Bleh

Yes I know, I've been a bit absent. Sorry.

I've had a post drifting around my head these past couple of weeks, something about how I am not managing that whole life-work balance thing very well, but even not fully coalesced it didn't seem to be going anywhere other than a big boring whinge.

My current work project is stressing me, I've been sick since my birthday, I'm tired all the time, I don't have time to do lots of things I'd like to do, my kids never listen to me the first time I say something, my husband isn't always home, household chores are tedious, oh woe is me.

Really, you should be thanking me for not writing a longer version of all that.

So anyway, I'm coming out of the funk but am still not very inspired and so escaping into books every evening rather than, you know, actually doing any of those things I'd like to do when the kids are in bed and my husband's not here.

I'm off to Hogwarts ... hope to have something to say soon.

Five

There he is, my lanky boy, running ahead, riding his bike, riding his scooter, walking up a mountain.

There he is again, cornering some poor adult, happily chatting about anything, nothing, everything.

Now he's helping me to cook, helping with the shopping, setting the table, clearing away his plate.

Or helping Lukan to take off his jacket or shoes, to find a toy, to make something work.

Suddenly he bursts into song, something he's learnt at school or his music class.

Then he's playing a game, properly, one with rules and winners and losers.

And in between all this, he still asks for hugs, comes into bed for a morning cuddle, holds my hand, races to me when he gets out of school (although a good-bye kiss when I drop him off is getting rarer...). He still thinks I know everything, still wants to tell me things. Same with his papa.

He's delighted to see all his extended family.

He's delighted to spend time with our friends.

I have a feeling that five is going to be the best year ever.

Except, he could quit pretending to fart on us. And really farting on us.

Please.

Observations from yesterday

At a workshop, where the participants are likely to want to talk to one another over lunch, spaghetti is a bit of a cruel choice for the caterers to have made.

Wearing a G string back-to-front is quite unpleasant.

Having an ear infection is worse.

On the right track

So there's a lot of articles and blogs out there giving an opinion on how to raise children. Never punish, never reward, because it teaches them you only love them when they're good. Encourage extensive role play as it's the only way to teach them to control their impulses. Practise benign neglect so that they learn to do things by themselves. Let them be free-range. Be a good enough parent, not a perfect one.

It's hardly surprising then that my parenting is a bit of a hodgepodge, a blending of ideas from different sources that fit into my general take on parenting. A take that, I admit, leans heavily towards what fits with my own personality and experiences, and a whole lot less heavily on sifting through the evidence for or against certain actions. A take that can also sometimes be a little contradictory in the details. Or change depending on my mood. Ahem.

So anyway, mostly I'm OK with this, but sometimes I wonder whether I'm doing the right thing, whether the haphazard path I'm dragging my children down will lead to where I want them to be: responsible, self-sufficient, realistic, thoughtful, able to speak up but also to listen, able to think critically and not just follow the crowd.

And every now and again, when someone describes something parents most definitely should not do in order to have children like this, and it's something I do do, well, I have a moment of worry.

Yesterday I read an article that got me wondering. And perhaps worrying. Do I coddle my kids too much?

You see, I have read several books that say you shouldn't deny what a kid is feeling, which makes sense to me. So, for example, I have always let my boys cry as long and as loudly as they want when they are hurt. I don't encourage the crying, but neither do I shush it. But my parents were more like the this author's parents - not as extreme, but definitely not pandering to minor scrapes, discomforts, or illnesses. And she went the other way with her own kids, and ended up regretting it.

So should I be harder on my kids? Because actually, like this author, I do think that having to tough things out as a kid made me stronger, made me better able to accept discomfort and nuisances as an adult. Made me aware that life is not always fair, or easy, and that I couldn't just expect to always get what I wanted.

And then I started thinking of Téo's reading lessons, which I am letting him do at his own slow pace. Am I giving him too much freedom here? Should I force him a bit more? Because even though I hated it at the time, I am now infinitely grateful that my father was so hard on my writing. He set me up for life. And his praise when I did write well - I don't remember thinking that he only loved me because I had done what he wanted, I remember feeling good about myself. It's not really wrong to praise is it? To expect certain things of our children and acknowledge it when they do them?

