One step forward, two steps back

I really don’t mean to sound negative about parenting because, as I said yesterday, I would miss my little monsters terribly if, for example, they somehow got accidentally sold on eBay after a glass too many of that rather nice Soave I’m drinking at the moment.

And I do like being a mum.

But I’m a very efficient type of person. I grocery-shop with a list. I “target-shop” in malls. I walk fast. I don’t “wander” anywhere; I don’t meander and I never hover. I group my errands together for maximum results with minimal time-wastage, and I multi-task on the loo (don’t tell me I’m the only mum who puts on her bra and brushes her hair while doing the morning wee?).

Inefficiency, time-wasting, having to do things twice – these are things that make me foam at the mouth with frustration.

And one of the big things about parenting is that you often, all too often, have to do things twice. Every single day it can be one step forward and two steps back, 50 times over. It’s why I drink: By 7pm, after a day of thwarted progress and frustrated efficiency, a glass of wine stops me from running, screaming, into the desert with my knickers on my head.

But I digress. You want examples, right?

Case study: Dinner

Between each 50km school run on a Tuesday, I’m home for 90 minutes. I spend that time neither on the garden sofa with a cup of tea and a magazine nor horizontal in my bed, but sweating (and yes, I mean sweating as I have turned off the a/c for the winter perhaps a little prematurely) over a hot stove making supper.

Today I’ve invented a new dish that combines many elements that the children love. I’m confident, as I fry the onions and the garlic, steam the broccoli, wilt and chop the spinach, chop the smoked salmon, par-boil the potatoes, stand stirring the white sauce and grate the cheese, that it will be a new family favourite.

Well, I’m looking forward to it even if no-one else is

 

It’s not.

The children hate it.

DS cries. “It’s yucky!” he wails, spitting it out as if I’ve fed him dog pooh. DD is more diplomatic. “Mummy, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but… I really don’t like it.”

I test them a bit, I push them; I galumph about the room in a huff, lecturing them that I’m not a restaurant, just a mummy, and that they should like it as it’s made up of all their favourite things. They love smoked salmon! I taste it and my pupils dilate it’s so delicious. I tell them that there’s no other option; that they’ll go to bed hungry. But no.

“Can we just have a bit of bread instead?” asks DD quietly, with big, hungry eyes. “With some hummus?”

It’s then that I realise I have to offer an alternative; that they are hungry and that they genuinely don’t like my self-styled potatoes dauphinoise au salmon fumé, broccoli et spinach.  

DD gets Sunday’s left-over Tuscan bean stew with rice; DS gets a tomato and broccoli pasta from the freezer. I, meantime, get no time to write my blog as I’m preparing two suppers, and a step closer to opening the wine. Meh.

The worst bits about being a mum

I can honestly put my hand on my heart and say becoming a mum has been the best thing I’ve ever done – and don’t get me wrong, a lot of thought went into the decision to procreate. Until I was 33, I’d happily have boxed up the world’s children and packed them off into outer space.

Now, of course, I can’t imagine life without my little monsters. They are, without doubt, the best thing that’s ever happened to me. But that doesn’t mean motherhood is a garden of roses and that there aren’t times we’d all happily sell our kids on eBay (for me, that time is usually at 6.15am when they’re refusing to get up, eat breakfast and get dressed). So, for those of you who think motherhood is a walk in the park, here are the worst bits of being a mum:

Fact: If you send your child to school with this for lunch, you can never be my friend.

–          Shouting at the kids to eat their breakfast on a school morning (it’s not rocket science is it? Up, dressed, breakfast, teeth, school… day after day until you’re 18, get used to it!).

–          That sinking feeling when you realise you forgot to send a child in with the correct PE kit / swimming kit / guitar / packed snack for the school trip.

–          That even more sinking feeling when you realise, as you sit down with a cup of tea, that you actually need to be at the school gate NOW. Facepalm.

–          Breast-feeding. Yes, really.

–          Finding a nice mummy friend and then realising she’s “that” mum whose kids have organic, homemade Bento boxes for lunch every day.

–          That thing where you plan your first really indulgent day of leisure in five years only to have a child fall sick so you have to cancel the lot (and you know you’ll never reschedule it, not till they’re at university).

–          Being up all night with a sick child only to have to get out of bed at 6am to get the other child off to school.

–          Homework. I mean, really, I left school over 20 years ago!

–          Other mums. What a frickin’ nightmare they can be. What happened to sisterhood, ladies?

–          Lack of sleep. it’s aging me faster than the Sauvignon Blanc and, trust me, I’m trying hard with that.

Happy parenting!!

How do you teach kids to live in the moment?

