Category Archives: Chops & Mummy

Leaving

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My first doctors appointment, checking in appointment, and everything else with the exception of the birth and the scans, I was alone. I remember weeping, hidden in the toilets of Mothercare, alone, surrounded by couples and families, exuberant grandparents grabbing and exclaiming at blankets, tiny pairs of socks. I felt her move inside me and pushed a trolley around alone, gathering moses basket, blankets, sheets, steriliser, baby monitor and all the other essentials. I’d gotten the grant I’d been forced to use to buy them the previous day as I’d been made redundant in my 13th week and was struggling financially by this stage. It couldn’t wait, I knew the money … Continue reading →

Wine

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Most of you know, I’m rather partial to a glass of wine of an evening. I make so secret of this. I didn’t drink for about 18 months while I was pregnant and while Chops was breastfeeding, but after she started only wanting a feed last thing at night I saw no harm in having an occasional glass- probably once a week if that. Now I’m the first to admit, the frequency of this habit has increased since then. I reckon (being totally honest) that I have a glass of wine four or five nights a week. Once or twice a week that will be two glasses. And I’ll admit, that there … Continue reading →

Miracle

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Sometimes, just at random intervals throughout the day, I look at Chops and realise, as if for the first time that this is my Daughter I’m looking at. This astonishes me. Even though I’ve had over two and a half years to get used to it, 3 and a half if you include my pregnancy, sometimes, the fact that I Am A Mother just floors me. I look at Chops doing simple things- raising a glass of milk to her mouth before bed and having a drink and I think “Wow”. How on earth did that little person come from me? It’ll 11.40pm, just 10 minutes ago she woke up coughing (we’ve both … Continue reading →

One Million Reps

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So, on Monday I saw my best bud from uni and took great joy in telling him; “Hey, here’s a sentence we’ve been waiting to hear me say for a while- ‘I’m going to therapy tomorrow!’”. And we had a good laugh and, yeah. Very little else was said about it. That’s the way it is though I suppose. That’s what my blog is for, airing out all the stuff that the real world aren’t really sure how to react to. Yesterday, that something was therapy. Or counselling I suppose. Whatever name you wish to give going to your doctors surgery and chatting to a man you’ve never met for … Continue reading →

Last Text Of The Day

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Before I go to sleep tonight, I have just picked up my phone and sent a quick text to my Mum, letting her know that Chops is sound asleep, we are both ok and Chops has not been poorly this evening. As I put my phone down I feel that pang in my chest. Sadness, rage, loss, disappointment, confusion, fury and so many other emotions hit me in the chest for just a fraction of a second, as it crossed my mind, however briefly that you have no idea about this. I text my Mum last night before bed, we spoke today before her lesson so I could relay what … Continue reading →

The Good Parent Guide.

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This post is actually going to come with a dedication. Why the heck not. This post is to everyone who has ever looked despairingly at their child(ren) or their own reflection in the mirror and thought “Am I doing this right?” Or even “I’m really not doing this right!”. But especially, this is dedicated to my friend Rachel aka Mummy Glitzer. I have spent many, and I do mean many, many, many MANY hours in the last three years worrying. About my capabilities as a parent. I wonder if perhaps, I feel that burden weighs heavier on my shoulders as I’m a single parent and therefore I have to be two people’s … Continue reading →

Four

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Babies. I’m obsessed with them at the moment. I’ve met the man I want to spend the rest of my life with, he feels the same about me. And so… “Procreate, procreate, procreate!” screams my uterus. I have never experienced ‘being broody’ before. Chops was born out of a very different relationship under very different circumstances. I was only 23 then not very young granted, but younger than I saw myself when I looked into the crystal ball of my future. I’m almost 27 now and my little girl is two and a half. Not a massive different in numbers but a complete transformation in all other manners. Although I’m also … Continue reading →

Safe

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I’m writing this after watching tonight’s Panorama about Jimmy Saville. About the possibility of unspeakably dark things going on within the BBC, that were gossiped about and suspected by dozens of people. As with anything like this, I watch, I listen, and I think of my beautiful daughter who is asleep upstairs. I won’t pretend to have the monopoly on loving my child. I believe that the love I feel for my daughter is the greatest love ever felt by one human for another. But of course, I realise  each of you parents out there feels the same. But despite the unease this programme has given me, tomorrow, I will … Continue reading →

Dear Louise…

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Dear Louise (Yes. Louise. Remember that?) First of all, I miss you. It’s been a lot longer than usual since I last saw you, not since the day after your wedding. I hope you’re ok and bump is doing well. I can’t believe how fast it seems to be going this time. Secondly, I hope we can manage to talk about all of these things and start talking to each other properly again. You’ve been my best friend for 10 years, I know things are bound to change and our lives are very different to how they used to be, but I miss speaking to you the way I used to. … Continue reading →

Viva La Onesie!

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Ladies and Gentlemen. Well. Probably not gentlemen… possibly Spencer & his slanket and one or two others but I’m reckoning, mainly, LADIES! If you follow me on twitter, you will have seen that in the last week, I have made a purchase that has indeed changed my life. You will have heard me refer to it on a daily (who am I kidding, several-times-a-daily) basis. Yes, I refer of course, to my Onesie. Mixed reactions have been made to said purchase, from the shared joy of fellow onesie owners, to the inevitable questions of those who have not yet taken the plunge (“don’t you get cold when you go for … Continue reading →