The Importance of Being Beautiful

I used to think, "I'll grow old gracefully". No skin stripping activity or Botox for me, and I will have gorgeous salt and pepper hair. Now just let me tell you a little something about my former life: I used to be a Beauty Editor... Well of course I would have this vision with all those wonder-potions at my fingertips.
Then I became a mummy.
Actually, before that, I became pregnant.
Being beautiful meant smiling without bleeding gums, as opposed to my former perfectly constructed blood-red lips with shiney, whitened teeth. It meant I could reach my toenails to paint them the latest gorgeous coral colour from Kit Cosmetics, as opposed to ending up with toe-talons after 6 or so months of not seeing them.
Being beautiful meant no pregnancy mask - and what a ridiculous term... a pregnancy mask is what I should have been wearing! And it meant a sleek sheeney decolletage created by Guerlain's shimmery dusting balls, versus one which was all swollen by growing milk glands (I'm sure they had something to do with my double chin).
But wait, there's more - you thought you looked shocking as a preggie mumma...
Welcome to sleep deprivation. Yes, it is not age that gives you wrinkles, it is children.
This is a phrase I used to hear from my mother when I was a teenager, but I now realise it happens far earlier in the process. Like, during labour.
I remember doing my make-up in the mirror at my mothers (ie, not a purposefully darkened bathroom like my own) and thinking, "I can attribute every one of these lines to every sleepless night I've had with my son" - who was at the time about 400 days old. Yes, I had that many lines.
And now I have TWO sons! My face is the map of Europe (Australia doesn't have near enough roads to qualify).
However, despite my shock and horror at looking 89 years old overnight, I still do try to make an effort before I walk out the door every day. I now invest in creams which promise to reduce me to a map of Australia (well actually my husband invests in them), I try and do my hair, somehow, and when it comes to my decolletage, I try and make sure the old breastpads are not poking above the line to say hello to all and sundry at the park.
It's the little things....

Yukky Brown Stuff

Yes, I mean poo.
Sorry to harp on about it, but it is a serious life issue for me right now.
I have a 2-year-old who's poo's are ready to be toilet-trained. I don't care if the little man himself is not ready, his poo's most definitely are because they're becoming large, unweildy, and are making me feel mighty pukey when I have to change them.
Have any of you other mummy-ducks been lead into toilet-training by the poo itself, rather than the old "you'll know when your child is ready" story?
So we've tried stickers as a reward - "if you do a poo you can have the BIG firetruck sticker". This was obviously not a strong enough reward as, yes, we had our first PIP (Poo In the Potty) with it, but consequently three in the nappy after.
Today we're trying the treat of watching his favourite TV show or DVD. I think this could be a good treat as we have spent most of the morning sitting on the potty with a nappy off, chatting about which TV show or DVD he will watch (oh, and the rubbish truck as it's rubbish day). But no poo, just lots of chatter.
Then later in the day, after one such episode of chatter, I set up to feed the baby; everything's serilised, mooshed up and ready to go...
"Potty Mummy!!!!". Up I jump - poor baby's left with his mouth open and empty - we race to the potty and whip off the nappy, only to see it scrape down his leg, all over my hands, all over the potty (no, not in it) and all over the floor.
MID-poo is far worse than NAPPY-poo I have decided.
Perhaps I will go back to what the experts say, and wait til he's ready.

A Mummy-duck is...

...you know, someone who is, well, a mum, derr...

A Mummy-duck is someone who is COMPLETELY glamorous on the inside, but milk-stained with snot under her fingernails in actual appearance - and on this note it is someone who is misunderstood by handsome men and trendy women.
A Mummy-duck is also a wonderful woman who loves her babies and loves being a mummy and would be absolutely nothing else. Until it comes to about 5pm everyday, and then she REALLY wishes she were an astronaut.
A Mummy-duck is someone interested in other people's poo stories.
A Mummy-duck is an insomniac by default.

Part of a Mummy-duck's job is:
To aim to get out of her pyjama's before walking out the door.
To, after changing 65 poo's in half an hour, remember to go to the toilet herself before walking out the door and going to a park where there are a million kids toilet training and NO TOILETS.
To cultivate a large vocabularly to describe poo.
To drink wine. Pretty excessively. (Anytime after 7am is fine - yes, even if the kids are not yet up).
To eat cake. (Incidently, I'm convinced that's where the manners of taking a little something to your hosts house arose: it was Mothers who thought 'hmm, I bet she's a pumpkin seeds and herbal tea kind of affair, yes, I'd better BMO (bring my own) cake').
To learn to drive and sleep concurrently (it shouldn't say "Baby on Board", it should say "Mother Driving").
To hold two conversations at once. For example: "She said she was going to - yes, it is a dump truck darling - have her veins done - wow, a big orange digger - next week and that's why - rubbish truuuuck - she can't come to dinner on the Friday night - come here darling you have a booger".

Waddle on duckie-mums.