Tag Archives: humor

Pride comes before a wall

By Posted in Parenting, Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The year is 1941, and Karen has just finished her Blitz wall. When she told her Dad about it, he thought at first that it was some kind of protective measure in the garden to keep the family safe from the onslaught of bombs raining down from the sky. “No Dad”, Karen corrected him with a giggle. “It’s a wall for us to display all the arts and crafts we’ve been doing while we’re stuck inside!” Oh how they both laughed when he realised his mistake!

Once it had been explained, it made perfect sense. In fact, Karen wasn’t the only one getting creative with a global catastrophe these days. Eric from down the road had made a delightful salt-dough craft with all the kids’ hand-prints. Well, except their oldest, Tommy, who lost both his hands in combat and got sent home with a chest full of medals, but hey let’s not put a downer on it. Eric’s wife Carol wasn’t best pleased when she realised the salt dough had used 6 weeks’ worth of flour rations, but she cheered up when she saw how lovely it looked framed on the mantelpiece.

The main thing was to have some kind of memento from this moment in time, otherwise this easily forgettable global crisis would go entirely unmarked and unremembered. All we needed was someone, somewhere to do colourful footprints of everyone in the house, (don’t forget the cat) with some kind of motivational quote like “When the world was at war… we started a paint shortage.”

Karen was well chuffed with her wall. Everything was up there, including a hilarious poster she had made herself that said “Keep Calm and Make a Time Capsule”. She laughed every time she saw it. Unfortunately the moustache on the soldier was a little wonky cause she had to stop suddenly when she realised the neighbours were already outside clapping for the soldiers, navy, air-force, factory workers, doctors, miners, farmers, scientists, teachers, railway and dock workers and utility services. To be honest, the majority of people were essential workers, which didn’t leave many people left to do the essential clapping – but hey, she wouldn’t want the neighbours to think she wasn’t doing her part. Maybe she should send them some photos of the wall so they knew how serious this was to her… she set a reminder on her sector clock that she’d managed to swipe off eBay. Such a bargain.

Before Karen had come up with the idea for the Blitz wall, the war had been a bit of a mood-killer, to be honest. It sounded bad, but she was hardly having any fun at all. Husband away fighting for freedom and hadn’t even bothered to answer any of her WhatsApp messages, kids off school loads of the time, seen everything worth seeing on Netflix, including that reality TV show about men and women getting engaged without even going steady first or making sure they wouldn’t tread on your toes at a formal dance. That one was quite the pulse quickener, she had to admit. It was a good job that women weren’t given anything important to do in the workplace yet, or she might have had a full-time job to contend with, too.

Then, she had had the idea for a simple ad-hoc photo-shoot. The kids surrounded by a few whimsical pieces of memorabilia, their gas masks, ration books, canned non-perishables, that sort of thing, something to pass the time. Oh they could hardly keep a straight face when balancing all those props on various parts of their bodies. Karen ended up yelling at them to keep their faces solemn cause they were ruining her, oops I mean their, fun. The photos were good, but it was a real shame she couldn’t get a professional photographer to come out and do it properly. Just another example of how this war was making life difficult for her. Anyway, mustn’t complain.

Then suddenly, as she was putting the photos up, the idea came to her in a flash. Once all of this was over, once people stopped dying in their thousands, and all the wounded and sick returned home, and people had enough to eat again, and that annoying fascism was dealt with… she would want something to remember this by. She would want loads of things to remember this by. Golly, she would want a whole WALL of things to look fondly on day after day, and remember this piece of history. She wouldn’t want the kids to forget how she told them that if they asked for a snack one more time she would make them eat nothing but dried eggs for a week. It would be awful to lose the memories of powering up the live WW2 website each day and watching the death toll rising. And it would be a real shame if her kids didn’t have a daily reminder of how they were missing out on vital milestones, social skills, and other normal kid-like activities that didn’t involve enforced crisis-themed scrapbooks where their mum made them sign their names to the poems she wrote.

Frankly, she felt like a bit of a genius for thinking of this incredible way to cement all these memories in their minds forever. Plus, she was still getting heart reacts on her Facebook post, and she had uploaded the pics more than two days ago. But, mainly the memories thing.

