Category Archives: Entertainment

Needy Me, Needing You (Ah Haaaaa….)

Oh yes, here I am, looking for shtuff. On my knees, you might say (what do you mean, ‘AGAIN’?!)

I am wondering if you’ll do me a flavour and nominate me for an Irish Parenting Blog Award please? I’ll cut to the chase and just give you instructions on what to do, so you can get back to watching House Of Cards. Fair enough?

1. Log on to The Nominations Page!

2. Add your name & email address.

3. Click on ‘Raising Ireland’ in as many of the 10 categories as you think I deserve. I’m particularly interested in ‘Best Parenting Blog’, ‘Best Personal Blog’ and ‘Most Entertaining Blog’ (she says, humbly)

4. For the last one, ‘Best Post Of The Year’, could you please give a nod to the amazing interview I did with brave and proud mammy to her gay son, Marc Cleary and enter this link: ‘I Cried For Ireland’ – Pamela Cleary

That’s it! I thank you for your kind consideration. After all, I’m just a girl, sitting in front of a laptop, asking you to love her. Y’know?!

(Now get back to wanting to punch Kevin Spacey in the face).

Watch: Michael Keaton and Jimmy Fallon Read A Kids’ Story

This is so funny. I LOVE Jimmy Fallon and I wish he was my boyfriend…. oh shit, did I type that out loud?! Ok, I don’t wish he was my boyfriend, I wish he was my best friend so that we could do this kind of stuff all day long and never stop laughing. Watch him and Michael Keaton read out this cool story from a seven-year old boy. It’s the biz x

Jimmy Fallon and Michael Keaton

The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Mucus…

That is the title of the opening number for my brand new musical – ‘Up The Duff’.

Other songs will include ‘There’s A Hole In Your Johnny, Dear Asshole, Dear Asshole’ and ‘If You’re Happy In Your Nappy Then Why The Fuck Are You Still Crying’.

Reviewers will say ‘This show will have you in stitches (oh my god did we say stitches?!)’ …because they are HILARIOUS.

It will be an outdoor event, held in the carpark of every maternity hospital in Ireland so that the smoking about-to-give-birth mammies don’t miss out. They are humans too, you know.

Doughnut-shaped cushions will be available for those who have just given birth or for those who now consigned to having 50-shades style sex only, in an attempt to feel desirable again after birthing 6 children.

Refreshments on offer will include nipple-shaped cupcakes, alcoholic breast milk with soda water.

For those enduring hot flushes and/or immense excitement at being out of the house, sanitary towels dipped in ice water will be offered in place of hand held fans (so distracting for actors, the delicate creatures).

Comments, during the song breaks or interval, on other people’s parenting choices are strictly forbidden.

…….

Actually, I haven’t written that musical (yet), but I did come across this fun satirical video called ‘Postpartum – The Musical’. It’s really good until the advertising bit at the end – then I was like ‘Ahh RAGIN’!!!)

Watch Postpartum The Musical Here!

Review: ‘Vendetta’ by YA author Catherine Doyle

Check out this great book by new YA author Catherine Doyle. (We got it reviewed by super-sonic YA literature lover, 12 year-old Louise Reilly. Thanks Louise! – Ed)

‘Vendetta is a truly amazing story, with Sophie and Nicoli’s Romeo and Juliet like love-story and the horrible truth behind the Falcone family. Near the end of the the book there was so much tension that I couldn’t put the book down! This book is definitely a must-read and is in well need of a sequel!’ – Louise Reilly

Vendetta by Catherine Doyle out now in paperback (£7.99, Chicken House). Find out more about the author at http://catherine-doyle.tumblr.com and http://www.catherinedoylebooks.com.

She That Is Without Children Among You….

I LOVE headlines like this: Nun Gives Birth To Surprise Baby

And I LOVE the other nuns in this story, surrounding the nun who had the baby, denying that she is in fact, a nun. Because the idea that she could be a nun and procreate AS WELL is so ridiculous.

