The Only Girl in the House

Class of 2018 – Year 6 Leavers – A Parents Guide to the Emotional Turmoil of Leaving Primary School

Class of 2018 – Year 6 Leavers – A Parents Guide to the Emotional Turmoil of Leaving Primary School

The tears started rolling last October when Hugo’s year group sung with 7k other school children at the O2; I defy any parent with tweens not to shed a tear when they break into Ed Sheeran’s ‘Castle on the Hill’ en masse! Since then, it’s fair to say I’ve been a bit of an emotional wreck – not just due to Hugo’s perseverance to stay in school (read: not get his troublesome arse suspended), but the year of proud moments and revelations that come, unexpectedly, with year 6.

I just wish someone had warned me last September that Year 6 would knock my mothering socks off – house captain nominations, singing at the O2, SATs revision, SATs exams, school residential trip, school productions, SATs results and leavers events. Not to mention the currently gentle lapping waves of hormones which will inevitably become a tsunami in the not too distant future!

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A Short Story of Hope Pinched from My Instagram {Life After Divorce & Depression}

A Short Story of Hope Pinched from My Instagram {Life After Divorce & Depression}

I often worry that I fill my Instagram stories with mundanity only rivaled by a ‘lifer’ in solitary confinement; the day-to-day drivel which remains on repeat week after week – it’s my life, I love it, but I’m perfectly aware that it’s not for everyone entertainment-wise! It lacks the ingenuity of Nicola of the wonder-stories-tastic WeeSlice, the mothering hilarity of Susiejverrill and the warm, encouragement (and llama enabling) of Gemma, Mutha.hood . Then I get a late night email reminding me exactly why I need to share those insignificant, ‘nothing’ moments/minutes/days – it’s hope and to someone, somewhere, that’s exactly what they need.

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What I’m Cooking & They’re Eating: One Pot Pizza Pasta | Cheesy Tomato Orzo Recipe

What I’m Cooking & They’re Eating: One Pot Pizza Pasta | Cheesy Tomato Orzo Recipe

I’ve been asked a few times what I feed our rabble of 5 boys; do I have a menu plan? Do they all eat the same thing? The answers are whatever they eat; some weeks if I get my shiz together and NO! We have fussy ones, stubborn ones and I’ll-eat-anything-as-long-as-there’s-lots-of-it ones. But call me a blind optimist or naively hopeful, I persevere and occasionally hit culinary gold with an all-round winner.

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One Step Mum Forward, Two Step Sons Back

One Step Mum Forward, Two Step Sons Back

I had another blog post scheduled for today, but sometimes it’s the day to day minutia that create the most important message – today, I felt was one of those days. Normally the reserve of an Instagram post, I’ve decided to start giving some of my more War & Peace style captions their own space – where they can be found, referenced to and just make someone (even if it’s just me) feel a bit better when the shit hits the familial fan.

It was a mere week ago, Mother’s Day, that I wrote of the magic (and tribulations) of being a step-mum – I often feel a responsibility to round-off my honesty with a dose of hope, to bring my ramblings full circle – ‘sure it’s shit, but it’s shit for everyone and we’ve got this!’ It’s almost a bad habit. And last week I did exactly that with THIS post. Well, in the essence of honest balance I’ll willingly admit today, being a step-mum, was really pretty shit, and that alone.

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The Great Xbox Embargo

The Great Xbox Embargo

It’s become known as the day I thought they’d finally turn on me, that my own children would want to stab me in the eye with their overpriced, scented Smiggle pencils. T’was the first Saturday of the Christmas holidays, which may explain my naive, fuzzy optimism getting out of hand, however, ‘shouty mummy’ had already reared her scary head and unleashed the fury of a thousand toddlers denied “choc-choc”! I’d heard enough shouting “replenish my health” down headsets/into the next room/to the brother sitting 67cm away to last me a parental life time (thankfully shorter than the average due to Xbox induced stress levels and general sleep deprivation – there’s 3 parental years to the standard singleton year!); been told “…but I’m in a game!” like it was the answer to every possible request I could make of my children and seen the cherubic faces of my offspring for a whole 13.5 minutes (while they scoffed vital food supplies) in an 8 hour period.

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