Demon children and saintly spoodles

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Taking your child away on holiday can sometimes be a very dangerous thing to do. In only a few short weeks they can morph into a human being barely recognisable from the one you once knew. As routine, balanced diet and consistency goes out the window, everything you ever taught them seems to follow, including good manners, eating habits and general all round intelligence.

In the case of my 3 year-old, this certainly seemed to be the case. He left Perth a mild-mannered, book loving, happy eater, and arrived in England a screeching, uncontrollable terror. Who wouldn’t eat a single vegetable. Including beans. Coated in tomato sauce. Made by Heinz. Heavens above, what child refuses those?

What the hell happened up there at 33,000 feet you might ask? I’m still pondering the very same question myself – but looking back it’s easy to see where it all went so wrong.

A stranger to sugar and capable of sleeping for up to 4 hours in his afternoon nap, my son found his world being tipped upside down as he was dragged from his bed and shoe horned into the car on the way to the airport. There we were, in the middle of the night, singing to try to keep him awake. Dragging him behind us at speed, force feeding him cookies (albeit low-fat ones) to coax him on a plane he didn’t want to go on, and then telling him he must then lie down and go back to sleep, with bright lights and dinner trays clattering all around him.

It was a recipe for disaster from the start, and the rest of the holiday carried on in much the same vein. Erratic bed times, long stretches in the car, sporadic mealtimes containing all the wrong foods and a difference set of people every time he woke up. To say he was a fish out of water was an understatement. More like a little boy in a parallel universe.

As a direct result of this holiday madness, and so not really his fault at all, his behaviour often veered on the side of manic. Energy levels went through the roof, ears sealed off to reasoning and his mouth went into screeching overdrive. And all in a country where you are no longer allowed to ‘discipline’ your child in public … tricky.

He now saw eating – unless the food in question came under the food group ‘treat’ – as an unncessary inconvenience, and as mentioned before, anything that had once grown up from, across or dropped to the ground was now met with a pursed mouth and muffled cries of “Don’t like it”. A tad frustrating, especially as the week before he’d happily opened up for aubergine and olives.

The ‘highlight’ of this out-of-control behaviour came however, at perhaps the very worst time possible of our entire holiday. I’d go as far as to say, that in the collective 12 years my offspring have been alive, never have I wanted to hang my head so low in shame.

While visiting a potential school for my daughter, my son reached deep into his inner demon and pulled out quite possibly the worst behaviour that the inside of the headmasters office has ever seen. He spread crumbs far and wide (from a biscuit off the tea-tray he’d launched himself at), squeezed his juice box across the polished table and pulled himself back and forwards across the floor like the member of a crack commando team. He climbed on the window seats, threw cushions on the floor and very nearly pulled down the curtains – 4 times. He struggled when I picked him up, pulled at me when I put him down and slithered to the ground when I put him back in his seat. The entire time he screeched and shrieked and laughed like a nutter possessed.

It was pretty toe-curling stuff, as any parent could well imagine.

There we were, talking about school reports and untapped potential and trying to give a good impression. And there was  my little monster – who would also be eligible to go there in a years time – bouncing off the walls like Tiger on a mixture of crack cocaine and speed.

The only saving grace in this whole embarrassing ordeal was that the headmaster knew better than to judge the entire family based off of the actions of its smallest member. As well as being a parent,  he was also my old English teacher – the teacher who had in fact inspired me to start writing in the first place, many light years ago.

Should this worrying tale of holiday woe begin to put off any parent thinking of taking a break, then fear not, it does have a happy ending.

After the episode at the school, sugar was abruptly cut out of his diet (which was unfortunate for him as this happened before Christmas). Within days he started to ease off his high and calm down again – apparently it takes at least 2 weeks for somebody to go cold turkey where the sweet stuff is involved. Now back in Perth, my son is already back to his old self, and get this, better than before. His manners are perfect, he’s calm and controllable and best of all, he’s eating vegetables faster than I can get them on his plate.

Not that I’d ever recommend killing your child’s routine and dragging them round the world to help knock them into shape, but on this occasion, it seems to have done the job.

Incidentally, the same also seems to be true of Charlie. He went into the kennels as a naughty, barking, escape artist, and come out a changed dog. He is now well-behaved, quiet and far more obedient than the 2 year-old Spoodle that went in. He didn’t even make a run for it the other day, when I accidently opened the garage door without shutting him inside first.

