Who is in charge here?

They closed the school early last Friday at the first sign of snow coming down. We were all geared up for going in when we were met with teachers and parents warning us that school would shut at 11am and that we could leave the children there until then or take them home with us now.

The trouble was, that this was all said in the children’s hearing. I was caught off guard and was subsequently railroaded into letting them come home straight away. Ben was ambivalent, but the other two, seeing their friends walking the other way home, bombarded me with reasons not to stay for the 2 hours. 

Being an indecisive, weak and ineffectual parent and wanting to avoid the inevitable public scene if I forced them into their classes, I let them come back home with me after taking Rachel to nursery.

Rachel was not amused and said “if they not going to school, I not have to go to nursery.” She loves it there though, and fortunately changed her mind when she got there.

She is a force to be reckoned with if she digs her heels in, and even more than the others, clearly thinks she is the boss.

After an argument over something, I reminded her;

“Who is the mummy here?”

“You” she admitted

“So who is in charge?” I asked.

Rachel points to herself with a cheeky and knowing nod of her head.

After a no,me,... no, me...., no me... not you, me...set to, she just laughs and scoffs “of course I am!”

She has taken to threatening and bargaining with me lately. One such example was when she told me ‘if you let me eat something from my lunch box, I go into nursery, if you don’t, I wouldn’t!’ 

Another was; “if you don’t let me sit next to you (in the car,) I won’t love you anymore.”

On both occasions I decided to take the risk. 

I call the shots around here.....mostly.

January Blues

There is a day mid January that is officially the most depressing of the year. Certainly the weather early last week, cold with a flurry of snow that quickly turned into sleet and rain, didn’t inspire much joy.

Even less comforting was my 8 year old cheerfully working out how much longer we all had to live.

“Mummy, you have about 39 years left to live, Granny, you have about 13 years left, how old is Grandpa?...... maybe 7 years.”

I did explain to her that there were no guarantees of anything as far as life expectancy was concerned, but that did not stop her busily doing her sums and making her predictions.

Patrick, age 6, was also behaving rather oddly, apparently in an effort to prove how strong he was.

“What are you doing Patrick”, I asked “Why are you hitting yourself?”

“I am practising” he answered.

“Practising? Punching yourself in the face?”

“Yes, so that I can sit in the front seat of the car – with the airbag”

“Oh!” I said, realisation dawning, “well, that really isn’t going to help.”

I had recently told him my reasoning for not letting him travel in the front seat of the car. I explained that if the airbag went off, he is so light, he would hit it while it was inflating, instead of while deflating as designed, and it would be like getting a massive punch in the face.

The logic of children completely defeats me sometimes.

My mother once told me why, in phrasing instructions, it is important to tell children what TO do rather than what NOT TO. Apparently children just do not hear the ‘don’t’ bit. You say ‘don’t spill the drink on the carpet,’ their subconscious mind hears ‘spill the drink on the carpet’ and over it goes.

This theory was proved again recently when I let my 3 year old play in the driver’s seat of the car when I went to fetch something. I’d left the car door open and my parting remark was “Just don’t fall out the car!”

Literally as I turned my back, she tumbled backwards off the seat and out of the car. Why? Why did I have to say it?

At least the snow has given everyone something to smile about. Even for the adults, it is very difficult to feel grumpy, at least for that moment when you are whizzing down a hillside on a sledge.

The snow excitement is fleeting apparently. I took the sledges up to school again today, thinking the children would like to do some more sledging in the field nearby before we went home. The response was unenthusiastic. 
Ben said "Oh Mum! Do we have to? I've got homework to do." 

What kind of kids am I raising, where homework is preferable to sledging?

Prima donna Emilia

My children have recently starting showing an interest in doing drama again. They have always liked taking centre stage at home, and have all been remarkably unembarrassed to speak in public. In fact, Rachel will say in a loud voice, over the top of the general chatter at the dinner table “I want everyone to listen to me!” and I have to call for silence so we can all hear what she has to say.

I am really not sure how much I want to encourage this, apart from the fact, it will cost a small fortune to send them all to drama classes, I don’t think I can deal with the egos that may come with the budding thespians.

A prime example of this was when Emilia had the (not so) starring role of Angel 6 in the school nativity. The evening of the nativity was also Aunty Liz’s birthday and there were eleven of us in my kitchen, drinking tea and eating birthday cake whilst I cooked the dinner. 

By the time it was ready to serve up, the children had all gone off to play and watch TV. We were having Emilia’s least favourite meal, fish and chips, and I was anticipating a reaction, so had forewarned the adults in the room to expect her dramatic protest.

When the children came in, Granny tipped her off and quietly warned Emilia not to say anything, as she looked at her plate with horror.

