Milestones

We all know them, those obnoxious know-it-all moms who can't help showing off about their child's incredible developmental milestones. You know the ones I mean, they always wear pastel colored jogging suits and have perfectly coiffed over-blonde hair and full face make up.

"Did I tell you what Brandon can do now?" Bragging Mom asked me yesterday, as she accosted me at the school gates. "I can't tell you how easy my mornings have become since Brandon (5) learnt to get himself out of bed and then make his own cereal and quietly switch on the TV. It frees me up to put on my orange pancake makeup, as well as allowing me to indulge in a quickie with my Ken Doll husband who, as he enters me, cries, 'The Eagle has landed!'" Actually, she didn't say that last bit, but from her inane smile, I knew that's what she was thinking.

Bitch!

You never have a comeback at the time, do you? Well, yesterday I did.

"That's great," I said, "but can Brandon use the DVD remote?"

"The what?" she said, looking flustered.

"Yeah," I said coolly, "Scarlett (5) knows all the functions now. Fast forward, pause, eject, play. She just gets up in the morning, slips in a DVD and her and Sausage watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, while I drag my sorry arse out of bed."

She shuffled off, and I savored the victory of trouncing her for once.

Oh yes, Scarlett has finally, finally, mastered the DVD remote, and now I can sometimes read more than two pages of a novel, file my nails, or even read an article on Multiple Orgasms 101 without Scarlett screaming, "Mommy! MOMMMMMMEEEEE! How do I get this DVD to play?"

It's heaven, it's bliss. I have so much to be thankful for.

Too much.

My encounter with Bragging Mom got me thinking about all my personal goals and how they have all been ticked off.

A few months ago I was:

1. Fat.
2. Obsessed with chocolate. If I dropped an M&M on the pavement I would pick it up and eat it. I had a serious problem.
3. Waiting for Sausage (3) to start going to pre-school every day.
4. Waiting for Sausage to grow to the required height to be able to go into the IKEA daycare room so that I could shop in peace.

Now, after being forced by my mom to walk eight hours a day a very pleasant and energizing holiday in Vienna, I find myself:

1. A reformed couch potato with a smoking body and an urge to work out at the gym.
2. No longer obsessed with chocolate. I went into a shop just now, thinking I might buy myself a bar. But NONE OF THE BARS APPEALED TO ME. I ended up buying a package of prunes. Prunes! I no longer have a craving for chocolate. Someone must have rewired my brain or something. It's so wierd.
3. With nothing to occupy my mind while Sausage is at school in the mornings (Scarlett is at school until 3.30, when she is delivered to my door on the school bus).
4. Able to shop at IKEA in peace because Sausage has reached the required height.

It's all good, you're probably thinking.

But it's not!

I find that now, with all my goals achieved and with both kids at school, I'm bored. Yes, of course, now that I have my incredible new body, I've thought of taking a job as a pole dancer. But does anyone know of a club that operates during the pre-school hours of nine to twelve?

It's a very desperate situation.

I have nothing to worry about! Nothing. Not even a chocolate craving to keep me busy looking down the back of the sofa for lost dimes so that I can rush out to Seven Eleven and have a chocolate binge.

I've got to the point where I'm desperate for some form of anxiety high. In fact, I'm going to have to ask you to offload your problems on me, so that I have something to worry about. Which is quite sad, when you really think about it.

So, anyway, has anyone got any juicy problems they want to share?

The Flatmate from Heaven

When I lived in a flat in Central London, the only reason I had good luck with flatmates was because it was my flat and I could choose who moved in. Thus, while my peers were living in shacks where people left pubic hairs on the soap, ate all your food and had sex and played music at an ungodly hour, I could pick and choose.

I veered between taking in very dull and studious PhD students, who were good because they were quiet, but bad because they were dull and studious, and eccentric people who were amusing, but sometimes had to be asked to leave. One case in point, a girl called Anne who was taking a career break in order to find herself, and holed up in her room for two months, until the floor was knee deep in crisp packets and pizza boxes. I think she was having some kind of breakdown. In any case, the few conversations I had with her were decidedly odd. She was obsessed with having a threesome with two men, and would often prowl nightclubs and start chatting to two male friends, and then at the end of the night, when she suggested going back to hers for a threesome, they naturally made their excuses and left (without Anne). I didn't want to be mean, but honestly, the girl was wasting her youth chasing her fantasy. Hello: two male friends at a regular club are probably straight and probably don't want to see eachother's naked butts. In the end I got so fed up that I pointed out the bleeding obvious: "You need to find some bisexual friends who are old hands at this sort of thing."

"How do I find such friends?" Anne asked, practically foaming at the mouth with excitement.

"Let's just say they usually find you," I said. I didn't want to say, "Look, those sort of encounters only happen when you're not actively looking for them and are reeking with desperation." Instead I just said, "It'll happen," and patted her on the shoulder.

I don't know if she ever fulfilled her fantasy or found herself. But when I could no longer get into her room because the door was blocked with crisp wrappers, it was time to bid her adieu.

