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Donna Woodmore  Parenthood  Reality Read on...

2, How’d I get here?

Good question! I had plans, a typical “nuclear family” 2.4 children and a dog!

Life never goes as planned though, does it? I think I must’ve been hit by a tornado of chaos as it feels like the past 14 years have passed in a blink of the eye, I feel like my life is running in fast forward, and I’m jogging along frantically trying to keep up!

Before I knew it, I found myself with two beautiful babies, both planned, followed by another two happy little accidents shortly after (the best accidents I ever had).

As if this wasn’t enough, I then went on to fall madly in love with a great man with four children of his own, we all moved in together and thought life would be beautiful!

Well, beautiful it is, easy it aint! But would we change it? Never!

So today, here I am; dog hair in my coffee, no money in the bank, a house that permanently looks like the aftermath of some wild party, all my theories and standards out the window, taking one day at a time and loving every minute.

Ok fair enough maybe that’s not true, I can honestly say I don’t love every minute, in fact sometimes I wish life gave us pause and rewind, but it never will, so I just learned to keep an open mind and accept all life throws my way as a challenge, some I fail, some I excel at, but the bad days do make you appreciate the good ones.

From all this I have learnt that I still have much to learn!

Throwing two families together and hoping for the best is not wise, but wisdom was never my strong point so I did it anyway!

If one more person calls us the Brady bunch, I think I’ll scream! It’s nothing like it!

I don’t think hubby had realised what he’d got himself into at first, come to think of it, neither did I.

Picture this; two families of five, each in a 3 bed home, now imagine squeezing one in with the other, a logistical nightmare! But where there’s a will, there’s a way!

After offloading unwanted furniture (well not really unwanted, just impractical) to friends and family, comes the difficult part….. Where do we put the kids!!!!

So hubby and I move to smallest bedroom, just enough room for bed and clothes.

Put all boys in one room, all girls in the other! Easy!

Nope! Toddler wrecks eldest sons CD collection, everyone suffers perforated feet from Lego all over the floor (Mr. nobody put it there), the sock monster is born, no-one owns a pair anymore, they vanish, only to be found later in the strangest places!

Sons of same age are at war! Territory needs to be allocated NOW!

Mr. Nobody becomes a new member of the family, for he is guilty of every disaster, every lost or broken toy and the disgusting mess in the kitchen.

Beloved pets want to kill each other and children take sides respectively.

Long suffering parents fall into a heap every night and wonder what the hell have we done?

Daily we find ourselves met with protests coming from all angles and find it is so true, you simply can only please some people some of the time, and just when you think you can’t take any more, it happens!

Everything falls into place, out of chaos comes some level of order, suddenly we find, we made it, we are one family, one big, noisy, offbeat, unconventional but united team!

The only thing having a regular breakdown in our home is the washing machine, the rest of us have been there, done that!

So that’s how this lot came to be, and it’s where all the fun starts, for it is all the trials and tribulations that have inspired me to put it all in writing, because you really need to live it to believe it!

My children have taught me never to believe you’ve got it sussed, they have taught me to look at life from a different perspective and more than that, they teach me things about myself that I could never have imagined, or would have wanted to!

That’s enough about that, back to the task in hand… the joys of parenthood.

3, Memory lane

Memory lane, that’s my little place I escape to every now and then, just to reminisce and go back over the good old days. But were they?

I have a vision, of my four little angels, with their sweet smiles and can still recall each individual scent from their babyhood. It’s a picture of innocence and beauty and I love it! But I ask myself am I doing myself a disservice for really deep down I know that’s not really how it was!

Baby no.1, Chris, was a treasure, I tended him if he so much as squeaked, I’d be sick with worry if he ate or slept too much or too little, so much so I don’t think I slept very much!

He soon started to grow and explore and it wasn’t long before he found he could swing on my curtains like Tarzan, unscrew the wing nuts on his high chair in record time, would feed his left over toast to my video recorder and practiced discus with my CD collection (they also made excellent teething rings).

He would crawl across the floor at an amazing speed, sometimes I’d lift him and his little arms and legs would still be frantically moving.

He had this great little habit of stuffing the remnants of his lunch time banana in the end of my shoes, and would prefer instead to feast on his cot, the progressing to munching on his bed and even the banisters!

Bathing him was a nightmare, as soon as he was mobile, he’d climb up over my shoulder and escape from the bathroom in the blink of an eye!

