The Marriage Proposal Formula

Francesca Beauman

I was leafing through a book called "The Woman's Book: everything but the kitchen sink" by Francesca Beauman. It's been in my library for ages, and I occasionally flick through it.

It's one of these books that is, essentially, filled with completely random facts.

The random fact I came across was "The Marriage Formula".

Apparently, and I quote; "a simple mathematical formula exists to help one ascertain whether or not to accept a proposal of marriage."

Time flies and the children grow so!

Buffer

How did they grow up so fast?!

Are you feeling like this at the moment?  Like it's only a few precious moments ago that you had all these plans and ideas about how their childhood would be, and suddenly they are asking for their own phone and applying to secondary school and couldn't give a toss about the cookie baking idea you had.

What happened?

Yesterday my daughter was listening to my iPod on random shuffle and came across a song she called "Sister Add It".  It turns out it was Five Star's classic "System Addict".  When I mentioned it to my husband and had the nerve to say I'm showing her some great retro tunes he replied, "Five Star isn't retro; it's ancient!"

Oh good grief!

It's less that the children have grown up.  It's more that I seem to have missed the passing of the years and am suddenly a decade older.

I turned 41 this year.  I feel 21 still.  I'm definitely aiming to increase my flexibility this year in dance class and get down into those 'splits'.  So I'll be lying to my body from now on.  I'll be insisting that it responds exactly as it did at 21, whether it likes it or not.

I'm sure my knees will be delighted with the news!

What lies do you tell yourself in an effort to feel younger?

Do you have to get dressed to go out with a pushchair?

It's 2am. Baby has been crying, on and off, all night. You know that a walk in the buggy has a good chance of sending baby off to sleep. Baby is screaming now; completely over tired. You've changed the nappy. Your baby refuses any more milk. He's been winded for hours. The walk in the buggy is your last option.

But you are in your pjamas and slippers. The perplexing quesion of the day is: Do you get dressed?

Would you bother to swap slippers for trainers? Would you whip off the PJs and throw on some jeans and a T-Shirt? Would you throw on just a dressing gown, or a coat?

And, in a world that has somehow managed to convince the fashion buying public that a onesie is a fashion statement and not (what it actually is) a large baby-grow; does it frankly matter which of the above you pick since we are used to seeing people in outfits that look like sleepwear anyway?

How to survive the school holidays

To many parents, the prospect of 7 weeks of school holidays causes mixed and conflicting emotions. For working parents, on one hand there is an opportunity to spend more time with the children than the two day weekends usually allow, assuming, that is, you can book some leave. On the other hand, most working parents get less than 30 days annual leave a year, so the school holidays present a logistical childcare challenge.
You are torn between wanting to be delighted that the children are not at school, but actually feeling fairly gutted that the children are not at school.
This is also because the working parents amongst us don't get nearly as much childcare practise. We are just not used to entertaining the children, or indeed pointing them in the right direction of the garden/playroom/bedroom (delete as appropriate) so that they can entertain themselves. We spend our time getting very good at filling school bags with the right letters, prepping lunchboxes, prepping and distributing breakfasts and evening meals, bathing, stories and bed time. That bulk of time in the middle of the day that needs filling with other stuff? Well that's something of an enigma to us.

The New Hobby Dilemma

The New Hobby Dilemma: how many classes should you take before knowing it's not for you?

Children come with a host of undiscovered talents. We don't know what they will be good at. We don't now whether they will take to swimming like a duck to water, or if they will splash and cry and splash some more and scream the place down and try every trick in the book to convince us they don't need to learn to swim.

Whilst swimming is a non-negotiable for us (being a life saver it is compulsory attendance for our girls), other hobbies are all up for debate.

Ballet dancing, horse-riding, singing, piano-playing, rugby, karate, street dance, gymnastics, cheerleading....... They are some of the many childhood activities on offer for our children and our children may be brilliant at them.

They may also be rubbish.

So how many classes do you insist they go to before allowing them to say, "I don't want to do it anymore"? Should we insist they make the effort, as not everything will necessarily click straight away. Or do we assume that if it's their talent then they, and us, will magically know straight away?

Is there such a thing as "being a natural"?

And if they are brilliant at it, but hate it, what then?

What do you think?

 

You can also read the debate about the gender-specific nature of some childhood activities at "Why is it OK for little girls to love dinosaurs, but not OK for little boys to love Barbie?"