Worry worry worry.

Then this morning, Lukan was mucking up over breakfast. The New Regime means a zero-tolerance policy - either he eats when Téo and I eat, or he misses breakfast.

He missed breakfast.

There was much wailing.

As I put on his shoes, I explained (again) that if he didn't eat when we did, he wouldn't eat at all. That I was sorry he missed breakfast ... and then before I could say but tomorrow you can, Téo piped in with:

But that's life.

I guess that at least answers my worries about coddling.

Random whinges

New clients, if I send you an estimate of the time I need for a writing project, based on what you have told me about the project, then I would prefer that the contract you send me based on that estimate doesn't include extra work that you have never before mentioned. Because actually, I am not a charity. And it's RUDE. (This has happened to me twice in the past week. )

Authors, if you are writing a book set in the future, please don't explain what's happening as if the characters know they are writing/being written about for people from the past. Because seriously, do people today say things like I got in the car, a wheeled machine that runs on a new-fangled fuel source called petrol, to go to the supermarket, a large store where you can buy all sorts of things? No, they do not. So be intelligent, and write in a way in which we can imagine the future. We're quite smart, we'll figure it out. Really.

Body, sometimes my brain needs chocolate. Just a little piece, like this afternoon. So it would be nice if you didn't react with itching skin, and even better if you didn't erupt in large, painful cysts. OK?

OK so this is freaky

After I hit publish on that last post, the page I got on Blogger telling me I'd published successfully had an ad... for a death test. Yes, a test to calculate out when I will die.

So, I did it, but then it turned out it would send the answer to my mobile phone and I'd have to pay. So I searched for another test, and this one required my weight in pounds, so I went to a metric converter site, which had an ad for... the death test.

Why is the internet so keen to rub my nose in my mortality?

(I didn't get any ad when I published this post. Cue the Twilight Zone music...)

Nope, sorry, this isn't going to work

So I feel that I'm able, pretty quickly, to judge whether I like something or not. Judge whether it's me or not.

Like, when we were looking for a house to buy, I just knew, the second of walking in the door - and actually probably before we had even finished parking - whether or not I could live in the one we were visiting.

I'm pretty sure you know what I'm talking about, that reaction somewhere deep inside you, not articulated or reasoned out, but nevertheless a very strong for sure in no uncertain terms no doubt about it NO WAY. And the just as strong for sure in no uncertain terms no doubt about it YES! when the thing in question is perfect.

And I'm sure that, like me, even when your body was screaming NO WAY, you have sometimes tried to convince yourself that you could do it, could learn to be happy with whatever the thing in question was. And then either realised what a disaster that would be, or lived to regret thinking you could make this thing fit you.

So. I am very in no uncertain terms no doubt about it sure that I cannot be 40.

I haven't even bothered trying to convince myself that I can make it work. It just won't.

I have this image of a big black boldface 40 in my head, and it's apart from me, and I can't make it fit into me. It's like my mind is baulking at the possibility. Nope, it's saying, not possible. Not 40. No. NO WAY.

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I've been feeling a bit, I dunno, melancholy I guess, about the whole 40 thing for a while now. Realising, but not wanting to accept, that I am middle-aged. Realising that most people I know now, know me as I am now - responsible, sensible, a mother - and will never know my younger self. Understanding what's behind a mid-life crisis. And resenting the walnut tree in our back yard because it will live longer than me.

It's not that I want to go back in time - I definitely like myself a lot better now than the me I remember in her 20s.

I just don't want to get older, to be old. The thing is, I can't help seeing the future mapped out for me, in a way I never did before. At 30, I never thought of being 40, or 50, or 60. I just couldn't imagine it. But now it's like I have anchors in the future, through my children. When I turn 50, Téo will be 15 and Lukan 12... and at 60 Téo will be 25 and Lukan 22... and at 70 Téo will be 35 and Lukan 32 ... and then... will I even be around after that?

It doesn't seem like much time left.

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Can't I just stay in my 30s?