Tablecloth displacement

The tablecloth is a hit. People come round and exclaim: "OOH! What a lovely tablecloth." Then they brush their fingers across its surface and express surprise that it is plastic. "And how practical!" they coo. My neighbour has bought one too in a fit of tablecloth-envy. Hers has funky green apples on it. I am a trendsetter!
There's only one small problem. I bought it to disguise the paint, biro and scratch marks decorating the table. But after two weeks in situ the tablecloth is starting to bear all the signs signs of small people itself: paint, biro and scratch marks. The tablecloth bears this marginally better than the table did because the trendy floral design merges with the scribbles so that you hardly notice them. It really *is* all a metaphor for my life: however hard you try to make your life wipe-clean, it's just too difficult to remove the stains. Best just disguise them a bit with some pretty patterns.
Actually, talking about the tablecloth endlessly is really all just displacement activity. Have been suffering acute case of BadMotherItis brought on by 20 month old refusing to walk, three year old refusing to potty train and six year old refusing to let a civil word issue from her lips. Of course, each of these things is entirely my fault! I was too distracted to notice that Ava was nearly two yet still getting from A to B on her bottom, dragging one leg underneath her and thus weakening it (a course of physio and possibly a leg brace now beckons, the thought of which makes my eyes go watery every time). I was too lazy / distracted / exhausted to spend my weekends putting my three year old on the potty every 15 minutes and now have precisely three and a half months to resolve the issue before he is refused entry to school. I was too soft on my six year old and I am suffering the consequences. Must Try Harder. Must Try Harder.
And, breeeeeeeeathe!

Wipe Out

Something has been bothering me for over a week now, and I have only just found the courage to formulate some sort of response to it. Thing is, last week, I went online and ordered a wipe-free tablecloth for our wreck of a dining room table. Yes, I really did. It's been bothering me ever since. What does this mean? Either (a) I have declined sadly into full-scale middle age; (b) I have lost all sense of taste, and have stepped onto the slippery slope of preferring practicality over beauty; (c) I am desperate to regain control over my so-out-of-control, scruffy house and this is a quite pathetic attempt to begin to overcome my sense of freefall, or (d) it is a metaphor for my life, which I wish could be wipe-clean. Or quite possibly a combination of all of the above. Please, no need to comment on that one. I felt only partially better when I saw that wipe-clean tablecloths come in a really quite stunning array of designs these days including those clearly targeting people like me who would like to have a wipe-clean tablecloth but would like to think they can still be 'cool' at the same time. And I felt better again when a colleague asked whether I had also bought a 'table protector' to go underneath my wipe-clean tablecloth. Thankfully, I hadn't, which apparently means I am not a fully-fledged middle aged person but am only slightly edging that way. Perhaps, you are thinking, I shouldn't let the wipe-free-tablecloth-buying thing concern me so much. After all, I clearly have bigger things to worry about. But no. I've tried, and it's still bothering me! (Is there such a thing as 'off-setting' to achieve cool-factor points? Err, for example, does it count that I still wear Urban Decay make-up?) Oh dear, perhaps I should just send it back....

Things I never thought I'd hear myself saying. But I do.

The expectation management thing didn't work. Largely because even though I set myself some reasonable Expectation Management Goals (see previous post) I still secretly harboured the belief / unreasonable hope that I would exceed them. See, this is the problem with the whole concept of Self Management. You can't actually kid yourself. In fact, increasingly I wonder whether I am kidding anyone. Even my all-under-the-age-of-six children. It's the way they look at me when I come out with things like, "Try to remember who's in charge here!" As if they have no idea who's in charge and wish someone would bloody well make it clear or at least take some reasonably decisive action. Which leads me to the list I've been compiling of other such phrases of which I once lived - blissfully ignorant - on the receiving end, but now have to listen to myself saying with increasing disbelief and horror:

"Don't speak to me / your father like that, young lady."
"Come here, this instant!"
"Do I make myself clear?"
"That's enough of your cheek, young lady / young man"
The use of 'young lady' and 'young man' in general when implying disapproval
"Just what do you think you're doing?"
"We'll see. Maybe. If you behave yourself."

It is a concern. Paul is turning into a less funny blend of Victor Meldrew and Basil Fawlty and I am turning into I don't know what. Just some kind of haridan, I think.

Expectations are low

One thing I'm supposed to have learned over the years is how to manage expectations, those of everyone from my kids through to my boss. Problem is I don't seem to have worked out how to manage my own. So, in a valiant attempt to remind myself that I am very far from a superwoman here is a brief Expectation Management Message. It is the London Book Fair this week. I am presenting at two sessions on digital publishing, attending at least two parties, managing communications around several announcements and meeting with other publishers, technology providers, search engine companies and retailers. I may post a blog. Or I may not. I may indulge in further comfort eating. I will very likely spend more time staring at the mirror regretting the comfort eating and wondering how a person can suffer teenage-like skin DISASTERS (a huge spot on my cheek just as I am about to stand up in front of hundreds of people; typical) and be developing wrinkles all at the same time.
Eden is already counting the days till Friday when I will be at home again. So much so that she was quite beside herself when offered the choice of staying up to watch "I'd do anything" (yes, she is addicted) or coming upstairs to have a bath with Nathan, Ava and Mummy.
"OH! I want to do BOTH things so much! I REALLY want to see if my favourite Nancy will win but then I REALLY want to be with yoooooooo and, OH! It's too difficult to decide! Why can't I do both, Mummy?!"
I too am counting the days until Friday but can't guarantee what kind if shape I'll be in by then. The way things are going all I'll be good for is watching "I'd do anything." I MUST RESIST!