 

Cause You’re There for Me Toooooo….

By Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

The TV show Friends ran from 1994-2004, and won 60 awards, including a BAFTA. More recently, it’s attracted a whole new generation of viewers by being launched globally on Netflix, as well as a whole lot of judgement about the writing and cast. In fact, you might say that lately, it hasn’t been Friends’ day, week, month… or even its year.

dumb things

Somewhere inside me is the teenage girl who used to look forward to Big Thursdays on e4, call her off screen friends during the break in the show, before hurriedly putting the phone down when the advert for Ally Macbeal came on which meant we had 30 seconds until the cast was back on screen. And that teenage girl has found all the abuse hard to listen to.

Much like many of us following the #metoo movement have struggled to accept that some of our best loved actors and celebrities are actually kind of skeevy and gross, it’s kind of stressful to hear that the show that you believe was formative to your youth is actually just another example of Dustin Hoffman ogling an intern. Not quite illegal, but kind of disappointing none the less.

I’m not going to write about how Friends was a product of its time, although I do believe that’s true, and it seems unfair to judge it by our 2018 standards. But wrong is wrong, and I think we would all like to kind of delete The One with the Manny and pretend it never existed, and y’know, add more than 2 people of colour in the entire ten season back catalogue. And maybe just edit out some of the horrendous fat shaming. But I do think that if you look a little closer at this best-loved show, you’ll see that right alongside the issues, there are times where Friends was woke AF.

So join me, while I look at my favourite examples of when Friends pushed boundaries, and got us talking and thinking about issues that we may well have ignored otherwise.  I’d love to hear your own!

The One with Marriage Equality

Did you know that the wedding of Carol and Susan was the first lesbian wedding to be shown on television? Back in 1996, Ross’s ex wife Carol married her lesbian lover, Susan, in a gorgeous wedding scene which ended up winning them awards and critical acclaim, as well as the episode being banned on several NBC affiliates. There were no tired stereotypes, Susan and Carol were then, and remained, two women who fell in love, and wanted to celebrate that love with the world. This, two decades before marriage equality was actually passed into law in the whole of the US. The storyline which progressed, where Ross, Carol and Susan co-parented Ben together was so ahead of its time, that I still can’t think of another quite like it.

lesbian.jpg

The One Where There’s No Right Way to Have a Family

One amazing example of pushing the boundaries was Monica and Chandler’s struggle with infertility. Pregnancy in the world of television is more often seen as dozens of overly fertile women and teens who get pregnant after a one-night-stand, rather than what’s more often true to life, that it’s not simple for everyone to have a baby. Watching Monica and Chandler go through the adoption process, and then bring their twins home was a breath of fresh air which for many, has changed the way we talk about our fertility options. Plus, we got to meet Erica, the biological mother who was so clueless that she didn’t even realize she was having twins. “I thought that was just mine and the baby’s. They kept saying both heartbeats are really strong, and I thought well, that’s good ’cause I’m having a baby!”

fertility.jpg

The One Where Monica’s Career Comes First

Remember when Chandler moved to Tulsa? (Frankly, I’d sooner be in any other State!) While at first, Monica was going to come along and play the supportive wife, (It’s gonna be hard to keep Kosher in Tulsa!) once she got offered an awesome job in New York, she stayed right where she was. Eventually, when the toll it was taking on their marriage got too much to handle, Chandler was the one who gave up his job and moved back to New York, with his wife becoming the breadwinner and hardly a male ego bruised in the process. Men of the world, take note.

old job.jpg

The One with the Animal Rights

When Chandler and Joey welcomed Chick and Duck into their lives, there was a clear agenda under the storyline. Under the laughs of the men’s new animal roommates was the sad truth that too many animals are bought for the holiday season, and then neglected or returned, where they end up being killed or abandoned. Of course, Phoebe kind of undermines that when she forgets about feeding them when the guys head to London, but let’s gloss over that part. Oh, and don’t forget, when Gary shoots a bird, it’s way over.

duck and chick.jpg

The One Where Your Friends are Your Family

For me, anyway, Friends was always about a world where the people you saw everyday weren’t your family, but your closest friends, the family you chose. Everyone had crazy siblings (Did I buy a falafel from you yesterday?) or weird parents (‘Ah! Nora Bing!’) or drama going on with their blood relatives, (“You work and you work and you work on a marriage…“ “You work and you work and you work on a boat”) but the six of them were the true nucleus of each other’s lives.

