I pretend that routine is good for the children. "They like to know where they are" I say. "It helps them feel grounded". "With a routine they know what to expect and they can evolve planning skills within a predictable pattern of events."

The truth is, it is me who feels safe, grounded and who benefits most from the safety net of a little light planning. My brain can spot the potential for a routine through the chaos of family life and I'll latch on to it with puppy-like joy.

Now it's Monday so that's ironing tonight then. Can't wait for Friday and extreme shoe polishing!

Being the mother of boys is an occupation which is confusing, bemusing and sometimes amusing.

My first child was a girl, and my affinity with her was immediate and natural. As she has grown up my relationship with her has got better and easier (touch wood, it could still tumble down as we hit the middle years of puberty). I found the age of 8 – 11 the most challenging, when she was more a child than a girl. Now she’s growing into a young woman, and we have more in common, I find it easy to relate to her preoccupations (her friends, her music, her clothes, her independence). Sharing my home and my life with a teenage girl has seemingly made it easy to remember my own trials as a teenager, and she benefits. Dancing Daughter is joyful to know and love.

My second and third children are boys. When the eldest was born in 1995 he weighed 10½ lbs and was 15 days late, already he was presenting challenges his sister never had. I can still connect instantly with the overpowering, visceral sense of wonder and disbelief I felt, entirely unanticipated, at having produced this mysterious, unfamiliar being. During our first night together, I took him from his plastic hospital cot into my bed, because unless I was holding him he existence seemed unreal. Together we journeyed though that night coming to terms with both my instant, consuming love and my fear of the unknown. I couldn’t sleep, I could barely breath for wonder.

I grew up with only sisters, so I had no history of loving boys. Loving my sons is like being swept along on a wave of energy – made up of physicality, noise, turbulence, emotion, instinct, laughter, frustration and bruised egos and shins. Never is this more apparent than in the school holidays. My experience is that boys must be kept permanently moving forwards, or they stray backwards or sideways,an always this will be in an unhelpful direction.

I must always be planning two hours or two activities ahead: "After a walk to the park we’ll have lunch (no stimulant containing drinks), then thirty minutes TV (nothing likely to boost adrenalin levels), then an hour in the garden. Help - this only takes up to 4pm, at least two hours before tea! Think. Quickly! You must have a plan. Yes, we’ll take the recycling to the skip, then they can go on the computer for 40 mins before tea (no games or they won’t sit still at tea), then a board game and then bath and bed for the little one and TV with us for his big brother (note to self, will have to delay watching last episode of ‘Ashes to Ashes’ as son will wriggle and ask questions throughout and I will end up impatient)." In the meantime Dancing Daughter has been entirely self sufficient. A serious MSM session, catching up on Casualty, a little light homework and some hoovering for mum.

It is disgraceully easy to neglect her because she demands so much less. I think this pattern is repeated in many homes. It has probably been like this since family life evolved to mean that children stay at home and in education until their late teens. I would write more, to help tease out my thoughts further, but the boys have been stationary for far too long, a brisk dog walk is ovedue.

It’s 34 years since I was 14, the same age as Dancing Daughter. From her perspective that must mean I can’t possibly remember what it was like. What I remember is being much less poised, organised and effective than she is.

I was recently asked to try to define a successful parent. I struggled at the time, but this morning I think I’ve pinned one definition down (although others will be equally valid). A parent can count him or herself successful, when the child they love, appears to be have the potential to be more successful than they are. On that basis I get an A* for parenting (today – in a house with three children, tomorrow is always another day).

Yesterday I was contacted by Princess Productions, a reputable TV production company who are making a programme for Channel 4 about the fears and anxieties of modern parents.

(The company's current programmes include 'The Wright Stuff', 'The Four Pieces of Me' (about Sarfraz Manzoor, writer and columnist for The Guardian giving an honest insight into his life as a British Asian) and’ Doctor, Doctor' (Channel Five's live daily show tackles a series of topical medical issues).)

Everyday, we are bombarded by sensational stories that prey on our fears as parents. From heart-rending Maddy to e-numbers - and including badly fitting shoes, knife crime and too much TV – it seems as though every aspect of life threatens our children, and we are the only thing standing between them and disaster.

Does anyone else feel that our opportunity to enjoy a happy family life is much threatened as much by well meaning advice, as it by real danger? Does anyone else feel hemmed in by experts who are single-issue focused? Commentators who are passionate about their particular topic, but who abjectly fail to understand where it fits within the wider context of the challenges parents face. Sometimes I feel I am facing, head on, a stampede of folk who wish me well: they are so determined to help me, that their rush to reach me threatens to trample me underfoot. They can’t see past the placards they wield, in turn imploring me to “Use a car seat”, “Give Omega-3”, “Save for university fees” and “Be open about sex”, and all them vocal and graphic about the consequences of ignoring their advice.

No wonder many parents feel like rabbits fixated by the oncoming headlights of a car – a looming, slathering vehicle, stuffed to the gills with threats to our children’s health and happiness. Enough now! Give us some balance, some time to draw breath and a chance to enjoy life with our children.

Princess Productions is keen to talk to parents who feel particularly anxious about the safety, well-being or development of their child.

This is for research purposes only and is in strictest confidence. I am often asked to feature similar messages from TV companies, but rarely agree. This time I am happy to help as I think this is a chance for us to put our case - to plead for some sanity and restraint by those that paint modern life in such a bleak way, when in reality our children are among the most fortunate every to have lived.

If you have a view and the time to share it with Princess Productions please call Tara on 0207 985 1944 or email her at parents@princesstv.com.

Or post your views on the
Parenting Café discussion boards I would love to know what other parents think.

Many thanks.

My father held great store in family meals – he loved celebrating, he loved eating and he loved conversation. We had frequent family meals. At one, when I was aged about 11, I knocked over a wine glass and broke it. In his anger at me he broke three glasses himself. Inevitably the loss of all four glasses was blamed on me. The memory of this always make my stomach clench and grips me with a sense of unfairness. It crystallizes the shame and frustration I felt as being labelled the clumsy one in my family.

Even as an adult, in my own family, I am still the clumsy one. I spill, drop, knock over and break things more than anyone else, including my five-year-old. I can live with that, my work rate is high. My ham-fisted relationship with inanimate objects is an accident of my genes. I am not well co-ordinated and I am often in a hurry.

Even so, it does occasionally still hurt when someone I love flinches as I reach for a mug, or gives a knowing smile when I spill the contents of my glass. However, much worse for me is my daily struggle with everyday obstacles such as keys, bottles, shower doors, bin liners and zips. My special need becomes particularly intrusive when I am away from home, and have to deal with unfamiliar keys, bottles and shower doors. Of course, I manage to negotiate with most of them in the end, but I approach everyone with trepidation and it physically stresses me. I am usually away from home working, in unfamiliar environments, with people I don’t know, and who are very good at what they do. So feeling inept, stressed and vulnerable, because I couldn’t work out how to change the temperature on my shower at the start of the working day, is not helpful.

So I must, I really must must must, make sure we are not labelling any of our children with anything except happy attributes. I know families who have "the emotional one", "the noisy one", "the difficult one" and the one who is the "accident-waiting-to-happen". I fear we may be a little at fault here and resolve to be more careful from now on.

You may have picked up on today’s media coverage regarding a report on the apparent shortcomings of the current teaching of literacy in English and Welsh schools. School literacy scheme attacked (Of course typing this is immediately stressful since it is about literacy.)