Emilia couldn’t help herself, but did tone down her usual outburst.

“Why have you made fish!” she demanded, in a calm but cross voice, with accompanying emphatic downward hand gestures.

“Because...” I said “it was easy, and we’re a big family and sometimes we have to have macaroni cheese, which Ben doesn’t like, and sometimes bolognaise, which Patrick doesn’t like, and sometimes sausages.....”

She broke in, “Yes, but you don’t understand – I have to perform tonight in front of all these grown-ups. I can’t have just chips and peas!!”  

She was so desperate about it and so sincere in her belief that she couldn’t possibly be expected to act on so little food, that I offered to make her something else, and started to reel off alternatives.

All eyes in the room were turned to us now, and suddenly aware of the scene she was making, said;

 “Can we please have this discussion in private!” and waltzed off down the hallway.

She turned down everything I offered to make her, dismissing it all as just taking too long to cook. She finally settled on some tinned spaghetti in tomato sauce and afterwards went off happy to her nativity performance. 

She only had one line and a bit of a dance with the other angels.

If she is this much of a prima donna over that, imagine what she’ll be like if she gets a main part one day.  

Ben's Aspirational Books

Ben is a bit of a bookworm, but his reading matter is not endless stories, as mine was when I was child. I used to love ploughing my way through the complete works of Enid Blyton. I remember often finishing a whole book whilst still in the book shop, just waiting for Mum to come out of Waitrose. They must have hated us in there, using it like a library.

Ben does read fiction, but also loves facts and educational books. He likes funny and quirky things to read, a QI fact book will amuse him for ages. He will also get lost in grown up magazines like Focus. He is a speed reader and before we got him a kindle, his books would make up a good proportion of the weight of our holiday luggage. Ben read the entire Harry Potter series, all seven books, in just twelve days.

He reads when eating cereal, on the toilet, while brushing his teeth, in bed until very late at night, and first thing in the morning before he gets out of bed.

Mark has been borrowing his kindle lately and on this he discovered Ben’s Amazon Kindle Wish List. Three books were listed;

‘C++ Programming for Beginners and Children’ (- a guide to a fairly complex computer programming code.)

‘A Guide to Green Screen’ (video editing techniques) and a book entitled

‘I want to be a Millionaire when I grow up – Kids’ Guide to Money.’

One evening after seeing this, I found Ben sat on his bed sighing and making noises of annoyance and frustration.

“What’s up” I asked him

“I don’t know.....” he groaned “it is just.....just.....I haven’t achieved anything.”

“What do you mean?” I said

“I’ve wasted the day....every day I have to do something to move forward ...I haven’t done anything today to progress my life!”

Seriously?! I am thinking, this is a real concern of his, he is 11 years old, does he need to ‘progress his life’ at this stage? I thought childhood was supposed to be carefree.

I feel now that my literary diet of Enid Blyton, clearly gave me much lowlier ambitions, and the subsequent career of a 1950s housewife.

New Year's Eve - Deception Part 2

New Year’s Eve is always a bit of a tricky one. The last couple of years the children have stayed up for it (or in Rachel’s case, woken up for it.) They have loved it, it is all very exciting for them, but it does mean you start the New Year with very grumpy children. This also makes it very hard for me to keep my New Year’s Resolutions of being extra patient and not losing it and shouting at the children.

Patrick gets particularly tired and inevitably there are always quite a few late nights in the holiday time. After a while, his extra sensitivity, caused by lack of sleep starts to wear a bit thin. In exasperation I said to him:

“Patrick! Do you have to keep crying about every little thing that doesn’t go your way!”

“I’m not crying!” he wails defiantly “I am whingeing!”

Either way though, this is the very condition I am anxious to avoid.

This year, we were in Somerset with friends and decided to have fake New Year. We secretly put the clocks forward, had a bit of a children's disco and some games and then counted down to midnight. We played them 2012’s Big Ben bongs and firework display from youtube on the ipad and all 7 children and the adults were completely swept up in the excitement of seeing in the New Year. 

I did wonder what everybody else in the complex of Swandown cottages thought as the sound of us singing Auld Lang Syne floated out of the open windows on the stroke of 9pm.

It worked like a dream though, and the children all went to bed beautifully, as it was so VERY late (according to them.) By the time the real midnight came, they were all fast asleep and us grown ups were free to enjoy seeing in the New Year as we wanted to celebrate it, in a far more, or perhaps less, civilised manner.

Sceptic Ben of course knew they had been duped but kept it to himself. He clearly knows that with knowledge, comes privileges.

