Sugarbabes

I've skipped the routine of the week and cut to the chase for Friday's events...

Having made the children sleep in their uniforms (Yes I did do this once upon a time) for Thursday so that I can for once try and make it in early to the office stuffed my energy in re-telling what went down on that day. It was too traumatic that the memory would prolly not only scar my kids but myself if I have to re-live it.

Anyway...What people drink in the staffroom tells you a lot about them.  Most stagger into the coffee/tea room clutching Starbucks hard-core espresso these usually are the younger colleagues. You'll soon be able to identify a milky-tea-two-sugars-type from a rosemary-infused-herbal colleague just by the stance those that effect bonding with such take on. The jury is still out on which of the latter I can stand least.

The rest of the day we boil the old kettle full of limescale and drink randomly from ironically sloganed mugs handed out by drug repres trying to push us to front their drugs onto the unsuspecting public.  Why is you can never find a clean mug when you need one - I mean there's plenty of them lying around - just that I'm willing to bet all you'll need is to just add water to them and a stomach so tough it makes a goat jealous. And I'm sick and tired of being the one to fill the kettle - I mean why is that?  Is there a school that trains some people that in communal situations, time others to be at the receiving end of skiving out of roles other than just riding off the backs of others? 

I realise I'm verging on getting a breakdown over this little issue and I slump onto a threadbare sofa which resembles a yak that has been dead for some time and sip a cup of staffroom coffee. It tastes as lukewarm as I feel - I remember I shouldn't be drinking it anyway as it leaves me so jumpy I can't concentrate on any given task.  Never mind about staying awake, I can hardly tell my heart to be still! I dwell dispiritedly on my past week.  Like tidemarks left around the bath, like toenail clippings abandoned on bedside tables, the evidence has begun to mount up that I've truanted from the How To Be A Good Mother School.

Whoever said , 'Life is just one thing after another'? For working mothers it's just  the same thing, again and again and over and over. But at a very fast pace.  Like jogging in quicksand.  For working mums, every day is a lot like holding a live hand grenade with the pin pulled half-out.

No matter how much I wanted to be one of those women who can change a nappy with one hand whilst whipping a souffle with the other at the same time as I'm taking a conference call, what I had become, instead was a cliche.  When I hear those homilies coming out of my mouth like, 'Where were you born? In a tent?' it's as though I've been secretly brain-washed during my sleep by suggestive tapes entitled Wifely Cliches, Vol. 2

Is it any wonder then that come Friday night I've developed the demenour, aching legs and mood swings of a long-haul flight attendant?  Now I had to add sulking to an already over-booked schedule.  The cheery invitations of younger colleagues to join them for a drink with a possibility of hitting a nightclub is as welcoming as a visit to the dentist for fillings.

Whoever wrote that bull about it being better to travel hopefully than to arrive has never done a school run.  Looking back, this was the order of my school runs!

The children start to fight about who gets to sit in the front. Solve battle by ordering them both into the back and strapping  - I dunno, a handbag or great big doberman.  On second thoughts, remove the bag and place it on the floor of the car - don't wanna chance drive-by or passer-by car-knapping. I am also not too keen on keeping such pets - the kids are enough.  It's a mystery to me how in cases especially like of my girlfriend, how her son can give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to stray, worm-riddled dogs, share a piece of chewed gum from a kid with bronchitis and pick his nose and eat it on a regular basis, yet won't sit next to his sister because of 'Girl Germs'. 

The kids are at each other's throats by the end of the street.  This chiefly entails trying to push each other, or sometimes me, out of the car windows.  I don't think the Highway Code has a clause about not pushing the driver out of a moving vehicle because no one with a rational mind would ever imagine this a possibility.  Traffic lights were invented, not as you might imagine to ease the flow of cars in each direction, but to enable the distraught mother on the school run to flail around insanely at anything within striking distance - in this case the coffee mug in the cup holder.  Scream in pain as the hot liquid scalds my lap.

