I'm all about the idle parent

THE MANIFESTO OF THE IDLE PARENT by Tom Hodgkinson

We reject the idea that parenting requires hard work
We pledge to leave our children alone (and not nag them to smithereens)
We reject the rampant consumerism that invades children from the moment they are born
We read them poetry and fantastic stories without morals
We drink alcohol without guilt
We reject the inner Puritan
We don’t waste money on family days out and holidays
An idle parent is a thrifty parent
An idle parent is a creative parent
We lie in bed for as long as possible
We try not to interfere
We play in the fields and forests
We push them into the garden and shut the door so we can clean the house
We both work as little as possible, particularly when the kids are small
Time is more important than money
Happy mess is better than miserable tidiness
Down with school
We fill the house with music and merriment
We reject health and safety guidelines
We embrace responsibility
There are many paths
More play, less work

It’s rare that I come across something with which I identify so much.

The one with the stuff

Tis been a while eh?
Since my last blog, I mean.

So stuff.....
1. Had a birthday. I am now the ripe old age of 36, that sure as hell is closer to 40 than 30 isn't it. We trundled off to Cadbury World and enjoyed all the chocolatey goodness that it entailed. (scroll down for pics in no particular order)

2. Stealth's theatrical stuff. He is in a show this weekend and is a bit wobbly about it. It's quite a production and they are doing 3 performances with about 800 + peeps coming to see it in total. Bless.

3. Journeymama is truly my heroine. Check her blog out, google journeymama and see what lovelyness ensues. I have followed her for a while but the other day I sat down and read through her blog archives from 2006 to 2008 and was just enthralled. This mama can write.

4. Had a lovely evening with friends for Earth hour. Candle lit chit chat and drinks. No music, no tv. Perfick.

5. Toasty evening in front of the fire pit in the garden with carnelian dude and CK and Stealth. Played with the torch and shadows including Stealths impression of Ginormica ( Monsters v Aliens ref..)

6. Monsters v Aliens, nice movie to while away a couple of hours.

7. All things newfie. Carnelian dude happened to mention that he is a bit desperate for another newfie dawg and now I am ALL.ABOUT.THE.NEWF.
I just love em, love em, love em. Until you've been owned by a newf you have no idea what I'm on about.
They are the reason why the gods/goddesses invented dogs.

And now that he's admitted he'd one day (if you're reading this carnelian dude - how about next year, or christmas time, maybe summer or what's wrong with getting one next month.....lol) like another one then I am ALL.ABOUT.THE.NEWF again.

In my head and heart I've already worked out how much it'd cost to feed one,pet plan, where it'd sleep and looking at cars going "you'd never fit a newf in that.." when obviously you could as we have managed to stick a fully grown retriever, newf, 2 kids and 2 adults in a renault clio before now!!!

8. Ck has done a painting for a local yet city wide competition. Fingers crossed. (scroll down for pics)

One day at a time.

5 things,

1. I managed to go out over the weekend - shopping and eating and the like. Sounds easy to say but it was nerve wracking none the less. But I did it!
2. Helped someone find the mobile phone they had lost.
3. Bought a box to keep mementos in, a tangible reminder of the positives in my life.
4. Stealth had the most wicked of evenings last night and it was awesome to see him really enjoying himself.
5. Tiramisu....... mmmmmmm

I'm ill so here's some snow

The one with Anastasia Beaverhausen

How's this for all kinds of funny, I was on my way into town with CK and Stealth - on the bus that is.. No, no, that's not the funny bit, me being on a bus!! Anyhoos, we were sat right at the back and two rows in front of us were 4 sk8ter boiz complete with skateboards and badly styled hair. So, I'm sat with my sprogs and we were just chatting and milling til it was time to get off the bus when lo and behold I over-heard this little gem from quiet sk8ter boi number 1- are ya ready??


"So right, I heard that if you get touched on your thigh in a certain place it's like 1/8th of an orgasm"


Now likkle sk8ter boi, this iz funni. I did teh laffing mi self 2 wetness and death.




I think the schools system needs to work on their sex ed classes a little more..... haha.

PS...

NOTE.TO.SELF!
Do not ever think, that when you have goulash cooking on your stove you'll have time for a quickie with your beloved, as inevitably said quickie will take longer than it does for the goulash to stick to the bottom of the pan.....

Lesson learnt.

