Parenting is tightrope-walking. Putting one foot in front of the other, not looking down. Breathing, and focus, and keeping your eye on the end of the line. Balancing the task of educating children and challenging them to stretch themselves, against nurture and not overwhelming their mental/emotional capacities. It's often stark, on the parenting frontier, with the buffetting wind and the faces of the people far below. Just the pole in your arms, and the vibrating rope beneath your feet. Just the accumulated weight of all the knowledge and skill you've acquired and all the burdens you carry. It is exhilirating and tiring and angry-making and surprisingly enjoyable.

Z and I tend to be pretty lax in the morning, because well, the application of discipline requires speech and the opening of eyes and possibly even getting up, but when a day starts off with your child throwing his toys on the floor and then weeping because they are fallen, and then hitting you with a fury because you won't pick them up for him - well then even I am motivated into action.

"If you don't stop hitting your father you will go to the naughty corner!" I threaten. Matei pauses momentarily and strokes Z, but then again our refusal to pick up the toys he has thrown and our suggestion that he should do it himself overcomes him and brings on another volley of furious/underslept toddler blows.

"Right," I say and get up and carry him to the naughty corner since he refuses to go himself. "Sit here and think about what you've done."

This is the fifth time the corner has been called into use and the first time when Matei did not spend his allotted time there in a hysterical weeping fit and/or attempts at escape. I sit some distance away and he looks at me with huge eyes and rocks slightly and says:
"Must touch gently! Must touch gently!"
"That's right! And what else?"
"Hitting, no! Hitting, no!" *
" That's right." M looks at me with huge, imploring eyes and says: "Are good? Are good?" and my heart breaks a little, but we are still not done.
"A bit more. What else shouldn't you do?"
"Must touch gently! Hitting, no! Hitting, no!"
"You also shouldn't throw your toys. If they fall on the floor, just pick them up, like so(I mime picking up)"
"Hitting, no! Throwing, no! Picks up toys! (he copies my mimicry)".
"That's it exactly. Well done!"
"Are, good? Are good?"
"Yes you are. Come here." And I open my arms and he flies into them and I envelop him in the hug I've been wanting to dish out for the last minute.

He trots off to the bedroom, bursting with pride to share all his insights with Z, and when "picking toys off the floor" briefly turns into "throwing toys at father on the bed" a frim tone and a demo and practice session of what he should be doing instead corrects him. There are showers of praise and glows of happiness.

Then 20 minutes later at nappy changing time when he's flailing and kicking me and I'm fairly sure than another session in the naughty corner will just produce a drawn out fit of weeping, it's time to switch tactics.

"Matei, would you like a biscuit?
"Biscuit!"
"If you get dressed nicely, and with no fighting, I will give you a biscuit." Instant co-operation.

I feel as proud as he does, when I get the balance right. Parenting is tightrope-walking, and a drawn-out exercise in heartbreak. I'm a good mother, even though I never expected to be.


* Matei's chanted instructions to himself are best things ever. Watching him drink a cup of juice while telling himself "Drink, nicely! Don't, spit!" between sips remains hilarious.

pumpkins
Originally uploaded by rainsinger.

Lessons learned from pumpkin-carving:

1) Tools sold by Tesco for £1 = useless.

2) Children's kitchen utensils by IKEA = brilliant and just the right size.

3) If you are fed up of cutting slivers out with knives, a drill works quite well and makes Z feel useful.

4) Finding Matei tasks to do and motivating him to do them without causing harm to himself or others has tasked every technique I recently learned on my Facilitation Skills course.


In a few hours we are going to be dressing up the baby in a bat costume (or as he calls it, a butterfly) and dressing Z up as a pirate (for which occasion we are brining out his turquoise silk shirt - there in the icon). I anticipate having cause for much entertainment and photography.

And finally:

This morning while I was trying to put M in a nappy and he was shouting NO NO NO DOESN'T WANT and I was saying "Matei, it MUST be done. Do you know what it means when something MUST be done?" and he replied: "I get biscuits."

In Montenegro it was too hot to consume anything but fruits and salads, and my son felt that the only reasonable response to being a 20 month old person was to run around and try to climb on places that have snakes. As a result of this no-food-all-action-all-the-time I shed close to 8 pounds in 10 days. I haven't shifted weight that fast since I gave birth, but since in London I have neither problem I am having pizza for breakfast while I sit in front of the computer and consider into which part of my day I should slot a lengthy nap. Left to our own devices the cats and I synchronise our hobbies.

Spending time with my son was beautiful (he talks! he doesn't shut up! I still haven't decided whether I'm more charmed by his conversations with inanimate objects or his statement-of-the-obvious sentences) and leaving him for another month was heartbreaking.