Now, if my daughter had gone in the same direction as my son and the dog, I could have said I had a hat trick on my hands. Unfortunately the excellent behaviour she showed when away (which was enough to get her offered a place at the school) has worn off some, and been replaced with the somewhat emotional and pouting little girl of before.

Still, can’t win them all, and 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.

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Be good for goodness sake

With only a few days to go before ‘C Day’, yesterday I had to pull the big guns out of my parental bag and threaten the ultimate in punishments. Cancelling Christmas. Or rather informing my daughter that if she didn’t quit with the naughty and start delivering more of the nice, then she’d be waking up to find a rather sad and empty stocking at the end of her bed.

This is obviously not something I’d ever want to do. It would ruin my day for a start – and then leave me with the problem of what to do with all those presents rattling around under our bed.

But the problem is, when you spend a large percentage of the year telling your child that Father Christmas only comes for those children who’ve been good, it does rather put you in a difficult dilemma when they then go and act like the devils spawn.

To be fair it’s not that she’s particularly naughty, as children go. She doesn’t have a criminal record or a HASBO to her name. She doesn’t even wander the streets with a penknife and a can of spray paint, mugging old ladies as she goes. No, her problem – along with every other 8-year-old in the world – is that she just doesn’t bloody listen. To me. Ever.

Everyday, or so it seems, I am met with the blank look, sulky pout or miserable face of a child who just doesn’t want to do what she’s just been asked. Which I could well understand if the asking in question was about  going outside to kill a chicken for dinner, or working down a coal mine to earn her keep. But it’s not. It’s more of an eat your dinner / brush your teeth / hurry up and get into the car sort of ask.

Of course I’m sure when I was her age I was probably a right royal pain in the backside at times. But that’s a while ago now, my memory is sketchy and that’s beside the point. As I keep saying to her, I really don’t understand how hard it can be to just go along with what I ask, listen from time-to-time, and use her ears more than her mouth.

So what’s a parent to do? Threaten the worst and then follow through? Or fill them with the fear of a present-less Christmas, and then relent at the end?

My husband could probably quite easily go through with the first option, and still sleep well at night. I, on the other hand, couldn’t. Christmas for me has always been about the stocking.

Nothing beats seeing the sheer excitement on my children’s faces as they attempt to haul their body weight in stuffed stockings across our bedroom floor. It’s the highlight of my day. Or rather my night, as this inevitably happens a mere 15 or so minutes after we’ve wrapped the assorted presents, deposited them at the end of the beds and finally gone to sleep ourselves.

So once again I have had to explain and outline to my daughter the terrible consequences that naughtiness can bring. This was followed up by returning the ‘missed call’ I’d received on my mobile from Santa. With my incredibly concerned child hovering in the next room, her ears wildly flapping like an African elephant, I apologised for her bad behaviour, promised she wouldn’t do it again and wished him a safe flight.

What I hadn’t taken into account in my oh so cunning plan, was the steam railway trip we had planned to take them on the very next day -  to see the very man himself. My poor daughter was so nervous about being told off she practically had to be shoved  past the overgrown elf and into the grotto.

Not only did this make me feel like total and utter crap, but as I had to hurriedly reassure her that she hadn’t been quite bad enough to get no presents at all, it also made the whole point of my exercise completely pointless. Marvellous.

Reality strikes, and it’s pretty dumb

I am a self-confessed lover of most things reality. I say most things, as even I absolutely draw the line at Australian Idol and Big Brother.

Australian Idol because it’s quite frankly a load of talentless crap, and Big Brother, because the programme is now at least 7 years past it’s ‘Sell by Date’. The first 2 series of BB in the UK were funny and captivating – due to their originality and the people who walked into the house. They had no real notion of what to expect or what wide spread coverage they would receive, and they treated each other with at least some respect.

The following series that have been thrown up on screens every year since, have however, been just plain boring. This is due to their predictability and the attention seeking w*nkers, sorry, I mean housemates, who clamber over each other to live like guinea pigs, fight like toddlers and mate like rabbits.

The audition requirements must now surely be about finding the oddest of oddballs. Those who are guaranteed to strip, clash and pash. So if you’re a blood drinking, devil worshiping, plastic surgery obsessed, brain-dead sex-o-holic, who can’t seem to make a definitive choice between girls or boys, then you’re definitely in with a shot of getting on the show.

