Dear Shark, Squirrel and Tiger. You are all a great and overwhelming noise. Tonight you had a big combustible fight in the front room over who had first rights and primary access to the fireside.
The screaming brought everyone from miles around flooding into the room, dialling hospitals and ambulances and emergency surgeries and firefighters. Until we all realised it was just an issue over where Shark had territorially positioned her left foot.
While I am clearing up after the bomb blast, I don't know why, but I think back to how it was, nearly ten years ago, when the three of you were born. You, my tiny Tiger, were laid down next to me, and I met you face to face for the first time. While I wondered and marvelled at your miniature perfection, your tiny eyes struggled with the awful realisation that there was a huge blundering messy alien right in front of you, and then there was all light and sharp noise and damn now there is something wrong because a moment ago it was all dark and warm and safe.
And then I watched you blink.
That little blink changed my world. In that tiny blink my old life was suddenly gone. I was plunged into a world which was all new territory to me too. A wonderful, awful, thrilling, scary and turbulent world with every rule binding me around, yet none that applied.
In the weeks and months that followed I revealed to you and Shark and Squirrel that I did not have a clue what I was doing. As a responsible adult I was next to useless. I showed you that I was totally unprepared, utterly confused and rendered incapable by a bottle steriliser. I was confounded by a nappy, brought to tears by strange sleeping rituals, incapable of feeding you the way we were told, created clumsy and awkward with your little arms and legs and miniature clothing. Basically, holding you the right way up was just manageable.
But that time brought a lesson. Even though it seems long gone in the past; even though we are now become this noisy, awkward family with loud mouthed, unaware, opinionated kids. The lesson is the same in these present days, when you bring more challenges, more bizarre circumstances, and more haphazard absurdity than ever I could have mustered without you.
It is that there is no problem I cannot solve if only I could take a moment to shut up, sit down, and then look at you. You teach me what to do. And as you do that, you make my life rich, full, rewarding. And you bring more meaning and focus into my life than I ever had before.
I hope to be able to stay a while with you over Christmas, to sit with you and talk, to be with you, to be around you, listening to you, here for a cuddle, here for talking, for laughing. I want to let you know that I am so very glad you are here, making my life noisy.
Because what else is Christmas for, but to be with people you love?
Showing posts with label No way out. Show all posts
Showing posts with label No way out. Show all posts
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Grit's guide to Christmas for mean parents (9): Entertainments
It's your turn!
Because Grit is knackered now. She has spent a long day, ignoring her own rules. She has spent all Dig's money in the lovely world called Amazon. Here she has bought lots of worthy presents for small people.
Anyway, it is time to think up some parlour games we can all play over Christmas. Games that are acceptable to play with small children and elderly maiden aunts, so no swearing, bugger offing or fuck yous.
And Grit-type games shouldn't cost any money, obviously, so no buying specialist kit, funny counters, strange dice, fancy costumes, or puffballs.
One we played just last night when the brass band passed by. We can hear them coming streets away. They steadily progress through our pretty Victorian town, playing Come All Ye Faithful and Little Town of Bethlehem, knocking on doors, wishing us all Merry Christmas, and shaking a tin right under our noses. We enter the Victorian spirit of the evening by blowing out the fireside candles to enjoy listening in the darkness against the light of the embers in the grate. We see how long we can leave them wondering whether this year we are in.
On Christmas morning I could spice things up a bit by playing barricade the front room with electric fence and barbed wire, and time how long it takes Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to get past the defences to the wrapped-up chocolate custard trifle.
And in the afternoon the entire family could play that game where we all stare at each other and see how long we can hold in the resentment about each other's existence.
Boxing Day we could play the one where small people take it in turns to kick the furniture and slam the door then stamp up the stairs to their bedrooms in what has become known as the preteen hormonal outrage. That's the same game where mummy Grit sinks her head in her hands and daddy Dig pours out another bucket of red wine.
So howabout you? What games will you play this Christmas? Remember now, no drunken nudity, blasphemy, or expense. (Not at least until the children have gone to bed.)
Because Grit is knackered now. She has spent a long day, ignoring her own rules. She has spent all Dig's money in the lovely world called Amazon. Here she has bought lots of worthy presents for small people.
Anyway, it is time to think up some parlour games we can all play over Christmas. Games that are acceptable to play with small children and elderly maiden aunts, so no swearing, bugger offing or fuck yous.
And Grit-type games shouldn't cost any money, obviously, so no buying specialist kit, funny counters, strange dice, fancy costumes, or puffballs.
One we played just last night when the brass band passed by. We can hear them coming streets away. They steadily progress through our pretty Victorian town, playing Come All Ye Faithful and Little Town of Bethlehem, knocking on doors, wishing us all Merry Christmas, and shaking a tin right under our noses. We enter the Victorian spirit of the evening by blowing out the fireside candles to enjoy listening in the darkness against the light of the embers in the grate. We see how long we can leave them wondering whether this year we are in.
On Christmas morning I could spice things up a bit by playing barricade the front room with electric fence and barbed wire, and time how long it takes Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to get past the defences to the wrapped-up chocolate custard trifle.
And in the afternoon the entire family could play that game where we all stare at each other and see how long we can hold in the resentment about each other's existence.
Boxing Day we could play the one where small people take it in turns to kick the furniture and slam the door then stamp up the stairs to their bedrooms in what has become known as the preteen hormonal outrage. That's the same game where mummy Grit sinks her head in her hands and daddy Dig pours out another bucket of red wine.
So howabout you? What games will you play this Christmas? Remember now, no drunken nudity, blasphemy, or expense. (Not at least until the children have gone to bed.)