Is it a perfect world? Absolutely not, and the writers should be held partially accountable for some of the elements of the show that make us all wince as we watch in 2018. (Joey’s man bag anyone? Alongside his man jacket and man shoes?) But this fan believes they should also be praised for the stuff they got right. And seeing as the show is old enough that Ben would now be 23, (!) that’s pretty darn good.

brand new.jpg

The Usual Suspects of… The Recipe Groups

By Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 24 Comments

This time of year is one holiday after another for us Jews, and as such, it’s also one meal after another. When a festival runs into Shabbat, we get a three day whammy, which gives us at least 6 meals to prepare for, and for some over-eager beavers, 9+.

The holidays are a time for family, so it isn’t unusual to have crowds of 20 or more around your festive table, and unlike the stories I’ve heard told of Xmas dinner, there is no set menu of Turkey and Cranberry sauce to keep to, so the opportunities are endless.

If there is one place to people-watch this time of year, it has to be the Kosher recipe groups on Facebook, where if you’re lucky, and very very quiet, you might catch sight of these rare breeds in their natural habitat.

1. The Substitutor

This poster pops up on most dessert threads, mainly to make you feel really bad about yourself. Questions include: ‘Have you ever made those brownies with apple sauce instead of sugar?’ (No, I’m not insane) and ‘What do you substitute the margarine for in that kugel?’ (More margarine. it’s a margarine kugel. Go away. )

Sometimes they just pop in to lie to you, with such classics as ‘I made that omelette without eggs and it tasted completely identical’ as well as ‘My kids said they loved the beetroot and courgette muffins more than the chocolate chip ones.’ Fool me once, shame on you.

2. Mrs What’s Missing?

Just when you’ve made the executive decision that everyone is going to have cereal and milk for Friday night (and like it) here comes Chaya from Brooklyn with her “menu”. It’s not a restaurant, Chaya.

Guys I really need help!! So far, I have Challa and home-made dips, chicken soup with all the trimmings, BBQ schnitzel, honey roasted chicken, salt beef, broccoli and potato kugels, sweet and sour rice, popcorn cauliflower, 3 salads, and then for dessert it’s ice cream, salted caramel brownies and a pavlova. I feel like I’m missing something, what am I missing? Oh ps: it’s just me and my hubby thanks.

Chaya? Chaya! Pick me! I know what you’re missing! It’s about seventeen more humans, and a nap.

3. The Amnesiac Shopper

Now I know I went to the grocery store this morning, and I know that I picked up a whole lot of food, but for the life of me, I’m not sure what any of it actually is. Does anyone recognise this odd looking vegetable? Or know what I can do with it that will feed 7 adults and 4 kids including a 13yo who doesn’t eat vegetables?

What about this cut of meat? I think it’s called number 5. Or maybe it was 9. I’m pretty sure the Butcher said it was pickled. or maybe he said it should be pickled. Did I remember to buy pickles? Does anyone know where I left my car?

4. The Amateur Masterchef

Some of the photos I see on the recipe groups are pretty impressive, from Challot that look bakery-bought but probably taste better, to chocolate babkas that are practically food porn, as well as incredibly fiddly pastry and meat concoctions that I would never be able to achieve.

