We all have those treasured outings with our children where people give us the stink eye and we leave feeling a little bit stupid hey? There is usually always a Susan involved. You know the type, “You’re making a rod for your own back”, “My children never misbehaved”, rules and regulations,  almost always accompanied with a resting b**** face.

The other day I copped a beauty. I had to take Mr 6 to the optometrist for an eye check and obviously had to take all 4 children with me. We won’t go into details but it was definitely an establishment that up sells you on every single feature except the kitchen sink. There are a lot of parents out there who have to actually parent their own children 99% of the time, shocking hey? Anyway, let’s call her Susan was quite obviously upset that I hadn’t arranged childcare options.

From the minute we walked in she was staring with her dagger eyes at my children playing with the toys. The toys that were in the play area for children to generally play with. Mr 2 got a bit lively once we went into the appointment and sassy Susan morphed into a Grandmother from hell who spoke to my child like a delinquent. Even when we went to leave I got a beautiful look of disgust. I said “Thank you for patience” with a smile and she replies “Righhhht” with an eye roll.

It’s safe to say I left fuming. I regret not saying “have you got a problem lady?!” but prefer to avoid conflict in front of my children. What I would like to say Susan’s out there is- you have had your day in the sun lady, you have brought up your own children and I bet they ain’t perfect! I’m sure one of them rebelled, or one collects their own toenail clippings. Why are you so bloody judgemental? I know 4 kids isn’t the norm nowadays but why are we so inconvenienced by children? Why are we so quick to forget how tough it can be wrangling children? Children that are generally well behaved but above all else CHILDREN.

What makes me laugh was Mr 2 was actually pretty mild that day, at times he can be a wild banshee who I have to carry out of places like a surfboard. Sassy Susan’s just need to mind their own business. It’s not like I’m packaging these kids up for you to take home lady, get a grip. Sometimes I have copped sass because I have taken my children shopping at the supermarket. How dare I take my own offspring into public to purchase food sources!!! On one occasion on a busy day in the supermarket someone was all huffy and burning me with their eyes because my kids were slowly helping to load the groceries onto the conveyor belt. I just rolled my eyes back and said “anyone would think you were paying for it aye”

I have at times had such lovely people approach me to offer assistance or to say something kind and that makes up for all the bad experiences. I think we can all make the effort to offer anyone a smile that is having a tough time, have some tolerance, or just simply don’t grace us with your death stares, that would be fab! You don’t want to be a Susan anyway, be a Debra instead. Bloody Debra the good b**** that she is held my baby while I loaded my groceries into the car one time. I am definitely going to be more like Debra too.

I couldn’t not share this beauty! It came about when I had planned a healthy thai chicken noodle salad and got cold feet. You know when you wish you were the person you envisioned when you bought all the healthy ingredients! Really, I was 2 weeks post partum coming off the back end of a cluster feeding marathon with 3 kids dismantling my lounge around me and this girl wanted some chinese takeaways! But no no, I wasn’t going to ring hubby and get him to bring that home when i had food to cook. And ya know, we have four kids and a mortgage we are poor AF haha. So this recipe is healthy gone takeaway style and is very budget friendly for a large fam. I aim to make most recipes as healthy as can be but if you are here for the keto/paleo  life then move along. Hence, why I have added the breakdown costs not weight watchers points.

This recipe would make enough for a generous 4-5 adult serves. For us, we fed 2 adults and 3 children and had 2 adult portions leftover for lunch the next day. This makes an adult serve approx $3.30.

Ingredients

Sauce:

1/2 cup sweet chilli sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

1tsp oyster or fish sauce

1Tbsp of honey (melted)

1Tbsp of crushed garlic

1Tbsp of crushed ginger

2Tbsp of soy sauce

1/4cup of water

Noodle salad:

packet of your choice of noodles (egg, rice etc)

1 capsicum

1/2 a cabbage

Handful of snow peas (optional)

1 carrot

1 onion

Approx 800grams of chicken breast or thigh

You can really add whatever veg you like, especially the manky ones on their last leg!

Chicken batter:

1 1/2 cups of cold water with a handful of ice in.

2 eggs

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup cornflour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp of baking powder

Method:

1)In a pan with oil fry off diced onion, capsicum and grated carrot. Add the cabbage cut finely and add a little drizzle of water to help to cook down. Once par-cooked leaving veg still a little crunchy, remove from pan and transfer to a large bowl.

