Advice: I want some.

(Warning: This Post Has Lots Of Aster*sks)

(oh wow, they were beautiful babies). 

So, as you know, I have twins.
Boy / girl twins.
Boy / girl twins who bathe together. Get changed together.  Do pretty much everything together. Often quite nakedly.

And yet, neither of them ever seemed to have noticed, ahem, you know, the whole  boy girl thing.  It was actually getting kind of insane. I mean, these kids are nearly three.

And then a few days ago, I was changing Blue. I stripped him off, then Pink peered over and and pointed at his groin and said Mummy, what is THAT? And I said That's Blue's pen*s. (Because, well, it was).  And she looked at me and said Pink have a pen*s? And I said No, Pink, only boys have pen*ses.  After that, there followed a conversation about who, specifically, in her life must therefore have a pen*s. Names were named. (I will spare you the details of that conversation).

Aaaaanyway.  This conversation, of course, led onto a technical discussion about what girls have. A discussion that we have now had about twice a day ever since.  She points at him and says what's that? and I tell her again, and then she points at herself and says what's THIS? and I say....  well, actually, I keep saying different things because actually, I have NO IDEA what word to use for that particular area.

You'd think it would be a simple question, but there isn't a good word, really, is there? I know some people go for vag*na in these circumstances, but I'm not really happy with that. I mean, reproductively, I guess that a vag*na is the equivalent of a pen*s, but when you take a girl's nappy off, that's not really what you see, is it? Is it? I'm embarrassed to say I'm kind of stumped. And what's the internet for if not to answer these awkward questions?

So, I wanna know.  Got any advice for me on this one?

Yesterday

I'm back! I'm updating my blogroll tomorrow and I'll give a book update soon (the short version? OUCH. That was a painful month). I've missed being here. And, so, here's what I've been thinking about lately.  And by the way, my writing aim at the moment is to say less. Write shorter. Wish me luck.

******

Yesterday was a bad day. I was sick as a dog - my head congested, my ears burning with pain. I did not parent my children very well through this.  In the last few days they have both learned to start sentences with I want and it's more than I can bear, especially right now. I want pasta. I want watch TV. I want go park. I want. I want. I want and it's driving me crazy. Please, Mummy, pasta? I remind them. They have the language skills for the polite version but they prefer it the other way. I want. I want. I want.  They prefer the efficiency, I think, and they also know how much I dislike it and they prefer the amusement they get from seeing how far they can push me before I c-r-a-c-k.

Not very far, yesterday. I want. I want. IwantIwantIwantIwant. There came a point where I yelled at Blue: "STOP IT. JUST STOP IT. I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE" and then sat down on the floor, clutched my aching head and cried.  "Mummy screaming" said Pink, vaguely horrified and vaguely gratified. And of course, that just made me cry more, from the crushing guilt. Happy times.

*-*-*-*

Yesterday was a good day. I showed the children our wedding pictures for the first time, and they were entranced. Lately they've been hugely interested in family stories. Pink is putting some of the pieces together, and is especially interested in the fact that the shiny ring on my finger means Mummy-an-Daddy got MURRIED. Recently we have put a whole lot of framed maps up in our dining room - maps of places we have been and places that are important to us. We have a series of three customised prints from this great etsy shop above our kitchen door and Pink knows: Mummy Daddy murried on da yellow one, met pink-an-blue on da blue one and da grey one is HOME!  I finally did up a photo lifebook for them over the Easter holidays and they absolutely love it. They call it their 'special book' and they want to look at it all the time. But this is the first time they have begged to see the 'murried book' and the three of us sat down in the sunshine together and slowly looked through the pages. It was incredible. I haven't looked at our wedding photos for ages and it's so strange to look at then-me with my now-children on my lap and think girl, you had no idea what was coming.  It's sad to see just how many people in our photos have died or divorced each other in the nearly-eight-years since those photos were taken, people these children will never know. I tell Pink again about the great-grandmother for whom she was given her middle name. It means nothing to her now, but it will one day. She turns over the page. As that long-ago day progresses in front of us, I am interested to see the answer to a question that has been bothering me lately - it seems that yes, I did always have a double chin, even when I was very thin. Good to know.

I hold them tight - one on each knee, sitting on what they call my 'side lap'. If they have to share me, they are sitting on 'side lap'. If they have me all to themselves they turn around and grin and say 'sitting on BIG lap, Mummy!' but that's rare. They usually have to share. I have one arm around each one and they aren't fighting and I just feel so privileged that these two precious children are being woven into our family's history. It's not something I take for granted. I love how much they love hearing the stories, even though there's nothing interesting about them. Talking, Mummy, more talking says Blue.  More talking about murried. And really, I've said it all, fifty times over, but I start with Well, Daddy asked me "Mummy, will you marry me?" and I say it all again.

*-*-*-*

Yesterday was a bad day. Blue would not eat at all. Not not-hungry not-eating, but not-gonna-give-you-the-satisfaction not-eating. After dinner was supposed to be over, I left him sitting in his chair at the table outside while Pink scrambled for her latest library book. I was uncertain about it when she chose it - it's called My Mummy and I'm often a bit nervous about those kind of books. Usually they centre around how the child's Mummy is the BEST mummy in the ENTIRE WORLD, which is sweet, obviously, but can be kinda unhelpful when your child actually has two mummies. But this one is fine - it's actually a Peppa Pig book and it's not about the reader's Mummy, it's about Peppa's Mummy so that's all fine. No confusion. Readit, mummy readit said Pink and I did.

