When the Firsts are the Lasts

| Tracey

I read a blog post recently about a mum talking about her youngest child completing the milestones of their first step, first word and these being the first last step/word she will ever have as a mum as this baby would be the last. When I had my toddler 19 months ago I knew he was the last, but its recently as I am throwing out his bibs and thinking about cutting out his bottle that it has dawned on me to soak his ‘firsts’ because these will be my last firsts. *Disclaimer:Now I can guarantee you (and Mr. Mumsmakeupbag!) that this does not make me broody in the slightest, my ovaries have stopped skipping a beat when I see a newborn or smell that baby smell (even though no smell will ever beat it).*

I first became a mum at 19 and now about to reach the grand old age of 35, I am watching my baby turn into a toddler way too fast for my liking. I have spent almost 16 years on the baby train and I am more than happy to jump off. I am not sad that I will never be a new mum again, but I have had to mourn it. I know I will never feel my baby kick inside me again or waddle around at 30 weeks wearing stripes and I am content with that, but I wish I could have that last kick one more time just to remember it better. Now I am determined to embrace every last first my children go through. Its so easy to get lost in the busy moments of parenthood and work and basically life that we don’t see the times we wont see again, we miss out on the lasts. My oldest is almost 15 and her firsts do not mean any less than my youngest  but I have gained (obviously maturity) but also the gift of hindsight to take a step back from a busy day (not every day) and lock in memories that were forgotten about before with the older kids. Its hard bloody work to get them all through the day and fed and to bed without too many tears, I just want to collapse on the couch and watch TV once they’re all snoring! But once in a while I will lock in a memory, it could be the 4 of them having dinner at the table together, it won’t be for much longer the youngest will be in a highchair or in a couple of years the oldest will be gone off to college and her chair will be empty but I just make a mental image to remember… Like Phoebe’s boyfriend (Alec Baldwin) in Friends “Click!” !!!!

Its not even the big firsts, I don’t remember that last time I helped my daughter with her homework, like I helped her everyday and then one day it obviously stopped but I don’t know when that was. I complain about having 2 sets of homework to help out with the twins but there will come a day when they won’t need my help anymore and I want to remember when this happens. Silly things are standing out to me like, when did the boys stop asking me to get them a drink or buttoning up their school shirts or zipping up their coats. I am still very much in demand with tying their laces and fixing their school ties but the tasks they have that only mum can help with are reducing at a rapid speed.

Now I am not saying I am going to be standing in my hall at 8.55am on a wet Tuesday morning going “Oh this could be the last time I took your shirt in and fix your tie, let me soak it up” with a tear in my eye…Jesus no. I am just saying once in a while I will take a step back and embrace been needed so much.

With the baby its different, his needs and his firsts will never happen again.Its a melancholy kind of outlook I suppose. As his independence grows with little steps like being able to walk or feed himself, my duties as his mum grow a tiny bit smaller.

His firsts are my lasts.

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My very (very) last graduation day

its not the road you take but the journey your on, graduation
| Tracey

family, graduation, kids, gown, cap, grass, tree, lyit

 

5th Time’s a Charm…Right?

A couple of weeks back I graduated with a Masters of Science in Marketing Practice. It was an extremely proud day for me and my family. The 4 kids, hubbie and my mam made the journey to see me put my tassel to the left side! If you spotted this on the N15 hope you gave us a wave!

All in all this will have been my 5th graduation ceremony, my 1st being my leaving cert back when ‘ Mambo No.5‘ was in the top ten… images-14

 

I have graduated since with a certificate, degree, honours degree and now a masters. Oh by the way did I tell you I am still looking for a job???!!

“Go on Enda ya good thing!”

No Clear Path

I love studying and love learning new things, college and qualifications are not the path for everyone and I know they are not the be all and end all. I have learned a hell of a lot through the university of life so far, but personally I love the classroom environment. Don’t get me wrong there were times during the masters where I thought I would never see the end of the semester and I owe a lot to my class mates for getting me through, but this graduation was special to me for obvious reasons but it meant something even more, I had finally figured out what I what to do with my career!

