Gratitude tag

Following on from my post yesterday I thought I would try something here. I am not very "in" with the blogging crowd and lingo so will rely on my regular blogger friends to read this and pass it on.

The idea is simple. Write about one thing you are grateful to your mother for. Or more if you would like, but at least one. Then tag a couple of people you know who blog to do the same on theirs. Hopefully then we will end up with a lovely celebration of motherhood.

So, here goes mine.

Aside from my legs, the thing I am most grateful to my mother for is the amazing example she set me and as a result the incredible self-belief she instilled in me.

Mum left full time school and went to secretarial college. She worked in numerous jobs she really didn't like because we needed the money. This was exacerbated, I suspect, when I got a scholarship to private school that covered a lot of the fees, but not all and we had to find the money for them from somewhere. My sister and I both went to University, when she and my Dad hadn't had that opportunity, so she kept working so we could afford that too. At every point in my school and university life I always felt that my Mum was right there behind me. She feels passionately that women should be educated. She has sponsored girls in developing countries for far longer than it has been fashionable and she supported both her daughters to achieve the maximum they were capable of. Let me be clear here, she never pushed either of us and always allowed us free reign to choose our own path, but we were always very secure in the knowledge that she would support us whatever we wanted to do.

That isn't it, however, she also led by example. While still working full time being a magistrate and sitting (for some time being Chair) of the family bench in one of the less lovely parts of London she also studied in her spare time for a law degree and then a masters. Most of this was while working full time, being a JP AND bringing up two teenage daughters. How the hell she found the time is beyond me.

So, I am grateful to my Mum for being the living breathing embodiment of focus, dedication, hard work and unconditional, loving support.

PS. Sorry, Mum for any factual inaccuracies. My teenage years were a bit of a blur!

Gratitude

Once you have a child of your own you finally realise what your parents, and mothers in particular, do for their children. I have a few friends, mainly male and single but not exclusively so, who have a habit of complaining about their mothers. I don't know why, but some people don't ever quite grow out of the adolescent rebellion that finds them thinking their parents are dull, boring and never did anything for them. Now, however, I am a mother myself I know just how much of oneself and ones life you give up for your children.

Just carrying a child and feeding it and changing it takes some commitment. For many people this selfless (and sleepless) act would be sufficient martyrdom. Add to that the many other commitments and sacrifices parents make to ensure that their offspring are sufficiently healthy and balanced to face the world and it would take a good few reincarnations for any child to be able to show sufficient gratitude to their parents (and don't let me go there on what parts of my body have also suffered!).

It was Fraught Mummy who got me to thinking about what parents do for their children. In her case a bad back and frozen toes. In my case, my list is quite a long one already and will undeniably get longer. I hate to think how long my mother's list would be, I was an awful child!

So, to my own Mum, thank you. I know that doesn't cut it but I don't tell you enough.

And to anyone who dares ever even mutter a complaint about their mothers, take a step back and think hard - what has she done for you?

Supernanny

We subscribe to the cheapest cable TV package in the Yummy Mummy household but, mercifully, all the BBC channels come as part of that bundle. I know it makes me an expats expat to crave that little piece of home but I swear the programs are just better than the US bunch that come churning out of the Fox-related networks we also get.

My latest BBC addiction is Supernanny. I know that I have come to the Supernanny fold quite late, but there is something incredibly compelling about watching some truly awful children, and their parents, start the show behaving so badly and ending it like little angels. I know I am a complete voyeur in this respect. There is something compelling about watching car crashes, whether rubber necking on the motorway or a family. However, I also view Supernanny as something of a horror movie (a genre I hate). What if Eve turns out like that? What if I do? What if people say that about my child?

I also don't quite believe it is that easy, for either parent or child. I mean why exactly does an otherwise unruly and out of control six year old sit on a naughty seat and not move? Is it all clever editing?

Last weekend Eve had her first tantrum. I naively thought she'd had them before, but like many things with children you don't realise you've had one until they really hit! I can't recall what prompted it, but we had full on screaming and crying and shouting. So, taking a leaf out of Supernanny's book, I popped Eve on the sofa and said she would have to stay there until she calmed down. She got off once, but I put her back on, and she stayed there. She tried everything to fight it. Volume, shouting for Daddy (I had to restrain him from going over and cuddling her), shouting for me. Screaming "sorry" at the top of her lungs but refusing to say it quietly. But she stayed on the sofa.

