Alan Watters is dad to Caleb – the three-year-old boy who was rescued from the River Lee in Cork yesterday. Caleb was walking with the family Au Pair, Anna, who was also pushing Caleb’s younger sister Lucia (18 months) in a buggy by the banks of the River Lee. The unthinkable happened when Caleb broke […]

11 years ago

I was due to fly out to Prague with my parents on the day of the vote for Marriage Equality in Ireland. We had booked the flights before the date to vote was called and I struggled briefly with what to do. As the date drew nearer, the fight got really dirty. I have been […]

11 years ago

I have been watching the details of this case with a bit of enforced distance, because it is so, so gruesome. A now 12 year-old boy has been in court with his biological parents, accusing them of sexual abuse and gross child neglect, from the time that he was 6 years of age. The part […]

11 years ago

If you have an attic space in your home, the chances are that, like me, you will have used it as a secret hiding space for years.  Christmas decorations, buggies, old calendars and diaries, photos that you swear you will put into frames some day, bags of baby clothes you cannot bear to part with… […]

11 years ago

Whether you are packing your maternity bag for the first or fifth time, you always seem to remember things after the fact that might have been helpful. When I had my first child, I brought every single item on every list I ever read, and then I packed a few extra things – just to be […]

11 years ago

“If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, then you don’t understand it yourself” – Einstein If you visit Naomi Lavelle’s website, that quote will greet you from the homepage, and it really encapsulates the approach that Naomi has taken with her hugely successful business, ‘Dr. How’s Science Wows’. Living in Galway with husband Diarmaid […]

11 years ago

I can be fairly changeable about this particular topic, depending on how the previous night went. For example, some days, you will hear me wail; ‘Both kids were in the bed by morning, AND the dog. I actually slept upside-down on one fifteenth of my own mattress!’ And other days, you will hear me happily […]

11 years ago

We love chatting with other down-to-earth mums who really ‘get it’ when it comes to juggling parenthood, work, relationships all the while trying to maintain a sense of humour – and Anna Daly is most definitely one of those mums. When she’s not prepping for and hosting the increasingly successful Weekend AM on Tv3, she […]

11 years ago

With iPhone in hand in the wee hours of the morning when I should be asleep, I have been silently observing a really gorgeous trend on Instagram.. the wedding cape. In place of the traditional veil, the wedding cape is elegant, dramatic and completely bad-ass. Wearing a cape up the aisle is a major rebel […]

11 years ago

Many families reach the point where they need their kids to share a room for one reason or another. Perhaps there is a new baby coming and so the older siblings need to make room; maybe there was no option to begin with other than to have mum and dad in one room and the […]

11 years ago

Well, we did it. It has been four months of stress, losing things, ups and downs with the builders, each other and my long-suffering parents whose house we commandeered but – we’ve moved back into our home, complete with new extension. With two small kids in tow (41/2 and almost 2!), the process has been […]

11 years ago

I know, I KNOW – as if being pregnant wasn’t tricky enough, what with the swollen feet, random strangers being really over-familiar and annoying and oh god, the hell that is morning sickness. And now, I give you another (teeny but very irritating) thing to worry about – pregnancy haemorrhoids. What is a haemorrhoid? A haemorrhoid […]

11 years ago

The ceremony of my sister-in-law’s wedding in London five years ago was one of THE best I have ever attended. Yes, the church was divine – yes, the bride and groom were totally gorgeous, the ceremony beautifully sentimental and yes, the vows were sincere and adorable. But that isn’t quite the main reason that it […]

11 years ago

Despite my greatest intention to send my non-christened children to a non-denominational school, the best option available to our family was for a small Catholic school that Jacob will attend, starting this September. The school is lovely; his class will be made up of only 18 other kids, I have met the principal and secretary […]

11 years ago

I am SO allergic to the gym. I have tried to be a gym bunny SO hard – with every country or house move over the last twenty years, I have joined the local gym with the express intention of visiting it three times a week WITHOUT FAIL. But fail I did, and despite knowing […]

11 years ago

I would consider myself to be a bit of a chicken pox expert. You see, I had them when I was 29. Oh yes, the real chicken pox, and not the shingles, as everyone asks when I tell them the story. ‘But didn’t you have them as a kid?’ they’ll enquire. And this is the […]

11 years ago

This is seriously the most beautiful and moving video I have watched in a long time. Dad Luis, from Mexico, brought his young autistic son to see his favourite ever band, Coldplay, performing live for the first time. Just watch – the emotion that the boy feels in hearing the music, his joy in hearing […]

