Great Expectations...

So how was it for you? Xmas that is? Did Santa deliver? Were your high expectations met? Did you feel that the christmassy moment buried deep within your heart spilled out and overflowed with goodwill to all? No? me neither.

Two nights ago I was at the DVD store (I still call it the Video store but whatever) chatting to the welcoming geek behind the counter - his words not mine - about our respective Xmasses. His was 'horror.' Mine was fine. Husband cooked a lovely meal. Sproglet got more toys (great - all 'musical') than you could shake a stick at, we lit the fire, drank champagne, stuffed our faces, ate too much chocolate, played on the Wii and all politely had a good time. There was nothing wrong, not even the usual friction that is obligatory between my Mother and I - but it just didn't fill my heart with exploding joy - and why should it? Thing is, every year we work ourselves into a frenzy of 'must have perfect house, great gifts, good food, there must be laughter and cheer and ... and... and... everything!!!' But does the day itself ever deliver? Has it ever really since we spotted Dad under the tree rearranging Santa deliveries?? Video store boy spent it with his dad's new family and his step-siblings who are like something straight out of Deliverance. He recoiled in shock as he spoke of his step-bro's racism and homophobia (a closet if ever there was one it sounds) and his miserable step-sis who wouldn't even speak - perhaps a blessing. The poor lad looked distraught as he told of his descent into the abyss of depression on 'the happiest day of the year.'

My new year's motto is to have less expectation that everything will turn into a Hallmark card just because it is meant to. I plan to stress way less. I'm not quite sure how to achieve this yet - but I am determined to try. My life has become an OCD stressathon where I worry about the house, my finances, my son's development, what to have for dinner, does my boss like me, can I do my job, when to replace the dripping fridge, do I need petrol, have I remembered so and so's b'day, will I make it to the nursery on time - every day. I need to give myself a break - chill a bit - just accept things and move on. I have turned into Bree Vandercamp without the glossy hair - and it is frightening!

So that coupled with a pledge to lose the 10 pounds that have settled comfortably on my hips and tummy - are my resolutions. I know it is so goddamn tiresome to have them as they are there to be broken - but as much as I loathe new year (high expectation event if ever there was one) it is a time to wave goodbaye to bad habits, shitty years, unmended hearts etc - and focus on today. Not even tomorrow. Maybe watching sproglet's Kung Fu Panda for the millionth time since Xmas is rubbing off on me...

Have a good one - see you on the other side. Oh last one - to blog more often - promise!

I am alive - just!!

I have not died. I am still crummy. But Sproglet knocked the laptop off the sofa and we have been without one for about 6 weeks now. After haggling and more haggling and er... getting nowhere with those lovely insurance folk at Axa - we are getting a new laptop next week... I will rejoin the cyber world again...

It has been manic manic manic MANIC at work and what with Xmas (oh god - it should be bi-annual no?) and small child and gift shopping and Relate and wrapping gifts and buying chairs and hen dos (am too old for that kind of malarkey now) I haven't had a chance to write.

So this is a simple - hello - I am here, well, frazzled and will be back for a pre-Xmas rant if possible. Promise it'll be a goodie.

Is it wrong that we have bought Sproglet a dance mat - as his sense of rhythm is kind of like a slo-mo Stevie Wonder crossed with acid user - purely to laugh at... I mean with him?

So... have a great chrimble - hope you survive it and my tip is just to drink through it - and don't miss EastEnders (natch).

Must dash I have something to stuff, wrap, wipe or decorate...

X

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.

Happy Halloween!!!!

No I haven't been kidnapped by aliens or run off with the circus - I'm just a full time working Mother now and boy does that rain on the old free time parade. But I am back - in time to wish you all a very Happy Hallowe'en. What tricks or treats do you have in store? I just don't get how folk cannot be enamored with All Hallow's Eve. When I was growing up in Belfast - Halloween was a big deal - you saved your pocket money religiously to buy Bengal matches, sparklers and indoor fireworks (that stank the house out and almost gave you 3rd degree burns but when the snake thingy grew out of a small pink tablet or the mini volcano erupted it was worth it). We had no interest in Guy Fawkes Night - that was seen as an English celebration and besides, mid Troubles, the fireworks were banned save that some poor sod would assume that folk were bombing the house next door...

