The Screamin' Demon

Never mind the Commonwealth Games, I’d say to the BBC that there is something much more worthy of the licence fee unfolding in our house – the curly-haired lunatic’s terrible twos.
The youngest boy, who turned two just last month, has taken to screaming like it is an actual Olympic sport and he is gearing up to represent Ireland in London 2012.
No longer does he ask for stuff, he points and screams until said item is placed in his hand. If something troubles him he screams until that thing is put to rights. We are sometimes fearful of making eye contact in case we might inadvertently set of a catastrophic chain of events concluding with an hour of noisy and pointless screaming.
And this is no ordinary screeching. We’re talking ear-drum splitting, window cracking wailing which makes birds flee from nearby trees in fear for their lives. The boy’s noisy protestations can only be compared with what I imagine Satan’s motorbike might sound like with a troubled ignition throttle – rattling up from a whimper to a level seven hellish wail in five point six seconds.
He throws the odd strop at home, but in true kiddie tantrum fashion he saves the biggest hissy fits for when we are in public places.
But what the kid forgets is that we have been down this road twice before. We have quite literally been there, done that and are the proud owners of some fabulously colourful fitted ‘I survived the Terrible Twos’ t-shirts.
Just last week Finn had his two-year check-up with the health visitor and had I informed her that the boy was a placid soul, we had as yet to witness any tantrums and that perhaps we would escape the dreaded terrible twoness this time around. I wondered why she laughed so heartily.
Two days later the boy took great exception to my refusal to feed him chocolate cake for lunch and staged what I’m not afraid to admit was a very innovative protest in the cereal isle of Sainsbury’s.
He kicked off with a low and whiney cry, followed by a bit of arm swinging which could be compared to the actions of a drunken bare-knuckled boxer. The child, who unfortunately bears a frightening resemblance to the late Ollie Reed, then did this foot stomping dance – one foot stationery while the other stomps in a circle – and turned the volume up considerably. He concluded his performance with a big deep breath and an ear-piercing, eye-watering scream on the exhale which lasted an amazing one minute 20 seconds. I’m sure the Olympic swimming team would head hunt him if they knew. Not many people can hold their breath for that long never mind scream for the entire duration. Surely the Guinness book of records should be informed.
After consulting my mind’s vast catalogue of ‘tantrum dealing tips’ I practised my well-honed methods – pointing, laughing, more pointing and gradual withdrawal of attention.
We are, after all, the adults in this situation and therefore are not scared by loud screaming and stomping of feet. We are not even perturbed by the way he balls his fists, tenses every muscle in his body and turns his face beetroot red like he is about to physically combust.
We have seen it all. The oldest boy’s terrible twos were peppered with varying degrees of head banging. The boy would hit his head off the side of his cot/doors/floors etc while the husband and I stood back pondering why he was taking this particular line of action. Do kids not know that the pages of history are littered with these types of protest? You know the ones where they hurt themselves instead of inflicting pain upon others to make their point and that they rarely work.
The second boy used high-pitched screaming as a medium of expressing his annoyance at those troublesome twos. But this was no ordinary screaming either. We often compared him to the scary risen-from-the-dead bad guy in ‘The Mummy’ films. But whereas the Egyptian bad guy was aided by fancy computer graphics to look like he had unhinged his jawbone, our boy just opened his mouth impossibly wide and screamed au natural. The husband and I spent this particular phase laughing and pointing at him also.
So we have embarked on our youngest boy’s journey through the terrible twos and we don’t yet know what to expect. But we are secretly hoping that the London Olympics might open a ‘screamin’ demon’ category, for there will be no prouder parents than the husband and I when the child brings that gold home to Ireland.