Maybe I have just gotten very old in these past 8 years, but it seems to me that BB has spawned a whole new breed of desperate and talentless weirdos. People whose skill sets range anywhere from merely having had a boob job or a sex change, to looking like a pig, thinking they’re God’s gift or simply being the first person born without a single brain cell between their ears.

For these fame fanatics, their 16 step ‘life plan’ would go something like this:

1. Get onto Big Brother and humiliate myself on national TV.
2. Prove that my IQ really can be smaller than my shoe size.
3. Feature on the front cover of HEAT magazine.
4. Meet a fellow non-entity, and be caught in a trendy club having sex.
5. Marry and divorce the said non-entity within 3 months.
6. Turn orange, lose weight, get new boobs/haircut/wardrobe.
7. Release DVD of me lifting Gucci handbag in weight-loss programme.
8. Feature on the front cover of HEAT magazine.
9. Release a single – prove I can’t sing.
10. Date an entire Premier Division football club.
11. Apply to go on Celebrity Mastermind – get laughed off.
12. Apply to go on Dancing with the Stars – get turned down.
13. Apply to go on I’m a (Z list) Celebrity Get Me Out of Here – get accepted.
14. Humiliate myself on national TV.
15. Prove that my IQ is still smaller than my shoe size.
16. Feature on the front cover of HEAT magazine.

Of course truth be told, even if I wanted to watch Big Brother, I couldn’t. My husband only has to hear the music and he starts frothing at the mouth. And that’s not in excitement I might add.  As a rule he really doesn’t like any form of reality TV, and will generally protest for many, many weeks about what he is being forced to watch. He’ll complain about how pathetic the format is, how fake the contestants are, and declare, quite rightly, that the presenters are enough to make you want to throw up your dinner into your hands.

Over the years I have worn him down, and have somehow managed to successfully get him hooked on shows like Dancing on Ice, So You Think You Can Dance, The Apprentice, the Biggest Loser (only the Aussie version) and Masterchef. Wife Swap, I’m sad to say, is simply never going to happen.

But of all these shows, my favourite have to be those that prove that beauty really is only skin deep.

America’s/Australia’s/Britain’s Next Top Model – oh you’ve got to love them for the sheer drama and brilliant bitchiness that these girls, many of whom aren’t even old even to cross the road on their own, have already mastered at such an tender young age.  As they cry, sulk and pout over every makeover haircut, and squeal with every Tara/Sarah/Lisa Mail that appears, it seems they just can’t help themselves but to prove the theory true that models are an incredibly dumb breed. And that large groups of catty girls are infinitely more dangerous to be around than a stick of lit dynamite.

I know this stereotype of models is something of an unfair generalisation, namely because I too once shimmed my way down a catwalk, and I’d like to think I possess matter between my ears that I know how to use. But oh my God, most of the vain little prima donnas on these shows apparently fell right out of the nearest stupid tree, hitting each and every branch on the way down.

So yes, it does makes me realise that I must be aging considerably faster than I care to admit, because many of these model wannabes seem young enough to still need the placenta attached to survive. They also appear to be completely unequipped to deal with the big bad world of reality that awaits them, on the other side of the competition. A world of fashion that will gobble them up, strip the meat of their jutting hip bones and then spit them out when they’re 20, over the hill and past it.

The final of Australia’s Next Top of Model is on tonight, and as far as I can see there is only one obvious winner. In one corner you have Tahnee – a girl with a beautiful face and a body that looks how it should at 17. In other words, there is still some sign of the puppy fat that you are supposed to have at that age, if it hasn’t been forcibly starved off and thrown up.

In the other corner is Cassi – a chain smoking, bad mouthed brat, with bad teeth, serious anger management issues and a body that would look right at home on a 6 year old.  In a word, she’s a Bogan. An Australian word for slapper, or a common little oik who struts around wearing micro-minis, white stilettos and a chip on her bony shoulder. Think Vicky Pollard on a hunger strike.

If this girl wins it will be a sad day for mothers everywhere. For she is the worrying proof that nowadays it’s OK to be a nicotine-stained, spoilt little madam, as long as you’re stick thin and look pretty in makeup. I’d have to say she’s about neck and neck with the Pussycat Dolls, when it comes to being the best role model there is for little girls.

