growing pains

One day last month I woke up and it was "that time of the month".

(please insert whatever nicety you wish, my favourite is when my best friend told me she'd "got her monkey!")

I was a bit sensitive, a bit weepy and needed a bit of love. I am 43
The night before I had put my eldest daughter to bed and she was still my beautiful Disney princess. She is nearly 11.
 In the night someone stole that version of her away and replaced it with a pre-teen, hormone raging, venom spitting monster. She was up and out of bed for less than five minutes before returning to her room with "I HATE YOU ALL!!!!" and a door slam.
He father and I looked at each other in horror, cups of tea / coffee hovering. The downstairs was a wreckage of her temper, I think one of her younger sisters was weeping, the other was hiding.
"Wwwwhat just happened?" I spluttered.
He gave me a wise nod - a man who has weathered my monthly mood changes for 21 years. "Hormones" he stated and swigged his beverage emphatically.
A moment to register this. My baby! Growing up! Growing pains! What should I do? Should I go to talk to her? Or just open the door and throw chocolate at her?

How could he be so calm and ...smug ! Oh yes, I know he thinks this is purely my territory and my responsibility doesn't he? Well he needed a jolt, obviously. I wrecked my brain for facts about "women stuff".

"Umm..." I said, " Aren't women supposed to synchronise their cycles? Y'know when I was at college we all had periods at the same time in our shared house" ( True story)

Behind the cup his face rearranged his expression as he took into account he lives with four women, even if three of them are still ten and under. I saw him mentally move himself, the cat ( male) and his guitar down to the shed.

An hour later, I fell into a chair in the office at work and announced "my eldest has hit puberty"
We held a minute's silence.
We drank more tea.
We had run out of chocolate.

vertigo and other Alfred Hitchcock related ailments

It could have been worse. When I realised these were proper dizzy spells that would just not go away I thought The doctor would diagnose Labrynthitis. Honestly, my husband does a very good David Bowie impression, my life would have been unbearable!

But no, it was just vertigo. No point in telling them I'm not afraid of Heights. The Physicians Assistant printed off some diagrams of the ear to help explain slowly and carefully to me in her whispered Eastern European accents ( lovely they are too) that er... something is unbalanced behind my ears. Yes , yes it could be connected to my infected tooth... or a virus or ... we don't know.

There was only one cure and it was exercise! She searched Google for them and found a diagram of a man closing his eyes. turning his head 45 degrees and lying down on his side, then up again and down on the other side. BRILLIANT! lying down! that's my kind of exercise. Got to do them 3 times a day? No problemo, I may even bring out an exercise DVD ( chortle, chortle...ohh dizzy spell etc.)

These exercises will make you feel worse, make you feel sick.
One thing, can I drive?
No you will be a dangerous driver.
Oh...
Another thing, I'm a drama teacher. That's ok right?
No you cannot be responsible for children.
I decide to refrain mentioning my own children and ask  can I have a doctor's note
No , The law of this country says you self certificate for a week, if you are still bad, come back. Also have three points of support. one, two ( bashes legs) three ( flourishes arm) If you are still dizzy and sick come back.

I don't go to look round ANY schools for their Open Evenings or Open days. Daddy becomes Taxi driver no1, Suddenly I can see that he thinks our Kids do TOO MUCH.

At the weekend my tooth flares up again, despite my having finished my antibiotics and not touched alcohol all week, because I thought they would be more effective. Monda,y I return to dentist for major antibiotics, she doesn't think the tooth has anything to do with my vertigo.

I ring the doctors' surgery to speak to the Physician's Assistant.
She's no longer with us.
What? When did that happen?

I am told to ring tomorrow morning and the doctor will call me back. I leave it til Weds, incase I get better. I don't. I call and have to insist someone call me back. The doctor rings me back about an hour and a half later and asks about it. I tell her I am doing the exercises.
We can prescribe you a course of tablets, 5 days. Don't drive. I'll give you a note for work for another week. Come back if you aren't better.

Better make the appointment now, I think , just in case. Why didn't I get tablets last week?

This week I did borrow a stick from my father in law. I had to explain to everyone that I hadn't hurt my foot AS WELL, but its just to stop me falling over.Now no longer have to use eldest child as a crutch. I think I may have started a new trend , all the mummies-at- the -gate will be using them next week.

