A late post today beacuse I have been wiving my house for most of the day. Got plenty done, the kids were great and we had a blast.

I get criticized all the time for staying at home with the children and not having a career. Believe me when I tell you there are days when, halfway up the walls, I stop and think, I could have a career! I could have a proper job! And then of course I crash onto the floor and the thought is over because gravity is still working after all , thoughts or no thoughts, and a housewife can’t live in a metaphor, particularly the wall-climbing one, for too long before even the metaphor drives you up the wall. Metaphorically of course. I think. What was I talking about?

Oh, yeah. Many women think a woman is wasting herself or not contributing fully to a modern society if she’s not out there in the workplace ( I say women because we women are hardest on ourselves and each other and many men think that stay-at-home-mothering is “just playing” – actual quote from my husband, Dave). They maintain that you can’t possibly be fulfilled, or are playing some sort of outdated martyr-mother role. “Hey, girlfriend, wake-up! It’s the 21st century, you’re setting the women’s movement back decades!”

I’m not going to argue with them. In loads of ways, not all, they are right. I think there’s much to be said for much of that argument and it has been formulated by far smarter women than me. Pioneering giantesses who made it possible for us all to have a choice.

The choice is the thing though; it can’t be as simple as one size fits all, can it?. Most women are not that simple, are we?

For the most part, the days when my brain doesn’t turn to porridge, I don’t feel a bit like I’ve copped out of the women’s movement or settled by default for a housewife’s role. I know, if I worked I’d have crappy days too because of the inherent crappiness of being. No, I’m joking, but we’re none of us meant to have a fulfilling, glorious, giddy-making experience every minute of our lives, are we? We’d burn out at 2. We need some balancing toil and misery. Still joking, I think.

On the other side of the mummy wars – ostensibly mine, but often way too shrill and a bit too self-righteous for my taste – there are those who will quote study upon study (See!Science is on our side – beat that, working mothers!) citing the benefits to children of having their mothers stay at home with them. They will talk about things like neuronal development which you can’t argue with; I mean, we all want our children to develop their neurons and stuff, and the impulse behind it is entirely normal: give your offspring the neuronal edge kinda thing. It’s the wotsit, the primal evolutionary urge, innit?

I really don’t think the primal evolutionary urge is always the best way to go with children though, and besides, we’re human, and above all that swamp-thinking now aren’t we? I mean if it weren’t for human nature, reason and compassion, we’d eat our young if they came out sickly and we’d have no need for wheelchair ramps in buildings ‘cos we’d naturally select out non-walking people. And the whole Medicare/medicines for the sick and elderly thing would go right away. Poof! Gone. And, (as it’s come up) there’d be no gay people either, depending on who was in charge. Or black people in some states and countries. Life would be pretty crappy and even more brutal than it already is, and that’s why talking about evolution in homo sapiens social theories is a ridiculous idea. God, I’ve lost the point again.

Oh, here it is. Anyway. I don’t buy all the studies, convincing and scary and tempting though they are (all parents everywhere, including me, especially me, can be easily worked into an anxious we’ll-do-anything frenzy about whether or not we’re making the best choices for our children) . But children, both good and bad, and dim and bright have been brought up, since the dawn of man, all the while managing to fit in, and even be enhanced by, adapting to their parents circumstances. We try to give our children the best circumstances, obviously, but, to my mind, that doesn’t necessarily mean having mummy right there all-the-time-always. What kind of a “rounded child” is that going to lead to? A square one, that’s what. Or worse still an octagon – and octagons are hell in the teenage years, so I believe. As are rectangles; little buggers, rectangles. They’ll rob your granny soon as look at her.

We’re trying to prepare our kids for life, right? The kind of life we all know to be “full of hard knocks and tough surprises” (Fry and Laurie). I’m not suggesting we send them crawling out of the hospital with their belly-button clamps still on, a cheap suit and the job section of the newspaper tucked under their podgy wee arms. Nononono. Wait until they’re at least potty trained, for that; nobody likes a stinky diaper at office meetings.

