(all ‘grabby-grabby’ and ‘yanky-yanky’)...

The following scenario probably occurs several times a week, varying in intensities. Welcome to groundhog days, my life -the post office saga: I sprint out of the house, needing to get to the post office before it shuts. I grab everything I am supposed to, bag, coat, shoes, keys, thingy to post, 4 kids, coats/shoes x 4, the dog, and 7 medium dwarves, who wandered in this morning…I am out. We pull up to the post office, I leap out the car (as I can never just ‘step’ out all lady-like, well who am I going to fool in all honesty, it’s a small town where I live, word travels fast!), unhook 4 children (I hang them up by their coats on fish-hooks), and we charge into the post office. We never go unnoticed, a woman and 4 kids is always too much for people, and the quiet shuffling people in the queue are rattled to their very bones when we stride in. I finally get to the till…I have forgotten my bag, and the parcel. Back in the car, back home, bag, check, parcel, check. Back to the post office, into post office, wait…realise I have left both bag and parcel in the car. Retreat, grab the appropriate bits, and now back into the post office for the 4^th time (they offered to get me a key cut…) then I realise my purse is not in my bag. Back out, in car, home, purse, check, back to post office (there’s 2 minutes till closing now). Hooray, I am there, I’m up next, there are 2 women on, one of who is alright, although not someone I would necessarily go camping with (the would you go camping with them? Test!), but she will do. Then the other one. Who straight up HATES me. She has never once said ‘hello’ and has never responded to this very day that we walk the earth to my ‘how are yous’, rude b*tch. She has a face on her like she has been chewing, then gobbing out, rats a*** holes, for her entire life. She’s mean, real mean. I have genuinely really p*ssed her off today too, and she humphs and sighs out loud, very deliberately. Really over does it. But in the end, I saved the day and got the parcel away! Yey!

I spent Thursday ‘getting seen to’. No not in any kind of a sordid way, well, actually…no, I had my abscess tooth seen to, and I began my pelvic floor muscle exercises with my midwife. Oh did I not tell you all, I am expecting number 5…HA got ya! Oh, actually I hope none of the elderly members of my family are reading this, I might just have killed one of them from shock. Still, I’ll move on, basically in France after you have a baby, you have to do these exercises throughout 8 sessions with the midwife. Hence my beginning now being scorned upon in France “you mean you haven’t done your pelvic floor re-training yet?” and then them looking at my as though I omitted to put my clothes on before leaving the house today. It’s just ‘the done thing’, however in England it’s not the same deal, hence my tardiness.  But better late than never hey?

Wanting to look like one of those adventurous outdoor mummies, I don my crampons, grab my hiking stick and set out on a dog walk, not convinced people will be fooled. The walk is going well, I have esmie on her push-along-trike, and she is chatting away to me, I cannot hear an effing word as the bike is so noisy, but gaily mouth back “Oh, reallys?” and “Wows”, and this charade continues for the most part. The things that kids enjoy, are not always our best ideas of fun, though, for example this trike before me, it is so noisy it hurts my ears, it has ruined any conversation potential, Esmie has no concept what so ever of the word 'steer', or what it entails. It is all I can do to stop us going round  constantly in teeny circles as she insists on steering at full-lock left the whole way! Then there was the brief moments of her wanting to be on my 'boulders'…shoulders, to us lot, but I must look like a hulk to my tiny 2-year-old, so boulders are actually quite apt, maybe? Why do we do the ‘shoulder-rides for kids’? it is a parental obligation, yet it is harmful to us as parents, and sometimes even life threatening. They sit up there, completely unaware of the fact that in their apparent absolute need to *squeeeeeeze* your face, they are rapidly depleting you of hair (all ‘grabby-grabby’ and ‘yanky-yanky’) and generating crazy numbers of red blood vessels bursting in your eyes (where you have been poked and grabbed for what feels like an eternity, whilst they are up there). Your whole body thinks it is under attack, as you are outwardly, patiently going “Oooo, careful there sweetheart, yep, let's just get our fingers out of mummy’s eyes and earhole shall we, that’s it…oh, no, not pulling on the hair quite as hard as that…that’s it…” and so on, staggering around, being brutally injured every few seconds. I  am considering setting up an 'Abstention from harmful child-inflicted activities'  group, anyone interested? And then the dog goes and spies a MAHOOOSIVE pile of horse s***, and straight up, dive-bombs into the middle of it. Now listen, my dog does not even leap into the car…I have to lift him, every time, paying extra-careful attention to where I grab him, as god forbid I should touch dog-bits, eeewwww. Call, and call, and CALL him, I do (that sounded like Yoda said that sentence!), but my calling is to no avail, he will not come. I steam up to him (probably not the best descriptive word I could of used , given the circumstances, and what I was going to have to pull him out of), I woman-handle my horse s*** covered animal out of the field, with my bulging fore-arms (!) and arrive home fooking shattered, I tell yer.

That’s been my last day or so. How was yours?