Score one to Small Girl Aged 5

Half term, a mother’s moment of sanity. Monday of half-term means I get to indulge in sleeping until the sun is actually risen. But, it doesn’t. It heralds the one day when all three children wake up singing and dancing straight out The Chorus Line at sparrow’s fart. This does not make for a happy Monday Mummy.

Neither did small girl aged 5’s not so subtle emotional manipulation.
Small girl aged 5: “You don’t love me. You always leave.”
Mummy: “Angel, I do love you, but I have to go to work.’
Small girl aged 5: “No you don’t. You just don’t want to be with me!”
Score one for small girl aged 5. Mummy leaves house close to tears feeling like very very Bad Mummy.

GAH! Do not forget – birthday ring on Wednesday must provide helium balloons (from where?) and birthday cake (need to order from Fournos? Do they do that? Ah, or home industry shop in the Mall.) Please notice I have decided to ignore the Invisible Mommy and buy the cake instead of staying up late on Tuesday. This is assuming I remember to order a cake in time.

Weekend three of the Great Wendy House Construction. Those Extreme Home Makeover people make it look way too easy. My back is aching and my hair is stuck together with Lollipop Pink paint and clear varnish (I had to cut off great hanks of it this morning and now resemble a long haired sheep with mange.) Also, the paint stripper seems to have given me a partial facial peel. On the bright side we now have one perfectly varnished floor, a refurbished pink toy box and the skeleton of the structure. The children have largely lost interest and are taking refuge in World of Warcraft.

I don’t eat people – at least not first thing in the morning

Small boy aged 6: "Mom, is that Grandad at the gate?"

Mother: "No, that's dinner."

Small boy aged 6 aghast: "What? You mean we're going to eat that man for dinner, head and everything?"

Mother after a long day: "Yes."

 

Half-term could not have come soon enough. My children have spent the first day asleep burrowed into duvet caves on the couch. I, on the other hand, grabbed a 20 minute nap in the backseat of my car over lunch. It is universally true, that Fridays, the one day you need a long boozy lunch and a quick getaway, conspire to be the busiest day of the week, hence Mr. Delivery to whom I, and most parents, owe a great debt of gratitude.

 

In the meantime I have also made 200 flashcards and laminated them. These are in order to teach Small boy aged 6 how to read his sight words by Wednesday next week. The whole operation took place too much amusement from my colleagues, only one of which has a child of schoolgoing age. From him exuded the aura of quiet desperation of a parent soon to be on the firing line. You can't begin to imagine how hard it is to find clipart depicting words like "here" and "with", but I did… eventually. By the time I picked up the scalpel to begin the cutting of the cards, my colleagues decided to intervene. I think they realised they were dealing with a Mommy on the Edge.

 

Colleague: "Okay, um… I think you should put that down."

Me: "No."

Colleague: "Look, I'm not busy right now, I can do it for you?"

Me: "No."

Colleague: "You don't want to cut off a finger now, do you?"

Me: "Back off."

Colleague: "You aren't trained to use a scalpel."

Me: "I have not been in this industry for almost 15 years without using a scalpel. Goddammit!"

Colleague to assembled audience: "She's in a very odd mood today."

 

Ya, think? For goodness sake it wasn't although I was doing open heart surgery. And yes, I am a copywriter not an art director, but that doesn't make me an idiot. And it was only a small cut because she distracted me. And it wasn't as "odd" mood it was PM bloody S.

 

I also ended up at the educational bookstore only to discover they sold the last CD of Jolly Phonics so Kalahari.net got my business instead, and they were much cheaper. It is with some dread I approach the task of educating my young ones. I am under qualified and not blessed with much patience. Also, my children regard me as a fairly okay mother but in no way deserving of the respect of their respective teachers (or Senseis). Hence, I see a battle of wills ahead that I am fated to lose. Regardless, I will not dwell on this now as I am planning a Girl's Day tomorrow with my BFF, which unless a Chicken Little emergency occurs I am not cancelling.