Oh , one of my neighbours pointed out that a white van  keeps driving up and down our cul de sac. I dismissed him as the rag and bone man, but woke up today feeling paranoid about break ins. I will be perched up against The REAR WINDOW with binoculars for the rest of the day. ( one of the dangers of being off work sick and a bit bored )

bully boys

So on Saturday morning,  I am talking casually to middle child about what she will actually allow me to put into her school sandwich box, hoping she will slip up and express a preference for something other than dry bread.
One day this term I gave her boiled egg and she was teased by other boys but she put them straight with an indignant toss of her head ... or so I thought. But mentioning egg sandwich opened a whole other tub of worms.
Last January, I discovered my little girl was being picked on in the playground by a group of lads who had decided she had "the bogey touch" so no one else was allowed to touch her or go near her. I informed her teacher who dealt with it well, a couple of the boys cried. I had asked my little girl if everything was ok and she said yes it was. Life went on.
Only when all but one of the boys started to do it again nearly straight away she decided she was going to ignore it. They didn't stop. She didn't tell me, she didn't tell the teacher. The other children in her year who witnessed it didn't say anything either. Last week her elder sister complained because she kept trying to play with her on the Upper School side of the playground. Even then middle child didn't say why.
I strode in on Monday morning, the new head teacher was busy, I left a pre-penned letter and said I would be home all day. I waited. At lunchtime, I rang the school after Daddy badgered me. The receptionist was flustered, she had given the Head the letter but wasn't sure what had happened next. The Head would ring she said. At 3p.m. I rang again, got another receptionist who didn't know what I was on about, the Head was out at a meeting, but she left me on hold and came back saying the Head of Year wanted to speak to me at the gate. We did actually go into her classroom when I got there.
The upshot was that the the majority of the boys confessed. The two that denied were outed by witnesses. They had their play time taken off them for a day and were made to apologise. Their names have gone into the behaviour book. They have written letters of apology during lunch time, when my eldest happened to be passing through the room to hear one of the try to deny it again.
"Yes you did do it" she says ( I imagine with great contempt, hand on hip, surveying them with disdain) " You all bullied her" she said.
Apparently the TA over looking the process took my eldest to one side to try to persuade her it wasn't really bullying. My eldest didn't speak but she disagreed and thought the TA couldn't have known that it was going on from reception until now.
The school has not informed the parents again, as this is" another academic year "from the last incident.
I wasn't happy. I know three of the mum's, Have one of their mobile numbers in  my phone. Standing at the school gates and not saying anything is hard. If I was their parents I would want to know and not stand there unaware that another Mother is standing near by silently writhing with rage and ( yes I will say it) JUDGING.
 I know what they have done is petty, but not to my little girl. On the surface she may not appear bothered, but inside she feels sick and her anger boils over quickly at home. I know that they are only little boys, but its a good job none of them were in my kitchen last Saturday morning when she told me.

Work life balance

Work life balance?
Nope not a hope, not this week.
New working hours not conjusive to this. 3 days over four means I am working four days but being paid for three. Can I make one of my half days a whole day? " Only if you want to teach science." I am told.
I got a D for GCSE physics. My brain doesn't compute chemistry , I can't label all the bits of a plant and even after 3 kids I'm not completely sure I know the facts of life. Nobody wants me to teach their child science.
The ICT isn't working properly at work and this morning I had a melt down because my home printer had... Well a melt down actually.
My house is half in darkness as bulbs keep going and I haven't any spares. The oven has mercifully and miraculously come back to life. When I but some bulbs I will be able to see what I am cooking.
My middle child fell over running out of school and took all the skin off her knee. Child minder patched her up so when I nipped into chemist to buy new dressings I was unable to inform chemist any details of the wound as I hadn't actually seen it. ( probably good job. I would have fainted/ cried even when my brave child remained tearless )
My eldest has opted to play netball after school on Mondays then I realise I have missed an afterschool safeguarding session on her first practise date. Have to rally the troops and grandma steps into the breach.
Next month my mother comes to stay so we can attend the secondary school open evenings. It will be odd to be the other side of the desk again.
This weekend I plan to cook casseroles and bake cakes and pies so that my fridge and larder is full. I plan to get all school paperwork up to date and clean the house from top to bottom - or I may just forget it and have a glass  of wine and read a book!

