Mother's Day

From what I can gather I started this post about a year, possibly two years ago and I got no further than the title, that's just how I roll. So, given that that time is nearly here again, thought I might really get something down, as I seem to be on an actual roll in the way I roll...

This Sunday, as most of you know, is Mother's Day. Yet another day where Moon Pig and Clinton's and other such places are ringing in the bucks. So, what are we all actually looking for on a day like this? I am pretty sure, that I can confidently say, that my mother would have loved a card, probably even a phone call, she'd have hated, and I totally understand why, us to come around hassling her for attention. She had the right idea, we were brought up by nannies, then videos then boarding school and videos. Children weren't to be seen or heard as far as my parents were concerned and sometimes, just sometimes, I really do understand that practise. 

My two have been very secretive about what they have got planned for me, I know that for my "special day" they have been to the pottery shop with daddy and they haven't painted me a butterfly cup with wings for handles, nor do I know that they have got me a plate. The eldest hasn't made me a massive card and she didn't work on it today at "choosing time". How touched was I, when she told me that "today at choosing time Mummy I worked on your card, got to get it finished for Mother's day. " Out of all the things in the world she could have chosen, she chose to work on the card for me! I was so chuffed I actually stopped the car in a line of school traffic, turned round and told her that she was the greatest thing ever, her sister didn't agree so they ended up thumping  each other til they cried, but there was a moment and that's enough. 

It also happens to be my birthday this Friday, I am going to be 18 again, which is nice, because I actually really liked being 18, one of the best years of my life. Anyway, I also know what I am getting for my birthday, and that's great, as I am the sort of person who makes it her mission to sniff out surprises so that they aren't surprises. But I digress, Mother's day. 

I think for me, now, the perfect Mother's Day would be one where my children are bed ridden, they're always so much nicer / more manageable when they're ill. Firstly they sleep A LOT, secondly because they are asleep so much they actually want for very little and so are also very quiet, and those two things mean that I can do whatever the mood calls for. To begin with I'd sneak around guiltily keeping quiet so as not to disturb them, but then boredom would set in because you aren't actually free, you have to be at home to tend and nurture. I'd read home improvement and decorating magazines, I'd probably cook because I like eating, not because I'm a good mother. I'd try and throw all their toys away and all our stuff away because I really want to get to a semi minimalist state, where anything left is either essential and or VERY pretty. I'd probably have some lovely coffee and be about a stone lighter for the whole day so I could eat whatever the hell I liked and not put on a pound, then when the children did get up, we'd sit down together as a family and have some amazingly favourite supper. They'd sit still for all three courses and eat and say things that were thought provoking and lovely, then they'd clear away everything and I'd go to bed and watch The Best Marigold Hotel.  That's a Carling Mother's day.

Instead we're going to feel guilty about our mothers, mine because she's dead and my husbands because she's manning the world on the Isle of Wight as far as I can tell. The children will no doubt behave worse than they have ever done, or like normal, only I'll perceive it to be worse because I'll be expecting the Carling Mother's day. My husband and I shall eat loads and celebrate my birthday for the millionth time and Mother's Day simultaneously and whilst we're stuffing our fat little faces we'll wrestle the children to the ground, if needs be, to force food down them that they absolutely do not want because we'll have fois grased them with bits and pieces before. I'll probably have to set fire to (see Going Gangsta) most of the house and have bitched, niggered and hoed to very little avail. 9 milli beside me I'll have to down pints of gin and juice whilst ploughing through the bubonic which will inevitably lead to me spending the night with my head down the loo. It's just one of those days in the calendar that we're all thankful for.

I sincerely hope that all of you pass a relaxing and child easy day and that your mothers and their mothers are taken care of in a way that they truly deserve. Imagine where we'd be if there weren't any children, and therefore, if there weren't a Mother's Day, can you Adam and Eve it?

Going Gangsta

It, as usual, has been a while since I have sat down and done this, but I think something like this takes time to formulate, you can't just rush into these things and expect them to be taken seriously. Two people may, as my statistics show, actually have clicked on for a look at this before I had quite finished or indeed got beyond the title, you're keen, and I am sorry that I didn't get this to you earlier, but here we are.

In this New Year, I have grabbed the bull firmly by the horns and taken to moving swiftly and inelegantly round the countryside with the poor accepting dog. We are doing the C25K challenge and hopefully in another 6 weeks or so we'll be ready to tackle our first 10K run. Luckily, during this time my youngest is at nursery and my eldest is at school so I am not saddled with responsibility for those 20 minutes. During this time I have rediscovered the music from my youth, and that is how I got to the title and current reason for this blurb.

