Staying home with a poorly child

This week, four out of five of my family have had a horrid fluey, achey, coldy, coughy bug. That's everyone except me. They had it in succession, like dominoes.

What is a normal expectation of an employer, regarding a parent with an ill child? It seems to me that it's such a grey area. I looked in our staff handbook, and it was a little vague, talking about responsibilities for dependants, and if time off was needed, to please try and give as much notice as possible. Yeah, right. Like flu bugs come along on a schedule.

I just don't know what is reasonable to expect these days. Is it standard practice, would you say, that a parent can phone up in the morning and take a day's sick leave to look after an ill child, as if they were ill themselves? Is it standard practice that they can phone up the next day and take another day? How many days in a row would be accepted without raised eyebrows?

I feel I'm pretty conscientious. As it turned out, I needed only to be at home for two days. I split one of the days with Husband, working in the morning and coming home at lunchtime. The other day, I went in first thing and picked up work I could do at home. It just so happened that one of the days I was off was a particularly bad day to be off. But these things happen, and I feel I really tried my best. I was in the workplace as much as I reasonably could be, and I made good use of the time when I had to be at home (actually, I would say I was more efficient than usual, but the whole working-at-home debate is for another day). I have been left, however, with indications that I was at the limit of what was acceptable.

I clearly need to talk about this with my manager, and I do have my annual review next week, which is a good forum because we can talk about the policy and practice, rather than one specific incident. The culture of the organisation isn't particularly family-friendly, but I hadn't been aware of quite how family-unfriendly it is. I've just been lucky that we've had a pretty healthy time since I've been in the job, and when a child has been ill, either Husband has been able to stay at home, or the child has been old enough and well enough to stay on their own with frequent texts to make sure that they are ok. (I didn't like doing that, but I guess I picked up the culture fairly quickly and realised that I had to save my credits for when I really needed them.)

I would like the process to work on trust. As I say, I feel I went out of my way to continue as best I could. However, I sense that I might be coming from a very different angle to my manager, and that's why I would like a few opinions on what is standard practice these days. Or does it vary hugely? I'm interested to know.

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A small thing that annoys me

Here is a small thing that annoys me.

When I collect my youngest child from school (the older two are self-transporting), I wait in the school reception area, with many other parents. The children come down the hallway, and are often heavy-laden with the gear of school life: backpacks, violins, sports bags, swimming bags, coat or sweater trailing on the floor. The child deposits an item or two, or sometimes all of them, at the feet of the parent. The parent picks up the luggage, and they set off towards the car together.

Parents, please do not do this. It really annoys me. Quite apart from that, it is a practice that encourages your child to see you as a porter, or servant, or some invisible life-facilitating entity. Your child is not a toddler, when picking up after them is a more reasonable task. They have carried their stuff around quite adequately all day, without you doing so on their behalf.

I understand that they are weighed down with it all, and you have two free hands. Helping out is sensible. So what I suggest is this. Either teach them to ask "Mummy/Daddy, could I ask you to help me carry my bag?" and to wait for your reply, before dumping the bag in front of you. Or say to them "Would you like me to help you with all that stuff?" and wait for them to reply (using the word please or thank you), before unloading some of it from them.

I try not to be a preachy parent, because we're none of us perfect, and you never know who is reading your blog, but well, this one annoys me. We signed up to be parents, not pack horses.

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Infants vs Teens

When my children were infants, one thing I used to hate was when parents of teenagers said things like "Make the most of these baby years... This is the easy bit... Just you wait till they're teenagers... At least when they're this little, you don't have to worry about where they are". I vowed I would never say that to anyone. And I haven't. But I'm allowed to blog about it, right?

Infants vs Teens

• Sleepless nights:  Yes. When they're babies you lose out on sleep through the night. But you have EVENINGS. When they're teens, kiss goodbye to the sofa, the tv, space to yourself, time to yourself in the evenings. This is all-day parenting. 
• Size:  That baby that dominates your life, it fits into the crook of your elbow. Your teenagers don't. They take up whole sofas (is that the second time I've mentioned sofas already?), you wake up in the night because they bash the bedroom wall the other side of yours when they turn over, you will bump into them in doorways, they can hardly fit into the back seat of your car, they sprawl on the floor so that there is no floor left.
• Food:  Baby-led weaning? Mushed up veggies? Organic or non-organic? Home-made or shop-bought? These, my baby-parenting friends, are little tiny questions (though, yes, I know they don't feel so at the time). Feeding teens is LARGE. VERY LARGE.  You buy a packet of cereal, and it's gone the next day. That advert that implied that no-one, not even Ian Botham, could eat THREE Shredded Wheat was for wimps. Your teens will get through packets of Shredded Wheat like there's no tomorrow in the wheat world.
• Laundry:  Gorgeous, teeny-weeny sleepsuits to hang out on the washing line. Breaks your heart each time. These have become huge trackie bottoms that take a week-end to dry, and socks that smell of last year's camembert and which you have to peel off the sitting room floor or hunt down in rancid corners.
• Expectations:  Yes, your baby cries, and poos, and spends hours breast-feeding, and needs you. But you knew all that. Your teenager will be hopeless at washing up, be grumpy, make you feel small, and still needs you. But somehow, you expected it would be different by now.
• Support:  You've joined the NCT, the "New Mums' Group", you've found friends at Baby Massage Class, and a couple of years later at "Mums and Toddlers". You have appointments, at which your baby's weight and height and milestones are written in a little red book. You have Health Visitors, who are more strictly speaking, Health Visiteds (don't you usually have to go to them, rather than host them at your house?). With teens, there is no support group. You can have a whinge with a friend with similar aged off-spring over a coffee, but that's about as good as it gets.
• Your body:  Your pregnancy tummy will shrink, and though there may be some stretch marks, you think of the awesome strength of that body of yours that grew a baby and pushed it out. When you have teens, your stretch marks will seem like the least of your bodily failings. Most of it is heading south, and, unlike migrating birds, will never head north again.
• Expense:   Yes, that cot was an outlay, and the stroller, and the Moses basket, and all that other stuff. But you had bagfulls of pass-on clothes, didn't you? And the local "Swim Babes" or "Monkey Music" cost a couple of pounds a week. With a teenager you have no pass-ons because they're in adult sizes, and the equipment they want is sports gear, and Sky TV, and an Xbox game. You'll also need to fork out for visits to the cinema, a Duke of Edinburgh expedition, or a trip to a far-flung university for an open day. When you eat out as a family, there's no more "kidz meal only £3.95!". Oh no. You're paying full adult whack for everyone.
• TV:  Bob the Builder, Postman Pat, Tweenies. Yes, they were limited in scope, and you had to watch the same episode over and over. But do you really prefer Liverpool vs Man City? And having to look interested for 90 minutes? And being tested on it afterwards? Come back, Bob, all is forgiven, (and did you ever get together with Wendy, by the way?)
• Public support:  You're bleary-eyed, you're fed up, you're grumpy, but when you go shopping, someone always stops you in the supermarket, engages with your gorgeous baby, and tells you how lovely she/he is. When they're teenagers, you're bleary-eyed, you're fed up, you're grumpy, but when was the last time someone stopped you in public, reminisced about their own experience, and said "Make sure you enjoy every moment of these teenage years; they fly by so quickly"?
• Internet:  You can blog about your baby to your heart's content. She/he can't read, or use a mouse. But if you blog about your teenager...  Let's just say that this post isn't going to be up here for long.