And most of all, I love that they are called ‘The Missionary Sisters for The Love Of Christ’.

I mean, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST.

Pregnancy workouts? Me (expanding) arse

I came across this cool preggo fitness video recently; ‘Knocked Up Fitness’. LOVE. THE. NAME.

I didn’t do nearly as much exercise when pregnant with Eva as I did with Jacob. I would have liked to swim again, since it gives you the sensation of being something other than a beached whale, but I didn’t have time (or didn’t make time) what with the house move and the business and the jaysus toddler in the house. I tried antenatal yoga for a spell, until they started pairing us off to help each other to stretch. No, no, NO. I was soooo not there to talk to other human beings! The smallest amount of quiet time, when there are tiny people who won’t stop talking, and (tbh) BIG people who won’t stop talking, around you constantly, is sacrosanct.

In reality, the most of my own ‘Knocked Up Fitness’ was giving up smoking and drinking (ps still not smoking, although hope to never stop drinking). However, if you’ve got any more energy than I do while carrying that tiny growing human around inside you – check out the link below to purchase the DVD.

Knocked Up Fitness on Amazon

(PS: The idea of pregnant workouts always reminds me of this hilarious video starring Christina Applegate for the Funny or Die website. Enjoy!)

Prenatal Pole Dancing DVD from Christina Applegate

[Like this? Check out My Birth Story: ‘The Supermarket Sweep’

RTE wants your bum (on their seats)

Hope everyone is well and struggling as much as I am with the ‘Do I detox my body of fat, or the house of leftover yummy food and booze? Body or house? Body or house?’ Fucking January…

At present, I am sort of dealing with it on a day-on, day-off basis – throwing the last of the Baileys down my throat one day (I confess to coercing Ass Monkey into being my co-conspirator by ACTUALLY saying ‘Look, it’s open now anyway – surely we can’t leave it on it’s own. What if it went off and we were responsible? I won’t have it on my conscience, Alan, I won’t’), and then feeling guilty and forcing everyone to eat pureed soup for 24 hours the next. Imbalanced much, MOI?!

In any case, Happy New Year. I hope, more than that your hoop fits or doesn’t fit into your favourite jeans, that your family and kids and YOURSELVES have a healthy and happy year. And I bleedin’ love yiz, right’??

Now. RTE are soon filming a new music and comedy show, hosted by the fabulous Dermot Whelan (Republic of Telly, Today FM). They are inviting the readers of RaisingIreland.com to come along as audience members for a fun evening out and most importantly THERE WILL BE FREE WINE! It films in RTE from 6.30 on the following dates: January 18th and 19th and February 1st/2nd/8th/9th and all you have to do is email them directly if you’d like to go along. All info below! x

‘Hey Ho Let’s go!’ is a brand new comedy music panel show on RTÉ Two television in Ireland. Presented by comedy impresario and air guitar fanatic Dermot Whelan, with two teams led by John Colleary, funny man and forgotten rockstar and Colin Murphy frustrated frontman and comic genius (their words not ours), this show is packed full of gags about gigs. How well do you know your musical trivia? Probably more than them!

Each week, they are joined by luminaries from the world of comedy and music – the perfect marriage of soundtrack and silliness as they go head to head to win the quiz – Hey Ho let’s go!

Would you like to be part of the Studio Audience?

Then please email us at studioaudience@moondog.co.uk for further information.

Guest Blogging at HerFamily.ie

It’s nice to get a little compliment now and then. I can vouch, as the primary caretaker of our two kiddos at home, that the full-time working Ass Monkey has never said ‘Hey, thanks so much for locating those socks we’ve been missing’ or ‘Wow, did you change the bins in the jacks? You’re amazing’.

We all do things so automatically and so regularly that it is simply what it is – just that thing we do that no one really notices. So when I had an email from Sive O’Brien at new super cool parenting website HerFamily.ie to say she’d been reading my l’il blog here and liked it…well, needless to say I cracked open that box of After Eights I’d been saving for a special occasion. When you write a blog, you’re never entirely sure that anyone is actually reading it (so yes, I actually just do it because I LIKE it. Unlike how I feel about cleaning the jacks).

