Habits



I find it fascinating how quickly bad habits are formed. Take this blog as an example, I let a puppy excuse my regular posting until the habit of avoidance became so bad I considered abandoning the blog altogether. But why is the reverse the case when trying to adopt good habits? All those good intentions, (usually formed the morning after each New Year's Eve when the memory of the second bottle of Tequila is forcing the resolution.)  - "I will go to the gym three times a week." "I will eat fruit every day." "I will stick to that yoga class." How hard can it be? Apparently harder than Arnold Schwarzenegger's knob! The gym winds down at a gradual pace from three times a week, to one, to never before the end of January; similarly the bags of apples fester in the fruit bowl until you could drink the fermented result and call it home brew along with the yoga class that almost makes it to half term until a new series of Ripper Street starts at exactly the same time and it's farewell Downward Dog and hello fat arse!

Meanwhile the bad habits wriggle into our being while we defend them with our lives. "I have to have the large bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk for my blood sugar levels." "Oh there's nothing wrong with 6 cups of coffee a day, at least I don't drink Coke." "I have to watch Jeremy Kyle after drop off to learn Street Patois."  "I need a bottle of wine a night to relax." That habit's the toughest one to crack of them all.

My alcohol consumption was quite measured before I had sprogs; social events aside, I hardly drank at all. A shared bottle of wine over dinner was the pinnacle of my habit, rarely done on week nights and often was the bottle left unfinished; so why, with the onset of kids, did I nurture a tolerance to the stuff  that would have given me a fighting chance against Russell Brand in a drinking contest?

It started innocently enough; the odd snifter with fellow mums while discussing sleep deprivation and Mastitis, but faster than I could say AA I was yanking the cork out of the bottle come the girls' bedtime at 7pm like a woman being involuntarily sectioned while cursing the sodding cork and vowing to only buy screw tops from then on. It probably didn't help that Bob joined me in this new found recreation, but it made it more acceptable that he did. When once we could have been spotted enjoying an evening swim after a hard days' work, perhaps having a salad for dinner to complete our smug virtue, now our nights were spent in drunken conversation and later and later meal times. If having children meant we couldn't go to the party then we would create our own. And so it was that the habit was formed with remarkable ease believing it an aid to marital relations; who needs marriage guidance when you can simply open a chilled bottle of Chablis? What I didn't know then, was the wine was rapidly morphing into a crutch which I used with increasing skill while adapting to the new life I was carving when we had children. Call me mad, but endless washing cycles and Annabel Karmel recipes just didn't float my boat. I didn't give a shit how cute she made a baked potato look, with chive whiskers and radish ears, my kids weren't having any of it!

My days plodded along between the mundanity of daily chores and the hedonism of the evenings until Tuna started nursery and I went back to work. That was when the wine stopped being a crutch and became a wheelchair. The mood soothing properties of the fermented grape became necessary on my return home to stop me snapping at the girls for dragging their heels over bedtime because they hadn't seen mummy all day. With the first sip the world adopted a rosy glow and I could cope with anything.

Until it stopped helping me cope and started exacerbating my utter exhaustion. In my busy day to day existence I ate little of nutritional value (unless the cheese in cheese and onion crisps counts. Probably not!) and propped myself up with coffee and plonk before picking petty fights with Bob culminating in sleepless nights of regret. I was a train wreck. I knew I needed help before I ran right off the cliff edge.

 

 

I had read an article somewhere that hormone imbalances in post children and forty plus women can be misdiagnosed as depression as the symptoms are virtually identical. Armed with this knowledge I skirted round the doctor and sort the help of a Naturopath. She discovered that my adrenal glands were on the floor and needed urgent attention if I was to return to a happy, balanced disposition. (I'm not sure I've ever been balanced, but I didn't mention that!) Supplements and tinctures specific to my needs were prescribed along with recommendations for a healthy diet, all of which I swallowed religiously along with putting a cork in the bottle. Bob also leaped to my rescue by preparing meals so chocked full of veg my plate resembled an allotment each night.

Within six months I was back to my mostly usual self with thoughts of cliff edges a distant illusion in my memory. All it took was physical maintenance. I wouldn't have treated my car as badly as I treated my body - in fact, it's illegal to put an unfit car on a road, and yet the potential damage bald tyres could inflict is nothing compared to the destructive consequences of a neglected body.

And now, three years on, I no longer need the supplements, enjoy alcohol in sensible quantities, maintain a balanced diet and most importantly, enjoy my life again. It's not rocket science, and yet sometimes, it may as well be when those bad habits retain a firm grip. So stop looking at that apple and pick it up and eat it, unless it's the apple wielded by the witch in Snow White, it won't poison you!

www.ruthsharif.com
A Naturopath brimming with knowledge and human compassion. She also loves dogs!



Eddie

                     
                                                                              

So I've gone and done it haven't I? Rocked the balance in our home and provided Bob with a male heir; selflessly given our oestrogen rich house a boost of testosterone. Someone Bob can scratch his balls with; shout obscenities at the TV with when Man City's eleven men morph into ballerinas for ninety minutes, and someone to roll his eyes with when we girls morph into dragons once a month.

I can't pretend I wasn't apprehensive at the prospect of sleepless nights and toilet training all over again, but there are no lengths I won't go to in the pursuit of Bob's happiness; and I'm happy to report he's been sleeping through since day one and seems to have accepted that the lounge floor is not his private lav.

Yes, this great gift to Bob has come in the form of a puppy. Overnight we turned from a twelve legged family to sixteen - just like that. Well, actually, not just like that, we did spend a few weeks checking daily the website of Pound Puppy, (the same rescue centre we found Sally six years ago) waiting for the right dog to appear. And appear he did. I knew at a glance he was the boy for us; not that I had many stipulations; all he needed to be was small, a puppy and male. He ticked all three boxes. Two phone calls, five days and 126 miles later, he was spewing in my lap as though my life wouldn't be complete without another travel sick youth to contend with. To his credit though, he was infinitely more subtle in his nausea than Chicken and Tuna, vomiting his breakfast daintily into a tissue before attempting to tuck in once more as though he'd magically produced another meal.

To say he's a distraction is like calling The Vatican a church. (Hence my tardy blog post.) Since I sat down to write today - a mere ten minutes ago, I've had to pull him off my computer lead, pull him off Sally's neck, wrestle him for my flip flop and race him to the letterbox before he reduced the post to shreds. His waking hours are spent inadvertently wreaking havoc. Nothing escapes his inquisitive gnashes - doormats, tea towels, gas fire coals, candle wax, school bags, toilet rolls, (no one's told him he's not a golden Labrador) violins, (although, I suspect that's a deliberate act as he howls and yelps from the first flourish of the bow!) socks, snails, magazines, toes, fingers, noses, even a full bottle of wine, dragged from the wine rack in our absence became the victim of his scrutinising explorations. In fact, the only thing he doesn't chew is a raw hide chew; these he barks at suspiciously and leaves lying around to be tripped over by unsuspecting feet. When he's not trying to reduce the house to an apocalyptic wasteland and terrorising Sally, he's yanking branches off shrubs in the garden and dead heading the geraniums.

                                                                             

But it's Sally who suffers the most as it's she he invariably springs upon when the egg box loses its allure. She accepts his assault with surprising good grace with only the occasional snap of retaliation while I tell her reassuringly that she'll thank me when he's grown up and they're the best of friends. She's still to be convinced. All in all, he's a PPP - Puppy Pain in the Posterior! Although, have you ever met a puppy that isn't? It's their duty to the canine species; a test of our worthiness as guardians and protectors. If we pass, and see them through to adulthood, the rewards are infinite - loyalty, devotion, unconditional love, laughs and a soothing coat to stroke. Dogs don't bear grudges or judge you or point out your moustache and bingo wings. Sure, they might crap and piss in corners of the house you never knew existed until you finally pinpoint the smell, but so did Chicken and Tuna!