Having seen her act out, lash out and stomp out over the last few months on TV, I for one certainly wouldn’t buy into any brand that she was the face of, so lets hope the judges vote for the right girl to win, the one that might just prove that beauty isn’t always just skin deep…

And the result? Yeah, the right girl won. Some of the judges may have been tempted with $ signs and voted for who might make them the most cash, but thankfully the Australian public proved that poise and good manners beats trailer trash and tantrums any day of the week.

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Planes, trains and watery accidents

My 2 1/2 year old son has been undergoing toilet training for about 6 weeks now, and I have to say he’s doing a lot better than I ever expected him to. Boys are, after all, meant to be a lot slower on the uptake when it comes to the learning about when to poop and pee, and when to clench and hold.

Of course there have been accidents. One next to the sofa, one in the bedroom where he shut the door on himself and couldn’t get out, and a handful around the bathroom – normally as a result of him misjudging the volume of wee in his bladder and shooting off the potty before he’s completed the job.

Trying to shoo the dog away as I re-dress, empty, bleach and wipe is the hardest part of all.

Unfortunately my sons days at nursery do set him back sometimes. Whether it’s the excitement of finger painting or the 15 or so other kids queuing up for the potty, some days I go to collect him and am met with a bag of wet clothes and a rather nasty smelling teddy. The washing machine never had such a good work out for so few clothes. One day, when he had gotten through all 3 sets of spare clothes in his Bob the Builder backpack, I arrived to find him wafting around the room wearing nothing more than a kimono from the dressing up box. That was one of those occasions when you wish you had a camera to hand.

As with many things in life, thinking about doing something is often worse than actually doing the deed. The very idea of replacing nappies with pants on a leaking child is one such time. I found the only way to really stay one step of the game in the beginning was to spend every 4th minute asking him if he needed to go, and then ferrying him backwards and forwards to the potty, armed with 16 books and a thermos of tea (for me). It was monotonous and repetitive, but it did the trick. After a while, and probably because he got so damn sick of being asked, he started to tell  me when he needed to go. Or rather he’d screech “Poo Mummy” as he scurried towards me, with one hand behind his back clutching his bottom.

Seeing that I would drop everything and leap to attention when he needed to go, he quickly realised that the whole process could be manipulated into something of a game. I’d run to get him to the bathroom, peel off the layers, sit him down and then he’d laugh. “No Poo Mummy”. Hmmmmm. That one soon wears very thin, particularly when you’re in the shower, eating your breakfast or halfway up a mountain..

A Blue Mountain to be exact. Let me explain.

We’ve just got back from spending a week in Sydney. A week in Sydney in the rain. Who knew it would be so cold, or so wet at this time of year. Everyone but us apparently. Typically, the weather forecast for the week changed upon our arrival. It went from sun and a spot of cloud every day, to rain with a touch of rain every day.

Damp weather aside, holidaying with children is always a test – a test of a parent’s patience, stamina and will to live. Air travel in particular can be stressful at the best of times (something I wrote about before),  but throw in a couple of kids and several tonnes of ‘can’t get by without you’ luggage and you can find yourself half way to a nervous breakdown at 30,000 feet.

It’s always hard to know how your children will react to leaving the ground in a vacuum packed can. My son wasn’t amused. At all. Watching the aeroplanes through the terminal window – great fun. Walking down the air-slip onto the plane – not so fun. Sitting in his seat for take off – simply not going to happen.

So what does he call out in a desperate bid for freedom? “Poo Mummy”.

Yes, just what all the passengers around us wanted to hear. I’m sure some actually recoiled and held their nose in fear. So, with the fasten seat belt sign lit up and the plane doors already closed, he was whisked up the aisle to the toilet with potty in hand. Did he need to go? Of course he didn’t, but it would have been a pretty brave parent to take the risk.

And so followed a week of untimely potty stops. In the bushes in front of the Opera House. In the undergrowth next to the museum. Sat inside the land train going around Darling Harbour. Behind the seal enclosure at Taronga zoo. On a grassy knoll overlooking Botany Bay. On the train into the shops, and around the back of the Police Station in the CBD. There was no where he didn’t go. And there was no where we could go without a potty, wet wipes and spare clothes at the ready. It really is amazing how the bowels of a small child can shape and dictate your day.

