Ghosts, Ghouls and Lollipops

Halloween is almost here!

At the age of 38, I am about to have my very first experience of Trick or Treating.  Even though Matthew is already 7, we have so far managed to avoid the whole scenario, by claiming he was too young, or by being away over the midterm break.  But this year, the boys are both old enough to know all about it, to assume they will be going out and receiving vast quantities of sweets and we are here for the week off.  So, that's that.

When we first lived in Ireland, we were surprised by how big a deal Halloween was.  Unless I was extremely unobservant at the time, I don't remember any houses in England being decorated at the start of October in the lead up to Halloween.  I don't really remember shops or cafes being done up either.  I may be completely wrong about this - it is worth pointing out that we didn't have kids then, so the whole thing would have potentially passed me by.  It's amazing how differently you end up seeing the world when you keep having to interpret it for sharp eyed, inquisitive little boys. So perhaps there was a Halloween buzz in the UK, or maybe there is more so now as American TV culture is increasingly everywhere. I certainly don't remember it even being mentioned in Holland. 

But over here, it is EVERYWHERE!  There are loads of houses on our road that are draped in cobwebs and have skeletons hanging from the doorposts.  In one particularly tasteful case, there are severed limbs poking out of the letter box. Yesterday, heading into a cafe, a massive spider swung towards me as I went in - and skeletons leered at us from the counter as we sipped our drinks.

We have run out of sweets every year - heaps of kids come to the door!  I always insist on knowing who is looking after them before I give them the sweets; you'd be surprised how many quite young kids are going house to house in the dark, relatively unsupervised. It's always a bit of a shock to open the door to a green faced zombie or a pale vampire! Especially one that is high on sugar and roaring 'TRICK OR TREAT' at you.

Certainly, the haul of sweets is all that the kids are thinking about!  They have buckets ready for Thursday and are really excited.  It will be the one time that getting them out for a walk round the estate really won't be an issue, compared to the battle on a lovely sunny day when Andy and I feel we could all do with some fresh air and have to bribe and cajole them out the door.  But a walk in the cold, dark October evening? Let's go... 

They seem quite taken with the decorations all over the place and were disappointed that we weren't going to decorate our house. Apart from the fact that it would seem like a bit of a waste of money to me, I really wasn't keen to decorate the house.  Although at least I can leave those cobwebs for another while - you know, those real actual ones that I didn't pay for.  I tried to explain to Matthew that we decorate the house for things we want to celebrate, like birthdays and Christmas.  But Halloween is really about scary things and we don't want to celebrate being scared really....  He was a bit nonplussed and I think he thought I was just making up a random answer.  Well, I was...  But it's true really!  

I am certainly not squeamish about scary things - one of my favourite tv programmes is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is wall to wall demons and goblins.  And I am a huge Harry Potter fan. Yet, something about this full on explosion of witches and skeletons is very off putting and I find myself a bit uncomfortable with it.

Perhaps it's because of the kids. It's one thing for me to watch Buffy or read Harry Potter and enjoy the battle of good vs evil. But here it seems it's just about 'the evil'. We spent a good portion of the morning looking for costumes for the boys and every shop had the option of: skeletons, witches, devils or vampires.  Where were the cowboys? Or the astronauts?  Why did everything have to be so icky?  

Plenty of people see it as harmless fun and really don't see why there would be a problem with dressing a kid up as a demon or a ghost.  Perhaps it depends on your wider belief system and whether or not you ascribe any truth to the concept of the supernatural.  If you don't believe there is such a thing as devils, then it amounts to the same thing as dressing up as a smurf, I suppose - 2 things that don't exist.  

I know of one family whose child was in Crumlin Children's Hospital for many months as he battled cancer. He eventually made a great recovery.  While they were there, Halloween came around and they were horrified with the gruesome decorations that went up.  They felt that putting up decorations of skulls and ghouls - things effectively associated with death - in a ward where children were genuinely fighting for survival, was contradictory and in poor taste. I don't know to what extent they actually felt the images would have a wider or negative impact on the children, but they certainly felt it was inappropriate and complained to hospital management.  They were heard, but the hospital management's view was that they felt it was important to keep the kids connected to what was going on in the outside world as they were stuck in the ward, missing out on all that their friends and classmates were experiencing.  I can see both points of view, but I tend to side with the family.  I am sure they could have found friendly pumpkin decorations rather than going for the macabre.

The boys were keen to be ghosts and I had more or less caved and was going to cut up a sheet and paint their faces white.  But I wasn't happy with it - I just don't see the attraction or need for them to dress up as something linked to death. That may seem hyperbolic and over-dramatic on my part - but there you go. I should of course have been the ultimate Pinterest Mum and run up a home made costume or two, but the last time I used a sewing machine, it caught fire.  And there was no Buffy-like demonic involvement - that's just how bad I am at sewing.  Eventually, we found one shop that had a brilliant range of all kinds of costumes and I am pleased to report that I will be taking Finn McMissile and a Ninja Trick or Treating on Thursday. 

Of course the truly frightening thing about Halloween is that once it's over, it genuinely won't be long until those same houses that are now draped in cobwebs and pumpkins, will start uncoiling the flashing lights and the whole street will turn into a Christmas disco wonderland. Then it will be time to make the lists and get on with the Christmas shopping.  Now that's scary...

Love and Kids and Silly People

Friends of ours have just set off today on the adventure of a lifetime - they are about to become parents!  But in this case, they don't have the heart stopping, pain filled, crazed ride to Holles Street to contend with. They have headed to the airport and away to meet their little boy for the first time. Equally heart stopping, no doubt. He will return with them in a few weeks, and they will begin life here as a family.

When we met them, Matthew was 8 months old and they were already a few years into their adoption process.  Matthew turned 7 this month, and they are only now getting to put the last pieces of this into place.  There have been years of paperwork, waiting on phone calls, social worker visits, care plans and any number of meetings and rubber-stamping, all with the aim of proving they will be good parents and can adopt a child. 