 

Now long suffering husband has arrived home from business trip with excellent tidbit of data. Apparently back in the day, manure was transported on ships up the Thames. Now, although it was dried out before hand, the endless drizzle of Great Britain soon made it damp and smelly. Now this meant in turn that when an able-bodied seaman went down for a smoke break, things would go BOOM! As a result the manure was stored on top of the deck in crates labeled "Store High in Transit", or for short S H I T.

 

Apparently, unbeknownst to me, some of his colleagues actually read my blog. This always comes a bit of a surprise to me as I believe it goes into ether where it remains for all eternity. Anyhow, he was endlessly teased over the boxer shorts issue and asked for pointers on how to get other wives to pack their husband's suitcases. I should be mortified, but instead I find myself mildly amused.

 

 

 

 

Jolly Roger!

Nothing like missioning to the shops spending ages getting the stuff you need, trekking to the ATM for cash and back again and then… and then… leaving the bloody bags behind. It wasn’t all bad, I’ll shortly be spending a small fortune on the Jolly Phonics Learning Reading System in a last ditch attempt to be a good Mummy. So, those six weeks of recovery from my op will be spent earning many many many good Mummy stars.

However, my eloquent boss has made an excellent point. I pay exorbitant school fees, so what is the overpriced snob school going to do to help my child? Guilt at being a bad Mummy is fading as righteous indignation raises its beautiful raging head.

Did I really just pack my husband's suitcase?

To do today:

Check husband’s suitcase is packed for business trip. (Note to self: Throw away any boxers with holes in them. Why? Because, if God forbid, he is in an accident and ends up in hospital the paramedics might judge me as a bad wife).

Phone Melanie Hartgill, educational psychologist, and beg for an appointment for dyslexia testing for three small people. I might be paranoid, but my daughter can’t repeat spaghetti and Small boy aged 8 only reads phonetically (Note to self: Sound calm, cool and collected, mildly annoyed and not at all paranoid!).

Visit overpriced educational toyshop (Note to self: Would turning on subtitles in videos help child learn to read – think French subtitled movies – subliminal learning. Do they make hypnosis tapes for kids? Find out.)

Hone Photoshop skills making word/picture card games.

Spend 1 hour reading with small boy aged 8 and testing him on comprehension (Question: WHEN? Between midnight and 1?).

Horror, I just reread the first item on my list. When did this start? This packing of husband’s suitcase? Do I have an inner 1950s wife lurking under this brash 21st century exterior? Breathe. Temporary aberration. That’s all. Nothing serious. Nausea will pass.

Even if I did not work I cannot imagine when parents are expected to find the time to all the extra stuff teachers expect us to. Take Small boy aged 8; he starts school at 07:15 and does sport until 15:00 or 16:00 every day but Friday. By the time he reaches home just getting out the car, shovelling food in his mouth and bathing is about the extent of his remaining energy. They tell me he must be in bed by 20:00, which leaves about 10 minutes to educate him on the finer point of calculus, binomial equations and Shakespeare. No wonder he mutters his spelling and practices karate katas in his sleep.

Long-suffering husband is off to Limpopo for a leadership conference today and returns to the fold on Friday evening. The current power structure in our home now reads: God, Small girl aged 5, Small boy aged 8, Small boy aged 5, Mummy. Thank God half term starts tomorrow. Bugger! (Note to self: Do not forget birthday party tomorrow afternoon for Small boy aged 5, buy present (educational?) and beg Granny to do lifting.)

Thanks to Crackberry I made it in time to the parent-teachers meeting yesterday with Small girl aged 5’s teacher, Jenny. Jenny has had enough and is buggering off at the end of term. However, Small girl aged 5 in her estimation is doing fine, she can do 36 piece puzzles, which is apparently a milestone a mother should ooh and aah over. Who knew? And she can sing! All that singing aloud loudly in the car to Kid Rock and Joan Baez must be rubbing off on her.

Apparently I also need to do something called IFRS. I have no idea what it is, but it sounds complicated and boring. Also must remember to do invoicing or will not get paid. February has got to be the longest and most cash-poor month of the year, largely I suspect because of January school fees, extra murals, uniforms and so on. Payday can’t come soon enough. I want to go to the spa, have a massage, a facial, a haircut, buy shoes for Small girl aged 5, and earrings for same, but most of all I want my car to run something other than the force of my willpower.

