Videos To Watch When You Need To Giggle

Sometimes, as a mum, you find yourself in desperate need of something to laugh about. However, the idea of trawling the internet for funnies is more than you can bare!

Fear not fellow Mummies! I have done the work for you!

Below are five (hopefully) guaranteed to make you laugh youtube clips - they haven't failed me yet.

German Words:

Oh the hilarity of the German language! Don't mistake me, I love Germany and it's people, but this clip plays to cultural stereotypes beautifully.

Michael Mcintyre - People With No Children Don't Know.

Let's be honest - people without children, really, really, don't have a clue. But they honestly believe they do, and once upon a time, so did we. But now we know better, so, so much better. And at times, we honestly wish we didn't.

Dear Cool Mum - from Whatsupmoms.com

Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about, the weird mum thing that happens when your kid starts interacting with another kids and suddenly you are having a crazy interaction with the other kids mum via a strange conversation through your respective children, but all you really want is for that other mum to think you are cool.... Actually, just go to that website, it's brilliant.

Parks and Recreation

Any episode from season 2 onwards - just binge watch them all! My personal favourite character is Ben Wyatt, and Andy Dwyer. Oh and Ron Swanson...Dammit I just love them all!

Babies in Tunnels

Yeah, you read that right. It's hilarious. I have got to try this with our monster one day soon. Very soon. Maybe today.

I hope one of these makes you smile xxx

Super Nutricious Disaster

There comes a time, in most mothers' lives, when they really do wonder how on earth their brains have deteriorated into the motherly mush they have become. Days of the week quickly become redundant as each day blurs into the next, sometimes days and nights have no meaning as you count the minutes of sleep you managed, or wonder where you put your cup of tea, only to find it days later in the pantry next to the plastic container of formula powder you forgot you had switched out of the tin! 

This moment happened to me over the weekend, when I attempted to make some muffins. I was running a masterclass and thought it would be nice to have some food out for the students.

Now, I make muffins all the time, in fact, I would happily call myself something of a muffin connoisseur, an expert even, if you will. I regularly substitute ingredients, play with quantities and create entirely new and delicious muffin recipes, so when I accidentally put in double the amount of milk, I was mortified!

Luckily I still had the tupperware container of flour out on the bench, which confused me for a second cos I had put all the containers away - but clearly not. I am obviously losing my mind, or getting early onset alzheimers (oh please don't let that be the case). I frantically tried to save my recipe by trying to double the flour - I managed to salvage almost two whole cups of it before it ran out, which was strange because I swore there was more a moment ago. For a moment I thought - is this even flour? Because weirdly the mixture didn't really thicken! In the end, I gave up on trying to make them into muffins, and instead, poured the enormous amount of mixture into two cake tins. I sprinkled the tops with cinnamon sugar and crossed my fingers that they would turn out ok.

Fortunately, they did turn out ok. I mean, the middle of each 'cake' sunk, but I cut them in half long ways, so no-one would ever know and presented them beautifully on a plate.

The students loved them! Success!! Someone even asked for the recipe!

It wasn't until two days later, when was giving the little one her bottle that I realised it wasn't flour I had tried to save the recipe with.

It was baby formula.

 

The Best Time

I have decided, that right now, is the best time in my life.

I am pretty sure that right now, is the time I will look back on and remember most fondly. That this will be when I was happiest, that life may not get much better than what it is right now.

I say this, because, although I get frustrated and bored and lonely and angry and just downright grumpy as usual, things are pretty darn ok.

The little one is no longer 100% dependant on me for everything. She is fun to play with, she loves to hug and she even gives the odd big sloppy kiss. Let me tell you, kisses from your kid are as close to heaven as you can get, in my humble opinion. Sure, she throws tantrums regularly, but they are short lived and she hasn't yet started to answer back or proclaim her hatred of us. I can see why people decide to have another kid when theirs around this age - but I must admit, my memories of having a new born haven't blurred enough to persuade me just yet!

I have enough singing students coming through to keep me sane, in contact with teens and adults daily and to make ends meet. The psychologist has a job he appears to love and so he comes home relatively happy on most days.

