finding my place on earth

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.

I have been feeling a bit unsociable lately. But that's hardly surprising, - my ugly and distorted look (aka coldsores, about which I wrote yesterday) sapped all the residual confidence in me. But willy nilly, I had to go out and face the big world. My 3-year old had to be taken to the nursery. And Shopping had to be made.
Having smeared my lips with zovirax and donning a pair of sunglasses (as if they could help), I set off.
Our neighbourhood is quiet (apart from the one off shooting, siege or sexual assault), so I did pretty all right all the way to the bus stop. There I had to face the Bus Driver.He smiled. He just smiled.Nothing but smiled. His jaw firmly attached to the hinges, no sign of dropping uncontrollably on the steering wheel, 'accidently' honking a horn, stopping the traffic and announcing through a megaphone: I have a monster on board. 'Gosh, they must be trained to keep their nerve, those public transport drivers'. -I thought. I and my child took our seats, and I started to get relaxed. With my eyes busy counting the trees in the street, I managed to avoid eye contact with everyone on the bus. I was doing all right for 5 minutes. And it wasn't until I had to move a bit my neck (it was getting stiff) and eyes with it, that I realized the bus was empty. Big relief/ As they say, the things that we worry most about often never happen, ...but- very much my xperience- sometimes, they do
The moment I dropped my boy at the nursery and went shopping I started getting the LOOKS, from almost every passer by. And the looks spoke all sorts of things/.For instance
1. the old lady on the bench look said: what a nice mummy, pity the disease
2. the prim, middle aged and middle class woman screamed with her eyes: Gee, don't you dare to get close, I am sure that nasty thing is catching
3. some fat office girls waddling along to Pret a Manger looked at me with the expression: ok we may be fat, but at least we look human and can have a laugh
4. A white down and out, beer holding, rug wearing guy did not look, he coughed and coughed again, which meant: she's got Aids!
5.dark skinned man with a cigarette looked and muttered (I could have sworn I heard!)- somebody had one blow job too many, slut.

How did all that make me feel? Of course oppressed, harrassed and depressed. At least I know that in a few days time I will be better: coldsore free. And still young, white, slim, sane and sober.Unlike the others..above mentioned. Oppressors.

The bank holiday was a complete disaster. And it was not only that rain and no sun whatsoever. It was my flu-like condition. High fever, the strained muscles feeling all over my body. I just wanted to have a quiet time, preferably in bed, with a nice cup of warm tea delivered to me. Fat chance, wishful thinking, get real silly me. No down time for me when two kids are toddling around and their father is complaining of some vague pains and aches too. So he basically labelled himself 'unwell' and unfit to take over the 'madhouse' for a few hours.Then, on the last day of the bank holiday he left. To work. The children were quick to fall asleep. I could have an early night. Blissss.....not for long though,: my happy time ended in a burst of tears this morning when I woke up with my lips bursting with god knows how many blisters . They are all over. Like little beads lined along and around my lips.
Covered in tonnes of zovirax, I am now trying to have a bit of a sandwich, but I'd better settle for a drink with a straw. Am not sure though if I could do the spout with my lips necessary for sucking that juice..On second thought I will just go to bed.
In pain. Distorted. Ugly. Hungry..

OK there is a funny side to my facial tragedy. I have just looked at myself in the mirror in the dim light of the bathroom. And I discovered I have got Victoria Beckham pout. But without the trying...
may well just run downstairs to get the drink and straw. A pout -may be just as good as a spout.

Took the kids to the playground today. Hate that. Not the playground itself, but the theatre that goes on amongst parents. They just can never behave normally. At least in my local parks. They are always so hyper, on an almost E-induced ecstasy when it comes to their offspring's little physical activities. It's always all so super, so well done, and fanstastic, so wow, you are a star, so great everything. And no matter if it is only a few swings by a drowsy tod, no matter if it's some clumsy and half-way-brought-to a halt attempt on a 20 inch slide, anything the little 'brats' do always have to be accompanied by louder than usual gushes of excitement. All produced by the parents, naturally. The children normally remain either silent or get fits of tantrums. And who wouldn't?
Is that how little kiddies are being brought up to be confident grown-ups in the UK? I suspect that is the intention. To bring up children who truly, no matter what the truth is, believe in themselves, and believe in being a great star (food for thought for Simon C.? :-)

And the results of it all? Dubious, I would say, at the very least. Having lived in England for more than 10 years, I'd say the English are rather shy and uncertain of other members of public, the smile is OK but words are intrusion mentality must have something to do with the traumatic amounts of embarassment they endured at the tender age of playground games.

