Fair point, I DO write a lot

What my six-year-old can't do with paper, the inside of toilet rolls and sellotape, isn't worth doing.  The other day he constructed a clever little hand-held device thingy, all pointy and just super.
He asked me if I liked it.
"Yes, it's great Daniel, is it a watch?"
"No."
"Is it a wrist band?"
No."
Think woman, think.
"Ah, is it a Ben Ten Omnitrix?"
"No."
"I givey up love, what is it?"
"A knuckle duster."

I've written about my dear father before and the post-stroke / mid-dementia state of his mental health. One beautiful story from just a few weeks before he went into full-time residential care is this, short and simple.
He rang my mum to ask what her number was.
For 15 minutes mum tried to explain that he already had her number as he had just called it but it was to no avail so she distracted him by asking what the weather was like (even though they lived about a mile apart).

I'm happy to report that my dad has taken to residential care like a duck to water.  I made a surprise visit this week and arrived to find he was down the pub with a fellow lady resident!
The carers had mentioned that my dad had struck up a friendship with a lady called Dorothy so I naturally presumed he was out with Dorothy.
When they arrived back, I rushed over, keen to say hello to Dorothy, only to be quickly corrected by one of the carers.
"Oh, that's not Dorothy, that's Margaret, Dorothy's over there," pointing to the lady who was glaring a jealous glare at Margaret as she waltzed back in from the pub!
You still got it eh dad!?

I seem to be making incorrect presumptions quite a lot recently.
I'm setting myself up as a freelance writer with a Government start-up scheme and I have a mentor who is guiding me through the Business Plan preparation.
We met the other day to discuss the first draft of my Plan.
Now, friends have often said the biggest hurdle to my entrepreneurial dreams is that I'm not very good at selling myself and believing in my abilities.
As this is something I'm trying to work on, the perfect opportunity arose when my mentor looked over my draft plan and said: "Well, I can see you're a writer."
Normally I would have replied: "I'm not that good, there are much better writers than me, I just like throwing words together."
But I decided the new me would accept the compliment so I simply said: "Thank you."
He looked up, surprised at being thanked and corrected himself: "No, I just meant you'd written a lot more than most people do."

My wonderful son Teddy has been at it again, opening his mouth without the words passing anywhere near his brain beforehand.
On the way to Bridlington this week, the train slowed and I told him to put his coat on as we were nearly in Hull, where we had to change.
We passed a football stadium just before we arrived in Hull station.
"Mum, is that Huddersfield Town?"

I speak Portuguese (as does Teddy, much better than me).  But it occurred to me today that, other than being able to converse with my Brazilian neighbour in her native tongue and sing along at Nando's, it's not of much benefit in West Yorkshire.

I've written a poem about ballet and I've got something to say about the ladies toilets at Marks & Spencers but I'm trying to learn from my mentor that less is more!

(PS: I'll be back)

My dad

Let's hope Joseph Priestley never needed to order a ham and cheese toastie

Teddy (11) has been doing his homework.

He had to make sentences using ten words which he then needs to learn for next week's spelling test.

"Muuuuum, what does psychic mean?  Is it like Robin is to Batman?"

I don't feel I need to write any more in my blog this time.  Less is more and all that....

But any longstanding withdewrespect reader will know full well, that's never going to happen.

Am I bit strange (no, you can't send answers on a postcard!)?

I like school dinners, hospital food and especially the food in little compartmentalised plastic cartons on aeroplanes.  What's that all about?  (that's not rhetorical, I'll ask my therapist)

I like the television volume on an even number (preferably 10) and my coathangers all have to be the same way around.  Isn't that just good sense?

My OCD stared me in the face the other day when I spotted 6-year-old Daniel wiping his mouth with a wet wipe after tea, opening the Brabantia and giving it a quick wipe round the inside rim before throwing the wipe inside and closing the lid with his elbow.

