It's a MAD dad world

I am guest blogging today over at Fertile Feminism.

When she addressed the English troops at Tilbury, Queen Elizabeth I inspired them with a speech that began:

"I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too".

I'd like to say something similar. I know I have the body of a trailing spouse and a stay at home mum; but I have the heart and stomach of a feminist... I suppose I could add ...and a feminist of England too, which would sound very splendid, but I'm not quite sure what it would mean.

Feminism has a bad press, but honestly, how can a woman NOT be a feminist. All it means, when it boils down to it, is that you are someone who believes that women are equal to men, and should have the same rights and opportunities as men to make of themselves what they want. I flinch a little, if I see a reference in the mummy blogging world to mums who have jobs as being 'good role models' for their children. Yes, I suppose I'm a little defensive. We stay at home mums can't help it, from time to time. But I feel I might just be a 'good role model' for my children, because I chose not to work when they were little, and because I'm grappling now with the consequences of that (which I foresaw, incidentally).

I sense this is turning into a blog post in its own right, when all I wanted to do was to send you over to Fertile Feminism. It's a website that was set up by Noble Savage (she who has been blogging since 2005), and you can read about its aims here. For me, reading this blog is the way I keep a small toe dipped in feminist water. So I'll stop now, and if you want to see me sporting my feminist garb, head on over.

It's a post about why there are so many Daddy blogs in the finalists of the MADs awards.

In need of an identity

I am a member of a very select group within British Mummy Bloggers. I'm one of a small number who don't have a profile picture. But times are a-changing, and I thought it was a good moment to show my face.

Not literally. Oh no no no. I like hiding away behind words. And that is why I have chosen the following as my profile picture.

I played with various type faces. This one is called Britannic Bold, which I thought might be apt, but it's too brash, don't you think?

Then there was this. I can't remember what it's called, but 12-yo said it was cool.



But I decided to stick with the first, because it was the closest I could find to American cursive, which is so iconic. It just says "America" to me. Personally, I can't see the point of teaching generations of school kids two entirely different styles of writing. They learn printing for three laborious years, and then just as they've mastered that, they have to knuckle under (almost literally) and learn a completely different style. You go from what one teacher described to me as "sticks and balls" to this curly and ornate script that isn't far from copperplate. In Britain, it seems to me that you learn one set of letters, and then you simply learn how to join them up. For those of you who understand these things (and I don't include myself among you), I think I'm a fan of D'Nealian writing.

Enough of all that. In sum, I thought Iota in American cursive script would be a suitable visual cue for this blog. I used a lower case i because the upper case I in American cursive is pretty much unrecognisable (several of the upper case cursive letters are, actually, which is another of my beefs with it). A capital I looks like a T or a P, and I didn't want to become Tota or Pota.

You probably want to know why it's nailed to a tree in my back yard. Well, that's just what I did. I expect there's something sub-conscious going on. Perhaps it's religious imagery. Perhaps it's meant to be like a 'Wanted' poster. Maybe I just wanted to hang it on the tree that I look at out of the window when I sit at the computer. Who knows? I certainly don't.

So what do you think?

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Identity revealed

Here's a final conundrum.

Why did I pick Iota Manhattan as my blog-writing name?

Aha! I can help you with that one. It's an anagram of my maiden name. When I was about 14 or 15, one wet lunch break, stuck in the classroom, I and a friend or two or three occupied ourselves by making up anagrams of the names of people in our class. (I know, I know, most teenage girls talk about boys and make-up. I and my friends made up anagrams. What can I say?) I thought Iota Manhattan was so fabulous, I said "if I ever write something, I'll use it as my pen-name", and so I have.

Apart from my own, my favourite anagram name was Helga R. Cespit. Honestly. I can't give you the original name, in case she googles herself and lands here. I'm not sure we ever told her...