Of course I accept that children can't just be handed out to people who say they want to adopt with no due process or care.  But it surely doesn't need to take this long?  And how can any of us prove we will be good parents, really?  If I had been asked for a care plan or had to meet a social worker before I had kids, how would they have assessed me? If a social worker came and saw me now, I would like to think I as doing ok.  But only in the same way as most parents are; one day and one mistake at a time. 

I am not sure I could devise a better system. But I do know that this one isn't great and is delaying a lot of great people from being parents and keeping children in homes and institutions for longer than needed. 

A few weeks ago, I met a lady I hadn't seen since her daughter and Matthew were in a toddler group together. Her daughter was adopted, and at the time, she had many health issues.  There were endless allergies, medications and hospital visits and it was all quite stressful. It was great to see what a healthy, lovely girl she is now and to hear that most of those issues have settled down. The most serious concern was that she has a hole in her heart. I can't tell you how shocked I was when my friend told me that some people had actually asked her: 'If you had known she had a heart condition, would you have adopted her?'

WHAT? Matthew could just as easily have been born with a heart condition. If that was the case, can you imagine anyone asking me if I planned to keep him? No, they wouldn't dream of it.  Which makes an adoptive parent facing this question just utterly scandalous. It's implying that the bond between adopted kids and their non biological parents is less valid somehow, less true. How can anyone claim this to be the case?

Years ago, when the boys were tiny, I found the 'bounty' parenting website very helpful.  It can be very isolating to be with newborns and toddlers all day and I enjoyed the interaction on the forums, and the support and encouragement that people gave each other.  However, I remember one thread where an argument broke out around the issue of whether parents who had their kids by IVF loved their children more.  Seriously.  Those who agreed with this said that unless you had gone through the process of IVF, you could never know what it takes and that the love they felt for their kids was somehow deeper and more precious because of all they had gone through to have them. The deeper the agony they went through, the deeper the love they now felt, or so they argued.

Well, I haven't gone through IVF, so I can't speak from experience.  And I am not trying to downplay the heartache and trauma that is IVF. But I can tell you what I think - which is that that is utter drivel.  How anyone thinks they can claim they have more love for something than someone else does, for their children of all things as well.... Love is not quantifiable in that way, surely? They love their kids  to the power of 15 cause they had IVF and I can only reach 12 maybe?  What about families that may have had one kid by IVF and others without? And where does that leave adoptive parents? Lower cause they're not biologically linked? Higher cause they've probably gone through more stress, worry and pain to get to be a family at all? If this logic is followed through, then my friends' son will be the most loved child ever in the universe, as all the waiting, hoping, despair and heartache finally culminates in their meeting him.

Loving your kids isn't about how much you love them. It's about unconditionally loving them. And unconditional can't be measured. There's an un- in front of it - measure that! It's about loving them even when you are having a bad day, or they tell you they don't love you or they get piercings and silly haircuts. And a whole lot more, for every single day that follows. How can someone claim they love their child more unconditionally than someone else does theirs? 

They can't - it's not possible.  And no loving parent, no matter how they became a parent, should ever feel the need to justify or prove their love for their child. 

Rush Hour

A typical morning last summer term:
Me: 'Please go upstairs, get your uniform on, get your shoes on and brush your teeth.'

Fifteen minutes later:
Me: 'Why are you still in your pyjamas?'
Child: 'I forgot to get dressed...' (This is an actual quote...)
Me: 'Come on now, you need to hurry!' (still calm and pleasant here, perhaps slightly impatient)

Ten minutes later:
Me: 'Please put the book down - why are you only wearing pants?' (in mildly hysterical tones at this stage...)
Child: 'Sorry, I just NEEDED to finish the chapter...'

Ten minutes later:
Me: 'Where are your shoes? Have you brushed your teeth?'
Child: 'Oh, I forgot.'
Me: 'Back upstairs please, (through gritted teeth) we are running out of time.'

Five minutes later
Me: 'Right, let's go... WHY HAVEN'T YOU GOT ANY SHOES ON?' (way past hysteria now, straight to rage...)

Please tell me this is not just in my house! Some mornings I really despaired!  I absolutely hated the way this turned me into a nagging, shouty, miserable whinge, rather then the modern, relaxed parent I actually am. (ahem.) It nearly felt like the child wouldn't have remembered to breathe unless I reminded him, never mind get dressed and ready for school in any way independently. And it's not like each day was different - he had to get dressed and ready for school every day, yet every day this seemed to be something he forgot about unless he was reminded. By me. Often.

Two weeks ago, the second child started school and I realised that I was going to lose my mind completely if I didn't put something in place to encourage a bit of self starting on the kids' part. 

Now I am definitely a chart parent - there have always been charts in this house: sticker charts, reward charts and screen time charts.  I absolutely love making them and am a very list/chart sort of person in organising my activities anyway, so it's natural enough to apply this to parenting. 

Cue this latest chart:

It's pretty simple - each boy has 5 things to do, based on what they would struggle to remember or get done independently. They tick things off as they complete the tasks. Each tick corresponds to 5 minutes game time earned. So their guaranteed screen time has now been reduced and the remainder can only be earned by readiness and 'getting on with it'ness on school mornings. 

The ultimate threat that accompanies this is that I have said if they are not ready when it is time to leave, I will quite happily take them to school in their pyjamas. This is not a threat I expect to have to implement, but a tiny part of me kind of wants to - just to see their face.  (I know,  (sigh,)  my Mother of the Year certificate is probably already in the post...)

Research has shown that parents often assume that kids will grasp what is obvious to them: these things need to be done for us to get out on time, everyone knows this - it makes perfect sense. But does it to everyone in the household? What seems like a natural sequence of events to us adults, can in fact be a jumble of confusing signals for them. We get frustrated when they don't cop on and the mornings descend into arguments, frustration and rushing.  Parents need to recognise what they can do to make things move more smoothly - what can be set out the night before? How much time does everyone need, realistically? But also, how realistic are the expectations we have of our kids? And do they really know what has to happen and when? Or why?

