Escargot

Yesterday my son told me “I want to try French snails.” Interesting I thought , so I responded “ ahhh yes, they are a French delicacy. The French call them call them escargot. Why do you want to try them? ”
After a few seconds he said “Horrid Henry had them and he said they were like chewing gum.’

I love his innocent understanding ;what a shock he would have ,if he were to try one soon.

Actually it has made me think about , how much information my kids get from TV. I do remember a conversation about being gay. I heard Teia mention the word. He said it meant happy or when a man loves a man. I quizzed him "who told you that?" Without a second thought he said "Homer. "

Zen mummy turns psycho

I have a black eye and it is developing quickly. It changes colour and size every few hours, fascinating.
The fatal blow was delivered via the inverse headbutt. If you have spent anytime around children , you’ll know what I mean. For those who don’t know, it goes like this: Adult stands over child or holds a toddler , who is in tantrum mode. Then child child jumps up or jolts back , flipping head southwards to strike a killer blow. They know what they are doing, tis no accident. They want to inflict pain and maybe see some blood.

My black eye is the result of my eldest son leaping to his feet , crack KO!
The context ....
I have had a few epiphanies recently regarding parenting. Basically I am trying , very hard to : listen more, say maybe instead of NO, negotiate, compromise, be more understanding and use an elaborate language code .Nope I didn’t do this before, well not much . It was my way or the high way, rush –rush, shhh shhhh, not now later, stop that or else. I have always felt like I oil the cogs of this family. Would there be a bedtime time routine and swimming club id it weren’t for me? Well there’d be no one to take them but hey I couldn’t afford to pay, which is where daddy comes in. Anyway the new chilled tolerant and zen like mummy that I have become, was negotiating with Teia . I wanted him to start homework. First I let him watch the end of Scooby Doo, then I agreed to have a pre homework game of chess. Teia procrastinated , then finally he walked butler fashion to the HW table to set up the board. En route he dropped all the pieces and duly blamed me. He shouted ‘ why don’t you pick them up, I do everything.’ Staying calm, I took a deep breath and replied ‘I pick up after you all the time, if you drop something, you pick it up, that’s how it goes.’
Mantra ....Zen.... Zen..... zen .... Meditation... intuition... Calm.....fluffy white clouds... bunnies....don't hurt him, for he knows not what he is saying.
I stood over him while he picked them up . Then suddenly he leapt to his feet. At that point I was transported to a place called anger and pain. Automatically I began to attack an inanimate object. The door to the sitting room was the closest thing. I grabbed it then slammed it and whacked it against the sofa. I saw paint fly off as I karate chopped it. The weird thing is that I seemed to stop after 4 digs, then started again till I reached 6. The pause was comedic, it was like someone was walking me away saying ‘ don’t do it, the door ain’t worth it.’ instead of listing to my invisible friend I went back to finish the job ... Yeh baby I am a bad ass mo fo. No door is gonna get the better of me.

I returned to Zen mummy after a 5 min psychotic episode. Thank the lord, I was able to fight the desire to bang on for a further 3 hours. Looking back , I was prepared for bad behaviour, moaning and a contrary attitude. However ABH had been omitted from the list. Now it most definitely at the top.