How to be a Hot Mummy Blogger

I'm a mummy blogger. I kind of fail at it most of the time because I think this whole motherhood caper is mother trucking hard.  I write the occasional recipe and household 'tip' aka how to avoid it and why I hate it so much.  Really the only thing that makes me fit the old stereotype mold of mummy blogger is that I have a child who is along for the joy ride. 
 

Anyone who knows me also know that I pretty much fail at the whole fashion thing too. I take comfort over looks.  When a fabulous tweeter said she was going to blog about her OOTD. I of course asked what it was (only stupid question is the question unasked right) and it turned out to be Outfit Of The Day.  So of course, who better to educate you on the fashion of a mummy blogger!?
 

First off...according to all sources 'Mummy Bloggers' do nothing but sit in front of their computer all day, lamenting about how awesome they are at parenting while leaving their child to fend for themselves.  This of course means that we are heading for something that is comfy and can enable you to sit on your rear end all day.
 

Some camps may indulge in the sarong or the singlet and 'yoga' pants.  The only yoga my yoga pants have seen is trying to contort myself to find the malteaser that's gone AWOL at some stage between my hand and my mouth.  My old favourite and sure to bring all the boys to the yard is my halter dress that has lost all of it's elastic.  Devil Papa says the sexiest thing about the dress is that one of the girls are always bound to come out and say hello. It's a sex symbol and comfy, what more could I ask for!?
 

The hair of a 'Mummy Blogger' is something that other peeps are totes jealous of.  It has a faux birds nest appeal that most others pay thousands in their local salon for.  A 'Mummy Blogger' has the joy of stepping out of bed to achieve this toddler walk fashion.  Picture if you will, grey regrowth pulled back into a pony tail or a becoming messy bun that screams abstract creation.  Many have tried to recreate this look but have only achieved a cheap knockoff.
 

A 'Mummy Blogger' doesn't subscribe to the pressures of society and instead prefers to go about her business as a fresh faced, breath of fresh air.  If she ever finds herself at the receiving end of an invitation that requires more than a fresh face, panic surely ensues.  It usually involves a quick scope of YouTube videos on how to apply a face that doesn't involve remnants of your child's food.
 

Shoes of course are optional. You don't need shoes to sit on your but at a computer all day. However if being a mother starts to interfere with your 'Mummy Blogging' career then thongs will suffice. If you want to be classy get some with some diamonte detail on top.  You'll be the envy of every one at the playground.
 

What are your fashion must haves? Do you tend to go for comfort over looking stylish?

Valentines Wordless Wednesday

I decided to get a little creative and create some valentines ecards with a twist.  Linking up with My Little Drummer Boys for Wordless Wednesday

The REAL affordable gift guide.

Now that we are on the countdown to the fat man visiting, it's time to start thinking about what to get our loved ones.  Or the people you have to get gifts for.  I've seen a few gift lists getting around already but I haven't found one that is in the budget of struggle street.  I couldn't give Devil Spawn the gifts I do without the joys of Christmas Layby.  For everyone else, I usually do a mad dash in the month before Christmas by trying to find shit that is cheap but doesn't look it.

For the Devil Mama:

Retro Slushy Machine, Kmart: $39

As soon as I saw this baby in Kmart I knew I had to have one. So I could share with the whole family. Ah hell who am I kidding, my first thought was 'Woo vodka slushies'.

Slushy Magic, Big W: $14.86

Slushy without the mess? You had me at hello. This bad boy would be great for more vodka slushies.  Nom nom nom

Mighty Peep-Toe Heel, Target: $50
I love a hot pair of heels. Sadly they do not love me.  I would buy these just to walk around the house in!

A6 Patten Journal, Typo: $6.95

 It's no secret that I love notebooks. When Typo opened up near me I nearly wet my pants with excitement. It was a porn shop for the stationary lover.  I could spend hundreds in there. Then my bank balance kindly reminds me, calm down fuck head you haven't got enough money to buy all the things.

