No prizes for guessing, then, that last night saw me end up in the absolute worst state I have been in for years. I am feeling ashamed. I didn’t even make it out of bed until one o’clock this afternoon – ‘A luxury!’ I hear you cry – only I wasn’t sleeping off a headache, I was lying deadly still, whimpering, gingerly moving my iPhone a bit further towards my face so I could google ‘symptoms of alcohol poisoning’.
Perhaps the worst part about all of this is that I wasn’t even on a proper night out. If it had been a friend’s hen-do I would probably have expected a resulting ‘What did I do? Did I twerk on a bouncer again?’ attack of the heebie jeebies, but it was a meal and drinks with relatives who I hadn’t seen for ages. So much shame. Even more embarrassing is the fact that James was driving and can therefore helpfully recall every detail of my disgrace. Apparently, he knew things were ‘likely to get hairy’ around 8 p.m., when, after having already polished off a bottle of wine before eating my starter, I ordered another bottle and started making conversation across our table at some kind of mega-volume, disturbing those around us who were trying to enjoy their pizza. Super-loud conversation from me (repeated on a loop) centred around how much I bloody love my kids and how sometimes people reading the blog or following me on social media don’t seem to understand how much I bloody love my kids, which upsets me, and have I said yet that I bloody love my kids? This assault on everyone’s eardrums was accompanied by me showing everybody a gazillion photos (of the kids, who I bloody love) on my iPhone, which I kept dropping.
I don’t really have any recollection of what happened after we left the restaurant but it seems we went on for more drinks (where I absolutely didn’t want to switch to a soft drink, because I wanted more wine; ‘Stop killing all my fun, James!’). After calling it a night and overenthusiastically hugging everybody goodbye, the cumulative effect of all those drinks must have hit and, in James’s words, I ‘completely lost it’. It was a fair old walk back to the car (half an hour or so) and during this time I kept shouting at James that we needed to hurry up because I needed to be ‘more sick’, which he thinks indicates that I had already been sick in the pub toilet before returning to our table to drink more wine – I mean, what on earth? I’ve not done a tactical toilet-chunder since Freshers’ Week. I was staggering so much that I nearly fell off the kerb and into the road, and the spectacle of my drunken self being guided by a sober and steady James prompted cars to slow down and drivers to peer at him accusingly, as though they suspected he might have spiked my drink. After finally making it back to the car, I was sick in a carrier bag all the way home. Once home, I marched angrily indoors (I have no idea why I was angry), stripped off all my clothes and passed out naked on the bed.
I am an idiot. A very embarrassed idiot.
Yet to my (pleasant) surprise, on the day that I have been feeling completely unworthy of the title ‘mum’, it has been other mums who have helped me to feel brighter. So much brighter, in fact, that I cried. Tiredness + hangover + relief = crying. In my self-inflicted hour of need, other mums have once again reminded me that I am not alone and, after I posted something on Instagram outlining how genuinely mortified I am about the whole thing, they have even managed to make me laugh by sharing their own stories of drunken disgrace. It’s always funny when it’s somebody else’s embarrassment, but not so funny when it’s your own, which is why I am incredibly grateful to have followers like these, who have reminded me that being a parent doesn’t make you immune to making mistakes:
@repippip I got so drunk last year I was still being sick the next day. At one point my then three-year-old was rubbing my back while I vommed, saying, ‘Poor mummy feels sick’ #lowpointinparenting #gladwehaveallgrownupnowweareparents
@rachaell1210 I got so drunk on sambuca at a restaurant that I fell into the kitchen, don’t remember getting home, and then fell on top of my rabbit’s cardboard toy castle like some kind of hideous drunken Godzilla!
@maddyheg I went round to our neighbour’s impromptu get-together last Friday after work. Popped over ‘for one’ with my own glass of very large gin and tonic … then popped home for the rest of the bottle, plus a bottle of Prosecco. Ended up slurring speech and being very silly, so I’m told. Set the house alarm off at silly o’clock and then spewed up all over the bathroom floor. Day after, still throwing up. Why oh why do we do these silly things? So embarrassed! Should know better at my age!