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Some things I haven't learnt

We're getting used to a new situation in our family. I have a job. I have four weeks holiday a year. My workplace operates a flexi-time system, so I can build up time to take off and extend those holidays, and I'm only part-time* so a week at work is only three days, but even so, my holidays are never going to match the children's school holidays. Luckily, Husband has school holidays which match the children's, and so we're never having to struggle for childcare. But it's a new routine, and it's taking a bit of time to get used to. This week, Husband has taken the children to see his parents for three nights, while I've stayed at home for a working week.

I've really been looking forward to this time. I've imagined myself going to the supermarket, buying a ready meal as a treat, or an interesting salad in a box. (No family dinner to cook!) I've thought of watching films - maybe even TWO in the same evening. (No screen-time negotiation, no boys to oust from live football or recorded Dr Who!) I've pictured myself luxuriating in long, hot baths. (No daughter's reading to listen to and diary to sign off!)  Ha! The house to myself!

It hasn't turned out like that at all. I haven't bought ready meals. I've cooked myself frighteningly healthy suppers (baked sweet potato and spinach tonight), congratulated myself, and then picked all evening at not-so-healthy snacks, including dark chocolate, which - it turns out - doesn't taste so nice unless you share it with a Husband. And it's taken me ten pieces (TEN!) to arrive at that conclusion.

I didn't watch a film. I put Girl with a Pearl Earring in the dvd player, but couldn't quite be bothered, and ended up channel-hopping rubbish tv instead, as I hung the laundry on the rack.

I haven't had a relaxing bath. I've pottered about the internet, ordering school name tapes, vaguely thinking about our summer holiday, and now I'm blogging. Even the dog is restless - does he pick it up from me?

This is something I haven't yet learnt. I remember leaving my first baby with my mother, and going off for what would now be called "me time", but in those days was called " a break". Just a couple of hours. I ended up in a department store, looking at baby clothes. I remember going to a wedding, leaving a toddler with my husband, planning the day to the nearest minute, and catching a train at some unearthly hour to get from Buckinghamshire to Yorkshire and back in the day. I sat and watched a mother with a baby on her lap in the train, and - though I was looking forward to the treat of a long train journey and reading a book - I chatted to her instead.

It's not that I never switch off from being a mother. There are times when I can really enjoy my own company, and do things that are self-indulgent and glorious. But I haven't learnt that it doesn't always come to demand.


* Why do I say that? Why have I gone from being "just" a stay at home mother to "only" part-time?

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Aaaaaarrrrggghhh

Promise me there's light at the end of this mother-of-teenagers tunnel...

Is there?

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How do you teach your child to talk to adults? It might depend on which side of the Atlantic you live.

There was a blog post that I wrote several years ago. I think I just wrote it in my head and never got it out onto my blog. I'd forgotten about it, but I've just been reminded of it at a parents' evening at school.

I wrote that post in the early days of my blog, when it was all about our experiences of newly arriving in America, spotting the differences, picking them up and analysing them, turning them this way and that way in words, trying to make best sense of them, enjoying some of them, lamenting others. While they were still differences.

That post was about a difference in the way that adults expect children to relate to them. It struck me that in America, children are drawn into a conversation with an adult in a more genuine way. I think in the UK, when two parents meet with children in tow, they will start by questioning the children, but it's usually fairly cursory, and everyone expects the conversation to move quickly on to the point where just the parents are engaging, and the children are standing listening. I know we've come a long way since the days when children were expected to be seen and not heard, but even so, when was the last time you asked a child not your own "How was your week-end?" and expected them to say anything other than "Good, thank you"? You don't really expect the child (and we're talking quite young children here, primary school age) to give you more than perhaps one fact about the week-end. You might have a quick dialogue about a trip or an event, but that would be all. You certainly don't expect them to reply "Good, thank you, and how was yours?"

That's the nub of it. This side of the Atlantic, children are questioned, and they reply. We don't then expect them to do the questioning. That's an adult role.

That was the thing I noticed when we first arrived in America. I would say "How are you?" to a child, and they would say it right back. And then sometimes, they'd even ask more questions.

"How are you, Little Johnny?"

"I'm good, and how are you, Mrs Manhattan?"

(Hiding surprise) "I'm good too, thanks."

"How was your week-end?"

(Consciously having to lower eyebrows) "It was fine thanks."

"Did you do anything nice?"

(Whoa...) "Um, well, I took the car to the service centre, and I did a bit of shopping. Otherwise we were just hanging out really. What about you?" (Let's get back to ME asking the questions here).

