Saturday, March 23, 2013
Rocket science - sorted
Look at these chocolate banana muffins! All light and fluffy and risen out of their cases. Thank you, Nigella Lawson, rocket scientist par excellence.
Friday, March 22, 2013
A good question
A question from 8-yo yesterday:
"Mummy, is rocket science difficult?"
I just said yes. I said it must be very difficult and complicated to send up a rocket into space. But it's an assumption, isn't it? I could have said "Rocket science? Nah. Any old numpty can work for NASA if they want. Baking muffins that turn out light and fluffy. That's what's really difficult."
Because that is what I find difficult. Nay, impossible.
And remembering that red wine, though delicious, doesn't agree with me. (It's an age thing, I think; this is a new problem.)
And reversing in a straight line (I'm ok manoeuvring, but I find it hard to reverse straight back).
And spelling "manoeuvring", (though I hadn't thought about that one till just then).
What about you? What do you find difficult?
.
"Mummy, is rocket science difficult?"
I just said yes. I said it must be very difficult and complicated to send up a rocket into space. But it's an assumption, isn't it? I could have said "Rocket science? Nah. Any old numpty can work for NASA if they want. Baking muffins that turn out light and fluffy. That's what's really difficult."
Because that is what I find difficult. Nay, impossible.
And remembering that red wine, though delicious, doesn't agree with me. (It's an age thing, I think; this is a new problem.)
And reversing in a straight line (I'm ok manoeuvring, but I find it hard to reverse straight back).
And spelling "manoeuvring", (though I hadn't thought about that one till just then).
What about you? What do you find difficult?
.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Enough with the gloom - here's me being positive about motherhood and inventing a new word
The last two posts have been a little gloomy, so I'm changing the mood (though staying on the theme).
This video did the rounds a few years ago, but you might have missed it. I LOVE it. It makes me laugh over and over again - I watch it regularly. But more than that, when I am at a loss for words with my kids, I sing bits of it to them. It's become part of our family language.
I hope you enjoy it.
There's a version on youtube with lyrics, if you found it hard to keep up with her.
I've decided I can't be doing too badly as a mum. I told 15-yo this morning that yesterday, after he'd cleaned up his room, there were 12 pairs of underpants at the top of the laundry basket. I counted them, as I put them in the washing machine (I wouldn't have known he possessed that many).
"That means", I continued, "that before they were in the laundry basket, they were on your bedroom floor. TWELVE pairs of dirty underpants on your bedroom floor."
"No..." he countered, with an endearing grin. "Actually, just eleven. I was wearing one. I put it straight in the laundry basket. Just eleven."
And before I could think of a reposte, he came up with another idea.
"And in fact, I would say it was only eight or nine, because some were on top of others, and not actually touching the floor at all."
This is my point. I might not be very good at training my children to pick up their dirty laundry (can anyone top 12 pairs of underpants?), but I am doing a good job in teaching them that a winsome grin and a clever quick answer will get you out of trouble on many an occasion.
I've just invented a new word. In this house we have floordrobes, and we also have floorndry baskets.
.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Why do I feel I do nothing? - A confession
I have a confession to make.
When I started blogging, I was an SAHM, and at that time, the blogosphere often resounded to the strains of SAHMs justifying themselves, trying not to justify themselves, feeling angry about having to justify themselves... It probably still is, but I'm not reading it so much in my own circles, because it tends to be a preoccupation of mums with younger children than mine. Anyway, as I said in my previous post, I often chipped into the debate, and waved the "SAHM and happy" flag.
Then I got a part-time job. Very part-time - only a few hours a week. Not a very glamorous job. I mean, I wasn't running my own successful business, or heading up a department in a multinational corporation. I was a Sales Assistant in a toy shop, and on the minimum wage (though I did negotiate a 50% pay rise for my second year, which I thought was pretty good going).
The confession is this. When I got the job, I loved being able to say I had one. There was a moment when I was filling in a questionnaire, and in the section headed ‘Occupation’, instead of ticking the box ‘Not in employment’ or ‘Caring for dependents’ or whatever it was labelled, I ticked the box ‘Retail’. I loved that moment.