Stuff

So, stuff.
1. Finding out Red Nose Day '09 is on my birthday.
2. My black mood is still with me.
3. Dreams.... well, over the past week I have dreamt the following at some point or other, being pregnant, attending an all girls school, deformed shark jumping out of a pond to try and bite my legs off ( while at all girls school..), back stage at theatre - working, cops and robbers, George Clooney being at my house and sitting in 3 different chairs whilst not taking no for an answer.. pig and sheep giving birth simultaneously at my house (while Mr Clooney is trying it on!) - pig upstairs and sheep downstairs and the lamb that is delivered (in technicolour) is same size as it's mum... circus antics.
4. CK and Stealth grumbling at each other all the time.
5. Me and Carnelian Dude having an argument ( a very rare occurrence).
6. CK has done some awesome art today, I mean really awesome! If I can get chance to scan it in I will.
7. I broke the hamsters cage - so Jammie now has a pad worthy of CRIBS.
8. Bigger dog broke my solar powered outdoor (obviously-duh...) fairy lights and came in the house with them trailing behind her. It took us ages to work out where they had attached themselves to her... She is now sans lights.
9. Finished my Scottish letter, writing a letter with lots of Glaswegian banter in it when I'm no Scottish by birth is no easy, let me tell yous.
10. Dan at 0ddness says kebabs are bad for you.

Universal joke

So, I reckon the universe had a bad case of comedy tourettes when it decided I should join planet Earth...  I mean some days I don't even think I'm human let alone able to fit in and just BE.

Most people lurve being who they are and going places, meeting people, doing new things, experiencing highs and lows, laughing, eating, loving, playing, doing... you get the picture?

I barely know if I can make it through half a day without crying or hurting or making somebody else cry or hurt.

More and more I find myself wanting to be still and peaceful. So my brain doesn't race and my thoughts aren't hurtling about at light speed, but it is such an unattainable goal that I give up and let the cold, world weary, negative voice that is my internal dialogue just sit there and nag at me about how useless I am compared to everyone else or how fat I am or stupid I am or how ugly I am or disgusting I am.... Where as everyone else is just peachy.

And I just keep listening to it.

Soooo

Carrie aka CK



Don Corleone aka Me



Sooooo, teenagers. Not only don't they have any adventure they also put your back up quite a bit.

Take for example my CK, she's heavily into this Carrie look. You know the evil stare from said girl of said film. CK you have to use a dictionary instead of your ipod - cue Carrie stare... CK says " but Mum, I really wanted to wrap that present for girly girl" me - " well CK you could have done it this morning instead of watching Fame or what ever programme..." cue Carrie stare.... Stop messing with the candles, making wax balls on the end of dead matches while sat on the highly combustible settee, cue Carrie stare.

If I wake up drenched in pigs blood I will not be surprised at all.

Although things might then take a turn for the worse as I will take the lead role in a likkle ol' film known as the Godfather - badda bing badda boom. Lets see how Carrie stands up to Vito and Michael Corleone. Supernatural or not - that Carrie is in for it.

Boarding schools should be free to people who blog.

Dead Duck

So obviously the picture is of a live duck... But today I saw a dead duck and it wasn't floating in a pond... It was near a tree, dead. And CK wouldn't take a photo of it on her phone so you'll never know what a real dead duck looks like... unless you manage to find one - then you'll know.

I am tired and weary. Wanting to run away to be a carny as the only place I feel comfortable in my own house is in the kitchen and that's just begging for food to be cooked isn't it.

I can't believe CK didn't want to do a comic strip about who was behind the fiendish death of the errant duck... We were all poised for CSI quackers but NOOOO.

Teenagers, no sense of adventure.

Haiku Monday

bicycles gallop
warmly, pebble speaks, ringing
cheerfully, dancing

Haiku Monday

Snow falling gently
Really wet and horrible
Where's my M P 3

Blogging comments

Wow, I caused waves with someone after I made a comment about someone's comment on a blog I read pretty much daily...
Comment boxes are, I think, not an easy thing to use effectively. All you see are the written words with no level of intonation or body language. Hmmm, difficult.
The blog in question is one that I feel some common ground with as the blogger has similar issues and trials and tribulations ( albeit in another country, my husbands home land). Not common ground to do with the physical problems of living in a country where if there is no milk that week - there is no milk that week ( experienced that for a short while though, in another country!!) but the weight of being a wife, mother, friend, home schooler, neighbour.. general human being really!

I am who I am- as is the other person, who maybe just needed to be a little more eloquent in her writing so as to convey the true meaning of the words in her comment (not that I am a brilliant writer by any means..)

Plus, I'd just found out that my friends pregnancy (see previous post) was coming to a bitter end when I wrote the comment.

By the way, I did call her (the commenter) stoopid and poopy.

Ah well, we were easy targets for each other. Although I think she will probably bear me more ill will than I her, but I am going to move on and take with me the fact that the person whose blog the negative seeming comment was on originally, has seen that so many people feel that she is a person worth cherishing and even though things ARE difficult for her, they are supportive of her journey and not critical of it, letting her blog be an outlet for her joys and sorrows.