Speaking of which, I drove the man of the house’s car to work today. It was unpleasant. In a Ford Fiesta one blends into the morass of humanity seething to work along our highways and byways. You don’t drive it either, you just point and steer with minimal effort. I am driving this car because husband pointed out all very noble and practical reasons to do so: fuel economy, safety and blah, blah, blah. Bella, on the other hand, my 1975 VW Toaster is a joy to drive. For one thing you actually drive her, for this paragon of German engineering is a machine, not a computer pretending to be one. She has no artificial intelligence or any artifice. In her, I stand out, people wave and smile at me, Florence the traffic cop waves me through the morass of cars getting out of my suburb. Not in a Ford bloody Fiesta in which I am a mere shadow in a world of shadows whereas in Bella I am a technicolour rainbow!

Armageddon

Monday morning I creep out of the house like a thief in the night. Terror grips me that my helper will arrive before I make my escape. I can’t bear to see her face as she witnesses the carnage of my home. What I do know is that by the time I arrive home long after the moon has risen, she will have removed the bodies of the dead, tended the wounded and restored order.

My mother once told me that trying to clean up after small boys is akin to trying to sweep the grains of sand off the beach. Saturdays start with me raging against this truth. By Sunday morning I surrender and by the following morning my house looks like the four horsemen of the Apocalypse threw a party and invited the Valkyries over. I can’t imagine what my helper must think. Actually, I can, and that is the reason why I sneak out of the house post haste.

After the weekend I savour the first hour or two of my quiet ordered office. It seems an oasis after the maelstrom of weekend flurry including karate trials, two birthday parties, small girl now aged 5’s birthday, in-laws visit and part two of the construction of the Wendy house. After all that I can handle pretty much any crisis you throw at me here, it doesn’t come close to what I have just survived.

I cannot quite believe that small girl is now aged 5. She is a remarkable child, full of fire and passion. It must be the Scot or the Irish in her. At her age I was a frightened little mouse who wouldn’t have dared to say boo to a goose.

Small girl aged 5, however does not have that problem, she will happy take on a stern faced maître d at an upmarket restaurant over the lack of the lollipop clearly displayed in the menu. Trying to explain that this is a design feature and not an offering was boiled down to being an outright lie. Said maître d flummoxed in the face of such vehemence went and bought her a lollipop.

Of course, when all that fury and righteous anger is directed at you, it is quite a different matter.

Yes, your bum looks big in that

Small boy aged 6 is writing a love song for his mummy, me. As far as he is concerned I am the best Mummy in the world and I look like an angel. I only hope I can live up to that for as long as possible.

 

I don't think children are aware of the effect their openness and sheer joy of life can have on jaded adults. How a smile from a little girl with chocolate covered fingers can make the sun come out from behind the clouds. Small boy aged 6 drove home waving at people out the window of my classic VW kombi. Watching faces tired from a long day light up and businessmen, taxi drivers, old ladies and harassed parents wave back, at first tentatively, like they can't believe someone gas noticed them, and then exorbitantly with winks and peace signs and ululations! No matter how long, hard and difficult their days had been, the last thing they'd remember was a smiley faced small boy waving and shouting out, "Hello!" as he drove past.

 

That is why children are special. Their lights haven't been dimmed by failed expectations and world weary cynicism. They experience the world good and bad in the most extreme way possible. They have no artifice, for example: I owned (past tense) a green wrap skirt, about which I harboured mixed feelings. I wasn't sure if it made me look like a lampshade or not. I asked my husband what he thought and like spouses everywhere with an iota of self-preservation, he declined to answer. So, I turned to small boy aged 8.

Me: "What do think of this skirt? Does it look nice?"

Small boy aged 8: "Um, yes, it is a very pretty skirt… just not on you."

I changed. The skirt went in the charity bin.

