Saturday 11 June 2011

WHAT TO DO, WHAT TO DO....


I don’t usually post on a Saturday, but this weekend is a special circumstance. Suddenly I find myself with something I don’t usually have – time. Yes, this weekend I am flying solo without the King and my partner (first time ever!!). Being the incredibly amazing man that he is, my partner has given me the weekend off [he’ll want that ‘incredibly amazing partner’ bit in writing as he claims often I plead to the contrary; in fact, he may want me to tattoo it across my forehead. Fine, I have time this weekend to get that done]. So, after writing a caretaking list as long as my arm, packing a bag and forcing myself to leave the flat (who are we kidding, after pleading with my son to still love me even though I was leaving him, I ran for the flipping hills knowing that uninterrupted sleep awaited me), I ventured off to another part of London where I’d be staying. My friend so kindly lent me his flat while he’s off in the States. Lucky sod.

The funny thing is, after spending the first many baby-free hours feeling like you’ve misplaced something (where the hell did I put that, I know I’ve lost something, I just know it!) – as you do in fact feel like without your child you are missing a limb – you suddenly start to feel what it is like to be 11 months old and have the world be your proverbial oyster…or teething biscuit in his case. Holy SH*T what to do first??!!!! Do I pee in the tub, crawl under the TV cabinet, or try to eat the sofa cushion??! Wait, that’s him. 

I begin to feel like a spinning top with all the choices in front of me and suddenly find myself on opportunity overload. Do I sleep? Eat? Paint my nails? Wait, no, I could write, read, go ice fishing? (It's London in June, it's possible). Hell, I could just lie on the sofa like a vegetable and count the hairs on my leg. Or, if I was feeling productive in any way, I could actually shave the hairs. Oh the world is vast with options!

Of course the one pitfall of having all this free time is the pressure to make every moment count. I spent the majority of last night tossing and turning in bed convinced I heard the King; or someone’s baby somewhere calling out in his sleep. Of course, I realized that it didn’t matter if I woke up looking like a truck backed up over my face, cause the rest of weekend the only person I was looking after was myself. The other funny thing that happens with all this free time is you suddenly ask yourself what the hell you did with all of it before you had a child? Seriously, I should be a trilingual, Mozart playing, double philosophy and economic degree genius with an ass toned like Gisele with all the free hours I had pre-King. Suddenly I feel like a slacker who wasted a heck of a lot of time.

Well, guilt be damned, I’m off to do twenty-five things in the next forty minutes (walking, window shopping, eating pastry whilst chewing gum, reading a book, seeing a film and climbing a rock wall; for starters)…then again, maybe I’ll just sit on a bench and watch a pigeon walk in circles. 
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