I could have posted all last week about how wonderful she is

But I spent it out and about in the sunshine with her - just enjoying her wonderfulness.

I have fallen in love - hopelessly, stupidly, crazily in love - more in love than ever before and I look at her and her brother and I wonder what did I do so right to deserve them?

We went for walks. We went shopping. We sat on the floor and had a mock tea party with her dolls and we pushed her toy pram about. We sang songs. We had our photos taken. We ate cake (well, she ate cake... I had some wine).

It was bliss.... utter bliss.

Here we go again (again)

There comes a time in every woman’s life when she realises she needs to make a change. It may be the simplest of things - a chance conversation with an old friend, an article read in a newspaper - which makes us sit up and realise that enough is enough. Things have got to get better.


My moment came three weeks ago. I was getting dressed when I noticed a pair of six year old eyes staring very intently at my stomach. His brow creased and his head turned this way and that before he started. “Mummy,” he said, unaware that he was about to deliver a killer blow to my already fragile sense of self worth. “I think you might be pregnant because your tummy is really, really fat.”

Merely writing the words does not convey how much emphasis he put on the “really, really” part. I tried to console myself it could, indeed, have been worse. I could actually be pregnant which would signal the loss of my sanity entirely - but then I realised something. I could be offended and hurt all I wanted about what he said, but he was telling the truth. He didn’t say it in a spiteful way - he simply, as Roy Walker would urge in ‘CatchPhrase’, was saying what he saw.

I do have a really big tummy. A really, really big tummy.

As the baby who never sleeps has now turned one year old I cannot use the “just had a baby” excuse any longer. And the truth is, I didn’t put on an ounce while I was pregnant with her due to throwing up thrice daily but since her arrival - and my ability to keep food down returning - I have seen a gradual increase in my girth.

So taking matters in hand I did what I always vowed I would never, ever do. I joined WeightWatchers. I can tell you now I was a wreck - an absolute quivering, shaking, crying, big fat eejit of an wreck - as I stood outside that class for the first time.

As I took my seat and waited for my time on the scales I felt like a condemned woman. The green mile could have held no more fear for me than the walk to the scales that night.

It was silly really. I knew what I weighed. I knew I have a lot to lose but there was something about someone else seeing that - and commenting on it - that made my blood run cold.

But I stood there and I thought of my son. I thought if he is starting to notice that mammy is overweight now then it is only a matter of time - due to the world we live in - that he is going to be embarrassed by that.

And then I thought of the baby who never sleeps - who also never eats - and I didn’t want her to grow up with a mammy with a warped body image and cripplingly low self esteem. I don’t want her to get mixed messages about food. I don’t want her spending her formative years thinking she is ugly if she happens to be taller, or a little larger, than her peers.

I have always been a grand big girl - tall and big boned but actually was never overweight til my late teens. However I always felt it - insisting as I did on surrounding myself with short, twiggy friends who made me look like the Jolly Green Giant in my Thornhill uniform

The class, after the initial trauma, actually turned out to be great craic. I have been really impressed by the wit of Derry women - who have me laughing out loud with their tales of diet success and failure. I don’t feel it’s a matter of being bad or good - just trying my best most of the time. If I mess up (you know, actually fall - mouth first- onto a Kit Kat Chunky) I hope to be able to brush myself off and start again.

Yes, there is a distinct danger I may become a diet bore. I feel sorry for my friends and family who will have to listen to me while I try and get my head around it for the next few weeks. I carry my wee green folder everywhere. I can be seen going googy-eyed over the nutritional information on food in Tesco. (Indeed I apologise to the impatient woman who was not impressed at me checked out how many Points there are in a Brunch bar while she was trying to get her Jammy Dodgers).

i’m also painfully aware that is the far from the first time I have written in this column about going on a diet, and really going for it and ra ra ra, aren’t I just class? The fact is, no, I’m not class. I’m just trying - like every woman, I suppose - to reach a stage where I am happy, healthy and able to buy skinny jeans.

As the wee sign on the wall beside the scary scales in WeightWatchers says “It’s not a sin to fall. It’s a sin to lie there”. Well, I’ve got up and I’m ready for the next round.

Denial isn't just a river in Egypt...

I think I am in denial. The baby turns one tomorrow. I have not bought a card, or a cake or a present.


I refuse to believe that a year has passed since she was born - since I held her soft, wee precious body in my arms and muttered words of welcome in her ear.

I refuse to believe that the baby months are gone - no more pureeing food, no more making up bottles of formula or sterilising.

I love the stage she is at now - full of craic and mischief with four teeth which form the most precious smile in the world but there is a part of me twanging at her age and wishing she would stay small forever.

Emotions-a-rama

As a small (big) aside

This picture was taken this day last year.... my last pregnant picture before my baby arrived.

She is turning one on Thursday - perhaps this is why I am uber emotional (but not at all broody... honest).

The Monday Moan

Well it is two weeks in. Weigh in is tonight. I think it will be characteristic of my Mondays that they shall forever more feel like the day of doom from now on. That is not to say I’ve been bad. I have stayed rigidly to my points, apart from on Saturday when I over did it on the Nobby’s Nuts at a family do. I had eaten frig all all day though to compensate for my inevitable munchies on that occasion which was great as my munching was relatively guilt free but not so great as drinking the guts of a bottle of wine on an empty stomach leads to me being vay drunk, vay quickly.

