I'd love to stay here and be normal. But it's just so overrated

It was bound to happen at some point, but I've finally taken the big leap into the unknown. No, I've not put the Axis up for adoption. I've put myself up for a new job, and, by golly, I got it. Lord only knows what I can expect, and as far as the boys are concerned. very little has changed. I guess I'm shouting at them less (30% as opposed to 60% of the time); only every third knock at the door might credibly be social services, and there's a lot more singing, dancing, playing of instruments and generally fuckwittery in the house. All of which, if you're a five or three year old boy, is to be welcomed.

What's less welcome is the lack of cash. However, this primarily impacts on me, as the Axis are highly adept and unaware shoplifters (I'm kidding). No, really, this is all part of the adventure of single parenthood. Being ingenious about how you make money is all part of it. Most ingenious of all is how you hide your lack of readies from your less impoverished friends. No-one is as boring as a skint friend, and keeping up appearances becomes more important the less you're able to do it. True friends will love you anyway, will come round and drink BIERE instead of beer and will suffer the vileness that is your bathroom and carpets without complaint, but they are few and far between (mainly concentrated around the Glasgow area last time I looked).

However, it remains that I live in a particular part of Bristol, that I attend a particular church and that I am a particular kind of cantankerous old bitch. I must admit, I like it that way. I never had any authority before. I doubt I have much now, judging by the way the Axis grin at me when I try to tell them off. I pity the world before them; the charm they possess is out of all proportion to the havoc they may wreak. The Pie is essentially my family distilled in a beautiful, charming, intelligent and engaging individual; the boy is sheer delight from the moment he wakes to the moment he sleeps (if you can get him to shut up for the odd second here or there), incredibly talented, could master anything he turned his hand to. The Kong is all the best bits of his father; moody, stroppy, seductive, witty, lovable, verbose, cerebral, adoring and just so utterly scrumptious you can forgive him anything and follow him around the world if he wants you too (except to south Bristol. I mean, there are limits). But I have spent the past four years cultivating my image as a respectable and safe maiden of the church, and I think it's finally paying off - one of the other church parents of kids my age (who normally avoid me like the plague in case I try and get off with their husbands) asked me to the cinema next week! Does this mean I'm finally accepted or that I've succeeded in appearing to be utterly sexless? The one is acceptable and the other is a disaster, and I for one am not sure which would be which.

I go out to dinner with a friend. She is a wonderful, wonderful woman; intelligent, incredibly talented, one of the most hardworking people I've ever met. My family, all nurses or other immigrant workers, would be mightily impressed with her. Yet she apologises for everything; for having a hard job, and talking about it; for having too much pressure on her, and talking about it; for apologising. I can't understand it, then I realise that several years ago, I was her. Working constantly, completely dedicated, consumed by the desire to know; all admirable things, but ouch, you have to give a lot to pursue it. These days, I'm more selfish. I've succumbed to the fuck-it factor, as another ice-cream loving chum puts it. I listen to Blur playing Beetlebum at Maida Vale 15 years after it came out and still feel pained like I did then.

But I'm lucky. I can look at my Kongie boy's black, black eyes; I can listen to him shouting he wants his brother; I have them both swarming me and saying how much they love me, how I'm the best mummy in the whole world (fools!); we sit together and play drums, guitars and the piano and make it sound halfway decent; we have a life together, a family life, a life including sound and vision and toys blocking U-bends and ACDC and helicopters and zumba and cricket and the Tyne, Forth and Cromarty. I look at my beautiful boys and know what a lucky so and so I am; how I don't deserve anything as wonderful, as pure, as truly amazing as they are, and how much I hope they don't waste time trying to impress fools who aren't worthy of them, which I think we all do. I wish we didn't. I wish I didn't. I hope they don't.