Turns out Peppa's Mummy is awesome. She is firm but fair, strict but kind, educational but playful. By the end of the book, I really hated Peppa's Mummy. The last thing she does, on the final page, is have fun splashing with her children in muddy puddles. It won't surprise you to hear that I never do that. Instead, I'm saying no step away don't tread there you'll get dirty come back here come back here come back HERE.  And I read the book cheerfully enough but in reality I was sitting there steaming with resentment and feelings of inferiority towards a cartoon pig.

*-*-*-*

Yesterday was a good day. Blue is learning to say I yuv as well as I want.  He sort of understands how to use it but not entirely. As I was changing him for bed, he told me, in his adorable little-boy voice, that he yuvved Daddy. I melted. That seemed like  a good start and okay,I was fishing for a compliment so I said who else do you love, Blue?  


He leaned forward and said I yuv.... I yuv.... I yuv... BABY WIPES!  And he said it with such sincerity and passion that I couldn't help myself - I laughed and laughed. I love this unpredictable little kid so much. He really does love baby wipes, I'm sure. Such a pleasantly cool feeling on his poopy little summertime butt. 

*-*-*-*

So yesterday was a normal day, I guess. And I can't help wondering - when all of their childhood days blur together, which of these things are they going to remember? When we talk to each other as mothers we reassure each other that they won't remember that time you shouted at them, they will just remember how you were always there and loved them so much. But I'm not sure that's how we talk about our own parents, is it? A lot of us have perfect recall of the bad things our parents said and did (obviously, I'm not talking about my parents, since a) they were perfect and b) occasionally read this blog). But we do tend to expect perfection of our own parents. We don't really think we're going to get it, but it still disappoints us that we don't and the stuff they get wrong hurts us. Why would we think that our children would have lower standards than we do?

I do know that the longer I am a  mother, the more I admire my own mother's parenting in the days when her children were little. I don't ever remember her yelling at me like I yelled at Blue. And I don't think she ever lost her mind at her children in the foyer of a crowded theatre, just to pull a totally hypothetical example out of the air. Was she just more self-controlled than me? Did she do it, but hypnotise me afterwards to make me forget? Or was I just an easier kid? (Yeah, definitely that last one, for sure).

I can't work this one out. If one of my friends was to decide to talk to a therapist about their childhood, I'd be behind them all the way. But when Blue is in therapy for being shouted at too much, am I allowed to go along too? Am I allowed to say 'hey, but don't you remember looking at those wedding pictures too? That was fun, wasn't it? Wasn't it?'  I'm not entirely joking. But I don't suppose it works that way.

It's That Time Again....

Yes, I'm taking another blog break. I finally pulled my first draft of the book out of the drawer where it was living and I hate it it needs some serious love and attention. I need to spend some time every day editing that beast. If I work on it daily during all my spare moments for the next month, I think I can crack the second draft wide open. So that means no more wasting time on the internet during naps. Specifically:

No more obsessing over nail colours using google images  (isn't this pretty, though?)
No more trying to find the perfect wall-mounted basin tap (which is this, incidentally, but I really don't want to spend that kind of money on a bathroom faucet because I'm not insane) 
No more facebook Not quite so much facebook.
And no more blogging. 


While I'm gone, can I ask for your help in two things? Thing number one: my blog list is hopelessly, hopelessly out of date. Whoever you are, you're probably not on my blogroll. Reason? You're so pretty that it intimidates me. It's so long since I updated it I think about half the blogs on there have now died of old age. I haven't put anything new on there for about a year.  If your blog is not on my blogroll, and you wouldn't mind me linking to it, would you mind leaving the address as a comment on this post? I have lots to add.... somewhere..... but it's way more likely to actually happen if I can get them all in one place. Thank you.

Thing number two: One of my favourite bloggers has just found out that she is travelling to Ethiopia to finally meet her son. (I'll link to her once she blogs about it!) She asked for 'must pack'items on facebook, but my mind is totally blank and I can't think what to tell her. Would love your input, since you're so smart and well-travelled - I will send her all the info and pretend I thought of it myself  totally give you all the credit.

In return, here's a picture of pink and blue totally failing to grasp the rules of table football.

And with that, it's back to the word processor.

 I might just take a quick look at some pastel pink nail polish first. 

What's Working: Saturated Fat and Other Stories

Okay, here's the rest of my laundry list of stuff that is working. It wasn't going to do a laundry list - I had plans to write something vaguely meaningful, but clearly that didn't happen. So, ummmm..... did I really write a post about nail polish yesterday? Gosh, I really was tired. So what else is working around here? 

Saturated fat, white sugar and refined flour

So much of parenting, for me, is about eating my words. Just as well, because some days that's all that does get eaten around here. l've blogged before about my children's terrible eating, and the one big thing that has changed recently is that we have started bribing them to eat their dinner, and then a few slices of apple, with the promise of cake afterwards. As Blue says: "Firsss apple, THEN CAKE!" Indeed, little man, indeed. 

