Parenthood: Expectations Versus Reality

I absolutely love this meme that’s done the rounds on the internet over recent months, largely because the bottom image is so hilariously accurate for my reality of parenthood.  While I was pregnant, I spent a lot of time daydreaming about what it would be like once they were here.  Nearly three years on, I now realise some of my expectations were slightly optimistic. In no particular order, here are the five areas that I got it the most wrong. 

NB: If you’re pregnant for the first time and daydreaming about how lovely it’s going to be, then keep doing just that.  It is lovely.  It’s just also quite a lot more shouty (me) and shit filled (them – thankfully) than I’d anticipated.

1.  Dressing them.

Expectation: I’d buy them super cute outfits (not matching – not a fan of the matchy matchy twin thing on the whole.  Unless it’s a Christmas jumper, in which case I will be forcing them into matching Christmas jumpers every Christmas day, until they are 18.  At least.) and everyone would coo over how cute they look, and I would sit there and beam, quietly but proudly.

The Reality: 9 times out of 10, my children look like they’ve been left in the wilderness for several days, fighting wild animals to survive.  They are not clean and tidy children.   I don’t understand how it happens, but I dress them and they look quite presentable. Five minutes later, Zachary will have pissed himself (or shat himself if I’m honest), Daisy will have added her own twist to the outfit, that makes her look absolutely barking - her favourite at the moment is to pull her socks up over her leggings - and they’ll both be smeared in something: jam, mud, deodorant, Sudacrem…whatever happens to be closest to them.  I’ve given up on nice outfits, unless it’s a special occasion*.

2.  Going out with them.

Expectation: I’d take my well behaved children out to lots of exciting and educational places and they’d play with each other while I chatted with my friends.

The Reality: Oh sweet Jesus.  I don’t mean the getting them out of the house – I’ve already blogged about how hideous that is.  I mean once we’re out.  If I’m alone with them, then my stress levels are HIGH.  I physically cannot keep tabs on both of them.  This means one of two things: either the one I haven’t got eyes on is in some way attempting to physically harm another child (in playground etiquette, this is Not Good), or they are about to do something that will likely harm themselves. Either scenario is not the dream.  Nor is getting judgey stares from judgey parents who don’t realise that I’m trying to keep tabs on two.  Fuck off judgey parents, nobody needs you and your judgey eyes. Parenting is a team sport – we should have each other’s backs.  

If I’m meeting someone, it’s sort of easier.  Sort of, because although there is another pair of hands, I’d quite like it if I could talk to that other pair of hands.  This is what that conversation usually goes like:

Me: How’s work?

Friend: Yeah good-

Daisy: Mummy mummy mummy watch watch mummy mummy I am climbing mummy I am climbing high watch mummy watch.

 Me: I’m watching! What a clever girl! [To my friend] Go on.

Friend: So, work-

Me: ZACHARY! STOP! THAT IS INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS. GET DOWN FROM THERE NOW.  MUMMY IS COUNTING TO FIVE. 1…2…Good boy.  [To my friend]. Sorry, go on.

Friend: So-

Daisy: Mummy look mummy I am walking I am walking very fast that’s a good idea isn’t it mummy isn’t it let’s walk together mummy let’s walk fast together mummy mummy let’s that’s a good idea isn’t it mummy.    

You get the picture.

 

Oh, and mostly we just go to the park.  Turns out educational places like museums often expect quiet and stillness and obedience.  We don’t do those things. 

3.  Tea time.

Expectation: We’d sit down to eat together.  There’d be some mess, but ultimately we’d all enjoy it, eating up the nutritious meals that mummy had cooked and chatting nicely to each other.

The Reality: If we get through tea time without someone going on the naughty step, it’s a fucking miracle.  Food is thrown, drinks are spilt, people refuse to sit on chairs, people stand on chairs, people shout, people call each other bumheads, people** throw cutlery.  Do you know what people don’t do? Eat their fucking dinner.  They eat my dinner.  Or, if they don’t eat it, they jab their hands into it.  Hands which, only five minutes earlier, were down their pants.    

4.  Story time

Expectation: We’d all snuggle up together and I’d read to them while they gently fell asleep.

