It's a Mummy's Life

A Guide to Staying Sane whilst Potty Training

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Mon, 28 May 2012 21:28:00 +0000

Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity (hi Dad) will know that potty training Tilly has been a rather long drawn out process. So it is with some considerable joy that I can tell you we are finally there. This house has been dry for 14 days. I'm standing up, you may clap at will.

Not my child, but cute don't you think?

The first time she told me she needed a wee and I realised she hadn't actually done one already where she stood was a major breakthrough. It gave me completely disproportionate happiness. Then when she happily went with me to the loo and didn't protest as I put her on it my joy grew and when she finally managed to do get herself on the loo I might just have shed a tear of pride. Despite all the changes she's been through lately and despite all the set backs, she's done it and I'm very proud of her.

Potty training is, like so many other trials of parenting, one of those things you know they will do eventually (if I had a pound for every time I'd been told she'd be 'done' by the time she went to school I'd be able to get an extension built), but somehow when you are in the thick of it not being done it seems like a lifetime away. Competitive parenting and comparing your children to others are both things that make this parenting journey so inexplicably hard. But when you start measuring your self worth in the amount of wee in a loo and not on the floor/in the car/in Sainsbury's it's all a bit crazy really isn't it?

(No Tilly don't crap on the floor or I'll have to thrash myself with birch twigs because clearly your inability to control your bowels has nothing to do with your stage of development and everything to do with my ability to be a good mother.)

Insane. But we do it.

Tilly just did it in her own time, her own way and frankly would not be told or shown or bribed to do it any other way. And that's just Tilly all over. She is very easy going and extremely cute (of course) but she is also very clear about what she wants to do and it's taken me almost 3 years to figure out that that's mostly okay. Watching her personality develop never ceases to fascinate me. She has an incredible ability to just get over stuff. Pretty quickly. I suspect I could learn a lot from her. But mostly Tilly makes me laugh and she always makes me smile.

So for what it's worth, here's my rough guide to keeping sane whilst potty training:

1. Try to resist the temptation to start when you are ready. Wait until they are ready. If you do nothing else do this. Seriously. It's important.

2. Be prepared for it to take longer than a week (I believe this can happen, but probably only if you stick to point no.1 and your name is Gina Ford.)

3. Try all you can to remain calm when they have accidents. All you can. Reach deep down inside and pull your inner calm person out kicking and screaming. Or drink heavily. Whatever it takes. DO NOT BLAME YOUR CHILD. This is very important. Mostly because you'll feel like shit if you do and it's not nice seeing them cry.

4. Don't start at a time when there are many changes going on in their lives. This is counter productive and will extend the process.

5. Follow your instincts. You know your child better than anyone. Yes even if you work as I do you will know your child better than your childminder, nanny, au pair, nursery teacher, mum, dad, grandma, sister. You just will. Carers should do what you say and follow your lead and stick to what you have asked them to do. Otherwise it will be inconsistent and it will take forever. I know this. I got this bit massively wrong. I listened to other people telling me what was best for my child and I should have waited. By all means take advice from carers but have confidence in yourself to know what sort of child you have and what they will respond to.

6. Wait till they are ready. (Did I say that?) It's important.

7. Sod anyone else who tells you that with their child it happened at 6 months old and was a breeze. They are the same parents who's baby's slept for 12 hours at 2 weeks old. Liars in other words. And just plain annoying.

8. Go big on rewards. Sing their praises from the rooftops when they do use the potty. It's no mean feat when you've been used to a nappy. They deserve your praise, cuddles and whatever else you want to give them.

9. If you go down the sweetie/bribery route then my experience taught me that this is okay but you must remember to take the appropriate bribe with you if you go out. Then just phase this bit out. It's fine, honestly and it does work but just don't overdo it. Rotten teeth are going to be more trouble than a child who takes a bit longer to potty train. An adult probably won't wear a nappy (one hopes), but root canal is expensive and painful (I know this, my teeth are rubbish).

10. Reward yourself. Pat yourself on the back and keep going. If it's taking a while then just stop and start again in a few weeks. There's nothing wrong with going back to nappies and in my experience there's nothing wrong with using pull ups. We used them both times and frankly they were great.

11. And finally (and I know it's 11 and not a nice neat 10) don't get so upset about it that everyone spends most of their time in tears. It simply IS NOT WORTH IT. Really. I wish someone had just sat me down and said 'Jesus Holly just calm down about it, it's potty training not saving the lives of a million starving children." That would have helped. Although if someone did say that to me at the time I'd probably have punched their lights out. So maybe it wouldn't. But you can't punch my lights out so I'm saying it now.

So if you're potty training or about to start then very best of luck. It will be fine. And if it's not there's always another day and there's always, always chocolate.

My Luxury Item

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Mon, 21 May 2012 21:12:00 +0000

In any partnership where young children are involved there's most probably a tacit agreement that time on one's own is something of a luxury item. It's not that we don't love our little ones and find great joy in the laughter, the (endless) questions, the funny things they say, the mimicry of carpet cleaner adverts, the singing, the dancing (why are kids so good at that?) and the tantrums (actually not those, I can't find a nice thing to say about those). But every now and then we need time out. I've been known to sit on the naughty step for a few minutes to get myself together.

So my luxury item? At the moment it's running. Weird isn't it? Surely it should be beauty treatments or shopping or something altogether more relaxing. I do, after all, complain almost constantly about how I never get a decent night's sleep. But it is actually quite relaxing. In a strange sort of way. And it's good for my heart and soul.

Yesterday I did another race, I say race in a rather loose sense. Inevitably Eliza and now Tilly both ask me if I won and they lose interest when I say no I didn't it's the taking part that counts (valuable life lesson I am teaching them, what a great mother).

"Mummy, where did you run to?" Eliza asked me when I got back.

"I ran all around the countryside and it was very pretty. And very hilly."

"But Mummy, why did you run?"

"Because it was a race. And I enjoy it."

"Mummy look at me, I'm a butterfly!" Oh hello Tilly.

"You're a very beautiful butterfly darling. Can you fly?"

"No Mummy, I'm not a real butterfly, I'm a Tilly." Of course you are my gorgeous girl.

And then we moved on to getting ready for the third birthday party of the weekend. And my great achievement of running 10 very hilly (I mean really bloody hilly) miles in 1 hour and 43 minutes was filed away under 'personal achievements' and forgotten. Which is why I'm writing about it here I suppose.

It was a very beautiful course, I stopped a couple of times to take pictures which tells you everything you need to know about my racing spirit I suppose. But during the run, when we were at the top of a very big hill and there was a particularly lovely view I heard another runner tell his friend he had to stop to 'take a picture for the blog' and I thought that was a rather good idea. The weather was grey so they don't do the view justice of course.

View from the Denbies 10 mile race

The start of yet another hill...

Now I have rather achy legs, which is actually a very good feeling indeed.

Advertising to children

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:58:00 +0000

My children do watch television. I feel like I'm outing myself in some sort of internet based confessional and very shortly the proper parents will be round to remove the offending box from my living room. The reality is I think most of us make good use of the TV from time to time. But like anything else that you know is probably bad for you television is a slippery slope. I started with a bit of Cbeebies, nice educational programmes that, with the exception of Dirt Girl World, I didn't have a problem with.

Has it really changed that much?

But then we discovered Nick Jr and the joys of Peppa Pig on a loop, intercepted only by Nanny Plum and friends on my favourite kids programme Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom. So far, so sweet and innocent. But then Eliza figured out how to use the remote and all of a sudden there's a plethora of, for want of more enlightened word, crap on television in the endless list of children's channels.

