Disappointing airport reunion Part 2 and why self-gifting saves marriages...

Whoever wrote that a reunion is a little bit of heaven, didn't see the T-Shirt that DH was wearing when he came through arrivals last week. It was a polo shirt -- something I hate at the best of times -- but with a stripe; the sort you'd get in the grandfather's section in M&S. It was the wrong size, colour, shape, and made him look like he'd just wandered out of the milking shed after the morning shift.

And so what was supposed to be a wonderful event -- a reunion after two months, the start of a new life beckoning, the one-year old who was now walking -- was slightly tarnished. By an ugly top.....

By the time we reached the car I had to insist that he took it off, which he did after some harrumphing, and changed into something slightly better.  We have a tacit agreement in our marriage that I choose all his clothing, right down to shoes. He truly can't survive without me, at least sartorially.

Or indeed in the whole present-buying arena. Which is why I employ the marriage-preserving technique of self-gifting.

Even as a child -- spending my saved-up pocket money on Christmas gifts for my friends and family -- I found it extremely challenging to arrive home from my shopping trip without at least one gift for myself among my many bags.  Often I would buy something for a particular family member, only to get it home and realise that I simply couldn't survive unless that 'Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady' was mine (I was an odd teenager), and so I would simply keep the coveted item for myself and buy the unfortunate would-be recipient something less desirable (at least to me) instead.

As I got older, I was seduced by the whole 'buy two get one for me free' phenomenon, which ensured that my portion of the trio of gifts was basically free of charge (falling neatly into Boots or M&S's dastardly marketing ploy), resulting in a nice little hoard of gifts for myself by the time I reached Christmas morning...sometimes I even wrapped them up for myself and put them under the tree 'from Santa'.


Well I do like nice things.....


Now that I'm married, self-gifting has become less indulgence and more total necessity; something which couldn't have been more obvious last Sunday -- or Christmas day -- when DH handed me a little box, nicely wrapped, with the words 'Oh it's nothing much', something which he always says, even when it's actually quite good (rare).

Let's bear in mind that earlier I had handed him a small wrapped box containing a wedding ring (he lost his ages ago), so something equally meaningful (a wedding ring too perhaps, I had also lost mine -- the curse of the 'April Fools Day wedding' perhaps?) would have been a nice gesture considering we'd spent a total of five, yes FIVE, months apart this year, giving us loads of time to pretend and believe that we're both far nicer and deserving than we really are.

Pulling off the wrapping with caution, I was left with a box containing.....oh it's depressing just typing the words....A Satellite Navigation Thingie (actual technical term) ....yes, that's right, a SAT NAV!  A Sat Nav for the women with the direction sense of a homing pigeon (debatable), and who hates, HATES advice on how to get somewhere.

But wait no, it's not the device itself: Had he brought it home one random Friday evening from work saying 'here's a little gift I picked up for you today -- might be helpful', I might have been touched at his thoughtfulness (and this has happened in the past, but only if you consider a T-shirt from a scaffolding company or a cap from a concrete provider a gift).

But for Christmas day-- after two months apart? Really DH, what were you thinking?

Every girls dream....

Having quickly asserted that he had gained nul points for this years effort, he hastily attempted to reclaim some brownie points by scrolling through the accursed gadget and triumphantly pointing out 'look, you can translate bra sizes! See!'


Oh well why didn't you mention it? That has thrown the entire thing into a new light...now I'll know what sized bra to buy in Australia....thank's DH, you've made my Christmas...!


And so dear reader, I think I've made a convincing case as to why I felt it necessary to return to Coast in Kildare Village -- where I bought a gorgeous black dress for my birthday only two weeks ago -- and buy the taupe version of the same dress, to be wrapped and placed under the tree for Christmas morning.

Oh and some green Mary Jane's. And tan ones too. And a DVD of the Downton Abbey Christmas Special. And a pair of sunglasses. Oh and another dress which we pretended my daughter bought for me (it was from Laura Ashley and was an absolute steal), naughty, I know.

