The Gallery - One ordinary day of astonishing brilliance and banality

I've found this week's Gallery amazingly emotional. 

Tuesday 8th February 2011.  Scottish Borders.

0000*

0736
I know, I know. I'm going.  Out of bed.  B was up and out over an hour ago.  But just ten more minutes, please....? Oh, alright then.

0747
Oh sod it. I'm sure I look fine.

0757
Sunrise over the bypass.   Going to be a lovely day.

0758
First nappy of the day

0810
Wake up L!  She's overslept. Actually, we've all overslept. Now I've got to get them all fed and out in just over half an hour. How bad a parent would I be if I sent them to nursery with no breakfast?

0825
However bad it is, I'm not that bad.  No time for toast though

0854
Everyone out! In the car! Quick, quick, quick!

0915
Back.  Builders have been here since eight.  Pop round to see how they're doing with our new kitchen.

0922
Back inside. Dishwasher loaded. Breakfast table cleared.  What next?  Laundry.

0927
Five minutes for me. Tunnock's teacake and a cup of tea. Who says Scotland doesn't have haute cuisine?  Very proud of my mug too. Lidl's finest.  £2.99 each. Or £5 for two. We decided two was extravagant. Regretting it now though.

0936
Tuesdays are a working day (hence the nursery).  This is my orderly desk.  Aka kitchen table. And yes, I did raid the children's chocolate ten minutes after eating that teacake.  Apparently it's very good for the baby. Or something.

1322

Work half done.  As usual.  Leave it til later.  Meeting with builder and architect about pipes and ducts (eh?  Did they really think I'd have anything to contribute?) fully done. Girls collected, five minutes late as usual.  Right you lot, out. Go and play quietly while Mummy has some lunch. And if I hear any whinging or arguing it's straight to bed. Go!

1328 

Lunchtime. I know it looks disgusting but it was left over and in the fridge and not cheese on toast for a change (Nigel Slater Chicken and Bean Casserole if you're interested).  Actually it was delicious. 

Sneak in ten more minutes work before the fighting starts.  Little ones off to bed. Protesting.

1413

Remember the laundry.  And the dishwasher.

1423

Convince L, briefly, that she wants to play a "game".  Finish playing the "game" by myself.

1542

Play L's game.  She is a bird.  I am, apparently, a caterpillar.  I am required to wear the green spiral thing. Not a good look with a bump.

1601

Accede to a request for "big painting".  Wonder where "big painting" is going to be possible when we have floors we actually like.

1628

Big painting lasts about ten minutes.  Clearing up takes rather longer.  "Ticking" now the activity of choice.

1648

Universal whinging indicates imminent starvation.  I attempt to resist the lure of CBeebies and cook with girls hanging off three of my limbs.  Fail. Give in.  This is happening more and more often.  Feel guilty.

1722

Builders gone. Sneak out to inspect their handiwork leaving children eating, unsupervised. Bad parent. Builders still have a way to go but am unfeasibly excited by a big hole.

1725

Three empty plates equals one happy mummy.

1744

Tidy up time. Allegedly.

1837

B home.  Bathtime.  So much easier with two.

 

1854

Dry, dressed, into bed

1855

B is reading L's story.  I have A&S.  L chooses The House at Pooh Corner.  I have definitely drawn the short straw.

1938

All quiet from upstairs. Supper cooked and eaten. B out rehearsing.  Time to do that work I didn't get done earlier.

Decide I am feeling post-modern instead.

2312

B off to Rome at 3 am tomorrow morning (via Amsterdam as apparently you can't fly direct to Rome from either Newcastle or Edinburgh.  Oddly).  Packing time.  This is everything he needs (minus the sponge bage of course) for three days.

 

 

2359* 

All quiet.  So far.

Dull, wasn't it? Very like the day before, in fact. And, if my sister weren't coming to stay, very like today would be.  Very like most of my days, and, I suspect most of the days of many other women (and a good few men) nation-, if not world-, wide.

So why did I find it emotional?  The problem is, taking the pictures made me think about what I was doing, rather than simply getting through, getting by, getting on.  And I realised how mundane my life is. How full of little, unimportant, repetitive tasks.  How full of "must do this" and "no, not now" and "in a minute". And how, when I do have half an hour to spare, how little time I actually spend interracting with my children, sitting down and playing with them, doing what they want to do when they want to do it.  They asked to do painting, but I can't honestly say I'd have agreed if I hadn't known it would be a good photo.

