What a difference a day makes...

Tasks completed on Day 1 of child home sick from school (with a temperature but not ill enough to spend the entire day in bed)

Child spends an extra 2 hours in bed reading instructive literature (OK, back copies of Top Gear magazine, but beggars can't be choosers)
English homework completed
4 sessions of Mathletics completed
Intelligent conversation over lunch
Short session on National Geographic kids website games section
TV switched at 4.00pm due to pompous statement that it shouldn't go on until the same time school would have finished
Mother's Tasks: Laundry, cooking (delicious nutritious home-made Moroccan lamb stew), overseeing entertainment of child.  Writing: grand total of approx 20 minutes.

Tasks completed on Day 2 of same child home sick from school

Child spends an extra 30 minutes in bed complaining about boredom
1 section of 3 of next week's English homework completed
1/2 session of Mathletics completed
Loooooong session on National Geographic kids games section
TV goes on at 11.00am, (Don't judge me: 3 back episodes of Planet Earth 2 watched - I call that a win, under the circumstances)
Conversation over lunch about... I can't remember.  Not sure it was intelligent.
Tantrum over uncharged iPod Touch
Mother's Tasks: Tactical 'forgetting' to recharge iPod Touch, wrangling with child over completion of further homework, complete failure to unload laundry from the machine, and dinner likely to consist of any old veg I can find to serve with chicken stir fry.  Writing: are you kidding?


Tasks likely to be completed if there is a Day 3 of having same child home sick from school

None - because it's not going to happen.

(Better not...)

Out of the mouths of babes (or 9 year old boys)

Breakfast is important, I think.  Especially since Boys #1 and #2 are so skinny that if the wind blows too hard I worry they might fall over.  So we try to eat a decent amount every morning, and one of my go-to energy boosters is porridge.  Only one problem; Boy #2 recently announced that he didn't like it any more - not even with maple syrup on the top.

Thins morning, then, I thought we would try things the Russian way by putting a teaspoon full of raspberry jam on the top of his porridge.

Jam is a Russian cure-all.  Want a sweet taste with your (black) tea?  Help yourself to a little dish of jam from the bowl in the middle of the table and use a teaspoon to feed yourself little bites in between sips of tea.  Feeling fluey or have a cold coming on?  Jam will definitely help.  Want to boost your intake of Vitamin C?  Yes, jam is just the ticket.  You get the picture...

I have to be honest, I didn't hold out much hope that jam would sort Boy #2's porridge-avoidance, but with Weetabix and toast on standby, it was worth a try.

He stirred it in and cautiously took a mouthful.

Boy #2:  "Mmmmmmmmm.  That's delicious!  I love it!  I'm going to eat the whole bowl!'

I smiled quietly to myself as I chatted with Boy #1 about his busy schedule and sorted out various things around the kitchen.  Job done.  Then...

Boy #2:  "It tastes just like raspberry pie!"

Me - blinking.  What?:  "But, hang on - you don't like raspberry pie..."

Boy #2:  "That's your raspberry pie, Mum.  Gran's raspberry pie, I like - and that's what this tastes like.  Mmmmmm...."

Oh.  Right.  That put me in my place, then.

Writes of passage

Today, I had to do something unexpectedly difficult.

Regular readers may have picked up on the fact that sometime in the next year there's a strong possibility we'll move on from Russia.  In an effort to minimise the fuss when / if that actually happens, I am slowly but surely trying to empty the house of 'stuff' that we won't want to take with us (for which read; pay to move from one country to another), which we have accumulated during the last 5 years.

Mostly, this 'stuff' is associated in some shape or form with the Boys.  Toys, books, outgrown clothes, skates and shoes. You know; all the things that you curse when they stop you closing a cupboard door or the lid of a toy box, or which form an unsightly heap in the corner of your children's bedroom.  Things that you want to pass on that aren't quite good enough to give to friends, but which are too good to just throw out.

There are no Oxfams here, you see.  No handy shops on the high street that will be happy to pass your kids' pre-loved snowpants on to less fortunate children.  Certainly, there are charitable organisations that will do a similar job, but you have to know where they are and then - in this traffic-congested city - get the 'stuff' you want to donate to them delivered.

Catering to an expat population constantly in motion, the Boys' school does a good job of taking some of the strain; there's a thriving exchange for slightly worn unwanted school uniform items, there's a second-hand library where you can sell or replace books that are no longer relevant with ones that your kids might actually read, and there's a yearly 'skate swap' that takes some of the financial pain away, but there are still some things that there just isn't much call for.

