Overtaxed children

Despite the title, this isn't a rant about the British financial system - we'll save that for another day.

I've been reading a great deal of late about the 'problems' of the modern childhood, and it seems that as a parent I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. If I ask my children to do a few minor chores around the house - at least teach them that the washing fairy won't put their socks in the dirty basket for them - and demonstrate the link between food shopping and tea on the table, then I'm depriving them of their time for fun, by foisting adult responsibilities upon them. On the other hand, if I bring up three kids who can't do anything for themselves and truly believe that we have magic self-tidying bedrooms in our house, I've clearly failed. If I ask them to do all the things the school require of an evening (lets count them - 15 mins reading, remedial writing because there isn't time in class, 15 mins spelling practice and "20 minutes a week homework" that often translates into a full hour, replete with tears and screaming), I'm pushing them too hard; but if we don't do those things, I'm not helping them achieve their potential.

I want them to have fun out of school too. I always swore I wouldn't drive them from activity to activity after school, leaving lots of time for drawing pictures, building dens, reading comics and just lying on the floor dreaming about stuff. But then, Little Miss started ballet last September.... and then Eldest showed an interest, so we couldn't dismiss it out of hand.... and now Middlingest has asked to try tap dancing.

None of this would be a problem, except the classes are Tuesday at 3.30 (Little Miss), Wednesday at 4 (Eldest) and Thursday at 3.30 (Middlingest). We don't get home until nearly 5 and then its a mad dash to do tea and homework and bath and stories and bed. The children end up stressed and miserable.

So what on earth do I do? Today, Middlingest announced he had tummy ache and didn't want to go tap dancing and although I suspect he's just tired, I let him. They're all watching Bugs Bunny on the video, and when that's over I shall shoo them out of the playroom to do something more interesting somewhere else while I get the tea ready.

It's all about balance, I'm sure. I just can't find it.

Using up the bits and bobs

I'm going to cheat today and post a couple of recipes I used over the weekend that are terrific for padding out and using up leftovers, providing they start unadulterated. By which I mean they won't help if you have leftover cauliflower cheese or lobster thermidore, but are great for the end of a roast and the leftover vegetables from the same meal.

Chicken caesar pasta

Very easy, this. All quantities are approximate.

Ingredients:
250g pasta
Left over roast chicken for 5 (on the light side if necessary), chopped.
Vegetables for 5 (anything that cooks quickly that you may happen to have about), chopped.
half a small tub of creme fraiche
a few grinds of pepper
parmesan shavings
balsamic vinegar.

Boil water for pasta and tip the pasta in once boiling; then put on the lid and turn off the heat. Set the timer for advertised cooking-time less 5 minutes; when it beeps, drop in the chopped vegetables and chicken and put the lid back on quick. Leave it for the remaining 5 minutes.

While you wait, put the creme fraiche in a big bowl and grind in a little pepper. Amuse yourself making interesting parmesan shavings using a block of parmesan and a vegetable peeler.

Drain the pasta and bits, plop into the bowl with the sauce, mix well and sprinkle with parmesan shavings. Serve with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

My 6 year old had three helpings of this!

Left-over lamb stew (based on the summer lamb stew recipe in Good Meals on a Small Budget by Gladys Mann, 1964).

Ingredients:
leftover scraps of lamb
a few carrots, chopped to baby-carrot size
a couple of spring onions, chopped
left-over spring veg of any other kind (peas, beans, greens etc)
Lamb stock
mint sauce

Put the lamb stock in a saucepan with the lamb, spring onion and carrots; bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the other veg and leave for 5 minutes with the heat off and the lid on. Stir in a teaspoon of mintsauce just before you serve. If you find the gravy a little thin, thicken with two teaspoons of cornflour and water. Serve with mashed potatoes.

I have also served the lamb with new potatoes cooked in the stew - just place small new potatoes in at the same time as the carrots and carry on regardless.