I wondered if it reflected an underlying difference in attitude. Do we Brits see children as children, whereas the Americans see them as little adults? I think that's probably taking it too far, but perhaps we Brits do have a child-speak, a way of conversing with children, that is fundamentally to do with us doing the talking, and them doing the polite replies. I was struck by the confidence with which a school child would be asking me about myself. Sometimes it came across as bumptiousness, and definitely at first it felt like a pleasantry too far! I'd be anticipating that the mother would laughingly interrupt the conversation, and steer it back to herself and me, but they didn't seem to. They let the child chatter on. Then I came to enjoy it. Why on earth shouldn't an individual converse on an equal footing, just because they are a different age to you? So long as it's respectfully done.

As I mentioned, this all came flooding back to me at a parents' evening. I was talking to 16-yo's tutor, and she said that one thing she really liked about him was that he would talk to her as if she was a person too. "Most of the pupils", she said, "will just answer your questions, but 16-yo will ask me how I am, and he'll ask as if he really means it, and wants to know."

"That's what living in America does for your children", I replied. Inwardly I smiled, at the thought of those small primary children, out there on the Great Plains, who taught me and my son that it's ok for children to converse too.

Meanwhile, these cartoons aren't completely relevant, but they did make me laugh while I was googling "cartoon about kids' conversation".

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Finding my new normal - Part III

One of the things that you become aware of when you become a parent, is how very much your idea of "normal" stems from your childhood.

We think we're going to fathom out how to be parents on an intellectual plane (plane as in level, not as in aeroplane, though I do quite like the idea of working things out while travelling on an intellectual aeroplane). Then we have a baby, and we are taken by surprise by how very much our gut feelings take over, and how much those gut feelings are the instincts that we inherited from our own mothers, fathers and forebears (no, not four bears, forebears). That phrase you hear yourself shouting after your disobedient toddler... where did that come from? You sounded just like your mum! Your Christmas traditions are, well, just the way Christmas IS. Other families' Christmas traditions are other families' Christmas traditions. They're not proper Christmas, somehow. Your own rules for playing childhood games are THE rules (like if you don't say "thank you" when someone hands you a card in 'Happy Families', you have to give the card back). You might agree to play with other rules, but deep down, you know they're not the real rules. (I know of someone... not a million miles away from here... who turned up at university thinking that the person who was losing at the end of each round of croquet, had an extra go, though she had at least worked out that it wasn't necessarily the youngest who got to choose their colour of ball first.)

My parents both love classical music. When I was a child, I thought that children listened to Radio 1, and adults listened to Radio 3. I thought that was the way the world was. I assumed that as you grew up, you developed a taste for classical music, just as you developed a taste for alcohol and olives, and learned to drive a car. I remember going to a friend's house, and hearing the radio, and it was voices. Not music. Voices! People talking. Imagine that. Very odd. I was puzzled. I asked my friend what her mother was listening to, and she said she didn't really know. I probed. What are the people talking about? She didn't know. I went home perplexed. Didn't all grown-ups listen to classical music on the radio? Why would a bone fide grown up be listening to voices on the radio?

I think that the world has loosened up a little. I don't think this feeling of normalcy will be quite the same phenomenon in our children's lives as it was in ours. There isn't the same sense of there being one proper way of doing things. Homes are much more varied. Children mix much more with children of other ethnicities, religions, backgrounds. But even so. It will still be there.

I want my children to question the way Husband and I do things, the beliefs we hold, the attitudes from which we operate. It's part of maturing, it's inevitable, and it's healthy. But I also know that at the ground level of their psyches, certainly for some while yet, they think that our family is the norm, the way things are, the way things rightly are. It's an awesome responsibility. But as I've decided (see my previous post) that there is no normal, then it's probably all ok.
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Regurgition

OK, so I realise that last post was a bit obscure, but I don't know how much medical detail you want. In a nutshell, I'm on Tamoxifen, which gobbles up the oestrogen in my body which might otherwise go and feed any sneaky lingering cancer cells. Yay, Tamoxifen. Great job. I sometimes visualise it whizzing around my bloodsteam and lymphatic system, looking for little particles of oestrogen, and snatching them away from under the nose of a sole mutant cancer cell. But one of the side effects of Tamoxifen is that it causes the lining of the uterus to thicken. Not so yay, because that raises your percentage chance of developing endometrial cancer. Not by very much. But a little. So that's why, if you're on Tamoxifen, they like to go scanning and poking around to make sure your misbehaving old uterus isn't harbouring anything that shouldn't be growing there.

When you've been through cancer, you have no "it's probably nothing" hidey-hole. Because you know it probably isn't anything, but it might be. So you have to find new ways of dealing with daily life, while waiting for the next event (investigative procedure in Feb, and 3-4 week wait for results, since you asked).

Sometimes I feel I'm not very good at life. Do you ever feel that? That's not a very helpful way of looking at it, is it? I mean, it's not a competition, or an exam. You can't take a course in "Life: how to deal with its ups and downs" and then get an A or a B. There's not a correct way of going through these kinds of things, is there? There's not a correct way of going through anything, come to think of it.

I used to find it helped to write, so, well, I guess I'll do some of that.

This is what my morning was like. At breakfast, we told the boys that they were going to have to pay for the Xbox Live payment of $99.99 that has been automatically deducted from our credit card. No doubt, at some point in the past, we had a conversation about "if you sign up for this, you have to make absolutely sure that it's not a recurring payment" etc etc, but of course that conversation is long forgotten. They weren't too impressed with our assertion that this is an excellent life lesson for them, that adult life is FULL of having to negotiate your way through systems that you sign up for, that bleed you at any opportunity, and that learning the consequences painfully now will prepare them well for the future. I have a nasty feeling that Husband bestowed the following wisdom on one of them: "This is what life is like; suck it up, kid".

Somehow, the Xbox Live payment conversation segued seamlessly into a voluble expression of my dissatisfaction with the state of their bedroom floors. It seemed logical to me at the time.

12-yo had to be in formal wear (love that kilt), because it's the Burns Supper tonight. This involved a lot of running around, ending in me saying something along the lines of "I've just remembered that last time you wore formal wear, we agreed we'd look it all out the night before, and get up 10 minutes earlier". Great moment to recall that particular jewel of wisdom.