The Reality: They fight.  They fight over which books we’re going to read, they fight over who gets to lift the sodding flaps, or touch the textured bit or count the sodding lettuces in Mr McGregor’s garden.  They fight over who gets to sit on my knee first, which bed we sit on, which order we read the books in.  Daisy doesn’t stop talking the whole time I’m reading and Zachary doesn’t stop bellowing ‘DAISY NO! BE QUIET!’ and no-one can hear a bloody word I’m saying because EVERYONE IS SHOUTING. 

I’m an English teacher.  I know the benefits of reading to small children.  I’m not quite sure those benefits are there, if it’s 98% shouting and fighting, and only 2% listening nicely to the story.  

5. Love

Expectation: I’d love them lots. Obviously.

The Reality:  Oh I was so far way.  So, so far way.  ‘Lots’ does not come close.  Before I had them, I didn’t realise it was possible to love this much.  There is no word, I don’t think, that could quantify how much I love them.  And that’s a really nice one to have got wrong.

*Even then, there’s a really, really high possibility that one of them will vomit all over themselves because special occasions are Very Exciting and being Very Excited when you’re two often ends in vomit.

**Just to be clear, I am not one of those people.  My children are.

It Is About The Money

One of the things Daisy loves more than anything is when I put some music on and dance around the kitchen with her.  I love it too – it’s fun and it’s one of the rare moments I feel like we’re actually making memories.  (Zachary not so much – he prefers me to wrestle him to the ground and then throw him in the air, but that wouldn’t give me a nice line into my current blog, so he’ll have to wait!) One of Daisy’s favourite tunes for us to dance to is Jessie J’s ‘Price Tag’. (Her second favourite is Robbie Williams’ ‘Love My Life’ – she wafts about the place crooning ‘I am wonderful, I am beautiful, I am free!’ – keep singing that for your whole life my baby girl, your whole life, because you are all of those things and so, so much more.)  Anyway, I digress. For a single parent, nothing could be further than the truth with regards to Price Tag.   It is about the money because all too often, we don’t have enough of it.

I am grammar school educated.  I have a 2:1 degree from a red brick university.  I have a Postgraduate Certificate in Education*.  In short, I should be able to financially support my children.  But I really struggle to.  I work part time as a teacher (3 days a week) and I do one day a week as a freelance copy editor.  My annual salary is £30,000, give or take.  This is not a bad salary.  In fact, I recently looked it up.  I’m in the top 5% for earnings in terms of single parent families.  Despite this, every month, I’m short by £100 - £200, depending on how economical I’ve been with the food shop (and how many times I’ve said ‘go on then, you can have it.’ Because do you know what? There’s only so many times I can bear to say ‘no, you can’t have it baby,’ when everyone else around them is having it, and then some.)  I also get maintenance from the twins’ dad at the going rate.  So what’s the problem?
There are two problems. The first is that childcare is insanely expensive.  So so expensive.  50% of my salary goes on childcare.  Another 25% goes on getting me to work.  75% of my salary has gone before I’ve even walked through the door. The government would probably say that they’re sorting that out with the 30 free hours of childcare for 3 year olds.  And yes, that will help me. Who actually has three years of mat leave though? I had 6 months. By the time they get their free hours, I will have spent over £28,000 on childcare (with a further £8000 on getting to work).  They will also be three and a half.  Not three. There’s a whole 5 and ½ months that pass until they get the 30 free hours that the government bills as available to all three year olds.   I only earn £30,000 a year. Once tax and national insurance have been taken off, along with my childcare and travel, I have nothing.  I want to work.  I want to be a good role model for my children.  I just don’t think a system that means you lose money if you work is a good system.  I also don’t think a system that penalises parents is a good system.

The second problem is child maintenance.  The father of my children pays the amount he is supposed to: 16% of his salary.  Two issues here: one, he is self-employed.  The year before we broke up, he earnt £50k.  The year he had to start paying maintenance he declared his earnings as £18k.  And no-one, in any official capacity, challenged that.  This year, he did actually declare his earnings as £40k, so my kids have probably got closer to what they are legally entitled to.

It’s categorically not good enough though.  16% of your earnings to financially support two children?  If we took 16% of my earnings, I’d give just £400 a month to the upkeep of my kids.  £800 is childcare.  £560 is the mortgage.  £400 is my season ticket to get to work (in London, where I earn much more than I would in Kent).  If I only provided £400 a month to look after them, I would be charged with neglect.  A far fairer system would be that the essentials are worked out (childcare, food, clothing) and split equally.  It’s even more ludicrous that for one child, you have to pay 12% of your earnings.  Is my childcare for the second child 75% cheaper?! I wish it was!

