methusula mum

2011-12-05T15:17:00.000-08:00

Mamihlapinatapei, and other fascinating words

I have been thinking about the language of computers and whether it would be good for X to learn one. I have also been working hard to untangle the language of researchers at the global company TNS. These very clever people seem to have a remarkable ability to tie up single sentences in more knots than you would find in a macrame pot holder. Meanwhile X has been playing hard with language. She and her best friend (I love her, mummy) have started to speak a language all of their own. X has now started to speak it to me. I was so flattered to be included that I started speaking back to her in jibberish. Now we walk down the road jabbering nonsense to each other. I say nonsense but mainly we intuit what each other is saying. We laugh a lot in this language and don't use it for snapping and whining. If ever I was lost for words with her it might come in handy.

It occurred to me that one of the reasons that X might be so interested in speaking a foreign language is that almost all her friends are bilingual and have a 'special' language which they use with their mothers. T speaks Finnish to hers (no father around) , S speaks Icelandic (father doesn't speak Icelandic), N is only just learning English over Russian (no father around), and her best friend A ( I love her, mummy) speaks Danish to her mummy. I could go on- there are so many examples. It seems such a shame that X's fascination with language at this key moment in her development (this is the time where children naturally learn language) is going to waste as I only can jabber with her in make-believe meanings. Maybe we should learn a new language together. I do try to speak a bit of French but my French is woeful.

I did learn one new foreign word today: mamihlapinatapei, which is apparently Yagan for "the wordless yet meaningful look shared by two people who desire to initiate something, but are both reluctant to start."
Good, eh? We haven't made up that one yet, but then I'm not sure we've ever seen two people looking at each other in this way. Maybe they were and we mistook it for British reserve.

2011-12-02T03:43:00.000-08:00

CRACKING THE CODE FOR THE FUTURE

I arrived at work depressed having read a newspaper on the bus. X's future just seems so grey when you look at the economic future and the lack of opportunities for children as they grow. Then I arrived at work and got really excited- suddenly the future seemed full of possibilities again.

The other day someone at work had sent around a petition (the intranet email stream at Digit is one of the best things about working here- it is so inspirational ) to get children coding in school. I signed the petition ( coding in schools petition- sign it too! ) and thought what a good idea. But last night a brilliant creative technologist, David Rosser, and designer Christine Winkless had taken the campaign further. They developed a poster to help the campaign. See their poster and read about their idea to teach children coding in schools on the Digit blog: http://blog.digitlondon.com

It really inspired me, especially when David said:" if I was taught coding at school I would be so much better now- I didn't even start till I was 17!"

I know what he meant- all my career I wished I had understood earlier how art and writing was used commercially. My teachers thought that everyone at our school would be teachers, doctors or work in government, they had no idea about anything creative at all. Had i known it might have changed my attitude to life and work.

I believe that discovering that you can make a perfect colourful circle or flower out of a few things you type in is something even X, aged 4, could get into- she loves using my computer. Hell, maybe I could even get into it too!

PS: neilperkin thinks it's exciting too!

2011-12-01T13:55:00.000-08:00

Making Meanings

The process of adoption and the process of online dating are similar for the prospective parent in some ways. I know because I have done both. The thing that really struck me is that both required -for me- a large amount of faith over experience.

There may be people who go onto online dating sites without feeling that love has let them down in some way, but most are striped through with desperation and disappointment like a humbug. Similarly, though there may be people who feel that it is better to adopt than have their own children, for the vast majority it is desperation at being childless that gets them into a situation where they have to fill out forms saying what they can or can't cope with by way of challenges.

As a prospective adopter I had to overcome a shell of cynicism lacquered layer by layer over years of hopes that had fried to a cinder so that now it was almost as indestructible as the shell on a beetle that could survive a nuclear explosion. But once I started to examine possibilities of matches I was amazed at myself, the way that I started to make meanings just on a photo about why a child might be 'meant to be' for me. One baby looked a bit like the illustration on a book I'd liked as a child. I laughed at myself for dreaming up such spurious meanings but I also couldn't help myself.

When I met my daughter it was special for being so beautifully, pure of such made up meanings. It was purely her looking at me and then turning away to look at the cat- which was far more interesting. I was glad that somehow I had managed to avoid cloying up the meeting with manufactured meanings and preconceptions, though I have no idea how this happened. I think it was because the situation leading up to me meeting her was so fraught with legal and other issues that I really didn't think it was going to happen. I was in such a spasm of cynicsm that I really didn't think I would run off with her, even though I had been allowed to meet her. My mind was frozen with amazement. The meaning I have made on this, in retrospect, is that I am glad it felt so pure of artificial meanings.

I was thinking about the need for humans to make meanings because X is still making up meanings regarding daddies and the lack of them and I don't know whether to say more might confuse further or not. Meanings are slippery little fish. The meanings she is making about daddies aren't so wide of the mark as they were. She doesn't think her daddy has been stolen by the police any more. Now she thinks he is in Africa - this is something to do with her hair and something I said about it. But she doesn't seem too bothered. We had a three year old to stay for a sleepover last weekend, It was fun, she slept in our bed with us. We all spent a large amount of the night tripping to the loo but they both managed not to wet the bed, which was a first for X. In the morning, over breakfast, X asked her friend if she had a daddy. The little friend said she didn't. X said she didn't either. They both seemed pleased with this state of affairs. "I've got a just got a mummy too," said X. "You either have a mummy or a daddy but you don't need both." Our visitor agreed, nodding her head and adding: "my friend at nursery hasn't got a mummy or a daddy - but it doesn't matter because he's got a scooter."

2011-11-28T07:38:00.000-08:00

The metaphor of her name may become the metaphor of her life in some way.

What's in a name?

If you are called Sky I imagine it may impact on your image of yourself. If you were called Crystal you might have a totally different self-image. If you are called Faith would you be different than if you were called Charity? I am guessing, as there are so many visual connections, these noun names inspire more meaning than the difference between being called Anne and Jane.

X realised that her name has a meaning today. She explained to me that she is like it- though she didn't seem sure how.

I expect that this metaphor will grow throughout her life. I can imagine boyfriends writing love letters about it, friends sending card with pictures of it, her going to places where she decides it has special meaning for her. It was nice to be there when she first understood the metaphor and to tell her once again that it was her tummy mummy who gave it to her.

2011-11-17T01:32:00.000-08:00

i-Prodigies

Take a look at these incredible children:

the TED speaker and app developer

the game developer

musicprodigy

And I am thrilled that X has got to two sentences per page in her reading. She can read 'can' and 'man', and -on a good day,even 'cannot'! Given that at 18 months I was told she had a developmental delay of 6 months- a third of her age - I am, if anything, even more amazed by her progress as I am staggered by these children. And today I am going to think about all those children, teenagers and adults who struggle to do up their own shoelaces. When I was adopting I remember saying to the doctor that I didn't think I was up to looking after a child who would never be able to tie their own shoelaces. I had forgotten what tricky little blighters shoelaces are. I had it all wrong back then. I really had no idea what I could cope with or not. That's what makes the list you are given asking you to tick which disabilities you can cope with so impossible. You have no idea what you can cope with or what a disability might entail. You just hope you rise to whatever parenting challenge you are given. And I think I would find a child who was already a TED speaker a pretty challenging child as well.........

2011-11-16T06:43:00.000-08:00

YAAAAAMS

She had yams and scrambled egg for tea last night. J, her much-loved childminder, (and one of the happiest woman on the planet) told me proudly that she ate the lot. It was an awful, awful lot. I know because it came out in a technicolour yawn all evening and well into the night. Actually, not technicolour, very pale. Yaaaaaaaa-m she roared into the potty we had by the bed, over and over again. She was so, so good, not a spot spilt anywhere. And it just went on and on. I felt so useless, just rubbing her back and saying good girl over and over again, as if she was a dog. Finally, at about two, she fixed me with steely eyes, over the top of the potty and said: tell her not ever to give me so much again.

But this morning, just as I (laid low with sleep deprivation and a stinking cold) was thinking of

wantonly giving up a whole days pay and staying in bed and watching daytime tv X was ready to go again. If she couldn't go school she wanted to be back at J's, hanging around with me just wasn't cutting it So I delivered her back to J, told her not to give her so much of anything X didn't want- but plenty of water- and trudged off to work.

It wouldn't surprise me if it put her off yams for life. Last night they didn't just disagree with her- they violently argued....

2011-11-10T02:09:00.001-08:00

The TNS Digital life site I have been working on has just gone live!!!
https://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23tnsdl>

2011-11-09T13:14:00.000-08:00

TWO LITTLE STORIES

So the little girl who is too scared to speak at school tells me that she stood up and told the class all about the fairies she and her cousin made from spoons. But maybe she is making it up - not sure. As a novelist might say, it is an unreliable narrator telling the story. Apparently at least one person in the class asked a question: why did she make them? And she replied: because I wanted to. The debate may take a while to reach Paxman standards but I was impressed with her determination to stand up in front of everyone: she set of to school this morning waving the fairies like magic wands. I remember the first time I made a presentation as a graduate trainee and how nervous I was. She isn't that shy as it appears I don't think- she just chooses her moments.

We were watching tv after story time tonight and X piped up: "Oh look, there's the lady who picks up K from nursery." And it was - the well-known presenter who happens to be friends with K's mother. To X it's not important she's on the telly what's important is that she picks up her friend. I'm not surprised X has this attitude as she is used to seeing herself on her mothers computer all the time on You Tube. It is interesting that the availability of seeing oneself in digital glory on You Tube might be actually lessening the impact of fame on tv. I can't help hoping so- it might lessen the lure of mindless Big Brother celebrity status.

2011-11-06T12:58:00.000-08:00

Drawing the line -and I'm not talking arty fun.

It was a challenging morning with X displaying to the entire congregation that I have no authority over her whatsoever. I took her out of the service twice to give her talking to but it didn't modify her behaviour and she wrestled with me at the altar. It was all rather undignified. I got so angry that I told X she wouldn't be allowed to go to a party later. This was stupid as I was pleased she had been invited. I didn't know whether to follow through with the punishment or not. It was a mess.

I tend to shirk taking authority but I also don't want my child to be disrespectful. I find the balance hard. This is also confused by the fact that X is highly opinionated and disrespectful with me but is so unconfident at school and in new situations that she rarely speaks and I am constantly told she needs more confidence. Maybe her teachers would feet differently had they seen the way X demanded my communion wafer at the altar and created a riot when I wouldn't give it to her.

My issue was voiced the other day by her friend K's father who said, in his soft Trinidadian accent: "I want him to understand the boundaries but I don't want to stunt his spirit." However, screaming at the altar was the boundary for me. I had to draw a line.

I spoke to my mother and sister about my behaviour- and X's. I moaned to my mother that it is harder as a single parent as she feels she has a more equal relationship with me than other children as she gets involved in choosing more with me: what tv we watch, eat, and the like. "Yes, well, lets just say we all got a bit worried when you insisted she have an opinion over which new car you bought and she was only two," said my mother in a soft yet important way that indicated this had been discussed quite a bit. But then my mother has only to whisper and all her children sit up straight, even though we are all now over fifty.

I talked to my sister. Our conversation was naturally informed by our own upbringing: "I totally know why you don't want to be authoritarian," she said, "but every time I've held back from taking control with my children it has come back and bitten me in the bottom later."

Hmmm, talking of biting, I had an email from the Ex this week reminding me of Big Biting Incident in which X bit the-soon-to be--Ex in church which led to him acting like a modern-day version of Mr Murdstone and our relationship unravelling as fast as the hem on a Primark dress. But-just for the record- I still feel that once a child has said sorry and clearly means it then that should be The End of the matter.

While I'd been talking to my mother and sister X had been having a quiet poo and a little think: "If I'm not allowed to go to the party does that mean I can have the present for myself?" she asked, eye firmly fixed on the main chance. Oh, and by the way, she now wants to be called Tinkerbell- Angelina, which doesn't strike me as a name for a shy retiring wall-flower.

Did Tinkerbell-Angelina learn any lessons today? Not sure. All I can say is that I tried my absolute best to exert quiet authority and insist on respect and it was exhausting. It is so much easier to be yelled at or just do a bit of pointless yelling. But Tinky-Angie taught me a lesson the other day when she told me that she thought K's father was the best daddy she knew. I asked why. "Because he tells him off when he's naughty." This little fairy seems to be asking for some stronger discipline, it seems to me. Out of the fairy-horses mouth, with bells on.

Just so I never forget
like the rest of the world she likes to sing Adele in the car.

2011-11-03T08:17:00.000-07:00

It's never too late to adopt.

We are on the BAAF blog- check it out here.

2011-11-02T13:04:00.000-07:00

MY FILM JUST WANT TO BE LOVED WAS SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAAF ADOPTION WEEK FILMS.

Many congratulations to the winners- anything that publicises the fact that there are still 65, 000 children in care is fantastic.

2011-11-01T15:47:00.000-07:00

Thanatophobia and everlasting darkness at diwali, the festival of lights.

I suffer from thanatophobia and have done so all my life. In my teens it kept me awake most nights. I feel very ashamed of this phobia. I live my life in total awe of those who manage to get on with life while not screaming internally: "don't panic, don't panic," like Jonesy in Dad's Army. The idea that I won't be there, there will be no me one day is a tragedy I just cannot get beyond. I realise this means I have a towering ego, especially as I do so little to deserve an immortal place in the world, but I have tried every day of my life to stop taking it all so seriously and have never succeeded. I think it is totally amazing that we don't all cluster in a huddle at work and cry together about it. But, believe me, it is tedious to live ones life as a series of last moments.

I sometimes think that I got into the habit of flagellating myself about death as a means of whipping myself into some kind of action to create something lasting. I seem to remember the phobia starting just before I got to my teens- about nine- when I discovered that Michelangelo spent years painting the Sistine Chapel. Around then I decided my life would be wasted if I didn't at least try to create something before I died. Dying without an everlasting achievement became a Really Bad Idea. But thanatophobia has been a total failure in terms of propelling me into creativity. There I have been, hanging on a thread a spittle in the jaws of death for the last forty years or so, and the best I have come up with is a couple of hair and cosmetic commercials. And one would have thought that if I was so scared of dying I would take better care of myself.

Having a child has changed the phobia. To start with it made it considerably more real. I now have a genuine fear of dying that is laced with guilt. I took X away from potentially younger parents. To become close to one old person and then that person die would be Very Bad for her. In an attempt to absolve this guilt I rewrite my will about once a year, I have life insurance to make sure she will have plenty of money, should I die, and I harrange my close friends and family on a regular basis about how I would like her to be looked after in an 'emergency'. I have a feeling that adopting a child, even when in a pair, makes this attitude more common. We are taught to consider wills and what will happen to our adoptive children, should we die, before we have even got them. I admit it, I am slightly obsessive about 'emergency' situations. with long notes to schools, minders and close friends about where, who and how X would be best off in the immediate days after I am knocked down by a bus.

On the other hand, for the first time since a teenager, the fear has modified. I now enjoy every single day just for little things. I can almost live with the fact that I won't leave behind an act of greatness as she will still be in the world. It no longer bothers me there won't be a me one day as there will be a her. I am not sure why this makes up for it as it isn't as if she is 'a part of me', there being no genetic link. It is not logical at all, but - hey- why break the habit of a lifetime? My first boyfriend said it was impossible to quarrel with me: he just couldn't follow the logic of the argument.