2)Dice your chicken into cubes approx 2-3×2-3cm.

3)Remove ice cubes from ice water once cold, add 2 eggs and whisk. Add the rest of the batter ingredients and mix. Remove most lumps but this doesn’t need to be a smooth paste.

4)Get your water boiling for your noodles and get your pan hot for the chicken. Depending on the size of the pan add 1-2 cups of rice bran oil or vegetable oil. You need enough oil for the chicken to be at least half submerged.

5)Once the oil is really hot, dunk pieces of chicken into the batter and into the pan. You may need to do 2-3 batches so you do not overcrowd the pan. Once brown and crispy, test one piece to ensure cooked and let rest on a paper towel.

6)Mix up all sauce ingredients.

7)Boil your noodles as specified on the pack. Once noodles are cooked and strained add a good drizzle of sesame oil and stir through. This helps the noodles to not bind together when you mix your salad.

8)Add noodles to the veg bowl, mix in the sauce and serve. Add chicken to the side and add cashews or peanuts as a topping.

There you have it guys chinese fakeaways for a fraction of the price!

There are many mums out there that have to work, and there are many mums out there that choose to work. Whatever the reason work+children=hard work with a side of stress. If you are thinking about going back to work maybe don’t read this rant, its great, it really is but its also so hard. These are only some of my observations in the my years of finding work life balance.

-You feel like you have done half a day of work before you even get to work. Even if you get up extremely early to pack bags, dress children, feed children, brush teeth, put on the dishwasher, (the list goes on) you still find yourself running out the door and always feeling like you are under the pump. Your cortisol levels increase exponentially for every child you produce also.

-Your kids don’t give a flying F that you have to get up at 5.45 in order to prepare for the work day as mentioned above. Its usually on a work day that you are up 6 times in the night with a teething baby. You then get to go to work with incredible eye bags and have to be professional. They do have coffee in workplaces generally so that is of help.

-It’s another opportunity for self neglect. In your rush to organise your children and husband with food and clothing and all the other things they could possibly need you find yourself looking in the staff mirror mouthing “what the F” and sitting down for an appealing lunch of a tin of tuna and an apple with a toddler sized bite out of it. There are literally only so many things one person can do in a day and unfortunately you are the weakest link mumma.

-Most days you don’t take a lunch or coffee breaks. You are either making up for lost time because you are unreliable, late to work or spend your breaks using a breast pump or going to breastfeed your baby.

-It’s so great to get back to work and use your brain, contribute to society and the household and be seen as more than a mum. Then you are bought back to reality when you are in the middle of something important and you get the dreaded phone call. “Your kid has counctivitis you need to come and pick them up” Well shut the front door, this is not convenient my friend!

-Leading on from that point is that when your child is sick you have the mum guilts because it is such an inconvenience and it is your child, you shouldn’t feel like that. The best way I can explain it is you can’t be 100% mum or 100% employee. It feels as if you can’t give either role your full potential and think again if you are going to put “punctual and reliable” on your CV, you ain’t got a shit show.

-People make comments like “Oh good for you, would give you a bit of time out”. Firstly, because you have housed a tiny human inside of you does not affect your ability of getting a job, i haven’t won the lottery and it is most definitely not a hobby. It’s 2017 people you better do that iOS update. Secondly, you must have some warped idea of what time out is. Yes it is a short reprieve from the daily tasks of motherhood but in no way are we reading a book in the sun or getting our nails done. But if you do know of a job like this going, hook a sister up.

-When you finish work your day is not done. You not only get to walk through the dark hours (witching hours) with tired children you have to complete tasks such as washing, cooking, bathing, sorting lunch boxes to name a few. All the tasks that you normally would complete being at home are then tagged on to the end of your work day.

-You don’t feel like it is worth it and the end of the pay week/fortnight. When you work so hard you kind of envision bringing home the bacon looking like a Hellers 1kg pack of streaky. In all honesty, once you pay for childcare, taxes, kiwisaver and student loan it looks more like a  250gram of ‘home brand’ middle rasher. It’s like a bad countdown substitute on your online shop. Basically, you would be really considering whether the stress is worth the remuneration.

