Insainia!!!!

Well, it's been a while!! Just a couple of things have happened between my last post and this, the main event being the arrival of another bundle of bonkersness who goes by the name of Captain Cheeky Chops. He arrived at the end of April, a gorgeous little chap who has simply added to the happy, crazy, busy world of Fork.

Another rather...erm...interesting occurrence is my entry to the Birmingham Half Marathon. It's 10 years this year since losing my wonderful mum and I had the brainwave (malfunction) of entering the half marathon to raise a ridiculous amount of money and to challenge myself to achieve something amazing after something so heartbreaking as losing mum. Not to mention the legs like a baby giraffe I will surely be the proud owner of by October.

So far training is going surprisingly well. Saturday I managed a 5 mile trot around the local park. It wasn't easy, certainly not but it wasn't impossible which I personally found extremely encouraging, until that is, I thought that in just 49 days I will be doing that twice with another 3 miles added for good luck. Ohhhhhhh why oh why oh why have I volunteered for this craziness? Why have I decided to put my body, my poor, battered, lazy body through this turmoil??? Why cant I simply send a cheque? Surely Macmillan don't care if I do the run, they only care about the cash, I'll just send a cheque... Or a coffee morning, I could go to a coffee morning, yes eating cakes, drinking coffee, having a chat THAT'S much more my scene... oh yes, I could to 13 miles of cake and coffee...

No, no I've made a commitment, the entry is paid for, the trainers are laced, the sponsorship requests are being sent out and as I've roped my sister and two lifelong buddies into the whole charade I guess its pavement pounding for this Mo Farrah wanna be!

Next run tomorrow... A&E on standby!!!

Girls just love to shop!

In this time of recession and economic gloom you would think that retailers will be doing their up most to keep us customers happy... Not if this weekend is anything to go by!!!

I went to a well know car/bike store to purchase the boy a helmet so that we could enjoy mother and son cycle sessions in safety. Firstly the bike section is upstairs and the helpful man at the number plate desk simply grunted when I asked if there was such a thing as a lift, begrudgingly he offered to help me carry the pram up as long as it wasn't too heavy. This offer was made in a rather sceptical tone while he eyed my beautiful boys pudgy arms, chubby cheeks and well covered frame! I declined, instead suggesting that I could leave the pram at his desk and simply take the little man with me. He consented to this scheme, stipulating that I leave it at my own risk and he is not responsible should anything go missing or if it needs to be removed for security reasons (not sure how the nation's security could be threatened by a biscuit covered 3 wheeler but I'm no expert!!)

Off we went, feeling slightly subdued by our encounter with number plate man but no less excited about our purchase... The prepubescent school child who offered to help (well, not quite offered, more deigned to finish his chat and look at me after my distinct throat clearing) took one look at my baby, my gorgeous, cute as a button, charming, smiling, happy, beautiful boy and said, "he's got a big head for a baby hasn't he?!" erm... NO!!!

He then took a helmet and just plonked it on top of my cherub and proceeded to do the straps up. My little man was happily letting him do this, no fussing, no trying to pull the helmet off, just passively letting this youth fit him with a bike helmet. It was at this moment that I noticed the teens fingers were absolutely covered in oil and grime and I wondered when this grubby oik last washed his hands before touching my boys over sized head!!!! Little did I know that more compliments where on their way - after struggling to adjust the straps and having already commented on the size of my boy's bonce this so called assistant said "you'll have to adjust the straps because he's got such a small face" so my son's hideous deformities are not confined to his elephantine head but this is complimented, and no doubt enhanced by a freakishly small and minute face!! The whole conversation was then rounded off by the teenager saying "last child I did a helmet for screamed it's head off!" I'm not surprised!!!!!!

The shopping fun continued when I lost my mind and went to the next sale. Thankfully the children's department was a ghost ship, clearly due to bargain crazed mothers rising at the crack of dawn to purchase half price t-shirts! Personally I think it is a crime against sanity to be awake while your child is sleeping and it's certainly something that does NOT happen in the Mellon household!

I then took my mother in law to the Marks and Spencer sale, not as awful as the next sale but still pretty hideous. Why oh why is every sale like a jumble sale? I know that the clothes are discounted but why does that mean they can't be displayed in an attractive way? Mother in law wasn't as uptight about the shop's appearance as I was and found a lovely dress to purchase, fantastic! What was not fantastic was father in laws comment when we got home... He observed that the dress MIL had purchased was very similar in style and appearance to a frock that I own!!!

Hmmm...So all in all this weekend I have discovered that not only do I have a son with an 'interesting' head/face combo but I also have the fashion sense of an 85 year old!!!! What a lucky man hubby is!!!

One too many???

Saturday night husband and I went out for the evening... TOGETHER!!!! We were off to a proper pub, with no wacky warehouse facility, followed by a curry and lots of grown up chat so plenty to look forward to!

