Playground Politics

"I've got enough friends"; that's my mantra.  I've got the girls I couldn't live without who I can fit on the fingers of both hands and then I've got a lot of other people in my life that I love spending time with.  Really though, to make the grade these days, someone needs to be pretty fucking funny (and not expect any phone contact).

Having joined the ranks of full-time Mums however, I'm coming into a lot of contact with a lot of new people on a twice-daily basis in the playground.  I have quickly sussed the couple of people that may become  real friends one day, the handful that I like passing the odd anecdote with and the people that I can't be arsed with, at all.  The problem that I struggle with is that playground law seems to dictate that any boring old bird can imagine that they are your bezzie just because you happen to have kids at the same school.  Now I do a good line in 'fuck off' faces but some people just don't seem to get the message.  ('Fuck' twice in one blog post already, so quickly it is unravelling.......)

I think I shocked one of the decent Mums the other day by explaining that one of other Mums made me feel like headbutting her.  Not appropriate middle-class St Albans speak by any means.  One of my BFFs Samantha is realising that the four years hard labour she has put in forming decent relationships with other playground Mums is potentially being devestatingly and irreparably damaged by my embarrassing bad manners.


Maybe in a few years I will hurtle into middle age and realise that I have a lot more in common with these people than I first thought.  Or maybe, I've got enough friends.

Oh I do like to be beside the sea!

I took a little 48 hour holiday from my life this weekend and returned to the kind of life I used to have before I had children.  My friend Kate and I cheerfully waved goodbye to a husband and two children a piece, and, with more than a touch of the look of Thelma and Louise, jumped into my car and headed to Hastings.  We were ridiculously over-excited from the off.  If we told each other once, we told each other ten times, that sitting in an hour-long traffic jam on the M25 was actually a real treat as we had no time constraints and, more importantly, no kids whinging in the back.

We had a fabulous weekend staying with the lovely Tina and Al.  When you've all known each other for over 20 years (holymotherofgod) then it doesn't matter if you haven't seen each other for a while as you quite quickly slip back into chatting the same old shite you always have.  Nothing was too much trouble for our hosts; Tina baked us cupcakes while we had an afternoon nap and Al got a bottle of Veuve out of the cupboard and started chilling it as "we might as well drink it when someone who really loves champagne is here".  When I, (very infrequently, please don't get any ideas), have people to stay with us, I would be more likely to nap myself while my guests entertained each other and I would without doubt hide the decent champagne so that I didn't have to share it!

Did I miss my kids?  No, not really.  I revelled in staying up late (yeah, like totes past midnight and everything), getting up late, never looking at my watch or knowing or caring what the time was, eating when I was hungry and gluttonously when I wasn't, being irresponsible, lazy and selfish.  I wound down into this delightful creature within seconds of getting in the car on Friday but it took me a good few hours to rev up again into being "Mummy" today.

Stu was relaxed when I returned, the kids were happy and fed (if a little glazed with a weekend's worth of sugar rush) and the house wasn't a shit-tip.  Nice one.  Will I be a better mother this week because I've had a weekend's worth of me time to recharge my batteries?  No, probably not if I'm honest.  The weekend's glow will fade too quickly.  That won't stop me from doing it again though.

Monkey Music the morning after the night before

I am a big fan of Monkey Music, as is Sebi.  Normally I can think of no better way to pass 35 minutes on a Thursday morning than prancing around a filthy community centre that smells of cabbage singing cheery songs, but not today, not hungover.

The last two Thursdays I have been most definitely hungover and I blame the government.  There's always been a rule in our house regarding 'No alcohol Mondays' which we have adhered to reverently, (obviously excluding bank holidays).  Recently though, the news reports screaming about the importance of two alcohol-free days a week have begun nagging at my alcoholic subconscious and the previously relatively painless 'No alcohol Monday' has turned into a more arduous 'No alcohol Mondays AND Tuesdays'.  By the time the kids hit the sack at 7pm on Wednesday evening therefore I am gasping for vino.  I seem to be trending towards organising a night out every Wednesday, almost as a celebration of surviving on the wagon for two days.  Last night was oysters and champagne and raucous laughter in Loch Fyne with Samantha.  All good fun and I was in bed by 11, but I'm really not the woman I used to be and am feeling a tad on the bleary side of normal this morning.

So Monkey Music was a bit of a trial.  The friendly smiley teacher that I normally rate quite highly made me want to head-butt her within seconds.  The oh-so-cheery jingly songs made me want to vomit and I sat on my mat glowering and half-heartedly doing the bare minimum, looking I'm sure pretty similar to how I looked about twenty years ago in art and gym lessons at school.  Seb was more than a little bit embarrassed of me I think and luckily raised his game to compensate.  He headed into a kind of musical theatre-esque performance, eclipsing the sight of his sulky, smelly, sickly Mummy behind him.  Seven three-year olds drumming with great vigour at the end nearly sent me over the edge; maybe I should've subtley worn earplugs like the Queen at the Jubilee Concert?