I absolutely love my job and it brings me self confidence and motivation but in no way is it a walk in the park. So choose wisely before you take the working mum life route!

We all have those moments when we just think how tough is this parenting gig? It is by far the most challenging thing I have ever done. Crazily enough having a family is also my absolute favourite thing in the world. But I can’t be the only one feeling like this at times…

1. The consistent nails on chalk board noise of your children squabbling over the most ridiculous of things. For example, an empty raisin packet, one of 6 dolls, who can get to the car the fastest, who gets to turn the tap off. I could go on forever. This noise in the background over long periods of time is one way to score your ticket to crazy town.
2. Which brings me to number 2, the monumental meltdowns. The colour of my plate doesn’t match my cup, one of my weetbix is broken in half, I want to wear my denim mini shorts on a negative 3 day. Mum won’t let me eat 7 bananas in one day, I’m not allowed to ride my bike in the middle of the road along the white lines, I didn’t want my sandwich cut like I liked it yesterday, I can’t believe you fed the cat without me. Some of these things are enough to cause literally the biggest meltdown Mary moments you have ever seen. Some days I could honestly cry as well.
3. Your children can keep you up literally all night, and you are exhausted. You then get to lay them down for naps the next day to refresh themselves while you walk around like you’ve had a hard night on the jelly shots. They wake up with energy to burn and then terrorise you all afternoon. These times are tough and those eye bags aren’t going to resolve for a few years yet. Sometimes I think I am so tired I just want to cry. But I can’t cry because I am too tired for that.
4. Kids can be so selfish. Oliver goes to Kindy one day and tells the teacher “Oh yeah I could not sleep alllll night because my mum just snores and snores real loud”. Oh you cutie patooty…Here’s an idea mate how about you stop coming into my bed at night then and we can all have a good sleep?
5. Kids have no idea about when shits getting serious. On the phone to the bank… “Muuuuum Evie took Rowan’s nappy off and there is a poo!!” Important paperwork…It is now time to be that crazy man off Art Attack and get the ole’ scissors and felts out. But I have to say, Oliver si slowly becoming more observant. The other day Oliver comes home and says “Mum, Evie is making me really frustrated…Like when you have the trailer on at the dump and its really busy and you have to go backwards”
6. When ‘play’ is actually exhausting. Don’t get me wrong I love a good play but sometimes it can be a bit of a labour. At the moment Oliver is right into his role play and imaginative play which is great and we are obviously encouraging. But I am going to be honest and say it is seriously wearing me down. One minute I am Sam, the next I am Gracie, now I am a brother and then the Mummy. Then he gets all sassy if I can’t keep up, like sorry about it. I forgot that i am now Stevens cousin Marcus once removed and I’m eating a fake hamburger with my pet Kitten Gracie. To be completely honest with you I don’t even know who I am anymore? Like I am having a personal identity crisis.
7. You have to be pretty selfless when you are a parent but you are also only human and sometimes you just think is anything sacred? Splashed out on a $20 pair of sunnies that got smashed into a thousand pieces within days. Lovely new moisturiser, smeared all over the mirror. Not only have they raped and pillaged all of my possessions, left my body in ruins but I’m also fairly sure one hemisphere of my brain is still lagging a little.

Anyway, no one likes a whinger but I have had my vent  now and I can move on and enjoy the thousands of positives. All I’m trying to get across is that the more children you have the closer you come to understanding Britney’s 2007 mental breakdown..

The mum rage clean is a manic episode of cleaning usually with underlying emotions of rage and self loathing, sometimes shame. There is a moment of recognition that this fight is going down. This could involve seeing filthy skirting boards, seeing that 90 spiders have shit their webs all over your ceilings and are not paying rent. Could be as simple as tripping over one too many toys when mums not feeling as mentally stable as usual. Now I am a nurse, but I am starting to think that there is an area of the brain still left undiscovered. Let’s call this the mum rage clean cortex and that bad boy has been triggered, she’s lighting up like ya mum’s tragic Christmas earrings.

Sorry Dad there is no bringing Mum down now best thing you can do is take those kids and retreat. You have out your cleaning supplies and you are scrubbing like no woman has ever scrubbed before. You have got that rubbish bin out and you are being brutal. All of a sudden you are a pilgrim on the journey to a minimalistic life. You can see it now, zero clutter, a few Montessori toys and dressing your children in linen to go foraging for berries because you have time to burn now and zero stress. Maybe not that far but its the mum rage clean that’s making you mad.

