Archive for Blatant Promotion … buy my stuff!
Help a Mad Cow and her family out, please?
Posted by: | CommentsHere’s the deal … you know that saying “No rest for the wicked?”
Well, if that’s the case, I’m this close to ousting Satan from his throne. Just saying.
Cos I also love a good night out, I was compelled, although I’d entertained the thought of not doing it this year, to organise yet another Mums’ Night Out!
So I did – it happened a month ago – and it was brilliant, and because I am physically and psychologically incapable of doing anything like “hey, join me for a comedy show” and leaving it at that, I organised some fantastic businesses to join me in spoiling mums and donating some awesome products for some goody bags that I gave away on the night.
(You can check out those awesome businesses here)
Here’s what else … I’m being forced, against my will, to research high schools for my oldest, and kindergartens for my youngest. I’d prefer to leave it till the last minute, but that, apparently, is forbidden. I’m muddling through some therapies for my middlest child. I’m doing some major renovations on my website, running a business, writing a book (it’s nearly done!) and various other resources, my husband is being screwed around by his workplace and screwing us around even more with some semblance of “routine” and “stablity” in our lives … oh, and whilst we’re here, our house is on the market, and we’ve just signed up with a new real estate agent, and despite us having ‘decluttered’ already, they would like us to ‘declutter’.
The gorgeous sponsors have all sent me too much stuff … and I really, really need to get it out of my office. Not just for the opens for inspection, but so I can actually get into my office.
So, I’m ‘selling’ the remaining goody bags from Mums’ Night Out! that I have left over.
By ‘selling’ I mean you pay only the cost of postage and handling … the bags and their goodies are valued at over $100 and you can have one for $19.97 (or you can have more than one at $19.97 each).
I’ve offloaded some, and have about seven left (as of right now) … can you help us out and help me get my office back?
Every day the boxes and bags sit here is another day I yell at my kids – so it’s YOUR FAULT I’m a grumpy arse bitch, ok?
Seriously, though, you’d be doing me a massive favour – massive!
You can purchase your Mums’ Night Out! 2012 Goody Bag (and see what’s n them) just here!
And thank you!
I love variety. I love the unexpected. I love a night out.
Posted by: | CommentsI had to make an extremely difficult at the commencement of this year.
Extremely difficult.
See, I have plans. Big ones. Most of which involved writing.
(As an aside, I had a massive epiphany last year … and realised, completely and fully, that I am a writer. That’s it. No fighting it any more. No pretending I’m not. No just saying it on my profile pages and not believing it. I am. I just am.)
And creating resources for a topic I’m extremely passionate about. Extremely.
Unfortunately, this was to come at a price. That price was looking a lot like Mums’ Night Out! I had to seriously rethink it. For 2012 anyway.
Then something quite unexpected happened. As I was in the foetal position thinking what do I do?! I love Mums’ Night Out! But I love writing. And I have a list. A List. And … I don’t know what to do …” I popped up for a brief moment to check my email and there was an email in it.
In fact, there were several. But one had “Mums’ Night Out” in the subject line and was from a lady whom I regard every so highly and think is amazingly brilliant and inspirational and I love her (but not in that sort of way). She had an idea she wanted to run by me.
(Me? Me?)
Good thing I love variety. But only good variety, not like the kind of variety that comes in a chocolate Snack bar, or the bottom of the fruit bowl.
And I also don’t mind the unexpected. I don’t like when I found a moth in my trackie pants leg when I was walking to school and on the corner of a main road and entertaining everyone. Or last week when a bug crawled up, unexpectedly, up the back of my shirt but on the inside.
Euww.
But this email was a nice unexpected variety, and gave me an awesome way to deal with my time constraints and the need to continue Mums’ Night Out! – because I LOVE a night out. Several, in fact.
What we have ended up with, between we two overly busy and creative Mums of three, is Mums’ Night Out! 2012 featuring An Unexpected Variety Show!
Hurrah!
Or, perhaps An Unexpected Mums’ Night Out Variety Show?
