Daft, Blonde, Excited and Impatient

I've been tagged by A Modern Mother so now you have to know the following, whether you want to or not!

1. What are your current obsessions?
Chocolate Orange Bourneville, pear cider, blogging (obviously) and The Apprentice

2. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?
Jeans, jeans or jeans

3. Last dream you had?
I was swimming in a pool full of kitchen utensils ... work that one out!

4. Last thing you bought?
Suncream for my impending Walt Disney World trip

5. What are you listening to?
Right now I'm listening to people talking in the office, phones ringing and the tippy tappy of my keyboard

6. If you were a god/goddess who would you be?
Annapurna, the Hindu goddess of food .. just because I like it, not because I'm good at it!

7. Favourite holiday spots?
Cancale in France, Barcelona and Scotland

8. Reading right now?
Just finished White Tiger which took me forever to read. I only read before bed and end up nodding off. Looking forward to the airport bookshops tomorrow!

9. Four words to describe yourself.
Daft, Blonde, Excited and Impatient

10. Guilty pleasure?
Crap TV ... I like nothing more than putting the kids to bed, the husband going out to five a side and lying on the sofa watching rubbish.

11. Who or what makes you laugh until you’re weak?
My sister

12. Favourite spring thing to do?
Picnic in the park, plus Spring signals the start of camping season

13. Planning to travel to next?
Walt Disney World, Florida ... tomorrow!

14. Best thing you ate or drank lately?
Husband's indian fishcakes with tomato rice. I salivate when I think about it.

15. When did you last get tipsy?
Friday night at Teacher Friend Mother of Three's secret squirrel birthday meal

16. Favourite ever film?
It really does depend what mood I'm in ... Today, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

17. Care to share some wisdom?
If only ...

18. Song you can't get out of your head?
Mamma Mia - it's on a loop in our house

19. Thing you are looking forward to?
Both going to Walt Disney World and coming back from Walt Disney World and seeing the family

Rules of the meme. Respond and rework. Answer questions on your own blog. Replace one question. Add one question. Tag 8 people.

You're it:

Caution ... Woman At Work

Soapboxmummy

Not Waving But Drowning

Some Mothers Do Ave Em

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Ali Blah Blah

Under the Influence

Four Down Mum To Go

Popping the corn ...

Teacher Friend Mother of Three's threw a party a few weeks ago.

All the kids were sat round eating their party tea and a bowl of popcorn was passed round.

The 3 year old and his friend were sat at a lower table and missed out.

3 year olds friend - "Can I have some c*ckp*rn please?"

Technorati Profile

We love Lulu and we just want her home

Yesterday we lost Lulu.

Lulu is the 3 year olds best friend. A soft lamb which he has slept with and loved for all of his 3 years.

Her stuffing has worn away making her slouch, she is a bit smelly and she could do with a good clean.

I had been out with teacher friend mother of three and we had visited a museum and a clothing store. It didn't dawn on me until we got home that Lulu was missing.

I rang the museum which was closed and then the clothing store.

I spoke to someone who said nothing had been handed and got a bit emotional. I told her that we love Lulu and that we just want her home. I left my number with someone who probably thought I was ringing from the home for the terminally bewildered and asked them to call if she turned up.

The 3 year old is having his ear operation this week and Lulu was going to go with him to hold his hand. I paced up and down the kitchen. I rang teacher friend mother of three several times to ask her to search her car.

In my mind I was berating myself for not buying two Lulu's all those years back when my pregnant heart fell in love. I thought about tracking another down on ebay, but decided it just wouldn't be the same. There is only one Lulu.

I actually felt like crying, bereft; all for a smelly, floppy lamb.

Then the phone rang, it was the clothing store, they had found Lulu. I danced around the kitchen, I rang teacher friend mother of three again, I then broke the news to the 3 year old that Lulu was having a sleepover and they would be reunited the following day.

He seemed a little disappointed, but happy that Lulu would get to try on all those clothes. I must admit, I expected more devastation, after all they have never spent a night apart

... Which begs the question, who is more attached to Lulu?

I think Lulu will be holding my hand in hospital when my boy goes into the operating theatre.