But sometimes, no matter how much you call it herb encrusted salmon with an assiette of wilted tender stem garden produce, it’s still gonna be fish and green veg. And whatever joy describing your lightly browned beef on a bed of puréed chickpeas gives you, it’s still the mincemeat and hummus that takes five minutes to make and you discovered at your mother in laws house. #sorrynotsorry

5. Harbinger of Doom

With love to all the over achievers out there, I still have to give a shout out to my people. You know who you are. (Hint: you put jacket potatoes in the slow cooker for one of your Rosh Hashana meals, but forgot to heat the baked beans. Yeah, there you are.) You probably head to the recipe groups out of sheer voyeuristic pleasure, or maybe to ask whether that turkey roll you forgot about at the back of the fridge is still good to eat. If you’ve done the latter, you’ve probably met the Harbinger of Doom before.

“I made chicken soup 3 days ago, can I still eat it?”
“Absolutely not, bin it.”

“Oh. What about this potato kugel, it was defrosted about a week ago?”
“Are you kidding? Definitely not. Throw it away.”

“How about this yoghurt? The best before was just yesterday..”
“Do you want to make your kid sick? Why risk it?”

“I opened this cheese earlier on, but I left it on the counter for half an hour and-“
“Throw it away. Use gloves. Can’t be too careful with bacteria.”

Jesus lady, how about this sealed packed of biscuits? Is it okay if I eat these while I try to recover from my new food phobia?

But don’t worry dear reader, you aren’t alone. Check the comments for dozens of hardy women who are on your side, and are guaranteed to have shared their war stories to make you feel better.

I regularly drink milk that’s spoiled and I’m still here to tell the tale!

I once ate a schnitzel that I found behind the couch, and I’m FINE.

I don’t even bother cooking the meat and my kids haven’t complained yet! Granted, they are kind of quiet.. Chavi, you ok honey?

5. The Shameless Brag

A relative of the humble bragger from the online mums forums post, when this person moves over to the recipe groups, she has no need to be coy. Posting photos of the oddest brags, from a fully set Seder table a fortnight before Pesach, to six dozen chocolate cakes “all ready for the freezer!” She must live in the Ice Bar, she has so much space to cook ahead of time, and she will absolutely post the recipes for all of these “delish treats” as soon as she has a spare minute. Which is good, because the F’s on her post are getting a bit out of hand, and the natives are getting restless.

bragging recipe post.png

Have I missed any of your favourite recipe group regulars?

5 Ingredients to Tempt the Pickiest Toddlers

By Posted in Parenting Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Somewhere between the ages of 1 and 2, you may begin to notice a startling and unexpected developmental stage appearing in your baby. An opinion. While they used to allow you to shovel in any old food all whizzed up in a blender or mashed up with a fork, suddenly they are pressing their lips tightly shut, shaking their heads firmly and throwing entire bowls of spag bol face down on your beige carpet faster than you can say ‘Here comes the aeroplane!”
Never fear, after extensive research into babies entering toddlerdom everywhere, here is the definitive list of the 5 ingredients a toddler will never turn his nose up at.