Either way – I’ve seen Jenny and this particular Show before and It. Is. AWESOME!
(Not a paid endorsement)
And so funny you’ll have tears running down your legs.
So brilliant – and appropriate to those who usually attend Mums’ Night Out! that it was just perfect to be able to build a night out around it.
I’ve rambled haven’t I?
Anyhoo, Mums’ Night Out! 2012 is booked. It kicks off with wine and An Unexpcted Variety Show. It is followed – for those who wish – by food, dancing and the “usual shenanigans”, oh, and another glass of wine.
You can BOOK NOW! at the Mums’ Night Out! website … www.mumsnightout.com.au
Oh, yeah, it’s on Friday the 13th of April at The Butterfly Club in South Melbourne … I left that till last because date and place is irrelevant. It’s so awesome you’ll do what you can to be there 
You can find out more about the show and Jenny at http://www.jennywynter.com – she’s ace!
Oops – one final, and very important thing – there’re less tickets on sale this year. Much less – because the venue can only hold 50 of us for the Show. Last year sold at out over twice that number, so, you know … buy your ticket asap so you don’t miss it, yeah?
Like NOW!
Want a School Morning free of Stress, Yelling and Chaos?
Posted by: | CommentsSchool is back for us later this week. Friday, I think.
Note to self: Check that
I know some are back already and some are back sooner and some are back later.
Some of you will like to be prepared and have everything organised and some of you will already be into it and thinking “Wish I’d fucking got everything organised before now!” Or maybe you did.
On that, some of you will want to avoid the Stress, Yelling and Chaos that is, sadly, an inevitable part of the School Morning and don’t have the tools you need – I know you don’t because I have them here!
Some of you will be wishing there was some way to completely avoid that bullshit, repetitive crap that you have to endure each and every school morning, and each and every school morning you just wish it would Fucking. Stop!
Are you sick of repeating the same old same old?
Get your shoes on!
Where is your bag?
Are you dressed yet?
Are you over it?
Had enough?
Think you may very well go completely mental if you have to do it one more day?
This year, like every other year, you start refreshed and have that amazing positive attutide and it all goes to crap in a matter of weeks, if not days … and you find yourself hiding in a corner, crying and thinking “why can’t they just do it?”
How awesome would it be to NOT have to do that? For any morning?
What if it was all done for you?
OMG! How awesomely amazing.
Where? Where is this magical thing that will mean I don’t have to yell at my kids every school morning? It can’t possibly exist, can it?
YES! It does exist.
I, along with a couple of my incredibly Real Mum buddies, who know all to well the pain of school mornings, have created it for you … and we’ve tossed them in with the Real Mums Mayhem Manager School Pack
You can now, literally, sit back and let us do the work for you … it is a series of audio tracks that get your kids into gear each and every morning, and allow you to sit back and do whatever it is you need to do while they’re getting organised.
Save your voice and save quite a lot of time each morning.
Listen to a Sample … Click here
Recorded by Real Mums for real mums, all tracks include all those things you find yourself saying every single morning.
Audio includes:
The Get Dressed Loop
The Pack Your Bag Nag
The Get Your Shoes On Repetitive Requests
The We’re Leaving in Five! Leadup to Leaving
The We’re Leaving in Ten Minutes Rhetoric
We’re Leaving In Ten Minutes – complete with stern warning and warning signal
This particular resource had my own 11 year old shuddering and wandering off to put his shoes on, even though he didn’t need to.
It is powerful!
And it works.
Currently it is only available with the Real Mums Complete School Mayhem Manager ($29.97) and the Real Mums School Mayhem Manager Pack ($14.97)
So if you want just a teensy bit of your morning back, visit Real Mums Shop – www.realmums.com.au/shop and Buy a Pack
If you’re happy being a grumpy, yelling, ogery type Mum, don’t bother
I don’t know how she does it … back by incessant nagging
Posted by: | CommentsNah, not a review of the movie. Or the book. Although … hmmm …. I’d like to review them as I have much to say.
Later.
