On love...

Do you find yourself forgetting how adorable young children can be?

When you're wrangling teens, it's a lot like herding cats, except occasionally cats are more obedient, more vocal, eat a lot less, and don't demand that you fill their cars up with petrol...

Grizz has returned from his hols in Zante, having a) with his gang of 18 mates, been pulled over by the Police on wrongful suspicion of assault b) being accused as a group of hitting girls, by a gang of 'Scousers' c) being robbed of $100 (circa 60 Euros, but I can't find the Euro button), by the owner of their hotel for dirt allegedly left by his mates on three pillowcases. He refused to give them back their passports unless Grizz paid up for all of them... d) having carried one of his stone-cold unconscious mates back to the hotel after a frightful night out e) having more new friends on his Facebook account than Paris Hilton f) having almost run out of money in the first week g) having, for the first time ever in his life, decked someone h) having survived...

I can breathe now, I find. Now he's back in Blighty.

And my colleague brought her sort-of grand-daughter, (her partner's GD), in to the office this week, and we oohed and aahed like only mothers can, at the antics of two year old Freya, who is oh so pretty, darling compliant, friendly, smiling, chatty and loving...

And we go right back into caring parent mode, do we not - I removed a dangerous stapler from Freya's hands as she roamed across the desk anchored by her reins, giving her a fluffy spotty material covered box instead, (our Suggestion Box, don't ask, it's never been used!) to play with and some assorted desk-top teddies...

When I left for lunch, Freya was tutored to say, in the most sweet voice, "Bye, bye Fhina!", between mouthfuls of chicken and ham from her lunch-box...

There was quite the lump in my throat.

It never really goes away, does it?

Our fears for their welfare.

Our caring about them and how they fare in life.

Our love...

I love you...

I know this isn't original, it's a piece I found in a link I clicked on that took me to Stanford Edu...

At the time, I was reading a thread on a forum about a 17 year old girl, who was crying that she was just desperate to have children.

More experienced (and probably world-weary) parents pointed this article out to her.

My apologies if you have already read it some place else.

I loved it! The thoughts that particularly chimed with me involved never being able to read a newspaper in, oh, thirteen years, and learning to dress an octopus... Except my octopus could also arch his back making it almost impossible to put an article of clothing upon him!

ENJOY!

" ..Preparation for parenthood...

It's not just a matter of reading books and decorating the nursery. Here are 12 simple tests for expectant parents to take to prepare themselves for the real-life experience of being a mother or father.

1. Women: To prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a pillowcase filled with beans down the front. Leave it there for 9 months. After 9 months, take out 10% of the beans.
Men: To prepare for paternity, go to the local drug store, tip the contents of your wallet on the counter, and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper. Read it for the last time.

2. Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels, and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior. Enjoy it -- it'll be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

3. To discover how the nights will feel, walk around the living room from 5 pm to 10 pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious noise) playing loudly. At 10 pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1 am. Put the alarm on for 3 am. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2 am and make a drink. Go to bed at 2:45 am. Get up again at 3 am when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark until 4 am. Put the alarm on for 5 am. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

4. Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, first smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower beds, then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

5. Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems: first buy an octopus and a bag made out of loose mesh. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this: all morning.

6. Take an egg carton, using a pair of scissors and a pot of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take the tube from a roll of toilet paper. Using only Scotch tape and a piece of foil, turn it into an attractive Christmas candle. Last, take a milk carton, a ping pong ball, and an empty packet of Cocoa Pops and make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations! You have just qualified for a place on the play group committee.

7. Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime. Stick it in the cassette player. Take a family-size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect.

8. Get ready to go out. Wait outside the bathroom for half an hour. Go out the front door. Come in again. Go out. Come back in. Go out again. Walk down the front path. Walk back up it. Walk down it again. Walk very slowly down the road for 5 minutes. Stop to inspect minutely every cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you've had as much as you can stand until the neighbors come out and stare at you. Give up and go back into the house. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

9. Always repeat everything you say at least five times.

10. Go to your local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a preschool child -- a fully-grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goats eat or destroy. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

11. Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure a lot of it falls on the floor. You are now ready to feed a 12-month-old baby.

12. Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

When you find yourself singing "I Love You" at work, you finally qualify as a parent".

How Crap a Parent Are You?

Not wanting to re-invent the wheel, I'm blogging about the unlikely odds that my kids ever reached their teenage years over at Expat Mum.

How bad were you?
.

Always look on the bright side of life, te tum te tum te tum te tum

As you get on a bit and the teenagers head towards legal adulthood, life can occasionally be tricky but you know me, your auntie is the eternal middle aged Pollyanna.

My best bits of having children aged 18, 15 and nearly 14 by auntiegwen aged nearly 44.

You get to have breakfast at the weekend with your daughter. She is returning home after a night out and you're just getting up at 6 like you always do.

Weekend mornings become very peaceful, there is no rush to swimming/ballet/drama/rugby/horse riding. You are the only person awake till at least mid day.

There is so much less driving and waiting about for you and less money paid out on hobbies and extra curricular activities if your children just want to drink, entice members of the opposite sex or play Call of Duty most of the weekend.

Everyone smiles at you as you walk down the street, well at your very beautiful daughters and hot boy of a son beside you. You are now invisible but you can pretend they're looking at you.

On holiday with your beautiful children you get served very quickly in every restaurant or bar, the service is impeccable and there is always something compliments of the house. There will always be a waiter/ess who will fancy your offspring and want to impress.

Now, hasn't your auntie cheered you up and given you something to look forward? You're very welcome.

Going So Fast, It's Passing Me By

Individual days with tumultuous teens can seem so very long at times...

