Mrs Helicopter Writes

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Who Can EVER Sleep?

If you're someone who struggles to sleep *flings hand up* then you are possibly obsessed, like me, with how other people sleep. How do people sleep? How can anyone EVER sleep?! You may be one of those super lucky people who can sleep on a chicken’s lip! You put your head on the pillow and poof! You're asleep! You absolute lucky dabber. My relationship with sleep has always been weird. Apparently, I slept well as a baby. I was a very early riser, but I needed my bed early. I remember in Junior school my bedtime was always earlier than my friends. Boo! No Adrian Mole for me! But if I got overtired, I would get really nauseous and often actually vom. (Bad times for my vom-averse mother!) As an adult I've had lots of bouts of bad sleep especially during stressful periods. I remember visiting a lavender farm in Oz and left convinced that the "sleep balm" I'd bought held the key to the secrets of sleep! It didn't. My pregnancies were tricky, and sleep was

JUST YOU WAIT, Said no kind person ever. TEEN VERSION.

Ah shite. I’ve become THAT mum. The mum of a teen who wants to scream JUST YOU WAIT! I mean, I say I WANT to scream because I know I shouldn’t. But I did, accidentally, to a colleague the other day. She was talking about her niece battling a newly emerged three-anger from a very docile 2 yr old. And it just came out by mistake. I was mid-way through half term, half working, half battling bored kids. Stressed, thinking about all the things I need to do and haven’t done. So, I blurted it. “Ugh, she should wait til they’re teens! Constant but incomprehensible anger, unmitigated selfishness and they NEVER go to bed”. My colleague, bless her, defended her niece. As well she should. “Well, she’s finding it pretty tough”. I felt awful. Of course, she is! Having a small, unreasonable being who doesn’t know if they want peas/chips/yogurt even when they have it in their hands, is exhausting. The tantrums leave you wrecked, you’ve likely been awake super early, no daytime naps to have d

Have I got ADHD?

Have you been seeing a lot of posts about adult ADHD and how it presents in women? How it presents so differently to boys and can be masked so much that many women are only now just discovering they have it? Dopamine Chasing on a swing, or am I??? According to my newsfeed of Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, almost every adult woman I know is seeking or has got an ADHD diagnosis. How could it be that prevalent and so badly missed by medical science? *Hollow laugh* I mean, we know the answer to that don’t we. #womensproblems However, it’s very possible you can’t relate at all to what I am writing. You’ve not seen many, if any posts about adult ADHD and you definitely don’t relate to the characteristics that can nod to a diagnosis. The wonder of the algorithm! One of the things about ADHD is that people diagnosed have lower levels of dopamine, the reward-pleasure chemical in your brain. And one way of seeking dopamine hits is social media. So, my chicken and egg situation with “how

What advice would I give a friend who wants to lose weight?

This is going to be a bit of an unusual post for me. Normally I launch straight into my opinions about parenting or some outrage about human rights. Today I’m going down a more personal route. I am going to write to about health. What advice would I give a friend who was looking to get healthier? I am being careful with my words here for a number of reasons. Obviously I am talking about losing weight. My real life friends know weight is something I struggle with constantly. I have done since I was in my late teens. I’m actually even cautious to use the words “struggle” when it comes to weight because I don’t want to convey a message of negativity to those who are large and happy. I’m a massive champion of body positivity. There are lots of reasons people are overweight / obese and none of them are laziness or greed, the common misconceptions. So I applaud anyone who out and out rejects societal pressure to adhere to a specific “acceptable” BMI and embraces their size/shape wi

Got Small Kids? It DOES Get Easier.

Got small kids? It gets easier. When I had my first baby, I noticed that whenever he appeared to be peaceful, certain people couldn’t WAIT to tell me what awful things I had to come. Not sleeping through? WAIT til the terrible TWOS! Terrible twos? Wait til he’s a threeanger! You think you have problems now, wait til they’re an ACTUAL TEENAGER! BE GRATEFUL. Actually, this is not very helpful thing to a new mum. Or in fact, ANY mum. You may be greeted with a wan smile if you say this to someone but inside that person will be swearing at you. Because NO one wants to hear that things get worse. Stop it! I often think about whether or not I actually would have wanted to know how hard I found EVERYTHING from pregnancy onwards. I’ve had many a conversation since with fellow parents starting “no one ever tells you …. *insert awful realisation about parenthood here*…” But would I have REALLY wanted to know? Would I have wanted to know that: a) Pregnancy is sometimes

For All The Glorious Women In My Life

For International Women’s Day I want to celebrate all the glorious women in my life. I’m so lucky to have some amazing ladies around me. I thought about trying to write something worthy. Something about trying to celebrate unheard women’s voices from around the world, but as David Lammy pointed out about Comic Relief, it’s time we let their own voices be heard. We don’t need another white, middle class woman clumsily trying to write about inclusivity, without awareness of privilege or agency on the subject. So. I’m just gonna write about my mates and my family. My female loves. To tell them how much I appreciate them, need them and adore them. The Girls Who Are My Rocks I don’t have a “girl gang” or “tribe”. But I have a fantastic selection of super close friends who I’ve made since leaving school. They’re an eclectic bunch. I met them all over the place: Uni, work, friends of friends, family friends I’ve known since we were teens, Zumba, baby classes (which wei