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I shall start by making a disclaimer.  I LOVE being a mother, and for all the bad there are plenty of good there to outweigh it.  But there are just a few aspects of parenting that I do not enjoy, in the slightest.  So here are my two pet dislikes of my role as a mother….

1. I have never enjoyed bathing my children.

The scene is set.  You have this wonderful tiny bundle of joy that you bring home from the hospital.  You have already changed their first nappy, given them their first feed and lovingly dressed them in their first outfit.  So before you can put them to bed in their first crib you need to give them their first bath.  Well that bubble was well and truly burst in our household!

From the minute I ran my eldest sons bath he screamed.  He screamed whilst I was undressing him and he screamed as I lowered him gently (well as gentle as you can lower a thrashing mess of flailing limbs) into the water.  My husband was poised ready with the camera to capture our sons first bath but quickly abandoned that idea when the screaming reached fever pitch and my son turned purple with anger.  It wasn’t until we removed him from the water and returned him so the safety of my arms that he calmed down.  My second son was not much better.

Fast forward 5 years and the sound of the bath running is still met with cries, but now its lots of;

“But Muuuuuuuuuuum we had a bath YESTERDAY!”.  Yes boys, we wash every day.

“Muuuuuum, Donnie/Hayden (delete where applicable, it changes regularly enough) splashes too much.” Then don’t go near each other, in fact, don’t talk to each other. 

“Muuuuuuuuuum, it’s too cold for a bath.” Honestly boys, when you are my age and someone not only offers to run a bath for you, but wash you and get you dry after, you will NOT be making this excuse!

So with this in mind, I eagerly await the day when my children can take themselves off to the bath, shut the door and leave me in peace…!

  1. Getting creative is no fun.
I always feel a tinge of guilt when I hear other parents describe lovingly how they spent a rainy afternoon building lego, painting pictures or baking cakes with their children.  For me, getting creative with my children gives me a sense of dread.

Firstly, Lego is the devil.  Not only is it lethal on the floor (cue banshee screams in the dead of night when you step on one whilst trying to put clothes away in the kids room) but my children lack any imagination when it comes to building things so I am met with “Mum, can you help with this?” Ask your Dad….

I am pleased to say that I do bake occasionally.  And sometimes I even involve the children in this.  I will happily get them standing on chairs to stir the mixture or to crack an egg.  But during this, the following conversation is quite common:

“Mum can I put the eggs in?”

“Yes darling, but don’t smash it too hard on……oh”

“URRRGH Mum it’s all over my hands!”

“Go upstairs and wash your hands, DO NOT touch anything on the way up”

“But Donnie/Hayden will get to do more cooking than me”

“We will wait then”

***waits 10 minutes, Donnie/Hayden wanders off bored, I look at the clock***

“Mum can I stir the mixture?”

“Yes darling just make sure that you don’t stir too hard because it will spill over the……oh”

“MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM it’s all over me!

***sigh***

You see this is the reason that I make cakes whilst the children are in bed, or out of the house!

Bring on stuff that keeps them entertained that’s what I say!


 
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Recently, I seem to have a lot of pregnant women in my life.

I am not a midwife, nor anything medical (although I DO work for a Medical company) but many of my friends are expecting their little buns at various stages in the year.

Because of this, a lot of the conversations I have with them tend to lead to their fluctuating hormones and subsequently how it affects the others in their lives.

This got me thinking.  As much as I am a little bt more in control of my hormones than I was when I was pregnant with my little bundles, there are certain things that do affect my mood.  Here I go:

Work
This has to be top of my list as its the place where I spend the most time.

I can be in the best of moods when I awake, but all it can take is to open that first email on Monday morning to alter that in a click of a mouse.

Its not that I dislike my job.  Quite the opposite.  I am lucky that I am in profession which is both creative, administrative, managerial and responsible.  This keeps things pretty varied but I am also a control freak (my words, if anyone else says this I flip!) so if my carefully laid out plan for the day does change direction for whatever reason, this annoys me.  But this is also how it tends to work in Marketing.

Family
I love my family.  They are what inspire me, drive me, love me and support me.  They also happen to drive me crazy sometimes.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter, will often see my tweets of dispair when I get in from work and spend the ENTIRE time  (pre bedtime that is) disciplining the kids.  As with work, I can have a brilliant day, and look forward to sharing that with my children and hearing about their day.  Then I will walk through the door and see one sat on the naughty chair, and the other sobbing in the corner after yet another fight and I physically deflate.

This can work in the opposite way of course.  Skulking through the door after a day from hell, I am faced with two gorgeous little cherubs who excidedly fight for my attention to tell me about their day.  It moments like these that I know the reason why I go to work and this makes me happy.

Driving
I am lucky that on the whole, I love driving.  The huband and I often bicker before a long journey as to who will be the one to drive.  He often wins because he is a bad passenger and gets bored easily.  But this is fine as I can happily read, tweet and sing along with the kids to keep occupied.

But whilst in the car alone, I am in my element.  The radio is on (loud) and I am happy to drive wherever as long as I have a good radio show and good traffic.

Then it will happen.  The sea of brake lights ahead on the motorway.  A lollipop lady (oh thats a WHOLE new blog post..!).  A push bike too far out in the road or old ladies gossiping at a zebra crossing.  Thats my mood changed.

So aside from hormones, there are things that affect my mood on a daily basis.  What most affects yours?

 
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Last night whilst rummaging through my eldest son’s school book bag, I found a letter which made me smile:

“Dear Parent/Carer

We would like to invite you to attend this months PSA (Parent Staff Association) meeting in the hope that you will continue to join us as your child’s class representative at future meetings.”

I stopped reading at this point, shoved it straight in the junk draw and continued on with the other 101 jobs that I had to complete before bedtime.

The reason this kind invitation made me smile, wasn’t because I was happy to be given the opportunity to take part in these meetings, nor was I content in the knowledge that I would be able to consider it.  No the reason I had to stop myself from stuffing it into my mouth to conceal the laughter was because I have NO TIME!

Of COURSE I would love to be part of this.  In the same way that when they ask us to contribute towards the cake sale, that I would love to spend all afternoon with my children lovingly stirring cake mixture in a bowl, whilst they happily lick their fingers and glance up at my flour dusted face in awe of my amazing cooking abilities (this doesn’t happen by the way).

I would also love to volunteer for their school tip next week.  I could think of nothing better than to hold my son’s hand walking around a wildlife park, smug in the knowledge that I am spending this quality time with him whilst also impressing the teachers with my super mum abilities.  But again, this won’t be happening.

So yet again, last nights school letter made me feel like a bad Mum.

I SHOULD be doing all these things but I can’t.  I physically have not got the time or the brain capacity (being blonde of course…!) to do this stuff. I do my best, but there really are only so many hours in the day and when you work full time, the productive hours are taken up working,

So to lessen the guilt, (I blame the Catholic upbringing, the guilt NEVER leaves you!) I spent an extra 15 minutes with the boys at bedtime reading to them, discussing their day and encouraging them to read to settle themselves down for the evening.

I then continued to job number 84 on the list of things to do before bedtime….

Does anyone else suffer from the same “no time to be a proper Mum” guilt?