It makes me want to weep.  I'm not sure how I got here.   I'm not sure I'm being the mother I want to be. I'm not sure, sometimes, that I'm living the life I want to live, even if I'm also not sure that being in London, being a lawyer, being stuck on the tube, or in a meeting, would feel any less dull, less mundane, less banal.

But when I stopped feeling self-pitying, I also realised how happy some of this quotidian life makes me. How amazing my children are.  How lucky I am to live in this beautiful place, in this beautiful house (or it will be).  How incredible it is that I have the choice to work when I want to, and am not tied to the nine to five, Monday to Friday.

So although it was dull, and it was pedestrian, it was, and is, also my 24 hours. My day. My life.

*Actually, that's artistic licence.  It was actually about half past ten, but midnight (or indeed one minute to midnight) isn't a time of day I voluntarily see very often anymore. I can't imagine it looked much different to this though.

The sort of thing a proper SAHM does with her children.

I have had an utterly, utterly, rubbish day today.  I have been the sort of mother I hate.  The sort of mother who shouts at her children so loudly they cry, and who gives herself a sore throat in the process.  The sort of mother who gets constantly whinged at from waking to sleeping, and who can't decide whether to scream, cry, throw the sodding plate of pasta and sausages ("I don't like sausages") through the window, or just walk out, whilst simultaneously doing all of the above.

It's been awful.

It's Varicella Zoster's fault.  L has the pox.  So we've been stuck in the house (and the garden: thank heavens, lucky stars and all the deities in the pantheon that this didn't happen when we didn't have a garden to speak of) since yesterday morning, and we're all getting very scratchy and cross with each other.  L isn't ill, or at least not so ill so that you can park her in front of the telly, but she's itchy and whiny and we're rubbing each other up the wrong way...  And A and S haven't got it yet, but it's surely only a matter of time.

Which is why I'm going to blow my own trumpet. And remind myself what a great mother I can be when I want to.  And that I can do the stuff that the books tell you you're supposed to do. And that it was fun.

And that hopefully, those are the days they'll remember when they are grown up. Not the ones like today.

It started on Saturday. Bright, but cold.  We piled into the car, packed our passports and headed for the Border.  To Ford and Etal to be precise.  Apparently they're two little villages with all sorts of interesting things in.  But we never actually got there, because L was sick on the way, and we arrived too late for the miniature railway and it was all a bit rubbish until we got to Heatherslaw Mill which is actually in between the two.  It's fantastic! It's a proper working water mill, and L, at just 3, was fascinated.  By the water rushing in, and the cogs turning, and the big stones grinding against each other, and the flour going into the bag ("like in Bagpuss"*)  and the chocolate cake we had in the sunshine afterwards:

So we bought some flour and we took it home, and no one was sick and we agreed we'd had a lovely day.

And on Monday I put on my Ocado apron (I miss Ocado) and my goodSAHM hat, and once A and S were in bed, L and I got busy:

We got our ingredients and our recipe (Nigella's best, because I intend to be a Domestic Goddess.  One day) ready:

We mixed our Heatherslaw-milled flour (500g) with our salt (1 tsp), our bicarbonate of soda (2 tsps) and our cream of tartar (4.5 tsps).  Then we "stroked" the butter (50g - which is not what Nigella says, but I think it's a misprint, and anyway, I don't believe in following recipes exactly, where's the fun in that?) into the dry ingredients with our fingers:

until we had mixed it all in.

We poured in the milk (300ml) and got our fingers all sticky mixing that in, before turning it out onto the side and "pushing and pulling" it all together.  L subscribes to the school of thought that says all food stuffs are improved by the addition of sultanas (I know men who feel the same way about bacon), so we stuck 75g of those in too (the out of focus-ness indicates the vigorousness of the kneading):

Then we rolled it out:

Before cutting them out with a 6.5 cm crinkle-edged round cutter (B agreed with Nigella that the crinkles were very important) and "painting" them with egg:

Then we put them in the oven which we had uncharacteristically remembered to preheated to 220 (gas 7) and waited excitedly for ten minutes:

before taking them out ("careful Mummy, they're hot") with care and pride:

By this stage, S and A had woken up, so we took (hideouslyuglyjumblesale) Teddy outside and had a picnic (complete with checked "rug"):

The fact that they then ate so many scones they refused to eat any supper that wasn't scones is one we'll gloss over in favour of the best bit: not only did L and I enjoy ourselves, and the girls adore the scones, I got to send them to nursery with them on Tuesday as a "snack", and look like a really proper SAHM there too.

