20 Feb 2012
by Tamsinin Little Diva Tags: Child, Cute Hairstyles, Hair, School, Squidge
Have you read The Hunger Games yet? Oh man, if you enjoy a fast paced, sci-fi-esque read, then this book should be in your paws right now. I didn’t want to read it, I thought it was too close to Battle Royale for it to be original, but I ended up eating my socks. Similar idea, completely different implementation with superb imagery.
So, for our first Little Diva post, we decided (Squidge and I) to do the hairstyle from the Hunger Games. I cannot claim credit for this, though. I have become a faithful follower of Adopt A Do and love this woman’s incredible talent. None of our hairstyles match hers but Squidge and I keep trying, one day ours will look as good!
We decided that we are going to try and do a funky, crazy, exciting hairstyle every school day for a year. Sometimes they will be repeated so we won’t show those, we will just show off the hairstyles that made it onto the school yard.
Our Katniss braid went the wrong way...
Some will come with instructions specifically suited to Squidge’s curly, fine hair. Others will simply direct you to the place where I was guided, expertly, by these amazing mums who create cute hairstyles for girls…
This particular hairstyle works really well with curly hair but I do advise you to spray it with a bit of water or detangler first. I use the Vosene detangler as it comes with built-in anti-nit stuff and it is really, really good at its job.
20 Feb 2012
by Tamsinin Fascinating Things Tags: Child, Husband
No pictures please!
While playing a game of Memory Squidge says to her father, “Maybe this game just wants me to win?” as she looks at his pitiful collection of cards versus her own enormous pile…
11 Nov 2011
by Tamsinin Parenthood Tags: Child, Husband, Squidge
Squidge: E! E! guess what?
E: What?
Squidge: My dad burps really loudly after his supper
E: Gasp of amazement
Squidge: Yeah, he does! He does! And it is every time.
E: Cool
A few minutes later comes the response to the email sent to The Husband outlining the conversation…
I feel vaguely misrepresented here.
04 Oct 2011
by Tamsinin Bedraggled Mum Tags: Anniversary, Child, Husband, Mommy, School, School Run, Squidge
I have come to the conclusion that the School Run is not suited to a wedding anniversary. This is why…
7am: BLEEP BLEEP BLEEEP. The Husband’s built-in iPhone alarm wakes me up from a deep snore sleep. I realise I am still sick. I go back to sleep.
7:30am: Meep Meep Meep, WOOF. Meep Meep Meep WOOF. Squidge’s Animagic puppies (she got these for her birthday) are eeping at each other while she manages her doggy zoo on her bed. I place pillow over head. At this point the fact that it is a) our anniversary and b) my morning shift has not been remembered.
7:45am: “Mooooooommmeeeeee” The adorable voice howls, I mean, calls at me from the bottom of the stairs. I smell coffee. I rise, like a zombie (seriously, if you saw The Hair you would totally think I had been dragged out of a grave backwards) and head for the smell.
7:47 am: “Happy Anniversary darling,” says The Husband, looking annoyingly perky and talking to me before I have caffeine. I can get off on a technicality for that. He hands me a lovely card with blood on it, “Look,” he says, “I bled for you.” Suddenly a lightbulb goes off in my head. OH. My. Holy. Knickers. I have his card, but I haven’t written in it. I have his present, but it hasn’t arrived yet. I have his gift voucher, but I didn’t print it.
8am: I have shut the lounge door and am frantically writing in The Husband’s card. I pause for a moment to praise myself for its amusing joke involving the Kama Sutra. All the cards I buy him are rude. It’s important. I am also juggling a child who is not interested in remaining in the same room. She is like a cat. If the door is shut she has to go through it. I am trying to print Amazon voucher at the same time but screen faces kitchen and the door has glass panels so is blindingly obvious I have not prepared his present. The Husband is being rather sweet about pretending not to notice his Crap Wife.
8:01am: Fastest card writing and printing in the West. Duly handed over and I’m making French Toast for breakfast. We got some Manuka honey yesterday and, along with the Olbas oil tissues, the cough mixture, the Beechams, the honey and lemon tea, the rooibos tea and the echinacea it has been added to my “eff off you effing cold” armoury.
