Things I have said to my Husband today

• Ooh, yes I'd love a night out tonight
• What do you mean just you?
• But I do like them
• I love Pokey, Stu and Bucket Head
• Oh
• Right
• Of course I want you to have a good night
• I know Pokey, Stu and Bucket Head don't have girlfriends
• Apart from each other
• Nothing, sorry
• I didn't say anything I just coughed
• Will you be coming home after?
• Are you sure you don't want to stay at Pokey, Stu and Bucket Head's?
• Yes of course I want you to come home
• Well you only have to sleep in the spare room if you snore
• I know you snore when you're drunk
• So you're guaranteeing that you're going to snore?
• Well then it'll have to be the spare room
• Because I have to get up with the children
• What do you mean where will Pokey, Stu and Bucket Head sleep?
• Invited them here?
• After a night in the pub?
• Hmm
• Well OK then
• Could you just make sure you all throw up in the toilet?
• I know there was a queue but the wok's just never been the same
• OK I'll put buckets out
• Send my love to Pokey, Stu and Bucket Head

Super Dooper

One of the universal truths of life is that Super Nanny is neither Super nor a Nanny. She may have been at one time but now she is a TV presenter who wears unsuitable attire for the job in hand. Have you ever worn what can only be described as daytime bondage attire complete with spiky dominatrix heels to look after the children for a day? No I thought not, even if you wanted to it may be a little difficult to make friends at playgroup if you look like you're about to whip anyone who comes within whipping distance. Regular readers of this blog may think that for some reason I dislike Super Nanny, I do, but not the actual person, I have absolutely nothing against Jo Frost (aka Super Nanny), she's done really well for herself. She was doing a perfectly ordinary job and simply by adding the prefix Super to her job title, she automatically made herself a force to be reckoned with in the field of child care. In fact if that's all you have to do to release yourself from the tedium of ordinariness and launch yourself a high profile television career both sides of the Atlantic with regular appearances in your very own magazine then I'm amazed more people aren't doing it. Forget blogging, just upgrade your job title to a non existent one that makes very clear that you are the very best. There are loads to choose from; we could have Super Accountant, the most Super of accountants who marches into your house, shouts at you for all the unpaid bills and unanswered correspondence regarding said bills, sorts them out for you and leaves for a week. You then spend a week enjoying the paper-pile-free existence that had heretofore been only a dream while letting the post build up until Super Accountant turns up again to see how you've been doing to sort out that week's bills for you. A year later for the update show, you could have a whole room filled with unopened bills for Super Accountant to shout at you about before sorting them again and leaving you with stern words about how to look after your accounts. A small price to pay for not having to bother with your bills, you never did anyway.

Consider if you will also, Super Plumber, who arrives with a long declogging thing and inspects all of your pipes. The cameras focus in on just how grimy and disgusting you are, highlighting the Sunday roast fat in the dishwasher and hair in the drainpipes, Super Plumber performs this most retching of tasks for you and cameras cut to clean shiny pipes that will take years for you to clog again. Super Plumber even gets a tie-in magazine Plumbing New Depths where photos of you and your pipes are displayed with canny headlines about your lives being changed by Super Plumber: 'My marriage flows better now my pipes do' or 'Drainage never seemed important before, now Husband and I discuss it every night, it keeps things interesting.'

So no, I take no offence at Jo Frost I just dislike the way the programme makes you feel as if any tiny misdemeanor on your child's part is all your fault. It is of course, I accept that deep in my sub conscious, but I keep it in the Survival Cortex area of my brain with such truths as food eaten standing up counts where it lays quietly, with only occasional firing up of the denial synapse to remind me of my self delusion. What the TV show doesn't get that its message of you're rubbish, don't even try to bring up your children alone or you'll mess them up. In fact you probably already have, is no new thing. We know that! Why else do we go around guilt ridden to every class/extended education programme/experiential workshop, dragging the children whose only wish is to play with the playdoh? Because we know we're going to mess it up somehow and we'd like someone else to blame in the future: Sorry madam, but your son's been arrested for graffiti.

