musingsponderingsandrants

Parenting, profundities and humour

Tag: rant

Fares Please… — March 13, 2016

Fares Please…

/sarahsmale/1 Comment

taxi

I am not really a car person. My husband is a car person. And likes to pour over brochures and specifications and trims. And I am not. To me a car gets you from A to B. With the cello. Not much else.

However I have reached a point in my parenting life when actually I am more of a car person. And that is because I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in it.

Driving in it. Sitting in it. Eating in it. Sleeping in it. Playing Solitaire in it. Reading in it. Highlighting programs of interest in the Radio Times in it. Planning menus in it. Generally living a large proportion of my life in it.

Take yesterday as a fairly standard example. It was Saturday. If it wasn’t then yet again I refer you to my scheduling habits for these blog entries. If you are still confused then you are clearly not a loyal reader. Please bone up. But anyway it was. A Saturday.

Youngest was playing soccer with her team away in Leighton Buzzard at 10am. Leighton Buzzard is a town I know well having spent my pre teen and teen years living there. My mother and one brother still live there. The journey used to take the best part of an hour. Then the powers that be built a new bypass and I can do it in 35 minutes with a following wind. Yesterday, however, I didn’t. One lane of that bypass was shut. I think some poor souls were litter picking. Or something. And then Leighton Buzzard hits grid lock on Saturday mornings.

So anyway that was my first hour in the car. Chatting to Youngest about life, Def Leppard and soccer. Mainly soccer.

There was a brief interlude where I actually watched football. In fact it wasn’t that brief. They kicked off late. And then played four quarters of 15 minutes with the obligatory team talks in between. This necessitated hubby taking Middlest with him to Eldest’s hockey match at school. As I was not going to be back.

Anyway we got back in the car. The traffic in LB had hit its lunch time peak. That lane was still closed. I decided in my infinite wisdom to drive straight to school to extract Middlest as he needed to be elsewhere too close to the end of Eldest’s match…which had also kicked off/bullied off/ whatever the hockey equivalent of kicked off is- off late too. It seemed to be a day for it.

I drew up in the bus stop next to the Astro pitch and hubby met me half way with Middlest. I set off home.

Clearly I am used to this journey as it is the school run. I set off on automatic pilot conveniently forgetting the flooded flood plains of the river in my village. Which I had commented on to Youngest merely minutes earlier on our journey from LB to school.

It was a shame I hadn’t thought about the implications of those floods on the river bridges in our neighbouring village which I needed to cross to get home. They were flooded and shut. Which I found out just as I approached them. There is another bridge over the river in a village about 10 miles further on. But I wasn’t prepared to risk that bridge also being closed. So we turned around and retraced our steps. Tyres.

We waved at school as we passed by again. And crawled through the traffic the other way. The way that I avoid at all costs. Bridges permitting.

Just as I was driving through my own village on my normal route which allows me to turn right into my driveway (I having learnt the hard way fairly early on the dangers of turning in left with loud children in the car and on a deadline) Middlest piped up that our road had been closed. At that end. Ah yes next door’s lead pipe replacement which seemed to have necessitated digging up the entire street. It hadn’t been closed when I had left home several decades earlier but it seemed the digging could not be accomplished with traffic signals alone and as hubby was leaving the road was in the process of being shut. I am glad Middlest remembered albeit not early enough for me to take the logical ‘other’ route.

I quickly changed tack and took a scenic route through the housing estates of my village to approach the drive from the left. We waved at our old house on the way. Turning into the drive left was made even harder than usual by the presence of an Anglian Water van and several workmen standing around looking pensive in the middle of the street.

So overall that journey took the best part of two hours. Which made us late for the rest of the day. I shoved food down Youngest and persuaded her into a shower and packed an overnight bag for her.

Then we set off again to town to drop Middlest at his party. Another crawl through that traffic that I avoid at all costs. Bridges permitting. And also road closures permitting. One critical road for this ‘bridge’ journey to town involves a street which has been shut for ‘essential’ gas works since February and isn’t due to re-open until May. Sigh.

So another 40 minutes of my life in the car.

There followed a rather pleasant interlude. I dropped Middlest at his Pokémon party in the local comic book store. And then Youngest and I had about an hour to kill before I needed to drop her off at the local pottery painting shop. We went to the library where it quickly became apparent why the multi storey had been so full. Some sort of event was in full swing blocking off the teenage fiction section. Anyway we had a browse and then a snack and drink in the café. Lovely.

I dropped her and plodded wearily back to the old voiture. At least on this journey I was alone and able to play Def Leppard at ear splitting volume and sing without being shouted at. Still the traffic was bad so yet again it took 40 minutes. It didn’t help that I had forgotten about my closed road until I had gone past the point where I could take the ‘other’ logical route. Again. More housing estate. Hi again old house (usual pang…).

It would be nice to say that was it. But it wasn’t. I went back out at about 5.30pm to collect Middlest from his party this time from his friend’s house. On the other side of town. The traffic hard calmed a bit so the whole trip took about an hour there and back. So not too bad. One half Def Leppard, one half Pokémon de-brief. I forgot about my closed road entirely this time but thankfully it had re-opened in the intervening period and was merely traffic signal controlled. I successfully negotiated turning into my drive for what felt like the umpteenth time that day.

