Notes from Inside My Head

I don't wanna grow up...

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:18:00 +0000

We moved just before Christmas. I may have said this before. Anyway, we are in temporary digs while we look for somewhere else to live and this is proving tricky. Firstly, half the things I need are in storage; secondly, the place is somewhat, shall we say, 'dignified'. Meaning, because it might need spelling out, that it is beautiful but decrepit - and utterly impractical. It needs wiring, plumbing, insulating, flooring, heating, plastering, damp-proofing and, er, modernising.

That said, it turns out that we are brilliantly happy here, all except for the Frog who is finding the volume of doors that need closing, drafts that need excluding and lights that need turning out to be vaguely overwhelming, particularly given that I am not very good at most of the above and Charlie is rubbish at all of them.

I am used to a small kitchen - our last flat was bijou all round - however the kitchen here contracts the meaning of 'small' to the point where one might logically ask 'what kitchen?'; however it has one unexpected joy: the stove and all 2 feet of counterspace face a small breakfast bar with two stools. Every evening Charlie sits at it, at eye-level with me, doing his homework while I cook his dinner.

Turns out that this arrangement is brilliant, I am surprisingly even hoping to be able to mimic something like it, (yet magically larger), when we move. Charlie and I spend this hour laughing and talking and fooling around together and he talks to me - properly talks to me - about his day, his friends and sometimes about the things that frighten him.

One of the most heart-breaking things that he says to me is that he doesn't want to grow up. I mean, he wants to be in Year One at school, but he doesn't want to be six, he doesn't want to learn to read or to get taller or to to go school. This doesn't stand up to much scrutiny as he wants to marry his girlfriend and have babies and live in a castle, but he really, really, really right now, doesn't want to grow up.

Who knows what this is about. I suspect it's because in the last four months he's started school, buried his cat, left his house and put half his toys in storage... I guess growing up hasn't been much cop recently. He also talks about his dreams; they are often bad, filled with fire and loss; or sometimes good, filled, surprisingly, with cats - the same dreams I had when I was little and had just moved house and started school and left my cat in another country.

Mainly though we make stupid jokes and invent rhymes and laugh. It's good. It's good that we can talk about things with more depth than wondering where Dalek poo comes out; I really do think there's something in being able to talk to one's child at eye level that makes conversation really flow.

We may not live here for long; Charlie will continue to grow up, Daleks will continue to have secretive poos and things will carry on changing but perhaps this is something that can stay the same, this conversation.

At least, until he becomes a teenager and stops acknowledging my existence completely....

And another year enters...

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:35:00 +0000

This year has been quick out of the gates let me tell you. It's twelfth night already and I feel like January is nearly over.

The whole thing started with a bona-fide New Year hangover, the like of which I've not seen for some time - we invited 'a few neighbours' around for 'afternoon drinks'... in the end I think the count was 17 adults, 12 children and possibly, although I may be wrong, nearly two dozen empty bottles of fizz by 2:30 in the morning... It turns out that I am too middle-aged for all this.

We moved house a few days before Christmas, something I don't recommend to anyone. Most of our things are in storage and we are ensconced in temporary digs which was all well and good when we were 'on holiday'; however now that the year is losing its glow, we are beginning to realise that we packed a great number of things we actually use every day and so the debate begins... replace it? Or live without it? I whisked egg whites with a slotted spoon this evening. Most of them went down my front.

Charlie is adapting very well, due largely to the arrival of Santa Claus and various items of desire which are helping him to forget that we accidentally packed two of his favourite train books. Our favourite of the new toys is a remote control Dalek which can be made to follow you around the house shouting Dalek obcenities and making the boy shriek. "I'm your fwend!" he tries to tell it; "You Are An Enemy Of The Daleks" it dictates back, implacably.

We had a wonderful existential debate while I was making him and his mate some dinner this evening, discussing whether we would prefer to be Daleks or Cybermen and which of them have the better lives. We were doing really well on the imagination front until the conversation degenerated completely as we started saying things like "Give Me Some Jelly" and "I Need a Poo" in Dalek voices.

A new year and a new baby cousin yesterday - almost exactly 3 years after another of my cousins had a baby girl. Welcome Amelie Violet, happy birthday Ruby and happy new year, one and all.

Merry Happy!

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:09:00 +0000

Chess

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Charlie has discovered chess and is patiently allowing himself to be beaten game after game while he learns the moves. He's already worked out the complicated Knight and is getting to grips with bishops and rooks and the omniscient Queen; he's learnt how to castle his King but he is finding pawns hard to master with their erratic manoeuvres...

I'm delighted and frankly I credit all the problem-solving games he's been playing on my phone for the past year and a half. Every game he gets a teeny bit better and he is longing for Christmas when we will be staying in a house with a proper chess set.

