DIARY OF ONE MUM

I've kept diaries for years. Every one of them for different reasons usually. Some to document my own school holiday, some to make sense of teenage angst, some to document pregnancies, some to cry into and another one to make scribbles about the funny things that kids do. If there's one thing that I want to read back when I'm old and grey it will be the chuckles, the smiles and the belly laughs that my children have given me. And so I write them down, scribbles, scrawls on the backs of old shopping receipts, anything to hand, just to capture when and how my boys made me laugh. Like the time when I was in my car sitting in a traffic queue. The car in front was a learner and Ellis, aged 9 and sitting next to me, read out the sticker: 'Please be patient, you were a learner once'. Ellis, very seriously commented 'No I wasn't'.

Me and max (3) in my car, driving along and I was teasing him a bit.
'Don't tease me mum' he said.
'Sorry Max, I won't tease you anymore'
'I don't like teasing' he said
'I know, sorry'
'But I do like Maltesers'

Or Max, aged 5, riding his scooter - 'Mum I'm puffed out. How do I get puffed in?'

Luke, aged 9, wanting to watch Dr Who on the telly cos he'd heard that the 'garlics' were going to be on...

Putting on Max's shoes when he was 3 and we were messing around, having a giggle. 'What are we like?!' I said. Max replied 'Chocolate'.

My life, today, goes something like this: Wake at 6.30am, get kids up, get their breakfast, do their lunches, get the washing on, do the washing up, iron uniform as necessary, fill out permission slips and consent forms that weren't produced the previous night, hunt for missing bits of desperately needed (and lost) football kit, get myself looking presentable, get washing out and more washing in and then we can finally leave the house at 8am. Do the school run, having run into Sainsbury first for an emergency pressie as we've nearly always forgotten someone's birthday, school drop off and then I get 20 minutes of pure me time whilst I drive to work, listening to my tunes as loud as I can bear. I work from 9am to 3pm, doing a job I enjoy, with people I love, in a very cool little corner of the world. I then have another 20 blissful minutes to myself whilst I head back to school to collect my brood. It might take half an hour to gather all of said brood, with their accompanying bits, bobs, books and homework (we hardly ever come home with a full uniform) and then it's often another trip to Sainsbury for something that I'd forgotten on the Big Shop, or it might be that I've run out of cat food, so invariably 'nipping in for cat food' turns into a stressful half hour trying to coax the boys away from the CDs and then bribing them with sweets, all the while the pressure's on to get home and present my family with a hot, nourishing, cheap and, most of all, quick dinner so the pace is fast and furious as we're also beating the clock cos Ellis has footie practise in a while too. Quick call from the car to my [infirm] mum to see if she needs anything, and sometimes she will need shopping or she'll ask me to go round cos she can't get a jar open. Or I'll get mum some electric put on her key so the boys and I do that before we can go home. Now the pace really hots up as I march straight to the kitchen and turn the oven on before I've taken my jacket off; I'm also pulling out the washing from the machine and throwing it over radiators whilst ignoring my children. Dinner is cooked at the same time that the phone is pressed to my ear sorting out a new car insurance policy or phoning British Gas to ask why they've suddenly taken £92 out of my account this month as opposed to the agreed £65. I get a text from a dear friend, asking if I'm free for coffee, I stand still and try to figure out when I might be able to do that but then my thought is interrupted when Ellis comes into the kitchen to say 'I've got training soon mum, is dinner nearly ready?'. So dinner will be served (to the boys) whilst I am still on hold to British Gas...whilst on hold I might as well clean the loo and bathroom, by which time it's time to go out again, picking up Eli's friends as I go. Footie training finishes at 8am, by which time Marin might be down for a visit and so I'll greet him with a head full of 'things still to do' and ask him if he'll kindly pick up ellis whilst I get on with our dinner. (I actually love cooking for Marin so that bit's not a chore). I'll do more laundry whilst waiting for dinner to cook and, if I'm really lucky, will have time to hear Max read before I jump in the shower at 9pm. I'll eat at 9.30 and then a glass of wine signifies the end of my day and I can finally sit on my sofa until my body caves and orders me to bed...

That's my day, nearly every single day. And it's my life; we are the choices that we make and I've made some right cracking ones! But my life is busy and so I find my energy from the things my boys say and do that make me laugh. Life is all about balance and I just hope that I'm getting it right!