Monday, 14 December 2009
Grit's guide to Christmas for mean parents (8): Relations
Hello lovely readers! Are you all surviving Christmas on the cheap? To help you along, out of the handbag comes the next great installment of Grit's guide to meanness at yuletide. Brought to you today courtesy of a very special and important guest.
G: Hello, Dig! Would you like to write a guest posting on my blog?
D: No.
G: Go on! It will be fun!
D: [no response]
G: Just a little one.
D: [no response]
G: You don't have to write much.
D: [no response]
G: I will give you my body.
D: No.
G: I can give you my body, cook dinner, and shout at the children for you.
D: [no response]
G: [long pause while she thinks about this dilemma] OK, I will go away if you give me one tip I can post on the blog on your behalf. I need a tip about friends and relations. Like what if people expect to visit at Christmas. How can anyone do that cheaply?
D: Don't visit them.
[long pause]
G: Is that it?
D: Yes.
G: Can I say anything else?
D: You will save a lot of money in petrol if you don't go anywhere.
[long pause while we sit and look at each other in a Beckett Happy Days sort of way.]
G: Well, I think that about wraps it up on my guest post! Thank you, Dig!
[Grit goes to exit, but she is trapped by a mound of old paperwork and office furniture.]
G: Hello, Dig! Would you like to write a guest posting on my blog?
D: No.
G: Go on! It will be fun!
D: [no response]
G: Just a little one.
D: [no response]
G: You don't have to write much.
D: [no response]
G: I will give you my body.
D: No.
G: I can give you my body, cook dinner, and shout at the children for you.
D: [no response]
G: [long pause while she thinks about this dilemma] OK, I will go away if you give me one tip I can post on the blog on your behalf. I need a tip about friends and relations. Like what if people expect to visit at Christmas. How can anyone do that cheaply?
D: Don't visit them.
[long pause]
G: Is that it?
D: Yes.
G: Can I say anything else?
D: You will save a lot of money in petrol if you don't go anywhere.
[long pause while we sit and look at each other in a Beckett Happy Days sort of way.]
G: Well, I think that about wraps it up on my guest post! Thank you, Dig!
[Grit goes to exit, but she is trapped by a mound of old paperwork and office furniture.]
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Grit's guide to Christmas for mean parents (7): Clothing
We arrive at Grit's top tip 7! Clothing.
As I launch into my mean arts I should confess shortcomings. I am not talking naughty nighties. Nor home-made sex toys. For those, go elsewhere. Also, I mostly assume ladies here. I am ignorant of men's departments like which leg you get dressed on. But if it pleases you young man, then attend. Eddie Izzard has brought us all much good.
Anyway, ahem. Let's raise our glasses to Christmas couture on the cheap.
Charity shops are a very good idea, don't you think?
I want to thank every single one of you if you give your pre-loved clothing to charity shops. You make my day, and stop me and mine from going naked.
Most of those shops, I love. The cheaper the better. The Salvation Army on Bedford High Street I particularly recommend. On their upper sales floor, every item of clothing is priced at £1! This is excellent hunting ground. Oxfam, and the charity shops of Hitchin and St Albans, on the other hand, are priced well out of the purse of a poor gentlewoman like myself. Like, £15 for an Equation jacket! £15 Planet Earth pounds? You Hitchin people, have you money to burn? I bet you are the sort of people who pay to have your toilet flush pine.
But whatever your budget, there are clear advantages to clothing yourself and your offspring from charity shops. Particularly at party time when no-one notices what you wear, or functions where everyone wears black, or where you will end up off your face on Bolly and with someone else's sick dribbling down your back on New Year's Eve.
The first advantage to the charity shop shopper is obvious. You are doing good. And that makes you feel good about yourself, doesn't it? Now get down the charity shop, select another item of black, and feel good! Not too much black, mind. You will look like you are in a burqa, or a shroud, or you are trying to dress like a teenage goth. Add a glittery brooch or something, for goodness sake. It'll still cost less than a fiver, so you can now also feel good about your bank balance. If you go to the high street you will spend £150, see everyone else dressed in identical kit, exploit a 7-year old in a Special Economic Zone, and feel bad about your bank balance.
Another fantastic advantage to charity shops are the old women. They will iron a clean skirt and top for you and stick them on the pound rail. Selecting those items has to be more fun and cost-effective than thrashing around with an ironing board at 7am doing the job yourself. Either ironing, or lamenting how you are going to remove Nigella's chocolate puke off your bodice. And with those old ladies, you feel like you have your mother back, but without the endless complaining about your bedroom floor.
What's more, the old ladies don't mind how you earn your money when you shop. I could lie, and say I am a high class prostitute on account of my fantastic legs and 38-26-36 body. Sadly, I am 38-38-38, and earn my money doing an infrequent job that a reasonably literate monkey could perform for a minimum wage and a cup of tea. I wish it were otherwise, and I wish it were professional and had status. Truly, typesetting has no glamour. I wipe the spit of authors from my face as I sit here. Try offering my meagre wage in Harvey Nicks and see what treatment I might receive from the shop assistants there!
Anyway, the old ladies working the cash till at the RSPCA don't mind what I do. They are grateful for my pound coin on the per una jumper. Their happy response means I do not have to expose my worn face and rectangle figure to be cruelly mocked by twelve year olds in posh frock shops. Those old ladies make my shopping experience less hazardous, less scary, and less depressing. Gawd bless 'em.
I could go on, but I'm not writing a book here in praise of charity shops, jumble sales, and making your own outfit with a range of resources that include a glue gun and a pair of scissors. I'm sure by now you have lots of budget ideas. I must hope you are converted, like me, to the joy of living cheaply at one of the most expensive times of year.
