Appalling Aroma: The After Math

After T-H-A-T smell , work began today to fix it.

Foreman arrives.

Right then cowboy...you call that level, do you?
And...I could be mistaken...but...*sniffs* ...do we have a cat?

Feelin' Hot, Hot, Hot

Boo is always warm. She's one of those irritatingly hot people. That type that are smugly warm all winter, then moan about being hot all summer. Have clammy hands in November. Wear shorts in February. Spontaneously combust a couple of times a week -you know the ones. Show offs, posers, mammals. 
If you're one of these greedy heat grabbing little buggers, know this: us cold people don't want to hear about your sweatiness. When it's a beautiful summer's day, the sun's cracking the flags and we've dared expose a bit of shoulder - all is well with the world; until you show up and start harping on about humidity. 
It's our time. So shut up.


Clearly my reptilian gene skipped Betty, as she seems to have followed the warm blooded path of her father. Little sod.You'd think after all I put my body through to get her here, she'd be on my side. But no. They both gang up on me to moan about heat stroke and dehydration and pull that selfish 'turn the heating off' face that really gets on my nerves. It's only June.

Recently my two favourite killjoys really brought in the big guns. The recent warm air would normally have suited me perfectly: muggy, close, oppressive. Lovely. But no more. The rise in temperature over the last few days has pushed relations between us to fever pitch. Dave is on auto-carp, moaning repetitively about clamminess and his undies riding up his bum; The Poop has set about making her thoughts about the warm temperatures known by -

• developing an itchy, unsightly heat rash on her neck and the back of her head
• sweating her way through three changes of clothes per day
• obtaining a fair example of chafing due to nappy/crawling friction
• becoming increasingly irritable as the day goes on
• not going to sleep for at least an hour at bedtime

H2Woooah

Boo has been practising using a cup this week. 

As a result our laminate has become a skating rink covered in splashes and spillages which, if you come down in the night to grab a drink and have failed to mop up a spot, has this irritating habit of giving you an actual heart attack as you skid naked, bits jangling, out of the kitchen gripping your 

G-L-A-S-S between your sweaty, petrified fingers.

Oh? You wanted the good news? Ok.

With terror sponsored adrenaline pumping through your veins, getting back to sleep within the hour is absolutely impossible. 

So that's just excellent.

What do you mean "don't shake it"?
I'm not shaking it - see.

Spoke Too Soon

Ok yeah. I take it back. I absolutely didn't mean it. And now it's come to bite me on the bum.

The Poop's hatred of Being Still, in just the last twenty four short hours, has DEVELOPED. 

When Betty gets out of the bath in the evening, there are always low level grumbles. As you dress her in pyjamas for bed, there are a few slightly more disgruntled protestations, and occasionally, if you're being too slow, you may experience a few whinges as she waits for her supper. But other than that, she's not a jot of trouble.

Until she actually heard me say it out loud. And since then - we've had a problem.

The Poop has clearly decided to up her game, making enough room in her ram-packed schedule of moving about to fit in a few slices of out and out naughtiness. And I'm not talking mischievousness. Mischief is endearing, cute, playful. I'm talking disobedient. Unruly. Badly behaved. She's even cracked open a few "you're not giving me my own way" tantrums.

This wayward behaviour rears its head when you cruelly, mercilessly, maliciously, vindictively and ever so heartlessly attempt to CHANGE HER NAPPY.
Roughly five times a day we have a battle on our hands. A messy, smelly, carpet staining war.

Issue One
She won't lie down.
Clearly, I am out of touch with the kids. Lying down must have recently been demoted to that unsavoury, much maligned world of 'The Pastime Of A Nerd'. It is for losers. Wimps. Weeds. No cool dude would EVER be caught lying down. Er? Hello?! Lying down is to Boo what Hi-Tec trainers were to my Year Nine changing room - a shameful manifestation of awkward embarrassment and complete humiliation (especially when someone Tip Ex'd out 'Hi' and scribbled 'Low' over it with a biro).
Lying down and any association with it must be avoided at all costs and this can be done by screaming hysterically/scrumpling yourself in a ball/kicking your legs in the air violently.

Being Still

The Poop is now almost fully mobile. Alright she's not driving my car, but other than that, she's gone. Crawling all over the place, pulling herself to standing, shuffling along holding onto tables and chairs. She put the bins out yesterday.

In fact, so enamoured is she with her new found abilities to traverse most friction friendly surfaces that Being Still currently sits at the heart of all she finds abhorrent and repugnant. In fact it's sandwiched between her two other chief irritants: Things She's Not Allowed To Put In Her Mouth and Men With Beards (woman with beards are good to go).

