It was a moment

I had a moment the other day.

I've stayed on a couple of email lists, and yes, I know, I know, we left America 11 months ago, so it probably is time to drop off them. But they don't generate much traffic, so they don't clog up my inbox, and it's kind of fun to keep an eye on them. One is the book club I belonged to, and I like to see what they are reading. The other is the study group I belonged to at church. Now, that was a special group in my life. You may remember reading about those people in this post.

I had a phone conversation with the friend who convenes that group out of the blue recently. It was fun to catch up - both the big things, and the little stuff. And then, just after, there was another email in my inbox. I hardly read them, these days, but the second paragraph caught my eye. 

"Also, on another note, for those of you who knew Husband and Iota, I got a call from her the other day and they are all doing well in Scotland. Husband likes his new job, the kids are doing well, and their house in America finally sold (Iota says thank you for the prayers and hello to all!)."

"For those of you who knew Husband and Iota..."  That was the moment. What? There are people in that group who don't know me? Seriously? You mean, it's not all just exactly as I left it? How can that be? People definitely aren't allowed to do that. My life there is in a box, and that box is absolutely not permitted to be shaken up.

It was a moment. 

I'm going to remove myself from those email lists. I'm in another church group over here now, and a couple of weeks ago, a friend and I decided to start a book club. We're reading The Great Gatsby... Life moves on.

It was just a moment. Those moments feel rather more like this, though.

Photo credits: IKEA, and Wikipedia

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Birthdays

I love celebrating the children's birthdays, but this next one, 11-yo turning 12, is proving a bit of a hair in the gate. He and I have birthdays four days apart, and in America, they fell around Thanksgiving. We developed the tradition of a wonderful family time, taking the kids out of school for three days to turn the long week-end into a week, and heading off to Colorado. Late November in Colorado can be sunny and mild, or snowy and cold. It can be autumn or winter. I loved the element of surprise. We returned to favourite haunts, and did favourite things. We found snow, by heading high, and had a morning's sledding. We had a hike to a waterfall. We spent time in a cafe, drinking hot chocolate and playing cards. It was a much-anticipated week in a place special to the family. I even loved the journey, 10 hours' drive, along roads that had become familiar over the years.

11-yo has always done well for his birthday, because I've never wanted him to feel it's overshadowed by Christmas. Going to Colorado included a family celebration, and then he always had an event with friends too when we got back, whatever floated a young boy's boat. This year, back in Scotland, I was stuck. He was too. When we first discussed it, there were tears. He was suddenly overwhelmed with thoughts of friends back in the US, the memory of the huge party he had a couple of  years ago joint with his best friend whose birthday is around the same time, and assertions that he doesn't have any friends here who he would want to invite. I left the subject for a few days. At the next discussion, he claimed that everyone in his entire class has already seen Skyfall, and no-one would want to see it again. No other idea was right either. Nobody would want to do anything.

This morning, as we walked to school, I found I was explaining and re-explaining why there had to be a limit of 3, on the number of friends we'd take to the cinema, and that if he really wanted to include a whole bunch of boys, we could have them round for a video and pizza instead. Phew. Given the choice of being faced with a child's anguish ("I don't have any friends") or a child's anger ("But WHY can't I invite 4 for the cinema?"), I'd willingly take the second, exhausting though it can be.

I thought we were unstuck on the birthday front, and it felt good. Until 8-yo piped up

"For my birthday, we'll be going back to America, won't we?"

I knew I had to nip that expectation in the bud, and told her that no, that wouldn't be possible.

"But it's ok, because it'll be half term," she countered.

Sometimes moving continents is a real bummer.

So this is how I know I'm a writer and not an artist

Task: get big room in basement repainted, so that very dated (60s?) turquoise and sea green stripes on white with deep red trim (yes, honestly) can be hidden, and walls can become bland but fashionable beige.

Task: get front door painted, so that it doesn't look all bashed and (again) dated, but 'pops' (I have to put that in inverted commas - I can't take it seriously as a word. Not quite yet, anyway.)

Method: get friend round, to help me choose paint colours from huge colour chart left by painter (whom, when he told me how long the job would take, and with the knowledge of how long it was going to take the other painter who quoted for me, I described as 'speedy', then looked at his business card in my hand, and saw that his name was Gonzales. You're looking at me blankly. Speedy Gonzales? No? Never mind.)

You have to remember that I really don't care about the colour. I'm not going to be living with it. It just has to sell the house. My friend was a fine art major, and uses words like tone and shade, knowing what they actually mean. She can spend hours choosing between two identical shades of grey, talking of their relative coolness, whereas I mean something entirely different by 'relatively cool'. Nonetheless, she was just the right person for the job, though I feel I unkindly put her through several degrees of agony, by telling her that we had to decide within half an hour (we're being squeezed in between other jobs, so every minute counts). She picked me out a beige for the basement that won't make the grey speckly carpet look dirty (who knew?), and a deep dark purpley colour for the front door, which picks up the brickwork of the house as the realtor had suggested. It was either that, or the terracotta orange that I'd first thought of - terracotta, bricks, whatever - because I'm still so enchanted with my own Italian theme in the dining nook, and terracotta is a word that just springs to my lips before I can say Dulux. Actually, I never like using Dulux, because it sounds too like Durex and I'm afraid I might be in Homebase and say Durex instead of Dulux, and really embarrass myself. In any case, over here it's a question of Behr or Glisson, so the Dulux problem doesn't arise. Though Behr sounds like 'bare' and could therefore be embarrassing too. "Do you recommend painting Behr?" you might ask a Home Depot sales assistant.

Anyhoo... as we had reached our triumphant conclusion, I confessed to my arty friend that I find it hard to pick paint colours because I get distracted by the names. I'd much prefer it if they just gave those little squares numbers, and numbers only. For example, the original brick terracotta that I'd wondered about for the front door was called determined orange. I mean, how can you resist painting a front door determined orange? It has such command, such purpose. To me, it boiled down to a choice between that, and its neighbour robust orange. Would I rather have determined or robust as my message to potential buyers about the house? Meanwhile, the purpley jewel tone that my friend liked (jewel tone, get that?) was called burgundy, which just says dining room to me, and definitely not front door, so I took against that one from the outset.

It's not that I sit pondering these words. It's just that they're so full of instant connotations, all of them, that I have to make a mental effort to screen that out. I confessed to my friend that our downstairs bathroom is painted such a bright yellow because I loved the name bicycle yellow. We didn't delve into why the beige I'd first picked out for the basement (not dark enough, as she pointed out) was breathless.

Conclusion: Sand dollar for the basement, winning after a close battle with lightweight beige, which frankly was never going to come out well in a contest. Cordovan for the front door, after a tussle with river rouge. I don't know what cordovan means, but the moment my friend said she thought it was the name of a Spanish explorer, I fell for it. Exploration... front doors opening onto the world... new beginnings... It's totally perfect. And will make the front door 'pop' from the road, which is what my realtor said.

Meanwhile, we're touching up the stairwell with antique white, which grieves my sensibilities horribly, because dammit, we're trying to give the house an updated feel.

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A staging post

Staging my house. Not dressing it. 'Staging' is the term I should have used, and staging is what I've been doing for the past couple of hours.

Our realtor came round last week, and pointed out where things could be improved. Some we knew about already, some she tactfully suggested. This morning, a couple of friends helped me out. They brought boxes of china and other display items, and they brought fun and a caring desire to help. The china is useful. We put it out on the silly built-in shelving in the sitting room that I've never liked. The fun and the caring desire to help was more than useful.

That's the essence of selling a house, isn't it? It's your home. But that's not what a buyer wants, and therefore that's not what you want to show them. If you came and looked round my house now, in the nicely-themed nook off the kitchen, you'd see a dining table, with a brown table cloth and a fruit bowl on top of it, a scene of a Tuscan landscape on the wall, all muted yellows and oranges, and a corner unit with plants and trailing ivy. I hope you'd think "mmm, what a lovely, welcoming, warm, mellow dining space".