The best flatmate I ever had fell somewhere in between the two polarities of swot and loony. The funny thing is that the first time I met her I was totally drunk.

It was ten on a Saturday morning and I'd just got back from some club at maybe eight am, and had just got to sleep, when someone started ringing the doorbell. I was about to open the door and tell them to go away. In fact, I did open the door and looked down to see a tiny girl with lots of curly brown hair, sporting a huge cheerful grin and a French accent straight out of a porn movie.

"I am 'ere to see about the room?" she said, still grinning, unperturbed, at me, who was wearing a shabby dressing gown and looking like shit.

A tiny light in my brain went off. Yes, something about interviewing flatmates today?

"Yeah, right," I croaked, and led her into the kitchen. "Would you like a cup of tea?" I said, losing my balance and walking into a wall.

"You're French, aren't you?" I repeated, every few minutes, until I'd forgotten I'd already said it and asked again.

Brigitte did not seem put out that I was behaving like a drunk person who had no recollection of speaking on the phone with her a week ago. She babbled on about how she was twenty-six, and just left her upper class twit of a husband, and was very interested in renting the room.

When she had gone, I went back to bed and forgot all about her. A few other people rang at the door, but I just put a pillow over my head and went back to sleep.

On Monday she called me. She loved the room. When could she move in? I said, any time you like.

Don't think Brigitte was clueless. I later found out from a friend of hers that after she'd seen the room she'd told the friend, "The landlady (me!) was very nice, but I think she was drunk."

I don't know about you, but if I saw my landlady drunk in the morning the first time I met her, I would seriously consider not moving in. But thus is my charisma that she wanted it (the room). More likely it was the fact that the room was cheapish and that cheapish rooms in Central London are like gold dust. Whatever it was, she moved all the stuff from her marriage into her room. And she had a lot of stuff. As you can imagine, having a sewing machine, a couple of hundred shoes and lots of hats in there hardly left room to swing a cat.

If I'd been a man, I would have constantly been walking into walls, not due to drunkenness, but due to excitement. Brigitte was always wandering around the flat in nothing but very expensive matching frilly thong underwear. When she was wearing something, it was usually micro shorts. She'd bend over in the shorts to get something out of the bottom of the fridge, leaving nothing to the imagination. I don't know why she did it. Maybe the upper class husband had liked her bending over like that to get stuff out of the fridge. Whatever the reason, I didn't ask.

There was a brief period of a few months before Brigitte started dating an upper class twit of a boyfriend, when we were young girls out on the town, looking for adventure.

For some reason that now escapes me, that first Christmas Eve, we decided to go to midnight mass. On the way to the church we stopped in a Soho pub for a drink, and she started flirting with these two guys who were standing at the bar. She was nothing if not a speedy operator. When I came back from the toilet, these two guys were sitting at the table beside ours and chatting away to Brigitte. She whispered to me that one of them (obviously the one she fancied) had come up to her and given her a corny line along the lines of, "Wherever you two are going tonight, we want to come too." Corny, but effective. The one she liked, let's call him Carl, dark haired and about six foot four (she came up to his navel), wasn't even put off, she said, when she'd told him we were headed for church.

The other one, let's call him Steve, was quite hot, so I thought, why not? We got talking, and all got on so famously that, well, let's just say that no one made it to church that night.

Another memory that will never leave me, was the time I watched Brigitte fake an orgasm.

I used to work as a sub-editor on a magazine, and one evening my colleague Mark and I got back to my flat late, to find Brigitte sitting in the living room, wearing only a nightdress. She had been drinking some wine and was a bit tiddly. Anyway, somehow we got onto the conversation of how good she was at faking orgasms. I said, "Okay, let's hear you then." And she said, "Oh no, I would have to be lying next to a man to do zis properly."

So naturally, Mark offered himself up for the experiment. He sat down beside her on the couch, and we switched off the lights. She grabbed his lapels and started moaning away. I thought I was going to wet myself with the effort of trying to suppress my laughter.

Unfortunately, the experiment was not a success. Brigitte declared that she felt too self-conscious and couldn't follow through. Mark laughed and pretended to be annoyed. "I can't believe you don't even fancy me enough to be able to fake an orgasm with me," he said. "That's fucking charming, that is!"

Soon after the fake orgasm episode, Brigitte started going out with an upper class twit and (I'm guessing here) started faking her orgasms. One of the big problems in that relationship was that she loved oral sex and he wouldn't (or couldn't?) do it. This went on for six years (Yes, I know, six years without oral sex when you are mad about oral sex. I didn't say Brigitte was sane). When she did finally get him to go down on her, he found he didn't much care for it, and apparently jumped out of bed shouting, "I have an idea!" He then ran into the kitchen and came back with some cling film (Saran Wrap) and attempted to complete the um, transaction, using the cling film as a barrier. Let's just say the experience wasn't much of a success, and soon Brigitte was asking me to procure someone solely for this purpose (oral sex sans cling film). Since I don't run a gigolo emporium, I turned to Mark for help, who supplied her with a fitness instructor he knew, who was happy to help out. And despite the fact that this fitness instructor was fantastic sexually, Brigitte told me that being orally pleasured by him hadn't fulfilled her as she'd thought it would, because there was no emotional connection.

