From full-time Carer to Don't-Carer

Yes! Am new fabulous guest blogger for Care.com! My passport to fame and fortune! Hmmm. Had better check what Care.com is. Ah. The world's largest online destination for care. As in babysitters, nannies, childminders, carers for the elderly... Which is all marvellous. (Carer for the elderly! Just what I need. Only ten years to go....) Childcare, though? The thing is, at 13 years old, my daughter apparently no longer needs Care. 

Let us wind back the clock to the beginning of term...  Lily returns to The Manor with great excitement (our Easter holiday in Nepal was clearly purgatory for her, given that she slept all morning, Facebooked or Garage Banded all afternoon, and only spoke to order lasagne from the menu in the evening). She and her pals are milling around their dorm, where Violet Winkworth is acting Lady Bountiful and doling out Weetos. But what's this? Tallulah Barker is sitting on a mattress with a Tesco's bag over her head.

My maternal carer instincts spring into action. 'Take that plastic bag off your head!' I cry. 'It's dangerous! You could suffocate.'

Neither Tallulah nor her friends appear to hear me, and so I do as any mother would, snatch off the bag, whereupon Weetos spray around the dormitory.

There's a stunned silence. Tallulah looks at me in sullen incredulity. I turn to see a pink-cheeked Lily staring at me. I pan around the dorm, taking in the newly teenaged faces gazing at me with open jaws or giggling nervously behind their hands. I look at the plastic bag and the scattered Weetos, and it occurs to me that Tallulah was innocently pretending to be a horse, eating from her nosebag. Possibly. 

Feeling like the butt of a Bateman cartoon (The Woman Who Snatched the Tesco's Bag from the Teenager's Head), I mutter an excuse and hasten from their midst. 

So, it has happened. My daughter is Officially Embarrassed. Of me. By me. And I have played into her hands, persisting in my role as Carer instead of Don't-Carer.

The thing is, the transition from hands-on to hands-off is hard to make when you have been the sole carer for 13 years, devoted to your child's every need and move. Aside from the early years when Lily genuinely did need me (at least I think she did, though it's hard to remember a time when she wasn't more resilient and independent than I), I have spent days and weeks researching and booking activities, arranging sleepovers and playdates and parties, helping her with homework, deliberating which school would be the best for her, coaching her for exams, driving her to and fro.... For all these years, Lily came first. As any child should.  

But now, not only does she apparently not need me, I am an embarrassing blot on her horizon. How do other mothers do it? Step back and stop running and ruling their children's lives? While a) not feeling personally wounded and b) retaining a modicum of influence and, dare I venture, respect? Or is such a notion laughably old-fashioned?

'It gets worse,' say my friends of 14- and 15-year-old daughters. 'They're 100% focused on their peer group. And boys.'

Oh God. And this is precisely the time that Lily is due to return to live at home in London. 

Actually, I've done rather marvellously since I moved back to London last summer. I used to be driven demented by her lack of communication. Now I don't email her much any more, given that she rarely reads or responds to my missives. Nor does she phone home. Our last email exchange, over the course of three days, went like this:

Me: Lils darling, try calling me ... wd be nice to have a chat.
xxxx

Lily:  But with what??

Me:  A phone? Using your phone card? 

Lily: Phone cards too confusing plus none of the phones actually work properly…

I don’t wanna use other peeps mob…

Can a get a phone this term???

Then I can keep in touch my friends and I can talk to after school…

Its wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy easier!!!! 

BIG TIME!!

Yes. Well, given that she's supposed to be concentrating on her Common Entrance, 'keep in touch my friends' is precisely the thing I've been trying to avoid.

But once she's back at home full-time, will I be able to reinvent my Carer role? What will we be? Flatmates? Landlady-lodger? (Is that Lily's tinkling laughter I hear? 'Yes, you'll be the lodger, I'll be the landlady! Ha ha ha.'). I shall be beyond doormatting. I shall shrivel up and slide between the gaps in the floorboards and be found years later, when somebody buys the house.

'Y'wha?' Lily will say. 'Oh, yeah. I wondered where Mum'd got to.'

Ah. Mr Postman! A letter from my darling! It’s marvellous the way The Manor makes them write home on Sundays.

'MISS YOU AND DOLLY!!' she signs off. 'Lots of love from your doted daughter,' which I take to be an amalgam of 'doting' and 'devoted'. And then, in the small print, 'Can you send me a letter instead of an email sometimes??'

