A Spoonful of Sugar

‘Are the Sherman Brothers real, mummy?’ / ‘Do they live on our planet, mummy?’ / ‘Do they live on our road?‘ (….because if they lived on our planet, why wouldn’t they live on our road, after all?)

I know quite a lot about the Sherman brothers these days. If you’re wondering who they are and why the obsession with them……well they wrote the soundtrack to Mary Poppins. Yes they did; along with countless other films. And we are very much in a Mary Poppins phase. If, like us, you are lucky enough to own the Mary Poppins soundtrack and if, like us, you listen to it on repeat in the car, then you will know that at the end of the CD there is an interview with the Sherman brothers – yes, we love listening to this too. If you want to know how the song A Spoonful of Sugar came about, just ask us.

Our Mary Poppins obsession has been going on since the beginning of this year and shows no sign of waning. You might think I’d be over it by now but the thing is, well I actually quite like it. It can continue for a while longer as far as I’m concerned. I mean firstly, the songs – they are just so good, aren’t they? Who wouldn’t want to hear a little boy singing Sister Suffragettes with gusto as he goes about his day? Equally joyous is seeing your children attempting to recreate the whole Step in Time dance routine. And I challenge you to try singing along to Let’s Go Fly a Kite without raising a smile….I’m not sure it is possible – it must be one of the most uplifting songs ever written.

It has never been particularly easy to get my three boys to sit down and watch a film together, but Mary Poppins is one of the few films that manages to keep them all gripped. It might be old, and it might not be as flashy as today’s children’s offerings; but I think this might actually be a big part of the reason why we like it so much. I know it makes me sound about 83 but…..well they just don’t make films like Mary Poppins anymore. So many children’s films now seem to be so complicated. I am the first to admit that following a complex plot is not one of my strengths, but if I can’t follow what’s happening in a film then what hope do my four year olds have? Often there are too many characters, everything is moving too fast, the whole thing is too loud, I struggle to understand what anyone is saying; and plots are long and convoluted.

Yes I know, I really do sound about 83. But there is something very comforting and reassuring about Mary Poppins. Yes, there are parts of the plot which might go over the heads of very small children – Mrs Banks the suffragette, for example. But the gist of what’s happening – a flying nanny with a bottomless bag who takes two children on magical adventures in London, and a father who, in the end, fixes a broken kite – well, we can all understand that.

Yes, I know it’s all very saccharine and Julie Andrews actually sings about spoonfuls of sugar, but isn’t the message of that song actually quite a good one for children? Not taken literally, obviously. But isn’t it saying that if we try to make everyday jobs fun then they will be easier to carry out? And isn’t that what we all try and encourage our children to do if we want to encourage them to get on with something? When their little legs get tired on a long walk, or when they don’t want to tidy their room, or when they’re bored sitting in a traffic jam? Try singing a song as you walk……Or making a race out of tidying up to see who can be quickest……Or playing I Spy to help pass the time.

So in these uncertain times when the country frequently feels like it’s falling apart, I’ll happily take a spoonful of sugar. In these days of special effects and flashy superheroes, I’ll take dozens of chimney sweeps stepping in time. I’ll even take Bert’s ridiculous accent. Films these days may be ritzier and louder and flashier. They might have more impressive special effects. But when you’re 4 and 6, nothing can beat those magical opening and closing drawers in Mary Poppins.

Sometimes, less is more. There’s a lot to be said for a plot you can understand. For catchy songs. For dancing on roof-tops. And for Mary Poppins soaring over London with her magical umbrella.

We love you, Mary. You can stay a while longer.

Happiness on a background of sad

It’s the end of half term. And it’s another day of awful news.

I have loved this half term; but the backdrop has been heartbreaking.

We’ve played under (mainly) blue skies and eaten too many ice-creams. We’ve walked miles, had running races, and scrambled up trees. We’ve ridden on trains and buses, and almost reached the riding-bikes-without-stabilisers milestone (or two out of three have, at any rate). We’ve had mini-adventures and some big adventures too. Of course there have been all the usual challenges, and plenty of them…… getting out of the house is still probably up there as the biggest challenge of them all. But overall, I have loved this half term.

