Merry Christmas....

Happy Christmas one and all!
Yes I know that it’s early November, the aroma of pumpkins and toffee apples still hangs heavy in the air but the world has, once again, gone Christmas mad.
I heard the first tinkling of silver bells as I was shoving vampire capes and witches hats into the attic. The TV showed me pictures of perfect families, on perfect sofas, with perfect clothes and perfect lives.
This advert and the one following it told me that what I have isn’t quite good enough, my family aren’t quite well enough dressed, and if I really want to be happy, deep down happy, I need that white sofa and I need that gorgeous jacket and my kids need the very latest, most expensive gadgets. And I need them all NOW! I need them to properly celebrate Christmas. If I don't have them my Christmas will be, quite literally crap.
There are times when I find myself almost hypnotised by these adverts promising a beautiful family Christmas, complete with snowy scenes and laughing relatives all exchanging gifts in a exquisitely cosy living room with an open fire.
Then the guilt kicks in. Why can’t I give my children that kind of perfect Christmas? One where the house is packed to the rafters with expensive gifts, every one of us is kitted out in fancy designer gear, the house is decorated to perfection with brand new sofas and furnishings and there are gentle flakes of snow fluffing about our shiny new BMW X3.
For two seconds those advertising geniuses take over my brain and make me stressed, make me panic and have me think I need all this stuff to have an actual happy Christmas.
But let’s be honest folks, no one’s Christmas is that perfect, unless you’re Twiggy or Danni Minogue.
I’d say if one of the big shopping stores were to make a Christmas advert about our family – with me being the star of course – it would go something like this…
Camera pans into star’s bedroom. Clock says 4.02am. Parents have just climbed into bed after spending the night assembling Thomas the flipping Tank Engine tracks and ‘test driving’ and ultimately breaking remote control cars. Middle son bursts into room screaming that it is the morning and that Santa has been and gone. He screams that he can hear a remote control car singing 'Who Let the Dogs Out' and wakes rest of family. Baby screams, toddler demands to be let out of his cage, oldest child shouts obscenities from under duvet.
Camera breaks to star’s husband – wearing fetching Christmas jumper and big grumpy face – outside house with engine hood popped. Jump wires are dangling around neck in the hope that one of the neighbours – who are indoors having one of those perfect Christmases – will assist him in jump-starting the car.
Camera moves to star’s mother’s home. Smoke bellows from kitchen into beautifully festive hall. Smoke alarm rings out as various children run screaming up and down stairs, hitting each other with toy swords and sweeping brushes.
Star’s brother stirs ‘mulled wine’ concoction on the stove and talks loudly while ignoring smoking turkey quite clearly on fire in the oven. Star’s sister offers to be mulled wine taster and critic, while she consumes half a tin of Roses at the kitchen table. Star’s older brother tries to dismantle latest fancy gadget he got for Christmas with a screwdriver.
Camera breaks to dining room where star’s younger brother and older sister look drunkenly from squinted eyes at dinner and assure each other that if you keep one foot on ground the room will stop spinning. A gigantic jug half-filled with boiling wine and unpeeled oranges sits between them on the dinner table.
In the corner older brother reassembles his Christmas present which started off life as a DVD player, but is now a toaster.
Star’s husband presents his world-renowned sage and onion stuffing to a chorus of cheers. Star and sister hold a minute’s silence for the deceased turkey.
Gathered family eat, drink and are very merry indeed.
Near the window lights twinkle on a 35-year-old artificial Christmas tree which has branches missing and branches taped on but is still just about able to carry a vast array of sentimental decorations and skinny tinsel.
Children fight, babies scream, dogs bark. Star is surrounded by the people she loves dearly and they’re all laughing.
Camera pans out the window, where a real Christmas tree – bought in haste at a petrol station, positioned in the front garden and dangerously decorated with indoor lights – falls down, fusing the lights.
That’s my kind of Christmas. You can keep your perfect one.

Stupid technology....