He’s growing up with a keen interest in sport, this does not surprise me!

Baby no.2, Wayne, was the opposite in every way, by six months he’d earned the nickname “couch potato baby” seriously, this little man was so laid back, he had all the health visitors flapping, personally I think it was because he had his own personal whiz kid to keep him entertained, and maybe he, like me was worn out just watching his brother in action!

This little lad was the one that taught me to throw the text books because there is no average child, trust me he/she doesn’t exist!

He liked his food, his sleep, and not much else really, would not tolerate doting relatives or entertain concerned health worker, this kid was taking life at his pace, and come to think of it, still is.

Even his laid back attitude didn’t make it any easier though, I remember pottering around in my garden, Chris tearing around on his bike, diving in the paddling pool and “helping” me dig, Wayne by now almost a year old, was quietly sitting beside me watching the world go by, but when I turned to look, he was happily munching away at something, I put my hand under his little chin and calm as you like he spat a worm into my hand!

His big brother still hasn’t got over the horror, or maybe that’s just because Wayne loves the story and brings it up (pardon the pun) whenever he feels the need to horrify.

I worry about Wayne’s taste, over the years he has eaten many unsavoury things and twice we have visited casualty for x-rays only to find a screw and a pound coin going through his system, I have now invested in a metal detector as I found it much easier and more pleasant to scan him with this, than to check his excretions!

Baby 3, Shelly hit me like a maelstrom! She was beautiful, precious, delicate and oh so loud!

Maybe she wanted to be heard above the others, I don’t know, but I swear the first 3 months of her life she was exercising her lungs for the future! Colic? No way! this was attitude!

She was adored by her big brothers and I would swell with pride when I watched them together, they’d cuddle her and sing to her, I felt truly blessed.

By the time she could move around, the boys were in hiding, she would chase them with a flannel and mop their grubby faces, she’d help Wayne with his buttons and make sure he was tidy for school each morning, she’d make me laugh, she was so tiny, not even walking when she started to organise her brothers

By the time she was 3 she’d put my organisational skills to shame, her room was meticulously tidy and her clothes immaculate (mainly because she changed three or four times a day), but as she nears adolescence she’s slowly slipping into hanging her clothes on the floor along with her teddies.

Baby 4, Trevor, just seemed to fit in, he was no major upheaval and he was a very laid back little man, not so little though! He was the biggest of the bunch and none of my cute newborn clothes would go on him!

He accepted everything going on around him and just watched my little bundle of bedlam in amusement, and his big sister loved him! She was only 18 months old, but she was overjoyed that she could clean this one up and he had no hope of escaping!

I had to interfere when I caught her smearing his lovely little face in sudo cream though.

The only time this little fella let himself be heard was when his belly gauge read empty, as soon as he was re-fuelled he was a contented little soul, so content I have many a photo of him sound asleep with his face in an empty plate, but most of his meal spread over his face and dolloped on the floor beside his chair, and the ever hopeful family dog who’d follow him wherever he went, that was a blessing really because the dog would help clear up his little trail of food.

Ahh yes, those were the days, my sweet little treasures, the mountains of pampers, the shares in Calpol, the disputes over dummies, the insomnia, endless feeds and changes, the unmentionable sticky marks in unmentionable places, the toys stuck down the loo, the little bits of toast stuck in the baby walker wheels, the endless snotty noses and spotty bottoms, the pain of teething and the joy of a new tooth. The washing and cleaning, but still the most vivid memory is that of a sleeping babe in my arms, and that’s the memory I’m sticking too thank you!

I don’t have the pleasure of babyhood memories from my other four, Kyle, Chloe, and twins Robert and Sam, but must confess to digging out their cute baby photo’s when they are not around, they look adorable, and to just imagine how sweet they were without reality butting in is really rather nice!

4 That Monday feeling……

Come on, it really is hard work and it’s not just since I had the kids!

I do not have the luxury of waking up to the sound of bird song on a Monday morning.

Instead I feel like the morning hits, slaps me round the face and drags me out of bed before my brain has caught up.

This is why I like to be organised on a Sunday then Monday can take me with all it’s force and I’ll be ok.

That’s the theory anyway!

Sundays are the day of rest! Give me a break, Sundays are mad!

I’m a traditionalist (when it suits me) and I must have my roast dinner on a Sunday, so no matter what dinner will be done!

