… than “no it isn’t!”

“I know!” – drawn out to the point of abusing vowel sounds and accompanied with rolling eyes and disowning of the parent.

Own up – who turned my kid into a teenager eight years early?!!

…and other fervent beliefs of the five-year-old

Here are some excerpts of my conversations today:

Half way through Big Cook Little Cook

Me: oh – they’re making cheesecake!
Akra Jr: no they’re not.
Me: yes they are – that’s a biscuit base. For a cheesecake you have crumbled up biscuit at the bottom, then you spoon the cheese mixture on top.
Akra Jr: no you don’t. They’re making a strawberry clown.
Me: oh, they’re decorating a strawberry cheesecake to look like a clown.
Akra Jr: no they’re not.

While deciding what to make from his K’Nex instruction book

Akra Jr: Mummy, what’s that?
Me: it’s an elephant.
Akra Jr: no it isn’t.

Just after dinner

Me: time to tidy up all the jigsaws!
Akra Jr: no it isn’t.

Yes, it’s that delightful stage of arguing just for the sake of it. I’m currently resisting temptation to scream very loudly, run out of the room, pound up the stairs and pummel the life out of my pillows. Just.

You know, I think I preferred the “why” stage. Even though he didn’t really want to hear the answer, at least he didn’t disagree with it. Once upon a time, my opinion was respected, loved and sacrosanct (well, at least I told myself it was and Akra Jr didn’t disagree with me … then). My status as “know everything Mummy” has evaporated for good.

At the same time, I don’t feel I can tell him off for arguing. After all, I want him to grow up being able to think critically, not accept everything he’s told, not necessarily believe everything he hears … right?

But could he just think I’m wonderful for a few months longer? Please?

I have grown complacent by the success of the white cloud mountain minnows and completely forgotten just how frustrating fish keeping can be.

Last week, I bought six neon tetras – nice, bright, cheerful and fairly common little tropical fish – bringing the total stock in my 30L biorb up to twelve fish.

I watched over them carefully, did everything I could to aclimatise them, then slowly and gently released them into the tank. It was great fun watching them explore and settle in. I started to relax and mentally planned the next additions for a month’s time.

Then, on day 2, they started to go missing.

One by one, they’ve been failing to show up for breakfast time. Mysteriously, all survivors are showing no sign of distress or disease and only one corpse has been found (they’re a bugger to find anyway – they go transparent on death, conveniently blending in to everything – also their “loving” companions tend to use fish corpses for a midnight snack…) It’s enough to make a girl very paranoid.

Water quality has been checked daily and nothing is amiss there. I’ve had the water checked by the fish supplier too, to be on the safe side. The verdict seems to be that neon tetras can be a bit peaky and it’s “just one of those things”.

Then, while discussing the problem on the biorb forum, I find out that most neon tetras are wild caught. To capture them en masse, a dose of cyanide is squirted to stun them, then they’re scooped up and sent abroad to be sold. Over half die in transit. Unsurprisingly, loads of them die within a month of them being sold.

I’m pretty shocked, to be honest. I’m obviously new to the world of the tropical aquarium and never knew this went on. I assumed that at least the more popular and common tropical fish were captive bred in the UK. Sadly, it seems I was pretty naive.

So now I’m on the hunt for some captive bred neon tetra. I have three left – I’m not sure how long they’ll last. I’m still on corpse watch for the other two unaccounted for fish.

Maybe I should just get a tank solely stocked by hardy minnows instead…

Are you a woman aged 18 or over?
Do you live in the UK?
Would like to help discover the causes of Breast Cancer?

I don’t know whether you’ve seen previous publicity, but Breakthrough Generations plans to be the largest and longest scientific study, with over 100,000 participants. It involves filling out a detailed questionnaire (quite lengthy – I found I needed a bit of detective work to complete it all, including asking my mother relevant family history) and providing a blood sample, with follow ups every couple of years.

So far, they have received questionnaires and blood samples from over 42,000 women in the UK (including mine!), so are well on their way to reaching their target.

To find out more about how you can participate and hopefully help the prevention of breast cancer in the future, you can request an information pack from their website.

I took Akra Jr ten-pin bowling today.

I haven’t bowled in years, and it probably wouldn’t have occurred to me as a suitable five-year-old outing either, had it not been for one of his friends holding a birthday party there recently.

I’m glad we went though, as we both had a fantastic time. It cost no more than a visit to the cinema (which he doesn’t really enjoy, being afraid of the dark, loud noises and most of the plots of any children’s film ever made) and it was one of the few outings I could think of that was completely weather-proof. We got a “bowl as long as you like” deal and ended up staying over two hours, so we certainly got good value.

Humiliation, however, is defined as being beaten… TWICE… by your own Reception-age son who can barely lift the ball and just flings it (overarm… THUD… bounce bounce bounce…) in the vague direction of the pins.

I think next time I should get to use the raised gutters too. Although, to be fair, my aim did improve once I got into the swing of it. Akra Jr’s highest score was 101 and mine was 105, so not too shoddy, eh? We even both managed a couple of strikes in those two hours as well.

Oh, and further humiliation is having an astrophysics degree, spending half one’s life sitting in front of a computer, yet still needing help from the students in the next lane to work out how to set the bowling computer. Oh well. Pride and self-worth are well overrated attributes.

Mindless thought meander of the day: As far as I remember, I was always taught that the correct pronunciation of “controversy” was “con-TROV-ersy” … yet I’ve noticed on BBC Radio 4 an increase in speakers pronouncing it as “CON-tro-versy”.