When people asked me what I did, I no longer had to say "Oh, I'm at home with the kids". I really liked that. Which is dreadful, because I'd so often commented on blogs "Don't say ‘I'm just at home with the kids’ - it's a really important job, the most important job you could be doing, actually. Say it with pride." I don't know if I'd convinced anyone else, but I certainly hadn't convinced myself. I really liked that I'd jumped over to the other side. But I didn't want to feel that it was "the other side". For all the rhetoric about choices, doing what's right for you and your family, etc etc, fundamentally, I think I had been looking down on myself and other SAHMs.
That’s my confession. So now, I feel bad on two counts. First, I am an SAHM and therefore don't do anything (see previous post). And second, I am outed as the kind of horrible woman who looks down on SAHMs, and think they don't do anything.
I am nothing if not honest.
.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Why do I feel I do nothing?
Calling all SAHMs out there...
Why do I feel I do nothing?
I know the answer, actually. It's because
Ooh, that last one sounded a bit spot on, didn't it?
Meanwhile, yes, I suppose if we're calling a spade a spade, it would be good to say out loud that this move has involved sacrifices. They don't come anywhere near outweighing the benefits, and I'm not the only one who has made sacrifices, but it's probably helpful to look at that spade and name it. Though talking of spades just makes me think about how I've done nothing at all in our new garden, and how can that be? because I have so many free hours a day, (though looking at the state of the house you wouldn't think so), and everyone likes to do gardening, right? and with the amount of free time I have, since my children are at school all day, I could be growing our own organic vegetables, so I'll just add that to the list of things I should do but haven't done.
Waah.
.
Why do I feel I do nothing?
I know the answer, actually. It's because
- When I had pre-school children, I used to look at mothers of school age children and think "wow, you have so many hours a day to get things done". I assumed that when my children were at school, I would have everything done in a wink, and then have time for new exciting ventures too. Now those days are here, I still don't achieve everything I want to do, and I have no time for any ventures, new, exciting, or otherwise.
- Although I know I hold family life together, and I know that is an important role, it seems like not very much. It's very invisible. It's so invisible that even I don't see it.
- For all the blog posts I've written and commented upon on this issue (and believe me, it's quite a number), and for all the encouragement I've given, and for all the times I've said "it's not a competition", somewhere deep down, I must feel it IS a competition. So although I know that life involves choices, sometimes dictated by circumstances, sometimes not, somehow I feel that being out at work AND having a family proves you are a more competent person than just having a family (just having a family...). I want to be one of those more competent people. There is a corner of me that sniffs a GCSE in "being competent" that I could be working for, or if not a GCSE, at least a gold star.
- If I enjoy the things I do (eg supermarket shopping - yes, I do enjoy that), then somehow I can't let myself see them as "work", and if they're not "work", then they're fun/pleasure/leisure/bunking off/slacking and I can't count them. Which is clearly ridiculous, because if I was in a job, and enjoyed elements of that job, I wouldn't feel guilty and as if I was being paid to enjoy myself. I'd just think they were part of the job.
- There is far too much Protestant Work Ethic around. Who needs to work to justify themselves in any case?
- This time a year ago, I had a part-time job and I was studying part-time for an MA. Then we moved back to Britain, and although I am trying to put those things in place again (I've had TWO job interviews in the past fortnight, go Iota!), these things take time. I find it hard to be patient. But I was also slightly relieved not to get the jobs. Even a few hours a week would put a strain on me, and on family life, and after you've moved to a new place, there needs to be a bit of slack around, even if the cost of that slack is that there's often a bit too much of it. My time will come.
Ooh, that last one sounded a bit spot on, didn't it?
Meanwhile, yes, I suppose if we're calling a spade a spade, it would be good to say out loud that this move has involved sacrifices. They don't come anywhere near outweighing the benefits, and I'm not the only one who has made sacrifices, but it's probably helpful to look at that spade and name it. Though talking of spades just makes me think about how I've done nothing at all in our new garden, and how can that be? because I have so many free hours a day, (though looking at the state of the house you wouldn't think so), and everyone likes to do gardening, right? and with the amount of free time I have, since my children are at school all day, I could be growing our own organic vegetables, so I'll just add that to the list of things I should do but haven't done.
Waah.
.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Finding my new normal - Part III
One of the things that you become aware of when you become a parent, is how very much your idea of "normal" stems from your childhood.