I've been thinking about all this because of what happened on saturday. The day started serenely making goulish halloween lanterns with X's half sister and her mother. The evening was set to be the very opposite of dark-death phobia. We went to a diwali party: a party for the 'festival of lights'. The house was lit from top to toe with shimmering candles, the women were in colourful saris, we were all given Indian stoles to wear. There was fragrant Indian food, a lavish firework display. I was with people I adore. All was full of golden light. I sat eating supper next to a lady a little older than me who I didn't know. She was clearly intelligent, a spinster who had no family, I guessed - rightly- a friend of the host. We spoke a little about our host, who had made a big decision a couple of years ago, to move from Notting Hill to North London to live with my Indian friend. I mused how sometimes big life decisions can sometimes actually be good. "That's interesting," said the lady, "as I made a big life decision today. I signed the papers for Dignitas. I should be off before Christmas."

Forgetting death for a moment, there are some moments in life that one hopes one will cope with as they are the mark of who you are. The real me. There is a moment in Notting Hill where Hugh Grant's sister meets the famous actress played by Julia Roberts and she says she knows this is a moment when she should be cool and she is so, so going to fail and then she gets so overexcited about meeting the star that she forgets to leave when she shows her the way to the loo.

And there was me, in a life-defining moment like this thinking about Notting Hill. Anyway, I hope I didn't fail this moment. I tried not to. I shut out the thoughts squealing in my inner ear and tried to ask logical questions one after another and to actually talk to the lady, as I think this is what she wanted. Se was frighteningly clever and confident, having been a senior producer of famous BBC programmes for her career. She poo-poo-ed religion and therapy so maybe just talking to a stranger, even one as stupid as me, was better than nothing. I lived with her the moments she found the lump in her breast, the problems with her siblings going with her to die. I tried not to run away until I thought I might be sick or faint, especially when she coughed.

I spent the rest of the weekend alternately feeling overwhelmed with fear and sorrow for this brave lady and then wondering why she chose me to share her news. I felt the stench of death upon me. I was glad that X kept me busy with ordinary little day-to -day things.

Volans / The Methuselah Generation

2011-10-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

Volans / The Methuselah Generation

2011-10-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAS HAPPENED.

Something of hers has fallen off. I couldn't be more devastated if it was a limb. She is thrilled, though worried that the tooth fairy might get the wrong room as she sleeps with me. I was too devastated to use it to my advantage and persuade her into her own bed.

Does everyone feel like this about the first tooth? I had no idea. It is just so sudden, even though the dentist had murmured something about wobbles happening soon I was in no way prepared. Is it because I had nice baby teeth and then great tombstones came through that have made every smile a misery ever since? It feels as if she has suddenly grown grey hair. She is mortal, and ageing. I am shouting at the waves but the sea is still coming in, just like that old king.

2011-10-26T01:44:00.000-07:00

MORNING BLUES TURNED BRIGHTER

I hate half-terms when I work.I drag my feet to work like a reluctant schoolboy.

X , however, is such a girl.This morning she told me to throw away all her trousers as they don't look pretty. I was trying to chivvy her into trousers as they are quicker to put on in the morning than tights.

Getting to the minder was also hampered by the fact that we have to sort the baby too. Sadly not a real baby, despite X's constant pleadings for me to get one, but baby Molly who looks like an extra from a horror movie with her scratched out eyes. She also has an electronic cry which makes my ears bleed and my teeth hurt. As it was raining it took some time to get Molly into the coat in such a way that X could also scooter.

I am trying not to mind the fact that when X plays with Molly she isn't playing mummies and daddies she is playing childminders. Molly's mummy is a lady called Edie who is away working. She even has to spend the night away which means we get to mind Molly at nights sometimes.

We were late for the childminder. X was in a hurry to get there to show her Molly as she wants some tips on how to look after her. X was happy there but I went to work in a bit of a dismal mood over half terms where I have to work. On the plus side I thank the heavens that X has a minder who she loves and seems to have a benign, happy interest in all children. There are always smiles there and I am glad X is in a hurry to get there and hasn't so far noticed that most of the other children are having holidays with their parents.

And then, during the morning, I remembered how much I love working in a studio with pleasant, creative people all around me- and how lucky I am to be able to work among young creatives at my age. I went to a meeting came out and was sent this picture of the view from my window when I was gone by one of those lovely young creatives.

2011-10-25T01:22:00.000-07:00

It's as embarrassing as your mum getting a tattoo.

Shock horror: Barbie has got a tattoo. If this is an effort to look like a Bratz doll then Galt (or whichever plastic conglomerate makes either one or both of the dolls) are failing miserably.

Barbie with a tattoo looks like Essex mum who got carried away on a spa day. When I worked on Pantene we had a word for the Pantene target market: perfectionistas. Barbie is the archetypal perfectionista. Bratz are just dirty girls.Wouldn't it be great to make up some really new dolls: Cheryl, the judge, Vicky the aids worker, Mandy, prime minister, Wendy the astronaut, or something really aspirational: Gilly with a job and a happy marriage.

I would hate X to have a tattoo, they are such a cliche. I would especially hate her to be Babie's age and have pink flowers and hearts inscribed. It would be as rediculous as me getting one. Luckily that won't happen for a million reasons including the fact that my skin is too wobbly - the needle would skate all over the shop.

2011-10-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

ACTS OF GOD

We went to see Peppa Pig today with D and T. It was great fun and X enjoyed it, singing along and seeing her TV friends in real puppet life. On the way out there were glistening bouquets of Peppa balloons on sale for a disgraceful price. I yanked X through the vale of temptation but D was much nicer and bought both children one. We tied the cords to the children's wrists and they watched the balloons with eyes as round and glistening as the balloons. The disembarkment from the car at D & T's home had its normal complications of coats and lunchboxes. During the confusion the two mummies looked up to see that one of the balloons had escaped. It was already hundreds of feet in the air, off to meet its celluloid maker, glinting in the late afternoon sun in the middle of a big blue sky. We said nothing to the children and it wasn't until X and I got home, some hours later, that it's absence was missed. X was strangely sanguine about it, I think she was tired, it had been a big, fun day. By that time I had bumped the car into a post and inflicted damage which, though not act of God, is still not worth my while claiming for on insurance. This is the first bump on my car and means that I will probably now never sell it as it will be yet another depreciation and so will have it for the rest of my life: therefore a turning point. Not necessarily a bad one, just a deciding moment. We got into bed and I discovered that, through some incomprehensible act of i-photo I have lost the pictures of X's first day at school. I am determined to be as sanguine as X was about the balloon: the first day was nothing special in itself, it is only because I am sentimental about pictures of my first day at school. In reality X looked better in the pictures of the first day at nursery, where she was in a sweet little uniform. Why spoil a lovely day, when the sun shone on golden autumn leaves, and we were with great company and Peppa found the treasure, just because a couple of bits of celluloid were lost?

2011-10-22T12:44:00.000-07:00

DAUGHTER AND DAUGHTER'S BABY HAVE SOME SIMILAR HABITS....

2011-10-19T15:20:00.000-07:00

YOU WOULD MAKE A GREAT ADOPTIVE PARENT

Yes, you.

Well, why not you?

I thought the fact I wasn’t married and over forty would rule me out.

It was only a chance meeting with someone that meant I learned I might have a chance.

It was just a random lucky meeting. Serendipity.

Sometimes I look back and break out in a cold sweat thinking how it so easily might not have happened.

If this message comes your way maybe it is a random lucky sign that your life could be transformed for the better as mine was - by adoption.
Why not find out more now?

http://www.baaf.org.uk

2011-10-17T15:22:00.000-07:00

WE ALL KNOW WHO THEY ARE

Tonight I went out in the evening for the second time since I adopted. It felt very strange going out in the dark. I went to a parent teacher evening. I felt so grown up. I remember my mother going out to meetings like this when I was a child. Everyone looked half my age, even the headmistress, and they all were so confident with their opinions and feisty attitudes.

The main topic, other than fundraising, was an outbreak of nits. I quailed as they described how it is totally impossible to get rid of them without comb: X's hair is impossible to comb, either the hair, the comb or our tempers or willpower breaks. The hair is as fragile as our tempers, yet is also curly as African hair. I have literally never managed to get any comb the length of the hair and we survive by teasing, fluffing, smoothing and rumpling. A three-quarter of an hour conversation has made me an expert on nits. One mother actually put them in a bug-box (what's that?) and ran an experiment to see how long they lasted alive on the hair. There was graphic description of the need to actually break the eggs open. There was invective against hoodies where they might linger in the fleece. A disagreement over whether bedding needed to be boiled following an outbreak ended in polite disagreement. One mother clearly harboured resentments against: "some mothers, who just don't care, and don't do anything about it at all." This made a mexican wave of nodding go around the room. "It's always the same children who bring them back, We All Know Who They Are..." said another mother, provoking another Mexican nod-wave.

Discussion was held about how the shampoo and combs might be bought in bulk and it was suggested that: 'maybe the free school lunch-lot' might get the combs free. Much emphasis was made on the fact that it wasn't the free-lunch mums who were the wicked slatterns who didn't comb the hair, it was others- We All Know Who They Are. It was agreed that a relentless programme of texts, letters and leaflets would be drawn up. Apparently there was a time when school nurses would send home children if they had nits. The nit -warrior mums were keen to hot-foot it into the school to inspect all the children ( no doubt we great attention on some- We All Know Who They Are) and send home notes if they found any. The headmistress looked a bit worried: "you would have to ask for permission to inspect the children," she muttered," one has to be so careful...." The nit-warrior mums also had no truck with the idea of organic treatments and considered only the strongest chemical treatments did anything. A sheep-dip on the way into school was mentioned, I think it was a joke...One teacher admitted she had nits at the moment and the ladies on either side of her looked discomfitted.

I went home scratching my head and wondering about setting up a little nit business. Apparently the combs are a tenner and the shampoo twenty quid. Someone is making a pile on the little blighters. Another thing to start saving for. The only down side of the business plan is that, apparently nits do no harm whatsoever and only even itch if you are allergic to the eggs, so all in all they sound about as harmful as the bugs that supposedly live on our eyelashes and eyebrows. But I'm quaking for the future. I don't want to be considered one of "those mums." I think the only plan for X will be to shave the lot off as if she is the heroine of a war story or Audrey Hepburn in 'The Nun's Story' but it will be a shame, her hair has never been cut and it is still is only a couple of inches. There was one lady there with a muslim headdress on. I nearly plucked up the courage to ask her if that was a preventative device. Maybe that would be the answer for X. Other than that she will just have to be bald, there is no way I can bear the shame of being "one of those mothers, We All know Who They Are."

2011-10-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

CLEVER MUMMY

She has two children, a husband in IT who can afford a nice little artisans house like mine about fifteen years before me. She worked for a year or two after university but since then has married and looked after the house and the two children. Her little daughter is polite, confident, full of fun and phonics - she is already ahead of children a year or more older. In fact, thought she is only allowed to be in nursery due to her age she does phonics with year one because she can help bring them on! Mummy also has enough time and energy to make homemade party bags such as the one above. She has just been interviewed for an open university PGCE to become a maths teacher and they are crying out for them in our area so it looks as if she can build a career around her children's term times. What clever choices she has made with her life.

I have some friends who believe that the economy will crash irrevocably who are moving to a farm in Devon. It is a choice that scares the wife more than the husband. She is not sure she wants to leave her house in a safe contained enclosure where her children play with neighbours to go to a place two miles from another house. She is supporting her husband's choice and putting her faith in him and God. He is fifty and doesn't know much about farming, except for a year in farming one field which didn't produce much. It's a brave choice.

Another friend made a great choice to take time out from her NY advertising career to give her children some mummy time all summer for her children.

Life feels as if it is spinning dizzying fast to me, the weekends barely long enough to sort the washing let alone sort the future. I hope my choices in middle age finally become more sensible for the sake of X.

2011-10-14T04:44:00.000-07:00

adoption week coming up - please tell anyone you think would be a greaat adoptive parent there are 3,500 kids in care.

2011-10-13T13:05:00.000-07:00

PRIVATE HOUSE

The story so far:

Zachary is five. He has just married his aunt. The cat jumped on the roof and mum rescued him. Dad was found with his head in the oven but has been dragged out and has survived to make the breakfast. Cynstia, the baby, has been christened and everyone had a party outside the house...

I'm told this is all private and shouldn't be discussed, and frankly it is such a dysfunctional set up that maybe it is best brushed under my mother's perfect needlepoint rugs, which grace the kitchen.

It was the best bit of my day.

REALLY TRYING NOT TO CREATIVE DIRECT THIS…….

2011-10-12T06:20:00.000-07:00

LEACHING THE DREAMSWEET.

When I wake up in the middle of the night and my head is full of fear shadows, I feel her fat foot jammed up against me and it's so solid, so viscerally there that somehow it makes me think everything just has to be alright, and if it isn't then there is nothing I can do anyway. I stroke her hair as if it is her that woke up and needed soothing and then I go back to sleep.

My mother said that she survived looking after three children while her husband was away at sea by saying most days to herself at any time after midday: "I'm just tired, everything will seem better in the morning."

I find that playing with a dolls house helps a bit. The world reduced to shoebox size is easier to cope with. Sometimes I let her play too.

2011-10-06T15:31:00.000-07:00

A lesson in the internet

By Hyper Islands youngest tutor, aged 4. Am a bit confused by the print outs of dresses app, which clearly frustrates the born digital. But loving the bubblemixure platform.

2011-10-06T02:03:00.000-07:00

WHO CARES?

My dear, dear friend Tracy has started to blog and I didn't even notice! Actually, she isn't blogging she is blethering. Blethering, as anyone from north of Watford knows, is a little like mithering or blathering but, being from USA, it's a term Tracy has learned from a Scott called Scott, who is Tracy's husband. I don't think I have ever heard Tracy blether in her life. She's a NY 'career woman' (though also with two children and a husband) who runs massive accounts like Kraft for digital ad agencies. Or at least she did before she went on a summer career break. Now, much as Tracy may love her husbands Scottish way of talking, I love Tracy's American style. I love the way she casually tosses out the term 'career break', as if it is so easy to wander away all summer from a high-powered and high paid job in NY to look after her two children, when we all know there are implications and choices are not easy. I take my hat off to her for it. It is so much easier to get "career breaks" the way that I do - when they're imposed upon me. Next time I'm casting about for work I will tell everyone I'm on a "career break", including myself. So much more positive. One day my career will break so many times the wheels will fall off it and then I shall say I am retiring.

