Glückspilz

Parents in Scandinavia can rest easy in their saunas tonight. Save the Children’s snappily-titled State of the World’s Mothers Report (I’m glad they didn’t come round here, cos this mother is a right state) listed Norway as the best place to be Mum. Niger, where most mothers lose a baby at some time in their lives and have a life expectancy of 56, is the worst.

I was of course scanning the Save the Children list for Switzerland, the rich and highly-developed country where I reside, which lurked below many of its European neighbours in 18th spot. Why so low? Let me see now… Continue reading »

There are some authors that strike terror into me: not a Stephen King-style fear of the dark, but a kind of awe-struck horrified acceptance that I could never write anything of such depth and wisdom and authorial cunning. (Stephen King qualifies as a scare-monger on the latter point for sure.)
I was thinking of my terrific and terrifying authors list today, when I read that Maurice Sendak had died. I never grew up with his best-known book, Where The Wild Things Are, but it is my childrens’ absolute favourite. They go to bed many a night with a headful of wild rumpus and still-hot supper. They love it, monsters and all, and here is why I think it should be a set-text for all children (and most adults).
Sendak famously said that he “doesn’t lie to children”. The beating heart of Wild Things is its honest portrayal of a toddler’s terrifying emotions. It’s a book about anger management. Continue reading »

Apparently, deer go to sleep facing due north.
As usual, I’m faffing about looking up arcane wisdom on the internet when I’m supposed to be blogging. This time, it’s bed orientation. Self-appointed experts blathering on about questionable eastern philosophies – I think I might have just overloaded Google, there are so many search results.
Yesterday, I shoved our bed round 90 degrees because we’re planning a renovation and I thought it might be wise to check if I can sleep facing in that direction before I let some Germans with big hammers remove my supporting walls (none of that was a euphemism).
It does mean that the bed is now freestanding in the middle of the room. I know centre-stage beds are fashionable in some quarters, but it feels a bit like lying on a sacrifical slab. Continue reading »

Before you have kids, you fantasize a perfect being based on the choicest morsels of the parents’ body and soul: inshalla, my child will have Daddy’s button nose and Mummy’s indestructible teeth, his Calvinistic work ethic and her knack of being given jobs by friends, his talent at Angry Birds and her ability to sprint after a departing bus in platform heels while exceptionally drunk.
What you don’t imagine, is a child made up of all the offcuts: Mummy’s enormous conk grafted onto Daddy’s bowling-ball bonce, his science-baffling foot diseases combined with her shedding toenails, his inability to find his own belongings mixed with her incendiary temper at losing things. Continue reading »

Before I discovered that motherhood is like being permanently on Candid Camera, I honestly thought that bedtimes would be lovely. Well, what the Donald Duck did I know about anything back then, eh? Bedtime is not lovely: it is sent to try us.
Tonight, 7pm
Goodbye Sun, hello Moon, warbles the TV and I perk up: oh good, it’s nearly wine o’clock. “Come on you two, let’s get ready for bed and have a story”, is what I think I have said, but apprently my mouth has translated it to, “Come on you two, can you start a fight with each other and then pull down the curtains while trying to hide from me?”.
7.15pm
The curtains are rehung. The kids are in the bathroom, eating toothpaste and whooping like it’s Lord of the Flies. Irritation starts in my stomach: oh no, I’m getting hangry. Continue reading »

Rather like a toddler who repeatedly pushes beads up its nose and wonders why they get stuck, we keep going on holiday with two small children and wondering why it’s not the relaxed experience of yesteryear. You may well recall that my lucky-mushroominess doesn’t extend to airports.
This time it was a mere six hours at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 (fog). Compared with our eleven hours at Alicante back in January, this was child’s play, although the crummy situation was greatly exacerbated by the fact that there was no… child’s play.
Which brings me to my point: where are the playgrounds in airports? Continue reading »

Sometimes, the stars align and I am able to go for a run. Today was one of those blessed days: husband available to umpire the children (check); no-one beset by illness (check); calendar empty of birthdays / weddings / christenings / bar mitzvahs (check); Mummy awake, willing and adequately fed (check). So off I set, … Continue reading »