The joy of motherhood (or lack thereof)

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really take to motherhood in the beginning. Are you supposed to admit that? I’m not sure I’ve ever really admitted it to myself, until now. It’s just something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. Because – believe it or not – I really bloody love motherhood now. I know, I know, I bitch and I moan and I threaten to send the little fuckers to borstal at least 26 times a day, but the fact of the matter is, I love the chaos. I love THEM. I had a moment yesterday – Father’s Day, as it happens – and it was one of those rare in-the-moment moments; you know, when you stop and think, SHIT, this is perfect. Sunshine, kids, husband, happiness. There was nowhere else on earth I’d rather have been. (And then, of course, Alice tipped sand over Paul’s head, and my skin started to crisp up under the sun, and a wave washed over Frankie completely, so that his clothes were sodden and he cried and cried, and we had to splodge off home. But you know, for a moment there? It was fucking perfect.)

As we rode our bikes home, I said to Paul: “I really like motherhood now.”

“Just now? Didn’t you always?”

“No.” I thought for a bit. “I fucking hated it, once.”

“For real?”

“For real. I think I might’ve had post-natal depression.”

“Na, I think you were just sad.”

“Yeah. I think I was just sad.”

This was like a proper fucking lightbulb moment, and one that I’m kinda reluctant to admit to myself, let alone you, dear readers. But there you have it: I disliked motherhood, first time round.

Thinking about it – and I have; I’ve hardly thought about anything else since yesterday morning – there are a few reasons for this. Primarily, of course, it was down to the fact that I was young. Not young-young, but too young, I think. Too young for me. I was 27 when I fell pregnant with Ben, and still a bit of an eager-to-please dickhead. I fancied the idea of pushing a shiny red Bugaboo along the canals of East London, forgetting, I think, that there’d be a needy little human wailing inside it, seriously cutting into my pub-quiz schedule.

That’s a good point (why thank you!): my life post-baby stood in such stark contrast to my life pre-baby that I think I was in a surreal state of shock for a good two years. To explain: when I was 27, I lived in a cute little flat in the East End of London. I had a good job – an EXCELLENT job – in a riverside office close to Borough Market and the Tate Modern. I had enough upstanding homosexual friends to form an enviable weekly book group, and be the shining centre of it. I earned a good-enough wage to do my weekly shop in fucking WAITROSE, with money left over for vintage frocks and membership to a gym that provided you with warm, fluffy towels upon entry. Life was good.

And then I had a baby and gave up my job and moved to Perth and had no money or job or friends to call my own and it was all a bit miserable truth be told. I loved Ben – of COURSE I did – but I didn’t really know what to do with him. I’m going to say this next bit very, very quietly, in case the holy mothers of the school gates overhear: my baby son brought me very little joy. I enjoyed those rare moments of not being a mother way, way more than I did being a mother. There, I’ve said it.

This is no reflection upon Ben. Ben rocks. I was just so preoccupied with all that shit that goes along with being in a strange city with no money or friends that I forgot to enjoy him. You know all the funny shit that kids say? Those cute moments when they mispronounce words, with hilarious consequences? I don’t remember any of those. They happened, I’m sure, but I was too fucking miserable to notice. Isn’t that TERRIBLE?

Five years later – pregnant with Frankie – I remember walking along the beach with Paul, and admitting that I felt scared about doing the whole new-mum thing again.

“The days are long,” I told him.

“Yeah, but I’ll be there, at the end of each one,” he said, giving my hand a squeeze.

Dude’s a wise motherfucker, when he wants to be. He was right. I’m a completely different mother this time round. I’m older, wiser, and give way fewer fucks than I did a decade ago. I laugh a lot more, probably because I have someone to laugh with. My children – all three of them, apart from when there’s a trombone involved – give me a ridiculous amount of joy, probably because I have someone to share the joy with.

I didn’t know where this blog post was headed when I started writing. I just felt the need to make that confession. Turns out, it’s a note of thanks – to my husband, for thawing my hardened heart, and helping me find the joy in motherhood. That’s kind of a big deal. 

I may be many things, but a queen I am not

Now look: I love a good bandwagon as much as the next person. Probably MORE than the next person. I’ve always thought that I’d be the likeliest candidate to join a cult, such is my need to jump on said bandwagon. And I’ve come close, a few times; I was a mod and a Buddhist and a Brosette and even – for a few ill-fated years – a vegetarian. If Charles Manson had driven past one day – when I was young and impressionable and lacking in quality companionship – and said, “Hey little lady, sharpen your knives and jump on board,” I’d have offered to fucking drive. Pete Evans and his mad, staring eyes? I’d have fallen at his withered, paleolithic feet, if he’d offered me some kale and camaraderie. And, if Constance Hall had been around a decade ago, when I moved back to Perth from London with my three-month-old son and soul-gnawing loneliness, I’d have woven my floral crown and had “like a queen” tattooed across my fucking forehead before I’d even got the kid vaccinated.   

Because I get it. I get what it is to want to belong. I understand the human need to find your gang, your tribe, your people, your place. I know how fucking lonely motherhood can be, and how finding just one likeminded soul can give you a reason to get up in the morning. To find a whole gang of likeminded mothers, all struggling to make sense of this new, unscripted role, and to know that they’re there to lift you up and say KEEP GOING, YOU’RE DOING GOOD, is not to be underestimated. Constance Hall and her many queens offer a fucking lifeline. They are a good thing. They are an important thing.

But they are not my thing.

Because I am not a queen.

And I have reservations about the whole queen thing, truth be told. Maybe it’s because I’m older/wiser/look ridiculous in a flower tiara. Maybe it’s because I’ve already found my tribe – a gang of women, some of whom I’ve never actually met in person, and know only by Facebook profile pictures and sassy online comments. These chicks are smart. They are wise. They are fucking funny. We talk about Netflix and Botox and wine and Top Gun and life-sized stuffed rabbits and wine and teenagers with iPhones and toddlers with swearing tendencies and job aspirations and cleaning products and wine. Call us prudish, but we emphatically don’t share the intimate details or our relationships, nor nude selfies. I love these chicks, but I don’t want to see their wobbly bits.

I consulted my gang before I wrote this post – asked them what they thought being a queen entailed. Some of them consider themselves to be queens, and that’s cool, we can work with that. Some of them are jaded with the queen thing. Most of them love the premise of being a queen – SUPPORT EACH OTHER – but are wary about the cult-like, hero-worship aspect of queendom. One thought we were talking about Queen Elizabeth II, and got pretty fucking confused. Another lives in America, and spent her day – our night – sending messages entitled WHO THE FUCK IS CONSTANCE HALL, until she thought it was a tremendous in-joke at her expense, and told us all to go fuck ourselves.

But! Here’s the gist of what we came up with: hero worshipping makes us nervous. Yeah, support each other. Be there for each other. Love each other, stand up for each and fight for each other – but don’t elevate one queen to a higher status than the others. That shit makes us nervous, ‘cos humans are, y’know, human, with flaws and foibles and ill-founded theories based on nothing but speculation and guesswork and Facebook likes. None of us really know what we’re doing, except maybe Maggie Dent, and I’m even wary of her since she told me that Ben might benefit from kinesiology. We’re all making it up as we go along, and I think that’s probably the best way to do it. Dance to the beat of your own drum, not someone else’s.

Then there’s idea of motherhood as a form of oppression. Um, guys? It’s not. It’s one of the toughest gigs in the whole world, but it’s not a patch on being shackled to a radiator in a basement and being made to breed on demand. THAT’s oppression. Most of us willingly chose this gig. We chose our roles, and we chose our life partners. And while I KNOW I complain and bitch and moan and whinge, I’m forever fucking grateful for what I’ve got. Yes, my husband has an Ebay addiction and leaves the murky water in the sink after he’s washed the dishes, but I still really fucking like him.

And listen, I know it’s quite fashionable at the moment to be all, like, LOOK AT MY BELLY ROLLS, but I’m not down with that. Be proud of your baby-breeding body – OF COURSE – but don’t be ashamed to aspire to being fit and healthy. This is a decidedly uncool thing to say, but here goes: I EXERCISE EVERY FUCKING DAY. I DO THE 5:2 FASTING DIET. Not very fucking queen-like now, am I? Sorry not sorry; I want to be the best I can be, physically and mentally. I’m getting old, yeah, but I want my kids to look at me as a role model and an inspiration. I want them to be proud of me.    

There’s one more thing, and this might be an unpopular train of thought, but here goes: children don’t raise themselves. As a parent, you do need to make a modicum of effort to ensure your children grow into something other than psychopaths and serial killers and car salesmen. Like, I’m all for cutting corners, but I don’t think it’s enough to simply pop a sprog out and then fuck off to the pub wearing a t-shirt that says “Mamma Bear”. You need to make a bit of a fucking effort. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.

Like all good cults – sorry, movements – queendom started with the best of intentions. It continues with the best of intentions. It raises ALL THE MONEY for good causes. I am RIGHT behind that. It makes lost, lonely mothers feel like they’re part of a gang. That is the good shit.

But I’m putting my hand up here and saying: I’m not a queen. A queen mother, maybe, but not a queen.

I’ll leave you with one final thought: CORRECT GRAMMAR IS NOT A CRIME. Let me explain what I mean by that, 'cos that makes me sound like an uptight, pedantic bitch. I'm a writer (and also an uptight, pedantic bitch). I studied English and Journalism at uni and I've spent the last two decades working with words for a living. This is my job, my profession. When people come along, call themselves writers, and say, "Grammar is for wankers," it stings, because it belittles my profession. It's kinda like telling a plumber that any fucker can fix a toilet. And, if a person with a million followers, hanging on their every mis-spelled word, sends the message that "grammar is for wankers", then where does that leave us?

Where does hero worship leave any of us? 

That's all. Thanks for listening. 

Introducing the original people pleaser (me)

I am, by my very nature, a people pleaser. I have a desperate eagerness to please that’s pretty fucking unattractive, and needs to be knocked on the head, quite frankly. I’ll tell you for why: other people are arseholes, preying on dickhead people pleasers such as myself.

I’ve spent my whole life being a people pleaser. I’d rather run naked around Trafalgar Square with a pigeon on my shoulder than have people think badly of me. That’s not to say I don’t piss people off – oh I DO, and regularly – but it’s always completely unintentional and usually a result of me attempting to make a lame and inadvertently racist joke. That gets me into trouble a lot. But! I’m not malicious and I’m not nasty and I will do anything you ask so long as you like me. Yeah, I’m that fucking desperate. Seriously! My Instagram account says, “I may not be for you, and that’s cool,” but that’s actual bullshit. I care what you think. I care way too much. Each new liker on my Facebook page brings with it a warm glow of acceptance. Every liker lost is a virtual knife through my over-sensitive heart.