But then the whole era seems to be rushing by me.

My number 4 child, after an eye-awakening senior year , is on his way to college in the fall. Another milestone...

Two daughters are one their way to high school and we have only one son left in middle school...they are all truly teenagers.

So while Fhina considers how to re-appropriate the well-loved, and much used dining room table in her home, I am noticing that within 5 short years our house will be similarly empty.

That's the thing about teenagers, just when we think we can't stand to be around them at all any more -- we're not. They move on. After all, this is what they are supposed to do.

Moving on. A metaphorical event occurred today:

EJ and I ran a 5k road race "together". It was fun to plan, to train, to sign up, and to wear matching shirts. We looked forward to the time alone and the common interest. As we lined up at the starting line the excitement of the all female crowd of 1100 runners around us gave us both chills. So cool that we were doing this together. Together --- ha, she ran the 5K, passed me by so quickly that she actually mussed my hair, and I managed to finish a mere 22 minutes behind her! (Yeah, I'm really slow and she finished 27th out of over 1100 runners!)

This same wonderful child who came to us at 9 years old with virtually no body awareness, ran like Phoebe on "Friends", and was literally afraid to be in a room by herself, is flying past me. Flying past me right into the future.



The future is almost here, and I am the only one who is not ready.

Teenage Turbulence...

I was at work in the office just the other day, and my mobile 'phone rang...

I hate my mobile going off at work. We have a very open plan environment and everyone gets to hear your business, whether you like it or not.

I always get that deadly slump in my stomach, like when you contemplate that it might be bad news.

I scurried to an empty conference room to take the call, realising that it was Grizz, hopefully giving me news of how his last exam had gone.

"Mum, Mum! I'm ringing to remind you that last night you promised me, remember, that you'd be able to go and buy my tickets for Turbulence tonight?

(Turbulence being some kind of music club venue popular with The Young Ones).

My son knows me very well. I had, of course, completely forgotten, my promises made in wine, and I'd already taken my woefully short lunch break.

Clearing it with my boss, I scuttled out of the office into the city streets and the day's sunshiny warmth. I walked, in new, crippling sandals, the half a mile or so to where I thought the little indie record store was where I could pur-chase said tickets.

The record store was closed, boarded up windows festooned with makeshift signs declaring that it was closed, to re-open soon in a new location. I slip-slopped off, following the map to the new site. I read the sign saying they would be open 1st September...

Damn and Blast. Thwarted. Those were the names of the other reindeers that got away from Santa's sleigh, did you know? Mrs Claus must have had teenagers to torment the living daylights out of the elves...

By now I was sweating - Never a good look for the over-forty, Rubenesque, (Ahem!) female.

I propositioned a nice young man, who looked like he might be one of those world-weary older Teens that haunt Turbulence after dark...

With a mouth full of coronation chicken wrap he pointed blithely up the road that I'd just walked from. I re-traced my steps gingerly, my feet sticking to the glossy new leather... I found two young men emptying the boarded up shop of leftover stock, arguing about how to get their car backed in to the tiny space available, so they could fill the hatchback with their booty.

I asked them if I could still buy tickets... The more authoritative one, directing the driver, looked aghast. "We'll never find them in there!", he said, pointing at disorganised chaos within.

"Where else can I get them then?" I wondered... I must have looked desperate as the Teen driving the car slowly wound down the window. "Breakdown Records", he opined, pointing at the neighbouring street, at a tiny window, three solid Georgian storeys up in the air, next to the Sandwich Shop...

I trotted off, passing the young man who had turned his attention to his sandwich again. He regarded me curiously... I mounted the calf-breakingly steep and narrow stairs at Breakdown Records, wondering if that was my destination too - A breakdown?!

After being observed like some alien life form by the Beautiful Youthful Things within, I was handed two Turbulence tickets by one of that night's DJs, moonlighting by day as a mild-mannered record store assistant...

With that look on his face, I think he was wondering exactly how he'd managed to attract such an older crowd with his dazzling new Drum 'n' Bass set. I was chuckling to myself as I waddled back to work with my prize.

My boss said that I should have let slip that the tickets were for my mother!

The things we do for the love of Teens, and the avoidance of Teen Turbulence!

Dining out on their dreams...

As well as taking stock, I've been looking at the rooms of my house lately. As I contemplate the makeover that I'll finally have the time to do, with Grizz on hand to help (Ha ha! I kid even myself!), while he languishes, possibly job-less, certainly school homework-less, over the summer holidays, waiting for his future to begin...

To College, or Beyond!

And the one thing that I shall be pleased about - as I meander through my troubled mind, fretting about how we're going to afford to pay back his Student Loans in time, pondering whether he'll enjoy Uni life, worrying that he'll not stick at it, and wibbling and wittering endlessly about how he's going to fare on his own - is that finally, I'll be getting my oak Dining Table back to its rightful purpose and place in our lives...

We'll be able to sit at it for evening meals, and it will no longer suffer having homework done upon it, with heavy, ink-stained hand; It shall no longer lie, overburdened with piles of never-read books and endless crap; It will be free of watery cup marks on its surface; It is about to be liberated from over-filled folders, bright reading lamps, and ancient files, and Other Teenage Detritus.

It's mine, all mine!

I'll be able to sit in the soft chocolate brown leather chair, gazing out over my over-grown cottage garden, watching the busy, buzzy bees, perhaps with a glass of chilled Chenin Blanc in my right hand, maybe thumbing through the pages of a favourite novel in the lovely evening light...

That's one thing at least that I can be thankful for, as I look out at the prospect of a semi-Empty Nest!