Blog List

As kids in 1970s Ireland, our typical Halloween costume was a bin bag with cotton wool or random pieces of coloured paper glued to it. Our face paint was dad’s black shoe polish and a red lipstick stolen from my mother’s makeup bag and we collected out trick or treat booty in plastic St Bernard bags. We all knew the houses where the best goodies were given out and the ones to avoid – those...

There is an estate in the town closest to me with wide looped streets and large pleasant houses. It’s a Mecca for the trick or treat crowd who descend upon it come Halloween like swarms of living dead locusts. On the 31st of October each year, a significant percentage of the estate’s residents flee for the night. Others darken every light and I assume, hide under the covers or tip toe about...

“Do you give your child pocket money?” the teacher asked me on Parent’s Day. “I do,” I said and in my head I was planning his punishment, thinking he’d done something wrong. I couldn’t have been further from the truth. ‘It shows!” she said. I was intrigued. I must admit it was due to the advice of a very wise friend that I had recently begun to give my three boys pocket money...

I’m not really a dog person. I’ve been through toilet training with my kids - why would I want to go through all that again? For a dog? But my kids think they want a dog and the word PUPPY topped last year’s list for Santa. So I offered to mind my friends’ dog while they went on holiday. For the purposes of this piece, let’s call him Fido. As many things do, it started well enough. Fido...

A friend of mine had a baby recently, and as I marvelled at the perfect little ears and teeny pink fists of the adorable bundle in my arms, I was filled with an overwhelming gratitude that this gorgeous baby was not mine. Notwithstanding her irresistible newborn smell and the endearing way she scrunched her mouth as she slept, all I could think about was the utter grind of new babies. When I look...

So today, just like every working day, I ran out the door to catch my bus, leaving a trail of destruction in my wake. Breakfast dishes still in the sink, wet clothes in the washing machine, toast crumbs and a few stray Cheerios on the kitchen floor and a pile of ironing so tall that it resembles the leaning tower of Pisa. Tonight when I get home from the office however I will walk into a house of...

I admit it. I used to snicker at the mothers who dropped their kids to school dressed in Lycra. The Gym Mummies; what could be more of a cliché, I said. Shoot me if I ever turn into one of those, I said. But then other forces took over. Forces making me sag and drag, which coincided with my second child starting school. Suddenly I realised that attending the gym a couple of mornings a week might...

When I started at this parenting malarkey five and a half years ago, I devoured tonnes of parenting books and took everything the parenting gurus said as gospel. I remember being horrified when my dad, who is very much of the old school style of parenting, told my precious Firstborn not to be so bold when she committed some routine toddler misdemeanour. She, not at all used to such harsh...

Schools have been back for over a month and it’s taken me that long to recover from the shell shock of back-to-school preparations. Each June I am filled with fresh resolve and good intentions; I promise myself that I will get those books early, sort out the school bag, the uniform, and all the supplies in plenty of time. Then I forget. Inevitably, on the day before school starts, I found myself...

Sometimes being a mother seems to revolve around ranting. It's either “Go to bed” or “Get up,” “Come inside and do your homework!” or “Go outside and get some fresh air!” You feel your hands plant themselves firmly on your hips and phrases like, “Do you think I'm made of money?” and “I'll bet Sophie/Jack/Isaiah doesn't talk to his/her mother like that!” slip...