The case for the defence

The theatre where I work has some tenuous historic association with Stanley Baldwin and Rudyard Kipling and I was quite shocked when a visiting high school teacher had heard of neither.

Still huffing and puffing about it when I got home from work, I told my husband the story and asked if he'd heard of them, to which he replied: "Isn't that Mike Baldwin's brother and that chap who makes the cakes?" I give up!

It's not often that my other half provides blog fodder, it's usually the prerogative of my delightful sons, mainly Teddy.  I sometimes think that one day he'll sue me for libel and my entire blog will be read out in court and I'll get sent down for defamation and child cruelty.

So I'm going to write my defence in readiness for the hearing.

Although he's a complete dingbat at times (sorry, your Honour, but he is), my life, quite frankly, would range from dull to incomplete without him. 

Teddy born with transposed arteries and had lifesaving open heart surgery when he was seven days old and again when he was one-year-old to mend a hole in his arterial wall.

At the age of four, his parents parted and I moved him away from his birth country, his father and half of his family.  He said goodbye to friends, nursery school, bedroom and dad and coped with the emigration, change of lifestyle and language with a maturity that belied his young age.

From then onwards, three times a year he flew alone with merely a chaperone service at either airport, from the UK to Portugal and at either end was completely immersed into two vastly different families and cultures.

He adapted to his new life and accepted his step-father, step-brother and step-sister with applaudable ease, acceptance, dignity and grace.

A new brother came along just weeks after he started school and he proceeded to worship, adore and protect this child with every bone in his body.

Society bizarrely labels my boys 'half-brothers' which to me suggests incompleteness. I seem to distinctly remember them both coming out of me, pretty much intact as two entire wholes, and therefore people use the word 'half' at their peril around me and my children.

Despite his early life on the operating table, Teddy now speaks two languages fluently, runs like the wind, plays football and rugby, is the life and soul of the party and has moved from the cotton wool of primary school to chaotic corridors of a high school the size of a small town with confidence and composure.

My Facebook wall is covered with posts from mums understandably proud of their children's achievements but for me it's always nicest when accolades come from others.

Last Sunday, we had just finished a meal at a Bridlington restaurant when the couple at the next table came over as they left and the gentleman said: "We just want to congratulate you on your children, they are an absolute delight and a credit to you."

Luckily, my husband and mum were capable of speech and thanked the couple and agree with them.  I just blubbed, that's what proud mum's do.

Anyway, no edition of withdewrespect would be complete without a Teddy-ism, and I will conclude my case that I would simply give my life for him.....but he is a right dingbat!

Teddy: "There's a lad at my school that we call Gary, or Big G or sometimes even Gary the Snail."
Me: "Really love, that's nice.  What's his real name?"
Teddy: "Blake".

Are we 'sharing' or really sharing?

My personal jury is still proverbially out on whether Facebook is guilty on all counts of being dangerous, divisive, fake and wasting billions of hours in the workplace.  (I am not, by the way, anywhere near my place of work as I write).  Or, whether it is a friendly and fun way to stay in touch with friends and family old and new, share news and photographs and bring together communities.
Hmmmmmmm
............................
...........................(talk among yourselves)
...........................
Sorry, had to break off there, the boss walked in.

So, what was I saying?

Let's look at exactly what we 'share' on Facebook.  We share pictorial evidence of family trips to parks and museums, walks in the fresh country air and paddling on sandy beaches.  Smiley happy siblings ambling alongside rippling streams or skipping over lapping waves.

It gives the impression of family life where life is a constant walk in the park.

Who are we kidding!?

You don't share pictures of mum pulling her hair our, having a nervous breakdown in the kitchen while the kids lay into each other and dad sits ignoring them watching A Place in the Sun (Home or Away).  Or is that just my house?

Speaking of sandy beaches and educational TV, Teddy was watching The Island with Bear Grylls the other day (again, I didn't feel the urge to photograph and share).

However, it was a special moment when one of the men decided they'd had enough and wanted to leave the island so they had to use the 'emergency radio'.

Teddy turned to me and asked: "This is a rubbish programme mum, they're supposed to be living in the wild on a desert island and they even have an emergency radiator."

