The dentist, the bitch and the programme

Stupendously glad tidings to one and all. I am desperately resisting the urge to annihilate our chocolate, biscuit and chocolate biscuit supplies so I am taking to the keyboard instead.

On Monday I discovered I had put on 2lbs, then I took G to the dentist who was very welcoming, asked if he knew me already and then asked me if I was pregnant. I said 'No' I had just had a baby which was in fact, in my arms right in front of him. He (who was quite portly himself) then apologised and said it was because he thought I had been to him before, however it was quite clear he was mistaking me for someone who was pregnant. To make it worse he then continued by saying that it took his wife a year to lose her baby weight. Which just confirmed the fact that he thought I was fat. I don't mind or take it to heart because I am fat and am acutely aware of it. However, imagine if I was 25 stone post pregnancy and had in fact lost a SHED load of weight and was now the thinnest I've ever been - it could have been incredibly upsetting. He shouldn't assume just because I am fat now that I wasn't fatter before - although admittedly it isn't easy to phrase that either. I think all in all unless a woman makes a point of saying she is pregnant NEVER ask her. It doesn't usually end well.

On Thursday morning as we cuddled in bed chatting Ted said "I hate that bitch". I asked him to say it again. He said it slower, but perfectly, I hate that bitch. We were in the middle of talking about his nursery and how he was having the day off but would go back tomorrow and see his beloved Marianna (his key worker) and more importantly Be Good. The day before I had been to his nursery for his parent teachers and yet again, was told that Ted's behaviour was erratic. It seems he has teamed up with a like minded party-starter and they feed off each others mischief and get themselves in to terrible trouble. So, as you can imagine this wasn't the ideal start to his 'new leaf' of good behaviour and I was worried that he was angry at his key worker for telling me about the bad behaviour and getting him in to trouble. I also mentally berated myself for allowing him to watch '12' Certificate DVDs - which in my considerable defence is because it seems all the superhero films seem to be a '12' - all four Spiderman ones, Captain America, Fantastic Four etc (and yet Coraline, where the protagonist is asked to gouge out her eyes and sew buttons in their place is a PG????). I decided to talk around the subject to discover his use of this new word. I asked what he was talking about and why he felt that about her. To my great relief it would appear that he has developed an interesting lisp and what he actually meant was 'I hate that bit' which referred to the day before when Marianna had insisted he tidied up for tidy up time. The relief I felt was, as you can imagine, momentous. There is a vast difference between the odd 'shit' and 'bloody' absorbed from his mother but at the age of three to refer to his nursery key worker as a bitch really would have concerned me greatly.

So, back to last week (my timeline is all out for this one but I can't be bothered, so just try and keep up). I survived, Cybs survived and even K survived the Actual Night Out. It was a stunning success. I will admit I had a wobbly moment about leaving as I was putting her down in the cot but once I was in the car and off I felt quite excitable. It was all jolly lovely and the pizza was deeeeelish. And huge. Just how I like them.  Cybs stayed beautifully asleep for my entire venture over the river and back and I got to catch up with all my old school friends - it was a fabulous turn out. I even made it home in time to catch the local mothers at a birthday booze in the tapas bar round the corner.  They hadn't eaten so were well away by the time I arrived at 11 and it hit me instantly how much more fun 'drunk' is when you are the one who is actually enjoying its effects.  So, on my first Actual Night Out I got to two events, Cybs didn't suffer and I was in bed and ready for sleep by midnight. I shan't be doing it again any time soon but just to know that I have done it is quite enough for now.  Especially as that was one of the last times she did sleep well - ever since my night out we (I say we but actually I mean I - K takes over in extreme circumstances but it is me who does it  99% of the time) have been suffering from nightly screaming of around an hour and a half which is making me slightly crazy.

I hate to admit it but I am not particularly good at coping with non sleeping babies. She is usually ok in the evening but once you reach 10 o'clock it enters 'the danger zone' and she could wake at any point and then cry on and off for around an hour and a half. But on Thursday night it didn't stop. I tried everything, in the bed with me, in her cot, feeding, dummy, ignoring, cuddling etc etc. In the end I gave up and put the pillow over my head and ignored her cries which left K to take over. Mercifully so, as by that point Bea and G had also been woken up and the cries were reaching epic levels. He took her downstairs and away from me. Bea was sobbing by this point. It was a horrid night. My thoughts towards my youngest were uncharitable at best and potentially fatal at their worst. It seems totally 'other wordly' in the cold light of day, that I could ever have felt such horrid things. I know I am going to be eternally damned for just 'thinking' these things but I also said some pretty mean things to her and I wasn't exactly gentle and loving. I felt hideously bad about it all of Friday morning - particularly when I read a blog from a woman who had lost her son at a year old and then listened to a woman on the radio, quite by chance, speaking about the loss of her son who was nearly two. I took both of these things as signs that I should be nicer to poor C and have been so ever since. Luckily, she has also slept better.

I don't read parenting books or have a particular 'style' - I am most definitely not an Earth Mother (see above), Yummy Mummy (too fat, lazy and poor), Working Mother or a Gina Ford regimented type either. I have decided that my 'style' should be summarised as The Haphazard Parent - this is for two reasons - the 'hap' part stands for happy - on the whole I am quite happy to do it and my children are quite happy and due to my laziness and laid back approach to almost every aspect of my life they don't seem to have any major anxieties or tense, worrying behaviour and seem generally ok. However the downside to my haphazard school of child rearing is the 'hazard' part. Not having a hard and fast method of getting babies to sleep through the night, believing my 3 year old might refer to his Nursery key worker as 'that bitch' due to the crap I let him watch on TV, putting off going to the dentists for too long so that G has severe decay in two teeth and although the dentist assures me that some teeth are more prone to decay than others and it is actually more to do with genetics than a lack of oral hygiene, ultimately even if the decay was not entirely my fault, I should have taken him to the dentist far more often than I did. So there is the hazard part. There are many other hazards obviously but these are the most recent.

On the plus side of life is my new TV Heaven - Nashville - a better concept of a programme that doesn't take place in a hospital I cannot think of - country music, bitch fights, fit men, children, marriage, deceit - all bundled up in a fab one hour segment. Brothers and Sisters was good but I think this may just top it. Luckily there is only one programme a week or I might get stuck on the sofa again like I did with the Real Housewives. Now Cybs is bigger and requires far less feeding, my beloved sofa and I are spending huge expanses of time (relatively) away from one another. I have to snatch the odd ten minutes here and there in order to try and get through all my dramas. I have now downloaded the Nashville album and it is making kitchen time far more enjoyable and as luck would have it, Cybs finds my country mum dancing frickin hilarious. I am now desperate to talk 'country' on a full time basis and go round talking/singing about my feelings and my head and my heart and my heart and my head and refer to a group of people as y'all. I can use 'honey' as a term of endearment and refer to myself in the third person as Mama without attracting too much attention so I am going to start off with that.