But if I didn't do these things -- which do evoke a small sense of guilt I must admit -- I would spend all Christmas day seething at DH's thoughtlessness.  The combination of satisfaction that I did in fact get what I wanted albeit self-bought, and the guilt from this selfish self-gifting, neutralises into my merely patting DH on the arm and saying 'it's all fine darling husband, I'm happy with what I've got anyway!'

Everyone's a winner!*

*Except for DH, who until reading this didn't know the Laura Ashley dress was indeed self-bought....

Life and parenting lessons from one who knows...

I've learned a couple of things this week.  The first is that should you lose your passport, check both your handbags, even if you think the pink one hasn't been used since long before the passport went missing -- because it is sure to be in there.  This can at the very least save on the cost of phoning the British embassy, Irish department of foreign affairs, The foreign and commonwealth office, all the garda stations in Galway, the local cinema, your favourite coffee shop and finally, your sister, who then in turn spends an hour tearing her study apart looking for your grandfather's birth certificate (needed if neither you nor your parents were born in Ireland).

It also stops  you looking like an idiot when you have to phone everyone you know (to whom you have subjected to tearful phone calls all day long with tragic updates) to tell them, 'ha ha, it's ok, my life isn't over, I will be emigrating along with my family after all, it was in my bag all along, phew!'

That's the first thing; as for the second thing, well it's parenting advice, so I've decided that while I'm at it, I'll compile my top five 'Don't's'  -- gathered over ten years of intensive research -- for all those parents out there who have nothing better to do than read the advice of a woman who wakes up every morning, looks at her sleeping angels and thinks 'my god, they're still here...when do I get my life back?'

1) Don't -  Leave your sleeping baby on the sofa while you pop up the road to collect your three-year-old from playschool, particularly if it's a day when the district nurse might just decide to call in to do a quick developmental check on the baby.  Should you do this, you will be faced with the two dismal options of either a) emerge from your car and rushing into the house carrying a bundle of coats in your arms, as a sort of baby mock-up, or b) admit to her that you left you child alone and unattended for ten minutes. Neither choices are particularly attractive and if, like me, you are a most unconvincing liar, you may well find that you have no choice at all but to admit to the latter. This in turn may well result in more visits from said nurse.

2) Don't - make a baby's bottle out of a bottle of still Ballygowan and a jar of baby milk formula at the table in a bar,  because you don't want to miss any of the fun, particularly if relatives are around.  You may believe you're being resourceful, they won't.

3) Don't - Pretend to your children that you are getting a divorce, just to see their reaction. This is a very bad idea, and reasoning that your own mother played the same trick on you and you turned out OK, is no justification, you didn't turn out OK - there are therapy bills to prove it.

They won't sleep for months..

4) Don't - allow your children to watch 'Child's Play 2' followed by 'The Exorcist' on Halloween night just because you've had almost the entire bottle of Casillero del Diablo and they have begged you to stay up.  If common sense doesn't dictate that they shouldn't watch these movies, then the age classification should do it for you.  A classification of 18 means your six-year-old definitely shouldn't be watching it.  Should you ignore this advice, be prepared to deal with the fall out for the next 18 months or so.

And finally, and this brings me neatly to the second thing I learned this week -
5) Don't - EVER tweet your daughters male teacher at 2 a.m. with the words 'hey let's tweet' because you're drunk and bored; it is wildly inappropriate and the follow up will be excruciating for all involved. Not even if you have spent twenty minutes with him in the week -- ostensibly discussing your daughter's progress -- thinking 'I wonder if he fancies me' (he's not unattractive himself). You were there to talk about your daughter, not to flirt, and just because you don't see a man in the flesh from one end of the week to the other (and Mathew from Downton is only 2D sadly), doesn't mean that any poor devil who speaks to you is deserving of the special mummy-flirty-treatment. And when the bodywarmer-wearing man in the Londis supermarket starts to look good -- even if he does give you free carrier bags -- it probably means it's time for DH to hurry up and come home.

Even Andrew is starting to look dreamy

So there's my advice, take it or leave it, but these lessons are hard learned and hey, I like to give back every now and then. 

Men, car trouble and a suicidal one-year-old....

