Laughing at my own jokes, and other embarrassments

I was searching through old posts on here this morning; god, I had a lot to say back in the day.  Some of it was even quite entertaining - or at least, it is, to me now.  That raises a question, actually; is it bad form to laugh at your own old blog posts in the same way that you're not supposed to laugh at your own jokes?  I like to think not; after all, back when I started this blogging malarky it wasn't sponsorship or advertising led.  No, those of us who were doing it (and there were only a handful back in the mid-noughties) were generally doing so for the fun of it.  Well - that, and for the therapeutic benefits of editing our reality and making it funny.

And so to another question; can I write posts now that I could look back at in ten years time, which would still make me smile?  And then, that leads to yet another; given the relative quiet on here recently, can I write any posts at all?

I think I could.  I would have to be even more circumspect now than I was then, of course; Boys #1 and #2 might be less than happy if their lives were used as blog-fodder.  Teens and their insistence on privacy, dammit.  But still.  There's always The Dog, right?  He doesn't get a choice in the management of his digital footprint.  And actually, I find that now I'm in my fifties there are things I want to say, reflections I want to make, that perhaps I can't say out loud to people around me.  There's only so much one wants to share with the other Year 9 parents about continence clinics and a lack of patience with  what my sis calls 'performance parenting', for example.

(Those two subjects are unrelated.  Obviously).

Blogging as a form of thinking out loud: that's pretty much the reason I started all this back in 2007.  Nothing changes, after all...

So, to that end, and until I manage to find the time to write something entertaining about what's going on in my life at the moment, here's a flight of fancy that I wrote on The Potty Diaries back in 2011.  I hope you enjoy - it made me smile, anyway...

September 2011: And in Other News...

...I've just had an email asking me if I am interested in buying accessories for my washing machine.

Excuse me? Accessories for my washing machine? Before I clicked on the link (for yes, I am that mug), I spent a happy few seconds imagining what they might be. Perhaps a jaunty little hat for those trips to the farmer's market? A natty pair of leather gloves for those chilly days, now that autumn is here? Or maybe an autumnaly coloured scarf, for wear whilst out mushrooming in the forest?

No, of course, don't be potty, PM. Let's get real.

Perhaps, then, the term 'accessories' when matched with 'washing machine' could refer to some swanky go-faster stripes, colour-coordinated to match the granite work surface in your kitchen. For obviously, no washing machine that would need something as grand as an accessory could possibly be seen anywhere without a slab of granite or corian close to hand. Or actually, maybe the granite or corian IS the accessory, and this is the manufacturer's way of branching out into a new market-place? Or, perhaps it refers to some washing machine bling; a cheeky little swarovski crystal tattoo around the base of the door? (Don't laugh - I actually think Sub-zero have already done this with a fridge).

But no. 'Washing machine accessories' actually means 'detergent'. And, if you're going to push the boat out, it can also mean 'descaler'. Who knew?

Oh yes, and my older son just asked me if, when he's 12, I will let him watch that well-known movie 'Pirate Caravan'. I said yes, naturally. Well, a film about pirates on holiday in a 4 berth caravan, perhaps on the west coast of France, squabbling about who's turn it is to empty the waste container, who ate the last weetabix for breakfast, and who's responsible for their getting lost and ending up at a nuclear power station instead of at the unspoilt beach within easy reach of a local vineyard - what's not to like?

I'm having a moment...

It's going too fast.

I look at my boys - now 10 and approaching 8 - and I think this almost every day.  What with the whirlwind calendar of school, music lessons, sports fixtures, after school activities, social engagements and just - well - Life, the weeks whiz past and suddenly what was the chaos of the beginning of term at the end of August is now a well-worn routine.  The alarm bell rings on Monday mornings and before I know it, I'm cooking Sunday lunch, without having had a moment to stop and smell the roses in between.

And all the time, my boys are growing up.

A few days ago, in an uncharacteristic fit of organisation, which may or may not have been prompted by the fact that Husband was working from home and inspiring me to show a sense of industry (of the 'Jesus is coming.  Look busy' variety), I cleared out a set of drawers that have probably had the same stacks of papers in since we arrived in Moscow nearly 4 years ago.

My reward - apart from the sense of achievement that always results in moving annoying piles of paper Out Of The House - was to come across some school photographs taken of the boys when they were 3 and 5 , the autumn before we left London.  They look, quite frankly, adorable.  If I'm honest it was bit of a relief to discover that my memories of them at that age were truer than I had imagined; I can't be the only parent who, when they look back on photos of their babies, is a little disappointed to discover that actually they look pretty much the same as everyone else's babies at that age, with the same rubbed out bald patches from when their birth hair falls out around 2 - 3 months, the same flushed dry cheeks from teething, and the same patches of dribble around their collar, surely?  I mean, Boys #1 and #2 were lovely at that age, of course they were.  Just not the beauties that I imagined them to be at the time, if the photographic evidence is anything to go by...

But here, in the photos I found three days ago, they were practically perfect.  Clear-eyed, healthy, smooth skinned and reach-out-and-touch-me gorgeous.  Their open and trusting smiles for the camera warm my heart.  But time has moved on, and whilst they are still - in my eyes, anyway - heartbreakers in the making, they are growing up.