Dogs don't need new shoes every five minutes because their paws have grown again ("What do you mean you can't feel your toes? I only bought those last week!"). Dogs don't require spring, summer, autumn and winter wardrobes; Chicken's favourite alliteration is SSS - Spring / Summer Shopping Spree. Dogs never say, "Can I have an ice cream?" "Are we there yet?" or "I'm not eating that!" They'll never ask for a pony or storm off in a sulk because you won't let them join Facebook. My list could go on and on until it rivalled War and Peace for page numbers.

 

However, what dogs don't give us is enough time, especially when they're snatched from us prematurely. Their seven years to our one ensure an all too brief love affair. I firmly believe the pain inflicted by each lost pet can only be soothed by another - hence Eddie. A tiny rascal of teeth and mischief now, but on that dreaded day when Sally leaves us for doggy heaven, Eddie will guide us through our grief with a furry paw and a wagging tail. Well, that's the plan anyway. Maybe I should have stuck to kids!

 

For Monty 2007 - 2013

A happier dog you couldn't hope to meet. x

The Beach

If you were about to conjure images of a semi-clad Leonardo DiCaprio, I advise against it, you'll only be disappointed.

Although the beach, along with my holiday, is now a distant memory, I had the draft for this written so you're getting it anyway!

I don't know about you, but a beach is integral to my summer jollies. The thought of a holiday spent in the mountains or doing anything other than toasting myself to within an inch of crisp is simply not a holiday. Sightseeing is for the cooler months and city excursions are for weekends, but summer holidays must include a beach where my body can recover and recharge after the toil inflicted upon it during the arduous twelve months.

Year after year I honed this practise into an unfailing formula when I would return from a fortnights R and R and launch head first back into the stresses and strains of daily life with gusto, ready to thwart fatigue and rugby tackle stress.(For a week at least!) Until, that is, (you can guess where this is going can't you?) children stamped all over my perfectly cultivated formula with their tiny, little feet rendering the point to my holiday null and void from our first venture together.

My days at the beach, as they were once enjoyed, consisted of swimming, reading, listening to music, people watching and sleeping; in a nutshell - slobbing. At the risk of sounding strange, I am at pains to find a more luxurious sensation than waking gently to the sounds of lapping waves and mellow chatter in foreign lilts while my bones crack after having spent an hour asleep on the bare earth with nothing more than a straw mat for padding. You can keep your swanky health spas; so long as my chin is plastered in my own dribble and I have a perfect impression of my beach towel imprinted on my cheek, I'm in paradise! Once full consciousness had been restored, I would then saunter into the sea, stomach sucked in, oblivious to the fact that half my bikini bottoms had worked their way up my bum. I could only guess at the positions I adopted while in my public land of nod. Happy days indeed!

Much as with 'Walkies' (blog #14), when it took the entire morning to get out of the house to walk the dog, a black hole similarly sucked away our time when fraught mornings were spent gathering equipment and applying sunscreen in layers so thick a flame thrower couldn't penetrate, in an attempt to reach the beach before the dreaded clock struck 12pm when we would have to race back under the cover of shadows to avoid the slightest ray of post midday sun touching their delicate pink skin.

If, by some stroke of order, we managed to reach Mecca for 10am, I would hastily unpack the plethora of buckets, spades, revolving things, seahorse moulds and plastic sieves that had threatened to break our backs in their transport, in the never dying hope that Chicken and Tuna might be occupied sufficiently to allow me a little time in which to tan my hide to leather like in the good old days.

 

There is clearly a law declaring that desperation should never, under any circumstances, be rewarded. Not only did the buckets, spades, revolving things, seahorse moulds and plastic sieves sustain their interest for no more than four and a half minutes, but even my enthusiastic attempts at building a sandcastle were met with alarmed expressions while I knocked seven bells out of Ariel on the side of their bucket only to produce a 'plop'. Their indifference to the point of boredom left me exasperated to the point of adoption.

Chicken and Tuna, as toddlers, just didn't get the point. The soft shingle should have proved a sensory mystery as it ran through their inquisitive fingers, rather than the child torture they deemed it to be. Each time their hands grabbed mindlessly at the tiny, smooth stones, they would look at their palms in horror as though they had plunged their hands into a vat full of scorpions before thrusting them at me to rid them of the vile offender.

As for the sea; how dare I allow the gentle swell to lap over their feet - was I mad? It was wet! Defeated, I would begin packing away our beach paraphernalia while casting dagger like glances at the mothers smugly achieving their all over tans while lazily watching over their offspring frolicking predictably in the surf like the children of my dreams.

So, for the past ten years, when offered words of sympathy in the form of the old adage "A change is as good as a rest", I would respond either, b******s or, "Why didn't I stick to dogs?"!

                                                                              

Pause

I'm sorry I haven't been posting, the summer holidays proved too big a distraction and now I'm working on another project. I hope to be back in the saddle mid September.
See you then.
Martha

Pears

The day Heather died was a sad, sad day. Chicken was nearly four and Tuna had just turned two, both old enough to feel the acute pain the loss of a pet inflicts. Knowing that only another dog could fill the gaping hole, we began the search and found Sally within a couple of weeks. Sally is a Labrador cross rescue dog, abandoned with her litter crawling with all sorts of mini beasts. It took the rescue centre six weeks to get them into shape when we became the grateful custodians of Sal aged twelve weeks. Even though Heather's puppy months were years past, I remembered all too clearly the havoc she wreaked, so Bob and I weren't against the idea of taking on an older dog who had cut its teeth on somebody else, but the girls were adamant they wanted a puppy, and as it was their childhood memories we had at heart, a puppy was what they got, complete with a mouthful of teeth just waiting to be cut.

Despite her teeth which could slice through flesh like a shard of glass, she was an instant hit, endearing herself to us with her silky fur, hazel eyes and zest for fun. The girls were always forgiving of her explorations into their toy cupboard when beloved cuddly toys would emerge missing noses, ears and stuffing in her pursuit of all things needing to be chewed. They even forgave her gnawing on them with tear streaked faces when she regularly mistook their wrists and ankles for juicy bones, such was their love for her. In their eyes, she could do no wrong. My eyes were not so easily swayed.

With the doggy shrink's words still fresh in our ears, (our lesson had been well and truly learnt with Heather) we were determined Sally should know her place in the family from the start, and that place was not at the head. (A place she still tries to dispute even now, six years on.) This was demonstrated primarily by confining her to the downstairs of the house and the floor - the furniture is for none molting species only. The kitchen had the added bonus of being tiled, thus facilitating easy wiping of inevitable accidents whilst in the process of house training; accidents which seemed to occur with far more frequency during the hours of darkness. A suspicious mind might read malice into the coincidence, suspicions which could be further aroused by her favoured spot (partially obscured behind a pillar near the kettle ensuring a sleepy brain never failed to feel her night time endeavours between their toes), but I couldn't bring myself to believe that an innocent puppy could have a contriving mind - she was a puppy - not a criminal mastermind. 

We passed a few tense nights while she whined and wailed at the injustice bestowed upon her, but she eventually settled into acceptance and the whining abated. My ultimate goal was to have her so well trained that her enforced confinement would become unnecessary, her own obedience would keep her from venturing up the stairs, but I knew that was some way off - of course, she was still just four months old after all.

After a couple more months, she appeared content with her position in the family and we heard fewer and fewer complaints until eventually the nights passed in silence. Similarly, we were presented with fewer toilet mishaps each morning and were becoming quietly confident that it was now safe to enter the kitchen without encountering a poo lurking between the door and the kettle. I began to speculate on the necessity of the door, nothing more than speculate, but the seed had been planted and was preparing to germinate after one particularly drunken evening.

