mothers on the verge

Recently, I've been cryptic of the things in our lives that have been causing problems in our household. No more details but I will say they basically manage to cover all the bases of normal life stresses: work concerns, lawyers who steal money from you, best friends of 15 years who drop you because you don't want to discuss politics, and your children. Very normal stuff. But lately I have found that instead of wanting to rant about these things, I have become a bit of a recluse. Clammed up. Shied away from most contact other than that forced upon me, like when picking up The Rabbit, smiling at The (S)mothers and trying very hard not to make eye contact so as to not have to engage even in that normal banter: "How ya doing!" I guess I know I should just smile and say, "Great." But it's so that I'm afraid if I open my mouth, swarms of flies and bees will erupt out and cause perfectly normal G-d fearing folk to back away in stunned repulsion. And so I...

I am on holiday and while it is rather unseasonally cold and wet here in Geneva, I am sort of consoling myself with the fact that it is much more so in London right now. Watching the news and seeing the flooding in parts of the U.K. has been quite shocking, but the reporting of it has made me feel a little annoyed and a lot uncomfortable. OK, so technically the U.K. is in crisis. Obviously it's not going to be a barrel of laughs for those affected. Yes, it will affect livelihoods and it must be unpleasant to have to sleep in a community centre night after night, especially if you have young children. But we have to keep it in perspective - there is no large scale loss of life, there is no threat of malaria sweeping through the country to add salt to the wound, nor will people starve as a result. All in all, those directily affected will suffer upheaval, discomfort, emotional upset and will lose possessions (a large proportion of which will be insured). The farmers are likely to suf...

Had a shitty week this week. It started with a letter arriving in the post. A normal, white envelope, like, so what? But this was no ordinary envelope, for it contained the key to freedom, the end of scrimping and saving to pay expensive private daycare fees, the answer to having to take two children to different schools at different ends of the borough every day of the week, a means for the girls to spend more time together - oh yes, this letter had been eagerly awaited for a while. This oh-so-important letter was from Firstborn's school in response to our application to get the Small(er) One into the nursery class at the same esteemed (and free state school) establishment. We were reasonably confident about it because we fulfil the top three criteria to get in - practicing Catholics in the parish, live in the area, and last but not least, Firstborn is already there and they have a sibling priority policy. BUT THE SMALL(ER) ONE WAS REJECTED! Yes, rejected, the utter tossing @*?$!!...