I don't object to cake - I love cake, and I want them to, too. But this is against everything I stand for, foodwise. I know I should probably take a chill pill, but I hate that we are convincing our children to eat one part of their meal by promising them another. I hate how it creates a dichotomy of good foods and bad foods. I hate how it isn't encouraging them to regulate their own food intake using their own appetites.  I hate being the person who is sitting there saying 'two more big bites then you can have dessert!' Ugh. 

But it's working, so for now we're doing it. And I have become the food bribing mother I swore never to be. I guess I am learning to enjoy the taste of humble pie. 

Okay, what else? 

Hair. Hair is working pretty well around here at the moment. I owe much to the lovely Amanda who taught me the secret of soaking their hair for half an hour in a mix of super-rich conditioner and coconut oil . We do this once a week in the bath now. Their hair soaks up the goodness while they play with their ducks and sing and I love, love what it has done for their curls.  On a side note, why do I find it so impossible to photograph their curls? I only ever seem to do it either from the back, after styling, or just before I do their hair again, after a week of them playing in the dirt and smearing butter in it and all the other things that go along with being two.  Here is Pink's hair just after hair time: 

And here it is, a week later, just before hair time: 

It never stops being gorgeous but it does get pretty crazy by day six sometimes. 

As for what she's doing in this picture?  She's doing 'beep-in-the-ear'. Because I take her temperature when she's not feeling well, and then give her medicine, she thinks it's the digital thermometer that  makes her feel better. So when she's feeling unwell, now, or even just a bit sad, she looks at me forlornly and asks for beep-in-the-ear.  I always say yes, because ehhhhh, what's not to say yes to? 

Thinking of saying yes - or no - to the kids, here's another thing that's working: 

1,2,3 Magic.... Sorta.   I mean, it works as anything works with a two year old, you know? Here is my number one parenting epiphany lately -  there's no way to stop a two year old being crazy. Not attachment parenting, not super-strict parenting, not any other kind of parenting.  And by crazy, of course, I mean horrible. What I really like about 1,2,3 Magic - or any kind of similar plan - is that we have a plan in place for how we're going to deal with mental behaviour before it happens.  They get a warning, then a second warning, and then they are in time out.  No ifs no buts. 

Yes, even if we are at the park. (C'mon, you would have taken that photo too). There is no chit-chat, no lecturing. Just one, two, three. (Talking comes later, once they have apologised, but not while they are in the middle of a screaming fit). I like it because this is pretty much the most complex strategy I can remember when they are pushing my buttons and I'm losing my mind.  It's definitely not magic, but it's consistent and I think that's enough. 

And speaking of losing my mind, here's another thing that's working: 

Mood altering chemicals My comment about taking a chill pill, above, reminded me that hey, actually, I am taking chill pills! And they are definitely working. I'd say that facing my fears and asking for some medical help with how awful I was feeling last year was by far the most sensible thing I've done lately, maybe ever. I am so incredibly grateful. 

Another thing I'm grateful for? It's mundane, but I love it: 

My kitchen timer.  Honestly, I love this thing. I don't know how I lived without it. I don't so much use it for cooking as for a cleaning aide.  Thing is, I face a horrible room full of mess and I think 'Urrggghhhh, I cannot bear to clean this!' And then I think 'No, but I can bear to clean it for ten minutes' and then I set the timer and work hard until it beeps. With little kids, it always  feels like the work to be done around the house is infinite. I never, ever ends. I don't want to surrender to the mess, but I don't want to be a slave to the cleaning, either - I find that frequent timed cleaning sessions are a good middle way.  I work hard and then I stop. Unless I want to keep going, in which case I press the button again. Cutting all the work - especially in the kitchen - into manageable chunks is the most effective way I've found to deal with the house. Case in point: 

My horrible, horrible kitchen one evening after I hadn't really cleaned it all day. I hadn't even emptied the dishwasher from the night before. Believe me, I wanted to walk away. 

Ten minutes later, it was a lot better. If I had shut the dishwasher and left the room, it would still have been a big improvement. But another ten minutes really nailed it:

Kitchen timers - for benches so clean even a cat will sit on them. Hmmmmm. 

The other kitchen thing I'm hugely into at the moment is: 

Smoothies.  I bought a serious blender and it's now competing with the magical hair dryer for favourite appliance - which is a big deal around here, people. Instead of trying to justify it with words: 

Mango, Pineapple, Lime and Malibu smoothie. Oh yeah. I bought the beast for it's spinach-blending capabilities, and I do that too, honestly, but it's hard to beat anything with Malibu, right?  Unless, of course, you're two. The children always want to drink a bit of whatever I've blended (actually, that's part of my long-term strategy with getting them to eat more than just pasta and cake) but I draw the line at Malibu. I do not, however, draw the line at:

Bottles of Milk. My kids still drink milk from a bottle every morning while I hold them (they're getting pretty big, as you can see. Also, please excuse the smug expression on my face this photo. I have no idea what was going through my head). We call it cuddlemilk. Well, J and I call it cuddlemilk and they call it 'cuggen-mook' because we are still working on their D's and L's. 