While my desires to write endless posts and read endless posts slug it out with each other, I leave you with an image of Postmodern Childhood: Collecting cigarette butts on the beach*




* A person cannot dissuade him from this course of action. I've tried. But I'm thinking he has a bright future in garbage collection.

Between work, sleep, a host of Mysterious Ailments and the following the whole healthcare fracas in the States, I completely forgot to post about Z's and mine most bizzarre BlogHer moment.

Setting: The Recovery Breakfast after the conference.
Characters Next to Z is a father with a 9 month old baby. The baby is wearing footwear in the shape of rabbits, one of which has slipped off its foot.

Z, to infant, conversationally: You have slippers, and they are rabbits.

Baby: *blows a raspberry*

Baby's father, to Z: English is not your first language, is it?

Z: You got me.

Baby's father, to Z: Well for future information, those aren't rabbits. They are bunny slippers.

I still have no idea what that was about, aside from an example of linguistic wankerism, but it has given Z and me a whole wealth of material from which to construct our in-jokes and ad-libbed ludicrous conversations and for that I am profoundly grateful. Otherwise in times of boredom I am forced to parade around the house with no trousers on, showcasing my underwear and cellulitic thighs, mocking Z for being older than me and demonstrating to him how I am the most glorious part of his life since you can't just buy magic like this baby

Apparently the morbid curiosity of the internet IS more powerful than propriety. So, as requested, here is a picture of my severely bruised ass and let that be a lesson to you all in how NOT to descend stairs . I am all about service to the community and teaching by example.

Also, if you ever wanted to know how to trouble your husband AND convince him that your relationship with the internet is unhealthy, then asking him to take a picture of your ass so that you can share it with the www will probably achieve that.

On the other hand, I have just finished my last exam and am therefore a happy happy woman who no longer needs to wake up at ridiculous o'clock in order to study. I am planning to shepard all stray cups into the kitchen to celebrate and thank my family for not divorcing me on the grounds of absenteeism.

ETA And since I'm especially a slave to the whims of Belgian Waffle, here's a pictoral representation of my brain post-viva. You should do one too.

I have still to commit to social commentary the whole Matei Turning Blue, Spending 6 billion hours in A&E of which 5 Billion were spent waiting for him to Pee, episode from last week because I still feel vaguely traumatised by the whole experience. Instead, let us have Internet Links! And Humor.

A friend recently sent me a link to this place in Montenegro where we spent all formative summers, and indeed where Matei will be running shortly. Now I love Montenegro unreservedly, one might say unconditionally, considering how charming I find their lawlessness and creative approach to the truth - and that link contains the best of many worlds.

Let me give you the guided tour.
Here's some brief history It was used as a port since the 18th Century and in the 19th Century Russians tried to make it a legal port which European Forces opposed due to determined efforts to keep Russians away from their seas. Two stone storing houses were built to hold corn and supplies for sailing ships in the 16th Century. Nobody destroyed them.

Here's a map and a segment about the climate which informs me that average daily temperatures in July are 24 C, which will make a nice change from July temperatures of 40C I remember experiencing as recently as last year.

Under the heading Outings and Transport we have.... a taxi rank. And a parking lot.

Afterwards, you might like to shop in the Shops and Newsagents which contain a teeny supermarket historically staffed by grumpy middle aged women or bored teenagers who project a dedicated manevolence and consider the height of customer service not telling you to fuck yourself to your face.

But my favourite category is Parks. It says: Canj is full of beautiful parks and then offers photos of same park from three different angles and a shot of the hillside. (I'm waiting for the next category to go up called Nature Reserve featuring same hillside and calling it a Safari Park in which you can observe snakes, discarded rubbish and packs of stray dogs in their natural environment).

Incidentally, the two blue bridges in the third and fourth photograph are footpaths over the aqueduct, and I don't know about you, but nothing says picturesque to me quite like the presence of dirty water/sewage.

Here are two video clips of Matei, recording his loveable eccentricities.

In the first he stacks and unstacks some clothes hangers, in a way that either speaks of his enviably focused and methodical mind (another thing he did not inherit from me, if it weren't for his tempestuous shows of emotion I'm not sure we'd have anything in common) or his flowering OCD.



And the second video shows that improvisation is next to entropy because we lost the top of his sippy cup so that teaching him to drink through a straw seemed easier than trekking out to buy another one.

He has also learned the meaning of Yes (it was a long time coming), so now he self-importantly answers Da! (Yes) when asked if he wants or likes something.

Endless dinnertime fun at my house.

Dear Diary,

This day marks 15 and a half months of imprisonment in this frustrating world, and this miserable fleshly shell.