I have also hit upon a genius idea to boost the morale of the country at the moment - well actually just the people with children but that is a vast number of them so I still stand by it - my idea is 'Parenting Certificates' - something to help give us a little lift after all the crappy weather, potential loss of child benefit, tax credits, shutting down of local hospital A and E departments etc etc etc. It would be relatively inexpensive but very effective so a real vote winner. I think it could work something like this; you would be able to nominate yourself or nominate others for a piece of parenting that you think is deserving of an award. It doesn't have to be groundbreaking or ambitious - I came up with the idea after my night out when a friend told me of her night fixing a tyre on the side of the road at three in the morning with her daughter in the back of the car, after spending the evening helping her very sick mother try and get the hospital care she needed and still made her important business meeting with Harvey Nichols the following day. The spectrum for brilliant parenting certificates (and I haven't worked it all out yet but I think there should also be a medal system for really outstanding feats) is wide and diverse, coping with chemotherapy and still making a child's school assembly; having a newborn and still throwing a fabulous birthday party for the older sibling; managing to feed the family when you have no money; making cakes for the school cake sale even though you have the flu - that kind of thing; getting a lovely shiny certificate through the post as a validation for your extra special effort or coping ability would be a real bonus. Especially if you weren't expecting it.Kids get certificates and rewards all the time - they love it and I am convinced adults want the same as well but are too grown up to admit it. To be honest, if they gave me a printer, some stamps and a website I'd probably offer to set up a Govt department from the comfort of my sofa. I could do with some more reasons to sit on it.

Righty ho I have to get going, sorry, this is all a bit bitty. Oh well, life is a bit bitty. Bit crap, bit good, bit happy, bit sad. Sometimes you want to go around hugging people, sometimes you want to go around punching them in the face and then kneeing them in the crotch. Such is life. That's it for now. Y'all go and enjoy yourselves. I'm off to bed to cope with a screaming Cybs.

Tarahhhh xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mother's Day and out

Bonjour, hola, hello and welcome. I have been trying to catch you up for ages - sadly every time I put it down on virtual paper it all sounds ridiculously dull - I keep trying to 'sex it up' to make it more appealing for you guys but that has meant that it hasn't got written so I'll just say it 'as it is'. Sorry.

I went OUT. YES OUT. I exited the house in a gay fashion totally alone. Alone I tell you, alone. Toute seule. It was fabulous. I mean I only walked down the road to the school to sit on a child's chair at a child's table and answer quiz questions based on the children's curriculum but still, it was a night out of the house with no actual children and no one wanting to feed off me. I met Cybil's Godmother there and we merrily caught up, drank a lot of wine and attempted to answer questions and it was all treeeeemendous fun. I even surprised myself by knowing the answers to about ten questions which was thrilling, although sadly I was not believed for half of them which was fair enough as I didn't know I knew half of them. I even knew a character called Rainbow Bright which is amazing as I have no recollection of her or from where she hails. So strange. Anyway - the night itself was a huge success however the Cybil aspect of the equation was not as successful -  having promised K I would be home by 10.30, the final round of the quiz began at five to eleven and I felt that I really did need to see it through to the end however at around the same time I received a text from K telling me that Cybs had been awake for half an hour and was incredibly unhappy and that Bea had awoken due to the noise. I asked, via text, if I needed to come back. K replied, 'no, you stay as long as you like'. I, being ever the hopeful drunk romantic, assumed that he was willing to suffer the noise and annoyance so that I could finish my first night out in a bloody long time and continued to help with the last quiz round on film music (I got one wrong and one right so I cancelled myself out and may as well have left). I texted him to say thank you and to officially approve any actions he wanted to take as regards Cybs. Eventually the reply arrived and it involved the 'f' word. It turns out he had chosen a very inopportune time to try sarcasm in a text.  Upon the receipt of the 'f'ing' text I grabbed my coat and hurried home to silence the mewling infant.

The following day I felt the full force of my first night of over indulgence and by 7.30 am I was sat cross legged in my beloved onesie on the floor of Bea and G's bedroom with my head in my hands and started to wail about how on earth I was going to get them up and out. Mercifully Bea was being kind and helpful and after I had some tea and toast I felt well enough to get me dressed and the children fed. I also knew that I was aiming towards sitting in the hairdressers for my first hair cut since November which helped considerably. I deposited the big two with their respective schools and dropped Ted with a kind friend to play with her son. My baby childcare fell through at the last minute but luckily Cybs was either very tired or slightly drugged from the drinking I did the night before as she sat very happily on me and drifted in and out of sleep for hours. It was glorious. The only slight issue was that it was costing money we don't really have. Should you be someone who is contemplating giving up work forever I must warn you that getting your hair done will be a bone of contention for the rest of your life. For some reason, and I don't know why, K having his hair cut once a month is a 'necessity' but me having my hair done every few months is a 'luxury'. I don't know if this is true for every household but it certainly is in ours. It is a major issue and I will admit to having a rather large, hungover style paddy on Friday a.m when the subject of payment reared its ugly head once again. To be fair if he had lots of money he wouldn't grumble and is quite generous however when money is tight it is incredibly irritating when I know full well that he will leave the house and think nothing of buying an extortionately priced pack of flipping cigarettes but has a major issue with me getting my lanky hair cut and coloured for an extremetly reasonable price. GRRRRRR. And so it is that the downside of not having your own income is a. your wardrobe is crap and b. your hair and make up are not deemed necessities however there will always be money for fags and booze however tight the budget.

Mother's Day. Now I should imagine your day was ever so slightly marred by my lack of contact. I know it is now traditional for me to spend the afternoon alone and writing to you guys but this year I broke with tradition and decided to surprise my mum with a round trip to Suffolk.  It would have made a fantastic surprise too if it wasn't for my beautiful but slightly moronic nephew who misinterprated my text asking what 'mum' was doing for mother's day and assumed I meant his mum and not mine. The ensuing conversation I had with him was clearly at cross purposes too but we didn't realise our misunderstanding until I was on my way down to Suffolk first thing Sunday morning and my mother rang. It would appear that the beautiful nephew turned around after our conversation and informed my mother that I would be coming down to Suffolk but that I would definitely NOT be coming to see her and that I was instead planning to spend the day with my sister. It didn't occur to the beautiful boy that it might be a tad hurtful to callously inform his grandma that I would be driving for nearly four hours in a day and coming to within five miles of her house on mother's day but not bothering to even drop by and deliver my missing card. It seems quite hilarious now but obviously at the time I was a trifle annoyed as it was meant to be a fabulous surprise for her and indeed be her 'gift' as I hadn't even remembered to post her card in time so this was really meant to make up for that. I haven't spent time at mum's without more than one child for over six years. It was remarkable to see what it it is like when we're not there and it is quiet. It was lovely.  I had planned for us to do something 'grown up' like going out for a long walk up to visit dad's grave or even go in to town but when I arrived mum was half way through a Sunday Roast for my nephew and niece who was also over. I clearly enjoyed the benefits of this roast and even had time to eat it as mum held Cybs so it was well worth the long car trip.  Unfortunately mum was worried about the cost of my Diesel so she also gave me money for my return journey. I think I may be the only adult who ended up making her mother cook for her, cost her money and inadvertantly caused her distress for the night preceding mother's day. Still, it all worked out in the end - I arrived home to find the big three in bed and K cleaning the kitchen. I also got some lovely home made cards - Ted got very in to it and I had about four from him. All in all it worked out beautifully, both mothers visited and acknowledged and I got a rest. Perfect.

