Starbucks, Flying Hedgehogs and The Meaning of Life

I was chatting with a friend of mine last night and we were both enviously bemoaning those couples that sit in Starbucks on a Sunday morning, drinking their coffees and reading their magazines just oozing calm and relaxation. I can imagine those people bouncing into work on Monday glowing after a weekend spend rejuvenating after the hectic working week. Our trips to Starbucks are now invariably centred around trying to "stop the kids o/d'ing on fruitshoots" and to actually eat that chocolate muffin they howled for in the queue as opposed to sharing it liberally with the surrounding tables.  But we both came to the conclusion quite quickly we wouldn't change a thing.

Why? Why do people want kids? Ok so I know this is a question akin to the meaning of life and its different for everyone; partly our genetic programming, a need to create life with a beloved partner or indeed an overwhelming urge to parent. But it is fair to say that the ideology of parenting that I had before kids is absolutely nothing like the reality I live today. The relentless frustrations, earsplitting noise, a hallway that looks like a shoe sale at Oxfam and don't get me started on the eternal training of turning off lights, flushing the toilet and please put half eaten food in the bin and DON'T shove it behind the TV....

That being said, some time back we made friends with a couple round the corner. They lived in an identical house to us but had no kids. The first time we pitched up at their house for a BBQ when they opened the door my daughter stood there, open mouthed, and announced to the world "Wow... so THIS is what our house is supposed to look like?!" Whilst I enjoyed the afternoon I left with a sense of dissatisfaction at my house. I then spent the next couple of weeks in a pointless attempt to try and "up-chic" my home. I eventually surrendered when the elegant ornament I had strategically placed on the hallway table was brutally murdered by a flying barbie doll and the chic paper-shaded floor light was cheerfully decorated by my youngest with a fine drawing of her, mummy and what looked like a flying hedgehog. 

Over coffee with my neighbour I shamefacedly admitted my attempts to mimic her house style when she admitted that she too had been very "saddened" after coming to our house. It turns out they were unable, for whatever reason, to have kids and had spent many evenings talking about how they would adore their perfectly manicured hallway to be as crappy, messy and kidified as ours. 

So truthfully I cannot tell you one reason why I wouldn't change a thing about the crappy, messy, kidified existence that I inhabit. The reality may not be what I had anticipated and there are moments that see me reaching for the pinot grigio but those are completely outweighed by moments of absolute perfection, of lots of little instances of pure joy, unconditional love and acceptance with a whole pile of sticky kisses thrown in.

So indeed this Sunday I will not be sitting in Starbucks with a double-shot, skinny latte and the latest copy of the FT (or indeed Hello!) but will be sitting in my bed with a mug of tea that is broadly used by all and sundry to dunk their Rich Tea biscuits in while they destroy my already destroyed bedroom by making dens and then fighting over who will go in first. 

And if I really want to relax I hear colouring is very good therapy and I know of a lampshade that is crying out for a whole bunch of pretty flowers to go with a flying hedgehog....

Confessions Of An Over-Achieving Under-Achiever

I was speaking with a man at work recently - I knew him more by name before but this was the first time we'd really spoken at any great length. About half way through the conversation he mentioned that he was retiring in May. Well frankly I was floored. He certainly didn't subscribe to the old man in a coat and cap shuffling off to the doors with a carriage clock under his arm. Looking at this guy I would have described him probably as middle aged, full of energy, an insightful approach to life with a cutting sense of humour. I was truly interested in his plans post-retirement as he didn't strike me as someone who'd would spend the next 30 years of his life shouting at school kids out of the living room window while waiting for the Countdown double bill on Channel 4....

He mentioned several things he wanted to get involved with in his new-found free time and when I asked him what was the one thing he was most worried or scared about he replied "Being Paralysed By Choice"; having so many options that he never fully commits to a few things well but tries everything and gets no where. His choice of words struck me and left me thinking afterwards how often people never really achieve everything they could in life because they either can't decide on just 1 or 2 things or, indeed, how society expects smart, professional people to be fully rounded - many and varied interests - not just one - which frankly makes you seem a right geek. Unless that one thing is cage fighting at which point you are obviously not a geek and I apologise whole heartedly...Sir.  

