Eternal juggling

What the hell did I do with my money and time before I had Sproglet? I think I ate out all the time, took cabs, had long wine fuelled phonecalls, compared martinis across hotel bars in London lay in my bed (oh to have a lie-in)read more books, bought products that I didn't need and heels I actually got to wear.

Cut to now. My life has lost all spontaneity, and is an endless rush to and from work, nursery and Sainsburies. I have no money, live in flats, am too exhausted for phone chats and haven't had a martini since....er... way back when. I'm not bitter that my life has stopped being about glam restaurants and sexy bars and is now a fraught hour in Pizza Express with a pooey nappy break. My beauty regime is remembering to take off my mascara and shave my pits once a week rather than a cleanse, tone, steam and scrubathon of yester year.

Obviously I wouldn't swop life post Sproglet for life pre - but feck me, I am knackered. Every morning getting out of the house feels like a production in itself -a swirl of teeth brushing, wetting bed hair, cereal across the floor and shoes on beds. I achieve more before 9am these days than I used to in a week.

My mate Hannah rang me last week with overflowing guilt about not being a better friend/being in touch/sending birthday cards etc etc. We made a present amnesty to stop buying gifts for each other's kids as it was becoming a chore rather than a joy and an added stress to our already stressful lives as full time working mothers. Hannah admitted that she felt as if she was failing in all areas - as a friend, mother, wife, colleague, worker, daughter etc etc. Now Hannah to me is simply Wonderwoman. An amazing teacher, brilliant Mother, top friend and the best cook I know. Yet she was beating herself to a pulp. I admitted that recently I have felt the same - like I was just keeping my head above water and sometimes sinking under...

I wake up with lists dashing round my head - buy a birthday card, pay the nursery, buy milk, remember tampax, get scripts, have we run out of raisins, I should facebook Chris about our NY visit, I must call bank about going over my overdraft limit, did I switch off the heating, has Finn brushed his teeth etc etc I never feel like I get on top of anything and am constantly wondering when it will all collapse in a heap. This week was a tough one at work. I got screamed at my a frustrated writer - who vented all their anger at me. Tired, stressed and at the end of my tether I tearfully rang a friend at work - Caroline - who was brilliant and soothing and supportive. Word went round my fellow workers and they all were incredibly protective and helpful the next day - which is so great - because when your head is swimming and you feel kicked when you are down - having people become like a human blanket to you is very comforting indeed.

Anyway, I digress. By Friday I was melted down - ready to curl under a blanket and just watch X factor and read papers and do jack all, all weekend. I had a kid's party to attend today (Sproglet loved it) and one tomorrow that would have involved a 3 hour drive (alone) which I sadly declined. I felt like a crap friend. But I swear I am spent - physically and emotionally - I just need a break. My body craves the comfoting needles and drops from my acupuncturist saint-like woman Mary and about a months sleep. Memo to self - buy some multi-vitamins... I have no idea how some women manage to juggle everything and still look amazing, cook up masterpieces, claim to have sizzling sex lives, have immaculate houses and never forget a birthday. I hate these women!!! I feel like I am spread thinner than lo-fat butter on Victoria Beckham's gluten-free toast on a morning. I need to have a word with myself and work out I can't be all things to all people but somehow I still try.

Thank god I escape to NY this week... for a much needed break. I can't wait to wander in Central Park with a coffee and just breattthhhhhhheeee... I won't have much money, but hell I'll have time - and that sounds pretty damn good to me.

What is the point of men - bar Peter the nice boy at work?

Excuse my mood. It matches the weather. But with a bit more bite - if I had my way there would be thunder and some damn crackly lightening in there too. You know those days - washouts. A bit bleruurgghhh. I had one on Sunday as well. Keener than mustard I was about the Innocent fete at Regents Park - but as we arrived for a day of Pimms, sunshine, frivolity and a spot of Maypole dancing, the heavens opened. I was a drowned rat struggling to eat a £7 (!!!!!) burrito while my nose dripped water like a fountain. Sproglet slumbered underneath a plastic cover and I knew when he awoke he would want to run around and eat anything that didn't move. Sadly open toed shoes don't really go with muddy parks and teeming rain. Cue our exit from the most middle class of events. My mates stayed to savour the beer tent replete with bales of hay and jovial music but crummy mummies have to quit while they're ahead and find drier pastures.