Apparently some people think this is terrible, to still be bottle feeding at two and a half. Although, to be honest, I've never actually met a person who does think it's terrible, just people who think that other people think it's terrible. So, I'm not apologising. In any case, it's definitely one of the best parts of the day. They wake up (okay, actually they wake up long before this, but I finally admit that they have woken up and go into their room) and then we sit on a chair that we all snuggle into nicely and they drink and I talk to them and then maybe we read a book before the day starts. I love it and they love it, and when it's J's day to be at home, he loves it too. 

I don't really know why some people are in a rush to make their kids give up bottles. What could be nicer than to cuddle my babies close and sing to them while they drink? You don't get that in the same way  with a sippy cup. And what could be nicer, for them, than to lie down in their parent's arms and have a slow calm start to the morning? Rhetorical question, people, rhetorical question. Probably Disneyland would be nicer. But we are in no rush to stop the bottles here. 

I was going to do a further point about toxic chemicals, but it's nearly midnight and what does not work very well is me staying up really late when I have to get up for work tomorrow.  So, I think that's it. I write so much stuff about what is not working in my house - it's been really nice to see that actually, some things are. 

(And - I can't wait to read everyone else's posts. I've been away from my computer a lot lately and have a lot to catch up on! I haven't even linked this one yet- tomorrow after work!)

What's Working: Buying Nail Polish at 4am

Lately, I've been suffering from insomnia. I don't know why. I'm not having bad dreams, I'm not particularly worried about anything and I don't have trouble getting to sleep but sometimes in the middle of the night, BAM, I'm awake.  I squeeze my eyes shut my eyes and try to drift back off. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

After a while, I can't bear to lie there any more.  J is a light sleeper so I come downstairs. The house is quiet and theoretically, it's the perfect time to answer the three hundred emails in my inbox or do something else worthwhile but it doesn't seem possible. Only about a third of me is truly awake, which is annoying because that third is very awake.  I can't go back to sleep and I can't think properly so instead, I buy nail polish online.

I go through cycles with nail polish. I obsess about it for about six months, trying colour after colour on my lotioned hands and buffed feet. Then I get lazy and stop exfoliating and stop moisturising and finally stop polishing and then for about two years my hands and feet are just hands and feet again rather than an opportunity for self-expression. I wasn't thinking about polish at all until one wakeful night recently, lying on the sofa eating butterkist popcorn and checking my junk mail from amazon, looking at all the stuff I would usually ignore. Suddenly, with the kind of clarity that only comes at 4am, I realised that is an excellent price for a UV Gel nail curing lamp and it was like the floodgates opened. I've been night-buying nail polish ever since. Right now, I'm wearing mint green on my hands and cobalt blue on my feet. Apparently, I've got the same pedicure that was recently spotted on Beyonce and it's hard to argue with that, right? After all, she and I are so similar in so many other ways.

Anyway. This is my insomnia silver lining right now. This is what's working, in keeping me from going insane. Last night, I was awake again and I ordered a very pale dove grey, because a night of blurry wakefulness told me that was a good idea. The cold light of day ventures to disagree, and it's not the first time I wonder which is real me, day-me or night-me. Do I really like dove grey nail polish? (I hope I will, when it arrives). I remember this feeling from when the babies were tiny and I was awake through the watches of the night with them. It's a feeling of strange, free-floating isolation, being awake at 4am. The me who exists at midday hates night-me for not being able to sleep, for depriving midday-me of energy and frankly, making the day's parenting less than stellar. Today I took the children to the park and I dragged my feet all the way, feeling dizzy and sleepy and wondering whether I could ever bear to have another baby in the house, for this to be the ordinary state of affairs again. I have no idea, to be honest. I probably shouldn't try to think about these things when I've had this little sleep.

Oh, I'm so tired.

At least my nails look pretty. 

(More What's Working later, probably). 

This Community is Not a Competition

(I guess this post could be subtitled: What's Working For Me: Having Really Strong Opinions About Things That Probably Don't Matter)

A few days ago, I got an email from Circle of Moms [who? Exactly.] telling me that I had been nominated for their Top 25 Adoption Blogs for 2012. And I groaned and thought oh no. 

I was nominated last year, although I didn't really get involved because of my deep seated fear of rejection, and the whole thing was a disaster. People get very wound up about this sort of thing and it's not fun to be part of and it's not fun to watch.  Social media is already far, far too quantitative. Everything is about the numbers. It's already too easy to judge ourselves by how many people follow us, how many people 'like' what we say on facebook, how many times your  your witty analysis of the latest Kardashian divorce is retweeted.  It always feels like a popularity contest. 

And this 'Top 25' stuff isn't even a veiled or implicity popularity contest - it's an actual popularity contest. What kind of  a sick idea is that? Surely the whole point of blogging is connection.  How is that going to make us feel more connected to each other? It's not, that's what.  But then, it's not really about us, is it? It's about money. 

Here's the idea - they nominate you, or you nominate yourself, and then you ask everyone you know to vote for you. You can vote every day. 

