Picked up a pair of white, wide-leg palazzo trousers, figuring I'd look stylish and summery and Italian. Verdict: less Sophia Loren, more Berlusconi.

How it started: Son got dressed for school all by himself! Pride! Independence! Winning! How it's going: call from school to say son went to take his PE hoodie off and realised he forgot to put a t-shirt on.

Trying to watch the ice hockey final whilst my daughter insists on playing shops is giving me a new appreciation for the film Clerks.

Operating on a stress level somewhere north of "immediate heart attack" as my daughter hasn't been coping at school for the last month and everywhere I'm trying to get support from has essentially shuttered services due to lack of funding.

I've tried the SAD lamps. I've done exercise. I got a new hobby. I took my vitamins. Nothing. Think it's gonna have to be the ol' rioting next for me.

Everything reminds me of him...

I'm nearly 40 and a school mum just said they were friends with me. I've done it. I've won autism.

Am on the sixth week of a six week home exercise training programme, and I'm delighted to announce that it's completely turbocharged my stamina for loud, incomprehensible swearing.

Daughter has started making up her own songs and doing jazz hands to indicate when the song's finished. I imagine this is what it was like to live with Shirley Bassey.

Just watched the youngest's Nativity. Absolute highlight: narrator with the strongest Yorkshire accent declaring wearily: "CHRIIIIIIIIIST... (deep sigh)... t'King were born today."

A TEENAGE GIRL JUST SAID SHE LIKED MY HALLOWEEN OUTFIT. I WIN HALLOWEEN FOR THE YEAR. SORRY, GEN Z, I AM THE COOL ONE NOW.

Because I am absolutely, totally not extra, Halloween this year involved me cooking a massive banquet of spooky food, decorating the dining room and becoming a witch (in costume, but hopefully not personality). It took THREE DAYS to make everything. I regret nothing.

Son, getting out the bath: Ow, my noob hurts. Me: Noob? Son: Yeah, I leaned on it reaching out the bath. Me: ...point at your noob? Nipple. It's his nipple.

I am alive, by the way, I just had surgery in September and couldn't be arsed to think of anything funny to say about it

Kids have just had their school photo. Checked it online. Their siblings photo has managed to capture the exact energy of the disgraced former politician and his long-suffering but faithful wife. I'm buying 12.

In my continuing series "Ow Ow Ow I'm Old", our latest episode tackles the important issue of me pulling my neck pointing out a word in a child's wordsearch

A friend bought my daughter some Sea Monkeys for her birthday. On Friday we had 10 tiny white dots whizzing around the tank! Today, we have one, noticeably much larger, sea monkey. I think we can all draw our own conclusions about what happened here.

Behold, my triumph!

Accidentally chucked away some food colouring I'd ordered specially for a cake I'm making, and I'm quite short, so I had to lay the wheelie bin down on its side and crawl into it on the hottest day of the year like a freegan hobbit 10/10 experience no notes 😫

Daughter's been watching Gladiators. "I'm Dynamite!" she shouts. "Great! Who should I be?" I ask. She thinks. "...VIPER!"

Life lesson learned: never go to the toilet on a shaky high-speed train immediately after an extremely elderly man has been in there ☠️

When my dentist said I was "night grinding", it sounded a lot sexier than the reality...

How it's going: went to spray some dry shampoo on hair without looking at the bottle properly, ended up deodorising it. Now hair smells like my armpits, which is disconcerting.

Young, Tired and Completely Mired

Asked youngest what she's named her doll. "JESUS!" she shouts, joyfully. I dunno, I thought the Second Coming would be a little less... plasticky.

Writing sex scenes for the over-35s: It's bed time. I sultrily pump my asthma inhaler twice, sexily wet my eyes to prevent blepharitis flare-up and sensually slip in my anti-jaw pain mouthguard. As I slip between the sheets, my back spasms momentarily.

Double socked, for her pleasure. (It is -9°C)

It will be -5 overnight. I am heading to bed with a 10.5 tog duvet, blanket and hot water bottle. Husband is equipped with summer duvet, no pyjamas and an insistence that the radiator not go on lest he be too hot to sleep. Pretty sure he is science's newest source of energy production.

Watching someone on the roof of their two storey house sweeping the snow off like I'm watching a guy play a game of Russian Roulette with gravity.

Youngest has come downstairs in a princess dress, announced "THE ROYAL IS HERE!!!" and is now (unsuccessfully) trying to convince the oldest to be her horsey. I feared the kids might be too middle class, but I overlooked their levels of nobility.

Doing the annual Christmas tree bag shuffle. How did we get it in before? We don't know. Did we use some kind of portal device? Quite possibly. Will physics be kind to us now? Definitely not.

There's going to be a snow day tomorrow at school, isn't there...? *stares into middle distance, soul leaves body*

As a nice little digestif for this year, the ceiling has just collapsed in one of the bedrooms.

Just chillin' in my thinking cap

Gave myself a lovely early Christmas treat by leaving the family WhatsApp group

I have found Hell, and it is the unsupervised Christmas party for forty under-sixes. There is a bouncy castle, and all the parents are pissed.

Lost quite a lot of weight recently, and apparently the solution I was looking for was stress! Lots of stress! And daytime crying! Now in new, neurodivergent formula! It's so easy! Just fill your body with cortisol!

Jesus might've died for our sins, but did he spend a week with a pensioner trying to do all their Christmas shopping on their elderly mobile phone?

My mother is currently three weeks into a planned two night stay with us post-surgery. Thinking of asking Santa for a shotgun.

Being an adult is apparently spending all morning frantically cleaning because guests are coming over, then spending all afternoon wanting them to fuck off home because you're knackered from said cleaning.

Parents on the WhatsApp group complaining there are too many events to remember have come up with a spreadsheet that inputs the events into a table organised into separate days by chronological order. They've accidentally invented the calendar.

Youngest: "Mummy! If I took your face away you'd be all squishy underneath!" Please can someone do a welfare check on me tomorrow.

Preparing for Christmas by stretching out my cheese stomach

I thought I had experienced grief and loss and all manner of negative emotions, but I did not truly know betrayal until today - the day I learned that my sister in law has bought my youngest a karaoke machine for Christmas.

Do I still class as a yummy mummy if I just spent ten minutes fishing poo* out of the bath? *not my poo. Honest.

Daughter just gone off to a Halloween party as a spooky witch. Drew a spider on the back of her hand. She has named it Dave.

Went to Liverpool on the train with the kids yesterday. Daughter watched a seagull stealing chips and now she has a new favourite animal. In other news: does anyone have the details of a talent agent willing to take on a five year old that can do a remarkably loud seagull impression?

Kids have had their flu nasal sprays at school today. Son, deadly serious, explained that he'll now be Infection Free. Daughter, jumping up and down like Tigger, told me the spray got rid of the spiders up her nose.

Kemi Badenoch now confirmed as the kind of person that marches down to school demanding to know why the autistic kid gets special treatment but her kids don't.

Son has been majorly into watching kids' medical programmes lately. Solemnly informed me he has a hernia scar on his abdomen. Had to break the news that he'd just found his belly button.