The point if this little reminiscence is that if a small boy tells you that you bum looks big in that, it does. He isn't being mean, he's just telling it like it is. We could all learn something from that. And there'd be a lot less women walking around in clothes that make our asses look big.

The grass is always greener

My long-suffering husband pointed out last night that 21st Century women are caught in this terrible paradox of roles.

He spent an hour listening to a very privileged woman (in my estimation) with a wealthy husband, a mansion in Kyalami Estate (or similar), a high end European sedan and a Platinum Mastercard complain about how useless she is and how she nothing but an au pair for her husband (not really, she has 2 maids and a driver).

My advice – It’s not his fault she has no self-esteem, after all he’s paid for the surgery, the gym membership and the Jimmy Choos all in an effort to keep her happy. We should all be so lucky.

However, the crux here is that she resents and envies women like me who, and I quote, “Have it all.” Do we? I think this is another case of the Invisible Mummy who doesn’t exist. We don’t have it all. We miss the funny gems that fall like pearls before swine from the lips of our beloved offspring onto the ears of uncaring nannies and after-care providers. We probably missed the first step, first word, first ballet performance, first cricket match and all the PTA dinners.

She believes we don’t come to the PTA stuff, because we think we’re too good for that. It’s not the case, we don’t come because we’re exhausted and refuse to relinquish even the 2 hours of chaos and trauma, which add up to the only time we ever send with our children, to stand around make small talk about the gym and nibble on chicken wings. The PTA Mummies are our lifeline, they are the ones we love to hate and rely on desperately to tell us when we need to do something, when the school holidays start and what our child’s teacher’s name is.

The thing is women like me define ourselves by what we do and have a deep seeded insecurity that without a career we could not afford to send our children to over-priced snob schools and that we would fade away into nothingness, our brains atrophied due to lack of use. Of course, that isn’t true – the brain atrophy part.

Women who don’t work seem to fall into either the Mother Teresa category or the other extreme, which is defining themselves by their roles as wife and mother and not as individuals in their own right. Also, just as wrong.

The sad fact is that the grass on the other side of the fence may be greener, but that's because it's probably astroturf.

Mummies Anon

Why is it, that as a mother you crave just an hour on your own, and then when you have it, you have no idea what to do with it and miss the crazy chaos like a junkie craving a fix?

Speaking of which, I have come to realise that the 12-step programme could well have been designed for mothers. Of course we could never meet, because we simply don’t have the time, but still…

Step 1:
I am powerless and my life is verging on unmanageable

Step 2:
Only another power can restore my sanity, because God knows its hanging by a thread

Step 3:
I must turn my will and lives over to the care of a higher power (Who is this? My mother? Mother-in-law? Or God-forbid, the Headmistress and PTA Mommy?)

Step 4:
I must make a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself (Must schedule this in Crackberry, could take awhile)

Step 5:
Admit the exact nature of my failings as a Mommy

Step 6:
Be ready to have all defects of character removed, preferably by a plastic surgeon who will return me to pre-Mummy boobness

Step 7:
Humbly ask medical aid to cover the full cost of removal of shortcomings as it is essential to sanity

Step 8:
Make a list of people I have harmed and say sorry (Note: Prioritise list, start with friends and then move on to birthday parties missed, Christmas cards not sent, homework not done etc. This could take a very very long time)

Step 9:
Continue with inventory and admit when going off the rails

Step 10:
Learn to ask for help from higher power (The Daddy? The maid? Facebook?)

Raising a Prodigy

I am once more caught in the conflict between Good Mummy and Bad Mummy. Am I a Good Mummy allowing my 8 year old to take extra karate, extra extra karate, guitar, cricket and so on, or am I a Bad Mummy?

The child is exhausted and so am I. But if I pull him out of say, extra extra karate, am I hindering him in his life chances? He could be the next Carlos Santana and by not enforcing the 30 minutes guitar practice a day, I could stunt the growth of a budding virtuoso.

On the other hand, when does he get to be a kid, climb a tree, play a video game? Surely he needs sleep? Poor kid practices karate in his sleep, mumbling, “Am practicing for JKA” before karate chopping me in the eye.

