Denture wish your teethies were wooden like mine?

This morning I was half expecting to rub my peepers wearily, put my piggy slippers on the wrong feet, take my breath of ten arses and schlep downstairs to find my disgruntled wee billabong's porky pinkies a-blur, tapping furiously on my laptop in the grip of an eBay bidding war with GummyBear2011 and Molardisco31 during the nail-biting last few seconds of the auction for Queen Elizabeth I's mangy wooden teeth.

You see, my grumpy dumpling has decided that frankly, teeth are shit. Their stabby little ways that wake you at 3am and cause you to pull your ears like you're trying to bag a prize moo cow at the cattle market and jab yourself repeatedly in the mouth with your stumpy little paw is uncalled for and that, on the whole, they are hugely overrated and smeggy wee meanies.


Like a teeny weeny werewolf he began his howling today, nice and early as usual, at around dawn. Once I had located my mobile phone and used it's amazingly feckless light to guide me to the nearest upturned plug to stand on and silently yelped into an impression of Edvard Munch's 'Scream' combined with a spitty monolgue of rasa-frasa Mutleyness, I then stumbled, reeling from the blind agony into the corner of a table, which had been dragged strategically into place during the night for me to walk into by our 'hilarious' resident poltergeist, Fozzie Bear (I just KNOW it wasn't there before. Ghoulies eh? They just busy themselves in the afterlife by pulling the chair out from under you and closing patio doors just before you're about to walk through them. Makes you think twice about Casper now doesn't it? Is he really a friendly ghost or is he just a desk shifting COCK?), I stumbled like a drunken hunchback into my little pat-a-cake's room to console him.

A face not disimilar to that of Chucky greeted me. His look said: "You stupid hamster hat. What the friggin' bejesus are these hard sticks that keep coming out of my gums? Did YOU put them there? If you did I am SO telling Santa on you. Naughty list for Mummy methinks. Followed by a quick call to Childline to tell them just how much of a stinker you are. Now, get me some of that pink sweet stuff that runs down my face and makes me stickier than a gecko's anus, Cowpat or something I think it's called, you know, the stuff that counteracts your evil. And be quick about it. Right then, you may cuddle me now."

I'm starting to think he's right though, I mean what IS the pigging point? Toothy pegs spend most of their lifespan giving you endless amounts of grief, being wonky and making you look like you've eaten a graveyard for tea whilst yellowing over time so that you end up with the appearance of someone who gargles daily with wee.

They break, they chip, they get holes in, they hide pieces of pork chop and apple between them so you have to either suffer disproportionate amounts of agony or pull varying degrees of gurn whilst you fish about in your gob like some sort of half-baked crumb foraging cretin.


You wouldn't put up with that kind of tomfoolery from say, a pair of shoes now would you?

"Oh no! Look! My Jimmy Choo has a hole in, never mind I'll wear it any...oh and the heel has broken off too now, but hey it's still a damn good shoe I'll just...oh shitbags, there's a piece of pork chop wedged in the toe! Damn you shoe, damn you to hell!" *hurls across room and thwacks unsuspecting pooch in the mush, knocking out her two front teeth which coincidentally forges a new career for her as Shane MacGowan's stand-in, which would be dandy except she can't handle the whiskey and smack and has to go to woofty rehab and spend months drying out, finding herself and wishing it would just all go back to the days before fame, when she could lick her own bumhole in private and before anyone ever threw that bloody shoe.*


What my wee onion chutney doesn't know and what I daren't tell him for fear he reprogrammes his Count 'n' Crunch Cookie Monster to Wedgie 'n' Chinese Burn, is that just as you've nursed and cultivated those gum botherers into a beautiful garden of perfect lickle pegs, the chuffing things FALL OUT. And you have to start all over again. Ok, so it's less painful the second time around but I don't think I'd be able to get that far into the explanation before the Cookie Monster has hold of my undercrackers and is hoisting them up to somewhere near my earlobes.


And heaven forbid if you aren't blessed with a perfectly straight set of pearlies to flash and grind at us poor unwashed hillbillies with tusks like Ken Dodd? Then of course there are braces, which are not only excruciatingly painful but also bless you with the unnecessary ability to stick to the fridge door like a honking great magnet every time you creep into the kitchen to eat away your sadness with half a ton of chocolate covered lard.

Oh and as, according to myth and legend  (read: bugger all to do with myth and legend and something I actually just made up), Orthodontists were put here on earth by Beelzebub to carry out acts of pure evil, they're usually fitted in those delicate angsty teen years when you need every ounce of confidence you can muster and to not get called Grater Face by the boy you fancy *shivers at recollection of childhood taunts and resolves to take up smoking, tsjuz up my hair, apply dickloads of make-up, squeeze into a little leather number and get my tiny taut little ass to the nearest fairground where I will break into song and have Danny Zuko chase me round the helter skelter...oh no, hang on, that's not me is it, that's Sandy from Grease. Grater Face it is then. Bum*

Then, just when you're starting to get a bit past it and crusty and could really do without every thing seizing up and sagging and crumbling, they fall out AGAIN. Yes, you may ask if this is some sort of sick joke my little puffer fish but no, 'fraid not, If there is a God, s/he could do with going back to the drawing board on the old 'mouth', for if this were say, The Dragons' Den and I was say, Theo Paphitis, I'd so be 'out'. Your invention SUCKS. Now off you pop, down the stairs to talk to the funny wonky eyed guy about where you think it all went wrong and how you're going to have to beg JML Direct to flog your crappy pie-hole and pearlie-whites combo as a freebie alongside cactus shaped bot scratchers and sunglasses for gerbils.

Thing is though my itty bitty mcscrum, the fogies might just be on to something. They don't just sit around waiting for the little beggars to start their monkeyshines all over again and grow back, hell no! They just put fake ones in. That's right button butt, they get some fancy bloke (probably Neil Buchanan from Art Attack I'm guessing) to get some Play-doh, squidge it into the shape of something vaguely resembling a gnasher, bake it in his À La Carte Kitchen until rock hard (I believe this takes around 30 years as oddly, light bulbs don't cook stuff as well as you'd imagine) and stick it in their gob. And they get to take them out whenever they please which makes for an awesome if slightly revolting party piece. ACE.

If the fogies aren't right then maybe the morbidly obese are? They go and get themselves gastric bands which means they can no longer swallow small farm animals whole as their newly shrunken tums simply won't allow it. Therefore, instead of chewing their food, they just purée it, that's right just like your Mummywum did for you when you was like well teeny Boo, and then they neck it. NO CHEWING NECESSARY = NO TEETH REQUIRED. Get the feck in.

I am a somewhat hesitant to book you in for weight-loss surgery however kitten ears as, you know, it just seems a little drastic when it's sole purpose would be to avoid masticating.

Sadly I can't see a way around it I'm afraid my cheesy potato puff - until Watchdog hunts God down and smacks his / her bum hard for shamelessly peddling a knowingly defective product and forces a redesign, you're stuck with them there choppers. Please don't bite me. I'll go and fetch you some Cowpat and get the pooch to sing you back to sleep with her uncanny Shane McGowan impression and version of Fairytale of New York...sweet (the sugar-free non-decaying kind) dreams my mini nipper snapper, sweet dreams. 

'Sorry' seems to be a very easy word actually Elton.