The Troubles... again

My oldest son was born six years after the ceasefires here in the north. At the time I remember wondering what world we had brought him into and if he would have a drastically different childhood than that of my husband and I.
Because, in all honesty, we were not afforded a ‘normal’ childhood. We saw things children shouldn’t have and we lived in fear for our young lives. For us murders, bombs, shootings, soldiers and tension were as normal and everyday as homework and hanging around street corners.
Like it or like it not our memories are forever peppered with the horrific events that shaped our early lives as well as Northern Irish history.
When I was a young girl, not much older than my oldest son, I saw a man shot dead by the army as I stood, bag of sweets still in hand, outside the shop at the bottom of our street. I, along with a lot of other people who call this place home, had many other traumatic experiences growing up. As a teenager fretting about boys was as normal as bomb scares, a first kiss more daunting than a full-scale riot. It is frightening to think back on what passed as ‘normal’ in our young lives.
Our street was a stone’s throw away from one of the largest and most frequently bombed army bases in Northern Ireland. The Europa Hotel had literally nothing on Fort George Barracks. My husband grew up within an area within Belfast affectionately called ‘The Murder Triangle’ and had many, many harrowing experiences that kids should not have had to bear witness to.
I know, in the grand scheme of things we two got off relatively lightly. We were extremely lucky in that none of our immediate family were killed in the Troubles here but we, like every single other child of the conflict, were affected deeply by our own individual experiences.
This is not something I want for my children.
Last week dissident republicans attacked our city again. They planted a car bomb across the street from where I grew up, where my mother still lives. My mother – ever the drama queen – was actually driving past the scene when it exploded after having persuaded a police officer to let her home through the security cordon. She wasn’t injured, just badly shaken up.
Dissidents activity is now the norm in this city, bomb hoaxes an everyday thing. We have come to expect the odd bomb, a fact in itself which makes me mad.
Despite what the police and the politicians say these people are doing a good job at dragging us back to the old days. Not only are they planting massive car bombs they are planting seeds of sickening fear and suspicion once again our minds.
And what’s different for me personally this time around is that I have children to protect. It is the most natural instinct for a mother to want to keep her children from harm and it’s relatively easy when that which may harm them is visible. When that danger could be in the car parked beside you in the shopping centre, being assembled in a house nearby or being transported in the van stopped alongside at traffic lights it’s all the more worrying.
It sickens me that the path we walk home from school is once again littered with debris from the latest bomb, that the shops we frequent have shattered windows and twisted shutters. It sickens me that I have to try to explain the reasoning behind this new conflict when I fail to understand it myself. The last time it happened, I was the kid and it needed no explanation, it just was what it was – the Troubles – as much part of our environment as the constant rain.
It’s all rather bewildering to me, what must it look like to a child?
I had hoped that when the time came I could explain the Troubles to my kids with the aid of dusty old history books, now it seems I won’t have to. They can just look outside their window.

Holier than thou. No chance....

