Tag Archives: parenting

August 4, 2010 · 10:11 pm

Would your absence be noticed?

I’D love to show you a photo of the first ever tomato to make it to full redness at the allotment, but Baby Bonnie picked it and took a bite before I got to her.

Rather disconcertingly, she then spat it out and handed it to me. And she LOVES tomatoes.

A little worried, I tried it, and couldn’t find anything wrong. Perhaps it tasted too much of tomato. There are loads more just changing colour on my solitary bush tomato, and it just proves that despite previously killing toms at the allotment, they can actually grow there, with even having to be netted.

Apart from the tomatoes, It was lovely to visit the allotment last week, because on my previous visit I was concerned the season was over for me, bar the shouting.

Suddenly everything is ready to eat, despite what certainly feels like the driest summer in years.

A gap of three days since my last potter and the courgettes have turned from tiny half-finger-long veg-lets into marrows. Lots of them.

The kids were digging carrots that were the longest we’ve ever managed in our solid clay soil. Yet more beetroot, spring onions, potatoes, raspberries, far too many beans (they still came through) and onions. The sweetcorn is coming along nicely, and I have a pumpkin plant starting to fruit. At home, there are more tomatoes and the first of a promising-looking mini-cucumber crop.

Now the problem is keeping it going when we go away on our holidays. My attendance is somewhat random at the best of times. How will the plot, and home garden, survive?

In recent years it hasn’t been a problem: it rains.

Usually the problem is coming home to find the weeds have taken over. This year, we desperately NEED rain. And this is coming from someone who is going camping!

What I’d really like is for it to rain heavily every night, just over Northampton, while we’re away. But more realistically, I’ll water and water as much as possible and cover the planting holes of the courgettes and tomatoes with muck and straw to try and hold in moisture while we’re away. Alternatively, you may be able to persuade a friend or relative to water every other day, or fit a drip irrigation scheme with a timer on the tap. I’m too disorganised to have done either.

It was also a pleasure to visit the allotment with all the kids. Our eldest doesn’t have to come after school by virtue of being on the other side of town. It was nice to see how chuffed he was to find the seeds he’d sown in a raised bed back in May had turned into carrots, beetroot, spring onions, coriander and dwarf sunflowers.

He’s also a good forager (scrumping is banned). He came back with blackberries, plums and gooseberries, all growing along the hedgerows (I made him show me).

Foraging is a neglected art. There’s plenty of fruit growing along hedges, footpaths and on derelict land, as long as you’re sure you aren’t trespassing and you know what you’re picking!

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July 28, 2010 · 6:00 am

Aloft, in the loft, sits. . .camping stuff

  WELL, here we go then. We’ve got to entertain our kids for six weeks. It’s the holidays.

Actually, it’s five and a half weeks for some. And the next fortnight must be the quietest on local roads, as just about everyone with children will be off.

So what do we do with them? In the current economic climate, do you do two weeks in Spain? Visit the relatives? Or just stay at home and do over-priced day-trips?

At some point we’re going camping (which I hate) in our decrepit campervan (which I hate slightly less). Not only do I have to do the dreaded clothes packing for six, but there’s all the camping kit too.

Bloke is putting it off, because he knows he’s got to face The Loft.

The loft, in our house, is actually a big cupboard with poor lighting which is stuffed to the brim with. . .well. . .stuff.

Somewhere under the piles of empty boxes, broken computer parts, outgrown baby items, a dismantled kitchen table and the Christmas tree, is an enormous tent/awning, several inflatable mattresses, a camping kitchen, burners, lamps, sleeping bags and a folding table.

We aren’t organised. The stuff will have all the muck and mould from being packed away last year. Our dread of The Loft will mean we won’t have time to check, and it will be just thrown in the back of the van along with too much luggage, too much baby stuff and too many kids.

Then we’ll get there, unpack it all, have a lovely-albeit-wet-when-it-inevitably-rains time, pack it all back up again and head home. Where we’ll end up shoving it all back in the loft.

I think the next few days had better be spent having a loft clear-out, welly-trying session and round-up of waterproofs. Oh, and someone needs to dig through the shed to find the camping toilet/bucket with a lid. There you go kids, who says the school holidays aren’t fun?

