Notes from Inside My Head

The booms...

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:16:00 +0000

Some children are afraid of fireworks but not our little spudlet. He calls them 'the booms' and has been begging to see them every day since some dim-witted soul at the nursery let slip last week that bonfire night was coming.

Tonight he was so well behaved. All I had to do was to threaten to withdraw the fireworks and he bent to my will immediately. Oh ho, if only bonfire night was every night.

Actually, I wish it was. There's nothing so guaranteed to turn an entire field of people into ten year olds than a good fireworks display.

Granted, he did spend most of it with his hand clutched over his ears looking reasonably terrified but he would suddenly erupt 'Look at that red one! Look at the blue one! The green one! The red one... Look Mummy look' as the fireworks came too fast for him to name.

Shame he looks so terrified in all the pictures really...

Still. Never mind, eh?

Sadly however, since the garden fireworks on Halloween and now these, he is under the impression that he can just dial up fireworks at will; on the way out of the park he was already negotiating 'small fireworks in the garden again please Mummy'. Since, like icecream, this is one of the pleasures that we share most intensely, I am now on the lookout for the smallest excuse to purchase more fireworks.

Anyone have a birthday coming up I can celebrate?

Star light star bright

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:48:00 +0000

So. We've had a bit of a setback recently which has necessitated a star chart. I have stars, I have a chart and we have, or rather, the spud has, a goal. The goal is that if he gets all the stars onto the chart I will take him to the toy shop and buy him whatever he wants. He wants 'a car'.

He is clear about all of this. He does a particular thing, he gets a little gold star. Four gold stars equal one big star. Four big stars equal a new toy car.

Cool.

You'd think he would be jazzed about this, but frankly, he's not. In fact, we have not managed a single gold star - au contraire, all we've managed is two big black 'x' marks. He doesn't seem to mind. I would even say he's cheerfully against the whole star-chart nazi system, possibly willfully so.

Hopefully this will change. This evening while reading him his bedtime story, I got up to turn off the oven mid-story and I managed to catch my foot on the doorframe and rip three of my toes to the left so hard that one popped out of its socket.

Turns out I'm quite a wimp.

I did my best not to scream or cry but there was a lot of puffing and saying 'owww' very meaningfully and in the end I found I couldn't walk and had to sit on the floor trying not to be sick.

The spud, bless him, was sweet as pie. First he kept asking 'are you OK Mummy?' then when I told him I'd stubbed my toe he insisted on 'kiss it better Mummy?' and then when I said 'no sweetie, it's ok' he walked over, squatted beside me and rubbed my head. I sent him to find the telephone, which he did, slightly uncertainly. On his way out of the door he banged his head and came rushing back to lie on the floor beside me for a cuddle 'I'm hurt too now Mummy' he said, before getting up and getting the phone.

The Frog high-footed it home and before we read the spud a final story I gave my boy a big cuddle and told him I was better and we put a gold star on his chart for being so brave and helpful. He looked at it. He touched the chart. He said 'a star Mummy!' He stood back and looked at it critically and turned to me and added 'I want a big star!'.

Maybe, just maybe, I buggered my foot up for a reason. I mean, it hurts much too much for it to have been in vain. Maybe this was the first in a golden galaxy of stars.

I live in hope...

Trick or... Trick!!!

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:02:00 +0000

We decided to do the Full North American last night and went for a trick-or-treating extravaganza on our street. Yeah, four whole houses and 8 very confused 3 year olds.

It was soooo authentic...

We've been warming the spud up for this for a week. We bought his costume and got him all excited... he informed his girlfriend who immediately requested the same costume from her parents... we had high hopes.

Friday I decided to invite more than just the neighbours and sent around an email and we had a great turnout. We cut the pumpkins, we made the pies, we popped the popcorn, bought the fireworks, decorated the garden and... the spud refused to dress up. Everyone arrived looking fantastic but still, the spud refused to dress up.

He ended up going around the houses with his little bag wearing his wellies, jeans, a big jumper and a witches hat. Actually, it was an excellent Worzel Gummidge costume.

I guess beggars can't be choosers.

The kids seemed to really love it though, they were agog at being offered free sweeties, amazed at the phenomenon of sparklers and garden fireworks and thrilled, mostly, at being able to stay up late and rub popcorn into the spud's carpet.

Next year maybe we'll manage 5 houses and, perhaps, even a costume...

Downright Silly Time

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:36:00 +0000

I quite like Daylight Savings Time but really, it is SO Victorian.

"I know" says some bright spark (George Vernon Hudson - a New Zealander but a Victorian, none-the-less) "We Victorians need more daylight in winter to do our extremely very useful inventing and to work children at the mills longer. We've invented electricity, we own the known world and so now we're going to CHANGE TIME!!"

"Yeah, sod the farmers, parents of small children and anyone who lives outside of the British Empire, we're going to fuck with you all... and while we're at it we're going to drive on the wrong side of the road too - ha ha ha!!! Try conquering us NOW you morons, we're going to be sleeping in today and we're going to be REALLY WELL RESTED. Unless, of course, we have three-year-olds, or cats, or dogs, or, say, a barn full of cows who still think that time is a constant and will now be up SUPER EARLY!!!! Bwah hahaha!!"

OK, so DST may have had its uses but really, I think we're done now. There's enough electric light that we are never really in the dark and it only gives us extra morning light for a few weeks. For this small mercy it messes with our internal clocks and puts a spanner in the works for anyone who works internationally or has family overseas.