It would appear that the easiest way to "get rich or die trying" is absolutely by going Gangsta. The likes of Snoop and Dre, Eminem and to a greater or lesser degree the likes of Beenie Man, Bounty killer, Tanya Stephens etc, they seem to all be doing rather well and they all express things that I shall go on and try and help you all with too.

Everyone you meet, as far as I can tell, absolutely has to fall into three categories. They are either a nigger, a bitch or a ho. I think who you put in these categories is very much up to you, but can I suggest that good friends and family be put in the nigger category, teachers, other children's parents and village clergy be put in the bitch category and anyone else you happen to meet can like totally be a ho. For instance, when addressing your friends on the phone, just answer with a "my nigger!" and the rest of the conversation will flow naturally from that. Your children can be greeted at the school gates with an almighty holler of "lil niggers", don't be alarmed by the looks you get, they'll all be doing it soon. Parent teacher meetings will go far better when you sit yourself down, having walked with a limp to the desk, and hi five the teacher with a salutational "bitch" or "ho", you don't want to be over familiar in these situations, so for Christ sake work out which one it is before you use it or you'll come a cropper. In those situations you might need to reach for your 9 milli or brolly, depending on what you have to hand, it's not set in stone yet as we're at the very early stages of gangsta.

I realise that diletanteism has taken over and here I have only really covered salutations which might leave some of you confused. Apologies. So, for the sake of progression, I thought I'd also provide you with an example of the use of nigger, bitch and ho in a more general domestic situation. So here goes. You are in the kitchen with your children, possibly mashing potatoes for their tea, then parent brain strike and you can't remember then name for potatoes or masher / ricer (depending on how you do your potatoes). Simple, just aurally deploy "oi, lil niggers, please (no need to slip on manners!) can you pass me the bitch to mash the hos with!" simple, you don't even have to think, unless you forget the three words, in which case expletives will work just as well!

With greetings out the way, I think we can now turn to clearing up. Most children hate this past time, they'd far rather make a massive mess and ignore it, until someone else comes along and can ignore it no more so tidies it all away. This is where we are going wrong. The rastas have it on this one, you just "bunn it" or for those who aren't au fait with the lingo yet, it means burn it. Yes, if your children won't tidy away, just burn the mess, set fire to the lot of it, that way, it's no ones problem, it's gone and done and they'll probably never do it again. They won't be able to at first as all they'll have to play with is charred embers, but what doesn't kill you, and you must be very careful of this (not to kill your children), absolutely makes you stronger. Take 50 Cent for instance, he's been shot a few times, yeah he walks with a limp, but he's alright, that's the main thing. This can really go for anything. If your children won't get dressed, after you've burnt their toys, you'll only need to pull out box of Swan Vespas and they'll get the message. ANYTHING, eating, cleaning their teeth, making their beds, it's simple, just don't be caught without fire about your person.

Apparently, according to Snoop, and I think Gin and Juice has been the most influential in the concoction of this blogg, it's perfectly fine to be sipping on Gin and Juice throughout ones daily life. Doesn't matter if you don't like gin, there are other alcohols fo sho. It's important to know what the day ahead holds. For instance, if you are having to maintain like you are a responsible adult, i.e turning up to pick up your children from somewhere or drop them off, you don't want 99 problems and a bitch not being one of them, so you're probably better off choosing the Endo or bubonic chronic. You'll be less obviously out of your mind in any of the above situations and that is probably for the best, if you don't want the "mother fucking law" in your rear view mirror or anywhere else for that matter. Jay Z can help you with any of this.

Once you have all of this down, your children will become 100 times more manageable. They'll take on these character traits, and gansta themselves into adulthood, whereupon you won't have to worry about them any more, you'll be on South Beach in your wife beat watching other niggers, bitches and hos get rich or die trying, and so life will go on. Seems simpler already, doesn't it? 

Torture

Happy New Year to you. I sincerely hope that your Christmas and New Year passed with much tranquility, calm and serenity. That your children made you proud and you now realise that the good lord put you on this earth for one reason and one reason only, to be a beacon of parenthood as your offspring show the world just how it's done!

A New Year, a new you. This is the great thing about a new year, you can really draw a line under all the mistakes and ensuing hell of last year, reflect on the good things, resign yourself to excellence and trot forward, (with fanfare, or bagpipes, depending on preference) into an unsullied, shiny, hopeful new year. Which brings me to the title of this blog.