After that, she went back to the upper class twit. The last I heard was that they'd split up. I haven't heard from her for a while, but I'm sure she will be dating another upper class twit by now. We all have our fetishes, and I'm afraid Brigitte's was the floppy fringed English public school boy.

I just hope she's not still faking it.

Wife for Sale

No, not me.

Or wait, if you're interested, just out of curiosity, how much are you offering? A bit about me: I have penis envy, I love to have sex for hours, I am addicted to Reality TV, I am a fantastic cook, and believe men are the superior sex. (Disclaimer: some, or all of these statements may be untrue. Marriage to Mommyhasaheadache may also lead to heartburn, flatulence, migraines, impotence or fatal heart attack).

The funny, or not so funny thing, is that had I been alive in the 1830s, my husband could have sold me if he got fed up of the fact that I don't always cook meals from scratch/I only clean windows when you can no longer see through them/my breasts aren't as pert as they were when he married me. I was just reading Sarah Wise's book about the poor of Georgian London, The Italian Boy, when I came across this passage:

A market was held in Smithfield from time to time: making a "Smithfield bargain" referred to the sale by the husband of his wife and was believed in many working-class communities to be a perfectly valid form of divorce (it has its roots in Anglo-Saxon common law). The sale was usually prearranged, and the buyer was often a friend or a neighbor who, motivated by pity, wanted to bring an unhappy union to an end; the public nature of the sale was to validate for the community the ending of the marriage. At two o'clock on the afternoon of Monday, 20 February 1832, a man brought his twenty-five year old wife in a halter and tied her in the pens opposite the Half Moon pub, close to the gate of St. Bartholomew the Great. A crowd gathered and the auction began. Throughout, the woman made no complaint about her treatment. Some twenty cases of wife selling at Smithfield are on record between the 1790s and the 1830s, although the true figure is likely to be higher.

I suppose that in this context, women have come quite a way since then. But if it was still common practice, how many men would put their wives in a halter and sell them off?? Not mine, naturally, but there are some that would, methinks. I wonder how much they made, per wife?

And while we're on the subject of what a wife is worth, let me get onto one of my pet peeves. I meet middle class women all the time who tell me that it is such a 'luxury' that they don't have to work and can spend time at home with their kids before they start school. To which I reply that it is perfectly doable, if you are prepared to live within your means. If you don't live in a fancy neighborhood, send the kids to private school and buy clothes from thrift stores, like I do, you can easily afford to have one parent at home while the other earns a good but not spectacular wage (or am I being hopelessly naive here? Tell me if I am). But no, most American moms 'need' a minivan (Why? Two or even three kids can fit in a sedan, and extra children can easily be strapped to the roof rack with bungee cord). These moms also 'need' to shell out for lots of expensive music/art/Gymboree classes, as well as manicures, pedicures and bikini waxes (For crying out loud, why can't you do your own nails and rip out your own pubes?) Consequently, the only way you can stay home is if the man earns a massive income. Amazingly, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, it has become a status symbol to stay home with the kids!!

In my opinion, it's bollocks. And as for looking after kids being a luxury, it isn't. It's work. That's why if you don't do it yourself, you hire someone to do it for you. Nannies make at least $500 per week, and I'd argue that in most cases a mother (or father) looking after the kids is better than a nanny. I see nannies at the park who treat their charges more like objects to be washed, clothed, diapered and fed, but largely ignore them. And why shouldn't they? They're not constantly guilt wracked like your average mother/father about whether they're stimulating and entertaining the children enough.

So basically, I don't think it should be a luxury for the mother (or father) to stay home with the kids. It should be a human right.

Maybe I should just move to Sweden.

Overeducated and unemployed

I shouldn’t really blog about my friend Daisy’s husband, Darren, because Daisy said that I supposedly implied in one of my posts that he was impotent and that Darren got upset about it. AS IF I WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT! (In any case, that post has now been removed, so I am blameless on that front).

Example 1 of Darren’s, um, lack of common sense
Recently on a holiday in Argentina, Darren put a $2000 laptop in the trunk of a taxi. When the cab driver had driven him to his destination, Darren got out, paid the man, and was surprised when the cab driver pulled away like lightning, taking Darren’s laptop with him. First thoughts: would anyone, and I mean anyone, put a laptop in the trunk of an Argentinian taxi? Darren says that all his bank information was on the lap top, but that the password is ‘uncrackable’ and that the thief probably won’t be able to get into his files.

