Sunday, September 14, 2014

A Single Mother's Birthday

It started with this exchange:

Me: What nice thing shall we do to celebrate my birthday?
DD: Actually I think it's only for children.

And ended with this exchange:

Me: I'm not reading a story to someone who can't even wish me Happy Birthday.
DD: *big sigh* Happy Birthday Mummy can I have the dinosaur book?

In between was a series of mishaps and meltdowns one after the other. 

7am. Up, make 10 o'clock snack, shower, dress myself. Usual mad panic to get DD awake and cooperative enough for me to dress her. Bully and threaten her with no stories, no playing on my phone, no sugar things, etc... until she goes to the loo and drinks her apple juice. Eventually leave the house - she has a small bag of pretzels in her hand in lieu of breakfast (don't worry, packed lunches are eaten at 10am in school). Make it to school just as the bell is ringing. Class teacher has to prise DD's fingers off my dress to let me go. 

8.05am. Back home, make coffee, check twitter, blog, emails, facebook. Facebook is full of lovely messages wishing me a fabulous, wonderful, fun-filled, day. It hopes I'm spoiled and pampered and made to feel special on my special day. I put on a load of laundry and get to work preparing lessons for my college courses.

Work all day, occasionally check in to all the above forums. More pressure from facebook but it serves me right for going there. Make and eat a million rounds of cheese on toast to compensate for having an ordinary day on my birthday.

4.30pm. Pick up DD from school and, feeling the pressure from facebook, suggest we go out for ice-cream. She has a little drink from her water bottle and we go to the nearest cafe. (This is significant).

4.45pm. I don't even like ice-cream so I just ordered a celebratory coffee. Just instant because that's what I like. It cost 16nis (Over 3 pounds) for something I could have had free at home. 2 scoops of ice-cream cost 28nis (almost 5 pounds!) and of course DD had to also have a drink. Last time we go there (Cafe BeGeenah if you're interested). 

After we ordered and before it came I suggested we see what homework DD had. On opening her bag I realize I'd neglected to put her pencil case back inside when I'd removed it to get her water bottle out. It was sitting on a bench in school. DD promptly had a meltdown. I suggested we run and get it. She didn't want to, preferring to sit and scream about it. I kept thinking about all those coloured pencils and felt tip pens individually labelled with her name - hours of work to redo if we've lost her pencil case. 

5pm. The ice-cream came. It was served in a sundae glass and filled to the top. As DD put her spoon in the ice-cream dribbled out all over the top and ran down the outside onto the table. Meltdown 2. I went to the kitchen to get a bowl and paper napkins, I cleaned up the mess, I sat down. 
DD: I don't even like this ice-cream.

5.20pm. We leave the cafe 10 pounds poorer. I'm in a foul mood. I give myself the tip for cleaning the table.  

5.30pm. We get back to school and rattle the locked doors until the cleaner hears us and lets us in. We find the pencil case under the bench (where it had fallen which is why I didn't notice it when repacking the bag). This was the highlight of my day.

5.40pm. Get out DD's homework. There was quite a lot to do. For Hebrew she had to draw over the outlines of the aleph-bet and then go back to colour all the letters in. By the time she got to the colouring she'd had enough. I told her to leave it for a while and do some more after supper. 
DD: No you do it.
Me: I can't do your homework for you, it's not allowed. 
DD: Just do it! JUST DO IT FOR ME!
Me: Ok, I'll do a few letters. (It was a lot of busy work after all.)
I coloured in three letters and suddenly there was a howl of despair from DD. Apparently there was a pattern going on in the colours and I'd done the wrong colours. Meltdown 3. 

6pm. I go to make supper which is usually served at 6pm but because we'd been out it wasn't made yet. 
DD: Can I have suffink (sic) to keep me going? (I give her a packet of crisps.)

6.20pm. I serve supper. 
DD: Actually I'm not hungry. I'm full up from ice-cream and crisps. (Okey dokey.)

7.30pm. After the dinosaur book and a couple of other stories I left DD in bed and ended the evening on facebook reading about various people being whisked off to the Carmel Spa or at least taken out for a special dinner for their birthdays. They were all feeling the luuuurv. Oh good. Happy for them. Really. 

Happy Birthday to me and all single mothers everywhere! 
  

31 comments:

  1. Hope you get a chance for some celebration at some point! It's nice when your kids get old enough to want to do nice things for you on your birthday (even if sometimes that involves a parent's credit card!)