I think there’s a lot to be said for putting the kids into the garden for an afternoon with no toys, me close at the window for safety, and just letting them play with a stick and the mud and their wild wee imaginations and just not interfering too much with ‘teachable moments’ and parenting techniques (those have their place but should remember their place too). Even when they argue. Unless they’re actively disembowelling each other, I think, for my kids at least, there can be value in learning how to deal with it when something’s just not fair, and mummy’s not right beside them to sort it out. The inherent fair-play instinct of children never fails to amaze me. I often jump in when I shouldn’t though, and the opposite, not to interfere, is harder; I do it all the time but I don’t necessarily think that’s the end of the world either. Because I am not a robot mother, I’m a human (honest) and they are going to have to deal with human vicissitudes for all their lives. I’m good at vicissitudes. Got them covered.

I’m just advocating being a good example, not an automaton. I’m advocating parents using our instincts and the best parts of our personalities and not being terrified into doing whatever the media or the most recent study says. Or feeling guilty because we can’t, and have to work to pay the bills. And anyway the study will say something else next week.

Don’t get me wrong, I love studies. Nobody loves a good, juicy study better than me (often with a nice Pinot Grigio). I pore over them and am suckered right in, often for fortnights or more, until I re-realize that parenting that way, whatever the way de jour is, doesn’t feel at all natural, and doesn’t feel a bit like me, or like Dave, or even like the children.

Living our life according to studies, and even sometimes the opinions of other parents on the playground (all just as earnest, well meaning and anxious as me) can be life-consuming, personality-consuming and my instinct is that that route is a bad idea. Taking a pinch of each study and simply being aware of what different ideas there are regarding child-rearing seems like a better, healthier, more natural way to proceed.

But the reasons I stay at home are not, in the end, much of anything to do with either side in the Mummy Wars. They are as individual as anybody’s reasons for staying at home, or going to work, and are more circumstance than idealogically driven.

1: I’m lucky enough that we can afford for me to do it, and I want to, so I do. How much more woman’s freedom of choice can you get?

2: Our girls were very hard won through IVF. Every stage was problematic and less than ideal: their conception; their in utero life; their birth, were none of them easy, and for a while even their survival was in serious doubt. So I figured, as long as I was able, I wanted to stay home and enjoy the fruits of my labour, if you’ll pardon the poor pun.

3: The bipolar thing makes me unreliable and probably crap at a career. But surely that makes you an equally unreliable and crap mother? I hear you scream. I guess the girls will decide that themselves, when they’re all gown up. We have an au pair to help out with the children as a safety net and for stability for them should I wobble, which I don’t really do that much any more, as I am one of those lucky nutters for whom the medication works. It took having the children and wanting stability for them to finally listen to what several doctors had told me in the past and get some treatment that worked. Good decision. Bummed and guilty it took me that long to sort myself out.

4 (a) They are growing so fast it terrifies me. One day they will be gone and I hate to think of it. (b) Life is fragile as an unexpected phonecall and any news broadcast will confirm. (c) My moods are labile, painful sometimes, and sometimes just numb and I want to suck up every day with the girls to compensate both them and me if I get ill again.

5: Now that I’ve started blogging and discovered the blogs of others, some of the itchiness of stay-at-home mummiery is scratched and I can feel like a grown-up again for wee patches of the day here and there.

6: I really, really like it, most days. Life with Kate and Jane is hilarious and hideous and satisfying and unsatisfying and all the things that life usually is for most people living in the great, fat, lucky, lucky Western world. And that’ll do me.

*

I’ve a feeling I’m going to have to come back and edit this tomorrow because I’ve also got a feeling I’ve been wandering off topic sometimes like a Housewife Errant of Old. But for now, it’s 1:39am, and the thought is over and the point of the post (Why PCB chooses to stay at home – was that it?) hardly seems to matter any more. I bet for any of you still with me at the last dregs of this post, it has never mattered less to you either. Anyway, I’m too tired now and am away to bed.

Night-night, Electronic Void! Night-night Wocky! See you tomorrow.

Today, inspired by a little red boat – http://littleredboat.co.uk/?p=2282#comments – I decided to give my laptop a name. My laptop and I are very close and many mornings I wake up in the spare bedroom with my arm slung over my husband-cuckolding ‘puter. I gaze fondly into his unblinking screen and am sure he loves me back. He is definitely a male, by the way. I know this, by his inability to keep the kitchen tidy and unwillingness to ask for directions when we go out for Sunday drives and get lost.

