My Trip to the Sexual Health Clinic

Happy New Year! Welcome to the 9th year of my blog.
Sorry for the slightly click baity title. The full title is:

"a crazy day that involved annoying public transport, sales shopping, lunch with Rachel and meeting an overly chatty greek woman in a sexual health clinic. " 

That's chronological order, but it's also saving the best till last....wait till you hear what unusual reason the greek lady was in for!

Today was the day that Dan and Percy set off on their little adventure to France for Dan's french grandma's (Mamie's) 80th birthday party. I decided not to go. The thought of getting a 7.15am flight from Stansted with a baby and toddler didn't thrill me. So me and Eric are staying. Today they got the train down to the midlands where they were meeting Dan's parents to travel the rest of the day together.

What a barrel of laughs that was. They needed to go from Liverpool Lime street, the buses take ages and are unreliable, so I thought why don't we drive to Liverpool South Parkway, all get the train in, Percy and Dan can get on their next train and then I can have a look in the sales, while Eric has his morning nap in the pram. We checked the train times and choose one that even if we missed it, there would just be time to get another one. I checked that south parkway had a free car park, left in plenty of time but somehow it still went wrong.

The car park was full, and Percy was desperate for a wee. Hmmm we hadn't planned for this. after circling the car park a few times, I had to just drop them off, as I wasn't in a particular hurry. I'll just park on the street somewhere, and if I miss the same train as them it doesn't matter too much. (except to Percy who is not great with changes of plans) anyway I managed to find a space in the car park...it wasn't an actual car parking space, but it wasn't blocking anyone so I took the risk, and ran in with Eric in the pram. Dan had taken Percy to the loo and there was now only 2 minutes till the train was leaving. We got in the lift to the bridge between platforms, and then, they ran down the stairs to the platform to be quicker, while I had to get the lift with the pram. They were 20 seconds too late, I was 40 seconds too late. Bums!

It's ok theres another one, in 5 minutes time, "train delayed expected 6 minutes time" "train delayed expected 7 minutes time." arghhh. We made it though, they got on their train at Lime Street. I was sad to see them go.

Guess which was the first stop of their train journey from Lime Street to Dudley?

I'll give a clue, it's a station named after a late 90's cartoon that your parents disapproved of.
(Liverpool) South Park(way)

I continued my day with a bit of sales shopping (got some slippers and earrings both 70% off- thanks for asking) and then met the lovely Rachel Goodsall for lunch, she was nice enough to change the time, last minute so I could shop when Eric decided he wanted to nap. After lunch she said "what else are you doing today?" and then I remembered I needed to go to the sexual health clinic. (Not for anything gross just to get more of the pill) So I waited in there with Eric for AN HOUR AND A HALF and in that time a slightly crazy lady came and sat next to me for a chat. The whole time I was speaking to her I thought "at least I can write a blog about this"

So I don't know about you, but I kind of thought the rules of making small talk were "not in a sexual health clinic" but maybe that is just British rules, because this lady (who was Greek) came over and sat right next to me. I'm used to a baby invited more conversation than normal, but you don't start a conversation with "aww he's so cute, is he a he? he is 3 months old?" not when the baby is 8 months old. I don't mind that you can't judge the age of a baby correctly, but if you can't get near why bother trying. she then went on to tell me my baby was a Vergo and therefore red would be his colour and he would be very connected to the earth.

If you are going to make small talk in a sexual health clinic... MAJOR RULE: DON'T ASK SOMEONE WHY THEY'RE THERE!! luckily it was just to get more of the pill so I answered honestly. I didn't ask back though, two wrongs don't make a right. She told me anyway. She was in because a game of Uno has gone wrong. You know Uno the card game where you match the colours or the numbers. She played Uno with a friend who suggested that the loser would have to drink vinegar, and it turns out drinking vinegar makes you feel bad. "I don't think they deal with that here" I said. but she said it was also a doctors too. She knew because "I heard people coughing, and I thought...that's not a symptom of gonorrhoea"

Aww she was actually a lovely lady and made that hour and a half wait a little bit less dull.