8:05am: Am frantically juggling hot spitty pan, temper is frazzling as coffee machine on a go slow and STILL no caffeine, and child has come into kitchen for the fourth time to argue about getting ready for school. “Mom, how am I supposed to get ready if I don’t have any school clothes to wear?” she asks. I snap. I pick her up and carry her into her room, dump her on floor, yank shirt, knickers, socks, and pinafore out of cupboard (all of which are in plain sight) while yelling (not REALLY yelling), “It is all here so stop coming up with excuses. WHY we have to go through this EVERY morning when *blah blah blah*”
8:15am: Sulky child sitting at table with French Toast. Husband glaring at Sulky Wife who knows she should not have gotten cross but is refusing to back down in spite of having now had some coffee. The Husband is also grumpy about being undermined by aforementioned wife when he weighed into Getting Dressed Argument. The Husband is tad sulky too. I attempt to lighten mood by going, “Ooooh, look, Manuka Honey!” The Husband responds with, “Bet it is just a marketing scam.” Child responds with, “It tastes funny! I don’t want it! Ack! Ack! It makes my throat burn.” I try to drown self in coffee mug.
8:25am: Child sits like angel while I brush her hair. She is, stubbornly, refusing to offer hugs and to make friends. She is a master manipulator and knows how to push her mother’s buttons. I am so pathetic.
8:30am: The Husband hurtles downstairs screaming, “TIME TO GO!!! We are late!!!” He insists Squidge goes as she is, sock-free, as she was told ages ago to get ready. He relents as he walks out the door, half carrying her and half putting her socks on. Silence reigns over the house.
8:55am: Email: Dear Husband, thank you for my lovely anniversary present. I love you. Not sure we should have our anniversary on a weekday anymore.
Reply: Well, quite.
22 Aug 2011
by Tamsinin Bedraggled Mum, Parenthood Tags: Child, Fascinating, Husband, Mommy, Poo, Squidge
The Husband and I, since July 2006, have been haunted by the Inconvenient Poo.
It all started when Squidge was a baby. As we sat down to dinner, looking down at the adorable little baby in her playpen/cot/pram/baby holding device with fond eyes and happy smiles, she would get that focused expression that can only mean one thing. An enormous poo.
At first we didn’t notice but after a few weeks we realised that, no matter how we shifted the timing, Squidge would have a poo as we sat down to eat our dinner. I am surprised that I wasn’t really thin back then. It is hard to return to cold food after having wrestled, for ten minutes, with a crap that has possible sentience.
We even named her poos after Scottish distilleries when Squidge had the most powerful and utterly terrifying poo ever at the Glenmorangie distillery. I was off on the tour, sipping whiskey and licking whisky caskets (no, not really) while The Husband had to race into the nearest loo and literally CUT her clothes off her and throw them in the bin. There was, apparently, poo up to her neck.
So, those violent and messy poos are Glenmorangies, the ones that are accompanied by lots of noise and dramatic crashing noises but somehow yield no real results are called Dalwhinnies, and the Glenfiddich is the more casual and yet alarmingly whiffy poo.
To this day Squidge will declare, usually in a loud voice and usually at a restaurant (with non-child carrying friends trying not to look horrified), that she requires a poo JUST as the food lands on the table.
However, the Inconvenient Poo does not just strike when food is nearby. It has a plan. It wants me to have a nervous breakdown and cause my last nerve endings to collapse in anguish. For the Inconvenient Poo will almost always arrive WHEN WE HAVE JUST LEFT THE LAST TOILET BEHIND.
