On being wrong....

I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong, in fact I wear it as a badge of honour much to DH's annoyance since he will be half way up a one-way road, with four lanes of traffic catapulting towards him, before he'll mumble 'I may have made a slight error here'.

The way I see it, admitting to mistakes as soon as possible saves time later. For example, having lived in the Tree-house for almost two months, I am now openly saying it was a mistake. Yes it is beautiful: wandering out to the verandah on a Sunday morning -- coffee in hand -- to sit and watch the gentle sway of the eucalyptus trees while being serenaded by the haunting song of the magpies, is simply heavenly. But as I sit there dreamily imagining I’m Nicole Kidman waiting for her Drover to reappear (as in the movie Australia – if you haven’t seen it, don’t bother, it’s rubbish), the fantasy is shattered by the sight of one-year-old -- red faced and determined – furiously dragging a chair up to the hand rail preparing to plummet to his death 12 feet below.

And I held up my hands and admitted I was wrong the time I questioned the sanity of the prophet on a UAE expat chat forum, resulting in a series of pretty scary and intimidating events instigated by an outraged, mouth-frothing religious zealot who all but declared a fatwa upon me (I felt like Salman Rushdie lite). Although to be honest, I wasn't really sorry for my comments, I was only sorry for my idiotic naivety.

Just on that topic: why are the super religious, (Muslims and fundamentalist Christians spring to mind), so afraid of being questioned or disagreed with? With 1.5 billion believers, Islam have the numbers and should really have  more confidence in their religion of choice and stop worrying about what others say; as if my flippant words might result in an entire mosque full of men suddenly standing up  -- mid prayer -- dusting off their knees, and saying 'someone doesn't agree? Oh well, looks like we had it all wrong; fancy a pint and a sausage roll?’ 

And sometimes, just sometimes, in my darker moments, following a day of non-stop kid fights, mess, mountains of washing and the sheer neediness of those around me, I find myself staring dolefully out the window, eyes glazed, shoulders slumped, imagining what my life would be like if I didn't have quite so many children:Was I wrong to have so many?

This doubt is highlighted when I see how organised other families are - the matching socks, the regular meals, the day trips that don’t end with everyone screaming at each other and quite often actual blood. Or the smooth bedtime routines that seem to consist of nothing more than a story - lights out - sleeping child, all to the tune of Brahms lullaby.

Bedtime in our house is only surpassed, in terms of the sheer ghastliness of it, by the hell which is the morning routine. It goes something like this (abridged version...in reality it goes on for hours) -

Me (eyeing the clock as I pour a glass of wine) - 'Go to bed'

Child -'I can't find my toothbrush!'

Me -'Well I saw one under your bed this morning...use that! Go to bed'

Child -'I can't find the toothpaste'

Me -'The baby was sucking on it earlier, check the toy box. Go to bed'

Child -'I can't find my pyjamas'

Me -'wear your t-shirt...it's hot anyway...just GET OUT!'

Child -'can I have a drink?'

-Me and DH in unison: 'just GO TO BED!'

I love them really -- each and every one of them -- especially when they're all, finally, fast asleep....

And finally -- let me say this publicly by way of an apology to DH: I was wrong when I said I didn’t need the Sat Nav. Ah yes, that most thoughtless of Christmas gifts from him -- something which I swore I would NEVER use -- has turned out to be the other man in my life. With his American drawl and thrillingly bullying ways - 'you are OVER the speed limit, you are OVER the speed limit, you've MISSED your turn, TURN BACK!' -- he has changed my world. All those hours spent driving around lost, refusing to give in and ask someone for directions, have been consigned to the past. No more driving for two hours in the wrong direction for me! Me and Sat Nav, we're invincible!

Bad behaviour and why I hate parent/teacher meetings..

It's safe to say that I was quite a badly behaved student in my school days. Attention-seeking, easily distracted and unwilling to follow rules, I lay the blame for this recalcitrance firmly with my father. During the mid-fifties -- when he was just a young man -- he was conscripted into the British Army where he spent three years following orders barked at him by -- as he would have seen it --Queen-loving Brits (not the band).