So, how to choose a laptop name?
I wanted something that conveyed the reassuring steadiness of the laptop in the life of a blogging mother; the name had to embody how it was either a blog-life, religion or gin for a stay-at-home-mother such as PCB and PCB chose to cling to a blog-life for mental stability; The silicon/mineral nature of a ‘puter would be nice to reference, but there had to be some vulnerability too – suggestive of how, sometimes, the bloody thing just won’t bloody work. Also age – my laptop is not the youngest – had to be implied. I put a good 5 minutes thought into this important decision and thought of a name; the name wot I thought of, is Rocky. Rrrrrrrrrrocky, Rocky, Rocky.

I liked it.

That is not his name though because of the way things go, which was this way:

Godmothers Kate and Jane were in attendance during both the deliberations and the ceremonies.

“Wocky” giggled the Godmother-having-trouble-with-her-rs (and her ls and vs; shes fwee and a haff and a wewy big gull!), then “WOCKY!” she yelled. And so Wocky was named.

I had the girls dab a wee smidgen of water on Wocky’s lid in incidental but unintentional mockery of 2000-odd years of solemn Christian tradition, and with a promise not to tell Daddy. Not that Dave would mind the mockery of solemn Christian tradition or anything but WATER and CHILDREN around ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY would send him into purplish paroxysms yelling, “Sacrilege! Technology’s too good for the likes of you” (pointing at me). “Stone her, stone her!” (appealing to the world in general).

Wherein I would point out that he was being a big silly and anyway he meant “Wocky, not stone her! Wocky her!

“Wocky her and Wocky the little red boat (http://littleredboat.co.uk/) that put the idea into her head!” I can see him storm.

At this point in any of our tiffs, a strange fizzing sound often issues from Dave’s ears and he has to go and lie down. If you put your ear up to his ear, you can just make out the fizzy words whispering “Why did I marry her?” Over and over. And the oddest thing is that sometimes you’d swear those fizzing words sound just like his mother’s. Go figure!
But I lark. I don’t usually go in for mocking important religious rituals but, having a non-denominational naming ceremony felt a little cold, a little uncozy, for one such as my Wocky, and I don’t know how to do any other sort of naming ceremony except Christening. I’ve done that with loads of teddies etc. in the past so I figured I was in trouble with God already, if such a thing turns out to matter.

Anyway, Wocky he is and Wocky he will remain because that is the way things went.

Wocky, then. Wocky. Good.

It is a day of high drama and special effects at Casa Zahringer. A daughter has decided that she really didn’t get enough out of the Terrible Twos and until she turns 4 in May she will be making up for that by issuing the most abominable brain-curdling screams somebody not employed by Hammer House of Horror’s sound department can make. She’s throwing her heart and soul into this role and I think has already sacrificed a few minor capillaries in her drive for horrific noise perfection. One has to step back and marvel at the dedication and energy. The purple and red of her face make for a fascinating study on The Color of Rage.

But enough is enough. We were on the verge of losing our windows and glassware this morning and if a delegation of the area’s dogs were to show up on the doorstep, petitioning for their ears’ sake, I would probably sign their petition too. I am an animal lover. And today I am weary from lack of sleep. The final straw was when the noise began to split individual hairs on my head and the cat’s whiskers began to curl.

The reason for the furor: having to finish the toast she’d asked for before she got a peach, the subsequent throwing of the toast on the floor (People’s Exhibit 1) , spitting out of the toast (same as People’s Exhibit 1, only soggy), the resultant telling off and then the refusal by Evil Mummy to let her have a peach.

I remember the same struggles, as a child, usually involving tomatoes, and mostly not winning, and I am in some doubt whether the tea-time lessons of yesterday served any useful purpose at all. But I do know that I never called my mother “yucky” and got away with it and throwing food on the floor would attract the kind of stare from her that would cause furniture all around me to spontaneously combust.

Looking back, the Two’s were a doddle compared to the current late-3s. I used to wonder what all the fuss was about with the Twos. Now I realize, they were just biding their time for an age where they could articulate more and therefore get me with more effective low-blows. “Yucky Mummy!” Ooof! “Go away, Mummy, I don’t want to see you!” Biff! – That one got me right in the solar plexus.

