musingsponderingsandrants

Parenting, profundities and humour

Category: Parenting

Takin’ It Easy — June 9, 2015

Takin’ It Easy

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IMG_4248

Last Friday I decided to make life easy for myself.

It’s rare in our house to have a completely empty evening, free from taxi-ing, and this night was no exception. However I had swapped two piano lessons (which involve a sort of hokey cokey – you take the first child down, you bring the first child back as you take the second child down, you bring the second child back, take, collect, take collect, shake it all about) for one All Age church choir session involving us all. Only middlest and youngest had homework, and youngest had forgotten her book anyway. And husband was out for the duration, due back about midnight.

And so I felt in a reckless mood. Hence I decided to scrap the stir fry I had planned and treat the kids to fish and chips on the way home from our choir session. Before chilling out after the minimal washing up that surely my pants dishwasher could cope with.

The sun was shining, we all felt upbeat from singing and meeting up with friends and so we hit the chippie in fine fettle.

Eldest and I queued up (along with, so it seemed, the rest of my village, including a fair few members of the choir) he having decided he is now too mature to swing on the railings outside the parade of shops. Middlest and youngest have no such scruples and so they began their usual swinging and messing around.

At one point eldest (self appointed health and safety advisor) reported to me that he thought middlest and youngest were being ‘a little reckless’. I was nearing the front of the interminable queue and merely commented to the choir member next to me that, and I quote, ‘they will only crack their heads open once before they learn’…

I had just ordered and was waiting for a new batch of chips to be ready (behind a man who was clearly mustering a small army as he had requested 8 portions of fries) when middlest came in and told me he ‘thought’ youngest ‘may have hit her head’.

I rushed out and would like to say for the record that there was clearly no doubt that ‘youngest had hit her head’ as she was standing in the middle of a blood bath looking a bit shocked.

I entered that state that I am sure many of you parents out there are all too familiar with. I call it ‘rabbit in the headlights’. I had no idea what to do first. Console. Staunch blood (with presumably my hands as I had no other sort of useful gear with me, assuming, as I had, that we could manage an outing to our local chippe with just my purse and keys). Shout. Check for pupil dilation with a small torch (no scrap that no equipment). Collect chips.

Luckily for me our take away is situated right next door to a pharmacy which was still open. One of the workers had seen the incident and came out to offer us his facilities. Cane chair (it flitted across my mind to sit on it myself), gauze pads, tissues and wipes. We utilised all of this most fully. Eldest remained in the chippe to field our order. Middlest (always good in a crisis) was oscillating between our two encampments providing updates to eldest and consoling youngest whilst I applied pressure to the back of her head which was gushing blood.

The pharmacist, whilst not asking for any form of reimbursement which I felt doubly bad about considering youngest had bled copiously all over his floor, mentioned the word hospital. Youngest, already in a state of shock, then descended into hysteria. She hates hospitals. Well actually so do I especially on a Friday evening with no spousal support. I inspected what I could see of the wound through her extremely thick hair and decided to get her home and reassess once it was clean. Self triage- I have seen those posters at the A&E and didn’t want to prevent someone in real need from a nurse or doctor. In any event the thought of taking three kids, one in hysterics I was having no joy in rousing her from, to A&E on our empty stomachs was more than I could, well, stomach.

By now the chips had finally arrived. Eldest wandered in really quite unconcerned. Middlest held the gauze pad to his sister’s head while I strapped her in and we drove home amid sobs, screams and snot.

Once we arrived home I dished up food and tried to get her to eat something. We had all gone off the thought of eating a bit but we did our best. Next I stripped youngest of her blood soaked shirt (see above) dumped her in a warm bath and used the saline solution again provided by my friendly pharmacist to clean up the wound. All this amid screaming. Now she felt sick so I gave her a plastic jug. From what I could see the wound actually appeared to be a number of smallish cuts and abrasions on top of a massive egg extruding from her scalp.

I attempted to get the rest of the blood out of her bum length plaits with mediocre success, gingerly brushed her hair and re-braided it, dosed her with Calpol and put her to bed were upon she immediately fell into a deep sleep.

Vowing to check on her vital signs half hourly I returned downstairs to deal with the bloody shirt and floor. I then persuaded the boys into bed after reassuring them that their sister would not ‘die in the night’- eldest looked a little disappointed but tried his best to hide it.

And then at around 8.30pm I actually started my ‘easy’ evening.

Footnote: she was fine. I gave her more painkiller at my bed time which I easily roused her for. She was scabbed over by the morning and able to play football…. and the shirt did come clean, a combination of cold water and Vanish and my new German washing machine saw to that…I am mighty pleased at £10 a pop…

Your Children Are Never Too Old for a Dressing Up Box — June 4, 2015

Your Children Are Never Too Old for a Dressing Up Box

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dressing up

My eldest is just about to leave Primary school. This is his last term before he ventures out into the world of Seniors. In some ways it makes me a little sad. But in others I am pleased. And one of the reasons I am pleased is because he is getting too big for a lot of our dressing up clothes.

I am a veteran Primary school parent. I have 7 years continuous service, with the last four of those seven years seeing all three of my kids attending. And so I am in a fortunate position and can pass on some of my wisdom. And the best and biggest piece of advice I can give you is to maintain a fully stocked dressing up box. Keep everything. Do not throw any garment away that could go in the dressing up box. Scour jumble sales for useful items. Keep everything they make at cub camp. Buy high viz vests in bulk and cheaply, buy face paint and hair dye. Keep a stock of Sharpies in various hues. Have snake belts. Keep old broken broom handles and cheap synthetic blankets.

