The next day I am walking around like John Wayne on laxatives, fabulous look.

Carnival time (and Monty's was the day before, hence 'plain clothes' not Obe-Wan Kenobe, as I have referred to him as in the blog.

Tufty is doing alright, as she is now known chez us…Margo the chicken apparently managed to chop her hair with the aid of her middle sister, the flap happy  (ha ha, had to get that in!) way in which she tackled Tufty’s hair left devastating unseemingly large fringe syndrome.. but we have ventured out in public, and asides the odd look of disbelief, my friends kindly and compassionately ask if she’s been at her own hair with the scissors again…’no’, I explain, ‘This time, it was the chicken’.

With hours going forward this weekend, my kids have been turned inside out by this hour difference. The night, now much lighter, they take as a sign to run around relentlessly in and out of each others’ rooms, honing their ‘I’m a scary monster, although I know I should be in bed’ skills. So much so, that, as the ‘parent’ saying goes, it’ll end in tears’, and it inevitable does. Mitzi has been so terrified by Esmie, her younger sister (a.k.a Tufty) pretending to bite her and eat her (although she cannot even get out of her cot because at 2 and a half, she is still in there. I am not yet physically or mentally at that capability level yet to ‘unleash the balrog’ and allow my toddler total freedom in and out of her bed *rocks in corner at very thought*. So the big-girl bed is still waiting a wee while yet). Mizti gets over this and decides to start climbing on Monty’s bed, he is obviously distraught by the fact she is on his bed whilst he’s trying to read, and cries too. Pleading with his younger sister to ‘leave me alone’, as by this time she has well and truly crossed the line by calling him ‘camembert cheese’ at this point I really do have to intervene, there’s apparently NO worse insult than being called a smelly cheese. I’ll remember that the next time bastard policeman starts to cross the road in front of me when I’m driving, then knocks at my window as he makes me pull over then proceeds to royally rollock me for not leaving the legally required 4 metres between a pedestrian and a car. Err, sorry for not knowing the 4 metre rule Mr Wanky policeman. As if?! That is a true story, I didn’t even manage to play the I’m English me no understand’ which would have left him frustrated on his megalomaniacle power trip, card either this time, as I was so stunned, so weak me, simply smiled sternly and wished him a fabulous day, and wheel spinned off. OK, I didn’t even wheel spin either, nothing, I was lame. Pure , unadulterated lameness. Anyway, the kids, well they eventually went to sleep about 9…

It has been carnival week this week, so I have been baking cakes and putting makeup on little kids and ‘lending a lame hand’ at their carnivals like a trooper. Hence the photo. Desperate to get away from the jedi and princess theme that plays out every single bloody year the same, I encourage other outfits, no-one other than Mitzi concedes, and goes as a bit of a different adaptation, an Indian princess. Lola is straight up princess, Monty the jedi (although he’s forbidden from wearing his mask in front of me as they freak me out too much, and I always run off screaming, arms flailing around, like I am being attacked by the real Obe-Wan Kenobe…).

As I walk around the day of the carnival, they land a surprise 2 mile promenade to the town hall, and back. marvelous. 50 odd kids in disguise, tripping over too long skirts/trousers, plus bedraggled adults trying to enjoy parading the tired, some of them crying, makeup streaming kids in disguise brigade. The next day I am walking around like John Wayne on laxatives, fabulous look. I am in agony. My little cow (in fairness, she was disguised as one) nearly broke both my hips, elbows and knee caps making me carry her ALL the way there AND back. TWO miles. TWO whole, hardcore miles on foot carrying a cow. May as well have been 50 miles in fact, for what my broken body was telling me threw it’s creaks and groans and those little clicky, not sure if a little bone somewhere in my body just snapped, or it’s just one of those weird clicky thing, noises. You know? You don’t? Oh well, I do, and that’s all that matters.

 Tonight as I put the kids to bed, I read Monty’s Flat Stanley book with him. He remarks that it’d be *well cool* to be flat, think of what you could do, he says. To which I answer, well I am pretty flat, I have a flat chest (please see blog: http://manic-mums.blogspot.com/2010/11/after-breastfeeding-4-kids-i-was-hardly.html. for further 'i'm boobless' jokes, although it’s my sad reality, so don’t fall over laughing or anything too mean, leave me some dignity), he looks at me and laughs and goes ‘Oh yeah, you’re right there, mum!”

On that note, I shall love you and leave you, you can think of me in the rain again, on a Wednesday (no school) with 4 kids on Duracell…

Leibster Award!