At 34 and 3/4 I had found my calling!

Until the age of 14 I wanted to be a nurse, I was hospitalised a good bit as a child with asthma and it must have come from there. Then came the day I found out I would have to do general nursing before I could specialise in paediatric, that was the end of that dream!

From around 16 I decided law was the path I wanted to follow, my dad God rest him was only delighted, he loved his Judge Judy! I was delighted as I knew exactly what I was going to do with my life. Fast forward 18 years and this is this is what actually happened…

I completed the masters through Springboard which I have to admit has been a useful programme put in place by the government. It offers higher education courses in the fields where employers are actually seeking qualified people. You must be a job-seeker to be eligible for the courses. I had previously completed a semester in the Msc. in Marketing in Sligo IT a few years back but had to withdraw because I didn’t get the grant I needed to complete the masters, thanks SUSI!  So when I saw the MSc. advertised on the LYIT social media I was over the moon and applied immediately! I bet you can imagine me sitting at my kitchen table, coffee on one side, the paper on the other, delighted with life and clicking apply here to progress your career… NOPE

What Actually Happened

My baby was 3 weeks old at the time,  I had 4 year old twin boys running circles around me and my teenager was being, well, to be fair she was just being a teenager… I do not know what I was thinking, maybe the morphine from the c-section was still rolling around my veins or maybe I thought this is the perfect opportunity for me to leave the house alone for more than it takes to grab nappies and pasta from Tesco… but whatever the reason I applied and before I knew it I was accepted to the course. I was going back to LYIT. This was going to be my second attempt to gain a masters. It also took me three attempts to get my degree…

When I walked out of the gates of the convent after my last leaving cert exam (shuffling along to Lou Bega) LYIT was my first choice and I headed up there to study Legal Studies. I adored and still do love Donegal I had amazing time up there, anybody that has gone to LYIT will understand this and agree “It is some spot“. I loved the course and soaked up the modules in law like a sponge…when I was in class. Before the end of first year I found out I was expecting my teenager…some might have used this word at the time but I like to use it as an acronym…download-3So I like to call that attempt one.

When my teenager was 9 months old I thought “Right! lets give this another go”, so the two of us headed up to Donegal on our lonesome and I registered back onto my course. I enrolled the teenager (then baby!) into a creche and everything was going well, a struggle on my own, but going well. The hubster was in college himself in Dublin, he travelled to us in Donegal every weekend. Just before Christmas I was told because I was just 20 years old (not a mature student) and had re-started the same course I was not entitled to the grant anymore… good times. Financially I could not go to college anymore and pay rent, light and heat, pay a creche and food, et cetera et cetera, so I went back to home to Mayo to wait it out until my 23rd birthday… Attempt No.2

September 2005 aged 23 and 3/4 I started 1st year of college in GMIT studying Business…4 years later I graduated with an honours degree in business! Attempt No.3!

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I was over the moon I had a qualification. BUT business was not something I longed to study (I still was hung up over Law) and I STILL didn’t know what I wanted to do with it. When the twins were a year and a half I decided I wanted to teach business, so I researched courses and the most feasible was through Hibernia’s post primary. Part of the criteria to apply for the course is to have gotten a ‘D’ in leaving cert higher English, unfortunately I didn’t get the grade I was expecting at the time (English was one of my best subjects ironically).

So I had two choices forget about this career choice or go back to school… I enrolled in my old secondary school that week I was 30 years old.

You know those dreams where you are back in your old classroom wearing your pyjamas surrounded by 17 year olds, I lived it. I thought I could study it at home and head up for my exam the following June…nope! For almost a year and a half I sat in a classroom with girls literally half my age, the teacher I had was amazing she knew exactly the right way to handle the situation and was my peer at all times.