Other than that very little has happened. Expressing milk is a total no go. I have no idea how people do it. Or when. I tried to have a go at the weekend in the evening after Cybs had gone to bed (she does that now, finally - it is all very exciting) and I got just over one ounce of milk from both boobs. It was massively disheartening - especially as she just gagged on it when I tried to introduce her to it via the bottle. I then tried again a few nights later and got absolutely nothing. Not even a drop. Which reminds me yet again why I hate expressing so much, because even in the face of quite obvious successful breast feeding I began to worry that I wasn't actually producing as much milk as I thought.  I am giving up on the whole expressing idea - especially as there is an awful lot of faffing involved with it. I am attempting to leave the house once again tonight for the Actual Night Out I started all this sleep training/expressing malarkey for in the first place so I am very hopeful she will sleep peacefully and allow me to inhale my pizza without worry. Mercifully there is no drinking tonight as I will be driving. I don't think I could live through another hangover with this many children and this little sleep behind me.

So, that is it. Not sexed up and a bit matter of fact. But at least you know what has happened. I must go and pick up Ted and attempt a restful afternoon before all the excitement tonight. I may finally have got Cybs to sleep in the evening but I still struggle to stay awake. Not only was last Friday a nightmare for me but I also ended up going to bed at 7.30 which was a good three hours after I wanted to go to bed.  I am definitely not young anymore.....

Until the next time. Au Revoir. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Still nothing particularly interesting I'm afraid

I am back and full of vim and vigour (slight exaggeration but at least able to keep my eyes open) after my half term staycation chez mother. I was a tad concerned that the temporary lodger she has taken in (my teenage nephew) might adversely affect the service, but mercifully not - all was normal and I got to recuperate after the exhausting month that preceded the break.

This Winter has gone on for far too long. I am desperate for Spring to arrive and hopefully bring with it an end to the constant coughs and colds with which we are currently plagued.  Also C seems to be teething which is making life rather hellish. She is, at this precise moment, trying to gum her way through a Top Trump card. I am too tired to stop her as it is keeping her quiet. She managed to gum her way convincingly through an entire piece of Margarita pizza over the half term. I took Bea and G out with their cousins for a meal and after rejecting the crust C spent half an hour devouring her first taste of pizza. I have no idea what the 'official' meal plan is for a 6 month old but I heartily recommend introducing pizza from Frankie and Benny's. Far nicer than cottage cheese and papaya which I have heard is the preferred choice of the yummy mummies. I wouldn't eat that shit so I have no idea why I expect my baby to. Ditto with baby rice - what the hell is the reason for it? It is tasteless crap - you are far better off mashing potato and adding fruit and veg to it or giving them some bread. I am still unable to understand why it is peddled as the best thing to wean a baby on - it is so dull and as far as i can make out it's just a sort of cereal mush which is fortified with vitamins they don't particularly need if they are getting them elsewhere. Food is a huge love of mine and I consider it a total disservice to introduce new human beings to the amazing world of food with one of the blandest non-specific crap created by man. Sorry - I have become ranty - you get the message.

Valentine's - K surprised me with a spectacularly good looking bunch of flowers and a funny card. I was shocked. I didn't even do a card. Well we don't tend to. As I have explained before I don't really believe in it. Even so, I was so shocked and pleased with my surprise valentine that we decided to make an occasion of the evening with a Micheal McIntyre DVD, champagne and good food. It was an entirely surprising day. In recognition of his effort, when he arrived at my mum's that weekend I offered to slip in to something a bit more comfortable for him.......... I came back down from my bath  in my new, navy blue, Tesco onesie. He is such a lucky chap. I look like a developed Cabbage Patch doll in it, but I care not a jot. It is beautifully comfy and the children and I can now all wear one and they think it's hilarious. I did take a sneaky peek in the mirror and it wasn't too horrifying if you like cabbage patch dolls (which I do) but I was struck by how excess weight really does block out the light. If I look in the mirror I am stealing all lighting from behind me as there are no gaps between my arms and main body, or in between my legs, so I am just a block of light stealing, onesie wearing, 'special' looking adult. Anyhoo. It acts as a great form of contraception which can only be a good thing.

My allure wasn't much better during my teenage years. Whilst away I discovered my old diary in my bedroom and low and behold my weight was making me pretty miserable 20 years ago as well. Funnily enough my writing style was very similar and my foreign language skills were as developed. And my attempts at procuring a boyfriend were laughable. My favourite entry, alongside many moany entries about my hideous family, was the following. "Went to Center Parcs with Nell. Rang Anton to ask him out. He said No. I'm not surprised as Nell had only just dumped him. Oh well. Bibi says he thinks I'm a weirdo. That hurt." My total and utter lack of finesse with the opposite sex is quite incomprehensible. They are easy creatures - look pretty, flirt, smile and don't ring up the day after they are dumped and ask them out on a date. I was a hopeless 14 year old. The only male I regularly had contact with up until my 16th Birthday was my dad. All other information I learnt about males was from the TV or books. And for some inexplicable reason my favourite reading matter at the time was Take A Break magazine. I was a most peculiar child. It does explain why I didn't have a boyfriend until I was 17 though.

Anyway, back to the half term. I managed to make a rather fabulous costume for Bea to wear on World Book Day, thanks to mum's endless reserves of 'stuff'. She manages to pull almost anything you need out of a cupboard or a drawer - even I am impressed with the costume I managed to produce from an old skirt and a netting bed canopy, but her ability to produce the materials needed is far more impressive. I would defy anyone to arrive at the house, ask for something obscure and for her not to manage to find something that would suffice for the purpose. One evening we picked up my nieces from the station at 5.30pm for a sleepover (their half term was stupidly different to ours which meant we had to snatch their presence whenever we could) - as we neared Grandma's house, and therefore quite a few miles from my sister's house, the youngest one remembered that she had to go in to school dressed as a Tudor the following day. As they catch their train at 6.50am in the morning it didn't give us much scope for picking it up en route for her return to the station. So, within ten minutes of arriving at mum's she had managed to whip out a hat, top, apron and long skirt - et voila! A Tudor child was produced. It really is quite a skill. As is my pleasing feat of taking all four children to the cinema on my own. As the cousins were busy at school or work, we had to amuse ourselves for the week - which meant I was the only one available to take them to see Wreck It Ralph. (Oh - you may not understand that mother doesn't 'do' the cinema - the last time she entered a cinema with children was, I think, when she took Newly Married Sister, Me and two friends to see White Fang - but made us all walk out half way through as she was so angry at the dog fighting aspect of the film - oddly that embarrassment wasn't in my diary -  surely there couldn't have been anything worse?).  It actually went better than expected - the big three sat behind me and I sat with Cybs at the start and then after various kerfuffles, I ended up with G sitting behind me holding on to my neck, Bea and Ted on my lap and Cybs asleep in the travel buggy in front of me which I wiggled with my foot. Still, we all stayed for the entire film without even leaving for a wee break. The rest of the week actually turned out to be very sociable after a recent (in the last few years) influx of 'fresh blood' in to mum's village and the subsequent children they have provided, coupled with a lovely day spent with our old SE23 neighbours who chose to move to Norwich a month after we moved in. I was sorry to come home and back to the freezing school run, endless washing piles and constant food preparation.

