Missing the beat

I suspect I am missing the beat as far as raising The Pickle is concerned.

I had to be away from home this weekend and she practically screeched to be let go to the farm to be with the Pappy!

Yes, he is the Alpha Parent, but honestly, you know what it does to me to see her twirling the phone and telling her Pappy all about school. Sometimes regaling him with stories I hadn't been told.

Every picture drawn has Pappy doing heroic things like waving enthusiastically. Sometime the Mammo is not featured at all!

I know she has been living with him and everything, but I am jealous as hell.

More worrying is The Pickle totally loving the Pappy's soon-to-be-wife.

I'm going to start whispering bad things about both of them while The Pickle is asleep.

Nah ... I probably carry on doing the best I can and taking comfort in knowing she owes me for hanging around my tummy fro nine months and making me puke. Surely then, she'll feel a little obliged to give me a morsel of affection?

Did I say that?

Things I probably shouldn’t say to Ciara, but do anyway :

1. I am going to sell you to the next person who walks past the house.
2. I would take you back, but they wouldn’t give me a refund.
3. I WILL beat you.
4. If you don’t stop whining, I am going to jump off the tallest building I can find.

Some days being a mom is so rewarding.

Other days I would prefer to stab myself repeatedly in my left eye with a hot poker.

Territorial Issues

My daughter had a narrow brush with death yesterday.*

I've never been awfully big on sharing, and despite the general consensus that the role of mother carries with it an implicit compulsion to share surrender everything one owns, I am still not big on sharing.

I mean, I can deal with having to dole out half my share of the slab of chocolate after the rest of the clan have wolfed theirs down like starved beasts. I can live with having the kids empty half of my shampoo into the bath to make bubbles. I'm even starting to get over the indignity of having my one weekly shit interrupted as one of the small people barges in, incapable of waiting a single moment longer to enlighten me on the intricate comings and goings of monsters,vampires bamfires and imaginary friends.

But when I've taken the time to agonise over a little self-indulgent purchase on what will most likely be the only trip to London that my company ever sends me on; When I've fastidiously battled the wills of my seven other personalities and left that expensive perfume bottle sealed in its box, saving it either for a really special occasion or for my mother's upcoming birthday, at which time I'll be too broke to be able to buy her a decent present; When I'm having a Saturday morning lie-in for the first time in so long, I can't believe I once lived a life in which this was common practice; Then, upon waking up to find my daughter wafting breezily through the living room, that familiar and seductive scent wafting off her in overwhelming waves; Upon tearing through my underwear drawer in search of that precious bottle and finding it gone; then I am so very fucking not okay with sharing less inclined to be persuaded to refrain from bludgeoning the brat to death with a blunt object remain calm and reasonable.

* She walked away from the incident having suffered no physical harm, but having gained a new-found respect for Mommy's Things.