I’ve been asked by a couple of media organisations to comment on the story on behalf of parents (or at least the parents who agree with me)!

I’m soundly irritated by the story, since the two sides could be assumed to know about education, being on one side education experts, and on the other side the Government’s education minister. Yet they don’t agree on the facts of the findings – so Joe Blog parent is none the wiser then.

On Breakfast on BBC 1 this morning I was asked to talk about the merits of parents reading at home with their children. Well the benefits are pretty self evident. It is indisputable that reading well helps children’s self-confidence, ease-of-learning, independence, self-esteem and understanding of the world. My additional point was that helping children to read brings benefits to parents as well – beyond the shimmering glow of knowing your children are doing well.

When our children our toddlers we expend considerable energy and enthusiasm teaching them to walk and talk. We then spend the next 15 years pleading with them to sit down and shut up. But the time spent teaching them to read, is an investment in future peace and quiet – and that has to be a good enough reason to find 10 minutes a day to read with a 2-year-old.

For help with reading with your children, try:

www.topmarks.co.uk

www.literacytrust.org.uk

Written in my diary for this weekend it says: “Start writing your Christmas cards. Go on. You know how good it will make you feel.”

Oh yeuch! How to sound smug and sad in three short sentences.
I don’t recall writing this note, and don’t know when I did, but reading it made me squirm. Can’t I come up with anything else urgent to do that will make me feel good? If I go on this way I’ll soon be knitting matching woollies for me and my Alpha Male. Or maybe I’ll find fulfilment in etching squiffy pictures on half-pint glass mugs?

On Saturday a friend, known by my malicious side as Picky Friend, growled at me: “I bet you even make your own bloody Christmas Pudding.” And I’m afraid I do, but only because I loath candid peel to the point of retching, and you can’t seem to buy a Christmas Pudding that isn’t loaded with the detestable stuff.

I do rather over engineer my preparations for Christmas. I tend to get into full festive panic mode about now. So I decided it was time to indulge in a concerted bit of navel gazing about the Gardner pre-Christmas strategy. Why do I start so early and get so blinkered and obsessed? Well. simply because two of my children have birthdays just before Christmas and because planning too far ahead is just not my what my Alpha Male does best. It is time for an adjustment though. My present strategy - a sort of Awe and Wonder, thundering juggernaut, take no prisoners, leave no stone unturned and no bounty for the enemy type of strategy, was developed 10 years ago when I had younger children and something to prove.

It was also devised before I had Mindjet Mindmanger software. A bit of software that says it’s an easy to use, powerful planning tool adaptable for almost any project. And guess what, to my profound astonishment it turned out to be – a bit of software that is an easy to use, powerful planning tool adaptable for almost any project. And I am going to use it to plan for Christmas in a quieter manner – less of the extreme planning, more a gently focus on what’s really important.

Although, I may still start writing my Christmas cards this weekend. As it will make me feel good. Sadly.

In another life I might have been named Pollyanna. I am an optimist and to my great relief I was born with a tendency to be happy. This is just as well because life with three children is busy and challenging. Together my Alpha Mail and I have to coach, cajole, organise, manoeuvre, lead, push, pull, bribe, beg and dupe the children into spending their time the way we want.

Quite often we are leading our children into a dark and worrying place, because the truth is, half the time, we have no certainty what we want for them is going to be best for them.

However, I know that although this is probably the hardest I will ever work in my life, it is also the happiest of times - if you are reading this, it is probably because you are a parent, and so I don’t need to spell out the joys children bring.

I’ve had three attempts of trying to end this with a funny thought, but the reality of working motherhood is that I am almost too tired to breath tonight. I am typing this sitting in a cold car waiting for my daughter to finish her riding lesson. I had to be funny in five minutes and I’ve failed so I am going to watch the last few minutes of her lesson instead – at least the fear of watching her jump a very large horse over big jumps will wake me up!

My family is currently enjoying a gentle joke a my expense. It revolves around a comment from my Alpha Male that I suffer from Laundry Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

It is true that I put considerable time and energy into keeping my family’s clothes clean. It is true that I am somewhat possessive of my washing and the only other person I trust to operate the washing machine is World’s Best Nanny (and only because I have been training her for the last four years). It is true that doing the washing is the only component of housework that I seem to enjoy.

The question is why does doing the laundry make me happy (or at least not make me feel as jaded as other domestic responsibilities)?

And the answer is I don’t know. Is this a common phenomenon amongst other women, or is it a strange facet of my character? What do you think

Click here to post your comment

Yesterday I discovered my Alpha Male engaged in a clandestine activity.

Alpha Male has a passion that I sometimes struggle to accommodate, and cannot share with anything like his passion.

It's something he has done since before I met him and has never hid from me.

This time it involved two grapes, a drawing pin and a cocktail stick.

Alpha Male has a consuming interest in science and how things work.

This time he had read somewhere that grapes have anti-magnetic properties and he was testing his understanding of this information.

It made me laugh, it made me grateful his passion doesn't threaten my security, it made feel safe and secure and happy.

It’s my own fault. Yesterday I was bathing in the self-satisfied glow of a mother whose children are all back at school. I had dared to both buy a frivolous magazine and break out my extra large tea mug. The peace was particularly precious as we have been chest deep in visitors all holidays. Nice visitors, wlecome visitors, fun visitors - but none of them could be described as small, quiet or inconspicuous.

Within hours of my illicit session of abandoned indulgence with the glossy pages of a fashion mag and two tea bags (I’m easily pleased) the challenges of family life rudely and firmly reasserted themselves. We had a new set of visitors. This time they are small and quiet, but the effect they have on bath time is defiantly conspicuous (and I didn’t mistype definitely).

We have head lice. Well to be strictly accurate Grumpy Son has head lice, but this rather implies that his siblings have them too. And me. The only living beings in this house who don’t get them is my Alpha Male and the dogs. Alpha Male has hair so thick and curly the lice never make it to his scalp to feed, they expire of exhaustion and starvation long before there is any chance of them laying an egg. The lice don’t enjoy his hair, but then neither do his bald friends.

However, I do get them, and once suffered the indignity of having a hairdresser refuse to dry my hair after he had spotted a crawling visitor. As humiliations go, it was up there with my ‘A’ level results. Indeed , having lice has probably damaged me more than an E in Physics. Now we usually don’t get lice this early in the term so I undertook a bit of research to see if there is an epidemic (perhaps they flourish in miserable summers like wasps) And with a few key strokes I discover a new survey. “Desperate parents smother children with paraffin, turps, vodka and flea spray to try and cure head lice.”

Good grief, why not just smother the children and remove the font of the problem?

There are only two courses of action to get rid of lice. Combing out or chemical treatment – with specialist chemicals designed to kill lice without shortening the life of the unfortunate child. Save the vodka for after you’ve treated the kids and yourself!

Apparently 40% of dads think washing the hair in normal shampoo gets rid of lice. But then 40% of dads think a fried egg sandwich is a wholesome breakfast.

If 16% of mums are really claiming, "one of their biggest worries about a child starting school, is about head lice" then it strikes me it ought to be possible to motivate more parents to monitor and treat their kids promptly. Personally, I think parents who let head lice go untreated should be forced to wear a sandwich board advertising their omission. Or, at the very least, they can come and restore my bathroom to good order after I have treated the heads of three reluctant and rebellious children tonight.

I’m off for a good scratch!

I woke up this morning bemoaning the imminent end of the school summer holidays. This is a very positive development in Gardner family life. In previous summers I have been very relieved to see the end of the holidays looming.

