Pants

Patrick came downstairs one morning last week wearing two pairs of pants.

“Patrick!” I said exasperated “take one of those off and go and put on your uniform, you don’t need two pairs of pants on.”

“He does if he is playing golf” pipes up Emilia.

“What? Why would he need two pairs of pants to play golf?” I said, in all innocence.

“In case he gets a hole in one” she replies.

Not bad for 7.30am. Certainly too early for me, and for Patrick clearly, who put in, “or if I am playing cricket.”  

I tried explain that cricket didn’t work with the punch line, but that joke had gone over his head, he was thinking the extra pair was going to protect his balls from the cricket ball.

Later on, I discovered that he had not taken off the second pair and had worn them both all day. Briefs over boxer shorts– not a great look, hope he didn’t have PE.

I remember Ben doing the same thing on occasion and absent-mindedly putting on two pairs, either that, or wearing one pair twisted so that his waist was through the tight leg hole and a baggy waist was around one thigh. How that could not feel totally uncomfortable and wrong all day, I don't know.

He obviously has a high discomfort threshold. Once, Ben forgot to take his pants off when getting changed for school swimming. He just put his swim shorts over the top. He only realised when he came to get changed again. He was only 5 at the time and not knowing what to do about it, just put his school trousers over the top of his wet pants.

Rachel has no such inhibitions about going commando and we’ll frequently discover halfway through the day that she isn’t wearing any pants at all. She dresses herself mostly and goes straight for the trousers. Clearly she thinks knickers are over rated.

There must be some family ‘pant blindness’ gene going on here.  The children’s Great Grandmother was living in an old folks’ home where she kept insisting that someone had stolen all her knickers. It was later revealed she was in fact actually wearing eight pairs. That is one way to keep warm I suppose.

I am not sure what it is about having warm bottoms, but another pant incident happened when we were children, when my Granny on the other side of the family came to stay with us. She wanted to warm her knickers before she put them on, so she laid her great thermal bloomers on the grill pan and put them under the grill to warm up. (Presumably she didn’t have a radiator in her room.) Anyway, she forgot about them and they burned and she was forever after known as Granny Grilled-her-knickers.

Let that be a lesson, Grannies and hot pants are never a good combination.

Top Dog

At the moment we are the classic nuclear family, if by that you read nuclear in the explosive and potentially disastrous sense of the word, otherwise we are the nuclear family; 2 adults, 2 children, 1 dog, plus some. (4 kids, 2 dogs.)

Children are always going to want a pet, it must be a natural instinct to want or need something to lord it over, be in charge of and control. The kids love it. As much as all the other plus points of having a pet to care for are nice, this really is the bottom line, the not wanting to be last in the pecking order.

I am all for pets, but don’t actually want the long term responsibility that inevitably falls to the parents when the novelty wears off. This is why in our house we borrow dogs, so it is always a novelty, and give them back before they become a chore. My theory is that in the children’s selective memory they will believe they grew up having a dog, but we needn’t actually go to the bother of getting them one.

Since this week we have not one, but two dogs, it works even better. There are two leads, so that minimises the arguments over whom gets hold them...or so I thought. Before the dogs even arrived, Emilia and Patrick had come to an amicable arrangement that she would take charge of the girl dog, Millie and he would have the boy dog, Toby.

One morning I just took the girls out to walk them. Two dogs, two girls, one each and no argument...what I didn’t bank on was them both preferring the same one, the female black Labrador who didn’t pull on the lead quite as strongly. We managed to keep the peace though with turn taking, negotiation and distraction.

You can see from Rachel’s face and demeanor that she absolutely loves the fact that she is not bottom of the pile anymore. She is constantly saying “No!” to the dogs, and telling them what to do and where to go. She enjoys the power of giving them their food, taking their leads on and off and generally bossing them about.

The children rose early the first morning we had the dogs and were nagging me to get out of bed so we could get outside and walk them. Talk about role reversal, on a school morning without dogs, it is me nagging them to get up. This enthusiasm was fairly short lived though, later in the week, they were less fussed and it ended up being just me walking them by myself. (Which is quite blissful, it has to be said.)

