Another day another fad diet. I know, I know, the clue is in the title: these things are fads, they're not meant to work long term and exist only to fuel the market that is the desire to take up less space in the World. La, la, la, I do get it you know. Except, except, I have found one that doesn't look to be a fad, it looks healthy, well balanced and above all promises big results in a matter of days. All I have to do is send £15 to the website, tap in my details so they can help me keep track of my progress, give up dairy, wheat, meat, caffeine and sugar, follow their simple and nutritious recipes and watch as the fat melts away (this seems to be the best thing about this diet, the fat melts, brilliant!).
So you can see why I'm going to follow it, there are none of the usual meal replacement thingys or chocolate snacks (although I wouldn't say no) that hail the beginning of a new fad. Oh no, this one's full of vegetables, and fruit, and water, and come to think of it not much else. Still, I can eat as much as I like three times a day, the website promised and even put it in italics just to reassure me. As much as I like! Do they know how much that is? A lot I assure you, and I can eat it all, finally a diet I can work with.
So, today was the first day, the new beginning if you like. I got to do the best bit about any new diet: go shopping for all the lovely nutritious food I was going to live on for the next month. It felt good, I tell you. Look at all this glorious, gorgeous, nutritious food. I'll be a goddess by next week at this rate, I even splashed out on a six pack of Evian, I'll be saving so much money on wine I can afford a two litre a day habit now. Wow, diets benefit every area of your life, I am reborn.
I am however going to start it tomorrow, it was everso tiring doing the shopping and putting it all away that I had to have a bit of toast and honey to bolster me up a bit. That coupled with the cream puff I had for breakfast, didn't hail the best diet day. Still never mind, I've got it all to look forward to. I've just been scanning the menu for tomorrow and lunch is a power salad with sage cheese.
Hang on I hear you all ask, index finger pointing upwards in an expression of intrigue mixed with disbelief. I thought you had to give up dairy? Ha! Oh dear readers, but I do, no cheese of any sort. But (and it's a big butt), herein lies the true value in paying my £15: Apparently you can make cheese from vegetables, Yes! I had to read it twice too. All I have to do is mix two garlic cloves, a handful of sage a dash of olive oil and three tablespoons of olive water and voila sage cheese. Isn't that fantastic? How on Earth did the nutritionists come up with this one. Not only do I get to eat a raw leek and chicory power salad, but I get to sweeten the deal with cheese. Perfect, I'm going to stick to this one, I can just feel it.
Monday, 27 July 2009
Monday, 20 July 2009
Things I Have Said To My Husband Today
- No thanks
- No really it's ok
- I'm sure you have played a blinder this time
- I just don't want to smell it
- Honestly I believe you
- I don't need to come into the bathrooom to smell it
- Well it's making it's way over here
- Yes, well done
- It is the worst so far
- You must be very proud
- Yes of course I'm proud too
- It's quite an acheivement considering you set the bar quite high
- I'm not being sarcastic
- I know it's a man thing but I do get it
- No please don't phone your brother
- I asked you not to phone him
- What do you mean he doesn't believe you
- Well he'll have to take your word for it
- No
- No don't put me on to him
- I'm not speaking
Things I Have Said To Husband's Brother Today
- Hi
- Yes it was bad
- Worst one yet
- I really don't want to discuss it
- No I didn't actually go into the bathroom to smell it
- It does count, I could smell it from the bedroom
- I'm telling you it was bad
- I don't think you could beat it
- I am not having this conversation
- The one where I'm discussing my Husband's wind with his brother
- It is not the best conversation we've ever had
- Well thankyou for the compliment but I'll go now
Things I Have Said To My Husband Today
- You're right he didn't believe you
- Never mind
- I'm sure you can do it again
- A what?
- Invent a what?
- A fartometer?
- What's one of those?
- Well I suppose it would be useful to have an exact measurment
- Yes then I suppose he'd have to believe you
- Yes you'd better get to it right away
- Yes it is your best idea to date
- Well done
Monday, 13 July 2009
Man Oh Man
So, sorry if I sound a little muffled, I'm hiding under the duvet, way under the duvet, with absolutely no plans to come out until Jack turns three, which is in about a year so perhaps you should get used to this being my voice from now on, Husband always said I could do with a muffler.
Pre duvet-hiding I went to Sainsbury's to pick up the weekly shop and cry a little in the chocolate aisle, and a lot in the cake aisle, I then stopped crying in the Chardonnay aisle and bought myself a bottle, with a straw. Why oh why don't they sell wine in those handy cardboard cartons with an attached straw and convenient silver bit that hides a hole? If they can do it for juice surely they can do it with wine, it's not just kids that need pacifying during the weekly shop you know. I'm nothing if not resilient though, not to mention innovative, so until someone comes up with wine-to-go I make do with a bottle and a straw. The management don't seem to mind, by the time I get to the till I'm a sucker for an impulse buy so they make more money I suppose.
Anyway, it was a normal day, Jack was sitting prettily in the trolley stuffing biscuits down his face and generally signalling to everybody that I had no control over my child so I had to feed him rubbish to get a chance round the shops. Then again, the wine bottle and straw number may, just may, have detracted from this glaring bout of bad parenting. Who cares about a biscuit stuffing toddler when mummy+straw+bottle= glaringly obvious gap in the market for mini wine cartons, get to it someone, please.