For me, financially, we’ve hit rock bottom.  We’ll shortly be appearing on a BBC One show that helps struggling families sort their finances out.  Aside from asking friends and family for money - which I just don’t want to do: we are not their problem - it was the only avenue left for us.  I couldn’t do a food shop this weekend, because there’s nothing in either of my bank accounts.  Nothing.  £5k overdrawn in one and £1200 overdrawn in the other.  I get my tax credits on Tuesday, so we’ll be fine.  But bear in mind, I’m in the top 5% for single parent families in terms of earning.  How do the other 95% manage, when we barely do?

Every child, no matter what their background, should feel wonderful, beautiful and free – all of the time.  They should dance around the kitchen singing it like it’s all they know.  But that’s really, really hard to encourage when you have no money, because having no money is soul destroying.  I have no answers.  I just hope that explaining what it’s like for me – a relatively well off (!) single parent – makes people realise how tough it is for all single parents.  And that we’re not the stereotype painted by the media.  We all have the right to feel wonderful, beautiful and free.  And if we are lucky enough to feel those things, the next thing we should do, is do all we can to make sure others can feel that way too.

*Just to be absolutely clear, none of these things really matter to me.  It’s just that the media and politicians and Joe Blogg on the street keep telling me I’m dumb and on benefits and somehow a scourge on society, and that could not be further from the truth, from my quite wide experience of single parents.  I go to a single parent group every month (organised by the brilliant Gingerbread charity) and I have yet to encounter one parent on benefits.  That’s because, when you’re the only one in charge of their survival, you pull out all the stops to make it happen, regardless of how that affects you.  And also, benefits are there to help people in their hour of need, and if ever there was an hour of need it’s when one parent disappears and tries to abdicate all responsibility for their kids and then absolutely, the benefits system should help those people, those children, without it harming their future.

Five Essential Skills Of A Toddler Parent

I took the kids swimming today.  Any parent who takes their kids swimming deserves a medal in my eyes.  It is fucking hardcore.  From getting them changed, to ensuring they don’t drown, from trying to get them to follow the rules (“Yes, I know you think it’s funny to splash mummy, but the rules say you mustn’t.”) to dragging them out of the lockers at the end (is it just mine that climb into the lockers? Please tell me it’s not), it is exhausting.  When I got back home, it made me think about all the skills you need to be a toddler parent.  Obviously you need to be loving and patient* and kind.  But that’s kind of a given.  Here are the five skills I think parents of toddlers should be armed with.

1.  Resilience.  The kids told me they wanted to swim.  I didn’t want to swim.  I hate swimming, especially with them, when I don’t actually get to swim, I just lie in 1 and ½ foot of water, freezing my tits off, worrying about my bikini line.  They wanted to do it. When it came to leaving the house though, you would have thought that they’d both been recently lobotomised.  Zach sat with some tiny screws he’d found, refusing to put his pants on (what the actual fuck am I going to do when they have to go to school and wear underwear and trousers all day long?) and Daisy sat in her dolly’s car-seat, covering herself in blankets.  Resilience (& counting to five, seven million times) is what got us out of the house.

2.  Fast reactions.  I’m a worrier.  I worry about everything.   Do you know when I worry the most? In the great big pool of water where they might drown and die.  Particularly because they are wildly – WILDLY – over confident.  If I met water for the first time, I might be slightly hesitant.  I might think ‘What is this strange stuff?’  D&Z, not so much.  They just throw themselves into the pool, with no fear.  Despite the fact they can’t swim.  They also like jumping, but they don’t understand the need to jump FORWARD.  FORWARD from the side.  They prefer to jump slightly hesitantly and slightly backwards.  The reason they’re still alive and well? Fast reactions.

3. A loud voice.  I once read that you have to make eye contact with a toddler to get them to really hear what you’re saying.  Bull.  Shit.  If I don’t look at either of my children, and I say ‘Haribo’, they’ll respond.  For sure.  What you need, more than eye contact is a loud voice.  A loud voice that says ‘ZACHARY! DO NOT UNLOCK THE CHANGING ROOM DOOR.  MUMMY WILL BE VERY CROSS IF YOU DO BECAUSE MUMMY IS NAKED.  MOVE AWAY FROM THE DOOR.’ 