Right, another 'tag' blog...I am very moved *sobs, blows nose* to have received an award from my friend over at http://fastandluce.blogspot.com/, who does a lovely blog with lots of recipes that make you dribble a bit when you read them...pop by and check her out. Thank you fast and luce!

Now the conception behind this idea is as follows...

The Liebster Award is designed to be awarded to 'small' blogs with less than 300 subscribers to spread the blog love and get them out to a wider audience. The rules are:

1. Post displaying the award (done), linking back to the person who awarded you (done)
2. Choose your own blog picks (below) and let them know they’re awarded
3. Hope everyone discovers some new favourites
4. Revel in the blog love!

I choose to award the following soooper doooper (and sorry if you've already got the award, take it as a compliment!) bloggers:

a little edit, and FIRST UP, how can i possibly have forgotten my bestest bloggy mate?...!

http://superamazingmum.blogspot.com/

http://chocorangecitymum.blogspot.com/

http://gigglingatitall.blogspot.com/ 

http://ghostwritermummy.wordpress.com/

http://www.notanottinghillmum.co.uk/

http://sahmlovingit.blogspot.com/

http://www.notesfromhome.com/

http://motherporridge.wordpress.com/

http://katetakes5.blogspot.com/

http://mummysquared.blogspot.com/

http://helloitsgemma.wordpress.com/

http://waterbirthplease.wordpress.com/

http://www.amodernmother.com/

http://mdplife.blogspot.com/

http://honestmum.com/

http://www.metalmummy.co.uk/

http://insidethewendyhouse.blogspot.com/

http://mothersalwaysright.wordpress.com

Share the love, pass it on, pretty please....!

The chicken apparently has been brandishing flappy wings and 'flap' cutting her hair.

'Tufty' the self-hair dressing toddler, having a little nose pick too, nice.

Wandering round the house, the garden, and finally looking in the car, I find the culprit. Clutching, the now, four tufts of hair that my 2 and a half-year-old has ridded herself of, she has obviously been working on the principle that hair is an unnecessary accessory. When I see her, I cannot even believe it, she looks atrocious. I stare her out, raising my eyebrows and listening to her, and this is how it goes:

‘I didn’t cut my hair mummy, nooo, not meeee, not Esmie cut her hair…’ denials. Yes, we have been here before. The last time she cut her hair.

Then I question her, ‘well if you didn’t, sweetheart (teeth gritted), then who did?’

Shrugs, then answers, ‘Margo and Mitzi’.

So by all accounts, her next sister up, and the chicken have been in on this too. The chicken apparently has been brandishing flappy wings and 'flap' cutting her hair, my 2-year-old tells me, scissors in hand, more tufts around her on the car seat. In her defence, at least she’s making an effort and looking in the car mirror to do it this time, not just chopping in the slap-happy fashion she has become accustomed to when she is in charge of scissors and possesses her own hair. Were it her barbies, well, this kind of sh*t is only to be expected, every girl goes through the urge to re-style, always dreadfully, and so the hair gets shorter and shorter, till barbie is now really no more than a tranvestite Ken, and gets shame binned. Poor unsuspecting barbies. Us girls all go through this stage, that ‘I have both scissors, and an uncontrollable desire to just hack at her hair’ stage. The thing is, OK, I could hide all the scissors, but the other kids love to cut and stick and paste and the like, so I cannot punish all four kids for one of them having an OCD about cutting her own hair, badly. I am in a right pickle, and looking at her right in front of me, I have the urge to either put a wig on her so we CAN actually venture out in public, without her looking like she has some kind of disease, or looking like she has a mother that is actually OK and possibly even encourages ‘self-hairdressing’ in 2-year-olds. Or do I super-glue a hat on her head? I have never seen such a tufty, mahoooosive fringe. It starts from the middle of the back of her head, and stretches from behind ear-to behind and down a little bit, the other ear. Super.(see her above...check it out in real life, it's no joke).

