“Are we going to be late?” says my daughter as I run back into the house turning off the alarm for the third time to collect the water bottles from the fridge. I glance at my watch. 8.34am – four minutes behind my rigid schedule which could mean parking at least another four cars away from the school gates.
Back in the car with four children belted into an assortment of car seats I run through the checklist. Book bags, lunch boxes, jumpers, coats, wellies, homework, money for school trip and Show and Tell. A quick time check tells me I am now ten minutes behind schedule. As we drive out of the gates my son suddenly shrieks, “I’ve forgotten my glasses.” We reverse back up the drive and I run back indoors. I sprint madly around the house up and down stairs desperately searching for the glasses. Finally, I find them wedged down the side of a sofa cushion. I run back to the car gleefully waving the glasses in the air.
We arrive at school to find a long trail of cars parked up the road. The children shriek for me to open their doors and off they run towards the school gates. I am left with The Baby and a whole mass of bags and coats lying abandoned on the floor of the car. I spend the next few moments wrestling with the pram, cursing the manufacturer for not making the opening mechanism work smoothly for mothers under pressure. The Baby looks up at me smiling clearly amused by his red-faced mother. He lies in the pram surrounded by book bags something he has become accustomed to over the weeks.
I dash into the school playground madly pushing the pram around distributing everything. I glance at the impeccably made-up mothers standing calmly beside their groomed children. Tomorrow I must set my alarm clock earlier to allow for the lost glasses and a touch of mascara. I quickly comb my daughter’s hair with my fingers and rummage around my handbag for a random hairclip. The whistle blows and they all run in leaving a shell shocked, bedraggled mother behind them. I glance at my watch. 9am and I am frazzled.
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Monday, 14 September 2009
A New Beginning
Now we are six. Two deranged parents, a seven – going on seventeen – year old daughter, two testosterone fuelled boys aged six and three and our new four-month old Baby Boy.
I also have to mention the Border Terrorist and the ‘Oh so Biddable’ Black Labrador. And just to keep us busy, we have now inherited Bertie the Cockerel and his harem of hens, Hilda, Helen, Hilary and Harriet. There are also three ducks, three lambs and a few goldfish, all who are to be shortly joined by two pigs, as yet unnamed.
It was on a sunny May Bank Holiday weekend that we moved into our house and began our new more rustic life on a small farm in the centre of a bustling village. Five days later once the worst of the packing boxes were out of the way, The Baby decided it was time to make his appearance. Sadly he was not greeted by the calm sounds of whale music and there was certainly no birthing pool in sight. Instead his mother was drugged up to the eyeballs with every pain relief drug available on the planet and his father had just woken up after a nice long kip on the recovery bed beside them. After 48 hours of blissful care by the midwives at Dorchester Hospital, my brief stay was over and it was time to face reality.
I returned home to two very excited small boys who were thrilled to have another brother to join their football team and a daughter who was equally excited about the shopping trips she was promised as the only girl in the family. Meanwhile out on the farm Hilary hen was also expecting. Sadly her chick did not make it and in true postnatal form I found myself sobbing in the chicken house consoling Hilary and sharing my maternal concerns over sleepless nights with Helen, Hilda and Harriet. In those weeks I formed a special bond with my feathery friends and now regularly seek refuge in the hen house when I need to escape.
Four months on, the odd sleepless night and sterilising endless bottles are the least of my worries. The challenges facing me are only just beginning. Raising four children, weaning the Baby, rearing animals and tending to a large vegetable patch are just a flavour of things to come.
I also have to mention the Border Terrorist and the ‘Oh so Biddable’ Black Labrador. And just to keep us busy, we have now inherited Bertie the Cockerel and his harem of hens, Hilda, Helen, Hilary and Harriet. There are also three ducks, three lambs and a few goldfish, all who are to be shortly joined by two pigs, as yet unnamed.
It was on a sunny May Bank Holiday weekend that we moved into our house and began our new more rustic life on a small farm in the centre of a bustling village. Five days later once the worst of the packing boxes were out of the way, The Baby decided it was time to make his appearance. Sadly he was not greeted by the calm sounds of whale music and there was certainly no birthing pool in sight. Instead his mother was drugged up to the eyeballs with every pain relief drug available on the planet and his father had just woken up after a nice long kip on the recovery bed beside them. After 48 hours of blissful care by the midwives at Dorchester Hospital, my brief stay was over and it was time to face reality.
I returned home to two very excited small boys who were thrilled to have another brother to join their football team and a daughter who was equally excited about the shopping trips she was promised as the only girl in the family. Meanwhile out on the farm Hilary hen was also expecting. Sadly her chick did not make it and in true postnatal form I found myself sobbing in the chicken house consoling Hilary and sharing my maternal concerns over sleepless nights with Helen, Hilda and Harriet. In those weeks I formed a special bond with my feathery friends and now regularly seek refuge in the hen house when I need to escape.
Four months on, the odd sleepless night and sterilising endless bottles are the least of my worries. The challenges facing me are only just beginning. Raising four children, weaning the Baby, rearing animals and tending to a large vegetable patch are just a flavour of things to come.
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