This is a trait that I’ve passed on to my eldest son, along with my ability to spell big words and my penchant for chocolate-covered biscuits. Ben’s a people pleaser. He gets into LOTS OF FUCKING TROUBLE because he can’t say no to people. It’s how we ended up with three cartons of freshly laid eggs recently, when we only wanted one, and why he gave his shoes away to a boy in the park. And so on and so forth.

I can’t say no to people either. Ask me to do anything – anything! – and I guarantee I’ll answer with an enthusiastic OF COURSE, because the alternative – to say an honest and upfront NO – is completely out of the realm of possibility, because you MIGHT THINK LESS OF ME IF I SAY NO.

That’s not to say that I do things purely because of a sense of obligation and a piss-weak personality. No! I do nice things for people because it’s nice to do nice things for people. It’s nice to be nice! Like, I was at the hairdresser’s the other day, and I went to the neighbouring café with my cape and hair dye on, cos COFFEE. And I asked nicely for a coffee, and the coffee dude goes: “Hey, no worries, go back to the hairdresser’s and I’ll bring it over when it’s ready.” And I was, like, “Are you sure?” And he goes: “Yeah! You were nice to me, so I’ll do a nice thing for you.”

THAT’S HOW THE WORLD SHOULD WORK. I BE NICE TO YOU, YOU BE NICE TO ME. I ASK YOU NICELY FOR COFFEE, YOU NICELY BRING IT TO ME (and also get me the fuck out of your hipster café, in the process).  

But back to the subject at hand. My inability to say no – and to let people down – results in me finding myself in situations that I’d rather not be in, thank you very much. Movies I don’t want to see, gigs I don’t want to go to, meals I’d rather not eat, jobs I don’t want to do. I grumble and mutter and swear and complain, and tell Paul that it’s OKAY, because the end of the world will definitely come before I have to fulfil the obligation that I’ve just enthusiastically committed myself to, but then the end of the world doesn’t come, and I have to do what I said I’d do, and I FUCKING HATE MYSELF AS A RESULT.

Paul’s just as bad. Maybe not AS bad, but pretty fucking bad. It’s why we’ll never be rich. We’d each rather eat, I dunno, urine-soaked Shopkins than chase up an outstanding invoice, or charge the appropriate hourly rate for services rendered. It’s why we can’t use Gumtree – we’d both rather pay double than have to look at another human’s sad face as we asked whether the price was negotiable. And then there was the time we sold our bed to a nice man, and felt bad for charging him money, so gave him some of his money back.  

My mum DESPAIRS of us both. I don’t tell her half the shit we do for other people, ‘cos she’d string us up and stop us interacting with other humans, just to save us some self-respect and dollars.

You know what? This whole eagerness to please would be fine and well if other people were just as eager to please. But they’re not, are they? OTHER PEOPLE ARE ARSEHOLES. Other people spot people like me, Paul and Ben a fucking mile off, and rub their grubby little hands together, and think: SUCKERS. These people are also – usually – very, very rich. I used to believe in karma. I used think – in the least biblical sense possible – that if you do unto others as you want to be undone, or done to, or something, I dunno, then you’d be done right. If you know what I mean. But these days? I’m starting to fucking wonder.   

The point of my story is: YOU SHOULD STOP TAKING THE PISS OUT OF ME JUST BECAUSE YOU KNOW I WON’T SAY NO TO SHIT. Or: I should start saying no, and hope you still like me. Or: JUST BE FUCKING NICE. Or: DON’T BE A CUNT TO ME, AND I WON’T BE A CUNT TO YOU, ‘kay? 

Who do you think you are?

I was engaging in a little light-hearted Facebook stalking the other day, and came across a woman who described herself as a “wife to the man of my dreams, mummy to three treasures”. And I was, like, eh? Say what? There was nothing about HER, as an actual human grown-up person; just what she’d married and what she’d bred.

And I thought to myself: WELL FUCK THAT.

And then, as I continued my light-hearted Facebook stalking, I stumbled upon the spouse challenge, in which people are nominated to post pictures of themselves and their life-partners looking all blissful and shit. Now, I’ve got no IMMEDIATE problem with the spouse challenge, just as I had no IMMEDIATE problem with the motherhood challenge. Which is to say, of course, that I have a fucking problem with both the spouse challenge and the motherhood challenge.

To clarify, I proffer no judgement upon the people who’ve joined in on the challenges. It’s cute, and I like seeing photos of you in your wedding garb, awkwardly cutting the cake and dancing to Bon Jovi. That’s sweet! More of those photos please, especially if your spouse was wearing a sombrero on your wedding day (Stacey, this was my photo of the week, as it happens). My loveliest friends have engaged in the spouse challenge, and I still love youse all.

My problem lies less in the actual challenge, and more in this idea of us (by which I mean, us women) being identified as simply WIVES and MOTHERS. We are wives and we are mothers, yes, and noble positions they are, too, but WE ARE SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT.

You’d forgotten that, hadn’t you?   

Okay, so here’s a challenge of my own: the describe-yourself challenge. I might have to come with a slightly snappier title than that; I’m working on it. The describe-yourself challenge goes a little something like this: describe yourself! (I haven’t really thought this through.) Yeah, describe yourself, BUT WITHOUT MENTIONING YOUR LIFE PARTNER OR YOUR CHILDREN. Ha! There you go.

I mean, you can mention them as an afterthought. My mate Rebel has the best bio on her blog: “Mum of wine and drinker of four, or something.” That’s good, that’s perfect. That’s also beside the point.

Okay, I’ll go first. “Hello, my name is Lisa. I like writing and baking and swearing and running and watching repeats of Spaced on Netflix. I dislike weak tea and talking on the telephone and frogs and bad manners.” See! No mention of my wonderful husband or three beautiful angels. Totally unnecessary. I mean, if my favourite thing to do in the world was hang out in the playground pushing small people on the swings, then I might have to add a bit about having kids, but then I’d also have to add a sentence saying that I’m a FUCKING LIAR, cos no one likes hanging out in the playground and pushing small people on swings. FUCKING NO ONE.

I’m not asking a lot. I’m simply asking that we take a step back and stop identifying ourselves by who we hooked up with and what we popped out of our loins. We existed as individuals for DECADES before we got married/engaged in civil partnerships/bred, so why are we writing that life experience off? We – as women – have fought for a voice for so fucking long, it defies logic as to why we’d be so quick to downplay our individuality.

My friends, I know I’ve had a drink, but I want to scream this from the fucking rooftops, drunkenly: BE YOURSELF! Don’t be a mother and a wife and a housekeeper and a bottom wiper and a cook and taxi driver and nurse and wet maid, be YOU. I mean, you may need to keep being those things to a certain extent, cos things would turn to shit if you didn’t, but don’t forget to be YOU too (not U2. Don't be U2. Unless you can be The Edge. Then maybe be U2).

Do the things that make you happy. Take the time to remember who you used to be. If you used to Zumba thrice weekly, then fuck it! Zumba thrice weekly! Karaoke your poison? Revisit your poison! Sing your songs! And then update your Facebook profile, for me, please. Stop being someone’s wife and someone’s mother – start being YOU (again). Please and thank you.

All aboard the end-of-the-tunnel express

You know about the tunnel, right? The early childhood tunnel? YOU KNOW: that vortex that you enter – oh – at about the same time time you deliver a tiny human into a midwife/surgeon/surprised bus driver’s arms, and you hear, “Congratulations! You’re a parent!”

I hadn’t really thought about the tunnel until I listened to my second-favourite human (Adam Buxton) interview Rob Delaney (off of my favourite TV show, Catastrophe) for my favourite podcast (The Adam Buxton Podcast). Adam Buxton was asking Rob Delaney about fatherhood, and Rob Delaney explained that he had, like, four kids (four boys!) under four, or something like that. It might’ve been three under three. Regardless, there were many male children close in age. The youngest child was still very small – like, nipple-sucking small. And Rob Delaney was explaining the chaos of trying to change the nappies of two wriggling, milk-drunk humans while being simultaneously beaten around the head with a plastic sieve and a Smurf, or something (that wasn’t the analogy. I can’t remember the exact analogy. I’m only talking from bitter, bitter experience with regards to that analogy). Anyway, Adam Buxton – whose three kids are older – was like, “Oh, MATE. You’re in the TUNNEL.” And Rob Delaney had a bit of a light-bulb moment, and was, like, “Yeah! I’m in the fucking tunnel!” And at the time that I listened to this podcast – probably about a year ago now, with at least one kid still in nappies, and only a third of my children at school, and 100% of my offspring unable to wipe their own arse – I thought, “Yeah! I’m in the fucking tunnel too! It’s dark in the tunnel! Hold me.”

So anyway, last week I was interviewing the thoroughly nice pop star Alex Lloyd (as you do) and he was explaining that he’s been out of the music-making biz for a few years, and is only just getting back into writing and recording his own stuff. And I was, like, “Why’s that my friend?” And he goes, “Oh, you know, KIDS. They’re all at school now, so I’ve got a bit of my life back.” And I practically shouted (uncool): “DUDE! YOU WERE IN THE TUNNEL!” And he was, like, “Yeah! I was in the tunnel. It was dark in the tunnel. Hold me.” He didn’t really say that. Anyway. We had a bit of a chat about the tunnel, and about how all-consuming early parenthood is, and how – one day – you reach the end of the tunnel, and you emerge, blinking, like a newborn calf – all wobbly kneed and covered in bodily fluids. And it’s weird, because THE WORLD HAS CONTINUED TO TURN in your absence, and you’ve kind of got to readjust to humanning. (I reckon that’s why Alex Lloyd got a hard time at the Brownlows, or whatever the fuck they’re called. He’s been in a tunnel, GODDAMMIT. He’s forgotten how to human! Give the guy a break; he has FOUR CHILDREN.)

I reckon the reason I’m ready to write about the tunnel is that I’m coming to the end of it. It’s strange. My babies aren’t babies anymore. They dress themselves (albeit badly). They feed themselves (albeit badly). They tell jokes (albeit badly). They remember where they’ve hidden the Foxtel remote, and will tell you once they’ve been appropriately blackmailed. They can dob on their siblings. They sleep in beds and wear normal human underwear and can be bargained with. GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP OR WE’LL LOVE YOUR BROTHERS MORE THAN YOU.

I’m going to say the next bit very, very quietly, just in case I jinx it: parenthood is getting easier. Touch wood! Touch wood!

I genuinely feel as though I can see the light. It’s dim, but it’s there. Which brings with it a little hint of sadness, ‘cos NO MORE BABIES. I like babies. I miss not having one around.

God, that’s bullshit. I like the bit when babies fall asleep on your chest and – god, no, that’s bullshit too. I’ve just remembered what it’s like when they fall asleep on your chest and you’re dying for a wee but you can’t move because even if you so much as blink you’ll wake the little fuckers and have to walk around the bedroom rocking them in that very particular fashion to get them back to sleep. You forget about that shit.