We think we're going to fathom out how to be parents on an intellectual plane (plane as in level, not as in aeroplane, though I do quite like the idea of working things out while travelling on an intellectual aeroplane). Then we have a baby, and we are taken by surprise by how very much our gut feelings take over, and how much those gut feelings are the instincts that we inherited from our own mothers, fathers and forebears (no, not four bears, forebears). That phrase you hear yourself shouting after your disobedient toddler... where did that come from? You sounded just like your mum! Your Christmas traditions are, well, just the way Christmas IS. Other families' Christmas traditions are other families' Christmas traditions. They're not proper Christmas, somehow. Your own rules for playing childhood games are THE rules (like if you don't say "thank you" when someone hands you a card in 'Happy Families', you have to give the card back). You might agree to play with other rules, but deep down, you know they're not the real rules. (I know of someone... not a million miles away from here... who turned up at university thinking that the person who was losing at the end of each round of croquet, had an extra go, though she had at least worked out that it wasn't necessarily the youngest who got to choose their colour of ball first.)
My parents both love classical music. When I was a child, I thought that children listened to Radio 1, and adults listened to Radio 3. I thought that was the way the world was. I assumed that as you grew up, you developed a taste for classical music, just as you developed a taste for alcohol and olives, and learned to drive a car. I remember going to a friend's house, and hearing the radio, and it was voices. Not music. Voices! People talking. Imagine that. Very odd. I was puzzled. I asked my friend what her mother was listening to, and she said she didn't really know. I probed. What are the people talking about? She didn't know. I went home perplexed. Didn't all grown-ups listen to classical music on the radio? Why would a bone fide grown up be listening to voices on the radio?
I think that the world has loosened up a little. I don't think this feeling of normalcy will be quite the same phenomenon in our children's lives as it was in ours. There isn't the same sense of there being one proper way of doing things. Homes are much more varied. Children mix much more with children of other ethnicities, religions, backgrounds. But even so. It will still be there.
I want my children to question the way Husband and I do things, the beliefs we hold, the attitudes from which we operate. It's part of maturing, it's inevitable, and it's healthy. But I also know that at the ground level of their psyches, certainly for some while yet, they think that our family is the norm, the way things are, the way things rightly are. It's an awesome responsibility. But as I've decided (see my previous post) that there is no normal, then it's probably all ok.
.
We think we're going to fathom out how to be parents on an intellectual plane (plane as in level, not as in aeroplane, though I do quite like the idea of working things out while travelling on an intellectual aeroplane). Then we have a baby, and we are taken by surprise by how very much our gut feelings take over, and how much those gut feelings are the instincts that we inherited from our own mothers, fathers and forebears (no, not four bears, forebears). That phrase you hear yourself shouting after your disobedient toddler... where did that come from? You sounded just like your mum! Your Christmas traditions are, well, just the way Christmas IS. Other families' Christmas traditions are other families' Christmas traditions. They're not proper Christmas, somehow. Your own rules for playing childhood games are THE rules (like if you don't say "thank you" when someone hands you a card in 'Happy Families', you have to give the card back). You might agree to play with other rules, but deep down, you know they're not the real rules. (I know of someone... not a million miles away from here... who turned up at university thinking that the person who was losing at the end of each round of croquet, had an extra go, though she had at least worked out that it wasn't necessarily the youngest who got to choose their colour of ball first.)
My parents both love classical music. When I was a child, I thought that children listened to Radio 1, and adults listened to Radio 3. I thought that was the way the world was. I assumed that as you grew up, you developed a taste for classical music, just as you developed a taste for alcohol and olives, and learned to drive a car. I remember going to a friend's house, and hearing the radio, and it was voices. Not music. Voices! People talking. Imagine that. Very odd. I was puzzled. I asked my friend what her mother was listening to, and she said she didn't really know. I probed. What are the people talking about? She didn't know. I went home perplexed. Didn't all grown-ups listen to classical music on the radio? Why would a bone fide grown up be listening to voices on the radio?
I think that the world has loosened up a little. I don't think this feeling of normalcy will be quite the same phenomenon in our children's lives as it was in ours. There isn't the same sense of there being one proper way of doing things. Homes are much more varied. Children mix much more with children of other ethnicities, religions, backgrounds. But even so. It will still be there.
