Captain Eggpants

The school’s Easter Egg Competition is a creative, fun and frantic affair where children decorate a single egg or a whole scene of eggs (that’s the keen guys, who also sit on the top table for Maths and English, and who bring things in to show every day). The children may be helped, controversially, by their parents, causing much bitching amongst the parents who insist their kids muck it up all on their own: ‘I can’t believe an eight-year-old made that solar-powered spaceship from three thousand blown eggs’. Amusing titles are de rigeur – for instance ‘Eggs Factor’ (I’m already laughing) or ‘The Olympegs’ (catch yourself!)

I hoped to be retelling the ups and downs of supporting a wilful nine year old’s emerging creativity in the eggy line, perhaps a collaboration with friends encompassing both teamwork and imagination! However Bonnie took her usual ‘I decide what I do and when’ stance to murderous degrees, and wasn’t going to be bamboozled into some silly egg painting a couple of days early, when there would doubtless be a perfectly serviceable slave on hand with nothing better to do than run around boiling eggs, super-cooling them and leaping about fetching materials at 8pm the night before show-time. This timeline allowed her to focus on the more important matter of her school disco outfit for later in the week, in case she were scouted for a touch of modelling somewhere between our house and the disco.

I screeched on regardless. ‘How about ‘Dog Eggspert!!’ HA HA!’ - as she rumbled through the clothes she already knew she had. ‘Mummy my new pants will match the dress but I have no jacket to go on top at all’. ‘Bonnie you are nine years old. You should be playing in the park, having fun – making your egg entry - not trying to look like a supermodel!’ (old bag) ‘Oh stop going on about the egg competition, Mummy!’ said she. ‘I’m doing Captain Eggpants OK?!’ I squirmed at the lack of pun. Captain Eggpants?? My idea was so funny and brilliant...

I went off disconsolately to boil a single egg which she grabbed (without admiring my boiling skill - no cracks) and started sploshing paint onto while it was still steaming hot. ‘WAIT!’ I shrieked. ‘Use a pencil to draw your design first.’ ‘Mum, mum, MUM!’ she whined ‘I can’t draw the waistline on it. You do it.’ But I was feeling bloody-minded (no praise for the tenderly boiled egg). ‘Yes, you can’ I said, ‘Just put a little dot half way up the egg, like this, then turn it-’ ‘I CAN’T DO IT – YOU DO IT’ she shouted, ‘OR DO YOU WANT IT TO BE RUBBISH?’ She slapped the paint on and tossed the egg at me to hold for an hour while it dried so she could look through her nail varnishes. I put the egg down (reasonably) carefully but somehow it ended up in the dog’s mouth and the paint was licked off. Suddenly the egg was the most precious thing Bonnie’d ever made and there was howling. I fixed it up ‘Good as new!’ but then it was knocked off the table and smashed up for good. ‘I’ll just boil another - you can make it even neater this time!’ I sing-songed, as if it were a marvellous stroke of luck that Captain Eggpants had been sucked by the dog then dashed on the floor.

It being past nine by now, I felt Captain Eggpants’ could go without his signature red cloak but obviously it was a waste of time voicing this opinion. ‘This is exactly why I asked you to start two days ago’ I muttered. ‘You’re the one who’s entering this egg competition and here’s me at midnight charging around...’ ‘You’re the one who wants me to enter!’ she said, which shut me up. I stuck the red cloak and my finger onto the egg with superglue, but Bonnie disagreed with the positioning and in trying to slide the stuck-on cloak down the egg, my thumb ended up up Captain Eggpant’s bum with a nail full of boiled egg and no ideas how to make this seem fine. I quickly hid his bottom in an egg-cup. ‘How about I do your nails now, sweetie?’

Lemon Glue

There goes Christmas for another year - done! (but not dusted). A combination of ice and illness has now transformed us into a clutch of activity-averse, pallid-skinned yawners, lumbering in slow motion from one warmish-spot to another, our pathetic radiators (‘OK, we give up’) providing less heat than the steam off a cuppa. The children are flicking switches, topping up their pouches with chocolate, and lying amongst banks of handcream, Florentines, cranberry chutney, sweet wrappers, teddies, books flicked and left, Wii discs out of boxes, CDs, DVDs, malting tinsel, pine needles, all the rubbish chocolates, and things half-put-away by me before exhaustion set in at the thought of the BIG SORT OUT required to find crevices for all the new junk.