Not only that, but the DST world can't even agree on when to put the clocks back - so while the clocks are back in the UK, Canada and the US haven't quite decided yet. AND, and and and... if you look at the map on Wikipedia here, you can see that over half the countries who started using DST have actually seen the light and stopped. I particularly love the fact that bits of Canada have just opted out, making it a particular nightmare for Canadians.

Down with DST! OK. Yes I've been up since 6. You can tell, can't you?

Sparx' killer Pumpkin Pie recipe

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:25:00 +0000

OK, here are the pies that caused all the trouble, below!

I cannot take full responsibility for this recipe, however I have messed with it over the years to make it mine because, quite frankly, I hated pumpkin pie until this came along.

Firstly - pastry. Now, this is definitively NOT my recipe, I found it here and it is the best sweet-pie crust I've ever had. Seriously, you could make this into biscuits it's so good.

450 to 500 gms flour
50gms custard powder
250 gms butter
250 gms caster sugar
2 eggs

Next, the magic pie filling:

1 cup cooked pumpkin
2 eggs
1 cup condensed milk (a medium tin)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 apple, grated
lemon zest (half a lemon)
1 tablespoon brandy (or a teaspoon of vanilla essence for kids)
Raisins or dried fruit

Preheat oven to about 200 celcius, whatever that is in fahrenheit.

I normally dice the pumpkin quite small and put it to boil, then I cheat and whiz the pastry in a mixer and put it in the fridge. The pastry mix is really sticky, don't expect to be able to use a rolling pin.

Once the pumpkin is cooked I then also cheat and put it into the mixer (drained) with the milk, sugar, eggs and brandy - otherwise you have to mash it by hand, beat the eggs and then hand mix it all. Grate the apple, zest the lemon and stir that in by hand - squeeze some lemon juice in as well but not too much.

Then, crucially, take the spoon that you used to empty the condensed milk tin and lick it clean. These calories do not count!

Take a muffin tray and grease it up then roll the pastry by hand into small golf balls and press them into the moulds to make the crusts. Cook them for about 5 minutes until there's a bit of a hard skin on them. Cook them too long and they puff up or go brown which you don't want.

Spoon the raisins or fruit into each shell and then add the pumpkin mix and cook for about 10 minutes, or until it's risen and slightly brown on top.

I then sieve some sugar and cinnamon over the top and let them cool.

These pies are what won the pie-off at the nursery, below...

The pies of Brixton

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:10:00 +0000

On Tuesday evening I picked the spud up from nursery to be presented with a letter informing us that today, two days later, we needed to ship him off dressed in his national costume and porting some sort of comestible representing his heritage. Heritage? Two days? Hello?

He's half French and half Canadian so while I tried to work out the food (maple-leaf croissants? pate de foie-moose?) the Frog helpfully suggested we head down to the market for a garlic necklace and a baguette.

The upshot was that this morning we packed him off in jeans and a cowboy shirt (I'm sure we could have made less effort but I'm not quite sure how) and this evening I went to pick him up laden with three dozen pumpkin pies I made last night.

There was a proper celebration going when we arrived - easily 100 people, many in bright costumes, a steel band, an entire lamb roasting on a spit and a table laden with international food. The spud was with his mates dancing with abandon to the music; it was frankly incredible, I couldn't quite believe it was a nursery. It was 100% Brixton, anyway and another reason I love this little patch of London so much.

I stood by the food table (as one does) primping my pies when along comes this amazing woman in full Caribbean gear porting inch-long red nails who takes one look at the sign and says 'Pumpkin pies! Can you imagine how awful they must taste?!'.

I was absolutely delighted - a woman not afraid to tell it like she sees it! I immediately wracked her with guilt. 'I made those pies' I said as she recoiled. 'And now' I added, 'you've insulted me so I'm going to make you eat one!'. We were smiling... but you know, I was deadly serious.

She gingerly put one on her plate and started off 'Oh no' I waded in, 'I'm not seeing one go to waste, you have to eat it right here'. And, bless her, she did. Halfway through the first bite she stopped, asked me what was on the top (cinnamon sugar) and she said 'these are amazing!'. To prove it, she took two more for her family and about three minutes later I saw her take a couple more.

Ten minutes later, all three dozen pies were gone.

I think the spud might have enjoyed himself nearly as much as I did. Tonight we took a metal mixing bowl and a spoon into the bath, half-filled it with water and swirled it about while he bashed it about the gills making steel band sounds.

I've had worse days.

.

Birthday Card Boogie

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:27:00 +0000

Normally Canada Post is rubbish. Actually that should read 'historically', as life in Canada means accepting that it takes a week for a letter to cross town. In fact, we used to get some sort of grim amusement out of the fact that sending a letter to my Gran in Victoria took about the same time as a letter to someone just down the road.

Birthday and Christmas presents from Canada therefore are expected arrive at fairly random times. Combine this with the recent Royal Mail postal strikes and it is no surprise that Charlie's birthday presents from Uncle Hoto & Auntie Shelley arrived only yesterday.

The presents were great. The card, however, rocks - although not as much as my future Billy Elliot here...

Where does he GET those grooving moves?

.

My right hand...

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:47:00 +0000

Charlie loves puppets. I have saved many a cranky afternoon with the aid of his Monkey puppet - and in fact, many a cranky morning, evening and bedtime.

Recently however while Monkey was taking a sabbatical at the bottom of the toy box, I was forced by necessity into emergency measures and, basically, Monkey made an appearance without his clothes on. Just my hand, talking, pointing, laughing and making snapping movements at my son's tickly bits. He loved it.

He loved it so much that he's demanding my hand by its own name these days. Sometimes in fact, if I am in another room, he will request the presence of my hand rather than me.