One article I read on this issue gave the example of a dad who broke his daughter's morning list of activities down into 22 items listed on a spreadsheet. If I gave my sons a 22 point list of things to achieve between 7:30 and 8:45, I think they would take one look and just head back to bed.  So would I! But the principle of my wee chart is the same: make sure these 5 things are done! And you will be rewarded. And the chart is tailored to things that each boy will struggle to do easily, of their own accord. 

And here's the thing - so far, this is working brilliantly.  All I have to say is: 'please check your list and do what it says.' I may have to say this a few times, but it is better than having to mentally get everyone dressed and ready, every step of the way... It is making for much more relaxed and easy school mornings. Long may this last...

Now if only I could make a chart for myself - 5 minutes solitary reading for every shirt ironed or lunchbox filled? 

Grass Widowhood (no, not that kind of grass..)

Grass Widows are defined as wives whose husbands are temporarily away, on business.  Apparently in America it has come to mean a woman who is separated or divorced, but that's not the context for this blogpost. 

There is no total consensus on where the term originates, but the most likely way that it came into common use was through Anglo Indian slang. In the hot summer, wives were often sent away to the cooler stations, where the grass was greener, while their husbands remained stationed on the plains. There is a suggestion that the phrase came to infer a certain amount of bad behaviour that may have gone on while the wives were away, both back home and in the green grass of the hills. 

It's not a phrase you hear very often anymore, but definitely one I apply to myself in my own mind when Andrew goes away. He travels a fair amount, usually for less than a week, and most often to the States. But occasionally just for a couple of night to mainland Europe, and very infrequently, for longer than a week.

For many Irish families, this is a far more regular occurrence. Since the economy took a nosedive, many people have had to seek work outside of Ireland and often this means that Daddy works away all week and comes home at weekends.  This can be very hard and if you google 'husbands working away from home', your screen will fill up with posts from Mumsnet and similar forums, with people asking for support or expressing concern around this issue. And of course for Army Wives, this is a way of life, with the attendant fear and worry about the husbands' safety.

I know a few families where the Dad is away more than he is around and while it is not easy, families generally make the best of it, because they just have to.  I recently heard of a very sad situation, where the Dad moved to England for work, on the natural assumption that he would be back as often as possible. In actual fact, he chose this fairly spineless way to leave his wife and to simply not return. Try explaining that one to your kids...  But this is of course extreme and plenty of families do make Dads' absences work. 

I find there are some advantages to grass widowhood. People often seem sympathetic towards me when they know Andy has jetted off once more - but I would far rather have him enjoy the variety that travel brings than feel chained to his desk.  It definitely breaks down the monotony of the same faces and meetings every week and, for Andy at least,  travel is preferable to boredom. Mind you, it's not as glamorous as it sounds - generally, he gets to see the airport, a hotel and an office in any given city and very little else.  And jet lag is a real killer.  But before you get out the violins, there are of course great meals out, and some free time to explore new places also.  He had a great weekend in Washington DC a couple of years ago, for example. Jealous? Me?

As soon as he is on the N11 en route to the airport, my privileges kick in. One of my favourite is that I can park sprawled all over the driveway however I choose. No idea why, but I get a kick out of this! In addition, I become the sole proprietor of the remote control.  Or the mouse really, as I mostly watch Netflix these days. I try to pick a series that doesn't look like something he would be fussed about, like Grey's Anatomy, and watch that.  More often than not though, I find myself thinking 'ooooh, Andy would love this!' That's how I found Bones, which we both loved. And I started watching the IT Crowd last night, which I think he would like as well.  I will have to find something else tonight and save that for when he's back!

And of course, there is the bonus of presents!  Kudos to him, he is not bad at buying presents. Put it this way, I haven't run out of Clinique products since he started this job. He has even branched out into the area of clothes, especially in the States, where there is an outlet mall near one of his frequent sorties.  I was pretty impressed when he bought me jeans - how brave was that!

But all the Clinique and jeans in the world can't make up for the disadvantages of his absence. Generally, I find that I don't sleep as well.  There is a slightly hysterical irony to this, as I spent 10 years complaining about his snoring until he got that sorted out. And we frequently have duvet possession wars, or one of us reads for too long in bed while the other one is trying to sleep. But the bed seems awfully big when I am in it alone and I don't sleep as deeply.

Perhaps that's partly cause I am more alert to the safety of the boys and the house. I really hate being the one to lock the doors at night and turn off all the lights.  I never realised how much I value the security of Andy being the one to do that every night, until I started having to. In addition, I am now also supposed to remember to water the plants and the garden. And to wind the clocks. Never going to happen...  So Andy generally has to do emergency aftercare on the poor neglected plants and sort out the clocks once he returns.

And of course the biggest disadvantage is that the boys miss their Daddy. This has actually become harder as time has passed since he first started going away.  There used to be a big sense of excitement and we would consult the atlas and learn the names of new cities. Trips away were strongly associated with presents and the poor man would barely be out of the car before 2 boys launched themselves at him for a cursory hug, before asking for their gifts. 

But as they are getting older, they are making the very healthy transition from Mummy being the main focus, to Daddy being the hero. This means his absence carries more weight. For the first time ever last night, I had a boy come down to me in floods of tears long after I had put him to bed: 'I want Daddy!' He was very hard to console and I had to resort to kissing every single stuffed animal in his bed good night before he was sufficiently distracted and calmed down. 

For me, I measure his absence by the laundry basket.  If he is away for only a few days, he might only just have disappeared from the laundry cycle, but there are probably still a few clothes to fold and put away that are his. On a long trip, he vanishes from the laundry. Until of course he comes home and fills the entire basket in one go...

While he is away we get on fine, because we have to. It's easier during the school term, which kicks in tomorrow, and we are in our little routine and it's grand.  In fact, the trick is to realise how well we have coped, and therefore to recognise that we all need to readjust when he returns. Because we have to just get on with it, the Daddy shaped hole becomes less pronounced each time he goes away, or for each day that he is gone.  This is helpful while he is not here, but can make his return tricky. This is not a big issue - just one of those areas where we have to be aware and intentional in recalibrating ourselves to having four of us in the house once again.

