Peace On Earth

Who could ever have guessed that Monopoly - a game of ruthless property grabbing - would bring peace to the Tinsley household at Christmas? Once Nick established the ground rules (backstab and cheat all you like but no biting or kicking your siblings) the children played without rowing for hours - while I peeled Brussel Sprouts.

Badminton

Since when did badminton become a risk sport? When I returned from the grocery shopping the kids were playing together; three of the four had riding hats on and the fourth had a sulky expression.
"What happened?"
They spoke up in unison. They said: "Florence attacks us when she misses the shuttlecock."

No Parent Policy

My kids are in Swim Squad at school. We pay a fee for this privilege. We drive them to 6am sessions, and pick them up after training.
Today I tried to spend five minutes poolside admiring Rex and Bea before going on to a parent teacher meeting.
I was asked to leave the pool.
I was told: "We have a No Parent Policy at all our training sessions; in the past we have found parents have interrupted coaches during sessions and disrupted the training for all swimmers. Their focus quite rightly should be on the children and they should be able to coach without interference from the sidelines."
After I got over feeling hurt and insulted - I began to wonder if I should adopt the same brutal attitude to the pony club mums who stand paddock side shouting superfluous instructions during my teaching sessions? It would certainly make my life easier.
But then I realised the loser is not the mum but the kid. Kids love to see their mums watching - my two were trilled by my five second appearance - just enough time to wave to them - when I picked them up Bea asked: "Did you see I'm diving much better?" and Rex said: "Do you see I was the fastest in my lane?"

Painfree Parenting

Eleven years ago today I went to the hospital for an induction.
The booking-in midwife examined me. She said: "You're already 6cm dilated."
"Without pain? Is that possible?" I asked her.
She suggested I take a walk. I walked up and down (and down and up) while Nick read the paper. At lunchtime the consultant came to break my waters.
She said: "You're 9cm dilated."
"Without pain? Is that possible?" I asked her.
*
Today Rex was 11. He wanted a party.
"Without pain? Is that possible?" I asked him.
He invited 14 footballer friends. They arrived in their runners with sunblock. Nick was the referee with a whistle. I took a video of them. They ran up and down the village pitch for an hour. When the game finished they drank only water. They were too hot and exhausted to eat. I put the video up on the TV. They watched the game highlights and chatted. They said: "Great party! Thanks for inviting me," when it was time to go home

Dyslexia Does Not Mean Stupid

My son Rex is a bright little boy - articulate, intelligent, and a born leader. He also suffers from mild dyslexia and receives learning support at his school in Bahrain.
Should we have to move back to live in Northern Ireland I'd like Rex to go to the grammar school I went to. To get into the school requires the passing of an entrance test. The school has many pages on its website devoted to the admissions procedure - and the 'access arrangements' which ensure a child with mild dyslexia (like Rex) are given 25% extra time in the test - the same as he would expect to receive if sitting state exams such as GCSE or A Level.
The school (naturally) requires an Educational Psycologist's report stating that Rex is dyslexic before they can give him the 25% extra time.
The school has made it clear the assessment done on Rex in Bahrain is not enough to convince them my son is genuinely dyslexic. However, mysteriously, they have also said Rex cannot be assessed by an Educational Psychologist in NI just so he can sit the transfer test. (Why?)
I phoned Education Board to seek their advice. The woman I spoke to suggested that if Rex was dyslexic he was probably too stupid to go to grammar school.
Induge me with this list of Famous People with Dyslexia
Mohammad Ali, Hans Christian Anderson, Beethoven, Alexander Graham Bell, Orlando Bloom, Napoleon Bonaparte, Sir Richard Branson, Erin Brockovich, George H.W. Bush,
Julius Caesar, Prince Charles, Cher, Agatha Christie, Winston Churchill, Tom Cruise
Charles Darwin, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Michael Faraday, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin, Zsa Zsa Gabor,
Galileo, Danny Glover, Vincent Van Gogh, Whoopi Goldberg, John Grisham, Woody Harrelson, Steven Hawkings, Tommy Hilfiger, Dustin Hoffman, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Magic Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Keira Knightley, John Lennon, Jay Leno, Carl Lewis, Steve McQueen, Michelangelo, Mozart, Jack Nicholson, Louis Pasteur
General George Patton, Pablo Picasso, Edgar Allen Poe, Nelson Rockefeller, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rodin, George C. Scott, Steven Spielberg, Sylvester Stallone, Jackie Stewart, Quentin Tarantino, Thomas Thoreau, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, Leonardo da Vinci, Robin Williams, Woodrow Wilson, Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright and William Butler Yeats.
The only other thing these people have in common is that none of them has ever been educated in Northern Ireland.

Music Lessons

Rex is keen to take up an instrument - so we went to see Mr H, who teaches brass at the school.
"Brass chooses the boy!" he told me.
I looked at cases for tuba and French Horn, and crossed my fingers that they wouldn't choose Rex or I was going to have to buy a bigger car to carry the instrument round...
My prayers were answered. He came home from his try-out at brass and announced: "The trumpet picked me!"