All this budding chess genius talk is making no impression on the Frog who pronounced after his 5-year-old's third-ever game of chess "He's rubbish, he can't remember which piece is which!" He also commented, more accurately that "I bet he'll have dropped it in a week" - so no pressure then.

I have an ambivalent relationship with chess. My Dad started teaching me when I was about 6, no doubt with the same dreams of owning his own personal chess savant that I harbour. I always wanted to be good at it but sadly the light never shone for me.

I have fond memories of visiting a very good friend who was living in Paris for a while and being taken to his local cafe where chess was played at any hour of the day by wizened Frenchmen smoking tiny, pungent roll ups. We sat at a table and started a game and within a few moves he had me up against the wall. As I was concentrating fanatically on at least taking his queen with me before I went down, I noticed the occupants of the cafe edging slowly towards me, muttering to each other.

Before long we were surrounded by chess players and wreathed in cigarette smoke. The muttering got louder, they were clearly itching to help out... then, unable to stop himself a thin hand snaked down from the closest figure and gestured at a move I should make.

Hugely annoyed at the interference, I made the move and drained my wine glass in irritation. My friend responded; again I sunk into baffled silence. The muttering grew quickly into a loud debate about which gambit I should be taking and the whole cafe was now standing around our table.

Another move was suggested and just as my annoyance was peaking, I realised what was happening. Letting them take over, I watched a beautiful, full-on turn-about take place... I can't remember who won or lost the game but for a few moments, the door into chess had opened and a chink of light had shone through.

Who knows if Charlie will still be playing chess by Christmas? I don't know and I don't much care but I am certainly going to be encouraging him to do anything which takes his mind away from shooting zombies, throwing angry birds at pigs, sinking pirate ships or any of the destructive video games he's been playing.

No, it's going to be about murdering bishops, capturing queens and pillaging pawns from now on - death to the king!

Not playing

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 22:42:00 +0000

There something about the way the boy looks when he's lying down that makes him seem so much older. Standing up it's clear he's a half-pint; lying down all stretched out with his long legs and his baby face pulled back by gravity he's shockingly much more grown up than I think I thought he should be.

Anyway, so all this growing up has clearly been happening right under our noses and while we've been blithely purchasing longer trousers and bigger shoes and helping him read and write and swim and... well, all the things a growing 5 year old might do, we've somehow failed to notice.

It's just that so much has remained the same. He still loves his trainset - in fact we're buying Brio for Christmas for the 3rd year in a row. He still has warm milk at bedtime, he still loves Peppa Pig and busses and the Transport Museum - and he still hates to dress up.

For some inexplicable reason, we've managed to avoid the Nativity Play for the past two years - his last nursery didn't engage in anything so overtly religious; however he is now in a full on church school and has been coming home singing songs about Baby Jesus for the past two weeks. This has culminated in a letter requesting the construction of a costume - angel or shepherd. He's chosen shepherd (thankfully; not sure I would be very good at making wings or that he'd be good at wearing them...).

He might have chosen a shepherd's outfit, but he's not going to wear it - and we all know that. I know it. His Dad knows it. His teacher knows it. All his friends know it and he knows it - although he's not admitting to it at the moment. So, even though we all know that this is a total fantasy, I am making the costume. I am even making the headdress. I may even make a shepherd's crook, who knows.

What we do know is that the outcome will be a total repeat of the last nursery play, the one from the lovely Montessori he was at for a few months, where we made a costume and packed it up and he wholly and completely failed to wear it.

In fact, I'm going to post the picture up again, because I'm 100% certain that, barring the age of the children around him, this is the picture I will take at the nativity play next week; Charlie in his normal clothes, sat tearfully on someones lap, mouthing the words to the song while all around him, pixelated children sing loudly and do all the right hand-gestures.

And, I will be delighted; proof that he's still actually quite a little boy... at least for a while.

Fights and Phantasms

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:41:00 +0000

Charlie is asleep at the moment, he's drifted off listening to Danny Kaye singing songs from Hans Christian Anderson; a CD which never fails to rocket me back to when I was his age listening to the record on the turntable, watching the lit rectangle of my bedroom door and listening to my parents potter about, still up.

I still know all the songs and while it took him a few listens, Charlie can now be caught humming some of them under his breath and offering to play them for friends, which I like.

This lovely moment of childhood innocence is totally marred by his performance in the school playground where he has already been banished to the 'little playground' where miscreants go... for fighting. Oh yes - apparently he and another boy were windmilling each other in fun until one of them landed an accidental haymaker and then it all got a bit pistols-at-dawn, necessitating an embarrassed conversation in the playground with the Mother of the other boy.

