Phrases I never expected to say as a parent part 18:

"We need to stop now, but if you're good you can have more jazz later."

There were 20 different varieties of vegetables, flowers and herbs planted up. FUCK YOU STORM DAVE.

*wails*

Stupid festival of spring. Easter bunny can get in the bin. 😫

Carrot cookies - orange- coloured, rock-cake-like creations on a wire rack, cooling. Flavoured with vanilla essence or orange essence. Chewy, but pleasant!

Round mashed potato biscuits cooling on a wire rack. Made with mashed potato to lessen the amount of flour used, they're cheesy and black pepper-y and actually really, really good!

Everyone get ready: son has a new cooking-through-history homework, and this time it's WW2 rationing. Timely.

Already had a go at mashed potato biscuits and carrot cookies. Historic cookery is my jam (Chutney? Pickle? Spiced mince?)

Son: We get to name the table we sit at around school!

Me: So what did you lot call yours?

Son: Kim Milkinson and His Milky Minions

*pause*

Son: I wanted to call it 'Fartbags' but it got denied.

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.

Oh, and whilst I'm at it, 'support' does not mean saying "have you tried a weighted blanket?" in various levels of condescension.

Coupled with this new mysterious SEND bill being proposed, I'm wondering what the fuck the government's plans are when SEN parents drown. We are not superhuman; most of us have additional needs too. Help us to help our kids.

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.

Product description for can opener, describing it as having "large knob and soft, comfortable handles"

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."

Parents Evening when you've got neurodivergent kids

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.

There was more, but my photos were terrible and the kids strayed into shot!

Juice punch with lychee and cherry eyeballs and ghost ice cubes

Monster sliders with cheese slice teeth and Cyclops eyes made from cucumber, carrots and olives

Mummys made from chipolatas wrapped in croissant dough and a green Mac & cheese

Monster teeth made from apple slices and cubes of cheese

A skeleton made from crunchy veg

A graveyard made out of hummus and puff pastry grave stones

Chocolate skeleton biscuits with mint icing

'Deathcap' vol-au-vents with a skull-shaped mushroom topper

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 😫

a man in a pink shirt and tie is sitting at a table in a library talking to a woman . ALT: a man in a pink shirt and tie is sitting at a table in a library talking to a woman .

Daughter's been watching Gladiators. "I'm Dynamite!" she shouts.

"Great! Who should I be?" I ask.

She thinks.

"...VIPER!"