Boy #1, for example, doesn't need help with his homework anymore, and the fine down of dark hairs on his upper lip is becoming more evident.  He's getting taller, no longer one of the shortest in his class, and is even wearing trousers of the correct size rather than a year younger as he was doing until recently.  He's got a great sense of humour and a strong sense of ethics, is working well in school, and is addicted to reading in all it's forms (but particularly to anything from the 'Percy Jackson' or 'Harry Potter' series, which he will read - and then re-read - in bed, on the sofa, whilst laying the table and walking up and down stairs, given half a chance).  He shows a steely determination to take part in team sports, and has a confidence in his physical abilities that I never did at his age.  He's brave enough to face down bullies and to accept an apology from those who have wronged him, and is generous in his levels of forgiveness.

Boy #2 has a mostly iron-clad personality and a wicked sense of humour.  He's nobody's fool, and will not be forced into doing anything he doesn't want to.  At school he is showing increasing confidence in writing and that maths might be his thing, along with all the signs that in the next few weeks he will become a fully qualified bookworm like his older brother (although admittedly of the Asterix and Obelix variety, for the moment at least).  His love affair with all forms of transport continues, but nowadays instead of reading 'That's Not My Car', we've moved onto books about The Titanic and space travel.  He happily jumps on the trampoline and attends football and taekwondoe sessions with his brother, but when all's said and done he would much rather be upstairs in his room building lego creations.  We recently introduced him to field hockey, and were initially surprised by how much enjoys playing it, until we worked out that the stick provides him with a tool he can master, which fulfills a need in his engineering-inclined mind.

Why am I writing all this down?  Because I write less about the Boys these days - for good, privacy-based reasons - but it occurred to me that before I know it the next 4 years will have passed.  By that time Boy #1 will be 14 and Boy #2 nearly 12, and if the experiences of friends with teenaged boys are anything to go by, our levels of interaction may have changed considerably.  They will certainly need me less, and as much as the prospect of that saddens me, that will be as it should be.

Consequently I want to celebrate who they are now, so that when they need me to be less involved and stand more on the sidelines of their lives rather than to be intricately entangled in them - as they need me to be at the moment - I will be able to look back at what was, and remind myself of how our lives once were.  To remember when Boy #2 was unable to let me say goodbye to him in the school corridor without giving me 3 kisses and a hug, or when Boy #1 would still - just - let me hold his hand when we crossed a busy road.  To listen to echoes of the days when they still wanted me to read them stories at bedtime, or when they would still clamber onto my lap for a cuddle whilst watching Horrible Histories on tv.  To remember when 'Mama's pizza' was still their favourite meal, or when a burgeoning tantrum could be defused with the question 'Do you think your reaction to not being able to find that book/sweater/lego piece might be just a little bit over the top?' And when the sentence, during story time '... and a great big bear bottom sat down on the lid.'* would lead to gales of laughter and hiccups.

There's no doubt about it; it's going too fast.  But oh - what a ride...


*From 'It's the Bear!' by Jez Alborough

Things I learned at BritMums 2013...

The BritMums Live! team did an amazing job.

After 6 years, I still have a lot to learn about blogging.

Standing up to read one of your posts aloud in front of 400 people is just about as intimidating as it gets.

I am a rhubarb, according to the stylists from TKMaxx.  Not an apple, pear, or strawberry (yes, you really can be strawberry-shaped - who knew?), but a rhubarb.  So THAT's where I've been going wrong stylistically all these years...

A lot of bloggers have book ideas.  A lot.

Meeting online friends face to face is rarely a disappointment.

Travelling without the kids is... pretty much bliss, actually.

But sitting on the tarmac for 4 hours at Moscow's Domodedovo airport whilst the hydraulic system on the plane is being fixed still stinks.

Arrive at Heathrow T5 after midnight and you will experience the spooky situation where they actually start to turn the lights off in the baggage hall.

Driving through the centre of London after 1am in the morning, looking at all the revellers out there, is a pretty good reminder of how darn old you are.

But glancing out of the hotel window at 6am on a Saturday morning (damn that jet lag) to see clubbers making their way home through the drizzle makes you realise that being ancient really isn't that bad.

BritMums Live! Hello...

Nearly 6 months ago I told Husband that come hell or high water, I was going to BritMums Live! this year.  I've been to two out of the three conferences that they've held so far and I can't tell you how miserable I felt in June 2012 watching all the buzz about it beforehand and knowing that I wouldn't be there.

Well, guess what?  It's coming up in less than 6 weeks time.  How did that happen? All of a sudden I need to start thinking about logistics and - gulp - planning what to wear.  Obviously, the first - who will collect the Boys from school, will my Husband even be in the country to do so, how can I ensure the washing machine doesn't languish completely unloved and unused for the entire 4 days of my absence, etc - is the most important piece of the puzzle.  That second thing - the what to wear thing - that I mentioned? I was just joking.  Not worried about it - AT ALL.  (Or rather, I'm not if my attempt to shift a couple of kilos that have magically appeared since the end of last year works, anyway.  Come on, 6 weeks.  Shouldn't be that hard, should it?  In fact, I probably only need to start next week.  Someone has to shift that chocolate stockpile in the cupboard before I begin - it might as well be me...)

Anyway, here's my BritMums Live! hello  (Check here to join the linky yourself).  Just in case, you know, you want to say hi at the event...

Name: Clare  (not my real name - so don't be surprised if you have to use it twice.  And no, don't ask me why I started this anonymity lark, I've forgotten, it was so long ago...)

Blog: The Potty Diaries

Twitter ID: @thepottydiaries

Height: 5ft 7

Hair: Short-ish brown.  Never as flippy-out at the bottom as I would like.

Eyes: Brown

Is this your first blogging conference?  No, my 3rd

Are you attending both days?  Try and stop me.

What are you most looking forward to at BritMums Live 2013?  Catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, and being able to do so without worrying about rushing off to release the babysitter.  And maybe even having a drink or two...

