mothers on the verge

Aimlessly gazing around (which I confess is a common thing for me during Sunday family mass), I came to the realisation this weekend that church is a rich source of culturally fascinating trends. The interactions! The carefully observed hierarchy! The sidelong glances! The plumage! The place is a hotbed of social intrigue. One thing of primary interest is the very different type of dads to be found shifting their backsides uncomfortably on the hard wood of the pews. Ranging from Wacky Dad to Euro Papa, they are relentless in their adherence to the code of their own particular tribe. Wacky Dad is identifiable as such purely due to his garish jumper, a spot of shocking colour in an otherwise griege landscape. Possibly sourced by his wife after falling hook line and sinker for the siren song of the Boden catalogue, Wacky slings on his Neo-Rave cashmere v-neck and desperately hopes that this will indicate that his personality is brighter than his monochrome mortgaged-to-the-hilt life would...

Thank you all for your comments about email. I tried yesterday and found instead I just withered away the morning reading -- when I should have been at the computer actually writing. Going to have to try something else....or try harder. My latest peeve is the mountains of projects I have piling up around me that I am desperate to do: sewing, paper making, craft ideas for Easter. They're just taunting me from my precariously tall pile in the bedroom. Must. Not. Look. Instead, I have spent the past few days trying to focus intently on work while the The Rabbit is at school and then focus on her when she's home, and wrap some projects into our fun. Yesterday we made a sculpture garden out of clay — if I could FIND the digital camera I'd shoot a photo. I made the people looking at the sculpture while The Rabbit decided she would be the artist and "work very hard" at making the sculpture. So much fun. I can't believe squishing clay could be this much fun. This afte...

I keep reading that I shouldn't check email in the morning lest I ruin a good run of productive breakfast-fueled time. Of course, I can't do that. I am too afraid I'll miss something from an editor, or something fun to read, or anything. Given how much time I spend alone working at home, email is almost a life blood. But then there's the time suckers like, say, reading blogs, :), and organizing my sock drawer (which I swear I will do if pressed to procrastinate.) Mostly though it's email. I am grateful I don't have a Crackberry. But I do occasionally load up IM (because The Prince prefers to chat mid-day this way). I'm starting to wonder if I'm actually more productive tethered, or just more stressed. And if I'd be more productive if I pulled the plug -- if even for a few hours a day. Would love to hear from those who are cheerfully floating without their digital leash...

It's been a while since I last posted but time just seems to be flying by. I am constantly surprised by the date on the calendar, shocked when the girls grow out of clothes that seem to have been bought yesterday, how quickly the newborn babies of friends start to crawl and babble and taste their first foods, how old I look when I see myself in the mirror (in my mind, I am frozen at the glorious age of 22), how quickly the next month's bills come in (didn't I only just pay the last one?), my last post... Is time speeding up or am I just busy?

Happy Valentines Day! (this lovely image from Valentina Design !)

“I don’t like the sound of her voice.” A friend, a woman in her 60s, says this to me. “I would vote for her if she HAD divorced her husband,” says another friend. I’m reading for the first time The Golden Notebook, a gift from my mother this Christmas (as it usually is). On page eight of the introduction, Doris Lessing writes of the Women’s Movement, and that while it's gaining traction: “All kinds of people previously hostile or indifferent say: “I support their aims but I don’t like their shrill voices and their nasty ill-mannered ways.” She writes this in June 1971. Thirty-seven years ago. "I don’t like the sound of her voice." A newscaster refers to a young woman as a streetwalker. “Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird way.” She’s “likeable enough,” says the man who can’t be bothered to look up from his podium to address her in the eye. Her hair is awful. Her clothes? Anna Wintour suggests an entire wardrobe change in Vogue. She’s the wife of the wrong man...

