Parenting 101

I just thought I'd pass on a little lesson learnt. Surely its enough for one person to learn from their mistakes and then pass on the wisdom.

Do not say or do ANYTHING in front of your children that you would not be happy for them to repeat!

Or maybe to put it a little differently, if your child is playing with lego on their bedroom floor while you merrily sketch the outline of her new fairy window overlooking pixie hollow on her bedroom wall and then you take yourself off downstairs to do some washing only to return later and find little replicas of said fairy window on every wall in the room do not ask her why she did it unless you want to hear "but you did it first".

You can't argue with it, you can't get upset with her and you just have to accept that it's all you fault!

Its funny the things you just realise

My mum had Toots on Wednesday afternoon and when she dropped her back home again, Toots went straight upstairs for her bath and my mum and I sat chatting for a while as we often do.

Ten minutes later while desperately trying to catch my breath from laughing so hard I realised that most of my memories of my mum are like this.

She's one of those people. I think everybody knows at least one and the world would be a much more dismal, dreary place without them, but she is just one of those people that can have you in a complete wrinkle, creasing yourself laughing just by telling you about her trip to get a carton of milk.

My mum seriously missed her calling, she should have been a stand up comedienne. Nobody I know spins a yarn or tells a tale quite like my mum.

She's such a bright, cheerful woman and manages to inject humour into even the most humdrum days.

She's always full of life and laughter and I'm so grateful for that. I can't understand why I didn't really notice it before. I guess we just get used to the friends and family who surround us and sometimes take their best attributes and the finest elements of their personality for granted.

I've been crafting away tonight since she went home again, but I've been remembering some of the things she got up to when we were kids.

I remember her bobbing for apples and practically emptying the entire contents of the basin of water all over the kitchen floor, because dammit she was getting that apple if it was the last thing she did.

Or smiling unashamedly to anyone she met for he full week it took to get a dentist appointment after she broke one of her front teeth eating a candy bracelet. She didn't care that she looked like something out of Dumb and Dumber.

I remember a guy calling door to door selling indoor fireworks before Halloween. Maybe these were only a UK thing but if you remember them let me know. Anyway, she lit one of them on the drop down oven door and then proceeded to beat the dung out of the thing with a wet dishcloth because the smoke alarm was going off and she thought the house was going to burn down. Just the thought of her screaming at that firework to "go out, why won't you go out" as though it might reply "oh alright then" has me in stitches.

She could be very creative with the punishments too. I remember the first time I ever had a drink. Not the worst thing I ever did, but it was bad enough (it gets worse, wait for it). I was 14 at the time and went a tad overboard shall we say. I was convinced I'd made it. I managed to let myself into the house and into the downstairs loo to freshen up. I called goodnight to her and thought I was free and clear as she called goodnight back and I headed up the stairs.

I was almost there too when I tripped and fell over a pair of my dumb ass brother's trainers that were lying on the second to last stair. I tried to keep as quiet as possible and shrug it off and as I was picking myself back up again I heard this snort from behind. I turned around and there was my mum standing at the bottom of the stairs trying to look angry and trying to stop from killing herself laughing at the same time.

Well apparently I was thoroughly smished because I immediately burst into tears, told her I was drunk and tried my best to apologise.

She bundled me off to bed, telling me I was in for it in the morning. I woke the next morning, feeling like someone had stolen my head and left a bag of hammers in its place and I could hear my mum on the phone downstairs telling the school secretary that I wouldn't be in that day (told you) because I had a bug.

Well, I lay in bed like Little Miss Smuggy McSmuggerson thinking my mum was the coolest mum in the whole wide world and I drifted back off to sleep....

Until a soaking wet, freezing cold wash cloth landed squarely on my face and I scrambled out of bed to face the sight of a bucket of cleaning supplies and a smiling face and pointing finger aimed directly at the bathroom.

Ever scrubbed a bathroom at 8am after a night on the sauce? No, well I don't recommend it and let me tell you it was a very very long time before I dared touch another drop of drink.

Honestly, every beer smelt just like bleach and that awful floral disinfectant until I was in my early 20s. She never used that disinfectant before and she's never used it since. I think she may have went out at the scrake of dawn to get a bottle on purpose.