holidays

We have had fun
We have fitted an awful lot of things into the six weeks.
It has rained on us and I have visited A LOT of toilets. Three little girls aged between 5-10 cannot synchronise their bladders and cannot be expected to go for more than 50 minutes without needing the loo. This may be why it took 7 hours to get to Devon at the start of August.
It may be why I have visited every toilet on the south bank between The Tate Modern and The Houses of Parliament ( sometimes doubling back to revisit!)
It is part and parcel of every summer holiday since having toilet trained kids - hunting for baby change facilities is now a distant memory.
So we have packed every bit of excitement we could, making sure that every day there was a plan for something to take place.
The first weekend grandparent had them as Mummy and daddy escaped to watch Monty Python at the O2, then the local church ran 4 days of holiday club, then they were whisked off to Granny's in outer Wales, followed by a trip to Harry Potter, which could have been blindingly expensive if i hadn't assured them before hand that I would not be buying ANYTHING from the gift shop. Also it was extremely hot that evening and the family room booked at nearby hotel was unbearable without air conditioning so a very polite and British criticism saw us with a full refund. This week also included trips to the library and art gallery.
The end of the week involved play dates followed by a weekend of packing as eldest was off on choir tour. Bereft of one child, I hijacked my Niece for a sleep over and day at soft play place. Then more packing for our epic trip to the toilet - I mean to Devon and a lovely caravan just as the weather turned not so hot.
We left a day early, having reunited with the eldest half way through our stay and drove through rainbows all the way home.
This was supposed to be the quiet week, just packing and unpacking, school shoe buying and washing and ironing, but I decided to enrol middle child into intensive swimming at a local baths. I had play date pencilled in mid week but Grandpa had a fall and we had emergency sprint to the hospital A & E two hours away from us.
We ended the final week on the  North Wales coast listening to commentators on the weather assure us that Autumn had come early - I packed fleeces, thermals and wellies to put over bikinis.
We came back on the sunniest day of the weekend. But we did not stop for the toilet - not once.

crying

Crying is a strange thing isn't it?
Its the only form of communication for tiny babies and as mums we tear our hair (which after the birth is already falling out) out to find out what it is the bundles of joy are trying to tell us - food, sleep, food, nappy, heat, food, boredom, food, temperature, food?????
Then as we get a bit bigger it can be a call for attention or a desire to be comforted, mother wipes away our tears and kisses our booboos.
A bit older still and the crying is angry and frustrated because mum wont let us to do whatever it is we want to do and all our friends mums let our friends do it cos they are so much , like way cooler than you mum.
There's homesick crying and feeling sorry for yourself crying, once we spread our wings and fly, even if its only during university term time and less than 100 miles away from mummy and daddy.
There's heartbroken crying when we fly back home to dad's egg and chips, the only meal that we can eat when we are heartbroken and the love of our life has left us for a Fresher.
There's the shared crying during the times when pregnancies have gone wrong, or there have been scary medical results or our babies are poorly.
There's the time we watched as the strongest man in our life cried huge, open mouthed , agonising, sobbing, wracking grief...but we wont talk about that, that is not our's to talk about.
There is the deranged, can't cope, can't sleep, can't function, early mother hood crying, when hormones are running amok and mastitis is making us sweat and ache.
There is happy crying too, but at the moment we can't quite remember what that feels like.

And now there's the time, when after weeks of rushing about and being pulled this way and that way, coping with changes, illnesses and unpleasant surprises, there is a small lull in the day, where we get out of the car and survey our house and wonder where we could sit , just for a minute to weep and not be heard by the neighbours or the postman, because finally there is time to stop and crying, we find, is the one thing that we need to do. What kind of crying is this? There is no one to kiss our tears away, no one to stroke our hair, no one to put a plaster on our knee.

There is the little voice inside our head reminding us that the cup is STILL half full. Others have it a lot, lot worse.

What kind of crying is this?

I don't know

But it is lonely and it is sad, but once it is over, we might feel a bit better...

missing out on stuff

On Friday, I found myself in the staff room with women around my age range and with kids. They were talking about someone senior who was trying to leave early to attend some function their kid's school was putting on. It meant someone having to cover a class and two cover supervisors were absent.
I walked in at the tail end of the conversation about that certain member of the staff - I'm still not sure who they were talking about to be honest, but I don't think they elicited much sympathy from the group. However the conversation developed into a "the things I have missed my kids do because I work ..."