Aw. My baby. I rush to my office, grab a biro and pull out a sheet of A4 from the printer. 'Darling Lilykins...'

A haiku for Maggie Thatcher

You split the nation,
ruling with your rod of iron;
Now you've split for good

Happy Valentine's Day?

10:48

Ah. Here he comes. Mr Postman. With a great red satchel full of red envelopes!

10:52

Gosh, he's spending rather a lot of time at No 6. I suppose it's their teenage boys. All those lovelorn schoolgirls...

10:55

Ah. He's crossed on to our side now. No 5. No 4.

10:58

No 3. No 2. No...

Hang on! What's going on? He's turned on his heel and is walking back down the street, his satchel slung nonchalantly - not to mention emptily - over his shoulder!

11:02

Maybe he's gone to fetch his trolley. The one with all the really heavy things in it.

11:09

Maybe not.

:(

A New You!

Honestly. All the papers and magazines keep banging on about the New You as if it's the Holy Grail of existence. 90 Days to A New You! 30 Days to A New You! 21 Days To A New You! 20 Days To A New You! Any advance on 20 days? No. Going going gone.

Well it's all rubbish. Once you're past 40, you don't want a New You. You want the Old You.

Muffin tops and spring cleansing

'I can't bear it,' I say to Lily on viewing myself in the bathroom mirror. 'I've got a muffin top.'

'Is it blueberry?' she enquires sweetly.

'Do you actually know what a muffin top is?'

'Not really.'

'Well this one's pinky-white and fleshy and fatty.'

'Yuk!'

'Precisely. What am I going to do?'

'You should go to the gym.'

The thing is, I hate gyms. The only time I had a personal trainer, and paid him jolly good money I may add, he gave up on me.

'I give up,' he said. 'When we work on a muscle in your calf, your thigh hurts. When we work on your triceps, your neck aches.' I only stayed with him because of the final stretch at the end of the session, where I'd be on my back with my knees up to my stomach and he'd lie on top of me, gazing deep into my eyes with his beautiful green-flecked eyes.

He turned gay soon afterwards.

Ah well. It's a toss-up between the 5:2 and the Alkaline Diet. Except. Darn. Just remembered that delicious lemon drizzle polenta cake Lily made at the weekend. Ah well. I'll start tomorrow.

Winter warmers

Honestly! I feel like some sort of Nanook of the North these days. And that's in the house.

Today Eliza is wearing: one tatty silk vest c. 1997 from Vietnam, one Uniqlo thermal vest, one Uniqlo lambswool polo neck (not a recommended item since it looks 10 years old after 2 months), one rabbit fur gilet from some posh country barn sale, one Cosi cashmere blanket from Nepal and one wool hat from Morocco 

What's everyone else wearing to keep life and limb together in the freeze?

Zips, golden shotguns and shampoo

I know, I know. Where, you may well ask, have I been? Well, I've been coaching my poor child throughout the Christmas 'holidays' for a school entrance exam and music scholarship. I know, I know. Since when was I a tiger mother? A pushy Chelsea parent? I, who manage to achieve practically nothing in my day? Yes, yes. Good points, well made.

Anyway, Lily has now returned to the Manor, and I offer you a brief digest of choice morsels from the past few days.

1. The Golden Shotgun

As a post-exam treat, Cousin Jaz and I take Lily to see Les Miserables (OMG, btw! Hugh Jackman, once he's ditched the beard and the brown teeth, is a dead ringer for Duncan, with his salt and pepper curls! Mmmm!) followed by en plein air crepes and cocktails (well, chocolate milkshake in Lily's case).

Lily instantly bags the seat facing the patio heater. Except she doesn't say, 'Bagsy,' or 'Bags I this seat'. She says, 'Shotgun this seat!'

'What?' we demand.

'I've shotgunned it, so you can't have it!' she cries, throwing her head back with wild laughter.

'Shotgunned it?'

'You can use your shotgun to shoot down a bagsy. We all do it in the Com. If I shotgun the sofa, then nobody else can sit there. Unless they Golden Shotgun it and then they can have it. Except I've Golden Shotgunned the sofa, so I've got it for the whole term!' She dissolves into self-satisfied mirth.

'So why don't you just walk into the room and Golden Shotgun it straight away?' asks Jaz.