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The Best Of British Mummy Bloggers carnival is up at Thames Valley Mums - there are saome great entries - go and have a look!!

It seems the 'sing and sign' signal for unicorn is universal

Teacher friend mother of three is great at finding things to do in the holidays, so when she asked if we wanted to see some clowns there was no hesitation. I had a day off due to a gaping hole in our childcare arrangements for half term.

What better to do than spend it being entertained by jolly clowns.

The children’s excitement levels rose when I mentioned our plan for the following day. Conversations were peppered with references to clowns;

4 year old - Clowns wear red noses?

Me - Yes

4 year old - Clowns have big shoes

Me - Yes

4 year old - Clowns are scary?

Me - No

and ...

Me - Would you like some juice?

3 year old - I like clowns. No.

Me – Stop feeding the dog Cheerios

3 year old - I like clowns. No.

Me - Time for your bath

3 year old - I like clowns. No.

The big day arrived.

An hour before we were due to set off Teacher friend mother of three called to say eldest child had pebble dashed her bedroom with sick. No clowning around for them.

I met our other friend and went in convoy to the venue, a civic hall in a Leeds suburb.

On arrival we coughed up three golden coins per person to someone who looked like a toilet attendant. We were directed towards a table proffering Fruit Shoots and bags of crisps. No thank you. We were then directed towards another table selling ‘tat’. Sticks with tinsel attached to one end. The 4 year old, a magpie in a former life, would have offered a kidney for one of those glittery sticks. No thank you.

We sat down, excited by the imminent clown show. We waited and waited … then waited a further 15 minutes during which time the children worked out how to fold themselves, and each other, into their seats.

Just as I was losing the will to live the show began.

We were introduced to Mr Clown, who funnily enough, looked like a clown … and his wife, who didn’t. It turns out that Mrs Clown had transformed herself from a coin collecting toilet attendant by taking off her tabard and applying bright blue eye shadow and a gold sequined cardigan.

I suspect they had been doing their show for 50 years and were using the same format and stage props as in 1969.

It was fairly cringeworthy. Mrs Clown mouthed all her husband’s lines silently to keep up with him and he told jokes which went over the children’s heads. The parents watched imaginary tumbleweed roll through the hall.

After 35 minutes the show ended. Relief swept over me, the children had lost interest 10 minutes earlier. Unfortunately relief was taken over by dread when Mrs Clown announced it was an interval.

An interval to flog more Fruit Shoots, crisps and glittery sticks.

The next half of the show, luckily, picked up momentarily when Mr Clown came on stage wearing enormous stilts which the 3 year old thought were amazing. Then there was some singing which sparked the 4 year old back to life for five minutes.

Comatose we left.

We had lunch at M&S to ward off evil clown spirits. It’s funny how a hot chocolate can make everything seem alright again. The queuing system at the M&S cafe is worthy of a whole other blog post but I don’t have the strength.

On exiting the car park I had a sign language argument with a woman in a Ford Fiesta about her lack of car park etiquette when she nearly drove into me the wrong way round the one way system. It seems the 'sing and sign' signal for unicorn is universal.

Teacher friend mother of three called to see how it had gone. We couldn't decide who was worse off; the mother at home with puking child or the mother at the clown show.

I like clowns. No.

Dogs howled across the valley ...

After the 4 year olds terrible TV induced mood swings last night I vetoed tele-visual stimulus this evening.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Who was I punishing?

Instead the 3 and 4 year old fought like cat and dog whilst I prepared tomorrows packed lunch, washed up and made dinner.

I called time on the fighting and after a game of ‘I’m going to chase you and bite yer bum’ we ended up lying on my bed in a heap. Debris from the 3 year olds early morning alarm call was strewn across the bedroom floor; a drum, bells and a maraca.

Like a scene from a hippy dippy commune we each picked up an instrument and started jamming. We sang ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ and ten rounds of ‘She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain When She Comes’.

It must have sounded like a one man band being hit by an articulated lorry.

Dogs howled across the valley and cats keeled over.

