How bad could it be? muses Mum

The worst thing about being a Mum is the amount of bossiness and judicial involvement required to try and maintain a remotely civilised household. I sometimes fantasise about kicking back with a big fat cigar in my mouth in a massive armchair (the type that massages your whole body) and saying to the children ‘Do your worst’ with a smile that would rival Hannibal’s from the A team. What would be the worse that could happen?

I’m thinking along the lines of William Golding’s The Lord of The Flies, culminating in a ritual where I am held aloft as my children chant ‘kill the pig, cut her throat’. Then London riot version 2: out in the country, would commence.

Or I might be pleasantly surprised…. how bad would they let their rooms get before thinking ‘perhaps I better tidy up’? Would they start to think twice about chucking milk on the floor and upending a plate full of crumbs once they realised they would have to clean the mess up themselves. Would baby boy finally develop a self-preservation instinct or would he accidentally kill himself without me catching him or shouting ‘no’ for the hundredth time.

I am not naturally a bossy person and I am not that keen at taking charge so that bit of motherhood I find hard but nethertheless I have to do it for the sake of society…..

I am blogging for Unicef.

Thanks for reading.

Teenager at eight

Its the start of the summer holidays and the beginnings of many day trips. I take my mum, baby boy and daughter to the zoo and baby boy takes along his toy giraffe and monkey in anticipation of meeting the real thing. He gets to see no less than six giraffe, one tiger, four zebra, two tapir, fifteen flamingo, three meerkats, two camels, lots of birds and endangered species i can’t recall their names, but very cute and rare.

While going round the zoo in the heat of the sun, i did notice one or two people get a little bit tetchy and grumpy, namely my eight going on eighteen year old daughter. She is having sleep problems,so my husband and I have enlisted the help of Bach’s flower remedies in an attempt to help wind her down. Clearly it did not work last night.

I know at times, my mum can be a little irritating, but my daughter just could not tolerate her nuances full-stop. It was exhausting to keep nagging her to be more polite and to stop her bossing us about where next to go and when she would be getting ice-cream. She was also being argumentative with my mother and, as my mum got more annoyed, my daughter removed herself more and more from making eye contact and verbal contact with her granny.   My mum then interrogated me as to what could be done and why she was behaving like this as it was extraordinary. In a hot, bothered and tired moment, I did what a lot of Mums no doubt do and blamed my husband’s gene pool.

 My mum seemed satisfied with this answer saying ‘I wasn’t like that at eight’. But kids are getting older and the goalposts changed – i just dont want her to experience the teenage attitude problems too early…..

Only another six weeks to go…..

This blog is for Unicef. Thanks for reading.

Loving Looming

My daughter, like many children under the age of 17 (or even older), have been sucked into the new craze that is rainbow loom. She had begged me for ages to get one, but I dont believe in buying things for the sake of it, there has to be good reason (e.g. birthday, christmas, reward for something impressive etc). In the end my friend bought her a loom and band set in a very belated birthday present (about 5 months late).

Then I kept losing my tablet as the loom addiction took hold and my daughter sought you tube clip demos of all the different styles. I kept hearing the sound of an American girl’s voice through the house as my daughter followed the instructions, “what you wanna do is take the band, then you wanna get your hook and…”

All sorts of colour creations were spun and baby boy became the in-house model, mainly because she could make bracelets quickly as his wrists are so small.

I left her to enjoy it for herself, never thinking to give it a go….until last night. My daughter showed me how to do a fishtail and now I am hooked.

My mum bought more bands today and I am now browsing you tube to see what can be created. Ankle bracelets, rings,charms, you name it, I want to give it a go.

We are off to Camp Bestival next week so I am keen to produce a load of funky bracelets ready for then.

I think, really, I am still eight years old and what’s great is that my eight year old is not old enough yet to be embarrassed by her Mum joining in. We are now a team of loomers.

This blog is for Unicef.Thanks for reading.

Private Baby Benjamin

Now I am nearly a stay at home mum, i am thinking of what i can do to increase exercise with baby boy tagging along.

I have already tried interval running, which involves me pushing baby boy in the buggy (not one of those expensive jogging buggies, just my bog standard mclaren). I run and push for 1 minute, then walk for 2, although baby boy makes a good personal trainer, nagging me as soon as his buggy slows down.