The mountains, as previously discussed, were probably the worst. When he decided he needed to go, the rain was coming in at us diagonally from both sides – with the force of Niagara Falls. We happened to be out on a nature trail at that moment, trying to take at least one photo of the view to prove we had enjoyed the grey and misty scenery. We ended up in the car pack, huddled over him with umbrellas, as he sat on the ground to give it a go. Did anything materialise?  Nope, not even with the encouraging sound of gushing water hitting his parent’s heads.

Same story in the Jenolan caves, and then twice on the way back up the mountain at night, in thick and surprisingly spooky fog. At times like this it is definitely tempting to ignore the little voice from the back seat, but the car seat was hired and the excess for damage to the car was $3000. No pee is worth that much. This time he sat perched on his potty in the boot of the car, smiling up at us, as if it were all perfectly normal.

All pit stops aside, the biggest and most costly accident that occurred during the week, was not by my toddler, but by my husband instead. We were on the ferry traveling from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour, and had decided to sit outside in the spitting rain, to take some pictures of the Opera House as we went past.

Somehow, and don’t ask me how, the camera leaped out of his pocket, dropped onto the ferry floor and slid 2 foot across to the edge of the boat. As it happened (does it ever happen any other way?), there was a gap in the side of the boat. About, oh lets say, camera sized in width. The only bloody hole, I might add, that there was down our side of the boat.

The camera then proceeded to slide through the hole and sit on the outside rim. I’m sure the camera lenses winked at me. We both looked at it in disbelief – I know I was certainly wondering what the hell is it doing down there. Having a child on my lap I couldn’t move. My husband, who swears it all happened in seconds, apparently has the reaction times of a snail on speed.

PLOP, over it went. All of our photos sank right to the bottom of the harbour. I’m not embarrassed to say I burst into tears. My husband did what any intelligent man in the same situation should do. He kept very quiet and looked at the floor. After several minutes of watching my tears mixing with the rain, my daughter helpfully piped up.

“Now you’ve lost all of my photos.” Followed by. “This wouldn’t have happened if we’d sat inside you know.” I believe she received quite a glare.

We all left the ferry in silence. Even my son knew better than to say he needed a poo. Half an hour later, when we were standing underneath the sharks inside the aquarium, my husband ventured to speak to me. “Well obviously we’ll buy a new camera tomorrow.”

And so we did.

He did feel marginally better when told in the camera shop that he was the 3rd person that week to drop their camera into the water. Had our home contents insurance actually covered us for the camera outside of the house, then he might have redeemed himself a little more. But of course, despite trotting along to the Police Station to report it’s loss (hence the potty stop), it didn’t. Now had he dropped it into a mug of tea at home, we’d be quids in – go figure.

The new camera is shatterproof, waterproof, snow-proof and husband-proof. That of course means it comes with a manual thick enough to sit on at the breakfast bar. By the next holiday I might just have worked out which setting goes with which, and how to use the ‘Beauty Mode’. Till then, it’s safe to say my dearest husband will be remaining on the other side of the lens, and paying for his act of clumsiness through the public humiliation on this blog.

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Hot, hairy and bothered

This morning I inflicted the most terrible trauma on my unsuspecting 2 year old. He was coaxed, totally unaware into the shopping mall and then lured through the barbers door, using an apple scroll (lovely cake from Bakers Delight) as bait. Poor little thing, he didn’t stand a chance.

The first wail came out before I could even extract one arm from his harness. By the time I had completely unbuckled him, he was enforcing all laws of gravity to keep his bottom as firmly wedged into his stroller as possible. By the time he was pinned onto my lap, wrapped in a Wiggles cape and in front of the mirror, his lungs were working at their full capacity. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t peaceful. It certainly wasn’t fun, but what’s a mother to do?

With an incredibly thick head of hair, a troublesome double crown and sideburns that can leave him looking rather Hobbit-like, if left for too long, I had no choice but to ambush him and instruct someone to take a pair of scissors to his mop.

Of course the more I pinned him to me, the more he wriggled. The tighter I had to grip, the more he cried. The more tears that flowed, the wetter his face became, and within 5 minutes he had so much hair stuck to his face that his place on the evolutionary pecking order was becoming increasingly questionable. Even the apple scroll, normally perfect for bribery, didn’t do the trick. He clutched a piece in his hand, squished it through his fingers and refused to either eat it or part with it. Just as well really, as it was fast taking on the form of a hair ball, and would have proved a little tricky to swallow.