The whole thing was over after a short spell in the corner until she could behave like a good girl and come and pick up the lobbed toast. This she did and, I must say, seemed to get over the whole thing more readily than I think I ever did.

Right now the girls are in the garden under instruction to play until the cows come home. They don’t know about cows coming home and as I type this I can hear them discussing what will happen when the cows come, at about tea-time, they think.

Tonight is Team Trivia Tuesday down at the local pub. I had thought to give it a miss this week because I’m tired from sleepless nights, of late, but now I think a drink or two would be welcome indeed.

Chin chin.

Tonight I was out at Friend Lee’s house for a girly night. The talk came round, at one point, to Friends Nancy and John’s cat, Fang, who’s caused a miserable pong in their garage with his spraying. At Trivia Tuesday, the other week, I was told of Striker’s (beta male dog at Friend Chisholm’s house) unfortunate wind problem. My cat, Trouble, has her own troubles, or rather, we do, being, as we are, in possession of ears.

So, inspired by “The Piddling Pup”, a very funny poem I read on: http://www.wheresthekaboom.blogspot.com/ I decided to follow suit and do some pomes of my own about the unfortunate ailments currently afflicting some of the pet-life in Ojai. An area I feel has been under-represented in contemporary poetry. I say: No more! Since Friends Malone’s St. Patricks day party was also under discussion tonight, the pomes turned out to be limericks.

These are difficult, sensitive subjects to broach, I’m sure you’ll agree. My hope is that these poems will raise awareness. Of something. And further, send the clear message that the personal problems of our pets should NO LONGER be something to joke about. Have some respect for your flatulent four-legged friends, people!

The Personal Odors Problems of Pets.

The personal problems of pets:
A field where one shouldn’t hedge bets
To hell with the price,
One’s pets want to smell nice!
You need Glade and reliable vets.

*

There once was a kitty called Fang
Who, for toileting, cared not a hang
His pelvic control
Had failed, on the whole
That incontinent kitty called Fang

The odor each day did grow riper
It hummed louder than a bagpiper
“This cannot go on!”
Said Nancy to John
He agreed, and now Fang wears a diaper

*
There once was a dog, Striker Chisholm
A fanatic of Catholicism
But he suffered with gas,
Causing wincing at mass
His discommunication’s caused a schism.

*

There once was a wee cat called Trouble
Who snored like a truck shifting rubble.
To hear her, it’s said
Would knock teeth from your head
That stentorious kitty called Trouble.

God’s in the details;
Or the devil is. Of that
I never was sure.

*

An open mind is good;
But if it’s opened too much
Reason will fall out.

*

Dave, me, our laptops
Email sofa to sofa;
A modern marriage.

*

I have a headache;
Dave’s beloved patterned rug
Is not helping it

The sidebar thing has gone too far. I’m mounting a rear-guard action and calling in the big guns or, Friend Michelle, aka El Zixoni. If anyone can send its treacherous code back up to its proper corner to cower in wretched regret, she can. ‘Cannons to the left of them, cannons to the right of them’ etc.

But maybe not ’til next week. And I haven’t asked her yet.

And I Milk it Out For The length of A Post.

The very funny Clare Sudbery, aka Boob Pencil, is a lovely lady who makes me giggle and blogs at: http://www.claresudbery.co.uk/

I was reading my daily blogroll, tonight and saw that she has written a post about me that says Nice Things and directs traffic problem-child-bridewards. I wanted to record how cool I think this is, so some of today’s post is copied from the comment I left to thank her over at Boob Pencil (see link above).

My first reaction was such that bats were sent crashing into trees and dog bonded with coyote as a great howling set about in the neighbourhood. Very probably. I wasn’t a witness because I was too excited by the Nice Things. You must understand, I’m new at all this (gestures towards the laptop) and it’s very exciting.

“Dave” I squeaked, as my voice lowered back into a range suitable for his human ears. No answer. What’s wrong with Dave’s ears?