Nanny Mac kindly agreed to come and keep an eye on the boy wonder.  We'd had a busy day entertaining so I assured her it wouldn't be a late one and we were more than likely to be home well before midnight - especially as we rarely make it past 9pm these days.

Unfortunately I lost paper scissor stone and had to drive, but still it was a night out and I was excited to not be "mummy" for a few hours. 7 o'clock and the baby was snoozing, Mac had settled in, we were glammed and ready to go. Met everyone in the pub and despite me drinking tonic water while husband was on the beer we were having a top night!  By 9 I was very aware that a) it was approaching bed time, b) I hadn't had any dinner yet and c) husband also hadn't had any dinner but had had several pints!!! I initiated a brief discussion on the best time to go for the curry, suggesting we leave within the next 30 seconds, and was horrified to hear that 10 o'clock was the groups preferred time - 10 o'clock????? What kind of crazy talk is that? I'm normally tucked up in bed well on my way to snoozville by 10 o'clock!

Knowing our curry was going to be more midnight feast than dinner dinner batman I worried that we may not be back at our aforementioned early hour... In fact we didn't make it back until 1.30am!!!!! Lordy! Husband was happily tipsy and I'd had my allowed single glass of vino, all in all it was a wonderful evening and a lot of fun but Nanny wasnt too impressed we'd broken curfew in such a spectacular way!

Sadly the next day was not a lot of fun.. It was daddy's turn to get up with the little man and I very much enjoyed the extra hour in bed. When I did, eventually, emerge from my cozy slumber it came to my attention that my single glass of wine had resulted in a hangover. How can that be??? I only had one glass; ONE! I used to be able to drink gallons of plonk before suffering any ill effects. Becoming a lightweight is a very disappointing aspect of motherhood and one that I think can only be over come by never actually sobering up... Cheers!!

Sent from my iPhone

Confession of a terrible mum

Last week the boy and I had caught a terrible dose of man flu, we were coughing, sneezing and feeling pretty rubbish all round.  He soldiered on with a smile, being the happy little camper he always is, albeit with a stream of glistening snot.  I however crumbled, brought to my knees by germs and self pity.  

On one particular day (I cannot be specific for legal reasons) the baby was still snotty but seemed a lot happier, however, I was basically dead so after lunch I gave him a nice big spoonful of calpol, a lovely bottle and plonked him into bed.  I have to admit he wasn't quite asleep, or even close to going to sleep, so I went up and gave him monkey (his new best friend) in the vain hope that they would entertain each other.  To begin with they were chatting away together, probably discussing when they should put a call into social services, but after a while (quite a while) it went reassuringly quite and then came the gentle lull of snot filled snoring.  

He slept that afternoon for a good 3 hours and I, mother of the year, sat on the sofa eating jaffa cakes and watching tennis.  Now, I ask you... what would supernanny say????? 

Running Club

In a vain attempt to limit the damage of my endless scoffing I have signed up to a Cancer Research UK Race For Life in July.  I absolutely can NOT diet. It is just not possible for me to deny myself anything, I'm certain that if I was to say "Mellon you are not allowed to eat toenails from now on" that I would then crave toenails to the extent of bingeing on them until I was sick and then hiding the packaging so that my gluttony would not be discovered!!  In light of my complete inability to curb my enthusiasm for food I have decided the only way I am ever going to reach the pinnacle of yummy mummyness will have to involve some kind of exercise.


So last night the unthinkable has happened and I joined an exercise club.  A running club to be exact, well club may be slightly over egging it as there was a grand total of 3 people, including my good self.  Apparently there is usually 5 whole people in this club plus a trainer from the gym but for one reason or another there was just the 3 of us.  I was extremely nervous about going, and although they seemed friendly the very fact that they were discussing something called "the black mountain 25" coupled with their choice attire of running "tights" (is there a more disturbing item of clothing?!) had me more than a little suspicious. 


The leader of the gang was describing the route they were planning to take.  I nodded politely in a "I know where you're talking about" fashion while thinking, that sounds like a hell of a lot of roads; perhaps they are short, cul-de-sac type roads.... I was reassured to hear that tonight was a gentle night as it was a birthday run.  Feeling unsure what a birthday run might entail, but hoping that disturbing as they may be the running tights stay in place I set off!  Not sure if the definition of "gentle" has changed in the last 6 months without my knowledge but I felt fairly sure that Usain Bolt would have struggled to keep pace with us while we "jogged" up what was basically Everest's twin!!!!  The lovely gents I was running with were very enthusiastic and encouraging, chatting away to me and telling me how they both started running.  I tried to respond, you know chat away, make friends, be pleasant but unfortunately my lungs were desperately trying to leave my body directly through my ribcage so I was unable to reveal my sparkling personality and witty repartee...


As we neared the top of Everest I had to stop and walk, I simply could not breath any longer! I persuaded the gents to jog on ahead of me as I felt terrible for holding them up, especially after one of them told me that the only problem with running club was that it doesn't cater for different levels so you get beginners with elite runners and it difficult for everyone to get a good session.  They were very lovely though, running on ahead and then jogging back to me and I felt a little like the owner of two Labradors playing fetch! 


