Author: toughmotheruk

My husband normally gets the kids to school. He’s cracked the morning routine (including an alarm for shoes on, which seems to have solved that insanity), but for the hair.

My daughter is not keen on brushing her hair and tying it back.

One evening, my husband asked if he could practice. It triggered an unexpected nuclear reaction. She flat out refused and went into melt down. This then escalated to me declaring that we would need to get it cut if dad wasn’t able to practice.

To my surprise, she agreed… and went to get the scissors.

This presented the parenting quandary of the follow through.

I started rolling up my sleeves

This isn’t as unprecedented as it sounds. Living on a farm, we didn’t go into town much when I was growing up, so my father used to cut our hair. This worked ok for the boys (I don’t think there was a bowl used but I can’t be sure), however, it was less of an option for us girls. So I took over. Mum and Dad seemed happy but my sisters have been a bit more reserved.

However, that night, my husband bravely intervened to deactivate the situation. He suggested that we both might want to go to the hairdressers.

What, wait, is that feedback?

“Grandad, I don’t think this is safe…?” were words I wasn’t expecting my son, then four, to say.

My Dad was over from NZ to help look after the kids during a tricky time, and thought it would be a good idea to cut down some trees in our garden. Our son was his eager helper.

That is, until he got sent up a tree to tie a rope around a branch and Grandad was urging him to go a wee bit higher.

I had been busy doing something inside, when my attention was caught by my son’s question. It bought back memories of Dad sending me up a very rickety ladder into the loft above the stables to throw down some straw bales. There were multiple moments which felt a tad risky but coming down was definitely worse than going up!

Somewhat torn about whether to step in, I observed out the kitchen window. With Grandad’s (gentle) encouraging, my son managed to climb the next few inches, tie the rope, and then shimmy back down.

They were both very proud of themselves.

My husband was less pleased when the knife (?!) they were using came back into the kitchen with a massive notch out of it.

They just don’t make knives for cutting down trees like they used to.

With Father’s Day fast approaching, have you had a classic Dad moment?

Not long after my son started school, we were walking home one afternoon with some friends. We were still at an early stage in our friendship – a bit beyond the superficial “how are you doing” at the school door but not quite at the “coffee (or wine) at yours?” stage.

We were just navigating the narrowest point of the school commute, which can feel a bit like pushing through the crowds in Oxford Circus, when my son stopped an older gentleman walking towards us and asked “are you a grandad?”

Even with the press of people at his back, the man very kindly paused and responded saying that no, he wasn’t.

At which point, my son observed “so you’re just an old man then.”

There is little I could do other than hope that a grimace and apologetic shrug is a universal sign for sorry, I can’t believe he just said that/kids!

We followed this event up with a discussion about tact – not a topic I expected to be covering with a five year old. What’s that? Basically it’s not saying what you’re thinking. Why? So that you don’t hurt someone’s feelings. Why? Because you have to think about how other people might feel about what you’re saying.

Pause (thank goodness, as I wipe the sweat from my brow following that volley), but mum, you told me I shouldn’t lie.

Have you had a ‘kids say the darndest thing’ moment?!

 

The other day, my son and I were doing some (of his) homework, reading about the Arctic Circle.

We had just reached the end of the page looking at what and where the Arctic Circle is when my son took a closer look at the map. That can’t be right he said. I looked again.

Admittedly, it was a bad photocopy but everything seemed in roughly the right place even with my scratchy geography of the area.

He was adamant though that the map was wrong, the North Pole couldn’t be there because there was no land, so where would Santa live?

Ah.

I usually try to be as honest as possible with the kids but we do celebrate Christmas, get visits from the Easter Bunny, and have dental removals by the Tooth Fairy.

However, when put on the spot, I couldn’t face revealing the explosive truth (this is the boy who was heart broken when we removed a tree, and it wasn’t even a very nice tree, from the garden).

Instead, I seized on the fact located on page 5 (thank you Index) that there are parts of the North Pole that are covered in ice all year round. At least, for the moment… (I also decided it was not the time to get into global warming).

Luckily, this seemed to appease his concerns and there were no specific questions about Santa’s location.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should also reveal that the first page of the exercise (which he had ripped off) also explained that the entire thing was optional. A valuable lesson to always read the instructions!

How have you wriggled out of similar situations?

A few weeks ago, we went to see some friends. We’ve been through a lot together – getting settled in a new country, being pregnant at the same time, moving to another country (again)…

The kids now all tend to disappear to play so it’s easy and fun (for all of us) to catch up.

This time, they suggested a roller disco. I’d never been, so I wasn’t sure what we were signing up for. It’s got to be easier than ice skating right?

For the first ten (it could’ve been 30) minutes I wondered what we’d done.

As my friend remarked, we didn’t know anyone could actually look like a cartoon character, with all four limbs going in different directions all of the time. Yet, my son pulled it off with ease.

My daughter wasn’t quite so animated but she was also having a tough time staying upright. Words of advice like “bend your knees’, “ keep your hands down”, “step, step, glide” weren’t having the desired (any) effect. This was obviously a situation where they had to learn by doing rather than benefitting from my previously gained wisdom on the process.

