Author: Alison

The Pelvic Floor

The Wednesday morning Ladies’ Taekwon-do class is always a good craic. There is just something about getting a group of women together that generates a good laugh. Nuns must have a cracking time, although the lack of sex may be a deal-breaker. 

Today, we got into the subject of pelvic floors. Partner, as the only male in the room, looked queasy. This only served to fuel our fun. If there’s one thing women are good at, it’s telling a ‘one time…’ story: one time my friend pissed herself during an exercise class, one time I pissed myself during an exercise class…can that be topped by anyone…one time…yes it can – when I was working at a leisure centre, the manager told me that after the over 60’s Aqua aerobics class they have to double the chlorine levels. There is very little content of ‘one time’ stories that is too graphic for a group of women. I discovered this when I ran a toddler group with my sister. There is nothing I now don’t know about a traumatic birth. I wasn’t squeamish until I ran that toddler group. The NCT classes had me believe that birth happened in soft focus and a huff and a puff and you blow your baby out. Nothing prepared me for what I was to learn in that church hall: horror upon horror was regaled to me with graphic imagery, with no consideration whatsoever of what level of detail would be publicly acceptable. No, these conversations were woman to woman and I very quickly realised that anything goes. 

Back in the class this morning, I asked the ladies to make a block: your reaction hand must be in front of your chest, I told them. Harassed mum’s arm was a little low: you’re not 80, I said with a grin. That set us off: arm up too high, you are obviously wearing a wonder bra, arm in the correct position you are obviously wearing a good sports bra, arm too low, you’ve bought your bra at Primark. Partner is shaking his head: give me the three year olds to teach any day, he groans.

Age is…

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The Cursory Wipe

Ok, so hands up and admit it – who else lives with: The Cursory Wipe? Come on, it can’t just be me…is it? Sitting on the loo, you glance around the bathroom and spot some grime on the tiles in front of you. Pee done and you give the tiles a cursory wipe. Kids off to school in the morning, packed lunches made, you give the kitchen a cursory wipe. Into the conservatory to water the dead cyclamen that was reduced to 89p because it was dead, but you thought you could save it anyway and you spot the dust on the top of the sofa – you give it, yes, you guessed it – the cursory wipe. This makes my cleaning skills extremely superficial. Half term is now over, a time when I could have made more of an effort to clean, but the kitchen cupboards finished me off early on in the week and now it is Wednesday and we’re well into another term of cursory wiping. 

Now I wouldn’t accept this half hearted attempt at cleaning when daughters do their chores. I run my finger across surfaces and peer into the showers as if I am the Queen Bee of cleaning, but somehow I myself manage to get away with the CW. 

I blame my lack of attention to detail on my early forays into cleaning with number 1 friend, when we momentarily worked for a cleaning agency to supplement student grants. On a 3 hour job, we had an agreement with each other, that we would go in and do an hour’s cleaning and on the dot of 60 minutes the kettle would go on and we’d raid the client’s cupboard for food. This worked like a dream and so set my standards at a fairly low level for future life. 

The bottom line is, that the CW actually works. If the house is fairly tidy, if the weekend papers have been folded, if the shoes have been shoved in cubbyholes and if there are a couple of vases of fresh flowers sitting about, then you get away with it. Add a candle and/or a room diffuser into the mix and you are laughing. 

So go on, be honest. Put your hands up and say, without fear of repercussions: I admit to being a slave to the cursory wipe.

Summer Lovin’

I didn’t have a hope in hell of being healthy this week. Yesterday was an inset day. Daughter 1 had friends around to bake. I love the fact that she is 16 and doesn’t have friends around to have orgies and take drugs, so I actively encouraged it. My only stipulation was that she used up the bananas that have been rotting in the fruit bowl for two weeks. She had ticked that box before her friends arrived and produced a loaf of banana bread. Hot and delicious straight out of the oven, partner and I couldn’t resist. Over half was gone by lunch time. No problem, as her friends arrived and spent the afternoon baking marshmallow cookies and ice cream cake. That was still only Monday. On Wednesday it is daughter 3’s birthday. She has requested a salted caramel cake, pain au chocolats for breakfast and Dominoes for tea. I am going to buy her cake this year. I didn’t feel guilty until I was flicking through last years’ photos and saw that I had created a cricket pitch, complete with stumps. I can’t remember what had possessed me. Daughter 1 reminds me of the year that we ate all her birthday cake, without her having had any. I am reminded of this regularly and I have no defence – I just like cake. On Thursday it is number 1 friend’s birthday and tradition has it that we have cake in the office. On Friday it is step daughter’s 21st. She isn’t actually going to be here, but just imagine if she was! 

