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Can we hibernate?
Is it bad to want to spend the entire weekend in bed watching films? Indeed why stop at a weekend..? The bears have got it right. I have effectively run out of energy and there’s still another decade to go until the last child finishes school. I find myself increasingly wondering whether it is right that a 50-something woman should be dashing around, permanently five minutes late? Surely there should come a time when I just glide into places serenely instead of catapulting in at the last possible moment?
The problem with wanting to spend the weekend in bed watching films is the distance between desire and reality. With four children you have to get up, even if it’s just to wash the school uniform or clean stuff. And even though my partner and I share the getting up between us, inevitably only son wakes us both up early both days and there are too many things to do during the increasingly brief daylight hours.
The other problem is that no-one wants to watch the films you want to watch. Someone also always has something they need to get at the weekend eg ingredients for cookery class or requires dropping off in a distant place. I also feel that I should be fixing stuff in the house or doing arts and crafts with only son. We’ve done a set of Christmas glitter pictures for his wall, but he did comment that my Santa looked a bit like an evil clown and gave him nightmares.
On the DIY front this weekend is having a peak in the car’s engine to see if, by some miracle, there is a cheap way of fixing the heating system which seized up around the same time that that Arctic winds blew in. Only son donated his new gloves to me because he can keep his hands in his pockets and his school sweater to keep my knees warm. He also generously gave daughter three the one glove that we found from last winter as she was looking a bit frozen. It is now warmer to get out of the car than to get in it. This is in part because if the windscreen blurs due to the cold weather the only way to clear it is to put the air conditioning on and get blasted by sub-zero temperatures. I am considering bringing a duvet for the people in the back.
The whole house has also come down with a cold thing this week. My partner has been looking very long-suffering. Daughter three was off school on Monday. Only son says he has a sore throat and a sore toe and is very concerned that I am not taking this news with due seriousness. Daughter two is looking a bit peaky. Daughter one was off with a migraine and has been reading through all my blog entries with a critical eye. I also accidentally volunteered to be on a stall at the Christmas fair this week. Yet, despite being knackered and surrounded by germs, suspiciously, I haven’t yet got any symptoms. I am pretty sure my body is storing all the germs up for Christmas.
*Mum on the run is Mandy Garner, editor of workingmums.co.uk. Picture credit: Wiki commons.
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