"Dishpan Hands and Frazzled Nerves"

So here's the deal:  we've put our home on the market for an exhorbitant sum, in order to be able to afford a bigger home for an even more exhorbitant sum.  What this means of course, is that in order to be able to afford a stupidly expensive home in this area of London we call home, we need to sell OUR home for a stupidly expensive price.

Translation:  It is up to ME to turn this glorified den of testosterone-fuelled boy-mess into something resembling a 'lovely home' (ie. somewhere someone is prepared to pay serious money to live).  (Sigh).

My bones ache...my fingers are cracked and sore...my head hurts...I am as weary as a Jersey cow giving birth to an oversized calf in extended labour.  In short, I want to die.

What's worse is that after two years of perusing all suitable properties in the area, we have finally come upon what is known in Bourgeoise circles as our 'DREAM HOUSE'.  It is a house so glorious, and so perfect for us, that I want to break out into one of Squitty's 'Happy Dances' every time I think about it.

The sellers are playing hard to get, and the only way we stand a chance of nabbing the most perfect house in the world (okay fine, in this area) is by convincing the two sets of potential buyers tomorrow that they must absolutely part with a vast amount of cash in order to occupy what on most days resembles a replica of Peter Pan's Neverland Island of Lost Boys.

I'm serious.

Forget that the Fat Baby (aka 'Squit') loves to pass many an afternoon scribbling indelible marker imprints onto our bespoke cupboards...or that Dumpie has constructed a fake play land in the corner of his bedroom made out of 90% of his toys, emptied out of various toy boxes, faster than I can stash them out of sight.

I am like a sniffer hound, frantically grabbing up bits of clothing and mini boxer shorts splayed across the boy's bedroom floor, ascertaining in quick whiffs whether or not they belong in a drawer or a washing machine.  I stand by wanting to sob as two year old Squit shoves a chair across the kitchen floor, props the refrigerator open, grabs two or three yoghurt drinks, eludes my grasp and tears into the front room proceeding to sip and spray the half-full containers over our suede sofas and impossible-to-clean carpets.

I won't even get into the psychology of why my boys appear to take great delight in emptying their bowels into the toilets and leaving their various emissions to fester for hours until I come across them and have to scrub, flush and spray in order to erase the lingering odours.  And don't get me started on Squitty's favourite past time which is filling the bidets to overflowing in order to sail his little plastic toy boats....

As one of four girls growing up, this boy behaviour is foreign to me.  No amount of crying, banging fists and threatening immolation seems to have any effect on my sons, who when witnessing such manic behaviour are more prone to smile sardonically as they look up from their various ipods and ipads and mutter, 'Chill out Mama', as stop what they're doing and help me rectify the diabolic mess they've created.

In short, I face an impossible task, and only a miracle is going to deliver to us the house of our dreams.

No amount of chilled white wine is going to abate my sunken spirits, and as I sit here and despair, the only light at the end of the tunnel is the reality that should said attempted house move fail (for reasons mentioned above), at least I can console myself that the beaches of Goa and/or Bali await, and if our boy-centric family of five is unable to make it in the 'Western World' perhaps it's a sign that we belong on the beaches of Goa, where sandy sheets and dirty faces are not only encouraged, but the norm.

Middle-class London...we've tried our best to fit in...but perhaps we don't.  Only today will tell whether the countless hours of shunting the bulk of our possessions into an overpriced storage facility and rubbing my hands raw with chemically enhanced cleaning products will yield the result we so desperately crave.

Otherwise, I'm getting out my sandals, digging out my sarongs, and declaring defeat.  Sorry darling Egg, I know you're terribly clever and an academic in the making, but it's either boarding school for you or you're going to have to manage your expectations from being a star on the debating team into being chief conch blower on a sandy beach.

I officially give up.  Let the fates decide...