You know you’ve lived in Dubai too long when…

Several people ‘shared’ this link on Facebook this week, about the fifteen signs you’ve lived in Qatar too long. Several of them could easily apply to Dubai and a few of them could probably apply to many expat experiences, but just for the sheer hell of it, and to celebrate the seven year mark, which we reached sometime last week, I thought I would do my own list, most of which I can honestly say has happened since then.

You know you’ve lived in Dubai too long when:

1. You are intimate with the footprint of Mall of the Emirates to the point where, if a shop closes for renovation, you will trawl backwards and forwards for twenty minutes thinking you must have lost your mind completely to be making such a rookie error in not locating it instantaneously.

2. You completely miss your turning off the motorway because you are still navigating your way to Dubai Media city by sighting of the now-demolished Hard Rock Cafe.

3. Your three year old insists on using an umbrella to shield him from the six drops of rainfall at school drop off, and you are inclined to agree with him.

4. It’s 40 degrees outside and you haven’t put the air con on in the house yet

5. You can’t remember what a Marks and Spencer ready meal looks like, but you do know you miss them

6. You’ve stopped tracking the exchange rate, and converting dirhams to pounds/dollars is only used in case of emergency when the dirham figure sounds too scary, e.g. hotel reservations, school fees, shoes.

7. It’s been two weeks since your last mani/pedi and you are actually, truly distressed by the state of your feet and hands.

8.  Your three year old asks you what you are doing with the maid’s things when you get the ironing board out. Then asks what the iron is.

9. You are not surprised when the first item on the news is not the Boston marathon bombers, or an earthquake in China, but a sales report on the latest high rise development in Old Town.

10. You are not surprised by anything very much.

11. Moaning about the quality of driving is what other people do while you sip a latte and thinking about trading in the car for a faster one.

12. When the following things are exciting:  Fresh vegetables like kale, which you haven’t seen in nearly a decade; the opening of interchanges that have taken four years to complete; summer clothes arriving in the shops before Easter.

13. When the following things are not exciting: Fountains, Afternoon tea, Barasti, fast cars, Dhow cruises, suntanning, gold anything.

14. You don’t think it’s weird you haven’t been to a liquor store to buy a bottle of wine since 2006. You don’t think it’s weird that you can’t without your passport, a license and a letter from your husband saying it’s okay.

15. ‘Fresh air’ is described as anything below 30 degrees that doesn’t smell sulphurous or contain 95% sand.

Former Hard Rock Cafe Dubai - demolition

What did you do with my signpost? (Photo credit: Danny McL)

Friends and farewells

I’ve been really lucky in the past seven years. Whilst I’ve said goodbye to a few people here and there, friends have tended to drift in and out of my life as circumstances have changed, rather than be ripped from my side and onto a plane, never to be seen again. However, my time has come. This week sees me saying farewell to my oldest (okay, second oldest) and best friend in Dubai, and I am so very, very sad to see her go after so many shared years.

Good friends – really good friends, that know you and understand you  and are committed to you – are hard to come by in expatland. That’s not to say she’s been consistently brilliant – sometimes she’s been downright lousy lol… But like friends anywhere, that’s not always the thing that matters. Our friendship is about our similarities, our personalities, who we are, who we have grown into. Our shared love of laughter and honesty and housewifery skills bordering on Stepford territory. Our tendency to bury our head in the sand and close up the doors in times of personal crisis instead of asking for help or support. Our mutual experience of arriving in Dubai and making it our home. The importance, above all else, of our children.

English: Glass of White Wine shot with a bottl...

I suppose I’ll have to drink the damn thing by myself now… (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I admire my friend and am proud of the woman she has grown into during the time we have known eachother. She has made wonderful friends and a beautiful home and ‘kept it real’ for her children, who are the least expat brat-like kids you will ever meet. Her Dubai journey is a different one from mine, but no less arduous. Despite the many things that have shaped her in the past seven years, in many ways she leaves as she arrived – a willowy, determined, vivacious woman who can’t take her liquor. She has never deviated from her Aussie down-to-earth no-BS attitude and is always the person who will make me laugh, make me feel comfortable, make me feel loved.

