Blog List

When I became pregnant with Ella, I became a woman possessed. I demanded that photos were taken to document each and every step of the journey. For someone who is remarkably backward when it comes to technology, I insisted photos were backed up and the word ‘memory stick’ took on a whole new meaning. I don’t know, maybe I subconsciously knew Ella would be my first and last so I didn’t want...

Myself and my husband celebrated our sixteenth wedding anniversary earlier this month. And subsequently found ourselves wandering nervously through the halls of a five star hotel and spa which my husband booked on a whim before remembering that, as a couple, we simply can’t handle this amount of fancy. The pressure gets to us, if I’m honest. We both feel the need to meet the romantic...

Expectant mums are often made to feel that pregnancy will be one seamless, peaceful journey where at the end we pop (not literally!) a beautiful little baby out; however this couldn’t have been further from the truth for me. Thankfully, I didn’t have any complications during my nine months and I know it can be a lot worse for other mums-to-be, but, to be honest, it totally freaked me out. Like...

I recently became aware of an online campaign which called for a minimum age requirement to be implemented with regards ear piercing and I, for one, am all for it. I normally subscribe to the ‘Live and let live’ school of thought, especially when it comes to parenting, but this is one of the few issues that really gets my back up. When I see an infant with studs pierced into her tiny lobes or...

I have finally figured out why women don’t get involved in politics. Or more specifically mothers. Today I got up, got the two kids ready, made lunches, made breakfast, got kids out, put on a wash while putting on my face while eating toast. Then it was up to the school to do shared reading, met a constituent at 9.30am, left at 10.15am to meet another constituent but was stopped by a lady...

I caught Joshua bullying a child in our estate on Saturday and suffice to say, I’m devastated. I’m horrified that my son dared treat another child in such a heartless manner and I’m heartbroken for the little boy who suffered at the hands of my own child that afternoon. What I encountered wasn’t playful jeering or a verbal spat between two children equally matched in both size and...

The trouble with sleep starts with trying to get the two-year-old to go to sleep. The long evenings have confused her. She remains unconvinced that bedtime is in fact bedtime since it’s now still bright outside. I tell her that in the summer the days are longer and when she asks why, I attempt to explain about the earth’s axis having a tilt and us all living on a giant globe spinning around a...

“Oh, you’re off on your ‘baby holiday’ then?” said a colleague to me before I left work to have my second child. Cue the blank stare from me. Was he joking or serious? Thankfully, I knew him well enough to know he was kidding me, but it got me thinking – is that what some people think? Baby – yes. Holiday? No. Really, no. With my first, I think I even deluded myself into thinking...

Someone said to me recently that a teacher has the easiest job in the world. I’ve never agreed with this assumption as I know just how much work is involved in teaching outside the classroom. At the present time we are bang-smack in the middle of the Leaving Cert exams; the most stressful time a young person will go through academically. It’s a time when their whole future depends on the...

As I was using the bathroom the other day, and trying to get five minutes peace (which didn’t happen) I suddenly realised that there are so many simple everyday things that I used to take for granted before I became a mum. They’re not a big deal, because you soon adjust to your new life as a parent, but every once in a while, I get slightly nostalgic for the life I had before I was a mum. 1...