But if you'd come and looked round my home last week, you'd have seen a not-at-all-themed space that I don't think you'd ever have described as a 'nook'. The wall was covered with pictures painted or drawn by my children over the past five years, stuck up with blu-tack. We called it 'the art wall'. Whenever a picture came home from school, if we decided we liked it more than any of the existing ones, an old one was taken down and the new one went up in its space. Some old favourites had been up for years, dusty but undeposed. You'd have seen a bare table, all scraggy with paint, glitter and nail polish - the table that we decided we'd let the kids use for whatever they wanted when they were little, and then we'd sand down and revarnish at some unspecified future time. When do you decide that your children are no longer little? We haven't quite got there yet. 8-yo still paints and glues and snips and jabs at that table, and I still prefer not to have to choose between the table's appearance and the child's creative largesse.

Where the classy corner unit now stands (well, not all that classy actually), you'd have seen a couple of cardboard boxes, labelled '8-yo's second grade work', and '11-yo's fifth grade work'. What else is a mum to do with the generous contents of the Friday folders, week by week?

You'd have seen a big pile of stuff. Stuff? Yes, stuff. I can't find a better word. Next to the stuff, you'd have seen 'the craft chest of drawers' - a truly horrible plastic item, bought from Walmart when we first arrived in the US, desperate for a place to keep under control all the paperwork that was coming at us thick and fast, and now the repository of crayons, pencils, paintbrushes, paints, stamps, inkpads, rubber bands, blu-tack, scotch tape, bows cut off gift bags that might come in useful, scraps of fabric that also might come in useful... you know the kind of thing. I'm missing that horrible, grubby, shabby plastic chest of drawers already.

This is where having friends is so good.

"Oh!" they said. "Your art wall!" they said. "I loved that wall... but yes, I guess you did have to take it down. Wow. I love your Italian theme. That picture is gorgeous. Where did you get that border from? Really? You've always had that border up in your kitchen? How did I never notice the border? It was up when you moved in? And that matching curtain over the top of the window? Really? I guess I was always so busy admiring the art wall that I never noticed. It's great, though... the Italian look... picking up that border. You've done wonders."

House to home was a slow process, and lonely in the early days. Home to house is a quick transformation. It feels almost surgical, removing the bits that don't fit, that aren't needed, that will get in the way, and stitching up with borrowed china and silk flower arrangements. But of course you fool yourself if you think it really is surgical. A home can't be dissected like that. That's why you need surgeons who are friends. They operate with efficiency (they know you're busy) but also with laughter. They choose their words carefully ("A potential buyer might prefer to see an open space here - though I absolutely love the way you have it..."). And most important of all, they know about the art wall.

Thoughts on our return to the US

Just to clear up a bit of confusion...



Yes, 14-yo's video does make it look as if we live somewhere beautiful. No, actually, we don't. Some of the pictures he used were taken on our holidays in Colorado and Arkansas. Just felt I had to put the record straight, as I have in the past whinged on about how there's no beautiful scenery near us. Thank you for all your comments, by the way. He loved them.



Anyway, here we are, back again, new school year beginning. Here are three lists. I used to be a civil servant, and I still find lists a good way of organising thoughts. Or of writing a blog post when you can't quite string it together in any other way.



1 Nice things about returning to America



a) People. Friends. A group of three families who organised a 'welcome back' barbecue for us, hiring the party room at the local pool, and whenever I said "what can I bring?" insisted "we've got it covered". Americans do hospitality and welcome in a fabulous way.



b) Each time we come back, it feels very different. Like a child starting a new school year isn't actually any taller than on the first day of term than they were on the last day of the holidays, but somehow they seem it. A step away and a step back brings a new perspective.



c) The weather seems sensitive to our arrival. For the second year running, a hot and humid spell has broken the day after we get back. It's very nice of the weather to be so accommodating. It must know I don't cope very well with the heat. This year, I am especially grateful, as it's been record-breakingly hot. It was over 100 degrees (38 celcius) for over 40 consecutive days, and one day it reached 113 (45). I have a little shared laugh with people here about how in England we all pluck our t-shirts away from our bodies and woggle them about, trying to create a tiny breeze, saying "wow it's hot today" when it gets to 80 degrees. Sorry, British people. I have a joke at your expense. (When I was an au pair in France, the little boy I looked after thought a t-shirt was called a p'tit shirt - isn't that sweet?)



2 Things that have changed in Britain



a) Oreos. I spotted some in a supermarket. That's a shame. They're not a patch on hobnobs, digestives, kitkats, or a million other nice British biscuits. And they leave a horrible black ring round your child's mouth. Don't buy oreos.



b) Jaffa cakes. Don't like them. Never have. Never will. (They haven't changed, so I don't know why they're on this list. Wrong list, Jaffa Cakes.)



c) Moving on to non-biscuit-related topics. Sharpies. Yay, wa-hoo wa-hey. Sharpies have arrived in Britain. I cannot imagine how we have lived without them in a satisfactory manner till now. Go out this minute and buy yourself a Sharpie. (Except you, Josephine, you've already got one.)



d) Speed cameras. They are everywhere. I mean, everywhere. Have they been breeding?



e) Top Gear presenters. They are everywhere. Not only is Top Gear on television whenever you turn it on, but they are presenting pretty much every other television programme there is as well. Including that rather addictive one that's made in Argentina because Health and Safety in Britain wouldn't allow it. What's it called...?



f) More Americanisms in British everyday speech. I don't feel very strongly about this. I think language evolves and grows, and you shouldn't try and put it in a cage and keep it. It needs to rove free, like the buffalo over the plains (though it didn't end terribly well for them in recent history). Rove... or should that be roam...? See, a case in point. We should all be free to grab whatever word we want, to suit the mood and the moment, and if that means that some become more popular and some die out (like the buffalo nearly have done), then so be it (though I do feel sad for the buffalo, so this is an imperfect simile). But I have noticed that there is an increasing number of words that have crossed the Atlantic. 'Mad' meaning 'angry'. 'Smart' meaning 'clever' (I blame smart phones, smart technology, etc for this one). 'Call' instead of 'ring' when talking about phoning someone.



3 Things that are still just too counter-cultural for me to love



a) Over-competitive sports for children. I've said it before, and I'll say it again (in fact I have a ranty blog post just waiting to spout out and rove all over my blog any day now on this very subject).



b) A phone message from a very chirpy student on our answerphone:



"Hi, Dr Husband, this is Francine from X University. I'm just calling on behalf of the university as the new academic year begins, to say how much we appreciate the faculty members. We just want you to know that the university values you so much, and we're so glad you're part of it."



Does this really work for most Professors? Really? Or do they, like Husband, stand glowering at the answerphone, making retorts about how a pay rise would do more to make him feel valued than employing a student on the minimum wage to go down the faculty phone list making vacuous calls.

A mystery revealed

All is revealed. Well, not all. But "one thing is revealed" doesn't sound so good, does it?

I am the mystery blogger. Ooh, get me, as they say. Actually, I'm not sure anyone except me does say that, but "Ooh, get me, as I say" doesn't sound so good, does it?

Yes, it was me. I met up with Michelloui, writer of the blog The American Resident, in a Braum's, in a small town, in the middle of America. And it was fabulous.

The opening moments weren't so fabulous. I arrived at Braum's, and over the other side of the restaurant, by the serving area, there was Michelloui, smiling and waving at me. Except I didn't recognise her at all. Sure, she was medium height, long brown hair, friendly face. But it wasn't the same person who I'd met and sat next to at CyberMummy 2010. It's always amazing, in retrospect, how fast the human brain can work at moments like this. I smiled back and waved, and started walking towards her, while my mind processed the following questions: aaaagh, what am I going to do? how am I going to open the conversation with this woman I don't recognise at all? how has she changed her appearance so much? aaaagh, why does she look like that? what's wrong with the memory I have of her? why is my memory so bad these days? it didn't used to be, and aaaagh, who then was that person at CyberMummy I thought was Michelloui? I'm sure it was her... but it obviously wasn't... so who was it? aaaagh...