Sadly, the name my son has given to this hand is 'Snatch'. Sometimes he calls it 'snap' but normally, that's my son standing in the middle of the playground shouting 'I WANT SNATCH!!!!'.

A few years ahead of his time, my boy...

New shoooooooooes....

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:12:00 +0000

We like shoes in our house. It's questionable who exactly it is who has more pairs, me or the Frog; however the spud is certainly a contender, mainly because having a third set of feet in the house to buy shoes for is one of the few real perks of owning a child... er, I mean, because we love our little dumpling SOOOO much... er... cough cough cough.

Anyway, so it's not just the spud's hair and belly that are growing it seems; his feet are like row boats on the end of lolly-pop sticks and most of his lovely shoes don't really fit him anymore. He LOVES his shoes and if he's actually complaining about them, well they must be tight as all buggery.

Anyway, so when Umi got in touch to ask if I'd take a free pair of toddler shoes, I ignored the pricking of my conscience and just said 'yes please' - it was too serendipitous to pass up.

The catalogue looked amazing and we dickered for ages over choosing a pair but I didn't hold out high hopes to be honest. We're sort of a Clarks family here (or rather, it's just me, the frog thinks Clarks shoes are the enemy and that I am insane). Anyway, so I had me doubts about the Umi quality but I have to say, they seem robust, good arch supports, great colour and the frog likes them - they're great, in fact.

Actually, I was won over the second I saw the thick rubber toes, because now when he drags them along the ground to stop his scooter - or just because he's trying out his cool new toe-dragging walk - I am no longer to be seen flapping about futilely behind him squeaking inanities about saving his shoe leather.

The spud, however, normally the type of boy who prances around in front of the mirror in new shoes, has been somewhat ambivalent, although I did catch him swinging his foot and gazing thoughtfully at his new toes the other day.

Perhaps I should warn the cat...

.

Getting his own back...

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:16:00 +0000

We've had holidays. We had my brother and sis-in-law to Biarritz for a few days which was knock-down brilliant. So brilliant that I didn't take any pictures because I was too busy being happy. Oh, and I forgot my camera.

If you were that interested, you could go here and scroll down to September 16th to see a little bit of the sort of holiday we had (and a lot of the sort of holiday Hoto and Shell had in Paris afterwards!). There's more Paris on Shell's blog too...

I have been heavy with anticipation about this holiday. It's been a while since my brother and my son have seen each other and I warmed up the spud with photographs and videos and stories about Hoto and Shell for ages. It worked too, he greeted them, knew who they were and showed off his toys to them relentlessly.

Best of all, after nearly 3 years of training him to blow a raspberry at my brother, he finally blew it. (You think I'm kidding? Go here). This made my day.

I tortured my brother when we were children, I have to admit it. I lay in wait around corners, told him there were bodies under his floorboards, hid under his bed and grabbed him with ghostly hands and best of all, valiantly attempted to soak his hand in warm water while he slept in an attempt to get him to wee his bed... the look on his face when he woke up is apparently nothing compared to the guilty look on mine...

So anyway, I am really trying not to be the sort of Mother that I was a sister, if that makes sense; and rather than turn my fiendishness on my own son I was thrilled to watch him make his first move on continuing the legacy that is the ritual trickery of Uncle Hoto.

Sadly, it seems the spud is not completely on my side as yet. One evening as we were getting ready for bed, he marched up to my brother and said in his loudest possible voice 'Mummy has the burps!"

"Oooh" said uncle Hoto... "Does she?"

"Yeth" responded my little treasure. "And she farts!"

Oh yes. That was some evil chuckling I heard coming out of my sibling.

I sense, bearing down on me inevitably, a future in which my brother slowly gets his own back...

the paddly pool of eden

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:57:00 +0000

The word spread around the park yesterday: "There's water in the paddling pool!" We heard it at the cafe at the top of the hill and by the time we got there, not only was there water in the pool but the fountains that fill it up were still on. The spud was delighted.

Nobody else at the pool had left their houses with swimsuits or towels either; there were already half a dozen or more children larking about, none of them wearing a stitch of clothing. We stripped the spud down to his birthday suit and he trundled happily off to rescue leaves. I helped him and some new friends make leaf boats and as we floated them, more and more people filed in.

At some point the word must have spread outside of the park as the families that began arriving were carrying towels and swimsuits and the balance of naked to clothed began to shift. Some of the original parents responded by putting their children into pants or t-shirts, but the spud refused all clothing and eventually was the only one left without any clothing on at all.

He bounced around and ran about and made friends and talked, completely happy in his own skin. I was sitting dreamily in the sun, pondering what age it is exactly that we start needing to be clothed in public and being all Motherly-lovey about my happy little spud when I noticed that he was crouching down in the water with a look of extreme concentration.

I don't know what was worse, the fact that I knew he was doing a secret pee or the look from another Mum who was clearly thinking that he was playing with himself in public.

Needless to say, I hustled him into some clothes and we slunk off home pretty damn quickly, metaphorical fig leaves clutched firmly over all the parts that matter.

.

our own personal cake wreck....

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:45:00 +0000

Six months ago, one of the spud's friends turned three and his mother delivered to the nursery a blue train cake, cunningly crafted by a local baker.

All the kids had blue poo the next day but that just added to the thrill as far as the spud was concerned. He ranted on and on and on about the blue train cake for months.

A year ago, another of his best friends Jacob (or 'Jpeg' as the spud calls him) had a blue train cake for his second birthday and while it was home-made, it was a perfect Thomas replica - smooth icing, regular shape, cheerful face - beautifully put together. Their thank-you cards had a cute image of Jpeg blowing out the candles on this monument to good home-making skills and it sat on the spud's dresser for months and months.