I am, however, now experiencing some bloating - you know fluid retention - which combined with a killer dose of PMT means I would rather eat my own head (I wonder how many points are in a human head?) than stand on the scales tonight.
I may not have lost. I may even have gained. And I know that if I have gained it is down to my elephant ankles and not proper ‘fat’ but weight is weight is weight. And I have a lot of it.
My green folder has become a lifeline. My tracker is my constant companion. I have started to eye delicious looking food suspiciously and thinking “There is no shagging way I’m wasting points on you” but I also know I’m starting week three aka The Wall and with the pmt munchies weighing heavy on my mind I know I will have battle to ensure they don’t weigh heavy on my thighs.

Now what I don't want this blog to become is a me whinging all the time about the size of my arse (too late?) so please give me positive affirmations and lovely stories about losing weight although, and I don't mean to sound mean, if you have slimmed from a size 12 to a size 10 because you were just "huge" at a size 12 then please don't leave me a message. I may have to kill you - or eat you. I'm pretty sure your entire body would have less points in it than my (fat) human head.

You can't tell me that all of the good books have been written....

This morning I was reading over my friends' Facebook updates and saw one friend reference 'Saving Grace' by Ciara Geraghty - which I've not read yet, but which I really want to.
Or should that be wanted to.
I read the blurb - woman in relationship sleeps with another man, things go tits up - and my heart sank. Because 'It's to Be Perfect' features a very strong "woman in relationship sleeps with another man and things go tits up" storyline.
Of course the subject of infidelity is not new to fiction and certainly not new to women's fiction but I did feel like banging my head, repeatedly, off the desk.
I loved writing IGTBP. I had so much fun with it. It was perhaps one of the most joyous, words flowing onto the pages writing experience of my career so far.

This is something we writers come up against time and time again - the quest for originality - and while I know that both my agent (who also happens to represent Ciara Geraghty) and my publishers are VERY excited about the new book (as am I) I do feel a little deflated.

I suppose I am going to have accept that there are no real new ideas out there and hope that Frank Carson was right when he said "It's the way I tell 'em".

Do you like it?

Isn't it just lovely? (if we ignore the wee 'Bestelling' error as this was hot from the designers)
This is the start of a whole new look for my books and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they are going to do with book four 'It's Got to be Perfect'.
Oh, and for those who wondered - the baby who does not sleep went back to her usual behaviour last night. She did however, creep around me a bit by offering loads of cuddles and saying "aaaaawww, aaaaaww" as she did so.

Monday was an uncharacteristically good day

First of all when I dressed for work, my skirt waistband felt looser. This made me feel good - not twig like or anything but good.
Second of all when I went to the dreaded weigh in in Weight Watchers I was delighted to discover I have shed 3lbs. I did have to resist the urge to a post weigh splurge - but I did. I had some toast with Low Low cheese when I got home (within my points) and it was lovely.
Thirdly of all, I wrote about 750 words which was lovely.
Fourthly I have decided on a working title for book five which until further notice will be known as 'The 30 Something Crisis Club'.
And finally....



Drum roll please....





THE BABY WHO NEVER SLEEPS SLEPT THROUGH ALL NIGHT.

I thank you.

Duhn duhn duhhhhhnnnn

It's weigh in night tonight.
I feel less panicky today than I did last week but more panicky than I did the week before. (If that makes any sense at all).
I have been good as gold. Like seriously I should get a sticker from the teacher and a big smiley face drawn on my tracker. I have not over eaten at ALL. Not even once. I have lived on non-fat yoghurt, loads of veg, lean meats, new potatoes and ham salad sandwiches. Everything I have eaten - even if just a bite of the baby's dinner to check it has cooled - has been pointed and tracked.
If I've bitten it, I've written it.

My clothes feel looser. My waistbands have a little more give.
But, a sneaky pre-weigh in stand on the scales yesterday in my mum's revealed a zero weight loss.
Seriously?

Of course I have to make sure that when I do my official weigh in I'm in the same clothes, at the same time of day and on the same scales (eg tonight at my first full meeting) but I'm preparing myself for not having a loss and trying to sort it in my head that the weight loss will come. If my clothes feel looser already - the weight loss has to come.

Now I realise I am becoming a little bit of a diet bore - this will wear off. But when I went shopping yesterday and heard the dulcet tones of  Mika's 'Big Girl You Are Beautiful' blasting around the shop's music system I wanted to scream "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!" in a very loonified way.

Yes of course larger ladies can be beautiful but me? No I don't feel it. I can't actually remember the last time I felt beautiful in anyway and while I know it won't be losing weight which makes me happy maybe it will give me more confidence in myself.

I have spent three years now promoting books and dreading getting my photo taken or going on telly. I never watch anything back that I do. I feel always self conscious. I am always waiting for someone to ask when the baby is due. I go into everything judging myself on my physical appearance even if, maybe, others are not doing so.
I have even convinced myself that being a bloater has really damaged my ability to get on the Late Late or get the same kind of coverage other skinnier, more attractive authors get. (This is nothing to do with my writing ability, of course... ;) )
I have had to accept that even as an author - someone who creates books in a very solitary way - I need to have a public image and at the moment I do not have one. I am just the fatty old dowdy mammy on the school run who sits her in jammies of an evening writing about skinny, glam women.

So I may fail again this time, or I may succeed but at least I will have tried and before I hit the big 4-0 (which is admittedly 6 years away) I will be happy with myself.