For the Devil Papa

West Tigers Jersey, Best and Less: On sale for $40
Devil Papa is a mad West Tigers fan.  I usually buy him something footy related for Christmas. Last year him and Devil Spawn got matching footy shorts. They look a bit cute.

Dogfight Double Gift Set Spitfire MkVB/Messerschmitt Bf109-F 1/48 Airfix from Mega Hobby: $29.74

Devil Papa loves making model airplanes. In fact he loves all things war planes.  This is definitely a go to gift for us.  It's something that he will use and he enjoys.

Galway Pipe, Dan Murphy's: $29.45

Devil Papa loves a good drop of Port.  Me personally I think it tastes gross. This is his favourite kind, so it's an easy, inexpensive gift.

 

Gifts for the Devil Spawn

Hot Wheels Colour Shifters, Kmart: $15

I always wanted one of these when I was kid. So of course what use is having a kid if you can't live through them.  No doubt I will get sick of picking up the pieces after a week but it will be fun while it lasts.

   Despicable Me, Kmart: $13

This movie never gets old. Even after Devil Spawn watched it 4 times in a row while I was sick.  Sadly our copy has died so this is on the wish list.  One of my favourite things to do on Christmas Day after stuffing yourself with too much food is to lay around and watch a movie. So I try to get Devil Spawn a DVD in his massive Christmas Haul.

Rectangular Family Pool, Big W: $30.

Australia is known for it's stinking hot climate.  Rockhampton Christmas Day is usually no exception.  There's nothing better than getting rip roaring drunk and lounging around in the kiddies pool. Best thing is that this can be used by the whole family.

What's on your Christmas wish list this year? Do you leave your present buying to the last minute or are you super organised and have it all done already?

 Note: This is not a sponsored post I just really like all this stuff.

Kids say the darndest things

One of the joyous and possibly quite scariest thing about having a toddler is they start to learn how to talk and come out with the cutest and most cringe worthy phrases.
 

Devil Spawn already has sarcasm down to an art. I think it's awesome and considering I'm fluent in sarcasm, it was inevitable.  He most used phrase I think is easily 'alright' of course said with a sigh and eye roll.  This is usually after I have told him to pick up his toys for the tenth time in the space of an hour.  I wouldn't have to nag you if you did it the first time kid.
 

I think it's almost a right ofpassage for a toddler to drop the 'f' bomb at some stage.  Usually in public.  Recently while out at my parents Devil Spawn dropped it, and used it in perfect context.  I didn't know whether to hug him or yell at him.  What I did do was burst out laughing and attempt, in between fits of giggles to tell him it was naughty. 
 

At the moment Devil Spawn is convinced that everyone is a man.  We have many arguments about Mummy being a man and not a girl. Usually said with a sarcastic giggle from Devil Spawn.  When used in the safety of The Funny Farm it's pretty safe. When used on a bus not so much. It usually involves me hissing at him that that's a lady not a man and me receiving a dirty look from said lady.
 

Mispronunciation is pretty funny too.  Devil Spawn says dick instead of stick.  When said in the right context it gets a bit old school girl giggle from me.  His other mispronunciation though has the potentional to be a bit more mortifying.  When he says 'can't' it sounds an awful lot like a swear word used to describe the female anatomy.  Oh yes it's so awesome when we are at the local shopping centre and I ask him to to do something and he yells at the top of his voice 'I c*nt'. Oh yeh that.
 

His favourite phrase at the moment is 'begusting' aka 'disgusting'.  I use the term to describe the things up his nose that he refuses to let me remove.  Devil Spawn prefers to use it to describe food that he is served.  I don't mind it so much when its about noodles from the local noodle place (hey more for me) but when he uses it to describe the food I serve up, then shit has just gotten real. 
What are some pearlers that your cherubs have come out with? Do you cringe every time they open their mouth in public?
 

I'm linking up Jess with this week for IBOT. Click on over and read the great offerings the blogosphere has to offer.  Share the comment love and enjoy your day!

Dabbling in the world of Handy Woman!

