Thursday 31 December 2009
The festive period can be stressful at the best of times but when you're a single working mum the pressure can be enormous. For a start, from the moment you bring your darling child into the world you are not just known as Mummy, you will also assume the secret identity known to many as Santa. At the beginning this didn't cause me any great deal of trauma, after all, how easily can a 15 month old child express disgust at the colour of the building blocks Mr Claus has left them? However one particular Christmas I was on the point of a nervous breakdown at 2am on Christmas morning trying to construct a wooden market stall. I had no one to call or to hold pieces D & F together while I screwed sections B & C. Since then the pressure and expectation has only grown.

The desperate hunt for "this year's toy", trying to find an appropriate hiding place for all the stocking fillers in a tiny two bedroom flat, making sure that you don't fall asleep on the couch before completing your role as Santa on Christmas Eve all while working full time soon take their toll, I could easily go on....

I always used to love the fuss around Christmas but recently (well, probably since I've become a mum) the festive period has only emphasised one thing, that I'm on my own. Of course if I hadn't split up with my ex a few weeks ago then that feeling of loneliness may have slipped away but I've never been one of those women who would rather be with someone than on their own regardless of whether they loved that person or not.

As the clock ticks closer to 2010 I find myself sitting watching Eastenders rather than sipping on bubbly and getting ready to hit the Hogmanay capital of the world. While everyone was rushing around Sainsburys this afternoon with their trolleys full of party snacks and fizz I was doing my weekly shop trying to find the cheapest cheese because when you're single and a mum your priorities change. Life isn't one big party anymore, it's about whether you're buying value cheddar or brie.

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Bird on a Wire
Imagine Carrie from Sex and the City morphed with Bridget Jones and a baby thrown in for added entertainment – that’s me, the ever optimistic romantic looking for my Mr Big but already with child! Read my blog from the beginning where I find out I am pregnant following a brief fling with my much older male colleague and fast forward to where I am now, stressed out working mum to my beautiful 10 year old daughter wondering if love really does in fact exist at first sight.
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