The pill is like the worst advent calendar ever. Even worst than the ones we used to have as children that didn't have chocolate in

P.s There's probably a load of mistakes in this because Dan isn't here to proof read- sorry.

Funny Quotes of the Year

I wanted to get one more blog done this year to bring the total to an unimpressive 21. Joint lowest with 2014. Surprise surprise both years I gave birth in. Last blog was semi serious so this blog is going to be all the silly things my 3 year old has said this year.

Last year my sister Sarah made me a tea towel with his best quotes on, in 2016 he was between the ages of 14 and 28 months he was just learning to talk, so grammatically they weren't fully formed, but he's quite a chatter. So when he wanted me to wrap him in a blanket he said "Blanket the Percy" or when he wanted me to change his nappy: "Tidy the pooed"
My favourite for that year was when he described his first experience of death: "Woodlouse, OH NO, Harriet stamping"

He has continued to expand his knowledge of death... We were making a family tree and as we drew on his 3 great grandparents I mentioned the 5 dead ones, it's important for him to know about death right? Anyway he seemed ok with it all until a week or so later when we went to visit Dan's parents and over dinner with no context whatsoever he just came out with "Grandpa when you get old then you die" It was an awkward moment but grandpa took it well, it is true we just don't like to say it as adults.

His language has developed a lot this year to the point where he is almost a normal person, with just a few grammatical errors, like he always says "why can I can't" instead of just "why can't I" and a few words he pronounces with the wrong amount of syllables like "Sligh-te-ly" but he does come out with a few words that I'm like where did you pick that up? One day he told me he was "very competent" at jigsaws.

This year Percy wrote all the jokes in our crackers, things like:
"What do you call a pig with no legs? ...A lying down pig!"
and this twist on a classic:  "Doctor doctor I feel like the curtains are closed. open them any time."

So 2017 brought some cute quotes:
"do you want to be a dancer when you grow up?" "I'm a dancer now!"
some weird quotes: "Hello willy how are you today?"
some facts: "poo is yucky, wee is a bit nicer"
and some surreal ones: "the polar bear wants to eat his fish finger up-side-down"

So here are the top 2017 Percy quotes that made it to the tea towel:

Some of them take a bit more explaining like "that's just food-chicken" is the moment that Percy found out that chickens that we see at farms and chickens that we eat are the same thing.

And "I want a step mum" I was momentarily broken hearted, but turns out he just wanted the step.

Probably my favourite was when he recently described having a brother and a doll
"We have two babies, one made out of plastic and one made out of real"

love him

If you want to follow more funny quotes search #percyquotes on twitter or follow @comedyhan

If you want to get beautiful personalised gifts like this tea towel, check out Sarah Joy

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

A Letter To Myself

This time last year I wrote a not very happy blog. It was about how my parents were struggling to write their annual christmas boasting letter, a lot of things were up in the air for them, and I had had a difficult year too, being pregnant and homeless (not really homeless on the street...read more here if you're wondering.)

Well 2017 has been good to us, and things are no longer "up in the air" for me and my parents things are solidly down on the ground as we have both bought new houses this year. we moved into our house in February and then in May I gave birth to baby Eric.

2016 = Pregnant and homeless

2017 = New house New baby.

In fact it was Jo who didn't get a mention on the christmas letter this year... she just been working hard as a doctor this year with no major life changes. - You'll have to do better than that if you want a mention in the christmas letter Jo.

A previous conversation between my parents:
Dad- do you think Jo will mind that she didn't really get a mention?

Mum- No! they don't compare themselves like that

Dad- Hannah will.

So anyway this was meant to be a blog about how thankful I am to be where I am now in life compared to how 2016 ended.

When we were packing down the christmas decorations that we'd put up in our room last year I wrote a little note to myself and put in one of the tiny drawers of our wooden advent calendar, and forgot about it. At the end of November we had just bought a christmas tree and got the christmas box down from the loft when I came across the note I had written.

I cried a genuine tear.