I have had this conversation with others quite a few times recently, perhaps because the latter part of the summer term sees sports days and leaving assemblies and concerts. The junior school my two eldest go to put on an art exhibition on Monday a.m. ,  talent show final on Tuesday ( my kids didn't get through this year, don't get me started on that!), a sports day on Weds and a summer fayre on ...Saturday! I would rather my children go to a school where they do a lot of creative stuff, rather than do none, but it does add to mummy guilt and with everything else going on, I couldn't ask Nanny and Grandad to cover me this week.

I made it to sports day. I did a lot of cheering and I rescued my daughter from a big, hairy moth that decided to crawl up her t shirt. oh and I nearly got hit by the relay race baton.

I was allowed to watch another sports days two weeks ago, because year 11 left and freed up Thursday afternoons. I did not make youngest sport's day and I am still upset at missing her Mothers Day assembly because HMI decided to watch me teach year 10 instead. I was available to take eldest to her violin exam a few months ago and also took a couple of her friends because their parents were working. The headteacher arrived and urged me to leave the rest to her care. I was reluctant, one of the girls I'd taken is my daughter's best friend. Her mother knew I was with her, when I said I might go, she burst into tears. I cuddled her and she was fine. She got a distinction. Her mum had mummy guilt.

There is a concert a week on Wednesday for the eldest, her father will miss it because its his own school production. I may have to take her younger sisters, which means i will miss quite a bit of it! My friend is taking her to piano grade 1.( I hope she doesn't cry) Nanny is going to last day concert, as I will be going to reception last day concert.

I made it  to middle child's starring role as soldier 2 in their Moses play and I saw her valentine's class assembly. I went to play games with youngest's class, I will be able to go in and see her books in open day, I will miss the junior school open day its on a day I work.

Last Sunday my eldest was sulking because no one was going to see her art work, " no one ever comes..." she began. I stopped her and reminded her that it wasn't true, but I do hope when they get older, they remember me coming to stuff and trying my hardest to get them to the events and past times they have chosen to do. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here. I would like to be able to get to everything, to be the one at the front, sitting bolt upright with charged up video camera, recording it in surround sound and 3D, with a big smile and a Pushy Mother Badge. Instead I sit for a few minutes in a staff room, competing with others over the stuff I am missing out on.

it never rains but it pours

Those are the words my father spoke to me last night. On Monday my father was taken into hospital because he couldn't get out of bed and was weeping with pain. I had a SOS call from his new, big- buttoned mobile i had bought him for Father's Day. I called work, sent husband to work and children to school, got in the car and drove 33 miles to his home.
He cried.
I requested a visit from the district nurse to come and dress his leg ulcer which hadn't been tended to for a week and I requested a home visit from his GP. We waited. I gave him tea and he took some pain killers. He's not dying, but it feel like it to him, his arthritis flare up is so bad he almost want to die for some relief.
The nurse comes and takes photos of his leg before redressing it. I throw the old dressing out as she tells me, he tells me off after she's gone. "I wash them, " he explains, " you aren't meant to, but they're like gold dust. No one wants to give you any more."
We wait some more, we have tea and i watch him struggle to the door of his bathroom, slower than a snail and weeping. He waves away my arm. I wish i could pick him up and carry him like my children.
The Doctor arrives and clicks his tongue, he looks at his notes. He doesn't recognise dad and dad goes to the doctor's a lot. This is very different to Dad's previous doctor. Doctor Hall was my grandmother;s doctor and my doctor and my brother's doctor. He knew our entire family. He knew that if he had to come to my father's house, dad was very, very ill.
"You're on the strongest drugs we can give you," says the doctor,"how much are you taking? 5ml? Up it."
I explain that more morphine may make dad drowsy, he lives alone and if he gets in a mess there is no one to help him or clean him.
The doctor hmmms for a moment , then ventures that there may be a bed in the community hospital. Dad is silent. I am firm. The doctor rings them. We wait as he is put on hold. There is a bed.
We wait for the community ambulance. Quite quickly someone rings to tell us that they could be up to two hours.
Dad sulks for a bit, then tells me what to pack in his overnight bag, because he wont be staying more than that, there will be no one to water his tomatoes. Another phone call from the community hospital people. We were misinformed, the taxi could be anywhere up to 6 hours.