The other week, I felt honoured and proud when a dear friend asked me to judge an Easter bonnet competition at a children's party she was organising.

Hindsight.....I won't be doing that gig again!!

Ten expectant angelic faces glued their beady eyes on me as I inspected every creation laid out on my friend's kitchen table.
I noted detail and complimented each one on the different way the fluffy blobs and colourful feathers had been artistically glued on.

Then I had to choose the winner.....cue drum roll and held breath (don't try this at home kids).....

As I reached out my hand to point to the winning entry, the floodgates opened. 
Nine wailing five / six-year-olds is quite a din let me tell you, police helicopters were soon hovering above and a bright search light was panning up and down my friend's street.
Funnily enough, the happy smiling winner clutching her prize is the very image that would make it onto Facebook, not the nine red-faced blubbers hurling themselves at their mothers as they threw me daggers and made a mental note to cross me off the next party invite list.

Forget on-camera 'hey, I take my kids to the park every day' sharing, my idea of sharing with friends is actually physically sharing time with them; round at their house, judging Easter bonnets, eating cabbage soup and chatting about conservatory roofs, being beaten by my 12-year-old neighbour at draughts or helping them de-clutter their spare room.  Those are the good times that you just share and enjoy, and don't need to share on social media.

And don't get me started on emojis.  Again, it's an opportunity to share your image of yourself as a fun, hip, cool person, when perhaps in reality, you're not!!  The other day I posted a snippet on Facebook followed by a cocktail glass, a Cuban cigar and a Panama hat.  In reality, I'm a 'don't drink, don't smoke' repressed and depressed wuss and I don't even know where Panama is!!

And another thing....sharing medical ailments....what's that all about?!
Speaking of which, I went to the doctor's this week..... (I'm aware this blog sometimes verges on an entry in a 1980s Crack-a-Joke book).....  Why is it that when you arrive in the doctor's surgery, a mole that just an hour earlier was the size of a small Carribean island owned by Sir Richard Branson is suddenly barely perceptible to the naked eye. 
Sorry, just felt the need to share.

I'll leave you with a classic Ted'ism.

Driving along the M62 on the way home from visiting Grandma in Bridlington.

Teddy: "Mum......"
Me: "Yes Teddy?"
Teddy: "I wish I was a bird, then I wouldn't have to pay to go on holiday."

As time goes by

How is it that when you're changing nappies, it seems you'll be changing nappies for eternity and just a few short years later you can't remember when you last changed a nappy, or the last time you put them in their car seat or tied their shoe laces?

There are times in parenthood when you feel like a salmon swimming upstream, or like you're walking the wrong way through IKEA (don't try this at home folks) and that each stage will last forever, and then suddenly, it's all over.

The boy who insisted on saying 'dada' and refusing to say 'mama' is suddenly returning a packet of Haribos with, 'thanks anyway, I'm not overly fond of them', and telling me he's star of the day for 'resilience'.....turned out it was 'perseverance' (potato, potato).

He's seven FFS!

He even got lippy with the hairdresser the other week as she gave him the little boy speech about sitting nice and still while she used the shaver round the back of his neck.

"Right Daniel, where shall we shave today, shall we shave off your moustache?"

Daniel: "No, let's shave yours!"

And she wasn't the only one being subjected to the cutting edge of Daniel's new-found sharpness.

I was getting out my Spring wardrobe and came across some shorts.

Daniel: "They won't fit you any more mummy?"
Me: "What do you mean?"
Daniel: "Well, now that you're bigger."
Sharp intake of breath.
Dramatic pause (thinking time for Daniel).
Daniel: "I mean taller mummy, they won't fit you now that you're taller."

They grow up way too quickly.

Mind you, the 12-year-old still has his moments.
Teddy: "Muuuuuum."
Me: "Yes, love?"
Teddy: "I wouldn't like to be a phone."
Me: ???? (words fail me)
Teddy: "Well, I would hate to get dropped and scratched and I couldn't have a shower or I'd break."

I'm 43 and wouldn't go back a single day.  It's funny that people often wish they could go back X number of years and do it all again.  I wouldn't.

I'll be 44 this summer, which sits well with my numerical OCD, although I don't recall if 33 had the same effect, maybe OCD wasn't so popular then (cue winking smiley) or at least there weren't as many documentaries about it on Channel 4.

