Being played by a 6 year-old...

I bet you have one thing - just one thing - to do with your appearance that you rarely leave the house without doing. Well, actually I bet that pre-children you had a whole list of things you never left the house without doing, but that once they arrived that list was slowly but surely whittled down to just one essential thing that it takes a fairly serious set of circumstances for you to ignore. It might be putting on lippy, running a comb through your hair, checking your shoulders for snot or puke brooches (the latest thing darling, didn't you know?), or inspecting your teeth for bits of spinach or similar.

For me, the one thing that has survived the onslaught that is becoming a mother is putting on eyeliner and mascara. Hence this morning's conversation...

Boy #1: "What are you doing?"

Me: "Putting on eyeliner. What do you think? Does it look OK?"

Boy #1: "Hmmm.... Can I see it?" (The eyeliner)

I hand it to him. He holds it to the light, admires the sparkly sheen - I was always a sucker for a bit of subtle glimmer - assesses it thoroughly, and hands it back.

Me: "So, I've only got it on one eye right now. Can you tell which one?"

Boy #1: "Well, this eye (pointing to my left, unmade up eye), looks pretty."

Me: "OK."

Boy #2: "But this eye (pointing to my made-up eye), looks really pretty..."

Oh, he'll go far, this boy...

A Thorny Issue?

Apparantly my M-i-L is scared of me.

This was the bombshell Husband dropped on me today, casually, as if it were something I should know but no big deal really. He then amended his statement, to something more like; well, not scared of you exactly, but she worries about what you think.

Hmmm.

Scared of me.

Is this a good or a bad thing, I wonder? I mean, I don't go through life with the aim of being the Dragon Lady. I like to imagine that I'm kind, approachable, and have an open face; hell, otherwise why is it always me who gets stopped and asked for directions by every tourist and crazy in town? I'm good with kids; I talk to rather than at them, my son's friends are happy to come over on playdates, and I appreciate children as individuals rather than an as encumbrances (unless, of course, I need the loo and they just won't let go of my leg to let me go to the bathroom, which happens more than I might like).

OK. Perhaps I can be a bit brusque at times. I don't always suffer fools gladly, and I'm self-aware enough to admit that in fact, if we're being completely honest, if you catch me at the wrong moment I occassionally resemble a cactus, but I usually soften up pretty quickly with the liberal application of wine. Or chocolate. Or wine and chocolate.

So, spikey, yes, I'll admit to that. But scary? I hope not.

The shocking thing though? If she chooses to think that about me, I can live with it.

To put this in context; I realised when I first met her that my mother-in-law is a warm, open, loving and wonderful mother to her children. Who wants to know EVERYTHING about them. The first things, great. I can only hope to be able to deliver the same benefits to my boys. That last, though, that is the sticking point. I come from a very private family where words were carefully considered, and where talking too much about your feelings was, for a long time, something that needed to be diluted with humour, just in case you hurt someone else. Or, preferably, something you didn't do at all. 'Just suck it up and get on with it' could have been our family motto.

There were reasons for this, (none of them sinister, all of them private), and the result is that for a long time, neither of my siblings or I took too well to sharing our deepest thoughts. We do it now, of course we do (hellooo! I'm blogging!), but on our terms, not someone elses'. So I have to admit that whilst I like and admire my mother in law, I always held my distance and kept my defences up.

And when the Boys arrived, I did nothing to change the status quo. If anything, I enforced my spikey persona still more when they were first born. I suppose that the reason behind this was that I worried she would try and take over. Her delight in her grandsons (her first) was total and I felt that lines had to be drawn so she knew that what Husband and I (oh, alright, I, if I'm honest) wanted in terms of how they were treated was not just some easily disregardable fancy but very important to us. And I suppose the feminist in me felt that all this adoration of the Boys simply because they were boys was a bit of a slight to the grand-daughters she already had.

