Rock On Mama

In my role as mother I hit a new low this morning. Looking up from my keyboard, headphones glued to my head (where they had been for the past two hours), I realised that Dumpie was not playing with play-doh at the dining room table, but slabs of roasted chicken cold cuts. What alerted me to this fact was that he began peeling off random strips and popping them into his mouth. It was at this point that the headphones came off and I reeled in horror.

Lest you think my negligence is without cause – rest assured I have a good reason. Not content with juggling two rambunctious and challenging little boy toddlers with home renovations and property management, I’ve now decided to add ‘rockstar’ to the mix. Okay maybe I’m being a little facetious here, but in all seriousness, a few weeks ago a band contacted me asking if I’d like to be their lead singer. As this has been a dream of mine for many years, I was hardly going to turn down the opportunity was I?

As it turns out, they found me on the internet, liked my songs and having met one of the members last week, I’m off to an all afternoon band practise tomorrow. To say I am petrified would be putting it mildly, but more worrying is the delusion that I believe I can do this with two little monsters who already demand more from me than I am able to give, and of course there is the fact that there is distinctly NOTHING rock n’ roll about being a mother.

There are many things mothers are (kind, loving, generous, comforting) but COOL is not one of them. Sorry, but it’s true. I’m sure there are the odd exceptions, but once you replace your leather wrist cuffs with breastpads I reckon your days of hedonism are well and truly over. J

Speaking of hedonism, ‘Dada’ is away for five days sitting in a field somewhere in middle England with 180,000 other revellers for the UK’s annual summer music festival, the legendary ‘Glastonbury’. Jay would be more likely to miss my funeral than miss ‘Glasto’. It is (in his words not mine) ‘the chance to hear good music, hang out with friends and escape the drudgery of everyday’. I think it’s the chance to forget one is a parent and embrace ones forgotten youth with abandonment. Either way he’s having an amazing time and I don’t begrudge him one bit…not yet anyway…though it is only day three!

Anyway, the new song I’m working on will have to wait, and it’s with great sorrow I turn off my mic, put down the headphones and embrace reality. Today is the ‘Belleville Summer Fair’ and I have two little boys who want to eat cupcakes, play games and pop balloons. Nourished from scavenged cold meats, they don’t understand that ‘Mama’ wants to be a singer in a band.

Middle age beckons insistently while I indignantly respond, middle finger raised rebelliously. There is life in the old girl yet, and at the very least this latest recipe for disaster will prove most entertaining for my kind and indulgent blog readers. Rock on Mama-bear….