Iota is the Greek letter 'I', of course, so it's very apt for a writing persona. Manhattan gives an American flavour, appropriate now in a way that I could never have foreseen as my teenage self. I do also enjoy a secret ironic chuckle because, as you probably have realised, my location, though American for sure, is a pretty long way, geographically and culturally, from Sarah Jessica Parker territory.

I'm not going to respond to any guesses in the comments section, by the way. I'm not revealing my real name, maiden or married, on the blog. If you're a puzzle-fiend, and you want to have a guess, you can email me and I'll tell you if you've got it right.

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Conundrums: part 3

I think Husband might need some help with this one.

I have just finished a telephone conversation with him, and when I put the phone down, I remembered that at one point I had said:

"You're just listening to what I'm saying, and you're not listening at all to what I want to say. And it's not the same thing. And I don't even know what I want to say."

Sometimes I'm so glad I'm not married to me.

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Conundrums: part 2

Short of things to ponder? Here are a couple more.

1) If you add white to blue, you get light blue.

If you add white to green, you get light green.

That works for most colours, but...

If you add white to red, you get pink.

Why isn't pink called light red? Why don't the other light colours have their own names?

2) Once the human race had discovered toast and jam, why did we bother looking for any other foodstuffs? The only way was down.

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Conundrums: part 1

Here are a couple of things to ponder in an idle moment.

1) Is there a waist fairy? I used to have a waist, and now I don't so much, so who took it? And if there's a waist fairy, why didn't I get a silver sixpence in an egg cup by the side of my bed?

2) Is the plural of conundrum, conundra, or is that just pretentious?

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Ode to Josephine

Not so much an ode, as an oh dear...

My friend from way back, Josephine

Is someone who sure knows a theeng (or two).

The trouble with you, Josephine,

Is your difficult rhyme, as yo’s a-seein’.

So I’m going to start calling you Josie.

If I lived nearby, then I would mosey

Over quick to your place, for a nosey

Around to make sure all is rosy.

May your birthday be terribly cosy,

And maybe perhaps a bit bo(o)zy.

Hope Husband bought you a nice posy.

And I’m sorry I’m really so dozy

That I totally forgot to send you a card or a present.

Hope you had a good day. Thanks for being such a fabulous follower and commenter - I'm sure all my other readers feel they know you. Looking forward to seeing you in the summer (and sorry for being a rubbish birthday-rememberer).

Mwa mwa.

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Mother's Day

It was Mother's Day here in the US on Sunday, so I was thinking about, well, being a mother. I know. Pretty original, huh?

I have a confession to make. I cyber-stalk people about to have babies. I do. Not many - just one or two, here and there. If I come across a blogger about to drop, I add them to my reader, and await the birth. I love the excitement. Ooh, there's a post! Has she had that baby yet?... No, just another post about being fed up with waiting, and a trip to the hospital for monitoring... Ooh, another one! This time?... (Hello, Stockholm.)

I used to love waiting for friends' babies, but now I'm of an age and stage where there aren't too many of those in my immediate life. So I have to get my fix of enjoying babies arriving via the internet (the fix arriving via the internet, that is, not the baby - though in this galloping century, who knows? maybe that will be the next thing).

I love those first exuberant announcements. I love seeing the photo, and the details, and the boasting comments of the parent. We become all childish in our excitement, don't we, when we see them? It's a bit ridiculous, honestly. I mean, take the photo. Let's be honest, that photo of your beautiful newborn... it looks like, well, a baby, doesn't it? Not very different to all those other photos of newborns. Maybe less or more hair, maybe sleeping or awake, maybe scrunched up or not quite so scrunched up. But there's not a whole lot to remark upon, is there?

Then we read the details. Weight, length, and um... there's not much else to say about a baby at this stage. Usually these days there's not even a surprise regarding the gender. Weight - well, there's not a huge variation, honestly, is there? Length - no-one ever even bothered to measure my babies so we couldn't tell people their length, but I didn't feel it was a huge loss. (Isn't it interesting, incidentally, that we talk about length, rather than height? I suppose you have to be able to stand up to have a height.)