Ciao xx

5 Things

Five things that have happened over last few days,

1. Shitty things have happened, my friend lost her baby. Actually it's worse than that - the pregnancy wasn't progressing so now they are having to wait for a miscarriage. Plus this was her first try at IVF after being told she had a ridiculously low chance of becoming pregnant EVER and had spent the last year trying to do everything possible to improve her chances of sustaining a pregnancy. She is desperate to be a mum and is the kind of person who deserves to be one. A cyber friends Grandma passed away and it has crushed him. And stuff, just plain ol' shitty stuff.

2. I have to start my art journal again....

3. I wanted to do this cool blog interview thing but have been so bummed out by recent events I couldn't get my head round it.

4. Stealth's reading age has developed by about 6 years over the space of maybe 3 weeks due to some good science fiction books. God bless ya Mr Eddings and all who sail in ya!

5. I have used turnip in my cooking twice, in one week... wow - that's a whole lot of turnip.

6. Most Haunted live has been on all week and I have let the kids stay up late to watch it cos I am obviously one bad Mother...

7. The woman who comes to guide the kids in their art endeavours upsets me sometimes as she tries to make any progress Stealth has all about her. She sees him for 2 hrs a week FFS and then assumes it's her magical pixie dust that brings him on in leaps and bounds - not anything me or Carnelian Dude have done for the other 166 hrs since she last saw him..

8. I am worried that by composting my cantaloupe seeds I am going to open the lid one day and see thousands of baby melons in my compost bin and then feel obliged to try and cultivate them. Responsibility guys, it is a heavy burden.

Pants, that's 8 things.....

Hmmm

Sometimes it just feels crap, I wake up with the knowledge that on that particular day I will feel the responsibility of being perfect. The perfect wife, the perfect Mum, perfect education facilitator, perfect dog trainer, perfect house keeper, perfect writer of Scottish words, perfect laundry lady, perfect cook,cleaner and bottle washer, perfect neighbour and let's not forget perfect mind reader.

Humph, I iz tired.

This morning as I was laying in bed I heard the distant rumble of a bin lorry coming to collect the rubbish in our green bins ( bins designed only for garden waste such as twigs, grass cuttings etc..). At that very instant I started to cry because I forgot to check yesterday if it was collection day today so that I could put out our neighbours bin out. Ours didn't need to go out though!! I am some kind of crazy, getting so strung out about taking on the responsibility of someone else's stuff just to make their life easier..

So I lay there with tears for a little while debating if it would be possible just to stay in bed where I was warm and un-responsible for life's stuff. Where Carnelian Dudes arm hugged me tightly to him so that there wasn't even a hairs breadth between us even though he was asleep and didn't know I was crying and was really in need of that hug.

But I got up and outta bed knowing that today I will probably be less than perfect and this will make me insane and I'll be all mean and bad tempered and waspish.

I think I need to find a surfer, one of the stereotypical surfer dudes who don't care about anything except the ocean and is so laid back they are horizontal. This surfer can be my mentor and teach me to accept life- just as it's thrown at me, warts an' all. And I'll be all chillaxed and not care that my dog is a pirate or that the kids are marginally in need of a REAL teacher or that it is actually sucking the life out of me by trying to make everyone's life so perfect that they won't hate me and judge me...

Pity I don't live near the surf...

Haiku Monday (actually on Monday..)

Rain falling lightly
Clouds descend enveloping
Swimming through the mud

Scotland

Harbour, frost, me and Ck and Stealth in no particular order... x

Hey,hey,hey

Hey, I'm back!! Although I missed Haiku Monday - again.... Happy New Year to you all!
Our trip up to Scotland for Hogmany was lovely, marred only by the untimely arrival of psycho sister in law. No, truly she is psycho, I have never known anyone like her - she made her husband (Carnelian Dude's brother) drive all the way up north after a 2000 mile driving trip to the alps 2 days before all because she couldn't stand the thoughts of us having a family get together with her not there. Her exploits are many.... too many to document infact, unless you were a social worker or some sort of prison worker! She managed to split the family up for about a year or so by spreading vile lies through the grape vine and now resorts to petty weird things like pretending they can't find one of the kids hats as they are leaving only for me to find it under a cushion when we get back inside - what's wrong with that you ask?? Firstly Carnelian dude checked under all the cushions and secondly she just so happened to "forget" her coat and have to nip back in while we were all stood outside freezing out nips and nads off... Then hey presto the hat appears. She is a psycho schemer. Nuff said.




C.Dudes family live in a very rural area so it was just beautiful with a really hard frost making everything glisten snowy white.


New Years Eve was wonderful & I kid you not we had a BBQ outside when the temperature was around minus three degrees c.




The company was wonderful (apart from psycho bitch) and Likkle ol' me didn't go to bed til 5am on New Yrs day ( which is unusual as I loves me bed!) Not bladdered I might add, even though everyone else was!

Ah, Scotland the brave! We love ya!