Bank holiday weekend

Bank Holiday weekend, the sun is out and the children are excited about their Daddy being at home. I am excited too. I have spent the past few days carefully drawing up a long list of jobs that my husband is uniquely qualified to do. Painting, clearing out the shed, replacing the numerous halogen bulbs that have blown, washing the car, mowing the lawn and making several trips to the Rubbish Dump, along with every other father in North Dorset. However, the children have a different list in mind which includes making camps, going to Cool Play, lunch in the pub followed by watching the ‘Shaun the Sheep’ DVD.

Saturday morning begins at 6am, an hour earlier than usual, with the pitter patter of feet along the corridor and into our bedroom. We desperately drag out the next hour by hauling a huge wooden box of cars onto our bed, much to the delight of our three-year-old son who ‘bruuums’ small lorries, tanks and buses across the duvet, over our heads and down our arms. The small cold wheels driving across our skin did not have quite the same effect as a massage with warm stones but at least we are still in the comfort of our bed. After the usual discussion over who is going to get out of bed first, the morning routine launches into action.

My husband shouts from the shower, “The water is cold.” Without taking too much notice, I place The List beside his cereal bowl, and decide to cook his favourite English breakfast, to get him in the right mood. Bacon, eggs, sausages and tomato in the grill pan ready for the piping hot Aga. However, not piping hot at all. Stone cold and well and truly off. Trying to remain calm, I say, “Darling, when did you last check the oil?” My husband appears in clothes that definitely don’t shout “gardening” and says, “Not for ages. Why?” He then spends the next few minutes sticking a bamboo cane down the top of the oil tank and calmly declares it empty. It then hits me. Bank Holiday weekend, no heating, no water and no oven. I become hysterical and fly into an almighty panic, while the children dance around the garden in their pyjamas jubilant about the prospect of eating meals out. I walk back into the kitchen subdued at the thought of my carefully planned Piquant chicken and Fondant potatoes replaced with Cheddar cheese sandwiches and Hula Hoops. My list is scattered across the kitchen floor in tiny pieces and as the dog looks up at me, head turned to one side, with a scrap of paper saying “Dump” stuck in its little beard, I realise that this Bank Holiday weekend was not going to go according to plan.

The weekly shop

The children are all at school, the baby is with Granny and I have a wonderful rare two-hour break – the perfect opportunity to relax in a nearby coffee shop sipping a Cappacino. However, the fridge is looking dangerously empty, the fruit bowl contains a few rather sad looking grapes and we are down to the last few loo rolls. The weekly supermarket shop beckons.

I drive into the car park, turn into a space and then wonder why there is a rather angry looking woman staring at me. I have parked in a Child’s bay, quite forgetting this time that the car seats behind me are empty. After re-parking, I play around with the trolleys, choosing the right size and trying to find one without a faulty wheel. I then rummage in my bag looking for my list, only to discover I have left it on the kitchen table. I glance at the vast array of magazines on display, and move swiftly on to the fruit and vegetables. This is always my most time consuming aisle. There are just so many decisions to make. Organic, English, Fairtrade, Local? Weighing also eats into another precious few minutes. Once I have found some scales that work, I vacantly try to remember the name of the little brown hairy fruit in my hand (ah – yes a kiwi!) and then scroll through items, tap in the name which results in ‘Search Unknown.’ By then I have two people peering over my shoulder, so the pressure is on.

On to the next aisle and I bump into a familiar face. Smiling sweetly and with a confident, “How are you?” I am frantically trying to remember where I know her from and glance into her trolley for any clues. But we are only in aisle two and lemons, lettuce and pasta give nothing away. We pass the time of day and move on. With the trolly now overflowing with the ‘Buy 2 get 1 FREE’ offers (why do I need three bottles of bleach?), I arrive at the checkout. The customer behind me gazes disaprovingly into my trolley at the doughnuts I have thrown in for the children (not for me, of course!). “Would you like any help?” the friendly cashier asks me. “Yes please,” I cry out trying not to sound too desperate. With the bags neatly packed, I steer the overloaded trolley across the carpark trying to avoid any collisions with nearby cars. As I leave, I hear the contents of the neatly packed bags rolling across the car boot and realise I have forgotten the loo paper. Suddenly it occurs to me that the familiar face I had stopped to chat to earlier was in fact a total stranger who I had sat next to in the Surgery last week.

Tennis with a difference

The phone rings. It is a friend asking if I would like to play tennis. I leaf through the diary and mentally work out a convenient time between school pick-ups and the baby’s sleep time and warn her that I have not played since school. Thankfully, she assures me that she too struggles with ‘back hands’ and we agree it would make a nice change from catching up on the latest tantrum or sleepless night over the usual cups of coffee around the kitchen table.