It’s again with the craziness and mayhem. Blogging events, school assemblies presentations that I must be present for, a house being prepped for auction, extra curricular activities, interstate flights for various buisnessy things, finding the time to write, organising events … and all the rest of it.
You know how it is.
Crazy. Chaotic. Mayhem.
Sooo … due to their popularity last year, and the “when are the 2012 one’s available” that went on and on and on, they are now available. Yep, my Mayhem Managers that, quite literally, keep me from going off my nut. I’ve rebranded them for Real Mums and they do look very pretty if I do say so myself
I have also tossed in a set of Mad Cow’s Original Mayhem Managers – the original (obviously) Managers that I whipped up in order to save my sanity, complete with the expected profanity, a.k.a. my state of mind at the time. This particular set contains 13 Managers, some of which are only available in the Original set.
Then there’s the four other sets, modified slightly from 2011:
- Real Mums Complete School Mayhem Management
- Real Mums Advaanced Mayhem Managers - for the control freak inclined
- Real Mums Basic Mayhem Managers – for the organisationally challenged
- Real Mums School Upgrade Back (coming soon)
This year, they all come with an added bonus! Hurrah!
When you purchase your managers, you’ll also receive a monthly email (from me ) with useful tips and information and managing mayhem, as well as bonus Managers (and possibly even some new ones as we think them up throughout the year), special offers and access to other cool stuff to help you manage your life’s mayhem.
They start at $14.97 – which gets you 16 months worth of Managers … so that’s, what, roughly 16 times cheaper than the happy pills you buy each month? Maybe even cheaper still
And, for those that it appeals to, they also mean you end up NOT doing EVERYTHING around the place … trust me 
Anyhoo, you can get them at the Real Mums Shop (because that’s where I sell the shit I create)
More specifically, if you don’t feel like browsing, you can go straight to the Mayhem Manager Category:
www.realmums.com.au/shop/categories/mayhem-managers/
They all come in digital format – i.e. you’ll purchase and you’ll receive an email with the link to the Mayhem Manager Set you have purchased. You’ll also receive an email confirmation for the mailing list, please click the confirmation link so you can receive all the bonuses.
There you have it. It’s how I do it (well, a big chunk of it, anyway – the rest of how I do it is currently on the To Do List (also found in the sets) to be created for you)
It is Birthday Month
Posted by: | CommentsToday, I reach a very important milestone.
Yes, I have been a Mum to 3 Boys for three full years now.
Sure, it’s Chippie’s birthday, too. Whatever.
More importantly, however, it is also the month in which my birthday falls. Put it in your diary. Yes, the whole month. I like gifts and presents, so happy for you to send one every day ….
(No oven mitts, please 
)
Anyhoo, because I’m such a giving person and I like giving awesome stuff, I am giving you a 40% discount on EVERYTHING over at the Real Mums Shop.
This inlcudes the proof copy of my book, MUG, my Mayhem Managers, Real Mums t-shirts and whatever else is over there.
For this month ONLY!
My birthday for ONE whole day this month, and YOU get something special for EVERY DAY of it.
Hmmm … there’s something not qutie right about that … :S
The Oven Mit Saga
Posted by: | CommentsI have alluded to, a number of times, the first of which was in May of this year (well, actually, possibly before then as I searched this site for “oven mit” and a lot of posts came up) anda again on Mother’s Day and several times since, about my “issue” with Oven Mits. Or “oven gloves” if you prefer.
Whatever.
Before I go into this, you need to know a little about me. I’m one of these “impossible to buy for other people” kind of person. Not that I’m impossible to buy for, although I am – except I’m not (more to come on that confusing statement later) – but I hate, with a passion, buying for other people. Except I don’t.
Gah! Confused yet?
I am, for all intents and puproses, a “gifts person”. Gifts are my thing that show I love someone (not in an “I want to do you in the kitchen table” way, just how I show appreciation and respect and love …) and it is also how I know I’m loved.