Since then there have been a few other incidents; Charlie complains routinely that they are 'not his fault' but then he also claims to know everything about ballet; although sadly refuses to impart any of this wisdom when pressed. He got a deep scratch across his face last week while defending his beloved from a boy who had kicked her.. I had a hard battle with my Motherly Love on that one I tell you - difficult not to be damn proud all over him because, obviously, fighting is wrong...

There are all these stages one marks off when one has a baby - first breath, first poo, rolling, sitting, crawling, first steps, first teeth, first this, first that... then you have a toddler then a little boy and then it's the first day at school, the first fight... and then what? Now what?

What is this creature currently snoring gently in the nursery? It's not a small child anymore yet it's not a big child; it's wily and cunning and reasoning, it counts, it reads, it writes, it dresses itself and comes out with a range of odd yet accurate facts; one can carry on a perfectly adult conversation with it and yet it still believes in Santa Claus and sleeps with one arm wrapped around Tigger.

Watching him now, even though he's only 5, it's possible to imagine one is watching the man begin to form. Up until now there have been these big stages, each of which marked a massive sea-change in movements or speech or growth; now it's just tiny incremental steps.

Personality traits are hardening up, ideas are evolving, skills are developing - and he's in there, this man who my son will become. He's in there and he's just beginning to emerge, the lightest of phantasms; but he's there, stepping gently and carefully out of childhood and across into the unknown land of grown-up...

I just hope he keeps his fists in his pockets from now on.

School daze

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 22:45:00 +0000

So it's happened, Charlie has started school. This is old news, it's been going on for weeks; it's practically normal. The other day he turned to me and said 'Mummy - I'm a school boy now! A school boy!' as if this is a hallowed dream that he has been clutching to his chest along with his nest of buses and model trams.

There he is in his uniform, blowing a kiss as he heads out for his first day and here he is at the end of it, smug as anything.

He already looks like he belongs on the cover of a Clash album in his uniform, he's all crooked tie and un-tucked shirt. He's a proper boy now, he's rushing away from us at light speed.

Already there is pressure on us to conform. The other day he ordered me not to walk to school, but to drive there, then to wait outside in the car, around the corner... until social services showed up, presumably.

Everyone asks how the settling in process has gone but he has slipped simply and easily into school life and is gaily practising handwriting and phonics as though he's been there ages.

It helps enormously that his school is tiny and that he knows children in almost every year. It helps that I am standing outside his classroom with parents I met when we were all pregnant. It helps that his beloved Lizzie is in the class above him and despite her raving beauty and superior age is still willing to be his girlfriend at playtime.

It all helps - him, anyway. None of this is helping me at all. This has all been much too easy; if he carries on growing up like this it will be no time at all before he is striding off to university and leaving us to the darkness of life without him.

Frankly I could do with a tantrum; perhaps some begging and a little clutching around the knees before school. I feel like doing a little of it myself, to be honest.

Don't grow up quite yet, my lovely boy.

Cinco de boyo...

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 21:39:00 +0000

I'm doing some hocus pocus and dating this to the start of the month and I'm doing this because that's when my son turned 5 and, should he ever read this damn blog, it would seem harsh to have missed it.

5 is quite a momentous birthday - it means school, more independence- reading and writing... or in our case, it means that clearly, Charlie is old enough to be in charge of everything and do what he wants, because, apparently, he is all grown up. So 5, it turns out, also means quite a lot of arguing about things in general.

5 year old boys, it seems, like Doctor Who a lot. Universally the kids have moved from playing Octonauts to playing at Doctor Who. 'The Monster' is now always a Dalek (I relish the story of one of his girl-friends, who, inspired by Charlie's enthusiasm, taught her best friend to play Doctor Who at her house. They marched up to their parents shouting 'We are the Garlics' to universal hilarity)

5 year old boys not only ride their bikes, they race them all about everywhere and don't much care if they fall off. Wounds which a few scant months ago would have had our boy lying prone on the sofa, daintily holding his stricken limbs in the air, now only appear at bathtime when his clothes come off -skinned elbows, grazed knees, massive bruises around the shins - who knows where they come from? 'I fell down' he says, or 'someone pushed me but I'm OK'.

5 year old boys - ohhhh, this is so lovely - 5 year old boys make their parents breakfast in bed!!! Oh yes. Alright so we're talking cereal with no / too much milk in it and apple juice with a few sloshes around the edges but you know, it's a huge start on what I hope to be a future in-house catering project.

5 year old boys are also not so grown up that they don't want a lot of cuddles, thankfully. They climb into bed and put their arms around you and kiss you on the nose and tell you that you're their favourite and can they have your iPad?

5 year old boys want dance parties and Spiderman cakes and invite everyone they know and make you play the Kaiser Chiefs and the Ramones over and over and over while they do robot dancing and get all sweaty.

