element of suprise

Tomorrow my husband is fifty. He doesn’t look it: damn him, neither does he act it but I think he might be starting to feel it.

Anyway, for his fortieth he had a baby and also a telescope. There is no trumping that really.

I didn’t organise a surprise party because he would hate that and he would spoil it by finding out or refusing to go to it.

A few months ago I started to ask him how he wanted to celebrate. He didn’t know. He ummed and ahhed and then two weeks ago decided on a family meal (extended family and best friend) in the local Italian restaurant where we always celebrate his birthday.

I’ve known what I was going to buy him since last summer when he fell in love with a limited print in a gallery in Bed Gellert, north Wales. However the gallery opens seasonally and I started to panic. Once I did get hold of them they no longer had the print and so I had to order it direct from the irish based artist. I started to get cold feet. Perhaps time would have cooled his love of the art work. I showed it to my hairdresser who didn’t like it much. This made the doubts stronger. I also had to try to order it on my phone so that he wouldn’t see it on the browser history. My phone always seemed to lose connection with the internet before I got to paying for the print. All of this boded ill.

On a trip to IKEA, he reminisced about a chair he had owned and discarded. “ That’s what you could buy me for my birthday, a chair.” He announced.

This seemed so right.

“I’ve already decided what I’m going to buy you” I stammered.

“Oh go with that then” he said.

Now it preyed on me, he WANTED a chair, he never asks for presents usually. He might hate the print.

I couldn’t rest.

A few days later, before falling asleep,“ I’ll get you the chair, “I said, ”but you will have to choose it so its perfect.”

“I might like what you are going to buy me” he protested.

“I’m not sure it’s the right present”

“What is it?”

“It’s a surprise, unless you want the chair.”

After about half an hour, he was sure he wanted the chair and wanted to know what my present was. Reluctantly I told him.

He groaned, “ That would have been perfect!” and hid under the bed clothes, like a big kid upset he’d spoilt a surprise.

I asked his mum to give me a picture of him as a child in his astronaut suit. Somehow it fell out of my handbag and although it was still in the picture wallet I’m sure he looked at it. Still I went to get his cake with two of our three girls today. The youngest came in and said to the middle child

“Don’t tell daddy about the cake.”

“WHAT CAKE?!!!”

Daddy pretended to be deaf.

I have just bought him a helium balloon, it’s in the car boot. I know he is going to go out and open the boot before midnight, I just know it. He doesn’t do surprises.

about Mummy Guilt

There isn’t a week that doesn’t go past that I do not suffer from mummy guilt at some point:  I have forgotten to do something, to buy something, to say something or to attend something.

I try my best, I am not very organised, so I buy a family calendar and the rule is that: if it’s happening; it goes on the calendar. Husband quite often gets a flea in his ear when he springs some work commitment which is not on the calendar or clashed with something on the calendar. This year, the first calendar I bought was a week to week one- no good. Then my mum gave me a month to month calendar- first problem there is only four columns and there are five of us. Nevermind, me and the man will share one we don’t do as much as the girls anyway. Then I find out it’s a wipe-able surface with a whiteboard pen. As it hangs by the back of the youngest’s dining chair this is not a good thing, so we have endeavoured to scratch in appointments and parents evenings in biro which generally refuse to write after the third or fourth letter.

The other place for reminders is the fridge; school letters, reminder, party invitations cling desperately to it tethered by aging fridge magnets, if the door is left open. They sometimes get blown off or knocked off. 

My mummy friends, who have known me longest, tend to try to remind me of things.

Now this week, the eldest two had science projects to be handed in as well as literacy and numeracy homework, so Sunday was a boot camp of assignment completing, presentation rehearsing and spelling tests rather than snuggling on the sofa watching Matilda or walking to the park. Then Monday, middle child was sick…so was I but I had taken a sick day the previous week and insisted I had to go to work. Husband took day to look after her. She missed school photos day and I had her hair right and her uniform clean and pressed. Yesterday went well. Today I was trying to calm eldest child, who I have to pick up in 20 minutes to take to violin grade (I must not be late!)

I was also discussing World Book day costumes with the two eldest, (Mary Poppins and The White rabbit) Bunny onesie may be too hot and stuffy. We were considering alternatives. I dropped the eldest two at junior school early as its COOL KIDZ day and then sat with youngest for a while, having an amazing time, learning new words. We laughed a lot. Her nose was dirty, her face a bit smudged and her hair is a dandelion clock of riotous curls escaping from lop sided bunches. I love her: she is perfect. I stepped out into a world of pristine little girls with slides and bows and clean, shiny faces. It is school photo day. I now have mummy guilt. 

 

Finance fun and failure in February

So the first week of February has passed and my vow to get back into the Black looks decidedly unlikely now. So I have taken steps. Six of them, to be precise, from the car to the cash point.  I have taken all the money out that I can possibly afford to spend this month. I have compiled a list of the meals we will eat – it took a while as I am not known for my forward thinking. After sucking on my pencil until Tuesday’s toad in the hole, I accosted my husband with, “What do you want for tea- on Wednesday?”

He rolled his eyes and retreated behind his guitar, but his parting offer was to buy £3.99 wine from the local Aldi – a fine saving provided we don’t drink a bottle a night.

I try to learn lessons from the women that raised us. My husband recounts how growing up they had certain meals on certain nights – the same every week. It’s not one of his most riveting anecdotes. Like my own Mother, I intend to shop about a bit too and not pick up the nearest item, but I do make the classic mistake of taking a child shopping with me on a Saturday afternoon. My mother used to spend what felt like hours comparing identical frozen chickens, driving me to tears of boredom at a young age. On one occasion I trapped my thumb in part of the freezer and spent ten exciting minutes watching various members of staff flap about until the store manager arrived with soap and stern words.

So now I sit to write my definitive shopping list, with the intention of sticking to it. I have crossed off cakes and biscuits, because I have all the necessary ingredients in the cupboards and intend to spend the evening Mary Berrying it around the kitchen. I refuse to be distracted by the telly and cheap wine.

Anyway, back to my cash crisis. I count out everything I usually use cash to pay for ;- child minder, piano lessons, dance lessons, karate class, market shopping, church collection and put aside a little to cover whatever book/ craft/ toy Fayre or disco the two primary schools my daughters go to want to surprise me with. Aghast, I eye my dwindled wad of cash and start to panic. I also remember it’s MY birthday this month – darn it! Decide to pay for supermarket shop with plastic but will not ask for cash back. Don’t think there will be any funds left anyway. February suddenly doesn’t seem such a short month after all.

Inevitably, of course, all of my planning is completely scuppered by the discovery that middle child’s school shoes are “leaking a bit”, further investigation shows a massive hole in the sole. Quick trip to shoe shop, try my luck at a bargain and get £3 off the price. Have you seen the price of properly fitted children’s shoes?

 “Cobblers” I say.