Before I had children, I used to spend a lot of time wishing my life away. Wishing I wasn’t at work; wishing I was on holiday; counting the days till special events; longing for something or the other to happen.

Enjoy it, darlings, for what it is [sobs mummy]

But when you have kids, you learn quickly to grab your pleasures as and when you can. You learn that the ideal moment may never come along (not without that upward-inflected wail of “mummy?” in the middle of it, anyway) so you learn to live much more in the moment; to appreciate the small things that give you some fleeting respite.

10 unexpected minutes without children around. A quick glass of wine when the kids are in the park. 20 minutes reading a book before bed without falling asleep mid-chapter. A snatch by the pool with a magazine. That sort of thing.

And I must have got quite good at this living in the moment thing, because now, if I’m in a little pleasure-zone, I’ve learned not to think ahead even to the next half hour. I focus entirely on enjoying that little bit of down-time one hundred per cent.

The problem is, my children don’t work like that. And I wish they would.

We can be in the garden, for example, early morning on a Friday. They’ve had a yummy breakfast that I’ve served them picnic-style in the garden. They’re racing about on their scooters, playing on the trampoline or playing hide and seek, and I’m relaxing on the garden sofa with a coffee and Grazia (it’s my Friday-morning treat). The birds are singing, the air smells of pollen, red dragonflies are dancing over the sparkling turquoise of the pool.

Life is, really, quite peachy. I breathe it in… and relaaax.

“Mummeeee?” comes the wail. “What are we doing later? Can we go to the beach?”

And, even if I say, “Maybe,” or “Let’s think about it later” (you can read into that ‘when daddy gets up’ if you like), the morning will then be punctuated every five minutes with further wails of “Oh when are we going to the beach?” and “Please can we go to the beach now?”

“Just enjoy being here for now,” I tell them. “You’re having a lovely time! Enjoy it! We’ll go to the beach later, but just enjoy what you have here for now. Please.” (There may be gritted teeth on that last “please”.)

Never works.

And finally, we do get to the beach. The children are full of excitement in the car. They run across the sand, splash in the water, make some sandcastles and, before I’ve even got my shorts off, there it is: “Mummeee? When are we going home? I’m hungry. Can we go out for lunch? Pleeease?”

Gah.

Hallowe’en in Dubai

There is one night a year in Dubai when Dubai stops being Dubai and becomes a suburb of the great US of A.

And that night is Hallowe’en.

I didn’t grow up with trick or treating in the UK. As far as I know, that game was only for suicidal kids who wanted to be abused by grumpy old farts in big houses (a bit like carols-singers).

But in Dubai, it is a Big Thing.

And nowhere in Dubai is it bigger than in my compound, where people take it Very Seriously Indeed. Last night, out with 3YO DS and 7YO DD, we faced things so scary that I had nightmares last night.

And, to be honest, I have to say I disagree with the whole thing. On the one hand, I’m telling DD, “Don’t speak to strangers and never accept sweets from them” then, two hours later, I’m shoving her up some stranger’s garden path saying, “It’s fine, ask the man in the weird suit for sweets.”

Uh.  Hallowe’en? Next year I think I’ll be “washing my hair”.

Cute little pumpkins hanging in the tree. Nightmare scale: 0/10

Cute little ghosts, standing in a row. Nightmare scale: 3/10

Creepy skeleton, hanging on a bush. NIghtmare scale: 7/10

Dead body, hanging in a tree. Nightmare scale: 10/10.

Culinary Groundhog Day

I will be honest with you: Despite posting the odd recipe on my blog, I’m not one of life’s chefs. I’m not a foodie. Cooking is not something I enjoy. Pre-children, I rarely bothered – working in the media, I ate in gorgeous restaurants five nights out of seven, then flopped gratefully on the sofa with beans on toast or pasta the other two.

It’s only since having children that I’ve had to force myself to learn how to combine healthy ingredients into dishes that would nourish the little angels without causing them to a) gag b) get food poisoning or c) throw the food back at me.

It’s been a challenge, I can tell you.

Zingy veggie bake. Yum – or vomit on a plate? Apologies to “Jacky” who posted the recipe. I think it looks delicious.

 

But now I have a little repertoire of dishes that everyone in the family likes; dishes that meet my requirements for healthy eating and that are relatively quick and easy to make. The problem is, as I sit down on Saturday to write out the week’s menu, I get into a rut. It feels like Groundhog Day. We have:

Sunday – Grilled salmon (kids only – DH and I hate salmon).

Monday – Some sort of vegetarian curry or dhal with rice or chapattis.

Tuesday – Some sort of pasta dish (lasagne, spag bol, tuna pasta).

Wednesday – Some sort of baked dish (shepherd’s pie, moussaka, veggie bake).