When we’d finished I sat looking at the 3 year old who was working out how much brute force would make the drumstick go through the drum and wondered …

When did it suddenly become normal to sing like a fool in front of people?

OK, these are my children and therefore on a scale of 1 to 10 not embarrassing at all, but I can think of more than a handful of times that I have burst into song and shaken a child sized instrument in public, in front of other adults, in the last year alone.

Then I had a flashback …..

I recall distinctly sitting in my friend’s living room with my five antenatal buddies as we clutched our newborn babies to our bosom, ate cake and glugged Diet Coke (multi-tasking).

One of the group recounted a story which filled me with horror. The week before she visited a friend who had young children, more friends arrived and before she knew it they were all sat round in a circle singing ‘Wind The Bobbin Up’ … with actions.



Mortified she fled the scene before she was asked to join in.

There was a sharp intake of breath from all, except teacher friend mother of three who is also a brownie leader and thinks nothing of singing Kumbya My Lord to order.

I remember laughing as we said we’d never do that. Oh no, not us … NEVER. This was a time when I would rather blow dry my hair whilst sat in the bath than speak up in a group of people I didn’t know, let alone burst into a spontaneous verse of ‘Dingle Dangle Scarecrow’ in the supermarket queue.

My baptism of fire was when I joined ‘Sing & Sign’ with my 6 month old baby. The hint was in the group title and I should have avoided it at all cost. Desperate to get out of the house and hoping my child would become a prodigy and start quoting Shakespeare to her peers through sign language I went along.

Within five minutes I was sat cross legged on the carpet with a group of eight mothers and one father chanting a song about visiting a farm and seeing a cow.

The sign for cow is this;

… Which I like to call the ‘double knob head’.

It took three weeks of childish sniggering before I lost all inhibitions.

Now 4 years on I think nothing of bursting into song anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

I’ve just ordered a copy of The Sound of Music.

Soon I will progress from singing with actions and instruments to spinning like Julie Andrews in the local park singing ‘the hills are alive with the sound of music'.

My children will look on from afar before taking themselves off to the local adoption agency.

Picture courtesy of britishsignlanguage.com

... and we all talked drunken bollocks

The 3 year olds party was perfect. Lots of children racing around getting sweaty, flailing in ball pools, climbing the wrong way up slides, snubbing anything uncrisplike and eating the sweets off the top of buns.

Regarding the 40 year olds party, there are just a few things I would like to raise with the venue manager regarding our party ...

Dear Manager of Venue

There are just a few points I'd like to raise that luckily did not detract from our enjoyment of the evening, but none the less I would like to bring them to your attention

On our inspection visit a few weeks ago we thought the function room smelt damp and foisty. I brought the subject up with you who said something would be done. The odd squirt of Febreze would have been better than nothing. But ‘nothing’ you did and on arrival the smell of wet dog still permeated our nostrils. This wasn’t a problem to one of our forty or so guests who has no sense of smell.

The fact we could use our own ipod and playlist appealed to my husband (a music snob) who dashed off to create his tour de force. It took him the best part of a day and was, I quote, “Eclectic. Loud and laid back, old and new, mainstream and indie; something for everyone and tailored to suit each friend that attended the party”.

I didn’t much mind standing on a rickety old table, risking neck breakage, to access the aged stereo and plug the ipod into its lead. I did however get slightly irritated at the ipod having to be in one position and one position only to play; tilted on its left hand side pointing upwards and wedged behind the stereo. If it were moved 0.1 millimetres to the right it went silent, sounded like it was being pumped through an elephants rectal passage or jumped like a CD in a go kart on a cobbled lane. At times myself, my husband and occasionally, our guests had to stand on the rickety old table to reposition the ipod.

I’m fairly easy going so most of the above didn't really phase me, besides we were too busy laughing with our friends ...

HOWEVER – What did razz me off was this ... When I initially called to book the venue I was told there would be waiter/waitress service to the room below the bar we had booked. With the press of the shiny red button someone would appear and take our drinks order. No mixing with the riff raff upstairs. Excitedly I pressed the button ….. and waited 15 minutes. Nothing. Giving the button the benefit of my doubt I pressed again with more gusto. Nope, nothing, nada. We were informed that as the bar was so busy, with it being a Saturday night, you were unable to accommodate our demands downstairs. I spent the following 30 minutes queuing at the bar upstairs. When I was finally served I panicked and bought several drinks, which in turn made me take several hangover cures on Sunday morning.