So it can't really be the photo and the information. No. I'll tell you what it is. It's the pride of the parents. The bursting, unembarrassed, overwhelming pride that they can hardly contain, in this little scrap of humanity. When we sent out an email announcing the arrival of our third, a friend emailed back "May you always be as proud of her as you are today".

I have often thought of that comment. With a newborn, it's pride at its purest. You're not proud because your child has learnt all his spellings, or because she's got into the netball team, or because he's been nice to his brother and shared his lego, or because she's on the podium at graduation, or because she looks unbearably sweet with her first pony tail, or because he's managed a poo in the potty. You're not proud because anything. You're just proud that the baby is who he or she is - which actually, you know almost nothing about at that point. In fact, all you know about this creature is that it has caused you 9 months' worth of pregnancy complaints, then a few hours of exquisite pain, and that it has the ability to yell, blink a lot, and fill a nappy. It's not a great list of endearments.

Pure unprocessed pride. When you are wanting to throw open the door of the maternity wing, and say to the assembled company "Look, look, LOOK at my baby!... MY baby!..." surely that is parenthood at its finest. Unconditional, all-accepting, unquestioning pride. Dare I say it reflects the divine? Yes, I think I dare.

Of course some people don't feel the parent pride thing straightaway. It may take hours or days to feel much for that scrap of their own, that everyone else seemed so excited about. And that's fine too.

I wonder if animals feel it. I saw a duck with a brood of 10 ducklings in the park the other day. She kept a watchful eye on me as I stopped to watch them, but I didn't think she was very afraid. I wondered if she was actually enjoying showing off her brood (and yes, I did talk to her, out loud, congratulating her on her fine off-spring and saying what a good job she'd done with the eggs, and that's why I like being anonymous in my blog, so that I can confess to weird behaviour like that).

Mother's Day. Well, I wasn't at my best on Mother's Day. I shouted at my kids, and I'm never proud of that. So I'm preaching to myself here. "May you always be as proud of her as you are today." Of course it gets a bit more complicated as life trots on. It is part of the job of a parent to teach good behaviour, good attitudes, spelling, so it becomes appropriate to be proud of your children's achievements and efforts (though can't we just drop the spelling, now they've invented Spellcheck?). But it's good to remember, as much as we can, the more important pride that undergirds it all: pride in them just because they are. And now I sense I'm beginning to ramble, so I'm going to go to the park and see if I can find a few more mother ducks and geese to talk to.

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Really Rachel shrieks

Where was I? Oh yes, just off to kiss some babies. And if you want babies, the blogging world is full of them, often with pictures. Scrumptious to the point of being edible. I'm in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on my baby-kissing tour today. That's the home of Really Rachel, who has two adorable daughters. If you read her most recent post, it looks as if they're called Splodge and Voila, but don't be fooled. That's her description of their artistic activities.

Rachel has this cunning plan, whereby she has a series of guest bloggers on a Friday. She asked for volunteers, and so I put my virtual hand up. But then I had a cunning plan too. I told her my policy (and I've been a civil servant, I know how quickly you can invent a policy when you need to) was to do guest post swaps. She fell for it, and that is how it comes to pass that you can read her here, and me over in Newcastle-upon-Tyne at Really Rachel.

I'd like to offer you a clever connection between what we have each written about, but sadly, there isn't one (unless someone can spot it). I've written about how much I miss the sea; Rachel has written about shrieking. Since I've been going to Olde English Teas, and practising English demureness and poise, you know there is no shrieking at my place, oh no, (though I think I did use the words "small shriek of delight" in yesterday's post), so I take no responsibility for anything she says.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you.... Really Rachel!

Making Mummy Shriek

Mummies make some funny noises. There’s talking, obviously. That goes on and on sometimes. And there’s shouting, which is just a waste of energy, really. Laughing is good – you can’t help but join in, even if you’ve got no idea what’s so funny. But shrieks are the best: unexpected bursts of unusual noise. Such fun! And even if you’re less than a year old, there are still plenty of ways that you can make your mummy shriek.

