strike days

So it's a teacher strike day and you have two options: 1. you can view spending the day with your children as an unexpected bonus or 2.  an inconvenience and vent your feelings about the teaching profession on social networks.

 I am a teacher three days a week (officially), but not today. Being part time, the strike has fallen on a day off. My union isn't striking so I would have been in work anyway. I am, however, avoiding social network sites today after writing a Jerry Maguire style status which I am scared will go viral as a couple of friends have already shared it!

Back to the way I am spending my day. Only two of my three children are affected so we waved goodbye to the eldest at 8.40, leaving her on a deserted playground and our day began. There are things I have to do today, so we returned home and tidied up a bit, made the builders tea, my children helped me collect donations from our local church and take them to the Food Bank . All this with the promise of a visit to Fun World, where the toddler mummies have been surprised as a legion of mums, dads and other carers descend upon them with big kids.

I am sitting in this cold shed trying to blog for the first time on my mobile phone with one eye on the kids. They don't need me and they won't want me until they are thirsty (except when I had to help 5 year old  down curl- wurly slide, I would have happily gone up again but she wasn’t having any of it) Later we are going to the supermarket to buy interesting things for tea - they have a friend coming. They will have to sit and watch a film for some part of the day as I have a full day of work tomorrow and I tend to plan Weds afternoon, otherwise they spend Sunday afternoons in front of telly whilst their mummy and daddy prepare, mark, plan, discuss and despair. (Oops gone back  to whinging teacher mode and I am not one of those today.) Its not the way I wanted to spend the day, I had thought about the zoo, but then the strike day would cost me £40 plus what-ever I spend for lunch. I might start complaining about my comrades then.

Anyway, today is busier than I had hoped, a school friend of my husband is coming over tonight, so I cannot say “stuff it” and play with the girls all day like I really, really want to do. We have to go home and do the chores, or at least think very hard about doing them. Besides the builders will need me soon, like my girls, they get thirsty, someone has to make the tea ;-)

 

Post script: Then I get a message from the school I work in: Ofsted are in tomorrow.  Karma? You can keep it!

 

matching socks

There are days in our household when nothing goes right, quite a lot of them, in fact. Days when I am reduced to drying tights with a hairdryer or digging out nearly fresh socks from the dirty linen bin. Those days when, after I have walked the girls to school and am kissing them goodbye, I notice that they are in a dirty dress, they still have tooth paste over their mouth, breakfast round their face, shoes on the wrong feet or odd socks on.

Odd socks are actually the norm in our house. I think you can get away with it in the winter when you’re wearing boots, I tend to be able to find matching school socks, but the weekend is a nightmare. We usually try to make a feature of it, like it’s done on purpose because we are a wacky and carefree family who delight in the freedom of mismatching footwear. The jubilant days when we all (including the man of the house) have matching socks are rare indeed but give me such a sense of achievement, when that happens we would wear sandals in the snow to show just how organised I am!

 

austerity cuts

There are a number of things my children have done since they were tiny and I suppose like everything when its free (or at least very reasonable) you take it for granted, until it is no longer there. Then you value it, then you miss it like hell and resent whoever it is that has taken it away.

One of the things we do is go to a local library. We spend an hour there, I am complimented on my animated reading aloud skills (my drama training wasn’t wasted.) The librarians are helpful and cheerful, they know stuff about books too which is a plus. When the children were little, my child minder used to take them to storytelling on Thursday afternoons.

This all started to change 18 months ago, the librarians’ smiles started to disappear and then so did the librarians. They are being replaced by a card system, I’m not sure how that will help some of the senior citizens fathom the internet. The next to go, is the lady who produces the monthly quiz. March is the last one. I think she had decided to stop when she knew her time was up, after all she had done in it her own time, under her own volition. An elderly gentleman expressed disappointment and she gave in. The last quiz now lies on the desk.

Since taking the children, I have started to read library books again. I have read history books, biographies, romances, mythology and I discovered Phillippa Gregory just before the BBC did.

Last month we were asked to fill out a questionnaire about opening hours. One solution was to close it on a Saturday. A Saturday! Are you kidding? Do you not want children to read? There is a popular dance school taking place in the church directly in front of the library, on Saturdays the library is full of tots in tutus.