Is it that our family is happier? Possibly, and I would like to end this blog entry there. But, to be honest, it may have a little to do with the kids getting older. I was never very good at the toddler stage. Now our children are 13, 11 and the youngest has hit 5, life is undoubtly easier - especially for a mum who prefers playing cards to playing make-believe-dogs!

On the Parenting Café News Pages I have linked to an article in The Times (30 July) by Sarah Ebner Nanny Nightmares: 7 things you don’t want your nanny to do . The on-line article is followed by a heated selection of posts by readers. Why does this debate get so heated - I suppose there is nothing worse than combining guilt, envy and love for our children?

I found Sarah Ebner’s article distasteful. As editor of www.supernanny.co.uk I think she owes nannies more respect. Having employed four nannies in 13 years I value them highly and know our family are is a happier one for the commitment and hard work they have given us. Ms Ebner’s version of life with a nanny is similar to putting a few hundred words together suggesting all car mechanics are incompetent and crooks. This can't be so, because the majority of us manage to get our cars repaired and serviced successfully. The majority of working parents who employ nannies, do so successfully.

We could manage without me working. My children might be better off with a full-time mother, but not this full-time mother, who because of a combination of her genes and education finds working enjoyable and cooking fish fingers tedious. I work because it makes me happier. I think on the whole this makes the family happier. Since I run this web site I also think my working helps others. Ms Ebner’s article helped no one, not even her, and certainly not the many hardworking nannies - or apprehensive parents who might be considering employing one.

Today is my 16th wedding anniversary. My Alpha Male isn’t the most romantic of men. Very occasionally he surprises me, but on the whole is pragmatic and practical rather than amours and adoring.

He’s cooking me dinner tonight. Truthfully, I would rather go to our local and very lovely restaurant, but family funds have to be conserved at the moment. If I can’t have a posh dinner, then I can’t think of a better way to celebrate 16 successful years of marriage than by eating with him and then watching a DVD with our children.

My Sparkling Friend is always horrified that our bedroom is crammed with photos of our children. She reports that Feng Shui rules require that our bedroom should be exclusively reserved for us, with no images that might distract our emotional focus on each other.

I would say that our children are a result of our emotional focus on each other. Our happiness together is a result of our sustained emotional focus on each other. I love him and he loves me, and together we love our children. So the photos stay, and indeed are about to be added too as I have a new one of Grumpy Son which makes my heart sing every time I look at it.

Firstly apologies for two blog entries in a row about me being on TV, but it all helps spread the work that parenting can actually be fun!

Tomorrow (Thursday 14 June) at 6.50am I'm scheduled to be on Breakfast on BBC 1 talking about Couvarde Syndrome ~ which is when expectant fathers display phantom symptoms of pregnancy (I say display not suffer - because it's not really the father suffering during pregnancy now is it?).

In today's Evening Standard, Rebecca Smith, the paper's Health Editor, reports: "Men really do suffer pregnancy symptoms in sympathy with their partners, London researchers have discovered.

Fathers-to-be suffer cramps, mood swings, food cravings, morning sickness and even swollen stomachs that look like a 'baby bump', according to the largest study of its kind.

Specialists at St George's Hospital in Tooting monitored 282 expectant fathers during their partners' pregnancies.”

I have heard reports of this before. One Parenting Café correspondent reported suffering heartburn throughout his wife's first pregnancy. I guess stress and worry must play a big part. If anxiety about work can induce illness symptoms, then worry about an imminent baby, and all that means, must be able to have the same effect. Especially when fathers are so much more involved in pregnancy than our fathers were. What with home pregnancy tests, early scans, pregnant father's web sites and all those TV birthing programmes, it's no wonder anxiety levels are raised enough to hit the hormones.

However I have a theory that the swollen stomach has more to do with the dad-to-be eating up the food his pregnant partner can't face. And sympathetic labour pains? My guess, from observing my Alpha Male, from over the top of my gas and air mask, was that he was enduring a bad case of wind from bolting the pork pie he had packed in his "labour picnic"!

Gardner family life plunged into more than average chaos tonight, as a BBC reporter and cameraman turned up to film an interview with Dancing Daughter and I. Needless to say the dogs misbehaved spectacularly, Grumpy Son gave a masterclass in attention seeking and Irrepressible Son fell off his pogo-stick and tried to brain himself. My Alpha Mail was out earning a proper living and very sensible he is too!

The subject of the interview was children and alcohol, and this does merit a few line of seriousness.

Tomorrow, Friday 27 April, Alcohol Concern are publishing a report that, among other things, recommends that parents should be prosecuted if they give children under 15 alcohol to drink. Now Alcohol Concern is a valuable and effective organisation. I know that because there are members of my close family who have suffered problems with alcohol abuse. Indeed my father died at the age of 52 of cancer of the Oesophagus, often linked with high consumption of alcohol.

However, despite the good work it does, I strongly disagree with this particular recommendation by Alcohol Concern:

Firstly, alcohol is a part of our national life. Most significant events in our society feature alcohol - think celebrating birth, christenings, exam success, dating, engagements, weddings, even funerals. Young teenagers are involved in these events, they are mapping their world by choosing to be actively involved, and so preparing them for adult life means preparing them for encountering and imbibing alcohol.

Put it like this. I am teaching my youngest child, aged four, how to cross the road safely. We are starting with very quiet roads and I hold his hand, asking him to look and listen and tell me when he thinks it is safe to cross. In a couple of years, I will allow him to cross those roads alone while I watch. Then he will cross the alone. We will then cross busy roads together (by this time he won’t want to hold my hand in public!). In about six years I will let him cross busy roads alone, because in six-and-a-half-years he will have to cross busy roads alone when he goes to secondary school.

The same goes for drinking. At 13/14 I will introduce him to the occasional glass of wine at a special meal and champagne at family celebrations. We’ll teach him how to accept a drink and how to refuse a second one. He will grow up seeing alcohol as a treat – something to make a meal special, a celebration more fun, to share with friends at times of relaxation. At 15/16 he’ll be drinking a little with his friends. By the time he is 17 or 18 he may well of discovered what it is like to drink too much, but he will have done so while safely under our roof, where we can monitor him and where we can support his learning by encouraging sensible drinking.

Secondly, but equally importantly, I don’t want to tempt fate by making alcohol “forbidden fruit”. Teenagers have enough they feel they have to hide from their parents, without adding a little light drinking to the pot. I simple cannot bear the thought of any child finding themselves drunk and vulnerable, but too frightened to ring home and ask for help.

Of course, no parent should be encouraging young children to drink. And no teenager should be given free rein to drink to excess. But, the majority of us drink as part of the jollier bits of our lives and we have to help our children understand how alcohol affects them. Otherwise, we send an 18 year old out to the pub to pour vodka down his throat with no understanding of the risks. It’s a bit like sending my four-year-old out to cross Marlborough High Street on his own.

For those non-parents out there who ever need to check if it's the school holidays look no further than here. Blogging is an indulgence too far when the children are cluttering up the house and my time!

Current obsession with my teenager Dancing Daughter and my pre-teen, Irrepressible Son is BEING GREEN:

"Why aren't all the light bulbs in the house low energy?"

"Why don't we use environmentally friendly washing powder?"

"Why don't we buy organic carrots?"

My reply last night was; "Why don't you two turn the odd light off? Why don't you two start putting items in the laundry basket only when they need washing, rather than just to avoid hanging them up?" And, "Why don't you eat the organic cabbage that I do buy?"