I have been powerhooping once a week, with baby boy sat in the buggy in the corner of our village hall passing quiet judgement on us ladies spinning around. He even joins in for the stretching bit.

So with a bit more spare time, i am going to embark on ‘boot camp’. This concept has been popular for some time but i have yet to give it a go. Like most people, i will do more if pushed so figure it will be a good, if slightly painful experience. The boot camp lady will also let you bring your child, but quite what they do while you are being put through your paces is a mystery. I did notice at the school summer fair that the pre-schoolers of boot camp mums did do particularly well in the under fives race. So watch this space…..

This blog is for Unicef.

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A very British School Summer Fair

Things that dont normally happen at your average school summer fair:

1) you win the bid for a pair of Alexander Mcqueen Puma sneakers supposedly once worn by Miley Cyrus (they must have been worn for namoseconds as they were not remotely cheesy). My daughter is thrilled to have won them (she will have to wait a couple of years for her feet to grow) and I was semi-humiliated as it was announced how much I bid (after a glass of Pimms and mild sunstroke). I laughed it off saying it was an early Christmas present and I figured at least the money (£70) is going to the school. My daughter seemed more than happy to have them as her Christmas present, although I wonder how she will still feel about that come December. Before i bid for them I was initially disappointed as I selfishly thought i could have them for myself, but when i discovered they were size ‘4’ it then dawned on me that I have a daughter who is showing the beginnings of shoe worship like her mother. In fact she has an effortless style that i never seemed to be able to carry off when I was eight, probably because my dad was too busy enlarging my girth with frequent trips to McDonalds.

Things that normally happen:

1) Gossip and the discovery that any news from you has already raced its way through the grapevine so that you have nothing to add (except put a few facts straight)

2) Getting a bit too competitive in the Mums race – I tried not to care that i didnt get a medal for coming third (i will wear trainers next time)

3) drinking a bit too much pimms

4) Moaning about senior management decisions, in this instance changing the school logo to…..wait for it……a child’s drawing of a tree (how original) to add insult to injury it looks more like a propeller with green blades

5) Just when you successfully had a clear out of toys, books and bears for the fair donations pile, you end up walking out of there with an armful of more toys, books and bears

6) The home movie that you will watch over and over again when your son is older of his first ever race (he was too comfortable to stand up for the get set, ready, go part and came in second to last – but was one of the cutest on the track)

7) Two children with way too much sugar in their bloodstream

8) The need to lie down in a darkened room, plus lots of paracetamol afterwards

But its all good in the mummy hood.

This blog is for Unicef. Thanks for reading.

Happiness is perfect yet perfect isnt happy

I read an article by actress and stand-up comedian Francesca Martinez. It was brilliant and inspired me to order her book ‘What the f*** is normal?’ It also made me re-evaluate some of my views, particularly relating to parenting disabled children. I had always thought that parenting a disabled child overwhelming, although I could never have brought myself to abort a baby based on a predicted disability forecast by health professionals – a predicament that would have no doubt finished our marriage. My husband’s views on bringing up a disabled child are in contrary to his own childhood, which was marred by severe hearing loss due to brain damage.

Francesca looks at it from a different angle, ‘Most parents-to-be still fear that their beloved Newborn will turn out to be -oh, the horror – disabled. My personal fear is that my future child will turn out to be unhappy. I don’t care what he or she can or can’t do, how they talk or walk or how many fingers and toes they have. Because I don’t think that is a good indicator of happiness. Forget aborting babies because of the suffering they might endure. What about the suffering they will create? Wouldn’t it make sense to develop a test to check for the arms-dealer gene, the advertising executive gene, the corporate-overlord gene, or the gossip-magazine editor gene? That would eliminate quite a lot of suffering.’