5 year old boys are unbelievable pedants. 'Have a fish finger Charlie' 'No, Mummy, you mean, have ANOTHER fish finger'. 'Let's go' 'Mummy, you mean let's go TO THE PARK'.

5 year old boys are pretty amazing. I've got one, I ought to know.

Thanks for the mammaries... I mean, mammogram...

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:39:00 +0000

I was informed recently that our NHS district has lowered the age range for breast screening by ~~4 or 5~~ QUITE a few years. Lots actually; lots and lots and LOTS and lots...coughcoughcough. Indeed.

Anyway, this is so that those of us who are, let's say, very much younger than 50, for example coughhackretch can be included in the process.

Along with this came an invitation to a screening - not, sadly, the sort of screening which involves, say, watching Benicio Del Toro looking moody in a ripped shirt (ahem), but one which requires medical humiliation. So, off I bravely toddled Friday morning to the local breast screening clinic. I say 'bravely' because about 18 years ago my lymph nodes went funny and I ended up being shipped off for a mammogram, so I've Done This Before.

Back in those days it involved, as I recall, pressing the girls between two plates which were then screwed tightly together as though the doctors were pressing wild flowers (which is of course, how I like to refer to my assets). The resultant pancakes were then photographed and I went home feeling as though I'd just had sex with one of those blokes who like to use one's girls as a gear-stick.

...NOT, I must say for the benefit of any reading spouse or parental units, that I've ever done THAT. No no no. Not much, anyway... you know this really is a bad cough.

Anyway, it hurt a lot - so much in fact that I actually repressed the memory. I'm not kidding; about 5 years ago someone I knew went for one and the memory came flooding back 'OH my god' I said 'I've HAD one of those... I had completely forgotten'. 'So it's not that bad then' she said. I stayed quiet.

Needless to say I was full of trepidation. Reassuringly the clinic was clean and bright and the machine spotless. The nice young nurse had me stand up and gently laid a boob out on a plate attached to the machine, then, gently again, lowered a clear plastic tray on top of it.

I feel the need to interject here; as immediately I noticed that there were several trays of different sizes and, satisfyingly, she switched the smaller one for a larger one. The small one had numbers up to 5 on it, my one went up to 6! Just as I was preening myself I noticed there was another one that went up to 7, so there's me, just average. Sigh.

Anyway, so she lowered the thing down and then, yes, screwed it tightly - and this time, miracle of miracles, it didn't hurt! Wow.

As it was all over, I mentioned this to the nurse and expressed my gratefulness that medical science has moved on... it was then that she burst my balloon, so to speak.

'Ah yes, that would be because at that time your breasts would have been more glandular'.

'Really?' said I 'What do you mean by that'.

'Well, you know - that long ago they would have been firmer and more glandular.'

'You mean, because I was younger...' 'Yes' she interjected '...and hadn't had a baby?' I finished, lamely.

'Yes' she said again and she laughed.

Right. So there it is, incontrovertable proof that... the nurse is incompetent! No, no no, proof that once I had young firm boobs, obviously...

No, really.

Sigh.

How much TV?

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 18:48:00 +0000

I need to ask all you parenting types out there how much TV your child actually watches; and whether you feel that their behaviour afterwards is normal - or does it change?

We've noticed that after a prolonged episode of TV watching, Charlie is irritable; he complains, he flops, he shouts - he's really not keen to do anything else at all. We limit his TV watching these days to a bit in the morning to get him up and a bit in the evening as a treat - anything more and we have childzilla on our hands.

It's the same with video games - those endless little tricks one can play on one's telephone. Perhaps it's because his brain is active, generating adrenaline and various emotional responses while his body just sits there getting tense - who knows.

Either way we're not worried about his physical health too terribly much as the boy is addicted to dashing around on his bike at the moment. We're not overly worried about his imagination, as anyone who's listened to him play with his trainset can attest; but I am vaguely worried about something and just wondered if any of you have had the same sort of thoughts about it - and if so, what you're doing?

ta!

London Riots...a Womble for the day...

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 22:35:00 +0000

Actually I hate the term 'London Riots' - it should be 'London Looting'... and of course it's not just 'London'... In fact it's more like the UK's lowest common denominator all acting out their 'what I did on my summer holidays' essay - clearly putting it down in joined-up writing is out of the question.

I was transfixed by Twitter last night, I watched the #londonriots hash tag in dismay for hours as things spread and spread and spread, listening to the sirens crashing past us. Brixton was spared a second night of looting - the first was bad enough though - that's the Footlocker on Brixton High Street, burned out.

I then discovered #riotcleanup and like hundreds of others thought that I had to do something - as someone said - last night we needed Superman, now we need the Wombles... so I headed to Clapham where a clean-up was planned.