The Friday I had some free time in the afternoon (I know, in real life, free time!) so I decided to paint stuff that I have been meaning to paint for months, possibly years. I re-paint some plant pots with special metal paint, it’s like ‘painting-with-mollasses’, I am aware of Esmie and Mitzi, making sure (as they are painting outside too whilst I do this) they come nowhere near. I suddenly see Esmie sneaking up, she is on a mission, I however, with ninja-like speed intercept (believe me, with toddlers as obsessed with doing anything and everything they can, from cutting hair, to all the leaves off the pot plants (please note the plural use, ALL the pot plants), to painting on walls and stealing sugar cubes and chocolate, to name but a few things), i am just in time to grab her hand before it plunges into the paint pot, which she no doubt intends to rub into her head, just to take the focus off her tufty-hair. In my haste, I fling black metal paint everywhere, up the outside wall, the floor, and over my leg. My friend unexpectedly arrives, so I rush around trying to clear up the molasses paint, failing miserably to get it off my leg. I give up and put jeans on, to cover it. We go to school together to pick up the kids, and I walk around with my jean stuck to my leg for the next 3 hours, as we go to the park after school.

I am forced to take a bath that night, and rip the jean off the leg, no matter what I do, it’s not coming off, it’s just got stickier in the hot bath, I decided shaving it off is the way forward, I am wrong, ever tried shaving your legs with treacle on them? No? Well then, I wouldn’t bother.

I wonder what next week will bring, there is definitely something in the air at the moment, and it’s polluting my household…anyone have the anecdote? Let me know…

When this is what your *hope for the day* is, you know you’ve got issues.

Fanfooky-wookytastic! Yellow egg yolk stain on WHITE trousers. It’s not so much the colour, although yellow stains are never going to look anything less than dodgy, it’s more the proximity to my crotch that bothers me. There is, however, no time to change me (note to self: always pack, and bring change bag for ‘grown up should be able to fend for herself and yet falls surprisingly short on many occasions' mum, as well as kids’ change bag). No choice, I have to leave, I am late picking up the kids for lunch, they eat at the canteen three days a week at school, apart from the Friday, when I pick them all up (WHY??). It ends up being like an Anneke Rice challenge (although hopefully, a slightly smaller bottomed version, no offense Anneke, but it was all we could look at love…), a test of mental endurance. I used to do this everyday right up until I had a physical and mental breakdown, and couldn’t stop myself rocking in corners…Well, not quite, right up until Christmas, then it was all just getting too ridiculous, with picking kids up from 2 different schools, and only just over an hour to enter, lunch, babywipe-up, clean-up, turn back around, chase my arse for a while, then back in the car, and school re-drop off, you see where I am coming from? So now, sorry kids, I do this only on the Friday.

As I leave I see in the back that I have a chicken still doing it’s own thing in the car. I can’t get it out, so Marjorie has to come with me for the ride. This probably wouldn’t have been an issue either, had she not noticed the car was moving, she looks out the window sensing motion, her head cocks one way and then the other, the big red flappy thing on her head flaps from side-to-side too, then terrified, she sh*ts herself, quite literally. This is absolutely brilliant, I suppose at least, though, when I now open the car door and step out with dodgy-yellow-crotch stain, the stench of the chicken sh*t will distract onlookers…? When this is what your *hope for the day* is, you know you’ve got issues.

The public girl toilets were shut, being ‘maintained’. I have visions of a psychologist sat in there, helping the public toilets come to terms with their purpose in life, housing Jo public’s arses. THE worst job ever, having to accommodate the Public’s arses, in such an intimate way too. Anyway, they were shut, and whether a psychologist was in there *maintaining* them, or not, who can say? The instructions were clear however, that the dudes' loos were still going strong. OMG. Urinals. As if? But with 4 kids desperate for a wee, although we had ‘last weed it' before leaving the house, as I am a COMPLETE neurotic when it comes to public loos *borks at memories of smells, and once slipping up on someone else’s wee, and landing in someone else’s squidgy, scrunched up loo-roll*, *borks a bit more*. So off into the boys' toilets we trot. I base my head and attempt to avert my eyes, being the only woman in here (and quite possibly the only woman in the world to be ever) surrounded by dudes relieving themselves. Too rank. There is (thank the lord in the heavens and the singing angels with harps and secret mars bars for harp-playing energy) a cubicle, and I dive in there grabbing their little hands and instructing, well I say ‘instructing’ it’s more of a slightly neurotic screech, telling the kids to touch NOTHING. Mortifying experience. I hope the girls’ loos are back on form next time, maybe it was their time of the month?

So there we go, I am off to make a cuppa, then collate hundreds of leaflets whilst nursing my 4-year-old who had grommets put in less than a week ago, and has another ear infection already, and the *words can not describe her, you have to see her to believe it* terrible-two-year-old. Wish me luck!

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!

One word makes SUCH a difference!