It’s a strange feeling, though, creating happy memories against a backdrop of tragic news. It’s a strange thing watching your children joyfully race each other down a hill when your mind can’t stop going over recent events……. Manchester. Kabul. London. Sharing laughs and giving cuddles when you are struggling to comprehend what and why and how. When hearing that a van has driven into pedestrians triggers ‘attack‘ rather than ‘accident‘ in your mind – these are the times we are living in. And yet you, my beautifully innocent little boys, you know nothing about these troubled times. You have no idea what could make anyone angry enough to hurt so many other people. And so we carry on as normal – singing songs, laughing at jokes, eating Cheerios, watching Paw Patrol, squabbling over toy trains.

And yes, I know that for some people, for some families, this is their everyday. Trying to maintain normal for their children against a backdrop of horror…..often outside their own front door. Trying to explain to tiny children that the time has come for them to leave their home and all their belongings behind because it just isn’t safe to stay where they are any longer. Trying to keep some sort of routine, some semblance of normality for the sake of little people who have already seen and heard too much. I don’t know how they do it, these people.

In between all the bad news stories, political parties are canvassing for our votes. Telling us they’ll bring us together again, make sense of it all; put money here and save money there. They’ll make us safer. And as they canvas for votes, we wonder what sort of world you little ones are going to inherit. We read stories about underfunded schools and underpaid nurses. We wonder why the very things we value, the things which hold our society together, don’t appear to be worth investing in.  We want the world to be safe for you, and we are desperately sorry that right now, it doesn’t feel like it is.

And yet still, we laugh as you race down hills and whizz down slides – because that is all we can do. We can’t control everything that is happening out there; but, in these uncertain times, we can do our best to give you a haven, and to give you happy half term memories to hold on to. I hope that’s what we’ve done this week….I’m just so sorry it’s been against a backdrop of sad.

Mrs May, can we talk about school lunches?

My eldest boy started school in September 2014 – just when the free school lunches for infants started.

He will end his time at infant school this summer, just as the free lunches look set to end. He is the free-school-lunches boy.

You should come and meet my biggest boy sometime, Mrs May. Come and see him as he pores over the menu for the term, committing each option carefully to memory. Come round on a Monday as he gleefully exclaims ‘mmmmm, traditional chicken pie with mixed vegetables today – yum’. Come over one weekend and listen as he begs me to make ‘Scotty meatloaf’, just like the one they have at school. Hear him talk about the superiority of school’s cabbage over mine. Come over at 3pm one day, Mrs May, and watch my three little boys running out of school desperate to be the first one to tell me what they had for their lunch – ‘sticky chicken with rice AND pasta AND carrots AND cucumber AND sweetcorn and BANANA MOUSSE for pudding! WITH SPRINKLES!’ Come over at breakfast time and listen to the 6 year old advising his brothers on the best lunch choice of the day – ‘don’t go for the jacket potato today, ok…..not when you can have roast beef!’

You should come and visit our little school sometime too, Mrs May – come and meet our lovely school cook. Come and watch her at the beginning of the day, setting up in the kitchen and waving to the children as they arrive. Come and ask her how she feels about serving the children a good lunch every day. Let her tell you about the children – she knows them all by name. She’ll tell you about this little one who loves Wednesday roast, and that little one who polishes off every last bite and then asks for seconds. Come along to school and ask her about the recent jacket potato competition, which asked the children to come up with ideas for their perfect jacket potato filling – the winning entries were served for lunch later that week. Speak to the teachers……ask them how excited the children were as they brought their entry forms into school on the Monday. Ask the cook what ideas the children came up with and which entries were the winners. Such a good idea, don’t you think Mrs May? An idea that got the children to be creative and to think about food. An idea which included every child, without anyone having to remember to bring in their lunch money, or worrying that their parents wouldn’t want to pay for a school lunch that day.  It was so successful that they’d like to involve the children more regularly in menu planning. I know, isn’t that great?

Come and meet my boys, Mrs May…..meet my boys, their friends, their teachers and the school cook. Come and meet them, and then tell me you’re taking away free infant school lunches.

I’m not pretending that my boys wouldn’t have school lunches now if they weren’t free – they would. Paying for them would make a big dent in my salary, but I would still do it. I would pay because I like the variety that is served at school. Because I think a hot lunch is better for them than the uninspiring sandwiches I would probably make. And because I like that they sit down as a school community and eat a proper meal. So you might be wondering what my problem is, Mrs May, when I would be willing to pay and when I know that those below a certain income threshold would still be entitled to a free hot lunch. My problem is this – that we have the chance to do this one small thing which can help give children, all children, regardless of income or whether or not their parents want to pay for school lunches, a positive start to their school lives. It is not dependent on whether they fall into the right income bracket, or whether their parents want to pay for it, there is no ‘free school meals’ stigma; it is just what they are all entitled to. A proper lunch in the middle of the day.  All of them, at this crucial age, can get excited about roast dinner Wednesday, or pizza on Friday, or banana mousse or biscuits with sprinkles or sticky chicken or Scotty meatloaf….whatever that may be. (I must admit, I’m not too sure.)

