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!

I need your help

Two weeks from today my little girl will start school.


I mean look at her, she's such a tiny little thing. The thing is though, she just can't wait to get to school. She talks of nothing else, every day "Am I going to school today mummy?". The same question every single morning.

We already have her uniform.


And her shoes...



With the little kitties on the outside of the shoes requested by the school so that she can tell easily which shoe goes with which foot. Well hey didn't have to be kitties, but you get the idea.

So now my little girl has a drawer in her room filled with green polo shirts, royal blue jumpers, grey trousers, skirts and pinafores, not to mention tiny little white socks which amazing reach all the way past her knees, grey tights, new pants and vests and little white airtex t-shirts for PE and toffee soled plimsoles so they don't leave marks on the games hall floor. We have her school bag and her PE bag and I'm in the middle of labeling everything with her name.

We don't' have shorts for PE yet, but it's still quite strange looking into that drawer.

This is my first year doing the school supplies thing, but tell me this. Is it perfectly normally to get annoyed over silly little things when you're trying to get every bought and organised.

Case in point, regarding the PE shorts. I've had a look in a few shops now and I'm just not coming across anything suitable. Just to see if I could get lucky and find a pair I went in to Tesco yesterday. I walked along the aisles of clothes. Passing by the boys clothes I noticed perfect little shorts for a boy's PE kit, nice little navy ones with pale blue stripes up each side and the reverse, pale blue with navy stripes, just the right length and with a bit of room in them for running.

Then I walked around to the girl's side and saw the offerings. One lonely design, a pack of two pairs of shorts. And I mean shorts. One pair white, the other baby pink and they actually had that cutaway scallop at the side which took the sides of the shorts even closer to the child's hips, if such a thing is even possible.

I took one look at them and all I could here in my head was "Hi, Welcome to Hooters. My name is Candi and I'll be your waitress." No daughter of mine will ever be seen dead wearing shorts like that!

Speaking of which, I think my friends and I were the only ones to go to Hooters when it opened in Belfast. From memory they were read the riot act on false advertising and closed shortly thereafter:)

Anyway, back to the point. Is it silly to get annoyed about the fact that shops seem perfectly capable of providing suitable shorts for boys but at the same time they thing that I should be willing to dress my daughter like a cheap slapper? I think not!

So we're nearly ready, bar the shorts.

Toots can't wait and the husband is so proud of her. I mean really proud, you should see the look he gets in his eyes and the little secret smile on his face when she talks about school. Toots just doesn't have any fear about school whatsoever and she looks so grown up now. She's just ready to go and the husband is really happy to see her like that. Ready to take on the world!

I think when we brought her out of daycare way back at the start of the year we were a bit worried that she would get so used to being at home with me by this time that the very thought of school would freak her out a bit, but that just hasn't been the case. I love her so much and I'm so proud of her myself.

Now, the title of this post suggests that I need your help and here's where you come in.

You see everyone thinks this is fantastic, my mum, dad, brother, the husband and I do too. But there's still this tiny little part of me. And I do mean a tiny, little insignificant part of me that needs to freeeeeaaaaak out.

And I mean bouncing off the walls fah-reak-ing out and someone has to come along for the ride.

She's just so.....small!

Seriously, I remember bringing her home from the hospital like a week and a half ago and she would lie with her little face buried in the side of my neck and her legs curled up so that her feet only reached as far as my chest and I would sit with her like that for hours, rubbing my thumbs along the soles of her feet while she slept and rolling her little toes back and forward between my thumb and forefinger while she smiled up at me.

And now I'm supposed to just send her off to school in two weeks when she'll be, what does that work out at, like three and a half weeks old. Really?

I pretty sure I'm entitled to have a mini panic attack of sorts.

So who's in?

When did the scales tip?

A bit of background first.

I've always been considered by a lot of the people I know, friends, relatives, colleagues, to be a bit weird.

I decided early on that I wanted to breast feed Toots. Now that didn't work out and it still annoys me a little, but at the time my friends all thought I was a little strange. Why would I want to breast feed when formula was so good and so convenient. Umm, convenient, scrub, sterilise, rinse, measure, lose bloody count and start the whole faff all over again, I don't think so.

Even when I spent a full week luxuriating in hospital after having Toots a few of the midwives mentioned that they spend a lot of their time almost convincing women to give breast feeding a go. Nobody wanted to bother even trying.

Then there were the nappies. I wanted to use washables. I ended up going with the Motherease pre-shaped birth to toddler nappies (best nappies in the known galaxy btw) and again everyone thought I was a bit odd. They talked about how difficult it must be to use the nappies and what a headache it must be to clean them, like I was still having to schlep them down to the stream and beat them off a rock or something.

Even my own mother refused to see the point in them or respect my choice to use them, until one night about 11 weeks in I was tired and finally allowed her to keep Toots over night as the husband was away on business. My mum arrived at my house at 8.00pm, both Toots and her in floods of tears and completely inconsolable. My mum said she'd tried everything, the child just wouldn't stop crying and she sounded in pain. Thanks to a pampers nappy very kindly removing a layer of skin from the child's backside, my mum finally came round to my way of thinking regarding the washable nappies.

Then came the toy issue. I spent about two years feeling as though I had to justify the choices I made about toys for Toots. I knitted a lot of her soft toys mostly because shop bought ones come in pastel shades and babies in general aren't wild about the pastels. Then I moved on to wooden toys, blocks, little train sets that kind of thing and everyone wanted to know why a woman who practically lives in the next century as far as gadgets are concerned didn't have a toy room like a Tomy testing facility. I didn't see the point. I hated "one button wonder" toys.