It's been a fantastic summer, with a brilliant family beach-bach holiday thrown in over new years, and the good weather has ensured we get in lots of fun family bike rides at weekends.

Perhaps that's why I am not writing so regularly? Because, who wants to write about how great things are, when you can close the computer and live it?

Telling Lies on Facebook

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a person in possession of a facebook page, must carefully curate what is posted.

And this sucks.

Seriously.

I have a strong hate-love-hate relationship with the social media giant, in that I hate that I love it, and also love that I hate it. It messes with me, as you can tell.

I love that it means I don't lose touch with old friends who I actually care about, or overseas friends who I would never see. Because let's be honest, writing letters is hard work and phone calls are expensive...and tricky when you start to forget a language you once 'kind of spoke for a while'. To be brutal, most of my friends would have vanished from my periphery, to be swallowed up by the endless pull of real life, never to be seen or heard from again, if it weren't for easy one line status updates and posting of photos straight from your phone.

Because I suck at keeping in touch.

But you have to take the good with the bad, and oh boy there is some bad! It comes in tricky disguises, not the obvious 'Gah, my day is sucking so bad' vague status updates of that friend who seems to need constant reassurance (guilty). Or the 'this man went to stroke a tiger, what happens next WILL SHOCK YOU' click bait spam generated by computer illiterate old timey facebook friends *cough* family. No, no, no. The worst kind of bad there is on facebook, are the happy posts. The pretty posts, the 'I'm more in love with you every year' anniversary updates and 'here's me at the eiffel tower with my french beau having just a glorious time' holiday uploads, or the 'Hey guys, can't update right now because I have no internet connection because I'm helping baby turtles into the ocean in guatemala while building houses for humanity in a warzone and I have given my phone to an orphan' once a year posts from the off-the-grid friend who you literally never see anymore because, well, they are helping baby turtles and...just...GAH!

ENOUGH!

A picture speaks a thousand words. Which facebook certainly doesn't let you post...I don't think. But sometimes pictures obscure the truth, blur the edges of a sharp reality and hide what you don't want others to see. Status updates do the same thing but with words, which you edit and rewrite and think about until they are perfect, then you click 'post'.

Here are some pictures taken yesterday by our friend and photographer Raewyn Murray .

Don't we look amazing! The happiest most perfect and harmonious family, pretty much in the history of the world - and god my hair has grown!

Look at us, laughing and having so much fun (which we were). Nothing can break us apart! We are what everyone dreams of being. We have what everyone wants.

Sigh. Even I want that!

What you don't see amongst the incredible beauty (ha!), is that just half an hour before this, the wee one had been throwing a tantrum, screaming, refusing to be put down and crying loud grumpy tears for the better part of an hour, and we were at our wits end with how to make it stop.

What you also don't see is that earlier in the day, hubby and I had a huge fight in the middle of a park where we all but decided we should get a divorce. But then, what should we do with the child?

Photos may be beautiful, filtered works of art, and status updates often envy inducing slaps in the face. But as we approach our fifth wedding anniversary (and our tenth year of being together), we have learnt one thing for sure.

People only let you see what they want you to see. Life is hard. Love is harder and Facebook blurs the edges of it all.

xx

On the Good Side of Mental Illness

As I sit and watch my daughter dedicatedly remove each strand of pasta from her bowl, place it on the high chair tray beside her bowl, eat a couple of them and then proceed to move them all back into the bowl, I am struck with how far we have come.

It seems inconceivable that this time last year she was not even three months old. Twelve months ago she was not much more than a blob who couldn't even roll over yet and whom we were worried would never be able to lift her head on her own.

Yet here she is now, climbing the steps to the slide, feeding herself - albeit with the spoon upside down for the most part -, speaking words only we can decipher and bit by bit, developing a cheeky yet remarkably serious personality.

If people kept developing at the rate they do in the first year of life, we'd all be either;
1) Giants
2) Geniuses
3) Giant Geniuses

Then I think about where I was this time twelve months ago. I was struggling, but had not yet fallen into the darkest place I was going to go. I had no idea how to get my life back while being a mum. The idea of working was unfathomable. Sleep was almost a foreign concept with baby waking every few hours. I was lost in the new Mum haze, desperately waiting for the magical three month mark I kept being told was when things would get better.