So thank you mum, for always smiling and giving everyone around you no other option but to do likewise.

Mummy, I love you so much

Now just stop and let those words sit for a second.

Everyone and I mean everyone with kids knows exactly what those words are capable of doing. Mummy, I love you, Daddy, I love you it really doesn't matter they have the same effect.

They cause havoc in your heart. You would cry tears of pure joy in public if only you could stop grinning from ear to ear for a second.

You scoop your child up and squeeze them as tightly as their little bodies can bear while whispering that you love them too into their ear.

Every time your child utters those little words, your heart will melt.

But the first time, the first time is magical.

You'll phone people the first time they say it. The husband at work, the granny, the aunts, uncles and pizza delivery guy will all get a call.

Just to be clear, I don't write this because its cute and precious. I write it as a warning to all those who have not yet experienced the Mummy I love you so much phase or to those in the early stages of the phase.

Take all of those "I love you's" and store them away for the days when your child's love for you might not be just so exclusive.

Because one day and it will happen one day your loving child may very well develop a love for something else altogether.

For mine, its bollards.

Yep, you heard me right, Bollards!

No, you sir, weirdo in the back, you did not hear me right.

B.O.L.L.A.R.D.S.




These things and I'm not kidding, when we pass them in the street she will tell each and every one of them that she loves it and occasionally.....she'll throw a hug in for good measure.

So take those exclusive I love you's and wrap them carefully around your heart because one day in the not too distant future you may be standing in the street trying to drag your kid off the side of a phone ox or something.

This has been a public service announcement and you're very welcome.

Of Highs and Lows

Yesterday was a good day. A very good day.

It rained as if often does here, but that didn't matter. I spent the day lazing around with Toots. We played in the garden with the cat and checked on the fruit and vegetables. We baked flapjacks and ate them still warm and falling to pieces from the pan.

We put on our wellies and played on the swing in the rain and we laughed.

Later, when she was truly exhausted, we curled up together wrapped in a blanket. I read her a story and ran my fingertips along the length of each of each of her curls as she fell asleep with her little warm head resting against my chest and her little fingers curled around the blanket.

She woke and we ate and talked and joked and sang. We put on music and played games and when her dad arrived home, she ran to him, hugged him and smiled.

They laughed and talked in the living room while I prepared the dinner and I was happy.

I want every day to be just like yesterday, but of course that can't happen and it won't happen. We'll have bad days as every family does.

Days of more negative than positive. Days when I say No more often that Yes. Days when there are tantrums and crying and anger.

However in general we have more good days than bad and we're happy.

I hope that when Toots is older she remembers the good times. I don't really mind if she remembers the bad too, but I hope that she remembers them in context. That she remembers that it wasn't always bad.

I hope that she doesn't inherit my occasional bouts of pessimism.

The fact that I can meet a hundred lovely people and have it ruined by one asshole.

That I can try to help people and succeed with the majority only to fail with one person and end up wishing I hadn't bothered myself in the first place.

I have a lot of happy memories from my own childhood, but they're often clouded by the unhappy ones which are admittedly few and far between. So why do they stick so clearly in my mind.

I just hope that Toots always sees the class half full perspective.

Silver Linings

In less than four teeny tiny months Toots will start school. Not nursery or daycare or preschool or prep classes, but real live, can't say "screw this" and go home when you feel like it, school.

To say that I'm panicking would be a bit of an understatement. We're still working on a few issues which really need to be resolved before she starts.

She occasionally still takes a hell of a long time to finish a meal. Now that won't be a problem until November because she won't stay in school for lunch until after Halloween, but even so visions of my little girl sitting at a table still nibbling at her food while the other kids play outside having finished their feed ages ago doesn't leave me feeling like a happy chappy.

Nine times out of ten, she'll go the bathroom by herself and wash her hands when she's done without any involvement on my part, but sometimes, not often but sometimes she will still ask me to come with her. This tends to be when she wears tights, but bear in mind that she'll be starting school right before tights wearing weather kicks in so we can't avoid that. There will be someone available to take her to the bathroom in school and to help the kids redress if necessary, but my concern is that she won't be happy with someone she doesn't know doing this to begin with and it'll make her feel uncomfortable about using the bathroom in school.