What I love the most about this is that overnight, someone set up a twitter account, organised places to meet to clean up and actually did the thing. At the start of the day the account had over 20,000 followers he now has 85,000+. @riotcleanup is now organising people to meet in Enfield to clean up the Sony Centre and will no doubt be carrying on to organise cleanups in other cities... the man had 3 hours sleep last night if you were reading his tweets and absolutely deserves a medal.

Practically the only shop in Clapham that didn't have its windows smashed in was Waterstones - the book shop - which rather tells you all you need to know about the looters. This was all about the TVs, trainers and telephones, not about civil rights or liberties or any of the things people riot for in other countries.

My favourite tweet of the day 'It's like Hogwarts, everyone getting off the train at Clapham is carrying a broom'. I was initially quite embarrassed on the bus like some obsessive mad-woman with her brush but I wasn't alone, there were several people self-consciously hiding their bristles then getting braver and braver about waving them about as we got closer... it was all sort of beautiful and surreal and quite funny, given the shit circumstances.

Clapham didn't really need us to sweep up, the council had it well in hand and in the end it was a completely symbolic gesture; I guess we all just wanted to stand up and say 'fuck you' really. Not often you get to say 'fuck you' by waving 100 brooms in the air.

I managed to be in the group of 200 or so they let in to do the initial clean-up and after a bit of a wait while shopkeepers were allowed in, we headed down. The theme of the day was to see two or three people crouched over some near-invisible splinters of glass with their dustpans, surrounded by cameras - there were almost as many media as cleaners (there's a massive camera lurking in the shadows to the left of that green van). I did actually get to clear some glass though; I met a lovely girl on the bus on the way down and we bagged up some huge sheets of window between us... it's amazing how quickly 200 people can clean up a street.

We may not have been needed for the actual clean-up (at Clapham, anyway) but we were needed so we could stand up and be counted - there were hundreds more Wombles cleaning up today than there were rioters the night before, and that's a good thing.

It may have only been a gesture but at least it wasn't a two-finger 'fuck you', or a pathetic finger gun. We're not just about the riots here, it's only the miserable little cretins who are about that.

All in all, I'm pretty happy to have been able to stand up and be counted. I came, I swept, I went home.

And now, I'm going to bed.

Childhood memories... and all that...

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:31:00 +0000

I may be revising my ideas on parenting, at the moment.

I thought about it the other day and frankly, I barely remember a single thing from when I was 4, I could have been locked in a box for all I know. Alain de Botton wrote an interesting piece for the BBC the other day, effectively saying that I'm actually spending my time building up my boy's general picture of the world; but do I HAVE to go the Transport Museum EVERY MONTH to do that?

It just doesn't seem fair - we float about doing all the lovely things one is supposed to do - picking berries, visiting museums, riding on trains, baking... he tells me he loves me, at last count, more than his buses - surely he'll remember THAT?

I suppose it makes some sort of sense however... The other day I was walking with one of his best friends while he rode beside us on our way home for a playdate:

'Mummy, Mummy Mummy look! Look Mummy, I'm not going to ride into the road' (crash). 'Ants live in holes you know. There are lots and lots of ants - see, there was one there, there, look there it went there' 'Mummy my horn isn't working properly, listen' phwarp porp squeeak 'wait there's another one, I think that's a red one' phwish yeek 'Max, if a red ant bites you, you DIE' phwonk phwonk PARP PARP 'Don't be silly Charlie' tweorp 'Charlie PLEASE that horn is giving me a headache 'but I'm fixing it, I'm fixing it' (CRASH) 'WAIT WAIT, stop it's a flying one, a flying one look, Charlie, a flying ant' 'Hold my bike Mummy, hold it, hold my bike Mummy, Mummy Mummy HOLD MY BIKE' (drops bike and runs back to Max, then runs back to his bike) 'Look there's an ant hole, did you see, did you see' peep peorp phupurb 'Max come on, Max, Max, Max, Max I'm winning come on' 'Charlie isn't being very nice racing his bike and look I think this is a different kind of ant hole' CRAAAAAAAASSSHHHH 'WAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh' and there goes all the skin on my son's elbow.

So possibly the loss of memory has it's upside - for him, that is. He may forget all this stuff but sadly, it's going to be clogging up my neural pathways for some time to come.

Perhaps a box isn't such a bad idea?

You know you watch too much F1 when...

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:05:00 +0000

...your 4-year-old brings out the Safety Car on his racing track...

I've spent my life in the 'racing is a polluting waste of money and fossil fuels' camp, however having married an F1 enthusiast the thing has rather grown on me and for the last 5 years I've watched quite a lot. I wouldn't say I'm a big fan, but I did get a twinge this summer when I found myself at the fun-fair (again) while the Frog was cosily ensconced in front of the Monaco Grande Prix...