Really? Oh dear officer, I blame the existential artist he studied with when he was four, used graffiti as a way of expressing community concern. Whatever happens you have somebody other than yourself to blame.

I did give it a go once though. I tried all the Super Nanny tricks to bring a semblance of discipline to the Millennium Housewife brood, oh yes. But it didn't work, I just couldn't get the tone right for explaining that things just weren't acceptable. In one last, huge attempt at getting it right, I donned the Super Nanny attire in order to give me the necessary stern look and started bossing the children about once again. To be fair it did have more of an effect, I quite enjoyed it really. Until Husband came home and looked at me delighted, thinking that at last I had decided to agree to a little light bondage.

California Dreaming

My Mother has returned from Los Angeles where she has been visiting one of my sisters for a month. It's been rather quiet round here. Disconcertingly quiet. It's difficult not to miss hourly phone calls with regular updates on the dog's appetite/Shirley-the-Competition's latest downfall/the new rich tea biscuits Recently Discovered/Dad's vasectomy (still a matter of interest twenty years later apparently, he's never been the same poor fellow).
But miss them I did, not least because I had to steal myself to enquire about any particular area of obsession of My Mother's and report dutifully on progress or lack of in a weekly e-mail to my sister. The report was then printed out for My Mother's perusal and comment (she can't read the computer language on the screen and has to have it translated into English by the printer). Have you ever asked your Dad about the state of his vasectomy? The one he's forgotten he had? The one where he's never been the same poor fellow and has probably forgotten about on purpose. No? Well I have, once a week for a month, and it doesn't get any easier. I don't think he realises you see, that My Mother has his vasectomy down as Particular Point of Interest (PPI). I think she just checks surreptitiously, how I don't know and I am unwilling to debate the possibilities. So now Dad thinks that I have developed a once weekly curiosity about his fertility capabilities, or lack of them. I think he has concluded that I have deemed it Husband's Time, because he keeps looking at him mournfully and patting him on the shoulder with a kind of there there hunch of the shoulder. I swear I even heard him whisper you'll never be the same.
So the best thing about My Mother returning from LA is release from Vasectomy Watch (coming to a screen near you) and now I simply have to listen to updates rather than research the material myself. Ah, bliss.
Such was the anticipation that I even offered to pick her up from Heathrow myself, oh yes, I even told My Mother myself. Oh darling, she breathed, that is grown up of you. Now, when you get to the airport look for ARRIVALS. She spelled arrivals for me in case I had trouble spotting the sign, I was all set.
I arrived at Terminal Two fairly buoyant, it's amazing what a month away can do to soothe the nerves and plant Forgetful Fug in you memory. Crikey, I was even giving fond inner smiles to our hourly conversations, her A-line skirts, Deidre Barlow perm, beige Hush Puppies (well, it had been a month).
I stood, eager and excited, tiptoed and straining trying to catch a glimpse of her through the ARRIVALS channel (see, I had done my homework). Her plane had landed but so had eighteen others so it was a little difficult to check everyone who was coming through. And then I heard it. The Cooo ee! that the Forgetful Fug had hidden from my memory. It pierced my brain, blasting away the Fug in the manner of a sonic blaster gun. This Cooo ee! takes no prisoners, it says here I am, take notice of me, and if you don't I'll shout it louder. Soprano. I whipped around trying to catch her, to let her know another greeting wasn't necessary. Once again I was in the playground, surrounded by giggles, whispers and points (I eventually solved the Playground Problem by telling My Mother that all students over seven were expected to walk to and from school on their own as part of Independence Training. I told my friends that My Mother had run off to be a lion tamer. It was believable) My eyes focused across the barrier in the direction of the call. Focused and re focused. That was her wasn't it? It was, it was, but different. She was wearing a leotard. And matching stirrup tights. And leg warmers. And head band (sparkly).
She had, as she informed me later, found her inner self in LA. She'd discovered something alright but I fear it was her inner, older, fatter, Jane Fonda.
There you are dude she yelled across the concourse (dude?), and to my shame and horror she dropped her bag and proceeded to lift her leg high in the air and wrapped it around her head. Power Yoga she breathed, it'll do you the world of good sister (Sister?). It'll get rid of those saddle bags of yours! It'll help with your cellulite too, although I don't think even Power Yoga can deal with it all. And the wonky way you walk, I'm sure it's because of your weak core darling, we'll soon get you sorted out. She clutched her saddle bagged, cellulite sodden, wonky walking, weak cored middle daughter by the arm and marched me out of Terminal Two.
I'd missed her, oh yes. But never mind, she plans to make up the time I have missed with frequent visits as opposed to phone calls. In fact she's on her way now, bin liner in hand, to De Carb my house.