He just left yesterday, and this will be a long-ish trip.  And he will be away for his birthday again, which is a shame. On the other hand, I was beginning to run low on Clinique...

Flat 7Up and a Duvet on the Couch

Remember that feeling of being sick as a child? I am not aware that I was a particularly sickly kid, but I have very strong memories of being unwell and being looked after, in particular by my Mum.  Even though these are memories of sickness, they are very happy memories as well, as I just remember being warm, snuggled and looked after with care and love. 

One of the best things was being allowed to go into my parents' bed for part of the day. No idea why, but this really felt like a big deal and was reserved for occasions of sickness. I remember feeling very important and special in what seemed like an enormous bed. The other really great thing was a duvet on the couch.  If you were lucky, a double duvet folded over, so you were lying both on and under it. Mmmmmm... the sense of comfort from that should be bottled! 

And I would extend that sense of comfort into the deeply uncomfortable arena of throwing up. It's horrible - the way it takes over your body and, just, yuck.  But when your Mum is rubbing your back and murmuring soothing phrases, you know you will be ok.  I had a French teacher who used to encourage us as we spoke French in exactly the same tone my Mum used when we were being sick.  I always felt a bit nauseous in his classroom...

Then there is the paraphernalia: medicines, dry crackers or biscuits and of course flat 7Up. Nobody ever recovered properly from anything without flat 7Up. And books that you had already read before so you didn't have to think too much. And tv: Anne of Green Gables or Mary Poppins (but not too loud for the singing).

I am of course not talking about hospital sickness here, which is a whole other scenario. But the childhood flus and bugs, which prevented you from going to school and presumably prevented your Mum from doing much of anything, although she was gracious enough not to let on. As a child, I almost revelled in the whole experience - you were allowed to ask for almost anything to eat, drink or watch and the chances of being told no were severely reduced. 

My husband has a very different experience of childhood sickness.  Not that my mum allowed me to be a hypochondriac, but his mum was just not having any of it.  Unless there were broken limbs or blood coming out of his ears, he was going to school...  Consequently, he is rubbish at being unwell himself.  Following surgery, I looked after him while he recuperated and he was totally uninitiated in the art of the couch duvet. There is a knack to the placement of the pillows, the proximity to the coffee table has to be judged carefully and there is of course the all important 'socks or no socks' debate.  All of this was foreign territory to him and I was happy to educate him...

Now it is my turn to be the Mum who looks after sick kids.  Today, my younger son has a nasty tummy bug. Although of course my heart breaks for him, a tiny part of me loves suddenly being needed so much again.  It goes so fast and we are so proud of every milestone.  But each of those means more independence and less direct interaction with me! But today, even though his little woebegone pale face was very tragic indeed, I was secretly delighted at all the extra cuddles I was getting. And, yes, I now get to hold the sick bucket and make the soothing noises.  It is strangely un-gross - it just goes with the territory and I don't mind it at all.

Of course this is all very well for me.  I don't work regular hours outside the home and am in charge of my own schedule. In the recent times I worked in office jobs, I was very fortunate that both kids were relatively healthy, apart from a dose of chicken pox. But today, all I had to worry about was getting the oldest guy a lift to and from football camp.  No drama, no stress really.

How different for working Mums.  And I say Mums here rather than parents.  I think there is a real urge within a very young child for Mummy when they are sick.  With the greatest respect to all Dads everywhere, Mummies are just better at sorting out the duvet on the couch. But when the same Mummy is due in 5 meetings that day, it's a different story. It's a monumental juggling act, loaded with guilt on all sides.  Whatever she does on a day her child is sick, she will be left feeling that she is letting someone down. 

A friend had a sick child just this week, on the day she was due to have an important job assessment talk with a manager. It was just so typical that this was the day there was a sick child in the house. Next thing, the manager sent a mail: his Mum had died and he was cancelling. My friend was delighted! And then horrified at her reaction!  And then just relieved and probably a bit guilty - there always has to be guilt...

My heart goes out to working Mums as they juggle so much to begin with - housework, laundry, shopping, cooking, childcare and the job itself. Adding a sick kid to the mix is just too much and can send the whole dynamic out of whack for the family. The pressure is enormous and sometimes simply having an understanding employer will make the difference.  That is, of course, not a given. Laws about time off for sick kids vary tremendously and it can be a minefield to have to negotiate your rights. As I understand it, in the States, some parents risk job loss or the docking of pay if they have to mind sick kids. Grandparents and aunties can help out, but only if they are around to begin with and even then only if the child is well enough to have anyone but Mummy.

This is perhaps one area where equality is a bit of a flawed concept.  It's great that woman can and do work of course, but kids need their Mummies when they are sick and perhaps employers should allow for this.  But then you can see where employers would avoid employing women of a certain age (where they are not already doing so), and the whole thing gets a bit murky. 

There is no obvious solution here - each family just muddles through and keeps their kids as healthy as possible. Having recently seen a family close to me go through two weeks of stress around this issue, I wish I could be a fairy godmother and swoop in to help with this kind of situation. Maybe that's what all families need! 

Meanwhile, I need to go and wake my poorly bunny and hope the sleep has done him well. Think it's time for Toy Story, watched from the vantage point of a duvet nest on the couch - prepared by an expert!  Now where did I leave that 7Up?

Real or Not Real

Last week I met up with a friend I hadn't seen since my sister's wedding 8 years ago.  We used to meet her and her sister every school morning at the end of their road and all cycle off together to school. Often we saw each other both weekend days as well, in the dance group of which we were all part.  Her husband was in my class - not while he was her husband, I hasten to add.  All of this to illustrate how much we used to see each other and how involved we were with each other's lives.

And then I moved away to England to university and I maybe saw her about 6 times since 1994. So it was so great to catch up again and to spend the morning together.  It was particularly special to meet each other's kids and just brilliant to see them run off and play together happily. 

Here's the thing though: we hadn't seen each other for 8 years, yet we are connected almost every day, on Facebook.  I see pictures of her kids frequently and have asked her advice on issues I face with my boys, as one of hers is a few years older and she is further down that road!  She was one of the very first people to congratulate me on the pregnancy of my second son after I posted that I had 2 heartbeats, much to the excitement of some Dr Who fans. (No, me neither until someone explained...)