Going to bed is yet another opportunity for exploration and general bounding about. She warms up by circumnavigating her cot two or three times on entry, before dutifully getting down to the hearty business of 'messing about and not going to sleep'. This section of the proceedings can include any collection of the following:

• bouncing
• laughing her head off
• chewing the bars/tedddies/sheets
• throwing teddies outside of the cot
• being a bit sick
• babbling
• running her dummy tunefully up and down the bars
• banging her head on the bars (purposely)
• banging her head on the bars (accidentally)
• scrumpling the quilt and sheets in a ball down at one end
• making a weird shrieking noise
• swinging on and further breaking her mobile
• collecting every single toy which is clipped to, dangling from and decorating the cot, and settling them all at one end, surrounding herself

And my personal favourite

• trumping quite loudly and giggling a bit

Appalling Aroma

There's been a smell. A weird whiff. A baffling bouquet.
It's lingered around our house for over a week now.

When we returned from our Father's Day walk last Sunday, it hit you on opening the front door. And I don't mean hit you. I mean absolutely smashed the nostrils clean off your recoiling face. And you would happily swap your hooter for the chance to not smell that perfume. Yet even this was not enough to avoid the revolting stink. It still found you; through your eyes, your ears, your hair. You could taste it. And Dave hadn't even had his Sunday poo yet.

We managed to track it down to emanating from the kitchen. We spent, well, I say we...Dave spent most of last week taking the kitchen A-P-A-R-T. I pretended to do things with bits of paper. Never did I envisage my return to work coming in so handy. He tackled the oven, grill, washing machine, dishwasher, microwave, sink; even the light fittings have been dismantled, sniffed, cleaned and returned. I was delighted when he scooped the gloop out of the gutters over the back door. They've needed doing for ages. He found myriad stinks, but none of them was THAT ONE. Then, we/he homed in the fridge freezer.
Yep. It was coming from there. Defo.

Seeing Dave working so hard, I felt compelled to get my hands dirty, so I rolled up my sleeves and Googled our fridge. Lots of whinging about drip trays. So he pulled the whole thing away from the wall. Drawers out, shelves off, drip tray located and washed: all in less than five minutes. No joy. As I stood watching Dave mooch around the motor and wiring in the back, I turned to my right and sniffed. I sniffed again. That wall smells weird. It definitely gets stronger there. I grabbed a kitchen chair to stand on, and traced the sickly stench up to a corner behind the fridge, to where the walls means the ceiling. There. That's it.
The root of the terrible tang. Something is IN THERE. Something that seems very, very poorly.

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toys

All change this week.


First, the girl one decided to abandon me for four days. No warning - she just cleared off. Must be because I keep pinching her skin then twisting it to see what she does. I don't think she likes that. Or it might be because I pull clumps of her hair out. Or because I sink my nails into her cheeks. You can never be sure what's up with her being so flipping touchy. 
It was weird her not being here, but nice as well. She never rushes to sort me out when I'm doing my tired/bored/selfish whinge and her jokes get annoyingly repetitive. But she knows what I want when I want it, which takes a while to teach.


I've spent this week hanging with my old man and training him up for a couple of days. He's dead fresh and full of energy; I could definitely work with that guy more often. Then the old lady one came and took over. I think they decided to share me because I'm "everywhere at the minute". Nan takes me out for walks and is refreshingly calm and relaxed all the time, which is a God send when I am constantly subjected to the late coming, 100mph, daily blood pressure hike that is life with my Mother.


After four days out of the game, with me feeling really chilled out, content and laid back, she returned. With a bang. In her irritating, inimitable style, she scooped up everything we own and took herself, Dad and me down to the big smoke. Old London town. Like you do.


I'm sure I missed my first birthday sat in the back of that car. It certainly felt like we'd lost a couple of years with Mum insisting on singing nursery rhymes to me almost all the way there. With her dulcet tones reverberating clumsily about the car, the miles just flew by. Not. She looked me dead in the eye through the majority of her wailing, which I found disconcerting and more than a little creepy. On completing each nursery rhyme, she would stop, as if waiting for applause. Sadly, with growing up comes responsibility, and I can no longer protest that I don't know how to clap, so was bullied into rewarding her operatics with a sarcastically slow round of applause which clearly went completely over her head. I stopped the clapping when I realised it was encouraging her. Even going to sleep didn't stem her song. When I cried she just shoved a dummy in my mouth and carped on. She thinks she's Shirley Bassey or something. 
It's just 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' Mum. Chill.

And The Winner Is...

We intended to leave at 7am. At 8:50am, off we went. Good going that.
With BritMums Live! starting at 3pm, we should land about right.

Parked up in London/Beirut at 2:15pm. £18 for two days parking. In a dog rough area. Sold. To the woman with a receipt for two flat tyres, one headlight and no steering wheel.

We trekked across the heart of the city; pushing the pram, carrying Boo's travel cot, bedding, changing bag, my overnight bag, Dave's overnight bag, an assortment of waterproofs and a whole bloody bottle steriliser under my arm, past roadworks and over busy crossings and down crowded pavements. At 2:54pm we rocked up, rained on yet sweating profusely, at the Travelodge. We could afford the Ritz, but we just seem to fit in better in the more 'lived in' establishments. I don't know why. 