What are you wearing?  Ask me closer to the time - no idea right now.  

What do you hope to gain from BritMums Live 2013?  I really want to make use of the fantastic opportunities to focus on writing.  (Currently my first attempt at a novel,  'The Great Work' - not it's real title - is taking up a lot of my time)

Tell us one thing about you that not everyone knows:  I recently turned down the opportunity to live in a Mediterranean country.  And - bonus fact - I just discovered that I can't spell Mediterranean without using spell check.

'No Big Important Truth to Share'

You think you have nothing to say.  You think that you're all blogged out.  You wonder if you'll ever hit 'publish' again - and then you stumble across a post like this, from Tanis Miller, where she perfectly expresses how wrung out on the writing front I have felt for the last week or so.

'I have no big important truth to share' she writes.  God, I remember the early days of my blog when I had big important truths to share.  When my observations on the world - or at least, my observations on MY world - were fighting for space on the keyboard, when I always had something to say and was full of confidence that someone out there would find it interesting.  It was finding the time to write the posts down that was the problem, back then.

Nowadays with both my sons in school all day, I have the time - ostensibly, at least.  But all of a sudden the sense of urgency has departed, and I seem to have less to say.  Why is that?  Perhaps it's because the helter-skelter topsy-turvy ride that is being the parent of babies and pre-schoolers is behind me now.  Perhaps it's because I'm guarding my children's future memories more closely.  It could be that I'm guarding my own privacy more carefully these days - which is ironic, because actually there are more people out there who can now put a face to the name 'Potty Mummy' than there ever have been before.

Then of course, I could blame Kindle - for sucking up my evenings and making great books so ridiculously easily available, or The Great Work (aka my novel) which is taking up more of my time and headspace than it has ever done.  Frankly by the time I hit my traditional blogging sweetspot (after 9.30pm when the Boys are in bed, the washing up is sorted and the house is tidy), the absolute last thing I want to do is sit down at the laptop and start being witty / creative / outraged / wise / whimsical / probably none of the above when I've already written, re-read, edited and questioned the value of a thousand words plucked from thin air earlier in the afternoon.

But here I am, blogging anyway.  Because, who says blogging has to be about big important truths all the time?  Sometimes it's just about reminding yourself that you have a life away from the daily grind, as I did today when I ventured into downtown Moscow to take photos of preparations for Victory Day, of Muscovites enjoying the long-overdue sunshine, and of landmarks showing themselves to their best advantage in the hard-edged Russian summer sun.

A big important truth - and I do have some, fighting to be released into the ether once I figure out how best to share them - is great, from time to time.  But so, sometimes, is just blogging for the sake of feeling the words flow.

Or not.

A Parenting Purple Patch

I feel as if Husband and I have hit a sweet-spot in The Boys' development.  We are having a moment of calm, in parenting terms.  We're through the nappy years, through the toddler and pre-school years, through the trauma of the first years of school.  Our sons are working hard, playing hard, developing well.  They are healthy, open, affectionate, and - mostly - still listen to us.

It can't last.

There are so many reasons why I blog.  To give myself a mental workout - can I still string two words together?  To stay sane - if I put it down on metaphorical paper, maybe I can organise my thoughts and convince myself that no, I am not crazy...  To reach out - surely, it's not just me?  To pass the time - because oh, I have SO much of that...  And to record moments of life; the good, the bad, the ugly and downright ruddy hilarious.

This is one of those posts.

Being a parent it's easy to get bogged down by the details of everyday life.  What kit do the kids need for school today?  Did I ever get round to washing their swim towels after last Tuesday's session?  Should we take the car or cycle this morning - is it going to rain by this afternoon? Have I got enough bread in the house to make lunch for them tomorrow?  Do they even need lunch tomorrow or is it one of the days they get to eat in the school cafeteria? And so on.  From the moment they arrive in this world - tiny, shouting, blood-smeared and demanding your attention - raising a child, whilst rewarding, fogs your focus.  The volume levels may alter but the end result for parents can be constant static and white noise.

That white noise - it can be very distracting.  You become so busy dealing with it all that you forget to celebrate the good stuff, the moments that remind you it is all worthwhile, that you are living this life for a reason and that two very large parts of that reason are standing right in front of you.

Where to start on how wonderful my sons are at this moment in time, at 9 and 7 years old?  I almost don't dare.  I don't want to jinx it, you see.  I don't want to look back on this post in the future when the world is collapsing around my ears - as no doubt it will when they hit adolescence, if not before - and think 'Ah.  That's where it all started to go wrong.  When you wrote about your love for them, and brought the wrath of the gods down on you for being too proud of them.'

Because I AM proud of them.  I am.  They are not the product of mine or Husbands' endeavours, they are not our projects, they are not mini-me's who's successes or failures are something to be trotted out to friends and family in 'didn't I do well as a parent?' anecdotes and point-scoring exercises.  They are individuals in their own right, with their own personalities, likes and dislikes, passions, faults, moans and gripes, talents and friendships.

They are funny, loving, infuriating, smart, cheeky, affectionate, frustrating, hardworking, tenacious, clumsy, loyal, adventurous, forgiving, ambitious, intrepid, and grounded.

They are loved beyond their understanding.

And they are amazing.

I've been nominated for a BritMums 'Brilliance in Blogging' award in the 'Writing' category.  Click here to see the full short list - and on the badge below to vote.  For me please, if you're feeling moved to do so...

Just when you think it's all gone quiet, the BiB awards come along and...

...something like this happens.





