On being a mother

The thing about being a good, kind, caring full time stay at home mother, about doing your job really well is that you can't talk about your successes to other people because all of your achievements belong in the end to your children.

Lets take potty training for instance and all those times you had to drop EVERYTHING you were doing and rush the child to the toilet so you didn't end up scrubbing the carpet with a wire brush and Dettol for the fourth time that day. And then one day, A. WHOLE. MONTH. LATER, the penny suddenly drops, their bladder has more control they get the whole potty training thing but it's too late as you've worn your right hand down to a stub and your carpet smells like your cat has invited all the neighbours cats in for a piss fest in the beds and rooms of your house.

Well, I'm going to break protocol here and blow my own trumpet a little and let you know about the hours I spent with Audrey (7 years old) teaching her to read, to spell, to find the letters on the computer keyboard and about how delighted I was that the changing of font size finally sunk in when she handed me this letter the other day after the ice cream van had left our road.

This house is a rocking....

Check out Rachels song. She wrote it herself last year and has recently had a little interest in it from someone in the music business and was asked to put it out in there on the internet wherever she can and see the response she gets to it. She asked me to put it here on my blog so here it is.

I think it's brilliant but then I would

What do you think?

And then she smiled

It's 8.30am on Saturday and Rod is up and ready to hit the barbers. He takes the two youngest with him because they insist on going. This insistence being born from the fact that they just love searching down the sides of the leather couch for €1 & €2 coins lost by previous customers more than they like watching their father getting a short back and sides.

When he returns 15 minutes later because the barber has something better to do on a Saturday morning than open his shop and cut hair we pack the car and head off to our place by the sea where we walk on the beach, start up the BBQ, open the wine and watch X-Factor while snuggled up in duvets because the gas fire is kaput.

I see that Lara is a little quiet and I quiz her in a jovial manner.

"What's the matter with my little moonoons" I say and she nods her head.
"Nothing"
"Oh is my little moonoons sad?" I ask and see little tears welling up in her eyes.
"No, there's nothing wrong" she laughs shaking her head
But I see her eyes fill up with tears and soon one drops on her little thirteen year old cheek and rolls down her face.
"Are you SURE?" I enquire
"You're making me cry" she insists still laughing but I see another tear drop from the other eye.
So I give her a cuddle and she goes back into her room for a while and when she comes out she sits on the couch and looks over at me.
"There's this weird rumour going around school about me" she says
"What is it?" I ask
"Well, everyone thinks I have my own personal social worker because Dad is hitting me and so I've spent the last week in care" she says wide eyed with a half smile on her face.
"Really?" I say.
"And do you have any idea who started that rumour" I ask.
"Yeah, probably ******" she says mentioning a girl in her class who herself doesn't have the happiest of childhoods if you know what I mean.
"Did you hear that Rod?" I say to Rod as he's passing us by to go outside.
I relate to him what she told me
"Nice rumour" he says blase-like and continues out the door only to return a short while later.
"And do you know who started this rumour?" he asks
She repeats what she told me earlier and that the girl who informed her about this rumour promised she wouldn't say who told her.
"Do you want me to go in to the school and speak to your Year Head?" I ask
"NO WAY" she cries and happy that she's shared her problem she sits back with a deep sigh, her black eyeliner smudged down her pale small face.

Her dad throws a packet of crisps into her lap.
"Eat those up or I'll give you a right box"
And then she smiled

Memoires of a Devoted Mother - not

So, finally, now that there's nobody home sick this week since the start of the month I keep expecting Ashton Kutcher to pounce out of the fridge and roar at me "You've been punk'd!"

I feel a little uneasy when I leave the house without my phone because I'm absolutely sure the Principal of the school will be leaving multiple messages to ask me how in Gods name could I mix up Swine Flu with a slight runny nose and could I please remove ALL of my daughters from the school IMMEDIATELY.

Amazingly all these OCD feelings seem to disappear at precisely 3pm and then it's the kids who are swinging out of the fridge with yogurts in their hands and biscuits in their pockets and I just keep on stirring the curry on the cooker top while listening to two times tables and spelling words like N E I G H B O U R. In fact I multi-task so well now that I can even take personalized orders for small red tubs of hair wax for a messed up look and while waiting for the rice to cook I can even restyle hair with an up to date, state of the art, side fringe. WOW. "Hay, didn't I just cut your hair last week I ask?" as she skips off to blow dry and flat iron her new hairstyle.

Yeah, it's quiet around here without Spongebobs waves of laughter drilling at a rate of over 20kHz into my ear drums, throwing me off balance as I dish out the dinner and causing me to cover our white west highland terrier with curry sauce so that she now looks exactly like the rest of our freckly family. Why I can hardly tell the difference between her and Audrey these days.

Who shall have a fishy on a little dishy

I know, I know.

It's been ages since I've updated here and to be honest I've been wondering, yet again, if it's worth my while.

Every time I decide it's time to wrap up this blog the only thing that stops me is how it helps me keep in touch with my brothers, sisters and my Mum and Dad and how much the kids will enjoy reading back over the escapades they got up to when they were young.

So whats new?

Well, I still have no car. The gearbox is being reconditioned as the reconditioned one the mechanic finally sourced up in Belfast after several weeks doesn't work in my car but I am hoping he will have finished work on it this week.

In the meantime my painting has taken a second place to my photography and I'm experimenting with some surreal portraits and having fun coming up with stuff like this



And, boy, that fish DID taste good.

Making headlines

So I'm walking out of the local supermarket when I notice the headlines on the free local newspaper that is stacked by the door.

Mother of young 14 year old boy is charged by emergency services for having to come to his aid when he climbed and got stuck up the top of a ruined castle on the sea cliff edge up the top of our town.

And I think of Lara and of that story she told me a couple of months ago about how her friends told a young boy who was a friend of hers, whom she used to go out with, that if he climbed to the top of the castle he would get a kiss from her and how he got stuck up there and how funny it was when they had to call the emergency services and then I remembered this occasion with the same young boy.



Expensive kiss.

Bloody recession

Now my car has given up the ghost and I'm on foot until it gets sorted out. So I've been thinking of some ways I could pull in my belt to save some money to pay the €2,000 - €3,000 bill I'll be sent if I end up having to have a new automatic gearbox fitted.

You know, saving money by buying clever reusable items instead of throwaway things. Things like this or perhaps even this for example for me, Rachel and Lara.
;)