Organised chaos

So the weekend comes to an end, the Christmas craft fair provided an opportunity for overtired children to become more overtired and over exited, the din in the school hall and a child having a bit of a stop everywhere you looked made it hard to converse or stay sane, still that said it is one of my favourite school events of the year and a good time was had by all. Inmate 1 won a prize on the raffle for the second year running, must remember to get her to buy all raffle tickets in the future since she is the only family member to ever win anything. Sadly my 50p and a whole lot of hoping did nothing to bag me the prize in the adults champagne raffle, oh well, maybe next time *snort*!

This morning brought my weekly shift at the village shop a wonderful arrangement where they pay me to have a 3 hour break from the inmates, the dog, husband and house. They keep thanking me and paying me to do it seemingly unaware that I would in fact pay them double the amount for the privilege. A similar arrangement is due to start with Inmate 2 heading off to pre-school that will mean I will work one morning a week at a local stables and Inmate 1 gets weekly riding lessons in return, again I am not going to say anything as weekly riding is something we simply can't afford but I would gladly do it for nothing, horses and riding was my life as a teenager, I did quite well with it, ending up with 5 horses loaned to me on a sponsorship deal and a promising career in show jumping. Then at 18 a fall in the ring lead to a shattered ankle, a year in casts, splints and walking sticks. I was lucky to walk unaided again but it put paid to my riding career. The sponsorship and horses went to somebody else with complete bones in their ankles and I was left with my memories and early onset arthritis, such is life. In the 15 years since then I have not been on a horse, many ongoing health issues and the cost of raising a family (our address: Expensive village, Expensive county, Expensive city commuter land) have put any return to horses on hold until now and this offer from somebody who knows what it means to me, I shall never be a competitive rider again but the chance to be around horses and see Inmate 1 (and maybe if he is interested in the future Inmate 2) learn to ride is all I could ask for really.

I have got my 'organised Mother' hat on this evening and the school uniform for tomorrow is all laid out along with Inmate 2's clothes and mine. Two little baggies of cooked sliced sausages are ready to go in the fridge for tomorrows school Christmas party, not quite what I promised on the food list but I forgot to ask the husband to pick me up some cocktail sausages and a box of cocktail sticks when he was at the shops so this is what they are getting and they should be happy I at least had a pack of sausages in the fridge, they could have ended up with a plate full of IOU notes, not quite so tasty! Inmates 1's clothes to change into for the party are ready in her bag, approved by her and I have even remembered a pair of socks so I am already doing better then last year, go me!

I have also remembered to have change to pay the school diner bill for this week, I am liking the organised woman who shows herself from within me from time to time, just have to try and find the neat and tidy one now although I have to admit I am not at all sure she even exists.

Friday freedom

On Thursday night I was able for once to say 'Thank God tomorrow is Friday' normally Friday can be a real drain of a day but due to the proximity of Christmas all the activities for children from birth to school finished last week meaning that I was free from the special type of hell on earth that can be toddler group.

I have been attending a toddler group in one place or another since Inmate 1 was 4 months old and we escaped from the grubby northern city to the green grass of the home counties, I just wasn't brave enough to walk into the derelict looking church hall complete with bars on the windows proclaiming the toddler group was on a Tuesday in faded paint in the less then desirable area we lived in (saw it on secret millionaire the other day), I saw a few Mums heading in from time to time so knew it was still running but I admit the slight snob in me was further put off by the fact the few I saw going in looked like they had yet to qualify to vote, pushed their babies in chav mobiles (I swear I saw one with what looked like gold alloy wheels once!), every other word to each other was a swear word and they seemed dressed for a night on the town complete with fake eyelashes and several inches of make up troweled on, okay I will revise my 'slight snob' statement to 'total snob' on reflection, I am sure they where perfectly nice people just living in a different world to me, quite possibly a different planet.