So let's get the grovelling, snivelling, ever-so-'umble-please-sir-don't-take-away-me-crutches-and-make-me-eat-cold-gruel-for-breakfast apologies out of the way first shall we? I'm sorry for being so pigging late with this, my new sparkly postlet, but I do have a couple of excuses which I will put to you now in the hope that you are gullible enough to believe them and not simply come to the realisation that I'm just a bone idle arsehat kind enough to forgive my tardiness:

1) The dog ate my homework Miss
Whilst my pooch is far more discerning than to scoff an exercise book full of pictures of willies, the littering of D- marks and the perpetual critique 'must do better' (read: must stop talking about boys and drawing pictures of willies and do some chuffty work you cretinous turd) and would much rather feast upon a bowl of tripe or another hound's butthole, this excuse isn't quite as literal as that.

You see the 'homework' I refer to here is my laptop and 'the dog' nibbling it is actually my mini gobstopper pouring a whole can of Coke all over it. Brilliant.

But like a faulty Catherine wheel your Dad singes his pinkies on, then curses wildly and tries to pretend his actual words were 'duck' 'hunt' and 'Horlicks' as if he were some cocoa supping Elmer Fudd riddled with Tourettes, the pooter fizzled and popped with a lack of enthusiasm that left even me hoping the damage was minor.

Alas no, the lack of pyrotechnics and the crestfallen look on binky wink's little mush before he went back to the much more satisfying activity of repeatedly thwacking the dog in the noggin with a froggie maraca was not an omen of the limited feckery done. In fact I was half expecting Polish virtuoso and ivory fiddler Chopin, to sneak in from the cemetery looking all bit crusty grave minger (and possibly doing the dance to Thriller), crack his decomposing fingies, take a pew and the strike up a chorus of The Funeral March as I feverishly tried to mop up the sticky pop and turn it back on. Not a mother pigging peep. Oh piss off Chopin, you miserable old bastard.

So excuse number one is this: Laptopless and only able to communicate via pigeon and sending the mutt out with a note attached to her collar (fruitless because firstly, she is not a clever St Bernard and her map reading skills are woefully lacking and second, she doesn't even wear a collar - she refuses to be 'owned' by anyone. Sweet Jebus, you wouldn't believe how many times we've heard the 'I am a not a numbnut, I am a free pooch' speech. Yeah whatever Patrick McGoohan, eat your tripe and shut it) I have had no way of getting my daft gibberings to you.

It's ok, I know you've missed me but wipe up your tears petal and take down your Sproglet Bloglet shrine because it's actually a bit embarrassing and the neighbours are starting to worry about you *casually covers up own shrine to Wicksy from EastEnders and goes back to rocking and muttering quietly to self in corner whilst stabbing voodoo doll of Cindy Beale in the bum with a safety pin*. And besides, I'm baaaack mother wuvers!

So, having finally taken down the banners, tidied away the streamers and hoovered up the cakey crumbs from my laptop's welcome home party and allowed the Hubble back into the bed where my lovely pooter has been slumbering soundly (for that is surely what it means for you to do when you press the 'sleep' button and put its little nightcap and jim jams on. Oh, it's only me who does that? Oh. Right then. Erm...) for the last week or so on an orthopaedic memory foam mattress, I am ready desist licking it fondly and actually do some tippity tap typing.

All drinks however, now have to be consumed from the giant sippy bottle I have attached to the lounge wall in the manner of a gerbil cage. The honking great wheel for flump face to wear himself out on whilst I sit on my bot watching Jeremy Kyle and gargling vodka all day, is being delivered next week.

2) Alllll byyyyy myseeeeelf!
In the gloriously self indulgent words of above power ballad I have been all alone, sans the Hubble, fending for myself and my wee bakey bean like some dazzling example of iconic single parentdom such as say, Kerry Katona...but without the penchant for stealing shit from Woolworths...or hooking up with anyone I happen to flash my scouse twinkle at...or spending all of my money on tracksuits and crack...in fact nothing like Kerry Katona at all. More like Diane Keaton in Baby Boom. Yeah, that's definitely more like it.

The Hubble, gawd bless his industrious wee soul has been down't pit morning, noon and night, earning money so I can buy all the stuff that I want like gold teeth, a suit made of 50 squid notes and a unicorn called Barry that we can live a lovely comfortable life that doesn't involve sending our smidgey smudge up chimneys or dressing the dog up in fishnets, lipstick and a wig and setting her up on a street corner (although, if I'm honest, I think her breath might hold her back. Not that I dare tell her, she thinks she's Julia freakin' Roberts).

Thus, in turn I have been on 24-hour button bum surveillance, watching his every move as he bungee jumps off the sofa with the aid of the pooch's lugholes as elastic support, reprogrammes my phone's language to Ancient Greek and submerges his face, my laptop (noooooo!) and anything else he can lay his sticky little trotters on in the dog's water bowl. Any ideas I may have had of getting on tinternet and regaling you all with stories from my très exciting life (read: actually dull enough that stabbing yourself in the eye with a Biro begins to look like a reet rollicking barrel of monkeyshines) became laughable.

In fact, thanks to the added bonus of boogie woogie's current separation anxiety and his desire to stick to me like a verruca (albeit a super cute one that doesn't necessitate a mangy plastic leper sock to cover it every time you come into contact with other people. Or water. A bit like a Mogwai really) I have found that even taking a trip to the bog requires a military operation and stealth manoeuvres involving camouflaging both the pooch and I whilst she covers my movements by distracting the teeny crumpet with her 'sit-down-lift-back-legs-and-pull-anus-along-carpet' act (a real crowd pleaser that one. Well, that is if the crowd consists of Mr pooky pants and the neighbours' cat. Who thinks the dog is a complete bell-end but likes to watch the bewildered humiliate themselves. Cats eh, they're such bastards), whilst I peg it to the loo and piss like a pregnant horse.

At present however, my delicious Hubble has returned home and despite wondering why the carpet is covered in poop crumbs, why the pooch and I are wearing camouflage and why the neighbours cat is editing home videos to send in to 'You've Been Framed', he doesn't ask because frankly I think the giant gerbil water bottle in the corner of the room and the fact that I am wearing a look not dissimilar to Jack Nicholson in The Shining, says it all really.

Thus thankfully I have a little time back in my day, say between 7pm and 7.08pm, when I am free to do whatever the hell I damn well please. That's right, I can take a lengthy wee with the door locked, I can put the kettle on and make a cup of tea (what do you mean 'and drink it'? I know not of such exorbitance and luxury. Who the bleedin' hell are you anyway? Are you that la-di-da smug moo who scoffs all the Ferrero Rocher at the Ambassador's shindig? Yeah I know your type, you whole-cup-of-tea drinking bint) and I can walk in and out of the living room as many times as I fancy without having to exit on my belly like a deflated blimp.

But most important of all course, I get to write my lovely sprogy blog. Or at least pretend that I am writing it when in fact I am searching eBay for Ghillie suits, gold dentures and a cat taser (a special request from the pooch). Oh and watching the hilarious YouTube uploads of 'Moggy_LMAO_13' featuring a strangely familiar hound wiping its crack on the carpet of some poor unsuspecting...oh hang on...

Sooo, in the words of Gloria Gaynor, I'm back, from outerspace (arguable actually since I still posses the expression of a slightly unglued moonbiscuit) and hopefully you've forgiven my absence and general slothfulness. But if you haven't, my wool pulling has done nothing to cover your eyes and you still think I'm a dismal poo-stained scroat-scratching loafer I will apologise once more:

"I'M SOOOOO SORRRRY!"