I like, very much, to see torture as a two way thing in our house. We are tortured relentlessly by the actions of our children and in return, once push has become shove, we torture back.

I know that most of you, by now, will have picked up a copy of the book I mentioned in my last nonsense, "How to Talk so They Listen and Listen so They Talk..." you'll have absorbed from front to back cover and now know how to create a well rounded, well conditioned human being. I know a friend of mines husband has his book very safe, very safe indeed, he doesn't want to lose it. It's a step, he has a copy and unlike The Bible, or Fifty Shades of... you can't find one in every room in every establishment in the world. Keeping it safe is an absolute must. As always, I digress.

You'll notice, that in the book, there is no reference to torture. I don't know why, I am writing it now and going to send it to them to see if they can fit it in somewhere, it's an absolute essential in my mind.

This holiday my family moved 3 times. We upped sticks, packed boxes and made our way into the unknown. We have settled now, have been in our house for a period of time that I can't quite remember and don't have the time to get my toes out to count, but it's about three weeks. My eldest daughter is now 5, I too am older, as most people are, but it makes no difference, I came to the very end of a fairly short and gnarly length of tether 3 days before the end of the school holidays and I took the Oracle, Holy Grail, font of Knowledge book and metaphorically, ripped it up, spat on it, stamped it into the ground, poured inflammable liquid over it and set fire to it in an instance. I, hands down, was one of the worst parents that have ever lived.

Both my eldest and my youngest had taken to acting like I had expired " please don't do that, could you manage to pick that up? Can you please help Mummy or Daddy with... That'll end in tears and other such platitudes were met with nothing, not even a tiny reaction. Table manners, etiquette and anything resembling non savagery had completely vanished. In its place was brattish, uncontrollable hideousness from a planet I had no care for or knowledge of. The children that we had sweated blood over had vanished and in their stead were gargoyles of Beelzebub from a place just outside Mordor. I cannot paint the scene vividly enough, because it makes me sweat just conjuring the images in my head.

So, what did I do, I set fire to the sacred rule book, lowered my voice to psycho bitch level and hurled the venom of a thousand hells at my children. Detail here isn't needed, I am ashamed and I know that I have scarred, certainly my eldest,for life. But it was the buffer that had been unrelentingly moved over and over again and I wasn't having it. I think for their sake, I needed to tell them that, BECAUSE they no longer listened to anything Mummy or Daddy said, they were going to live with someone else, someone who they would listen to, as I didn't want to spend the rest of my life having to shout at them to get them to turn their heads and at least look to be listening. I didn't give up, I didn't even feel cruel when the tears and panic came, once the realisation dawned that I meant business and they were off. This, was real life torture. Luckily their father came home and saved them from the jaws of their mother and the promise of another life away from home.

I am not proud of this, this was not my crowning moment as a pathetic example of a parent, but it seems to have done the trick, balance has been restored, listening ears are on a little bit more than off, routine has returned and I am keeping my copy of "How to Talk..." right next to the bed. I cannot condone this, but perhaps, just every now and then a shot across the bough is what they need, too much rope and they'll hang themselves, not on my watch. I love the little terrors, sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind, don't you?

 

How to Talk so They Listen and Listen so They Talk.

Having spent the last while ruminating on my parenting skills, it was made crystal clear to me the other night that I might be lacking a lot in terms of the moral compass, when I heard my youngest counting herself to sleep. Instead of opting for the traditional sheep or indeed any other childhood imaginings, she was counting "fucking hells", yep, as I was passing their room to cast an ear out on the pre-sleep chatter, thinking that bed time wasn't too bad, and that my children aren't as satanic as I'd previously thought, my ears picked up "one fucking hell, two fucking hell..." I looked at my husband and he looked at me and both our faces flashed fear and concern, but then, like any self respecting adult would do, we covered our faces, stifled massive guffaws and ran downstairs.

It's not just the younger on that makes us look and feel like absolute shams, the eldest plays her part too. At a recent party we went to, neither of them would sit down at the table and eat, neither of them would say please or thank you neither of them would stop shouting how they didn't like this or that until I was whisper shouting through gritted teeth whilst gripping their arms in psycho mode whilst other parents looked on and wondered why on earth I'd ever been blessed with functioning reproductive organs. It was just the last straw.

You're judging, I know you are, I'm judging, you can't help but judge. The panting Spaniels of the existent parent world swear too much in front of their children, so much so that it has found its own little niche in the "lullaby section" of bed time. Well done! Well, well done!