And here is why.

One day, probably within your first year of being a Primary school parent, you will be asked to send in your child in fancy dress. The school, of course, does not call it fancy dress. They call it Curriculum Enrichment. But it is actually fancy dress.

It starts off quite benignly. Usually with a super hero day. Or a ‘People Who Serve Us’ day. Most parents of four year olds have a Spiderman outfit or a nurses costume. Easy you think, I have this licked.

Ha ha ha.

Within months the school will be sending out requests for historic costumes. You will be asked to provide gear to attend a mock christening or wedding. Someone clever in the PTA will decide wearing spots is a good idea for Red Nose Day. Your child will be evacuated, transported back to Ancient Greece or Roman Britain, be flying in space. You will discover your child(ren) is (are) in the house coloured in the only colour they do not possess a T shirt in for Sports Day.

And here is a heads up. Generally the time notice period has been set by someone who has no kids. That is, too short. Certainly outside Amazon’s normal delivery time scales. And the letter will always says, ‘Please do not go to too much effort, it is about the taking part, but little Jimmy will get much more from the day if he comes dressed in a mop cap, doublet and full breeches, but please no swords’. Damn I have several hundred of those.

Again ha, ha, ha… One would love to ‘not make too much effort’. Again the non kid owning teacher has never experienced the mummy guilt which prevents one from sending in little Jimmy in rolled up trousers with a pillow case over his head. (Never throw anything away). Leaving aside the fussy and image conscious child.

Individually I can usually cope with these requests it is the likelihood of a co-incidence of costumier requirements amongst my three children that cause me headaches.

For instance that seemingly easy request for spots. I have two boys I can tell you how may articles of clothing they possess which have spots. None. At all. I had to cut down an old shirt of daddy’s and cover it in Sharpie pen. Times two. You see? Throw nothing away.

I have had some luck though. As my kids are close in age the Curriculum Enrichment opportunities often repeat themselves and I can re-use costumes. Its a shame then that my eldest is huge. And middlest is not. And youngest is a different gender. No matter. I am sure Tudors wore their breeches baggy. And she’s a tom boy anyway, so hey, suck it up.

And talking of Tudors. The instructions on HOW TO CHEAT to make the outfit required by this particular ‘full immersion’ day still required a sewing machine. That is not cheating. Anything involving haberdashery is not cheating. I went on e bay and looked up child’s Tudor costumes. Some enterprising soul was making outfits by hand to the exact specifications of the ‘Curriculum Enrichment’ venue my child was attending. Only a collar less shirt to provide. He went in with a collar. And was told off. And had to turn it inside. Making him hot and uncomfortable all day. In blazing June. Pardon me for not having ‘spare’ shirts I can merely hack the collar off.

Even such an easy request as a pyjama day can actually be fraught with issues. My children, especially middlest, who is a rake, struggle to keep up PJ bottoms. Which is fine in the privacy of my lounge not so good in double Maths. Snake belts, just saying, perhaps the single most useful items Santa ever brought. Also in this house PJs do not always fit. They are either too long or too short. Again not normally an issue. However it invariably rains, leaving dragging PJ bottom legs soggy and the child miserable. I have been up before now hemming pyjamas in the wee hours, after unearthing the letter from the depths of a book bag.

And then there is the annual jeopardy that is Christmas. Every year I dread the letters. I have had everything from line dancer to elf (green leggings for a boy, anyone?) to the traditional crib characters. Perhaps my most memorable year was when school decided in its infinite wisdom to ask both my boys to be angels. Whilst I applauded their gender neutrality providing white clothes for boys was less than easy. Luckily middlest was still in Reception and happy to go in one of daddy’s old T-shirts belted at the waist. Eldest, the year above, was less pliable and I had to beg some white jeans off a friend. They both agreed to tinsel, only middlest would wear wings.

I have only had a livestock request (sheep) once. And after a lot of time and cotton wool I can only say that the recent, if too late for me, boom in novelty onesies is every parent’s blessing.

Perhaps the worst of all will be days ‘left entirely up to you’. World book day is a classic example of this. Go as any book character. Please for the love of God narrow it down a bit. The stress of three of those costumes nearly un did me one year.

And my final bit of advice. Never volunteer. Unless you can rake up your own costume. And look good in half a bed sheet and your sandals from circa 1980. In the rain.

Eldest’s last hurrah dressing up wise is a WW2 evacuation. Luckily he did this in year 3. So upstairs somewhere I have a battered, small, hard suitcase, a flat cap, a knitted tank top, grey shorts, a ‘granddad’ shirt and a gas mask box. Of course he wore all this when he was about a foot shorter but hopefully no one will notice. Make do and mend after all.

The Freedom to Roam.. — May 31, 2015

The Freedom to Roam..

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risk

During the long, hot summers of my childhood, which probably had their fair share of rain, I spent a great deal of time playing out. This involved very involved games in our cul-de-sac with the neighbours’ children, or riding our bikes up and down the kerb and even taking a picnic up to the bypass embankment. (I think I may have mentioned this before, it was better than it sounds and was a fantastic place to build dens).

Once I had learnt to tell the time I was allowed even further rein, wandering around our estate knocking on friend’s doors. I walked to Primary school in sole charge of my younger brother. We cannot remember when exactly this started but it was certainly by the last year in Infant school, so Year 2 by today’s reckoning, with my brother a year below. And it was at least a mile away. By nine I was walking home alone as my mother had returned to work.