Anyway, I recommend Tracy's insightful latest piece, who cares and I do care about her for a million reasons to do with how incredibly dyamically she manages to have that elan and savoire faire in life that probably really does come from a who cares attitude in all kinds of subconscious ways. She also really, really cared for me. Without her support when I was facing not ever, ever being a mummy I doubt I would be one now. Tracy scraped me up off a cosmetics shoot in Malaga in a jibbering mess when even enough valium to slew a horse could not get me to relax ( I kid you not, the doctor in the hotel said that he had already given me enough to slew a horse ), and she flew me back to the UK and got me into the Florence Nightingale hospital when I thought I would die from grief of childlessness. Drama queen, or what? This left Tracy, inconveniently, to pick up the pieces of the job we were doing together. In my defence, I would like to say that the pre-production is the biggest part of any shoot and caring too much not too little was probably my problem, even with work. Sometimes it is impossible not to care but take it from me, displacement activity only works when it is not used as slow suicide by exhaustion. I reckon Who cares? is often a great motto for a working woman as well as one on a career break.

PS: Just realised this post will probably mean I will never get a job on a shoot ever again. Oh, well. Who cares?

2011-10-05T03:59:00.000-07:00

LIMONCELLO OR RUM?

A friend of mine called me to tell me about a site full of great food for children.

It is a paradise of recipes from Italy, the place where all children ( even the nasty smelly rude ones) are considered little putti.

http://yummybambini.com

I particularly liked the choccy salami- X's fave foods being both chocolate and salami. And the write up made me smile:

salame al cioccolato

This fun no-cook chocolate recipe comes from a headmistress in Naples. She told me it’s a firm favourite at birthday parties. She should know. She has a family herself and has been a teacher for over 3 decades. I did a bit of a double take though when she sent me the recipe and I saw limoncello (lemon liqueur) on the list of ingredients. I called her up to check. “Are you sure about limoncello for kids?” I asked

.“You don’t have to use it” she answered, “rum works just as well”.

2011-10-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

Gone to real life.

About six months ago X's best friends mum called me and told me that she thought I ought to know that my daughter was telling everyone at school that the reason she hasn't got a daddy is because the police took him away.

During the adoption process we are strongly advised to tell the truth and be open about biological parents so what I had told X was simply that we didn't know who her father is. That is the truth. But of course it's impossible to let a truth like that rest. So in her little head she rationalised what this meant to the fact that he had been taken away.

X and I had a little chat about the fact that her daddy had not been taken to prison, in fact I was pretty sure he must be a very good person, as he had such a good little daughter. A little later she told me that she thought he had gone to another country, which I thought was a much better explanation.

While riding a horse in the playground the other day she turned to the little girl next to her, who she didn't know, and said:
"I've got no Daddy."
The other little girl looks puzzled, "did he leave?"
"No, he's dead, " says X.

A bit later I asked her if she knew what being dead meant. "Yes, Lola told me,"she said. According to Lola from the childminders, aged five, it means:" gone to real life."

2011-09-29T01:41:00.000-07:00

FILL YOUR HOUSE WITH CRAZY TOYS AND LIVE YOUR SECOND CHILDHOOD.

I remember when my house was a barren landscape of designer minimalism and how irritated I was when social services suggested that it wasn't very child friendly." It would be a bit weird to have a house full of toys when I'm a single woman," I remember snapping at them. Well, now I have a house full of toys that play rediculous tunes and trip me up, I sleep on Barbie accessories and have baths with Pepa Pig. I made this little video to enjoy this fact and support BBAF.

Did you know that over 3,500 children are in care and only 60 children were adopted last year?

It is not as hard to adopt as some think and the climate is more welcoming towards adopters of all kinds. National Adoption Week starts on the 31st November. BAAF are asking for adoption champions to try and encourage potential adopters and to make a film about adoption.

I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpCkaDrsYUk

2011-09-28T02:16:00.000-07:00

God our father I come to say ('ay' - said the London way)

Thank you for your love today  ('ay' said the London way)

Thank you for my famileeeee  

And all the love you give to meeeeeee

Guard me in the dark of night

 And in the morning send your light

Amen.

Now she's at a liberal pinko, lets all wear our own clothes and express our own identity all the time she doesn't get to compare holes in her school sweatshirt and she also doesn't get to say prayers at lunch and going home time.

She liked chanting them.

Little children always used to say their prayers on their knees by their bed.

We tend to do it in the bath - more comfy and less interruptions from X-factor!

2011-09-27T01:05:00.000-07:00

SILLY MUMMY

This morning I wouldn't wear my blue jacket ( it's blue and blue is for boys) and the coat was too hot so we had to go back upstairs and find the pink fleece and then Mummy discovered the book wasn't in the book bag (well, of course it wasn't we were reading it last night, she always forgets) so we had to run upstairs again and scrabble about under the bed for it. "It's a bit dirty under there mummy,isn't it, " I said and she said "I know," very crossly. Then she remembered I hadn't cleaned my teeth so we had to run upstairs all over again. she always does them too hard. Then I wanted to wear her lipgloss and she said "no", which was totally unfair because she was wearing it. She shouted "This is not a democracy!" just like she always does when she wants her own way and won't share.

We were almost at the door when she remembered my packed lunch so she ran back for it, snatched it up and ran out of the house.
"That's good, you've got your book bag, your jacket, your, scarf your coat, your gym stuff and your packed lunch. All done and not late!"
"But where's your bag mummy?" I said.
She had to go to the neighbours, stand on the wall and throw stones and the window to try and wake them up without waking the baby. They let her into their back garden but they looked a bit fed up. She had to climb over the back wall, scale the fence, climb the tree and jump into my sandbox to get to the back door. She goes a bit red and drippy when she has to do stuff like that. I was looking over the top of the fence. It was quite funny.

But then she gave ME a lecture all the way to school about remembering things when I had ALL mine and it was HER that forgot HER bag.

Silly mummy.

But she didn't have any lipgloss on by then so at least that was FAIR.

2011-09-22T16:56:00.000-07:00

Latest learnings from school.

School so far has taught her that: Chewing gum is not allowed and she wants to try it. Yucky is the best word to use at mealtimes regardless of what is on the table. Tummy aches are a good way to avoid gym.

School so far has reminded me that: the more rediculous the rule the more smugly it will be explained to you by the teachers. The school have just spent hundreds of thousands having a wonderful new playground built with all kinds of interesting things to climb on and now it is finished they won't let the children use it before or after school. We were informed in a letter that this had been explained to the children who understood the reasons. I wish someone would explain the benefits of health and safety to the parents.....

2011-09-17T13:14:00.000-07:00

I bet Leonardo wasn't kind..

Her first week at school and after, shouting, screaming and making a total pain of myself I managed to squeeze her into breakfast club, a place which appears to run largely for the teachers benefit. However, it is a wonderful little room and although X is scared at the moment as all the other children are much older (don't mummies of her peers work..?) at least it means I will be able to get to work, if I have work to get to.

On the second day her class teacher showed me the gallery of self portraits that the children had painted. The paint had been carefully mixed to show full cultural diversity and each child had a carefully blobbed eyes and mouth and hair. Except one, which looked like an exploded pink amoeba with a beard over one ear, no eyes and a mouth at the top. Either my daughter has severe facial dysmorphia or she was painting with her eyes closed and her feet holding the brush.

The teacher looked at me and raised an eyebrow: "but she's very kind," she said kindly.

2011-09-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

A CHANGE IS AS GOOD AS A REST.

At the family church service today the rector asked if anyone had been to anywhere new over the summer:

'Cleethorpes' said one child, 'Pontins,' said another, 'America' said another.
'The Factory!' shouted X. I'm sure the leaders at the summer playscheme would have been delighted by her enthusiasm- she had a grin as big as a slice of melon.

Maybe next year I'll get some camping together...

ROLL UP, FREE BALLOONS IF YOU BUY SOMETHING- ANYTHING!

2011-09-03T13:06:00.000-07:00

Up at 6 am to pack car for car boot sale. Here is a woman looking cracking in a Betsy Jackson jacket I picked up in a thrift shop in Vancouver and have outgrown. She still didn't buy it, mind you. I also enjoyed the 'in-store' signage some girls put up nearby.

This isn't the first bootie that X has done. We did one when she was about 18 months. It was one of the very first times I saw that she was bonded to me when she yelled at a lady to leave' her mummy' alone. The woman was badgering me to reduce something and I wasn't having it but I think X might have thought I was upset. She shot out of the back seat of the car where she had been napping and shouted at the woman. It was the first time I saw what I believe to be an Irish feisty streak. I laughed to show X that it was all ok and the other people around the stall started laughing at a sales technique which involved shouting at people to go away. This time X learned some new sales tricks: she decided to give away balloons if anyone bought anything....anything at all. "Roll up ! Roll up!" she shouted. She also learned not to cry when other little children walk off with things she used to love. We made twenty two pounds profit for ten hours work. Not a good rate of pay but it wasn't a bad day. X was tirelessly cheerful and endlessly patient and obeyed me very well. She earned herself a chocolate ice-cream at the cafe and a sticker on her tree of goodness.

If only yesterday had been like that. We had a disastrous tea party for X's ex- foster mother and her teenage son. X also had a playdate, which, in retrospect, was a mistake as X was over excited with her friend, and not interested in her older guests, which was a shame. The guests arrived late and the youngsters, hungry and tired, suddenly turned into monsters just before they arrived. I found it hard to control them as playmate can be a bit naughty and X followed his lead, snatching food from the table, rushing about, not listening when I told them to stop playing with the garden hose, bringing a worm to the table, yelling. I was embarrassed that the little ones didn't show up well. I was also dealing with all the tea things and trying to make conversation so I was a bit stretched. In retrospect I should have stopped trying to entertain at the tea table and held things up to calm and gently discipline and calm but I mistakenly felt it was rude to interrupt the conversation. I don't know why, it isn't as if things haven't been chaotic at the foster family house, I should have been more confident. After the playmate wet himself ( four- so shouldn't be doing that) and I had to go off to sort a change of clothes. As I re-entered the room I overheard the foster mother's son commenting that the children didn't have the respect of adults that he felt they should. He was being somewhat smugly pompous, I felt, but he's only young and it's just a phase, I'm sure. The foster mother was nodding earnestly, well eagerly, I felt.

I was annoyed, defensive, wrong-footed. Mostly I just felt it was such a shame as X is so rarely naughty in company. Usually she's just shy. I really had wanted us all to have had a good little tea party. In my usual attempt to match up to some rediculous notion of what I think they might think was good parenting I had specially made sandwiches, homemade humous and crudites, and two types of home made cakes. What an idiot, who am I kidding - X was a feral child who shouted at adults in public at car boot sales after just a few months in my care!

2011-08-29T12:51:00.000-07:00

IT'S COM-PILL-EE-CATED MUMMY

We went to ma-ma and pa-pa's where X announced that she wouldn't be calling them ma-ma and pa-pa any more because it is com-pill- ee-cated because people muddle them up with mummies and daddies.

We had a wonderful weekend with my brother and sister and children (all too grown up to be called children) present and with much to celebrate with one 2.1 in architecture, one going off to do medicine, one going off to to business studies and one going to Warwick to do A levels. As we put the hideous photo of the degree photo in the cabinet with all the others I said that I hoped they had mortar boards from hairdressing college for X. My mother sadly said she wouldn't be here to see it.

Cousin Vicky played and played with X and when it was time to go X burst into sobs which didn't stop until we got to Chiswick an hour and a half later. She said that she didn't want to home home with me as it was boring without a brother or a sister. I reminded her she did actually have a sister, even if she doesn't live with her (half-sister, to be precise). She said:" she isn't my sister, I'm her sister because i'm just the little one and she is the big one." At least, I think that's what she said but when I asked her to repeat it she just sighed and said:" it's com-pill-ee-cated." Clearly I don't understand com-pill-ee-cated things. Later smiles returned with some fushia nail varnish. Apparently the storm of tears were partly due to an interrupted manicure session with cousin Vicky.

2011-08-26T16:34:00.000-07:00

THE TREE OF GOODNESS

Just 10 little sticker flowers and roller skates will grow on trees............

2011-08-25T01:48:00.000-07:00

SCHOOL NOTES

We have too many books in X's bedroom and I wanted to clear out the ones for babies. I asked her school what they wanted for the school fete- would books be any use? The school secretary shuddered: 'oh, no - please no books."

I went onto facebook to check out aluminae page of the primary where X is heading. It was disappointing to see that most hadn't learnt to spell the name of their school by the time they left.

Our lovely local library has a much better idea. X is well used to the library and the lovely staff even know her name, though sadly many of the people who work in the library are being replaced by a machine like the one I also refuse to use in Sainsburys - they bring out my luddite tendencies. X uses the library as a playground with her minder on regular basis, and also goes to with me, variously for loo breaks, places to shelter from the rain, eat a snack or just hang out on a bored sunday afternoon. Now, however we are actually borrowing books and even reading them. That's because of a great scheme called www.circus-stars.org which means that when X reads a book she gets to tell a librarian what she thought about it and get a sticker. I have to hold my hand across my mouth when this conversation happens as I tend to lead it and try to initiate the kind of analysis that my Mr Gibson, my tutor while reading English, would probably be surprised I could achieve. I'm surprised that X is quite able to say what she thought herself and it definitely seems to have fired her up a bit. She was really keen to share a book about bottoms with a playmate today. However, when we went on the website I lost the will to live. Maybe it is meant for older children but all that creating passwords and having to fill in all the names of the books and authors and everything all dressed up in the random gamification of a circus got on my nerves. But still a brilliant thing to do in the library.

2011-08-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

Time off from bridesmaid duties.

2011-08-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

My contribution to the museum of broken relationships.

A phial of my toxic blood.

I was so desperate for his baby. He made me wait and wait, giving me just enough hope to keep hanging in there; we bought a house together, had a future. When he finally said we could try I was too old and had several miscarriages. He left me when I was pregnant for a much younger woman who was also pregnant with his child. My baby turned out not to be a baby at all but a possibly cancerous tumour growing around a piece of tooth or a hairball. Going (alone) for a scan and discovering, not just that your baby is dead but that, in fact, it never even was a baby and instead is a tumour around a hairball is a frightening version of a fairytale.

All blood races to the womb when you are pregnant to feed your baby - or baby tumour, in my case. Hydratitform moles, as the tumours are called, cause a highly virulent cancer which spreads very fast throughout the whole body. For this reason for the next few years I had to go, once a month, and have my blood taken and then go somewhere else and have the serum spun, and then package it up and send it to a lab.

It took me longer than five years to get over the loss of him and his babies, as I had such a strong picture of them in my head. Years before I had torn a picture of a little girl from a GAP ad. I thought she looked exactly like the child we would have. Strangely enough that child looks exactly like the one the children he had with the other woman, who became his wife.

I don't know why this phial was never sent off, maybe it came after I had the all clear. I think I kept it because it was the big red light that finally stopped me wanting his baby. In the end my life was too precious to try to get pregnant again.

The museum is a beautiful exercise in schadenfreude and I hope my exhibit is would have been a worthy addition. I'm not in the least sad about any of that now. I'm friends with the ex and his whole family and feel totally at one with the situation. I am happy with my gorgeous adopted daughter who has no connection to this toxic blood. Strangely, however, I'm too attached to my old blood to give it away. It's calcified, (or solidified or something even more gross) in the last few years and isn't really a beautiful thing.

I suppose it reminds me how lucky I am to have the life I am living now.

This is the best review of the museum of broken relationships that I have read:

Display of affection

Every object tells a story and none more so than the items donated by lovers (and ex-lovers) to Zagreb's new Museum of Broken Relationships

- Andrew Mueller
- The Guardian, Saturday 12 February 2011
- Article history

A garden gome after being hurled in fury at a windscreen - on show in the Zagreb Museum of Broken Relationships.

