The Week Where Everything Broke

The longest day of the year...EVER

Today has been crap. In fact this week has been pretty pants. Everything is breaking. Everything I say. 

Of course I am not exaggerating. 

Of course I am not being ridiculous.

And Bob the Builder appears not to appear on request. Or free.

Sometimes the whole single mum running a business thang becomes a bit overwhelming. Rarely happens but this was one of those days. 

It all started with the toilet seat trauma. So the toilet seat broke, completely cracked. I hasten to add before anyone casts aspersions it was not, I repeat not my fault, but the blame can be firmly planted at the feet of the small things as they stood on it to look in the mirror while they cleaned their teeth (imagine the shouty mum outburst the morning that was discovered). 

And of course nothing in this house is simple. Turns out the stupid expensive replacement toilet seat is not only stupidly expensive but also would take THREE months to arrive. Next time I shall be B&Q all the way - none of that designer Italian nonsense for me.

Turns out (after several million phone calls) it's cheaper and way quicker to buy a new loo. New loo purchased, picked up and now in hallway waiting for a suitable Bob the Builder to come and fit.

So in between toilet trauma and toilet seat resolution with purchase of new loo was the breaking of the bed. 

Cast your mind back to last weekend. Last weekend there were three of us in my bedroom, a night of fun was planned.....

STOP now with that thought......don't be so ridiculous.

Me and two of my friends were getting ready for a night on the town sipping fizz whilst applying mascara. Three girls sit on my bed to take this photo......

Mere seconds after the picture has been taken....

BED (from very reputable company) BREAKS. Bed which is only a year old SNAPS. Bed frame just caves in two. And I wouldn't mind but the straw that broke the bed frame was my very teeny weeny 5ft 3 friend.(names have been removed to protect their identity).

I am now currently waiting for the bed man to come and examine the breakage and determine the future of said bed. For now I am mainly lying very still in the middle of my bed as part of it is propped up on books - books I haven't yet read I may add.

Then there was technological hell as my emails went down...then server issues, then server issues as servers battled to outserve each other.

And finally at 3pm this afternoon my (expensive) push button bin broke. That pushed all the wrong buttons and I had a small strop.* A small strop that to be fair had been building all week due to the amazing achy breaky house.

(*complete breakdown throughout which the dog stared at me quizzically as if to say 'man up it's a bin FFS')

Then the small things came home from school. At this point I imagine most readers are covering their eyes thinking the smalls are going to get it from shouty mum extraordinaire. But my friends, that is not how this story ends.

7yo dispatched with his dad. 11yo with me due to concerts, leaver's party outfit shopping and some much needed mother/daughter time.

I anticipated me mainly sulking like a petulant teenager and drinking wine while the 11yo maturely watched TV and counselled me on seeing the bigger picture.

Instead we found gift cards for two shops and we went a spending. We then popped up to see my mum (who's birthday it is today). We spent a delightful few hours just mooching in each others company where I thought 'Wow it's quite cool having an 11yo daughter'.

We've spent quite a bit of time in the car and then I decreed it was only right and fair that I began her education into 90s music.

It started with this classic

The jaw-dropping embarrassment of my 11yo daughter combined with the loudness of me singling along to Dub Be Good to Me (complete with rapping) finally lifted my patheticness. (new word; feel free to use in times of patheticness)

Thus I give to you my lesson in life. (you can thank me later)

When everything breaks, when Bob the Builder can't be found, when the lottery hasn't been won and when the push button bin does not push the right buttons anymore play some funky music and sing loudly preferably in the presence of a small child.

It also helps if you combine the loud music and bad singing by winding the windows down and doing some crazy mum car dancing whilst driving along.

It's times like these when it's worth being a parent. 

When being a parent and embarrassing your small child makes everything better.

Here endeth this week's lesson. 

Dear Daughter

The Wonder Years

Dear daughter,

At this moment in time I am shouting upstairs to you yelling at you to go to sleep. You are shouting back telling me how many hours and minutes you have left as a 10 year old.