Where was I? (you see, this is where a bottle of wine ruins things, imagine how much more succinct and focused I'd be if I'd only had a carton). Ok, Jack in the trolley, yes, and at this point I should remind you that he's now two and talking well. I don't mention him often, mainly because between Husband and Twizzle I have enough material for an entire psychiatric conference, let alone a weekly blog post, so he tends to fall by the wayside.
Jack, in a nutshell, loves men. He wants to do men's work, dig, lift, carry, scratch, drip on the loo seat, you name it if Jack sees a man doing it, he wants to copy. Not only does he want to copy but he has also decided that Every Man In The Known Universe must be pointed out and confirmed in his gender with a loud shout of Man! which is fun as you can imagine. He approaches every new situation with assumed bionic eyes and assures each male present that he has been seen and noted, I am looked at suspiciously as the mother of this gender reassuring service provider, as if I am using him as some kind of cheap but effective dating service (which I'm not, but if I was I'd take him somewhere far more expensive than Sainsburys).
The only problem with this little hobby, and it was a problem that was about to rear its short back and sides head, is that Jack isn't too hot at discerning a man from a woman with short hair. Imagine then the scene, Jack replete with biscuits, Mummy humming gently sipping her bottle of wine, slight tear stains from the inner fight in the cake and chocolate aisles, and a woman with short hair examining cornflakes in the cereal aisle. Round the corner we come, Jack on red alert for any man type activity taking place, only to spy one, one with cornflakes in his hand, one that's wearing a skirt. Lord above, she was trying her best, she may have had rather short and manly hair (and features if I'm honest), but she was giving it her all by signalling her femininity using that bastion of womanhood, the skirt.
Oh please Jack, I thought, please notice the skirt, please just this once. But no, Man! he yells, pointing sturdily at the woman, Man mummy Man! Mummy at this point ducks her head in shame over the Chardonnay and mutters something about having seen a man in the previous aisle and would she like a sip of wine? No? A makeover perhaps? (come on I was half a bottle down).
Oh the shame, the pain on her face, imagine standing in the supermarket, innocently examining a cornflake packet, only to have your gender woefully misinterpreted and loudly proclaimed by a toddler with a pointy arm. Oh dear.
But then, Jack did a strange thing, something he had never done before and which forever more I'd wish that he'd done just ten seconds previously instead of now. He noticed the skirt. I noticed, he pointed, I gripped the trolley and ran round into the ice cream aisle, just as the loud refrain of why man wear a skirt Mummy? drifted thickly over the cereal. I peered round at the devastation that we had left behind, and quietly rolled a bottle of Chardonnay towards her trolley. With a straw.
Pre duvet-hiding I went to Sainsbury's to pick up the weekly shop and cry a little in the chocolate aisle, and a lot in the cake aisle, I then stopped crying in the Chardonnay aisle and bought myself a bottle, with a straw. Why oh why don't they sell wine in those handy cardboard cartons with an attached straw and convenient silver bit that hides a hole? If they can do it for juice surely they can do it with wine, it's not just kids that need pacifying during the weekly shop you know. I'm nothing if not resilient though, not to mention innovative, so until someone comes up with wine-to-go I make do with a bottle and a straw. The management don't seem to mind, by the time I get to the till I'm a sucker for an impulse buy so they make more money I suppose.
Anyway, it was a normal day, Jack was sitting prettily in the trolley stuffing biscuits down his face and generally signalling to everybody that I had no control over my child so I had to feed him rubbish to get a chance round the shops. Then again, the wine bottle and straw number may, just may, have detracted from this glaring bout of bad parenting. Who cares about a biscuit stuffing toddler when mummy+straw+bottle= glaringly obvious gap in the market for mini wine cartons, get to it someone, please.
Where was I? (you see, this is where a bottle of wine ruins things, imagine how much more succinct and focused I'd be if I'd only had a carton). Ok, Jack in the trolley, yes, and at this point I should remind you that he's now two and talking well. I don't mention him often, mainly because between Husband and Twizzle I have enough material for an entire psychiatric conference, let alone a weekly blog post, so he tends to fall by the wayside.
Jack, in a nutshell, loves men. He wants to do men's work, dig, lift, carry, scratch, drip on the loo seat, you name it if Jack sees a man doing it, he wants to copy. Not only does he want to copy but he has also decided that Every Man In The Known Universe must be pointed out and confirmed in his gender with a loud shout of Man! which is fun as you can imagine. He approaches every new situation with assumed bionic eyes and assures each male present that he has been seen and noted, I am looked at suspiciously as the mother of this gender reassuring service provider, as if I am using him as some kind of cheap but effective dating service (which I'm not, but if I was I'd take him somewhere far more expensive than Sainsburys).
The only problem with this little hobby, and it was a problem that was about to rear its short back and sides head, is that Jack isn't too hot at discerning a man from a woman with short hair. Imagine then the scene, Jack replete with biscuits, Mummy humming gently sipping her bottle of wine, slight tear stains from the inner fight in the cake and chocolate aisles, and a woman with short hair examining cornflakes in the cereal aisle. Round the corner we come, Jack on red alert for any man type activity taking place, only to spy one, one with cornflakes in his hand, one that's wearing a skirt. Lord above, she was trying her best, she may have had rather short and manly hair (and features if I'm honest), but she was giving it her all by signalling her femininity using that bastion of womanhood, the skirt.
Oh please Jack, I thought, please notice the skirt, please just this once. But no, Man! he yells, pointing sturdily at the woman, Man mummy Man! Mummy at this point ducks her head in shame over the Chardonnay and mutters something about having seen a man in the previous aisle and would she like a sip of wine? No? A makeover perhaps? (come on I was half a bottle down).