There are, no doubt, people who marry the first person who takes their fancy and spend the rest of their lives in unalloyed happiness. For them,Zagreb's newest museum will be baffling. But everybody else, which is to say almost everybody else, will know the feeling to which the Museum of Broken Relationships is dedicated. It is that miasma of guilt, nostalgia, anger and affection that comes of contemplating certain of our possessions.

They are often of little, if any, intrinsic worth, but they hold or held value because of who gave them to us. Whether we keep them, bin them or burn them in pentangles while chanting incantations and spritzing them with holy water, they will always mean something.

The exhibits in the Museum of Broken Relationships are as random and varied as the reasons people get together, and break up. Each item is presented with a summary of the dates and locations of the relationship, and annotations by their donors.

Some are funny. The caption on a suspender belt, purchased in Sarajevo in 2003, reflects: "I never put them on. The relationship might have lasted longer if I had." Another, on a tin sold as "Love Incense", merely reads, "Doesn't work." Some are gleefully vindictive. The label by a blue Frisbee reads: "Darling, should you ever get the ridiculous idea to walk into a cultural institution like a museum for the first time in your life, you'll remember me." One or two are quietly devastating: a small, electronic dog tag, still flashing like a heart monitor, which was given to a man who left, by the woman who loved him, shortly before she killed herself.

The museum is the work of designer and artist Drazen Grubisic and film producer Olinka Vistica. One of the first exhibits is a small white wind-up rabbit – a relic of Grubisic and Vistica's own relationship, which foundered six years ago. The idea for the museum came, they tell me, from their discussions about splitting their possessions.

"It's easy to decide about stereos, and televisions," says Grubisic. "But what about these tokens?"

"And the memories they represent," adds Vistica, "how do you protect them from oblivion?"

Find out what a spurned lover did with this axe.

This question turned into an installation in a Zagreb biennale in 2006, then a travelling show which visited several countries, acquiring more objects, and more stories. The museum moved into this permanent home, in Gornji Grad – Zagreb's upper town, where most of what's worth seeing in the city is situated – last October. The location is at once convenient and appropriate: though it's only a short walk from here to the open-air market of Dolac and the cafe district of Tkalciceva Street, this part of Zagreb has a mournful, somewhat desolate air at this time of year. The cobbled streets between the handsome buildings are empty in the winter fog; the square around the 14th-century St Mark's church, a building best described as Legoland Gothic, is all but deserted.

On sale in the gift shop are T-shirts by young Croatian designers – they're heavy on teardrop motifs. The biggest-selling item, the receptionist says, is a white rubber with the words "bad memories eraser".

There's also a book of big, blank pages and a pen, so that visitors can add their own testimonies. This is as compelling as the exhibition itself, a compendium of disappointment and desolation, some lyrical, some pithy ("I think I still hate you, Darren").

The museum manages to come across as neither a playground for self-pity, nor an advocacy centre for mindlessly positive uplift. A modest manifesto on one wall suggests that it represents, rather, "a chance to overcome an emotional collapse through creation, by contributing to the museum's collection".

It is an exercise in schadenfreude and solidarity. There's always someone worse off, like the woman who was presented with a candy G-string ("After four years, he turned out to be as cheap and shabby as his presents"). And there are those clearly once beside themselves with anger or jealousy, who have bequeathed the axe with which they smashed the furniture, the wing mirror they wrenched off the car, the gnome injured after being hurled at a windscreen.

The museum's founders have plans to expand their remit to include artistic and cultural performances, to revive this part of Zagreb, and by way of acknowledgement that no other subject has inspired more literature, more music.

Grubisic and Vistica have stopped formally soliciting donations, but they receive them more or less constantly anyway: most recent was a collection of half-century old postcards, sent by an elderly woman in Yerevan, Armenia.

"Older people tend to take it more seriously," says Grubisic. "They are often really moved. Kids haven't had the experience. It's funny when couples come in. Some are laughing, but some … some are really thinking."

• The Museum of Broken Relationships (brokenships.com; entrance £2.50pp). Croatia Airlines (croatiaairlines.com) flies from Gatwick and Heathrow to Zagreb from £85 return. Doubles at the historic Regent Esplanade hotel (regenthotels.com) cost from £126

2011-08-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

I was one of those who ram-raided Comet Tottenham on saturday evening and got some free loot.

Yes, I'm talking about the Comet in this picture which was totally looted and gutted on saturday night. I'm gutted to see this, because on saturday at 5.10pm I crashed in there on my own little retail ram raid. I bought a camera and got a great free deal. I used up the very last scrapings of my savings (no treats for ages) but the old one had broken and my little girl is a bridesmaid next weekend, so I just went mad for a mad moment that I'll regret when the bank statement appears.

I hate buying gadgets and loathe places like this but the sales staff at Comet were a perfectly synchronised, smooth and pleasing operation. They quickly identified my issue, helped me find a solution- a camera I wouldn't have chosen without their help- and gave me the most incredible aftercare package that guarantees they'll replace the camera for up to three years, whatever the mishap. They tried to sell me a card and case package and, when I balked, swiftly came up with a better offer and threw in an extra card for free. Totally modern, slick service, cleverly pared, efficiently marketed, diligently executed by well educated and well mannered staff, clearly efficiently managed, with everyone clearly going above and beyond and overtime in an effort to run a business in a recession that delivers a good service to their customers.

Later on saturday that very same shop was looted by idiots who don't realise the power of cctv, tv and other bits of digital kit to snap their pics, capture their activities and shop them to the courts. At least the thieves won't get the 3 years aftersales service, or at least only at her majesties pleasure. If only the police and government was even half as efficient as Comet there would not be riots on the streets.

The press coverage of the looters stupidity, funny though it is to see them strutting around parading their trainers on national tv as if it is a fashion show, seems to be allowing shoddy management of our city to go unnoticed. We live in an 'on demand' world, where we expect results there and then. The media give us tv news on demand, the police have on demand 'stop and search' rights, my own job demands ever shortening deadlines, greater productivity. Yet there appears to have been a total inability from the police to deal effectively with the calm demands of a family simply wanting to know how their son was killed. To leave peaceful protestors on the streets outside the police station hour after hour in the simmering heat of apparent injustice was a disgrace.

Apparently no statement could be made to the family because the senior policeman from Tottenham on saturday was off cooling his heels on holiday. Where is David Cameron? On holiday. Where is Boris? On holiday. London has a demanding problem that needs sorting and where are out leaders? All on holiday. I'm a single parent. I used to have a highly paid job but since the recession, I've had to work doubly hard for less than half my previous earnings. I can't afford to take my little one on a summer holiday, so little local treats mean a lot. The carnival we were so looking forward to this sunday was cancelled because of the riots. My friends wanted to see the venue where they are going to get married next saturday but it was shut because of the riots. No doubt the riots will end up costing inner city tax payers even more later this year. But what were the police doing to diffuse the situation? It appeared to be nothing. It also appears they are doing nothing to prevent the looting. They appear to be merely helping journalists take snaps to show on tv and in court. Big brothers working 'remotely' at the call of their own selfish demands while sunning themselves in foreign climes.

Back in grim North East London it's hard to concentrate on the grind of daily work when the news feeds playing on computer terminals show live footage of looting in areas where my daughter is daycare and the windows show helicopters and smoke. The media and police choppers keep us awake at night, as they hang in the air, taking shots to play on tv and possibly use in court. The police seem to be in hand with the media, watching and recording, rather than preventing. Big Brothers, working remotely, probably on also blackberries just like the gang-leaders.

Sack 'em all and get the management of Comet in to run the police and the country. The service will be more efficient, they can probably handle the digital media better and no doubt the pensions and holiday entitlement will be way less.

and then there is David Cameron, in Tuscany and Boris on vacation all dealing with the situation 'remotely', whilst un willing to break their summer holidays.

Today at work in a digital agency in Shoreditch I gave up on the massive backload of work that was swamping me when the chuntering of the helicopters over Hakney togethe a group gathered around the screen of my

2011-08-07T05:15:00.000-07:00

DAMN, I FEEL GLAM!

I was just looking at Garance Dore's blog. She has to be the most lovely fashion blogger ever and, as you can see, a brilliant illustrator. X looked over my shoulder at the illustration I've swiped (sorry, Garance) and said :'that's you mummy!' And she didn't even want sweets....

As, a knackered methuselah mum who's mirror declares: 'hag not shag' this was a fun moment. I think it might be the red lips: she likes playing with my lippies before bath and maybe the hat is a bit like my oh, so glam pvc rainhat. X's comments aren't all so fabulous: last night she told me my bottom was 'wiggly', but I can live with wiggly.Wiggly sounds almost booty-like,or at least it is easier to tell myself that than ease up on the calorie intake.

Anyway, thank you, Garance Dore, for a nice mummy moment.

2011-08-05T16:12:00.000-07:00

I'M ONLY LITTLE

This holiday club is wonderful. It's full of fun teachers with plenty of ideas for talent shows and alien escapades. It just is all a bit full on for youngsters.

Last week X was full of being a 'big girl'. Over the last couple of days she must have said several times: 'I'm only little, mummy.' What plainer talk could I have that she's finding it a bit grown up for her. She told me that last night she dreamed that aliens were coming to get her. The day before yesterday she didn't even know what an alien was. What is fun for a seven year old is scary for a four year old. i wish I had kept her with her childminder but I was worried she'd find it dull with the babies, but she wouldn't have if she had been with K. It was a mistake, I think, but too late now. Next year she will probably be old enough for it.

Meanwhile she is regressing. She asked me for baby food for supper and the buggy came out too. I cuddled her all supper and fed her like a baby. She cried when I left her this morning. It makes my heart bleed and weep all at once. I waited three quarters of an hour hoping she would calm down and then finally just went. All day I felt a criminal,even though i rang and they said she had stopped crying just after I left.

When I got her this evening she seemed to have developed control freak tendencies and had the manic grin of a producer who's shoot is going slightly askew. She'd learned the word 'plans'. She had 'plans' for what we were going to have for supper, 'plans' for next week and 'plans' for her rabbit. She waved her hands around a lot like a little MD in a new business meeting. I tried to cuddle it all out of her all evening.

This morning her best friend K watched her crying with his big, serious eyes. He came and played near us on the climbing frame and entertained her with daring acts of swinging. After a while, when X was clinging and crying still, he looked at me and said, "just go..." with all the final ennui of an old man who has given up on help.

2011-08-03T15:52:00.000-07:00

SHE'S ALL SET TO WIN IT IN 2030 OR SO

We were walking around my parents village looking at the shops:

"Mummy, do you know what I want to do when I grow up?"

"No..."

"I want to have a shop."

"Really?What will it sell?"

"Cards and pictures and pretty things."

I don't think anyone put the idea in her head- well, except they all play shopkeepers, I suppose. I'm all for the idea as I've always fancied having a shop like that too, maybe all girls do, but when I was just four and a half I don't think I even thought about being grown up let alone how I was going to earn a living when it happened. Good to see she is preparing. Maybe I should get in a financial advisor to start talking to her about her pension provision already...

Anyway, just for the record, when she is retailer of the year 2030 I would like it to be noted that she was dead set on this path right from four and a half.

2011-08-02T13:39:00.000-07:00

TWO SCRAPED KNEES, ONE BITTEN LIP, ONE SKINNED FINGER, SKID MARK KNICKERS, GRIME MOISTENED WITH SWEAT IN EVERY LITTLE CREVICE, PACKED LUNCH ALMOST UNTOUCHED, EVEN THE DRINK.

She is the littlest there and the older children are rough and tumble types, even I can tell that when I breeze in to pick her up. I said to her ( having talked to the staff) "if you want anything, to go to the loo, a drink, a hug, then you must ask the teachers." And guess what she did. She laughed right in my face. She thought I was very funny. Hilarious.

In what way am I rediculous? That's all I want to know. Am I rediculous because I talk about such silly irrelevant things? Or am I rediculous because she is in a terrible situation and she knows I am powerless to help?

Whichever way it is, here I am, work slut who can't say no to anyone, lying here seriously considering yet another week for her there over and above those she is already doing.

2011-08-01T14:36:00.000-07:00

BYE, BYE....I'M OFF FOR A 9 HOUR SHIFT AT THE FACTORY

I've named a few products in my time so I know that it usually ends up happening by committee but what on earth possesses any group to name a children's holiday playscheme: 'The Factory?' Do they not understand parental guilt at all? Surely the idea of chlldren dodging spinning jennies to pick up bobbins is not a happy association? Lets leave the sweat shop labour for the parents, I reckon. And, anyway, the place doesn't look nearly as bad as a factory, it looks more like a nice open prison.

I was so proud of X when I picked her up from The Factory tonight. She was exhausted and grimy and had big scratches on both her knees but was still bravely smiling. Do little children in real sweat shops smile at the end of the day? Maybe sometimes they do. Children never fail to amaze like that. I like to imagine that some may even pretend to themselves they are having fun as they sew sequins onto jeans with nimble little fingers. I'm practiced in finding easy salves to my conscience. By the way, according to this recent Daily Mail article Nike are still using sweat shop labour: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2014325/Nike-workers-kicked-slapped-verbally-abused-fact/index.html

2011-07-31T15:29:00.000-07:00

LEARNING TO LEAD

Once upon a time a little girl and a little dog set off on an adventure. The dog went one way, the girl went the other, the lead strained.

"Back!"shouted the little girl but was so surprised when the dog obeyed she fell right down on her behind.

Later that evening when she was having her bath the dog wandered in. Her Grandmother had told her that dogs were annoying when they watched one doing personal business. "Out!" the little girl roared. Surprisingly the little dog obeyed. The little girl was thrilled. She felt a very big girl indeed.

2011-07-29T14:26:00.000-07:00

SHOPPING MIRACLE

My daughter and I went to Sainsburys with my mother today and all three generations coped without tears or tantrums. This was a minor miracle.

My mother shops with the ruthless determination of a professional homemaker. She goes to the the same Sainsburys every week at the same time with a carefully made list, prods meat, circles the fruit stands until fresh goods are unpacked rather than buy a banana that isn't green. She weighs her fruit and veg, snaps the stems off the broccoli and forages right to the back for the best sell by dates. She knows the ladies on the tills by name and uses a system of plastic containers introduced by Sainsbury's some years ago that mean she never uses a single plastic bag. When she gets home she actually checks the things off against the things on the receipt which only varies within pence from week to week. She believes in Sainsbury's Basics with calvinistic zeal, for a carefully monitored list of products, but will only buy absolutely the best if she thinks it necessary, for instance, cocoa powder for her heavenly chocolate cake. If you want my mother to feel that you are a sensible person, tell her that you would never, ever consider buying pork on Sainsbury's online.

My daughter and I are the type of shoppers that drive my mother to distraction: no lists, no plan, meandering around the aisles aimlessly, leaving the trolley while we run to the toilets, loosing the trolley, finding stuff we fancy at random, daughter running off, me never even having a menu in mind. You would never think we are the ones that are both time and money poor. Unlike my professional shopper mother we shop as a leisure pursuit on a saturday and play games like:' find the jabba jockeys', (otherwise known as jammy dodgers) and fetch the first thing you see that begins with 'f' (or whichever letter needs a bit of practice).