And that is why I HATE the whole cancer journey. Actually, it's the second reason I hate the whole cancer journey. The first reason is that everyone refers to it as a journey, which is a horrible cliche. The second is that it spills over into the whole of life, so that even if you do what you practised with your nice therapist, over months, and acknowledge the anxiety and nervousness and all the other emotions that you're feeling, they still spill over into your everyday life, and you end up giving one of your children a really hard time about a missing kilt pin.

As I was walking the two younger ones to school, I announced that we'd all had a bad morning, and that therefore, I was declaring that today, 24th January, is officially National Rubbish Day. (Except I think I used the word Cr*p.) Every year, we will celebrate National Rubbish Day (Cr*p Day). 12-yo was horrified. "It might be someone's birthday. It must be someone's birthday. That's not very nice for them." I pointed out that our wedding anniversary, 27th January, has become Holocaust Memorial Day, and that's not very nice for us. Life isn't fair. (I may have used that "suck it up" phrase again.)

Which reminds me, it IS our anniversary on Sunday, and I've booked cinema tickets on Saturday night to go and see Les Miserables. Not only is it meant to be a very good film, but I thought it would give me a good opportunity to have a cathartic cry in a dark place. I'll be the one saying on the way out "Poverty? Starvation? Revolution? Imprisonment? Betrayal? Death? I can't believe they made such a fuss about it. I mean, this week, I've been dealing with a LOST KILT PIN."

I'm going to stop writing now.

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I think this is funny

Lazy blogging, isn't it, sharing a random Youtube video. But I do think this is funny. It's like Marmite - you'll either love it and roar with laughter, or hate it and cringe horribly. Leave a comment and tell me which.

It reminds me of those clever Aardman Animations Creature Comforts. Remember those?

If you do love it, there are more to watch. I recommend the one set in a bank, which helps explain why we're in such an economic mess.



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Birthdays

I love celebrating the children's birthdays, but this next one, 11-yo turning 12, is proving a bit of a hair in the gate. He and I have birthdays four days apart, and in America, they fell around Thanksgiving. We developed the tradition of a wonderful family time, taking the kids out of school for three days to turn the long week-end into a week, and heading off to Colorado. Late November in Colorado can be sunny and mild, or snowy and cold. It can be autumn or winter. I loved the element of surprise. We returned to favourite haunts, and did favourite things. We found snow, by heading high, and had a morning's sledding. We had a hike to a waterfall. We spent time in a cafe, drinking hot chocolate and playing cards. It was a much-anticipated week in a place special to the family. I even loved the journey, 10 hours' drive, along roads that had become familiar over the years.

11-yo has always done well for his birthday, because I've never wanted him to feel it's overshadowed by Christmas. Going to Colorado included a family celebration, and then he always had an event with friends too when we got back, whatever floated a young boy's boat. This year, back in Scotland, I was stuck. He was too. When we first discussed it, there were tears. He was suddenly overwhelmed with thoughts of friends back in the US, the memory of the huge party he had a couple of  years ago joint with his best friend whose birthday is around the same time, and assertions that he doesn't have any friends here who he would want to invite. I left the subject for a few days. At the next discussion, he claimed that everyone in his entire class has already seen Skyfall, and no-one would want to see it again. No other idea was right either. Nobody would want to do anything.

This morning, as we walked to school, I found I was explaining and re-explaining why there had to be a limit of 3, on the number of friends we'd take to the cinema, and that if he really wanted to include a whole bunch of boys, we could have them round for a video and pizza instead. Phew. Given the choice of being faced with a child's anguish ("I don't have any friends") or a child's anger ("But WHY can't I invite 4 for the cinema?"), I'd willingly take the second, exhausting though it can be.

I thought we were unstuck on the birthday front, and it felt good. Until 8-yo piped up

"For my birthday, we'll be going back to America, won't we?"

I knew I had to nip that expectation in the bud, and told her that no, that wouldn't be possible.

"But it's ok, because it'll be half term," she countered.

Sometimes moving continents is a real bummer.

Dilemma

My two youngest have lovely soft blankets on their beds. Baby soft, furry, snuggly, blankets, with satin-feel borders. One in pink, the other in blue. They love them. Originally, the beds were made up with a sheet, and the blanket on top, but they prefer to sleep directly under their much-loved blankets. They just love the softness, the furriness, against their skins. The sheet has been eschewed (I love that word). If it’s cold, they will have a duvet, but over the top of the blanket, not instead of it. They sometimes bring the blankets downstairs, to snuggle under while watching television, and then they take them back up at bedtime, and wrap up like caterpillars on their beds, (and of course they drag the blankets along the floor, gathering dust and fluff as they go).

I’m happy that they associate bedtime with comfort and snuggliness. I do wonder, though, if it matters, having a bedding situation that is different to everyone else’s. It didn’t bother me in America, because I never worked out what was normal bedding. What’s a comforter? Is it a duvet, or a bedspread? Then what about a quilt? Do you put that on top of a comforter, or use it instead of one? And I decided early on that I wasn’t going to mess with the variety of pillows, of which you seem to require a huge number per bed, including a couple of “shams”, whatever those are. But now we’re back in the UK, I feel a need to opt into normalcy (disappointing of me, I know). What do you think? Is there a “normal” when it comes to bedding? Does it matter? Time for a survey, I think. Cast your vote. It's over on the right hand sidebar.

The cat is out of the bag: Part ll

When we were first thinking of getting a dog, I filled in a questionnaire on a website to help pick a breed. Did I want a big dog? Did I want dog that didn't moult? Did I have a garden? That kind of thing. I eagerly waited while it loaded the results... "We're sorry. We have no suggestions for a breed that suits your requirements." Hm. Well, I had been a little idealistic. I wanted a dog that was good with children, strangers, other dogs, didn't moult at all, wouldn't need too much exercise, wouldn't mind being left alone, wouldn't slobber, would be easy to train, probably would be prepared to stand for Parliament too. I tried again, tempering my answers with realism. It came up with one suggestion: the Mexican Hairless (which looks somewhat like a rat, in my opinion). I clearly needed to loosen up on the "no moulting" issue.