And I live in hope that tomorrow (S and A at nursery (without scones: we've eaten them all),  Spotty and I here, with a carrot loaf recipe, or possibly "more scones please Mummy") is more like that, and less like today.  Wish me luck. And send me any ideas for entertaining the pox-infested.  Please.


* ps and for your viewing pleasure. Here's the best part of that epic episode:  You can't (as any fule kno) make chocolate biscuits out of breadcrumbs and butterbeans

£hildcare - the numbers game.

I've been thinking (again) about working and not-working and being a full-time mum and being a part-time employee and all that sort of stuff.

But two things in particular have made me put fingers to keyboard this time.  First is Muddling along Mummy's post here - she's wondering why, still, in 2010, the majority of childcare is still done by mothers.

And the other is an article in today's Observer (which weirdly doesn't seem to feature in their online edition) about the costs of childcare.  Apparently more than half of all children's centres are making a financial loss*; 58% of parents have suffered from a lack of childcare in the past 12 months, and local authorities' own assessments of available childcare show a shortage.  They interview a woman who gave up work because after childcare she was earning £20 a week...

How does this happen when we're being told that every effort is being made to encourage parents back into work? (Let's ignore the childcare voucher issue for a moment shall we?  And the fact that there is no state childcare for children under 3 anyway). It is surely a simple calculation. If the government wants women to return to work, it has to make it possible, both practically and financially.

For us it's a financial and not a practical question. There are plenty of (private) nurseries around us.  But here's the maths:

I am in a well-paid industry and am relatively senior.  By national terms, I am extremely well paid, although not stratospherically.  Given that I am now only working two days a week, it's helpful to think in daily amounts.

After tax and National Insurance, I earn almost exactly £180 a day.

That's quite a lot right?

Nope.  I pay just over £160 a day in childcare.

If I work eight hours a day (which I don't, I work more than that). I'm earning £2.50 an hour.  That's right.  If I go to Pret for lunch and buy a sandwich and a drink, that's two hours wages.  If I ladder my tights and go and buy a new pair, that's an hour. If I have to top up my Oyster card, that's a week's worth...

And the thing is, that for where we live (Central-ish London) our nursery fees are pretty average.  Admittedly we're unusual in that we have three children under school age, but then we're also better paid than many. What if I were a nurse? Or a teacher?  Bear in mind that the nursery discount our fees - we should be paying over £200 a day.  And a nanny wouldn't be any cheaper.  When I interviewed nannies, they all wanted over £10 an hour plus tax and national insurance. That works out at £140 a day, to which you have to add heat, light, food and activities.  They could easily add up to more than £20 a day, so you're back to square one. Indeed, that's one of the reasons we went for the nursery - we could be certain of costs.  Plus the nursery takes the (soon to be late-lamented) childcare vouchers. Nannies can, but the sort who do tend to be the more expensive....

I spoke to a lovely colleague of mine about this, and her solution?  Don't do the maths.  And in many ways she was right.  Because this is so demoralising.  If I have a bad day at work, or a difficult call with a client, or get caught up in some political shenanigans, I realise that I don't care.  Where once I would have made an effort, got involved, tried to solve things, now I don't.  It's very hard to care about a job, no matter how much you love it or how long you have trained for it, if you are effectively not being paid for the work you do.

Maybe I am wrong to be so hung up on the money, but that is how our employers have taught us how to value ourselves: you're good at your job, you get paid more.  So what does that make me?

For the moment though I'm sticking with it.  The promise of freelance work, to keep  my brain ticking over and my professional qualifications up-to-date when we move, is too good to turn down.  But it doesn't stop me being angry.  I know there's no easy solution to this one, but I just wish I could be convinced that someone was actually thinking about it, for all they all talk a good talk...

*We experienced this ourselves. The nursery L went to when I first went back to work after having her went bust (fortunately just as I went on maternity leave to have A&S so we were ok).  They owed us £800 which I have now been told we won't get back.  The total debts were, rumour has it, in excess of £7 million.  Even the liquidator isn't going to get paid...

