Wednesday 24 February 2016

Just bloody eat it!

Cheating blog this morning - a rehash of a poem I wrote about our youngest delight one particularly testing mealtime.

Ode to a 2 Hour Lunch

“One more bite? Is that enough?”
Negotiations can be tough,
And that is true especially,
When up against a child of three,

No matter what the luncheon dish,
Pizza, Pasta, Eggs or Fish,
The minutes tick by oh…so…slow,
When in their mouths the food won’t go,

The thing they loved just yesterday,
Is now quite foul in every way,
You dance with joy when they’ll eat ham,
But after that, they can’t stand jam!

The work you put into their food,
Brings criticisms loud and rude,
“Mummy – this makes me feel sick!”
And we have tried most every trick,

The ‘make it with them’ lie’s the worst,
(The childrens “chefs” that I have cursed!)
You know the ones I’m on about,
With perfect smiles, they never shout:

“FOR GOD’S SAKE PLEASE JUST EAT YOUR LUNCH!!!”
At their fussy, grumpy bunch,
It never helps to make a face,
With peas for eyes and a pasta brace,

They just employ their own technique,
To drag it out and make you weak,
Until you finally succumb,
“I’ve had enough of this now Mum”,

“OK”, you say and clear away,
The food that caused so much dismay,
And though they haven’t finished it,
At least (you think) they’ve had a bit,

A tomato here, a carrot there,
It all adds up, so don’t despair,
Just smile, because you know one day,
That their kids will behave this way!!!!

Thursday 18 February 2016

Morphine, Midwives & Maternity Wards

Before my first baby was born, I have a vivid memory of walking down the road on one of my lunch breaks from work.

Well, waddling was really a more accurate description. Nothing to do with the baby, it had more to do with the overdose of bread, cheese and hula hoops (the potato kind, not the gymnast type, obviously) that I had been cramming into my mouth at every opportunity.

As I walked, I was looking forward to the not-too-distant-future of not having to go to work at all. Pootling around garden centres and NCT nearly-new sales on my maternity leave - not thinking about emails and admin and irritating office politics about what constitutes a "jean" -  when it suddenly dawned on me:

I wasn't just having a baby. Oh no. I was having a school child.  And then a teenager, followed by an adult!

Not all at once you understand. I had a sizeable bump, but I wasn't quite big enough to fit 4 people in there. I had been so focused on my pregnancy though; the hospital bag, the birth plan, which buggy was going to be the best and all manner of other, now completely unimportant trivia, that I hadn't ever really thought about what was going to happen after all that.

And now that the thought had occurred to me, it was TERRIFYING. In no other thing in life are you required to sign up to something FOREVER.

Jobs only require a maximum 3 months notice, marriages can be dissolved in less than a year, even mortgages are only 25 years, and you can always sell the house to get your money back. Do you think anyone has ever tried to sell a teenager? Scratch that actually, that's a whole different kind of blog post...

It was an all consuming thought for a while. I knew what to do with babies. You feed them, cuddle them, change them, dress them in cute little outfits and then they love you. Easy peasy.

Still - I was one step ahead of my other half, who had spent all of my pregnancy so far avoiding thinking about the fact that there was even a baby on the way (despite it being his idea!) 

He had never been around babies - never even held one before and being firmly in the "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" school of male thought, was blissfully happy in his ignorance. At nearly 7 months pregnant, he was still refusing to even discuss baby names, or give any opinion on my suggestions.  I therefore spent a lot of time thinking up more and more outlandish options to irritate him into participation, to no avail.

I had read all the books, I had attended all of the ante-natal classes (the free ones, because he certainly wasn't going to pay for us to be told information about something he didn't want to know about...) and I was the one who was now panicking about how we were going to put this baby through university!

After being particularly annoyed that he wouldn't let me spoon him in bed when the baby was kicking because, "it feels weird, like an alien is in there", I decided he had to get with the programme.  I mean, what the fuck did he think it felt like for ME to have a melon squirming around in there?! (I bloody loved it actually - shhhhh, don't tell him!)

My last ditch attempt to drag him into the reality of the situation was to book a tour of the hospital maternity ward.  He had no clue where it was, what happened when women went into labour and was also saying that he wanted it to be just us for the birth.  Just us?  I wanted someone who didn't think I was going to be doing an impression of John Hurt when it came time for our baby to be born!

So we went, one Sunday, about 8 weeks before our due date.  I smugly informed him that he was going to have to start taking things seriously now - that this was the turning point. Well, it actually was.  Being a practical man, he felt much better about the whole situation now he knew the location of the ward, that there was gas and air readily available and a whole host of midwives on standby throughout.  We left with him smiling, possibly even beginning to start thinking about names for our little bundle of joy.