The first school run back is always a mixed bag - horrible because you are up and dressed and cold at 8.30am but happy because you are finally going to be temporarily absolved of responsibility. Particularly welcome after a hideous night of no-sleep thanks to C and her various cough, cold, teething ailments. As I left one school on Monday morning to deliver Ted to his, I overheard a conversation from a mum who was telling another one that she had been skiing during the half term. To Val D'Isere no less. I felt momentarily lifted at how 'up and coming' our school was - only to turn around and see another mother turn her head and spitting on to the pavement whilst pushing her buggy and then I had to veer my buggy around some poo. Lesson Learnt.

Quickly before I go - my night out goal is progressing nicely. I am now in posession of an electric breast pump (still haven't had the guts to use it though) and I have managed to persuade C to sleep in her cot from 7-11pm with just a dummy for comfort. Hoorah! And I have organised a local night out as practise the week before - so if there is no serious illness issues I should finally make it out of the house sans enfants a mere 7 months in. Muchos Exctingos.

Right, I better go and get Ted and ruin my tranquil morning idyll. More fascinating news and updates will be with you as soon as possible.  Now I have my evenings clear anything is possible.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Nothing of Note

Hello World. Miniscule percentage of it anyway. I have been hidden away for what seems like an absolute age. Illness has swept through the household like Jordan through a male stripper troupe. We have had the pleasure of the sick bug and continuous coughs and colds. This all means that I have been a. stuck inside and b. wondering around in a tired haze unable to think straight. A cold means that the baby can't settle properly as she freaks out when she can't breathe through her nose. Sick means one or more are throwing up, and I am then up scrubbing the carpets or changing the sheets in the early hours of the morning. Then there are the inevitable children in the bed which means a very unsettled night as we attempt to sleep anything up to five bodies in a bed made for two.

There are times when I think, 'four children is a most agreeable number of children to have' - almost easy even. We can be walking to school for instance, baby happily asleep, boys scootering amicably beside the buggy, Bea chattering away to me about something or other and I am dressed, clean and wearing make up and I know the house I am returning to only needs a very small spruce up before it is suitable for people to visit - those moments are a total pleasure and I think it could almost be possible to add to the brood. AND then - all you need is an illness, a family drama, money worries or a succession of bad nights and BOSH, four children seems three too many to handle. I get to 6pm and feel like I am on the last mile of a marathon and pray to the motherly gods that K will arrive home incredibly early and act all 'knight in shining armour' like - scooping errant children up and throwing them in to bed as he simltanesouly brushes their teeth and reads them a story so that I might collapse in to bed. As I lay in my bed, awake, night after night at various times with various children, I wonder how on earth the woman up North who has 16 children could possibly handle it. I feel intimately acquainted with this family of 18 as it is now Bea's favourite thing to watch. It was a documentary on Channel 4 entitled '16 children and wanting more' that I happened to record and one day, as they were arguing over what to watch, I suggested it, as I thought they would find it amusing to see what a really busy house was like. It backfired because Bea and to some extent George were transfixed. Bea has watched it again at least five times since. She now wants 16 children herself and has gone about turning her room in to a small version of the busy household - complete with many various sized shoes all lined up in a row - she even knows their names and talks about Sophie from '16 children'.  Anyway, obviously when you see the mother and father shepherd around all of their brood, and even take them on a holiday to France, it does make me feel as if I'm slightly ridiculous finding four a problem. But I am at the moment. It is bloody hard work. I am still breastfeeding and sleeping with Cybs which means that on a good night with no illnesses, coughing fits or wet beds I am awoken a few times, but then Ted can still not be relied upon to wake up past 5am so some times I am surviving on a teeny tiny number of hours sleep which makes the days quite hard work. The days are not high octane but incessant.  There is the washing, the bane of my life, piles and piles of dirty washing, clean washing, ironing, etc. Then there are endless bits of paper, which need finding, recycling, putting away, picking up off the floor, signing and returning to school or learning from.  Toys are the same - thousands of them. And THEN the constant preparation of food. I am now sure that the only reason humans need food to survive is to keep them occupied at weekends. Buying, sorting, preparing, eating, clearing, cleaning up after each meal - four times a day (we eat separately from the children in the evening) - it is my life's bloody work. 

I have become ranty. Sorry. It is not to say the whole of my life is one big misery - far from it - I am generally quite a happy chappess. It's just that any happiness is hard won. And it also explains why I started three blog posts and never finished them and therefore why it's taken so long for you to hear from me.  Well that, and the fact that I have literally nothing to write about. Before now I have managed to muster a post from very little actual news but we are really now scraping the very barrel of what constitutes 'matter of interest'. Babies have been born which IS fantastic and interesting - both remaining Godmothers have delivered and there is now another baby girl and boy in the world. However I can't really elaborate too much on that - birth is birth and they weren't mine. Kent Sister had a beautiful, beautiful baby boy. The most beautiful baby in the family since the wondrous Harry was born 19 and a half years ago. (I prefer newborn boys for some reason - they really suit being newly born). Magician Godmother has also had a stunner of a baby girl and so far all is going well with both babies. Bea and I have spent the last two weekends visiting each one in turn and fighting over who gets the longest cuddle with the newborn. Other than that the most interesting thing to happen to us is that half of G's days of the week socks have mysteriously disappeared so that he can only have one warm foot a day. However even I can not spin a tale about sock disappearance. They will turn up eventually.

As for the weight loss progress - it was going well and I lost a further 3.5 pounds, pushing me to just over half a stone. Then things have stalled. So has my scraping of the barrell. Literally nothing to tell you.

There is stuff coming up though.  I am going to try and break free from Cybs in March for my first night out without her.  She will be seven months old. So far I have only accepted invitations to events where she can come along with me, but as the responses to the invitational email started to pour in to my inbox, I realised that more and more of the respondents had small babies and some were considerably smaller than mine and they were intending to join sans enfant, so it was probably about time that I got my arse in to gear and started expressing some milk so I could go it alone.
I don't tend to leave my babies when they are small. It's not like I'm a total 'attachment' parenting type it's just that I don't express milk as I a. don't like it and b. think it messes with something that nature already has totally sorted. Also the struggle I had with Bea to feed and all the 'helpful' advice I got from professional and non-professional sources telling me to express in order to stimulate my milk was just hideous. Bea was feeding every hour anyway so trying to bloody produce anything in between and get it in to a bottle was beyond stupid. I felt like a failure and every fruitless expressing attempt compounded my feelings and in the end I gave up and just sat, ate and fed and she slowly began to put on weight. How different things are with C. Whereas Bea used to slowly, so slowly, inch her way up the growth chart on the bottom line, C is in danger of coming off the top of the chart. She is 19lbs now. I am unable to hold her for long periods. Crazy. Although intensely satisfying to finish my child bearing career on a feeding high.

I probably apologise too much in life generally, but I really do apologise for this woefully inadequate posting. I thought it might be better to hear something rather than nothing but now I fear you may be wanting to get back the five minutes of time you bothered to invest in this.  I shall attempt to improve my outlook on life and get back to you with a slightly more uplifting insight next time. I shall hope that the sun comes out and gives me back my va va voom.  With a bit of sun and sleep behind me I should be more able to find something fun and vaguely interesting to say about seven missing socks. I really need to get out more.

A toute a l'heure xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

January

Bonjourno! A good day/evening to one and all on this cold January day.

