'They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad.'

This quote sprung into my mind over tea preparation this evening as I was teaching Zak the 'correct' (and only) way to behead a boiled egg.  It made me reflect for a second on who the hell did I think I was dictating to this child that there was only one possible way to achieve this task.  I think I was probably in a deeper zone than usual, as half an hour previously I had been at Trestle in a full mask having a silent dialogue with another mask about the best way to skin a rabbit.  Luckily for the local rabbit population there were only eggs available when I arrived at home.

I remember having impassioned debates when I arrived at University, (the first time, properly, back in the day), with fellow students, about whether butter/ketchup should be kept in the fridge or not (of course it should/definitely not, are you mad?!)  I realise now that this was the first time we had all lived with people who hadn't lived in our own families growing up, and so, I certainly, had not registered that there was any other way of doing things.  Needless to say I never converted away from my own deep-rooted chilled or cupboard habits.

I keep making the mistake of thinking that my children's personalities are set already.  I think Sebi is more structured into who he will be as an adult than Zak is, but of course there is a long way to go.  Seb shoots the odd look every now and then which can only be translated as "fuck off", and I'm sure this will remain part of him for the rest of his life.  Zak was waiting anxiously for me by the front door as I returned home this evening, whereas this time last year he wouldn't have given much of a monkeys where I was or what time I was coming home.

My Mum was very shy as a child as was determined that her daughter would not suffer the same fate.  She therefore spent a large amount of my childhood instilling in me how pretty, clever, funny and important I was.  She was the first one to point out to me as an adult that she thought she had overdone it somewhat.

My Dad parented, (oh OK, who am I kidding?), PARENTS me in a very similar way to I parent my boys.  The school of thought that I want you to develop your own mind so think about the many different ways there are of doing things and then figure out in the end that my way is the right and only way.  I would place bets on Seb one day parenting in a similar fashion.  Luckily for my children they also have Stuart, to bring a little flexibility and fluidity into their lives, otherwise it might well be like living in a very efficiently run military academy...

I think the main problem with having such an overinflated, egotistical idea of self-worth as I do, is that you cannot possibly imagine that anyone else could do anything better.  I'm the potter and my poor unsuspecting offspring are my clay.  I am fully aware that I'm going to come unstuck one day, as they find their more independent voices and rebel away from their control-freak mother.  Here's hoping the years of groundwork will have paid off.  After all, what else in the world is as important as being able to properly serve up a dippy egg?

Friday on my Mind

Today, I am seriously at peace with the world.  Surprising really, as due to a series of unfortunate events I will be looking after my own kids this weekend instead of the planned palming-off-on-the-in-laws.

I have worked out that if I try and do most of the boring day-off shit on a Monday and a Wednesday, come Friday, I can eat, drink, and mainly not have to freeze on the school run in my running gear.  Happy days.

So, at the beginning to the week I achieved my house-cleaning/Nana-visiting/MA reading/running.  I am trying to ease my parents' burden slightly by doing an hour's Nana-visiting a week.  It is definitely a duty rather than a pleasure I'm afraid to say.  It is awful to think that I clock-watch whilst I'm there but I'm afraid I do somewhat.  The moral dilemma comes though when one arrives to find the visitee otherwise engaged in the bathroom. As I tend to leave this visitation until the last hour before I have to pick the boys up, this means I have to deduct toilet-time from the allotted hour.  Possibly a little harsh but I guess from both sides it is nigh on impossible to plan these things.

I don't want to be old.  Even in the nicest (and seriously most expensive) nursing home in St. Albans, it is a miserable fucking existence.  If there is any justice in this world I won't make old bones.  I'm not sure the running and fruit n' veg intake in my thirties can undo the damage inflicted on my body in my twenties; however, my Dad is 73, and by rights, he should also fall under that rule.  My maternal Grandmother was in her nineties when she died and Nana is still going strong at 99 so who knows.  If I do ever get that old, I'm going to be permanently drunk and miserable.  No change then.

I don't really understand why old people aren't shitfaced the entire time.  There's nothing to lose then is there?  There is one old boy in Verulam House who is a friend of my Dad's, (shock), who seems to get through a bottle of whiskey each day.  There has got to be some merit in that.  Who cares if you offend people, you'll most likely be dead before you see them next anyway!

I wonder if my Nana-visiting will provide me one day, through karma, a granddaughter that visits me in my dotage?  My inkling last year that Sebi might be gay, and therefore although I had two boys I would still have someone to look after their poor old Mum, has gone away.  My pink-loving dancer turned into a little thug as soon as he started school and had a dramatic haircut.

I have achieved an essay plan today.  That's nearly an essay right?  I'm such a knob. Even though I know it is me that is going to have to fathom my plan out next week when I write the actual essay, I write things like "All performance is haunted by death - I don't think I agree," and leave it as that.  I don't bloody know why I don't agree but I just think I don't and can't be bothered yet to argue it out.