I then applied that theory to my own life... I hate filling in any personal forms where it asks you to complete your outside interests or hobbies. I assume that means outside of kids, housework and normal work. Errr.... reading? Watching Breaking Bad on Sky + 3 weeks after everyone else? French? (Hey I have an O-level) Ok I confess... I don't actually do anything. In my defense I have a crazy lifestyle, focussing on family, work, house, partner, rushing from one thing to the next, being permanently exhausted. 

But recently I have been making great efforts to actually do more stuff. I am trying to learn a new language, learn chess, get fitter, write more, be more organised, keep things tidier with a side helping of improving my cooking skills. I'm failing to seemingly get anywhere of course because in looking at that list, I am obviously on cloud cuckoo.  With the incredibly limited amount of time I have in reality - to focus on all that - what the hell am I thinking? What is it that drives me beyond a normal level of satisfaction with achievement to attempt to do everything at once only to achieve nothing of note (by my standards). In looking to self-improve, am i a victim of being paralysed by choice? Wouldn't it be better to just pick one thing and solely focus on that? Well yes of course it would but is that likely to happen? No... because that seems to be the way I'm wired. 

In truth being this slightly insane person that overloads herself with goals and expectations probably allows me to do the work, house, family things as my "base load' whereas many people would look at what I do as a normal everyday routine and think Holy Cow... While I attempt to learn or improve 7 things at once, 6 are invariably forgotten until the next bout of resolution making. But you know what there's one that may sneak through and actually become something I do new... as part of my base load. So rather than thinking of it as being paralysed by choice, or as my mother puts it...ridiculously overloading yourself... perhaps its more just a case of being unrestricted and spontaneous, taking several shots at life and relying on divine guidance or fate to step in and make the choice for me.

So in this bout of resolution making and breaking, writing does indeed seem to be the one thing that's sticking. And I'm already working on my next list of things to try and do later in the year...anyone fancy joining me in a Cage Fighting taster evening?!

Send In The Reinforcements, Wet Wipes And Latte

So as the urban legend goes... I was supposed to be meeting a senior consultant from my company who had flown over especially from Houston to join me in a meeting with the UK Government. Here we were going to discuss the demure and most serious topics of energy policy. The plan was put in place weeks before with military precision of getting the kids into breakfast club at school giving me time to get to an early train into London, meeting up and off we go... all the while being very demure and serious. 

Military precision and pre-planning is of course no match for the random temperament of a child who takes a notion into their head, a mood into the soul or whatever and frankly you're now there as an observer who's entire goal is just focussed on surviving and getting them out the door. In fact, I often wonder why we don't have a volunteer army of toddlers and young children. Seriously... fraught Syria negotiations? Send in a bunch of 4-5 year olds armed with haribo, toys that play annoying tunes and just as you close the door say "did you know the Syrian President loves a good game of duck duck goose?" and after about 30 minutes the politicians and leaders will be begging for World Peace if you'd only just let them out....

Sorry, I digress...

Needless to say kids were thrown in the door at breakfast club late requiring me to sprint in heels to the station arriving late with only a few minutes to spare. At that point I realised I'd left my purse at home. I called the consultant guy and started off very rationally explaining my predicament and the fact I would now Not be able to join him in London. However as the call progressed and my emotions vented I began to get into the mood, decibels rising with some dramatic hysteria thrown in, I ended my speech by howling "I have no money, I'm hot, I'm sweaty and I'm covered in porridge!" I could actually hear the tumbleweed on the end of the phone. 

The gentleman remained everything I wished I could be; cool, calm and collected. He told me to hunt around the dregs of my handbag and see if I had any change (Men aren't supposed to know that kind of thing). I literally scrounged enough coppers for a single to London. His advice was just get on the train and we'll work it out. 

As I stepped off the train, composure restored and completely mortified at my drama this gentleman met me at Waterloo station with a fistful of dollars (well Great British Pounds but it didn't sound as good), a packet of wet wipes for some impromptu dry cleaning and a large latte. That day he was my hero...