Our oldest boy Daniel is currently getting quite extensive religious training in anticipation of his First Holy Communion, which he makes during this term.
This involves him colouring in a host of pictures of Jesus (orange curly hair, bushy beard, white t-shirt), learning a load of prayers off by heart and thanking God for a whole host of things which he apparently invented – like time, water Playstations and shoes.
This religious work involves bringing his ‘God book’ home and asking us to answer questions on various religion-related topics, something I find rather daunting.
Now I’m not one for wearing my religious views and opinions on my sleeve but the fact is despite being brought up a Catholic I have lapsed a little in my faith.
In years gone by I went to mass, said my prayers religiously, was (and still am) a good, kind, caring and loving person. I have sky-high morals, put people high above material things, love my neighbour and have never coveted goods, wives or things of that ilk.
I only ever asked for God’s assistance twice in my life. Both were big deal situations – I needed a miracle – but despite a lot of prayers, the big man didn’t hear my distress call and I suppose we haven’t been in contact for a while.
When I was a child I found mass – and I’m being brutally honest here – incredibly boring. It was a whole lot of chanting, kneeling, standing up, sitting down and a bit of repetitive praying. The smell of incense would make me nauseous and I resented shaking hands with the person sitting next to me after watching them pick their nose just 10 minutes before. I went to mass only because I felt my mother would kill me if I didn’t.
I honestly didn’t get a lot out of it. My parents taught me life lessons, morals, tolerance and compassion. I certainly didn’t learn those things at Mass as I spent a most of my time standing outside the Church chatting.
I know I’m not alone on my views. Whilst the older generation is mostly made up of God fearing church goers, my generation seem to be falling away from religion in their droves. This is not because we are a band of morally challenged yahoos, more that organised religion hasn’t really evolved in a way which speaks to us.
Therefore I’m going to find it difficult teaching my young sons about religion this term. Partly because I am void of blind faith and the fact that a lot of it is totally bewildering.
Already this week we have learned that God is THE most important person in his life, not Spiderman, not Red Power Ranger, not even me. The big man is more important. And he has been instructed to put God before all things and all people from now on. As always in religion there were no actually written instructions as to how exactly to carry out this task. I suggested that instead of fighting with his brother or wrecking the living room they might both spend a few hours praying quietly to God.
My kids have experience of many different religions. Our own extended family are deeply religious and it works for them. We have Japanese friends whose religion dictates that they pray before everything they do – even giving long and lengthy praise before allowing us to eat our Happy Meals at McDonalds. A small child of one of our Indian friends once told us that we like the ‘wrong God’ when he spotted the Sacred Heart picture on the wall. Each to their own I say, no one is more right than anyone else.
So now my son is starting his journey into his religion and needs me to hold his hand along the road. I believe it's important that he has an open mind, and when he’s old enough, to make those decisions for himself, without my or anyone else’s dogma running around in his head, and I will support any decision his makes on the matter.
Rant over, Amen.

Jail's no place for kids....

Due to the fact that my baby daughter has got herself into a non-stop round-the-clock feeding routine I am often found sat in front of the telly these days.
Finn has helpfully buried the remote control somewhere out in the front garden in a mass grave which includes a monster truck, three plastic soldiers and a half consumed apple.
We haven’t yet purchased a combined metal/plastic/rotting food detector to locate these items so I am forced to watch whatever channel is on – because hauling myself off the sofa and across the room is simply too much like hard graft and the boy hasn’t yet mastered working the buttons to fulfil my channel switching bidding.
Something happens to a person’s mind when they are subjected to too much daytime TV. I can physically feel my brain cells exploding while viewing the morning entertainment shows. And as for the chat shows, it takes a lot of coffee and chocolate biscuits to chase away the dark clouds of despair after witnessing yet another poor young mother air her dirty laundry for the entertainment and amusement of a vulturous audience.
And not only am I subjecting myself to such drivel, the youngest boy is learning by the example set by Mr Daytime TV. If this continues he will begin to handle his toddler group disagreements by suggesting the other little folk ‘talk to the hand, coz the face ain’t listening’, chanting ‘DNA test, DNA test, DNA test’ loudly at random parents and informing little girls in the group that he ‘ain’t yo baby daddy’.
In a move to salvage what little working brain cells we have left I decided to tune into a few kid’s programmes instead. One, in particular, made me ponder what influence aforementioned Mr TV – someone I trusted with the education and supervision of my children – was having on my kids.
This programme was set in a prison, as in a joint where convicts hang out.
The Slammer, as it is called, is a fictitious prison for entertainers who have ‘committed crimes against show business’ ¬– like being totally rubbish or dropping a ball while juggling as opposed to grievous bodily harm, armed robbery or actual murder.
The prison has all the trappings of a real joint except the wings are adorned with beautifully coloured triangle flags and balloons. The inmates – instead of serving their time and facing a parole board – earn their freedom through the medium of dance and song in the Freedom Show performed in front of a crowd of invited school children.
The mind boggles.
The head honcho of the joint is a big, jolly governor who wears a spangled white suit and gold bow tie, you know like the real ones do. There’s even a long-term ‘resident’ of the prison although apparently he’s not doing a 10-year stretch for manslaughter he’s inside because he’s a very bad ventriloquist.
Now apart from feeling rather uncomfortable about a children’s programme being set in a prison – call me strange but I much prefer the old tea shop or nursery school setting – I object to the fact that the programme makers are glamorising the jail setting.
I often threaten my children with jail – ‘if you don’t tidy your room I’m going to call the cops and they’re going to haul your sorry ass off to jail’ and ‘you can get a three-year term for telling your father to shut up’ – and I don’t want them imaging this place full of colourful bunting, friendly, helpful staff, chips for dinner and daily variety shows for their entertainment. I want them to imagine cold windowless cells, grey-coloured slop for dinner and terrifying cell mates with names like ‘Skinner’ and ‘Buckets of Blood’
I want to instil in my kids a healthy fear of breaking the law and jail in general. Programmes like this, regardless of their comedy aspect, might give today’s kids a false representation of what incarceration is actually like – some of today’s youngsters might be sorely disappointed when they grow up to be criminals and find that jail isn’t half as much fun as it looked on the telly. Hell, some of these kids might fall into a life of crime just to get a chance to see Diversity or Aleshia Dixon in a prison concert.
Come back Mr Jeremy Kyle all is forgiven.