And when I say last toilet I mean – it is late and we are in town and all the shops are closed and there are no nearby pubs or restaurants, we have just hiked to the beach where there are NO public toilets in reach and an accident WILL occur by the time we hike to the ones we can find, on a bus, on a train when I am carrying 16 bags and then have to wrestle them, her and ME into the tiny toilet, on a train where all the toilets are out of order and there are still 1.5 hours to go (this HAS happened), and when all the toilets in the surrounding area are out of order…
We have also had the, “Oh I didn’t realise I had a poo” while standing in it on the floor of a restaurant. The “Oh god what the hell do I do with this” poo that appeared while walking through a nearby farm and resulted in my burying it. I still feel faintly worried about that farmer hunting me down somehow. And the “I appear to have had an accident mum” when in the car on the M25 where (apparently) nobody is allowed to wee because there are NO TOILETS.
Actually, am considering a side business of opening up some rent-a-toilets on the M25 for people like me who drank an entire large skinny latte before hitting the M25 and then realising, in a massive traffic jam, that Houston had a Problem.
To this day we are haunted by the Inconvenient Poo, an all powerful being that remains utterly in control. The only weapons we have are wipes and spare knickers. Stay on your guard parents, next time it could be you…
20 Jun 2011
by Tamsinin Bedraggled Mum, Slightly Insane Tags: Blog, Child, Husband, Squidge
I feel sorry for my husband. I really, really do. I mean, let’s face it, he is married to someone who would (in the old days) have been labelled as mentally unstable and put into a huggy jacket for all eternity. Nowadays I am merely considered “quirky” and he is forced to endure great pain. Like when I nearly killed him on Father’s Day…
Let’s start at the beginning of this truly insane weekend.
On Saturday, after a lovely morning of pootling through Brighton and purchasing all manner of delightful objects for Father’s Day, Squidge and I returned home to fetch The Husband. Then the four of us trundled off to her school to view their Art Day which was, essentially, the kids’ artwork in frames on boards.
We loved her pic. The Husband grinched about the fact that we have to pay £6.50 for a framed pic in yet another fund raising activity and muttering about writing a blank cheque and being a bank. I was all misty-eyed about the awesomeness of a painting done by my little genius, all framed and ready to go.
Then on the way home, on a narrow sidewalk, a woman hit my child with her mobility scooter. There was this sickening “crunch” and then that cry that no mother EVER wants to hear.
I felt her hand ripped from mine and everything seemed to go in slow motion.
It was like I was turning in syrup. My child lay on the pavement, arm outstretched, face almost under the wheel of the scooter. I screamed, “Oh my god!” The world ground to a horrible halt.
I cannot tell you how hideous that moment was. I ran to her, checked her out. Made her move arms and legs. And down the side of her beautiful face was a raw scrape where the wheels had ripped her skin off. Other than that my lovely brave child was alright.
The Husband and I were NOT.
I was so shaken I kept walking with Squidge, I wanted to get to a wider part of the pavement so I could put her down and look at her more closely without being bumped into by people. The Husband was torn between me and the woman. We both knew we couldn’t say anything more than the horror on our faces. She kept saying sorry.
I knew I couldn’t beat up a woman in a mobility scooter. But BOY was I angry. I had already been irked by her aggressive driving, practically forcing me to jump out her way. Now I was fuming. But I kept walking. I didn’t want to upset The Husband and Squidge any more than they already were.
We went to a local coffee shop as Squidge said she wanted a hot chocolate and we were both happy to oblige. Then we talked about what had happened and The Husband shared his bombshell.
He said that those machines are really heavy and that if it had been an inch to the left it could have crushed her skull. It sounds dramatic but he is not prone to fits of fancy. He was right.
The strength left my legs. Really. When that realisation kicked in I could barely breathe.
Two days later and we are both still very disturbed by it all. Something so simple could have been a tragedy.
Should mobility scooters be allowed on the pavements? I am inclined to say no, now.
In spite of our drama we forged ahead for a fabulous Father’s Day. He got breakfast in bed, lots of pressies. We went to the fair and did some random wandering around and looking at vintage cars and laughing at donkeys in the Donkey Derby and nibbling on fudge.
We also saw this at one of the stands.
No, I don’t get it either. A prize to the human who can connect the naked man in a thong with his legs chopped off to a Lion’s fundraising day and stuffed toy animals.