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July 15, 2010 · 2:09 pm

Transfer Day

IT was Transfer Day on Monday. To those of you without children, this is when they get a ‘test day’ at their new class, with their new teacher for September.

It’s all very well if you are just dropping them off at a new door, but for those with children changing schools, it’s a little more complicated and for some, worrying.

We’ve got a complicated set-up, having four children who need to be in different places. Doug went to his new secondary school, Northampton School for Boys (and yes, I do still feel guilty). Thankfully they wanted him earlier, so that was an 8.30am drop-off.

Then Billy went to his normal school but a new classroom. Bonnie met Childminder Clare at the school gates, while Jed had a more confusing set-up.

He’s not really got a new classroom to go to, because they haven’t made it yet. He’s not even sure the new Malcolm Arnold Academy will even go ahead now since the Tories have pulled the plug on the funding, despite the high-profile Tory donor who’s supposed to be running it.

So for now, he’s still a Unity (formerly Trinity) pupil.

I guess those new Year Sevens who were due to see their new school might have had an unenlightening day. All these kids – and the teachers – at Unity and Weston Favell (the nearly academies) have had enough uncertainty and disruption over the past two years thanks to Northants county council. It’s stupid, and it needs to get sorted. No politician or council officer responsible for the academy changeover should be allowed to disappear on holiday until it is.

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July 15, 2010 · 9:05 am

She has Wii arm

I AM suffering from “Wii-arm” (pronounced: Wee-arm). It’s a relatively new condition.

The symptoms are a dull ache in the bicep, inability to fully straighten at the elbow, and a burning desire to try and beat your six-year old on a computer game.

We have too many computer games in our house. I can’t really moan as they were bought by the kids with their own money, but I often wonder if we need both an Xbox and a Wii.

The Xbox is newer and currently gets all the attention. But at the weekend the Wii came off the bench and kept everyone amused when it was just too hot to be active outside.

As the elder two were out doing Saturday clubs, it fell to Mum to be Player 2 while Bonnie reluctantly went for her nap.

Ten tennis matches, boxing, golf, bowling, and far too many baseball games later, I’d been roundly beaten by a six-year old and was actually perspiring. Still stubborn enough to do the Fitness Test though, to find that the machine puts my fitness age at 39.

“Don’t worry Mum,” consoled Bill. “At least it’s not your real age.”

No love. It’s one year below my real age. . .

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July 9, 2010 · 10:30 pm

She peed in my shoes

The slippers (after a wash)

THE Terrible Twos are in full swing in our house. Our Baby Bonnie is no longer a baby but a full-on foot-stomping, screaming, temper-tantrum-throwing little madam.

 

I don’t ever wish to gender stereotype but she does seem stroppier than the boys were at the same age. It might have taken slightly longer for her to twig on to the power of an all-out bout of the screaming ab-dabs, but boy, is she making up for lost time.

Bonnie is now two and four months old. She can speak fairly well, is mostly good at making it to the loo in time and knows exactly what she likes (tomatoes, ice-cream, the garden and Peppa Pig) and what she doesn’t like (being told NOT to do something).

We’re now at that wearying stage where she is aware that she’s doing something she shouldn’t.

The tantrum stage is all about independence and testing boundaries. You want her in the car seat, she wants to go in Billy’s booster seat. Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough, Mum.

I can just about manhandle a twisting, kicking child into a car seat, but her wriggling out of holding hands and running off is testing both my patience and fitness.

Bonnie used to come when called. Not now. She will zoom off and when you call her back she will actually pick up speed.

I’ve attempted the tried and trusted Counting Backwards from Five technique (this still works with the boys who can’t resist the competitive element of racing back before “. . .one!”). But she’s not bothered. She wants you to have to run after her and then has a full on tantrum when you prevent her from being run-over.

Extra annoying, of course, is that she reserves this behaviour for me. The childminder will only get a mildly sulky version. Daddy gets adoration.