And that was it. I turned off the cab sign for the day. A total of around five hours in the car. All told.

Poor hubby though. He had to go to get Eldest from his night hike at half past midnight. Yikes.

So there you have it. I guess I am a car person. By default. And the world’s worst paid taxi driver.

 

 

Vicarious Pleasure — November 15, 2015

Vicarious Pleasure

/sarahsmale/1 Comment

Minecraft_-_Stampy's_First_Home_2

In my last post I mentioned that I am a late adopter, technology wise.

As such my children feel like pariahs. I know how they feel. When I was a child I was not allowed to watch Top of The Pops (unless Mrs Pugh our lovely babysitter was round in which case we did, sneakily) and so on Friday mornings at school, in between bouncing a tennis ball secured in the foot of one leg of a pair of old tights off a wall, I felt at a slight loss, conversationally.

I became an expert in ‘faking it’. Pretending some intricate tights/ ball manoeuvre (that sounds worse then it should) was requiring of my total concentration whilst I absorbed the first TOTP conversation of the day. Thereby allowing me to interject into subsequent conversations. Just enough to ensure my class mates believed I was an avid a viewer as them.

This is a skill that has served me well. Especially in my work when ‘blagging it’ was often necessary. I left the tennis ball at home though…which reminds me we now have an outside wall large enough for this game. I must introduce the offspring to it forthwith.

So where was I? Oh yes. Children. Pariahs.

For instance I resisted purchasing Minecraft for Middlest for a long time. I am sure everyone in the world has heard of Minecraft. If not I suggest you look it up. He pestered and pestered and pestered and pestered and in the end I relented and bought it for the PC for his birthday in August.

And the main reason I gave in was that I was sick of Stampy. Again everyone the world over (well certainly those reading this with kids around eight plus) will know exactly who I mean. Middlest is obsessed with watching his you tube videos.

In case you are not the owner of such a child I will fill you in. Stampy is a man who seems to make his living filming himself playing computer games- specifically Minecraft. He may play others but I doubt he has time.  Stampy does not appear, well only in avatar form (which apparently is a cat), as the films are of the screen he is playing on and he then commentates over the top. I imagine it is actually quite a skill commentating constantly. But I had reached the point where if I heard his slightly high pitched voice ever again I was going to explode.

So I bought Middlest the game and went through the pain of installing it. To begin with I searched Amazon for a CD Rom of the game in a pretty box that he could actually unwrap. You see? Completely behind the times. It has to be directly downloaded from the Internet onto one’s computer. I was able to buy him a piece of paper with a randomly generated string of characters on though. I wrapped it up as excitingly as possible, which wasn’t all that exciting, not really. Anyway I ‘bought the game’ I thought it was preferable that he actually engage with the process, which as far as I can see is like virtual Lego but with monsters (but only on Survival mode- kind of Death Lego), rather than watch someone else play it.

And yet he STILL prefers to watch Stampy. And now a really rather endearing couple who play together. Pat and Jen. Although their names sound like something out of a Ladybird early reader do not be decieved they can hack away at creepers with the best of them.  When I listen carefully I can detect a slight inequality in their relationship. And she is very giggly which annoys me. Tremendously. But otherwise quite endearing. I actually prefer them to Stampy. And at least it shows that IT geeks can get girlfriends. There is someone out there for everyone. But be quick I doubt there are many Jens left in the world.

This way of entertaining oneself is a phenomenon that puzzles me. Middlest is not alone in this house in the partaking of vicarious pleasure in such a way.

Eldest will watch other people assemble, adapt and test drive Nerf guns. For hours. I actually believe he would rather do this than fire actual foam bullets out of his actual Nerf Guns.  He did say once that it saved him collecting the bullets….I despair…  He will discuss the relative merits of the seemingly endless supply of you tube videos of youths testing Nerf guns. For instance he likes the style of a particular guy from Canada but the films are outdated as they get Nerf guns much later than everyone else and so he is always testing older models. And such like. Ad infinitum. Ad naseum.

I once caught them watching other people on you tube open packets of Pokémon cards. The excitement generated in my kitchen diner when one lucky random stranger got three EXs in one pack was palpable. I have heard of younger children watching other children open Kinder eggs on line.

I guess this is an extension of that other phenomenon. I call it ‘bees round the electronic device’. If one child has a personal electronic device other children would rather watch that child play on it, even if that child will not share the ‘go’s, than do anything else. At all. I think I saw this demonstrated once in a TV show (The Secret Life of a 4 Year Old?). The draw of these devices is incredible.

I  have been trying to think of an equivalent from my childhood. And I have failed. I just can’t.

All credit to these people making money out of such ventures. It certainly saves me buying the actual guns, games, cards. But it is odd. Really odd.

