This 'ere blog...

I've been a little obsessed with this whole blogging thing recently, not necessarily my own, but the huge number of voices out there - the mommy bloggers. And not just mommies, but mummies and mums, and moms and mamas and papas and daddies and maybe even grannies and grandpas. (what about it Mot?) I'm irresistibly drawn to the beautiful blogs that talk about homemade jam and home-crafted soft toys, the ones that are illustrated with photos of sleeping babies in a slant of sunshine. They draw you in with their kaleidoscope of colours, so warm and comforting, you don't realise you are being sucked in to this illusory vortex until you open the fridge and find not beautiful cupcakes or home baked cheese straws but a bag of spinach that smells like seaweed and a tub of moldy ricotta. Put simply they inspire me, but then make me feel like a failure. (The same can be said of Martha Stewart's Living Magazine - do yourself a favour, don't buy it).
So it's refreshing to find the blogs that wittily ef and blind their way through parenting with anecdotes that make you laugh out loud. I suppose, or rather hope, that this blog falls somewhere in the middle. If there happens to be a picture of a baby in the sunshine it's not because I'm smug that a) the baby's sleeping or b) the sun is shining. Rather, I know how enticing these pictures are...and they preserve a moment that all mothers have shared - the awe at their beautiful child. But in this house serenity is a fleeting visitor. I don't delude myself. I have boys giggling about farts most days, a toddler in a fury over vegetables and joooce and my singing, a gaggle of strollers by the front door (what IS the correct collective noun for those things?), and a husband who loves 'a good fug' ie, a hearty clutter of toys, newspaper and size 11 shoes. I know I'm richer for it, but sometimes it takes some remembering.
One thing I realised in my blog searching this week, was that it was quite annoying if the blogs you like aren't updated regularly - the writers were probably busy doing something worthwhile like, I don't know, parenting - how very inconsiderate. Anyway, my resolution is to try and post more often. I realise that is something you just do, you don't write about it, but I'm just declaring my intentions. And while we are at it, I got a little fixated on finding blogs on expat parenting - just to see if anyone else was missing 'home' or struggling with where 'home' was any more, or if anyone was as infuriated as me at being told to use half a cup of chopped onion in a recipe. I mean, what is that about? Surely it's a small onion or half an onion but not half a cup of onion? (More ranting on this another time...) I didn't actually find much so I'll have to provide my own dialogue - with myself. Thanks for joining me!

Rain

I took this photo at the weekend and it sums up the weather we're having at the moment. Wet. The rain has challenged all my creative parenting. We've been throwing ping pong balls into yogurt pots. I wrote forfeits on the bottom of the pots, things like Jump On One Foot and Pretend to Ride A Horse (not at the same time). I also wrote Give Mummy A Hug (on several pots). Well, there's got to be something in it for me. Forfeits were strictly enforced. This game lasted about five minutes. We attempted a version of Twister (without the alcohol, sadly, and in fact, without even the game, we just drew coloured circles on a large piece of newspaper and I helped Max tie himself in knots). We've tried cooking (banana bread) and we ended up with eggs on the floor, we've tried eating what we cooked (and done that admirably), we've done colouring and trains and play doh and stickers. We've made enough Christmas wrapping paper to keep us going til 2012. Max did whining and snacking and upsetting his brother. We got the camera out and Max did 'I can be gentle with Oli' poses. Oli smiled and did 'I'm 6 months old and don't even have to try to be adorable' poses. And of course, we've done DVDs; Mary Poppins, The Wonderpets, oh, and Mary Poppins again. I tried briefly to kick Mary Poppins to touch by producing Dom and my wedding video (it's only 12 minutes long, I wouldn't be that unkind). Max was transfixed the entire time - Is that Daddy? Is that Grandpa? It's Granny! That I went completely unrecognised, I put down to the fact I was wearing a veil, but frankly it's years (if ever) that I've looked as elegant as I felt that day. I was getting all teary at the end...Dom and I dancing close, slo-mo, fade to white when Max looked over at me and cut to the chase; 'Is it finished Mummy? Can I watch Mary Poppins.' How could I refuse? It was raining after all and I was forced to rewind the bit where the merry-go-round horses dunk a fox hunting horseman underwater - not at Max's insistence but because I just wanted to hear his infectious giggling one more time...

It's in the bag...

Rule Number 1: Do not attempt a sewing project at nine thirty at night after 2 glasses of champagne.
I know, we're in recession, but there are still things to celebrate...and the other night, having not shown my sewing machine the daylight for months, it was suddenly of the utmost importance to start and finish a sewing project within the hour. Dom had very sensibly taken himself off to bed. I, on the other hand, was switching feet, jamming spools, adjusting tension and snipping through the thread I'd used in endless attempts to sew up one of his trouser legs. I mean, surely there are only 2 or 3 ways in which you can sew the wrong sides of the fabric together - I seemed to create infinite possibilities of error. Back to the sewing up of the trouser leg...this was not my version of an April Fool (although it's given me a very good idea - I haven't done a really well-crafted April Fool in years...) No, I found this project online - it's where you make a bag for your yoga mat out of an old pair of trousers. Well, for some reason, I've been keeping some old cords of Dom's that are threadbare at the crotch and now I know why; they are crying out to begin a lifetime's commute to yoga with me. But even though there was a step by step guide, with photo illustrations and v e r y s i m p l e instructions, my yoga bag had considerable trouble emerging from the crysalis that was, until this evening, just a trouser leg. But tonight I finally managed to finish the project - how hip did I feel watching the Oscars with a needle and thread in hand? Ladies, gentlemen and members of the Academy, I give you the finished article...

Road Trip Catharsis

I'm still being haunted by the RV trip at the weekend and felt the need for one more bout of cathartic exorcism via this blog. I am, in fact, having to go back to the RV depot tomorrow, like a moth to the flame you might say. The reason being, we left something inside which I'd like to retrieve. Max, unfortunately, will be in preschool when Oliver and I make the trip over the Bay Bridge to Oakland. Max actually shed tears when we told him the RV had to go back to the shop on Monday. For him, to eat, sleep and play, in a vehicle, just inches from the engine and within metres of the ignition switch and all those controls around the steering wheel - that was pure heaven. I on the other hand, can't think why we thought a trip in a motor-home would hold any appeal in the first place.
Here's my hasty conclusion; Firstly I think it was a cultural thing - I'd never even heard the term RV (Recreational Vehicle, if you're still wondering) until we came to the US. And somehow an RV holiday seems so quintessentially American. Here, they embrace the roads like no other nation, cities are designed for vehicles - this is a country where a high speed rail link between San Francisco and LA is still, amazingly, only a proposal not a certainty. Also, and I may be corrected here, but there seems no stigma attached to an RV holiday like there is to say, a caravan trip in the UK - which carries with it all the nuance of class. So, and here I was caught up in Dom's energetic enthusiasm for it all, it seemed to be a way of embracing America's dream as well as a realistic way of seeing the remarkable geography that makes up this country. I'd add too, that the thought of reducing my life to the contents of a 25ft motor-home held it's appeal. No, really, I'd begun selling books on Amazon to relieve the groaning bookshelves (John Grisham anyone?) And de-cluttering can be very therapeutic. The illusion here is that I thought less space might simplify things, after all, less space is less cleaning, less clutter. But while fewer 'things' might be therapeutic, less space is NOT. That's all I can offer at the moment, but you never know, the sight of the Cruise America depot tomorrow just might get me started again....