But that's what holidays are for, isn't it? Unwinding, emptying your head - I get that, dood (at least I try to). Why not watch morning TV!!? For a long time? Why not? Why not sleep till 1pm? Only nutcases and competitive freaks would consider squeezing five minutes flute practice out of their over-pushed children, or dragging them out in the cold to experience the snow upon their mitts, or getting homework done before the first day of term - honestly, those poor kids! Not me, no. This emancipated mum rejects middle-class pressures (for two weeks) and will provide instead a loving and cosy nest for her little chicks to snuggle in…

But occasionally my stomach goes flip. Oh no! We are dumbing down! Why won’t the girls select the Plight of Wild Black Bears in Minnesota instead of Friends, just occasionally? What is wrong with us that we don’t want to do anything?? Oh no, oh no! Something has gone terribly wrong. Get your violin out! Read the damn book! ‘Have you got any homework?’ I ask Maddy. ‘Mummy! Not now!’ as if I’d suggested skinning a rabbit. ‘But you are doing nothing, I believe’ I dare to utter. ‘Actually I’m exploring my ipod touch’ (eight days and counting) ‘and later I’m meeting a friend to eat crisps and sit down’.

Apart from the occasional neurotic flare-up on my part (six gigantic pink and lime storage boxes from Wilkinsons – put things in boxes, it doesn’t matter what!) I'd just about got the hang of the slothing, when blow me, Bonnie started getting all active! ‘I’m opening my Slime Set’ she said. ‘Wonderful darling!’ I shouted, hoisting myself out of my coma of low level housework. Father Christmas had given her various arty sets to keep her busy for a few months, but no, she was going to do them all today, starting with mixing up the olive oil, sugar and lemon facial scrub (‘You can use some when I’ve made it Mummy!’) requiring vigorous whipping according to Bonnie’s take on the directions. So I’m wiping it off the walls while she tips the remainder on the floor and starts on the second row of her knitting, which I’ve been passing from one surface to another since Christmas Day. ‘Mummy! Are you listening to me? I’ve dropped a stitch!’ and it’s off with the marigolds (support the creativity – do not complain!) to check the knitting and stand in the lemon glue.

At this point, I introduce a reminder in my getting cross now voice that she needs to clear up one activity before starting the next. ‘Yes, Mummy’ and she floats a paper towel down to my feet for me to use, simultaneously beckoning, ‘Come on Mummy, I want to make the pyjama case in my Girls Annual!’ I leave my shoes in the oil slick and get her some old pyjamas to cut up. ‘Mummy, I thought you wanted me to learn how to sew! Why aren’t you helping me?’ Up I come off the floor again where I’ve discovered oil and sugar to be a challenging combination for one who does quantity but not quality cleaning. We discuss cutting and stitching and I thread a needle, all on tippy toes because of sticky feet. She does a couple of enormous stitches then Maddy appears, having risen alarmingly before mid-day to train Bonnie in using her new Wii game. ‘May I go Mummy? Please?’ I pretend disappointment for a millisecond, then smile ‘Oh, go on then’, because I only want her to be happy..

Advent Calendars

Call me a silly old maid, but I do like a traditional Advent Calendar, definitely no chocolates, just little Mary or the donkey (clip-clop!) peeping out of a window to warm the cockles and give a flicker of meaning to this daft and directionless existence…The children, however, are willing to forego time-honoured tradition in favour of a cheap choc with their cornflakes.

Obviously, I don’t get my way, so we end up with both kinds, and sneer vigorously at each others’ calendars:

‘Chocolates first thing! YUK! Look at my lovely Nativity Scene!’
‘Bully for you, Mummy! You are living in the dark ages – everybody has a chocolate advent calendar these days! We don’t just want boring old pictures. Yum yum - this chocolate is delicious!’

Sometimes I break down and ask them for a bit.

This year, though, I had a plan: I’d ask Bonnie to make the Advent Calendar. That’d get her on side, and the others wouldn’t dream of hurting her feelings by buying chocolate calendars (this bit had me edgy, I’ll admit). We’d gather around her lovely home-made calendar each morning; what heart-warming yuletide image would surprise us today?! The Three Kings? The Star of Gabriel? I couldn’t wait!

