It was ADAPTOR! As in, I need to find ours before we go to the Netherlands next week.

I woke up in the night remembering something very important I needed to do today, and wrote the letter A on my hand to remind me what it was. In related news, does anyone know what this letter A on my hand might signify?

Oh great, I have just been subjected to a whole discourse that says Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is probably 'just autistic' and that's why he's done what he's done. Please. Please. Please. Bugger off into the sun with that.

My mam has knitted the boys a capybara jumper each 🥰

Gutted for Mia Brookes! Oh man.

You know if a small child calls his teacher Mam, it's supposed to be the sign of a positive teacher-pupil relationship? What's it meant to mean when your small child calls his mother by his teacher's name? 🤔 Asking for a friend.

A girl I knew from school, who I never would have expected it from, is currently reading the riot act to everyone who've made themselves into a ChatGPT cartoon and I am absolutely here for it. Fascism. Environmental impact. Data privacy concerns. She's listing them all.

Waiting For The Out on iPlayer is *really* good.

'What are you doing, 4yo?' 'I'm examining the river.' Course you are.

Eldest took his ADHD meds for the first time this morning, and judging by the way he's been doing laps around the coffee table, I'm going to predict we might be needing a higher dose 😬

My lovely dad last night, and his 90 year old big brother! 15 year age gap ❤️ My dad is the very best person I know.

Had a surprisingly nice time tonight at my family get together. So good to see my cousins, who I see so infrequently. Boys did really well for their grandparents and I came home to find them both asleep and the house still in one piece. Perhaps an evening out with my husband is a possibility again!

I'm all dressed up to go out tonight. 4yo thinks I look pretty 🥰 9yo says he really loves my dress but he isn't keen on my hair or face 🤣 You win some, you lose some.

My in-laws have come to watch the boys and my father in law has already managed to accidentally turn the telly up to 99 (it's usually 15-25) 🤣

I am *loving* 4yo's commentary on the winter Olympics. 'I wouldn't want to do that. Why it would be dangerous!' after every event. While leaping from couch to couch and being shouted at to stop it in case he injures himself.

I don't think my sertraline is fully working yet because I feel literally dizzy at the thought of leaving my children in the care of my in-laws tonight, but there we go. My uncle is having a 90th birthday party, so needs must.

Four years since I took one of my favourite photos ❤️ Buddy is so hyper, a proper adorable idiot, and in this photo he's a year old and so calm and gentle with my post-vaccine grumbly baby. My dad's lovely gentle face, Buddy's look of devotion, my baby sleeping peacefully with them. I just love it.

Phil and I have been watching Drops of God on Apple. It's in French, English and Japanese (subtitled) and about wine, but don't let that put you off - we've really enjoyed it and there's a second series that's just started 🙌🏼

Well, CAMHS was amazingly painless and my lad starts his ADHD meds this weekend. Let's hope it makes life a tad easier for him x

Thoughts and prayers required, dear friends - for tomorrow, I deal once again with CAMHS.

Look at this absolutely brilliant piece of nursery art. It is, of course, an aeroplane! Don't pretend you didn't know.

I've deleted the post I made yesterday about our friend's funeral as it was being reposted by a lot of people?? And all people that I didn't know and hadn't jnteracted with before. I don't know why people feel the need to repost something personal like that but I wish they wouldn't.

I could have really done without both my kids kicking off before school today.

I'm going to a funeral today and I'm absolutely dreading it. I know funerals are never fun, but this lad - 38 years old, dad of a six year old and a baby, dead of cancer, leaving a heartbroken wife. I'm dreading it.

Today 9yo's (female, best) friend was teasing him about his 'celebrity crush' and he laughed and told her to bugger off and teased her in return. I asked what she did then? 'She laughed, and then we went to the sensory room.' Message on the school app: 'At lunchtime, 9yo swore at another child.'

Just weighed myself at work (we have no scales at home). I have lost half a stone in the past ten days. Seven pounds in ten days! I mean, I was wanting to lose a bit, so I shouldn't complain, but maybe not quite that much in quite that way.