• Pull her hair – An obvious one, but a good one. Try grabbing a small amount of hair and pulling hard. Dangly earrings or necklaces are also good to tug. Your mummy might shriek in pain or she might shriek about her delicate jewellery. If anything does break off, try eating it for a further shriek-effect.
• Climb stairs – Become adept at noticing when doors and stair-gates are left open so that you can take every opportunity to climb the stairs. Giggle loudly as you climb to ensure that your mummy will come to see what you are doing. When you reach the top, turn round as though you are about to launch yourself head-first down the stairs. If your mummy doesn’t shriek as you climb, she might shriek when you threaten to descend. NB The shriek-effect wears off if you appear too competent.
• Eat marbles – Any small, hard object will do but marbles are excellent and easily obtainable from older siblings. Simply pop them into your mouth and display bumpy cheeks. Don’t swallow the marbles, of course. That would be silly. Just let everyone think that you might. Mummy will stop shrieking about this after the first day or so but new visitors will always find this horrifying.
• Touch toilets – You don’t, in fact, have to actually touch the toilet to elicit a shriek. Simply toddling towards it with an outstretched arm will do. That said, nothing can beat putting your whole arm into the toilet for obtaining a really satisfying shriek. If you can be holding your teddy at the same time, so much the better.
• Empty the bin – Again, the very idea of this can cause shrieking but actually pulling items from the bin is more effective. For maximum shriekage, choose a bin that contains something soggy and unpleasant. If the shriek is slow to occur, raise some rubbish towards your mouth. This is guaranteed to bring mummy shrieking and running, which is very funny indeed.

So tell me: How do you make your mummy shriek?

You can read more Really Rachel (when I'm not hogging her space) by clicking here.

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Election fever

Voting opens. History is in the making. The British public consider their choices. Will they vote red, blue or yellow? Or... Blogger Green!

Bloggy Friends. What can I say? Well, to my American readers, it's yay! and a hug, and maybe a small shriek of delight. To my British readers, it's a mumbled thank-you-very-much-you-really-shouldn't-have, and a look at my shuffling feet, before moving swiftly on to ask about the weather.

You lovely, lovely people. You have voted me into the position of Finalist in the MADs awards, sponsored by Butlins, in the category of Best Writer. Best Writer, for heaven's sake. Those of you who know me, will know how very much and what very deep pleasure that gives me. It is the greatest compliment you could have paid me (though a big thanks too to the people who nominated me as most inspiring, funniest, or best overall blogger - that last one, thanks Mum). Bloggy Friends, you are the best. (Is there a category for that? Can I vote for you?)

So as the country goes to the polls to vote in the (probably) more important matter of choosing members of parliament, let me reflect back with you on my own election campaign. It's been just the best. I haven't slogged through years of local party activity, stuffing envelopes (or whatever the 21st century equivalent of that is) in dingy back offices. I haven't had to sit in front of any intimidating selection committees. I haven't had to toady up to party officials. I haven't had to knock on doors, or be heckled by angry members of the public. I haven't had to kiss babies (though I'm always up for kissing babies). Three years ago, I started a blog (could someone hit the 'play' button on 'Land of Hope and Glory' at this point? I'd like it to be playing in the background as you read this). Yes, three years ago I started a blog, and since then I've splurged my splurges, rambled my rambles, ranted my rants, whinged my whinges, pondered my ponderings, wittered my witterings... (do you spot a theme developing here?) In all, I've just been doing what I love doing - writing, reading, commenting - and look at you, lovely people. You went and nominated me Best Writer. Best Writer, for heaven's sake. Those of you who know me, will know how [Shurely shome way of making her stop now. Ed.]

Then I did this thing where I said "vote for me, I need cheering up". I feel a bit bad about that. It's the blogging equivalent of having a pregnant wife.

