World’s Worst Mother Award – or how to counter your smugness in a couple of easy steps

So you know when you are feeling really smug about something that things can take a turn for the worse?

This could well be me accepting the award

Like when you move out of your first house in London that you hate into one that you absolutely adore, and then regularly drive down your old street just to lean out the window and say ‘’aaaarrrrgggh, suffer’ to the old house? And then get a call from your landlady at awesome new house saying she wants awesome house back for herself and you have one month to vacate? And you end up living with your parents-in-law?

Or like when you feel really clever about getting up to date with all your personal admin and then realise you have forgotten to renew your visa meaning a last minute dash to Wales on the day it is due to expire, and costing an additional £830 for a priority in-person appointment? And 24 hours before said priority appointment, manage to lose your passport while organising papers for said visa? Meaning an emergency emergency appointment at Australian High Commission to replace said passport, only to discover (day before emergency trip to Wales) that some amazing soul has handed it in at the High Commission but in the process of preparing documents, photos plus emergency drive-as-fast-as-you-can taxi rides, adding another 100 quid to the cost of said visa process?

Or when you are laughing at someone’s silly husband for not having a licence, and it suddenly comes upon you that you have neglected to send in your Australian driving licence to be replaced by a British licence after one year of living in the country? Thus have been driving unlicensed and uninsured for 12 months? And husband has to retire to bed the night he finds out with the sheer terror of what could have been?

Or you secretly self-congratulate yourself for finding passport, then realise you have lost the car keys? Those stupid fancy pants car keys that have to have some stupid fancy pin number and programme, several hundred pounds and probably a weekend at a fancy pants spa to relax themselves before they can be duplicated?

Yep – 2010 my friends. Watch the smugness.

But I can top even all that. How about when you carefully plan a lovely girl’s lunch midweek at an over-the-top fancy restaurant and congratulate yourself for packing the kids off successfully, getting away on time, arriving without food and/or vomit on your clothes, having actually done your nails and despite last minute belt issue, feeling relaxed, if not a little bit glamorous as you sit down to your first glass of champagne? Having packed said kids off a little bit snotty and wheezy but basically fine? And you then spend a good five minutes extolling the need for a bit of relaxation where kids are concerned, a bit of panadol and they’re usually fine. And then you get call from grandparents saying they are in an ambulance on the way to hospital as son is having trouble breathing? Yep, that’ll wipe that lippy right off your face.

Son was sitting up quite chirpily eating a ham sandwich when I arrived, very excited about his ride in ‘an ambulanth Mummy!’ . I however, was minus high heels (having done frantic dash through hospital and realising purple stilettos not doing the job they were originally designed for that day – ie getting me from cab to posh restaurant and then to wobble me from restaurant back to cab), plus at least six speeding tickets and more than a couple of relieved tears.

Oh, and with open arms ready to receive my award. Whoops.

Come on, make me feel better? Any other nominations?

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