Some (everyone) may (will) describe me as a shouty mum:

"GET DRESSED, HURRY UP, CLEAN YOUR TEETH, LISTEN, I'M NOT TELLING YOU AGAIN, IF YOU DON'T GET A MOVE ON, I WILL MAKE YOU GO OUT LIKE THAT......"

The list is endless. Even now the night before your much anticipated 11th birthday I am shouting at you to go to sleep or you won't get your birthday breakfast. 

How time's change? 

11 years ago I was to be found wandering around this living room with a somewhat mahoosive bump thinking that the twinges I was feeling perhaps meant you were going to make an appearance three weeks early. 

As I was wandering round wondering whether labour was going to hurt (how naive),  the rest of my family were sitting in the kitchen eating mum's macaroni cheese to celebrate the occasion and having a sweepstake as to how long I was going to be in labour. (three-ish hours)

At midnight, we hightailed it to hospital and at 3.37am you were born. I remember spending what was left of the night simply staring at you, just watching you breathe, unable to believe that I was now a mum. That feeling has never left me. 

From that moment on my life changed.

Even now when I probably spend 90% of my time shouting, yelling and occasionally swearing, I thank my lucky stars that you are mine. Every night without fail, the last thing I do before I clamber under the duvet is to kiss you good night and watch you sleeping, watch you breathe, just like I did 11 years ago. 

Back then my main worry was that you kept breathing, and now my worries range from making sure that you keep breathing (yes still) to your schooling, your friendships, whether you can walk to school on your own, whether you eat enough veg, whether you will ever wear a dress, if you will be happy at high school ...worrying is a constant, a niggling, gnawing, tapping in any mum's mind.


I do miss you as a baby, your gurgling smile, your inability to put your feet on sand and even those hideously humiliating moments including carrying you out of a supermarket under my arm with your legs kicking and screaming (you didn't visit a supermarket for a long time after that). I don't miss the fact that you didn't actually sleep a full night until you were 17 months old.

But I mainly love watching you, watching you grow into a beautiful small thing sometimes at war with your own developing personality but always kind, always loving and giving.

I am mainly hugely proud to be your mum and tomorrow I shan't be shouting at you on your birthday, I shall be spending the day feeling blessed and trying not to shout at you on your birthday. And then when I take you and your friends out for tea, I shall mainly be drinking wine to dull the noise of six excited 11 year olds. 

This time 11 years ago I started on a journey where I learn something new every day, where I spin more plates than I ever thought was possible, and where I have a reason to smile every day. 

Tonight when I kiss your sleeping face goodnight and I am the first person to whisper Happy Birthday in your ear, I shall be sending a silent prayer of thanks that I am so blessed,

Love you my beautiful girl,

Your mum.

Calm, cooking and roast potatoes

The roast is in...

I am done with summer. I am welcoming autumn with open arms. I have no expectations for autumn. I have purchased my new hunter wellies to walk in the woods, kicking the autumn leaves.

I have bought a new throw for the couch so we can wrap ourselves up as the nights draw in. 

Summer be gone. You disappointed me more than Gary Barlow did when he allowed Robbie Williams back into Take That.

There are a few signs that summer is over in my house. 

The heating has been sneaked on. I have stared longingly at the fire. The chiminea in the garden is already so last season.

Xfactor is back on TV - which only heralds the countdown to Christmas. Of course I only watch it because the small things beg me. I would much rather be watching some intellectual drama with subtitles.

But the ultimate sign; the great big chiming clock of autumn that marks the end of any more (dashed) hopes of crazy days in the garden is the fact the Sunday Roast is back on the menu. Every Sunday.

It's a staple in my house, it ticks my good mum checklist (that along with pillow fights and reading with the kids) and the small things devour it like they have never eaten before. To be fair after last night's picnic tea they could be right.