You are really starting to get into the groove of it and your house is starting to look spick and span but that underlying rage is still there as you scrub and clean nooks and crannies you didn’t even know existed. You are having an argument with yourself now, “You will always clean your skirtings once a month!” You are dreaming of a cleaning roster and how you will give your husband a frontal lobotomy in the hopes that one day he will learn to pick up his socks.

Music always helps and for reasons you cannot explain you are listening to a spotify playlist with some similar rage feels going on. Gangsta rap and hip hop aren’t usually a favourite but it just seems the right fit for a rage clean ya know. “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
I take a look at my life and realize there’s nothin’ left. ‘Cause I’ve been cleaning, breastfeeding so long, that even my momma thinks that my mind is gone”. Totes appropes hey? “Pop, lock and drop it…and pick up those lego’s for the four thousandth effing time!”

Things are improving though and the fatigue is starting to set in. Your house is extremely clean, not sterile, but clean. You sit back and have a cuppa, scroll pinterest for templates for cleaning routines and post a photo of your house to instagram with a caption “gosh I really need to get in and clean this weekend” Ha-fucking-ha just jokes. And then the tribe is back and you say a sincere goodbye to your beautiful environment and hello to chaos. Until next time.

Ok, I admit it. I’m a tragic mum. I’m not overly stylish, I rarely look at myself in the mirror and I kind of don’t give any fucks about it at this point.

Don’t get me wrong I used to really care about the way that I looked, how I was perceived and was marginally less tragic. Although bebo might tell me otherwise. I would love to say that having 3 children has inspired me to be a milf, “get ma body back” and keep with the times but that would be a lie. To all you mumma’s who look amazing and are actually active in their active wear I commend you, I envy you and I hope that one day there will be time for me again. For now, I am actually at peace with the fact that this is me right now. So here goes… a couple of instances where I really let my tragic mum flag fly.

1) The children that I used to babysit are now telling me what is fashionable. Like are you serious?

2)My entire make-up collection can fit into a tiny little bag.

3)My two year old daughter gets into that make-up bag more than I do. Actually, I think the mascara she just smeared all over the mirror is older than her.

4)Everyone is talking a different language like highlight, contour, on fleek and I’m over here like “oh hey ya’ll is thin lizzy lip gloss still the goods?” *facepalm* FYI, save yourself from going for the ‘smokey eye’ look if you have dark mum bags under your eyes. Sultry? no, gang bash victim? possibly.

5)Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I go to the hairdressers!…Like that time on my wedding day…4 years ago…

6)I sometimes think maybe I should splash out, go see a professional, get some beauty shit done, let her get all up in my grill-you know the lady kind of business. But child free time is rarer than hen’s teeth around here! I mean my children came on an excursion with me to get a cervical smear. Afterwards 2 year old Evie came out into the waiting room with her dress above her head saying “me turn? me turn?”. It was then I decided that the education she now had on the female anatomy would suffice.

7)Going on from the child free time being rarer than a kiwi dairy owner. My single friend said to me the other day “I really feel like some down time, maybe a bit of a pamper day?”. “Shut the front door!” You know what I would love buddy ole’ pal? I would love to change my tampon without an audience. That would be brill!

8)The price of someone you know, dealing with the lady garden is crazy! “I’m sorry what, $60 for a wax, my god I can’t pay you $60 to look at my va-jay! I will do it myself and then charge my husband $60 to look at it!”

9)I have worn clip up maternity breastfeeding bras for 5 years straight. For a start, they are comfier than a pair of ‘crocs’ on a hot day. Unfortunately, they are just about as ugly as ‘crocs’. I have either been pregnant or breastfeeding for 5 consecutive years and I just cannot go back to the underwires just yet.

10)Going out is like a marathon and it takes 4 hours to get all the children sorted and ready and approximately 4 minutes to get yourself ready. I am slapping on some, what do you call this shit? concealer, with a baby attached to my boob and a two year old screaming “my do it, my do it!”. The husband is all sorted, even had time to clip his fucking toenails and the woman goes out like she has just escaped the mental health ward for a spot of sightseeing.