I don’t need him to be a boy genius, or a sport star, or the next Mozart. I just want him to be a happy, normal little boy with scraped knees, dirty fingers and a naughty smile. If that makes me a Bad Mommy, I am guilty as charged.

Karma is a bitch. Go girl!

BMW, despite popular belief, does not spell GOD. With all the German technology available you would think they could up with a personality chip for their drivers.

It took me a while to harness my infuriation at being cut off on the highway onramp this morning, but the cherry on top was passing said BMW driver twenty minutes later.

He was still in the emergency lane only this time he wasn’t moving, having rear-ended another BMW. A frisson of joy at the capriciousness of karma shot through my blood like a lightning bolt straight from the hand of Thor.

I waved.

Epic Mother Fail

 

The moment before leaving the quiet oasis of work before entering the maelstrom of traffic outside is akin to standing on the high diving board looking down at the water below knowing that sooner rather than later you are going to have to jump. Arriving at school I was deliciously greeted with Valentine chocolate hearts from three of the best people on God's green earth. The feeling of euphoria lasted until an hour's worth of Eye Spy in gridlock ran out at the same time as my patience with the commute. Why, instead of inventing Google, doesn't some brilliant young thing make the Star Trek Transporter instead?

 

Determined to redeem good mommy status by preparing a dinner filled to the brim with nutritious goodness, I arrived home with best of intentions. Child 1 and 3 were fast asleep; however Child 2 expressed an interest in cauliflower, of all things. I brought my jazzy pink laptop into the kitchen and booted up Google, the trusty search engine. I ended up with a cauliflower and tuna bake that seemed easy enough. Things to note here: I have never cooked a cauliflower; I hate them for being bland and tasteless. Also, I wasn't in the mood for making cheese sauce from scratch so I fell back on my trusty Ina Paarman Cheese Sauce. What I ended up with was a revolting mush that not even the dogs would eat. Child has gone to bed with Bovril toast and bacon. Waste of good cheese sauce and tuna so will have to make cheese from scratch for Mac and Cheese standby tomorrow.

 

I asked my husband to taste it and he said, "Um, it tastes like cauliflower why don't you try it?" and I did, only to concede that I had outdone the natural revoltingness of the vegetable. He bellowed with relieved laughter and said that either we had reached a new level of love and trust in our relationship or he was just sh*t scared of me, because he'd have eaten it if I asked him too. The very best Valentine ever! Small boy aged 6 bravely surrendered to a taste before running crazily out the kitchen and into the garden where it was disposed of. "Yuck, it tastes like flowers!" Yup, that's cauliflower for you.

 

Lesson learned. When pressed for time, stick with foods your children are actually likely to eat. Children can hunger strike better than any suffragette.

Bliss

Fell asleep last night with Siamese cat purring on one arm and snoring boy deeply slumbering on the other. It was one of those moments where all was right in the world.

The Mummy and The Tick Tock Man

Childhood monsters don’t disappear as you grow older. They evolve. They grow. They are no longer confined to the spaces under the bed or in the shadows cast upon the walls.

Unmarried, childless women of a certain age are haunted by the spectre of The Tick Tock Man. Think of Captain Hook’s crocodile only more terrifying. The Tick Tock Man is tall and thin, and his hand he carries an old-fashioned fob watch attached to his black coat by a long silver chain. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. He is in the faces of the children playing in the park and in the long-suffering sigh of your mother. In the imagined pity you see on faces of married women, at the bottom of a carton of Haagen Dazs and in the stickiness of trendy bar floors.

For mothers, the spectre is far scarier. She is The Mommy. You know she doesn’t exist this paragon of female virtue, but she stares at you from shop windows, in the teacher’s unblinking gaze, and in the light of birthday candles adorning a Sistine Chapel of icing. She is a cross between a 1950s housewife and your mother-in-law, in whose eyes you will never measure up.

