How I get ready… with Pip Jones, author of her own undoing

I've been so busy writing for little people, it's been a long, long time since I posted here.

But I couldn't help it this morning.  I was inspired, you see, when I saw a lovely friend of mine (also a mum of two) had posted this article on Facebook… followed by about 19 of these 😂

So I read it.

'Good gracious [or something more sweary]!' I thought to myself. 'This doesn't sound quite right…'

So I wrote my own version. Et voila:

How I get ready… 

4.30: I wake up because I need a massive wee. I creep to the loo but step on Lego which makes me say “FUCKINGARSELEGOBASTARD” really loudly, which gets me really nice and awake. I have a long wee, then get back into bed for an hour, to lie there, eyes wide open, worrying about all the stuff in life/house/world/universe.

5.30: I flop out of bed and go downstairs to make builders’ tea. It tastes like crap without sugar in, so I put loads of sugar in it. Fuelled by caffeine and sugar, I get an hour’s writing in before my family wakes up and ruins it all.

6.30: Everybloodyone is awake now. We start the day doing some grunting and arguing. I feel really grateful that no-one is biting anyone else. I make breakfast pancakes for the children (who I definitely HAVE cuddled by now) and, while they eat, I stick my face in the fridge to de-puff my eyes.

7.00: I clear the breakfast table. It’s sticky. No amount of scrubbing makes it not sticky.

7.10: I shout “SHOWERTEETHHAIRGETDRESSED” in the general direction of the children.

7.30: Same

7.45: Same. The children play with Lego. I put the dishwasher on and load the arsing washing machine.

8.00: At 8am, it’s time for me to supervise the children actually washing and actually cleaning their teeth, in the manner of two robots who are losing power.

8.15: I supervise the children actually dressing, in the manner of two slaves who have been very heavily put upon.

8.30: I brush the kids’ hair. They cry a bit and tell me I’m evil for allowing their hair to get knots in it.

8:35: I go to the bathroom, pick empty loo rolls off the floor, then treat myself to a 40-second shower using bit of Johnsons No More Tears Shampoo, as it’s the only soap I can find. I cry a little bit (like a baby).

8.36: I briefly remember an article I read about a woman who applies some concoction of lipids and oil every morning, to make her face “juicy”. I slap on some Nivea which makes my eyes sting. Then I get dressed without being properly dry yet, into jeans which are too tight for me and (my current favourite), a snuggly top in a colour Dulux would have called ‘FFS’, and which has yogurt on it.

8:41: I’m all about ‘use as much make-up as is necessary to not scare tiny children on the way to school’, but the school gates will close in four minutes, so I don’t have time to think of tiny children right now. I round up the troops.

8.42: We spend a full minute trying to exit the house because, despite the fact we have lived here for seven years, my children still forget, EVERY MORNING, that the door opens INWARDS, and if they stand with their faces pressed against it, NONE OF US CAN GET OUT.

8.43: I jog/drag the children to school, avoiding eye contact with anyone, in case doing so confirms they have seen the yogurt on my top.

9.08: I arrive home just in time to see that not blow drying my hair earlier has resulted in an indescribable straight/wavy/frizzfest on my head. I vow not to open the door to anyone all day, even if it's Amazon bringing lipids.

9.15: After a strong, sugary coffee, I feel awake enough to realise I haven’t had breakfast. I remember again the lipid woman, who ‘pimps up’ her breakfast porridge with fruit and seeds, and wonder if it’s sort of the same thing to ‘pimp up’ my marmite on toast with a pint of ‘grown-up-grape-juice’ and a bag of peanuts.

9.30: Bin bag emptied and replaced, I’m off to the sticky kitchen table for another busy day as a grown woman who spends her day writing about pompous guinea pigs.

Mum phrases and how they have come back to bite me in the arse (I mean, bottom)

It's funny how our vocabulary changes once we have children, don't you think?