11)There is just no time to think about yourself. I went to work one day and someone was like “Oh hey your cardigan is on the wrong way” I don’t bat an eyelid, easy fix, silly sausage, what a rush I must of been in. I turn the bloody cardigan in the right way and its got a massive baby spew down the front of it. Like am I the only one up in here who is a hot mess? should I just put it in the wrong way and plead baby brain or wear it the right way and tell every second person the story of my terribly refluxy baby? No. No I think I will walk around in the middle of winter in a shirt and claim my Australian heritage.

All in all, I am a tragic mum and I have come to terms with the fact that the closest thing I will come to a spray tan is getting covered in ‘twisties’ crumbs, and you know what that’s kind of ok with me. ‘Twisties’ are delish.

I crossed over to the dark side and bought a mum van, people mover, vangina, cereal box on wheels, whatever it is you call this desirable motor vehicle. For me, there wasn’t a lot of “cool” to sacrifice so the decision was easy. But I am going to help you to decide whether it is worth the sacrifice. Be warned, if you do go forth with this purchase your vocabulary will have an influx of words like efficient, practical, versatile, sexy.

PRO’S

1) If you have joined the mum club of spawning more than two kids, then a mum van is looking like quite a good option. Yes those tiny humans can fit into a normal car but what about all the other crap you have to lug around? You can take your three kids shopping, a double mountain buggy, get a fortnights shopping and buy up large at k mart including the rug, the new arm chair and an array of new decor for your “transylvanian style” house. No sweat.

2) Your vehicle is going to be filled from floor to ceiling with crackers, raisins, clothing and toys whether you drive a van or a normal car so why not have one that you can climb into with ease to vacuum and clean.

3)So much room for activities. If you ever get stuck on the side of the road with all the sprogs in the car just turn those seats around baby and you have got yourself a little whare.

4) Breastfeeding and nappy changing is super easy when out and about. No need to have an aggressive confrontation with a creepy old man who finds breastfeeding to be “disgusting” you can flip him the bird in the comfort of your beautiful mum van.

5) You can seat your kids further back than in a normal car. This is super great when you can’t be bothered listening to them whine and fight with each other. It also doubles as an anti-smacking regulator because if they really get on your last nerve you can’t reach them anyway. I generally just look at them with that special kind of crazy in my eyes that is only reserved for moments when mum has gone from zero to psycho mum. Don’t act like you don’t remember that look from Mum, the “Oh shit I have pushed mum too far” moment.

6) Now I don’t know if this is factual or not because oddly I can’t access statistics on this, but I tend to think that hot messes in mum vans get pulled over less. When my mum was a young mum she got let off something like a bad ass and thought it would be lovely time to hug the policeman mid let-down giving him complimentary milk boob imprints. Brill. So the moral to the story is that the Po-Po going to be telling you to go-go, because you a hot hot mess and you need to get home to get the roast on in time.

7) You have already sold your soul when buying a mum van so you really don’t give no fucks what people think. You just embrace that mum van and all its capabilities. This includes turning up to kindy drop off like a bad ass with your remote sliding doors like something out of ‘Men in Black’. Your kids think you are cool so that’s all that matters.

CON’S

1) Because you have “spare seats” in your mum van you can be the target for people to offload their little pleasures. This is when you specify that it does not say “school run” on the front of your van. Or you could breed until the van is full so you can put out your no vacancy sign.

2) Sometimes it is hard to distribute supplies to the back seat of the mum van when travelling. The having to pull over thing is a real pain at times. I am looking into a bit of a pulley system here so watch this space haha.

3)Your husband drives around real low in his seat. I’m not talking re-living his boy racer days low. I’m talking he fears that his testosterone is being sucked out with every kilometre. This is when you remind him that it is effective, practical, versatile, and sexy.

This has been weighing on my mind for some time and my main worry was not to offend. I am now of the opinion that in this day and age I could say “My favourite colour is blue” and i could offend someone somewhere. People will read into anything and interpret things differently so just keep in my mind my aim is to make other mums feel less lonely in this issue not offend anyone who fits into any other category possible.

My issue is with the growing trend of the “Super-mum”. I have on many occasions been called a super mum and in this context I have taken this as a lovely compliment. However, over time I have started to look at this view of myself as a curse.