Today's minor shopping miracle included my mother making a rare random purchase on a cardigan for her granddaughter. She even asked X to find the 'f' for Flash and only swapped it for the Sainsbury's Basics cleaning product after X had turned away. We drove home happy that the task had been so satisfactorily completed. X didn't rip open anything and eat it straight from the packet in the back of the car.

After we got home my mother came to me in distress. She'd been doing her normal inventory and the cardigan wasn't there. It took a little while and a call to Sainsburys (helped knowing the name of the lady at the checkout and the fact she always goes to the same island in Greece on her holidays) to establish that the cardigan had not been found at the checkout. And then I realised what had happened: when we got home I'd casually slung some stuff I'd bought in the back of my car. No checking off the things on my list, no careful unpacking, no checking anything against the receipt, no sorting by sell by date - everything just slung any- old-how in the boot of the car. The cardigan my mother had bought was also there.

We were so pleased to have found the cardi that we all has a kiss and child did a twirl. But later, when I managed to break a sherry glass, my mother tartly told me she couldn't believe she had brought up such a careless daughter. It's day six of our week's holiday with my parents and, though it has been a lovely break, maybe it is nearly time we took our slovenly selves home again.

2011-07-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

PACKED LUNCHES IS ONE THING

But packed breakfasts when you are only four doesn't seem right.

2011-07-17T12:40:00.000-07:00

Mummy, why can't we have a baby?

Um...quick decision: no, this is not a birds and bees conversation. This is hungry mouths one.

"Well, mummy works hard to give us a nice life and so I can't look after a baby."

X clearly think I am being a total wimp about this:"but I'll look after the baby and you can look after me."

'Mmmm, but a baby isn't quite the same as a doll, is it?"

She looks unconvinced. I remember my mother fostering several children all at once and me having a real life baby in my dolls pram so I totally can see where she is coming from.

2011-07-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

A big night out.

I have now been a mother for over three and a half years. My daughter is now four and a half. Tonight was the first night since she came to live with me that I went out in the evening and left her. This was a big night for us.

It had to be a pretty special thing to get me out. My friend has been employing me in freelance role at her company. I have not been in such a creative hot house since I was in my first ad agency ever. It is the same vibe - work thrown from all directions but unjudgmental creativity given from bright people at all directions. So, when her creative director was having his ten year party, I just had to go, if nothing else to say thank you for having me for a few weeks, but also because my dear friend, knowing my situation, had insisted that it was a networking opportunity I should not pass up.

Daughter had been primed, babysitter had done due diligence the weekend before, our rituals had been walked through and discussed in embarrassing detail: 'yes, she sleeps and bathes with me; yes, I let her have custard after her bath; yes, she is allowed to watch grown up tv...." It probably isn't normal for the baby sitter to be shocked at the evening ritual, is it?

It all made me nervous, but tonight X seemed totally up for it. As usual on the way home she told me she had been on the Gold Tree at school- the place where only saints belong. Then she caused so much trouble running away from me and nearly getting run over that I actually screamed at her that I would pull her knickers down and smack her if she did it again. In mitigation: she nearly killed herself. I was upset.

All in all, however, by the time our lovely babysitter arrived I was a bag of nerves. Enter Holly. Holly does not like to be called Holly, this is her family name. I taught Holly when I was an impoverished private tutor and she was a clever little 10 year old girl. Her reference, together with the rest of her family, helped my local council agree I could be a mummy. She was the only person I could trust to do this job. She is now in her 20's.

She arrived, so multitask cool from her freelance PR role. I was out of the house before I had time to draw breath and say," don't forget to brush your teeth. "

The drive there was the best bit of the evening. It was so strange and scary to be out after seven, driving into the setting sun with my sunglasses on. I honestly suddenly realised that the rest of the world does not got to bed and work every night, they go out and have fun. I drove into the setting sun playing X's Adele song as loud as I could but I was scared of myself. Maybe I would just forget about everything and walk home across the city at dawn. Been there , done that - do it again? There was a diversion on the road of the party. So I had to drive miles to get at the street another way. After all my planning, I was late. I was tempted to go home before I got out of the car.

The night was actually every bit as excruciating as I thought it would be. Half way though I ran to the loo to scrabble in bag as I realised my phone was right at the bottom and had there been an emergency I would have missed the whole thing. I sipped my coke and made polite talk but no one was in the least bit interested in me and why should they have been? I talked to lots of under twenty fives who all work till eight then have a massive list of creative activities - making films, designing clothes, writing blogs that I was thrilled and exhausted in equal measure. I tried to keep my mouth shut about my daughter but on hearing from my friend that it was my first night out I had several comments from young women telling me that they would adopt at a moments notice and it was no different from having your own and they were going to do it very , very soon themselves ,even if they never had their own. The best conversation I had was from a cool German lady who work s at the company but is also a mother who says she swaps pebbles for babysitting hours with friends.

My friend at the company, trying to really help, tried hard to introduce me to people who were not interested in me- why should they have been?I was only there to try and get a job. But it was so nice of my friend to try and the people she was trying to introduce me to were also so nice that none of us could be rude enough to give up on the conversations. It was hard for everyone.

I am just not much good at networking with strangers when the music means you can't hear even when you shout and anyway you are twice as old as everyone else. I had a good moment with my friend outside when i discovered everyone was actually upstairs on the pavement outside, smoking. But this was a problem too, as I was parked nearby. It would have been too obvious - or so my self obsession dictated - to just get in the car with everyone watching and go.

Finally I went. On the way home I saw a bicycle under the wheels of a car with a policeman taking shots with a big ,black, heavy camera. I think the person must have died, I can't imagine anyone on that bicycle surviving.

I got home and my darling little girl was curled up next to Holly, in bed. She had said she couldn't sleep without my hair, but she did. It was a big night for us. I was so thankful for Holly, the little girl I taught and now I was leaning on the give me the courage to leave my little girl.

i went to bed thanking my lucky stars for all kinds of things.

2011-07-10T05:33:00.000-07:00

IT'S A HAPPY FLOWER, SAID X

On the way back from church of a sunday morning

Errol, the flower seller, often gives X a flower.

2011-06-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

BARBIE GOES GAGA

Taking a rasher out of the Gaga look-book Barbie is going to the social event of the season ( the daughter's half-birthday party) wearing clothes that might, at a stretch, be considered edible.

Rate the look- yummy or crummy? She's modelling the latest in sponge and icing by a designer called Morrisons - six Morrisons sponge cakes and enough icing to induce early onset diabetes, to be precise. It would certainly give Jamie Oliver a heart attack. From the e-numbers in the food colouring to the cream-cheese and butter, gaga may well turn out to be a verb not a name. Do not be fooled by the strawberries and blueberries, they're just there to confuse those parents who are pickily middle-class about food actually having actual nutritional value. The fact they were picked up from the Turkish shop on the High Street means that they're full of petrol fumes not vitamins. I cannot believe I now routinely shop in Morrisons and Iceland, where will this slide into turkey twizzler-dom end? I feel for Barbie. Primark or Top Shop is one thing but Morrisons- something else altogether. I always thought of myself as a Waitrose kind of gal.....

I thought X added a good Gaga touch to the ensemble: if you look closely you'll see Barbie's platform shoes stuck to the dress.

2011-06-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

"RAAAAAAAA"

Her manner is aggressive: a little lion going "raaaaaaaa....." in the face of another frightened child in the swimming pool who then cried. This from the child who was too scared to go in the water earlier that day. This from the child who was to shy to talk to the teacher when she arrived at nursery and who now has more attitude than most sixteen year olds. Yet she still cannot even go to the loo on her own in case there is 'a bug' in there. I think she gets the aggression from me. I don't intend to talk to her in a violent way but when the day unravels and I'm tired from the week- maybe I do. I'm so used to dealing with adults maybe I forget to soften up and slow down for her.

2011-05-30T11:49:00.000-07:00

CHICKEN PIE

It looks totally underwhelming, I know, but I'm quite proud that we had a proper lunch made from leftovers from yesterday almost as if I'm a proper stay at home mummy. I hardly got cross at all about the mess on the kitchen floor. She had the idea of putting cheese in the pastry which, given I doubt she's ever heard of it before, was rather a good idea I thought. Of course she didn't eat any of it. She never eats we make a big effort cooking.

Painting the table pink was another of her ideas - possibly not quite as good as the cheese in the pastry. Apart from anything else, it is chipping off. It's the distressed look- it goes so well with mummy.

Next week is not likely to be easy. I'm busy at work and she has half term. I think she may well be with just babies at her minders. Most of her friends are going away with their parents. Her best friend is in Trinidad for the week.

2011-05-20T14:59:00.000-07:00

I'M FEELING WOBBLY

The dentist said her teeth are starting to wobble.

She's only four. She's still my little baby. I'm going to pay the

tooth fairy to stuff 'em back in.

2011-05-15T00:07:00.000-07:00

Most middle aged women complain they are invisible. I wish! They should try living with the relentless observations of a 4 year old.

Your bottom is really big, remarks little one. That's the last time I bend over to pick up toys for you, I think. "You should put on suncream to stop the sun giving you lines," I tell her. "You should have been more careful yourself," she says, tenderly tracing a big fat line down my face. "Your boobies shouldn't be down there, should they?" she asks me in the bath. "Breasts," I correct.

Happy birthday to a mother older than many grandmothers. I'm hoping I'll feel a bit younger in time.

2011-05-04T05:27:00.000-07:00

A school where they curtsey when they meet you?

Is this a school I want for her? And, how would the boater stay on her hair?

2011-05-02T12:21:00.001-07:00

I think I might be a bit lonely,

I said on the phone to a friend. Then I caught X's face, playing nearby with her toys. I put down the phone, "what"s the matter?"

"Why are you lonely when you are with me?" Her lip was trembling.

Oh, dear, oh dear, oh, dear. I feel dreadful. And it's not even true, I don't think. I'm not lonely, at all I don't think. I wish I hadn't said it.

2011-04-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

PRINCE AND PRINCESSES MARRY WITH MILLIONS CHEERING, SOLDIERS MARCHING, A GOWN OF LACE AND SILK, A TIARA, FOOTMEN AND COACHES -WELL, ABSOLUTELY- ............. WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU EXPECT WHEN YOU ARE 4?

It was a run of the mill Cinderella experience for X, she probably wondered why her mum seemed strangely moved and close to booing. Her mum was a church chorister who spent every saturday of her childhood marrying people, three a day for 25p per service. The music today: Rutter. That was great! But also: seeing my gorgeous, four-year-old daughter, who totally believes in true prince and princess true love, see a coach with horses and a princess in silk and satin, I surprised myself - no, shocked myself- by the way I glorified in it. It made me suddenly realise that, much as I might pretend to myself that I'm above that kind of thing, that I measure my life against the Royals far more than I thought. This little wedding, that I'd not been that bothered about, suddenly brought back memories of my grandmother, my mother... all kinds of memories.

For me it was Pippa Middletona that did it. She looked so gorgeous and supported her sister so utterly sexily and selflessly. Sexy and selfless. That's a sexy new sister vibe: Pippa Middleton - I take my fascinator off to you. I called my sister and apologised for refusing point blank to go to a spa with my sister before her wedding. And for refusing to be a senior maid of honour. And - a point that caused my mother not talk to me on the night after the event and for some weeks after that - didn't even bother to make sure my pen had black ink in it before the register signing. My shame is recorded in blue in the church records. I called up my sister today and told her how sorry I was. She seemed a bit surprised.

In the afternoon X's bestest friend, well, actually , she sometimes calls him her prince, came to play. And the most brilliantest thing in the world is that X's most bestest friend is the son of my bestest friend. And we both have adopted out children. What a coincidence?! Well, the children found each other first, but really it is just so good to have a play date for 4 year olds that over 40 year olds feel as good about it. And X's best friends mum is about to marry X's best friend's dad, so we can talk weddings and adoption all afternoon. She said a magic word to me: 'redemption'. And then I knew that she and I understood eachother in ways that you don't expect in everyday life. We were just brewing another cuppa when we realised the two children had been quiet for at least five minutes. I strode upstairs and found them naked and giggling in a hot bath together, four little half botties gleaming at me and them both roaring with laughter.

2011-04-27T01:21:00.000-07:00

I’m no doctor, but my best tests for being ill are: 1) Sweets 2) Does the bedroom suddenly seems like a nice place to be?

X and I went home over Easter and X became ill. I shouldn’t say home should I, because it’s my parents home, and I have never even lived there. But it’s where I am a child myself. Anyway, X became ill. The horrible cold clenching fingers squeezing the tummy and the cold sweat down the back type illness: and that was just me worrying. Her temperature was blazing. X looked at the sliver of light in between the curtains and said she liked this bedroom. I knew then she was ill. You always look at the curtains and think about the room when you are ill don’t you? If I think about the terrible dose of flu I had when I was a little girl what I mainly remember is looking at my painting of the English country hedgerow that was on the wall opposite my bed. I hung onto that painting for three solid days of headbanging misery until apparently I looked over at the bedside table and saw that here was a packet of Rowntree’s pastilles on the side. My mother must have thought I was dying to allow them to be sitting there. I asked if I could have one and then they knew that I was better.

My mother and I took X to the doctor and I asked if she would come in with us but she said no, the doctor might get irritated with two of us asking questions. Doctors hold the power of the prescription pad over old age pain remedies. “ But you might remember something else that I forget,” I protested. But she wouldn’t come.

X answered most of the doctor’s questions well and let him prod her. She must have felt ill. She even did a wee sample. One by one the doctor knocked down all my worries: appendicitis, kidney infection etc. “It’s just a bacterial virus,” I told my mother on the way out, relief shooting though me like a nice shot of diazepam. “But what about meningitis?’ she said.

I spent the rest of the morning telling myself that he would have been bound to have checked for that and didn’t need me to remind him because they obviously were taught not to forget to check for that at medical school weren’t they? Or else what’s the point of my niece busting herself to get straight A’s in all her A levels? Then I rolled a glass all over X’s tummy until she complained I was hurting it.

By bedtime the fact that X was sitting up, eating a sandwich and watching telly was probably a sign that even if he hadn’t checked, he was lucky and wouldn’t be struck off because she was in the clear.

And the next day, Easter Day, I couldn’t get out of bed myself. It was a burning hot day and I burnt up with it. X had a fabulous day in the garden, but didn’t want chocolate, so must really have still been ill. I lay and looked at the slivver of light in between the curtains and every so often X came rushing in, her voice helium-high with excitement to tell me all about the Easter egg hunt and other fun and games. It was really the perfect way to be ill.

2011-03-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

.....is said to me hundreds of times a day. They are all into friends at this point, I'm told. Who's friends with who is the constant story from school. Who let who play with who, who has the power to sway others to their will. She practices on me: "I won't be your friend if you make me clear up, I won't be your friend if you don't let me wear that... "

"Fine," I say, "I'm not your friend, I'm your mummy."

This felt a bit strange at first but now I can say it with gusto. Since I will be about eighty when she is a teenager there isn't much chance I'll ever be one of those mothers who says they are more like friends with their daughters. More like grandmas in my case.

