I tell you what.....

Oh I am so tired. Really, really tired.

I have often been tired in my life.

Working long shifts as a nurse tired, pregnant tired, young mother tired, young mother pregnant again tired ( ooh that's a good one that is) older mother having babies at the same time as parenting teenagers ( 4) tired ( I want to think of a great word to describe that one, 'shit' is the only word that springs to mind) THEN how about old ( 40+) mother of new baby at the same time as parenting teenagers and being pregnant AGAIN tired, huh? How about that one then? I defy you to beat that one, you won't. Not until you get to the old mother, who has young boys ( 3) and a 21 year old teenager still at home and is also a grandmother tired.

I am the winner.

The reason this tired wins over the other tireds ( yes, it is a word, I just wrote it, there is your proof) is because your body tell syou are tried in such undeniable ways.

It is, after a certain age, impossible to pick anything up off the floor without 'Oofing' darn that sock - 'oof ' Quick toddler is coming, move those little toys off the floor in case he eats them - ' oof '

It becomes increasingly difficult to get up from squishy sofas as you get older, the mind is willing but the knees just won't do it.

It takes longer to recover from bursts of impulsive activity, still keen to do such things the body will comply and the nearly 50 yr old mind will thrill as it realises that 'look at you! You are keeping up and doing all these fun things with all these whippersnappers! Why, you're naught but a spring chicken' oh it's lovely, then you get home and sit down and oh, oh dear me, things start to seize up. I am, it has to be said, a grand form of entertainment 'round about 8pm on a day when I have been busy and active. I get up and darn it if my heels don't like to touch the floor and my hips feel all out of place and I do an almost dance like walk along the hallway, accompanied by a veritable aria of " ooooh , oof, ow, oh my' s" I remember how we would laugh at my mum when we had knelt to say family prayers, when we said 'Amen' we would all sit quietly and wait for my mum to get up and then howl with laughter at the way her toes would stay curled up and she would hobble back to her chair 'ooing' all the way. I laugh on the other side of my face now because at least she was able to get up off the floor without crawling to a chair and hoisting herself. That'll teach me.

I was in the car today for an hour and a half while Mel and Jordan went to have a scan ( yes I am going to be a gramma again in June, HOORAH!) I had Isaac, Eli and Joshua with me and that is why, this evening, I feel my age and some.

What is it about 2 year olds that hurts so much, their shoes seem to find every tender part of a person's body, shins, toes, thighs. Those sharp little elbows dig in to old and tender bosoms as they help a little person crawl over your head to reach something intriguing. Little fingernails are so sharp as the pinch and scrape on the way past to exciting treasures. Shall we talk about the headbutting? "Sit on gramma's lap and look at this boo"....CRUNCH....'Sowwy Mam-mar!" Off he goes again.

2 year old people are so fascinated by everything "Mam-mar, dot new sarsses?" "Yes, I have got new glasses, no touchi....." POKE. " Sowwy Mam-mar" off he goes.

My mum has told me often that of all the people in the world to have lots of children, I am the least likely because I can't cope with noise. Noise, to me is painful. I love quiet. I crave quiet and as much as I like busy, as much as I adore people, sometimes the noise nearly kills me.