We were talking a few weeks ago about leaving (trying not to cry) and the thing she fears most about going home is not fitting in. Ironically the very thing we feared when we arrived in Dubai. Only I think going ‘home’ is worse, because as much as we haven’t changed, there are ways in which we have, irreversibly, far more than we realise at the time. I can see the attraction now, of moving ‘on’ rather than ‘back’. We are simply not the same as when we left and it’s hard to start over in a place where your brain tells you, you shouldn’t have to. Things are the same, yet different. We have seen and done things our family, friends and neighbours will never see, and we have done it alone, often without their support or guidance. We have coped with stress of being away from all that is loved and familiar, beyond the realms of many people’s imagination. As someone with childhood friends who have inexplicably ended up scattered to the four corners of the earth at one time or another, I can say with some confidence that expats the world over share this common experience, this perilous journey; to have to make your home somewhere else in the world, and then go home again. (Or not… It is never an easy or obvious choice.)

My friend will leave for Brisbane next week. And I will eventually leave for London. Of course we always knew it would happen and have often joked about who would manage to get out of here first. The chances of us seeing each other again are slim, although I hope that we will. If we do, it will be different again. Our lives will move on and we will make new friends in our new homes and reacquaint with old ones and we will use these new relationships to cope with the struggle to reintegrate. But no-one can replace the good friends you make as an expat, which is what makes returning home so daunting – on that side of the journey, they won’t be there to meet, or make friends with. And often, other expats are the only ones who ‘get it’ – who understand just what you are feeling – on the way in, while you are there, and, I’m pretty certain, on the way out as well.

So I can only wish for her what I wish for myself one day: that the landing will be soft, and that one day in the not too distant future she happens to meet a friend of a friend who suggests a glass of wine in a local bar; they talk and laugh and the company feels like putting on a pair of old shoes – familiar and comfortable. She once wrote me a card which said “you made it ‘home’ for me”. Well ditto, my lovely friend. It won’t be the same without you. x

I am simply absolutely not having another baby

I am a mother of one and proud of it.

There, I said it.

For some reason, some people just can’t seem to accept that we don’t want another child. They are convinced that secretly I am desperate for another one and its all just a matter of time until I come to my senses. Top five responses from people who, when asking the question “So, when are you giving him a little brother or sister?” and receiving the answer “Actually, we’re not.”:

1. “You’ll change your mind I bet”

I will not be changing my mind. I absolutely love being my son’s mum, but I really enjoy the life I have made for myself and our little unit of three as well and don’t have any intention of ruining it for any of us a year shy of turning forty. I have a very, very long list of reasons why I like our family numbering three. Not least that holidays and plane journeys – well everything in fact – is significantly easier to manage, less expensive and far less stressful.

2. “Ah that’s a shame, to leave him all on his own.

There is plenty of research as well as anecdotal evidence to suggest that ‘only’ children thrive in exactly the same way as an ‘older child’ in a family of siblings do. They simply continue to enjoy the attention lavished on most ‘older children’ for the rest of their lives instead of being ousted by younger brothers and sisters just as they reach an age where they might most benefit from it. Parents exert the same pressure and expectations on an older child as an only child. The difference is that parents of only children have more time, attention, energy and money to spend on a single child, so they may have an advantage in terms of their education as well as their social and emotional well being. Only children will not be told they can’t have help with the homework until Mummy’s finished feeding the baby. Or that they can’t go to the bowling alley for a birthday party on Tuesday because their brother has soccer practice. Only children will not bicker and brawl with their siblings either, so that you are tearing your hair out trying to make them like eachother. And they will not feel ‘lonely’ for a brother or sister that they have never had. Their lives, like anyone’s, will be filled with friends and peers to talk to and share things with when family is not enough.

3. “Don’t leave it too late to start trying”

I love this one, completely ignoring my opinion as if it’s so abhorrent you can’t acknowledge it. Also suggesting that I’m old, which may be true but it is a little insulting to me and my ovaries which I’m sure still have a few years left in them yet. Although my OBGYN was one of the people that said this too me, so maybe there is some truth to the rumour that I am getting on a bit.