@hayley.victoria I too have spent many a Sunday apologising and cringing in equal measure. I showed this post to my mum, who, after years of us taking the piss about the time she sat drunkenly on the front step, vomming into a casserole dish, said, ‘See, now you’re a mum, you understand all I did was let loose a little!’ #sorrymumigetitnow #mumsjustwanttohavefun
@corasmumma I feel for you. Hubby’s Xmas works do a few years ago, I decided to have a drinking comp with a fellow WAG. I had the red bottle and she had the white bottle and I won! I then puked all over the table. Hubby’s boss is, like, the town mayor of where we live and I still hide when I see him now. It’s become a fun game for me and the kids.
@emwalshy81 Don’t beat yourself up, we have all done it. Sometimes you need to let your hair down. The post-drinking guilt definitely gets magnified post-babies!
And my absolute favourite from the thread …
@missvlscarrott I went to a friend’s BBQ on Sat. They have a pool. I jumped in fully clothed as pissed as a fart while everyone else sat around and watched, including my sober fiancé. My Ray-Bans are still sat at the bottom of his pool. As is my dignity.
I cannot begin to explain how much I appreciate my followers this evening.
But I am never drinking again.
Tuesday 26th
I have been making a concerted effort not to get caught up with work-based distractions on the days when I am looking after the boys; to remember how good the holiday felt, to be more ‘present’ and not to have my nose buried in my emails – but once more I have been hit with the familiar feeling that I am about to drown. I just never seem to be able to tread water long enough to get anything done. Things have improved massively, with James’s reduced work hours, and after getting over my initial self-doubt about what the voluntary increase in working days says about me as a mum (i.e. that it must make me a terrible one), I have since been feeling enormous relief that I am spending more time working and less time fretting about all the time I haven’t got to do any work.
Only, the summer holidays are suddenly upon us and, having taken two steps forward, we’ve now taken three steps back. Our pick ’n’ mix childcare provision includes grandparents and a childminder, and as they are all off on holiday at some point over the summer (unreasonable behaviour, I know), I once again find myself sat here trying to squeeze in an hour’s work on the laptop with the kids at large in the living room. This morning’s interruptions from Henry (and it’s not yet 9 a.m.) have included:
‘Mum, there’s something dirty on the sofa. I think it dropped out of Jude’s nappy.’
‘Mum, Jude keeps taking my toy off me!’
‘Mum, is it snack-time yet?’
‘Mum, is it lunchtime yet?’
‘Mum, you be Daphne and I’ll be Shaggy.’
‘Mum, you’re not doing Daphne’s voice right.’
‘Mum, how far is the moon from our house? Can you search it on your phone?’
I did. It’s 238,000 miles away, or thereabouts. Right now, that sounds ideal.
Saturday 6th
It’s our sixth wedding anniversary today and, as luck would have it, we’ve just taken delivery of a Rolls-Royce Wraith. This is not a permanent upgrade from the Vauxhall Astra, unfortunately, it’s actually on loan for a week so I can write an article about it for GQdads. Needless to say, it has made James’s day/week/life. With any (grandparent babysitting) luck, we’ll be going out for a child-free meal later but, before we do, and while I’ve got about half an hour to write as the kids spread Lego all over the living-room floor, I’ve decided t
hat the anniversary of our marriage is as good a time as any to let loose the thing I promised I would let loose about James. For James, who as he reads this will no doubt be squirming in his seat and getting a sweat on at the thought of his emotionally unpredictable wife pouring out her feelings. I’m sorry in advance to all who read this if the sickly levels sky-rocket, but I hope you understand.
