the wrong side of slummy

this childless, husband free morning i had breakfast in bed (2 bowls, naturally), read the papers, let olga the fabulous cleaner into the house and then sped off to bluewater to find a super sexy glam pregnancy outfit for the wedding we're going to in a fortnight's time.

hmm. but here i strike a note of caution. all is not entirely well in my world. i'm a self declared slummy mummy - meaning that i love my child and take motherhood seriously but that i'm not going to play holier than thou because (just like with cleaning the house) frankly, i can't be bothered.

in contrast, the self declared yummy mummy loves her child, takes motherhood seriously - often competitively, would never eat 3 pain au chocolat in a row and would have baked cookies, done yoga and cracked some killer business deals long before sunrise each morning. yummy mummy, whatever her motivation, can be bothered.

now, the advantages of slumminess are clear to me. except that over the last 24 hours i have formed a sneaking suspicion that i may have to shape up my act a little.

problem 1 - overeating. yes, i am more than six months pregnant and i do need to eat. but six meringues with strawberries and cream in one day is surely not on.

problem 2 - general slovenliness. in my exhausted, pregnant world putting on the same clothes each day seemed a good way of saving time. that is until i got some sleep last night and saw the front of my t-shirt (above bump and below) covered with meringue stains. there is no way of knowing how long they have been there as meringue habit has been escalating for a week or so. have also been finding lots of food crumbs in my big cleavage maternity bra. was dismissing this as a one off but now know is further indication that i'm on the wrong side of slummy.

problem 3 - bringing up the rear. oh, i had such a shock in one of the changing rooms today. as i stumbled out of my designer pregnancy jeans i decided to check out the size of my ass in the mirror. previously smug in this department ( having been assured a gazillion times over the years that it was 'just right') i wasn't expecting the sorry sight that greeted me. let's just say i could have appeared on a liposuction ad as the 'before'.

oh dear. well the good news is that i found a fabulous dress for the wedding ( ass size will not be an issue). the bad news is that my guilt free snack days are over now that i have discovered the long slippery slope of slumminess.

home alone

once upon a time i used to live for Fridays. the F-word in those days meant NO WORK for two whole days, a chance to blow hard earned cash on the clothes, drink or drugs of your choice and as much uninterrupted 'quality time' with your chosen other as either of you could manage.

other slummies will sympathise with me when i say that now all that Friday symbolises is the glimmer of hope on the horizon that someone (the chosen other) will help you with the childcare. once he's finished reading the paper, drinking coffee, showering, playing playstation, having a nap etc etc.

but this is no time to be bitter as tonight i find myself with no baby and no husband. the hubs is on his way to a stag do in estonia. " ...slightly scary all male flight to stagonia!" was his last text message before take off. and the little thing's on a mini break with granny grandad at the seaside.

so, right now it's still early evening and i have a few simple goals.

1) eat a second portion of strawberries, meringues and cream
2) lounge on the sofa like a man (will get bored after 2 mins but is still a cheap thrill)
3) work on the plot of my book 'mark of shame'

home alone. it's true slummy mummy heaven.

slummy mummy needs a break

oh god, i need a break. anything would do ... a weekend in barcelona, a couple of days in cornwall or full out short haul slumming in morocco, turkey or greece.

but that's not going to happen. mainly because i have the little thing (and her vomitting and diarrhoea bug) to look after, also because at this far into my pregnancy i cannot fly and also because that part of my life is over. o-ver.

it has been a difficult week. the hubs has kind of forgiven me for sending away his passport and nixing his trip to vegas, and the little thing is almost over her utterly poisonous bug but i'm feeling so drained.

determined to raise my spirits somehow, i've booked myself in for a whole marathon of beauty treatments. with a wedding on the horizon it's the perfect excuse, so over the next two weeks i'm going to get cut, coloured, scrubbed, bronzed, waxed, polished and painted in all the appropriate places.

hurrah. it's obvious that being slummy is sorely underrated when you see how little it takes to cheer me up.

symptoms of pregnancy

at six and a half months in, i'm thinking that this could be a good time to catch up on the not so obvious symptoms of my pregnancy.