Oh the shame, the pain on her face, imagine standing in the supermarket, innocently examining a cornflake packet, only to have your gender woefully misinterpreted and loudly proclaimed by a toddler with a pointy arm. Oh dear.
But then, Jack did a strange thing, something he had never done before and which forever more I'd wish that he'd done just ten seconds previously instead of now. He noticed the skirt. I noticed, he pointed, I gripped the trolley and ran round into the ice cream aisle, just as the loud refrain of why man wear a skirt Mummy? drifted thickly over the cereal. I peered round at the devastation that we had left behind, and quietly rolled a bottle of Chardonnay towards her trolley. With a straw.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Things I Have Said To My Husband Today
- Darling?
- Sweetheart?
- Husband
- No, no nothing's wrong
- It's just you're all over my side of the bed
- You are
- Wake up and have a look
- Yes you may be predominantly in the middle
- But your feet are over mine
- And your head's on my pillow
- It is my pillow
- Well if you move over you'll see yours over your side of the bed
- Go on
- Just roll over that's all it'll take
- Roll
- Not that far
- Yes I know you're clinging on with one arse cheek
- That doesn't mean you weren't over on my side
- You just rolled too far
- What do you mean it must be nice over the big side of the bed?
- Just leave it it's 4am
- Night
- Darling?
- It's 4am
- Well stop it
- I'm well aware we're awake being one of the awake ones
- Go to sleep
- I'm sorry you can't sleep now
- No there's no quickie on offer
- I said no quickies
- Or slow ones
- It's two hours until the alarm goes off
- I don't care that it'll only take two minutes
- I didn't wake you for sex you were just on my side of the bed
- Yes I suppose I have learned my lesson
- Yes I won't disturb you in future
- Night
- Darling?
- Get that thing out of my back
- Or I'll tell your Mother
- Thanks
- Night
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Well Done Google
Now I know I've written about it before, so it will come as no surprise to any of you that I have a stat counter on this blog. Before you all gasp in middle class horror and nod knowingly to each other that you always knew that I was the type, I know a lot of you have them too. You do, there are ways you see of telling, not least because most of us can't resist putting the live feed box onto our blogs. Ha! Got you, so no more smirking at the back please and you can remove yourself from Judgement Corner before I do it myself with force and a threat of no pudding after tea (dessert after dinner to my American readers, I'm harsh but fair).
Anyway, as most of you know, this little stat counter can tell you all sorts of things, the most intriguing, and downright entertaining being the google search words that people put into the search engine and thereby find your blog. As I recounted in A Rose By Any Other Name many of these are downright inappropriate and excitingly pornographic, and again I can only extend my heart felt apologies to anyone coming to this blog (sorry) via such searches as housewife tied to stool with dog or housewife beating milkman with bamboo for the banality you are faced with (you are facing the computer aren't you? There's no panting sound track with this blog, yet another disappointment, I suppose I could record the dog after a run if this would help?).
The thing is, after a while you get a bit immune to these searches, even a little bored. There's only so many times you can snigger at sex-with-a-housewife requests before you begin to tune out and hum a little tune at the ordinariness of it all. Surely, surely someone can come up with something better? Something to brighten my day a little? Something a little more imaginative than plain old sex?
Well, they did. Today, just now in fact. And for reasons that will become clear, I am a little concerned. Scanning down the Google searches in a quiet moment at my laptop, looking for the pathways of readers (only out of interest you understand, although Nunhead Mum of One I notice you've been absent for a while, twenty lines please: I must read Millennium Housewife every week, everyone else, take note), there it stood, in italics:
I Shot Myself.
I shot myself? Who? What? The cliches are running out of my mouth before I can stop them (although this image may please some of the porn searchers out there). Who on earth thinks: oops I just shot myself, I'll just boot up the computer and check the symptoms on Google before calling an ambulance? It's obvious isn't it? I'm not mad am I? It is you not me isn't it? You don't need to google the symptoms, the diagnosis is right there in front of you. You shot yourself. Therefore you have a giant piece of pointy metal somewhere in your body. The clue as to where could be the great gaping hole spurting blood, the one that looks a little worse for wear. In fact if you're feeling a little dizzy, this may be another clue and I'd dial the hospital quite quickly.
What did they expect? Did google answer with a concise and neat link to selfdiagnosis.com? Or perhaps bring up a lesson in self bandaging and bullet removal? No. Of course it didn't, because Google would then be sued for allowing someone stupid enough to shoot themselves to find a website that stupidly advises on self-removal of a bullet in a stupid manner. And Google isn't stupid.
Instead, of course it sent them to me. So, err, sorry about that person-who-shot-themselves. Sorry if you've just read all the way down to this bit while bleeding, possibly to death, only to find I'm not going to advise you on bullet removal. I'm also sorry about the calling you stupid bit, especially if this is the last thing you ever read. I feel a bit bad about that. Still, if you survive, you could always sue Google for not providing you with the life saving website you were looking for, that might be fun. If you're still able to read at the moment try calling 999 if you live in the UK, or 911 in America, I'm afraid I don't know any other emergency numbers for other countries, even though I live in Europe. But that's a debate for another day.
So, as you can see, this is why I'm concerned, what happened to the person who shot themselves, no one that stupid could possibly survive could they? (again sorry if it's you and you're still reading, I'm presuming you're on the floor right now). And what about me? Was that the highlight of my google searches? Am I doomed forever more to dog and housewife couplings, never again to be enthralled, delighted and disturbed in equal measure at the horror of the story unfolding on my stat counter. I hope not. Poor me (and poor you if you're the shot-one, and well done for bothering to read the post, there's lots more if you care to scroll down).