During my English studies I saw a Masters in Marketing being offered online through Sligo IT, I loved the marketing modules I did during my degree and with this course being held online I decided it was too good not to apply. I decided to keep going with my English, mainly because I’m a stubborn bitch and I wouldn’t give it up and you know how that masters ended up  download-15

In the end I didn’t get to sit my Leaving Cert, my baby girl passed away a few months before I was due to sit it and well, English was obviously not important anymore.

The Future

So now I have finished searching for what to do with my career, I love marketing. Although I am currently doing something even more difficult that writing a dissertation with 4 kids at home…job hunting!

I started this post as an informative one for anybody thinking about doing a post grad and its gone on to look like chapter 5 of my future memoirs! I am waiting on Michael Aspell to pop into my kitchen with a big red book and my closest friends and family! (If you are under 30 google him!)

I think what I am trying (and failing) to say is there is no clear path for everybody out there…in over four years my own teenager will be expected to know what she wants to do with the rest of her life, seriously she was collecting Sylvanian Families like two months ago! Okay, maybe maybe a bit longer than that but you get the gist. You know the ‘Suncreen’ song by Baz Luhrmann…

“The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.”

These lyrics are so true. In all honesty I cannot say I will never go back to studying again, makeup artistry is something I have thought about! But for right now, I am settled with the fact I am done with college, I know what i want to do and be, a marketer…I just need something to bloody market!! 

Liam Neeson, graduation, job,experience

Edited to update my current situation as Marketing Assistant for Molloys Lifestyle Pharmacies. You can read a blog post I wrote about going back to work here

Honest to God there are a million paths out there. The journey is different on them all but it is what you make of the journey that counts. 

Don’t let a piece of paper with letters on it dictate your journey, if you are happy tomorrow, fantastic. If you are not, I promise you will be fine. Believe me when I say, it is not the end of the world you didn’t get what you wanted. You are embarking on a lesser travelled path and you know what? You are about to have an amazing journey getting to where you want to go. 

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Survival: One Mum’s story of her first family holiday

| Tracey

img_20161021_121135Okay, so we headed off to Vilamoura last week our first family holiday as a family of six!! The featured image might give you an insight into how it went but you would be wrong, apart from this moment caught in time (when twin 1 was playing out a scene as Damien from the Omen and the teenager was “NOT getting in a photo in the middle of the airport!”, my doodle really brings out her eyes don’t ya think?!) the holiday went well! Grab a coffee and have a read and hopefully a giggle!

I am the most unorganised and feathered headed person you might ever meet, but, I knew for a task this epic I needed to get my shit together. I toyed with the idea of heading over to Pinterest to get some ideas for packing up a large family (in number that is! although on the way back I was sure I was gonna get charged for being over-weight…me that is, not my cases! images-13

But I was too stubborn and I decided I was gonna tackle the 6 people into 5 cases head on, on my lonesome. I had been collecting t-shirts and shorts along the way since we booked the holiday, but somehow unbeknownst to me over the, what, 5 hours of summer we had here in Ireland the twins ended up wearing the majority of them and not keeping them crisp and clean like they should have been. I was faced with: 7 days = 14 t-shirts and 14 pairs of shorts, 14 pairs of socks and you get the gist! I did not have 28 summer outfits like I thought I did, improvisation was needed. Now any mum will know when they pack for boys especially, there is zero chance of getting a second wear out of any garment they have worn… if you are lucky to be greeted by a clean uniform at 2/3 pm after school its like a military operation to get them changed into their civies “Go go go get changed quick! There’s a suspicious looking yogurt lid edging its way to your jumper!!!”

So what became my best friend while packing for the three boys was sandwich bags… I put together an outfit for each day including underwear and socks and i rolled them into a sandwich bag and labelled the day… dsc_0708

I hailed myself the new Martha Steward (or whoever the Irish version is). Okay, okay I’m guessing this is not a new concept for most mums…but I will revert you back to the opening paragraph…I am the most unorganised individual this side of the Shannon so this was my Everest…yes I have completed a masters (in case you didn’t know already!) but being somewhat pedantic was a new feeling for me!