Everybody was very taken with this genius idea of fake New Year. Uncle David said he felt that perhaps even more important than encouraging the belief in Santa Claus, was upholding the belief that on New Year’s Eve, midnight is 3 hours earlier than it actually is.

Father Christmas - Deception Part 1

I have never been very good at properly deceiving the children so far as Father Christmas is concerned. I am not sure what lengths other people go to, certainly it had to be pointed out to me that it was a good idea to use different wrapping paper for Father Christmas’ presents, one that the children had not seen lying around the house.

All families have their different traditions and in our house the rubbish stocking fillers come from Santa and we parents take the credit for the good gifts, which are under the tree from us. Santa is not going to take the glory for those.

I don’t take off all the packaging for the stocking presents so that it doesn’t say Boots, Millets, or more often than not, Factory Shop, though it occurred to me that I should. I have never tried to hide which shop it came from, even though it rather puts pay to the myth that all toys are made by elves in Santa’s workshop. I do take the prices off. However they have never questioned this.

I was quite annoyed before Christmas, as Mark unpacked my Tesco shop and put all the Moshi Monster and Mr Matey Bubble Bath, I had bought for their stockings, on display in the bathroom. I knew, after the kids had seen them, I couldn’t then get away with wrapping them up.

I have discovered though, you can get away with a lot. The children need and want to believe in Father Christmas so much, that they refuse to logic it out. Unless you are Ben, he is 11 now, but I think he has suspected for years.  He has never voiced disbelief and wouldn’t, in case his presents suddenly dried up. He has certainly never let on to the other children. In fact, I am only assuming he doesn’t believe, since he doubts the existence of God, I think Santa and the Tooth Fairy, might be a stretch too far.

I was nearly caught out in 2010 by Emilia. I wrapped up for Rachel, a soft toy polar bear which had come free with a new duvet we bought. I had lost it for a time, but came across it on Christmas Eve and put it in her stocking. Later in the morning of Christmas Day, Emilia said;

“Mummy? Are you sure Father Christmas brought that polar bear of Rachel’s , because I saw it under your bed a few days ago?”

Whoops! Not sure how I got out of that one.

Emilia tripped me up again this year. She was skipping cheerfully along beside me as we wandered into Dorking, “where are we going first, Mummy?” she asked.

“I want to go into the Boot Hole to change my wallet” I said.

“But Mummy,” she said “didn’t Father Christmas bring you that?”

“Oh, did he?” I said vaguely, knowing perfectly well, all my presents from Mark were in my stocking, “perhaps he did, I am not sure.”

“Well, you haven’t got a receipt for it, have you? 

"Well no." I admitted.

"You can’t just go into a shop and say Santa brought me this, but can I have a different one, can you?”

She had a point there.

“I suppose not,” I agreed. “Shall we go to Sainsbury’s?”

It'll be coal in Rachel's stocking

If Santa was taking notes this last week, Rachel would definitely be on the Naughty List. She and her cousin Sarah, had been playing quietly (often not a good sign) in the bedroom upstairs while I was getting dinner. Emilia discovered her crimes later when everyone had gone.  I was clearing up downstairs when I heard a yell of anguish from Emilia, which I took to mean the little girls had messed up the bedroom they share.

“I’ll help tidy it all up, don’t worry” I called.

“No” wailed Emilia “it is worse than that – it is an emergency!”

Emilia can be a little over dramatic at times so I didn’t rush to her aid. When I reached their room I was greeted with an overpowering smell of sickly sweet, fruit flavoured lip balm, but as I surveyed the scene, it didn’t look too bad. Emilia play make up was all out (I am sure I had put that somewhere out of reach but clearly not,) and there were six or so lip balm sticks and assorted colour lids strewn across the floor. I followed my nose to where the strawberry, raspberry, kiwi, pineapple scent was the strongest. On the bed was an elasticated, material, belt which appeared to have been coloured in using the many coloured, scented, greasy, sticks of lip balm. This was annoying, but not irreparable.

“And look!” announces Emilia holding up a coverless, vaguely familiar plastic tray of empty shapes.

“Look what she has done to my advent calendar!” she cries, hysteria setting in now, “she’s destroyed it and eaten ALL the chocolates.”

It is true, there is not a crumb, not a single trace of them, all 24 chocolates devoured.

Rachel’s own advent calendar sits there untouched, totally intact apart from one lone window she had opened earlier in the day.

I can’t help it, I am amused, I suppress a smile and go into cross mode. 

Rachel knows she has done wrong before I said a word, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she says on repeat while I tell her off.

“This is very wrong” I tell her sternly, she looks a little forlorn, and says to me, as if this is some kind of excuse;

“But I like chocolate.”

She has only a few weeks left to redeem herself, she better start trying to be nice.