Man, that even LOOKS insincere. Oh well, I promise to try to do better. And I'll post some shiny, new and exciting *pffft!* musings for your delectation *pffffffffffffft!* very soon. Unless I can't be bothered I camo my pooter in a bit of a 60 Minute Makeover - GI Jane Special and lose it that is. Stranger things have happened... *shoos giant gerbil out of the room, saddles Barry the unicorn and counts out share of £250 winnings from You've Been Framed success with neighbours cat*.

Knick-knacks, baby crap and Peepee Teepee cones...

Having finally recovered from my quackie duck onesie episode, the broodiness has begun to subside so Hubble has finally agreed to let me out of The Cupboard where I have busied myself stuffing pillows under my jumper and muttering like Gollum about precious wee scrumbums and painting the living room the colour of meconium, under the condition that I stop using the pingu booties as egg cup warmers and quit clucking around like a giant fecking hen.

I am also waiting for the police to inform me that Mothercare has lifted their restraining order and are thankful that I have seen the error of my ways and stopped licking their windows and scaring their pregnant shoppers by dropping to my knees, gently stoking my face with nipple shields and weeping uncontrollably whilst barking all sorts of unsought advice at them like some deranged 'end-of-the-world-is-nigh' sandwich board moon buggy.

Thusly yes, aside from the odd episode whereby I sneak up behind unsuspecting Mumkins and give their newborn's head a damn good sniff in Sainsburys, I'm feeling much better thank you.

So much better in fact that I have gone back to rooting around in my goober schnitzel's bedroom, with the intention of making space for all the squillions of toys and sparkly fun shit that boohound will be gratefully receiving for his 1st birthday next month *gulps at sheer magnitude of occasion, senses familiar gush of broodiness, gets smidge tearful as collates mind montage of poignant moments in the last year accompanied by suitable soundtrack such as The Supremes' 'Baby Love', pulls self together when Hubble mentions The Cupboard and invokes spirit of old iron bollocks, Margaret Thatcher, whilst repeating mantra 'knick knacks on, no harm done; knick knacks off, up chuffing duff.'*.

However, instead of crumbling into a fit of hysteria over a simple piece of cotton (See?! If I wasn't like sooo over the quackie duck onesie and as mentally Zen as Buddha then I couldn't refer to it as a mere piece of cloth now could I? Yep, that's right, these days I'm a double hard bastard) I noticed all the purchases I made when I was pregnant that were either still in their packaging or had been used once and then hurled into the back of the wardrobe in disgust due to its 'doesn't do anything like what it pigging says it does on the tin' ineptitude.

In fact the pile of useless frippery that promises to keep your baby breathing, make them into a mini Stephen Hawkin (without hopefully the Motor Neurone Disease and the voice of a Speak & Spell) and make them happier than teensy wickle piglets in poop, that I assembled, was quite astounding.

Fortunately I have no morals whatsoever and will quite happily sell all these feckless fandangles to overly neurotic, hormonally charged bun bakers on eBay. But for those of you who might be thinking about buying them and are, lets face it, brilliant and probably very beautiful and intelligent for even thinking about reading my blog, here's the shit that Mr Bigass Baby Brand, the porky pie telling pedlar of crud, says you need when I, slightly unhinged poop cleaner of bot, say otherwise:

* Under mattress breathing monitor - they go off ALL the chuffing time making you vomit into your mouth, run like a crazy horse up the stairs, trip up and smack your spam on the landing. But never when your baby has stopped breathing. Because babies like most people, as stupidly inexperienced as they are, tend to just carry on, you know, breathing because it helps them live really and they get that. Clever babies.

They are designed with the sole intention of scaring the bejesus out of you and frankly there's enough to be worried about thank you. Plus you will be standing over your mini potato head for the first few weeks (read: FOREVER) watching them sleep / holding a mirror up to their nostrils / poking them in the face every 25 seconds to make sure they're still alive, so they are needless. And a waste of dosh. Save it and spend it on Gin, much better for calming ones nerves.

* Baby sponges - as rough as a cats anus. Only useful if you want to sand back your baby's bot and give it a lovely French polish. Serves me right for shopping at TheChildCatcher.com

* Pram shoes - Yes they're cute but unless you're giving birth to a foal, your newborn isn't going to be walking and thus necessitate shoes any time soon. However, if you find your lilliputian does exit your womb and suddenly make a run for the door, please give me a call, I would like to exploit you massively and make squillions from your circus freakshow of a child see that.

* Infant Stimulation Mobiles - Bedtime. Traditionally a time for catching zs not, as these bastard contraptions seem to think, for whipping your poobum into a frenzy or encourage them to snort lines of talc or indulge in a scratch mitt rendition of 'big fish little fish cardboard box'. Bedtime is not for raving. GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP.

* Pee-pee Teepee - "A must-have diapering accessory for newborn boys; excellent baby shower gift with guaranteed giggles!" Yes, I nearly died laughing. Putting ice cream cones on my child's penis always reduces me to tears.

* Wipes warmer - if you want your binky bubblebum to grow up like Little Lord Fauntleroy then this is the product for you. Your life will be littered with scweams of: "Mamahhhh! What is this muck you're trying to feed me? READY BREK?! Do I LOOK like a backstreet ruffian? Fetch the Fois Gras immédiatement and tell that simpleton, Sir Poochalot, to bring the moo cow walker around, I feel like a turn about the estate", and the like.

The choice is yours but heed these wise words from, erm, some very clever Mumkin who may or may not write this blog: "A toasty botty wot a coddled crumpet createth." Yeah I know right?! I'm basically the Dalai bloody Lama.

* Steam sterilizer - This honking great space station of a twat takes up nearly one whole length of the kitchen and melts everything in its path into submission. You may as well invite a Dalek to sit on your work top and ask it to lick all the germs from the bottles. Get a microwave one. Or a dishwasher. Or a Dalek...

* Baby cologne - Because babies smell DISGUSTING don't they.

* Swaddling blanket - Upon finding himself out of a job, ousted by the dastardly Ben Shephard, poor Gordon 'Krypton Factor' Burns decided to get his own back by inventing the world's hardest puzzle.

Introducing the Swaddling Blanket - 25 pieces of Velcro that can never and will never meet up to make a fastening and 8 frustrating holes for which no-one knows the purpose (whose baby has 8 limbs? Oh right yes, you Mrs Tarantula, I do apologise. Oh no no noooo I wasn't all suggesting that your baby is a freak...although YOU are for getting it a with a spider, dirty arachnid fiddler).

Well Gordo, you succeeded in your cunning plan, my brain is now but a pile of liquidised turnip. And my wee flipflop is cold. Oh but hang on, there's a proper blanket over there! And looky here! If I wrap it around nutterly butterly...it SWADDLES him! Who knew eh? Who kneeeew!? Genius.*

I could go on but I fear I may sully my reputation *hears shouts of "What reputation? You're a twazzock love!" Meh* by painting myself as a compulsive shopper of total crapola and also wildly offend any of you who may have bought this stuff and found it to be absolutely chuffing wizard. *Bum squeaks uncomfortably in seat*.

The moral of this story boys and girls is to never go shopping when you are hormonal. If you feel like your belly dweller is telling you to buy this stuff because he/she neeeeeds it, back away from the Pee Pee Teepee and reverse out of Boots in the manner of someone who has just detonated a bomb (always a laugh to make the shop assistants brick their undercrackers and create unnecessary panic, narf!), go and find a cake shop, stuff yourself until bilious and then count all the money you didn't just spend on an item to decorate your loft.