It is easy to romanticise the idea of a dog. It is lovely to see the child dog relationship develop. When you witness the scene of Ben reading in his hammock in the spring sunshine, with the faithful dog lying beneath, or of Patrick running along with the dog at his side, you can see the temptation. It is so heart warming to see Rachel and cousin Charlie cuddled up with the dogs in the dog bed, or Emilia trying to teach them tricks. On these occasions I really have to persuade myself getting a dog is a bad idea.

Also, what has been particularly gratifying is that the dogs recognise me as chief of this family, even over Mark. We were out walking and I detoured to deposit the bag in the dog waste bin, Mark called the dogs to continue walking the opposite direction with him, but after initial obedience they came running back to find me, causing him to remark,

“You are obviously the Alpha dog round here.”

Mark is Beta dog, as he had the same problem persuading the dogs to leave him to go off with Ben when I wasn’t there.

As much as I know deep down that if it was Mark who fed the dogs, it would be him whose authority would be recognised, it  does feel good that someone sees me as top dog round here.   

Perhaps it is me then, not Rachel, who is so desperate to be in charge.

We're Going On a....Poo Hunt

We’re looking after a couple of dogs at the moment, and it is a really lovely experience. There is something so wholesome somehow about getting out in the fresh air and walking, man and beast, at one with nature and your thoughts. 

My least favourite part, as I am sure it is with all dog owners, is the poop scooping bit. There is something intrinsically wrong with walking along swinging a small bag of poo, and with two dogs it can be up to 3 bags of poo. Grim.

However, one of the things I wasn’t prepared for was the magical disappearing poo. I bend down to deal with one dog’s business and see in the distance, the other dog going about his. I clock the tree it is near and having bagged the first turd, I make a beeline for the spot, but the poo that I know is there has vanished. I scour the area, where is it?

I put the dogs on their leads hoping they will lead me to it, but no. I feel like a complete fool as I loiter under the trees with one bag of poo in hand, searching the ground, while other dog walkers look curiously at me, as I try to make out that I have not just misplaced a steaming pile of crap. I think of the many times I have cursed dog owners as I have cleaned the dog muck from my children’s shoes or buggy wheels.

“Where’s the poo?” I repeatedly mutter under my breath to the mute dogs. I am a responsible dog owner I will find and scoop.

This is not the morning I imagined. If the children were with me this ‘find the poo’ game would perhaps make slightly more sense.

The Wheels in the Car Go Round and Round

It is the half term holiday and I look in despair at the kid paraphernalia bursting out of our car; there are several pairs of muddy wellies, a bag of emergency spare clothes, extra coats, a couple of odd socks, half eaten apples, crisp packets, lego bits, baby wipes, colouring books, matchbox cars, a teddy, a pogo stick?!, tennis ball, small football, helmets, not to mention the various vehicles the kids seem to need to travel with. I haven’t even begun to load up for the day.

I open the boot of the car, which is parked on our slightly sloping driveway, and have to brace myself to catch a bicycle as it falls out on top of me, then just helplessly watch as I miss my other catch and a football speeds down the hill. I drop the bike and leg it down the road, overtaking the ball and stopping its accident inducing progress into the main road at the bottom. I then try and cram everything back in the car, observing as I do so the number of wheels I seem to have here.

There is a buggy, that is 4 wheels, or technically 8 as the stroller style wheel is made up of two. There is Rachel’s bike, 2 wheels, her scooter, 3 wheels, 3 other scooters, that’s another 6 wheels, and Emilia’s roller blades, 8 wheels. That is a ridiculous 27 wheels, all shoved inside the car, not even including the car’s own four wheels, spare tyre and steering wheel.

The silly thing is, we don’t even need all these modes of transport in here. We’re going to the zoo!

Inner and Outer Voices

Children have no sense of scale when it comes to voicing their objections, or alerting my attention to some catastrophe, and it always is a catastrophe. The noise they make to communicate ‘someone has messed up my room’ or ‘I’ve stubbed my toe’ has no less volume than the scream for ‘someone has taken the toy I was playing with’ or even to a more serious ‘ I have fallen, cracked my head open and I am covered in blood.’ The extreme reaction is the same.

In fact, probably the quieter they are about it, the more likely it is to be bad. I remember Ben falling from high out of a tree and insisting he was ok and could still walk, when in truth he was quite badly hurt. The only noise was cracking branches and ominous thud, though the other children made up for it, by all running up shouting excitedly about what had happened.

