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Saturday 11 June 2011

WHAT TO DO, WHAT TO DO....


I don’t usually post on a Saturday, but this weekend is a special circumstance. Suddenly I find myself with something I don’t usually have – time. Yes, this weekend I am flying solo without the King and my partner (first time ever!!). Being the incredibly amazing man that he is, my partner has given me the weekend off [he’ll want that ‘incredibly amazing partner’ bit in writing as he claims often I plead to the contrary; in fact, he may want me to tattoo it across my forehead. Fine, I have time this weekend to get that done]. So, after writing a caretaking list as long as my arm, packing a bag and forcing myself to leave the flat (who are we kidding, after pleading with my son to still love me even though I was leaving him, I ran for the flipping hills knowing that uninterrupted sleep awaited me), I ventured off to another part of London where I’d be staying. My friend so kindly lent me his flat while he’s off in the States. Lucky sod.

The funny thing is, after spending the first many baby-free hours feeling like you’ve misplaced something (where the hell did I put that, I know I’ve lost something, I just know it!) – as you do in fact feel like without your child you are missing a limb – you suddenly start to feel what it is like to be 11 months old and have the world be your proverbial oyster…or teething biscuit in his case. Holy SH*T what to do first??!!!! Do I pee in the tub, crawl under the TV cabinet, or try to eat the sofa cushion??! Wait, that’s him. 

I begin to feel like a spinning top with all the choices in front of me and suddenly find myself on opportunity overload. Do I sleep? Eat? Paint my nails? Wait, no, I could write, read, go ice fishing? (It's London in June, it's possible). Hell, I could just lie on the sofa like a vegetable and count the hairs on my leg. Or, if I was feeling productive in any way, I could actually shave the hairs. Oh the world is vast with options!

Of course the one pitfall of having all this free time is the pressure to make every moment count. I spent the majority of last night tossing and turning in bed convinced I heard the King; or someone’s baby somewhere calling out in his sleep. Of course, I realized that it didn’t matter if I woke up looking like a truck backed up over my face, cause the rest of weekend the only person I was looking after was myself. The other funny thing that happens with all this free time is you suddenly ask yourself what the hell you did with all of it before you had a child? Seriously, I should be a trilingual, Mozart playing, double philosophy and economic degree genius with an ass toned like Gisele with all the free hours I had pre-King. Suddenly I feel like a slacker who wasted a heck of a lot of time.

Well, guilt be damned, I’m off to do twenty-five things in the next forty minutes (walking, window shopping, eating pastry whilst chewing gum, reading a book, seeing a film and climbing a rock wall; for starters)…then again, maybe I’ll just sit on a bench and watch a pigeon walk in circles. 

Thursday 9 June 2011

I SAID NO!


I bet you have no memory of the first time you heard the word no. Of course you don’t, as most likely one of the first times you heard it you were crawling across the floor with a spoon in your hand about to stick it in the light socket – or something along those lines. Whether it was trying to dive off your parents bed or shove spaghetti in your father's shoes, I’m sure you were out to do something dangerous and/or forbidden and one of your parents stepped in and laid down the most prodigious of two letter words in the English language.

Little did you know then that you would be hearing this word repeatedly in your life and hence spending a lifetime either grimacing in disdain or finally surrendering to it. Ah conformity, such a boring bitch. Then again, for some over the years the word no simply breeds flat out rebellion. "No, really; I'll tell you just what you can do with your big fat boring NO."

This is another one of those moments when child rearing is interesting (and maddening) from a sociological standpoint. Did I mention maddening? The King, at the ripe old age of eleven months (almost, why not round up), is quickly learning that the word no kind of sucks. Sorry, I can’t always be eloquent. He has realized that this little word suggests boundaries and limits and at the moment, he has turned defiance into an all out sport. So our day is filled with the dance of him testing me, and me being forced to lay down the big fat two-letter word when the situation demands it.

At the moment, he finds the mention of the word hysterical. Not exactly the reaction I am looking for to be honest. He looks at me, does exactly what I’ve told him not to do – at the moment it is either standing in the bath waving his arms or trying to pull out the viewing card from the cable box - and then starts laughing. Or he starts heading for the danger in question with one eye on said forbidden fruit, and the other on me; it’s like a Mexican standoff, my brow is furrowed, my lips pursed about to utter, just as he is giving me that look that says, please woman, like some word is going to keep me from going where I need to go.

Don’t get me wrong, I hated the word growing up and I’m sure my mother will happily – or tiredly – tell you that I ignored it whenever I could [or that I found an ingenious way to circumvent it without flat out defying it...yes, I'm still justifying myself after all these years]. In fact, it is boring in its mere restriction especially as it seems to encompass all the good things in life. NO smoking, NO drinking, NO fatty foods, NO sex in public places (heeee). But, as I will be forced to explain to the King, sometimes 'no' is simply there to protect us. [Oh, god did I really say that, I've turned into one of the Mother pod people!] Or I could just whip out the answer my mother always used (and mothers all over the world) – “it’s no because I said so, and that's final.” 

