Playing Pictionary.

An oldie but goodie!

Sometimes you gotta have a li'l fun and although the height of the watched DVD stack on the sideboard was shameful by the time that the end of half term came around, I did manage to get the persuade the boys to get the Pictionary board out a few times.

Is it like getting blood out of a stone at your end as well?

We always say how much more fun playing games rather than watching TV is, yet they'd rather be staring at / playing on one screen or another and it's so easy to be complacent and let them, especially when the weather has been so awful for so long, but I sometimes get a sense of loss or failure with too much leniency.

So we try a game or two which is always more agreeable.  Unless the Fearsome Four Year Old is too tired.  Or they're hungry.  Or cooking is pressing... you get my drift.

It's only relatively recently we've been able to sit down as a family and play properly because the youngest wasn't ready.  He still prefers the giant Snakes and Ladders, spread out in the centre of kitchen floor, with its almighty dice, preferably alone because he always wins - and remarkably quickly too!

He's awfully competitive - a terrible loser and a truly ungracious winner, but this is the point of playing - to learn the necessary social skills that make it a pleasure for us all.

Our favourite at the moment is Pictionary although we have to bend the rules until they're virtually unrecognizable because there's only the three of us so we can't make two teams and it has to be something that we're sure he will be able to understand or identify.

The Awesome Eight Year old and I love it.  It's extraordinarily simple - with one minute to draw a picture that the others will recognize, having been given the subject by the cards given with the game.  Success means travelling around the board more quickly, reaching the end goal and winning. But we don't have much of that.

We do have lots of giggles though whilst the pencil is in action and there is a timer provided which really adds to the pressure and fun factor!

Here are some examples.  The more indignant the drawer becomes, the more hilarious it is.

Above - my drawing - and their (mortally offending) guesses:  A Pirate. Buzz Lightyear.  Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
Correct answer = An earring!

Below - eldest's drawing - and our (really riling him up) conjectures:  Magic Carpet. A skunk. Crying.  A bed.
Correct answer = A pillow!

The youngest's drawing and our attempts to identify it (provoking seriously hearty but amusing huffs) as it slowly progressed:  A teapot. A headless guy. A house.  A poo.  

And the answer = A giant!    

This naturally led to their (still) current favourite conversational topic - flatulence - which has moved on since my day, but it's important you're kept up to date too:  'Whoever smelt it dealt it.' 'Whoever made the rhyme committed the crime.' 'Whoever denied it supplied it.'  Followed by feigned horror on my part whilst they fall helplessly apart laughing.  Again.  *sigh*

But the good laughs galore throughout make this old game worth it.  There are some newer versions out but this has stood us in good stead.  It was first introduced to me some years before the kids came along when staying on a friend's family farm in Wales.  They've moved to New Zealand now and I miss them - the entertainment (along with the home made beer) still rates as one of the the highlights of my life.  

It doesn't hurt to force a li'l fun on the children sometimes!  

What do you play?

Who Rocks Your Socks?

This is my Nana, Reeny, still going strong at 97.  She rocks my socks, she does!

She keeps herself mentally active with Sudoku and Word Searches, crosswords and regular reading and still doesn't miss much.

Physically, she is frail, naturally, but still lives alone in the same house she's been in for more years than not, refusing to bow to family pressure to move to my Mum's.  She won't even consider going to a Day Care Centre for some social interaction because she doesn't want to be with a load of old people!

She fancies Il Divo something rotten and has been a bit lonely since her boyfriend of 23 years died in his late nineties.  He asked her to marry him, but she couldn't stomach the football on the telly every Sunday so gave that a miss as well.  I guess you know your own mind by then.

The real love of her life was my Grandad but she was widowed at 54 once he'd had a car accident and become ill.  She still talks very fondly of him and of some of her other regrets too.  It makes me question whether I still need to carry mine, if they're still going to be hanging around my neck at that age!

On the whole she is fab fun, the children adore her and I hope will remember her in years to come.

I once had a vision when she was 93, that she would still be with us when she was 97 and it was her Birthday just before Christmas.  I am praying for another one but it hasn't come yet.

She's survived a couple of heart attacks plus several Angina ones and soldiers on with crippling Arthritis, revolving her life around the Mobile Library and her fortnightly delivery of freezer to microwave meals, her hairdresser, gardener and cleaner, which makes her sound posh, but on the contrary, she lives on a Council Estate where all her neighbours look out for her.  It's amazing what you can get help with nowadays.

She loves a laugh and maintains her curiosity about everything, remembers King George V and Queen Mary, his wife 'very tall - always wore big hats,' and all that business with Edward VII and that 'avaricious' Mrs Simpson, his abdication and his brother Bertie coming to power, eventually passing down to our present 'very good Queen' Elizabeth II.

She can also recall incredible details about her holidays watching a DVD the family had converted from old cine film from when she was younger, also thanks to which we can see my sister and me running around as tots - a source of sheer delight (and confusion!) to my own two children and she gives us an impressive running commentary about who, what, where and when throughout it.