Either the shock of going to hospital or another dose of morphine makes dad perk up for an hour.

I am dispatched over the road with an envelop to pay his neighbour for the papers he's bought this week and a quick note saying he doesn't need any more this week. I  insist on writing he's going to hospital.

A while later when the neighbour arrives, we watch her go in and out of her house, she cleans the outside and sweeps the drive, she even sweeps the pavement. Its a small town, they like to know what's going on. This lady has a kind, kind heart but needs to know what's going on, not knowing is driving her crazy. Did i see her dust the plants or did i dream it? There is a ring at the door, i answer and she demands to know what's going on with a "I'm not being nosey, I just thought we could visit him as you live far away."

Dad makes me ring the hospital to ask if i can take him, they advise against it and assure me there is still a bed for him.

Dad is supposed to be leaving this house on a stretcher, all his neighbours are home now. The ambulance arrives and parks outside a neighbour's. Two women get out and my heart sinks, no way will dad be lifted by two women. They ask if he can get in a chair and i eagerly agree. He shouts at me to close his bedroom door so he can put his trousers on.

It takes 6 minutes to get to the hospital. There are three other men in the ward. There is only one television and someone else has the remote. I pack his things away and put his phone nearby. I stay for a while then kiss him.
I have seen him everyday this week apart from Thursday. I have been in trouble for telling his cousins and his neighbours, but he has had visits every day from people. The three men have left and dad has the ward to himself and most importantly the remote control.

Yesterday he was asking me to bring things when I came at the weekend, I had to tell him I could come on Monday when my Mum was staying, as she could look after the children for me. My mum who last year I looked after following her operation for colon cancer. She wears a stoma bag and is not as strong as she once was. I also told him my husband was unwell that evening and I had just been told by text that he had been taken to the out of hours clinic. Dad suddenly shrunk and looked small, frightened and above all ashamed.
"Why did you come?" he whispered
"I couldn't leave you without clean pants or pyjamas," I joked.
"Me, your husband and your mum," he muttered.
I think I sort of shrugged in what I  hoped was a "C'est la vie" kind of way.
"It never rains but it pours" he said."go home"

I did go home but I went and watered his tomatoes first.

new rooms

My ten year old and very nearly 8 year old have shared a bedroom for 6 years. They cannot remember not waking up together.

We had new bedrooms built and the eldest elected to move out as long as she got a mirror and a dressing table.

She chose the paint colour and curtains/ bedding. Her dad has flexed his muscles and built flat pack furniture. The walls might be pinky peach but the air was blue! I washed the bedding and moved toys, books and clothes in.

We gave her and her sister some time, we discovered that the eldest tells the youngest stories about a dragon which is hung from their lampshade, the rainbow fish that swings beside it is the villain of the piece. They spent an evening where i wasn't allowed to tell them off for giggling or talking after lights out. I wasn't looking forward to the change - its all too far away from them being babies although i was looking forward to them not being able to argue each and every morning. I was surprised they weren't emotional.

Then I tool the eldest to Dunhelm to buy a few last things and told her it was the last evening. She burst into tears."I don't wanna leave her!!!!!" 

"ok, well stay in the same room."

"I wanna go in my new rooom!!!"

"Its understandable, you've been together for a long, long time"

"was I excited when she was moving in ?"

"oh yes , very excited!"

"waaaaaahhhhh! I don't want to leave her!" and so on.

Anyway, two nights later, she decides tonight is the night and kisses her sister and goes to her new room.

at 10.45 after several get ups and fidgets, she comes downstairs to complain she cannot sleep. I give her ultimatum: go to new bed and sleep or take her teddy and get in the top bunk for a sleepover with her sister. She opts for the latter and is asleep once her head hits the pillow. In the morning, the younger sets out to find her and finally discovers her in the top bunk. The next night is a similar story.

Finally the third night, she is very tired. After an hour, everything goes quiet. When I check on her, she is asleep in her new room. My big girl.

not staying on top of things

I was never good at keeping a diary so I am not surprised that my blogging stopped abruptly!
However, my life is always a leaning tower of strength - like Jenga?
When one of the bits gets pulled out that shouldn't it rocks a lot and even tumbles, it takes time to rebuild.
I may be overextending the metaphor here, but you get the idea.
So, work was stressful, building had finished so house was a mess, money was tight and grandpa was proper poorly with dodgy plumbers ignoring his request for them to complete his new wet room.

