Mummy&Roo

It seems my life isn't my own anymore. I knew having a child would change everything and change my name to Mummy but I didn't realise I'd lose everything. I can't clean, I can't tidy, I can't read, I can't eat, I can't sit nothing. It's not even enough that I sit stroking her arm i have to do it an exact way. I know I'm not unique, I know every parent struggles but I can only see my own experience and darkness. This week I have worked 3 days at my employer out for 11 hours a day, 1 day where I did 7 hours self employment, half a day being shouted around by the tyrant and so far 4 hours today in which time she's broken me. In the brief windows of time where Roo isn't driving me mad the cat comes and claws my leg. In all honesty I want to run away from everything. I love my daughter, I will put her before me whenever it matters, I am a good parent. I'm just sick of her happiness always seeking to be at the expense of my own. Ne...

Today we joined our childminder and the gang at Forest School. Forest school is an opportunity for the children to play and learn in an outdoor, messy, fun setting. There's a mud kitchen, bug viewers, a den, mud art. They make natural crafts and then have hot chocolate and biscuits around a fire. While I was there they were planning future visits (they go weekly) and how they would fit them in with their topics. I now know this is going to involve making bird feeder and some food adventures with the fire. I can hear some of you already "there's a fire, and children?!" yes there is a fire but the children go no where near it, there is a visual barrier of sticks, lots of supervision and most importantly they are taught. How can children ever learn about fire safety if they're never exposed to fire? I agree that it's better they are exposed to and experience risk at an early age so they can learn to handle that risk rather than just developing a fear. This go...

Today I have not stopped, I know this is the case for most Mums but I'm dead on my feet. My day started when Roo woke me up at 6am. Daddy has a serious case of man flu mixed with an undiagnosed musculoskeletal condition so he was totally out of action last night and this morning. I got Roo ready and fought the traffic to drop her off with her childminder. I fought back through rush hour traffic to get home to the germ and the work I had to do. Cue 2 hours of making shopping bags, writing address labels and packing everything away. At 11am I got in the car to start the main part of the day, drop 11 parcels at the post office and jump back in the car to head to Hull, an hour and 20 minute drive. Got there an hour early but thankfully they saw me early. The reason I drove all the way to Hull is because I'm taking part in a voluntary (read unpaid) drug trial into the possible treatments for PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and that's the centre running the trial. Somet...

Roo has really developed into her threenager title and the tantrums are becoming more common. Coping with these tantrums is new to us, the older one didn't do it. I've racked my brain and I think I remember some Super Nanny tips from years ago. At the moment we're trying totally ignoring it and carrying on as if it isn't happening, but I'm not convinced that's working overly well. We've tried giving her cuddles when she's tantruming or explaining what's happening but that just resulted in me being kicked. Most of the time when she's tantruming it's because she's frustrated that she can't do something, she's so determined. Anyone have any toddler tantrum tips? Drop them in the comments, I'll give most things a try once

This was going to be a very different post. I was originally going to write about never promising a toddler something when the weather can have an effect. All week we have been promising to take Roo to the fair if she was a good girl. It worked and she was good (to be honest, she's normally pretty good I just like to reward it). So today we were going to the fair. It was only small but that suited us because less rides = less expense and Paw Patrol were advertised to be there today from 3 - 5pm. So originally I was going to talk about the fact the rain was making it less of an exciting prospect. It chucked it down at about 2pm and we were thinking about how not fun it would be in the rain. Well the rain eased and we headed to the fair at around 3pm.   Roo was telling us she was "getting so cited bout the fair" the whole way there and we were all glad we'd decided to head down despite the weather. Then we got there and they were packing it all away! I was ...