Despite ignoring her, or picking her up and taking her elsewhere when she does that blood-curdling scream, and resolutely not giving her whatever she wanted in the first place, it does wear you down. And girls don’t seem to forget how annoyed they were with you two hours previously.

The tantrums will pass, but by gum, you have to resist the temptation to join in.

On the other hand, she can be an absolute delight. She insisted on having “lady toes” when she found me re-painting my chipped toe nail varnish (my one attempt at femininity).

She loves shoes, and found my forgotten shiny silver slippers and insisted on wearing them around the house saying: “I a ladeee.”

Until the moment she looked me right in the eye and said: “Mummy, these are your slippers” . . . and then did a wee in them.

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July 8, 2010 · 10:09 pm

Death and the next-day nightmare

THE hot weather has meant restless nights all round. Both Billy and Dougie have had random, unexpected, one-night only hay-fever symptoms. (Pharmacist tip: put a bowl of water beneath an open bedroom window which will attract any pollen in the air like a magnet).
Everyone’s been a little over-emotional through lack of shut-eye.
Nothing prepared me though, for Billy’s next-day-nightmare.

Six-year old Bill is quite chirpy, not one to dwell on things and never afraid to ask a question. He’s usually a good sleeper but about once a month will wake up absolutely crying his head off. It’s quite a shocker, and usually happens just a couple of hours after he’s gone to bed.

He doesn’t take long to calm down, usually agrees to be taken to the loo, and despite trying to get him to tell us what’s wrong, he’s so quick to go back to sleep we don’t ask anymore.We had one of these wake-up-screamings this week.
The following day, Billy came to me in floods of tears, sobbing uncontrollably, asking if it was true that when you died you never woke up again? And when your heart stops, why doesn’t it just start again? And when you die, where does your brain go?

It took ten minutes of cuddling and cooing to calm him down enough so we could talk. Why had he suddenly got so upset about it? “It was what I was thinking when I woke up last night but when you asked what was wrong I couldn’t tell you,” he sobbed.

How do you explain death to a six-year old without scaring them even more?

We’re not religious. The whole “going to heaven” idea felt insincere.

You shouldn’t go on about people ‘going to sleep and never waking up’ either, or that a loved one has “gone to a better place,” prompting the child to think, “well, why didn’t they take me then?”

I tried to be as truthful as I could without being too graphic. I said that sometimes people’s bodies just wore out, or got broken, but some people believe that when your body stops working, your thoughts go to places you like and do things you enjoy, and they call that heaven.

He seemed to accept the explanation that unlike Mummy’s plants, humans can have brilliant long lives and even live for 100 years, and that every time someone dies, a new baby is born somewhere in the world.
Once we’d discussed the logistics of there needing to be room for new babies, he chirped right up and hasn’t mentioned it since.

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June 30, 2010 · 11:07 am

They digested the anticlimax in different ways

SORRY kids, that’s it for at least another four years. Those ridiculously-highly-paid footballers you idolise managed to dash the hopes of millions.
After all the weeks of hype, the wall-charts, the family sweepstake, the flags, the face-paint, and the anticipation, we had to explain to our confused six year old why England had been knocked out of the World Cup.
We also had to explain why a clear England goal hadn’t counted. That was tricky.
Yes Billy, the goal was in, and no, it didn’t go on the score thingy because the referee, (who must never be argued with), didn’t think it was a goal. Even though it was, obviously. And no, they don’t have video replays like rugby.
Everyone was screaming with elation when our goal/s went in, the boys clasped their hands to their faces when the German goals went in.
In the last minutes, Billy turned away, picked up his folder of Match Attach cards and let out a big sigh.
“Well, I wanted Brazil to win anyway,” he muttered, before going out in the garden to forlornly shoot a beach-ball at a mini-goal.
The older boys were like their Dad after the result. Sullen. Meanwhile, I’d had to leave the room to stop anything unsavoury coming out in earshot. It’s hard to be reasonable and sportsman-like when you want to shout expletives at people who get paid in a day what you earn in a year.
If nothing else, being an England fan as child is a great lesson in life’s anti-climaxes.