I don’t just go and purchase, willy nilly, wrap and hand something over. Ohhhhh, NO! I spend hours searching for the “right” thing. I will hunt you down and find out what you like, your favourite colours, scents and flavours, what you need, what your bathroom looks like and what colour undies you wear, and I WILL purchase the RIGHT gift for you.
I expect the same in return, which is why I have NO hesistation in saying “buy me this”
And if I can’t get that info … then it is the most traumatic moment of my life, not knowing what you want, therefore, not having a clue what to buy you. At which point, I handball to Grumpy, as he has no qualms at all about “just buying something”, wrapping it and handing it over.
Meanwhile, I’m in the corner, unable to breath and full of angst over the reaction of the giftee …
Thus, the reason I have been asking for oven mits for well over a year now.
It’s my fault. For 13 or so years of the time we’ve been together, I haven’t needed them. Recently however, I purchased some cookware that enable me to be a more half arsed cook than I already was. I can cook stuff on the stovetop and shove the whole thing in the over straight after. Less dishes, less faffing, etc etc blah blah. You get the picture.
But, they facilitated my halfarsedness, so all was good. Except, now I need me some oven mits so I may retreive cooking from oven without setting fire to tea towels (again) or burning the fuck out of my fingers (again again)
I don’t want for much. Just, you know, fingers I’m able to use immediately after cooking the evening meal. I’d like to be able to hold my fork without pain.
Grumpy, however, has a knack for screwing things like this up. So much so that it is now a Family Joke and I’m a bit miffed if I get exactly what I ask for. Well, technically, that hasn’t actually happened. But if it did happen, where he got me the right thing, I’d be incredibly surprised.
He did say to me, the other day, just after I said “Ouch, fucking just ….. fuck that fucking hurt. For fucks’ sake, I just want some fucking over mits. Fucking OUCH!”, he said … “you are gonna be so appreciative when you eventually get those oven mits” … which I took to mean he is going to deliberately not get me some for my birthday either. Or Christmas. But he’ll wait a bit longer.
Cheeky bastard!
After two years or so, I think it’s now become a standoff. He’s refusing to get them to see how long I can wait, and I’m refusing to just go get myself a pair (I need two, a left nad a right) because, damnit! I asked for some for Christmas, Mother’s Day, Birthday, and the last 17 times I’ve burnt my hands!
It’s a principle thing.
Meanwhile, Monkey Boy, who appears to have inherited my Gift Gene is stressing because I don’t have oven mits and “I tried to tell Dad, Mum, but he just got something else” and is a bit cross with Grumpy, and I am teaching him the value of different views and how people are different and how love and appreciation can be shown in many different ways and how his Dad is a cheeky bastard who will be getting crap socks and undies for Father’s Day until I get my oven mits.
Sadly, Grumpy doesn’t care … so it defeats the purpose. Monkey Boy, however, is horrified at this prospect ….
Anyhoo, although I did have a small moment of “See, that proves you don’t love me” after yet another Oven Mitless Occasion passed us by, and we do keep going on about it, it’s really not a problem.
No, really, its not. It’s now just an “In joke” and I don’t care that he hasn’t got them for me.
I know if I really want them that badly, I will get off my arse and get them. I can use the “but I told him” excuse, and even, to a smaller degree, “If he doesn’t get me them, then he’ll just buy me something useless and crap.”
I don’t care because, 1) I was alerted to - and read (parts of) - this book: The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, which I highly, highly recommend if your partner is an arsehead who doesn’t show you much love (because, really, he does ) and 2) I had numerous, non-professional, friendly chats with a gorgeous friend and colleague of mine, who also happens to be a relationships coach, Chris Owen of Pink Apple.
I now fully appreciate how he shows love, and needs to be shown love (and if the bastard doesn’t get me my oven mits, there’s no cuddles till he does!), so I know that when he screws it up the way I like it – and he will, because he does stuff differently – its not personal, nor does he not love and appreciate me.
It was one of the biggest revelations of our relationship and made a massive difference to soooooo many things.
You’ll be pleased to know, also, that Chris and I put our heads together (cos she is brilliantly amazing) and created the Real Mums Guide to Better Relationships so you, too, can have this epiphany … and a fabulous relationship!