The Mommy I have recently realised is the reason we stay up for 36 hours making cupcakes, why we buy Baby Guess and the latest whatever. She is why we kill ourselves trying to dress correctly, go to the gym, have a career and be the perfect wife and mother. After chatting to few mums at the school, I realise I am not alone in my experiences, so I wonder why we keep competing against this imaginary visage? She is not real and it is time she stopped making our lives a misery. The problem is, you just can’t submit, because her spirit may have taken over the body of the PTA mom in the Subaru next door. There is no exorcising The Mommy. She is everywhere and she thrives on the guilt of sub-standard mummies.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

PS: After the Purity Jar trauma of last night, my long suffering husband catches me as I leave on midnight mission to garage shop and gently encourages me to bed with promises that he will buy on the way to school in the morning. Which he did.

I even survived the Valentine’s Day Red Dress saga with small girl of almost 5. She wore a pink dress with flowers on and I put the red dress in her bag (she won’t wear it, but I won’t look like mummy who forgot).

Working Mother 2 Addendum

Crackberry alarm informs me small girl almost aged 5 requires empty Purity jar for school tomorrow. Thank you God for all night garage stores, please please please let them have Purity for me. The school asks for these things like it is quite normal to have empty Purity jars lying around 5 years after the child has been weaned onto solid food. Second thoughts, I might have an ancient bottle in the cupboard I could flush down the drain.

 

Think happy thoughts.

Working Mother 2

Omigod! DSL down because I forgot to pay phonebill. It got lost in karate, ballet, cricket and school fees. Can't do online research for job and am resorting to connecting using my old Nokia, because I can't figure out how Crackberry works.

All my fault because of a) failure to pay phonebill and b) waiting until 10:30 on Sunday night. Still, this is my time. The few sacred hours I snatch away every day after school bags are packed, (note to self: Where is small boy aged 8's reader?), lunchboxes are packed and laundry is spinning happily around in the washer. Must not forget to put cricket kit in dryer before bed.

Otherwise, a lovely weekend and a classic case of working parent angst. Instead of buying small girl almost aged 5 a pre-built doll-sized Wendy house at exorbitant cost from Wendylane (How twee is that? I half expected to be met my Peter Pan, but instead I got Primrose), we are building our own. And yes I know. However, we have completed the floor and it looks marvelous. My fingers are gluey with varnish, but it glows like the rising sun.

No, of course we are not following a plan. Who does that anyway? Who has time to Google for a Wendy house plan? Anyhow, how hard can it be? It is times like these I am immensely grateful to have a husband who can handle a drill and is able to perform a small miracle for our daughter. You see, without the Wendy house the sky will come crashing down a la Chicken Little and the world will end in tears and trauma. Said house, must be pink and purple with sash windows and window boxes filled with bright flowers of same colours. Mother must also conjure up furniture e.g. mini bed, recover old chair with help of staple gun (must buy staple gun and material), bookshelf and toy box. Granny, bless her, bought a Hello Kitty oven for Christmas so at least that is covered. (Must not forget mini broom etc.)

The U2 concert is tonight. Many thousands of my fellow countrymen are currently listening to an Irishman who has head up his arse for last 2 decades. "Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies." Well, stop bloody clapping then Bonehead! You'd think that a man who has dealt with the press for as long he has would know better than to come into a volatile political arena like ours and start spouting off about singing protest songs like "Kill the Boer!" Now he's upset that he's been misquoted. Well, really!

List to do for tomorrow:

Small girl almost aged 5's birthday cake and cupcakes for school ring (arrange ring with teacher so does not conflict with other birthday child).

Find something creative to do with cauliflower that small boy aged 6 who only eats Bovril and bacon will find palatable.

Postpone small girl almost aged 5's party until completion of Wendy house.

Arrange small boy aged 8 birthday party for April – will be organised mother!

Buy present for birthday party on Saturday past and one for next week's one too.

Book helper (stupid PC term) on cookery course so we don't starve and my children get some Third World malnutrition disorder due to garage chicken pies and lack of vegetables.

Activate R2000 Spar voucher.

Find a good time to mention to current employer will need 6 weeks off for operation, but can work from home. Will welcome any ideas on how to handle this.

Call cousin.

Call friend and grovel for being bitch who doesn't answer phone.

