Failure in many things

My tummy hurts. This might be because I've just wolfed down two half eaten bowls of pasta, pesto and peas, a home made jam tart (burning my tongue in the process) and two carrots (in a bid to eradicate the calories of the other stuff). This wasn't my dinner. That's still waiting for me. This was me doing my duty to starving children in Africa and not letting food go wasted. It's the same reason I ate one and a half hot cross buns that were far from hot earlier today. The kids hadn't eaten them (despite demanding them for breakfast) and so they sat there folornly with the butter congealed, nibble marks on the side of them. Their sorry state didn't deter me in my efforts to stop world hunger. Sigh.

Remember how I was clinging to that resolution wagon with white knuckles? It's safe to say that I fell off a while back and the dust kicked up from the wagon has long since settled. My exercising has reduced to once a week on the weekend when I finally get a moment to myself. And the no drinking in the week rule seems to mean that our weekend actually runs from Wednesday through to Sunday.

So in general I'm not doing spectacularly well. I would ordinarily feel despondent. But I don't because I still have my resolution trump card - the 'make time for myself' masterpiece in the form of flitting across the ocean on a yacht for five weeks. Friday cannot come fast enough and I'm now desperate to know if I'm going to get a place on the race.

I've already got my PR machine in place to start my fundraising efforts. Just this week the Daily Express was looking for mums who'd taken a sabbatical from their families to do something for themselves. I got in touch and told them that I hadn't yet but was really hoping I could. They're dead keen on the story and hopefully if I get a slot on the race, I'll manage to get a good hit that will drive billions of people to my blog (which has yet to be created - don't want to put the cart before the horse and all that) which in turn will result in people throwing money at me so that I can sail this race without getting myself in debt. It's not that I live in laa laa land, I'm just optimistic. Hopeful. A dreamer. A Piscean.

Anyway, today's big news was that we went to the dentist. The last time I attempted to take the children to the dentist, they hid behind me, quivering in fear before throwing the mother of all paddies and charging straight out of the dentist's room, out through reception and out of the building. The dentist didn't get within a 100 yards of their teeth. It was a failure of the most spectacular proportions.

So of course I was really looking forward to today's visit. I'd given up on getting the 3 year old in the chair. He doesn't clean his teeth at the best of times, eats sweets whenever he can (including old congealed things he finds under the sofa) and is according to his nursery teacher 'the world's most stubborn child'. No, the appointment was for the almost 5 year old and I.

For those of you who don't know about my 5 year old, let me fill you in. I've been convinced since his birth that he suffers from bipolar disoder, a split personality or schitzophrenia. When he is good, he is Angelic. When he's not, he'd make Satan weep. The thing is, you never know which one you're going to get.

With a little knot of trepidation we walked into the dentist's room. The dentist said hello and asked who was going to go first. I was about to open my mouth, when 5 year old confidently marched up to the chair, sat himself down and said "me". He then lay back, opened his mouth as wide as a person can possibly open it without turning into a hippo and let the dentist carry on. He politely answered the dentist's questions. He examined the instruments when they were shown to him. He was the perfect picture of angelic loveliness. I was so proud - and not a little flabbergasted - that I had a quiet weep, which was a little embarrassing as I then had to lie down on the chair and have the dentist gaze into my tear filled eyes.

Anyway, it was all over in under 10 minutes and we left. I congratulated my son on being such a star. That was apparently the wrong thing to do. The angel had left the building. I was subjected to a half hour diatribe about how the dentist is stupid and he's never going again and why did I have to have my teeth cleaned because he was sooooooo bored and did I mention that he's never going to the dentist again. I gave up the fight and just nodded.
Then he asked: 'You made another appointment, didn't you?'
Loaded question this. 'Er, yes I did,' I replied.
'Who was the appointment for?' he asked warily.
'Me,' I answered, omitting the small fact that he was included in the appointment given his obvious hatred for the dentist.
'WHY DIDN'T YOU MAKE ME AN APPOINTMENT?? I WANT TO GO. NOW YOU HAVE TO GO BACK AND MAKE ANOTHER APPOINTMENT. TURN THE CAR AROUND NOW!'
Too tired to argue and arms not long enough to turn around and thump him for his sheer contrariness, I said: 'But it's also for you.'
'BUT YOU JUST SAID IT WAS FOR YOU. YOU'RE LYING MUMMY. YOU ARE A BIG FAT LIAR.'