Having got over the initial hilarity, both my husband and me began to panic a little, but we soon rationalised it and normalised it and realised, not for the first time, that we really weren't up to the challenge of parenting and first thing in the morning we'd ABSOLUTELY call Barnardo's and make the problem theirs!

As fate would have it though, the next day in the post school playground a girlfriend of mine (also daughter's friend's mother) told us that she was reading a book, but not your average book, a book very much like The Holy Grail for parents of the book world. We stood and nodded and made her repeat the title at least a thousand times, committed it to memory, made our excuses and F1'd ourselves straight down to the nearest Waterstone's and simply bought ourselves a copy. You can do that, they don't keep it under lock and key, they don't question you and then hand the book over like " you really need this book, go straight to page 20 and that should sort you out, but just so you know, we have Social Services on speed dial, and we'll know if you don't read it..." With the shiny book under his arm, my husband came home and handed it to me, I devoured the first few pages, then came up to the bit where you have to ACTUALLY do exercises together. I coughed and awkwardly turned to husband read him the info and then tested him. He'd got it, far quicker than me, he replied with all the right things at the right time. Yet more humiliation for me who was reading it whilst thinking of what they'd have for tea tomorrow and how I was going to convince the eldest that wet uniform (that I'd forgot to wash that day) is very now and sooner or later everyone would be doing it. Eventually, I locked some stuff in, and so now all we have to do is apply the first exercise, it's easy. It absolutely works, you can level with your children and they level with you.

The problem comes with situation. That's the thing, you have to keep calm and deliver the lessons (when you remember them) in the same way, even if your child has taken to your curtains with scissors whilst bleaching the carpet. You have to be a deliverer of calm, which we all are of course. The good news is, How to Talk so Kids Will Listen & Listen so Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish actually makes you feel calmer, by virtue of the fact, that, if your parenting skills are anything like mine, you'll immediately see how virtually everything you've ever done with your children is irrelevant and by changing a few things your children might like and respect you again, it's worth a shot. 

Anyhoo, the point is, we can evolve and so can our children. we can get through this, it's not forever, we hope, and if a book can give you that little feeling of hope and have your children perhaps doing at least one thing you ask of them per day, it's got to be a goer, hasn't it?  

New School Parent Conduct

So, first four weeks of school done, we're there, it's now just a question of keeping her institutionalised, at something other than Her Majesty's pleasure, until the age of 18. How hard can it be?

We are keen, as parents, we were in the starting blocks about a month before the race was due to begin. Heads down, fingers steepled, feet pressed to the metal. First day arrived, the gun went off and my husband and I were off. Playground chatter before the bell was ludicrous, my mouth was moving far faster than my poor addled brain could cope with, utterances were non sensical, mothers clutched their children to them whilst steering them to the other side of the world. Husband ran round talking nonsense to the men folk. We are the panting, out of control, super excited Cocker Spaniels of the parent world.

Second day, naive teacher types sent our eldest home with paper containing dates and times of meetings and socials with requests for volunteers. My husband and I ripped the sheet from the bag, scrambled for the calendar and divvied up the duties right then and there. Any self respecting parent would have ignored the letter at least for the first month, just to keep a sensible grip of their self respect. Not us, third day of term and my husband was knee deep in women, at the school's fund raising brain storming meeting, as a result he's researching a school bus and taking up architecture to design a suitable school swimming pool, good luck to him. I'm baking anything I can find just on the off chance we might have a visitor from the school. We're very busy!

We had our home visit, having the queen round would probably have been easier. Curtains were ironed, floors were ship shape and Bristol fashion. The dog was made to practise please and thank you as we ran around in a flurry of tidiness and cleanliness very, very much as close to godliness as is humanly possible in this realm. When the teacher and the teaching assistant arrived both me and my husband ran to our "natural" positions which meant neither of us opened the door, eldest child did the honours and ushered both teachers and dogs into the kitchen where insane mother was stirring nothing on the Aga and cool, calm, collected father was making coffee and tea simultaneously. Eldest child sat at kitchen table with teacher and did numbers and letters and parents and teaching assistant sat uncomfortably on the over plumped sofa cushions, trying hard not to spill coffee and or tea on anything whilst listening to the dog try and say please and thank you. A more natural scene you could not have conjured from anywhere. As parents, we made hobbits look run of the mill.