11 years ago

Oh, sweet holy Mother Mary – this is the movie I’ve been waiting for! Fans of Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley in Absolutely Fabulous have long awaited the movie version of the amazing hit comedy TV series. Well, wait no more because it is due to hit the big screens this July! If that’s way […]

11 years ago

Leigh Arnold is an Irish actress, TV personality  blogger and – mot importantly – mum to Hunter (3) and Piper Rose (6 months). She is the proud patron of First Light – a charity organisation committed to helping parents and families who have been bereaved by the sudden and tragic loss of a child. We get up pretty […]

11 years ago

We are fed up with the lawn at the front of our house – fed up, I tells ya! It is really awkward to cut the grass because the ground is so uneven and there’s a small stone birdbath in the middle of the lawn on one side. We originally thought we might pave the […]

11 years ago

A friend recently had a baby and we were thrilled to be on ‘The Text List’ to hear the good news soon after he was born. I was dying to see a pic of the little man so that I could have my mandatory cry over his cuteness. As we all do these days, I […]

11 years ago

Being a woman sucks sometimes… le sigh. We just have so much ‘maintenance’ going on – bras, hair appointments, waxing, plucking, threading, shaving, nail painting, HAVING THE PERFECT EYEBROWS (I’m failing at that one every day) and of course, dealing with periods. Pads, tampons, moon cups, fat pants, back pain, tummy pain, sore boobs, headaches, […]

11 years ago

G’wan the girls! If you are a fan of Britain’s Got Talent, then you will have seen the fabulous performance from the Presentation School Choir in Kilkenny. Lead by their choral director Veronica Mccarran (who Simon clearly fancied!), the 57 girls (aged 14-18) absolutely killed it with superb vocals and really impressive choreography. The song they […]

11 years ago

I have just been reminded with a jolt that it is Census Night, so I am passing my jolt straight over to you! The reason it is far from my mind is that our living situation is odd at the moment – we are living in my parents house while we have work done at […]

11 years ago

When I was a kid, I learned how to do a french plait on a horse’s tail. True story. When my partner Alan was a kid, he learned how to do a french plait because he has nine sisters. Also a true story. But for a lot of blokes, learning how to perfect a bun […]

11 years ago

If you are a medical card holder, you will be pleased to hear that emergency contraception is far more accessible to you. In ‘Old Ireland’, the only way a medical card holder could get the morning after pill was with a prescription from their GP or to pay for it outright at the chemist. Now, […]

11 years ago

Ok, ‘fess up – WAS IT YOU? If it WAS you, will you go halvsies with us? Ok, not halvsies, that’s way too much – how about 10%? Ok, FECK it, we’ll settle for two bottles of Prosecco and a fiver. Can you imagine waking up today and realising that you were officially a millionaire? […]

11 years ago

A bereaved family in San Diego, California, are coming to terms with the death of their three-day-old baby after their pet dog attacked him. It is reported by ABC News that the parents were lying in bed at home with their newborn son and two-year-old pet, a neutered American Staffordshire terrier-mix, nearby. This type of dog is […]

11 years ago

All kids will tell little fibs from time to time. There are the little white lies; ‘I didn’t hit my sister’ (when you’ve clearly just seen him hit his sister). There are the ones that cause problems; ‘I DID wipe my bum!’ (when you can see them scratching their bum and you know that they […]

11 years ago

“Ow, my back!” If you were (un)lucky enough to live with or anywhere near me over the past five years, you’d have heard me say ‘Ow, my back’ approximately 74,000 times. There was the weakness from carrying babies to term, post-epidural pains, pulled muscles from yanking buggies and carseats around the place and all the […]

11 years ago

As mother to a sneaky nose-picking four-year-old, we’ve had our fair share of nose-picking-related issues in our house. Last year, Jacob developed Impetigo which was completely gross and forced him out of pre-school until it cleared up because it is so contagious. We’ve had several hundred discussions and a few arguments about keeping his fingers out of […]

11 years ago

As I slowly but surely reach the end of my 30’s (tell anyone and you’re off the Christmas card list), that ole question remains looming overhead; ‘Should we have any more kids?’ We decided that we were done after our second child came along, happy to have been fortunate enough to have two healthy kids […]

11 years ago

You know that space under the stairs – the place where you chuck the vacuum cleaner, that collection of plastic shopping bags and the half-tin of paint that has gone grey? And then there’s that awkward space down the back, where the bottom steps of the staircase sit, and you can’t access it at all […]