It threw her a bit to begin with, me not wanting to be her friend. They all want to have as many friends as possible at school, I suppose- it's just like facebook and linked in. They haven't evolved to the point where one actually considers it a healthy thing to prune the list being entered into a new address book.

Since then she's diverted to new tactics:

"I won't let you come to my party if you won't let me stay in the bath longer."

That one always makes me laugh, and she gets cross and asks me why I'm laughing.

"Who is going to organise your party if I'm not allowed?" Pause while she considers this.

" You won't be my mummy friend if you don't let me stay in the bath longer."

I haven't thought up my reply to this one yet, and life's too short not to have five more minutes in

the bath. And mummy- friend seems quite a nice balance somehow.

2011-03-20T14:56:00.000-07:00

The princess and the pea sized memory.

"Oh the tyranny of pink," sighed a mother I know.

'I steer her towards other colours and she just runs to pink," said another.

"She was doing so well in blues and blacks, and then her friends got to her," said another.

"I'm just trying to enjoy the time when I can insist on grey and red," said another, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

"Ummmm, but hang on a minute," I said, to this last mother, who's been a friend for some years, "what happened when you met your husband only, ummm...three or four years ago? Don't I remember your new fiance, after quite a few months in your tasteful - er, what shall call it? boudoir of powder um..skin tones, with it's sweet fairy flower lights in an array of - what shall we call them- pastel colours and with your ..er, Morroccan tea rose silk bedspread and your, um, cherry muslin window drapes? Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, after quite a few months in your boudoir didn't he finally pluck up the courage in a heart - to -heart (after he had pledged his entire life and wordly goods to you) and admitted that he wasn't sure he could stand sleeping in a um, Moroccan tea rose shaded bedroom for the rest of his life? And you, I seem to remember, looked on his request quite cooly, almost coldly, some might say, and finally, after talking it through, while drinking rose with girl friends, conceded that possibly the fairy lights might be removed to the sitting room for christmas and that maybe the wall that was mainly wardrobes could have a little taupe?

Best enjoy pink aged four, I reckon.

The tragedy of first position

2011-03-12T15:44:00.000-08:00

2011-03-12T14:24:00.000-08:00

Do you believe in omens?

I went to visit a school for her and on the way there someone I know and really like yelled out the window of her car and her children go to the school. Maybe that doesn’t count as I did sort of know that her children went there. But she stopped and we chatted and I remembered why I think she is a great, upbeat person and then she told me that she went there when she was young and gave me some ides about some of my transport difficulties. Probably not really an omen, huh?

And then there was a calendar on the wall of dogs, which was by the photographer I am working with at the moment. Probably not a lot to hang the whole idea on, eh? But I love the shots…

And if I think about it in terms of Ofsted reports and whether I want her to learn through play or actually learn to read and write, and whether it’s me that cares about uniforms or her, and whether it is good to be near home or near my work when I have no idea where I will be working, and if I can actually cope with doing a packed lunch every day, let alone with the fact that I really want to live somewhere else entirely….well, I just go mad. So I might as well make a mad omen sort of decision, no?

Oh, and when I walked around the school and saw the artwork on the walls I nearly burst into tears. I’ve no idea why. Does that count?

Does it even matter if she learns to play not to count?

2011-03-12T12:43:00.000-08:00

Fonic Fun ( better a witty fool than a foolish wit )

Tricky thing the English language, practically every word one picks is an exception to the rules of phonics, not to mention the rules of grammar, spelling and a load of other rules that take up rather too much childhood time.

On the way back from seeing a friend in Holland Park we play spelling the names of her friends.

‘Me and my best friend, it’s OK.’ She says, delightedly.

Ok, to get the (what I choose to call a ) joke you need to know that her best friend’s name begins with K and hers O. Ok, even after that it’s not exactly a belter but it’s her first wordplay joke, as far as I'm aware, though maybe she puns and riddling with the teachers and minders all day every weekday.

We begin to sound out the name of another friend.

“A, m, e, l, i, a….”I enunciate in my best consonants and vowels (might as well do a bit of elocution at the same time).

“Eh?” she says.

“Yes: A, m.....- e! Clever girl!”

“U?”

‘No, e!’

“E?” I catch her eye in the mirror, she’s looking very pleased with herself.

Oh, eh! I geddit…another little wordplay. At this rate I’ll have to get her a Shakespeare red nose

t-shirt for Comic Relief.

2011-03-05T13:54:00.001-08:00

SHELLFISH

I woke up this morning with X pulling my pillow (which she calls a cushion) away from me. "Hey, you can't do that, that's selfish," I tell her. Over making toast we chat about selfish and what it means. This is the luxury of saturday time, chatting over the meaning of being selfish.

Then we go to dancing and do shopping and car washing and present buying and library going, and book buying where we use our token from World Book Day. This event seems to have been an amazing success. The bookshop is crammed with parents such as I, adding to the token in the hope we're adding to our little ones desire to read rather than bang on a dvd.

Later, banging on the telly, I discover that the list of 12 of the best for World Book Day includes a book by David Abbott, ad luminary, mentor to my generation, now about 80. What hope this gives. Maybe, though I've blown it writing ads as beautifully as he did, there's still that slight, small (very small) hope and possibility that I still might one day write a book as well- crafted as his copy. I write a mental note to myself to look at his book: but I don't read books any more, that's the problem. I'd love to but I've no time. I'm too busy dealing with my digital multi-platform life: checking my email. twitter, facebook, you tube, so I don't lose out in the marketplace of now. Of course David Abbot is rich and has has a very profitable company. He's uniquely able to leave the workplace ( heard that word on Woman's Hour this afternoon and it irritated me as usual) and so now he can enjoy his life in the homeplace.

Later my old friend Will calls from the Isle of Man and we chatted for a bit too long.

"That was very shellfish of you," says X.

2011-03-02T00:42:00.000-08:00

It's world book day on thursday.

I know this because the school has sent me two texts this week helpfully informing me that on thursday my child must take her favourite book to school and also come dressed as a character from it.

I've come to dread texts from the school. They're full of cakes that need to be baked, special clothing that needs to be found, or inform me of yet another day off (sorry, inset day) for the teachers, which means yet more foraging around for someone who is not her mummy to look after her.

Favourite book? Hmmmm. For years I longed for time spent with two heads in one book. I’ve loved books all my life and I always thought that passing on the joy of reading would be a pure, simple pleasure. But, come the pressure of an evening when we haven't got into the house until seven, and then her into bed until eight and I've more work to do.... well, the stories I like the best then are the short ones. At the moment this is Cinderella.

We read it and then she begs for telly. Yes, wrong. I know. Yes, it shouldn't even be in the bedroom (strange that it is, given that for years I didn't even have a telly in the house) and she shouldn't be in there either, but there it is. She thinks that telly comes after books now, not dreamtime. In fact I’m surprised she didn’t ask to go to school dressed as her favourite character from Masterchef. This is not the childhood I wanted for her, it's certainly not the childhood I had. On the plus side last night she learned how to make a catwalk ballet dress with a big flower out of a highstreet number. I was thrilled (though maybe this is also misguided, given our clothing budget) that she preferred the designer one to the highstreet number. Anyway, at least she doesn't really need a fairy godmother, she's got Gok.

I did mess about with the idea of her going to the book day dressed as the monkey from that Julia Donaldson story we like but monkeys are a bit complicated whereas, we’ve got a whole dressing up box full of Cinderella balldresses. It’s all a bit of a cliché but X got quite into it, working out roles for all her little friends- who could be her ugly sisters and the prince etcetera.

Today, when she came home from school she was still full of the book event. Apparently about half the girls are planning on being Cinderellas and the others are coming as ballerinas –guess they’ll all be Angelina’s, then.. ..

X told me that the teacher was wondering if anyone wanted to be a witch. Good for the teacher, but I can’t think of a good witch story that X and I read and anyway, X is set on the Cinders route and is packing her princess shoes into her school bag right now. She’s nagged a friend who has a wand into being her fairy godmother, but not surprisingly she hasn’t got any ugly sisters and her prince wants to be a cowboy. Get used to it, that's real life, princess, I said.

2011-03-01T14:19:00.000-08:00

PORKY PIES

I know this make me sound older and even more hidebound than a character in PG Wodehouse but it was with great chagrin that I discovered today that my old school, or should I say, almer mater, has dropped the school motto: vincit veritas. I've found this motto a great deal of help to me over the years and in bad times ( when someone says my bottom looks big, or that they don't love me or want to fire me....) -well,' truth conquers' I say to myself shortly before the 'butch up and get on with it' internal speech. It's always worked well for me. Which is possibly why it was on my mind tonight when X tore the loo paper off the roll into a massive heap on the loo floor and then was adamant that Mr Nobody was responsible. It took three quarters of an hour of alternate naughty step, screaming and discussion to align on the fact that Mr Nobody was in fact little Miss X.

I was surprised I had the energy, to be honest (- well, I have to be honest now, don't I?) after the exhausting last week or so and there was a moment half way through when I thought that it was a bit silly getting so upset about the fact that Mr Nobody doesn't exist (and wasn't it me who suggested he existed in the first place?) But then she flung her arms around me and tried to muddy the water by saying she loved me and I had this vision of her in late teens doing exactly that to me to distract me from some much more serious issue and I just wanted to establish that truth is an important concept. Thank goodness she said 'me' to the twenty milllionth time I asked who did it.

She looked a bit surprised that one little 'me' was the magic answer that made mummy ok again. We went upstairs to have a bath together, peace restored.

" Mummy, you legs look really fat don't they," she said, as I climbed in the water.

Porky pies? No, sadly- it really is truly, honestly- porky thighs.

Vincit veritas..........

2011-02-18T13:10:00.000-08:00

ALIEN SMELLS

When I pick her up from one of the minders she smells of perfume. That's because her minder smokes a bit and tries to cover it up with heavy perfume. When I pick her up from the other minder she smells of fried food. Both smells remind me that I'm not giving her the best start. I put her in the bath as quickly as I can and it's only when she smells of Sainsbury's basics soap that I finally can pretend to myself that I'm a bona fide ordinary mummy.

2011-02-03T14:39:00.000-08:00

BONDING OVER THE LOO

X and I were up all night chucking up in turns. It started with her doing the technicolour yawn at school, then she puked in the car, on the stairs, on the bed, in the bath, on the sheets, on her nightie, on the sheets, and so until she had regurgitated, spat, vomited and spewed everything lodged in every twist of her angry little tummy. The bile fizzed in the bowl. Poor thing. I watched her watching appalled as the steaming stuff streamed out of her mouth in an angry acid explosion that, over the night, gradually got clearer and clearer until I thought there could be no moisture left in her and her body would crumble to dust. It must be frightening when your body takes over so totally when you are little. But then X came out of the womb with her body fighting stuff. She's a little fighter.

I was quite proud of myself, given my hopeless fear of bodily things. I managed to actually remember that it was me supposed to be comforting her and to make my voice low and quietly reassuring rather than squeaking in panic and disgust. I told her it would be over soon - or ,in other words- lied. I handed tissues, got drinks, plumped pillows and restrained myself from rushing to phone NHS Direct. This is a big step towards bona fide motherhood for me, especially as she had been ill with a chest infection as well so there was that little fear that there was something bigger wrong.

Then I started to join in the puking party. Every time I had to run to the loo she ran too and watched me hanging over the loo, I couldn't stop her. Then she passed me the tissues and the water, I couldn't stop her, she seemed keen to join in the fun. 'That was a lot,' wasn't it,' she said peering into the bowl after one of my heave-ho's.

Strangely, it was weirdly quite a good experience; well, in retrospect, now the lingering nausea is abating. I've been feeling very disconnected to X recently. Maybe it's a common parental feeling but I sometimes wonder if it might be to do with her being adopted, I sometimes wonder if she feels that the bond isn't visceral- especially given the fact that she screamed at me in the street the other day," I hate you, I wish I had my tummy mummy."

When I was at university there was an arcane bonding game played by drunken biochemists after they had ingested huge quantities of their own homemade alcohol distilled in the lab. It was called the dwyll flonk, don't ask me why. It involved a bucket of sick and a mop and everyone standing in a circle and- I don't want to think about it, really. Lets just say it didn't seem much fun at all to me but they all seemed to really make a party out of it. I thought it must be a boy thing.

Last night, after a day in bed, in an exhausted fug of bile breathe and dehydrated - headache sleep we both finally emerged blinking, with griping tummies and chapped lips, and looked at each other over the chaos of towels and sick bowls and smiled and hugged.

'That was a nice day, wasn't it, mummy,' she said, snuggling up to me and making my aching tummy retch. 'Nice?' Well, I wouldn't go quite that far but as dwyll flonk puking parties go, it really couldn't have been better. In fact I'd go so far as to say she is a great person to have a puke with, very relaxed and with an almost amused fascination for it.

And another interesting thing - we may not have a visceral genetic connection but her sick looked just like mine. It looked just like tinned fruit salad. So I thought that must have been what she had for lunch. But mine did too - and I definitely haven't had tinned fruit salad since I was about her age. Maybe everyone's sick looks like tinned fruit salad and the whole carrot and tomato thing is a bit of a red herring? Uhghh- just made myself feel sick again thinking about herrings...

2011-01-23T14:41:00.000-08:00

You have to be dinosaur friends to take children out together in London.

One of my bestest friends came to stay this weekend with two of her children. We used to work together as a creative team so we know each other really well. This helps when doing really, really challenging and demanding parenting things like a whole day out at a museum in London.

We went to see the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum. There was a child meltdown on the tube on the way there, a child multi-wail in the picnic area about the horrific prospect of eating sandwiches, a child keening session about the fact we didn’t want to go upstairs, and a child group whimper at the fact my friend and I didn’t want to spend the entire time in the shop. Admittedly the shop boycott was a bit of a mummy double standard, given that my friend and I once spend several hundred dollars apiece in a single hours shop in Soho, NY.

In between these freak-outs my friend’s nine year old mercilessly interrogated a museum man about spiders in the precise and confident manner of Kirsty Wark doing a Newsnight piece on arachnids. I tried not to flinch as the husk of the hairy body of a massive spider was put in my hand and I learned the exact way that the living creature heaved it’s way out. I never knew that spiders (well, this one, anyway) breathed by holes in its skin. Apparently this is good as this is the reason that spiders cannot get as big as they could if they had lungs, but a few hundred years the atmosphere was richer in oxygen and the spiders were therefore much, much bigger. I decided that the digital world may possibly be a small price to pay for the lack of ginormous hairy spiders. It’s a close call…

Meanwhile the four year olds spent the afternoon rigorously investigating the grating on the floor and the museum lighting system.

“Well, at least they’re showing interest in their environment,” said my friend, as we dragged them away. But then she was the one that said that even said it was good when we were being made redundant so I never listen to her when she's being so glass totally ridiculously brimming over when it is clearly not even half full. Then we dragged them all off for a melt-down on the way home on the tube.

