The back story ...
Mum turned to me yesterday and said, with a sympathetic sigh, “I do feel for you.” And I, confused, said, “Why?” “I just don’t know how you do it,” she replied, and turned to go back inside, shaking her head. I’d had a similar – if slightly more frank – exchange with my beautiful French cousin-in-law a week or so earlier. We – we being the two babies and I – were late to meet her and her beautiful half-French son (singular) in the park. We’re always late. We’re always frazzled. One baby is usually not dressed, and I am never, ever wearing makeup. Sometimes I have poo on my cheek. Often I have poo on my cheek. “You know,” my beautiful French cousin-in-law said, “I always wanted two children, but then I see you and think, perhaps, no.”
Of course, I don’t just have two children; I have three, although Ben is at school so isn’t as responsible for my general, everyday frazzlement. Having said that, on this particular day, we were particularly late because NO ONE TOLD ME it was free-dress day at school, and Ben came running back into the house AS THE SIREN WAS GOING to tell me that it was free-dress day. He made a quick change, and ran out the door again, only to reappear five minutes later and tell me he couldn’t go to school without a GOLD COIN DONATION. And of course I couldn’t find my purse so I told him I’d “email the fucking teacher and tell her I couldn’t find my fucking purse” and he was AGHAST and said the teacher wouldn’t look too kindly on such language. So anyway, I packed him off to school – without a gold coin donation but with a more colourful grasp of the English language – and, ten minutes after ripping the house apart looking for my purse, realised it was IN HIS SCHOOL BAG. So then we had to drive to school, find his school bag, find my purse, dress the babies, stop sweating, stop swearing (in that order), and get to the park to meet my beautiful French cousin-in-law and her beautiful, half-French son. Frankie refused to wear shoes and had a massive tantrum upon arrival at the park because it didn’t have a Thomas the Tank merry go round. So yes, I take her point. One child is probably quite enough.
I don’t just have children (aged, for future reference, 10, 4 and 3). I have a husband (no trouble whatsoever; in fact, quite helpful, on the whole). I have a house and a floor-cleaning obsession. I have a writing business, which I run from home, and which should be the subject of my blog but isn’t, because THESE CHILDREN TAKE OVER EVERYTHING. More pertinently, I don’t have childcare. MY BABIES ARE WITH ME ALL THE TIME. I work when they sleep, or when I can distract them with weird YouTube videos of foreign children opening Kinder Surprise eggs (yes! These exist! And they get millions and squillions of views!).
Which brings me to the point that I should probably have started with: my name is Lisa, and this is a blog about my life and my work and my babies and my floor-cleaning obsession, all of which are bundled together into one happy, chaotic, unenviable muddle. I can’t write about one without the other. I hope you’ll overlook that. I’ll try to retain an air of professionalism, but chances are I’ll still have poo on my cheek.