I've been shortlisted for a BritMums Brilliance in Blogging award (click for a link to see the full shortlists for all categories).

Along with 15 other blogs, The Potty Diaries has been included in the shortlist for the 'Writer' award.  I was already delighted to be included - and then I read the details on the category, as follows (lifted straight from the BritMums site):

'Most blogs have writing at their core. But some blogs feature writing that makes it hard to stop reading. Whether a blog reads like a compelling bestseller or gorgeous poetry, this award celebrates the words on the page.'

Gulp.  Someone, somewhere, thinks this about my blog.

Jesus.  I'm a little bit emotional, to tell the truth.

Consider yourselves warned; I have had enough of self-deprecation and modesty and tomorrow I will probably be asking for your vote.  But today?  Today, I am just having a bit of a moment.

That brightness you can see over in the eastern sky?  It's the reflection of my grin.

All growed up? When Blogging Reality Bites

So, this blog's Tots 100 stats have plummeted this month.  I mean, seriously dropped.  We're talking Cyprus style bank account levels of a hair cut on my numbers.

A bit of background; for reasons I could never understand, since October last year until last month, The Potty Diaries was bouncing around in the high numbers between, #9 and #14 on the Tots 100.  Pretty cool, huh?  Not bad, if I do say so myself.

This month, though? The Potty Diaries is on at #65. That's a drop of 55 places. Fifty five.  Places.  (I'm wondering if this may qualify me as this month's biggest loser but am too embarrassed to check that fact*.)  Hmmm.   I thought I would be more upset.  Obviously, when I first saw it, I did experience a pang of disappointment.  It may even have resulted in the temporary removal of the Tots 100 ranking badge from my blog, if I'm honest. 

But then my sense of humour / proportion / perspective picked itself up from where it had tripped over a crack in the pavement, brushed the grit from it's knees, straightened it's jacket and got real (and in the process put the badge back on the site).  I mean, I knew that once the numbers of hits per site were included in the metrics there was no way this blog could compete with the heavy hitters back in the UK.  I wasn't delighted by the prospect of a fall, but I knew it was coming, and now that it's happened I find that actually I don't mind (too much).  

Certainly, it's been great over the last few months to get interesting approaches from pr agencies etc on the back of good performances in the ranking tables but let's be honest; how many of them can I actually take up, living in Moscow?  On top of which it's not as if I don't have enough to do besides blogging - and not spending time fretting about maintaining my ranking through frequency of posting etc will only help to free me up for other projects, like getting the second half of that book written.

So actually, this fall is - amazingly - fine with me.  Well - better than fine; it doesn't bother me.  It is what it is.

Could it be that I am - finally - growing up?

*Please; do not take it upon yourself to check that fact and report back in the comments box.  I may be growing up - but not that much...

Do you give good blog?

Well, do you?

A friend recently gave a blogging workshop for people new to this strange online world, and it got me thinking; what makes a good blog?

The thing about blogging is that so much lies in the perspective of the reader.  The young unattached 20-something, not yet a a parent, is unlikely to want to read about the ins and outs of potty training a recalcitrant 2 year old - no matter how funny they are to the writer.  Likewise, the lost-in-the-baby-fog first time mother is probably not going to want to spend too much time being reminded how much her life has changed by reading a style blog devoted to the most beautiful shoes spotted on the high street this week by the urban cool hunter.  (Although - it is nice to dream, occasionally...). The yoga teacher looking to spread her ideas on alternative therapies is unlikely to want to read blogs on the most recent new technologies available in the world of mobile communication.

So it's impossible to say that one blog is better than another because thankfully there are so many different niches to be filled.  This is one of the reasons that the internet, with it's zillions of voices all shouting to be heard, can be such an entertaining place to wander.

But.  I've been blogging for nearly 6 years now (so I wasn't an early adopter, but have been on the blogging scene a while), and in that time not only have I written over 1200 posts on this site alone, but I've read countless more - and there are a few things I've noticed that make me more likely to add one address to my blogroll and to click away quickly from others.  I figured I would share what these are.  They are entirely subjective, of course, and there are no hard and fast rules that govern which sites I do and don't visit.  These are just my thoughts on some of the aspects of 'giving good blog' which you can take or leave as you like...

Background and font colour: there is very little more likely to make me click away when I visit a blog I haven't seen before than light text on a dark or lurid background.  White text on bright pink, for example, or pale yellow on black.  If it's too harsh on the eye, no matter how good the content is, it's a no-go for me.

Font size and style:  When I started blogging I used a stupidly small font. (Look back through the archives to 2007 if you want to know what I mean).  Because of course I wasn't actually typing in that sized font, I never realised there was a problem until a commenter very tactfully mentioned it. So make sure your font size and style is legible.

Paragraphs: use them, please.  A block of text that fills the screen is again not conducive to me reading to the end of a post.  Life's complicated enough without battling through an intimidatingly long paragraph.

Post length:  I used to write lengthy posts.  Partly that may have been because I had more to say than I do now (having already blogged most of the angst out of my system), and partly it could have been due to over-excitement  (as in 'Oh my god!  On my blog, I get to run through a train of thought from beginning to end without being interrupted!').  Whatever, I've said before on here that a good piece of advice on blogging is to say what you want to, then stop - and I stand by that. Posts of 1500 words or more may not be the best way to entice your readers to continue all the way to the end.