Like, dressing up clothes.

My two boys have, in their time, loved dressing up.  Boy #1 is mostly past that now (sadly), but Boy #2 less so - the knights' outfit, the cuddly lion, the Power Ranger and the wizard still surface from time to time.  Unfortunately, however, there were a plethora of other dress-up outfits that whilst still much loved, don't fit anymore.  That'll happen when the label says '4 - 5 years' and your youngest child is going on 9...

So this morning, I took 13 - yes, THIRTEEN - dressing up outfits to the school, for the pre-Halloween costume swap.  As I stood there handing them over one at a time and explaining what they were, I was struck by an almost overpowering impulse to stuff them all back into my blue Ikea hold-all and run away with them.  All of a sudden it seemed as if I was giving away my children's memories rather than just random pieces of material.

I know, I can't keep them.  That would be ridiculous.  I already have a basket containing various small items of clothing that I can't bring myself to part with; a baby-grow, a blanket, that lovely shirt they both wore one after the other when they reached 4 years old, those cute baby socks.  That revolting sweater that was part of Boy #1's school uniform in London, the faded over-sized t-shirt they consecutively wore on beach holidays to keep them out of the sun.

Yes; keeping their dress up clothes as well is out of the question.  And it's certainly not necessary from their point of view; they were completely unconcerned when I suggested we get rid of the Bob the Builder / Fireman Sam outfit (reversible and oh-so-handy), the skeleton, chef, vet and doctor outfits, the 3 sets of pirate garb in varying sizes, the princes cloaks, the fireman kit, and police uniforms still with matching hats.

It's me who has the problem.

I think it's because this is such tangible evidence of the fact that Boys #1 and #2 are growing up.  This morning I felt not as if I was simply handing over brightly coloured pieces of material.  I felt rather that I was saying goodbye to the two small boys who used to race about the house chasing each other with pirate swords, or stopping traffic on the floor of the playroom, or helping me in the kitchen dressed in a floppy chef's hat.  As if I was bidding farewell to the sensation of a small warm hand in mine during the walk home from school, and the feeling of the embrace of a hot sleepy pre-schooler's arms around my neck when they were too tired to walk up the stairs to go to bed.

You would have been proud of me, though.  Instead of snatching it all back and wailing 'I don't want to!  I'm not ready!  Give them back!', I smiled, watched the other mums with kids younger than mine get excited about what we'd donated, and walked on to the next stage.

Because that's what mums do.


(Mind you, god knows what I'm going to do with 13 swap tickets.  I would say there is every chance that come Saturday, when the swap actually takes place, I may actually find myself buying half of the costumes back...)

Who says we have to act our age?

I have just been indulging myself - to the delighted embarrassment of my older son - in a spot of chair dancing to this...



One of the things about getting older is that people stop thinking you want to kick over the traces, let alone that you actually will.  Or maybe that's just one of the limitations I place upon myself, I don't know.  Certainly it's a lot harder to get up the morning after drinking too much the night before, to the extent that generally it's easier to put the brakes on and avoid the hangover in the first place.  But that doesn't mean I don't ever want to go out and get really, properly stinking drunk, sit putting the world to rights until the sun comes up, and dance until my feet hurt.  Likewise, it also doesn't mean I am only ever going to wear a one-piece on the beach, or that I won't at least try on those heels that I suspect will probably make me look like a pig on stilts.  Even if wearing them for a whole evening is an impossibility.

I know, here I am at 47.  I can't help feeling that perhaps I should be over that sort of behaviour by now.  Certainly I would have imagined, when I was 10 - as Boy #1 is - that my mum was way beyond embarrassing me like that.  But lately - perhaps it's the onset of spring? - I am becoming less and less inclined to act my passport age.  Not that I want to completely kick over the traces and behave like the irresponsible 20 something I once was, just that I'm not quite ready to pull on the twinset and pearls just yet.  I still have some confounding of expectations to do.

And if a spot of chair dancing is the only way that feeling manifests itself, well then I don't think things are completely out of control.  Not yet, anyway...

And you - how do you confound those pesky expectations?

This started out as post about Weetabix and ended as one about the media reporting of Sochi 2014...

.... if you can believe that.  Because after 4 years living in Moscow, this week I finally found plain Weetabix available in my preferred reasonably-priced supermarket (rather than at the rather less reasonably-priced alternatives), and was so excited that I bought 5 packets of the stuff.  