4yo wanted me to take him to the toilet this morning, but Phil was already up. Me: 'Daddy can take you, he's just there.' 4yo: 'But Mammy! I want someone beautiful to take me!' Me: 'Well unfortunately we don't have anyone beautiful.' 4yo: 'But you're beautiful! Daddy's head is spiky.'

9yo: 'Why do old rich men like young women so much? It's creepy.' SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE FOLKS IN THE BACK MY LITTLE MINI FEMINIST.

Very annoyed at myself for spotting my current Kindle read on the shelves at the library today and pointing it out to 9yo, and not thinking to borrow it. I do so much of my reading in the bath and can't when I'm reading on my Kindle, would have sorted that out 🙄 Brain still not fully in gear.

It's hard to grasp how large this grouper is until you see it in comparison to the ship's toilet on the left. This appears to be an Atlantic goliath grouper or 'itajara' (Epinephelus itajara). They can reach 800 lbs (350 kg) & 8 feet long (2.5 m) Let's talk about these gentle giants.

It always feels like all the wrong people die, but I think it’s because there are far more beloved people than there are bastards.

❤️

Look at this update from nursery. The guilt is off the charts 🤣 I thought my child's was 'in my bed' but he insists it's the one about being left at Grandma's. Phil thought it would be the one about being left with Daddy 🤣

Oh not Catherine O'Hara, I loved her, this is awful, awful news 😢

I loved this book so much that had we ever had a daughter she was going to be named after the daughter in it ❤️ Sequel to The Time Traveler’s Wife to be published this autumn www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

I put some annual leave in this afternoon and left work at 1.30 after my two hours sleep last night (9yo didn't stop throwing up until almost 4am 😫). Urgent search results sent off, vital jobs done, now home with my two poorly boys and going to spend this afternoon snoozing. Night, pals x

4yo's room is COLD (he doesn't usually sleep in it) but luckily he is my very own hot water bottle so I'm going to cuddle into him and hope I can get at least some rest before work tomorrow. Wish me luck, pals. See you on the other side 🫡

So not only is husband so poorly he got dropped off from work and collapsed into bed still in his suit and tie (I've just got his tie off him now), but 9yo, who was feeling a lot brighter this afternoon, has now started on with the bug. I'm not getting any sleep tonight.

Phil had to leave his car at work today and be driven home by a colleague as he wasn't up to driving. Whatever this bug has been it's taken us all out in spectacular style. I don't think we've ever had a time when not a single one of us got away unscathed.

Phil's just messaged to say he's taken ill at school - had to leave a class after almost passing out. He's not safe to drive at the moment so is waiting until he's more settled to drive home. So that's four out of four. What a week this has been.

Eldest is now off school with the same bug his brother and I have had 😫 Poor kid.

This morning he pointed at his bed and said 'Mammy! Why have you done that to my bed?!'

Sigh. I think 4yo just had his first night terror. 9yo started getting them at a similar age. Biggest used to cry, shiver, teeth would rattle. Littlest got very angry, trashed his bed, kept screaming 'I don't like you!' at Phil and I and then eventually climbed into bed next to me and cuddled in.

I'm very much enjoying people who claim to have loved Bruce Springsteen for years berating him for 'getting involved in politics'. Bruce Springsteen.

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

I've watched the first two episodes of The Pitt and people have raved about it. Does this get better? Because at the moment I just keep rolling my eyes at how silly it all seems. At least Greys Anatomy is aware of the fact it's an absolute pantomime.

Bloody CAMHS - text reminder for upcoming appointment has a completely different date to the letter they sent. Have warned school, taken time off work, prepared autistic child for change of routine. Now going to have to ring them tomorrow to find out which one is actually correct.

4yo has always been a handful: wild, mischievous, fast, curious. But this week he's started having proper meltdowns. They're severe, loud, dramatic. I've had to text the neighbours to apologise. Making me properly worried about the future. His brother can be difficult now, but was never like this.