I think that the general image of a Super mum is someone that juggles around 450,000 things at once, probably earns an income, can still parent to a moderately high standard, doesn’t stab their husband and still has time for themselves. All jokes aside, the role is fairly hard to live up to. When you are labelled as a Super mum what I find is that it is actually quite isolating. I find its actually a bit of a cop out. I find it denies mums of the opportunity to NOT live up to these incredibly high standards. Chances are this mum already has incredibly high standards of herself or she wouldn’t be classed as a Super mum.

For a lot of “Super mums” they have little support or help from those around them. For a lot of “Super mums” they look like they have it together all the time because they do not have an alternative. What is the alternative to coping? There isn’t always a village to support these mums so they are “Super mums” because they have to be.

Like the saying goes, “If you want something done, ask a busy person”. Well I call bullshit on that, and we are sick of being the bloody work horses! Every Mum deserves their moments of weakness, this is one of the hardest times of our lives.

When we  call mums “super mums” we need to be aware that without realising it we are adding more pressure for them to maintain this view or illusion. What we are doing is denying them of the right to be just a mum and sometimes not have it together.

By no means am I perfect. I catch myself calling my friends that are acing motherhood super mums. But after experiencing a time when I wasn’t coping with the huge weight on my shoulders I asked myself why I was so terrified to actually ask for any help or support? The answer was the embarrassment that I should be able to cope and that I should be able to do this on my own, all the time, perfectly.

I don’t know the answer, I would love to know if you do. But all I can suggest is to ask the real questions. Offer your friends and family the help even if they won’t accept it, you never know when they will take you up on the offer. Make a meal for a “Super mum” who looks like she has it all together, because you don’t know if she is at the end of her tether. Lastly, mums need to be there to support each and every mum, and make it OK to not be perfect all the time. The “helper” sometimes needs to be helped. There should be no classes or cliques or categories in motherhood. Motherhood is not a race or a competition, or a perfect looking instagram account. So have each other’s back mumma’s!

Here’s my recipe for a delish lasagna that is super easy to make and packed full of veg. It’s a great way to hide veges from kids and I have given measurements to make a bulk lot- the equivalent of 3 medium lasagna’s. I quite often freeze them once baked.

Ingredients:

-1.5kg of mince (I used 1kg of beef and 400-500grams of pork mince as I had this on hand)

-oregano, sage or whatever dried herbs you have to taste.

-half cup of water

-2 onions

-1 can of chickpeas or lentils.

-2 carrots

-Bunch of silverbeet

-Half a pumpkin

-2 tins of chopped tomatoes

-50 grams of tomato paste

-1 Tablespoon of brown sugar

-1 Tablespoon of balsalmic vinegear

-1 tablespoon Worcester sauce

-2 tsp of minced garlic

-2 packets of lasagna sheets

For the cheese sauce:

-2 cups of milk

-1 cup of grated cheese

-4 Tablespoons of flour

-4 Tablespoons of butter.

1. Chop half a medium sized pumpkin into slices no thicker than 1cm and par-bake in the oven with a little oil.
2. Fry off diced onions in a little oil and brown the mince. Add the garlic, tinned tomatoes, balsalmic vinegar, brown sugar, 1-2 teaspoons of herbs and water.
3. Add chopped silverbeet, grated carrot and one tin of drained chickpeas or lentils. Let this simmer/wilt down.
4. For the cheese sauce melt 4 Tablespoons of butter in a pot on medium heat. Add the 4 Tablespoons of flour and stir quickly to get a smooth paste. Add 1 cup of milk and stir. After a few minutes add the second cup of milk. Let simmer and stir until thick and smooth. Take off the heat and add a little salt and pepper and 1 cup of cheese stirred through, let it cool.
5. Layer up the baking dish with the base layer being pumpkin, on top of this mince, and then the lasagna sheets. Top with cheese sauce and then add second layer of mince.
6. Top this with another lasagna sheet, remainder of the cheese sauce and top with a little grated cheese.
7. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about an hour or until you can put a sharp knife through soft lasagna sheets.

Like I said this makes 3 Medium lasagnas’ so feel free to halves this recipe if you just want to make one large one. It;s great to get rid of any veg looking like its at the end of its life. Enjoy!