It is entirely possible that I am the worst mother in the world. Today I sent the Small(er) One to school with a runny nose, hacking cough, mild temperature and a 'hurty tummy'. And for what? Because I have a client meeting this morning, nobody else senior who knows anything about the account is around to stand in and I'm too scared of the fall-out if I call to say I can't make it into the office. Alpha doesn't really understand why I feel so bad about this, plus the days when he could take time off for anything less than hospitalisation are stuck in an increasingly rosy past. I totallly suck. This totally sucks. And I am getting madder and madder with both myself and the situation by the second.

Why is it that: Some women seem to glide through life, elegant to the bitter end, whereas I hobble, slide and stumble? My hair is invariably a cloud of frizz, while others sport a sleek waterfall of glossy silken strands? My under-eye bags dominate my blotchy face but others are smooth and well-rested with a peachy visage (and not a hint of hastily bleached fuzz)? My shoes are always scuffed and down at heel, while others are well-shod and gleaming of toe? My feet revert to their natural hobbit-like state a few days after a pedicure, while other women's feet appear to have been air-brushed (at all times)? My sweaters collect lint like other women collect smooth fine quality cashmere, probably carefully folded, colour coded and stored in hard crafted wardrobes made from sustainable cedar wood? My children's faces tend to be smeared with snot and breakfast throughout the day (even, bafflingly, after their faces have been wiped) topped by dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards hair (ev...

If you live in one of the states today holding a primary, get up, put on your galoshes, and vote. It doesn't matter who you vote for. Just do it. It's one of the rare times our voices really DO count. And oddly, our vote today may mean more than our vote in November. (as we've all witnessed before when the general population veered away from the delegate vote....) So go on. How hard is it to pull a lever, punch a chad, push a button, or mark inside the little circle? And if the thought of leaving the house still sounds bad, grab a cappuccino while you're out. Mmm. Caffeine. That makes everything seem better. Happy Super Tuesday!

It's strange how a new month can herald a new and much more positive outlook. Just goes to show how your psychological state affects your mood - as far as I am aware not much has changed except for turning the page on my wall calendar - my boobs haven't suddenly got perkier, I haven't suddenly won the lottery nor am I less tired than usual - and yet I feel a million times better. Magical. We had a good weekend, packed with the kind of family stuff that doesn't look terribly impressive on the page but in reality is terribly satisfying - a walk in the park, swimming, a trip to the Natural History Museum... All bog standard stuff but great fun. Tonight I'm off to see what all the fuss is about with Bonham's latest urban art sale - wall to wall Banksy and others that I am too uncool to know anything about. Get your own preview here: www.bonhams.com/urbanart .

Hurrah! It's February and I feel better already. In fact, I would venture that I feel quite content. How nice. Long may it last.

What in the world did I do to waste time before the Internet? Sitting here for one hour, needing to start some work, and flying through the Web reading blog after blog, doing some virtual window shopping for future craft projects, (yum...glass glitter), scanning the news sites. It's amazing. I mean, did I read more? Eat more? Take baths? Watch more television? (which can't be possible.) It's a little Clockwork Orange scary if you ask me.

What a crappy week last week was. Seven days of stress-puppy annoyances all rolled into one nasty big fat week. I am aware that a lot of my posts recently amount to a little more than a mega-winge but so far January has been one big downer. Every year to date I have somehow managed to escape the dreaded January blues. In fact, I kind of dismissed it as a media construct, a psychological hype of a most plastic nature. I guess I was wrong. This angst-ridden January has been handed to me on a moody platter to teach me a lesson - 30-something years of overdue gloom come home to roost. But the outlook is brighter. By the end of the week it will be February and surely a magical mood change is in the offing. I hope so. I really do hope so. I am starting to bore myself.

I used to love Fridays -- those perfect days especially about this time in the afternoon when you know, basically, the work day is over and you can start dreaming about the weekend and time with friends and people you love. Movies. A bit of cleaning. Some late morning breakfasts. Lately, though, Fridays have paralyzed me. Part of it is sitting here hoping editors get back to me. Hoping calls get returned. Hoping I can actually get off my behind and do something productive besides stressing about all the things I should be, uh, doing that would be productive. Maybe it's January. And winter. And that sometimes working alone at home sends me to the television set just to hear a voice in the background. I starting to think that truthfully I am never going to be someone who can just relax. I will create something to angst over even if there is nothing there. Hence my Friday afternoon lull attacks. Thank goodness just 10 minutes left until I can get The Rabbit and my need for diversion w...

