I Need A Mary Poppins

Ok, so you know those celebrities who seem to collect - sorry adopt - exotic children like fashionable handbags? Or the ones who keep spawning with assorted partners and parading their swollen bellies like trophys on the front pages of magazines? Or the ones who claim that they want to have six children and say that it is the best experience of their lives? Well, let me tell you something. Each and every one of them HAS A NANNY. Yep, make no mistake, they are not running around frazzled and unwashed, wondering how to go and and buy milk when one child is downstairs filling the bathtub to overflowing, one is upstairs torturing the infant with head slaps, and still another is calmly 'painting' the sitting room sofa with peanut butter. No, A NANNY is calmly multi-tasking and 'tut-tutting' the kiddies into shape...her lavendar-scented jumper tied expertly around her waist and the children all fed, washed and ready to go to the park.

I am not saying that there aren't real live mothers capable of the same mind-numbing efficiency and total dedication needed to raise non future serial killers but....Well, it's a big butt. Yep, not only will dedicated kiddie-raising in my opinion eventually cause you to succomb to the 'mom-bum' (more on that later) but unless a woman has had a total lobotomy, it is unlikely that she will sing with sincere gusto,

'The Wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round....'

ad infinitum. It is impossible. Nor will she be able to sit pleasanty day after day, year after year in her front room playing 'pretend' and making up stories and songs and acting as though the latest gibberish their toddler has just come out with for the eighteenth time that hour, is fascinating and worthy of yet another patiently explained response. I just don't buy it - sorry i don't.

In my experience I have come across only one such lass who is capable of such sincere dedication to child-raising that she puts the rest of us to shame (you know who you are). I can only deduce that she is a superior being not of this world, and hence able to child-rear with a genuine delight and the patience of a saint. Lucky girl. But then she is the loveliest person imaginable, so I think God was generous in handing out seratonin when He got to her :)

For the rest of us mere mortals child-rearing neccesitates HELP. This can come in the form of empathetic family members (file 'The Aunties' in this category), adoring Grandparents (oh why oh why did we move across the ocean?!), hired help (yes please) or government paid representatives (four months, six days and 18 hours and counting until Egg begins part-time nursery school...assuming of course that he manages to get his bowels to cooperate).

Speaking of Jake, he's just come down the stairs, face smeared in milk chocolate. Instead of wringing his neck i take three very deep breaths while he looks on quizically and I calmly ask him what's going on. He replies,

"I wanted some Easter Creme Eggs and I found some in your drawer and I ate them Mama."

Fair enough. It's hard to argue with that logic. It's also my fault for leaving anything edible in my bedside drawer. He wins this round, though I have to say that he calls ALL chocolate eggs 'easter creme eggs' so technically he is incorrect...but i digress.

Anyway, I guess what i'm trying to say is that i would KILL for a nanny. Don't care if she's a chain-smoking, long-distance-running-up-phonebill kinda gal, or even a clothes thief who ransacks my cupboards and steals all my loo roll. I just want another pair of hands, so mine can do other things like make music, wash my hair, or write disparaging blogs about my current fragile state of mind.

Before I sign off on todays rather tyrannical rant (not really 'feeling the love' today it has to be said....mostly because Egg has again hidden my keys and refuses to tell me where he put them, and now we are stuck indoors for the remainder of this sweltering day) I shall address one issue: the dreaded 'Mom-Bum'. What is it? No, it is not a rather large and lumpy arse. You certainly don't need to go through hours of hellish labour to earn the right to one of those, when a simple predelection for Ben and Jerry's will suffice just as well. No, what I'm talking about is the special sort of rear which only certain 'Moms' of a well, shall we say, certain 'variety' get when they've spawned youngin's. A 'Mom-Bum' is usually encased in rather ill-fitting, high-waisted, loose-hipped and slightly tapered ankled jeans. It's a sad bum...one that speaks volumes of being neglected by your husband, too much park bench sitting, and it hides or flaps (depending on its size) listlessly as it goes about its day. It is the exact opposite of a pert, whole-life-ahead-of-you seventeen year olds' bottom. A 'Mom-Bum' has given up on life and is just meandering along, content to move aside for other more ambitious bums.

If i've lost you, then don't worry, this is not something you need to be concerned about. If it rings a bell, then get on your lateral thigh trainer pronto and turn that sad bum upside down! If in fact you think i'm am spouting gibberish then you try raising two overly active boys in a small inner-city London flat with no garden, no help and no sleep. Then get back to me. Cheerio.