If not, and you see me as I head towards you in a crowd, please wave. I will be the one who looks slightly worn, patched, and dated, because most of my wardrobe now is sourced from charity shops. I am unlikely to change. My bank balance - and my conscience - make me think that the faded look is a worthwhile and righteous appearance. Not often fashionable, but I am edging 50. At that age, I expect to grow the style that whispers mad old bag wearing purple, and wear it with the panache that I could never get muster in the 1970s with legwarmers.
(Although if I find some in a charity shop near me, I could still try.)
As I launch into my mean arts I should confess shortcomings. I am not talking naughty nighties. Nor home-made sex toys. For those, go elsewhere. Also, I mostly assume ladies here. I am ignorant of men's departments like which leg you get dressed on. But if it pleases you young man, then attend. Eddie Izzard has brought us all much good.
Anyway, ahem. Let's raise our glasses to Christmas couture on the cheap.
Charity shops are a very good idea, don't you think?
I want to thank every single one of you if you give your pre-loved clothing to charity shops. You make my day, and stop me and mine from going naked.
Most of those shops, I love. The cheaper the better. The Salvation Army on Bedford High Street I particularly recommend. On their upper sales floor, every item of clothing is priced at £1! This is excellent hunting ground. Oxfam, and the charity shops of Hitchin and St Albans, on the other hand, are priced well out of the purse of a poor gentlewoman like myself. Like, £15 for an Equation jacket! £15 Planet Earth pounds? You Hitchin people, have you money to burn? I bet you are the sort of people who pay to have your toilet flush pine.
But whatever your budget, there are clear advantages to clothing yourself and your offspring from charity shops. Particularly at party time when no-one notices what you wear, or functions where everyone wears black, or where you will end up off your face on Bolly and with someone else's sick dribbling down your back on New Year's Eve.
The first advantage to the charity shop shopper is obvious. You are doing good. And that makes you feel good about yourself, doesn't it? Now get down the charity shop, select another item of black, and feel good! Not too much black, mind. You will look like you are in a burqa, or a shroud, or you are trying to dress like a teenage goth. Add a glittery brooch or something, for goodness sake. It'll still cost less than a fiver, so you can now also feel good about your bank balance. If you go to the high street you will spend £150, see everyone else dressed in identical kit, exploit a 7-year old in a Special Economic Zone, and feel bad about your bank balance.
Another fantastic advantage to charity shops are the old women. They will iron a clean skirt and top for you and stick them on the pound rail. Selecting those items has to be more fun and cost-effective than thrashing around with an ironing board at 7am doing the job yourself. Either ironing, or lamenting how you are going to remove Nigella's chocolate puke off your bodice. And with those old ladies, you feel like you have your mother back, but without the endless complaining about your bedroom floor.
What's more, the old ladies don't mind how you earn your money when you shop. I could lie, and say I am a high class prostitute on account of my fantastic legs and 38-26-36 body. Sadly, I am 38-38-38, and earn my money doing an infrequent job that a reasonably literate monkey could perform for a minimum wage and a cup of tea. I wish it were otherwise, and I wish it were professional and had status. Truly, typesetting has no glamour. I wipe the spit of authors from my face as I sit here. Try offering my meagre wage in Harvey Nicks and see what treatment I might receive from the shop assistants there!
Anyway, the old ladies working the cash till at the RSPCA don't mind what I do. They are grateful for my pound coin on the per una jumper. Their happy response means I do not have to expose my worn face and rectangle figure to be cruelly mocked by twelve year olds in posh frock shops. Those old ladies make my shopping experience less hazardous, less scary, and less depressing. Gawd bless 'em.
I could go on, but I'm not writing a book here in praise of charity shops, jumble sales, and making your own outfit with a range of resources that include a glue gun and a pair of scissors. I'm sure by now you have lots of budget ideas. I must hope you are converted, like me, to the joy of living cheaply at one of the most expensive times of year.
If not, and you see me as I head towards you in a crowd, please wave. I will be the one who looks slightly worn, patched, and dated, because most of my wardrobe now is sourced from charity shops. I am unlikely to change. My bank balance - and my conscience - make me think that the faded look is a worthwhile and righteous appearance. Not often fashionable, but I am edging 50. At that age, I expect to grow the style that whispers mad old bag wearing purple, and wear it with the panache that I could never get muster in the 1970s with legwarmers.
(Although if I find some in a charity shop near me, I could still try.)
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Grit's guide to Christmas for mean parents (6): Drink
How times change!
I'm sure that once upon a time I could manage 15 bottles of Blue Nun a night.
Dig could match me drink for drink, but he had aristocratic wine tastes and a whole lot more class than I could create with my knickers round my ankles rolling into the gutter. But still, me and Dig, although we lived in different worlds, we were a perfect liquid mix. Like if you take oil and water and shake them up together.
Which is why I proposed. I knew I had met my drinking partner equal. At least I think it was him. With my Blue Nun glasses he was six foot tall, blond and had a chest that rippled through his man-sized, extra-large fine linen shirt. I would never say that when I woke up in the morning the reality was a little different because, by then, love was blind.
Anyway, we oil-and-water mix, now not quite separated, are both old and wise and sober. We get to see each other's beauties and faults without any aid at all.
But it is a sad reality that we are no longer living in party 1989 with a hangover. We live in solemn 2009 with a mortgage, a credit crunch, and the need to economise on all unnecessary expenditure due to the overwhelming requirements of a punishing taxation system.
Worse, I have children. That means I drag alongside me a torn up bank account, an additional conscience, and a planet-sized guilt. I know for sure that the moment I sip one atom of wine, one of the children will fall downstairs and need taking to hospital at 70mph. I cannot do that if I am smashed out my skull. Better not to touch the stuff at all.