Daniel and I share brown eyes, and clearly so much more.  We struggle to walk down the street together as we bump into each other as we try to avoid the cracks in the pavement.

However, my little 'quirks' aside, at least integrity is high on my list, if not at the top of, my approach to parenting.

I just don't get those smug and overtly mumsy mums in the park who say in a very loud voice, for everyone to hear: "Come on sweetheart, ten more swings then we're going home to make gluten-free brownies and play Junior Scrabble before we get out the crafting activities and enjoy our salad and fruit lunch."

You know full well that as soon as they get home they'll stick CBeebies on the box in the kids' bedroom, hand out the Hula Hoops and Haribos, put the kettle on and settle down to watch Jeremy Kyle on catch up.

I've been reading about Joseph Priestley (1722 - 1804) this week.  No, not an actual proper book, just on Wikipedia.  (I would read an actual book but I've still got seven episodes of Jeremy Kyle to get through)

Joseph was born in Birstall, near Batley, not a million miles from where I now live, hence the interest.

What a guy!  He was a theologian, clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator and political theorist who published over 150 works, and was credited with the discovery of oxygen and invention of soda water.

Blimey, what a super intelligent chap.

Or so I thought.  Until I read this paragraph.

"Priestley's illness left him with a permanent stutter and he gave up any thoughts of entering the ministry at that time. In preparation for joining a relative in trade in Lisbon, he studied French, Italian, and German in addition to Chaldean, Syrian, and Arabic."

Don't put that in your blog......

There was some sort of twisted irony involved or a little horned Devil character somewhere going, 'nah, nah, nah, nah nah' when my friend took a tumble at home and badly injured her knee.  She went sprawling on her stone kitchen floor having tripped up on the handle of her Tesco 'bag for life'.  What sort of message is that!?  Do a good deed for society, future generations and the world, save trees, cut waste to landfill etc etc, and what do you get, a huge bruise and a limp?!

It's rare these days that friends actually divulge such stories, and if they do, it's usually preceded with, 'don't you dare use this in your blog!'

It's usually Teddy who unwittingly walks head-first into blooper-ville, then he'll turn, frown his beautiful frown and warn, 'no mum' as I surreptitiously reach for pen and paper.

Who, me?!  As if I would Teddy, I reply, indignant (and pretend to write a shopping list).

Why, it was just last week that I promised I wouldn't write about him trying to use his little brother's bucket and spade to make 'water castles' on the beach in Dubai and I swore I wouldn't re-tell his struggle to adjust a sunbed.

Teddy: "Mum, how do I make the back go down a bit on my sunbed?"

Me: "Just pull your arms up and then lean back."

So he did. (cue smiley face with a raised eyebrow and a slight incline at the corner of the mouth)

(Sorry if you're a newcomer to withdewrespect, you're expected to work out the endings to some tales yourself and reading between the lines is a must.)

And, back to Teddy, it's absolutely not even worth mentioning what he said as he bobbed around in the swimming pool, buoyed up by the jet of warm water from the pool's temperature control system.

"Look mum, I'm defining gravity."

The thing is, I can justify using the words and actions of my nearest and dearest as blog-fodder as I'm only too happy to wag the finger of parody at my own bloopers and let's face it, moments when quite honestly I'm a right dingbat, an embarrassment to myself, my family and the human race in general.

I recall, for example, one of my first college lectures when I was doing my Degree as a mature student and keen to be cool and be down with fellow freshmen nearly ten years my junior.

We were in a small room, seated side-by-side in an intimate horseshoe shape with the literature lecturer facing us reading out the register to check our attendance.  I was full of cold.

"Beckton?"....I just managed to confirm my presence with my bunged up tones when it happened.......'ha, ha, ha, ha.......ha, chew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

There was no time to pull a soggy tissue from up my sleeve or even raise the lecture notes to take the force of the blow.

A marble-sized globule of dark green phlegm shot out of my nose.

Thankfully, as a long-term cold-sufferer, my hand-nose coordination is fairly good so I managed to catch aforementioned matter and clutch it in my fist for duration of the class.