Electronics Fast… — November 12, 2015

Electronics Fast…

/sarahsmale/1 Comment

image

So here we go. The biggest bone of contention in my life. Electronic devices. In writing this I feel I am jumping blindfold off a very high cliff into Arctic waters patrolled by polar bears starving due to lack of sea ice….shiver.

I am not in favour of personal devices for my children. I am a late adopter technology wise myself. In fact I still have a phone that I merely use to, well, phone people – well actually I text people as nowadays actually speaking to people is a little passe- but you get my drift.

My children are, according to them, massively under deviced… I am, apparently, the devil incarnate for not ensuring they have the most up to date technology.

Eldest had an I pod touch for his 10th birthday. The others had nothing. Well they had that Wii I mentioned last time. But that is a social affair. And not all that portable.

We had a rule that he could not use the I pod before school or before all his jobs and homework were complete. He couldn’t take it to school as they are banned there. And so during quite a lot of weeks the device sat neglected on top of the bread bin for the whole time. Only being dusted off on Saturdays. And this was fine with me. In case you are wondering the bread bin is my position of choice for ‘confiscated’ items…I think it is something to do with them not being able to reach it when they were three, that no longer applies but psychologically it still works.

Then I had to deliver on my promise of getting him a phone for his start at Senior school where such devices are allowed within parameters. Apparently he would be unable to survive without one. Obviously I did. In fact I survived with 10 pence in my pocket and, in extremis, the school receptionist . And, yes, occasionally it was difficult and I did need to face the wrath of that dragon in the school office but generally all was fine. Maybe schools changed their plans less because they couldn’t really change their plans without ending up with a crisis. They could not arbitrarily decide to cancel clubs, arrange impromptu after school meetings for students, decide that all Year 7 boys should leave school from a different building on one random Tuesday. Etc. So they didn’t.

So I accepted that Eldest needed a phone, to avoid being a stranded. And because Eldest had a ‘new’ phone (actually an old handset of husband’s with a new SIM) Middlest got the I pod touch. Which then gave Youngest licence to commandeer my I pad or the ancient first generation DS, on which, one Christmas, I frightened myself determining my actual brain age and then failing to improve it much. Because Eldest could take the phone to school it came off the bread bin. And before I knew it all three were on devices before school, after school, whilst brushing their teeth, in bed, whilst watching TV etc.

I let it ride. Partly because to re-instate the ‘no device’ rules would require energy and commitment that I currently do not possess. For some reason this time of year makes me lethargic. The recent weather has made it worse. And so I am not even keeping up with this blog never mind tackling difficult and contentious child related issues.

The other reason I let it ride was that, aside from being constantly ignored, it made the mornings quieter. Bad mummy moment…

And then someone linked on Facebook to an article about how over use of electronics is ruining children’s mental health. And physical health. And emotional health. I sort of knew this. But reading the article brought it all home to me. The behaviours that the author said may improve with a reduction (or indeed a total ban) on electronic exposure were ones I recognised in all of them – even the eight year old.

So I sat down and had the conversation. It was a mistake to tell them I had read an article. They hate it when I read articles. Last time I read an article I took all the sugar I could out of their diet and Middlest still has natural yogurt flashbacks…

Anyhow I got round that blunder and managed to get them to agree to the morning ban. The after school ban unless jobs etc are done. And a bedroom charging- up- leading – to- early- morning- play ban.

Already things have calmed down. Eldest has slept better for the last two nights than ‘for ages’.  And he has started de-cluttering his bedroom ready for the make over he wants to do in there. Middlest admitted that he does not miss being awoken by Crashy Road free gift notifications in the middle of the night (!).  And Youngest has got the loom bands out.

So we will be continuing with the ban. My mornings will be more frantic. I will get pestered more. But I think it is worth it. Especially as they can all now hear me when I call up the stairs. Amazing that eh?

Project Management — October 20, 2015

Project Management

/sarahsmale/Leave a comment
Actually that was my face...
Actually that was my face…

There is currently a big black cloud on my horizon. Not literally, although after I put my washing on the line earlier it did go quite dark, no I mean metaphorically.

And the reason is the impending Year 6 Local Environmental Issue project. A forty page plus project on a local environmental issue of your choice. Quite self explanatorily.

Last year when Eldest was in Year 6 we got through the winter term relatively unscathed. Rugby took its toll and in early January his Senior school entrance exams loomed. Although the school were at pains to point out that they were just a formality.

And so he went back to school in January on fine form. Looking forward to the football term although not those exmas. And then on that first day back the school emailed out a letter.

The letter outlined the project that needed to be undertaken during the next term. At first I was confused, did they mean after Easter? Then it dawned on me that the letter was late and should have come out before the Christmas break.

And my heart sank.

The letter pulled no punches. It explained that parental involvement would be necessary. As the project required site visits and interviewing and photos. That in itself was quite refreshing. At least they were being honest about the level of work I would have to do. Usually schools seem to believe children can produce, say, the Taj Mahal out of matchsticks unaided. Ha. Ha. Ha.

In some ways I was glad for the fact that the letter had been issued late. And therefore we had remained in blissful ignorance over the seasonal festivities.

No such luck this year as Middlest hurtles his way towards the same project.