Sundays are also the day I torture the kids in the vain hope they will not torture me the following morning, I don’t seem to have succeeded yet, but I will persevere!

Sunday is the day I spend shooting around like a bat out of hell making sure my little honeys are ready for the week ahead.

I do the ironing (a chore I hate with a passion) I mean, what is the point? Here kids, I’ve lovingly decreased your clothes just so I can see you crumple them up in a heap on the floor!

A man called Henry W Seeley Invented the electric iron in 1882, well thanks a lot Henry! I am not impressed at all! I hope his wife tried to throttle him with it! In these days of conservation I think it’s about time we saved energy , banned Ironing and brought creased clothes back into fashion!

I have perfected the technique of hanging clothes on the washing line in such a way I can get out of ironing most things, but try as I might I just can’t get away with it when it comes to hubby’s work clothes and the kids uniforms.

So I suffer the ironing, and my family suffer too because I need music to iron to and I sing at the top of my voice in the vain hope of taking this monotonous task off my mind, it never works, but I do it all the same. I once got a round of applause on completing a Bob Marley album, so I am aware they suffer too.

Some of you are thinking “ironings not so bad, what’s she fussing about”!

Well nothing’s that simple in my house and to do the ironing I must have navigational and tactical skills and if you think you can do it, you’re welcome too!

I only have one room I can do it in and that’s the dining room that we don’t actually dine in, simply because we can’t get a table for all of us to fit round! Instead the room is used for Kyle’s computer, mine is the adjacent to that, the dogs’ bed is in the corner with the suicidal guinea pig and the tropical fish, and we have a shelf full of videos with a cockatiel in his cage balanced on top, beside my computer is a mountain of ironing, and I have a space of 6’ square to place my ironing board, if that’s not bad enough, I have 6 little bods running around, two grumpy dogs (because they can’t reach their bed with all my ironing gear out) and Kyle in the corner by the plug socket, trying not to get wrapped up in the cable as I iron. See what I mean?

It’s a chore, I hate it!

So Sunday’s are pretty busy! I also ban the kids from playing computer games on a Sunday night so they have no excuses for not being ready Monday morning, homework will be done, and all books needed for school will be ready. The plan is they all get up bright and early on a Monday morning, refreshed and ready to go!

It never works like that though!

Always, Sam is up first, she’s nearly 14 now and simply must wash and style her hair before she can face the day, so I stay in bed until I hear she’s safely out the bathroom, usually she makes me a coffee so I can have a caffeine fix before I have to talk to anyone, I love her for that, and if I’m not up by the time she’s made it, she makes sure I am! She is seriously the best alarm clock ever, and she is the only one who can manage a smile first thing, so she’s always a pleasure to see.

Kyle and Chloe are adults now, I let them drag themselves up and out if and when they are ready and just supply the coffee when they surface.

That still leaves me with five more, and I must admit they all share my love of that Monday morning feeling, so I trudge into the boys room, try my hardest to sound cheery and tell them the time, “come on lads, it’s time we all got moving,” only to be met with a series of groans that I understand so well. Wayne usually reaches semi-consciousness first and as he doesn’t have to leave as early as Chris and Robert, negotiates another half hour in bed. I always agree, because once he’s alert he’s ready in record time, but this starts little Trevor off, who, like me can only manage a snails pace so he really should be up. I’m met with the usual protest of “that’s so unfair!” I have found the best way to deal with that is to tickle him until he’s laughing too much to be cross.

Two awake and three to go, I turn to the other bunk bed and threaten to kiss Chris and Robert if they do not move, that’s enough for action, I just hear two little voices under the duvets saying “all right! All right! I’m up!”.

Satisfied with that I move on into the girls room, there sleeping like a baby I find Shelley snuggled up on her bed with 2 or 3 cats for company, the cats seem to know the routine and as soon as I enter, they wake and start walking up and down her, without saying a word, I lift her hand and stroke it along one of the co-operative cats, I know she’s awake, she’s smiling, she, like me doesn’t care much for conversation that time in the morning so I use the opportunity to grab the bathroom before the rest of the clan.

As if by magic, as soon as I get in there, everyone else who I left in their beds needs to use the loo, somehow we all negotiate a fair rota and all whiz in and out in record time!

With all my careful planning the night before, this should be easy, but it never is!

Chris is flapping about homework he conveniently forgot he had, and I give him the “that’s what Sunday nights are for” lecture.

