Growing up

Last week, on Ash Wednesday, I decided to start Lent well, (it's been downhill since), so I took Luke to Mass to 'get our ashes'. The extra motivation of losing a few lbs, meant walking there in the rain, but because Jude had forgotten his wellies, and his class were planting trees, I did a mad dash to the school  to drop them off first. So, drenched and late, I snuck in the back with the buggy, and thanks to a steady supply of raisins, Luke didn't have to be physically removed from the building until pretty close to the end. A personal record actually.

There happened to be another stretched mummy there, who with heroic bravery had brought her infant twin girls and toddler, and I'm ashamed to say fared better than I did. It did strike me though, as I watched her multitask, that, almost without having realizing it, I had moved on a stage. Suddenly, right then, and quite unexpectedly, I felt a little pang of regret. Because for the longest time, almost thirteen years in fact, I've been multitasking with babies and toddlers...but now my baby's a toddler, and my toddlers are children and it's making me a little sad. And a little happy. And a lot confused.

I used to look at mummies who had their children 'up a wee bit', and wistfully think 'some day that'll be me, and life will get a bit more calm and I'll not have little hands clutching, wanting, needing me ALL THE TIME. Now here I am, and my baby is almost two, and previously at this point there's been another on the way, or already in my arms, and this new territory looks unfamiliar and slightly scary. I really love where he's at right now too - he's becoming so vocal and independent, but is still my cuddly, brown eyed babe as well. Perhaps I'm enjoying him so much precisely because I'm NOT also juggling a newborn, and it's just the two of us in the mornings, and he's my little mate. He's also our last and I know now how fast the time flies and it won't be long til he's off to school....and it makes me well up just thinking about it.

 

A friend with six kids said to me recently that she wished she could have frozen them about 5 years ago, when the eldest was 10 and the youngest 2... and I do know just how she feels. But then I'd never get to see them blossom and grow into the young adults they were born to be and that's part of the journey too, right?  I haven't travelled there myself yet, but I know plenty who have and they say it's a trip worth taking. I suppose that right now, I'm feeling the apprehension that comes with impending change. Of course my children are still young and still need me, but gradually over time my  role as mother will evolve, and with it my identity. How do I do that? What will I be ? Will I return to pastures old or reach for pastures new? And really do I have anything to offer anymore anyway? Goodness! I've gone all existential on you and I'm sure you weren't bargaining on that on a Wednesday afternoon.  Ah well, these are ponderous questions for another day because now there's laundry to fold and school runs to do.....and for once I'm really quite grateful for that!

Superheroes...but not as we know it!

The other day I overheard this exchange between the three older boys.
'Do you want to play Dog Man and Cat Boy? And I can be your arch Nemesis -Flea Boy?'
'But I don't want to be a dog!'
'You're not a dog. You're a man with the powers of a dog.'
'Oh. Ok then.'

Boys! You gotta love them!

Taking to the Skies

Last Saturday morning, I was on a 7am flight on my ownio to Exeter, (and then on to Torquay - the English Riviera, don't ya know!), to spend two days and one night with old school friends. Sounds simple...and really it should have been, but I don't travel that often on my own and it shows. The last time when I was in London to visit my sister, I somehow managed, in panic, to drop my pull along case full on a woman's head.... in a packed train carriage. She was stunned but fine. It. Was. Excruciating. As it happened, I actually hadn't missed my stop after all, so I had to stay on and continue apologizing over and over, until it was time to get off.... Good times.
Anyway, this time I was all organised the night before, so that when my alarm went off at 445am, I got dressed, took my bag and crept out. It was 530am, pitch dark and pouring down. Ten minutes down the road, I realized that I'd forgotten my phone - it was charging and I'd forgotten to lift it. Unable to face an entire weekend without it, (I know-pathetic!), I made the snap decision to turn back and screeched  into the drive, up the stairs, grabbed the phone (Loverboy- 'What the...?') and out the door. Again. It was now 548am, time was seriously tight and any hope of a pre flight cappucino was dashed. Like a bat out of hell, I somehow made it over the mountain and into the airport by 610am and rushed into the queue...  to discover 10 minutes later that it was the wrong one. Aaaaarrrrggggh! Finally, it was into security, which for me typically involves the removal of several lbs of costume jewellry, then two or three trips through the magic door frame, then finally a  good 'feeling up' by the burly security woman. This time didn't disappoint, but eventually, more than a little frazzled, and frankly slightly violated, I made it through to find that the flight had been slightly delayed, so all was well. Phew!
My thoughts now turned to the issue of my hand luggage. Loverboy had measured my bag the night before and declared that it was 10cm too big. Laughing uproariously at the ridiculous suggestion that I take a smaller case,  I'd decided to risk it. Now, before you heckle, I had my reasons. These were:

Not my bag but remarkably similar

a) I'd used this bag as hand luggage in the past with no problems,
b) I'd reasoned a 7am flight to Exeter was bound to be pretty empty.
c) It was leopard print and I loved it.
d) I'm basically a gambler at heart.
The first indication that I'd backed a loser came with the announcement over the loudspeaker, warning of hand luggage charges. Probably just a standard recording, I reassured myself. The second indication was the crowd of people who appeared to be waiting for the flight. It transpired that this flight wasn't actually finishing in Exeter- it was continuing on to Paris. Two little words popped into my mind and the penny reluctantly dropped -' halfterm' and 'Disney'.
Hurrying towards gate 10, I remembered that my fairly large handbag still had to be squashed into my already bursting 'hand' luggage. So, when I got there, and watched with genuine interest by my fellow passengers, eventually, and only by kneeling on it, I managed to get my handbag in and the zip shut. At this point, it dawned on me, that my bag possibly DID look moderately large in comparison to everyone elses, and I'm almost certain that several of those around me shared that observation.

No chance....

Getting up off the floor, I discovered that, most annoyingly, the bag's handle had jammed in the half position. As in, I could put it down but couldn't fully extend it. No matter how hard I tried, (and by this stage I really WAS the floor show), it was resolutely stuck. Right on cue, a grumpy looking staff member approached checking on ID and boarding passes. Standing in front of my case, I smilingly handed her my documents, but she wasn't fooled.
'That's too big- you'll have to put that in the hold'.
'Really? I did measure it.' Well I did.
'If it doesn't fit in the bag checker, it's going in the hold. Follow me.'
It's very difficult to walk with dignity through a crowd of people, while pulling a leopard print case with a much shortened handle, and wearing these shoes but I did my best. You can guess what comes next. The humiliation of valiantly trying to force the case into the bag checker, with the entire queue watching in amusement while Grumpy Arse  looked on triumphantly. 'I think you'll have to admit that doesn't fit.' In a flash, a credit card machine was produced and she extracted her pound of flesh. Or more specifically £40 of cold hard cash. Nose in the air,  I swept past her on to the plane, and was in my seat, still burning with embarrassment, when a member of ground staff appeared in the empty aisle with the credit card  I'd left in the machine. So much for my grand exit.... Ah well, you win some, you lose some. The moral of the story is I need to travel more...or maybe that should be less?

Pancake Tuesday Musings

Bless me Father for I have sinned. I used Betty Crocker's powdered pancake mix and passed it off as homemade. Now Rory, whose homework it was to make pancakes, (Dear God, this looks worse written down), thinks all it involves is a drop of milk and shaking the container until all the lumps are out. In my defense, I usually do make them from scratch, but Betty was 'on special' and I bought her just in casey, so now it's ten Hail Mary's and a Glory Be for me. Oh well, onwards and upwards...

On another note, I just love the honesty of children- the guarded filtering of adults isn't yet there- they aren't concerned what their teacher might think, or that they may come across to their peers in a negative light. As an example, here's a peek at Jude's homework-he had to make sentences from his weekly spellings - all 'tr' words. For the record, Jude's writing tends to be decidedly economical and he would never dream of using ten words when five will do-it must be a boy thing. But I had to laugh today,(inside obviously!), at his first two sentences. The lack of trifle love, followed up by the shameless acknowledgement of a fiercely competitive streak. To him, utterly true, completely acceptable and most important of all, perfectly succinct.

Finally, on the off, off chance you might be interested, I think we've cracked our toilet problem here(boom boom!) It looks like we've been able to track down the last champagne toilet in the North of Ireland. A company that specializes in discontinued bathroom lines is on the job. What a relief....For future reference- write this down- they also resurrect avocado, sun king, whisper grey, whisper pink, whisper peach, primrose, Bali brown and wild sage. Is champagne really in there with those losers? I honestly don't know whether to laugh or cry!

Happiness is......a cupboard full of cereals..

There's nothing quite like a Tesco delivery van to raise the excitement levels round here. As usual, the hapless chap arrived and was instantly surrounded by a swarm of children, our own plus a few extra, all clamouring to see the goodies, the most important of which are the cereals. Before they're even unpacked, an inventory has been taken, and discussions initiated covering personal favourites, order of opening criteria, and for the very popular, number of allotted bowls per person. I've already  happened upon two of the boys quietly gazing at this magnificent sight with a look of deep satisfaction on their faces.Wouldn't it be just lovely to be so easily pleased?

Down the Toilet...

