To ask what you feel a Real Grown Up should have under control, but you just....don't (lighthearted)

[ocelot41]

The whereabouts of the feather duster. Parking (of any sort). An accurate record of the dates of the birthdays of every member of my gloriously massive and sprawling extended family. Knowledge of my blood type.

The state of my loft, filing cabinets, sex life, toe nails. The ability to fix a leaky overflow pipe or bake a cake (either would do).

Does anyone else have this kind of internal ticker tape of things they think they should have cracked by now but just...don’t? Please come be a bit useless with me...

Ooh we have lots of fuck off hardcore tools

The ability to know where my slippers are at any given time. That would be good...

You lot have made me laugh tonight, so glad its not just me.

Dh has just told me its bedtime tho.

Don't stay up too late

On the plus side, this morning I did manage to free DC1 who had managed to comprehensively wedge his knee in the back of a dining chair without the use of a hacksaw makes mental note to buy hacksaw at next opportunity.

Ocelot - I do meal plan, and I write a shopping list that makes sure I have everything I need to make the meals. Which is all great, and makes me sound jolly efficient - but where I fall down is remembering to get whatever meat it is I need for the next day's meals out of the freezer in time for it to bloody defrost.

I have channelled the thread and told DH we shouldn't watch another hour of Green Wing.

grown up alert

I am so relieved by this thread! I have a very responsible job.....but I dread to think what people would think if they saw my house! The only reason it is clean is because I have a cleaner, but I am yet to master the washing/drying/ironing/putting away cycle, thus most clothes are pulled from the ironing pile in the morning and most I don't bother ironing. House is untidy and cluttered, but I am so tired from work/2 young kids that I can never clean up!

Right, am off to bed now. Have Early Bird DCs. Thanks for being a bit rubbish with me, women.

I will check in in the morning to see how rubbish the night shift lot are heck, when I was still breast feeding I was so tired I was even waving to people who weren't there.

Behold! Ye mums of newborns, in a few years' time you too could be just a Bit Crap...

If I was grown up and smart I could make up a great quiche title from A Bit Crap. But I'm not. So I can't.

SDTG... o god I suck at defrosting. I have eautiful homemade chicken stock in the freezer and keep using cubes as I've forgotten to defrost it!

Rum in heels is easy peasy compared to the complexities of sewing a button back on.

In my mind grown ups should always have stamps and envelopes.

I have neither.

I'm too old to be in a long distance relationship. We are engaged and have a child fgs. Moving in August, thank god! (We've lived together for many years but strange work circumstances have been a bitch this year)

I'm currently eating my breakfast (cereal, not ice cream ) out of a saucepan because I broke the last bowl yesterday. No matching plate sets here

My friend was saying this yesterday. She is late 40s and really has had the week from hell DC-wise. She texted 'I just want a grown up to come and sort it all out'

I like this thread. I can't manage to keep socks together. I have a basket of at least 200 socks and none of them have a pair. I once tackled it and only matched 2.

I'm at the age now (26) where, as a naive young teenager, I thought I'd have all my shit together. I couldn't be more wrong. I'm now hoping that by 30 I'll know what's going on. I regularly look at nearly 3yo ds and think 'Shit! I'm in change of another human being!!!!'

High School Parents' Evenings. How on earth did I get to be doing those? It's not 5 minutes since I was a pupil myself.

SDTG I'm another one who can never remember to get the meat out of the freezer, thereby thwarting all my attempts at meal planning.

I have a drawer in my fridge for chocolate (it has a nice picture of some veg on it so I suspect that may be what it's supposed to be used for ...) I've never yet managed a long car journey without eating copious amounts of haribo. We have a booze cupboard in the garage because there's not a big enough one in the house.

I can't seem to get to grips with my hair. Or do proper nice up-do 's. I have friends who can pull their hair up effortlessly and look like something out of vogue. I can't even do a simple ponytail without swearing, snapping at least 2 hair bands and still ending up with lumpy bits . I've had my hair dye for 2 weeks and still not had time to use it.

Reading that back I just sound like a teenage student rather than a professional 36 year old with 2 DC!

I would like to add two more things that have come to my attention this morning.
Having cash, I never have money when it is needed. DC need money and I am always rummaging through pockets and purses, putting IOU's in money boxes or paying the ridiculous £2.50 charge in the corner shop cash machine.

Picnics. My Mum and MIL can prepare a picnic at a minutes notice, they never pay through the nose for a minuscule carton of organic apple juice at an NT property, they have flasks of tea and lovely homemade treats.
My picnics usually involve an expensive trip to the supermarket, multipacks of disappointing cakes and an hours time wasted faffing around finding the cool bag which is still full of crumbs and a manky banana from last time, or realising the ice packs are in the drawer of doom, warm. Not ready for action in the freezer.
Or I simply just can't be arsed and we end up having yet another Maccy D's.

Llareggub. That's easily solved. I only buy thin black socks. All my socks match and they're unisex

I meal plan like so:
Sat: picnic/oven night (ie chips n shit)
Sun: sambos+salad/meaty stew
Mon: pancakes/chicken fajitas

Honestly, it gets no more complicated than that, and we can always change the order have brinner

I also have a loose rota of cleaning:
Mon: change bedding+wash it, batch cook, sweep and mop.
Tues: clean kitchen, clean den/playroom (room with tv which should be ds' but he still sleeps with us!).
Wed: clothes wash, clean bathroom, sweep+mop.

Again, if I miss a day it doesn't matter, and at least I'll remember to change bedding more than once a semester month.

It's all come together very recently - like, 'post-Easter' recently!
I can: put together Ikea furniture like a pro, remember birthdays/anniversaries off the top of my head amd give you an episode-by-episode run down of every seadon of X-Files

By now (pushing 40), I thought I'd be able to:
Drive
Budget
Save
Have a 'holiday wardrobe'
Have matching shoes-handbag
Be able to wear a pretty scarf without feeling an enormous dick
Have a will
Have a mortgage

I have a DH, a DS, car, a joint account, a passport, live abroad, translate for my parents when they visit, have a job with a lot of responsibility. Yet when my boss is telling us about our holiday rota this year, or medical entitlements, or how our tax has changed - in my head I'm singing the Batman theme tune, laying on my stomach on the livingroom carpet with my My Little Ponies! I want to tell my boss: I don't know why you're telling me all this, I'm only 7!

We meal plan and have a shopping list which we pretty much keep to apart from when I'm hormonal then I bung copious quantities of wine, chocolate and cheese in the trolley

DP likes to have a washing rota ie clothes Monday, bedding Tuesday, towels Wednesday but I am used to doing it when it's needed. And when I have a good book, it's not needed.

The beds don't get changed weekly.

I can't drive, swim, ride a bike or make small talk. If I see a neighbour wave I think "offs she'll want to yap" and my heart sinks.

Years ago, I was in a shop and someone said, to her child, "get out of the lady's way" - and I moved out of the way. She was referring to me, as the lady...