You UK and US based readers may laugh, but healthy breakfast cereal for nut-allergic children can be hard to come by here, so whilst I may have gone just a little over the top, I now have Weetabix that will last us until the summer and - I hope - have encouraged Auchan to continue stocking it.

Result.

Of course, I now have no space left for any other cereals in our cupboard, but that's beside the point, I'm sure you'll agree.

Anyway, I planned to write a post on how things are slowly but surely changing in a country which, if you were to take your view of it from what you read in the Western press, is still stuck in the dark ages.  Funnily enough, Weetabix didn't feature in that.  What actually came out was the following rant about the Olympics which, it seems, could no longer be suppressed...


Ah, Russia.  So much has changed in this country, not only in the 22 years since the USSR was dissolved, (because yes, it was that long ago), not just in the 19 years since I first visited (Christ, has it been that long?), and not even in the 4 years since we first moved over here as a family.

From the outside, of course, from the fabled Free West, you might be forgiven for thinking not much - if anything - has evolved.  Russia is apparently still a nation of grey brutalist architecture, a land of snow and ice, inward-looking, jingoistic and uninterested in taking note of progressions taking place elsewhere.  Admittedly, Russia doesn't help itself in this by many of it's political processes and decisions and by being what is still a hard-to-get-to (and indeed, often hard-to-get) destination, making it difficult to obtain visas and having been less welcoming to tourists than it might have.

But leaving that aside, I would put a sizeable share of the blame for Russia's poor image abroad squarely at the door of the Western Meeja, and an experience I had in the 90's has not seemed so far from the tone of what was going on recently in the reporting of the run-up to the Sochi Olympics.  Back then, I believed what I saw on-screen.  The news was the news, right?  If you couldn't trust the news, then...  But one day in 1996, whilst calling Husband in Moscow, from London, I commented on the snow I had just seen behind the BBC reporter as he stood with the Kremlin as a backdrop.  I mention this incident to illustrate how what you see in the press is subject to manipulation in ways you would not imagine; the snowy day I had commented on was in fact a reasonably mild +14degC and the reporter had been standing in front a blue screen.  The producers in London had simply called up their stock-backdrop for Moscow - cold and snowy - without actually checking the reality in Russia.

Sometimes, especially when looking at photographs of culled wild dogs purporting to be taken in Sochi but which can actually be traced to a news story from Kiev three years ago, it seems that not much has changed.

I sat back and watched the media feeding frenzy that preceded the Sochi Olympics with disbelief.  Certainly, from the reports we received from friends and acquaintances who were on the spot, things were not going smoothly in the run-up to the event itself.  Billions of dollars were wasted, disappearing who-knows-where, and the authorities were working up until the last minute to make sure that the facilities were ready.  Individuals from non-ethnic Russian backgrounds were ruthlessly exploited, whilst during the Games themselves, security was incredibly tight (I was going to write 'ridiculously', but when peoples' lives are at stake...), and travel around the venues - particularly out to the ski-hills - was apparently time consuming and difficult.

Gosh, Russia is just so damned different to all the other Olympic venues, isn't it?  I mean, it's just so Russian, boo hiss.  These things would never happen elsewhere.  Only in Russia, right?

Hmmm.  Wasn't it amazing that none of these things happened at previous Olympics?  I mean, we had no problems in the run-up to London 2012, did we?  It's not as if the streets of London were ever made impassable by the extensive network of roadworks, line extensions, or building sites that were worked on until the very last minute.  There were no scare-stories in the UK press about the possibilities of Olympic venues not being ready, or over-spends on the budgets*, were there?  There was no need to put soldiers on the streets to ensure the safety and security of locals and visitors when the company hired to do just that proved unequal to the task, or anything like that.

And there were no suggestions that in Canada in 2010 there was anything other than fair play in the minds of the organising authorities, thank goodness.  There was no difficulty in scheduling track or training time at the venues for visiting countries teams was there?  Heavens, no.

And in China, 2 years before that, wasn't it great that the 2008 Games were being held in a country with such a fantastic human rights record?  There were no missed deadlines or last minute work on the venues there - at least, not that the press ever had the access to, to report.  And there was certainly no slave labour or below-minimum wages in THAT nation, no sirree.  And isn't it great how China at that time allowed individuals of all faiths, persuasions and beliefs to live their lives as they wished?

Now.  I am not for one moment suggesting that all is right with the world here.  Or even that very much is right with the world here.  But the biased, dog-in-the-manger, looking for the downside of everything approach in all forms of media to what was happening in Russia in the few months coming up to Sochi 2014 had to be seen from the inside to be believed.

