Dear Father Christmas

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Dear Father Christmas,

This year for Christmas I'd like;

1. An extra pair of arms,
2. The ability to be in four places at once,
3. More hours in the day,
4. At least 5 hours undisturbed sleep a night (I know it should be more but I'm not expecting miracles.)
5. I'd like to walk into a room and REMEMBER why I'm there,
6. I'd like to be more organised (I feel like if you sorted 2 and 4 for me 5 and 6 wouldn't even be an issue.)
7. I'd like the memory of somebody that has slept in the past 4 years.
8. I'd like to have the energy to have an actual conversation with my husband when my kids have gone to bed.
9. I'd like my kids to go to bed.
10. In their own beds...
11 ...and stay there.
12. I'd like to be allowed to use the toilet without being cried at or accompanied and if it's all the same to you I'd also really rather not have a conversation through the door.
13. I'd really like somebody else to cook dinner sometimes...
14. ..Or just to load the dishwasher AFTER I've cooked dinner.

If all else fails I'd settle for a lifetime supply of prosecco 🍾


Yours exhaustedly,
Jess 😘

The toys are taking over!

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Trying to make room for more bastard toys!

I HATE sorting out kids toy boxes/cupboards before Christmas!

I've thrown away a bin bag and a half full of rubbish....but have managed just half a bag full of toys that they don't play with.

I just know they aren't going to allow me to give away...

...even though they haven't played with or even touched let alone thought about in the last decade!

Every single toy in that (half a) bin bag will suddenly become the crown jewel 💎 of toys...that they will literally die if they don't have...

I will become the world's 🌎 worst mum for daring to put this treasure into said bin bag in the first place....!

....they will scowl at me whilst clutching their (now) TREASURED possessions like they don't even know who I am anymore!

There will be no more room for more fucking toys than when I started my kids will just hate me that little bit more!

I might as well give up trying to have any part of my house toyless and give in and face the fact that the toys are taking over....and start answering the phone 'Hello...Mr Magorium's wonder emporium?'

As a parent do you ever?

As a parent do you ever:

spend so much time in the house with your child when they've been ill that you worry that your social skills will have dissolved almost completely by the time you're free to roam once again
in the adult world....and you will have lost the power to converse about anything other than peppa pig or worse you've spent so long
reading football related annuals/magazines to your young son whilst he's been poorly you're worried you'll be forced to only talk about FOOTBALL and worst of all; you'll KNOW what you're talking about!!! People will start thinking you LIKE football! They will start inviting you to watch it! The worst bit is you'll have to accept because you'll have lost all your ACTUAL friends when you lost your ability to talk about anything remotely interesting!

No?! Just me? Fuck my life 🍾

inspire and flourish linky

This right here is my fledgling attempt at participating in a linky, I'm not entirely sure on the rules and regulations of a linky so I'm just; like most things I do, winging it (life, eyeliner, parenting) The lovely gorgeousgeorgesmama was good enough to include me in hers so here I am attempting to continue in the love sharing.

If you're a new reader; I'm something of a novice blogger more of a professional ranter (it so IS a word!) I don't get as much time as I'd like to participate in said blogging/ranting (or sadly reading other people's) as a result my blog is nowhere near as fancy as some of the utter beauties I've come across on my travels. 

MY blog much like myself as a parent is slightly worn, constantly exhausted, and ever so slightly out of shape but that's ok because all my energies are taken up by my full time job; impersonating (poorly) a superhero (parenting) with 8 arms (why aren't there more arachnid superheroes?!) As I myself spend my entire life running around after what seems like 500 children, a man and a cat whilst caring for my young son who has 4 limbed cerebral palsy, for want of a better description; Caring gives the impression I'm looking after someone that is ill in bed, when in fact it feels more like being a weight lifting cbeebies presenter who moonlights as a personal assistant with a nursing degree with a side-line in pharmaceuticals, so the last thing I want when I sit down (haha I jest, I mean read on my phone (that I incidentally smashed to smithereens last week whilst balancing it vicariously on the kitchen side on top of a sugar tin attempting to read a recipe) whilst running around like a blue arsed fly) for a little bit of light entertainment is endless blogs by people that are pretending that everything is perfect..so here is a list of parents who are keeping shit real! enjoy:

Firstly I'd like to properly introduce the lovely lady that was good enough to include me in this linky gorgeousgeorgesmama who is a fellow stay at home Mum and her blog, particularly her post confession of a proverbial fuck up which is a post I think many/most...if not all stay at home parents can relate to, and I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise for my tardiness in participating in said linky and also to reassure her that if she is a fuck up then so am I! PS. Care bear rock!