But soon it is Christmas, and enjoying a Grit and Dig Christmas drink is almost obligatory. But I am broke. And trashed. So I will not even bother doing a google search on what cocktail I can mix with the contents from the back of the cupboard, like gin, amaretto, custard power and buckwheat. I'll just put it in a bucket, give it a stir, drink it, and call it celebration on the cheap.
This pot luck approach I can recommend to all anxious, impoverished parents seeking alcoholic consolation on Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas yet to come.
Dig, meanwhile, will probably have reserved a fine investment wine, hand-picked from a select slope of a vineyard. Doubtless he will partake of that when I am lying safely unconscious under the table with my gin and buckwheat overdose.
I'm sure that once upon a time I could manage 15 bottles of Blue Nun a night.
Dig could match me drink for drink, but he had aristocratic wine tastes and a whole lot more class than I could create with my knickers round my ankles rolling into the gutter. But still, me and Dig, although we lived in different worlds, we were a perfect liquid mix. Like if you take oil and water and shake them up together.
Which is why I proposed. I knew I had met my drinking partner equal. At least I think it was him. With my Blue Nun glasses he was six foot tall, blond and had a chest that rippled through his man-sized, extra-large fine linen shirt. I would never say that when I woke up in the morning the reality was a little different because, by then, love was blind.
Anyway, we oil-and-water mix, now not quite separated, are both old and wise and sober. We get to see each other's beauties and faults without any aid at all.
But it is a sad reality that we are no longer living in party 1989 with a hangover. We live in solemn 2009 with a mortgage, a credit crunch, and the need to economise on all unnecessary expenditure due to the overwhelming requirements of a punishing taxation system.
Worse, I have children. That means I drag alongside me a torn up bank account, an additional conscience, and a planet-sized guilt. I know for sure that the moment I sip one atom of wine, one of the children will fall downstairs and need taking to hospital at 70mph. I cannot do that if I am smashed out my skull. Better not to touch the stuff at all.
But soon it is Christmas, and enjoying a Grit and Dig Christmas drink is almost obligatory. But I am broke. And trashed. So I will not even bother doing a google search on what cocktail I can mix with the contents from the back of the cupboard, like gin, amaretto, custard power and buckwheat. I'll just put it in a bucket, give it a stir, drink it, and call it celebration on the cheap.
This pot luck approach I can recommend to all anxious, impoverished parents seeking alcoholic consolation on Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas yet to come.
Dig, meanwhile, will probably have reserved a fine investment wine, hand-picked from a select slope of a vineyard. Doubtless he will partake of that when I am lying safely unconscious under the table with my gin and buckwheat overdose.
Friday, 11 December 2009
Grit's guide to Christmas for mean parents (5): Food
Don't want to spend money on Christmas dinner? Easy.
Eat cats. They are tasty, braised or lightly fried in oil.
You can pick them up for free behind the dustbins of your neighbour's house. No need to queue, no loyalty card nonsense, no searching for parking space, no frantic or embarrassing handling of purse in queue made of falling over pensioners buying ingredients for Christmas gruel.
Better still, cats will be in dustbins all night, unlike Tesco, which closes at 4pm Christmas Eve. You can stay at home and drink beer until midnight then go out on the prowl and bag up cats. If you are fortunate, and bag more cats than you need, you can give them charitably to friends. Do not give them to the neighbours, obviously. Especially the forlorn family weeping in the street Christmas Day howling Tiddles! Tiddles!
Dogs, not recommended. Chewy.
Hamsters, guinea pigs, all rodents, pointless. There is insufficient meat on them to feed a growing family.
Grandfather, possibly. Although you must prepare for this moment all year by fattening him up. Then, when you confess, that will be murder and cannibalism. These are bad, bad things, and you will not look good in court.
Voila! What a lot of money, time and effort saved! Thank you, Grit!
Note: This blog does not recommend the snatching, removal, killing, dismembering, cooking, eating, or disposal of carcass of cats. And the same goes for sheep, pigs, cows, birds (large and small), horse, or any other animal bred for consumption. And humans. But to simply say 'stop eating animals and become a vegetarian because it is healthier for you, better for the planet and CHEAPER' would just be too CONTROVERSIAL. As well as no fun at all. And it might reveal to you what a sanctimonious pompous moralising smug home educating bastard I really am.
More Note: I know it doesn't look like it, but I have spent hours on this post. The first attempt to convert you was a homage to the chick pea.
Eat cats. They are tasty, braised or lightly fried in oil.
You can pick them up for free behind the dustbins of your neighbour's house. No need to queue, no loyalty card nonsense, no searching for parking space, no frantic or embarrassing handling of purse in queue made of falling over pensioners buying ingredients for Christmas gruel.
Better still, cats will be in dustbins all night, unlike Tesco, which closes at 4pm Christmas Eve. You can stay at home and drink beer until midnight then go out on the prowl and bag up cats. If you are fortunate, and bag more cats than you need, you can give them charitably to friends. Do not give them to the neighbours, obviously. Especially the forlorn family weeping in the street Christmas Day howling Tiddles! Tiddles!
Dogs, not recommended. Chewy.
Hamsters, guinea pigs, all rodents, pointless. There is insufficient meat on them to feed a growing family.
Grandfather, possibly. Although you must prepare for this moment all year by fattening him up. Then, when you confess, that will be murder and cannibalism. These are bad, bad things, and you will not look good in court.
Voila! What a lot of money, time and effort saved! Thank you, Grit!