Example 2
After fifteen odd years as a bio-chemist, Darren’s academic career has hit the skids, and he finds himself unemployed. During his last job in bio-chemistry, he claimed that he didn’t like working with his academic colleagues, and tortured himself with the idea that everyone he worked with hated him and wanted to fire him. Once that mystery was cleared up, (everyone did, he was), he decided to give academia the heave ho, and declared that from now on he would work only in jobs that involved no contact with bossy supervisors and people who pressurize you to perform and publish articles etc., which was then modified to not working with people in general. From this job spec, he came up with the bright idea of becoming an MD. Maybe the fantasy was fuelled by those ideas men have of nubile nurses like the one above, (hello, they now wear horrendous loose smocks printed with Mickey Mouse designs and creaking plastic footwear!) Even after several nights ‘assisting’ in the ER of Johns Hopkins Hospital and seeing eyeballs and brains dripping out of skulls, Darren was still adamant that the career was his chosen path. I guess he didn't focus too hard on the fact that being an MD means that you do, unfortunately, also have to work with quite a few live/uncomatose people too, like other doctors and nurses, not to mention live, complaining, sue your ass off if you so much as look at me funny Americans.

Determined to make his dream a reality, he applied to med school in the US. He got good test scores, but because he is forty-two, they weren’t too interested. Then he thought, hang on, I’m British, maybe I can study in the UK, because it would only cost about $3,000 a year. Unfortunately, they would not let him become a doc in Britain because you have to have lived there for two consecutive years before applying for university, otherwise you have to pay 30,000 pounds per year in fees, because you are considered a foreign student!

Ho hum. Not to be deterred, he applied to go to med school in Australia (the couple are Aussie citizens), and once he'd flown out to Adelaide for an interview, been rejected and come back with his tail between his legs, Daisy told him to pull his socks up and told him that she thought he might be better suited to dental school. He clung onto this idea like a drowning man clinging to a raft and is now making applications.

Everyone laughs hysterically when he mentions his dental dreams and says, "You’re not coming anywhere near my mouth!" I said, politely, “I’m sure you’d be very good, but you’re not, um, very fast are you?” Bear in mind this is a man who took THREE YEARS to tile a bathroom and put in a bath, while the rest of the family had to wash in a sink in the basement.

Hmm...I wish him the best of luck in finding a dental job that does not require working with people!

Why oh why doesn’t he consider some of the really golden careers for the misanthrope, which are:

a. taxidermist
b. grave digger
c. street sweeper
d. sewage processor
e. dog kennel owner

I’m keeping it buttoned.

Witch Hunt

I wonder what it must be like to be a guy these days. What with so many high profile child molestation cases in the news, do you feel under scrutiny? Everywhere, I see adverts for 'female babysitters' or 'female day care providers.' I guess the whole male race is now being watched in case they are potential abusers.

Take yesterday, I was at the park with my kids, when I see this man wandering about the playground, who, actually, I have talked to a few times. Apart from being quite dull and telling me in a rapid fire way about the fascinating topic of computer programming, he seems like an okay dad to his seven year old son. Well, today it looked like he was in the park without his son, or at least, that was what it looked like. I didn't think twice about him. Several of the other parents at the playground, however, did. People stared at him, as he circled the playground, staring up at the clouds.

"Who is that guy?" they whispered to each other.

"Do you think he's a pervert?"

"Why doesn't he have any kids with him?"

"What should we do?"

In the end, someone said they were going to call park security to get the matter dealt with. Meanwhile, the man had wandered off down the hill, in the direction of a stream, which is often frequented by kids, who like to toss rocks into it.

A few minutes later, a security car pulled up and the parents gave an audible sigh of relief. The security guy then simply sat in the car for a few minutes and then drove off, which was a good thing, I suppose, because I would have hated for the computer nerd to have been arrested, for what exactly? For having a wierd way of talking and wandering around a playground looking a bit eccentric?

Eventually, because people were still going on about it, I turned to one mom and said, "Look, I think that guy's all right. He has a son. I don't know him that well, but I think he's okay." But even as I said it, paranoia gripped me and I thought, "What if I am defending a paedophile?" I guess I'd got caught up in the playground hysteria.

The woman replied, "Oh, they all have families, that doesn't mean a thing."

Later, the computer nerd came back up the hill with his son, who must have been playing down there. I guess I felt sorry for the guy, because he'd been proven guilty without any proof. Of course, none of parents talked to him and gave him a wide berth.

I think the media has a lot to answer for, because it makes people read guilt into the most harmless situations. In this hyper paranoid age, people will see what they want to see. What do you say?

Project Insanity

I don’t watch television for years, telling everyone American TV is garbage. Then along comes a series that whacks me over the head and leaves me addicted, and before I know it, I’m having to indulge my dirty little secret. My only consolation is that I can share my addiction with you, friends who I will probably never meet in the flesh.

Because Reality TV has been going for at least six years, I thought they’d have exhausted the format by now. That is, until I switched on the TV one evening and saw a beautiful woman, a masochist’s dream. Her hair was pulled back from her face and she had cheekbones sharp enough to slice cheese. In a harshly German accented voice, she was telling some poor guy:

“Your dress was a mess. It looks like something fit for the garbage heap. You are out!”

Cut to a contestant, lower lip trembling and on the verge of tears, standing beside a model wearing a horrendous dress that looks like it was hastily fashioned from a burlap bag.

The masochist’s dream was Heidi Klum. The program was Project Runway. And I was hooked.

