Remember my post about tardiness?  The law of the Sod is indeed in action.  Yesterday, whilst The Husband was in bed, I got the spontaneous urge to go out. Sometimes an idea will just arrive in my head and the thought of not doing it at that instant sends me irrationally angry. The Husband declined to accompany me and in an uncharacteristic burst of bravery, myself and The Toddler went alone.  Time was drawing on, so before we departed I requested that The Husband ensured his phone volume was on so that if I was running late, he could do the school run.

It's okay.  I know the way.  This is one of the few journeys I can do alone, if I have to.  If I concentrate on talking to The Toddler I can, with effort, ignore the urges to change direction and detach a little from reality and focus on treading this familiar path with only minor panic.

I had four places to go, The Doctors, The Chemist, The Supermarket and Home Bargains.  All within a minute of each other.  All familiar.  The idea was to use the cash machine in the supermarket, do some Christmas shopping in Home Bargains, go to the doctors and chemist and get a taxi home from there.  I hate getting taxi's alone.  I feel anxious and ill with anxiety induced paranoia scenarios running at high speed through my mind,  I don't even like making the phone call to book one.  Yet sometimes, it's necessary.

I'm strolling round Home Bargains having evicted The Toddler from his buggy so that I could use the buggy as a trolley, laden with toys, when I checked the time.  Fucksticks.  There was no way I'd finish shopping, pay, pack, get the shopping home and hidden then pick Things One and Two up.  So I called The Husband.  No reply.  I phone again, no reply.  I call the house phone, no reply.  I don't deal well when things don't go to plan.  I usually have a plan within my mind of how I expect something to go and a back-up.  If both fail I become flooded with sheer panic and venomous anger.  I'm trying to steer the buggy, herd The Toddler, replace all the shopping to the shelves and call The Husband all at the same time, with just two hands. This is not going well, at all.  I'm vocally plotting spousicide.  My world is quivering from rage and panic.

It's about a 10-15 journey to school, a lot of it uphill.  I had 5 minutes to get there.  Even a taxi would have taken longer.  So I do something I never do, I run.  There's several reasons I don't run including having crap ankles that can spontaneously give way just when standing, JJ size boobs and a shit bra, I'm overweight, I have M.E and well, to be blunt, I'm actually terribly shit at running.  Never mind running uphill, with The Toddler in his buggy.

I have visions in my head of Things One and Two in tears.  I have visions in my head of falling. I can barely breath.  My legs feel like they simply can't move any more.

Of course the tide is against me, it's obvious I'm in a hurry especially as I'm heading into the school grounds as opposed to out of them at full speed.  Does anyone let me past?  Do they fuck as like.  I'm torn between screeching at them or simply ploughing through them with the buggy.  Did I mention it's now starting to piss it down?  Joy.

Usually we collect Thing Two first yet as I'm approaching from the bottom end of the grounds instead of the top I concoct a plan that if I get Thing One first, the speedy little bugger can run ahead and get Thing Two who is usually one of the first to be collected from her class and it's now 8 minutes later than usual.

Thing Two trots out upon my arrival, unbothered.  The only other time they have been picked up late was on The Husbands watch, last year and she was beside herself in tears.  This time? she was playing superman on the carpet with a boy in her class whos mum was also running late.  Phew.  I asked who was Superman and apparently they both were.  I do so love the way she doesn't feel it necessary to become some female counterpart.

By this point I'd called The Husband six times on his mobile and twice on the land line.  My rage is palpable.  The world takes on a fuzzy red edge, red as in blood not as in rose.  It's like acid dissolving all rationality within me.

I had no shopping, no medication and was late for the school run.  Needless to say The Husband was woken by much profanity.  It's okay though.  It's all my fault.  I shouldn't have gone shopping.  I shouldn't have assumed he'd turn his phone on after I'd explicitly asked him to and explained why.

Cue much shouting and stomping and then The Silence.  We're good at The Silence.  We once successfully ignored each other for four days and nights solid.

Mecca of Misery

The Toddler is trying to exterminate me, again.  I have never had a child to go such prolonged bouts of teething.  It feels like we've took one step forward and then three steps back with bedtime taking a small forever and multiple night wakings, feeding all night.  Exhausted would be an understatement.  If he really has his heart set on making me cry he really ought to just poke me in the eye and be done with it, much less time consuming.

