User:Mad Margaret
Contents
A little about me, the mum
I have 5 children. I still can't quite believe that. 5 children. How on earth did that happen?
I got married in 1981 and after 8 years of happy life, decided to crucify my marriage and carry on having children against my husband's wishes. Perhaps wish is too light a word, demand might be better. He responded to this with that cliché of clichés, infidelity. We had 3 children together, two sons (now 24 and 26) and a daughter, 18. We remained married for far too long and after 20 years divorced amicably. I suppose I assumed I would remain single for the rest of my life, but that was not to be and I met my current husband (keeps him on his toes) only 3 years after I had separated from my ex. I was rather horrified to discover that he was a lot younger than I thought and decided (for both of us) that it couldn't work with an age gap of 16 years. But you don't get a lot of choice with love and before we knew it we were living together. He proposed to me, on stage, on the last night of a show I was directing. I had absolutely no idea and nearly fainted when I realized what was going on....
We had a genuine fairy tale wedding in Scotland and soon after, started our IVF journey. We tried 3 times and had success in Ukraine with our boy and girl twins, now 2. I have always craved a happy pregnancy and more than that, a birth with a loving husband who wanted to be there, to witness his children come into the world and to want to enjoy their babyhood. To finally achieve it was one of my happiest times and I shall never ever forget the moment he held his children in his arms. Our babies. Made with love.
I love the man with all my heart, he is my best friend and my soul mate.
A little about me, the person
When I was about 7 I knew that I wanted to be two things, an artist and a teacher. I am now both. But the journey getting there was not obvious. Having achieved a reasonable degree I knew that finding work using art would be tricky. And it was. I have had a lot of interesting jobs, from making and performing with marionettes in a Puppet Theatre to running a thriving Art Department in an Enamel Box Company (and Copywriting for the same), but becoming freelance was the best decision I ever made. I became a successful Greeting Card designer, moving on to designing exclusively for a large company who sculpted both comical and realistic animals and figures. I learned that I could sculpt too and had a couple of my own ranges, which was nice. And this all fitted in well with my children, working from home. I began teaching in Adult Ed in '95, all art including GCE and A level, and have loved it since, but I no longer work for the local Councils, preferring self employment (and 99% less paperwork).
I love performing on stage and have done since my 20s, with a particular fondness for the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. I am lucky enough to have achieved all the soubrette roles in those and many other musicals. I have had various cabaret groups, but my current one is on hold as the twins just take up too much time right now. I also Direct and find that perhaps more rewarding than actual performance, although I'm currently writing a musical...which will hopefully get finished when I have more time. Sigh. I love my children dearly and am blessed to have that second chance, but life is very different now, in many ways harder, but always richer and happier.
I have lived in my lovely, but antiquated, house for 13 years and wouldn't change it for the world.
And that's about it really. Singing, painting, drinking wine, loving the husband and loving the children. That's really rather a nice life.
Areas of expertise (lol) for WikiMum would be
- IVF abroad
- IVF for over 40s/50s
- SPD & related back problems (all pregnancy and still have it 2 yrs after)
- Gestational Diabetes (Initially diet controlled, but eventually injecting Insulin 3 times a day)
- Dyspraxia (Both my first sons have it)
- Eczema (My second son has it)
- Psoriasis (My first son has it)
- ADHD (My first son had it)
- Allergies (Both my first sons have them)
- Behavioural problems (My first son, but related to food allergy in his case)
- HRT (Now taking it and can recommend good websites for advice on natural treatments as well as HRT)
- Buying & selling on Ebay (Do it all the time)
- IT skills & Editing the Wiki (thanks to being married to the Creator of WikiMum!)
A Wine Story
This is actually what my life is now about...wine and babies. The latter enforce the former.
No one can have any appreciation of the desperate need for wine until they have children. It starts insidiously with the inability to drink at all during pregnancy. The body does occasionally crave a fine Pinotage, but it somehow knows that it would be a very bad thing and common sense prevails. The birth of one or (if you are very, very, very bloody lucky) two little gnomes may make one scream I Need A Drink; but again, the Common Sense Fairy tells you that all the alcohol you consume will be directly fed via your nipple into the mouths of those screaming little gannets.
So you refrain. And then you find your day has structure, the hours creep on apace and life becomes more relaxed. Suddenly, there is light at the end of the tunnel - that swirling vortex of nappies, bottles, boobs, insomnia, vomit, diarrhoea and the never ending mountain of washing. Your children can fall asleep and even more than that, they can fall asleep at the same time each night. And so you reach for your Montepulciano and quaff the sweet nectar of the Gods. Now your life has a purpose; to reach the hour of the day when they sleep.
But it does not end there. They grow up. They become toddlers and now your life is changing. Where once you relaxed at nap time, now you work like a dervish to complete the myriad tasks before the angels wake again and most of that is clearing up the destruction from their morning "play." So now the day is not one of structure, but simply fire fighting until that magic time - no, not bedtime, but a preconditioned acceptable hour in which to begin drinking.
It usually starts at around 7pm, but that soon seems a very long time to wait and it creeps up to 6. Bearing in mind that drinking is normally quite acceptable "after the sun is past the Yardarm" and that would actually have been 11am, it seems perfectly reasonable to have a large tipple at 6. On reflection, it's positively a master class in self restraint. Well, I must go. The sun has not only passed the yardarm, but it's hanging at a rather rakish angle and there appear to be two of them; perhaps drinking from 11am is not the best idea after all. Now where did I leave the kids?
--Mad Margaret (talk) 
13:56, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
