Motherhood

I've been a mother for nearly 11 years. I still have this worry at the back of my mind that somebody sometime will show up and say that they are terribly sorry, there's been an awful mistake and that there is no way someone as incompetent as me should be in charge of small humans.

Of course, that doesn't stop me considering myself a world expert on all aspects of parenting, Obviously.

Anyways. That's not the point, and yes, I do occasionally have one.

(you know, you are extremely cheeky for someone that doesn't exist)

Motherhood isn't quite how I envisaged it.

Yes, I do go into the bathroom, being the only room with a lock, lock the door and sit and surf the net on my phone.

I have been known to sit and utterly ignore screams of agony and obvious battering of one child by another. In my defence, it is usually very obvious when they are being total drama queens and when there is actually a need for intervention. I have rather surprised my hypochondriac self how un-panicky I am about the children. No, sorry, there are no parts of you falling off, nor do you have a temperature, you are fine to go to school. Do not tell a living soul that you've been sick, or they'll invoke the 48 hour punishment for parents who don't keep their children in full health.

One of my finer moments was telling my daughter in no uncertain terms that she would not be getting fed at all that evening, or indeed the rest of the week, due to her inability to behave in Marks and Spencer, While in Marks and Spencer. In full earshot of her nursery teacher and deputy head of the primary school.

There is no end to what can be made out of a cardboard box and/or paper plates. I've made dishwashers, cookers, fridges, cars, dragons, castles, pizzas, volcanoes, shops, signs, football goals, houses, dolls furniture, rockets, and many other things. Sellotape is a parent's best friend.

I can lie so easily to my children. It helps before they can read, because you can inform them that they are too young for anything you don't want them to do, or similar. When they learn to read, and worse, access Google, then they can verify things and lies become harder.

Sometimes I look at my children and feel utter contentment. The love I have for them washes over me and I just gaze at them, marvelling on the good fortune of having them. Only ever when they are asleep however.. Be it holding a sleeping newborn, or gazing from the doorway upon a snoozing ten year old, there's nothing so appealing as your beautiful babies fast asleep. Having said that, I think that I've had similar thoughts about their father. People are so nice when they are asleep, it's no wonder that I'm a night owl.

It's a well documented fact that going to the supermarket alone is something special when you are a parent. What people fail to mention is that going to the dentist, or a smear test, or anything else you can't take children to, is also a rare treat. Oh, you're running half an hour late? That's just fine. No, really it is. Look at me, sitting quietly, reading a book. Nobody is speaking to me at all. Nobody wants to know what flavour February is, nor does anyone require me to referee a boxing match, It is bliss.

There is no denying that it is wonderful. But it isn't quite how you imagine it.

Films, mostly starting with A

An idea is forming (arising from drooling over Frankie and Benny's quite astonishingly tempting menu, ok, I'm only human) for taking les enfants terrible for a bonza half term/valentines-for-the-babysittingly-challenged premature grand day out. Consisting of film and food, if he-what-pays agrees.

So, food not too much trauma based on the "look, bacon followed by apple crumble" argument, but there is a definite issue of film choice. A consultation with Flixster - which has got surprisingly useful all of a sudden, wikipedia stylee - tells me, trailers and all, of the following films that could possibly be suitable for chiddlers.

Avatar. Looks quite shiny, 3D is intriguing (ish), quite interested to see. Kids may well enjoy...
2 hours 40 long???? Yikes! Why why why? There is undoubtedly a whole hour's worth of padding, can't you get a "Fidgeter's Cut" with all the waffle/scenic nothingness cut out? Suitable for children and people that have issues with too long films?

So Avatar's out. I would quite possibly like it but might be prone to a snooze in the middle so will wait for DVD.

The Princess and the Frog. Disney's latest, cute, lots of singing and... erm, I'm the only girl. So 3 out of 4 members of the party wouldn't like it, and I'm not sure I've even got the stomach for Randy Newman, x chromosome or not.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakuel. Yikes. Singing chipmunks? Which we have free child tickets for due to some shockingly evil, bad, contemptible person taking My Children to McDonalds. (It may quite possibly have been their mother. Um). The boys might well like this and I could float onto a plane of tolerance and cute liking and "ooh look, it's Earl!!!"ness. But the remaining member of the party, purchaser of tickets and required adult to accompany free second child, is unlikely to agree. Ever. May bribe with DS if he promises not to show the other children.