Flight plan

It's been far too long since I last had to sit with a one year old on a plane. Far too long. If only I had dredged those smoldering brain cells through the smog of potty training and Getting Rid of the Dummy, I may have grasped a scant wisp of the time we took Isla abroad aged one-and-a-bit, and warned myself firmly off it (I love it when I'm firm with myself). But no, that's the trick of children you see, they tire you out so completely and supply such an endless stream of inane but urgent questions to be answered that the really important stuff lies dormant. So like lambs to the slaughter, or idiots to the £39 both ways website (what they forgot to mention was that they meant £39 cubed), we convinced ourselves of Jack's cherubic nature under stress and opted for two and a half hours with a one year old and a four year old stuck inside a metal tube. Ah relaxation here we come.
We were the only people with children on the plane. Do you hear me at the back? The only people with children on the plane. And we walked on last. Late. And Jack needed his nappy changing. It was a sober moment. Even the plane seemed to sigh its displeasure and sank ever deeper into the tarmac, as if it wanted to tuck its cockpit under its wing and just sleep the ordeal away. The ordeal of children in an enclosed space. An enclosed space where they absolutely have to be tied to a seat for a significant proportion of the time. It was the law in fact, there was no choice about the tying to the seat thing, and the less choice there is is directly proportional to the level of protest that will be made. Guaranteed (apparently Einstein had a really good theory about it and even produced an equation, but everybody was so caught up in the theory of relativity thingy it sort of got lost).
We entered the plane employing the First Rule Of Entering A Plane With Children: make absolutely no eye contact whatsoever with anybody. Do not look up, do not pass go/collect 200. Unless in a brief second you glimpse another parent when you are entitled to catch a glance, nod ruefully at each other and then sort of smile in a we're in it together kind of way. Of course you aren't and you're secretly hoping that their child is a little monster and drowns out any noise your angel makes cooing happily at the sick bag. In fact you even attempt an quick administer of a smarty to their child as you pass, hoping the sugar will create the desired effect.
The second rule is never ever to apologise as you go, thus pointing out to all that you are aware that you are bringing several unwanted passengers into the metal tube. Passengers who kick seats/make a mess/crawl in the aisle/pull hair/insist on using (and blocking) the toilet every ten minutes. Yup, that was us, the lepers, heading to our seats, daring to attempt a holiday.
Doom descended along the aisles, the stewardess swapped the little basket of boiled sweets that she was handing round with a little basket of Prozac, using a sleight of hand that Paul Daniels would be proud of (maybe even a little jealous of; she was a lot better looking than him and had all her own hair, but I doubt she had a wife called Debbie so he could probably use that to cheer himself up). The pilot came through from the cockpit to personally speed up the handing round of alcohol as we walked, the funeral march playing resoundingly in everybody's heads.
As we got closer the Zone of Despair thickened, reaching crescendo level around rows 13-15ABCDEF, everybody eyed the empty 14ABC with suspicion and contempt. Our seats. No one looked up as we sat down, instead the the instructions on the sick bags became crucial and compelling reading (something that never seems to be achieved with the inflight magazine, despite the recent craze for including porn). As we sat, a man in front gave a disapproving sniff and turned away in disgust. We placed Isla in the seat directly behind him and forgot to mention the no-seat-kicking rule.
We rustled and bustled, found bags and colouring books, and then at last we had it. We could look up now, even attempt a grin. The members of The Zone of Despair looked around. An audible sigh reverberated around, smiles of approval, shuffles as people made themselves comfortable and cracked open broadsheets, crikey I even detected a ruffle of high fives. There was something you see, that I had brought out of the smouldering remains of my brain cells, this was no ordinary mummy-on-a-plane. I had bought chocolate.