And advertisements.

My God the ads! They are never ending. And they're not just endlessly Lelli Kelly or absurdly realistic and frankly scary dolls that wee and cry and scream and vomit. They're for household products, because of course the only other person watching this type of telly will be mums, because of course all mums do is wash, clean, cook and look after the kids right? Maybe several decades ago. Yes my inner-feminist is coming out again. I put my foot down and limited the TV to Cbeebies but the damage has apparently been done.

The other morning as I was getting dressed upstairs I could hear Eliza crashing about downstairs in the kitchen. So I went down to see what was going on.

"Darling what are you doing?" I said as I saw her, in what we euphemistically call the utility room but is actually a badly converted garage, sweeping something up.

"I found some snow mummy and I'm just clearing it up." She was rather surprised to see me.

"Really? was it the squirty cream?" My heart sank.

"No Mummy, it was like um, er, a chemical." Holy shit! Cue my very calm but deeply panicky voice.

"Ok darling, now can you show me exactly what is was that you sprayed in here?"

"No Mummy I'm not telling, its a secret."

So I went and sniffed it. There was no mistaking the chemical vapours. I went into the kitchen and there on the side next to the sink was the bright pink can of Vanish Carpet Cleaner (I mean really, all little girls like pink for God's sake, they may as well have covered it in smarties).

"Was it this that you sprayed darling?" Thanking God that she hadn't thought it was the squirty cream as that would have been really frightening.

"Yes Mummy." She looked very proud with herself.

"It's Vanish carpet cleaner Mummy and it's got oxygen in it and it cleans the carpet which was very dirty."

"How do you even know that?" My interest in how she had come by this precise information overriding my panic/concern that she had sprayed it everywhere.

"It said on the telly."

Of course it bloody did.

Now there's an argument here that this was all my fault, for a) letting her watch television and b) not putting decent locks on the cleaning cupboard. It's interesting though. When you consider all the millions of pounds that companies spend on advertising it is a 4 year old girl who is most convinced by it. It's all just white noise to me but to her impressionable little mind it's far worse, it's actually interesting.

On the strength of this conversation I am now wrangling with my morals over whether to ditch Sky. On the plus side is no more crap children's TV channels with endless advertising but on the down side is no more Mad Men, which would be devastating for me.

Tough call.

What a difference a day makes

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Sun, 13 May 2012 15:52:00 +0000

Picnic at the beach

Is there actually anything better on a sunny English day than a spontaneous trip to the seaside? Not much as far as I'm concerned. There's something engrained into the British psyche that causes us to smile inanely when we see a blue sky. That same things causes us to load up the car with kids, buckets, spades, a decidedly ropey picnic (ham's on the turn and the cheese has seen better days but what the heck the sun's shining!), cover said kids in factor 50 (I mean honestly, it's Sussex not the Seychelles) and drive off to a seaside town.

It's only when you arrive and see that the wind is galeforce (hence no clouds, they've all blown away) and the pebbles are rather sharp do you think that possibly it was a rash decision. But as ever, the girls, after their initial whinging (which comes as standard with any child, I didn't pay any extra for it) rose to the occasion. They managed to spend several hours playing with one spade, two buckets (we lost the other spade of course) lots of pebbles and some interesting shells. Fair play to them. Me and him indoors got to sunbath a bit. In fact I even nodded off for a few minutes which either suggests I was extremely tired or very relaxed.

We don't really do hairbrushes in our house

Yes today was a Good Day. Balance is restored and all is right with the world.

The perfect storm

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Sat, 12 May 2012 19:05:00 +0000

The last two weeks have been a perfect storm. An au pair who shouldn't be looking after a hamster let alone children has been the root cause of many other problems, the type of things that are normally surmountable but somehow seem unrelenting and deeply stressful. My children are the most important people in my life and I was intensely anxious about them. This coincided with a very busy two weeks at work that meant I missed more bedtimes than I'm comfortable with and had to use many elastoplasts to cover the cracks in an imperfect childcare situation. My father was, as usual, amazing. Stepping in to help me out, ferry the girls around and provide some consistency for them and some stress-relief for me.

If you're interested here are the much edited highlights of the last couple of weeks.

Last week him indoors injured himself playing football, the net result was a very unhappy husband and a very tired Mummy having to do solo childcare for the whole bank holiday weekend. Ok in normal circumstances, I do it all the time and I enjoy it, but it coincided with the busiest time I've experienced at work since I started there. I had intended to work over the weekend but that got squeezed into the hours after bedtime and before exhaustion took over. Never ideal, since you never feel you've had any quality time to do anything and of course it just makes you even more tired than normal.

I had a rather terrifying situation on Sunday when Tilly decided to go for a swim in a very deep pond. As I jumped in after her up to my chin I didn't think about anything but getting my little girl out. As I carried her the 1/2 mile back to the car, both of us soaked to the skin with dirty pond water and green weed I didn't think of anything but getting her warm, and as we sat in the bath together washing off the green weed and getting warm again I didn't think of anything but how I'd never let her go. She's fine by the way, and hopefully she'll have no memory of it. I had a full on depression attack the following day though, tears, black dogs circling me, despair, the whole shebang. But thankfully Lucy had prepared me for this happening. A form of shock apparently.

The week that then followed was not easy, my bubbling stress level was close to hitting the mercury and I think my long suffering colleagues saw a rather different side to me. Shouty and anxious, walking off before tears took over, that sort of thing.

The girls have been anxious too. Their behaviour has been tricky at best and extraordinarily difficult at worse, but they have muddled through. They've got used the chaos and they seem almost to have come out the other side of it. Eliza has shown moments of incredible maturity. Quite something for a 4 year old.

Being a working mother is all well and good, but the bit no one tells you is that neither side really gives a damn about the other. Just because you have kids, who keep you awake either with their physical presence or worry, you can't just leave everyone you work with in the brown stuff, you have to find solutions for childcare that are less than ideal. In an ideal world, which must exist somewhere since people talk about it all the time, I'd have taken some time off, but I just couldn't do it. Then on the other side my kids have no concept of why I work so they don't care about that, they just care that Mummy's not at home to look after them. And boy do they know how to make you feel like the worst mother in the world about that.

Finally you reach a point where you can't be the person anyone wants you to be. It's a well trodden path, there are books on the subject, but books leave out the after effects of the intense anxiety. They don't tell you that this kind of stress has a long tail and it takes a while to bugger off. I am still haunted by the sight of Tilly in that pond. Writing this is making me cry, but I think that's probably a good thing right? Processing. I know it never gets any easier being a parent but I think anyone would agree that there are periods when it just seems to be particularly hard. And I know that there are parents who have way more than this to deal this every single day of their lives and I have nothing but admiration for them.

But things are getting better. The girls are fine, they are happy and I'm getting back to normal. The last couple of weeks have been so busy I haven't been running much and I'm missing my natural anti-depressant. I went last night. It helped.

And after all it was sunny today. That makes everything seem okay again.

Scary

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 08:40:00 +0000

Lately a lot of things, actually a lot of people are 'scary' to Eliza and therefore it naturally follows that they are to Tilly too (not sure she really knows why but her big sister sets dictates they are so that's that). It's been a bit of a challenge recently since friend's will come over and she runs behind my legs and says they're scary (the friends not my legs). It's a bit embarrassing. She even does it with Grandpa so I know it's not real, it's just something she's heard.