My washing machine has a mind of it's own.  It decides when it feels like spinning or if it even wants to wash at all.  *Insert sexist joke here ;)*
For a while I was washing in my bathtub using a broom handle and and the shower to do the 'rinse cycle'.  Due to it being in winter, the clothes would then take two days to dry.  Especially because I usually don't get the energy up for household chores until the afternoon, if at all.  I am so glad that during this time there was no gastro bugs in the Funny Farm house.
When that got old I started leaving my washing until the weekend and doing it at DP's house.  This really put a dampner on the lay in bed hangover caused by excessive alcohol consumption ritual we had going on.  I had to be all dometicated and shit. 
 

One day I decided to test out the tempremental washing machine and see if it had decided that it was finished being on strike yet.  Surprisingly it sort of spun, well at least enough to swish the detergent all through the clothes instead of the 4 or so items that were sitting in close proximity to the detergent.  Upon taking the washing out, I discovered there was something stuck between the internal and external tubs.  I pulled it a bit and it started to come out.  With a bit of pushing, shoving and pulling I managed to get it out.  Now the washing machine didn't work AT ALL.
 

At this point I decided to be all he-woman, figured I had nothing to lose and pulled the washing machine apart to see if there was anything else stuck inside.  I managed to pull it apart, cleaned out any build up and started the process of putting the machine back together.  By this stage I was all 'I am woman hear me roar'...right up until I dropped the screwdriver in between the internal and external tubs.  Cue string of profanities that drew DS from whatever he was doing to come and investigate what I was doing.  Shit was not good.
 

The space between the two tubs was about 10cm so obviously I wasn't going to fit my giant arm down there. 
 

Plan B. Tongs. The tongs could just fit down but they weren't long enough.  Sadly I didn't have any BBQ tongs or I would have been all over retrieving that pesky screw driver.
 

Plan C. Put the washing machine on it's side and see if that made a difference to me being able to reach it. It didn't.
 

Plan D. By this stage if I was stupid enough to have a swear jar, I would have enough coin to buy a whole new washing maching AND and entire set of screwdrivers so shit was really not going good.  Kicking the washing machine just resulted in the screwdriver going further down the tub.
 

Plan E. I found two sticks that used to hold a couple of fabric cubes together and attempted to reach the screwdriver using them like a pincer.  Of course the sticks were too short. Of course I swore a hell of a lot more.
 

Plan F.  I really had my thinking cap on now. I was wondering how much it would cost to dump this stupid washing machine versus having to tell DP that I fucked up and I needed his help.  Cue 'I am woman hear me roar' and I finally came up with something that worked!
I used the sticks from Plan E, and attached an allen key onto the end of each one using a ton of sticky tape because heaven forbid I lose two more tools.  I hooked each Allen Key under the handle of the screwdriver and ever so carefully extracted the offending screwdriver from inside the washing machine! I was so over the moon I nearly cried.
 

After screwing in the rest of the screws, I chucked a couple of items of clothing in the washing machine and IT WORKED! I was back to being all 'I am woman hear me roar' and now I can wash in my own machine again.  It still randomly decides when it wants to work but it does the job.
 

Are you handy around the house or a DIY disaster?  Let me know your best and worst forrays into the world of DIY.

Mind your words

The mind is a crazy, mixed up thing.  Well mine is anyway.  I have a tendancy to remember all the shit stuff and have a hard time remembering all the good stuff.  I'm reminate on stuff constantly.  In laymans terms I am Stewy Mcstew.  I find it really  hard to let stuff go and negative words have a way of drilling down into the depths of my psyche and taking up residence.  It's something that I really need to work on. 

 An article on Psychology Today says:

The environment that children are raised in molds not only their mind, but also their brain. This is something many long suspected, but now we have scientific instruments that show us how dramatically childhood experience alters the physical structure of the brain, and how sensitive we are as children to these environmental effects. Words--verbal harassment--from peers (and, as a previous study from these researchers showed, verbal abuse from a child's parents) can cause far more than emotional harm.
 