I managed to convince the old pins that we could pick up the pace again and decided that this time I would run at my own speed and that the boys would just have to keep coming back for me, surely that's better for them anyway - doubling the distance they're covering?!!!  I was feeling pretty happy plodding along and noticed ahead of me that they had stopped to talk to a lady jogger; she turned out to be one of the other regulars who had got home late from work and run to catch us up.  She said she couldn't miss out on a birthday jog, feeling rather apprehensive now about what this birthday jog may involve we continued when suddenly they jogged into a pub!!!  Yes a PUB! Brilliant!  A birthday jog involves stopping off for a cheeky pint!!!  Now, this is the sort of exercise club I could become very fond of! 


The guys had a pint, other lady had a half and I had...a glass of water!!!  I was VERY aware that my face could have melted the ice caps and that my hair resembled something akin to Worzel Gummidge but the club were so friendly and lovely that I really enjoyed sitting and getting to know them.  We discussed my fitness and they reassured me that I'd be surprised how quickly I will improve all I need to do is go out 4 or 5 times a week.  Hmmmm 4 or 5 times a week right, I was thinking 3 times max.  When I said this one of the guys said, yeah 3 times is OK to start with but 4/5 times would be better, you only need to go out for half an hour...  Obviously he doesn't have children and therefore has no idea just how long it takes us to actually leave the house.  To go through all that effort, energy and hard work to only be out for half an hour would just be a total waste of a morning's work!!!!!!   


Once we'd finished our drinks I was ready to whip out the local taxi number when one of the boys said "come on then, halfway there"... pardon? halfway there? halfway where?!!!!  Ohhhhhh Lord you want me to start running again, is there something wrong with you?  Luckily the terrain was either flat or down hill so I managed to keep up with my new found fitness buds and we were back in town in no time!


All in all I really enjoyed my session with my new friends and I'm pretty sure I shall be going out with them again next week.  Watch out Paula Radcliffe...

January - an update

So far this month I have NOT
a) been doing my pelvic floor exercises
b) blogged more often - you may have picked up on that one
c) eaten less chocolate or cheese or drunk less coffee
d) filed any post and in fact I found a letter shoved at the back of a drawer yesterday on which I had written "urgent, deal with this, do not ignore"!!!

So far this month I HAVE

a) Got so completely and utterly hammered at The Noo's birthday party that I had to be taken home!  When I did get home I just headed up to bed and got in - fully dressed, including boots.  Poor husband had to disrobe me and not in a sexy weyhey manner but in a wrestling a wet watermelon manner, especially when he got to the tights removal stage!  The next day I was a sure fire winner of Kerry Katona's "mother of the year" award as I was sooooo horribly hungover I couldn't even pick the boy up due to the sickiness, the spinniness and the shakes.  My lovely wonderful baldy looked after our gorgeous boy all day, and let me go back to bed to sleep off the vino.  What a disgrace!! 

b) Finally cashed the boy's Child Trust Fund cheque.  The man in the bank obviously thought I was a complete and total fraud as I couldn't remember my previous address, or any details of any other financial dealing we have (no, I don't know what type of mortgage we have, or when the insurance is due or whether or not our life assurance has "family protection".  Yes, I know I should know all of this) and when I told him I was a teacher he asked which school and unfortunately I had to then explain that actually I've only done my degree and haven't actually done any actual teaching in an actual school yet!!  So all in all, I was there for an hour and probably answered 2 questions accurately - my name, the boy's name, both of which were written down on the letter from the government anyway!!

c) Introduced myself to my new neighbours.  I popped round with some home made shortbread and when they invited me in (how friendly) the little girl took out one of my biscuits, took a bite, pulled a face and then put it back into the tin!  Haven't seen them since......

So, we are drawing a line under January and marking it up to some kind of New Year blip.  February, that's where the action is, February, that's where real people take up New Year challenges, just as all those others are wimping out of theirs.  February, yes February! It's the new January - everyone knows that!!!!  Yes, yes, I realise we're ever so slightly half way through February but as they say - better late than never!

New Years Resolutions

1) I will not use wanting another baby as an excuse to slob about and eat chocolates

2) I will leave the house every day, even if it's just to go to Sainsbury's (where I will NOT buy chocolate)

3) I will not get cross with my baldy when he's being a plonker and will instead remember that I love him and that he is wonderful

4) I will eat less cheese

5) I will eat less

6) I will not laze about in a slutty manner wearing trackie dacs and watching crappy daytime TV but will instead make an effort with self

7) I will blog more often

8) I will be better at staying in touch with friends and actually call people rather than sending them a text/email/facebook message saying sorry I haven't called!

9) I will become organised; filling post and paper properly rather than piling it up and losing everything!

10) I will attempt to reduce the number of coffees a day back into single digits

11) I will do my pelvic floor exercises twice a day as instructed by the midwife.  I will NOT become a Tena Lady!