2011-01-19T01:46:00.000-08:00

The Pantone Colour of the Year 2011 is pink. Well, Pantone call it honeysuckle but that’s just being fancy, isn’t it. Apparently last year’s bright Turquoise (Pantone 15-5519) reflected the need to get away from the grey of global recession and this year’s Pink (Honeysuckle) reflects a community-style spirit of making the most of things, rolling up your sleeves and just getting on with it. Or so say the trend- setters. Though we all know what the cool-hunter, marketing- guru ,colour-designer at Pantone really did was go to work after dressing their three year old daughter and just couldn’t get the riot of Barbara Cartland shades out of their head when they started work on the grey ‘what colour can we dream up for this year?’ brief.

I’m done with being fed up with the marketing tyranny of pink everything for girls (both little and big), not to mention metrosexual and homosexual men. Which pretty much means everyone in the world who isn’t Jeremy Clarkson or the Olympic shot-putting team. Like Pantone, I’m embracing it. Pink, that is - not the Olympic shot-putting team.

2011-01-10T03:50:00.000-08:00

This old litter attendant is ON STRIKE.

There’s nothing to make a person feel more Methuselah-like than a bad back. I’ve been walking around like an old hag, clutching my gnarled spine. The pain every time I bend has made me realise just how many bits of pink plastic I pick up every day. Things will have to change: by hook or by crooked walking stick, X will be trained to pick up her own pink dross.

I used to live in a fairly neat house. I remember when my social worker came to check out the house for suitability for me to be approved to adopt. “Not very child-friendly is it?’ she said disapprovingly, as she scanned my white-walled, newly-shelved, tenant-enticing styling. “There’d be something a bit weird about a spinster without even a boyfriend or state approval to have a child having a house all set up for a baby,’ I seethed – inwardly, of course; I never dared to disagree with the statuesque woman whom I sincerely hoped one day might morph a stork.

I should have seen the writing on the newly wallpapered walls the moment X crawled into the house. After I’d only had her for about a fortnight the architect-designer, who’d helped with my kitchen extension, came over to the house to take some snaps for his portfolio. ” Babies and minimalism don’t really go together, do they?’ he said mildly critical, as he surveyed the 3d version of his computer-aided design accessorised with baby bric -a –brac. I smiled my new smug-mummy smile. I totally knew he was totally wrong and that his boringly perfect design was totally improved by a few bright wooden toys. Just look at Elle Deco, there’s always some vintage wooden horse rocking on the real stone floor. Anyway, we didn’t litter, we artfully scattered. Totally different.

Now things aren’t scattered, artfully or otherwise; they’re definitely littered. Kiddie litter is everywhere. You know the way that little bits of white cat litter kicks into every nook and crevice? Kiddie litter is far worse because it’s not organic. The bits of pink plastic do not ever silt naturally into the floorboards. The older she gets the worse it gets. Baby toys come in manageable wooden lumps that encourage almost OCD neatness in children, rings that stack in size, shapes that post into boxes. Toys to spread the wings of the imagination also spread all over the house. Bubble-wrapped packages spill forth multiplicities of homeless design accessories: little gold phones, miniscule plastic Manolos, tiny hairbrushes. Even the accessories have accessories: the little pink doggie with it’s little pink basket and hairbrush. Where will it end?

Well, now I can’t pick it all up and shove it all into the pink dolls-house. I literally can’t get down to floor level without clutching onto chairs and doing heavyweight lifting manoeuvers just to hoist my heavyweight bottom up again. Finally X has been picking her own litter up and all I’ve been doing is heavyweight bellowing. She’s doing quite well, but I think it’s telling on her. She actually asked me how my back was this morning.

2011-01-04T14:35:00.000-08:00

Four!

She's so proud of being four and so angry when her friend teases her for only being three - especially now it isn't true.

Fancy being proud of getting older, yearning for it, glorifying in being a big girl. Why am I depressed to think about getting older? When did I stop being proud of another year? I remember not wanting to be nine and stopping eating because I didn't want to be a teenager. I was probably much younger than many others in that way. In Japan they revere the old, or is that just a myth? And does that stop the old being depressed about getting older?

Is innocence the lack of fear of death? When do children realise they will die one day? X knows the word 'kill' but I don't know if she really knows what it means. I'm pretty sure that she doesn't. No wonder getting older seems like getting better. It's only after a million skincare ads have told you how fabulous it is to wind back time that

you get the idea that backwards is better.

She went to see her half sister yesterday. She fell twice and hurt a different knee each time, racing to catch her up. Her older sister can read. Her older sister is taller and more confident and can climb higher. Her older sister does not spill her hot chocolate. Her older half sister is a whole year and a half older. Why wouldn't a little girl want to be a big girl and do big things?

Why shouldn't I still want to get a year older and do more things? There are surely plenty of people older than me doing great aspirational things, surely? Beyond Elton and David, that is....

2011-01-04T14:11:00.000-08:00

It must be nature because it isn't nurture.

Silence for too long from the bathroom.

'What are you doing?"

"Cleaning the bath. It really needs it!"

There she was, in the bath, happily cleaning the tide mark with our facecloth.

I can't think where she learned that from - I don't think she's seen me do it that often and I don't even think that Joyce, our cleaning lady, does it that much either....

Maybe all little girl's just love to clean - when they are four.

2010-12-16T01:22:00.000-08:00

THE AA - VERY NICE MEN

Yesterday we were late. It was 7.40 by the time we bundled into the car, and then- click!- the engine just clicked when it should have va-va-voomed. The night before X was playing with the vanity mirror as I unpacked the car so naturally I assumed it was a flat battery. The car might have been going nowhere but my mind went into overdrive, immediately replanning the whole day and how I was to get everywhere and pick up on time as I hauled the poor little girl to the minders on foot so fast that she was running most of the way. I must admit I was a bit fed up, having bought a new car I was hoping that the flat batteries of the twenty year old one were a thing of the past.

At lunchtime I discovered you can book a time to get the AA out. Excellent! They came after I'd given X her bath in the evening and I packed up a little bag of stuff for her to fall asleep in the car with me driving around for an hour to charge it up. The AA came late but hey, I was in the warm watching The Apprentice, so that was fine. When Mr AA finally came he started the car immediately. No, immediately, without even opening the bonnet.

In my hurry in the morning had forgotten that the new car only starts with the clutch depressed. I explained that it might seem like a very silly mistake but I've a twenty year old habit of starting the car with my foot jammed on the accelerator. He gave me a look. Ok, it was a silly mistake. A very silly mistake. Silly mummy. I really felt a very silly mummy. But with hardly even an annoyed eyebrow lift the nice AA man said goodnight and raced off to deal with real emergencies.

2010-12-14T13:18:00.000-08:00

MUMMY FAILS THE SPELLING TEST

We sorted the Christmas cards at the weekend, all on nice white card, and then - when those ran out - we even found some old brown paper. All we had to do tonight was write three little cards for three little extra friends that have suddenly become new best friends today. But is it Arhmen, Armen, Arghman? Or even Amen? It is a church school, after all....

And is that Chanel or Chanelle and Bryanna, Brianna or Prianna? According to the little one it begins with a D; but she's not reliable on letters, to be fair. Can it be shortened to Anna? Calm, steady yourself, this isn't that hard, just get it done. Yes, but is that Briyanna or Breeanna, or Arhnem or Ahmen? Must check the register next time I get to take X to school next year.

2010-12-10T15:56:00.000-08:00

I WANTED TO SEE SANTA TOO! WAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

Juggling is a fact of freelance life and also of mummy life. Put the two sets of juggling together and you need more hands than shiva on an ordinary friday.

This friday went really well. Dumped off the child at the minder before she had even a chance to swallow a gulp of water. We were on time! True, I should have been in two places all morning but I had my exit from one to the other sorted. I didn't let the harassment about where I was going to be over xmas get to me too much- except to laugh at how being out of a full time job can be so much more demanding than full time employment. And I had my path to the afternoon arrangements almost watertight. And it all went to plan! Amazing! I actually found myself with a five minute break at tea time when I had my lunchtime sandwich. And I finally managed to get to pick up child before seven! A great day. And little one said "It's my mummy!" as I walked in the door. And not even with an upset look.

So why am I moaning?Because that is what we all know is about to come...

It was just when the minder said that little one had a present from Santa.

"So you went?!" I snapped. Well, of course she did. She is the school minder, who picks up all the children, of course she took them to the school fete. "It was very crowded, I didn't stay for long," she said.

"No, no ," I shouted, "I'm so glad you went,"

"Look mummy , santa gave me a present!"

"It was only little," said the minder, stuffing it into my little one's bag. Intercut a five minute pause at this point where minder and I shove two pound coins between the two of us. No, but I really , really am glad she took X to the school fete and that she saw santa for the first time and he gave her a two quid present and I am really so grateful that the minder is so nice she will pay for that rather than make a big deal with a parent about it.

I just wish I'd been there. And I wished I could be there all day.

Then X and I went shopping. She was so excited about seeing santa she told: a man on the street, a beggar outside Sainsbury and a young man stacking shelves in a santa hat. The beggar outside Sainsburys was a weird one, considering her mum, who I always consider at times like this. "You shouldn't talk to strangers,"I say to X. "But I don't want to tell you, I want to tell them!" she says, ever so reasonably.

It was a good day. I juggled all the things that pay the bills very well. I just didn't get to be there when she first saw santa. But hey, can I remember where I was when I first saw santa? Um no, I can't actually ever remember seeing santa as a child. Well, not in real life, only as a scary thing that was supposed to come into my bedroom at night. In my day he didn't make school appearances, as if he was part of an X Factor PR initiative.

I am glad she saw santa the first time she ever saw santa, No. Really. I just wish I'd been there too. But I'm not going to be there for a lot of other firsts, no doubt, so maybe it's time I started growing up about it.

2010-11-23T15:22:00.003-08:00

RELATIONSHIP STATUS?

IT'S COMPLICATED.

So X isn't friends with K because he didn't say sorry when he hit her and J is her friend - but O is too and J and O sat together for lunch which meant that X isn't friends with either of them any more and C is a new friend but she doesn't go on the trampoline so she isn't a real friend and anyway she hasn't come to our house for tea yet and really X is just upset because J sat with O at lunch but R was ok to sit next to - except he's a boy.

Well, that's the top line on the situation today, but I missed a big chunk while she was having a poo and I was also trying to listen to The Archers - where the plotlines change far slower.

2010-11-23T15:22:00.002-08:00

RELATIONSHIP STATUS?

IT'S COMPLICATED.

Well, that's the top line on the situation today, but I missed a big chunk while she was having a poo and I was also trying to listen to The Archers - where the plotlines change far slower.

2010-11-23T15:22:00.001-08:00

RELATIONSHIP STATUS?

IT'S COMPLICATED.

Well, that's the top line on the situation today, but I missed a big chunk while she was having a poo and I was also trying to listen to The Archers - where the plotlines change far slower.

2010-11-23T15:22:00.000-08:00

RELATIONSHIP STATUS?

IT'S COMPLICATED.

Well, that's the top line on the situation today, but I missed a big chunk while she was having a poo and I was also trying to listen to The Archers - where the plotlines change far slower.

2010-11-17T13:45:00.000-08:00

I WANT TO BE A TEACHER

Says X. I want to do the register, I want to take the dinner tickets, I want to make the children get their right mums and dads when they go home.

I wonder how she will view this first ambition when she's older. Will I, or someone else, drag it out when she's a bin man? Or will she be laughing about it when she's Prime Minister or a painter or a brain surgeon or a mum with loads of little ones at school.

When I was fifteen my headmistress dragged me in to see her and warned me that if I dropped maths I'd never be a teacher. "That's no problem, whatsoever," I said, no doubt with what is now called 'attitude. ' I regretted that decision such that I taught myself maths with the help of Carol Vorderman and took the GCSE when I was in my thirties. Teaching still wouldn't have me, though.

I think the main thing is that it says a lot about how happy X is at nursery.

2010-11-16T14:40:00.000-08:00

We lost it tonight - big time. Well, I did - and she was right behind me, as per usual.

They weren't in my bag- the damn car keys- they were totally missing. Absolutely not anywhere. It isn't even our car, it's a courtesy car from a rather uncourteous garage. By 'we' obviously I mean X and me. We do everything together. If I attempt to even go into the next room she shrieks and runs to tug at my jumper, "don't leave me in the dark, mummy!' Of course it's not dark- well, only outside the windows. Do all children shadow their parents so closely or it because it's just the two of us here? When I turn around it's hard not to trip over her and my jumper is now even baggier than when I bought it at the second hand shop, though the rate my middle age spread is spreading the saggy bits will soon fill out the baggy bits so, of all the incredibly long list of grey worries that fill my grey matter (so grey I'm surprised my hair still grows out of my grey head mousy and not grey) the saggy baggy bits are really quite low down the long, grey list.

When I realised the car keys weren't in my bag and they were pretty definitely lost I had to run to the loo: the contents of my tummy turned to water immediately I thought of all that would need to be done if I couldn't find them. Pathetic I know, but there it is. I am useless at juggling and organising, always have been, I reckon I might be quite heroic if war were declared, that would be a reasonably simple problem- just find some bunker in which to hide- but a missing car key, that creates a whole list of things to reconfigure that reduces my brain to grey mush and all the nerve endings start to twitch. The first thing, I realised, was to call the garage, but they'd gone home. It would have to be first thing in the morning. I needed to get them to send over new keys by bike very quickly or the car would be towed away as soon as the six hour voucher (which we had been putting in the car when we lost the keys) ran out. This was not going to be an easy conversation, given the fact that last time I'd spoken to them I'd terminated the conversation rather abruptly due to their blunt refusal to even hazard a guess when their work on my car might be done.

Not getting new keys and not replacing the voucher was absolutely not an option. I've got two sixty pound fines recently for parking outside my house, even though I've already paid for residents parking, due to silly mistakes with the silly rules. "Silly mummy," says X. I've started to have subliminal flashes where I see the car snowed under with parking tickets in a car pound.

We carefully went through every place that the keys might be; two hours of searching which included undoing about twenty jiffy bags and unwrapping every single Christmas present I'd just spent hours wrapping up, and then doing the whole lot up again. After that I got on gmail and cancelled and reorganised all my appointments for tomorrow so that I could be at home to receive the keys and put a new voucher in the car. One of the appointments is a serious beaurocratic one where I will be penalised for non-attendance. Another of the appointments had taken me about six months to secure. I rewrote the email to cancel three times trying to work out which excuse seemed the least flakey, given how hard I'd pushed for the meeting. Then I contacted both minders involved in the after school care to reorganise X's routine to match mine. After that we went outside and rootled about in the leaves and gutter and then we went through the dustbin and then, I turned around and stepped on X, who was shadowing me. She howled and refused to believe that I hadn't hurt her on purpose and ran back into the kitchen.

At this moment a friend called for a nice little chat.

"We've lost the damn car keys!" I shriek over X's wails.

"Retrace your footsteps, what were you doing?" They shout back.

"Well, we were wrapping christmas presents while cooking supper, and then I tried to pay a parking fine on the phone, while X was telling me about her day and then we realised the car needed the voucher so we went outside and then X wanted to lock the car herself and I was just saying how well she was doing it when the neighbour said hallo and then..."

"Well, if you must let X do things like lock the car you've only got yourself to blame, really, haven't you? When will you learn that keys and phones and cameras are not suitable for a three year old?"

