Eau d’onion anyone?

Am I the only one who, since becoming a mum (or dad?) have let themselves go a bit?

I do try to leave the house in the morning with a modicum of decency, but it is increasingly difficult lately!

Take last week for example. Trying to be an efficient mum, I whipped up a bolognese sauce before taking the children to school. Impressive? Very! Unusual? Very! But I was feeling really smug that I had actually achieved something at that time of the day other than sitting in my chair and moaning about being tired!

I kept getting a waft of a strange smell. So much so that I kept sniffing my children as they are prone to being a bit whiffy on occasion. No, it wasn’t them. Went to school, chatted to a couple of mums who also kept sniffing. One of them commented that there was a strong smell of onions coming from somewhere. I had a strange flashback to my earlier activities. I had chopped the onion and garlic… then without washing my hands, I had gone upstairs and put my moisturiser on! Lovely!

I quietly backed away to retreat home and wash away my delectable new perfume.  It was rather humiliating, but to be honest, with four children to get out of the house in a morning, it’s a wonder I even manage to get dressed, let alone worry about how I look or smell.  Long gone are those lovely days when I actually had time to think about what to wear or spend longer than two minutes in front of a mirror in a morning.

Before children, I was a secondary school teacher and teenagers are an unforgiving bunch.  Especially the female variety.  I had a wonderful tutor group for two years and they were fab.  There was one girl in particular, who would eye me up as I entered the room and would always without fail advise me if I had any issues that needed attention.  My favourite comments were:

1.  Miss, you need to pluck your eyebrows, you’re growing a monobrow!
2.  God, that skirt really needs to go back to the charity shop.
3.  No, that colour doesn’t suit you.
4.  Did you forget to brush your hair this morning, miss?
5.  Are you pregnant?  (I wasn’t)
6.  Your roots are terrible, you really need to get your hair done!

The list goes on, but they are my top six.  She was a really nice girl, she just said it how it was.  What she would make of me now, I can’t imagine!  I do have a teenager of my own in the house, but he spends the whole time looking at the floor and even if he looked up, his very long hair would blur his vision, so he never passes any comment and I’m not actually sure if he would recognise me if I passed him in the street.  I occasionally ask him if something looks ok and he just grunts!

I literally have five minutes to myself (if I’m lucky!) to get ready in the morning.  I brush my hair, throw on some makeup, scrape my hair into a pony tail, chuck on some clothes and away I go.  So, forgive me if sometimes I wear “THE WORLD’S BEST DAD” socks as they were on the top of the pile, if my eyebrows are a little unruly or bushy, if my top has jam/chocolate/snot on it, my or I smell a little like that day’s main meal, it is all part of life as a busy mum.  My children look quite civilised when they leave the house, which is a bonus and so far, I haven’t left the house in my pyjamas although I have been tempted…