Even going to see granny was a problem when no one would tell me what days I could book in.

When I returned home with the children, husband was on a mission to decorate and furnish the new build. He has done a fab job but that left me looking after three children during a fairly wet half term.

I was looking forward to the first week back so that i could get things straight and eldest child has managed to develop shingles.

Shingles! It sound so sweet doesn't it? Its not sweet and its getting worse. Its spreading around her side and onto her back. Its painful.
On the plus side, yesterday I sat on the sofa cuddling her ( she's not usually a cuddler) and watched Harry Potter.
On the not so plus side- house is still a mess and work has become stressful again, already.
Roll on summer- I have some decorating to do.

p.s. this morning i lost my house keys. The oven has broken and the washing machine has flooded the kitchen.

grandpa

Grandpa visits at least once a fortnight and has done for ten years. That was when my eldest child was born and he was the first grandparent to hold her. I don’t know how he managed that, I think the others were being polite.

Grandpa can be grumpy, but that is because he is always in pain. He has been in pain long before he was grandpa, not long after he became my big brother’s daddy. He took a nasty fall down some stone steps which he was helping his badly arthritic mother in law down. Six months later he was diagnosed with arthritis. I think he was 27 or 28.

He has had artificial knees, elbows and one shoulder. The consultant won’t do the other shoulder until an artificial elbow is replaced. The elbow man doesn’t want to put grandpa through the operation and suggested he think about it for a few months, so grandpa lives in pain and the simple task of getting dressed in the morning is painful and arduous.

Grandpa worked in factories until he took redundancy at 58 and retired. This was after a prolonged battle with septicaemia, where we weren’t sure if he’d survive. It’s legacy is recurring ulcers on his legs and feet. His dream of being a market gardener died when his health first failed, he has always worked in factories, his colleagues supporting him by doing any heavy lifting when he had bad days. I remember my mother hugging him in the living room as he wept one day returning home early from work too ill to continue.

He has never let it beat him. He has been an enthusiastic and skilled vegetable gardener. In the summer, he brings with him green beans, strawberries, onions, carrots and potatoes and tomatoes that smell of the earth and the taste of which ruins you for any other type of tomatoes ever. In September, he brings apples from the tree and I bake pies, crumbles and apple cake.

I made a rare visit over to his place at the end of the season last year and he was sitting in his chair sucking on his teeth – a habit I hate – ruefully assessing that there was a patch of garden he couldn’t be bothered to dig over in the spring and so he hadn’t had as many carrots as he should have and they were “beautiful”. A little alarm bell sounded. I couldn’t recall a time he’d not done a complete garden.

A few weeks ago, I called round (I live 40 miles away) He had been told to sit with his foot up and rest because of an ulcer on his foot.  He looked smaller and he sounded quiet, sitting watching the weeds grow on a hot spring day. Over the brow of the field outside his house they have built a retirement home. He keeps saying he should move in.

I took a child and spent two days with him to keep him company, unfortunately it rained so I couldn’t garden and I think he just wanted to be left alone.

Then my brother went over and they did some gardening, I spoke to him on the phone and he sounded good. He came over for Easter but was too poorly to walk so wouldn’t come to the shops and I only just managed to get him to come to the pub for lunch.

Today, I was running about trying to mop and brush and dust before he arrived. He wasn’t as prompt as usual, I was confident I’d get it done. The phone rang. Grandpa was too ill to come. This is the first time I can ever remember this happening. I don’t like it. I am upset. I want my daddy.

the books you should read

Ok so I sometimes struggle to know where to guide my girls with their reading. But it is important to me so I don’t mind the struggle. My middle daughter went up to junior school this year and I had to make a fuss about the books they were sending her home with. She has problems with handwriting and so because they didn’t know her they assumed she was weak. SHE IS NOT!

However she likes an easy life, she likes to be babied too and she hates to give up any books to her youngest sister. Last summer she graduated from Michael Morpugo’s Mud puddle Farm series when she discovered her elder sister’s copies of Diary Of a Wimpy kid, because it had a mix of text and cartoon she loved them. I had to investigate children’s literature for similar books. Now she reads Jacqueline Wilson, David Walliams and Roald Dahl. Today I finally moved all the Lauren Child’s and Julia Donaldson’s to the youngest’s room .