One day, I came across a handful of pears rotting in the fruit bowl which I immediately removed and left next to the waste disposal to await their fate. As children are unfaltering distractions, that was where they remained until Bob came home and questioned the pears.
"I'm chucking them away," I informed him not expecting a counter attack.
"Why? There's nothing wrong with them."
"Nothing wrong with them? They're practically compost!"
"No they're not! All they need is a bit of surgery."
"Well you eat them then!"
"I will!"
And that was the last either of us thought about the pears as the wine flowed a little more freely than usual that night. (It must have been the fumes from the pears that put us in the mood!) As the evening drew to a close and our thoughts turned to bed, I was left to lock up and Bob retired before me. As I came to shut the kitchen door in my customary fashion, I looked at Sally. She was sleeping peacefully in her bed as though nowhere in the world could be as comfy. My drunken eyes saw the epitome of obedience. I decided to speculate no further on the necessity of the door and decisively left it open.

It was just as dawn was breaking that I began to stir, aware of a particularly rancid smell in my nostrils. At first I blamed the miasma on Bob, who was not usually innocent of such actions, but then it penetrated my sleep fully and I recognised it at once; even Bob was not capable of such a revolting stink - there could be only one culprit. I got up and allowed my nose to lead the way. It led me to the vacant bedroom below which had recently been re-carpeted in small looped, Pure New Wool (imported from New Zealand if my memory serves me). As I tentatively approached, I already feared the worst not realising that my worst was nowhere near bad enough.

I peeped my head through the door with eyes screwed shut while preparing myself for the scene. Where once there was an expanse of pristine carpet in a neutral shade of Clotted Cream, it now sported chocolate coloured splats putting me in mind of a Dalmatian. It was immediately apparent that Sally had not only succumbed to the temptation of upstairs, but she had diarrhoea as well. It was also apparent, that the only way she could find to alleviate her discomfort was to deposit it all over the one and only spanking new carpet we possessed, as opposed to - anywhere!

I raced downstairs fully expecting to find a trail of liquid poo, imagining the poor thing had lost control, but I found nothing except Sally, fast asleep once more in her bed, and an empty space where the pears had once been. She lifted a sleepy head, exhausted from her night's exploits and attempted a wag of her tail.
"Don't you dare try to get round me with those soppy eyes and faux innocence!" I shouted at her, my suspicious mind working overtime.
"I knew I should have stuck to dogs - not bloody puppies!"

 

Sally - aka - Moriarty 

Spew

 If you're new to this, then you won't yet know,

    To keep abreast with my story's flow; to Percy Street you need to go.

 

I hadn't realised they were travel sick when they were babies; a milky spew was a regular feature of our day whether we travelled by foot, car, bus or train, so my mental leap to travel sickness didn't happen until they were toddlers when it became hard to mistake as anything other. Any more than twenty minutes in the car brought forth biblical gushes from Tuna which I would attempt to catch in a carrier bag before it reached anything that would necessitate a valet. Sometimes this was hard to achieve. If I were driving and unable to pull over safely, I was forced to let the spew fall where it may and sniff the consequences. As toddlers are generally not yet acquainted with curries and red wine, the spew came out more or less resembling the way it went in - orange, and thankfully, odourless, so I never found myself dry-retching while doing eighty MPH down a motorway.

I was hardly new to the concept of travel sickness, my mum is a long standing sufferer; even Heather was car sick as a puppy. Within the first mile of our first journey with her, when she was a small, trembling wrinkle of black fur, we watched with dumb expressions as she deposited something in Bob's lap that looked like it should have had legs and a personality. With travelling to work by van our daily ritual, she was exposed to the tedium of travel sickness twice a day, regurgitating her meals on each trip. (It was easy to determine her condition as travel sickness as Bulimia is uncommon in dogs.) I kept a stash of carrier bags in the glove box and quickly became adept at spotting an immanent flood, expertly timing her expulsions until I had a near perfect success rate at catching them in a bag, despite her efforts of avoidance, still apparently preferring Bob's lap. Thus began our long relationship with the vet, where we learnt regular exposure was the only cure to allow her system to acclimatise, which eventually it did and she soon out-grew it; the same can be said of Chicken and Tuna - except on trains.

Trains have long been our preferred mode of transport, largely due to the fact that Bob won't fly, so the South of France became our annual excursion as it was the furthest we could get over land within a reasonable time. We were grateful for the opening of the Eurostar by the time we were venturing on the journey with the girls, sparing us choppy channel crossings on the Hovercraft which tested even the strongest of guts.

I don't know why it never occurred to me that they could be train sick; buses, cars, planes - yes, but trains? Being a travel sick child myself, trains had never posed a problem, so I assumed the same for my children. Hmm, you know what they say about assume don't you? It makes an ass out of U and me. Of course, the trains I travelled on as a child rarely got above thirty MPH, while the Eurostar and TGV have added a hundred to that when they're dawdling; but that still didn't explain why Tuna sent her breakfast on an outing down her front before we'd even reached Waterloo, a twenty minute local journey. Perhaps that's why I still didn't make the connection with train sickness, choosing instead to speculate on a bug. Or perhaps my brain categorically refused to accept the prospect of thirteen hours spent with a train sick child; that would have had me land locked on Blighty until she was old enough to catch her own sick in a bag!

Blinded by my refusal to allow the nagging doubt at the back of my mind a voice, I instantly brought out the bag of entertainment carefully chosen to keep the girls amused through the long hours to be endured. Then I smelled it. A large man sitting across the aisle produced his mid-morning meal that smelled like the grease tray at MacDonald's had made passionate love to a hillock of brie. He proceeded to eat as though he had trotters rather than hands and swilled it down with a sizable bottle of coke. Although he tried to contain the inevitable burps, (he ate it faster than a Japanese eating contestant) they were feistier than he could control, and we were forced to listen as they escaped in a series of grunts. I was nearly sick myself until I was distracted by a plastic bottle systematically hitting Bob on the head. It appeared the child behind us had presumed the crown of hair in front of him was demonic and needed a good beating. Try as the mother might to restrain him, the little shit resumed his efforts at every opportunity, forcing Bob to perch forward on the rim of his seat to avoid the blows, but fear ye not, he's made of strong stuff, and it proved only a minor distraction from FourFourTwo.

Do you remember the old British Rail Intercity advert with shoes morphing into slippers and chess pieces yawning while being gently rocked to sleep by the rhythm of the train and a lullaby softly whispering to kick off your shoes and be lazy? Well that was just like our journey - if you'd smoked the entire grass stash of ten Jamaicans!




I turned my attention to Chicken and Tuna while trying extremely hard to close off my nostrils from the culinary onslaught of the fat man across the aisle who'd brought out seconds, and dodging the occasional missile launched from behind. We began the journey bristling with more tension than an electric fence and the best was yet to come. As though the Gods were using me as a demonstration of stupidity, I force fed the girls fruit. Not nice, solid fruit like a banana, but berries; black, straw and rasp. I can't tell you why, they weren't even hungry! I suppose the 5 a day propaganda had me well and truly hooked. Next I brought out the colouring books. As every seasoned travel spewer knows, attempting anything other than complete stillness with eyes trained forward is asking for trouble; but the brave, naive, trusting things that they were coloured Dumbo and Baloo with grim, unquestioning faces.

As we were approaching the outer suburbs of London with leafy pastures of English countryside just visible in the distance, all the colour drained from Chicken's face except for a pasty grey. "I feel sick Mummy," she whined. (Why do they never tell their dads?) Thinking I could dispel the feeling with positive thought, I instructed her to put down the colouring pens, lie back and try to go to sleep, which she unquestioningly did. Then I looked at Tuna who was barely eighteen months old. She stopped scribbling a messy knot of blue ink over Snow White's face and I watched as her own face melted like the German Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark when he gazed upon its deathly contents.