I splashed water about my person and changed in a blurred three minutes, before jogging the short distance from the hotel to the conference just in the nick of time to hear Ruby Wax open the event with an uplifting speech about dealing with mental illness. Some people were ACTUALLY MAKING NOTES. These guys sure know how to part-ay. Must be a London thing.

Halfway through a more upbeat seminar about self harm, I felt it. It just went. You know it's a bad one when that happens. Sometimes they just creep up. But not this one. This one would be H-E-A-V-Y. Plentiful. Flowing.
And I was wearing white jeans.
I jumped up and ran to the loo, knowing full well I had not packed the appropriate provisions what with this cheeky little swine having turned up about two days early. I scrambled into the cubicle to assess the damage. Minimal.
And to keep it that way? I rooted round in my bag and discovered a clean nappy of Boo's. The Girl Guide in me kicked in, and I left the bathroom with an a super absorbent, well dressed, if ever so slightly bulging crotch, safe in the knowledge that I had averted disaster. And it'll come in handy when I feel the need to wee myself amid the excitement of winning.

BritMums Brilliance in Blogging

It has dawned. The day of
a) the BritMums Brilliance in Blogging Awards.
b) the BritMums Live! Conference.

c) having to make proper ACTUAL CONVERSATION WITH OTHER HUMAN BEINGS. 

Hello?! I'm a nerd. I talk to people ON THE COMPUTER. I don't do face time. It's all so personal and invasive having to look someone in the eye. Makes me shiver just thinking about it. And today am going to be surrounded by hundreds of people I have never met, and may well not even like, but to whom I will have to be nice anyway. (Unless they read my blog, in which case I already love them very much and will be more than happy to shower them with compliments*, foot massages* and extracts of rehearsed witty banter*.)

*These are non transferable. I do not perform kareoke or accommodate fetishes, and the introductory offer of a gold carriage clock for all new readers has now expired.
You snooze you lose.

During the event, I have decided I will mask my social ineptitude, ignorance and plain old bad manners by playing the trusty old 'aloof' card. That bad boy is a little corker. Defo worth keeping in the back pocket. While others schmooze and mingle and make merry and feel all at ease and relaxed throughout the proceedings, I'll been the achingly cool loner, skirting the room holding a pork pie and wearing a face like a smacked bum, with my mobile superglued to my palm, so I can pretend I have got some mates. Somewhere. 

As I am such a unfriendly, cold, people hating person, you would not be a total lunatic to wonder why I am attending at all. Firstly; there will be free stuff. Secondly; there will be stuff for me to win. Thirdly; there will be stuff that will teach me how to get more free stuff and win more stuff. And as much as I dislike most people, I very much like free stuff and winning. So I decided to put a face in.

Trolley Dolly

At exactly nine months old today, it's time for me to let The Poop do a bit more stuff.

Like get herself a trade, give us a bit of keep and generally learn to pay her bloody way. 

All her formula and porridge and jars of mush don't come cheap. And she knows it. It's not like she was born yesterday. Well, she'll soon learn the value of money when she starts putting something in the pot.

Alright, alright, so she can't stand up yet, but that doesn't rule out a desk job. And yeah, I know she wouldn't be able to use the phone. And I am fully aware that she cannot type. She can't read or write either, but Christ, if we keep going at that rate, she'll never find a steady income. While Kerry Katona's working, there's always hope.


Until she hits a nine to five, we'll tackle another equally important life hurdle which I feel Boo is ready to fell. 
Trolleys.

Pushing The Poop round supermarkets in a pram while I grapple with masses of shopping that won't fit in the buggy basket stops today. I am sick of clenching whole lettuces in my teeth, wedging packets of teabags in my ears, balancing cereal boxes in the crooks of my elbows and pinning jars of coffee under my armpits like some sort of dancing hamper. I am especially sick of reaching out to a shelf for an item and forgetting I have a jar of coffee under each armpit. (Though we are now excellent at shuffling away from the spillage tutting, shaking our heads and muttering about "making a claim" without a jot of guilt or embarrassment). 
No, at nine months old, the kid can handle a trolley.


I placed my most prized possession, complete with that vulnerable little soft spot on top of her head, on board the treacherously angular wire mesh. This thing sits four perilous feet from the floor, balances upon precarious wheels, and moves in a dodgy, teasingly hazardous sideways manner - the sort that creeps away silently but suddenly takes down a display of glass Coke bottles, then spins on its casters to point at you as if it's all your fault for picking it.

Siège d'Auto

Why does tackling the workings of a child's car seat require a physics degree?  

I dug out the instruction book. 

Do I want to adjust the straps? Nope. 

Do I want to know how to undo the harness? Yeah. Ha bloody ha. That's dead helpful that. 

Do I want to wear the seat as an elaborate Lady's Day hat? Hello?! That's next Tuesday.

Do I want to use it as a lilo? With the jet pack? To herd cattle? 

No. I. Do. Not.

I merely want to remove the cover from the bloody thing and PUT IT IN THE WASHING MACHINE.