The excited menfolk gathered on the wooden floor to play pool, a floor that felt like it had been been mopped with golden syrup. It was very much a case of ‘look at what you could have won’ when it became apparent that you had lost the cue ball. Still, the pool table was nice to look at all evening.

Towards the end of the night, tracksuit clad chavs unable to read the words ‘PRIVATE PARTY’ tried to join us. They were given short shrift as our guests hugged their handbags closer. Nylon tracksuits I ask you … on a Saturday night. What is the village coming to?

Yours faithfully

Mrs D

So it came to pass that on Saturday night we celebrated husband’s 40th in style; It's the company you keep that's important, and the company we kept on Saturday night was outstanding!

After the party we went for a curry with leftover revellers which was delicious and we all talked drunken bollocks.

I woke yesterday to a dull throb in my head but managed to shake off the hangover when I discovered the 3 year old in the bathroom having an early morning hair styling session. He had used the best part of a tube of hair gel which was now running down his forehead towards his eyes. Only a bath and hairwash would do.

Next time we’d be better off having a party at home. We have Flash All Purpose floor cleaner, uninterrupted music, a ‘no nylon’ policy and a fast drinks service.

Sure, our home smells of dog and burnt chocolate crispie buns, but, we have Febreze.

What do you mean you're not supposed to bake chocolate crispie buns?

Let Them Eat Cake

The 2 year old will be a big fat 3 in just over three weeks. To mark the occasion we are having a party. Last years 'effort' was a pirate party at home. I had flu and no voice. When it was apparent that the party was getting out of hand Teacher friend mother of three had to take over and comandeer the ship as it were whilst I felt sorry for myself and picked cheesy Wotsits and grapes out of the carpet.

We have decided to have the party at a soft play centre. The idea being I turn up with a birthday cake and my child, nothing more nothing less.

Because I work and have no involvement with pre-school I asked for a list of names of children that the 2 year old plays with regularly. They gave me a list of ten and I added a mixture of family and family friends on for good measure. Invites went out to 20 children with Christmas cards, killing two birds with one stone.

Easy peasy, stress free, partytastic!

Then I lost the guest list.

The husband remarked that perhaps I should have placed aforementioned list in a 'safe place' at which point I had to refrain from launching myself across the room armed with only a pen to kill him.

The party list was formulated and reformulated to get the number to 20 and I had to leave out some children. I cannot for the life of me remember who was in or out or how my ruthless list making process originated and am now stuck.

The woman from the soft play centre will be ringing for exact numbers. Do I wing it and under cater with my random rule of 'usually 4 children have better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than eat birthday cake'? ... or over cater and end up paying extra for children who are not there?

I'm now thinking I should send a text message to every parent in my phone saying 'If I invited blahblah to the 2 year olds party can you let me know if he/she will be there. If I didn't invite blahblah then sorry, better luck next year'.

Nigella Does Jamie At Christmas

We were invited to see Polar Express (in 3D) at the IMAX in Bradford this weekend. Unfortunately we had to decline. We were on a mission to IKEA for 8 x 250ml kilner jars … as you do, the last Saturday before Christmas. Let’s just say that the husband has watched too much ‘Nigella Does Jamie At Christmas’ this week and our kitchen is a veritable hubbub of festive produce. As I type he is polishing his jars for his cranberry and apple chutney.

Luckily we decided to pass on the Polar Express and return directly home. I say luckily because later on my friend (teacher friend mother of three) told me that she had had to leave the IMAX with her eldest child (age 4). She was scared and they had to stand in the foyer where there was an exploding poo situation in the toilets (hopefully the 4 year old and not her) and a host of Cliff Richard Christmas songs being piped out. On the way home she asked her 2 year old son if he’d had a good time, he replied “No, I had a scaredy time”. Once home her husband admitted that they indeed have the film in their DVD collection and could have, instead, been scared in the comfort of their own home. To add further insult to an already expensive and frightening injury it is also on TV on Christmas Eve.