Right, I'm off to coerce pudding club dafties on eBay into buying all the doohickeys and floss I just warned you off. *Oh hello Mr Devil, yes, yes I know you're here to take me to hell for my acts of villainous extortion and cashing in on the misfortune of wibbly gestationals but is it ok if I just wait til the auction for the Wipes Warmer ends? Hang on, you don't fancy it do you? You know, in case we hear the pitter-patter of tiny cloven hooves one day? Awww go on, £2.99 'Buy it Now', for the warmest toosh in the underworld. Bargain!*

Gone quackers

I am spent. Having whiled away the last three hours booing like a wounded goat into several plastic storage containers, folding and refolding Boohound's newborn era threads whilst growing intoxicated by the lingering scent of Lenor’s ‘Essence of Sprog’ fabric softener, my face now resembles something between a puffer fish and bum-soothsayer, Jackie Stallone.

For in my naive ignorance of the power of a 0-3 months quacky duck onesie, today I blithely began the business of sorting out Mcmuffin's drawers with the intention of making space for his big boy dungas and summer wardrobe.

It seems bloody unfair by the way that my dunkin' doughnut, a BOY nontheless, has a seasonal collection of clothes whereas I have feck all. I own approximately one cruddy old jumper with spag bol stains for winter and a summer dress with a pigging great rip from a day of denial whereby I tried to stuff my enormous preggers bulk into it. And failed miserably. Then spent the rest of the day crying mahoosive hormonal tears and refusing to go out lest I be subjected to jeers such as: “Oi! Nelly! Pack up your trunk and naff off back to the circus would ya?!” *imaginary cockney rascal clicks heels, links arms with Dick Van Dyke and The Artful Dodger and skips off to the chimes of the Bow Bells through Laaahndaaan Tahhhn. Tsk.*

However, me being jealous that nippy longstocking has more clothes than the entire cast of Sex and the City is not the issue here. The fact that sorting through Boo's just-born togs reduced me to tears and nearly impelled me to rip off Hubble's undercrackers, wrestle him to the floor and demand that he impregnate me immediately, is. Again, nobody warned me about the power of a 0-3 months quackie duck onesie, so I am warning you.

Things is, now that rinky dink is virtually self sufficient (well not in as much that he plants taytos, cultivates Swiss chard and milks his own moo cow), so far as holding his bottle, entertaining himself and probably, if he felt so inclined, cooking a perfect lobster soufflé whilst conducting a shares trade on his Chatterphone and teaching the dog Mandarin, I feel like I am slowly becoming obsolete.

I know this is silly really. I know that I am still called upon to wipe crap from botty wots and scoop Weetabix from chins, walls and pooch’s spam, implement mountain rescue missions for scuppered attempts at bookcase scaling and perform the fish-and-flick manoeuvre for masonry nails, shards of glass and rusty razor blades that Boo has inexplicably discovered under the sofa and stuffed recklessly into his goblet but I miss the hazy, sleep deprived, covered in weird yogurty smelling poop months of total dependency.

Yes, it’s so wonderful that my little fruit bat is thriving, growing-up and becoming his own person but one never quite realises that the time between ejecting them from your twinkle to packing a box of impossibly small rompies, booties and all sorts of other cutesies, ready for the loft, has gone by lickety-split until you’re wailing like a foghorn and blowing your hooter on a teeny weeny quacky duck onesie.

Odd isn’t it? How anyone can miss being relied on completely? Well firstly, I am a bit *read: ALOT* mental. Secondly, all that neediness makes you feel super important. As important as say, oxygen or food or telly – yeah, that’s right, TELLY. Pretty freakin' important then.

Because, as much as you might have been CEO at your company during those heady days of employment, you didn’t have to breastfeed the Accounts Manager every three hours did you? *Oh you did? Er ok, sicko...* And you didn’t have to sing the receptionist to sleep because you were the only one who could or change the intern’s nap-nap whenever they did a monumental turd that stank out the office.*Oh, again, you did? What sort of frickin’ company were you running you mucky reprobate?!*

Anyway, back in those first few months, you were needed. In fact you were actually completely chuffing vital...and now you’re not. Well, not as much. You’re just a bit of a shitty party pooper really Mummy because you perpetually interfere with plug socket play and force boring old lunch down tiddlywink's throat just as he was about to conduct electricity. Bah.

So yes, as fruitloopy as it sounds, I miss being God and controlling everything and being pigging indispensable so now I’m a bit emotional and a smidge power hungry.
And now I want another baby. A tiny one that is basically as incapable as a potato. Oh quacky duck onesie, what have you done?!

Thus, to prevent myself mounting my poor, exhausted and now rather terrified hubble at every given moment and demanding another totally reliant moppet, I have taken to watching Teen Mom on MTV. A natural course of action I’m sure you’ll agree.

This programme, in case you’ve missed it (quite likely really if you're over 13 years old and haven't been grounded), is what doctors should prescribe to prolific procreators who refuse to use contraception and horny adolescents who think that parenthood looks like a reet hoot and no harder than keeping a Tamagotchi alive (which is actually pretty chuffing hard so another comparison may have been more suitable. I mean, why does one need to feed a keyring exactly? Do keys get hungry?).

Whilst I am not a teen and do not have parents that hate me / live in a shoe / sprinkle crystal meth on their Cornflakes / want their grandchild to be called Franchise, Bidet or T-Bone, the daily grind that these young Mumkins face caring for their wee ones in the first throws of parenthood changes very little as time moves on and one supposedly gets older, wiser and less libidinous *yawns at mere thought of rumpy, pulls on pjs with split in the arse and smell faintly of chips, fastens chastity belt securely over the top, swallows key and collapses face first into ungainly heap on unmade bed*. You may even find that you empathise with the mini Mumsies. And suddenly remember why you make Hubble wear eight condoms and shower in spermicide before a round of mattress dancing post-monkeychops' arrival.

Thus, if you’ve yet to start sorting your treacle tart’s too small smalls into ickle bickle piles ready to be stored away, arm yourself against broodiness - take the opportunity whilst your lovely stationary milk dud is sucking on your nip to flick over to Teen Mom.

Now dig out that quackie duck onesie. Go on, give it a good sniff. Can't even FORCE a tear can ya eh?! Even if you jab yourself repeatedly in the eye with a teething spoon you can't quite muster a blubber. And why might that be you hardened embittered old fart? Because the image that is ingrained in your mind of some spotty spud in Juicy Couture looking at her screaming newborn with utter disbelief that it has dookied up its back and created a poop toupee for itself for the 14th time in two hours, has popped up and slapped you in the face. No, really, there's no need to thank me. Thank Teen Mom - the most effective form of birth control since Y-fronts.

So, no more babies for me just yet thank you please. Guess I’d better put the scissors down and back away from the diaphragm then. Unless I want a new MTV series named: ‘I was hornswoggled by a quacky duck onesie into making multiple Boo Boos’ *swells with pride at incredibly succinct and catchy title, lights cigar and considers new career as TV fat cat* made about me.

No, perhaps not. Although I am now considering calling my next child Bidet...