We have summer bodies and winter bodies, partner remarked, helpfully, as I was expressing my worries to him about our week of excess, and Summer is months away, he continued, reassuringly. 

We had to go to Homebase to buy a new loo brush (see blog: Loo Brush) Men in fluorescent jackets were building a display, on top of which was perched a deckchair. It must be in the sale, I said excitedly to partner, as I had wanted one last summer. I’ll ask how much it is. This is the Summer display, the man told me cheerily, we’ve got 24 hours to build it. 24 hours, I repeated to partner. Summer is coming sooner than we thought. 

The Best Things About Having Daughters

When I was pregnant with number 4, so many people said to me: trying for a boy were you? I would smile and shake my head, as the true response wasn’t what they would have been expecting and would have taken too long: no, actually I have just got back from the World Championships and I was feeling the need for another challenge, as the next Worlds isn’t for two years. I looked into Iron Man, but it’s really hard to fit in all that training with 3 kids under 4, so I suggested to my husband that we try for another baby and we were so incredibly lucky that I fell pregnant and we are really excited about the probability – well over 80% – of it being another girl. Partly because we have a shed load of girls’ clothes and mainly because I can wipe a girl’s bum really well now and find boy’s bits trickier to whizz around with a baby wipe.

And another girl she was and still is. So, for all those people who presumed that my husband and I would have wanted a boy, here’s why having daughters rocks!

  1. You can share tampax when you are out and about and get caught out (well, not literally share)
  2. You can watch rugby with them and comment on the players’ bodies, as well as their fantastic ball skills
  3. You can put bunting everywhere (I LOVE bunting)
  4. You can share pants (this isn’t strictly true, but I have put it in because daughter 2 has just bought 5 pairs of pants from ‘PINK’ and I want them
  5. You can drop hints that you want 5 pairs of PINK pants for Mother’s Day
  6. You get bought body butter for Mother’s Day…birthdays, Christmas…
  7. They share your body butter (this is listed as a good thing because I now have so much of it, my only storage option is sharing)
  8. You can share clothes (but see previous blog: Feeling Young Again, for pitfalls)
  9. You can ask their advice after you have asked partner’s advice, on what you look like. This is because teenage girls cannot hide their disgust, whereas partner will lie to get me out the door
  10. You can consult them on what partner looks like, when it’s time for him to get a haircut and he thinks there is at least two weeks of growing time left. Their looks of disgust usually prompt action. Ditto trimming his beard
  11. They bake a lot of cakes and granola and dinner when I leave out a note saying: before you start your homework/GCSE revision/A level project, please can you cook a spag bol, love Mum xxxxxx ps walk the dogs, feed the cats and record a programme at 9pm BBC4 (I cannot fathom how to record)
  12. You can rely on them to understand why you had to spend £10 on a moisturiser, when partner is exclaiming: how much?!, as they know that being a female is not cheap.
  13. You can watch as they grow into mini me’s and listen to number 1 friend telling them stories of what I got up to at their age and worrying at the thought that they may do similar things

So yes, for these reasons and many more, having daughters rocks! Step son was too old to be my boy guinea pig when he lived with us and as he traumatised me with maggots (see blog: If Maggots don’t get you, the Alcohol will), I will reserve judgement on whether having a son rocks – you tell me.