Tagged!

So while I have been away on holiday I have missed all the excitement of being tagged by Froggy, and have appeared extremely rude at not responding to all the lovely visits that I have had. So this is a heartfelt apology to you all and a group reply. I'll try and dedicate this evening to getting back to all the comments.


Anyway, welcome everyone, and let's have a go at thinking about tagging, it promises to be quite an eclectic mix.



So firstly, the woman who makes me laugh, apart from Froggy is Nunhead Mum of One, funny, dry, a prodigious blogger with an interesting Mother-in-Law... I'll give you this one, some time out for her birthday...Then I think we could go to Santa Clause's very own blog. Fantastically done, by the real Santa (of course), great detail about the complexities of delivering presents in the modern day. This one is quite short, but as you'll see clever and funny at the same time.
Next we could look at Jolly Good Yarn Girl's blog. A new blog that mixes country life, quilting and Motherhood, it promises to be an interesting journey and has a wistful air, lovely. I give you the one about Country Living. Reading Ngorobob House is just a pleasure, a whole other way of life. Written about life living in a pink house on top of a hill in Tanzania, the everyday detail such as the blackboard list gives you an insight into a World away (unless of course you live in a pink house on top of a hill in Tanzania, in which case you'll really relate to this one, and perhaps even know each other?). I'll give you this one with lots of detail in it. Finally I couldn't go without tagging The God Diaries. Pretty heavy going sometimes, and completely over my head at others, this Guy is a massive thinker and well worth a visit. He always responds with great thought to your comments, even if they are rambling ones... I give you the very first blog, because as the name suggests, it all started In The Beginning.

I hope you enjoy them, and that the links work, this is by far the most technological thing I have ever attempted. It's taken several hours and my two typing fingers are numb and it's far too early for a drink.

Things I have said to my parents today

• Hi dad, it's me
• Me
• Your daughter
• No don't fetch mum,
• Well you answered the phone, perhaps we could chat?
• Dad?
• Hi mum
• Can you put me onto dad?
• He hasn't gone out, I just spoke to him
• He's not down the garden, I told you I spoke to him just now
• He gave you the phone for pity's sake
• Hi dad
• I just thought we could chat for once
• Dad?
• Hi mum, put me onto dad please
• Thanks
• So
• How was golf today?
• Yes
• Uhuh
• Oh dear
• Umm
• Can you put me onto mum?
• Hi mum
• Can you ask dad not to answer the phone again?