Uncomfortable you may think.  Well, yes.  But the discomfort of a fistful of snot is nothing compared to the fact that the young student dude sat next to me had witnessed the whole thing.  AND, my humiliation doesn't even end there.  I caught his eye as he saw me catch the sneeze and I then heard him practically choke to death on a suppressed guffaw as the lecturer paused, then continued with the next name on the register.

"Greening?"

I swear it's a true story, well you wouldn't make it up would you!?  Ooo, I've kept that story a secret for a long time, I feel its telling was a very cathartic experience for me......or do I mean catarrh-tic?

Anyway,  back to Dubai.  Like a Center Parcs holiday many moons ago, I return from the UAE with very little blog fodder. Disappointing.

What can you say about Dubai that everyone hasn't already seen a programme on!  Here are the things that stuck in my mind about Dubai, in no particular order:

• It's man-made
• It's hot
• It's big and there are lots of sky-scrapers, lots and lots of them
• It has the world's tallest sky-scraper (and, as and when Japan build a bigger one, Dubai will no doubt stick another floor on top of the Burj Khalifa, simples)
• It's man-made (did I mention that already?)
• Not many of the people who live in Dubai are actually from Dubai, or indeed the UAE
• It's made out of concrete (which has been made by man and machine)
• I'm bored of this list now
• Very rich people live there, in the concrete, and drive around in fancy cars, on roads made out of concrete
• The concrete is made by men who look really unhappy as they sit hunched on the cronky old buses which ferry them into Dubai at the crack of dawn and then ferry them back to their homes in the sandy suburbs late in the evening, looking equally unhappy and very tired - I could go on about the many, many instances of inequality in Dubai but I won't
• Why do people on aeroplanes stand as soon as the plane has finished taxi'ing and then stand for the next 20 minutes with their heads at a jaunty (and surely uncomfortable) angle and one ear pressed up against the light switch and air blower panel?  Answers on a postcard.

Whodunnit?

Dragon's Den here I come....

In fact, I'm not sure I should be writing about my most recent stroke of genuis while I'm on hold to the Intellectual Property Office helpline.

My proposal is to create a simple testing kit, a bit like a pregnancy test, however it will utilise multiple colour-coding to present results.

It's going to be costly to produce initially as DNA technology will be involved in the process of creating the testing formula.

But, my goodness me, it will sell like hot cakes.  There's not a woman in the land who won't rush out and buy one as soon as they hit the shelves.

The instructions will read thus:

Remove plastic wrapper and dispose of responsibly.

(The kit is made from 100% recycled materials).

Holding the white plastic end of the stick, firmly rub the other end on the test area.

Ensure the end is fully coated.

Wait five minutes.  The tip will gradually change colour.

Bingo!  Your culprit will be revealed. For example, let's say blue is for husband, red for son no.1, green for son no. 2 and orange for visitors etc.

Poirot-like, you can waltz into the front room and declare: "Ha, ha, now I know exactly who has been splashing their wee around the toilet seat and carpet!"

The Dip-stick (working title) instructions will have small print:

Dip-stick does not accept responsibility for matrimonial disharmony, sweets-withdrawal-style punishments or violence which may ensue following the testing procedure.

Well, what a great idea all you ladies are thinking (yes, I'm stereotyping, so shoot me (no, not you Daniel, put the Nerf gun down).  Dip-stick will put an end to the following scenario:

Wife: "Who has wee'd on the toilet seat and the carpet?"
Husband: "Not me."
Son no 1: "Not me."
Son no 2: "Not me."

By the way, the numbering of my children is purely chronological, not favouritism.

But as E. Nesbit said in The Railway Children:  "Of course, mothers never have favourites, but if their mother had had a favourite, it might have been Roberta".

Anyway, I've banged on about the very different forms of love we feel for our children in a previous blog so I won't repeat myself.  Go and read it!

