mothers on the verge

You know that the (blue) chips are really down when City folk start cancelling social engagements. Alpha and I were due to go to a birthday party tonight, which was cancelled at the 11th hour due to the birthday boy's bank going bump. A dinner planned for later in the week has also been cancelled, this time due to the host's overwhelming fear that the hedge fund he works for might be about to go bump. Right now I'm sitting in my Central London club (less glamorous than it sounds) and it seems the only people still looking cheerful are the media types. Why do the words 'Nero' and 'fiddle' keep coming to mind?

It sounded oddly familiar, the song she was singing this morning while eating her eggs. I'm listening...."I played with your heart...got lost in the game...Ooo baby baby..." And then it smacked me across the face like a fettering diaper. I demanded to know: "Where did you hear that???" I found out she and her friend Tadpole went to the Barbie Web site, and heard it there. Many times. Enough to memorize it. So they can also, it seems, sing it at lunch. So glad that within the fairly carefully culled confines of our lives, my 5-year-old daughter found the worm hole to Britney Spears.

The Prince bought The Rabbit some boxing gloves a year or so ago. She used them for awhile as a paper weight for her pictures and scribbles. Tonight, The Prince got them out and encouraged her to hit him silly. She took to them, perhaps a little too well. After a minute, he brought her out to give me my turn. You've never seen anything as scary as you're five year old hauling ass on your arm, with a hawk-like intensity burrowed into her face. After a minute or so, I finally made her stop. Seriously - I was bruising. "But I like to box, mama." She said. That's all good, but mama needed a little break. She took a side-long glance. Then turned and muttered. "Loser."

For all you bakers out there, you may find this hilarious. And shocking. Cake Wrecks My new favorite blog. (Today!)

All children are embarrassing. I know this. I am fully aware that my two precious angels will regularly make me either want to weep at their scandalous behaviour or throttle them, Homer Simpson-style, whilst hoping for a timely hole to open up and swallow me. Such is life with kids. But today was a special day - a Factor 8 on the Cringe Scale. It started with the Small(er) One shouting "bugger!" at the top of her voice in church. When reprimanded she screeched indignantly; "But MUMMY, you say that word ALL the time!" Erm ... mea culpa . But I'd rather keep the sordid details of my slutty ways away from the ears of the priest and dear old church ladies, thanks all the same. The Small(er) One then followed up this shameless expose of her dear mother's failings by pulling Firstborn's skirt and knickers down to her ankles. Unfortunately the congregation was on its knees at the time but Firstborn was standing up on the pew, resulting in the five packed row...

Kensington Gardens was awash with excitement this afternoon as word spread amongst the flicky-haired yummy mummy coven that a Celebrity Couple had been sighted. You'd have thought that it would barely merit an eye-twitch, used as we are to regular glipses of c'lebs; you can hardly walk down the road in Kensington these days without spotting the likes of Elle MacPherson peddling around on her bicycle or Michael Winner trotting from one restaurant to another. But this was different. This was a Proper Celebrity Couple pretending to be civilians - y'know, walking around with minimal pouting and posing, looking happy with their kid - and all without a bodyguard in sight. There they were, Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connolly , shamlessly mingling with the hoi polloi by the swings while an entire tribe of yummy mummies sucked in their stomachs. A few mummies shamlessly scrabbled for their Lancome Juicy Tubes whilst fluffing up their flicks. The palpable tang of hormones-in-overdri...

YLM's post made me remember when The Prince I bought our flat and the lovely plans we had to make it warm, fresh and streamlined. All of the things YLM's flat convey. Of course, it must be said, she has a remarkable eye for design and space. I have seen two of her places and they've always had a wonderful flair. My flat looks like something from Sanford & Son . Before I met The Prince, I always had very sweet, very curated spaces. A few pieces of furniture, a spot of color, and tidiness. I was very VERY neat. Then we moved in together. He with the spray-painted cinder blocks for book shelves. Me with the 1950s original Formica tables and chairs. He with the futon that had broken slats. Me with the Bauer bowls carefully collected over years from flea markets. Then we moved to London. I found a rectory table, glorious and old. A library cabinet. Some caned chairs. He added some Ikea chairs that reminded him of Danish design. And gave my Formica table to a mate who gave i...

Buggeration. Our estate agent, a creature I'm not particularly fond of at the best of times (he has the arrogance of youth without the brain cells to complement it), has just called to announce we have to reduce our apartment by at least £100k if we're to have any hope of selling. It's hard to believe that the market has fallen by that much since we first put it on the market a mere four weeks ago, but there you go. Looks like my dream of upgrading to the properly grown-up house in Shepherd's Bush that I've been hankering after, and installing Sven the 18 year-old Swedish au pair in the airy attic room, is fading before my very eyes...

The 'Black Monday' fall-out was evident at the school gates this morning; all the banker's wives clutching their Chanel handbags a little tighter than usual and looking pale under their St Tropez tans. But it's not the families of the financial big boys I'm feeling sorry for - if they had any sense (although there's a big fat question mark over that considering what's just happened with Lehman Brothers) they would have salted away some of those gigantic bonuses they've been enjoying for years. It's all the regular people - the back office staff, the PAs, the security guards, cleaners and similar - who earned a decent but not remarkable wage, who'll be wondering if they're going to be able to make the mortgage this month. They're the ones who are really going to feel the pinch. But at the same time as storm clouds gather over the City and nails are bitten to the quick all over Kensington, Brit-art wunderkind Damien Hirst has been raking it...

Managed to squeeze in two parties, a long lunch and a visit to a friend this weekend, plus all the usual chore stuff, and am now prone on the sofa, so tired I'm having trouble lifting glass of wine to lips. How did I get so old ?