To say I was slightly warm and sweaty by this stage would be something of an understatement. I was certainly regretting wearing my new pair of cream trousers for the event, be it that my legs would now have looked more at home on a well groomed Shetland pony. Yet despite all of this, whilst I am normally the sort of person prone to panic attacks whenever stress rears it’s head in my vicinity,  for once, I was actually able to maintain my composure. Maybe because I knew that to have a complete meltdown at this point would have finished us all off, and after all, he really was crying quite enough for the 2 of us.

Obviously I felt incredibly mean throughout the ordeal. Hearing your child beg for freedom is never nice, but as with all battle of wills, if I backed down every time and gave in, I’d have to kiss goodbye to him ever listening to me again. That aside, we’d also had to have left with another lop-sided cut, leading to possible teasing in the playground and the subsequent years later spent in therapy as a result.

Thankfully the woman with the scissors was everything you could ever ask for given the situation. She was experienced, calm, patient and most importantly of all, good-humoured. She somehow managed to hold his head still long enough to cut around his face, eyes and ears without removing any of the skin attached. She moved around him, snipping as she went and smiling the whole time. No doubt her teeth were gritted as she smiled, but at least she gave the illusion of being happy. Even the continuous blood curdling screams that were unsurprisingly alarming other customers and potentially losing the place any new passing trade, failed to stop her in her mission.

Now after the last place we had been, this was such a relief that had I not been holding an irate, hairy eel on my lap, I might just have relaxed a little at finding someone so good. The last girl who attempted to cut his hair had been so young and useless, she sent him out with uneven sides, a tuft on top and something that looked suspiciously like a mullet.  “It will look better when it’s wet”, she assured me.  It didn’t. It looked worse, far worse. After I got him home and shrieked for a good 5 minutes about how awful it looked, as I unsuccessfully tried to pin the tufts down with a comb, I was forced to get out my own scissors and corner him while he ate his tea. Needless to say he was less than amused.

Finally this latest cut was complete, and I’m pleased to say that the end result was definitely worth all the fuss. My son was dusted off and settled back into his stroller. He beamed up at me as he victoriously waved the remaindered of the apple scroll in the air, obviously believing that he had won the battle and finally got his own. I was just glad to be out of there and able to hear again. Win-win all round.

A waiting mother sympathised with me on the way out. “My son was just like that” she told me, “its a nightmare I know, but there’s nothing you can do.”

“How long did it last?” I asked, already  suspecting what the answer would be.

“Oh until he was 4″ she replied.

Marvelous. Just what I wanted to hear. Only 2 more years to go, or perhaps I just grow out his locks, rename him Samantha and start saving for the therapist instead.

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Love Thy Neighbour

There are some boys on our street who make me wish that using an air riffle was legal. They wander around, swearing at the tops of their voices and generally going out of their way to irritate, provoke or pick fights with everyone who gets in their way. As children go, they could best be described as feral.

Over the course of the last year, they have attempted to smash both the street lights with rocks and the curbside with a shot-put. They have run riot through front gardens – breaking trees and trampling flowerbeds. They have removed sprinkler heads, thrown rubbish around and pinched the girls bikes off them when they have ventured out to play.

One week they ‘borrowed’ a shopping trolley from Coles. Taking turns to sit in it, they rode up and down the street at breakneck speed. Had one of them fallen out onto the road, I don’t think I would have battered an eyelid. It was the worry of the trolley knocking another child off their feet or taking chunks out of my car’s paintwork that prompted me to have it collected and returned to it’s rightful home.

One day, after having gone outside and told the group of mouthy boys to stop hammering our curb with the said shot-put, they started chucking limes at our roof tiles. How much harm can you possibly inflict with a piece of fruit you may think. Quite a lot actually. Especially when the limes are rock hard, and the roof tiles are prone to breaking if you so much as snap your fingers in their direction.

You could be forgiven for thinking we live on a inner-city housing estate, with burnt out cars and old mattresses stacked up in the front gardens. Hardly. We live smack back in the middle of suburbia. Think Ramsey Street, without the regular bouts of arson, murder and intrigue.

To some, these underage pests may not sound too bad. It’s just ‘boys being boys’ you might say. I beg to differ. The petty vandalism aside, it’s the attitude, of these boys, barely into double figures, that just blows me away. The way that they turn the air blue when the other kids are trying to play, the constant fighting and the complete lack of respect towards anyone over 18. If you are thinking that the parents are to blame, that children are a result of their upbringing, then yes, I couldn’t agree more. But don’t even get me started on the mother.