It seems that GOING GREEN is ok if it costs mum and dad time and money, but not if it costs them any increase in effort!

Grumpy Son is shortly to be five. Those of you familiar with nearly five-year-old boys will know that this means we are encountering a certain natural, and increasing, belligerence.
"Mum" he says.

"That's me" I answer.

"I want to be called Frank like my friend Jamie."

Any suggestions of a useful reply would be grateful received. Please email karen@parentingcafe.co.uk

Yesterday I remembered to buy Easter eggs when passing Woolworths. I was very pleased with myself. I had got myself a bargain, and without having to make a special trip.

This morning, it was the first day of the Easter holidays. I was very pleased with myself. It’s a lovely sunny day and I organised all three of my children to be outside and enjoying themselves.

While they are out I’ve got loads of work done. I’m was very pleased with myself. I managed to resist the lure of the garden and of friends who don’t work.

However, now I'm not pleased with myself at all. Yesterday afternoon I left the Easter eggs in the car so the children didn’t see them. My plan was to bring them in after dark. I forgot. The car has been sitting all day in the Spring sunshine. Oh bugger.

At age 13 Dancing Daughter is enduring the ups and downs of teenage friendships. Her friendship group is as stable as you can expect, but within it chilly winds often blow. Arguments, misunderstandings and plain nastiness are every- day events.

She still talks to me about such things, and I can tell if its been a bad day by the way she opens the front door as she arrives home from school. Last night I talked about how falling out with your friends is meant to happen and it teaches you about how to make judgements about people. With any luck, and some parental coaching, she’ll begin to realise that sometimes she’s just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She won’t deserve most of the knocks she gets from her friendships, but surviving them should make her more resilient and happier in herself.

What I can’t tell her, because it’s just too depressing, is that in 30 years the unkind behaviour of friends may still be causing her real distress. I’ve always wanted to get into a taxi and say: “Follow that car”. Now, because it will make me feel better, I find myself doing the blogging equivalent of that imaginary taxi chase. So to the person who has chosen to be so unkind, to far too many people, who really don’t deserve it I say “You know who you are (and your behaviour is really very shameful)”.

Dancing Daughter is all a thirteen-year-old girls could wish to be. She is tall, a healthy weight, achieving well at school and has a wide and broadly nice friendship group (all judgements that can be validated independently of a doting mother’s prejudice). She is also kind, funny, pretty, loving, generous and down-right wonderful (in her doting mum’s opinion).

So is she confident and content? No. Of course not. She is a child of her times. A child of the navel- gazing teen-magazine era. A child of a society obsessed with appearance. A girl in a world where to be happy with oneself implies ignorance and naivety - rather than sound judgement and lack of vanity.

So Dancing Daughter is obsessed with her hair. She says, often and with some very negative emotion, “It’s too dark, too frizzy, too thick, too difficult to style and too awful”.

I’m trying to understand. I’m really trying. At thirteen I was plump, short and desperately unhappy at home and school, But, I knew I had lovely hair and that was often a great consolation to me.

So what happened between 1974 and 2007?
In 1974 I took comfort and pleasure in the one asset I had that everyone noticed, in 2007 Dancing Daughter chooses to be distressed about a perceived problem that isn’t really an issue – after all she has hair and it grows well, if one or other or these things wasn’t true she might have something to be unhappy about.

I’ve a number of friends with small babies who are currently unhappy much of the time. In some cases unhappy to the point of depression. In most cases they are unhappy to the point of having lost most of their confidence in themselves and what they are capable of.

They are all bright, assertive, successful and good humoured women. All the babies were the result of planned pregnancies. Most of the men involved are supportive partners and interested fathers.

Yet these lovely women are immersed in confusion and a sense of failure which is polluting the time they longed for, the time they have at home with their gorgeous baby.

The one exception is a new mum I know who was not particularly successful in her job. The pregnancy was unplanned and although her partner is around, the relationship does not seem strong. Yet, she is radiantly happy in her new role as a mum. She has no sense of direction in terms of a future career, she vaguely mumbles that she supposes she ought to be thinking of the future, but then her son gurgles at her and she is instantly both distracted from her thoughts and suffused with pleasure.

I know, I know………I can’t conclude anything really, but I have chosen to anyway. I think that being a successful operator in the world of work is setting you up for misery when you enter the world of nappy wipes, bleeding nipples and pureed carrot.

Babies don’t play by the rules. They don’t respond to HR department initiatives on setting meaningful objectives or defining flexible working needs. They don’t take any notice of performance related management deliverables and they certainly don’t give evidence based feedback on their mum’s improving competencies.

All our working lives we are told that we can guarantee our rewards and success by playing by the rules and ensuring we perform against mutually agreed criteria. And, if despite that, we fail to prosper, we can seek recompense and retribution through the various equal opportunity and employment laws that protect us from having to accept that life can be just plain unfair.

Then we have a baby. And we discover just how unfair life can be. We might have a difficult birth; a baby that doesn’t sleep; problems with breast feeding; a partner that doesn’t understand; an aversion to making conversation all day with a three-week-old mewing bundle; and even an undying (and understandable) need for an uninterrupted bath/visit to the toilet/phone call.

What can I say to my friends? It does get easier. Babies get more rewarding as they grow into children. And, maybe, one day that baby will puree carrot for you when you need it!

Just to complete the damaged wrist tale, once I had scooped up my inwards and grasped my injured but unwilling son to my breast, all went well. In fact the events that followed went so well that I can only imagine that the La Plagne water supply has something added to make long term residents, such as doctors and nurses, exceptionally charming and eager to help.

The resort medical centre turned out to be located two floors under our apartment. I really might have worked this out in advance, as over the previous two days I had been enjoying regular liquid refreshment breaks watching the blood sleds park up below our balcony. As I nursed my tea/hot chocolate/cider/wine I had been dreamily watching concerned looking pisteurs , park up the snow mobiles and sledge stretchers, with and without human cargo, (the loaded ones were the more diverting).

So Irrepressible Son had his wrist examined and set in plaster. I was able to make myself a cuppa in our apartment kitchen and take it down to the medical centre while we were waiting. We met some entertaining people from near where we live in the waiting room, and were able to bemoan the habits of tumbling children on holiday - so the time passed comfortable. The delightful doctor told me I wasn’t to blame myself (never have I love the Gallic accent so much: “Maman, you are not to blame, it is ze ice and ze bad loock only" ). The delightful doctor said Irrepressible Son could ski for the rest of the holiday and would be fine to snowboard again in the future.

Alpha Male appeared just in time to go to the chemist and pick up painkillers and we all adjourned back to the apartment. My hardy son skied beautifully and skilfully for the rest of the holiday, indeed skiing with one pole to balance the weight of his cast, his skiing improved no end. He was helped out by Flying Friend, who encouraged and cheered him around the slopes (I being unable to keep up with either of them).

And, now ahead of us we have four Sundays with no early start for rugby………………one patch of ice and unlooked for benefits in all directions.

Hugo, otherwise known as Irrepressible Son, was injured snowboarding during our New Year holiday, but for our (admittedly) slightly twisted and perplexing family this proved a positive experience. The worst, well in fact the only bad moment, was receiving the phone call telling me he was hurt. Though brief, it was a SPECTACULARLY bad moment.