"Tuna! Do you want to be sick?" I asked with stupidity reluctant to leave its willing host. I've often wondered why I ask, "Do you want to be sick?" Of course she doesn't want to be sick! Who the hell wants to be sick? You may have to be sick, but that is completely different from wanting to! So I should never have been surprised when the answer was a flat "No" just prior to an almighty heave. I really need to re-phrase the question to a more specific, "Are you going to be sick?" the results may be less messy.

She trained her large, brown, tear filled eyes on me and I had my answer, but nothing of use to hand having not yet invented my SEK - Sickness Emergency Kit containing nappy sacks (due to lack of holes) and more tissues than a Kleenex factory. I snatched FourFourTwo out of Bob's bewildered hands and thrust it under the flow of liquidised berries, instantly realising that magazine paper has all the absorbency of a duck's back and my stupidity knew no bounds. I was powerless as the sick rolled down the page, across Thierry Henri's midriff and toward me like an avalanche speeding down a mountain. With Tuna still gushing like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, all I could do was watch it pour into my lap. At that moment Chicken sprung awake with inflated cheeks. "Use her dress!" I shouted at Bob. His perplexity passed in adequate time for him to grab the dress she was wearing, which thankfully had a very full skirt, and hold it under the flow. The material bulged like a bowl under the weight but mercifully held up under the pressure.

After the longest few minutes of my life, I was shuffling them into the toilet while Bob produced fresh clothes from our cases (an advantage of travelling by train). On returning to our seats, I couldn't help notice how quiet our carriage had become with only a lingering whiff of grease and brie.
"Where's everyone gone?" I asked Bob who had resumed position and was casually flicking through The Times.
"Moved seats," he said uninterested.

As I watched the girls snuggle down into their respective bunny and lion cunningly fashioned into pillows, I couldn't help a broad smile stretching across my face. I turned to Bob and said, "Well, that's one good reason not to stick to dogs. Heather never cleared a carriage like that!"

The summer holidays are now upon me so my posts will become fortnightly.

Walkies

So, gone are the leisurely dog walks, spontaneous dinner reservations and lazy weekends spent in a haze of drunken socialising, replaced with a quick turn of the local playing field, never being arsed to eat - let alone go out to eat, and weekends still spent in a drunken haze but only after 4pm, and alone, as our friends were now avoiding us as though we had a red cross on the door. I'd said goodbye to brushed hair, plucked eyebrows and white jeans and hello to elasticated waists, big knickers and a determined hair sprouting from my chin. Ah, the joys of motherhood; I always knew it was a daft thing to do! Just getting out of the house to walk Heather before lunch became my only objective of the day; despite being woken with the birds, it was an objective which proved more erratic than my hair. Once or twice I actually managed it, with the help of Fifi and the Flowertots and a strategy planned out in meticulous detail the night before. It went something like this:

• Be rudely awakened at 5am and discover I'm not Anna Friel or a lesbian and it had all been a dream.
• Feed Tuna whose screams were that of someone else's baby when I was Anna Friel.
• Go back to sleep while Tuna feeds and hope for a recurring dream (but maybe without the lesbian bit this time).
• Be woken again at 7am having only managed a dull dream about cutting my fringe with a pair of nail scissors - oh wait, that wasn't a dream.
• Give Chicken her Shreddies and attempt to eat a bowl of Bran Flakes with Tuna (a permanent resident of my hip) slapping at my spoon as though food is for other mothers - not hers.
• Feed Heather and watch her sneer at the offering as though it were rotting slug slime rather than Nature's Best lugged back weekly from the homoeopathic vet.
• Spend the next hour wiping Shreddies off Heather's back and Bran Flakes out of my hair. Empty and re-load washing machine.
• 9am (already!): Attempt to put Tuna down for her mid-morning nap. (I still hadn't learnt to ignore Gina Ford.)
• 9.05am: Give up and resign myself to another shower-less day.
• Top and tail Tuna while Chicken amuses herself by poking her in the eye under the guise of scientific experiment before noticing Heather has snuck off with another shitty nappy.
• Retrieve nappy, berate Heather and Chicken for having given it to her in the first place.
• 10am: Dress Tuna before placing her in bouncy chair to amuse herself while I dress Chicken.
• 10.05am: Remove Tuna from bouncy chair and attempt to dress Chicken with one hand.
• 10.10am: Try to catch Chicken.
• 10.30am: Give up and bring in Fifi and the Flowertots in all her distracting glory.
• 10.45am: Review Chicken's attire and delude myself that no one will notice that the dress is on back-to-front.
• 11am: Make another attempt at putting Tuna in bouncy chair while getting myself dressed.
• 11.05 am: Remove Tuna from bouncy chair and hastily dress myself while she screams herself sick on the bed.
• 11.10am: Review my attire and delude myself that no one will notice my dress is on back-to-front.
• 11.15am: Suffer fall out from termination of TV while coaxing Chicken into the bathroom to brush her four teeth by promising a resumption of TV later in the day.
• 11.30am: Attempt to brush my own teeth while Tuna slaps at my toothbrush firm in her belief that clean teeth are for other mothers - not hers.
• Fill bag with spare nappies, baby wipes, Sudocrem, crayons, paper, snack boxes of raisins, water cup with the non-drip lid, sun cream, plasters - sod it - put in the entire First Aid Kit.
• 11.45am: Frantically look for sun hats and Chicken's shoes while Heather whines like an air raid siren in anticipation of her walk.
• 12 noon: Strap them into Phil and Ted's while drowning out Tuna's screams (who won't stop until we're on the move) with Steppen Wolf's 'Born to be Wild' on a loop in my head.
• 12.10pm: Leave the house and take just one deep drag on the cigarette I have carefully positioned in a tin box by the gate before crunching it out and returning it to the box to await tomorrow's deep drag.

Day in day out, my predictable bullet point list varied less than Margaret Thatcher's hair do's. I was lost in my belief that it must be possible to get up, dressed and out before the Shreddies stopped working their magic; I mean, we now had cameras on Mars, advances in medical science were unprecedented - surely it wasn't too high to aim? Apparently, it was. Before I'd even the chance to un-clip Heather's lead, Chicken would shout she was hungry. But faint heart never won fair time to walk dog; out came the snack box of raisins while we dashed around the field in the hope it would placate Heather enough to buy me a guilt free afternoon.

But what was it all for? Had I not had a dog I could have been spared all that anguish, accepting our days would begin and end with only the garden as our contact with the outside world; being lazy by nature the thought was certainly appealing, but also suicidal. Walking Heather gave our days structure and purpose (albeit haphazard) without which I may as well have given in to that determined hair on my chin and allowed it to grow and grow until it could eventually strangle me, a fate I might have welcomed without some semblance of a daily routine.

 

If the point to having children is to make you appreciate the simple act of getting out of the house with your clothes on the right way round and being able to eat your breakfast without it ending up in your hair, then I was getting it like a sharp stab in the ribs. Surely, it begs the question - why didn't I stick to dogs?

 

Water

Chicken was twenty two months when Tuna was born. (They are so called because chicken and tuna are the only foods they will jointly eat now, sparing me the chore of providing two meals or alternating starvation.) Chicken had shown only mild curiosity at the hospital, (having not yet recognised Tuna as the new play thing I had so selflessly provided her with.) however, once back at home, her mild curiosity turned instantly to disdain when she said, "Why that here?"
"She's your new baby sister, remember? You visited her in the hospital," Bob clarified.
"Don't want it."

Suddenly an image, clear as day flashed into my mind. It was of me, my face a rippling undulation of wrinkles accentuated by a thick smear of red lipstick as though applied with my feet. I was trapped in a room full of dolls all clamouring for tea.

