Though She Be Crepey, She Is FIERCE!

[QueenQueenie]

Ta Da!

MrsS, you sound like exactly the person to turn to in a crisis. And the perfect antidote to an overly dramatic DD

Mrs S, I think I love you. For so many reasons.

Wise words indeed from MrsS. Herbs I dunno. Three kids, two marriages, having been full time working mother( single and married) with almost every kind of childcare from friends and family, reg. childminders, workplace nurseries, nannies, juggling it between us...and also being a SAHM and a WFHM part time ...so it goes on. What have I learned? One part of the couple usually has to curtail their career, hopes, dreams to a point, etc where bringing up children is concerned and there's generally some argy bargy about it all. The choices are stark. Someone has to do the childcare...juggled between you, or paid help or a combination of both. The higher earner often feels they have some dispensation from the childcare. This isn't true of course, although it wouldn't make sense for them to jeopardise their career by taking time off when they can't. The reality is that it can be juggled using annual leave creatively, and WFH with an eye on the kids. DH and I have "meetings" where we work it out, with diaries etc
preferably over a nice meal in a local restaurant every couple of months. It helps but it's not a panacea. We still argue about it all. Our biggest sticking point is my jealousy over how easy it is for him to do his thing and how much hassle I always seem to have.

I do not however, have a lot of time for inequality in terms of going away on a jolly, ( DH knows I need to get away on my own too) and parents out drinking , instead of looking after their kids. Good luck with it. You are not alone x

Fun time last night with friends wth a flat along the coast. Dinner here and lots of laughs. Just what I needed but slept badly. Woke up in the small hours really feeling I couldn't breathe. DS in a bad mood about his subjects again this morning. Shoot me now. I've had enough.

Oh Rose {{{}}} I have had rather vivid dreams and fitful sleep the last couple of nights - not sure if it's my sub-conscious worrying about DDS GCSE results, or the return home. I feel a bit strange about going home - have quite got into the nomadic/Kiwi lifestyle

Massive respect Mrs S.

Herbs, do go away for a few days, to see friends or whatever. Has always focussed DH on what being sole parent actually involves.

Rose, sorry to hear of anxious night.

BTM it's a long journey and results thing is big so not surprised you are feeling odd.

He does quite willingly look after DS for long stretches. Each year, for example, I go 'on tour' with my choir for anything between two and five days, so he has to take leave, or juggle WFH with school, etc, and all is harmonious. I just think he's got so enmeshed in thinking about his actual job, he's lost sight of the bigger picture.

In other news, I seem to have some kind of bug, giving me the trots. And we have to go to a picnic, so I'm dosing myself up on immodium.

Dd came back about 11am yesterday and lay on the sofa all day watching TV. Ds and I had to go out to a wedding reception last night and dd phoned me repeatedly to tell me she was feeling ill. Today she is still in bed, still wearing the same clothes and makeup as she was on Thursday. Dm has just phoned me to ask me if dd has "got on with things" and then gave me a lecture about how I have to chuck her out when she is 18 and how she will come and shout at dd and tell her I'm about to "have a breakdown". I wish they would all go away and boil their heads.

Oh and it now turns out that the way dd dealt with me being away every Tuesday last year was by not going to school most Tuesdays. Both she and dh were slightly economical with the truth on this matter.

Just dashing in to offer very trivial bit of experience ignoring all the biogger pictures: Herbs, when my dc were little, I was a freelance (as I am now). I found it well worth having regular, simple, organised childcare as a fixed point, even if some weeks I didn't use it all and other weeks I had to scrabble around. Having a work life that is constantly changing is actually quite tiring and does take a bit more time and space to run properly - the less scrabbling the better. So if you can afford to, I would book ds in for at least some before and after school club as that will be so convenient, and see if you can manage to get most of your work on those 3/4 days (or whatever).

ds is finally on his way back from his first solo trip - only 36 hours late! All is well tho.