The pretext is that fifteen designers compete against each other (with one kicked off the show each week), and whoever wins gets lots of money to create their own line. So obviously, while everyone pretends they are best friends, they can’t wait to slag everyone else’s designs off behind their back.

Yesterday I watched the show with my five year old daughter, Scarlett. The contestants were briefed to make a couture gown in Paris, in two days! They all managed it, which I thought was quite an achievement, and I wonder if a team of seamstresses didn’t jump out and finish the job when the camera stopped rolling.

The contestants are mostly oddballs. They are:

Pregnant Woman – this forty-two year old architect, desperate to get away from her five kids, and wanting to make a career in fashion, signed up for the show. She’s now been away from the kids for the entire series. She looks pretty good, like a prettier Cruella de Ville. She’s also pregnant and is desperate for sympathy. “I’m not like the other contestants,” she says. “I can’t get drunk on champagne at the end of every day. This competition is really taking its toll on my body. I don’t just have myself to look after, I also have a little guy in there.” Never mind the little guy, what about your kids. Hello? You have five kids who might be a little bit more important than your need to take part in a fashion competition.





Goth Guy – who may well be the progeny of Liza Minelli and David Gest, is the bitchy, backstabbing star of the show. He has lots of ‘tude and struts around in tight leather pants, tiny t-shirts and rhinestone encrusted sunglasses. It’s impossible to take one’s eyes off him, because he looks like a turtle, with a stretched out neck which is, bizarrely, tattooed. At first glance the tattoo looks like a dotted line, handily placed there for the condemned man who is about to go to the guillotine. But then you realize it is ornate writing, ostensibly his son’s name. It is a truly grotesque sight, and you should tune in just to see it.



Wig Man –a fifty year old man who looks like he’s wearing a dead cat on his head. While it looks like an animal corpse or a bad wig, I fear it is his real hair, lackered stiff. He also wears rectangular glasses with thick black frames in order to look serious, and can’t design for toffee.

Highly Strung Gay Guy – Born to design costumes in Vegas for Wayne Newton, this man harbors ambitions to be a fashion designer. I guess they don’t check the contestants for mental illness before they go on, but any psychiatrist could tell you this man is clearly delusional.

Token Black Guy – He’s only got nice things to say about the other contestants. “She has great creative energy. I love his designs.” I hate him.

Tiny German Girl – Can only design one dress. Long, flowing and hippyish. She’s so boring they really need to kick her off.

Yesterday, all the contestants were flown first class to Paris to design and make their couture gowns. Wig Man, who was strutting around and bragging, “No one can do couture the way I can. Couture really gets me off,” designed a dress that had a deep V in the front.

“He didn’t know what he was doing,” said my five year old daughter Scarlett, who was watching the show with me, as he put the dress on the model. “That girl’s titties are going to fall out.” She was right, they did.

Goth Guy had done something that looked like a yellow parachute, all billowy fabric and stringy bits.

Scarlett’s verdict: “It looks like a pineapple.”

Tiny German Girl had, admittedly, designed the only wearable dress, a long, flowing hippyish dress in pale purple.

Scarlett: “That’s my favorite. I like it.”

Pregnant Woman had created a very dull black dress with a white choir boy ruffle.

Scarlett: “That’s so boring! She looks like a witch.”

Highly Strung Gay Guy had made a fairy tale dress with a gold mesh bodice and long flowing skirt.

Scarlett, “I wouldn’t wear it. But it would look great on my Princess Barbie.” Well said.

Token Black Guy produced a so-so blue dress with lots of swirls.

All the contestants had to fit their dresses on their models and take them to a boat party on the Seine. On the way there a fat man, maybe because they affronted his Parisian sense of style, pelted the designers with eggs from his balcony, and Token Black Guy’s dress got covered in slimy albumen.

Unperturbed, the gang proceeded onto the boat, where their creations were judged by a so called famous French designer I have never heard of, Barbarella van de Brie or something, who spoke with a very strong French accent.

High on the free champagne, Wig Man tried to ingratiate himself with Barbarella, who, because she was being paid to be on the show, could not throw her champagne in his face or have him escorted off the boat by security. With his face in her cleavage, he told the raven haired beauty that, “Your style is so uniquely French. I admire you so much. Your hair is so beautifully styled and your makeup is impeccably applied. No one does couture like I do, and I have a real penchant for detail. You are perfectly finished, no detail is out of place.”

He needn’t have bothered. Barbarella hated his dress, it was obvious by the way she wrinkled her nose when he asked her what she thought of it. In the end she could only say, “It is a very interesting dress.”

Next they all flew back to New York to have a second round of judging by Michael Kors and some ‘famous’ designer who had just created the new Delta flight attendant uniforms.

The result? Goth Guy, with his pineapple dress, was declared the winner. I don’t know how that happened. My guess is he was sleeping with Michael Kors or Heidi or someone.

In the end, Heidi Klum told Wig Man:

“The front of your dress looks like it should be at the back. It is just awful. Wig Man, you are out!”

And thus Wig Man was kicked off the show.

Since Scarlett chose that as the worst dress, I wonder if she is destined for a career in fashion?