Note: This blog does not recommend the snatching, removal, killing, dismembering, cooking, eating, or disposal of carcass of cats. And the same goes for sheep, pigs, cows, birds (large and small), horse, or any other animal bred for consumption. And humans. But to simply say 'stop eating animals and become a vegetarian because it is healthier for you, better for the planet and CHEAPER' would just be too CONTROVERSIAL. As well as no fun at all. And it might reveal to you what a sanctimonious pompous moralising smug home educating bastard I really am.
More Note: I know it doesn't look like it, but I have spent hours on this post. The first attempt to convert you was a homage to the chick pea.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Grit's guide to Christmas for mean parents (4): Decorations
Don't have any.
The end.
OK, I understand you might feel a little short-changed now after that Christmas advice.
I mean, you would pay good money to come to grit's day! Source of eternal parenting sunshine and bright hope worldwide!
You would, wouldn't you? Assuming you say YES I WOULD, I know you expect better service.
Like the reason why grit is Mrs Touchyabouttheruddydecorationsinthefirstplace.
Well there is a reason I turn my back in total denial of anything decorative at this festive time.
We are a home educating family. The children already decorated my house. And as home educating families know, their idea of decoration isn't confined to the fridge.
I bet I am not alone in saying I have not seen my walls, floor, nor any surface, for nigh on ten years. Every bead, button, stick-on loveheart and scrap of paper ever slaughtered in the name of art has gone up on the walls all around me. I am surrounded by the sacrificial remains.
This is a lifestyle that uses every inch of a house as a teaching aid and learning resource. This is a path that allows kids self-expression, that validates every skill, pen stroke, and the near-ability to roll out of bed before 10am in the morning.
Of course we call the result decoration. Or Education. Achievement. Commemoration. Adornment. Beautification. Triumph of hope over despair. Walls that look like tombstones. A total bloody mess.
Then, thanks to the daily pursuit of the decorative arts within the home education setting, there's the decoration I already keep on every surface of the house.
The mail table. Don't send me any cards. We won't open them.
Tiger's desk. Aka landfill.
Computer table. Shark with her hand over the screen.
She doesn't want you to see what she's viewing.
Being a home educated child, it is how to use a bong.
Hall table. Last seen 2003.
And this is a view of one of the kitchen walls, which is especially reserved for showcasing decorative items.
To take this picture I already moved the floor decoration - three empty beer bottles and two mouse traps - and I stood on the kitchen table where I extracted from my left ear a wicker fish chained to the ceiling. (And if you doubt that, ask Ellie and Mr W. They are regular visitors and bring curry.)
At this point, do not say grit, in the right light that kitchen could look quite attractive in a post-modern chic eclectic type of way. NO WAY. This kitchen is littered floor to ceiling with kid art and craft since the first bum prints in 2001.
See that face far right on the wall? That was made by two-year olds Shark, Squirrel and Tiger bombing a piece of cardboard with paint and beads. But can I take it down? Can I fly up to the moon on the back of a fish?
The problem with decoration of the education variety is that it turns me into a schizophrenic. My brain takes up polar positions and one side starts arguing with the other until both halves are smacking the crap out of each other. As umpire I am forced to knock myself out with eight aspirins and a bottle of whiskey.
The conversation starts something like this:
Left brain: God! It's a total mess in here!
Right brain: I know! Strip that crap off the walls and let's see some space!
Left brain: No! No, no no! Don't you dare clear up! This mess is the price you have to pay. Because this is ART. And it belongs to the children. They gave ART to your walls with LOVE. And you have no right to remove that. Bitch.
Right brain: But look at that picture of a flower! It looks like catshit.
Left brain: OK, good point. That one does. You could throw that away. But Squirrel will notice that you think her art is CATSHITRASH. And that will be the lesson you teach Squirrel. That she is CATSHITRASH. You MONSTER.
Right brain: But can't we throw it all away and start over again on a clean wall?
Left brain: You tried that in 2002. Look where it got you! That was the night you thought it was a good idea to throw yourself under a bus. So why don't you try it again ARTKILLINGMONSTERMOTHER?
So the upshot to this chapter in the long-winded series of Christmas Death is
Decorations? Save yourself time, money and SANITY. Don't go there.
Especially if you home educate. Please please please, in all that is holy, can we call a decoration-free day once a year?
Can we all just go now and clear up and SEE WALLS AND WORKSURFACE ONCE IN A YEAR.
PS. Dig just reminded me of these. No wonder I had wiped them from my consciousness.
The end.
OK, I understand you might feel a little short-changed now after that Christmas advice.
I mean, you would pay good money to come to grit's day! Source of eternal parenting sunshine and bright hope worldwide!
You would, wouldn't you? Assuming you say YES I WOULD, I know you expect better service.
Like the reason why grit is Mrs Touchyabouttheruddydecorationsinthefirstplace.
Well there is a reason I turn my back in total denial of anything decorative at this festive time.
We are a home educating family. The children already decorated my house. And as home educating families know, their idea of decoration isn't confined to the fridge.
I bet I am not alone in saying I have not seen my walls, floor, nor any surface, for nigh on ten years. Every bead, button, stick-on loveheart and scrap of paper ever slaughtered in the name of art has gone up on the walls all around me. I am surrounded by the sacrificial remains.
This is a lifestyle that uses every inch of a house as a teaching aid and learning resource. This is a path that allows kids self-expression, that validates every skill, pen stroke, and the near-ability to roll out of bed before 10am in the morning.
Of course we call the result decoration. Or Education. Achievement. Commemoration. Adornment. Beautification. Triumph of hope over despair. Walls that look like tombstones. A total bloody mess.
Then, thanks to the daily pursuit of the decorative arts within the home education setting, there's the decoration I already keep on every surface of the house.
The mail table. Don't send me any cards. We won't open them.
Tiger's desk. Aka landfill.
Computer table. Shark with her hand over the screen.She doesn't want you to see what she's viewing.