Anyway, as most of you know, this little stat counter can tell you all sorts of things, the most intriguing, and downright entertaining being the google search words that people put into the search engine and thereby find your blog. As I recounted in A Rose By Any Other Name many of these are downright inappropriate and excitingly pornographic, and again I can only extend my heart felt apologies to anyone coming to this blog (sorry) via such searches as housewife tied to stool with dog or housewife beating milkman with bamboo for the banality you are faced with (you are facing the computer aren't you? There's no panting sound track with this blog, yet another disappointment, I suppose I could record the dog after a run if this would help?).
The thing is, after a while you get a bit immune to these searches, even a little bored. There's only so many times you can snigger at sex-with-a-housewife requests before you begin to tune out and hum a little tune at the ordinariness of it all. Surely, surely someone can come up with something better? Something to brighten my day a little? Something a little more imaginative than plain old sex?
Well, they did. Today, just now in fact. And for reasons that will become clear, I am a little concerned. Scanning down the Google searches in a quiet moment at my laptop, looking for the pathways of readers (only out of interest you understand, although Nunhead Mum of One I notice you've been absent for a while, twenty lines please: I must read Millennium Housewife every week, everyone else, take note), there it stood, in italics:
I Shot Myself.
I shot myself? Who? What? The cliches are running out of my mouth before I can stop them (although this image may please some of the porn searchers out there). Who on earth thinks: oops I just shot myself, I'll just boot up the computer and check the symptoms on Google before calling an ambulance? It's obvious isn't it? I'm not mad am I? It is you not me isn't it? You don't need to google the symptoms, the diagnosis is right there in front of you. You shot yourself. Therefore you have a giant piece of pointy metal somewhere in your body. The clue as to where could be the great gaping hole spurting blood, the one that looks a little worse for wear. In fact if you're feeling a little dizzy, this may be another clue and I'd dial the hospital quite quickly.
What did they expect? Did google answer with a concise and neat link to selfdiagnosis.com? Or perhaps bring up a lesson in self bandaging and bullet removal? No. Of course it didn't, because Google would then be sued for allowing someone stupid enough to shoot themselves to find a website that stupidly advises on self-removal of a bullet in a stupid manner. And Google isn't stupid.
Instead, of course it sent them to me. So, err, sorry about that person-who-shot-themselves. Sorry if you've just read all the way down to this bit while bleeding, possibly to death, only to find I'm not going to advise you on bullet removal. I'm also sorry about the calling you stupid bit, especially if this is the last thing you ever read. I feel a bit bad about that. Still, if you survive, you could always sue Google for not providing you with the life saving website you were looking for, that might be fun. If you're still able to read at the moment try calling 999 if you live in the UK, or 911 in America, I'm afraid I don't know any other emergency numbers for other countries, even though I live in Europe. But that's a debate for another day.
So, as you can see, this is why I'm concerned, what happened to the person who shot themselves, no one that stupid could possibly survive could they? (again sorry if it's you and you're still reading, I'm presuming you're on the floor right now). And what about me? Was that the highlight of my google searches? Am I doomed forever more to dog and housewife couplings, never again to be enthralled, delighted and disturbed in equal measure at the horror of the story unfolding on my stat counter. I hope not. Poor me (and poor you if you're the shot-one, and well done for bothering to read the post, there's lots more if you care to scroll down).
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Things I Have Said To My Husband Today
- Hi darling, how was your day?
- Oh good
- What's that?
- That box you're carrying
- Ooh goody I love surprises
- All for me? wow
- I wonder what's inside
- Ooh what is it?
- It looks like socks
- Yup, definitely socks
- White socks at that
- Should I stop now or will further delving simply reveal more white socks?
- Oh I see, more white socks
- 100?
- Ooh you really pushed the boat out this time
- I'm not being sarcastic, it's just that it's a hundred white socks
- Well what does one say about one hundred white socks?
- Right
- Well
- Errr, thankyou
- Where did you get them from?
- If a guy at work is closing down it usually means his products aren't selling
- Well, I'm saying that if no one in the world wanted to buy his socks, why on earth did you buy them?
- They were free?
- So my present is a hundred pairs of white socks that you got for free from a guy closing down a warehouse
- What do you mean they're a size nine?
- I'm a six
- Well you know my bra size
- Yes I'm sure it's much more fun shopping for bras
- What do you mean you have your hands to help you remember the size?
- Please don't tell me that's how you shop for bras
- The assistant will understand the size, you don't have to cup your hands
- Well how would you like it if that's how I shopped for your underpants?
- No I don't think the assistant would fall down in an impressed faint
- Or ask if you're likely to be single soon
- Although you may be now I know how you shop for bras
Friday, 19 June 2009
Ten Steps To Becoming A Better Parent
- Keeping Mum: If you're worried your two year old is going to grass up your latest gaffe to your Husband and reveal that you let him (two year old not Husband) wee freely on the bedroom carpet, let him chew chewing gum all day. Sticks their mouth together beautifully.
- Bribe #1: Use anything you can, sweets/magazines/DVDs/whiskey to evoke good behaviour from your offspring at all times. Whiskey is cheaper.
- Bribe #2: A good cake or, in extreme cases Money, can be used to bribe a teacher. 'A' grades are a lot easier to come by than you think.