As humans we're never happy really though are we?  At work, I have to ask customers if they are UK Taxpayers and would therefore like to Gift Aid their donation.
Whether they say 'yes' or 'no', they always start with 'unfortunately....'.

Maybe dementia helps.  My dad and a fellow resident in his care home had a fantastic 20 minute debate about whether, when they went to (apparently!?) the same grammar school 70+ years ago, the boys turned left and the girls turned right once through the entrance gate, or visa versa.

My dad makes little or no sense at the best of times and recently spent a frustrated ten minutes trying to drink a can of beer with a dessert spoon and couldn't understand why it wouldn't go through the ring pull hole in the top.  Then, as clear as a bell he pronounced: "You don't come and visit me often enough."

Then the following week, on one of my clearly infrequent visits, another of my dad's aged friends showed me an entry in a battered old address book.
Stabbing at a barely legible name with his finger he recalled: "That man went away to fight in the war, came back and discovered some bloke had been banging his wife so he murdered him and got away with it.  Look, I've got his address."

I'm aware of rambling today so going to end with another random observation about 'the world that we live in' (cue deep sigh).

What a shame a petrol station has to use a piece of string to tie a hand soap bottle to the disabled hand rail in their toilet for fear of it being nicked, and display a huge laminated sign telling people not to flush nappies down the loo.

Funnily enough, although I don't recall changing nappies, I'm fairly certain I never had the urge to do that.

I never thought it would happen with me and the girl from Clapham

We don't come into this world Dyson-like with a two page instruction manual packed neatly (I weep as landfill, well, fills) in a sealed layer of organic polymers of high molecular mass (i.e. a plastic bag).

But, panic not, we're now in the 21st century so the source of all knowledge is just a mouse-click away.

My printer isn't working.
It can't be seen on my wi-fi network, or so my laptop tells me.
I followed countless Canon troubleshooting options in vain and returned the manual to its plastic home.
I shouted at it.
I sat my laptop, printer and BT hub less than a foot apart, personally introduced them and took them out for a drink.
Nothing, nada, zilch.
So, I took the bold and intrepid (is that the same thing?) step of heading to online support.
I followed the link 'my printer is not working' and spent several hours of my life that I can never reclaim, going through all the options.
Finally, I arrive at the very last possible clickable icon, which asks me (without a hint of sarcasm), if I would like to 'print this page'.

My printer is now, sadly, heading to landfill.  That is, when it finally lands back on planet earth from the stratosphere that I kicked it into.

But forget IT hardware illness, online homo sapiens symptom checkers are the best.
In just a few clicks of the mouse, you can become the proud sufferer of IBS, migraine and sciatica whereas a mere few minutes earlier you had a bit of wind, a mild headache and a twinge in your back.

On checking some niggling family symptoms recently, I discovered my husband was in his third trimester, my seven-year-old has two broken legs and the 12-year-old is peri-menopausal.

Ah, the internet, how it has enlightened and educated us, enriched our daily lives and brought a myriad of sights and sounds that were once imagined to be beyond our reach.
Only yesterday, Daniel was transfixed by a cute dog playing with Christmas wrapping paper while Teddy was absorbed in shaky out-of-focus footage of a small child warbling Danny Boy.

Mind you, it's useful for looking up song lyrics, such as Up the Junction (Squeeze).  I used to sing this to Teddy as a lullaby (I'm so rock 'n' roll) when he was a babe in arms.  Now in high school, I wonder if I should explain to his teacher where his random tense-switching in prose and his dodgy rhyme in poetry originated.  How did Chris Difford get away with rhyming 'kitchen' with 'missing' and 'ready' with 'telly'?  (Oh yes I do, he's a genius, all hail Squeeze, watch this space for the fabulous Mamma Mia-esque stage musical I will one day pen based on their eclectic songlist).
 
And lastly, the internet is also (not so) handy for.....heading to Tripadvisor to find out that the hotel I've booked in Rome is.....'a shithole' according to thehappytraveller, 'the finest hotel in the world' according to poodlepompoms and 'comme si, comme ca' according to pierrepetit. (sigh)

Where would we be without the information we squeeze out of those three little Ws?

