New Year, New Rules

2011: The Year of...

I suppose my first resolution should be to be a bit more punctual. I mean, come on really, New Year’s resolutions on the 5th of January? That is not fooling anyone. But no, that is not worthy of a resolution. I used to be punctual and it was dull. I now have an excuse not to be. She is about 9 months old and called CK!

I broke one of my resolutions on New Year’s Day at breakfast time. What a loser. 2011: The Gluten Free Year. It was never going to happen.

I think as a committed stay at home mum (who has NO desire to return to work for the time being) it would be better to give 2011 the subtitle The Year of Living Frugally. I do have a bank account. It just has nothing in it. So here goes...

Birthday presents this year will all be handmade with love. So those of you who know me, please expect something somewhat squiffy, somewhat overstuffed, somewhat sticky-taped and somewhat ‘rustic’. Just know that I have put my heart into it. So be nice.

The fridge shall be empty before I go to the supermarket. I shall use up all the food that I buy. I found this great website Love Food Hate Waste that will help me to use everything up so that hopefully husband won’t have to eat mackerel, olive and broccoli omelettes. Sorry husband.

Taking my inspiration from the very lovely Kirstie Allsop (Oh how I love you Kirstie) I shall make my home into a wonderful haven of homemade wonder. I shall blow glass, I shall sew and knit, I shall stain all my glass windows. I shall wear wonderful shoes, and billowing coats and an oversized fur hat. I shall buy a ‘doer upper’ in Devon and harp on about how I have transformed it back to life. Oh no, hang on, my bank account definitely won’t stretch to that.

I shall, however, spend less money on baby and more time with her. Which may mean less blogging. Eek. (see Granny Bloggings resolutions!).

That all seems very frugal. And noble. And unachievable. Perhaps I will turn into a wonderful Martha Stewart style domestic goddess....Or maybe I’ll just pop out to the shops to take my mind off it all.

Mummatron

Granny Bloggings Commitments for 2011

Well, I suppose we had to do this one it is kinda de rigeur at this time of year.

So, for what it’s worth, here they are;

1. Try to keep up with my daughter at this blogging lark.

Being home-bound has turned her into a blogging supremo, or should that be an obsessive? It is hard to prise her warm little fingers from the keyboard these days now that she has discovered a form of adult communication which she can do whilst the baby hangs onto her pyjama-clad leg drooling and gurgling. I can just imagine her comments on other peoples’ blog sites winging across the world like a computer virus, is it possible that she may, single-handedly bring the whole world wide web crashing to a halt in 2011?

2. Try to stop worrying so much.

Becoming a granny has not helped my problem of seeing all manner of terrors lurking in the most unlikely of places; germs on door handles. Ice on the road, ice in the water pipes, ice sliding off a roof ready to decapitate one of my nearest and dearest. Other drivers, who are all morons. High winds which might blow my house down. Torrential rain which might flood my house down. My daughter driving on roads which certainly contain other drivers of the moronic persuasion, ice, high winds or torrential rain and there may even be germs on her door handles…. Argh!

3. To turn 60 with grace.

I know will find it hard to believe but yes, it’s true I shall be sixty this year. OK, so it's not so unbelievable, but how did it happen? It was only yesterday that I was 6 – I remember it well, although what I did last week is a complete mystery. So I shall be starting my grace-lessons this week as New Years' Resolution number three, any helpful hints?

4. To spend as much time as I can with my most adorable granddaughter.

During the festive season we all took a turn on the night shift so I spent several hours over the two weeks administering a bottle, then rocking and patting little CK back to sleep. Can there be anything more wonderful than a quiet middle of the night alone with a perfect, sleeping, snuggling, smiling, dreaming, grandchild? I wish it on all of you! It is so much more fulfilling than merely sleeping! I know this must sound like insanity to those of you whose sole aim in life right now is to get a complete nights’ sleep but that is the joy of granny-hood.

5. To teach the world to use the apostrophe of possession where it is supposed to be after the s! That should bring in a flood of comments but I shall be learning how not to worry so I shan't care!