"Back in a minute," I announced and ran out of the door, into the car and straight to Toys R Us. I returned shortly after with a brand new Baby Born complete with car seat, feeding apparatus and more changes of outfit than Sue Ellen Ewing.
"Here Chicken, look what your baby sister's bought you, isn't she generous?" I said enthusiastically pulling the bribe with its many accessories out of the bag. Her eyes stood on stalks and immediately rushed for the doll in a state of apoplectic excitement exclaiming, "Have it, have it!" as she ran, arms outstretched. However, I wasn't willing to hand over the goods until I had achieved the desired result. I tightened my grip on the doll's arm and said, "You know it's from Tuna don't you?"
She looked to Tuna cradled in her grannie's arms sleeping peacefully for a change, before looking back to the doll and repeating, "Have it!"
I persisted in basic but loud vocabulary, "Present from Tuna - not daddy - not me - Tuna. You understand, yes?"
She eyed me suspiciously before eventually conceding, "Yes."
"So now you like Tuna, yes?" I prompted. (I presume that's what you would call, 'leading the witness'.)
"No!"
"Then you can't have it!" I said lifting the entire bag above my head like a petulant child. (The image of me as a mad, wizened old woman was a compelling force!)
"Martha!" Bob and my mum snapped in unison.
Of course I knew my behaviour was irrational, so I begrudgingly handed over the present, but not before I said, "Here, it's yours, but you do like Tuna now don't you?"
"Martha!"
"Okay, okay," I resigned. I watched Chicken toddle off to play with her hard earned toys and shouted one last attempt, "Remember, Tuna bought it for you!" but her ears were already deaf.

Looking back at the photos now, there are a number of Chicken cuddling Tuna and even one of her kissing the top of Tuna's head, either the camera really does lie or my memory is somewhat fuzzy, because days filled with screaming and petulance seem to prevail in my memory banks. Tuna would scream if not in my arms and Chicken would respond to my seemingly single focus by belligerently refusing to do anything I asked of her. My demands were not unreasonable; I wasn't asking her to prepare a family roast dinner.
"Don't unscrew the cap of that two litre bottle of water, you can see I'm feeding Tuna and completely powerless to stop you. I said don't! No! - Don't tip it upside down and allow the contents to pour all over the floor. I said don......Why you little ****!" I mumbled under my breath as she stood splashing in the lake she had created. "No, no, don't take off your nappy! I said don..........." As I was pinned to the sofa with Tuna guzzling happily, I had to sit back and watch the show as Chicken now splashed in her own wee as well as Evian. The drama continued when Heather decided the indoor paddling pool looked like her sort of fun and joined Chicken in splashing it up the walls and furniture, before drying her wee soaked paws on the sofa where she leaped on her retirement from the game. In the meantime, my mouth had dried up like a lizard's eye ball (the norm with the onset of breast feeding, hence the water) intensified by the vision of my precious water supply seeping between the floorboards.

With delirium brought on by dehydration, I thought I heard a knock at the door. Sadly, it was not my imagination as Heather quickly confirmed by leaping from the sofa and barking manically. I slunk into the cushions hoping that my silence would send them on their way.
"Mama, mama, door, mama!" Chicken began shouting as she toddled, bare arsed between the front door and the sofa, skilfully avoiding Heather as she too felt the need to alert me to the knocking door which I could only have missed if I'd been dead!

I was now faced with a decision. Do I allow whoever it is at the door to believe I have left a toddler home alone with a manic dog or, do I get up and answer the door? I chose the former; until that is, I was greeted with the peering face of the health visitor squinting through a gap in the curtain, at which point, I waved cheerily as though I had been expecting her all along.

I laboriously pulled myself up from the sofa with the hungry Tuna (who didn't share Chicken's picky eating habits) still nestled in the crook of my arm unperturbed by the chaos ensuing around her. I opened the door, "Hi Martha, you were expecting me weren't you?"
Shit! Was I? "Yes of course, come in; ignore the mess, it's not usually like this, we've just had a little accident." Chicken was now naked, sprawled flat on her tummy and splashing in the remnants of her paddling pool like Jacques Cousteau laughing as her splashes made Heather sneeze.

The health visitor gazed upon the scene with undisguised concern before turning to me and saying in a tone reserved for the recently bereaved, "We're here to help you know? Anything, anything at all." Really? I thought, Could you clear up this mess then? She continued, "And there are people you can talk to - about anything. We understand it can all get a bit much at times and we don't want you to suffer in silence."
I suddenly grasped her inference; if the kids and dog were tipping me over the edge, they were there to take them off my hands - NO! "Thanks, thanks," I spluttered, keen to reassure her before she called in the SS. "It really isn't usually like this, it's just that Chicken got hold of the water you see, it's a funny story when you think about it." Her countenance turned from concern to pity in one slick movement forcing my words to halt in my throat. There was little left to say except, "Thanks, I'll bear that in mind."

Once she'd gone, I convinced myself she was racing back to base to write a damming report on my state of mind and it would only be a matter of days before the ominous knock would come to take my children away. I called Bob who thankfully talked sense into me as I sobbed, "Why didn't I stick to dogs?"

Tuna

To begin at the beginning is the only way, or reading this will make no sense today. Percy Street is where you go, so get a move on and don't be slow!

Before long, I was back hovering over the toilet, pregnancy test poised ready for action. When I was faced with the familiar blue line, I have to admit, I was just a little bit scared. Pregnancy was new and exciting the first time round, but now I knew exactly what to expect and I wasn't sure I had it in me. I always knew I wanted to give Chicken a sibling, primarily as a play thing, I'd had enough of the tedious dolls tea parties and making amorphous blobs out of Plasticine, but was that really a good enough reason to have another child?

Chicken was thirteen months when the blue line confirmed the suspicion and I was still far from having the parenting thing licked. How would I fair adding another pair of legs to the equation? The act itself had not been a conscious decision; out with the extra loose boxer shorts and healthy snacks and in with drunken nights when Bob was occasionally allowed to take advantage with a begrudging, "Oh get on with it then and hurry up!" I'm glad it happened that way as I'm not sure I could have ever mustered the courage otherwise; sentenced to a life squashed onto a midget chair with my knees under my chin asking Barbie if she takes sugar with her tea. I chanced a rebellion once by saying, "You know Barbie doesn't take sugar? She doesn't even drink tea - because - SHE'S PLASTIC!" All Chicken said in reply was, "Silly mummy, sit down."

I found it ludicrously easy to ignore Bob while I wrestled with mummyhood, allowing him to evaporated into nothing more than a snoring lump in the bed and someone who cooked my meals (I know, wasn't I spoiled?). He became the silent partner and watched from the wings my obsession with Chicken border on madness with not a breath of criticism. Being a measured character, he suspected correctly that any intervention would have almost certainly resulted in a nasty incident involving a rolling pin and a trip to A & E, so he sensibly left me to it while I devoted my time to Chicken's well being with hardly a nod towards my own, so the thought of two of them sent my bonkers barometer to its limit. I imagined myself leaving the house in nothing more than my Marks and Sparks knickers and bra having forgotten to get myself dressed. But more than that, I seriously worried that I couldn't possibly have room to love another baby - certainly not as much as I loved Chicken; how could I when I felt my love stores were operating at full capacity already? How was I supposed to love and nurture two kids? It was hard enough keeping my eyes on one, and I had two eyes! Oh shit! Why didn't I stick to dogs? (Can you imagine if I'd had twins? I would have been carted away faster than you can say loony bin!) Despite my fears, I had no choice, it was happening regardless, so I waited anxiously for the birth ruminating on whether padded cells were really padded or just cushioned and whether straight-jackets were still legal in such institutions as I was sure that was where I was destined to end up.