If you are one of those parents who needs to know every aspect of your child’s existence when they venture beyond your line of vision then inventors in Japan might be rolling right up your street.
An experiment currently running there is allowing full-time working parents the opportunity to watch every aspect of their little darling’s day while they are allegedly hard at work – you know checking Facebook and shopping on Amazon.
These suspicious mums and dads can not only know the exact location of their offspring, but a camera connected to a heart monitor will take a snapshot of what their youngster is seeing should their pulse rise to a level indicating that they might be under stress.
The Japanese say that the data from the brilliantly named ‘gyroscopic accelerometer’, GPS device and compass can only be accessed through a password-protected website which contains live updates of the kid’s play – pictures and all. Future designs will also include a microphone, which will mean parents can eavesdrop on conversations also.
The manufacturers say these devices will start at £400 a pop, more if you want a microphone. So for a mere £1,200 I can listen to my boys discuss loudly the merits of Red Power Ranger over Spiderman at school as well as at home, complete with pictures of them whopping each other over the head with schoolbags and large branches. I can wince as I watch them tussle violently with their mates like mini World Wrestling Federation players in the playground or tune in to see them jump from high walls or trees.
This is what I imagine they do of a day, this new technology could reveal their true lifes – my boys could well be criminal masterminds, hustling dinner money from classmates and throwing thinly veiled threats around like confetti.
It will also save me asking about their day when school’s out which will be a big plus. Today these conversations go a little like this.
“Hello darling son, I’m delighted to see you. School is really too long, I missed your smiling face.”
Grunt.
“How was your day son?”
Shrugs shoulders.
“The school curriculum really is fantastically choc-a-bloc with all things educational. What did you do all day?”
“Nothing”.
“What did you get for lunch in that delightful establishment one calls the canteen?”
“Crisps”.
“I imagine we have loads of fascinating homework to complete tonight eh?”
“Shut up”.
All this new technology is all well and good when it works in your favour, but when it hampers your very existence it’s not so hot.
A few days ago I took the passenger side off our car when I had a tussle with a trolley bay in a supermarket. The thing just jumped out at me from nowhere. I dented the two doors badly and left a considerable amount of stone silver paint behind as a reminder of how women shouldn’t really be allowed to operate machinery any more technologically taxing than a vacuum cleaner.
Yesterday I decided that since the kids were off school for half term I’d have a nice day, go off the air and head for the park. I packed the car with all the stuff one needs when heading to the park with four kids – tent, puncture kit, first aid supplies, pram, tranquiliser dart and gun, substantial refreshments, mountain of wipes, vast amounts of money, mountain rescue contact numbers, nappies, sheep dog etc – and put all the kids in as well.
The car wouldn’t start. It made a ticking noise and a sign screamed ‘Engine Malfunction, Engine Malfunction!!’
You see the car is one of those fancy pants hi-tech vehicles that flashes instructions to tell you what’s wrong. It has also been known to shout some of them in an annoying computer voice, presumably for the benefit of blind drivers.
So I took all the kids out and phoned the mechanic – who is tellingly on speed dial. The guy came out and asked me if I was the wife of that poor, long-suffering man who has no end to car troubles. I said I most probably was.
He asked me if I was the one who accidentally blew up her husband’s car in the town centre one Christmas. I said I was. He asked me if I was the one who had an almost magnetic attraction to gates and gateposts, mysteriously burnt out five clutches and if it was me who crashed into her father’s car in his own driveway. I said I was.
After assessing and presumably having a conversation with the car he told me that due to the fact that I had crashed into yet another inanimate object the door’s hi-tech sensors were damaged. He says the car had spent all Sunday night and the early hours of Monday morning shouting and flashing at no one in particular that ‘This door is damaged and won’t close properly’, ‘this door, this one here, won’t close and it’s making me anxious’, ‘This door!!! Won’t close!! Wasting the battery, Arggghhhh!!’ The result being that unless we spend ‘big, big money’ on two new doors we’ll have to jumpstart the car every time we go out.
So it looks like I’ll have to use the cash I had wished to spend on super spy technology on stupid car technology instead.

Bad day....