I want candy

So the last few days have been shit. For the naturally thin amongst you please stop reading now. Not only will what I have to say mean nothing to you, it will most likely offend as frankly, I hate you. Yes, that's right, YOU and your stinking metabolism that burns a squillion calories simply by dialling a taxi to take you from the couch to the biscuit barrel. YOU, who can say things like 'oh I can eat whatever I want and never put weight on'. Seriously? Feck off. One day I hope you are run over by a cake truck.

Bitter? Moi? Abso-frickin'-lutely. Not only am I blessed with the metabolism of a hibernating tortoise but also am still adorned with a delightful pair of baby handles which have not fallen off from breastfeeding / pegging it after Mcmini / the shock of finding that the hippo you keep spotting in windows as it wanders about the house is actually your reflection, despite what Holly Willoughby, Penelope Cruz and Heidi Klum told me. Liars, liars, pants on fire.

Ok, maybe I shouldn't have left it til 10 months after I squeezed Boo out to start thinking about shifting the baby weight but if I'm being truthful, I think I developed a taste for patisserie whilst rather aptly, baking my little bun. In fact if he'd been available for the day I would surely have chosen Mr Kipling for my birthing partner so that he could stuff Fondant Fancies into my howling gob mid contraction.

Embarrassingly (and I'm not sure I should mention this lest it destroy my reputation as a glamorous sexpot *heeds universal snigger*) I am also still wearing some of my maternity clothes. Yes, I am aware that I gave birth to wee lederhosen nearly a year ago and thus should no longer require them but blimey O'Riley, they're so pigging comfy.

They have to be of course because pregnancy usually comes with its own suitcases, hand luggage and Winnebago filled with aches and pains therefore, clothes need to swaddle, snuggle and soothe. If they aren't and cause us hormonal sprog vessels to be irritated further in ANY way we would surely be impelled to find Mr Mothercare, shove his sewing machine up his pile-less anus and and burn his stupid house down.

I haven't cared that I look like a deflated Mama Cass or that the maternity bras leave my baps swinging so far south that penguins use them as pillows, you simply don't throw seriously comfy threads away without good reason. Or without one's husband prising them out of one's perpetually chubby pinkies and ceremoniously burning them along with your muumuu and gargantuan over-bump antenatal knick knacks.

But this week something changed. This week I looked in the mirror and saw a pregnant woman. Which is not good when you're not one. So this week the diet began.

The first day was a piece of low-fat, no sugar, pine nut and wheatgrass cakey. Day two was slightly harder as Boo spent its entirety whingeing in that low hum of a whine that international intelligence organisations use as torture and makes you want to do a double Van Gogh (but instead of posting your ear flaps to your lover sending them to God with a note attached that reads: 'The whimpering noise that my wee misog makes? You created that you did. What the jiggery pokery were you thinking? You did bad. Naughty step for God.')

By day three I had started licking the telly every time an ad for pizza or ice-cream or dog food was shown and on day four I got angry, very very angry. Especially when The Hubble came home from work and made a chocolate sandwich sprinkled with biscuits and a pie garnish. Well, I may have hallucinated that snack but whatever it was I wanted it and if I had to gnaw off my beloved's mitt in the fight to get it, so be it.

The excuses have started to rear their fat little heads too. This morning I woke up with a genius cover story poised for the moment my pious little conscience appears on my shoulder when I shift stealthily toward the Doritos:

"Oh yes, I see your point but I neeeeeed the extra calories for running around after plinkyplonk all day! I can't let myself run on empty or else I will burn out and that simply won't do will it? I'd end up in hospital and no-one would be around to look after my schmoo and then Arnold Schwarzenegger will be sent back from the future to destroy me and prevent Boo, our planet's saviour, from fulfilling his destiny..."

Oh no, hang on, that's the plot of Terminator isn't it? See, lack of cake has made me delusional.

So today I am searching Amazon for fridge padlocks and an electric fence to install in front of my larder. I have also begun training the pooch to nip my ankles if I make a run for the bin (seriously though, you never see a fat tramp do you? Maybe eating out of trash cans is the way to go non? Ooooh hello Monsieur Lightbulb, I think I may have invented a new celebrity diet. I cannot WAIT to see pics of Jennifer Aniston papped in a poo stained trench coat, ferreting about in her neighbours wheelie-bin looking for a half eaten doughnut).

The thing is, I clearly have the willpower of Homer Simpson and if I am ever going to fit into clothes that can't also be hired out as a wedding marquee then extreme measures need to be taken.

I will call this lard-proofing and will go about my day being electrocuted, bitten, flummoxed and thwarted at every turn until I learn by association, in the way you would teach a stumbling ninny of a cow not to wander from the field or lick pylons, that candy ain't dandy and too many sweeties a meaty mum makey.

Wish me luck and keep a look out on the local news for a singed woman with a dog hanging off her shin, gibbering like a loon about Vienetta being admitted to hospital after a ballsed attempt to mainline sugar. Ah, fame at last...

Wee ones wobble and they DO fall down...

Eee by gum last night were a bad 'un. I spent from dusk til dawn waiting by the phone expecting Barnardo's, Social Services or Esther Rantzen to tinkle and tell me in no uncertain terms that I am a terrible mother, utterly incapable of looking after little yum yum and that basically, I smell.

Thing is, yesterday evening around din-dins (the time is firmly implanted in my mind as I recall chocking on a piece of stuffed crust in horror) I noticed a honking great bruise on the side of Boo's spam.

Now, I know I have a tendency to overreact and am, at all times, trembling with a sort of wibbly neurosis (well, maybe a little more than wibbly - think the possessed chick with the spinning noggin from the Exorcist) and in reality the bruise is probably about 1cm square. Ok, EXACTLY 1cm square. I measured it. I need to know these things so I that I can leap to my feet and squeal 'OBJECTION!' (I've always wanted to do that) in response to evidence brought against me when I am inevitably summoned to court for being a neglectful wench. Nothing like a bit of make believe drama to make things seem a whole lot worse now is there?

Am I being ridiculous? Yes, probably. But will knowing that I am being a hammy moonbiscuit about all this help at all? No, probably not. Still, wingnut or no, the fact remains that my perfect wee Boo has suffered a knock and I feel like I have failed in my role as safety net / bouncer / sheep pig.

Remember how poor old Kevin Costner was haunted by his absence at President Reagan's attempted snuffing at the beginning of The Bodyguard? Well, *sniffle* I feel his pain. I just hope I don't have to boff Whitney Hoowoo to get over it.

The reason behind scrumple stiltskin's injury you see is not as mysterious as it may seem - Boo has started cruisin'. I hate this term by the way, it makes mini muffin sound like a lechy wee kerb crawler in a grubby mac and pedal powered Ford Cortina.

And cruisers, as you may well know, are like drunken tramps out ferreting through bins for half eaten kebabs and the odd dribble of Special Brew. They think they can stand, they even think they can walk but then, all of a sudden, SPLAT! Oopsy-daisy, heap of baby on floor / tramp in bush.

So I have two options here, two ways of dealing with my intrepid, albeit clumsy, little platypus. I can either strap a number of well-fed gerbils to Sir Poop-alot's tiny bonce to cushion his fall or just suck it up and accept the fact that sproglets tumble. They twat their melons. And no amount of pigging baby-proofing is going to change that.

It's a hard decision to make but, as gerbils allegedly create a lot of mess and one hairy smellbag is enough for one house (poochface not Hubble, although saying that...), I guess I'm just gonna have to gather my marbles, tighten my loose screws and man up. *Puffs out chest and salutes poster of Private Benjamin*.

