musingsponderingsandrants

Parenting, profundities and humour

Author: sarahsmale

Hmm... about me...well three kids, a husband (not acquired in that order)... and a love of punctuation...
You Fit Bit You — January 20, 2016

You Fit Bit You

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fitbit

So last week I turned 46. Oh my actual god.

In a bid to make me feel better Middlest pointed out that I was probably only half way through. Life I think he meant.  If I am honest that depressed me even more. I pointed out back that the first ‘half’ is probably better than the second. All things considered. Even if I live as long as 92.

Of course my children maintain that being a kid is just dreadful. All of us who are no longer kids know this to be a falsehood. How many of us wouldn’t go back in an instant now that we can see how little fun being a grown up actually is versus our perception of it when we were ten.

Once I get my reluctant children to bed of an evening they imagine me up to all sorts of fun. I don’t believe they consider emptying the dishwasher fun. And so, like me, they are going to be sorely disappointed by adulthood.

Anyhow. I have long since stopped ‘celebrating’ birthdays. I am at that difficult age. I no longer look forward to a new year in the manner of a ten year old. And I have not achieved an age where I am to be congratulated on ‘getting this far’. I imagine I will like birthdays again when I have reached 92. They will be an accomplishment. Rather than just a grim reminder of another year passed by.

Even so my husband made an effort present wise. Thanks hun.

At some point I must have mentioned my desire for a fit bit. Probably not to him. Well maybe by accident in a kind of involuntary way when watching TV of a Sunday evening. I was ,of course, thinking of Poldark. With or without a scythe. Or clothes. Not fussed really. (And no I care not that they used make up to accentuate his assets. Really people (and by ‘people’ I mean middle aged men) who are you kidding? To accentuate assets assets are needed in the first place. And plenty of those were on offer in those Cornish fields). Or at a push Benedict Cumberbatch. Sans deerstalker. Or that guy who has played a gay Renaissance painter and now some Russian aristocrat on War and Peace. Brooding either way…

Anyway whatever. What I actually got was a small black piece of plastic and a pink wrist band. It was then I fully grasped the importance of punctuation. He had bought me a fitbit. Note no space.

Well anyway nice thought. Although with worrying under tones. Maybe he was wishing I had better assets. For the accentuation of. No amount of make up, or stepping, is going to help there matey. Myopia will though. Eventually.

In case you live on Mars here is a synopsis of the fitbit. You wear the pink (I don’t think it has to be pink by the way) wrist band after charging and inserting the piece of black plastic. It then tells you how many steps you take in a day. That is it in a nutshell. Mine also tells you if you sleep well or not. And you can set yourself goals. And talk to other fitbitted people. And even challenge them. To duels of step walking.

I have worn mine since half way through Sunday.

Here are my observations to date.

It is remarkably easy to clock up the recommended 10,000 steps per day. Either it massively over estimates mine. Or some people are seriously lazy. My average count by 9am is 3k. That is just morning routine stuff. With three kids. And laundry.

It is making me more likely to do housework. In fact cleaning is starting to become attractive. Very worryingly.

Never, ever, ever accept a Daily Challenge. The person asking you to join their Challenge already has at least 20 thousand steps planned for their day. You cannot hope to compete. Especially when waiting in for a sofa delivery.

People who walk weirdly on the spot are wearing a fitbit. And partaking of a daily challenge set by someone doing a half marathon.

The app in my I pad does not register steps that I do whilst carrying the I pad. And yes I have checked. And so now I know what one circuit of my kitchen diner is. Step wise. With or without I pad. Without about 23. With zero. Odd time/ space dimension stuff happening there.

I now try not to move at all in the shower. The fitbit is not water proof and so I have to remove it. I do not want to waste precious steps abluting.

I have no idea when to charge it. Perhaps when I am in the shower? I will have to sacrifice all those lovely statistics about my sleep in order to ensure I do not run out of juice mid step count. Would anything be worse? If only the provided charger was not three inches long I could plug myself in as I sleep. But it is. Three inches long.

