Category: Stuff that just happens

Onesies and Crocs – Don’t Judge.

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Daughters 3 and 4 bouncing in onesie heaven

I have an aversion to onesies, not that I’m judging. Some of my lovely readers may well pop one on after they’ve done the school run. Hell, they may do the school run in it (see blog: Mamas in Pyjamas), but personally, they aren’t my bag. 

Back in the Middle Ages, my sister had one. I hated it even way back then, with its prudish zip that went up to her neck. She was a teenager goddamn it, and I felt she should have been letting it all hang out – I was! She loved that cosy onesie and no amount of sibling ribbing could unzip her. 

Fast forward 30 years and the bloody things are back to haunt me. I don’t think big sister has one of the current trend but her kids do, my kids do, I’ll bet your kids do. I see them all coming out of swimming lessons in them on a Friday night: a stream of onesies – is there a collective noun for that yet? There’s surely enough people wearing them to warrant their own word. They look like a crowd of little furry animals: hoods up with ears, but school shoes spoil the look and what do you do if your onesie has built in feet? Well, I know what you do because my kids have them. Put the bin outside please. I can’t, I’m in my onesie. Put the big crocs on then. Built in feet are no barrier to chores in our house. No excuse has gone unturned. Do your washing up. I’m already upstairs. Walk. Put your clothes away. I’ll miss the train. So? Clean the skid marks. I’m meeting facetime friend in 2 minutes. And? 

FullSizeRender Daughter 4 and dog 2 both with ears

Back to onesies and CROCS. Now I mention those hideous beasts I feel they need their own sound bite. Never was a more ugly shoe ever invented. Ask my two best buds about crocs and they will explode like Mount Vesuvius. Number 1 New Zealand friend refuses to let her hubby wear them. Partner wears his into the office in our garage over his slippers, but usually forgets to take off his crocs. It’s a look that will never get into Vogue. It’s a dreadful look. Number 1 friend works in said office – she’s never impressed. Dog 2 chewed up partner’s first pair of crocs and I’m still pretty sure that Number 1 friend fed them to him.

Crocs n slippers  Partner de la mode (not)

Now, I did begin this by saying that I wouldn’t judge…but I am going to end it with a judgement: if there is one thing worse than onesies, onesies with in built feet, onesies with crocs and crocs with slippers: IT’S MEN IN ONESIES. All I’m going to say on that matter is that it’s wrong, just so very wrong. Judgement Day has come.

Here is the link to the video daughters 3 and 4 made to support this blog:

Vibrating Tampons – now you’re talking!

Holy Foreskin, it’s Radio 4!

jesus, omg

I turned on radio 4 this morning and this is what greeted me: “a piece of Jesus’ foreskin is in this museum.” Omg, I thought to myself – Jesus had a penis! I’d never thought about it before. He seemed too ethereal to actually have a nob. In fact, just writing this, I’m feeling as if I need to go to confession: I’m sorry father. I have sinned. I have imagined Jesus with a penis. A beard and a penis. When I got home I googled what I’d heard, as it struck me as rather a bold thing to say on radio 4 at 9am and there it was in Wikipedia: The Holy Prepuce, or Holy Foreskin – it even gives the Latin and the entire history of this intimate part of Jesus, along with details of the arguments between churches over the years, as to who has the real relic – I’m not sure he’d be happy with it being called that. 

Jesus is a man who formed an important part of my childhood – that is from when mum ‘found’ religion, one holiday in the Lake District and from then on, it was Sunday School every week. Before that it was: get yourself to the Salvation Army, I want a couple of hours off on a Sunday. I got quite into the whole Sally Ann vibe and asked if I could go to the next level in the organisation and get a tambourine. Mum and Dad then accused me of only wanting to play the tambourine so that I could wear the uniform and it all petered out after that. 