With pookie's 10 month review on Wednesday (I am setting up his Powerpoint presentation and flip chart as we speak. We are both hoping he gets a pay-rise and well-deserved promotion) I am hoping the consultant looks kindly upon me and more importantly, upon Boo's bonk blemish.

If you see me on Crimewatch next week however, with a bounty on my head and a sign across my chest that reads:

"WANTED: BAD MUMSIE AT LARGE WITH MAIMED INFANT IN TOW. EASILY IDENTIFIABLE BY 1CM SQ BRUISING TO CHILD'S SPAM AND TINY USELESS JEREMY BEADLE HANDS OF MOTHER THAT COULDN'T CATCH A COLD LET ALONE A TUMBLING TOT",

then you know the bint squealed.

Happy Holidays!

Today I am missing the live-in help. By that I am referring to the Hubble and not a nanny I had to sack for stealing my très expensive face cream (lard. I swear by it) and rubbing her mangy little foot up and down my beloved's leg during dinner.

Papa Smurf went back to work this morning after four glorious days off at home during which I sat on my piggy wiggy boco and oinked my way through a glut of chocolate eggs and shouted such demands from the sofa as:

"Feel. Thirsty. TEEEEA!"
"Remote. Lost. FIIIIND!"
"Choc. Egg. Finito. NEEEEXT!"
and
"Nappy. Pooey. CHAAAANGE!" (ickle bickle's you understand, not mine).

I know, I know, it sounds like he is my man slave. Which he is. But he gets treated pretty flippin' well the rest of the time. It's just bank holidays when I get to dust off my crown and poke him with my jewel encrusted sceptre, scweaming for the odd cuppa and peeled grape. Besides, he is really starting to like his gimp suit now.

I freakin' LOVE April and May. Littered with bank holidays I find myself skipping about the house like a Spring lamby, drinking entire cups of tea (Yes, really. A WHOLE delicious cup. Before it gets cold. Piggin' ACE.) and sleeping in until, oooh I don't know, at least about 6.30am. Yippee.

The only thing that would make these months better in fact would be that my birthday could be relocated to say, Easter Sunday? If you can change your name by Deed Poll why can't you change your birthday eh? Might make Chrimbo a bit of a nightmare I spose with all the fruity loops opting for December 25th and pretending to be the baby Jesus. Yup, maybe that's why.

Bank holidays are not even marred by the fact that as self-employed people both Hubble and I do not get paid for these imposed vacations. No, I am quite happy to lose a few squids here and there, even paupering it up good and proper by adopting a gimpy leg and contracting a few weeping sores for effect if need be, just to have my sweetheart home and some bleedin' help with button bum.

For nobody warned me that once tinky winks start crawling, they literally don't stop. NEVER FECKING EVER. I reckon, just like the pooch chases pesky wabbits and bites postmen in her slumber, Boo crawls up Everest, across burning coals and along the full length of the Great Wall of China. Of course in his bestest dreams the Great Wall would be littered with all manner of electrical wires for him to chew on and rickety bookcases for him to climb.

No-one warned me how fast the little tinkers go either. Once Boo gets up his pace he whizzes across the floor as if some bugger has snuck in, given him a Weetabix laced with amphetamines and stuck a firework up his bot. Even getting the dog to lie strategically in the middle of the lounge to act as a speed hump is no deterrent, he simply clambers over her and keeps on truckin'. Speed kills dontcha know Boo Boo? Mummy mainly. I may need an iron lung if he keeps up this sort of lick.

So, basically, I am pooped. Running around after Boo is exhausting and no amount of baby-proofing allows for smidget stuffing the hound's paw down his throat and sniffing out my mobile to speed dial my bank manager and blow raspberries down the line. Fortunately I couldn't have phrased my feelings toward my bank manager better on that occasion. However, constantly hunting chimpy bum down, rescuing him as he attempts to abseil off the dining table and fishing fluff and oomska out of his gob is a wee bit wearying.

To make matters worse my hoover has blown up. Beyond repair. I have even tried shouting at it and kicking it but it remains on the fritz. I am not just relaying this incredibly tedious piece of information because I fancy a reet good whinge, which I do, but also because it means the carpet now appears to be generously sprinkled with Shrek's gruffnuts. So, until the clever wee Doozers from Morphy Richards turn up to shout at it a bit more in a language it understands, my little sproglet has a veritable feast laid out in front of him at every shuffle. *Neurosis shifts up a gear into 'twitchy'*

Thus to have Hubble home and enjoy the advantage of another pair of paws to help block Boo's path of destruction has been lovely. But alas, the long weekend is over and it is back to being a two person race between me and mini to see who can get to the crusty looking unidentifiables on the rug first.

Thankfully however, it is only a three day week as Willsy Poo and Katiekins (oh yes, we're very close and even have pet names for each other. You may curtsey now) have decided to tie the knot and as such, we have another bank hol. But of course you knew that.

What you didn't know is that Watie planned the timing of their nuptials around Boo Boo finding his kneesies and getting his crawl on. Knowing that I would be pooped and in need of either a clone of myself or Hubble to be present in the moments that I am on the bench catching me breath as a result of pegging it after my wickle Thundercat, the Prince and his missus decided to make their engagement a short one and get married at the time when I, weary old Mumsie, need a siesta most. TRUE STORY. *Crosses fingers and waits to be dragged snivelling to the tower for beheading over treasonous claims*

If I wasn't planning on sleeping all day Friday and leaving Hubble to run the gauntlet with Boo you know I might have organised a street party, gravy browned me legs, made bunting out of old undercrackers, baked a rock hard Victoria sponge and broke into a medley of Roll Out the Barrel / God Save the Queen for the occasion, you know, to show my gratitude.

Thing is, I'm just too chuffing cream crackered. Mahoosive thanks and all for the extra day off though Mr and Mrs Windsor, oh, and congratulations (although it should have been me obviously, am clearly Princess material). Your fondue set is in the post.

NOTE TO MUMKINS: If you would like to sign my petition to the palace to wangle a day off every time someone of royal affiliation goes up the aisle, including the Her Maj's third favourite Corgi (I have heard a rumour that it got amorous with a roguish Beagle and now they may have to wed to avoid a scandal), please leave your name, if you're not too tired to remember it or type it, in the comments section.

Laughing (dementedly) in the face of danger

Having a look around my house this morning, I am filled with a sense of calm. The kind of calm you would experience after an extended mental illness that has seen you impersonate chickens, wear colanders as hats, bash your spam repeatedly against walls, imagine that you are Napoleon and finally, to the relief of you, all your family and chums (even the imaginary ones), carted off to the fruit farm. Yeah, the sort of peace bestowed upon a post-committed wingnut, that's it.

For today my house looks like a padded cell - a guise I was most certainly aiming for but isn't likely to get me on the pages of The Sunday Times' Style supplement - not because I am insane in the membrane you understand (just lingering this side of 'nanas I reckon) but because I have been a-baby proofing.

Sorry, it took a while to get to the point there didn't it? It may be because my new high security, padded, squishy squashy sanctuary is a little distracting. It's as if I have taken up residence in Mr Staypuft's anus.

Baby proofing - sounds easy enough doesn't it? In theory it is. You simply take a glance at your hoosey and pick out all the potential dangers to your cheeky chimpy.

