DIY haircuts

Ben’s hair has not got less thick and curly while I neglected my blog. Roughly every 6 weeks I haul myself and the kids to the barbers on the high street and pay nearly £20 to have both boys done. I on the other hand get my hair done every 3 months – one of those parenting sacrifice things.

Now we do swimming lessons on Fridays I’ve lost the one afternoon where I can run straight from school to the barbers and have been either leaving work early or wasting Saturday mornings at the barbers.

A couple of weeks ago I snapped. A month after being shaved Ben resembled a sheep again and I decided to buy trimmers.

Ben was dubious, it seems that having your mother read instructions out loud does not inspire confidence. Ignoring his sobs I started off with a number 5 – all I wanted to do was tidy him a little. I then progressed to number 3 and did a fairly good job. This was interspersed with OH leaving the spag Bol he was cooking to have a go which led to the greatest thing ever being shouted

“I trust Mummy more than youuuu.”

Today I re-sheared my little wooly sheep with a number 3, we had tears (OH had put the number 3 comb on wrong and a bit of the blade caught him) but it went fairly well.

Ciaran then demanded a turn. He requested a number 0 and settled for me quickly passing over his head with a number 5 to trim him a little. I’ll still need to take him to the barbers (the family has banned us from taking scissors to his blonde locks after Chris had a go years ago resulting in an emergency barber trip) but at least I can keep him going between cuts and can now manage Ben at home!

Not a bad hair cut!

George Osbourne it’s your choice: flexible working rights or zombie army of Mums.

George Osbourne’s latest good idea is to offer women (and men too I suppose) the chance to own shares in their company at the expense of their right to flexible working and other hard-won rights, I can see him suggesting next that parents can give up the rights to have their child educated in return for the kid having a marvellous time as chimney sweep and a few shillings a year if they don’t die in an industrial accident.

Now in this marvellous PC and equal opps world men and women have equal rights to parental leave and to request flexible working but only one person in the relationship tends to use these rights – the Mum. I’ve worked hard to get a fairly good career and a nice home (and a long suffering husband) – I now have my own office and a separate dryer (two sign of proper grown-up success) but I do the drop off & pick up and the nursery or school prefer to call me to tell me that one of the kids has been over inspired by Van Gough and the resulting injury traumatised 29 five-year olds.

The reality of being a working Mum is that you carry two huge burdens, childcare and a career. But when the Mum is in a low paid part-time job as opposed to earning big bucks working 60 hours a week surely this is fair you cry? Maybe, if it cut both ways but it doesn’t. In my experience even where the Mum is the main wage earner there is a social expectation that she will still handle the kids.

Before having kids I imagined myself as a competent super Mum, helping neighbours, having a pristine house and calmly managing a career to the envy of everyone else. Ha!

When I woke up this morning I’d spent the night failing to sleep next to a vomiting three-year old; in a late night emergency division of labour we’d agreed that I’d take the night shift, in return I wouldn’t have to stay at home (helpful as I had an important meeting that went on until 8pm). When I woke up the upstairs of our house smelled of sick and fish fingers (kids never get sick when the nursery feeds then inoffensive food) I’d overslept in my exhaustion and had to cut my shower very short, I then spent ten minutes frantically banging on my neighbours door (I was walking her daughter to school today) to find that they had succumbed to the vomiting bug too. Once my oldest was at breakfast club, glaring at me as he was finally being fed, I ran around the supermarket getting pukey-child-friendly food as I knew my husband probably wouldn’t have a clue what to feed sick kids (FYI – same as my Mum gave me, start with crackers, work up to rich tea, toast, tomato soup with bread and finally fruit cocktail) and probably wouldn’t want to leave the house with a projectile vomiting toddler.

