Wonderwoman in Control Pants

I’m actually hoping to go out tonight with my friend, Caroline The MILF. And the MILF is probably going to have to wheel me to wherever we are going. To be frank, SniffSnorters, I am feeling bruised to the core. You’ve probably read about my weekly roller derby escapades and needless to say, this injury was acquired at said session.

For those uninitiated, roller derby is an all grrl rollerskating (quads, not blades) contact game where 2 teams of five skaters skate around a track. Each team will have a jammer (the point scorer) who acquires the points by overtaking skaters of the opposite team. Her task is made considerably harder by the opposite team’s 4 skating blockers who are allowed to block her using their hips and shoulders.

My Mum is baffled as to why I can’t just find a different (read that as less violent) sport to participate in. Slaveboy thinks it is awesome and it’s about the only time he gets to see me in shorts and frankly, the thought of sweaty, cussy, rufftie-tufftie girls really does it for him. Since taking up roller skating again, three of my girls have acquired skates too.

Last night, amongst the various skills we have to master as Fresh Meat (beginners) before being bestowed the title of Wench, was the jumping with both legs together. The aim is to achieve a 3inch elevation. Sounds easy enough and I suppose it is for the experienced. However, try doing that in new, not fully broken into skates with lively wheels on a wooden basketball court floor. I thought I did pretty well when we were doing it on the spot, and I was beginning to feel quite confident about it too.

Until they told us to repeat the skill whilst skating round the track. I took my first fall within seconds. Right on my coccyx. It was one of those jar-you-to-your-core falls, but because skating gives you such an adrenalin rush anyway, you can’t help but just pull yourself up and carry on.

And you don’t really notice it much until the next morning when you go to sit up in bed, miss & bash your head on the headboard and you notice the pain in your butt more than you do the pain on the back of your head.

And that’s pretty much what I spend my Tuesday evenings doing. And it feels like a huge juxtaposition because more often than not, the daytime is spent doing a colossal amount of Mummy things.

Like yesterday at 3pm, I was in the kitchen trying to figure out what to do with 4.5kg of fresh puff pastry.

Slaveboy managed to pick one up on special offer from a wholesaler for £4. I decided that the best thing to do with them was to make pasties, palmiers and vegetarian sausage rolls.

And to be honest, by the time it’s gets to when I need to be getting ready for roller derby, what I really feel like doing is just collapsing in a heap on the sofa, catching up with some reading and drinking a hot cup of tea (as opposed to the ones that have gone cold that I normally end up drinking during the day).

I get the impression that many Mothers, or maybe many home edding Mothers end up sacrificing their ‘Me’ time. Certainly from the conversations I have had with others, many have adopted new interests or adapted a long standing interest in order to involve their offsprings in the process.

But I for one crave the ability to pursue something that is all mine. Without having to switch on the third ear or the eyes behind my head. Where I am in the position to learn something new which is of interest to me, at my pace and not dictated by the whim, ability and charity of my offsprings.

After all, we all have sides to us and for me, as scandalous as this will sound, I tire of the constant Mummy side. The side that makes me choose the sensible shoes over the red patent stiletto heels. The side that looks longingly at the beautiful, full skirted 50s swing dress as I reached for the comfortable zip-up cardigan. I need to not just talk about my child’s development, and ‘enjoy’ a social life vicariously through my children, no matter how worthy or noble those may be. It’s all very easy to hide behind your children, I find. Very easy to ‘favour’ constantly being at home tending to the fire because frankly, the world outside is unnerving when you are one of the many invisible women-mummies. You know what I mean by that, it’s that feeling you get when you go out alone without your children and you walk down the street and you feel that noone can see you because for a long time, you’ve been shielded by your children. Maybe it’s about unleashing the alter-ego. It’s about breathing fire into the Id, and the side of you that charges your sense of self and self worth.