I'd also like you to meet the wonderful creator of said linky The less refined mind and her linky http://www.refinedprose.com/inspire-flourish-increase-da/ who incidentally I would have included whether or not she had taken it upon herself to give life to this linky. As I really enjoy her blog refinedprose.com I find her refreshingly honest and wonderfully articulate.To the mother whose autistic child couldn't behave is a brave and completely honest post and as someone that has autism and disabilities in general intrinsically woven into her daily life I just wanted to include it, also I utterly adored this post I dislike other people's children you and me both! (hopefully I've done your linky justice.)

Meet the lovely part time working Mummy who is truly a woman after my own heart in her realism and blatent honesty, I particularly enjoyed her post We're all the same but in all honesty she has me in stitches on a daily basis and so eloquently deals with the issue of Mum guilt! (we all have it! whether we are stay at home or working, promote breast or bottle, are tea total or functioning alcoholic.

Hurrah for gin is already well on her way to world domination, and quite rightly so, this woman quite simply has parenting in a nut shell (with the help of stick men and copious amounts of gin) kids don't stop talking (2 of mine nagging me incessantly as we speak whilst I desperately try to finish this post.)

Queen Constance Hall almost needs no introduction, I have the hugest girl crush on this woman, in fact I nominate her for world leader 4 things that upset me that upset me when I first became a mum that I'm #nofucks about now just encapsulates what she is about.

I could go on to include many more parent bloggers that inspire me but it's seriously getting like lord of the flies up in here so peace out!

Muuuum Who's your favourite premier league team? ⚽️👩🏼🔫

Today has been sick....no, not in a good way, I'm not attempting to be street; it's literally been sick, there's been the distinct stench of vomit in the air...there have in fact been points where I felt like I was literally swimming in the stuff.

My little man has a bug and I feel so sorry for the poor little mite, anyone that reads my other blog knows he has enough going on as it is http://thesecretworldofmax.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1but germs do not discriminate (quite rightly...perhaps the rest of the world could take a lift out of their teeny tiny parasitic book....)we are all one and same to them....anyway he's ok; he never really lets anything get him down for long, as long as he's gleefully tormenting me with something sport/football related! Today's delights have included reruns of the world cup qualifiers (now ladies don't be jealous) and I have been so lucky as to get the opportunity to read 'The official Arsenal annual 2016' (cover to cover...whilst feigning interest) without my poorly little dude's influence I feel this experience is one I'd have otherwise missed out on in life and now I know far more about Arsenal than I have ever wanted to.............by tea time I felt a little violated by copious sport and vomit....and quite wanted to vomit AT the copious sport...so I consoled myself with an entire 'Big Daddy box meal' and as I am neither big OR a Daddy I am now entirely made from KFC, so I'm out!

peace and love! ✌🏻️💛

Where the fuck is my fairy godmother at?

Do you ever think to yourself whilst you're feeling like dog shit from some bug or another but you're still getting up to your kid ALL night (up and down, up and down like a mother trucking yo-yo) coz let's be honest there's nobody else to pick up the slack! Or when you're trying to get your kids washed, fed, watered, dressed and packed ready for school on zero sleep (like you could actually audition for a part in a zombie movie minus the make up.) or whilst you managed a whole day on zero sleep and you're feeling like something the cat's dragged in (and by all accounts you've done a sterling job of not falling asleep standing up ALL day...not even once!) and your eyes are literally BEGGING to be closed (you've actually considered using matchsticks...however painful it looks) but you still have to make an dinner interesting that's wholesome enough to satisfy your family, help with homework, bath the kids, do the bedtime routine, iron uniforms, pack lunches, wash up...and feed the cat....and even though they are all individually little jobs... they at that moment feel like the equivalent of climbing mount  kilamanjaro...do you ever think to yourself; 'Where the FUCK is MY fairy godmother?! That little bitch is late....!'

knowing my luck...we get the fairy god mother we deserve...and mine is DRUNK in a skip somewhere.

