Teething trouble

My house is being gradually destroyed. Not just by three small children with their sticky hands and numerous indoor ball games. The number one culprit is the Labrador puppy, Clover, who at nine months is clearly suffering from a severe bout of teething.

Each morning when I come downstairs to prepare breakfast, I examine the latest destruction. Her favourite past time it seems is to gnaw on any available wood and lately I have noticed corners of the walls disappearing where she has turned her attention to plaster. My skirting boards, doorframes and drawer handles are all but ruined and small pieces of wood regularly lie scattered around the kitchen floor. When I scold her with my firmest and most assertive voice, refined at the Border Terrorist’s dog training classes, she looks at me curiously with bits of plasterboard hanging from her jowls, as if to say, “What’s the problem?”

My mother tells me that she is bored and that I must be devoting a portion of my weekly shopping budget to chewy bones or ridiculous doggy toys stuffed with small pieces of cheddar cheese. I duly take her advice and arrive home with two chewy bones. The Border Terrorist sniffs, turns her back and wanders off into the garden to sniff out a few rabbits. Clover, on the other hand, grabs it and runs. I set off to collect the children from school my mind put at ease by the thought of my kitchen being spared the large white teeth of a black Lab for a few moments. I arrive home to discover both bones have disappeared and Clover licking her black lips. I also discover pieces of my address book scattered across the floor. Apologies in advance to any of my friends with surnames that begin with P onwards in the alphabet as all your details are now sitting churned up in Clover’s stomach, so a few less Christmas cards to send this year.

Furious, I turn my attention to tea and begin preparing a last minute meal for the children. A lemon cake sits on the sideboard ready to fend off tired tears before supper. I step out to the garden to hollow for the children who are busy springing merrily on the trampoline. “Cake,” I shout. Needless to say, they all come running to the kitchen. “Where is it?” asks my bewildered daughter. I glance at the sideboard to find it empty. Thinking I was having another motherly moment of madness I check the fridge, freezer and dishwasher. Suddenly, I stop dead in my tracks and look down to find a few crumbs lying on the floor. I scream at the top of my voice, “CLOVER.”

Musical car seats

We decide to travel in one car to the Christening in Oxford. That includes my husband and I, the three children and Granny and Grandpa. The night before, my husband efficiently prepares the car, re-arranging car seats and hovering up the odd raisin scattered around the car.

The next morning, we pile into the car and sit snugly in our designated seats. Grandpa kindly offers to drive, much happier at the helm in such thick fog. We are barely five minutes from our home when there is a cry from the back row. It is our six-year-old daughter who first declares, “I feel sick.” Grandpa duly pulls over and we re-organise the seating, moving her and her car seat into the middle row with Granny only too happy to take her place in the back alongside the Toddler and his very runny nose.

A few moments later The Toddler is the second to declare, “Sick.” Granny firmly says, “You are NOT going to be sick,” nervously placing her basket across her silk skirt. Not one to risk it, Grandpa pulls over and we all pile out once more to re-arrange ourselves. My husband dutifully climbs into the back row and sits snugly next to Granny. Meanwhile, the children settle back into their usual seating arrangement in the middle, with Grandpa and I in the front.

Off we set again and once safely on the A303, the whimpering begins again. “I feel sick,” cries our daughter. With all this talk of sickness, we were all beginning to feel waves of nausea. The windows are quickly opened so we endure another few miles with a full scale gale whistling round the car blowing newly washed hair in all directions. Granny then announces she thinks we all need a sugar fix. She pulls a Tupperware out and hands round the chocolate Digestives. I suddenly realise I have no wipes and my tissues are rapidly being used up on the Toddler’s nostrils. The children silently munch and drain a few bottles of water.

Suddenly there is another small voice from the middle row. “Loo,” cries the Toddler. Once again, Grandpa, who is about to lose his temper, pulls over. The other two children now decide they too have the urge so out we get and line up on the side of the road. Glancing at their watches Granny and Grandpa try to remain calm and we pick up speed for the final leg of the journey. Finally, we pull into the Church car park and stiffly unravel ourselves from our seats. Smart Oxfordshire parishioners hover round dressed in a lot of tweed and couture. They glance across at the bedraggled Dorset family with windswept hair and creased clothes standing beside three small chocolate-faced children with runny noses. “Next time, we’ll go in two cars,” mutters Grandpa.

The joy of Music

My husband and I have always secretly longed for one of our children to show an interest in music. Not just listening to the latest Girls Aloud album but tinkering away on the piano to a bit of Mozart.

My musical ability as a child was pretty limited. Much to the frustration and now amusement of my father, I showed much interest in musical instruments but had an inability to stick to one for more than a term. I briefly tried my hand at the guitar but gave up after only managing to play the Thorn Birds theme tune. My piano teacher’s love of garlic was unbearable which forced a sudden end to my dreams of becoming a pianist. I tinkered around on the recorder intermittently and finally settled with joining the choir, the novelty wearing off with the endless practising under the watchful eyes of a very strict singing teacher. I could also never quite decide whether I should be sitting with the Sopranos or the Altos. My husband’s musical career was even more limited than mine. He tells me he was far too busy on the sports field.

