Splash Therapy

All things considered, it's been a bit a of a crappy week.

This is nothing new, just the usual February blues - Christmas is long gone, Spring is still too far away and the evenings and mornings are still dark and miserable. All that, and the whole Valentine's Day lunacy too - February is not my favourite time of year.

So, in the hope that a bit of weak, late-winter sun and some cold, fresh air would blow away some of the lingering malcontentment that makes me a rancid, horrible February ratbag, I packed the boy into the car this morning, and set off to our local butterflies, birds & wildlife place.

The boy, perhaps sensing my mood, sat in his buggy with politeness and good grace all the way around the tropical butterfly house, smiling and pointing obligingly in all the right places. He wasn't keen on the very loud squawking parrots - a shame, because Charlie the chattering Lory bird is a scream when he gets going - so we had to push on and out of the aviary.

(I wonder if the staff know that Charlie often says 'What's this? What's this? That's shit...' to the gathered pre-schoolers?)

Next up was Pet's Corner, where it seemed like a good enough opportunity to get him out of the buggy and let him have a walk. He chased the chickens, poked at the guinea pigs, and finally, we wandered off into Wallaby Paddock.

And that was when he saw it.

The huge, filthy puddle, lying straight ahead, right in the middle of the path.

'It's OK', I said. 'You've got your wellies on, that's what they're for - off you go'. He didn't need telling twice.

Today, I learned that there is no pleasure on earth to match that experienced by a one-year-old splashing in a puddle for the very first time. I nearly cried with laughter, as he danced, stamped, stomped, splashed, giggled and squealed and the filthy water sloshed all over the pair of us.

As an inexperienced, first-time parent of a toddler, I tend to find that these new experiences often teach me something new on a practical level - so here are today's lessons:

1. All the exciting, hoppity-hop action of an entire, free-roaming mob of tame wallabies is as nothing compared to the unadulterated joy to be had from one good, muddy puddle.

2. Any expedition that involves wellies will also necessitate a change of clothes. This is crucial, because...

3. ...you must choose trousers that will stay tucked in the wellies. The mid-splash-wardrobe-malfunction/no-spare-clothes combination is disastrous!

Bring on the April showers - I'm off out to get myself some new wellies, and get in on the Splash Therapy!

Photo courtesy of Flickr/sierraromeo

Let Them Eat Dirt

So says this week's New Scientist magazine, in an article to warm the hearts of lazy mummies everywhere.

I was once asked, in one of those mummy conversations, how often I disinfected our toys. 'Never', I said. 'Unless I found it down the toilet, or in the dog's mouth, and even then I'd probably just bung it in the dishwasher. A bit of dirt does them no harm.'

Whilst the hygiene debate amongst your average set of mothers-at-a-playgroup probably extends no further than allergies and asthma, it seems that the outlook for the child of a slightly slummy mummy could possibly be even brighter.

Here are the edited highlights:

'As strange as it sounds, epidemiologists are starting to uncover some unexpected links between our exposure to dirt and germs and our risk of cancer later in life...Such findings point towards a curious possibility: one way to avoid dying of cancer may be a hefty dose of germs.

The notion that living dirty has benefits may ring a bell. Researchers have been debating the 'hygiene hypothesis' for years, but it is typically discussed as an explanation for the rising incidence of allergies and asthma in developed countries, not cancer.

Now some researchers are starting to wonder whether the higher incidence of certain cancers in affluent populations - including breast cancer, lymphoma and melanoma - might also have something to do with sanitised, infection-free living. If they're right, the implications are huge.

There are of course huge problems. Assessing ways of preventing cancer, rather than treating it, can take decades. And no-one is suggesting deliberately exposing people to risky infections...when it comes to vaccines with a proven safety record, however, there are far fewer issues.'

Still, if your own mother was a hygiene queen, there are benefits to be had in other ways. Apparently, working in a cotton factory, or doing a job that involves breathing in lots of aerosolised manure (e.g. on a dairy farm) will also make you far less likely to develop lung cancer, even if you are a smoker.

Fantastic news all round. I'm looking forward to getting my good friend MadCow's take on the subject. She's called MadCow because she has substantial academic and professional expertise in the field of virology - and she always knows the juicy bits that the newspapers and magazines won't tell you.

In the meantime, I'm off to make the most of that season ticket to our local Open Farm - looks like there might be some new added value in it for us all!

A Mother's Morning Rollercoaster Ride

As always, the little blighter wakes you up far too early, and you just know you're in for a rough morning. You get out of bed feeling every inch the malevolent hag-beast that you know you are today, and the fact that he's demanding his milk right now isn't helping.

It's only 7:00 and you're already counting the minutes until his lunchtime nap.

This morning, he discovers that if he just presses the end of the sippy cup, the milk flows out of the end in a continuous stream, soaking your bedclothes.