And ah the statistics. As you may know I love statistics. Even if they are damn lies. As soon as this is published I will be pouring over bar charts and maps cooing over the geographical spread of my readership. And so the fitbit adds another statistical frisson to my day. Lovely.

Interestingly my increased level of senior moments are increasing my steps. Which will hopefully reduce the incidence of my senior moments. Exercise supposedly being good for mental agility. But then that will reduce my steps. Cool circular argument. I must have burned 500 of the buggers scouring my house last night for that three inch charger. I didn’t find it. Until this morning. When the replacing fairy had put it on the dining table. Weird.

And so there you have it. I like it. Not sure I will get much fitter. But it is enlightening. Being a ‘stay at home’ mum is not sedentary. Nice.

 

 

 

How old? — January 12, 2016

How old?

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age

Yesterday in a meeting some one took ten years off me. Age came up. I can’t remember how. And she was apparently genuinely amazed I was 45. She had me pegged at mid thirties.

Although I believe a trip to the opticians may be in order. For my fellow meeting attendee. I was actually quite flattered.

It is a long time since someone, anyone, underestimated my age. Don’t get me wrong. On a day to day basis I don’t expect people to randomly come up to me and express surprise and incredulity at my advancing years. However nice that may be.

But historically I have always had an issue with looking too young. Once a boyfriend and I decided to go to see a film. We got wet walking from the train station to the cinema. Which probably didn’t help. I don’t remember which film it was. But it was a Certificate 15.

They wouldn’t sell me a ticket. I got out my driving licence. We were on holiday from university. Second year. So I must have been at least 20. They still didn’t believe me. Eventually I think we saw something else. Which must have been a PG as 12s didn’t exist back in the days of yore.. Slightly embarrassing.

I never bothered to try to buy alcohol anywhere. It just wasn’t worth the effort.

Even well into my twenties and once, flatteringly, in my thirties I was regularly asked for ID when buying anything considered contraband to under 18s. This makes me sound like I was a bit of a rebel buying top shelf mags and cigarettes. Actually it was things like kitchen knives and super glue and DVDs…but hey feel free to big up my past as you see fit.

Also whenever I turned up at a meeting at work when I was managing large housing company’s banking needs I could see it flit across their eyes. ‘She is never old enough to do this!’. ‘Where is the real manager?’. Sometimes I don’t think I ever won them round. Or it took an awful lot of blarney….

When I was pregnant with Eldest the midwife had to ask my age twice as she thought she had misheard my date of birth.

And so my driving licence was always about my person. It still is. I no longer need it.

Sometime. Some undefined time. A bit ago. Probably between Eldest and Youngest or shortly thereafter. People stopped asking. People stopped expressing surprise at my age.

It is actually quite depressing. If I was ever a cashier at a supermarket just every so often I would ask someone for ID just to make their day. Even if they looked as old as I clearly do.

And so yesterday was heartening. The person in question is clearly very bad at judging age. But still it was flattering.

Thanks.

 

 

Mr Works? May I Introduce Mr Spanner? — January 10, 2016

Mr Works? May I Introduce Mr Spanner?

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spanner

So here it is.

I updated my spreadsheet of child related activities.

This has to be done each term when clubs change. It lists days of the week and the clubs each child attends at what time and where and with what equipment.

Not much had changed from last term. In fact a small ‘win’ saw Eldest no longer attending after school rugby on Mondays. Giving him a bigger window between getting home from school (allowing for Middlest’s Strings until 4.30pm) and Scouts…yippee…he could do his homework rather than saving it for Tuesday.

Tuesday was still a disaster zone… collect Eldest at 4pm and bring home. Go back for Middlest (badminton) and Youngest (netball) at 5pm and get home. Stuff food into children. Hustle Middlest sufficiently to get him fed, changed and ready to leave at 5.45pm for football training. Collect Middlest at 7pm. Relax.