It's more of a problem as we continue to try and sort our our childcare situation. It's been pretty chaotic over the past few weeks and far, far from ideal and it's definitely had an affect on the girls' behaviour. In fact I'm fairly sure that the inconsistency in carers has led to this insecurity. Which is good because I was looking for another stick to beat myself with and now I've found it. Handy.

Anyway this morning whilst I was making them pancakes, with the rain lashing against the windows I was thinking about the plants we bought yesterday and how I wanted to get them in today:

"Shall we plant our flowers today girls? It's only raining a bit." Ever the optimist.

"No Mummy, this weather is scary."

"Really? It's just a bit rainy darling, not really scary." Then it occurred to me that it might be a good time to talk about 'scary'.

"What do you think is scary?"

"Monsters are, and witches." Said Eliza

"Ok, yes they are quite scary I suppose."

"Dragons are scary." Said Tilly, thinking about it.

"Yes Dragons probably are a bit scary."I concurred.

"And dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were scary." Eliza said and Tilly agreed.

"Stegasoruses are scary." Tilly announced.

"Well yes Tilly I should think they were. Well done." How does she know this?

"Yes because they have spikes on their backs that keep them cool." Eliza added to Tilly's efforts.

"Right well all those things are scary, but you won't ever meet any of those things so it's okay."

They thought about it and went back to eating their pancakes (they ate loads by the way - great breakfast), but then Eliza, always one to have the last word, said,

"Zombies Mummy. Zombies are scary."

And as ever I am left unable to disagree with her absolute certainty, whilst I trawl through my brain trying to think about when she would have heard about zombies. Last time I looked CBeebies wasn't creating pre-school horror flicks, but maybe I've missed something.

The winner of the How to Con Your Kid competition is...

Mama and more. Your name was drawn from the plastic cup. Well done. I'll dm to get your address. xx

Yummy Mummy

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:13:00 +0000

I have never been the sort of person to 'forget to eat'. I have often envied those people that do (although I don't believe them - forgetting to eat is the culinary equivalent of not doing any revision for your A Levels and then getting As), I'm more likely to run out of time to nip to the shop to get something to eat. Actually I'm more likely to skip cooking all together out of sheer can't-be-bothered-itis. So imagine my delight when I found something easy and quick to prepare that tastes pretty good too.

Remember Ainsley Harriot? Well I have him to thank for rescuing me from another night of Eliza's PomBear crisps after the gym. I ate a rather yummy bowl of Spicy Sensation Cous Cous. I felt pretty virtuous because cous cous is apparently quite good for you and the Ainsley Harriot range doesn't have any rubbish in it like artificial colourings and preservatives and doesn't contain MSG.

I will be using this (not this flavour perhaps) for the girls too. I made a cous cous salad with Halloumi (my FAVOURITE cheese) a few weekends ago when some friends came for lunch and Eliza couldn't get enough which was a sight to behold.

On another note I'm going to announce the winner of the "How to Con Your Kid" book on Friday. So if you want a chance to win it just comment on that post and tell me you want it and tell me how to get hold of you.

The relativity of achievement

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:27:00 +0000

I was running this evening on the treadmill, faster than normal and on a bit of an incline, I was trying to push myself to work off some of the damage all the wine and homemade panacotta did this weekend. It occurred to me that I can now run faster and for longer and on a steeper gradient than I could, say, several weeks ago. This is an achievement for me, not a massive one but an achievement nevertheless.

I managed to catch a bit of the London Marathon on Sunday. I wouldn't normally find that remotely interesting but this year, with my new found interest in running I did. I was amazed and slightly awestruck to see that the pace setter (or pacemaker? but isn't that something you put in your heart?) was running at double the speed I ran a half marathon at. Not only that but he would probably run at that speed for double the distance I ran. I'm not given to maths but even I can work out that that is pretty bloody impressive. Based on my average speed it would take me 4 hours and 26 minutes to run the marathon and that's assuming I went at a steady pace which is unlikely given the length of the race and the hidden hills in London.

So that made me think of just how impressive it is that anyone manages to run that kind of distance in any time let alone a time under, say, 4 hours. To an Olympic athlete doing it in 4.26 hours would be utterly disastrous but to me it would be utterly incredible. It's all relative this achievement thing. I think it would be easy to beat yourself up about not doing it in a predetermined time, because on the day the weather conditions weren't right or you felt a bit ropey, but the fact of doing it (given the weather and said ropiness) would make it even more of an achievement in my book.

To Tilly it's a major achievement to put her shoes on but to Eliza that's just a simple task. Achieving anything you didn't think you could do is very impressive and it's easy to underestimate that.

So just remember that if you are running any of the Race for Life events this year. And if you're not then you could enter the Great Ormond Street Hospital's RBC Race for the Kids on the 24th June. It's 5k and it's in Battersea Park. You can run, walk, jog or roller skate apparently and it raises money for a very good cause. You can enter by following this link or going to www.raceforthekids.co.uk

One I want to remember

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 19:45:00 +0000

It's easy to underestimate children isn't it? Experience dictates that a certain situation will end in tears or that because they've thrown a wobbler over something before they'll do so again. But it's also easy to forget the rate at which they develop and grow and what might have been a nightmare last week might not be this week. So my girls surprised me this weekend when they managed to go for 3 miles on a beautiful walk in the countryside nearby. Admittedly they needed the odd shoulder carry and a bit of gentle cajoling occasionally, but to their immense credit they did it.

We had some good friends come to stay with us, in fact they stayed with us two years ago and I blogged that too (we encountered some bulls and Tilly almost got electrocuted on a fence as you do when you're about a year old). So yesterday him indoors had this idea that we'd go for a lovely walk, it wouldn't rain, we'd have a picnic, the girls would be game and wouldn't throw themselves on the ground in protest and everything would be perfect. I had my doubts about such blatant optimism - shouldn't we bring the pushchair? What if they get tired? I was told they would be fine (in the manner I'd imagine he'd tell me that there was certainly a rescue party on it's way for us if we were ever to find ourselves stranded on a hostile island). As it turned out I needn't have worried. It was actually all rather lovely.

They started with predictable complaints about being tired (we'd only just got out of the car) and feet hurting (ditto), one wanted a carry, then the other, then both at the same with the same parent (around that time I was engrossed in a terribly interesting conversation and couldn't possibly be prevailed upon to carry either). Then they got into it and I think they realised that it was actually quite good fun. Lots to see and lots of adventures to have. About a third of the way in we found a tree with a proper hole in it. Perfect in fact for two little girls to explore. And explore they did. At length. Not a centimetre of that tree was left unexplored in fact.

Tilly being Tilly was covered in mud by the end from her endless jumping in muddy puddles (Peppa Pig has a lot of answer for).

She became quite professional about it in fact. First sizing up the puddle in question.

Then pondering the speed of run up needed to jump the distance.

And finally making the leap. To her great delight.

When we reached the top of the hill, the view over the downs was breathtaking and the view of my two girls sitting round with our friends eating their picnic quietly and happily was also pretty incredible. I was very proud of them. 3 miles is no mean feat when you're 2 and 4 years old.

Today we went to a local National Trust house, a very gorgeous house that would have seen its fair share of decadent 1920's parties with a lovely garden to match. The girls were on a 'scavenger hunt' and found lots of ladybirds, feathers, chickens (weirdly) and other treasures that they put in little matchboxes (not the chickens clearly).

