NOT SO LITTLE ANY MORE! April 29, 2010

When I last checked, my eldest daughter was a child – a little girl who loved to dress up in princess dresses, play with barbies and and watch Angelina Ballarina on the tv. She wouldn’t leave the house until her hair was fixed up in two high pony-tails and always liked her toast cut up into soldiers. Yesterday as we shared a mirror to get ourselves ready for her confirmation, I realised that my little princess is turning into a young woman.

The day didn’t start too well as I woke to hear my six year old shout to my 8 year old to “go and look at Mommy. She’s funny and orange!” Yikes! I thought I was quite an expert at applying false tan – obviously not! However, I managed to avert disaster and subdue my orangeness with the help of an exfoliating glove and a lot of elbow grease.

When all six of us were finally ready – polished, buffed, brushed, preened, plucked and shined to within an inch of our lives – we headed off to the ceremony. Now any of you who know about confirmation ceremonies in Ireland will know that usually, with the help of an out of retirement bishop, they can last anything up to two or two and a half hours. Ours began at eleven. At ten past eleven my six year old was lying on the seat chanting “when’s it going to be over, when’s it going to be over?” However, we managed to distract him with the excitement of his missing Nana (long story!) so all was well in the end.

I found the ceremony quite moving. Roisin has a fantastic group of friends who’ve been together since they were four years old. It was both lovely and emotional to realise that these girls had practically turned into women overnight. Just where does the time go?

The day continued with much food and drink, great company and lots of sunshine. As I closed the door to the last guest just before midnight I had an overwhelming feeling of contentment. In my last blog post I moaned and groaned about the trials and tribulations of family life. Now I’m sure I’ll moan again another day but for now I’m counting my blessings. No matter what else happens in my life – whatever disappointments or rejections I face – I have a wonderful husband, four great children and lots of friends to help me through it all. I wish I could bottle up this feeling for use on a bad day because it sure feels good.

Maria x

MOANS OF A MISERABLE MAMMY! April 22, 2010

Today is not a good day. I’m feeling fed up, upset and more than a little overwhelmed with my lot. Now the worst thing about that is that I’m also feeling incredibly guilty about the fact that I’m fed up, upset and more than a little overwhelmed with my lot!

Firstly, let me tell you the reasons for this dark cloud that’s hovering over me this morning. Now I don’t have a very sick child/parent/friend, I’m not destitute nor have I had any bad news. It’s just an accumulation of little things that have built up and I’ve had to admit to myself this morning that I’m not the all singing all dancing Mum I aspire to be!

As most of you already know, my children are 6, 8, 12 and 13 and they’re wonderful. But sometimes I feel I’m being pulled in a million different directions. There’s football, singing, drama, piano – and that’s only Mondays! I know that my friends who are knee deep in dirty nappies and struggling with sleepless nights would tell me I’m lucky that I have them all in school and that’s true to a certain extent. But they don’t see the other end of the spectrum when I still have bodies hovering around at eleven o’clock at night because they feel they’re too old to go to bed beforehand! I’m also dealing with sulky, hormonal teenagers while still having little ones that need so much of my attention.

Next week my eldest daughter is making her confirmation. I have a million and one things to do as we’ll be having around forty people to the house after the ceremony. I still haven’t bought myself anything to wear and I could do with a team of cleaners to sort my house out. I’d planned to get as many things as possible sorted this morning but my vomiting eight year old has rendered my plans impossible. Does that sound too harsh? I honestly do feel sorry for her and I’m giving her loads of mammy attention but I can’t help feeling resentful about having such a clump of my precious time taken away from me.

Now I’ve been so busy organising the confirmation, the fact that my youngest daughter is making her communion next month has taken a bit of a back seat. Yesterday I decided I should try to get that sorted too. I’m planning to get caterers in since I’ll be up to my eyes with so many other things on the day.

“The 29th of May!” said the caterer, incredulously, when I rang to book him. “I already have nine communions booked in for that day. You’ll never get anyone at such short notice.”

Short notice? Sure there’s 6 weeks left. How ridiculous. Ten caterers later and I was beginning to panic. It seems now that my day will be taken up with cooking when I just want to take time to dress my daughter in her beautiful white dress and give her all the attention she deserves.

The worst thing about feeling like this is the fact that I beat myself up over it. I’ve just re-read what I’ve written and I can see I’ve come across as selfish, incapable and downright mean. I’ve had to force myself not to hit delete. As mothers, I think we have a terrible habit of trying to live up to some ideal. We all want people to say; ‘isn’t she a wonderful Mum’ or ‘she never seems to get frazzled’. I know I’m a good Mum but I also get bogged down with things and have days (like today) when I feel I’m utterly useless.

I have to say a special thanks to Barbara Scully at http://www.barbarascully.blogspot.com for bemoaning the view from her kitchen table and making me realise that it’s okay to tell people how we’re feeling.

I apologise for the length of this post but today, a shorter moan just wouldn’t cut it. I could actually go on for longer but I reckon I’ve bored you all enough. I promise to come back in the next day or two with more humour but in the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Maria x

THIRTY-FIVE (AGAIN!) April 14, 2010

“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday…” How sad am I to be singing my own birthday song? Ah well, I can’t complain. I’ve had a wonderful day, all thanks to my four little angels and my one big hubby!

My day started with my beloved telling me to stay in bed. He was going to work from home and organise the children for school. Yyyesss!!

“Ah you don’t have to do that,” I said (with no real conviction); followed closely by “well okay then, if you insist” (just in case he’d dare to agree with me!).

Now those of you who belong to the ‘Frazzled in the morning because the kids are driving me mad’ club, will understand what a wonderful, blissful present this is. After an indulgent nap, my breakfast was delivered and my morning writing was conducted from the snuggliness (is that a word?) of my bed. Bliss!

Now I won’t bore you with a blow by blow account of my day but I need to tell you about the most wonderful present my 12 year old daughter gave me. Some months ago her teacher asked if she could see some of my children’s poetry. I gave her a number of the poems and she asked if she could read them to the class. Well I didn’t think any more about it but this evening, my daughter handed me a folder and in it was a collection of reviews of my poems. Each girl in the class had reviewed her favourite poem and even drew pictures of how they perceived the characters. Imagine; twenty-eight full page reviews from my target audience. I have to admit shedding a few tears.

So it’s been a lovely day and I’m really enjoying being 35. What?? Stop laughing! I’m looking forward to putting faces to some of my favourite tweeters when we meet up on Friday and excited about Inkwell’s Women’s Fiction workshop on Saturday. Life is good!

Maria x