Wednesdays remained…shall we say …difficult. Collect Eldest and Middlest at normal school time and deposit home. Feed Eldest and Middlest. Collect Youngest at 5pm from Choir on Week 1 or 5.15pm from Girls Football Week 2. Get home. Without trying to swear too much at the traffic. Chuck her indoors. Grab Eldest and drive to 5.45pm piano lesson. Feed Youngest. Get them to get changed for Cubs. Drive to piano for 6.15pm to collect Eldest and then straight to Cubs for 6.30pm. Leave Middlest and Youngest at Cubs. Collect them at 8pm. Relax.

Thursdays were not much better. Collect Youngest at 3.45pm. Rush her Maths homework and get her to get changed for football training. Leave at 4.45pm to drop her at said football training. Drive to school to collect Eldest (choir. week one; hockey, week 2) and Middlest (football). Come home. Collect Youngest at 6.30pm. Feed kids. Relax.

Friday remained the day I got all three of them at normal chucking out time. I merely perform the piano lesson hokey-cokey. An easy day.

So OK its bad. But do-able. Just. As long as Cubs isn’t anywhere unusual.

Then I got an e mail from Youngest’s football coach. They had moved her training to 6-7pm on a Wednesday. Just for this term. But still.

Not sure what I am going to do yet. It doesn’t start up again until the 27th Jan. And so currently I have my head in the sand.

I may never take it out.

 

 

Dry…Life? — January 5, 2016

Dry…Life?

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So husband decide to try a dry January. This seems to be a ‘thing’ now like growing a moustache in November and all those different coloured ribbons.

I think he made the decision on a bit of a whim when we were recently on holiday and his alcohol ran out on New Years Day. Then we got home on the 3rd and the port beckoned. Apparently that didn’t count. Not sure why. Convenience may be.

It got me thinking about my relationship with alcohol. I think it could best be described as ‘failed’. I could have a dry year and not really care. So I don’t understand the difficulty people find in giving it up. Except I guess I would feel the same about chocolate. Or cheese. Or tea. Shudders.

I was never really very good at drinking. I was brought up in a pretty dry environment. My mother had been brought up by non drinkers and so our household was the same. It wasn’t usual to have wine on the table. Just a pot of tea. We had a 1970s drinks cabinet. To my knowledge it was filled with more than a year old creamy liqueurs. In case we had a dinner party.

I became aware that my dad did like a drink. But that was a solitary affair. When we went to his mother’s there was wine with meals. My brother and I drank Ribena out of small crystal wine glasses so as not to feel left out. I have those glasses now. We get them out at Christmas. They look shockingly small. But that is a whole other story…

So I hit my teenage years not having been exposed to social drinking that much. I quickly discovered, with the help of extremely weak, cheap, beer that my alcohol stages go like this:-

  1. Pleasant glow (accompanied by bright red cheeks)
  2. Numb teeth
  3. Likely to say or do something stupid
  4. Vomiting

My problem is that the gaps between these phases are very, very small. And unpredictable.

Probably because of the weakness of the beer and its unavailability I didn’t really get to try out the ‘vomit’ phase until I got to university. There I switched to the cheapest beverage on offer at my Halls of Residence bar. Cider. Sweet. Stronger. 50p a pint.

I discovered vom phase following my first fresher week party. Not pleasant. Especially in communal toilets.

But hey drinking was what you did. So to avoid sticking out like a sore thumb I had to carry on. I learnt pretty quick to make the pints last. After all I had to go to the lab the next day and be responsible for a Bunsen burner and noxious chemicals.

And so it went on. At any social gathering I would run the gauntlet of my drinking stages. I would often get it wrong. I can remember numerous times when I saw in the New Year staring down a u bend. Once memorably due to chocolate cream liqueur. That nearly put me off chocolate. Not an easy feat.

I can recall only about two occasions when I got it right and managed to not flip over into that last phase but remain at pleasant glow, albeit with red cheeks and numb teeth.

