There’s not much I don’t know about dinosaurs. Take your Triceratops for example, for all its three horned head butting ability, it’s still only an herbivore. Around during the Cretaceous Period, it’s one to remember. I could go on, for pages and pages about Dinosaurs, all shapes, sizes, winged and un-winged, meat-eating or not. Ad nauseum. Mother of three sons. My specialist subject is extinct sauropods.

I used to be a contender but now put me in a room full of adults now and I’m a rookie. I think I might have regressed myself. I know all about it. My second son has taken months to toilet train (apologies if you’re reading this Secondo in the future but mommy needed an outlet), he regressed you see, to babyhood on the arrival of his cute, gurgling, nappy-ed younger brother. And it broke my heart. Seeing him a boy frustrated that Mommy had brought another blue-eyed boy to replace him. Not true, not true at all. In the past week, we’ve had a Eureka moment and he’s gone to use the toilet, all by himself. Like a big boy. I do go on, what hope is there for me? A contender, a contender!

You see, I’m now an expert on toilet training and dinosaurs but would you want to sit next to me over coffee? I wouldn’t. I’m like the self conscious eighteen year old again listening to myself as I speak to adults. Am I a bore? I used to be interesting, if I do say so myself but these days when I open mouth I say things like ‘climb off that couch’ or ‘take your hand out of there!.’ Not exactly conversation openers are they?

Lately, I’ve been dipping my toe into ‘real world’ waters again, teaching a bit, the odd conference, writing, but it’s difficult after you’ve been at home with young children for a while. For a start, you really can’t keep up with the who’s watching what on television. Before all this motherhood started, it was all about reality TV, are we still watching folk having inane conversation about toenail clipping on a couch in a random house in the UK for example?

And what are you wearing? I live in the countryside and don’t often get to the city which is eye opening I can tell you. What I’ve realized in a world post maternity wear is everyone is wearing black and white, I wouldn’t even call it check, but it’s check patterned.

Come to think of it actually, I quite happy here in my motherhood bubble for another bit talking about poo-poos and Tyrannosaurus Rex until the cows come home. I’ll take my second coming as a debutante in my own time. Practicing talking about grown up subjects to anyone who’ll listen. You can do without my tuppence worth for another while world, there’s more important work to be done. Rrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaarrrh.

I should probably have him hold the bottle himself.

I should instead, go downstairs and run through the various household shoulds that steal my Saturdays and get the house ready for a busy day on a farm in Spring.

I should lie him down in his cot with his bottle and let him drink away. His bottle will be gone soon enough, independent enough on a job well done to do this all by himself.

I should hurry his brothers along. They should most probably dress themselves.

I should probably empty the dishwasher. I should certainly be folding that mountain of laundry.

I should, really.

He lies tucked as always his head lying on my left arm, staring up at his mommy, one hand scratching his head, his other hand scratching his mommy’s back.

I should probably make the beds. Or maybe I should wait ’til he finishes the bottle and falls asleep.

I know which should I’ll remember.

He sleeps in my arms, unconditionally.

I love a city break. Hold your horses, nothing that exciting. A twelve hour trip to my native home by the Lee, Cork. Home where my mammy minds the boys for a while as I run on borrowed time to do all things city in a supermarket sweep style of events. On yesterday’s sweep, I had willed the stylist to hurry up while she blow-dried the head, hair by hair. Are you going anywhere nice? Yes, the shops.

Keep in mind, that a trip to the shops in Kerry requires a half an hour round trip at the very least with small children. So the Big Smoke shopping sweep frenzy starts and as it’s an impromptu visit, little thought has been put into what needs to be purchased. There’s been a ‘Get something nice for yourself!’ salute from base camp and it sounds like a challenge.

Running through the shops, I see the items that would make my weekly existence easier. I wouldn’t have to run to the local shop for a card if I bought these birthday cards in bulk. In they go. Ah, vests, they need vests, in they go. He needs milking overalls, ah, in they go. Something nice, something nice, something nice.