I on the other hand, left feeling completely and utterly terrified.  There was no way I was having a fucking baby. Not in that hotter-than-hell, disinfectant-stinking hole and not anywhere else.  It would just have to stay in there.  

My Mother-in-Law described pregnancy perfectly for me at this point. It was like I was on a rollercoaster that I wanted to get off.  Not at the end, once the ride had finished, but now.  This instant, when you were only at the second drop and you still had the loop the loop to come!

I wasn't used to feeling like this. It was the first time I had ever even considered the fact that I was a complete control freak.  Me.  Laid back, housework slut with a devil-may-care attitude to most things.  Nope. Apparently not. Complete control freak.  

Whilst we're on the whole slut thing though, I've never understood the comparison.  When you look up the definition, it means a woman with many casual, sexual partners or a dirty, lazy woman.  Surely if you're sleeping with all of those men, you can't possibly be lazy?!  Anyway you look at it, it's not a nice word, so I prefer the Urban Dictionary definition (as I do for so many things - see Angry Pirate if you have a similar sense of humour to me...) 

slut
a woman with the morals of a man

However, the great thing about Mother Nature is that it doesn't matter if you are knicker-frecklingly terrified of the prospect of having a baby - it's going to happen, whether you like it or not.  It's actually the most liberating experience of my life and I am so glad that I had that period of terror about it.  Maybe it's her way of preparing you for what's to come - on the fateful day of the birth and forever more as well.  

Just like the ridiculously long human gestation period is useful for getting you over that terror and into the "I don't sodding care how much it hurts or what's going to happen when it's here, just get it the fuck out of me!" phase of pregnancy.

By the time the 15th October 2005 rolled round, I was over my fear and well into the aforementioned final step of pregnancy.  Indigestion, sleeping sitting up so I could breathe, swollen ankles and not eating Brie or drinking booze was all coming to an end.  

There were bits of that day where the terror returned, but there was no looking back this time, only forward.  And when (at bloody last) my baby who was one day to be a boy and a man, finally arrived, none of it mattered.  Not the fact that approximately 47 people had seen my vag that day. Not the fact that I had left my dignity at the door when my husband had to hold my catheter bag up whilst I had a shower.  Not the fact that I looked like something from the Evil Dead for weeks afterwards.  Some say that's how brilliant morphine is and I agree, but nothing prepares you for the feeling of your baby being placed in your arms.

I am so grateful to be able to watch him as he has changed from that tiny version of William Shatner into the handsome, kind, funny boy he is today.  I am also grateful that it didn't matter that his Dad didn't read a single sentence on what to do with a baby - we just figured it out.  And we still are...

Saturday 13 February 2016

Toothpaste, Toilet Rolls and Tempranillo

Relationships can be tricky at the best of times.  With all of the pressures of modern life, we can so easily forget what’s really important.  It’s not about how much money you have or how new your car is.  It’s not about which version of the iPhone you’ve upgraded to, or what brand of expensive jacket you have splashed out on.

It’s about much more basic, vital elements; the ones that mean the same to people the world over – no matter their culture, age, or status.  Like getting the next toothpaste out.  Yes, that’s right.  The next toothpaste.  In our house it is one of those things that only I apparently have the skill to achieve. Admittedly, I am very skilful, but sometimes you need to pass the knowledge on.

The kids will get a new toothpaste tube out when the existing one is ¾ full still – mainly because they can’t be arsed to spend more than 5 seconds squeezing the paste towards the open end, and hey – it’s not their dime!

My darling husband, however, has made NOT getting the next toothpaste out into an art form.  We dance around it for a few days, having to squeeze it so hard that our knuckles turn white – but still, nobody caves.  The next stage requires laying down the toothbrush on the edge of the sink, to free up both hands for the immense effort required to coerce enough paste out to successfully clean your teeth – but still, no surrender.

When I go into the bathroom and see the “concertina”, I know we have reached DEFCON 3.  This is serious shit now.  Then, as I stand there, turning purple with the effort of getting the last smear of minty goodness out, it hits me – I’m a fucking grown up.  I am standing in my bathroom, trying to avoid getting a replacement tube of toothpaste out of a drawer that I am stood RIGHT NEXT TO. 

And why? For what? To save 1p? I’ve already put in all the hard work by finding a brand of toothpaste in the overcrowded dental hygiene market that covers all our anti-cavity, whitening, sensitivity and fresh breath needs.  I’ve tracked it down to Poundland and bought 4 boxes, saving us at least a tenner on the next supermarket shop, so I’m already well ahead of the game.  So why do I need to not be the one to open the next box?