Gaaaaaah. Any competition that says you can vote every day is totally and utterly bogus. Competitions like this are not about promoting understanding about adoption, or of connecting mothers with each other, or even about curating a list of useful adoption writing. Vote-every-day competitions are about one thing only: increasing traffic to the host website.  Which makes sense, I guess: they are not in the business of educating people, or of increasing awareness about the complexities surrounding adoption. They are in the business of making money. They want advertising. To get advertising, they need traffic. Specifically, they want our traffic, traffic from the adoption community as we vote for our favourites and try to pretend that we don't care how many people are voting for us.  They want our traffic.  Next month, I guess it will be traffic generated by competition for the Top 25 Moms Who Live On A Farm, or Top 25 Moms Who Drive A Prius, but this month it's us and it annoys me I am going to use my own little space to say that I Do Not Like It. 

I don't know anything about the people involved in this website, and I have nothing against them personally. But I don't like what they are trying to do - they are trying to use the community that WE have created, together with our our pathetic need for constant validation

to drive up their own advertising revenues.  That just seems unbearably cynical to me. 

I guess the payoff is supposed to be that, if you make the top 25 list, you get the benefit of a link to you from their website.  Aaaaaaand... who cares? It's not BlogHer, people, it's not CNN. Personally, I had never heard of Circle of Moms until they ran the Top 25 thing last year and then I pretty much forgot about them until I got an email about it again this year. 

I do not think that popularity contests promote a sense of community. I resent that a group of people who are not part of this community would crash in here and ask us to annoy each other by spending four weeks shilling for votes, then assess our self worth by how many we get. What's in it for us? Nothing, that's what. 

So, I'm boycotting the whole thing. I won't be voting for you, and I don't want you to vote for me. 

That was all I was going to say. 

And then, this happened, because I obviously needed another reason to be annoyed about the whole thing. In short, the Circle of Moms team decided that Cassi, one of the first mothers on the list, wasn't positive enough about adoption, and they unceremoniously removed her from the competition. This is, of course, pretty eye-watering. Seriously, people? Seriously? Cassi has some difficult stuff to say about adoption coercion, but I think that if any of us had been through what she had been through, we would have some difficult stuff to say about that too. On one level, I'm shocked. 

But on another level, I'm not shocked at all. This decision is entirely consistent with the fact that they are trying to make money from advertising revenue.  Having a blog like Cassi's front and centre is probably not a very revenue-friendly thing. 

Some people have concluded that the best way to react to this is to vote as often as possible for the other people who are telling the more complex story of adoption - particularly other first mothers and adopted adults

With respect, I disagree. Making a point of visiting frequently in order to vote for the complicated stories pretty much just gives them exactly what they want.What Circle of Moms needs and wants is traffic. They want our clicks.  I say - don't give it to them.  Spiking their traffic is hardly going to punish them for censorship. If you don't like what they're doing, don't link to them. (There are no links to them in this post, obviously). Don't visit their site.  Send the organisers an email, if you want to, and then move on. Whether because of the cynicism or the censorship, I don't want to be part of this whole thing, and I recommend that you aren't, either. 

Okay, off my soapbox. 

And now, because all that was very negative, please enjoy this picture of my son meeting a chicken. 

What's Working For Me: Giving Everybody an Extension

Did I say to write something for the linkup by Friday? What was I thinking? I wasn't thinking at all, that's what I was thinking. I totally forgot that J and I are off work for a week from last Wednesday to this, and I get practically zero computer time when that happens.

This is what it's like: I wake up in the morning and Oh, let's go for an idyllic walk, Claudia, says J, for example. Or Let's go and visit someone and eat their cake, Claudia (although I should probably point out that he does, in fact, usually use my real name). Other times, it's Let's have some more wine and watch a movie during naptime,Claudia or even Let's play with the children, Claudia. Pah!  Tomorrow, I know it will be Let's go and buy half-price Easter eggs from the expensive chocolate shop because Easter was yesterday, Claudia which all sounds very nice but what about my internet time? There isn't any, that's what.

So: extension. I have about three things I want to write about, and that's only going to have any chance of happening if I say the new 'write by' date is now 18 April.

Anyway, he's giving me his Let's look at stupidly expensive houses on the internet for a joke,Claudia face, so I'd better go.

Your Turn - What's Working?

I was going to write something scratchy-violin-ish about raising siblings, but I don't want to do that any more.  I want to write something positive. I want to read something positive. In fact, I want to read LOTS of somethings positive.  So, who's in the mood for another link up? I would love you to write a blog post to tell us - what's working well in your house or your life? 

This is the kind of stuff that's working in my house at the moment: I'm in love with my kitchen timer. I might write about that.  Or maybe I'll write about how I still bottle-feed my nearly-three year olds every morning. Or perhaps I'll just tell you about the flash of genius I had recently that inspired me to invent the caramel popcorn smoothie last weekend. (Please don't tell me if someone else has already invented this. I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, it's miiiiiiiiiiine).   So much for my life - I want to know: what's working in yours? How are you managing your kids? How are you managing not having any kids? Have you given away your car? Have you decided to shower only once a week?  Are you using guilt about your messed-up childhood to trap your mother into babysitting more often? 

