NYE

Oh what a night.  Where to start?

As I was cleaning the house in preparation yesterday, I realised it was completely futile, scrubbing floors for people to walk on in dirty feet and cleaning a loo for people to piss and vomit all over - pointless!  However, I'm obviously turning into my mother and can't let people walk into a dirty house.

Fraser was the first to arrive.  He'd legged it and let his dear wife wait for the babysitter - good skills.  Everyone was extraordinarily generous in their gifts last night but when Frase turned up with two bottles of champagne AND a bottle of red wine AND some chocolate brownie bits AND some vintage cheddar, I suggested that he might have gone slightly over the top.  He immediately agreed and told me he'd tried to keep the cheddar but had been outvoted by his better half.

I have a serious love/hate relationship with our dear friend Ralph.  It gave me great pleasure therefore to rip a shred or two off him for daring to place his champagne flute on the polished wood when there were a hundred coasters at his disposal.  I went to town and bollocked him unnecessarily loudly and completely until he told me that actually it wasn't his glass at all.  Oops.  I apologised begrudgingly, it doesn't come easily, and then nearly decked him later when he said it was his glass after all!

Stu and I had 'discussed' earlier in the day that maybe everyone would be better behaved if the spirit cabinet stayed locked.  The boys obviously decided that this was not the correct order of play and farcically broke into the spirits' cabinet every time I wasn't looking.  They retrieved a bottle of Calvados but it was like a game of Grandmother's Footsteps and every time I looked their way they tried to style it out by dancing.  It was not a pretty sight.

We had a fabulous surprise visit from Tina and Al, all the way from Hastings.  Thankfully Ralph was having a piss at the time and so let them in.  Otherwise I think they could've been at the door all night!

We were complimented on the good behaviour of our unseen children by everybody all evening.  Poor kids.  I got my husband's permission to go and wake Zak up for midnight as I thought he would love to get up in the night; (we all know better than to wake Seb). When I went up to Zak's bedroom and asked him if he would like to come down and say 'Happy New Year' to Mummy's friends, he rolled over and said he would rather stay asleep thank you very much.  Fair.

This morning they pretty much fended for themselves as a parent didn't arise until 10am, ish.  Luckily they are slightly more self-sufficient these days.  I still feel the teeniest bit guilty about our last New Year's Eve party three years ago when we came down in the morning to find our three year old Zak foraging stale left over rolls from the kitchen table. MOTY.

As I arrived for our annual family/best friends lunch today, I suddenly remembered that I had texted the host at 3am the night before to let him know that all was well and I had prepared the required puddings.  I hoped he might have forgotten but apparently it was quite fresh in his memory as he had gone to bed at 10pm with his ill wife and then been woken by me.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I couldn't have asked for a more fabulous group of people to see the New Year in with. Good job you lovely bunch. xxxx

Christmas Conscience

I'm breaking my rule about never blogging after two glasses.  By quite a lot.  Feel free to go away again.

There is a post going around Facebook at the moment which is entitled 'When your Mummy says she is fat.'.  I read about two sentences and then gave up.  For all my kids' problems in the world, they will not learn about low-self-image from their mother.  Fact.

However, they do learn a lot of shit from me.  They are tired, over-excited and we are all slightly emotional after some wider family issues this week.  This has led me at various points to refer to either of them as spoilt, selfish, horrible and nasty.  My children don't really deserve any of that nastiness.  If we were to look at it as a whole picture maybe we would see that their bordering on spoilt-selfish-horrible-nastiness could possibly be a reflection of my drunken-busy-boring-selfishness.

I even gave them a lecture on Jesus this afternoon.  What was Christmas all about?  We got as far as a baby, a King and a little bit of goodness.  I leapt on the goodness to achieve my aim of trying to instil the fact that as a family we need to be dead nice to each other over the festive period.

I feel sorry for them though.  Stu works from home and regardless of all my extra-curricular, chosen arrangements, I actually only go to work two days a week.  I'm expecting more therefore from my summer-born Year 2 and Reception Year boys after their first term than I'm willing to provide from myself.  An afternoon of Veuve drinking with a lovely, bigger family than ours has put things in persective somewhat.  Christmas is about loving our nearest and dearest as hard as we possibly can, and being grateful for what we have been blessed with.  Thank the Lord for alcohol though and as I was watching the 'Outnumbered' Christmas Special the other night, I was delighted to see the Mum reaching for the wine bottle and then being told off as it was only 11am.  She put it back for a minute and then grabbed it again saying, "Oh, it's ok, it's Christmas."

Amen.

Time after Time

I did bath and bed for both boys tonight whereas normally we do one each when Stu's around.  It was slightly more frenetic than usual as they were tired and it left me reflecting on generally how much easier the bedtime routine is now they are a bit older.  I remember when Zak was nearly two and Seb was only a few weeks old flying into a complete panic when Stu had to work a bit later one night than normal.  "But... you HAVE to be home for bath time, how on earth am I meant to do both of them on my own otherwise?!"  Somebody more sane than myself would probably have sacked bathtime off for that night, put CBeebies on and had a large gin and tonic.  I always strictly adhered to the sacred bedtime routine however and could not break it, whatever shit was going down, (and a lot of shit went down in those days)!

This all led me to wondering what people in the 'non-small kid world' filled their time with in the busy tea/bath/bed time between 5 and 7pm?  I know it is no different to filling two hours any other time of the day but it is so ingrained in me now though that I can't possibly imagine what I would otherwise be doing.  I'm slightly afraid to imagine that Stu and I may well fill that time in the future firmly in the pub.  Surely not on a no-alcohol Monday though?

I'm a right clock-watcher.  Our whole lives run to a military-style regime that is ruled over by the Great Master Time.  I remember a friend quizzing me a few years ago on what really would happen if my kids' tea was served up at 5.05pm instead of 5pm one night. I'm sure nothing untoward would happen but I doubt very much that we will ever find out.

I am fully aware of how anal this all sounds but it works for me.  Shelley can't understand how I always cram so much in and am never late.  She claims it is because I know precisely how long everything takes and can't understand how that is.  I guess you learn how long things take when you do them at EXACTLY the same time each day...

I honestly have no idea how Stu fits into all of this, normally quite cheerfully.  At least the kids have been born into it so don't know any different.  Stu had a carefree, easy existence though, fluidly not worrying about any time, apart from maybe what time he arrived at work each day.  I guess he has just been trained; conditioned; brainwashed?  It amused me when he went to stay with a single mate of his a while back and came home honestly disgusted about how dirty his house was.  A changed man from the one whose open packet of green chicken slices I surreptitiously binned from his fridge the first night I stayed over there!

Anyway, forgive me, must dash.  It is 7.38pm and the dishwasher will need emptying in a moment in the Corrie adverts.  Joking!  Or am I?

'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.