And you’re talking about taking that away.

Please, Mrs May, please don’t tell me that providing breakfast will have the same positive results as the free lunches. Because the good thing about lunch, Mrs May, is that the children are already in school; and so are the staff. And don’t tell me that this is the only way that money can be put back into dwindling school budgets either. Because if your only way of funding schools properly is by taking school lunches away from 4-7 year olds then there is something seriously wrong.

One country I always enjoy reading about, Mrs May, is Finland – you know, that country with the really successful education system. In fact, as well as making some time to meet my boys and the school cook, I wondered whether you might find the time to pay a little visit to Finland? Because they just seem to have schooling and education and yes, even the lunches right. You see, Mrs May, in Finland every child of compulsory school age is entitled to a free school lunch. Every child. The Finnish National Board of Education says:

Finnish school legislation guarantees a well-balanced meal for each pupil every school day. The objective is to maintain and improve pupils’ health and well-being and to give them energy for their school work. (http://www.oph.fi/download/47657_school_meals_in_finland.pdf)

The rationale behind this is probably very simple – children learn better when they’ve had a proper lunch. And ultimately, surely it pays off to invest in education and in our young people? Doesn’t it?

So come and see us sometime, Mrs May. And then perhaps go and have a look at how they do things in Finland. And maybe after that, we can talk again about school lunches.

A tale of three mums

This is Mum #1.

Mum #1 has a job, but not what she would call a career. Mum #1’s job fits conveniently around her role as a mum. Mum #1 doesn’t mind her job, but it is probably not the job she would be doing if she did not have children. Mum #1 knows she is lucky to have a job that fits her current life; but at the same time Mum #1 spends a lot of her time feeling a bit embarrassed and like she has to justify herself.

‘No, I’m not sure it is what I want to do forever but it works around my life at the moment‘.  / ‘It’s so handy working close to home.’ / ‘I really like being able to do most of the school runs.‘

Mum #1 trots out these lines on a regular basis.

Mum #1’s job may be convenient and flexible but it is largely unchallenging. Mum #1 sometimes thinks about the path her life might have taken had she made some different decisions along the way. She thinks about the mums who have what she thinks of as proper jobs. Jobs that they would be doing whether or not they had gone on to have children. Mums who have a professional-looking headshot and mini-biography on an organisation’s website. Mums who attend important meetings. Mums who have a job-title which doesn’t require an explanation. Mum #1 frequently wonders what her life would be like if she had one of these jobs, but at the same time she knows that she likes picking her children up from school.

Mum #2 has a job with a proper name, the job she aimed for from being 15 years old. She puts her children to bed and then logs on to do a few more hours work 
in the evening. Mum #2 knows that this is what is expected of her – she knows that no allowances will be made for her just because of her other role as a mum. There are plenty of others out there who would jump at the chance to do her job, so she needs to be at the very top of her game. Mum #2 feels guilty asking for a couple of hours here or there to attend her little one’s school assembly, and promises she’ll work later that evening to make up for it. Sometimes she can’t bring herself to ask for a couple of hours off; so she asks a friend to take photos for her instead.

As well as work, Mum #2’s head is full of before and after school childcare arrangements, and of the need to plan childcare for the next school holiday.

As soon she walks through the door in the evening, Mum #2’s children are hanging off her legs and wiping their noses on her favourite jacket.

Mum #2 spends a lot of time feeling like she has to justify herself to all the people who ask her why she has made the decisions she has.

‘I work because I like to set a positive example for my child/children.‘ / ‘We need my salary to pay the mortgage.‘ / ‘Things change so quickly in my field of work – I wouldn’t be able to get back into it again if I took time out.’

People ask her how she finds it being back at work. How she manages to do it all. Why she made the decision to return to her very demanding job. People don’t ask these questions of her husband. People don’t ask him why he decided to continue in the job he’d worked so hard for. People only tend to ask a man this question if the man decided to take a step back from work post-children. Mum #2 has noticed this.