Your mind starts formulating the letter you're going to write to the incompetent idiots who missed that particular design flaw, but you don't reach a conclusion because you know that once you get a minute to yourself, there'll be another 15 jobs demaning your attention that are far more important than wallowing in narkiness. You sigh, and resign yourself to buying yet another new cup, wishing you'd just given in and bought the expensive one in the first place.

There's no improvement over breaskfast, as he hones his aiming and throwing skills with some soggy Weetabix and your pyjamas. That stuff sets like cement within seconds, and you write a mental note to yourself - 'Must remember to scrape PJ bottoms before washing...'.

It's only 9:00 and you're still counting the minutes until his lunchtime nap.

You take him upstairs to clean his teeth and wash his face and hands, where he wriggles and squirms like a bag of angry cats. That job done, it's your turn, and as you sink into your shallow and by now lukewarm bath, you're hit on the back of the head by one of the balls you have thoughtfully provided to keep him occupied for the two minutes that you get each day to make sure that you are basically clean, and don't smell too horrible.

It's only 10:00 and you're still counting the minutes until his lunchtime nap.

It's Friday today, and there are no activities, so it's up to you to keep him entertained until lunchtime. You switch on CBeebies in the hope of some peace, but it's no use. You read every book he has, and although it's lovely that he likes his books, today he wants that really irritating one that was all the library had to offer, 20 times over. He's then seized by some evil demons of mischievousness, and proceeds to twang every nerve you possess, including your very last one, like the strings of a double bass. He runs from plug socket, to oven, to bin, to stairs, back to plug socket, just testing, testing, testing whether the behaviours that elicited a 'No' yesterday will get the same response today. He's quite clearly a budding scientist, because he seems to have an innate grasp of the fact that a quality experiment must be repeatable many, many times.

2 hours later, it's lunchtime, and your living room looks like an accident at a jumble sale. Still, it's 12:00, and there's only 60 mintues to go. You remember that The Husband insisted on cooking him chilli last night, and you sigh and wish you had put your foot down and insisted on Bolognese instead. There's no chance he's in the mood for something new. Especially rice.

In fairness, he gives it a good try, but spits most of it down his front. By this point, he's getting bored and ratty, and as the arm goes up for the kidney bean long fling, you whip the bowl away, take cover and woof the chilli down yourself, because by this stage, you really can't be arsed to cook your own lunch. One banana, many raisins, a grape choking incident, and a few Pom Bears later, you give up and decide to take him upstairs.

You try to change his nappy, and as usual, he's fighting you every step of the way. You put him on his back again, and lauch into a desperate, yet somehow hilariously ironic rendition of 'If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands' knowing full well, that he's tired and not in the least bit happy, and he doesn't even clap his hands on command yet, never mind in time to music.

Except this time, he does. You're amazed. You sing the second line. He does it again. As you reach the end of the verse, you're both laughing hysterically at this wonderful musical interaction, and he laughs and claps harder and says '' 'gen 'gen" Six verses and one clean nappy later, you pop him into his sleeping bag, draw the curtains, find his toy and settle down for a cuddle. He's shattered but relaxed and happy, and falls asleep in your arms within two minutes.

Just as his soggy little thumb drops slowly from his sleepy mouth and you lay him gently into his cot, you start counting again.

It's only 1:00, and you just can't wait until he wakes up, and you can give him an enormous hug and tell him how much you love him.

No, NO, NO!!

OK, that's pretty much all I seem to say these days, as a result of trial by toddler, and I really must get a grip and try some POSITIVE parenting.

Apparently, you are just supposed to ignore bad behaviour, but here's a quick list of behaviours that I simply can't ignore. Please, someone, tell me I'm not misjudging this?

1. Bashing toy bricks on my wooden table tops
2. Bashing toy bricks on the windows
3. Throwing toy bricks at the dog
4. Playing with plug sockets
5. Throwing toys down the stairs
6. Surfing on upturned activity tables
7. Playing with dirty nappies
8. Tipping food into Mummy's lap (the icy cereal milk actually made me scream...)
9. Flushing clothes down the toilet.

Repeat the above sequence of events about 75 times, and that's pretty much my day at the moment. Add to that the apparent dropping of the 2 hour lunchtime nap, and what you get is a woman on the edge of her sanity.

I'm handling it at the moment by taking him out lots. I've got a great story about a sweary parrot and some menacing wallabies at one of the local kiddie attractions, but it will have to wait till another time. The Husband and I are having a rare Night Out, and I must go and make myself look presentable. Finding something without snot trails on the shoulders and tomato sauce up the legs would be a good start. I won't recognise myself without them!