To my husband,
This is a bit weird, I know. OK, it’s more than a bit weird, it’s probably all of the weird, noting that we live together and I could just pause Emmerdale one evening and say this to your face. Though, all things considered, that might be even weirder because then we’d have to look at each other while I address you from the heart. I should probably reassure you that I am not about to write you a love poem, like I did when we were teenagers, even though we both know I have a gift for poetry. (I seem to remember rhyming ‘affection’ with ‘erection’?) I am also not going to go all-out soppy, as I don’t think that’s ever been our style, bar the summer of 2003, when we wrote each other holiday love journals because we couldn’t bear to be apart for two weeks. How I talked you into that I’ll never know, you must have had it bad. I kept those journals, and my absolute favourite line from mine has to be ‘I will phone you at some point so I can hear my sexy baby’ (bleugh), and from yours, ‘When I think I’ve still got another week to go I feel so depressed. I can’t wait to hold you again.’ HA HA! (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) This is not going to be a repeat of that, it’s not how we roll any more, so you’re probably wondering, What the hell is she going to say? Or more to the point, Why is she putting me through this?
Well, there are two reasons for this unusual outpouring. The first is that a load of crazy shit is going on in the world right now and sometimes when I hear about events I worry that I haven’t said the things I should have said. You know, The Things. The second reason is that, a short while ago, we were on our way somewhere in the car and there was a woman on the radio outlining the things she loved about her husband (I can’t remember the back story, perhaps he was ill) and, like a bolt out of the blue, you said, ‘What things do you love about me, then?’ and it caught me off guard. I actually think you were just joking, but I panicked and said, ‘Well, you know, just that you are lovely!’ which then hung in the air as the feeblest, most inadequate answer I’ve ever given to anything, ever. I had to put a CD on to interrupt the weirdness.
So, seeing as you asked (albeit in jest), and noting that life is far too short not to say The Things, here are no less than TEN reasons why I love you – in no particular order, though number 1 is very important.
1. I love that you have a favourite member of One Direction (Niall) and that when I laughed about this you shrugged and said, ‘Obviously it’s Niall. He’s the best one.’
2. I love that when I start banging on about the romance of period dramas or trying to explain why Wuthering Heights gets me in the feels (because there is no love as intense as Cathy and Heathcliff’s), your response is always a variation of ‘Well, I think it sounds like shite,’ which makes me annoyed and amused in equal measure.
3. I love that you can’t remember the words to any song, ever, with the sole exception of ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’. Hearing you sing along to the radio is quite the experience. Who knows which version we’ll get?
4. I love that you can’t say ‘roll’ properly. You ask for ‘a cheese row’. Or a ‘sausage row’. And I know it seems like I am just taking the piss out of you now, but to be honest that’s more than fair (see #8).
5. I love how you indulge my desire to have in-depth discussions about trivial things. Like the other day, when I asked you what you thought the absolute best chocolate bar was and you replied, without any hesitation, ‘It can only be a Twirl. It’s essentially a Flake without the problems.’
6. I love that whenever we find ourselves in the company of snobby or pretentious people we always smile politely, make our excuses and, as soon as we are out of earshot, turn to each other and say, ‘What a wanker.’ We’re on the same page about so many things and our opinion of other people is almost always a shared one. I trust your judgement on most things, actually, bar putting together outfits for the boys in the morning – how you didn’t notice you’d put your four-year-old in a size-twelve-to-eighteen-months T-shirt I’ll never know; it was practically a crop top. I rarely tell you how much I respect your opinion but, kids’ clothes aside, I value your advice above anybody else’s.
7. I love that you’ve seen me at my absolute worst (rocking on all fours in labour, naked with my stretch-marky bum in your face, swearing at everyone) and you love me anyway.
8. I love how you take the piss out of me. All the bloody time. Sometimes it annoys me but, mostly, it’s great. It’s like all the banter of sarcastic work colleagues but at home, every day. Though if you could stop bringing up the one and only time I farted in your presence, that would be appreciated. Seriously, in thirteen years together, I have worked so hard to keep all evidence of wind away from you, so it feels unjust that you retell the story of the time I let the fart-guard down, particularly as I was asleep. Yes, I appreciate that at the time I was napping on the sofa with my legs draped across your lap, but there is no need to keep reminding me that it was so loud you thought somebody had been shot.