So it was quite an odd dynamic, to have not seen one another really for so long, yet at the same time be quite up to date on each other's lives.  I knew that her husband is looking for a new job and that her brother's wife is about to have a baby. I knew that her other brother recently got engaged and have seen pictures of his (beautiful)  fiance.  She knew that Andrew travels a lot for his job and that we had recently been to France. It was kind of odd! We didn't need to have the huge catch up chat about where we now live or what jobs we are in... In many ways it was like we see each other often and it was much more relaxed and easy going than it might have been had we had to reconnect all over again.

On the other hand, there were things that you just don't get from Facebook.  I have never spoken to any of her kids, and I really enjoyed chatting about books with her oldest boy. He is working his way through the Harry Potter series and I have just started my bi-annual reread thereof...  So we had a great natter about this, and I loved it!  

And there are things that you don't put on Facebook.  It is not the place where I am the most vocal about my faith, so she could have been forgiven for not being sure if that was something with which I still engaged. It was great to chat about that and there was other family stuff that we shared, that wouldn't be Facebook-appropriate either. (That makes it sound much more dramatic and scandalous than anything we actually discussed...)


It's a funny one!  Facebook's ostensible raison d'être is to let you 'connect with friends and the world around you.' The wider media often talks about Facebook friends being 'friends' and posits that it isolates people and stunts friendships. An article I read in the Guardian asked: 'does Facebook really connect people? Doesn't it rather disconnect us, since instead of doing something enjoyable such as talking and eating and dancing and drinking with my friends, I am merely sending them little ungrammatical notes and amusing photos in cyberspace, while chained to my desk?' The suggestion further down in this article is that people now think that the more 'friends' you have, the better you are - that people aim to engage in quantity rather than quality of friendships.  

Personally, I don't know anyone who uses Facebook in that way.  Perhaps this is age-related and maybe 'yoofs' are amassing huge numbers of friends and feeling like they are very popular this way. Very few of my friends have an absurd number of 'friends' and they seem to me, as an outside, and occasionally nosy, observer, to genuinely connect with people rather than just garner hangers on to feel good about themselves. As someone who has lived in a few different countries, it has allowed me to stay connected with people I genuinely know.  In all honesty, I would be unlikely to email, phone or write to them. But here is an easy and often fun way to (re)connect and share with them. 

Friends is a big word to apply to absolutely everyone with whom we are connected in this way, of course.  It is quite a loaded word and has perhaps been devalued since the dawn of social media.  But I absolutely disagree with the suggestion that Facebook disconnects us from people. I can think of a few people that I see frequently, whom I have got to know better since being connected to on Facebook. It turned out that we had more in common than we realised, things that we might not have got round to chatting about, and it has genuinely enriched rather than impoverished a new acquaintanceship. 

I am not suggesting that it substitutes real life connections and that someone sitting alone all day sharing and posting to friends on Facebook is as good as meeting a few pals for a coffee.  Of course it's not!  But it's surely equally ludicrous to suggest that connecting to people on social media will somehow diminish your real life contact with them. Unless you are genuinely a hermit who has 2000 Facebook friends and no real ones - but this is surely not representative of the majority? Or do I just happen to have sensible friends and have a very rose-tinted view of the whole phenomenon?

Meeting up with my old schoolfriend was fantastic and could never have been substituted by a Facebook chat, clearly.  However, I would say that our connection on Facebook added hugely to the likelihood of us getting together to begin with and to the quality of the time we spent. We both commented on the unusual dynamic of feeling like we had very little catching up to do, although this wasn't really entirely true.  It was in many ways a shortcut, and one that was good and helpful.  And a tiny bit weird...

And anyone who gets the reference in the title of this post gets promoted instantly to bff, on Facebook and in real life.

Not Taboo, But Still Unspoken

I woke up this morning feeling weird and edgy and then I remembered my dream. In it, I had a miscarriage. Even though it was non sequential and incoherent, as dreams are, I knew in the dream that this was the fourth one and I was devastated.  And I woke up feeling unsettled and off. 

Dreams are really strange. I am not pregnant and I haven't had a miscarriage for 8 years. So it's hard to know how the combination of conversations I had yesterday and the pasta I had for dinner conspired to conjure up up these images.

Apparently 1 in 5 pregnancies end in miscarriage, of which there are several different kinds.  Not 1 in 5 women ever have a  miscarriage, but 20% of all pregnancies. That's a very high proportion and indicates how many people are affected by this. Yet it is strangely unspoken about - it's not something people tend to reveal about themselves on a night out. I don't think this is because it's taboo, rather that it's a very personal thing for everyone. Depending on what stage you were at in the pregnancy, whether you already have kids or not, how both people in the couple respond to this and a host of other factors, your experience will be very individual. People's responses to such a loss are deeply personal also and are hard to share with others, as you are mourning the loss of potential, which is unquantifiable in many ways. 

It was very striking one evening at book club, to go round the table and realise that every single woman there, had had at least 1 miscarriage. There were about 7 of the wider membership that had turned up that particular month, but each of us had a completely different story. That's when the statistic '1 in 5' was shown to be such a high one - that it had affected every single person in a relatively random group of women one Thursday night in Wicklow town.

Before we ever had any kids, we went through 3 miscarriages. The very first one was really early, like about 6 and a half weeks into the pregnancy. If I hadn't suspected and taken a pregnancy test, I possibly wouldn't even have realised and would have just assumed I was quite late.  In fact, one of the midwives said this to me and said that early pregnancy tests are great in many ways, but do cause a great deal of heartache that would otherwise have passed you by.

The next miscarriage was almost exactly a year later and was a really difficult experience.  I was almost 11 weeks pregnant and the school I was working in was 2 days away from being inspected by Ofsted when I realised I was bleeding. Cue the two most awful days. Scans showed that there was no heartbeat, but the doctors insisted on various surgery-avoidance procedures that were really awful.  It was our first experience of being in a hospital system where staff were quite poor at communicating what was going on, and stuff was just done or medication just given, without explanation, until Andrew demanded to be told what was happening. Eventually, I ended up in surgery.