And all this was the norm. All my friends walked to school alone. We all played out. We all roamed. We all went on epic bike rides. And importantly we all managed the various risks. As children of the 70s bombarded with ‘safety films’, delivered by the TV wheeled into the school hall, we all knew about stranger danger, we all had regular visits from the Green Cross Code man and attended the Tufty Club. I knew to avoid silo pits on farms, that I should not swim in rivers and that I should not play on the railways for fear of my life.

And I knew not to betray my mother’s trust. I knew to be home when I said I would, and to tell her roughly where I might be headed. And I understood the consequences of not doing so, withdrawal of that precious freedom. And yes there were accidents. My brother did cut his head open on numerous occasions. But we survived.

I am trying to replicate this controlled loosening of the reins for my children. Despite the quite marked move away from this in modern society. Where schools are not allowed to release children except to a named adult, where we are almost daily reminded of the threat from paedophiles. However  I believe the risks are actually not much greater. Yes traffic is worse but I maintain that in other regards the dangers children face today out in the wide world are roughly the same.

So mine walked home from their piano lessons alone from age seven. They have been walking alone to the local field to kick a ball around for some years. They might be out running round the village. They will bike to Scouts and football, be left home alone for short periods, they will call for friends. They have parameters. Both geographic and time based. They have to look out for each other. They have to wear bike helmets (mu-um). I secretly watch them crossing roads and haul them up if they have forgotten any basic safety procedures. They know which doors to knock on in an emergency. They are not allowed to cook, bathe or eat whilst I am out, yet.

None of them have phones. So I have to rely on them to keep their word, and yes I come down hard when they don’t. If they violate my trust I withdraw their freedoms, temporarily.  I am hoping this will set up good habits for the years ahead. Learning to deal with risks and assess the dangers in situations is a vital skill. I don’t want mine to be doing this for the first time when they are reckless teenagers who believe they are invincible. I want them to be doing it now so it becomes second nature.

Many people will believe I am in the wrong. That I am needlessly putting my children in danger, but I am heartened that lots of their local friends are allowed similar freedoms.

When I have no option but to let them out I want to know I have equipped them with as many risk mitigation skills as possible, not to do so, in my opinion, is the most reckless thing of all.

“Only people who have been allowed to practise freedom can have the grown-up look in their eyes”, E M Forster.
The Order of Things — May 27, 2015

The Order of Things

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birth order

My eldest has a rough deal, in my humble opinion. I am sure he would whole heartedly agree, he often has that hang dog look of the severely put upon. And the reason I think he has it so tough is because he is the eldest child of two eldest children.

Birth order and it’s effects on children has always fascinated me. I would like to say that I have conducted extensive scientific research, or at least read a lot of literature on the subject but that would be a complete lie. Between child rearing and writing this blog there is no time for such niceties. As such there will be no bibliography or references on this post, instead my opinions and conjecture will be based purely on my statistically very insignificant sample of three….backed up in part with my own childhood experiences. Buckets of salt required on your part then.

So here goes, deep breath and in we plunge.

My husband and I (she says very regally) are both first born in our respective families. I think it is fair to say that we both conformed very much to a ‘type’ in this regard. I was a serious, diligent and hardworking child. Not particularly talented at anything but very willing to give everything my all. I was a control freak. I was the teenager with the colour coded revision timetable pinned to my wall stretching forward many more weeks than the average child’s.

I was not satisfied with 75% in tests anything below ninety meant failure to me. Oddly I can never remember my parents saying to me- really 75% is not all that good Sarah- and yet that is exactly how I always felt from being very small.

And these qualities have continued into my middle years. I am still a control freak, wedded to my to do lists. I still do everything I tackle from child rearing to school governorship with an intensity which borders on the pathological. And my husband is the same. He is a work-a-holic giving it more than his all. He runs with an intensity that is frankly scary.

And so we have very very high expectations. Of ourselves, of gadgets, of companies and of our children and most of all our eldest son. It is something I am very aware of as eldest picks his way through his life under the kosh of those high expectations.

And leaving all that aside being the eldest is tough. I am sure all you none eldests out there are screaming at the screen as I speak but I still hold it to be true. They do everything first. Start nursery, start school, have swimming lessons, go on cub camps, residential school trips, take exams, push the boundaries of curfews, succeed in nagging enough to recieve a gadget previously banned. And all this is harder when you are the first to do it.

How much easier it is when you are following a sibling, have watched from the sidelines, have a mate already there, can use the argument ‘well eldest got that/did this at my age’.

And then there is the matter of parental blame. I quite often and automatically blame my eldest for any ruckus between my children. Sometimes he is not even in the room. I assume he is the aggressor when often he is not. It has taken me quite a long time to realise that youngest is no longer the defenceless baby at the mercy of her toddler brother, but a manipulative child who will give herself a Chinese burn and blame it on eldest.  Naturally he is outraged at this injustice and quite rightly so.

He is a hard working, diligent and serious boy. He has high expectations of himself and they are probably transferred however unintentionally from us. He is conforming to our type. It is hard to say that those first 18 intense months with undivided parental attention has moulded him to some degree, but it is tempting to assume so.

And so middlest has some things easier than his brother. He followed along relatively quickly and has had his elder sibling to rely and lean on for as long as he can remember. He is also a totally different character. Since he appeared in the world he has been intensely laid back. He used to lie in his Moses basket asleep with his hands crossed behind his head looking for all the world like he was sun bathing on a remote desert island beach.

