Mamma Kerr

Another week, another Mama Guilt Monday, courtesy of Cop Mama.  See the MckLinky at the bottom of this post to link up.

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Here’s today’s optional prompt:

Hand-me Downs, Thrift Stores, & Garage Sales for YOUR Kid’s Clothes? What’s YOUR Secret?

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I have plenty of Mama Guilt concerning my twin daughters’ clothing.

• Many of their clothes, including underwear do not have  name labels on them, meaning that they are interchangeable.
• They’re still wearing age 3-4 pants, even though they’ll be six years old in July!  (The thing is, although they have grown in height over the last year, they have not grown ‘outwards’ at all!)
• I quite often send the girls to school with vests that *shock, horror* have not been ironed!  *hangs head in shame* 
• I am well overdue a shopping trip for new clothes and shoes for my girls.  I feel that they are always wearing the same few outfits at weekends.
• I completely forgot to buy their Rainbow Guide uniforms during the Easter Break.  They need these outfits to go on a trip to a wildlife park in a couple of weeks time…

If you’d like to offload some Mama Guilt, then hop over to Cop Mama’s site or click below to join the MckLinky!..

Another week, another Mama Guilt Monday, courtesy of Cop Mama. See the MckLinky at the bottom of this post to link up.

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Here’s today’s optional prompt:

Picky Eaters: What Do YOU Do?

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Here’s mine:

Ooooooooh!!  This is a good one!  I feel a whole lotta mama guilt concerning the eating habits of my girls. 

My girls were good little eaters when they were weaning.  They would eat a wide variety of fruit, vegetables and meat in puree form, as well as lots of finger foods, such as toast, bananas, rice cakes, cheese, cucumber.

However, as the months and years have progressed, the girls have become increasingly fussier.  They now eat only a small selection of foods, many of them not the healthiest options.  Their favourite meal is fish and chips with baked beans, and when we are eating out they ALWAYS choose this dish!

They now point blank refuse to eat any vegetables apart from potatoes, baked beans and very occasionally carrots or peas.  The only meat they eat is battered or breadcrumbed fish, chicken and turkey. Rachel will eat minced beef in a bolognaise sauce, but Sophie  won’t.  Sophie will eat sausages, but Rachel won’t. 

The only way I can salvage their diet is by making sure they eat plenty of fruit.  They eat apples, tangerines, grapes, strawberries, bananas and raisins.  They have a piece of fruit at playtime at school, and two or three pieces of fruit with their lunch.

However, I was dismayed that, after a dental hygiene talk at their after school club, they now believe that eating too much fruit will cause cavities!  I know this is technically true, but you’d have to eat a lot more acidic fruit than they currently do, and not brush their teeth.  I have tried to emphasise that eating fruit is better for their teeth than sweets, cakes and sugary drinks.

I do feel a lot of mama guilt regarding the girls’ diet.  I feel that me being a working mum contributes to their poor eating habits.  Had I been responsible for all their meals and snacks over the years, I might have been able to be stricter with their diet.  However, time spent with family members, who have perhaps relented to my daughters’ whims, has meant that the girls have developed poorer eating habits than I would have liked.

I must stress though, that I am not, in any way, trying to blame my inlaws for my daughters’ poor eating habits.   Instead, I am blaming myself for not being a fulltime mum, who has plenty of time and energy to devote to the task of ensuring the girls eat a full and varied diet.

Nevertheless, I’m hoping that they will learn to try more new things, as they grow older.

Do YOU have any Mama Guilt on your mind today? Here’s what you do:

1. Blog about YOUR Mama Guilt, funny or serious. Using the prompt is optional.

2. Mention “Mama Guilt Mondays” in your post by putting a link back here or copy/paste the button into the HTML.

3. If you want, you can grab the MckLinky BlogHop code and paste it into your blog HTML, so others can join.

4. Enter the link for your post into the MckLinky.

Or share YOUR Mama Guilt in the comments below!

*Dads are welcome here too!

Please visit Cop Mama to link up…

Another week, another Mama Guilt Monday, courtesy of Cop Mama.  See the MckLinky at the bottom of this post to link up.

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Here’s today’s optional prompt:

Tell us about a time you did something absent minded as a Mom!