That was a very hard time as one of my closest friends had just had her first baby.  I had found out I was pregnant on the day she gave birth and it all just felt so right and we were so happy!  It was very difficult to come back from this, and I was very angry and upset for a long time. It changed me, it changed our marriage, thankfully by bringing us closer together in the end,  and it changed, deepened and strengthened my faith. 

Two years later, I found out I was pregnant again and was delighted to feel sick and nauseous for a few weeks. Until I stopped feeling sick and nauseous...  I knew then and wasn't at all surprised when the early scan we were allowed due to our history did not show a heartbeat. The one they made us come back for 2 weeks later confirmed this, and I was admitted for surgery in Holles Street. In those 2 in between weeks, our house had flooded due to incompetent plumbers and I spent the subsequent weeks post surgery on the couch as a humidifier drummed next to me and various workmen painted and replastered. Not a great recuperation!

And only then, after 3 miscarriages, would 'they' look at us and do any investigation as to the cause of this recurrence. 'They' being the medical profession, who are acting from the 1 in 5 statistic. At the time,  after the second miscarriage, it is so hard to accept that they don't consider you have been through enough to investigate. There you are, devastated, and told 'we only take blood tests etc after 3.' I almost felt like that was a sentence and a small part of me was relieved after the third one was over, that at least now they had to look into this.

But, several blood tests later, we proved to be perfectly healthy and there was no reason to think the next pregnancy wouldn't be fine.  Although this was good news, I almost wanted there to be a problem.  They would then present us with a super straightforward medical solution, just like that, and we could go forward with certainty and confidence.  Well, that's not how things go in real life!

I write this while ignoring the sounds from upstairs that tell me one of the kids is about to come down roaring in pain any minute now. After the 3 miscarriages, I had 2 subsequent pregnancies, both of which were fine and we have 2 healthy, bouncy boys. Although our experiences were difficult, they are nothing, NOTHING, compared to what some couples go through, in terms of ectopic pregnancies, the whole ivf route with its attendant financial and hormonal pressures or indeed the soul-destroying bureaucracy of adoption. Not to mention losing a baby much later in pregnancy or having a baby die shortly after birth. And I have also always thought that in many ways it must be harder to suffer a miscarriage when you already have kids.  Although we were desperately sad that we might never have a family; at least we were at liberty to console each other, to head off for long weekends and to take time out from normal life as needed.  If you already have kids, that's not an option and I am full of admiration for couples who stay strong in these situations.

I always worry when I hear new couples talk blithely about their plans to start a family after they have travelled and had glittering careers etc. I think the phrase 'planning a family' is in fact extremely unhelpful as it utterly fails to prepare people for the fairly high chance that this might not just happen cause they want it to at a certain time. I am not suggesting people should be worried and tense around this whole issue, but at least be aware that children are a blessing.  At risk of sounding too cheesy for words, I mean by this that each child really is a miracle, given all that has to happen before they are safely delivered. I am immensely grateful for my two miracles and will now go and check which one of them has injured the other...

Birthdays and the Art of Keeping Secrets.

Andrew and I have a tradition of planning surprises for each other for big birthdays. You know, the ones where your new age ends in a zero. When I say tradition, this is actually only going to be the third time that this happens since we have been married.  But the expectation is certainly there. This is where I get the pay off for being just over a year younger than Andrew: I get to set the standard for my birthday the year after! 

When Andrew was 29, we were both working full time and had no children.  So, the budget was a bit bigger than it is now and I went ahead and planned what I knew Andrew would really love: a trip to New York.  I was thinking about this the other day as I remembered that I went to an actual travel agent to book this!  How quaint!  I honestly think this was the last time I ever used one... So I explained to this lovely man in the agency down the road from where I worked that this was a very special trip for my husband's birthday. He entered into the spirit of it brilliantly and even found me a hotel called Thirty Thirty on Thirtieth street.  Perfect!

Now all I had to do was keep the secret. Yes, that was all. No big deal, piece of cake, no problem. Except for the fact that I was madly excited and fizzing with anticipation. The one person I would normally share this with was the one person I couldn't tell!  This proved to be very very difficult! I hadn't foreseen this at all, but it was really very hard for me not to tell Andrew.  On the other hand I couldn't keep completely quiet about it either as he had to book time off work, so needed to be told something was up.

In the end I couldn't do it: one day about 2 weeks from our travel date, I completely mistakenly said something along the lines of '...when we are back from America...'. I then stopped, did a classic cinema moment face and clapped my hand over my mouth.  Then, just to round it off neatly, I burst into tears.  This is not something I do very often, but in this case I just lost the plot!

Maybe it's a testament to a strong marriage that I found it so hard to keep a secret from my husband.  He thought the whole thing was hilarious of course and even more so my reaction.  And he was absolutely delighted with the plans and actually thrilled to have a couple of weeks to look forward to the trip.

In return, a year later, I was whisked off to Rome, where we had a fantastic week.  Of course, Andrew never cracked and I didn't know anything about where we were going.  Having planned the previous year, I was fairly sure it was a trip away and he did have to give me clues about what to pack and which days to book off work. But he was much better than me at keeping the whole thing quiet and not telling me more than I needed to know until we got to the check in desk at Dublin Airport.

Keeping secrets is hard work!  There is even a Wiki How page devoted to this.  It's a list of fairly repetitive hints.  And then there's this: 'you can tell your stuffed animal if you really have to tell someone.' Unexpected and sort of useless as tips go really! Other hints include lying if necessary and pretending you don't have a secret. Helpful. 

Of course the list is catering for people who are keeping a secret that someone else has divulged to them, like that they are cheating on their partner, right the way through to someone planning a great surprise party for their best friend.  Not exactly on a par with each other...  The classic secret conundrum is when you know one of your friends is being cheated on and you have to decide to be the person who knows and doesn't say anything while this continues, or the person who blows the whole thing apart. Thankfully, I have never been in that position.  I would like to think I would tell my friend, but what if I was mistaken? Or what if she hated me for bursting the bubble?  Secrets are complicated.