Yet, twelve months on, I am in a place I couldn't have imagined possible in those first few months. Somehow I am living my life again, making things work, doing things I enjoy and finding time for myself in amongst it all. Making sure things don't slip again is hard, but we are better at recognising some warning signs of things going awry as a family now.

I guess that's the good side of mental illness. In order to manage, get well and stay well, we are forced to alter our lifestyles and stick with those changes. If I don't get enough sleep, eat well, find time for myself and do things that make me happy, I get very unwell, very quickly.

As long as our work, life, baby balance is in check, everything will be ok.

Street Harrassment

I feel a need to address the current push for awareness of street harassment.

A lot of people feel like it isn't an issue.

But I'm here to tell you it is.

Growing up in small town NZ you wouldn't think it would be an issue.

But it is.

Most people imagine that it must only happen to girls who somehow ask for it.

But it doesn't.

And sadly, until I started seeing these calls for growing awareness, I actually believed that it is something girls just had to 'deal' with.

At 29 years old, I am suddenly being made aware that perhaps, we don't.

I didn't think I was a 'victim' of sexual harassment. I never thought I had been sexually abused. Sure - I don't feel safe walking alone after dark. I always put my keys between my fingers walking to my car in the dark. I keep my head down and consciously avoid eye contact with men, when I'm forced to walk in an alleyway or through a park. But that's just normal, sensible behaviour.

Right?

Now, I am reconsidering. This campaign is making me remember the countless times I've been cat called, wolf whistled, tailed, bothered and 'harassed'.

I never considered myself a pretty person. I have never thought I look beautiful. I certainly was never been a 'popular' kid, or even felt like I had any shot at being 'cool'.

I was a moody, awkward, acne blessed, fashion faux-pas of a teenager, who never knew what to do with her hair, and would rather wear comfy clothes and read a book than dress up and go drinking.

I know I didn't feel sexy when I was cat-called from a car at just 15 years old while walking to church.

I definitely didn't feel happily complimented when I was followed by a man in a car while biking home from my zucchini packing summer job at 17 years old.

I didn't feel pretty when I hid behind a bush in a driveway and watched that same car drive slowly past - the driver actively looking for where I had gone.

I sure didn't feel loved when at 18 years old I was tailed by a man in Italy whom I tried to ignore  - which quickly became impossible to do, because he got out of his car and proceeded to try and drag me into it.

I didn't feel beautiful when he then grabbed me round the throat and tried to kiss me and grab my ass.

I didn't smile with pride when I was yelled at, abused and sworn at, for not responding to a middle aged man calling me baby while walking to work in the middle of Christchurch at 19 years old.

I'm nobody special. I'm not especially beautiful. I do not dress especially well, and definitely not provocatively. Yet all of these things happened to me.

These are the times that stick in my memory, and make me keep my eyes down, make me put my keys between my fingers and make me afraid to walk alone in cities, side streets, empty streets, parks and alley-ways. There have been countless other times - but I guess they just get blotted out, become a blur because they are so frequent and normalised.

Besides, I should feel happy that these men consider me worthy of attention.

Right?

Ridiculous Things You Say and Do, When You Have Kids - Or, A Day In the Life Of Me

"No Giraffes at breakfast."

"Stop biting the Cat!"

"Sooo, my baby stole my foundation...."

"What do you mean I have to get changed just because my jeans now have pee on them? No one at the mall will know."

"Hang on, just gotta wash this vomit off my collar."

"Why is there poop in my hair?"

"No Giraffes at lunch!"

"Nope, that's not a Duck, that's a Penguin."

"Nope, not a Duck. That's a Dog."

"Well, that does look like a Duck...but it's actually a Seagull."

"Why have you taught her to say Llama?"

"Oh my, she really does say Llama."

"Nope, that isn't a Llama."

"No, that's also not a Llama, that is a Duck."

"Don't put the Giraffe in your mince!"

"I know it's only 5pm, but can we pretend it's 7pm? She'll never know the difference..."

"For goodness sake, she has FIVE Giraffes - they can't All be lost!"

"Why, is there a Giraffe in our Bath Tub?"