A fair, free, and balanced approach by our media.  It's what we expect, or at the very least, hope for.  But are we getting it?


*And no, I am not for a moment suggesting there was anything shady about the money spent on London 2012.  Although the people who compiled the original budgets in order to get backing for the bid back in 2005 might be accused of being just a little optimistic when they pulled out their calculators first time around...

International Day of the Girl - and a question

Question:

Did you know that a child born to a literate mother is 50% more likely to survive past the age of 5 years old?*

Did you know that a girl with just one extra year of education can earn 20% more as an adult?*

Did you know that an educated mother is twice as likely to send her own children to school?*

Did you know that a girl with 8 years of education is 4 times less likely to be married as a child?*

Did you know that 14 million girls under 18 will be married this year?  That's 38,000 girls today alone - or, to put another way; 13 girls in the last 30 seconds*.  Some of them will be as young as (or younger than) 11 or 12 years old - and mothers themselves by the time they reach 13.  Always assuming, that is, they survive giving birth.

Because, did you know that the largest cause of death in girls aged 15 - 19 years old, world-wide, is childbirth?*

It's easy, in our privileged parenting world to lose sight of, not know or to ignore the facts above.  We get bogged down in cajoling our own children out of the house on the school run every week-day morning whilst we recite the daily litany of of 'have-you-packed-your-lunchbox-where's-your-school-sweater-and-don't-forget-to-take-your-library-books-back-today', and forget those girls who through factors outside their control are unable to access education.  But they exist, in their millions.  33 millions, to be precise. (There are 33 million fewer girls than boys in primary schools worldwide*).

Today, the International Day of the Girl, I was lucky enough to attend a screening of a new movie 'Girl Rising'.  It presents the stories of 9 girls fighting for their right to education, as told by celebrated writers from their own countries and voiced by well-known actors.  It will leave you with powerful images and most likely, the understanding that unless we face up to the statistics above - and try to change them - nothing will alter and the cycle will simply continue.

So, one more question:

What if a girl's life - the lives of 33 million girls across the world - could be more?

*Statistics from the Girl Rising website

It's not over 'till it's over... Saying goodbye to the baby years.

I am 46 years old.

I'm reminded of that every morning when I look in the mirror and seem to see a new grey hair blazing defiantly at me from what is still - for the moment - mostly brunette, or a new wrinkle when I hold my face 'just so' in the harsh morning light.  (Understandably I think, I tend to keep the holding of my face 'just so' to a minimum).

46 is not old.  There are still many things on my personal bucket list* that I fully intend to achieve, some of them, I hope, sooner rather than later.

I want to finish the novel I'm writing.  (I've reached 55K words, so it's no longer a distant dream but an achievable one, I think).  I want to find an agent to help me publish said novel (yes, still a distant dream, but I can always hope).  I want to climb dormant volcanoes in Indonesia, and walk in the Himalayas.  I want to speak Russian at least a little better than I do today.  I want to walk the Cotswold Way.  I want to learn to play the piano.

I want to go back to work in paid employment outside the home (not impossible, although it will be considerably easier to achieve back in the UK).  I want to eat sushi in Japan, and visit the red heart of Australia.  (I also want not to see any venomous creatures in that red heart...)  I want to go back with my husband to the hilltop in Kenya where we watched the sun set on Kilimanjaro during our honeymoon, and take our sons with us to experience the magnificence of Africa.  I want to finally get around to stretching the enormous dot painting we bought during our visit to Sydney 5 years ago over a frame and see it installed in splendour on the white walls of our flat in London.  And of course, I would quite like to lose half a stone.

All of these things are - one way or another - achievable.  Being 46 does not preclude any of them.

But what 46 does preclude, in my mind at any rate, is having another baby.

We have two amazing sons; our family is complete.  Adding to it is unthinkable; logistically, emotionally, physically.    I don't yearn with a passion for a third child; I do not want to go back into the mist and fog of those early baby days.

But every now and again, I have to admit that the thought that I will never cradle another baby - of my own - in my arms again makes me quite sad.

There's not much that I would say I am now too old to do, but having another baby fits right into that category.

It's not over 'till it's over.  But that?  It's over.


*With thanks to 'Talk about York' who got me thinking about bucket lists this morning

Mothers; Know your limits...

I love to cook for my kids.  It's part of my internal template of 'being a good mother'; scratch cook where I can, and always have home-made cookies or cake in a tupperware container on the counter-top.  What can I say?  I blame my own mother for being the ultimate domestic goddess.  Well, that and the fact that living with two children with allergies means that many pre-made and processed foods are - literally - off the menu.