Predictably, the childcare arrangements fall apart at the last minute so I call to cancel. “Bring them with you and they can all play on the side of the court,” she says casually. I am a little sceptical but the sun is shining and I am eager to work off the remains of my daughter’s Easter Egg which, until this morning, had been sitting at the back of the fridge begging to be eaten. Dressed in an old pair of track suit bottoms and a white t-shirt, which has now turned a dull shade of grey, I spend the next half an hour rummaging through the contents of the understairs cupboard searching for my tennis racket.

I arrive with tennis racket in hand, baby on the hip and a small three-year-old trailing behind me. My friend is carrying two large baskets of toys which we take down to the tennis court and set up a mini play area in the corner. Things begin well and I have visions of regular weekly tennis games ahead, with children happily playing beside me. However, towards the end of the first game, the baby begins to cry, so we stop and hand him a drink and the obligatory box of raisins. Final point and the ‘brooming’ noise coming from my son becomes louder as he pushes cars around the court. Two minutes into the second game and my friend lets out a shriek and runs off. She has left her casserole on the stove. The baby’s screams are now at full pitch and I struggle to hear whether my ball is in or out, let alone remember which point we are on. The court is littered with PlayMobil and Lego and for health and safety reasons plus a school run looming, we declare the game over. Despite all the distractions, at least I have made an attempt to shed one mini egg.

Family walk

The preparation for a family walk in our house goes something like this. Wellies on, coats on, hats, gloves (usually one missing) and scarves in winter, sun hats and sun tan lotion in summer. Baby in the back pack, dog on the lead, mini ruck-sack over the shoulder with a few emergency rations, not forgetting the essential bribe in the form of a small box of Smarties. Then there are the never ending ridiculous questions. “Can I take my doll’s pram?” “Can I take my ride-on motorbike?” All totally banned, of course, as we all know who will be carrying them after five minutes, along with the coats, hats and any ‘must-have’ sticks or leaves we discover on our walk.

We are finally on our way and things are looking promising. The sun is shining, the children are scampering ahead beside the dog. Once through the first field, the scampering turns into ‘lagging’. “My legs are tired,” cries the three-year-old. “Are we nearly there?” says the five-year-old. We attempt to encourage them with cows in the next field, a little wood where we can play cowboys and indians, some puddles which we can jump in, a lolly when we get home. From a distance, we look like the perfect family scene, but the reality is we have two whinging children, a dog who was so fed up with the slow pace that she has run off rabbiting, and the baby has been sick on my husband’s collar.

However, like true Brits, we stroll on with my husband refusing to be defeated. Whilst I carry all the coats, bag and hats, he has become a pack horse. He now has the baby on his back and a child on each hip – a truly memorable sight. We see a few friends in the distance waving cheerily at us and wave back trying to disguise the look of utter dispair and discomfort across our faces. We re-load and I take one child and he takes the other two and we drag ourselves through the final field. The dog bounds back, having rolled in something particularly potent. We walk back into the kitchen, unload children and collapse on the sofa unable to speak. Our son turns to us and says, “That was really fun. Can we go on that walk again.”

The star chart

The ‘Star Chart’ has featured heavily in our household during the Easter holidays. No sooner had I awarded a star for good behaviour, I was busy setting the next target.

During term time, there is one star-a-day up for grabs, usually for not having a full scale temper tantrum. However, during the past two weeks the bar was raised and stars were slapped on the fridge door at an impressive rate. A star for dressing by themselves (exceptions made for buttons), managing to choose a breakfast cereal in less than five minutes, sitting (rather than standing) on their chairs for an entire meal, eating their broccoli, avoiding World War III over who has the strawberry over the peach Petit Filous, letting Mummy chat on the phone without being interrupted, and finally, for limiting the number of requests at bedtime such as more water, loo trips, warm milk (nice try) or, “Mummy, I need to ask you something.”

Once they had earnt ten stars each they were allowed to choose a ‘modest’ present. Having given away another star for persuading my ‘naturist’ son to put some clothes on for the trip, we skipped off to the toy shop in Shaftesbury. The children had both spotted toys weeks ago, so our three-year-old son dashed in, took a flying jump down the three steps and held up the last remaining sword on display. My daughter settled on a wooden fishing game to replace the one that had been chewed by Molly, our Border ‘terrorist’. While they were there, they also had a thorough rummage round for the next reward.