I overheard four-year-old and seven-year-old boy's discussing me in the bath the other day. 'Mummy needs a man' said the seven-year-old wisely as he poured a cup of water over his head. The four-year-old solemnly nodded in agreement, 'yeth' he lisped,'cos daddy's gone'.

They have a point.  This point was never more explicit than last week as my car glided to a halt at the side of the road, just off a junction, due to an electronic failure which I had been studiously ignoring for some days, despite the big red light on my dashboard flashing 'THE END IS NIGH!'.

It was, as the poet says, pissing down from the heavens and for a moment I sat there, thinking, 'how can I solve this without getting out of the car?'  Had I been more attentive in the custodial duties of my mobile phone, I may have been able to solve it by phoning my mechanic, but sadly I hadn't laid eyes on it in days and it was no doubt languishing at the bottom of a toy box somewhere. So there I sat, with a car full of bickering children, in the middle of the countryside and some miles from my house, thinking 'this is why I got married -- to avoid this very thing'. Laying my head against the steering wheel I wailed 'I need a man...this here is MAN work....!'

The children sat silently until someone bravely whimpered  'mum, you're frightening us'.

Pulling myself together I instructed ten-year-old girl 'don't let anyone get out of the car, I'm going to get help!' 


Giving the hand break an extra hard tug, I pushed the car door open against the pelting rain outside - 'I won't be long' I cried, as I slammed the door and started running towards a house which looked to be about 200 yards up the road.  Within seconds I realised my mistake, which was a) getting out of the car b) thinking that I could run (I haven't run since circa 1978 when I came last in the cross-country run around the school field, after which I wrote all athletic activities off as the work of the devil)

I stopped in my tracks and turned and started running in the opposite direction, across the junction and up the drive of a bungalow, which appeared to be closer. I rang the bell and stood panting and waiting.  And waiting. No one in.  Looking back at my stranded car, containing ten years of reproduction, blood, sweat and tears, and terrified that a truck might round the corner and plough into them, I soldiered on.  At the next house I could immediately see an elderly woman snoozing in the armchair.  Forget it.  I ran on to the next house where I fell upon a couple who were in the process of leaving and asked to use their phone.

Twenty minutes later my mechanic arrived and thankfully saved the day, but the experience made me realise that a) I definitely, as seven-year-old put it, need a man, and b) buying an eleven-year-old car was a mistake -- no matter how short a time I needed it for -- particularly since DH isn't around to lift the bonnet and do 'man things' to it occasionally.

Having said that, there are some compensations to this man-less state, one of which is the ability to watch whatever I like on the television.  This means no sport whatsoever; nothing involving gun-toting women in very tight outfits, something which I'm usually forced to watch through gritted teeth so as not appear bitter and envious; and as much costume drama as I can humanly digest, which is quite a lot actually, with 'Downton Abbey' being my current feast.

It also means eating crackers and cheese for dinner and not shaving my legs for, oh months at this stage, leaving me currently resembling something which has wandered out of Dublin zoo, at least from the knees down....

Diary of a one year old...

Well one-year-old has finally graduated to walking and now fills his days fitfully clambering up onto the dining table -- sending the entire family dashing to his aid as he repeatedly plonks himself precariously onto the edge -- while busily and methodically clearing everything off of it and onto the floor. Either that or toddling out to the bathroom to put one of the remote controls down the toilet, something which he is inexplicably compelled to do whenever the opportunity arises.

One-year-olds are a roller-coaster ride of pink-cheeked, candy-coated charm and utter, edge-of-your seat, white-knuckle fear as they seem hell bent on committing as many acts of kamikaze as they can fit into their day, slotted neatly in between watching the Teletubbies and afternoon naps, and the entire family are in a permanent state of emergency as not a minute goes by without someone shrieking  'Look, the baby's just put a coin in his mouth!' or 'mum, he's climbing into the washing machine!'.


This is surely Darwinism at its best -- were it not for their heart-melting cuteness, we'd surely just leave them on the steps of the nearest church or convent, concluding that they were far more trouble than they're worth.

Survival of the cutest?