Anyway I digress. I came home today to stacks of washed clothes, piles of clothes washing to be done, a full dish washer and breakfast dishes. Joy. Just what I fancy after a day at work. Oh - and a letter detailing the 3 points on my licence and a £60fine. My second lot in as many months. 6 points and £120 later....Yay! Dashing to pick up sproglet every day after work is playing havoc with my finances. But hey that's cool. I am a woman - ergo a juggler. But men - what are they there for exactly??? Nothing a turkey baster and a DIY manual couldn't fix. An article at the weekend stated that there has been a 40% increase in males seeking counselling for impotence problems and last month a medical study published proved the quality of men's sperm declines at 45 - to such an extent that the chances of their partner suffering a miscarriage doubles. (Ahh at last - the chorus of men bleating about their ticking biological clocks seems imminent - and gone will be the jokes about women over 30 settling for anything that shaves once a week with a pulse). Sales of beauty products for men have leapt 30% over the last decade and more men than ever are opting for plastic surgery. What have we here? A bunch of narcissistic empty-sacked egotistical mirror lickers?

What do men do exactly? Us women - well I could go all hippy dippy and talk of how we bleed and don't die,(on that subject I once knew a woman who made cards for her boyfriend decorated in period blood... ewwwwwwww) how we birth bairns and then be all things to all people for the rest of our lives, but that is just dull. Now-a-days us chicks can buy our own drinks, flats, shoes and sofas - we can jump up a career ladder without having to wear stockings and type proficiently and most of all we can grab a sperm doner or a rampant rabbit to fulfill all things male. Frankly if a man can't change a tyre or wire a chandelier for you - then why bother?

I tell you I am sick of stroking the biggest male member of all - (sadly) the ego. Boys can you not just do it for yourselves? Well the joke is on you after all - we can bat our lashes, put on a sickly sweet understanding voice and boom! you are putty in our hands. Don't get me wrong I believe sistahhhs should be doin' it for themselves and all - its just... aren't those testosterone filled man-childs so easy to play? It almost isn't sport. No wonder Li-Lo turned. Bimboy Callum Best or the talented Sam Ronson... no contest.

No - I am not about to eat from the hairy cup - I just had a crappy day and needed to vent. Husband being incapable of doing one whole job in the laborious house move -that of post redirection. 8 weeks later our post still goes to the old flat. Plus he booked our dirty weekend flights with a stopover. A stopover to Spain?? You gotta be kidding me! So I am venting about men, apart from Peter the nice boy from work who is our tea bitch and never complains. But I wonder if he uses moisturiser?

The new drink and dial...

Facebook after a few. Suddenly is seems rude not to look up that old ex of yours and see exactly what he is up to, or rather - who he is up to. Flip through friends of friends and wind up oohing and ahhing over a complete stranger's holiday snaps that are mainly of a rosy couple drinking merrily and becoming all the more rosy. Yet, after a bottle of vino they are positively fascinating!

Oh - did you know that so and so knew so and so that you used to work with/date/be mates with/went to school with/once met at a party... possibly? Does anyone have any famous mates on there (who always hide their mates and homepage - boo! Spoilsports).

So I asked to be mates with my ex (lost my virginity to boy) - LMVT as he shall be known - which really galled me to begin with - it feels so damn sad ASKING can you be mates. Almost as horrific as waiting in line to be picked for sports teams at school. The fucker only rejected me!!! I thought he was just taking his sweet arsed time but a workmate helpfully explained how it all works - and no, he wasn't too busy to look at his facebook page, he just blatantly rejected me. Last time me and LMVT spoke - about 9 years ago - we were still mates as far as I remember... maybe now 'cos he is with some skinny dwarf that used to go to school with us and had a ridiculous crush on LMVT while he was my beau, he isn't allowed to be my innocent facebook friend. Good luck to them - I wish this boney pre-pubescent girl would realise - he doesn't do it for me anymore! I just wondered how he was - y'know, curiosity. I am not hoping dig my bitten claws into his skinny frame (they must almost break bones when they do the dirty together) - it was just sheer unadulterated nosiness.