My eldest child is also an avid reader, she loves Harry Potter and Malory Towers / St Clares. Her teacher says her writing is “old fashioned” I think that means she calls her characters things like Felicity and Gwendoline and they all love cream buns and ginger beer. I was never a big Blyton Fan. I am responsible for Harry Potter and Little Women though. She has given up on Anne of Green Gables – a book I lived for at her age, she has also lost my WEE FREE MEN – a Terry Pratchett novel for younger readers.

Sometimes I cheat and if they really won’t read the books I think they should, I read them as bed time stories. One particular example is Alice in Wonderland. My husband has done the same… or maybe I set him up, I am probably the more cunning and Machiavellian of parents…anyway, he really enjoyed Danny Champion of the World and Stig of the Dump. The Dancing Bear by Michael Morpugo was a lovely surprise, the first venture into an episodic bed time story which resulted in him coming downstairs in floods of tears. ( if you haven’t read this story do not read further) 

“The bear dies” he gasped, finally.

“Are they ok?” I asked aghast.

“They’re fine, “ he replied, “I’m not”

He recovered and went on to read more books to them and for a man who claim,s quite rightly , never to read novels , I think it has done him the world of good.

I had to buy books that were no longer in print ( Jacob Two Two and the Hooded Claw, Elephants don’t sit on Cars) in order to share my childhood favourites. I’m not keen on Ratburger , but the girls loved it. I am hoping to try an old story my mum gave me years ago, based in Herefordshire called The TangleWood Secret and then I’m going to sneak some Terry Pratchett in if I can find where she’s hidden it!

element of suprise

Tomorrow my husband is fifty. He doesn’t look it: damn him, neither does he act it but I think he might be starting to feel it.

Anyway, for his fortieth he had a baby and also a telescope. There is no trumping that really.

I didn’t organise a surprise party because he would hate that and he would spoil it by finding out or refusing to go to it.

A few months ago I started to ask him how he wanted to celebrate. He didn’t know. He ummed and ahhed and then two weeks ago decided on a family meal (extended family and best friend) in the local Italian restaurant where we always celebrate his birthday.

I’ve known what I was going to buy him since last summer when he fell in love with a limited print in a gallery in Bed Gellert, north Wales. However the gallery opens seasonally and I started to panic. Once I did get hold of them they no longer had the print and so I had to order it direct from the irish based artist. I started to get cold feet. Perhaps time would have cooled his love of the art work. I showed it to my hairdresser who didn’t like it much. This made the doubts stronger. I also had to try to order it on my phone so that he wouldn’t see it on the browser history. My phone always seemed to lose connection with the internet before I got to paying for the print. All of this boded ill.

On a trip to IKEA, he reminisced about a chair he had owned and discarded. “ That’s what you could buy me for my birthday, a chair.” He announced.

This seemed so right.

“I’ve already decided what I’m going to buy you” I stammered.

“Oh go with that then” he said.

Now it preyed on me, he WANTED a chair, he never asks for presents usually. He might hate the print.

I couldn’t rest.

A few days later, before falling asleep,“ I’ll get you the chair, “I said, ”but you will have to choose it so its perfect.”

“I might like what you are going to buy me” he protested.

“I’m not sure it’s the right present”

“What is it?”

“It’s a surprise, unless you want the chair.”

After about half an hour, he was sure he wanted the chair and wanted to know what my present was. Reluctantly I told him.

He groaned, “ That would have been perfect!” and hid under the bed clothes, like a big kid upset he’d spoilt a surprise.

I asked his mum to give me a picture of him as a child in his astronaut suit. Somehow it fell out of my handbag and although it was still in the picture wallet I’m sure he looked at it. Still I went to get his cake with two of our three girls today. The youngest came in and said to the middle child

“Don’t tell daddy about the cake.”

“WHAT CAKE?!!!”

Daddy pretended to be deaf.

I have just bought him a helium balloon, it’s in the car boot. I know he is going to go out and open the boot before midnight, I just know it. He doesn’t do surprises.

birthday celebrations

Now I only have myself to blame. I have three children , you think I’d have more sense, but we do tend to throw each child a party for  their birthday. The middle child gets short changed having a birthday in August,  we are often at the seaside. To make up for it last year, she invited a group of girls for an afternoon tea in September.