Stropps and Rose - there ought to be a special cake emoticon for teenager-induced frustration and worry. But have this in the meantime . At least she is safe at home Stropps and reaction still within the bounds of infuriating normal teenage behaviour. Can you firmly tell your dm there isn't actually much to be done at the moment?

I find better for dealing with teenager-induced frustration.

Tell your DM to fuck off, Stropps.

Strops sorry DD and DM are being trying.....

MrsS you are awesome...
Rose glad DS is seeing the wood for the trees as it were.

MI safe traveling - BTM too!
Hope to catch up with some crepes on Friday.

MrsS probably missed it but exactly how did blender accident happen?

Don't know about the teenagers, but "adult" children can really be a pain.

Trying to sort out a visit to see them & PFGC & it's me who has to ring other MIL & sort out when she's going & then get a lot of Ds's frustration with her inability to be organised. Ain't my train etc.

Just a storm in a teacup but so irritating when they want us to visit as they don't want to come back atm with colicy baby (which I understand).

Never mind, it's Saturday so nearly gin time. Thank fuck for alcohol, sometimes!

I have had some dark chocolate Rolos, which were almost as good as cake and did not make me as shouty as wine would at this juncture. I find that causes me to be unable to resist the urge to tell it how it is, i.e. "You know what you have to do, so how about turning off the tv, putting down your phone and just doing it?" Sadly, this only results in effing and blinding and things being thrown. And then I have to resist the temptation to join in with all that.

Dd got up and got dressed, muttered something about how she couldn't find the summer hols homework she was supposed to be doing; I suggested she asked some of her friends where to find it on the school website and then she said she's off to the cider festival at the town park. Have just dropped her, dh and ds off there and come home to do the overdue invoicing. Am now slightly tempted to pack a bag, grab the dog and take myself off to a B&B somewhere else for a few nights. However, as dd would be then even less likely to do anything remotely constructive, I shall stay put and put a cold compress on my bulging forehead veins.

Happy hols, MI and CV.

BD, hope you are having a nice, relaxing weekend. Sorry not to be able to pop up to town on Friday, would have loved a mini-MU.

Herbs, if it is at all possible to get your dp to think about the bigger picture re: responsibility for ds and your workload, I hope you can find a way to do it, as sharing the responsibility must make such a difference. Responsibility for all that stuff has never been shared round these parts (despite my best efforts) and I have always struggled with stopping the resentment from becoming toxic.

Oh dear lord.

We are now ensconced in rather nice - and uncharacteristically posh - villa with pool; as I expected it's in an expat development which is a bit off-putting but it's on its own in the mountainous country and is quite lovely - I think we can manage a nice time even if we do bugger-all.

BUT oh my god. We nearly missed our flight. As in not "whoops, that could have been a close one" but literal running to the departure gate - and Gatwick is a bloody big airport, we had a lot of running. Because guess who had completely bungled the entire timing of the morning and declared we could leave at a time which we now realise was the best part of an hour too late?

What is it with these Crepey men? Are we just so awesome we reduce normally competent blokes with responsible jobs to utter hopelessness????

And Stropps, wtf is DH up to, not mentioning DD's non-attendance?

Heh, magimedi, I have no doubt that my dm is probably complaining to her friends about the dreadfulness of her dcs and all her gcs (with the current exception of my ds, who has not yet disgraced himself in life, unlike her other 3 gcs). Hope you get to enjoy the company of your PFGC very soon!

x-posts, MI. Oh phew, and thrice phew that you made it on to the flight. And I did at our crepey awesomeness being responsible for rending competent blokes useless. That is actually pretty much dh's line "but you're so good at all that organisation stuff". Have a super-fab relaxing time in your posh villa. Sounds lovely.

