Mummy mistakes, mishaps and merry Christmases

I've just returned from a beautiful service at my Church and NOW it feels like Christmas. The marketing circus may have begun sometime just after Easter but MY Christmas began today (with just two sleeps to go!).

Of course, seasoned withdewrespect readers will be aware that our household has not just one but two Christmases with all the trimmings.  The stockings go up twice and the kids are wearing their new onesies before Santa's little helpers have even got the pressies down from the top of the wardrobe in most homes (other hiding places are available).  The tills are still ringing in Toysrus when my sons' Shoot and Ninja Turtle annuals are unwrapped, their selection boxes are empty and the Hot Wheels cars are lost under the sofa.

Our Christmas Eve Mark I was on Friday, December 21 and Santa took an early trip south and dropped off the gifts, drank the wine and ate the apple (don't judge me, I forgot to buy in the mince pies!).  He will kindly return on December 24 making stop-offs both in Bridlington (where my husband's children live) and in Portugal where my oldest son spends Christmas every year with his dad.  (new readers, please refer to previous blogs to fill in the gaps of this family tree and my thoughts on separated / blended family life).

This year, Daniel (6) brought the festive ditty All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth to life.  Just days ago, he knocked out one front tooth on the sofa (don't ask, Ninja, WWE or free-running moves were involved).  Then, on Christmas Eve Mark I, he had the other inadvertently yanked out by his mother (who, me?).
Please don't ring Esther, I was pulling his jumper over his head (OK, maybe a somewhat heavy hand was deployed as he was refusing to get undressed for bed).  As it passed over his open (squawking) mouth, it pulled his other front tooth out!!!

The next day, I glared at every friend / shopkeeper / random sticky-beak who said, 'ooooh, has the tooth fairy been?!'.
Daniel's face would fall as he sadly replied: "No, she forgot."

....shall I dial Ms Rantzen for you?

I'm a bad, bad mother.

I managed to convince him that, having stayed at his grandma's the night before while we were driving Teddy to Gatwick, maybe the tooth fairy was confused as to his exact whereabouts.  Another friend suggested maybe the tooth fairy was too busy helping Santa wrap presents (I like that much better and wish I'd have thought of it).

Mind you, either way, not much gets past Daniel....

Advent calendars are a source of daily excitement in our house, allowing the kids licence to eat chocolate before school for 24 days.

It's like the ad for Cream Eggs (which, no doubt, we'll be treated to on Boxing Day); how do you eat yours?
 
Teddy rips open the cardboard door and shoves the chocolate in along with a mouthful of toast.
Daniel spends ages finding the correct door then studies the pictures on the front of the door, carefully opens the door, shows the picture to his uninterested brother, struggles to remove the chocolate without damaging it, then admires it for some time before having a nibble.

He also enjoys looking at my Hello Kitty advent calendar chocolate (don't ask) and today the conversation went thus: -
Me: "Look Daniel, my chocolate is a robin on a branch today."
Daniel peered at my chocolate before turning it the other way up and correcting: "Silly mum, it's Rudolph!"

Should have gone to Specsavers!!  (other opticians are available)  However, as I live and preach the 'shop local' ethos, you wouldn't catch me supporting such an independent store-murdering commercial retail chain anyway.

There's simply no neat segue from this tale to my next.  It's literally from the 'mouths of babes comes the voice of angels' to 'from the mouths of rather horrid post-pubescent scum-bags comes soggy food'.

I was out for a run the other day, minding my own business, enjoying the winter sunshine and jogging along the main road towards home.

Suddenly, on oncoming car slowed slightly and the passenger wound down his window and spat a mouthful of Cheesy Wotsits at me while the driver whooped with laughter at their jolly jape and sped away.

Words fail me (for once!).

You may be asking how I knew they were Cheesy Wotsits.  Well, come on, you shouldn't let good food to go to waste!


