Friends Archives : Me, Annie Bee.

I’ll be there for you.

Anna — Mon, 27 Mar 2017 05:00:15 +0000

This week I saw a lovely little competition running on a Facebook page. The rule of the competition was to tag the mums who “no matter what are ALWAYS there for you, through thick and thin, sleep deprivation, toddler meltdowns and everything in between….this is about the mum friends who would STILL give you that hug even when you’re covered in baby sick!” When I saw the competition I smiled for it’s always nice to see such lovely gestures and to see Mums, heck just women in general, encouraging and supporting one another and it was heartening to see how many lovely ladies were being nominated. And then I thought about who I could nominate and I got a bit sad. (You can pop and get your tiny violin for this bit), yes I could nominate lots of lovely Mums. I have a lovely group of friends. Lovely people who I can have a coffee with, have a few pints with or a whinge at. Heck one of them has even given me a hug when I cried once. But looking at the line “no matter what are ALWAYS there for you, through thick and thin” I don’t have THAT friend, the friend I can text in the middle of the night with my woes who I know will text back as soon as they get the message even if it woke them. The friend I can call upon if I’m having a really shit day and just need someone to sit quietly with. The friend who will rock up with a bottle of wine at the exact right time because I mentioned in passing I was finding life a bit tough. The friend who I would actually tell that life is a bit tough and that sometimes I’m not coping. I don’t have THAT friend. I grew up down south (admit it, you went ‘daaarrrrn saaarrrfff’ in your head then didn’t you?) when I was 11 and about to start senior school we moved up north (oop North, I know you did that too). Mobile phones weren’t available to commoners and the internet hadn’t been invented yet (I’m old) and 11 year olds starting big school and making new friends aren’t very good at letter writing and phoning each other. Besides a long distance call on a landline would have had a watch tapping parent in the background. So, obviously, I lost touch with the friends I grew up with. It’s OK though because I moved to a new school and eventually made new friends but once we hit sixth form we all went off to different colleges. Again, mobile phones still weren’t readily available, the internet still wasn’t there for all (we used to do essays on paper with pens and use books for research WHY AM I SO OLD??) so I lost touch with many of my school friends and made MORE new friends. Two years later everyone started drifting off to university and you see how this pans out right? I did have one really good friend I kept from school but when I met my husband *spits* my friends ended up cast aside (my fault for being a shit friend) and we just had joint friends who he subsequently won in the divorce. So as you see, I’ve never had that one friend that’s been there always. Who’s known me forever. Who knows me best. That’s not to say that I’ve never had friends, I have. Loads. Honest. I had a great group of friends when I moved to Leeds in the party years but settling down and having babies didn’t really go hand in hand with that particular lifestyle and group of friends. One even went so far as to refer to my unborn child as the ‘excrement of my womb’ – maybe they weren’t that great at being friends after all. I had some friends I was still in touch with from life pre Leeds. I had work colleagues and friends I met through Rory but I still didn’t have THAT friend and I didn’t actually think it was a problem until I became a Mummy. The first few weeks with Aoife were tough, I had trouble feeding, I was exhausted and lonely. I remember a friend (and mummy) coming to visit, we’d had a bad night and a bad day. As she went to leave I burst into tears “I just can’t do this anymore, I can’t cope” she looked at me awkwardly told me I’d be OK and left. I felt so alone and pathetic and right then I really wished I had THAT friend. The friend who would have hugged me, who would have told me to upstairs and sleep while she looked after Aoife for an hour, the friend who would have cared. Overtime I’ve become envious (I know it’s not a nice trait) of those who do have THAT friend, that support, that thick and thin buddy. I always try to be THAT friend to other people, texting advice at 3am (when it’s been asked for, not just randomly) looking after children because childcare fell through or Mummy just needed an hour to herself. Offering an ear or a hug because someone is having a hard time but I still don’t have THAT friend who’d do the same for me and it makes me sad that it’s probably too late to find them. I think that THAT friend is the most important friend to have but even moreso when you become a Mummy, not just in the first few months. ALWAYS. To let you know you’re doing OK, to sit with you while you cry with exhaustion, to tell you you’ve got mascara on your face, to tell you she also made the same faux pas you did, to help you shove aside your mum guilt and to remind you you’re still you inside. So if you’re lucky enough to have THAT friend celebrate her, let her know. Maybe send her a little gift, tell her you love her or give her a hug and thank her. Thank her for being THAT friend the one who was genuinely there for you when you needed her most and try to be THAT friend in return. This was originally posted over at meetothermums.com The Tale of Mummyhood

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The hardest thing about being a parent..IMO

