It's not how good you are ...

I am a slummy mummy - at least it feels like that sometimes. We were sitting in the coffee shop yesterday celebrating the fact we don't have to move house again - at least not yet. Next to us a determinedly Alpha Mummy settled in. She began entertaining her troupe of immaculate children with a finger puppet show while they waited for their toasted panini. Her hair was glossy, brushed even. Her jeans had a perfect crease ironed down the front (mine had the two-year old's yoghurt - at least I hope it was yoghurt). My little guys watched on with longing. When the show finished, the six year old turned to me and started to say something, but then didn't (I think she inherited her diplomatic skills from her grandfather). The look of disappointment in her eyes said it all.

I don't know about you, but I just have the feeling if I was being graded there wouldn't be a lot of gold stars being flung around the place at the moment. The pilot is away again, the house is chaotic, the dog is covered in red paint after yesterday afternoon's ill-advised finger painting session, and while I steal ten minutes to blog the children are fighting over the television (will the Wiggles or Ben 10 win?) 'Could do better ...' perhaps, or if I was lucky 'Good effort.' I have decided I can't do it all (deep breath). Now it is a question of do I continue to do it all badly or try to figure out what matters? There is a great book called 'It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be' by Paul Arden. It's short, but inspiring - aimed at the creative industries but just as relevant I think to living your life creatively.

Does it come down to what you want to do well? It's not that I can't do the whole sticky backed plastic thing or puppet shows in Cafe Nero, it's just there is so much else to think of now (and life's too short?). Maybe it is rather like not minding doing the washing up in a friend's house - I always used to love to play but now I am at home I keep thinking of that show we used to watch in the 70's ('Why don't you ..?' go off and entertain yourselves for once so mummy can sit down with a coffee). We have already had that dreaded summertime lament 'I'm booooorrrrreeeed ...' - have you? When I was at college I volunteered for a children's charity in Westminster. We ran after school clubs and holiday clubs, and I now understand why there were queues around the block on the first day. How are working parents who don't have hot and cold running help supposed to cope otherwise? I wish I had that energy still - at nineteen I took gangs of children off across London to parks and museums. A lot of them were from pretty damaged backgrounds, (though this is not always a measure of bad parenting - one hooker mother who always turned up flustered and late at home time armed with a packet of Smash had beautiful, bright kids). It was tough work - early start, full day with over a hundred children, then clean up (including mopping out pretty disgusting loos, often kicked out cisterns and dirty protests.) It was like a bootcamp for parenthood, and great fun a lot of the time.

Back in the cafe as Alpha Mummy built up to her finale, I looked around at the other parents, (lone bewildered Dad trying to read the sports pages while the new baby slept, the coven of glossy cocaine mummys in their normal corner sniggering at the show - not a child in sight, and a similarly harassed looking woman in the corner with three kids who looked at the show, then back to me her eyes widenend in an 'ohmigawd ...' look of horror/failure). Every single one of us is facing these daily challenges. There is no rule book. For me, at least, I'm winging it on a daily basis. Today the sun is out, and I think a run on the beach for us all takes priority over the kitchen floor and laundry. Slummy or yummy - which one are you?