Fish!

Today's fish is trout a la creme. Or not, since none of the children (or His Lordship, come to that) will tolerate bony fish.

Fish is complicated in this house, because Middlingest child won't countenance anything that looks like a lump of fish, but will eat tinned mackerel, sardines, pilchards, tuna, salmon - you name it. Meanwhile, Eldest only really likes white fish and Little Miss just likes being difficult.

So, on fish days I cook proper fish for me and His Lordship (tuna steaks, tonight); fishfingers for Eldest; and sausages for Middlingest and Little Miss. Tonight, they are served with boiled potatoes, peas, broad beans and sprouting-broccoli-from-our-very-own-garden. There may also be baked beans for the nay-sayers. Needless to say I have to return the favour on sausages days, when Eldest (who does not eat sausages) must have fish....

I'm sure it's not quite what Parson Woodforde had in mind.

Spring pasta

There comes a point, around about the middle of April, when the potatoes have gone into their pots and the broad beans are sprouting nicely, that I long for something properly Spring-like on the dinner table - no more winter cabbage and wilted carrots. Because we are wildly spoilt and I do buy frozen vegetables, I was able to indulge this yesterday with a quick-and-dirty recipe that took all of seven minutes to get on to the table. I kid you not:

Ingredients (to serve 2 adults and three hungry children)
250g pasta (spaghetti in this case)
250g (one packet) of cherry tomatoes
4 slices of ham
Peas and broadbeans enough to serve the family (I don't measure, I judge)
Optional extras, depending on the children involved: black olives, sauteed leeks.

Method
1) Cook your pasta. We've been having a lot of success with slinging it into boiling water, then putting the lid on tight and turning off the heat and letting it sit for the designated cooking time. It doesn't actually need to be boiling after all!
2) Heat the grill, the halve the tomatoes and put them on a baking tray, cut side up. Drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper, and put under the grill for 5-10 minutes, until they start to burst.
3) Boil a pan on water for the other vegetables. When the water is boiling, drop in the veg, slam on the lid and turn off the heat. Let them sit for 5 mintes.
4) Slice the ham roughly.
5) Drain the pasta and vegetables and tip the whole lot into a bowl altogether. Add a little olive oil and mix well. Serve

This went down particularly well with a dribble of balsamic vinegar each too; and has the advantage that if you have really fussy eaters, you can break it down into individual componants and serve what each person likes (with caveats like 'you must have one green thing').

A New Recipe Book

The time has come to start writing down some of what I feed to the tribe on a regular basis, or we get stuck in a rut. I was going to do this in a card file - I do like new stationery and I rather fancy little white cards to write on in my best handwriting, with my best ink-pen, and not get dirty, ever, by doing anything so silly as cooking near them.... Wait a minute, that defeats the object, doesn't it? Then I thought I might be able to cross reference the receipes so I could search for individual ingredients, or the main carbohydrate element, or the season, or the protein, or whatever. Then I thought it might take forever to build that sort of system, until His Lordship uttered the magic word 'metatags'. Does it all for me, in one easy move.

So, back to the Parson Woodforde idea that started this blog - recording what we had for dinner!

The changing face of shopping

I've never really bought into the idea of 'the dying High Street' until now. 'The changing High Street' perhaps, but not the dying High Street. Partly, this is because I've always been lucky enough to live somewhere relatively prosperous and vibrant. Now, though, even in the Affluent South, it appears to be really happening - but this time it's being accelerated by our own stupidity and snobbishness.

Take our very own High Street here. When I was growing up, a trip 'into town' (no, not London) was an exciting thing to do on a Saturday and where you always went for birthday presents after you'd exhausted the two newsagents in the village. You could find two card shops, a big newsagents, a record shop, an old-fashioned sort of haberdashers (material, notions, lace & ribbons, lingerie, gloves, stockings, swimwear, silly frilly things) and a big Woolworths. It filled the gap between village and major shopping centre half an hour away.