I should point out that 2016 wasn't all bad, living with the Langston family had many advantages and we really enjoyed the summer there with their massive garden. But the uncertainty of not knowing how long we would be there, and getting caught up in what turned out to be a complicated house sale while also experiencing morning sickness was a bit too much at times. We sort of joked that we were were homeless, but obviously we weren't... we were just experiencing "housing based uncertainty" which is like 1% of the problems a real homeless person faces. So it got me thinking about real homelessness.

So far in life I've not had much luck helping the homeless, me and Dan once baked some cakes to give out to homeless people, and then one time me and my friend Helen befriended a Romanian homeless woman, we chatted to her whenever we saw her and sometimes gave her things. Once she told us she needed new shoes. So Helen said "lets go shopping" we wondered around St. Johns shopping centre pointing out cheap but practical trainers but she chose a pair of sparkly strappy sandals, which we awkwardly bought. That was a weird day.

So in November we had a Thankfulness Brunch. I provided a load of food and then people generously donated money to the Whitechapel centre, a Liverpool homeless charity. We made a thankfulness tree where we wrote things we were thankful for.

...and we made a den for the kids. Thanks to everyone who came. x

I loved getting excited about christmas this year, Percy is particularly interested in snow. Despite having never seen it, he likes to pretend that he is sledging, and he loves talking about snowmen. He's decided that he wants to live in Antartica when he's a grown up and has plans to take all of us and transport our house to Antartica. While in Antatrica he want to get a job as someone who fixes screwdrivers. He's a strange child.

So we were really excited when it when we heard it was going to snow here, I went out and bought a sledge in anticipation. Unfortunatly only a tiny bit of snow reached us. 

Trying to make the most of Liverpool's disappointing snow.

But I was determined to show him some snow. We got on twitter and searched the trending hashtag #uksnow to try and find the nearest place with deep snow and a hill. We ended up going just south of Delamere. 

I'm so glad we did it, it was magical...but if you're looking at this thinking "oh I would love to have children and do these wonderful things", you should also know it involved an hour of packing a spare outfit and snacks for everyone. And a good 5 or 10 minutes of crying at the end when we were trying to get into the car and get warm. Plus it had to be arranged around nap times and feeding times. All this for half an hour of fun before the boys got too cold. It was worth it though.

Merry Christmas from the Joneses.

2 kids or 3?

It's a big decision and one we probably won't be making for a while, but it's in my head quite a lot. Stick at 2, or go for 3? Before we had any we talked about wanting 3, then after Percy was born we thought maybe 2 would be enough. Hardly anyone sticks at one do they, I wonder why? We never even considered sticking at one, but the two or three debate seems to be a big one. There are a few things that are pretty much decided.

-If one of us (me or Dan) isn't fully onboard with having 3 it's a no.
-If we go for 3, the gap will have to be bigger than last time, at least 3 years.
-3 is the max (unless twins) after 3 we will be taking long lasting, drastic and permanent contraception solutions.

So given these provisos this is the for and against a third baby:

Sticking at 2.

• No more morning sickness, no more stretching my belly, no more doctors choping at my bits to get a baby out.
• In 3 years time Percy will be in school and Eric will qualify for 30 free hours of nursery if I'm working.
• We will fit in a normal car.
• In a couple of years we could go on a family holiday without taking nappies and a travel cot and a pram.
• I'm much more likely to be able to do interesting things with my life, like take a show to Edinburgh, have a slight career change, have a shower in peace.
• If the boys share a room we will still have a spare room.
• I might get to sleep though the night one day soon.
• I could start saving for a pension.
• A newborn and a toddler is really hard, you're basically always ignoring one of them. Before Percy started nursery I am happy to admit I was only just on the edge of coping and mainly not enjoying it. So for now we are paying £68 per week for a day a half of nursery until it becomes free in January. That's why if we did have another the gap would need to be a bit bigger or we'd need to be a lot richer.
• I could wear my full wardrobe again, not just breast feeding friendly cloths.
• It's easier for other families to invite you round when you're a family of four.
• Everything is made for families of 4.
• I have 2 hands, not 3.
• The average cost of raising a child in the uk is £229000!
• It's better for the environment (I'm not that bothered tbh but that is an argument some people like to make).
• No one has to be the middle child. two boys seems like a simpler dynamic than 3 boys or 2 boys and a girl.
• With a sweaty cycling husband, a pukey baby and a potty training toddler we already do and average of one clothes wash a day. I'm not sure I can take more than that. 
• So far I've been lucky enough not to suffer a miscarriage or post natal depression. Both very common and something I've worried about, if I stop now I won't have to experience either.
• I heard it said by more than one person "after your third your body never goes back".
• We went to a church sale once and I bought children's chairs to upcycle, I only got 2.
  