You can see where this is going. With his party approaching, I asked the spud what sort of cake he wanted at his party and without a second's thought he shouted 'BOO TRAIN CAKE!!!!!

I asked him several times over the course of the two months running up to his birthday and sadly the answer never varied by as much as a decibel.

Rather than going out and buying one, or simply baking a cake and cutting it into a train shape I went totally Motherly-Love-Blind and single-mindedly blundered into the whole thing with a 'how hard can it be' attitude.

This hard, as it turns out...

...and after that, all the spud ate was this...

...hardly surprising really....

...actually I can't believe I had the guts to serve it up at a party with real people attending... or to post it on the blog. I think I need to offer up a prayer to Julia Child begging forgiveness for my transgressions...

.

...and then I fell down in the sea

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:29:00 +0000

The spud is becoming very self-aware all of a sudden, telling us how he feels and what he's thinking and what he's been doing.

He's completely unashamed of his own transgressions and will relate them with the same relish he reserves for imaginary ice-creams. Last weekend we spent with friends including his best mate Einstein, whose Granny has a boyfriend with a big boat. We went to the marina for a gawp, the kids raided the biscuit tin and then they proceeded to run rampant around the jetty in their floatation devices pursued by panic-stricken parents shouting useless things like 'come back here now' and 'come back RIGHT NOW' and 'BE CAREFUL' and other useless background noise.

The frog got hold of our son who yanked himself away shouting 'NO Daddy, NO Daddy' and proceeded to trip and then plunge head-first into the deep water of the harbour. This, as you can imagine, was a pretty heart-stopping moment and even though he was caught by his life-vest and hauled out with only a damp fringe and one wet hand, I am having continual 'Spud drowning' dreams. Last night in my sleep he fell under the surface of the bath water. This is no fun, I can assure you.

Tonight however after announcing that he wants a pair of red roller skates like Einstein has, he then happily informed me that he'd had biscuits in the boat and then fallen in the sea. I asked him if he was scared and from his laugh I suspect he rather wants to try it out again.

.

Happy 3rd Birthday

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:38:00 +0000

I think I say it every year, but it still seems impossible to believe that my son is another year old - three years today. If it wasn't for this blog I swear I'd have forgotten the lot.

Today has been the first birthday that he's really understood and we've been winding him up for it for a week now. His party is on Saturday but this morning we woke him up with his presents and he was so sweet.

He's not yet at the stage where all he wants to do is to rip the paper off each one until he's done, he was quite happy to open one present and play with it for ages before we demanded that he open the next one. In fact, I think he was more excited about having cake then about anything else and by bedtime he was singing 'Happy Birthday' to himself on endless repeat.

What I love about 3 is that his imagination is in full gear and he can play for ages by himself making up stories and playing all the parts. I was working in the cellar this morning while the Frog looked after him and he was calling 'come on Mummy, hurry up, come on Mummy'. I shouted at him that I was working and was about to yell up for the Frog when my beloved other half called down 'it's ok, he's playing that we're all getting on the airplane and you're late'. The words 'as usual' hung unsaid in the air, obviously. This year we and the grandparents bought him a huge selection of Playmobil toys from eBay (have you seen the PRICE of those things new?) and he was thrilled to bits. Little bits, as it turns out, which is what most Playmobil is made of. We have a massive envelope of tiny accessories which he might get when he's 12. Or maybe 20.

3 has benefits other than the purchase of expensive toys however. It's nice that we are able to reason with him a little now and his powers of verbal communication are coming on stronger every day. Recently he's been going off the playground and instead we have been having hour long explores around our local park; clambering into the bushes to play 'Bear Hunt' and walking around each of the sports areas watching people play. He is minorly obsessed with the cricket bowling nets and when there was a chap the other day bowling endless balls at the test wickets he made me sit down and watch for ages. I had to pull him away after he started commenting very loudly 'YAY, well done!'... 'Uh oh, he missed it!'.... 'He missed it AGAIN'... 'He missed it AGAIN'... the cricketer started muttering very loudly so we slunk off.

These explores have done marvels for the powers of elderberry wine as we've collected enough berries for nearly two gallons of the stuff. We've also been picking blackberries although only once have we saved enough to come home with any - mainly he just gets a purple face and a big grin.

3 is a good age. He's cuddly and loving and beginning to sleep in; he's funny and cheerful and happy and disobedient as all fuck, which means, I suspect, that he is a perfectly normal child.

Happy birthday angel boy, we love you.

... and pay the lady

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:41:00 +0000

Tonight, folks, after two hours of him jack-in-a-boxing in and out of bed, I bribed my son to sleep. It was not without its amusing moments.

'If you go to sleep, tomorrow we can go for ice-cream!'

'From the ice cream van!'

'Yes, we'll have ice cream from the ice cream van. What else shall we do?'

'Go to the park!'

'Yes, good idea, we can go to the park. What else would you like to do?'

'Get some money!'

'OK...... what else can we do?'

'Pay the lady'

'Aha.... but what else can we do?'

'Buy a white ice-cream'

'I see. So we get some money, go to the park, find the ice-cream van, pay the lady and buy a white ice-cream'

'Yeth'

'What else can we do?'

'Buy a yellow ice cream.'

poop poop - all aboard!!

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone and thank you all for your submissions to this, my first (and potentially only) go at hosting a carnival. It's been a big job and at points I've really had to strain to get this one out but I've finally produced the goods. Ba dum dum.

er... ok. So, If you've not potty trained a child in your life then these stories will make you either smug or terrified - so read at your own risk. I'd like to thank everyone who submitted stories for this, I think I've included you all - if I've left you out, let me know and I'll edit you in; these are just all too good to leave out.

