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This week has been an emotional rollercoaster and that was only watching Mamma Mia. I knew the songs would be good, but hadn't got many expectations for the plot. But all that stuff about your children growing up and you having to let go really got to me and then, of course, there was Chiquitita, my formerly worst Abba song which now induces total emotional collapse [especially the bit about the sun still shining above you. Why is it so worryingly sad? Is it global warming? I am now regretting last week's blog being cross with doctors for saying we should only have two children, having read an article about us only having 100 months to save the earth] and then there were women of my age and even, dare I say it, older, actually having fun in a film and being the lead characters. Added to this is the fact that I was a member of the Abba fan club in my youth and indeed had the Abba recorder song book so knew all the words off by heart.

Anyway, the girls loved it, especially bonkers daughter who has pledged to go to the digitised version of Abba the Movie with me when it's out. She has had a sore ear due to over-swimming in next door's paddling pool and tonight got a bit of cotton wool stuck in her ear and was extremely anxious that it had "gone into my brain".  Besides Abba, it was a rollercoaster week because it was my partner's birthday and we went to a hotel for one night. I chose the same hotel we went to before bonkers daughter was born because it is 10 miles from home, because I kind of knew where it was [but not well enough to actually find it without going all round the houses, making the mystery birthday surprise just that bit more mysterious] and mainly because I remembered it had really soft pillows and I got a very good night's sleep. I know, I know. It was supposed to be a present for my partner, but I figured we both deserved a good night's sleep. I admit that I forced him to smuggle in fish and chips and watch Bridget Jones' Diary, but I'm sure this is what, in his right mind, he would have chosen to do for his birthday.

We were, of course, home by 10am the next day in time for a full makeover from bonkers and "big girl little girl" daughters [formerly known as toddler daughter]. This involved being slapped around the head by a flannel and having my entire hand painted in lurid purple. Big girl little girl had her two-year check this week, a year late. She loved it. Lots of jigsaws, her favourite pastime, and tests. She got a bit overexcited in the middle when she was asked what wasn't a fork, etc, in pictures. She reached for the High School Musical DVD. "Which one isn't Gabriella?" she asked the health visitor. It was only fitting that the health visitor should be similarly grilled.

On Sunday we went for lunch with a friend from school who I haven't seen for three years. We have known each other for over 20 years and it was good to recover a little bit of my past self. The days go so fast when you have children and you rarely have time for yourself. All there is is work and family and it's only in squeezed moments in the night or the bath that you actually have any sense of yourself as a person, rather than a role or a function. As a good friend, she was telling me I ought to be more assertive and demand a higher rate of pay for some of the jobs I do [the other jobs can't pay more, but I feel passionately about them]. She is absolutely right, of course. I have always worked too hard, but have never actually rated what I do much. Why is that? I've always been lucky enough to be able to follow what I thought was interesting and hang the pay. But when you have to support children and you want to spend time with them, it makes quite a difference what you are paid an hour. I need to go on some brainwashing course telling me how magnificent I am to build me up to asking for a pay rise. I'm not sure it would work, though. My friend was arguing about presentation and acting like a professional. Of course, much of professional life as a working parent is about acting. Acting like you have slept, acting like you have not forgotten the name and company of the person you are having a meeting with, acting like you have got your holiday childcare completely sorted, acting like you are "in the office" when someone calls you on the mobile when you are at home with a sick child who then proceeds to throw up all over you and managing to complete the call without giving the game away, etc, etc.

I feel like much of my life is spent acting. I am not going to go that one step further and don a suit and look like someone else. I like to work, but I don't want to be my work. One place I worked was taken over by a private equity firm. They came in saying how much they valued the staff's knowledge and experience. Practically everyone I worked with has since been made redundant or left. But before we went, we had to endure a session on how work was "80% attitude and 20% skill" and then watch someone from advertising "prove" this by karate chopping a block of wood. If that's what work is all about I don't want to do it.