Call girlfriend and try to arrange a Big Night Out for sometime this millennium.

Keep head above water.

Breathe.

Take meds.

Deadline. Deadline. Deadline.

 

Working Mum

Am traitor to silly bint (name escapes me) who threw herself in front a horse, so I could be a working mother. Have nothing but deep-seeded irritation towards women who starved themselves to death so I could work myself six feet under.

 

Am bad employee, rushing in late too work because I forgot small boy aged four needed to wear red to school on Friday in honour of Valentine's Day on Monday, which I had also forgotten. So bad mother also. However, I redeemed myself halfway by taking lunch hour to watch small bay aged 8 play cricket. Except that said cricket didn't end at 2pm as advertised in red note, but at 4pm, so had to go back to work and miss batting. Also, ended up watching wrong child play, because they all the same in white with blue helmets. A good mother can spot her child from a kilometer away.

 

Refuse to accept sub-standard government education for my children so work all day and most of the night trying to squeeze money from a stone. I am starting to realise that my contempt of stay-at-home moms – Mommies, with a capital M – is actually thinly-veiled envy. I want to drop my kids off a school in a high-end European sedan, then do a quick circuit at the gym, sip a latte with my girlfriends and go the spa, before rushing off to pick up kids, patiently do homework before maid feeds and bathes said kids. I'd settle just for having a latte with a friend. Do I still have those? I doubt it as social life has been kicked off the backseat and out of the bus.

 

Studies show that children with happy mothers are happy adults and achieve at school. What does this mean for me? If I stay home and not work, I will become certifiably mad and turn into irritating Mommie with nothing to talk about and be unhappy. Hell, I couldn't even make through maternity leave for 2 weeks before begging my boss for work. If work, I carry the burden of guilt of being a bad mummy, but I can send my children to overpriced snob school. However, exhaustion and guilt make for an unhappy mummy. I cannot win. It seems my children can't either.

 

Threw up high-profile advertising job in global agency for freelance and contract work. More pay, less glory. Now am faced with 6 week hiatus due to disk replacement operation and need to earn enough money to tide me over the break. At least I have cool car – a 1976 VW Kombi called Bella. When I pick small girl aged 4 up at school (PS. Must remember to delay birthday party for friends and bake 45 cupcakes for school on Friday) she hugs the car before me. I guess Bella, with all her idiosyncrasies, offers more security than a mother who is shackled to her Crackberry.

 

Ah, the curse of the Crackberry. 24/7/365 connectivity. What that means is that if your current employer has a Great Big WOW Idea at 2am and wants to share it with you; he gets perturbed if you not reply with enthusiasm. Note to self: Change voicemail message to stress that calls between 5pm and 9pm will NOT be answered. If someone has died, they will still be dead later, or better yet, tomorrow. And as for emergencies, I have 3 small children to feed, bath, check homework, read story to and get to sleep – so bugger off and call someone who gives a damn, like 911. Anything else is not an emergency; it is life throwing you a curveball so suck it up and deal.

 

Bugger, have now lost one hour's working time equating to about one side wall of doll Wendy house for small girl aged 4's birthday, without which she will just die! Note to self: Set Crackberry reminder 2 months prior to birthdays to organise party, gifts and invitations. Also – remember to organise present shelf like good Mommy so today's embarrassment of forgetting present, because running too late to pop into Toy R Us. Also, don't forget to sell extra Wii Guitar Hero that online store delivered too late for Christmas, necessitating Christmas Eve late night rush to shopping mall – the den of Satan.

 

GAH! Just remembered today's birthday boy's Mummy, saying, "Oh, I am so glad to meet you, you know our boys do karate together." No, I didn't, because I bloody work to pay for said karate. Mummy continues, "It's so nice, because, you know, we haven't seen you at our little get-togethers. You simply must come to have a morning brekkie with the girls." In my head I know she is just being nice, but in my heart it sounds like a condemnation. Like the way the Mommies look at you if you bring a bought birthday cake to school from Woollies.

 

Know what I mean? Know what I mean? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink? Know what I mean?