How on earth does that happen?

Separated at 13 months

Big change in the lives of A and S.

They have been separated.

A few weeks ago the nursery asked me what we wanted to do when they turned one and got too grown up for the baby room (pause for a bit of weepy nostalgia at the thought that my babies are too grown up for anything).  They have two 1-2 rooms at our nursery and after (if I'm honest not very) much thought we've decided to split them up.  It's only for two days a week, and we both felt that this was the only way that the carers would ever really internalise them as two separate individuals with different abilities, likes and dislikes.

So, two days in, how was it for them?  Twins do, after all, have a special bond.

Well...

...I don't actually think they've noticed.  They were certainly much more delighted to see L and me than they were to see each other.

So much for that special bond.

But I also think, so far, it's going to go well. Certainly the carers have already started picking up on things which S does (loves posing for the camera) and A doesn't.  And that A does (can just about stand up - it's amazing what two days of peer pressure will do) and S doesn't (she tries bless her, but with less success).

And if the point of being a parent, whether of twins or not, is to bring up a well-rounded individual (or in my case three) then surely this is a good first step? 

Good day for a media star (with a sting in the tail).

I have, today, made my debut in the national press!

I (and this blog) get a mention (albeit brief) in an article by Gaby Hinsliff (about whom you may remember I raved a couple of months back) about the age-old, same-old, yadda yadda, yawn, but somehow can't stop thinking about it question of balancing work and kids.

Which is funny because it (or at least my buying of the magazine - available at all good newsagents, and less good: given that I bought it from one of those funny little shops in the tube) came at the end of one of the rare days when I've lurched from exasperation to joy and ended up feeling as though I have actually got the balance right. 

This morning was, as is often the case, faintly horrendous; nothing dramatic: S has a cold and is miserable, L didn't want red tights, ice skates more appropriate than going-to-work-must-still-look-like-a-professional-woman shoes (although I was very grateful for my zimmer frame/pushchair), tube full of sweary people cross with the weather and taking it out on each other.  Same old, same old.

Work was fine: nice to see everyone after Christmas, glow of generosity at giving them all the (obligatory) maple syrup candies, stuff to do but not too urgent, actually knew the answer to a technical question when asked.  Just another day at the office.

But the thing is, I was out, I was free, I could banter with my boss without having to interrupt myself to wipe a nose, or break up a fight, or find a missing sheep (or child).  I could have a cup of tea.  I could wander (aka shuffle, remember those shoes) out at lunch time and peruse the sandwich shelves of three different emporia before settling on a slightly unsatisfactory wrap, rather than wolfing down the leftovers from three different plastic plates.  I could just be me. Not someone's mum.  Me.

I had to leave early to get the girls so that the nursery staff could get home, and when I got to the nursery all three of them were in splendid moods (A and S's first day in separate rooms - huge success all round), and we had a lovely time shuffling back along the road home, singing. Literally.  The residents of West London know me as the local loony...

And I know that what made me happy today, and what, by extension made me a nice person to be around at work, and a good, happy, relaxed mum rather than the crotchety, short-tempered, no I haven't got time mum that I can also be (and am, more often than not, if the truth be told) is those six hours I spent without them.

Which is why they're important.  And that's why I realise that if this two day a week thing doesn't work (you'll notice there wasn't much actual work in my day (don't think my boss reads this fortunately)) and if we do find the perfect house in Middle-of-Nowhere, I do still need that Plan B. 

Which is why it's a bit of a b*gger to come home to an email saying that the millinery course might have to be cancelled.

Picture copyright Red Magazine, clearly.

A proper mother always gives her children a healthy, home-cooked meal.

L's friend D came round for some lunch today.  I made a big pasta bake; with a proper soffrito (ooh, get me) and everything.

Then I overheard this conversation:

D:  L, do you like pasta?
L:  I like it at nursery but I don't like it at home.

Beans on toast for supper.

Separation anxiety

I said yesterday that work were very understanding about this whole beingamother thing.  Well, second test today.  A is ill.

So this means two things:

1.  I am at home (again) on a day when I should be working; and (more importantly)
2.  A and S are spending a day apart.  For the first time ever.