On our way home, my five-year-old daughter decided the whole family should have a star chart. How could I disagree? There are now six charts ‘blu-tacked’ to the fridge. My daughter is in her element as Star Manager and life in our house does actually seem a little less fraught. The baby received a star for not dropping food over the highchair, the dog has bagged a few for not jumping up to greet people, Daddy has pocketed one for “emptying the dishwasher for Mummy,” and I am pretty chuffed with my star for “not nagging Daddy to mow the lawn.”

Sleep, glorious sleep

Is there such a condition as Obsessive Sleep Disorder? If not, I am officially introducing it to all those sleep-obsessed parents like myself. With new babies come the inevitable sleepless nights which most parents are warned about. We spend weeks or, in some cases, months, pouring over baby books, pontificating over routines and black-out curtains, desperately trying to get ‘through the night’. Strangely, one of the first things people always ask you when you are cradling your little darling is, “Aaah. Does he or she sleep well?” As if you need reminding of the one thing that is at the forefront of your mind day and night.

I am relieved that our baby is now safely ‘through the night’ but my obsession with sleep remains. The slightest muffle and I am sitting bolt upright in bed, eyes wide open, fumbling around for the light switch. With relief, I then realise that the night feeds are over but then spend the next hour desperately trying to get back to sleep, panicking about the hour I have now lost. From about 6.30am, I am back on alert, waiting to hear the early sounds of life in the house. The small footsteps padding down the corridor, the loo seat banging, shortly followed by, “Mummy, is it morning?” Meanwhile, I am mentally and obsessively counting how many hours sleep I have managed to squeeze in. Six – I’ll never cope, Seven – alright I suppose, Eight – good, and Nine – total heaven.

Inevitably, we are occasionally woken by the genuine nightmare which involves pirates or witches climbing through the children’s windows. While I go through the ritual of calming them down, taking them to the loo, getting them a drink, and convincing them that witches and pirates definitely do not live in Dorset, I find myself glancing at my watch to keep a check of valuable missed sleep time. The next day, my poor husband is regularly reminded of my sleep-deprived night and if he dares to slump on a sofa after lunch, eyes drooping, he is met with, “No time for daytime sleep. Do you realise I was up all night with the kids and have still got supper to cook, baths to run and the third pile of washing to hang up?”

During the afternoon, I am usually feeling much chirpier. The end is in sight – tea, bath and bedtime books, followed by large drink, baked potato, East Enders and early bed, with any luck. My daughter finds it impossible to understand why grown-ups look forward to going to bed. Admittedly, it must seem a little strange when your mother excitedly sprints upstairs, brushes teeth, rips off clothes and flies into bed with a cry of, “Thank goodness.”

Chocolate heaven

It is hard to choose Easter eggs when you are surrounded by the vast displays now on offer in most shops. Chocolate covered bunnies, mini eggs of all descriptions, egg cups and mugs full of little jellies, rabbit lollies and not forgetting the more traditional huge branded eggs surrounded by the chocolate bar of choice. Is it my imagination but do Easter eggs get bigger every year? Also why do they no longer have the surprise packets of Buttons or Smarties inside the eggs which fall out as you crack them open?

My three-year-old son has spent the last month eyeing up these giant eggs, most of which are the size of his own head. He stands motionless, wide eyed, licking his lips and pointing to the one that he would like most – usually the largest and the one which features a well-known super hero on the box. Out of all our children, he is the confirmed chocoholic and I have no doubt he could survive off ‘Freddos’ for the next month. Easter, for him, is therefore a much longed for date in the calendar.

Last year, I decided I would not be the kind of mother who restricts the chocolate consumption. My theory was to let them eat what they wanted and with any luck they would eat so much of it they would be put off chocolate for life. I would finally become one of those admirable parents who proudly say, “My children don’t like chocolate.” Not a chance. They were all thrilled the Easter Bunny had been so generous and that the chocolate sanctions had been dropped for this one blissful day. It started off well. Much to my satisfaction, my five-year-old daughter began to struggle and abandoned her first egg half way through eating it. However, my son gave an incredible performance. Head down, he ate his way through several large eggs barely coming up for air. With a face covered in chocolate, he pressed on, occasionally looking up and smiling with brown covered teeth as he successfully smashed through my theory. It was as if he knew that the clock was ticking and as the hand struck midnight, he would be ‘de-toxing’ on rice cakes and raisins.

Admittedly, the chocolate did not make him sick, cause him to be hyperactive and swing from the ceiling, spark off a temper tantrum or fill his mouth with fillings. On the contrary, he was beautifully behaved and blissfully happy. So with Easter 2007 and a potential chocolate gorge fast approaching, my message is simple – if you can’t beat them join them. Happy Easter.