All that was whirring through the impressive organ that is my brain, while I was smiling and walking towards this woman, who was smiling and waving... and looking right past me... at the person who'd followed me in through the door.

Phew.

So then Michelloui and her husband arrived, and she did look remarkably like the woman who I thought was her at CyberMummy 2010 after all.

As Michelloui talks about here, there is something very lovely about meeting up with a blogger whose blog you've followed. It's like meeting an old friend and a new, all wrapped up in the same person. She brought her husband along with her, and within a minute, the three of us were yabbering away as if we'd known each other for years.

The best bit, if there was a best bit, was talking about the richness that you bring to your life, and to your children's lives, with getting to know another culture from the inside. I have this slightly guilty voice inside me, which says things like "you've ruined your children's education, they don't know their cousins very well, they aren't learning to love the English countryside, they can't spell 'favourite'", and though I try not to listen to that voice, it is there. So it was wonderful to have the affirmation of people who understand my situation from the inside, and could say "but look at all the experience is giving them", and not just the obvious things, but some of the intangibles that are really hard to identify and describe.

So thank you, Michelloui, for fitting me into your American trip. Thank you for finding somewhere easy for us to meet, and arranging it all. Thank you for bringing your husband along - it was fun to meet him. Thanks for the hobnobs. Thanks for a really fun lunchtime.

Religion

I thought it was time I wrote about my experience of religion in the Midwest. This has long been tucked away in my ‘not sure I want to go there on my blog’ folder, along with guns and obesity. Now there’s an attractive pair of bedfellows.

The first thing to say is that it’s very British, this reticence to talk about religion. How did that happen in Britain? Is it too personal? Is it too sensitive in these multi-cultural times? I have to say, I have found it refreshing here, to have it off the taboo list. When we arrived, people asked “will you be looking for a church?” much as they might have asked “which sports are you interested in?” And whether we’d said yes or no, either would have been fine. It’s something that people are much more relaxed about. I know the Bible Belt has a bad reputation, and perhaps we’ve just been lucky, but I can’t think of any occasion on which I’ve felt pressured or offended by any church or individual. I suppose it would be fair to say that as we did the rounds, looking for a church we might call home, we didn’t exactly head to the ones that advertised themselves as unpleasantly fundamentalist and Bible-bashing. But you know, even as I type that, I’m trying to think if I’ve come across some that would fit that description, and I honestly can’t think of any. I conclude that a very little of that kind of stuff has gone a long way in fostering an unfair reputation. I guess they must be around. Perhaps they just don't have a sign outside saying 'Unpleasantly Fundamentalist and Bible-Bashing'.

I find myself stuck at this point. Many many times in my head - most Sundays in my early blogging days - I have written amusing blog posts about an English woman’s perception of church life here. And I could reproduce one of those here, and make you laugh. I could. I mean, we all know that God, underneath His impressive ability to stand up for all nations, is really English. We have the best hymns, we have the best buildings – cold and draughty, with hard bottom-aching pews, just like they should be. We understand that when you leave church, you exchange two sentences about the weather, shuffle your feet a bit, and then head home for a decent Sunday roast. That’s how God planned it. I’m sure it’s in the Bible somewhere. They don’t really appreciate that here. They worship in modern buildings, which are warm and comfortable. They have guitars and keyboards instead of organs. They make way too much eye contact as you walk through the door. They even have people specially to do that, who wear badges saying “Greeter”. And there’s hugging too. I know, I know. It’s just not right. Not right at all.

Over time, though, I have gingerly crossed some lines. I find I can’t write that post any more. Where I used to see a room full of people who didn't seem to understand how to do church properly, though they were having a good stab at it, I now see a community of people living health-filled, grace-filled lives, gathering for worship, and I know I am privileged to be of their number. These are the people who stood with me and my family in the dark days of last summer. These are the people who brought us dinner evening after evening, who took the children off for whole days, whose phone numbers I could have called at any time, day or night, sure of receiving help. These are the people who stood with me in the anxious times when waiting for test results, who shared my relief when these were good (mercifully often), and who fell to their knees in prayer on my behalf when they were bad. These are the people who rejoiced with me when my hair grew, who allowed me space to be sad, be angry, be happy, be weird. These are the people who have puzzled over my odd European perspectives in discussion, and who have embraced my English eccentricities. These are the people in whose company I have wrestled with things, questioned things, faced things, and laid things down. These are the people who I know will carry me in their thoughts and prayers after we’ve (eventually!) left the Midwest, as I will carry them.

I have learned more and received more than I bargained for, here in the Bible Belt. I could tell you a whole lot more about that, but I’m going to sit back now, and watch the comments box go strangely silent. I suspect we’re all British here, when it comes to religion.

There is one thing I miss, though. Because religion is so much more acceptable here, there was an edginess about being a Christian in the UK that I don't experience now. There used to be moments, moments which I loved, when I'd be talking to a mum from school who I'd known for a while, and I'd drop into the conversation that I went to church. The conversation would hesitate, just briefly, before she would express polite interest, or not, while her face would have written all over it the suppressed exclamation "but Iota, I thought you were NORMAL!". I'm a bit of a rebel at heart and I do miss those moments, so if some of you could oblige in the comments, that would be nice.

The Chicago Six

So there I am, sitting in a Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Chicago, listening to another English woman tell a story which begins “so there I am…”, and I’m thinking “I love that – the way English people tell stories in the present tense. I miss that here.”.

Get me, though. Chicago. Chi-ca-go. I’m having this FABULOUS week-end. We’re eating, we’re drinking, we’re being driven around on our own personalized tour, we’re looking at pictures in the Art Institute, we’re strolling around Chicago in the late autumn sunshine… We’re having the best week-end, and all the time, we’re talking, talking, talking. I think I haven’t ever talked so much in a 2-day period in my entire life. We talk as if talking is going to be banned tomorrow. We talk as we eat, we talk as we walk, we talk as we sit in a taxi, we talk when we’re ready for bed and should be going to sleep. I don't mean 19 to the dozen; it’s more like 91 to the dozen. We use much-loved phrases, rarely heard in our American lives: we speak about a fortnight, faffing around, losing the plot, being all over the shop, going to the loo. It’s the conversational equivalent of comfort food. I feel enveloped in a warm blanket of spoken words.

The cast list. You want to know the cast list. There were the two Chicagoans who organized us and looked after us. Thanks, Expat Mum, for your knowledgeable guided tour, and Nicola, I’m in awe of anyone who can wear a white wool coat and keep it looking that good. There were the two Californians, who turned up in bikinis carrying surfboards. Hope you’ve warmed up, Calif Lorna and Geekymummy. The East Coast was represented by Nappy Valley Girl, with her tales about visiting New York's Museum of Modern Art, (though I suspect she’d just got lost in her own neighborhood and was looking at the Hallowe’en decorations, which, if her blog is anything to go by, are works of art of museum quality in their own right). And then me, feeling like I’m one of the hicks from the sticks, though I think I impressed them all with my tales of how we have electricity and hot running water in every house, and a Wal-mart on both sides of town.

I remember a period of time when bloggers in the UK started meeting together. In real life. In the flesh. Sometimes it was an ad hoc group, sometimes it was arranged by British Mummy Bloggers. There was a flurry of ‘meet-ups’. If I’m honest, I hated reading those reports. I felt I was missing out big time. I wanted to know what it felt like to clap eyes on a completely strange face, and yet know the person behind it so well. I wanted to join in all the posting and commenting: “you were JUST like I imagined you! Can’t wait to see you again!” Sometimes living abroad really sucks. Then last summer, I was thrilled at the thought of meeting people at Cyber Mummy 2010, but I was also a little irritated that the blogging wagon had rolled on without me. Everyone was over the novelty of the whole meet-up thing, and was moving on, before I had even had my first taste. People were going to Cyber Mummy because they wanted to attend the sessions and learn stuff, when all I wanted to do was sit at a succession of coffee cups and talk. Not even talk… Just chat… I’m even going to confess (sorry, Susanna, Jen, Sian) that in advance of the conference, I emailed a few bloggers who I really wanted to meet, and sought to lure them out of sessions, so that I could fill my day with my own personal serial meet-up. (It only partially worked.)