I sat in the kitchen, I am afraid to say, laughing quietly and mouthing at the Boy "why doesn't she just get off the sofa?!?!". It actually worked. But why on earth did an otherwise bright and intelligent child not realise there is nothing I could do to keep her on the sofa? I am not querying it, but I can't understand whatever psychology lies behind it.

I am now watching Supernanny with a newfound sense of respect.

Going potty

Crap. Eve is two now. I'd better start potty training properly now. It's just so damn cold that it wouldn't be fair for her to run around naked for very long while she wees down her legs - my sister's and nanny's chosen technique.

Chinese New Year is coming up. That is 4 whole days off. It will be warmer by then. That will be 4 whole days of cleaning up Eve's pee off the floor then.

Children at work

One of the reasons I am really rather enjoying the toddler stage, and if I confess honestly hated the whole baby stage, is that now I have a real little person with whom I can rationalise. Eve understands cause and effect and generally tantrums can be headed off before they start, or at least minimised, by a rational explanation of something and boundaries that make sense.

So, this evening, when we went to leave the playground Eve decided to stay. She sat on the floor and screamed. To which I simply said that she could stay, but she would be on her own because all her friends had gone home, would get cold and it wouldn't be as comfy as her big girl bed to sleep there. Within 5 seconds she was running into my arms to come home.

If only colleagues were so easy. I have spent the day listening to excuses about why things have not been done, a fair bit of whining (some from me, I will admit), and a complete lack of thinking through consequences. Much like London City Mum (whose blog I will link as soon as it is up running for general consumption again), I found myself today wanting to tell a colleague that they could do what they wanted to but if they did it then nobody would want to play with them again and they would have to stay on their own in the cold.

Birthdays and birthdays

I will confess this right now but I write this a little bit tipsy. It was Eve's 2nd birthday last week, is the Boys tomorrow and his parents are in town (a WHOLE different post), so rather than having what I had intended would be a quiet birthday at home I did something a bit special today.

I have always been a bit scathing of the highly competitive mothers in HK who wheel out parties that doyens of Hollywood would be envious of. This has seen us at parties with entertainers (a rather surly teenage princess who looked as if she would be happier in a crack den than with a bunch of toddlers) and ones where the helpers seem to run the show. Not for me I thought. I would bake the cake, we would have something small scale at home, children would not be given any of those stupid party favours that seem to be given out in plastic bags at the end of parties. Oh no, not for me.

Except, my in-laws are in town and I would be an even more evil daughter-in-law (for this is the fate of most daughter-in-laws) if I didn't at least make a bit of an effort.

I think I may have overdone it.

Private room at the rather lovely private island retreat at the yacht club. Free flowing food and champagne and wine for everyone. Balloons everywhere. Lots and lots of children. A vastly expensive cake with a sleeping teddy bear on it and icing saying "Happy 2nd birthday Eve", incidentally which lasted about 5 minutes before an unsupervised Eve stuck her finger in it, leaving something saying "Happy irthday ve". And, of course, every child got a cupcake with an animal face on it. In fact, most adults got one too.

The issue comes that I don't know what came over me. I bargain hunt as a pastime and was debating yesterday with the Boy over ten Hong Kong dollars for some balloons. How, then, did I end up having the type of bash that I routinely criticised in the past?

Answers on a postcard please. Needless to say the in-laws thought it was great, so did Eve and the Boy, I had a great time and already have a hangover even before I have been to sleep.

We will never forget

I had lunch today with S, my former colleague who was pregnant with her second at the same time as I was pregnant with Eve. In the interim she has left Gnome bank, went to work freelance for a while and is now back in another bank doing a full time job.

The usual inevitable question came up from her about when I am going to have number 2. I asked her whether it was easier second time round. Her reply? "Goodness no, pregnancy and the first 6 months of the baby are miserable regardless of how many times you've done it before".

Hmm, so I was right in my thinking on that one then.