I then got into work; parked illegally as all the parking spaces had gone and scrambled across to my office, burdened by Pepsi cans to keep me going until tonight’s meeting finishes. I had no make-up on and I had a worrying suspicion that there might be a small piece of sick still in my hair. But I thanked God I worked flexi-hours and could swan in after 9am on the grounds that 1. I would be working bloody late and 2. my youngest son had turned into a fish finger, norovirus and baked beans volcano. Glamorous, no – but managing to strike something of a balance and making it possible for me to have a career and kids, yes

If I was offered shares in place of flexible working there would almost certainly come a time when I’d snap and say “sod trying to cut the weekly shopping back lets embrace Mammon and give up my flexible working”. Once that offer is on the table people will make judgements about who is really committed to the company and who is just clock watching until they can finger paint. Even if I held out on wanting a small annual dividend I’d panic about my visible commitment to the employer and would be signing away my flexible working rights before you can say womens’ lib.

If I lost the right to say to employers (as I’ve done in the past) I’ll be flexible and I’ll be here for meetings etc.. but I need have a day at home each week or I want to average 7 hours flexibly a day instead of 7 ½ to avoid having a nervous breakdown trying to squeeze 37 work hours inside the nursery drop off and pick up, or lost the right to be there with my son when he needed different medicines to be given to him on an hourly basis I would have to give up work completely.

Unless you want a zombie like army of former career Mums staggering down the high street singing the theme tune to Charlie and Lola, glazed eyed and defined solely by their child, and want to lose the massive output that working Mums like me make to the country then lets not be silly – save our flexible working rights.

One to one

I’ve finished work for Christmas woo hoo! As Ciaran’s nursery takes the payment for the year and you pay whether you turn up of not I decided to send him to nursery for the normal two days this week and just one day next week – he would have been very angry if he missed the Christmas Dinner! This gives me some one to one time with Ben.

I decided that my unruly four year old could do with some attention to himself instead of having to shout over Ciaran for attention (Ciaran has a day with me every week while Ben goes to school). So far we’ve been very busy.

Yesterday we had to drive to Daddy’s office to get my bank card before heading to Milton Keynes for a walk around the theatre district and lunch at TGI Friday’s – a fruit smoothie and cheese ‘n’ bacon burger for Ben, a southwestern burger and diet coke for me. I even treated my little tot to a pudding. The it was back into the car and off to Joseph’s at Broughton to get our hair cut. Ben bounced around flirting with the hairdressers and eventually managed to sit still long enough to get his hair cut (sorry to poor Jo who had a real challenge with him).

Home to have a snack and watch Shrek Forever After before I headed off to get Ciaran from Nursery.

Today we drove Daddy to work (its his Christmas lunch and apparently they may/ probably / definitely go to the pub afterwards) I then drove Ben to the town centre and walked along Bedford embankment. We saw the weir and sluice gates, walked over the old bridge several times, kicked leaves into the river and then headed back to town to go to Gunns Bakery – we’d walked for over 90 minutes and his little legs needed some petrol! As Ben needed the loo he even got to go inside the College, meet some of my colleagues and see my office.

I’m knackered! I’ve had to remember how sluice gates as flood defence, explain why a cox is needed in rowing, identify different kids of duck and explain the history of a band stand and it isn’t even lunch time yet! On the positive side his behaviour is suddenly MUCH better, he is able to chat to me without trying to rush before Ciaran demands attention and we are going to either spend the afternoon practising his flash cards and drawing or making a gingerbread nativity. Ciaran is having a good time at nursery making cakes and Ben is getting some time to call all the shots.

Merry Christmas to everyone.

Ben on a lunch date with Mummy

What’s in a name?

Would not that which we call a rose smell the same by any other name?

Not quite it seems. My boys are both growing up too quickly, so quickly in fact that with a nearly full-time job, professional studying, mountains of laundry and bizarre questions to answer I haven’t touched my blog for ages. One slightly sad side effect of the kids growing up is the youngest one has started calling me by my first name.

Nothing wrong with that per se (I’ve varied between first names and Mum and Dad for my parents since my teens) but it feels odd for a two year-old to look at me and see not just his Mummy who used to be the centre of his world but an individual with a name, like his friends and nursery teachers. Just to rub in the whole growing up too quickly thing guess where he called me by my name first? On the toilet – no nappies or potties for this tot.

What are your thoughts on this? We’ve always said we don’t have a problem with being called by our first names but didn’t expect it quite so soon.

Travels with tweedle dee and tweedle dum

What are the best things to do with two energetic toddlers in Lanzarote? Read on..