Now, what do we have? Woolworths closed, like the rest of the them, at the end of December. In the last three months I've thought 'I need to go to Woolworths' at least once a week every week (like I used to when it was open, before accusations of hypocrisy are levelled). Woolworths for us meant birthday presents for small friends, children's undergarments, photo frames, pegs, stationery, gardening bits (where is this year's new apple tree to come from now?), emergency school uniform and much more. Now it's gone, I have to leave town to find all of those things, and the other shops are suffering accordingly - if I'm not going to Woolworths, I don't stop at the bakers; I drive to another Post Office; I buy birthday cards at the supermarket or online.

In the meantime, the slow demise is being hastened by some frankly snobbish decisions by the local council. Our Budgens supermarket has been replaced by an M&S Simply Food - wildly expensive food that has been mucked about with. I wouldn't, by choice, cook with anything from there. And the ready meals are vile. Now, the suggestion is that the town really needs to close its branch of Iceland (so downmarket, darling - people from the (whisper it) council estate shop there you know) and reinvent it as a Sainsburys - a much better class of faffed-about-with food at a much higher price. Baby clothes can be bought locally, but only if you're prepared to pay £35 for a dress that will be muddy and grown out of in about three weeks. Which I'm not.

So where does this leave us, in shopping terms? Frequenting the market every week for fruit & veg that at least makes an attempt at seasonality; using Iceland while we still have it; walking a mile in the other direction to go to the butchers (fine on the way there, a long way on the way back with a month's worth of meat); ordering clothes we can't repurpose (now there's a buzz word) or make ourselves over the net. And the High Street slowly dies, because it's can't provide what a family need anymore - although there are two mobile phone shops, five coffee shops, two charity shops and a travel agent. I predict a pedestrian precint made of nothing but coffee shops within 5 years.

Snow

Well, I really can't avoid talking about it any longer, can I? It's snowed. No really, proper snow. Apparently the worst since 1991 which is, come to think of it, the last time I went sledging. The children only made it to school on Wedsnesday and Thursday this week, and on Thursday we went by sledge. The snow is still falling now - about three inches settled, on top of yesterday's frozen slush - and predicted to fall for the rest of the day.
It's interesting that the country is getting so het up about this snow and the 'lack of a precise forecast'. Since when has telling the future been a precise art? We were much happier, I'm sure, when people just sucked their teeth and stared at the sky and waited to see what the weather would do. If this week has proved anything, it's surely that our obsession with controlling all the variables in our environment is pointless. The weather is. Live with it.
I think it also helps to take the long view. In the last century or so, we've had a really hefty winter every 20-25 years or so - 1947, 1963, 1991 and 2008/9. Why is this year a surprise? Anyone with their eye on the calendar properly should have had an inkling this was coming.

It's also raised some interesting points regarding how we live and work. As a family, we are are very lucky - we both work from home and live a mile or less from the children's schools. We can get to school and to the shops, whatever happens, although this working week has been wiped out for me by the schools closing. The schools have been closing 'because the roads are too dangerous to ask teachers (and pupils) to travel'. When I was a child and we had six inches of snow, the only person who couldn't get to school was the headmaster - because he lived in Harrow, not within the village. All the teachers made it even though the school was down one Chiltern hill and up another one for some of them, because they came on foot. I never missed a school day through snow, although I do recall one cancelled birthday party because two friends in rural Hampshire couldn't get off their farms.

But enough of this. I'm off to shovel children into waterproof trousers and play snowballs.

What shall we do with the ill-advised change to a popular song?

I was heartily tickled yesterday to read on the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7860869.stm that Bookstart have got themselves into hotwater by changing the words to 'What shall we do with the drunken sailor?'. While I'm all for Bookstart as an idea - give a free book or two to harrassed parents of young children and it will encourage them to read to them - they seem a bit heavy handed. And I have to say that the books they gave to our three over a period of 4 years were of such woeful quality that they ended up in the charity box very quickly indeed. But then, we were reading anyway. Anything that encourages more people to read must be good I suppose.