I don't only mean how “SHIT!” becomes “SHHH…UGAR!”, or how “Oh, BOLLOCKS!” becomes “Oh, BOLL-DERDASH!” (okay, actually not everyone's language might have been as ripe as mine was), I mean the little phrases that creep in and seem to constitute about 50% of everything we say during any given day.

Here are my top 10 phrases I never thought I’d use with such frequency (and how they come back to bite me in the arse. Oops. I mean bum. No, bottom).

10. “STOP!”
The trouble, I find, with saying this as frequently as I do is that it ceases to have the gravitas it really deserves when I walk into a room and find my two-year-old half way up a bookcase. Especially in someone else's house.

9. “Don't make me come over there…”
Yeh right! OBVIOUSLY they are going to make me go over there. They want me to go over there. Because that would kick start the very 'funny' game of 'catch me if you can'.

8. “Have you done a wee?”

For some reason the autopilot me seems to think my daughter needs to do a wee about 400 times a day. I've included this one because I think it gives a little insight into my future nagging mother/huffy teenage daughter relationship, when Ava sighs and says: “Yeeeeeees, mummyyyyy. I HAVE done a weeeeeeee.” And then sighs again. It doesn't stop me though.

7. “I'm going to count to three! One. Two. Three. RIGHT…”
And my children are thinking 'Why does she always let us have an extra three seconds? I'd have just made us stop it straight away. Thanks though.’

6. “Teeth! Teeth! TEEEEEETH!!”
The word teeth means nothing. I might as well be talking a foreign language. The word 'TEEEEEETH!' however, is understood to mean 'open up and brush’. Why do I even bother saying 'teeth'?

5. “Gently!”
Used for all manner of situations! Touching other people's babies and animals, drawing with crayons (to save the table underneath), TEEEEEETH brushing, play / pillow fighting, stirring ingredients and so on. I must over egg it though. I could be using the touch of Thumbelina and I'd still get, when combing their hair: “Gently, mummy. GENTLY mummyyyy. MUMMY, you are NOT being GENTLE!” I am being.

4. “Just a minute!” Or the alternative. “Two minutes!”
Big mistake, this one. They not only repeat the phrase to me (for example, when it is bed time and they need 'just a minute' to continue jumping on the sofa), they also apply the 'time has no meaning' rule. Which they have learned from me. *Fail*

3. “Say please!”
And here begins the process of children trying to understand something that they just will not understand for a long, long time. It's painful for everyone. Because if they say 'please', they CAN have another drink! Or an apple. Or a book read to them. Or a picnic in the garden. But if they say “Please can I have a Mars Bar?” or “Please can I wear your make-up?” or (at 8pm) “Please can we go to the park?” the word means nothing. It carries no weight. Neither does 'pleeeeeeeease', or 'please please please!' or any variations thereof. 'Please' is a rubbish word. It's no wonder they can't be arsed (oops, bothered) to say it half the time.

2. “Calm DOWN!”
A natural thing to say when my toddlers are running amok and need a bit of wind down time. An infuriating thing to hear from one of THEM when I am rushing around, trying to get ready to leave the house, in a faff, because we are late… because of them.

and, at number 1, of course, is…

1. “No.”
The word I say the most, and hear the most. Although my youngest gives it considerably more punch with an elongated NNNNN. 1,000 times per day: “Shall we [insert anything that does not involve going on the swings or eating cake/chocolate]?”

“NNNNNO!”

What are yours?!

When girlish becomes hurl-ish

My little girl, Ava, who is three-and-a-half, needs a more magical bedroom. I am painfully aware that we have left her walls bare for far too long and, while it's not like her room is a prison cell or anything, it's just quite boring and adult. It's because her room used to be the spare room, before we realised we simply had to separate her and her two-and-a-half year old sister if any of us wanted to sleep again. Ever.

