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.

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.

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?

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

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

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."

T

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.