Being a home educated child, it is how to use a bong.
Hall table. Last seen 2003.And this is a view of one of the kitchen walls, which is especially reserved for showcasing decorative items.
To take this picture I already moved the floor decoration - three empty beer bottles and two mouse traps - and I stood on the kitchen table where I extracted from my left ear a wicker fish chained to the ceiling. (And if you doubt that, ask Ellie and Mr W. They are regular visitors and bring curry.)
At this point, do not say grit, in the right light that kitchen could look quite attractive in a post-modern chic eclectic type of way. NO WAY. This kitchen is littered floor to ceiling with kid art and craft since the first bum prints in 2001.
See that face far right on the wall? That was made by two-year olds Shark, Squirrel and Tiger bombing a piece of cardboard with paint and beads. But can I take it down? Can I fly up to the moon on the back of a fish?
The problem with decoration of the education variety is that it turns me into a schizophrenic. My brain takes up polar positions and one side starts arguing with the other until both halves are smacking the crap out of each other. As umpire I am forced to knock myself out with eight aspirins and a bottle of whiskey.
The conversation starts something like this:
Left brain: God! It's a total mess in here!
Right brain: I know! Strip that crap off the walls and let's see some space!
Left brain: No! No, no no! Don't you dare clear up! This mess is the price you have to pay. Because this is ART. And it belongs to the children. They gave ART to your walls with LOVE. And you have no right to remove that. Bitch.
Right brain: But look at that picture of a flower! It looks like catshit.
Left brain: OK, good point. That one does. You could throw that away. But Squirrel will notice that you think her art is CATSHITRASH. And that will be the lesson you teach Squirrel. That she is CATSHITRASH. You MONSTER.
Right brain: But can't we throw it all away and start over again on a clean wall?
Left brain: You tried that in 2002. Look where it got you! That was the night you thought it was a good idea to throw yourself under a bus. So why don't you try it again ARTKILLINGMONSTERMOTHER?
So the upshot to this chapter in the long-winded series of Christmas Death is
Decorations? Save yourself time, money and SANITY. Don't go there.
Especially if you home educate. Please please please, in all that is holy, can we call a decoration-free day once a year?
Can we all just go now and clear up and SEE WALLS AND WORKSURFACE ONCE IN A YEAR.
PS. Dig just reminded me of these. No wonder I had wiped them from my consciousness.
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Grit's guide to Christmas for mean parents (3): The tree
You're spending this weekend putting up the Christmas tree.
Admit it. You're grappling with a three-metre length of timber that maliciously stabs you in the face, draws the life blood from your arms, and wees resin all over the floorboards.
After three hours someone will have the good idea that the bloody thing will surely stay upright if you nail it directly to the floor through a plastic bucket filled with Polyfilla.
Believe me, I have been there. Like the moment someone* said the best way to put up a second-hand chandelier on a high Victorian ceiling is to balance it on a cake tin nailed to the end of a three metre length of wood. Then run up a ladder holding the wood, cake tin, and balanced chandelier, and latch it onto the hook in the ceiling before you crash two metres to the floor.
The nurse doing the bandaging said it was a crap idea as well.
So you can see why Grit has developed other ideas.
The first option, because you have children and you like to go ahhh at the idea of Tinkertop kneeling beneath the tree on Christmas Eve with her hands tightly clasped and her eyes shining - and not beating her sister round the head with the branches like the kids do in Grit's house - well the first step to minimise expenditure is buy a pre-loved (i.e. discarded) plastic tree from the RSPCA shop.
Bargain the old lady down to under a fiver. They may be a charity, but this is Christmas. Times are tough.
Anyway, you can hate the sight of it, because you won't have to look at it. Shove the revolting plastic tree at Tinkertop. She will be beside herself with joy. She will grow in stature and dignity knowing you trust her to decorate the family tree. Tell her she can put it in her bedroom (or somewhere else you never go unless you are forced) and say nothing while she decorates it with sweet wrappers and old socks. She will be in seventh heaven and you can call it education, just like we do.
Option 2, and this is preferred,* is to decorate a tree outside.
There will be a local tree somewhere just asking to have bits of ribbon and a bauble tied round it. Then everyone in your neighbourhood can share your joy for free.
When the local council come to take down your charming decorations due to unlicensed use of street tree, you could have a go at a local bush.
Failing that, a pot plant.
You will have one somewhere. It will have a label in it telling you what it was before it became a clump of dead twigs sticking out a plastic pot. The label lacks only the dates 2007-2009 under the name Fatsia to become a tombstone. Put some tinsel on the twigs. Add a bauble. If you don't have one of those, you can get Tinkertop to nick one from down the library.
And voila! You have a beautiful Christmas tree on the cheap.
I bet you wish you'd come round here before you tried to put up that tree this morning, don't you?
* Dig.
** Option 1 worked.
Admit it. You're grappling with a three-metre length of timber that maliciously stabs you in the face, draws the life blood from your arms, and wees resin all over the floorboards.
After three hours someone will have the good idea that the bloody thing will surely stay upright if you nail it directly to the floor through a plastic bucket filled with Polyfilla.
Believe me, I have been there. Like the moment someone* said the best way to put up a second-hand chandelier on a high Victorian ceiling is to balance it on a cake tin nailed to the end of a three metre length of wood. Then run up a ladder holding the wood, cake tin, and balanced chandelier, and latch it onto the hook in the ceiling before you crash two metres to the floor.
The nurse doing the bandaging said it was a crap idea as well.
So you can see why Grit has developed other ideas.