Don't feed the trolls.  There will always - ALWAYS - be people out there who find happiness in making others miserable.  I'm not talking about the commenters who disagree with what you may have written and who express their point of view clearly, politely and cogently; I'm talking about those who leave inflammatory and hurtful remarks in the comment box just to get a rise out of you.  Ignore them if you can, delete them if you want; just don't reply to them, because that - engagement on your part - is what they want and crave, and will just keep them coming back for more in a vicious circle of comment and counter-comment.  Walk away, people; there's nothing to see here...

Punctuation marks, in particular: !!!!! Free yourself from the tyranny of the multiple exclamation mark.  I bet there is nothing you can write that doesn't sound just as interesting or entertaining with only 1 exclamation mark as it does with 2 or 3.

And finally, ignore everything I've just written above if it interferes with what you have to say.  There are no hard and fast rules about blogging; the main thing is to sit down and write that post in the first place. Don't give a damn about what others - like me, what do I know? - think of your blog.  If you like what you've written, then the chances are someone else will, too.

Starters for ten...

I'm having one of those days where ideas for blog posts - here and elsewhere - are coming thick and fast.  

Should I write about how living with less is more (based on a prompt from a piece in The New York Times Sunday review)*?  

Should I write about protecting my son from an overenthusiastic music teacher who loves to teach but doesn't appear to understand the limits a 7 year old has after a full day at school?  

Perhaps I should touch on how the musical instruments my sons play are as much a reflection of of my concerns that they be equipped to have something to bring to the the party (quite literally) in the future, rather than of interest on the Boys' parts in playing those specific instruments?

Or, should I write about parenting expat children and how the guilt we parents feel at imposing transient lifestyles on our kids is usually far in excess of that we should feel?

Decisions, decisions...

I think it's a fair assumption that I will instead write about something really important - like chocolate - but at least my intentions are good.

*Thankyou Amanda Surbey for the link on facebook to the original piece

Reason why I love blogging #83

From time to time I post videos on 'The Potty Diaries'.  Not because it's lazy blogging (although, over 1100 posts in, I think I might be allowed a little leeway on that), but because I think they are funny, of interest, or just, well, why the hell not?

This one definitely fits into that last category.

And thankyou, @taracain of the Sticky Fingers blog, for pointing this out on twitter yesterday evening.  Because every woman deserves a bit of LA sunshine and - ahem - eye candy on a Wednesday night / Thursday morning / whenever you get the chance to take a look...

(Oh, and by the way; that 'click here to view the collection' at the end - are they CRAZY?)

Trip trapping across that rickety bridge; the perils of sharing online

It's a funny old lark, this blogging game.  I've been very fortunate here on 'The Potty Diaries'; in the nearly 6 years I've been writing it, I have had only a handful of visits from those poor individuals who live under bridges and who make it their raison d'etre to spread pain across the internet with cruel and personal remarks in the comment box.  Oh, there may be people who comment elsewhere what a waste of time it is to visit here, but I don't seek such threads out (if they even exist).  Why bother, frankly?

Thing is though, 'The Potty Diaries' is not the only place I write.  A post I put up elsewhere recently attracted a damning remark about how mundane and boring my life is, with the inference being that I really should sort myself out and make my life a little more 'out there', entertaining, and frankly interesting to read about.

I won't lie to you; all my principles about not engaging in conversation with such people were put to the test.  This remark stung.  Well, no-one likes to be told that they're boring, do they? But I sat on my hands, and haven't responded, and don't plan on it; the more time passes, the less I'm bothered by it, and the further I can rise above it.

What I would have liked to say, of course, was "If you find my writing dull, please; feel free not to read."  But I managed not to do it ('Never engage, never engage, never engage'), and am instead quietly smiling to myself on the irony of the situation. This person clearly has no idea of how hard Husband and I work to fill our family's life with the peace and calm that she chooses to interpret as mundane and boring.  Life here could be frantic, fraught, filled with insurmountable stressful problems, twice-hourly injections of cortisol into my over-active brain. I could be writing black humoured desperate 'I'm so unhappy' 'This place saps the soul from you' 'I can't take another tangle with bureaucracy / the militia / that sour-faced bxtch at the checkout / other drivers' type posts, but guess what?

It would drive me as crazy to see the world through those glasses as it would you to read about it.

And as for the stuff that really does happen here but which I would be sticking my head far too high above the parapet (in a not-totally friendly environment) if I wrote about it, I put my family's well-being way above any need to entertain online.  So I think I'll stick with the 'mundane & boring' for the moment, thank you very much - and save the anecdotes about meetings with gun runners, the run-ins with oligarchs wives, and the discovery of listening posts in neighbours' houses and such-like for my memoirs once we've left...

I've caved.

It used to be so easy back in the day, commenting on other people's blogs.  You hit the comment button, wrote your message, and bob's your uncle, done and dusted.

Nowadays, it seems you have to jump through hoops to leave a message for the writer of a blog.  Captcha, disqus, comment moderation; wherever I look I see bloggers employing these methods to filter out the spam.    Of course, it was never something that I considered for my own blog, why would I?  The Potty Diaries was too small and insignificant to attract spam, no need for word verification here.

Oh, how little I knew.

About 3 months ago I picked up on a twitter comment where a contact of mine consoled another person that she too got spam in her inbox from blog accounts that she visited - and The Potty Diaries was one of those that she mentioned.  Apparently, even if they don't show in your 'published' comment box, spam comments are still active - and so can access the details of other people who leave comments on your posts.  Horrified, I investigated and did what I should probably have done significantly earlier; I checked my spam comment box.

For the love of mike. (Yes, we have been watching The Polar Express here.  More than once...)

There were THOUSANDS of the damn things in there.  It took what felt like days to delete them all, but I did it and sat back congratulating myself;  this was the accumulated debris of 5 1/2 years blogging activity, I thought, and I should easily be able to keep on top of it from now on.