I've moved in my thinking since that questionnaire. I'm torn, though. I have two requirements that pull in opposite directions. I want a dog I can train. I'm prepared to put in the time and effort, and learn how to do it properly. I want a dog who's obedient, reliable, and who will come when called (crucial if you're living on a boarding school campus, don't you think?). I'm thinking Labrador, in spite of it being such a cliche. But I also want a small dog, because our house isn't huge. I grew up with Border Terriers, so I'm comfortable with them, and I also like the idea of a Scottie or a Westie. Because I realise I can't have a terrier-sized Labrador, or an obedient Terrier, I've started thinking about a middle option, but nothing seems just right. What I'm really hoping, though, is that we won't find a dog, but that the dog will find us. I'm hoping our paths will just cross. Perhaps when we move to Edinburgh, someone will know someone who has a bitch who's just whelped, and that we will get a puppy on the basis of the known loveliness of the mother.

I'm rather prejudiced against rescue dogs, though I know they can be a big success, (so no offence intended to those of you with rescue dogs). First, we want a puppy, and those are rare in rescue centres. Second, I witnessed a sad story involving a rescue dog that seemed fine, but wasn't, and it put me off the idea.

As for names, currently we're on Bracken for a bitch, and Hector or Mungo for a dog. The dog names are from Hector's House, and Mary, Mungo and Midge. Thank heavens for Youtube, with which we've been able to educate our children on those favourites from our childhood past. Remember Hector? He really was a very splendid dog. I'll include a little snippet at the end of this post for you. You'll enjoy having your memory cells tickled with the theme tune.

Our favourite name, but one we will never be able to use, is Headmaster. Husband told us that in a boarding school, the Principal is usually addressed as "Headmaster". It occurred to me that if we named our dog Headmaster, that would give rise to endless opportunities for mirth. "Get down, Headmaster." "Time for walkies, Headmaster." "What are you doing in those bushes, Headmaster?" "Stop sniffing your friends' bottoms, Headmaster." We've had a lot of fun with the idea. I just hope the children keep a straight face when they meet the man.

Well, we didn't manage to shock our children visibly with the announcement of our decision, but we do shock them every time we talk about dogs and bitches. "Ooooh, Mummy used the B word!" screeches my daughter, in horrified delight.  11-yo and 8-yo genuinely didn't know that the word 'bitch' was anything other than a crude insult. Even though we've explained the original meaning of the word, they still experience a shiver of something naughty every time it comes up.

Now it's time for Hector. (Amazing, by the way, how expressive he can be, though he has no moving facial features - well, I suppose the bottom of his mouth goes up and down, but that's not a great boon for expression, is it? It's all in the voice. Even if you don't want to watch all five minutes, watch just a little bit.)

The cat is out of the bag: Part l

Except it's not a cat. It's a dog.

Yes, Bloggy Friends, we have succumbed. And now we have to explain to our children why it is, that having argued very vociferously and effectively against having a dog for the past, ooh, ten years or so, we now think it's a good idea. The parental u-turn (great post on that subject here, by the way). We do, however, have very good grounds for a change of mind. Or is it a change of heart? Perhaps both. For starters, we didn't want to obtain a dog which, one day, we'd have to ship from one continent to another. We didn't want a dog when we were in the habit of spending over two months away from home in the summer. We didn't want a dog in a climate in which for several weeks of the year it's either too cold or too hot to exercise it. We didn't live near an open space. But now we're moving, the children are getting older and therefore able to take more responsibility, and financially we're in a better position too. So we do have reliable reasons. Wow. Writing that list, I've even persuaded myself. I also think it will help us all settle in a new place, if help is needed.

I had been looking forward to telling the children. They've wanted a dog for so long, and have raised the topic of conversation so many times. A couple of years ago, they even did a PowerPoint presentation to us on the subject. When Husband and I had finally decided in favour of a canine addition to the family, we wondered if it would be fun simply to wait until the next time one of the children tried the opening gambit of "can we get a dog?", and casually reply "yes, okay then". We knew we probably wouldn't have to wait long. But in the end, we decided to tell them straight out (I was getting a bit bored of having to delete all my browsing history on the computer). I was anticipating the moment with relish. I imagined them jumping up and down with excitement, eyes wide, faces bright. What actually happened was a rather puzzled and subdued response. "Really? For real? Really?" They didn't believe us. I think they knew that we wouldn't be mean enough to tease them, pretending we'd decided to get a dog but not following through. But somehow they couldn't fully embrace the alternative, that we really had decided to get one.

Well, the initial response might have been subdued, but since we told them, the excitement has been mounting. Breed choice, gender choice, name choice, and general dog talk, have dominated the conversation. Much browsing on the internet has been done, usually involving terribly cute pictures of puppies. We've got a couple of doggie magazines (also with cute pictures). I originally wanted a dachshund named Jasper, but neither breed nor name has met with enthusiasm from the rest of the family. Ultimately the decision will be mine and Husband's - predominantly mine, since it will be me who will take most of the responsibility for the dog. But I don't want to make an unpopular choice, so the field is open. More about that in the next post.

It's been an education

I’m glad you enjoyed my great-great-aunt Bessie’s diary. In answer to those of you who wondered if she kept diaries beyond this one, I don’t know of any, but I will have to ask around in the family.

Now back to 2012, and with the school year drawing to a close, I have been in reflective mood. For us, it’s not just the end of the academic year, but the end of my kids’ school careers in America. Here is a letter to each of them (though only for blog readers’ eyes, not theirs).

Dear 11-yo,

Your time at school here has neatly fitted into and filled the elementary years. You started in Kindergarten and you have just graduated from Fifth Grade. You began and ended our time in America at the same school. I have loved going through the last couple of weeks of Fifth Grade with you, “crazy busy weeks” as all we moms remark to each other. Every event has felt like the scribing of a closing parenthesis, an opportunity to think back to the drawing of the opening parenthesis. How different the one is from the other!