But it isn’t all plain sailing. He follows his brother through life, in consecutive school years, trying his hardest to live up to those high standards already set by him.  In many ways he succeeds but in others he cannot hope to. Eldest is an all rounder, passably good at everything he turns his hand too, backed up by his amazing work ethic. Middlest cannot hope to replicate that. And he shouldn’t have to. But a small part of him feels he ought to. And I know he finds it tough that he can’t draw, play rugby, swim as well as his elder sibling. He has many, many strengths where he can outshine eldest but he focuses, if we are not careful, on all he can’t do rather than all he can.

He doesn’t have the same work ethic and has to be cajoled to stick at things. He is a bit of a butterfly flitting from one thing to another.  He is the joker, the light hearted one. As a result he is the happiest to loose (mostly) to keep up the status quo, he is self deprecating and he is the peace keeper, the pourer of oil on troubled waters. He will admit he is wrong and make amends with both siblings. He is the jam in my children sandwich, holding it all together. These are extremely mature skills for a nine year old and will stand him in good stead but when he is sobbing that despite all his efforts his siblings still ‘hate’ him my heart breaks a tiny bit.

He has also never had my undivided attention for any lengthy period of time and never will. He has always had to share. He had more than his fair share of relatively minor medical issue as a baby and small child and when we finally got discharged from his last outpatient clinic we were both a little sad. We had enjoyed our many afternoons sitting in hospital waiting rooms, with the other two at school, chatting without interruption.

And there is that other thing for middle children. No one ever says ‘well you did that well, considering you are the middlest’ …

My youngest gets that a lot. You did that so well- considering you are the youngest. I am never sure if this is a compliment or not…it seems rather back handed to me. It is hard for me to empathise with youngest. My youngest sibling is a full ten years younger than me and so whereas my middle brother and I had similar issues to my eldest and middlest, youngest’s position is totally different to my childhood experiences coming, as she did, a mere 23 months after middlest, and three and a half years after eldest.

There are advantages. She is given the  benefit of the doubt much more often and in many circumstances. She is given leeway and my addled brain lets much more slip with her than the other two. Which they of course note and place in my debit ledger. No doubt to bring up later in therapy.

And after her brothers started school she got me all to herself for long periods until she went two years later. And she will eventually have me all to herself again assuming the other two trot of to college or university leaving her behind for another two years.

On the other hand she has had to grow up very fast or be left behind. When the other two were seven they weren’t watching Storage Hunters, playing poker or wrestling to WWE rules. She is. She has to be the goalie in front of her 11 year old brother’s pounded footballs, hit balls bowled at speed with her cricket bat and generally run, jump, swim and play harder and for longer than they could ever have managed.

And it is not just physical. Emotionally and intellectually she is given no quarter. I wouldn’t have dreamed of making eldest watch Atlantis at age seven but we all get a bit annoyed at her snivelling in the scarey bits.

She hasn’t been able to do those small-childish things for as long. Like soft play barns, petting zoos and watching CBeebies. That makes me a little sad. On the other hand she is so very adventurous that the more advanced opportunities she experiences probably suit her better.

She is massively independent, and always has been. After the first two, who were still proffering their feet to be shod at age three, the shock of youngest who wanted to dress herself at age one was enormous. And it’s hard to know whether it is the result of her constant striving to ‘catch up’ or her personality. I suspect a bit of both.

So there you have it. Who really knows if birth order makes any difference. Surely this blog has shed hardly any light. Interesting though eh?

The Beautiful Game — May 19, 2015

The Beautiful Game

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I have never been remotely interested in football. Well that is actually not true, more later, but in my heart I am not remotely interested in football. I can remember every Saturday evening as a child waiting for Doctor Who to start and listening to the man read out the scores. I liked the names of the clubs (especially the Scottish ones) and that you could try to guess which team had won by the way his voice rose up or down between numbers but I had no interest in what had led up to those tables of results.

My brother played a bit but I was not involved in that. Luckily none of my childhood friends, teenage mates or boyfriends were remotely interested either. We were too busy slaying dragons and exploding pineapples, head banging, drinking cheap beer and hiking through woods in the dark…an altogether different sort of passion…

I got to about 25 before I had to show more than the passing interest I had developed to survive in the world of work for three years. And that was because my partner at the time was a football nut. He was a life long Arsenal supporter, condemned to live in the north, and I either got involved or never saw him. So I started watching Match of the Day, went to away matches, entered a fantasy football team (I actually did quite well) and got myself clued up on the stars and rules.

It was with some relief, however, that I met my husband and could gaily give it all up again. As a result my memories of football are firmly routed in the time of Blackburn Rover’s spectacular rise, Peter Schmiechal and David Seaman and a crying Paul Gascoigne.

And I thought that was it, I thought I could wash my hands forever. Maybe taking just a passing interest in World Cups and the like if England got in or past the group stage.

When the football letter came out in Year 1 for eldest I binned it. Similarly a year later with middlest. And then he came home around January and said everyone was leaving him out in the playground because he wasn’t in the football team. So we went along and signed them both up. And that was the end of my football apathy.

Both boys started with their local football club. That first year lulled me into a bit of a false sense of security. We didn’t start until around February. Both boys were training in the same place and at the same time on neighbouring pitches. It was an hour and a bit out of a Saturday, done and dusted by 10.30am. And one of us got to stay home with youngest. In the warm.