However, those of you who have been through such defence armament will know that one glance uncovers that in fact you have been living in an Afghan minefield for the last five years and your lovely little scrumpy bum is only one shuffle away from being maimed / electrocuted / charred / decapitated / blown-up into a mini mushroom cloud.

The more you look, the more you realise it is a miracle that you're still alive and moving house suddenly becomes a very attractive option. For those whose tots are too teeny to worry about turning your homes into cushiony fortresses just yet and have still to experience the horrifying realisation that you live in a abominable sty, let me put it like this:

If your home was featured on Watchdog, Lynn Faulds Wood would be wagging her finger violently and screaming "pooootential diiiith trap!" in your face.

If Cowboy Builders visited, Dom Littlewood's shiny wee face would be screwed up like an angry pug whilst he jabbed his stubby pinkies into your plug sockets and became almost incomprehensibly cockney in disgust.

Worst of all, if your Mum came over and saw the squalor you have been subjecting her beloved grandie to, visualising your buttonhole lying in a pool of petrol whilst chewing on the frayed laptop lead and playing with steak knives, you'd be sent to bed without any tea.

It's this kind of neurosis that has led me to buy every item available on Amazon to protect my midgey widge from my jeopardous armpit of a dwelling and watch YouTube video after YouTube video featuring experienced Sparkies frying themselves with defective plug protectors and the like.

Long suffering Hubble has, this past month, spent every spare minute of his evenings and weekends clamping stair gates to door frames, screwing socket covers to walls, catches to drawers and mopping the dribble from my chin as I rock myself into a jibbering frenzy calculating the lurking hazards in my home (read: slum).

On the odd occasion that I am not incapacitated with terror, I have scaled the lockable pantry shelves and stored every bottle and container dotted with images of skulls and crossbones (note to chemical and pharmaceutical packaging execs: You're really not helping the hysteria with that one), the Grim Reaper or a baby exploding on the top shelf and moved heavy objects that, inexplicably, are like cat nip for smallies, down from sproglet splattering heights and out of harm's way.

So this morning when I bounced down my foam stairs into my lovely padded room I felt better than I have done in weeks. The fact that pickle wickle has decided to get off his lazy toosh and start crawling this week as well as pulling up on the pooch and using her as a walker, means also I feel rather smug and vindicated in my meticulous preparations. My Brown Owl would have been proud. Badge now please.

Who says you can't wrap them up in cotton wool? Methinks the sleepsuit I'm knitting from flame retardant, anti-suffocation, hypo-allergenic, non-toxic bubble-wrap says otherwise. In your face peril. IN. YOUR. FACE!

Mum's the word. Or at least it should be...

This week I have mainly been seething under my breath. Seething whilst drinking tea in the sunshine (as per the positively tropical weather of late) with the little tweety birds twittering and trumpety daffodils fluttering in the breeze however, is far less bleak than it is sitting in a shadowy corner of one's lounge, rocking backwards and forwards in a threadbare armchair like a Dickensian miser watching the pishing Blighty rain spatter against the window so you know, cup half full and all that.

And the reason I have been such a crosspatch? Well, one week ago today I was having a blissful Mothering Sunday, my first nonetheless, with Boo, pooch and the Hubble (my treasured spouse not the honking great space telescope you understand).

I had managed to have a bath - worth mentioning as I believe the last was when I was nine months prego, involved a giant shoe horn and me moaning and sweating profusely like a perverted Teletubbie - and removed all traces of porridge from my hair, read the paper and was settling down for an evening of smallhausen snuggling, Antiques Roadshow, tea and toast. I know, I know, I'm less Keith Richards than Cliff Richard these days but my toast DID have Marmite on it and by my reckoning, that's pretty fecking rock n' roll.

Then, just as I was gearing up for a deliciously devastating valuation dished out by my secret crush (don't judge me), tache-tastic David Battie (I said don't judge me!), from across the room on his father's knee the wee man beams, giggles and pipes up: "DAAAAADDAAAA!"

ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME?

You pick Mother's Day to say your first word and it's "Dadda?". A giant cloud of huff instantly descended upon my evening and I felt the hot surge of stampy feet and sniffy, snorty sulk rise up through my body and into my nostrils, inducing them to flare like a peeved warthog.

'Dadda' smiled smugly at me from his throne and much to my annoyance, provoked our little button to repeat his new communiqué, you know, just to rub it in:

Hubble / Stinking Bastard: "What did you say Boo Boo? Did you say 'Dadda'?"
Boo: "Dadda. Dadda. Dadda. DAAAAAAAAADDAAAAAA!"

Poo bags. I went to bed.

Now, I have read the baby books and know full well, in the teeny tiny sensible part of my mind, that little cherubs find it far easier to enunciate "babba" "gagga" and "dadda" hence why most babies utter these words first.

I was counting on my mini being amongst the refreshingly beatnik minority however, and stroking my ego with a beautifully constructed first sentence that went along the lines of:

"I adore thee Mummy, you are my whole world and I love you more than words could possibly express."

A little ambitious perhaps. "Mamma" would have done though. I coulda gone to bed and slept soundly and vaingloriously next to my miffed Hubble with that.

But no, instead Pops gets another point and I am left floundering once again somewhere in the shallow end of the parental dream pool, swallowing verruca riddled Elastoplasts and trying the avoid the floating turds. I know it's unhealthy to have a league table of favouritism that charts how much your dinky dotes on each of you but no-one knows that I have one (apart from you now), not even my beloved (unless he too reads this. Not that he'll have time, he'll be too busy being my son's bestest and practising being smug).

So here we are. A week of scowling and seething and I now have the permanent expression of a Jack Russell terrier who has just seen an unsuspecting rat he wants to bite on the bot.

Still, I have a cunning plan to win back my crown as Mum-ber 1 and laugh victoriously in the face of Hubble.

I am considering repeating the word "Mamma" into a Dictaphone for twelve hours straight, sewing it into Wibbly Pig and playing the recording back to monkey chops as he softly slumbers. I believe this is known as subliminal messaging and is very possibly illegal. Frankly a meagre prison sentence seems a small price to pay to regain my parental sovereignty - just as long as I hear Boo chirp my name before I'm led off to my (likely padded) cell.

The second option is a little more drastic in the form of a sex and name change to 'Dadda', which I'm not quite as into if I'm honest. Not because I think being a fella would be totally rubbish per se but more that I'm likely to turn into Brian Blessed if I take on any more facial hair. Yup, they don't tell you THAT in the lovely floaty pregnancy books do they? I do believe condom wrappers should feature pictures of bearded ladies, Santa, goats and David Bellamy alongside the warning: 'Fasten securely, pregnancy may cause Yetiness'.

I'm not ruling option two out though. Never say never. I'm willing to get me a winkle if midgey widge persists in his exclusive Daddy worship.

In the meantime however, I shall sit here in the sunshine plying my wearying vocal chords with honey and lemon, recording my sweet revenge. I'm pinning all my hopes on you Wibbly Pig. Once you were a mere whimsy, a pre-school plaything covered in Boo Boo's dribble. Tonight my furry porcine pal, you are a double agent.

Sweet dreams my wickle peanut, MA-MA-MA MAMMMMMMA loves you...

1. Acronyphobia - (noun): a pathological fear of acronyms

Today I rediscovered my hatred for acronyms. What can I say, it's been a slow morning.

