I have to confess something really terrible. I drank alcohol while pregnant. Drank it before I actually got to know I was pregnant. Yes, yes, it was unplanned, unexpected and yes..quite understandable since I had sex after having missed a pill or two. Surely my attitude of forgetfulness and negligence had for most part of my life resulted in trivial consequences such as failing to return on time books to the library or for days losing sight of house keys. But then came a moment when it resulted in another human life. Gosh, I should have had a contraceptive injection or something more permament and independent of my clogged brain. Or should I?
Well, I do not regret having my babies. They are precious to me. What I regret is that I had not given them the start that most modern mothers give to their children, and they start giving it to them before the little creatures are even conceived.
Folic acid
Trust Funds
Registration with the best private school
To name just a couple.
I had given to my babies none of the good, healthy and future oriented stuff. Instead I smoked and drank. Drank and smoked. But only Until I found out that I was growing little stupified fetuses in me.
That 'stupified' bit actually is something what I wanted to write this post about.
My little daughter-1 year old -is lovely. But since the moment of her birth I had been utterly and deeply convinced she is afflicted with Foetal Alchol Syndrome. I saw in her symptoms of mental retardation since she was about 3 months. She could not speak coherently, could not point to the objects I named, and flashcards with letters beat her black and blue.
To make things more serious, she was born with a rather peculiar look. Add to that a few odd developmental abnormalities (problems with hips, skin, eye- of of which fortunately has since cleared) and there was no doubt as to the fact that she was infused with too much alcohol . I cannot describe the agony I went through because of the FAS diagnosis which I formulated myself, with a little bit of help of online forums and medical resources. Fuelled by guilt, my anguish began to become unbearable. And so was the sight of the growing older and ever more mentally impaired being.
I almost freaked out when she showed such abnormal behaviour as failing to recognize me in the mornings when she was 6 months old.
My heart jumped with horror when my friend's babies started waving bye byes, and she only stared.
I could not sleep for weeks, when she started scratching her head with her wrist instead of her her nails.
I was brought to tears when she stuck her tough out and - drooling badly-kept it out there for hours. That surely looked stupid.
The anxiety stories can go on and on, but one turned to be just ground breaking.
My little girl, like most little girls, like to be carried. And I, like most busy mums, cannot do that all the time. So I put her down. Now, to me a reasonable child's behaviour would be to claw and tug at mum's skirt, wail, howl and cry uncontrollably until the fed up parent gives up and picks the stubborn munchkin up . That was at least what my older sensible son did. The little girl showed none of the 'sensible' perseverance , except for the perseveringly ear shattering howls and shrieking. So howling like mad, she never stayed by me, she just ran away, mostly to climb the stairs or a small coffee table made from glass. How bizarre. How unsensible. How mental. How stupid. How FAS.
NOT.
In fact, that actually turned out to me clever ploy. So clever it took me 4 months to understand it and appreciate.
That clever little girl achieved her goal (getting back into her mummy's arms)quicker and easier but doing something, she knew, I would stop her from doing immediately. Of course by picking her up.Clever. So much for FAS. Welcome sanity, and no, I won't drink to that.

What does a single girl do after a long and tiring day of hard work in the office? If not getting plastered in a pub, if not having a pseudo romatic date (only because of the candles), if not toning up her thighs in a gym, a single working girl collapses on a sofa, with a glass (bottle) of white wine and a fag. Bliss. Just letting the alcohol soothe the jumpy nerves, and smoke do the rest of the job, whatever it is (even if it's only cutting short by a few minutes the life of stress and chronic fatigue ).
Well, that is not the life of a single, working girl in the big city.
Apparently chardoney and fags are a mum's good friends.Revelation to me. I have to say. Since having babies I have found myself living the life of an Amish, well except for the very few special occasions when old and single friends come by with plenty of enthusism and wine bottles to drink their broken hearts better till small hours.
So back to mums and chardonney. A bottle at the end of a hard day filled with kids and housework seems to be the standard among mums, the stay at home type in particuler. Kids in beds, white whine out of the fridge. Kind of a treat to a woman whose biggest entertainment of the day is ...cannot really think of any, so will just leave the dots.
I tried that 'wine by the end of the day treat' yesterday. Bought the chardoneney at Tesco. Put it in a freezer. Could not wait for the moment of uncorking the bottle, opening the long started never finished book, putting my feet up...So - to fast forward my getting to the moment of bliss- I skipped the time consuming tasks of tooth brushing, nail clipping, ear cleaning, and bathing. Rushed the kiddies quickly into beds. Skipped every second page in a bed time story, well tried to do that, but the kiddies are not so stupid, they hate abridged versions of a story, so had to read the whole lot...got a bit fatigued...gave in to a bit of snooze, still smacking my lips at the thought of a chilled white.
The next morning, I found myself on the edge of the bed. With the book's pages squashed between my shoulder and head.
The first thing I thought of when I woke up was about the state of my pore clogged face, the make up of yesterday working overnight its way into the deepest realms of my skin horrified my enough to jolt me out of bed to have a good wash.
The next thing I thought was the completely unnecessary, annoying and awkward chore of the day: how the hell will I clear the broken bottle of chardonney from the freezer?