Tilly with one of many Ladybirds

Eliza with her 'treasure box'

So after a very busy, very lovely and very happy weekend, the girls both fell asleep bang on 7pm, in fact Eliza even asked to be put to bed at about 6.45. Something that NEVER happens these days. A near enough perfect end to a pretty damn perfect weekend. Straight out of a Boden catalogue I might say if I were being just the tiniest bit smug, and if my children wore Boden which I'm not and which they don't - so not really like that at all come to think of it. Just a normal weekend with good friends and happy children. Just how it should be.

Giveaway: How to Con Your Kid

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:37:00 +0000

I can't think of the last time I did a competition or a giveaway or anything remotely nice like that on this blog. But recently a nice chap got in touch with me about a book called "How to Con Your Kid"by David Borgenicht and James Grace asking if I'd like to read it. It promises "simple scams for mealtime, bedtime, bath time, anytime!"

Rubber duck not included

I long since gave up with parenting 'experts' and books that promised to make me a great mother and my kids behave perfectly. It's a hiding to nothing and I can't follow instructions which is why my cakes often fail to rise. But I quite like this one. As the name suggests it's a really straightforward set of ideas to help you get your child to do something they don't want to do. But it's not about conning them in a negative sense, it's about helping them overcome fears or worries. Like going to the doctor or brushing hair or going to school.

Anyway the nice man sent me two. It was probably a mistake but I thought it would be nice to share the love. So I have one to give away. Just tell me you want it (comment here and give me a way to get in touch with you or tweet if you prefer) and I'll just choose a name at random. Super simple.

Oh and it's a handy pocket size (quite big coat pockets but pockets nonetheless).

Children and other animals

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 19:44:00 +0000

I've written before about Tilly and her love of animals. Honestly she is fascinated by them, in fact first thing in the morning I go to get her and say: "Morning Tilly, did you sleep well?" And I'm answered with a 'Woof' or in some cases, lately, a 'Neigh' as horsey is her new favourite toy to sleep with.

Horsey, wheels and all

This suggests to me that nature is more at play that nurture in our house. I quite like animals, I mean I don't wish them any harm, we have Mabel (the everlasting cat) and in my younger years I recall a couple of stray dogs joining our family, one who then bit me and had to be put down and actually come to think of it I'm not so keen on dogs which is a bit of a bone of contention (see what I did there?) between me and him indoors since he is convinced one day we will have a dog. I've even ridden the odd horse (very odd and rather lazy as it happens, my experience was of always having to yank them up by the reins as they munched on grass, in fact once I went out with a friend riding and I didn't move more than 10 yards from the stable in an hour). So anyway I like animals, not overly so but I'm not a case for the RSPCA either.

So I was pondering on this today, as I tidied up the playroom. I cleared away the 'What animals can you see in the jungle' puzzle, followed but the alphabet jigsaw where each letter is illustrated with an animal. I then went on to clear away Tilly's farm, with assorted chicken, pig, donkey and sheep. Close behind came the two hobby horses (Gallops and Primrose), and then various books, all of which featured animals quite prominently. Her love of animals started to make more sense. In fact when playing a game of 'Who's the king of the castle' with Tilly, she will joyfully proclaim the other to be the 'donkey rascal'.

Then when I was out with Eliza at a party today, him indoors texted me to say that Tilly was feeling a bit better after a nap (she has chicken pox) and had done a wee "like a whale because whales do wees in water don't they Daddy?"Cats, dogs, horses I get, but whales? Who knows.

So I think perhaps there's a bit of nurturing going on here, given that Eliza can tell you that a Peregrin Falcon is the fastest animal on the planet I'm guessing him indoors is somewhere behind this interest in animals (including birds for any pedants reading). Although this theory is slightly disproved when you consider the exchange Tilly & Eliza had this morning:

"Look Eliza there's a spider. Incy wincy spider climin' up the spout." Said Tilly full of love and happiness for all God's creatures.

"Let's kill it!" Said Eliza. Bless her.

Summer holidays

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 18:44:00 +0000

This year we are going to France. This is the first time the girls' will have been out of the UK in their short lives, which reminds me I must get them passports, I'm bound to forget. Until now I've not felt brave enough which is pathetic really. I know people who have been taking their children on aeroplanes since they were about 3 months old, people who have family abroad and do it regularly. But I don't. In fact him indoors and I are not big travellers. I think we were before we were married, he certainly was, but we're pretty strong advocates of the 'staycation'. In fact half our honeymoon was spent walking in the Yorkshire Dales staying in a rather remote ruin of a castle (to be clear the bit we were in wasn't actually a ruin - that would have taken the romantic idea of sleeping under the stars to a new level - but it wasn't a full on massive castle either.)

So when I was given the chance to go on holiday to a lovely place in Brittany with my family thanks to Siblu Villages, holiday parks for 'luxurious camping' I did think about it. For about 10 seconds. But it looks perfect for us. A week in France, near the sea, with loads for the kids to do; the pool, the watersides, the beach and also kids clubs, and some time to be together as a family. Something I've been hankering after for months now. I think the girls are at an age where they'll really enjoy it and remember it. I think I'm at an age now where that's all that really matters.

Les Pierres Couchees, Brittany, Siblu Villages

We discussed how we were going to get there; Eliza and I strongly in favour of flying (shorter journey time for me, more of an adventure for her). The ferry has obvious benefits (take all your stuff in the car etc) but we weren't convinced that "Jenny", our car, would make it and we'd be screwed if she broke down. Picture the scene, two little girls cooped up in the car for hours while we await roadside assistance. Me slowly losing the will to live and him indoors trying to find the nearest Auberge. We decided on flying.

If you read this regularly you'll know Eliza is very inquisitive, and very chatty. Which led to this conversation in the car (on the way to Grandma's in Birmingham on Friday):

"Mummy is France a different country?"

"Yes sweetheart."

"Mummy. Do you know that you have to eat snails in France?"

"Well you don't have to eat them darling, only if you want to."

"But you don't have to eat slugs." Completely ignoring me.

"That's good."

"You do eat slugs Eliza." Tilly putting in her twopenneth worth.

"No Tilly. You don't. You eat snails, but you don't eat their shells."

"No. That would be disgusting." Me.

"Crabs have shells!" Thanks Tilly.

"You eat crabs shells Mummy." Really Eliza?

"Well you don't eat the shells darling, they are rather hard."

"Well you eat the claws then, so there!"

"Maybe." I know it's not worth it.

"You don't eat the claws Eliza." Tilly again.

"You do Tilly. Look there's a dog in a car!" Said Eliza, my 4 year old mimic. Tilly duly looked for said dog.

"You don't eat claws." Tilly doesn't let go easily (bit like me I'm afraid).

"Yes you do. Mummy Tilly said you don't eat the claws but you do."

"Maybe. Right who wants to stop for a wee?"

So we are going to France, we will not be eating slugs, but we might be eating crabs claws.

Can't wait.

Childcare dilemmas

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:59:00 +0000

I am just a normal working mother, with my own healthy share of unhealthy mother guilt, strange behaviour (probably not for public consumption), I can be slightly delusional (Don Draper's real right?) and I have a slightly obsessive love of dry shampoo. Most of my problems I create for myself, my middle toe is currently numb, I expect this has something to do with running, and I have just created a new social media addiction in the form of Pinterest.

But. I am a nice person. I'm OK; I was brought up to be honest and sensitive to other people's feelings. Our home is a bit haphazard and the walls are decorated with felt tips, glitter and stickers, there's all manner of treasures down the back of the sofas and the TV has two black lines on it where Tilly pushed an over enthusiastic finger at Peppa Pig. But the fridge is always full (and sometimes the food's even in date), there's a brilliantly stocked goodies cupboard and he bathrooms always clean. Normal right?

