Embracing the unexpected

I had plans for the weekend – something that involved someone I like who lives far away, some time out/off/away from some of my children and from my house and the seemingly never –ending demands from the singing washing machine letting me know the cycle has finished.

Maybe even something a bit spontaneous (with plans of course!) and wicked and just because I wanted to. Anyway it didn’t happen. And I am mad as a cut snake. Nasty. Wicked but in the evil way.

I’m mad because for all my planning, some of it depended on assistance from the girl’s Dad, who has his own stuff going down and couldn’t pull off a sleepover (or two). So I breathed, congratulated myself on cleaning my car, and embraced motherhood and doing some more washing and putting plastic food and pots and pans back into the pretend kitchen at least 44 times (and that was just Saturday!).

But none of that was really unexpected, and I embraced with as much grace as cut brown snake (very venomous is the brown snake!). And to top it off, aforementioned Dad wanted to see the girls, so came over to hang out with them for 2 HOURS. And for all my nasty brown snaked-ness, I still couldn’t use that opportunity to get out of the house, so I also got two hours of company with someone I was married to, and no longer am and if hanging out chatting was our thing and it was generally all good we’d probably still be married (OK, OK, it isn’t just the hanging out chatting bit, but you get my point right?).

So I’m not embracing the unexpected at all (although for someone like me not to get the mix right is quite unexpected, usually by now I’ve had the epiphany and am much more enlightened about the whole thing) and I should have titled this piece “Mad as a cut snake”.

I’m mad because not only did I not see the someone I like who lives far away, but all the things that stopped me are the things that make it bloody impossible – like so many babies, life responsibilities, the 400km, the ex-partners, where things are at for me and for him right now, the nasty brown snake who likes to get in my ear about all of that stuff I already mentioned. I’m pissed off because although I love my children and don’t want to shirk my responsibilities as a mother (god forbid!!), to be wicked and spontaneous and frivolous and fun takes a lot of fucking planning at this point in my life – and that’s frustrating to say the least.

Owning up to this may make me a bad mother. I think I lost running for mother of the year when the baby ate cat food anyway, so I’m going to be cool with it. I don’t feel like a bad mother, I feel like a woman who sometimes wants to be a woman, but will always be a mother first. And most of the time that is exactly how it should be, but sometimes, even Mummy’s want to remember who they used to be.

So today I’m not embracing the unexpected. We’ve done dinner (it included seven vegetables BTW if you were having doubts about my parenting), had baths, sang songs, and all the four babies are in bed (3 are sleeping, one reading) and I’m writing out my anger. And tomorrow is Monday with no expectations – perhaps I’ll embrace that……