(And no oven mits and not care )
If you want it … and its totally up to you, cos, personally, Chris and I are both in quite happy spots in our own relationships, thank you very much, and if you’re happy being totally miserable in yours, that has no bearing on us … it is currently going for half price, $24.97 for an 11 week, electronically delivered, course (usually $49.97) and will be this price until August 31st 2011.
Just wanted to let you know.
You can easily sign up for it just there http://www.realmums.com.au/relationships/
(And if, like me, you are a Member of Bad Mother’s Club, you have access to this awesome resource completely free of charge, just here http://realmothersclub.com.au/resources/self/real-mums-guide-to-better-relationships/ )
As for oven mits, I don’t want anything special, no silicon or asbestos repelling materials, nothing fancy, just a left and a right, not expensive, not NASA approved … I just want oven mits that taste like real oven mits ….
Competition: Will a Bad Mother’s Club Membership Valued at $197
Posted by: | Comments
I posted a couple of days ago that I made my wesbite all pretty and did some pretty marvelous things in terms of creating a forum-with-way-more-community/village-potential on it and how, in the process, I changed my logo from my pink and blue ladies to one horny mum.
Well, some of the stuff on the shop over at Real Mums is adorned with our very real mum, and she’s someone we think is going to hand around for quite some time.
She’s been with me (us) for years and she is a very special lady. But she has no name! How did this happen?
Anyhoo, cos I’m so excited about the new look and stuff, I’ve agreed to a giving away of a $197 yearly membership to the Real Mums Membership Club – also referred to as Bad Mother’s Club
Check out the competion details and info – and post your responses! – over at Real Mums
Please don’t add your comp entries here, cos this is not where the comp is being run and I’d hate for it to get lost. This is merely my personal blog where I share stuff with you – and also blatantly promote other stuff
Hope you win!
Giveaway – Lindt Chocolate Hamper
Posted by: | CommentsI have been ever so privileged to have recently been discussing a few things with the lovely Lindt Australia in relation to the bestest event of the year – Mums Night Out! - which is also good because I really love Lindt chocolate; they are my favourite and I’m not just saying that because they are supporting the aforementioned event and they forwarded me this photo during our discussions:
You may think it was a little teasing of them to taunt me with such an image, but there is a purpose to it. You see, whilst they are providing some incredibly amazing stuff for Mums’ Night Out! we couldn’t wait and felt the need to do something for Mother’s Day as well – the second most exciting day, next to Mums’ Night Out! of course, in a Mother’s year (providing the gift on Mother’s Day is a ticket to Mums’ Night Out!, otherwise it’s just another day).
Anyhoo – we couldn’t wait that extra week, either so we’re giving you the opportunity to have a fantastic Mother’s Day, so you don’t have to wait the extra week either.
Wanna win it? This stunning, web resolution jpeg of an exceptionally awesome Lindt Hamper valued at $250? It’s a very nice graphic and you could even use it as an avatar or something if you like …
Oh, fine, ok then, if you’d prefer to be in the running to get the actual hamper, which is indeed valued at $250 then:
You need to have booked your ticket/s to Mums’ Night Out! by 5.00pm Friday the 6th of May (that would be this Friday!);
If you have already purchased your ticket, you are already in the running;
Hurrah!;
We will randomly draw your name, possibly in the old fashioned way of putting it in a hat of some description – a lice infested school hat, perhaps, just for fun? – and getting one of my capable children to draw a name out.
If you haven’t already done so, you can book your ticket right now by clicking on this equally fabulous jpeg and entering all the relevant and required details. Easy peasy.
If you cannot, for some unfathomable reason, make it to Mums’ Night Out! 2011 then I think you should provide me with this alleged brilliant excuse below, because I love hearing such excuses. Also, Lindt have been ever so kind and have extended the invite to you to participate in yet another Mother’s Day competition they are running this year (over at Facebook) which you may enter without such horrible conditions of forcing you to purchase tickets to an incredibly fun and awesome event as Mums Night Out! Aren’t they nice?