Anna — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 21:29:49 +0000

Order is restored! Or at least something resembling order is restored. Aoife is back at school, Rory is back at work and Seth is watching Toy Story 2 back to back whilst dressed as Buzz Lightyear. Standard. Having been a lazy bum and taking a couple of weeks away from blogging and shameless self promotion I’m a bit tired so I decided to ease myself back into it gently and go for a Top Ten. Here’s the Top Ten things I found hardest about becoming a parent, or more specifically a Mummy for that’s what I am. Child Birth Yes, I know this is obvious but I didn’t read past week 33 in my ‘How to be pregnant’ book. It wasn’t all “oh my gosh, I peed myself…no wait my waters broke”…*scream like a banshee*….baby after 30 mins. It took days, neither child was in a hurry. It was painful, I sparkled, I cried, I was rude to the midwife, it was undignified, it was exhausting! Shitty Nappies Again yes, I’d HEARD about them but nothing. NOTHING can prepare you for an explosive, up the back, out the sides shitty nappy. The one where you have to hold legs in the air, cut baby out of the vest and wipe all at the same time.It’s on their hands, it’s on their feet, at least it’s not on….no way, how did it get there? IT’S ON THEIR HEAD. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE. Not laughing at ‘not good’ behaviour Obviously the biting and wall drawing isn’t a laughing matter, but the sass. Well, as much as I don’t admit it to Aoife, it’s HILARIOUS. Like the time Rory asked her to pick something up, she replied “Give me a minute woman”. Or the time I put her on the naughty step and took away her treats. “Will I still have food & water?” “Yes” “Oh I’ll be fine then”. Sometimes you just have to walk away and laugh. Without them knowing of course. Sneezing Coughing, laughing, crying, sparkling, running, dancing, jumping. All not just hard, almost impossible! Appreciating the things that are important to them Instead of being a destroyer of dreams and imagination, you have to appreciate every leaf/pine cone/stone/receipt placed into your bag because it’s “really beautiful” or “magic” or “stone”. It’s so hard to not point out your dismay at your handbag or pocket being full of snotty tissues and detritus. Being a parent ALL THE TIME. It’s nonstop! Even if you get some time away you think about them and talk about them. If you don’t think about them then you think how you should take it easy as you’re going to have to go home and be up with them in the night. If you have the kind of children that sleep through then you’re still thinking about looking after them with a hangover. The parenting just doesn’t stop! Finding a babysitter. When you announce you’re pregnant with your first child all your friends will tell you how excited they are and how they’ll babysit. LIES. As soon as baby arrives it becomes “I’ll babysit when they sleep through” then “I’ll take them to the pub at 18”. It’s not like the Babysitter Club books I read as a child!! Guilt Mummy Guilt/Daddy Guilt, call it what you want. It’s intense! Before children I didn’t do guilt but childbirth brings this whole new emotion. Every decision you make leads to a feeling of guilt. Everything you say leads to a feeling of guilt. Every time you leave them, every time you don’t. Every time you tell them off, every time you don’t. “I am too hard on them, I’m too soft on them, I’m abandoning them , I mollycoddle them” OH MY GOSH. I will also put crying in here. I have cried so much more in the last 6 years than I ever did in my previous 32! I have even cried at Four Weddings and CSI. Dealing with your body and mind It changes so much, at first it feels like it’s not your own. It gets big, it starts to behave differently. If you’re breast feeding it can feel like it’s completely someone else’s. It gets fatter due to ‘baby weight’, loneliness, sadness, boredom, habit. Your mind can be vicious, making you question everything. Making you paranoid. Making you feel bad about you and your parenting. Mix the two together and it’s a pretty rough time. I’d love to say you deal with it like this….but I still don’t have an answer. Baby groups/School playgrounds URGH. All these other Mummy’s just being amazing, looking fantastic and coping. They breastfeed so well, they look amazing, their children behave, some of them have actual jobs as well as being a mum. Their children love Baby Einstein and only listen to Beethoven, in fact, give Sebastian a toy piano and he can compose a tune, HE’S ONLY 8 MONTHS OLD! They never look harassed and have never dropped the F-Bomb in front of their children. When you’re tired, feeling fat and lonely THIS is one of the hardest things, this leads me to Pretending OK, I know I said Top Ten but I don’t like to conform. Being a parent is pretending all the time. We pretend we’re coping, we pretend we know what we’re doing, we pretend we’re happy with our smock dress, we pretend we’re not comparing ourselves to every other parent we see, we pretend every single minute of parenting is a breeze. It’s a tough act to keep up. We should all probably drop the pretending and then my Top Ten would be a legit Top Ten. Aside from all that, this parenting lark is a piece of cake.

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The lives of others.