4.  Negotiation skills.  We haven’t been going swimming for long but every time we’ve been, Zachary has managed to find a cubicle and lock himself in it.  If you’re going to parent a toddler, then you need to be able to bring out your special hostage negotiator toddler voice, for these exact occasions: “Zachary baby, can you just turn the lock, that’s right, just turn it back, the opposite way to the way you did it the first time.  What a really good boy.  Well done.” NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.  (Don’t shout until he’s out.)

5. A thick skin.  Going swimming necessitates getting naked.  In front of two year olds.  Sheesh.  Don’t do it, until you’re ready to hear: “Mummy, your bottom is DISGUSTING.”

*I am not patient.  I am so not patient.  I tell them I’m counting to five, get to three and lose it.  Sometimes.  Sometimes, I make it to five.  

Fifty Hours Flying Solo

I’ve just spent 50 hours solo with the kids.  The last adult I spoke to face to face (save for a man at the park who blamed Peppa Pig* for the fact that D&Z were jumping in muddy puddles) was my neighbour at 6pm on Friday.

One of the hardest things about being a lone wolf mama, is that a lot of the time, there’s no-one coming home, no-one to take them off your hands for five minutes, no-one that you can vent to about what little shits the pair of them have been.  Since I’ve had my two, social media has been the place that I vent.  So won’t you sit back and humour me, while I tell you about the lowest point of our weekend?

We did very little yesterday, save for a trip to the supermarket, so today I decided to be a good mum and take them to the park.  Nothing – and I mean nothing – fills me with dread more than getting them ready to leave the house.  It brings out their full scale toddler twatishness.  And they outnumber me.  I cannot possibly win. 

Today, the usual happens: Zachary refuses to try to do a wee.  He does not need a wee.  Oh no.  Absolutely does not need a wee mummy. Daisy refuses to put her snow suit on. I tell her fine, we’ll leave her behind. Daisy puts her snowsuit on and then insists on putting her nighty on over it.   Zachary, at this stage, hasn’t even got pants on, so he gets my attention for now.  After some strategic use of my hostage negotiator voice, Zachary puts pants, trousers, a jumper, a snow suit and his wellies on. 

Then tells me he needs a wee. 

We go to the toilet.  We take off all of the clothes I’ve just put on him and he does a wee.   He tries to run away.  I wrestle him to the ground and get him dressed again.

Daisy is still trying to put the nighty on.  I try to wrestle it out of her grip and fail.  I tell her she can wear it when we get home.  Nope.  I briefly consider letting her wear it, but I’m just too embarrassed.  I wrestle her again, and this time I win. 

I chuck the nighty up out of her reach and commence the wellies battle.  I put Daisy’s on first.  She wants to put them on the wrong feet. I wonder what in God’s name I did wrong in a former life to deserve this.  I don’t even want to go to the fucking park.  I’m doing this for them, the ungrateful bastards.  I tell her she can put them on the wrong feet if that’s what she wants.  She does.

I turn to Zach.  He’s been systematically destroying the living room while I’ve been arguing with Daisy.  He’s pulled the last remaining door off his toy kitchen (it was only a matter of time) and has spread the contents of his money box all over the floor.  He’s also taken his boots off.  On the outside, I sigh.  On the inside, I flick him the finger.  I put the boots back on him. 

I pick up my bag – my shitty, battered, grey and lumo yellow mum rucksack that is functional and nothing else -  open the door and stand on the doorstep.  47 minutes have passed since I first started getting them ready to leave.  We’ve got this far – they think they’ve broken me but they’re wrong.  Their resistance has only strengthened me and, car keys jangling in hand, I tell them we’re going.

They don’t give two hoots.  They both ignore me.  I turn to pick Daisy up.  She smacks me in the face and Zach pings a ball at my head.  I count to ten.  I tuck Daisy under my arm, like a very cute but very angry piglet, and carry her to the car.  I do what every good parent does, and tell her that if she gets in the car like a good girl she can have a bag of Haribo.  She does.  I am winning.