My biggest struggle and thing that plays on my mind constantly is my weight.  Something that my mother would constantly comment on. As well as the volume of food I was consuming while a child.  I wasn't a massively overweight child but yet every hairbrained diet that my mother went on, I was put on as well.  From about the age of 8.  At least that is as young as I can remember.  My mother is overweight and has always always been overweight.  Yet if we were to say anything about her weight, it was the end of the world. It still is.
 

Through my teen years I really struggled with the whole putting food in my mouth and not feeling guilty about it.  To the point where I started starving myself.  My mother was oblivious. Acting dumb whenever my Dr or Psychiatrist mentioned that I hadn't been eating.  From the age of 14 until 18 I only ate one meal a day.  I rarely if ever ate at school.  In Grade 12 I lose 25kgs in 3 months and she didn't think there was anything wrong with that. Even commenting when seeing me eat that I 'better be careful or you'll put all that weight back on'.  To this day I still tell myself that I 'deserve' to eat when getting something out the fridge. There is always an internal dialogue going on when it comes to food.
 

One would think that someone would learn from their experiences with their first child. No, not my mother.  I have just come back from two weeks staying with my parents and my 13yo brother.  My brother got all the good genes and is a bean pole.  By no stretch of the imagination is he overweight.  He is taller than me and so at his weight is well within his healthy weight range.  He's a grazer, I don't think I have ever seen him eat a big meal in my life.  While he was rifling through the fridge one day mum says to him 'Stop eating, you're going to get fat'.  My brother is a lot like me at that age.  He takes things in and stews on them.  What was his response to mums words? He went for a 2 hour walk.  Mum thought this was hilarious saying that he takes things so literally. 
 

Children's minds are so delicate.  Please be careful what you say.  You never know how deep they are burying the harsh words you use.   

FFS Friday: I really could go on forever

On Friday I decided that DS needed new clothes for Daycare.  DS decided it was time to really extend his horns even further.  He screamed on and off for two hours. Head butting me a couple of times. I could feel the judgement searing my skin.  How about a little compassion FFS
 

On the way home I decided a carton of UDL was needed.  I turfed DS out of the trolley so that ther was room for the carton.  He repaid me by crawling along the ground and barking like a dog. So here I was pushing my trolley of grog while being followed by a barking toddler FFS
 

I got down to the taxi rank and thought I had hit the jackpot because there was already a taxi waiting and no one in sight who wanted it.  Turned out he was an arsehole with no common courtesy.  I get that he doesn't owe me, but after I just spent $10 for him to drive me across the road, the least he could do is give me a hand. No instead he sat on his arse tapping the steering wheel while I struggled out with my 5 shopping bags, oversized bottomless pit (aka handbag), carton and a still tantruming toddler.  I would have gotten out quicker if you helped arsehole. FFS
 

DP and his son went fishing.  DP got home at 530am.  He stripped off and threw his pants on the floor.  His smelly fish covered pants.  That wasn't the end of it though. The next night we went out for dinner. He riffled through the clean clothes to find something to wear.  The clothes fell on the floor.  Fast forward two days and I am folding up the washing.  What do I find? DP fucking smelly fish covered pants in amongst the clean washing.  I had to rewash the clothes.  My washing maching is tempremental and only likes to wash at half a load.  It's only 5kg to start with.  It took me all fucking day to wash clothes I had already washed on Saturday.  FFS
 

DP had the genius idea that it was my washing mashine being not level that was causing all of the issues.  I made it level and it didn't make a difference so I changed it back.  DP knew this.  He decided to ignore it and adjust the feet on the washing machine.  Feet that need a shifter to readjust. A shifter that I don't have.  I did a load of washing tonight.  I had to go in every 5 minutes during the spin cycles as the washing machine is so out of balance, the clothes kept gathering on one side and stopping the cycle.  Why don't men listen FFS
 

What are some things that have pissed you off this week? Check out Dear Baby G to see more FFS stories

A Picture Says a Thousand Words

I almost forgot to link up with Eden's Fresh Horses this week. *gasp*

This week its all about pictures and what's been happening in your world.  