So according to a new study , the more stressed a pre-K teacher is, the more likely they are to expel a student. Hmmm. So the more of a misfit a teacher, the more likely an innocent child is to be harmed, perhaps permanently, in school. The numbers are very striking: Of teachers who reported "high stress," 14.3 percent had a student that was expelled, from the 4,000 pre-K classes that were randomly surveyed for the report. But of teachers who reported "low stress," just 4.9 percent expelled a student. Boys? Expelled 4 and a half times more often than girls. Older children and African Americans? Also more at risk, according to the Foundation for Child Development, a private, low-income child-focused organization. Okay, some children are just not ready for school. And many teachers are in impossible situations. But it seems to me we have a serious problem here, some big red flags, and I have to wonder how No Child Left Behind, that munchkin-land like solution to real ...

When I was in the 7th grade a boy in my class asked everyone what we wanted to be when we grew up. My answer? President of the United States. Now believe me, I do not want that job. Truly ever. But then? I remember thinking I wanted to show that boy I could do anything. I could be anything in the world I set my mind to. (Which, I actually, still believe.) No one will be surprised to hear he scoffed and then said, "You can't be President. Girls can't be President." Tonight in the Democratic debate a question was asked of the candidates if they believe African Americans want an African American president so that people will see African Americans differently. But I wondered why they didn't ask if women wanted the same thing too. As a woman, I am tired of making less money. I am tired of being the "lesser sex." I don't like that I have to be both smart and sexy -- but not too sexy. That I have to be cool, and not emotional when I work, but not angry. No...

So, any mamas out there have experience weaning their rabbits from the thumb? The Rabbit is now five and still sucking her thumb. Believe me. I don't think this is a huge crisis. I sucked mine until I was at least 7. Might have been 8. But both her dentist and doctor are really putting the pressure on me to make her stop. Even telling her she has to stop. Problem is her teeth, they say, and palate. She has a nice overbite. Nice enough that the teeth sometimes stick out when she smiles. I don't notice it. We're not talking Bugs Bunny. But they say this could permanently affect the permanent teeth. Sigh. See -- I never had orthodontia. Even after my love affair with my thumb. So I have a hard time believing this is the cause of her overbite. I suspect it's her papa's family -- with their severely messed up teeth that required years of braces. Not to mention my own sister and her messed up mouth. Tonight she went to bed crying, knowing she wasn't supposed to suck h...

Things I like about the fact that January is halfway through: It's only a week until payday (and boy, this year I really need that paycheck) Only two months and a bit until the clocks go forward It's nearly February... which psychologically feels so much better And that's about as good as it gets.

I'm not sure if it's just a case of the dreaded January blues but I am seriously lacking in lustre. In fact, I am so lacking in motivation that it's starting to worry me. What usually carries me through life is a fierce desire to succeed. Such is my desire to rule the world in some form or another (or at least to be better than most people in my immediate vicinity) that I am usually prepared to put up with any amount of shit to get to my ultimate goal (although if I am frank I am not entirely sure what that goal is apart from earning lots of money and being admired by all and sundry). But in the past few months I seem to have undergone a radical shift in perception. I am no longer overwhelmed by the need to be the best at work. I am increasingly haunted by the spectre of being a lousy mother - I am very much aware that becoming the next Lynne Franks (albeit a less hippy tree-hugging version of her) is not entirely in line with a happy family life. I fear that my children...

I know things are hard all across the health care spectrum. I understand that doctors have a hard time chasing patients to pay bills, plus are working against an insurance industry that wants to pay doctors less, and squeeze even more from the insured. I understand that insurance premiums are rising for workers, (and business owners!) and the medical profession and hospitals, with their own insurance premiums that keep rising, are hurting. But.... this story on MSNBC is sick.