I couldn’t wait to get stuck into the second book of my summer challenge! Having read the first two in the series I was expecting great things from this one. Did it live up to the expectation? Let’s find out….
I’m wondering how many more f*cking ‘phases’ I have to endure before my children become civilised and functioning members of society? It seems like people have been telling me ‘it’s just a phase!’ for the last fifteen bloody years. Not sleeping through the night is ‘just a phase.’ Potty training and the associated accidents ‘is just a phase’. The tantrums of the terrible twos are ‘just a phase’. The picky eating, the back chat, the obsessions. The toddler refusals to nap, the teenage inability to leave their beds before 1pm without a rocket being put up their arse. The endless singing of Frozen songs, the dabbing, the weeks where apparently making them wear pants was akin to child torture. All ‘just phases!’ When do the ‘phases’ end though? WHEN?
Mummy dreams of a quirky rural cottage with roses around the door and chatty chickens in the garden. Life, as ever, is not going quite as she planned. Paxo, Oxo and Bisto turn out to be highly rambunctious, rather than merely chatty, and the roses have jaggy thorns. Her precious moppets are now giant teenagers, and instead of wittering at her about who would win in a fight – a dragon badger or a ninja horse – they are Snapchatting the night away, stropping around the tiny cottage and communicating mainly in grunts – except when they are demanding Ellen provides taxi services in the small hours. And there is never, but never, any milk in the house. At least the one thing they can all agree on is that rescued Barry the Wolfdog may indeed be The Ugliest Dog in the World, but he is also the loveliest.
This is the 3rd instalment of the Why Mummy series and if you’ve been following me for a while you will know that I am a big fan. Having become a mother myself in the last few years the first book in the series helped me through those early morning feeds when sleep seemed like a long way away. Gill Sims helped to keep me sane!
Before sitting down to read this book I prepared myself for the tears that would follow, I was ready to laugh the night way with Ellen’s funny anecdotes whilst desperately trying not to pee myself! You won’t be surprised to hear that the tears did fall however, this time they weren’t tears of joy.
Gill Sims has taken an unexpected turn with her third book and whilst there are still some laugh out loud moments (all of which happened to occur when I was reading this book in public) she has shown the realistic truth of being a parent. Ellen may still drink like a fish and swear like a trooper but this was a story of Ellen adjusting to life as a single parent. I found myself crying for Ellen on more than one occasion and couldn’t help but feel sympathy towards her.
As Always Jane and Peter are on full form and with two boys of my own I am now considering buying myself my own fridge, with a padlock, just so I don’t starve! Seriously how can boys eat so much? The usually gang are all there too with their crazy ways of helping. I have to admit I love Sam just a little bit more, he is quite possibly the best friend a girl could ask for!
Please don’t think that this is a grab the tissues and cry your heart out read because whilst you may cry tears of sadness there is plenty of joy and laughter to be had in this book. If anything it has made me love Gill Sim’s writing even more and this is probably the quickest I have read any of her books so this has to get nothing less than 5*’s from me. I really, really hope there is another book in the pipeline because I can’t imagine my reading world without my yearly dose of Ellen and her moppets.
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