“DAVE!” I bellowed, as my children slept. I ran, slippy-socky-sliding around corners, and burst into our room, where I found my beloved gently bobbing his head to the music coming through his ipod-bud stuffed ears.

“Dave” I wildly gesticulated. He took is ear-plugs out. “Boob Pencil said Nice Things about me!”

My partner of ten years looked at me and blinked.

“Boob Pencil said Nice Things about me, Dave!”

“That’s what I thought you said”, he said.

We went to read the Nice Things. I showed Dave the Boob Pencil site and he laughed at the words and appeared to appreciate the drawings of the boobs. (Look Tombo! A place where you can have a giggle at work, and look at boobs!)

Crikey, I feel like I should be checking my hair or plumping cushions in my sitting-room or something, now that Clare’s readers might be coming. I shot up when I read her post, yelled at my husband to comeandsee, comeandsee! As he was reading I was hopping up and down on a rug, looking like a toddler that needs a piddle. Out on the edge of the Blogosphere a wee green blogger’s week has been made. Clare, you have made a problem-child-bride happy.

But what to do? Where to put my hands if people come calling? People with Expectations. It’s at times like this I wish I were a smoker. The ability to blow smoke rings between long eye-wincing drags of a slim Gauloise, right now, seems like the image I want to convey to the blogging world. You know, deeply, darkly cool – that type thing.

But I’ve been caught short in my holey jogging bottoms. And I have a spot, despite being thirty-sodding-one! Maybe blogworld will think I’m a charming eccentric with a wacky (isn’t she a dear!) sense of style. Or that I’m wearing my salsa stain from dinner, ironically.

That’s it! That’s the line I’ll take: everything I do is just toooooo ironic for words, so if anyone criticizes stuff about my site, I can roll my eyes wearily at their hopeless inability to GET IT. “It’s meant to be amateurish” and “God, it’s supposed to be that badly designed, don’t you know anything?”

Yes, I think arch hostility and sarcasm is definitely the approach to take here.

Really, thank you, Clare! That was such a generous and sweet thing to do for a fledgling blogger.

Cheers!

Clearly I am a very important person, as I always suspected. I know this because, quite out of the blue, I received an email today from Mr. Mohame Kabiro of The African Development Bank (A.D.B), Ougagdougou branch. He is really a most charming man, I felt quite drawn to him.

Strokes of inordinate luck regularly fall from the sky on the blessed and golden, so I wasn’t really surprised at the extraordinary offer he made. He was obviously an insightful chap as he had singled me out as a Very Important Person, a fact that has gone unnoticed for years by The Fools that surround me. Therefore, I was all eyes as I read on.

He writes: (STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL)
FROM THE DESK OF ( MR. MOHAME KABIRO)
AUDITING AND ACCOUNTING UNIT /FOREIGN REMITTANCE DEPT.
AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK (A.D.B)OUAGADOUGOU -BF
and the by-line was this: “REQUEST FOR THE URGENT TRANSFER OF THE SUM (US$10.5million) ONLY INTO YOUR ACCOUNT.”

Ulp! I was impressed by his use of “only”. Admirable attention to detail, that man. Obviously one of these Splendid Fellows Africa is full of.

He continues, “You may be surprise to receive this message from me since you don’t
know me in person, but for the purpose of introduction., I got your impressive
information – (how does this man now me so well) – through an international business equiry. But I respectfully insist you read crefully (sic) as I am optimistic it will open doors for unimaginable financial reward for both us.This business transactionmight not fall within the wide spectrum of your business activities ,but I plead your assistance ,as your flair for profitable business is needed” .

Now, I have to admit to a little surprise at that revelation. Heretofore (that’s a good businessy word, isn’t it? Heretofore, heretofore). Anyway, heretofore, I had been unaware that my “wide spectrum of business activities” was being monitored by the international community. But they have people, you know.

My most recent purchases and aquisitions have included but were not limited to, organic sausages, bulk lentils and a pair of multicoloured “A Clockwork Orange“-ish golfy shoes from ebay (bought in an unfortunate hypomanic ebay spree. You think I’m kidding don’t you?). I know that ebay tracks such things, but, really, I wasn’t aware that Rainbow Bridge made known one’s transactions, especially to the international business community. (NOTE TO SELF: I shall have to make more thoughtful herbal tea selections in the future, if people are watching. Peppermint indicates boldness and strength. Chamomile probably shows you’re going to be late for meetings).