I go back to get Zach.  He picks up the dolly’s highchair to bring with him.  I weep on the inside (and flick him the finger again).  I tell him really calmly that we can’t take the highchair with us because it won’t fit in the car, sweetie**.  He beams at me and walks out of the house, confident as can be, highchair tucked under his arm.  I tell him that if he brings the highchair he will never have Haribo again.   He drops the highchair and it falls into the front yard. I pick it up, lob it quite ferociously back into the house and pick him up.  I put him in the car while he smacks me in the face and roars with laughter.

I get in the car, rest my head on the steering wheel for a second, and then off we go.

We have a lovely time.

*I won’t hear a bad word said about Peppa.  Precocious she may be, but she has every right to be in my opinion, as she is quite literally one of the only things that can make both my children sit down and shut up for more than five minutes.  Peppa is golden in our house. 

**Twatface

The Alternative Guide To Surviving Sickmageddon With A Toddler (Or Two)

I had a spectacular welcome home last night after I got in from work, when Daisy projectile vommed all over the place within minutes of me walking through the door.  Both Daisy and Zachary have been at home poorly today, so for what it’s worth, here’s my advice for surviving sickmageddon.   

1.  Stock up.  Not on boring stuff, like milk and nappies.  By all means, check you’ve got the essentials that the kids need, but I’m talking about you. You, the person who’s about to spend a day dealing with actual live sick and poo from another being.   You need your survival kit.  Luckily for me, my mum’s been staying.  Before going home, she popped out for me.  She got me Maltesers, Haribo and wine.  The Haribo and Maltesers have kept me going today and the wine will soon be poured! It is largely painfully dull looking after two sick kids by yourself (interspersed with odd moments of upchuck based high drama), and even worse if you know that you won’t see anyone at the end of the day.  You need to make sure there’s a reward of some description (whatever your poison may be) for surviving the day!

2.  If you do have to go out with the kids, be prepared.  I learnt this before I was a parent, when my sister and her twins all had a particularly vicious sickness bug while her husband was away.  She’d been living the nightmare of vomming and trying to look after the kids at the same time, so I decided to take the twins out for some fresh air, and to give her a break. They were only about 18 months old, so I popped them in the double buggy and off we went for a nice bracing walk.  So far, so good.  About 15 mins into the walk, one of the twins vommed everywhere: all down herself and all over the buggy – I’m pretty sure her twin sister copped some too.  It was at this point that I realised I had nothing with me, except a half full bottle of water. It is a measure of how much I love my nieces that I did what is described next:  I had to use my bare hands to scoop fresh, warm sick off the poor child and out of the buggy, then rinse her, myself and the buggy down with the tiny amount of water I had. Turns out half a bottle of water is no match for the contents of my niece’s stomach.  (NB what made this even more annoying was that a woman with a baby in a buggy walked past me whilst Operation Clean Up With No Suitable Equipment was going on…and didn’t stop to offer help! I get that maybe she didn’t want her baby to go near the sick covered child, but she could have lobbed a couple of wipes my way!) So, if you have to take them out, take wipes and plastic bags.

3.  Once back at home, two things are your friend: towels and acceptance.  Towels to try and limit the damage from a completely bewildered and uncoordinated person who is spewing the contents of their stomach in all directions, and acceptance that some things will inevitably get showered in the aforementioned sick.  Remember, they’re only things, and baking soda is great at getting the smell of sick out. Last night, before they went to bed, but after Daisy had projectile vommed on the sofa (wipe clean), the living room carpet (not wipe clean) and my mum (sort of wipe clean), I laid towels on the floor by their bed.  It’s a whole lot easier to deal with sick on a towel than it is to deal with sick on the carpet at two o’ clock in the morning. 

4.  Understand that you are going to spend a lot of time pinned to the sofa, unable to move, and prepare for this.  Zachary has clung to me all day today, tragically mewling ‘Mummmmmmmy’ if I’ve moved so much as a millimetre away from him. As a bare minimum you need to have the remote controls, your phone, a drink and some snacks to hand.  Don’t drink too much though – trying to get up to go to the loo will likely cause more tragic wailing, and possibly a punch up (even with poorly twins a punch up is always a possibility), so it’s easier just to minimize the loo visits.  The added bonus of this is that it’s valuable exercise for those poor post pregnancy pelvic floors.