I have no idea what it is about January but it brings out the dog poo in droves. I'm not quite sure why bad dog owners feel the need to let loose (boom boom) in January just to make the month feel even more depressing but there is currently a poo-demic on our local streets. Seeing as my defecation stations never took off I have decided to put forward a new idea. ALL dog food sold in the UK MUST have a non-absorbent coloured dye added to it. Simple. It would mean that all dog poo would come out dyed a brilliant, bright colour - there could be all different colours depending on flavours/brand of food etc but I like the idea of a fluorescent dye if at all possible. This could mean that not only would our pavements be littered with interesting brightly coloured piles and smears of poo but it would also mean that the piles/smears would be easier to avoid. The problem at the moment is that the poos are hard to spot - sometimes leaves have been wrongly identified as poo and the other way round with more disastrous consequences. If you live in an affluent area of the world with uniform, light coloured pavement slabs this may sound a bit strange but our pavements are much like the area itself - a huge mix of old, new, posh, scummy, light, dark etc. No two pavements are the same and the darker ones make it particularly difficult to spot poo at a distance when travelling at speed on a scooter or pushing a buggy. (We sometimes even run when very late for school). Hence my new ingenious idea for colourful poo. It cannot be too hard to instigate, is harmless, fun and brilliant. Fluorescent excrement. I seriously have no idea why no one has thought of this before.

Luckily the snow has covered all the little pavement piles for a short while. One of the many benefits of the cold - for a few days all of London's streets are prettified by a dusting of the white stuff. Even non-uniform paving is at its prettiest. I love the look of the white stuff. I'm not so keen on anything else about it. I think snow is a bit of a waste unless you are either skiing or sledging. I used to love skiing. I mean the holiday. Not the actual act of skiing. I used to go away on a skiing holiday every year - (I used to think this was 'standard' behaviour) - but it wasn't for the sport, I just liked the pretty ski resorts, hot chocolates, wine and cheese. I mean I like swishing down the gentle baby slopes, wind gently rushing past my sun blushed, ruddy cheeks but I never liked to push myself on the skiing front. I didn't really understand the attraction of fearing for one's life. On one ski trip which was largely about skiing to a place we could stop and have a hot chocolate and a fag, the Magician Godmother decided she would prove that we could manage something more advanced. She took us (me and one other Uni friend) to the top of what can only be described as a 'near vertical' slope with a million big bumps (potentially refered to as 'moguls'?) on it. HOW anyone could have got down it in anything approaching a pleasurable fashion is impossible to imagine, so I, quite rightly, sat on my bottom and demanded she call for the rescue helicopter. She is a belligerent sort so refused. After a lenghty stand off I conceded the point and just slid from one bump to another slowly on my bottom until we reached the end and certain safety.  Ideally, if I were to ever go again (unlikely for another decade at least) I want a resort which entirely consists of gentle slopes and paths that all lead to a restaurant or a chair lift. I have never understood the need to pit oneself against the elements. I am very happy for the elements to reign supreme. Actually, and this is a true story, in my Junior school I made my parents pay for me to go on the school ski trip three times. Not because I used to like skiing as a child - no, it was for a. the fact that it was organised by the boys school (mine was all girls in case you are new) and therefore girls were in the minority b. we were allowed to take pocket money and it was to Austria where they sold Milka chocolate (you couldn't get it/my mother would never buy it for me in England) and c. the breakfasts were AMAZING - proper hot chocolate, amazing fresh white bread, delicious butter and jam - I can still remember the way it tasted now. I used to eat so much at breakfast it made skiing even harder work as ideally, I needed a jolly good lie down not a trek through the snow with my skis to the bloody ski lift. The ski lifts were good too. A chance to sit down. I seem to remember singing a lot of Jason Donovan as we sat there, enjoying the brief respite between leg aching runs.  "Too may broken hearts in the world" and leaving our wet towels out on the balcony to freeze - ahhhhh - such fun.

As for sledging - my new year's resolution is to make sure that this time next year all of the children have waterproof trousers, waterproof gloves and matching hats and scarves. Oh and we have a sledge or two in the house. Then the next time it snows I can be very excited and not panic and I can take them all sledging to make the most of it.  At the moment we have one pair of waterproof trousers in a size 3-4, one sledge at mums, two pairs of pink waterproof gloves, many many many odd gloves of the non waterproof variety and random scarves and hats. The same people who have non-twisted car seat straps also have children with matching hats, scarves and gloves and I am always very envious of them as we turn up to the gates with our mismatched gloves and hit and miss hat action.
 
My other resolution is going well so far. At my first weigh in I discovered the exciting news that I have lost 4 pounds. Hoorah. Finally I am going in the right direction. (I managed to put on 9 after the doctor weighed me at the 6 week check when he told me I needed to start losing weight.) I shan't keep going on about weight loss - it is terrifically dull for anyone but the person who is actually losing it. What I will say about weight loss is this though - it is flipping pricey. Yes, supposedly you are eating less than before but what you are eating is way more expensive. Budget biscuits, crisps and chocolate can be bought with pence not pounds - if you want more than one hit of fruit - you need pounds and lots of them. I noticed this phenomenon very early in life. In fact, as soon as I left home and had to buy my own food. During my year out between school and university - (necessary as I mistakenly thought I wanted to train as a teacher with a music degree - something like that anyway - there was definitely teaching and music in the mix but I forget the finer details - before I came to my senses and pulled out of the process to reapply to do English) - I went to live with a boyfriend in Plymouth. It was there that I embarked upon my first 'proper' job as a receptionist/secretary in a Solicitor's firm and earned the princely sum of around £550 a month. My rent was £145. I was attempting to repay dad £50 a month for some money I'd borrowed for Christmas. That left very little with which to live off.  I learnt a lot in a very short time. I wrote to my parents to inform them of my new found knowledge - my 18 year old self (who you mustn't judge as she didn't know any better) - wrote a letter which began, "I now understand why poor people are fat". Obviously I was generalising as there were an awful lot of 'poor people' thinner than I was at the time, but my point was thus - I could not afford a manicure as a treat but I could afford a bag of doughnuts from Tesco for 99p. It does irritate me. I notice the same now. I could happily and easily afford a big bar of Dairy Milk from the shop at the end of the road in order to cheer me up from the woe of illness and housework drudgery but instead I have to go further afield and spend more to find a mango or bunch of grapes or similar. I don't like to moan but it certainly doesn't help things. There should really be a tax on saturated fat and a subsidy for fruit and veg. It would make things so much easier.

Interestingly during my time living in poverty in Plymouth people would say I should get used to poverty as I was about to be a student. I would quickly correct them. In comparison I would be rich. And I was right. My time as a student were my richest to date. Back then 95% of my income was expendable. Not only was my kind dad giving me money to live on each week and paying my rent for me but I also took FULL advantage of all the 'free' money I was being offered. Student loans, credit cards, overdrafts, store cards etc. I took them all out. I went on loads of holidays and took up shopping as a full time job. Ahhhhhhhh. Those were the days. Such fun.  