He's right. But I prefer to think of it as giving myself an easy life. I obviously failed on that count.

Men and their masterful poo

You know how I said that one of my resolutions was to be kinder to my husband? I just want to point out the fine print that followed in which I said I may not always be kind to him in my blog, just real life. I'm pointing it out in case you didn't see it and then thought that I was failing in my resolutions already, as I'm about to be unkind about my husband. Luckily he doesn't read my blog very often so hopefully he won't know and therefore it'll be like it never happened.

Here's the reason for my preamble:

Late afternoon. I've just returned from a run. (Yes, that's another resolution going well. I did a real run. Up hills and everything. And I didn't even turn purple in the process.) I was a little chilled from sweaty clothes and artic wind and thought a nice hot bath would be in order. I passed my husband coming down the stairs as I was going up and I told him that I was off to have a bath.

'Well be careful,' he said. 'You'll probably get mugged when you go in there.' I raised an eyebrow.

'I don't know what is going on with my poo at the moment,' he says by way of explanation. 'It's the second time in two days that I've laid such a big cable that it won't flush down.'

Nice. Who says romance is dead right?

Anyway, I go check email before heading into the bathroom having forgotten the warning. Immediately the skin on my face is stripped bare by the stench coming from the room. I head toward to the bath passing the loo en route. There lying in the bowl is the world's largest poo. Honestly. I was almost tempted to ring the Guinness Book of Records people as it's surely not possible that any other human being could have done such a vast poo before.

I held my nose, gave a courtesty flush and evacuated the room, opting instead to bath with plastic submarines and squishy whales filled with black goo that decorate our children's bathroom.

After my bath, I headed back to our bedroom to get dressed and was once again gagging at the fruity aroma coming from the loo. I risked a peek to see whether it had gone. Oh contraire. It was still lying there in all of its magnimity.

I went downstairs and asked my husband what he planned on doing about it. 'Nothing. I'll just keep flushing till it goes,' he said. At this point our children were intrigued. They are, after all, little boys. So they both went up and had a good look at the world's biggest poo and agreed that it was an awesome thing to behold. And they both gave a flush. It didn't shift a millimetre.

I've just returned to the scene of the crime (by now a good 5 hours after the log was laid) and it's still there. Immovable. I have suggested to my husband that he might want to get a coat hanger and attack it so that it breaks into manageable size pieces which the pipes can cope with. He's refused. I think he thinks it's funny. Or impressive. Either way, worth saving.

This is a problem. This is MY toilet. Mine. The one I use a LOT. It's the one I go to just before bed and in the middle of the night and first thing in the morning (I have a cheap made in Japan bladder). And now I have the choice of either peeing in a half hovery squat type position to avoid gettting attacked by the killer poo, or walking to the boys toilet, which is cold and I'll probably end up standing on a hard plastic tigger or something.

How is it that men can be so nonchalant about their poo? If it were my poo that had clogged the bog, I'd be on my third toilet brush trying to remove all evidence. I'm just surprised my husband hasn't got the camera out and taken a picture of it to email to his friends or put up on Facebook. They, being of the male persuasion, would no doubt also find it hilarious.

ADDENDUM - FIVE MINUTES LATER
I've just been downstairs again and told my husband that it's STILL there. He asked: 'How many times have you flushed it?' (When exactly did this become my responsibility??)

So I told him, 'Several'.
'Just leave it over night. It'll have softened by morning,' he shrugged.
'But I use that loo at night,' I wailed.
'Well it's not going to attack you is it,' he said.
'It certainly looks like it could,' said I.
'Chuckle, chuckle' is all I got out of him.
'You don't want to get rid of it, do you? I asked. 'Secretly you're actually proud of it and want to keep it for a while so that you can admire your handiwork, don't you?'
'Yes,' he giggled and was off.

This is why books are written about men being from mars and women being from venus. I do wonder if they ever cover chapters on poo management.