OK, for all those ‘non-bloggers’ out there, a quick explanation, in the ‘blog world’, oh you may laugh, but believe me, it’s a WHOLE new world out there (always hear that song ‘whole new world’ and imagine myself flying around with Aladdin on his magic flying rug, I of course, take the place of Princees Jasmine, because, obviously), THUD! Back down to earth with one, and carries on explanation-other bloggers ‘tag’ you, and you are therefore obliged afterwards to do the particular blog you were ‘tagged’ in, and ‘tag’ others. So there you go. Today is one of those, although today, I write nothing, YOU guys tell me everything. I am laying myself out there, bare, wide and open (god, horrible mental picture) and in ONE WORD, yes, just one, you have to discribe me (please be gentle) well in fact, it’s carte blanche here, you may say whatever you want to descibe me in one word….So go on, get on with it then...

Here’s where it originated from, the lovely Mummy from the Heart who tells it like this…

This got me thinking about an email I received a few years back, one of those circular things that I normally hate but this one I loved and have never forgotten.  It was about the power of positive affirmations and how knowing what positive things others think of you can boost your own self-esteem.  It talked of an inspirational teacher who got all her children to write one positive word down to describe the other children in the class and then they had to hand them in.  The teacher then collated all the positive words for each child into a special sheet for them and handed it to them to read and keep.  They learnt that their peers saw them in ways they had never imagined and it had an immense effect on them.  The story goes that one of them died and a number of them attended the funeral and it was found that they all still had their lists 20 or so years later as they had been really touched by this loving gesture.  Did this really happen?  Who knows, but I love the sentiment of this story and therefore it does not matter to me if it was real.
Well, what about if us bloggers and virtual friends did something similar?

Thanks for tagging me http://superamazingmum.blogspot.com/, who has a superb blog, btw, and has been a constant support to me the bloggy newby! The rest, it’s your turn now: tagging:

http://chocorangecitymum.blogspot.com/

http://gigglingatitall.blogspot.com/ 

http://ghostwritermummy.wordpress.com/

http://www.notanottinghillmum.co.uk/

http://sahmlovingit.blogspot.com/

http://www.notesfromhome.com/

http://motherporridge.wordpress.com/

http://katetakes5.blogspot.com/

http://mummysquared.blogspot.com/

http://helloitsgemma.wordpress.com/

http://waterbirthplease.wordpress.com/

http://www.amodernmother.com/

http://mdplife.blogspot.com/

http://honestmum.com/

http://www.metalmummy.co.uk/

http://insidethewendyhouse.blogspot.com/

mothersalwaysright.wordpress.com

I believe him, you should see his ‘truth’ eyes, scary...

So far this week, and bear in mind we are only 8 pm Tuesday night here, OK, so I have an hour on you guys in England, but nonetheless, it is still only Tuesday. My point, well I’ve, of course, lost it now. I’ll eat my dinner my husband has lovingly prepared for me, and see if it returns…Watch this space. Hooray, I remember, and dinner was delicious btw, my point was the week so far, I have both been offered Guinea-pig babies and 6 kittens. I had a breakthrough when I found that, in fact with my  already existing plethora of livestock, we are 14 individual ‘livestocks’ here, that’s a fair few, and I found myself nearly in tears, but managing to give them a resounding ‘no’ as my response, so in a way, I also got to keep my marriage in tact too, as Alex swears down he’ll leave if any more mouths to feed arrive! (and I believe him, you should see his ‘truth’ eyes, scary…) So I said ‘no’. I wonder, it set me off thinking, whether I have ‘Ever so slightly simple, accepts anything going, idiot, really’ stamped on my now 33-year-old worn, wrinkled fore’ead. I seem to be everyone’s target.

My birthday hit me hard Sunday, growing up certainly happens fast, and my life moves with such speed, it makes me dizzy man. But hey ho, sh*t happens, and as it goes, I had my best birthday ever, was thoroughly spoilt and spent it with my favourites, kids and hubby. Goodo.

Mitzi had her grommets operation today, and as usual, true French style, a suppository was in order, this time a liquid one. Funtastic. And it was that. But she was so brave, and is now plus 2 grommets, and less adenoids. 