My biggest regret is not having spent as much time with her as possible over the years.  She lives in Nottingham, whereas we've always been down south.  But David Walliams is right about old people not necessarily being boring in his Gangsta Granny book / film, although if I were to refer to her as old she'd have my guts for garters.  She's always got some great words of wisdom for us all.

I'm proud to know her, to love her and have a Great Nana for the boys who is exactly that - a truly amazing inspiration.

Who rocks your socks?

Edit - My Nana never did make it to 98.  She passed away in June this year whilst having a scan on her heart in hospital.  I'm so glad she didn't fall and suffer, but we all miss her terribly and will be grateful for ever for having had her in our lives.

Happy Birthday My Darling Son!

Dear R,

A mother couldn't ask for more...

Today, you turned eight.  I wish you could feel how much I love you.  You've made me so proud, been so kind and so good, in the face of all your father has put us through.

I know I've been harder on you than I'll ever be on your brother, because, I'm afraid, my darling son, that is often the fate of the eldest and, if it were possible, I would take it all back, but it isn't and that breaks my heart.  All I hope is that, somehow, you'll forgive me as I endeavour to make it up to you.

In the blink of an eye, you will be sixteen.  I thought about this - how long it would seem if we were to double how long you've been here - and it seems so quick, it's almost a crime and, oh, how yearning to turn that clock back isn't helpful.

We can choose to learn from regrets,  however, and, after eight years, the learning continues.  You certainly keep me on my toes, for you are forever changing!

We still call you 'Puppy' sometimes - a name you chose when you were three, that sticks because you want it to.  I am amazed you still want your Winnie the Pooh bedroom, whilst devouring your Harry Potter books and singing and dancing along ('Gangnam Style') to your 'Now That's What I Call Music' cds, but am thrilled too, because the longer you are little, the more you are mine, not yet shunning your mum because that's the cool thing to do be doing.

You're secretly still very small and I remember that crushing moment you no longer needed me to push you on our swing.  Suddenly, that time was over and I never would have almost always insisted on hanging out the washing first, if I'd realised that it would come, but it did and it has now passed.

You don't think about these things when you're a parent for the first time and getting through the day is about all you can manage.  Again, your brother benefits and I feel bad about that too.

But it's your Birthday, time to feel good, to celebrate you and all you are - handsome, articulate, healthy, a fast runner, a gifted cricketer and, as from yesterday too - your chosen activity for your special day, you acquired your double blue Karate belt, which leaves you a mere three from a black one!  A mother couldn't ask for more from her son.

You're sensitive, considerate and intelligent. You're insightful and generous and have inherited your mums Healing Hands!  You will go far, my darling. You're lovely, not really 'the quiet one' as we first thought, but truly quite chatty, plus a great joke teller and every minute with you has been an honour and a pleasure.

I'm sorry for every single second that I've let that escape me during your eight years, because of other pressing matters, when, honestly, nothing is actually more important than you.

I hope you can feel how much I love you.

Happy Birthday, my darling son.

Mummy, xxxxxxxx.

I love you with all my .... What?

My sons are avid football addicts, cricket lovers, 'tennis' fans, golf freaks and enforced rugby players. Their Dad played for Wales (yes, he's a nut job!) and teaches them to tackle and scrum and stuff.  Let's say sport is in their genes and it shows.

Yesteday, I was paid the highest compliment possible by my three year old:


Me:  'I love you with all my heart.'

Him:  'I love you with all my teeth.'

Me:  'I love you with all my fingers.'

Him:  'I love you with all my arms.'   

Me:  'I love you with all my eyelashes.'

Him:  'I love you with all my belly.'

Me:  'I love you with all my toenails.'

Him: 'I love you with all my balls!'

Me:  'Ew. Shall we watch Tom and Jerry?'



How much do your children love you?

The Landlady is a Tramp!

He was a friend first, my lodger.   Then he was more than a friend and now he is no longer 'The Lodger.'

What can I say?  I love him.

'No surprise!' I hear you cry, having read my most ever read post -Never Bonk Your Lodger!

Does this mean I am no longer a single mum?  No, of course not.

Does it mean I am less lonely at times, less stressed, less heartbroken at the way things have transpired?  Of course.

Will it last?  Let's hope so.

The children adore him and have accepted his presence naturally, having known him before he moved in.  He thinks I am an exceptionally beautiful woman, extraordinary (in a good way) and wants to be with me and spoil me. What's not to love about him then?

So the trials and tribulations of single motherhood have changed.  He is not their Dad, never will be and doesn't try to be.

I have to make a bit more effort where dinner is involved.  Rice and peas with pesto, a firm favourite in our household, has not been served to him yet.  Nor have fish fingers.  More make up - at my age - is required at the end of the day, so as not to look quite so worn out.  And we try to be tidier, but fail.

It doesn't seem to matter though, because he is even older than me and has already raised more children than most sane people would try to, so is probably used to the chaos.  He accepts us exactly as we are - the blind leading the blind!

Plumbing the depths of his experience was my aim, because we all try to be better parents and he offered me these words of advice as his total sum of it all:  'Try not to worry so much.'  Wise words indeed and I have taken them into my heart, just as I have him.

Forgive me for not being quite so single, whilst still seriously maintaining my genuine single mother status.

You never know...