What can we learn from what you are doing? Kids, no kids, work, food, friendships, relationships, schooling.... no matter how overwhelming life feels, we're all doing something right... right?  Let's pool our smarts. If you want a slightly more specific prompt, you can answer the question: "If I could give other women one piece of advice, it would be......" (and you are NOT allowed to say 'just relax and find your own path and don't worry about other women judging you' because that's kind of annoying. Also, people who say that always make me feel judged because apparently I'm not relaxed enough). If you really can't think of anything, give us your favourite easy week night recipe. Or maybe what's working for you is that you've given up cooking altogether. In which case give us the telephone number of your favourite pizza guy. You get the picture.

Here's the linky - I would love it if you could write a post about what's working well right now in your life and add it by Wednesday 12 April. Inspire me!  Who's in? 

(Remember - please link to the post you write, not your whole blog otherwise Mr Linky gets confused).

********************

And speaking of inspiration, I am hugely inspired by this lady. Have you seen this beautiful quilt that she made? She made this lovely thing with a daughter in mind: 

and embroidered it by hand: 

and now she's selling it to raise money for donations for her forthcoming trip to Ethiopia to meet her precious son! She asked a few of us how much she should charge for raffle tickets, and our first response was 'don't sell it! It's too beautiful!'  But she said no, she really wants to use the quilt to raise money. And then we all said she should charge at least $10 for a ticket (because, hey, it's beautiful).  But luck is on your side, people, because she's only charging $5. So now you can buy twice as many. 

Did I mention that all the money she raises is going to be used to buy supplies for her son's first orphanage and a few other equally worthy projects? And that she's going to buy everything in-country so she can support local suppliers? And that tickets are only $5? You should buy lots of tickets, and then you should get your friends to buy lots of tickets too. (But not too may because I want to win). Click on the link below and find out how. 

In short: Beautiful quilt. Beautiful family. Really good cause. Also, some embroidery of an elephant's butt, but you'll have to click over and read the full story, together with details of how to buy tickets to see that.

This is such a beautiful thing. I love that she's using it to raise money. Let's make sure she raises a lot! 

A Simple Song

In the nineties, when I learned to use makeup, the whole idea seemed to be to make as little difference as possible to your natural face. Hours were spent deliberating between eyeshadows with names like Ecru, Bone and Shell; if it was a really special occasion I might break out the Mushroom. (No, not that sort of mushroom).

Things are different now. I stand at a makeup counter in John Lewis in Oxford Street, feeling old and out of touch. Should I pick Bird of paradise, Neon, or Pop? Which one of those says 'the grandparents are babysitting and I've got a night off, baby' most effectively? I decide on Bird of Paradise, because it's true - the babies are being sat upon and J and I are off to see the Shins. The tickets for this London show sold out in sixteen minutes and I got two of them; I scored them from work a few weeks ago, frantically pressing 'refresh' on my computer while the interns shouted encouragement from the sidelines. I haven't been so excited about anything since... well, since I saw Radiohead in 1998, I suppose.But now the day is here, I feel disoriented too - I haven't done something like this for such a long time and I find that I don't really remember how to do it.

I wasn't even sure what to wear. I know that everybody else there will be wearing confusing shirts with logos I don't understand; shirts that have obviously come from some Hipster Palace of Awesome that I've never even heard of. None of them will have to check their cardigans for evidence of some small person's mucus, and if they are wearing cardigans at all it will only be in some sort of hip, ironic way, rather than, you know, to actually keep warm, like me. I can't keep up with that. In the end, I wear jeans and a striped top from the Anthropologie sale because I just want to be comfortable, dagnabbit, but now I'm regretting it and some new eyeshadow seems the only way to redeem my confused, out-of-touch self. I realise it's unlikely that James Mercer will see me up on the balcony and say 'Hey! You! Onstage now! I must have you for my muse!' but if that does happen, I want to make sure my eyelids don't let me down.

I take the package and slip it into my bag and wonder what to do next. J is still at work. I've left the children with his parents and travelled up to London and I have an afternoon to myself. Shouldn't I have something urgent to do? Apparently not. I may be on my way to an utterly awesome gig, but I'm still a woman in my thirties who is renovating her attic so I go and look at fabric swatches and request some samples.  Then I go to the hotel and put on my new makeup, layering it on until my eyes look bruised, and then I get on the tube and now it's the date and the time that it says on the ticket and here we are, it's time.

I meet J at the tube station and we go to grab a burger, but I'm so excited that I can't eat it.  I know I'm ridiculous but I can't help it - I'm absolutely giddy with anticipation. Any moment, I could breathe in some carbon dioxide that has actually been inside James Mercer's lungs. It's too much to take in. We go to the venue, me faster than J's long legs for once, dragging him along and saying hurry, hurry! I don't want to be late!

We are definitely not late. This is how out of touch I am - I'd forgotten how boring it is waiting for the main act to come on stage if you turn up at anything resembling the time printed on the ticket. Also, I have no idea why the support act are wearing surgical masks. Would I understand if I was younger? If I didn't have kids?  Is there some kind of airborne pathogen I should be aware of?  This is dull. J and I start to play Angry Birds.

Then The Shins finally come on, and they hit the ground running. They kick off with an incredible version of 'Kissing the Lipless' and the crowd goes crazy - okay, I go crazy, anyway. I was hoping they would start with this! I say to J and clutch his arm in excitement. He says why? and I look at him like he's got two heads and say because it's awesome, also it's the first song from the first album of theirs that we bought, obviously and then he looks at me like I'm the weird one, even though he has heard these CDs as often as me and really, there's no excuse, he should totally know these basic facts.