Mum #2 loves having a job that is stimulating and challenging. She loves being with people who don’t only think of her as a mum. But sometimes, just sometimes, Mum #2 feels like she’s had enough of juggling all these balls. She feels like she’s had enough of trying to be everything to everyone. Of trying to give her all at work and at home. Of answering questions about why she does it and how she copes. Of attempting to make important phone calls from home while a sick child coughs and splutters and just wants to curl up for a cuddle. She thinks about Mum #3, who is always around if her children are sick and doesn’t need to frantically make alternative arrangements.

Mum #3 had a career and generally a very busy life
before she became a mum; but now she spends her days kneeling on the floor playing snap or building towers out of wooden bricks or pushing a swing, or doing finger paintings. Mum #3 didn’t go back to work after she had children – her hours were long and unpredictable, and her other half works shifts. She couldn’t quite see a way to make it work. Mum #3 always told herself that maybe she would go back to work once her children started school; but then her children did start school and Mum #3 wondered what job she could find that factored in a 9-3 school day and a 6 week summer holiday. Mum #3 still can’t quite see how to make it work and has lost confidence; even though she knows she is competent and qualified and was very good at what she did.

Mum #3 loves being able to pick her children up from school, and being at all the assemblies, and taking photos for her lovely friends who can’t make it to the assemblies, and going into school to read with the children, and doing library duty. But at the same time Mum #3 misses her old life. She misses spending time with people who know her as someone other than X’s mum. She misses using her brain for something other than deciding what to cook for tea, or remembering when the reading books need changing.

Mum #3 also spends a lot of time feeling embarrassed and like she has to justify herself. ‘Yes I do miss my old job but I can’t seem to find anything that fits around my children.’ / ‘My partner works shifts and my hours were really long so it just wouldn’t have worked.’ / ‘Yes, I know it’s a shame I’m not using my degree’.

Mum #3 sometimes gets tired of justifying herself, and of comparing herself to other mums.

So does Mum #2.

And Mum #1.

These aren’t all the mums, of course they aren’t – there are all sorts of variants out there. And of course there are the mums who are happy with the choices they’ve made…..mums who would never have dreamt of going down a different route – the confident-in-the-choices-they’ve-made mums.

But if you’re anything like me, you probably veer between feeling like you’ve made the right decisions one minute, and feeling like you should be doing everything differently the next. And whatever sort of mum you are (I am Mum #1, btw), you will often feel like you have to explain your choices to strangers.

Mary, about those fishcakes…..

Now Mary, before I start…..let me just say that I do really like you. Everyone does, don’t they? I like your floral jackets, your pink nails, the way you stand (or stood, I suppose I should say) with your hands in your back pockets during Bake Off; the cheeky glint in your eye when you talk about enjoying a glass of wine in the evenings.

I love that you admit that life is too short to make your own puff-pastry.

I put up with the fact that the producers of your latest series, Mary Berry Everyday, milked the vintage/floral/cutesy/twee clichés for all they were worth; because….well because I like watching you. I like your sensible advice, and your food always looks delicious.

But Mary, it was the fishcakes that made me switch off when I was catching up on Episode 4 last week. Don’t get me wrong, Mary – they looked amazing. They really did. They looked perfect and crispy and had that amazing sauce oozing out of the middle. Yum.

And you tucked into them, knowing how amazing they were going to be and said something like ‘mmmmm, now those really are special. Do you know, I think that really is the perfect everyday supper.‘

Everyday supper??

EVERYDAY SUPPER????

The thing is, Mary, I find fishcakes a bit fiddly at the best of times. Even just regular fishcakes, let alone your extra special fishcakes. But here you are, popping your beautiful piece of smoked haddock in the oven, making your white sauce, merrily flaking the fish and mixing it with your already-cooked mashed potato, dividing your mixture and forming four perfectly round balls, making a little hole for your oh-so-indulgent filling, spooning in your sauce, folding over the tops of your fishcakes, dipping each fishcake into egg and flour and panko breadcrumbs (this bit, which is awkward and fiddly and always leaves my kitchen covered in egg-y, floury breadcrumbs; just looks so EASY and NEAT and TIDY when you do it Mary), then frying them until they’re beautifully golden (oh, but if you have time, you should also CHILL them for 30 minutes before you fry them so that they don’t fall apart…..you’ve already spent 5 hours on these fishcakes so what’s another 30 minutes?!), and THEN…..FINALLY putting them in the oven.