I wish I had read Francesca’s article in The Guardian before I passed judgement on my daughter’s maths test mark. She described the scale of marks to me with 6 being the top score. I cant pretend that I was disappointed she had got a 3, they then get a sub mark in the form of letters, with A being the lowest and D being the top. Her total mark was 3B. I couldn’t hold back this disappointment and said that I didn’t  think her mark was ‘that good’ and that if she wanted to get into boarding school (her wish not mine) she was going to need to get a 5 or 6. What made me suddenly turn into a mother with the support and encouragement skills of an amoeba? Why did I turn into one of those pushy mothers who focus so much on grades they don’t recognise their daughter’s anorexia and anxiety attacks because of this unnecessary pressure to perform. Most parents say they just want their child to be happy, but also gets lots of qualifications and a high-earning job, the stress of which will put them into an early grave? I managed to halt the destructive path I was proceeding down when she explained to me that she had done her best and I later described it to Daddy in front of her as a ‘good’ mark, to which he said, ‘well that’s OK, it’s average’ gah! So I quickly added that no doubt Mummy and Daddy would have scored a 0 or a 1 if we had taken the same test at her age. Then I thought about the research that found those  who doubt their own maths abilities pass this down to their children. A fine case of how not to support the school life of an 8 year old. Next time I will apply duck tape to our mouths.

So tests are meant to give the teachers a steer on how the child is progressing and what additional support the child needs. I just wish teachers would give parents a steer  as to how we handle the news of the scores and whether we do nothing, praise regardless or encourage to try harder.

I agree with Francesca that kids and adults should just aim to be happy, so why as parents are we so f***in obsessed with perfection, when we are anything but.

I am blogging for Unicef.

Thanks for reading.

 

Didis and dodos

Every now and then you come across a person who fits their stereotype as neatly as a white upper middle class conservative. It was at a country club, surprise, surprise.

I don’t frequent country clubs, I neither have the budget nor the inclination, but, as most of my life experiences have come about, I was offered a freebie visit through a family friend who happened to be going with her friend ‘Didi’ after school. As it turned out Didi had a daughter the same age as my friend’s daughter and a boy the same age as my own daughter. I met Didi soaking wet in a swimming costume with a frill around her hips (which tend to be worn strangely by apple shaped women who wear it at an attempt to detract attention away from the bottom and thigh area when in fact they may as well have a sign pointing to below the hip saying ‘look here’). But don’t let the cutesy costume fool you from the Didis of this world, one look at that her steely glaze with unflinching direct eye contact told me that:

A) she probably rides horses

B) most likely to have been privately educated

C) is going to be a tad bossy and domineering as many of the ‘pushy middle class mums’ tend to be

At this point I had to scold the little voice in my head with ‘dont judge a book by its cover, she hasn’t even said a word and already she is in a box’. “Hello I’m Didi, nice to meet you, the boys are in the pool already, lets get this lot in their costumes, I assume you are staying for supper, I have lots of kindles and iPad we can ‘plug the children into’ (while she haw haws over a glass of wine…… shut-up voice in my head). I smile and nod and before I know it my friend’s children and mine are ‘cluck-clucked’ to the pool by Didi. Then pool session over, in the showers and then she is going round brushing everyone’s hair with aussie miracle spray (including my daughter who loved it), sorting the seating arrangements out in the country club bar and recommending the most expensive items on the menu.

After she has got half of PC World out for the kids and got a glass of wine in hand, she then embarks on confirming my inner voice’s assumptions. “well of course I said to the teacher, the forest school route hadn’t been properly risk assessed, it was far too close to a bridleway and any rider knows a horse can spook at anything, then buck and goodness knows what could happen” (I found this scenario so far fetched that she may as well have been including in her assessment earth tremors and hurricanes. What she really meant was ‘i want to demonstrate that I am a horse person and this tenuous link is the best way I can do that). Then came assumption b) “I have my eldest down at prep school and my daughter will follow suit, you just can’t beat the class sizes”. In between utterances she was clucking round the table like a mother hen seeing to everyone’s children and paused for rather too long at something situated on my son’s chair, prompting me to look and notice he had wet his trousers as she flounces away in quiet merciless judgement. Before her posh chaos exits the room she makes some remark about her husband playing golf’ (apparently better than her first husband), how she ‘travelled the world and London’ before settling here and listened to my views on co-education with a stony expression before saying “what a funny idea”.

