Just a load of crap

Maybe I wasn't meant to be a Mother.

Today Sproglet crapped his pants 3 times - yes 3 TIMES - in about an hour and a half. Husband was ill. It was up to me to carefully cut off the pants, (pulling them down the legs just creates more horror) wipe his bum and re-dress him.

Each time he walked up to me, his wee face downcast. 'Mummy, poo.' He knows where you poo. You ask him, he says 'toilet' proudly - like, hey Mum, I know things. He may know it, he may even manage to wee there standing up pretty much all the time he needs to go - but my god his arse has yet to meet the seat. Each time I was calm, I asked him why he hadn't told Mummy he needed to go. He hung his head in shame.

Then came bath time. I was chatting on the phone to my aunt - and then I noticed something new amidst the bubbles, something that wasn't shiny and plastic. The brown snake curled across the water and I realised - he was pooing in the bath.

It took all my powers of patience not to just throw him, or myself out the window. He went to bed with no stories. This pooing his pants malarkey has being going on for 6 weeks now. He pooed on the floor at nursery on Fri. He knows it is wrong and yet he persists. I have no idea how to change this.

Anyway - I am kind of at the end of my tether. I just can't cope with a full time job, trying to rent out a flat, keep my house clean, wash the endless crapped on clothes, and raise a kid. Husband and I have no folks to help us - no tribe to rush in and give us a moment to ourselves. I feel guilty when I'm not with Sproglet and frustrated when I am with him.

I feel like my life is a groundhog day of washing sheets and towels and clothes and folding and cooking and stacking and rushing to the nursery and cleaning up crap. I miss who I was. I miss being a Samaritan - that amazing feeling of giving something and expecting nothing in return. I miss that volunteering was my thing - just for me - and it gave me something nothing else does. I miss having time to write. I miss my figure - the pounds just creep on in my sedentary job and car journey to and from work, with no time ever to get myself to my thrashing bashing body combat class or to pump a few weights.

I read an article today where Uma Thurman said ' When my son turned 7 I sort of stood up straight and realised I had been exhausted one way or the other for the past 10 years.' (Her daughter is 11). 'My big wish now is to make a little time for myself. I think many women, working women get this. I mean how do you justify that hour and a half to yourself? When you have this to do and that to do and you want to be there... that's what Motherhood is about - the chaos and confusion and loss of yourself. Of course there is a good part to losing yourself - any mother that doesn't give herself up isn't a good Mother - but at the same time you get to a point where you can't reach the identity that helped you be stable in the first place - and that is quite a frightening feeling. Guilty when you are here and guilty when you're there, of being torn in half. Your happiness depends on your sense of duty: what's your shame level today? What did you do wrong, what could you do better?

She goes on to say how she went to see a Dr a few years ago and he wrote a prescription that said 'Hotel - one night a week.'

She never did it.

I remember when Sproglet had just been born, I was tired and strung out and overwhelmed and lonely and scared - that I fantasised about running off to sleep in the local Holiday Inn. How banal is that? I didn't even fantasise about a luxury martini filled pamperthon, but a grimy basic budget hotel, where all I wanted to do was sleep. I figured that having had a C section, I couldn't get on the tube anyway - so it had to be within walking distance - my lagoon of tranquillity.

Last week was a hectic week work wise - I worked until midnight on thurs, was up at 7am, got Sproglet to nursery and then worked at my desk all day at home. Speaking to writers, typing notes, fielding calls. I didn't have time to eat more than a pitta bread dunked in hummus. Then I was dashing out the door dealing with estate agents and a painter who came to fix my worst ever painting faux pas and a small crying child and getting groceries - and I finished my last notes to my writers at around 8pm.

I feel so stretched and so angry all the time. Resentful at the Husband for always working so much and leaving me to cope with everything. Wishing I had a moment to try and write the bloody book that an agent wants me to write. A moment just to think about the book would be good.

I guess if I had another similar Mother to talk to about it all here it would be great. But the Mothers I know are not like me. In the area we live in - safe, good schools, terribly achingly middle class - verging on dull - but green and lush and quaint with a beautiful canal and a wonderful park for sproglet to throw himself around - there are terribly achingly normal folk. I want the people I knew back in London - without sounding like a complete wanker - I miss the folk I know who have a bit of bite to them - chequered pasts, dark secrets, filthy senses of humour - mainly work in creative areas - like a drink, swear like pirates and talk about something more than Motherhood.