Anyway, I digress from the letter:

“Permit me to introduce myself. I am MR. MOHAME KABIRO. the Manager of auditing and accounting unit at the foreign remittance department of AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK . In My department I discovered an abandoned sum of$ 10.5m US dollars . – (Holy cow! I mean, My word!) – In an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in november 2002 in a plane crash.

Since I got information about his death, I have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because wecannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased anindicated in our banking guidelines but unfortunately I learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside
with him at the planecrash leaving nobody behind for the claim.”

Now this was sad news indeed. While I mourned for the foreign customer and his unfortunate family, my keen business nose had already sniffed out the possibilities this information afforded. Mr. Kabiro had come to the right person straight away, thank God.

Let me explain: There’s no room for sentiment in my world, because it’s a jungle out there and every rat in the race must sink or cling onto other people’s tragic flotsam with no regard for things such as crude, rampant mixing of metaphors.

It is therefore upon this discovery that I and other officials in my department now decided to make businness proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and I don?t – (sic again. Incompetent secretaries!) – want this money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill.

The Banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money remained unclamed after five years, the money will be transfered into the Bank treasury as unclaimed fund.The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned
bythe fact that the customer was a foreigner and a Burkinabe cannot stand as
next of kin to a foreigner. I agree that 30 % of this money will be for you as foreign partner, inrespect to the provision of a foreign account, 10 %will be set aside
for expenses incured (eh?) during the business and 60 % would be for me . There after I will visit your country with my family (that’s nice) for disbursement according to the percentages indicated.

Therefore to enable the immediate trnansfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply first to the bank as relations or next of kin of the deceased indicating your bank name, your bank account number, your private telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location where in the money will be remitted “.

I liked his figures and I liked his style. Direct, to the point, no mealy-mouthed, lilly-livered faffing about. And you can’t put a price on “easy and effective communication” He was talking to me in my own language.
“On your acceptance, I will send to the text of application by fax or by email which you are going to apply to the bank ; and provide materials confirmation references and inquiries regarding payment formalities from the payment Agency. I willbe handling officialprotocols here and expect you to undertake international responsibilities as I am assuring you of a risk free transaction provided you displaymaturity.

Therefore, if you are willing and interested to renderthe needed assistance, endeavor to reply through my alternative email address below.

mohamekabiro@yahoo.com

Thanking you in anticipation of your kind considerations.

Yours sincerely.

MR. MOHAME KABIRO.
TEL 00226 76 61 65 94″

Now, that last bit gave me pause. It was the “provided you display maturity” bit that tripped me up. I can be mature if I really concentrate and squeeze my eyes shut very tight, but now and again I forget. (See the recent ‘Badly Drawn Housewife’ post and this is another Woe Is Me Headache Wednesday too – we won free shots at quiz night last night again. Woohoo!). Because, aside from being the steely-eyed businesswoman, Mr. Kabiro sees, I am also Only Human. This is the side my children see when I accidentally put them into the bath with their socks still on. I think there’s a Lifetime “television for women” docudrama in there somewhere. The tension between business and home, success and cleaning, smart business suits and holey jogging pants.

And then, upon rescanning the email, I noticed that I had not been addressed as my preferred Ms. Zahringer (+ lots of educational letters, some of them real too). The addressee was just, “ATTN: HELPER”.

Call me an old-fashioned fool with snuff and a powdered wig, (you won’t be the first) but in my business transactions I like a more personal touch. Oh, I know I’m a ruthless, steely-eyed business woman blahblahblah, but “ATTN: HELPER” left me cold. It seemed impersonal and dismissive. It seemed, somehow, un-Outer Hebridonian. And that was the deal-breaker, right there.

With fresh eyes, I re-read the letter and, do you know, I’m wondering whether or not I might have just avoided becoming the victim of some sort of scam! But no. I’m much too steely-eyed for that. Mr. Kabiro just recognized what a Very Important Person I am, despite my being surrounded by The Fools who don’t recognize the business genius (international) that is walking amongst them.

Blind as bats, they are.