Cut to last night after a fine bottle of wine - I ended up asking LMVT's old best school friend to be my mate. Yes I have no shame... I had a crush on him for 4 years - he didn't wash his hair, wore converse before they were trendy, was brilliant at art and his Dad lived in London - well St Albans - all of which seemed wildly glamorous to a hick from Belfast like me. I awoke today groaning inwardly but cheered up considerably when I found he has accepted me (why does that give me such a small thrill? I need to get out more, I know, I know) and even sent me a mildly amused cheery greeting. Phew - embarrassment curtailed. Have a learned my lesson? Maybe next time I won't be so lucky. So from now on... a few drinks in - my laptop stays shut and my dignity intact.

Cheers!

The day I lost my sense of humour

So it started with a mild hangover. A cocktail hangover from a night out with my friend Sam - supposed to see Sex and the City (we hoped to go back in time to '98 and remember when we wore g-strings, too much lip gloss attitudes and kissed bad 'uns, young 'uns and sometimes any 'un within reach - heady days of private members clubs, bad dates and vodka redbull). You can't see STAC without having a cocktail or 5 - it would be rude not to. We met at Hakkasan - I drank lychee martinis and then a glorious rose water one - heavenly - and then... oh yes a cucumber martini - surprisingly sweet and refreshing. One to add to the summer BBQ list for sure. I forced Sam to drink a Fon Fon - which she kept saying with an oriental accent making it sound like a sexual invitation - and then we careered to the cinema to find out SATC isn't out until next wk and so we endured the new Indiana Jones. I was drunk and it was still crap. Why was Shiea LaBouff or whatever he is called (he sounds like a hairspray) dressed like Brando in 'The Wild One?' No idea. I also have no idea why Harrison made a come back for that rubbish - clearly it wasn't the plot that did it - as there isn't one. Oh and top marks to the props folk who made a crystal skull look like a bit of plastic with a few bits of clingfilm shoved inside.

I got up to find small whingey child refusing his breakfast - he has been whingey since 6pm on Fri evening and has been howling for hours for no apparent reason - even Toy Story won't shut him up and my nerves are FRAZZLED. Husband - who was meant to get up with him - gets up but promptly returns to bed as soon as I surface - thinking we are playing parental tag team. I watch desperate Housewives (as I now am one and am finding Bree oddly more normal as the days go by)get emotional and drink tea for comfort. Then the packing begins. Two boxes in and I am ready to murder my entire family and do time for it. A solitary prison cell would feel like bliss in comparison to whining child and moaning husband who is complaining BEFORE HE HAS EVEN PACKED ANYTHING. I am hoping for a slow jog through memory lane but as sproglet keeps putting his grubby hands into boxes and unpacking them - I end up sprinting through instead. I throw out all old music tapes (it hurt to throw away Tango in The Night which I played forever when I was 15) and VHS tapes. The home made ones I am not bothered about - but to throw out a VHS of Dirty Dancing felt criminal.

How have I accumulated so much crap? I harden my heart to a clay hippo my cousin gave me which he made when he was about 5. He is 24 now. The hippo has been in a cupboard for the past 7 years. It is time to bin it. I trawl through books and photos and find I have about 15 leads - and I have no idea what they are for, what they came with or why I own them. I pack them - just in case. Sproglet's soft baby books - what to do? Charity store. Have you ever given stuff to a charity store because it makes you feel slightly better about yourself than actually binning it? Oh yeah - I felt that alot today.

We order sushi for lunch - it comes an hour and a half later and is rubbish. I swallow cold Miso soup and hate husband for leaving dishes for almost 24 hours, bitching about how he wants to do nothing for the rest of today after filling half a box with restaurant magazines he never reads anyway and trying to wind me up with every syllable he utters. To make myself feel remotely better I regress 20 years or more and draw a penis on his foot with the marker pen and surprisingly I feel a bit better.

At 4pm I am spent. I lie down and sleep. Moving is hideous. I drift off thinking about soft furnishings I can't afford and worrying about how I will ever parallel park without asking a passer by to do it for me (which is my usual method of parallel parking).