Dh had muttered something about how he'd asked her why she wasn't in school and she said she had no lessons on Tuesday mornings. A blatant lie, especially as the school has a 2-week timetable. And he was too much of a weed/lazy arse/busy translator to follow it up. I just wasn't kept up to speed about how often it was happening. Tbh, as she does nothing he says, I'm not really sure what he could have done and on the occasions I was told and remonstrated with her, it didn't do any good either. And the Ofsted excellent-rated school did nothing. I can only assume that the post-16 attendance stats are not important to them, for whatever reason.

Stropps, you are amazing and DM is clearly being ridiculous. MI, villa sounds lovely- enjoy yourselves. I tend to err on the side of caution with travel arrangements, DH does not, so you have my sympathies about the debacle at Gatwick; thank goodness you made it.

DH is having a belated shower after having spent most of the day gardening, etc.,no doubt we will have some words later on as he seems to think that cooking, ironing, etc., are not work and he will be feeling hard done by.

Hmm, NU I hear you. Just in from work to find Dh lying under a load of branches he has chopped down unbidden in caveman stylee and too knackered and out of breath to have unloaded the washing machine, or indeed taken the dry sheets off the line before bombing them with spots of petrol from the chainsaw.
I suppose I'll have to make the dinner as well.

Stropps, if you can stand back completely from dd and save yourself some stress, do so now! I have been close to or in the vicinity of where you are with my dd and nearly gave myself a heart attack going with the roller coaster of daily nonsense and disarray that she was maintaining. I finally got to the point where I realised I can do nothing unless she in serious danger of hurting herself. If you need a couple of days away , do it. Your dm is another irritant you can live without right now -how dare she comment. Zero in on what You Need right now and do it. At some point, yes decisions will have to made, but I reckon it's too soon after the results for that. Sounds like you all need space for a week or so. Does that make any sense?

Herbs like Lalsy I resorted to a coup,e of days after school club to take the pressure off. I do think it will make all the difference to what could end up being entrenchment or resentment.

Happy hols MI and Cv
Bon Voyage BTM.

I am filling in an online application form for a job. What arse decided these were a good idea? Takes soooooooooooo long. Entering each blasted qualification back to the year dot, having to scroll through endless lists of dates back to the cretaceous period when I did my O Levels... which are now utterly irrelevant. Who gives a monkeys toss what grade I got for O level music, FFS!

And yes, wise crepeys. I plan to book a couple of days of after-school club and try to cement my work around that. Juggling childcare, relying on friends, etc, is another layer of stress I won't need when entering the supply teaching fray. Only problem being that it gets v booked up, and I may have missed the proverbial.

I raised the 'family' aspect with DP, and it wasn't dismissed out of hand, though there were mutterings of 'well... it does have to pay to mortgage...' But he has just cooked a delicious fish pie, and is putting DS to bed. Both unbidden. If anyone it would be me who'd do something strenuous and unnecessary in the garden rather than the tedium of laundry or the dishwasher.

MI so glad you made it! I triple check flight details and timings with DH, particularly after a similar incident years ago. But I know it could happen again any time. Hopefully not tonight.

Stropps, I think Cremo is right and she probably needs time to let the dust settle, but that is not easy for either of you. It sounds like the school have been incredibly hands-off - is this normal for Sixth Form? All the ones we looked round at went on about how you have to be in for registration, etc - it didn't sound that easy to bunk first thing at least

Cremo, they seem to like pruning/cutting back in the garden don't they? Mind you I'm not adverse to a bit of pruning myself. No doubt there will be plenty of scope for that when we get back!

Lalsy, glad to hear your DS is safe and sound - where did he go off to?

Herbs that sounds promising. Sadly, as Rose said, something has to give when there's childcare to be sorted.

Morning Rudy! Hope worry hasn't woken you?

We are having a wee drink in Devonport, Auckland so that the DC can sit down for a bit and go on the wifi Sadly I seem to have left my glasses in the ferry over, so I apologise if there are even more typos than usual!
It's been a fab holiday and DH has done a great job planning, booking and driving