It is now four years later and our lives are ruled in large part by the beautiful game. That’s youngest up there, aged 5, during her first season playing. To say she has enjoyed it from the start is an understatement. She remains the only girl in a group of around 15 lads slogging it out every Saturday. Meanwhile both boys now train in the week (on different days) as well as having fixtures most Saturdays, often in far flung places.  Eldest’s home pitch is no longer the same as his siblings’ so even concurrent home fixtures present a problem. We are often split three ways.

And so I turn out every weekend. I haul myself out of bed really far too early for a Saturday morning in order to freeze my parts off on an often windy, wet or snowy pitch to cheer on my offspring. I am an expert in the differing rules which alter as you move up through the youth football system. I can be heard shouting ‘Man on’ or ‘Mark up’ regularly.  My fellow soccer mums and I discuss the best footwear for the side-lines (the feet are always the first to ‘go’) and envy richer clubs with pop up dug outs and club houses with tea urns, bacon butties and even loos.

And leaving aside the very real physical discomfort there are things about it that really irritate. Like how the season seems to go on for ever- long after local councils have replaced the goal posts with creases and my kids are in danger of sun burn. That it gets really too competitive too early with A & B teams ‘cleverly’ disguised with different names, whilst the children are fully aware of the pecking order. That my kitchen floor is a mud bath by lunch time.

But to be honest I don’t hate it, well not after I have thawed out. The youth game is generally a civilised affair populated by committed and dedicated volunteers giving hours of their time to allow my offspring to enjoy running around in the mud. I am grateful to them.

So I get up and turn out so that my kids can enjoy the sport they all seem to adore- despite their differing abilities. I have mellowed towards football. I still don’t watch it on TV or have any interest in the fortunes of the professional game. But as a sport for my young kids to meet with their friends, get sweaty, join in the universal language of small boys (and girls), learn the hard lessons of losing and how to win graciously it has merit. So I will risk my lower digits for that.  As long as I have my insulated mug of tea and my sheepskin lined snow boots I can survive.

Footnote… And, no, I never got that kit vaguely white again…

Rose Tinted Spectacles… — May 17, 2015

Rose Tinted Spectacles…

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rose tinted specs

As you may be aware I am shortly moving house. As such time is precious. I find my muse slightly drying up. It’s hard to be profound (and even harder to be amusing) when one is being harried by a conveyancing solicitor. So I am going to cheat…a little… just to keep you supplied with material you understand…

Some nights when I have finally sat down, normally around 8.30pm but on too many evenings more like nine,  I look back on those early days of parenthood and wish I was back there.  A time when all my children were in bed by seven in the evening. When they ate anything I gave them, mainly because I was shovelling it in or popping them on a boob, when I didn’t have to get up early for school runs, help with algebra or explain the complexities of the reproductive system and that, yes, believe it or not, sex is fun.

On such occasions I am wearing my rose tinted spectacles. Everyone has a pair. Some have several. My mum cannot remember us ever stepping out of line or being cheeky or answering back the way mine do… quite a large pair there then…

I find I am helped to remove my specs if I refer back to a series of articles I wrote when I was that person, juggling three children under 4, my Chairmanship of the local NCT and my sanity.

One particular article does quite a good job of outlining for me what my daily life was actually like. My kids love hearing the stories enclosed within. They almost wet themselves laughing. I am sure they won’t mind sharing. So this goes out to you with their full backing and with apologies to my old NCT friends who have heard it all before.

Synchronised Vomiting and other Olympic Sports

I had a vague idea when pregnant for the first time that I may have to deal with an element of bodily fluids as a mother. I knew children were not usually potty trained before the age of two and so I had set myself up for a certain amount of yuckiness. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for what was in store.

Let’s start at the beginning with that first poo. What is that all about? I was armed with water and cotton wool. What I needed to deal with the black tar that my son had eliminated was an industrial sand blaster and a jet wash. He started off with a dark green bottom and ended up with a dark green bottom covered in white fluff.

It got slightly better over time. In fact in some cases it was humorous. I have always been a fan of NFP (nappy free play) for my non sitting babies. I find it especially amusing when one’s son(s) manage to wee in their own eyes and then have the audacity to look surprised.

NFP has spectacularly back fired (literally) on several occasions. Now I have three children they have invented a new game, synchronised pooing. When my youngest was about 6 weeks old she was enjoying NFP in the lounge- its relatively safe with girls they just end up lying in a puddle. Middlest (2) had a smelly nappy so I was changing him on the lounge carpet, just so I was with youngest  in case eldest (3) decided now was a good time to try picking her up. (Are you getting a feel for the logistics of three small children yet?). Eldest disappeared. I was mid way through changing middlest- that delicate stage when you have hold of both legs but the bottom area is not yet clean and there is a risk of carpet soiling (as youngest is on the plastic changing mat, lying in a puddle) when eldest pipes up ‘I’ve finished!’. This means he has done a number 2 on the toilet and needs me to wipe up. I only have so long in these situations before he gets off the loo and sits down somewhere unfortunate. It was at this moment that youngest decided to projectile poo (for non parents amongst you, you have no idea) hitting the sofa in an attractive yellow arc. It was also around this time that I began silently weeping.

Synchronised pooing is bad. But the relay can be an even longer haul. My kids could enter the Olympics in both. You know how it is- you have to be at the doctors/ dentists/ hairdressers (I wish) in half an hour. Eldest just needs to go to the loo first. You wipe up, 20 minutes left (he’s a boy they start early needing at least 10 minutes per dump). Then as you put shoes on middlest a nasty whiff emanates from the nappy area. Whilst changing him the youngest gets ‘that look’ that babies get- it’s one of intense concentration. You are left so late it’s not worth bothering.