On a recent trip to the library on a rainy Saturday afternoon, I parked the car in one of the few spaces by the library (look, we had a lot of heavy books ok, we do usually walk) and talked to the children about the changes happening to the library and a few other services we use. I tried to explain to them that the council had to save 123 million pounds. They didn’t understand.

Every third Sunday of the month, there is a nature club. My niece and my middle child are the same age, they love to go bird watching and bug hunting and canal boating. Last Sunday was the last session, although there are activities in the Easter holidays. My girls came home in a militant mood. They wanted to protest, they wanted to raise money, even if it meant me baking lots and lots of cakes for a bake sale.

I once again tried to explain the reasons behind the cuts, but my middle child wailed in most righteous indignation, “But why are they cutting all the joy?”

Anyone?

builders

My builders aren’t happy. The sun has gone in. “How are we expected to work in these conditions!” they demand in mock indignation. The weather in the midlands has been good for the last month and so my extension has had a rapid start. The builders are great, two family men with growing children and an anecdote for every occasion. They have built the street I live in, well not quite but almost. Nearly every extension has been done by them, all my neighbours know them and take it in turns to keep them serviced with tea and in some cases biscuits when I am not there or if they think I have been tardy with my tea making duties. Last week I sallied forth in order to replenish their mugs once I had finished my planning to find them slurping out of the man from no 16’s chunky, earthenware mugs. They looked a bit uncomfortable, I picked up my empty mis-matching mugs and flashed them a smile. Man from no 16 smiled back, I made a comment about the weather , we all relaxed. I came in and made myself a cup of tea.

The builders have worked for us before, they knocked through our two living rooms to make a large living space downstairs. They knocked our wall down. A few months later we walked passed them as they were rebuilding no 30’s garage and my eldest daughter, exclaimed “what are they doing now?”

“They are building Lizbeth a new bedroom,” I explained

“What? They BUILD things too!”

I ran off to tell them that my precious child thought they just knocked stuff down. The main builder nodded seriously at her.

“ Yes we build things to, “ he said , “ and sometimes they stay up too.”

She is now looking forward to the two new bedrooms that they are building. I am looking forward to a bathroom with a full sized bath, not that I will get any “me- time “ to soak in it! I am not looking forward to next week when they finally break though and the building work becomes a reality inside the house. I remember when we had the downstairs extended 8 years ago. I am not house proud, but the dust drove me to the brink. Everything was dusty; me, husband, toddler and cat. Once more onto the breach…

As I returned form the school run this morning, the builders were sipping from their flasks, cogitating today’s work.

“You ok for tea then?” I hazarded.

“Oh we will ALWAYS have a cup of tea.” They said

“Never say no to a cuppa” they beamed.

The thing is, they aren’t using my downstairs loo  and they have no port a loo. I was thinking that maybe only one of the massive flasks they bring each day holds tea and the other is for when its…decanted back(?) But today they were drinking from both of them, so this left me wondering…just how large is a builder’s bladder?

favourite childhood toys

I have a photo of myself around three years old hugging a yellow and white bear, spool forward nearly 40 years and the same bear is on my bed at my father’s house. He is faded, his mouth is missing, there are ancient Ribena stains from a teddy bear’s tea party, he smells a bit too, but if no one is looking, I give him a hug and my dad would never, ever throw him away.

The day after we brought our first baby home, my aunt sent a small, yellow real love™ bear. We put it in the Moses basket, it squeaked. We named it Winston. We have never seen another bear exactly like it and once the baby was throwing things out of pushchairs, believe me we looked for it. It no longer squeaks, I was trying to speed dry it and may have ironed it , thus sealing the plastic squeak inside it.

 The middle child has a Miffy toy, on a rare expedition to Waitrose she grabbed an identical one. This was a plan! She only ever saw one Miffy at a time until she was 23 months old and I was hospitalised with pregnancy sickness. Daddy didn’t understand the rules, from that moment she owned The Miffy Twins. They are a pest, even now they squeal in some high-pitched, made-up language that has a nails-down-the-blackboard effect on me. My husband calls them Ronnie and Reggie.