‘Bonnie’ I said, pulling up a chair conspiratorially, ‘Would you do me a big favour? Would you make our advent calendar this year? Completely secret from the others mind you….’ She bought it hook, line and sinker, and set to with pens and paper behind a cereal packet at the end of the table…

Josie was tense and shouty, in the middle of GCSE mocks: ‘I know nothing at all. I don’t care how many times you say I’m good at maths, I am not. You are just making me more upset. And I need total quiet; how long are you going to be banging about?’

So I went away to offer Maddy some guidance with her crucial science test (GET UP!!). She’d flunked the previous one by being in her flute lesson instead (‘Wh-wh-what? WHAT?? Didn’t you say anything to your teacher?’ ‘You want me to learn the flute don’t you?’). I spoke crossly to the motionless lump in her bed: ‘You are not to leave the house until you have revised all thirteen chapters of the Science Revision Guide!’ Excellent – everybody sorted! Now I was free to go Christmas shopping.

Two hours later, frozen with indecision and full of loathing for Christmas, I returned home, to find a house buzzing with activity: Alan was under the covers with the radio memorising weather forecasts in case I tried to switch our so-called heating off; Alfie was sitting on a blank sheet of homework, googling ’Thirty ways to annoy your little sister’; Josie was weeping in the bath (‘All this work is killing me!’); and all that remained of Maddy was a note explaining that, unfortunately, she’d had to go straight to her sleepover party, otherwise she would have missed kick-off and therefore a tiny fraction of the TV and junk consumption planned for the next twelve hours. She was now uncontactable because her phone was in a bowl of rice(obviously) to draw out the moisture that had got inside it when she dropped it down the loo. But don’t worry - she’ll do all the revision whenever she shows up tomorrow, full of get-go after four hours’ sleep. Only dear Bonnie – never any trouble from her – was engaged in anything remotely constructive, still diligently drawing Advent Calendar pictures behind the cereal packet. I mounted her lovely little pictures, placing the stable scene in the 24th December window with a frisson of excitement.

Best laid plans and all that – sadly, my Advent Calendar scheme was scuppered at the eleventh hour; Bonnie was given a chocolate Advent Calendar at Brownies! (thank you so much, Brown Owl). It was only a matter of time until the rest of the children had chocolate calendars too…

Still, we all gathered round on December 1st for the Grand Opening of the first window of Bonnie’s calendar... and...there it was! MARY HOLDING BABY JESUS!!!

Bonnie screamed: ‘MUMMMMMY!!! THAT’S THE LAST PICTURE!!! NOW EVERYONE’S SEEN BABY JESUS!!! YOU’VE DONE IT ALL WRONG – YOU’VE RUINED THE WHOLE THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’
I sat down. Oh dear. ‘Can someone give me a chocolate, please?’

Learning Slippage

The radio had me choking on my wheatabix this morning when it informed me that middle class children enjoy the benefit of educational forays to museums and art galleries with their parents throughout the year whereas less fortunate children (my children would say more) suffer ‘Learning Slippage’, dilly dallying at home causing the brain to go to mush (thanks alot), and requiring relearning on the Monday of what they were supposed to have off pat on the Friday.

‘Your mouths are still blue, children’ I said, surveying the evidence of serious Learning Slippage the day before, when I’d bought myself some time ‘allowing’ them (pushed them out the door) to go to the corner shop for magazines. They’d returned with mock sorrow: ‘They didn’t have the magazines we like!’ This had compelled them to buy a shed load of sweets (slippage!), the centrepiece being ‘Lickety Lips’, a roll-on deodorant-style bottle filled with electric blue syrup to smear over (and stain) the inside and outside of the mouth. ‘That is revolting’ I’d said, delighted it would last for ages and let me finish my e-mails.

I may have a case of Learning Slippage myself, because I don’t actually see how going to the V&A to make a cloth bag or some such is going to help my son remember how to spell ‘stashun’, nor how skidding up and down that slopey bit at the Tate Modern will improve anyone’s simultaneous equations, but I’m willing to be told, and anyway once the radio has begun terrorising me with good parenting directives it’s only a matter of time before we have to go out on one of “Mummy’s awful trips’.

