12 Signs You Are Beginning To Think About The 'C' Word

1. You suddenly acquire a whole host of catalogues in your house. Which are read more than any book your kids own. They get ripped up, fought over, stuck on to various bits of tatty paper. You roll your eyes over each and every "can we have this Mummy?". Mentally totalling a grand each of gifts they "NEEEEEDDDDD".

2. You start to dread the ads in between kids TV programmes. Each one bringing something more ridiculous that your child HAS to have (I'll never forget the Unicorn Fingerling search of 2017).

3. You become obsessed with getting a bargain. Any 342 you're there. Any 'get £10 off when you spend four bazillion pounds offer' makes you squeal with joy. You aim to save so much money this year. THIS WILL BE YOUR YEAR! It will basically be a free Christmas. Ahem.

4. You want to smash yourself in the face when you realise you bought a toy that you could have got for £2 cheaper in another shop (I'm looking at you Spiderman Web Gloves. B*stards).

Calorie Free

13 Things I Miss About Crap Halloweens

1. There were no decorations in shops for a solid month before October. The lead up to Halloween in your house was the day before. Possibly the weekend before if your parents were feeling really enthusiastic.

2. You always wished that the UK did Halloween like they did in America. Why didn't our streets look like the ones in Beverly Hills 90210? Why wasn't our school all done up for a Halloween ball like in Saved By The Bell? WHY WAS ENGLAND JUST SO CRAP.

3. You had never seen a pumpkin in the flesh (except for on Beverly Hills 90210) let alone carved one in an intricate pattern. You longed to try pumpkin pie. You imagined it tasted amazing.

4. You asked your Mum for some decorations. She gets you a couple of plastic witch masks from the shop with elastic that got trapped in your hair. Or they would crack and your face would get shredded. And no one can forget the feeling of trying to stick your tongue through the little mouth hole #sharp.

5. If you were REALLY lucky. Your Dad would bring you home some plastic long fingers. But like two. Which you would put on each fore finger and stroke your chin in an evil fashion.

Stick your tongue out and shred it if you dare...

Why It's OK To Not Be OK

2019 has been a funny old year. If you follow me on instagram you will know that at the start of the year I had a little mental health blip. Which was kinda scary to admit. It probably appeared to everyone that everything was normal but behind closed doors it wasn't. I have no idea how it started. Maybe it was when I had a back accident and I didn't deal with it properly. Perhaps it was turning 40. Both of my children starting school and the baby years being left behind. Working in an industry where I am continuously under scrutiny. Or all of those things. No clue.

But jeez I felt weak. I was comparing myself to friends who have loads of kids but seemingly smash motherhood. People with far harder jobs than me who could juggle that as well as being a parent. It was like a vicious cycle. The worse I felt, the more I beat myself up, and in turn felt worse. I began having physical symptoms. Panic attacks in the middle of the night. Where I couldn't breathe. Twice I had to wake my husband up as I felt like I was dying. Afternoons would be lost in bed. Sitting in the shower fully clothed so I could think became the norm. My teeth would hurt and sometimes I struggled to breathe.

Then - Taken the day I decided to get therapy. I began to find I couldn't think if anything positive to talk about or think about. Lying on my bed was the best place to be.

The Eternal Struggle Of Trying To Juggle

It's week two of the new school term. Week one is always fun. There's new shiny shoes! Shirts that are too big! Beaming smiles in photos taken outside front doors! Chats after school about teachers, school dinners and who they are sitting next to. It's great. An exciting way to start September. But then week two hits and it's back to normal with a bang. Shouting "GET YOUR SHOES ON!", being an eternal taxi driver from dance class to beavers to dentists to hastily picking up presents for weekend birthday parties. The parenting juggle starts and the struggle is real.

It's around this time of year when it dawns on me after eight years of being a Mum I still haven't quite got my sh*t together. That my husband and I are still never quite on the same page no matter how hard we try. And that bloody washing basket is eternally full. We have a computerised diary, the children have reward charts and I methodically add in each and every thing from the school calendar to our calendar. Yet someone always forgets to take toast money in and the other day I lost our house keys at 8:42am. They were found in a random trainer after much whisper swearing from me.

11 Reasons Mums Look FIT AF In The Autumn!

Oh autumn you amazing thing of beauty. You are the one season in the year when us Mum's come into our own. When we feel slightly more human. In fact sometimes it can be said we even look "a bit fit". Summer? Is hot and clammy. We can never tell if it's going to be a bit cold so we sweat under our boobs in our Mum coats, forget to shave our legs and end up in maxi skirts and leggings all the time. Winter we worry about snow, forgetting mittens and slipping arse over tit in floral Matalan wellies. Spring is spent with our hood up moaning about the rain whilst we wait for summer. Which we have forgotten we hate.

But autumn? Is our season. Because in autumn our Mum's uniform can be passed off as an actual choice. That we went into a shop and decided to look a certain way rather than just shoving the nearest thing onto us as we run out of the door. So behold the 'looks' us Mums rock in Autumn. And for once? Feel part of the in crowd. Instagram says we are bang on trend. And who are we to argue?

Thick. Black. Tights
I favour my tights to be black as the nights sky and coming right up to my tits. Ideally under my armpits. Don't tell anyone but I wore my maternity tights till my son was three. And only then stopped as the gusset went. Tights hold in bellies. Tights smooth out hairy legs. Tights? Were created by God for us to enjoy.

I would actually like these tights to be a bit higher