Just. Plain. Wrong...

When your male neighbour, who walks their dog past your house everyday, asks at a crowded social event "So, have you hung curtains upstairs yet?"

When you get back from your your holiday to find that your cleaner, searching for something to do, has tidied up your children's clothes drawers and managed to mix up all their clothes in the process.

When you get back from holiday to find that your cleaner has also tidied up your drawers.

Including THAT drawer.

When said cleaner - who admits to another income stream as a masseuse and who once turned up to clean a friends' house missing her front teeth, which she said she had lost in a work-related accident - offers to give you a massage when you're suffering from the 'flu.

And it's only a couple of weeks after she cleaned out THAT drawer.

Small boys, in tights.  I mean, in deepest winter, maybe, but at the end of April?  Come on, Russians.  It was +14degC and bright sunshine out there today...

Silent Sunday

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...

Things Boy #2 has seen whilst travelling in Greece...

Following on from yesterday's post, I thought I would share one of Boy #2's diary entries for earlier this week with you...

Tuesday

 I went to Greece. in the morning I saw an ant in the bath.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

wen I was in the bath I saw red ants


So that's it, Greece.  A 7 year old's take on one of the oldest civilisations on earth reduced to an encounter with an insect...

Please note: All spelling and punctuation is diarist's own.

More may follow.

Things I've learned whilst travelling in Greece this week...

I've never seen sea as blue.

It may be Greece, but that beautiful blue sea is too cold to swim in, in April.

What your children will remember about a stay in a swanky hotel is not the ridiculously huge marble bath they swam in, or the wonderful sea views they could look at whilst they did so, but the single ant they encountered whilst in it.

Said Ant is what will make it into their holiday diaries; not the classical ruins, the amazing hospitality, the wonderful seafood, but the ruddy Ant.

The food is delicious.

The food is not low-fat.

Vegetables?  What are these 'vegetables' you speak of?

Your sons will love the fact that vegetables are in scarce evidence and paint you as the World's Worst Mum when you announce that there will be no pasta or burgers arriving at the table until the plate of grilled veggies in front of them has been consumed.

Some hotels still have the nerve to charge for in-room wi-fi access (hence the lack of posts this week).

When being shown around a city by a local, it always helps to be ridiculously specific about your preferred hit-list of tourist sites.  Otherwise you will find at the end of the day that you may have visited the Acropolis Museum in Athens, you may have had lunch in a restaurant with stunning views of the Acropolis, you may have been in a horse-drawn carriage trip along-side the Acropolis, and you may have walked through a market with the Acropolis as the backdrop, but you will not - despite having repeatedly mentioned your long-lived ambition to visit the Acropolis, since having been a small girl in fact - have actually visited the Acropolis itself.