My husband and I have also signed ourselves up to to the "Fun run". There is no fun in run as far as I can see, but I'll be there with my sweat band round my head and leg warmers just above very nearly new trainers, punching the air at the start, without question of  a doubt. I'll probably collapse after about two paces, but it's not the winning, as we tell our girls, it's the taking part. Who cares if you lose all the respect of your peers in the process, you can always win them round in the playground with gabbled words of  absolutely no consequence to anyone whatsoever?

We had our harvest festival concert, to which I rocked up (unknowingly) cool as a cucumber, 10 minutes late. Was then informed that I was in the wrong place, couldn't find the right place so missed out and husband was left to Spaniel pant on his own. He wins brownie points though because he also signed himself up to cook at the "Back to School BBQ", where I wandered around spilling wine over people whilst trying to look thought provoking and nice, sociability does not come easy to me, but my husband manned the BBQ, so there's got to be something in that.

All in all, I am glad that my daughter is only four, because she'll probably not remember the complete incompetent retardedness of her mother. She'll be glad her parents (at least half of them anyway) showed up. She'll take the life lesson that Spaniel is better than Chihuahua, isn't it?

Play Dates...

I had no idea, until my eldest was about 15 months, that there was an actual name for children going round to each others houses, causing mess and mayhem for a couple of hours and then leaving. This title still fills me with horror as it makes me feel that something grand should be happening. The "play" I can compartmentalise and justify, that is what children do, but the date... Makes me feel like children should have spent in excess of 6 hours deciding on what they are going to wear, got their hair and make up just so, then put their selected outfit on and realised that something had to go, either the hair or the make up. That's just the child. Then I get to thinking that I am up against Excellent Parents (see Excellent Parents / Existent Parents) , in a world where competitive parenting holds fast. Existent parenting in this instance simply will not stand.

Of course we have real life friends who have real life children, and then it's just a question of having people over with their children and monitoring the bun fight that ensues, occasionally throwing a niblett of something in when they get bored and want another thing to massacre. This is not a play date, oh no, no, this is having friends over with their children.

A play date requires one parent stepping out of their comfort zone to let the other party know that they are keen for their children to interact with the other parties children out of school hours. Essentially you are putting the feeler out for "proper friends". It sounds mental, but it goes against everything we Brits stand for.

Organisation of the first play date is a mine field. You have to gather information from your children as to which child exactly they are talking about, then you have to cast your eye over them to see if you think you are going to be able to keep this child from being eaten or from desecrating your family home. Once you have assessed said unsuspecting child you then have to come up with a way of contacting the parents without plaguing their existence and seeming like you or your children inhabit only a friendless world. Approach the teachers, that's right, ask them if "Blah blah" might like to have a play date with your child, while they scrutinise you and check you for any outward visible signs of paedophilia, they'll provide you with some means of contacting "Mr and Mrs Blah Blah" and you're away. Just this bit is a triumph, you've got the key to the play date, but now, you have to use it.

My favoured medium, as the world's most socially awkward parent, is the text. the humble text allows you to be frank, short and not have to use the voice. But then you have to think about what to write, how to phrase this master piece so that it unlocks the gate that holds "Blah Blah". "I've seen your child at school, she looks really nice and seems to like my daughter, can she come and play?" doesn't quite cut it.  "hello it's Mrs Friendless, mother to child with no friends, your child looks like friend material, does she want to come round?" is a little off putting. The phone is in my hands, the screen is empty, the cogs are turning, quick, simple and good. Don't give too much away, sound pleasant and normal, minimal words maximum impact "hello, does Blah Blah want to come over?" That won't work, they won't know who I am, or where and when they're going. This is hell, go with "hello (mother of Blah Blah) it's me, my child's mother. we wondered if Blah blah would like to come for tea and a play on X at Xpm?" It's gone, there's nothing you can do.

Waiting is hell, you want so much for your children to have this sodding play date that you cover every scenario before collecting the unsuspecting kinders from nursery / school and then you've forgotten. The phone goes pling and it all comes back, they're going to be busy, and the fact that you clearly aren't, as you've suggested the date, means you really are the friendless wonder you think and they think you are.  "yes that'd be lovely, shall I drop her round at 4?" "yes, 4 would be lovely!" You don't mean it, you're in a tail spin already, what will we wear? What will we do? What will they eat? How will the house ever be tidy in two weeks? I then spend the next couple of days thinking of excuses about how to back out.

Surprisingly, we're still waiting for my youngest to have a play date. She's just gone back to nursery and she can't make up her mind who she wants round, they don't know at 3, or do they?

Back to School...