Halloween gave us a full week off school (once I spent the entire week trying to catch falling leaves as I heard for each leaf caught a wish was granted) toffee apples, costumes, carved out pumpkins and best of all - Trick or Treating - otherwise known as the cash cow. A tuneless rendition of 'Halloween is coming the geese are getting fat... ' would entice the kindly neighbour whose bell we had rung relentlessly to part with fifty pence, ten pence, or maybe the flutter of a pound note (no £1 coins in those old days) to get rid of us pronto. With necks of brass, we would call at every door up and down the neighbour hood, swinging our lantern that would stay lit for all of ten seconds and straightening our wonky masks. Those that offered apples or money nuts would be met with a disappointed grunt; a mental note made that this house deserved thunder and lightening played on them daily for the next 2 weeks (ringing their bell and running off). All we were really interested on was the cold hard cash. I remember my mate Mandy and I making £18 between us one Halloween - in the days where pocket money was 20p a week - this was akin to winning the lottery!

Now that I am a grown up (of sorts) my enthusiasm for all things spooky remains undaunted. I spent my last fiver on a set of fetching pumpkin lights that decorate my desk at work. When work mates trundle past my desk they will be rewarded with sweets shaped like human body parts. My son will go to nursery tomorrow dressed as a fetching pirate and I will have tat galore decorated around the house in celebration. Have you noticed how much Halloween related junk you can buy these days? Torches shaped like eyeballs, skeleton lights and liquid filled novelty green tongues... fabulous. In short I love this holiday as I can be a child again. I'm thinking of solving my own credit crisis with a spot of Trick or Treating. Anyone?

Maternity leave - can I leave it until now please?

Two friends had babies at the weekend - both boys. Both already had sons. My step-sister had a baby girl last Monday. Cue lots of pics of sweet wrinkled squished wee bunnies - all blotchy and new, mewing and snuffling as they splutter through their shiny new days on this earth. What long days they are... feeding round the clock, our bits healing, your body recoiling from the onslaught of birth - leaking and swollen, a shadow of it's former self.

I don't envy those first few weeks - to me they were hell on wheels. Second time around is never so difficult (apparently) - by then you have (hopefully) grown Mother's balls and no longer feel the fear of venturing further than a metre from the comfort of home and steady supply of wipes. You are immune to the dirty looks in Starbucks from career women chatting merrily about holidays and designer wear over coffee; from the sniggers of teenage boys as you buy maternity pads at the chemist and when you say the words 'nipple shields' with absolutely no hint of embarrassment in front of the ten deep queue in Boots you know you are in a new zone. Frankly, you don't give a fuck. You've been there, done it and can no longer fit into the T shirt.

These are meant to be the golden days - filled with baby bonding, sweet smells and Mommy lunches with the gals. In reality the washing machine never stops, your house looks like invaded Basra, your daily scent is crusted vomit and you are so tired you hallucinate that Josh Harnett is the milkman. (Not that you would be up for anything frisky with him even if he was - christ let no man go near there again!) No bra fits as your milk comes, nay, charges, in - you have begun sporting weird pigment spots on your face and you haven't washed your hair in over a week. You would sell your soul to the devil for 5 hours straight sleep and every time you open your wardrobe all you can see are a row of clothes mocking you - they may as well belong to Kate Moss they look so damn tiny. Golden days my ass.

God is certainly a man. Because if he wasn't this birth business would be a piece of cake - we women would pop them out and stride back into work a la Phoebe in the dream sequence episode of Friends, leaving the spew, sleep deprivation and complete loss of life (let's not even mention how isolating the whole experience can be) to men. Then, when the bunny turns two - all cute with new words and activities every day - THAT is when we can take our much loved maternity time. Sooo much more fun. Take sproglet to the jungle gym place filled with coloured balls; take sproglet for lunch and dare to have a glass of wine; read books, have afternoon baths, bake cakes, ice biscuits etc etc - all jolly fun. So much more fun than the 'golden days.'

Sproglet is so much fun these days I find it genuinely hard to leave him. Ok, not so much when he is throwing the king of all strops in Waitrose, lying on the ground refusing to move unless I buy him a cake shaped like Sponge Bob... but in general he is so much more... interesting. If I could vote on when to take maternity leave - something I never had in the first place after Sproglet was born, being self employed and all that - I'd like to call it in now please. If only that were possible...

Snugglebunny - yes I really wrote such a nauseating word.