(Field Day), for example. I loved my final Field Day. I felt mellow, relaxed, happy. I know so many of the moms, the teachers, the kids. I know what snow cones are. I know what to expect. I know what to volunteer for, and – crucially – what to avoid. I know how to be me in that situation. Five years ago was my first Field Day (I wrote a blog post about it), and it was all so new. New and fun, new and exciting, but new and unsettling too. I knew hardly anyone. I wondered what a snow cone was. I was trying to be someone, but without knowing who.

(Talk about Scotland), for another example. I came into your class to talk about Scotland and your new school. You and I did a PowerPoint presentation together. That’s what Fifth Graders do. You’d helped me put it together, looking for pictures of Edinburgh Castle and Loch Ness on Google Images. I remember coming into Kindergarten to talk about Scotland and your old school.  I’d asked you beforehand what differences you’d noticed between school in Scotland and school in America. You said “When we line up in America to go to a different classroom or out into the playground, we just line up in a line. In Scotland, when we lined up, we had a partner and we had to hold hands.” “Anything else?” “Those hanging-down things in the dining room. We didn’t have those in Scotland.” America. Land of the free, home of the brave, nation of moveable track-mounted partitions in school dining rooms.

Dear 8-yo,

You were a tot when we came to America. You started at a “Mom’s Day Out” one morning a week. You were in a little class of five girls. You loved it. Next was pre-school, a year of Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, and then a year of five mornings a week. You were so ready for school when the time came. I’d lost my hair to chemotherapy when you started Kindergarten. I hoped I didn’t embarrass you, coming into the classroom to help with “reading centers” in my cap.

Now you’re finishing Second Grade. There was one day last week when all the other grades were out on field trips, and the teachers let you run through the hallways shouting “Second Grade Rules!” I agree. You do!

You’re still not quite big enough and brave enough to stand outside the school door next to that gaggle of fourth and fifth graders, but you hate to be late, so we have to time our morning arrival to the minute. You’re half way through elementary school – “grade school” as they call it – and your tot days seem very distant indeed.

Dear 14-yo,

You’ve experienced all three stages of American schooling. A year and a half in elementary school, three in middle school, and one in high school. Middle School in the parentheses of Elementary School and High School. More parentheses! The three schools are all part of one school, on one campus, and I’ve been glad for that. The transitions have been easy.

Your round, full fourth-grade face is now shaped and chiseled, with cheek bones and a chin. You regularly check to see if you’re taller than me, and last time we compared, we decided that yes, that day had come. Your legs and arms are those of a sportsman. Your backpack is sometimes so heavy, I hesitate to lift it, but you swing it over a shoulder multiple times a day. You’ve seen all three stages, but I’m sure it’s the High School year that will remain with you most. You’ve loved the freedom, the fun, the adult-ness of it.

You’ve borne the brunt of our parental ignorance. You’ve had to teach us as you’ve learnt. “Getting to Regionals is a big deal, Mom.” “Everyone calls Coach ‘Coach’.” “If the flag touches the ground when you take it down, they have to throw it away (but I don’t think they always do).”

You came as a child, and you leave with the man in you emerging, almost here. You walk tall. The school has served you well.

Everyone clucked their teeth as we left Scotland. I know they did, even if they didn’t do it to my face. Schools… education… what would it be like? How would they compare? How would our children ever fit back into the British system? And I’d be lying if I denied that their unspoken thoughts tapped into my own deep anxieties. Let’s face it, education is something of a British obsession. I just held on to the thought that whatever they lost in flip-flopping between education systems, they would gain in life experience.

You know what? The education has been one of the greatest benefits of our time here. At their schools, our children have been motivated, stretched, enthusiastic, (well, at times enthusiastic-ish), and – most important by a long chalk – happy.  I’ve probably got rose-tinted specs on, feeling a little sentimental as we leave, and we haven't done the "fitting back in" yet, but the specs are only slightly tinted and I'm feeling confident about the "fitting back in".  I’ve had my reservations off and on about some of the academics (weekly newsletters from teachers with grammar and spelling mistakes), and there was a year when one of them wasn’t happy, but wasn’t exactly unhappy either. Otherwise, they’ve been happy - truly happy. Three children, for a combined total of 14 school years, happy. That’s an A+ for the schools here, in my book.

Life carries on

One of the hugely under-rated skills that you develop as a mother, is the multi-tasking of the mind. You have to shift gear the whole time. It's 0 to 60 in a few seconds as you grab a toddler's hand away from the fire and explain that fire burns, and then you're digging deep to answer an imponderable question like 'why is the sky so high?' a moment later. There must be some kind of mental clutch in a mother's brain, that makes it possible.

I've found this to be the case today. Mostly, my mind has been full of big questions relating to the sale of the house. How much should we ask for it? Should we get the storm door repaired, or could we just hope that no-one notices it doesn't fit any more? Why, oh why, have the Dyson, the garage door, and the mower all picked this week to go on the blink (when I'm still just recovering from losing my mobile phone for 4 days)? Those kinds of questions. But in amidst all that, this afternoon I have had the following three conversations (no exaggeration).

11-yo: What would you wish for if you could wish for anything?
Me (stalling): Um... I'm not sure...
11-yo: Do you think it would be better to wish for world peace, or for no-one ever to have to be hungry again?
Me: Either of those would be very excellent things to wish for.
11-yo: I think probably world peace, because if there was no war, then people could get on with organising things better so everyone had enough food, so then you'd maybe get both wishes.

8-yo: What's that thing for?
Me: It's a bus shelter. It's for people to go in while they're waiting for a bus, so that if it's raining, they keep dry.
8-yo: What happens if it's not raining.
Me: Well, they wouldn't need to be in the shelter then.
8-yo: Yes, but could they go in the shelter even if it wasn't raining?
Me: Yes.

Me: I'm really proud of you, 14-yo.
14-yo: Why?
Me: [mentions in affirming manner a few good qualities]
14-yo: Do I get money for that?
Me: No.

See what I mean? My brain clutch is wearing out. Ker-clunk. I need an automatic.

Right. Just off to write an assignment for my MA, comparing and contrasting two different theological approaches to worship. (OK, so now I'm just showing off.)

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Posts

I'm sitting blogging because I'm in denial about how much needs to be done in the house to get it ready for putting it on the market. There's a blog post in that.