They fell down a lot! My son’s estimate was 200 times. That probably wasn’t too far off.

But I was proud of them. They kept getting up. And they kept trying (I’m also counting it a minor miracle that they didn’t injure anyone else in the process).

And when it came to the end, they both wanted to go round a few more laps.

Today, it is not about me or my children, but rather my mother-in-law.

She has just been diagnosed with an acute form of cancer. It seems to have come from nowhere. One moment she was a healthy person, now she’s not.

I watched with awe as she nursed her husband through cancer a couple of years ago, although it seems like yesterday.

She has then tried to create a life for herself. It was inspiring watching her gain confidence, take on the world travelling, and help us grow our children.

And then this happens. Sudden. Devastating.

You don’t know your strength until it is tested. And she has again approached this challenge with courage and grace.

It’s our turn to take care of you – we are with you for the journey.

Finally, the sun is shining. All of a sudden the world (or is just me) is a much happier place!

We spent the weekend at the pool and as many local parks as we could – in case this is it for the summer.

It was a particularly idyllic English summer day – the trees a hundred shades of green, punctuated by flowers in full bloom. The stream providing a constant, somehow harmonious static as it rushed passed to blend in with kids squawking, birds chattering, and the regular roar of aeroplanes overhead (just to remind us it is London).

This poetic(?) introspection was interrupted not long after arriving in a spot of wilderness when my daughter told me she needed the toilet. Apparently she didn’t need to go when we left home, but now she did.

I suggested we could find a quiet spot. Unfortunately, it’s a number 2. She paused, considered, and said she’ll be ok.

They then befriended some other children, constructed a dam, demolished the dam to make a tower, knocked it down, made twig rafts (the trickiness of this is not be underestimated when only using grass to tie them together), and explored.

I sidle up to my daughter at this point to emphasise that she’ll need to give me some notice if we need to make a move.

She tells me she’s lost it.

And not to worry, it’s not in her pants.

On our final day in Paris we had to abandon our trip to Versailles due to strikes, so instead we convinced the kids that a trip to the Louvre would be fun.

To spice things up a bit, I suggested a challenge.

We had to decide a thing we’d look out for and count how many pieces of art we saw where it appeared.

I proposed animals – thinking it was a pretty safe bet. My daughter immediately piped up and said she wanted to count the number of “no clothes people”. She could already see three…

Alternative suggestions were rejected.

Unsurprisingly, it very quickly presented difficulties in the antiquities section as the kids started debating (loudly) whether strategically placed linen counted as clothes…

I caught myself wondering at what age I’ll be an embarrassment to them and whether my dad still has the woolly pompom hat he used to wear on the netball court sideline…

Luckily, my son decided animals were a better option (we abandoned counting after 102) and my daughter was distracted from naked people after she hit 13… I’m not sure I could have coped with much more art appreciation.

Sound familiar? What’s your tactic for extricating yourself from similar situations?

Still in Paris, we were staying in an apartment on the sixth floor of a lovely old building. I can safely say it was older than most buildings in NZ. It had a great view of the Eiffel Tower, enough rooms so we didn’t have to share with the kids, a beautiful spiral staircase, and a lift helpfully constructed in the centre.

It was probably not the original intention, but this led to many different races – in the various permutations of stairs v lift, adults and kids, up and down (down being substantially faster!).

On the second day, in a adult downstairs vs kids in lift challenge. my brother, in his wisdom, pressed the call button at level 3 on his way past.

This was a very effective strategy – well and truly beating the kids to the bottom, even with his dodgy knee.

Day three, the kids decided they’d take the stairs while my husband and I took the lift.

From the thundering down the stairs (luckily for the other inhabitants of the building at 10am), it sounded like we were making good time. Until we came to an abrupt stop at 3.

Working out what our son had done, we got going again.

To stop at 2.

And 1.

Hilarious.

One of my brothers and sister-in-law were over from New Zealand recently. Their kids are at university and they’ve taken the opportunity to explore (that feels very distant just now). It was pretty exciting getting a visit from the Kiwi family. The last visitation was two years ago when my dad was over.

We decided to take them and the kids to Paris (Grandma’s offer of babysitting was received after we’d booked the tickets).

The day of departure dawned. The excitement levels were at feverish. The kids had been looking forward to the “under the sea” train for weeks.

My son was given a small card model of the Eurostar to make up while we were going through security. It gave us a few moments of quiet while he constructed it, and then showed the other children waiting in line how to do theirs.

Then he had a brilliant idea.

Which we were left waiting for while he took off purposefully.

Like Oliver, he was asking for more (one for his sister and one for him)… oblivious to the other travellers who were trying to get the representative’s attention.

Turns out he’d worked out how to join the two together so he had a ‘proper’ Eurostar.

Unfortunately, his hopes were dashed once he’d realised we wouldn’t be seeing fish when we went through the tunnel.

I decided against suggesting he speak to the engineers about some improvements…