In defence of friendship

I wrote this for my children when they were a wee bit smaller than they are now. And on the brink of teenage years aplenty I don't take a word of it back.

I have flipped out, lectured, and bullied my children. I have. I'm not the perfect sweet calm parenting guru, I'm a real messy impossible person. I have unrealistic expectations and selfishness and I honestly think modeling persistent, thoughtful effort is more important than modeling immaculate unruffled psychologically correct behaviour at all times anyway. I'm pretty sure my children are going to mess up, too, and I want them to know that they are not bad people or broken for not meeting some inhuman standard I've arbitrarily set myself. None of this musing is directed at parents who yell, fuck up, or aim for "good enough" because their resources are low.

But why, WHY, does our culture hold up a model of parenting based on disrespect and adult tantrum throwing as the best option we have? Why do we glorify the idea of the parent who stalks their child and harangues them "for their own good"? No! I want to move past my own ego, I want to strive for connection and mutual respect. Society is selling separation and distrust and I'm not buying.

I'm friends with my kids. Why wouldn't I be? I'm a good friend. They are fantastic people. We're friends. 

I'm also their facilitator and resource provider. I'm their negotiator when they lack the words, and their shield on the very rare occasion that they need protecting from something they can't handle or walk away from with a bit of gentle advice. I'm their coach when facing something tricky or new. I'm their tour guide when there are experiences I can bring their way. I'm their ambassador and translator when they need help learning social rules and cultural norms, or when there is danger of conflict escalating without an expert on hand.

I have no idea what I'm doing sometimes. I'm figuring it out as I go along like everyone else. I'm learning with my children.

The big promises I made here challenge the heck out of me. Today I wish this were a pithy little phrase I could write on my arm in biro, or get tattooed on my forehead. I need to remind myself what I'm aiming for every freaking day.

But I don't take it back. Not a word of it.

When all else fails, kitchen cleaning and comic books...

This week started off really promisingly. A friend came over for the day and we basically spent the entire time laughing and behaving incredibly childishly. My soul needed her so badly after last week's pervading sense of hopelessness! I'm a huge extrovert but my anxiety is often triggered by strangers or crowds, and I badly needed the recharging powers of someone who I just didn't have to stand on ceremony with (or worry about what she thought about the state of my carpets).

Then Tuesday, unexpected repair people struck. Now, landlord's agents getting access to our home and causing endless difficulties in the past are one of the deep painful root triggers for my history of panic attacks. I never had a full panic attack until that whole episode, and for almost two years after we finally got them to leave us alone I couldn't even answer the door unless I was expecting someone. So the landlord sending people to put us a new gate in without advance warning could easily have sent me into a spin.

I hadn't had chance to rely on any of my usual options for avoidance or minimising impact (advance tidying frenzy and usually someone else with me when workers turn up) so I settled for my tried and true last-ditch coping tactic of offering coffee or tea and trying to appear unflustered. Go, me!

I probably failed as far as not appearing too weird is concerned, but I did manage friendly - and not crying. Yay.

Yesterday they worked at the front gate, which required no access at all and barely freaked me out in the scale of freaked-out-anxious-person. Today was the turn of the back gate. We have no curtains at the back of the house. I felt like I spent my day in a fishbowl.

Talia watched them from the doorway, accompanied by her "friends" almost the whole day. I flitted between aggressively cleaning the kitchen cupboards, reading Hellblazer, and supervising mud pie making just to make sure the littles weren't tempted to touch the interesting cement buckets.

Nobody fell in a cement bucket, and my cupboards are sparkly. And no tears, unless you count Rowan loudly declaring herself not sleepy just now whilst yawning her little head off. I'm calling today a success.

Week (ish) in pictures, dirty feet and wild places

1: Roo, living room chaos, dirty feet
2: Silk den
3: Dragon Tree
4: Socks!
5: Torin and Jenna
6: Littles at the nature pond again
7: Attenborough walking with Ash (and babysitting the borrowed toddler)

I can almost predict which week each month I won't manage to write anything. The anxiety is so up and down the past few months, I think the return of broodiness has sent my hormones haywire. Or maybe the other way around. Too much information, always, eh? Weeks with a lot of time spent with other people are much easier, but actually reaching out for that connection when I'm so darn tired is hard.

Words come in fragments.

Talia cut her hair this week. She walked in saying, in the tiniest voice, "I didn't cut my hair..." I laughed. So so much. It had been a hard work sort of a day and I realised how unimportant the things I was stressing over were. Hair grows back. Time solves a lot of the little things.

This wasn't meant to be a long post but my intentions got away from me and here I am wondering whether to write about the stress of running out of money and washing detergent at the same time when Jenna seems to be getting hives from cheap soap. Or whether to witter about having got my hands on a copy of Fool's Quest and how satisfyingly perfect it is (usually I don't enjoy the middle book of a trilogy so much).

I have a horsefly bite on my shoulder from our walk yesterday. The cat is currently asleep on top of the Bueno bar Martin bought for me and I don't want to disturb her or allow the bar to melt. And so many other ordinary trivial tiny things that feel like they deserve cataloguing.

What even is this post becoming? I'd better go before it gets more bizarre!

Seven-ish Days of Excellent Things (that happened in between sibling squabbles and disasters)

1. Floor picnic
2. Simon Starling's work at Nottingham Contemporary with friends
3. Hello, Torin <3
4. Board games with friends (again)
5. In the brook
6. Tiny toys
7. Rabbits on the verge

Seven Days of busy, lovely, and at the end of my tether

The past few days have been a lesson in patience to say the least (interspersed with fun and celebration, because the sublime to the ridiculous is sort of a speciality around here). In particular, we've had a birthday, seen a lot of friends, and supported Jenna to make a police report about some children who attacked her on the park. Maybe next week will be calmer. Or perhaps not.

I would like to think of myself as the kind of person who can put up a weekly post about normal daily life at maybe even the same time each week or even using the same format, but the evidence is somewhat against me here.

It has maybe been less dramatic than my words imply, and less pretty than my pictures suggest. Imagine, then, something a little less than frantic and a little more than serene with a lot more ups and downs than I can list.

1. Torin has the yawns, I have broodiness, Emma makes lovely babies
2. Moveable alphabet
3. Babysitting A, and Escher lizard puzzle love
4. Bubble tea
5. Bluebells
6. Talia taking pictures of the sunset with my mum
7. A again, plus trains
8. Walking to the polling station
9. Sharing chips with friends at the Arboretum
10. When did her feet start to reach the floor?
11. When Jeremy visits, everybody has to see what he's doing at all times

Weekending

When last minute adventures present themselves, we tend to not take long to decide. Impulsive or flexible? At least this time I remembered to pack water and snacks. Miraculously the generalised anxiety (and infrequent panic attacks), which have been an on-off issue since Talia was born four years ago, weren't an issue. 

All day. With four children. In London. Even when a stranger shoved Rowan, on the underground. (Another guy kindly stopped to see if we were okay and completely restored my faith in humanity.)

The Natural History Museum was as wonderful as ever, especially the Investigations lab where it was difficult to drag Rowan away from examining all of the fantastic handling artifacts. We'd have stayed longer if we hadn't run out of snacks, because everyone was ready for lunch by then (3pm)!

What a day! It's about a three hour drive to get to the best tube station for us to park at, and then at the end of the day of course the same again to get home, so as daytrips go it was an exhausting one. Nice to know we can do it now that the children are older.

Then yesterday, a change of pace. Sunshine. Park. Friends. Food. Bliss! (And early nights all round.)