Anyway, what I’m trying to say, in amongst all this wittering on, is that this week-end in Chicago was not only a fun-filled, chat-filled, friendship-filled two days which will live in my memory for years to come, but it also somehow made up for all those meet-ups in England which I missed. And in Chi-ca-go, for heaven’s sake. Yup. I think I’ve caught up now.

Thank you, fellow members of The Chicago Six. I wish I could put all those conversations we had over the week-end in bottles, and uncork them over the next few weeks. I'd love to re-run them and chew them over again and again. There was so much great content!


PS Since someone is bound to ask, I don’t know if I’m going to Cyber Mummy 2011. Don’t know if I’ll be in England at the time. But if I am, and you fancy a quick coffee and a chat behind the bike sheds when teacher isn’t looking, email me.

Job

Well, congrats to those of you (If I could escape, Aly and Heather) who said toy shop, because you are right! (Florida, Wiltshire, Lapland - you've got to love the diversity of blogging.) And an honorable mention to Speccy, who did mention toys - but had me in a travelling van, instead of a fixed retail outlet. It's one of those toy shops where you can't buy a Barbie or Nintendo game, but you can buy wooden fruit. I love it, because it's the antithesis to Toys R Crap, which I hate, and which is pretty much the only alternative here.

The shop is very English in feel, actually, because it's small - though big enough to have room for kids to try out a selection of ride-on and bounce-on toys. Whenever I've been in there with my children, they get on one of those wobbly ride-on things that you operate by wiggling the steering wheel quickly from left to right, and I find it hard to persuade them to leave. I've always been impressed by a shop that lets children wiggle and bounce around, especially as the aisles are pretty small (it really is very untypical), so it would be easy for an errant wiggle to knock down a whole display of boxes of Lego.

Incidentally, did you know that in America, they pronounce Lego 'Laygo', as if it were French and had an acute accent over the e. And they always refer to it in the plural. English children play with Leggo. American kids play with Laygos. Just a little cultural detail of the kind which I know you have come to expect from this blog.

Any old way, I'm not going to say too much about the job at this point, because I'm going in on Wednesday morning, and I don't want to have to post on Wednesday afternoon, about how it didn't all work out, having got you all very excited on my behalf. So act casual for now, ok?

I imagine the interview will go something like this:

Toy shop owner: What experience do you have in the retail sector?

Me: None.

TSO: Can you operate a cash till, and credit card swiping equipment?

Me: No.

TSO: How would you help someone who was looking for an educational toy?

Me: I'd tell them not to bother. School will educate your child. Focus your home life on having fun. How about this camera that squirts water, or this whoopee cushion?

TSO: Will you enjoy engaging with children, leaving their parents free to browse undisturbed?

Me: Up to a point. Here's a sign I've seen in another shop, which I'll display when I'm on duty: "Unattended children will be given an espresso, and a puppy to take home".

TSO: Will you promise to talk in your lovely English accent?

Me: Yes. I know no other way.

TSO: You've scored 1 out of 5, and on that basis, I'm happy to offer you the job.

You think I exaggerate the whole accent thing. I should tell you that I found out about the job, because the TSO was trying to recruit a friend of mine - an English friend of mine - who turned it down. (Actually, she's my only English friend here, and the reason she turned the opportunity down is because she is moving back to England. Today. Sob.)

I should have titled this post Job and sob, shouldn't I? That would have been neat.

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Taking a break

I’ve really struggled with this post. You see, I want to take a break from blogging over the summer. I thought I could get to you to click on the play button below, and create in your minds a picture of me shimmying off into the distance, passport in one hand, mug of tea in the other, no way of carrying a laptop too. “I’m heading to the UK, and I don’t want to be writing blog posts all summer”, I would have said breezily. And that would have been a fair picture. Well, fair-ish anyway. So go ahead and click (it’s a great song, you’ll enjoy it).



See that shimmying? Then I started writing a bit more honestly about why I want to take a break, and several hundreds of words later, I thought “this is way too long, and do I really want this uber-personal stuff to sit on my blog as the top post for weeks?”, but I liked the honesty of it, and so I didn’t know what to do with it. It had paragraphs that started:

One of the thoroughly miserable things about having had cancer is that you can't go back to being quite how you were...

Returning to normal life after a trauma like cancer is a little like running a sprint, and then being asked unexpectedly to tack a half-marathon on the end of it...

Here's the difficult thing. I find it very hard to complain about any of this without feeling very guilty. I mean, shouldn't I just be so grateful? The fact that I've got through so far seems to have deprived me of the right to feel hard done by about anything else...

I know I'm very bad at the whole head/heart balance thing. Thing is, Head has got it all so sussed, and knows that it needs to get out of the way and let Heart have a turn at running things, but for all its cleverness, it doesn't know how to do that...

I do see someone to talk to (since you're all going to suggest that), and yes, it does help. And I know it will take time (so if you mention that in a comment, prepare to have your comment deleted, since I’m quite irritable on that point)...

Does that give you enough of a flavour? Each one could be the subject of a whole blog post, and there was lots more where that came from too, but truth to tell, I am a little fed up of writing all this stuff. You know how I always love writing, and blogging? Well, I have to confess I’ve slightly fallen out of love with this blog over the past few weeks. It's seen me through so much, but it's recently become a bit of a burden as well as a pleasure. Has that shown?

So, in an honest nutshell, that’s why I'm going to take a break.

There's one little loose end. Do you remember that conference I said I wanted to run? You know. The yoga bottoms and chocolate cake one? Well, I was, actually, quite serious about it, for a short while. But then a very wise bloggy friend (you know who you are) said "Don't run a conference. Spend your precious summer enjoying time with family and friends." And I thought "she's absolutely right". I haven’t seen my immediate family for two years. Two years! Hello Mum, I'm waving at you now! I have good friends to catch up with. I want to sit on beaches, walk in woods, eat picnics in fields, have days out in historic cities. We're flying on Sunday. So I’m not going to organise that conference, but I am going to Cyber Mummy (probably not in my yoga bottoms), and if your summer will be incomplete without meeting me in the flesh, you can see me there. I'm looking forward to meeting so many of you. It feels a little weird – I know you, and you certainly know me, more than is normal for first time meetings, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.

At Cyber Mummy, the tables at lunch are going to centre round different themes, to get people with similar interests together, and to get conversation going. I’m hosting a table, discussing Identity and Anonymity (kind of ironic, since I’ll be giving up the latter to attend Cyber Mummy). So please come and join me if you’d be interested in those topics - or if you spot me sitting all on my own. (And psst… between you and me, no-one made me sign a contract saying I would stick to the subject, so if we want to share pictures of our kids or talk about chocolate cake, then I think we can get away with it.)

And the music? Well, that song has become something of a theme tune for me over the past few weeks. 6-yo asked for ‘a grown-up cd’ for her birthday, and while browsing in Dillons, I came across a compilation one: Summer of ’67. It had a picture of a chiffon-clad, long-haired, wafty woman in soft focus on the front which I knew would appeal to 6-yo. It is a fabulous cd. Wow, they knew a thing or two about music in 1967. Somehow this song has become the place I’ve gone to when I just haven’t been able to connect with the world, as well as being the accompaniment to lots of happy moments. It has suited every mood. Wistful. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to it. Isn’t it odd, what gets you through? (And that line at 1.58, “you and me and Leslie” is actually “you and me endlessly” – makes me laugh every time.)

Oh, and if you've been lurking all this time, why don't you come on out and say hello to me? I'm only going on a break; I'm planning to be back; but you never know what the future holds, and look how long it took Ross and Rachel to get together again.

