Category Archives: LearnerMother

On eleven years ago today

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It was eleven years ago that Easter Monday fell on April Fool’s Day. Why do I know this? Because it was also the day that the Boyfriend became the Husband, nearly seven years after we started getting pissed together after work. Clearly, there should be some sort of warning on what a pint in the Betsey can lead to!

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So here we are today, via London, Cardiff and Cesky Krumlov, where we tied the knot. We’re a bit fatter, a lot greyer, and much, much tireder. Not any chuffing wiser, probably, but there you go. And somehow – somehow, we have managed to produce three amazing kids between us, and for that I don’t think either of us can believe our luck.

The thing about kids though, amazing or otherwise, is that they do take it out of you, particularly in the first few years. There have been weeks, and probably months, where our sole communication has been exhausted and terse functional exchanges about the kids or the businesses, interspersed by the odd curry being thrown across the room. Where we’ve held it together through a family day out, only to descend into competitive tiredness bitching the minute they have dropped off. Of course running two small businesses through a double dip recession has added a nice amount of stress to the mix, because there’s nothing like a few money worries to stretch the camel to breaking point. Or the straw. Whatever.

We’re still going, though. I’m not going to come over all roses and say it’s wonderful, because a)that’d make me puke and b)I know he reads this and it’d make him puke too. But, we are still going, despite some pretty hairy times these last few years. And now the kids are getting bigger, and sleep isn’t such an issue, and we’re just beginning to notice each other again it feels like we’re entering the next phase of our lives. I’m nervous – it feels like we have to get to know each other all over again – but I’m quite looking forward to it also.

We chose our first dance, Pulp’s ‘Something Changed’, because we felt it reflected on our situation perfectly – we were never expecting the other to be more than a passing fling, but something did change. And something’s changing again now. Happy anniversary, sweetheart x

On delegation versus dictation

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When we had son number one, we both had proper grownup jobs. We decided that I’d stay home as long as was feasible, so I didn’t go back to work, and we fell into the traditional roles – him breadwinner, me breadmaker. (That’s a lie. Perhaps I should say breadshopper). This was fine by me – I assumed that I’d go back to work eventually and that we’d re-evaluate roles at that point.

Fast forward a few years, and we have a 3 yo, a 5yo and a 7yo. We’ve owned a coffee shop for 5 years, (now sold), and set up a board games shop with a friend 3 years ago. But in essence, our roles have remained separate – he has gone ‘out’ to work at one or other of the shops, while I have done the business support & admin at home – and kept the home fires burning. But now I’m gradually finding my feet again in a career sense. I’ve worked on a couple of projects over the last year, and since Christmas have been working 3 days a week on quite a full-on contract, plus Saturdays in the shop, as well as the odd bit of consultancy, a fair chunk of shop admin, oh, and keeping the home fires burning.

Yeah, yeah, I’d like to be superwoman too. But I’m not, and so, despite my control freakery, something has had to give, and since they might notice in the office if a 6 foot grumpy git turned up instead of a caffeinated midget, I can’t exactly delegate that. I could give up my Saturdays on the shop but b)I want to keep my hand in and a)I get to go for a beer after work. Which leaves us with the home fires. And in theory that doesn’t pose a problem – the husband can be flexible in the hours he works, and he has, when pressed, hard, with a hot poker, expressed his willingness to help.

So – I’ve explained the rules. I’ve set up a shared calendar, introduced him to our household management plans on Workflowy, explained the importance of food planning (for which I use the excellent Mealboard by the way). I have left NOTHING to chance – my handover plan was a masterpiece. There is no possible way that anyone could cock this up – literally every eventually is accounted for.

Imagine my surprise when, after listening carefully to my instructions, and appearing to take them all in, (though he was watching The Wire at the time so it is possible that he was concentrating a little bit on that too), none of them were followed! Not a single one. There’s wii on school  mornings, sweets after school AND NOT JUST ON FRIDAYS, they suddenly all know (and love) the word fart, and a pizza apparently counts for at least three of their 5 a day.  To say this is winding me up is an understatement – I’ve spent 8 years on this – he’s been on it for about 8 weeks and already it’s falling apart!

Except for rule 1 – Do not lose any of them. He has kept to that.

Despite the terrible trauma of losing all the systems they have ever known, the kids seem quite chilled. So far, they are showing no signs of malnourishment – in fact I’d go so far as to say that my daughter has become distinctly less fussy when it comes to food. Annoyingly, they are late for school less often now than they used to be (I’d always be thinking I’d got time to get a wash on, or load the dishwasher, or something – and then it’d be 5 to nine and I’d be yelling like a banshee). And though there is definitely more wii/tv time than I’d like, they also get a healthy dose of non-electronic games and jigsaws and den building and general kid stuff – all of which I am pretty shit at, because my mind is always fast forwarding on to the next household task/meal/washing load to be done. Whereas the male mind (or at least my male’s mind) does not seem to do that.

So for now I am going to try not to stress about all the stuff that isn’t being done my way. Or possibly get therapy for it. We’ll see. *twitches uncontrollably*

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PS – Husband – this does not in any way imply acceptance of, or approval of, non-qualified methods. And I reserve the right to say ‘I told you so’ at the first sign of delinquency.

PPS – don’t even try to negotiate on rule 1.

On getting back to normal!

Family, LearnerMother,

So – the minute i allow myself to relax in the knowledge that life is running smoothly, it all goes tits up.

The kids had brilliant parents evenings, the surprise trip to Legoland is all planned and booked, the 3yo has a sleepover with his Nanny while the big ones have their friends staying over tonight. AND I have negotiated a free Saturday to go to Mostly Women Doing Digital in Swansea.

Looking good, huh?

Well. Now there is snow – SNOW – forecast for Monday at Legoland. But that’s fine, we can cope with that, I think to myself – I will just fire up the cold/wet weather project plan.*

Then I get a call from my Mum. The 3 yo has projectile vomited. Ok, we can work with this. I’ll drive to Mums’s and stay there with him, in the (probably vain) hope that he doesn’t pass it on to the bigger ones, plus sleepover friends. I’m a bit gutted as I was actually quite looking forward to spending some time with them all – but still, there’ll be another time.

So I’m driving up to Mums’s when the car starts juddering, like proper, bone shaking juddering. Oh, I think. Flat tyre maybe? I’ll get off the motorway, pull in and check it out. But as I slow down on the slip road, the juddering stops and for a few relieved minutes, I think maybe the motorway surface was just more bumpy than I’d remembered. Then the burning smell starts. And every time I go above 50, we are back to juddering. And smelling of burning. FFS.

Hmmmm. A buggered car, a vomiting child, no trip to Swansea, and a snowy and probably vomity Legoland. Life’s back to normal!

*yes, there is one. I am that sad.