And of course she still has a few days when she prefers to be in charge. I've spent the last few months explaining that she needs to do what the teacher tells her and be polite and respectful, raising her hand before asking a question.

With a daughter who knows her own mind and is more than happy to voice her own opinion, I live in fear of the "child led learning" currently being tested in some schools on the mainland. Basically what that means is that if Billy wants to play by himself in the corner instead of taking part in whatever class activity is going on around him then under no circumstances is the teacher permitted to try and coerce or entice Billy to take part. He would basically be left to his own devices.

Thanks very much to whatever genius brain dead moron came up with that idea.

Still there is one silver lining to all of this. I know it may not be the most important thing in the world to everyone, but it is quite high up on my list.

We paid a visit to her old daycare on Wednesday to see some of her friends. As soon as we walked into the room, two of her friends ran at her from the other side of the room screaming incoherently. When we eventually got the kids to settle down we worked out that they were trying to tell Toots that they would be going to school with her.

I was over the moon. It turns out all in told six kids she went to daycare with, will also be attending the same school.

Toots is very social and it puts my mind at rest somewhat knowing that she will have friends around her which she knows from day one. I know she will make new friends after a day or two (that kid could make friends in an empty room), but I just feel a bit better now.

I think that having her friends around her will sort out the meal time problem. Toots is a very social eater and always did eat a lot better in the company of kids her own age.

The next hurdle will be buying her school uniform and then convincing her to wear it.

I love a challenge.

Life Truths

As long as you try not to look like a sweaty raving lunatic thundering across the park like a mule weighed down by coats, camera, bags and toys, your kids will always be able to run faster than you.

If you need to take a photo of yourself for whatever reason do it late at night in the bathroom, because when its late and nobody is around to prove it, you look awesome.

Kids think that stomping around the house saying "tip toe, tip toe" in a not at all whispery stage whisper is the same thing as being quiet.

Kids don't "get" the same Dreamworks and Pixar jokes that you do. Don't laugh or you'll spend the rest of the movie trying to sidestep an explanation.

Crumbs breed. I vacuum this house every single day and every single morning it looks like a bag of Tayto Cheese and Onion and a particularly crusty baguette have had an orgy in the middle of the living room floor.

You will always lose more arguments than you win. If you win more than you lose, chances are you've been arguing with yourself.

Women will always have the last word in any argument. Anything said after a woman has had the last word is just the start of an entirely different argument.

Never get into an argument with another parent over kids. Both of you will wind up feeling like complete prats at the school pick up long after your kids have beaten the crap out of each and declared themselves Bestest Friends again.

Kids are like carrier pigeons. Never bitch about another adult within each shot of your kids.

Once you have kids, very few of your "Life Truths" have anything to do with anything but kids.

Alright! Who stole my baby?

The alarm clock screams through the early morning brain fog. As I slowly wake and start to climb out of bed I hear the all too familiar sound of little feet padding across their bedroom.

Her bedroom door opens, blissful darkness behind her provided by the blackout curtain. She shuffles out into the daylight before turning into the bathroom calling over her shoulder for me to "put the kettle on".

She hops up on the loo and rests her chin in her cupped hands, her elbows barely resting on her tiny knees as she lets out a great sigh and heaves her shoulders. Another day.

I watch through the crack in the door as she washes her hands and then eyes her toothbrush. She seems to think about it for a while before rubbing her hand over her belly and turning away from the sink, breakfast first.

I head for the kitchen and flick the switch on the kettle, listening to the quiet rustling sound upstairs as she decides on her clothes for the day.

I'm already on my second cup of coffee when she arrives in the kitchen, having settled on a sun dress and a pair of snow boots today. She pushes the curls and tendrils back from her face, asking if I think she needs it cut. I drop a few slices of bread into the toaster.

She pulls her steps to the counter and asks if her tea is cool yet (decaf). She butters her toast and munches in silence, every now and then taking a sip of her tea and looking out into the garden.

She hears her dad getting out of the shower, reaches over and flicks the switch on the kettle and drops another slice of bread in the toaster, buttering it for him as he comes into the kitchen.

She enquires if he has to work today and if so, will he be late home. She talks to him about the random things of great importance in a four year old's life while he has his breakfast and when he finishes she sees him off at the door with a hug, a kiss and a request "not to work too hard".