Well, if you ask me, it really is my assumption that we'd all be, quite frankly, up the junction.

Lion for school dinner? WTF.......

Look, it's Christmas, the retail world has gone berserk, the British consumer has gone bonkers and I'm in no mood for jovial banter.  I'm having to drag my fingers along the keyboard as we speak.

However, I've decided that my annual festive whinge about, well, festivities of a festive nature, must come to an end.  You can just go back and read my Christmas-time blog cerca 2012 and 2013, my feelings haven't changed and I've nothing further to add on the subject. (If you believe that, you'll believe anything!)

So instead, here's what's been on the menu in the daily grind of the lives of my family, and other animals.

Me: "What did you have for dinner at school today Teddy?"

Teddy: "Pork lion and chips."

Note to self, ask teacher is Teddy is displaying any other signs of childhood dyslexia and, if not, report the school catering service to the WWF.

I'm dyslexic but did quite well in my O' Levels (well, when a B was a good grade, those were the days eh!?) and launched myself into the Sixth Form studying Economics, French and English Literature.

After a full year of wasting my teachers' time, my French had not progressed past ordering a cheese and ham toastie and I still didn't have a clue what Economics actually was.

The only good thing about Economics was the size of the text books.

One day while babysitting my friend's younger brothers, a mahoooosive spider decided to wander by the table where I doing my homework (and, well, largely still sat wondering what Economics was all about).

Being arachnophobic as well as dyslexic, I found that one of my Economics text books finally had a purpose in life (or should I say, in death).

Speaking of babysitters, our own babysitter proved to be just as resourceful the other day when he locked himself in our downstairs toilet.

While my two sons wet themselves laughing at him from the other side of the door, emptied the sweet tin and watched half an hour of porn, the babysitter finally used his initiative and employed my best eyebrow tweezers to undo the screws on the door handle mechanism and remove it, in its entirety.

And speaking of FaceBook.... OK, so I wasn't actually speaking about FaceBook but I have completely no suitable segue so I'm just winging it.

I recently saw a post regarding the sale of a hoodie aimed at bra-burning divorcees proclaiming heroine status and bearing the printed on words, "Happily divorced, never make the same mistake!"

I have ordered one, but decided to personalise it.  On the reverse mine reads: 

"Oops, I did it again."

And speaking of tasteless slogans (ah, see, the segue works this time), I've just bought myself a Toyota Aygo despite last month's Go Fun Yourself! blog rant AND went even further by buying my son an item of Hollister clothing DESPITE the poster above the rail bearing the letters WTF?

Dear advertising executives, please think outside the box and ditch the bad language.  There must be people out there with fresh ideas in their heads rather than just blindly following the Simon Cowell-style theory that controversy creates headlines and headlines create sales / audience growth and therefore any publicity is good publicity. Or am I being too optimistic?

I'm worried that my social rant has stepped into the realm of my professional opinion and therefore I will continue this 'debate' on my PR business blog over at www.deadlines-pr.co.uk.

So to round off withdewrespect-style, WTF, let's just use a picture of a fit chap with a surfboard.

The birthday monologues

It's been that time of year when, like car showrooms on weekends, we've been festooned with balloons, remortgaged the house, lived off beans on toast for a month and sold the sofa on ebay.

Yes, it's birthday time!!  The time of year when I watch my two boys rip open their presents with joy and I weep as my ISA bleeds.

Daniel, about to become seven, opted for laser warfare followed by Macdonalds with four friends, his self-made invitation reading, READY TO FIGHT PEOPLE?

Mum and dad traipsed the five boys around in two cars from home to LazerZone to Macdonalds and back home again.

On the last leg of the journey, I asked the giddy chattering boys who would like to come in my car.

Billy put his hand up, the others went silent and looked at the ground.

"Great Billy, jump in the car sweetheart."

"But....why can't I go in Gary's car?" whimpered Billy.

"Well, you put your hand up when I asked who wanted to come in my car," I replied.

"Oh, I didn't hear the question properly."

Once some of the boys had been bribed with confectionary into getting in my car (clearly not the fun option) I enjoyed their banter.

"Woah, look at that Mazda Oliver," said Dylan.