- Santa or equivalent: Use him! You only have a few years with your first and even less with subsequent children due to the snitching impulse. According to you, Santa is available day and night via Skype to report on a child's behaviour. He adjusts his lists accordingly on an hourly basis. He also reserves the right to allow certain behaviours sometimes and ban it completely another. He's a fickle fellow.
- The Tooth Fairy: A year round equivalent to Santa. It doesn't even have to be that expensive, tell your child that a 1p piece is a pound coin, cheap for you while sounding reassuringly expensive to friends. Total cost: about 20p
- Clothing: Dress your daughter like a Bratz doll until she's ten, she'll love you. And bought love is the best. Don't forget to add the eyeliner, it really stands out in the playground.
- Information: Answer your child's every question in great detail. Use power point and a pointy stick if you can. Include as many long and complicated words and expressions as you can. Pause frequently for effect. Take all day if you like, it'll soon put a stop to those pesky questions. That'll show them.
- Sleep: Allow your child to sleep anywhere they choose as long as they stay in their room. A laundry basket in the corner makes an exciting alternative bed, this way they stay there. Good for you, exciting for them. Everybody wins.
- Budget: Encourage low cost/one ball games. Discourage expensive hobbies. Tell them ponies bite/tennis players go blind/golf is a high death rate sport.
- Care: Husband/uncle/grandparent/random stranger can all be roped in to help care for your offspring and give you a break. If fact anyone over sixteen is fair game. Just make sure they understand the above rules and have at least one finger or toe that they can dial 999 with. Under no circumstances give them your own phone number, they will only call it. The police come faster anyway.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Tripping The Light Fantastic
We went to a thirtieth birthday party on Saturday night, the thirtieth birthday party of my best friend's little sister. There is nothing, nothing more ageing or depressing than for people who you only ever saw as much younger than you hitting milestones that you're still in denial about. We were excited to be asked, of course. For a start it meant that we were still young enough to paaarrrtttaayy!-they do say that nowadays don't they? If not I fear I may have made a small gaffe jumping onto a table and yelling it through a bread stick in an attempt to get this paaarrttaayy started. But I was being young, hip, crikey we had an overnight babysitter and could deny all childcare responsibilities for at least fourteen hours. We could join the group of carefree kids tripping the light fantastic who could still claim to have some sort of a grip on the word twenty.
Deciding to deny any relationship with the big three-oh I attempted such cliches as ooh, you can't be thirty, I still think of you as eleven and I still feel sixteen ha ha ha ha ha, although I stopped short of I used to change your nappies before I shot myself (or the birthday girl shot herself at the horror). I could be twenty, or there abouts, just watch me jiiiive.
There was a difference though, it was much more civilised than I remember things. Husband and I left our social life behind at the grand old age of twenty seven, right at the height of every one's partying. Finally every one's salaries were looking up, as was their holiday allowance and consequently pulling potential. And what did we do? Have a baby. Well done. Everybody else flitted to Morocco and hugged orangutans in a forest somewhere (apparently Borneo but I saw the slide shows and it looked suspiciously like Whipsnade Zoo). We swapped Going Out clothes for jeans, trainers and Teflon coated tops, everyone else swapped Work Clothes for flip flops and a backpack. We have, in a nutshell, been absent from any kind of swinging (in the music sense, not in the car keys in the middle of the room sense) social life while we changed nappies, burped babies and negotiated school runs.
But, now we were back! The children finally old enough for an over night babysitter that hadn't had to be bribed with a holiday package and bonuses, here we were, ready to don our dancing shoes and, to be honest, get sloshed again. Whoo hooo!
Though we had you see, failed to get one teeny tiny point: while we were absent everyone else had grown up too. Rather than be greeted by shots of flaming zambucaas and vodka girls sticking alcohol down you mouth and a nipple in your ear, we all had a quiet drink and chats in a bar. We then went to a very civilised Indian Restaurant (rather than a curry house, the only one open at three am, the reason being that only incredibly drunk people would eat the food and not complain to Health and Safety the next morning). It was delightful, we felt neither old nor young, no pretending to be in our twenties and surreptitious glances saw the same creep of age on everyone as on us. Husband even spent a happy half hour chatting to every man there while chancing a quick photo on his phone of the back of their heads. He's had them printed out today and now we have a gallery of every bald spot in the place. Husband compares tolerably well and is strutting about the house like a twenty nine year old. A twenty nine year old that wears pyjamas and slippers. But twenty nine nonetheless.
Deciding to deny any relationship with the big three-oh I attempted such cliches as ooh, you can't be thirty, I still think of you as eleven and I still feel sixteen ha ha ha ha ha, although I stopped short of I used to change your nappies before I shot myself (or the birthday girl shot herself at the horror). I could be twenty, or there abouts, just watch me jiiiive.
There was a difference though, it was much more civilised than I remember things. Husband and I left our social life behind at the grand old age of twenty seven, right at the height of every one's partying. Finally every one's salaries were looking up, as was their holiday allowance and consequently pulling potential. And what did we do? Have a baby. Well done. Everybody else flitted to Morocco and hugged orangutans in a forest somewhere (apparently Borneo but I saw the slide shows and it looked suspiciously like Whipsnade Zoo). We swapped Going Out clothes for jeans, trainers and Teflon coated tops, everyone else swapped Work Clothes for flip flops and a backpack. We have, in a nutshell, been absent from any kind of swinging (in the music sense, not in the car keys in the middle of the room sense) social life while we changed nappies, burped babies and negotiated school runs.