Turns out this information, nestled in at the back of the instruction book, comes under a chapter called 

'Two Minute Jobs? You're Having A Laugh'. 

I flicked my way through paragraphs and subsections and disclaimers and small print, then finally, I located the information I required, which was only available in the French column of the multilingual instructions. Having spat my way through five years of G.C.S.E German, I would be relying heavily on the numbered diagrams, which sadly, looked like they had been drawn with absolutely no reference to the chair itself, and with the artistic dexterity of those who paint Mickey Mouses on the side of ice cream vans.

Neglected

So, you get through your first day back in work, having constantly thought of the baby daughter you abandoned, cast aside and discarded in exchange for cold hard cash. You hurriedly leave the workplace in order to race home and cuddle the little bundle of joy who wonders why she has all of a sudden been rendered surplus to your requirements.

You speed home imagining every second of the reunion. You screech up the driveway, plough through the front door and race down the hall to see...HER. And, on noticing your beaming face, she smiles. The warmest, most familiar, most loving, most "there's my Mum!" smile you have ever seen.
You scoop her up in your arms and cuddle and kiss and tickle and nibble and breathe in every inch of her loveliness. You stroke her perfectly soft skin, ruffle her fuzzy thatch of hair and feel her tiny fingers grasp yours so readily. You talk with her, you play, you ask about her day. You give her a few more kisses in case she has just forgotten about the last set. You can't believe you missed a moment of her.

She smiles. She cuddles you back.
But she hasn't forgotten what you did. How you sold her out. Deserted her. Shuffled off into the sunset without as much as a backwards glance. So. Payback.
How can she hit you where it really hurts? Where will it count most? What can you just not take? Then she finds it. The sweet spot.

She seeks out that tiny shred of your conscience that is still intact and bides her time, waiting until a good hour or so has passed and you have begun to really relax from work. That way you are totally unsuspecting. Then, she attacks.
LAUNCHING HER WHOLE BODY FROM THE SEAT YOU JUST PUT HER IN SO THAT SHE TUMBLES COMPLETELY FROM IT AND LANDS ON THE FLOOR, EYE FIRST - ALL WHILE UNDER YOUR SUPERVISION.

D Day

(As in Definitelydonotwantto Day)

If I keep my pyjamas on under my coat, does
that mean they'll have to send me home?
What about if I forget how to drive?
Stop breathing?

Proper, absolutely, totally, completely, utterly, entirely, wholly, categorically, unmistakably NO NEED.

Happy Father's Day Daddy

Dear Dad


Happy very first ever Father's Day. I hope you have a very lovely day.
On days like today I am supposed to tell you all the reasons why I love you absolutely loads. But first I am going to tell you all the things I don't love about you.



I don't love it when you have a scratchy face. So don't expect a kiss on those days. Or stop it. It's up to you.
I don't love that you are quicker off the mark than Mum is, cause when I'm with you I can't get up to very much naughty/messy/dangerous stuff.
I don't love it when you dress me, because you pick stuff that doesn't match.
I don't love it that it's your job to clean the bathroom, because you don't do it often or well enough (though mainly Mum asked me to put that on the list)
I don't love going in your car because it smells like an old man's bum.
But mostly, I don't love that you go to work for probably, like, every single day. It's dead boring that.



So that's just some stuff you need to sort out. Have a think about it and let me know what's happening with it all.



Now the nice stuff. Hmmm.
Dad's nice stuff...
Well, you don't smell as nice as Mum, so I can't say that.
You don't have very many dance moves and you tell absolutely rubbish jokes, usually about trumps. Maybe they just go over my head, but I don't find any of them funny.
You like really rubbish films, all your music is very bossy and scares me a bit, and you don't wear nearly enough pink. You read books with no pictures, drink stuff I'm not allowed to taste and you haven't got loads of money to buy toys with.
And you're a boy.


You're making it very difficult to find anything to love about you at all.

Absolutely Brilliant

You know what is absolutely bloody brilliant? Leaving everything until the last minute.
Before returning to work on Monday (just two thousand two hundred and eighty minutes away), I must -

• plan and resource all the lessons I will be teaching next week
• tidy and clean the whole house so I don't have to return home from work to it's mankyness
• wrap Dave's Father's Day presents and write his card
• wrap my Dad's Father's Day present and write his card
• update Boo's baby book, which has been left achievement/photograph-less for about five months
• write out the Christening thank you cards that have only needed doing since the fifteenth of April
• clean out my horrendously untidy car (I cannot face all those old crisp packets when I have to get in it at stupid-o'clock on Monday morning)
• mow both lawns before I loose The Poop to a particularly determined and stealthy lasso of clover
• practise my "you are such a deserving winner" face in the mirror prior to next Friday's Brilliance in Blogging awards.