Robert has lost his contact book, “of course it was ready the night before, and someone must’ve pinched it”

Shelley is franticly scribbling down sentences she “forgot she had to do”.

Wayne is on his 3^rd bowl of cereal and worrying about what he’s going to have for lunch.

Sam is organised, looking lovely and ready to go, while Trevor is lounging on the sofa trying to get over the shock of getting up, I try to go easy on him because I really do understand how he feels.

Finally it’s time for the three elder ones to leave, look out the window at the torrential rain and gale force winds and tell them to take their coats! For some strange reason I simply do not understand, Chris and Robert both age 13 think it is totally uncool to wear a coat of any kind and try to tell me their hooded sweaters ( hoodies they insist they are called) are a far better form of protection against our elements, and their coats are too warm??!! I tell them they look even dafter soaking wet like little drowned rats, beaten, they groan, grab coats and slam the door as they go.

Three down, three to go! They are alert now, sadly as yet, I’m not and find it hard to keep up. Wayne hides his little sisters school lunch behind the sofa and thinks it’s hilarious, she cries, he laughs and I’m pulling my hair out, meanwhile Trevor wants to be a rock star and is strumming his guitar…. terribly, the dogs decide to hide in the garden and I wish I could join them!

Salvage sandwiches, glare at giggling Wayne, console Shelley, hide guitar and try to get us all moving.

Trevor can’t find his shoes, Wayne is looking devious but give him the benefit of the doubt! Shelley is ready, awake and helping me on the shoe hunt!

Hear a scream, Wayne is still laughing, run into kitchen to find Trevor climbing on the work surface in kitchen because his brother needed some cotton buds, he’s panicking because he can’t get down, ever helpful brother has removed the stool. Explain things are out of reach for a very good reason, we are saved by a knock on the door….

Maybe not! It’s next doors 10 year old, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I offered to take my friends little one to and from school, he just happens to be a good friend of Wayne and together they really are double the trouble!

Find shoes, admire neighbours sons new exercise move, he’s on his back crawling across the floor, picking up dog hair all over his clean blazer! Remove dog hair, wrap kids in coats, plait daughters hair and hurry them out the door before they think of another skill to show me.

Next we have the argument over who sits where in the car, my patience is wearing thin, but I do understand, I have an 8 seater people carrier, the children fight over two seats, the front and the one by the sliding door. I try to rotate them daily (the children, not the seats), but to be honest, try as I might, I can’t always remember who sat where on the last journey! Finally we reach an amicable conclusion, but I still have two little sad faces, try to cheer them up and fail, so belt them up and we’re off!

Get to school, by now they’re all cheery again, they reach across give me a kiss and a hug goodbye that makes the morning worthwhile and I watch with pride as they greet the lollipop lady and walk into school. Why do they always look so tiny as they stroll through the school gates? I’m still waving and smiling like a fool, but they are not looking anyway, they meet their friends and they’re off!

My marathon morning isn’t over yet though, the refuse collectors come every Monday morning, so I race back and clear the weekends debris before they arrive. That done, I wake hubby, for he is a confessed coward who prefers to hide during the morning rush hour and fits his shifts in accordingly.

Then I sit back with a cup of coffee and watch as he does his Manic Monday stressing in quiet amusement.

No, sorry, I lie, that’s how I envisage it to be, in fact I run along behind him, handing him his glasses, mobile phone, belt and his name badge in case he, like me should forget who he is on this dreary morning!

He entertains me (sorry darling), at work he is has an air of super efficiency about him, he’s smart, he’s good at what he does and knows it!

At home, he’s a couch potato with cute tufts of hair that stick up at all angles, shirt hanging out, a phone permanently pressed to his ear and I worry should I disconnect him from his pc he will cease to be, it is I that clears the sleep from his eyes, removes the fluff from his belly button and throws all he needs in his direction, at home he has an inability to locate anything, I swear his senses are blind until he gets to work! Unless he has a female colleague that knows and understands him I don’t know how he does it!

I like to call him my little bubble of stress, it sums him up pretty well, especially on this dreaded morn.

Behind every great man, is a frazzled woman!

I see the love of my life off to work with a kiss, and stand at the door as he rides off on his motorcycle, it’s the perfect image, but the reality is I stand there just in case he’s forgotten something else!

Then and only then do I have my coffee and savour the peace, tranquillity and satisfaction of surviving another Monday morning!

Donna Woodmore  Parenthood  Reality Read on...