So packing was done, now all that was left was the check in case…the over-spill case. Obviously all liquids went in there…I have not checked in a bag in about 10 years so to throw FULL SIZE SHAMPOOS in there was liberating! Now in the interest of full disclosure the shampoos had to taken out again because it was them or my makeup case and brushes…no contest, I enjoy sporting hun-buns regularly anyway.

On arrival at the airport we sailed (drove) into the car-park which I prepaid a few days before  22 and jumped on the bendy bus (huge holiday highlight)to the terminal. In the airport my previous homer smug face droops a little, I should have paid extra for fast track through security… myself and the twins made out way through the x-ray thingy barefooted to the arms of a rubber gloved security man, there he began to swab me and the twins (not a huge holiday highlight for mummy) while I held the baby. EVENTUALLY I pulled on my trainers (the sparkly ones on the Facebook page…did ya see them?!) and gathered all my worldly possessions together and I grabbed the kids and made our way to MECCA aka DUTY FREE. Now this is how I seen duty free     download-11 the gate was just too far away and boarding too soon to chance browsing with the kids, now I didn’t mind this too much as I knew I was going to Sephora over in the Algarve (if you read my Facebook post on this you will know how that turned out!).

So the flight went as well as possible, the baby cried for a bit and fell asleep (I usually suffer from fear of flying but I am telling you, if you suffer the same get a lend of a friend’s baby/toddler and you will be well cured!). We arranged for a transfer to pick us up and they included baby seats and booster seats, top class service, if you wanna check them out here. We stayed in Eden Village, Vilamoura. The apartment was fab, all amenities covered and the place was spotless. Now we had a 2 bedroom apartment, there was 2 single beds, 1 double and a travel cot, I searched for a pull out couch or futon but there was none. They knew there was 6 of us, but i guess they presumed the boys could share a single… now do not get me wrong they are skinny 5 year olds who could easily share the bed comfortably but for their own safety we like to keep them apart when possible as they fight like savages. We had to make a bed up from couch cushions for one of the twins which was another holiday highlight for them. Reception was never opened so I couldn’t complain and by the time I seen anybody behind the desk the boys did not want a bed and requested we create a floor bed when we get home as it was ‘so cool’. There was a children’s pool and a full size pool on the property, the children’s pool wasn’t the cleanest and the tiles were cracked. The teenager, boys and hubbie spend every morning in the full sized pool which was ice cold, they used to have to come up to the apartment at intervals to have hot showers! But they loved every second…this is where baby napped and mum caught up on Gilmore Girls (November 26th people!!).  They splashed around with footballs and water guns every day, the sun worshippers that seemed permanently glued to their loungers enjoyed the show by all accounts as every so often they would look out from their Ray-Bans and smile…or sneer I’m not quite sure as the glare from their oiled skin blinded me a little. On our last day we noticed a sign that read “NO: water sports, rubber rings, inflatables, balls, water guns and NO to basically anything the Smith family were involved in during the week…download-13

The apartment’s location was very remote and in the end we hired a car along with my sister and brother-in-law to bring us to Albufeira and the beach near Vilamoura. Vilamoura is a beautiful resort but once you go around the marina and the beaches once, you’ve seen it all really, but this is purely subjective as I’m not one to go off the beaten path especially with the kids so if it wasn’t signposted near us we didn’t see it, its just the traveller I am! All in all we survived the trip away and more surprising than that me and the hubster didn’t have one row or dig at each other, even with a sick toddler clinging to us! High Five Mr. Smith!