Back on the blog

Hello. Apologies for radio silence. I've been on holiday in Wales again. I know, I know, I really must break the habit. There are too many sheep and not enough mobile phone towers. Thus no wireless and definitely no blog. One or two work colleagues were more or less aghast at the thought I could willingly spend a whole week in a small caravan in the Welsh countryside with three small children and an exhausted house husband, but there it is. And Paul (said house husband) was pretty aghast himself when he saw the weather forcast for the week, which predicted rain, grey skies, sleet, that kinda thing. He actually suggested we just cancel the whole thing and hunker down at home.
"This isn't going to be a holiday!!" he screeched. "It's going to be a living HELL!"
Then one work pal told me he was so traumatised by a week in a caravan in Wales in the rain as a kid that he is sure it drove his Dad to drink and he has sworn never to take his family there so help him, over his dead body, etc etc. But we went. And it only rained once, over night. And it was absolutely brilliant. Especially getting up early (as usual) but (not as usual) having nothing to rush about for, so lolling about in the caravan watching the sun come up, drinking coffee and eating croissant with chocolate spread with the kids. (I KNOW, but it really tastes quite nice. Obviously I only eat it to keep them company). So there.

P.S. I finally changed the picture decorating this blog. It's a snap from the holiday.

Pile up

It is 10.30pm and I am peeling play-dough from the surface of several books which I have found scattered on the stairs. It is the result of my absent-mindedly agreeing with Eden as I put the smaller two children to bed that it would be lovely if she could make me some 'cakes' in her 'cafe'. In a matter of minutes I find myself holding a book with a thin spreading of play-dough across its surface, pretending to eat it with one hand as I change Ava's nappy with the other. And a few hours later, as I continue my peeling, I consider again the life in which I discover myself, occasionally with a sense of surprise, sometimes a vague horror, more often than not a warm acceptance and comfort.
Today, I am in the mood to contemplate contentedly, to giggle at the state in which I find myself - as is so often the case. And it occurs to me that it is no wonder the number of 'guilt piles' I am stockpiling - the piles of photos still untransferred into albums; the piles of artwork delivered home by the children, still unsorted and waiting to be glued into scrapbooks; the piles of household paperwork, waiting to be filed; the piles of clean washing, tottering precariously on the stairs, on chairs in the children's bedrooms and just about anywhere you can imagine. The piles are like scurf; they litter my mind, but also they wash to and fro with the tides of my thoughts. If it is 10.30pm and I am peeling plasticine from the surface of books, if it is 10.30pm and I haven't yet sat down simply to relax, to watch some TV or to read a book... then really, is it any wonder? And I choose to let the tide go out again. I look down at the ball of plasticine in my hand and I hold my head back and I laugh.

Free time comes with a price

Over time I've pretty much become an old pro at cutting off emotionally from home life in order to get through the day at work. As I close the front door (sometimes against screams of protest from Ava) I've come to harden myself, take a deep breath and set off into my day. It's more or less an unconscious effort. If I'm honest, I'm so busy most days that I spend very little time really thinking about the children. They are an essential part of me and in that sense they are always with me, like a part of my soul, but I don't spend time in the office wistfully wishing I could be with them or worrying unduly about them. Their pictures smile out at me from my desk and I glance at them now and again but generally not with anxiety or concern or even sadness at being apart from them. Maybe that sounds cold-hearted but it is the reality of how I cope, day to day.
What I find much more difficult is the days of the week that I don't work, and even the parts of the day around my office hours. This time is firmly set aside in my mind as 'family time' - and I've noticed increasingly that I find it extremely anxiety-inducing to be apart from any of the children during this dedicated kid time. In the mornings as I take a shower or make toast for the children in the kitchen I have come to resent every minute not spent in their company; I rush through tasks to speed my return to them; I have to resist the urge to keep them up later than their allotted bedtime just so that I can cuddle each of them for a few more minutes; and God forbid that I should use 'family time' to go have a haircut or a manicure. That would be sacrilege indeed.
On Saturday, this anxiety reached new proportions. Eden was performing in her end of term ballet show, which clashed with Ava's nap and was simply not a suitable form of entertainment for Nathan (or rather, he was not a suitable form of audience for it, being unable to sit on a chair for more than a microsecond or go without making loud raspberry noises for even less time than that). I was simply going to have to leave the two little ones at home while I went to see Eden in her show. Right after the ballet show there was an Easter fayre at a local school and it made more sense for me to go straight on to that with Eden, leaving the other two at home. But that would mean I was going to leave Nathan and Ava with Paul for two or three hours *on a Saturday*. Shock, horror. No, really. Back and forth I went with Paul on the logistics of whether I should risk taking Nathan to the ballet performance - and if not whether I should come back for him and Ava before going on to the fayre - or whether I should not take Eden to the fayre, possibly risking upsetting Eden but allowing me to get back to Nathan and Ava earlier than I would otherwise.... I stopped mid-flow, noticing suddenly that Paul was looking at me askance. Actually, that is putting it rather too kindly. He was looking at me as if I was a batty old fool and clearly wondering where his usually calm and unruffled wife had disappeared to and wishing I would stop burbling on like a nutcase about something so trivial.
"Of course you should just go, see Eden in her ballet performance. And why not take her to the fair afterwards? I'll look after the other two. What are you worrying about?" he asked, in a reversal of our usual roles (he is usually the one to fuss, me the one to offer calm, logical solutions).
Of course he was right. And of course that's what I did. Friends I met at the fayre reminded me how good it was for Eden to get a bit of one-on-one time with me without the endless interruptions of the little ones. But it didn't stop me feeling an underlying sense of guilt all the time I was apart from them and it didn't stop me driving home with an enormous sense of urgency to be with them again. Why can't I simply relax? What is my problem? As a friend commented later on, "I know, you just can't help it. It's rubbish, isn't it?"