I want my children to question the way Husband and I do things, the beliefs we hold, the attitudes from which we operate. It's part of maturing, it's inevitable, and it's healthy. But I also know that at the ground level of their psyches, certainly for some while yet, they think that our family is the norm, the way things are, the way things rightly are. It's an awesome responsibility. But as I've decided (see my previous post) that there is no normal, then it's probably all ok.
.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Finding my new normal - Part II
So why is there a Part II to this? It's because I want to share with you one of the things I learnt, through having cancer. There is no normal.
Of course there is, in one sense. As I said at the end of the previous post, I like being normal. "Normal life" is something we all take for granted... until it's wrenched away from us.. and then it seems like a golden blessing. As I write, I can see the buses going past my window, full of people going about their daily lives. Jobs, shopping, visiting. Who knows what they're up to? Most of it not very important, probably, but all of it part of a big whole. Each day, each element, is like a stitch in a tapestry, contributing to a picture.
Most people come through a major illness with a desire to appreciate the little things of life more, a determination to live every day to the full. I think that's wonderful. But it's also a bit exhausting. You can't do tapestry on speed. Tapestry is often a slow, plodding, meticulous task, and you can't fall down in admiration at every stitch. So yes, I do appreciate life and I do want to live to the full, but I do also have grumpy times (yes, really), and get fed up, and I don't remember to live each day as if it were my last.
The change I notice in myself, is the change of understanding of how life unfolds. Before cancer, I thought life was a line. I might deviate from the line, but then the task was to get back to it. For example, I battled with the idea of living abroad with the children for too long. I was happy for them to have an American experience, and I'd have talked about "broadening their horizons". But really, I looked on it as a deviation. Their real life was somehow hidden away in a cupboard in Britain, and I'd get it out and polish it up when we got back. But I now see how life exists in the deviations, because they're not deviations. They are the very stuff of life. And it's not just the visible. I think I'm able to accept change and disruption at my very core, in a way that I didn't used to. If I was a cake, having cancer wouldn't be a bit of the icing that's gone a bit wrong, that I can scrape off, and cover over with new icing. No. It's one of the ingredients, in the mix, in the baking, in every bite. It's in the flavour.
Unless I am alone in this (and I am perfectly happy to accept that I have a personal level of unique weirdness), I think it is an important truth, but also a difficult one to get hold of. I find it hard to explain. I see it in various aspects of life. Some of our deep insecurities come from a sense of not being who we ought to be. Even at a fairly superficial level, we are bombarded with the image of what our body should look like, what our face, our hair, should look like. When you move house, it's easy to feel permanently inadequate, because your house doesn't look like the ones in the catalogues, as they should. It's as if there is an imaginary straight line, that we are deviating from. But guess what? That imaginary line, where we're all slim, healthy, happy, fulfilled, with our scatter cushions perfectly arranged on our sofas, doesn't exist. When I had cancer, one of the overwhelming, yet hard to define, feelings, was that I shouldn't be having cancer. This shouldn't be happening to me. It was a deviation. But it did happen, and it still is happening, in that it is part of me now. I wouldn't be who I am, if I hadn't had cancer, and I am who I am. And that is it. To go back to my earlier example, I used to resent being in America, as it was somehow preventing the children from having the life they ought to be having the other side of the Atlantic. But I stopped seeing it like that. They are who they are, their lives are as they are, and that is enough. My house doesn't look like an IKEA catalogue, but that is.... hang on... I really would quite like my house to look like an IKEA catalogue. I guess I have some progress to make on that one.
I haven't described what I wanted to describe very well. I can feel words like "embracing change" and "acceptance" hovering around, ready to fall onto the page and sum this up for me.
And, if you've read this far, you'll be pleased to know that the results came back from the lab, and that everything they tested was benign. That was the word the doctor used: "benign". Maybe she had a sixth sense that if she said "everything was normal", it might have prompted a monologue on the word "normal". You can see I've been thinking about it... just a little.
.
Of course there is, in one sense. As I said at the end of the previous post, I like being normal. "Normal life" is something we all take for granted... until it's wrenched away from us.. and then it seems like a golden blessing. As I write, I can see the buses going past my window, full of people going about their daily lives. Jobs, shopping, visiting. Who knows what they're up to? Most of it not very important, probably, but all of it part of a big whole. Each day, each element, is like a stitch in a tapestry, contributing to a picture.