So stereotypically middle-class Brit was this encounter that I was half expecting someone to say ‘cut’ and finding myself mistakenly placed on the set of the next Bridget Jones movie. If this indeed had happened I would fantasise that ‘Didi’ would once again return to her actual name of ‘Diane’ and say ‘thank god that’s over, it takes effort to play the part of a point-scoring, social climbing bitch’ and then tell me how she graffitid all over the local UKIP signs.

But that would be a fictitious character.

I am blogging every day for UNICEF – read about it here.

Thanks for reading.

 

Hermione Granger brought out the worst in me

Yesterday was world book day, a chance for youngsters to celebrate the joy of reading by dressing up as on of their favourite book characters. For parents it is yet another thing to momentarily fret over. After receiving a week’s notice via your child requesting they dress up as someone rather special, you start scanning the far reaches of your memory to identify any current household item that could pass as an outfit fit for a classic book character. In my case it was Hermione Granger. This is fairly easy as she wears school uniform plus my daughter was quite happy to wear her own uniform but what had to be provided was the all important cape. “Have you not got an old skirt you could cut up?’, suggested my Mother in Law, I looked at her blankly as a) I tend to where everything I have in my wardrobe (I have a rule that if I haven’t worn it in 3 months it goes to the charity shop -assuming it is the relevant season, I don’t go ditching shorts in winter). Also, I can’t recall the last time I wore a skirt long enough to be worn as a cape by an 8 year old, I think it might have been 2002 and even then I recall feeling a tad frumpy.

Unperturbed by my response, my mother in law suggested searching for a skirt in a charity shop. I am a regular in charity shops and know how hard it is to find something specific, open-mindedness is key to browsing. Searching for a black ankle length skirt isn’t that easy. I was very thankful of her suggestions but my mother in law is a domestic goddess who can rustle up anything with a sewing machine. Lesser mortals who have yet to discover sewing machines, like me, prefer Amazon instead. But Amazon had postage turnarounds that weren’t quick enough for a slightly disorganised mother and the budget wasn’t looking good either. So I turned to a local party and fancy dress shop. One call to them and I had successfully reserved a cape in black, of the right size and within budget. It also had a rather groovy green lining. I excitedly rushed off the phone to tell my daughter. Her response was of horror, “green!”, she said, “I can’t wear green, that’s the colour of Slytherin”. As any Harry Potter fan will know, the house of Slytherin represents the baddies in the story, there was no way my daughter wanted to be seen as one of the baddies. So I picked up the phone again to cancel the order and surprise, surprise it was going to cost slightly more to deserve the pure black cape (groan).

The following day we went to pick it up, driving 15 minutes in the  opposite direction of home on the ride back from school to stop off at the party shop. Turned out it was quite a good cape and represented value for money as it could be used at Halloween too.

So, with that task ticked off my list, I arrived at the bus stop on a world book day confident that I had done the best as I could to help my daughter in her quest to be Hermione (she had also added accessories from our trip to Universal Studios last month). As I stopped the car and got ready to get out, I glanced at the children at the bus stop and saw to my horror a perfect Hermione complete with Gryffindor tie and matching cloak. It helped that she had long hair (unlike my daughter’s choppy bob-cut) and it was crimped and styled to perfection. What made it worse was she was two years below my daughter, barely out of reception. I quietly hoped my daughter hadn’t spotted her but I could tell by seeing her face in the rear view mirror that she had. While I tried to boost my daughter’s confidence by talking about how good she looked, I couldn’t help but feel irritated and it was all I could do not to glower at the child and mother. My reaction was to question the authenticity of the child’s interest in Harry Potter. I said to my daughter, “There is no way she is old enough to watch the films let alone read the books”. I found my reaction hysterical. What next, was I then going to confront the mother and test the child’s Harry Potter knowledge? I felt like telling her to get back in the fairy and princess dresses and leave the witches and wizardry until she is at least in juniors. So that day Hermione brought out all the feelings that I hate feeling: jealousy, competitiveness and a sense that we never really make it out of the playground – those shenanigans just take place elsewhere with a lot more money involved.