It was lovely getting together with our realtor, reminiscing about when she helped us buy a house five years ago. There's a blog post in that.

The system of buying and selling houses is so much better organised here than in either England or Scotland. Our realtor (and I) can hardly believe how such a major life decision and financial investment can be so poorly taken care of in comparison (though perhaps we are out of date - perhaps new legislation has tightened everything up). There's a blog post in that.

I'm looking out of the window at lightning and heavy rain. I will really miss thunderstorms. I love the drama of them. There's a blog post in that.

A couple of friends who I've just been drinking wine and eating chocolate with, are coming round on Monday morning to take me and my house in hand, and help me dress it for selling. I can't even begin to explain what that would mean without writing a whole blog post.

What's that movie called? The one with Renee Zellwegger as a chic business woman from Miami, who goes to Minnesota to an ailing factory with a mandate to close it down, and eventually suspends her corporate superciliousness, to fall in love with the warmth of the community (as well as a good-looking - supposedly, though he didn't do it for me - widower). That would give you an insight into what kind of decor will help sell our house. I understand American films so much better, now I've lived here. Another blog post there.

I watched 14-yo play tennis yesterday. Ah, I remember those hours of hitting a ball to and fro with a preschooler in the back garden. Now my role is more relaxing. I sit and watch, and chat to friends sideways. Several blog posts in that.

7-yo turned eight, and we hosted a birthday sleepover. Lots of blog posts there.

7-yo asked "Will we sell the house for A THOUSAND dollars?" Certainly another blog post.

11-yo is going on a field trip to a Health Museum tomorrow. I have no idea what the place is all about, but it sounds good. I should probably google it. Then I could write a blog post about it.

We're leaving here. I can hardly believe it. I hardly want to believe it. I am me here. I don't know how to be me anywhere else. I will learn, I will discover. I'm both excited for the future, and sad for the loss of the present. It makes me pensive. Blog posts there, thick and fast.

So many blog posts, so little time.

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Cinderella

It's our wedding anniversary on Friday. Of course we'll celebrate, but it's the Lower School Carnival on Friday, 11-yo's last since he'll be moving on to Middle School next year, so he wants (I want) to go. On Saturday, there's an indoor soccer match one of us has to be at. Our lives aren't ruled by our children, honestly, but sometimes the diary is. Just a little. We are under the deadline of a not terribly exciting Groupon which expires on the 31st, so maybe Thursday, although what kind of a non-celebratory night is Thursday, for heaven's sake? Or perhaps Sunday, but Sunday night is a cosy night in, not a fun night out, as eny ful no. (Do other people's minds work like this...?)

I took my youngest two to a production of Cinderella done by our local youth theatre on Saturday. It was very good (though looooong - at what age can you teach actors a bit of pace?) There was a raffle in the interval, and one of the prizes was a 'Night Out Basket', giving two tickets to the opera in February, dinner for two, a night for two in a hotel, chauffeur-driven car, and one or two other goodies that escape my memory. I knew I was going to win. I only bought one ticket, because I had worked out that in the cosmic scheme of things, if not in a maths text book, my chances of winning were as high if I only bought one ticket as if I bought a whole clutch. And I knew I was going to win.

I didn't win. As it happened. Bummer. 7-yo gave me a hug and patted my hand.

On Sunday night, all the 'ready for the week' boxes ticked, or enough of them to make it function on a day to day basis at any rate, we went up to bed, and there was an envelope on the pillow. On the front, there was a fairish stab at our address and a little picture of a stamp drawn in the top right hand corner. On the back was written 'you win!' The page inside read:

Ms. Manhattan and Mr. Manhattan are going to have a hotel in their house till March first. there will be one hostess named 7-yo Manhattan. She will get you breakfust in bed. She will make you lunch and dinner. She will get you what you need whenever you want. She will dell with 14-yo and 11-yo Manhattan. it will be $6.00 for the whole 2 and a half months.

from,

7-yo

I married Prince Charming 16 years ago (glass slippers would have been usefully waterproof on that snowy London pavement, but awfully cold). I now have my very own small, soft-hearted fairy godmother living right underneath my roof (one with a sharp eye for a business opportunity). I shall go to the ball, courtesy of Groupon, on Thursday night, but sometimes I can see that the ball is happening around me every day anyway.

The shape of childhood

Talking about jam sandwiches, as we were, this seems a good moment to try out one of my theories on you. I have decided that childhood - from a parent's point of view - is like a sandwich. It goes like this.

The years from 0 to 5 are full of change. You can hardly keep up. As soon as you've got used to one stage, you're through it and into the next. Each one greets you not in some considered way, but in a bewildering moment that you feel unprepared to deal with. Your child grows, changes, evolves all the time, and it's easy to feel you're hurtling down a bobsled run without a clue of what's round the next corner.

Then they go to school, and it all calms down a bit, after the initial learning curve (less of a learning curve than a climbing wall where you are roped together with other parent climbers, all of you puzzling how to use the crampons). Between the ages of 5 and 13 or 14, the whole process slows down. The child still grows, still learns about the world, still explores themselves. They have their highs and lows, their joys and woes, and you are part of that. But it feels like it's more of the same. More birthday parties, just with the participants getting bigger year by year. More homework and projects, just with the subject matter getting harder and the level more challenging. More fun and activities, just with the children's energy levels and abilities increasing, whilst your own ones are decreasing. Time can go by frighteningly fast, but the milestones become familiar, and it's a question of "gosh, another school term over already", rather than "what the heck is happening here?". The bobsled run has levelled out into a road that you can see ahead, winding across a gently-sloping plateau.

You've been lulled into a false sense of security. Watch out. When your oldest starts secondary education, you're hurtling down the bobsled run again, banging into the sides, rolling round the corners at alarming angles. Secondary school is a new, bigger climbing wall, without any crampons at all. The parent ropes are much harder to tie, because you're not meeting daily in the classroom or at the gate. The kids are growing, changing, evolving with the speed that they did when toddlers. They suddenly develop new skills and interests, and want to know where the boundaries are. Those boundaries aren't just a gentle expansion of existing ones, as you've become used to, but the edges of whole new territories. You are careering downhill again, and the speed is faster and you have less control than ever before. It feels like there's more at stake, too.