As well as my not dealing with noise well, the Lord ( because He has the most incredible sense of humour) gave me the loudest children, no, really they are VERY, VERY LOUD. The older they get, the louder they become. They all have BOOMING voices, voices that carry, even when they whisper ( which isn't often) I grudgingly believe they get that from me because many is the time I have had people say to me " I heard you in town the other day" Where most people will get " I *saw* you in town"
For the most part, I love having all my eggs in one basket, all my children in one place. I try to stand back and watch how they all interact and never am I disappointed. I especially love to watch Dan and Jordan with the little boys. They are totally different with Seth, Isaac and Eli than with any other child. Jordan is most definitely a father to Joshua, he is big brother to the boys. He lets go of the teacher, disciplinarian, consequences matter part of being older and he absolutely gives into his inner child with his brothers. I love the way both he and Daniel treat them so boisterously, my heart is in my mouth half the time as I watch these skinny little boys being picked up and thrown, tripped up, bundled and shoved in a testosterone fuelled melee of chaos and noise. I sometimes gasp at the seemingly careless way they 'play' with them and only manage to stop myself interfering when I realise that the overriding sound is one of undiluted belly laughing, are boys freaks or what? What can be fun about being flung all over the place and shoved across the room onto your face? I don't get it but I do get that they love it.
Dan said he was coming down this weekend, I wish he wouldn't say until he was on his way because Seth counts the minutes, he asks repeatedly when Dan is coming, what time, is he coming for real and now, now he has his own Ipod touch, one that can make calls ( Don't ask me, how can something that isn't a phone make phone calls? HOW?) and today I found him out in the porch calling Dan to make sure he is really coming, for real ...what time? We still don't know if he is coming, gah.....little boys being disappointed is horrible.
What am I trying to say here? I've been at this for HOURS, actual HOURS I tell you and yet, I tell you nothing. Zilch.
I'm tired though, I can tell you that.

Hidden

Yesterdays post, on reflection made me too uncomfortable to leave as a public post, I have saved it because it is mine, it was raw and very true but maybe that kind of thing should be kept to myself. Sophie has come so far, she is no longer that rage filled girl and putting such a post out there was unfair to her, it brought back the very worst of memories and those are the kind that should stay private.

I think because she has come so far, it is on my mind more and more how far we have come as a mother and daughter, I really did, for many years hold onto a hope that she would somehow stay alive and live somewhere else, hoping that she could somehow manage to just get by with people, be able to live without constant battles with everyone. There isn't a day goes by that I'm not thrilled that she is so happy, funny, delightful and safe...and that we are friends. Occasionally we have a day where she drives me to distraction, we had one of those days this week, but these days, any spats are so normal, so ordinary so quickly over. Thank heavens.

She is 20 on wednesday, no longer a teenager, I am more giddy about that than I can say. I don't enjoy the teenage years, at all, I don't see any humour in it, I am endlessly frustrated by the drama, the angst, the tantrums that leave 2 year olds looking lame.
I don't suppose that a birthday, a mere change of numbers will change anything but the way I feel about it, NO TEENAGERS IN MY HOUSE ! WHOOHOO!
A mere 4 1/2 years respite until Seth hits his teens, I am banking on being slightly senile by then, hoping that I will find it all a hoot and be so far past caring that it will all pass me by in an old lady fog.

I am thrilled also to announce that I am in a decorating whirl, I predict that in a month or so I will be a bit show offy about this house, I love the fact that it smells of fresh paint, I love that I have a purpose and a plan for each day and I am so excited to be back on the house proud wagon. Any day now I will even start letting people past the front door. Glorious.

It's tough, this blogging lark when nothing is happening, plodding along from day to day just waking up and breathing and going to bed and waking up ....all perfectly respectable but blogworthy? Not at all.
If I go back and read my old blog posts, the ones I think are the best are the angst filled ones, it would seem I am at my best when I am experiencing the worst. I am funniest ( I think) when I am saddest, so when I am all fine and dandy, I am neither funny nor a good writer....so it's all good news then, the blog is as dull as dish water, all must be well in the house of Helen.

It is too, well indeed.

I think it may be my age. 46. Neither here nor there is it really? Youth is a distant memory and not particularly one that is worth dredging up if I'm honest.
Young womanhood....oh what hard work that was, all that drama and fretting over whether I was clever enough, or sexy enough or desirable enough ( no, no and no) Everything, in my 20s was so HUGE...so black and white and desperate, so important and urgent. Exhausting.
Old age will bring it's challenges, incontinence not one of them I fervently hope, I do find myself htinking of getting old and thinking of how I hope things will be. I used to dream of having a good sized home that my children would feel was home, somewhere to come back to that holds years of memories and comfort for them, that dream is fading and lately I find myself imagining more down to earth and probable dreams. I fancy a little mobile home, a static caravan complete with little shed for gardening implements.
Right now though, 46..what am I? I am just ...this.