By the way, I don't play that 'wow, you're so great' game with my own kids. All they hear from me is: get on with it and be careful not to break your leg, or neck, or your arm, and don't let go cause you'll smash your tender skull in smithereens. He he he ....hope the conspiring universe won't take it as a wish..

My looking for job is not going well at all. I got a rejection letter. It came first class. Why did they bother...I think I prefer no news instead of the standard 'on this occasion you were not selected'. At least, in the absence of bad news, I

Funny how my motherhood has changed my attitude to money. Before money was not an issue. There was always some cash in my account. And more importantly there was the certainty that more was due to come on a specified day of the month. So I was not particulalry bothered to have spent 50 quid on a round of beers for a bunch of people, whose names, faces and their peculiar 0-in more or less detail discussed- hobbies, observations or feelings had evaporated from my memory by the time I took my hangover busting morning coffee (naturally the expensive sort, from Starbucks). God, if I had not been spending lavishly on beer and that coffee for years and years as a single, fully employed silly girl, I would have at least owned half of the house in which I live with my partner. But then, I never had even for one second thought I would end up with two children, no earnings and a partner to take the sole responsibility for my (our) existance.

So now, 3 years down the line of mothering, I am determined to pull myself together and find myself money earning occuption.As a matter of fact I have already started sending my CVs. I am prepared to take on anything. So far, so so bad. Rejection.rejection. total dejection...On the plus side, some firms informed me I was overqualified. But most did not bother to get in touch.

Cannot give up, there are so many things I need the money for!!!I guess, this this the first time in my life that any job advert that says: looking for money-motivated individual is for me! Although, I always have the feeling that beneath that statement lies a call for some sucker prepared to accept a crap basic and a sweet prospect of bitterly unrealistic OTE. Am I wrong..

I guess that should be the title of this blog. I am almost the sole carer of my two children. Almost 24/7. My partner works away a lot, and pops around for fleeting visits once or twice a week. With him away from home, I am in charge of two helpless human being, who are lovable, messy and unpredicatble, who throw up, throw tantrums or simply pee on the throw. The older one has been ill for a couple of days and so banned from attending his nursery or any other social gatherings. This meant social exclusion for me for many many hours in a row. Today my frustration with the domestic imprisonment with kiddy babbling for entertainment peaked, and I threw a tantrum of my own. Surely, I am just a human being, in fact a temperamental toddler in strangly overstretched, wrinkly skin and suprisingly dry pants. Smashed a bottle of milk against the wall (thank God they are plastic in this country- the bottles I mean, not the walls)and ..well probably will stop writng now lest any social workers or health visitors read this and decide to pay you a visit. I want to assure only that neither of my children shared the fate of the milk bottle, neither flew so far as the wall..

It's quite uncanny how much total strangers feel empowered to interefere in your life, here in the UK. Especially, when you have children. Or, on second thoughts, probably only when you have children, and the intereference is all about the children, for their good, for their sake and in their interest. Otherwise you are left alone..whether you want it or not.

