I’ve lived without love for 1,629 days now. In the early days, hope for a more *real* love sprung forth from the release of “it’s” grip. A love which caused so much pain can’t be true love, can it? Now I could dream big. Four and a half years later, and the mirage of hope…
Articles by Ellamental Mama
Online Dating: Mind The (Age) Gap
Or as I prefer to call it, fucking online dating. I’m back in the hell hole that is swiping, profiles and dickpics. Actually, to be fair I’ve never received an unsolicited dickpic. (I’ve also never received a solicited one, mainly because I’ve never solicited one). Anyway, back to reality. These are the issues I have…
14 Real Life Tips For Bonding with Baby
Trigger warning: traumatic birth and baby bonding. It’s rare that I write an advice peace, I’m no expert after all. However, there’s a few experiences I’ve gone through which, when I’ve turned to google or others, I’ve found the advice severely lacking, or unhelpful. Experts who haven’t experienced the challenges they write about, often don’t…
My Writing In Review: 2018
2018 hasn’t been quite as busy writing wise as 2017 was; thirty posts, not including this one. I did make a baby though, so it’s not too bad going. The year started with a post about new years resolutions – a promise to myself to be a little more selfish when it came to who…
Christmas: The time of giving
I’m not much of a religious being, but I am political and I’ve been feeling quite political of late. Maybe it’s all the stories of how in the UK – a country with the fifth largest economy in the world – rough sleepers have increased 169% since 2010 (not including all the other types of…
A Family of Three: Six Months On
Somehow, my baby is six months already. Six months. Six months of parenting two and I’m not sure what to say. I read other posts about such milestones. They focus on the ups and downs of the baby and child bonding, of the conflicts of loving two littles, and of the exhaustion of doing it…
Adjusting to life with two children
Adjusting to two children as a one parent family is like fighting to reach the end of one of those bungee jump runs; with the tension running both ways. I could analyse the whys and wherefores of my struggle to bond with the baby. How thinking my baby was taken at birth placed a barrier between…
Birth – the untold story
Content warning. This post talks openly about a traumatic birth and some readers may find this triggering. There are some support links at the end of the post. I want to talk about birth. Not the airbrushed, publicised, perfect birth. The un-sanitised, unspoken, unseen. I want to unleash the truth of my son’s birth; expel it…
Grief: when your friend dies
Content warning: this post talks openly about death, grief and depression. It may be triggering for some readers. You’ve been gone from this world for one week, but you left mine long ago. It’s months since we were in touch, years since we spoke, and longer since I last feasted my eyes on you.…
When Your Child Needs Glasses
It was the third time of asking that the optician managed to get a sense of my son’s prescription. The first time he’d hated having an eye patch on and barely responded to the questions. I had suggested he might not be able to see the shapes but the optician insisted he could (it being the…