Little Women

Remind me again how Marmee managed when Amy and Jo were at each other's throats? I have an Amy and Jo who delight in upsetting each other. Last night Jo ate Amy's cup cake in retaliation she tells me for Amy defacing the Easter greetings card she was making for Granny. And this morning there was another eruption - a tug of war over the head of a hairbrush.
Before long Amy will be throwing Jo's novel into a fire...
And what will poor Marmee do then?
My own mother says to ignore them. She says if I try to referee they will gang up against me and turn on me. She says it's a lose lose situtation.
Which is why she always ran away screaming when my three sisters and me fought with each other when we were growing up.

Happy Birthday Florence

Nine years ago today I woke up with a pain in my tummy. Time for a bath, I thought, and I really must wash my hair. And blow it dry and slap on all of my makeup...
My mother phoned: "It's the due date," she said.
"And the baby is coming," I told her.
At the hospital a lovely young doctor with her handbag on her back told me I was 6cm dilated, and fully effaced - my cervix just had to stretch a bit more and then it would be action stations.
"Would you like me to stretch it to 10cm?" she asked me.
"Yes please."
And just like that I was ready to push. And two pushes later she was born. Precise and tidy and hard as nails with never any fuss about her.
Happy Birthday Florence.

Brotherly Love

Rex and Bea are very good friends when they're not killing each other. This morning Bea was struggling to tie her shoe laces. Rex stopped gelling his hair(!)and sat down on the day bed beside her. I over heard him saying: "Just copy me and I'll teach you.... Now this is the difficult bit... Noone can do this the first time..."
It took a while but he perservered, and now Bea can tie her own laces.
"I'm so proud of you Rex, you're such a lovely big brother!"
"Thanks Mum."
Five minutes later they were fighting again - he pulled the bunches out of her hair and she kicked him hard on the shin with her well laced up trainer.

Hallowe'en

And she's up, she's off, she's sleepwalking again...
Our 8 year old daughter is a nervous wee thing, highly strung and over wrought. A sprinter, not a long distance runner. When she's over tired she sleepwalks. And even though she's as silent as death we usually catch her upstairs on the landing...
But to-night she gave us both the slip. She floated past me reading in bed, and Nick downstairs watching the news on the television. She got out of the house in her long sleeved white nightdress and down the path, as far as the gate. And only that it slammed really loudly she'd have been out on the road and away...
Nick caught her, glass eyed and muttering furiously, clutching a book to her chest.
Just as well he caught her or she might have made the headline in tomorrow's local paper: 'Ghost spotted on Hallowe'en night'

Summer Holidays

The ambient outside temperature is somewhere round the mid-40s, the humidity is 100% To combat cabin fever the children have found new hobbies -
Maud (10) is learning to iron and she's taken up crossword puzzles
Rex (9) cleans bathrooms and enjoys Sudoku
Flor (8) washes dishes and loves 'Find the Word' puzzles
Beatrice (7) hoovers and does jigsaws .
We've also been baking biscuits, reading classic novels together and playing Junior Trivial Pursuit.
It's ten weeks till they go back to school and already I'm counting the days.

Ten Year Old Girls

And here we have Maud on her jumping pony. Do they look sweet together?
Maud is ten; she weighs six stone; she suffers from diabetes. She's just a little slip of a thing, she still takes a teddy to bed...
I jumped her pony this morning, the one in the picture above, the one she competes on in shows.
And I've had to completely review my opinion of my sweet little girl.
For the pony is as strong as an ox. And as stubborn as a mule. And he pulls like a train. And if you don't ride him exactly right, with loads of contact and loads of leg he simply will not jump for you, not even over a pole on the ground.
"I'm starting to understand," I told her, "why you sometimes burst into tears when you ride him."
She's very dismissive, is Maud.
She said, "But when he goes well, it's like flying."

Male Role Model

Nick is working in Saudi and Rex has become obsessed with... Michael Jackson. He has the hat, he has the moves, but instead of a glove Rex has a bandage which he wraps round his hand and wears as a sling -
"Have you hurt yourself darling?"
"It's fashion, Mum."
Where has my rugger bugger boy gone? He's stopped pushing over his sisters, kicking a football into their faces, and chasing them with dead insects.
In fact yesterday he spent half an hour restyling Beatrice's hair.