Strongly republican and therefore anti-royalist, he despised the idea that he was serving the crown, and grew to hate petty rules, being intensely dismissive of those who willingly followed them without question. Although incredibly charming, his intractability extended to standing in queues for example, or signing his signature, or indeed paying fines which he thought to be unreasonable, and really if everyone acted like this, society would crumble into a sort of Hobbesian anarchy where life would soon become nasty, brutish and short....

I regret to say I never really asked him much about this time in his life -- oh to have just one more hour with him -- although I do know that he spent a couple of years in Egypt prior to the Suez Canal Crisis and treasured his memories of Cairo and the few Arabic phrases he picked up while there.

Dad (Right) was a desert-dweller long before me

This dislike of rules was passed on to me and school, with all its rules and regulations, was the starting point. You could say the British Army is responsible for the fact that I was really very naughty in school and spent far too much time standing opposite the principal explaining my latest exploit. Which is why, I think, I find dealing with my children's schools so intimidating now; it brings me right back to my school days, standing there; in BIG trouble.

With the exception of a lovely Scottish woman who taught eldest boy in Ras al Khaimah (how I wish he had her now -- fabulous teacher), and  five-year-old boy's current teacher -- an hilarious woman who seems to be in a permanent state of mirth, I am always slightly scared of my kid's teachers and feel they are judging me.

Which of course they are. I walked into my son's class the other day just in time to overhear the supply teacher ask sarcastically 'so is mummy ALWAYS this late?' Her mortification was obvious as she turned around and spotted me, but I was stung at the unfairness of it all.  Being late at the end of the day surely doesn't count; if anything doesn't it compensate for being late in the morning?

And when I remember to check their school bags every couple of weeks or so, I'm always bombarded with a dozen notes and letters informing me of meetings and events long since passed.  Or little notes from their teachers, penned into their homework books, requesting 'can mum please sign this to say she's checked your homework?'.

-'What homework?' I will demand.

-'Dunno' shrugs the child in question, dispassionately shooting a village person in the head on Playstation 3.

So parent teacher meetings I find scariest of all, mainly because I know it's basically a thinly veiled attack on me, although it's difficult to take it seriously when it's about the five-year-old; I mean, what can you say about a five-year-old?

-'He's very good at keeping inside the lines' the teacher will say, offering a crayon drawing of Chucky from Child's Play 2, holding a blood-drenched dagger.

-'Yes, wow, talented' 

Next she'll hold up a page of lazily drawn 'd's', which I know he did in front of the TV-- balancing on a Dora the Explorer DVD box, while lazily slurping away on a fruit juice watching Big cook, Little cook --  the final line of which I did myself with my left hand because he was taking so god damn long. 

-'He's lazy, he can do better' I'll say suddenly, because it makes me sound like a pushy parent, and throws the teacher into confusion about her earlier assessment of me.

'No, no', she'll say in alarm, 'he'll get there in his own time'.

Then she'll say lots of things about phonemic awareness and word recognition and I'll go into a little daze, nodding my head and pretending I understand everything she says, hoping it's nearly over so I can leave before the 'lateness' issue is raised.  It always is, and I'll spend the next couple of weeks (unsuccessfully) trying to get to school on time.

I suppose I should be grateful that I don't get called into the school to talk about their misbehaviour, as my poor suffering parents frequently were.  Unlike me, my kids reserve their revolting behaviour entirely for home. Bless 'em....

Australia update...

Thankfully I am acclimatising to the high living costs and occasionally forget to mention it for whole minutes at a time, and instead am turning my attention to acquainting myself with Australian politics. I'm gladdened to see that they are as disrespectful of their leaders as we are back in Ireland -- all that fawning over the UAE monarchy was nauseating -- can you imagine having Enda Kenny or Julia Gillard's image captured inside a heart-shape on the side of your car? You'd be constantly pelted with rotten tomatoes and deservedly so!

This really wouldn't work in Ireland...