I wanted a lovely home, I wanted Sproglet to have a secure happy childhood - maybe I just don't fit in here. Maybe Motherhood is too difficult for me. Maybe I just failed.

Today I told Husband that my new fantasy is that I walk out the door and just keep on walking - I never stop. I never look back. I just walk, endlessly - having no destination in mind. He did his usual thing of being cute and trying to endear himself to me, jollying me out of my thunderous mood.

People mean well - they offer to babysit, or say they'll call - but folk are busy and time flies by and I guess most of the time I'm usually pretty busy myself. Life is all about fitting people in and arranging weekends so far in advance your life becomes mapped out for you for the next few months. My friend Pocket used to live round the corner - I cooked her risottos most weeks, we sank many bottles of red and we had coffee and cake all the time. She was my 'day in day out' friend - someone you don't have to arrange to see. Almost family. But she now is a thriving song writer in LA and her absence is greatly felt in my life.

Husband is a bit of an island. I'm more of a bustling city - I need people to thrive. I like mooching in book stores, grabbing Thai for lunch, catching a movie, browsing trash mags, tinkering in Mac make-up like a kid in a dressing up box. I like late night conversations in greasy winebars with rotting sweating candles on the table. I like dancing wildly to rubbish music in hot tacky bars, my hair stuck to my head.

I feel I was someone once who knew who she was. And now, well now I clean up crap.

Maybe I just have raging PMT. Readers, forgive me.

Oink!

God it is great to feel myself again. By that I mean, to be in rude health after a week of sloth due to having a thorough dose of swine flu. Well, unconfirmed but presumed swine flu. The docs no longer come out and swab test you,, they speak to you over the blower and say 'yep, sounds like swine flu, all flus are now being treated as such - rest up, lots of fluid and can you get a flu buddy to get your prescription of Tamiflu.' A flu buddy? Who the fuck wants to be mates with anyone dripping in snot with temperatures of 39+ ??

Husband was not happy at all in having to cope with all things Sproglet - until his work told him not to come in for the week and then he became the happiest camper in the land. I lay in bed and sweated, froze, coughed, hacked and ached. It wasn't pretty. Day 4 and I finally dressed. There are only so many slasher horrors and cheap soaps that one can consume.

The hardest part was doing nothing and just allowing myself to be sick. I never do nothing. I am always working, reading, writing, cooking, washing, tidying, cleaning, sorting, buying, etc. To just lie there and not do anything was so difficult. I felt guilty about being ill... Odd not to be at work and yet not on holiday. I can't remember the last time I just vegged without thinking 'I should be doing a wash, writing something, sorting out the cupboards, Sproglet's wardrobe or the like. My protestant work ethic clearly burns strong - I had to log in to my work email for fear that something was going on - gasp - without me!

Also, I had to hibernate indoors - isolate myself from the world. Indoors for 7 days - my god, I was bouncing off the walls. Ready to kill Husband for just breathing. I'm back to work on Monday - I can't wait. Sproglet kept crying at bedtime and asking for me, wondering why the hell Daddy was suddenly in charge. Clearly, something was amiss.

Well I'm back. Husband is relegated to deputy. All is now well at chez CrummyMummy. I've had the dreaded lurgy and I beat it.

Wanna be in my gang?

Forgive me if I've trodden this well worn path before - but motherhood is boring. There I said it. Waiting for the lightening to strike me down. Nope - I'm still here. It is the thing apparently all Mothers know but none say. You see, according to this book that I intend to buy 'The Mommy Myth' - the media have created this ideal of motherhood - how it should look, feel and be - and us women all desperately try to live up to it - which no matter how hard we try, we can't and so we are forever cast into the pit of guilt and frustration. Welcome to life chez Crummymummy...

We give ourselves amazing expectations and blame ourselves when we don't build our Mother Rome in a day. Here's the other great thing we do - we don't talk about it. No, we're all too busy showing each other how well we cope, how perfect our lives are, how easy it all is (according to this book...).

Husband has told me that I'm a good Mother, if not a natural one. See thing is - I don't enjoy happy clappy groups. I fear most other Mothers. I feel like a 17 year old in Converse pretending to be a grown up. Whilst I like painting and playing outside and water splashy games and reading books and bath time and going to the movies together, eating sushi and letting Sproglet scooter around where we live, I find myself standing at the park counting down the minutes until I feel my 'good Mother' cup has been filled and I can dash home and let Sproglet delve into his toy mountain and I can delve into ten mins with Grazia.