Astroboy seems ideal. Not too cute for grumpy old men or princess hating boys, doesn't appear to have songs and does have Nicolas Cage as a character's voice. But gets terrible reviews and doesn't have free tickets.

These are the projected outcomes for family outing tomorrow:

Option 1: there isn't any outing. Mother type gets mocked for ridiculous (or dericulous depending if the speaker is 4 or not) ideas.

Option 2: Astroboy is watched. May be good (looks good and Up got fabulous reviews so *they* clearly don't have a clue). No food on account of crippling costs of cinema tickets.

Hmmmm.

Excuse me, I need to plant ideas in the children's minds while they sleep...

Perfect programming

Smug parenting. Oh yes. How I despise those who drive their kids to school and give the reason not as:

It's too far
or
We're too lazy

but for the following self satisfied reason:

Because they "love their children too much" and they can't bear the thought of anything bad happening to them so they have to take them right to the school gates.

Uh huh. And that can't be done on foot because...?

Smug. I told you.

And smug it is when parents sniffily state that their children's precious eyes are never tainted by viewing - shock - television, whilst muttering about other, lesser, parents using the television as a "babysitter".

Smugly, I conclude that the reports indicating any damage caused to children is referring to garish, loud, unsuitable tv. Or tv being prioritised above things that children just do, like run around. Not saintly CBeebies, for the amount of time before some guff like Mama Mirabelle comes on.

CBeebies can be quite wonderful, and I can credit it with my (genius) children learning the following:

Shapes
Colours
Numbers

Which is no bad thing. Ok, so I reinforce it forcibly, but how marvellous to have initial ideas placed in their minds in a colourful and cheerful manner. I have waxed lyrical before about the greatness of CBeebies. But there's news!!

Conveniently, for we are at the perpetual questioning stage of "what does *** start with mummy?" while nursery intros their names and what they start with, CBeebies has a new programme entitled Alphablocks.

Oh my.

There are - spookily - 26 characters, each a letter of the alphabet. They hold hands to form sounds and words and are animated charmingly. Each speaks in a manner to most emphasise their letter sound; they have stories whereby they try and solve a problem by linking up to each other to form words until they find the word that solves the problem.

They make more sense than that and form a quite wonderful introduction to letters and words, where I had failed to get across any more than the names of the letters.

There is much cuteness. Q is portrayed as a mad woman constantly pursuing U. T is a doddery old man who loves tea. X is an "exciting" superhero who writes an x in the air with a "cks cks" sound. O is overexcitable and says "oh!" a lot. C is annoyed by K for stealing her sound. And so on.

I love this. It's brilliant. Click the pic, excuse the twee titles, and see for yourself:





As to the "babysitting" element? You have to watch with the kids - which is why this house no longer shows In the Night Garden - or they'll know more than you. When demanded to make something, you had better remember how Mister Maker did it...

People are people

There's a debate going on at the moment:

"Do disabled people give children nightmares?"

You did read that correctly. Sparked by complaints about new CBeebies presenter Cerrie Burnell, who has one arm. Supposedly parents have complained about her, it's "disgusting" and "gives their kids nightmares".

I have two three year olds who are somewhat addicted to CBeebies. They haven't noticed or commented. They don't care. So where does the fear come from? Oh that'd be right, the parents. The parents who say, if asked, "yes, she's only got one arm but she can do everything Alex can". Or maybe they don't? Maybe THEY say "eeeew, that's gross". Maybe it's entirely down to them what the children think because CBeebies don't make it an issue. It's the parents that clearly have a problem with looking at someone that has a disabilities, and you'd expect grown ups, or pseudo grown ups anyway, to have a little more maturity and understanding.