I like THIS bit. This bit when they’re proper, functioning humans conversing in lisps and fairy tales. Like, Frankie the other day was explaining about the different types of RIGHT. “There’s wight the way and wite with a pen and wight and wrong and white the colour.” And god we laughed, and I thought, wight, that’s perfect, you can pause time now please. They’re at their absolute funniest at this age – three and four, and to a certain extent 10 – and the fact that they’re practically self-sufficient and can prepare their own breakfast of Cheezels and Jatz Crackers is simply an added bonus. All aboard the end-of-the-tunnel express! Wooooo-woooooo! (I’m so sorry.)

Family holidays: a contradiction in terms

The term “family holiday” – that’s an oxymoron, right? ‘Cos it’s actually a contradiction in terms, like “agreeable ten-year-old” or “enjoyable meal in Sizzler”. A holiday is, by definition, a restful break, but once you throw a family into the mix – especially MY family –it’s anything but. Seriously, we’re two days into our current family holiday and I’m already thinking SHIT, I need a holiday.

Paul and I were talking about this in the car, as Frankie and Ben tried to kill each other in the backseat. “YOU’LL ONLY START CARING WHEN FRANKIE MAKES BLOOD!” Ben shouted, to which I responded: “WRONG! I’ll start caring when one of you are rendered unconscious! May the best man win!” Ignoring the howls, Paul said – quite rightly – that the term “family holiday” should be renamed “family change of scenery” and I was, like, yeah, you can travel to the other side of the country – even the WORLD – but those little fuckers still want their bottoms wiping. Same shit, different scenery.

For fuck’s sake, I’ve already hoovered our chalet twice today, done two loads of washing and three lots of dishes, while Paul’s put the front door back on its hinges, made five beds and held an ice-pack to Ben’s head after he fell from the top bunk. THIS IS NOT MY IDEA OF A HOLIDAY. Holidays involve maid service, happy hour, and small men delivering brightly coloured cocktails to comfortable daybeds.

We’re staying on a farm five hours south of home – six if you count the pit-stop at a Halloween-themed café swarming with mosquitoes. It’s a fucking lovely cottage, in possibly the prettiest, most picturesque location in the whole WORLD, close to wineries, beaches and bushland (I met an emu while out for a run yesterday), but it’s not a HOLIDAY. The farmer is the most wonderful, generous and kind human being, taking the kids on pony rides, and helping them milk the cow, collect the eggs and feed the rabbits, but he’s not a small man serving colourful cocktails to comfortable daybeds, is he?

This was taken in the driveway. BEFORE WE'D EVEN LEFT HOME. Jesus. 

I mean, take the car journey down here. Forty-eight hours’ later, I’m ready to talk about the car journey down here. Frankie bit Ben constantly and relentlessly for six hours, in between beatboxing. Beatbox beatbox beatbox BITE beatbox beatbox beatbox BITE. Which would’ve been FINE, but Ben didn’t like being constantly and relentlessly bitten and spent five hours screaming – fucking screaming – MUMMMMMYYYYYYYYY and OWWWWWWWWWWWW. That shit wears you down. At the five-hour-30-minute mark I flipped my banana, and told them to FUCKING SORT THEIR FUCKING SHIT OUT AND TO STOP FUCKING SCREAMING AND CRYING AND WIPE AWAY THEIR FUCKING TEARS ‘COS WE’RE ABOUT TO MEET THE FUCKING FARMER AND LET’S JUST PRETEND WE’RE A NORMAL FUCKING FAMILY FOR FIVE FUCKING MINUTES, EH, EH? And then Ben – because he really, really doesn’t know when to stop talking – said: “Why do you love them more than meeeeeee,” and I responded, “NO. I DISLIKE YOU ALL EQUALLY.”

Oh, and I got locked in a shitty toilet in a shitty roadhouse called The Threeway Tavern (for real) and spent 20 minutes standing on a cistern screaming for various members of my family who were more interested in gobbling through nanny’s sausage rolls than noticing that the matriarch was MIA. Motherfuckers.

Ah man, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. We’re honestly having the loveliest of lovely weeks (just take a look at my #smuglife Instagram account), and laughing a LOT, which is what it’s all about, really. A snotty little girl came up to Alice in a playground today and said, “I have a leaky eye and I have a cold and my name is Rachel and will you be my friend?” and Alice was frightened and we laughed for about a week. We’re playing Scrabble and toasting marshmallows and falling out of trees and spotting kookaburras. This is the good shit, and it’s worth its weight in gold.

But! As much fun as we’re having, this isn’t a holiday. A week in a low-security prison would be more of holiday than this. At least I wouldn’t have to break up a fight over who gets to carry the bucket of food-scraps to the chickens. And I don’t think you have to do the washing up in prison. That’d be cool.

Paul says he’s catching the bus back to Perth on Monday, and he’ll meet us there. I said I’d rather catch a slow-moving hot-air balloon than travel in a car for five to six hours with those little fuckers. Can we put them on a bus, alone, and drive behind? Would that work? However we get home, god, I’m looking forward to work on Wednesday. That’ll be my holiday.  

Down with the mummy guilt!

You’ll be familiar, I’m sure, with the concept of mummy guilt. God knows I am. I feel guilty – in no particular order – for sending Frankie to school with a Mars Bar cookie in his lunchbox today, for missing Ben’s sports carnival last week, and for only singing one verse of Close to You to Alice at bedtime, cos GOGGLEBOX. Mother guilt is everywhere, and it’s unavoidable. If you don’t feel guilty about at least one of your parenting actions through the course of a day, then YOU’RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT.

These are, however, minor infractions compared to the shit that went down last weekend. I almost feel bad admitting this to you, but as we’re friends, here goes: I LEFT THE HOUSE. But wait, there’s more: I LEFT THE HOUSE FOR 12 HOURS. There’s even more: I DID THIS FOR TWO DAYS RUNNING.

I KNOW.

And there’s one more thing.

I FUCKING LOVED IT.

You’re thinking I went on a crack-fuelled booze bender, aren’t you? Na, nothing that tame. In actuality, I was training to be a Body Attack fitness instructor. Yeah, one of those highly coordinated humans who stand on a stage and rock the room with confidence and sporting prowess. I’ll admit, I was out of my comfort zone. On my first attempt, I put the microphone on upside down (so the speaky bit was in my ear), the belt on upside down (so the battery fell on to the stage), and forgot to press ‘on’. I cocked up, yeah, but I still had fun, because I was doing something so spectacularly and undeniably for ME that I couldn’t help but fucking smile.

This was, of course, my second attempt at Body Attack instructing. My first attempt – back in May – was cut short when Ben had a life-threatening asthma attack on my second morning of the training. You want to talk mother guilt? Let’s talk mother guilt. I wasn’t there when my first-born son nearly died. I had to be summoned from my Body Attack training by a kind-hearted nurse who worked really hard to keep the panic out of her voice when I told her I was a 30-minute car drive away from the hospital. You think you know mother guilt? My friends, I KNOW mother guilt. I had to run into a hospital’s resuscitation room – ON MOTEHR’S DAY – not knowing whether my kid had made it or not. Mother of the year, right here.

For a while there, I took Ben’s brush with death as a sign that I should never leave my children’s side EVER AGAIN. For a couple of months, I stalked the little fuckers wherever they went. It didn’t take long, however, before they all started to annoy me, and I craved a bit of peace and quiet. And so, I signed up to repeat my training weekend. Fuck me, I felt guilty about that. I felt guilty about the money. SO MUCH MONEY, which would undoubtedly have been better spent on Barbie Dream Houses and actual food for the actual children. I felt guilty about Paul having to look after the kids for two ridiculously long days over the weekend. His BIRTHDAY weekend. I felt guilty about the preparation I needed to do beforehand, the breakfasts, lunches and dinners that I wouldn’t be around to make, and the playgrounds that Paul would have to visit, with the swings he’d have to push, endlessly, pointlessly and soul-destroyingly. (Also: WHO WOULD CLEAN MY FLOOR?)

Does this mean that I shouldn’t have done it? Should I have saved the money and spent a precious weekend with my precious family, cooking, cleaning and swing-pushing? Fuck no! Because you know what? For a couple of days there, I felt like a normal fucking human. No one called me mummmmmmmyyyyyyyy! No one asked me to wipe their arse! No one pulled on my little finger until I surrendered and gave them the open jar of Nutella and a dessert spoon! It was wonderful. It was life-affirming. It was tough, and it was tiring, but it was mine, and it was invaluable.

And you know what? My family survived without me. Yes, Frankie and Alice fell out of a trolley in Kmart and caused quite a scene, and Ben was a bit of a twat, saying that mummy shouldn’t be allowed to leave the house for a whole day (nice try, kid), and my floor was a bit sticky by Sunday night, but it was all OKAY. I might go as far as to say that it renewed my enthusiasm for motherhood. I woke up on Monday morning quite pleased to see the little fuckers, despite them having eaten all the chocolate biscuits before dawn and tattooed themselves with texta.  

So what I’m saying is this: FUCK MUMMY GUILT. DO SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF. If you feel guilty going to get your hair done, or your nails shined, or stopping on the way home from the shops to sit in a park and breathe in the fresh air and silence, then DON’T. Remember that I deserted my family for two whole days and they survived, and I was happy. Okay?  

NEWSFLASH: Mothers! We're doing too much!

At the gym today, picking up Alice from the crèche, I bumped into another mum, collecting her little boy.

“Hey, how are you?” I asked, as one tends to do in polite society.

“Fucked,” she said.

I didn’t even blink. “Me too.”

She’s studying, see, and working, and mumming, and gymming – just like me, just like so many mothers – and she’s fucked.

“I thought about quitting last week.”

“Motherhood?” I asked. “Yeah, me too.”

“No,” she shook her head, as one does when speaking to a simpleton. “My course. I completely lost my shit and decided to quit my course. It all got too much.”

“You changed your mind?”

“If I don’t do it now, I’ll always regret not finishing. I know I can do it – I just need more hours in the day. But I’ve got to do it. Maybe magic mushrooms would help.”

That last bit took be surprise, to be honest, but the rest of it? I got it. I get it. ‘Cos I’m fucked too – I’m not coming up for air at the moment. On Friday night – wait for this – I was too tired to drink. Yes! Party night! Too tired to drink! Can you even IMAGINE? At about 8pm – after we’d thrown the children in the general direction of their bedrooms, and wiped the snot and glitter off the walls and floor, I collapsed on the sofa and kind of died. Kind of.

“If the house catches on fire, I’m going up with it,” I told Paul. He smiled indulgently and poured my wine into his glass.

I’ll be honest here: sometimes I yearn for the inherent misogyny and domestic drudgery of the 1950s. I’m fucking serious. A day spent scrubbing the front step and kneading my own dough – fuck yeah, I’m in, where do I sign?