Watch your back Mr Kipling..

Three weeks into the new school term and we’ve all come down with the lurgy bug from hell. This particularly nasty bug – we’re talking dizzy heads, razor-blade tonsils, severe grumpiness, hallucinations, coughing like a 60-a-day smoker – claimed the youngest boy as it’s first victim. As soon as he ceased with the hacking cough the oldest son came down with it, then the middle boy got it then finally I was floored by it after a full seven days sans sleep, wiping floors, moping brows and shoving seemingly endless supplies of bed clothes into the washing machine.
The baby has stayed strong and bug free throughout – testament to the power of breastfeeding.
And as usual, the husband didn’t get the bug. This, he swears, is because of his superior O’Neill genes. The O’Neills of old, he says, spent their days out on the battlefields of Ireland fighting and hacking off heads – and in the process getting a good bit of fresh air – while the Brehans, my smarty pants law-making ancestors, spent their days in darkened, dusty rooms reading books and being generally wise and condescending.
And so we all spent our youngest son’s second birthday party attempting and failing miserably to overdose on sugar-based products and consume salty snacks. I know we’ll look back and laugh at the camcorder footage of us all wheezing and puffing while blowing out the candles and of the ‘Happy Birthday’ chorus peppered with bouts of loud hacking, rattling coughing.
Despite my sorry state I still managed to bake the boy a cake. I modelled my masterpiece on the white bunny rabbit he so lovingly named Rambo. The cake was a glorious concoction of sponge cake and coconut buttercream icing with a few chocolate buttons for the eyes, nose and mouth. When I unveiled it at the party everyone assumed it was a little dog. I couldn’t find the words to tell them it was supposed to be a rabbit. I just bit my lip and tried not to cry.
A few years ago (when my cake baking abilities were still sub-standard) I made the oldest boy a cake in the shape of a white racing car. I was so pleased with my creation I showed it off to my sister who later described it as, and I quote, ‘a roast chicken cake’. I later described her as ‘a cow’ and said she was jealous of my far superior cake decorating abilities. In hindsight she may have had a point. The thing looked like a raw chicken with go-faster stripes down the two sides. I can’t imagine what the attending children thought….‘Mummy, why is Daniel’s mum asking us to sing while he blow outs candles stuck on top of an uncooked chicken?
I used to be a rubbish cook. In my student years I would regularly muck up making even Pot Noodles. I literally couldn’t put the hot water into the plastic container without having a minor scalding-related catastrophe. I once made a cheesecake for the husband –who was then my boyfriend – which had the consistency of vegetable soup. He ate it and from that day to this when someone mentions cheesecake in conversation he makes an involuntary retching motion. Years later he married me despite my glaringly obvious flaws in the kitchen. That’s true love right there people.
My cooking has improved enormously over the years. This is partly due to the fact that children are brutally honest when it comes to food. If something looks like boke – which my cheesecake certainly did – they will inform the chef in graphic detail. So I bought myself a cook book, studied hard and am now renowned in our family for my cooking. And it’s for the right reasons, not for making stew that tastes like socks actually smell.
My cakes have also risen in standards in the years since. It is now a rule that I bake a cake for every birthday, anniversary and celebratory occasion in our family. People actually look forward to sampling my next creation as opposed to the past when they would stock up on the indigestion remedies and make sure the doctor’s surgery has a spare appointment slot for the next day.
For the middle boy’s last birthday I created an edible dinosaur world complete with volcano. For the oldest boy’s affair I made a massive Ben10 Omnitrex cake. The husband usually requests vanilla cream cake for his birthdays and I fashioned a strawberry marshmallow pink christening cake for the little girl’s big day last week – although the marshmallows were, in all honesty, a last minute idea used to mask the fact that I made the icing a tad too runny.
I’m not one to blow my own trumpet but Mr Kipling, if you’re reading this, watch your back, I now too make exceedingly good cakes.