In younger children though, there is really no perspective. In houses everywhere there are children making the ‘I’ve lost a limb’ noise over the fact you won’t read them a third bedtime story.

There are of course naturally quieter children and noisier, more dramatic kids, and some more volatile in what causes them to kick off, but generally when they do, you’d be hard pushed to guess whether that child needs serious medical attention or have just lost their teddy.

In order to give the children the idea of tailoring their reactions and volume to the circumstances, we talk about the children having their ‘indoor’ voices and ‘outdoor’ voices.

It is perfectly ok to be at the top of the climbing frame in a park excitedly yelling about your achievements at the top of your voice, though we might object to the sentiment; “I did win, you didn’t winned,” the loudness is not really an issue.

It is quite hilarious watching Rachel, 3, and cousin Charlie, 4, in the park seemingly competing in the loudness stakes, everything they do is accompanied by a noisy theme tune and there is a lot of “I’m King of the Tower – you are the dirty Row-er (?!)  and “I saved the day! – you didn’t save the day” (I have never heard that catchphrase before, that must be that little known superhero Captain Gloater.)

Inside the house it is a different matter, we try to tell them we can hear you if you speak at a normal level, you are not battling the outside elements. Using your indoor voice also applies in the car. We are right here, strapped in, in close proximity, there is no need to shout.

I also have a problem with pitch. I can’t bear squeaky, bordering on whiny, so my low voice request means, both deep and quiet.

I have realised though that my own indoor voice and outdoor voice is the opposite to what I ask of the children. Outdoors, that is in public, out of the house, I am calm, patient and even when furious, generally restrained. Outdoors I use my quiet, firm voice or a fierce whisper to get my message across.

Indoors, in the privacy of my own home, I can yell to my heart’s content.

Apart from having the need to vent my frustrations somehow when the children aren’t listening to me, often the shouting is purely on a practical level. “Dinner’s ready!”, “Come upstairs and clean your teeth!” “Come down here and put your shoes away at once!”

I can’t always be where they are, going to their side and giving instructions in polite, reasonable tones. Although, maybe I should, that is probably how to be an effective parent, to establish attention, (get them to look away from the screen,) ask nicely and stand there until they have moved to do what you have asked. Perhaps that requires less energy in the long run, than shouting across rooms and endlessly repeating my instructions.

It would certainly work to help lessen any confusion over what is an indoor voice and what is an outdoor one. The need to teach by example is never more apparent than when you hear yourself come out of the mouth of your child. Although I was slightly misquoted, Rachel had all the cross facial expressions and ominous tone when she impudently asked me: “How you dare!” about something.

The one lesson which we are good at reminding them of is the old adage: “Do what I say and not what I do!”

Ben said to me, just this evening, as I was insisting he did something,  “you’re not going to use that parent thing are you?”

“What do you mean? I asked, taken aback.

“The ‘grown up’ excuse” he says “’you say, because I am the grown up, you are not’!”

I hear it now. Ner, ner, ner, ner, ner! Captain Gloat.

Can’t think where they get it from? I blame the parents.

Teacher's Pet

My heart always sinks when any one of the children come out of school excitedly holding aloft their class stuffed toy. The class animal comes with a journal bursting with photos and anecdotes of the wonderful weekends he has spent with other families and the pressure is on to show him a good time.

So far, we have had a couple of teddies, a crocodile wearing some child’s old PE t-shirt, Maple Monkey and Reggie the Ring-tailed Lemur.

Some toys came with pyjamas and a toothbrush. Some were nicer than others. A couple had been through the washing machine a few too many times. Maple Monkey even sent a postcard afterwards to the homes of all the children of Maple class, thanking them for his stay. (There was a dedicated teacher!)

I quite quickly learned not to get sucked in to the competitive parent thing. The toy’s journal makes interesting reading, seeing the range in ability in the children’s accounts of his stay, and the photos and how other people spend their weekends. You really don’t want to get landed with the class toy for the half term holiday.

When we were at school in the 80s, we all had turns taking the real live class hamster home in the holidays. Although, admittedly that ended badly, as unfortunately, the class hamster never recovered from going down a flight of stairs in his hamster ball, during his stay with us. That was an awkward conversation for our parents to have on the Monday morning. On reflection perhaps the stuffed toy is a better idea.

