Keeping up with the Grandparents

Letting your child spend too long with their grandparents can have its downsides I have discovered. I have just been told by no.1 son that he expects £2 rather than the customary £1 next time a tooth comes out, as this is what he received from the tooth-fairy at Mamgu (Welsh for Granny) and Granfer's house. He has also just asked me to put his pyjamas to warm on the towel rail so they are ready for when he gets out of the bath! This indulgence has also been instigated by my mum. How come I didn't get that kind of treatment from them when I was a child?!

The Village Fete

This afternoon I am helping out at the Worstead Festival in the Children's Craft Tent. As I see it there are two major flaws in this arrangement. First of all I have no discernible creative talent whatsoever and second, I don't much like children. If I mess up enough today they hopefully won't ask me again next year, or that's the plan.
It is incredible the level of emotion which a seemingly simple and supposedly enjoyable event can generate. Life-long friendships, akin to those formed whilst in the trenches, can be made or broken over the best technique to win the tug-of-war. I have witnessed grow men weep as they lose their 'how hard can you hit the hammer' title to a rival. Potential prize marrows are closely guarded by their owners in case of sabotage. Poor old Jack Carter was a broken man after his ended up as ratatouille before the judging was done. He was last seen trashing his allotment before retreating to his shed with a bottle of grow-more muttering incoherently.
However, by far the ugliest incident to date was back in 2009 when paramedics were called to the Women's Institute tent where Linda Pilkington-Smythe had been found choking on her own Victoria Sponge, the whole sponge. Thank goodness it was so light and fluffy or the outcome could have been more along 'Midsomer Murders' lines.
...and so off we all go for an afternoon of fun and frolics, small children with temporary (we hope) tattoos, the smell of hot-dogs and my son returning home full of E numbers and with £10 worth of junk. All I can say is thank the Lord there isn't any Morris Dancing.


P.S - lots of my lovely friends are involved in this festival and a lot of hard work goes into it. It is a fantastic event and you need to dismiss all of the above as poetic licence!

The Sleepover

The Sleepover MUST have been conceived of, named, and the phenomenon perpetuated, by someone who isn't and never was the parent of a 6-16 year old. Having someone else's child to look after is a very different 'bouilloire de poisson' as the French like to say (it's true, I've heard them) to caring for your own offspring.
First comes behaviour and discipline. It's easy with your own child because you know what works (no sweets, no pocket money, having to watch 'Dickinson's Real Deal' on repeat), but what do you do if the guest is misbehaving? I have spent five hours every day, for 40 weeks each year, of the last 17 years of my life with classes of 30 teenagers in front of me, but two mutinous eight year olds can terrify the living daylights out of me.
Next we face the dilemma of feeding them. My son is the fussiest of eaters but at least I know what he WILL eat. I recall one young lad coming to ours for the first time so I thought I would play safe and give them pizza. As I served it up he informed me he didn't like cheese. So, I offered him a mushroom omelette. He said yes, so I made one and he didn't like it. Concerned that the poor boy was going to starve I found some burgers in the freezer and cooked one for him. He began to turn his nose up again when something inside me quietly snapped and I said in my best, calm, teacher voice "Eat it".  He did. It turns out he was vegetarian. Not any more he isn't.
Finally we come to bed-time and sleeping. My tactic is normally to keep them up quite late in the hope that they will sleep once they go to bed. This sometimes works but not always. On a recent sleepover my husband and I were woken by two shadowy figures looming over our bed at 1am like two of the four horsemen of the apocalypse (Lord knows where the others were - probably installing the self-checkout machines at Sainsbury's) asking for a drink of water. Armageddon very nearly arrived early that night, but I kept my cool, lay back and thought of the day (or rather, night) when it would be some other parents' turn to return the favour.

School dinners v packed lunches

With the debate about children's lunches 'on the menu' again (sorry, that was appalling, I can only apologise and promise not to do it again) I have been thinking back to my school days and the offerings, masquerading as food, which we were given on a daily basis. Now I was by no means a fussy eater, but some of the dishes we were fed were quite frankly inedible. We re-christened the Spaghetti Bolognese 'minced morsels' which, if I remember rightly was a dog food. Looking back I don't think it contained a shred of beef. If we could return to the late 70s and test it I think we might solve the mystery of what happened to Shergar. By far the worst though was 'Cowboy Hotpot' a cunning but ultimately ill-advised attempt to make us eat liver. To this day offal is the only thing that I really can't stomach.