When I went back to work we decided to try an au pair. My hours mean childminders and nannies can be tricky, and the girls are at pre-school much of the time anyway. To be clear this doesn't make me Victoria Beckham, nor does it mean I off load my kids on the au pair when I'm not working ("ooh must see my colour therapist - would you mind having the little princesses for a couple of hours?"), if anything having an au pair is like having another dependent.

So we had a lovely girl who came last year and left us recently, she went home to work in a nursery in a beam of smiles and kind words about us and our children - him indoors and I are 'amazing' people (we are also 'amazing' actors). We then got another lovely girl. A Spanish nurse as it happens who had done nannying. Perfect? Not quite. Being able to ask for "dos cerveza por favor" is all well and good when you're on a 2 week package to Spain but not so good when you're trying to communicate about potty training or feeding the children. Suffice it to say despite everything (including many English lessons) she felt it wasn't going to work out.

I can see her point. My kids, no doubt all kids, talk a lot when they are little. They are learning to communicate and express themselves and they get frustrated when they can't make themselves understood. I get frustrated when I can't make myself understood but I'm a grown up so I probably shouldn't. But Eliza asks questions like "Why do we have eyes on the front of our faces?" and "how does the microwave make my milk hot?" it takes a bit of creativity to come up with an answer she'll be able to relate to (which is why I normally say we'll wait till Daddy gets home, he's the teacher).

When you consider this, it was never going to work out with our lovely Spanish au pair. So it wasn't something I said, or the drawing on the walls or even our mangy old cat Mabel that has landed me in the position of trying to sort our childcare situation again. It was just one of those things. So here I go again, back to the world of Skype interviews whilst trying to keep the glass of wine out of shot.

Wish me luck....

And today girls Mummy ran 13 miles

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 21:09:00 +0000

Today was a big day for me. I ran a half marathon and I ran it comfortably and made a good time (for me anyway). I have said this before but the feeling of achievement is pretty spectacular. It's not just the achievement of having run it without collapsing, walking, or staggering across the finish but the fact I did it at all really.

It's easy to find reasons not to do things; not to go out for a run when it's bloody freezing, not to go to the gym and run on the treadmill because it's so painfully boring, not to say no to a glass of wine. And it's easy to blame it on being tired because of many disturbed nights with the children, working hard, commuting blah blah blah.

But running is good for the soul, for my soul anyway. It's time to think (or not think), it's time to myself, it's a great surge of endorphin that helps me spin the plates and juggle all the balls. It's actually harder to find reasons not to do it when you know the benefits it brings. Don't get me wrong though, there are times when I run and I just can't find my rhythm which sounds a bit up it's own arse, but it's true. When I get into a place where I'm just feeling my feet on the ground and processing random information in my head then the time goes and I don't notice the miles.

I 'negotiated' two medals at the end so both girls could have one when I got home, they were very happy and quite apart from putting them on themselves they presented them to me. Eliza asked me if I won my race. Bless her I didn't have the heart to tell her that me winning would be on a par with the Easter Bunny jumping through the window and handing me several million English pounds.

All in all a very good day. My Dad took me to the race and then went off on his bike for the duration, so he was there when I finished, well actually he wasn't he had to get through all the people on his bike, but I did see another friendly face in the crowd, an old colleague of mine had also run the race. When my Dad did eventually find me we headed over to my sister's pub for a late lunch. My other sister is doing a run in July so she's signed him up to be her race mascot too. He's good at that sort of thing my Dad. Always around for moral support when you need it.

Back to work tomorrow if my achey legs can manage it. Then I'll be signing up for the next one.

Mummy what do you do at work?

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:51:00 +0000

I always knew this time would come. Ever since him indoors became a teacher and Eliza became interested in school (she'll be going in September) I knew the question about what Mummy does at work would come. But I wasn't very well prepared for it when it came tonight.

Today we went to my husband's school for lunch, that's not as odd at it sounds. It's a boarding school and he was on duty today, it's a beautiful old building in the Surrey hills with lots of interesting places for small children to see. So naturally we looked at his classroom and took a trip to the tuck shop and explored a few other places as well as making daisy chains on the lawn. But when Tilly accidentally called the deputy head on his home number from the office, I thought it was probably time to leave. Him indoors felt that might be for the best too.

But anyway as a result I had a barrage of questions about Daddy's school from Eliza. Why does he work there? What does he teach the children? Does he teach them numbers? Does he teach them about the weather? (they are A level students so it's unlikely, but who knows?). The questions dried up and we had a lovely afternoon at home together, just me and the girls. They were both tired and Eliza fell asleep while Tilly 'helped' me put away all the washing. She then read me one of her stories, dressed up in Eliza's 'mixy and matchy' princess shoes (odd to you and me) and gave me lots of lots of cuddles just because she could. Which I thought was rather a good reason to.

So bedtime came and naturally Eliza wasn't tired. She wanted to chat. I, on the other hand am tired. Having been up at 5.30am (4.30 really).

"Mummy where do you work?"

I thought this was progress, normally it's why do you work? I always struggle with the right mix of positive female role model vs. reality of everyday life and guilt when asked that one.

"Well I work in London darling."

"But what do you do at work?"

"Er..well I talk to people a lot..." definition of PR for a 4 year old anyone?

"But Mummy, do you have to stand up?"

"Well, yes sometimes I do."

"But do you teach people things?"

"Not really no, I'm not a teacher like Daddy. I just sort of talk to people and work on my computer." I hadn't realised my job could sound so dull. Role model? Hardly.

"But Mummy why aren't you a teacher?" Because I have the patience of a small child on steroids and I'd be utterly, completely terrified of it.

"Well not everyone's a teacher darling, teacher's are quite special people because they help people learn."

"My teacher lets me pour the drinks!" Bit smile and not a little pride in her beautiful face.

"Really? That's good darling. Well done."

"Mummy do you make things?"

"Erm.. no not really but sometimes I help other people make things." Crap. And actually not really true, no idea where it came from. I briefly fantasised about being an artist or a doctor or a dentist or working on the tills at Sainsbury's, anything she could understand.

"But Mummy I want to know what you do at work?"

"Well I get a train to work every day (true) and I make quite a lot a tea (oh yes integral part of my job the tea making, I've come a very long way in my 18 year career), I talk to people a lot (true) and I work on my computer (true but does it have to sound so boring?)."

Seriously. Is that the best I can do? I may as well have told her I sit in a room and stare at a blank wall all day. Him indoors could make my job sounds interesting to her, but that's probably why he's a teacher.

I think she realised that 'what mummy does at work' was not very exciting and so settled for a story. Topsy & Tim "Ride their bikes", in which Dad gives them the bikes all shiny and new but it is Mummy who gets the spanner out and puts the saddles down and indeed Mummy who teaches them to cycle. That's my kind of story. A proper female role model.

Ah well.

The Small Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:48:00 +0000

There is a lovely girl who lives in Scotland who happens to write a blog I like. It's called Letters From Your Mum. Recently she tweeted me about a post she had written "The small stuff" I liked the idea and so copied it. Well why not. It's all about sharing this blogging game.

What's my small stuff?

It's an early night with hot chocolate and a good book that I've been looking forward to reading all day (currently Only the Dogs, Jon McGregor). Actually it's hot chocolate any time really. Or in fact chocolate, doesn't have to be hot.

It's realising my watch is fast and I haven't missed the train home that gives me more time with the girls before bed.