Tuesday 7 June 2011

I'M BORED, SAVE ME


Do you have those weird holdover things from childhood that are totally irrational, but you just can’t shake them. Sorry, I realize I’m being terribly ambiguous here so I shall – as per usual – ramble on until we are all in full understanding. I’m talking about those weird phobias, habits or convictions if you will, that you’ve had since you were a child and no matter how ‘adult’ – and hence rational – you have become, you can simply not completely kick them to the curb. You know, like being scared of clowns, or having imaginary friends, or thinking that if you stuck your hand behind a bamboo screen at a certain Japanese restaurant in Las Vegas you’d be given a doll made out of mud. Oh, sorry, was that just me?? [What the hell were they putting in my milk back then??]

For instance – and I am taking a huge leap here as I realize this will make me sound utterly deranged (!!), I used to be convinced that my stuffed animals had feelings. Or stuffed little souls I suppose. It got to the point where I had to make sure they weren’t smothered or stuffed in a box – cause of course they wouldn’t be able to breathe – and if someone inadvertently threw one off the bed, I would of course have to pick them up and apologize (quietly of course) for the evil person that chucked them onto the ground. Then there was their positioning on the shelf, bed, what have you. The ones that were in the front could only have that position for so long, as they then would have to be moved to the back so the other animals could get the good view as well. This also pertained to trips, sleepovers etc, as it was only fair that each and every animal got to see the world in equal measure. I was nuts, but very diplomatic.

Now, this is where it gets really irrational. To this day, there is still a small part of me that cannot shake this feeling. I know I know, there are doctor’s for this sort of thing, but every time the King’s monkey stares at me (for those of you that are already confused, that is the stuffed monkey that belongs to my son) with his mischievous little grin, I swear he’s trying to tell me that he’s hungry or bored out of his mind, or simply sick of sitting on the bedroom chair like a vegetable.  Any of you thinking I need to be sectioned, settle down, I have a son to raise and no one else is taking over my position.

All this said, I used to sit for hours and draft wills, so thinking my stuffed animals had brains seems normal in comparison. I’d pensively think about who was going to get my things, including my stuffed children of course, and who would get my beloved bike Charlie with the flowered banana seat. It seemed like a prudent thing to do in case anything happened to me. I guess on the good side of things, I’m no longer scared of the dark or snowcats (those horrible machines that groom the ski slopes), so I’ve made some progress when it comes to being a rational adult.



Monday 6 June 2011

HEY, CUE BALL!



Apparently there is breaking news from the world of English Premier league football this Monday morning: Manchester United's Wayne Rooney has had a hair transplant. (Yes, I managed to keep a straight face when I wrote that. Barely). Of course he confirmed this on his twitter account, announcing to all of his devoted followers that he was going bald at 25, so why not take the bespoke hirsute plunge. I suppose you either have to admit to it, or pretend that the new chia pet growing on your head has been there for years and obviously people were not paying attention. 

It's no news flash that for men going bald is clearly one of those dreaded things that plague them throughout their lives; hence the billion dollar empire that surrounds hair regeneration. Truly the fastest way to send a man into a category five tailspin is to tell him he looks a little thin on top. [If you’ve never witnessed this spiral into absolute heart stopping panic it’s kind of amusing to watch]. For whatever reason, for some men hair and masculinity are conjoined in such a profound way that to separate them will apparently alter the balance of their universe. In fact, I’d say fear of baldness ranks up there with men losing their mojo in then engine room, if you know what I mean...I can’t imagine the pool of insecurity an impotent bald man swims in – poor lamb.

The thing I never understand is, if it were me, and I had a good skull (you know when you don’t, I assure you) I would rock baldness like flipping ACDC. Bruce Willis, he’s a good role model for the balding (there is a long list of men perfectly at peace with having a shiny head!). He gives off that whole bad ass attitude, has a nice young wife, and is bald as an eagle. In fact, he actually looks strange with hair. Let’s be honest here – and any women will happily attest to this - how much worse is it when you see men trying to defy the balding inevitable? The hair styles that they think are going to cover the thin spots [Jude Law, you're not fooling anyone] - the comb over, the fluff up, the eight pounds of mousse in that one full area of hair hoping to accentuate it. Or the horrifying toupees that look like dead animals perched on their heads, those are subtle and oh so attractive. Or how about the hair transplants that go awry and look like the bottom of a golf shoe. And of course, lest us not forget the perpetual baseball cap/cowboy hat fashion statement – no, the baseball hat does NOT go with everything. Seriously, we know what’s under there. NADA. 

Seriously men, just own it; slap some SPF on that thing and get on out there. If women have to handle aging worse than men (as men don't age apparently, they become distinguished), getting fat from pregnancy and being exchanged for younger models, then men should be able to handle looking like a cue ball if the hair gods do not shine down upon you. 
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