The first option, because you have children and you like to go ahhh at the idea of Tinkertop kneeling beneath the tree on Christmas Eve with her hands tightly clasped and her eyes shining - and not beating her sister round the head with the branches like the kids do in Grit's house - well the first step to minimise expenditure is buy a pre-loved (i.e. discarded) plastic tree from the RSPCA shop.
Bargain the old lady down to under a fiver. They may be a charity, but this is Christmas. Times are tough.
Anyway, you can hate the sight of it, because you won't have to look at it. Shove the revolting plastic tree at Tinkertop. She will be beside herself with joy. She will grow in stature and dignity knowing you trust her to decorate the family tree. Tell her she can put it in her bedroom (or somewhere else you never go unless you are forced) and say nothing while she decorates it with sweet wrappers and old socks. She will be in seventh heaven and you can call it education, just like we do.
Option 2, and this is preferred,* is to decorate a tree outside.
There will be a local tree somewhere just asking to have bits of ribbon and a bauble tied round it. Then everyone in your neighbourhood can share your joy for free.
When the local council come to take down your charming decorations due to unlicensed use of street tree, you could have a go at a local bush.
Failing that, a pot plant.
You will have one somewhere. It will have a label in it telling you what it was before it became a clump of dead twigs sticking out a plastic pot. The label lacks only the dates 2007-2009 under the name Fatsia to become a tombstone. Put some tinsel on the twigs. Add a bauble. If you don't have one of those, you can get Tinkertop to nick one from down the library.
And voila! You have a beautiful Christmas tree on the cheap.
I bet you wish you'd come round here before you tried to put up that tree this morning, don't you?
* Dig.
** Option 1 worked.
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Grit's guide to Christmas for mean parents (2): Presents
Stop right there.
Do not go out that door with a purse filled with tenners and a heart overflowing with despair.
Listen to Grit. I know your pain. You are already beaten and wearied with high street shopping; hoping against hope that you will find a genuine 22 carat gold necklace for granny with a budget of £7.99 from Ratners. You know in your heart of hearts that she will end up with a pair of slippers off the market and a bottle of Tesco sherry like last year.
Grit has years of experience, although grandma is dead. But take my wisdom now. Or while there is still time to backtrack and get down the shops on Christmas Eve.
To Shark, Squirrel and Tiger I will say you have taught me this wisdom I can now impart.
I notice the change in you all when I come back from scrapstore, when you pick yourselves up from the front room carpet where you have been beating the living daylights out of each other. I see the way you all run to the pile of trash I have brought in large sacks from the car. How you straight away rummage in those sacks of crap like the bin raiders you truly are.
After five minutes you will be screaming in joy because look at all the lovely perfect stuff that you made.*
And I know at this point it is my role to assure you this is indeed the most beautiful item I have ever seen, even though I suspect you are out of your minds on acid.
After I make that declaration of perfection you will suggest that you make some more of this fantastic item to give to all our friends and relations.
This generosity possibly explains why we no longer have any friends or relations, because over the Christmas years we have inundated them with crap made out of corks and toilet rolls when they were really hoping for a little something from Tiffany.
But once you have taken on this amazing job of personalised gift making, joyously regarding this as your special responsibility, there is no stopping you.
I may as well take advantage of it.
Because I reason, as I look down at my darling children, what I am really looking at is free labour.
Think about it. Give them the mechanics of the production line, like junk mail, scissors, flour, straws, tissue paper, ribbon, and they will not only work for free, they claim no employment rights whatsoever. And if you are in the fortunate position of choosing otherwise from school, you know what we can call this afternoon of toil!
Even better, if I plan the exploitation in advance I can already have stolen a book from the library on making salt dough figures or presentation boxes or cross stitch bookmarks, and then we will swing into full scale production.
Then the kids will not only compose that heap of trash into a selection of beautiful handmade items, they will even gift wrap the whole lot. They will be truly excited about this. They will be asking every second of every day whether it is time to give the present they made to grandma. It will have been made with their love and delight and their knowledge that making stuff is a revelation of their purpose and intent to the world, and through your child's eyes that gift for grandma is perfection itself.
Then you too can give that present to Grandma with pride, and a full purse. And because the children made it, and wrapped that gift themselves, lovingly, with old newspaper and last night's chip paper, believe me, YOU WILL GET AWAY WITH IT.
On Christmas day, after both grandpops have handed over presents to the tune of £3,000 to their grandchild, and then you return to them these treasured, hand-made gift items from your five year old, you know both grandpops will take those delicate items from their grandchildren in their frail papery hands, and they will truly have tears in their eyes.
They will know that this is not just a casual piece of present making. No. These hand crafted items are fragments of a child's soul. They will treasure them, forever.
* A polystyrene cat with a pearl collar and a little coat. Named pussy. Read that and weep.
Do not go out that door with a purse filled with tenners and a heart overflowing with despair.
Listen to Grit. I know your pain. You are already beaten and wearied with high street shopping; hoping against hope that you will find a genuine 22 carat gold necklace for granny with a budget of £7.99 from Ratners. You know in your heart of hearts that she will end up with a pair of slippers off the market and a bottle of Tesco sherry like last year.
Grit has years of experience, although grandma is dead. But take my wisdom now. Or while there is still time to backtrack and get down the shops on Christmas Eve.
To Shark, Squirrel and Tiger I will say you have taught me this wisdom I can now impart.
I notice the change in you all when I come back from scrapstore, when you pick yourselves up from the front room carpet where you have been beating the living daylights out of each other. I see the way you all run to the pile of trash I have brought in large sacks from the car. How you straight away rummage in those sacks of crap like the bin raiders you truly are.
After five minutes you will be screaming in joy because look at all the lovely perfect stuff that you made.*
And I know at this point it is my role to assure you this is indeed the most beautiful item I have ever seen, even though I suspect you are out of your minds on acid.
