'E' is for 'Elephants Eating Easter Eggs'

Well, I thought it'd be a shame to let Easter pass without Freya having something to say about it. To be honest, I thought she'd just tell me all about how much chocolate she would like to eat. Instead she decided to tell a story, though it is about Easter eggs, so I was nearly right. The elephant in her tale eats, very specifically, '5 Easter eggs and 1 marshmallow'  because that's what she was given last week in her nursery class by the Easter bunny, and so, in Freya's head, that's what everybody gets! I'm kind of hoping I get more though....

'D' is for 'Daddy'

Today's video should probably come with some sort of health warning. I thought the subject might be quite comical, but Freya has veered away from the normally funny things she says about her Daddy and instead said some really sweet things. It's a bit vomit-inducing, and it's actually made me look a bit bad really, which isn't what I was going for at all. She was a bit reluctant to start today (note the roll of the eyes when she starts) which makes me wonder if she'll get to Z. This child labour isn't all it's cracked up to be! Once she gets going though, she reels off an impressive list of everything her Daddy does for her. You're probably left wondering what I do. Evidently, nothing! Get the bucket ready....

'C' is for 'Cinderella'

So, today I decided to get Freya to re-tell a story as yesterday we had trouble getting her story to go beyond a description of her character getting up, having meals and then going back to bed! Turns out, Freya prefers her stories short and sweet if she's the one telling them. This is in stark contrast to bedtime, when Mummy or Daddy's stories are never long enough! Enjoy.

'B' is for 'Bumblebee'

Welcome to day two of the A-Z challenge and another glimpse into the mind of my small child. Today Freya decided to tell us a story about a day in the life of a bumblebee, including her wonderfully simplified explanation of how a bee makes honey. The echo you can hear in the background is little sister Lola trying to join in. That might give you some indication of the constant level of noise in our house!

'A' is for 'Astronaut'

After weeks of trying to think of something interesting to do for the A-Z challenge, I'd pretty much drawn a blank. So, I've resorted to my secret weapon- my daughter Freya. Friends have often told me I should share some of her pearls of wisdom, so here we go. For each day, Freya will be telling a story about something beginning with the corresponding letter of the alphabet. We've already had some suggestions from friends about what she should talk about, and any more suggestions will be considered!
Enjoy a daily glimpse into the weird and wonderful mind of a 4-and-a-half year old!

Think we modern mothers have it all too easy?

 

The following is a column I wrote for a competition in my local paper. Let me know what you think! 

“It’s a hard life isn’t it Mummy?” shouts my four year old from the toilet. A plethora of amusing observations like this emerge from her ‘unique’ mind every day. But she’s quite astute. For parents today, trying to raise children is nothing short of terrifying.

Of course there are those who insist we ‘have it easy’ in comparison to, say, half a century ago. Washing machines and tumble dryers make light work of laundry, dishwashers mean we needn’t  worry about whether our ‘hands that do dishes are as soft’ with fairy liquid, the lucky among us have cars to ferry our children about, and at home, we have the luxury of yet more gadgets and gizmos to entertain our offspring. It sounds fantastic, but it’s essentially a flawed ideal.

Rewind 50 years. There were no ‘white goods’ in the average kitchen, but how many women went out to work between house-keeping and child rearing?  Most parents nowadays have little choice but to work, and the pace of life because of this can be spectacularly frantic. If I had to do everything without the aid of ‘mod cons’, as well as work, my children would most probably be starving and sitting in their own faeces, having half killed each other through forced interaction.

Lucky for them I do have these things. As for TV and games consoles, I have moments of despair, (as I’m sure many parents do), when I long for my children to show even a vague interest in the world beyond Little Big Planet or Doctor Who. But these gadgets are a lifeline for frazzled parents, who, when feeling like we’ve run a marathon before we even leave the house to go to work, just don’t have any energy left for our children. We can’t entertain the idea of letting them roam outside, due to the pure fear our media has instilled in us. We even worry that the very generation bemoaning the ease of parenting today, will berate us for letting our youths ‘wander the streets’.

So, take all your mod cons. I will give them up in an instant if it means I can stay at home and watch my children grow up instead of entrusting their care to strangers, if I can usher my children out into the sunshine without a sense of dread. But hey, what do I know? I’ve got it easy, apparently.

Happiness

I’ve been thinking recently about the idea of happiness and what it takes to make people happy. Redundancy, followed by long periods of unemployment, has had a huge impact on our family morale. Whilst this hasn’t been brilliant for us, I’m well aware things could be worse. Working in a public library brings me into contact with people from all walks of life and everyone at the moment is feeling the impact of decisions made by people living far removed from their effects. I wonder if ministers care about the correlation between their decisions and the increasing amount of homeless people sheltering in my workplace every day, and that, because of their cuts, there will probably be ten times the amount of homeless than Library staff if the trend continues for much longer. That means less staff to help these people, to spend time with them, to help make just a few minutes of their day more bearable.


We all strive to be happy. Even the Government said they want us to be happy. Maybe you remember the ‘happiness agenda’ they created a couple of years ago? To remind us to be happy, just in case we’d all forgotten whilst going about our living our bleak, worrisome, ignorant little lives.


And how did David Cameron say he was going to approach this? “As to precisely what we are going to do and when we are going to do it, you should wait and see."


Right, so, no idea then.


According to Mr Cameron, “It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP but on GWB - general wellbeing.” And from this we derive that Dave can probably spell. What we also know, is that it’s much easier to say there’s more to life than worrying about money if you have the money you’re not supposed to be worrying about.


Downing Street, unsurprisingly, became much less concerned about how happy we were when people started to point this out. When people took to the streets of London to protest about the banking industry, camped outside St Pauls to make their voice heard, the establishment did everything in their power to get rid of them. When people from our disabled community used their precious time and energy to produce the Spartacus report, (a report whose very existence should not have been needed), they were treated to ministers telling them they were not entitled to be comfortable enough to be happy. It’s only going to get worse. It transpires, whoever you are, wherever you are, if you want to be happy you’re on our own. You make your own way. And if you encounter any problems, such as joblessness, illness, disability, homelessness, or all of the above- you’re on your own


I’d like to know, first of all, how he ever intended to measure our happiness. (I say intended, as he’s obviously not bothered about it now).


I mean, we all want to be happy don’t we? Unfortunately- and someone needs to point this out to Dave- it’s almost impossible to measure.


Let’s cover everyone here- as all of us, young and old, need to be happy: A baby clearly can’t tell you if it’s happy, it lacks the vocabulary. A toddler, whilst having some grasp of language, cannot yet communicate effectively, and in any case has moods so changeable they are seemingly only content for fleeting moments. Just as communication is starting to develop into something useful, they hit puberty. At this point, you have next to no chance of being able to get anything more out of them than a series of low moans or grunts. Attempts to derive any meaningful conversation are futile. By the time they reach adulthood, our children will have learned, like us, to carefully doctor our feelings according to our audience, revealing or masking our true emotions as we see fit. I have absolutely no idea how I would react is some self righteous toffs came knocking on my door asking, ‘Are you happy dear?’ For those of us who are brave enough to volunteer an honest opinion though, the message from Whitehall is, unless you’re speaking from a position of money,’ shut up, we don’t really want to know’.


I don’t know what the key to happiness is but I’m sure generation after generation have pondered the same eternal question and I’m sure a bit of money, the opportunity to work if you can, comfort, a home and friends and family bring you a hell of a lot closer to it. I’m also fairly certain, judging by their actions, Westminster do not really give a toss whether any of us truly are or not.