 The third child is sneaky, she discovered two Betsys early on. This was a tiny, soft bunny bought from Mothercare. It had a pretty frock, which is now in tatters and soft ears which she would chew on. I created another monster in this toy, it talks in a Columbian accent and sings “Tequila” after a chant which goes, “Your mother loves you, your mother loves you, don’t bite my ear’ole, don’t bite my ear ‘ole, don’t bite my leg! Lalalalallalala etc”. Obviously, I try to substitute the shout of “Tequila” for something more bunny rabbitty and then the bunnies tickle the child, who laughs her head off and begs for more…. Look, don’t judge me. For any of you who have ever tried to settle a fretful child, I’m sure you have come up with or will come up with some ridiculous routines. It all makes sense when you are suffering from sleep deprivation/ mastitis/ cabin fever.

So these are the must have toys. They are packed carefully into cases when we are setting off on holidays. We all check they are repacked for the return journey. Last summer we travelled home from Salisbury to the Midlands with eldest weeping as she thought she had left Winston. (she had been away with choir and done her own packing) We chided and comforted her, nothing worked. When we got home we found him in her luggage but I know if we had not, my weary husband may have turned the car around. These are not just toys, they are family.

reading at bedtime routine

The bedtime routine used to be so simple and strictly adhered to. CBeebies bed time story in pjs, wash, teeth, snuggle into bed and negotiate the number of bed time stories to be read. Then my eldest children turned into bookworms and, more often than not, I was reading aloud and they were reading something else. I gave up, I gave them 30 minutes reading time before lights out. I thought it would be calming. It certainly calmed me, until I realised that they were insisting on the landing light being left on, not because of fear of the dark but because they were shuffling down to the foot of the bed and squinting at their reading books for another sneaky half an hour. I was cross, but how do you tell a child off for reading?

Our five year old usually picks daddy at bedtime, she can twist the poor man round her little finger and he will reread her stories, I only get to do it if he is out. Then I realised something – I missed it! I tried to reintroduce it, I failed.

I dallied with Little Women and stuck to one chapter an evening, except not every evening. We read about half of it.

I had better luck with Alice in Wonderland, although I did skip The Caucaus race and the Mock Turtle chapters. I started  Through the Looking Glass and someone hid the book. I can take a hint, Thank you.

How did I stray away from the bedtime routine? It’s important! My mother would only read a tiny bit to me and then sidle out of the room leaving me to read to myself, because I was “such a good reader” at an early age, I vividly recalled the loneliness and disappointment I felt. I would even try to choose a book I thought she liked. I’m not criticising my mum at all, she was seeking precious moments of solace in an unhappy marriage that wouldn’t last for many more years. However this has always been in my mind when it comes to reading to my children.

This week I have made another, concerted effort. I was inspired by the fact that the eldest child was selecting books for her younger sister to try, now that Diary of The Wimpy Kid series has finally fallen to pieces. They chose David Walliams’ Ratburger. I am reading two chapters a night in order to get to the end of it before I run out of steam. It’s not bad, it’s just not Roald Dahl, even though Quentin Blake has illustrated it. However by the second night, my eldest child (9 going on 19) put aside whatever Jaqueline Wilson/ Cath Cassidy/ Jean Ure book she was reading and crept down the bunk steps to snuggle up and listen too.

Tonight, their dad is working late. I’m taking youngest to bed and reading her stories until she tells me to “Go!” Then I will snuggle up on the bottom bunk and read Ratburger. Next week: Roald Dahl returns!

morning routine

Today I did not want to get out of bed. I didn’t  have work , it’s  a Mummy day. I had had a rare undisturbed night’s sleep that began with an early night. The alarm went off at 6.30 and husband got out of bed without a fuss or me having to beat him with pillows. He returned from the bathroom at 7 and I was still in bed. I was thinking about the title of the book by Sue Townsend “The woman who went to bed for a year”. I have never read the book but I was seriously contemplating the idea ; considering the practicalities. My husband set about me with the hair dryer until I rolled out of bed.

I put school clothes out for three children, helping the youngest with her shirt buttons and tights. I refused to referee the eldest two’s continual battle over bedroom territory. I did not raise my voice once.