It reminds me of the good old days when I was growing up, when summers really were summer, where we played out with our mates and when a penny chew was actually a penny. *stares wistfully down a rose-tinted memory lane*

It reminds me of mum mooching (when I say mooching I actually mean cleaning and doing proper mum things) around the house with the radio on and we were playing with our Sindy dolls (Barbie's just didn't cut it in our house - she was too perfect). Mum was usually ironing (something you will NEVER find me doing) and singing (badly) her own made up words to songs. My favourite still is 'The Lift is up when we are down' to this.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFYtpTot7hQ

The Sunday Roast is a powerful meal - it's the one meal in a week where I sit down with the small things and we chat. The rest of the week is usually a chaotic mess of rushed dinners, dinners without me and a couple of days with their dad.

Today, my sis in law is coming over with her (not so) small things and the roast will be the focal point of activity all afternoon. 

But for now I am mooching* around the kitchen, drinking coffee, roasting potatoes,  whipping up Yorkshire puds, listening to music, singing the wrong words badly while the small things play on the iPad. 

Times not changed too much then.

*mooching I do not mean cleaning or ironing - that would be ridiculous. 

Separation and sanity

Small things, separation and a revelation

It was the week I thought would never happen.

After two years of being separated somehow the ex was taking my small things away on holiday for a week. 

To France. 

A completely different country. 

A whole plane ride away.

Now those that know me, know that I have never been THAT parent that is glued to one's small things. Only 8 weeks ago I happily abandoned them whilst I jetted off for four fun-filled days in Marbella with the girls. (Obviously I didn't leave them in the cellar with a tin of beans; they had juice aswell).

Every year I jet off on a girls ski weekend and I don't think twice about sleepovers.  (Well sleepovers that aren't at my house.)

In the past two years I have got used to them going off to their dad's for two nights a week and sometimes I have even enjoyed - no relished - that time to myself.

But this was different. It was a whole week. Seven whole days without my babies. Seven days, 168 hours, 10,080 minutes without them. And they were on a plane in  a different country. I counselled myself. It was ridiculous I have got on planes, trains and automobiles that have taken me away from them....but they have never been taken away from me - and never on a stupid giant metal thing that flies in the sky. 

It was such a small subtle difference but it grew arms, legs, a beard and several heads as the day approached. 

I smiled with the small things and joined in their holiday excitement, I became a gibbering wreck with my friends as I spent nights awake on 'what ifs'. That moment when you are dropping off to sleep or you think you are dropping off to sleep and you allow your mind to wander. Only for a second it wanders into very dangerous territory when your mind takes you on the journey of the worst nightmares you can imagine. Then you stare at the ceiling counting sheep, or in my case counting hot men doing the long jump.

The day arrived and it's fair to say I was a wreck. The girls had set up a tag team of lunatic watch with regular text counselling which to be fair to all my friends not one was entitled: *Man up you blithering idiot.*

The 10 yo was wobbly - a week was a long time. The 6yo was nervous and I could have got a gold medal (see what I did there) for my credible excitement at what fun they would have. Their dad picked them up and I waved happily from the window.

Inside I crumbled, I felt like someone had tore me limb from limb. I knew it was ridiculous. I knew it was frankly mental and I knew (possibly) that they would be fine. I cried more than Gwyneth Paltrow getting an Oscar and then I cried some more.

Then I manned up. Mainly because the electricity meter man knocked on the door and I'm not sure he could have coped with my hysterics. In fact if he hadn't arrived the flash floods of the past few days could have been started from my kitchen.

Fast forward one week and my babies are back. In my arms. I met them at the airport. If T-mobile had been there, the scenes would have had more views on YouTube than Justin Bieber's inaugural performance. 

They are now in bed. We snuggled on the couch. We had a pillow fight. The 6yo made a den and the 10 yo told me all the things she had been saving up for the past 7 days which culminated in a discussion as to whether sex and section were the same thing. Normality had resumed. I sighed a giant sigh of relief.

The fact remains I love my independence. 

I love it when I choose to spend a few days abroad without my small things. 

But when they go away without me, when they are abroad without me, when I can't easily get to them and swoop in wearing my Supermum cloak I hurt.

It's subtle. It's really rather small.

It's what makes me their mum.