Enough of the past and on to the present. In current affairs the news is this:

I have booked Cybil's baptism. Phew. If it is possible to be rude about a priest and not have too much bad luck thrust upon me I would like to say that the booking experience itself was very uncomfortable. I already feel heaps of guilt just being in the presence of a catholic priest (I am not catholic and I do not attend any church so I just automatically feel as if he will know and start telling me off). He was jolly rude about a. how old she is - clearly she should have been there with the placenta still attached - he wasn't thrilled about how long I had already left it and asked if she might have already done her A levels by April....(she will be all of nine months) b. the spelling of her name - when I explained my Syria/Sybil issue he asked me if I felt sad whenever I pass a Sycamore tree and told me she won't thank me for my choice later in life. Idiot. c. Refused to let us have the baptism in a separate ceremony so now we all have to sit through the entire hour long mass. So dull.

And finally. Another Godmother has popped! Ted's GM produced a healthy and beautiful baby girl on Monday morning and I am soo excited. Another new baby to squish and relatively local to boot. That is two GMs down and two to go.  And on the new baby news front I must also break the fabulously exciting news that I am to be Godmother to baby Harry! I know. Clearly I come in to my own later in life. First time as bridesmaid last January and now first time Godparent (outside of my family) this January. I am already godmother to my niece who is now 11 so I've been waiting a long time for the honour to be bestowed again. I am usually the bestower. It made a lovely change to be on the other side. It also makes me feel a little more grown up. Every little helps. 

Right, that's it for now. It's cold and I'm tired. I'm going to warm up in bed. xxxxx

2013

Hello! And welcome heartily and merrily to 2013. (We are 13 years in to this millennium and I still don't know if I prefer saying it in thousands, 2013 or tens 20-13). So, I haven't bothered to check where I last left you but I know it was pre Christmas so I shall quickly catch you up. There was an AWFUL lot of Cava at parties, lunches and even at my very own Annual Curry and Cava night and more calories consumed than Victoria Beckham sees in two years. It was very busy. Hence my prolonged silence. If I wasn't worse for wear or stuffed, I was wrapping. Three nights pre-Christmas of solid wrapping - I didn't get to bed much before midnight. It was exhausting. Although totally worth it. There is nothing that matches that feeling of seeing it all finished and ready under the tree - it is my job satisfaction. Cybil has also been keeping me away from the computer with her sudden dislike to evening sleeping. It lasted for a good few weeks and was terrifically tiresome, although fingers considerably crossed, she seems to have packed it in and realised I am best in daylight hours only.  I have also been at the technological black hole that is my mum's so even though my week post Christmas was relatively relaxing I still haven't been able to inform you of any of my exciting comings and goings.

Although it already seems aeons ago I shall take you back to before Christmas. I was slightly concerned this year as Bea was trying desperately not to find out the truth about the big FC, even in the face of many careless indiscretions by me and a number of children in her class and year group telling her the truth in a very blunt fashion. Still, we managed to get this last year under our belt with them all believing and I was very grateful. I nearly blew the whole thing wide open after Bea's total prat of a teacher decided to fill in time before the end of term by getting all the children to email three things they wanted to Father Christmas six days before the big day itself. This sounds fairly innocent enough but miserably the lazy sod of a teacher didn't check out the site the children were emailing and unfortunately Bea took this opportunity to try her luck and ask for an iPad on the off chance that the big FC was real and magic can actually happen. The reply she got 'from Father Christmas' told her that he was so happy she had asked for an iPad this year as the elves love making ipads and they say they are so much easier to make than ipods because you just stick a few ipods together. (Bea repeated this back to me a lot as she tried to convince herself it 'could happen' as I promised her that it would absolutely and definitely, definitely not happen as 8 year olds are not allowed to have iPads. That's the law) The paragraph that followed was quite remarkable, it went something like this, "Oh! An Elf has just told me that he is even more excited that you have asked for an iPad as we have an app you can download on to your new ipad. We will email you after Christmas to remind you to download it." Now. If I was 8, and I still believed in Father Christmas and I believed that this letter had come from him and his minions (she did) then I would be monumentally excited about the prospect of Christmas and my new iPad which this correspondence had all but told her she would receive. I didn't do anything straight away but that afternoon I did make a beeline for the lazy-arsed teacher who immediately took the defencive and thought I was upset about the fact she had even asked for an iPad, assuring me that lots of the children had asked for one. I showed him the offending paragraphs and asked if he had seen them. He said he had not and was slightly surprised. He said 'I'll 'ave a word' (He is northern).  I suggested he never use the free emailing service again and not to bother as I would be having a few words with Bea myself. In the end, I opted to tell her that the email was not real, not the whole north pole shebang. She understood and all ended well.  Although I was a tad cross that my joy and excitement at how much Bea was going to love her presents had been overshadowed by the knowledge that none of them would compare to a flipping iPad. K and I even did a mad Internet search for cheaper tablet alternatives but mercifully came to our senses pretty quickly. That was the only drama pre-Christmas and it was fairly short lived. The rest of the festivities went off without a hitch - G even sang at his non-nativity 'show' where excitingly, he got to hold up the card for the Eight Maids a Milking during the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Christmas Eve with newly married sister, bro-in-law and mother was a total success. I find it a really tricky day usually as you feel the pressure to make it special, but the children are always so hideously over excited that their behaviour is appalling, but doing something new and totally out of our usual Eve routine meant that they were wrong footed and behaved incredibly well; Bea didn't even realise Christmas Day was the following day until 5.30pm and she made a hurried note to welcome the still believed in big FC and we put out some gingerbread biscuits and carrots.  Annoyingly, on the big day itself I awoke hours before the children at 4.30am and lay there worrying about what would happen if they woke up at that time as well. A most futile activity. The day was lovely - although hard work. Lots of building of toys, food preparation, clearing up and an ill advised new 'tradition' of getting the chocolate fountain out for pudding. I cannot get the melted chocolate right and the bloody thing is a total pain and took hours of fiddling-about-preparation for only about five minutes of fun. Their fun. Not mine. Then they ran off and left me with the mess to clear up. K and I didn't really exchange proper gifts due to budget restrictions but I did get tea towels, an oven glove and an electric hand whisk. A slight change from the luxury of last year but actually I am quite excited about the hand whisk as it will make cake baking and meringue making an awful lot easier. Boxing day was on to his mum's in Essex and more present opening. I arrived a tad late due to a ridiculously annoying lost phone incident. K went ahead with the big three and I stayed back to put the dishwasher on and finish feeding Cybs. After he left I did just that and then realised I didn't have my phone. I didn't panic initially. Then panic seeped in. Then it spread. It was nowhere, I had no way to communicate (we have no home phone - a connection for the internet obviously but no phone plugged in to it) and I was about to leave the house for a week. After forty five minutes of frantic and angry searching I eventually ran across the road and found some new neighbours were in and demanded a mobile phone (Obviously I was actually incredibly polite and grateful but I was cutting to the chase).  More searching with me ringing my phone from the neighbour's phone. Still nothing. I rang K. He was unimpressed and unsympathetic. Eventually I made the (incredibly) brave decision to leave the lost phone and drive to Essex regardless. I got there just in time for lunch and very quickly my saviour of a brother-in-law informed me of the 'find my phone' app, bought it on my behalf on his phone and within seconds told me that my phone was exactly where we were standing, safe and sound somewhere in one of our cars. Modern technology is truly remarkable.