I don’t want you to think that we only deal with poo in this house. Oh no, vomit features heavily too. Middlest is particularly prone. I have now decided that it is no good just shoving soiled sheets and duvet covers in the wash- it just spreads the part digested carrot around. I find it difficult to rinse off bed sheets in the sink without flooding the kitchen so I have devised my own method. It involves a dessert spoon, a bowl and a lot of scraping. It’s icky but effective. I can now do it in my sleep at three in the morning.

Then what does one do when you are ill yourself? How old is old enough to hold your mother’s hair back whilst she vomits into the toilet? And that reminds me of my worst hour, body fluid wise.

I had been feeling ill all day. It was bath time and hubby was late. I had two kids to get to bed. Baby middlest was in the bath reclining on his bath support, eldest was running around nappy-less. I went to retrieve him and discovered that he had pooed on the landing floor, stood in it and trodden it all over the upstairs carpets, every one. In an increased state of nausea I plopped him in the bath with his younger brother and went to retrieve the carpet stain chemical spray, two bottles of which are permanently in a locked cupboard downstairs. (If there are any Social Workers reading I, of course, never, at any point, left two infants unattended in the bath). After I had managed to get into the child locked cupboard I came back upstairs to hear eldest crying hysterically. Now middlest had pooed- in the bath. Eldest had taken exception to it floating around his legs- fair do’s. They had to wait; I needed to vomit into the toilet. We all ended up in tears- but I was the only one an hour later on my hands and knees with a J cloth scrubbing at excrement.

So there you have it. Rose tinted specs firmly removed, safely placed in their case and locked in the drawer….for now….

Food Glorious Food… — May 15, 2015

Food Glorious Food…

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cooking

I recently watched ‘Back in Time For Dinner’, a series on BBC2 (other channels are available). It took one family on a culinary journey through each decade since the 1950s. They spent a summer living 10 days in each decade eating, cooking, shopping and using the kitchens of the period. The series used an amazing archive called the National Food Diary which ran from 1950 until 2000.

It was an interesting view. It helped that the family themselves were quite insightful. Of course I was most interested in the decades of my childhood and teenage years (the 70s and 80s) and it was a trip down memory lane especially as each time the decade moved on the whole house was redecorated in the style of the period.

The most obvious shift was the amount of time spent doing these chores, which has declined markedly, and the people doing them. In the 1950’s a wife spent hours shopping daily, and preparing and cooking meals all on ration. Now apparently we are convenience food junkies who spend 30 minutes a day on these jobs on average.

Why then does food seem to consume (pardon the pun) so much of my life?

It begins with the weekly planning. I menu plan. To save money, to save waste (which I loath) and to save time. This involves pinning down my husband for long enough to ascertain his whereabouts and cafeteria requirements over the coming working week. It also involves consulting the spreadsheet of child activities pinned to my fridge.

Then one must take into account the myriad different likes, dislikes, intolerances, and basic ‘fussinesses’ of my family.

I will eat anything. I think I might balk at sheep’s testicles or roast locusts (although if I was on that island without Bear Grylls even they would probably appeal). Clearly I prefer some things to others but on the whole I will eat anything. And in fact anything cooked by anyone other than myself is extra specially tasty, even those balls.

On the other hand my family are not so helpful. Lets start at the top. My husband does not like milk based products. Unless they are sweet. So he will happily chow down on custard, ice-cream, cream and yoghurt but will turn his nose up at anything cheesy, or involving roux, crème fraiche etc. Quite why I am not sure. When we were first going out and his complete inability to eat cheese was unknown to me- actually he may have mentioned it, I took it with a pinch of salt, maybe thinking I should just avoid proper cheese like stilton not the mild and inoffensive mozzarella- I bought us some ready cooked stuffed pasta for tea. He manfully tried to eat it so as not to offend. He hasn’t tried since. He will now place any cottage pie I produce under heavy scrutiny to ensure not one tiny worm of grated cheese has migrated to ‘his end’ of the dish.  I find this more than mildly irritating. On days he is out the kids can be heard shouting in glee  ‘Extra cheesey cottage pie!’

Eldest is a bit like me. He is not keen on raw tomatoes but hey I can live with that. He is really a quantity over quality type of chap and that is only really increasing with age. My main issue with him is that however much I feed him he is still hungry. I feel this may only get worse as time progresses. But then quite randomly he has an allergy to peaches. Again not a massive issue but we do have to be careful as the last time he accidentally ate a peach (clearly not a whole one as that would just be stupid, I believe it was hidden in a cobbler at school) he had a total body rash. For days.

Middlest has a genuine intolerance to gluten. I won’t bore you with the process we had to claw our way through for that diagnosis some years ago, but for everyone’s sake (especially me as chief (& lets face it the only) toilet cleaner) it is best if he avoids it as much as possible. This has actually got easier and easier since the diagnosis as supermarkets (especially the one I use regularly- heck I am going to name them as their Gluten Free (GF) range is so good- Sainsburys) have improved their offering in this regard.