At 6pm sproglet is still miserable but is at least eating pasta. We have run out of clean forks. Husband is reading newspapers on line and watching sport - clearly feeling he has completed all tasks for the day, when clearly he hasn't. I explode. I calm down. We have packed up most of the lounge, sproglet's room and the big cupboards in the hall. We are, at a guess, half way there. The thought of de- cluttering the attic freaks me out. What if there are mice up there? Eek! We make a deal not to do attic until morning of the move - less traumatic in daylight and when we are up against the clock. I bath sproglet and notice a spot on his tummy and a weird rash. Is it chickenpox? An allergy? Husband agrees to take him to the Dr tomorrow but announces that if he does he will veto the list of to-dos I have given him for before he goes to work. I have no idea why he thinks doing one 'chore' counterbalances doing any others. If this was the case after 7 years with him, I would now live in Hawaii with round the clock servants.

10pm: Sproglet now slumbers. Husband has done the dishes and gone to the cinema. I am still unwashed, stressed, with to-do lists coming out my ears and cold fried rice for dinner. No wonder this moving malarkey is up there with divorce (ironic that) and death on the stress Richter scale. Roll on June 6th and moving D day. Actually scrap that - roll on August - by then I will be settled and surrounded by soft furnishings - on credit. If only I could ebay husband and sproglet as a buy one get one free - then I would be stress free.

Pity party - you're all invited!

Well... I intended to have a pity party tonight. Just you, me and a fine red 'Georges Duboeuf Fleurie' 2006. I wanted to whitter on about how my job hell had sunk lower than Captain Nemo ever dared to venture - that the only thing beneath me now is Satan himself. Then I popped onto a blog I liked (The Girl Who... - check Monica out) and from there was sent to this link:
http://captainhambone.typepad.com/not_that_you_asked/2008/03/these-are-our-g.html

Well, reading about a 16 month old child with cancer is enough to sober anyone. I grabbed for my wallet and donated to this poor family who really know the pit of despair. They discovered their child was ill - on vacation... miles from home. There they are ensconced. Struggling through the days, praying that their darling daughter will survive numerous operations and chemo etc. It wasn't an easy read. It dampened my enthusiasm for my little well of self pity that I was going to dip into. So I will explain but not dwell. Dwelling is for ejits... or those that don't know how lucky they are.

So why was my stupid day so bad? Well I emailed a lovely girl who used to send me out scripts from the BBC. I wondered what had happened to the job I have waited for over a year to come up - the assistant script editor at Eastenders. (Brit soap for all my amazing foreign readers). I had done some digging and discovered the girl who did it was promoted and her replacement was a guy on placement - who is leaving this week. Voila! The opportunity was mine for the taking! I had been in to meet the folk there twice - they knew me, I was ready - just in time for the house move and HUGE new mortgage etc.... and.... today lovely Kathleen emailed me - the job went internally.

ARGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Yes - MY job - for it had my name on it I assure you - had been advertised and the interviews already had taken place. Big bulbous tears hit the keyboard. I just didn't know where to turn to. I have spent a year trying to get into script editing. I met great bigwigs in the industry. The big wigs said "Work on a soap!" So soapwards I went. There are 7 in the UK. 3 in London. One great soap offered me a job but I had to say no - due to it being in Leeds and sprog and husband (mortgage etc) all being in London. So..... I concentrated on the 3 soaps in London. One fancies itself as a 'serial drama' so is out of my league. That leaves 2. I can't get in to one - so that leaves EE - which I love. I met with folk there and they said - the assistant script ed would be PERFECT for you! Then they gave it... blah blah - you know the rest. I was gutted. I am gutted. I have no idea where to look for work - an opening or even inspiration. Why do I always choose the hardest mountains to climb? Why couldn't I want to be something straightforward - a hairdresser or solicitor or something... And I thought getting in to presenting was hard!

Do you ever have days like today - when you wonder what the hell is against you? Does an ex-boyfriend have a freakin' voodoo doll that he is sticking more pins in than a seamstress's cushion? Anyway - I washed sproglet, fed him pasta and popped him down to sleep. He went out like a light, snuggling his new fav toy - and duck called... er, 'Duckie'. And I realised that I am blessed - with friends, family, a husband who buys me 'Taste the difference cream custard' to drown my sorrows with. And a sproglet with fuzzy hair and the best laugh in the world. Feck 'em and their job. To quote that brilliant Aries woman Scarlett - 'tomorrow is another day.'

Cheers!