I would like to start this carnival off with a guest post from Jennie over at Copenhagen Follies. She has posted perhaps the shortest poo story ever, here and has sent me the following tput outo get us all in the mood:

Jennie says: Last year, when we took the kids to France by train, Dante was 2 and Halfdan was 6 mos at the time. We were quite careful not to run out of diapers, buying them along the way. We started out buying two different sizes to accomodate them both, and after the first week we made it easier by just buying one size – Halfdan was quite chubby, and Dante was getting a little slender in comparison, so it made life less complicated.

Somehow though, on the last leg home from Paris to Hamburg, we ran low. At Hamburg Station we barely had time to look for a kiosk to buy new ones before we had to catch our train/ferry connection to Copenhagen. We hoped for the best, and forged ahead. On the train somewhere in northern Germany, Halfdan did a do, so to speak. We rummaged through the diaper bag – no dice. My purse – no dice. Even in the big bag with all our clothing, etc., we couldn’t find one measly little diaper to change our baby with. Mikael and I looked at each other, searching for some magic formula, but there was only one solution left. I gave Mikael specific orders on what to do. The poor man took our sweetpea into the miniscule bathroom without a changing table, managed to scrape off as much poo as he could, deposit it, cover the damaged diaper with a bit of toilet paper, and hoped for the best. We made it to Copenhagen without further incident, but have been very stringent on the diaper front since then.

OK Jen, thanks for that - has anyone else ever had to re-use a pooey nappy? OK, just me then.

And now for the carnival. I have to tell you in advance that you need to have finished your dinner to prepare for what's coming. Some of these will make you cringe while others are likely to make you lose your tea through your nose laughing. I've tried to label them all 'eugh' or 'ha ha' just to warn you in advance but they are, I have to say, all pretty damn funny.

I am starting this off with an 'article' from the doyen of the subject: Potty Mummy from The Potty Diaries who has created this guide post for all of us out there: A different kind of Carnival. Potty Mummy is definitely the pack leader here and she handily provides links to other poo stories so that you will be able to surf poo for days to come... just what you always wanted! Yay!

Next up is Emily over at Maternal Tales from the South Coast who is the queen of poo stories,. If she hadn't have sent me this post I would have linked to it anyway as it is one of the funniest poo stories I've read and I think you should all start there to get you in the mood. The nappy bucket overfloweth when it comes to Emily however and she has sent three, count 'em, three 'ha ha' poo stories and you can find the others here and finally over here.

Ha ha!! I fooled you with the last one - definitely an 'eugh' story.

Tara over at Sticky Fingers has sent two stories, both in the 'ha ha' camp
this one, the moment every parent dreads in a restaurant and then this one, short and a bit fruity!! And as we know, most fruit is guaranteed to get the best, or perhaps the worst, out of our offspring...

Emily over at Brit in Bosnia has achieved the master-stroke, both 'eugh' and 'haha' in one story... it starts out a nice little potty-training story and then has a kicker in the final line here. She's also sent me this little gem which is actually nothing really to do with poo but I tell you, between the post and the comments I felt a LOT better about the little accident the spud had on the rug this morning...

Lisa at Boondock Ramblings has been dithering about potty training for ages now, claiming that her little one 'just isn't ready'... here is the proof - poo in a church, not sure if this is waaaay more embarrassing than the next entry or not to be honest but the phrase 'Daddy, wipe me!' has got to be one of the most memorable of all.

Dee over at Mummadiddee who is, for the purposes of this post actually Iota Manhattan from Not Wrong Just Different has posted this story about a supermarket poo. Ah yes, the dreaded cry of 'Mummy I done a poo' as fellow shoppers recoil in disgust. We recently had a very similar moment in the crowded queue at customs in Stansted airport... not only did our little boy smell to high heaven but sadly there was no disguising what was peeping over the back of his trousers...

Jen from Rants and Raves gives us a potty training story - low on 'eugh' but high on the old empathy factor scale here; weeks of failure and he uses the potty at Grandma's...

This classic from Suzanna at Thames Valley Mums resonates particularly with me as I too have a home office, although so far the spud has yet to announce my toileting habits to clients...

Iota, posting this time as herself on her own blog has this great poo story here, which she created just for this carnival. The start alone is enough to make a frustrated potty-trainer feel relaxed, the end is another 'haha' moment.

Grit over at Grit's DayGrit's Day has posted us this visit to a sewage farm which is educational because if nothing else it tells us how to make our own poo in a bowl withouth all the messy straining about.

Amy over at and 1 more means four posts this 'Eugh' story about the combination of potty training one child while another is crawling... This one is about the worst I can imagine happening and makes my own experiences on the matter pale in comparison. With four kids, Amy is an expert at this lark but even experts have slippage sometimes...

Here's a good one from Steffi over at Mummy Do That whose daughter has decided to potty train herself against her mother's wishes - the upshot, however, is the usual poo on the floor

Here's one from Carol at New Mummy - this one isn't funny ha ha or even particularly 'eugh' but it illustrates exactly the sort of thing us parents have to deal with, loving our babies, poo and all. She doesn't say exactly how many nappies were filled during her child's illness but it sounds like nappy changing was a full time job. Here you go!

Liz over at Living With Kids has an 'eugh' story for us all that for a change doesn't actually involve baby poo. It does however involve both poo and a baby - and if your brain isn't going mad trying to work it out, here you go!

Finally a late entry from Laura over at Are We Nearly There Yet? - very funny and the title alone is worth the visit - so here you go, The Morning Log

Thank you everyone for a very amusing two weeks. I will spend tomorrow travelling about letting you all know that it's finally dropped and if I've missed you out, just drop me a line.