I am never really sure what such pieces of work are for. Or who.

I agree that children need to learn to manage larger pieces of extended work. They need to practise time management. Be able to plan in sensible chapters.

Unfortunately mine are some way off being able to do this independently. And so guess who ends up doing most of it? Well guiding them to do it but you know what I mean.

Not only that but they are supposed to use their humanities lessons at school to progress the project. And so in order to ensure they don’t spent those valuable hours sharpening pencils and chatting to their mates I am left lesson planning too.

And then there is the topic. I shot my best bolt local environmental issue wise last year with Eldest. I now need to think of another issue that around 40 pages of work can be produced about. Along with a photo journey and an interview and site visits. Without too much colouring in. Middlest hates colouring in.

Asking my ten year old to come up with an idea for such a project is laughable. I have asked him a couple of times if he has had any thoughts. I get a sort of blank, quizzical look. I guess one could take it as a shocking lack of knowledge. Or just be realistic; that the average ten year old wants to cause his own environmental catastrophe by owning every plastic gun in the known universe not write an extended piece about it.

So I have been wracking my brains since last year to no real avail. I have come up with the recycling journey of a yogurt pot or the impact of the new bypass near by. Neither are filling me with excitement. And both involve me in speaking to the council to get access and information and facts. Which requires me to do something before Christmas. The clock is ticking.

Had the project been about something Middlest was passionate about, say elephants or the wider environmental and conservation issues surrounding elephants, he might be more engaged. But no it has to be local. Not many elephants round here. That site visit would have been more fun too…

Or it could be a history project which would get my juices flowing and therefore by default his. And we could visit castles and I could once more coo over medieval plumbing (still find that fascinating…the forethought to build drainage through those thick, thick walls, mind blowing). In fact for me it could be any other sort of project really; history, geography, art, politics etc. Just not the same one as last year.

But, no, we are stuck with these parameters. Yawn. I spent six weeks plus of my life living, eating and breathing the last ‘issue’. Spending our weekends trawling round our local Community Forests. I like a woodland walk. I enjoy birds and wildlife. I like feeling that I am ‘contributing’ to such a worthwhile cause whilst eating organic flap jack. I just don’t enjoy having to do all that with half an eye on chapter eight whilst photographing every information board and surveying cyclists. And I certainly don’t relish having to come home and force a child to sit down and write about it. As such I have no enthusiasm left.

It is safe to say that when Eldest got 39 marks out of 40 (he lost a mark for his slightly ‘thin’ Conclusion…. by that point he had truly HAD ENOUGH) my heart sank a little. For now we need to replicate that this year. Or else Middlest will plead favouritism. Again.

I truly hope that in another two years when it is Youngest’s turn the subject will have changed. If not it will be severely tempting to recycle Eldest’s. In the name of the environment.

Footnote: After writing this I was inspired enough to e mail the Council. I got the standard ‘Our turn around time is 10 working days’ response. This is why I need to start now. Weep…

Keeping clean sheets… — October 15, 2015

Keeping clean sheets…

/sarahsmale/1 Comment

cleaning

I may have mentioned before that I do not really enjoy cleaning. If I have not mentioned that before then just so you know I do not really enjoy cleaning.

I would like to say I enjoy the results of cleaning. And I guess that for the couple of hours before the kids come back from school and husband descends a clean room does look good. And then it doesn’t. Again.

Within seconds of them arriving home the kids’ stuff starts to migrate downstairs. I am sure at some point in my Geography lessons I learnt about ‘soil creep’. Nerf Gun bullets have the same properties. Although the timeframe is speeded up. Massively.

A clean bathroom is lovely. It is impractical, however, to ban one’s family from using the facilities for any length of time. And so that shiny tap is soon covered in dried on toothpaste, the mirror acquires a sheen of hair gel and the toilet is smeared with, well, poo. And that hour you spent in there earlier seems fruitless. I resent my husband shaving, my children excreting.

Conversely when I do clean I like to do a proper job. I move furniture. Clean skirting boards and door handles and architraves. Empty the waste bins. Dust and move all the ornaments, shine towel rails and mirrors, clean the windows (inside only I have a man for the other). Etc. This is why I do not employ a cleaner. Well partly I don’t employ a cleaner for fiscal reasons but also I don’t because every cleaner I have ever had never moves anything. They clean only what they can see. What is the point of that? That is why a cleaner comes round and says it will take three hours to do my house from top to bottom. Err no it won’t. So when I clean a room it takes me a while.

In upshot I have to force myself to clean. And so to ensure I do the bare minimum I have devised a rota. As I do like ticking things off lists.