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Here’s mine:

As a very busy working mum with far too much on her plate, I am prone to absent-mindedness. Two incidents spring to mind here:

Last year, when the girls were still at nursery school, they were in different groups and so had two different teachers. I was asked to schedule two appointments to meet with each teacher to discuss my daughters’ progress. I arranged for two back-to-back appointments for first thing in the morning, so that I could meet the teachers before heading to my work (which was just across the carpark from the nursery). However, on the day of the appointment, one of my daughter’s teacher was off sick, so I had to reschedule another appointment.  This is where the Mama Guilt comes in…… I completely forgot all about this rescheduled appointment! I had been so busy and stressed out at work, working to very tight deadlines, that the appointment had went right out my head! I turned up to nursery to drop the girls off the next morning and the teacher in question apprehended me. I was sooooooo embarrassed – absolutely mortified!! Thankfully no one had mentioned this memory lapse to my inlaws, who picked the gitls up from nursery every afternoon. That would just have compounded my Mama Guilt! Anyway, fortunately the teacher was okay about being stood up and I got a very good report from her re my daughters progress at the (Third Time Lucky!) appointment.

 

• Another absent-minded Mamma Guilt episode was last summer.  While we were on holiday in sunny Florida, I received a text message, inviting my daughters to the birthday party of a boy from their nursery.  I made a mental note of it and subsequently forgot about it until my own daughters’ birthday party a few days after our return to the UK.  The boy’s mother mentioned it to me at the party and I confirmed that the girls would be there.  However, I stupidly got the dates mixed up, and didn’t realise my mistake until the actual day of the party!  I had checked back through my text messages to confirm the time of the party (which I thought was the following weekend) with Hubby.  I nearly fell off my chair when I realised that the party was on at that precise moment and we had missed it!!  D’oh!!  Here’s more Mama Guilt for you – I kept quiet and didn’t mention it to the girls!!    They eventually brought it up a few weeks later and I fobbed them off with it being cancelled!  (They were never going to see the wee boy again anyway, as he was going to a different school to them!!  (I know, I know!  I’m bad!)

Well, what about YOU?  Do you have any Mama Guilt you’d care to share?  If so, join the blog hop or leave a comment below.

 

 

 

Another week, another Mamma Guilt Monday, courtesy of Cop Mama.

I’m taking my girls to see the X Factor Live in Glasgow this evening.  (For my Non-UK readers, X Factor is a TV program akin to American Idol.  In fact, Mr Compliments (AKA Simon Cowell) is giving up his spot on American Idol to take X Factor to the USA.)  This will be the girls’ first pop concert, and I am hoping that they are not too young to enjoy it!  (They are only 5 1/2 years old!  *blushes*)

When they started watching the program last year, they enjoyed watching the auditions, and we all had great fun giving the contestants thumbs up or thumbs down.  When the live shows started they enjoyed the singing and dancing, and soon picked out some favourites:

Jamie (Afro) Archer,

Stacey Solomon,

and…… last but not least, John and Edward (AKA Jedward).

The first bit of Mamma Guilt relating to the X Factor is that the girls were distraught and cried buckets when Jamie got voted out.  I felt awful.  I berated myself for letting them watch, telling myself that they were too young!  But the thing is, they did enjoy watching the shows and rooting for their favourites – especially John and Edward (who I personally detested!!) 

These feelings of guilt returned when, a few weeks later, their ultimate favourites, John and Edward were voted off the show.  I had already purchased the tickets for the X Factor Tour, and they were supposed to be a Christmas present.  However, I ended up having to tell them about it early, just to calm them down. 

I had yet more feelings of Mamma Guilt last week, when I realised I had left it too late to organise some unique personalised t-shirts for the girls to wear at the concert.  (January is such a bad month moneywise, and the beginning of March always catches me by surprise, with February being a short month!)

I’m sure I’ll experience yet more Mamma Guilt tomorrow morning, when the girls struggle to get out of bed for school, after their late night out!  (Still, it is only a one-off, I suppose!)

What about you? What mama guilt would you like to share on Mama Guilt Monday? Whether it’s funny or serious, blog about it today and then come back here to enter your post link into the MckLinky.

If you don’t have a blog, or would rather not take part in the MckLinky, please feel free to share your mama guilt in the Comments below.

If you’re visiting here, as part of the MckLiny blog hop, please leave a comment to let me know you were here.

Please click here to enter the Mama Guilt Monday MckLinky on Cop Mama’s website.

Please call by on Wednesday for some X Factor fun on Wordless Wednesday!…

Thanks for stopping by!

Another week, another Mamma Guilt Monday.

Today, Mamma Kerr is eating humble pie.

Yesterday, I turned the house upside down looking for my daughter’s shoe. The girls were getting ready to go to a Birthday Party and they needed to put on their shoes. My heart sank when I realised that there were just three shiny black shoes lying in the corner of the livingroom.

On closer inspection, I found that we had 2 size 9′s and only one size 8, so it was Rachel’s shoe that was missing. (Yes, my twin girls have different sized feet!)

“Where did you leave your shoe?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where did you take it off?”

“Here!” she says, pointing to our two-seater couch.

