Just Call Me Slummy Mummy

I’m suffering from mummy guilt. Or maybe I should make that housewife guilt, because its not exactly the mothering side that I’m feeling guilty about, but rather the taking-care-of-housework side. That is, I kind of feel like some things are getting away from me and that makes me feel like I’m not doing the best job I can.


See there is cleaning washing piling up all around me – some that needs folding, some that I’ve already folded and just haven’t put away yet; dirty washing to be done sitting in the laundry; I haven’t vacuumed the floors in well over a fortnight and I think my wonderful post-baby hair fall is causing my bathroom tiles to resemble a shag carpet. Even as I take 10 minutes or so to sit here and blog, I know I could be using this time to put away the clean dishes ( that Mick washed last night ) or fold some of that piled up washing ( most of which Mick washed on the weekend ). I also know that all those parenting and mummy magazines say that the dishes can wait – whats most important is me and my baby – but I cant help but feel that bad that my house does not look like my mothers house, or at least the way I remember my mums housing looking when I was a kid.

Granted, my mum also let the clean washing pile up ( so maybe that’s hereditary ) but as far as I can remember Mum always had the carpets vacuumed, the furniture dusted, the dishes washed,dried and put away and had everything ready so that when Dad got home he could cook the dinner ( yep, my Dad did most of the cooking. He’s just better at it then my mum ). I know my mum had the whole “ it’s a womans work “ thing ingrained in her brain by my grandma and believe me, I don’t want to be some kind of weird Stepford wife, living only to please her husband. But I feel like Mick deserves a nicer, neater house than what I keep it, and I feel like I’m letting him down in someway. He says I’m not and, besides, I make him awesome muffins… but still, I just feel like I could do better.

So tell me other mums – and not-mums who manage to keep everything in order: how do you do it ? And, if like me, your in slummy-mummy territory, how do you feel about it?

An ( Almost ) Day In The Life....

Time again for another Blog This! challenge:
Do you have a day of the week that is your favourite or you dread? Take us through the day or your week- what happens, what makes it pleasant/challenging - Do a mini-diary of your day - let your readers know what your life is REALLY like. Take photos if you wish...:

I want to preface the bulk of this post by saying that I’m a new mum to an 11 week old baby boy – I haven’t had a “ typical “ day in almost 3 months, ok? That being said, routines are starting to develop and patterns are slowly starting to emerge so in the spirit of the challenge I have come up with what I hope will soon be a “ normal “ day….


7:30am – woken up by baby sounds. Not crying, not grizzling – then what is it ? Its giggling. Find my son awake in his cot laughing his guts out at the mobile above his bed. Alternate between thinking he is insanely cute and just plain insane.
7:40am – Time for a feed: booby juice for the baby and peanut butter on toast for me. Remember to take the pill ( no more babies just yet thanks! ) and multivitamins.
8 – 8:30am – playtime. Pop Flynn down on his playmate and watch him kick the crap out of the musical frog and the rattle. He doesn’t really open his hands to reach for things yet but boy can my child kick! Follow kicking with tummy time ( which is getting better ) and general goo-goo-gaa-gaa-ing ( as opposed to Lady Gaga-ing, which is not suitable for babies ). Send Mick off to work with a kiss and a quick bum-squeeze.
8:45 – 9:15am – steal time for a quick shower and a check of email and Facebook. Of course, nothing important or special , just the usual chain emails or spam from my Grandma. Seriously, she sends me the worst emails…
9:20am – more booby juice for Flynn. He’s a hungry boy in the mornings.
9:40am – get Flynn dressed for the day. This sounds simple but sometimes its hard trying to pick the cutest outfit for the days events. If we’re staying home he needs a cute snoozing outfit; if we’re going out shopping, he needs an outfit that will make old women stop me and say “ Aww, what a cute baby! “; and if we’re going to mothers group he needs an outfit that will impress all the girl babies.
10am – 11:30am – head out of the house on some kind of excursion ( usually ). On this particular made up day we’re going out to the shops to get ingredients for dinner ( which I’ve very inconveniently left off the shopping list when we did our groceries ) and then stopping in at Grandma and Poppy’s for a visit.
11:45am – 2pm – Feeding time again. Watch “ The Ellen Degeneres Show “ followed by “ The View “. Flynn may fit in a little half hour nap somewhere here, which allows me time to eat some lunch and go to the toilet.
2pm – 3pm – change the channel so we can watch “ Ready.Steady.Cook! “ Ponder what ingredients I’d have in my gourmet bag and which chef I would most like to cook with. Give Flynn another round of milk and put him down for a good nap this time – none of this 30 min napping, I’m talking at least an hour this time.
3pm – 5pm – get a bit of alone time, which I use to catch up on at least one of the following: blog reading; blog posting; folding of washing; bathroom cleaning; baking; or stealing a nap for myself. Watch “ Martha “ and delight in how easy she makes everything look… but then remember I have neither the skill nor the time to make Twice Baked Red Wine Veal Blahedy Blah. Listen intently for baby cries.
5pm – hear those cries. Scoop my son up out of his cot and settle in for another feed. Get excited because Mick will be home soon which means both someone to share the load with and to have some adult time with. Not that kind of adult time ( too early for that! ) – more like adult conversation instead of gurgling.
5:30 – 7pm – kiss Mick hello when he comes in. Chat about our day while we both make faces to entertain Flynn. Flynn doesn’t take his eyes off Daddy, which means I can sneak out into the kitchen to cook some dinner. Try and watch “ Neighbours “ inbetween chopping, stirring or turning. End up missing the most important part.
7 – 9pm – Dinnertime: some type of fabulous gourmet meal ( read: attempted gourmet meal ) for Mick and I, yet another round of milk for Flynn. He’ll have two feeds in this time and be fed, changed, wrapped, cuddled and put to sleep by 9pm.
9 – 10pm – “ alone “ time for Mick and I. We’ll watch the end of a tv show and then get ready for bed, where we will either snuggle down and have a bit of a chat, enjoy some “ sexy “ time ( without having a huge baby bump in the way! ) or curl up together and go straight to sleep. Sometimes, on energetic days, we do all three.
Around 4:40am – wake up to little grizzles coming from Flynn’s room. Night feed which, thankfully, doesn’t take too long because my boobs are fit to burst and the milk flows pretty fast. Burp and change the bubba boy and wrap him back up. Straight back into his bed, and straight back into mine. Start pushing out the zzz’s as quickly as possible, otherwise its going to get to 7:30am when it starts all over again…