Anna — Mon, 31 Oct 2016 12:33:16 +0000

At a recent, child free wedding (not ours) we found ourselves sat at the grown up equivalent of the children’s table. That is the table of people who all have small children/are pregnant. Obviously, as happens when you have freedom from children, the conversation quickly turned to children (including a lengthy section on ‘pooey nappies’) all of us regaling the soon to be parents with the humorous tales of parenting. Yes, reusable nappies and cleaning with cotton wool alone are lovely ideas but once you’ve cut baby out of a shitty vest thrice, the idea of scraping out poo, soaking and putting said item in your washing machine loses its appeal pretty quickly. Respect to those who persist! Interestingly it is Dad to be who wants the reusable nappies, the one who will be out at work and not having to include washing nappies in his daily, baby looking after routine! Talk then moved on to bedtime and the first few months of sleepless nights. Now, THIS was an eye opener. One of the dads spent six months sleeping in the spare room so that his sleep wasn’t disturbed in the night. One dad only does night-time bum changes on a weekend but sleeps with ear plugs in on weekdays. Another dad pops his eye mask on, drips some essential oils on his pillow and sticks his ear plugs in so as to enjoy a full nights sleep… I was stunned. I felt awful and I said to Rory “Wow, you had it tough. Sorry” See, Rory did every alternate night feed or nappy change no matter what the day. Sometimes, if I was exhausted he would do a whole night. Even if he had work the next day. We just thought this was how parenting worked. As a couple we decided to have a baby and so as a couple we did the parenting as equally as possible. Rory believed I needed to be as well rested for my day in order to look after baby properly as much as he needed to be refreshed to go to work. He knew that if I was exhausted my day would be difficult, baby would pick up on it and no one would have a good day. We didn’t realise that we were an anomaly. All of the other women around that table are strong, independent, career women – lawyers, social workers, accountants. Of all the women around that table I was the only one without a career, the only one who doesn’t work so arguably I should be the one living the more ‘traditional’ set up of woman looks after baby while man sleeps. Luckily, Rory doesn’t feel like he’s been done over. He doesn’t feel like he’s been conned into sleepless nights and brain meltingly tired days when he could have had bubble baths, eye masks and peaceful slumber. Even if he does it’s a bit late now. I’d quite like a bubblebath and a full nights sleep though. Disclaimer, this isn’t intended to be a ‘we do it right, they do it wrong’ type post. It’s a ‘everyone does it differently and sometimes I don’t get it (especially the no snacks thing) but that’s OK’ type of post. Though clearly I’m the most right…..

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Out of the mouths of babes.

Anna — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 10:26:55 +0000

I have never hidden the fact that I’m not fond of children that aren’t mine. Heck, I’ve even written a post about OPC. I will admit though, over the last few months I’ve become well practised at playdates and I’m becoming more tolerant (or I’m choosing Aoife’s friends for her more wisely…) and I actually find them entertaining now. Watching the interaction between Aoife and her friends I was surprised to notice that even at 5 girls are more into one upmanship than boys. A conversation with a girl will go “I have Toy Story 1, 2 & 3 on DVD” “Well I have 1,2,3,4,5 AND 6” A conversation with a boy will go “I have Toy Story 1,2 & 3 on DVD” “Meh” Saying that, I recently discovered that the one upmanship between 5 year old boys is VERY different. A friend told me that her son Buddy* came home and declared “Juan said his daddy had a bigger willy than my daddy.” *WTF FACE* Lord only knows what conversation Juan and his daddy were having! Generally though, the conversation I hear amongst them have me smiling to myself a lot. “Pretend it’s my birthday” “Pretend I’m a Princess” “Pretend this is my kingdom” “Pretend I’m dead!” “I don’t like pepperoni pizza” “Me either” “I don’t too” “ALL THE PEPPERONI PIZZA IS GONE, I WANTED THAT!” “This is the best ball I’ve EVER been to!” “She called me a poopoo head” “She TOLD me to call her a poopoo head” “I want to sit next to her” “So you two swap seats” *Sigh* “At least we can hold hands here” “Who’s been squirting stuff?” “No one, we’ve just been putting your lipstick on”. “We’re twins” “We’re twins too, except we have different trainers & different clothes” “And your hair is different too” “Yes, my hair is different” “And we’re not sisters” “Yes” “Can we have the Snow White dress?” “No, it causes too many arguments” “No it doesn’t” “Yes it does” “No it doesn’t” “My point is proven” “We brushed our teeth upstairs” “Did everyone bring a toothbrush?” “No” *baulk* “What’s a cigarette?” “It’s a long thing you put in your mouth and you get this thing made of fire and set fire to it then it makes your teeth go yellow then brown then black” “Let’s play football, I’ll be the black team (she has a red top on) and you be the red team (you guessed it).” “Let’s play football, I’ll be the guard of the goal” (The Guard of the Goal sounds SO much more impressive that goalie) *Names have been changed to protect identities….Of the daddies.

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