*heavy sigh*

Not so much.  I've been getting between 50 and 100 comments a day automatically side-lined into the spam box, plus a good few sneaky ones that have made it past the filters and attached themselves to older posts so I don't spot them unless I go looking, and frankly?  I've had enough.  I have much better things to do with my time than run a 'spam search and destroy' mission every morning.  So I have two apologies to make.  Firstly, to anyone who received spam in their email box as a result of commenting on The Potty Diaries; I am sorry.  I'm trying to sort it and hope this now stops.

Secondly, I apologise to anyone who wants to comment on the blog from now on.  For lo, I have turned on the dread word verification tool and whilst I hope it will weed out those annoying comments about duvet coats, viagra, webmaster tools and weight-loss programs (not taking offence at that last one, not. AT. ALL), I also know it makes commenting here more complicated and I totally understand if you now choose not to bother.  (Although, I hope that you do).

I am trying to find a more commenter-friendly alternative, but in the short term I'm hoping this will stop the flood of nonsense on The Potty Diaries.

Or at the very least - the nonsense that I haven't actually written myself...

#DearPR; why I don't run guest posts

These are some lines that feature in 8 out of 10 emails I write to pr agencies who have approached me regarding promotional activity on The Potty Diaries:

'... I don't run guest posts on the blog as I write all the content myself.  However I have attached a copy of my rate card so you can take a look at the other promotional opportunities that are available.'

This is what I respond when asked if a 3rd party (agency or potential client) can put their content - with no input from me - on my blog.  Why?  Well, until today, other than the fact that I have plenty of my own ideas and don't need someone else to supply them for me thankyou very much, I didn't really know.  I did wonder if I was being over protective about the blog and perhaps a little bit bloody-minded, but whatever my subconscious reasoning, it just felt like the right answer to give.  Now, however, I think I've got to the bottom of my intransigence on this matter.

Mooching about the internet this evening I came across a guest post on a blog I read often enough to have it listed on my sidebar.  I love this blog; the writer is funny and engaging and perhaps because she is at a totally different life stage to me, I really enjoy reading her take on things.  This evening, when I clicked on the link to her latest post and saw it was a 3rd party piece for a company I have used myself in the past I was interested.

But it left me cold.  It took me a couple of minutes to work out why, before I realised that when reading a blog - unlike when I'm reading a magazine - I want to hear the point of view of the owner of the blog, not to read some anodyne piece that I would be more likely to find in an ed/advertorial in a glossy or a Sunday supplement.  I mean, if I want magazine-style writing, I can reach for a magazine, right? So it was helpful to have this realisation, and in the wake of it I'll now feel more self-assured when I continue to use the lines above in the future.  And at least now, I'll understand why I write them.

But that's just my point of view.  If you have a blog, and / or enjoy reading other people's, what is yours?

This post is probably only of interest if you blog...

...so if you don't, and are still reading, don't say I didn't warn you.

It's over.  That children's story competition I entered, I mean.  Needless to say, I didn't win, and that's fine; I enjoyed writing the story and learned a lot about how to use Facebook in the voting process (in itself, not before time, I might add), so it definitely wasn't a wasted experience.  I certainly don't expect to win any competition that I enter; to do so would be nice, but there are plenty of writers out there who are far more creative and imaginative than I am.  I know that, and am OK with it.

However, I learned something else apart from how to use another type of social media as a result of this particular competition, which is that in future I won't be entering any contest in which the winner is decided not on the merit of the entry, but on number of 'likes' their entry gains on Facebook.  In hindsight, I should have spotted from the start that this was not a good fit for me; I don't 'work' Facebook the way some people do, never have and probably never will (although after this I do now see the benefits of it in a way I didn't before), so going into battle with only 50 or so followers for my (assumed) name was probably never going to be a success.

This type of mechanic is always going to be more of a beauty contest than about which was the better story.  That is not, of course, to say that the story which won was not better than mine; it's all subjective.  I prefer the story I wrote, of course I do, but the winning entry is very different to mine and if the decision had been made by a panel of judges, they may well have reached the same verdict that the voters on Facebook did.

However, the fact remains that it was not an objective group of people reaching the decision on which was the best story so much as individual bloggers mustering support through their readers, family and friends and asking them to visit the relevant page and hit the 'like' button.  And then how motivated their supporters were to do that.   And then, about the entrants tweeting, posting, and re-tweeting pleas for support until we (or at least, I) felt sick of the whole process and painfully aware of how this type of mechanic cynically exploits our individual will to win to drive traffic to the relevant site, whilst simultaneously spreading the name of the competition sponsor across the web.

You may wonder if this post is the result of sour grapes on my part.  Would I be writing this if I had won the £500 prize?  Honestly?  Probably not.  But I do think that the ultimate outcome - that I won't be entering any more competitions which select winners based on the number of Facebook 'likes' received  - would be the same.

I suppose that ultimately I'm writing this for two reasons, the first of which is to suggest to PR agencies that they may pull writers in once to do this, but are unlikely to get the same people interested in doing it a second time.

But mainly, I think I'm writing this to share my experiences and to open the debate for bloggers as to whether this type of subjective popularity contest is really an effective use of their time and creativity.  Because I know I've got better things to do than post and tweet 'Vote for Me!' - and I'm pretty sure that you have better things to do than to read those posts and tweets...

Answers on a postcard (or in the comments box), please...

Do I look like an idiot? Or: #DearPR...