1) an unprecedented and voracious appetite. accompanied by an unnerving and graphic greed that has me fantasising about all kinds of foodstuffs. slightly unsettling as have always been on the thin side of thin (even after first baby, hurrah!). less sure of returning thin status with this one.

2) unprecedented fantasies of work. how truly bizarre. i find myself reminiscing about my old days in a newsroom in which i found working a constant struggle (not challenge). and then i start conjuring up scenarios involving new jobs in journalism with deeply satisfying duties. hmm, need to work on this one as 6 and a half months preggers is not a good time for job hunting.

3) a change in my relationship with the hubs. yes, of course sending his passport to the dvla when he needed it to travel to vegas hasn't helped but there are other changes afoot. this morning (after a night of vivid ex boyfriend dreams) i had the unnerving sensation of hardly knowing the hubs. i'm currently putting down to a pregnancy mind mix up but also think it has to do with our increasingly separate roles in family life.

so, i think the symptoms point to me needing to return to work. somewhere with a sandwich shop right next door.

where's my passport ?

oh dear. the hubs was due to fly out to vegas today on a business trip. last night at 10 o'clock i was brushing my teeth when he asked "Babe, where's my passport?".

oh dear. i last saw it on tuesday when i put it in an envelope along with his application for a UK driving licence and sent it off to Swansea. the darling didn't shout or even get the slightest bit cross with me. something i find quite incredible. my best friend phoned in the middle of the drama, "i'd have tried to kill you." she said.

it's a morose morning here at slummy towers. the hubs was up most of the night consoling himself with whisky and playstation. this morning, to make things worse the little thing has been sick three times and i'm fearing the return of the tummy bug that made her so ill on holiday.

and it's raining, my feet are cold and i'm fed up with dressing for winter when it's time for fun in the sun. in search of some moral support i called the step father. loyal as ever, he agreed that it was indeed a shame but worse things have happened at sea etc etc. i told him the hubs was worried about letting down his new bosses by missing the trip.

'i don't think that's too much of a problem" he said. " But you're not going to keep your job for long if you keep ****ing up like that!"

oh dear.

the balance of domestic bliss

Olga and I are having a love affair. Or at least, I am having a love affair with Olga. She is the fourth - and hopefully final - cleaner that i've employed since downsizing from London.

i have no shame in admitting my slummy habits including the standard hatred of ironing, unwillingness to mop floors, bemusement at the idea of cleaning the oven. all this is fine and normal, except that i have horrible double standards. i like my home to look perfect. and while i don't mind tidying all that much, the cleaning tips the balance just a little too far on my slummy scales.

in the early days of domestic life with the hubs, the issue of cleaning was fast becoming a horror of marriage. after a few exasperated exchanges, he said "I just don't know why we don't we hire someone to do it." Ooh, I love Americans.

I struggled with my childhood hangover of working class guilt for a few seconds before grabbing the Yellow Pages and dialling up the biggest ad I saw.

The well spoken lady from 'Les femmes de Menage' sounded severe and businesslike on the phone. No doubt this was to discourage any errant males who think they might be dialling some kind of sex line (tee, hee!). But it also had the effect of making me feel like i was back at school, where i had once again done something wrong. Two posh ladies came round later that week, taking a grand total of 70 pounds for there trouble and spraying our home with some cloying lemon scent that hung around for days. I was exhausted as I'd been up early giving everything a good clean, lest the ladies should be shocked by my slummy ways.

That was never going to work. Option 2 was a cleaner from the local paper. A lot cheaper than the Femmes, she promised great things ( as do all cleaners at the outset) and got to work. At first it was my perfume that I noticed draining from the bottle. "Oh well', I thought, 'she can't use that much while she's here so I'll just ignore it. Especially as she did the oven today". But then the perfume bottle disappeared, along with some of the Hubs' cufflinks ( still haven't told him, oh dear) and I knew that she too had to go.