But back to the drunken sailor. Bookstart's excuse that the reason it's now 'what shall we do with the grumpy pirate?' (I kid you not) was so that it fitted with pirate-themed reading events is SO pat and SO well practiced and SO disingenuous that it's probably true. It was just a very stupid thing to do. Like Baa Baa [insert culturally-appropriate fully-inclusive ovine-related colour choice here] Sheep, the song about the marine operative who's had a trifle too much pop is known at a subconscious level by most of the population, who do not take kindly to having the childhood props kicked out from under them. The problem is that every now and then, someone does an ernest survey that proves only 20% of parents can remember any nursery rhymes; and certainly, put on the spot by someone on the doorstep or the telephone while my child cries / wants their nose wiped / howls for a drink / destroys the living room, I'd be pushed to recite any correctly too. They're asking the wrong question.



The question isn't "can you remember any nursery rhymes?", it's "what did Little Miss Muffet sit on?" or "how many blind mice were there?". To gauge what people know in their soul you listen to what they sing when they're drunk, not what they recite at speech day.



I admit, I have a soft spot for the drunken sailor and the perennial problem of what to do with him. When Eldest was being induced (badly) and I was on the Gas-And-Air after 36 hours without sleep or food, I apparently sang all the verses I knew, then treated my husband and the midwife to a disquisition on the importance of the song as a social barometer. I rest my case.



Anyway, if you're running a pirate-themed event and do not wish to mention intoxication to the children, what's wrong with this ?http://lair2000.net/Mermaid_Lyrics4/lyrics/You_Are_A_Pirate.html

Back again

Well, I thought I'd posted on Sunday morning, but obviously not. Clearly my own fault for fiddling about with the picture and the header and suchlike.

So, to recap Sunday.... yes, I've been away a very long time. No, no real excuse except life got in the way with its constant round of mopping, wiping, cooking, changing, reading, building, laundering, ironing, bathing and so on. My happy plans for recording everything on here have rather been eaten, and so I must begin afresh with new plans but much the same aims and dreams.

Still not sure what to post, though.

The children are getting their first go at homemade Chinese this evening (which admittedly involves sweetnsour sauce out of a bottle) and are currently rollerskating around the kitchen table (well, it's too cold to go outside). Stir-frying in the middle of a roller disco wasn't my plan when we started this....

Wish me luck.

More about Piccallili

When I said later, I didn't think I meant this much later! Anyway, the piccallili was made, and it's something of a triumph. In truth, I'd prefer the sauce thicker and the vegetables more crunchy (note to self: trust instincts when cooking. I read the recipe and thought 'a tablespoon of flour won't be enough to thicken that much liquid' and lo, I was right. It wasn't.). The best thing about it is it's My Piccallili, Mr Wisteria likes it very much, and I can now put a lunch on the table that's entirely homemade apart from the cheese (I think that's overdoing it a bit).

Meanwhile, in the Wisteria household, those of you following Whitzend The Blog will have noticed that we've got to the carpet stage. We're SO nearly done, but not quite yet. This afternoon's tasks mean emptying the toy boxes that were filled last week to clear the playroom enough for the carpet to go down. Some of the Will Have To Go, though it cause tears and tantrums. Young Master #1 has lost his first tooth. Young Master #2 asked another corker of a question this morning. As he cycled past me at the playground, he shouted 'Mummy, do spiders poo?'. A reasonable question, and one I can't currently answer. Little Miss appears to be dropping her lunchtime nap, dammit, but we're coping.

Off now to clean the fridge we've sold - don't think the buyer wants the crunchy bits, or the finger marks!