Camping gas

Ah the first camping trip of the year, the excitement, the planning, the getting-out-the-old-stuff and checking it over, the buying of the new stuff, the non walking child, the dog. We set off bright eyed and full of hope, the specially picked camp site only an hour away door to door to test Jack's staying power and Twizzle's guts. The car packed with people and stuff; tent wedged between Husband and Twizzle, cool bag balanced precariously atop the dog cage (it follows me wherever I go, I call it The Shadow), sweets, treats and doggy drops lined up along the dash board for just-in-cases and tears. I'd thought of it all ladies and gentlemen, this was going to be one flawless camping trip, yes siree.
The queue started about ten minutes from home, unusual at this time and would probably start moving in a few minutes. It did, very verry slowly. Note to blue Golf on the A429 to Stow: if there is a two mile queue behind you and a caravan is tailgating you, perhaps you may want to take your foot/feet off the brake and apply the accelerator. It's the pedal to the far right of the foot well. Next to the Brake, your favourite pedal.
I maintained my dignity, refused to sound the horn and an hour later glided smoothly past said Golf, head up, pleased at my restraint and calm in the face of extreme provocation. I looked in the wing mirror to see Husband signalling Isla to flip the bird through the back window, she did, expertly. Ah.
Note to blue Golf, bird flipping child is not mine.
The camp site was just as promised, basic, rustic even and suitably outdoorsy for the Millennium Housewife family. Despite our everyday personas of normal working Husband-in-suit, Housewife at home (blogging and bleating about it) 2.4 kids, get us camping and we change faster than Superman in a telephone box. It's as if our real lives are our Clark Kent disguises but when let out for the weekend we become the love-children of Ray Mears and Bear Grylls, all campy and kitted out.
It goes without saying that a camping trip always involves a visit to the local camping store. Where else to feel outdoorsy and really part of nature than when buying all the equipment needed to experience it? I don't know about you, but I always get a sort of jittery feeling when going into a camping shop. Think of all the things I could be! The urge to buy crampons/climbing ropes/freeze dried beef casserole, as you imagine yourself skipping up mountains like Tom Cruise at the beginning of Mission Impossible 2. The red mist comes down as the desire takes root, in your head you need these things, they're just what you need for the rest of the weekend to be successful, it'll show everyone how part of it all you are. Look at her they'll all say, she must do out doors things every week, and you know that they're imagining that once out of the camping shop you're off to do something indistinct but dangerous and clever. The fact that after the camping shop trip you're going to drive back to the camp site and have a quick kip before opening the wine is irrelevant. Irrelevant.
The best bit about this particular camping trip is that we had invited Uncle Matt. Everyone's favourite uncle and Husband's best friend, Uncle Matt comes unfettered by children/dogs/strange wife wearing crampons in a field. He serves as a bench mark by which we can measure just how much more cluttered our lives are than the last time we saw him and, (the painful bit) what our lives may have been like had we made different decisions/used contraception/said no to the dog.
He arrived ten minutes behind us, all smart car, expert parking and I've-had-enough-sleep-for-the-last-32-years grin, you've got to love him. Once parked, he proceeded to open his boot and set up his tent. It took four and a half minutes, neat and crease free, he had opened and repacked it before setting off to check it was sound. He then started to bring out neat, well kept gadget after gadget: a small metal table as an extra surface, a slightly larger table because, well you know, you might need another, slightly larger table, a cafetiere with attached bean grinder, a spoon/fork/knife contraption, neat packets of teabags counted out before packing. I held my breath, praying that the next item would be a camping black Top Hat out of which he would pull a fold up rabbit (a live one), but was disappointed to see only his fold away sofa, ah well, next time maybe.
Uncle Matt then proceeded to help us with our camp; the seven birth tent (fits dog and travel cot) that we still haven't cleaned since last year, the blankets and pillows, the complete lack of gadgetry, the copious amounts of Barbies/trucks. Oh I had packed well, everything (everything) the children could have cried for in the night had been thought of, blankies, teddies, duvets, Rabbit Clock, you name it Millennium Housewife had packed it. There were going to be no sleepless nights not attributable to the actual inconvenience and uncomfortableness of camping. Fab. What a fantastic mother I am.
But perhaps not Wife-and-supplier-of-comforts. There had been no room for anything Husband and I may need you see. I was more intent on the possibility (ha!) of sleeping that night. Oh dear. Still, Uncle Matt's spoon/fork/knife contraption came in useful (we wiped between users) and the fresh ground coffee was lovely. We didn't drink too much tea though, he'd only counted out enough for himself. He'll know better next time.

Careers I am now fully qualified for

• Bounty Hunter (tiny Barbie accessories and car keys a speciality)
• War strategist
• Hostage negotiator
• Chips-and-bread-only restaurateur
• Sleep deprivation consultant
• Code breaker
• Cut-corner-cleaning-co (owner)
• Spy (Multi Tasking Division)
• Spell checker
• Doctor (over dramatic and minor episode ward)
• IT engineer (call 0800 NOLIFE, anything from toast in the hard drive to finding Noddy home page emergencies. No job too small!)
• Philosopher: difficult and seemingly impossible concepts analysed and answered.
• Politician, Minister for Procrastination
• Sat Nav (nagging dept)