Details as were provided to me:
Mother’s Day: http://www.facebook.com/lindtaus?sk=app_204832256206606
Join Lindt Australia on Facebook to create a Mother’s Day dedication and stand to win a $1,000 Lindor catered photo session for you and your family!
Also, I’ll happily forward you the image of the Lindt Hamper, valued at $250, if you really want it that badly.
Have you seen my sanity?
Posted by: | CommentsCraziness and insanity.
Welcome to my world … although, I do try my best to plan and be all organised and things like that. Just, it seems my family missed that memo and have decided to do what they can to break my brain, my spirit and my sanity.
Yesterday’s Chicken Bone Up Nose trick was a good example of such insanity inducing behaviour. Grumpy is giving me his shifts, then changing them all at the last minute and mucking all my plans up, Monkey Boy is causing much drama at school and being all OCD about things, Godzilla is still far to fucking cheery in the mornings and has added “Create New Zubo Powers” to his early morning repetoir, including not onlyl being too cheery, but a few standard and non-standard pow. zap, stonk noises, soemthing akin to those form the original Batman series and jumping around the house, thumping and making crazy noises at 6 a-fucking-m. Chippie’s tantrums appear not to have subsided in any way, shape or form.
Both Grumpy and I are on edge. You know that point where you can lose it, because you know the other parent will be the “good cop”? Yeah … we’re beyond that.
I. Desperately. Need. A. Break.
Which is precisely how Mental Health Moments came about; including Mums’ Night Out!
Well, technically Mums’ Night Out came first, conceived by me because I wanted to celebrate motherhood. Without the kids. Which is, really, the best way to celebrate it. With my friends. It started with those from my mother’s group and then I wanted to invite more, and them to invite their friends and suddenly it turned into one Great Big Party. An accident, really, but a bloody good one!
Complete, of course, with much dancing and mirth and lots and lots of really lovely stuff for women, good food and even better wine.
It’s been going for years. Last year, at one of my times I nearly broke, a friend invited me for breakfast, calling it a Mental Health Moment, and thus the idea was born … and we now have them reguarly – just breaks in the mundane, routeiness of it all. Those moments you feel like you’re just gonna go insane if they don’t stop nagging,whinging and demanding, where you feel like you’re being pulled from pillar to post, you don’t have a moment to yourself and you may very well lose your mind soon.
Mums’ Night Out! is the biggeset of the Moments. The break you – and I – need to just rejuvente and refresh. Mostly, its just a huge laugh with lots of dancing and specialness and fun. Great women and just unadulterated silliness and spoilage.
My sanity may have escaped me for the moment, but I know that the most special Mental Health Moment is upon my soon.
And I CANNOT WAIT!
(Because you’re a loyal reader, I can get you $5 off your ticket price – enter code mno2011bff when you book )
Bookings Essential for both tickets to the event and accommodation:
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Mums’ Night Out! tickets
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Mums’ Night Out! ticket and Sleepover
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Please ensure you have completely read and understood the terms & conditions before purchasing tickets
Let the chaos begin …
Posted by: | CommentsSchools is back. Finally, finally, here in Melbourne, school has gone back.
And there was much rejoicing, let me tell you. Of course, for many, there was also much of that repetative “get your shoes on” and “hurry up we’ll be late” and “where is your reader book, this time”, along with lying on the floor looking under couches and going “Urgh! Cold coffee”. And loudly hoping it was just that your morning’s coffee had gone cold and it wasn’t last Friday’s monring coffee, the day school actually did go back.
Not sure about you, but this week also marks the full integration of the After School Activities phenomena, which, for us, involves much driving (or walking) between venues with various children to drop them off at a vast array of activities – gymnastics, swimming, guitar, basketball …
Our week of doing stuff now extends into Saturday mornings as well. If we take in Grumpy’s working hours, Saturday night also gets a look in.