Playa Bastian in Costa Teguise, it’s a smaller beach than others but is in a natural cove so has much calmer shallow water than other beaches. Loads of fish swim up to you (if unlike my boys you can stand still!).

La Graciosa, take the ferry across the choppy strait to La Graciosa, you get a lovely look at the cliffs and volcanic lava flow before arriving on a very tranquil island. With no cars it’s a bit of a hippy retreat but was very quiet when were there. We had a little beach to ourselves and could sunbathe without worrying about the kids throwing sand at other people.

El Golfo. The tiny lagoon may be a bit of a let down but Ben loved scrambling down the cliff with his Dad to the beach. Climbing AND a beach what more could a three year old ask for?

Paella. We ordered this umpteen times. Paella for two with Canadian potatos and some bread was a perfect lunch for all of us. Ciaran preferred the rice while Ben devoured the seafood, in fact I gave him the squid and octopus I was to screamish to eat, by the end of the holiday when baby octopus’ were part of a mixed platter it was Ben who devoured them, dipped in ketchup.

A bucket and spade. Give the kids a cheap bucket and spade each and they’ll spend hours playing, apparently they were cooking soup and cakes. Little Ciaran kept trotting to the sea to get more water for their cooking.

Wine tasting in La Geria. Bizarrely Ben loved stopping off at a bodega, trying to count all the corks while us adults tried the wine, I am ashamed to say that my Mum and I let Ben have a tiny taste of the wine – just wetting his lips, but the thrill of drinking wine was definitely a buggy for him.

Cliff top walk to Puerto Del Carmen harbour. We frequently pushed the stroller down the zigzagging path and a few steps to get to the Marina. Once down there the kids (particularly Ciaran) were fascinated by the boats in gardens, blue marlins, ducks and bots fishing in the sea. It’s a slow walk as you have to stop and look at lots of things but a very beautiful one.

Chilled lunches. A plate of ham and chorizo, bread, eggs, salad veggies, cheese and mojo sauce was all we needed for a lovely relaxed lunch at the villa.

Potty training – take 2.

One of the advantages of having two children is that the second time around you are a little more confident and think you might have learned from mistakes. Given the trauma of potty training Ben while I was a full time Mum I was worried about potty training Ciaran while working nearly full-time. I decided that I would have to not give a fig if everyone else’s child was potty trained and go at his pace – surely the older they are when they start the easier it is?

A few weeks ago the boys were running around nude (usual occurence in our house) and Ben needed a wee. Concerned that the sound might trigger a little wee from Ciaran – who had followed Ben into the loo, I gave him Ben’s old potty and told him to sit on it if he wanted a wee. He did – nothing happened, he insisted on taking it into the lounge and after five minutes stood up and shouted “Did it!!”. He had done a wee in the potty – just before his second birthday.

We’ve carried on with occasionally getting out the potty if he asks for it and keeping it low key as we are coming up to a very busy two months for me and a two week holiday, potty training is NOT on our families calendar. Sadly Ciaran can’t read the family calendar.

Today after a trip out him and Ben stripped off. Ciaran ran up to me to tell me he wanted a wee wee so I got the potty out. He waited until the potty was in the room, sat on it and wee’d. He refused to get dressed and carried on using the potty all afternoon – nothing on the floor. We even had a scary moment when he accidentally shut his potty out in the hall, had to find me in the kitchen get my attention and get me to retrieve his potty before he could use it.

We dressed him for dinner and I was secretly glad to have him back in a nappy for a bit of peace and quiet. He had other ideas. After dinner he marched over the potty, took his shorts off and tried to get his nappy off. I had to give in. Again he had waited until he was on the potty before going.

So – having watched Ben potty train and then use the toilet for the last eighteen months Ciaran has already absorbed and understood the key concepts of :

• wee goes in the potty
• wait until you are on the potty before weeing
• tell an adult if you want a wee
• keep it in the potty.

Blimey! This is so far from the nightmare of trying to explain to a confused two year old that wee and poo must go into the potty and he has to run to the potty as fast as he can, holding the wee in until he is on the potty. Only downside is that the bossy little Ciaran has decided he is ready now and we have very little say in it. Brace yourselves for a month of potty training!