Now I can barely wait for the new episode, which airs on Wednesday.

Who will be the next to be offed? Token Black Guy or even Pregnant Woman? Can they chuck a pregnant woman off the show? It would certainly be a controversial move.

And what about the future of Reality TV? Will TV execs be forced to move into more controversial ground, as Infinite Muppets suggests. I, for one, would love to take part in a show he suggests, called Castrate-A-Paedo. Are there any TV execs out there taking note? That, even more than Project Runway, would be a ratings hit. Guaranteed.

Parents on the verge

My daughter Scarlett started Kindergarten at the local elementary school this week, forcing me to have my first brush with the institution of school for nigh on twenty years. I was there on her first day, and let me tell you, that classroom was hot,(no air conditioning, which is fine, I’d rather they spent the money on books, anyway.) The teacher had staggered entry to the class, so that only five girls including Scarlett were in attendance, as well as the corresponding five parents, sitting on tiny chairs, and, maybe I am only speaking for myself here, feeling like total fools.

The teacher, a friendly, cuddly woman, was telling the kids that it was normal to feel scared on the first day of school, and that separation anxiety was perfectly natural. If they missed mom and dad, if they cried, that was fine.

Five young faces looked at her in puzzlement. What was she talking about? Their expressions seemed to say: “Are you crazy?”

While I was attempting to fill in a dozen forms at the Hobbit sized table, I noticed the anxiety on the faces of the parents. Forget the children having separation anxiety; it rapidly became clear that it was the parents who were going to have trouble letting go.

Firstly, the teacher asked for volunteers to come in at lunchtime to help the kids set up their lunch, which seemed like a silly request, until I calculated how long it would take for twenty five unsupervised kids to unwrap their lunches, have a yogurt fight, poke their eyes out with straws and spill juice all over themselves, and reckoned the chaos would last a good two hours, unless adult supervision was involved. Mercifully I couldn’t volunteer, because they don’t allow you to bring younger kids with you. Naturally, all the other parents volunteered immediately, much to their offsprings' horror.

Then the questions started.

What kind of home baked goodies were allowed to be brought in for kids’ birthdays? Answer: none, because allergies were rife in the school. My first thought was hallelujah, not only will the pressure of having to bake a perfect ‘Barbie Princess in a Crinoline’ cake be off my shoulders, but my daughter won’t have cake on twenty-five different teeth rotting occasions throughout the school year.

“Would it be all right if I followed the school bus for the first week in my car to see that my daughter gets to school okay?” asked one mother.

To which the teacher replied, “Sure, but any longer than a week and we'll have to issue a restraining order on you,” and gave a sinister chuckle. Actually, to my surprise, she bit her tongue and said that if the woman wanted to trail her kid for the first few days that was perfectly understandable.

One father asked if it would be okay if he fitted his son with a tracking device, so he could be certain the boy wouldn’t be abducted by aliens during school hours. Another asked if it would be all right if he hid in one of the supply cupboards for the first semester, to make sure his daughter was actually eating her apple every lunchtime, rather than throwing it in the trash.

Okay, so I made the last two up, but it was the usual litany of silly, petty, niggly questions that the teacher must have heard hundreds of times before, and which, to her credit, she answered with a generous spirit and a warm smile.

The only thing that worries me about Scarlett starting school is that they have a new policy where, if an adult is not there to meet the child off the bus at the designated spot, they just let the child off anyway. I must say, that did strike me as crazy. Say I was stuck in traffic or I had to take my other daughter to the ER or something? Still, being British, I kept my mouth shut, since there’s nothing I can do to change the rule.

So, anyway, my experience with this group of overprotective parents got me thinking. Rather than teachers having to deal with hundreds of phonecalls from on the edge parents at the beginning of school, I have a suggestion to make life easier for everyone. In Germany, kids are given a huge Schultüte (cone) crammed with candy on the first day of school, enabling them to start their academic careers riding on a sugar high.

No, I’m not suggesting we give these treats to our kids. A much better idea would be to give them to the parents on the first day.

But instead of candy, these ‘goody bags’ could contain things like:

A certificate for parents, with the text: Congratulations. You have survived the first five years. Your son/daughter still has all his/her limbs. Pat yourself on the back. You’ve done a great job. Now that he/she is at school, it’s time to realize that he/she is not your little snuggly wuggly Bunnikins anymore, but a child on his/her way to independence. If you need to baby something, consider getting pregnant or buying a chinchilla.

For moms - trashy celebrity magazines

You won’t be biting your nails down to the quick wondering if little Johnny has choked on an eraser if you are deep in the latest gossip in the lives of the Hollywood bimbos and himbos.

For dads - racing car magazines

You can pretend to look at the cars, while ogling the gils in bikinis. Before you know it, six hours will have passed in a blur and you’ll have forgotten to collect junior at the school bus stop.

Pre-mixed bottles of Tequila Sunrise

You can’t worry when you’re lying in the garden imbibing deeply and dreaming of buxom hula girls or a greased up pool boy wearing only a leopard skin thong ready to grant your every wish … (or maybe its only me that Tequila Sunrise affects in that way).