Maybe I am officially now ‘old’. I know that the following is certainly going to make me sound that way – It just wasn’t like that when I was growing up. We weren’t allowed to call our parent’s friends by their christian names, we would have been eternally grounded for being cheeky to an adult and probably sent off to foster care had we dared to swear at one. Yet these kids think nothing of screaming all manner of abuse at an adult. They they did just that at a neighbour recently. Why? Because he stepped in and told them to stop using another child as a punch bag.

Maybe it’s me. Perhaps the world has just moved on, and I never got sent the memo about what is now deemed ‘acceptable’. I know that it is now the ‘in thing’ to treat your child like a mini adult. To dress them up to look 18, to let them stay up until they fall asleep, to educate them way beyond their years and to encourage them to join in adult conversations, voicing an opinion about everything they hear.

Teaching good manners and learning when to keep it zipped no longer seems to be a priority to some parents. It’s all about making sure the child feels important in the world. More important than they actually should be.

I have lost count of the number of presents we have given, where there wasn’t even a ‘Thank you’ in return. This winds me up no end. My daughter spends weeks after her birthday and Christmas, sat at the table, writing out thank you letter, after thank you letter. She may only be doing it because I tell her to, but I’d like to believe that this slow and painful exercise in gratitude and appreciation, will last a lifetime.

Saying that, I do have concrete proof that all my years of nagging about the importance of good manners, have not been in vain. Last month she woke up, called for me and said “Please can you get me a bucket Mummy, I think I’m going to be sick”.  I even got a “Thank you”, a couple of minutes later, as she pulled her head out of her Barbie bin, looking slightly green around the gills and covered in last night’s dinner.

My 2 year old is also learning to say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ at the moment. Of course he is only parroting back what we say, and has no absolutely no idea why. But this is how kids learn. I go along with the philosophy of getting them while they are young. Hopefully then in years to come, a neighbour will never have to eye him up through their net curtains and wish they had a gun.

As for those loud mouthed pains on our street. It was a happy day for all when a SOLD sign recently went up. ‘Trouble’ is currently packing up and hopefully soon on it’s way. But it just goes to show, no matter where you live in the world, you can choose your house, but it’s completely pot luck who ends up living next door.

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For those from the planet Mars

Just to show that I am a fair and unbiased writer I thought I would add these ‘rules for men’ that I was sent, to go hand in hand with those that I previously put up for the ladies…

Of course this doesn’t mean that I agree with them. Some of them are bordering on the edge of being completely delusional. My husband on the other hand laughed his way through the entire list… and is currently outside having his dinner in the dog kennel.

The Man Rules

(Please note, these are all numbered “1″ on purpose, my finger did not go into a spasm over that particular key…)

1. Men are NOT mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1. Sunday sports It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.

1. Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!

1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That’s what we do.Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become Null and void after 7 Days.

1. If you think you’re fat, you probably are. Don’t ask us.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one

1. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible, Please say WHATEVER you have to say during commercials..

1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.

1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not A color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

1. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say “nothing,” We will act like nothing’s wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

1. If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to, Expect an answer you don’t want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine… Really .

1. Don’t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as football
or golf.

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!

1. Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight;

But did you know men really don’t mind that? It’s like camping.

If you know of a man who will appreciate this then please forward on the link!

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Battle of the baby sexes

Recently I was asked one of those questions that few people dare ask and even fewer wish to answer. A mother (of boys) asked me if it is true that parents of girls look down their noses at noisy little boys and believe them all to be badly behaved and completely undisciplined.

Why ask me? Having learnt that I had one of each, she obviously felt that I would be able to give an unbiased answer. Whether or not she expected an honest one I don’t know, but seeing as she was quite happy to ask a question that put me well and truly on the spot,  I thought she in turn turn deserved the truth.

And the truth is yes, for the most part they probably do.

This unspoken snobbery amongst parents of girls, whilst rarely admitted out loud has always been there. An assumption that their head to toe clad pink princess simply has to be cleaner, smarter, better behaved and without a shadow of a doubt a far nicer child than that unkempt little testosterone fueled terror on the other side of the playground. The one wearing his breakfast and trying to bury his head in the sand.

Deny it if you want all you mothers of Eve, but this is true. I know because up until the arrival of my own son, I also believed that many boys were the root of all undisciplined evil. I admit I could never understand why their parents didn’t just rein them in, shut them up and get them under some sort of control.