Still on the annoying theme (but without the biting), somehow I stumbled across this rather amusing list of 101 Kinds Of Annoying People. I'm in total agreement with numbers 5, 15, 20, 31, 32, 34, 35, 39, 42, 43... oh, OK then, in total agreement with most of them. Except for number 23, because sometimes small children running around stores screaming is infinitely preferable to small children running around my home screaming.

The Small(er) One is all over biting right now. Told off? She retaliates by chomping her tiny teeth down on whatever bit of flesh is closest. Steal her toy? Chomp. Try to get her dressed in the morning in something she doesn't consider stylish enough? Chomp chomp. Sometimes the teeth are unleashed for no reason other than she's feeling kind of grumpy. The only good news is that she hasn't bitten her teacher. Yet. Part of me, the grown-up parental part, thinks This Has To Stop. Another little part of me can kind of understand the attraction of sinking your gnashers into the tender flesh of the source of annoyance. So here's my list of people who deserve a heartfelt bite, given the opportunity and the certainty that I'd get away with it: The annoying 'supermom' who heads up the PTA at school. She is not only bite-inducingly smug but wears trousers at least two sizes too small for her considerable rear, resulting in a wince-making case of 'hungry bum' s...

Apparently now, children of affluent moms who work suffer while children of "low-status" moms (don't yell at me, that's from the story) don't suffer as much. Let's pause here. So now, you're damned if you do. Damned if you don't. Do not think for a minute this is meant as a comment on the current "Should she work?" conversation going on regarding the Republicans VP choice. (Although - of course she should be allowed to work, and no, that does not mean I'm voting for her ticket.) Why I am posting this is because of this question: Why aren't we paying money for a study that asks if children of affluent working DADS suffer????? Hmmm? I can't find a link to the original study, so if anyone finds it, comment and we'll post it here.

From a friend. A way to think of others, and take action, with just a click.

Last weekend, The Prince dropped a 200-lb television set on his toe. If you're like his daughter, you may be worried that the TV might have broken. Since it's not ours, I had much less concern about that since his toe looks so grotesque that I can't in any good conscience even put a photo up of it. The good news is, neither his toe, nor the TV set, are broken. Just oozing, multi-colored, slightly dented, and with a dead nail on top. But it didn't stop The Rabbit from yelling this morning: "Daddy! Your toe is BLACK!!!" Let's just say I'm sleeping under my own set of covers. Forgive me, but I don't want to come anywhere near this mess.

I debated for some months this summer whether my usual tirades against the (s)mothering herd should end. After all, a few weeks surrounded by big trees, fresh air, hawks and eagles can truly Cat Stevens the stress out of anyone. Yes? And then school started. What is it about playground politics that is so stressful? Everyone staring at what you're wearing. Wondering if they'll talk with you. Wondering if you'll get invited for lunch. And this is the MOTHERS. I have never been a social butterfly, nor a full-on misfit. I always managed to hover somewhere between Student Body President and kid who wears shorts in December. But some how, every damn morning, I return to some sort of anxious adolescent. Wishing it could be ME popping my thumb in my mouth. So, you may or may not be glad to hear: regular updates on the (s)mothering band of biddies will continue. It's either that, or I'll be hitting the red wine earlier. Might end up as both.

The bedtime routine in our family is a long-drawn out affair much like applying wart medication. It must be done with care, the same way each time, or excruciating pain develops. The Rabbit requires the following: Bath, followed by two chapters of a "surprise book" while nursing her nightnight snack, then careful placement of her 4.3 trillion stuffed animals on the floor, and then three songs sung to lull her princess self to sleep. Here's what has been going on recently as The Prince's job requires him to work 18 hours a day: Bath, followed by tantrum as Mama has poured water in her eyes again, followed by one short-ass book, and NO snack. Then Mama throws all stuffed animals on floor while Rabbit brushes her teeth in other room, then songs sung and a quick kiss so Mama can race back to finish work and pound popcorn. Tonight The Rabbit called 10 minutes after I left to tell me how much her life has changed. (Yes, you may gag. It's my child, and it made me gag.) I...

Forget the glass ceiling. According to newly released results from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, women now face a concrete ceiling while trying to shin up the greasy corporate ladder. The latest figures show that ownership of a penis is essential for all those looking to hit the Business Big Time. Actually, it's not just in business that having a fine set of balls really counts - the worlds of politics, the police force and the legal professions are just as admiring of the Y chromosome. The really worrying bit is that the drop in equality has taken place within the past five years, with the numbers really starting to fall in the past year. Guess it really is a man's, man's world after all. Maybe we women need to get off our complacent butts and realise that the legacy our mothers left us wasn't enough after all. The big question is: what comes next in a so-called post-feminist world?

I guess I've been feeling a bit low recently, possibly brought on by the potent combo of too much time on my hands and being exposed to too many shouty children (I'm not very good with relentless noise). The kids were rolling around on the rug the other day as if they were trying out for WWE - lots of body slamming, slapping and bellowed insults - and, rather than my usual technique of shouting and banishing one or both to the 'naughty step', I was so tired and fed up with life in general that I sat on the sofa and burst into tears (probably pre-menstrual as well, if I'm going to be entirely honest). Firstborn immediately loosened her grip on the Small(er) One's hair and raced over, wailing. "Mummy! Don't cry!" There I am, a pathetic dribbling mess pretending to be an adult, clasped to the skinny chest of my 6 year old who is patting, yes, patting me on the head and murmering "there, there". I'm afraid to say that such kindness just m...