Leaving everything until the last minute adds an unprecedented twist of exhilaration to making your way through an extensive list of jobs which must, as a result, be done in a mad rush peppered with sizeable episodes of blind panic. What makes days like today so much more special is being, at all times, completely safe in the knowledge that it didn't have to be like this, and that I have had plenty of time to have completed all these jobs at my leisure. These occasions always makes me feel so excited and brimful with the sweetest joyful thoughts, that I find myself incapable of shaking the burning desire to share each second of my delighted ecstacy with every living thing that crosses my fraught, anxious path. If you don't me want to shout at you today - don't talk to me, don't offer me anything, don't phone me, don't text me, don't smile at me and most certainly DO NOT TELL ME IT IS "NOT THAT BAD".

Daddy's Pressies

Dave's first Father's Day.
What with The Poop being too lazy to get down to the shops herself, her having been refused a credit card and her not being able to see over the counter at Clintons, the responsibility for making sure her Dad gets some nice pressies falls to muggins. So what do we get him?

Now, there are various factors to consider before you all rush at once with your advice.
1) I am still on maternity pay
2) I am still on maternity pay
3) I am still on maternity pay
4) He will want something he can keep
5) I am still on maternity pay

So, weighing up the constraints, I'm thinking cheap. Very cheap. Free even. But also cute. Ah ha! HOMEMADE. What though?

A meal is out of the question - Boo hasn't tackled the kitchen since that time she flambéed her eyebrows off, and making him chew through something I've botched together could not really be categorised a treat, unless you're big pals with salmonella.
An item of clothing will not be possible - I don't own a sewing machine, and Boo is a slave to her deep rooted aversion to undermining import textiles industry.
A picture will be a no no - Boo's sketching still lacks a real awareness of true life proportion, and my penchant for second phase Cubist multi-media collage cannot be facilitated at such short notice. Shame.

Crawling

By Betty Briars.

(For those taking notes, I always find crawling in only a nappy increases my purchase on the floor surface, makes me more aero-dynamic, yet still preserves my modesty. But, each to their own.)

1) At the start line butter up the crowd.
Waves and hand shakes from the athlete should whip them into a real frenzy. 

2) Select an alluring and, where possible, potentially messy target.
A tempting reward will help you focus on the long task ahead.

3) And we're off!
Place both hands carefully down in front of you,
being absolutely sure they are ready to take your weight.

4) With a smile for your adoring public, press up on to all fours,
while always keeping your eye on the prize.

V.I.P.

I was RECOGNISED IN THE STREET as "the woman that writes that blog" today. Actually she might have said "the woman that writes that bloody blog". I can't remember the details. Either way, this should have been a thrilling, delightful, magical cocktail of all things precious and shiny if, when I was spotted, I hadn't looked like this -

A pasty faced, make up-less germfest.

The previous night pouring rain had woken me three times. Me waking just once in the night is UNHEARD OF. Usually my head hits the pillow and I fall into a coma which cannot be stirred by earthquakes, monsoons or tsunamis. Alright, alright, we don't get many of those in North West England, but we do experience the distressed wails of The Poop, whose night time moans, I am assured, produce comparable Seismic after effects, yet she never troubles my snooze. So for me to wake three times in one night? Something was definitely afoot. Unsurprisingly I woke this morning with a streaming nose, sticky eyes and a throat the diameter of a garden pea (no, not a marrowfat one - they're broader). Winner.

To make my debut in the 'Spotted' or 'Wicked Whispers' column of a tabloid rag on just such a morning was not the coming-of-age I had envisaged.

Shuffling out to pick up some formula for Boo from the local shop seems harmless enough. It is most certainly not an outing which requires make up, a fancy hairdo or trousers. Oh? Just me that last part? That explains the looks.
Anyway, as I'm edging down the pavement I note a distant "hiya" which, in my usual stand-offish, ignorant mode, would be blanked. So it was. Then the "hiya" rang out again, followed by mutterings which definitely included the word "blog". I spun on my heels and pulled something in my neck, in my haste to greet my first ever fan.

Juggle

Right. I actually cannot understand this. Someone needs to explain it to me.

After years of taking the mickey out of homemakers/stay at home parents/dossers (delete as appropriate to display the most P.C. option), I have come to learn that being in the house all day, certainly with a small child, is not the Jeremy Kyle-a-thon I imagined it would be. Sadly, it is not a festival of Facebook status updating, nor is it an opportunity to browse celebrity cellulite in Closer.

There is actual STUFF TO DO.
When I'm not playing with/feeding/changing/dressing/bathing/entertaining/wiping weird sticky stuff off The Poop, I'm tidying up. When I'm not dusting, I'm hoovering. When I'm not putting a wash on, I'm pegging it out. When I'm not mowing the lawn, I'm renegotiating our contents insurance, to try to ensure it covers my sanity, which is inextricably linked to the tidiness of our contents. (If you're interested I got a belting quote from StopBeingSoBloodyStupid.com)
I don't stop. Well, I do, to write this, and grab a bit of shut eye, but blog and bed aside, Mum jobs are a carousel of responsibility which move so blurringly fast that I occasionally find myself loading dirty dishes into the printer. Don't worry, we'd run out of ink again so no harm done.
So, in essence: woe is me....isn't it a big shame..she's such a martyr...that girl lives for her family...bless her cotton socks...etc
You get the idea.