11 years ago

Splutter, sniff, sniff, splutter… Sorry, that’s just us recovering from watching this amazing video recently published by the lads over at JOE.ie. The 5-year-old in question is Robbie McMahon – aka the cutest kid we have ever seen – who is living with Williams Syndrome. Williams Syndrome is a rare genetic disorder which is characterized by […]

11 years ago

I am lucky that I have my mum in my life. I say that for many reasons; because she’s actually so cool and warm and wonderful is the obvious one. Because she has not batted one eyelid over the fact that me, my partner, our two kids and our dog have been ‘temporarily’ living in […]

11 years ago

You know that parent who has the perfect Instagram account? You know her, she’s the one who takes her time perfecting each shot so that her account is all dreamy, wistful and in perfect hues of *coughs* ‘filtered’. She is fully made-up, she is pouting and she is in a fab location, wearing the nicest, […]

11 years ago

My son Jacob is four going on, you know, TEENAGER. One minute, he’s the most adorable little boy, whispering in my ear that he loves me more than anyone, even grandad (and that’s a lot) and the next, he’s roaring at my that he loves me ‘Zero!’ because I’ve asked him to get dressed. Often […]

11 years ago

I would like to give all my single parenting friends a medal. No, maybe a party. Maybe a party in their honour during which they would receive a medal. And a surprise – maybe a voucher for a nice meal somewhere, or a night away some place relaxing. Because I honestly don’t know how they […]

11 years ago

Quite simply put, we love nothing more than surprises and musical performances combined. There’s nothing like seeing a gang of mates who have rehearsed hard to make your wedding absolutely unforgettable.. ..and if they opt to do that through the medium of song and dance AND while wearing kilts, then we are so completely down […]

11 years ago

I have a Hailo account and so does my partner Alan. We used to use it all the time. Whenever we’d be late for work or nipping into town for a night out, we’d just click on that fabulous little App and book our friendly taxi driver to the door. ‘It’s on the account!’ I’d […]

11 years ago

Three families in Canada have issued legal proceedings against a US-based sperm bank company called Xytex. According to Sky News, it is alleged that the families were advised that the particular sperm donor they had chosen was a ‘genius’. The families say they are outraged because the company told them that the donor in question was […]

11 years ago

As our kids grow up, we expect that they will develop the necessary skills to express themselves. As parents, we are taught to encourage our children to identify their feelings and discuss them with us, rather than lash out in anger or frustration. We hope that will form the basis for any emotional difficulties they […]

11 years ago

Toddlers are great at many things – their skills include block building, singing the incorrect words to really simple songs (adorable) and falling asleep mid-sentence. But their MAIN skill, in my humble opinion, is their need to pee at ridiculous and mostly hugely inconvenient moments. Here are my top 21: 1. Before you leave the […]

11 years ago

The concept of ‘The Fourth Trimester’ is probably new to you – as a woman who has had two babies I must admit – it’s new to me too. Well, not entirely. There are some elements of the philosophy around The Fourth Trimester that I naturally engaged when my babies were born, but there are […]

11 years ago

Gah, the broodiness! It creeps up on you when you’re not looking – when you’ve just gotten your figure back, gotten past the super busy ‘small baby’ phase, had your first weekend away together in five years or just gotten your finances back on track. You think you’re ok and have decided, firmly and with […]

11 years ago

We parents may complain about different elements of our parenting lives but there is one thing that seems to be a common denominator for most: never getting to pee alone. My two kids – and sometimes, dog – just love following me into the loo. It used to be just our dog, Pearl, in our […]

11 years ago

I am the go-to Dublin Northsider at HerFamily.ie and that’s ok with me. I answer questions such as “Is ‘in me flowers’ a thing?” (it is), “What’s the name of that shopping centre with the Drive Thru McDonalds near Ikea?” (Airside) and “Where do you think you’re going with my handbag?!” (joke) I really started […]

11 years ago

As our gorgeous Norwegian colleague Trine is off on honeymoon (yes, it was the most perfect wedding day of all time, ever), I will share the latest fabulous news from Norway in her absence. Today, delegates from the country’s Lutheran church voted 88-32 in favour of allowing same-sex marriage in their churches. According to Norway’s national […]

11 years ago

Yes, I realise that is quite a major statement, but I actually believe it to be true. Leslie Marie is mum to six-week old twins, a boy and a girl. On Leslie’s Facebook page, she writes; “I heard my 6 week old crying while I was in the other room but then he quickly stopped. […]

11 years ago

If you are about to become a parent for the first time, congratulations! You have probably been busy asking lots of friends and family that you trust for advice on what being a first-time parent will really feel like. There are a tonne of books, websites (this one is the best, natch) and online forums […]

11 years ago