5.  Lastly – but most importantly – under no circumstances should you ever put two children who’ve been throwing up, or who have diarrhoea, in the same bath at the same time.  Again, I have learnt this through bitter experience.  Nothing finishes a day off quite so hysterically as a toddler doing a liquid sh*t in a bath she’s sharing with her brother.  It also takes the shine off having a nice relaxing bath yourself (no matter how much you clean it), when you lie back and recall that only hours earlier your daughter emptied her toxic bowels into the vessel you are currently luxuriating in. 

Things My Children Have Broken

Things my children have broken in recent months:

The television. Cause: both of them repeatedly shoving it back and forth, despite me bellowing 'DON'T SHOVE THE TV LIKE THAT. YOU WILL BREAK IT.' It is of little comfort to me that I was proved right in the end. 

My iPhone 6. Cause: both of them repeatedly lobbing it across the room in response to me saying 'Mummy is going to count to five and you need to give me the phone.' I think I might need to re-think the counting to five behaviour management technique. Mainly it seems to give them time to think of the next naughty thing to do. 

The toaster. Cause: Zachary put a magnet in a metal box then dropped the box into the toaster. Fortunately, I'd turned the toaster off because he was near it, otherwise he may well have been toast himself. 

The living room lamp. Cause: Daisy decided that grabbing onto the cheap, plastic Ikea lamp would help slow her over-ambitious/fucking dangerous leap from the sofa. She was wrong, it just made the landing much, much more painful. And she broke the lamp. 

The door of the oven and the fridge on their toy kitchen. Cause: Zachary deliberately yanked both off. Y'know, because he can. Consequence: Daisy wails piteously and on a daily basis that they're broken and declares 'You STILL haven't fixed my kitchen mummy.' #judgeychild

Me: Cause: Sleep deprivation. I love them. I love them in a way I didn't know it was possible to love. From the tips of their toes to their cute button noses, I love them truly and fiercely and unendingly. I love them at their best and at their worst and everything in between. There's no place I'd rather be than snuggled up in a cuddle with them. 

But the little sods just don't sleep enough. Or at the same time as each other. Or in their own beds. And they think 5.30 is morning time (FYI, it is not. It is categorically sleepy time). Daisy wakes me up at 4.30 because she wants me to get her sodding slippers because her feet are 'freesing mummy' and Zach wakes me up at 2am because he wants 'POTATOES MUMMY. POTATOES.' (That genuinely happened. I refused to get him potatoes. We fell out.) It's ok though - I know what will fix me: 10 hours of undisturbed sleep, every night for a week. 

Just another decade or so to wait for the fix.

The Highs & Lows

The six worst things about being a lone wolf mama to twins (& the one best thing):

1.  Having to make decisions by yourself. I'm shit at making decisions at the best of times, but being on your own means there's no-one to bounce stuff off. No-one to tell you you're being mental and your child isn't going to die because they fell over earlier and bumped their head. No-one to help you decide which is the best childminder to send them to and to worry about which primary school you'll send them to, and which secondary school, even though they're only two and actually it's a bit silly to worry about secondary schools now. No-one to decide what you'll do today, and the next day, and the next, and the one after that.

2. Which leads me on to the second thing: what to do today? Go swimming? Nope, can't take them swimming by myself (as in, the swimming pool won't let me. Because they might drown. Fair play.) Go to a new and undiscovered location, solo? Hahahaha! No. It's too terrifying going to new places solo - who knows if there actually is a fence to keep them penned in, if the staff are helpful, if the double motherfucking bastard shitting buggy will fit through the door? I only go to tried and tested places solo, and even then it takes grit and determination to do it because managing two wayward two year olds solo is hard fucking work.

3. Work. So many issues with work. The obvious one being that two small children plus one really tired adult = lots of illness and time off. I'm lucky, my work is very supportive and very understanding, but that doesn't stop me feeling like I'm dead weight when I call in for what feels like the millionth time because one/two/all of us is/are ill. Then there's the getting in 'late' (I don't start until an hour after school starts). It doesn't matter that that's when I start. Every morning, I feel like I'm late to work. Even though I'm not. And the same applies to going home as soon as the bell goes. If I don't leave then, I'm late for the childminder. Still makes me feel like a slacker though. 