4. “They grow up so fast though. Don’t you miss having a little baby to cuddle?”

No, I don’t. I’ve thought about it a lot and I really don’t miss it. I missed it the first time around, in a sleep deprived haze of panic, if truth be known. ‘Missing it’….missing what? You could say that about any age, not just the baby bit, and having another one does not make you miss it less as it passes, because if anything you are mourning the loss twice over. To make up for all the things you miss as your child grows up you’d have to keep on breeding forever. Also, like any mother if they are truthful, there are significant chunks of baby and toddlerhood that would absolutely not make it onto my list of ‘things I miss’.

5. “Really? Why not?”

Because it’s OUR CHOICE and there is no law that says you have to have more than one child. ‘Why not’ is a decision that we have made carefully and with some consideration, for many reasons related to health and happiness, and isn’t just some rash or selfish conclusion we came to in a few seconds flat. These are the same people that ask when you are getting married, or when you are going to start trying for a family…thoughtless, embarrassing and nosy, unless you are very good friends and don’t mind hearing about the inner workings of my womb or my time as crazy baby mum.

But the main reason? I will never have to sit through the Teletubbies again.

Teletubbies

Teletubbies (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Excuses excuses

Okay, okay, so I’ve been slack….sorry….things have been kind of busy….okay, no, they haven’t; I just went on holiday and then got sick, and then my MA started up again and then the dog ate my homework and I sat in coffee shops and got my nails done instead of blogging…so sue me…I’m making the most of my leisure time before the pre-summer mad months begin.

Yes, its winding up to that strange time of year in this funny little city of ours where life shifts gear – I’m never sure up or down – and everyone starts preparing themselves for the return of the summer.

The weather is changing on a daily basis – last week we enjoyed a heady mix of thunderstorms, torrential rain and apocalyptic sandstorms that made the sandstorm in Mission Impossible: Ghost protocol look quite realistic after all. I was seriously worried the mix of sand and water would mean it rained cement out if the sky. A few days and it was all over – and with it the first whiff of summer arrived. Hazy days, afternoons suddenly too warm to sit in the garden, and for me the first true sign that summer is nearly upon us – a trip to the soft play centre. Groan.

It is traditionally the time of year when I start to make my plans for the summer, desperate to ensure we have enough weeks away from here to gain some respite and perspective from Dubai life whilst not really wanting to uproot myself yet again. The school ‘gates’ are awash with women asking ‘when are you leaving?’ ‘how long are you away?’ and for some ‘are they running summer camp here?’ as we all attempt to juggle the tricky business of getting out before we go loopy in the heat vs. living out of a suitcase for weeks on end and going loopy from that too.

Wardrobe choices are shifting, as the mornings get warmer and the evenings are no longer a ‘pashmina/long trouser’ zone. Last night I spent a very pleasant time sitting about until the early hours in a strappy maxi dress, when only a matter of a few weeks ago I was debating a jacket. And it will only be another few weeks before I’m wondering how to cover up sweat patches at 9pm as the gauge continues to rise and the humidity sets in.

I’m not sure it matters how many summers you live through here (this will be my eighth, for the record), you can never quite accept just how hot it gets, and how relentless the heat is for days and nights on end. The suntan I have been so carefully nurturing will be a short-lived affair, because soon the challenge will be to jump from house to car to destination of choice with as little contact as possible with the non-airconditioned outside world.

But for now, I am making the most of morning coffees in the shade and nighttime dinners gazing at the stars (or the lights from the driving range, take your pick). And despite the temptation to laze about by swimming pools all morning while my son is at school, I will attempt to leave my flip flops and chick lit at the door and buckle down to some writing again before the summer heat renders me limp and crazy.