Number 3 broke the mould by being an older man. Alan and I got along famously. I outlined the work to be done and he did it to perfection. I was thrilled and increased his money after the first month. From then on, the cleaning he did in our home seemed to be negligible. Even the Hubs admitted that he didn't know why we bothered to have Alan round as he never seemed to make any difference to the place. So he too had to go.

which brings us to Olga. Recommended by my neighbour, Olga has grown up kids and has moved over here from the czech republic. she doesn't speak much english but she's a fab cleaner, loves the little thing (who loves her right back), does our ironing, changes the bed sheets and generally makes us feel happy in our non-slummy slummy home. hence my love affair with olga. i've already upped her money (no downturn in results) and started giving her holiday pay. for now, we've struck the perfect balance. Long may it last.

stag night ? you know where you can stick it

the husband's going to estonia ( where?) on a stag night.

a particularly wayward friend of his is tying the knot and has earmarked estonia for his final fling. i'm certain there will be some kind of lap dancing/ strip club scenario for the stags to enjoy. the hubs agrees that this is a reasonable assumption and assures me that he would of course simply be fulfilling his duty as a stag by going to such a place. he is just a sure that were he not to join in with the jaunt, he would be seen as 'lame' by the rest of the group.

i have several issues with this.

1) first and foremost - it's a sexual experience, a sexual thrill that's being bought at the door of a lap dancing or strip club. the thrill is then delivered by a girl bouncing up and down on your lap and flicking her hair in your face while looking moody and sexy. i've done a lot of research into this,fellow slummies, so trust me.

2) why is it ok for the hubs to purchase and experience a sexual thrill outside of our marriage when the equivalent would be unthinkable for me. and come on, don't tell me a chippendale would be a comparable quest - have you seen those guys ? euch! the equivalent would be wilful dirty dancing with a handsome stranger in a club on a hen night because it would be lame not to.

3) call me naive, call me annoying, call me 6 months pregnant and utterly irrational but why do the feelings of the other stags ( "they'd be let down if i didn't join in") come before the feelings of me, the wife ? it's another brutal horror of marriage, their feelings just do - particularly as the stag night is all in the name of fun.

4) the concept that a stag night is all in the name of fun is a false one. i maintain that it's all in the name of legitimised lechery, sanctioned by wives who are to wary of 'stepping out of line' to object.

5) my final objection is the age old complaint that 'it's not fair!'. i've come to realise that it is the way of the world that men are allowed to engage in this kind of behaviour. and it's a horror of marriage for me, that i have to accept this.

on a lighter note though, the thought of getting down and dirty with a dancefloor stranger (all in the name of fun, on a hen night, because it would be lame not to) does sound rather enticing.

fantasy is just so much more alluring than reality.

about to burst

oh dear. only 5 and a half months into my pregnancy and i am about to burst. all today and yesterday i've had an incredible appetite, and an almost certain knowledge that my stomach is about to burst. yes, yes of course it's one of those 'well if you think it's bad now, just wait until .... whatever' moments but what am i supposed to do?

my plan so far consists of a)not worrying that my beautiful belly button is now an 'outie' and b) eating whatever comes into my reach.

lunch today was fabulous as mum cooked us an enormous easter feast. with 6 adults, 3 children and 1 dog it was a wonderfully cramped and chaotic afternoon that included turkey, trifle, an easter egg hunt and no tantrums at all.

tomorrow is another bank holiday so we are planning to spend the day at home in our pyjamas and not do much at all. i'm currently reading a novel by someone i used to work with. it's basically the story of cross cultural shagging all across town with some very graphic sex scenes thrown in. it's strange, almost like a virtual confessional, to read about the intimate thoughts/acts of someone that you've known as a friend.

so, i'm off to read a few more chapters, eat some more chocolate cake ( possibly, probably some cold roast potatoes) and hope that i feel less likely to burst tomorrow.