Back on her step, she finishes her tea. and brushes her hair out of her eyes again Without looking in my direction she asks if we have any plans today.

And so I ask again... Who stole my baby?

War

This probably isn't a post that I should linger over for any great amount of time, because my understanding of war is very limited.

The fact that I'm against war in general isn't really the problem. The problem is that I have no interest in war. Nothing about it all grabs my attention. It should, but I've always avoided it where possible. Even in school we spent the first three years of history lessons studying civilisation without broaching the subject of wars and when, given the choice and realising that we would cover both world wars in the next two years of lessons, I chose geography instead and spent many a happy hour counting pebbles per square metre at Murlough Bay.

War simply held no attraction for me.

Lately though, Toots has been showing some interest. More of a natural curiosity really and I, I'm ashamed to admit, have been dodging the subject and distracting her with something like a woman demented.

We spent an hour or so at Ward Park in Bangor on Tuesday afternoon. The sun peaked his head out for a little while, we jumped in the car and were off.

In my mind the afternoon would be spent playing in the adventure playground, having a look at the peacocks (mating season again, what is it with birds and my timing to go see them) and then a stroll around the lake before heading home.

However all bets were off when she set eyes on this;




In my complete ignorance, either I have never noticed the huge cannon dominating the centre of the park before or I simply forgot it was there.

She ran to it, high pitched excited shrieks trailing behind her.

"Wow, mommy what is it?"
"It's a cannon sweetie"
"What's a cannon"
"It's a big gun"
"You said guns were bad"
"Yes, they are bad sweetie"
"Then why is it in a park?"

Um, that stumped me for a second. It's a kids park. The big almighty weapon is parked right beside and within clear view of the playground.

So why, is a hulking great killing machine parked in the middle of a kid's park. A kid's park with a large sign clearly stating that the park is for under 12s.

I tried to explain that it was there to help us remember the people who gave their lives (world war 2 gun and I'm not sure too many of those people willingly gave their lives, but) and to help us learn from mistakes which were made.

And then I stopped.

She seemed satisfied, although I know the subject will come up again (I love to take her to the cenotaph in Ards because its such a peaceful place and she'll get that it isn't a park eventually). She ran off for a few quick laps of the "big gun" before heading to the playground as planned.

My point is that I stopped because I was getting into dangerous territory. I came very close to trying to explain something which I don't understand myself.

I know that a lot of good men, women and children died both fighting wars and at home and I don't want to undermine that fact. I also know that there were a hell of a lot of absolute atrocities which no person walking this earth today should feel proud off and those are the things which stick in mind.

In my opinion she's far, far too young to know or be expected to understand any of that, but is it possible to give a four year old an unbiased opinion of war if your own opinion is biased.

Is it possible to give an unbiased opinion on anything for that matter.

Don't get me wrong I want her to learn some of my opinions and values, bigotry and racism = very bad for example, but shouldn't I allow her to make up her own mind too.

Sometimes I think that it's much to early to concern myself with issues like these, but then I remember that she'll be starting school in less than five months and the thought of somebody's opinion being stamped on my impressionable little girl terrifies me.

I happen to know a hardened racist. Her only complaint about travelling abroad are all the foreigners (and trust me, I've been a hell of a lot more PC in my description). She was brought up with her father's opinion. She has a daughter the same age as Toots and can see no problem with her racist views. So my concern is that where there is one, there is another, and another, and so on.

What would you do? Is she too young yet? Maybe some of these subjects have already came up with your own kids, how did you deal with them.

Is there an "Idiot's Guide" that I haven't been able to find on Amazon.

It all rushed back to me

Today I was reminded of a feeling.

A feeling so intense I felt it would burn a hole straight through me...

I remember the day my daughter arrived like it was yesterday. I am still completely amazed that she has just turned four.

I had a very difficult labour and both my daughter and I were lucky to come out the other side in one piece so to speak.

I remember lying on the operating table with my head turned to the left as I convulsed because of a reaction to the anaesthetic.

I remember the panic as I heard nurses frantically grabbing for sheets and anything else they could get their hands on to throw on the floor, until that point even through all the noise I was aware of a very distinct splashing sound as the countless people in the room tried to walk through the blood.