And if all else fails it’s possible I’ve booked a cheeky few days in London to give me some respite from it all…

 

Fashion victim

Do you remember being seventeen? I do. Vaguely. I was finishing up A-levels at a girl’s grammar school where I never really fitted in with anyone (although I’m not sure anyone else did either) and more interested in boys than school. I drove a beige mini cooper with a maroon top that broke down on a regular basis, usually when I was hanging out late at my friend’s house and had to get his dad up at 2am to jump start me and send me on my way. I had an unsuitably ancient boyfriend who worked in the city and cooked me cheese on toast with herbs on at the weekends (the height of sophistication when you’ve never even boiled an egg) and I earned enough money waitressing at a variety of pubs in the area to pay for the car, until I was old enough to pull pints and graduate to the heady heights of ‘barmaid’, when I used to spend my wages on drinking pints when I wasn’t serving them.

I wore jeans, t-shirts, or long paisley skirts with tassels on, and owned a short black skirt for work. On my feet were usually a pair of ‘chinese sandals’, awful flat misshapen things from Chelmsford market for a fiver, that were almost compulsory for every sixth former. I used to occasionally trade these in for a pair of jazz shoes to dance in, or boots, if it was wet weather.

When I was seventeen, my idea of a career was non-exisitent. I had no idea what I wanted to do, I didn’t mind too much, and nor did anyone else. I wrote a diary, not a blog. I didn’t know about fashion and fashion didn’t know about me, and we got along fine that way, because I was young enough for it not to matter. I thought the pink and orange chiffon top I bought for a party at Chelmsford City Football club was the height of sophistication. I owned a black cotton bag with sequins on the front (again from the market) and lived in my black cardigan with buttons down the back until it rotted off my shoulders. My hair was curly and out of control and done by my mum’s friend when it was done by anyone. I owned eyeliner and mascara and an old Clinique lipstick from a multi pack my mum didn’t want. I danced to the Happy Mondays and the Farm and mixed Bacardi into a bottle of coke to take to parties.

I was considered fairly cool, I think, although slightly odd (not much has changed in 20 years). How would have I described my personal style? Top Shop meets Miss Selfridge. Whilst I’m aware than a few decades have passed since then, and we are admittedly living in a very different place to the chavland of my youth (although sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference), I wonder at what strange creatures Dubai has managed to produce, for example the teenager I happened to stumble across on the back pages of Grazia Middle East this week:

‘This trendy twin describers her personal style as classic and minimal. “I tend to stick to a monochrome palette when dressing.” she says. Here, she works her style magic with this ultra-feminine white and nude ensemble. She teams a slouchy white tank top by Michael Kors with a pair of cream lace trousers by Cameo, adding a vintage Chanel belt to nip in the waist. She finished the look with a pair of nude Louboutins and a beige Chanel bag.’

You’re seventeen, FFS. You’ve got years to covet nude Loubs and neutrals. Go out and get yourself a pair of Havanias and a crop top from H&M and have some fun, girl. And give me your wardrobe. I may be old enough to be your mother but I’m not above borrowing your clothes.

Flowers and Whistles

It’s always good to read what other Dubai bloggers are up to. For one, it helps me appreciate I am not the only one out there going slowly la-la, increasingly reliant on shoe shopping and sauv blanc to cure the ails of everyday expat living/parenting. Secondly, it gives me all kinds of ideas of things to do and places to go, that I didn’t even know existed. And better still, what can be struck off the ‘to do’ list because it’s crap/expensive/hot/busy. So when my pal over at Circles in the Sand wrote about a new horticultural extravaganza that had opened up just down the road from us, I decided to give it a try. Armed with a bottle of water and enough antihistamine tablets to cure an elephant of hay fever, my son and I and our friends set out this afternoon for the self-proclaimed “most beautiful and biggest natural flower garden in the world”.

English: A Petunia sp.

Like this, but more  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sounds dubious? Well it’s very pretty. And big. It feels like you are standing in the world’s largest hanging basket. There are pyramids, birds, heart shaped archways, and even a set of flower power painted cars, all full to the brim with flowers of every colour. Sustainable? Well, the developer claims the huge site is using waste water to keep the gazillion petunias flowering. But natural? In Dubai?

Natural or not, the ‘Miracle gardens’ were, indeed, miraculous. If slightly incongruous. Like a giant ski slope protruding into the sky, or a huge offshore development built into the shape of a palm tree, a massive garden of flowers is one of the last things you expect to see on the side of a motorway in the desert.