But, now we were back! The children finally old enough for an over night babysitter that hadn't had to be bribed with a holiday package and bonuses, here we were, ready to don our dancing shoes and, to be honest, get sloshed again. Whoo hooo!
Though we had you see, failed to get one teeny tiny point: while we were absent everyone else had grown up too. Rather than be greeted by shots of flaming zambucaas and vodka girls sticking alcohol down you mouth and a nipple in your ear, we all had a quiet drink and chats in a bar. We then went to a very civilised Indian Restaurant (rather than a curry house, the only one open at three am, the reason being that only incredibly drunk people would eat the food and not complain to Health and Safety the next morning). It was delightful, we felt neither old nor young, no pretending to be in our twenties and surreptitious glances saw the same creep of age on everyone as on us. Husband even spent a happy half hour chatting to every man there while chancing a quick photo on his phone of the back of their heads. He's had them printed out today and now we have a gallery of every bald spot in the place. Husband compares tolerably well and is strutting about the house like a twenty nine year old. A twenty nine year old that wears pyjamas and slippers. But twenty nine nonetheless.
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Ask Millennium Housewife!
Crikey a month goes by quickly. It's that time again folks, dilemmas answered, life sorted, torments thwarted la la la, you get the gist. Here we go:
Maternal Tales asks:
Dear Millennium Housewife, I've just realised this morning that my child has nits, but I sent her to school anyway. Does this make me a bad mother?
Millennium Housewife writes:
Dear MT, It would be far too easy to say, in a nutshell, yes, this makes you a Bad Mother. Who in their right mind would send their little darling to school covered in lice if there wasn't an end of year prize in it for them? Obviously if there is a prospect of a prize then this action makes you a positively stupendous mother; willing to risk your child's ostracisation and subsequent mental health in order to get that trophy up on the specially made trophy shelf (which heretofore has held only the pasta shell trophy you made yourself just to have something to put there/show off to your friends), so well done you.
But let's look at this more closely. What, really, constitutes a Bad Mother? At what point do we slide from slightly slummy, to downright dirty? I mean, to start with you noticed your child had nits, that's brilliant! Close Observation skills are coming along nicely, as is the Identification, but not the Elimination, side of your parenting lessons. Another well done is due here I think, and feel free to make another pasta shell trophy, it will really mean something this time.
However, just before you go rummaging in the dry goods cupboard (you do have one of those don't you, it's not just all stuffed under the sink?), you need to consider the circumstances of the aforementioned Close Observation skills. There may be a point in considering when exactly your child contracted nits, and how long therefore it took you to notice them. Of course, if the nits had reached such gargantuan proportions that you first noticed them as they leaped tall buildings in a giant leap, or that their weight was causing your child neck problems that no neck brace seemed to fix, or indeed that they had been there so long that they had developed their own society complete with currency and language, then I suggest you put down that fussilli and consider your shortcomings.
Or, if you would like a more user friendly, and downright easier suggestion, I always find a great deal of comfort in denial, and removing my contact lenses for five days out of seven. Do that and you can place your child's nit ridden head to your guilt free bosom and claim Good Motherhood.
I know which I'd do.
Mud In The City asks:
Dear Millennium Housewife, my new washing machine is being held hostage by the delivery man. I am very close to running out of clean pants. Please help.
Millennium Housewife says:
Dear Mud, firstly I read your blog, and I know that you're a girl (or else a man with serious gender issues, issues too huge to be dealt with in this blog, so sorry if that's where you wanted me to go with this), and girls wear knickers, not pants. Boys wear pants, they're stretchy and large, often with a Y front and usually sport a little wet spot at the front. They also wear boxer shorts, like loose pants, normally slightly larger but still have that little wet spot. In extreme cases boys also wear comedy boxer shorts, that's right, boxer shorts with funny things on them. To make you laugh (hence the comedy title). I'm not sure of the usefulness of these, they seem to serve little or no purpose except to the wearer, who unless he wears a brand new pair every day, with a brand new joke on them, surely tires of the same old gag morning after morning. So the only reason I can see is to entertain anyone daring to enter the boxer short zone, and, surely, that's not the kind of entertainment he was hoping to provide. He's taken time, chatting, wooing, working all his tricks to get her into bed, probably spent a fair amount of his mortgage and made up the equivalent amount about his life to find himself in the desired position of being allowed to take each other's clothes off. Imagine then his consternation when the object of his desires finally (finally!) gets to the boxer short taking off bit, only to laugh uproariously and loudly when looking down there. Is that going to do anything for a chap's self esteem? In a word, no, unless he is using them as a decoy so that when presented with what's under the boxer shorts she is too laughed out to repeat the gesture. In which case they're a brilliant idea.
Anyway, unless the delivery men are threatening to cut off your washing machine's ear or some such grisly thing, I suggest you let them hang onto it and get yourself to Marks and Spencer for some knickers. They look so much better with bras.
Working Mum On The Verge (I think she means on the verge of a crises, I don't think she's parked permanently on a verge) asks:
Dear Millennium Housewife, How can I eat my five-year-old's Easter eggs without her realising? How come she has some left? And how come she knows exactly what she has left?
Millennium Housewife writes:
Dear Working Mum (and greetings to your verge, if indeed that is where you are sitting). Firstly you've asked three questions, a little greedy quite frankly, but then that is what we are talking about isn't it? Greed. You have already eaten your own Easter eggs, and now your prudent and restrained child is going to have to pay the price by donating hers. I know how you feel, and here's how to do it:
Maternal Tales asks:
Dear Millennium Housewife, I've just realised this morning that my child has nits, but I sent her to school anyway. Does this make me a bad mother?