There. I’ve packed my virtual suitcases (or soupcases, as 6-yo calls them), and I’m off on my break.

Happy blogging...


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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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What's wrong with my help? Part ll

Everyone loves a heart-warming story on a Friday.

Remember how only a few days ago, I was feeling a bit unwanted and un-needed? In spite of all your comments, and Husband’s insistence that receiving help is easier than giving it, and we Help-Accepters make a valuable contribution to society? Well, it just so happened that I heard that a woman who was unbelievably kind to me last summer, was having a tough time. Her baby had pneumonia, and a partially-collapsed lung.

Let me give you a bit of background. This woman is a single mother, has three children aged 1, 2 and 8, with a demanding job. As if that wasn’t enough to fill her days, when she heard I was doing chemotherapy last summer, she emailed me to say “I know we don’t know each other very well, but if you felt comfortable with the idea, I’d love to take your children out for the day”. So she left her own two youngest with her nanny, and took her oldest and my three to the zoo for the day. They had a lovely time. She brought them home in the evening, with two chickens ready, in disposable baking tins, to go into the oven.

It’s not that I feel I owe her something, because I know she did it from the generosity of her heart, and not in hope of anything in return. But I did feel, when I heard her baby was ill, that I’d like to help. Didn’t know quite what to do, though. She always looks like she's walked out of a fine-dressing catalogue (even when going to the zoo... even when returning from the zoo, come to think of it, which is remarkable), and seems like one of life's copers.

It just so happened that I bumped into her at the school door. I said I was sorry to hear about the baby, and we chatted about that. Then, armed with the great wisdom and perception of 20 bloggers who commented on my previous post, I asked

“Could I bring you dinner tonight?”

And in the second in which I could see she was hesitating, I added

“It really wouldn’t be a big deal. Honestly. Let me just bring you dinner.”

At that, her shoulders sagged, and her face seemed to drop an inch or two.

“That would be lovely. I haven’t slept for days,” she replied.

It wasn’t lovely, actually. The dinner, I mean. It was very mediocre. Hm... Probably not even mediocre, because in my “wouldn’t be a big deal” moment, I hadn’t focused on the fact that between 3.30 and 5.00 (when she said they usually ate), I not only had to make the dinner, but also go and get 5-yo from school at 4.00 and drop 12-yo at a play rehearsal at 4.30, both of which would be 10-15-ish minute round trips, and probably go to Dillons too, then drive the 10 minutes to her house. You do the math. So it wasn’t a great culinary triumph, but this is what I think. When someone brings you dinner, it doesn’t really matter what they bring, so long as it is edible. It’s the fact that you didn’t have to think about it. You didn’t have to conjure up thoughts of food from the maternal brain-whirl that accompanies having an ill child. You didn’t have to do anything except put the dish in the oven, or open the packet. And - more importantly - someone cared. They cared enough to bring you soggy baked potatoes, tepid bacon, a packet of shredded cheese which you probably have in your own refrigerator anyway, some salad which you probably also have, ill-travelled broccoli, unimaginative yogurts, and a bar of Godiva chocolate (especially the chocolate).

That’s what I think, anyway.

And here’s something else I think. One of the things I love about blogging is the way little bits of empathy and smidgeroos of insight get passed around, and help us on our way. Writing that post on Monday, and hearing your thoughts, made me a little better at dealing with the situation when it arose again.

I knew you’d like my Friday story. Better go, because I’ve got things to do before picking up the kids from school – my own, and my friend’s 8 year old too. She’s coming for a playdate.

What's wrong with my help?

Why is it that people never take me up on offers of help?

I have a friend who's had a baby recently, and promised that she'd let me help out with her usual school run, and/or having her older children to play. She hasn't. I have another friend who broke both legs. I offered to help out in any way I could (she has 5 children, so I thought might be in a position to use some assistance). She said thanks, but she was fine. Then there's my friend who's having minor surgery this week, and whose husband is taking time off to look after her and her two children. We were talking today about how he can't be with her at the hospital, and be at home with the kids at the same time. So I offered to go with her to the hospital, or to be a drop-off point for her two kids. She wouldn't agree to either.

These friends helped me out on several occasions last summer. What is wrong with me? Which of the following do you think applies?

(a) I'm the most dreadful free-loading scrounger, when it comes down to it.

(b) They think I've got some horrendous contagious disease that I'm not being honest about, and they don't want to expose their children to me except in short supervised bursts. I should try and get the subject out into the open, by one day blurting out "my face has always looked like this, you know".

(c) I find it easy to ask for help, and don't feel that by doing so, I am failing or not coping. I expect other people to feel the same, but they don't. A lot of people find it very difficult. They drop hints, but somehow when I pick up those hints, I say the wrong things, and either overstep the boundaries, or foul up in some other way that I don't understand.

(d) Linked to (c), this is one of those competitive things that I fail to spot. There's an unspoken challenge to see who needs the least help, and I just haven't realised I'm an entrant (and not a very good one). I thought this was life, but it seems it's a series of competitions that other people know the rules to and I don't. Blogging fits into this category as well, or so I'm told.

(e) Since having children, I've never lived near family, so I've often been more needy of help than people who have their mum or sister round the corner. This means that I love the idea of a supportive community of mums/dads helping each other out, like a 1950's movie, and am happy to do my bit to create one, but 21st century life isn't like that, and I'm really out of step. There are possibly people in this city who, right now, are saying to each other "someone should really tell Iota..." Until they do, though, I'm going to keep on trying to be helpful, and wearing my nice selection of headscarves and wing-shaped sunglasses.

(f) Everyone runs their lives much more competently than I do, and so they don't need help. Not even when they have babies and/or surgical procedures, or break limbs.

(g) People don't realise how it can be quite hurtful not to allow someone who has been incapacitated and reliant on others, to reciprocate when they are in a position to do so.

Does anyone else have this problem?

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Little Iota

Here is Iota. This is me, aged 5 or 6. In my blue stripey school uniform summer dress. I remember this photo being taken. I remember squinting into the sun, and I remember not liking that bunch of flowers. Does it show? It must have been in the days before the great industry that is school portrait photography had got started. I remember the teacher Miss Nunnerly taking the photograph, and bringing an envelope to school with money for her for the prints. Enterprising Miss Nunnerly!

We lived about a mile from that school, and in summer we would walk home, taking a short cut across the orchards you can see in the background. Those orchards were all cut down, a few years after this was taken, victims of the ‘Common Market’, and the way it favoured imported French apples over homegrown English ones. That was how I understood it at the time, but my guess is that it was less to do with the market price of the apples, and more to do with the subsidies available to farmers for change of land use. I remember the sound of the chain saws, and how sad we all were. I still miss those orchards, when I’m at my mother’s house, the same house I lived in as the little girl in this photo, and take the dog for a walk over the open fields which replace them.

What else can I tell you about Iota, aged 6? I was good at reading, and I loved spelling tests because I always found them so easy. I was a slow runner, the slowest in the class, and hated any sport or game which showed this up. I was the youngest in the year. My best friends were Catherine and Sophie, and at playtime, we would teach each other ballet and gymnastics from the classes we went to. I always felt my ballet class was rather superior to Sophie’s (Catherine was the gymnast), as we wore BLUE leotards. Sophie’s ballet class wore pink, and even in those days, I rebelled against ubiquitous girly pink. I thought pink leotards were just too insipid and twee for words. What's more, my blue one had a SKIRT. Another point which made it clearly superior.

When I was 8, fate and the school dealt me a cruel blow. They divided the year in half alphabetically, and Catherine and Sophie were in the other class to me. I thought I’d be unhappy for the whole year. I think perhaps I was. I hated my surname with loathing, and then felt guilty for doing so. I missed my friends in class terribly, but I knew it was tactless to berate my parents for the name they had bestowed on me. Loyalty to friends battling it out with family honour. It's the stuff of tragedy.