Sisters

MHM Sisters

If (Apologies to Kipling)

If... MHM

Mad House Rules

Mad House Rules

Rösti Respect

I’m flicking (reading for those who are short on time) through the Saturday Times and I stumble across Family Favourites in the Weekend section. Simple recipes for tasty weekend lunches: Spiced aubergine and pumpkin-seed muffins and roasted vegetable galette, to name but two. What the f**k is a galette? Am I not middle class enough? Does this woman know what my weekends consist of? Kids, dogs, walk, work, wine, collapse.

Then, I realise that ‘this woman’ is Annabel Karmel…that’s THE Annabel Karmel, who I was a slave to when my kids were babies. THE Annabel Karmel, who made me cook peanut butter cookies and avocado mush. This is the woman who I was in awe of throughout the terrible two’s. A woman who had the ability to make me feel empowered and emancipated in the same breath, as I gazed at the photos of her and her children in neat little pinnys in a spotless kitchen. I bought her books, I read her books, I have given her books to Oxfam. Now, she pops up in my free middle class paper from Waitrose. I guess this means that I haven’t actually moved on in 15 years. Except that I have. I feel totally alienated by the words: ‘galette’ and ‘wrap each gougon in a piece of Parma ham’. You are having a giraffe, Annabel. My kids had Waitrose Economy Gougons tonight and I considered that ‘posh’. They were excited by the fact that I combined these with fresh green beans.

‘As our lives get busier, many of us stick with what we know and trust when it comes to cooking’ – yes, Annabel my Hun: economy mash and Richmond sausages and my kids think it’s Christmas.

I could feel like a failure. Here was a woman who was a part of my baby past. Without her, I wonder whether my kids would have ever been weaned. Yet now, I feel alienated by words like: ‘mini tartlets’ and ‘chicken rösti’. I am a Spag Bol and filled pasta woman, Annabel and I feel that we have moved on at different tangents, reconvening via a freeebie.

It was Pizza last night, Annabel, but you know what: I don’t care. I am the brazen hussey of the parent world and you are the foodie queen…actually no, I do care. Rösti respect Annabel…I’ll go and google it.

The Penny’s Dropped

Find a penny, pick it up, all day long, the person behind you who picked it up after you dropped it, will have good luck. That is how it started. It ended with a trip to minor injuries. The bit in between was fine, except that it involved buying a new bread knife, which partner cut himself with at lunchtime. 

I am upstairs and hear the dreaded exclamation of ‘ow!’ and then silence. I am mid pee – I take my pelvic floor to the limit by running downstairs. I’m not good with blood. Put it in the air, I say, helpfully. I’m a first aider, I know what to do, as long as I keep my eyes shut. I’m going through procedure: apply pressure, do you feel faint, keep it in the air – I’m like a competent, but blind nurse. Then, I spot the bagel on the side with the knife still through it. You were cutting exactly how I’ve been telling you not to for the past 5 years, weren’t you? I begin to rant, and then when you ignored me I told the kids not to copy you…I’m really upset now. So upset that I’ve forgotten about partner standing with his finger in the air, waiting patiently for me to stop. But I’m not about to stop any time soon. I’m so angry with you, I continue. How could you be so stupid, after me going on at you for so long about it. Partner is edging out of the door. I’m off to minor injuries he says, as the door shuts behind him. It’s then I remember about his finger and I feel bad that I wasn’t more sympathetic. I go back into the kitchen to wash the knife. Dog 2 is capitalising on the situation and has eaten the two bagels that were being cut. I fill up the kettle, which reminds me to finish my pee. I’m feeling rather proud of my bladder control, whilst at the same time feeling bad that I was such a terrible nurse. I decide to send partner a sympathetic text.  I scroll the emojis for something suitable, but can only find the big thumbs up sign, so that has to do. I juxtapose it with a sad face, so as not to seem heartless. I can’t find a knife emoji, so cut my losses with a few kisses and press send. 

Later that evening we are reconvening over a bottle of wine. I hope you’ve learnt your lesson from this, I say to partner. I am fully aware of the potential for this to sound patronising, but I absolutely have to say it anyway. Partner nods his head and looks extremely sheepish. I leave it at that. Today has come full circle, as the penny has finally dropped.