So, back to Jesus and hearing that snippet on the radio this morning. The programme was, in fact nothing to do with Jesus, it was a programme about Ireland’s troubled political history and the nob comment was entirely incidental. It did, however, get me thinking about how, when we grow up with an important person in our lives, we have a certain image of them and they can take on this mythical aura. This happens with celebrities and the royal family, when of course as we know, even the Queen farts. This also happens with our parents, who, for example, ‘never have sex’, (in the case of parents of young children, of course this is true), but no child wants to see their parents in this light and nor should they. Which is why I am going to pretend that I turned on the radio this morning and heard: “Jesus, the chap with the beard, is still the same old Son of God that he always was,” and let’s leave it at that.

Postscript:
Daughter 4 read my blog out loud. I’ve seen Jesus’ willy, she said. Where? I asked, surprised. In church, she replied, he was on the cross. Can I have cheese on my pasta? Well there you go, I thought to myself. Children just take everything in their stride.

Homework Hell: the Daily Grind

Homework – that hot potato. Where do I start? It’s a big subject: complex and controversial. So I’ll start with the voice of some else. Someone whose comment I read on Facebook and who pretty much sums it up for me: “she’s 6…surely after a whole day at school her time would be better spent climbing a tree…or swimming at the beach…or lying on her back imagining that she’s a flying fucking snail?”

When my kids were aged 4, 5, 7 and 9, my ex and I took them out of school (the 4 year old was just due to start in reception) and took them on a trip around the world for 7 months. The teachers didn’t bat an eye lid. In fact, we had to badger them to give us guidance on what work to cover while we were away and even then, the only help they gave us was telling us to keep up their reading and maths. 7 months out of school and the teachers weren’t concerned. Far from it. They knew that the life experiences gained, far outweighed any concerns that they would fall behind. Guess what? They didn’t fall behind and I can assure you that we didn’t do a huge amount of formal home schooling. They didn’t fall behind, because what they were learning was more than just the sum of ticking those all important boxes and we weren’t given any boxes to tick. 

If children are to benefit from homework, it has to be relevant. It has to add something to what they are doing at school. It shouldn’t be finishing off work that there wasn’t time to complete in the classroom. What more does a primary school kid need to know or to do or to learn or to say about a subject or a topic, that can’t be covered in school the next day and the day after that. 

When children don’t HAVE to do something, they WANT to do it. Yes, kids are hard wired to be contrary. Throw away that reading record and they will want to read again. Give them time after school and they will want to fill it and they will fill it with things that will open their eyes and expand their minds: kicking a football, playing in the park, a play date, even sitting and watching some telly will bring them benefits. I think you could even argue that being bored will ultimately do them more good than doing a page of sums. 

My daughters’ primary school tried various homework strategies over the years. The final one I had to deal with was: the homework grid. Add an ‘n’ in there and make that ‘grind’. It was a complete nonsense. The student has to pick three activities from a grid to complete in a term. The stipulation is that one activity has to be creative, one has to involve research and writing and one can be a relevant outing. On the one hand it creates more freedom: the child has weeks to do it. In reality it is left until the final weekend, because, funnily enough, a 6 year old can’t manage her own time and then the onus is on the parent to get it done. It piles the pressure onto already stressed out parents and creates a situation where the child’s freedom is yet again compromised. Helicopter parents who have time to hover over their children, realise that, as well as being brilliant at every other subject, mummy and daddy are amazing artists too. Meanwhile, parents who let their children do their own homework have to put up with their kids’ efforts looking like a bag of shit in comparison. 

Frequently homework was returned without feedback or comment. When you have watched your child work hard at something, this is frustrating to say the least. It got to a point with this, where I drew my own conclusion that it is no longer considered pc to give feedback – the most important thing is that the evidence is there, for the teacher to show the inspector to tick the box. No! The most important thing is to see evidence that the teacher cares for that child as an individual. I am not blaming the teachers, I am blaming the system. 

Kids are naturally creative and resourceful creatures, who, given the freedom and space will happily achieve and accomplish some amazing things. Primary school age children should be given the time to just ‘be’, before the enforced education of secondary school. They should be given the time just to imagine that they are that ‘flying fucking snail’, or whatever else they want to be. 