Once I walked home bare foot with my boyfriend of the time to our student house singing, giggling and generally feeling fabulous. He had to wash my feet in a washing up bowl when we got home. I hadn’t noticed the grit and God knows what else. I didn’t care. That’s me up there. Age 19. Nicely drunk. An extremely rare occasion.

Once I started work I had to master that art of drinking on Friday lunch times. Chip butty and two pints of stout. Always best to call me on a Friday around 2pm if you needed an overdraft. Not four because by then the hangover was kicking in. And all I wanted was my bed.

That was my other problem with drinking. If I avoided the vom stage it was because I had fallen asleep. I could nod off anywhere. In pubs. On sofas. In the work’s kitchen. In nightclubs.

Anyhow. It was with some relief that five years of almost constant pregnancy and breast feeding gave me a legitimate excuse to just stop. Period.

And I have never really gone back to it. Since my kids arrived I have zero tolerance. One sniff of alcohol sends me giddy. My children think it is hilarious.

So now I am designated whatever. Driver. Parent in Charge. Etc. Any excuse.

And anyway I have got better at saying “I don’t drink actually”. And dealing with the incredulity and questions. I am not ashamed to say it doesn’t agree with me. It makes me feel awful the next day. I don’t need it to have a good time- just ask anyone who has been dancing with me or to karoke…

My husband must think he has died and gone to heaven. Not only am I a cheap date (tap water is my tipple of choice or if I am feeling reckless a pot of tea which pubs now serve) but I drive everywhere too.

Cheers…

Oh I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside… — January 1, 2016

Oh I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside…

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image

We are currently on holiday. I believe I began a post like this before. I think it was Greece is the Word. I would link you to it but I am on holiday. And therefore I am unable to do so. As I lack the IT resources.

Suffice to say that if you do find that post the view from the window on this holiday is not quite the same.

We are spending the week in a house on the Kent coast.

Some of my readership hail from far flung, even tropical places. And so therefore I need to perhaps explain what a holiday by the seaside in England is like in January.

One word springs to mind. Cold.

In the UK we have been experiencing a very mild winter this year. When we left our home it was 15 degrees. Really odd. It should be around ten degrees cooler than that. Anyhoo it has been unseasonably warm. So when I printed off my ‘Family Holiday in the U.K.’ Packing list I nearly discounted the thermals section as well as the wet suit and sun hat section.

But then I remembered we were going to the coast. And I packed them anyway. Thank god.

However warm it is in the UK it is reliably a lot colder by the sea. Especially when that sea is the North Sea. I never go to the British seaside without my woolly hat. Ever. Even in June. Because I will get earache without it. To go with the facial exfoliation provided free by the blowing sand.

In theory it seems a wonderful idea. A break by the sea off season. One envisages bracing walks along the coast. I lasted precisely ten minutes on the sands today watching my offspring roll around after a rugby ball before the cold and the fear that they might tackle each other into a pile of dog muck got the better of me. So I left to explore the slightly less windy town.

And there you notice that other thing about most English seaside towns. They have an air of neglect. Which is even more apparent in the winter. Most of the shops remain closed. The lack of sun and people shows up the peeling paint and rusty balustrades. I feel sorry for these places.

In most you can see the grandeur that was there in the height of the British tourist heyday. Before cheap flights lured us all away to sunnier climes. The Art Deco hotel facades. The huge train stations that would have received thousands of holiday makers each summer. The pleasure grounds. The piers. The boating lakes. But often these wonders have been blighted by neighbouring 60s planning monstrosities. By a lack of up keep. By graffiti. By the insufficient numbers of punters.

And then there are seagulls. Nough said. They pinch your chips and poo on everything. I hate them. Flying vermin.

But then despite all this such places have an appeal. We like 2p amusement arcades where an hour’s fun can be had for a couple of quid.

We like watching the New Year’s Day nutters swimming in the sea…weird.

We like the fish and chips.

