*If by any unlikely chance do run across any attractive men, put the Dating Rules into practice and be an accomplished dater.
*Oh, fuck it. Find someone really great to shag who is really good fun and makes me feel gorgeous, not horrible, and have SEX.
PERFECT MOTHER
Saturday 5 January 2013
9.15 a.m. Right! Caring for two children will become effortless now I have read One, Two, Three . . . Better, Easier Parenting, which is all about giving two simple warnings and a consequence, and also French Children Don’t Throw Food, which is about how French children operate within a cadre which is a bit like in school where there is a structured inner circle where they know what the rules are (and if they break them you simply do One Two Three Better, Easier Parenting and then outside you don’t fuss about them too much and wear elegant French clothes and have sex).
11.30 a.m. Entire morning has been totally lovely. Started day with all three of us in my bed cuddling. Then had breakfast. Then played hide-and-seek. Then drew and coloured in Plants and Zombies from Plants versus Zombies. You see! It’s easy! All you have to do is devote yourself completely to your children and have a cadre, and, and . . .
11.31 a.m. Billy: ‘Mummy, will you play football?’
11.32 a.m. Mabel: ‘Noo! Mummy, will you pick me up and thwing me round?’
11.40 a.m. Had just escaped to toilet when both cried ‘Mummy’ simultaneously.
‘I’m on the TOILET!’ I retorted. ‘Hang on a minute.’
Shouting ensued.
‘Right!’ I said brightly, pulling myself together and emerging from the loo. ‘Let’s go out, shall we?’
‘I don’t want to go out.’
‘I want to do compuuuteerrrrrrrrrr.’
Both children burst into spontaneous crying.
11.45 a.m. Went back into the toilet, bit my hand really quite hard, hissing, ‘Everything is completely intolerable, I hate myself, I’m a rubbish mother,’ tore up a piece of toilet paper pettily and, for lack of a grander gesture, threw it into the toilet. Smoothed myself down and stepped out again, smiling brightly. At which I distinctly saw Mabel waddle up to Billy, whack him on the top of the head with Saliva, then sit down to innocently play with her Hellvanians while Billy burst into loud spontaneous crying again.
11.50 a.m. Oh GOD. I really, REALLY want to go on a mini-break with someone and have sex.
11.51 a.m. Returned to toilet, put towel over face and muttered, shamefully, into towel, ‘Look, will everyone just SHUT UP?!’
The door burst open. Mabel stared solemnly. ‘Billy’s exasperating me,’ she said, then ran back into the room yelling, ‘Mummy’s eatin’ a towel!’
Billy rushed eagerly, then suddenly remembered: ‘Mabel hit me with Saliva.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You did.’
‘Mabel, I saw you hit Billy with Saliva,’ I joined in.
Mabel stared at me under lowered brows, then burst out, ‘He hit me wid a . . . wid a HAMMER.’
‘I didn’t,’ wailed Billy. ‘We haven’t got a hammer.’
‘We have!’ I said indignantly.
Both started spontaneous crying again.
‘We don’t hit,’ I said despairingly. ‘We don’t hit. I’m going to count to . . . to. . . It’s not OK to hit.’
Ugh. Ridiculous expression: ‘Not OK’, suggesting am too idle or passive-aggressive to locate or use word categorizing what hitting actually is (very bad, effing annoying, etc.), so, instead, hitting has to make do with mere exclusion from vague generalization of things which ‘are OK’.
Mabel, regardless of hitting’s OKness or otherwise, grabbed a fork from the table, jabbed Billy, and then ran off and hid behind the curtain. ‘Mabel, that’s a One,’ I said. ‘Give me the fork.’
‘Yes, master,’ she said, throwing down the fork and running to the drawer to get another one.
‘Mabel!’ I said. ‘The next thing I’m going to say is . . . is . . . TWO!’
I froze, thinking, ‘What am I going to do when I get to Three?’
‘Come on! Let’s go up to the Heath,’ I said in a jolly way, deciding it wasn’t the moment to hit the hitting issue head on.