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    1. Thanks Gillian. Except for that bit about the credit card - that makes me nervous.

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  2. it gets better once they are old enough to spoil you with breakfast in bed etc! belated happy birthday x

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  3. I remember telling r's gannenet it was my birthday and asking her to get r to make me a birthday card ! Which he did . Happy birthday.May you have many more including the wisk you away from all this variety as well as the cute kuddie ones when they get more into it.

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    1. That's interesting Chaia. My friend told me to do that but I thought that was a bit chutzpadik to do in first grade when they have proper lessons and a full timetable. Do you think you'd have done it in Kitta aleph?

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    2. Most likely! If not his teacher then a close friend. I'm big into birthdays!

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  4. Belated birthday wishes to you...
    Hope you'll get to do something fun soon that's just for you xx

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  5. I think us Mum's should be able to choose what day our birthday is on. I.e. beautiful sunny day, children in great moods, no work etc. You single Mums really do have my utmost admiration too by the way! (:

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    1. Thank you. You serial expats have my utmost admiration too. :)

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  6. I am not a single mum, and have 3 sons. No-one ever does anything special for me for my birthday unless I nag and make my requests very clear. On occasion, I have gone and bought the present and told them what they are "giving" me. This year I sent my sons and husband a whatsapp message saying that all I wanted was for them to do their chores before I came home. I also did an experiment and took my birthday off Facebook a few weeks before. I got far less birthday messages, but they were from the people that are really close to me and don't depend on Facebook for telling them when to autorespond. I decided i am fine with it and am only "lurking" on Facebook now, reading what I want to and not responding or sharing anything. So far, I am liking it!

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    1. I guess one has to take control and plan the birthday one wants. I'll know for next year.

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  7. Hugs and just put it in your list for the future that you are still owed 2014 and if you save a few up it can be a real whopper of a celebration. ...now isn't that exciting to look forward to? x

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  8. Happy birthday! I totally get that finding the pencil case was the highlight of your day. Many times I congratulate myself on managing some complicated errand, and days later it turns out it wasn't even necessary because of X, Y or Z. But when it happened - it WAS the highlight of my day.

    Happy birthday again, it sounds like you need the good wishes! And it goes without saying that I am not going to nice dinners or spas on my own BD.

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    1. Thanks Tesyaa, so that's one friend not going to a spa and 799 who are (accoring to fb). :)

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  9. The biggest belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY to a lovely lady. Anyway, birthdays are overrated LOL. XXX

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  10. Ohh bless you lovely, that does sound like a stinky day. FB is terrible on that count, feeling like we have to keep up with everyone else. I just checed, I can't see that we are friends on FB? Mich x

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    1. Yep, stinky with bells on. Never mind, I've a whole year to plan something better for the next one.

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  11. Well that completely sucks. One Christmas I had to buy and wrap my own presents and put them under the tree, then feign delight and surprise on opening them. But at least I got what I wanted. I'd highly recommend it for next year's birthday. xx

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  12. I am not a single mum and I don't have one child. I'm surrounded by many people but my birthdays are still much the same as yours. I turn 40 this year and am dreading it as it'll be a day like any other, same as usual. Hoping you'll have a birthday you can truly celebrate next year. For now, I send my belated birthday wishes and hugs from England.

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    1. Well, in a strange way you have made me feel better, less alone anyway. Thanks for your wishes and I hope you too get the birthday you deserve one day. xxx

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  13. Oh Rachel, A very happy belated sisterly solidarity Birthday to you! I have learned to teach the children to make a fuss of me and that they enjoy it when they do! My ex-h never did, nor taught the eldest to and I got fed up with feeling so flat about it. I arrange a lunch with friends and I buy myself something. It's never too late.... ;)

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    1. Don't worry, I'm planning a full 2-semester course of 4hrs a week to prepare her for next year! :)

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  14. I really hope that you managed to celebrate your birthday in the days that followed: I always have to drop heavy hints and buy myself a present etc in order to feel that the day is something special -- this year I was able to take my eldest and youngest out to lunch on the day while Smiley was in school, and felt good. Thinking of you xx

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  15. I'm looking forward to lunch dates where we can reliably choose something from the menu that won't end in tears. I gave up on this year with DD but another friend treated me to lunch a week later. Thanks for asking. xx

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  16. oh happy belated birthday!
    It's my birthday this weekend and I have got a feeling it's going to be a very similar experience!

    Thanks for linking to #singleparentlinky

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  17. How was it? I hope yours was better than mine.

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