The Rigmarole and Ritual of the Rotten Reading Records

When my kids were really little, they all loved reading. Daughter 1 would often be found with her little torch under her duvet reading Horrid Henry and it was a similar picture for all the others. Reading was fun, spontaneous, on their terms: their choice of books, their time. Then came school and the dreaded reading record and slowly, but surely, their enthusiasm for reading dwindled. The reading record: a bigger passion killer than granny pants. I literally watched my kids’ love of the written word slide on a slippery, downward slope. Watching the crap that my otherwise creative and intelligent children were writing in these odious paperback booklets, made me want tear them up. The final straw came when I saw that daughter 1, the most avid reader of all of them, had written her latest entry, one letter per box, thus filling up almost an entire book with one analysis. 

Just imagine, settling into bed with your favourite book in the evening. You are tired because it’s near the end of the day, but it’s a real page turner and you are desperate to find out what happens next. You are then taken to another cliff hanger, which you decide to leave for the following night. You close your book, feeling contented and excited at the same time…and then you have to write about it. You are supposed to be analysing character and plot, use of language and why the author chose to write it in a particular way…but you simply can’t be bothered. So you just scribble down what happened, because it fills the box that you have to fill and your teacher will be happy – not ecstatically so, but appeased. You have to do this night after night for years. You are given targets to reach and deadlines to follow and now all those wonderful page turning books have become burden after burden. 

The reading record mimics the lot of the teachers who have to mark them. Teaching is fun, exhilarating and challenging, but once it has to be shoved into boxes and analysed to death – literally – it becomes a chore and a burden. Education needs to find liberation: from the reading record to the mountains of pointless paperwork teachers are required to complete. Only then will children be able to grow into free thinkers, taught by teachers who are free to teach. 

Swearing – is it now in a different class?

swearing-isnt-necessary

My 90 year old Scottish Nanna and I used to watch Billy Connolly together. She absolutely loved his humour, but hated his liberal use of the F-word. An article in the Times this week stated that swear words no longer pack the punch they used to and that the F-word is no longer the Class A swear word it used to be.

It’s interesting the way different families approach swearing and the house rules they have surrounding it. When I was growing up, my parents didn’t swear and consequently I would never have dared swear in front of them. Even when I swore with my friends as a teenager, I would feel a little guilty at the thought of what my parents would say if they were to hear me. When I had left home, however, the odd mild swear word started creeping into my Mum’s vocabulary and it sounded quite shocking to me. This did coincide with my Dad divorcing her, so that probably had a lot to do with the need to use the odd, ‘bloody’ here and there, usually followed by ‘man’ in her case.

Listening to radio 4 a while back (much to daughters’ disgust), woman’s hour was discussing the use of swear words in the home and they had a mum from both camps in the studio: one who swears liberally in front of her kids and one who doesn’t. It made me reflect on my views. When the girls were younger, I never swore in front of them, I would just get Tourettes when they had gone to bed. It was as if I had been saving up all the frustrations of the day and the best way to express them was though swearing. You’ve got to admit, there’s nothing like a few choice swear words to really get things off your chest. “Fuck off!’ just packs a far bigger punch than, ‘go away!’.

Now the girls are older, I don’t allow them to swear in the house, but I do find myself using the odd mild expletive in front of them. When they are at school, my language is far more flowery, but I am sometimes caught out when I forget that one of them is off school sick and I have to shout a sheepish, ‘sorry’ up the stairs.

When I was at my Mum’s last week, she told me off for the use of the F-word in my blogs. I reminded her of how her mum used to tell Billy Connolly off by wagging her finger at the telly. When my daughters read my blogs out loud, as they sometimes do, they won’t say the swear words and they say, ‘muuum’ and give me a disapproving look. Yeah, I think to myself, as if YOU don’t swear!

The other thing about swearing, is that I think it sounds worse coming from the mouth of someone else, than it sounds coming from your own. When I hear friend’s swear in front of their kids it can sometimes make me cringe and that’s when I really start to examine where my principles lie. I do know that I need the word, ‘fuck’ in my life. I could not live if, ‘bloody hell’ was banned from our vocabulary. ‘Shit’ is a no-brainer, as is ‘bollocks’ and surely no-one can get through the day without a few, ‘oh buggers’ here and there. One word I NEVER say is the C-word. So you see, I do have some principles, Mum 🙂

I would love to get your thoughts on this subject. Please let me know what side of the fence you are sitting on. Hopefully not on it, as that would really fucking hurt!