Eventually, I stand stupefied in front of a beauty counter as an assistant who can smell a good unmoisturised-un-make-uped thing coming from a mile off, slinks over to me, grinning. How are you today she says in a way that is so kind, I almost believe her. I’m good, I’m good, I gush. This is followed by a two minute almost unhinged explanation of why I look as I do, unpolished, weary looking, not very clear skinned. I might also be wearing the day before’s mascara, not a good look. The speech was fresh in my mind and only needed a few minor adjustments from the soliloquy I had delivered to the hair stylist earlier. Small boys, farm, springtime, tear away at the knots, teething baby. You know yourself. Cringe.

Oh, I understand, she says though the lack of bags under her eyes say differently.  That or the stuff she’s pedaling really works! Do I need a concealer she asks? Concealer, concealer, sounds like I could hide something? Concealer, gone, cannot remember what it does. I know it’s hard to fathom, but as I was trying to remember what it was, shopping items were popping into my head. Nice olive oil from the market, that would be nice, a shirt for himself, Easter decorations. Oh yes, concealer, that I’m sure would be necessary. Do you need anything else? A sit down, a glass of champagne, a good nights sleep? In the way of beauty? That would be where the good nights sleep would come in handy. We’re short on humour today; there is a queue forming. City people aren’t big on small talk I find.

So, I take out the card as the lady wraps my concealer or miracle maker as she likes to call it and I remember, I’m under time pressure. No need for the bag, oh it’s going in a bag, or the tissue, it’s being wrapped in tissue. I look around to see if there is anything else I could buy here as she asks for my loyalty card. It would be loyal if you hurried up. Laid back all of a sudden these city folks. Not on my timecard lady. Free samples, yeah, yeah, yeah, fire them in. I hand her my card and oh, she says, the till roll is gone, I’ll have to call a manager.

Nooooooooooooo. Not the till roll. Ok, I’m in a rush, I blurt, mortified but on the verge of tears. I know it sounds sad, but I love my city, I really want to run to the market and go to my favourite cafe and watch the passers by but that’s not a luxury time wise that is afforded to me today. Can I shop while the manager fixes the till? But your card is inserted? You’re a meany lady, I think, and you wear too much makeup I seethe. Bitter, bitter, bitter, not very nice at all. You can take the girl of the city…

Two new till rolls later, I’m sent on my way, a little bit defeated until I feel the fresh air on my face outside. I hear the familiar sing-song of my native Corkonians, know the promise of the carpeted book shop that I love to thread upon and settle down a bit. A nice cake from the market for the farmer, some Easter decorations to adorn the kitchen, coffee beans for the mommy of the house. Oh flowers, yes, flowers, I hope they survive the journey home. Little luxuries from the Big Smoke that we can’t find easily within reach at home.

I leave my native streets reluctantly, especially all those lovely shops, coffee houses, market, familiar enough faces. They’re as hard to leave as my parents and sisters.

I’m home today in the country, decorating the kitchen with the bounty from my speedy shopping sweep, sipping my posh city coffee, hidden for a while under one very fancy concealer. Little messages sent from the Big Smoke to the Little. I’ll take it.

We’re three hours into the Easter holidays and I’m already thinking of telling them Easter Sunday is tomorrow. Would it be so wrong? It is after all a moveable feast. There are already a couple of Easter Eggs eyeing them from the top of the dresser and they want to eat them. How do you explain to two little boys that they have to wait a week and two days before chocolate eating extravaganza?

The toddler has asked me five times in the last hour if it was Easter Sunday yet? Can we eat them as breakfast on Easter Sunday? How many can we eat? Which one will we eat first? Is my egg bigger than his? What time do other children get up to eat them?

Aren’t they funny? Simply put. No. People continue to tell me at every sigh to enjoy them now while they are young. While their problems are small. I am. I do. I get it. They’re adorable. I love them but they’re not cute 24 hours a day. You get the moments that take your breathe away regularly enough, smiles that leave you on the verge of tears brimming with pride but as for answering incessant questions on Easter eggs, I ran out of steam an hour ago. I’m on automatic pilot, looking at the clock, knowing that I will be cooking the dinner with two very lovely boys sitting at the counter asking me questions about chocolate. And I know that someday I will miss these moments. Sadly, I know.

The cows continue to calve. The farmer continues to be missing in action somewhere in the farmyard. Today he’s spreading slurry. It never ends.

These are the ramblings of a farmer’s wife tired of Springtime. One who has started the post baby diet. Left craving chocolate.

Is it Easter Sunday yet?