• A bit controversial this one: we've are so lucky to have two healthy lovely boys maybe we should quit while we're ahead.
• The 3rd child could be twins!
• When my sisters have kids I can be in that smug no nappies phase.
• Tory britain and their silly anti-3 child policy.
• If we have a 3rd child they may one day find this blog and feel unloved.

Having a 3rd

My mum with us 3 sisters.

• I'm one of 3 and it just feels like the right number for a family sometimes.
• Two is the most boring number of children you can have. I hope this doesn't offend the many wonderful parents of 2 children, but the parents of 3 mainly seem a bit more fun.
• Screw you Tories!
• Percy is the cutest big brother and he has said he wants "a dog and some sisters"
• I might be able to have a baby at roughly the same time one of my sisters has a baby and be on maternity leave together.
• As someone with 2 sisters it feels weird to have not had a girl, so if we have a 3rd obviously there's a chance I would be mum to a girl. I think I'm ok with being a mum to 3 boys too so it wouldn't be like we're just trying for a girl.
• Chance of having grandchildren greatly increases. I think depending on your age when you have kids there always a good 20% or 30% chance that your child won't have children. Like, they might not want children, or not find a partner, be gay, not be able to have kids, or maybe they go and live in Australia, or they get divorced and don't see their child much, or they die before having kids. You never imagine your child will get divorced or die before having children, but these things are all possibilities. With two kids you've got a good chance of having grandchildren but 3 obviously increases your chances, you'd be quite unlucky to have 3 kids and no grandchildren.
• When I was 8 my parents told me they were having another baby, until this point I never considered that to be a possibility. Most of my friends just had one sibling and so I was really thrilled to have an extra one.
• Being old enough to remember a baby in the family was really cool.
• I feel like you are more likely to regret not having 3 than having 3 because you will know and love the third.

A compomise
We might consider fostering or adoption one day, if we stuck at just two biological children. Probably not adopting a baby, although that sounds like a nice thing to do I would feel a bit mean, because I can't be bothered going through pregnancy and birth again I'm taking a pre-made baby that could have gone to a couple that can't have babies. I think I would be more likely to adopt a more difficult to place 5 year old or whatever.

I think what it all boils down too is the choice between enjoying my 30s, getting back into work, going on a holiday and being more relaxed about money, but maybe feeling a bit of "What if?"

Or: having a difficult decade of a million nappies and 60 times that a baby is teething, but maybe enjoying a new family dynamic, a bit more chaos, a bit more fun, a bit less normal. And eventually reaching a point where they are all in school and we can relax a tiny bit.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this one.

Percy Turns 3

We've just had the most amazing day celebrating Percy's 3rd birthday! I feel a bit emosh. I really wanted it to be special because he spent his first birthday in hospital with pneumonia, and although his second birthday was lovely, it was quite a stressful life stage of being pregnant, trying to buy a house while living with another family, and I had a vomiting bug the day before.

So this year was going to be the "normal" year when we're in our own house as a family of four, doing a nice party with lovely friends. Saturday night was the peak of my stress, with Eric having an unknown illness and jelly just not setting! (btw Hartleys blue sparkly jelly will not set over a layer of Hartleys green regular jelly, and Eric's fine.) It would be so easy to organise a kids party if you didn't have kids slowing you down.