  1. Dirt.
    We’ve all been there. You’ve lovingly prepared a plate of chicken and rice but your baby won’t even take the first bite. Don’t take it personally. They probably don’t realise you spent 2 hours roasting vegetables to make your own stock for this recipe which you found by googling ‘simple baby food recipes’. We have the answer. Have you considered dropping it on the floor? No, not there by the high chair where you just vaccumed. Try on the pavement outside your house where that dog from next door usually does his business. If that doesn’t work, wedge it down the side of the car seat and give it a couple of weeks, there’s nothing babies like more than the taste of slow aged fowl.
  2. Danger.
    Babies don’t like boring food. You know the rules, you musn’t season with salt, but apart from that feel free to go wild. If tumeric, paprika and cumin don’t work, have you considered letting your baby choose their own ‘toppings’ from the bathroom cabinet? Drain cleaner, Cillit Bang, washing powder, these are just a few of my own kids favourites. If yours prefers a slightly different texture, try wrapping the food in live wires, or poking it into a plug socket as finger food. Be creative! We’ve had some great success placing meals onto turned on hair straighteners- BBQ style, as well as mixing in those tiny pieces of lego all babies love for some extra crunch. Nom nom nom.
  3. Competition.
    Y’know what tastes awful? Scrambled eggs. Y’know what tastes delicious? A sibling’s scrambled eggs. Bonus here is that the older the sibling is the more bribeable they will be, and the better their acting skills can be honed too. Get them on board with the plan by offering a small bribe like an episode of Peppa Pig or yknow, a five pound note, if they can ‘unwillingly share’ the meal they also wouldn’t usually touch with a barge pole with said younger sibling.
  4. Timing.
    This one works just as well for older kids, and it relies on a simple rule. What tastes like arsenic during the day time, is progressively more delicious the further past seven the hands of the clock go. While the cheese sandwich you offered at 4.30pm was the most offensive thing you could ever dare to do as a parent, the 9.45pm meal of quinoa salad and stuffed aubergine with lentils may as well be a bag of chocolate buttons in its inevitable appeal. In short, when your little darlings are shouting “I’m huuuuungry” mournfully from their beds like they’re prisoners of war, this is the ideal time to offer broccoli.
  5. Privacy.
    If all else fails, wait until they are distracted by something else, such as wiping snot on your freshly folded washing or climbing a bookshelf, and quietly prepare the food out of their line of sight. Tiptoe to your own bedroom and hide in a corner with the bowl hidden completely from view. If you’re not sure what I mean, imagine it’s the last chocolate digestive biscuit and nap time is too far away to fairly expect you to wait for. Toddlers find that kind of silent behaviour just as suspicious as we do in return. They’ll show up, indignant and open mouthed in no time. Finish off the theatre with a stern “No, this is Mummy’s food” before giving in. Fair Warning: This will probably only fool them for one bite, so make it a big one.  

There you have it. No more excuses for kids who won’t eat their veggies. Just make sure the meal is a week old and sprinkled with shards of glass, in a secret location where their sibling is chowing down after 10pm. Simples.

food blog.jpg

Why Don’t You Tell Me How You Really Feel About it?

By Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In the age of crowdsourcing, political retweeting and public lobbying for change, it’s only a matter of time before the important issues reach the right ears. Mr Zuckerberg heard us ask for a ‘dislike’ button as the only possible solution to the very real difficulties we all face daily as users of Facebook… knowing exactly how to respond to a casual acquaintance who is vocally suffering from a mild illness.
Oooh I can’t possibly click ‘like’ or he may think I like the fact that he isn’t well. But it would be rude to just scroll on by without making some kind of acknowledgement, and yet we aren’t really friendly enough for me to actually write a heartfelt response, plus 17 other people have already written “wish you better xxx” underneath and I wouldn’t want to lack originality… oh what is the correct etiquette here….

In response to the most first world problem imaginable, our dear old friend Mark has provided a solution which is kind of like that aunt you have who offers 17 types of herbal tea when what you really fancy is a black coffee. Sure it’s hot and wet, but it’s overkill, it’s stressful, and it really wasn’t what you wanted in the first place.

Let’s deal with the up sides first. We don’t have to read the most overused comments known to social media anymore, which include “Can I love this?” and a like followed by, “Well, not really ‘like’ but you know! LOL” (We get it, you’re not really happy that Jason’s dog died, your status as a normal empathetic human who doesn’t hate animals is intact.)
Unfortunately we are still left to deal with “Can I like this twice?” and “MASSIVE like!” Maybe in the next update eh? *fingers crossed*

It’s the emotions which the new er… emotions bring up which have got me in a bit of a tizzy. Firstly, there’s the sheer excitement of the new language. Joseph has REACTED to your post. I mean that is not a notification anyone is going to ignore easily. I caused a REACTION with my recipe for Spanish omelette on the Quick and Easy Weeknight Suppers group, oh my goodness what do you think it might have been? Does Joseph Love it? Is he Angry because actually it isn’t that Quick and Easy? Is he Crying from chopping all those onions I tweaked the recipe to include? Is he Shocked that it’s Paleo?* I don’t know, but I can’t WAIT to find out.

