Jaysus, I’ve never been so frickin indecisive in my life but after much tooing and froing I have decided to revert back to my old blog ‘Tired of Men and other things that drive a twenty thirty-something round the twist’.

I’ll still bitch about motherhood. In fact, to be fair, I bitch about everything!

So the bro headed off to sunnier pastures new yesterday when he moved to Dubai. Right up until the last few minutes before he said goodbye to us, I thought it was all one big joke. He popped upstairs to take one last look at Miss Thang the bambino and when he returned we hugged and I started blubbing. I can’t believe he’s gone! I know I’ll see him every month or so but I feel bereft at losing my bro. We’ve rarely been very far apart in our entire lives and now he feels like he’s a million miles away. Anyway…

It’s been a pretty hectic week as usual. The boyf was 35 on Monday and we celebrated by having a mini surprise dinner. He thought we were just going for the bro’s leaving do (it must have been his tenth one…) so when we walked in and he saw one of our friends at the bar, he was really confused. As people came over and said happy birthday he turned to me and said “Why is everybody saying happy birthday to me?” Honestly! Sometimes you can’t surprise people! It was only when another friend turned up that he finally twigged that I’d surprised him. Last year I got the waiters at another restaurant to surprise him with a cake and they scared the crap out of him by blasting Stevie Wonder’s ‘Happy Birthday’ through the restaurant. This year, I managed to get him again - the whole restaurant sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and the waiters dropped and clashed all of their trays repeatedly. Hilarious!

As usual life is trying to pull my pants down as I juggle freelancing with the bambino who seems to be a whirlwind of destruction! There I am trying to do some work and she’s somehow managed to get find her way to the cupboard under the stairs where she’s trying to get out the vacuum cleaner and her car seat… But she goes to the childminder twice a week now so I get some ‘me time’. I’ve been a bit more organised this week which means I managed to get a lot of work done, sold more ebooks (yay), did my column in Dollymix, took some stuff off the ever growing to-do list, and I even managed to squeeze in a shag…. Joke! No, not really!

One of the things I’m hugely entertained by is when exes get in touch with you on Facebook. I love how they contrive a reason to get in touch with a long winded explanation to justify the contact. Then you add them as a friend and they find out that you’re ’settled down’ with a baby. Hehe… I’m not hugely into Facebook but it does give you the opportunity to peek into people’s lives like you never could before. Another upside of Facebook is that you can finally cut off those guys that think that they may be able to dip in and out of your life like they did before. It’s funny how once you add them as a friend that they suddenly have nothing left to say once they’ve checked out your profile…Thank God for technology! It does the whole “So long sucker! I’ve moved on” without you having to do a damn thing!

Speaking of technology, I was explaining online dating to my ma earlier and told her that it’s full of liars and people pretending to be something that they’re not. “So I should be honest then?” she asked. “Yes ma!” (Earlier she’d suggested saying she was 35….I’m 30….) “OK…I’ll say I’m 45 then…” she said hurriedly as she got into the car. “Ma, you’re 50!” I yelled. Parents these days….

So it’s been a pretty hectic, crazy week, chez NML and of course it is all of my own making because if only I could get a grip on my runaway time management, life would be so much easier. To be fair, it took a few days to recover from my food poisoning episode…and in the overall scheme of things I’m Getting More Sh*t Done, but I realise that I still have a long way to go. Take Thursday for instance, where I decided to set the alarm for 6am so that I could catch up on some work.

6am - Alarm goes off. Will myself to open my eyes and eventually I do but only so that I can press snooze on my phone.

6.05 - Snooze alarm goes off and I don’t even bother to open my eyes as I feel around for the snooze button. “I’ll get up in five…” I think to myself.

6.10 - “Oh f*ck it, I’ll get up at 7″ I mutter.

And that’s how easy it is. The trouble is that I’m tired and without the impetus of actually having to be at a desk by 9am, it is pretty damn easy to have a lie in and vow to catch up later.