We had a pirate theme. So we decorated the house with Somalian flags and when the children came: locked them up and wrote ransom notes. Just kidding, not that kind of pirate... the friendly imaginary kind! I went a bit mental with the pirate stuff. There was pirate facepainting, pirate tattoos, pirate stickers, pirate bunting, pin the eye patch on the pirate, musical pirates (similar to musical statues) I could go on...

My parents old unwanted charts came in handy and I enjoyed decorating our photos.

I saw some great pass the parcel tactics. Firstly just hold on to the parcel till it's so awkward that someone stops the music; nice one Harriet. Or the best one, join the game at the end when everyone has received sweets and so the only thing left to win is the main prize which then has to go to you; genius Jessica! I asked Percy who won pass the parcel and he said "everyone" so that was nice.

A lot of people came! We have become a family of four since last birthday and so have a lot of our friends, so you only really need two families to have a full house. I think we had 8 families and us!

We didn't have any extended family (too little room, we're having a separate thing for them next weekend) and at the end of the party the God parents (plus Jenn, minus Lydia) came for a more grown up hang out.

Percy was super excited, when he's in a good mood he's the cutest kid ever. An hour after going to bed last night he woke up saying "am I 3 yet?" but when he actually got up and came into our room I sang happy birthday to him and he said "is it my birthday today?" Then he was really excited to see all the pirate decorations everywhere and the cake. He demanded to cut it like they do at weddings.

I loved seeing him open his presents. He's not got to the stage of just opening and then moving on to the next one yet so everything he opened he wanted to play with straight away. which was really nice, and also the reason most of his presents are still unopened. We got him extra bits towards his favourite toys, so extra train track with lots of junctions and an emily train (from Thomas the Tank Engine) and a big Duplo base. He also received from Jenn, a Brio train with batteries, that goes by itself both forward and backward! He went mental for that. We made a simple circle and he just kept making it go forward and then back again and giggling.

He had a slightly strange reaction to Rachel's beautiful hand made elephant. He did a weird noise and when we asked if he was ok he said "the elephant is crying because he misses his family" clever way to manipulate people into knitting more stuff for you Percy. Luckily we found another elephant toy to be his family.

I can't believe we've got a 3 year old. But I'm also genuinely blown away by how many wonderful friends we have and how lucky we are. Considering last year I was pregnant and homeless, I feel so blessed to have a lovely house and a healthy baby. If fact now would be a good time to announce I'm going to have a thanksgiving brunch on November 25th, the Saturday after American Thanksgiving, to raise money for the Whitechapel Centre who work with actual real homeless people, not just people like us who were a bit between houses living with friends.

Happy 3rd Bithday Percy Samuel Jones

Awkward haircuts and trolling

Hey there,

The keen readers/stalkers among you will realise I've had my hair cut. I didn't massively want it cut but Eric pulling it has been annoying. Plus Percy said "mummy your hair looks like a horrible waterfall" what even is a horrible waterfall? I always find having my hair cut socially awkward because I don't know what the etiquette is and what you're supposed to say. When I was growing up my hairdresser was also my driving instructor so he just asked me driving theory questions which was weird but at least not socially awkward.

The hairdresser made it more weird:
I said "I want to get my hair cut short"
Hairdresser: "There are lots of different kinds of short"
Me: "Just do whatever you think, I promise I wont be annoyed"
(She started cutting it)
Hairdresser: "So do you like getting your hair cut?"
I think 'No because its socially awkward'...I knew saying that would make it socially awkward but I didn't know what to say the best I could come up with was:

"Not really, it's a bit of a chore...I suppose it's better than going to the dentist"

The highlight of yesterday was getting a tweet from Marks and Spencer's. Oh and seeing a lovely friend Joy who I haven't seen for 2 years. We once tried smoking dried parsley together, and that is a true mark of friendship.

So Percy got this top as a pass-on from a friend it features gorilla riding a motorbike ...and he had a good question about it:

It's not the first time I've tweeted a company. Twitter trolling is sort of my hobby.

Percy is going to be 3 a week tomorrow, he's going to have a pirate themed party. And Eric is 5 and a half months. He's just got his first tooth and we've started trying him on food. 