I've friends who have changed completely post child - their lives now revolve around the children, verging on the point of obsession. Somewhere I feel I partly lost them. Maybe it's because I'm just not like that. Sure, Sproglet's routine comes first - I never went out before bedding him during his first 2 years - but I tried to fit him into my own life, not the other way around. I needed to retain me to be a 'good Mother' to him. I went out 10 days after I had him - leaving him with my Mother to see a movie, ironically about a Paedophile (Hard Candy - worth a watch) - and every chance I could to get to the movies, I grabbed it with both hands. I still do.

I'm not the Mother who bakes homemade birthday cakes. I don't plan daily activities and join every swim club/child activity group in my area. I work full time, I try to have a life, a clean house, a clean (if unironed) wardrobe for Sproglet. I try to cover all bases. Right now, as I type, Sproglet, dummie in mouth is relishing 'Tigger and Pooh' on the Disney Channel. Maybe I should be making cut out potato paintings or rustling up some fairy cakes with him in the kitchen - but in truth I cannot be arsed. I am shattered after work. I need to wind down before we do bath and bed and read 'Aliens love Underpants' for the 60 millionth time. Fresh as if it were the first...

My therapist told me the other day that she wishes she had £1 for every Mother who came in and unleashed her guilty secret - that she found Motherhood boring and repetitive - but she couldn't tell anyone - or else what would they think of her? She'd be cast out of the Alpha Mummy tea group - and then were would her social outcast baby be? Therapist said it happened particularly in my posho area.

I'm thinking of trying to start my own Crummymummy group in the area. Baby talk is banned. We have to drink alcohol at all times. Swearing is obligatory. We must confess to all evils including lusting after 21 year old tv characters like Chuck Bass. We must eat only cake. We must admit to missing our old singleton lives whilst still loving our kids. At the end we must group hug and tell each other that we are normal.

Wanna join?

Thanks for the music

I drove into work today listening to a medley of - what else? - MJ music as I blasted the air con on an already sweltering morning. Having waded through a wealth of Sunday supplements/pull out special editions all weekend of the rise and fall and further fall of The King of Pop, there is nothing I could say that hasn't already be said.

As I sang along to the addictive 'Beat it' and even did a bit of finger clickin' to 'The way you make me feel' I felt, well... a bit sad. My entire childhood was dancing before my eyes as his music carried me straight back to my friend Mandy's overly pink bedroom where we wore out her Thriller LP. To the first ever all night TV show called 'Rock around the clock' that showed the full 12 minute Thriller video which we recorded, then endlessly watched, trying to perfect our moves to the zombie dance. To '88 when we boarded a bus from Belfast to Cork - naturally the Irish driver got lost and 10 hours later we arrived for the MJ Bad tour, that blew us away. To chasing after cute boys at Xmas discos with plastic mistletoe to 'The way you make me Feel,' to working in a bar in New Zealand that played the 'Scream' video on loop on 24 tvs...and on and on.

Mandy was my best friend from the age of 6. She discovered Michael first, became an obsessed fan immediately and bagsied him as her hero. I liked him, but swore my allegiance to Prince aged 11 after listening to 'Let's go Crazy.' In those days you picked your pop hero and that was it. Lifetime commitment. To this day I love Prince - even watching Purple Rain the morning my son was born. Yes,yes, I know it is shite, but I don't watch it with adult eyes, I'm viewing it as the 12 year old fan, who knows every word - and hell, is proud to admit it. I even like 'Under a Cherry Moon' - how's that for dedication eh?

Anyway, I digress. I realised I wasn't mourning him as such - he seemed to have such a sad old life from start to finish that there was much to pity with that boy/man when he was alive - but I was mourning the passing of my own childhood. In his death, some part of it was gone too. A piece of cultural DNA from my generation. A generation that spawned the greats of music - the likes of whom can't be recreated today - as the way that we embrace music now has altered so radically. Gone are the days when our fav band climbed the charts for that elusive no1 spot, gone is the collective watching of our chart show TOTP, gone is Smash Hits and it's song lyrics and gone the painstaking process of recording snippets of songs on a crackling old VHS machine to create 'pop videos' of our own. There seems an innocence to it all that has been replaced by excessively over priced tours and merchandise - an innocence that we can't reclaim.