Margo the chicken, who is fighting fit nowadays, after being very nearly mauled to death by someone else’s dog we were looking after, trots around, gay as you like, wherever her paws/claws/feet? What are they called? Suggestions? Chicken boffs? Saturday, it was the house, our bedroom to be precise. Where she sh*ts right in the middle of our ‘off white’ rug (very, very off white, more ‘grey and filth’ white, in truth), I have to wash it in the bath, as green chicken poo both STINKS and is like sticky, green, concentrated goo *borks a bit*, so I turn the tap on, and leave it on for ONE AND A HALF HOURS…(shouting voice, a complete necessary here) as I went out and forgot about it, until I got back and found we had no hot water left (funny that) and 2 inches deep in water, new look paddling pool house. Sloshing through, in sheer panic and almost complete acceptance of the fact I must have *caught* senile dementia now I have turned 33, I head towards the tap. The dining room, the kitchen, the bathroom, the downstairs toilet and the koala cage are all deep (ish) in water, and we don’t actually have koalas, I made that up, so mum and dad, and probably a few others, you can relax, but soddenness everywhere. Luckily it’s not raining, and the kids have to play outside for the TWO hours it took me to *push* the water out of the front door and garage door with nothing more than a broom. I used every last towel we own to soak up what I could, and hauled out, legs slightly bent  and my forearms doing a bit of a bendy thing under the strain of weight, the intensely heavy sodden wet towels individually out of the door to do the whole *squeezy, squeezy* thing, and re-soak. Towels are HEAVYarse when they’re wet, aren’t they?

Oh and I also changed my blog, it has taken me 4 days to do, not round the clock, obviously, but 4 days nonetheless, and I have ‘arrived’ as my son would say, the French word for ‘achieve’ is ‘arrivé’ so he often tells me managed to ‘arrive’ at something, meaning he ‘achieved’ it. Bless. And at any rate, I must go, I have had about all I can take of Alex’s ‘UFC’ fighting, and grown men kicking the living daylights out of each other’s ears/various orifices,  as he knows it’s the only time he can ever watch this genre of drama (!) with my approval, well at least I get to write my blog. Word for the week: compromise!

Making a meal out of a maggot.

“Excuse me, I am sorry, but would you mind very much serving me before I have a cardiac arrest, or walk out and leave you to adopt my four kids” I gesticulate, arm flailing around demonstrating the numerous infants trapped in the waiting room corridor, with but 2 chairs and a toilet for entertainment, as I waited to see the ear specialist. My ‘challenge all the limits and beyond’ toddler is up to her tricks. She has discovered the loo roll, and does her deranged Andrex puppy trick, de-papering the roll. Monty, bless him, is doing his responsible role, he must sense at such a young age that mummy always needs help, medical help even…! But help, nonetheless, for a broken mummy, and he assists Esmie in re-rolling the de-rolled paper rolls. I would like to hear Jonathon Ross say that sentence. Mitzi is sat upside down on chair practicing her alphabet, which would have been cute, were it not for the fact that her and Lola were trying to ‘burp’ it. The burping alphabet. Nice. Es kicks off when a lady shuts door of toilet, ushering her out (nicely) and in all fairness, why would she want someone else’s child in the waiting room toilet with her? I am semi ‘on them’ but having to listen carefully to the extraordinarily complicated instructions as to the medical procedure Mitzi would be undergoing, what to do, what not to do, who to ring, what to eat, what not to wear. It’s only grommets for god’s sake. Typical French making a meal out of a maggot (is that a real live saying?). So there we go, that was how Tuesday after school went.

Wednesday was hot, 23 degrees, chilly-ish wind, but full blown summer for England! For France, it was a mild day! So we hit the beach, running and screaming and losing the dog, who ran off after a boy-dog, and would not stop trying to ‘mount’ him. So we had no choice but to tie him up on a log next to us, by his paws. Really, Oliver, too gay. I find loads of drift wood (you're driftwood floating on the water...dar di doo di dooo dooo dooo dooo, always, that Travis song haunts me whenever I am at the beach), huge great big bits of it, and bat my eyelids at Alex, yes, bat, rather than flutter, as the wind was making my face scrunch a bit, and my eyes blink hard and frequently in truth anyway. He sees the tree stumps, and concedes…three trips it takes him to get from the small driftwood forest I have collected and ferry them to the car parked over the back of beyond. My own personal Hulk. It’s very handy for my crazy projects. It’s all to do with me restarting my hobby, art. And I am now well equipped with wooden subjects for my muse.  Watch this space…! I also decided, foolishly, and man am I suffering the after effects now, to display my secret gymnastics’ antics to the kids and Alex on the beach. Sprinting like a mental woman, with all the grace of a 'wasted' Ostrich, leg up, and throwing myself into a full-on cartwheel, legs outstretched taking the will of all my life was worth, and triumphantly land on my feet. *Self-applauds*. Nice, I’ve still got it-I am planning the print I would like on my leotard for competitive events…

We bought some lovely Spring flowers to pot, and had great fun chucking the mud at each other rather than potting the flowers, I really enjoyed having mud thrown in my hair, no really…So it’s time for a bath, de-tense my aching strained thigh muscles, courtesy of cavorting cartwheel antics earlier today. (Bit of alliteration there, my old English teacher would be impressed).