Thursday – Homemade salmon fishcakes or chicken strips for the children; something from the freezer for the adults.

Friday and Saturday I don’t cook. We might eat out, order NKD Pizza or scavenge in the larder.

I’m desperate to increase my repertoire so, now and then, I flick through recipe sites and print out new ideas. But out of every five new recipes that I try, maybe only one will meet with approval from the entire family, so it’s a pretty soul-destroying task.

This week, I thought I’d found a winner. It was a “Zingy vegetable bake” touted as “a mix of healthy, vitamin-rich vegetables covered with creamy cheese sauce with a golden, crunchy, cheesy topping – yum!” It was “favourited” by 25 cooks and even had crushed chillies in it – DH’s requisite ingredient.

As I wrote the shopping list, I decided to share the joy with DH.

 “You’re getting this on Wednesday,” I said, shoving the iPad under his nose.

“It looks like vomit,” he said [fair point, I must add, on closer inspection].

“But it’s a ‘mix of healthy, vitamin-rich vegetables covered with creamy cheese sauce with a golden, crunchy, cheesy topping’!” I said enthusiastically. “I’ll do it with a salad!”

“Oh my,” he said, deadpan. “Yum.”

Sigh.

Why you should marry someone who makes you laugh

I write from a miserable place tonight. While DS has always been an early riser, waking between 5am and 6am even on the weekends, the last week in particular has been very, very tough.

How do guys sleep through this stuff anyway? Drives me crazy!

 

DS has taken it upon himself to pop into our room at night for any reason he fancies – he needs a tissue, wants some more water, has a blocked-up nose, is scared of the dark, a dinosaur’s chasing him. And, while DH is blessed with the innate ability to ignore him and sleep on, I’m an insomniac. It’s always quick and easy to settle DS, but waking me up at 3am means I won’t get back to sleep before 4.30am (if I’m lucky).

And then DS has been waking up, for good, around 5.30am (sometimes 5.15am for a treat on a Friday) – and coming in to bother me. Last night, for example, he had me up at 3.50am, 4.10am, 4.50am and then, finally, 5.45am. I didn’t sleep a wink after 3.50am.

So I’m averaging 4 to 5 hours’ sleep a night – and I’m a 10-hour girl. I adore DS (as DH will testify) but I’m starting to dread the sound of his precious little feet plopping across the hallway. It fills my heart with despair, dread and the sort of wild desperation that really belongs on soap operas.

I don’t know what the answer is. I’ve tried threats, shouting and punishments, and I’ve tried treats, cajoling and bribery. I’ve filled his room with toys, books, breakfast and even the iPad, begging him to play until I call him. I’ve tried to train him with the Gro clock (“Mummy? My clock’s broken, it’s still blue.”).

But no: He wakes up and he wants mummy. I’ve explained that mummy’s a better mummy when she’s left to sleep; that a mummy woken too early will be a shouty mummy. I’ve even threatened to sleep in a hotel until he gets used to me not being there.

As I dissolved into helpless tears at 6am this morning, begging DH for ideas on how to cope, my darling husband handled it in his own inimitable way.

“Do you fancy doing the school run this morning?” he asked as I sobbed, hair all over the place in my crappy round-the-house shorts. DH’s mouth twitched upwards into a suppressed smile. “In the fog? … I thought you might like to show off your puffy, crying-face to the other mums?”

His face looked so cheeky I couldn’t help but giggle.

If I tell DD one thing in life, I’ll tell her to marry a man who can make her laugh. It’s the only thing that’s getting me through at the moment.

10 things you didn’t know until you became a mum

How unbelievably chuffed you’d be when someone else’s child likes your cooking so much they have seconds.

How the sound of a toddler having a public tantrum doesn’t irritate you – it just makes you feel very grateful it’s not your own child.

How important it is for a seven-year-old to have a sticker book.

How much time you’ll spend shopping for and wrapping up birthday gifts for other people’s children.

How travelling somewhere by plane changes from being a pleasure into a form of slow torture.

Why your parents told you certain lies.

How much love your heart can hold.

How much it’s possible to achieve in one child-free hour.

How wonderful a glass of wine tastes when the children are in bed.

And, finally, how your children can drive you craaazy by day but then, when they’re sleeping, overwhelm you with so much love you want to wake them up just to kiss them.

Silent Sunday: Selfish night

Theme nights at one of my local restaurants. There it is, right under Steak Night – a night no mother will be able to resist. See you there!

Caught out on my blog!

Given that I live in a very small fish pond that is Dubai, swim in an even smaller one (my famous compound) and dance naked on tables in yet a smaller one (the Golf Club – just kidding), I’m usually very careful what I write on my blog.