We like the ice cream parlours.

We like building castles and shell hunting and chapped lips.

We like crabbing off abandoned piers and rock pooling.

We like looking round tacky souvenir shops.

We like drinking proper tea out of styrofoam cups.

We like coming back and getting cosy.

So, yeah, the Med is great. But so is the North Sea.

If you dress up proper.

 

 

Music… — December 10, 2015

Music…

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Recently I made a discovery.

I am becoming increasingly tired of Steve Wright in the afternoon. His radio show does not appear to have evolved much. I used to listen to him on Radio One as a teenager and the format on Radio Two isn’t much altered. Only he is now over 50. And I am over 40. And it no longer works. To my mind.

In desperation I searched in the glove box of my car. I was in that hour and a half of school pick ups and needed music.

Under the CDs of party songs for kids, nursery rhyme compilations and audio books (Dahl and Walliams mainly) I found a dusty CD. It was called Music of the Millennium. I sincerely hoped it meant the last Millennium…

I didn’t remember purchasing it. I didn’t recall putting it in the glove compartment. So I stuck it on ‘shuffle’ and gave it a go. Anything was better than more ‘factoids’.

And I am glad I did. In the manner of all good mix tapes it took a  meandering stroll through my musical history. As the first instantly recognisable strains of my favourite band of all time came over the speakers I knew I was in for a sing along nostalgia fest.  Bohemian Rhapsody. So many memories of drunken renditions. In mate’s lounges tanked up on McEwans Export, at work’s Christmas parties, at Karaoke and other places too numerous to mention. Not my favourite Queen track (which would be too hard to pick- it depends on my mood although Seaside Rendevous always makes me smile and These Are the Days of our Lives always makes me cry…). But certainly the most iconic.

Next up another favourite. One of my ‘go to’ artists. Probably because my dad liked him and had Goodbye Yellow Brick Road on double LP. In that time when LPs were works of art. Again not the track from Elton I would have picked (which would probably have been Roy Rogers- the most melancholy song in the known universe) – Candle in the Wind- ruined for me forever by its overly sentimental remaking on the death of Princess Diana. But still in its original form a classic.

Into the Eighties next. Every Breath You Take…A love song to end all love songs. Perfectly capturing the intensity and overwhelming’ness’ of my first love affairs. The claustrophobia of early teenage romances. The jealousies. The uncertainties. The insecurities.

In a weird ‘shuffle’ moment we went winging back to the 70s and my childhood. Stayin’ Alive. The furore of Grease and Saturday Night Fever when I was around eight. If you hadn’t seen Grease at the cinema 13 or 14 times you weren’t up to much in my school playground. To be honest most of it went over my head. I didn’t see Saturday Night Fever until a few years later. I didn’t really enjoy it. Except for the music. Perfect disco tracks. Still floor fillers today.

Next on, two tracks for which I often risked battery wear down using the rewind button on my Walkman. That personal cassette player was my most prized possession. I never went anywhere without it. I spent a great deal of my 4th, 5th and 6th form years walking. Between my house and boy friend’s. To school. To clubs. I was always listening. To something. Risking being run over.

Purple Rain and In the Air Tonight. Both favourites. For me accurately capturing the raw emotion I was feeling after the break up of my parents’ marriage.

Prince  (or whatever he is now known as) has always been a secret favourite. Purple Rain – messy, shouty, complete with guitar feedback- I love it. And actually this probably is my Prince song of choice.

I can clearly remember the first time I heard the Phil Collin’s track. Sitting in my ex boyfriend’s lounge one Christmas. He must have been given the album as a gift. It sounded as desolate as I was feeling. Those incredible drums startling me half way through.

The only thing missing from this compilation to totally capture that time in my life is Bruce Springsteen- specifically I’m on Fire- ‘It’s like some one took a knife, baby, edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley through the middle of my soul’- it seems almost sacrilege to me that Bruce does not even appear on the list…

And others followed as I drove and then sat in my car…Bon Jovi, university head banging, Blondie, watching Top of the Pops with my brother, U2, sixth form, George Michael, all grown up from his Wham days making beautiful music… and on.