My due date came and went once more. Chicken had been five days late, but this one really took the piss by going five better than her sister and hanging on in there for ten days! (Mind you, I couldn't blame her, I would have been reluctant to be released into a world with me at the helm as well!)
You'll be pleased to read that I'm going to spare you any more tales of poo popping labour, suffice to say, I had my epidural booked well in advance and took along my own Andrex. I'm happy to report that was an unnecessary precaution and I was soon looking at another baby girl plonked onto my chest - Tuna was born. To be frank, she wasn't instantly pleasing to the eye, as the photos attest. Firstly, she was blue, with rivers of black hair plastered to her scalp and blood red lips. My first thoughts were, bloody hell, I've given birth to another Muppet! Her face was screwed up into the most angry of expressions while her eyes remained steadfastly glued shut in protest at the light. She was clearly none too pleased at having been dragged out of her warm and cosy haven and demonstrated her displeasure with a blood curdling scream - a scream she exercised thoroughly until she was one year old and had learnt to walk - I kid you not; she had me reaching for the fag packet almost before I'd left the hospital!

So, what of the love I feared I could never share? Although she did her utmost to test me - with her unconventional looks and powerful lungs, I felt my heart pump and swell until it seemed the size of a pumpkin, instantly ensuring there would be plenty of room to accommodate our latest addition (a bloody good job too because she didn't make it easy), I was besotted at first glance.

What I hadn't predicted, and was pleasantly surprised to find, was that we had provided Chicken with so much more than just a play thing (not that Chicken saw it that way, she welcomed her like a verruca!). Far from adding to my obsessive anxieties, she in fact relieved them; the microscopic lens I had permanently trained on Chicken expanded to a wide angle, affording her a little freedom to grow and explore away from my suffocating, controlling tendencies - a practise which could only have spelled doom come her teen years. I'm not saying I relinquished control completely; let's just say, I would still be insisting on holding Chicken's hand when walking up and down stairs (even now at the age of ten!) had Tuna not come along to divert my attention. I had to let go and leave some things to fate; it physically wasn't possible to be at their side every minute, and neither of them have fallen down the stairs.

Putting my neurotic approach to parenting to one side, I believe the greatest gift we've given them is each other. They'll each have a sympathetic ear to chew on when I won't let them join Facebook or stay out longer than 9 o'clock. We still have a couple more years until we're at that point, but I can hear them now, "God, Mum's such an unreasonable cow!" If I'm escaping with only being called a "cow", I'll be happy, but this is my projection into the future, so I'm biased. There is one thing I'm sure of though; when that time comes, I'll definitely be shouting back, "Why didn't I stick to dogs?"

Stoned Love

Of all the things to pause my blogging,
This time I don't deserve a flogging,
A surprise trip to Paris did beckon,
Complete with The Stone Roses while they broke "right into heaven",
When 40 I passed some years before,
Romantic gestures cannot be ignored,
So, I'm sure you'll all agree,
It was worth missing a blog from me!

That was to be my post this week until I decided to share something with you and perhaps canvass opinion along the way. My question is: do we have the right to tell our partners how we like them to look or do we put up and shut up?
I made the catastrophic mistake of telling Bob I'm not a fan of the pregnant gut he's adopted in recent years during what I believed to be drunken, light hearted banter post a superb Stone Roses gig; but what I should have done was gouge out my eyes instead - the consequences would have been far easier to deal with. As far as I'm concerned, my choice of words were not necessarily explosive; had I said, "Slim up fatso or I'm off!" I would not have been surprised to receive a slap in the chops let alone a verbal retaliation; but I didn't. Although, I was rather drunk and perhaps my memory is favouring my version of events, but the whole incident has brought about the question.
Bob and I have been together for twenty four years, I was barely out of long socks when we met and obviously time, children and family deaths have all contributed to the wear and tear on my earthly bones; however, although I don't strive for the size 8 of my twenties, I do try to maintain a certain standard; not quite Bo Derek but not Bella Emberg either; but whatever I'm doing, it seems to be working well enough for Bob. The point is - I'm working on it, not least to remain appealing to Bob, but to help ensure my health and strength for a couple more decades to come.
We all know that men are from Mars and women are from Venus so I don't expect us to always see eye to eye, but when it comes to physical appearances, surely they should take as much interest as us - it is their body after all. I've seen so many men morph into mounds simply because they lack the discipline to put down the bacon butty and reach for the banana. Of course women are not immune to such bouts of weakness, but in mine and Bob's case, I have abstained from enough fatty snacks to maintain a descent BMI, why can't he?
Don't get me wrong, he's not in danger of being winched out of bed by the fire brigade anytime soon; he's not in need of a gastric band or a wired jaw, just a little bit of self-control when in the company of a biscuit tin would go a long way.
Now, I cannot defend my timing seeing as we were in Paris, having just seen The Stone Roses give one of their best performances of their career (in our view), and it was especially poignant as our first trip to Paris together twenty four years earlier had been to see The Stone Roses at that exact same venue, and the whole thing had been organised by Bob, including child care, unbeknown to me (just stone me and get it over with!). A day trip to Hiroshima on the 6th of August 1945 would have been similarly ill-timed, but I'm struggling to see why I can't take an interest in my husband's girth without triggering the row of the century; especially as our numerous years together should already be proof enough of my love and commitment. I'd like to think it's just Bob and his super-sensitive ways, but on our return from Paris, I mentioned the faux-pas to my mum who had a similar reaction to Bob, thus ensuring I alienated two members of my family in my pursuit of optical pleasure.

So, do we put up and shut up? Is it necessary to fancy our partners years into the relationship or do we accept and settle? Personally, I think a bit of both. I don't expect Bob to still look like the David Hasselhoff (honestly, I'll show you the photo! - Or maybe it was just his orange shorts which bore a likeness.) of his youth, but similarly, I'd still like the urge to jump him from time to time. I'll tell you one thing for nothing - I wish I'd stuck to dogs!

I know to comment you have to sign up to Google + and for many the thought of yet another social network link is just too much, and I don't blame you; but if you'd like to drop me a line you can do so at marthatidvyl@gmail.com I'd love to get your views - so long as you all agree with me of course!

Toes

'tis almost the time to crack open the toes,
Entombed for months in boots of winter woes,
The sun tried to shine,
My toes made me whine,
But thank God this is Blighty, where the rain's oh so mighty,
So my toes can grow mold if they likey!

A long winded way of telling you it's holiday time again so I'll see you next week.
No - they're not my toes - I wish, a photo of mine would have had you all running for the toilet!

Heather

This one's for all the dog pamperers out there - be warned.

Grace had been rescued from a premature watery fate. A pupil at the school where my mum worked announced her dog had had puppies, and as her dad was a Neanderthal, he was going to drown them. Desperately, she begged her teachers to save them, which thankfully they did, my mum among the saviours. Thus began my affair with rescued dogs. I have never quite understood the concept of choosing and paying huge sums for a particular breed in much the same way you would choose a car or a handbag. I can understand a preference of breed, but for those lives to be reduced to a commodity has never sat well with me; but then I am a hopeless idealist.

In the wake of Grace's death, a rescue dog was what I needed to sooth my damaged heart; easier said than done when a puppy is the preferred. I began examining flapping bin bags on motorway carriageways in the weird hope that they might contain a needy life, but more often than not they revealed rotting human detritus as you would expect from a bin bag. Gladdened I didn't  encounter such animal cruelty, (the stories are abundant) I sent Bob along to Battersea Dogs Home to scout for a puppy, knowing I couldn't go within a six mile radius of the place and not come out without their entire stock. He returned empty handed and I felt the hole in my life grow to the size of the Mersey Tunnel. Eventually we found just the thing in an advert in the newspaper Loot (the Internet was still in its embryonic stage). Her story was a similar tale to Grace's as it transpired the family dog had fallen for a local rogue and been left with a kiss and a promise and six puppies in the oven. Before you could say "typical bloke", we were holding a tiny, black blob of fur who fitted snugly into Bob's palm.

We had to wait four weeks until she was old enough to leave her mum at seven weeks of age. I suppose I should have been wary when, after three weeks I received a phone call asking me to take our puppy early as she was "Disturbing the rest of the litter."
"How?" I asked.
"She cries all night long."
"And does that then make the other puppies cry?"
"Well, no."
"So you mean, she's disturbing you?"
"When you put it like that, yes, I suppose so."