HerFamily.ie launched this morning and I will be their guest blogger for the week. My first piece (i.e. gripe) is to remind you all that no, Ass Monkey still has not yet asked me to marry him, the consequences now being that I will some day probably have to walk up the aisle in similar fashion to this lady:

Uh-huh

You can check out the full blog at: HerFamily.ie

Happy New Year, monkey faces x

My Whore Voice

I don’t know about you, but when I became a mum, I started to freak out about money. I literally ping-ponged from ‘Happy to do a comedy gig for €50 and a packet of fizzy cola bottles’, to ‘I must come up with the BEST INVENTION EVER so that my kids think I’m amazingly cool AND I have enough money to buy their future shit boyfriends or girlfriends out of our lives forever.

So, in no particular order, in the last three years, I have sought employment in the following areas:

Beauty Therapist. Yes, I went to ACTUAL CLASSES to learn how to spray a perfectly decent body to a Kim Kardashian orange and the likes. Thankfully, I was pretty shit at all of that.
Web Genius. I’ve had a comedy website, a personal website, and now a parenting website. I nearly did a course in web design. I 100% thought that I would get instant advertising and make a mint in the first 12 months. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY BRAIN?
A Stand Up Comedian. The biggest mistake I made after I had Jacob was trying to do stand up as ‘Sharyn Hayden’ instead of the wonderful Shazwanda, which had always worked far better. The thinking behind it was that if I could break my vagina by having a kid, then I could do fucking anything…. …. ….. ….. I WAS WRONG.
A Theatre Actress. Acting on stage is a joy, an absolute joy, but when you have a toddler who counts on your to put them to bed and you have to leave for work at 5pm for Show Week, you will pay for that one week of joy for the following FOUR weeks, as your kid punishes you for abandoning them by refusing to go to creche, staying up all night, and catching the stomach flu. Also, theatre pays fuck all. Go get a day’s extra work on Vikings and you’d be better off.
International Best Selling Author. ‘Sure, it couldn’t be hard, could it?’ Those were actual words that came from my mouth as I sat down to pen my first novel. Being a writer is a bit of a curse when you have kids, because you rarely get a chance to write, and then you feel terribly frustrated that you can’t get your ideas out and onto the page and then you take it out on your fella coz he has a real job… maybe I’ve said too much ;o)

So now! My latest carry on is voiceover work! The gorgeous Deborah at Windmill Lane recording studios arranged for me to record my voiceover demo and I had a BALL doing it. You’d buy a buggy off me in Mothercare…wouldn’t you?!!

Click below to hear it, and check out my whore voice in the first ad! x

Review: ‘Becoming Mum’ by Kate Carbery

I have had ‘Becoming Mum’ in my handbag for ages, hoping to get around to it one of these days ‘before the baby comes/when we get settled with the baby/when I get this freezer stocked/when Hallowe’en is over/when it’s still 2104’.

I finally opened it and read the first page just a week ago, and devoured it because it’s so good. I’m only sorry I didn’t get around to it sooner!

What Kate Carberry has done is brilliant – she has interviewed loads of women (and some men!) about their experiences of becoming parents. It is divided into those really important categories that everyone talks about or has questions about if they are, or are about to, become parents:

1. The Birth

2. Your body post-birth

3. Mum & Baby’s First Days

4. Feeding

5. Visitors

6. Inside your head – post birth

7. Public Health Visitor

8. Your relationship

9. Routines

10. Tiredness

Each chapter has several genuine first-hand accounts from these interviewed parents about their experiences and they are capped off with a few pointers of advice at the end of each section. As a no-bullshit individual, I can hand-on-heart say that the pointers are really not pushy one way or the other, are practical and sound.

‘Becoming Mum’ is really fantastic and is a must-buy for any lady who is expecting a baby. You can buy it online via the Liberties Press Website xxx