What makes a good parent…..

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Simple, the basis of all good parenting is love right?

HA! They laugh in the face of love. Make yourself much more practical by perfecting these ten easy skills:-

1. You should be good at helping to do jigsaws without actually touching the pieces i.e willing the right pieces into place via mind power.

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2. You should be able to fit bigger objects into smaller objects by magically reducing their circumference on demand.

3. You should be able to attach things, with no attachable properties, together.

4. You should be in possession of an iPad with infinite battery life and unfaltering 3G connection.

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When did pre-school get so posh?

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One of the baby’s latest tricks is to bend over, put his hands on the floor and giggle at me with his wee upside down facey.

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‘Hey F, come look at what your brothers doing, isn’t it cute?’ I call to the older one.

‘He’s just doing the downward dog Mummy’ he informs me.

Because yes dear readers, my boys aged 3.5 and 14 months both do yoga as part of their jam packed childcare schedules. If i remember correctly, from my time at play school, the order of the day went something like this:-

1, Fight tooth and nail for the sparkly red shoes
2, Paint a picture with a cup of sludgy brown water
3, Eat marmite toast
4, Wander about trying to avoid being bitten
5, Go home

If I ask F what he did that day, he would reply along the lines of this (should he ever be bothered to converse with me): –

‘First we took drama, we danced like leaves blowing in the autumn wind waving goodbye to the summer and then we listened to an excerpt from the Wind in the Willows and discussed its relevance to modern day society. Do you think Ratty’s penchant for poetry was a sign of weakness?’

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Second child syndrome AKA Instagram baby

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Instagram Baby
(An ode to subsequent children)

You’re an Instagram baby, he was DSLR;
There are times when you’re not properly strapped in the car.

We binned all the books that suggested routines,
And we ditched the organic and fed you baked beans.

You’re wearing your brother’s shoes, I’m not sure if they fit,
And your white cotton vests are stained with his sh*t.

I may take twice as long to respond when you cry,
But I’m much less inclined to worry you’ll die.

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Is it time to relax yet?

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Do you ever get the kids into bed, flop onto the sofa, maybe probably with a glass of wine, and then eye the surrounding piles of crap and think – what’s the point of tidying it up when it’s just gonna happen again tomorrow?

But as much as you keep telling your brain to shut up, it keeps on chanting…..YOU CAN’T RELAX PROPERLY UNLESS YOU TIDY IT ALL UP NOW!

So you think about sweeping it into a big pile in the corner of the room or chucking it all into the toy box willy nilly.

But hang on, perhaps you should just round up the dinos and deposit them safely into their stables for the night.

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And maybe you should quickly reorganise the toy kitchen and pop a fry up on.

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Before life gets a little serious

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Today was a big day for my no.1 boy although he didn’t know it. An email popped into my inbox confirming his schools place and all i could think of was YAY roll on September how can my baby be going to school already?

He will be 4 years old and 2 weeks when he starts, possibly the very youngest in his class.

People ask me if i am worried. I guess i could be.

He can’t count above 10, he has only recently learnt to draw a circle, he can’t sit still, he can’t get himself dressed or put his own shoes on, he seems to have perfected the skill of selective hearing and the only letter he can consistently recognise is an X (a pretty cool letter to be fair).

I have wondered if we should spend the next few months trying to get him up to scratch, so that he is not so far behind all of his classmates. But pushing him on things which he doesn’t yet have the capacity for, only leaves us all feeling more frustrated.

So i wonder if we should stop focusing on all the things he can’t do and think about all the things he can.

He can ride his balance bike like a pro, he can climb, he can dive bomb into the pool, he can chat to anyone, he can make the most amazing customisations for his cars using lego and play-doh, he can run about for HOURS without even the slightest breather.

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Is that a deal?

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In the before time I used to work in digital marketing, planning and implementing advertising campaigns. One of the key parts of my job was securing the best deal on behalf of my clients budget so you may assume me to be well versed in the art of negotiation.

It is true that since the communication levels of the eldest became more developed i have relied heavily on my trusty aforementioned friend (AKA bribery) as means of ‘getting stuff done’.

You know, eat your dinner and you get your pudding, brush your teeth and you get an extra story, stop being such a little sh*t or mummy will run off and leave you – that kind of stuff.

It works, sometimes, but it relies on the principle of a meeting of common goals or reaching a win-win situation. I don’t think he quite gets that bit yet.

He does however get the whole concept of deals and what is in them for him, but when he tries to broker them himself he negates to include any give on his side. i.e: –

‘If the baby eats all his peas can i have ice-cream for pudding – is that a deal?’

‘If you put all my toys away then can i go on the i-Pad – is that a deal?’

‘If i get to take Lightning McQueen to bed then you can you kiss him goodnight – is that a deal?’

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Fast food baby

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We don’t eat out that much as a family, to be honest it’s never been much fun. The food is way too colourful (ergo suspicious), it takes too long to arrive resulting in the unpopular activity of extended sitting and if you down your babychino in one and lob the cup over your shoulder unashamedly, well it turns out some places are not quite so ‘baby friendly’ after all. In short I can think of better ways to spend 50 quid.

Now compare this experience to that of McDonalds – the food is consumed voluntarily and without fuss, delivered to you within seconds, all wrapped up in an exciting looking box and with a piece of plastic tat for good measure. Is it a no brainer? Do you scurry your brood in, head hung in shame or would you not let your kids within 100 ft of the golden arches?

When I was a kid Maccie D’s was part of childhood. It was the post panto tradition every Christmas eve, it was the crème de la crème of birthday parties with the coveted kitchen tour. I fondly remember scoring stacks of no purchase necessary game cards and standing in the street with my sisters, fervently scratching the panels in the hope of revealing  ‘free regular fries’.

We used to wolf down the chicken teeth and giblets along with the nuggets no bother and moo at our mad cow brain burgers. Mechanical separation – say what? Pig fat milkshakes – Yum!

Yet times have changed and despite a massive positive shift in the processes and quality of the food there those who would have you believe that every time someone buys their kid a happy meal Jamie Oliver finds a kitten and stamps on its head repeatedly until it is dead; which seems confusingly contrary to his general ethical stance on stuff but hey ho.

I confess – we go.  I just make a massive show of licking the babies chips clean of salt before he eats them. Better people think me unhinged than an irresponsible parent. And I can hardly wax lyrical about the benefits of healthy eating soon as the only vegetables I would consume up to the age of 25 were potatoes and the tomatoes in ketchup. Look at me, I’m not dead (yet).

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Worth a visit for one of my favourite photos ever

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My new hate – Topsy and Tim

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The boy has a new love. Postman Pat has all but been resigned to the reject bin. About 100 quids worth of crappy merchandise lies broken and forgotten.

You may wrongly assume me to be jumping for joy. I am not.

You see his new love is Topsy and Tim.

I will leave aside the topical issue of gender stereotyping that the programme has stimulated much debate for (for i am nothing if not shallow) and talk about the thing that really riles me.

All the god damn enthusiasm.

It’s not the kids, we all know that kids are irritatingly enthusiastic at the best of times. It’s the parents. It’s the fact that every bouncy twin request is met with an ‘Oooooh weeee yes of course!’ from mummy and/or daddy.

I sit staring at the TV willing one of them to shout ‘JUST BLOODY SHUT UP FOR FIVE MINUTES AND LET ME READ THE PAPER IN PEACE.’

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