I hate the fact that I cannot watch airplanes every waking breathing moment of my day, and I hate having my nappy changed, but most of all I hate my mother. She's such a bitch!

Take yesterday, for example. When I wished to be carried and elected to cast myself down on the pavement weeping brokenly to communicate this need she said: 'Either walk or ride in the buggy'. Stupid cow! She just doesn't understand! And then after she strapped me into that infernal wheeled contraption Against My Will and in clear defiance of my Curved Back of Rigor Mortis Posture she had the temerity to offer me a consolation biscuit!

A biscuit! The insult is really too much. I cast it down on the pavement in my rage. Pah! That is what I think of you and your BISCUIT, whore!

As if that wasn't enough, then she wouldn't let me drink from her bottle of ice tea! I couldn't believe the betrayal I was witnessing. I felt in that moment that all I had ever wanted in this world was that bottle and our separation crushed my spirit. My heart is as biscuit crumbs beneath a cruel buggy wheel of rejection.

I weep, I weep, I weep. Come, sweet dummy! I hasten to my sleep.

Cringe last night was brilliant. I haven't laughed that hard in years. From now on my fitness plan is to sod Pilates and just listen to people reading their teenage poetry.

In case anyone has apalling teenage material of their own they are considering submitting to the UK version of the Cringe Book then you totally should. Or failing that come along to the next one.

For those of you who missed it, I shall just tell you that my reading also included the first couple of verses of a song (The Song Of My Feelings) which I wrote when I was 13, and it features phrases such as

I'm lost in my world of grey
I want This Night to End.

On the other hand stay tuned for next Friday's installment of Bad Teenage Drawings of Angel Taking Dead, Tired Souls.

Things my child has learned in the last week:

*How to blow kisses

*How to blow soap bubbles

*How to carefully put a cap onto a bottle and then unscrew it again

*How to chant 'Yes yes yes!' with the fervour of Meg Ryan in When Harry met Sally when he spots something he's keen on.

*How to climb onto a desk using the bed, the chair and his own NINJA POWERS.


Things which I have been trying to teach him but he's failed to uptake with enthusiasm:

*To articulate his hunger by bowing down to me and saying: "Please nourish your humble servant"

*To chant "I love big butts and I cannot lie!" while conducting an interpretative dance sequence

*That any hour before 7am is an Illegal Wake Up Time, punishable by excommunication.

If I see another newspaper headline along the lines of : Jade Goody - last hours I am going to growl at someone. Will they ever leave the woman alone and stop afixing poignant, and touching to every single thing that she does? Ghouls.

Matei has some kind of rash and fever-inducing virus, which he has kindly passed along to me (babies are worse than rats when it comes to spreading disease) and I am feeling closer to death than usual today. I have retaliated by wearing my ultimate comfort outfit: black hoodie, jeans, Rocker Hello Kitty T-shirt and childish socks with unicorns on. I also have bitchin' new glasses.

I have taught Matei to say "bum" and "underpants" which are in our language fairly simple words beginning with a guh sound which he has been practising diligently over the last two days. He is totally in love with these words and has been chanting "underpants underpants" to himself the last 15 minutes.

He has taught himself to pick up bits of fluff and cat hair off the floor and turn them into the nearest adult in return for praise and applause. However, the last few days he has been going directly to the source and plucking handfuls of hair off the actual cats and then toddling over to us with the loot, radiant with his own cleverness.

The boy is an applause-junkie. He has learned how to clap and now claps every single time he is proud of something he has done and looks offended if you don't join him. On the other hand he is prepared to give as good as he gets, and offered me extravagant praise and applause when he watched me unload the dishwasher. This is exactly the same attitude I have been trying to instill in Z, but without success so far.

Today my mothering techniques have mainly involved lying in his playpen like roadkill while he bangs my head with some plush toys. I am tired, tired, tired. Have pity, send biscuits.

Hello! I have the weekend looming before me, I have wine, my child has been sleeping with minimum protest and for hours, and earlier this evening I was thoroughly offensively_mangoed so I am full of Glee and GoodWill for all menkind that comes from laughing like a fool for ages.

And to further glee I shall reproduce some of my favourite things:

Favourite comment left on my journal

An anonymous comment left on a journal entry ages ago in which I compared my son to a ho on account of being 'free and easy with his smiles'. The comment read: "I find this demeaning to both women and children" which I am so in love with that I've been tempted to make my journal title ever since. I always felt it deserved a wider audience, and was gutted when it was deleted a couple of days after it was made.

Favourite Angst

I have also unearthed my first ever proper diary (spanning ages 13-17, the Deepest Angst years) and that thing has been keeping me amused ever since. There is hardly a page in there that is not in some way a goldmine.