I think it’s a terrific idea and would save school teachers a lot of trouble all round. What else could I put in it? I'm open to ideas...

New York on a Nickel

Today, author Ayun Halliday has dropped by for a virtual chat. She is probably best known for a witty little zine she pens, The East Village Inky, which features cartoons about the hells and highpoints of motherhood. She’s also just published a book in the UK called Mama Lama Ding Dong: A Mother’s Tales From the Trenches (The Big Rumpus in the US) in which she chronicles the trials of bringing up Inky and Milo in small apartments with bad plumbing in New York City. Despite how pricey it is to rent an apartment, she is passionate that the Big Apple is, for her, the best place to bring up her kids.

What would have become of me, she writes in Mama Lama Ding Dong, if I did live in a suburb, or even a city like Los Angeles, where it’s normal for new parents to have cars and backyards and their own swing sets? I would have gone mad from the isolation! … In the same way that people who choose to live in areas of great natural beauty would go crazy without easy access to the ocean or mountains, my mental health hinges on my proximity to colorful characters, like the transsexual who dresses in a tutu and a bedraggled cat suit to ride an oversized bicycle with a harp strapped to the back, playing accordion for tips.

The stimulus I need as a stay-at-home mother is not provided by clean yards, affordable housing, excellent public schools or natural beauty.

I hear you Ayun! In fact, her descriptions of living in New York are so lively and invigorating that you might be tempted to move there yourself. I also love her warts and all description of labor with her daughter Inky. Everyone will be able to relate to how the best laid plans often go astray when there’s a baby trying to get out.

I went into full labor on the corner of First Avenue and 9th Street. Then I rampaged through our apartment for four hours, yelling my head off (while Greg slept intermittently on the midwife’s instructions), though our gallant neighbors insisted they never heard a thing through the thin tenement walls. I writhed on our unmopped kitchen floor, sandwiched between the refrigerator and the sink, watching a cockroach marching along the baseboard. That was the first omen that my labor was not going to be the beautiful experience I had anticipated.

What can I say? Go out and get Mama Lama Ding Dong or The Big Rumpus. Why? Because you’ll love it, that’s why. And if you’ve ever read my blog, you’ll know I’m pretty stingy in handing out praise. Unless it’s due, which it is in this case!

Now then, back to my chat with Ayun.

Where will you be doing book readings over the next few months, so people can go see you?

I'll be heading to Philly, Chicago, Austin, Portland (OR) and the Bay Area next month. Here's the nitty, with some gritty to follow as soon as Webmaster Dave gets off his heiner and quits his day job!

You now live in Brooklyn. Since I’ve never been there, I’m curious to know, is it really populated with the kind of nutty pseudo-intellectuals like the ones featured in The Squid and the Whale?

Oh, yeah. I think a lot of people went to see that movie and sucked in their breath, thinking , "There but for the grace of ..." And while I envied Laura Linney her square footage (we're on the top floor of a brownstone), I felt the set designer did a great job of creating a believable space in which those characters could dwell. Actually, I read an interview with Noah Baumbach and he said they shot it in a family friend's house, and that Jeff Daniels wore his dad's old clothes.

Now, because I’m a notorious cheapskate who loves a good deal, I’m keen to know how you entertain the kids in New York for next to nothing. Is it easier to find cheap or free things to do with the kids around your neighborhood? Or was there more to do in the East Village, where you lived before?

The East Village was feeling pretty well gentrified by the time we left, though there are always $1 ice creams, free sprinklers and cheap breakfasts to be had, even if you don't know where to look. Now our Brooklyn neighborhood is shooting down that flume. Every time a bodega closes, the space reopens as a French bistro, an American Apparel Outlet or a boutique with $40 ringer tees featuring cereal box mascots from my childhood. But you can still buy a 50 cent cup of Italian ice from a street vendor, enjoy a tall glass of watermelon juice & some dirt cheap tamales at Fast and Fresh Deli, make a killing with or at a weekend stoop sale, and chuck water balloons or play scully in a playground (with bottle caps scrounged from the trash!) The housing projects don't seem to be going anywhere, and there's a very well established Arabic community who don't seem to be going for the $40 ringer tees, but I am sensing the old timers dying off or moving south.

Here's a thing about New York though. Subway's only 2 bucks! And it's a little murky when children start to pay. (Okay, 45 inches, but nobody's standing around with a measuring stick, least of all me!) You can get to the freebies, however far flung they may be!

What are the best sources for finding out about free kids’ activities in New York?

http://www.gocitykids.com/calendar/?area=197> Go City Kids

Time Out is good for the whole family. I believe you have to be a subscriber to access their special Time Out Kids calendar, but especially if your children are out of the toddler stage, regular Time Out should do you just fine! You can pick up a copy of Time Out or Time Out Kids at the newsstand. The Village Voice is free, and is particularly good for listing the free concerts in the summer.