The thing is though that we are clearly raising an F1 enthusiast and I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's not really about the waste and pollution, it's not even really about the fact that if he decides to become the next Lewis Hamilton it's going to cost us a bomb, not to mention shred the last of my nerves. It's just that F1 fans don't go out to the park for a race-about in the same way that footie fans go for a kick-about.

F1 makes one want to drink champagne and drive fast cars and subtly encourages one to hope for a big disaster... so when I see my four-year-old kicking a football like a girl and then going home and setting up ginormous car crashes in his bedroom, I rather begin to wish the Frog was a football fan.

Still, the boy is becoming equally obsessive about riding his bicycle and the other day raced a friend on it for the first time so I've not been that worried that he's becoming a couch-potato - in fact I'm actively encouraging him to get back out onto the BMX track and he's quite keen.

This will be all well and good until he starts trying to do the tricks and jumps he's so excited by - and there, my friends, is the rub; ultimately, he's not going to break his neck playing on his bedroom floor... so excuse me while I head into his room to race my car from the other end of his track. If you do it hard enough, one of the cars flies right up and off the track - safety car it is, for today, at least.

MumsNet "The Rules"

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 22:00:00 +0000

This book arrived unannounced in the post the other month from Bloomsbury and after reading the opening page with its glib jibe at Mummy Bloggers (many of whom are actually on MumsNet so... er...?) and how we all apparently moan on about our perfect lives all the time (clearly they haven't read THIS blog then), I decided not to review it.

However, partly because I'm an, er, children's writer and this is, hello, BLOOMSBURY;
(and partly because I once received some excellent advice from MumsNet), I decided to give it a go and I tell you, 'The Rules' is great. No no no, I know how that sounds ha ha (cough); no, I do honestly mean it. I didn't want to like this book at all, in fact I started reading it hoping to be able to say something tart and funny about MumsNetters in response to the blogger swipe, but this book is bloody brilliant and useful, not to mention laugh-out-loud funny.

In fact it's the sort of thing I rather wish I'd had a few years back, as some of these lessons I've had to learn the hard way; however my son is only 4, so there is plenty there for me to get on with. With chapters on dealing with nits, the school gates, party games and what to call one's children's privates, it's gloves-off, no-holds-barred stuff this; how frustrating parenting can be, how bloody awful other people's kids can be, how to handle it when one's own kids are being bloody awful etc etc etc.

It's not all dim though, there's a lot of sweet stuff in there too; it's just that the dark humour and lack of squeamishness in the book particularly appeal to me. I've read it cover to cover and recommended it to friends ad nauseum, in fact it's likely I'll be investing in some copies as presents this Chrimbo.

So there you have it; I'm reviewing something which I never do these days and more than that, something that came un-requested. Even more, I whole-heartedly recommend 'The Rules' to any parent, anywhere (although I do think, a teensy bit, that it is possibly also a little window into Middle England, although this might give it added humour value to those outside of our green and pleasant borders).

Now for the science bit:

For this review I was sent a free copy of the book, which I fully intend to keep until it falls apart. I also realise that this review has sat in my 'drafts' folder for a month now, so is possibly more than a little bit behind the times. I never said I was organised.

A New Beginning

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 23:52:00 +0000

A while ago I published my first book (sounds so hopeful and arrogant, doesn't it 'my first book')... anyway, naturally I was thrilled to bits.

My publisher opened up a children's imprint and for a while I've been the only author on it - so I was delighted to hear that Grimoire Books are publishing a second book in January; Rebecca Emin's New Beginnings, indicating that perhaps the first time round wasn't such a bad idea after all... perhaps...

I've never met Rebecca but she's a fellow blogger and a keen writer and we got in touch via Twitter; turns out she's lovely as well. She has recently interviewed me for both her blogs (I confess to being a terrible interviewee) here; if you want to read it.

I think that our publisher may have a thing for new beginnings because Rebecca's book, like my own, deals with the subject of change; of someone moving somewhere new and making new friends, trying to fit in. New Beginnings however deals with the weighty and ever-current subject of bullying and does so in a sensitive and readable way.

Sam, the heroine of the story, moves to a new school and finds herself the subject of bullying which not only knocks her confidence, but escalates from verbal threats and abuse to physical violence. The story of how it affects her and how she overcomes it is handled in a very practical way and written absolutely appropriately for the reading level (I'd say 8-13 on this). The glitteringly triumphant ending is satisfying not only because right wins out over wrong, but because wrong, in the form of the bully, is given an even and fair study

As someone who was bullied through much of my school life, I recall incidents and feelings similar to some of those in the book. The subject is well handled and the story offers practical solutions as well as hope for anyone in that situation. The book isn't just for those who have been or are being bullied however; it's a good, pacey read with plenty of storylines to appeal; including a 'Glee' type happy ending.