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The epiphany

I'm not sure when the optimum time to have one is, but there seem to be a lot of people waiting until they're past the 30 mark to have them...some individuals are a little more evolved and have them younger I'm sure, and some are a little later and society likes to try and shoe horn them into the midlife crisis category! 'Have you seen Sheila has got a tattoo?!' Or 'Simon's bought a motorbike!' well she/he must be having a mid life crisis! I personally prefer the term epiphany.

I'm talking about the moment you wake up and think; Oh hold up! Stop! Excuse me how do I get off? Where's the emergency cord? Is there a little box with glass I should smash?! HELP! This is NOT my life! This is not the way it was supposed to go! I am not the person I imagined I'd be, whose is this house?! Whose are these things? I don't even like this top! Who the fuck chose this carpet?!

Until my epiphany I was one of life's plodders, I just let life lead the way, hell I didn't even LOOK where I was going! I constantly bumped into things! I'm pretty sure I was unconscious (obviously not literally) for the majority of my life, I made my decisions (big.....HUGE ones even!) at an extremely basic level....I never really engaged with myself properly to see if they were the right ones! I never asked MY opinion, I did things that felt good on a primal level (just call me cave girl) , or because I had to, or because I thought I should because other people expected me to, or because I thought that's what society expected of me; in short I made decisions like a toddler  (not even a very clever one at that, there are 2 year olds out there that are more self possessed than I was) but if you plod through just letting life happen to you like a blank canvas never owning your decisions then you'll never be happy...or even have the right to call yourself a person...

I personally woke one morning...actually I'm pretty sure I couldn't pin down and actual morning....it was a slower process than that....it was like this unsettled feeling started seeping in under the door one day and across the floor, soaked in through my shoes and my socks, through my clothes, and up my legs....until I completely absorbed the feeling of impending doom, took it on as personality trait wore it around like a really drab outfit (from OXFAM! If you're wondering; It was grey) I walked round wearing it for a bit...calling it depression when actually I think what it was an epiphany...just sitting there patiently whispering into my ear, but I just wasn't engaged enough to listen...I was plugged in...the lights were on but nobody was home.

The problem with letting life just happen to you/going through the motions/doing everything on auto pilot...(picture this: you're driving a train without properly thinking about it, you're not looking or even wearing a seat belt) is that you're letting it happen to other people too, everybody that's in any form of relationship with you (your passengers) is going to be effected by your inability to make a conscious decision and when you WAKE THE FUCK UP (or the train inevitabley crashes!) that's going to rock their world too. For me I woke up in a long term relationship where we were BOTH letting life happen to us, going along for the ride, we were just there for the popcorn, there for the show....in fact if anything we were both on self destruct making each other utterly bloody miserable! With children who deserved better, living in a house that made me feel shit (grey) , in a street that made me feel shit (grey), working in a job that made me feel shit! (Grey) So picture this; I wake up, the real me, little me, me before I let life sweep me away like some huge river or sea  (without even swimming or fighting against the tide) or something and I am in this huge woman's body....wrapped in clothes I wouldn't have chosen in a million trillion billion years surrounded by people/possessions I wouldn't have chosen coz frankly little me likes the sparkle...and I'm like 'WAIT! Hold the phone! Stop  the show! Time out! Can we get an intermission please?! This is NOT my body, these are not my clothes! This is not my LIFE! WHERE THE FUCK IS THE GLITTER PEOPLE?! Then I kicked my own (adult size...zombie) arse...ninja style...like a Jedi knight....I took myself down... like a baddie from kill bill...and put little me in back charge again.

Once I had sat back and taken stock I realised even in my unconscious state I'd done a pretty damn good job on my kids so far, at least asleep (zombie/walking dead) me had realised the importance of properly rearing children! Since that day though with little me in her rightful place in charge (and driving the train with her eyes WIDE open) it's like a grey cloud has been lifted, the world looks more colourful (and sparkly), I've remembered things (hobbies) I like to do, I make conscious
decisions and have stopped letting life happen to me!  I don't regret anything that happened when I wasn't really taking any notice (when I wasn't watching the road but instead gazing out of the window dreamily) because I wouldn't be me if  not for them...and regrets breed guilt and guilt breeds anxiety and frankly I just don't have the time plus...little me isn't having any of it as we're too busy doing WHAT THE FUCK WE WANT AND COVERING THE WORLD IN GLITTER.


*footnote; what a hippy prick I sound. Oh well! No fucks! ✌🏻️💛
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