The thing is that I am great at keeping confidences when this is needed.  But not great at keeping happy secrets to myself. Some good friends are currently expecting and know the gender of their baby - but aren't telling anyone!  No way could I keep that quiet! When we were expecting our second baby, we chose to find out the gender as well.  But I told Andrew beforehand that we should only do so if it didn't have to be a secret. We were keeping the name choices a secret and if I had had to keep more than one, I might have just popped.  Thankfully the scan was incredibly clear and we did tell friends and family that another boy was on the way.

I now have a new secret as Andrew's 40th birthday is approaching. Well, it's actually not for another 13 months.  However, what I am planning needs a long lead in time and I have in fact made arrangements today for the crucial part of the whole shebang. I now have to keep this to myself for a year! Andrew knows something is up as I have already had to check a few dates with him and have access to a bit of money.  So far I have managed to do this without giving anything away! This is where I find out if I have become any better at keeping secrets in the past ten years.  I suspect not however, so I may have to find a stuffed animal to chat to on a regular basis.

Pea Shooters and Curtain Material: The 'Perfect' Wedding

Today is our 15th Anniversary.  In many ways this has flown by and I can remember July 25th 1998 like it was yesterday! But on the other hand, so much has happened in those years and we have both grown and changed so much as well.  We are completely different people really. The pictures show what people around us saw at the time, but I didn't: we were SO young! But here we are 15 years later, still happy, still married, still in love.

At the time I had just graduated from University, literally a few days before the wedding, in fact. I was about to go on for one more year of study; teacher training. Andrew had worked for 2 years. During the time that I was doing my final exams, we were completing the wedding details and also buying our first house. So for the actual wedding, we had no big savings account or massive budget.

In Ireland today, despite the recession, the austerity measures and all the accompanying woes and misery, the average cost of a wedding has actually risen! This is according to a 2012 article I read, which puts the number at 21000-ish Euro. Twenty One Grand? Wow!  The 3 biggest costs are generally the venue, the honeymoon and the wedding party's clothes, at over 6 grand, over 3 grand and over 2 grand respectively. Not unrelated to this is the fact that the average age to get married in Ireland at the moment is in fact 33, a full ten years older than Andrew was at our wedding. This may account for some of these figures - I guess you can do a lot of saving in those extra years! I should say at this point, that I would absolutely not criticise how anyone chose to spend their money or what they wanted their dream day to include. It's a day people plan for so long and it is a unique occasion for every couple. 

Over twenty thousand Euro though, that is a LOT of money. Having said that, if you go on to Pinterest and do a search for Weddings, there are an unbelievable amount of ways to get through 21 grand and more, easily! Embellished Vintage Heels anyone? Or a Rustic Distressed Chalkboard Sign for $100 telling people to grab a drink while they wait for the couple? Personalised Wine Sets as the Wedding Favours? This is just the tiniest glimpse of the multitude of ideas on Pinterest - google Pinterest Weddings when you have some time to spare, like 5 hours.

Many of the ideas are actually very cute and some of them are cost saving ones also.  But they are often hugely elaborate as well: ideas for cute photos with your bridesmaids (of which there generally seem to be at least 6 in the pictures) before the wedding, customising the bridal shower, super creative and unique invitations. Of course, none of these things are necessarily silly or bad!  And some of them are brilliant and very fun ideas. But the pressure to have this perfect day and capture all these perfect moments, with perfect hair, just seems immense.  If I was a bride-to-be now, I think I would find Pinterest overwhelming and very intimidating. 

In our case, we didn't have a bean. We hadn't been living together yet and any money we did have was going towards the house really. I don't remember exactly what it all cost and who paid what, but I do know we cut a few corners and spent as little as possible.

So, the dress and the suit: The best man wore his own suit. Andy got a suit from M and S. We got my sister's bridesmaid dress on sale in Debenhams, for about 20 pounds, if memory serves and I guess she wore her own shoes.

I was in Germany for the third year of my degree when I got engaged. At the end of the summer term, my parents picked me up and we drove to Switzerland to visit a friend. I hadn't yet really thought much about the logistics or cost of getting a dress, apart from the usual daydreaming and sketching that every woman, if she is being honest, will tell you she has done since she was 6. I was chatting to our hostess and she told me she had bought material for curtains in Thailand, but it hadn't turned out to be right for the purpose. Perhaps I would like to have the material for my wedding dress?

Um, curtain material for my wedding dress? I stayed polite and said that was very kind and I would love to see it. Well, she appeared with a roll of cream raw silk and just gave me the whole lot. It was stunning! Once I was back in England for my final year, I found a dressmaker, drew her a basic sketch and the whole thing was done for 200 pounds sterling. Mind you, I did have to argue with the dressmaker, who wanted me to wear a hoop and who wasn't at all pleased when I had her take out a whole layer of petticoats.  She might have been happier working for the dressmaker in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding...

The car: Andrew's fiesta was the carriage for the day!  Not very glamorous, but completely fine!  Andrew's uncle was the photographer; he did a fantastic job. And the pictures were taken in his Grandma's beautiful garden.

The cake: my Mum made it!  And iced it, and decorated it with flowers, which we got alongside my bouquet on the Wedding Day. It looked amazing - and she loved doing it! Especially as she had been in a different country for most of the lead up, so this was a way for her to be a big part of the day in the end.

Our main costs were the venue, the food, the DJ and the flowers. One important cost was also the peashooters.  Yes, really. We had been to a few charity balls together and they always had these colourful tubes on the table and pint glasses full of small balls.  Andrew was eager to have these at our wedding, and they were loads of fun! It took some people a while to work out what they were for, but once they did, all hell broke lose! In the end my Dad had to stand up and get people to stop so the food could be served. Friends of my parents mentioned this to me the other week as a memory they have of the day, so it made an impression! Mind you, I don't think I've seen this on Pinterest...