I refused her request, believing a puppy should stay with its mum for as long as possible. The woman begrudgingly agreed but not before I caught her whisper to an unknown person, "I've got a right one 'ere!" We collected Heather one week later and as she chewed on my finger with her needle sharp teeth I couldn't imagine such an adorable creature ever disturbing me.

I had read a few doggy books since my haphazard rearing of Grace and now fancied myself as the Queen Bitch, so from that first night I was determined to teach Heather that her place was at the bottom of the pack and I was Alpha dog. I lined my bedroom floor with newspaper for the inevitable accidents and settled into bed after tucking Heather into her own plush cushions. Ha - how misguided the naive can be! She was up in an instant, pacing around the room while the newspaper crackled under paw. Then she shredded the newspaper, then she shredded my toe she found dangling from the bed. Before long, she became bored by the little sport to be had with the newspaper, and as my toe had been swiftly withdrawn, she began scratching and whimpering at the side of the bed. Within half an hour, I felt my self-appointed, elevated status fall to below that of a flea as I crumbled like a digestive biscuit. She snuggled into the crook of my arm and slept peacefully for the rest of the night with her head on the pillow next to mine where she remained until that fateful day in Percy Street.

She was nine at the time of her demotion to second in command after Chicken and was very gracious about her long drop down from her superior pedestal. By then, it had been impossible to miss that Heather was a special case in canine terms. She was skittish (jumping at the slightest noise), picky ("You don't expect me to eat that do you?"), unpredictable (running off in the park for no reason leaving us to rely on sharp witted strangers to grab her as we panted frantically behind her) and more neurotic than a junkie. She developed a habit of licking her bum incessantly, a habit which vexed me to distraction as her preferred spot for the pastime was our bed or the sofa so as to give her nose a nice soft cushion. Large wet patches were left in the wake of her habit quenching, instantly divulging her pursuits while our backs had been turned; that and the permanent ring of sodden fur around her bum like Californian surfers in a wet gel commercial.

We spent a fortune at the vet and tried every manner of cure from evening primrose oil to steroids, but we were always left scratching our heads at the heap of failed attempts. We even tried a homoeopathic vet who suggested a diet of raw meat that most dogs would bite your hand off to have, but not Heather; she dragged the raw slabs of liver from her bowl and left them lying in the middle of the kitchen floor as though Hannibal Leckter had been round for tea. The licking persisted and was joined by a new friend to add to her long list of  neurotic tendencies - a violent trembling brought on by loud bangs. Eventually, the bangs didn't have to be that loud, a clearing of a throat was enough to bring on the shakes.

But all of that barely scratched at my nerves in comparison to her barking. Her bum licking was only interrupted on her detection of an ant walking along a wall ten streets away when she would break into ferocious barks to demonstrate her displeasure at such cheek. Everything set her off in a frenzy of inexhaustible woofing. Have you ever tried getting, not to mention, keeping a baby asleep with a dog that bursts into violent barks every couple of minutes? As much as I loved her, I wanted to kill her! Something had to be done.

We called in a dog psychiatrist. Yes, a doggy shrink! Remember that herbal remedies, raw meat and hard drugs had not eased her symptoms one jot; so, clutching at straws, we explored the possibility that her issues were psychological and not physical. Believe it or not, it really helped. At the very least I learnt to love her again rather than focusing on the nuisance that she had become. Shrink lady helped us to see that Heather's neuroses were more than likely a result of our treatment of her. What? I was shocked; all we'd done was love and adore her; how could her damaged behaviour be our fault? It transpired that, in treating Heather as a human rather than a dog, she had become confused with her role in the family believing she was the Alpha, primarily adopting the role of protector, hence the barking. Shrink lady also believed the incessant bum licking was a manifestation of the pressure she felt at being the Alpha but with no real responsibility. Oh the guilt!

We were given techniques to help ease her burden by enforcing our role as Alphas so she could rest easy, with simple tricks such as making her wait for our command before she could eat. We were supposed to ban her from the furniture too but we found that impossible to impose after so many years and were forced to let that one slide. We were told to ignore the bad behaviour and reward the good, much the same as child psychology, so we ignored the trembling and bum licking and praised the silence. We were amazed at the results, particularly with the barking; that reduced to a manageable level before ceasing altogether. I began to build a little shrine to Shrink lady, complete with incense, until we realised she'd only stopped barking because she'd gone deaf. I didn't hold that against Shrink lady, I was relieved regardless.

The shaking definitely reduced due to our implementation of the ignoring technique making bonfire night a far more pleasant evening. Apparently, my comforting arms had been misinterpreted by Heather (being a dog) as confirmation that her fear was justified. Oh the guilt! Again! But I was amazed to see how quickly she was cured of that particular issue, unlike the bum licking which only abated marginally; I guessed that habit had become so deep rooted, nothing short of a chastity belt could have stopped her! (I did try a nappy once with no success - surprisingly!) I suppose you can't teach an old dog too many new tricks. Perhaps that was why I didn't stick to dogs.     

 

Heather 1994 - 2007

x

Socks

If you don't start at the beginning then you won't know when to end. Don't think too hard about that one, simply go back to Percy Street to start at the beginning.

 

There was a name that could strike more dread in me than extra time in a football match. Gina Ford. If ever there was a book to turn a neurotic mother into a fully fledged mental case it was her Contented Little Baby Book. I don't doubt its best intentions and I know it has proved invaluable to many mothers, but I am not one of them. I also know it has been a contentious issue since its first release a couple of years before Chicken was born, so here's my two penneth worth.

I am a character who strives for perfection, that doesn't mean I always attain it; sometimes it is as elusive as an olive at the bottom of a martini glass, highly deft at avoiding the cocktail stick, but I strive none the less. There is probably a label for my condition; OCD or obsessive compulsive or just plain control freak, the point is; I never knew I possessed such tendencies until I became a mum. In fact, I didn't even notice then; it was only with the benefit of hindsight and a near nervous breakdown eight years later that I began to recognise the signs. Poor Bob could incur my fastidious wrath for simply hanging the socks on the top rail of the clothes horse rather than the more practical bottom.
"What the f*** are you doing?!"
"I'm hanging the washing."
"No your not, you're creating a folding nightmare!"
"What? Oh, sorry, I thought I was helping."
"Well think again!"
And off he would sulk to leave me to hang the socks on the correct rail feeling fully justified in my behaviour. (Nut case!)

Clutter became my arch enemy. It seemed that no sooner had I cleared a space than it would be magically refilled once my back was turned. This always coincided with Bob's arrival home from work. His post, his shoes, his jackets hanging on the back of the chair, his body sitting in the chair! I had turned into one of those women comedians like Les Dawson made a fortune taking the piss out of. I had become the nag. My defence was; (and still is in this case) if he didn't make the mess in the first place then I wouldn't have to nag him. What I found strange though, was why this behaviour had not reared its fussy head before I had a baby. Bob would probably tell you he caught glimmers previously, but with work keeping us out of the house for the majority of time, the glimmers never had time to develop into floodlights. Or perhaps it was the sleep deprivation turning minor irritations into issues worth divorcing over, or, maybe Bob is a particularly messy bugger and it's all his fault after all!

The journey of self-discovery that becoming a mum initiated sent me reaching for a number of practical parenting books; of course, the one everybody was reading and apparently mastering was The Contented Little Baby Book. Lighting a fuse on a stick of dynamite couldn't have wreaked more destruction on my striving for perfection.

