Monthly Archives: December 2015

Feeling thankful for the ties that bind

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Well we’ve reached that ‘weird bit’ in the middle of Christmas and New Year again.

When you stop feeling festive, may be working and try to kid yourself that it really isn’t possible to put on half a stone of flab in a week.

(It is of course and the only way to deal with it is to demolish another box of chocolates and curse the person who gave them to you. It’s all their fault that your skinny jeans no longer fit – obviously!)

When you wake up thinking you must have a night off the booze and find yourself downing a G and T by 7.30pm.

Usually this time of year my thoughts turn to New Year’s resolutions. The ones I didn’t keep last year, the ones I hope I’ll stick to this year and the ones that will probably always be wishful thinking.

It’s also a time for family and good friends of course and how, despite occasionally driving each other bonkers, pondering just how crucial they are to keeping you sane.

Someone wise once said to me that really close friends are often a second family, the family that you choose.

Not that this means you wouldn’t choose your actual family you understand, just that the people you know you’ll always be able to rely on aren’t limited to the ones you’re related to.

Since becoming a mum I’ve realised just how true this is. When we started our little family with Mini-me friends that I’ve known for decades became even more important to me – even if having kids in tow means that literally years can go by between us meeting up.

I know that should I ever need them they’ll be there, no matter what different directions life has taken us in.

But also the new friends you make as a parent, especially when thrust into the scary world of becoming one for the first time, are some of the most important of your life.

There’s no pretence or glamour about discussing the perils of labour, breastfeeding and which bits of you have gone irreversibly saggy, but that’s why the bonds you forge are so quick and so strong.

It’s been less than five years that I’ve known many of my mum friends, but they’ve seen me through not only those sleep-deprived, blurry, wonderful early days, but also a heart-breaking miscarriage and the darkness that followed, a difficult pregnancy and then adapting to life with two and keeping both offspring alive without losing the plot completely.

I really don’t know what I would do without them now and I say a little prayer for them coming into our lives every single day.

So whether they’re living next door to me or hundreds of miles away I think this is probably the perfect time of year to say a massive thankyou.

Thanks for understanding when I want a glass of wine and not a cuppa at 4.30pm on a playdate.

Thanks for picking up Mini-me from school for me when I’m poorly.

Thanks for listening when I need a protracted, disjointed, barely comprehensible rant.

Thanks for pointing out all the good things on days when I can only see the grumbles.

Thanks for making me laugh until my bloody pelvic floor lets me down again.

Thanks in advance for sticking around for the next five years. And the forty after that!

And Happy New Year, of course, to you and yours.

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The (hopefully achievable) Mum Bucket List

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So we all know that it’s a given when you become a mum that you fall spectacularly to the bottom of the pile.

And I’m not talking of the laundry variety – although come to think of it, making sure the other half has clean socks (while also juggling children, work deadlines, school commitments…) is obviously ‘more important’ than you actually getting the chance to eat lunch.

(I would like to point out here that hubby has never been the type to moan about this. He is very good at wearing dirty socks for a second, and even third, day. No, it’s usually me that ends up washing the socks instead of eating the sandwich due to that lovely thing known as Mum Guilt.)

But sometimes it’s nice – and healthy – to do something for yourself. The experts even say that watching that half hour of TV you’ve been saving up, reading a magazine or meeting a friend for dinner actually makes you a better parent because no one is capable of being totally selfless 100 per cent of the time.

In my case it’s more like 60 per cent, on a good day.

I’ve been pondering on this in the last couple of days because hubby and I took a few hours out last Saturday evening to watch The Godfather, accompanied by a rather large bar of Toblerone. And it was great.

It’s one of those films I’ve always wanted to watch but never got round to. And although there were numerous jobs I could have been doing, it was time well spent.

Now although I would like to go on holiday to Canada, see Lake Louise and take a trip on the Rocky Mountaineer, clearly – with two young kids in tow – this probably won’t happen any time soon. In fact we’re saving that particular daydream up for retirement.

But, there are little goals that as a mum could, and should, be realistically achievable in the near(ish) future. A Mum Bucket List if you will – although as I’m not planning on expiring anytime soon, fingers crossed, this may not be the best name for it.

Anyway, here goes:

 

  1. Watching The Godfather 2 without falling asleep (due to exhaustion, not film quality) and/or pondering over the fact that Diane Keaton, IMO, was spectacularly miscast.

 

  1. Watching the original Star Wars. I know – I just never got around to that film either.

 

  1. Having the discipline to actually write my novel. A good friend has just scored a two-book publishing deal and I’m very inspired by her determination and drive.

 

  1. Going back to my favourite city New York to celebrate my 40th. If in laws will babysit! And hubby will pay!

 

  1. Getting the chance in the course of my job to interview actress Lauren Graham (yes, the one from Gilmore Girls). I love her.

 

  1. Making sure that when one of my best friends moves away in January (sob, sob) that we still meet up at least once a month.

 

  1. Growing my business in 2016 and expanding my PR and copywriting client base.

 

  1. Biting the bullet and going to the dentist for the first time in four years. (I don’t even have a phobia, I just never seem to get around to it.)

 

  1. Going through all the boxes in the garage that I haven’t looked at it in over two years, discovering what’s actually in them and then selling or giving it all away.

 

  1. Starting piano lessons again for the first time in 20 odd years and seeing if Mini-me would like to join me.

 

  1. Purchasing a piano on which to play, badly.

 

  1. Going to the cinema much more often than I do. It’s one of the great joys of life.

 

  1. Writing more frequent, and possibly more gripping, blog posts!

 

What’s on your Mum Bucket List? I’d love to know.