The other week I returned home to the news that there had been a shooting on our estate. No deaths thankfully, but the kids (and they were kids) in the neighbouring flats were involved. Suddenly the reality of London newspaper headlines were strewn across my street. Only this was a lot more real than any newspaper story…
Single Motherhood
Wanting Another Child
I’ve talked before about how it breaks me to think I won’t have another child, but what I haven’t talked about is why I feel that way. Like most things in life, it’s a complex set of emotions. Emotions that are trying to pull and push me towards a life that is currently very far from…
Why holidays with the family makes me so ungrateful
My son is probably the best travelled toddler I’ve ever met – in his two and a half years he’s got more air miles than should be legal and is already in double digits of countries visited! I’ve done most of these travels as a single mum so you’d think, by now, I’d be used to the whole…
Craving My Ex
I’m craving my ex. Not the ex I divorced, I don’t crave him. I mean the other ex. Everyone has one right? Maybe it was your first love from high school, college, or university. Or perhaps an ex from your more recent past. The long-term ex who you nearly made it through with, but in reality…
Work Travel as a Mum: My Love-Hate Relationship
I travel with work. Not too often, but when I do it’s long distances and I have to leave my son with my mother. I have a love-hate journey with work travel as a mum, from the moment I close that door, till I place the key in its rightful slot some days later. I…
The 14 Emotions of a Divorced Mum
We probably all know someone who is divorced and no doubt we think it sounds sad and difficult, especially where kids are involved, but what does it actually feel like? Here is my take, as a divorced mum of a toddler. 1. I feel like a fool. How could I have made such a bad…
Life and Toddlers: It’s Just a Phase
Alongside ‘I don’t know how you cope‘, the other most annoying phrase I hear as a mum is, ‘it’s just a phase‘. What, you mean my son won’t be taking three hours to fall asleep when he’s 15 years old? What about when he’s 37? You mean he won’t be jumping on my head in the…
Missing in Action: Mental Health and My Son’s First Years
Trigger warning – this post talks quite openly about mental health and thoughts of self-harming, if you are yourself struggling with similar issues there are links to support groups at the bottom. The first two years of my son’s life have been incredibly hard. It’s not been the parenting parts per se (though they have…
Co-Sleeping With My Toddler
I was co-sleeping with my son until he was about 13 months old, then, out of sheer desperation for a decent night’s sleep following my return to work, I reluctantly put him in his own room. To my surprise he bloody loved it. He loved the independence and instantly started to sleep (slightly) better. It was…
5 Ways Blogging Saved My Life
Blogging save my life. It sounds dramatic right, but it’s true. I always dabbled in writing but a cruel twist of fate meant that my treasured writings and journals that I had hand written from the age of nine were destroyed around the same time as I ‘lost’ my husband and became a single mum. Those…