But you know, looking back on it now, it seems petty, silly. There was never any question in my mind that she had anything but my sons' best interests at heart, it's just that her interpretation of what they were was slightly different to my own. You know; softer. Less Anxious New Mother. More laid-back, and seen it all before. More like that of... well, a Grandmother.

So nowadays, having had that realisation, I am much more laid-back. I don't over-react in the same way, at least I hope not, and we have reached an understanding that seems to work very well; she thinks I'm a bit overly strict but respects that, and I think she spoils them - a little - but generally let her get on with it.

But 'scary'? Well, if 'scary' means that when I'm not around she doesn't let the Boys watch television in the morning or give them that 3rd and 4th chocolate biscuit in a row when they look at her with those big beseeching eyes because she doesn't want to upset me, I guess I will just have to live with that.

How about you? How do you deal with your mother in law?

One day...

One day I will not let it get to me when the Boys start and end the day with a whine.

One day I will stay serene and calm as the pre-breakfast energy-low hits just around the time I'm trying to persuade them that it is a good idea to let me use my icy-cold hands to smear moisturising cream into their eczema-prone skin.

(One day I'll find the right herbal lotion or potion to improve my circulation.)

One day I will ask them to put their shoes on for the school run, and they'll do it, first time. (No - that's never going to happen).

One day I will walk out of the flat for the school run cool, collected, and without the collar of my coat turned the wrong way out or hissing 'Just get up. The. Stairs!' at my sons.

One day I will drink coffee, and like it. The world of double plus plus latte's with mocha shots and fairy wings sprinkled on the top will be my oyster.

One day I will sit in elegant cafes on the King's Road, Chelsea, watching the world go by with newly-polished boots (fxck it - let's just make them new), skinny jeans that don't dig in at the waist because I just can't bear to admit I have gone up a dress-size again, fitted (but not too fitted, because that would be trashy) t-shirts from Joseph, as I talk knowledgably about World Events.

One day I will buy something from Pret a Porter.

One day it will fit.

One day I will click 'open' when my e-mail notifies me that a new piece of news has come through to me from The Financial Times.

One day I will understand the term 'sub-prime'.

One day I will be paid to write.

One day I will have something useful to write about. One day I will be able to walk away from bitchy comments left about pieces I have written on other websites in the understanding that it is not about my issues, but theirs.

One day I will groooooooooove to jazz. One day I will be able to pick a tune out of the discordant jumble of notes and not start itching every time the name Dave Brubeck is mentioned.

One day I will enjoy opera. Or at least, be able to stay awake through it.

One day the Boys won't erupt in the car on the way home from school when I say that no, they can't have a second biscuit because we are only five minutes from home and they can wait to have a sandwich there.

One day the reason there aren't any more biscuits won't be because I snaffled the rest on my way to collect them.

One day the Boys won't mutter and complain when I point out that they chose an extra ten minutes television over a second bed-time story.

One day they will choose that second bed-time story instead of the extra television.

And then, one day, they won't. Because they won't want any bed-time story.

One day, I'll miss the whining at the beginnng and the end of the day. And I'll be glad I loved it - really - whilst I was going through it.

And THAT is why I write blog posts and not books...

I had a post all planned for this morning about party bags. It was a wonderful post, if I do say so myself. I had written it in my head as I battled Boy #2 unwillingly into his clothes, explained to Boy #1 why - despite the fact that it was indeed a wonderful den he had created out of the sofa cushions - that he needed to tidy to it up before he went to school, gave them both breakfast, and arranged an estate agent's viewing for later this morning.

Then I sat down and tapped my Pulitzer-winning post out pdq in the space of a couple of minutes. It was short, concise, touched on the various forms of entertainement the Boys have been treated to in the 50 or so birthday parties I've accompanied them to during the last few years, self-deprecating, and funny (or at least, I like to think so).

I was just about to put in the last sentence.

The phone rang.

I answered it.

Wrong number.


And by the time I came back to the computer to hit save and publish, Boy #2 had switched it off.


Oh well. I suppose the world can live without my pronouncements on party bags, after all. And honestly? I think this makes a better post...