Meanwhile, I had snuggled on the sofa after our IKEA scramble for some pre bed cartoon fun, when I noticed The Goonies was on Boomerang. Caught up in childhood nostalgia we watched, and laughed at Chunk’s ‘truffle shuffle’. I thought we’d struck gold; my little munchkins cuddled up in their pyjamas, the fire roared and the smell of cranberries wafted through the house. Once the nostalgic thoughts had cleared I actually fast forwarded the film in my mind and started to remember it in more detail; skeletons, scary Italian mafia types and the character Lotney ‘Sloth’ Fratelli … then on our TV … cue dead body falling out of an industrial freezer on top of a child.

4 year old –“Mummy that man is FAST asleep”

Me – “BEDTIME!”

I don’t think we’ll be entertaining anything more perilous than Tom & Jerry from now on.

Note to self – Buy More Bed Linen

The 2 year old started the ball rolling by regurgitating an entire plate of Spaghetti Bolognese down himself and his bed. Apart from the unmistakable smell of sick, it actually looked like it had when I’d presented it to him at tea time. I took the role of chambermaid whilst my husband wiped him down. No sooner had we put him back to bed and settled down to watch TV then he was off again. We automatically assumed our previous roles of chambermaid and chief child cleaner and put him back to bed reluctantly.

We managed another hour without incident before turning in for the night. As I started to drift off I heard it. The ‘burble’. I probably heard it before the 2 year old even considered making it (mothers’ instinct) because I sprang out of bed like a psychotic frog (wearing, of course, just a pair of big knickers) and dashed across the hall to his room. The poor boy was whipped out of bed and held over the toilet to make his final retching of the night.

I wouldn’t have normally been so quick off the mark but we are not a family of plentiful bed linen. In fact the only times I think about stocking up on extra duvet covers, fitted sheets and pillow cases are during episodes like this.

As I got back into bed I received a text from teacher friend, mother of three which said;

‘Two sick children. Is it wrong to bathe your children in antibacterial hand wash?’

I felt a sense of comfort that we were experiencing synchronised puking at opposite ends of the village and glad that under the circumstances I only had one child to find sheets for and not two.
The next day the 4 year old arrived home from a birthday party. As she excitedly told us about the party and was about to tell us what she had eaten she was sick over the length and breadth of the two bottom stairs, her socks and my husband’s jeans. It was quite plain to see that she had in fact been eating Cheesy Wotsits and not much else. As he carried her to the downstairs loo she erupted again all over the carpet (more Cheesy Wotsits and a trace of Party Ring). My poor big little girl spent the rest of the night in the vicious circle of sipping water and then bringing it back up again. In order to save the bed linen which was still in various stages of washing machine/tumble dryer I made her lie on the sofa clutching a bowl until she fell asleep with her face in the bowl (she obviously understood the linen situation too).

I have discovered two things. Cleaning my children’s sick up is an automatic reflex. If it were anyone else’s I’d have had to wear a radiation suit and smear my nasal passages with Vicks VapoRub … and if you don’t remove all the lumps first they just come out of the washing machine clean and intact.

Oh, and I’m not sure … Is it wrong to bathe your children in antibacterial hand wash?

Fishfingers, Fireworks and Fate

We are driving home from teacher friend, mother of three’s fishfinger and firework extravaganza. The 4 year old is grumbling about having to leave the fun to go home to bed. The grumbling quickly escalates into a rant with tears and she is given a warning that if she continues she’ll lose a bedtime story. Low and behold … she continues.

“One bedtime story gone” I say.

She stops crying and with an air of injustice says “Mummy, if you are not nice to me I won’t be your child anymore” adding a huff on the end for effect.

I have never heard of social services intervention due to bedtime story withdrawal so I confidently deliver the news that we are stuck with each other forever.

Accepting her doom, she points at the 2 year old who, sensing the unrest has taken to his favourite pastime of raspberry blowing “Will he always be my brother?”

“Yes” I reply “We are stuck with him too”.