I've leave you with another of my favourite 'tales from Teddy', voiced just this week.

"Mum, if we knocked down our conservatory, would you get your money back for it?"

You couldn't write this stuff.

Oh go on, you know you want another.....this is yesterday's,  hot off the press.

"Mum, you know how sometimes the weeks seem to fly by and then other weeks seem to go slower?"
"Yes Teddy, that's true and very observant, good boy."
"Well, do you think different countries take it in turns having weeks that go slow or fast?"

I don't know about other countries, but apparently next week is due to fly by, with mild temperatures and showers, on Planet Ted.

OCD, I have thoughts on that as well as males with bad aims, but more of that for my next blog....

Note to new product researchers at Betterware or Lakeland, please contact me on my landline.

Say what you mean, and mean what you say....

....that's my motto.

I have other mottos, many, many other mottos, but 'say what you mean, and mean what you say' is today's 'theme'.  (Yes, OK, thank you for pointing out there isn't usually a 'theme' and I just ramble from one topic to another without rhyme nor reason)

Hypocrisy, there's a lot of it about and I don't deny I fall under its evil spell from time to time.  But by and large I try my best to steer clear of it, hence the blog name, i.e. .....with due respect to whoever I'm about to p*** off, I'm just saying what I mean!!

Let's take guns as an example.  I abhor warfare and violence, full stop.  However...

"Oh, you let Daniel have a gun?!  Well, I'm a pacifist and I don't let my children play with guns," a fellow mum told me many moons ago.

Her son was eyeing my son's new Nerf N-Strike Elite Alpha Trooper Blaster with what I can only describe as pure lust while his mum made me feel like had a dinner plate-sized swastika tattoo'd on my thigh.

The thing is this; some kids will be 'into' guns, others won't.  And one thing is certain, children who play with guns won't automatically join the armed forces (if that's the concern of anti-toy gun mums) and I'm fairly certain most won't become gun-toting mass murdering lunatics either.

IT'S A TOY!!!!!  I'M not being a hypocrite, I don't like racing cars either but I don't stop my son having dozens of them to race across the laminate in the kitchen.

My elder son showed no interest in guns whatsoever, in fact, unless it was football-shaped and, actually a football, he wasn't interested in anything much, oh, apart from football, did I mention that!?  I don't like football much either but what's a girl to do, force her boys to play with Barbie and make-up?  Well, actually Daniel did go through a doll phase and I was chuffed to bits!!

But now little Daniel has moved on and owns a small arsenal of plastic guns which fire sponge darts.  And my goodness me, he's such an amazing shot, if I youtubed it would go viral like a dancing dog.

So, a keen eye and steady hand working in perfect harmony, check.  Skills that will come in handy when he's performing heart surgery on babies I'm sure.

Oh, and imagination.  When Daniel hasn't got weapon handy for playing cops and robbers, he'll make one out of Lego, or, let's face it, two fingers and a thumb trigger will do!!  He's doing the gun thing in a make-believe environment, he doesn't really want to kill his brother (well, OK, maybe sometimes, especially when they're on a shared Minecraft server and Teddy lets lava destroy the world Daniel has taken three days creating).

I'm just not sure that suppressing a child's 'urge' to play with a toy gun when his friends have them, is the way forward.  But hey, this is from the woman who inadvertently yanked her son's front tooth out (see last blog) so maybe I should slither down off my soap box and shut it.

And the 'pacifist' mum? I always thought her energies would be much better placed stopping her husband playing Call of Duty on the X-Box in front of the kids.

And......just one more thing.

Today, I walked into a hail of (imaginary) bullets streaming out of my front window and blasting unsuspecting birds out of the sky.  Daniel's 'gun'?  A machine gun, he told me, or, in actual fact, the empty box which had contained the three juggling balls I had bought him for Christmas.  

I rest my case.

Well, until I pen the next blog, and then I'm sure my case, regarding some other noteworthy issue, will be re-opened.

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.