It was an ace day until, after eating the dinner I got for him, he fell over ill and has not been able to move much since. Awesome. I poisoned The Husband on Father’s Day.
What kind of a woman am I????
20 May 2011
by Tamsinin Fascinating Things, Parenthood Tags: Child, Fascinating, Joke
I am not entirely sure who thought that this was a fabulous name for a children’s juice range. It makes me laugh. Every. Single. Time.
Sadly the juice fails to live up to its name. Unless placed on the Juice Shelf in the kitchen which is pretty, um, high.
09 May 2011
by Tamsinin Bedraggled Mum Tags: Child, Husband, Mommy, Poo, Sneeze, Squidge, Vomit, Wee
Hmmm, I think I'm hungry...
I love my child, I do. But there are times when I can only stare at her and wonder where on Earth she came from.
From the day she was born she had this uncanny ability to sense just when we were about to sit down for dinner. Happily snoozing or burbling would change to crying, screaming or an enormous nappy changing emergency JUST when we were about to eat.
The more delicious the food, the more likely it would take a while to sort things out. I got used to cold food.
She got older. She ate with us. She was at the table. Did this change?
No
To this day (and my GOD she is going to hate me for this when she hits 18) she will require the toilet just as supper is placed gently upon the table.
However, while this no longer presents (include disclaimer about poo disasters here) a barrier to our enjoyment of a tasty repast, the other spectacular knack she has inherited (from only WHO knows where) is The Sneeze.
My daughter, for no particular reason that I can fathom, will let out a hearty, Earth shattering sneeze while in the middle of a mouthful of food.
This results in sneezed out masticated food particles landing on ME including my hair, my food, my clothes, and my phone. Not The Husband. No. Like vomiting, she shares this joyful experience only with me. When I prayed for membership to an exclusive club THIS was NOT what I meant.
The Sneeze is violent, disgusting and omnipresent – it goes everywhere.
Into the salad at the picnic we attended last week (never seen a woman move that fast as I removed salad from table as innocent human reached towards it)
Onto my yummy Mars Bar last night.
I am honestly amazed that I’m not stick thin, seriously, because I do not have the stomach to cope with The Sneeze. Vomit, poo, wee – fine (sort of) but sneeze? URGH
23 Apr 2011
by Tamsinin Bedraggled Mum, Parenthood Tags: Child, Husband, School, Squidge
When Squidge hit school I realised that it was time for me to broach the concept of The Sleepover. Now, I am hardly the fainting violet type but the entire idea put the fear of god into me. What if the other offspring cried for its parent? What if it was naughty and I made it cry? What if my child made it cry? What if it made my child cry? What if I lost it somewhere? Oh, dear heavens…
And, quite frankly, the horror stories from other parents hardly helped.
“Oh I had to take the other child home after a few hours,” said one mum, “She told my daughter that she hated her and that she wanted to go home.”
“The other child was so badly behaved and rude,” said another, “that I honestly cannot face her coming around ever again, not even for an afternoon.”
As you can see, the sleepover is a minefield peppered with social mores, high risk interactions, terror of error, and possibly parental alcoholism.
The Husband, obviously, didn’t see any of this. He merely shrugged and said, “It will be fine.”
Yeah. Right. He only comes home at 6pm. Bastard.
Luckily for me Squidge’s first sleepover (both the child coming here and her going there) set was a breeze. They enjoyed every minute and no tears or drama accompanied them.
Then came THIS holiday a.k.a. The Sleepover Week Of Doom.
I had been lulled into a false sense of security. I had been gulled. For the second round with another child was a highway littered with explosives.
It also started out alright. They played happily for an hour or two and then, THEN, began the pain. The other child (OC) went quiet. Ominously so.
“I am hungry,” she said, staring at me with the kind of face you see on an NSPCC ad. Oh god. It was 5:30pm and I hadn’t made supper yet. I’d been distracted by that dratted Kindle.
Immediately I raced into the kitchen to make my tried and trusted playdate favourite – homemade mini pizzas with sundried tomato paste, cheese, viennas, peppers and carrots. Delicious and faintly healthy.