I remember the look of fear on my husband's face as he tried to mumble comforting things.

I remember the surgeon's chin on my chest (very surreal).

I remember the midwife who stayed with my long after her shift ended, crying quietly at the side of the bed as she tried to hold me down.

But clearest in my mind and more important that anything else I remember my little girl, manhandled, thrown around, slapped and finally placed in a little plastic box across the room from me.

I remember her eyes, wide open and as dark as night.

Her little mouth pursed with just the faintest hint of a tongue poking from between them.

I remember calm.

My little girl was ok, so was my husband and that was all that mattered.

Two blood transfusions and a hell of a lot of witchery stitchery later and I could go and find my daughter.

She was beautiful.

She took every ounce of love I had to give and somehow managed to pull just a little bit more from me.

I was breathless.

The worst was over and now I could enjoy my daughter and above all else love and protect her.

That was to be my job.

I was so proud of her. She slept like an angel and ate like a champion for three full days.

Then they came to tell me they were concerned her blood sugar was low and they would have to test it before and after every feed (which were every couple of hours) so basically she would be tested every hour on the hour.

Well, simple little me had no idea of the concept of this "testing".

I had no idea whatsoever.

Until they started to come and take her away.

Every hour on the hour.

And I lay in my room feeling helpless, all the while listening to my baby scream in pain somewhere in the distance.

At some point that helpless feeling changed. It grew and mutated and became something else entirely. I'm still not sure if it was the protective mother in me rearing its head, anger, fury or disgust at myself for allowing it to continue.

I should have been disgusted. I allowed it to continue for two days all the time believing it was in my daughter's best interest.

Then my daughter refused a feed. And the next feed and the next.

My clever little girl had figured out that if she didn't eat, it wasn't worth testing her.

But still the tests continued and the feeling grew.

I snapped at 3am, grabbing a nurse and throwing her out of the room before pushing the bed in front of the door, stitches or no stitches.

It was 10.00am when my mum arrived at the hospital before I would open the door. I had spent the entire night awake, protecting my perfect little daughter and stroking the multitude of scars and puncture marks or her perfect little feet. I promised her that never again would I sit back and watch as someone inflicted pain on her.

I knew then that I would do anything and everything for her. I had already accepted three days before that my life bore no importance when compared to her, but now I understood that no life did.

She was here and I was charged to protect her. To be her guardian through all that life may throw at her.

I spent a further three days in the hospital with her. No further tests were carried out and somehow I had earned a strange kind of respect from the nurses. Its obvious to me now that they were only carrying out the instructions of some faceless consultant.

Still my mind remained slightly warped by the whole incident. Weeks passed before I could stop lying at the side of her crib at night, holding my own breath, waiting for hers.

Months passed before I could allow anyone to bear the title of The Protector, whilst I got some much needed rest..

I have slowly got past our time in hospital. Toots frequently spends the night at my mum's house. She climbs rocks and trees and jumps off things much to high to jump off and I don't immediately run to stop her. Admittedly it helps to know that my mum is as protective, if not more so than me.

Today though it all rushed back to me.

I had to take Toots to get her preschool booster shots (something which my husband has thus far not allowed me to do). For some reason the two boosters are now administered in the same day, one in each leg.

I held her straddled across my knee as the nurse administered first one then a second shot and I held her tight to stop her from moving as I heard her scream in pain and then felt the wetness of her tears on my chest. She lifted her head and looked at me with confused eyes. I could hear it, although she never spoke a word "How could you? You promised".

And I felt my chest and throat grow tight. I felt the heat rising from deep in my belly and couldn't catch a breath.

I wanted her to believe in me. I wanted her to know that I could and would protect her but that this was different.

I dressed her quickly, snatched the "I'm as a brave as a lion" sticker and ran from the office, afraid of what I was capable of.

We both cried the whole way home and I apologised again and again for allowing someone to hurt her. She refused to speak to me until just before bed time. She lifted her head from her dad's chest and quietly said "I love you very much mummy" and again I foolishly made a promise I'll never know if I can keep.

But so help I'll try. When called for I will do anything and everything to keep her safe because I am her protector. Her Mother.

I guess those old ghosts will always haunt me.

And I quietly pray that nobody ever dares test me. I'm afraid of what I might be capable of.