A carnival of poo...

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:44:00 +0000

I have maundered on a lot over time about my son padding around our appartment. Now, however, he is a little boy; and little boys, it turns out, do not pad at all; rather, they clank. Clutching a nest of toy cars and airplanes, the spud cannot trust us enough to leave them unattended even for a second and is forever toting more cars than he can carry. He cannot do even so much as a quick wee wee without dropping bits of cast metal into the loo, the bath, under his father's feet, it's ridiculous.

We have, however, had progress on pooing in the loo - cars or no cars - and to that end, I am celebrating the hopeful end of all poo stories on this blog by inviting any interested parties to send me your favourite poo stories.

I know you have them. Lurking in your archives. If I get enough responses I'll publish links back in a full-on, glorious, poo-story-dump in a couple of weeks time... what do you think?

ps, I dedicate this post to my brother because he loves poo stories SO MUCH!

beans reprise

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:31:00 +0000

I give up. No, seriously, I give up on the whole part of parenting where I try to influence or second guess my son or report on what he's doing with any sort of authority.

As if to rub my nose in the whole argument over eating his dinner, as if to underline that he is now and will always be in control, today in the vegetable department of the supermarket he walked over to a tray of green beans and started pulling them out and eating them. I bought a bag and he ate them all through the shop. We stopped, mind you, we stopped in the middle OF THE BISCUIT AISLE so he could have another bean. I cooked beans for tea. He ate the lot.

I think we're done here. I may be a while.

not for the faint of heart

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:31:00 +0000

Ah the beach. 'What would it be like to live here and be able to come to the beach every day if I wanted to?' This was my self-imposed question yesterday while lying on the sand hoping to dim the brightness of my skin.

While the spud threw pebbles at me I spent some time covertly eying up the beach populace and trying to work out who were the locals and who the visitors. Some were easy. Anyone pale was probably visiting. Anybody very dark was probably a local. The rest were harder to fathom.

One however stood out above and beyond the others. If she hadn't been sitting within 5 feet of me I may have missed her. Might not have been a bad move.

She looked as though in another life she is possibly someone's Grandmother and she mightn't even have stood out if she hadn't been naked and chain-smoking.

It was the scent of tobacco smoke that drew my eyes and then, to my shame, I could barely tear them away as she turned around to fetch her bikini out of her bag and her right nipple dipped itself... those with weaker stomachs may need to turn away... dipped itself, I tell you, into her belly button. Right in. It snagged for a moment and then she turned back and it bobbed out. It was at this point in what must only have been a two or three-second glance, that I realised her skin was the texture of an old handbag - leathery and cracked and rippled with sun damage.

I feigned interest in my offspring while thinking queasily 'This would be me if I spent every day on the beach for the next fifteen years'. And smoked.

A few moments later she walked past my toes, bikini-clad and without a cigarette, entirely un-remarkable amongst the other women on the beach. She stood for a long time facing the sea, her back and legs baking themselves even browner. She seemed happy.

I was just happy that her bikini had underwiring.

The spud was just happy to be by the sea.

Beans beans glorious beans.

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:33:00 +0000

We're having eating!! Apart from various battles fought on the field of the dinner table, since having the chickenpox the spud has insisted on being bottle-fed like some sort of veal calf.

He's been downing upwards of 3 pints a day on good/bad days and eating almost nothing. A few days ago however he woke up, demanded breakfast, ate a bowl of cereal, drank some juice and then proceeded to eat all the way through the day, finishing off this evening with four fish fingers, a big plate of rice and pepper, half an avocado, a small carrot, a kiwi and two glasses of milk. Hooray!

A short amusing note that I forgot to post last week after the big standoff is that the one part of the dinner that the spud refused to eat was the green beans. He loves green beans. He has eaten dinners in which he has picked out the green beans, eaten them all first and then announced he was 'fished'.

So, the other day when we had our standoff, which has, I possibly need to inform the odd passerby, helped quite a lot in terms of overall spud behaviour, he ate his fish fingers and a pea or two but the green beans were met with quite a show of distaste and some pretty jaw-clenching rejection. Since he'd eaten the rest of his dinner with gusto however, I let the poor beans go... or rather, I scarfed them myself.

The spud's nursery has a system to tell a confused parent exactly what one's offspring has eaten during the day. A filled in circle is one helping, a line next to it is seconds.

Imagine, therefore, how far my eyebrows rose on entering his nursery the next day, the next day, mind you, on examining the food chart and seeing not only a full circle but four, mind you, that's one two three FOUR lines next to the words 'green beans'.

Ah yes, I may have won the battle but clearly, I am not taking home any prizes.

the bloody okey okey

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:30:00 +0000

We're in France on holiday; Sammy safely ensconced with a house-sitter and the rain, as usual, bucketing down. Yesterday it was actually amazingly hot and sunny and for once we made it to the beach.

I tell you, it was obvious we were British. OK, so I'm Canadian and the Frog is not only French but we're actually in his home-town but you know, it's been a while. So, firstly, we were pasty pasty white in a sea of bronzed limbs but secondly: All the Kit.

On our way down we passed French women en route to the plage with a little roll of matting tucked under one arm and a tiny clutch under the other. Even French families do it in style - children immaculately turned out porting a little bucket and spade with Maman carrying a chic beach bag with the edges of Hermes towels just poking out over the lid of the Evian. Papa strides ahead, a beach umbrella casually slung over one shoulder, the other dangling a net bag with a beach ball or perhaps a set of beach tennis racquets.