I don't remember having a temperature more than 38C myself, so when my 3 year old son had 40 C I panicked. He was all blazing hot, eyes rolling, head drooping. And giving in to a bit of raving..'I am miserable. I don't love you' Poor little boy. I rushed him to the doctor's and heard from her- on medical examination- it was just a viral infection. Nothing serious, but she gave me a warning: stay alert and watch out for the realy serious symptoms. Eyes senstitivity , drowsiness, stiff neck. Oh, and -very important- those purple spots that when you rub them would not blanche, ie. go white. And, pour as much fluids into him as possible. Also give him some ligh food to eat . Food and Fluids: that may be difficult- I thought to myself. This boy just survives on air and all the invisible or visible particles floating in it. Anything served on something as suspicious as a plate or glass is dismissed after two bites or gulps. But anyway I took him home, full of hope he would be all right. Just before we reached the house, we popped to our local shop and got a big rasperry icecream. 'That's smart'I thought smugly of my tactic to trick trickle some liquid down the young patient's throat. My son tucked in, with a little help from the hot sun. Actually half of the icecream melted and poured down his arm by the time we reached home, but worry not. Soap and water did the trick, and as for the light blue shirt so messed with the apparently indelible fruity stains, well stains -I had developed a kind of a blind spot for them quite a long time ago. Around the time when I was putting my son on solids for the first time..
Back at home, I stayed alert. As the day went by, and the bottle of calpol got emptier, my little boy seemed better. Less hot, less tired. I felt less panicky. The atmosphere was peaceful and cosy until around 6 pm, when my boy almost collapsed on my lap and said he wanted to go to bed. Such volunteering happens very rarely. Was he becoming unarousably drowsy? I felt suspcious, but decided to stay clam. As I stroked his head, and his arms, I saw THIS and jumped up. In fright. In panick. In almost paralysing fear. There, around his elbow, were two big purple patches. I rubbed them, they would not blanche. With my heart pounding its way out of my chest, I grabbed my mobile phone and dialled 999. 'I need an ambulance, my son is got meningitis.' There was a questions asking voice on the other side of the line, but the furious rush of blood through my head drowned everything out. 'I know.. I know for sure, he had a high fever since yesterday, and has just deteriorated, please me address....' I forced myslef to calm down a bit, when the voice refused to take my address before I answered some questions.
'Yes, he has..no he hasn't....yes they are purple, yes big..on his arms, no, they would not go white...I am rubbing them right now..Yes, RUBBING. And they are not going white..no...Hold on a sec..they seem to be going. No, no, not white, they just seem to be going, I mean going completely away..Disappearing, vanishing...Gosh I think it's false alarm..I am sorry to bother you. I truly am sorry.
I put the receiver down, and tasted his arm. The purple spot tasted of rasperry.

This is what my 3 year old son told me today.
We woke up. At 7 a.m. Quite a norm. Washed, got dressed,ate breakfast.He bit a toast with jam three times. Then said -ENOUGH- the word that drives me nuts.
Then I declared we would go to socialise in the local park, meet some friends, have some fun. 'I don't want' he said. The 3 year old stood in the hallway, stubborn. refusing to move. He does it on occasion when he wants to be difficult for some reason.I negotiate with him for a minute or two. No use. He says he is wobbly, which in his language means 'shiverish', which I take just as a sign of his morning tantrum. So I decide not to take any shit, and do what I planned to do: meet another mum with her toddling daughter. I open the door. Get out. With the younger child in the pram. I rattle the keys. Make a stern face. The 3 year old follows reluctantly. I nudge him to step on his buggy board. He cries. I take him by his hand and place it on the pram handle. 'Hold on tight' I say with a forced playfulness. Off to the park. Beautiful sun, some breeze. All perfect, except for the crying, crying, crying. Have had enough. I can feel tension growing up in me, and try to release it by quickening my pace. I start running. When I reach the park I am slightly out of my breath. Some swinging, some playing around, and the three year old starts throwing up, complains of stiff neck and looks as if he is about to faint. I call for an ambulance. A few medical checks later, I Get reassurance that all is OK. 'He seems OK. He just looks a bit fed up. Call us if his condition gets worse'- one of the paramedics says. On our way back home, my son says he is miserable. I ask him why. He tells me that I took him out of the house crying and paid no attention to his shivers.'Mummy, I am sad' he cries. 'I am sorry. Tell me, how I can make you happy. Tell me, what I can do for you' I ask. 'Nothing' he says.'Why' I ask worried. His eyes get teary. 'Mummy, I don't love you'