Then there’s the insecurity. The photo of my daughter I put up last week before the new reactions arrived got 22 likes and I never stopped to question to what extent those people liked her. This weeks has 23 likes and 3 loves. And suddenly… Oh.
Don’t the other 23 of you Love her? Don’t you Love how I specially found a flower which matches the dress so perfectly? Do you only Like the adorable curls she has inherited from me (every day without her fathers’ hair is a victory in my book) and that tiny little toothy smile she uses to make hearts melt? What’s wrong with all of you anyway?
I see you reacted with Shock to the photo of me baking biscuits with the kids last week. What’s that about? What exactly are you Shocked about, that I do entertaining and resourceful activities with my children, do I not seem like the type? Or was it because you can see the bag of white sugar on the countertop and you are aghast I didn’t run out to grab some silan.**

Stop me if I’m reading too much into this, (#toolate) but has anyone noticed a sense of rivalry on their statuses since it all began, too? I can’t be the only one who has family and friends vying for the right reactions to any given announcement.
Oh really, you Like that our sister has started her new job? Look who’s about to win brother of the year… Love.
Poor old Dad, you’re Shocked that the landlord won’t replace the boiler at Auntie Sara’s? Not me, I spoke to her last night, and can just be knowingly Angry on her behalf.
I see that a bunch of people have written ‘lol’, but nothing says I think you’re hilarious like Crying with laughter. Winner.

All in all, Facebook has become an emotional rollercoaster of similar proportions to a phone call with my mother. Dangerous and only to be attempted when I’m in a good mood, outside of overly hormonal times of month and when I’m sure I can handle a few bumps to my self-esteem.
facebook

*Disclaimer: I don’t know what Paleo actually means (or how to pronounce it) so I have no idea whatsoever if a Spanish omelette can aspire to be such a thing or not in Real Life.
** Ditto.

Bah Humbug

By Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

It’s that time of year again, and while I love Chanukah as much as the next Jew, it’s impossible to get away from the Xmas spirit. Winter sales, goodwill to all, and chestnuts available at every corner shop, what’s not to love?

Well, a few things actually. And maybe you’re all too close to see it, but with all the respect in the world, let me give you a run-down of the things I would change if my household kept Christmas.

1. The menu.

I think it’s fair to say that the whole of Xmas day centres around the big festive meal. For thousands of years people have been gathering around the dinner table and breaking bread together to celebrate this pinnacle in the Christian calendar. But who came up with the ideas for the grub? On what other day in the year would anyone choose Turkey, the arguable worst meat of choice to be the centrepiece of the meal? Beef, Lamb, Duck, even Chicken is preferable to Turkey any other day of the year. Let’s call a spade a spade here, Turkey is dry and hasn’t got much flavour, hence why you’re spending 2 to 3 hours preparing stuffing and sauces to accompany it. To top it off, although no one’s arguing with roast potatoes, does anyone eat Brussel Sprouts at any other meal the entire year? Let alone the weird tradition of Cranberry sauce, a foodstuff that just doesn’t exist whatsoever outside of December 25th.
Lastly, every meal should be complimented by the grand finale of dessert. And dessert will never ever mean fruit cake. I don’t care what you call it, or how much alcohol you add to it (although it probably helps), a Xmas Pudding is not dessert. Give me chocolate cake, give me ice cream, even something citrus-y would round off the meal well. But why are we pretending that Xmas pud is in any way appetising? In my house, it would be Haagen Daaz and sticky toffee pudding, maybe with a pavlova on the side. Extra points for the fact that none of those options takes months of my life to prepare. If I wanted to spend 2-3 months feeding something in small increments daily, I would buy a hamster.

2. The decor.

Love the Christmas lights, in fact I think we should add that to Judaism, a festival where we decorate the outside of our homes with ostentatious flashing lights and various plastic accompaniments. I can just see my home now, with a rendition of the 10 plagues of Egypt on my front lawn, and a replica of Mount Sinai on the roof. Fab.
This brings me to Christmas trees. Excellent idea I would even up the ante. Let’s bring all of the outside in, creating an indoor Xmas garden, complete with flowers and grass (astro-turf if need be) and why not woodland creatures, so cold at this time of year and in need of some Xmas spirit just as much as you.
Yes, I’m joking. But it is kind of weird that you bring a tree into your living rooms. Doesn’t it make a crazy mess of needles and twigs? Doesn’t it brings in bugs and the like? Do you have to buy a special spray for that? So many questions.