In light of my ram packed schedule of unremarkableness, can some bright spark please share with me a few pearls of wisdom regarding how I will also pack THREE DAYS OF WORK into this treadmill of unrelenting 'two minute' jobs? How can I possibly spend a minimum of ten hours per day, on THREE DAYS OF THE WEEK, not playing silly beggars round the house, and yet still get everything done?

Countdown

One week.

One weekend.

Seven days.

One hundred and sixty eight hours.

Ten thousand and eighty minutes.

Six hundred and four thousand eight hundred seconds.

Then. It's here.

This time next Monday, I'll be BACK IN WORK.

I'm not bothered though. No skin off my nose. Neither here nor there. Doesn't phase me. No biggy.

Chances are I won't think about it again this week.

*scuttles off*
*locks self in padded room*
*runs at wall for three hours*
*pokes head out of door*

How long left now?

Pooparazzi

In light of this week's publicity, you may be new around here, in which case you won't be aware that I'm at the helm today. What do you mean 'who'? It's me. Miss Briars. The reason for this blog's very being. The apple of Mum's eye. The wind beneath her wings. Or 'The Poop' as Mum so crudely refers to me.
Anyway, Sunday is her day off, and my chance to give you my take on the week's shenanigans. Provided I'm still in one piece.

I've had my every move scrutinised. I've been interviewed, filmed, spied on, stalked and papped. The media's insatiable appetite for Betty Briars has shown no sign of reprieve. And I'm big enough to admit that being shoved into the full glare of a comprehensive Press examination is a lot to handle when you're a mere thirty seven weeks old.
Being sure to promote 'The Brand' in the correct light at all times; having to attend function after function without so much as a single tear or disinterested yawn; facing question after question about the private lives of my parents; this is just a taste of the sort of pressure us celebs are relentlessly under. Mum's loving it, but for me, with such little life experience to draw upon, it's an absolute nightmare. I mean, how do I sign autographs when I can't hold a pen, I've not yet learned the alphabet and I don't know what an autograph is anyway? I just want to eat my dinner in only my nappy, be sick, and then squeeze the sick about in my fingers. But nooooo. Not now I'm a famous baby. I have an image to maintain. 
Honestly, you anonymous lot don't know you're born.

After finding that my cot had been bugged and that my baby monitor had been hacked, I felt the need to seek the advice of babies more experienced in managing their relationship with the media. I jumped on the blower Kai Rooney. What that guy doesn't know about regional reporters isn't worth knowing. He advised me to regularly practise talking with Mum, so she can ensure that my first words are "no comment". He said that although going for a phrase rather than a word was a big ask, mastering this would stand me in great stead for the future. I gave Suri Cruise a bell as well, you know, in anticipation of the international notoriety which I sense is imminent. Apparently she was "too busy", so I left a message. Never got back. Cow.

Bouncing Baby

Still not crawling forwards, The Poop has instead decided to bounce.
This leaping about is executed -

• On any surface. Including humans. Even ones we don't know. 
• At any time. Including middle of the night. And 6:05am on a Saturday morning.
• In any location. Including when you are attempting to fasten her into her car seat. And when you are lifting Boo, the pram, the changing bags and your own handbag down perilously steep flights of stairs.
• Regardless of what she might be doing. Including eating. And pooing.

Cute you'd think. And if she didn't weigh slightly more than most plant machinery, I can imagine it would be. But after being kicked repeatedly in my lady parts, having been continually head butted into biting my own tongue and following handfuls of my boobs skin being grabbed at and grappled with in order to ensure maximum elevation, I don't feel the least bit apologetic for struggling to spot the adorableness.
Not only does this bounding result in me being black and blue with bruises, her lizard like bopping about is conducted with such wild abandon that we have begun to lose ornaments and furniture. An item of which being our actual STONE FIREPLACE, into which she has carved a dent. Don't ask.

Boo bouncing on my 80 year old Nan.
Who has, as a result, been fast tracked for a new hip.

Dealin' With The Do

Isn't that wall very green? Doesn't that laptop cover make me look like I think I'm a thirteen year old girl?

And don't try and pretend you didn't notice that the arm of that settee could do with a bloody good wash. 

Yet our seriously questionable decor pales into insignificance when you take a look at those spilt ends. Absolutely atrocious. And she's only got three hairs. Mine's not much better.

I have previously shared with you my star crossed love affair with home hair dye. Not being bezzie mates with the back of my own head, I have failed to spot the frazzled disgrace I try to pass off as hair which I discovered, after yesterday's news piece, apparently hangs lifeless, limp and singed down my moulted on back. Don't get me wrong - I'm not one of these women who tries to pick holes in herself. I don't study photographs containing me and dig out reasons to go and cry in a cupboard for three days. But after yesterday's three hundred and sixty degree reality check, broadcast to the WHOLE OF THE NORTH WEST IN GLORIOUS HD, I can no longer ignore the buggers. 