"That's not Asda, that's Sainsbury's," said Oliver.

As we passed the Huddersfield Town stadium, Billy piped up: "I go there to watch the footie."

"That's nice Billy, do you go with your mum and dad?, I asked.

"No, just my dad, my mum doesn't like football, she just likes boring trampolining," scoffed Billy.

Blimey, seems all us mums are very dull aren't we?!

Teddy has also had a birthday and received a card with £12 in it from a dear friend and neighbour.

"I wonder why Monica gave me £12 and not £10," pondered Teddy, "it's a strange amount."

I let him stew over it for a few days, before asking: "Teddy, how old were you last week?"

"Twelve mum, why.......ah, that's why Monica gave me £12 for my birthday!"

Friends, and now close family members (you know who you are mother), now use a stock phrase, 'it's a good job he's gorgeous!'

Friends no longer give me gifts, they offer presents in kind in the form of blog fodder with the opening, 'hey, I've got a good one for your blog Dianne....'

Here's one such classic gift.

At an aerobics class my friend attended, the instructor hollered: "Come on ladies, shake what your mama gave you!!"

My friend dutifully grapevined and muttered under her breath, "what, you mean low self esteem, fat ankles and arachnophobia?"

And speaking of car showrooms....

What bunch of marketing diploma'd twerps sat round a glass table in a glass-walled office in their Top Shop suits dreamt up the summer's Toyota Aygo slogan?

And I wonder how many brightly coloured helium-filled balloons were required to counteract that welcoming (?!) 'down with the kids' play on words....

Is this the future of advertising?

Nice.

(Funnily enough, when I Googled the words, go fun yourself, the next predicted word was, 'complaints'.)

True story (well, I wouldn't make that up would I?!)

My journey to work yesterday, dull though this narrative may at first appear as potential blog-fodder, was actually, well, quite a journey.

Walking up the steps to my sleepy unmanned village station I passed a gentleman I see every morning.  I won't say we exactly exchange pleasantries, but as fellow commuters we do exchange the British 'nod'.


Half way up the steps (OK, this is a long story!), the platform speaker stirred into action with the mechanical disjointed announcement that the, next, train, at, platform, three (oddly numbered as there are actually only two platforms) is, the, 9.02, to Huddersfield; my train.

Three steps higher (bear with me....), and I could see the train pulling into the station.  I shouted back down the steps, 'it's here' to prompt the aforementioned gentleman to get a wriggle on.

I leaped on to the train, waved my customary wave to my hubby as I passed our house (it's getting very Enid Blyton today isn't it?) and settled down to send a few texts and e.mails.

Ten minutes later I looked up and had that awful heart-sinking realisation that the landscape out of the train window was not the landscape of my usual route to Huddersfield.

Indeed, two minutes later the conductor confirmed my error by announcing our imminent arrival in....Brighouse, not Huddersfield.

The blood drained out of my face and as we pulled into Brighouse I was crossing every finger and toe that the gentleman had not heeded my erroneous holler and followed me on to the train like a lamb to the slaughter (well, OK, Brighouse).

As I waited for the train doors to open on a drizzly Brighouse morning, a familiar nodding head popped up from a seat further down the carriage, looked around in shock and confusion. I shrugged my shoulders and hung my nodding head in shame.

I could not have been more embarrassed and apologetic and in the space of a few minutes we moved from sharing a train to sharing life stories as we jogged around the streets of Brighouse trying to find a taxi, calling bosses and cancelling meetings on our mobiles and eventually sharing the final leg of our eventful journey by road.

Having bared my story of idiocy with the world (world, four blog readers, potato, potato), I will now segue seamlessly to other journey stories from the mouths of, yes, you guessed it, my very own babes / angels.


Daniel, 15 minutes from the end of a 14-hour-journey to Cornwall involving four feature-length Disney films, two MacDonalds, one Little Chef, four wee stops, a dozen games of Eye Spy, six car colour counting competitions and seven rounds of 'I went to the supermarket and I bought...': "Mum, I'm bored, are we there yet?"

Bless.

Teddy, on the journey of an ebay sale from my 'things to ebay' box, half way around the world to the ebay purchaser in Australia: "Mum, will they send a whole plane just with your jacket in it?"

God help us!