The plot thickens

Possibly a pear tree at sunset

A few months ago I cajoled Chris into taking on an allotment. He read books over Christmas and researched it fully before choosing our plot. It was our allotment but his to work in. I entertained Marie Antoinette dreams of frolicking with a decorative watering can while someone else did the real work. Chris started well. He assessed our soil, he dug over three plots on the allotment, put down weed killer and fertiliser (not together I hasten to add). But then, he needed to spend a lot of his spare time researching work things. 

Which is where I come in. A few weeks ago I decided it was time to get stuff going. Potatoes planted, carrots sown that kind of thing. One Saturday morning after breakfast I announced that one of us needed to go to the allotment and do some work while the other looked after the hyperactive kids. To my amazement he volunteered to stay at home with the kids. Bloody hell, the allotment must be pretty grim!

He kindly packed my car with the bits from the shed (I won’t go in there in case there is a spider) and expected me to back in half an hour complaining of worms, beetles and backache. I had other plans. If I was going to the allotment I’d do it the girly way and get shopping first.

A quick trip to a garden centre cheered me up, I had some potatoes to plant, a raspberry cane and a blackcurrant cane. I figured that if something was actually growing it might be more fun. And I was right. Here is the allotment when I went to it a few weeks ago. Brussel sprouts at one end (seriously how many brussels did the previous owner need?) weird glass half way down a couple of mystery bushes, three compost bins, a compost heap that was a mountain of growing weeds and a tree. On the up side it was designed in plots, strips of land at one end and then squares at the other. 

Hey Ho. I got digging. My rhubarb, raspberry and blackcurrant went up in the little square near the tree. My 1st early potatoes went in the next square down. I dug another square and felt proud. Chris had dug three squares which I had meticulously re-dug and weeded and I’d done another one. Not bad going.

A week later I turned up, dug some more, weeded some more, and after a little more retail therapy planted tonnes of red cabbage, brocoli and radishes. All plants and all planted at the same time. We are going to have a feast of brassicas soon.

I keep going down, adding to the compost bin, which is bizarrely the home to ants rather than the worms I expected and I’ve even got creative with bamboo sticks for my broad beans.

Here are photos of the allotment as it was on Sunday evening as the sun went down. I love it. It’s my break from work and being a Mum. My hands are calloused (washing them in the cold water troughs isn’t part of a good beauty routine) but there is something magical about being outside in the fresh air. I’ve now cleared all the plots apart from half of the last strip (the Brussel sprout strip) and I think that the first of my potatoes are growing!! If anyone can identify the mystery bushes please do and leave me a comment to let me know!!

No idea what it is. The leaves smell nice though!

I ‘think’ it might be a gooseberry bush

If it aint potatoes then at least it's pretty and got me excited!

  

 

 

Big Boys’ bedtime – the foolproof 14 step routine.

A while ago I took Ben out of nappies at bedtime. Last week DH announced Ciaran no longer needed a bottle at bedtime and the bedtime routine as changed again. So here, for all the Mums who find Gina Ford impossible to follow is my foolproof routine for putting two toddlers to bed.

Step 1. Herd two children up the stairs and into the bathroom. Battle to be allowed through the stair gate by aforementioned children.

Step 2. Bath (every other night so as not to dry their excema prone skin), and then brush teeth – argue with Ciaran over who is allowed to hold the toothbrush.

Step 3. Wipe down the floor, toilet and walls where Ben enthusiastically spat toothpaste and was copied by his adoring brother. Grit teeth wearing down the remaining tooth around my one filling.

Step 4. Douse kids with water and pump baby face wash into my hands, apply bubbly stuff to their faces, turn around to get wash cloth damp. Hear noise of bathroom door opening and laughter.

Step 5. Chase children across landing with dripping wash cloth. Rugby tackle toddlers and hold in headlock with one arm while cleaning with other hand.

Step 6. Shoo children across landing out of my room into Ben’s room. Order Ben to undress while I hunt for clean pajamas in Ciaran’s nursery.