Miss one green light because busy searching for something to mop up the spill in an effort to stem the stain which quite frankly I've not fathomed why I go through this routine all the time! Miss second green light because I'm trying to halt world war III breaking out in the back.  Miss third green light cause I'm trying to fix my lipstick which has smugded my teeth following one of the kids flexing their legs out of boredom.  Now so late, stopping outside the kid's school is not an option.  Slowing down only long enough to hurl the kids out onto the pavement like mailbags.

Put foot flat to the floor on the accelerator and land smack bang in a gridlock of 4x4s.  Why do London mothers on the school run opt for four wheel drives which would only come into their own in, say, the Namib desert or Kenyan safari planes?  Guess that's why some boroughs have taken steps to penalise persons with such vehicles.

Their only motto seems to be Death Before Giving Way. Sandwiched between the high bumpers of motorised monsters, my little ford only comes up to the hubcaps of what can only be referred to as 'derangerovers'.  Panic arises in chest.  I've five minutes to get to the office and present myself, all calm and capable.  Reverse up one-way street - and become the first person in motoring history to be given a ticket for speeding backwards.  Prolly would've gotten away with it only my car got into a slight altercartion with one of them Smart car. Obviously it wasn't living up to its name and anyway, I figure its some git whose plan is in keeping the population down. 

The booking officer wasn't having any of that as for some reason he'd chosen to give me a free escort ever since he'd sported me veering to the bus lane talking on my mobile.  My plea bargaining about being a working mom etc and that we should have our own special lane - pink if anything, falls on deaf ears.  Neither does the one about pointing out a design flaw I've just highlighted existing of Smart cars.  I save it for the insurance statement instead.

Sure enough, the ticket is banked amongst the heap of other fines and now I really have to find a way for overtime to pay this one off.  I'm tempted to pass along a contribution bowl to all those drivers slowing down to take a look at what has just befallen me and charge them for the free entertainment they appear to be enjoying. 

A little while back when this blog thing on ugpulse was opened up, one of the members very aptly let us into the daily workings of his life back in Ug and made me envious to the hilt!  Well I thought why not take to the pulpit and share what gives in certain aspects of my world to make him feel really guilty for having it so good.

 Monday morning

Any evacuation must be have been easier to organise than a working mum getting her kids up and out of hte house in the mornings.  

6.30a.m. Race to the bathroom.  You make it there any later and you've had it!  Eldest two daughters have discovered the secret to keeping the boys smiling and this usually means the bathroom features in their routine requiring at least an hour to check that every hair follicle is in the right place and angle to maximum effect. The nailbrush is one item I cannot get over as part of their ensemble - why the gals feel this ought to be for shaping their hairline with gel as opposed to cleaning their nails I've long since given up! 

7.20 a.m. The youngest is discovering that the noise around her is not part of her dreams, though she still seats on her bed or at times by her wardrobe staring at something or someone, nobody else but only her can see. She is also very good at reducing a well organised room to a state beyond recognition in record time that I am seriously checking out any competitions going to enter her into.  I am certain she'd win hands down if not first confusing the organisers with regards to where their score cards are.

Repeated reminders to get some breakfasts into the older gals' stomachs before they head out to school falls on deaf ears as the need to "look sharp" for school is much move pressing - often met with "don't have time - will be late for the bus and end up with detention" is what I get back.  It crosses my mind that it was so much easier to love your children unconditionally before they learned to speak.  Either that, or a device akeen to a audio-tape with instructions that you just switch on that shouts out instructions on not only a daily basis, but at quartely intervals is so long in the making!!! 

I've since discovered why the older two gals' lunch money costs spiral out of control even though the various snacks around the house appear to also make a disappearance to the point of questioning my sanity as to whether I actually had them in the first place. MacDonalds has a lot to answer for and I bet you if it were legally possible, they'd be asking to have their licence allow them to trade from 6.00am.

