I offer thee a Period Pack. May it improve your hormonal state and my life expectancy.

Period Pack: An offering to the female of the species at her most volatile time. Period packs are, usually, gifted by the male to subdue the females aggressive, emotional and unstable behaviour at the onset of menses. Well received packs typically contain chocolate, puddings, cake, wine and/or relaxation aids such as bath bombs.

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Lost in Planet Parent. I miss the old me.

I had the best weekend recently. I got the luxury of a date night with my main man, we (I, it’s always I) purchased tickets to a club to stomp along to a favourite DJ of ours, dropping some banging tunes – we still say stomp, drop and banging right? Months ago I bought the tickets and dreamed of our date night. Devil child was adopted for the night by her best friend auntie (She’s MY best friend) and ‘best snuggle giver’ uncle, while mum and dad shoveled drink down their throat, just to get over pre-night out jitters – it’s been a while, I tend to get a little antsy before going out these days. I’m out of practice.

Pumped full of Sailor Jerrys off we went into the night. Until, wait for it…..4am! Say what?! Parents out till 4am, what stop outs…what fools. But don’t worry, the babysitters assured me a late child pick up the following day was acceptable. In fact it was pretty much welcomed, best friend auntie and uncle had the ‘whole day planned’ Elf style. Baking, crafts, playing, cooking, the whole lot, in one day, with a toddler – who’s the fool now?

Can a person say they don’t like motherhood?

I knew very quickly when I had Jess I wasn’t’ like the other mums. They all loved their baby, keen to play, hold and cuddle their squishy ball of human. At one baby class I watched as a mother stared into her babies eyes, smiling and cooing, loving every second of their play. It appeared genuine, it was genuine.  I smiled and cooed with Jess, but I wasn’t enjoying it. I put on a show, pretending to be a ‘mother’.

More than once I was asked by excited, gleeful, wide eyed mums if I was ‘enjoying motherhood?’. My response was always a lie, my honest response would have been akin to telling an exited child that no, you’re not going to Disneyland, you’re going to the waltzers down the road.

I will do anything for love, but I won’t share that!

I’ll share many things with my partner. We share life, the usual stuff, sharing a bed, sharing raising a child, sharing chores (unevenly), sharing the occasional breakdown when you just can’t take anymore of being an adult, sharing the burden of people constantly questioning our relationship status – ‘are you getting married?’, we share the eye rolls, the moans, the good, the bad and the ugly. I’m talking the real ugly, the shiting on the bed having a baby ugly. To be fair, I don’t remember doing it, so did it really happen?

I caught the ‘mums’ – but there’s a social media cure for that.

My body.

It’s an amazing thing. It grew and housed another human. It provided food for that tiny human. It expanded, it shrunk, it contracted. It really is a source of amazement – I’m pretty amazed at just how much weight I managed to gain and carry when I was pregnant. I took the guidelines of ‘expected’ weight gains and ate them along side my two lunches before my 3 course dinner. Being pregnant really was a great time (*rain check, other than eating like a hungry horse, no it wasn’t).