3. The list of demands.

This one is actually pretty serious, as I’ve read that the average household will spend £868 on Christmas this year. Nearly a thousand pounds on one day of the year, that just can’t be affordable for 95% of the UK. And meanwhile your kids are sitting at home writing a letter for Santa? A magical being that flies in, drops off their hearts desire and leaves again without so much as a thanks for him or his hard working elves [AKA unpaid midget workforce]. (Seriously, does anyone’s kids write thank you notes to Santa?) Doesn’t the whole thing seem a bit entitled? From the outside looking in at least, it seems like the last way I want my children to consider the presents we work hard to provide for them. Maybe it’s a little Scrooge of me, but I like to think that I would use the opportunity to talk to my kids about wants and needs, earning and spending, and ask them to think of one or two things they really want, which Santa won’t be bringing, but their hard-working parents will be.

4. The Xmas season

This is a tough one, because we all enjoy some of the elongated Xmas perks, such as Starbucks red cups which appear Nov 1st, or Xmas songs on the radio from what feels like mid-summer. But when I try to get an email response at work on December 3rd, and get told that the company are “winding down for Christmas”, it can really make me feel peeved. Similarly, spending the whole of December attending various Xmas lunches and functions with the people I anyway see and speak to every single week can be a little grating. Cmon boss, just give us the afternoon off if you’re trying to make us feel festive. It would probably cost you less.

Any other holiday traditions that you would scrap?

santa

 

 

Overworked and Underpaid

By Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

We writers have a special ailment all to ourselves. Arriving without warning, with no hint to how long it’s going to hang around, and no hard and fast cure (although many old wives tales to try while we suffer) this is known as Writer’s Block. It attacks our inspiration, it stifles our muse, and leaves us with ineffectual fingers hovering uselessly over a keyboard, or nibbling absent-mindedly on the end of our pencils.

Once in a while though, something magical happens and an event occurs which causes the complete opposite of Writer’s Block. Writer’s UN-block if you will. It generally happens like this. You see something which is so obvious, that the words pretty much write themselves. A gift from the universe, an article fully formed in visual form in your minds eye, before you’ve even opened your laptop.

That happened to me this week, at a place which is well known for its inspiration to me, Soft Play.

But truthfully, once I got home, I realised that this is one of those cases where a picture really does speak a thousand words. And all I really needed was a title. So here we go. I had many runners up, but I find the beauty of my choice is that it can be read as entirely sincere, or as totally sarcastic and judgemental. I’ll leave you to decide which way I meant it. Enjoy, and you’re welcome.

Who says Dads nowadays don’t do their fair share? 

This looks like a totally unobtrusive place for a quick 40 winks.. I'm sure the 4 year old will watch the 1 year old... Zzzzz...

This looks like a totally unobtrusive place for a quick 40 winks.. I’m sure the 4 year old will watch the 1 year old… Zzzzz…

The Chocolate Wars

By Posted in Parenting Tagged , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I have a pretty enviable three year old, who does what he is told. He looks for my hand as soon as we get near a road or into a car park, he isn’t a screamer or prone to tantrum, he always says thank you, and he never ever takes things without asking.

Well, he never used to,  anyway.

The last two weeks I have woken up in the morning to various ‘surprises’ in the kitchen. Empty wrappers, chocolate crumbs, empty spaces where expensive imported treats used to be.. All before 7am. After receiving various pieces of advice, I decided to chronicle the events, for other judgemental parents worldwide, and as a testament to the last few weeks of my life-if as I suspect, the stress of this early morning battle of wills actually forces me into an early grave.

Sunday May 11th
Hubby calls me into the kitchen, to be greeted by a virtual mountain of Reese’s cup wrappers. I count the damage, 9. I’m torn between shock that he would take them and eat them without asking, and hope that I don’t have to deal with projectile vomiting elsewhere in the house. I go find R, and after naughty corner, sternly tell him it is not acceptable behaviour, and there will be no treats for the rest of the day, and take away a stuffed toy. No tears from him, but those punishments are usually the end of it in our house, so I get on with the day.