But miracles come at a price. Dhs 40, to be exact (they charged my 3 year old full price to enter). And honestly…the experience was average. Maybe if our kids hadn’t been swiped by over-enthusiastic filipinos and used as props for photo calls, or had a whistle blown at them near- continuously by the rather protective security men, I would feel differently.  One particularly enthusiastic guard saw the kids coming and proceed to stalk us, literally manhandling the boys off the grass and picking up long dead plants and shaking them at us, motioning that our children were ripping them up. Now, our kids are good kids, and they knew not to pick the flowers or run through the beds – but it’s a field full of flowers. If there is an opportunity to climb, or run, or play ‘driving’ on the grass that runs between displays, they are going to take it. What they don’t do is rip plants from the ground. It was all a bit OTT for a few limp looking petunias.

After we lost the nazi gardener at the floral pyramids/Tele tubby caves, we decided to finish up and nipped to the snack tent to feed the boys ice cream. We hoped this would distract them from running around any more, which I thought should have been the point of all that open space. It didn’t. They ran around the tables and chairs instead. A learning moment might be that a few more bits of miraculous grassy areas wouldn’t go amiss, and neither would a play area for the little ones if they want to keep the beds free from wandering feet.

All in all, it was a pleasant hour spent herding small children away from the very things we had come to look at. The kids enjoyed it though and the ice cream was a welcome respite at the end. Would I go again? Maybe, if they add some more facilities and put some signs up that tell you what the rules are instead of blowing whistles at me. As for the big claim made by it’s name – well, for my money, the miracle will be keeping it all alive through the summer.

Arise, agents of change: an open letter

To all the seven kinds of crazy women currently populating our school gates:

It’s fair to say, that I have whined in my time. There have been moments so low in my life that I would have gladly traded all my worldly goods for things to be different. But if there is one thing I have learnt over the course of the past few years, it’s that if you don’t like something, don’t quit, make it right. Change things. Be better.

Take your child’s school, for example. Say there has been an unexpected change of leadership halfway through the year and you have doubts about the school’s future and their ability to maintain the quality of education you would prefer your  little darling to receive. Say the school had offered one on one meetings with the new principal to thrash out any worries or issues you may have, but instead of going and asking the important questions you want answered, you sit and listen to the idle fishwife gossip at pick up time. Say you were that person. I would not want to hear what you have to say, because I’ve already heard it all and never listened to such a load of tripe in my life. Examples of ‘why i am not coming back next year’ that I have overheard include:

– the school curriculum is based on the practices of scientology

– “everyone” is leaving

– one of the FS2 teachers has fingernails that are really long

Dear mother with nothing better to do: look around you. Do you see happy children who are confident, sociable and comfortable in their environment? Do you see them learning? Is there anything to suggest that this isn’t a great place for them to go to school? Does the class size of 10-15 children bother you, that maybe they are going to receive too much attention, too much individual time with their teacher, that they might learn more, develop skills that might otherwise go ignored in a larger class? Do the huge, well equipped classrooms put you on edge? Do you think your children will do better in a school that is brand new with absolutely no track record, and might not even open by september? Or one with 3000 children milling around inside it? I’m sure you feel it’s completely justified to spend your days sitting and spouting idle gossip, spreading your poisonous nonsense and putting doubt in the minds of every parent within a 14 mile radius, just to placate yourself, that hauling your third culture kid out of one school and into another after just one year won’t be detrimental to them in the slightest.

Or…hang on….could there be another way? Could it be that instead of wrenching your child from the bosom of their school because of some whimsical notion based solely on conjecture that the grass is indeed greener, that you could be an agent for change and make the community you and your child exist in work harder for you, to get what you want, what you believe you deserve? Could it be that communication, and a mutual resolve to make things the best they can be, might just be the better way forward? How about instead of moaning about the things you don’t like to people who have no bearing on the situation, that you address them with some one who could actually help you change them?