We were holidaying with a group of friends, 9 adults and eleven children (and yes it worked wonderfully). On the morning of the accident I was herding various small bodies in the general direction of the apartment for lunch, when my mobile phone sprang into unwelcome life.

When comprehensively smothered in skiing gear, the summons of your mobile, however melodious a ring your children last selected for you, is always stressful. The sad fact is that, when wearing my ski clothes, I bear a distinct similarity to a paranoid duvet. Large and soft on the outside, but underneath, bunched up and tense. I'm suspended in a constant state of nervous anticipation, focused on the next requirement that I must move any part of me in a deliberate or effective manner. Involuntary tasks are fine. Without so much as a breath of effort, I can drop a ski glove, brain innocent strangers with a ski poles or fall sideways, to demolish as entire lift queue.
However, don’t ask me to extract a tissue or pull down a lift guard. It appears the necessary nerve impulses lose themselves shortly after they leave my brain. They certainly fail in their mission to generate controlled movement. I can only suppose that they have already deduced that I will never effectively overcome the constraints of 330 TOG layers of thermal underwear and fleece overwear.

So whenever my phone rings from deep within my ski jacket, I know immediately that failure is imminent. First I have to fight my way out of gloves and glove liners, then extract my phone from a mysterious and inaccessible pocket of my jacket. A pocket that wasn’t there when I bought the jacket, or indeed even when I entombed myself in it that morning. I maintain that there are secret and sinister corridors between pockets in ski jackets. Items of urgent need, conspire to transfer themselves to the most obscure little zippered and velcroed corners (usually to be relocated very much later, at home, and only after you have put them through the washing machine).

So having tracked down the bolt hole my mobile had slunk into, I could see it was a local number. Alarm bells started to ring, no actually they were clamouring, very loudly. I expected the people close by to jump up in alarm. I then had to work my stressed and shaking fingers to press the right button. The next challenge was to overcome the determination of my hat to stay pressed to my head. With infinitely cruel timing, it had suddenly acquired the life-preserving resoluteness of a new-born baby monkey, clutching its mother as dusk falls. Of course, this same hat had spent most of the morning repelling my head like an opposing magnet, and being rescued from under the bottoms of bemused strangers sharing lifts with me. Having forced the phone under my limpet headwear and twisted it painfully in the approximate direction of an ear I heard a French voice. My insides turned to liquid, it could only be the ski school.

To avoid a delay that would allow my insides to start flowing down the lining of my sallopettes I anticipate the question:

“This is Mrs Karen Gardner - which one of my children is hurt and how badly?”

The French voice replies: “Is that Mme Gardner?”

“Yes, yes Karen Gardner, who is hurt and what have they done?”

French voice, distinctly not responding to my urgent tone: “I’m a speaking with Madame Karen Gardner?”

“Oui, oui I am Karen Gardner. Are you ringing from the Ski school? Is one of my children hurt?”

Determinedly unhurried French voice continues: “I am the directeur of the Xxxxxxx ski school in La Plagne.”

“OK I realise that “. Oh bugger I’m thinking, as my insides fill my ski boots, if it's ‘Le Directeur’, this must be bad.

“Is one of the children hurt, is it Hugo?” (Even as my insides cascaded over the top my ski boots and poured out onto the snow, both rational analysis and maternal instinct, suggested that it is going to be Hugo. Dancing Daughter would not be skiing hard enough to ruffle her hair or crease her new jacket. It was going to be Hugo.)

“You are the mother of Hugo Gardner” (I knew it. By now I was dimly aware that the resort pisteurs were moving to disperse lift queues. They were only just ahead of my liquefied inside, which were spreading fast, across the entire lower slopes of the mountain.)

“Yes YES YES I am his mother. He is eleven: he has a small brown birthmark on his tummy; he weighed 10 and half pounds when he was born; he’s really very good at maths and cuddling; his favourite food is roast chicken; he’s had head lice three time, and I still adore every hair on his head - and if you don’t tell me what’s happened this second, I think I will have to come to your office AND KILL YOU.” (Alternatively I may have actually said “YES YES what’s happened to Hugo?).

“Hugo was having a snowboard lesson with our school today”

“Yes I know, I paid the exorbitant fee (I did say that bit). What’s happened? Is he badly hurt?”

“ Hugo has had an accident” (I understand that at this point the Swiss authorities were moving to shut motorways, as my boiling and bubbling insides made it with ease across the French border into Switzerland.)

“OK, I’m absolutely going to have to come and kill you, whatever has happened to Hugo, but first, in order to save the people of Geneva from a horribly sticky end, please tell me what he has done.”

“He has hurt his wrist a little. He is in my office eating some chocolate, would you like to talk to him………………………….?”

Goodness that was cathartic………. more to come.

We have renamed Bouncy Son. From now on he will be known as Irrepressible Son. This is partly to place a higher value on the stamina inherent in his personality. His ability to take life’s knocks and come back virtually un-dented is something many who know him comment on.

Perhaps most admirable of all, his response to failure and disappointment is never to let it dull the love, care and compassion for his fellow human beings, that infuses his every vein and action. We are a better family for the qualities of all of our children and being Irrepressible Son’s mum makes my heart sing.

Thank-you very much for all your good wishes.

I am back at Parenting Café part-time for the next couple of weeks and then if my recovery continues as well as it has gone so far, I will be back full-time in mid-November..

My op went well, and as promised by my surgeon, and hysterectomy patients who went before me, I feel like a new woman.

I need to beg the forgiveness of all the users of the Parenting Café confidential advice service. These emails are not seen by anyone else in the Parenting Café office and I am very behind in responding to them. I will get back to you just as soon as I can. My apologies to all those who are waiting to hear from me.

The best thing about being forced to rest? Discovering that I am no longer naturally idle (as I thought) and would rather be doing anything than nothing! This should take the sting out the of days when I feel I don’t have a minute to myself.

Tomorrow I am off to hospital to have a hysterectomy. I have left my children in the capable hands of my Alpha Male and World's Best Nanny, plus a football team of wonderful friends who will nurture and support father and sprogs alike.

But, to be on the safe side, I have also left a hour-by-hour, five page 'survival' guide, which includes instructions like "Write Grumpy Son's reading in his book" and "remind children to shower before bed. "I have written out cheques for tennis, ensured party presents are wrapped and suggested what Dancing Daughter might NOT want to wear to her sleep-over party at the weekend.

I know my family can survive without me, they would neither starve nor smell. Indeed, I positively want them to thrive without me, mummy's sometimes get taken away from their children (sadly occasionally for ever) . We do our children no good if we fail to give them independence, even a four-year-old should not be afraid of a night or two without mum in the house.

They better miss me though!
And the only way to prove how much they miss me, is to visit the hospital bringing with them my own body weight in Fry's Chocolate Crème

Today my youngest ‘baby’, Grumpy Son started school. He was completely untroubled and settled down very happily on the classroom carpet; he gave me a kiss good-bye and then immediately gave his full attention to his new teacher.

Five or six of his classmates were not so happy and there was various degrees of weeping, wailing and clinging to mums going on as I left.

I’ve done a good job, together Alpha Male and I have done OK and produced a confident, happy child who was spared the anxiety and distress of some of his peers. Why was he content, partly luck, partly genetic inheritance, partly the way we have parented?

Confident, independent children is all I have every wanted. So why was a little bit of me quietly envious of the mother trying to peel her limpet son off her at 9am this morning?

Next week, in The Times newspaper, Jamie Oliver will be answering some questions from readers about “food at school”. This links with the start of his new series, starting later this month on Channel 4 where he presents a follow-up programme to his previous series in which he showed us a shameful picture of school dinners.

