Noble Girl’s friend was at our house the other day when  he picked up a small finger puppet from our toy box. The puppet looks like a black top hat and inside is a white rabbit. When you push your finger inside, up pops the rabbit to complete the ‘magic trick’.

NG’s friend to her: “Hey, guess what’s in this hat!”

NG: “A rabbit.”

NG’s friend: “No, you have to pretend you don’t know. Guess again!”

NG: “A rabbit.”

NG’s friend: “No, pretend. Pretend you don’t know what’s inside.”

NG: “It’s a rabbit.”

NG’s friend, getting a bit upset: “I want to do this magic trick. Now ask me what’s inside the hat properly, please!”

NG, after seeing me silently urging her to comply, looks bored and sighs: “Okay then. What’s inside the hat??”

NG’s friend: “It’s a rabbit!”

NG, completely monotone and unimpressed: “Wow, that’s amazing. I had no idea.”

So cynicism is hereditary. I’m so proud.

I went to public (state) school my entire life, in the American Midwest. I never had to wear a uniform.

Wait, I take that back. I did attend a Catholic school for one year and did, indeed, wear a uniform. But it was one year and I was only 6 so I don’t remember doing any of the shopping for it.

Anyway, my point is that I’m new to all of this uniform buying business. While everyone else knows where to go and what and when to buy, I’ve been tottering around the high street squinting at people I think I recognise from the parents’ welcome picnic in July, trying to sneak a peek at their shopping bags to see what kind of uniform loot they’ve got.

I went into the place that sells all of the ‘official’ gear and got a price list. I think I cried a little when I read that it would be around £30 just for two cardigans. Two cardigans for a 4-year-old who will likely ruin them, lose them or grow out of them before the ink has even dried on the name tags.

So this is why I’ve gotten a few raised eyebrows when I’ve mentioned to other parents that I haven’t started shopping yet! And, of course, the long bank holiday weekend (when it would make most sense to finish getting everything) is just before pay day and we are brokety broke broke.

Thankfully, my lovely new childminder, whose children attend the same school that Noble Girl begins at next month, mentioned that the large Sainsbury’s near us had some pretty good uniform deals so I drove over there and, lo and behold, managed to get about 2/3 of what I needed for less than £20. I would’ve been able to get all of it if they’d had Noble Girl’s size in a couple of other items.

I’ll be using the ever-thrifty website VoucherCodes.co.uk to get the rest when Sainsbury’s stocks are replenished. Gym shoes and polo shirts for £2?! Yes please! Marks and Sparks have also got some good deals on so have a look there too if you’re still looking for bargains for  your own child(ren).

VoucherCodes.co.uk did a recent survey and found out that the average spend per child on the entire school uniform kit is a whopping £131.41, even though their research shows that you can get everything for as little as £39.68. I’m definitely aiming to be in the latter camp!

I have no qualms whatsoever about sending my child to primary school in supermarket-branded clothes. She’s 4, ferchrissakes! I know it’s only a matter of a few years before she will want more name-brand and ‘cool’ things to help her fit in and/or stand out amongst her peers. But for now? I’m all about doing this as painlessly and inexpensively as possible.

And I will not get all misty-eyed when she puts it all on for the first time and I drop her off at the school gates. I will not, I will not, I will….oh, who am I kidding?

*This is a sponsored post

Summer draws to a close

Perhaps my introspective period too?

Words don’t flow from me but to me

Books upon books upon books

Words of others, my need

Words of mine, few

Too busy absorbing

like a sponge

The knowledge and the beauty

The wisdom and the love

The skill and the art

of living in the moment

Absorbing words

Absorbing life

Absorbing her before she goes

off to school

No longer my baby

But a girl in uniform

Headed into the brightness

of her future

Destined to absorb

like a sponge

All of the words

that made her mama who she is

Absorbing her smell, her cuddles, her touch

Like a sponge, I soak her up

take her into my pores

The line between mother and child

blurred once more

Thursday for me is what some might call ‘Me Time’ but in reality would more accurately be called Outsourced Housework and Childcare Equals a More Patient and Fulfilled Mother Day. But that’s a mouthful so I just call it my favourite day.

On Thursday morning, my wonderful cleaner comes. I greet her as I scramble to get shoes on excitable children and herd them out to the car where I will transport them to Grandma’s house. I feel no existential feminist guilt for this. I look after two small, demanding children all day and am self-employed in two different capacities. If people can outsource their childcare in order to work, I can outsource my cleaning. Or both!

I know someone out there will be thinking I’m some kind of pampered, indulgent, stay-at-home mother who should be looking after her own children 24/7 and cleaning while her husband works hard to bring home the bacon, but to those people I say get off that sanctimony pony, make yourself a cocktail and hitch yourself a ride into the 21st century, compadre.

I do not cook. I do not sew. I do minimal cleaning. As of next month, my daughter will be in school all day and my son with either a childminder or his grandmother three days a week.

My kids probably watch too much TV. I spend too much time on the computer or with my nose in a book. I frequently say No to playing or chasing in order to do my own thing, or do the playing or chasing only until I get bored and decide it is grown-up time again, which is usually after ten minutes.

