I am truly a responsible person. I parent my children, go to work, pay my credit card bill IN FULL every month, shop, cook (ok, heat up), do laundry, clean and run a house that sometimes resembles a 6th form college or on a bad day, a zoo and stand back in amazement, I even did my tax return IN OCTOBER (more capitals for emphasis)
My disclaimer, dear readers if you will.
However...
There are some aspects of my life that differ distinctly from my beautiful friends. I am seriously blessed with my friends, and I love them, there is not one of them I wouldn't give a kidney to, I have a lovely collection and they are all quite different but they are all grown ups. I have been where they are now, with my fitted kitchen with Nigella books and Cath Kidston tea towels. I have baked cakes and made kitchen curtains and I have spent hours making things out of old tissue boxes with the children. I have attended school concerts, dance recitals, rugby matches, prize givings, etc etc etc but I never did join the PTA. I always helped out at fetes, sold the raffle tickets, went to the pop quizzes and wine tastings but never became a card carrying member, it always just seemed too far from the punk I used to be.
I have realised that I will never be a domestic goddess and I'm good with that, I seem to equate that side of life with when I was married and the children were small and that has gone and I'm not sad about it. I'm not saying you can't be a mummy/domestic goddess/fab fun sex kitten all at the same time, just that my brain doesn't allow me to be.
On Christmas Day, my dear dear friend Sixy, her bidey in and their baby came to visit me and as she is a domestic goddess, herself had made me a bottle of mulled wine. So she's being very Nigella like ( except she's blond, same mane of tumbling curls but blond) in my kitchen whilst being watched by my children, entranced by the sight of a Mummy stirring serenely at the stove as opposed to me attacking the kitchen at a million miles an hour, throwing stuff on baking trays whilst yelling at them to clear the kitchen table of the debris of their day and simultaneously texting, marking and helping Mel with her man problems.
We watched this lovely sight for a while then Sixy asks me for a sieve, now I know I used to have 1 in my other life but I am completely at a loss as to where it can be, so we look for a bit and the Eldest Beautiful Daughter says tenderly " Poor Mummy, you're a failed grown up" which makes us all laugh. Then a suggestion is made that we use a pair of tights, I don't fancy this much as my hold ups cost me £8.25 per pair, I'm not using them to strain wine, do you think they are appreciated £8.25 worth ? I wonder. There is a lot of hilarity about my not being a proper grown up and I make myself feel better by realising I would rather be a champagne drinking, gig going, sneaky smoking, hold up wearing me than a me with a sieve.
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18 comments:
That's a badge of honour, wear it with pride...one day your children will wish they too are not grown up!
For the record, I can't cook, but am the proud owner of four sieves. Does that make me very, very, very, very grown up? I don't wear hold-ups myself.
Nor me, but have you tried a tea-towel? (In leiu of a sieve mean, rather than hold-ups!)
There aren't enough hours in the day for women to be everything that society/the media/their children want them to be. Forget it. None of them live in the real world and your children won't REALLY appreciate you until they have children of their own. I'm still waiting.....
I have a sieve, and I know where it is but I can't remember when I last used it. I find cooking a bit of a chore.
I made mulled wine years ago, a couple of times, but I find that Waitrose's mulled wine tastes just as good and you don't need to put it through a sieve, or soil your best hold ups! (Did I get the right idea? Was she sieving the mulled wine? I can be a bit dim, sometimes, you know.)
my sieve was hung up so long it went rusty and fell to bits! it has never been replaced, nothing wrong with being a failed grown up!
Josie x
Oh girl we truly are kindred spirits. All I can even say is Amen! I'll take this life any day of the week!
Make no excuses for being Rock Chick Mum Minus A Sieve! I have one but use it to drain pasta when I'm too lazy to drag the colander out. And I used to wear hold ups but was scarred when one fell down in public, in a very busy city street! Anyhoo, I think red wine should be drank untouched and not mulled and always in large amounts with aforementioned good friends!
You do make me laugh! I think this stuff every time I stay with my sister. She is younger, but the real grown-up of the 2 of us.
Have you thought about starting a gang? Non-grown-up parents? We could all join and have badges, or t-shirts (even better!) I am totally there with you ;o)
Don't beat yourself up over sieve Auntie! Bet the goddess doesn't have the fun you do that you'll be able to talk about with your kids in years to come. Not much conversation to be had about a sieve! Anyway, I think you're lovely just as you are. Flick xx
My hold ups never stay up. I like it Auntie, gives me hope that when I hit 40 with older children I can revert back to my youth. Go to gigs, smoke again, wear sexy stuff rather that practical. But I think I will always own a seive. How do you drain rice? Or do you only eat that from takeaways or M&S?
You made be smile :)thanks TFx
NB - I have to ask, why 4 ? and I'm very pleased you don't wear hold ups, can you imagine what that'd do to your google searches ?
Tim - we used a colander, it worked fine
M M - I know exactly what you mean, I'm perpetually knackered with all the roles I fulfil, and yes she was straining the mulled wine, and most delicious it was too
Josie - thank you, I always strive to be the best I can be, alas I'm crap at domesticity but I know the beautiful children feel loved and that's much more important
Lisa - yep separated at birth we were, keep saving your cents for your visit
That Girl - I'll drink it warm or cold, no class whatsoever, you have to try Levante hold ups or Wolford, they do really really stay up, promise
Penelope - yep, we have now officially started the failed grown ups club, we need to have an inauguration meeting, with lots of wine !
ACTTF - buy Levante micro net hold ups, they are very microscopically fishnet, and look very subtle, that's my ask your auntie advice and when I cook rice I use a special rice cooker that my mammy bought me, you do it in the microwave, Nigella's shitting herself now, isn't she ?
TF - and I'm very pleased I did, sending you the love xx
sieve's are highly over-rated, as is growing up
Flick - Oh my friend is fab, she can do the funny and domesticated.
Sue - Wise words from the tattoo'd lady with the purple streaks in her hair !!!
Well Auntie maybe you could have used a straw and poked around to avoid the non-drinkable bits!
In my previous life I found I was envious of the perfects, in my new life I quickly realised they were failing/not coping in many other ways. Not saying that of your friend of course.
Frankie x
It takes all kinds to make this world go round. Some of us are Domestic Goddesses and some of us are not. I'm with you on this one, afterall someone has to man the crowds at the bars!
Frankie - I know exactly what you mean, some people would have looked at me a few years ago and envied my life but I was unhappy with it.
My lovely friend is just very talented in that department and has a small baby and she can do all that stuff and shames me as I still can't but to be more accurate I could if I wanted to but then realise I can't be arsed !
Craze - and we struggle by on that ! It's such a chore for us but we do our best
To own a know where your seive is means you are weaning a baby and you're well past that awful stage. You're not failed, you're just a grown up and grown ups buy their mulled wine already made in bottles from M&S!
Trust me dusty spider I have had a LOT of fun in my life, and part of it was what has enabled me to end up with a wonderful man who it is sheer delight to cook for, rather than my ex husband who did everything for me as a means of making me believe that I couldn't actually do everything. I feel a far happier person for knowing that I CAN actually cook and make home made mulled wine and I don't need someone else to do it for me. Believe me, I can do sieve wearing AND sexy hold-up wearing, sometimes even at the same time (nothing kinky you understand, I haven't yet come up for a use for a sieve in the bedroom but there's no reason I shouldn't cook while wearing sexy undies).
Auntie Gwen, you forgot to mention the best bit, when I was heating the wine up and your bewildered children shouted "Mammy, mammy, she's COOKING THE WINE!!"
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