No toddler group meant no dropping off Inmate 1 at school and dashing home as quickly as possible in order to let myself have a half hour or so to get myself dressed and washed properly rather then the cobbled together outfits I have a habit of slinging on myself just before we dash out of the front door to get the school on time, in the winter as we are now you are 9 times out of 10 going to find my pyjama bottoms still under my jeans and my sleeping t-shirt under a jumper, this is something I can just about get away with when going simply to the school and back again but not something that I can carry off at toddler group, it can get warm in the hall and the 'you have slept in that t-shirt' smell would be carried by the ceiling fans. So today I popped over to the shop after drop off, hung around outside the shop with my best friend taking turns in hiding around the corner having a quick and crafty cig out of sight of Inmate 2 and her Inmate 2 (hereby known as Inmate 2a to avoid confusion). I then came home with Inmate 2 and enjoyed slobbing about the place, just me and him, we had a nice time truth be told, it has been one heck of a busy week and to get home, strip back down to just my pyjamas and play the madcap games that Inmate 2 can come up with is rather enjoyable, I am however still very much looking forward to incarcerating him in pre-school three mornings a week come January but I am realising I am going to enjoy him more on the one day we will have with no morning commitments.

The purgatory of the school Christmas craft fair is as I said last time tomorrow afternoon but a ray of light shone through the grey clouds this morning when the husband tells me he is going to take the inmates to visit his parents, hereby known as The Monsters In-law, as it has been close to a year since I refused to set foot in their home or speak to them ever again (more on them another time) this means I now have a whole morning to myself, I can sleep in (Husband being one of those perky morning types as are the monsters, they will leave very early), I can relax, go to the toilet or ye Gods have a bath on my own! The one thing I know I shall not be doing in the morning is any more then the most basic of housework, time alone is far to precious a thing to waste on cleaning, a quick living room tidy and bung on the school uniforms to wash and the rest is my time, I am going to need it to get through the dam craft fair!

Introductions

The inmates consist of Hemmie, a five and a half year old girl big on independence and pink who shall hereby be referred to as Inmate 1 and Malachi, a two and three quarters year old boy big on getting by on his good looks and charm and also chaos and destruction, he will hereby be referred to as Inmate 2. I am the 32 (and three quarters!) year old Mother of these two reprobates who is big on hiding behind large pieces of furniture and getting as much sleep as possible.

We are coming to the end of the penultimate week before the Christmas horrordays *cough* sorry, holidays begin and as the sacred commandments of schools dictates we are knee deep in school commitments that require parents to actually do things outside school hours like present Inmate 1 to take part in the Christmas production evening shows, carol concerts and man a table at the Christmas craft fair on Saturday because honestly I can't think of a better way to spend Saturday afternoon then dealing with a packed hall of over exited Inmates all needing *help* with their miniature Christmas stockings and paying the 50p for the activity with all those pennies from their money box, coming up 2p short and deciding that even though you say it is fine they must take their pennies, go find their parents and then return with an even bigger pile of pennies that they must count out, all on their own, again. Oh how I love Christmas preparation!

The school commitments are of course only half the picture as I have Inmate 2 also using his elbows for his fair share of driving Mummy round the bend (Inmates favourite Christmas tradition don't you know!), I do take some comfort that at least this is my last year when I won't also have pre-school commitments to add to the list but if he was already at pre-school at least I could set off all the nativity craziness and fund raisers with the fact he would be palmed off for three mornings a week and in that time I might just be able to form a coherent thought of my own, ah well, he starts pre-school in January!

The dog, the poor old dog hasn't been out for a descent work for over 2 weeks, I just can't seem to fit it into the day, we always seem to need to be somewhere a dog is not allowed to be at intervals too short to get very far at all, it is a good job she is getting older and needs far less exercise then she used to although there are times I feel Inmate 1 is writing her off a little too soon with comments such as 'Dog will die first won't she Mummy' and 'When Dog dies we can get a cat'. So with the vague idea that if Dog doesn't get a descent walk in soon I may just have the RSPCA at my door asking some questions so I am off to pour Inmate 2 and myself into some warm clothes and head out into this countryside that I am surrounded by but never seem to get the chance to enjoy!