Standing behind the stove

Spatula Power

In my ongoing quest to tick the good mum box, the one thing that that allows me to award myself a big fat gold star more than anything else is cooking for the small things.


Standing in front of the stove, spatula in hand whilst the small things sit at the kitchen table, music on (pop party mix 999 is the current favourite) and random conversations a plenty. 


The good mum quest is often one that evades me and can also be made achingly hard to achieve (in my head) as a single mum. 


But I have found the solution, I know what ticks the box. 


I have the key. I have the secret. And because I am a good, kind, loving person (and sometimes great mum) I am going to gift that secret to you. So you too can wallow in the success of Spatula Power ©.

It's those small moments that count in the good parenting manual, the ones you don't even think about. It's those moments that your small things will remember and will take those parenting traditions to their kids.


It's the odd giggle, the impromptu pillow fight on a weekend morning and for the ultimate accolade, that feel good, good mum feeling, I give to you the cooking kids equation.


Cooking + Kids = Good Mum TICKS Good Mum Box. 


Realisation dawned on this cold wet bank holiday morning as the small things had begun their 'I want pancakes' chant and I started whisking up the mixture. 


I think it must go back to the dawn of time when I was little and many conversations with my mum happened in the kitchen, while she was cooking. I look back on these times with nostalgia and the knowledge that all the best cheesecakes come out of a packet.


Today, the only difference is that I, of course, tend to be cooking with a hearty glass of wine next to me. Not at breakfast time, obviously.


Sunday lunch is the same, it's probably the only staple on my parenting agenda. It's guaranteed to get us all sitting round the kitchen table discussing the meaning of life. Okay I admit, actually we are usually found sitting round the kitchen table debating whether Jessie J is better than Lady Ga Ga (I always go for Jessie).


There is nothing boho about my Sundays, but I also know there is nothing more fulfilling than my house filled with the smells of a Sunday roast, the small things mooching and with increasing insistence asking when lunch will be ready.


So this weekend I have awarded myself the 'Spatula of Success'. 


Go forth my friends, find your inner spatula.

I'm a proper embarrassing mum.

I'm a proper embarrassing mum. 

And I'm proud.

This evening I am taking the nearly 10 year old to her first gig. 


Well when I say gig I actually mean pop concert. I was just trying to be urban cool.


We are off to JLS. She's pretty excited, mainly as it gives her such kudos in the playground.  Yes JLS does indeed deliver kudos to nearly 10 year olds.


She has seen fit to deliver a number of instructions to me about our quality mother daughter afternoon. The first and most important rule of our outing today is that I haven't to embarrass her. 


Red rag. Bull.


I'm quite mortified at this (well I'm pretending to be) - how can I embarrass my nearly 10 year old. 


I am cool - well once a 6 year old said I was the coolest mum in the playground which counts -doesn't it?


I don't do much to embarrass her, I get down with the kids. 


And then it dawned on me. I do embarrass her. 


Have I become that fun mum that is making the nearly 10 year old cringe in her uber cool high tops. Maybe I am just trying too hard to get down with the kids. 


And then there is the other reason. The big reason. I can't help myself. I quite like making her cringe. It makes me laugh. A lot. When she starts to get embarrassed, I always have to take it a step further. 


On the way into school on Tuesday morning, as she was walking into class I ran up to her and smothered her in kisses, telling her I didn't know how I was going to cope all day without her. Her mates laughed. I chortled to myself all the way back to the car.


On the way to netball on Tuesday evening when I had a car full of her friends, I played my 80s tunes really loudly (I consider this education) and then as we got out of the car I showed them all how to robotic dance. Cool, yes? Her mates laughed.


And then my favourite trick of the week. I allowed both small things to go to school on their scooters which I would then carry home. The 6 year old was duly dropped off at his classroom and his stunt scooter was passed into the care of me - the responsible adult. It then made perfect sense to get on said scooter and race the nearly 10 year old through the playground to beat her to her classroom. As I jumped off the scooter and punched the air winner styli, her mates laughed.


What she doesn't know is that when she then gave up her scooter to me, a few of us mums had a scooter race down the road. We rocked urban cool as we synchronised our scooting. People stared. I know they were just jealous.