There was another girl at that school, in Chesham, Bucks. She was two years younger than me, and in all honesty, I can’t remember her at school. I know a lot more about her life now than I did then, though we haven’t met since those early childhood days. I’ll tell you who she is in my next post…

Postscript: 9-yo tells me that this picture looks like 5-yo.

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The old year ends

Well, 2009 is over. Something of a turbulent year in my life. Though I have sniffed out gains, it has largely been a year of losses. I have found strengths, but I have also met some of my limitations (I hate that). I have done things, and had things done to me, that I would never have chosen. But that is how life is. It’s not a Woolworth’s pick ‘n’ mix, where you can opt out of the liquorice allsorts. It’s not a modern day Christmas present, with the gift receipt in the envelope so that you can exchange it for something else more to your taste. You take the rough with the smooth, and somehow try and find your way through.

(I think I might have used these analogies already on the blog. Anyone know how you can do a keyword search through previous blog posts, without going through them one by one? Should I be keeping them all in a large Word document? Ed.)

This year, I’ve faced things I didn’t plan to face just yet. I’ve looked into the jaws of my own mortality, and squared up with two things: how insignificant my life is, and how significant my life is. Both are burdensome truths. I’ve found that the best strategy to deal with them is to look them straight in the eyes, but not for long, and then turn away to get on with the fabulous reality of daily life. It’s like wearing sunglasses on a very bright day. If you don’t have them, you squint all the time, and your eyes hurt, and it’s a continual distraction. So you wear them, but every now and again, you feel the need to take them off and screw up your eyes against the light, just to see how intense the colour of the sky really is. The brightness is there all the time, but you don’t want to look at it too much. It’s a relief to put those sunglasses back on and get on with the day, and then you forget about the brightness.

This year, I realized more than ever how important writing is to me. This blog, and the excuse it provides for my incessant drivel, has seen me through. I would write it if nobody at all read it. But you do, and that makes it a thousand times better.

I want to thank you all so much. This isn’t a glib “Thank you, I love you all, Happy New Year”. This is a heartfelt thank you. I know that reading about someone with cancer is not a very joyful thing to do. I know that it is more fun to read about the sweet things people’s children have said or done, or tales of expat life abroad. So thank you for not clicking away. Thank you to those of you who knew me before this year. Thank you to the new people who’ve taken the trouble to get to know me. Thank you to those of you who’ve commented. Thank you to those of you who’ve emailed me. Thank you to those of you who've read and lurked. Lurkers are nice people too. In the words of Hank Williams, “Hey, good lurkin’, what ya got curkin’?”

Most of all, thank you for writing your own blogs. Reading them is like keeping busy on a sunny day, with sunglasses on. When I started this blog in the summer of 2007, I was horribly homesick, and I used to read lots of blogs about England. At that time, a large number of people had recently started blogs about country life, in response to a competition run by the magazine of that name to find a blogger for the publication. There was a real excitement around as people shared stories and pictures of their lush flower beds, their burgeoning vegetable patches, the domestic projects in their homes. It was a rather unBritish blowing of own trumpets – in a very British understated way, of course. You might have thought it would have made me more homesick – all those colourful pictures of roses in full bloom, beautiful shots of the English countryside, accounts of trips to National Trust properties, complaints about the rain (it was a record-breakingly rainy summer, 2007). But it didn’t. Somehow it helped, just knowing that it was all going on, even if an ocean away, and without me.

In the same way, this summer, your blogs kept a window open for me on normal life. I was ill, and sad, and fearful. I saw too much of my own four walls. Reading your blogs, reading about your joys, your woes, your excitements, your disappointments, the magnificent trivia of your daily lives, all of it helped me keep a hold on the fact that normality was still happening, even if it felt at times a long way away, and without me.

So thank you, for being part of my blog, and for letting me be part of yours. Happy New Year to you all.

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Commercial and competitive?

There’s been a bit of a discussion going on in the blogging world about whether mummy blogging is getting commercial and competitive. I thought I’d throw in my pennyworth.

I’ve been blogging since May 2007, and I will confess that when British Mummy Bloggers was set up, I did have my reservations, and they were along those very lines. I have been browsing in my gmail archives, and I’m going to be brave and share with you a little of what I thought then, and what I think now.

Back in February, I joined BMB at its inception. At the time, I was e-chatting to another blogger about it, and said:

“… I read that blogging is now the key plank in customer-orientated PR in America. If you browse the American mommy blogs you can see why. They take forever to upload, because they're so full of adverts and pictures and links. Yuk. V tempting to think, as a stuck-at-home mum, that you can make a bit of cash on the side, but it does take a bit of the fun out of it, I think. I like all the quirky oddbods you meet in blogland (oops, hope I haven't been offensive there), and the last thing I need them to do is to be telling me what "must have" I'm missing out on…”

I said to another e-chat blogging friend:

“… I know we British bloggers are a bit backward, but I like that. I fit right in! Blogging isn't nearly as commercialised in the UK, and I really do think that is a good thing.

Of course you can say "you don't have to have ads just because everyone else does", and that is true. But once something becomes commercial, it is harder to exist on the edges. And the more the culture is about stats and income, the more that will affect who blogs. It will be more intimidating to start a blog, more difficult to get readers, the focus will change. I think it's inevitable, and I don't really mind because I’ve already found my place in the blogosphere, but it's a pity when every single area of life has to be about product promotion, advertising, marketing, etc...”

Do I think I was right? To a large extent, yes, I do, but not entirely. In becoming more organized, courtesy of BMB, mummy blogging in the UK has become more commercialized. Part of that is because we’re more easily available to the commercial world, and the Tots 100 list has helped that considerably. But I think it’s worked backwards too – if I can put it that way. People - mums - with business interests to promote, have started blogs as a way to do that. The range of interests is huge, from handmade crafts to PR consultancy. I’m not implying that their blogs are any the less valid. Not at all. My point is that it’s not just a question of mummy blogging becoming more commercial. It’s also the case that internet commerce has become more bloggy.

Has that made the scene more competitive? The two usually go together. Well, perhaps a little. Do I mind? No, I don’t. The way I see it is this. The blogosphere is a huge world, and there is room for us all in it. You just have to find your own space. If it’s all about the writing for you, then, great. If it’s a tool to promote your crocheted baby socks, then, great. If it’s a way of letting off steam when your toddler is driving you mad, then, great. If you want your blog to be on a list of top blogs, then you can find out the criteria and aim for that. If that’s not what you blog for, then don’t worry about it.

The bit I was wrong about was my prediction that it would make the process of starting a blog intimidating, and that somehow we existing bloggers would all be fighting harder for the same pool of readers. In fact the opposite is true, as the explosion in the number of parent bloggers testifies. There are more blogs and more readers than ever before. More fishermen, but a whole lot more fish too – because the fishermen are the fish, when it comes to mummy blogging.

For me, blogging is like going out for a drink with a bunch of mates. You can have a fine old time catching up on what’s been happening in their lives, and sharing what’s been happening in yours. You can have a rant and get a sympathetic hearing. You can have a joke. One of the group might have brought along a friend, and then you have an introduction to a new person. Meanwhile, the rest of the pub will be full of all sorts and you know, it might even be a bit competitive out there because we humans seem to do the competitive thing rather a lot. People will be worrying whether it’s the cool place in town, or whether the pub down the road is better. People will be talking in loud voices about themselves, and generally strutting their stuff. If you want, you can join in. No-one is stopping you. But if you prefer, you can just sit in your corner having a cosy time, and cast your eyes around every now and again to see what else is going on. You’re all contributing to the atmosphere. If there is room for all sorts within the four walls of a pub, how much more is that true of the wall-less internet?

I’m heading back to my virtual corner with my virtual drink now, though I’m a bit worried I might find myself on my own, since I have publicly confessed to describing you, my lovely bloggy friends, in private correspondence as “quirky oddbods”… I didn't mean ALL of you, of course. If you don't feel that title fits you personally, then you can rest assured it must have been some of the others I was talking about.