Children need to know that school is just a small part of life and that there is hope, if it's bad; Emin gets this message across subtly in a readable and way suitable for the target age-group. It's a great book and I'm proud to share a shelf. You can pre-order a copy from Grimoire Books on their website here.

PS, apologies for anyone reading this on RSS and getting it twice; I lost half the original text in some sort of blogger hell moment; hence the re-write.

I love you more than...

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:54:00 +0000

The child is a little troubled these days by various things, tiddly pom... not least of which is that, following some renewed reading of Winnie the Pooh he is having nightmares about bees and wasps. He's also having nightmares about daleks, 'the wrong car' and other great evil beings who lurk in his bedroom, interspersed with good dreams about eating sushi in Victoria train station.

This of course means we spend our nights like the Sorcerors Apprentice racing back and forth from our room to his, carrying buckets of whatever it is that parents use to scare monsters until, inevitably, he ends up in our bed, hogging the blankets.

As he drops gently off into nightmare alley, he tells us how much he loves us which is of course the sort of thing that gets one's Motherly Love brain fluffing up its feathers and cackling inanely, so of course I have been encouraging this; however I believe it may have Gone Too Far.

It started very sweetly: 'I love you all day Mummy'; 'I'll love you always, Charlie'; 'I love you all day and all week and all year;' 'I love you more than that, sweetie'; 'I love you more than that, Mummy!' and so on... Here are a few recent examples, however:

"I love you more than toys"
"I love you more than tigers"
"I love you more than the pavement"
"I love you more than our car"

Last night it was "I love you more than alligators!"

I feel he is stretching, at this point, to grasp the entire concept.

Sigh.

tick tock tick tock

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:58:00 +0000

The child is in bed; clutching a warm pillow to its tum... With the impending onset of school we are having some, presumably subconcious, regressing of various bits and pieces; which in the case of our son means his relationship to his innards, to which it appears he feels wholely prisoner.

Our boy will do anything to try to trap the renegade product of his own body so it can never force him to sit for those few calamatous moments when something gets away from him. Perhaps it's a control issue - he says over and over again that he just 'can't keep it in'. No matter how many times I tell him he shouldn't try, that he should let it out, he just won't agree. He would rather strut around all day with an uncomfortable and possibly slightly sticky undercarriage than lose his grip on his own body for the smallest moment.

We've had this before and he always overcomes it - he's perfectly capable of managing himself, he just, at the moment, doesn't want to do it. He also doesn't want to stay at nursery all day or dress himself or do any one of a number of things he's been doing perfectly happily for a while.

I understand, to be honest. I'm not sure I'm ready for him to go to school either. I'm not ready to lose our Fridays together, or to have to get up early 5 days a week for the next 12 years to ship him off, or to watch him become jaded and prone to playground economics, vocabulary and manners.

In some way I suspect we both want the world to slow down and let him be a little boy for just a bit longer. Sadly while I am used to time taking over my life and doing whatever it wants, he's only 4 and is just trying, any way he can, to control his world. It's just a shame that it's making him feel so dreadful.

Brixton morning

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 09:01:00 +0000

GeoTagged, [N51.45112, E0.10881]

Big Farmers Market popping up in Brixton this morning under the big Plane tree - town hall clock chiming 10am, feels quite villagey for somewhere which is largely concrete...

PS, gotta love the geotagging - it's saying that Windrush Square is somewhere in the middle of the park... that or on a side road about a mile away. Sigh.

Rock and Roll

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:42:00 +0000

...apparently it was an Alice Cooper face paint job before he wiped it off to become a pint-sized Syd Barrett...

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:40:00 +0000

Lord of the Flies

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 19:33:00 +0000

We've just had my godson and his older brother (one of Charlie's very bestest friends) over for a sleepover and right here, I have to tip my hat to ANYONE who has 3 boys. The sheer volume for one thing; and the vehemence. Anything and everything that could pose as a weapon was dragged into service against monsters and unsuspecting parental units. I mean, I love the Nerf guns but the frenzy to which the presence of one can raise a roomful of boys is, frankly, quite disturbing - particularly considering that these are really very little boys.

I've probably said this before but I've often felt remorse at the lack of a sibling in Charlie's life; however I do resolutely feel he has the best of everything - friends, attention, comfort, boundaries, outdoorsy play, indoorsly slugging about, you name it, he's spoiled for it. A bit too much, in fact.

The upshot of this is that when friends come over he tramps around like a little dictator ordering them about and generally pissing them off. This time however he was entirely outgunned by the tiniest, most angelic little tot you have ever seen: my godson, two-and-a-half with a whispering lisp and the bluest eyes on the planet, my god-son whom I have only ever seen smiling and giggling, my god-son, half-a-pint of coy, armed with a badminton raquet and leading the attack with the sort of ruthless abandon one might imagine chased Piggy off that cliff... at least until the tickle monster fought back.