As this house is somewhat larger than my old abode I have spread the chores over three weeks. This ensures that all of the house is cleaned (to my standards) once every three weeks. If a husband or small child does a ‘lick and a promise’ on a room at some point in between all to the good. And the rota also ensures that bed sheets get changed before they walk off and stick themselves on a boil wash. Although Middlest objects to new sheets. Unless they are line dried and put straight back on. He resents that I have washed away the smell of ‘him’ that he has painstakingly built up over three weeks. Unless it is replaced by an odour he likes even more. Tough you scum bag…

As an aside here I must add that I am braving all sorts of abuse airing the fact that I wash bed sheets on a three week rotation. I am a member of a parenting forum and the most hotly debated ‘threads’, aside from who can park in mother and baby spaces, are how often to change bed sheets. Some people do it daily. My god have they not heard of the environment. At least when the world heats up so much that we all die they can do so in clean sheets. I am sure that comforts those polar bears struggling to find enough sea ice to survive. When I am lying in my own filth I feel comforted by my carbon footprint.

Anyhoo back to the rota. I have tried to split the tasks up equitably. For instance I only schedule one child’s room in any one week. There is a limit to how many ‘special shelves’ one can dust in a week. Apparently my limit is one room. Then I give myself any easy room a week- spare room, utility room, study. I end up with 5 rooms a week and some degree of laundry.

I am on Week 3 this week. When I wrote the rota it was clearly Week One. And so I had closed my eyes to Week Three. Week Three is a git. Week Three contains Eldest’s bedroom- he is the eldest (quite obviously, I do really, really spoon feed you here) and so he has the most stuff on his ‘special shelves’. In fact the tut has leaked from his ‘special shelves’ to his ‘special book shelf’, ‘special chest of drawers’, ‘special desk’ and quite often to his ‘special floor’.

For some reason I though it would be wise to link Eldest’s bedroom to the family bathroom. The family bathroom is used by all those of a male gender in our household. I leave you to draw your own conclusions about the general scussiness of that room. I do not enter except on Week Three or when I need to extricate a boy who is late for school because he is ‘on the toilet’. Usually what he is actually doing is playing Minecraft.

Also on the list is the kitchen diner. Oh My Actual Diety Of Choice what was I thinking. The kitchen diner is vast and commodious. It also contains the kitchen (again evidently) and is our main living area. That Nerf Gun bullet creep always ends up there. Along with everything else. In order to clean it I first have to spend an hour clearing it. And then it is full of shelves and dressers and musical instruments and nick nacks on pianos. And the dining table. Which rests above its cache of old food items camoflagued on the beigeish floor tiles. It is truly awful to clean.

Add in the lounge (not a big job but newly decorated and so requiring of care with the vacuum hose) and the study (books, books, books, Lord of the Rings lego) and Week Three is a bitch.

Week One on the other hand is a breeze. I am looking forward to embracing Week One next week.

For now, however, I still have the hoovering to do in Eldest’s room and it is Thursday and Week Three started last Saturday.

I am going in now.

Wish me luck.

Have you seen my…? — October 6, 2015

Have you seen my…?

/sarahsmale/Leave a comment

image

We have a saying in our family. And it goes like this.

“Have you used your Lady Eyes?”

There are a lot of us in this house. Sometimes it feels like there are far too many of us. But the number of children I decided to have is maybe an issue for another day.

So there are a lot of us. And so we have a lot of stuff.

And it appears that it is my job to keep tabs on it all.

I spend a fair amount of my day mentally logging the position of many useful objects, most of which do not belong to me.

For instance my husband finds it really hard to keep track of his spectacles. They appear to be a mobile object despite having arms and not legs. Whenever he is home and I walk past them I make that mental note so that when the inevitable enquiry is made I can respond with a GPS location. Arm of sofa, window sill in bathroom, atop the laundry basket, on the patio furniture, beside the toaster. And such like.

Last Christmas I stumbled upon a fantastic stand for him to use. That is a picture of it up there. It is positioned on the window sill next to the front door. (And incidentally whilst we are there that is the place everyone should look first for any missing item. Just saying). And the stand helps slightly. He uses it when arriving home. Or when swapping from sunglasses to indoor glasses. But it hasn’t eradicated the whole problem. I believe a string around the neck is the only sure fire way. Or he could just wear them all the time…

And then we move on to my children. I suppose we must. The current items which cause the most issues are Eldest’s phone and Middlest’s I pod. In the case of the former we could ring it to find it’s location but unfortunately it is set by default to silent so he does not fall foul of the ‘no phone use in or between lessons’ rule at school. And Middlest’s is not ringable. We lost both yesterday. And then I found them almost entirely camouflaged on the black granite fire surround in the family room. I have suggested that putting their entirely black electronics on the hearth is maybe not such a good idea moving forwards. Especially when we begin lighting the fire.

When things are actually leaving the house the pressure ramps up. I seem to be the only person who does a mental check list when leaving a sports field. This weekend I had a ‘Lady Eyes’ fail.  We discovered this at 7.45am this morning when their school lift was revving on the driveway and Eldest decided he had better check his Games kit and found his Ripstop was missing.

The Ripstop is a compulsory item. A sort of semi-waterproof, pull over the head tracksuit top. There are three in this house. People scoff at my diligent name label sewing which I undertake annually each Autumn. They say I should use a laundry pen on the care label. They don’t have three sets of everything in very similar sizes to out sort from the laundry. A name in the collar is actually as useful for me, the laundress, as it is for keeping the kit ‘safe’.  I do not want to waste time hunting for initials on a care label on a side seam.