I didn't want to watch my daughter's play time turn into a cycle of push button, make noise, push button, make noise, it just seemed....boring.

Again, my mum was my biggest competition. My point of view was that we didn't have electronic toys growing up and we turned out fine, my brother is one of the funniest and most charming people I know. He switches his mobile off so that his "face to face" conversations aren't interrupted. He knows how to disconnect.

My mum's opinion was that we didn't have those toys because we were poor and she was stuck with the thought that "poor kids don't have good toys".

I eventually gave up justifying my decisions and choices after about two years, merely stating that I preferred that Toots had to think about a toy and be imaginative and creative if anyone questioned those choices. I just didn't feel like explaining my reasoning anymore. Occasionally when I really couldn't be bothered I just said I liked the colour so I bought it.

The thing is, Toots had a play date during the week. We spent the afternoon at the play cafe where Toots ran circles around kids much older than her. I swear that kid is fast and agile, it was like watching the SAS duck and dive through all the obstacles and up to the top of a three storey climbing frame before hurling herself down a huge slide. The kid also has no fear, but I have enough for both of us so it kind of balances out.

After leaving the play cafe, the kids weren't quite ready to say goodbye yet, so we agreed that she could go to her friend's house for an hour but then we would have to go home.

On a related note her friend has been to our house a couple of times and played with all of Toots toys and really seemed to enjoy himself. His granny told me later that he had went home asking if he could have a set of poi, but after his mum googled to find out what they are she said no, because she felt they were too dangerous, which is fair enough I get that, but Toots has been using them so long she's really getting very good with them.

Anyway, we were having a cup of coffee and watching the kids play. I was only really half listening when I phased back into the conversation (I am a fab house guest) only to find what I was hearing all too familiar. She was justifying, almost apologising really about the toys her son owned. She explained that he wouldn't have half of them except they were all given to him by an older (spoiled, her words) cousin. He had electric guitars, a handful of leap pad learning systems, a Wii (Christmas present) amongst literally dozens of other toys and those ware just the ones downstairs. His bedroom is, by all accounts, completely filled with similar toys. She went on to say that the toys wouldn't be her first choice but at the same time she didn't want to turn down the very generous gifts from her brother. She actually seemed embarrased by the sheer amount of toys we were surrounded by.

My question is, did the scales finally tip in favour of parents who chose to buy their children less commercial toys, opting instead for more old fashioned or traditional toys or do all parents alike feel the need to justify ourselves, regardless of the end decision?

Are we just never really sure if we've made the right choice?

Has anyone seen a small child...possibly with a Crayola plaster on her left knee?

Hmm, ways I’ve broken the baby.

*Lemme see, lemme think*. How can I possibly choose?

Well, she’s bumped her head….more than once, actually more than twice.

Lets see, she’s taken a swan dive off my bed, the first time she kind of did this odd looking back flippy thing and landed sitting perfectly, facing the bed itself. The second time she just tipped backwards and “lightening mommy” caught her by the ankle. Of course, then I was stuck at full stretch across the bed holding a baby by the ankle trying to make the decision to either lift her up and risk shoulder dislocation, or lower her onto the ground. Muscle strain kicked in and I lowered her.

She has been hit on the head with a swing, somersaulted off a trampoline into a nearby hedge, tumbled down a slide when she tried to down on her belly. She’s nipped herself on countless door hinges, ran into door frames and she’s fallen off god knows how many chairs.

She’s fine though, not a scratch on her.

She there she is, upright and mobile, laughing her head off.

(By the way she’s running towards me, not away. Just so you know)

Want to see some more examples of exceptional parenting? Then head over to visit Beth at Domestic Spaz.

Monumental FUBARedness

I’m never going to win any awards for being organised. My idea of organising and having a clear out around the house usually involves me lifting all the junk and crap from one room and moving it to another room without actually getting rid of any of it.

Although this time, I have really excelled myself. I’ve gone completely beyond my usual level of chaos and disorganisation and reached the nirvana of “right what the hell am I supposed to be doing” ness.

This blunder is of such epic proportions it’ll wind up costing me a grand total of £1,820.00. Can I get a round of applause?

You see when toots was born a friend managed to convince me that in order to get her into a good school I would have to register her for that school the second she was born. Now at great risk to my child’s future education, I waited a whole week until I’d managed to escape from the hospital (long story) and then proceeded to call my chosen school.

I waited with bated breath for the secretary’s confirmation that my already intellectually advanced progeny had indeed been accepted to said school.

She put me on hold, she checked, she spoke to someone, she checked again, only to eventually return to me and advise that because I lived in the catchment area I could just call the school again four weeks before her start date and register her name. There wouldn’t be any problem with acceptance. Fandabbydosey.

My mistake was assuming that the same rule applied for nursery (pre-school). Apparently not. There are only two nursery schools which toots would be eligible to attend and I should have put her name down for both when she was merely a twinkle in her daddy’s eye.

So now its m y job to make sure she’s school ready in a year’s time. What exactly do kids need to know by the time they start school. She can count and knows her ABCs by heart. She’s also cleverly memorised a fair few words so it looks as though she’s reading. Told you. Clever.

But what else do they need to know. Should she be able to understand maths? What about reading, properly from a book she hasn’t heard 17 times and memorised the story. Are literature, geography and science the order of the day for four year olds? I’m led to believe it’s a lot different from when I went to school. My early memories of primary school involve a sandbox and the beanbag race on sports day.

The, £1,820.00? Well that’s the amount I would have saved in childcare over the course of the next year had she been in nursery school.

Kicking myself.