Yet another blogging mummy

  I've just re-read the last few posts. It really does seem like I am raising some sort of terrorist. I want to caveat that with this; My daughter is the most scrumptious, delightful, innocently sweetest, kindest, most gorgeous golden little girl you could hope to meet. She is my life, my world, my absolute joy and sunshine. She makes me laugh constantly and the joy she brings to my life is indescribable. I love her with the fiercest but also the most squidgy love, and her cuddles make me melt into little chocolatey puddles on the floor. Sometimes I feel like I love her a little too much, and then I realise that's the stupidest thing I have ever had the misfortune to think. I feel that in the past year, it's been difficult, and I've written about it honestly, but that doesn't take away from my infinite and unceasing love for her. My posts seem quite negative, and I think that's because this is how I've been feeling. It's not been easy. But what preschool

 Well. It's been a weekend.  6 am wake ups every day (which are, obviously, reserved for weekends. She only sleeps in on the days when we actually have to be somewhere) and 3-5 wakings during the night. She wants milk. But she wants chocolate milk. She wants a wee wee. She wants some more milk. She is cold. She's too hot. She wants to be in my bed. And in my tummy, and in my head, and on my head. The wake ups are immediately followed by some sort of howling because I won't let her watch TV immediately upon waking up. This eventually fizzles and subsides to sniffling crying noises, and resigned, disgruntled hurrumphs. After a little while, I try and get out of bed, as now I'm up and she's up and everyone is up, and there is enormous resistance from her end that I attempted to get out of bed. All she wants is for me to lie in bed next to her. All she wants, in actual fact, is to be able to control everything in her life.  4:30 am, 4 days til moving day - I've bee

 Hello my dear friends and readers, let me just get my cup of tea... I want to celebrate the fact that I have maintained my sobriety for 60 days. It wasn't easy, I will tell you that. In fact, for the first month, my newly 4 year old daughter became a demon. Almost as if she knew that this was the time to do it, because Mummy isn't self medicating every night anymore. She was a feral, non sleeping, manipulative, whining, non eating, little monster who held her bowel movements just to add a little poison to the already toxic ointment.  But then, just as suddenly and miraculously, she changed. Within the last two weeks, she has, as everyone said she would "gotten better". "It will get better," everyone said to me when I showed up to anything looking like I'd been dragged across an 8 lane motorway during rush hour and then trodden underfoot by a herd of stressed out Buffalo who are late for an important meeting. I would look at them through the one eye that

Today is the first day that I have felt better after my third (or fourth? I've lost count) bout of Covid. Or, the 'vids, as we like to say around this house. I have had it four days, and it's not been fun. My husband has been working full time, taking care of me, taking care of our 4 year old daughter (who, by the way, seems to be super talented at knowing the exact moment when one of us is sick and the other is exhausted, and goes completely feral) and cleaning the house in the few minutes free he has here and there. I'm still pretty tired, and need to be careful that I don't overdo it, but it's a downhill slope from here I believe. Still haven't had a drop to drink for, now, 50 days. That's a long, long time for me! 

I have driven in many cities. Toronto and London being two of them. I have been driven in Italy and India, both of which leave you feeling like you are lucky to be alive as you hurl yourself out of the vehicle that was three minutes ago travelling at 1 million miles an hour, kiss the ground and swear you will give your life to Jesus, confess everything and never sin again, as per your very recent, very desperate conversation with Him. I have seldom, however, driven in a city where, as you come out of your driveway, in order to stay intact, you must assume that everyone in a car today has left their house with an unwavering determination to crash into you. The utter incompetence, pettiness and plain idiocy of drivers in this city leave me thinking that there is no other explanation for their unfathomably terrible driving.  When I first arrived a year ago, I was so outraged, so baffled, that it took me this long to write about it. I just spent the entire time on the roads shaking my head

I toyed with the idea of writing this as a new blog. But then I thought, no. This is all part of it.  So...I'm doing sober October. Or Stop-tober. Or whatever you want to call it. Mock-tober? (as in, mocktail - tober?) Whether I finish it or not, whether I get through the next week or not, or whether I never drink again (preferable), I am quite proud of myself, because I am on day 6 tonight. I am not proud that I am on day 6. I am proud that I am on day 6 after two of the most stressful nights of my life.  Last week my little pickle, newly 4 years old, decided that she was just not going to have a poo for 48 hours. I won't go into details, but my God. I went almost out of my mind with the worry of it. You can't force 'em to eat, and you can't force 'em to have a poo. She held it and held it and held it. I was having visions of her body poisoning itself, although my husband kept sagely (though not entirely helpfully) saying "Noone ever died from not having a

  I've said it before and I'll say it again. Our children are our best teachers.  Yesterday, in the midst of continuous meltdowns, back to back battles and torrid tantrums, and immediately following a particularly nasty spitting sound that expectorated (good word eh? my mum was an English teacher) from my toddler as she resisted YET ANOTHER thing, I made the decision to shout. I very rarely do, but I thought that she needed to snap out of this powerful little vortex of chaos that she was causing, and I essentially said to myself "fuck gentle parenting" and I shouted "YOU DO NOT SPIT AT ME!" which cued (as I knew it would) a torrent of tears, to which I instantly responded by enfolding her in the biggest softest longest cuddle I could muster, while murmuring loving things into her hair. I know, I'm a sucker for tears. They undo me.  While I was murmuring, between her gasps and sobs, she kept wailing "Be HAPPY mummy!" I thought about it. This wa