Thinking Happy, Week 7 ( ? )

Ok, at leats i think i'm up to Week 7. Either way, its time for another weekly round of Operation Think Happy, brought to you by Holly at Good Golly Miss Holly!

1. Time with family and friends - yesterday was such a great day. Mick, Flynn and I visited with a dear old friend of mine, a lovely older lady that i've known for years, and it was a pleasure to catch up and be able to introduce her to my little family. Plus, after that, we got ourselves some Subway for lunch and headed to one of our local parks and met up with my parents, my sister, my 2 neices, my  uncle and his 2 daughters.... for a huge playdate!

2. Lovely weather - the sun makes me smile. It amkes me smile even more when the temperature is not so hot that you feel like you're going to drown in sweat, but not so cold that you need to bundle yourself up. Its been a week of absolutely lovely weather and i've been fortunate enough to be able to get out and enjoy it.

3. New recipes - So remember how i wanted to be Martha Stewart ? Well i've really been giving it my all this past week. I went through some recipe books, wrote myself out a shopping list, and cooked some really yummy meals this week. Mick has appreciated the effort and always tells me how good the meal was and thanks me for cooking it ( even when its crap! ) so its made me smile that i can cook nice meals for my family, without becoming too boring.

4. Fitting back into my pre-pregnancy jeans - hallelujah! Again, i dont really feel the need to mention the specific size but fitting back into my pre-pregnancy jeans made me happy because a) there are 2 or 3 pairs i  just really love and b) i dont have to waste money on hew jeans to fit my post-pregnancy body!

5. My son - he just gets cuter and chubbier and more clever by the day. He's learnt to poke his little tongue out ( cheeky boy! ) and now if he's sitting on my lap and i take hold of his little hands and gently lift them up, he plants his little feet and pushes up with his legs til he's standing. He think its the neatest trick ever and i think its too cute when he looks all chuffed with himself.

6. Getting to have a long shower - most days i get enough time to jump under the water, have a quick scrub of my bones and jump out. So it makes me happy when i can leave Flynn with his daddy and take a long, hot shower, shave my legs and wash my hair properly. Mmm, bliss....

7. ' Special ' time with Mick - if i have to explain this one to you, your too young and naive to be reading my blog...

What A Pain In The Proverbial

Oh Telstra, how i hate thee....

I'm sure everyone has hated their internet service providers at one time or another, but i seem to get crap service from Telstra every single time i need them. See, if you've been wondering where i got to this past week the answer is - nowhere. I didnt go anywhere or do anything special, i just didnt have any access to the inter-web. First of all, my stupid laptop started playing up again ( for the 4th time in 2 years of owning it ) and then, when i tried to use my wireless USB modem in my old desktop, the USB modem died aswell. I had previously been told that i should be able to use the modem in more than one computer but no - when i try doing that, it just carks it. Of course, this means i need to ring Telstra and get them to fix the problem. Which, after 45 minutes of being on hold and/or being transferred between departments, i am told they cant do for at least 2 or 3 days. Argh!

So of course, i've suffered major withdrawals for the past few days. Just when i was getting back into the swing of regular blogging, and had found some great blogs to read - pfft, no internet. What the hell was i supposed to do all week without it? Turns out i had plenty of housework to keep me occupied, and i managed to put some photos in my sons album and baby book…. But that wasn’t the same as keeping up with all my bloggy friends! Now I feel like I might have missed something!