They all have red and black stripy games socks. I decided not to bother labelling them as it is quite hard to sew a name label onto something as stretchy as a sock. What a mistake. I often have 6 socks that look almost identical but are actually slightly different sizes hanging from my airer. I am sure I am probably ruining Eldest’s feet in the manner of Chinese babies and it probably explains the blisters Youngest sometimes gets after football training.

So anyway Eldest must have taken his Ripstop onto the field for his (very sunny) Rugby match on Saturday. And left it there. At the end of the match I did send him off for his water bottle which was clearly missing but as I hadn’t seen the Ripstop come onto the field and it was about 20 degrees it slipped my mind.

It will serve him right if he gets into trouble at Rugby training today. When heavy rain is forecast. I would laugh but it really isn’t that funny at £20 a pop.

Generally my kids do quite well at not losing their stuff. That is because I get very cross when they do. And I have a rule that if they lose something they will pay to replace it. I am training them early to do their own mental checklist. Obviously there is still someway to go.

I am also a name labelling maniac. I put sticky labels on everything. Including Eldest’s phone. Which he is surprisingly sanguine about. I put a sticky label on every one of the fine liners in the pack of 10 I bought Middlest this weekend. They cost nearly £1 a pen. I felt justified. A lot of stationary gets ‘borrowed’ at school. If stuff is labelled some other child cannot claim it is ‘their’s’. Middlest explained that actually each pen cost 99.90p. I retorted that I would allow him to merely pay 99p for the last pen he lost but £1 per mislaid pen up to that point. I think he got the message.

Compared to their school mates, and possibly because of my mercenary approach, they do OK. Already this term there have been impassioned e mails from other parents pleading for the return of black jumpers, entire Games bags with contents, mouth guards, blazers (yikes £75 a go) and odd shoes. The latter really worries me. How did they get home? Hopping?

When they come out from sports clubs in kit my Lady Eyes checklist follows a certain order:- Blazer, school shoes, mouth guard, other branded items, generic clothing of which I have a spare pair at home, generic items of which I have 5 others at home, black socks. I also try to remember to mentally note any lack of musical instruments but to be fair it is quite hard to miss that a cello is missing. If you see what I mean. The absence of a  violin my slip through the net however.

And so I am chief ‘finder/ retainer of all things’. Here are my maxims:-

  • Always put stuff in the same place.
  • Always label everything.
  • Ensure kids are on board by employing a mix of ‘mummy is very disappointed’ and financial penalties.

It helps. It hasn’t really dealt with the husband problem though. I guess he will get so short sighted at some point it will solve itself.

Just the four socks today...
Just the four socks today…
Lasagna… — October 4, 2015

Lasagna…

/sarahsmale/Leave a comment

lasagna

Today I made a new meal for tea. I am trying to widen my repertoire.

It is a risky business as I am never sure of the reception such ventures will get.

By scouring the internet I had managed to find a recipe for cheese free lasagna. I had managed to source gluten free pasta sheets. I could assemble the meal and leave it on automatic to reheat. Essential whilst I dealt with the ferrying that a usual Thursday evening entails.

It is true that some of the constituent parts may have fallen foul of someone’s dislike radar. Mushrooms…youngest, spinach….everyone under 12, crème fraiche…husband. I decided to risk it.

Youngest loves lasagna as long is it is ‘not too cheesy’. We have banned her from ordering it in untried restaurants. I am sick of having to swap my delicious meal for a child’s sized portion of oven baked pasta which has failed the ‘fromage’ test. This lasagna had no cheese. Due to husband. But that also played to Youngest’s foible. And so I decided she had to suck up the mushrooms.

As everyone knows spinach tastes of nothing when incorporated with other ingredients and is just there to provide colour interest and make mothers feel better. And so again I thought I could get away with it.

I just closed my ears to the crème fraiche.

Everything else should have passed muster. Sausagemeat, pasta, passata, mild chilli, garlic, a few herbs, some seasoning.

When I was assembling it at 8.30 this morning it smelt fantastic.

Cunningly I had made the off spring wait until after Youngest had returned from football training to eat. By which point it was a full two hours later than we usually dine.

Eldest would probably have eaten anything, literally anything, I put in front of him. Brillo pad en croute… Middlest had spent the 40 minutes it took the dish to bake standing in front of the oven door peering in. I had to physically restrain him from opening up that door to ‘check it was cooking’ on several occasions. Youngest had spent 90 minutes running around a sports hall.

And to top it all apparently it is one of Mary Berry’s grandchildren’s favourites.

And so I had high hopes.

Eldest shovelled his portion down. Middlest declared it was delicious. I was immediately suspicious. This usually means he doesn’t like something. True enough despite being apparently ‘starving’ in the immediate period before serving he was ‘stuffed’ after barely half a plateful…

Youngest peered suspiciously at the ‘bits of sausage’ declaring that they looked a lot like slices of mushroom. They were but I got away with it. I banned her from out sorting all that green, healthy stuff and she managed to eat her plateful. Albeit with little enthusiasm.