I prepared the toothbrushes in order to avoid the bathroom being cemented with toothpaste.

I went downstairs and started breakfast.

“Do you want a boiled egg?” I asked the middle child

“I CAN’T HAVE AN EGG!“ she bellowed, “its…I…you… actually, yes please mummy.”

A moment later,

“I CAN’T FIND MY SHOOOOOOOEEEESSSS!” wailed my banshee child.

I calmly pointed out that they were on the stairs.

My husband looked at me closely, “ Are you ok?” he asked

“I’m not shouting” I replied

“That’s why I asked you if you were ok.”

He quietly slipped upstairs to check on the progress.

You see, every morning is mayhem. With me dragging sleepy girls out of bed and shrieking instructions, I try competitions and count downs and even bribery with pocket money.

An old teacher friend of ours used to say about new innovations, “ Everything works on a Monday”

Not in my house mate.

Nothing works on a Monday or any other day of the week, including Saturday and Sunday, when we always appear to be racing to get to an activity, event or party. I am always, always chivvying them along; cajoling, pleading, threatening and any other form of persuasion that comes to mind.

Not today. Today I did not want to get out of bed because of it. Today I allowed my two bookworms and tiny wordsmith to get on with it. I had given them what they needed and  they knew what they had to do.

We had breakfast together and they sat without an argument. I put classic FM on in the back ground. I don’t know if that was to keep me calm or to calm them. None of them hid behind a reading book  and no art work / creative writing competed with eating.  They cleared their plates and finished their drinks.

Husband made me a cup of tea. Husband kissed everyone and went to work. I got two kisses.

I brushed their hair; no screaming. Coats and bags by the door.

We were calm.

We were late.

beauty

One time, I was sitting cradling a cappuccino at a Wacky Warehouse party and fate had sat me next to a slim, glamour mum. Everything was going well , until she talked about spa weekends away she had with girlfriends, assuming I did the same.  Once I had picked my jaw up off the ground, I lost the will to live and wallowed in a sense of inadequacy which mellowed into resentment towards my other half, who was obviously denying me my civil liberties.

My beauty regime has certainly changed since having children,  I gave up wearing tailored jackets once the baby sick appeared. Some days I get to work and do not realise until someone points out, that I have tooth paste smeared all over some part of my clothing. (rarely my own toothpaste, you understand.)

Remember 90s big hair? I had The Rachel cut and used to spend time in the morning in Velcro curlers! If I manage to straighten my fringe these days it’s a miracle. I have also lost my tweezers,  I got a thick fringe cut so that no one could see the monsters that I now have for eyebrows.  I also appear to have a rogue whisker growing in my chin- arghh! Whilst on the subject of hair, I get mine cut about four  times a year, when they ask me if I want product I ask for everything! Last year someone bought me a hair set which included dry shampoo- it was a miracle in a can! It ran out a few months ago and I haven’t got round to buying anymore.  If I step foot in Boots the Chemists, it’s to buy Calpol.

Gone are the days when I would lock myself in the bathroom once a week and shave, pluck and scrub. I no longer have leave-in conditioner and my face mask is well passed its sell by.  We don’t have a full size bath, so at least my kids can’t jump in with me. One of my best friends is not allowed to have a bath without sharing. However, I am never in the bath that one of the girls doesn’t come in to use the toilet and either A) stare at my aging body, B) make a comment on my body or C) laugh at my body. I would like to inform them that they share my genes and I come from a long line of buxom country wenches, but I don’t want to give them nightmares. Instead I tell them that they are to blame for my belly.

Nothing on my body is trimmed, shaved or moisturised. My legs are scaly, I am turning into a reptile. My teeth are crooked and yellowing because I keep having to cancel dentist’s appointments, I’ve gained weight because I eat on the hop or finish off whatever they have left on their plates and my hair has some grey, but my girls say I’m beautiful and that’s good enough for me.

about Mummy Guilt

There isn’t a week that doesn’t go past that I do not suffer from mummy guilt at some point:  I have forgotten to do something, to buy something, to say something or to attend something.