So, on to a New Year and a new me. Actually I just want the old me back. She was great. She had loads of energy, great clothes and could be arsed to put make up on every day. Now C has turned 5 months I feel I ought to get my shit together. I can't remember if I have spoken of this before but I have taken on the appearance of a used candle. It is a term I created after we watched a bit of the US version of The Biggest Loser.  Quite often the contestants had a 'normal' sized head and face when they were doing their introductory interview with the camera in close up, but then it would pan out to reveal a body of colossal size which made it look like they were made of wax and someone had put a lot of heat above their head so that the wax had melted and dripped down to settle around their middle. I too have that look. My middle is disproportionately large and ungainly. My naked self is alarming and terrifying. I have to do something. So, it's back to Wibblies I go. For those who weren't here at the beginning, Wibblies is short for Weight Watchers. It came from Cupcake Sister who named it that because the people who attend 'wibble and wobble'. Cupcake Sister is doing it with me - although 'remotely' as we live too far apart. She is also wibbly at the moment. There is a lot of it about. I weighed in on Monday and it was a total shocker. It is now a nice round four stone I have to shift and double the amount I have put on with each of the other pregnancies. I will keep you updated with my weight loss progress you lucky, lucky things.

New Year's Eve itself was spent with mother. We had a nice meal and a nice bottle of wine and then went to bed. It was wild. As per usual. The only vague bit of excitement was that earlier in the day a friend of my mother's visited and when she walked in she proclaimed that she was scared of babies. It was most odd - I have never met anyone with an actual fear of babies.  I felt a little sorry for her as she must have been quaking in her boots as I sat there breastfeeding Cybs, and added to that scary sight, a neighbour who had popped over also had her small daughter with her.  I can understand being unkeen on babies - I clearly can't empathise but I can definitely see why people choose not to have them - but to be scared of them is strange. It has occupied my thoughts on and off ever since.  I wonder if it is like me and spiders - although I know they can't actually hurt me and are more afraid of me than I am of them, it is the unexpectedness of them turning up that freaks me out. That and because they are just actually scary and they move very fast. Although a key difference is that babies are unlikely to scamper over you after hiding in your towel. Anyway, I met my first person who was scared of a baby. She liked dogs. She called her puppy her baby. And yet I liked her all the same. It wasn't the most thrilling of New Years. However in other baby news - very excitingly - the first of the Godmothers has split in two and produced a child! Sporty Godmother (to G) - has produced a son, heir and little brother to her daughter, called Harry. I have been to see him and he is quite the most adorable thing. I DO like a newborn baby. This one in particular. He was not in the slightest bit scary and he didn't cry once in the entire two hours we were there. I might see if she would hire him out to help the poor woman who is afraid of them. It would be good for her. 

In other shocking news I have managed to kick my Real Housewives addiction. They made too many changes to the line up and I lost interest. All my favourites had left so I didn't have the determination to get through the arduous ten hours (minus adverts) a week. I do feel a sense of loss but I am glad to get the time back. It was rather taking over.

So there we have it - it wasn't really worth the wait was it? Not exactly a thrilling start to 2013.  I bet you thought with such a long wait all these dramatically exciting things would have happened to me. I apologise that you got a lost phone, a scared woman and a diet. It is not really adequate. Also apologies once again for the delay, I will be back much sooner next time. I need something to do with my hands to keep me away from the food so there may be many more thrilling stories coming your way - paint drying, traffic jams and how many times I wake up a night are all possibles for next time. Bet you can wait now.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mary and Bright

 

Ding Dong Merrily on High! In a change to recent posts I am on a wave of happiness and good feeling. Even the magpies have changed their tune - I am now seeing far more couples and only the odd, ominous singleton. It may well be that I am seeing the same two magpies over and over again as I walk in a circle around the same streets day after day after day but even so, they are giving me a jolly boost with their promise of joy. And so far they are being true to their word.

Ted has had two good days at nursery with his behaviour which is fantastic news. Normally, I pick him up and ask the dreaded question 'how has he been?' to which they pull a face and the older, more forgiving woman says 'he definitely tried today' whereas the other, younger woman says 'not the best' and then goes on to list his major crimes. However on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week they both concurred that he had been very well behaved! The first time in about a month or longer if you include 'going in well' and not screaming. His behaviour at home has been marginally improved - sometimes outstanding and sometimes hideous. He is the only three year old I have had who decided to give the newly installed 'non-drop ' (HA BLOODY HA) Christmas tree a thorough hair cut or take pleasure in writing on the sofa and walls in felt tip on a weekly basis but he isn't waking at 5am every day now and is far less violent so I shall take the good where I can. I even had a break from him as K took him to his mother'son Sunday. He is far easier to love in his absence.

As well as magpies the streets have given me plenty to be happy about - I seem to be on a bit of a role with finding great stuff people have thrown out. So far I have acquired a £50 micro scooter, a mamas and papas baby walker in excellent condition and a fantastic baby Einstein activity centre which only needed a quick once over with dettol. These kind of things make me fantastically happy. Things for free (and I hasten to add there was either a sign saying 'please take' or they were quite clearly left on the pavement to be taken - I promise I didn't just swipe them whilst the owner was loading their car and had momentarily left their belongings) is like winning a competition. A lot of the things in our house were free at the point of consumption. Sofas, cupboards, radiator covers, chairs and an awful lot of toys. I'm not as bad as the old folks over the road who couldn't quite cope when their late friend's house next door was having a complete renovation by the new owners and removed the carpet and underlay from the skip as well as blinds and light fittings etc. I was exceptionally grateful that they were on holiday when the loo made an appearance on top of the skip. They didn't even need the carpet and underlay but pulled up their own carpet to put the underlay underneath just to 'make use of it'. I am not that bad but I do love a good freebie. (And yes I briefly flirted with Freecycle and got involved but I never managed to get anything I wanted as I was always too late and ended up with an awful lot of stuff that I really didn't need, sometimes travelling to great lengths to get it so I weaned myself off the email updates pretty quickly.)  In further free stuff excitement I have also completed my Christmas shopping for the children, largely thanks to our Tesco vouchers. I saved them all year (as did my mother) and doubled them in the exchange scheme and yet again I have received £200 worth of plastic excitement for absolutely nothing. I was almost giddy with glee. New stuff for free is even better than old stuff for free.