I peeled my mug mat, the National Gallery Free Family Events programme, off the table: ‘Watercolours! We can learn to paint with watercolours at the National Gallery!’ ‘OH NO!’ roared Alfie, ‘YOU CAN’T MAKE ME DO IT!’. But I had the bit between my teeth, and go we did, armed with the promise of extended TV upon return, and arriving at the gallery in time to play in the cloakroom, which is how I garotted my forehead on a coat hook with such force that my vision went weird and I had to sit down quietly for a bit, pushing Alfie and Bonnie forward to join all the bright girls and boys listening to the rules: ‘Don’t touch! And make sure your parents don’t wander off! haha!’ I was still seeing stars as we sat down before the chosen Gainsborough for some interactive teaching, in fact I rather embarrassingly nodded off (knocked out?) somewhere between ‘use of perspective’ and ‘colour tones’, but I rallied to encourage Alfie with his ‘initial study’ (‘that’s a fantastic table, Alfie!’ ‘It’s a dog’). The visiting artist demonstrated how to ‘develop’ the study by building up watercolours in blocks, and all the high achievers set to, carefully mixing colours and eyeing each others’ artwork.…all except Alfie, who decided the best way to sidestep the imminent humiliation was to have a little fun, as with his cross-curricular ‘Portrait of a Tudor Man’ which might have made the class display if he’d resisted adding a pig’s snout at the last minute. So in the workshop, he poured all the water and paint allotted to our table over his initial study (the dog/table) and stirred it wildly to a batter, singing loudly all the while, a challenging smile thrown at me as he wrung it out and lobbed it in the bin: One nil to Alfie.

Happy and fulfilled after this splendid educational foray, the children waited a polite thirty seconds after we got home before switching on for the promised Learning Slippage and I trotted off to my quarters for me-time with the radio and the rock hard wheatabix. ‘MUM! THE TELLY’S NOT WORKING!!’ It was doing that flickery thing that makes you epileptic. Oh Lord, grant me Learning Slippage, and grant it now. ‘Leave it to me’ I said, frantically unplugging all the plugs (‘Thanks a lot! Now we have to go right back to the beginning of the programme!’) and sticking them in again, which is how clever old Alan fixes it. ‘It’s broken, children.’ I said, reaching for the pills. Bit I jogged it accidentally, and all the lights flashed on. It started humming…and so did I.

Jam Tarts and Sag Aloo

Alone this weekend; Alan's away on a luxury golfing foray! Well, he needs a rest from the stresses and strains of life at the cutting edge of Human Resources. I am not resentful in the least, certainly not. Or noting with interest that it is raining.

I, then, am holding the fort, without car (no problem!) but hopefully with good humour. We got off to a good start after school on Friday. I'd set out an activity for Bonnie and her friends (packet of ready-rolled). There was ground to make up; she'd just had her class assembly (Greeks) and anyone could see that the 'costume' I'd provided her with was a double sheet bound round and round and round her until she resembled an enormous cotton reel. It was so heavy that she had to pin her arms to her sides throughout the performance to keep it from thudding to the floor. She gave the dances her best shot, lifting each arm dead fast - updown! updown!- one at a time, but she couldn't really let rip. When I cast an eye over the bronze chokers, the off-the-shoulder robes and the Cleopatra eye make-up of her mates, I had to admit I could have made more of an effort.

Anyway, I got brownie-points for the ready-rolled; 'Let's make tarts!' I beamed, perfect Mom. It was all going nicely, tart sale set up in the front garden, passers-by running for cover, children shouting 'Tarts for sale! Tarts for sale!', when oops-a-daisy, the whole cake-stand went down with a crash! Bonnie was in floods. I swept up the crushed tarts, blowing off the mud - 'Look!' taking a (gritty) bite, 'they're fine!' but it didn't wash. She was inconsolable.

I'd planned some quality time with Josie too, allowing her an indian takeaway while we watched a film together. But we'd just switched on when she dropped her vegetable curry onto the front room floor-boards (unfilled,until now). I swooped with a baby wipe, 'watch what you're doing, Josie!', pushing more into the cracks, and making her nervy, so then she stood on all the poppodums, which was obviously more than I could bare. 'Sit down and lift up your feet' I snapped. With my nose in the sag-aloo and my head under her legs, I didn't feel like bonding any more. Quality time can be over-rated.