Aww they're growing up so quickly...while simultaniously not growing up quickly enough. They're totally adorable but they would be slightly more adorable if Percy learnt to poo in a toilet and Eric learnt to sleep.

This blog was a bit random, sorry.

Next blog will be about the pros and cons of sticking at 2 kids or going for 3. 

A New Outlet

Hello, I've not written for a little while, I found another creative outlet for my life stories. I realised I always need to have one.  I got them out in my blog when I started it in 2009 and then when I started doing stand up in 2012 I'd save my best jokes for that. But now I can't even get out of the house to do stand up, I've found a new outlet....

This time last year it was the Liverpool Comedy Festival and I did my big one hour show, which was so much fun. I loved seeing all the other acts too and went to as many things as possible, even though I was really sick from being in the early stages of pregnancy. A year on and that same baby is causing more chaos by refusing any kind of routine or taking a bottle. Maybe he just hates comedy. I feel gutted not to be part of it this year and if you're a comedian friend of mine, I really do want to see your show :(

So this is what I started doing instead of stand up... sketches. It all started when I was eating some noodles while holding Baby Eric and he proceeded to puke into my bowl. It was very gross but also kind of funny and I wondered "how can I turn this into a positive?" Then I drew it:

And yes, if you're wondering, I really did eat almost all of the noodles left in the bowl. Then I thought maybe this could be "a thing", like a thing I did regularly that made depressing moments like this a little less depressing. I remembered a moment from a few weeks back and drew it:

Then a few days later I was in a play cafe with my two boys and some other mums and their kids, and they both told me funny potty training stories which I have now drawn. So now I've got a Facebook page and an Instagram account for Mum Sketch and a list of 4 or 5 more ideas that have been sent to me to draw, some by friends and some by strangers. I've also come up with some hopefully funny but possibly borderline offensive Christmas card designs which I'm excited to share at some point.

I'm going to try and get better at drawing too. It's not like I've never done art before, but this style is not really my thing. Slightly abstract collages of depressing but vibrant urban landscapes seemed to become my thing for a while. People is something I stayed away from (artistically): they're hard! Mainly because you can tell if it's wrong, unlike slightly abstract depressing but vibrant landscape collages. 

Hands and thumbs are the hardest, especially when people are holding things and faces, especially chins, they get confusing.

So if you want to see these sketches and laugh at silly parenting moments, or send me suggestions, this is the Facebook page and this is the Instagram page.

In other news Percy has finally started nursery! Wahoo! He's not going to get it free until January. Boohoo. But I really need a bit of a break in the week. Having just one baby is so easy... apart from when it's your first and then it's the hardest thing in the world. I guess the only way to make life now feel easy would be to adopt a 3rd child for a few months and then give it back. Kind of like the tale of the wise man who tells a woman who thinks her house is too small to take in a load of animals. Then when she gets rid of them her house feels big. It's weird advice really, I'd say consider an extension, or some ikea storage before taking in a goat but I am not a wise old man.

Percy loves nursery. He just goes a day and a half a week but he's already picking up new things...like I overheard him saying "sorry babe" to his duplo giraffe. He definitely didn't get that phrase from me!

This is him after the first day, he came home saying it was great. I am really proud of him, he's coped with so much change. Since February last year he's moved house from a massive house with a family of 5, another lodger and us to just us in a new bit of Liverpool, he's moved from a cot to a bed, then his baby brother arrived in May, his Godmother Rachel lived with us off and on in June and July, Auntie Sarah moved in in August and we started potty training him, and now he's started at his new nursery.

He's working hard to try and make sense of this confusing world we live in. He's just grasping the concept that he was once a baby and before that he was in my tummy. But he assumed that as he was once a baby like Eric that Eric used to be a big boy like him. He's also very confused about where he was before he was in my tummy. He's seen photos of me and Dan on holiday years before he was born and asked "If I wasn't in the tummy, who was looking after me then?"
I tried to explain that he was nowhere, he didn't exist and after a lot of thought (mainly about snowmen) he asked "was I melted?"

Love him.