So it turns out that whilst all senior and executive now with fully grown kids, the memory of juggling it all was still very fresh in his mind. There was no judgement, disapproval or general scorn at my pathetic-ness. Just a sense of camaraderie between a veteran of the war and a currently serving officer. 

So while I don't advocate emotional outbursts at work as an every day occurrence, sometimes life does take its toll and an occasional meltdown not only reminds us we're human but sometimes, out of the ashes, you find help and support in the place you'd least expect it....

You Were Born To Be Real, Not To Be Perfect

So in  addition to my increasingly apparent dependency on coffee I have another addiction which I am compelled to admit which is an mild obsession with self-help literature: to the point I'm even acknowledged in Richard Templar's latest copy of The Rules To Break (I'm part geek - sorry...).

So imagine my joy last night when I was trawling through the Forbes Woman website when I found an article titiled something along the lines of "Things That Keep Women From Leading Better Lives." Hold the phone and pass the pinot grigio, this girl was all set for an evening of female inspiration perhaps with a small bit of metaphorical bra-burning thrown in. 

It was a fairly typical article, which opened with a blurb about women, in particular mothers with careers, who needed to face the facts of life to be able to really achieve what they want to achieve. By now I was hooked and on my second glass of grigio which seemed to be evaporating in anticipation.

Well Dear God I apologise for what I am about to say but what an utter pile of complete bollocks that turned out to be.... The focus seemed to be on saying that you didn't have to hit 100% perfection (implying 95% was just fine), not worrying if you weren't perfectly manicured or your house wasn't completely perfect or your children weren't "just-so" perfect. I wasn't sure if I was just too cynical, too British or perhaps just too slovenly to really buy into this. Does anyone, correction...does any working mother actually ever try and be perfect? I mean really "perfectly" perfect?

Most of the working mothers I know gave up the concept of being perfect somewhere about 3 months into the motherhood gig when we all realised that beige tops rocked as they didn't show the baby stains and hence didn't need washing as frequently. 

Personally I'm less concerned with arriving at work perfectly manicured than making sure I have clean underwear, my top on the right way round and both shoes the same colour. Between getting out of bed and arriving at my desk I have played referee, nurse, chef, teacher, mediator, sherpa, taxi driver, counsellor and social secretary. I roughly have about 10 minutes "Me time" in the morning to shower and dress and usually that is with an audience while answering 100 questions ranging from "Mummy, what was the name of Peppa pig's goldfish?" to the more awkward "Why do boys have tails Mummy?" What the...?!

Don't get me wrong I can scrub up ok when the need calls but on a daily basis ... it's just not happening.

As for the house - I think you have to know someone pretty well to turn up unannounced when they have kids. My sister has a sign on her door which says "This house is not under construction, Kids live here" I never really understood that until I got to child number 3. Keeping my house tidy is rather similar to painting the Golden Gate bridge. And for those of you that have turned up at my place and wonder what I am worrying about - whilst it may have appeared tidy - you obviously didn't open any cupboards. 

But the one that really got me riled was whether my kids were perfect. Define "kids being perfect"... Are their outfits completely co-ordinated? Err no. They tend to dress themselves. I gave up attempting to pretend I had any influence about 2 years ago. Pink, orange and red are a regular combination and through it they are developing their own sense of self and style. Do they behave perfectly? At home... not a chance in hell. But when we go out people comment on how well behaved they are (Excuse me, do you mean my kids?) Do they sit like angels doing their homework - no I drag them kicking and screaming through learning spellings and reading every week but their reports tell me of engaged children that are doing great. 

So in short - I'm not perfect, my house isn't perfect, my kids aren't perfect - by some complete strangers standards. 

And that's perfectly fine by me...

When Oh When Will My iPhone Make Coffee?

So my eldest came home the other day saying they had been discussing in the R.E. class whether or not it was possible to live without a Smart Phone. Fortunately the general consensus among her peers was that yes... it was quite possible, people had lived without them for 100s of years. I enthusiastically joined the debate assuring her that the Smart Phone itself didn't really create anything new (apart from Candy Crush which isn't necessarily a good thing) but was a good tool to help get things done efficiently. It's not like I'm reliant on it to get my morning coffee or anything....