Sunday May 18th
Had almost forgotten about last week’s ‘mishap.’ About 7.30am, I went to throw some rubbish in our kitchen bin, and was confronted by an empty bag of giant milky bar buttons. A bag I could have sworn had been half full. So unsure that it would have happened again, my first instinct was to ask the other man in our house. “Darling?” I called through the bathroom door. “Did you wake up in the night with the munchies, and finish off half a bag of giant milky bar buttons?” Surprisingly, my hubby was not the culprit.

This time I got really angry. Especially after asking R if he’s eaten anything from the kitchen and getting a negative response. Stealing, Lies, Deception tactics… was my son on the road to a juvenile detention centre?! Overreactions aside, (after three minute naughty corner for us to confab) this time we took away iPad, (more of a punishment for us frankly) and favoured toys for a week. Niggling thought in back of head that we needed a consistent punishment if this was going to become a habit. Also occurred to us that taking away treats doesn’t really work when the child in question has already had more chocolate that morning than you would ordinarily allow in a week.

Monday May 19th
“He’s done it again.”
No one wants to wake up to those words. Not for the second day in a row. I blearily went into the kitchen, to find a Musketeers Bar gnawed on on the floor. Should I be glad he at least didn’t try to hide it today? Unimpressed by the peanuts, he had bitten off all the surrounding chocolate, leaving a pile of shavings on the floor. I literally gave birth to a hamster. Sigh.
Again, he denied it, even when faced with the evidence. He started pulling funny faces, looking cross, and basically acting.. well.. three. Eventually I was rewarded with the indignant, “What?! I was so hungry!” which surprisingly didn’t make me feel any better, especially as he had been given a full cup of Cheerios about a half hour beforehand, still untouched in his bedroom. We decided on a consistent punishment, but I have a feeling it’s more about getting through to him.

I turned to social media, and as we all do, asked a question I already had my own opinion on, and waited for someone to agree with me. Should I move the choc to a cupboard out of his reach, or find a consistent punishment and stick with it? I had an overwhelming response towards option number one. Nearly everyone agreed that he was too little to deal with the temptation, and I was causing myself more hassle than necessary trying to get the message into his little boy head.

Of course, like the majority of us, I couldn’t care less what anyone else’s thoughts about my parenting are, and decided to ignore popular opinion and keep at the consequences approach. Short term pain, long term gain. As easy as it might be to just avoid the problem and move it all away, by persevering I would teach R that he can’t have whatever he wants without asking, that lying is wrong, that gluttony is wrong. It would be worth it in the long run when I had built up a three year old who asks permission, who knows that just because something is tempting, it doesn’t mean he gets to just take it. I would be raising a man who is loyal and honest and has patience, and is TRUSTWORTHY.  Either that, or just less calories for me to inhale in the mean time. Win Win.

Tuesday May 20th
Success! No chocolate eaten, one happy little boy reunited with the iPad and lots and lots of praise and play. Oh all of ye of little faith out there! I had an excellent talk with him, explained all the reasons why he can’t help himself, and here are the results. Smug mum alert. I knew I could get through to him.

Wednesday May 21st
Er… May have spoken too soon, if the remains of an ENTIRE EASTER EGG in the bin this morning are anything to go by….
Again, greeted by denial and angry face, and eventual insistence that he was “very very hungry” and then that I was “not at ALL splendid.” (Cue fist in mouth to muffle snort of laughter and maintain stern face.)

If this hadn’t already become a matter of principle, I think I may be ready to move to the ‘move it’ camp. But hey, who DOESN’T love banging their head against a brick wall eh?

We have now enlisted nursery to help, with his favourite Auntie coining the hashtag, “Big Boys Don’t Take Without Asking.” I love it; we’re printing t-shirts.

Not quite, but we have made a fetching sign together, and dare I say it… I *think* he gets the message this time.

Agree with me? Think I’m mad? Feel free to post below. I can only hope this is the end of the saga, but something makes me say “To be continued…”

IMG_3768