Here’s the thing about us forward-thinking, clued-up 21st-century women: we want it all. I want it all. I know what I’m capable of, and I’d very much like to achieve it, thank you very much. But Jesus, it’s tiring. I’m tired. I’m starting to do stupid fucking things – like, stupider than normal, which is saying something. I grazed a nice man’s car in the carpark on Saturday, because I was rushing to get Ben to a birthday party, and had forgotten to get a present, so stopped to get one on the way, while my clock-watching Rainman of a son sat in the passenger seat muttering, “Oh my god, we’re going to be one minute and 30 seconds late, oh my god,” over and over, until my ears bled and my soul withered, and I bashed into another car. Apparently I shouldn’t have accepted responsibility, but fuck it, it was my own dickhead fault. Actually NO, it was Ben’s fault – he can pay the flipping excess.

And then the other day, I nipped into my favourite shop to get Paul a birthday present, and started talking to the owner like an actual and certified nut-job. I started ramble-chatting, with no break between sentences: “Hey how are you it’s my husband’s birthday on Friday I need to get a present oh look shiny hey do you have kids oh that’s right you don’t have kids but you do have a niece and her middle name is your actual name that’s cute isn’t it.” I mean, she was smiling, but in a “please back slowly out of my establishment and we’ll say no more about this” kind of way. That was, like, seconds after I’d ripped my car to bits looking for my phone, only to remember that I was talking on it.

I'm fucked. I have a backlog of emails and messages to reply to, and text messages opened and quickly forgotten. I saw one of my best friends in England at Christmas, and I've been meaning to email her photos of that day. I've been meaning to do this since DECEMBER. It's now AUGUST. I forget birthdays, notes from school, children. Don't tell my mum, but our car was uninsured for two actual months. I'm always rushing, always late, always frazzled. 

I have reached storage capacity. There's no room left in my melted head. I've got too many tabs open. Whenever Ben gets hold of my iPhone, he spends the first few minutes closing all my open screens. "You're wasting the BATTERY," he says, and OH MY GOD, that's me! Too many screens open! My battery's dwindling! 

Are we doing too much, us 21st-century mammas? Have we fucked it all up? We’ve fought for so much, and we’ve achieved so much, but we forgot to shake off some of the housekeeping along the way. We’ve basically just quadrupled our workload, silly sausages that we are.

I’m no martyr (alright, I am, a bit) – I’m not doing it all on my own, because husband is EXCEPTIONALLY well trained. He pulls his fucking weight. If he’s home, he’s on duty – bathing and feeding and tidying and all that other tiresome shit that most men shy away from. But even with his epic contribution, there is still SO MUCH TO DO.

It’s a conundrum. We’re rushing so much, because we want to achieve so much, but on the other hand, we want to be lying on a play-mat, playing eye-spy with our kids and eating a shit-tonne of fairy bread. We yearn to be mothers – we LOVE being mothers – but we want to use our brains too, and fulfil our potential, and take over the world - because we CAN, because our lady ancestors FOUGHT for this. 

I don't have the answer. I wish I had the answer. I might have the answer, if I wasn't so fucking tired, but right now ... coffee. Coffee is the answer. 

Run mumma, run

This may come as something of a surprise to you, but, here it is: I don’t drink during the week (only on days that end with ‘y’, hahahahahahahahah). No, seriously: I save my drinking for the weekends, and then make up for lost fucking time, which I admit kind of defeats the object, but y’know, whatever, hashtagbingedrinker.

Sometimes it’s tough not drinking during the week. Mondays are tough, as are Tuesdays, and of course Wednesdays, and so on and so forth. Wednesday is kindy gym day. I particularly need a drink on kindy gym days, but I don’t, cos, y’know, willpower. I’m pretty amazing like that.

HOW DOES SHE DO IT, I hear you ask. HOW DOES SHE COPE WITH THREE WILD CHILDREN WITHOUT ALCOHOL TO SOFTEN THE BLOW? IS SHE SOME KIND OF SUPER-HUMAN? SHOULD WE CLONE HER? SHE’S CLEARLY SOME KIND OF ULTRA-EVOLVED WONDER-MOTHER! STEAL A STRAND OF HER HAIR!

Na mate, it’s simpler than that. I exercise.

Stop. Wait. Come back.

I know, I know, it’s not what you wanted to hear. But seriously friends, if it wasn’t for exercise I’d be a raging, inebriated bull-mumma, doing the school run with a Bacardi-Breezer-blue tongue and a slur. For real.

Take this week. This week has been a shit of a week. This week has thrown my world into a spin, and sent me a bit mental, and should’ve actually turned me to drink. Instead, I’ve put on my trainers and RUN, fucking run. I’ve also put on my boxing gloves and BOXED. 

Exercise keeps me sane. It keeps me sober. Which is ironic, because I’m writing this half-cut, but it’s Saturday, so I’m allowed, OKAY? It wasn’t always like this. I spent the first half of my life largely avoiding raising my heart rate. Oh, I did the obligatory netball season, which ended with the coach taking my mum to one side and suggesting that perhaps I was asthmatic. I wasn’t. I was just really, really unfit.

When I was a bit older, about 11, at a guess, I went with mum to her aerobics class. I twisted my ankle in the first-ever class I went to, and was carried out by the instructor. NOT, it should be noted, by my mum, who actually – and this is the truth – pretended not to know me, and just carried on grape-vining.

And that was it, for me and exercise, for close to a decade, until a gym instructor called Suzie let me bring my own mix tapes to a circuit class when I was 19. Fat Lisa got thin, and also got hooked, and 20 years later I still need to exercise every day or I turn into Mrs Snippy Sad Bitch. That’s true. Don’t underestimate the power of endorphins.  

You know those days when you wake up tireder than you go to bed, and you can’t see out of your eyes, and you want to punch everyone? Of course you fucking do, you’re a parent. These are the days I run. You know those days when the kids touch you constantly and relentlessly for eight consecutive hours, and steal every item of food you try and put in your mouth? Those are the days I go to the gym. Those are the days I box. And honestly, I tell you, it helps.

Remember when Ben was in hospital earlier this year? ‘Cos he nearly died? I never really dealt with that. I didn’t have time to deal with that. I don’t think I even got around to crying. Until one day – about a month afterwards – I went for a run along the coast. And there’s a particular point where the track twists and you’re suddenly presented with the Indian Ocean – the whole fucking lot of it, all the way to Africa, or India, or which over country’s next, I dunno. Anyway, I turned the corner, and saw the sea, and suddenly – without warning – I just fucking sobbed. It erupted. I stood at the lookout and I cried and I cried and I cried, and then I was good. That’s what running does. It clears your head to make room for more shit.

Sometimes I don’t want to exercise. Sometimes I’m so tired, and so sad, that I just want to sit in the car and cry. Sometimes I don’t know where I’m going to summon up the energy to even tie my shoelaces. Sometimes I’ve got so much to do that sacrificing 30 minutes to go for a run seems like an impossible indulgence. But I do. I always do. And fucking hell, it fixes everything. Like, not AIDS, I don’t think it could fix AIDS, but for everything else? Yeah, exercise helps.    

The children took my money

A few weeks ago, my metal dining chairs were recalled to Freedom, cos they were chopping toes off, or something. (BEAR WITH ME, there is a point to this apparently tedious story.) The chairs were, like, five years old or something – older than Frankie, anyway – and bore the fork marks of a pretty tough life, kinda like their owner. Anyway, we didn’t need telling twice, and that afternoon rocked up at our local Freedom store with six battered dining chairs and three children whom we were also quite keen to swap. Despite having no receipt, no knowledge of when they were bought, or even which store they were bought FROM (the chairs, not the children), the good lady at Freedom offered us a full refund (on the chairs, not the children).

“Oh yeah, that’d be cool,” I said, thinking that I’d go home via Dan Murphy’s, spend the proceeds on booze, and we could sit on cushions for the foreseeable.

“Do you know how much you paid for them?” the good lady at Freedom asked.

“Madame, I do not. Maybe like $20 each? That’s as much as I’d pay for a chair these days.”

She smiled, indulgently. “They were $160 each.”

“Fuck off. Did I buy them on sale?”

“Nope, full price.”

“Do you have, like, a record of that? Cos it’s possible I stole them.”

I called Paul over from the reclining sofas, where he and the three kids were settling in for the night. I told him how much we’d paid for the chairs. As he mentally tallied how many bottles of Pepperjack shiraz we could buy with the proceeds of the six chairs, he stated the obvious: “The children took our money.”

Yes.

Absolutely.

THE CHILDREN TOOK OUR MONEY.

We have the same jobs as we did in 2011. The same income. The same mortgage. Even the same CAR. But we have significantly less money. We have no money. BECAUSE THE CHILDREN TOOK OUR MONEY.

Which brings me to my next point: a guy at Paul’s work bought himself a life-sized mannequin this week. Paul showed me a photo of it, and asked what I thought his colleague had bought a life-sized mannequin for.

“To be his girlfriend?”

“He has a wife.”

“To be his mistress?”

“Nope.”

“To stand at his window when he’s out at work?”

“Like Home Alone?”

“Exactly like Home Alone. He could make it wave.”

“No.”

“I give up.”

“To wear his STORM TROOPER outfit.”

“Fuck. Fuck and fuck. He must be RICH. Neither mannequins nor Storm Trooper outfits come cheap.”

“He’s not rich. He works at my work.”

“He doesn’t have kids, does he?”

“He does not have kids.”

“He has money to spend on mannequins and Storm Trooper outfits because he does not have to spend his money on school excursions and Trombone insurance.”

“This is true.”

This led to a conversation on what we’d spend our pennies on if we didn’t have to spend our pennies on our penny-sucking children. Paul, without hesitation, said that he’d buy a gold statue of Biggie Smalls. Obviously.

I would buy a vintage Olivetti typewriter. Obviously.

We’d both quite like this Bush Heritage digi-wifi radio. Obviously.

And then – fuck me – how could we not spend our obligation-free pennies on this vintage VW camper van, and maybe a holiday?

We can dream, can’t we? As I make another direct debit to the primary school for PROFESSOR MATHS AND HIS BULLSHIT MATHS SHOW, and a second direct debit to the school photographer for RIDICULOUS AWKWARD PHOTOS OF MY RIDICULOUS AWKWARD CHILDREN, and a third credit card payment to Coles for a home delivery of CRUNCHY NUT CORNFLAKES and a COW'S WORTH OF MILK, I can dream, can’t I?

As an aside, do you think there’s a chance our children might be recalled at some point, too? 

My bloody lovely house

In light of the recent outrage regarding my pre-children domestic goddess status (I USED TO MEAL PLAN), I’m a little reluctant to admit something to you, but, in the spirit of an open, honest relationship, here goes: MY HOUSE IS FUCKING LOVELY. Like, really lovely. Show-home lovely. I know – you wanted me to live in a squat, right, overrun with kids and guinea pigs and shit. Having said that, it’s superficially lovely. Scratch the surface – or look under the fridge, or ask my mum and my nan – and you’ll discover it’s a bit of a shit-hole. Dude, I don’t have TIME to scrub that skanky bit of the dishwasher. But you can’t see that bit. What you can see is BLOODY LOVELY.