'Because people bagsy or shotgun places and then go and get changed, and you can't take their seat because they've shotgunned it. You have to Golden Shotgun it when they're there.'

'It's a pity there wasn't a philosophy paper today,' notes Jaz, 'because you'd have done very well.'

'But basically,' Lily continues, 'nobody wants the sofa anyway. They like sitting on the piano.'

'So you shot your bolt unnecessarily,' I say.

'Whaah?' asks Lily.

So much for my marvellous English tuition over the past weeks.

2. Zip

Fortified by our caipirinhas/mojitos, Cousin Jaz and I are quizzing Lily about her exams.

'Zip! Zip! Zip!' says Lily, miming a brisk zipping of her lips.

'Oh come on, darling. What did you write in your English essay?'

'It was about a Margarita and a Mojito and a Bloody Mary which were all £4.50,' she says, reading off the happy hour menu chalked on the blackboard.

I change tack. 'Did you have to do any algebra?'

'Yes.'

'And did you remember to do the same to both sides?'

'Zip! Zip! Zip-zip Golden Shotgun zip!' declares Lily, eyes blazing.

'How can you Golden Shotgun a zip?' I accuse.

'That's an inappropriate use of a Golden Shotgun,' points out Cousin Jaz.

Lily glares at us with more than a hint of menace. 'Zip!'

3. The Pantene Scandal

'And another thing...' I'm having a satisfying putting-the-world-to-rightsy breakfast with Cass, with whom I'm staying after delivering my darling back to school. 'Pantene! The shampoo and conditioner bottles are exactly the same!'

'I know!' she squeals. 'And you need your glasses to read whether it's shampoo or conditioner...'

'...which obviously you're not wearing in the shower!' I finish triumphantly.

'Piers has been washing his hair with conditioner for years,' Cass adds. 'He didn't realise there was a difference.'

You see? I blame it on the young designers. Someone who needs reading glasses needs to take charge! Maybe this is my new vocation? Design adviser for the over 50s market!

Garnier UltraLift Firming Day Cream Scandal

Argh!!!

I wake up with the strange sensation of not being able to fully open my eyes. In the dim morning light I look in the mirror, to discover that my wildest fears have come true. My new annual Christmas affliction is upon me: I have turned into a Black Puffle.

If you are not fully acquainted with Puffledom, let me refer you to my post of Monday, 26 December, 2011.

09:38

Can’t seem to get my eyes open this morning. Stagger to bathroom. Oh God! My eyes look like two puffball mushrooms with black dots in the middle. Splash with cold water. Pat dry. Argh. Still puffballs. Must lie down with legs in air. Oh no, that’s for swollen legs. Must stand up with eyes in the air. Yes, keep standing. Don’t bend over.

Argh. It’s the hunt meet at 11. Need to show my face, puffballs and all.  

Lily bursts into my room. She’s wearing her jodhpurs and is jiggling up and down with excitement.

‘Mummy! They’re all going hunting. It’s really unfair!’ She stops mid-jiggle and stares at me.

‘Mummy, you look like a Black Puffle from Club Penguin.’

‘Oh God. What’s a Black Puffle?’

‘It’s got massive white eyes with titchy little black dots in the middle. And it’s technically a black fluff ball but it comes in different colours, like red and blue and purple and pink. I don’t think they come in green, unfortunately, or yellow.’ 

I feel like going back to bed.

You see? Other people get Norovirus or winter flu and escape the Christmas festivities (and therefore photos) altogether. I look like a Black Puffle and am captured thus for posterity.

It all began five or six days ago, when I bought a little red pot of Garnier UltraLift Anti-Wrinkle Firming Day Cream. Despite the overpowering perfume, I dabbed a touch on the Grand Canyon eyelids and they turned instantly firm, smooth and chasm-free. More dabs on my cheeks and they took on the rosy, plumped-up glow of summer instead of the desiccated, grey, weather-beaten lifelessness of winter. 'Eureka!' I thought. There is a simple antidote to winter that does not involve flying half-way round the world.

Then yesterday I felt an odd roughness to my forehead, cheeks and neck. I seemed to have come up in a rash. Now, in addition to the Black Puffle eyes, I look as if  I'm recovering from chicken pox.

I look up the cream online. Ah! Pro-retinol derived from nature. As if it's something benign and nurturing! Rather than known to cause irritation, burning and peeling skin.

