"Manic & Messy: Living The Anti-Rock n' Roll Lifestyle"

A favourite pastime:  removing and playing with dangerous cleaning chemicals

When I was young I imagined my future punctuated by all manner of exciting and adventurous episodes:  I saw myself touring with a band, being a travel writer, going on book tours promoting my latest best seller, attending glamourous parties with my equally glamourous partner, stroking the heads of my darling children as they gathered around me for a bedtime story, living in a big and beautiful house with even bigger beautiful grounds, acting in several cool, under-the-radar Indie films...you get the picture.

Instead, yesterday I found myself in a kiddie playground surrounded by a gaggle of annoying little children (and believe me they were annoying) buzzing around my ankles, and hoping desperately that I would wake up and it would all be a dream.

Maybe it was because I was on a fast and had low blood sugar.  Or maybe I was just desperately bored.

Whatever the case, I'm finding life particularly tiresome these days.  Ironically the baby (aka 'Squit') has recently started sleeping through the nights...IN HIS OWN BED...so that's not the problem.  And the older two, Egg and Dumpie, though messy, loud and strong-willed, are basically normal little boys who are no better or no worse than any other 6 and 8 year old boys.  I think.

No, whatever malaise haunts my soul these days has to do with me, and only me.  When one's favourite hobbies are wine drinking and sleeping, it is cause for thought non?

Still, life is not without its little joys.  The baby has turned into a right little snogger, and getting random heartfelt little kisses at unexpected moments can make even my stone heart turn mushy for a moment :)
(And it makes it easier to forgive the little rug rat when moments later he whacks me hard across the head with a drumstick or abandoned tennis racket.)

Perhaps I'm stressed and just not admitting it to myself.  For example, in just three weeks the husband and I will be carting our progeny to the worlds largest music festival for 3-4 days:  the mighty 'Glastonbury'.

At one time the thought would have filled me with glee and sent me scouring through ebay for the cutest wellies I could find.  Not this time however.  I basically stopped going to 'Glasto' several years ago after Egg was born.  Hedonism and dirty nappies aren't the most natural of bedfellows - just like hangovers and childcare.  See where I'm going with this?

The husband is of course gleefully contemplating time off work and excited about sitting in a field with his mates being stupid and silly. Bless him...he is woefully disillusioned about what the reality of a 'family Glastonbury' is going to mean.

But let him have his happy thoughts.  I love him and he deserves to be happy.  If even for a short time.  (Which is how long it will be until it dawns on him - probably about the time the tent is set up - what a big, big, ever-so-big mistake he has made.)