So, in a moment of madness, I actually kept the chicken carcass from yesterday's (shop-bought) roast chicken, thinking, 'Ooh - I can make stock with that!  We can have chicken noodle soup, and... chicken noodle soup, and... some other stuff I can't think of right now.'  Then, I realised I couldn't remember how to make chicken stock, so looked up a recipe.

I reached the part where it said 'simmer the bones over a low heat for up to 3 hours' and was suddenly assaulted by the memory of the smell of our kitchen 9 years ago, when I was making chicken stock whilst weaning Boy #1 and following the lovely Annabel Karmel's advice to the letter.  Most of her recipes were wonderful.  Chicken stock, however, proved a bridge too far.  The house stank, I stank, the streets outside were tumble-weed central. I swear the whole neighbourhood was on lock-down because of that ruddy stock.

You know what?  I think I forgot that very simple recipe - the chicken bones, cold water, a few veg, a bit of salt & pepper - for good reason.

I will do many things for my children, but it seems that here is one that I won't.  Life is too short to make my own chicken stock.

And I never much liked chicken noodle soup, anyway...


What is your parenting limit?

Giving your child the words

I am not qualified to write this post.

And yet, as the mother of two sons that I want to keep confident, safe, and above all happy, who is better qualified?

I visited the UK with Boy #1 last weekend.  We had a helter-skelter trip, rushing here there and everywhere, with very few moments of calm apart from some time in a hire car whilst I drove the two of us to visit friends a couple of hours out of London.

We listened to the radio, and unless you are living in splendid isolation with no connection to media of any kind, you will not be surprised to learn that in amongst the music, the news updates on every single station were mainly concerned with the recent unearthing of Jimmy Saville's activities.

This is current news - this is dreadful, awful, stomach churning, disgraceful and current news - so why shouldn't it be reported, even on Radio One?

I can't write here, or indeed anywhere, of the horror I feel on behalf of the children who suffered at the hands of those who exploited them, other than to say that I hope their stories - and their bravery in coming forward to face their persecutors - are not lost in the maelstrom of accusation and counter-accusation on how the stories have been reported.

Instead, this post is about is how I dealt with a question from the back seat of the car as we drove around the M25 on Saturday morning.

"What's 'child abuse', Mum?"

Surely a question that you hope never to hear from your child.  And yet, almost above all other questions, the one that deserves to be answered.  And answered in such a way that your child is left with a clear understanding of the boundaries, what constitutes crossing them, how it is never - NEVER - OK for that to happen, and what to do if it does.

So rather than ducking the question, changing the subject, switching the channel, we spoke about it.

I told Boy #1 that child abuse is when a grown-up treats a child in a way in which they should never be treated.  Once we had got past his obvious rejoinder of  "What, you mean when a grown-up bosses a child about and tells them what to do?" I explained how it meant an invasion of personal space (I was slightly more explicit than that but I'm not going to go into detail here since - as I've mentioned before - there are some unpleasant people out there who's google searches I do not want The Potty Diaries to appear on), that being told to invade other people's personal space could be just as bad, and that should either of those things happen - or even be hinted at - he must tell his father or I immediately.

We spoke about it in a no-nonsense, matter of fact, non-gratuitous and calm way.  There were no hysterics, no embarrassed silences.  Boy #1 took the information on board, filed it away, and we moved on to talking about something else.

Since that time, I have also spoken to Boy #2 in the same way, and watched him similarly file the information away and move seamlessly on to which piece was missing from the lego kit in front of him on the kitchen table.

Do I wish we had never had to have those conversations?  Of course.  Am I sorry that we did?  Absolutely not.  I don't feel that the information I have given them has compromised my sons' innocence or their future memories of childhood simply by the fact of their possessing it.  On the contrary; I feel I have helped both boys to protect those very things.  I strongly believe that those who prey on children rely on those same children's parents never having had this conversation with them, and indeed that they rely on both parents and children not having the ability - the words - to do so.  I also believe that a happy, confident child who is fully aware of what is Not OK - and that they can talk to their parents about it should they encounter such a thing - is less likely to fall prey to predators.

There is no fail-safe system, I know that.  I can't wrap my children up in bubble-wrap and protect them, much as I may want to.  But I can give them the tools to manage in today's world.  I can give them the words.