So yes, I know we need to inject some (lots) more fun into her room – but nothing gave me a bigger incentive to do so than the other day, when I had taken both the babes to a massive Mothercare/ELC for new pumps. That mission (it really is a mission) accomplished, I was feeling very pleased with myself indeed and, after roaming the shop and shaking all the toys a bit (them, not me), I managed to convince my children we should go home for lunch.

We had made it to within 20 feet of the door – but then she saw it (tucked away, unsurprisingly, in a dark corner). It was a 'princess' 'bed', in the 'shape' of a 'carriage', and it was made by that company. You know the one? Yes, you know, THAT company – the one that does rather successful animated films. THE Creator Of Princesses (and mermaids).

This bed was soooo pink. It was the sort of pink that makes your teeth ache. It must have been more than 4ft high. I think, underneath the pink, it was made of plywood. It had golden wheels painted on it, along with the faces of some film star princesses, and a pink net curtain.

Ava gasped with sheer joy and leapt in. Oh lordy.

“LOOK! Is this a BED, mummy?”

“No, I don't think it is Ava, I think…”

“It's got a pillow!”

“It's probably a dog bed! Shall we go?”

“Awwww…”

Ten minutes later I managed to get her out of there, but she pouted all the way home, telling me how sad she was about that princess bed. I felt something akin to sadness, too. I had never seen anything quite like it.

Anyway, I wrestled with myself a bit during that journey. I found the bed hideous beyond belief – but who am I to tell her that she shouldn't like it? (Oh my GOD!! Why did she like it??!! Sorry.) Loads of people out there like it, I'm sure. In fact it has won an award (although that award was given by the company who made it. It's a self-awarded award in effect, so doesn't strictly count). But it's a bit like art really, isn't it? Your idea of what constitutes a beautiful piece of artwork might be vastly different from my own – and I'd hate to think I'd just tell you you were wrong.

Well, that row in my head didn't last too long. It was very easy to console myself (if not Ava) with the fact that buying it would have been like being mugged by princesses to the tune of 200 quid, because Ava already has a bed – a perfectly good and wonderful bed.

So, now I am considering, properly, my other options. Like just about everyone else, we don't have loads of money to chuck at Ava's room – but I have to chuck something at it. I mean 'lovingly create something wonderful within it', obviously. I think I am favouring one coloured wall and some fabulous wall stickers. Birds on a wire, dandelion blowing in the wind, that sort of thing.

But if anyone else out there had any brilliant (and quick!) ideas that saved them from discussing the purchase of a 200 quid princess monstrosity ad nauseam (literally), I'd love to hear them!

One plate of Welsh(ish) cakes and I'm no nearer domestic goddess-ness

The best Welsh cakes I have ever had were made (frequently) by my wonderful and beautiful Welsh grandma, from whom my littlest girl Ruby Lena takes her second name. The next best were made by my Welsh friend Steve's gran. I never met her, but I love her.

Anyway, being one quarter Welsh, I decided the girls and I should mark St David's Day in some way. I have no daffs in the garden to sniff, no leeks in the fridge to chomp on, and the dragons never leave Wales as I understand, so there are none in these parts to hug.

So we made, for the very first time, our own Welsh cakes.

I say 'made', I mean 'chucked ingredients around the kitchen for an hour before scraping off various surfaces into a bowl'. And when I say 'Welsh' I mean 'a tiny bit Chinese' as mixed spice and Chinese all spice come in almost identical boxes.

Anyway, as is always the case when baking with toddlers, it was enormous fun. I'm not sure what Grandma would have made of the presentation. They were supposed to look like this but actually looked like this…

… which is in no small part due to the fact that Ava wanted her Welsh cakes to be Father Christmas shaped. His head kept falling off.

Having got the babies all jazzed up on sugary Welsh cakes, I thought I might get a head start on a savoury and veg-laden dinner – which was going to be wiggly worms (or spag bol). And that, rather than the Welsh cakes, is pretty much the reason I am writing this actually.

