mocha/berocca

i have heard it said that there are two types of mother- the kind that think it's acceptable to tear into multipacks of crisps that they haven't yet paid for in order to placate their squalling offspring as they journey around the supermarket, and those that don't. usually, i belong to the latter. i operate a zero tolerance policy on eating in the street, also.

however, today i joined a niche subsection of the former. on my way round tesco this morning, in something approaching a comatose state, i consumed 2 effervescent vitamin c tablets dissolved in a bottle of mineral water, 2 ibuprofen and then a double espresso (there is a coffee place actually in my local supermarket, this is the absolute pinnacle of civilisation in my book.) but needs must- i have had approximately 20 hours sleep in the last week. thank god i don't (can't) drive. i am managing to remain just about functional in that i am managing to get my children where they need to be when they need to be there, and in a well fed and presented fashion. having said that, my house looks like a chinese laundry and i am avoiding the resolution of an outstanding issue with my tv/ phone/ broadband provider, basically because the very thought of it fills me with a dreadfully exhausted ennui.

i follow all the rules; no caffeine or exercise after 5pm, i eat lightly in the evening, i have sufficient time to wind down after the children are in bed at 7pm sharp, etc. i'm exhausted to my very bones by 9 o'clock, wandering around half completing tasks, so get ready for bed, and then brushing my teeth seems to kick start some evil second wind reflex. i read for a little while, and, even if it's really really bad writing, it's like i can't actually process that it's 4am and i really need to stop- i can't get my head around the fact that i need to be up again in two or three hours. sometimes, by some herculean effort, i turn the light off (traumatic, i'm afraid of the dark), and then i'm lying in the dark mentally sorting through the airing cupboard, listing outstanding jobs in the house, rethinking budgets, fretting about climate change/ wars/ aids orphans/ the damp in the kitchen, all underlined by the nagging feeling that i haven't locked up sufficiently, and need to devise a plan of action should someone break in and attempt to abduct the children. sleeping with a variety of household tools under the bed is not good feng shui, i don't imagine. i have hyperacute hearing also, which does not help- if anyone rustles a plastic bag, the clear kind that sweets or greeting cards come in, within a 50m radius of me, i am climbing the walls, hands clamped over my ears, bellowing in agony. any trace of a synthetic fibre in my bed linen and i'll grind my teeth all night without even knowing i'm doing it.

the only thing that i know will help is a good pedicure (quirky, moi? i'm obsessive about my feet), incorporating a really thorough lavender and neroli oil massage, so now i have to get to lush tomorrow. they produce a massage bar called therapy which is excellent and incorporates these oils, so it is all but garaunteed that i will haemorrage cash on their incredible but relatively expensive wares. my cat-like oversensitivity to smell (honestly, during my pregnancy i could have leased myself out to the police as a sniffer dog) means that i need things around me to smell a certain way. good smells for me are burnt caramel, lavender, coffee-obviously- tonka bean, neroli, ylang ylang, and cinnamon, which can sometimes worsen my temper and puts me in mind of the fact that this is what they use to neutralise the smell when a dead body has been hanging around undiscovered for a while, but i like nonetheless. i can feel my body literally unwind smelling these things, so most of the time i wear a lush solid perfume that incorporates at least three of them in order to maintain some sort of happy equilibrium and adequate focus on various manual tasks, like housework. however, the faintest whiff of clary sage, juniper, clove, or, less poetically, processed meat, spells at the very least a severe bout of nausea and at worst an epic five day migraine. oceanic, or ozone, smells cause me to daydream excessively or can actually make me hyperventilate and are therefore to be avoided, although i love smelling them on my boyfriend- who said romance was dead?

for my son, honey and chlorophyll are happy smells, while eggs and lilies are like his kryptonite- he becomes (even more) hyposensitive and very queasy when these smells are in the house. i use lots of candles and wax burners in the house,but i want to stop doing this, or at least change brand, because often they are too sickly sweet and often have a resinous amber basenote that lingers in our hair and clothes and makes us confused- its too much olfactory information, which is a shame because sometimes that can be exciting.

i haven't been to lush for a while as we had a significant end-of-xmas-line haul which included mainly spicy, almond and pink candy fragrances (which my daughter adores, and the snow fairy shower gel is amazing for her hair and scalp) because they were selling them off cheap, so i have none of the normal focus providing elixirs i generally rely on- hence, i now realise, this bout of insomnia.

yet again, this account cross referenced with this list of symptoms makes me wonder sometimes where dyspraxia ends and i begin.




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