Thursday morning was a slight misery due to a ridiculously early start but yet again the magpies delivered and as I stumbled in to playgroup tripping over Ted and lugging the great fat Cybil in her car seat on my arm, the Rev made a beeline for me and proclaimed that 'I had the perfect holy family' and 'would I be a Virgin Mary?'. Well my heart clear leaped - it may shock you to know but I have never, ever (ever) been asked to be a Virgin Mary. I hate being the centre of attention (again this is shocking) and so I make a pretty terrible actress (seriously I can't even lie convincingly) and only ever had background parts in school productions. It could also be because in one Nativity production at my primary school, I was so busy looking out at the audience for my mother, I forgot to look for the gap between the main stage and the steps leading up to it and so fell sharply down it. As an adult I can see how funny it must have been, to see a small child in a white sheet and a tinsel halo disappear down an unseen hole right in front of you but as the child concerned it was a. painful and b. hideously embarrassing as I saw every single person in the packed hall wet themselves with laughter. It has scared me for life. There was one notable exception when I was about 10 and I played Good King Wenceslas for a Christmas concert and got to walk around the stage for the entirety of the song with a crown and mum's fur coat on, holding a brace of dead pheasants. Other than that I have been very much a background actress and so, you can imagine my pure joy at finally being asked to be the MAIN PART at the grand old age of 34. I looked down at my 34yr old body and wondered if it was my heaving bosom or my matronly girth that finally made me the perfect Virgin Mary but alas, it was just that I had given birth recently so had a ready made Jesus and I had a boy child who would 'do' as Joseph. I was only Virginal enough due to my prolific procreation. Oh the irony. So, happiness restored, I set about informing all the mothers that I would finally be playing the part I was born to play, when some party pooper reminded me that my grand performance clashed with G's carol singing/non-nativity production at the school. GUTTED. I briefly and desperately tried to work out a way in which I could do both and perhaps see the singing/non-nativity on the Friday - but that clashed with Ted's nursery Christmas party. I didn't think I could miss either (even though the odds are that G won't actually sing a bloody thing) just so that I could finally fulfil my calling on the acting front. Plus, although the lovely Reverend Carol had instructed me to 'dress up' and asked that Ted didn't come dressed as Superman, Spiderman or indeed a Witch on this occasion, it really is just a brief run through of the 'main event' before the children sing Away in a Manger and not a particularly formal 'production' of the Nativity, and so it would be particularly inappropriate to miss either of the boys' Christmas events just so that I could enjoy a few minutes of playgroup fame sitting on a chair in front of the collected group of children and carers dresssed as the Virgin Mary. Actually, my sacrifice is particularly seasonal - Jesus and I clearly have an awful lot in common.

So, free stuff, Christmas shopping and nearly-a-Virgin again all set me up nicely for a Seasonal weekend.  The school had their Christmas Fair on Friday night which was even better as I didn't have to attend thanks to C as an excuse - it is far too crowded and busy to get a buggy around and she hates the baby carrier and so do I as she is so heavy - so I sent Bea with a friend and G with K who had to leave work early - but it was worth all their sacrifice as I luxuriated at home awaiting the cake I had ordered K to buy. Cake is an important yard stick of how your school is doing by the way. I have a 'Three C' policy to tell if your local state school is 'up and coming'. The first C is cake. When Bea first started at the school, the cake sales were small and the cakes on offer were mainly shop bought cheap ones that were sold off for 5 or 10p with a few notable exceptions from enthusiastic mothers who had put time and effort in to making some fabulous cakes that were sold off for the princely sum of 20p. Three years on and the cake sales now span across two to three tressle tables, you can't buy anything for less than 50p and everything is home made - mostly from a Nigella book and signposted to tell you so and the Brownies are made with Green and Black's chocolate. It is the stuff of a cake addict's dream. I spent over £5 at the last sale. (I went back on three separate occassions so as not to arouse suspicion or unfavourable views from the mothers on selling duty). So the first C is cake - good Nigella cake is a sure sign that the yummy mummy middle classes have moved in to the area in their droves. The Second C is for coats. I have a particular weakness for buying childrens' coats and therefore am able to spot a Joules/Boden/Cyrillus/Monsoon coat at fifty paces. If you can see a good splattering of middle class coats on the children going in to school then your school is definitely 'up and coming'.  The last C is for Cars. I don't mean judging them for their price tag - this is a state school, not a private school where such things matter. At an up-and-coming state school you need children dropped off in their beautiful Boden coats either on foot/scooter or on a bike. Being eco-friendly is very middle class. I once went to a school where the entire 'No Parking' yellow zig zag area outside the school was covered with cars, parked directly underneath the signs pleading with them to 'show you care, park elsewhere' - clearly NOT up and coming.  You see how it works? Middle class parents 'care'. In fact, at a state school around here, seeing a new shiny Range Rover Sport or BMW X5 is not a good sign, the fewer you see of these outside the school gates, the better. (I have gone in to brackets here as I don't want to be chastised by anyone but come on - everyone knows these are the favoured cars of  drug dealers - don't shoot me for pointing it out).  So, there you have it, my Three C's to judging if your local state school is good enough for your precious offspring. Cake, Coats and Cars. I should charge for such wisdom - you are very lucky to get such gems for free.

I should actually confess that the other reason I was pleased not to go to the Christmas fair (I did buy raffle tickets in advance and donate half the contents of our playroom to the cause just in case you thought badly of me) was that I was a little bit pissed. I know. It's not something I wear as a badge of honour, more of total bemusement. I have been a little 'merry' before after a Ladies lunch but I am ashamed to say I was a little beyond a little merry after ACTUAL champagne and not Cava was served at Blonde Bombshell's lunch. It was thrown in honour of her youngest's fourth birthday and I had tried to cut back on what I ate in the lead up to the lunch so the first few glasses of bubbly made contact with an empty stomach and therefore went straight to my head. The rest were consumed sitting down and I lost count of the number of times her or her husband 'topped up' my glass. By the time I stood up to go I realised that the lunch hadn't gone nearly far enough in soaking up the liquid and I was a bit squiffy. I had to work incredibly hard to force my brain in to sober mode as I picked up the children from school (including the extra child which I feel particularly guilty about - it would be terrible if my drinking caused any harm to come to my own children let alone one that wasn't mine and whose parents had assumed I would be sober at pick up time). By the time I made it back with them all, the concentrating on acting sober had given me a substantial headache and I suddently found the floor appealing so I lay down on it and asked G to look after C whilst Ted laid down with me, sharing my pillow. I told them I had drunk too much and needed to lie down for a bit. G asked if i was drunk. I didn't answer. It is hard to explain the difference between drunk and squiffy to a 6 year old. I definitely wasn't drunk. The great think about drinking too much at lunch though, is that the hangover comes whilst you are asleep and by the following morning I was feeling an awful lot better and was ready to welcome the arrival of our Christmas Tree with open arms. (FYI Cybil seemed to show no ill effect from the drinking - I don't think everything I drink goes straight down my throat and in to hers via the boob - I'm pretty sure it is all quite separate thanks to the stomach and digestive system etc and the boobs themselves producing the milk, not my stomach).

So the tree arrived, was swiftly erected by K who, for once, knew exactly where the tree stand was and, for once, was not still holding the old Christmas tree within it outside in the garden. The Christmas decorations were retrieved from the loft, a light up train was dropped off from a friend and now the living room has a very pleasing 'grotto' theme. There are an awful lot of flashing lights and it smells delightfully of 'tree'. And most importantly there are four stockings hanging up this year. I am SO over excited. I can't wait to see their faces. I have done particularly well with my shopping and I can't wait for Ted's reaction in particular - he may be the hardest to look after but he also the most enthusiastic when receiving gifts and I have gone spectacularly Spider-man-tastic so he should be the happiest he has ever been. AND we are, for the first time ever, planning to enjoy a Christmas Eve family celebration at Newly Married Sister's posh flat in North London. I really am a tad too excited for someone of my age about the whole thing. I will go before I gush anymore. It must be the hormones - I am normally far more cynical about the whole thing. K and I aren't even exchanging gifts this year due to budget restrictions, and I am still excited. I am so like that boy from the John Lewis advert last year.

Ooh, Tesco is here I have to go. He brings with him more happiness in the shape of Diet Coke, Wine and chocolate biscuits. It is hard to imagine life getting any better.
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