So, how to address my cuticle catastrophe? Here is the plan.

Step 1 

Get hair cut.

When I say cut, I actually mean trimmed. And when I say trimmed, I actually mean snip at the ends a bit. And when I say snip at the ends a bit, I actually mean do not make any contact whatsoever with a single follicle on my head, clipping only at the air around it and being incredibly sure not to remove even a millimetre of length from the locks themselves. You should however, placate me throughout this imaginary chopping by pretending that I am being incredibly brave, bold and daring for allowing you to hack away.

You should praise me throughout for "having a change" and if you want to throw in a chorus of "she's getting all the dead ends cut off" while pointing theatrically and dancing around your incredibly pretentious salon, be my guest.

Granada Reports

So. Where do I start with this one?
How about - GRANADA SHOWED UP TODAY. Like you do.
(Though I must add it was the telly channel and not the Andalucian city - which, to be fair, would have been weirder.)

Having spent nine months ensuring I am completely incommunicado to the outside world, and most importantly work, my reclusive ways came to bite me quite firmly on the bum at 10.58am this morning, when I learned of my impending stardom not a moment more than THIRTY TWO MINUTES before it happened. Yes. I hear you. That's exactly what I thought. After I'd finished pooing my pants.

11:03am. Our house went from this

(Complete with Dave's undies on the radiator)

11:07am. To this

(Complete with fresh hoover lines in the rug)

Via this. 

Oh shut up. It's not like it's 'Come Dine'.

So, house tidy. Check. Faded room scent (that has been underneath the sink for two years) sprayed. Check. Me smelling of polish, faded room scent and an over riding whiff of panic induced sweat. Check.

Okay. Next job. What to wear when you're supposed to be funny? A kiss-me-quick hat? Medieval garb? Fig leaves? Actually, scrap that question. I asked it like there were options. As a new Mum I've got four types of clothing.
Stuff that still doesn't fit.
Stuff that fits but is suspiciously stained.
Stuff that hasn't left the washing basket since Betty Poop was born.
Stuff that masquerades as fine, yet up close smells 'unusual', no matter how many times I wash it.
I settled on the latter. It's not like ITV's budget is up to smell-o-vision.

Extra! Extra!

What? We're in the paper again? One with a BIGGER READERSHIP? That you have to PAY ACTUAL MONEY FOR?

*sighs*....This is just the sort of fame that would probably phase someone less used to regular, invasive media exposure, but, for us, well, as you can imagine, it's getting pretty old... *suddenly runs away from laptop*

*screams* 

*dances around sofa* 

*yeehaa's out of open bedroom window* 

*does back flip on front lawn* 

*rides unicycle naked around town centre*

*pours bucket of cold water over self & returns to computer*

Yawn worthy really. Tiresome. 

After last month's article, seeing this in today's Liverpool Echo was another 'so what' moment in our wearyingly Press saturated lives. But, a blog's gotta do what a blog's gotta do. Having reporters root through your rubbish and being recognised in Kwik Save is all part of the territory; although running out with the bins in your nightie at 5am is not the moment you want to discover a swarm of paparazzi camped out on your drive. Especially when you don't wear a nightie. And you didn't have a bin.

Those "Mum Blogger Is Secret Naturist!" headlines cut deep. 

But these newspapers have got to earn a crust, and we're their bread and butter. I've let them hack my phone line a few times, especially that time I cancelled Sky and moved over to Virgin. They had a field day with that one. 

In general, I try to be as accommodating as my fellow celebrity amoebas. I look at it like this: if we're more approachable than Bruno Brookes but less so than Su Pollard, we're pitching it about right. 

My Funny Mummy: Always pushing the limits.
This time of the term 'newsworthy'.

Jubilee Princess

With our penchant for being startlingly greedy and our remarkable ability to jump without any good reason on the nearest slow moving band wagon, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee was a celebration that would not be passing myself, nor my equally unprincipled daughter by. Okay, we're not exactly Royalists. But neither are we Republicans. So, in the interests of fairness and equality, I don't see why fence sitting, unscrupulous, disreputable commoners such as our immoral selves should miss out on a right good knees up just because we don't buy into the whole idea of having values or beliefs. 

Enter Betty's organised, creative, hard-working Godmother Sarah (the girl needs to be taught those qualities by someone), with suggestions of Jubilee afternoon tea in Manchester. The event would involve chatting and eating, with a little token flag waving in recognition of our sponsor. Can I eat and wave a flag at the same time? Yes? Then WE. ARE. IN.

*does a little dance in honour of scones*

Ladies who lunch. Jubilee-stylee.

Now. Study this picture. Study it closely.
Okay, and your question is this. Which lady is massively overdressed? No, no, not Sarah, on the right. She is actually half Filipino, so don't be fooled into believing she put that exotic look together especially.
No, no, not Jean, in the centre on the left. She may be the same age as the Queen, but didn't intentionally set out to upstage her fellow diners with a regal looking blouse and a pair of Bobby Dazzler earrings.
Keeping looking...ah! Yep. There you go. It's the Poop. Dressed in a hugely over the top puffball gown which is supported by layer upon layer of net, silk, chiffon and 'what a little princess' pretention.
But just wait.