The Philosophy of Malcontentment

Apparently, I am 'not satisfied with anything I have'. This accusation was levelled at me yesterday morning, and not for the first time, either.

It's got me thinking, and two key questions are begging to be dealt with.

1) Am I guilty of this crime of which I stand accused?
2) Would that really be such a bad thing?

Let's deal with the first one. I've given it serious thought and reflection, and I'm going to have to plead Not Guilty and ask to be acquitted on a technicality.

I have so much to be grateful for in my life, and I have no intention of forgetting that there are billions of people out there with far, far less. Put like that, it almost seems rude to continue posting. But I decided to blog about stuff that we all often think, but don't necessarily like to say out loud. It's my belief that a permanent state of low-level dissatisfaction with life is a lot more usual than you might think.

For me, as for many of us I'm sure, this simmering low-level grumbliness has nothing to do with being dissatisfied with 'anything that I have'. In case I wasn't clear the first time, I'm happy with all of it.

It's about what I don't have, and in may cases, what I used to have, but don't have now. All of these things are intangible, and some of them are no longer realistic or appropriate, but that doesn't stop me missing them.

For example, I can no longer expect the level of freedom and autonomy that I had as a single late-20-something living and working in London. I have a husband and a child, and I therefore can't just pop out for a drink, and end up rattling home at 3 am in a cab, realising as we pull up outside the door that I have no cash left, and I am too shit-faced to write a legible cheque, or even sign the one that the driver has written out for me because I am on my sixth attempt and he is getting a bit bored with me by now.

I'm not saying that given the choice, that's what I'd do, but I miss having the freedom to make that call. I miss spontaneous visits to concerts and galleries, popping out for lunch, 'popping' anywhere! I miss being able to go to the gym any day I like, rather than when I can get a babysitter. And yes, sometimes I do get pissed off with all the restrictions that security and responsibility bring.

But is that such a bad thing? Let's look at it this way;

I chose to do a degree in Music and followed it up with a diploma in Arts Management. This was for a reason - I care about these subjects, and get great pleasure from being around them in real life. Yet I live in a town which is a cultural and creative vacuum. There is approximately fuck all going on within at least a 30 minute car-driven radius. I simply cannot fill that gap with shopping and TV. It would spell disaster for my marriage if I did.

So, I'm sorry if sometimes, I come across as a bit miserable, I really am. But I am not going to stop trying to achieve some of the things that meant a lot to me when I had unlimited Freedom and Choices instead of Family and Security.

They are the clotted cream in the jam doughnut, the gravy on the chips, the freshly chopped mint in the Pimms. But settling for life without them would be Giving Up. It would be the first step on the slippery slope towards Really Letting Myself Go. It is a path than can only culminate in weekends spent traipsing round Homebase in leggings looking for the latest crappy niknaks to fill the emotional void that my brain used to manage before I let it turn to mush.

And that's just not the way we do things around here.

Mummy's Day Off - Retrospective Introspection

So, I went to Cambridge for the weekend, and now I am all out of sorts.

One of my 'mummy' books told me that, whilst it is great to go back to your old ways once in a while, you can expect to find it all a bit shallow and meaningless in comparison to your new family life. Am I a terrible wife and mother because I had an amazing time, and really wish there could be a bit more of the same around here?

If a day in my old life had been mooching round some shitty shopping centre, and going out to a bar to get pissed, then yes, I see the problem. But the shops in Cambridge are lovely and the pubs are gorgeous and civilised, even on a Saturday night. My favourite chapel is there, where we heard music sung by one of the best choirs in the world, who were just sublime. We browsed in fantastic bookshops, where I was able to buy books about Logic and Postmodernism, as opposed to here, where it's all Jodie Marsh or Diets For People Who Can't Leave Chips Alone, But Don't Get Why They're A Bit Fat.

We also paid a visit to our real old life, on the other side of Reality Checkpoint and got all nostalgic over the lovely, quirky little independent shops that characterise Mill Road. And everywhere we looked, there were motivated people, doing real activities, not just dragging themselves round the shops looking for stuff to buy out of boredom.

And we laughed out loud when we saw this shop front along the main tourist drag. It's a ladies sportswear shop, in case you were wondering....

I think the only logical conclusion to come to is that unless you happen to be one of the very few people who have it all in life, or genuinely want very little, there are always going to be gaps that you still want to fill. I am hugely grateful that for me, those gaps are simply cultural. I would far rather have it that way round than be able to go to King's College Chapel every evening, but go home on my own to an empty house, or have to haul arse every day to the kind of job that nearly drove me to insanity back in 1997.

I'll just have to hope that SweatyBetty decides that she does want to do her theological training in Cambridge after all. I'll be buying a comfy airbed and a big rucksack, and she'll never see the back of me. And if that doesn't send her scuttling to Oxford or Durham, then nothing will!