So – if something super awesome happened to you in the past week, let me know in the comments so I can pop on over to your page and catch up. Or, on the flip side, tell me how ridiculous I’m being and that the interweb is not the be and end all. Sure, because that will make me feel better….

I've Been To The Summit - And Things Have Only Gone Up From There...

Another Blog This! challenge - Take us on a journey. Your journey. Something you've achieved, somewhere you've travelled, someone you've become. How has it challenged or changed you?

I've been to the summit, and things have only gone up from there.
Ok, not exactly " the " summit. Not even " a " summit. Just Summit - Summit, NJ. What i mean is that i once lived in a place called Summit, NJ, and since that time my life has only been on the up and up.

I lived in this house:

I looked after these children:

And i had friends like these:

And what did i find during my amazing one year stay ? I found me. Thats right - i had to journey to the otherside of the world, 14 hrs on a non-stop flight, and experience things outside my normal experiences to find who i really was. Really am, i suppose. I'm not going to go into details ( lets face it, there is  hell of a lot of detail invlved over the course of a year ) but suffice to say that by physically travelling - taking a physical journey and having the physical experiences - i really changed and developed on an emotional level.

I lived with a wonderful family with 3 beautiful boys, working as their nanny. I was on a foreign volunteer program, so i made fruends from all over the world - just in that photo up there we have people from the Dominican Republic, France, Colombia and the Czech Republic. I had to live and learn in a new culture, deal with things i hadnt dealt before ( you know, like living on the opposite side of the planet to EVERYONE i knew ... ) and it truely was a " sink or swim " situation.

But you know what ? I gotta say, i think i did ok. I lost the depression and found some confidence; gained a second family and lost some weight; made new friends and destroyed old bad habits. Everything changed for the better because i was brave enough to take a step outside my box and try something new.....

Oh My God - I've Just Done A Runner!

I'm a thief. Accidentally, of course. Let me set the scene :

My mothers group had its final, official meeting today ( i say official because we can still keep meeting up after today, but it wont be run by our local community health nurses anymore.. ) and, as is tradition with the final meeting, we went out to lunch. It just so happens that one of the other new mums in my group owns a local cafe/resturant and said it would be a problem to have 16 mothers, babys and prams in her establishment - so, naturally, we decided hers would be the best place to go. She had a hug table set up down the back of the resturant so that all us mothers could fit and the wait staff could still serve other customers up front.

Lunch was great - i had a lovely chicken and avocado penne, Flynn was kind enough to stay asleep so i could eat uninterrupted ( good boy! ) and it was nice to have a bit of conversation and general chit chat without being guided to a particular weekly topic. We werent rushed for time so it was a nice, lazy lunch. Eventually it got to a point where some mums started packing there things up and saying their goodbyes and we started leaving in dribs and drabs....

At which point, after having fed my son, i packed up his stuff, put him in his pram.....and promptly walked out the door without paying for my meal. Oh.My.God! I'd done a runner and i didnt even realise until i got home - i called the resturant straight away and apologised and said that i would drop my money in to them tomorrow morning. Its going to be soooo embarrassing going in there - i mean, if it were just some random place and i didnt know the owner i could just take my money in and never, EVER, go back. But seeing as we've decided to make this cafe our regular meeting place i cant exactly take that option.

So i guess i'll just have to live with my shameful moment tomorrow - suck it up, blame the mistake on baby brain, and try to remember to pay my tab before leaving next time....

Follow the Yellow Brick Blog!

So - i'm up to 14 followers! Go team Amy go! I know that sounds like an absolute pitiful amount to some of you out there, those of you have literally hundreds of people reading you, but 14 is huge to me. I like that there are now 14 people out there there who like what i'm doing, who like my writing enough to officially press the ' Follow ' button. I feel like the last month has seen a major return to blogging for me - I'd never really stopped but the quality of my posting had. But I have a passion for it again. I'm writing more often and i'd like to think i'm writing better stuff. And not only am i writing more, i'm inspired to read more, and am spending a bit of time each day searching out new and exciting blogs to add to my reader.

However, and this is sad - i've been dumped. Bumped. Rejected, as it were. And i'm kind of upset about it. Here's the scenario - one of the blogs that i have been reading FOREVER has been made an invite-only blog.... AND I WASNT INVITED. Why am i kind of upset about this ? Well, this was the first blog i ever read, the blog that got me interested in blogging. I'd been reading it from its inception and reading it religiously, hardly ever missing a post. I felt like this blogger was my friend - in fact, we even met up once and hung out for four or five days, despite the fact that we lived over 10 hours drive apart. So i think it would be fair to say that if you were going to make your blog invite-only, i would be on the list. Right ? Yet, i'm not.

Where did i go wrong? Did i comment too much ? Not enough ? Did i start writing too much about pregnancy and babies and boring mumma stuff, and that somehow excludes me from reading what you write ? I just dont get it. I mean i'm loyal, man - if you write consistently good stuff, i'm there with you for the long haul.

You know, unless you decide to go and make your blog invite-only and then dont invite me....