'It should come with a massive warning!' I squeal over breakfast, scabbed forehead in hands. 'It should be taken off the market!'

'Thalidomide's being used again,' Giles remarks, looking round from his bacon-frying.

Honestly! Big Pharma have no scruples. They don't care about the small man. Or the Puffle-eyed woman. I shall write to M Garnier first thing in the morning! 

All set for Christmas

This post comes to you from the frozen meals aisle at Tesco, where the world, his wife and I are queuing in the vague hope of reaching the tills before Christmas Day. Yes, I know. As Cass just said during our 20 minute chat about Christmases past and present, during which time I progressed from Jus-Roll to Linda McCartney, 'Are you mad?'

The thing is, everyone's been saying for weeks, 'All set for Christmas, then?' and I've been saying, 'oh yes,' since there's nothing I need to do for Christmas given that a) apart from Lily, there's only me and Dan, and Dan doesn't give presents, and b) I was waiting to see whether the world ended before I wasted my money. Now, at the eleventh hour, I am thinking, 'Argh,' given that a) the world hasn't ended and b) what about Sal and Giles and Phoebe and my godson Arthur, who we're spending Christmas with? 

Which is why I'm on a chicken liver mission. I have trawled the butchers of south-west London, but everywhere has sold out of chicken livers. Except, as it turns out, Tesco frozen section. If I make the till before nightfall, I shall make gallons of chicken liver pâté with lashings of brandy, and, tomorrow, the fact that I haven't bought any presents will be forgotten in our heavenly chicken liver pâté haze. 

The Tesco triumph comes hot on the heels of my Chelsea Garden Centre triumph. Lily insisted on our having a Christmas tree and in a fit of non-curmudgeonliness I capitulated. 

'Have you got anything cheap and nasty?' was my opening gambit. It wasn't quite what I meant to say. I think I meant something like 'cheap and cheerful,' or 'any seconds'. 

Without uttering a word, the garden centre man led me to the back of the yard to a sodden pile of  prone trees in their webbing sheaths. 

'That too big for yer?' He pointed to a monster 10 footer.

'Yes,' I choked. That would surely set us back at least 80 quid.

'This?' He started ripping the webbing off a handsome 7 footer. 'Don't even know what's wrong with this one,' he added, inspecting it for missing branches and other irregularities, of which there were none.

'Well, it looks perfect,' I said, 'but how much is it?' According to their scale of charges it should be at least 60 quid. 

'£20,' he said.

'Done!' 

So that is how we came to have the best-ever Christmas tree this year. 

'Even though it still looks rather bare,' says Lily, looking over my shoulder as I type. 

Crushed again.  

Happy Christmas everyone.

Combating the brain fog?

08:45

I am determined to combat the brain fog. First, I step up the pace of my morning walk, march up soggy hill and down dale, do a few energising Tai Chi-ish stretches, and return to make a healthy breakfast. Ah it feels good to be alive!

I make a cup of Pukka Three Ginger tea 'to uplift and warm', then chop up an apple and a banana, add a handful of blueberries and sprinkle over walnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and linseeds. Yes! Soon my brain will be firing on all cylinders.

I take the Onken Biopot natural set yogurt with brain-enhancing live cultures from the fridge, take a big spoonful and dollop it... in my Pukka tea.

Argh!

10:35

Lily calls. Ah. My baby is coming home soon.

'Mum! Have you got my blue suitcase? We're packing this morning.'

Oh God. I race to the cupboard and find I have indeed got her blue suitcase. How could that happen? Why would I have taken it away, empty?

'Sorry, darling, you're going to have to pack everything in bin liners. I'll bring the case and you can transfer it on Sunday morning.'

'Bin liners?' she repeats.

'I'm afraid so. There's nothing else we can do.'

11.10

Hang on. Didn't she take my big black suitcase back to school this term? Since she was boarding she needed the bigger one. I race back to the cupboard. Yes! No black suitcase.

I call her back. 'Lily! You didn't take your blue suitcase. You took my big black suitcase!'

'I knew that,' she says without missing a beat.

'What? You knew...'

She laughs. 'That's what we say when we've been really dumb and find out the answer. I'm looking at it now!'

Honestly! Still, you see, excellent attitude. In future, when people say, 'You're an hour late for lunch,' or 'You've just put yogurt in your tea,' I'll just say, 'I knew that.'