Monday 6th April – I Make an Effort

I would just like to use this fleeting moment in between chasing children round and round endlessly to publish a disclaimer. It is not that I think that being 37 is old. I don’t.  Nor do I fear ageing.  I have many fine plans for when the children finally decide they no longer want to be my best friend and leave home to live in a squat with bearded hippies and vermin.  What I do object to is feeling old before my time.

It may not seem like it from the pages of this blog, but there was a time, not so long ago either, when I didn’t even really think about ageing or feeling old.  I just got on with my life.  I do not spend lots of money on anti ageing products. I do not dye my hair because I fear the grey bits. I dye it because I get away with more idiocy being blonde than I did when I was naturally brunette.  I was relatively fit when I wasn’t having babies, and apart from being rather mental, relatively healthy.  If I went to the Doctors more than twice a year it was a cause for alarm.

In the last year, as documented right here, things have changed,  and I am up and down to the doctors fasther than a whore’s drawers.  It is very wearisome and not being able to do the things I used to take for granted has made me feel old.  This has made me look at my upcoming birthday in a rather more pessimistic light than usual.  Normally I would be making a gigantic fuss, demanding treats and drawing up lists weeks in advance.  There would be much hullabaloo and general all round cheer.  This year has been somewhat different and this is new and not entirely welcome.  Hence the whingeing, low level petulance and moaning.

Today however, I have to say that I have felt much better.  This, despite having been kept up all night by Oscar repeatedly vomiting all over the bed clothes and us having to drag the cot into our bedroom in the wee small hours because we were worried he might choke, but not worried enough to have him in bed with us where he might a) vomit into Jason’s beard and b) vomit all over my Egyptian cotton sheets.

Today I made a pact with myself that I would make more of an effort and that this might help me not to feel so much like an AP (aged parent for those non Swallows and Amazons fans).  I got up and made time to slap on some foundation and blusher. I actually checked that I had brushed my hair before we went out.  I didn’t just automatically go straight to the jeans drawer for my clothing. I wore my new All Saints skirt and a lovely John Rocha silk top.  I eschewed trainers for tights and three inch black patent YSL rip offs.  It felt nice.  I felt more like the old me.

Then I spent the day doing the following:

• Changing shitty nappies
• Having sand based feasts forced upon me by snot ridden toddlers.
• Running around the garden after small children on tricycles
• Scrubbing floors
• Pushing swings
• Cooking
• Knocking over viscous liquids that stain
• Getting my heels stuck in gratings
• Scrubbing lumps of mashed banana off of household implements

I remembered why I usually throw on jeans and a t-shirt.  On the other hand, despite the fact that my dry cleaning bills are going to be massive and I may be forced to wield an iron for the first time in about ten years, I have decided that I will continue to try and make an effort.  Having nice clothes and not wearing them for fear of reprisals is rather like having beautiful china and saving it for best. I don’t do that.  We all eat off my Emma Bridgewater pots on a daily basis, and despite wincing a lot, we have been lucky so far. I shall persevere, although I may have to go for remedial lessons in running in heels.  Thank God we have a friend who is an osteopath.