My youngest had her fifth birthday at a wacky warehouse but previous birthdays  saw me shaking off the January blues and  breaking out in a sweat, cleaning the entire house two weeks after Christmas and decking out the downstairs in a theme of her choosing (pirates and princesses aged 3 and Under the sea aged 4)  We ransacked the costume and set cupboards at school and I begged an art teacher to draw me a pirate for pin- the- parrot- on-the-pirate and a pirate ship, which the children decided to colour in before I got around to pinning the jolly roger on it.

My eldest daughter was told last year , that she was too old for parties. Then I secretly invited five of her friends and a cousin to the bowling alley and pizza place the Saturday before her birthday. A couple of hours before, I bathed all three kids, painted their nails with glitter and put their party dresses and shoes on with a “it’s just nice to dress up sometimes isn’t it?” I actually couldn’t believe they fell for it, it was only daddy who nearly blew it, he was so excited we nearly got there too early and had to side track to Aldi to get a bottle of wine. I am at this point texting everyone to make sure they are there. They were.

We walked through the doors and her friends shouted “surprise!” My beautiful daughter, turned around in panic to see who she was supposed to be shouting “ surprise” at! One of her friends had to explain to her that it was her own party. She loved it, once she got over the shock and I have been smug about it right up until about a week a go when she requested doing the same thing but knowing about it this time. I suddenly thought that she had missed looking forward to her treat. That realisation finally took the shine off my success.

My husband is 50 next week, we are going for a family meal. I didn’t attempt a surprise party. I couldn’t even keep his present a surprise, blurting it out when I thought we had decided on something else, only to find that it would have been a perfectly lovely surprise after all. I do want him to have a really good day, as my memory of his 40^th is that it was over taken by a week old baby, mastitis and baby blues. The hi-light was him taking our screaming infant for a walk while his hormonally deranged wife wept herself to sleep. His birthday tea was interrupted by a trip to the walk in clinic. That’s not the plan this time.

baking cakes

My eldest is 10 the day after tomorrow. How on earth did that happen? I am trying (and failing) not to calculate that another one of those will make her 20 and she will be off in the big wide world.

At the weekend we took her, her sisters and three friends bowling and then for pizza. Earlier that week she had posed for a cute picture , clad in a onesie and clutching her teddy bear, it appeared on a shop bought cake from the supermarket that prints photos on cakes.

However, I like to bake. So they usually get a homemade one too for the actual, special day. We blow the candles out at breakfast and have a piece then too. (Europeans eat pastry and cake for breakfast don’t they?) My cakes are lop-sided and often a tad crispy around the edges but they taste good, they never last long. The children like to bake with me. Our most celebrated cake was daddy’s robot birthday cake, unfortunately the shop bought icing was vile and rendered our work of art inedible.

I loathe baking programmes, they just make me feel inadequate and can send me on a spending binge in expensive supermarkets for arrowroot and ground almonds and other stuff that will fester in my baking cupboard. I don’t like to see contestants having panic attacks over their decorating or firm, family favourites being rubbished by the softly spoken judges. It’s worse when it’s the junior version and some ten year old Arabella or Tarquin is  in absolute bits because their Eiffel Tower creation has not worked out the way they planned. I end up screaming at the telly “She’s cooked a bloody cake! On her own! Give her a bloody medal !”  Then my own children lead me away from the television to my haven; my kitchen where homework projects, art creations and hairbrushes invade our eating space. Nigella and Jamie don’t have to contend with this sort of stuff in their kitchens do they?

I bake when I am stressed, it helps me to think and plan. If there is a particularly important family event or work commitment on the horizon, I will make puddings, cakes and pies before tackling the actual job in hand. I think it is also another protest at the fact my mother didn’t bake when I was a child and my only memory of licking the mixing bowl was occasionally at my grandma’s. I obviously felt I was missing out and have determined my own children won’t feel that way, but also in response to my mother’s practice of always having cake in the tin since marrying a farmer…who eats fruit cake for breakfast every morning, not just birthdays.

Which brings us to the day after tomorrow, and the cakes that wait to be eaten. The icing is drying, the decoration is amateur and the cakes are lopsided and crispy. I’d be thrown off bake off and I don’t care!

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.