(I’ll play the ‘I’m English’ card, brilliant)

I looked at my washing pile with glee, actual proper glee, glee that is usually only felt at winning the lottery, or hiring a manny, you know? That sort of glee. It was a pile of sheets. Big sheets. Not full to the brim with loads of tiny, impossibly tiny, teeny weeny things and odd socks. All of them, they’re always odd. I try and trick the washing machine by hiding the pair in a ball together, but it knows, it seeks out the weaker sock, and it chews it up and never spits it out again. Leaving it’s bereaved partner clinging terrified in the drum of doom. But there we go, at least the washing machine is semi-mended, enough that it’s washing things at least. The dishwasher still not, and I am bored now. I have, quite simply, had it. I have lost one and a half hours of the day again, and they're  all important hours. The dude needs to order a new part- this, when I was told, filled me with  utter dismay, he left leaving me feeling like a dead fish- gutted. I’ve been here before, the whole ‘ordering parts’ thing. I will not see sight nor sound of him till Easter, at the earliest.

My ‘cheeky’ (as they affectionately call her around these parts) toddler has been up to cutting tricks this week. One of my pot plants was shredded, the yucca too, she likes to cut up the dog water (?) although this is obviously less of an issue. She’s avoided self-haircuts this time round, which is always a positive, although my hair got a quick snip when I had my back turned. She took me by surprise attack “cut mummy’s hair”  she sing-songs, upon hearing this, I turn around swiftly, and see a clump of hair float towards the floor. I gasp, and she sees my face, and knows she’s done something not OK. Time out step, where she sits and sings a bit, shrugging her shoulders, talking to herself ‘didn’t cut mummy’s hair, no, me didn’t cut it’. No, absolutely not, it was the  big-bad-hairdressing ghost who has been bothering us since we moved in here…

I am to take Make-up lady to the vets, no, I meant to write hairdresser’s there. She reckons that the peroxide she used on her hair makes her look like a 'bad' person, or a ‘prostitute’-her words. Then she asked me for my opinion, what the hell? Don’t put me in that position, surely? I cannot lie at the best of times, easy times, at desperate times, let alone now. I pause, pretending I didn’t understand the question (I’ll play the ‘I’m English’ card, brilliant) only she knows I understood, and as that didn’t wash, I say slowly “well, maybe make a hairdresser’s appointment, and ask them to ‘tone it down’ a bit?” I cringe, why can I not just say she looks stunning, a veritable Goldie-locks, minus the three bears, and then be punished for lying later?? Some lies aren’t that bad…She humphs a bit, and rings the hairdresser S.O.S team. Damn me for the ‘toning it down a wee bit’ remark. Next time I’m straight up lying. Even if it means she walks the streets looking like a lady of the night.

Anyway, I must dash, collating leaflets to do, food shopping, washing, kids to collect from school, cupboard to paint, important phone calls to be made, make-up ladies to take places, toddlers to entertain before the bugrats return, animals to feed, ironing, and cooking to feed the masses who wait for no man, and that’s literally not even a zillionth of the week’s tasks. Oh for a many, although each time a mention this now, Alex looks wan, and suggests we hire a nanny instead…pointless hypothetical discussion, deciphering the sex of the nanny/manny who will never materialise. But what ever gets us through…!

She is actually growing on me, in fairness a bit like a polyp, but she’s kinda cool.

 

Right well, that was a week, that was. I’ve been confronting all kinds…It turns out, not only do I have a 4 and an important half-year-old grizzly bear (‘nother ear infection) it also seems Dennis the Menace has moved in, put his feet up and parked his toddler-arse in my house, in place of my gorgeous little baby cheeks the Esmiester. She was a relatively calm baby, teething came and passed with some screaming, but I’ve known worse. She is still referred to as ‘the baby’ even though at the ripe old age of 2 ½, probably not that appropriate. However, my phase of denial has come to an abrupt end, as this week amongst her referring to me as ‘bonkers’, tutting at me whenever she is told off and rolling her baby blues, in such a manner she looks like she’s been on the bottle since her 6 am wake up, and is  swaying a little under the intense concentration of rolling her eyes. The last straw was when the ‘baby’ of the family shrugs and answers me back when I told her off, saying:

‘I am a baby, I don’t understand’ .