Husband didn’t enjoy it at all. To be fair it probably wasn’t so good after a second reheating. And I should never close my ears to crème fraiche.

So I am not sure if it will make another appearance.

Probably not.

And this is why we eat the same meals over and over again.

Girls Day Out… — September 29, 2015

Girls Day Out…

/sarahsmale/1 Comment

IMG_4305IMG_4118IMG_1369

I think I may have introduced you to Youngest before. If you have somehow missed this please see I Know I Play Like  Girl  and Youngest.

We are very much alike in many ways. Except she can run 5k in under 30 minutes, score goals in football and throw a ball a long way. And I cannot.

In other ways though we are very similar. She is not at all girly. She does not want to wear jewelry. She is not interested in painting her nails. She doesn’t want to read about unicorns having sparkling adventures. She will not tolerate hair drying.

Although now I ponder on it she is probably this way because I am. But any way there it is.

Today we went on our annual clothes shopping trip. Every autumn she puts on a pair of trousers and they are somewhere around mid calf. And we realise that after a summer in shorts she needs new winter clothes.

When she was a baby and small toddler I loved clothes shopping for her. Before she could voice an opinion she did wear quite traditionally female clothes. Although not many were pink. I preferred red, white and blue. And she looked great in dark and bold colours.

And then once she got to Year 1 she decided she would call the shots attire wise. She refused a pinafore for school. It inhibited her running madly around the playground. So into trousers she went. She took it one step further in Year 2 eschewing the polo top and going for collared shirt and school tie. Not even many boys bothered with that.

And so clothes for leisure wear had to change too. She will not wear skirts. At all. Ever. I was slightly worried when she started her new Junior School because they insist on skirts until Year 6. She has been remarkably sanguine about that. But her line has hardened out of school.

She will wear a pretty frock. But only on holiday to a dinner and disco. I bought her a load for Greece, indulging my secret pretty dress fetish, she wore each one twice and then one of them again to a wedding. But now we cannot persuade her into one for, say, a night out. Without histrionics.

Historically we have relied on a certain large department store to come up with the goods winter clothes wise. She has had a capsule wardrobe of dark purple velour jeans, skinny denims, dark blue and purple tops, the occasional cream roll neck and a selection of fleeces. She was happy with this.

This year their selection was frankly awful. We are not interested in tops with ponies on or unicorns. We want long sleeves not short they are for WINTER. She is a rake and so has to have adjustable waists and the only pair of dark jeans she liked (bottle green) where elasticated. They fitted her legs but had about 5 inches spare round the waist. I am not sure who these clothes are made for. Very skinny legged children with fat tummies. Weird.

And so we trawled everywhere else. It was depressing.

My daughter does not want to wear clothes stating that she is a ‘Princess’ or that ‘Prettier girls have more fun’. Yes seriously. My god. I don’t often blaspheme but for the love of all that is holy why would you put a girl in that…. She doesn’t want handkerchief hems. She doesn’t want to layer in the manner of stylish ‘ladies’. She is eight she needs a top and trousers and maybe a cardy. She doesn’t want panda print smocks or jump suits with puppies on (?). I thought we had strayed into the pyjama department when I saw them but, no, jump suits, for eight year olds, with puppies on….my life. I may have mentioned before that she doesn’t like pink, in any hue. Except for that cycling top, she likes that.

We just want fun clothes in jewel colours, that co-ordinate and fit. We will accept sequins, but not if they form a ‘kiss’ on the front of her chest in a vaguely provocative way.

In the end we cobbled a few outfits together. Our final shop of the day yielded some decent stuff. Although we had to scour the racks.

She seems happy with our purchases. And I can relax for another year.

I cannot imagine it getting any easier. Sigh.

Enough Already… — September 11, 2015

Enough Already…

/sarahsmale/2 Comments

Ahhhh just Ahhhh

I want summer back.

No, I mean seriously, I do.

We are one week in and already I have had enough. Of it all.

Of the getting up at stupid o’clock. Of dragging curled bodies damp with sleep into consciousness. Of watching them stumble blearily downstairs with sandy eyes. It is cold and dark. Already. And it is only September.

I am fed up with the morning routine. I am fed up with badgering and cajoling and nagging in order to have them fed and dressed and vaguely clean before leaving the house with the proper books and snacks and water bottles and sports gear and musical instruments.

I am fed up with the school run. It took me 15 minutes to get out of the car park tonight. Fifteen minutes. I have to say I lost my rag with the poor parkers and the slow drivers and those taking too long at roundabouts as I fought against yet more time to get Youngest to her piano lesson. We were late. A bit. But I hate being late.

I hate the logistics. I hate trying to work out what to cook when so we can all eat something vaguely hot and nutritious. At a time that fits in with our various clubs or returns form work. Well when I say ‘our’ I mean their. And that they will all eat without pulling up their noses.

I had a man out to mend my oven today. I was ridiculously excited as I hoped to get my automatic timer function back. To ease the pressure of those logistics a bit. But no. He just came out looked at it and ordered a ‘bit’. And needs to come back next week and waste another day of my diminishing life. And I will spend the most part of another week trying to work round it.