Petticoats and Piccalilli

Well, today I am playing Traditional Housewife with a vengeance. Last night, I finished Little Miss's petticoat - she insists on wearing it as a skirt,, which it's a bit thin for, but it's nice to be appreciated. I'm about to finish the waistband on mine (just a tunnel with a bit of ribbon through it) and then I will be the proud owner of Additional Floofiness under my skirt. I tried it on last night, and it Floofs something lovely. It takes my skirt a good four seconds to catch up with me when I turn around.

Mind you, it's mightily impractical for climbing trees.

More about Piccalilli later, as I MUST finish this waistband before Little Miss wakes up.

Well, I was wrong

As it turns out, yesterday afternoon was much better than expected. While it rained (again) we made peg aeroplanes and little peg people to eat at the playdough tea tables - in fact, we made a peg family like us that I'm thinking of using as on-line images. Then, I walked the children for MILES (well, about a mile anyway) up past my old primary school to the park. An hour at the park, with a cable causeway about the right size for little boys, kept everyone entertained and the walk home again left them all hungry for tea and tired enough to go to bed.

It worked remarkably well! Another walk all the way around the village this morning - past the infant school and nursery, down the Deanway, into the Co-op (ice creams were necessary by this point), a quick go on the swings then over the (dry) river, down past the pub and the church, back up the side of the churchyard and up the steep hill home for lunch. Phew. For the first time this holiday the children came home and flopped while I got the lunch on the table rather than running around causing mayhem. Mind you, I feel like I've run a marathon....

I clearly spoke too soon

Well, this week was going really well. We'd not really done anything of significance, but there hadn't been too much television, or fighting, and we had made some splendid playdough tea tables. We deliberately went 'things to do' shopping and bought pegs for making aeroplanes, a frisbee, some play sand, extra playdough and so on. Yesterday was particularly great, because we made a 'beach' in the garden (alright, a paddling pool and a sandpit, but you get the idea).

This morning it all fell over. It may be because the weather is a little bit cooler today, but despite trip to the garden centre to see the tropical fish, a drink and a biscuit while we were out and a play on the swings before lunch, they're all fighting madly again. I'm be tempted to sit them in front of the TV all afternoon, but I don't think the house would survive.

Hey ho. Let's see what happens.

A parenting epiphany

The last few weeks have been very difficult in parenting terms. Eldest is at the end of Year 1 which, frankly, he has not enjoyed much - the school haven't really known what to do with him and parachuted him into Year 2 for a lot of the year. Middlest is just leaving pre-school to start school in September and is torn between excitement at being at school with his brother and fear at a different set of teachers, rules, uniform and so on. Littlest is going through the Terrible Twos and is demonstrating a truly dreadful temper, a tendency to pinch and scratch when thwarted, and a shriek like a pteradactyl.

All this is, of course, exacerbated by having to be out of the house during the day because of the building work. We are 'camping' with the grandparents during the day, which is causing all sorts of interesting conundra in terms of rules, eating habits, television and so on.

I have discovered during this time that I cannot withdraw my attention from the children for any period. I have given up trying to read / check my email / write a letter during the day at all. While we are so unsettled, they need all my attention during the day, if I'm to have any freedom to cook their tea without someone climbing my leg. But the odd thing is, I'm enjoying it. Ok, so watching Lazy Town isn't as intellectually challenging as trying to digest World News while someone attempts to carve their name into the dining table, but it's less destructive and therefore more rewarding. I find to my disquiet that by the end of the day I don't actually care about the World News and would rather have a bath and read Parson Woodforde, but THAT'S OK TOO. I am playing with my children all the time, and they are benefitting. Today, I played trains with #2 and #3 in the garden for half an hour, including making tunnels out of Ryvita boxes. Then they decided to run in and out of the French doors blowing raspberries (which I declined to join in with, much to next-door's amusement). Then, while #1 and #2 watched the Saturday Film with Daddy, #3 and I did some cooking. This evening, I got to sit with #1 while he did a science experiment and wrote his holiday diary. 10 years ago I'd have considered this a hideous imposition on my time, but I really enjoyed today. I hope we can all relax into the school holidays now and make some really nice memories out of them and this blog.