The bit which made Angel and me laugh the hardest is the first entry (July 1st 1993) in which I am "standing in front of a mirror trying to assure myself I am not a total failure after all" and critically assessing all my features including: "My lips are okay, I guess, I hope. I've got two sets of ugly teeth"

And while this diary contains much excellent material including Songs and Poetry and Teenage Drawings, and Creative Swearing ("damn damn and damn again! Double damn them all!") I keep coming back to the succinctness of my November 28 1993 entry which reads:

"When she is angry, my mother looks like a monkey".


Poll #1365207 teenage diary friday
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 22

Should I make posting extracts from my teenage diary a regular weekly feature?

The baby has become passionately attached to the broom. This is brilliant, as it's the one household object I'm unlikely to fight him for.

Heh, it's been a long time hasn't it? Children and work will do that to you, I find. Save yourselves! Put internet first! Don't fall prey to their shackles!

Things I have lost in the last week thanks to having a small grabby child and my own incompetence filing system of moving things randomly out of his reach

* The bath plug. The only one of its kind in the house no less. Therefore for three days now I have been experimenting with the bath-plugging power of paperweights, bowls and little rubber mats with suction cups. (The mats won)

* A dragonfly barrette.

* Two library books.

* My client log sheets.

* Three pairs of socks. (Removing my socks from the box under the bed is the baby's passion. Getting a few extra minutes of meditative shut-eye is mine. A barefooted future looms).

On a related note, some items I have found myself inexplicably sharing a bed with the past few days, thanks to Matei's habit of bringing me random gifts and stuffing them under my pillow

*A plastic duck

* Two Tupperware lids

* A teddy bear wrapped bondage-style in a pair of my tights

* My favourite: a tiny wheelie suitcase

And now, on a completely separate topic, is anyone other than me yearning and contemplating ways of going to BlogHer?

Now and Then

Z is babysitting by sleeping next to the baby in its little caged enclosure. The baby is amusing itself by pulling at his chest hairs. It is hard to picture a more idyllic family scene.

It seems so weird to think that a year ago I was hugely pregnant, taking up most of the sofa and playing something like an 11 hour card game with Z and a friend, having no idea that shortly after midnight I would bolt awake with the clusterfuck of abdominal pains heralding the arrival of Matei. If I had known I would certainly have gone to bed earlier.

It's the eve of his first birthday and my son is walking.

Also, perfume may or may not be a baby sedative. Today Z sprayed him with some of my scent and the baby slept for a record of 3 daytime hours. Further experiementation is warranted.


Matei and the cats - an unrequited love story

Matei is naturally flirtatious, has always been. When he wants to impress a human (usually a waitress) he makes cooey noises, and batting eyelashes and then offers them his index finger to kiss and shares with them whatever treasures he has in his possession (like his dummy, or whatever plastic crap he has found and is chewing on).

Matei has consistently been trying all his Love Methods on the cats but they remain unimpressed and long-suffering.

M: (Patting the cat by smacking it on the head repeatedly)
Cat: (glaring and moving away)

M: (cooing for all that he is worth, with batty eyelashes)
Cat: (looking away with contempt)

M: (extending his index finger towards cat for the cat to kiss)
Cat: (flicking its whiskers in contempt)

M: (bringing the cat various treasures - my shoes, a pile of DVD cases- and piling them onto cat)
Cat: (jumping away while hissing)

M: (offering the cat some of his banana and prodding it in the face with it)
Cat: (recoiling)

M: (having cornered a sleeping cat, he lays his face against its body and sighs in rapture)
Cat: (putting up with this through gritted teeth)

I guess their love is not to be until he learns how to dispense cat treats.


My favourite thing about the baby has to be the way when he gets very frustrated and upset he grabs his dummy for some frantic sucking, in the exact same way that my mother in the same emotional context inhales a cigarette.

Hahaha. Good lord. Only in Britain.

20.00 Darts Players' Wives
Sporting documentary. A look at the women behind those giants of men - professional darts players. Self-proclaimed Tarts for Darts follow their larger than life heroes like Phil Taylor (The Power), and Andy Fordham (The Viking) around the world to see them perform on the oche.

Capturing good footage of baby antics is a bit like being a wildlife photographer. You camp out in the subject's natural habitat, you lie in wait for the right moment and then you whip out your equipment and take about two bajillion photographs of which 1.7 bajillion will be just rubbish.

Therefore, tomorrow I resolve to get photographic evidence of two daily occurences that make me laugh:

1) My child wielding a Princess Fairy Wand like some kind of demented musical conductor

2) Him wearing a plastic mixing bowl upon his head at jaunty angles so that he brings to mind both


and