Limos & Lipsticks

Lee's neice (and mine I would say but apparantly that is not correct because she is from his side of the family and I am only an in-law so she is not my niece! I hate that, usually in conversation I will just say my niece for convenience and people always say oh which of your brothers kids is that, I mean, come on! When did everything have to be so precise or "PC" that I can't refer to my husbands niece who, by the way, I went to see in the hospital after she was born 13 years ago, as my niece!!!) Ok got that off my chest let me continue.


Our niece was 13 yesterday and her mother organised this for her and her friends to be driven around town in for a couple of hours!

I can't remember what I did when I was 13 but I can assure you it was not being driven around town in a pink limo. Of course the girls were absolutely beside themselves and I hope they all had a great time. It will certainly be a birthday to remember! I have to admit I wouldn't mind doing that myself but change the cola and lemonades to champagne please!!

Have a great birthday Katie!

Hide and Seek

Where is Conor???

Chubby Giraffe

This babygro was a present Conor was given when he was a baby and I found it the other day when I was going through his old clothes. I'm not sure he filled it out quite as much as Eoin does though!!

Back to reality

Well, I had a wonderful birthday and there wasn't a wet eye to be seen anywhere!(apart from all the men crying into their pints after the terrible result in the match) I was so busy all day Friday that I didn't get a minute to reflect on anything. First brought Lee in to work and wandered around town with the boys for a little while waiting to meet Nici and then Conor had to go play in the toy shop he loves and by the time we were eventually home it was gone 11am, leaving me only roughly 2 hours to get the boys packed and transported to mums and get myself ready for going out because once I left the house that was it for the night! Of course at this stage I still had no idea what I was going to wear!!!! I managed to get it all done though(if a little stressed) on time and made the bus on time too. That is a whole other saga though which I will save for some other time, suffice to say I hate busses, a fact that was made worse on Friday!

Got to the hairdressers got my hair done and met Lee for dinner(which was fab as usual - love that restaurant!) where he surprised me with a beautiful necklace that I was not expecting at all but am extremely grateful for! The whole night went great (apart from the match but we won't talk about that) even down to the taxi which was possibly the cleanest taxi I have ever been in, and what was even better was I did not have a sore head on Saturday morning!!

Had cake and bubbly on Saturday with family which was also really nice but we were brought back to reality with a bang on Sunday when Conor had a temperature and Eoin wouldn't settle all day with his sore gums! I was in high demand yesterday and although it is tough going sometimes I do love it, I love that I am the mammy they want when the are not well, everyone always wants their mammy when they are not well and I get to do that for these 2 little boys which I am more that happy to do any time.

So all in all I thoroughly enjoyed my 30th birthday but it is over now so I can start planning the big party for my 40th!!!

Nearly 30? Is that what is wrong?

I cried yesterday. It wasn't an ow I just walloped a limb off something hard kind of cry but a frustrated sorrowful cry. I was so tired and totally frustrated over Eoin crying hysterically with the pain in his gums and how little I could do for him to help him that it just came over me and I found myself crying, holding Eoin crying and trying to answer Conors constant questions.


Now, as a rule I'm a crier, I do tend to be very emotional and will cry at the drop of a hat, especially during heart tugging films or television. I always cry on my birthday, have done for several years and not because I don't want to get older because that does not bother me. I think I always get reflective on my birthday and it makes me think about the people I don't see as much as I would like to and the things I don't get to do as much as I would like to and that tends to make me sad.



So, this year (Friday to be specific) I am turning 30 and I have a very busy day. I am going to get my hair done and then go for an early dinner with Lee and then go to watch the rugby match. The morning will be taken up with organising the 2 boys for their sleepover in Granny and Grandads which takes quite a while with all the stuff they need! I am hoping the day will be so jam packed that I won't have a chance to get melancholy and reflective and I won't get a chance to cry.

I would probably love a big party just for the sake of a party but the time and effort involved in all that is just too much for me right now so maybe when I am forty! So no big plans, just heading to the Vic to watch the match if anyone is around and would like to join us!

I suppose turning 30 should have some effect on me but I really can't complain about anything. I have a great husband and 2 great kids which means by the time I am forty they will nearly be self-sufficient and Lee and I can have a life again!!! All kidding aside though, I am looking forward to friday if for nothing else than the nice meal I will have in l'Atmosphere and the lie in I will get on Saturday with no kids to get up to. I can be hopeful about Ireland's chances in the match against France but either way I plan to enjoy myself.

He is only three, honest!

Look at the size of those hands!!! That is on a regular A4 sheet of paper. I realised after I uploaded it that maybe I should have put something beside it to emphasise the actual size but hey, hind sight is great!!

Proposals and root canals

I have to admit I am quite emotional about the thought of going back to work in a few weeks. I know there are days when Eoin is inconsolable with his teething which always seems to coincide with Conor being ultra demanding where I wish I could just go away somewhere to my quiet space and rock gently backwards and forewards muttering to myself but those days are few and far between. It's the other days though that make me well up thinking of how much I will miss them when I go back to work. I will miss Conor's unprompted cuddles (also his unprompted diving on me!) and his frequent declarations of love ("Mammy?", "Yes Conor", "I love you!") and Eoin's heartwarming smile which he gives away freely and easily and would cheer anyone up! I have also been proposed to by Conor which makes me think I must be doing something right, the funniest part was when he tried to figuire out what his relationship to Lee would be!

I am also worried about how they will be without me. I know they will be fine of course, my Mum is minding them so I am not worried about their well being or anything like that just emotionally it will be different for them having had me around non stop for six months has made us all very close. Eoin is very attached to me and I wonder how he will be if he needs settling when I'm not there . I know Conor will miss me but he will be grand because he loves it in my mums so much that he will hardly notice the time going by. I would love to not have to go back an be able to stay with them until they are in school but unfortunately that is not an option right now. On the other hand I might go insane without any adult interaction!!