Tonight, our little Mussolini is extremely humbled, not to mention wiped flat. He's eaten his dinner, said 'yes' to everything and done exactly as he was told.

On the one hand this makes me feel even more that a sibling would be a good influence on him; however the influence on us, if tonight is anything to go buy, would be to render us even more senseless than usual...

What happens when your French husband dresses his son

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Fri, 27 May 2011 22:18:00 +0000

...the title was the Frog's idea, don't get funny with me...

...the clothes were his idea as well... no, seriously...

...the mouths of babes...

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Mon, 02 May 2011 22:00:00 +0000

We spend our Bank Holiday Monday doing things in London with an old friend, Charlie and I. We took a train into town, we rode a Routemaster to the Tower and then trailed in his wake up and down every spiral staircase in existence.

At the end we had an icecream, waited for the next Routemaster home and filed dutifully on, only to get stuck at some long lights. This was the point at which my angelic four-year-old, kneeling backwards on his seat to face the nice American grandparents behind us, said very clearly 'Mummy, look at all the fucking traffic'.

I could tell from their response that they were more amused than shocked so between the three of us we had a conversation with him about why one shouldn't use 'that' word... which prompted him to say 'Fucking' about four more times in his little English voice which rang clear as a bell through the confines of the carriage.

Having secured his audience along with my position as Mother of the Year, he then went on to tell them all about his girlfriend and, in answer to the question, informing everyone that when he grows up he's going to be 'a Daddy', thus charming himself out of a tight spot.

He's sleeping now, mouth blissfully closed. Best thing, really

I take it back

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 21:20:00 +0000

...the bit about my son not being interested in the Royal Wedding (note new capitalisation). He was indeed interested. He was, to put it mildly, obsessed.

It seems that all week the nursery were prepping our children for the wedding. The whole week was focused on princesses and weddings and reminding them to watch it. He thought we were actually going to go in to see it - in fact many of the children thought the same.

So, we watched it, him in tears because he wasn't actually there.

I say we watched it. We watched about 20 minutes of it with various friends whose children also ambushed them with a desire to watch. Just as the actual princess got out of her actual car to walk down the aisle, they all lost interest, leaving us adults to watch awkwardly and make wry comments.

Today I straightened my hair - I'm finding that much more interesting.

A royal pain

noreply@blogger.com (Sparx) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:41:00 +0000

The Royal Wedding, it appears is dividing young children directly along gender lines.

One of my friends is organising a 'Republican's Picnic' in the park to coincide with the nuptuals...(or an indoorsy one if the rain actually dares to fall on the royal parade... off with its head!) and she has invited Charlie and our local crew of mates to attend. The idea was that the only wedding we'd have to watch would be the marriage of ants and sandwiches.

This seemed like a wonderful idea a few weeks ago, however we were absolutely not counting on the hypnotic pull that a princess and a prince getting actually, really married with a big dress and a proper coach and a parade and everything was going to have on the tiny females amongst us.

Seriously, half the Mums have pulled out of coming in the morning because their daughters are rolling on the floor and begging to be allowed to watch. Some of them think they will be going to the wedding. Other are forcing their reluctant Fathers to actually go into the hell of the centre of town to sit on shoulders and watch the procession go past. One is going to a girls-and-champagne only party with her Mum leaving her Dad to come on his own.

This may not be a surprise to you out there who have daughters, but I have a son, a son who doesn't care a toot about the royal wedding; a son who only appreciates a princess dress if the girl wearing it will play trains with him. And let him drive.

The Royal Wedding is a complete non-starter for us. Neither the Frog or I give much of a damn and our son is oblivious. I have Fridays off anyway so all this really means to me is that if it's sunny, the park will be that much more festive. Now, it appears, the picnic may be delayed so that everyone can watch TV.

I'm quite tempted to walk into Brixton and see what the locals are doing - it's hard to imagine Brixton becoming MORE of a party than it already is on a bank holiday weekend but we'll see.

I know it's curmudgeonly of me to avoid what is essentially a massive, nation-wide happy-day. I know it may even be puzzling as to why I wouldn't want to go into the centre and experience the whole drama (including the 'Where's Charlie' drama as he dashes into the crowds...) but there you go.

Yes, it's lovely that two people are getting married but I don't actually know them even though we do live in the same town... Fancy that... and I just find it weird that people care this much about it.

Yes it's grand that English Royal Pageantry has exploded into action, but frankly the next coronation will be much more interesting - and Charlie will be older and with any luck, the next King will also be a Charlie and crucially, there will be no princess dresses involved. That, I think, is something my little boy might just be interested in seeing.

Or not. Depends, I imagine, on what vehicle Charles uses to get to his new crown.