The Parent Army

It doesn’t take a village – it takes an army.

Something happened recently to a close mum friend. I won’t go into the details of it but it got me thinking about the might of the Parent Army once it is mobilised.

Finding my Parent Army has been an underrated benefit of having a family. I’m 40 now and I guess I thought I was done making friends, I certainly thought I’d only pick up a few choice friends through baby classes and play dates but that we’d grow apart as the kids grew up and went to different nurseries etc.

It’s been quite the opposite.

I now have a network of the most amazing people (mums and dads!) who I rely on for advice, support, bitching and gin when needed. More importantly, I know that if I needed help, and we all do, I would have it. This ranges from the emergency nappy I needed the other day to the knowledge that I would trust them with the lads if, for whatever reason, I had to leave them for a bit. And this is big. Trusting someone with my children. I’d like to think they think the same of me.

Unlike the other great superhero armies, the Parent Army doesn’t need capes, although god knows I’d love an excuse to wear one. And I’m really not sure I can pull off a cat suit though the other mums definitely can! Our uniform is snot trails, milk sick and ‘is it poo or is it chocolate’ brown splodges. We wear mismatched socks, have chaos hair and rock comfy mum shoes – no heels allowed.

Our marching is done with a buggy in front of us and a nappy bag so full of all the crap we need to carry ‘just in case’, that the weight of it would challenge any regular soldier.

If you see us together, desperately drinking coffee before it gets spilt or burns someone, eating a bacon roll that we shouldn’t because, once again, there was no time for breakfast, and comparing horror stories while laughing at who we are now – don’t be afraid of enlisting.

We are welcoming, we are strong and we support each other, no matter what. And if that coffee is sometimes wine, do not judge – unless it’s 9am.

The Parent Army mobilises when it needs to, and it’s always ready. Finding my troops has been an absolute highlight of my life. Parents are not alone, we have each other, and no soldier will be left behind.

The lads and their food.

Right now, the 3 year old is just finishing an insane and quite stressful ‘hummus phase’. He was obsessed and it was all he asked for.

Why was it stressful you ask? Firstly, we kept running out and our schedule is so damn tight at the moment that nipping to a shop for hummus is tricky and a hassle… plus taking kids to the supermarket is just never nipping in is it?

Secondly…. the ‘vehicle’ in which we delivered the hummus was a continually evolving drama in itself. For a time, it could only be sucked from a finger, despite handy vegetables, pitta or toast fingers. Then it required a spoon! And not a toddler spoon, a grown up spoon. This week – it can only be eaten in a special wrap. I don’t even know what this means! I tried wholemeal, I tried white, I tried mini and I tried big. NONE OF THESE ARE THE SPECIAL WRAP!

Reading this back, I’m frustrated with myself, why am I indulging this pickiness. But the fact of the matter is, when it’s feeding time at the zoo, I’m tired from work, and I just cannot be bothered with the fight. Am I making a rod for my own back? Most likely.

As it happens he’s just told me he’d like a break so we are having a hummus holiday.

Benji is a very vocal nearly 3 year old and I like that he knows his own mind, but this has added to the food drama because he has decided he, in his own words, “only likes pasta sometimes and he doesn’t know which days that’s going to be”. So the pre-planning of meals is a joy at the moment.

And this brings me to food wastage. I’m trying to be good, environmentally conscious, but whoever these people are who tell us to waste nothing… these people do not have babies and toddlers. It. Is. Impossible.

Jake is a very good eater, he will eat anything and in huge volumes. It’s actually terrifying how much goes in there – and the subsequent nappies of course. But he’s also a baby and a lot goes on the floor. And as I’ve said, Benji gets a bit picky. There is a lot of food wasted. We don’t have a dog so this goes straight into the food waste bin and I feel, oh here it is, the familiar endless sensation of MUM GUILT.

What’s the other alternative? Me and Lad Dad eat it? As someone who puts a stone on if I even look at a cake, this is a bad habit that I have (mostly) dropped but it feels so wasteful and I hate it.

I have tried to balance this by massively reducing the food waste for me and Lad Dad. I am getting much better at using everything up and I’ve definitely reduced what we put into food waste, but some is inescapable. This is particularly tricky with James who isn’t as flexible as me with best before dates. I’m ready to risk most things the day after…

Our freezer is getting used a lot more though and it’s something I’m determined to continue. I also use our leftovers in the boys food. Here is my famous frittata uses up everything recipe… jokes, I’m not a recipe blog. Google one.

Now I just need to train Benji to eat everything mummy makes and teach Jakey to stop dropping food, that’s going to be easy right? Right?

(Incidentally.. the cakes in Benji’s picture that we made together? He refused to eat those. And nobody is allowed to judge me that Jake is eating a chip or two.)

Confident lads..

I’m sitting having a debate with myself, and will obviously be having one with lad dad, about how we feel about sharing pictures of the mini lads online. So far, I’ve been using shots of them from behind but I’m very aware that that’s probably not enough – plus the little fu… rascals won’t pose for many of those. 

I would obviously never post anything explicit or embarrassing but I do wonder whether it’s fair of me to do it without asking their permission, which they obviously cannot give… although, FACT, Benji would 100% say yes – that kid is vain. Every time I take a picture or video of him, he already wants first approval. 

