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.

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!

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?

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.

running about

I started scribbling this whilst feigning interest in my children’s swimming lessons – not that I don’t want them to learn I just wish it would happen faster! I seem to have spent five years sweating in the sauna of changing rooms, wrestling with one, two or all three wringing, wet children. Don’t get me started on the etiquette – or lack of it – in the changing room. I have seen civilized women nearly come to blows over the showers. It’s not a pleasant experience and my own behaviour is unlikely to win me Mother of the Year award. Today someone in the next class vomited, which meant that two hoards of swimmers and fed up mothers jostled for position. After this I drop eldest off at dancing, the youngest has been to a party. (Daddy opted to take her)

Monday evenings are our free evening, we return shell-shocked from work, put children in bed by 8, so husband and I can sit and silently watch University Challenge. At the start of the year, I thought we had managed to wangle two free evenings. Two! Then middle child’s piano lessons started on a Tuesday, before tea! What a fun school pick up that is! Military precision is required, but never attained. 3.15 the heavens open,as they are frog marched the short journey from Junior to infant school, generally scolding middle one for forgetting reading book, school cardigan, diary, lunch box etc. The youngest one throws me her bag, coat and today’s art piece. We charge back, stopping every few yards for a head count and identity check. They argue about seating arrangements in the car, I am soaked. We squabble home, unless subdued by smarties.  Everything is dumped at the door, demands for drinks and snacks. Scooby Doo pacifies them for twenty minutes. I usher two of them into the kitchen to attempt a bit of homework, often resulting in another argument, in hushed tones now as the piano lesson is in full flow and we do not wish to scandalise the teacher.

Weds is a slightly later piano lesson, tea has to be ready when they come in!

Thursdays is a work day for me, I dash madly back to put tea on and prepare for Thursday evening mayhem; eldest is taken to orchestra practise by friend (5.15), middle child goes to karate (6p.m) , I go to collect eldest and friend (6.30) drop friend off (6.50) Collect karate kid(7.00), Eldest child decides she must practise violin, youngest child says its bed time, husband quite often goes out about now- don’t blame him.

Friday; I rush back from work for eldest child who sings in a choir every Sunday, it is practise night. We pop into Costa, she gets embarrassed by my loud laugh and edges to the door as soon as she sees the senior choir girls arrive. They drink hot chocolate, she drinks hot chocolate so she is cool by association. I drink tea. I am not so cool.

about making friends

I was thinking of writing about school gate politics, so I looked at a couple of articles online and felt depressed.

I considered the rules of friend making.

As a teenager, I was annoyed when my mother befriended my friend’s mothers. She was newly divorced and, having moved away from her home town, had no other way of making new friends, but my thirteen year old self didn’t know that. She adopted my mother in law as a sister and they are irritatingly close. However, I socialise with the mothers I have met at the school gate and at least one of them I would consider a best friend for life, so I can longer grumble can I? That is because that is where I have made friends over the past ten years; antenatal classes (one friend), parent toddler groups, (three friends), nursery (three friends), Sunday school (three friends) and the school gate (number to be confirmed)

I agree with the forums I read in one respect, there are certainly tribes at the school gate and I belong to the part-time mum tribe, but after three kids and 5 years of school so far, the full time mums have gotten used to me but not my changing work day. There are differences too, when my eldest started at the school nursery, she made a best friend in the first term and has kept her right through primary into year 5. (We are not thinking about what happens after year 6 when different secondary schools beckon.) My middle child was born in August and I wept when she started nursery two weeks after her 3^rd birthday and then a year later when she started school two weeks after her fourth and was immediately invited to a 5^th birthday party. Playing a continual game of catch up for the first three years, once divided from her cousin in reception, she has never really bonded with any one child.  We are always away for her birthday or her classmates are away, so birthday parties were abandoned which, in return, saw the end of party invites. The youngest, half way through reception, knows everybody and runs up to little boys and girls forcing them to hold her hand whether they want to know or not, we are inundated with party invites, I appear to be spending at least two hours most weekends, ferrying her to one play centre or another. Here I sit amongst strangers, the only thing I appear to have in common with is the age of our children. Over pale tea and party food we begin stilted conversation and strange rituals of swapping mobile numbers, discussing chid care and weight loss.

 Really, I have enough friends, I just want to read a book, but I will go and chat to the other mums so that they will invite my child to another party and … you never know, my new best friend could be sitting there.

Finance fun and failure in February

So the first week of February has passed and my vow to get back into the Black looks decidedly unlikely now. So I have taken steps. Six of them, to be precise, from the car to the cash point.  I have taken all the money out that I can possibly afford to spend this month. I have compiled a list of the meals we will eat – it took a while as I am not known for my forward thinking. After sucking on my pencil until Tuesday’s toad in the hole, I accosted my husband with, “What do you want for tea- on Wednesday?”

He rolled his eyes and retreated behind his guitar, but his parting offer was to buy £3.99 wine from the local Aldi – a fine saving provided we don’t drink a bottle a night.

I try to learn lessons from the women that raised us. My husband recounts how growing up they had certain meals on certain nights – the same every week. It’s not one of his most riveting anecdotes. Like my own Mother, I intend to shop about a bit too and not pick up the nearest item, but I do make the classic mistake of taking a child shopping with me on a Saturday afternoon. My mother used to spend what felt like hours comparing identical frozen chickens, driving me to tears of boredom at a young age. On one occasion I trapped my thumb in part of the freezer and spent ten exciting minutes watching various members of staff flap about until the store manager arrived with soap and stern words.

So now I sit to write my definitive shopping list, with the intention of sticking to it. I have crossed off cakes and biscuits, because I have all the necessary ingredients in the cupboards and intend to spend the evening Mary Berrying it around the kitchen. I refuse to be distracted by the telly and cheap wine.

Anyway, back to my cash crisis. I count out everything I usually use cash to pay for ;- child minder, piano lessons, dance lessons, karate class, market shopping, church collection and put aside a little to cover whatever book/ craft/ toy Fayre or disco the two primary schools my daughters go to want to surprise me with. Aghast, I eye my dwindled wad of cash and start to panic. I also remember it’s MY birthday this month – darn it! Decide to pay for supermarket shop with plastic but will not ask for cash back. Don’t think there will be any funds left anyway. February suddenly doesn’t seem such a short month after all.

Inevitably, of course, all of my planning is completely scuppered by the discovery that middle child’s school shoes are “leaking a bit”, further investigation shows a massive hole in the sole. Quick trip to shoe shop, try my luck at a bargain and get £3 off the price. Have you seen the price of properly fitted children’s shoes?

 “Cobblers” I say.