It will certainly not have gone unnoticed, by any of you who've had your children hanging around your feet for this interminable "summer", that we are getting closer and closer to that precious Back to school time, or as it has become to be know in my house, "thank F*********k for that"!

Some of you might well still have your angels demanding every second of your attention, draining your bank balance on stuff to keep them entertained as well as little extras on top of that to get them to co-operate. The time has come, or it is very soon to be here (assuming you have kids, that is), when you too shall be doing the running man as you see the back of your child's head as it is swallowed up by the school gates, and then moon walking to the car as you realise that life, as you know it, has started again.

Shoes. This seems to send most into a spin, probably one of the main reasons for the economic collapse as you have to remortgage to get the whole kit and kaboodle. We went  three or four shoe shops which in itself was enough to push you over the edge. Most of them, apart from the last shop, were rammed with parents and children all searching for the right shoe that will last, look nice, be loved enough by the child so that they'll want to wear them every day, and not cost in excess of a million pounds. Sadly, we had to run the gauntlet on this one with two children in tow. The youngest had taken on a new persona of bad jelly, a child that couldn't stand up straight, let alone walk, so we had to keep fighting her to get her scooter from A to A and a half. She became an eel whenever picked up, that move, perfected by children at their very worst, that leaves you clutching nothing but a fibre of clothing and thin air whilst your child writhes around on the floor letting the world know that your incompetence as a parent knows no bounds. Luckily, once we reached the golden sanctuary of the first shoe shop, both children were charged with an unbridled energy that left the rest of the shop agog at the relentless bad behaviour. Eventually after about 40 days and 40 nights a frayed looking elfin creature in lovely nude heels came over to us and quietly asked if we'd like some new children and a rest? I duly obliged, thrust my eldest towards her and she returned with one pair of shoes that would fit my long limbed elfin child. None of the shoes that she'd selected from the shelves to hurl at her sister were included in the offering and the shoe fitted badly anyway. Hooray, we were off to the next shop. The story was similar, other children and mothers moved in waves around the holy grail of school shoes and pandemonium ensued. By the fourth shop I had no life left, we climbed the stairs on our knees, using elbows as grapling hooks and at the top found the floor empty, not anything in sight, not even an unsuspecting frazzled shoe engineer. I now know why, we found the holy sacred shoes and they were about eight times the price of anywhere else where the shoes were limited and didn't fit. Did we care? Did we buggery, the shoes were snatched out of the ladies hands, money was thrown agressively onto a counter and I ran like the wind from the shop leaving a blazing trail behind me. Job done.

Uniform was slightly simpler, there are only a couple of items that we had to purloin from a specific place, everything else we found from various other high street outlets. Weirdly, it wasn't free, but after shoe-gate I realised that throwing money at a situation usually works well, theft is a little trickier.   

Once we had our treasured swag, we commandoed to the car, then home, where the treasure was laid out for all to see for a few days. People would come round and be marched straight up to the uniform and made to critically appreciate it, on paper, before they'd even drawn breath. "Look at that" we'd say, arms folded, like pirates who'd captured all the booty from the Armada, "that's our daughter's uniform, she's going to BIG SCHOOL next week!" The poor people of the world, shrinking away from the agressive, gloating psychos, would nod, put their pens and papers down and agree that this was probably the best thing for our eldest as we really shouldn't be in charge of anything, perhaps even not ourselves! It mattered not, we'd got uniform and shoe, a week and a half before the start of term.

Once the uniform was complete, life was normal again, that was except for the name tag sirens that lived within the uniform. They called at me for a week before I sat down with a rancid, shaky hangover to saddle the name tapes to the items with needle and thread. Then I found a marker pen and life was very different. That was it, it was complete, we just needed to get through the weekend and we'd be there.

The eldest started school yesterday for the first time. Uniformed pressed and fresh, shoes are shiny and new and her new school emblem is printed in bright white on the breast of her jumper. The effect is enough to melt even the coldest cockles. I was break dancing like a bad ass when I thought about it. I was also very, very, very concerned that I was depositing her into a system that I don't think I am 100% happy about. This is it now for 14 years... I don't think I did anything continuously for 14 years, the very idea makes me want to fall down and beat the floor with clenched fists. How the hell did we arrive here?

Regardless, we have done it! My eldest small has made her way into the world of rules, regulations, education, teachers and people who spend the entire day telling you what you should and shouldn't do. Things shall never be impromptu, but fall into the lap of weekends, half terms and school holidays. I am so proud of her for getting here but perhaps, just maybe we could do with a couple more years without this, could we?