And after all that – the shaping, and the spooning in of the sauce, and the dipping and the frying and the baking; all you’ve got is a fishcake for your tea! I mean, they do look amazing and everything but surely you need more than a few leaves to go with your fishcakes don’t you, Mary?

All those steps, Mary – so many that I’m not even going to count them all – mean that your amazing fishcakes just aren’t going to work for me. Or for so many mums, dads, and people with normal jobs and normal lives. People who have to travel home from work and get in, tired and hungry, at 7.30 or later. People who have children to get to bed, work to catch up on; or just don’t have all day to spend preparing fishcakes.

For an everyday person, this is not an ‘everyday supper’.

Let me just explain a little bit further, Mary. My ‘everyday supper-time’ scenario usually looks like one of the following:

Scenario A:

Cooking a speedy after-school tea for the family because daddy will be home from work early, so we are all eating together at 5pm. One boy is having a meltdown because I won’t allow him to use knives unsupervised, another boy is forming a human bridge as he attempts to lie across two chairs which are currently placed some distance apart; and a third boy is astounded that I don’t automatically know who finished in the top five in the 2001 Premier League table. As I frantically try to cook and answer questions and keep my offspring away from sharp knives; I know that at least one boy will soon declare that he no longer likes a key element of the supper that is about to be served up to him.

Scenario B:

Making my way downstairs at around 7.45pm, ravenous but knowing that the last thing I want to be doing is chopping, stirring; or indeed anything that involves standing up. Worn out and beaten from at least 90 minutes spent getting my children washed and tucked up in bed. From fighting with a grubby boy who doesn’t want to get IN the bath, then fighting with the same now-slightly-cleaner boy who doesn’t want to get OUT of the bath. From playing let’s-hide-under-the-duvet-before-stories and remembering the order in which I’m supposed to do and say everything…..’go out of the room, now come back in, now lie on the bed, now say “where are those boys?”, now say “oh look, it’s a laughing duvet” ‘. Saying night night, sleep tight, see you in the morning, then saying it all again, and again; then taking a boy to the toilet once more, then giving another cuddle, another kiss; and then another one and another two because apparently this boy’s had more cuddles than that boy. Then answering questions about how long it is until morning, and what day it is, and what we’re doing tomorrow, and when we can go to Italy. And Portugal. And France. Then reading with the eldest boy, and saying perhaps it’s time to turn your light off now darling; you have done a lot of reading….. And the thing is, mummy really needs to cook the tea, sweetheart. Mummy is tired out and mummy is REALLY HUNGRY. 

And so Mary, tempting though your fishcakes look, as I stumble down the stairs at almost 8pm craving something quick and tasty and preferably cooked for me; the last thing I have in mind is coating my amazing indulgent fishcakes in panko breadcrumbs before chilling them and then frying them and then popping them in the oven.

I won’t hold it against you Mary, I still love watching you in your floral jackets. But perhaps in the next series, ‘everyday’ could actually mean ‘everyday’.

You can go now, mummy

“You can you go now mummy”, one of you said, engrossed in your Lego construction.

I thought I had mis-heard, or misunderstood…..I must have done. This wasn’t the way we did things. I am always there until the bell goes and the bell wasn’t going for at least another 5 minutes. At least. I didn’t need to go; you don’t usually want me to go. What about sitting you down on the carpet like I normally do? What about the kisses and cuddles and then waving at the window?

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You can go,” they said…..almost as if they’d agreed this between themselves beforehand. Apparently Boy A’s mummy leaves before the bell, and so does Boy B’s daddy, and….. well, that meant that I was supposed to go too.

For a moment I felt a bit lost…. I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I was convinced that you would soon change your minds, so I aimlessly wandered around the classroom before realising that I looked like a bit of a spare part.

You barely even registered my bizarre behaviour.

I left the classroom feeling like I had left something behind. I peeked through the window but everything was as it should be – you didn’t even look up from your Lego.

Where did this come from, boys? It had felt like a normal morning……Well, mainly normal, but maybe a little bit different too. As we walked the short walk to your school, you shouted across the road to greet your friends – hi to this one, hi to that one. It doesn’t sound like a big thing, but I had never seen you do that before. As I dropped big brother off at his classroom, you both ran after a friend into the playground. You didn’t stand at my side as you normally do, giving shy stares to the other parents around us.