Millennium Housewife writes:
Dear MT, It would be far too easy to say, in a nutshell, yes, this makes you a Bad Mother. Who in their right mind would send their little darling to school covered in lice if there wasn't an end of year prize in it for them? Obviously if there is a prospect of a prize then this action makes you a positively stupendous mother; willing to risk your child's ostracisation and subsequent mental health in order to get that trophy up on the specially made trophy shelf (which heretofore has held only the pasta shell trophy you made yourself just to have something to put there/show off to your friends), so well done you.
But let's look at this more closely. What, really, constitutes a Bad Mother? At what point do we slide from slightly slummy, to downright dirty? I mean, to start with you noticed your child had nits, that's brilliant! Close Observation skills are coming along nicely, as is the Identification, but not the Elimination, side of your parenting lessons. Another well done is due here I think, and feel free to make another pasta shell trophy, it will really mean something this time.
However, just before you go rummaging in the dry goods cupboard (you do have one of those don't you, it's not just all stuffed under the sink?), you need to consider the circumstances of the aforementioned Close Observation skills. There may be a point in considering when exactly your child contracted nits, and how long therefore it took you to notice them. Of course, if the nits had reached such gargantuan proportions that you first noticed them as they leaped tall buildings in a giant leap, or that their weight was causing your child neck problems that no neck brace seemed to fix, or indeed that they had been there so long that they had developed their own society complete with currency and language, then I suggest you put down that fussilli and consider your shortcomings.
Or, if you would like a more user friendly, and downright easier suggestion, I always find a great deal of comfort in denial, and removing my contact lenses for five days out of seven. Do that and you can place your child's nit ridden head to your guilt free bosom and claim Good Motherhood.
I know which I'd do.
Mud In The City asks:
Dear Millennium Housewife, my new washing machine is being held hostage by the delivery man. I am very close to running out of clean pants. Please help.
Millennium Housewife says:
Dear Mud, firstly I read your blog, and I know that you're a girl (or else a man with serious gender issues, issues too huge to be dealt with in this blog, so sorry if that's where you wanted me to go with this), and girls wear knickers, not pants. Boys wear pants, they're stretchy and large, often with a Y front and usually sport a little wet spot at the front. They also wear boxer shorts, like loose pants, normally slightly larger but still have that little wet spot. In extreme cases boys also wear comedy boxer shorts, that's right, boxer shorts with funny things on them. To make you laugh (hence the comedy title). I'm not sure of the usefulness of these, they seem to serve little or no purpose except to the wearer, who unless he wears a brand new pair every day, with a brand new joke on them, surely tires of the same old gag morning after morning. So the only reason I can see is to entertain anyone daring to enter the boxer short zone, and, surely, that's not the kind of entertainment he was hoping to provide. He's taken time, chatting, wooing, working all his tricks to get her into bed, probably spent a fair amount of his mortgage and made up the equivalent amount about his life to find himself in the desired position of being allowed to take each other's clothes off. Imagine then his consternation when the object of his desires finally (finally!) gets to the boxer short taking off bit, only to laugh uproariously and loudly when looking down there. Is that going to do anything for a chap's self esteem? In a word, no, unless he is using them as a decoy so that when presented with what's under the boxer shorts she is too laughed out to repeat the gesture. In which case they're a brilliant idea.
Anyway, unless the delivery men are threatening to cut off your washing machine's ear or some such grisly thing, I suggest you let them hang onto it and get yourself to Marks and Spencer for some knickers. They look so much better with bras.
Working Mum On The Verge (I think she means on the verge of a crises, I don't think she's parked permanently on a verge) asks:
Dear Millennium Housewife, How can I eat my five-year-old's Easter eggs without her realising? How come she has some left? And how come she knows exactly what she has left?
Millennium Housewife writes:
Dear Working Mum (and greetings to your verge, if indeed that is where you are sitting). Firstly you've asked three questions, a little greedy quite frankly, but then that is what we are talking about isn't it? Greed. You have already eaten your own Easter eggs, and now your prudent and restrained child is going to have to pay the price by donating hers. I know how you feel, and here's how to do it:
- Send five year old to granny's/school/friends/her room for the day
- Take all left over eggs out of packaging
- Make a mould of all pieces of chocolate by pressing it in playdoh
- Remove chocolate from mould so you are left with an impression on the chocolate
- Create a paste from flour and water adding enough gravy browning so that the colour resembles chocolate
- Place paste into the playdoh moulds and put in airing cupboard for two hours
- Once two hours are up, carefully remove playdoh from the chocolate paste
- You are left with an identical set of chocolate pieces as the original chocolate
- Place fake set back in original wrappers
- Eat child's chocolate
- Let child eat fake chocolate
- Consider it a lesson in healthy eating/being too slow at eating Easter eggs
Enjoy.
Send your dilemmas to the comments box or email me at millenniumhousewife@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
New Balls Please
I would just love to keep you all guessing about who it is exactly that needs the new balls: The Dog or The Husband? You decide (if you want to imagine the last bit in a Big Brother stylee voice you may do, it adds to the ambiance).