I am however constantly on the look out for GF meals… in this regard I hit upon rice based dishes as a good idea. You know risotto, savoury rice (whispers even done quickly out of a packet), jambalaya, kedgeree etc etc. We tried them all. He will not eat any of them. Ever. He loves rice and will gaily eat huge quantities of plain boiled rice with something. But he will not eat it if it has been cooked together with other things, like stock. He will mix up plain boiled rice with his curry/ stir fry/ chilli into one gluppy mess but this is apparently totally different to eating it when it has been cooked with other things. Well yes its tastier I agree. The subtleties of this perversion somewhat allude me. Oddly youngest loves such dishes and so will often request them when middlest is absent, when we could be eating PIE for goodness sake.

Ah youngest. She develops and then loses food eccentricities. Regularly. Her current loathing is mushrooms. Actually this has been going on for some time now and I may soon class it as permanent. I have been serving my standard spag bol to her since she was weaned with no problems. She will now only eat it after picking out every single piece of fungi. I could make it without but then it would be really boring. And I wouldn’t be able to make my favourite joke every week (‘There’s not mush-room in here!’)

Then there are their common oddities. They will all eat onion, some of them actually like it raw (odd people) but the kids won’t eat shallots. Cooked in a stew. They peer at them suspiciously. I explain they are merely cooked onions that I haven’t had to chop.. nah we’ll pass thanks. Well fine but that’s ‘shallot’…

Similarly if I served mine chicken breast, carrots and potato they would all eat it. When it is slow cooked together with a bit of seasoning and gravy middlest and youngest ‘nearly vomit’ and even eldest’s enthusiasm wains.

I hear you shouting. Sausage and mash woman…And yes we do all like that (as long as its not served with peas (middlest), green beans (eldest) or broccoli (youngest)). But, and here is the rub, life is such that I have no time to cook it. Children are in and out at odd intervals, I am boomeranging between school and scout huts and piano lessons and football pitches. Time after school is so precious and scarce that I can only make meals that involve a slow cooker, the oven timer, or reheating with a quick cook carb, and potatoes don’t cut it in that regard. Jackets would work but one will only eat the inside and the other the skin, despite liking all other forms of potato. And don’t suggest Jamie’s 15 minute meals…because they only take 15 minutes if you have a sous chef. And anyway on a lot of days 15 minutes is all we have to actually eat so it needs to be there, ready and waiting.

So I have a basic repertoire. Which kind of repeats ad infinitum. Some will only work at the weekend and on Wednesdays, as long as I wash youngest’s hair as soon as we get in (don’t ask).

And to be honest I hate it. Cooking is a chore I will never be persuaded to enjoy. If it wasn’t for my intense mother guilt we would all be living off take away. Of course there isn’t actually any take away middlest can eat but even so…

The Unfairness Indicator — May 2, 2015

The Unfairness Indicator

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unfairness

Bit of background. My husband and I had three kids within three and a half years. So really it is all our own fault. We were deluded. It is all you really need to know.

Our main current issue with the offspring (11, 9 and 7) is our Unfairness Indicator. You know that device which registers Unfairness between siblings and prompts at least one into uttering the immortal words ‘Its not fair!’.

Ours is hair triggered and prone to go off instantly over the smallest thing. Although it has always been there, well ever since they could all speak, no actually probably before, recently it has become a really, really, really highly tuned instrument. So sensitive that even possible future inequalities can move it up to DEFCON 10.

It drives me utterly mad. I shout ‘Life isn’t fair’ on an almost daily basis and hate myself for doing so. I am sure there is a much better way to deal with these episodes. I probably have a dusty book on a shelf somewhere about how to talk to kids properly and calmly and in such a way that they end up embracing each other in a tearful group hug. Or not.

I had hazy plans when I was considering a family of long, lazy Sunday afternoons with the rain pouring down outside and the fire on, playing board games in a harmonious and friendly way. Or taking advantage of a beautiful spring afternoon by cycling en famille around some beauty spot stopping only for a rustic picnic. That rarely pans out quite how I envisaged it…

And that is because all mine are uber competitive. No-one is cut any slack. Not even poor old me. There is no point playing in this house unless you are out to win*.

All mine have different strategies. Eldest just relies on his brute strength and height and innate bossiness* to ensure that winning is highly likely. That is because he sets the rules, enforces the rules, changes the rules when the rules he has already set are not favouring him; so basically he wins. In any physical game he wins almost every time, if someone else wins clearly they cheated so he won by default.

Middlest has the brains. He shines at all sorts of board games, but, and its a big but, he has no staying power. If he senses that he is not going to win he merely absents himself from the activity. And he can make this decision as soon as he has had his second go if someone, say, has the temerity to target him in some underhand way, like landing on him in Frustration. He has to be cadjoled, bribed, bullied and co-erced back to the table when usually his amazing general knowledge and logical thinking wins the day. But if it doesn’t he will sulk*.

Youngest has the staying power of an Everest Sherpa. Tenacious does not begin to describe her. She is smallest and youngest but does that stop her? By golly no. She was the first to do everything. Walk, skip, run, climb, cycle, swim, dive, kick a ball, play for her school, win a cross country race etc etc. Obviously chronologically she did it all last but if you compare her age at the time of these achievements to her brothers she beats them hands down. But that is not enough for her. So she keeps plugging away, somewhat futilely.

As for my dreams, that bike ride involves all three trying to outpace each other, or doing the whole route only in top gear, or doing the longest skid. They leave their poor old mum in the dust. And the board games descend into finger pointing, sulking hell.

I am sure it will stand them all in good stead. For something. Meanwhile I will go gently grey(er) and try to rise above…

Footnote * not sure where they get these things from…

Times, they are a-changing — April 29, 2015

Times, they are a-changing

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When I was pregnant with my first child I, along with, I am sure, many others in that position, rushed out and bought the having-a-baby-bible ‘What to Expect in the First Year’. I read, digested, cogitated, bought yet more stuff and felt mildly prepared.