4. The tiredness. Oh the tiredness. Back when I first started teaching, I used to work a lot of hours. A lot. Some weeks, at the peak of my professional insanity, I used to work 70 - 80 hours a week. And I thought I was tired. I wasn't tired. I didn't even know tired. Do you know what tired is? Tired is doing three days work on a grand total of six hours sleep. Tired is going in when you've been up all night because your bastard children will not sleep and no-one else is there to help you. Tired is not having had more than two good nights' sleep in a row for two motherfucking years and still having to take them to the seventh circle of hell that is soft play. That, my friend, is tired. 

5. Money. We never have enough. We will probably never have enough. I will likely always lie awake worrying about the not having enough. I will always be in my overdraft, even when I've been paid, because kids are freaking expensive.

6. The not having anyone to share it with. I'm not lonely. I'm very good with my own company (some might say anti-social, I prefer self-sufficient) and I have lots of lovely friends and family who keep me socialised, but when my babes do something mind-blowingly cute (like insist on kissing each other good night), or super-clever (like peeing on the potty or putting words into a whole sentence so they can berate me with 'mummy, dry your hair please), or totally irritating (like throwing the bowl of pasta I've cooked them on the floor) then it'd be nice to have someone to share that with, then and there, who feels the same way I do about them: look at that, we made that crazy, clever, affectionate, defiant little toe-rag. In fact, we made two of them. 

7. But there's not. There's me and there's them. And I'm so lucky to have them, which leads me onto my last point: the best thing about being a lone wolf mama to twins. The love. The unconditional, non-judgemental love of two joyous little people. Sure, they keep me up all night, they shit in the bath (Daisy. On Tuesday night. Stop shitting in the bath, love. Please.), they drive me right to the very edge sometimes with their continual repetition of what they want even when I've already bloody given them the thing they want. But they are so bloody lovely. So lovely. And everyday when I get home, I have my own little fan club waiting for me. I get cuddles and kisses and 'Mama, uv oos' aplenty. And really, who could ask for more than that?

"Lunch"

This happened yesterday, when I met a friend for lunch, but it could describe any of our trips out for lunch.

We arrive at our second lunch destination of the day (there was an incident with a fireguard at the first one that meant we had to leave) and find ourselves a table. Daisy and Zachary spot the bowl of sugar lumps and start eating them whole.  I let them: I can’t deal with the fallout if I try and stop them, plus it’ll keep them quiet long enough for me to have an actual grown up conversation. 

Ha.

 

Two minutes in, Zachary, bored with the sugar, salt, pepper and water concoction he’s been making, declares “I NEED A WEE!” (All things toilet must be shouted as loudly as possible so everyone in a 5 kilometre radius knows that my son needs a piss.)

Daisy, of course, decides she needs a wee too.  A toilet trip isn’t a toilet trip if the whole family isn’t present. They drag me to the toilet where Zach decides he doesn’t actually need a wee, but he does need to locate the cleaning products and attempt to take the lids off all of them (while I begin the inevitable countdown: ‘Mummy is counting to five Zachary.  You need to put the bottles back by the time I get to five.  1…2…Daisy I do not need your help thank you…3…there’ll be no sweeties after lunch if you don’t put them down Zachary…4…4 ½…give me the sodding bottles Zachary. Now.  Thank you.’) 

Daisy meanwhile sits on the toilet and narrates what’s she’s doing because Daisy narrates everything she does, all the live long day.  ‘I doing a wee mummy.  It’s just a little wee wee.  I can hear the wee wee.  Can you hear the wee wee mummy? It goes shhhhhhh. Do you need a wee wee mummy? Why not? I have a bot bot mummy.  Do you have a bot bot? Why? Zacchy has a winky mummy. I don’t have a winky.  Do you have a winky? Why not mummy? I want a winky. Winkies are FUNNY mummy.’

Having had his cleaning products confiscated, Zachary is getting bored listening to Daisy’s monologue, so decides to try and push her off the toilet.  I decide we’ve spent enough time on this particular toilet trip, hurry things along and drag them back to the table.

An angry row breaks out about who is sitting in which seat.  Daisy shrieks like a rabid monkey and Zach bellows ‘CHAIR!  IT’S MY CHAIR!’  I threaten highchairs if they don’t sit in a bloody chair in the next 5 seconds and soon we are all sat back down again.