You see, dear reader, Benji and Jake have been born to ‘confident people’. 

In fact, part of what attracted me to James (aka lad dad) is that, after dating two shy guys in a row, I was so happy that I could take him to a party where he knew nobody, leave him alone for an hour and he’d be fine. Within that hour, he’d have joined a football team, been invited to a barbecue and probably stolen a friend from me. I think he’d say the same of me, although not the football part obviously. I prefer gin.

This is of course, pre-kids… We do NOT attend parties these days, we attend chaotic and exhausting play dates. We DO attend barbecues, but they start at 12, and we’re home by 4 for our weekly Tesco delivery (other supermarkets are available). Day drinking is the new night drinking. 

Don’t get me wrong, of course I’m anxious about many things. Parenting has made me more anxious. I didn’t expect the constant underlying fear of bad things happening to them. A future topic I think. 

I’m not always as confident as I might appear. As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been having a confidence stumble about my return to work. And I can feel self-conscious about making new friends, although other parents, on the same journey, are generally amazing. (There are exceptions – cliquey mums are the worst). 

But generally, I’m a confident extrovert. So is James. 

Based on absolutely no science,  I think this means the boys will be confident too. I know they’re young and it’s too soon to say, especially with Jake, but Benji is an outgoing little lad. He seems to make friends easily and tells me he already has 10 best friends, and only one of them is not a real person. 

Sometimes I make the list, sometimes I don’t. I’m ok with that – I don’t want to end up with a 30 year old simpering about how his mummy is his best friend. 

Most of the time, I like that he’s confident, and I like it in me too. I’ve seen people struggle with shyness and it seems to be to be a harder path. Maybe I’m wrong and I’d welcome other opinions. However, I know confidence can come across as brashness, I’ve definitely been abrasive in my time and that’s not ideal either – it’s a trait I’ve got better at managing in my older age but I’m aware it can be a bit much.

My perspective is that I need to provide the foundations for them to feel secure, but keep them grounded as they grow up by slagging them off. Sensible parenting legend right here. 

In conclusion, I think some well-selected pictures can do no harm. As long as lad dad agrees. 

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Back to work, AKA Leaving the Lads.

Hi, I’m Jake’s mummy… I mean Sarah. Hi, I’m Sarah.
I’ve just returned to work after maternity leave with my second (and last) baby, and I’m constantly fighting the urge to introduce myself as Jake’s mummy, since that’s been my name for the past year. At work, I have to remind myself again that I’m Sarah, somebody who has always worked efficiently and felt confidence in her ability to do her job. Right now, I feel new there. The pandemic has forced my employer to make a lot of changes (not before time, to be honest, and I know they’d agree) so the workplace I’ve come back to is very different to the one I left.

Since I’ve returned to work once before, after my first, Benji (nearly 3 now), I was surprised that this second time around the guilt smacked me unexpectedly in the face like a fast serve from Emma Raducanu. Maybe because pressure from society and the high cost of childcare have left me feeling like I should stop working and take care of my children full-time but… that’s not for me.

It goes without saying that I love my children, but that was never the plan. I still want a career and I don’t want to take time out of it and then struggle to get back in. Maybe that’s selfish – it feels a bit selfish. And that leads to more guilt.

The current problem is that I feel like I am doing two jobs but I’m being average at both of them. I know (think?) I’m a good mother (most of the time) but now when they get home, I’m distracted, because without even trying to, I’ve been drawn straight back into struggling to switch off.  And in the office (or… WFH back at the kitchen table on Teams 70% of the day), I know I’m good at client engagement, but right now, when everything feels strange to me, I don’t know where to begin with picking that up again. And let’s not forget, my brain is mush now. Complete mush. 

I should introduce myself properly, because I’m making that classic mistake of being all my kids this and my kids that. I married what some might consider a little late, in fact, I had honestly come to accept that that was it for me. A single life, very happy and surrounded by family and friends, but no ‘great love of my life’, maybe no kids, or at least the hard decision about whether to go it alone or not.

Then I met James, that story is for another time, but 7 years on, we have two boys. The laaaads as they get called around here. 

I wasn’t expecting boys, I come from a long LONG line of female only generations and both my sisters had girls, but bam, willies! Quite the learning curve as any mother of boys will tell you. I think statistically you are far more likely to get wee in your mouth with boys…. and I have. 

They are a delight, happy and healthy with these amazing characters and smiles that will melt your heart. But they are also awful, they already fight each other – the big lad kicks and pushes while the little one is a biter (again, another story). Meanwhile I try to mediate without getting hurt – because the play can be rough and they’re only going to get bigger which worries me. This is lad motherhood. And I’m ok with that. 

I have started this blog because, even if nobody reads it, and I hope someone does, it’s a creative outlet that I need. It’s not going to be filled with advice, preaching or healthy recipes, it’s just going to be my thoughts, pretty unfiltered. There will potentially be some rants and raves but ultimately I hope to share the humour in it all and express that I genuinely wouldn’t have it any other way.

If my experiences help others feel better about their own, if I make someone laugh, or feel a little less alone in a world where filtered Instagram perfect mummy’s live, then that’s all I really want. 

This is my first attempt, so any feedback is very welcome. 

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