Am I Old?

So how do you know if you are old or not?

Is it when you have a season ticket to the doctors as different bits go wrong or fall off each week?

Is it when a late night is 11pm and you pay the price for the next few days even though you didn't drink?

Is it when your jeans are no longer the comfiest items of clothing in your wardrobe?

Is it when you suddenly realise all the clothes you have bought in the last few months were from Marks and Spencers and not other younger high street brands?

Is it when you become horrified that the trousers you bought from M & S have elasticated waists?

Or is it when you realise you have tried to make a cup of tea in a glass sugar pot and the hot water has broken it?

Or what about when the bread won't fit in the fridge and milk doesn't belong in the oven?

Does it take just one of these to make you old? What if you can relate to 5 or more? What does that make me? Will organising a birthday party with some retro twists really make me feel young and back in the 80's again? Unlikely.

Please no. I'm not ready for knitting, tartan slippers, hot water bottles and horlicks.

Not yet anyway.

The countdown has begun

So we have managed to reach day 5 out of 47 and we are all still alive. I have reached a critical point though. I don't like being a referee. Thank heavens for the sun and the garden. At least there can be more distance between the boys.I had started to think that the rain would never leave and I would have to deal with them all summer fighting over the TV.

It is in excess of 80 degrees. I have one outside in the paddling pool and one in the dining room playing CBBC website. They are both bored. Neither will do what the other one wants. When one chooses a TV programme, the other gets upset. Depending on which way round this is, the older one will moan, whine and maybe even cry about it until I tell him to watch in the other room or play something else. If the younger one is losing out, then he will pinch, kick, punch and grab the older one until I step in and physically separate them.

We have had a couple of so called quiet days this week. Partly to relax after finishing school and also to build myself up for taking them out - alone. This quiet week will consist of a visit to the library, visiting Great Grandad, cinema, Pizza Hut, playing in the garden, 2 days of cricket and a sleepover at a friends house. I am finally sitting down for an afternoon -

if only this involved no interruptions. One will want a drink, so I ask the other if he would too. No is the response. Not 10 minutes later I get asked by the other one for a drink. Then it's food, clothes, toys, building a bug hotel, finding a Lego piece...

This morning I went back to school to collect the things left behind by older son on the last day of term. Neither wanted to go, but it was their fault.

The happy pills must be doing some good, because I don't think I would have reached this far into the holiday without them. 42 days to go and what joy will that bring I wonder? And how far will I get before I break?

SLEEPY (already)

On plucking up the guts...

I have never been good with medical things. I was never ill as a child and so never went to the doctors. My lasting memory of the doctors as a child is a smelly, old man sitting in a swivel leather chair in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Not the image you would expect to see today.
I stopped going to the dentist for 9 years when I was about 18. It took this long for me to get unbearable toothache. I had one filling and one removed. I thought that was a good trade off for 9 years without the biannual stress. However that's probably not what the dentist thought. Valium was prescribed and nurses were there to hold me down for the injections. I felt physically sick from the trauma of this and have been regularly ever since. However, I still have borderline hysteria before sitting in the chair - the sweats, shakes and tears.

When I was expecting my midwife refused to take my blood. It took my husband to have a day off work and take me to the hospital maternity department. There would be a nurse, midwife and blood specialist there as well as him to hold me down. This was not looking good for a birth plan. Up to 34 weeks everything looked fine. Then my midwife tells me the baby is now breach and that they want to try to turn him for a natural birth. The consultant and 10 onlooking students could not get him to turn so they booked me for a c-section. This was not good. More planned medical things were going to happen. I was shaking and sweating so much when they tried to do the epidural that it took at least 7 attempts to get the needle in.
After they had extended the cut to get my 9lb 5oz baby boys head out they put an extra drip in my ankle while I couldn't feel anything.
My second child was a natural birth and again my midwife skipped some blood tests to reduce the trauma for me and baby.

All of these were medical issues I couldn't escape from. However last week I finally plucked up the courage to contact the doctor about how I feel. I sent a letter in with a friend as I breakdown whenever I try to talk to a doctor. They made the appointment and I was pleasantly surprised. The doctor was fabulous. She was calm and reassuring, understanding and helpful. Two years ago when I went with similar things I was told that it would just go away. Now someone has finally taken me seriously and told me I'm stressed and depressed. It feels such a relief to know there is someone who wants to help. I've never felt like this about the medical profession before. I fear there is worse to come in blood tests and counselling, but the relief is immense.

DOPEY

On How Do I Feel Today?