(Parson Woodforde moment - for dinner this evening, homemade French bread pizza, potato wedges with yoghurt for dipping and Saturday Sundae).

A bit of background

So, I will set the scene for my own sake as much as anyone else's.

I'm in my early thirties, and a stay at home mum to three lovely children, aged just 6, 4 and a third and two and a half. Yes, they are close together. Yes, it was deliberate. Yes, it is hard work. No, I don't regret it in the slightest, ever. I was an accountant before any of them were born and although I work even longer hours now that I did then (which I'd never have believed if you'd told me when I was pregnant with #1), I feel I'm doing something worthwhile now. And no-one ever gave me a bunch of slightly squished dandelions or a homecard card to thank me for doing their tax return.

The housewifely side of things is more difficult to explain. On the one hand, I'm a control freak - oh, I love lists, tables, folders, plans, charts, critical paths; anything that gives the illusion of control. On the other hand, I come from a long line on my mother's side of intelligent but DEEPLY untidy women. The need to hoard has come out strongly in me and it's only recently that I've found the mental strength to throw away silly things like all the concert tickets from the Sixth Form and letters from a former boyfriend I'd much rather forget. Isn't that silly?

But, I do love to take care of my family. We've been having some building work done recently (see my husband's blog at www.whitzend-again.blogspot.com) which has prevented me cooking by the simple expedient of removing the kitchen completely in the first 10 days of the project. It's made me bizarrely anonymous and useless, having to rely on ready meals and not bake, or cook proper meals, or indeed know what's for tea until it's on the table (and I'm still quite frequently wrong even at that point). This was quite a shock for a grammar school girl who was raised to be a Captain of Industry and to Change the World by taking over some Arm of Commerce and leading it to Greater and Better Things. Giving up accountancy for parenthood somehow doesn't cut it - although I notice that the majority of the friends I value have done much the same thing.

Anyway, the point of this post was actually to explain the name of this blog. Wisteria and Lobelia were the names that my family gave my bump when I was expecting my first two babies. Since they both turned out to be boys, then I decided not to risk it with a name for the third bump - who, naturally enough, was a girl. But it does create the image of roses-round-the-door, white-picket-fence, cottage security; and since I am having a range cooker in my new kitchen (truly a think of beauty and I am very excited about it) then it seems appropriate.

Now I have a plan

Right, I've thought about this a bit more now. I've been reading James Woodforde's 'Diary of a Country Parson (1758 - 1802)' recently (admittedly very slowly - that's the penalty of the school holidays). I like that idea that he recorded a great deal not about the 'great events' of the late 18th century, but about the minutiae of his life - what was for dinner, what he paid his blacksmith (and spirits smuggler), who in the local community came to visit or was rude. It's a rather lovely record of what was important in his life over a 45 year period.

I'm not claiming to be making such a record here, but I would like to record what's happening generally in my (our) lives. I always thought I would remember my children's early years in huge detail and glorious technicolour but the truth is that Eldest turned 6 ten days ago and I don't know where that time has gone. Before Middlingest and Youngest get beyond 4 and 2 I'd like to make a record of this time.

I've already started 'memory books' for each of them, just recording little incidents out of their childhoods (like when Eldest slipped on the stairs, then went back to the top and asked for another go!) that I think they will like to hear when they're older. This is much more about recording how I feel about things and how the housewifely stuff is going. I don't believe anyone will read it (I once heard blogs described as 'written by people who erroneously believe anyone cares about their lives') but it's a useful recording method for me, at least until the Internet is superseded by something even more wizzy.

If anyone is reading this, best of luck.

This is the beginning

I've been writing this blog in my head for weeks, if not months, and now I'm finally here I'm not sure what to say.

More tomorrow when it's percolated a bit.