9. I love your legs. A lot. I once stood on the sidelines of your football match (before you gave up sport for Netflix) and concluded that yours were the best legs on the pitch. I did then also rank the runners-up, in order, but their pins had nothing on yours. Seriously, top-notch legs. Well done.
10. Most of all, and the thing I really hope you know but I don’t tell you often enough – and it’s not that you’re my sexy baby – is that you make me happy. You made me a wife and you made me a mum and you made us a team. I love our team.
So, if anything happens to me (and even if the last thing I said to you was, ‘Bloody hell! Can you take the bin out? It stinks!’), I hope you will have read this and that you will know The Things.
Life is better with you in it. I love you.
Now make me a cup of tea.
Sar xx
Friday 12th
The sun is shining and this has made me happy because:
1. I have loads of washing to dry and the forecast is good enough to put an extra towel-wash on.
2. I much prefer my children when the sun’s out.
By default, the latter must mean that I like my children slightly less in winter and, having mentally weighed up summer versus winter parenting, I think that would be a fair assessment – I’ve roughly calculated that the sun increases my affection for them by at least forty per cent.
I’ve been trying to make the most of this sunshine advantage by spending more time outdoors and less time on the sofa in front of Paw Patrol, sneering at the incompetence of a mayor who has an unhealthy attachment to a chicken and who relies on a young boy and his team of juvenile canines to ‘save the day’. So far, the results have been mixed. Previous summers have taught me that when a sunny parenting day goes well, it’s absolutely glorious, but when a sunny parenting day goes badly, it’s akin to all the usual shit but with added sunburn worries.
Today’s sunny parenting day has been a bit of a mixed bag, after kicking off with the annoying realisation that I had to wait in for a delivery. Staying at home for a parcel when you are in charge of children is a total ball-ache, firstly because you are under house arrest while the kids go stir-crazy and secondly because the kids going stir-crazy sometimes means you don’t hear the courier at the door. I once missed a parcel that came at 4 p.m. after waiting in all day, because 4 p.m. was, naturally, the exact time Jude walked head-first into the dining table, and his resulting tears drowned out the knock at the door. The horror when I saw the ‘Sorry we missed you!’ card on the doormat was off the scale – I ran barefoot into the street, carrying a still-crying Jude, with the intention of chasing after the van, but it had long gone.
Luckily, today, the parcel a
rrived late morning and, as it was then almost time for lunch, I decided we could have a picnic outside (our concrete yard is not the most idyllic of picnic spots, but fresh air is fresh air). My vision was that Henry and Jude would play with the water-tray I’d set up with buckets and rubber ducks while I made some sandwiches, and then the three of us would sit nicely on a blanket to eat it.
What actually happened was that they shunned the water-tray activity in favour of sitting on top of each other fighting over who got to pull the sole off an old shoe that had been left out in the rain and was destined for the dump. As I came out with our plates, Jude had conceded defeat on the shoe and was having an almighty paddy because the stagnant water he was pouring (from the watering can, all over his feet) was making his feet wet and smelly – and somehow that was my fault. Then, after we finally sat down to eat, Henry started crying because his cheese triangle hadn’t maintained its triangular shape, which was also my fault and absolutely nothing to do with the fact he had bitten it into a fucking hexagonal prism.
But among the tears and the fighting over the old shoe (and me having to wrestle Jude’s smelly wet socks off against his will) there was the odd moment of calm, and I have felt much less narky with the pair of them with the sun on my face. I have also felt less guilty about retreating indoors and sitting them in front of that twat of a mayor again, like they’d earned the inactivity somehow (and I’d earned the resulting quiet). Summer parenting definitely wins.
Thursday 18th
Not too long ago somebody asked me whether life as a parent was everything I imagined it would be and I laughed so hard that drink came out of my nose.
‘Oh yes,’ I replied when I realised that this was, in fact, a genuine question. ‘It’s everything I imagined it would be and more,’ adding a slight grimace which I hoped delivered the true subtext of ‘Absofuckinglutely not.’
The Unmumsy Mum Diary Page 14