So Michael, rest in peace. And thanks for music. It still sounds as fresh as the day you released it. And I still know the moves to Thriller.

Sproglet rockin' out on his 3rd birthday

Don't forget the cocktail sausages...

After Saturday I should almost lose my crummy status - as Sproglet's party kicked ass! The pimms flowed, party food was devoured by parents and children alike and Simon worked his butt off in front of what can only be described as a 'difficult' crowd. One 4 year old loved every trick Simon threw at him, but Sproglet was more interested in the contents of the dining room table and kept wandering off to nibble and socialise.

Husband used every ounce of sociability he had left after a long week - chatting to strangers, making drinks and attempting to video the birthday cake moment. We'd had a small ruck in the morning when I unwrapped Sproglet's dinosaur cake - a thick dense mousse, more like a dessert; the corner had been ruptured in transit. Instead of saying 'Happy Birthday Finn' it was 'Happy Birthday F'. Great. What an Fing ejit. There were a couple of childless folk here - my cousin and the godparents - all of whom stayed late. People with kids knew when the time was up (when the kids were bouncing off walls for example) but childless folk never leave until the drink runs out.

We ordered curry and I collapsed into bed at 10:30pm, utterly spent but in a haze of happiness. Sproglet howled through his bath time he was so consumed by tirdeness. All his excitement and running around and opening an obscene amount of gifts had sent him over the edge. I scooped him in my arms and sang (the poor) child to sleep. Mixing schoolmates with local Mothers and godparents and the odd random guest all together was a recipe for disaster. But throw in enough Pimms, a cracking cake, an energetic kid's enterainer, minature sandwiches and not forgetting cocktail sausages and you have success! Thank god he isn't 4 for another year... In my youth I could party 7 mights a week. Now, one kiddie bash and I am mush.

Was it worth all the effort? You bet!

No longer me....

Sproglet is doing a lot of talkin'. ALOT. Well, he is my child, so no surprise there. I didn't kiss the Blarney stone - I ate the bastard. Today he announced that I was not '*%$?@*~' (my first name) - I was 'Mummy.' Yes, I thought - I lost myself when you were born sunshine. I'm no longer miss 'one for the road, and the ditch... and the field etc etc'; no longer miss spontaneity, miss cartwheel while drunk in ridiculous heels; miss lusting after cute young boys that are in the box marked 'wrong 'uns' - no, now I am Mummy. I don't have sexy candlelit baths with Husband, but bubble filled splash fest baths with Sproglet. I don't stay up til dawn - I get up at dawn. I don't pontificate about bad dates and good sex, but about bad childrens' behaviour and good potty training tips.

And you know what? I'm pretty happy with all that. Sure potty training aint a picnic - we are going through pants at a rate of nothing - but when Sproglet throws his arms round me for no apparent reason and plants a wet kiss on my cheek - nothing comes close. Lately, apart from the talkin' he has been reading his books aloud to me and discussing the merits of the 'Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.' He points out all the time what is mine and what is Daddy's - the kid is smart as the house and car are mine, Daddy gets the garden hose and the bin. I'll be using Sproglet as a mediator should we ever divorce. Things are pretty good with Husband as well. He's getting weekends off and we are getting to spend some time together and discovering - we actually like each other - sometimes! we even took in a crappy schlock horror on Saturday night 'Drag me to Hell.' Even though I was already there watching this rubbish - it was great to just hang out and be us again.

This weekend chez CrummyMummy is a biggie. Sproglet is 3 - well he refuses to accept this - he says he is 4. I like his reasoning; it makes me 28. Anyway, we have enough party food to feed an army - all top hat buns, chocolate fingers, pizzas, sarnies, iced rings and cupcakes. We have a tonne of Pimms for the frazzled parents and we have a secret weapon - a kid's entertainer 'Simon Says.' He was the only one who didn't look like a paedo sweating in a playground in his pictures. He has a comedy stuffed parrot and everything - what's not to love? 23 adults, 10 kids (from 4 - 8 weeks old) and of course Simple - sorry - Simon Says. The house aint that big and the weather forecast typically is predicting rain (gotta love those British summers - the moment someone mentions Wimbledon the heavens open) - it could all be chaos.

I'm going to drink as much Pimms as I can get down my neck and keep smiling throughout. As long as I don't make penis refences to Simon's magnificient balloon display all should go well. I'll letcha know.