Okay, so why am I telling you this? Well, it’s a bit of an admission, I suppose: I spend more time tidying up than I do playing with my kids. You know that poem called Dust if You Must? “Dust if you must, but wouldn’t it be better if, I dunno, you knitted your kids a tie-dye sweater?” That’s not how it goes. I don’t know how it goes. I glaze every time someone puts it on Facebook, cos FUCK OFF. I don’t want to play with my kids, I want to keep my house clean and tidy.

Which brings me to my next point: please don’t come to my house with your many children. One, maybe, or at a push, two, but anymore than that and I’m gonna have to meet you at a park, or something, cos nothing sends my blood pressure shooting up more than small, wild children running through my lovely home and licking shit.

I attribute my dislike of small house guests to the time I hosted mother’s group at my (old) lovely home. A dozen mums and their toddling, shitting, sticky-fingered children. I had to HOSE my tiled family room after they’d left. I think I hosed the windows too, cos they kept licking the fucking glass. It was at that point, I think, that I decided I would not be hosting mother’s meetings at my lovely home ever again.

I’d love to be that chilled, relaxed mum with the open-door policy, but seriously, no, fuck off, go home, you’re not welcome. (Sorry, I’ve come over all Pauline Hanson, but I’m not being racist. I don’t care if you’re white, brown, yellow or pink – you can all get lost.)

I’m a bit OCD, see. Borderline. I used to be much, much worse, but then three kids came along and, y’know, it’s pretty hard to be OCD with those little fuckers rampaging around my lovely home. It’s like tidying up in the eye of a hurricane. But I do TRY to keep it show-home tidy – I TRY to keep the mess and the toys and the food and the general untidy debris of childhood reserved to one room, or maybe two, which Paul and I can blitz after the kids go to bed. This is important. It’s about reclaiming our space, and not being eye-balled by Buzz Lightyear while we try and eat our carbonara and have a cuddle.

And also, I like getting up to a tidy house. Sometimes the little fuckers outfox me, and get up first and trash the house with chocolate fingers and jigsaw pieces before I’ve even emerged from the bedroom, but for the most part, yeah, we start with a clean slate. I get that this is illogical, given that my kitchen is tidy for only five minutes before it’s destroyed by cornflakes and toast crumbs, but go on, humour me.     

I’m particularly weird about my floors. My floors need to be IMMACULATE. I hoover and I mop at least once a day. At least. YES, I realise this time could be better spent playing UNO with my three children, but I wouldn’t be able to concentrate, ‘cos I’d be thinking about my smeary floors. JUDGE ME IF YOU WILL (don't judge me). 

Employ all the mothers!

I was rejected last week, and it fucking stung. I’m not too proud to say that I cried, and stomped around, and ate all the biscuits. I got sad, and then I got angry, and then I got bitter, and then I got jealous, and now I’m okay, cos I cried on my husband’s shoulder at 11 o’clock last night and told him I felt like a big old ball of rejection, and he gave me a squeeze and said that I’m a super-cool human, and that good things happen to super-cool humans. I needed to hear that. And he better be right.

A few days ago, you see, I got told that I didn’t get that job that I really, really wanted. The job that I didn’t have a Plan B for. The job whose interview I smashed, and which I was so fucking qualified for, and which I would have loved so much. I came – apparently – a very, very close second, and only missed out on the top spot because another candidate had more ‘digital’ experience than me.

Ouch.

This is the bit I’m having trouble with. This is the bit that reminds me that I’m an old bird in a young chick’s world. While I was off breeding small humans, the world kept on turning, apparently, and my industry changed, and now I’ve got a decade of catching up to do. I’m having trouble dealing with this.

I’ve tried my best to keep up, I really have, but I haven’t been properly employed – by an employer, with holiday pay, superannuation schemes and paid fag breaks – since 2005, when Ben was born. I’ve worked since then – I’ve worked almost constantly, even in hospital waiting for my babies to be born – but always for myself, in my pyjamas. And now that I’m ready to go back into the workforce proper, I find that I’m kinda outdated, and a little bit past my sell-by date. You’ll forgive me if this makes me feel like shit, I’m sure.

The thing, employers are missing a fucking trick. Mothers, you see, make the best employees. I’m generalising here, obviously – the crack whores and the slack asses would probably be pretty unreliable, truth be told – but for the most part, we mothers have accrued a set of skills and experiences that make us almost unfeasibly employable. I look back to what I was like pre-children, and while I had fewer grey hairs and a slightly more enthusiastic spring in my step, I was a dim-wit. I mean, I’m still a dim-wit, but a slightly more productive dim-wit. Back then, I pissed about. I procrastinated. I spent more time buttering my toast and looking for Nokia phone chargers than I did actually working. And this was BEFORE Facebook.

These days, I’d be so glad to be out of the house, to be drinking a hot coffee without a small child dunking their custard cream into it, and to be oiling my underused brain cogs, that I’d be employee of the month consistently and without fail. I’d arrive early and stay late. I would accomplish a super-human amount in my working hours. Just look at what I can get done while my children are distracted by Play School! In those 27 precious minutes I have time to tend to my in-grown hairs, scrape the morning’s Weetabix off the walls/ceiling, reply to the texts and Facebook messages that I’d forgotten were ever sent, and hang out the three loads of washing that are starting to smell in the laundry basket.

I wouldn’t get involved in office politics, either, because who gives a shit if someone keeps nicking the chocolate digestives out of the communal biscuit tin and not washing their teaspoon – I’ve got three kids at home who blow their noses on underpants and wipe their arses on the white towels. I know what’s important in life, and it’s not the fucking teaspoons. I’d probably have snot on my shoulder and shit on my shoe (or the other way round, whatever), but I’d still be the best person for the job.

I should definitely use this as my covering letter for the next job I apply for, shouldn’t I? 

When I rule my own fascist state

I just wrote the best part of a blog post on my beef with the recruitment process, and how – when I’m in charge of my own fascist state – things are going to be very, very different.

“Hello, I would like a job!”

“Oh! Can you do this particular job?”

“Why yes, I can do this particular job!”

“Then please, do this particular job!”

Hugs, cheers, celebrations all round.

Anyway, I wrote a blog post on the reality of job hunting, but then I deleted that blog post, ‘cos even writing about the arduous nature of job hunting depressed me. It’s so long! So drawn out! So stressful!

Can you tell I’m waiting to hear if I got a job that I interviewed for last week? It’s a good job. I would very much like this job. I had a panel interview last Thursday. That was up there with one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my life. You think you know nervous pooing? My friends, I redefined nervous pooing. I originally applied for this job in early March. It’s now late June. I’ve done resumes and covering letters and selection criterias and phone interviews. I’m a fucking mess. I keep replaying the panel interview OVER and OVER – “the guy shook my hand enthusiastically and said it was a pleasure to meet me, but the lady thought I didn’t know what ‘augment’ meant, and to be honest, no, I’m not 100% sure, but I blagged it okay, didn’t I? DIDN’T I?” – and I’ve worked myself into something of a state. My nerves are shot. I’m in a permanent state of butterflies, and my fingertips keep tingling every time I think about my phone ringing. I can’t stop hoovering. I’m short-tempered, over-tired and distinctly lacking in patience – just ask my children, who have started skirting around me in case I throw (another) teaspoon at them.  

It shouldn’t be like this! Why have we made this process so fucking long and drawn-out? Something that should be simple and straightforward has been turned into a test of nerves and steely determination. It’s like buying a house!

“Hello, I would like to buy your house. I see you’re selling it for 12 Australian dollars.”

“Why yes! Would you like to buy my house for 12 Australia dollars?”

“Why yes! Here are my 12 Australian dollars.”

“And here is your house. Enjoy!”

It SHOULD be like that, but of course it ISN’T, because we as humans are fucking insane and would rather drag the process out for months and settle on a price that doesn’t even vaguely resemble the original price tag, and knock years off our lives because of all the STRESS and the SURVEYORS and the goddamn GAZZUMPING.

I’m tired of being grown up. I’m sorry for being such a bitch this week. WHY DOESN’T MY PHONE FUCKING RING?

Yeah, I’m struggling. I don’t have a Plan B, see, and if this job falls through then there’s no back-up, other than becoming an Uber driver, but only if I can choose the music in the car. The odds are on my side, but it’s now SEVEN days since the panel interview and no word as yet. Apparently this is what happens in the world of job recruitment. I can’t remember. It’s over a fucking decade since I went for a job, and I was young back then, and probably drunk, and didn’t give much of a shit if I got the job or not, because I was young and drunk, as previously mentioned. But seriously, I’ve heard tales of three-month recruitment processes; or verbal offers never materialising into written ones; of someone having their interview shuffled around so many times that they eventually forgot which job they’d originally applied for. Very few people are, like, yeah, I went for a job! They liked me! They offered me the job! I started the very next day! It almost seems as though this long drawn-out ordeal is part of the official recruitment process.

Well, people of the human resources departments across the world: FUCK THAT. This is inhumane! I can’t concentrate! I’m all at sixes and sevens! I feel a bit sick! Should I apply for other jobs, or should I buy that pretty frock I saw online? Should I cry into my Yorkshire tea or pop the Prosecco? WHY DOESN’T MY FUCKING PHONE RING?

Hang on, no one told them about the sweary blog did they? Did you? SWEET BABY FUCKING CHRISTMAS, DID SOMEONE TELL THEM ABOUT THE SWEARY BLOG?

Hold me.    

Broken arms and bruised hearts

Paul and I stood in Frankie’s bedroom last night, watching him wriggle and whimper in his sleep, as he tried to get his broken elbow into a comfy position.

“What injuries,” I asked Paul, “would you sustain to take away his pain?”

“Broken arms and legs,” he said, without hesitation.

“All of them, at the same time?”

“Yep.”

“Would you lose a finger?”

“Permanently?”

“Um, no.”

“Not even a little finger? I would.”

“Na, I don’t want anything long term or life threatening.”

“So not AIDS?”

“Not AIDS. He’s only got a broken arm. Jesus.”

“Would you be kicked in the balls?”

“Yes,” Paul said, “and knee-capped, too, but only if I didn’t walk with a stoop afterwards.”

“Non-cancerous brain tumour?”

“No. Nothing brain related. You could cut all my fingers and pour vinegar on them. And you could stab me.”

“I could stab you?”

“No, a surgeon. A surgeon could medically stab me. I would happily be stabbed by a surgeon if it would take Frankie’s pain away.”

This conversation went on for a little while; I won’t bore you with (more) details. But you take my point: I’d do whatever it took to take my children’s pain away. Although, like Paul, I draw the line at AIDS. Kid’s only gonna be in a sling for another three weeks.