In Jamie's ‘Return to School Dinners’ he goes back to Downing Street with a new plan. The Times claims that: “Despite its popularity the original series left Jamie battle-scarred, accused on one hand of setting impossible standards and on the other of putting children most in need of a hot meal at lunchtime off school dinners altogether.” The newspaper is offering readers the chance to email Jamie their questions on ‘anything about food at school’. Link to the Times’ story on this here.

I remain ambivalent to Jamie’s campaign. He convinced me he is truly passionate about what children eat and was genuinely shocked by what he found in school kitchens and canteens. He may even been able to change things for the better, but it is so difficult to know, as reports conflict, and there are too many people with too many agendas, claiming they know ‘the truth’.

About 25% of the problems families come to us at Parenting Café relate to fussy eating. Feeding children appears to be the biggest cause of heart-ache in family life.

In any one year children eat less than 17% of their meals at school. So is Jamie Oliver’s crusade aimed at the wrong target, or will getting children to eat well at school improve their diet overall and improve what they want to eat at home? How do we know, how can we judge, and why aren’t the people in the know helping us to understand?

Good things about the return to school:

Getting Grumpy Son’s next right of passage out of the way, he starts in the Reception class on 11 September and once he’s here I’ll stop feeling slightly panicked - as I face the prospect of my last baby takes his first steps away from home.

Being organised again, there is no other way to get three children out of the front door at the right time, in the right uniform and in the right frame of mind. The advantage is that if you are organised for six thirty in the morning, you are organised all day.

Peace, blessed peace. And when my Alpha Male is not working from home, and I have the house to myself, a sense of freedom and opportunity (for about two hours, when I start to want them all home again).

The end of the afternoon when they all come home and my heart lifts and pride and contentment wash through me as we talk about their day.

August Bank Holiday looms. What does it mean to you? To me, and I suspect many mothers, it means name tapes, dreadful shopping trips to buy school shoes, shock at how much a set of felt tip pens costs and dread of the return of school mornings. In my next blog I shall try to be more positive.

Good grief, how difficult can it be to for a ten and 12-year-old to load the dishwasher without arguing? As I type Alpha Male is playing spoof with Dancing Daughter and Bouncy Son - the loser will be on kitchen duty.

My instinct is that they should just do it, without coaching and cajoling. Watching their father mange them begins to illuminate to me, the strategies he uses to mange me!

It's the summer holidays.
An opportunity for quality time with the children.
I don't work on Fridays in order to increase my time with the children

. Today I have:

Is that 'spending time with the children? I asked them and they said yes…..so I suppose they must be right.

My instinct is to say it's been a 'challenging' month - all that blue chip corporate training takes its toll (every problem is a 'peal', there are no disasters just 'opportunities'. Plus 12 years of commitment to positive parenting means I find it hard to be negative; it feels like a betrayal and an act which deliberately invites failure.

However, the basis for Parenting Café is honesty - straight forward acceptance that there are ups and downs to all aspects of family life. So, in the spirit of utter honesty, I admit that the last few weeks have been crap. Many of you will recognise the law of the ‘disaster pyramid’ – when a number of things go wrong at the same time. On their own each is bearable, but combined the sum of the separate problems resolves to be far greater than you might have reasonably anticipated.

Hence, no blog entries for some weeks: less time to write than ever, and every time I sat down to write something it was a miserable bleat about life being hard. Not a very good example from someone trying very hard to offer ideas to make family life happier for others. But, then I realised that the issues I have been submerged by are common to many, and so here’s a little tale of survival, in case it helps.

The children are fine, which makes everything and anything survivable. Alpha Male has not abandoned me, or even commenced exhibiting grumpy old man behaviour – although his youthful tolerance is some years past its sell-by-date! No, the problems have been (in approximate order of destructiveness) my health, work, old dog and childcare.

This is already too long an entry so I’ll only tackle my health now and only because I hope it will prompt other mothers to act before me My illness it is not life-threatening but painful, debilitating, exhausting, depressing and just down right unpleasant. I have advanced and galloping endometriosis (Google it if you don’t know what this is, one thing I have done too much of recently is explain the biology!). I’ve lived with it for 15 years, it was almost certainly the cause of two of my miscarriages and my problems conceiving my third child. In the last two years it has insidiously taken over much of my life, especially the quiet times so precious to many mothers. Instead of using these times to recharge my batteries, they have become the key opportunities for the constant background pain to come knocking with a vengeance. I have developed numerous strategies, pharmaceutical and other, to dull the pain, and made up many stories to myself to explain exhaustion and mask the reality of destructiveness of the effect of the disease on me and those I love.

However, now, and only because I finally admitted the truth to myself, relief is at hand. My very supportive and empowering specialist is going to remove my uterus, ovaries and as much as the endometrial tissue as he can track down. And there’s a 94% chance that I will be cured. This is the final option for treatment, I’ve tried everything else. And, yes losing my womb is a bit emotional and no, I’m not looking forward to the operation, but afterwards I’ll be well again. I think finally making the decision has brought almost as much relief as the operation should provide.

So girls, if you are fighting a chronic health issue, don’t fight on too long - as I did. Putting off resolution just lengthens your suffering, act sooner rather than later and dump the stories you are telling yourself about 'the time not being right', 'the problem not being bad enough' or 'the kids needing you for x,y or z over the next few months'. The kids will always need you, there is always a reason to delay, but in the end (in my experience) you are just delaying the benefit.

We are going camping for 5 days. I have spent 13 hours packing. I am exhausted. The Alpha Male is exhausted. Even the dogs are exhausted, having watched us walk backwards and forwards to the car all day. It had better be 1)very warm; 2)very restful; and, 3)very quiet on the particular Devon camp site we are visiting.

A very long time ago I said I would do anything for my children except sleep under canvas. Now I do anything for my children - except sleep under canvas without beng thoroughly sedated with a great deal of white wine!

I was at BBC Radio Berkshire yesterday doing my monthly phone-in on the Nicki Whiteman Show. We talked about Dr Patricia Rashbrook who is to have a baby at the age of 63 after IVF treatment. I found it hard to decided how I felt. As someone who took over a year to conceive my first child, and who suffered three miscarriages, I know a little of how desperate a woman can feel when a longed for pregnancy doesn't happen. I also know how it is more than possible to crave a third child even more than the previous two.

However, 63 is very old to have a baby, actually very old to even carry a baby. At 44, and only 4 years after giving birth, I could not envisage getting through another pregnancy or summoning the energy for labour.

For a woman to consider a pregnancy at such an age implies something very great is missing from her life, and I'm not sure that having a child will fill that hole in the way she anticipates. The child itself may not suffer as much as the tabloid press suggest. There are two adult siblings who will probably be around to help the child when it is older. This will help the child who is likely to be young when its parents die. Once it is old enough to have a view I don't suppose the child will wish it hadn't been born or that it had different parents.

The truth is that when we have children none of us can guarantee that we will be good parents or that we will survive to be around for the whole of the child's formative years (which these days seem to take it to at least its mid twenties!). Equally, we owe our children at least the likelihood that we will be here to look after them as long as we can. So on balance, I think Dr Rashbrook's decision was selfish and questionable, but such a desperate action suggest she deserves some compassion.

Today I am considered to be mostly a bad mother. This is due to the fact that we have run out of tomato ketchup. To be honest, it's not so much that the tomato ketchup bottle is empty, but that I didn't put on a convincing act of caring.

