Mrs Helicopter Writes

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 ...

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 ha...

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 s...

The Weinstein thing. It’s everywhere right now. Big (male) Hollywood Producer in casting couch shocker. The term originated there. I am GLAD it’s everywhere, but it’s about time. Finally more and more men who have abused their positions of power are being held accountable. And it’s obviously creating a wave of emotion from people who have experienced sexual harassment. I’ve seen quite a few girls on Twitter who have felt “triggered” by the news events recently and have had to come off social media to preserve their mental health. Which completely makes sense, despite it being a desperately sad situation. But then I realised. I’ve been sexually harassed. I’ve been sexually harassed loads in fact. And do you know why that fact has only just occurred to me? Because I’d always just dismissed it as expected behaviour from the environment I was in. I’ll expand. I’ve have had my bum pinched by a male teacher, aged 9. Thought it was normal (actually I thought it was a...

My husband and I have recently made a fascinating discovery about screen time. The result of which has been, quite frankly, life changing for us. Since it’s become the norm to own a phone or tablet and more importantly, be glued to that device playing games or scrolling social media endlessly, there has been a lot of media attention focused on whether or not screen time is healthy for us. The blue light emitted from most hand held devices such as phones and tablets can inhibit sleep, for example. So there is plenty of readily available advice about the downside of not having to stare awkwardly into space, avoiding eye contact on public transport! But. Did we, the Helicopters, as a family, HEED this advice? DID we? Did we heck . Emlyn and I are as guilty as anyone of coming in from work, feeding and watering the kids, plonking them in front of the TV and then ignoring each other whilst we autonomously check our own newsfeeds in case something amazing has happening in the half ...

Autumn is the most exciting time of year, hands down. WHY? Firstly, because Spring is an expectation for a summer we never usually have. Winter is one month of festive fun and two months of misery and darkness… and UK summer.... the desperate hope that we will have a warm, dry summer…immediately dashed up the arrival of howling winds and driving rain on August 1st. All summer sun well and truly over before the kids holidays. Do kids these days even know what a hosepipe ban IS?! I think in this country especially, that’s probably a big part of why we love the arrival of Autumn. Summer in the UK these days is just so goddamn disappointing. Even though we may have a good run in June and July, as soon as the holiday starts ...dull, grey days, wind. Interspersed with a few nice days here and there. Possibly a one day heat wave bringing a big surge of hope that it’ll stick around only to wake to gale force ten battering your windows the following morning. Of course there are (crazy) pe...

I’m not being funny, but I seriously think I am too lazy to be a mum. I don’t think I ever expected it to be so….  relentless . Like, it is literally non-stop, high alert from the minute your eyes ping open til the minute they are allowed to droop back down into blissful rest. Why didn’t someone WARN me? I didn’t sign up for this! I signed up for a few early mornings, sure! I knew the first few MONTHS might be a bit tiring….what with all that feeding through the night rubbish but then they sleep through and it’s totally fine, right? Oh yeah there might be a few nights when they’re ill….but like, how ill can a kid be? And if they’re ill….that means they sleep MORE right? But actually it’s a bit harder than that. It’s LOADS harder. SO firstly they don’t sleep. Well, not in the way you THINK they should. Looking back at my first child, sleeping and feeding in 3 hour cycles…. I used to think I was unlucky because he wasn’t sleeping through at 6 weeks! But he kept th...

Do you share a bed? Do you share a bed with your partner or child or pet? As adults it’s quite normal to share a bed with someone or something isn’t it? I do. I share a bed with one of my three cats. Sometimes another one will sleep on my feet too. But I don’t share with anyone else. NO ONE. No humans. And to be honest, it’s only because I love my puss so much that I feel too guilty to tell her to cock off. She sleeps right by my pillow. But I do not share a bed with my husband OR my kids. Ever. Nope. No sireeeeeee! I used to be good at sharing a bed. But then I used to be good at sleeping. And I guess I was drunk a lot more in those days. As a teen you can sleep through anything can’t you? And sharing a bed with all and sundry was almost a prerequisite. Most of the time you’d fall unconscious, fully clothed and stinking after over-indulging on some substance or other (or was that just me?). And in fact this sleeping anywhere, through anything, carried on well into my student y...

What in the heck is ASMR? Have you heard of it? It has completely changed my life! OK that sounds super dramatic but it’s definitely changed my sleep and that, in turn, has changed my life. Because I am less tired. So my life is mildly better, but you know that IS a change, technically speaking.  But what IS it though?   The pseudo-scientific name itself is an acronym.  Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response . A phrase coined by Jennifer Allen, who came up with this term after  years of discussions  in internet forums (because, of course)  with fellow experiencers of the "tingles". The best way to describe the feeling is a warm, comforting, tingly sensation...like hairs on your neck standing up or prickles in your hair line.... as a  response  to seeing but, more often than not, HEARING certain sounds.  It's an extremely pleasurable experience.... like a mild  euphoria .  Another way to describe it is, when you...