It just gets better and better. I love the songs from their new album and they are even more amazing live. The Shins is exactly my very favourite sort of music - downbeat lyrics with upbeat tunes, sort of a bit Smiths-ish, I guess - and I'm as happy as I can ever remember being.  There's so much energy and I'm bouncing on my chair like a two-year-old because I'm just having so much fun.  It's not like I don't like my normal life. It's not like it isn't fun watching DVDs of 30 Rock on the sofa and eating pasta, but I'd forgotten what it felt like to just be swamped by a wave of fantastic music, to be in a room where everybody is being carried along by the same tide and everybody is feeling it (except, maybe, J, who would possibly rather be dropping eggs on a pig wearing a helmet). Right now it seems to me like every minute of my life that hasn't been spent at a Shins concert was a total waste of time.

My favourite thing about live music - any kind of live music - is that you can be totally absorbed in the experience but at the same time, your subconscious is footling along in the background and you find yourself suddenly thinking about stuff, stuff that you didn't realise was even in your head until it falls out. I'd say that a really good concert takes up exactly three quarters of the brain, leaving the other quarter to wander down strange, deserted alleyways.  I guess that means live music is sort of like going for a run, but without the pesky shortness of breath or unattractive sweat circles. I find myself thinking about the people onstage and wondering about their lives.  I know the frontman is married with two kids. Does having two kids feel to his wife like it does to me? Or does being married to someone famous (and presumably rich) insulate a person from most of the inconveniences that go along with everyday life for the rest of us? Does she have a cleaner, at least? I bet she gets to go to more live music than I do. But then, my husband doesn't go on tour. She's probably at home, on the phone to her mother, right now, complaining that he's off having a grand time while she's stuck on her own looking after the kids and her life wasn't supposed to turn out like this and she has dreams too, what about her dreams? Or maybe they've brought the kids on tour and she's sitting next to me. Gosh, if so, I hope I didn't say any of that out loud. But speaking of women - there's a girl in the Shins now. How did that happen? It seems odd to me, but I can't really put my finger on why, apart from the fact that she looks about eighteen. Also, that guy playing the keyboard - his hair! Ouch. Definitely the world silver medallist in Bad Indie Hair (with the gold, of course, going to Darwin Deez and his frankly ridiculous ringlets). And then they start playing New Slang.

If you didn't think that post-punk pop could do bittersweet visceral yearning, you haven't heard this. Suddenly, without warning, this song catapults me back to 2007, when we went on holiday to Wales and had this CD on repeat in the car the whole time. It poured with rain that whole week - in fact, that whole summer - and we were miserable. We were in the middle of the horror of trying to make a decision about how to have a family and I couldn't think straight for sadness. The couple in the cottage next to us had a little baby and I would run past their front door in the rain and glare at them damply and get in the car and turn this up. I had forgotten about that.  I loved this song, and every time it came on I would press repeat to hear it again.  The line that always stuck with me was: If you took to me | Like a gull takes to the wing and I know this is cheesy  but I used to listen to this and think about that image, two people taking to each other in a way that is irrevocable and natural and somehow immediate and right, like jumping off a cliff together and finding out that you can fly. I wondered if I would feel that way about my baby; I wondered if my baby would feel that way about me, if we would ever have a baby at all. And in a matter of seconds I'm not sitting here any more, I'm that old Claudia again, somewhere else, heartbroken and lonely and hollow and willing to trade all the freedom in the world for what I have right now, two precious children to tuck in at night. 

The song ends but I still feel dizzy. I feel like crying and I don't know whether it's the smash to my emotional solar plexus or something else. Probably it's just that I'm up past my bedtime and I'm overexcited; too much time spent looking after toddlers and it seems I've become one. I want some juice. They do another number then leave the stage and the crowd begs for more - and they come on for an encore and do three more incredible songs.  I'm myself again by the end - waving my arms with excitement and glad, so glad, that I work with people who are young enough to explain how to get tickets to shows when they are going to sell out quickly. 

******

A day later. We've picked up the children; disassembled their travel cots and packed up their highchairs and thanked the grandparents and driven back to our house. It's good to be home. I like my home, and I missed my kids, these kids I fought so hard to find. This life feels very stable and anchored and I wouldn't change a thing but sometimes I get the urge to wriggle out of the ties that bind me and leave that weight behind and fly, just fly away. 

I shake off that thought and turn my ipod on to  scroll through my ipod to get Artist>The Shins > All Songs>Shuffle. I press play and let the melodies wash over me again, the perfect studio mixing reminding me that this is not the same.  

It's not the same, but it'll do. And then I go downstairs and get out a chopping board and I cut up some potatoes for dinner.

Something That Other People Do

I sometimes find myself in a social situation where I need to say, politely,  "I'm not sure I agree with what you just said about that ethnic group".  In my head, this feels like a non-confrontational way to get a conversation going that doesn't use the R-word - racist - but it never seems to work as well as I hoped.  Here is how those conversations go for me.