Sproglet has many new words. 'Duggg' for dog. 'Car' for car. Unfortunately the word' nig-nog' for the 'Ninky-Nonk' from 'In the Night Garden' and the like. Bless him - he bounds out of his bed and careers into us shouting 'La La' 'Duice' and 'Outide' while he directs me towards the TV and coco-pops in that order.

Best of all he shouts 'MAMA!' every time I walk into a room - with such gusto and joy that I feel like I have won an award every time. He is going through a 'Mummy' period where basically, I rock. Yay me! No matter what Husband does, what treats he bribes with or remote that he controls - I am king. Sproglet snuggles onto my lap and tucks his head in, or throws his arms tight round me and plants over long kisses on my face. Even though his never ending cold means I frequently am slimed with snot in the process, I am thrilled. Most mornings he comes into bed with me while I try to raise the will to shift myself out of it. He gazes up at me and tries to lift off my eye mitt things and picks at my glamorous mouth guard (have gritted my back teeth down to hell - this shield is an unfortunate necessity if I want to enjoy steak in life). I must look pretty scary with wild tossing/turning hair, embedded leftover make-up, ear plugs swinging to said hair and gumily trying to talk with a big rugby-player-friendly guard in my gob. But he stares at me like I am a goddess and strokes my face with his tiny hands, giggling and talking incessantly.

As we kick into Autumn - central heating at the ready, jumpers pulled out of the back of the closet, excuses to eat cake (gotta protect myself with an added layer of fat through harsh winter) - it is time to hibernate is it not? Lots of tea, stodgy food, oakey reds and tonnes of biscuits... and snuggling. Snuggle whatever the hell you can - blankets, stuffed animals, strangers, your plasma - whatever. Tis the season of snuggling - and no one does this better than Sproglet; with his freshly washed soft curls, clean jammies and blissful baby skin, he has the fine art of this down pat. Like all good things though, he reaches the end of his snuggle and jumps up - usually to get yet another book to read. But while it lasts, I'm telling you, nothing on earth comes close.

Time flies

How come the supermarkets are full of chrimbo chocs, trees and tacky gift sets and yet we are basking in August like sunshine? What is with this hurrying through the year malarkey? Is the credit crunch forcing shops to get in there early hoping that if they remind us for long enough we will indeed succumb and begin our yearly festive shop fest?

Xmas shopping is hell on wheels so maybe getting it started soon would be a good thang. I digress - what is bothering me is how this year has run away with me. Jan crawled by as did Feb then I got my job and zooooom - Halloween is round that corner. I haven't popped back to Belfast all year to see my folks and friends and suddenly my Mum has booked her Xmas flights... Is it me or are the years zipping past like the ads on Sky+ fast forward on 30?

When my girls started making plans for a big 4 0 get together my brakes slammed on - I am only 21!!! Mentally... maybe even 17. How can I be sprinting towards middle age - hell I'm even enjoying 'Casualty' these days - I must be gettin' on. My life is a blurrrrr of scripts and rushing to drop off/pick up sproglet from militant nursery, food shops, cooking, bit of Grey's (tis back thank god) drinking red wine, Relate, dip in my best mate's hot tub and not getting enough sleep. I curse the Sunday papers for coming along again so quickly when last weeks are still piled by my bed with articles I am desperate to read. My lit agent wants me to fashion my Crummy Mummyness into some book form - have I a moment to do it? And in the midst of all this why have I developed a chronic Ebay addiction? I have little enough time as it is! I seem to be forever 'booking in' mates weekends down the line - which I hate as it makes life devoid of all spontaneity.

Last week I made it to the movies - woo hoo!! There was precious little on and my cousin and his lovely girlfriend were off to see some comedy from the 'Knocked up' fraternity - I plumped for 'The Women.' Meg Ryan, the wonderful Annette Benning, how bad could it be? I'll tell ya. Worse.

When I got bored of trying to work out how much botox Meg had pumped into her impish features I walked out and marched up to the all important ticket stub holders. "I am a mother who doesn't get out enough - especially to the cinema - so I cannot lose two precious hours of my life to this trash. What time does 'The Strangers' start"? Slasher horror is a weird fav of mine. It was pretty good actually - until the gruesome end when I dashed out - gratuitous stabbing not really my cup of tea. Point is - if it 'aint floating my boat - I gotta move on pronto. Life is too short baby.

Now where is my pumpkin carving kit?