On Thursday, after I drop the children at their grandmother’s for the day and before I go home to a clean house, I spend an hour in a coffee shop drinking lattes and reading the newspaper from cover to cover. I go for a walk or a meander through the shops. Today, I put up a couple of flyers promoting my doula services.

I drive home. Alone. I sing as loudly as I want, drive faster and revel in not being asked a hundred questions from the back seat. I might stop into the shop on my way home and nearly forget not to park in the parent/child spots. I am able to get in and out in less than 10 minutes. Another Thursday miracle.

I open my front door in gleeful anticipation of clean floors and a gleaming bathroom. The air smells faintly of lemons. It is quiet. I can hear the clock ticking in the living room. Does that clock tick? I never notice unless it’s Thursday.

I look out the smudge-free window and admire the sight of washing flapping in the breeze, juxtaposed against the blue sky and emerald green grass. I turn on the radio and listen to my favourite radio program, Robert Elms on BBC London at noon, while I prepare lunch for one.

The Robert Elms show is a celebration of every aspect of this tumultuous city that we share. For three hours a day we revel in the numerous stories and characters, memories and aspirations which make this such an extraordinary place to live and work. Art and architecture, history, movies and language, shopping, drinking, dining and dancing all carried out to a soundtrack of music for grown ups.

On Thursday I do not have to cut crusts off sandwiches or put juice in cups with lids. I nibble at olives while I half-listen to the radio and daydream of all the places I’m going to see and all the things I’m going to do once I have not only one but THREE days a week in which to be alone.

Most of those days I will be working: doing my editing job; blogging (I consider my two blogs work in that it sometimes results in payment and because it keeps my writing skills sharp, which I still hope to utilise professionally one day); administrative work, research, study and preparation for my doula business; and general household stuff like taxes, banking, shopping, doctor’s appointments, DIY, gardening, etc..

But on at least one day each month, probably on Thursdays, I will catch the train into a new part of London or an area I’ve been but not properly explored, or to a place I’d like to visit. Somewhere along the way while out and about in this wonderful city of mine, I will do something nice for someone I’ve never met. It might be something simple like leaving a note or a small gift for a stranger to find, or helping a mother struggling with her pushchair on the stairs to the Underground. It might involve a bit of street art or guerilla goodness or a random act of kindness.

When out doing my history lessons/walkabouts/random acts of kindness, I will bring my camera and use it. With no children in tow, I will have time to change lenses or adjust  for the lighting and actually learn what my long-coveted pride and joy is capable of. Killing three birds on my life’s to-do list with one stone: fall in love with London, be a positive presence in the world and finally (finally!) learn the art of photography.

Thursday is definitely, and will hopefully continue to be, my favourite day. A day for me and only me. That, in turn, makes me a whole lot nicer to everyone else.

Photo credit

I’ve been meaning to do a review of The Idle Parent because I liked it so much.

Alas, as  I was ignoring the children this morning while attempting to finish something I was doing on the computer, Noble Boy scribbled all over its pages with a brown pencil.

If ever there was a good reason not to be able to review a book (at least if it requires re-quoting passages), that one should suffice for this book’s author.

Anyway, that’s not the reason I’m writing. In a subsequent not-really-ignoring-but-not-really-paying-that-much-attention-either episode later in the day, just after lunch, my strongly-held opposition to culturally-ingrained gender stereotypes was tested.

As I worked at the dining room table and the children played outside, drawing (on paper this time) and cutting out pictures from an old magazine, I became absorbed in my news-gathering (part and parcel of the ol’ editing job) and didn’t notice when Noble Girl disappeared from the table and strolled over to the shed, scissors clutched in her hand. It wasn’t until Noble Boy came to me crying, pulling at my hand to get up and see what had happened, that I realised with a growing sense of dread that something was very amiss.

My 4-year-old daughter — the one with long, beautiful, blond hair — stared at me with a mixture of confusion, fear and sadness in her eyes.  My jaw dropped when I saw the choppy mane hanging in ragged layers around her face and the piles of hair around her feet. I looked down at Noble Boy, who was still crying, and saw that she’d worked her scissor magic on his (already sparse) hair too. Where there had previously been fine wisps of white-blond hair, there were buzz-cut patches of intermittent baldness. I looked from daughter to son, son to daughter.

Readers, I am ashamed to say: my first reaction, in my head, was, “She looks like a boy! All that beautiful hair is gone! And my son, he looks like a regular thug. Whatever will we do?!”

I pulled myself together, gave myself a few internal slaps and worked rapidly to calm and reassure both children. A few hours later a pixie haircut at the barber shop and a stop by the drugstore for hair wax to make it stand up a bit and instead of a Poor Little Girl Who Looks Like a Boy With a Bad Haircut, we had a Super-Cool Rock Chick! All is fine, she loves her new do (mostly) and the crisis has been solved. We have to decide whether to leave Noble Boy’s hair alone and hope it grows out somewhat evenly or just complete the buzz cut Noble Girl started.

I’m still struggling with my initial reaction though. Obviously I haven’t managed to completely escape the GIRL = LONG HAIR trope. Oy vey.