On the whole Bryn has packed lunches and, being an ASBO mum, I am probably partly to blame for the recent assertion that our children would get much healthier food if they ate school dinners. I would love him to have school dinners every day (even at the weekends in fact) as I hate the chore of making his packed lunch in the evening along with the umpteen other things I have to squeeze in as my bed calls to me. A couple of weeks ago I got off the sofa and said rather wearily to Bryn "I suppose I'd better go and get your packed lunch ready". Much to my surprise he said "I'll do it". We went to the kitchen and I cleaned out his lunch box. Then he said "Can you get me a smoothie out of the fridge?", so I did. Next came "I can't reach the Pom Bears. Can you get some down?", so I did. Then he asked "Can you get me a cheese scone and the butter out of the fridge and cut the scone in half?" So I did. It continued in a similar vein for a while longer when he finally he declared "This is easy. I don't know why you make such a fuss about it"!!!!

 

Growing up and Growing Old

Last week saw the 40th birthday of my 'little' brother. My 'baby' brother still has a couple of years to go before hitting this milestone, by which point I shall be 44 and apparently officially middle-aged. Other people getting older always seems to take us by surprise which is a bit strange as time marches on for all of us at the same pace. I am constantly amazed that the toddlers I baby-sat for in my 20s are passing driving tests, going to University and even having children of their own. I can recall the look of bemused acceptance on my parents' faces at my own 40th birthday celebrations as they took in the fact that their 'little rag doll' (apparently that's what I looked like as I emerged into the world) was now entering her 5th decade. At least I have had the decency to remain petite. Looking at a strapping 6 foot 5 rugby player and thinking 'that was my baby once' must be quite disconcerting. Both my parents do little things which point to the fact that they can't get over the reality that my siblings and I are no longer 4, 6 and 8. When crossing the road with my dad he will always put his hand out in a protective gesture just in case I am taken by a sudden urge to run in front of a passing car. My mum still reads menus out loud to us if we are eating out as a family even though we are all reasonably literate.
Age is an odd thing, and the older I get the more I subscribe to the school of thought that it is 'just a number'. I have lived independently for 20 years, had what most would consider a responsible job for 18 years, got married and had a child. However, I still can't shake off the feeling that I am somehow 'pretending', a bit like playing 'Mummies and Daddies'. You see, I really don't feel any different from when I was in my late teens. I keep wondering if other people of my age feel the same way and whether I'll wake up one day and finally feel that I have made it and become a bona fide, fully fledged grown up. I don't know, so for the time being I shall continue living as a teenager in an adult's skin.

ASBO Mum

It has often been said that your best parenting is done before you actually have children and I for one hold my hands up to this accusation. Before Bryn was born I was determined that he was not going to have a dummy and that he was going to be well and truly breast-fed. Both of those assertions lasted approximately a week, though to be fair the breast-feeding thing was rather out of my control.
Next comes food. My child was going to be the one eating lots of fruit and veg, asking me for hummus and organic, unsweetened yoghurt in the supermarket and turning his nose up at white carbs and processed foods. He was going to be brought up firmly, with strict routines, no shouting and limited TV.
Forward a couple of years and he is a toddler. I am out in the street screaming like a banshee and stuffing him full of crisps and sweets in an attempt to calm him down because he is overtired on account of staying up to watch The Exorcist last night. It was following a similar scenario (by the way Social Services I lied about The Exorcist) that I gave myself the nickname 'Asbo Mum' and I have done a pretty good job of living up to it ever since!
No, on the whole Bryn is very little trouble and we get on really well. However, one day a few months ago I had clearly done something to upset him as he did not speak to me for ages. He broke his silence to inform me that he was looking for a new mummy on ebay. When I asked how much money he was able to bid and could she make chocolate brownies like mine he said "£1.76" and looked a bit crest-fallen. Needless to say he decided to stick with me, for all my faults, but at least I now know how much it would cost to replace me!