I presented these to the kids with pride. I had salvaged my reputation. All would be well.
“This is,” said OC, “Disgusting.” My child, copying every mannerism of her guest, pushed her plate away too with the same expression of revulsion. (Traitorous creature, she loves these pizzas!)
Um. Shit?
It was at this point that I think I realised that my parenting skills were a bit crap. I tend to love people and want them to love me, a bit like a Labrador puppy. This is not a suitable characteristic for a parent. No. A parent must be firm and wise, must dispense authority with calm assurance. Must be patient and kind.
I am not these things. I am the panicked human who sidled desperately into the kitchen and stuffed a plate with breadsticks, wobbly cheese (Cheesestrings), grapes, and cold meat in an attempt to placate the OC.
It’s her eyes, I tell you. They bored straight through me and filled me with terror. She could smell my growing fear.
The offering was met with disinterest as was the movie, the games I suggested, and playing with Squidge.
Squidge, in the meantime, was retaliating to the fact that her friend considered her boring, by crying about everything and hunching into a grumpy ball at the end of the sofa. By the time The Husband got home I had my head in the drinks cabinet searching for a beverage that wouldn’t make me smell like a mad woman with a shopping trolley full of shoes.
The Husband casually took over with the aforementioned parental wisdom and calm that apparently has skipped my genetic structure altogether, and soon the two were asleep in bed. I was upstairs rocking back and forth with drool forming a rainbow to the floor.
The next morning was (BIG surpise) my morning shift so I was up with the two small humans at 6am. Yes, you read that correctly, SIX A.M. That is no normal time to be awake, unless you are about to travel to an exotic destination and need to be at the airport.
“I want my moooommy,” wailed OC, as I desperately tried to persuade her that the chocolate Wheetos were the same as Coc0 Pops and to stop Squidge from once again forming a ball-like huddle at the end of the sofa.
It was also when I discovered that fake tattoos (the ones you put on with a damp cloth and wash off after a bath) were the solution to all ills. With one flourish of a tattoo filled page smiles were returned to the faces of the two tots and I could once again return to worshipping my coffee mug.
While the rest of the sleepover was uneventful and painless I was struck with such sadness as to how the two children interacted. The OC is older than Squidge by a good six months and it shows. My little girl was born late July and is one of the youngest in her school. At a time when development can be measured in weeks, is this going to make her life harder? Would it have been better if she had been held back a year and been the oldest in her class? There are pluses and minuses for each decision but there is no going back now.
Still, it is hard to see other children boss her and roll their eyes at her because she isn’t at the same place as they are just yet. In fact it breaks my heart.
12 Apr 2011
by Tamsinin Bedraggled Mum Tags: Child, School, Squidge
It started out as any normal afternoon. I ambled up to the school in the brand new and warm sunshine to fetch my delectable offspring from the clutches of The System. After the rugby scrum style madness that is any after school collection, Squidge and I were walking home hand in hand.
“Mummy,” she says, her little face scrunched up in what I have come to recognise as deep thought, “Did you know that one day the universe is going to crack and that we are all going to die?”
I was uncertain as to my next move. There isn’t any handbook for this. Do I acknowledge that she is likely right and possibly instil in her the kind of fear that Obelix always had for the sky? Do I laugh manically and change the subject? I went with my first instinct which was to ask how on Earth she came up with this…
“Squidge,” I said, nervously, “Where did you get this idea from?”
“OH,” said she who amazes me, “G and I were talking about it today and WE think that if the universe cracks we are in a lot of trouble. Except the space men. They have special suits so they’ll be ok. Can we get special suits, mummy?”
I saw my opening and went for it. Happily avoiding the concept of mortality and how fragile our lives actually were I asked her which space men we were talking about. After about five minutes of lengthy discussion about space stations, designer pink space suits, and Doctor Who, she says…
“Look mummy, these are the different positions people die in.”
And she proceeded to put her arms and head and body in a variety of seriously disturbing positions.
Honestly, I have no idea what they teach them at school.
I think I need therapy. And a handbook.
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