It's the feeling after a run, particularly if it's in the evening and I know I can have a bath and fall into bed, my muscles aching satisfyingly (is that a word? it is now).

It's waking up at 6am and realising the girls slept all night. Perhaps more importantly realising I slept all night. (There is little else in 6am's favour let's be honest).

It's lighter evenings.

It's March days with my family at the seaside on Mothering Sunday.

The car is carrying an extra ton in shells & pebbles now

It's unexpected and slightly bizarre gifts.

Of course it's a Jaffa Cake tree. What else would you expect on Mother's Day?

It's feeling loved.

It's cuddling my girls and feeling their arms tight around my neck.

It's Eliza saying 'wriggle' and laughing hysterically because it's her favourite word.

It's Tilly 'reading' "Good night Moon" in her little Tilly voice.

It's buying a pair of shoes on impulse that look nice and you can walk in them.

It's someone giving you their pay and display ticket on their way out of the car park.

Little things really aren't they? But they make a very big difference in this Mummy's life. What's yours?

Competitive Parenting

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:28:00 +0000

Yeah whatever neither of my kids sat up, rolled over, crawled or walked when they were 'meant to'. They took their time in most things. Apart from talking. They both mastered that pretty early on and talk ten to the dozen all day every day. It's part of their charm. But you know what? I simply cannot get Tilly potty trained. And you know why? Because I simply haven't had enough consecutive days where there's not much else going on to do it. Does that make Tilly backward? No it doesn't. Does it make me a bad mother? Absolutely not. Does it suggest we have rather haphazard childcare? Possibly.

So I can deal with the implications from various people who shall remain nameless that Tilly is a little bit behind and just 'doesn't get it' but when you're own daughter who happens to be 4 tells you it's a bit worrying.

"Mummy why won't Tilly tell you when she needs a wee?"

"Because she hasn't really got the hang of it yet."

"But Sarah* can do it and she's only 1!" Sarah* is another child looked after by their childminder.

"Bully for Sarah."

"What does that mean Mummy?"

"It means isn't Sarah a clever girl."

"But Mummy Tilly is nearly 3."

"Yes I am aware of that thank you Eliza."

"Mummy nappies are for babies."

"How about we all get dressed and go to nursery?"

Bloody hell. My daughter is pointing out my shortcomings now and she's only 4 Lord only knows how she'll be when she's a teenager. A bit like me as a teenager I suspect. Perfect of course.

Oh well.

Just off to clear up another puddle...

Smiler

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:50:00 +0000

I've had a few days at home this week whilst I have been settling in a new childcarer. It's been challenging in parts (isn't it always when you must learn to trust someone new to look after the most precious things in the world), but it's been wonderful to spend more time with my girls. I realise during weeks like this just how much I miss out on by working. There's a huge flip side to that argument though involving things like mortgages, bills and sanity.

Anyway it can become easy to get sad. To get sad about the things I miss. To get sad about if the girls are happy. To get sad about how my relationship with them is affected. And then, as if by fate, something happens that helps you realise it's all okay really.

I was working in a coffee shop this morning (by way of spending a couple of hours out of the house for aforementioned childcarer to bond with Tilly and for me to get some work done), when a friend of mine who is also one of the mothers from Eliza's nursery popped in. We had a coffee and a chat. She told me how sweet it was that her daughter called Eliza 'smiley' because she was, quite simply, always smiling. Eliza has a beautiful smile (I would say that) and it lights up the room and her face. It's infectious and it makes me so happy. So to know that she is like this most of the time fills me with a mix of relief, pride and love.

When I got home I walked in to see Tilly trying to put her cat mask on the childcarer and them both meowing. I figured this was a good thing and Tilly looked like a happy, normal 2 year old.

I then went to pick up Eliza from nursery and as we all stood outside waiting for our children, who all come out as their names are called, Eliza came to the door and held up a plastic bag with some cooking creation she had made and announced "Happy Mothers day Mummy! I made this for you." I bent to pick her up and squeeze her.

There is little in the world as good as a cuddle with a happy, smiley, gorgeous 4 year old called Eliza, except perhaps a cuddle with a cheeky, soft, smiley gorgeous 2 year old called Tilly. If only I could bottle that feeling and take it to work with me.

Sunshiney optimism

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 20:19:00 +0000

Clearly I wouldn't be British if I didn't dedicate a blog post to the weather. It's a big deal isn't it? Sunday felt like the start of Spring, in fact according to my girls today was warm enough to get the paddling pool out. I thought that on balance the overly enthusiastic plant watering was probably enough exposure to just-above-freezing-water, so resisted the whining that followed.

Tilly likes to mix and match her footwear

But we did get the tenty-tunnelly things out and they had hours of fun (well about 1/2 hour) chasing each other, then playing "cafe ladies" inside as they transferred pretend wooden food from the Wendy house to the tunnelly things.

Pure happiness

It was a lovely day, the edge was slightly taken off it by my monstrous hangover, courtesy of a wedding I went to on Saturday which was an awful lot of fun. But you always pay for an awful lot of fun don't you? I think you pay double when you have two little girls who have missed you and just want you on 120% energy. That's tough at the best of times, but when metabolising a litre of gin it's nigh on impossible. But still I had an excellent time and the hangover is now a distant memory but the day itself is not. Which is how it should be.

So the world is a far better place when the sun is shining. Tilly was busy making 'chocolate water' today in the garden, I later noticed that that had involved digging up most of the bed that Eliza and I had planted the bulbs in a few weeks ago. Oh well. Tilly was happy. Her coat and everything she was wearing was covered in chocolate water and so was the kitchen floor after she excitedly ran in to show me her creation.

She was asleep on the sofa by 6pm, clearly digging up the garden is exhausting work. I'm guessing it will be an early morning tomorrow.

The Exercise of Struggle

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:48:00 +0000

There is much written about how we should engage with our children. We must help them develop core skills through creative play. We must help them learn. We must pretend to be fairy princesses to help them learn about, er, fairy princesses? And I get this, I do. I certainly see the value in opening their eyes to new experiences.

But recently someone told me about something Steven Biddulph said. It was along the lines of "kids should struggle, parents should relax". I'm paraphrasing and probably misquoting but I like the sentiment. The point is that children need the exercise of struggle, it's how they learn, it's how they develop and figure out how the world works. We should observe and yes I suppose relax a bit. We need to let them become their own people, not little replicas of us (heaven forbid).

I find myself worrying intensely about if I'm doing enough to help them develop and be happy, am I being a good parent. But it's the times when I just forget about all that stuff and let the kids do the things they want to do (and sometimes I join in because it's actually fun to shrug off the responsibilities of life) that they seem happiest. Like when we went to the farm and they played endlessly on the stationery tractor before we'd even got to the animals.

3 minutes later she'd steamed into the barn

I will often stop them doing stuff that makes a mess because frankly it's just one more thing to tidy up after the washing, the hoovering, the endless folding and putting away of clothes and all the other crap that goes with the job of mother/housewife/bill payer. But actually it's that stuff that gives us some of our best moments together. When we let it.

We made Easter cards the other day. Some of the girls at work gave me a load of 'craft' magazines and bits to make cards with and I sat down with the girls and did it. And I really enjoyed it. They did too and of course having Mummy so totally involved in the moment with them is special.

Our Easter cards, Eliza's are the good ones of course

They love exploring new places, figuring out new things, using their imagination and role playing. The other morning him indoors was playing 'beach holidays' with them. They both had their swimming costumes on (it was pissing down outside) and they were pretending to be at the seaside. They both had houses by the sea and they were inviting each other over for tea (I was delighted to see that they are aiming high - hopefully one of those houses by the sea will be for their old mum in years to come, I live in hope.)