A few posts back I wrote that I was about to throw myslef in the full time frenzy of finding full time time job. You know, it's the 20 CVs per day frenzy and registering with X number of online recruitment agencies, those who spend a lot of time claiming they have the dream job for me, but after the first phone call give up delivering the dream to me. In other words, they never get back to me. Surely, I am not that stupid, or that rude, or that forgettable. Am I..am I...am I..??????Anyway, digressions aside, I started with the subject of job hunting, just to announce that there was a slack in the activity. Worry not, pick it up, I will soon. It's just some other daily life activities interfered and stole the time.And energy for that matter. And my enthusiasm dropped too. But today, I got fired up again about the whole business to get a job. I met my rich friend. A mum of a lovely, though outsized toddler. Her chief concern of the day every day is to make her life just soooo perfect for herself and her tod; she does it by hunting down for her little offspring the perfect pair of socks perfectly matching his new booties, getting dead set on finding a pair of sandals with a buckle made from pure silver, and swooping in Boots on the last pack of wipes saturated with just the perfect blend of botty soothing herbs.Then, when she accomplishes those deeds, she takes a brief break in front of the telly only to ponder how imperfect her deeds (i.e.purchases) actually were and starts heading back to the shops to have the imperfect goods replaced, refunded or repaired.
OK, so how does that tie in with my earlier statement about me getting fired up to find a job..? Well, I guess I would love to have the money to buy the silver buckle sandals, the lavender scented socks, the gold coated wipes and other fab what nots. But then, I missed one link in my chain of thought. It's not her job that pays for her extravagances, it's her husband. So where does that leave me? Well, I think I will just have to curb my desire to buy, buy, buy and serve it to my cynic mind on a plate of sour grapes. After all, those silly spenders of their rich husbands' money have lives so little, they can easily be filled with a dozen reciepts from Debenhams, John Lewis or Laura Ashley. My life takes far more. Even if it is 2356 signs worth of blog post.

Has anyone ever wondered what SAHMs go through ? Well, apart from the piles of dirty nappies and wipes after wipes after wipes...Why does any sensible, educated and enlightened by the stroke of feminism woman would choose to stay at home in the company with inarticulate, irrational, incontinent, incapable creatures? Some call it maternal instinct. Yes, there is some of that. But it does not stretch so far as to make life feel like bliss made in heaven. And when it does stop stretching, life becomes a dreary and stressful experience. How much can anyone endure hours of monotonous whinging, moaning closely followed by fits of tantrums, during which food lands on the ceiling and on a CD player. Well, no sane woman could endure that for long.Not for the 2,3,4,0r even 10 years that many women choose to stay at home with their offspring. So why do they do that? I have a theory about that, and it says that they choose full time mummying because the alternative is gruelling and gruesome. The alternative is to 'have it all': nice home and a nice career. Except that 'nice' is more often in theory than practice. Nice career often, in most cases of working women, amounts to spending 8 hours per day at the till, at the computer, at the phone, at the shelves, or at some other inanimate object with which we are asked engage to produce some not so nice money (not nice because it is never enough to comfortably cover full time child care expenses, bags of nappies, and basic essentials to keep the family alive such a case of chardonney per month). Add to that, the arsehole of a manager (what kind of recruitment system is in place in this country that it's always arseholes that get promoted?) and the choice becomes a no-brainer. Yeah, cots, snots and play blocks , give them to me any time, they just seem to be a doddle. Of, course, high flying career women have none of these concerns. But then they belong to a different breed, I guess one that should stop breeding. After all the 30 minutes of 'quality' time with their children can only ensure that their children remember what mummy looks and smells like. That's mad. But then women like it mad, in or out of the house..it's always mad. And sad.

A couple of days ago my best friend from high school paid us a visit. She stayed with us 3 days. It was a dizziness inducing breath of fresh air, that vist of her. Some real woman, with expensive perfume wafitng around her head and shoulders, matching jewellery, matching make-up, zero roots, strict GI diet, and maxi appetite for life. Some of that 'let's take care of number ONE' spirit rubbed off on me, but with only fleeting effect. She left us on Saturday, and today I am back to biscuit scoffing and earings in the knickers drawer ways of my life. With my life bursting at seams with tamtrums, dirty nappies, pukes and teething problems, it's hard to find two matching socks, not to mention earings.But that's my problem.
My friend has different issues to deal with. Unmarried. Unbabied. A bit put off by the time pressures of the rigmadomestic life , she is trying to decide if she parts to join the club. Surely, deeo down she knows that some crush turning into love turning into rampant sex churning off babies will do most of the decision making for her. But still, at least for now, she is being quite rational about it. She actually used the visit in our domestic chaos as a test. 'If they play with me and miss me once I am gone, then it's OK for me to have my own kids'She said with a wink, but only to conceal that she was dead serious about the result.
'Sure, why not. I'll tell you if they break down and cry for you when you leave'. And so she spent three days- to my utmost joy- playing with my children, dancing. drawing, rolling around the floor, and getting exhausted, but still reserving enough energy to crack a botlle of wine after kids have gone to bed.
Three days later...my friend is now gone
Kids are happy, no sign of tears, tucked away in beds
I am close to a nervous breakdown.

to write anything sensible. Just as well, it doesn't serve any purpose to anyone, except myself, sometimes..but not this time. Not tonight.