Struggling, Surviving and Seeing

I try to look on the bright side, I really do, but sometimes it’s well, hard. There’s the busy-ness. And the relentlessness. The always-on-ness and the how-do-you-do-it ness. This week somewhere between swimming lessons and GAA training but after that important conference call and around the time of that highly…

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Tantrums: How I Deal with Them Third Time Around

I have three children. Looking back at the early days of parenthood, eight long and sleep deprived years ago, I often reflect that really we were just practising on our  firstborn (sorry son, we didn’t know what we were doing). We were uber-cautious about some things, and over-sensitive too, and…

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Broken Sleep, Broken Promise

There wasn’t much sleep had in our house last night. My three-and-a-half year old seems to have reverted to the sleeping habits of a newborn and was let’s say “wakeful” for many hours during the night. What started out as reassuring hugs degenerated into abrupt shouts to “get back into…

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Carols and Coincidence

As I walked through the carpark on the way to collect my small girl from playschool on Tuesday festive tunes hung on the air. I continued on my way and the music got louder. Voices, singing, piano accompaniment, coming from the church. I checked the time on my phone, I…

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An Incomplete List of Morning Struggles My Children Experience

The morning is a struggle for the children of this house. Some more than others. Despite being up (of their own accord) before 6am they face a series of challenges, some nearly insurmountable, many of which their inconsiderate parents just don’t seem to appreciate or give sufficient weight to. The children…

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Whose Job Is The Most Important?

It was 7.45pm. We were driving back from a hurling match 25 minutes’ drive from our house. I’d left the house just after 7 that morning, had worked 8-4 then left work, called to the house to collect my five-year-old’s football gear and the sandwiches (that my husband had made…

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Siblings

Once upon a time, before I  had any children, I always thought I would have a houseful. Three or four, probably four. Like I said, that was when I had none. Then, I had one. He was lovely, even lovelier once he got over the colic and the screaming and…

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Six Things That Say Me (Or Mammy)

“That is so YOU”. “I saw this and thought of you instantly”. “That always reminds me of you”.  Sometimes we form associations with things and they forevermore remind us of that place, or that time, or a person. Maud at Awfully Chipper wrote a lovely post recently about remembering her mother’s watch…

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