It was a great day. Not a picture perfect, super glamorous, Pinterest worthy day perhaps, but a very very happy one! We were absolutely blessed with the weather, the service was lovely, the speeches were witty, the food was nice... And then: the honeymoon. Friends of my parents offered us their little cottage in Yorkshire, for free.  It was such a perfect gift from them and we had a wonderful week.

So I look back on a happy day. I don't think it could have been any happier, had we spent an extra 15 grand on it! And here we are 15 years later and ultimately it doesn't matter what car we drove or whether I really did have a dress made of curtain material - none of those things make for a happy marriage in the end. That comes through love, communication, trust and effort. And while we didn't have a massive wedding budget, so far, we've never been short of any of those assets.

Lurkers, Likers and Other Facebook Species

So, Facebook. At this point, most people are on it, aren't they? Not everyone, admittedly.  Like, not my Dad. But I think he would actually enjoy Facebook, as a Lurker/Liker (see further down). But almost everyone else.  At this stage many people not on Facebook, are virulently anti-Facebook. Like a lady I recently asked. She is someone who I see as a potential friend, but we don't get to see much of each other. Perfect for a Facebook link, surely... We can get glimpses of each other's lives and comment and share accordingly. But her response when I asked if she was on Facebook was almost comical! You would have been forgiven for thinking I had asked her if she regularly took cocaine. 'No!' she exclaimed in horror, 'and I never will be!' 

It never ceases to amaze me how radio stories or newspaper columns which mention social media seem to be hosted or written by people who have no clue about it! They often imply that you are opening yourself up to having your whole life exposed and your security compromised by using it. If you based your view of Facebook on the news, and had no other experience with it, you would probably think it was for folk who liked connecting with hundreds of people they didn't actually know in real life, giving a wildly unrealistic impression of their daily lives and engaging in a fair amount of cyber-bullying. And getting fired all the time for posting things about their job. Yes, of course all those things do happen, but in a limited way, surely, and only because Facebook can't prevent stupid people from using its services.

I recently read an article which asked the question if social media is leading to further isolation of people, or in fact, lessening this isolation. One quote which really struck a chord with me was comparing someone's perception of social media with that of tv: '... if all you watch is reality TV, you might come to the conclusion that it’s a shallow form of media. But if you change the channel, there’s the History Channel or the Discovery Channel, and all of a sudden your perception is very different.' (http://www.usatodayeducate.com/staging/index.php/campuslife/social-media-doesnt-mean-social-isolation) That is a brilliant example! Just like with tv, social media is as good or as bad as the people consuming it.

Well, I am a huge fan. I have found Facebook a brilliant addition to other socialising. Not a replacement, but a great extra. I am in touch with people that I do know in real life, absolutely. But these are in many cases people I used to work with or went to university with. I wouldn't get to see them often and wouldn't be likely to email or phone them. But I love seeing what they are doing in their lives and being connected with them. In one case, this is someone I have never actually met.  But she is a friend of a friend, and in an online discussion of books, it became apparent that we have a ridiculous amount of tastes and thoughts in common. With the notable exceptions of sewing and the Tour de France. I feel like I could meet her for a coffee, which makes her pretty much a genuine friend, even if we haven't officially met.  Except it would almost certainly end up being lunch and dinner as well.

It is fascinating to me how people use Facebook differently! I think it's safe to say that some people are very good at Facebook. The friend I have who is one of the best at it is someone I last spent time with as a teenager, when we both lived in Holland. Now she lives in Philadelphia and I live in Ireland. Yet I see pictures of her kids almost every day and laugh out loud (but only using the 'lol' acronym ironically of course) at their brilliant phrases and jokes. I love that we can keep in touch so easily! She posts a lot, but not too much - as the content is generally witty, well phrased and real. She is SWGF: Someone Who Gets Facebook. 

Here are a few other users:
The Lurker: I have quite a few friends who I just assume don't bother to log on and check their posts, ever. That is, until I meet them in a different context, and they say: 'Oh, how did Matthew get on at his goalie camp?' Or 'Your holiday looked terrific!' and it turns out they read absolutely every last post but never ever comment on anything. Or even like anything.

The Liker: They share certain Lurker characteristics - they rarely post anything themselves, but enjoy reading what others share. The difference is that they join in to an extent, by liking things they have found good.  I am not sure why they never post anything themselves, but at least they aren't hiding, like the Lurkers.

A sub-species is the Periodic Liker. This is someone who is only ever on Facebook every 14 days or so and then has a frenzy of liking all kinds of things that have happened in that time. You suddenly get a mad influx of notifications, all from one person liking things you posted ages ago. I have a friend who does this - she has two very young kids and I guess she just literally doesn't have the head space or time to check Facebook very often, however she does like updating herself with what is happening, but in catch up mode.

Another sub-species to the Liker is the Gullible Liker. This is someone who likes all kinds of crap. You know the posts I mean: 'Like this if you think bullying is A Bad Thing.' 'I know only 10% of my friends will bother to read this, so Like this to show that you are one of the good people in life and that you think flowers are nice.' Or something. You know the kind of stuff...  I personally don't understand how anyone could think that liking something on a website will end world hunger or child abuse or whatever. Maybe I am missing something! Some of these are funny, see below, but I think we can all agree that there is an awful lot of dross out there!

Of course even worse than the Gullible Liker is the Gullible Sharer - less is more sometimes! But then I guess it depends what you are in to and someone else's dross is my amusement and vice versa... Perhaps half of those on my friends list have limited what they see from me cause they think I share and post way too much rubbish. But here's the thing - more power to them! It's so easy to change settings and vary what you see from people that I guess it doesn't really matter what they like or share. 

 A personal bugbear of mine is the Text Speak Poster. This is someone who hasn't quite worked out that phones no longer limit you to a tiny amount of characters and that No1 txts like dis NEmor unless dey R well over 40.  Never mind posts like this on Facebook. Please stop.

So who are you on Facebook? A Lurker? A Liker? A Periodic or a Gullible Liker? A Gullible Sharer? A Text Speak Poster? Or, as I am sure you all are, or hope you are at any rate: SWGF. 

Have I missed any categories? And can we all agree that the first picture below is cute, but the second one is genius?