Of course this crazy idea of social responsibility might never catch on. You do deserve the moon on a stick after all, and if you can pay the fees why on earth should you have to make any more effort than that? Your responsibility lays purely with destroying the spirit of the people around you who actually like the place. Because if you choose to leave, you’re gonna damn well make sure you have someone to share the new school run with, right?

I believe in choice. What suits me may not suit you. But make an educated decision, not some half baked one based on what the popular mums said over coffee last week. And should you decide to go, do it with dignity and respect for the rest of us. Because I am bored with your tales of woe and your ‘genuine concern’ that the school is going to the dogs. I am tired of feeling like I have to defend my decision, that i should in some way be ashamed of myself for choosing to give my child consistency and a strong sense of community that our school offers in spades. That I am crazy to believe the incredible progress he has made this past six months could not possibly be repeated, and that the teachers will, en masse, decide that small class numbers are really not their thing, and jack in their jobs and their visas to go and live on a beach and teach TEFL. I am making a herculean effort to ignore all of you but I really do think you should shut up and give us all a break.

And lastly – Do try to remember your child is four years old. The likelihood of you being here long enough to care whether a school has IB or not is slim. The likelihood of you screwing them up by moving them across the world five times in a decade is far greater than the school ruining their kindergarden experience and rendering them illiterate. So as long as they are happy, why the hell aren’t you?

A little ‘me’ time

Firstly, apologies for the radio silence. Things have been a little hectic due to visiting relatives, theatre performances and the small matter of a 4000 word short story to write for my degree portfolio. Not to mention the PTA obligations, Sports day, International day, and the various overseas train smashes concerning future schools, renting houses and sick family to manage.  Blogging has been beyond what time has allowed. And so when it came to dress making, I figured it was time to outsource.

I have a perfectly good sewing machine at home, I just have no inclination to do anything more complicated than table runners and cushion covers. On the tourist trail to Bur Dubai a few weeks back, I came across a particularly spectacular bolt of patterned silk (well they said it was silk) for a mere £7/m in the fabric souk, and decided to get a jump suit copied I’ve been wearing almost non stop since I bought it nearly three years ago.  For Dhs 250 (about £40) I will have a brand new swishy silk pantsuit to play in, made to measure and cheaper than the original one. Tick in the box for supporting the ‘local’ (chinese) economy while I’m at it.

Having visitors, especially first time ones, often opens my eyes back up to what’s around and gets me out of my self imposed local living rut. Going down to the creek always reminds me where we are, that we aren’t just in this little bubble, that there is a lot of other real life to see out there. Of course it’s full of touts trying to sell me pashminas and boat rides but if you get past that you can really enjoy just being part of the city, haggling for fabric and riding the abra alongside every other creed and colour who is crossing the creek for one purpose or another.
Somewhere lurking near the opposite end of the expat spectrum, during my blog hiatus I was also part of Dubai’s first Short+Sweet theatre festival. A great initiative to encourage local people to write, direct and act in a series of 10 minute plays, it was a spectacle of good, sometimes great, and some downright awful entertainment, but it was ours. Five years ago or so there is no way the city could have even conceived of hosting a festival like this, and it is really exciting to be contributing to the arts scene and (hopefully) changing it for the better. This weekend was spent performing and at and participating in the Emirates Literature festival, another fantastic example of how much things have moved on in the past few years.
And so that’s the end of my excuses; why the dog ate my homework etc. I now have three glorious weeks of relative relaxation, or two weeks of holiday and a  ‘reading week’ as its called in university circles.  I’m looking forward to it: gym, spa, vacation in the desert, and maybe even a trip to my beloved but much neglected mall. The year has certainly got off to an intensive start but it’s been incredibly satisfying too. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so full of ideas and optimism for the time ahead.
It’s also fair to say I’m knackered. Pass the wine someone…
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Boys will be boys

My blog pal over at Circles in the Sand wrote a charming little post this week about having boys. It made me smile because she’s right, it doesn’t matter how much you try to produce a child without conforming to stereotypical behaviour, nature always wins out.