Now, a bit about the voting in this final round. First, you have a month, so don't just whizz over and vote straightaway (though I do still need cheering up... obviously...) There are 9 categories, with 5 finalists in each, so that's a lot of fab blogs to have a look at. It's a sign of how big the blogosphere has become, that I have to confess to not knowing even half of the blogs up there (and I've read a lot of blogs). So this is a chance to go out and about from our own small corners of the blogosphere, and see what everyone else is excited about. The MADs organisers aren't going to be putting on any live TV debates for you, so you're going to have to get on out there, and do the reading yourselves before casting your vote (but don't lose sight of the 'cheering up' aspect of things.)

And thank you so much to Childsure, who not only offer private health insurance for kids, but have also sponsored the Best Writer category of the MADs awards.

Now, let me go and kiss some babies.

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Olde English Tea

I've just been to an Olde English Tea. It's an annual fundraising event, run by a local church. It was most enjoyable, and it made me realise something I hadn't fully realised before. We English have a lot to live up to. I knew that Americans like our accent, and I knew that many of the older generation are somewhat fascinated by the idea of the monarchy. But, oh my, if this event is anything to go by, the image they hold of life in England is truly refined.

The occasion was one at which Miss Marple would have felt at home. Piano music tinkled away in the background. Tea was poured from large, elegant silver teapots on silver platters. The food consisted of small sandwiches cut into dainty circles or squares, and tiny cakes, and morsels of tray bake, and little pieces of fruit precisely displayed. There were mice made out of a cherry dipped in chocolate for the body, with a chocolate head, pointy nose and all, and ears made out of flaked almonds. The cherry stalk was the tail. What imagination! Everything was beautifully presented on plates, with doilies (can't remember when I last saw a doily), and a small vase of flowers in the middle of each one. Flowers were everywhere, actually. On each table in white teapots-turned-vases, in huge arrangements down the centre of the buffet table, either side of the pathway as you walked into the building.

I have no idea how many people they serve in the four hours that it runs, but it will be several hundred. Mostly ladies, and all very smartly turned out, with many in hats. Hats! "Like an English wedding" someone told me.

You'll be pleased to hear I didn't let the side down. I tried my best to look elegant and glamorous, but in an English way. I'm going to have to digress here, and tell you about the dress I wore. I've had it for 15 years (I just worked it out) and for most of those years, it's been hanging in my closet for old times' sake because, let's face it, who can fit into a dress they wore 15 years ago after three pregnancies and the onset of middle age? But ha, there has to be some hidden positive in cancer and chemo, and guess what, I am now lighter than I was 16 years ago, and it would seem pretty much as slim. I was so excited when I tried it on and found it fit, and it kind of compensated for the black and purple toilet brush which is my head these days (I never did go back to the hairdresser; I know, I know, I should have...)

Anyway, yes, understated English elegance was the look I was going for, which involves a lot of tummy sucking in, I can tell you, and walking as if you have a book balanced on your head. I tried to talk in my finest accent, and shower little droplets of British English into the air. It was the least I could do.

You'll be glad I didn't spoil the ambiance by letting on that there were a few little wrinkles in the Englishness. The event took place between 10.00am and 2.00pm, so not actually teatime as we know it. The tea was served with a slice of lemon with a clove stuck in it. Delicious, I'm sure, but not traditionally English. There was milk and sugar available, but it wasn't milk. It was cream. (I hear your small gasps of horror from across the ocean). There was a choice of tea or coffee (coffee... I know... sacrilege). And the drinks were served in glass cups - proper teacup-shaped cups, not mugs - but without saucers. Alas.

But it's the worst kind of expat who is a pernickety spotter of faults in this way, so these things are just between you and me and a gatepost standing by a verdant green meadow somewhere deep in rural England. And let's face it, if they were really going to recreate an English tea, it wouldn't be flowers and hats and delicate food and refined chatter at all, would it now?