Madeleine

Someone fastidiously locks the front and back doors every night. I know it's one of children and I've always wondered who -
Tonight I found out.
Beatrice who's 6 was eating her bedtime Weetbix. She said: "Is Millie (our dog) in or out?"
"She's out," says I. "Why?"
"Please will you call her in, Mummy? I want to lock the doors."
So I call Millie in and say nothing. And allow Beatrice to lock the front and back doors.
Then she says: "Is Madeleine still lost Mummy?"
The poor little mouse has been locking our doors, front and back every night, because she's afraid she might get stolen like Madeleine

The Road Not Taken

A letter has come home from school inviting Florence to swim at the 2010 Muscat International Invitational Age Group Swim Meet. What a momentous event. For me, not for Florence. For today, after years of avoiding it, I have reached the path that forks in the life of every mother.
To be or not to be - an alpha mum.
We all want our daughters to do well in life. To be confident, kind, socially competent, well mannered, happy. If they can be pretty and clever and sporty as well, that's even better for them.
But I've always made an point of not weighing down my children with parental expectations.
"But I want to swim in Muscat!" says Florence.
I've always believed if you want something bad enough, you will find a way to get it, without the help or interference of 'mother'
"Can you help me with my racing dive, Mum? You're really good at racing dives."
I mean, I'm really pleased Florence is a good swimmer - one day it might save her life, should she trip and fall into a swimming pool, or get washed out to sea....
"I'll have to swim every day until the competition. Will you take me swimming every day, Mum?"
God help me, I don't even like to swim, yet if I become an alpha mum I am the one who is going to be racing her up and down the pool. My hair is going to be ruined.
"I'll lend you my swim hat, Mum."

Alpha Kids

I'm very proud of my three alpha daughters. It was the school swimming gala to day and all three brought home medals. I am very proud of them because I am so not an alpha mum - I never push them to do anything, except homework...
The girls picked what races they wanted to swim in, and filled in their own application forms. They even set my alarm clock so I could drive them to the pool this morning. And Maud packed a lunch for me to eat, and Bea carried a cushion for me to sit on, and Flor had my novel in her swimming bag so I wouldn't be bored when they weren't in the pool.
But I wasn't bored a bit. I was too busy listening to and watching alpha parents coaxing and encouraging their children - "Push, Push, Push, can you feel the pain?" -I actually heard somebody say that!
My little girls felt no pain - they swam like fish through the water - I was dazzelled by their brilliance. So dazzelled I bought them a Mc Donalds each afterwards.

Home Schooling

Why? Why do you do it, home schooling mums?
I've had home schooling forced upon me, for the foreseeable future, while swine flu fever grips Bahrain. The tartlets have each been provided with bumper packs of school work. I've been assured they will able to do this work unsupervised.
No advice has been offered on how to catch them and pin them down and persuade them to open their packs and get started.
Also I'm the first to admit teaching is not my thing. I'm a control freak and a perfectionist where homework is concerned - pencils must be freshly sharp, rubbing out must be thorough. If you can't spell a word, look it up in the dictionary. Sums and spellings cannot be nearly right...
It's quite extraordinary how quickly we've become fed up with each other. We have nothing to talk about anymore - except the necessity of capital letters and full stops in every sentence, Maud! And can you please stop humming when you're trying to concentrate Rex? And why do you have to try to wriggle out of your reading every single day Flor? And, OMG, is it really possible that you can't count to 10 on your fingers, Bea?

Home Again

I was away from the tartlets for a week, the first time in ten years, and at the start I kept searching for them: "Where are they? Oh yes, I forgot, 5000 miles away, in the Middle East, with their father..."
My parents in Ireland said, "Stay with us! You'll be lonely in that old farmhouse by yourself..." But I wasn't lonely, not a bit. The silence was seductive. The first proper silence since Maud was born. No children's voices calling "Mummy Mummy." No air conditioning - it makes such a racket. No television, or wireless. I love the silence. I could get used to it.
I didn't realise I was missing the children until the descent into Bahrain. I thought I wasn't thinking about them. Then I pictured them standing with Nick in Arrivals and I suddenly burst into tears. Because I was going to see them again - noisy, attention seeking, opinionated little beasts that they are.
The man sitting beside me gave me his hanky. He thought I was crying because my holiday was over. He was right. I was crying because my holiday was over. But they were tears of joy.

Birthday Party

10 year old girls are still children - I'm very happy to report.
I was expecting pre-teen posturing, and a disdainful refusal to play 'baby' party games...
Instead they wore party hats and played Musical Statues. They had an egg and spoon race, and an egg and spoon race in (my) high heels and an egg and spoon race while balancing a book on their heads. And Pass the Parcel, and Musical Chairs and a Treasure Hunt and every one joined in, even sophisticated Emma who prefers Amy Winehouse to Hannah Montana.
They ate popcorn and crisps and ice-cream and jelly and birthday cake.
Before they went home they said, "Thank you very much for having me. I had a lovely time."

9l11

Just like when Kennedy was shot, I remember exactly what I was doing when New York was attacked eight years ago. I was living in Botswana. I had two very small children. There was one children's television programme every day - Teletubbies at 3pm. My friend Jenny was visiting with Angus. We were drinking tea, and the children were lined up in a row on the sofa watching Teletubbies.
The programme was interrupted to show amateur video footage of an aircraft flying into one of the twin towers. The voice over was in some language I didn't understand and at first I thought it was an accident. And I was rather peeved that Teletubbies had been interrupted.