who me?

As a mum, I’ve long got used to toothy grin trophies, hugs instead of handshakes and stinky bottoms instead of shiny booty. So imagine my hands-in-the-air-hoorays (picture Meryl Streep jumping on the bed to Dancing Queen and you have it about right) when I received a MEME award for my writing (not my 10 veg cottage pie, not my standing-up-nappy-change-in-20-seconds record, not my piñata making skills, but my grown up, life of my own, writing!) from fellow (and exceptionally good) ((well, she does have very good taste, don’t you think?)) blogger, Hot Cross Mum. To be recognised by my comrades-in-laptops is especially rewarding – a bit like a huge “I love you mummy” hug at the end of a long day from my girls for being their mum, except for something I do for myself. So thank you Hot Cross Mum… you made my week. In order to properly accept my award I have to do two things. I have to pass on the award to 7 of my favourite bloggers and I have to share 7 of my personality traits….

So without further ado, I present to you…. the 7 blogs I enjoy the most (not sure if I’m breaking the rules by including Hot Cross Mum because she nominated me, but it’s one of my favourites, so it’s staying!)
Hot Cross Mum
Her bad Mother
Musings in mayhem
Re-writing motherhood
Mothers who write
Creative Construction
Mommy writer

Phew – these blogs keep me inspired, encouraged and amused – three fairly essential talents.

So now for the hard part. 7 personality traits of mine…… should I be modest, or boastful? Fantastical or funny? Since I love reading and writing, I’m going to try and do this using my favourite books (thankfully Jackie Collin’s The Bitch is NOT one of my favourites…)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austin) – I can be bull-headed and determined, and have great pride (mostly internally combusting rather than externally extolling) in my wonderful hubby and two amazing girls…… making me rather prejudiced that they are the best in the world.
Colour Purple (Alice Walker) – I am rather partial to a colour-coded chart, my organisational obsession leading to lists upon lists, and colour coded charts to plan our every move. (If I said I was spontaneous too, would this complicate things?). Also my favourite line in the book is one of my life mottos – it’s hard to walk past the colour purple and not be thankful for life.
Four Letters of Love (Niall Williams) – I love writing, and letters and diaries (and blogs) have been my outlet all my life. And also there are four letters in my hubby’s nickname and I love loving him.
Bel Canto (Anne Pattchet) – this relates to my determination (after 15 years of trying) to master the art of song – in particular, how to play a guitar. I am determined, therefore I will succeed, it’s just that between child-rearing, novel writing, socialising, and life in general, it may take another 15 years.
House of Spirits (Isabel Allende) – I’m spirited – I’ll try anything once, and if I don’t like it, maybe twice…. I like fun and want our lives to be as full of it as possible. Put it another way, I have get-up-and-go…. if only I could get-up-and-go to the attic a bit more and finish my novel
Making Babies (Anne Enright) – something I never thought I’d do or enjoy but has become the best thing I do….. hopefully it’s not just because there are more names to organise on my colour-coded charts but that it is who and what I was meant to be (along with a award winning, guitar playing, skinny, novelist….. ah, I can dream.)
The Book Thief (Markus Zusak) – not because I steal books, but because I am notoriously precious about mine and do not lend them to anyone unless they give me a gold watch and their house as security that I’ll get mine back. I can’t even use the library (although I think libraries are the best things ever invented) because I could never hand back a book I loved. It has to sit on my (creaking) bookshelves so I can touch it occasionally. Sad, I know, but true.

So there you go…. my best books and my personality traits in one. We mums are so good at multi-tasking…..

There's always a rainbow on a rainy day...

Like almost everything bad I’ve experienced in life, there is inevitably some good somewhere hidden in all the crap. It happens with the little things. It happens with the big things. Take the little bad things. The other day I was literally in the middle of texting my husband that I was having the worst day of motherhood to date – my toddler having thrown the mother of all tantrums in Tesco exposing me to the butt of all those looks of sympathy / ‘what a bad mother she is’ and I was now trying to feed said toddler and rebellious baby who was point blank refusing to eat anything I waved in the vicinity of her mouth, when, between me threatening to either abandon them in the café and go for a drink or cry, a lovely woman came up to me and said, “What beautiful girls you have, and so good to sit there quietly.” I looked at her as if she’d sprouted a snout and begun to fly. My girls? Good? And I looked at them and there they were, being all beautiful and good and gorgeous. She changed the course of the day for all three of us.

It’s like when you are confronted with the hugest, smelliest, mind-of-its-own poo-ey nappy and you look up to check it’s not actually a large sewer infested alien on the change mat and you get the smile to melt your heart and a gurgle of delight that makes you laugh in your soul. It’s like when my mum lost her handbag recently while looking after my girls. I felt guilty, she was distraught and our annoyance hung in the air and spoiled our day. And then there was a knock on the door. And there was a woman and there was my mum’s handbag and we smiled at how good people can be.

And then there’s the big things. My recent miscarriage was traumatic and terrible and terrifying, and also testament to the incredible spirit of love and friendship that surrounds me. My mum stroked my hair, my friends called and gave me hugs. People – so many people, sent me flowers. Others bought me chocolates. And people I’ve never even met wrote to me and sent me their love. Women shared their own stories of loss and I knew someone out there understood. In the midst of loss, I felt loved. Thank you all.

(c) AKG 2008