We, however, were a completely different story. The spud had decided he wanted to sit in his French buggy; a tiny affair with no swivelling wheels which forces the parent in charge to hunch as though they are about to ring matin at Notre Dame and to grunt and sweat at every bend. The spare parent has to carry everything else and we have the sort of wheeled bag your Nan used to get her shopping in with. It's stuffed to overflowing - towels, mats, beach brolly, water, buckets, spaces, balls, sun cream, change of clothes, butt wipes, spare pants, arm bands, sweating sandwiches - and it pokes the owner in the backside with every other step.

We wheeled our way onto the beach creaking and puffing and then disrobed in front of about 5,000 blinded locals and spent the next hour either rubbing sun cream onto each other or rubbing the sand off. It was bliss, but we really did stand out dreadfully.

On the way back we passed a nearby playground and the spud demanded to play. The Frog had some errands to run so I stayed behind. The playground was empty but for two neat parents and their two neat offspring. They weren't related by by God they were talking by the time we left.

You must imagine here, if you dare, that I had neglected to remember either my swimsuit or a change of clothes so I had gone into the sea in my knickers and halter top and then taken the top off and put on my cream cotton shirt. I was therefore wearing wet knickers and no bra and my hair was a complete mess. The playground however was under some shady trees and I hoped nobody would notice.

The spud elected to play on a toy near the only occupied bench. I cleared a spot and sat down only for the owner of a nearby bag to scurry over to collect it and move ostentatiously to another bench. After a few moments, the spud decided to move to the slide where this chaps daughter was happily playing and chose that moment to speak one of his few French phrases. 'Pas la! Pas la!' he shouted at the poor girl as she tried to climb the slide. Yes, in his halting baby French, the spud told practically the only other child in the playground not to stand near the only toy she'd been playing with. Since before he got there.

The other parents glared at me. I hurried over to tell him firstly in English and then in French to share the slide and let the little girl play. He glared at me. The parents glared at me. I tried to give them my best friendly smile and realised I was standing in the only shaft of sunlight in the playground, tits clearly visible through my shirt. I must have looked insane. Oh, I tried to remain non-chalant as he road-tested every piece of equipment in the place but then he came running over, pee running down one leg, trying to get his willy out to finish his wee off against the bench. That was pretty much my signal to go.

I loaded the spud back into his stroller and as we pulled away from the place he launched into the chorus of the Okey Cokey. 'OOOOOOOOOhhhhhhHHHH DE OKEY OKEY..... OOOOOOOoooohhhhhhhHHHHH DE OKEY OKEY........ OOOOOOOOOOoooooooooohhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHH.....

I'm never, ever going back.

Pushing the envelope

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:17:00 +0000

It started small, a little give here; a nursery sofa there, some allowances, some compromise... and then suddenly I woke up to realise that the spud has been getting away with murder.

He's been sleeping on the nursery futon, eating his tea on the sofa in front of the TV; demanding constant cheese toasties, icecream and bottles of milk and... well the list is pretty long.

We've managed to get him back to his own bed, cut the bottles of milk out during the day and begun to wean him off the TV however he still wouldn't eat anything that wasn't a cheese toastie and refused to sit at the table. Following a friend of mine telling me she had 'broken' her toddler with a two-hour standoff over dinner (which has worked wonders), we had our own standoff.

It was pretty hairy.

First I brought him a healthy dinner and offered it to him on the sofa. He picked it up, carried it into the kitchen, put it on the counter, announced he was 'finished' and demanded a biscuit.

I carried it back and put it on the table. He did the same. I carried it back and then put him into his chair at the table. He tried to get down. I picked him back up. He pushed himself and his chair away from the table. I pulled him in. He pushed back. I pulled in. I threatened to slap his hand if he did it again. He did it. I, god help me, slapped his hand. He did it again. So did I. He put his poor little hands over his face, rocked back and forth and moaned and moaned. Just at the point that I thought I'd done him some serious mental damage, he took his hands away and started on his next attack which was to pointedly ignore both me and his dinner. He sat with his body facing the table but his head twisted as far into the room as his neck would allow and his eyes screwed shut. I brushed some ketchup onto his lips (I'm not a real ogre, there was some ketchup involved...). He screamed, wiped his lips and then spent several minutes dramatically brushing all signs of ketchup from his tongue. He loves ketchup.

This had taken us the best part of 20 minutes and at this point I thought that skyping my parents would be a good idea; not for sympathy, no no no, this for them was the height of comedy; but for some advice perhaps - they had, after all, parented me.

The spud ignored them too, turning his head the other way just in case we hadn't noticed him ignoring us. He tried closing his eyes; putting his hands over his eyes; putting his hands over his mouth; closing his eyes AND putting his hands over his mouth - I tried reasoning with him, arguing with him and pushing tasty morsels into his mouth whenever it was open. Nada.

Half an hour into our stand off, out of total frustration I made a massive airplane/train tunnel-here-comes-the-food manoevre and, as he complained, I just laughed at him. Two giggles later he ate practically the whole damn thing - by himself, with his fork.

I guess laughter is the best medicine after all. I guess we just have to see if it worked now; I'm planning something without ketchup tomorrow, wish me well...

Errol Flynn on a micro scooter...

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:51:00 +0000

It turns out that as a male, one is never too young to impress the ladies.

Recently, the spud has pretty much chucked his buggy in as a mode of transport unless he feels particularly needy or sulky and much prefers to zoom along on his micro-scooter; those urbiquitous purple things with two wheels in front and one in the back.

