Angry Young(ish) Mum

Get that bottle of wine opened, QUICK. Egad, what a week. Call me Bill Murray and send me to Punxsutawney because I have been trapped in Groundhog Day all week and I can’t TAKE IT any more! You are witnessing a woman on the edge, people. If anyone calls out ‘Mummeeee…’ ONE more time I swear I will scream. I guess it’s just the culmination of 4 weeks with a daughter who can’t quite do everything for herself at the moment thanks to the full leg cast. And this is a girl with a very low threshold of patience. She gets huffy waiting for the TV to warm up so you can imagine the rocket I get if I don’t jump her side within 10 seconds of her calling me. She has this indignant tone that has well and truly driven me round the bend. And I thought I was only heading over the hill, isn’t life full of surprises? But however many times I repeat my mantra that the house and the shopping and the cooking won’t do themselves and Mummy wasn’t actually standing around picking her nose waiting for a job to do it never seems to get through. In fact, while I was writing that last sentence a little voice just called down the stairs for Mummy. The little person attached to the voice was put in bed half an hour ago but they just can’t resist one final request when all I want is to park myself and do something for me for a change. I have tried all ways of getting the message into their precious heads including, I am ashamed to say, yelling until my throat hurts but the next morning it starts all over again and I realise that I might as well talk to the wall. In fact I did just that earlier in the week when I was getting zero response out of my little darlings but they just found it hilariously funny and called for a repeat performance. So now I am the entertainment as well as the dogsbody – my CV has never looked better.

Gawd, listen to me. I must sound like a really resent them, which of course I don’t, and I know I am going to miss it when they both evolve into Kevin the Teenager and declare how much they hate me and it’s so unfair, but puh-leeeze… can we let just ONE minute go by without adding another item to the to-do list? And if it’s not their immediate needs, like feeding one end or wiping the other, then they’re banging on about what toys they’ve seen on the adverts that they absolutely, positively have to have for Christmas. Yes, even though it’s still months away and the Christmas ads haven’t appeared yet I’ve already had the full interrogation from Poppet about how exactly Santa knows what he’s supposed to be buying and how precisely he gets in our house when we don’t have a chimney. It’s my own fault for borrowing the film The Pole Express I suppose. For now I’ve completely banned commercial telly for them, I don’t care how many times they’ve already heard the story in Balamory, it’s CBeebs all the way for us.

Anyway, here’s to a better week; only 11 days to got until my dear Poppet can start to walk again and so fetch her own drink, take herself out into the garden and stay for lunch at school a couple of days a week (yippee!). Meanwhile I shall resign myself to the perpetual routine for a bit longer and take solace in alcohol after lights out. I actually made it to a party last night, minus husband though because the local babysitters are too young to cope with lifting Her Highness should the need arise, plus Pickle is coughing fit to bring up a lung… again. I blagged a lift with a friend who was also husband-less and spent the evening beside the drinks table steadily working through the champagne and talking about anything but children. It was lovely! And tonight the wine is already open so frankly all I’m up for now is a bit of sofa-time.
Thank you for listening!