I’m starting to get scared that I will never get organised! I have been doing some freelance work and finishing my first ebook which I finally uploaded and I am literally flying by the seat of my boxer knicker pants - I long ago gave up on thongs which I never thought I would do but I like my bum being warm without lines…. Anyway, I digress….See how easy it is?

One of the things that has made the week a bit more helter skelter is that not only is the bambino crawling and systematically trying to destroy the house but she increased her vocabulary and her voice volume ten-fold after two days at the childminder. Before when I used to be saying “No” to her she would either scowl at me or squeal in frustration but now it’s “Na, na, na, na , na, na” in different speeds, volumes, and tones. She emptied out all of my filing, went under the stairs and tried to pull out her car seat and the vacuum cleaner, went to the front door and found a stray leaf to eat, disappeared under the dining table and refused to come out, tried to beat up the xBox 360 and the Wii, emptied out mine and her grandmas handbags, tried to eat my theory test certificate, emptied out one of my drawers full of clothes, puked on some of the clothes, farted in my face, and tried to pull my hair out. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg….

I know it’s supposed to be a good thing that she can crawl, is attempting to stand up, and is inquisitive, but nobody can quite convey just how much of a handful they become and how much your day changes. I feel like all I say is “No….No…Mummy says no….No…NO, NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Then she gives me a gummy, toothless smile and I end up laughing at the little minx. Where are those frigging teeth!?!

I purchased a big fat diary on Wednesday because I can’t be bothered with all of these online tools for time management and organisation. I am going to fill it in with all of the work I have to do, places I have to be, and use it as my bible because technology is not the answer to frigging everything. I respond better to things that I can see but if I have ten billion things open on my laptop, how am I going to see Google Calender for instance? I will still use some of these things for reminders, but there’s nothing like a good diary…

I am finally going to admit something that I have been putting off for ages…The bro is moving away to Dubai on Friday. There I said it. I’m gutted and it probably won’t seem real till Friday. Tonight we’re out for his leaving dinner and as it’s also the boyf’s birthday on Monday, I’ve arranged for a few of our friends to turn up and surprise him. I’m probably going to have a drunken weep later…

On another note, the postman knocked on the door with one of the boyfs presents and I had to throw on a cardigan and race down to answer the door. It was only after I closed it that I realised that the postman might have seen my pants as the cardigan wasn’t closed properly….

Oh dear…have a good weekend!

I walked up the aisle in Waitrose with the bambino sitting on my hip when I felt an excruciating pain shoot through me. I felt winded by it but figured it would pass so I attempted to look for the spring onions again. Another pain shot through me making me feel like I wanted to throw up and I felt a bit unsteady on my feet. Two wobbly laps around the veggie aisle and I finally found the onions, just as Nac (best mate and one of the bambino’s godmothers) came back with the pushchair.

As I approached her, an agonising cramp swept through me and I could feel myself losing control.

“Nac I don’t feel well…” I whispered.

“OK, I’ll just move this stuff off the pushchair and…”

“Nac, take the bambino…I don’t think I can hold her…” and she took her as I sank to my knees.

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Yesterday I finally booked my practical driving test. Interesting some may think, but I have been meaning to book it since the end of October….A couple of weeks ago, someone asked me to put together some figures for them. I got waylaid that day and then the weekend arrived, so I thought “Screw it, I’ll do it on Monday” and then it turned out that I didn’t need to provide them till the Wednesday so I did it late on the Tuesday night. Now bearing in mind that I had been putting it off for five days, I was ashamed when I realised that it took me all of ten minutes….

A few years ago after realising that my five month relationship actually wasn’t one, I had a life changing epiphany moment when I was realised that I was my own weapon of mass destruction in relationships. Last week I realised that even though I am loved up and no longer commitment-phobic about relationships, I am a procrastinator and sometimes commitment-shy when it comes to Getting Sh*t Done. I don’t want to be superwoman, I don’t want to be a military alpha-mum, but I do realise that I will spontaneously combust and mainline crack if I don’t get a handle on my time.