I realise it’s time to address the fact that maybe all these ‘she’s a baby she doesn’t understand’ is more like straight up denial! Cue: stricter mummy who now no longer excuses the wall drawings, shredded pot plants, half eaten soggy chocolate biscuits and water pouring that goes on non-stop, on babyhood explorations. I have ‘got real’ this week.

The food shop is never a barrel of hysterical laughter, unless you count that as crazed hysteria, manic mother styley, so this week when I had finally reached the till after what seemed like hours of attempting small-baboon training, at the same time as herding drunken wildebeest with a teaspoon, I find someone else’s advantage card on the card paying area, I hand it to the till lady, explaining I'd just found some one else's card, she is choosing to ignore me, and she gaily swipes through the card, regardless, with me crying “NooooooooO’ and waving mine wildly in her face. ‘It’s too late’ she informs me, she thought the card I had initially handed her was mine. How can you have thought that when I handed it to you expressly telling you that ‘this is not my card, I have just found it’? Which bit of that did you not get? Apparently all of it. And there is a Mexican stand-off at the till when I tell her I want my points. This will not be possible, she informs me majestically (oh yeah, you really are all that aren’t you there, behind the protection of your till and convenient counter with conveyor belt built-in) , short of re-ringing everything through the till. For god’s sake, as if I am going to put myself through that after finally having completed the food shop mission. She knows this too. And I am pissed off, having tried to do a good deed, I end up point-less. Back at the car I open the tin I bought (bought for my new delicious tea-smokey Russian caravan), which is heavier than I when I originally picked it up. Hidden inside I discover key ring chains- Alex brought me back a love heart stone from the beach this week with a hole in it I am going to put it on a key ring. I was moved by his gesture, then wondered whether in fact the fact that it had a hole in it meant something? There was also a huge bag of sweeties for Lola’s school Carnaval event…Do I go back and apologise, and pay? Nah bollocks, it’s all very well and good being honest- but can there be too honest?? In this case, I say yes! And I am out of there like someone with hearing difficulties playing musical chairs…

I also had Make-Up lady ring and ask me to return her a favour this week, which baffled me somewhat, as I wasn’t overly aware that she had done me any, but there you go. I took her to get something a little drive away, and do you know what? She is actually growing on me, in fairness a bit like a polyp, but she’s kinda cool. And I really don’t envy her her situation, so if I can help out a bit, even though every time I see her I may as well be having a conversation with my own nostril hair, for all she’s interested, so it’s humbling…then why not? 

The sun’s out, the week is about to begin, and I am on a count down to turning 33 in a week or so’s time. Dun dun dun. Have a superb Monday, and may my dishwasher be fixed tomorrow when the dishwasher fixer dude

Publish Post

arrives.

 

Winged hoovers...

A dishwasher still not working, I find my morals are reducing themselves to the size of pips, pips from the smallest ever fruit you could ever find, if you could give morals sizes. My eldest daughter asked to do the washing up today, and looking at the six times EVERYTHING, stacked next to the sink, I nod my approval, she leaps in the air with glee, OMG, what have I done? I have just conceded to child slave labour, after dinner washing up in our house is no barrel of laughs, at the end of which, you feel nothing less than violated, like you’ve been intimately cleaning out a baboon’s arse for the last half hour of your one precious short life…But still, I let her do it, and then redid it when she wasn’t watching, bless, no match yet, and probably quite thankfully, for her mother’s neurotic cleanliness standards. 

Margo the star chicken, today, nearly got herself run over by a tractor, when she decided that she would chase us out of the gates and down the road, following the indignity of being thrown out of the car window (the door doesn’t open from the inside in my defence), and tries all the way to next door’s house to catch us and peck us. Out of the car windows, we stare, terrified she may succeed in catching us and pecking us hard to teach us our lessons, and I put my foot down hard, like I’m stamping on a wild badger trying to kill me, that hard, and we speed off, beating the crazed chook.