After I make that declaration of perfection you will suggest that you make some more of this fantastic item to give to all our friends and relations.
This generosity possibly explains why we no longer have any friends or relations, because over the Christmas years we have inundated them with crap made out of corks and toilet rolls when they were really hoping for a little something from Tiffany.
But once you have taken on this amazing job of personalised gift making, joyously regarding this as your special responsibility, there is no stopping you.
I may as well take advantage of it.
Because I reason, as I look down at my darling children, what I am really looking at is free labour.
Think about it. Give them the mechanics of the production line, like junk mail, scissors, flour, straws, tissue paper, ribbon, and they will not only work for free, they claim no employment rights whatsoever. And if you are in the fortunate position of choosing otherwise from school, you know what we can call this afternoon of toil!
Even better, if I plan the exploitation in advance I can already have stolen a book from the library on making salt dough figures or presentation boxes or cross stitch bookmarks, and then we will swing into full scale production.
Then the kids will not only compose that heap of trash into a selection of beautiful handmade items, they will even gift wrap the whole lot. They will be truly excited about this. They will be asking every second of every day whether it is time to give the present they made to grandma. It will have been made with their love and delight and their knowledge that making stuff is a revelation of their purpose and intent to the world, and through your child's eyes that gift for grandma is perfection itself.
Then you too can give that present to Grandma with pride, and a full purse. And because the children made it, and wrapped that gift themselves, lovingly, with old newspaper and last night's chip paper, believe me, YOU WILL GET AWAY WITH IT.
On Christmas day, after both grandpops have handed over presents to the tune of £3,000 to their grandchild, and then you return to them these treasured, hand-made gift items from your five year old, you know both grandpops will take those delicate items from their grandchildren in their frail papery hands, and they will truly have tears in their eyes.
They will know that this is not just a casual piece of present making. No. These hand crafted items are fragments of a child's soul. They will treasure them, forever.
* A polystyrene cat with a pearl collar and a little coat. Named pussy. Read that and weep.
Monday, 7 December 2009
Grit's guide to Christmas for mean parents (1): Toys
My darling Shark, Tiger and Squirrel. In these pressing days before Christmas, I cannot help but notice that you ignore every expensive toy I ever bought you.
You play with these creatures of a horror show that you made yourselves.
Sometimes I fancy I wake in the night, clawing at my own face at the sight of these creatures, and then I realise it is not a dream, it is REAL.
But Squirrel, I have to say Arseface looks a lot better now you have sewn skin over that hole in her face, previously held together with twisted wire and candle wax.
Here's an Arseface sister dressed in her best, ready to go out and grub over graveyards looking for marrow bones.
Here is the third, waiting to be sacrificed to Satan.
But Stupid Grit! I have this all wrong! Of course! This is not Dolly Horror Wreck. This is Dolly Fashion Show.
And the fact that these three dollies resemble the three witches of Macbeth is entirely coincidental; due to the fact that you were inept when you sewed them together.
But you love them. And I respect and admire that love, and I am touched and gladdened by it. Which is why I mock it. It is complex.
Yet all of this tells me something very important.
To date, I could have saved £4,750.98.
All this I could have spent on gin, fags and easy men if I had not wasted that cash buying ridiculously overpriced plastic toy junk for the last nine years - stuff you immediately discarded behind the sofa while you went off to pursue your favourite game of making clothes for the dollies.
And this is the wisdom I have gained, and which I need to impart to all, especially to parents of the under-5s, before it is too late.
Forget the toys.
Acquire a large cardboard box, big enough to take at least one kid. Then stuff that box with trash. Cereal boxes, egg cartons, chewing gum wrappers, torn up old clothes, junk mail. On Christmas morning your kid will love this, and make Arseface dolls of their own, which they will cherish, and use all the junk to make for their little Arseface, clothes, houses, cars and pretend pizzas.
But if you still feel the need to shower your offspring with toys, find your local supplier.
You can discreetly return those gifts come January.
You play with these creatures of a horror show that you made yourselves.
Sometimes I fancy I wake in the night, clawing at my own face at the sight of these creatures, and then I realise it is not a dream, it is REAL.
But Squirrel, I have to say Arseface looks a lot better now you have sewn skin over that hole in her face, previously held together with twisted wire and candle wax.
Here's an Arseface sister dressed in her best, ready to go out and grub over graveyards looking for marrow bones.
Here is the third, waiting to be sacrificed to Satan.
But Stupid Grit! I have this all wrong! Of course! This is not Dolly Horror Wreck. This is Dolly Fashion Show.
And the fact that these three dollies resemble the three witches of Macbeth is entirely coincidental; due to the fact that you were inept when you sewed them together.
But you love them. And I respect and admire that love, and I am touched and gladdened by it. Which is why I mock it. It is complex.
Yet all of this tells me something very important.
To date, I could have saved £4,750.98.
All this I could have spent on gin, fags and easy men if I had not wasted that cash buying ridiculously overpriced plastic toy junk for the last nine years - stuff you immediately discarded behind the sofa while you went off to pursue your favourite game of making clothes for the dollies.
And this is the wisdom I have gained, and which I need to impart to all, especially to parents of the under-5s, before it is too late.
Forget the toys.
Acquire a large cardboard box, big enough to take at least one kid. Then stuff that box with trash. Cereal boxes, egg cartons, chewing gum wrappers, torn up old clothes, junk mail. On Christmas morning your kid will love this, and make Arseface dolls of their own, which they will cherish, and use all the junk to make for their little Arseface, clothes, houses, cars and pretend pizzas.
But if you still feel the need to shower your offspring with toys, find your local supplier.
You can discreetly return those gifts come January.
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