I imagine that the health professionals who published the alcohol guidelines weren't necessarily suggesting that the answer is to go and get shitfaced on day 3 each week.  I think however, until I get more cheerful about two days off the sauce each week then I'm afraid alcoholic Wednesdays are going to be a permanent weekly feature; along with grumpy cow Thursdays....

Splish Splash Dosh

We are nearing the end of Zak's sixth term of swimming lessons, and he can't swim.  I would say that he is ever so slightly nearer being able to swim than he was six terms ago, but only ever so slightly.....  That means I have spent £420 on him not learning to swim.  Depressing.  It is a small group, the teacher is good and in the water with them, and week after week I watch other children becoming swimmers, but not really Zak.

Zak isn't built like a swimmer and he is built like his father.  Now Stuart can swim; if you chucked him off the side of a boat he wouldn't drown, but he is not a natural swimmer.  The best way I can describe it, (sorry darling), is a little bit like a dog when it swims in the sea.  Lots of energy and enjoyment but no grace.  Zak is definitely going the same way.

It wouldn't be so bad if the whole experience wasn't so bloody painful as well as expensive.  The swimming pool is heated to an oven-like temperature so you are dripping with sweat before the lesson has even started.  Sebi spends his time in the changing room pissing everybody off by jumping out of lockers and then spends the time that Zak is in the pool testing me to see how close he can get to the edge before I leap up and grab him.  I'm sure he has a touch of OCD and cannot bear the way that the teacher leaves the floats and toys in such a mess on the side so busies himself by tidying them into nice neat piles which earns him some strange looks from the other mothers.  It would be fine if the teacher would just let him get on with it but she has said, very pointedly, "he doesn't need to do that for me thanks", which means I should really try and stop him but what she doesn't realise is that interfering with his tidying will result in a series of high-pitched screams which could possibly clear out the pool and the gym as they could definitely be mistaken for a fire alarm.

Over the past couple of weeks Zak has cottoned onto the fact that he is a little taller than other children in his class so when he is shallow enough he can hop across the bottom of the pool moving his arms and making suitable swimming-like facial expressions instead of actually bothering to swim.  It's killing me not pointing this out to the teacher but I remember the red mist I used to have if a TA dared to point out something I had missed in a drama lesson, and I refrain.

Oh well, at least it is summer at the moment so I'm barefoot on the poolside instead of walking all the way back to my car in blue plastic overshoes every week.  Maybe he'll swim when he's five.....

That sinking Sunday morning feeling.....

So, I got a little over-excited about the prospect and the scope of cyber showing-off last night.  I emailed every man and his whippet to tell them about this blog.  Some part of my drunken brain somehow managed to delete my Dad (thank the Lord, he would NOT be amused), my sister (she would be less amused) and my Auntie in New Zealand who may have just been a bit traumatised from the email distribution list before I sent it.  However, I did think that some of my Dad's friends and my ex-boss would be interested, (hello David), and a string of people I have worked with over the years would really, really want to read about my children's toilet habits....  Cringing as I type this.  I can only hope that they have already added my email address to Spam and the emails won't be delivered.  Who the hell do I think I am?!

Which leaves me with a problem: how on earth am I going to stop myself posting on this thing when I'm pissed?  I have had three glasses of wine as I am writing this but that is surely acceptable.  It is Father's Day after all, and I have a father, and live with a father, and Sebi pooed his pants twice today so it is technically medicinal.  Shelley, my BFF, suggested once that I should get some kind of brethalyser hooked up to my laptop so that it ceases to function if I am over an acceptable limit.  Very good idea, maybe someone who is technically minded and reading this could invent it and I will do the marketing and product testing?

For now I will just have to deal with the Sunday morning shame every week, or stop being such a sad old git and start going out on Saturday nights again...

An A-Typical Saturday am

Stuart emerged from his smelly post-football-watching-spare-bed-pit remarkably early this morning.

We had been invited to Zak's Reception class 'book signing' (I kid you not) this morning.  Zak's class created a robot out of recycled materials over the last couple of terms and all the children had drawn a picture of this robot and written a sentence about it.  Someone with a canny business head, or a partner in publishing, (sorry to be so suspicious) had decided to put all these stories together and publish it in a book entitled "Reece, The Recycled Robot".  These books were being flogged this morning at Waterstones for ten pounds a pop, (although it was possible to purchase three for twenty pounds, if you were so inclined).  So we dutifully popped along and bought one of these treasures which Zak signed with a kiss.  It could've all been lovely if Sebi hadn't decided to throw a tantrum about the fact that we couldn't buy an exact replica of the 'Monkey Puzzle' book that we already own, just because this one happened to be shiny and new.  He demonstrated his annoyance by laying face down on the bookshop stairs and howling.  I tried to joke with the reception teacher about it being hilarious that she was going to have to deal with him in just over a year's time but she didn't seem to see the funny side of it.  I'm not sure I would if I was having to fulfill my teaching obligations early on a Saturday morning....

We managed to distract the public and headmaster's attention by telling one of my BFF that her hubby, who had been in the same state and the same hostelry as my unfortunate husband last night, had set off a fire extinguisher and drowned a pool table in foam.  Every cloud....