This means the younger members of this family have seen through my rather weak act and so I might as well come clean - I think tomato ketchup is the work of the devil. It's disgusting gunk. The colour and texture offend me and the flavour is cloying and retch inducing. The use of ketchup as a standard in burgers is untenable and using it on roast lunches should carry the risk of a life sentence.

It bullies the food it drowns. It submerges the taste of anything it goes near. It clings to the palate. It lies on the plate like a red duvet chocking and suffocating the food underneath. In other words, I think it should be removed from the cupboard and fridge of every home and then, perhaps, our children will start tasting their food and learn the pleasure of variety in flavours. They might find they enjoy the anticipation of the unique taste of each food item they are lucky enough to be offered.

So will I buy it again - yes of course I will, mostly so that young guests to this house feel welcome because I can provide what they are used to?. However, I will continue to impose the rule that it is only served with chips, and I will continue to serve chips and infrequently as I can!

Good grief - I've just discovered my one of Godsons does an after-school club called 'Competitive Lego'

It's madness. Why do so many of us feel the need to line our children up for endless rounds of after-school and weekend activities? In this house we are committed to football training, rugby, Jazz dance, piano, guitar, rock climbing, cubs, tennis and horse riding - and that's only the eldest two children, our youngest, known to all as Grumpy Son, has yet to sign up for anything.

It's not just the organisation and the time, it's the cost. I daren't add it all up but it must come to hundreds of pounds a term.

I've tried restricting it to two activities each a week but there's always a good reason to change that "just this once". Alpha Male and I don't inflict anything but the tennis on them but ten-year-old Bouncy Son makes the Labour party look like amateurs at lobbying. It wouldn't be beyond him to make a pretty convincing case for being allowed to join a rally-car club!

I think there are three main reasons we capitulate:

Those of us who were frustrated ballet dancers/footballers/Cub Scouts as children, and who didn't get to enjoy formal out-of-school, don't want our offspring to feel similarly neglected.

Then we are, to some extent, keeping up with the Jones. If little Tamara is doing ballet and looking down her nose at our daughter because she doesn't, then of course we are going to be inclined to give in to juvenile pleading.

Thirdly, it makes us feel better about all the unopened jigsaw puzzles, unplayed board games and unshared books sitting in our children's bedrooms. Better time spent driving them to ballet than admit that we haven't spent enough time with them this week.

I wouldn't condemn anyone for acting on these motivations, because they are behind many a cheque I've written to a sporting or music coach. I am going to try harder to say no, and however hard Bouncy Son pleads Junior Orienteering is out this year. If they want to learn to use a compass we'll do it together!

One day left until the return to school, and as I type this the computer printer is spewing out Dancing Daughter's homework - a presentation on carnival in Rio de Janeiro. It looks OK, some nice illustrations and some text- probably too much cribbed from the internet but she's organised it nicely. The problem with it, or at least my problem with it, is that it's the first time I've seen the work. I realise that in a fortnight plus of school holiday I haven't looked at what she is working on once. It makes my teeth clench with shame.

I've got time to put it right, just. And she's needs to be independent and a self-starter about her learning. And I was away for 4 days working. And I've spent the last 3 days taking the kids to cinema, the zoo and the science museum. And, if she needed help she could have asked for it knowing it would have been freely given.

But, still the spasm of guilt, that she has produced this work without any parental input or encouragement. Even though I have never believed in justifying my choice to be a working mother, my immediate thought is that if I didn't work I would be more on top of her school work. I'll never know if this would be true, as I am never going to be a stay-at-home mum - so I'll add 'Homework' to my the daily 'To Do' list I print off at the start of every working day. Perhaps I should also add 'Don't Feel Guilt' to the list - except I hate to set myself unrealistic expectations.

Confession time - I have a cleaner. Well, sometimes I have a cleaner. Whether on a week by week basis I have a cleaner seems to depend on factors over which I have no control. I try to be a good employer. I take nothing for granted. Give evidence based praise. Pay more than the local average. Understand that childcare issues and illness mean that cleaning my house it always my cleaner's priority.

I have a cleaner because I'm a working mother, with less time to clean my house than women who labour exclusively at home. I have visitors at the weekend - Alpha Male's entire family are coming for Easter Sunday lunch. My cleaner has gone AWOL. No message, just a marked absence of anyone but me cleaning my house.

I've read the articles saying that the middle-classes should move their own dirt about or admit to being exploitive of those less fortunate. I've pondered on whether removing my own dirt would be better for my soul and my morals. But, the thing is, it isn't only my dirt. It's the dirt of 3 children, 2 dogs, 1 cat, Alpha Male and various visitors to the house. That's a lot of dirt. 2 hours cleaning a day's worth of dirt (and no one could call me house-proud). And, I have to sleep (as well as work, nurture, organise, cook, care, love, launder and iron). So if I find the time to get to church this Easter I will include in my prayers a plea for a cleaner who cares enough to turn up.

So those of us who employ a nanny will soon be able to check to see if they have a criminal record - well that's alright the! Nannies are working in a poorly paid job, with little career development, very little opportunity for promotion and often for employers who don't know how to manage staff working in the domestic environment. They are also doing a job that the rest of us would find very challenging - looking after children is bad enough, looking after children who are not our own is one hell of a challenge. May I suggest it might be the nannies who want to check on the character of their employer?

London nannies may be able to demand £20K+, a flat and a BMW but many nannies working in the rest of the UK are earning less than £12K, work 48 hours a week and live out.

In this family we count ourselves exceedingly lucky to employ World's Best Nanny - she is our third nanny, our second was her older sister. We strive to make working with us enjoyable and we have succeeded in hanging on to our nannies for a long time. World's Best Nanny has been with us for over 3 years. In turn she is loyal, hard working, cheery and my children adore and respect her. I would like to pay her more - but I have to pay tax on every penny I pay her. If I employ someone to come into my office to water my pot plants I can claim the expense against tax but not the cost of my nanny - without whom I could not work and would not subsequently employ 5 other people. I know many parents who risk putting their nannies though the books as 'clerical' or 'reception' staff but I don't chose to do that. If I worked for a large company I could get tax relief using its childcare scheme but I work for myself and I chose to be honest and it costs me about £2.5 K a year.

Come on Mr Brown be fair, we all want to be good employees, having a nanny is best all round for young children (better than a nursery or a childminder), we want to pay well, we want to support our nannies to train, we want to make nannying a career to aspire to. Give us a (tax) break. I can promise you I will immediately pass on 50% of the benefit to my nanny.

What I find both absorbing and baffling is how three children from the same parents, raised in the same house, can be so different. Dancing Daughter is placid, gentle, observational and contemplative. Bouncy Son is noisy, intrusive, energetic and energising. Grumpy son is aggressive, determined, independent and committed to everything in his life. How did this happen? My Alpha Male is a determined advocate of nature over nurture - and our three certainly demonstrate that it's the genes that dominate.

We will all notice and say that a child looks like Mum/Dad/Uncle/Grandpa etc. So the concept that we might also inherit personality traits is hardly a surprise. Bouncy Son certainly reminds me of me, Dancing Daughter is very much like her father - Grumpy Son often has a distinct feel of me at PMT time.