In other news, I got my early birthday present on Friday and had my root canal done!! Woohoo!!! I have to say it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be just my jaw hurt afterwards from having it open for nearly an hour and a half! It was uncomfortable but necessary and it is done now so I need not worry about it again. I do have another dentist appointment next week but I will worry about that when the time comes.

Tears on the driveway

Well, this morning I was getting Conor ready for school and I thought to myself "this isn't going too bad, he seems to be quite happy this morning" He was very co-operative in all aspects of getting him ready so I thought maybe he is starting to be ok with going to school. Oh but how wrong I was! There was no mention of school at all until we were going out to get in the car and he asked if he had to go to school today, when I replied that he did there was full blown crying out on the driveway!! Tears, the works, I guess he did not want to go to school after all! On the way there in the car he kept repeating "I don't want to go to school Mammy" and I kept trying to come up with good reasons for going. Of course when we got there he was fine, a bit clingy at first but one of his friends from before the summer was back from his holidays so that was ok and off they went making guns out of lego and chasing each other around the room! I'm sure he will have a ball today but still won't want to go again tomorrow!

My diet works!!

School is going ok for Conor, he did cry on Wednesday when I told him he had to go but got over it very quickly and only had a little moan yesterday, who knows, it might be sinking in that he is going to be going whether he likes it or not! Only a couple of incidents in school too, something about play doh and he cried and then the bowling set he cried over cos someone else was playing with it. How to tell a three year old he needs to share and take turns is great fun!!! I'd say he is sick of hearing it at this stage but he will keep hearing it until it sinks in.


Poor Eoin is driven demented with his teeth(or lack of!), and was up this morning at 5.20 for about 2 hours not able to settle at all and me trying all sorts of distractions to stop him thinking about the pain. I feel so sorry for him, I have had bad toothache in the last few weeks and hope it is not what he is feeling!


Quest to lose the muffin top is going well, I have lost another 4lbs!!! What am I doing you ask? Well it is more what I am not doing!! I am not snacking, I had gotten really bad at snacking during the day, especially when I am constantly getting food for Conor. If he is having a slice of toast I would put one on for me too, crackers for Conor, crackers and cheese for me etc etc etc. It wasn't crap (though there was a good bit of that too) but I was eating unnecessarily, the thing was though I wasn't putting on any weight doing that so obviously the boys were keeping me busy enough that I was burning those calories so I figured if I stopped eating the extra calories I would start to lose weight and hey it is working!!! I do try get for a walk as often as possible though so I am getting a bit more exercise that I was which I'm sure is helping too. I am also trying to do sit ups at least every other day and my shoulders are lifting off the ground now!!! My stomach muscles are also quite tender at times!!!
I know some of my weight loss has been due to the fact that my teeth have been causing me pain for the last week or so and I have been reluctant to eat too much especially avoiding sweet things so we will see how I get on when my teeth stop hurting me!

Back to school

Conor had his first day back in Playschool today! I was worried how it would go because he was not what you would call enthusiastic about going back. He even said he wished he never had to go to school again - man is he in for a nasty surprise!!! It went quite well, he was clingy when he went in but that was only to be expected. He was fine after about 10 mins and I left. When I collected him they were in the garden on the trampoline and he cried when he had to get out!! I think that was a successful day!

Photos of boys as promised...

More on his school progress tomorrow.

Catching up

Apologies for my absense lately. I think panic has started to set in about when I go back to work and I am trying to cram as much into the next few weeks as possible. So taking time out to blog has been at the bottom of my list lately.

So, what has been happening in rambling Joey's world this last week? It's been quite busy really. I had a very bad tooth ache all over last weekend (of course the pain started Thursday but I totally forgot to ring the dentist - how could I forget I hear you ask, well remarkably easy really when you have 2 boys to look after, they kept distracting me every time I went to look up the number!!!) which was coupled with a family funeral on Lee's side (ooh that was fun trying to be nice to people with a throbbing pain in my mouth - at least I looked sombre) but I had to go, I know the family well and they are all so nice I couldn't have missed it so I just had to grin and bare it.

Finally got a dentist appointment on Tuesday afternoon (jus as well cos I was running out of pain killers!) to be told there was an infection which needed antibiotics and that needed to be cleared before they could do any work to it. By work they mean whichever I decide, take the tooth out or have root canal work done! Neither sounds very appealing to me really as I hate going to the dentist, I just hate the feeling in my mouth as they prod and poke and all I want to do is swallow all the time. Any time I have had to get work done I get really worked up about it beforehand and freak myself out but then manage to get through it fine and wonder what all the fuss was about in the first place. You would think that it would get easier the next time then but, oh no, I start the same freaking out process all over again!!!

We brought Conor to the Cinema for the first time this week! To see The Simpsons Movie, he is three and loves the Simpsons!!! It was all very exciting for him and we even got the bus into town to meet Lee which was another treat. He wasn't heavy enough to hold down the seat though so had to sit on our laps which he did with his hands over his ears for the first half hour!!! Then he settled into it and thoroughly enjoyed it - especially the popcorn and chocolate!!

I still haven't finished Eoins room but I have managed to get his chest of drawers put together with a little help from Lee and Conor - Conor was not willing to give up his screws for the drawers though so I had to find a couple of similar looking ones and swap them when he wasn't looking.

I haven't even been taking many pictures so I will get back to all that and put up some of the boys later in the week. Now I am off to try finish the second coat of paint on Eoin's room before he wakes from his nap!