When Teddy Oak, the enormous bear mascot of the Reception class, first came home it seemed to be up to the parent to describe the weekend events, since the child could not yet write.

As a first experience of this for both Ben and I, I looked back through the bear’s diary for a clue as to what to do. The bar was set pretty high. On the page before, privileged Teddy Oak had been taken to Lapland with the last member of his class to have had him. There were impressive photos and taking up a whole side of A4 was proudly displayed Teddy Oak’s very own Husky Driving Licence.

Follow that!

Escapee Children

Anyone taking their kids out to places where there are a lot of people and a lot to see will appreciate the difficulty of keeping track of them, even when you only have one child.

The worst one for separating himself from the group is Patrick who charges on ahead with complete disregard for where the rest of the family are. At the zoo recently he would flit from one cage to the next, doubling back and getting distracted by first one animal and then another:

“Ooh look, spider monkey – cute, oh there’s a huge owl, ooh, a bar to hang on like the monkeys, ooh zebras up there.....,”

and he’s off.

He’s dressed in bright red which makes him easier to spot, but my catchphrase of the day is still “where’s Patrick?”

It is hard, especially when the children want me to look at the animals too...or not to look at them, in the case of the monkeys, whose genitalia were on prominent display.

“Oh my gosh!” says Emilia prudishly turning away in disgust “I wish they would put on underpants!”

I simply can’t keep up with them all, as different things spark their interest. Patrick is always so focused on what he wants to do in these situations. He once boarded an aeroplane without us.

We had all just come off the shuttle bus and were standing on the tarmac, waiting to go up the steps to the plane, when we noticed Patrick was missing.

The bus pulled away and Mark ran alongside to check we hadn’t left him on board. He wasn’t there. He had definitely been with us then, so where was he now? We scanned the crowd of passengers, no Patrick.

Then I spotted him, almost at the top of the steps to the plane, on the far side. We shouted for him but he was oblivious. We finally got the attention of the adult who had blocked our view of him and mimed an explanation that the boy beside him belonged to us, and could he point him back in our direction.

As Patrick suddenly saw us all frantically waving at him from far away at the back of the queue, he sheepishly retraced his steps and joined us.

It should come as no surprise to me that I lose the children on occasion when we’re out and about, as I find it hard to keep tabs on their whereabouts when we’re in the house .

Rachel particularly has a long history of just popping next door, when she takes it into her head that she wants to play with the boys who live there. She isn’t very good at telling me when she does it, so often I’d have no idea until I’d get a text or shout over the wall from my neighbour; “she’s here!”

This can sometimes feel very odd, as I believe I can hear her playing upstairs, yet she is apparently in an entirely different house.

The time I really decided that I needed to keep a tighter rein on our daughter was when she started making early morning house calls.

One weekend morning, I stirred at the sound of the front door being slammed, my sleep fuddled brain took no notice, assuming it must be Mark going to work, despite the fact he was still slumbering in bed beside me. The next thing I know the doorbell goes. I leap out of bed, wondering who on earth rings the doorbell at 6.45 in the morning, only to discover it is my neighbour Adam returning Rachel.

“We thought maybe after breakfast might be better” he says. She had woken them all up knocking at their front door.

“I am so, so sorry,” I said “we were all asleep, we didn’t realise she’d got out!”

She was barely 3 at the time and only just grown to the point at which she could even reach the front door latch. I made more effort to keep her in after that, but summer proved tricky. Despite being confined to the garden by two gates, she would just climb over one and under another in order to visit her friends.

She has got slightly better, at least she announces her intention to go visiting now and by the time she has got her coat on I have cottoned on to the fact she is leaving the house.

Rachel’s bids for freedom started very early. I remember another mum telling me about how she had lost her child, she was slightly younger than Rachel and just crawling.

“I found her at the top of the stairs” she said “I did not even know she could climb stairs yet.”

“It happens so quickly doesn’t it,” I empathised “I lost Rachel the other day too.”

“Where did you find her?” my friend asked.

“Oh,” I said nonchalantly, “she was up the road, at number 3.”

We live at number 10, and she was 18 months old.

I did not take offence when my sister made me a Little Bo Peep birthday cake that year.