Yeah, so Frankie broke his elbow last week. We were at a shitty playcentre, and I was chasing Alice while Frankie swung on some shitty monkey-bar thing, and suddenly Frankie wasn’t swinging anymore, he was on the ground, and another mother was standing over him with a panicked look on her face. And I, because I’m mother of the year, assumed he’d just popped his elbow out of the ligament again – which is what he likes to do for fun, on occasion – and ACTUALLY CONSIDERED TRYING TO POP IT BACK IN AGAIN, but then realised he was so pale as to be transparent, so carried him out to the car, with a small, tantrumming girl in socks lagging behind. (The tantrumming girl in socks was Alice, by the way, not another kid I’d picked up just to liven up the journey to the hospital.) Frankie didn’t cry, not once, although he fell asleep in the car and screamed when he kind of rolled on to his elbow. And still I thought he’d just popped it out, ‘cos I’m a dickhead, and it wasn’t until we were ushered straight through for x-rays and I got a good look at his misshapen elbow that I went all lightheaded and weak at the knees.

I am not very good, you see, with illness and injury. I have to sit down and put my head between my knees when my kids stub their toes, and I’ve got a weird fear about them knocking their teeth out. I scream “check the teeth, check the teeth!” when my kids fall over, and then go and hide until someone – usually Paul, sometimes a hapless passerby – shouts back “ALL PRESENT AND CORRECT”.

After Frankie’s x-ray, the doctor came over to confirm that, yes, Frankie had broken his elbow, which would’ve been FINE, if he hadn’t gone into DETAIL, with DIAGRAMS. As soon as he got into DETAIL, with DIAGRAMS, I thought I was gonna spew, and had to sit down. And then the nurse (she called herself a nurse, I’m still dubious about her medical qualifications) came over to put Frankie in a cast, and went into great detail about her son’s broken wrist – “his hand was facing in the opposite direction! Severed all the tendons! His fingers went blue!” – and I was, like, shit, bitch, will you fucking STOP?

So no, I’m not very good with illness and injury, but I’m even worse with seeing my kids ill or injured. As the “nurse” put the cast on (twice, ‘cos she made a mistake the first time), I kind of hid behind Frankie and cried, while Paul held his arm in place. And that wasn’t too bad, because they gave Frankie some kick-arse drugs while they twisted and turned his arm, and he wasn’t in too much pain. But then, when I took him back to hospital a few days later, he had to be taken OUT of the cast, and put into a sling, which meant BENDING his broken elbow. Completely. So that his hand touched his chin, if you can imagine that. CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT? And this time there were no drugs, and no Paul, and so I had to be strong, but I was not strong, I just held Frankie while he screamed and screamed, and I cried and cried. Not, like, sobbed, just silently cried, with big, fat, ugly tears rolling down my squished-up head.

Man, that is some tough parenting, right there. No one tells you about that, about the pain that you feel when your kids are in pain. I know it’s not the same, but it’s sort of like when your kids are having a difficult poo, and you kind of hold your breath and push while they do. No? You don’t do that? No, me neither, I just heard of someone doing that, once. What a weirdo. What I’m trying to say, in my usual cack-handed fashion, is that we hurt when our kids hurt. It’s possible that we hurt more, ‘cos our hearts hurt, too. That sickness and health thing? That’s not just marriage, it’s parenthood, too. As much as I’d love to turn and run when my kids are hurt, and come back when they’re better and restored to perfect health, it’s not part of the parenthood deal. Someone really needs to warn new parents and parents-to-be about this; in fact, maybe babies need to come with a warning label, something like: “Will cause heartache, medicate with booze and tears (you, not them).” 

Follow your dreams, kids

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a newsreader when I grew up. I walked around the house with a cardboard box on my head, one with the front cut out, saying hello and welcome to the nine o’clock news. Then, when I realised how stomach-churningly nervous I became at the prospect of public speaking, and how fucking good I was at writing, I decided to be a journalist, instead. Not the ideal career for someone with a blind fear of talking to strangers, but like most things in my life, I didn’t really think it through.

My point is, I wanted to be a journalist, so I became a journalist. Actually, that’s only partially true. I wanted to be a music journalist. I wanted to interview Bros, and thereafter Take That, and thereafter Blur, ideally all at the same time. I moved to London and wrote many, many letters to the NME, all of which were roundly ignored, and then I got a job on an illustrious publication called Homeflair, where I spent my days making up letters to the editor, and, well, the dream was still there, but it was slightly modified and altered to suit an industrial estate in Watford, Hertfordshire. But still, I could call myself a journalist, of sorts, and even though my mum really, really wanted me to become a pharmacist (nope, me neither), she and my excellent dad always lit the way for me to follow my heart.

When Paul was a kid, he wanted to be a comic-book illustrator. He loved drawing, and was really fucking good at it, kinda like four-year-old Frankie is now. It’s effortless for them, like writing is for me and Ben, and dressing like a lunatic is for Alice. Little Paul should’ve grown up to be an artist, or at the very least a graphic designer. Something with pens, anyway. But no one along the way said hey, little dude, you’re really fucking good at drawing and shit, why don’t you pursue that? Instead, Paul decided to go and work in a bank, ‘cos his sister worked in a bank, and his dad worked in finance, and he was pretty good at adding up, truth be told. And then – after a few weeks’ work experience – he realised that perhaps banking wasn’t for him, on account of him wanting to steal all of the pennies all of the time, so became a printer instead. Which is a good profession – a NOBLE profession – and a profession that pays our mortgage, but it doesn’t light up his soul. Or, in Paul’s words, it doesn’t stir his juices (sorry). Which is why, after 16 years of printing labels, Paul’s decided to start drawing again.

I get that, I really do. Yeah, I’m a journalist, but I’m predominantly a homes journalist. I write about display homes. And, because this doesn’t come close to keeping my kids in biscuits (and me in gin), I also dabble in copywriting. I write words for business. Sometimes these words are very exciting (soft furnishings!) and sometimes they are very, very dull (scaffolding!). This writing does not, as they say, stir my juices.

And so, at 38 and 43 respectively, Paul and I have decided to stir our juices (I’ll be honest, this analogy isn’t working for me. It’s making me feel a bit sick. I’m sorry). Actually, I started a year or so ago, when I began this fine blog; writing for free, and writing for me. But just recently, I decided to take it one step further, and start writing a book, too. A fucking novel! Because if I don’t write a book – and if I’m on my deathbed having never got around to writing a book – then I’ll be pissed off, and wishing I had, and dictating to my kids, who in all likelihood will be more concerned with where I’ve hidden the gold, yo.

Paul, in the meantime, has started doodling. He began by scribbling little sketches to go along with my blog posts each week; he did them at work (ssshhhh) when he had a big print run on, but it stirred his juices to such an extent that he bought a new set of watercolours and some bad-ass textas, and started painting properly, in the evenings, when we used to watch Come Dine with Me and drink heavily. That’s when I write, too, even though we’re both fucked from life and children and work and shit. It’d be a lot easier to switch on Come Dine with Me and drink heavily, but shit, man, you’ve got to stir your juices, you’ve got to light up your soul, you’ve got to do that thing that makes your heart sing.

This is the lesson we’re trying to teach our kids. Don’t wait until you’re 38 and 43 respectively to follow your dreams. Do it now! Do what makes you happy (unless it’s smoking crack and incest). Frankie wants to be a rock-star (although, at this point, with his arm in cast, his options may be limited to drumming for Def Leppard), Alice wants to be a doctor, Ben wants to be a professional FIFA player and sports journalist. Fucking do it! And if, along the way, your dreams change and you decide, instead, to be a lollipop man, Barbie princess and one of those weird guys who film themselves playing Minecraft in their pants, then three cheers for you, and go for it. We’ll steer you towards what you’re good at, maybe, to a certain extent, but we’ll never tread on your dreams. 

The one where I make a new mum friend

My excellent (and virtual) friend Mumma McD recently wrote about the agony and the ecstasy of making new mum friends, and I was, like, DUDE, I hear you. It’s a fucking minefield – one that I’ve expertly navigated over the last 10 years. I’ve experienced ALL the mums, and had playdates with most of them – even the Christian ones who don’t like swearing. Christ, I’ve had playdates with VEGANS, that’s how open-minded I was to the possibility of a new mum-based friendship. I’ve written about my desperation – in the early years of motherhood – to make new friends, and how I once slipped my phone number under the door of an isolation ward in the hospital to a mum with a kid around the same age as Ben. I’ve stalked, idolised, and admired from afar almost as much as I’ve avoided, ignored and – yes – hid.

Because let me tell you something: making mum friends is hard bloody work. All the fucking small talk and niceties. The polite conversation and the “do you implement a routine for your toddler?” type questions. I can’t be arsed, which is why I gave up on making new mum friends a long time ago. I have, like, four – maybe five – and that’s quite enough, or rather it was, until I happened upon (see also: stalked) some kinda excellent mums recently, and had to take a deep breath and go okayyyyyyy let’s do this, let’s make some new friends.

This took me well out of my comfort zone. I’m a dickhead, remember, and a socially awkward one at that. I’m thin-skinned, and over-sensitive, and – yes – shy. That’s possibly why I love love love the parent friends I’ve made in Facebook land. These chicks – and a few gentlemen, too (hello, Steve and Mark!) – seem to get me, and indulge my quirks and odd behaviour. My BFF Alison, who lives – rather annoyingly – in Paris, France, messaged me a little while ago and was, like, BUD, who are all these people taking an interest in your life? Do you know them? And I was, like, “no not really, but actually yes, by which I mean, I’ve never met them, but I love them and their novel approach to parenting. They’re my people”.

But there comes a point, of course, when you have to step out of the virtual world and into REALITY. Remember that scary place? Em Rusciano reckons there should be a Tinder-style app for making mum friends, and I'm, like, FUCK YEAH. Into craft, judgement and clean language? Swipe left. Into swearing, booze and bedtime? Swipe right, bitches! I’m all for it.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, making mum friends in the real world. Yeah, so: I had a mum date this week. An ACTUAL mum date, with a mum I’d never met before, but had sorta gotten to know through Facebook and Instagram. Is that weird? It’s a bit weird. It seems weird now I’ve written it down. We engaged in some low-level chit-chat and arranged to meet – with kids – at a park midway between our homes. My friends, I was nervous. I hadn’t been on a DATE since I accidentally arranged to meet a little (as in, vertically challenged) gentleman on RSVP years and years ago. I was certainly more nervous meeting my new mum friend than I was meeting the little man. I’d say mum dating is more complicated than little-man dating, for the simple reason that you can’t break up with a mum like you can with a little man. Then again, you might have to put out with the little man because you feel sorry for him, which is certainly not the case with the mum, so that’s one thing, I suppose.

