Not quite the perfect mother............. and Happy Birthday ESOS!

I had been suffering from a serious case of broken down car syndrome.

'Loser cruiser' as the children so politely call it, breaks down with regular monotony, usually at the most inconvenient times. Late as I am, I actually hate to be late, and so when on Friday last I made Gymnast late for gym yet again, due to permanently disabled automobile, which needs to be fixed just long enough again so that we can sell it, I threw a wobbly, and told lots of people about it.

My lovely friend Headless Chicken came to my rescue, and yesterday she gave me a present. A very funny Sue Townsend book."What's this for I said?" "Because you're my friend, and I wanted to cheer you up."

Well thank you HC, it did.

Meanwhile, it was ESOS's birthday party last weekend, it being his 15th birthday today. Two friends came over and stayed for the weekend, and, being a mother, and therefore of completely the wrong generation, clearly elderly and with absolutely no idea about "who's a nice boy to go out with" nowadays, I made the mistake of possibly thinking that Sensible quite liked the look of one of said boys.

I made the bigger mistake of mentioning it to ESOS when, unbeknown to me, Sensible was nearly in earshot.

So as I said the famous last words "so don't say anything to her anyway will you" as I finished off my little gossip, she came into the room. "Don't say 'what' to me?" She said. "No, not you" I fibbed, badly. It was ED." "Don't say what to ED" she persisted.

HELP.........

"Well...." Think quickly Sally. Never very good at telling fibs I knew that I was by this time blushing and stammering............

"I think ED fancies someone.." I lied

"Who?" She said, expectantly.

"Oh, no-one in particular I said.

"So why do you think that?" She said.

"Oh..... just the way she's been lately."

Change subject quickly Sally...

Later in the car, collecting ED from dancing, I started to tell her the whole tale. Unfortunately, she missed the bit that I had used 'her' as an excuse, and so, when Sensible told ED that "Mum thinks you fancy someone", ED told Sensible that it was Mum, who thought that 'she', Sensible fancied one of the boys at ESOS's party.

By this time it was a bit like one of those children's stories where everything gets a bit out of hand and escalates to the point of.............

AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHH...................

Nearly 24 hours later Sensible went off to school, STILL not having forgiven me for my misdemeanours.

Meanwhile, both Gymnast and ED are home from school today with a tummy lurgy......

Lovely.

Much of course to Tinkerbell Mushroom's disgust.

"You never listen to me" she said.

I had been washing up and hadn't heard her latest rant about, "Not fair, off school, why can't I stay at home and have a nice day off...."

Huge house with huge mortgage for huge family, is of course made for servants. And so when, as often, I am in servant mode, washing up in the scullery, you do miss bits of the vital conversation, as, said house was very sensibly designed so that the skivvies like me don't hear all parts of the speech.

Came out of scullery. "You see, you never listen to me." She protested. "Sorry TM, I was in the scullery." "All the other mothers listen when they are in their sculleries." She said.

We went upstairs to get dressed. She wasn't talking to me.

Just then I noticed that there were 500 beads on the floor. I gave her her socks to put on, and started to pick them up.

"I love beads" I said.

The irony is completely lost on her and finally she is distracted.

"Did you have beads when you were little Mummy?"

At last I can see a reason for all those craft sets that are given to us year on year. There is light on the horizon.

Happy Birthday ESOS!