The mince was frozen and needed defrosting – but what with the girls breaking over the fence into next door's garden, Ruby treading in cat poo and them both demanding snacks and games off top shelves, I've completely lost it.

I don't mean lost my head, I mean I've lost the frozen mince. I don't know where it is. I've looked everywhere I can think of. The girls think they're getting wiggly worms at 5pm. If I haven't found it by then, I'll be pouring wine and giving them a stack of Welsh-fusion.

Has anyone got any ideas? Seriously.

Why I won't be proposing today

There are all sorts of reasons why people do and don't get married. We haven't done it as yet. We might do, some time in the future, but there was never any chance of me popping the question today. Not because I am a traditionalist or anything – I am all for a woman taking her bull by the horn (or whatever else she can get a firm grip on, lest the thing bolts at the first hint of a proposal) if she so desires.

No, it's more because of the terrifying prospect of my three-year-old daughter Ava muscling in and planning the wedding. Which she has, in fact, already started doing.

This began a couple of weeks ago when we were having a pub lunch with some good pals. Some newlyweds arrived, glowing and surrounded by their delighted family and friends. The bride looked gorgeous in a long, pure white, slinky silk gown. Ava was agog, it wasn't the first time she had seen a bride, but it was the first time she had taken a blind bit of notice.

And so began the questions.

“Are you and daddy married?”

“No darling, we aren't.”

“Oh! So shall we get married?”

“We?”

“Yes! You and daddy, and me and Ruby.”

“Well, yet we might do one da…”

“And Jibril.”

Jibril is a lovely little boy who Ava has known since she was born. He is utterly gorgeous, but I must say don't feel entirely comfortable with the idea of this strange wedded union between the five of us.

“And we have a parteeeeeeeeey!”

“Darling, usually it’s just two people who get marri…”

“I can wear a white dress and you can wear a pink one!”

Great. “And what will daddy and Ruby wear?”

“Um, daddy will wear a stripy top. And Ruby can wear… a bag. You know that green one?”

Clearly, Ava was seeing herself as the star of this show. The bag she was referring to is a green rucksack that looks like a turtle and has a little pull out plastic hat, with eyes, which makes Ruby look ridiculous. Cute, but ridiculous.

“Do I have to wear a pink dress, Ava? Can't I wear a white one as well?” I made a sad face.

“No, Mummy. Because. Because. Because my favourite colour is white.”

An outright lie! Her favourite colour is pink!

“And Jibril?”

“Jibril can come as a pirate maybe?”

Okay, so I have one groom dressed as a pirate, the other one wearing a stripy T-shirt but presumably naked from the waist down. Add to this one daughter wearing nothing but a turtle while her sister swishes round in a proper white bridal gown, and I take my vows in something hideously pink. Sounds like some interesting wedding photos, right? Wait 'til you hear the next bit.

“And when we get married, we have party games?”

“Sure.”

“Hide and seek?”

I would put money on not being able to find Dan anywhere. Ava ploughed on: “And maybeeee… sword fighting?”

Ava and Ruby have a set of foam swords given to them by their uncle and auntie at Christmas, and I figured any good party would require the laying on of some toys for the kids. “Yes, Ava – you and Ruby and Jibril could take along your toy swords, and have battles!”

“No, mummy! It's a real wedding, we need real swords! They need a pointy bit at the end, you know, where those people die?”

WHAT?!

I have had many daydreams about what my daughters might end up doing with their lives. I now feel pretty sure that Ava is considerably less likely to be a wedding planner than she is to be a writer on the TV show Shameless.

Babies are weird. FACT.

Today a friend of mine tweeted me with a link to YouTube – it was a short film from Philips Avent about the special tricks mums have for getting their grumbling babies to sleep. Take a look, it's rather sweet. I especially like the infant who passes out the instant she hears the ping of a microwave.