Dear PR,

let me start by saying that today has not been the least stress-free day I've ever known.  It's not your fault that I'm crawling, bloodied but unbowed, towards the end of Week 3 of my sons' 10 week summer holiday, that our compound now resembles nothing so much as a ghost town without a single other child for them to play with, or that they spent this morning squabbling and fighting in the back of the car both ways during a trip to the supermarket that took four hours from the moment we left the house to the moment we returned. Not your fault; I know that.

Neither is it your fault that I lost it with the Boys only half a mile from home, pulled over and gave them a good talking to, insisting in a completely over the top 'shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted' manner on complete silence for the remaining 5 minutes of the drive.

I also can't blame you for the fact that Moscow's current heatwave has brought the mosquitoes out in high numbers, forcing me to sit here at my desk armed with some heavy-duty Raid to squirt hopelessly at the little blighters as they feast on my shins - again.

And of course it has nothing at all to do with you that right now my hormones are playing havoc with my emotions; possibly if I had received your email this time next week my response would be a little less... shouty.

OK.  None of those things are your fault.

Now let's get onto what is.

Specifically, this:

'Please no not mark the article as 'sponsored' or 'paid for' - if you have a policy on your website to declare third party content, please mark this as a 'Guest Post'"* or "Featured Article".'


I know, Dear PR, that I look but a smidgen of my true age (that's what my bathroom mirror tells me before I put my contact lenses in, anyway).  But do you think I was (expletive deleted) born yesterday?  You are asking me for what is labelled in my rate card as a 'Sponsored' post.  'Sponsored' as in a clear sign that the post has been 'paid for'.  It will be paid for however it's labelled; you know that, I know that.  And bearing in mind that I don't carry "Guest Posts", and have never run a "Featured Article", I strongly suspect that 'The Potty Diaries' readers - who, given their choice of blog are obviously a pretty smart bunch - would be able to work out that it has been paid for too, if I used either of those labels.

May I refer you, in fact, to an excellent post on this very subject from Tots 100? What you are asking me to do - albeit in a small way, but you're asking it all the same - is to break the law.  


The Tots 100 post says; '... the OFT guidelines state that online promotional activity, just like any other promotional activity, must clearly identify when promotions and editorial comment have been paid for, so that consumers are not misled. (if you didn’t know, you can see the OFT guidelines as they relate to bloggers right here)**

So yes, I said 'no thank you' to your kind offer.  The money you were offering would have been very handy, I have to admit, but see that badge on the sidebar?  The one that says 'Brit Mums Blog With Integrity'?

I've moved it further up to make it more visible - in the hope I don't have to deal with this type of nonsense in the future.

***********

Tell me, other bloggers and any PR's who may have read this far; am I a naive idiot?  Or simply a principled blogger?  And what would you have done?


* the triple apostrophe is the PR's own, by the way.

** please click on the link to the original Tots 100 article for the link to the OFT guidelines.

Memories

I was trawling through old posts on The Potty Diaries this afternoon, checking for links to this piece in the Saturday Telegraph 4 years ago so I could compare and contrast with this piece in last Saturday's Guardian.  Why?  Well, mainly so I could marvel at how much the blogging universe - or at least, the one I'm part of - has changed in the last five years.  Take a look at both pieces, if you have a moment, and you'll see what I mean.


But that's not the point of this post.  


The point of this post is that whilst I was fruitlessly searching the blog for a link to the Telegraph piece (thank god for online archives), I realised how much more I used to post about my children than I do now.  As they've grown older, the number of times they get mentioned on here has decreased; perhaps because I've become more conscious of their privacy, perhaps because my own world has expanded since I started blogging.  Probably it's due to a little of both.  But reading back through those old posts, two things struck me.  Firstly that actually, I like reading my own writing from back then.  It's funny.  Probably funnier than what I write now.  Almost certainly more honest - but that's a subject for another post.  And secondly, that - assuming I continue to save what I write in some fashion - this blog is providing one of the things I started it for; a record of those moments I would like to somehow bottle and hold onto from my children's lives.

So here, for my posterity, are two more to add to the memory box...


Boy #2 

We're trying to minimise the chances of summer learning loss - and perhaps even make some progress over the next few weeks - by working on Boy #2's reading skills over the holiday.  UK residents with children aged 4 - 6 years may be familiar with the epic adventures experienced by Biff, Chip and Kipper in the Oxford Reading Tree's series of phonics books, and today Boy #2 was - very slooooooooowly - working his way through one entitled 'The Mud Bath'.  In it, Dad falls flat on his face playing football, covers himself in mud, and goes home to take a bath.  Whilst running the bath, he is distracted by football on the television, settles down to watch it on the sofa and - well, you can guess the rest.

Boy #2 found this hilarious.  Although not quite as hilarious as I found his comment when the Dad - somewhat inevitably - sat down to make himself comfy on the sofa.

"He's just so, so, so, PREDICTABLE, Mama!"


Boy #1

Taking children to Amsterdam for the weekend is a great idea; there's lots for them to do and see, as I wrote about here.  However, one should never lose sight of the fact that for many people Amsterdam is empahatically not somewhere they would take the children, and that the city caters more than adequately for people who visit it for much more adult forms of entertainment than playgrounds and museums.

I won't dwell here on a close shave we had with some red-lit windows other than to say that I think I very possibly should qualify for a Quick Thinking Mother of the Year Award; "Look over there (on the opposite side of the street) boys!  Who can spot the tallest steeple on that building?" as we moved smartly past the ladies on show.  No, instead I wanted to share with you Boy #1's reaction to a rather questionable poster for a forthcoming festival near Amsterdam.  It featured a very ordinary-bodied woman in a bikini, with milkshake dripping suggestively down her front.  There was no avoiding these posters; they were everywhere, so Boy #1 noticed one, as I knew he would.