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This morning I went for my free power plates session at my gym that is all of about thirty metres across the street. For those that have never heard of power plates, it’s this vibrating machine that you do all sorts of exercises on. When I say I can barely walk, I can barely frigging walk and I think I might need a stairmaster because walking up the stairs is sheer agony. The odd thing is that I feel energised by all of the exercise…I just can’t do anything to capitalise on that energy as I might just keel over!

The only thing about sitting on those power plate things is that the vibrations focus on your bum and in turn make you want to fart. As someone who is not keen on the releasing of bodily emissions, this is terrible! But I’ll still be going back for another class and I have also decided to bite the bullet and join the gym as I didn’t really appreciate having to look at my c-section tummy wobbling around.

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This past Sunday, the boyf, the bambino, and I braved it and met up with our National Childbirth Trust (NCT) group for the first time since the summer. For those that need the instant recap: Met a bunch of parents-to-be at antenatal class. The mums started meeting up weekly. At first it was fun but as soon as we popped it became distinctly uncomfortable as the comparison, competitiveness, and clique vibe all kicked in. It was like school except this time, the only way I could fit in was by pretending that I was miserable and that my baby was a pain in the arse that wouldn’t sleep or feed properly.

There are a multitude of reasons why I stopped going to these meetings but it’s safe to say that the racist comment was the tipping point…. But after going on Sunday and recently partaking in my local mum and baby group, I’m still scared of Other Mothers but I realise that I have to suck it up and get on with it. Whether I want to or not, I have to realise that I have been dragged by my va-jay-jay (vagina for those that prefer it) and my reproductive system into the corner of the sisterhood that keeps giving the gift of bitchiness, insecurity, and competition.

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It was quarter to six on Tuesday evening and the bambino had woken up really late from a nap, totally scuppering my promise that day to manage my time more effectively. After weighing up the pros and cons of having to go to the supermarket in the morning, I decided to bite the bullet and do a mad dash to Waitrose. The plan was to be back inside the house within fifteen minutes. I grabbed my handbag, pushed the bambino in the pushchair down the steps, slamming the door behind me, got to the bottom and a horrible thought crystallised. “Oh sh*t! I think I’ve left my key!”

As I rifled through my bag, panic filled me and after practically emptying the contents out on the street, I yelled “F***********************CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC..” then remembering that the bambino was with me, quickly changed to “FFFFFFFFFLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK FLOCKITY FLOCK FLOCK FLOCKING FLOCK FLOCK  OH EFF IT F*******************CCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK!”

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Recently I was at a party and whilst sitting down resting my weary feet from pulling a few too many MJ moves, the black version of Betty Suarez came over, knelt at my feet, leaned in and asked, “So…how long have you got left to go?” I stared at her in confusion. Until those nine little words had been uttered, we’d never spoken before and I’d been thinking that although I still have a little a bit of tummy left (I have had a c-section you know! Yeah, yeah, that ‘ole chestnut I hear you all say), I was looking pretty good. Unable to take a hint from my confusion, she added, just in case I had any doubt that she was implying that I was fat, “You know…your bump…”.

I fastened her with a stare I normally reserve for men that I want to give the shrivelling nuts feeling to. “I’m not pregnant….I’ve already had my baby…seven months ago….” As I hotfooted it to my local Woolworths the following morning to pick up Davina’s latest workout video, I cursed Betty Suarez and all of the insensitive people out there. Why is it that when we become mothers, people take this as a cue to be tactless, insensitive, and be afflicted with verbal diarrhoea? And why the hell do I let these people bother me?

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Until this last Christmas, I didn’t believe in Santa but there must be a fat, white guy with a long white beard and too tight suit that loves me because my prayers about work have been answered and I’m back on maternity leave until April. Admittedly he didn’t answer my pleas for my family to be normal and non crack fiendish over the Christmas but I shall overlook that…

Now it’s unfortunate that the gift of freedom came as a result of an almighty cock up by my employer but the past few weeks have thrown me some testing times for me to learn some rather big lessons. It might be the year 2008, but the issue of maternity leave and how companies handle your return is worse than ever and it does teach you about your value and knowing your priorities.

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