Little Miss is always Right

You can often find me saying, 'you don't need to argue with me about this,' to Little Miss.

Because she just has to be right. And, you know, she's FOUR, so she knows everything and there's absolutely nothing that can be usefully gained from listening to mummy. 

For example, in a recent drawing-on-hands incident:

'BUT' says a triumphant Little Miss, after spending a few seconds mulling over mummy explaining that ink is meant for paper, not for hands

'BUT,' she says, Hands On Hips, 'it's not INK on my hands mummy,

...it's PEN.'

So there.

The thing about Valentine's...

is that yes, it's kind of false romance.

Why should I do something romantic just because someone has decided I ought to? is what my husband says.  And yes, in straightened times the last thing we need to do is to go out and spend money on, well, let's face it, complete tat.

BUT

if we don't do Valentine's day, even if it's just a gesture: a card, a bunch of flowers, when would we do it otherwise? When would be buy something to convey the message I love you (still).

Exactly. We probably wouldn't. Because life gets in the way.

So I don't think I'm alone in saying that I was thrilled to be presented with a bunch of red roses (sparkling no less) and some pink fizzy stuff to mark the day.

The Silent Partner

Imagine, if you will, that you run your own business.

Your business consists of child-rearing and house-keeping, and you have two clients, one aged four and one aged two, plus one house to keep.

You work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Your two clients give you random appraisals, which go either way, depending on which way the wind is blowing, but basically, go against you.

Imagine that your business has a silent partner.

He does not have much hand in the day-to-day running of your business, except on weekends. Your silent partner tends to be there in the first hour of the running of your business, and the last half an hour.

The overall success of the business, then, is basically entirely down to you.

Occasionally, your silent partner takes a week off from his other business, and joins you in the running of your business.

His appraisals are glowing. Every morning your two clients head straight to your silent partner to give him his first appraisal of the day – huge cuddles and lots of kisses. You are swiftly dispensed with, because you are only really of any use when it comes to finding breakfast. Your silent partner, meanwhile, gets snuggled to within an inch of his life.

You go on days out. This should be fun! But all day your two clients reject your hand-holding, your cuddles, your very presence.

Back home, you presence is only required for as long as it takes to make dinner, and you are only approached with the words "I'm hungry" and "Where's my dinner?"

It's time to face facts: you may as well not be there.

So you make a decision. The next time your silent partner takes a week off work, you're going to Barbados. By yourself. For the whole damned week.

I Hate Lunch

It's back to school, and you know what that means, don't you.

Lunch.

More specifically, lunchboxes.

For me it's like a culinary version of the Kyrpton factor.

How do you keep them

a) well-fed with nutritious stuff while simultaneously b) making them actually fancy eating it and c) keeping it interesting enough so that you don't put them off sandwiches for life?

Because it's a long time they'll be eating from a lunchbox, quite possibly the next fifteen years or so.

I've even been known to interrogate Little Miss as to what the other kids have in their lunchboxes. (I can't ask the Sunshine Duke, because he just lies outrageously). Francesca had smoked salmon, so we tried that. Robbie had a sausage roll, so we tried that. But I feel like I am still treading water when it comes to sandwich making.

And then I came across these.

They have transformed my life. My lunchbox life, at any rate. 

You make a sandwich as normal, pop it into a bag and stick it in the toaster. The end result? A toasted sandwich! No messing with (and not to mention having to clean) a Breville, this little thing does it for you in a jiffy.

But the real reason I love it is this: you can stick whatever you want in the sandwich and the kids will eat it.

Little Miss, for example, doesn't like avocado. But give her a chicken and avocado toasted sandwich and she'll eat it up.

The Sunshine Duke doesn't like cheese, or ham, or... (I'll stop there, or I may be here all day) but give him a ham and cheese toasted sandwich, and at school pick up he'll say "Mummy, you gave me a cheese and ham sandwich and I ate it all up!"

Apparently, you can even cook fish fingers in it. Fish finger sandwiches, kids?

PS. this is not a sponsored post (be nice if it was though!) Actually I just came across them in the supermarket.

Favourite Comment of the Week (Possibly of All Time)

We were watching a fat bumble bee bump itself lazily into our patio door.

'Mummy,' said Little Miss. 'When the bee has made his honey how does he carry it to the shops?'

Priceless.