Then, to make sure, I attended NCT ante-natal classes. Both of these educators were at pains to point out the fact that I was bound to get very little sleep with a new born in the house. In fact one exercise at the classes saw us mapping out what a typical night with a new born might look like. Apparently all the participants grossly over-estimated the amount of time we would actually spend asleep and we had to redo our ‘maps’.

I went into complete denial. I distinctly remember thinking ‘Well that won’t happen to me’.

I was completely, totally, stupendously and comprehensively wrong.

Recently I purchased a book entitled ‘Please Get out of My Life, But First Take Me and Alex to Town’. It is about teenagers. I got half way through and denial hit again. I have stopped reading. I have put my fingers in my ears and am singing ‘I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you, la la la la la la’. Clearly all this stuff will not happen to me and my family.

My eldest is 11 and now classed as a ‘pre teen’, whatever that means. Apparently this set of children have their own foibles, their own behavioural issues, their own forum subset on parenting websites to assist those afflicted with such beings.

However whatever the term, this period of childhood is certainly full of change. First born has not yet morphed into a grunting, monosyllabic, spotty hunchback as immortalised in the famous Kevin sketch but I can see flashes of the teenage years to come. He fluctuates between petulance and extreme neediness. On some mornings everything I have the temerity to ask will be met with a surly ‘No’, even such mild an enquiry as ‘Did you sleep well?’. On others he can be full of chatter, keen to engage me in his views on the day ahead over his Weetabix. I have yet to master the art of figuring out which mood will prevail when I enter his room to draw the curtains and greet him on another morn.

Other things are more constant. His siblings are universally annoying, especially his younger sister. He has started to speak in a language I don’t fully recognise. He will not hold my hand in public. I am becoming more and more embarrassing. Things I tell him are only believed when his peers or someone with more brain (a teacher) confirm them. He is quick to temper. He believes I interfere, am too strict, too draconian in my views on electronics, expect too much, do not provide him with all the various freedoms he craves.

And yet I can still hold onto some quiet moments when he is relaxed in my company, at ease, willing to share his thoughts and feelings, discuss politics, show me magic tricks he has perfected. He still wants to hug me, in private, he still requires tucking in at night, to be read aloud to, to cling onto the childishness of Christmas.

And now those times seem even more precious. The beginnings of him pulling away are kindling. And I do not want it to begin.

I want to turn back the clock to his toddler years when I felt claustrophobic from the pawing and was never allowed to go to the toilet alone. I want to go back and relive them because now I would relish those intimate periods when he literally felt a part of me, as if he wished he had never left my body and wanted to climb back in.

Time has flown. If the book is right I will probably loose him for a time, when friends and girls rise up the pecking order, and I become almost an irrelevance, consigned to providing a full fridge and clean laundry.  He will spend more time locked in his room or roaming with his mates. I know we may be lucky (denial again) and retain a decent relationship throughout but even so the fundamentals will change.

I have, possibly, a couple of short years left when I am more important to him than anyone else in the world. I can only hope that the fact that he is more important to me than life itself will eventually mean we weather whatever storms are ahead.

The Land of Make Believe — April 22, 2015

The Land of Make Believe

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santa

Recently I got quite cross… I do occasionally get cross, not normally in public and certainly not with friends. But I do, usually with bureaucracy, call centre workers, the doctor’s receptionist, injustice and my kids and husband. So there you have it I was cross.

The reason? An adult in a position of responsibility told my eldest child that Santa Claus did not exist. Actually it was worse than that, that person assumed my son was too old to believe in Santa, asked him to confirm that he knew Santa was not real in public (thereby forcing him to pretend he knew Santa was a myth when actually he did still mostly believe) and then carried on to debunk the white bearded old man.

My eldest is 11. He is still in Primary School. He was starting to have doubts I know. But I am an excellent liar and so thought we had perhaps headed things off at the pass for another year. Moreover my eldest has younger siblings who also still believe (and quite rightly so). Now he is saddled with not only the sadness of ‘the truth’ but also the responsibility of ‘not saying anything’.

I know this might be quite controversial  but I think the realisation that Santa, tooth fairies, the characters at Disney World et al are not real should dawn gradually in a child’s mind. Over a period. It is a thing best left unspoken. A child can then chose to carry on believing and enjoying the rituals and excitement whilst really ‘knowing’ the truth. Certainly as an older child with a much younger sibling I was able to participate in Christmas stockings until I left home so keeping the magic alive for my brother.

Finding out that Santa is not real is not like learning the facts of life or understanding stranger danger. Children do not need to be sat down and have it all explained to them by a certain age in case leaving them in the dark leads to a parallel problem along the lines of an unwanted pregnancy or exploitation. No harm can come from allowing a child to believe longer than is considered the ‘norm’. Yes peer pressure plays its part. However having a fellow 11 year old spout ‘fact’ is completely different to having an adult confirm it to you.

I like make believe – I role play, I like Tolkein, I like to immerse myself in other worldliness. Santa and his mates are similar phenomena for children. What is life without a bit of make believe? Magic? Fairy dust?

So after I had consoled eldest we agreed that in our house believing is allowed, encouraged and actively embraced. Even after logic wins out. I am happy to sit up late on Christmas Eve for as long as they want me to.  Childhood is short, and getting shorter, and I am not at all in favour of that.