When my daughter came home from school with a form about recorder lessons we excitedly persuaded her to give it a go. Perhaps this was to be the beginning of a long, professional musical career and a few steps closer to the Royal College of Music. For the last few weeks she has enjoyed lessons at school twice a week and has been encouraged by her enthusiastic teacher to practise every evening. The slight drawback is that she is six-years-old attempting to sight read, with small fingers that struggle to cover the holes resulting in an awful lot of squeaking. She regularly dissolves into tears as her small finger pads make every effort to grip the recorder, searching for the right note. Her determination is admirable and she continues to whistle away late into the evening and early morning. My husband and I wake to squeaky renditions of Au Clair de la Lune and we duly give a sleepy round of applause when she correctly holds her ‘semibreve’.

However, the sound of the recorder is beginning to take its toll. We have just endured a whole weekend of Blow Thy Horn Hunter repeated incessantly throughout the day. The border terrorist has spent much of her time at the bottom of the garden and the boys both slap their hands across their ears whenever the recorder approaches. As a result, the recorder very nearly went missing and narrowly escaped spending the rest of its days buried in the field. I wonder whether with all musical instruments there is a pain barrier that we all have to cross before we get to appreciate the joy of music. Or perhaps we should give recorder a break next term? After all, the thought of carols whistling out during December might just be too much to bear.

Super Mum

A few weeks ago, while the boys were machine-gunning during tea, the Labrador puppy was busy chewing my husband’s slipper and the border terrorist had once more taken herself for a walk across the fields, my six-year-old daughter asked me a question. “Can I have a sleepover this weekend?” “Absolutely not,” came my reply as I desperately rummaged in the freezer for something to give my husband for supper.

She promptly ran upstairs and threw herself on her bed. Later that evening I calmly explained that weekends are for relaxing – a time to switch off from school and enjoy your family. “But that’s boring,” she said. I was not about to admit that the world of sleeping bags, late night whispering and midnight feasts fills me with utter dread. Next came the familiar words, “Annabel’s mum lets her have sleepovers.” “Well, she is Super Mum,” I replied curtly.

Since then Super Mum has featured regularly throughout our day. I am constantly asked why I cannot reach the dizzy heights of Super Mum. In fact, I am lagging way behind her. Super Mum has four children ranging from 9 years to 1 year. She also cares for a hard working husband, two dogs, one hamster, a cat and a pony. Each morning, she is up at dawn to go down to the yard to muck out the pony and then back to no doubt rustle up a full English breakfast for the rest of her brood. She is young, slim and smiley even when she is laden down with school bags with a baby under one arm. She holds down a part-time job and she is on the dreaded ‘Committees’. I hear that Super Mum prepares the most wonderful, nutritious pack lunches each day, which are the envy of the rest of the class. After school, Super Mum collects her children, sports a warm smile and whisks them off to an impressive range of clubs, no doubt offering them a slice of homemade apple cake in the car to keep them well-fuelled.

This weekend, my daughter and two of her school friends are off to Super Mum’s for a sleepover. I was assuming that she had cleverly managed to off-load her other children for the night. Not a bit of it. Another three more will be fun, she laughs. I wonder how she does it. Why is she not the teeniest bit stressed or popping the odd Panadol at the thought of it? Because, of course, she is Super Mum. She was born to be the perfect wife, mother and pet carer. Instead of being green with envy every time I see her, I have now decided to embrace her. We need mothers like Super Mum to keep us on the straight and narrow and to remind us all to stop shouting, stay calm and enjoy our merry broods. But please, please spare us the sleepovers.

Canine Care

My husband has had a cough since we returned from our wet camping holiday. He spent two weeks off work ill in bed, coughing and spluttering like a heavy chain smoker. This led to chest pains that I put down to his stomach muscles taking a pounding from incessant coughing.

Apart from the odd bout of Man Flu, he is rarely ill so we agreed that it was time to make the bi-annual trip to the Doctor. I felt sure that once they saw my pale-faced, dishevelled husband they would offer him something. Unfortunately, he was told he had a virus and was untreatable: “we only treat bacterial, not viral, infections.” My husband returned home clutching a bottle of Benylin and disappeared once more under his duvet. Two months later, he is still coughing. Admittedly, he is now able to go to work and the cough is probably more irritating to those around him. He has since launched himself on a fitness drive, swimming and walking the dogs at dawn, coughing his way across the fields.

Last week, the border terrorist and black Labrador puppy began coughing too. I phoned the vet and within half an hour I was sitting in the waiting room. The vet examined the dogs and without hesitation prescribed a course of antibiotics for them both. Within three days, they were cough-free and back to their usual bouncy selves.

I happened to mention the canine treatment to my husband when he got home from work that week. “WHAT?” he shrieked, in between a bout of coughing. “So the dogs get the antibiotics and I don’t,” he said. I could see his point. Our vet certainly did not seem to say it was bacterial over viral. Nor did she add that they would not work or that the liberal use of antibiotics on dogs would allow ‘multiplication of bugs that will mutate and become resistant’. Perhaps it had something to do with the approximate £6.50 I paid to the vet over the £1.7 billion cost of human antibiotics to the NHS each year.

That night, as I lay beside my husband, kept awake once more by the familiar cough, I thought of the two dogs sleeping peacefully in their baskets in the kitchen below. I wondered whether the vet could be persuaded to treat an owner for kennel cough and we might all be able to enjoy a peaceful nights sleep again.