I think that is quite enough to be going on with so I am off to eat a butter-dripping crumpet in front of the fire despite my already discarded New Years Resolution to loose a few pounds …

Granny Bloggings

Week 16: The Trappings of Parenthood

Help! I’m Drowning

When me and my lovely hubby were married we set off on honey moon for a 4 month camping trip around Southern Africa. It was awesome (and a little bit scary at the same time) - the travelling was amazing, the adventures we had were fantastic and experiencing other cultures was mind expanding. One of the things that really touched me was how the women I saw in some of the less developed cultures coped with three children around their legs, one slung on their back and some kind of farming implement in their hand. They didn’t have Fisher Price Jumperoos, the newest quinny buzz, or the Stokke high chair. And they were coping, seemingly, quite well without them.

So I decided that when we had kids, this was the approach we would take. Just sling it on my back and get out in the fields to work (because obviously teaching is a profession where you work in the fields often).

Did it happen? What do you reckon? No, I don’t have the Stokke, or the Quinny, but I do have the jumperoo and a myriad of other ‘essential’ items that I swore I wouldn’t buy. And now I am drowning under a sea of stuff.

I contend that there are two reasons for this; 1) everything I have purchased has made my life easier in some way, whether that is because it entertains my darling daughter for a couple of seconds in the day, or because it means I can put her down and have a break... and 2) Mothercare is, like, one of the only places around here with a really big car park, with mummy and baby spaces, and is close to my house.

Oops.

So how do you combat this problem? Do you remind yourself of the women in developing countries who manage with nothing? Do you remind yourself of the environmental threat that all this plastic is contributing to? Nah. Just wait until your maternity pay runs out, and your credit card is maxed, and paypal tells you that you have insufficent funds. That is the only thing that has stopped me. And then only for a minute or two...
The Mummatron

Clutter Control

How can something as small as a baby fill a house to bursting with acres of clutter? Just minutes after a positive pregnancy test result it seems that the house begins to look like a landfill site. So many machines, so many cute outfits, so many hats, so many adorable-can't-live-without-them-ridiculous tiny shoes .....so much crap! Whatever happened to saving the planet by avoiding rampant consumerism? And don't even get me started on plastics! Does this make me sound like the sort of woman who only wears natural fibres, who only takes homoeopathic medicine, who knits her own yoghurt? Oh no, I have bought little CK enough clothes and cutsey hats to clothe a small African country, I have cornered the market in brightly coloured plastic toys and am already saving for her first bike - although I have set a rule that she has to at least learn to crawl before she can have it - see what a tough granny I can be?
We used to live in America and I was a member of something called the Newcomers Club. This is a wonderful institution which is in most of the states of the US and provides a great network to make friends and join all sorts of groups from book clubs to building a nuclear reactor in your kitchen type things. A friend suggested I might like to join the British Womens' Group - argh - I asked if it involved a uniform., maybe some jack boots? However, I was duly dragged along and now, many years later am still friends with several of the women I met there. The meeting I want to tell you about was the one about 'getting your life organised', I thought this sounded quite interesting. So I found myself with several hundred women at 'The Y', in Princeton being lectured by a 'Clutter Control Management Consultant', - only in America!

She talked for a while about things like organising your paper work, paying your bills immediately when they arrived, all of which made perfect sense, then she asked us to raise our hands if we had kept our childrens' milk teeth? Several hundred hands waved guiltily in the air, mine included. Then she asked how many women actually had those tiny teeth with them at that moment and quite a few hands rose again - not mine! She asked us why we would keep them? Did we think our children would ever come to us and ask for them back? Several hundred women sniggered, not me. I know why I keep my daughters little milk teeth. My dear old dad died last week and in amongst his things I found a tiny envelope with a lock of my baby hair in it - yes I know my dad loved me but that he kept that little curl in a special place for nearly 60 years let me know the depth of his love and one day when I shuffle off this mortal coil I want my daughter to find her little teeth and know how much I love her!

Keep it all, live with the clutter, use the attic, use the garden shed, dig a cellar, but don't call in a Clutter Control Manager and turn your home into a sterile minimalist house.
Granny Bloggings