I've just told the kids that I'm taking a coffee break. I opened my lap top, and said I have a bit of work to catch up on. I'm on Twitter. I am a bad mother. The coffee break is because I just spent the last forty-five minutes making toast and a giant cheese and tomato omelette. ...
The sun was shining, they'd finished lunch, and they needed some fresh air. I had no more excuses. Time to hit the playground. They wanted to go to the one nearest our house - the one where there's cool stuff but it's always freezing cold and there's no decent coffee nearby. "What about Cabinteely Park instead?" ...
Something I keep forgetting is that it takes my kids a little bit of time to adjust on any given occasion - holidays, new places, days out. They need a few minutes or a few hours to work out that expectations and reality aren't exactly the same - and it can go either way; sometimes ...
“Be kind to yourself. It’s ok to feel upset about leaving your baby. It’s ok to be glad to have a whole day without a small person attached. You will find an equilibrium.” This week I meet Anna Boch – project manager, Doula, and mum of three. She talks about her project management job, her four-day ...
For years now, Scooby Doo has been entertaining my kids, and also for years, I've been telling them that I used to watch Scooby Doo when I was a kid. Every time. They must be thrilled when they see me coming with the same nugget of nostalgia. The blank looks and implicit shrugs say it all. ...
“At the start when I worked full-time and my oldest started to get upset going into crèche, massive guilt set in. Myself and my husband wondered if we were ‘choosing’ to send him to crèche or could we afford for one of us to give up work.” This week I interview Debra McNamara, mum of three, ...
Eight years ago, I went along to the Saturday Night Show in RTÉ, and came away with a one-for-everybody-in-the-audience night in a hotel. So we duly booked our night, and headed off to Clane with our then seven-month-old. We weren't quite sure how staying in hotels with babies worked, but everyone else seemed to do ...
I read an article this week about how commercialised Mother's Day is, how contrived, how Hallmark-y. And another asking why we can't have Mother's Day 365 days a year - why does it have to be just one day. And one saying "Please, whatever you do, don't buy me flowers". And I totally get it - it ...
This post was originally published on Scary Mommy (which is why it has "grocery store" instead of "supermarket" and why my kids are a year younger than they are now) Watching Frank Underwood doing his thing in House of Cards last night — pulling himself out of yet another impossible situation with words and subterfuge and subtlety — I ...
“In my view the world is seriously missing out because employers are failing to be more creative in the types of working arrangements they offer to women.” Leisha McGrath is an Occupational Psychologist and mum of two. Here she talks about how redundancy prompted her to start working for herself, why she still likes a mix ...