When I had a toddler, I hated that remark that was sometimes tossed my way "Oh, just wait till they're teenagers". I vowed I'd never say that to anyone. But I do offer you my sandwich model. The three stages of childhood. What do you think?

Iota's summer holiday top tips for entertaining children: Part lll

And now we come to my two favourites. Both of them have strong memories from my own childhood, and both of them - hurrah - occupied my three children for hours.

Here's a crane.


The main body of it stands at just over 2 feet high. It was made by a friend, and when his children had grown out of it, we inherited it. It's fully functional: the arm can be raised and lowered, and then the hook wound up and down.

I remember spending hours with my younger brother playing "cranes" (although there was only one, we always talked about playing "cranes" in the plural). One child is upstairs, and dangles the crane hook down through the banisters to the other child, in the hall below. There is seemingly no end to what you can do with a crane. You can put something on the hook, and tell your playmate to shut their eyes, wind the object up, and guess what it is by feel. You can choose an object, and race to see who can wind it up the quickest. You can put something really heavy on the hook, and then let go of the wheel, letting it spin and the string unreel at speed, till the object hits the floor with a thud. You can hang a doll or a teddy bear by the neck. Oh, the possibilities are endless.

This is the kind of toy that grown-ups like, because it looks so educational. We like to think our children are learning about pulleys, weights, relative forces, almost as if it was a practical hands-on physics lesson. Well, I never got anywhere with physics, but I did have a lot of fun with this crane. And so did my children.

And finally...

Corinthian!


It's a precursor of the pinball machine This one is 30 inches by 15, to give you an idea of scale. Many of you will look at this and respond "Ah, Bagatelle!" But this version is called Corinthian. Here's a close-up of the rather splendid label at the bottom, in which Walter Lindman (who he?) asserts his preference.

The bit of the label which the photo cuts off states "The recognised tournament board is Corinthian 21T". Dang it! Our board was only a 21S! Just as well we didn't know about tournaments. We would have bullied our parents endlessly to take us to one. We fancied ourselves as Corinthian players (though upping our game to a 21T might have been a shock). I can't think of a toy that gave us more hours of pleasure than this one. It was also an absolute favourite of visiting children. I remember friends loving to play. Maybe they only liked me for my Corinthian board.

The minute my children started playing this, the plink-plink-plonk noise of the steel balls bouncing off the pins was so familiar. This came from my mother's childhood, so it really has done sterling service. Alas, the drumstick used to push the ball up the runway has disappeared, but there are still 19 balls - the number there were when we played with it, or when my mother's family inherited it from some friends. That's quite impressive, not to have lost a ball in two generations. My kids used the handle of a wooden spoon as a pusher, and of course it worked fine (though I miss that drumstick...) Of course the more upmarket versions of Bagatelle have a puller on a spring, to fire the balls into action. I like to think the drumstick requires more skill and finesse. There used to be a list stuck on the back, of the names of those who'd scored 1,000 or more, but that has been lost. It was only a short list, as 1,000 is well nigh impossible. I don't remember anyone in my generation scoring 1,000.

It's another of those educational toys, isn't it? Think how good for your mental arithmetic, adding up your score at the end of each go. My kids shocked their grandmother by whipping out an ipod with a calculator on it. She made them put it away and add up in their heads or with paper and pencil. Good for her!

That almost ends this mini-series on my Mum's loft. There is just one more object of interest for tomorrow... Just one...

Iota's summer holiday top tips for entertaining children: Part ll

More items from my mother's loft. And by the way, what's the difference between a loft and an attic? Anyone know?

Look at these beautiful parasols. My mother doesn't know where they came from or who they belonged to.


They've evidently never been used; they're in beautiful condition. I'm guessing they were presents from someone's foreign trip. I don't know when they date from, but they belonged to my grandmother, and maybe someone before her. I remember enjoying them as a child. The pink one was my sister's, because she loved all things pink, and the blue one was mine, because I hated all things pink. I can't say that they kept 7-yo entertained for long, but she did prance around the garden with them a little. It's good to have the opportunity to teach children to look after things. In today's throw-away world, it's important for them to learn that things have value, by virtue of being old, or beautiful, or interesting. I taught 7-yo to open and close them carefully and gently, treating them with respect, as I was taught to do by my own mother.

The blue parasol lives in a parasol-shaped tin. The pink one lives in its original brown paper wrapping.


I love the curly writing, and the idea of the "modern shape" of sunshades. Lovely.

Here's another item that I remember from my childhood. It belonged to me.


It wasn't my everyday piggy bank. That was pink, with a removable stopper. The disadvantage with this pig is that it has no stopper. It's also very small - about 3 inches long, so it wouldn't hold much money. But it did have a few coins in it, and the children set about trying to get them out. They succeeded (that used up quite a bit of time), and were thrilled with the achievement of it. 10-yo presented the empty pig and the coins to me with pride: "We've got them out for you, after all these years!" What they don't know, is that I remember being perfectly able to get money out of that pig, sliding the coins out on a knife. I did it loads of times. I didn't tell them that, though. "Gosh, how clever!"

The coins were pre-decimal, so date from my early childhood (decimalisation was 1971, I've looked it up). There were a couple of sixpences - "these are what the tooth fairy used to bring" - and three threepenny bits.

10-yo is the magpie of my family. He loves collecting things, and is fast developing a taste for old items. Yesterday, he bought two farthings for 20p each in a local bric a brac shop, to add to the sixpences and threepenny bits. That's the beginning of an old coin collection (he already has a foreign coin collection). I'm not a collector or a hoarder by nature. I'm minimalist in what I keep. 10-yo is both a magpie and a hoarder. It's a dangerous combination, and it was quite an effort to ensure that a large proportion of the contents of the loft didn't simply end up in a big pile marked "keep for 10-yo". He's already made my mother promise to keep the typewriter.

Back to the pig. I remember being fond of this pig too, but look at it close up.


Don't you think that's a rather sinister grin? This loft clear-out could turn out to be the Return of the Evil Pig.

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