Seven skills of the successful under four

A little while back, Emily O made me laugh with her Seven habits of a highly ineffective mother.  But while reading and nodding, I was also thinking "Well, this is all very well, but she needs to give credit where credit is due. No one gets to be a truly ineffective mother if they don't have a highly skilled crack team* of children on which to practice.

So, for the under fours** reading this blog, here are the seven skills, in my opinion, of the successful child.  Do these and you too can have a highly ineffective, probably grey-haired, mummy.

1.  Never do anything quickly.  Take your time.  There is no hurry. Let Louis Armstrong be your guide.  Doesn't matter how busy she says she is, or how little time she says there is, Mummy can always be kept waiting just that little bit longer.

2.  Care about the things that matter.  It is important which bowl you have your breakfast in. Or which pair of socks you have on. Or whether the beans are touching the fish fingers. 

3.  If something isn't right, make your displeasure known.  Make it loud or she might not hear you.  How will she ever learn otherwise? 

4.  Mothers need to exercise their vocal chords.   Never do anything on the first time of asking.  Nor the second.  Or third.  Fourth is just about acceptable, but for really successful parental training you want to be aiming for six or seven repeats.

5.  Whatever your sister/cousin/brother/friend/dog is playing with is always more exciting and interesting than what you're playing with.  Get it.

6.  Anything out of a packet is always, without exception, whatever the packet says on it (All Bran, Plain flour, Polyfilla) tastier and more appealing than anything out of a saucepan.

7.  Treat her mean, keep her keen: at the end of the day, when Daddy comes in, stop what you're doing, look at him, smile winningly, lift up your arms for a cuddle, and ignore all the previous rules (but only where he is concerned) until bedtime.



*"Team" can, in this context of course, equally well mean the highly adaptable, exceptionally focussed, single child too.  Any one of my three is perfectly capable of doing all of these (including having an argument) on her own.
** And probably the under fives too - I'll let you know in April.

Dear So and So - 3rd week in December

Dear boss,

Nothing is actually going to happen if I don't get absolutely everything done by Christmas. You know this, I know this, the clients know this.

When is one of us actually going to come out and say it?

Yours, hassled.

Consultant and all-round dogsbody.

**********

Dear L

"Torch-er" is not actually the verb we use for "having a torch".

And if that's what you actually want to do to me, whinging is so much more efficient.

Mummy

**********

Dear B

I've had a word with Father Christmas and he reckons that you'll be happy with a packet of fruit gums and a satsuma.  I told him that'll be fine.  That's ok isn't it?

Loving wife

**********

Dear Postman

There are things I need at the moment:  Christmas presents (everyone's), Birthday presents (mine). And things I don't need:  twin breast-feeding cushions, printer paper.

Please can you concentrate on delivering the former and leave the latter to languish in a sorting office?  Just for the next week?

Yours, with cushion.

Non-breastfeeding mother

**********

Dear B (2)

Oh, and it's not just FC who's been rubbish about thinking of presents for you this year.

Loving (but inefficient and unimaginative) wife

**********

Dear Girls,

I realise you're now two. But could we not go for "terrific" instead?

Mummy

**********

Dear B (3)

Thank you for making me go out tonight.  You were right and I was wrong. The world feels so much better after three hours away from my children. Oh, and a half of lager.

Yours much more cheerily

Loving (and slightly tiddly) wife

**********

Dear weather

Just a little warmer? Please?

Yours freezingly

Pathetic Southerner.

**********

Dear Readers,

Head over to Kat's for more postcards.

love and Happy Christmas,

me x

Terrible Two

I'm told that twins are harder work than one.  Everyone says so, both in words and silently.  You hear it in the pitying looks you get when you waddle past at 34 weeks pregnant and bigger than most at full term, or the gasps of shock from old ladies who peer in the pram, or the admiring glances when, by some miracle, and for more than ten seconds in a row, both babies are on top cute form.

But, you know what? I never really felt it.

I think the thing about having twins, especially after having a singleton, is that you realise that all you can do is to deal with what life throws at you in the best way you possibly can.  And yes, at times it feels impossibly hard, but it did with L too, and I can't honestly say that the worst moments with L were worse than the worst moments with A and S.

Until now.

Now I get it.  Now, two, at nearly two, are hard.  Harder than one.  Oh, so much harder than one...

We're at that stage.  And the fact that I know it's a stage isn't making it easier.  That stage where the penalty for failure is death.

And I fail.  Regularly, reliably and unremittingly, I fail.  I take off their pyjamas when they want them on. I choose the wrong socks.  I take the banana out of its skin.  I give them macaroni cheese for supper.  I put them in their pushchair.  I get them out of their pushchair.  I give them the wrong toy.  I stop them playing with the door.  I say "no".

So I fail.  And the punishment is swift and relentless.  Screams of pain, of misery, of years of unloved neglect.  Of the unrecoverable sadness that only a well-fed, cossetted, adored 20-month-old can feel when she's been told she can't have a packet of raisins.

And sitting here, both of them asleep upstairs, it's funny.  But oh, when you're living it, when you're jiggling a writhing, caterwauling baby on your hip, as she pushes and fights with rage-fuelled strength, flailing with both arms at your glasses, yanking on your hair, while you desperately try to soothe her, though with no idea what it is that you did wrong, and simultaneously try to ignore the desperate wails from your ankles as the other one screams with fury because she can't take off her shoes, knowing all along that you're failing their big sister, who just wants you to read me a story Mummy please, the funny side seems so very far away.

It's just a stage.  It's born of frustration.  I know it. They can't talk.  They can't say "Not those socks; the blue ones please Mummy", or "Please could you possibly cut up the banana for me in slices no more than half a centimetre thick" so they voice their displeasure, they express their personalities, they show their independence in the only way they can.  All babies do it.  It's part of being nearly two.  I get it. I really do. 

I just wish I'd realised how calm my life was with just the one.