"She's nearly four and anyway we do eveything together," I protest, turning around and nearly stepping on X which made me fall against the back door and spike my hand on.............. the car keys, the damn car keys! They were sticking out of the back door lock. X must have carried them back into the house after we talked to the neighbour and she must have carried on playing locking things while I rescued the burning sausages.

'Found the damn things," I say.

"See, no need for all the drama, eh?" says the friend, smugly.

We go to bed, me and X and my mobile and laptop. I start to change all the appointments around again. It's the minders that are the most embarrassing to deal with as, they get it these kind of mix ups from me the most often. No one other mum seems to have to reorganise her life so frequently and the other day I actually turned up to collect X at the wrong minders. Forget lost car keys, it's lost marbles that they think is the problem, I'm sure. Anyone would think I had several children to organise, not just one.

"You hurt me, mummy," says X snuggling up to me.

" I didn't mean to, " I say.

"But you damn did," she says, severely.

2010-11-04T02:18:00.000-07:00

IN PRAISE OF SMALL SHOPKEEPERS WHO UNDERSTAND SMALL PEOPLE

I stopped off at a corner shop on my way home with X last night. It was just a newsagents, really, but there, nestling by the box of sprouting onions was the loaf of bread that we urgently needed and it wasn't even out- of- date.

X was tired. Well, that's my excuse for her appalling behaviour. She saw chocolate on the shelves and snatched it up.

"No, not healthy,' I said quite firmly, attempting and failing to wrest it from her iron-firm grip. 'Healthy' is probably a word that isn't used as much as it should be by me. In my life 'healthy' has been a can of worms best left for hunger and what's around to manage, really. Amazingly, the three women at X's nursery, looking after thirty children, seem to manage to actually teach these words which I don't manage to find time to teach the one little child in my care. 'Healthy' is the latest word they have got her excited about. Well, the word. The concept still appears to be a little beyond her. X also clearly gets her own way far too much because, ignoring me, she marched up to the counter where an elderly Indian lady was tiredly flicking through Grazia. X threw the packet up on top of the precariously piled newspapers, and turned around to me, clearly fully expecting me to get out my purse. The right- royal, little madam.

"No, ' I say in a brave attempt to endorse the teachings of the great Miss E. Maybe I would have weakened, I don't know. I'm a weak and feeble woman in the face of a royal tantrum, sometimes.

'Not for sale,' said the Indian lady staunchly, in a way that clearly said this lady was not for turning. She hauled up her sari, picked up the packet of stars, got down from her rickety stool and placed them carefully back, where they belonged, on the shelf. X was open-mouthed for a long moment, a moment just long enough for me to grab her under the armpits. Then the old lady opened the door for me while I hauled a disgracefully kicking, screaming child from the shop. Averting my head to avoid being hit in the eye I just caught a glimpse of the old lady waving us a friendly good-bye.

Now you don't get that in supermarkets. This is not a first. All my local shops are incredible to us.

Any one else got a great story about their local shop?

"Nook Kids" is Here Today. Will nook Color be Here Tomorrow? (via brandchannel)

2010-10-26T02:39:00.000-07:00

"Nook Kids" is Here Today. Will nook Color be Here Tomorrow? (via brandchannel)

2010-10-18T14:35:00.001-07:00

'Maybe I could ask him if he'd be my daddy,' said my daughter.

The other day I was chatting to the dad of one of X's nursery friends. He told me that his application for flexible working had failed with his employer, which meant that he wouldn't be able to share the childcare with his wife as much as he had hoped. This surprised me as he works for the council who profess to be highly supportive of family friendly working. The dad was frustrated because he'd put a lot of effort into his appeal case for the flexible hours but when it failed his children were totally delighted. The little boy ran around the sitting room whooping. It meant that they'd get to go to X's minder who gives them slush puppies and crisps. The dad said he sometimes wondered why he bothered. He looked quite upset about it.

X asked me why she didn't have a daddy today. She said she'd been thinking about it while having lunch at school. Maybe someone said something, I don't know. I don't know much when it comes to this. I've known this would be coming for some time and I've still not come up with anything to say.

X already knows that she has a tummy mummy who isn't me but that still doesn't explain why there isn't a daddy. She may well never know who her daddy is, since no one seems to know. It makes me want to find her tummy mummy and find out what she knows, and I'll understand if X feels the same way about this. It seems very sad to me to never have any idea at all about half your blood heritage. Of course none of this explains why she hasn't got a 'heart' daddy who lives with her 'heart' mummy - but I'm guessing a blow by blow on every single one of my failed relationships isn't really appropriate for a three year old , though the repetition might be fun in an old Macdonald had a farm type way (Eee! Ow! Eee! Ow! Aye!) and it might be a good bedtime story to get her off to sleep.

I just said that I agreed with her that it was very sad she didn't have a daddy. I mentioned a few male friends and relations who take an interest in her, but she didn't pick up on any of them. Instead she talked about her friend at nursery who's daddy sometimes takes her to school. She said that he was a nice daddy and her friend sometimes cried when he left her. It was the same man who had just told me how frustrated he was that his children didn't care whether he picked them up after school or not.

X said that maybe she could ask him if he might be her daddy too. I said maybe we should do that together. It seems a bit much to lay on a man first thing in the morning when he's probably late for work but I'm guessing at the right moment he might be glad to know that a three year old had noticed that he was a nice daddy.

2010-10-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

Not many three year olds could carry off baldness with such aplomb as X's best friend

Every day for the last couple of years or so X and I have suffered hair envy. We've stared with longing at her best friend's hair: it's heavy swishing volume, it's dark lustrous curls, it's glorious bouncing mass. We've fingered clips in Sainsbury's and longed for the day when we might need them too. We thought her little friend was just so lucky. But then her little friend always seemed so lucky in so many ways: great looks, fantastic parents, obvious intelligence, natural confidence, a born leader.

X, on the other hand, has always been folicle- challenged. This was a huge blessing to me as I was only allowed to adopt her on the understanding that she was a white child. It was only, post adoption, clear when her hair finally twisted it's way out, that there was definitely more than a little bit of fuzz to it. Caribbean ladies have come up to me on the street and asked which island her father came from. X has an orange Jackson Five fuzz around her head, but she still has a very high forehead so she sometimes looks a bit like Queen Elizabeth 1. More often, though, she looks like a saffron colored sheep who's wool has got matted from a winter out on the hillside. I've developed a nervous habit of plucking at it it to tease it out to stop it looking as if she's a feral child with unkempt matted locks. I've had long conversations in the African hair product shops about what might turn it into lustrous curls and ended up with lots of pots of sticky, stinking brilliantine. My ex-social worker in the adoption process sent the best product. We have a little smile to each other sometimes about X's hair. I have a feeling that she, being a lady of Caribbean extraction, might have had a little suspicion that X's hair wasn't going to be totally English Caucasian, but maybe I'm wrong. I like X's hair now she's got some. When the light shines though it she looks as if she has a halo and I love it's mad look. I just wish it started further forward. If she was a middle aged man I'd be advising her to shave the lot off and not to pretend it wasn't badly receeding.

X is in love with long, straight hair. When she came to me she couldn't go to sleep without fingering her foster mother's hair and now she can't sleep without fingering mine. She's been envious of her friend's hair for two years and has insisted on clips just like her.

Now her little friend has lost all her hair from chemotherapy. Not so lucky after all then. Her poor little body is a bit skinny at the moment. Though the prognosis on her type of leukemia is good, the treatment sounds brutal. Her tiny little frame is blasted with toxins and all her incredible, thick, lustrous locks have fallen out. X has steadfastly ignored this, not mentioned it at all. Her friend, though, is the feistiest little girl with the most indomitable spirit. She said to their childminder the other day:

'So, what do you think of my new haircut, then?'

The minder said she was lost for words, which in itself is a little miracle.

2010-10-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

MUMMY TANTRUM

I wanted one. I really did.

I'd had a horrid day, missing the little one, wondering how she was doing at school. She's only been there two weeks and now she gets passed through several carers hands every day in a patchwork of minders, school and minders. I have to cling to my diary just to keep up with the schedule myself and every day she wakes up and says: 'where today mummy?' I worry that I'm causing irrevocable damage by not being there at the end of the day to share her tales of ten green bottles and who weed on the floor. I worry, full stop.

Today? Today I was very organised all day but I finally had a little wettie when it looked like I was going to be kept way after end of play. I kicked off just enough to extricate myself from where I was without ( i hope) causing lasting bruising, and I rushed to pick up the new schoolgirl from the new minder. I was amazed how quickly the journey went, and was thrilled to be early. The day was looking up. I'd be able to microwave some beans for her! Cook for her!

i rushed into the minders, but did my little one come running to me? No. She was very fed up that I'd come before I was supposed to. She wanted to play more with her new best friend from school, who also hangs out there. She wanted to go to the shops with the new minder. She was on the loo and wanted the minder's daughter to wipe her bottom, not me.

Not me? My heart was shattered. It was a first. The first time my little one hurt me. I know it will happen a lot more,and it's a mummy's job not to count or care, but this was the first time and my inward breath was sharp and cold.

There are limits, however. I may have to grovel when it comes to getting work to support my little one but groveling to wipe her bottom is one step too far. I demurred. I was sent away again. Of course I pretended it was all great and fine. You can't dump people together and then object if they get on. I'm truly amazed and relieved that the new minder is that popular. i'll write a reference stating that from the very first day my child didn't want to come home, wanted the new minder to wipe her bottom.

I did feel, however, like rolling on the pavement and kicking my heels and screaming and having a spoilt little temper tantrum on my lonely walk hone to kick my heels looking a my tax form. I'm sorry but I did. I'd done my work, I had more to come later. The one good bit of the day had gone, the one bit that I do everything else (all the working and earning and sorting and running and the damned dull tax form ) for. All gone. But I'm not going to tell the little one that.

I know many women go through moments like this and I'm bigging up my part with mountainous molehills. But if you have had a moment like this recently, well then, lets just say I really, really empathise.

By the way, by the time I went to pick up my little girl I'd my little temper tantrum all on my own and was a nice mummy again, all very grown up, and I didn't sulk one little bit.

Can I have a gold star, please?

2010-09-29T02:39:00.000-07:00

WE MUSE TO AMUSE OURSELVES

(a dissertation in the role of housework in the creative process, with special attention to the role of tap polishing)

FIG A: a tap like this is almost complicated enough to stimulate an entire chapter of a novel)

When I was a little girl my mother made my sister and I do household chores on saturday mornings, after orchestra. My sister had to hoover the dining room and study. I had to clean the bath and basin in the main bathroom.

I remember bursting in on my sister as she was doing her hoovering to discover her mid emphatic declaration, arms waving. She was actually shouting, the noise of the hoover covering up what she was doing from the rest of the house. 'What are you doing?' I asked in astonishment: my perception of my sister was of a quiet, practical person not given to interior thought, but there was no one else there, had she gone mad? She coloured with embarrassment as if I'd caught her in some intensely private act and then got angry to divert me from what I'd seen. Later I realised that she must have been telling herself some kind of story. So I started telling myself stories as I polished the taps. Move over Jonathan Franzen, sitting in your soundproofed box, talking your dialogue out aloud as is so often talked about the way you wrote,'The Corrections' and'Freedom' - little girls also talk their stories aloud to themselves, while doing the housework. Girls not only get stories made up we also get the room hoovered at the same time! Even now I can't see a dirty tap without wanting to amuse myself while polishing it by making up a little story. And I don't think my sister of I are at all unusual. I notice that X, who's only three, while in the bath and she thinks I'm miles away ( usually just outside the bathroom door, snooping while tidying up) also chatters to herself, making up stories with the pig and the tea set that sit on the edge of the bath. She's musing out aloud to herself.

This leads me to a proposition: that Virginia Woolf got it wrong when she said that women need a room of their own to write - what they really need is a comforting array of boring, pointless household chores and a little time to commit their subsequent musings onto paper. No doubt the argument against my theory is that housewives have not tended to win Nobel prizes for literature or even publishing contracts. Well, that may be true, but that may say more about the men in the publishing industry of the past than about what has actually been written. Women who've had a series of mundane household chores and a little free time have written their musings down in journals for centuries: The Diary of an Edwardian lady etc. Women's journals have been a major source of writing for eternity, cave women probably scribbled on the cave walls more than the men- using charcoal from the fire while making mammoth stew.

Many bloggers, mainly women ones, also muse 'out aloud' by blogging. The stereotype of 'the blogger' is a young man geek talking about tekkie stuff, but Richard Jalichandra, President of Technoriati, talking to iMedia said that, in his opinion there's another there's another topic that beats it:

' Personal musings. Different groups seem to move in and out of the spotlight, such as mommy bloggers, but in the past two studies that we've collected demographic data, they've remained pretty constant. However, it's my personal observation -- and this is more anecdotal than scientific -- that the influence of mommy and women bloggers with consumers has become really important. The proof is in how much attention they are given for outreach and advertising from CPG marketers.'

For those uninitiated is one of the tedious anacronyms of marketing - CPG is simply short for consumer packaged goods.

Mr Jalichandra may be right regarding mommy bloggers and advertising outreach. I can see that there are a significant number of mommies desperately trying to connect online everyday to 'make friends' and to network to become part of that CPG marketing outreach. They're, quite understandably as mums at home, trying hard to find a job that pays a bit of pin money. But far more than that there are countless women musing out aloud into the void in their 'free time', simply to amuse themselves.

If they find that their musings are interesting to others I'm sure that they feel thrilled and amazed. I imagine it's truly a wonderful thing to find someone else who stumbles onto your private musings and connects with them. But the impulse to put those musings out into the world in some kind of journal- on a white screen or a white piece of paper- is just the way women are made, scribbling away in their little diaries with locks on them. For me proof of that comes almost as much in other blogging areas, sex for instance, where women bare their souls in works of subtly crafted poetry mixed with personal imagery, often not at all graphically sexual, on sites that have passwords to enter, their own little online secret drawer where they muse on their most inmost feelings, and then send it out into the void with only the vaguest thought or hope that it might connect with any life form on another planet outside their own head.

Like me over my taps, X in her bath and my sister behind her hoover, these women are just saying it out aloud for the pleasure and interest of having a look at it, musing to amuse themselves.

The next frontier for blogging - iMediaConnection.com

2010-09-28T13:18:00.001-07:00

The blog is as old as the internet itself, but has never waned in popularity. What's in store? We ask Technorati's Richard Jalichandra to give us the lowdown.

View >>

2010-09-28T01:17:00.000-07:00

the heritage of language.

'Can we not go?' says my little girl, which to me, sounds a little bit Miss Jean Brodie, putting the 'not' in that place.

'Is it five and twenty past?' she says- rather than the more usual, twenty five past- which again sounds like a little touch of Scots to me.

My little girl may be adopted but I can hear my mother (who grew up in Glasgow) in her when she she talks. She must have copied her as I don't think I speak like that. Copying the way we speak and act is what children do, of course. I know an adopted child who is not an academic at all but who talks and acts in the manner of a university lecturer, as was his adoptive father.

But no wonder our language is so gloriously rich when a little girl in South of England has picked up Scots phrases from a woman she doesn't see all that much and who hasn't been to Scotland herself since she was a child.