But I think to leave you all without an answer would be cruel. More cruel than lopping off a man/dog's balls? It depends on where you're standing, and I'm standing next to the surgeon, on her toes, making sure she does it right. And thoroughly. With an extra scrape just to make sure she got all of it. Ha! take that super sperm, and that! I could be the champion of Sperm Space Invaders zapping all I see with the surgeon's scalpel, ferreting out any malingerers with my supersonic eyesight and lightening reflexes. Ah the joy.
Anyway, just before any of you start cheering and whooping me on, adding up the scores as we contemplate the childbirth v vasectomy debate and thinking that Husband finally succumbed to going Where No Man Should Ever Go (TM) I'm afraid it was the dog who went first. Just so he can try it out and let me know what it's like reasoned Husband. It was a hefty argument, especially when garnished with the fear of never being able to go commando again in case the seams rub the scar. Quite. The thought of never again discovering that Husband had gone commando on a romantic night out/black tie dinner/friend's intimate soiree/business lunch/work day would be enough for me to book the vasectomy, children or no children. But he was adamant: not yet, maybe later, I'm going to use the same phrase as my own contribution to our contraception. I do feel for him though, really I do, enough to book myself a spa weekend and shopping trip to Monaco.
So it was poor old Twizzle's turn, yet again the family experiment (ooh I think a dog would be lovely, lets get one and see), I took him in the car after a last breakfast of his favourite sausages. Husband says getting the dog to eat sausages was cruel and metaphorical but I swear Twizzle didn't decipher any hidden meaning in what was, I swear, his favourite food.
Husband refused to come lest I'd organised a sting operation where the minute he entered the vet's a Big Burly Man would wrest him to the ground and clamp a large white chloroformed hankie to his face. "Surgeon and nurse Stat!" he'd yell as Husband struggled, watery eyed, eventually succumbing to going under but not before attempting to cross his legs in one last, futile attempt at defiance. The final indignity being the nurses carrying him into the surgery, legs akimbo, giggling as they compared him to the Persian cat they did this morning.
Husband waved us off at the door instead with a white hankie, yelling at Twizzle to send him a postcard and reminding me to remind the surgeon not to spare the knife. "It'll soon be over" he yelled cheerfully, glass of Champagne swilling over the drive, "I can't wait to hear all about it".
Twizzle meanwhile was oblivious to it all, big spaniel tail wagging furiously at the adventure he was going on, mild curiosity as to why the children had been left at My Mother's, but hey ho, it must mean he's really important and special which of course he is. Even more so with out his balls.
So Twizzle as we know him is no more, a couple of pounds lighter and a little more worldly wise than at the beginning of that fateful car journey. He's doing well though and has assured Husband that he's got absolutely nothing to worry about. Not only did it not hurt but Husband won't have to wear the stupid cone he's got round his neck. He thinks it's ruining his chances with the ladies.
But I think to leave you all without an answer would be cruel. More cruel than lopping off a man/dog's balls? It depends on where you're standing, and I'm standing next to the surgeon, on her toes, making sure she does it right. And thoroughly. With an extra scrape just to make sure she got all of it. Ha! take that super sperm, and that! I could be the champion of Sperm Space Invaders zapping all I see with the surgeon's scalpel, ferreting out any malingerers with my supersonic eyesight and lightening reflexes. Ah the joy.
Anyway, just before any of you start cheering and whooping me on, adding up the scores as we contemplate the childbirth v vasectomy debate and thinking that Husband finally succumbed to going Where No Man Should Ever Go (TM) I'm afraid it was the dog who went first. Just so he can try it out and let me know what it's like reasoned Husband. It was a hefty argument, especially when garnished with the fear of never being able to go commando again in case the seams rub the scar. Quite. The thought of never again discovering that Husband had gone commando on a romantic night out/black tie dinner/friend's intimate soiree/business lunch/work day would be enough for me to book the vasectomy, children or no children. But he was adamant: not yet, maybe later, I'm going to use the same phrase as my own contribution to our contraception. I do feel for him though, really I do, enough to book myself a spa weekend and shopping trip to Monaco.
So it was poor old Twizzle's turn, yet again the family experiment (ooh I think a dog would be lovely, lets get one and see), I took him in the car after a last breakfast of his favourite sausages. Husband says getting the dog to eat sausages was cruel and metaphorical but I swear Twizzle didn't decipher any hidden meaning in what was, I swear, his favourite food.
Husband refused to come lest I'd organised a sting operation where the minute he entered the vet's a Big Burly Man would wrest him to the ground and clamp a large white chloroformed hankie to his face. "Surgeon and nurse Stat!" he'd yell as Husband struggled, watery eyed, eventually succumbing to going under but not before attempting to cross his legs in one last, futile attempt at defiance. The final indignity being the nurses carrying him into the surgery, legs akimbo, giggling as they compared him to the Persian cat they did this morning.
Husband waved us off at the door instead with a white hankie, yelling at Twizzle to send him a postcard and reminding me to remind the surgeon not to spare the knife. "It'll soon be over" he yelled cheerfully, glass of Champagne swilling over the drive, "I can't wait to hear all about it".
Twizzle meanwhile was oblivious to it all, big spaniel tail wagging furiously at the adventure he was going on, mild curiosity as to why the children had been left at My Mother's, but hey ho, it must mean he's really important and special which of course he is. Even more so with out his balls.
So Twizzle as we know him is no more, a couple of pounds lighter and a little more worldly wise than at the beginning of that fateful car journey. He's doing well though and has assured Husband that he's got absolutely nothing to worry about. Not only did it not hurt but Husband won't have to wear the stupid cone he's got round his neck. He thinks it's ruining his chances with the ladies.
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