Working Mum

I'm now approaching a month in full time work and I'm often asked by friends "how's it going?". My mind flashes back to the washing mountain waiting to be washed, the washing to put away and the washing to get out the tumble dryer. The dust building up. The to do list growing by the hour never mind the day. The dinner you forgot to get out the freezer. The ironing pile that you got out and forgot about. The confusing chaos of getting the kids to school and wondering if you turned out the lights seeing as we are now getting dressed in the dark. The list of important calls that have gone uncalled. The mixing up of what day it even is and the confusion of how you even got from A to B.

Urmm yeah it's going ok. You see this is all dependent on what day you catch me on. I have days when I quite literally feel like superwoman and no amount of shit can get in my way, the kind of taking it all in my stride day that would impress She-ra. Then I have a day like yesterday when that large amount of shit breaks my back and I feel like one wobbly guilty mass of useless mum. I am often found in this sorry state in standstill traffic London bound and warbling to a very loud Ed Sheeran track.

I really thought moving from 30 hours to 40 hours would be simple. Piece of cake and all that. What I didn't take into account was that I will have zero time at home to catch up on housework. I'm the kind of girl that likes to have the hoover blitzed around at least once a day-I blame my mum. So three days in of no hoovering is quite frankly testing me. I used to enjoy cooking and now I am so shattered when I get in that I could start a hunger strike. I constantly feel like I am juggling 15 fire balls and I can't juggle for shit.

I swear more.

Coffee is probably about 20% of my DNA now.

The bedtime routine remains pretty stable, but when they have called down for the hundredth time I quite literally want to pull my overgrown crop out. Oh yeah it's overgrown because I can't cut it at the moment-I broke my finger at netball. Turns out to be a really inconvenient thing to do.

I'm pretty sure that I have become a rubbish friend and daughter. I rarely text back when I should, so if you are a victim of my awful contact-apologies.

I feel like I have the world to prove that I can do it. Honest. You don't want to be that one employee, that can't do everything all the time because you have the children to collect from extra care and collection time is the deadline. The kids wouldn't be on the street but the fine breaks the bank and quite frankly you want be a Mummy too.

You get used to replying "I don't know" when asked how you do it, because you really don't know. It's a blur.

I barely shop now which seems ironic given that as part of my work means I visit more shopping centers in the South of the UK than any other given person. My Simple face wash is now at the dregs so I fear that I am about to commit that awful sin of sleeping in my make up. -Note to self; get to Boots.

On the subject of my eyes, they have not stopped twitching in erm a month. -Note to self; book opticians for three of us.

So is all this drama, guilt and anxiety worth it? Errmmm

(Oh and I say Ermm a lot, as erm I forget a lot. Its fills some silence and stops me looking gormless for a few seconds before the penny drops on where or what I should have done or been.)

Yes. Why?

*I have a role as me as a woman.
*I have independence.
*We have holidays.
*The kids get some treats. some. We're not well off.
*I can relax on the food shop with Ocado and not worry so much that I have gone £5 over budget, whilst muttering that I wouldn't have this problem at Aldi.
*I can buy a lipstick. Just cos.
*Never have I appreciated the weekend and time with my family as much as now.

Is this enough? I don't know. However I know this.

A mummy will always be tired, I am pretty sure many mums have a twitchy eye.
A mummy will always have a guilt over something. Shoulda. Coulda. Woulda.
A mummy never has enough time. Ever.
A mummy always has washing on the go. If not I need to know the secret.
A mummy gets pretty emotional frequently. At least once a month.
A mummy can mentally juggle more than 15 fire balls.

So where do I go from here? Carry on. Try and take it in my stride. Can you guess what day it is? Wonder what tomorrow will bring? Probably more shit to juggle, but she-ra has nothing on me.