The Green-Eyed Little Monster....

On the day I was born my father brought my 9-year-old brother and 7-year-old sister to see me in the hospital. It was not a particularly pleasant meet and greet. My brother asked if I could be taken back and swapped for a boy baby. He said he absolutely did not want another flipping sister, he was already quite fed up with the one he had. My sister stated quite clearly that she was our Daddy’s favourite and that me, blowing in here with my chubby cheeks and cutesy gurgles would not, repeat not, be stealing her crown.
I suppose the passing of 35 years has seen them arrive at some form of acceptance of me. The same can’t be said about our littlest lad. The passing of seven weeks has seen little or no acceptance of our baby girl.
He uses several methods to show his displeasure at her arrival – from giving her a welcome slap on her face to simply pretending she doesn’t exist. His new trick is to stand beside her pram while she slumbers peacefully and yelling ‘Argggghhhh Baybeee!!!’ in his best and loudest scary voice.
We held the baby’s christening at the weekend. The priest conducting the ceremony informed us beforehand that this was the first baptism he had done in this, his new parish and that he was more than a tad nervous. We sat up in the front seats of the packed chapel and threw him smiles of encouragement and thumbs up signals every so often.
There are a few reasons why we don’t sit in the front seats in chapel and those reasons are called Daniel, Caolan and Finn. At least from the back of the church it’s easier to field questions about God, religion, the universe and everything without being given the evil eye by the priest for talking during Mass.
Daniel, who turned around to whisper to those seated behind him that he finds the whole ‘God thing’ really boring and that he was missing ‘Monster Jam’ to be here, sighed dramatically and loudly throughout the ceremony. I thought it unwise to threaten him with violence in the house of God but I pulled a muscle in one of my eyelids by overenthusiastically issuing a variety of ‘wait until I get you home’ looks.
Caolan, the boy who can ask approximately one question per second and never waits for an answer, inquired from the front seat what the big deal was about God. He also wondered aloud if ‘that fella’, as in the priest, ‘ever talks about anything else except God’ and why ‘that boy’, as in Jesus, was holding his heart in his hand (as seen in the Sacred Heart picture), why said heart was glowing and how said heart could properly function when he was wearing it outside his jumper as opposed to under his skin.
As the husband tried to hush the boy he turned his line of questioning to other things. He wondered if God was friends with Santa – who is also all seeing – and if God believed in vampires. Without taking a breath he wondered why God was actually given the title ‘Almighty’, if he was in possession of laser beam eyes and also if he was as tall as Godzilla or in the same height bracket as, say, Spiderman. He also questioned why no one has ever caught sight of this God fella. If we’re honest with ourselves, people, these are the questions we’d all like answered.
He continued to interrogate the husband while I tried to free a hand to render him either unable to speak – or if that didn’t work, unconscious – and concluded loudly with a ‘we’ve been here for like, half and hour, and he has just went on and on about God, God, God the entire time.’
The littlest lad got fed up with the focus being solely on his sister and while we stood around the water font he entertained the congregation with a strange dance reminiscent of drunken Ollie Reed on the Terry Wogan show. I don’t imagine the church choir knew ‘Wild Thing’ with which to accompany his moves but I don’t think he cared much. He was determined to steal his sister’s thunder on her special day.
The rest of the service was spent physically restraining the boy from getting up and getting down, strutting around in the aisles like a mini Mick Jagger.
The green-eyed little monster has a future on the X-Factor for sure.