I immediately look under the cushions on the couch and feel inbetween the seats and under the arms. No sign of the shoe. I then pull the mechanism for the recliner seats at both sides. I found a wide-toothed comb, an assortment of bobbles and clasps, and one of the twins’ artistic masterpieces, but no shoe.

I pulled the couch out away from the wall. No shoe behind the couch. I looked in my open handbag which was lying beside the couch. No shoe in there.

I then examined the other couch, even though I was pretty certain it could not be there.

Flashback to the previous night:

My Hubby has been working seven days a week for the past month or so. Therefore he has been pretty tired when he gets home. On Saturday night, he had fallen asleep on the couch soon after eating his dinner. He was still lying there fast asleep, stretched along the length of the three-seater, under a blanket, when the girls returned from Granny & Grandpa’s house.

The girls got dressed for bed in the livingroom, beside Granny and I, who were sitting on the smaller couch. Therefore, the shoe would not have been on that couch.

Still, I thought I’d better be thorough in my search so I checked under the cushions, between the seats, under the arms, underneath (by opening the recliner mechanisms) and pulled the couch away from the wall. There was still no sign of the shoe.

“Where is your shoe? We need to find it. Help Mummy look for it!”

The girls searched under the coffee table behind the curtains, under the TV stand, in their toybox and even in their dolls house. (Yes, we have a dolls house in our livingroom!) No sign of the shoe.

I was flummoxed! Where could the shoe have gone? It can’t just have disappeared into thin air!

I went into the kitchen and checked the laundry basket, where I’d put the girls’ clothes they’d had on the day before. No sign of the shoe. I even checked inside the washing machine and tumble dryer. No shoe to be found. Getting desperate, I even checked inside the kitchen bin and the recycle bin. Still, no shoe.

Where could it be?

I checked the girls’ coats they had been wearing the night before. Could the shoe have somehow slipped down one of their sleeves? Sadly, no.

Suddenly, I had a brainwave. Granny must have it! Granny had her bag open when she had been sitting on the couch. She had been showing me some photos, and I had given her some money towards our London trip. I remembered how she had been looking for her car keys before she left the house, and that we had upturned the cushions, only to find them on the table. (Yes, there seems to be a genetic trait here! LOL) Anyway, it was conceivable that the stray shoe may have inadvertently gotten into her bag, so I texted Granny and asked her, realising she would not be back from church yet.

The girls’ friend from nextdoor then arrived wearing a magnificent pair of sparkly party shoes. My girls stared in awe.

“Oooooooh!! Look at Megan’s sparkly high heels!” (Yes, her shoes had an enviable-sized heel on them.)

Here was their friend with her fancy party shoes on, and my daughters only had three shoes between them! (Not that they ONLY have one pair of shoes each, of course, but they only have one pair of black shoes that went with their outfit.)

In desperation, I brought down a favourite pair of sandals from the summer – the Minnie Mouse ones (because they have red spots and a bow) – and I prayed that they would still fit her. She squeezed her feet into them, determined that they would fit. It pains me to say it, but they did look a tad tight, but she announced:

“They’re fine!”

So, we all march round the corner (not very far at all, thankfully) to their friend’s house for the party.

Having left the girls at the party, I returned to the house for one last search for the missing shoe. I checked the dining room, under the table, under the sideboard, behind the curtains, but there was still no sign of the shoe.

Mum had now texted me back. Unfortunately, she did not have the shoe.

“AAAaaaaargh!!! Where is it?!?!?”

Fast forward now to late last night, when tired Hubby had again fallen asleep on the couch. I went to the hall cupboard to get a blanket to lay over him. I flick out the blanket to cover him but….

…. wait, what’s this? A black shiny shoe is attached to the blanket via the velcro strap. Mystery solved. I obviously hadn’t noticed it, when lifting the folded blanket to put it back in the cupboard on Sunday morning, and I hadn’t even thought about double-checking the blanket when I realised the shoe was missing. D’oh!

So you see, today I’m feeling a little Mamma Guilt because I had my girls searching high and low with me, for a missing shoe, and got all stressed out, spoiling the fun of their pre-party anticipation. I also feel guilty about sending my daughter to the party in a pair of shoes that I suspect to be a little ‘neat’ on her.

I also felt guilty, typing up this post, realising that I’d left my poor tired Hubby asleep on the couch two nights running! (Well, at least I’d covered him with a blanket! LOL)

What about you? What mama guilt would you like to share on Mama Guilt Monday? Whether it’s funny or serious, blog about it today and then come back here to enter your post link into the MckLinky.

If you don’t have a blog, or would rather not take part in the MckLinky, please feel free to share your mama guilt in the Comments below.

If you’re visiting here, as part of the MckLiny blog hop, please leave a comment to let me know you were here.

Please click here to enter the Mama Guilt Monday MckLinky on Cop Mama’s website.

Thanks for stopping by!