'This' is OK. I'll take it, even if it means blogging is close to impossible!

FYI.

Just wanted to say that I have indeed written a blog post every day...and deleted them because for the love of entertainment they were so BORING! Oh so boring, about food and health and blah blah blah holier than thou blah. Blah.
Suffice to say, I am still with the new life, am enjoying it, it is working slowly but surely and I hope I can stick with it long enough to feel so insufferably smug I make people hate me.
I was nearly as boring as the endless coverage of the US elections, will it really be over tomorrow? No, it won't be, I guarantee it, we will then have to see / hear/ watch re-runs and post mortems and dire predictions and .........gah!
Luckily, I kept stopping myself from hitting the 'publish now' button.
Oh well, off I go until such times I have something mildly interesting to say.
4 weeks tomorrow til we go to Boston...that's interesting.
Only 2 1/2 weeks til Christmas when we get back....that's scary.
That's it for today, I can feel the boring coming on.
I am so considerate aren't I?

Oh, except there is a new fabric conditioner out that we are to believe is so glorious smelling that it will take away all our cares...it's a Lenor conditioner and the fragrance....black diamond and lotus flower, pardon me for being a complete idiot but what in the name of smell does a black diamond smell like? Nothing, that's what. There is also a washing powder that smells ( we are supposed to believe) of white diamonds and lotus flower. I usually buy Lenor because it does smell heavenly but on principal I won't buy this new one because it's so ANNOYING that they think we will be suckered into such moronic nonsense.
There, enough now. Unless I think of something else that must be said.

Merry christmas!!!

For christmas, Dan bought me ( me?) a DVD player for the car, they were a great price, so I bought another one. 2 players so that we could have one in each row in the back of the car, hence entertaining all 3 boys for the length of whatever journey we take. Marvellous. Of course, we have a slight problem in that when we shut the side door of the car, it locks all the doors, when all the doors are locked, the alarm goes off.
So, whenever we park anywhere unlike most people who check they have locked their car, we have to make sure we unlock at least one door so we don't come back to a car surrounded by irate people wanting to cave our heads in because that DAMN ALARM HAS BEEN GOING OFF FOR HOURS!!!
Normally, I sort of hope it is stolen while we are gone because then I can claim on my insurance and with the money they give me I could buy a bus pass for 3 zones for a week, maybe.
Hmmmm though, putting 2 DVD players in my car, doubles it's value and also makes me feel that I can't leave the car unlocked, better not use them unless we are going to be driving for 12 hours or something. So we haven't, until sunday when driving to Cornwall, which in the eyes of the cornish is a whole other country ( and actually, we do have to drive over a big old bridge that says DEVON at one end and CORNWALL at the other, so probably it is another country).
This calls for the breaking out of DVD players, great excitement. Much polishing of DVDs and choosing and bragging to other cars that will travelling without DVD players ( 2 even) Ha, peasants, look at ME!!
Trouble was, they didn't work, one kept saying "unable to read disc" and the other one let us watch one DVD, only one, over and over again.
High school musical.
For 6 hours.
Keep your head in the game. Together, together, together.......
With Seth and Eli yelling things like " I CAN'T SEE!! Move your fat head Isaac! Can WE have it now?" and Isaac saying things like " Dad! DAD! DAD! DAD! it won't let me choose scene select, look I am pressing play and it won't work DAD.......DAD! DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD! DAD!"
My brain is still bleeding and my hands keep clapping in time to the throbbing in my ears whilst my toes tap to the tunes that are still repeating themselves in my head.
I took them back to Halfords today. I have lived 44 years and had 6 children and managed to travel the world without DVD players in my car and I plan on living the rest of my days the very same way. Thankyou. Phew, can leave my unlocked car without worry again, except I traded the DVD players for 2 brand new booster seats, now all 3 boys have jazzier than jazzy seats that match rather than cause migraines by their clashiness.



My car looks very posh inside now, I even vacuumed it and threw away rubbish, cleaned the outside too but that still looks like
crap, so many bashes and bumps, poor thing.
So, merry Christmas to me.