How does one prepare for the un-prepareable?

Looking back, I probably should have been suspicious of anything that required me to wear lycra. It was in that moment, where I stood in a room filled with various sized bellies attempting to locate our Zen and pelvic floor muscles (both of which had deserted me some time around 2002), that the epiphany hit me.

I realised my romanticised vision of motherhood was not going to follow the storyline I’d been writing in my head. 

For some reason, blame princess movies, I had this distorted idea that I was going to be this fabulous new age mother whom while instilling 1950’s cleaning and baking skills, would still be able to GHD my hair daily and be somewhat of a yoga jedi master. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love yoga. I love pregnancy yoga. I even love the idea that I love yoga. I wanted so badly to be twisty and calm and centred. The problem was that I lack the ability to turn off any section of my brain. And as far as flexibility goes I can barely touch my knees on a good day. You know when you get a fitted sheet out of the wash and struggle to fold it because it just looks tangled and confused?  That’s me doing yoga.

And yoga was just one small part of the persona I was aiming for and fell so very very short of. 

Cleaning, in all required forms, is just not going to ever go as planned again. Ever. 

I started out as a very clean person. At one point I even had my wardrobe organised in colour blocks. Now I when I get dressed, I tip the washing basket on its head and just fish around for anything that doesn’t have baby vomit or vegemite handprints on it. 

It’s probably worth noting that it’s usually well after midday, if at all, that I even change from my pyjamas.

It was not documented in these preparation yoga classes that a vital part of being a House Mummy for me was that I would now have pyjama’s that I sleep in, clean in and cook in… then have a draw of ‘good’ pyjamas that I’d like people to think that I wear to bed.  Like what you see the fully made up women wearing on the cover of Mother’s Day catalogues as they casually pose with tea cups and open cook books.

Nope. Forget slippers. I’m lucky if my socks match. I have a collection of cheap tights and my husband’s old soccer jerseys, all of which are entirely speckled with bleach stains from house work. None of which match.

(Don’t tisk if you’re a Mum reading this because you know as well as I do that you do this also and would be absolutely shattered if you got a drop of toilet cleaner on your ‘good’ PJ pants.) 

I enjoy looking at the celebrity Mums when ‘surprise paparazzi’ photos appear. While they’re in full Mummy action wearing big dark glasses and swishy scarfs, I’m forever wondering what I would be depicted like if someone took a surprise snapshot of me. More than likely it would be an image of me with a tantrum throwing toddler under one arm, a make-up free ‘no you CAN’T have it’ face and a shirt with a hint of lactating stains on the boob. You know, if I was prepared.

So, having now addressed how stylish I now clearly am, the clincher is that I would utterly die if my kids left the house without their hair done . Like, literally fall into a heap of distress. To the point where I spend a good 80% of my morning trying to put sets of pigtails on to moving targets (sorry, screaming moving targets) and then another portion of my evenings sitting in a dark room on a laptop perusing online kids stores for matching outfits and hair accessories. 

It’s just the shift in the universe that is inevitable and arrives with very little warning. Glamour deserts us (yes, along with those blasted pelvic floor muscles) and our every waking moment becomes dedicated to the servitude of others. ‘Waking’ being the key note. We wear a title that includes the words ‘stay at home’ and then spend strong portions of the time thinking Oh dear god please give me an excuse to leave the house.

See, how beneficial would yoga and meditation be if I could just teleport my mental awareness to an island?! An already clean one. That doesn’t know what a Wiggle is. 

Basically, in all truth, as redundant and ridiculous as this job can be, it really is quite literally the best I have ever known I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s just that it doesn’t come with a job description and at times we all find ourselves asking ‘am I doing this right?’

Now, as I attempt to focus my energy on completing the Triangle yoga pose amid the landmines that are discarded toy trains, I think that the origin of this blog may be little more than the hope of documenting my fading sanity.

BUT I do hope that if you are a Mummy sitting there in your PJ’s, in your house that you have impeccably cleaned and that will be destroyed with toys in a matter of hours, stumbling by accident on this blog as you flick between children’s clothing sites and toilet training tips, that you do get a kick out of my little stories and know that everything you’re doing is within its own realm of sanity and superwomaness.