I manage to order some food and get about three words out before Zachary bellows ‘I NEED A POO MUMMY! I NEED A POO!’  I sigh, get back up and return to the loo.  He sits on the toilet for about ten seconds before declaring ‘I don’t need a poo mummy.’  He gets off the loo and makes for the cleaning products, but mama ain’t no fool Zachary, and I drag him out of there before he can get his mitts on them again.

Back at the table, the food has arrived.  Five minutes is spent on splitting the one plate of food I’ve bought D&Z exactly in half.  No-one may have even half a slice of cucumber more than the other person because ‘THAT IS NOT FAIR MUMMY!’  I then sit down and have approximately two and a half bites of my food before Zachary bellows ‘I NEED A POO MUMMY!’

For.  Fuck’s. Sake.

Back in the loo, back on the loo, Zachary finds the toilet brush.  There follows a scuffle between the two of us (I’m done with countdowns by this stage) while I wrestle the bastard toilet brush out of his tiny vice like grip, at the same time as holding him up so he doesn’t fall into the loo. I win the wrestle and return the toilet brush to its rightful location.

Zachary tells me he doesn’t need a poo.  I swear.  We go back to the table.

I shit you not, I have one more mouthful and he tells me he needs a poo again.  Some of you might be thinking ‘Oh she’s an idiot. He obviously doesn’t need a poo. He’s just messing her around.’ Once.  Once in my life have I called his bluff when he’s been playing toilet silly buggers when we’re out for lunch, and do you know what he did? Pissed all over the place.  My son is more than prepared to perform a public revenge wee - or indeed – shit, if I don’t play his toilet game.

We trudge back to the toilet. He doesn’t shit.

I give up.  My friend, her son and Daisy have all finished eating and my friend’s paid the bill.  Zach couldn’t give two fucks about having anything to eat, and if we spend any more time here, I’m going to have to go to the toilet for a fifth time and I just can’t handle that.  My “lunch” has been 3 ½ mouthfuls of food and 40 minutes of hanging out in a toilet. We leave.

And that, my friends, is the reality of what lunch out with small children is like.

The Worst Morning Ever In The History Of Horrendous Mornings

We get up. The children accept my offer of a banana as an early morning snack in place of their usual morning party ring (which I'm trying to phase out because how the hell did we get to a stage where the first thing they eat in the morning is a fucking party ring?) and get dressed without fighting me. It's going well. I'm winning at motherhood. They put their shoes on without a fuss (Daisy's are on the wrong feet but hey ho, you can't have everything).

We go to the car and it's here that things start to go wrong. I'm not going to lie: what I'm about to tell you isn't pretty. If you're of a delicate constitution I'd stop reading now.

Zachary decided he wanted to get in the car on Daisy's side and climb over to his seat. I let him. He's scrambling all over the back seat while I'm strapping Daisy in. I go round to his side. 'Come on, into your seat.' I say. Zachary obliges. As he's climbing in, his trainer falls off. I reach down into the murky depths of the footwell, which is filled with empty crisp packets, rotting apple cores and biscuit remnants, and retrieve the trainer.

I feel something warm and soft. 'What's that?' I wonder innocently. I look down at my hand, clutching the trainer. There is dog shit all over the trainer and all over my hand.

Oh. Sweet. Jesus.

I scrabble in my pocket for a tissue, wipe the worst of the dog shit off my hand and dump the trainer on the pavement. With my one clean hand and my elbow I manage to finish strapping Zachary in.

It's at this point I realise the dog shit is, of course, all over the back seat of my car. I pick up the offending trainer, and the shit covered tissue and run back inside.

After scrubbing my hands (whilst weeping on the inside), I do my best job at cleaning the shit off the trainer, chuck it outside, grab a new pair of shoes, run back to the car, shove them on Z, clean up the shit covered back seat as best I can and screech off to the childminders.

A pretty shitty start, hey?

Oh it's not over yet.

All the way to the childminder's, I can still smell shit. I frantically clean my hands with baby wipes on the drive there and throw some back at the children but the smell persists.

We arrive at the childminder's, I leap out and inspect Daisy's shoes. All clean. I inspect mine. All clean. I inspect the back seat. No shit left there. I go round to Zach and realise he has shit smeared up the leg of his trousers.

So, to sum up, if you think you had a rubbish morning, at least you didn't deliver your son to the childminder covered in dog poo.

FML