Ever have one of those days when nothing, NOTHING, goes right?
Decided to go off the air on Monday and enjoy a nice, relaxing day with my delightful kids.
Youngest and middle boys had me awake all night with feverish jibber jabbering about people building roads through their beds, projectile puking and the like. Rose in the morning to find a nice letter from the bank to inform me about charges.
Packed everyone into the car and it wouldn't start.
A few days ago me and the car had tussle with a trolley bay in Dunelm Mill. The thing just jumped out at me from nowhere. I ripped off a good portion of the passenger side and left a sizeable amount of 'stone silver' paint on the bay.
The battery was dead because the doors wont close right. The car is one of those super intelligent ones which speaks it's mind. It tells you when you need petrol as well as flashing a 'you need petrol' sign, presumably for the benefit of blind drivers.
So the thing spent an entire Sunday night telling no one in particular that 'the door's not closed', 'the door's not closed', 'HEY STUPID!! THE DOOR, THAT ONE THERE, IT'S NOT CLOSED!!!!! It said it and it flashed it so much it exhausted the battery.
Stupid car.
Brought the kids back into the house and the youngest boy puked everywhere while the baby screamed backing vocals and the older boys gagged and provided a running commentary of what said puke looked like.
Phoned the mechanic who said he'd be out in 10 minutes. Eight hours later he arrived, told me the battery was dead and that I need two new doors for the car which will cost 'big money'. When asked to converse in monetary terms he puffed out his cheeks and said 'big, big money'.
And it's raining.
Have had better days.

Smile, please...

If there’s one thing I hate it’s being made to feel like a bad mother.
Believe it or believe it not, it has happened to me before. People judging me – whether that be for rugby tackling my toddler before he lifts a £300 bowl in Debenhams or encouraging a passion for bad 80s music – flings me way out of my comfort zone.
I have my parenting faults – we all do. But I put my all into it. I’ll be the first to admit that I maintain a deathly grip on my ‘fabulous mum’ crown and take great exception to anyone suggesting that I’m not a 100 per cent perfect parent.
This week I was given a telling off by a dentist who appeared to be 12 years old. I had taken the oldest boy for a check-up and was told he needed a filling in one of his milk teeth.
She discussed the matter using fancy dentistry related terms – all primary and secondary incisors this, right-side molars that – and suggested that my terrible parenting literally bored a hole in my son’s beautifully white teeth.
As she examined his teeth she cross-questioned me on exactly how many fizzy drinks the child has in one day.
I informed her that I can count on two fingers the amount of fizzy drinks the child has had in his entire seven and a half year existence – once when he drank a mouthful of cola at a wedding in 2006 and again when he consumed a glass of fizzy orange at his friend’s birthday party. I told her I remember these reckless incidents of extreme parenting as we had to endure the crazy sugar rush and severe grumpy slump afterwards and wished not to repeat them.
I could barely fit my high horse into her cramped dental surgery.
The dentist smiled like she knew I was lying. She wrote in a folder – presumably ticking the very, very bad mother box, and threw professional glances at her assistant who also made a ‘you’re so lying’ face.
They were making me nervous. And when I’m nervous I talk.
I told them that my boy drinks nothing but spring water. Water and milk, maybe, but only on special occasions like birthdays.
She asked me if the child ate sweets. I gasped in a horrified manner, pointed and told her that the child never, ever ate sweets. Never. I covered my boy’s ears and told her that my children were yet to discover that sweets had actually been invented and I would thank her not to mention those sugary works of the devil in my presence.
I told her that in fact I often gave them small pieces of fruit and pretended they were sweets. I told her that there is more sugary content in the Lough Derg pilgrimage diet (as in bread and water) than in what he consumes daily.
She asked me to explain then, with this ferociously strict diet, how he managed to get a big, bad decaying hole in his tooth.
I told her that I was totally bewildered by this development, that I couldn’t explain it. That the boy brushes his teeth 20 times a day. That his tooth brushing actually borders on obsessive and that I encourage this obsessive behaviour by carrying a toothbrush and paste around in my handbag. And that I also have a stopwatch with an alarm – that I never let him go more than 40 minutes without brushing. And that for his last birthday I bought him a supply of dental floss.
It was probably the most uncomfortable half hour I have ever spent. I’ve been in some strange spots before but never had I had to lie more profusely to protect my ‘Fabulous Mother’ crown. I wasn’t going to let some 12-year-old dentist scrape the shine off it with one of her implements of torture.
Truth is the kid eats sweets, like every other kid on the planet. May God forgive me the child drinks diluted orange the odd time. I know these dentist types would have all our kids eating apples and drinking sparkling water the daylong but outside influences – like wicked grandmothers who ply kids with lollipops – do exist. This is the real world.
Hopefully this bump on the road to perfect parenting will pass soon, the kid can get his tooth filled and I can make my way back to Mother of the Yearsville.

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.