Lighten up on yourself: obsessing about diets in front of your children

This post has been brewing for a while now, but something about the onset of summer and plethora of 'bikini-ready diets' and 'do you dare to bare?' features in the press and magazines has finally pushed me over the edge to write it.  Well, that, a great post that Very Busy Mama wrote at the weekend about dealing with her own body issues, and a conversation I had with friends last week.

I grew up in the 1970's and 1980's.  (Yes.  I AM that old...). And for as long as I can remember, my mother - and all her friends - were on a diet.  Many of them still are.

We had the lemon juice & hot water diet (*makes face like a cat's bottom at the memory of the taste*), the British Heart Foundation Cabbage Soup diet (only to be tried once for fear of suffocation), the Hi-Fibre Diet (only to be tried until you run out of loo roll), the Leslie Kenton  Raw Food Diet (believe me, there are only so many ways you can eat raw carrot and celery), The Atkins Diets (woman cannot live on red meat alone - unless bad breath really doesn't bother her), The Grapefruit Diet (the only one that necessitated the purchase of new cutlery - in this case, serrated-edged spoons), the Three Day Diet, The Chicken Soup Diet, the one that gave you red days and green days (can't remember the name of that one), the Whole Food Diet (to this day I refuse to eat bean sprouts as they are the work of the devil), and the plain-old stop eating so much diet (which, frankly, is the only one that really works).

And through it all, I can't really remember my mum ever being fatter or thinner.  She always looked great, whether she thought so or not, and whether she was eating normally or not.

You would think that with this background I would be a bit of a diet junkie myself, and I have to admit, over the years, to having dabbled with Weight Watchers, food combining, and detox (thankyou Carol Vorderman for introducing me to quinoa, if nothing else), but nowadays - and for some time - I have simply tried eating healthy, balanced food, and applying the 80:20 rule (and sometimes the 50:50 rule, or even - at Christmas and on holiday, the 20:80 rule).  Guess what? It works - mostly.  I don't have a goddess-like body, certainly, but I do have one that I can live with and which I don't feel the need to do down in public at every opportunity.

And that, actually, is the point of this post.  (Apologies for having taken so long to have reached it).  Why, ladies, in this age of supposed empowerment and liberation, do we still feel the need to put our bodies down?  And even worse, in this age of an explosion in the numbers of children and young people suffering from weight-related disorders, why do we do so in front of our children?

Certainly, if you feel the need to, do something about your weight, but for the love of god, please, don't stand in front of your impressionable sons and daughters bemoaning the fact that you no longer possess the body of an 18 year old girl (even the 18 year old you once were) when you are - in fact - 38.  Or 40.  Or, indeed, cough, 45.

How on earth are children ever going to develop a healthy relationship with their own bodies and food (everything in moderation, etc etc), or realistic expectations of how it will develop as they get older, if all they see are their mums seemingly obsessed by the latest fruit and chocolate diet*?  For pity's sake; of course we don't have an 18 year-old beach-babe's toned skin, cellulite-free legs and perky boobs (And if you do, and aren't an 18 year old beach babe, good for you but I don't want to hear about it).  For most of us, the writing is on the wall.  We've got older, we've had babies.  Our bodies have been used, for want of a better term.  The lumps and bumps that we sport as the years pass are a change from our smooth-skinned youth, no doubt about it, but unless you want to make like Demi Moore and spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars on surgery, that's the way the oh-so-delicious cookie crumbles.

To a child, most of what their mother says is gospel.  (Disregarding, of course, the requests to put on shoes, brush teeth, find their missing sweater and clear their plate away from the table; that's just so much filler and white noise - for all the notice my sons take of such directions, in any case).  So if they hear their mother constantly belittling herself, moaning about not being able to wear sleeveless tops because she's over 40 and heaven forbid she shows her upper arms, refusing to take her kaftan off by the pool in case - gasp! - anyone should realise that she has cellulite / thread veins / sock marks round her ankles (oh, is the last one just me?), and generally allowing her life to be restricted by the self-imposed limitations she's placed on herself, like it or not the chances are that her children will impose the same restrictions on themselves in the future.

So, whether you do, or don't, decide to lose weight this summer in preparation for your summer holiday, please be careful of how you talk about your body in front of your children.  A split-second throw-away comment can so easily be internalised by an impressionable adolescent and result in a life-time of issues and an obsession with weight. And if you're anything like me, then I suspect that that is the last thing you want for your beautiful child.


* Although, I can see the attraction in that one.  And I'm sure I can dig out some serrated-edge spoons for the grapefruit...