When I say: "I'm not sure I agree with what you just said about that ethnic group" it seems that most people hear I think you are a bad person. I hate you and your whole ugly family. And then they get angry, and then they aren't listening to anything else I say and then we're both angry and I wish I'd never opened my mouth, even though I knew that I really needed to say something.

A comment about what you said is heard as a judgement on what you are. I think this happens because, as a society, we've tied ourselves into a big ugly knot when it comes to talking about race and racism. We've made racism such a huge taboo that we've set up the following logic chain within people's heads:

1. Racism is really, really bad
2. Therefore only bad people are racist
3. I am not a bad person
4. Therefore I cannot possibly be racist. 

Racism is such a big ugly word, such an unforgivable sin, that I think it's only ever conceptualised as something that other people do; bad people, people who aren't like me. I think this means that most people can't even consider the possibility that something they have said might be racist, or on the path towards it. The way they think about themselves just can't allow for this possibility.

I think this is incredibly unhelpful. I find this tricky because hey! Racism is bad! But I think we're all predisposed towards it, too, and I think that our failure to admit this to ourselves, to each other, makes dealing with the issue as a society worse, not better. After all, how can we address a problem in our attitudes if we won't admit it exists? It's much easier to shunt the problem to the sidelines, as an issue that only members of the KKK or people who shoot innocent teenagers or people who shoot Jewish schoolchildren need to deal with. Much less constructive, but much, much easier.

Admitting the alternative - that I have a problem with this too - is far from easy. It was a big deal for me to realise that I, personally, struggle with racial prejudice. I mean I struggle personally. I mean that I find it easier to assume good things about people who look like me. I mean that I am prone to leap to conclusions about groups of people based on stereotypes. I mean that I am working on all of this and I've come a long long way but it does take work. I mean that I wasn't born with an attitude that truly sees all people as equal, that never gravitates towards people because they remind me of myself.

I don't think any child is born with this attitude; not really. Children start to 'sort' from when they are very young. They don't know about race but they can see skin shades and they aren't stupid; of course they use it as a sorting tool, as a way of determining who 'belongs' and of course they are sometimes unkind about it and sometimes downright horrible. Why does this surprise us? Why would we expect that kids would get this right? People who think that children are pure and know no evil - have you ever met a child? Children do a whole lot of stuff that I wouldn't want to see in an adult: tantrums, hitting, biting and a whole lot of  smearing vegetables in their hair. Our job as adults is to take all of their baser instincts, face them head on,  and guide them towards being the kind of adults that we want in society. This includes being adults who have learned to see people for their whole selves - including ethnicity and skin - but not define them solely by it. It also includes not telling the world when you are about to poop, but that one is a long way off in our house.


It seems to me that racism is the ugly flip-side of the desire to belong. Humans want to be part of a group, and that's a good desire. But wanting to define my group too easily turns into defining those who are not in my group: not liked, not welcome, not equal. Excluding one group of people fosters a feeling of belonging in those who are included. Children love this, and adults often love it too. Stretching one's definition of belonging to include people who dress differently from me, look different and speak differently is not automatic. If it was automatic for you, if it never, ever feels like an issue - well, good for you. That must be nice.

And I think you're probably lying.

But I feel like this lie is what we all should be saying; anything else leads to much clutching of pearls. It's that only-bad-people-are-racist thing again. (Did you hear her admit that she doesn't always love people who are different? That she is raaaaaaaaaaaacist? And her with those two precious brown children!)  If I'm honest, I find it kind of odd. After all, admitting that we all tend towards racial prejudice doesn't mean it's okay. Far from it. It's like selfishness or greed or envy or any one of the other awful things that we humans do which come naturally to us. I am ashamed of how far I still have to go in dealing with this, but I'm not ashamed to talk about it. Again -  how can I possibly work on something if I won't admit that it's there?

(It's probably worth saying at this point that yes, I think we are probably all the same on the inside when it comes to this issue. I don't think that Black people, or Hispanic people, or Asian people are any 'better' than White people. I don't think they are made of different stuff.  I don't think their almond or cocoa or copper hearts are any purer than my peachy-pink heart, even though it's us peachy-pink ones who benefit from most of the power structures that are in place in the West. I'm sure that people of all shades have their own heart issues to work on. But in a way, that's none of my business. It's vanilla-flavoured racism I need to deal with because I am White). 


And I am dealing with it. My thoughts and attitudes have changed immeasurably over the last few years, and I'm nothing but glad about that. The irony, of course, is that when I knew absolutely nothing, I thought I knew everything. I thought I had nothing of which to repent. And now that I know a bit more, I realise how far I have to go.

Being racist isn't about being a good person or a bad person. That's not how it works. It's too serious an issue to pretend that it's something that other people do, something that only bad people need to deal with. I still don't know how to talk about this issue with people who are still at the 'denial' stage, but maybe I need to work on being more open about how I think this is actually something that affects all of us; including me; especially me.

So. My name is Claudia (well, okay, actually it's not) and I struggle with racial prejudice. And I bet you do too. And I would love to reach a point where one of us would be able to say to the other "I'm not sure I agree with that generalisation about that group of people" and for the other to then say  "Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I was being prejudiced. Thanks for calling me out; I need to work on that". And then the first person would say "Any time; and by the way, I think your family is very good-looking" and we would high-five each other and go on our way.

A girl can dream, right?