It’s just down to our competitive natures at the end of the day.  I am always the one who gives in to the lure of the new tube though, mainly because I favour the higher moral ground/can’t bear it anymore.  Besides, there is a different kind of pleasure to be had as the loser of the contest – you get the very first squeeze of the new tube.  Good grief, I need to get out more…

More annoying than the Toothpaste War though, is the Battle of the Bog Roll.  Now we have 2 loos to furnish with paper, it is twice the amount of irritation.  This, my friends, is the stuff of the divorce courts, or quite possibly, justifiable homicide.  The number of times I have turned to get some paper, only to find the last tattered strips of half a sheet attached to an empty loo roll is mind boggling. 

For a start, how have you managed to get to that exact point every time? Was there more than that left and you just decided to be cruel and chuck unused paper down after you’ve finished? Or should you really have gone and got some more and are now going to spend an uncomfortable afternoon squirming whenever you sit down? Whatever the reason, it’s always the same end result – I have to replenish the stocks - nobody else.

Also, how come we are now using MORE loo roll?  We have an extra loo, it’s true, but we have exactly the same amount of bums to wipe.  Are people using the loo roll for something else now? I would dearly like to know what…or maybe I don’t.

With one upstairs loo with limited storage (most of which is given over to toothpaste stocks), the downstairs toilet is where we keep our plentiful (see previous reference to me already doing the hard work on this one) reserve of Spring Force – cheap bog roll.  Because in this FMCG household, there is no way I am forking out for fucking Andrex.

This obviously means that nobody can be arsed to replace the loo roll upstairs, because by the time they have reached the ground floor, their minds have turned to far more important things.  Things like Minecraft, or very probably Guinness.  I’ll let you fill in the blanks as to which family member is which.  We even have an unsightly loo roll tower to lessen the impact of the loo roll draught.  It looks like a space age torture device, but you can fit 5 full rolls onto it – probably meaning a once a week top up is required.  Not a lot to ask…or so you’d think.

Mostly, I’m the only one who bothers to even use the loo roll tower.  It’s located just next to your right foot when you are sitting on the throne.  Handy to reach, and that is not a coincidence, friends. So why does my husband find it necessary to leave the roll currently in play, on the top of the cistern?  You have to twist awkwardly back to reach it and then awkwardly back again to replace it.  Just use the fucking tool we have for the job that is 4 inches from your foot!!!!!

This then means that if anyone forgets to check the back of the loo, they start another roll and then we have 2 rolls in play.  Add a late night loo-roll-used-as-tissue incident into the mix and you all of a sudden have a toilet paper may pole situation going on.  Who tidies it up?  I think you can guess…
The other day, I decided that the only way to make my family realise how infuriating this really is was to NOT replace the loo roll. I am soooo out there…

Then I realised that I have to wash the pants in this house and I would be the one to answer the wails of “Mu-ummmmm!” (pronounced with at least 3 syllables), so I decided to plump for the middle ground.  I DIDN’T put the empty loo roll in the bathroom bin (4 inches from your left foot when you’re on the loo – again, design, not fluke people). Instead, I left it on the maypole and went downstairs to the CostCo sized store of paper in the downstairs bathroom and got out 5 rolls, which I then left on the stairs-to-go-up.  (I’ve had some success with this concept in recent years by forming an actual barrier with items so that they HAVE to be taken and not walked past.)

Will wonders never cease!  My darling husband did not ignore them – he picked them up and dutifully carried them on their final journey to the upstairs loo.  Hurrah!  I had cracked it.  Feeling contented that we were all on the same page, I went about the rest of my day, happy in the knowledge that he had realised the error of his ways.

Later on that day, I resolved to forget about "training" and keep my own stash of toilet roll and toothpaste in a secret location and take them into the bathroom with me whilst the others got on with not thinking about anyone but themselves.

Why, you ask?  What happened might not be the end of the world, but now you know the back story to my frustration, I think you might be able to understand how it was the toilet roll that broke the mother’s back. 

One toilet roll (now in play) sat on top of the cistern whilst the other 4 were actually on the maypole. Great!

Except for the fact that they weren't sitting quite right.  They were leaning over at a strange angle, where normally they sat straight on top of each other. Why? Because, at the bottom of the pole, slightly squished (under the weight of 4 full rolls) sat a lone, empty roll of toilet paper. What sort of a person does that? PUT IT IN THE BIN!!!!!

Luckily for him, it was well past the yard arm and a bottle of wine had just arrived on the online shopping…along with another multipack of loo roll. FFS.