Supermarket sweep

It is the place guaranteed to reveal any flaws (any flaws whatsoever) in your parenting skills. The place in which, if you enter in a lighthearted I'm A Mummy And Aren't I Doing A Great Job mood, you will be crying and trying to sell your children to any shopper that dares show an interest by the end. The supermarket (or child market as I prefer to call the bit near the exit) is the place that Super Nanny always takes the parents and Very Bad Child at the beginning and end of the programme. A before and after shot, if you will, designed to show that ordinary parents Fail at the supermarket, and anything they Fail at will be highlighted here in a way that no other situation can show. By the end (shot at the same time as the beginning in different clothes with the children on Benylin? You decide), said Very Bad Child has become Reasonably Good Child, but only because mummy/daddy has engaged them in several highly intelligent games involving helping with the shopping. Now, I don't know about you, but I always make it a point to have a peek into the parent's shopping trolley at the end of the scene. It's nearly always empty, if there is anything, it is Jammy Dodgers, Dairy Lea Unmentionables or Barbie/Postman Pat spaghetti. In other words, things the parents have said yes to just so that the cameraman can get the shot and they can all go home. Anything else they may have wanted to buy has had to go by the wayside, simply because they were all too busy playing those stupid games to actually get around to buying anything.
Have you ever devised a Super Nannyesqe shopping game? I'll save you the trouble and tell you about mine. It took two hours of pre preparation at home, making and colour coding the chart (pink for Isla, blue for Jack - I have no imagination or issues about genderising the future population), another half an hour to get said chart into the car and away from the children who wanted to play it now. I then had to find a shopping trolley with two seats, one small enough for a one year old and one large enough for a four year old, Isla refused to walk you see as the chart game was a lot more fun than walking. We then spent a fruitful hour perusing the aisles looking for any of the things that Mummy had drawn on the chart and ticking them off. And here lay the flaw, neither child can read so the drawings were all they had to go on, and Mummy can't draw (do you see where I'm going with this), well Mummy can draw some things, but not can of coconut milk/smoked haddock/hair gel, so we ended up with a trolley of Jammy dodgers/Dairylea unmentionables/barbie and postman pat spaghetti, anything to end the chart game. Once the last unintelligible picture had been ticked off by each of them, I cheered wildly in the aisles, congratulated them both on a good job! lifted Isla from the trolley and proceeded to attempt my usual shop, just an hour later than usual.
Jack sat, gurgling and dribbling while trying to eat the trolley, bending double to get to just the right angle to cut his lip/lose a tooth, while Isla skipped beside me shouting slogans about why I should buy Cillit Bang/Philadelphia/Liletts and pointing helpfully at things we had no use for and suggesting we buy them. The only hairy moment was Isla disappearing, lost in tune, flapping her arms like wings, the sound of I feel like chicken tonight floating over the toilet roll aisle. But I had an answer to that; I steered them both skillfully to the cake aisle and let them choose whatever they wanted, anything that would get me round the supermarket without embarrassment or having to shout. Ha! One in the eye Super Nanny I thought, all your years of 'experience' and a cake would have done the trick just as well, and you could have filmed the before and after shot in a few hours. Cue scene with no cake and crying children, cut to scene with cake and biddable, quiet children. Job Done. And I didn't even try to sell them at the exit. Now where's my television contract?

Things I have said to my mother today

• Because I don't know what we're doing 23 weeks on Sunday
• We should be free for dinner, yes
• Hang on, that's near Christmas
• It gets really fixed up
• I know you're fixing us up, but I don't know if we'll be free
• Yes we're free now
• Fine, see you 23 weeks on Sunday
• No, no I was just joking, of course we'll see you before then
• I'm well aware you're only 10 minutes away
• I'm not sure what I want for Christmas
• Because it's June
• I'll have a think and let you know
• No don't think of something yourself
• OK, I'll let you know by tomorrow
• We're just getting over the shock
• Of the burglary
• Yes I know, it was awful
• What do you mean you know just how we feel?
• When were you ever burgled?
• You dreamt it
• That's hardly the same
• Oh it is, right
• Poor you
• I'm so glad victim support were helpful
• And the Samaritans
• Yes I'll give them a call now