Step 7. Return to Ben’s room to find kids engaged in educational game of throwing stuffed toys all over the room – to escape the dinosaur. Bellow like wounded cattle to get oldest son undressing while stripping a wriggly toddler.

Step 8. Swear under breath, return to nursery and get back into Ben’s room with nappy, wipes and nappy mat. Encourage Ben to put pants on and then to put his willy back in his pants while changing naked Ciaran’s nappy.

Step 9. Get pajama’s on kids. Ben pretends he can’t dress himself, Ciaran insists he can. Think of gin, tonic and horse tranquilisers to get through the dressing routine.

Step  10. Get kids into Ben’s bed with books. Start the argument over whose book is going to be read first and then commence marathon reading out loud session. Shared bedtime stories take three times as long as separate ones for a bizarre reason.  

Step 11. Use final croak of voice to explain that while Ben would love to cuddle Ciaran all night and Ciaran would love to be in a proper bed Ciaran is still too little to sleep outside of baby prison (I mean a safe cot that he can’t fall out of).

Step 12. Carry grumbling Ciaran and teddy to the nursery, cuddle them both before placing in cot.

Step 13. Return to Ben’s bed. Nod wisely as he discusses his planned trip to Jurassic Park, croakily beg him to stop talking and lie down. Kiss him good night and remind him not to let the bed bugs bite.

Step 14. Stagger downstairs; dream of a night in front of the TV with a glass of vino or large G&T. Find football on and immerse self in work (with a cheeky glass of something – purely for medicinal purposes after all that croaking!).

Night all!!

Photocredit: lusi

And so to sleep.

With two children fairly close in age the bedtime routine has to keep adapting. We used to settle Ciaran around 7pm in the knowledge that I would spend around an hour with him before he’d sleep, and while Ben still managed a daytime nap he went to bed between 7:30 and 8pm. That was well over a year ago and now we are getting to a point where both boys go to bed together at 7pm.

Tonight for example worked quite well, we took the boys up for a bath around 6:45, I was on bath duty while Daddy blitzed the bedrooms and laid out clothes for the morning and pajamas for bed before joining the boys in the bathroom while I then stripped and changed Ciaran’s cot. Both boys had their hair washed with minimal fuss (a major improvement on how things used to be!) and were out of the bath and wrapped up in towels.

We dried the boys in Ben’s bedroom, it’s the larger of the two rooms and has plenty of space for lying two children down on the floor to dry and talc simultaneously. Once dry and dressed (special bedtime nappy pants for Ben, vest and PJ’s; bog standard nappy, bodysuit and PJ’s for Ciaran) Ben came downstairs with me, while Ciaran sneaked into Ben’s bed to try it out.

Ben and I returned upstairs with a bottle of milk for Ciaran and cup of water for him. Then the boys parted, around 7:15 as I took Ciaran off to his room. The final stages of their bedtime routines are quite similar, book, cuddle, sleep. The main difference is the choice of books.

For Ciaran there can only be one book – the classic, thrilling story of a rabbit going to bed – Goodnight Moon. This book served Ben well and now Ciaran insists on it every night with a shout of night night! Ciaran then has a bottle of milk (some nights we don’t have any but I like the chance to sit quietly and cuddle him) kisses teddy goodnight and goes into his cot.

Ben’s choice of bedtime stories is a bit more varied, You Choose is a frequent flyer, as are One Mole Digging a Hole, Chocolate Mousse for Greedy Goose, Goodnight Harry and the Green Queen. As he is three years old, he tells us in no uncertain terms that he needs three stories. There is no room for negotiation here unless you want to read more than three stories but three is the absolute minimum anyone can get away with.

Ben then lies next to me or Chris, has a cuddle, tells jokes (why did the fish cry? Because the bird poo’d on his head – I don’t think a career in stand-up is beckoning) and tells us about the day and what he wants to eat in the morning.

To be honest Ben is ready to give up a bedtime nappy and Ciaran doesn’t need milk but we’re keeping things as they are for a bit; I don’t think it will be long before we’ll be putting another little bed in Ben’s room and reading three (or maybe by then four) bedtime stories to both boys simultaneously so I want to keep them my little babies for a bit longer.

photcredit: CPeroni