I try my best, I am not very organised, so I buy a family calendar and the rule is that: if it’s happening; it goes on the calendar. Husband quite often gets a flea in his ear when he springs some work commitment which is not on the calendar or clashed with something on the calendar. This year, the first calendar I bought was a week to week one- no good. Then my mum gave me a month to month calendar- first problem there is only four columns and there are five of us. Nevermind, me and the man will share one we don’t do as much as the girls anyway. Then I find out it’s a wipe-able surface with a whiteboard pen. As it hangs by the back of the youngest’s dining chair this is not a good thing, so we have endeavoured to scratch in appointments and parents evenings in biro which generally refuse to write after the third or fourth letter.

The other place for reminders is the fridge; school letters, reminder, party invitations cling desperately to it tethered by aging fridge magnets, if the door is left open. They sometimes get blown off or knocked off. 

My mummy friends, who have known me longest, tend to try to remind me of things.

Now this week, the eldest two had science projects to be handed in as well as literacy and numeracy homework, so Sunday was a boot camp of assignment completing, presentation rehearsing and spelling tests rather than snuggling on the sofa watching Matilda or walking to the park. Then Monday, middle child was sick…so was I but I had taken a sick day the previous week and insisted I had to go to work. Husband took day to look after her. She missed school photos day and I had her hair right and her uniform clean and pressed. Yesterday went well. Today I was trying to calm eldest child, who I have to pick up in 20 minutes to take to violin grade (I must not be late!)

I was also discussing World Book day costumes with the two eldest, (Mary Poppins and The White rabbit) Bunny onesie may be too hot and stuffy. We were considering alternatives. I dropped the eldest two at junior school early as its COOL KIDZ day and then sat with youngest for a while, having an amazing time, learning new words. We laughed a lot. Her nose was dirty, her face a bit smudged and her hair is a dandelion clock of riotous curls escaping from lop sided bunches. I love her: she is perfect. I stepped out into a world of pristine little girls with slides and bows and clean, shiny faces. It is school photo day. I now have mummy guilt. 

 

loving with food

My mother used to love us with food – which was ironic because when my brother and I were small, she couldn’t cook. She’d make a picnic for any journey over an hour and cooked breakfasts every morning until I started secondary school.  A few years and a divorce later, she got a job as a housekeeper for a farmer who ate fruitcake for breakfast.  She spent a month practising; the birds in the garden were so fat they couldn’t fly when she left.

In my second year of university I decided to learn to cook. My then boyfriend’s mother had given me a cook book and I spent my grant on ingredients. My skinny boyfriend and waif- like flat mate gained weight that term and I spent quite a lot of time freezing in and outside phone boxes ringing my dad ( yes my dad!) for cooking advice.

Anyway I am now a good cook and, although I would never knowingly have started to love with food, I do. My Mum was very ill last year,I went to look after her for a week and cooked and cooked; filling her freezer. My friend’s dad had a stroke last summer,  I made her an apple pie, because I know it’s hard to eat when you’re to- ing and fro- ing. When my sister in law had a major set-back, I made her a beef stew, because I thought she wouldn’t feel like cooking.

When I had children, I followed my health visitor’s advice. I cut out salt and I made sure they had food from all the groups; including fruit and veg. I put home cooked meals in front of them even the evenings when I work and do they sit and eat without prejudice? Do they heck! They are fussy eaters! They are much fussier than I ever was. Maybe I have given them too much choice, but I do know they could happily live on sausages, toad in the hole, pasta, Bolognese, pizza. Eldest will not touch peas, middle child will not touch sweetcorn, some evenings I cook the corn and peas together and dish up, then watch them sort out the corn from the peas and swap with each other.  

I have to make their packed lunches because when my husband does it he gets it wrong and they complain and come back hungry. Eldest has plain bread, but will make sandwiches if you put cucumber and tomatoes in a bag, middle child will only eat bread and butter, youngest child will eat ham or cheese sandwiches, but eats in whatever order she wants.  None of them like wholemeal bread, much. They all like crackers. Eldest will not eat bananas or raisins and they all want different flavoured crisps.

There have been times when I say, “That’s it! You will eat what’s in front of you!” But they are more stubborn than I. They go hungry. I suffer from mummy guilt. You see, I do love with food.