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June 20, 2010 · 9:58 pm

And the family went south

WE’VE been hanging around with celebrities recently. Y’know, sportsmen, singers, politicians, actors, French aristocrats from the 1700s and the like.
And yes, they were just as dumb and wooden as you’d expect. Well, dumb and wax to be precise.
Having last visited on school trips in the 1980s, Bloke and I took our offspring to Madame Tussauds.
Things have changed a lot in recent years. Apart from the queue of tourists down Marylebone Road. I’d book in advance, but more about that later.
When you’ve handed over your buggy and manhandled your squirming toddler into a control hold,  you visit the A-List Party, where the likes of Brad and Angelina, Posh and Becks, Johnny Depp and R-Pattz are hanging around being mobbed by gangs of  schoolchildren and Japanese tourists. 
It’s a surreal sight. Lots of waiting while people in front of you pose for pictures. Lots of trying to explain to your own children that we’re not taking pictures of them with every single figure in the place.
Baby Bonnie wasn’t happy. “No like Big Dolls,” she whimpered, while her brothers were stroking wax cheeks and trying to stick their fingers up wax noses. She clung to her daddy like a limpet and only released her grip when she saw the opportunity to have a quick dance on a floor with flashing disco lights. This allowed for Daddy to be photographed with Helen Mirren, who looks like she’s ignoring a stalker.
We wandered through each room, from cinema stars to sportsmen. Billy was delighted with the very accurate Steven Gerrard, but not so convinced by Becks or Johnny Wilkinson. Quite a lot of your visit is spent saying: “oh that one’s quite good,” or “it doesn’t look anything like them,” with a lot of “isn’t he/she short?”
Bonnie perked up when she saw Tinkerbell and Shrek, while Bloke got to stand by his heroes John Wayne and Christina Aguillera.
Curiously, the photos Bloke took of me and Jose Mourinho, me and Robert Downey Jnr, and me and Justin Timberlake came out all blurred.
Jed, our eldest, was only prepared to let his cool demeanour down when he saw Jimmy Hendrix, while our middle sons embraced the whole experience, chatting with Britney, being disrespectful to George Bush and Hitler, and moaning very loudly at being too young to go through the Chamber of Horrors. Which, I must explain, is nothing like the one you’d have seen if you went several years ago. Now it’s an interactive walk-through thing called Scream with actors dressed up trying desperately to scare you.
It’s not for the under 12s, so the only one who could go through was Bloke, while I sat waiting (and waiting) with the disappointed and bored kids. Bloke said we didn’t miss much, saying the old static exhibits of serial killers behind bars had been far more memorable.
We all got into sawn-in-half black cabs for the rather cringeworthy Spirit of London ride (think Disney’s It’s a Small World ride done with Churchill and Babs Windsor).
If you were expecting the old Planetarium to be included, forget it, it’s gone. Now there is a brand new 4D-specs cinema show, featuring a (very lazy) plot with all the Marvel comic book characters. You have to pay extra unless you include it in your ticket price. It’s not quite as slick as the ones at Disney, but you do get the effects of things flying at you, with air and water sprays in your seats to add to the illusion. The boys loved it, while Bonnie shot out of her seat onto Daddy’s lap and refused to wear the far-too-big-for-kids glasses.
We were done is less than two hours, and successfully distracted the offspring from the many sweet/icecream/novelties stalls on the way round.
Now, back to the tickets. It costs A LOT to take a family to Madame Tussauds.
It is certainly worth searching online for the various combination offers, two-for-ones and late-arrival discounts. To go in half-term as we did would have cost £110 pre-booking online with a family ticket and an extra child, or £123 on the door. (£28 for adults, £24 for kids, £99 for a family of 2+2). That’s an awful lot of money for a day-out when you’ve paid train fares too. The whole shebang is now owned by Merlin, who run just about every major attraction from Alton Towers and the London Dungeons, to Legoland and Warwick Castle, which is why it’s worth shopping about for family deals. You can half the price by going at 5pm, but it does seem you need to get around fairly sharpish as things start to close at 6pm.
You can find out more and book tickets by visiting http://www.madametussauds.com. I couldn’t for the life of me find a telephone booking number.

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