Okay so let’s get one thing straight. I’m about to talk MOJO and by MOJO I’m not implying those assorted flavour chews. I mean self-confidence, charisma, your magic, appeal, your self-assuredness – in fact that overall quality that you feel sets you apart from everyone else.

It’s your swagger, your cool and your energy.

In effect, it’s you in your twenties and before you had children.

Remember that? The world was our oyster.

We were out til early and sleeping til late.

We had no real responsibilities and were probably turning a few heads. We were tripping the light fantastic.

Then we became parents.

I first felt the loss of my mojo six months after giving birth.

It was New Year’s Eve and I was overweight, tired, leaking milk and had split ends. My clothes sucked.

At that party, of course, were all the beautiful people, so I felt like my mojo had disappeared along with my figure.

It had been left behind on the maternity ward, squeezed out of me along with the baby, in the bin with the afterbirth.

It freaked me out because it was as if I wasn’t me anymore.

I wasn’t that girl at the bar flirting with strangers, I wasn’t larging it on the dancefloor with my mates, I wasn’t working the room with a twinkle in my eye.

Because I was too busy fretting about the sitter and my crappy pelvic floor.

I felt old, boring and, well, grown-up. Sure, I had a baby and was deliriously happy and fortunate but, surrounded by bright young things, I couldn’t help feeling that I’d lost the very essence that made me ME.

My mojo was no mo’.

But it was okay, it’s just one night, I told myself.

But it wasn’t. That one night turned into years to the point where my mojo became a thing of the past like my leopard print pants – stashed at the back of the wardrobe, too scared to throw out, because getting rid means they’re gone forever and that part of your life is too.

Yet clinging to a hope that one day it’ll come back and, like the pants, it’ll slip right on like nothing ever changed.

Getting your mojo back is not a mid-life crisis, oh no.

Mid-life crisis is the red lipstick I’ve been wearing for the past week.

Mid-life crisis is wondering if I should start wearing heels. Mojo is flirting with the dishwasher delivery man. Mojo is singing Pearl Jam at the top of my voice on the school run. Mid-life crisis is changing you, where Mojo is simply getting you back.

Before you say “Wait … we’re supposed to have mojo now???” it can be done, believe me.

That mojo can be a go-go even on top of packed lunches, wiping bums and the never ending ironing pile. It only takes a few small things to give you a buzz and before you know it, you’ve got your rocks back on.

It doesn’t have to be shelved, in a box, marked “To be opened when the youngest turns eighteen”.

And I know this because I’ve started to find mine again after nine years of parenting.

Music has helped, as well as the odd flirtation.

A regular girl’s night and LOL moments on Twitter.

The occasional adventure, especially if it’s making plans for yourself and partying like it’s 1999.

Exercise (unfortunately) but always counter-balanced with gin consumption. Pretend you never lost it by buying clothes in Topshop that are a size too small.

Do a little dance and make a little love. And always, always, always it can be found in a babysitter.

So, go on, you mo’fos – get that mojo back.