I had this on my mind as I was getting ready in the morning, which probably didn’t help my nerves, because I became fairly sure that the first thing I’d blurt out to my new mum friend would be something to do with shagging a midget. There was that, and the fact that I didn’t know what to wear, and the children wouldn’t wear what I wanted them to wear, and OH MY GOD, what if the children were shit-heads, and ruined my chances with the new mum? What if they shat in the sandpit? And then what if it was awkward, and we didn’t have anything to talk about except for things to do with pumpkin? And and and, what about the fact that I’d totally stalked her on Facebook, and knew way too much about her, so that when she mentioned her wedding anniversary, I’d blurt out the date, location and the colour of her garter, and she’d think RUN, just RUN.   

Yeah, I was pretty stressed in the build-up to my mum date. I had a lot riding on this. I had this weird feeling that we had a lot in common (actually not a weird feeling at all. I knew we had a lot in common; I’d stalked the shit out of her) and I really wanted her to like me. I want everyone to like me, which you might find strange given my propensity to insult and offend. I needn’t have worried: we got along swimmingly. I think. I mean, I really liked her, and we found the same things funny, and we didn’t discuss pumpkin, not once, which I’m pretty fucking pleased about, truth be told. So yeah, I think it went well, and I’m hopeful that I may soon be able to take my mum friend tally up a notch, to a grand total of SIX.  

Ward life

Strange things happen when you stay in hospital for any length of time. I imagine prison is similar. And the Big Brother house. And maybe Farmer Jack’s. It’s kind of like being institutionalised, I suppose. The real world fades into the background, and you’re suddenly immersed in this parallel universe where warm white bread is considered passable as toast and instant coffee is a valuable foodstuff. Normal rules cease to apply, and suddenly it’s okay – not just okay, but encouraged – to go about your everyday business in a pair of slippers and a gown that exposes your bottom, wheeling along a transportable oxygen tank that says, I think, “asthma chic”.

A couple of weeks ago – long enough ago, that is, for me to be able to talk about the experience with a wry smile and a swearword – I spent a few nights in hospital with Ben. Once we’d got through the whole lifesaving exercise, we settled into ward life, which was weird, but strangely easy to become accustomed to. I didn’t sleep much, so I had plenty of time to consider its oddities, as follows:

1. There is no night-time in hospital. Oh yeah, I reclined my armchair and changed into my pyjamas every night, but 7pm was very much like 10pm which was very much like 2am which was very much like, oh, you get it. No one sleeps. It’s brightly lit. Machines beep. Nurses chat. Dads order pepperoni pizza REALLY LOUDLY and ask it to be delivered to the ward at 11pm. Ventolin is administered at 20-minute intervals. Patients are wheeled in at odd hours, and you’re forced to stay awake to listen to the diagnosis, because NOSY.

2. There is no personal space in hospital. I “slept” closer to the mum whose child shared a room with Ben than I do with my own husband. Our feet touched!

3. Some people use the hospital as a childcare service. For fucking real. On the second night that we were in hospital, a four-year-old boy arrived in the bed next to us. His mum goes to the nurse, “Oh! I just have to pop home for something,” waved at the kid, and disappeared. She came back FIVE HOURS LATER, AT MIDNIGHT. The nurse asked me to keep an eye on him, ‘cos he kept trying to escape.

4. Self-grooming is non-existent. I don’t believe I looked in a mirror the entire time I was in hospital. On the day I (finally) got home I looked in the bathroom mirror and a saw a dramatic black chin hair waving to me. The fuck?! I’d simply forgotten to groom. I’d showered, certainly, but the rest had fallen by the wayside. You’re lucky I hadn’t started wearing Crocs. 

5. You could do worse than getting on side of the woman who delivers the tea and coffee. She hated me to begin with, and told me off for putting my cardigan on the WRONG CHAIR. And I thought, fuck this, you WILL LOVE ME AND MY ASTHMATIC SON. We won her over, in the end (Ben complimented her on her chocolate mousse) and we hugged her on the day we left. I miss that lady, and her Styrofoam cups.

6. The kindness of relative strangers knows no bounds.

7. Chocolate bar calories don’t count while you’re in hospital. I ate so many fucking Kit-Kats, it’s untrue. This was mainly to do with needing change for the FUCKING CAR PARK, but whatever the reason, I ate all the chocolate.

8. Weird situations stop being weird, and it’s only weeks after the event that you go, shit, dog, that was weird. For instance: I had to wheel Ben’s oxygen tank behind him when he went to have a poo. I had to stay in the disabled toilets to watch him poo, just in case he got tangled in the oxygen tank. I found nothing strange about this at the time. I do now. Similarly, on night three, Ben and I found ourselves playing dominoes in the the hospital’s radio studio with two enthusiastic teenagers and one small girl who insisted on being called ‘princess’ and demanded to go on air to talk about Frozen, or some shit. At the time I was like, yeah, just your average Tuesday night, but now I can see that this was most irregular.

9. You will ask “when do you think we might go home?” more times than you will ask “do I have a long black hair protruding from my chin?”

10. Nurses aren’t paid enough. I don’t know what an average nurse’s wage is, but whatever it is, it’s not enough. I’m forever indebted to these wonderful, wonderful men and women.

11. There’s nothing like an extended hospital stay to put your own problems into perspective. Yeah, Ben had a severe asthma attack, but he was okay within a couple of hours and back to complimenting the tea lady on her chocolate mousse (not a euphemism). Other families aren’t so lucky. We were on the neurology and cardiology ward, which meant brain tumours and heart problems (I think). I stood in the parents’ kitchen one day and heard a mum ringing her work and asking them to keep her job open for her, ‘cos her daughter had a brain tumour and she was going to be in the hospital indefinitely. She could hardly talk for crying. And then, on the last day we were in hospital, a teenage boy was brought into our room. He’d had a brain tumour removed earlier that day, but couldn’t speak, and was paralysed down the right-hand side of his body. His dad explained that they were from Northern Queensland, but had come to Perth for the operation because they had no family in Brisbane. They were going to be in hospital for the foreseeable future, and mum and dad didn’t plan on leaving their son’s side. Yes, that certainly put my chin hair into perspective, I can tell you.

God only knows (what I'd be without you)

Over the last 24 hours, countless doctors and nurses have asked, “So tell me what happened,” and I have to admit that I don’t KNOW what happened, because I’d left home at 6.30am on Mother’s Day to go to the second day of a Body Attack instructor training course. Yes. On the very morning when my family needed me most I was 40 minutes away – on the other side of Perth – learning to side-step shuffle with authority and direction. We were partway through learning about second-layer coaching (it’s a thing) when I saw my phone silently ring in my open bag. I panicked, because my phone would only ring partway through learning about second-layer coaching if it was bad news. A message popped up, from Paul: “Taken Ben to hospital. His asthma’s pretty bad. Can you ring please x.”

I snuck out of the training room and rang; Paul answered straightaway. “How bad is he?” I asked. “Pretty bad,” Paul said, “can you speak to the doctor?” The doctor came on. “Hello Ben’s mum,” she said with forced jollity. “How far away are you?” “I can be there in half an hour,” I said. “How bad is he?” “He’s very unwell, you should get here as soon as you can.” “Is it life-threatening?” Pause. “He’s critical. There’s a whole team of people looking after him, but he’s very unwell. Just come straight to resus when you get here, okay? See you soon.”

Two words that no mamma ever wants to hear: CRITICAL and RESUS. No. Never. I raced back into the training room, shouted something about ASTHMA and SON and LIFE-THREATENING and ran to the car. Or would’ve run, if the gym’s doors hadn’t been locked. Ran back, shouted something about DOORS and LOCKED and FUCK and ran out again, guessed my way to the freeway, rang Ben’s dad, and drove VERY, VERY fast to the hospital. YES, I got flashed by a speeding camera but NO, I don’t give a fuck.

Despite my roaring speed, that journey was the longest of my life. I assumed Ben would die before I got there. Excuse my pessimism, but I’m a mother, it’s what we do. All I could think about was the big fight we’d had the night before, after Ben had led Paul on a wild goosechase around the streets of Burns Beach, and I’d lost my shit because he wouldn’t apologise. I’m not the praying sort, but I made a deal with someone, somewhere that I would NEVER shout again if he was okay. I also said Ben could have his PlayStation back AND play it whenever he wanted to, but I might have crossed my fingers when I said that, ‘cos there’s no fucking chance. I was convinced that Paul would be waiting out the front of the hospital when I got there, shaking his head to say no, my baby boy didn’t make it. Because YES, I have a vivid imagination and YES, it was working overtime. Mainly I was trying to figure out how I’d tell my mum and dad, on holiday in America, that their first-born grandson – dad’s best mate, his golden boy – had had an asthma attack, and died, and I hadn’t been there to hold his hand.

Eventually, finally, after a lifetime of freeway speeding, I made it the hospital. I jumped the queue in the emergency department – MY SON’S IN RESUS! – and a nurse jumped to attention, opening the sliding doors and ushering me into – god – the resuscitation area, the same place I’d willed my grandad to survive after his stroke two years ago. Jesus, almost two years ago to the DAY. Ben was there, hooked up to god knows what, surrounded by god knows who, while Alice and Frankie slid across the floor on their tummies and Paul sat on a chair, looking ashen and shell-shocked. Well my friends, I lost it. I don’t remember exactly what I did, but it involved flapping, and gasping, and crying, and apologising, and thanking, and a bit more flapping. The doctor – the same one who’d phoned me – got me a seat, told me to sit down, and kneeled next to me. I think she may have held my hand, I can’t remember. “It’s okay,” she said. “He’s responded very well. He’s going to be okay.” Tears. Lots of tears. “You know,” she added, “this is not your fault. You have nothing to feel guilty about. You can’t be there all the time.” “You’re a mum?” I asked, although it was clearly a rhetorical question. OBVIOUSLY she was a mum. “Yes,” she nodded, “and I know how you’re feeling. But you don’t need to feel guilty. Your husband got him here in time. He’s a bit of a hero.”

Turns out, he really is. After I’d left home in the morning, Ben’d been fine – sort of – and despite a cough and a cold was getting his stuff ready for an 8am football match. And then, suddenly, he wasn’t fine, and couldn’t stand up, and couldn’t breathe (the big one), and went a funny colour. Paul loaded all three kids in the car – despite Ben gasping that he COULD STILL PLAY IN GOALS – and drove the seven-minute journey to the hospital. By the time Paul carried him into A&E – with the two littlest children following behind – Ben’s fingertips and lips had turned blue, and I’m not sure I really want to imagine what state he was in, if it’s all the same to you, but he was whisked straight through, and attacked from every angle, while medical professionals pulled curtains around his bed and tried to distract Paul from the life-saving venture going on behind them. I missed that bit. For better or for worse, I missed that bit, but I do know that Paul is too scared to go to bed now, ‘cos he keeps replaying it over and over, and I’m too scared to close my eyes in my hospital armchair, ‘cos I keep imagining it.  