It started off badly and went downhill from there. A week ago, I'd done my bumper bimonthly grocery shop online, ( it took 2 hours and came to over £300), and was due to be delivered yesterday. (I also do a weekly shop, but this is serious bulk buying, as in 40 packets of cereal and 50 loo rolls-I kid you not!). Anyway I'd ordered from Sainsburys this time, just for kicks, and logged on to the Interweb the other night to add bleach. (Yes indeed-that's what I was up to at 10pm on Valentine's Night - I sincerely hope that yours was a tad more exciting!)
Then, all of a sudden,  my monster grocery shop went inexplicably AWOL. One minute it was there, the next lost somewhere in cyberspace. Quick as a flash, I sent them an email telling them what had happened and assuring them that I still wanted our lorry load to arrive between 11 and 1 the next day. Ha!
Next morning, of course, I got an automated response confirming that it had been cancelled (It had not!) and sincerely hoping that I would shop with them again. Cue my first murmured FFS of the day, but it certainly wasn't my last. Obviously, I then sent them a snotty email telling them that hell would freeze over before I'd shop with them again and they could shove their groceries ...or words to that effect. Then, because I STILL had no bleach, and we were down to our last three packets of cereal, I had no alternative but to spend the next two hours doing a similar massive shop on Tesco instead. FFS! Which only meant that my exciting morning plans of tackling the ironing pile so large that I could no longer force the cupboard door shut, was now my afternoon instead. FFS!
Prior to this, I had morphed into 'Tiger Mother' mode, (which in Ireland is just being a complete targe), turning off the TV, (this went down a treat as 'Spongebob' was on), and organising chores, piano practice and project work. To tell you the truth, all of my Tiger Mother buttons had been well and truly pushed the night before, when I'd been informed that my nephew, who's only five, is currently reading the entire Roald Dahl collection ON HIS OWN... FFS! So, with a renewed fire in my belly,( but not in theirs- It's half term after all), extensive reading material was chosen and new guidelines for personal and guided reading put in place. As you I can imagine my popularity levels are currently through the roof. FFS!
Logged into Tesco in a grim but determined mood, and I was nearly done by lunchtime. The kids were playing outside, Loverboy was munching on a sandwich, wisely leaving me alone to calculate the price of loo roll, when we became aware of the sound of gushing water in the background. Thinking that one of the kids had left the tap on in the downstairs loo, he went to investigate to find that the cistern of the toilet had only gone and cracked completely, and water was pouring out all over the floor. FFS! FFS! FFS!
Surely, this must scoop top prize in 'Crappiest Toilet Luck EVER'? Utter panic ensued- it was just like 'Titanic'. Naturally, the children relished the drama, rushing for torches and towels and later, hosting guided tours of the offending site for the neighbours' kids.
 The upshot is that it looks like we're going to need a whole new toilet, because you can't buy just the cistern. FFS! And further preliminary investigations have indicated yet another issue - Oh, why am I not surprised? Apparently, champagne coloured suites are now so passé that they're like hens' teeth, and we may have to go for a white one... which consequently would mean a whole new bathroom suite. For lack of a cistern the entire bloody bathroom may be lost. FFS! (screaming now!)
Later on, and with the ironing finally done, I'd pretty much lost the will to live- my mood was black and I didn't care who knew it. There was more to come- lying in bed late last night, the pipes in the attic began to make a very loud, dubious clanking noise... for a good ten minutes. My overly optimistic husband assured me that all it needed was a squirt of WD40, (don't we all, love), but because I'd just finished watching 'Death Unexplained ' about a coroner's office and combined with our indisputable bad plumbing karma,  I was tearfully convinced that I was about to clock out, in a most undignified fashion, by being squashed with an exploding water tank in my own bed. FFS!....Then I fell asleep.

Be my Valentine.......

And that's an awful lot!

Twenty two years ago today, I sent a Valentines card to a boy I'd enthusiastically kissed on New Year's Eve. Three days later we went out on a proper date for the first time. Still at school, barely eighteen, looking back we were only babies. Fast forward to right now, and we're an old married couple with a house, a mortgage and five kids to show for it. So I'm sure that you won't be surprised to know, that Valentine's Day means something very different now than it did all those years ago. Then, it was all about the grand(ish) gesture. Whether it was flowers, a cuddly Garfield or heart shaped balloons, it was important to me and, I suppose, to our identity as a couple, that Valentine's Day didn't pass unchecked. But that was then, and this is now, and life's very different and we're no longer eighteen. Please don't misunderstand - I'm not saying for one moment that I don't love getting flowers (all types except chrysanths and NEVER from a garage), and chocolates (you can't go wrong with Lindor), but I don't NEED them on Valentine's Day.... Gestures of love change and evolve along with a relationship and although the BIG GESTURE is very exciting, it's just the icing and not the cake. What's far more meaningful for me, are the countless little gestures on the ordinary days in the ordinary weeks that tell me I'm loved. Like getting into bed and finding my blanket already turned on, or my nightly cup of tea brought in on a tray. It's getting up with the kids at the weekend to give me a lie in, and then making breakfast in bed.  It's holding hands while watching the News or having a bath together late at night. It's being told that I'm beautiful with greasy hair and no makeup, and letting me warm my cold hands on his back. It's defrosting my car on a freezing morning, or quietly filling it with petrol just so I don't have to.

My card this year-the bar has been raised!

This everyday romance of ours may not be dramatic or spectacular or the stuff of movies, but it's the glue that keeps a relationship alive amidst homeworks and laundry, bills and school runs. It's the real deal. So a Happy Valentine's Day 2012 to my one and only Loverboy and here's to many more....