The kids did ring us once or twice to ask if we were coming back to untie them and let them out of the cupboard, but we said no.

me in a few years....

Today, I have quite a different blog, I actually get to talk about having been on my own, for two whole nights with my husband this weekend (for the first time in 7 ½ years). The kids did ring us once or twice to ask if we were coming back to untie them and let them out of the cupboard, but we said no. OK, in truth the wonderful in-laws have come to France for a few months, staying in their mobile home 5 hours from us, so we spied an opportunity, dropped off the kids and  fled left everyone to fend for themselves for 2 days. My word, the days were soooo loooong, so quiet, so un-intense. It turns out, I DO have a brain, AND useful thoughts too, well, few and far between, and the two days it was trialled for is hardly long enough to prove that theory fool proof. But I am, nonetheless, semi-reassured that I am capable of having a rational thought., of going into another room and remembering why the fcuk I went in there. Usually after 5 attempts of retracing my steps from designated room to original starting point, am I sometimes able to recall why I went there in the first place when the kids are around.

In brief, it was an eye opening experience. I was a ‘girlfriend’, ‘single’ (well, married with 4 kids single, but you get it?!) Again, and not just a skivvy housewife…! Wow. (Not that my husband treats me like that, I hasten to add, well, he wouldn’t have a wife if he did!).

The lead up to the weekend, was it’s usual bombardment of mentalness. I had to do the food shop, which I loathe. Especially as Esmie is just at that point where I am insistent that she is still a ‘baby’ (at 2 ½, not washing with her, not with the mouth she’s got, and how she chooses to use it), so I keep her in the trolley seat for maximum speed guaranteed around the shop- it is supermarket sweeps I like. Man Woman handling her into the seat, promising her that at the bread (ie at the far end of the shop, right before the till, where the end is in sight) she could descend. It is somewhat difficult to keep a smile on your face, talking calmly and not giving in to the gargantuan paddy she is quite happily displaying to all onlookers. I am wandering around smiling and singing variations of ‘I’ve got a lov-er-ly bunch of coconuts, diddleydum’ and ‘the only way is UP, baby’ by Yazz, remember that one? Well, it seemed quite appropriate. My singing only causes further irritation in my miniature wild-child, who is determinedly trying to show everyone in the shop that sitting in the trolley seat, ‘repressing her’ is so unfair, so much so that her shouts and aversion to this indignity, are making the other shoppers stop in their tracks (yes helllloooo, stare, stare, never heard a child have a paddy before? Apparently not, move along *******, or pay for the show), fully believing I am attempting to tweezer out her hair, little clump by little clump. Then we reach the bread, she’s allowed down, as promised, and she’s smiling like an angel. Yep. That simple.

On the way out of the shop an old lady walks straight into the door beside the automatic doors, smacks her head and falls to the floor, I run over, with trolley, which to this day, I have never found a trolley that goes in the direction you want it to go, through sheer force of strength and will power and use of my GIANT forearms (please see: http://manic-mums.blogspot.com/2011/01/oh-look-there-goes-big-forearm-lady.html), I get there, only there are already a few other untrollied people around, who managed to get there more quickly, directing her towards the door, and not the window this time. She, thankfully is uninjured, but it makes me think, one day, I am so going to be that old lady, walking into windows cause I can’t tell the difference between automatic doors and windows anymore. I’m only a few years off by my standards…scary stuff.

So that’s why I have been absent from my blog, but it has been AMAZING! And hopefully, the next time will not be 7 1’2 years away. It was worth the wait though!