7.40 a.m. Stand by sobbing (I'm going to miss that darn train!) as youngest daughter plays musical clothes for the regulation ten minutes before choosing the very outfit I had laid out for her the night before.  Informed by her, that part of the uniform is caught between the wooden slats under the mattress of her top bunk. Mind you this is the same child that has on occasion reminded me that I would be up for child abuse for failing to give her 1:1 quality time to vent her school woes!  Memories of my schooltime PE acrobatics come into play, only; my body is protesting to be put through the rigors right now - let alone the possibility of ruining my tights.

She then reminds me as I'm about to make my escape that she needs a cake for the school fete and oh.., she has football practice but cannot find her kit bag.  Look around the cupboards for anything resembling a cake to stuff into her school bag (ashamed I will again be submitting one from the supermarket as opposed to those other mums who baked and will no doubt be turning their smirking noses up at my contribution).  Fortunately I come across something inside the cloakroom that would initially scare the willies off anyone - as a mom you develop a kind of bravery that leads you to places even men dare not go!  The smell is bad - it's her PE kit which for some reason she favours to hide out of range instead of just placing it in the laundry basket.  Even the perfume I spray on doesn't do it justice and blast she is allergic to the stuff!! 

I realise as I've been searching around the place to get her kitted out for school, she on the other hand has calmly been seated watching CBeebies and is frowning at me for making so much noise in the process that has forced her to turn up the volume to drown me out. That answers your questions as to how I got to be so good at talking to myself.

8:05am. Finally, I am out of the front door with a piece of buttered bread wrapped in foil that I can finish off in the office (tube journey is not conduicive to eating anything you want your stomach to retain).  Remembering to hug and kiss as well as reminding youngest to ensure she pays attention with her friends whilst crossing the road to school.

I wasn't going to blog about such a tedious experience, but found sitting down listening to a weblinked ugandan radio station left me torn between pointless surfing and muted TV.

Most of you prolly look back the last festive season leading up to the closing of 2006 with happy memories of what was.  True it was indeed a relief for those of us that made it to 2007.  Many just about did whereas others prolly lost the battle.  I gotta stop being morbid - perhaps I can make this my resolution for this year !

The health of my household members was somewhat questionable.  For some unknown reason, the week leading up to the Christmas break, my middle daughter's knee decided to play up. It became swollen and painful rendering her last remaining days at school before they broke up - mind you she prolly milked it for whatever it was worth.  I remember taking it in turn with my school mates to stay home and watch Neighbours under the guise of sickness.  Anyway, the family health problems cost me attendance to some of the social parties that were the order of the day.  I guess if one thinks about it, if you wanna make up for all the booze that you cannot afford, the food you cannot eat for fear of gaining weight, getting that kiss from someone you work with but cannot make that move for all sorts of reasons, then Christmas season is one period you will get a chance to realise all this.  As it happened I was looking for excuses to not attend as I was too knackered.   As it so happened, my teeth also started playing up.  It was not so welcomed considering I had to keep taking the antibiotics which meant I couldn't partake alcohol.

Christmas 2006 saw me taking advantage of a new addition to our family which meant it was not held at my place.  Mind you, having such an extended family, some of my relatives insisted on having pre-christmas dinners before I escaped. As you might recall, one of the girls was not too well and an appointment back in London meant I had to curtail this break and return. 

On the eve of New Year, my body succumbed to flu.  This might've been due to the fact that I'd decided to go out against the wisdom of my 9yr old I should say, to those darn sales!  It was very stormy when I set off and even with an umbrellar, I managed to get thoroughly soaked.  To make matters worse, I didn't even strike a deal in the sales.  So I crawled back to my place, and got myself layed out with a quilt and a tot of brandy to calm my nerves and the sore throat I'd started to feel setting in.  Where everyone around me was turning up the notch on hitting the town to see in the New Year, I was winding down and my bed looked far more inviting than the fireworks being stalked up outside.  This was the start of my visit to viral-land and a kiss goodbye to the hol, but welcome to sickleave.