I know she laughs too. I know it gives her permission to have fun. 

My mum is mad as cheese

My mum is mad as cheese 

My mum is mad as cheese. Fact.

My small things adore her. She often drives me mad, mainly when she sneaks all manner of crap sweets and chocolate into the hands of my small things and then pretends she knows nothing about it.

But without my mum I would be lost. She picks up the small things from school on a Monday and Wednesday for me so I can do my day job and on a Wednesday she bathes them and washes their hair so I simply have to deliver the bedtime story.

When the nearly 10 year old was less two weeks old and hadn't stopped crying, I rang her at 2am and told her if she didn't do something the then two week old was going to be launched through the window. Mum turned up within 20 minutes (usually a 30 minute journey) took said baby off my hands and rocked her for four hours while I slept and some degree of sanity returned.

We go to Cornwall every year, all of us. Mum, Dad, sister, children and husbands when they were husbands. On a recent family adventure on the beach, I was taking the small things on a rock climbing expedition between two bays as the tide was coming in. I got 'the look' and lecture of mum for not being careful until I reminded her of my childhood holidays in Cornwall and on one particular trip where mum took us (me and my sis) on a similar rock climbing adventure.

As we climbed into yet another bay, shin-deep in the advancing tide, we settled into a cove - where we got trapped by the rapidly advancing tide. An hour later we were still having an 'adventure' in the cove when the lifeguard paddled round in his canoe to ask us if we needed rescuing as it was a particularly high tide. Oh no said my mother, we're having a great time. We continued to have a great time until the tide went back out - about four hours later.

Today as mum rocks the Grandma title, she plays football with the 6 year in the back garden, she has more patience than me when helping the struggling nearly 10 year old with her homework and she still gives the small things way too many sweets.

This year my sister and I have decided that it's unsafe for mum and dad to drive to Cornwall on their own so we are splitting them up between cars. This is not really due to a lack of driving ability but the fact we are not sure that mum and dad should be left alone in a confined space for 5 hours.

This year I can't wait for Cornwall as at the fabulous age of 63 years she has promised the small things she intends to don a wetsuit and go body boarding.

See I told you. Mad as cheese.

Say my name...say my name.

Say my name...say my name.


No don't worry I haven't gone all Destiny's Child, but I have realised that not many people use my name. 


My actual name. 


The name I was christened with. 


It may shock many of you but that name is Sarah..not Knighty and not mum or mummy.


I was talking to a friend the other day and in the middle of the conversation, she said my name. Immediately the conversation had more meaning. Immediately I listened a little more closely. Immediately I realised that I very rarely hear my own name. 


Of course I am talking about my actual name and not the given name for the past 10 years. I hear 'mummy can you, MMUUUUUUMMMMMYYYYY, mum will you, MMMMUUUUUMMMMMM, is your mum there' all the time. 
In fact when I go to bed it's ringing in my ears. And then at 4am I hear it again and all to often I realise it's not a dream, it's real and it's coming from the 6 year old's bedroom. It also usually means that action is required.


I never liked my name at school. I hated the fact it couldn't be shortened as it meant (and still means) that I was forever nicknamed Knighty. It's one of the reasons I gave my small things names that could be shortened.


All through school, through university, through my career and even now if someone wants my attention, it's often Knighty I hear. Nothing wrong with that of course (well unless you're in a lovely posh shop and your 'friend' shouts Knighty from the changing rooms to get your attention; then I really pretend not to hear).


But now I like hearing Sarah; it often means:
1) I'm in grown up company
2) Someone grown up is talking to me 
3) It's time to behave like a grown-up (this doesn't always follow 1 and 2)


I think there's a lot of power in someone's name - used properly. 


I'm not suggesting you go around saying someone's name over and over again as frankly that would be slightly weird, but next time you're chatting with your colleagues, friends, peers use their name. Drop it into conversation and witness the magical effect of someone listening to you a little more closely.


Unless of course they are saying 'Sarah, get another drink in,' then all bets are off.