Wishing all my faithful and new withdewrespect readers a peaceful, fun and family-filled Christmas and a New Year which brings health and happiness to all.  Thank you for reading.

Just a lot of hot air....

Be warned, dear withdewrespect reader, I'm in the mood for a bit of a whinge.....

A few wheelie bins fall over, leaves blow off trees, a crisp packet is whipped up into the air, the door mysteriously swings open on your electric meter and your hair might get a bit messed up.

Listening to folk talking, be it on the national news or in the Post Office, you'd have thought Hurricane Hardcor-etta had struck the British Isles this week.

More like Hurricane Abitofabreeza.

Get a grip people.....and I don't mean on to the nearest lamppost so you don't fall over or on to your house roof so it doesn't blow off!

Speaking over over-reacting to the weather......

I had a bit of a political FaceBook whinge the other week, although I think my hot air was about as powerful as the aforementioned 'high winds which battered the country' (don't you just love journalists and their lyrical waxing; cue winking smiley).

I was provoked into my social media rant after receiving a text from my son's football manager to say all football games on Kirklees pitches were cancelled that coming weekend.
They'd clearly had the crystal ball out, received an e.mail from from Him upstairs or believed everything spouted by the Met Office.  None of which, personally, I have much faith in.

In reality, the predicted 'strong breezes' failed to manifest and on a beautiful autumnal weekend with blue skies all around, hundreds of boys and girls, young men and women were sat at home stuffing their faces with left-over Halloween sweets and staring at computer screens.  Football pitches around the region were deserted and the postponed games which the young players spend all week looking forward to, will probably never happen.

Isn't this nation supposed to be tackling obesity and promoting healthy living, sport and team spirit (how quickly the hype of 2012 is forgotten?).

And while I've got my trumpet out of its case and I'm up here on my soapbox, I'll remind fickle weather whingers (not you, of course, dear reader), that just a few weeks ago the people of the Philippines found out all-too-tragically what the forces of nature can REALLY do and I was thrilled that my friends and family chipped in to raise £330 for the aid appeal.  All I did was have a nice jog down Kirkstall Road with 12,000 fellow fund-raisers.  Pip, as my kids would say (or was that last week, I really must keep up?!).

And shall I tell you what else annoys me.....?  (Blimey, I'm not going to be able to leave the house, there's going to be a lynch mob of offended people camped outside my house).

York Railway Station!  Lots of fancy metal things to stub out your cigarette, but no actual bin to throw your banana skin in.  (A throw away remark (!?!) but says a lot about the state of the Nation methinks)

Hey, just realised it's my blog's birthday!  I only thought of that because I was about to continue my rant with my thoughts about the increasingly early arrival of Christmas hysteria but then I remembered I did that a year ago and I don't want to repeat myself with the same seasonal editorial year-after-year, I'm not writing for Good Housekeeping am I?!  Can I just say though, I think the lady in the local gift shop who asked me if I was 'ready for it' on November 27th was lucky to get away with a black eye.

So, I'll check what I whinged about last Christmas and get back to you soon on my moans for the 2013 festive season.....bet you can't wait?!

I'll leave you with a special treat from the mouths of babes.....

Teddy: "Daniel, let me do a five knuckle shuffle on you?"

"What was that Teddy?!," I cry as my head spins round so quickly I get whiplash.

"Five knuckle shuffle, mum, don't you even know what that is, duuuuur?"

(Well, I thought I knew what it meant and somehow I hoped I was very, very wrong and like 'sick',  it now meant something totally different!)

"No, Teddy, what does it mean, my sweet, innocent 11-year-old son?"

Looking at me like I've just been beamed down from planet Olden Days, Teddy replies: "It's a WWE move."

Oh, thank God for that!

Hang on a minute, what the *%$@ is WWE?  (ahhhhhh, exploding brain, too many questions).

Good old Google (I'm not THAT old) informed me that WWE is what was WWF.  Presumably, the Pandas finally got fed up being confused with orange American men prancing around a padded ring in lycra.