I suggested a pub lunch to my husband, then suggested he paid, then had to negotiate a large glass of wine instead of chips with my cheeseburger.  Tightwad.  (Thanks though Stu - was lovely - let's do it again soon.)  Fridays also mean that we are allowed to just watch tele after school instead of any meaningful playing so Mummy can go and submerge with a large glass of wine in hot water for an hour in preparation for tonight. Maybe I could cope with living till 100 after all?  I may well be submerging myself in wine by then though...

Pussy Passing

I didn't think when I started this blog that it would ever involve a cat obituary, but I guess you just have to roll with it sometimes...

I had Toby put down today.  Anyone who has seen my relationship with my cat in the last few years will know that I sometimes got more than a little frustrated at his constant miaowing and clawing but I was surprised at how traumatised I was by his demise!

Through my tear-filled eyes at the vets, I was however impressed at the dignity and pain-free swiftness of feline euthanasia.  I would be lying if I said it didn't flit through my mind that this could be a good option for Nana, although as she is so near 100, I think we should probably give her a couple of months.

I had to fill in a form first to give permission for the act. I would like to think that it will be the first and last death warrant I will sign, but I suppose we never know what is around the next corner... (Mwah, ha, ha.) There was a tick box for what I wanted to happen to Toby after the event.  I went for (a) General Cremation.  I was upset but I do have the perspective that he was, after all, just a cat.  Option (b) was to take his ashes home with me but I had visions of them being found and duly eaten/rubbed in hair/scattered in the lounge by my sprogs.  Option (c) was to take the body home with me.  Erm, no thanks. We had a 'situation' when Shelley and I lived in the flat together where a pissed and well-meaning neighbour presented us with a dead ginger cat in a box and we all lamented over another bottle of wine until Toby walked jauntily through the cat flap.  "Can anyone else see that cat?" said aforementioned intoxicated neighbour.  I then had a dead cat in a box to deal with, so I don't want another one, thanks all the same.

I was actually too emotional in the vet's to pay.  No honest!  When I phoned up half an hour later to sort it out, the veterinary nurse was very, very gentle with me on the phone until I gave her by card number and she told me it was £99.  "Ninety-nine quid!", I shouted, "I was only bloody there for five minutes!"  The sympathy seemed to melt away quite quickly at that point.

Talking to the wonderfully sympathetic Anna on the phone a few minutes later, she gently enquired how I thought the boys would react.  I explained that I'd decided I probably just wouldn't mention it and hope they didn't notice.  As soon as the words were out of my mouth I realised that it didn't sound like the best thought-through plan.  Zak, Sebi and I therefore had a lively discussion on the way home from school about the loveliness of Cat-Heaven.  Tis amazing how inventive one's animal theology can become when put under pressure.

As I sit writing this, an enormous black cat has just nipped in through our cat flap and tried to get in the kitchen.  Bloody cheek.  How do they know?

"Word in the alley is guys that the old ginger one from number 12 has carked it.  Anyone fancy a recky to see if there's any food left out still?"  I bet Tobes turning in his cheap-mass-grave.

I-Zakbot

The iPad is the centre of my eldest son's Universe and, quite often, the bane of my life.

Stu and I have often pondered on if we let Zak play it for as long as he wanted in a day, whether he would actually do anything else at all.  The jury's out, but I reckon he would probably only stop a few times to eat.

We try to responsibly-parent when it comes to the iPad.  They have to share, they are only allowed on it for a certain amount of time, before breakfast and after tea, and if it causes arguments it goes off.  For a spontaneous Saturday-afternoon-shag those rules do however get occasionally broken.

The current game of choice is the intellectually named, 'Plant Vs. Zombies'.  It does what it says on the tin.  My latest issue has arrived in the fact that Stuart seems as zombified by the bloody game as the boys.  In the kitchen the other day, I heard an argument starting over the iPad and entered the lounge ready to let heads roll when in fact I discovered that it was 'Daddy' who wasn't sharing.  Seriously, what hope do they have?   ;-)  As I type this Stu is busily blasting zombies with overgrown virtual cabbages and I don't expect any  conversation for the rest of the evening.  At least it means that he is the one that will eagerly converse about the silly game with the children.

There are a million studies out about how gaming rewires developing children's brains. Nobody can agree on how much is too much though, I guess that varies from child to child.  I would like to think that my two are not into the danger zone but it does worry me how addicted Zak is to anything technological.  He passed the iPad to Stu the other day and couldn't walk straight out of the room without physically swerving past it on the way out.  At least I'll recognise the signs of dependency in him if I ever need to at later stages in his life!

When you ask Zak what he wants to do when he grows up he says that he wants to play the iPad all day.  I translate this to people as "he wants to be a computer programmer, how clever!"; but I'm blatantly lying.  He is a delightful child: polite, considerate, conversational, articulate and intelligent.  It is however, all a complete façade.  He is really wishing we would piss off and leave him zapping cacti to his little heart's content.  The look of horror on his face when he saw my Mum with her newly acquired iPad the other day and she told him that there weren't any games on it.  "But Granny, that is SUCH a waste!"  Just imagine, someone owning their own iPad that they can play on any time they want to, with no restrictions, and them not availing themselves of it!  Utterly bonkers.