I read it from cover to cover and was enthusiastic about putting Chicken through the first routine. Chicken, however, had other ideas, and she hadn't even read it! I tried and tried to crush her free will (which she owned in abundance) and told her over and over that I was the captain of that will and she was very much mistaken if she thought she was. What a load of utter crap! Slicing through my own jugular with a butter knife would have been easier than getting her to eat at the designated times set out by Gina. I can't remember the specific times now, but I do remember clearly the feeling of abject failure when she would repeatedly and steadfastly refuse to feed for more than five minutes a time. Five minutes! Even with my atrocious maths I knew that was forty minutes short of Gina's ideal; and after her forty five minutes on the first boob I was supposed to offer her the second. The second? She'd barely touched the first! I was bursting with enough milk to rid Africa of infant famine and she was treating it like a snack bar! I took to pumping and freezing in case she found her appetite and needed a good binge, but she never did. I had boobs the size of footballs, a freezer full of milk and an inadequacy complex almost as big as my boobs. Of course I feared for her health and development as well to add to my fretful state, but she continued on her percentile despite her picky eating habits.

Her little and often approach to dining threw her nap times into an equal fiasco. I followed Gina's instructions to the letter and sealed up every last crack of light attempting to turn her room into a dull glow rather than the instructed pitch black and crept away. At first she was quiet while she digested the affront of my perceived power over her. Then I would hear the niggle as I stood pinned against the wall outside holding my breath as though she had supersonic ears and might be able to detect the heaving of my chest. As soon as I heard the full bellied scream I was in there faster than you could say defeat. I know, I know, I know! I know you're supposed to let them cry and they'll settle themselves, Gina told me - but when? When they're at university? I left her for a whole ten minutes once and it nearly ripped my soul in two. There are too many babies in the world who have to shed too many tears and my baby didn't have to be one of them. So what if it meant I ate my dinner with only a fork using one hand? So what if it meant I had to walk for hours as the only way of getting her to sleep during the day? So what if it meant I couldn't shower unless there was another adult to hold her? So what if my friends stopped coming because I smelt like a builder's armpit? She was a baby for such a short time and I didn't feel she should spend any of that precious time crying on my account. She's ten now, and has been sleeping through the night in her own bed since she was six months old, only coming in to us if she's not feeling well. My attempts at trying to put her down for her afternoon sleep seem like pointless pinpricks of memory now.

In summary: a lot of feelings of inadequacy resulting in nagging arguments with Bob could have been spared had I had faith in myself from the beginning. I never deemed myself army material, so why did I believe I could adhere to a routine so strict it could send a Sergeant Major running for his mummy? Peer pressure perhaps? Everybody else seemed to have the perfect Gina Ford baby, why didn't I? I found motherhood the most daunting and scary thing I had ever attempted in my life and I didn't feel qualified to handle it, so I turned to a book that professed to have all the answers. How silly; the human species has been amongst one of the most successful on the planet, surviving and thriving since long before the written word with only faith and instinct to guide them. However, embarking upon motherhood armed with the knowledge that a wet nose was a sign of good health and anal glands need periodic squeezing - no wonder I didn't trust myself! Oh why didn't I stick to dogs?

Blancmange

Would you start War and Peace in the middle? Pride and Prejudice two chapters in? Would your first introduction to Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials be The Amber Spyglass? Of course not; so be sure to start this story at the beginning with Percy Street. Don't be shy.

 

Even though I lacked the faith to trust my maternal instincts implicitly, I found them impossible to silence. With their own personal wisdom they deemed themselves authorities on parenting and laughed in the face of scientific research and experience. I was as powerless as blancmange when faced with their might so I allowed them to rule my roost fully with only the occasional attempt at mutiny. This was one such attempt.

With the fear of cot death looming nightly I knew Chicken should have been laid on her back in her cot, however, I found my instincts were completely at odds with this instruction. Perhaps this was due to the permanent rivers of mucus seeping gently from her nostrils. It seemed to defy logic to lay her on her back giving the snot nowhere to go but down her throat. I needed to find a way of keeping her on her back but at an angle which would allow the snot to run freely without forcing her to ingest it. A battle ensued between my instincts and the advice of the experts.

After a fair amount of head scratching, I began building a ramp using rolled sheets to provide a gentle incline. This raised her back, neck and head marginally above the flat to a 10 degree angle. I lay Chicken on my contrivance and stood back to assess the results. She was barely floating above the mattress. I was a long way from satisfied the incline would keep the snot from choking her (or so I believed). I stuffed a cushion under the sheet - still not enough. I rammed a pillow - not quite there. I folded a blanket into a neat square and added that to the mountain - "That should do it," I said to Chicken finally satisfied. I placed her carefully on my contraption and retreated downstairs for my dinner wondering whether I might be able to patent the design.

Half an hour later I ascended the stairs for my first check of the night. I found her curled up on her front at the foot of my invention. I hadn't factored in that she might move! Nothing short of handcuffing her wrists to the bars of the cot would have kept her in the position I had contrived for her! I gave up. That was when I blatantly ignored the next bit of advice given to all new mothers - don't sleep with the baby. But how could I not? All attempts at dispelling my fears that she would drown in her own mucus had amounted to nothing; so I made myself the mountainous incline on which she could sleep, giving me the perfect vantage point from which to monitor her snots and ensure they were leaving her freely (all over my t-shirt!). Genius! My instincts were well and truly appeased, however, the same couldn't be said of Heather.

Heather had been sleeping in our bed for nine years. When I say in our bed, I mean literally, in our bed - under the covers, head on pillow - the lot. She had everything short of a pair of pyjamas (I'm not from Beverley Hills!). I called Bob who had been taking an eternity to brush his teeth. "Get Heather off the bed will you?" I can still recall the panic in his eyes as he said, "But surely the bed's big enough for the four of us." The big wuss! 

I pointed out that the bed was a modest standard double, not a queen size, and let's not forget - "SHE'S A DOG!"

"But she doesn't know that!"

"Oh shut up and get on with it!"

It was a small wonder that I ever managed to become pregnant with such a potent contraception between us! Anyway, we tried to relegate Heather to the floor. Ha! How utterly ridiculous (came the response in her eyes); of course it should have been us who were relegated to the floor - were we insane?

With the demeanour of apprehension he pulled back the duvet and began to gently coax Heather into her own luxuriously padded bed which had been redundant for most of her life. He started by patting the cushions enticingly while giving her an expectant grin. She barely opened a sleepy eye. He then began a sales pitch worthy of the QVC channel, "Ooh Heather, come and look at this, it's so cosy and soft - come on, come and see." She didn't even raise her head. Recognising the tactic as fruitless he rushed from the room and returned squeaking a plastic pig. This got her attention. She sat up with her ears on full alert, ever ready to kill an offending squeak; but she was suspicious. She knew bedtime didn't usually involve her squeaky toys and she remained steadfastly glued to the bed; but - she was sitting up. I seized my chance and gave her a shove with my foot. She landed unceremoniously with a thump on the floor and immediately turned to leap back up. Before she could motivate the muscles needed to propel her, Bob grabbed her collar, pushed her into her bed and held her there as though she might fuse with the cushions if he kept her pinned down long enough. She lay under his hand with a troubled and guarded expression.

"My arm's getting pins and needles, d'you think I can let go now?" Bob asked after 45 minutes. I was engrossed in a repeat of Dallas on the telly and had almost forgotten he was there.
"Does she seem settled?" I asked.
"As settled as she'll ever be. I'm going to release the pressure and see what she does."
Heather felt the release of pressure and acted upon it as a caged bird reacts to an open door. She sprung from Bob's grip and landed on the bed in one swift movement where she slumped down with a huff glaring at Bob.

Bob gave a defeated shrug and ventured to join Chicken and me under the duvet. "Oi! You're not giving up!" I said. He let out a long sigh, grabbed his pillow and a blanket from the cupboard and headed downstairs to the couch. Heather lazily lifted her head and gazed with mild interest at the new turn of events. She then looked at me as though to say, "You should have stuck to dogs."