He's getting quite the little trickster; he squats down so the handle is over his head, pulls his bum back into a low sit and easy-rides his way down the road. Since spotting an older friend doing it he's been practicing beetling along on one leg while pulling shapes with his spare knee and foot. He's also cottoned on to how to use the little orange brake at the back by elegantly placing his spare foot on it, or doing a nifty little half-turn, jamming it onto the brake and one-handedly coasting to a stop.

The other day on the way home from nursery he insisted on cutting through the park and there, just inside the gates was a girl from nursery who he's quite keen on. I'm going to call her Lola, it's not her name but that's what Charlie calls her.

The moment he spotted her, they were off. The two of them scooted off up the hill, Lola steaming ahead while Charlie puffed behind her shouting 'Wait Lola, wait!' Her father was chuckling that she's recently been trying to copy someone at nursery who can scoot on one leg and just as he said that, the spud sailed past in full arabesque and glided smugly to a halt beside his besotted friend. Her father snorted.

As we walked up, the spud stood skate-board style on his scooter, held on with one hand and glided backwards down the hill, dismounting with a smooth two-footed jump, smiling at Lola all the way. She was visibly impressed. He re-mounted and kicked off for another arabesque past her and then scooted down the other side of the hill to the playground shouting 'come on Lola, come on Lola'.

She trailed obediently behind him as with both feet planted on the platform, he sped off down the hill, zig-zagging gently just to show that he can. They rounded a corner out of sight and we called to them to stop and began lumbering after them. They stopped and the moment we rounded the bend, again rolled off out of sight. The routine repeated a few times until we were finally nearing the playground gates. Lola was haltingly going down the hill with one foot dragging on the ground to slow herself down; the spud was nowhere in sight.

I shouted again and he appeared from behind a tree, drifting backwards down from the gate, smiling brightly.

I think she was impressed up until the very moment he glided into the bush.

Summer t-shirt of love

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:53:00 +0000

I was putting things away this evening when I picked up a shirt of my son's and suddenly thought about how much I love it and realised it was probably going to be one of those things that gets kept in a box somewhere and perhaps, if things go well, handed down. This it it:

Doesn't look like much, hey? This started off life as a plain white, unwanted t-shirt. I was in Woolies (ah, Woolies... a moment of silence please...); I can't remember what I was actually in there for but as usual I was just taking a leetle cruise past the children's clothes.

Finding a child's shirt in a plain, un-logoed colour other than white is pretty near impossible and so you can imagine my joy on finding that Woolies (ah, Woolies... a big sigh please...) did a 3-pack of plain shirts - one red, one black and one white.

The unloved white one was stuffed at the back of the drawer until we got a letter from nursery informing us that they wanted to do some tie-dying with the kids and did we have a plain white tee?

I had no idea what would emerge from this mad experiment where a few harrassed keyworkers set a dozen toddlers loose with on dye bucket, but this is what we got and I just think it's the coolest thing. Apparently, the kids all chose where their ties were going to go and the grown-ups did the actual tying.

I know Charlie did his own dying because, well because of the state of his fingernails for the next three days. He loves it and it never sees the inside of a drawer; it's either in the wash, on the line, or on his back, which is why it is a crumpled mess.

Funnily enough, tie-dye shirts were popular when I was the spud's age, but that would be because it was 1967. Ahem.

Anyway, of all the crafts he's brought back from nursery - flaking collages; father's day cards that shed shiny bits everywhere; blank pieces of paper with a few lines of yellow crayon in the middle and handprint paintings that mostly ended up on his shirt - I just think this is totally genius.

Six Degrees of Why

sparx12345@gmail.com (Sparx) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:09:00 +0000

A couple of the spud's friends have been asking 'why' a lot recently and for a while, whenever he saw them he would mimic it a bit. This week however it's started in earnest and he's asking 'why' about nearly everything. I've been looking forward to this stage, I have to confess. I've always fancied the idea of solemnly answering all the 'whys' until my son is a veritable encyclopaedia of knowledge and never ONCE answering with 'Because I Said So' however the truth is that since I discovered that 'I don't know' puts an end to the questions I've suddenly become quite a dense person.

I have also discovered that if you ask 'why' for long enough, eventually you arrive back at either God or particle physics. I'm trying out a new game whereby I am seeing how many 'whys' it takes to get into metaphysics and beyond. Here's a recent example:

'Say goodbye to your friend'
'Why?'
'Because he's going home'
'Why?'
'Because it's bedtime'
'Why?'
'Because it's getting late'
'Why?'
'Because er, because er, because there's this thing called time and... oh, I don't know sweetie, just say goodbye'

You see? Four 'Whys' until we needed Stephen Hawking to step in and take over. It's like playing six degrees of separation. You can probably add in a few more steps such as 'because he's tired' but try that and see how far you get before you're talking about the birds and the bees and is there life after death?

There aren't actually that many ways out of the Why Conundrum because I don't think he really wants to know 'why', I think he's just thrilled at having a word that gets our full attention.

'Don't pull Sammy's tail'
'Why?'
'Because it hurts Sammy'
'Why?'
'Would you like it if I pulled your arm?'
'Why?'

Nope. Often the conversation will go in a complete circle:

'Come and help Mummy tidy up''
Why?'
'Because you made a big mess'
'Why?'
'Because you were playing'
'Why?'
'Because you were having fun'
'Why?'
'Because you were playing'
'Why?'
'Because you were... oh bollocks'

I think the key here is to try to get as much enjoyment out of this as possible and so I will be that Mum mangling gravity to her bemused toddler while his toy car rolls under the chair. It is in fact my goal, to take him from 'why' to 'cogito ergo sum' in as few steps as possible; I'll let you know how quickly his eyes glaze over.