So post your favourite pictures from the week or whenever and Link Up.

This is my favourite pic of Dyllan and Paul.  They both look so serene and it's just a nice pic.

These are my $15 Heels.  They have since been renamed the killer heels as I twisted my ankle in them and I'm still limping!

Dyllan got his head stuck in a coat hanger. after I finished laughing I took this pic!

Fix You

Through the BabyCentre forums I got to know a wonderful mum and began to follow the plight she faced and fought everyday to help her son with Autism.  She faced waiting list after waiting list, some up to 2 years long before anyone could provide her with the building blocks she needed to help her son become all that he could be.

She. Never. Gave. Up.

According to the 2009 Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC), an estimated 64, 600 Australians have Autism.  This is double the amount surveyed in 2003. The majority of the care of those diagnosed falls to the family. Formal carers provided less than a third of the care.  According to statistics only 2,200 people diagnosed with Autism receive daily formal care.  The rest falls to an often overworked, stressed family member.

Public waiting lists are long, private care is expensive.  Most families can't provide the care their child deserves.  My friend decided enough was enough and took things into her own hands.  She began fundraising, raising awareness and never stopped fighting so that her son could get the care he needed.  I am constantly in awe of everything she does for her family.

  Here is a video she had created the explains the plight more than I ever could.

If you wish donate please head over to their Facebook page: Ipads 4 Autism

Apple of my eye....and shit

I might be a little cynical (ok you can stop rolling your eyes now...no really stop) but these things drive me up the wall.  I don't think that I need to post 500 'inspirational quotes' on my facebook/twitter etc to show that I love my son.  

Also why isn't there any real ones? All of them describe them as being clean and pure and other shit.  Anyone with a child knows that this is about as close to the truth as thinking that a reality tv contestant isn't just in it for the money.  Sure they are perfect in every way to you, but the reality is that sometimes they are just little pains in the arses!  

So I decided to find a few of my own 'inspirational quotes'. Enjoy :D

This is quite possibly the best condom ad I have ever seen!

p.s I really hope no one comes across my blogs by using the search terms I just did

Mummy Sins

I most likely commit 'mummy sins' every single day.

What's a mummy sin you ask?  It's one of those things that you do that 'the experts' would shudder and shake their head if they found out you were committing them.

What's my reaction to this? 

I DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK!

None of these so called 'sins' are hurting mini man and  they help us get through the day.

So just what are these so called sins you ask?

Well....sometimes we have sandwiches for dinner *gasps*

Mini Man doesn't have a shower every single day *gasps*

sometimes I have a nap when Mini Man doesn't *gasps*

The kicker is that he faces forwards while in his pram and has from day dot.  According to 'experts' this is cruel and selfish. *cue eye rolling*

What mummy sins do you commit? Do you give a flying fuck or do you feel guilty?

Mojo....Hello....Are you there?

The last....month my mojo has really disappeared.  I'm really trying to fake it 'til I make it but that gig is getting old....fast.

A week ago I moved a mattress into my lounge room because I'm too lazy to both go to bed and get out of bed.  We've been eating so much 'crap' that mini man looks like he has a beer belly and I have one to match.  In fact it's probably why he's been a turd lately.....all that processed shit.  Mother of the year and all that.  He could spot a bottle of vodka at 20 paces but ask him to point to a body part other than his nose and he's screwed.

Some days if Mini Man wasn't in nappies I don't think I would leave the mattress.  I don't feel warm and fuzzies lately.  I just feel inconvenience.  Pretty sure that isn't what you are meant to feel towards your child.  I just don't feel that bond.  Haven't for a while.  Or ever.  I just feel like I am going through the motions...doing what I think I 'should' be doing.  I never post those 'proud parent' status' because I'm not sure if I agree with them, or feel the same way.  I can't bring myself to tell the people who matter, so I just tell the interwebs....