Hours and hours and hours later, after we’d been transferred by ambulance to the children’s hospital in the city, and Ben’s dad had come to visit, and Paul had taken Frankie and Alice home to bed, I went for a walk, still wearing the sweaty gym clothes I’d started the day in. Happy fucking Mother’s Day, I thought to myself, sarcastically, as I ordered chips and red wine for one at a deserted, miserable pub. And then God Only Knows came on, and I listened, and I lost it, because God Only Knows what I’d be without Ben, the little boy who made me a mum. And then I realised that I’d been given the best Mother’s Day present of all – from my husband, from the doctors and nurses at Joondalup Hospital, and from the 10-year-old who stood so fucking strong when asthma tried to knock him from his feet. That makes me the luckiest mother in the world, don’t you reckon? It’s a much better present than slippers, anyway.

Come home mum, all is forgiven

When I was 19, and two-thirds of the way through my university degree, I decided to move to London. Just like that. My mum and dad – in all likelihood freaking out at the prospect of their dumb-arse only kid moving 14,000km away from home despite having never even loaded a dishwasher on her own – supported me, on the understanding that I’d come back in six months and finish uni. Yeah, yeah, I said, whatever, and six months later rang my mum to say I was staying in London to become a Buddhist and work full-time in HMV. She read me the fucking riot act, and I came home on the next available flight. Six months after that, with a fucking useful Bachelor of Arts in my back pocket (sarcasm intended) I moved back to London, where I stayed for the next eight years, or thereabouts, until Ben was born.

It was only after Ben was born in the Royal London Hospital, and I took him home to a one-bedroom basement flat below a family of 11 insomniacs, that I realised it was time to come home. I missed Perth, but most of all, I missed my mummy. Once I became a mum, I needed my own mum, mainly because I was still a dumb-arse only kid who couldn’t load a dishwasher on her own. I needed a grown-up on board, and so – 10 years ago – I came home, to my mummy and daddy.

My mum and dad are away at the moment – they’ve gone on some bullshit tour of the boring parts of America (WASHINGTON? I ask you) and won’t be home for another couple of weeks. I’ll be honest, I’m struggling. They left a week ago; after I got back from dropping them at the airport I turned to Paul with a look of panic and said BUT WHAT IF SOMETHING HAPPENS? And he was like, what sort of something? And I’m, like, ANYTHING! What if my nan or grandad get sick? What if an unexplained bill arrives? What if something breaks? What if the lawn suddenly goes brown? What if we get moths? What if the kids need new underwear? What if I need new underwear? WHO WILL BUY OUR SOCKS? And Paul was, like, shit, yeah, you’re right, we’re not grown-up enough to be in charge! Where are the grown-ups? We need someone grown-upper! (Paul is 43. I’m 38. We’re still waiting for adulthood to kick in.)

My mum is my responsible adult. She’s my go-to girl for advice, information and, yes, underwear. If I’ve got a problem, yo, she’ll solve it. She’ll also tell me straight if I look like shit, or if I’ve got fat, or if I need a better bra (or a bra, full stop). She’s on call 24-7, no questions asked. Like that time when my key snapped off in the door lock at 2 in the morning, and she came and rescued me in her dressing gown. Or another time – as a single parent – when a migraine floored me, and she drove over, scooped me up and tucked me into my childhood bed, despite the fact that I was 32 and shouldn’t have drunk so much at lunchtime. 

The best was shortly after Alice was born, and Frankie was only 18 months old, and Ben was in year two. I’d be lying in bed at 6.30am, listening to babies cry and wondering how the FUCK I was going to get through the morning after 16 minutes’ sleep, when the garage door would go up and my mum would appear, like my guardian fucking angel in an ill-fitting tracksuit.

I tend to take this shit for granted. I’m not sure I’ve ever really said thank you. But after a week without her – a week when grown-up shit’s gone down (of which more later) – I’ve fucking missed her. I’m in charge of taking my nan to the shops, and she gets shitty if you’re, like, 12 seconds late, and starts ringing your phone, which you can’t answer ‘cos you’re driving really fucking fast to pick up your nan, who doesn’t answer the door cos she’s inside ringing you on the fucking phone. I’m in charge of paying my nan’s leccy bill and having this conversation: “This arrived! It’s a bill! What are we going to do!” “Give it to me, I’ll pay it for you on the internet.” “On the internet! Ee Tommy, she said she’ll pay it on the internet, do you have to use our internet, because we’ve forgotten the password and the Optus bastards won’t let us check wor emails, the bastards.”

The good part, of course, is that my mum and dad will be home in a fortnight. I’ve made hair appointments and waxing appointments and pub appointments in anticipation. I can’t fucking wait. I’m aware that this makes me spectacularly and incredibly lucky. Some mums aren’t around. It breaks my hardened heart to even type that. I don’t know what I’d do without my mum, and if you’re doing this without yours, then I don’t know how you do it. I wish you didn’t have to do it without your mum. You’re welcome to share my mum – she’s amazing, with enough love and strength and cake for the whole fucking lot of you. Happy Mother’s Day my mum. I love you. And thank you.

You can come home now.

Mornings with children, or, WHAT NEW HELL IS THIS?

Please, don’t misunderstand me; I’m as delighted as the next fraught mother of three to see the end of school holidays. While I don’t wish to imply for a SINGLE SECOND that I’m not overjoyed to send two of my three children to school, I’m struggling with the whole morning routine. Someone keeps stealing my minutes, see, and I run late without understanding what happened to all the minutes. Who took all my minutes?!

The thing is, I’m new to the whole school-run thing. Until the end of last year, we lived opposite Ben’s school, meaning that I’d unlock the front door at 8.35am and wave goodbye to my eldest son in my dressing gown. By which I don’t mean that my son would leave for school wearing my dressing gown. Or indeed my slippers. Oh, you KNOW what I mean. Anyway, along comes 2016, and a new house, and a new suburb, and suddenly I’m in charge of getting two out of three of my children to a school that is not, in fact, walking distance, has a siren that goes off at 8.27am, and is inhabited by a standard of mother who is not only DRESSED (in the finest active wear, natch) but also has a level of hair and makeup that I’ve only achieved once in my actual life (on my wedding day). Full credit to these mothers; they must be getting up at fucking dawn, and have tattooed-on eye makeup.

While we haven’t been technically late (yet), we’ve cut it pretty fucking fine, because as I say, someone keeps stealing my minutes. In an attempt to reclaim my minutes, I’m gonna break down my morning, just for you. If you see any opportunities to save time and/or sanity in this schedule, then please do let me know.

3am/4am/5am: I’m woken by an alternating small child standing beside my bed, staring at me. I try to put him/her back to bed without opening my eyes, cos I don’t want to trick my brain into thinking it’s morning. This means that I sometimes accidentally put the wrong kid into the wrong bed, which causes confusion all round.

5.12am (I know. I can’t deal with it either): Paul’s alarm goes off. He gets up and gets dressed while I pretend to be asleep (tricking my brain again, see).

6.10am: I’m woken by a two-year-old girl child standing at my bedside, biscuit crumbs around her mouth and a Nutella jar in her hand. OPEN, she says, OPEN. I open the Nutella jar, ‘cos, fuck it, what’s the worst that can happen?

6.11am: I’m followed into the toilet by the same small girl with an open Nutella jar. COME, she says, COME.

6.12am: Still weeing. Ten-year-old comes to the toilet door waving the remote control. CAN I WATCH THE SIMPSONS? Four-year-old comes in asking for PANCAKES. Tell everyone to fuck off, hide in the toilet and check Facebook for a bit.

6.30am: Clean Nutella off the walls and soft furnishings, while my children bleat for breakfast.

6.45am: After numerous and various requests for breakfast, tell my children that THIS IS NOT A FUCKING CAFÉ, and go and hide in the wardrobe for a bit.

7am: Hear banging. Panic. Realise 10-year-old has started making breakfast. Great in principle, disastrous in practice. SHIT EVERYWHERE. Tidy up. Hoover. Mop. Wipe walls/ceiling etc.

7.15am: Make toast for the ungrateful bitches.

7.20am: Shower.

7.21am: Leap out of the shower when blood-curdling screams resonate down the hallway. Run naked and dripping into the living room. All quiet, just three children watching The Simpsons and eating toast. Or rather, three children watching The Simpsons and one child eating everyone else’s toast.

7.22am: Shower.

7.30am: Put on a random selection of mismatched and possibly unclean clothes. Forget to brush my hair, cover spots, etc.

7.35am: Start shouting, loudly and repeatedly: TURN OFF THE TV. GET DRESSED. TURN OFF THE TV. GET DRESSED. And so on and so forth, until I physically turn off the telly and chase them all into the shower.

7.40am: Spend 10 minutes arguing with Alice over her choice of clothing. NO YOU CAN’T WEAR A TUTU WITH A PAIR OF DUNGAREES, ONE SOCK AND A DORA THE EXPLORER BICYCLE HELMET. Oh fuck it, do what you want.

7.50am: Put Frankie’s school uniform on. The penny drops for Frankie that today’s a school day. He takes his school uniform off. I put it on. He takes it off. And so and so forth until: fuck it, go to school naked.  

7.55am: WE’RE LEAVING IN FIVE MINUTES. FIVE! ARE YOU READY? WHERE ARE YOUR SHOES? HAVE YOU BRUSHED YOUR TEETH? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IN THE BATHROOM THEN? TEETH! YOUR FUCKING TEETH! BRUSH YOUR TEETH!

8am: Ten-year-old shouts from the kitchen: MUMMMMMMMMM! You haven’t done my crunch ‘n’ sip! I shout back: I have done your crunch ‘n’ sip! It’s in the Ninja Turtle container! No it’s not! Yes, it is! Grab Ninja Turtle container, take off the lid: SEE, IT’S FUCKING … oh, it’s rice. It’s leftover rice. My apologies. Hand 10-year-old the OTHER Ninja Turtle container, am reminded of the time I sent him to pre-primary with anchovies instead of mandarin segments. Laugh for a bit.

8.05: DID YOU BRUSH YOUR TEETH? Ten-year-old laughs. I forgot! I brushed my hair instead!

8.10: Look for keys. Can’t find keys. Suddenly realise there’s every possibility that I’ve left the keys IN the car. Go to garage. Try to open door to the garage. Garage door locked … with the keys that are in the car. Which is in the garage. Which is locked. Swear in various languages.

8.12: Ring Paul, for moral support more than anything. Swear some more. 

8.13: I upturn every draw in the house looking for the spare key. I find hair clips, tweezers and expired asthma puffers, but NO KEY.

8.14: I find the fucking key, open the door, retrieve the car keys from – yes – the car.

8.15: WRESTLE THREE CHILDREN INTO THE CAR. ONE NAKED, TWO WITHOUT SHOES, BUT THREE IN THE CAR.

8.16: Weep gently as I reverse down the driveway and over a child's peppa pig scooter, realising I’ve forgotten my own shoes, sanity and any semblance of dignity I may once have had.