Boys are mental. I never appreciated until I had a small one in the house, how much energy they use and how much food they consume. I never think of mine as being a particularly gung-ho kind of a boy, yet he still insists on talking, singing, playing, arguing, and running from dawn to dusk, permanently on the move, climbing, jumping, and using me as a wrestling dummy. The sheer exhaustion caused by bringing up a boy, any boy, should not be underestimated.

A grey toy car, n°1

Of course when they hit puberty and retire to their rooms with porn, acne and terrible smelling clothes, we mothers of sons will get a bit of a break. Whilst they sit languishing over computer games and rap music or alternatively run about on a field with a ball of some description, we will be gazing from the sidelines and merely be in charge of providing food (this is my vision; don’t ruin it for me). The mothers of girls, on the other hand, will be dealing with horrid younger versions of themselves getting into trouble at every given opportunity whilst being overly emotional and completely foul at the same time. All those years drinking coffee and watching their little girls strut about in dressing up clothes or sitting doing ‘colouring in’ will fade into a grey memory as they attempt to dissuade them from older men with cars and clothes small enough to fit a Barbie doll.

But, in the spirit of ‘enjoy it while you can’ I try not to imagine those heady days when I might not claw my way to 7pm and a bottle of wine after an afternoon spent throwing, catching, pretending to sleep/eat/fly/drive/be at school/belly dance etc. etc. I try not to yearn for a time when I don’t have to stick the TV on just to have a conversation that doesn’t involve the words ‘Why?’ or ‘Because’ or ‘be careful‘ or ‘mind my hair/sofa/your fingers’, or ‘get down/sit down’ (delete as appropriate).

And right now, my son really is very enjoyable. Despite being relentless. So I really do have a lot of love for him, and as I watch him grow from a baby to a little man I am so glad to be part of this series of special moments. And special they are. For example, this morning, at breakfast, he gazed up at me and said in his very serious voice, “Mummy, it would be very sad if everyone in the house died. Then I would be all alone.”  (I’m not sure where his current obsession with death came from but it seems he has some issues to work out)

“Yes, that would be very sad,” I replied. “But it’s not going to happen, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

“Mummy, I don’t want to die,” he said, “you have to look after me very well so I don’t.”

I gathered him up in my arms and got the best little boy cuddle ever. “Of course I will look after you, you are my number one boy, and I will always look after you.” I replied, with a little catch in my throat. I kissed his head and held on as tight as I could to the moment, hoping he could feel how much I loved him.

Then my darling little boy looked me in the eye, gave me a smacker on the lips, smiled, and farted.

Reasons to be cheerful

A slightly lazy look at life today, either because a) analysing the Star Wars screenplay for my course has been surprisingly draining,  or b) it’s nearly midnight, I’m still not in bed having swore I would go early, I can barely read the screen my eyes are so tired and I need the bathroom.

So, five things that have made me laugh this week that I thought I would share, for better or worse:

1. ‘Girls’. I just finished Season One and I’m hooked. If you haven’t watched it already, get hold of it. Funny,clever, poignant and goes where no Sex in the City episode would have ever dared to tread. (Note: if you were ever remotely shocked by Kim Cattrall, you might want to skip it)

2. My son and his incessant thirst for knowledge. Question of the week: “Why don’t cats have hands?” A close runner up: “Mummy, can we buy a book about lungs?”

3. The fact that I had a spot on that bit under your nose that really hurts when you have a spot on it. This, per se, did not make me laugh (why the f*** am I still getting spots?) but my idiotic reaction did, in a sort of ironic way reserved usually for people I don’t like very much. Aged 38.5, instead of leaving well alone, I did the mature thing and wrapped my fingers in toilet paper, squeezed until my eyes watered from the pain, then cursed at the resulting sore mess on my face for the next two days. Dumb ass.

4. Relentless Laundry , whose brilliant writing never fails to make me laugh out loud and reassures me that I am not alone.

5. My son, again, this time for managing to fake a limp so realistically I made a two hour round trip to the physio to get him checked out at a cost of $100. He told me in the car on the way home “it was just a pretend bad leg”. This has not made me laugh yet but I’m sure I will look back on it one day with a smile.

Happy Monday y’all.