The sandwich bags came into use on the way home too, dirty clothes were put into them so to not mix them up with what was left of the clean clothes! Again this is probably normal for travellers but I’m usually the type to throw it all in and wash everything just in case!I had my suspicions on a dubious bottle of sun cream that looked a bit delicate, so I sandwich bagged it for the flight home and low and behold it exploded but all within a confined area (highlight of mum’s holiday!). All credit to Tesco on their sandwich BAGS (your saying that in Radio Roy’s voice, aren’t ya?!).

So our the kids and our marriage survived our first family holiday! I cannot say the same for my washing machine though, it hasn’t stopped since we came home…I am back to the gym Monday and detoxing for Christmas in Functional Fitness (I can feel the pain already), but for right now, there’s a little room left for more carbs and sugar…and dream about those delicious Gin Fizz’s… Tchau! T xx

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Wanderlust Kids

Another Mayo Day…

| Tracey

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Well the teenager and boys have just headed off to school for the second Mayo day this year. Faces painted in little red and green flags, knitted scarves round their head, one new extortionately priced Mayo jersey on the oldest, one twin wearing a jersey that was current during the height of the Celtic tiger and the other is styling a very fashionable and possibly the last red and green t-shirts branded MAYO in the county. The last time there were 2 Mayo days was 1996, 20 years ago and I remember it very well, because it was me who skipped off to 3rd year in the convent school wearing a jersey that was at least 10 years old…yes I wore a jersey to my Mayo day that was at least circa 1986!! This ‘artefact’ was dug out from my brothers old wardrobe (I still don’t know what brother it was…here is a bit of perspective my oldest brother is 19 years older than me, so what year this jersey was sewn up and sold in an actual shop was anyone’s guess… But I digress… for me this is the 8th All-Ireland football final Mayo have been part of… I vaguely remember 1989 final build up, but what I do remember is the excitement in the town, the colour and the smiles. Men and women who were children when Sam came home in ’50 and ’51 were now creeping towards their 50’s and the sense of nostalgia and hope was so strong you could touch it. The colour and excitement of finals hasn’t changed that much throughout the years in the county but we have become experts at turning the volume down on the predictions and the bragging and nervous excitement is the sense that can be felt. This year especially, the county is calm, excited of course! But calm. It almost feels right that there is a replay, that the natural order of things is taking place. The planets are aligning with whatever they aligned with 65 years ago *my guess is Pluto*. It just might happen, Mayo will no longer be the poor bridesmaid dressed in peach sateen ruffles and lace, this year she might just be the beautiful bride dressed in ivory Vera Wang silk… to quote Shakespeare (poorly) “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” … by 7.30 tomorrow evening we will know…

Why hello there…

| Tracey

Welcome to YET ANOTHER MUMMY BLOG (I can hear the rolling eyes from here!)

I have wanted to write a blog for a long time, years in fact but my inherent self-doubt always won out when I was about to click publish…. the niggling feelings like, who will want to read this, will they roll their eyes to yet another mother writing a blog yada yada yada… So I came to a decision, I WANT to write a blog, whether its read or not is irrelevant. This is an outlet for me to write about things I enjoy (I’ll get to those in a minute), things that annoy me (I may need multiple posts for this one!) and just a general chat about random life happenings.I see it as a form of therapy and we all need a lil’ bit of this every now and again!  Oh you can accompany me on the magic that is job hunting in the West of Ireland also! Exciting.

The title sums up the blog, I am a 34 year old mum of 5 (blog post on these lunatics later) and I have an unhealthy obsession with makeup. I am passionate about all things skincare and beauty, I am a marketers dream when it comes to cosmetics, I will buy anything. Oh on that note I am a marketer! Well I have just finished my Masters in Marketing!! I am not so much climbing on the career ladder but wobbling on it somewhere near the middle! I am looking forward to my graduation in October…I entail this to be the day Tracey dies of pride and smugness!!

So this is the me and the why of “Mum’s Makeup Bag”… I plan to blog about makeup, the kids, fun events I have to attend to look for a job *now I am rolling my eyes* and life in general!!

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