It's not always easy to remember this very simple truth. Children can grow and learn and develop without constant interruption from us. And it's actually fun to watch them rather than disappearing off to change the bed linen. And sometimes it's a lot of fun to join in.

I was painting their toe nails...they were painting mine.

Where does it all go wrong?

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 11:55:00 +0000

And so I find myself once again alone with the girls at the weekend. Things start off okay, as well as they can when you've been up on and off all night with one child or the other and a 5.45am start to the day. All days start at 5.30 - 6am in our house, this is not unusual. It's just a bit brutal at the weekend, but the girls don't differentiate. I have a bunny clock on order, his ears pop up when it's morning. I'm hoping this will work or I may well be blogging from an institution in a few weeks time.

We went first to our local National Trust house. The garden is fun for them and they sell ice cream and tea. What more could you want? But it was closed. I suppose the rest of the world doesn't need places to open so early at weekends. Just me. So failing that we went to the garden centre. It's normally a safe bet; see the fish, look at the pretty flowers, have a cup of tea/hot chocolate, cake, marshmallows. Everyone's happy. And everyone was happy. For a while.

We looked at the flowers, I turned a blind eye to the ones being 'deadheaded' by Tilly (they weren't dead) and became temporarily deaf to the tuts of the lady who worked there not to mention those of the other people (without small children) who were looking at pansies for their neat beds.

The girls were having fun. Until we discovered the shed department. I've never taken them there before. Somehow amongst the fish and the flowers and cafe we just miss it. But not today. Today I thought it'd be fun for them to play in the sheds and of course it was. In particular the children's playhouse display. Eliza played happily for a while then understood it was time to go. But Tilly didn't really get that part. She was having fun running up and down the stairs in 'her' house. Why on earth would she want to leave? Why indeed.

It started as gentle protest, then shouting then crying and finally full flat on the floor tantrum that would wake the dead. I had to climb up the teeny tiny Pontipine steps in the playhouse, retrieve my daughter and hobble down again. All while she kicked and screamed and caused all the people happily milling around the garden centre to stare at this spectacularly inadequate mother manhandling her child. Eliza patiently walked along beside me carrying Tilly's coat (that naturally she had refused to wear). We walked past a big group of what appeared to be new mums and dads all introducing each other to their new babies, no doubt thinking "goodness what a dreadful mother, we'll never be like that" (I know, I was like that once). And finally into the car, strapping her into the carseat while her screams could be heard for miles around. Trying not to cry myself at the sight of her blotchy little face. It was actually pretty awful.

And here we are at a home, she's curled up on the sofa "being a cat" drinking milk and watching CBeebies. Eliza is playing a game involving drawing a map and putting it in her 'Ruktuk' (thanks Dora the Explorer). I spoke too soon, Tilly's climbed off the sofa and is heading toward me. My 5 minutes peace has come to an end.

Running Mummy: the sequel

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:24:00 +0000

I did my first 10k, since I had the girls, last year. It was for Cancer Research and I was very proud of myself for managing to run it and finish it. It felt good to train for something and then do it. As I read back over that post and the various others that I wrote about the training and run itself I realised that I've come quite far in running terms (I have come nowhere in other terms, like calling my friends more often or being a more patient mother, but I can't do everything).

As it happens I am now training to run a half marathon. I suppose I thought that at some point in my life I'd try and run an actual marathon but I'm not sure I ever will. I think I'd be happy to do 13 miles. In fact in a book I was recently given there is a chapter about what type of runner you are. I am not a distance runner, I know this because of something to do with lactates. I don't really know what that means but I like the vaguely scientific excuse I now have for never putting myself through 26 miles. My friend Jane (who you will know as Northern Mummy with Southern Children) has run lots of marathons. She's like a machine. She has 3 kids and she runs marathons. That's either very impressive or slightly insane.

Anyway the point is that I ran 10k on a running machine last night. This is not usual for me. I normally run outside, there's some beautiful countryside around here and there's something wonderful about going out in the bracing cold and running for 10 miles through the fields and lanes and woods. It's also really bloody hilly which has the effect of making me sound like an old horse that's been put out to pasture nobly trying to run one last time.

But I think all the wheezing as I run uphill must be making my heart stronger. I hope so anyway. I don't like running in the dark though, outside on my own. I am, frankly, scared. So I don't do it. I discovered that the gym in the town near me does a pay as you go thing. You literally pay for the session rather than a gold plated, lock you in till you die, type of contract. I like this because I will only ever use a gym to run on the treadmill when I can't go outside.

I have clocked up about 130 miles since I got my nikeplus watch (that looks a bit like one of those ankle bracelets that alcoholics on day release or Lindsey Lohan wears) in September last year.

Lindsey Lohan's ankle complete with breathalyzer bracelet

Nike plus GPS watch or is it a breathalyzer bracelet?

That might not sound like a lot but to me it's a bloody mountain of miles. I do about two runs a week and I am now (thanks to the gym) able to do three. I reckon I'll be fit for my half marathon in about four weeks time. I hope so anyway.

I guess the point of this post is to say that it's good to have something to train for. It's focusses the mind. I never thought I'd run 10k let alone 10 miles. It's these achievements that make me feel like I am making progress. Exercise is a good preventative medicine. It keeps me sane and keeps me in my skinny jeans, which is almost the same thing after all.

Two Special Books

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:19:00 +0000

There are two little books that give me a great deal of pleasure. They aren't expensive or clever or literary. In fact at least one of them is falling apart and the spine is broken. The other is ring bound and the paper is hanging within it precariously. One has an owl sticker on it and the other has a hedgehog. They are both more valuable than my iPad (emotionally, clearly).

They are the books that go back and forth with my girls to their pre-school. In those pages lie the stories about what they have learnt, what they have done and how well they are getting on in life. Some days amid the chaos of getting the train home, cycling up the hill, being welcomed with happy smiles that sometimes turn to tearful cries, the bedtime routine which is sometimes smooth, sometimes fraught, always special in the end, I forget to look at these books.

Then when I remember I read them greedily, gorging on the stories of Tilly's pride in painting a star, learning to recognise her name, cutting vegetables, singing at circle time. Or Eliza's confidence on the bikes at break time, pouring the drinks at snack time, telling her teachers about Peregrin Falcons ("the fastest animal in the whole world!").

Sometimes I read back to when Eliza started pre-school and I feel my eyes stinging with pride at how she's grown. I see the evidence that Tilly is not far behind her, that my two little girls burn bright with curiosity and fun. The rush of love takes my breath away.

Someone asked me the other day why I felt the need to share these stores about my children with the world (which was an over claim I thought, it's just a blog written by a mum, hardly the BBC news site). But it was asked in a rather cynical tone. I just answered honestly. I write this because one day I want my girls to read it and know how much I loved them.

He replied, "Can't you just write them a letter?"

He has a point I suppose, but one letter would never do it. Sometimes when I'm sad or if I miss bedtime or just if I'm feeling really crap about myself as a mum I read random posts and they remind me that I'm getting better at this and that my girls are developing and growing beautifully.

It's about things I want to remember. Like the painting we did at the weekend.

And how 'horsey' is Tilly's current favourite toy and how he reminds me of my childhood for some reason.

And how at the end of the day, they leave me for a while and disappear into their own world of dreams, and how they can never sleep without an armful of 'friends' to keep them company.