I’ll leave you with a swear word that partner and I have made up and though I say it myself, it is pure genius. It can be played around with like a word game and used in a multitude of situations. Just not in front of our kids:

Buggeryfucknuts
Nuttybugfucks
Fuckingbugnuts
Fuckerybugnuts
Nutteryfuckbugs
Fuckingbuggerynuts….

Keep playing for excellent stress relief 🙂

MHM Buggeryfucknuts

Desert Island Rockin’

As I was cleaning the loo this morning – a place where I have gained inspiration for a fair few of my blogs – I thought about how, after daughters, partner, family, friends and pets, toilet duck is one of the few things I couldn’t live without. I, along with countless others, just have to have a clean loo and to obtain this look, toilet duck is one of life’s essentials for harmony and well being. This set me off thinking about what I would take to a desert island, if I were only allowed three things – Kirsty Young is very strict. Well, I couldn’t take daughters, as there’s 4 of them and really – how would you choose? I could take partner, but he’d need to look after the girls, and we have 4 pets. Family may just piss me off, if the clichéd family Christmas is anything to go by, so that leaves friends and the toilet duck from my list of life’s essentials. No need for toilet duck on an island, as I know from watching Bear Grylls that you just piss and crap in the sea, so friends it is. 

Loo cleaned, I jumped in the car for a trip to pick up a sick daughter from school. As coincidence would have it, desert island discs was on the radio, with a leading scientist and guru on nuclear power being interviewed. Wow! I thought. This should be interesting. Now, I’m sure that Dame Sue Ion is really clever and no doubt an amazing role model for girls who are keen on Science and maybe it was the Lancashire accent that didn’t help, but God that woman sounded boring. So boring, in fact, that when I reached the top of the hill, where I always lose 50% signal and pick up French radio, mixed with Italian, it actually livened her up and helped make what she was saying, a little more spicy. 

At the end of the programme, Kirsty asked her what three things she would like to take with her to the island. Now, I thought to myself, I would be surprised if she said: a vibrator, spare batteries and a Meatloaf cd. She didn’t. She’s a top advisor on nuclear power, perhaps she’ll choose a miniature nuclear power station, something that will make a huge explosion and a nuclear reactor. She didn’t. She did, however, salvage it all with choosing a guitar. Perhaps there is a supersonic, explosive, rock goddess hidden deep inside her, just waiting to combust. 

Dame sue     Dame Sue ‘Rock God’ Ion

Good, innocent intentions

Do you ever come across something, that has good intentions, but winds you up almost as much as a Kim Kardashian selfie…well, ok maybe not that much. For me, it’s the primary school lunchbox police. Uuurrggghh!! Even thinking about them makes me mad. An extremely well meaning PTA mum generates an e mail stating that, for a whole month, lunch boxes are being examined (judged) and unsuitable items will be removed. There is an attachment listing healthy lunchbox items. It’s a Sunday night and I either have none of these in my cupboard or the kids would rather eat their own toenails, so I have already failed. The second problem is that the well meaning parent, let’s call her Christine, has stipulated no chocolate. I examine our biscuit box – every single one contains chocolate in one form or another: a drizzle, drops, the whole bloody thing drenched in it. I opt for the bar with a drizzle of 80% dark, organic chocolate with a ponsey pattern on it, left over from Christmas. My thinking being, that Christine will appreciate the ‘organic’ element and she’ll go easy on us. This, along with a ham sandwich (cheap, processed, but I bet it slides through Christine’s net) a packet of breadsticks (obviously no crisps allowed) and an apple – the apple is lobbed in as a Christine pleaser and will return home, slightly more bruised and floury, but otherwise untouched. 

At school this afternoon, daughter 4 is walking in front of me. What’s that on your bum? I ask her, putting my head rather embarrassingly close and sniffing, in that way that Mums do. There is a large, dark brown solid patch, spread across the rear. That’ll be the chocolate from my biscuit, she says, I had to sit on it when the inspection took place, so that no one saw it. I’m incandescent with rage. 