And then I had Sam. He learnt to walk, discovered his independence and only looked back when he was laughing at me. Finally it all became clear why girls and boys are so different, and surprisingly it had nothing to do with one being born with a halo and the other with a forked tail.

Little boys are like the Duracell Bunny, they are known for their unlimited energy and their love of running. Always in the opposite direction to an exhausted parent and often at breakneck speed towards a busy road. They tend to get dirtier faster and are often capable of ruining a complete outfit in 15 seconds flat, with nothing more than a piece of toast and a wet wipe in reaching distance.

They find sticking their hand into the toilet bowl and feeding the loo roll to the dog unbelievably funny. They have a strangely magnetic pull to the contents of every cupboard and drawer, particularly those containing knives, lighters and all deadly and poisonous cleaning fluids. They can take apart and lose the back of any TV remote in less time than it takes to cross the room and can scale any furniture like a seasoned mountaineer. They can increase their body weight to that of a baby elephant when they don’t want to be picked up and contort their limbs into a rigid banana when they don’t want to be pinned into their pram.

Girls on the other hand are often considered to be the quieter of the 2 sexes. Known to sit quietly on your hip and happily play with their toys. Known to help pick out their own clothes and even make an effort to keep them clean and tidy. Known to hold your hand when going out for a walk and if entrusted with a hand held whisk, regard it as a tool for mixing food with Mummy, not as a weapon with which to chase the cat and give it a perm.

Yes indeed, girls are known to be easier to deal with, easier on the ear drums, the energy levels and the nerves. But are they really all things sweetness and light? Does a pound of bacon really fly? Of course they aren’t.

Whether dealing with babies, toddlers or a child old enough to know better, girls and boys can be as bad as each other. Both can screech and scream just for the sake of making noise. Both can single handily depreciate the value of your home in 30 seconds and ruin the upholstery of your car inside of 5 minutes. Both can have such horrific tantrums in the middle of a crowded mall that you could quite easily stuff them head first in the nearest rubbish bin and walk away.

A child regardless of their sex is a complex individual, sometimes believed to be put there purely to test a parent’s sanity and to stretch all boundaries of socially acceptable behaviour. Some are sweet, loving and caring, some are bolshy, stubborn and incredibly sulky. All are a blank canvass, ready to be shaped into the person they will become and to be defined by what they are taught, what they observe and what they experience in the environment in which they grow.

So if all little babies are created and born equal, why are boys so quickly labelled as the nightmare sex and why is society so very quick to to re-enforce these misguided preconceptions?

You only have to look at any range of baby clothes to see that these stereotypes are ingrained into the minds of parents, and no doubt the child as well, from the moment they wear their first outfit.

Buying clothes for little girls is easy. There are always plenty to choose from and they’re always pretty, pink and covered in fairies, flowers and butterflies. Every top, t-shirt or babygro is labelled ‘Princess’, ‘Angel’, ‘Cutie Pie’ or ‘Fairy’.

Now move over to the boys section. Keep going, right to the back of the store, that’s it, those last few rails over there in the corner. The clothes here range from the ever so attractive sludge green to the ever so practical dirty brown. All tops, t-shirt or babygros here are covered in tyre tracks and muddy footprints and are inevitably labelled ‘Rascal’, ‘Trouble’, ‘Little Monkey’ or ‘Monster’.

Now aside from the obvious fact that most little girls I know could easily be described as Rascal, Trouble, Monkey or Monster, does it not seem slightly unfair to encourage and enforce this type of gender pigeon holing at such a young age?

Granted my son is generally always a little bit grubby, usually looking for mischief and always a tad on the destructive side, but it might be nice to occasionally be able to put him in a top that read ‘Well mannered and loves a good book’ or ‘Enjoys vegetables and always kind to animals’.

Babies are babies and children are children and they can all be a royal pain in the backside at some time or other (generally in my experience between 4-6pm). This labelling system seems to me to be an unrealistic and unfair generalisation, After all, very few little girls remain angels by the time their hormones kick in and most little boys have decided to cut worms from their diet and stop rolling in mud by the time they buy their first razor.

If babies are to be branded, then perhaps it’s time that the clothing companies came up with some more more realistic future personality and character traits.

I’ve come up with a few to get the ball rolling…

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