Being that the BBC is usually the bastion of proper pronunciation and grammar, was I taught wrong or has usage changed?

I’ve had enough now, this dreary weather is depressing me. I’ve lost track of the last time we had a whole 24 hours without rain and the forecast for the next week isn’t looking too hot either.

I hereby demand the cessation of all downpours and the beginning of a proper summer for the following reasons:

1. Our back garden is now a swamp – if I step onto the lawn, my foot sinks into about 2 inches of rain water and mud. I could successfully grow rice out there. “It’s good for the garden” is a myth, unless your hobby is competitive mudwrestling.
2. I risk my neck everytime I enter our hallway with the constant trip hazard of drying shoes, umbrellas, pushchairs and coats.
3. Their outdoor toys are going to waste. At the beginning of May, both boys got a fair few outdoor themed birthday gifts: a slide, a playhouse, a bike, a scooter, and some battery operated bubble blowers. So far, they’ve only been able to look at them longingly through the rain spattered windows.
4. The kids are going stir crazy. Two growing boys being stuck indoors when there’s exciting things to be doing outside is not a recipe for happy families. Trust me on this.
5. I’M going stir crazy. I’m turning into the screaming harridan from hell due to aforementioned kid craziness. And there’s only so many changes of clothes you’re prepared to do after “fun” puddle jumping sessions.
6. The electric bill is not looking healthy – two to three loads of washing a day (much of it generated by previously mentioned puddle activities) and no drying space … you do the maths.
7. Despite all the rain, you just KNOW the hosepipe ban will still stand – well, it will, won’t it?!
8. I’m sick of doing the snail slalom along the footpaths – this is where you have to swerve all over the place with the pushchair to avoid listening to the sickening crunch of shell on the permanently puddled pavements.
9. I have a bad cold AGAIN – c’mon … it’s time to kill the bugs off … give us some SUN!
10. Our car is too small – If the rain carries on like this for much longer, I don’t think I can fit two of every type of Earth’s animals into the Micra…

Over to you. Can you think of any more?…

Most people who know me consider me to be a fairly organised and methodical person. I have routines. I have places things are kept. I usually keep on top of my paperwork.

I just have two achilles heels: keys and purses. They never seem to get put down in their correct homes if I have them, and I’m always losing them – to the point that Akra doesn’t bother trying to help me when I declare them lost, just rolls his eyes at me and lets me get on with the search of desperation.

Anyway, today was fairly normal. I only lost my front door keys once (I’d put them in my coat pocket rather than my jeans pocket while struggling in the front door armed with toddler and new fish for the biorb). Later on this evening, while doing my accounts I went to go find my purse (amazingly actually in my handbag where it belongs – obviously a freak occurrence) and while I was scrabbling around at the bottom of the bag I felt some keys.

Eh? That’s odd. My house keys are on the hook, as are my car keys… what keys are these? I don’t remember putting keys in my bag. I scrabble around some more. These mystery keys appear to be in the lining of the bag. With more investigation I discover that there is a teeny tiny zip hidden in the side of the lining and there’s an actual pocket there that I knew nothing about.

I extract the keys. It takes a few seconds for me to identify them. They’re my mother’s house keys. Now I’m fairly certain that I considered these lost … the move before last. That would be before Akra Jr was born – just over 5 years ago.

Oops.

Oh well, they’re obviously safe there. I put them back. If I forget where they are again, you will remind me, won’t you?

Yesterday, the Guardian ran a very interesting article on “The rise and rise of convenience food” – sparked by the recent announcement by Heinz that they are developing an “instant baked beans on toast” ready-meal.

Now, I’m not completely anti-convenience food. I believe it has its place – particularly those things which are harder and time consuming to make from scratch for yourself – puff pastry, gravy, the odd chinese or indian ready meal as a treat for those days we really fancy a takeaway but budget doesn’t allow. I do find many ready meals over salty and tasteless, but don’t think they necessarily mean the collapse of our society as we know it.

All that said, isn’t there something fundamentally wrong if people either don’t have the time to heat some baked beans and bung some bread in the toaster, or don’t have the culinary ability to do so? Not only that but I’m guessing there’ll be a pretty steep price hike for the added “convenience” once launched.

So anyone willing to confess they don’t know how to make baked beans on toast?

Normally I shun the pink aisle in the toy shop. If Akra Jr hadn’t come home with a party invite from a girl in his class then I’d still be avoiding it, instead I was left standing there in the midst of a sea of pink having palpitations.

My pink aisle phobia doesn’t have much to do with the feminism aspects of rows upon rows of plastic monstrosities; it’s just I was never a girly girl, preferring to play with cars and lego as a child, and I have produced boy offspring. I don’t know what to do with myself in the pink aisle and I dread the social minefield it draws me into.

If I buy the flirty little hooker doll, will the girl’s mother ever speak to me again? (Bizarrely, Barbie is now the most demure doll on the shelf – what sort of weird parallel universe is that?!) Is a baby doll too “babyish” for a five year old? Do I go for the politically correct cheat of buying a craft toy, knowing that the child would probably much rather have had a lump of cheap tack and hoping that the mother actually enjoys creative activities with her daughter?

Bolstered by the thought that my son’s favourite presents this year were dolls… no … sorry … action figures, I bit the bullet and made my choice.

Oh sod it … I’ll be honest. I panicked and grabbed the nearest Barbie doll and threw in a packet of fluffy pencils for good gender-sterotypical measure. Please tell me I’m not going to be shunned by the mother and polite society as a result!