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What to Say, What Not to Say

People often say to me “Iota, you know a thing or two about moving abroad. I have a question you might be able to help me with.” Actually they don’t. No-one has ever said that to me. Ever. I wish they would. It would add some kind of meaning and value to the experience, and make me feel affirmed and reconstructed. What they do say is “I love your accent”. That doesn’t add meaning and make me feel reconstructed. It makes me feel like I’ve got an English accent.

Let me start again. I wish people would say to me “Iota, you know a thing or two about moving abroad. A friend of mine tells me her husband has just got a job in some far-flung place in America which no-one has ever heard of, and they’re leaving in a few months time. What should I say to her?” I would reply “I’m glad you asked me that. Yes, you’re right. I do indeed know a thing or two about what someone in that situation would like to hear. In fact, right here I have a copy of a list I prepared on just this very topic, since people are always asking me this type of question.” I would click my fingers, and my assistant would bring it through from the outer office. Either that, or I’d fidget about on my computer, puzzle over why the darn thing wasn’t working, remember to turn the printer on, sweep aside the Barbie colouring pictures that I’d printed out earlier that morning from the internet, and print it out myself, since actually I was lying about the assistant and the outer office.

Things Not to Say
• Don’t immediately say “how long are you going for?” If you want to know, slip that one in further along in the conversation. Just don’t make it your first question. Doesn’t focus on the positives enough.
• Don’t sing. If she’s going to Oklahoma, don’t burst into song about the wind coming sweepin’ down the plain. If she’s going to Texas, don’t start up about the way to Amarillo. If she’s going to San Francisco, don’t warble about flowers in her hair. You will not be the first. I guarantee you will not be the first. She will not find it funny (though may be polite enough to smile instead of decking you).
• Don’t express an opinion about the children’s education. In particular, don’t help her to calculate how many years it is before she needs to be back for the start of GCSE curricula. She will already have done this. She does not need your help. Don’t ask “what are the schools like?”. America is a big place. She will be hoping there might be one or two good schools out there.
• Don’t talk about the children’s accents. Not unless you want to damn yourself as unoriginal in the extreme.
• Don’t use the words ‘cope’ and ‘children’ in the same sentence. Team up the word ‘children’ with words such as ‘flourish’, ‘enrich’ and ‘widen horizons’.
• Don’t point out she’ll be Mom instead of Mum. It’s a conversation stopper.
• Don’t ask about hurricanes, tornadoes or other natural disasters. Best not.

Things to Say
• Wow, that’s exciting. What an opportunity!
• Good for you. Is there anything I can do to help?
• You probably won’t ever want to come back (and try not to look as if you both know this is a fib - it’s a useful one at this point in the proceedings).
• Americans are very friendly and welcoming.
• They’ll love you over there. They love the English. (If you really really have to talk about accents, you can do it at this point.)
• I’ve noticed, when you read the little biographical notes in book jackets about people who have had really interesting lives and done really interesting things, it often says that they grew up in more than one place. I’ve noticed that loads of times. It must add something to a childhood.

I was lying about the assistant and the outer office, but believe me when I tell you this last one is worth tucking into your memory for future use. I think it is the best thing that anyone said to me about our move. You’ll have to remember it, though, because I won’t necessarily be around when you want to ask me. Even if I am, you’ll have to get past the assistant, and she’ll just tell you to join the end of the long line snaking its way out of the outer office and down the corridor.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

We are back. We had a golden summer. Cousins played happily with cousins. I had my fix of old friends. We went to lovely beaches, the North York Moors, enjoyed old haunts, discovered new ones. Walked down streets – such a different thing from going to the mall. Walked along leafy country lanes that I have known since I was pushed along them in a big Silver Cross pram, kicking my younger brother for leg space. Went to the christening of my blogson. Husband and 11-yo had a day at Lord’s. Realised we’d been away too long when I said “there’s the pub”, and 4-yo piped up from the back of the car “what’s a pub?”

And blogging. Hm. Didn’t do much of that. Didn’t have internet access, you see. Had to go to the public library. Cramps one’s style a bit. Hadn’t planned to go silent for three months, but it sort of happened. Sorry.

It was good to go home. I had been worried that it would be unsettling for us all, make us unsure of where we fit in these days. But the opposite happened. It helped. The children made sense of which cousin belonged to which aunt and uncle, and if we needed evidence that blood is thicker than water, it was there to be found in the way they got on so easily. Links to places and people were still strong, but didn’t seem to evoke the same sense of loss. We fitted in here, there and everywhere more easily that I could have imagined. The familiarity was comforting. Most of all, we just didn’t think about it too much. I had been worried that the trip would make us homesick, but no. At least not for now. It made Britain seem more reachable, just a flight away, the Atlantic really just a big pond.

This, too. The balance has tipped. We knew deep down all along that this our American chapter would be not wrong, just different, and not forever, but we decided that we would live from the outset as if it were, putting down deliberate roots, holding loosely to home ties, living our thought lives as well as our physical lives here in the Midwest. I never fooled myself, but I gave it my best shot, carefully and with effort. Our summer changed that. We’ve started thinking and talking about the return strategy. Too much, probably. We did some forward planning, a bit vague at this point, but at least the direction is decided. We’ve done the uphill climb, we’re now on the plateau. I know the downhill may be some way off, but I’ve allowed myself to acknowledge it exists. That is a good feeling.

A golden summer with silver linings.

Happy Birthday, a year on

I have been waging a slow and entirely ineffective war against Chuck E Cheese’s over the past year. The map on the website shows that we would have to move to either Vermont or Wyoming to live in a Chuck E-less state, and as neither of those two eventualities are likely just at the moment, I have had to bring the battle into my own home. Every time a commercial comes on the television and I hear the jingle "where a kid can be a kid", I say to my kids “but actually, Chuck E Cheese’s isn’t nearly as fun as it looks on the tv is it?”. They either chorus “yes it is” in unison, or don’t answer at all. This is how I know my attempts are ineffective (perceptive, me).

In spite of this, I did manage to avoid going there for 4-yo’s fourth birthday party. By a sneaky undercover operation, I made sure that a rival venue, Pump It Up, was higher up her list of desirable venues by the time her birthday came round. Pump It Up seems to me to be an altogether more healthy set-up (although still fairly rancid and not very parent-friendly). It’s a large barn of a place filled with bouncy castles and a huge inflatable slide. Apart from this being a broken limb waiting to happen, and a session there resulting in wild, hyped up children, I’m quite in favour of Pump It Up (“Pump Them Up” as a friend calls it). So thus it was that 4-yo had her party there, or half of it at any rate.

Technically speaking, she didn’t have her party there. That would have involved paying Pump It Up a serious amount of money for them to order pizza, and give me the use of the party room. So we just went along to the Preschool Play Session with half a dozen small friends and their mummies, had a good bounce around, and then came back to our house for nibbly snacks, birthday cake and a big slice of delicious plum pie. We didn’t do games and there were no pink frocks, but I satisfied my party-organising yearnings with decorating a room and a table, and filling some party bags. We had an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen, which was very exciting for me, since I’ve been wondering what Dairy Queen was like ever since I first heard the song Ariel by Dean Friedman, which must have been around 30 years ago (and if you’re struggling to remember that one, here's a youtube link. The clip is is 4 mins 21 secs long, but you’ll recognize it within the first 4 secs, I promise, and you can thank your lucky stars that, in this age of clickable choices, you have the option as to whether to listen to the whole thing or not).

The cake had some fancy candles on it, which burnt with different coloured flames, and which I’d bought in the MoMA Design Store during my trip to New York. Oh how smug I felt, until I saw them for half the price a couple of weeks later in my local Wal-Mart, and until I lit them, and found out that the flames, though quite possibly of interestingly varying hues, were almost invisible.

A year on, the whole birthday event had a much happier feel to it. My daughter had friends to invite, I knew how to get to the venue without puzzling over a map, we had a proper home to make festive, and I incidentally satisfied a 30 year long thirst for knowledge.