parenting the long haul

my darling husband is a new yorker of indian extraction and my family is a mixture of pakistani and irish (unusual, i know). this means that we are obligated and expected to travel vast distances with our little thing in order to see all our relatives.

having travelled the long haul a lot in my single years, i developed some excellent coping strategies for flying. obviously i can't underestimate the uncanny knack i seemed to have for being awarded check in desk upgrades. simply turning left onto the plane (business and first) instead of turning right (for cattle class) goes a huge way to easing the burden of a double figures flight time.

should i have to travel in cattle, heaven forbid, the worst sight to await me would be not an overweight, sweaty or lecherous looking neighbour, but People With Kids. my first strategy would be to shamelessly call over the trolley doll and ask to be moved. flashing a press pass and explaining business trip, impending deadline etc often seemed to sway me into another seat while other mortals stayed to endure the screams. the second strategy would be to delve into my flight kit and jam in ear plugs for the duration. not being able to hear a thing does much to preserve a calm state of mind. huge bottles of evian, an assortment of luxury moisturisers and a damn good book would then see me safely through to my destination.

alas, poor mummy. travelling with a little thing, with another on the way, is not a good look. we were those People With Kids. I saw the flashes of panic in our neighbours eyes, I suffered their pain when the little thing wailed with take-off ear ache and I understood the inescapable horror of having to parent the long haul.

just as the seat belt sign came off, we noticed a pervading stink in the cabin. the lady to the left of us had called over the trolley doll to complain. Just as I caught the fellow passenger's dissaproving eye I realised it was nappy stink, I realised it was ours. The hubs went to change the nappy. All well and good. A few pages of the novel, a bit of handcream and oh dear, that's the last of the evian as water comes second place to toys these days.

about 15 minutes later the hubs came back with the little thing naked except for her nappy and vest. "It's not going too well" he said. Oh dear. The little thing had poo'd and pee'd her way through our 2 sets of emergency clothes and (alarmingly, three of our nine nappies) that we'd expected to last the flight. sleep was out of the question as the little thing was wired. none of the cheap new toys we'd bought for the journey held any interest for her, the trolley dolls were smiley but uninterested in our plight, our fellow passengers avoided our eyes and we took turns to break the boredom by walking the little thing around the aircraft.

we staggered off the plane eight hours later. we were exhausted, dehydrated and demoralised. i felt the same kind of disbelief on disembarking as i did after i left the maternity ward. in the hospital i struggled to understand how such brutal pain and agony could co-exist with the outward normality of the unit's day to day cheerful existence. likewise i marvelled at the sheer in-flight horror of being a Person With Kids. it looks bad from the outside, but believe me, the full awfulness can never be revealed until it comes to travelling with your own children.

world of motherhood calling

now almost 6 months pregnant with my second child, i'm finding myself thinking back to my first pregnancy a lot.

during that time i was working as a journalist in central london, travelling to work on the tube and getting home late after 10 hour shifts. the hubs was working in newcastle so i only saw him on weekends and i remember those months - lonely and exhausting as they were - as peaceful.

now there is no such thing as peace, except for the odd lull before bed or when the little thing is napping. i generally spend this time sneaking a few chapters of whichever latest novel i'm reading but lately i've noticed my mind frequently wandering back to my first pregnancy.

i'm sure this is a dilemma shared by hundreds of thousands of other mums. that the attractions of full time work and full time motherhood seem almost exactly balanced on the those mischievous scales of life. i think back to my working days with a sense of longing for authority, interesting projects and the ego satisfaction of having one's name in lights/ in print/ on air/ whatever. and yet in the next breath i'm reliving the boredom, frustration, the unpredictability of sociopathic newsroom bosses and the image fizzes away like that of the wicked witch in the wizard of oz.

the plan i've come up with is to enjoy being a mum to the little thing in the last few months before her new brother / sister arrives and to give up those familiar fantasies of work. the answer isn't to go to back to the newsrooms of yesteryear, but to search out a new way of earning cash, using my skills and drawing on the experience of who i am now.