Why do I feel different every day? Some days I am really motivated and achieve lots of things I plan to do. Other days I hit rock bottom achieve nothing and just cry.What triggers a good day and a bad day?

Today is a bad day. I got my shopping this morning and did a bit of gardening. By lunchtime I'd had enough. It always seems to hit me about then. I sat down and ate my jacket potato. I then didn't want to get up or do anything. My motivation had gone. I was thinking. Always a bad sign when I stop and think. Nothing good ever comes of this.
Today I was thinking about Friday evening. I'm going out with other Mum's for a 40th birthday. That is not a good thought in itself. But why should this make me feel bad other than we're all getting older? I'll tell you why. I cannot go out in the evening without feeling ill.

It started a couple of years ago. I thought the first time that I'd had too much to drink, but it seems that isn't the case now. I then thought it was to do with eating out. But now that doesn't have to be the case either. The last time, I went to the cinema and was nowhere near food or alcohol. On one occasion I had to walk out of a restaurant leaving my husband eating his starter and main course on his own while I sat outside sobbing and feeling very sick.

It starts as a really hot feeling that works its way all over my body. I feel sick in my throat, yet I have never yet been sick. I can go lightheaded and need to sit down. I need water to drink and splash over me. I cannot work out what makes it happen. I have to loosen clothing. So now I wear the baggiest clothes I can to see if that helps. That looks really great when you want to dress up.
It has ruined two of my birthdays now. I haven't been out at New Year since it started. If I go to someones house I am fine. If I go out during the daytime I am fine.

So is it socialising, food, drink, or just going out in general? Is there a pressure on me to do something or be someone that I have only just started to experience? Am I now expecting to be ill and so becoming ill? Thinking about it certainly makes it worse. Or is it just that I am getting old and my body is falling apart?

What to expect next?

DOPEY

 

On Playground Politics...

Why do I dread walking to school in the mornings and evenings? I'm nearly 40 and fear going to school. I don't work there. I'm not related to anyone there. It should be straight forward - walk the children to the playground, watch them go in, go home. So why do I try my utmost to avoid bumping into certain people?

If I see certain Mum's walk past the house on their way to school, I'll wait and follow at a safe distance. If I misjudge it and leave in front of them, I'll march to school so they can't catch up. I've even been known to cross the road when I don't actually need to so I can hide from them. What sane reasoning do I have behind this irrational behaviour?

These Mum's are extremely overprotective of their little boys. And it is only the boy's Mums'. I get on fine with the Mum's of girls. But these boys seem to be wrapped in cotton wool by their parents and when another child "does something" or "says something" to their precious little one, then World War Three starts on the parents. Yet their son never harms anyone or says anything to anyone. He's perfect...

Well that's what they think. I'm not saying that my son is an angel because he's not. He knows right from wrong, but is easily distracted and has a memory smaller than a goldfish. He probably has called other children names in the playground. What boy hasn't thought that "poo poo face" was funny? What playground games don't involve chasing when you are a 6 year old boy? Are these things wrong? Is it something I can deal with when I'm at home or shopping and he's in the school playground?

So why should my son get a punch in the face and I get an earful from a parent because my son called hers a "poo poo face"? I made him apologise to the boy and thought that was it. The other boy refused to apologise. The next day less people are saying hello to me, or so it seems. Paranoia? Maybe.
I then get the "sticky beak of the playground" catch me in the street and tell me that "...she said to her who said to her... that my son did..." Do I need to know fourth hand gossip? If there is something going on with my son that I need to know I expect and hope the school will tell me, not the local parental snitch. She then accused my son of making her son not want to go to school? What is it to do with me if her son is too precious to deal with playground antics, or is a typical boy who doesn't want to go to school? Toughen up. You can't be the nice guy all the time as a parent.

Next thing I hear is that my son has been pushed over and kicked a few times by relatives of the boy who punched him. Nice. This has happened twice now and the boys have confessed to doing it. They had no choice really as they were seen. They got into trouble and that is now my fault too. We seem to have a Mafia style clan at the school. Most of the children involved are cousins. The extra ones are either Rent-a-thug or the playground gossips kids in for the action.

Am I being silly not wanting to come into contact with these Mum's? Or do I just not want any hassle on a 5 minute walk to and from school? Just so long as I'm not being attacked on Facebook like another Mum I heard about I guess that's fine with me. I'm not on Facebook, so guess I'll never know. Probably best I don't.

Have these people got nothing better to do than stand around spreading idle gossip and unfounded rumours about other people and their children? Why don't they teach their kids about how to live life properly and what is expected of them instead of bitching to other Mum's.
And we wonder where our morals and good citizenship in society have gone.


DOC