As she walked out of the kitchen secure in the knowledge of her mother's continued survival in the event of a cellular armageddon I realised I had told a a Big, Fat, Whopping Lie and let's hope she doesn't read this. OK it is true to say that the smart phone is just a tool - the apps of which can be replaced by old school technology. I can carry a paper diary, a camera, a notepad, a calculator, a video recorder while I am walking to my bank to transfer some money before dragging the 4 kids to Tescos for a fun afternoon - stopping at a payphone en route to call my partner to say I may be late for dinner - about 4 hours late at this rate...

The efficiency and convenience of having all these things at our finger tips allows me to enjoy a quality of life and fit everything in that I need to do. Since the Tesco app hit my screen what was once a Saturday afternoon's nightmare has now turned into a quick 10 minute scroll through my favourites while sitting in the car waiting for the kids to finish ballet. I can book cinema tickets, trains, summer holidays even; I can keep in touch with all my friends, search for houses, play chess. For goodness sake it even works as a torch and don't get me started on temporary child entertainment with the ever popular Minion Rush - or educational Toddler Maths. And I can train it to scream at me to remind me to do all the things I need to do to get everyone safely through from sunrise to sunset. 

Now what I do with that time it has created is another matter and there is no hard and fast rule about where it goes. But without it I certainly could not do the job I do and be the Mum I want to be. 

So sweetheart in all honesty while the world would survive, your mother has serious doubts she would survive with her sanity intact. I love my Smart Phone, it is not the nemesis that competes with family life but the friend that gives me the time to have that lounge disco on a Saturday afternoon with the kids.  

All I need to do now is work out how to get it to actually make that skinny, double shot latte....

Role Model Schmole Model

Yesterday I wrote that by being a professional working mother it gave me the opportunity ... or at least a way... for me to teach my kids how to be the best they can be. As I signed off those words stayed with me and I lay in bed pondering "What the hell did I exactly mean by that?" There are good things and bad things to the way I chose to live and I certainly don't want my kids to think that they need to have a blackberry glued to them to be their best. Or that to get everything done, sometimes the only way is insomnia. So what was it exactly I wanted them to see...?

That led me onto thinking about female role models. To put it in context I have 4 girls ranging from 5 to 12 (going on 18) and I am passionate about them growing up as strong, independent, capable women all mixed with compassion, generosity and sense of social responsibility along with a wicked sense of humour please. So who would I want to be their role models... and what would I want them to learn and "role" from them? 

Immediately I started thinking about the amazing women in the business world - who have shattered the glass ceiling and brought change, innovation, creativity, control or just good old plain sass and intelligence. Next it was the amazing philanthropists of our time, the women who dedicate their lives to helping others, helping the world.... putting their beliefs ahead of personal gain or comfort. There were the women in the global political world that have lead countries, revolutions, protests, social change. I could go on and on... Amazing women who could all stand next to each other as role models to be proud of ...

So I asked my eldest, "who's your female role model?" Inside I was quietly praying "Dear God please at least say someone like Mother Theresa, even the Queen would do..." Instead she responded "Emma Watson". It took me a moment to catch up and before I could stop myself... my eyes rolled. Are we seriously talking about Hermione from the Harry Potter movies? I was about to launch into a usual speech about needing to be more aware of the world outside of Disney when...in a bout of guilt from the eye rolling incident... I stopped and simply asked "Why?"

The response floored me. "Oh Mum she's amazing. She got the role of Hermione as an 11 year old and grew up in the public eye making millions on the way. But she kept completely grounded and insisted on going to university and maintaining her education. And she does loads to support animal charities and has even launched a line of organic clothing to try and get teenagers to be more aware."

You know what, my daughter is 12. She has her whole life ahead of her toa learn about amazing women of every genre and as a mother all I can wish is that the role models she choses are ones that can teach her the lessons that I aspire too. In her role model of Hermione she found a woman she could relate to, that showed education as being worthy, necessary and very cool. A woman that was aware of her own beliefs and did something about them. So hats off to Emma Watson (who I now follow on twitter) and today ladies and gentlemen, my female role model is my daughter.... who reminded me that sometimes we need to see the world from another perspective.

