Sometimes It’s Just Too Much of a Faff

Kate Metcalfe - 18 Jan 16

I ought to open this post by stating that I am naturally quite a gregarious person. In my twenties, Friday nights out were mandatory, followed by shopping through the hangover the next day. Saturdays were usually dinner out or a takeaway and Sundays were spent lazily walking around markets with my lovely bloke and having pub lunches. Not a bad existence.

Since having our two boys, all this has changed. I still enjoy socialising, but a night out takes on a completely different dimension now. For starters, it costs an awful lot more once you’ve factored in the babysitter. But it’s much more than that. Going Out With Grownups cannot be achieved without the kind of military precision usually reserved for staging a coup in a small Eastern European country. Actually making it out of the door feels like an achievement in itself, particularly if you manage to look half-decent, with your Spanx on the right way round.

And then there’s the fallout. Do you have that one last glass of wine? You’re having such a good time but it will put you dangerously close to hangover territory and, as everyone knows, looking after kids on a hangover is a punishment that Dante ought to have included in his Inferno. Basically, a post-kids night out, whilst being hugely rewarding and fun, is a minefield. Sometimes staying at home drinking wine on the sofa is just easier.

I was reminded the other day of a list I compiled a while back, which probably illustrates more succinctly what I’m on about here.

Getting ready to go out for the evening before/after you have kids: a comparative analysis.
After you have kids:
1. Have a shower at three thirty, while son number two is napping and you have guiltily plonked son number one in front of Ben 10.
2. Apply makeup as quickly as possible, as son number one has requested company whilst watching Ben 10.
3. Interrupted at crucial point in mascara application as this episode of Ben 10 is ‘not cool.’ Resume makeup (how much TV has this kid watched today?)
4. Watch Lego Chima with son number one, who tells you that you look beautiful. Melt a little.
5. Make dinner for sons one and two. Iron outfit whilst trying to encourage them to eat/avoid food being thrown on said outfit.
6. Bath sons one and two.
7. Fix makeup, which was trashed during the bathtime splashathon. Why didn’t I predict this?
8. Get sons one and two dressed for bed. Encourage the reading of super-short stories, so that you can go and straighten your hair.
9. Begin to straighten hair.
10. Return to kids’ bedroom to break up fight.
11. Resume straightening hair.
13. Return to kids’ bedroom to fulfil request for more water (fear of them wetting the bed for the babysitter vs. fear of being a terrible mother and not properly hydrating them).
14. Resume straightening hair.
15. Return to kids’ bedroom to restart bedtime plinky music. Kiss kids. Tuck them in.
15. Resume straightening hair.
16. Take son number one for a wee (noting that he seems to manage this perfectly well by himself during the day).
17. Resume straightening hair.
18. Almost straighten husband’s face for him when he leisurely gets out of shower and suggests you should hurry up.
19. Try on every item of clothing you own before deciding the first one you had on makes you look the least fat. Forget to put on your favourite perfume.
20. Brush teeth and get toothpaste down top. Change top. Feel fat in new top.
21. Transfer belongings to grown up, evening handbag (including, inexplicably, a Lego storm trooper).
22. Frantically tidy house so that babysitter doesn’t realise how slovenly a housekeeper you are.
23. Stumble out of door as unused to wearing heels anymore, throwing emergency contact numbers at babysitter and praying she doesn’t change her mind before you’ve made it to the train.
24. Text babysitter to check on kids at least a dozen times, until husband confiscates phone.
25. Return home at midnight, absolutely smashed on one and a half glasses of wine.
Before you have kids:
1. Get in shower an hour before you need to go out.
2. Apply makeup; do hair.
3. Get dressed in the new outfit you bought whilst shopping this afternoon.
4. Go out.
5. Return home at 3am, with no idea how much you drank but not caring as you can stay in bed all day tomorrow if you want to.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like a glass of wine and a boogie as much as the next girl, but this is not a scenario I could handle every weekend. Sometimes it’s just too much of a faff. And, by the way, I am perfectly ok with that.

Kate Metcalfe

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