It's the moments in time that a blog can capture that are important to me. Just like those two little books I suppose.

Fickle Tilly

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:31:00 +0000

Tilly is delightful. She is chatty, ever so chatty. She rarely stops for breath in fact. She is full of fun and games and loves hide and seek and i-spy (although Tilly's hide & seek involves telling you where she's hiding and her i-spy involves saying "Ispymylileye something 'ginning with yellow!" who knows?). Tilly is also a cat. On the way home from our non-swimming trip today (that I'll get to) we had this conversation in the car.

"Meow meow Mummy."

"Hello Tilly."

"I'm not Tilly, I'm a cat. Meow."

"Oh, of course you are, silly of me. Did you have fun today cat?"

"Meow."

Silence.

"That mean's yes Mummy."

"Oh jolly good. When we get back you can rest for a bit on the sofa if you like." Here's hoping...

"I want to be a cat Mummy."

This means she wants to lie on the sofa with her bottom in the air (it's how she sleeps, cracks me up every time) with a bottle of milk in her mouth. I believe the cat reference is because cats drink milk, well Mabel doesn't but Mabel's weird.

"Ok Tilly, I mean cat, of course you can."

So to go back to the title of this post, children are fickle little so and so's aren't they? The reason for saying this now is because today I had a day off. I was working last week in France (yes yes it's a hard life, we were staying in a chateau) so today was a day to spend with the girls to make up for Friday.

Him indoors had arranged to take Eliza somewhere fun with her best friend (he's a teacher so has half term, lucky bugger) so I had Tilly for the day. Now I'm not the worlds' best mother but I do know a fair bit about what my kids like. I know they like milk, I know they like chocolate, I know Eliza loves Dora and Tilly loves The Night Garden, I know they BOTH love Mr Tumble (Justin Fletcher you are officially a genius) and I know that they both love jigsaws, jumping on mummy and daddy, mixing stuff, helping me tidy up, jumping on my bed, eating crap food, throwing themselves from incredible heights at soft play and asking 55,000 questions per day, every day, and reserving them all for bedtime.

That much I know.

I also know that Tilly LOVES swimming. Ask Tilly on any given day what she would most like to do and the answer will be, unfailingly "Swimming please Mummy!" Always. I would actually bet my house on it. She was born in water, maybe that's why.

Today was no different. A day with Mummy and Tilly declares swimming to be the thing she most wants to do. To put this in context swimming is the thing I most loathe doing. I know it's awful to admit but I just get cold and splashed in the eyes and then she gets cold when it's time to get out, then trying to put clothes on when she's wriggling around, and cold, and damp and I'm not even dressed because I have to get her dressed first, and my hands dry up (since childhood they go horribly dry so I can't actually touch anything without putting a litre of hand lotion on, not just dry but so I can't touch anything, it's the 'running fingernails down a blackboard' type of sensation) and I always forget the bloody hand lotion and my hair is wet and being pulled and Tilly's hair is wet and she won't have it dried. So all in all it's a bit of a mission and not one I relish. But today being Tilly's day I valiantly put that all aside.

We got there. We parked. We queued up got our ticket. Then remembered we hadn't got a swim nappy so had to re-queue. We finally made it in to the changing rooms and it started.

"No Mummy I want my strawberry swimming costume." Oh lord, I didn't have it. I had 5 costumes and not one of them had a sodding strawberry on it.

"But I have this lovely pink one, and this pretty flower one and a lovely spotty one, and a pretty stripy one..." the list went on. I had literally picked up every one I could find fearing the fussiness would happen. But buggered if I could find the strawberry one.

"No. I want strawberry one."

"Darling, there are lots of others. Do you think the swimming pool will be pink or blue?" Desperate distraction techniques are second nature to me.

"Blue." Momentarily distracted, "I want my strawberry one."

"I don't have it." Deal with it. Oh I forgot you're two and unable to do that.

"I want my Daddy." If you could just stick that knife in a little bit deeper and bit more to the left we should be good. Thanks darling.

"Ok. Let's put this one on and go and see all the children having fun." Said in Cebeebies presenter voice.

I persevered and got her to the pool side. She held on to me for dear life crying her little eyes out.

"No Mummy. Don't want to go swimming."

I was coaxing her in for a bit, but she was standing there red-eyed almost shaking with what could only be described as fear and it occurred to me that for the first time in her little life she actually didn't want to go swimming. I was aware of the people looking at me. Bad mother, forcing her poor child to get in the big, cold pool.

We gave up. I picked her up and cuddled her and agreed that frankly swimming is over-rated and sausages, beans and chips in the cafe was probably better fun. We got changed back again, we had our lunch and she played for about an hour with a rather sorry looking toy in the cafe. Easily pleased you might say. You might. Or you might say fickle.

Cooking with Mother

noreply@blogger.com (It's a Mummys Life) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:05:00 +0000

My children are becoming very clever. They often speak to me like I'm a total moron who needs to be told things very slowly and very carefully. They often say things to me in a manner more befitting a teenager. They are 2 and 4 years old. I'm sure this is normal behaviour.

Tilly has lept right off the 'meek-and-mild-second-child' bridge into the sea of 'I-must-assert-myself-at-every-possible-opportunity'. It makes our house rather loud at times.

This afternoon him indoors was trying to light a fire (at home in the fireplace, he is not actually an arsonist) and clearly the 'help' he was getting from the girls was proving challenging. I was duly called to distract them. I was in the middle of cooking supper.

"Eliza & Tilly, come here please I need your help."

Up rocked Tilly. She's very helpful.

"Yes Mummy, what do you want?"

"Well I need some things mixing please Tilly, can you get Eliza as well?"

"Ok!"

I heard her run back, tell Eliza the exciting news and then I heard two pairs of little feet run back to me in the kitchen.

"We're here Mum!" Tilly said, Eliza behind her not quite sure if mixing something was more or less exciting than helping Daddy build a fire, but thought she'd weigh up her options.

"Great." At this point I still wasn't sure what on earth they were going to mix. Until I spied a half empty (or half full, depending on your outlook on life) tub of meringues - the little ones from Tesco that have absolutely no flavour and are like polystyrene.

"Right well I need you to make pudding. Here, you need to crush up these meringues."

This seemed to beat the fire building so they climbed onto the stools and I gave them both meringues, spoons and bowls and the crushing began. Well Eliza started crushing, naturally Tilly started eating them. Smart girl.

"We're done Mum." Eliza announced about 5 minutes later. Very efficient these sous chefs.

"Ok, now you need to add the, er, the...ermm....oh yes the marscapone cheese." Handily I had half a pot in the fridge. You never know when you'll need it (clearly I am always prepared to whip up a tasty pudding when I'm not ironing, cleaning or some other housewifely duty).

So anyway they stirred that together and chucked in a kiwi for good measure (I know, we're very exotic here, no bananas for us), at which point their Dad came in.

"Oooh that looks nice." Finger poised to taste it.

"We crushing up maracas Daddy and Kiwis!" said Tilly with excitement and a mouthful of 'maracas'. She offered him a half eaten one. He felt obliged.

"And mixing in Pony cheese." said Eliza with concentration as she mixed in the pony cheese (hooves not withstanding).

"Sounds lovely, is it Eton Mess?" said him indoors.

"No Daddy!" Said Tilly with indignation and the tone of talking to complete idiot, "we are NOT making a mess! We're making pudding!"

He was duly put in his place and went back to his fire, which is still burning now and keeping me very warm on a chilly night with snow falling outside.