And I WIll Never Make A Coffee Morning....

Something happened a few months ago in the school carpark. Yet another email form the Class Rep had done the rounds suggesting how great it would be if all us Mums got together after school drop off for a coffee and a general Get To Know You. But while all the other Mums were milling around I was doing my usual 100m dash to my car combined with a bit of hurdling over a various assortment of small children. As I was in my car making the usual preparations for takeoff (throw coat off, check work passes are to hand, quick check of the blackberry and away we go) there was a sharp rap on the passenger window. As I lowered the window another Mum, looking equally harrassed looked at me, nodded towards the assortment of gathering mothers and said "God they don't know they've lived. Are you on LINKED IN?"

In that one moment any residual ideology I had of being one of those mothers who can create an entire social life out of School Gate parents disappeared. I would never have that - my choices mean that my social circle would continue to be mainly family and friends I'd had for years.

Sometimes I wonder whether I'm missing out on a whole opportunity and experience of child rearing but then I think being a professional Mum not only gives me room to be who I need to be but is a way I can teach my children valuable lessons on being the best you can be. 

But all that being said... despite the crazy hectic pace of my life and my lack of Gate-loitering, I haven't been a complete social failure! I do have 2 friends to add to my inner circle that I have met over the years at the Gates. These were women that happen chance caused us to be in the same place for longer than 5 mins and in that short period of time something clicked.... And these are amazing women, women that have seen me through good times and very bad times. That will be there now no matter what school my kids go to. As my mum always said its not about quantity of friends but quality and if nothing else I thank the lord that brought me crashing through the school gates at the same time as these women. 

It's sad but true that I will never be an active member of the PTA, that my kids will go on more play dates to other peoples houses than I will be able to return, and no I will not be able to help out at Rainbows every other Tuesday. But you know what? My kids don't care.... Because we will make their Jolly Jars together at the weekends, and they will wake up in the morning and their Rainbow badges will be all sewn on their tunics, and when friends do come over it tends to be in the holidays and we go out for the whole day not just a couple of hours in the evening. In fact the only one who seems to be feeling guilty at all about this is me...

Unfortunately I won't be able to drown that guilt in a double shot skinny latte with some great Mums from school but my kids did buy me a rather excellent travel coffee mug that sits steaming, waiting for me in my car as I prepare for take off....

The Curious Entity

So the Juggling Mother is a curious entity. Other people look on in from the outside and invariably shake there head whilst commenting "How do you fit it all in?" or the highly misguided "Gee you are a Superwoman" or my personal favourite "You need to slow down".

From the inside looking out, we're don't feel as if we are doing anything extraordinary - this is just life. We get up, sort the kids, manage the work, plan our days, our weeks and our months.... admittedly often to a degree of military precision that would put Alexander the Great to shame... But it is just every day life. 

So why do we do it? 

Well its no surprise to anyone that economies of life mean that more families have to have 2 incomes solely to meet the demands of life and achieve a reasonable quality of life but it's often more than that. Most women I speak to, myself included, want to work to achieve personal growth and satisfaction. I love my kids, I adore my kids, I would give the world for my kids - but if I stayed home every day - me personally - I would go stark raving crazy. My career allows me to explore and develop other areas of my personality and intelligence so that overall I am a happier person and yes... cliche as it is... a better mum. 

But what strikes me as most surprising is when an area of our life seems to be quietening down - you'd think we'd take the opportunity to move towards a generally easier life but it doesn't work that way. Without change, without challenge, without pressure there's a tendency to boredom, restlessness and we think and create new things for ourselves to do or learn or experience.... I see it in my female colleagues to work too. Hell I see it in my male colleagues at work! There seems to be this undeniable need to be busy, to never take the quiet route, we thrive on pushing ourselves and "having it all"...

And yes that often comes with compromises... a greater reliance on childcare than we'd like, not being able to go on every business trip, balancing commitments at work and at schools... At the end of the day there is only 24 hours and the lifestyle we chose means we have to prioritise, make choices and hope to God it all kind of works out.

And I have to say - in most cases it does...