Most people come through a major illness with a desire to appreciate the little things of life more, a determination to live every day to the full. I think that's wonderful. But it's also a bit exhausting. You can't do tapestry on speed. Tapestry is often a slow, plodding, meticulous task, and you can't fall down in admiration at every stitch. So yes, I do appreciate life and I do want to live to the full, but I do also have grumpy times (yes, really), and get fed up, and I don't remember to live each day as if it were my last.
The change I notice in myself, is the change of understanding of how life unfolds. Before cancer, I thought life was a line. I might deviate from the line, but then the task was to get back to it. For example, I battled with the idea of living abroad with the children for too long. I was happy for them to have an American experience, and I'd have talked about "broadening their horizons". But really, I looked on it as a deviation. Their real life was somehow hidden away in a cupboard in Britain, and I'd get it out and polish it up when we got back. But I now see how life exists in the deviations, because they're not deviations. They are the very stuff of life. And it's not just the visible. I think I'm able to accept change and disruption at my very core, in a way that I didn't used to. If I was a cake, having cancer wouldn't be a bit of the icing that's gone a bit wrong, that I can scrape off, and cover over with new icing. No. It's one of the ingredients, in the mix, in the baking, in every bite. It's in the flavour.
Unless I am alone in this (and I am perfectly happy to accept that I have a personal level of unique weirdness), I think it is an important truth, but also a difficult one to get hold of. I find it hard to explain. I see it in various aspects of life. Some of our deep insecurities come from a sense of not being who we ought to be. Even at a fairly superficial level, we are bombarded with the image of what our body should look like, what our face, our hair, should look like. When you move house, it's easy to feel permanently inadequate, because your house doesn't look like the ones in the catalogues, as they should. It's as if there is an imaginary straight line, that we are deviating from. But guess what? That imaginary line, where we're all slim, healthy, happy, fulfilled, with our scatter cushions perfectly arranged on our sofas, doesn't exist. When I had cancer, one of the overwhelming, yet hard to define, feelings, was that I shouldn't be having cancer. This shouldn't be happening to me. It was a deviation. But it did happen, and it still is happening, in that it is part of me now. I wouldn't be who I am, if I hadn't had cancer, and I am who I am. And that is it. To go back to my earlier example, I used to resent being in America, as it was somehow preventing the children from having the life they ought to be having the other side of the Atlantic. But I stopped seeing it like that. They are who they are, their lives are as they are, and that is enough. My house doesn't look like an IKEA catalogue, but that is.... hang on... I really would quite like my house to look like an IKEA catalogue. I guess I have some progress to make on that one.
And, if you've read this far, you'll be pleased to know that the results came back from the lab, and that everything they tested was benign. That was the word the doctor used: "benign". Maybe she had a sixth sense that if she said "everything was normal", it might have prompted a monologue on the word "normal". You can see I've been thinking about it... just a little.
.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Finding my new normal - Part I
The title of this post is stolen from a blog I follow. I found it, because it's written by an American living in London, but that's not what the blog is about. The author lost a baby at full term, and has written deeply and movingly (that sounds so patronising and cliched and I don't mean it to) about that. Now she has a second baby, and is navigating life in the new-baby-new-mummy world.
I don't want to compare life after cancer with life after losing a baby. It's a wrong comparison. But some of what she has written recently has resonated with me. I absolutely love the title of the blog. "Finding my new normal". It just seems to encapsulate so much. When we moved back here to Britain last summer, we started a new chapter, in a new place, among new people. We were building a new normal. I had a choice, have a choice, whether to tell anyone about going through cancer. Or not.
I've chosen not to. It wasn't a decision made in advance: "I'm not going to tell anyone". No. It's just that it never quite felt like the moment. There's one person here who I knew before we came here, and she knows, and maybe that one person is enough. I see her often, and we have hardly ever talked about cancer, but perhaps it's enough that I know I could. I did share with her the details of my recent health scare (investigative procedure didn't find anything nasty, but still awaiting lab results to confirm, thanks for asking). Perhaps this is the ideal situation. Just one person, a person I can trust, who I can talk to if I need to. And of course I can always share what I want to on the subject on my blog. That must make a difference.