When I first saw Cerrie, I did wonder about her suitability, because it's a very hands on job, because I thought she wouldn't be able to do all the arty things. But I have been proved entirely wrong, she copes magnificently and it makes no difference to her presenting skills. I was however impressed at CBeebies' ongoing effort to have disabilities incorporated into programmes without making a deal. Justin Fletcher (patron saint of children's television) and his programme Something Special are magnificent for treating children with varying severities of disability with no care whatsoever to their condition, which is wonderful, it takes away the fear and "difference" and makes disabilities just one of those things in everyday life. It means that children aren't going to be taken aback when they see disabilities in their own life, it promotes understanding and is highly commendable. The fact that Cerrie's disability did not exclude her from the job of children's presenter is a Good Thing. How can it be otherwise? She can do it, brilliantly.

Here she is, with co-presenter Alex (from BBC Press Office):



She's lovely. What sort of parent can put the ideas into their children's head, and for preschoolers, the parents do have to put the ideas there, that she's anything else? Responsible parenting is the problem here, not responsible programming.

EDIT: one of my three year olds came over just now and exclaimed "Alex and Cerrie!" and insisted I made that picture full screen. No fear there.

Caught out

I'm not exactly a potty mouth, I do tend to swear when I'm very annoyed, but I was happily under the illusion that I curtailed this for the benefit of the kids.

Just now, I was having an unsuccessful tussle with the broom in an attempt to get it to be adult height rather than toddler height. It is stuck as a stuck thing and after a few minutes of getting nowhere, I got annoyed and tossed it aside, saying "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!".

Oliver looked seriously at me for a moment, then uttered the inimitable "fuck", then Rob shook his head and said "fucking broom".

I am very ashamed.

Practical Parenting

Hmm, having just had a conversation with a first time mother-to-be about parenting (through which I was hugely know it all, I can't seem to help assuming the world authority position on birth and early parenting because, like, I've done it, you know), I've been thinking about the whole being-a-parent thing.

It doesn't change your life unduly. It does away with:

lie ins
spontaneous activities
social life

But, other than the first of those, the things that change aren't much of a loss if you are over 25, and hey, you can go to bed early (ha ha ha).

What does change is your perspective. For one, the planet suddenly seems to matter a lot more, and the whole question of religion is entirely different when you have people to explain such things as Christmas to. I don't feel comfortable with saying "well, there's this story about a guy called Jesus, much like Aslan, or as you're not old enough to have read that yet, we'll go with Poppy Cat, and if he did exist he wasn't actually born in December at all and probably what we're celebrating is the ancient celebration for the sun..." but I'm not sure how I feel about saying "well, there's this thing called God and he had a son that was born on this day". Because I don't believe that. Or maybe I believe in Jesus but not that he was the son of God. I don't know. What do I tell them?

Ahem. Got carried away there. You think about things differently. Shoes for example, really really don't matter. In my case I've taken this a LEETLE too far and often appear in public looking like a bag lady. I need to remind myself that, yes, hairwashing is necessary often, and that I should probably brush it too.

But the biggest change is in your perspective of parenting. All those smug thoughts that you had, about what sort of parent you would be, disappear as soon as they learn a bit of wilfulness. Yet, you still look upon other parents with disdain, except you have the added smugness of "my children would NEVER do that", that was purely imagined before. You do learn that the greatest thing you can have as a parent (other than a full time nanny; by my side, not in my place) is not utmost respect for and from your offspring, it is the patience to wait till they've finished their paddy and for the signal that there is an opening for interruption and diversion. Despite what you thought before, there is NOTHING you can do to stop it prior to this, aside from picking the child up and running away as fast as possible. Or staying in all the time. There's obvious exceptions with parents that really should have been sterilised a long time before conceiving, but now when I see the situations that used to make me think "God, I would NEVER have children behaving like that", I either feel empathy, or fear that this exact scenario may happen to me too some day.

I have little monsters. The problem: there are two of them and one of me, and they are two and a half. They both want my attention. All the time. They are adorable, very clever, and a lot of the time in public they make me swell with pride. Like when they say "thank you very much" or count things correctly, or point out interesting things. But there are times when I am standing with one child (occasionally two, but usually the "brother having a tantrum" show is compelling) lying down next to me, kicking and screaming and me saying things along the lines of "if you get up now I will give you some Smarties". I know how that looks, and I know what I would have thought BC (before children). It's not the same as I'd think now.