Just as I was about to leave the car to trudge up the hill to collect the off spring a final track started up. Wuthering Heights. Ah my, now that was an anthem of some of my friends and me. Mostly sung by and in a lake. Weird. Odd. Like us. I didn’t really want to get out of the car. I played it later to the kids. They agreed. Weird.

The compilation also contains tracks that are not really up my alley. A lot of 60s. A lot of 90s. I suppose they had to. It being songs from the last Millennium. And so like all compilations there are bits I love and bits I find a bit meh and bits that get me reaching for the Skip button. Now such a thing exists. I could have done with that on my Walkman when playing Now That Is What I Call Music 4.

But in a kind of unique moment in time, just on that random Tuesday afternoon, in the banality of the hours between 3 and 4.30pm, my car CD player’s shuffle function decided to take me on a walk down memory lane.

Perfect…

It’s Lonely Out Here in Glitter Land… — December 6, 2015

It’s Lonely Out Here in Glitter Land…

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IMG_6261
I think these were from 2012

My children and I have this tradition. Well we have many and at this time of year, at the very beginning of Advent, we have a huge amount. Christingle, decorating the house so it looks like a cheap grotto,  Advent calendars without chocolate, making reindeer food etc. But the particular tradition I am meaning here is the making of cards for teachers and close relatives.

Every year I convince myself that what every Primary teacher really, really wants is a card lovingly handmade by their pupil. Maybe with a thoughtful handwritten message, complete with poor spelling and illegible writing. And not a bottle of wine.

I am probably wrong. It is probably me that would really like a handmade card complete with a poorly spelt but loving message. And in a master stroke of psychology I am persuaded that others would like this too. Preferably with glitter.

Nothing says  to me ‘I appreciate you’ more than effort. And time. And so that is what we try to do for those important people in my children’s lives. Take time and make effort.

Every year I come up with an age appropriate card making activity. I have to confess that this is not a totally altruistic act on my part. I am quite crafty. In a glue, paper cutting, glittery way. Life does not contain enough opportunities to undertake such activities. And so this one is very welcome.

When my three were little it was hard to manage their enthusiasm. It was safe to say that the finished products certainly looked home made. I was often a wreck of stress uttering  phrases like ‘No its your brothers turn!’ and ‘Please don’t use the glitter whilst your brother is spraying me with gold paint!’ and ‘Try to keep the glue on the card and not on the carpet/ table/ your hair’ and such like.

We had to form queues for each to ‘have their go’. There was a scramble to make those odd cards for godparents.

Then last year the reluctance set in.  Well certainly amongst Eldest and Middlest. Instead of making one card each for every relative they made only  one to send signed by all three of them. And even then Youngest made the lion’s share.

This year I have come up with an activity that most people would find hard to resist. I wanted something that would attract even Eldest. Therefore it needed to be messy. And quick. Some of those card recipients will be reading this so I am not going to elaborate further. Well, OK, it involves paint…and a toothbrush…and glitter….

I have cut out templates and cards and had a dry (well wet and messy but you know what I mean) run. And Youngest has come down and made one card. The others cannot be persuaded away from Minecraft.

So there it is. Is there a sadder sight than a mother sat at her newspaper covered table surrounded by bits of card and paint. But completely lacking in children.

I miss those enthusiastic years. A lot.

The teachers will probably be pleased with the Pinot Grigo though….

I made those….in case you thought my 8 year old was a genius with the scissors…

Mon beau fils… — December 1, 2015

Mon beau fils…

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Today Eldest had French homework. It consisted of picking information out of a French child’s description of his family members. My dad has short hair. My sister has green eyes. Etc.

He then had to formulate his own description of a family member. I had lightly supervised part one of the homework and then had to leave to collect his siblings from after school clubs.