Then you were off again with another friend, racing towards your classroom. You were in the classroom and taking your coats off before I even got there.

There is a special drop-off arrangement for Reception children at your school – us parents can, if we wish, be in the classroom for the first 10 minutes of the day to help you get settled and organised. And so this is what we always did…..up until today, that is.

I always stayed up until the bell rang. I was always there to see where you sit on the carpet and who you sit next to (even though you sit in the same place and next to the same children every day). At least one of you would usually be hanging off my arms or legs; and often there would be a squabble over who got to show me their carpet place first. Once we were ready to say goodbye, I was required to give you several cuddles, kisses, a high-5; and finally wave and blow you kisses through the window.

You were never upset at being left, but this was your routine…..this was what you were used to and what you were happy with. We had done it this way since September. There was no sign, even yesterday, of you being ready for this to change. There was no sign that I was about to hear “you can go now, mummy”.

Is this it now, boys; or was this morning a one-off? Is this the start of your independence? No more hanging off my legs or begging for another cuddle. Are these the words I will hear every school drop off from now on?

“You can go now, mummy.”

I know it is a good thing. I know it is what we all want for our children and what we all need to happen at some point. And I feel proud of this huge step you have taken. Proud of the smiles you both gave me as you reassured me this was what you wanted. Proud of the simple, uncomplicated way you had decided that you wanted to try a new, more grown-up way of doing things.

But at the same time I feel slightly deflated and like I just don’t know what to do with myself for those extra 5 minutes you have just granted me.

And really….. a little bit desperate to feel you both tugging on my limbs just once more.

 

School holidays are made for bickering

This year’s Easter holiday was when you perfected the art of telling tales. You had been working on it for a while but this holiday gave you a good couple of weeks to really work on your skills.

“He called me poo.”  

“He says he’s not my friend.”

“He called me a BUTLER…….Did you hear me, mummy? He called me a BUTLER and it is NOT funny…….No, I don’t know what a butler is, but he just said it AGAIN.”

“He just TOUCHED me on the HEAD!” 

“He said I don’t know how to do my SEATBELT!”

“He tried to eat my SHOULDER!”

Don’t get the wrong idea, boys – I love having a job which is term-time only. I love not having to worry about childcare over the holidays. I love not having to think about sticking to a timetable. I probably spend around 80% of my work days looking forward to the holidays; I really do. I have grand ideas of things we are going to do during during our long and leisurely days…..We are going to make a pizza from scratch. We are going to make Easter cakes and biscuits. We are going to grow cucumbers (HA!).

I suggest that you write a list of some of the things you’d like to do over the holidays. Not today, you say – you’ll do it tomorrow. The list never gets written…..obviously.

But still, list or no list, we begin the holidays optimistically.  You enjoy the simple things – having time to play in the garden and to re-acquaint yourselves with your toys and books. I am doing my very best Julie Andrews impression – it is exhausting, let me tell you.

By the end week one, I am ready to poke my eyes out.

Apparently you all need to talk at the same time, nobody is able to talk at a normal volume, and everything mummy says has to be repeated at least three times. I wonder how anyone possibly manages to home-school their children. Seriously…..how would you get ANYTHING done?

But at the same time, I know that in a few years you will be doing your own thing during the holidays and I will probably long for these days back again. I won’t long for the fights and the squabbles and the tale-telling; but those bits probably won’t stand out to me as much as the special times. The excitement on your faces when I tell you that we’re gong to stay with your grandparents for THREE WHOLE NIGHTS over Easter. The cuddles and the squeezes and the little hands holding onto mine. Easter crowns, sitting at the front of the bus, picnics at the park, running up and down hills, ice-cream moustaches; and you begging mummy to join you for a game of football.

I know that at some point in the not too distant future, the very idea of mummy playing football with you will be truly horrifying.

The excitement when you, eldest boy, lost one front tooth and then the other a few days later. That beautiful, gappy smile and your eyes twinkling with joy when you found your coin from the tooth fairy.

I know that these days won’t last forever. I know that us tired, flustered parents need to do our best to see through the bickering and the squabbling, and treasure the special moments. And I will treasure them, honestly I will.

But it would help enormously if you could just remember that you are NOT poo (even if a four year old says you are, you’re really not), that despite your squabbles over who gets to choose their cereal first, you are all friends; and that…..well, there are worse things in the world than being called a butler.