpses, far too much fun than I'd like to admit to my kids.....

But the worst bit, well....you use this stuff called Rigid Collodion which tightens as it dries and puckers the skin in, so this looks like a real dented in scar! The kids all loved this effect although I was slightly heavy handed with it. Ahem. Anyway, I hadn't really thought too much on the removal side of thing, using the parent golden rule of "no matter what it is, it will come off with a baby wipe!". It does NOT come off with a baby wipe.

It also does not, unlike instructions to the contrary, come off with alcohol or a 'good soak'. According to the web, you should just be able to peel it off. Which did technically work... What it doesn't mention is that it is stuck so tight to your children's baby fresh skin, that "peeling" it off in fact is slightly misleading - the only way to get it off is by ripping it off! Including a light layer of your child's skin! So, apart from Satan who feels nothing because she's just well 'ard, the two boys ended up crying and wailing and it took a good deal of pinning them down and torturing them to get the bloody stuff off! My friend was doing that thing, you know, where they're looking at you with distinct alarm in their eyes whilst trying to smile encouragingly at the kids, whilst saying quietly between her toothy encouraging fake smile that "oh look, it leaves their skin bright red and looks like a real scar haha" (nervous laughter. I think..). And oh my Lordy, the lines of red that were left on their skin was indeed bright red and did infact look like a real scar! Then, and only at that point, did I remember the distinct instructions for applying rigid collodion to sensitive skins, was to put it on after you'd sprayed their faces with a barrier spray.

Oops.

I did bring the barrier spray with me, I even had it on the table amidst the piles of brushes and sponges and bruise wheels and white foundation....unfortunately I'd completely forgotten to use it.

Oops. Again.

Once I'd ripped their skin to shreds, we drove home, with Mental crying and saying his cheeks were still sore, at the same time as all of them turned into hyper sugar monsters whilst simultaneously starting to feel sick and tired. It was a very sombre troup that staggered indoors, I had to apply some repair cream to the kids scar marks, and thankfully this morning they woke up without permanent scars! Phew! Yay me!

They DID look bloody good though, even if I do say so myself! Well, Satan looked pretty much the same as every day, and pretty much acted the same as every day but that's another story for another day! 

Happy Hell-oween all, if you have any Halloween stories to share, please do! Anything at all that stops me feeling like the evilest Mummy that ever did live! 

I'm going to go and steal candy from my babies now, catch you later Chummies! 😁

X

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...