There was a sharp intake of breath.  Then, "That's inappropriate, Mum..."

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And this is why I don't post photographs of my children...

I admit it; from time to time, I check the stats for The Potty Diaries.  I try not to, really I do, but every now and again* curiosity gets the better of me and I take a peek.  I know you're not supposed to, not if you want to maintain any sense of perspective, but I can't help myself.  Not that a good or a bad answer changes what I write about, or the way I write it, it's just... good to know.

I'm not making excuses for this, mind you. Any blogger who wants to be remotely professional about their online presence should probably be aware of their approximate number of readers etc.  In any case, I'm only sharing this information to explain how today I happened to come across a search term that somebody out there used to land on The Potty Diaries recently.

It was a collection of words, all of which I had used separately and perfectly innocently at different times, in different posts, but which strung together made my blood run cold.

And that is why I don't post pictures of my children.


* For which read 'at least twice a week'*.  Yes, I'm a numbers wh*re...

I am grateful for...

This post is the result of a BritMums blogging prompt, in which they suggested we write what we're grateful for.

So here we go: I am grateful for...

My boys, Husband and family
My friends
yadda yadda yadda... the normal stuff we are supposed to be grateful for and of course I am, but but let's cut to the chase...

In no particular order, then:

• Chocolate. The good stuff, that is.
• Diet coke
• Cool white wine on warm summer evenings
• Cool white wine
• Butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and whichever genius it was who originally thought; 'Hey! Why not mix them together and turn them into something called - oh, I don't know - cake..?'
• Cake, generally.  But not Russian cake - sorry.
• Free range meat & organic vegetables (they really do taste better - and no, we can't generally get them here)
• Silver sneakers
• Blister plasters
• Bling and the self-control not to wear too much of it.  Because of the blisters, obvs.
• Garlic
• Toothbrushes & toothpaste
• Marilyn Moore on the Kings Road in Chelsea
• Dry cleaners
• John Lewis (insert heavenly 'LAAA' here)
• Kindle
• The fact that my Kindle purchases come out of MY rather than my husband's account
• A crisply ironed shirt when I haven't had to be the one who ironed it
• Fresh fish
• The fact my sons also love fresh fish and will happily sit for a good ten minutes planning our fresh-fish safaris with me as we get excited about forthcoming trips back to the UK
• The sound of the snow under my cross country skis
• The fact that the sound of snow under my cross country skis is now a thing of the past until about next January
• Camomile tea
• Vodka and champagne.  But not together.  That part of my life is over.
• South Kensington, generally
• The expat bubble and the opportunity to step outside it in Russia

And finally;

People who read my wittering blog posts through to the end...

Could do better...

Yesterday was not my finest as a mother.

I am feeling like a complete heel for two reasons. Firstly, I nearly forgot a long-planned tea party in Boy #2's class where they presented their findings on 'Animal Habitats' and showed their proud parents (or at least - the proud parents who made it on time) the books that each of them had created about their preferred animal.

Luckily for me a good friend with a daughter in the same class noticed my absence - and Boy #2's long face - and phoned just in time to ask if I was coming. I think I made the quickest school run ever, and turned up just in time to earn a beaming smile from my son, and to learn the reason why spiders have been the topic of conversation for the last couple of weeks in our house.

Whisper it softly, but I'm not keen on the creatures. Unfortunately, Boy #2 appears to have mistaken the slight edge of panic in my voice whenever I'm forced to discuss them for enthusiasm. If I have to see one more picture of a Goliath spider*, or retell him the story one more time of a friend who, whilst living in the Australian outback, used to shut her car windows and drive as fast as she could to try and rid the hood of Huntsman spiders* creeping towards her (they had had been sheltering in the engine of her stationary car but once the engine started, decided to climb out through the radiator grill and menace the driver), I may not be - well, very happy.

* Note - do NOT click on either of the above links if you have any kind of phobia about creepy crawlies. I think I went above and beyond the call of blogly duty just finding them, frankly - and was very careful not to read the text or check out the pictures too closely when I did...

Anyway, that was Mothering Fail #1 today. (We are of course discounting the raised voice this morning when both Boys had to be reminded for the third time to Put. Their. Snowpants. On! because frankly, I think that was merited. It was either that or resort to calming chocolate, and 8.05am is too early to break into the stash of Green & Blacks, even for me).

Mothering Fail #2 was yesterday evening, when I was far too testy with Boy #1 after bathtime as he overfilled a glass of water, from the cooler. I mean, it was a glass of water, for chrissake. Only a glass of water! So some went on the floor. Does it really matter? No. Whatever happened to my usual mantra; 'pick your battles'?

Snapping at kids just before bedtime; never good practice. Not a 'good mother' thing to do. And so I went upstairs, metaphorical hat in hand, to apologise to my older son. After we made it up, I was left to dwell mawkishly on how my sense of perspective / proportion / patience (all the 'p's, it seems) seemed to have made a joint decision to knock off early. It's no excuse, but it had been a long day and as bedtime approached all I could think of was trying to sit down at the computer and make headway with various jobs* I hadn't had enough time to finish due to an unscheduled airport run with my husband first thing.

*Not the least of which was trying to make blogging / freelancing / part-time employment work more effectively for me and which - as with so many things - I've been de-prioritising for far too long. More of which on another post...

I think I need to take a big dose of chill-pills and repeat as follows:

Check your diary every day. And - breathe...