Anyway, it made me think back to when my first daughter Ava was a baby. Like every new mother, I was feeling my way in the dark, pretty much doing it all wrong. Like a Tracy Hogg case study, I fed her to sleep during the day, let her stay awake for too long until she became overtired and inconsolable, and in the evening, when she seemed to ping into action at 6pm, I used to think it was cute she'd be awake to see her dad when he got home.

I accidentally parented her 'til the cows came home and, oh wowsers, what a rod for my back I was making! When Ava was teeny weeny, I noticed the hoover could send her into a trance-like state – and that had its useful moments. But by the time I realised I had utterly failed to give her a proper bed time, and teach her how to fall asleep by herself of an evening (and stay asleep), she had become immune to the Dyson (much like I have become allergic to it in the years since!).

So, we tried everything. I began reading parenting books. Dan and I would sit for (literally) hours in the dark, with a hand on her tummy. We tried controlled crying. We played her a track on the iPod of what a beating heart sounds like from inside the womb (I'm pretty sure my own heart never beat that slowly though, which is perhaps why it didn't work. It sounded like someone about to cark it). We'd usually succumb and pick her up or rock her to sleep – just so we could eat a meal and fit in a couple of hours kip ourselves. Every night was torturous.

Well, just as the mamas in the film eventually found their magic trick, so did we. It happened one day, quite by accident, when we had the iPod on shuffle and it settled on a very bizarre track that had an even more bizarre affect on Ava. She went floppy, glazed over, and fell asleep.

And that was that. Played quietly in her room, this was the aid that finally got our little monster to settle herself at night.

It'd be sweet if, now that she is three, I could play it to her again, just every now then. I'd be able to say: “Listen Ava! Do you remember? This is the music mummy used to play to you when you were tiny. I’d put it on, and you'd close your eyes and drift into a deeeeep sleep.”

And then Ava would say: “Really mummy? What is the song…?”

And, er... actually no, it won't happen. Because not only would I have to tell Ava that the song is called Bright Tomorrow and is by a band called the Fuck Buttons, I would also have to see her face as she actually listened to it. I think it would probably make her cry. I mean, it starts off alright, but when it gets to around 3 mins 57 seconds, wow, it REALLY kicks into… well, have a listen. And then try to imagine it lulling a baby into sleep.

The point of this story? Babies are weird. FACT.

We say it with bums in our house

I think it's fair to say that having children is not very sexy. It's lovely, obviously. Life with children is full of love. But on days such as this one – or on other special occasions (you know, Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries and the like), you realise how romance has been, well, hijacked.

As a rather superb metaphor for this, I'll tell you what happened this morning. I had chosen a small card for Dan (we don't go over the top with these things, but doing nothing would be like saying romance is dead) which had, I felt rather appropriately, three hearts on it.

'The big one is mine!' I thought, 'And the little ones are the girls'! Yes, that's sweet, it represents three hearts, all choc full of love.'

So having written something inside explaining the above, lest it was not entirely obvious, and having given it to each of my daughters to then vandalise with their crayons, I allowed my eldest Ava to hand it over.

She did so very ceremoniously. First she sang 'happy birthday', ignoring my quiet instructions that it was not in fact her dad's birthday at all, it was Valentine's Day and we just had to tell him we loved him. Then she offered him the card with a small bow. All good.

But then Ruby, who thought the card was a present, grabbed it and ran off with it. And despite the fact she had literally just seen it, and had watched me put it into the envelope for her daddy, she embellished her incredibly theatrical opening of the card with plenty of overly dramatic gasps.

When it was finally handed to the intended recipient, and he glanced down to see what all the fuss was about, Ruby pointed at the picture on the front and said: "Iss BUMS!”

And yes, in much the same way that having children colours every part of your life, or at least the way you regard every part of your life, I concur with Ru. It does look a bit like bums. In fact, if you turn it upside down, it looks a bit like two funny shaped poos coming out of one big bum.

Not very sexy, no. But whether they are all bums, or just one big bum and two small poos, they represent the three of us, and hey, what's not to love?!