About Me

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A first time mum at 39, trying not to let my son kill me off too soon. Busy juggling a new family, a new house and a tricky recording schedule I figured blogging would be less expensive than therapy and less embarrassing than shouting at rude and stupid people in the street/on trains/at the supermarket.

Tuesday 23 April 2013

Single mums - I salute you!

In the last year I have been pretty thankful, on one or two occasions, that I can share the 'burden' of Boychild with Husb but last night I really could not have been more thankful! 

Just before 1am, I was woken by the sobbing of Boychild.  It's pretty unusual for him to wake up at that time and even more unusual for him to sound so inconsolable.  I went in and found him kneeling in his cot covered in, and surrounded by, vomit (tmi - apologies).  He'd clearly thrown-up in his sleep and woken up in it as it was everywhere - in his hair, in his ears and eyes, on his sleeping bag and sleepsuit, the cot bumper and obviously all over the sheet.  

All of a sudden I felt this wash of panic and in a very 'ER' kind of way I yelled to Husb, 'gonna need some help in here!'.  

Thankfully, within an hour of waking, Boychild was sleeping peacefully once more after being stripped, bathed, redressed, read-to and, most importantly, cuddled quite a lot.  In fact, we found that he had left a teddy or two behind in our bed and, between you and me, I quite enjoyed snuggling up to them.

Whilst I really could have done without being on red alert for a whole hour less than 3 hours after falling asleep, it was all over fairly quickly and I was asleep not long after my little man.  But this morning it got me thinking.  The only reason everything went so smoothly and swiftly was because the load was shared between two people.   I stripped Boychild whilst Hubby ran the bath and then Hubby bathed him whilst I stripped the bed, cleaned it, remade it and found some clean nightwear.  I took the still sobbing munchkin and cuddled him dry as Husb emptied the bath and tidied the bathroom and then I loaded the washing machine and found a clean cuddly toy to take to bed while Husb dressed him.  All within about half an hour.

A full recovery seemed to have taken place by now and the previously sobbing child was now playing jumping games on the marital bed and trying to comb my hair (which basically involved bashing me on the head with the comb).  So we found some books, tucked him in the middle of us and let him 'read' for ten minutes, then bundled him up and took him back to his own bed and popped him down.  Within another few minutes he was snoring and stayed like that til morning.

What if Husb had been out/away on business/a total git who didn't get involved with his own child?  Surely this is the kind of situation a single mum has to deal with on a daily basis?  Don't misunderstand me, I have had to sort out Boychild alone when he's been ill in the past, but that was in the middle of the day, I was wide awake and we hadn't just moved, so I knew exactly where to find everything really quickly! 

Basically what I'm trying to say is 'mucho respect' to all the single mums out there - whatever the reason for your situation, you have a damn hard job and I salute you. 

Friday 19 April 2013

Why is everything so complicated?

My husband laughs at me.  A lot.  I think it's a safety mechanism to stop him from killing me.

He thinks I could make emptying a paper bag complicated.  But I swear, I don't do it deliberately.  

I think it's my years of having to investigate every eventuality of every situation with my job.  I have had to put myself in the mindset of a half-witted bloke (sorry for the sweeping generalisation) who has had his hand held by his agent, manager, studio manager, mummy, wifey (delete as applicable) every day and has done for the last 14 years.  So now, I can't just accept that the shopping is being delivered/the windows will be cleaned/the wardrobes will be assembled etc. I have to build in a contingency plan for all these situations.  But the thing is, I am seldom proved wrong.  Since we moved house, I cannot believe how complicated everything has to be.  Believe me when I say, I WANT SIMPLE!!!  I don't want to have to fight, negotiate or build in a back-up plan every time.   Tell me this isn't normal, tell me I've just been unlucky... please!?

1) Cooker was delivered - they couldn't install it due to there being no 'legal' power point in the vicinity.  The previous owners had installed their cooker illegally.  Great.  So we had to get in a 'man that can' to install a legal plug socket.

2) We had the burglar alarm company round when we took over the contract from the previous owners.  Great.  All simple surely. Nope. The bloke who set it for us, included our bedroom sensor (ie: upstairs) in the same group as the whole of the downstairs so now we can't set it when we go to bed as we set the bloody alarm off when we walk into the bedroom. We have to get them to come back and fix it. Fabulous.

3) The dishwasher was delivered yesterday.  Firstly, the pipe isn't long enough to plumb in  - again because of the previous owners and their ridiculous kitchen planning. Secondly, the door on the dishwasher is on wonky and so doesn't close properly without you jiggling it about.  Cue phone call asking for them to pick it up and deliver a new one.  It only took 3 attempts at which button to press on the automated service and 15 minutes on hold.  Lovely.

4) Back to the dishwasher.  Apparently we had to go back to the shop to choose another dishwasher as the one we picked doesn't lend itself well to having an extension pipe fitted to it. So we did.  Only it was out of stock.  Brilliant.   Today I got a text message saying it was in stock now and they would deliver between 7am and 8pm on Wednesday.  Erm, I think not.  Some of us have to work you know.  I change it to Saturday but am still astounded that they can only offer a 13 hour time slot.  Beginning to wonder if I even want a dishwasher now.....