It is not my goal to embarrass or upset people. I try to make sure that those I write about are unable to recognise themselves unless I want them to (muah-ha-ha-ha!) or I’m writing something really nice about them.

But, even with this ethos, I’ve been caught out once or twice. Once was a situation so sensitive I can’t even begin to talk about it here – let’s just say, those blogs were edited very quickly – and, another time, I knew that the person involved was annoyed with me, but she didn’t want to admit that it was her, so I didn’t admit it was me and the whole thing was a stalemate for three years (I believe she’s now left the country. Are you still reading it??).

Anyway, the gist of all this is that I’m usually very careful what I put on the blog. But the other day I got caught out. Massively.

By DH!

It snuck up on me but, somehow, being a stay-at-home mum works for me for now. But don’t tell DH!

You see, DH reads my blog. I know that. I know that he knows that I know that he knows. He often doesn’t need to ask about my day because, by the time he’s come home, he’s read about it.

But I don’t expect him to delve into the guts of the blog – to read the “About” page, for example. The one that I’d updated some time ago to reflect my new-found contentedness as a stay-at-home mum.  

So here’s the story: To date, I still get a bit of leverage at home about being the one who sacrificed her stellar career on the altar of having children.

Every now and then, when I’ve had a really tough time with the children, I bring out the old “It’s alright for you, cocooned in your nice office drinking coffee with your colleagues and popping over to The Ivy for lunch… Oh, it’s so easy to have a job, so much easier than staying at home with these terrors.” (Actually, to be fair to DD, it’s usually just the one terror now).

“One minute I was building an empire, “ I rant, “and the next minute I’m puréeing carrots and singing “Baa baa black sheep” to a toddler while wiping vomit off my Roksanda Ilincic frock and wondering if I’ll ever wear heels again.”

And DH, although preferring me to be at home, is pretty sympathetic. “If you really want to go back to work,” he says, “we could hire a nanny and a driver and a cook and, well… it would take so many people to replace you, darling…”

Even having that conversation – just the acceptance of the concept that I could possibly go back to work – makes me feel like it could potentially happen should I wish it to, so we have it every couple of months.

But then – lying in bed last weekend – DH read something out loud as I pottered about the bedroom getting dressed.

“Now acclimatised to life at home (especially as the children are now seven and three and, let’s be honest, are that little bit easier),” he quoted, one eyebrow raised, “she’s secretly glad she doesn’t have to deal with numpties in the office… Glad she doesn’t have to deal with numpties in the office?” Another eyebrow rose.

That sounds familiar, I thought, with a sense of foreboding.

“And, let’s be honest, the children are that little bit easier,” DH repeated, his eyebrows now so high he looked like a bad Botox job. “And she’s secretly glad she doesn’t have to deal with numpties in the office?” he spluttered. “I rest my case, darling.”

Talk about rumbled.

Why don’t I have anything to wear?

Some mornings, it’s like Groundhog Day in our house: Me, standing naked in front of the wardrobe, showered, makeup on, wardrobe doors open to reveal 780 outfits bursting out, whining to DH: “I’ve got nothing to wear.”

DH, of course, has a variety of replies that range from “Darling, you look good in everything” to “Oh for god’s sake, stop buying so much crap”, depending on his mood.

Sometimes he even takes a photo of me standing there naked to make me hurry up – trust me, there’s nothing like seeing your backside in the full light of day to make you get dressed quickly (I hope he never loses his phone!).

But what I’d like to share with you on this topic is this: At the ripe old age of 41, I’ve suddenly realised why I never have anything to wear, despite having two full closets.

My lastest purchase. Incompatible with sandy school car parks, worse luck.

It’s because I still buy clothes – beautiful  clothes – for a lifestyle that I no longer lead.

My wardrobe is chock-a-block full of divine office clothes and glamorous evening-out clothes. I collect dresses, for example, like other people collect speeding tickets. I love them. I love the cuts, the fabrics, the colours. I buy them in colour blocks and in stripes; I buy shifts, gowns and sheaths; in linens, silks and shimmering satins.

And I buy high heels to go with them. Vertiginously high, strappy sandals by Vince Camuto, from Tod’s, and from Russell & Bromley. They’re beautiful shoes, delicately scented of leather. I know, because I get them out every now and then and I stroke them.

But do I wear them? The high heels and the dresses?

Hell no. I don’t wear them because my life – which consists largely of walking through deep sand in 45˚C to pick up two or three children, then slow-walking back through the sand lugging a couple of backpacks while holding on to a few sticky children – is not compatible with silk shift dresses and Vince Camuto heels.

What I need is a wardrobe of shorts, of vests and of flip-flops. But where’s the fun in buying those? That, friendos, I now understand, is why I have nothing to wear.