And the plum pie? Ah yes. I should explain about that. Many years ago, when I was in a dismal job which I truly hated, a friend of mine who was commiserating with me told me to look for the plums. There must be some projects, he said, which you like dealing with, which you seek out of your in-tray and put to the top. They’re your plums. Look for them. Actually, there weren’t any, not any at all; it was a dreadful job. The advice, however, has lived with me, and has helped me through many a dull situation. Not that becoming a Midwesterner is dull. I didn’t say that. But there is a certain dreariness in the slow process of growing roots in a new land: feeling a stranger the whole time, being an outsider, searching unsuccessfully for kindred spirits. That does get dull after a while. So I have had to employ my strategy of looking for plums. And I have found them. They were there at 4-yo’s party. Not a ready circle of mums from the same preschool or neighborhood, but a selection whom 4-yo and I have discovered in different places. None of the 5 of them had met each other before – I seem to have plucked my plums from different trees. They all helped make 4-yo’s day special. They know her well enough to know what present she would really like. They enjoyed her pleasure as she opened them. They are the people I can go to both for practical advice, and for a chewing over of the more puzzling questions of motherhood and life. They have, without exception, helped me out with a bit of childcare when I needed it. They make an effort to understand my extraordinary English take on life. I’ve even tried out the Chucky Jesus thing on one of them, and she laughed. I believe they would feel a gap if I was here no longer.

Birthday cake and plum pie. A rich and satisfying party mix.

Happy Birthday

So, 3-yo turns 4. She was the first of us to have a birthday here in the US. Now her second birthday-in-America has come round, it feels like we are here well and truly here, not just here finding out what it’s like here.

Her third birthday was, for me, one of the saddest days of this whole moving-to-America lark. I didn’t dwell on it, not wanting to cast a gloom over her special day, but the day brought for me both a focus on what we had left behind in Scotland, and a meeting head-on with the very worst of the culture we were seeking to embrace.

Before you have children, you imagine that the world of mums and babies is a shiny smiling place, in which groups of women happily congregate to share experiences, and where deep friendships are formed. Then you have a baby, go to a few babies and toddlers groups and activities, and find that it can be quite different. Why would there be so many Mommy blogs if the myth were reality? I had done my fair share of all this with the two boys, and had found a bit of reality and quite a lot of myth. With my third, I struck lucky. Two women who were already friends happened to have daughters at the same time as I had mine. We lived within walking distance of each other. They each had 3 older children, and sons in the same classes as mine. I was even in the maternity hospital at the same time as one of them. Our due dates were a month apart, and throughout the pregnancies, we’d joked that she’d have to give birth two weeks early and I’d have to be two weeks late. And it happened. I woke up the morning after laboring and delivering, to a cheery familiar face and a “fancy a cup of tea then?”

The little girls, even at the ages of 1 and 2, liked each other’s company, and, perhaps for having 8 older siblings between them, seemed able to play together beyond their years. They sat up in high chairs in the local coffee shop, at that lovely stage where a teaspoon to bang on the table is all that’s needed to occupy a baby for half an hour. Luxury. Then they staggered round the coffee shop, giggling at each other, plopping down on their padded bottoms, while we tried (and by now, failed) to have a conversation. They reached the stage where crayons and paper might work for 5 minutes, but a decent conversation is beyond possiblity. We met at the local toddler group, where it just so happened there was a whole bunch of other fun mothers. Women who week by week would ask how my plans for America were coming along, who would listen to the tedious details, whom I bullied into buying the furniture and gadgets we didn’t want to ship (“who’d like a paper shredder? or a desk that’s a bit broken?”), who I knew would feel a space on a Thursday morning where 2-yo and I had been.

By the time of her third birthday, we’d been in America for just over 3 months. We were beginning to find our feet. There was no-one, though, to invite to a party. I couldn’t help thinking what pleasure a party would have given her, her small friends, and me, if we were still in Scotland. We’d have had it at home. Little girls in pink frocks. Old-fashioned games: the farmer’s in his den, pass the parcel, musical bumps and musical statues (all with a bit of parental help and varying degrees of chaos). Older siblings hovering around the edges. Little nibbly snacks and a cake. Singing happy birthday. Balloons and decorations. I know that children's parties strike fear into the hearts of many a braver mother than I, but I've loved the parties I've hosted. It's not hard to give half a dozen preschoolers a good time.

Worse still, 2-yo had tagged along when I had taken her brother to a party, and already had a firm idea of what constituted an all-American birthday experience. She was fixed on having her birthday celebration at Chuck E Cheese’s. Oh dear. Chuck E Cheese’s. Even the locals say things like “the kids love it”, as if to absolve themselves of any guilt attached to the decision to take their children there. With my freshly-arrived British sensibilities, I can only say that the words “culture shock” came nowhere near describing the experience. Chuck E Cheese’s is a games arcade designed for the 3 – 8 age range. You buy coin-like tokens, which your beloved darling then feeds into various game machines. If they win, the machine spews out tickets, and when your child has finished for the day, you take your tickets to a counter where they can exchange them for a prize. The prizes on display on the wall behind the counter are Nintendo DSs, or huge Hot Wheels playsets, or diamond-studded Barbies. These have price tags on them of thousands of tickets. Your child has probably collected 50 tickets. They will be directed to the glass display cabinet where they can choose between an array of small plastic items. They could get two yo-yos and a plastic ring, or three 4” fake snakes. Those too young to understand that a number with 0s after it is a big number are sorely disappointed. Those old enough to grasp the concept can take their tickets home to save up, and try their luck at persuading their parents to bring them again. I speak from experience. 7-yo has a bag of about 80 tickets in his bedroom, against the day when he might get another 8,000 or so for the electric guitar. This makes for happy parent-child conversations, as I’m sure you can imagine.

If kids are not going to a party, but have come along simply to enjoy a pleasurable Saturday morning, they will have queued for a long while to share the privilege. If they have come to a party, they will by-pass the queue, feed tokens into machines for a period of time, and then sit at long tables, eating oily pizza, until a large mouse with an over-sized plastic head emerges with a cake. This is Chuck E Cheese himself.

I think it is at Chuck E Cheese’s that the consistent Iota “not wrong, just different” philosophy of life in a different culture is stretched to the ultimate limit of its elasticity. Surely, surely, this is not a good way of entertaining young children. The place is small, crowded, smelly, greasy, loud, and thoroughly unpleasant. The food (pizza or burgers) makes a McDonalds happy meal look nutritious; the music is brainless. The adults sit in booths looking bored or anxious or both, and avoiding each other’s eyes. If this was a police state, I would say that everyone was trying not to see who else was there. It’s the kind of place you could report your neighbours for visiting. The annoying thing is that, as the locals say, the kids do love it. I can’t help feeling, though, that they have all been so thoroughly brainwashed by so many TV advertisements telling them that they are going to have a gratingly fantastic time, and then subjected to the peer pressure that the adverts engender, that they arrive without much choice.

I hate Chuck E Cheese’s so much, I’m not even going to provide a weblink. If you want to visit him, you can google him yourselves. I don’t want to be responsible for a single extra visitor to his site. The only redeeming feature about Chuck E Cheese’s, is that, along with the shiver of hatred that makes me clench my molars together and suck in my breath every time I hear his name, there is a little glimmer of amusement provided by my English ears. You see, the way they pronounce it here, it sounds for all the world like Chuck E Jesus. If I was feeling very irreverent, I might even say it sounds like Chucky Jesus. I’ve even tried saying “Chucky Jesus” to people in the right context, and they don’t notice anything wrong: “you went to Chucky Jesus on Saturday? How fun!”

So my daughter had her third birthday at Chuck E Cheese’s. She had no friends to invite, and I had no friends to share it with. She enjoyed every moment with her two big brothers, though, which was all that mattered. And if I could have seen ahead to her fourth birthday, I would have felt a lot happier about being here. More about that next time.