In my defence, I have not suddenly been overcome with the desire to photograph my little girl sitting in a plant pot dressed as a flower, nor have I recently felt the urge to sit her peeping out of my handbag like a small designer dog (though this is mainly because it is Cath Kidston and she would definitely break the strap). She is not attired so preposterously because I wish for her to be assumed a WAG baby, or because it is Whit week and I have suddenly been stricken with pangs to pander to religious tradition.
She is wearing this absurdly showy garb because it was supposed to be her Christening dress, she didn't wear it, and I am getting my money out of the thing come Hell or high bloody water.

Ladies and Gentlemen of The Class Of 99

Met up with old school friends yesterday.
I arranged it, so why did I pick a day when I was 'on', with hair made out of actual lard, skin like a clogged up chip pan and belly bloat that over hangs my pants as the ultimate post natal eyesore? Fit. Oh no. Not fit at all. I always confuse those two.


If you haven't seen someone for fifteen years, you need to look good, even if it's your ex window cleaner. No matter how 'nice' the people, they're judging you. Can't be helped. Human nature. We all do it. So catching up with old bezzie mates? Who really knew you? Gotta look bob on. They did. Cows. 
I looked harassed, stressed, bedraggled, unkempt, tramping in late and wet having messed about with prams and bags in the pouring rain on the car park. I swung through the doors juggling baby stuff, my temper and a whinging Poop who was kicking off for her dinner.


Amid my mood and the ridiculous level of my disorganisation, I don't know how I fitted in nerves. But I did. To think that last time I sat talking to these...well...erm...women?.. ha women! Like proper grown ups. No WAY! Anyhow, the last time I saw them I was a spotty little Nike Air Max wearing teen with an enforced bedtime, a subscription to Smash Hits and a penchant for putting off homework by painting my nails with Tip-Ex. I thought Impulse was the height of eau de parfum, that every hair on my body should be erect with hairspray, and that B*Witched were "da bomb".


They were a huge part of my life when it came to working out how to apply cheap make up badly, testing which boys it was socially acceptable to fancy and finding out how to lie to your parents most believably. Amongst the Will Smith posters, the Kickers school shoes, the mood rings and the hair mascara, these people were MY WORLD in 1998. They were the only ones ever allowed to babysit my Tamagotchi. I know. Proper trust that.

Old Lympic Torch

So we went to see this Old Lympic Torch thing.
Didn't look very old to me - it was all shiny and gold. Like a big posh candle. I don't see what all the fuss was about - loads of people getting the day off work to watch this bit of fire wander round. I'm eight months old - everything is fascinating to me, but even I don't get it. Maybe it's just one for the arsonists. 


Mum wanted me to look all British, so she stuck me in this daft headband of our flag's colours. I had to sit there with this little red, white and blue bow on the side of my cranium, like one of those designer babies who have enough hair to warrant hair accessories. On my bald bonce, it definitely lost something. Think it was my credibility. 

We dedicated half of our day just to finding the route and getting a parking space. Then after all those three point turns by a woman who's driving credentials are 'limited', Mum choose to park my pram behind a stinking bloater of a fella, whose morbid obesity only heightened his less than optimal personal hygiene. Question. Why do overweight people feel so at home in sports clothing? They have never taken a moment of exercise in their life, yet spent their days bursting out of trainers and eating crisps in jogging bottoms. And ironic that such a hefty porker should obscure our vision of a national sporting event.
Anyway, in the burning June sunshine the disgusting pungency of Rab C Nesbitt's odour knocked me clean out. Mum thought I was asleep. Nope. I was actually rendered semi conscious by his cloying stench. And this from someone who poos her own pants. Sort it out mate.

Team GZzzzzz

What Flame?

Olympic Torch

We turned out to see the Olympic Flame run through St Helens today.
Allowing us near an event of such national importance was a bold move by the government, so you can imagine my surprise at receiving a personal invitation. Understandable though, in light of our new found fame having recently featured in the St Helens Reporter. Between us and John Parrott, we'd definitely raise the profile of proceedings.

This is just the sort of event that should get right on my nerves - feigned patriotism tempered with tuts and muttering about the state of the country. A skeletal turn out of half hearted pensioners and a few of their more committed carers waving flags from Poundland. But as a local celebrity, there's a certain expectation that we will offer our support, so along we reluctantly went.

Now you're probably at the ready for whinges about how we only saw the thing for two seconds, that parking was horrendous and that my shoes were rubbing me. You're craving details of the twenty six stone man parked immediately in front of us who stunk of sweat and chip fat and how I managed to snap the arm clean off my sunglasses in a rather over zealous opening of them. All of which, sadly, were par for our inevitably accident strewn course, but they, for once, were not the focus of my attention.