I suppose part of it is a desire to be free of that label. I want to be me first, and a breast cancer person second (notice I didn't use that word "survivor" which I really loathe). It's not that it's a secret. I'm not afraid of telling people. I'm far enough on now, that it doesn't dominate my life. I can talk about it without it being too overwhelming. It's just that if you don't tell a new friend early on, then it would feel a bit odd when you do tell them. It somehow takes the conversation, and maybe the relationship, into a different register.
It feels good that "I've had cancer" is no longer the top of the list of my daily mental agenda. Perhaps that's why I haven't told people. I don't want it to be. Perhaps I'm afraid that if I tell them, then it will ratchet back up the list a little. Would the casual "How are you?" be weighted with a little more significance? Will I have to say "I'm fine" with a little more emphasis than I usually do?
I'm at the point where I'd be happy to be in a supportive role to someone else going through the same experience. I know that, because I've recently heard of someone with a breast cancer diagnosis, about to start chemotherapy, and I've sent a message, opening the door to further contact, if that is what she wants. I said "it's not a secret, but it's not something I talk about very much". And that is where I am. It's easy to see how something like a cancer history could become a dark secret, and I don't want that. It's nothing to be ashamed of. One in eight women are going to go through it at some point in their lives (are you doing self-examinations, ladies? ONE IN EIGHT...). But I don't want to bang the drum, either. I'm not that woman who is throwing herself into fundraising, campaigning, getting involved. I don't want it to become my identity.
I like "my new normal", actually. I like being a normal person. I did terribly miss normal life, when I was going through the valley of the shadow of cancer. I expect that's why I haven't told people. I like being normal again.
.
I don't want to compare life after cancer with life after losing a baby. It's a wrong comparison. But some of what she has written recently has resonated with me. I absolutely love the title of the blog. "Finding my new normal". It just seems to encapsulate so much. When we moved back here to Britain last summer, we started a new chapter, in a new place, among new people. We were building a new normal. I had a choice, have a choice, whether to tell anyone about going through cancer. Or not.
I've chosen not to. It wasn't a decision made in advance: "I'm not going to tell anyone". No. It's just that it never quite felt like the moment. There's one person here who I knew before we came here, and she knows, and maybe that one person is enough. I see her often, and we have hardly ever talked about cancer, but perhaps it's enough that I know I could. I did share with her the details of my recent health scare (investigative procedure didn't find anything nasty, but still awaiting lab results to confirm, thanks for asking). Perhaps this is the ideal situation. Just one person, a person I can trust, who I can talk to if I need to. And of course I can always share what I want to on the subject on my blog. That must make a difference.
I suppose part of it is a desire to be free of that label. I want to be me first, and a breast cancer person second (notice I didn't use that word "survivor" which I really loathe). It's not that it's a secret. I'm not afraid of telling people. I'm far enough on now, that it doesn't dominate my life. I can talk about it without it being too overwhelming. It's just that if you don't tell a new friend early on, then it would feel a bit odd when you do tell them. It somehow takes the conversation, and maybe the relationship, into a different register.
It feels good that "I've had cancer" is no longer the top of the list of my daily mental agenda. Perhaps that's why I haven't told people. I don't want it to be. Perhaps I'm afraid that if I tell them, then it will ratchet back up the list a little. Would the casual "How are you?" be weighted with a little more significance? Will I have to say "I'm fine" with a little more emphasis than I usually do?
I'm at the point where I'd be happy to be in a supportive role to someone else going through the same experience. I know that, because I've recently heard of someone with a breast cancer diagnosis, about to start chemotherapy, and I've sent a message, opening the door to further contact, if that is what she wants. I said "it's not a secret, but it's not something I talk about very much". And that is where I am. It's easy to see how something like a cancer history could become a dark secret, and I don't want that. It's nothing to be ashamed of. One in eight women are going to go through it at some point in their lives (are you doing self-examinations, ladies? ONE IN EIGHT...). But I don't want to bang the drum, either. I'm not that woman who is throwing herself into fundraising, campaigning, getting involved. I don't want it to become my identity.
I like "my new normal", actually. I like being a normal person. I did terribly miss normal life, when I was going through the valley of the shadow of cancer. I expect that's why I haven't told people. I like being normal again.
.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)