Can I be serious for a moment? There have been a few times over the last few years where I’ve experienced recurrences of the depression I experienced some ten years ago. It’s not fun. Some of those times were really pretty dark and scary. Foetal Positioining was the activity for the day. If I could have remained in bed to perform this activity, all would have been well. As it was, I’d drag myself out to drop kids at school, plaster on a smile when another mum said “How are you?” (she didn’t really mean it, its just what you do at school – say “how are you?” to other mums) and promptly burst into tears on the walk home.
What I did, to stop this from happening, was created a set of “tools” – organisers and checklists and the like – on my computer to help me get through the day without wanting to slice my wrists open. It would only take a few days of forgetting it was Tuesday and having to run up to guitar, dragging a kids behind me, or heading in the wrong direction on the freeway to get to swimming. For the record, I don’t need to use the freeway to get to swimming. Getting off the freeway to make it to swimming on time was near impossible.
Feelings of failure? You betcha!
Can’t do anything right? Oh, yeah!
Worst Mother In The World? And then some.
Can’t even remember where the school excursion today, why do you even bother being alive. You can’t do anything right!? In spades.
Anyhoo, enough of that. Chaos and mayhem, I have come to accept. They are an inevitable part of my life. What I lacked was the capacity to manage both chaos and mayhem. So I created them. And then I was asked “how do you do it?”
For me, these tools helped me. I didn’t think they were anything special or important or anything like that. But I packaged them up neatly and made them very pretty and called them Mad Cow’s Mayhem Managers for that is what they are
I’ve been using them for years and years. Then, my eldest started school and the next one – who is vastly different from the first one – started and the chaos and mayhem increased dramatically and I became to understand that “they” don’t tell you about the mayhemified mornings and the much repeating of oneself you get to do. Personally, I’d rather be in my office, sipping on a HOT MUG of coffee than saying “put your shoes on” something like 926 bazillion times. Maybe that’s just me.
Anyhoo, I’ve also had these managers – which I will call the School Pack, because that is what it is – that aid the mornings. I no longer yell. For a while there I had to point towards the fridge a lot. Now I only need say the magic words “Have you finished your list?”
Stuff gets done, there is less yelling (not eliminated, mind, because anyone who sells you something using words like “Have a completely stress free, yell free morning” is a big fat liar – less stress, ooh, yeah, but none and you’d technically be dead) and there is definitely less chaos.
One child of mine needs to be told each and every morning “what’s next?” Don’t think that didn’t screw with my head for weeks. Not any more – hurrah!
I’m digressing. I have extended my Mayhem Managers set – it is now the Mad Cow’s Complete School Mayhem Manager and includes everything from the Control Freak Inclined managers (the advanced set) and a HEAP of school related paraphernalia to make your mornings and afternoons run just a little more smoothly. All of which includes:
- Managers: Weekly Family Chaos, Monthly Mayhem, Termly Mayhem, Yearly Mayhem 2011, and Daily Family Chaos Managers – know what’s happening, when, what you need and what you need to remember!
- Planning: Weekly and Monthly Evening Meals Managers, Weekly and Monthly Lunchbox Managers and a Weekly Jobs Manager – they all include rosters, but you know your name will be on everything. Then you can say “See, I DO do everything around here!” You have proof.
- Checklists & Lists: Morning & Afternoon, Before & After School, Term Out the Door checklist, Have You Got? checklists (one for big kids, one for little kids), Start & End of Term (or the “remove rotting apple from bag” reminder), Shopping List Manager, Stuff We Need lists and Stuff & Things To Do lists
- Notes: Lunchbox Notes, RSVP Notes and Notes to teacher – the time and “I’m so sorry, I never go the invite” embarrassment saver, and stress reliever of ALL mums!
- Blank Templates: we’ve tossed in a few more, including a blank Monthly Mayhem Manager, a Monthly Mayhem Manger with To Do, Quarterly Mayhem Manager and Yearly/Perpetual Manager
The lot – ALL of that, for only $24.95!
And which is now available for your to get your hot – and possibly shaking with annoyance/anger/stress – little hands on.
You rock, Doll.....thanks for such awe inspiring honesty and brilliant laughs.