I spot Christine across the playground. Standing next to her is her daughter, slurping on an Innocent smoothie. I feel an incredible urge to go marching over, look her straight in the eye and say: Christine. That innocent smoothie you have so smugly given your child is not so innocent after all. That little carton is absolutely rammed with sugar, equivalent to 3.5 Krispy Kreme Original Glazed Donuts and while your daughter is going to be jumping around like a Duracell bunny any moment now, in 20 minutes she’ll feel like a bag of shit and be giving you merry hell! 

Instead, I pity Christine. After all, she has good intentions. However, as I glance at her ample breasts and wide buttocks, I can’t help wondering where all the confiscated food goes. 

I’ve been shortlisted in the Best Writer category for the Mumsnet Blogging Awards! Please vote for me by clicking on the link below – it takes literally a millisecond. Thank you 🙂

http://www.mumsnet.com/events/blogging-awards/2016/best-writer

 

Twat

Best tweet I’ve seen this week:
“I see Kim has got her twat out…no not Kayne, the other one.”

Kim

Kim and her ‘post baby’ bod, taken pre-pregnancy, no doubt. We all have to make ourselves feel better after we’ve had a baby. For some, it’s taking comments from husband, mum, checkout assistant, like: you’re doing well losing your baby weight. For others it’s booking a personal trainer, while your boobs are still tellingly leaking milk through the lycra. For most of the sane minded mums it’s: I’ve just given birth so fuck off and leave me alone with your talk of diets and the gym. Pass me the cake. For Kim, it’s: look at me! Look at me! Adore ME, love ME. I’m sick of the sodding baby getting all the attention. 

To be honest, if you lean forwards, naked, in front of your bedroom mirror. Push your boobs subtly together, take your legs slightly apart, push your bum out and suck in, you too can create that desperate ‘look at me’ image. A little touch to your hair and a flick of the head will finish it off. But don’t try this at home, as you run the risk of your kids walking in and thinking mummy’s now completely lost the plot and husband walking in and thinking it’s his birthday. 

I don’t know about you, but I find that I am happy with my tummy when I am lying down and happy with my boobs when I am standing up – but not happy with both in either position. 

Well, they say you can’t have it all in life. So I’ll take my bod standing up or lying down and do the best I can with it, depending on my mood. One thing is for sure, I’d rather support Donald Trump’s presidency campaign, than get my twat out on Twitter. 

White Van Man

It was when the young, teenage girl turned to me in a state of panic and almost touched her nose to mine and shouted at me: it was you, when I was explaining that I drive a white van and a calm perspective is what’s needed, when I realised that the white van child abduction media frenzy is getting out of control. We teach our children to run, we teach our children to seek out a busy place, we teach them to be aware of what is going on around them. We must also teach them perspective. In the middle of the social media storm, perspective is hard to grab hold of, but we must, for the sake of our children. For the sake of their freedom and so that they don’t live in a state of fear. 

The media love the white van story. When something else more newsworthy comes along, they will drop it like a stone. Today’s headline is tomorrow‘s chip paper. The fear will also fade. Is it the White Van Urban Myth that has been documented in Australia, America and Sweden? Nobody is calling anyone a liar. Fear is real, but we cannot let it overrun us. 

Don’t be paranoid, be aware. Paranoia grows from and will fade with that fear. Awareness must stay with us all, at all times. So, we must teach our children not to be afraid of every white van that passes them on their way to school – this will exhaust the poor loves, consume them, as every other car is a van and at least every other van is white and men get in and out of white vans to go to work and sometimes men get out of white vans and run, just like you or I jump out of our cars and run, because we are late. We must teach them to be aware: heads up, shoulders back, no headphones, no shortcuts. Walk with a friend if you can and laugh, chat – but don’t be afraid. Be aware. 

I get paranoid as a mum, but we must give our children the correct tools to equip themselves for everyday life, not just for life in the middle of a media storm. Otherwise, this is when our children are most at risk. 

MadHouseMum is founder and chief instructor at Oaks Martial Arts. If you are interested in learning about how we teach this EVERYDAY awareness to children and adults, please e mail: alison@oaksmartialarts.com