Upon returning, she has called a cease fire and laid an egg, her first egg since she was almost mauled to death by a dog we were looking after a few weeks back, and 20 stitches later, now with 3 big gaping crusty holes between her shoulders, nasty, enough to put you off your roast! She is back on form it seems. Good on her! Every time we return in the car, the chickens have cottoned onto something-we bring home ‘crumbs’ oh, and not just any old crumbs, big, regurgitated, spat out and squished into the floor, kind of crumbs, and they are but far and away, the BEST winged hoovers I have ever had (I’ve not had that many winged hoovers, to be fair, but you get the point?) they career  with all their might at the returning car, tearing across the garden like armless bandits, I mean how scary can that be? Wielding no weapons, ‘cause how could armless bandits wield a weapon? Not very easily, I can tell you. They move as if you are running somewhere, mighty fast, with your arms pressed down against your sides, try it, it might be fun. I enjoy it, in fact I think it should be the 'new' running way…let me know how it goes. Their mission; to enter the car, spying opening doors, flapping their way in taking out anyone or anything who should dare try and get in their way. My new economical (apart from when they really take the p*ss and sh*t in there. Not fun. The smell never quite goes…that faint smell of chicken poo wafting out, every time u open the car door). Well, tomorrow is another day, as they say. Err, yeah. Wish me luck, no particular reason, I just have a feeling…

Challenging?

Well what a long while it’s been since I was here. I am now on the path to recuperating after months of bad health, and now slowly, slowly catching my monkey, as my old English teacher Mrs. Gadd would have said. It’s a funny one ‘well-being’ and I have realised that you can have every goal/best intentions/aspirations in the world. But unless you look after this body you have, in this world, this life…you are going nowhere fast. A vessel it may be, but unless it works right, you are going to be stuck in more ways than one…so from here on in, a pledge to looking after me a bit better, taking stock, pushing forward, few other ‘grit your teeth and bare it’ clichés, and I’m onwards and upwards.

So what on earth have I been up to? Now let me think…The 2 week February half term has been and gone *stops rocking in corner and blinks at day light, and air punches hard*, in a whirlwind of rain, penned in kids and appliances that simplify your life committing suicide rather than doing their one job that they are required to do in the house. My dishwasher I have had  for but 6 months, and it has given up the ghost. Shameful sight, sitting in the corner leaking a bit of dirty water every now and then, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER DUDE! Suffice to say I have been at the effng kitchen sink for bleedin’ hours. Not that I would mind that much, but the washing machine having a nervous break down and then the drains going on strike and sending everything drainable in the house back up and out into the garage, flooding it, meant sheer bedlam struck this half term. I would have been so crap in the olden days, no electrical appliances, AS IF! I was up at the nearest laundrettes (2o minutes away) every other day. The drains blocking solidly for 5 days before help came, meant we could not wash either. The dude in the laundrettes pulled the kids out of the washing machine, telling me apparently we’re not allowed to do a quick ‘spin ‘n dry’ on anything living, even if the powder is hypo-allergenic. So that one was out. It’s funny the things you take for granted, and you never realise until their taken away or give up on you, so I was obviously having a brief ‘reminder’ period this half term. I APPRECIATE YOU!! Really I do, live again white goods, pleeeeasseee, pretty pllleeeaseee! The timing of their break downs was obviously impeccable too, rainy 2 week half term, ill mummy-about as well timed as walking into the lift and traveling to the top floor after a hot unwashed fishmonger person had just wheeled out his leftovers...proper rank, truly bad timing. So just to jazz this joyful half term up a bit, I was humbled everytime I dared venture out in public with 4 kids who had not had a bath for 5 days. I was dragging round urchins, nothing more, nothing less. If this is not already enough, my kettle got to the point where it was giving me teeny and sometimes more advanced, potentially more serious/even life threatening electric shocks, so it was time for that to go too. It was a bit of a sad moment, 18 months I have managed to keep that kettle. A world record in my house. But it was really time, before it killed me. It’s so impractical with no kettle, like the old days, boiling pans on the hob, then scalding yourself and thus being the victim of ‘desperate for a cup of tea, like you have never before even experienced in your life and now I just can’t negotiate the huge open pan of boiling water into the tea pot as my hand is wobbling under the strain of the weight of it’ self-inflicted third degree burns. Challenging.

So today, my unadulterated and never floundering thanks goes out to Mr/Mrs (actually it probably was a man who invented it, just to shut his misses up whinging about the washing all the time!) Washingmachine, for their thoughtful invention, to Mr/Mrs Dishawasher for their support and I hope that finding out the receipt for the dishwasher does not prove to go on too much longer, 10 days and counting so far, or I will be joining my dishwasher, sat in the corner dribbling out dirty water…I am chuffed to be blogging again, and hope my health stays tip top, and my electrical appliances stay a bit longer in this world this time around. See ya soon!