The days and consequently weeks appear to be on fast forward,  I feel like time is mere sand slipping through my open fingers.  It seems like only yesterday when it was September and now half way through November that frightful panic is bubbling below the surface as I trip over thoughts of Christmas Shopping, again.  I had finally got some sort of an incomplete list of 'to-buy' for The Spawn ready only to find that typically two of the main gifts are inevitably out of stock, which is bloody awkward.  The Husband keeps bemoaning that he doesn't want any gifts (although he's not shy of posting links on my facebook of things he rather likes) I have ordered three things for him and bought another.  We had a somewhat disastrous trip to the dreaded Primark yesterday avec Le Petite Filous (No not a yogurt you weirdos, it means Little Rascal aka The Toddler)  Bare in mind that Primark is a mecca of misery at the best of times for anti-social people-loathing people such as myself and The Husband but needs must and all that jazz.  The Toddler has realised that if he declares he needs a wee, he get's an exit pass from the sling/buggy.  However, the cheeky little bugger then refused to have an actual wee and proceeded to quite literally run The Husband (to whome patience is not a virtue) ragged, uncharacteristically refusing to hold his hand and making a rather impressive bid for freedom.  Cue my browsing cut short (just when I was contemplating a Borat Mankini and fold away portable pint glass for The Husband, shame) as I joined the queue of doom to the cacophonous of The Toddler wailing his wee heart out, twang...snap...there goes some more of my heart strings.  Gulp.

So laden with the rather impractical paper bag of Primarni goodness whilst praying to the gods it doesn't rain and thus melt the bag, although it will probably rip long before then anyway, we made a short sharp exit.  I eventually calmed The Toddler down and back in the sling on my back he went.  To say nerves were frazzled would be somewhat of an understatement to say the least.  The Husband was most furious, his bad mood hovering above us like a little black raincloud because obviously it was all my fault  (sorry Husband, sorry god) as is everything (world poverty, nach.  Disease and famine? yup.  Death? sorry, that was me too) so homeward bound we went.  I was hoping to walk home just as we'd walked there (approximately 2.5 miles each way) yet with each furthering step my wibbly ankles protested more and more until I had to admit defeat and stop at the bus stop.  Typically the 'frequent' buses become infrequent the instant we decide to wait for one (I must have lied when I was seventeen. Or something)  Still at least catching the bus avoided passing the park again which we let the toddler run rampant round en route to town that morning.  I perched upon the edge of a seat next to an old woman to many coo's and ahh's at the angelic little dude on my back which only intensified when the little bugger fell asleep.

Finally home with a sleeping toddler who I had to resettle in bed (I rather needed my own nap to recover from the abysmal day) I have socks, I have layering tops, I even have a nifty drumstick flavoured chap stick (I kissed a girl and i liked it...) yet apart from a pair of Superman Socks for The Husband, my Christmas shopping list is still alarmingly long (and disastrously incomplete).  Bother.

We tend to get mere token gifts for The Adults in the family and concentrate on The Children.  Scratchcards have already been done so i'm torn between Monopoly money inside a card or perhaps the slightly quirkier idea of poker chips like these maybe? yet in typical MamaUndone fashion I go off on a tangent and get all dreadfully distracted upon seeing this, which I know Thing One would be positively mesmorised by.  See? It's impossible to do any kind of Christmas Shopping without finding yet another thing one of The Spawn would like.

I'm now going to whale about in the bath for a while, whaling being the important word here seeing as i've piled on even more weight and my jeans are now uncomfortably tight, so to commiserate the fact I of course have had to self medicate with chocolate for breakfast (again)  The Idea was to be a size smaller by Christmas, not a size bigger.  Arse.  Big arse even, literally.

I need to fortify myself for yet another attempt at Christmas Shopping next week.

...Whilst sulking because I really really really want to see the new Twilight film.  Shut up.  I know.

Whack-A-Mole

If you follow me on Twitter you'll know I have changed my hair, again.  Not a very good photo as I've just washed it and it's all tied back BUT it's purple with green tips.  Oh, and you know that fringe that I hated? the fringe I was growing out? The fringe that irritated the shit out of me?  Well, I had a simply genius idea and cut it back in.  Boredom + scissors is such a dangerous mix for me.

The purple is much more vibrant in decent lighting.

As you may be able to tell, I'm very pale skinned and I have a lot of moles, nowhere is spared, limbs, feet, hands, face, torso even one on the sole of my foot.  The Husband thinks he's hilarious, me not so much.  He finds it incredibly amusing to sit next to me and whack my arm whilst shouting 'Whack a mole!'.  Yes, my Husband is an arse.