Back to 'normal'

We have finally returned to ‘normal’ after the long, long, jeepers creepers they were so very long months of summer. Normal in our house means everyone getting up grumpy in the morning, shouting a lot while mouth is full of breakfast cereal/toast/toothpaste and much finding of shoes and losing of minds.
Getting four kids ready and out the door is a task not for the weak. I know my kids will grow up thinking their mother was either a retired drill sergeant or directly descended from some random nasty European military dictator or other.
From the minute they rise in the morning I yell a chorus of orders. ‘You! Eat!’, ‘You! Shoes!’ and ‘You! No talking, brush!’, ‘You! Stop looking so cute!’ with a load of finger pointing thrown in for dramatic effect.
Such was my hurry to get the lads back to where they really belong that we showed up at the school, uniformed, suited and booted, the day before term officially started.
We rose early on Monday morning. I fed babies and threw bowls of breakfast at various people, shouted a little, told individuals to remove their sleeping, slobbering faces from the kitchen table, hunted for shoes under beds, cursed a lot and tamed some seriously unruly hair.
I packed them all into the car and set off with 10 minutes to spare until the bell (hey, get me). I should have guessed when we pulled out onto the almost deserted main road that things were amiss. I should have realised when we got to the school and the only thing moving was a big bit of tumbleweed gently bobbing along past the very locked gates.
I drove at high speed past the school, kids squealing with delight from the back. I gave a big ups to Jesus and Ford Motors for inventing tinted windows so that other ‘normal’ humans going about their ‘normal’ day-to-day business – like going shopping in their pyjamas – couldn’t see my utter mortification. And I’m glad that the windows offered some UV protection because I wouldn’t have wanted any innocent members of the public to have been scorched by the severity of my pure, undiluted embarrassment.


So off we went home to suffer another day in each other’s company. And by that I truly mean to enjoy the last day before the summer holidays actually concluded.
These ‘hiccups’ are all too common these days. I blame lack of sleep; the husband blames lack of brain cells.
I waited in last week for the obligatory visit from the health visitor. I arranged for the older boys to be minded so that we’d have a reasonably quiet house. I waited and waited and cursed a bit for having my day held back – for I am one extremely busy lady, really I am.
I cursed this lovely woman for keeping me from drinking coffee, eating chocolate biscuits and watching rubbish daytime TV programmes in peace. Heaven forbid she would have called half way through Murder She Wrote and I would have converse with her and miss who actually killed the rural hotel owner. I just couldn’t risk that.
Three hours later I was positively pacing the living room floor. When the TV presenter mentioned that it was Monday, not Tuesday I realised that the late health visitor wasn’t actually late, she was early. As in not due until the next day early.
A few days later I had the baby in town and met an old friend who cooed over my little girl and asked me what we had named her. I swear there was a 25 second delay where the question reached my ears, made it’s way through the sea of dead and malfunctioning cells in my brain, processed the question, registered it and sent back a message for communication through my mouth. My friend stood gawking at me while this slow process progressed and breathed again when my brain and mouth worked once more in unison and allowed me to utter my daughter’s name. I told her the child is to be christened Maolíosa Grace but for some strange reason about our house she is referred to only as Maggie Moo mirroring the nicknames of my boys – DanGo, Caolan Bailen and Finnbo O’Neillio.
Things may have gone back to routine with regards schools, but it’ll be a rather frosty day in hell when the word ‘normal’ is used to describe any member of the O’Neill house.