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Pushy Mum syndrome

I suffered a severe attack of pushy mum syndrome earlier. I am not overly enamored with the class teacher this year. She seems to be a bit stifling – a bit of a jobsworth – looking for the negative rather than the positive (if her comments on my daughter’s homework are anything to go by). I need to realise that teachers are not there to look for the positive they need to pick out what is wrong and what can be improved on. But what pees me off the most is that the homework is written for the parents not the children – so it is up to us to translate what the teacher wants. This is particularly annoying when you translate it in a way the teacher didn’t want. My daughter is nearly seven and I think that the homework set should be written for the children to understand the instructions – not the parents. We should be there to support them but essentially they should be able to read the homework and know what the teacher is asking them to do.

Because my daughter was struggling to grasp the concept (it took me a while too – the teacher would not get an award from the plain English campaign) I started to slip into imagining this scenario of a crowded class with not enough teachers to cater for the needs of the class and my daughter somewhere at the back of the class gazing out of the window completely disengaged. Silly I know but I seem to be all too ready to default to that scenario the minute my daughter shows signs she is struggling. I don’t like being like this……the worse is yet to come in my paranoid parent behaviour……….(here it comes)

There was a note in my daughter’s school book bag about the christmas nativity – it said something along the lines of “If your child has a speaking part please help them to learn the lines. If your child does not have a script then they will have a dance or performance part and will learn their character in rehearsals”. I was disappointed. My daughter didn’t have a speaking part. She was completely oblivious to this and not bothered at all. I was hoping that as her class would be the eldest in the infant nativity that she would get a speaking part – I HATE that I think like this – I am nothing better than a pushy mother in a sulk. “Right that’s it we are changing schools!” (OK I was half joking) My daughter said, “no I like my school and I like my teacher”. “But when I am in Juniors (she said) I will be able to audition for a part” I couldn’t believe she was trying to placate my feelings by explaining in her own way that she will have a chance next year. It was almost as if she was reading my mind, “I pay all this money on theatre school and you don’t get a speaking part in the nativity”. If I am honest that is what I was thinking. SAD isn’t it?

As parents, the tricky part is working out when you need to step in an intervene and when you need to back the hell off.

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Awkward siblings

It was my hubby’s birthday today and we celebrated by jumping on our motorbikes and cruising to one of our favourite pubs for dinner and drinks. It was bliss. The day was slightly marred, however, by the arrival of our nephew. Don’t get us wrong the arrival of a baby is always fabulous news. But the inconsiderate little bugger decided to share his birthday with his Uncle. My hubby doesn’t do sharing. What are the chances? 365 days of the year and he chooses the 18th September.

This situation is further exacerbated because sister-in-law is the type of Mum that falls into the category of ‘oh shit I am over 40 and haven’t had kids yet’. Her first child is only 14 months old and no sooner had she been born then it was ‘oh shit I am still over 40 and have an only child’ hence the arrival of child number two. Maternal she is not, but thankfully a nanny is on standby to sort out all the stupid routines she has got herself caught up in (afternoon milk, giving sweet alternatives because child won’t eat etc etc). They have recently moved into the most child unfriendly place imaginable (short of being in a lighthouse  – stairs and water aren’t a good combination). This house has three storeys and sash windows on the upper floors that open at your feet – it gave me nightmares just looking at it.

Anyway she is just a bit irritating, likes everyone to dance to her tune (first born syndrome) and very endearingly announced her second pregnancy on the day we were celebrating my other sister-in-laws 40th birthday (didn’t occur to her or my mother in law in fact that the news might rain on my sister in law’s parade?). Now the birthday clash. Right griping over – that feels a lot better.

Its just all a bit awkward because no-one has ever addressed the issue. To put it bluntly my hubby and his middle sister don’t feel as ‘special’ as the eldest. I think that is a hard issue to address and one that is a common problem. Awkward is a great way to describe it as it is awkward even to talk about it but therein lies the problem – everyone dodging the fact that they need to tell their parents how they feel. I did it recently with my Mum and it felt like a humongous load had been lifted off my shoulders. I hope that my kids tell me when they think something is unfair – sure they will do it in their younger years over a toy or a game but its much, much harder to do in adulthood. If everyone was straight with each other there would be nowhere near as many family feuds – do you agree?

I am writing this blog everyday to raise money for Unicef – if you are able to donate please view my fundraising page. If not thanks for reading – I try to write something entertaining or intriguing each day, no matter how dull the day has been.