We are in the middle of half-term and I find myself stressed. Is half-term a time to chill, should my children be relaxed and idle? Or does this week off demand that I spend quality time with them, expand their horizons, taking advantage of weekdays not in school? We’ve spent 2 days in London staying with my Singing Sister. Just me and the kids, Alpha Male stayed at home and worked although he is having 2 days off at the end of the week . Anyway I'll return to the subject shortly.

The point I am trying to tease out is what should be do with half-term that would benefit us all the most?

If we stay at home and I work then I don't see much more of the kids than during term-time, and their presence in the house when I am trying to work, even with World's Best Nanny keeping them gainfully occupied, has a negative effect on my irritation levels.

If I don't work, but we stay at home, it feels like and endless round of cooking, breaking up fights and arranging for friends to come and play.

We can't take them on holiday - budget limitations and Alpha Male's holiday allowance don't allow us to go away every school holiday.

So I tend to take them away or at least out for a couple of days and then we have a couple of days at home - but I suspect this is the best compromise for me not them.

So half-term, which should be a time for us all to recharge our batteries has the effect of depleting my physical and emotional reserves. I'm getting this wrong and, of course, I need to plan better……………….. Better start thinking about Easter now then!

I have noticed that however big my handbag I managed to fill it to the point I can't close the zip. I have noticed however many biscuits I buy, or World's Best Nanny makes, they all get eaten and someone feels aggrieved. Now I realise there is just no way of getting Dancing Daughter to go to bed at a sensible time. Whatever time I start chasing her about making pack-lunch, packing school bag, having a shower, she still manages to drag time and my patience out until gone 9.30pm when in my view she should be asleep. Is this to be the pattern for the next four or five years? The truth is that at 8pm on many evenings I am just not alert enough to spring into coaching-into-bed mode - perhaps I should use the water spray on her, it seems to be working on New Dog!

Bouncy Son has come home from school incandescent with joy at having, after five years of trying, earned something called a Printer's Scribe certificate. This is a scheme at his school used to encourage good hand writing, His joy was uncontained but fully in proportion to his repeated misery at having failed to acquire this piece of paper before. Has his desire to get the certificate made him try harder with his writing? Since the certificate is awarded for a particular handwriting test I suspect the overall benefit is limited. Has this blasted scheme made him miserable and doubt his abilities - absolutely! He is a very bright child (I am told) yet has often felt a failure - perhaps this has made him a more compassionate person but I so wish he hadn't needed to be made so sad in the process. However, celebrations- in the form of home-made chocolate brownies tonight.

Someone asked me today what is the best thing about new dog – I thought and realised that it is that everyone is so worried about what he might chew next that the hall and sitting room are clear of clutter – no coats, school bags, hats, gloves, rugby balls, briefcases or Lego. It’s something I’ve failed to achieve in 10 years and yet one skinny half-Greyhound succeeds in 2 weeks. Hurray!

Wednesday 23 August, 2006

Back home and waking to my warm and wiggly and 3 year old Grumpy Son I wonder am I the only mother who loves the smell of her child’s the warm, slightly wet, night-time nappy? It was the same when Dancing Daughter and Bouncy Son were small. Does night-time wee smell sweeter? Are we programmed to find the morning scent of small damp toddlers attractive so we were more likely to keep them safe in our furs at the back of caves 30,000 years ago? Caroline would probably say my flights of fancy should be reigned in along with my peculiar view of what smells good.

I’ve been away for 2 days earning a crust towards paying off the overdraft. Should I feel guilty that I enjoyed using my mind instead of my bottom wiping skills? Yes I missed the children and my Alpha Male, especially at the start of the day when a warm and wiggly 3-year-old is better to wake to than a travel alarm clock. But I also loved lying in bed reading a book for 15 minutes before I got up, I loved the intense concentration of working with adults (it was a tightly packed training event) and it was wonderful to end the day in a place with no washing machine, kitchen mop or lost school uniform blouse to find.

Off away to Manchester for a couple of days to work. Before I go I produce my customary 'survival guide' the family – who should be where and when and what they need to take with them and who will get them home. 3 pages of A4 instructions including provision for the dogs – and this with the World’s Best Nanny working for us. When Alpha Male goes away on business he packs his bag the night before and is off – leaving the luscious impression of a kiss from a newly shaved man on my cheek, but no pieces of paper telling me how to organise the family while he is away.

Great contentment this morning as this is the first Sunday in recent memory when the need to fit in an hour or two of work isn’t looming over me. So had time to sit and eat breakfast listening to Radio 4’s slightly alternative news magazine programme Broadcasting House. Realised the difference at the weekends is that I don’t need to speed the children through their breakfast and thus tension levels are considerably lowered. The centrifuge of urgency and impatience is disrupted and voices are quieter, more food is eaten and the radio can be heard.

The disadvantage of being able to hear the news is being aware of the discussion of the motives and misjudgement of ex-Liberal Democrat leadership candidate Mark Oaten. Who knows why he thought he could raise his public profile this high and not be targeted by the sharks of the News of the World and its like? I have no judgement to pass on his sexual behaviour – or at least I haven’t if he was responsible and caring enough to have acted to protect himself and therefore his wife from sexually transmitted disease.

What irritated me this morning, was the widespread vocalised disgust that Mr Oaten had “pretended to be a family man”. Well he has a wife and two daughters so of course he is a family man - those who say otherwise are hurting his wife and children more than the man himself. A quick look at Mr Oaten’s website shows more than one misjudgement – he may be even now regretting a long paragraph on his views on developing the piloting of ‘'managed zones (for prostitutes) in designated areas of cities”. However, his sexual or other mistakes are not the fault of his children and make him no less their father. Hypocrite perhaps, unwise probably, but I am sure he is even now trying to find a way to convince his family that his failures are not in any way their fault.

Rant over, I am off to watch new dog stretch his considerable legs in the back garden of kind friends who understand my concern about letting him run in a field when he doesn’t yet know his way home. Like many others I spent bits of yesterday watching continuous coverage of the rescue of the Thames whale. I took to furtively switching on the TV to check what was going on, my head desperately trying to win the argument that the kindest thing to do was to shoot it, my heart leaping up and down as the rescue project lurched between hints of triumph and threats of disaster. I would love to know what the rest of the world thinks of us earnest and animal obsessed Brits. The very stance of the rescue team, the hunch of their shoulders, their slow and steady movements around the stranded animal, the quiet desperation of the chap pouring the water over the animal's back, all communicated a determined commitment to help the creature. In the end I realised that the human response reminded me of the way neo-natal medical teams move around the incubator of a sick and tiny baby, an atmosphere no hospital drama I have seen has managed to replicate.

My Alpha Male and Bouncy Son have gone off to Newbury on the train for a chaps outing to a big rugby match. This involves curry and beer and no women. I can't complain because 1) the trip has been arranged for the birthday of our v.v. nice friend Tall and Kind and 2) I have encourage bouncy son to play rugby (currently for Newbury U10s) because he needs the physical outlet and the alternative was soccer.

I grew up watching rugby with my dad and have never connected with soccer and I’m rubbish at sustaining the "even though I'm bored, don't understand what I'm watching and my feet are freezing this is so much fun for me because my child loves it so much" approach for more than 10 minutes. Even I've noticed that football is a game of two halves which lasts at least 90 minutes.

So I get to stay at home, and joy-of joys change the oil in the deep fat fryer and then haul into Marlborough to buy Dancing Daughter a new school bag for a sum of money that is more than my entire school uniform cost in 1972.
Extolling the virtues of said bag my daughter is genuinely and charmingly grateful - I suspect she is beginning to work out how to manage her mother.