I dropped a kiss on his head (this is still tolerated) and left him to it.

When I got back he had written:

Ma mere s’appelle Sarah. Elle as cheveux courts et bruns et gris et les yeux verte.

Ma mere est tres, tres, tres, tres, tres gentil et aussi assez curieuse mais elle n’est pas branchee.

It was a moment. One of those wonderful, tear jerking, time stopping, heart breaking moments that happen in parenthood. One that can be held onto during the rows and grunting and snappiness.

I will forgive him the grey hair. The nosiness. The untrendiness. For all those tres….

I can’t think of a better compliment than to be ‘five times very’ kind.

It has made my week.

 

Hair Raising — November 29, 2015

Hair Raising

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Youngest has a lot of hair. And I mean a lot.

She was born with a fairly large quantity of dark hair, just as her eldest brother had been. It grew steadily. For the first few months of her life her hair defied gravity and grew straight up.

Eventually the weight of her hair meant it was no longer able perform such a feat and it fell into a cute sort of bob.

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Over the following years it grew and grew and got fairer and by the time she started school it was half way down her back. She had her first proper cut as one of the last things we did together before she left preschool.

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When washed and dried it is ram rod straight, just like mine. But usually it is  wavy. And that is because it is always plaited.

Her hair is never ‘down’. For several reasons.

  1. She doesn’t like it down unless she is going to a school disco or eating dinner at a posh foreign hotel.
  2. I am paranoid about nits.
  3. She plays a lot of sport and it gets in the way.
  4. School does not allow such long hair to roam free (probably partly because of reason 2 but also for safety reasons). And…
  5. It is almost impossible to brush when it has been safely reigned in in plaits never mind when it has been blown free in the wind.

And so her default style is two pigtails. Unless it is a swimming day when we do one pigtail.  She also sleeps in one pigtail. To avoid suffocation.

Even so twice a day we have the torment of brushing her hair.

She creates. She screams. She complains.

Yesterday when I tried to get the detangler brush through the ends it was solid with knots. I asked her what she had got in it. She was not sure but knew it was some sort of foodstuff. How? Because she had had to scrape it out after lunch. We narrowed it down to carbonara or jam roly poly. Trust me neither is great in hair. We had to resort to the spray. Even so it took me 15 minutes to tease out all the gunk.

Whichever food stuff it was though it was not as bad as glue. Glue is the ultimate nemesis. I have resorted to scissors before now. Although this brings on hysteria…

If she had informed me earlier in the evening that a foreign substance was in the ends of her hair I would have got her to wash it out. (Glue doesn’t wash out, believe me). That doesn’t work at 7.30pm. Because her hair takes about three hours to dry enough to avoid her risking pneumonia overnight.

We only wash it twice a week. Once on her swimming day. And once after football on Saturdays. That is because chlorine and mud are not great in hair either.

On holiday I need an entire tool kit to deal with her hair. When she has spent 6 hours in a swimming pool her one plait gets sort of fatter but shorter. Presumably it has absorbed a whole load of noxious chemicals.

We employ adult conditioner in the shower. A conditioner and detangler spray after. And the best brush I have ever owned. Well it is our second one. The first broke after one particularly knotty evening. Still my worst record for getting it combed out after a post holiday swimming day is one hour. After that I made her wear a rubber swimming hat. Which helped enormously. She was happy to wear it. To avoid that hour of pain.

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Swimming hat!

 

She is also not the sort of child who enjoys her hair being played with. She will not sit still whilst we try out different braids or weaves. Even if I knew how to do such things. No this sort of activity would use up time that could be spent more productively booting a ball into a net or flipping on the trampoline.

And then there is her ability to manage it herself. Just recently she has become able to wash it herself. Without leaving most of the shampoo and conditioner in the hair.

But she still cannot brush it or plait it on her own. When she goes on Cub camp she just leaves it in my plaits for two nights. I realise that will not cut it eventually. Our deadline is in two years time when she has to go on a week long residential trip with school.

