10 Ways To Prepare Yourself For Your Kid Starting School

1. Cry and Panic
I found my children starting school to be super traumatic. I wept continuously. I kept holding them and sniffing their heads saying things like "DON'T LEAVE ME" "WHY ARE YOU LEAVING ME". I would lie awake at night worrying they wouldn't make friends. That I wouldn't make friends. THAT IT WOULD JUST BE TERRIBLE. So first piece of advice is don't be a d*ck like me. It's OK to feel a bit sad but try and get your act together for gods sake.

2. Enjoy Your Final Few Weeks Together
After all the sobbing and me generally just being a nightmare one thing I did do was make the most of my final few weeks with my children. With my son there were some days where we did nothing except snuggle in bed, watch TV and eat Smarties. It was glorious. Don't feel overwhelmed to make all these amazing plans with your little one. Just make the most of the time you have left in a way you can both enjoy.

3. Prepare
You will get loads of bits of paper from the school and will be tempted to pop them in your kitchen drawer of crap and ignore it till August 29th. Don't do this. I did that. And then had to rush out and try and panic buy teeny tiny red PE shorts. Get the list out and get all the stuff you need as soon as possible. You are about to experience buying school shoes for the first time. It is hell. And you want to get it over with quickly.

15 Signs You Are A Parent In The Midst Of A UK HEATWAVE!

1) You first hear of the hot weather when you check your weather app whilst you are watching CBeebies at 6:01am. You then tell everyone you come into contact with throughout the day, ranging from your husband to the lady that calls up about PPI, that we are "GOING TO HAVE A HEATWAVE".

2) You do approximately seven loads of washing to make sure your washing line is full to the brim at any one point. Nothing is safe. If you could you would shove your kids in and hang them out to dry.

3) You shave your toes, your legs, your armpits and PAINT YOUR NAILS! Your husband thinks his luck is in. It isn't.

4) You dig out an old tatty Primark beach dress, last seen worn in Lanzarote, and parade around in your garden in it at 8am. Hanging your washing up with no bra underneath it. The neighbours won't mind as "WE ARE HAVING A HEATWAVE".

5) You start to get the urge to drink Pimms around 11am. You last out till 1pm. Drinking in the garden does not count. It's like the 15 white Magnums you consumed. No calories when the sun is out! You will sweat them all out of your system. Right?

6) You send your other half out for "emergency heatwave supplies" like a giant fan from Asda and garden recliners from Argos. He texts he's going to be a while "as the queues are f*cking massive". Everyone else. Has had the same idea.

No bra on, on my 5th Pimms and about to hang out MORE washing

Never Change My Love...

To my gorgeous girl

It's summer as I write this and your face has blossomed with the freckles you adore so much. With each new ones arrival you cheer with glee. You wish you had more. At this moment in time you are the second tallest person in the class. And you wear this as a badge of honour. Regularly repeating the fact to me on the way home from school. Your legs are long, you're not bothered if you run out the house with a bed head full of wild hair. Frustratingly you're happy to wear your grubby muddy garden shoes to the shops. Even though I would rather they stayed in the box by the back door. You are glorious.

But it makes me sad. Because as you grow up. You may decide you want make up to cover your freckles. You may slouch as you would rather be petite like some of your friends and your long legs aren't quite as voluptuous as you want them to be. As women we are conditioned to believe that we are never quite as pretty as we think we should be. I look back to when I was 18. I was four stone lighter than I am now. I didn't need to wear a bra I was so slim. A boyfriend once told me he loved "my squidgy belly". So each night before I went to bed I would do 100's of sit ups to try to get rid of it.

Dear Daddy...I'm Sorry...

Dear Daddy...

This is a little letter to say "thank you". It's not something I say often and I wanted it written down for you to refer to in the future. For those times I am cross. Or tired. For those times I shout when you get in late from work and everyone is fighting around me. Or the mornings when I have to get up with the children, despite you having had lie ins for the past seven weeks. Whilst these are the things that can annoy me, drive me mad and whisper swear "For f*cks sake", this is a letter about the other 90% of the things you do. That sometimes can go unnoticed.

Thank you for being an amazing Dad. It sometimes feel unfair that I am more often than not the bad cop but I'm so pleased that you're around to be the good one. The 6ft2 gentle giant that can throw my children high in the air and carry them on your shoulders (whilst I squeal "DON'T HURT THEM"). The one that will always get in the swimming pool and go flying down the slides when Mummy doesn't fancy getting her hair wet. You push them higher than I ever would on a swing and I've seen you knee deep in more ball pools than I would like to count.

Dating. The 90's Way.

It's that time of year when Love Island hits our screens again. In between trying to work out what I would look like with lip injections and false eyelashes. I am also baffled by the men's shortest of shorts and the girl's pointed false nails which have no place around a swimming pool and one wonders how the hell they wipe their bleached bum holes?

But mainly what I am thinking is. Jeez dating in the 90's was SO MUCH EASIER. Without the creation of social media, hell we didn't even have a mobile phone, life was simpler. Rejection was private. And the only "mugging off "was a nice cup of tea awkwardly with your current boyfriends parents whilst you waited for them to get ready to go out. Which simply involved putting on cleanish jeans and not modern ones that exactly look like ladies leggings.  

Asking Someone Out

We. Had to. Gasp. Speak to each other! It may be over a drunken £1 a shot night out at uni or at a house party of a random person we didn't know. I also remember writing a little note that was sent via another lad to my hearts desire with my phone number on. My home phone number. Which resulted in the terrifying...

Our life line to love...but only after 6pm