Today You Turned Ten.

Every year, I swear I won't do it.

Every year, I do it again.

Because it's all you want in the world.

Your mates, your party, at home.

I sigh with resignation but, secretly, it makes me proud.

You're such a gentle soul and ask for so little, it would be churlish to refuse you.

At least, this year, when it was time to sit down with a glass of wine with the last ones having just left, there wasn't a shower door hanging off to discover.  Oh no.  This year, you all stayed in the garden.  We made sure of it.

This year, you all more or less looked after yourselves.  Now that most of you are ten years old or so.

Although it comes as a relief, there's also a sense of loss.  There was no hide and seek - the cause of the hinge-breaking calamity to contend with when you were nine.  There was no Gangnam Style dancing like when you were eight, but, thankfully, there was still lots of loud music.  You're still you.

It's funny how things develop - how you're drawn to the things you are and the other boys you connect with.  Watching you today with some of them who you've known since you were three, there was a sense of satisfaction and love that only having a family can bring.  The continuation is a comfort and joy.  Observing you all grow into men, your innocence still pronounced, is part of growing up for me.  I have never watched children grow up before, but I am witnessing you and your friends do just that.  And it's happening so quickly.

You wanted what has become your usual - to go swimming and to eat pizza.  The same people.  The same place.  The same thing.  Only with the latest Now CD, a remote control helicopter and the Harry Potter books on audio, kindly gifted by your Godmother, together with the Alex Ryder ones and anything else suitable for your reading age of 14.  You're amazing.

It's so simple what a child can ask for - they want each other now.  Your brother tagged along, as always, never leaving your side and driving you mad with frustration.  You worried about him when he was out of your sight, complained he was annoying you when he wasn't!  Brotherly love.  Sibling rivalry.  Whatevs.  We're right in it.  We're in the nitty gritty of childhood.  When things are complicated, hormonal and a on a whole new plane from the 'little' days.

You want your space or 'alone time' as it's called now.  You are shunning all our favourite films and asking for those rated for older children.  Toy Story has been traded for Transformers.  You choose Tron Legacy over the Lego movie and Raiders of the Lost Ark instead of Rio.  I am gutted, but we cuddle up nevertheless.  It's making your little brother mature more quickly.  I grab every possible moment I can before you're both gone.

Motherhood is more enjoyable than ever.  It's all too exhausting in the early days.  By the time we find our feet, you're moving on already!  We have to hold on to our moments and savour them, forming a firm memory of them and hope we are making meaningful ones for you.

Now you are ten, you will be forming your own.  What will you see when you look back?  Will you feel the sunshine that we were blessed with today?  Will you remember the discussion over which toppings to order?  How you read the ingredients of the ice cream you chose for dessert to see if it was safe for your friend with a soy allergy and when you discovered it wasn't how you bought strawberries and cream for him too?

You caught me today - watching you, several times.  I didn't try to be discreet.  I want you to know I was there, doing exactly that, not missing this, the day you turned ten.

Happy birthday my darling boy,

Lots and lots of love,

Mummy,
XXXXX.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who voted this blog into the final five of the Best Writer category of the Brilliance in Blogging Awards.  I am enormously touched, grateful and bewildered, but overjoyed.  When I gave up my job in the city because I kept losing my voice, who'd have thought it would turn up here?!  Thank you, again. XXX

WEDGIE Day?

Wedgie day?

OK, so we got bored some of the time on these long Summer Holidays - or should I say 'Summer Lollydays?' - but aren't they some of the best bits?  Don't they produce genius moments, not having to be anywhere at a set time or with anyone in particular, so the mind is free to roam? 

This is what happens when said such minds belong to three and seven year old mischevous brothers who choose to re-name the days of our week:


We start with FUNday,
followed by GUNday,
Tuesday becomes CHOOSY day - definitely NOT FUNday -
then WEDGIE day. 

'WEDGIE day?' I hear you ask.

As did I.

Prepare to be initiated.

For those of you who have been spared sons or sons who scrape the barrell re-naming days of the week just for a laugh - and there were many, many of those on their part with this very favourite term of theirs - a WEDGIE is when you wedge someones underwear up their bottom by pulling it upwards, preferably, it would seem, quite forcibly and by surprise!  

Obviously it's something that can happen by accident on its own anyhow and we've all suffered them at some point in our lives and had to discreetly sort out THE SITUATION, but this isn't what was making them fall about the floor helplessly with their heroic idea.  Oh no.  It was mum's naivete and the having to explain it in mortifying yet positively gleeful detail.

It is traditionally a practical joke, I learned, when googling the definitve meaning and, worse, there are several versions making the 'Simple' one look attractive!

There's the Swimsuit one, the wet / Water Bomb ones (spray first with a hose / plant a
water bomb down the pants before 'wedging'),  a frontal one (double Ouch!), a Lift Wedgie - where you lift the person by their underpants too and the High Flyer one where you can go so far as hanging someone by them - on a hook, or a doorknob, or even a flagpole is suggested. 

Don't we live in interesting times?

I wasn't even going to mention the Mexican Wedgie that involves pouring hot sauce down pants first, let alone the fried egg one, because we seem to be straying into rather different territory there, but it seems rude not to share my new found knowledge with other mums i.e. Mums with sons or Mums with children who watch TV, which it transpires is where the original notion was gleaned from.  And shouldn't we all be aware of the PEDGIE  - which involves the penis and a wedgie?

You see we need the upper hand, we uninitiated mums. Forewarned is forearmed.

I won't be rewarding my children with all the extra information here.  I shall appreciate their innocence from hereonin and stick to their word games.

I will laugh with them now about WEDGIE day, despite wishing I'd never heard the word and learned its new found associations.  I will encourage them to play with their soft toys on FURRYday and FRIED EGGday, will have to be re-named plain FRYday from this moment onwards for obvious reasons.  Lastly, we will continue our debate on the NATTERday vs. FATTERday options and try to get out more.  


Boys.  Don't you just love 'em?






What did your children invent in these lovely long 'Summer Lollydays?'