The thing is, it's either just me and I'm some sort of drooling half-wit, or not every Sheila who finds themselves up t'duff and wanders blithely onto the internet to: a) check out what she's in for over the next nine months b) watch repeats of One Born Every Minute in wide-eyed terror c) find out if the irrepressible urge to vomit out of your nose and eat your body weight in Jaffa Cakes whilst baking one's bun is normal - knows what the jiggery pokery an LO, DH, EBF or FTM** is.

Some of you will appreciate immediately what I'm waffling about. For those that don't or have a strange fancy for feeling like an ignoramus, just take a peek at any baby or mum website and scroll through the forums. Yep, you feel like a right berk now eh? Join the club ladycakes.

It may be that because I was very lucky and became pregnant pretty easily with Boo, I didn't spend an awful lot of time trawling the web like some, understandably hoping to find others to support or advise them in their plight to conceive a desperately wanted wee one. Therefore, all of this forum phrasiness is new and bewildering to me (as is text speak. It seems odd that people exclaim LOL after revealing that their hamster has just died).

Had I perhaps integrated myself into mummy networking earlier I would be up to speed by now and know that EBF means Exclusively Breast Fed and not Eaten Before Friday (which would of course cause all manner of confusion and outrage when proudly announcing on Mumsnet that one's wickle cherub will be EBF. *Oh hello Child Services. Nope, no way, I am categorically NOT a cannibal*).

But, hey ho, I didn't. And now I feel like I'm an outsider, licking the windows of an exclusive club full of clever mumsies who have all the answers and just keep giving me the finger and giggling conspiratorially behind their perfectly manicured hands from inside the warm and cosy forum *sniffle, sobs gently*.

A fairly traumatic pregnancy, which involved me inflating like a bouncy castle at a school fête with Oedema and blood pressure that could have seen me spontaneously combust at any moment, invoked me to wander online one bloated afternoon to see if anyone else was equally as sumo-sized and sympathetic.

It was at this fairly low point that I first came face to face with bubba forum fat chewers and alas, became so befuddled by their acronyms and abbreviations that I felt like crying big fat tears down my big fat face. The pairing of these bastard initials with my ever thickening brain fog compelled me to log-off feeling hugely bewildered, mightily fed-up and not even the smidgiest widgiest bit wiser.

Apparently, all other knocked-up women were able to abbreviate to such an extent that they were clearly in possession and full control of all their shiny brain cells and probably moonlighting for NASA (another acronym, it's a freakin' conspiracy I tell you) during their pregnancies. Yet, even if they were suffering the same symptoms as me, I'd never have been able to decode their empathies anyway. Sigh, if only they made dunce hats big enough for my mahoosive swollen noggin, I thought.

I closed the laptop six months into my pregnancy, vowed never ever ever to go back onto another forum and went back to moaning quietly to myself, marooned on the sofa like Shamu waiting for Greenpeace to roll me back into the sea, whilst all the time trying not to reach a level of excitement above catatonia in case I might explode.

But I couldn't stay away could I? No I couldn't...

So today I find myself browsing a site that shall remain nameless (*cough* BabyCentre *cough*) looking for a reason as to why my Boo sways from side to side like a bored horse when he's mooching about the floor on his belly and why, no matter how many toys with buttons, bells and whistles I buy him, the little toad only wants to jam either the dog's tail or remote controls into his mouth. My TV is now permanently set to wide-screen which means I only get to see half of The Only Way Is Essex and frankly, that simply won't do.

Nothing has changed. It's the same bunch of women I encountered when I was prego except that they have now dropped their dribblers and, with their new role as a mumkin, have made up a whole new bunch of acroyms that make me want to slap them round the face with a pooey nappy.

In short, after about an hour of searching and thanks to the excessive use of these acronyms, I still have no idea whether my Boo is actually Seabiscuit's love child or if anyone else's pup is so disgusted by their mother's television viewing habits that they deliberately reprogramme the chuffing thing. Thanks ladies, yeah thanks alot.

It is an altogether exhausting, giddying, rewarding but exhausting job being a parent, do you really need to make our jobs any harder and make us feel like any more inadequate by writing in acronyms that, unless you have a degree in Smug Mummydom, make absolutely no pigging sense? No you do not. Naughty step for you all I think.

To all you forum regulars, if you're reading this, in the name of sisterhood (oooh hellooo, I'm Emmeline Pankhurst!) from me and all other mums who would be overjoyed to share in your pearls of parental wisdom and comforted by reading that there's someone else out there with a baby who has an inexplicable appetite for dog arse and electrical items, please heed this little request: even if it takes you an extra 30 seconds, just type the words **Little One, Dear Husband, Exclusively Breast Fed and First Time Mum and the like, in their full glory. That's it. Piece o' cake. Simples.

Mummyhood might feel like an utterly special and exclusive club but remember it's open to new members every day - so come on chicas, dish out the baby Blue Peter badges (they should SO make those by the way), splurge on some characters and don't leave us floundering, wondering WTF!? (Tee hee!) - being a mum is tough enough.

Oooh get me with me blog...

Ok, so as you may have gathered from the title of this wee online jotter, I am going to attempt to document my life as a new mum.


Yep, yawn, been done before, probably far better too by someone who isn't still in her jim-jams at 3pm and doesn't have half a Petits Filous in her hair, I know, I know. In my defence however, what they don't tell you in antenatal class when they're thrusting knitted ladyparts complete with a one-eyed Tiny Tears peering jadedly through the weave, into the hands of your smirking husband, is that the brain cells which decided to take a holiday during your pregnancy are in no hurry to pack up their knotted hankies and return home when you have squeezed your dribbling bundle of wuv out.

9 months into Boo Boo's life and I am still feeling a bit, how shall we put it, 'special' and have developed a number of unnerving habits such as leaving the phone in the airing cupboard and trying to put shoes on the dog before she goes outside. Therefore, I am in no fit state to comment on anything other than what has happened to me, say in the last half hour or so, because ever since smallhausen was a mere spegg I have been about as sentient as a potato.  Plus, for better or for worse I am consumed by all things maternal and thus incapable of writing about anything else.

So if you don't like it I suggest you take your shiny laptop that doesn't have rusk crammed between the keys, go and sit on your lovely white unblemished sofa that doesn't smell faintly, no matter how much Febreeze you douse it with, of milky barf and spend all the money you don't have to fork out on nappies and stuff that promises to make your baby herculean/genius/immortal and then doesn't, by surfing online stores that aren't decorated with sodding storks and morbidly obese cherubs.

You don't have to read my ramblings and to be fair, I probably wouldn't if I had your life, I'd be licking my Jimmy Choos, reading books that aren't about cats going to the shops or forgetting stuff and wafting around my fragrant house in the nud, showing off my stretch-mark-less temple of a bod. And so I wave you goodbye sweet smelling one, maybe you'll come back and visit when you wake up one day with pureed parsnip in your ear and realise you haven't had a shower for three days because there isn't fecking time.

For those poor souls who are left, basically what you can look forward to from here on in is my selfish efforts to let off steam via a medium that doesn't see me thwacking myself repeatedly in the head with Tickle-Me-Elmo. Joyfully (for me, not you silly) I can also share my pent up neurosis about things like whether an unsterilised dummy will instantly result in Boo Boo contracting Bubonic Plague and if it is possible that I can actually make my child into a simpleton by leaving Jeremy Kyle on accidentally and leaving the room for precisely two and half minutes.

Ah the thrills and spills eh? Shhh, you don't have to say it, I can feel your excitement from here...