Of course by then she might agree to a bob. I have mentioned before that she is not a girly girl. And her hair is never down. And so I have suggested that she get it cut. I would gain at least half of an hour of my life back a day. As would she. She refuses.

I suppose that would be a sad day though. Because although it is real pain her hair really is her crowning glory.

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My beautiful daughter!

Be careful what you wish for… — November 26, 2015

Be careful what you wish for…

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When my husband and I were deciding which school to send our children to one of our major considerations was the sports provision.

Eldest and Youngest are sports mad. And so we wanted to send them somewhere that would develop them further.

Middlest is not quite so keen. However it was still an important consideration for him too. In fact even more so.

I have the legacy of my own shocking memories of sport experiences at school. Of being labelled not good at Games within about 5 minutes of arriving. This was probably because I had glasses and was skinny. I actually quite enjoyed hockey and netball but the crippling embarrassment of always being picked last and having to sign the ‘period’ register rather marred it for me. It didn’t help that on my first day my mother sent me in with her old hockey stick. Not realising they had changed shape in the twenty odd years since her school hockey career. The fearsome Sports Mistress was not best pleased. I had blotted my copy book. And was probably the butt of staff room jokes for some time.

And so I wanted a school that would encourage Middlest even though he isn’t the best team sport player in the world. I wanted them to help him find a sport he liked and could carry on with in the longer term.

Eldest has taken full advantage and is regularly in the Rugby squad. It is a game he loves. Although he was dismayed by the new rules that do not allow him and his fellow forwards to contest a scrum. He feels he is going through the motions. I feel relieved.

Youngest gets to play and run and swim and generally do all the sports she loves. And so she does. Regularly.

And indeed the school have listened to feedback and this year are providing competitive fixtures for children ‘further down the list’. So this means even Middlest, usually happily adrift in the non-team sea during the Rugby term, is getting fixtures. He is not sure I should have been one of the many who provided that feedback. Although the match teas afterwards seem to help him get over it.

Middlest and Youngest have a minimum of four hours of Curriculum sport a week which even allowing for all that changing sees them active for at least three hours. It includes the team sport of the term, PE (variously cross country, racquet sports, gymnastics and athletics) and swimming.

Eldest clocks up just over three hours a week. He doesn’t have to suffer a weekly swimming lesson now he has progressed to Senior school. Youngest describes it as ‘pure torture’…. she seems to spend her lesson ploughing up and down in various contorted positions. Apparently it’s streamlining…

Along with that Eldest has at least two hours of club and fixtures a week. He would have another hour of Rugby on top of that but he has managed to get out of it to attend choir. Music is his other passion and he spends a lot of his time each week playing his cello and singing.

Middlest clocks up a further two and a half hours of extra curricular sport a week minimum. Including his beloved badminton. And Youngest’s tally is a mind blowing 4 hours a week. A mixture of hockey and football.

And this week on top of all that Middlest is in a Rugby match and Youngest has a swimming gala.

This half term Youngest would have liked to have fitted in an extra half hour of cross country running. Straight before football training. I put my foot down…

It is safe to say that I do not struggle to get my kids to the one hour of activity a day recommended by the Government. In fact they are well over this if you add in all the trampolining, family walks and bike rides, general running about and playground activities. No doubt Youngest will spend lunch hour today playing football on the playground.

Sundays remain a ‘day of rest’. For now. As Youngest progresses up the school she may have to switch from her Saturday football league to a Sunday one. To avoid fixture clashes. And that will mean Eldest may want to take football up again. As we will be doing it anyway. But for now I have my fingers in my ears pretending I can’t hear this…

Because the one major down side of all this opportunity is that our weeks (and I include Saturdays in that) are a complete bomb site.  And I feel weak. Both in comparison. And from the hours of ferrying and logistical quandaries and laundry and ‘encouraging’ from touch lines.

And I am never, ever going to Google ‘how too much sports affects children’…Ever…