Posted in Family, tagged Children on 24 June, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Crossing the road with Mr Goldtooth today, the Engineer shocked me by saying ‘Thank you’ for the first time without being prompted. I was so pleased that I laughed and pushed the buggy on for the afternoon pick-up.
My three year old then chastised me as we headed for the school gate: ‘Mummy, you didn’t say ‘Thank you.”
Posted in Family, tagged Family, School on 24 June, 2008| Leave a Comment »
1. The children are very grumpy and argue with each other even more than usual.
2. The Joker screams while the Queen tries to boss him around.
3. The Engineer cries all the way home when he has to walk rather than go in the buggy.
4. In the next two days, you have to prepare a Pathfinder meeting (on work and idleness), write a monthly prayer diary and bake multiple trays of flapjack for the school summer fair.
5. You’d rather spend your time blogging about the things you have to do than actually getting round to doing them.
6. You find that you have put the lettuce in the freezer instead of the fridge.
Posted in Family, tagged Children on 17 June, 2008| 3 Comments »
Today a good friend of the Joker’s pinched him on the arm at school, so he told a teacher. When the teacher went to resolve things, the Joker’s friend apologised. The teacher asked if everything was then okay with the Joker.
‘It will be, when I marry her’ he said.
Good to know that he’s planning ahead.
Posted in Family, tagged Children on 6 June, 2008| 3 Comments »
… that the Engineer once said things like
‘When Owen comes to ours house, I will show him mine hoolie-oop.’
Ah bless.
Posted in Family, Food, tagged Children, Food on 4 June, 2008| 1 Comment »
Today the Joker was struggling with finishing some mushrooms from his lasagne at tea time. Cooked mushrooms are not popular with any of my children but I thought I could sneak them past with the mince.
We bribed him to eat the mushrooms by telling him he could have some more lettuce if he ate the mushrooms up. It worked.
The Joker loves to eat green veggies. He is a strange mutant. How long will it last do you think?
Posted in Family, Inner city, tagged Family, Housing, Inner city on 16 May, 2008| Leave a Comment »
At the toddler group yesterday I was having a nice chat with Mrs Discoman about her new house. She’s still in lots of chaos but so happy to have a spacious new home. Sitting with us was another mum, who has six kids, aged 2 to 16. She mentioned that she’d applied for one of the lovely new houses that Mrs D has moved into, but hadn’t been successful.
‘How big is your house now?’ I asked.
‘You don’t want to know.’ A period of silence.
‘Go on, tell me.’
‘You don’t want to know.’ I can see some internal seething, a biting of the tongue.
We chat a little more about local housing. Mumofsix has been on various waiting lists for housing for eight years. She thinks there is ‘discrimination’, although she doesn’t say what sort.
‘I’m in a two bedroomed house.’
‘Seven of you with two bedrooms?’ I have to check that this is really her situation. Surely people stopped living like that once Queen Victoria had died.
‘I sleep in the front room.’ she tells me.
I tell her that she’s amazing. Mrs Discoman and I begin talking about something else: we don’t want to rub any more salt in her wounds.
Posted in Family, Inner city, tagged Family, Inner city, Wolverhampton on 13 May, 2008| Leave a Comment »
I was at a school reunion a couple of years ago. The typical conversation went like this:
‘Yaas, we’ve just moved to Bayswater, how about you?’
‘We’re living in a small village in Worcestershire. Where do you live VW?’
‘We’re in Wolverhampton’
Eyebrows head upwards, jaws drop and I feel I have to justify myself.
Out of that environment I am so happy to be here: in a place where people are real and I’m not goaded into competitive parenting by all the afterschool activities and academic achievements of my children’s peers.
I can work out what I really want for my family. One of the fantastic things about being in the inner city is that there’s no pressure from alpha mums. I feel I can concentrate on what’s important without feeling guilty about not signing my kids up to all the classes going.
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