They are nearly 11 months old and they've never spent more than half an hour apart in their lives.  B left with S and L about ten minutes ago and so far so fine.  A is pulling herself up on the DVD player (favourite trick) and babbling away to herself (she's not very ill, clearly); she doesn't seem to have noticed, or maybe doesn't care, that her sister isn't here.

But I do.  I feel like I've done something simultaneously unimportant and momentous.  One of them is ill, the other isn't so clearly one should go to nursery and the other should stay at home. I didn't even think about keeping L at home because A is poorly, so why should it be any different for S?  What's the fuss all about?

At the same time, this is a very important moment in their lives and as a result I am feeling very wobbly about it.  I try to avoid parenting books, but one of the twin mantras I've absorbed over the last 18 or so months since I discovered I was having identical twins is the importance of giving each of them their own identity.  And a  big part of that must be allowing them to realise that they can, and should, be able to spend time apart from each other.  This is the first hurdle on the road to independence from each other and, dare I say it, from me.

So it feels like a big deal.  It could go one of two ways.  They (or one of them) will be fine. Or they won't.  Watch this space...

Nursery v. Nanny

Of course it could be argued that part (or all) of today's problems are caused by our (admittedly unusual) decision to send three children to nursery rather than get a nanny.  If there were a nanny, L wouldn't have to go anywhere so wouldn't kick up a fuss (this is ignoring the fact that she's two so is perfectly capable of kicking up a fuss about being given the wrong pair of socks, much less being left with a nany), and S & A could stay home with the nanny and their conjunctivitis, while Mummy swans off to her Proper Job.

Which is perfectly true.

So did we make the wrong decision?  I'm still not sure.

L has been in nursery for over a year now.  She was there when I went back to work before I had A and S and we kept her there for a couple of days a week when I was off with them.  She loves it, she has lots of friends and she does stuff there that I just wouldn't or couldn't do with her - I can't play pass the parcel with just her and me, and I won't upend a tin of beans on the floor and let her squish her feet in them (maybe I'm a bad mummy, but...).   Despite this, when we first started thinking about childcare for three we just assumed we'd get a nanny.

We did the whole advertise, interview, offer the job, get turned down, advertise again, offer the job thing and found someone lovely and experienced.  Not Mary Poppins, but nearly.  And then I changed my mind.

Weirdly, although nursery is more expensive, it was sort of about the money.  Nannies in London want £10 net an hour.  That sounds not unreasonable until you realise that you also have to pay her tax and national insurance.  When you've done that you actually end up paying £14 an hour. Or £140 a day.  Plus heat and light and food and activities...  Even ignoring the latter, if I were to pay my nanny £10 net an hour, I worked out I would be earning £5 net an hour.

Somehow I just couldn't get my head around the fact that my nanny was going to be taking home twice as much as me for doing my job.  And when I thought about it it did feel like my job and I suddenly couldn't bear the idea that there would be someone else in my house looking after my children.

Which is a silly and emotional reaction, but there it is. 

So we approached the nursery, who've come up with a fantastic deal. I can't reproach them as they've been great.  They're still more expensive (I'm earning £2.50 an hour - about which inevitably more later) but we do feel that the girls will get more from the nursery than they would from a nanny.  If I were a marketing nonsense person I'd talk about costs and benefits.  There's a greater cost but I think the benefits are greater.

But, as I'm rapidly discovering, there appears to be a downside too.

It's not going as well as I thought it would.

Here we are, day 2.

If you'd asked me, three days ago, what were the things that I thought could potentially go wrong with this whole workingmumof3 thing I'd have said:

• I might not like my job any more; or
  
• One or all of the girls might get ill and then I can't go to work because I have to stay home and look after them; or
• One or all of the girls might be difficult about nursery

We haven't quite hit the jackpot yet, but by 6pm yesterday we'd got two, maybe two and a half going strong...

Work was ok, dull but ok. My big boss is on holiday so there isn't really much for me to do at the moment which is probably a good thing as I think I've forgotten most of what I ever knew.  It was nice to see people, but I can't say I was filled with delight at being there.  It was just a job. 

So that's maybe half.

And the other two we've got right on the money: L is acting up big time; she refused to come home from nusery last night and refused to go there this morning.  She made her feelings clear as only a two-year-old can.  And A and S have conjunctivitis, are on antibiotics and not allowed in the nursery.

So hence here I am, 10 am, day 2 of my resumed career, sitting at home on the sofa with flip flops on.