I hate the homework. Tonight Youngest had to fill in a timeline of her entire life. Writing ‘at least’ a sentence for each year. But she wants to get onto the ‘Wow’ wall and so ‘needed’ to write more and add pictures. And of course as she can’t remember most of those years it wasn’t really a solo job. And Middlest was badgering me about pH scales and Eldest needed to do a poster about the number 10. Really. Yep really. He is eleven. Not sure what the aim of that was.

Tea was late. Clearing up even later. And so Youngest was late to bed. And she hasn’t read to me enough. Apparently. So we had to do that too.

And tomorrow they all have fixtures. Both husband and I need to drive miles around the countryside delivering children. And we still need to get up at stupid o’clock to deliver Eldest to school for 8.30am.

I am very, very close to just saying. You know what? Give it all up. Drop it all. So we can just slob around.

I won’t do that of course.

But I am tempted.

5 weeks to half term.

Camping…it’s in tents… — September 1, 2015

Camping…it’s in tents…

/sarahsmale/Leave a comment

image

We have just got back from a three night camping trip.

Well when I say just I don’t actually mean just. Because in order to be in a place to have some time to pen this it is around 3 hours since we returned from our three night camping trip.

In those three hours we have only managed to partially unpack. We still have a trailer full of wet ‘stuff’ to unload and dry out. But that is totally pointless currently. It being slightly….inclement. Well I guess it is a Bank Holiday Monday and so one should expect to need the heating on and a pair of waders.

I have a love hate relationship with camping. I love it in the dry. And I hate it in the wet.

And even that is not strictly true. I love it in the dry but only once we are set up. And I don’t love it in the dry when taking it all down again. And I truly hate it all in the wet.

The things I like about camping are the freedom it affords the kids, snuggling up in layers of thermals in a toasty sleeping bag with all my children within touching distance, the fresh air, waking early, going outside and putting on my whistling kettle and watching the rest of the site wake up whilst supping tea, and the low cost.

None of this is much fun in the rain. Excepting the cost. But even then it feels like good weather should come as standard. Not an added bonus.

Through our years of experience we have decided that the optimum length of a camping trip is between 3 and 6 nights inclusive.

There is no point camping for less that three nights. The ratio of ‘putting up and taking down’-ness to time enjoying the actual camping is too low. And after six nights I cannot stand yet another day of bending down. To do everything. Unzip the door, make a cup of tea, get into bed. Etc etc. I crave worktops and door handles. And a toilet in the same abode as me. I am lucky to possess a cast iron bladder. And I do not drink. So do not need to venture out at night. Unfortunately my children often do. And require some assistance.

Part of the ‘putting up and taking down’ problem is that we do not camp light. This is, in part, down to trying to mitigate the ‘bending down’ issue. So we have collapsible tables, a cooker on legs, pop up dustbin, portable picnic table, very large tent etc.

And on the subject of tents. Tents come under the ‘gear’ category of purchase. My husband has a penchant for buying ‘gear’ for whatever activity he currently favours. He will pour over websites for hours checking reviews and ensuring whatever it is he purchases is the best in the field.

He ordered our most recent tent when our old one was irredeemably broken. Well he ordered a different tent to the one we currently have. Actually it was the same tent but in canvas. He had read somewhere during his extensive research that they have better thermal properties. He had failed to realise that it would weigh about as much as a small elephant. And would not fit in the trailer. Well I could have got it in (with the aid of a small crane) but nothing else would then have fitted. And I wasn’t going to leave all those knee saving devices at home just for a bit of thermal equilibrium.

So I was the one who rang the on line store. They were very good about it. Apparently it happens a lot. Men struggling to comprehend the dimensions on a website. Seeing truly is believing. And they agreed to send me the same tent in man made fibres and remove the huge boxes littering my hall. Which I could not physically move.

Still the tent is a monster. There are five of us so we do need quite a bit of space. But even I think being able to ball room dance in your lounge area in a tent is a little excessive.

However it comes into its own in the wet when all our other equipment has to come indoors. And we want to play endless rounds of Uno with whichever friends we are camping with. When I say ‘want to’…..

So today after a lovely few days when the rain had held off and we went biking and touring flour mills and eating cake and dancing to live bands and playing Bingo and doing scavenger hunts and chatting by our fire pit we collapsed everything. In the pouring down rain.

I managed to get the boot packed before it got really bad. But the gear in the trailer got soaked. We struggled more than usual to manhandle our gigantic tent into the small bag. Probably because there was a gallon of water in it. And also because, yet again, husband could not remember how to fold it. And we had the ‘Great Folding the Tent’ argument. Again. Every time.

Anyhoo as soon as there is a break in the clouds we will be putting the tent up again. In our garden. We will have the great ‘Trying to get the Pins into the Legs’ argument. For the second time in four days.

My boys are getting old enough to share a pup tent. I believe it is time we downsized. And got fibre glass poles.

Or a caravan?

The back of our tent....in the garden...
The back of our tent….in the garden…