There are a bunch of guidebooks geared to experiencing the city with kids. The one we used (I say used b/c I think we have been to so many of the places listed that we think we discovered them on our own) is called The Cool Parents' Guide to All of New York

Finally, I have a few suggestions on my website, but I wrote a book or two and celebrated at least 2 children's birthdays since the last update, so as with any guidebook, phone first!

What are your top five activities to do with kids in New York that won’t make a dent in your wallet?

Five? You can't wind me up and expect me to stop at five! Granted, some of these will cost you more than a subway ride, but having once traveled through Italy for a week with only one restaurant meal to show for it, I can't in good conscience go so hardcore on you as to steer visitors clear of the memorably worth-it splurge (i.e. an adult MOMA ticket, the Wonder Wheel, some tuna maki at Taro Sushi)!

Eating coconut buns at Nice One Bakery on Bayard Street in Chinatown.

Riding the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island.

Making Monty Python-style animations at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens.

Swimming in the enormous Red Hook pool.

Dressing up funny and dancing to the Hungry March Band.

Freaking out other visitors to Central Park’s Conservatory Garden, who don’t know that wisteria is edible.

Making a big deal out of seeing the Statue of Liberty out the window of the F Train around Smith & 9th.

Hanging out on the stoop.

Watching the Chinese wedding parties roll up for photo ops at the Fulton Ferry landing on Sunday afternoons.

Climbing on the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park.

Going right up to the enormous Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center in the sleet, when everyone else is taking shelter under the overhanging eaves.

Ordering steamed milk for them and cappuccino for myself in boho cafes.

Facing the wall in opposite corners of the foyer outside the Grand Central Oyster Bar, which is built in such a way that if you whisper into the wall, the person in the opposite corner can hear you plain as day! Enjoy the funny looks from passerby who don’t know about this magical architectural phenomenon.

Taking Milo to Taro Sushi on Dean St, near Flatbush.

Taking Inky for a special-occasion manicure at whatever corner nail salon we happen to be near…and watching the manicurist’s delight when she notices Inky’s extra thumb. (Most NYC manicurists seem to come from cultures where an extra digit is considered lucky.)

Browsing through the comics at Rocket Ship on Smith Street.

Making paper flowers and decorating papier-mache skulls at the Museum of the American Indian’s annual Day of the Dead celebration.

Ordering cream puffs from Beard Papa.

Watching Greg play softball in the Broadway Show League in Central Park.

Breaking up errands in whatever playground happens to present itself.

Cooling off in the shady sprinklers at the top of Tompkins Square.

Swapping outgrown duds for new (used) finery at Jane’s Exchange.

Discovering over lunch at New Green Bo that there is something beside coconut buns that Inky will deign to eat in Chinatown.

Pointing out grafitti of interest.

Thinking about the day I will take them to Jackson Heights as a test run for taking them to India.

Making the annual pilgrimage to see Santa at ABC Carpet and Home.

Gamboling between the bridges in Empire Park.

MOMA (kids get in free!)

Examining the merchandise and reading every single label at the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company.

Blowing 50¢ on a Dixie cup of Italian ice from a guy pushing an insulated metal cart strung with bells.

Waving to the passengers riding on the upper decks of the red tourist buses.

Giving quarters to anyone playing music in the subway, regardless of musical talent.

Taking in a show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s annual Children’s Film Festival.

Climbing the indoor rock wall and flipping around on the various trampoline-like things at Chelsea Piers, as long as someone else is footing the bill.

Ice skating in Prospect Park.

Riding a Black Cowboys’ Association pony at street fairs throughout Brooklyn.

Examining the unicorn tapestries in the Cloisters.

Seeking out “the squid and the whale” at the Museum of Natural History.

Being nice to babies on the sidewalks of New York.

Deciding not to freeze our heiners off with the multitudes who head to 81st and Central Park West to see the giant balloons being inflated the night before Thanksgiving.

Volunteering to help feed the hungry at the Church of the Holy Apostles’ long-running soup kitchen.

Admiring the produce at the Union Square Farmers Market.

Holding our noses during the canine costume contest in the Tompkins Square dog run a couple of days before Halloween.

Recognizing Dan Zanes on the street.

Hitting the Children’s Museum Of the Arts during their weekly “pay-what-you-can” admission time.

Chilling out in PS1’s café after absorbing the requisite dose of culture.

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Drinking the molten-pudding-like hot chocolate at Jacques Torres’s flagship store.

Exploring the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum.

Sledding in Prospect Park’s long meadow.

Making a big deal out of a haircut at Le Chandelier.

Getting creeped out by the marionettes at Puppetworks.

Buying stationery and notebooks for less than a dollar at BJ99 on Pike St.

Rubbing all the herbs and then smelling our hands in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Fragrance Garden.

Watching Circus Amok in a public park.

Leafing through the Tin-Tin books at La Petite Abeille.

Avoiding restaurants that, like Bubby’s and the Two Boots on Avenue A, are so celebrated as great places to go with children, they are chronically filled with screaming children and their tense & snappish parents.

Wow! You've certainly given me a lot of ideas. Thanks for dropping by Ayun!

My pleasure. See you on top of the Wonder Wheel!