Longest time-out ever

For a while, things were relatively easy around here. I even started to think I might need a change of blog theme. And that's of course when it hits you -bam! And you're back on the slippery slope down to the deepest depths of feral toddler (and mummy) behaviour. In short, there have been far too many time-outs and shouty moments in our household of late. And this is the story of my youngest son's longest time-out ever.

Rewind a few days, we are at my in-laws' house for the weekend. I am in the bedroom and the sounds of a bit of a "ruckus" come floating up from the kitchen. The next thing I hear is Alejandro marching our youngest son up the stairs and shutting him in the bedroom opposite for a time-out. (I don't like time-outs, but they do help all parties calm down and get some thinking time...)

The only problem is that there is a lock on the inside of the bedroom door. And yes, you guessed it -my curious not quite 3 year old gives it a try. So when we go to get him out, we can't. My mother-in-law goes into panic mode and my 4 year old bursts into tears, crying hysterically as if he's seen his little brother get abducted by aliens or worse. "Mi hermano! My brother!!" he wails over and over again, changing languages depending on who is nearby to listen.

On the other side of the door, my youngest son remains pretty unfazed by all of this. He lies down on the floor by the door and plays "I can see you!" for a while. I try to talk him through the "this is how you unlock the door" process, but although he seems to be giving it a go, his little fingers can't quite manage to turn it back.

Meanwhile, out in the garden, my parents-in-law and my partner get a long ladder and prop it up against the balcony of the bedroom. My mother-in-law climbs up the ladder and over the railings onto the balcony, but the bedroom window and door to the balcony are firmly shut. Dang.

Alejandro and his dad come inside with a whole array of scary-looking tools that they're intending to open the door with -there's a giant crow bar, a radial saw, screwdrivers and a heavy hammer. They remove the doorhandle, dismantle the doorframe, and make small cuts in the wood, but it's a sturdy oak door and it ain't budging. An alarming smell of burning pervades after the use of the radial saw, bringing with it a cloud of thick smoke and a fresh round of hysterics from my eldest son. And I'm starting to panic now as well.

My mother-in-law is keeping my youngest entertained through the window, by telling stories and drawing smiley faces in the condensation on the glass. It's foggy and wintery out there on the balcony and she hasn't got a coat.

My attention is divided between calming my eldest son's fears ("We're never going to go home to Madrid"!?!) and liaising between the break-the-door-down team and my mother-in-law out on the balcony, making sure my youngest son (who I can't see, but she can) is far away from any demolition activity (which I can see, but she can't).

It takes well over an hour for my partner and his dad to get into the room. Those doors are made of solid oak. They are beautiful doors that have been there as long as the house my father-in-law built when my partner was a boy. Well, they were beautiful. Now, Alejandro's old bedroom door looks like this...

(And that's my first photo insertion. Woo hoo! Going all high tech here...)

Oh well. At least it was only the door that got hurt. In the end it was a simple hammer-a-hole-through job that did the trick.

My son was happily crayoning away at the table when the rescue mission finally met with success. He couldn't work out what all the fuss was about.

Needless to say, we'll be choosing our time-out locations more carefully next time...

A trip to a previous life (or "my meandering career")

I had a glimpse of my previous life last week. Ten years ago, when I first came to Madrid, I was working for a big company in business development. I knew all the ridiculous business management buzz words and could play bullsh*t bingo with the best of them. The job was all I'd thought I wanted –international travel, British Airways gold card, posh hotels, corporate credit card, you name it... All the trappings of the corporate life. But there was something missing. It wasn't really me.

Well, I had my big escape plan in place so I could put up with the fish-out-of-water feeling because I knew it was only temporary. I aimed to stay in Madrid for a couple of years to improve my Spanish, then do postgraduate studies in Hispanic literature (my first love), go back to the UK and teach at a university if possible or college/school otherwise.

Ha! Life got in the way of that plan, just a tad... I never made it home and I never taught Spanish lit, but I did begin to spend my days doing what I love –all things language-related. 

I started off on track with my plan, doing postgrad studies at Salamanca University. If you've never been to Salamanca, put it on your things-to-do-before-I-die list. The whole city is steeped in history and culture. Many of the great names in Spanish philosophy and literature studied and/or worked there. History seeps through the metre-thick walls of the ancient buildings. Plus it's simply stunning. The beauty of the baroque façades sends your heart leaping into your mouth at every corner you turn. There’s theatre in the streets, poetry readings and conferences with visiting writers. It's a book lover’s heaven and literature comes alive there.

After my student days (re-visited –again, but that's another story!) I taught at a university in the south of Spain, so I can tick that off my life plan too. I worked in the English department, not the Spanish one, but it was a great experience. I was only there for a couple of years, and although I enjoyed the job, it was long enough for me to realize that a career in higher education wasn't for me either. (Narrowing it down here, we'll get there eventually!)

During that time I fell pregnant with my first son, and I found out that my teaching contract at the uni was disguised as a scholarship, (a money-saving tactic that is common in Spanish universities) so I had to become a freelancer to pay my own social security to be covered for routine check-ups in the (normally universal) Spanish health system. It was annoying at the time, but it's worked out wonderfully and I've not looked back. That was five years ago and I've been working as a freelancer ever since –translating and proofreading and, more recently, writing English-teaching materials for companies here in Madrid.

Lengthy background history there, I really must get better at summarizing… Now let’s skip to last week when I stood in for my friend, Sarah, as a trainer on a HR course in English for a big financial corporation here in Spain. It wasn’t exactly on my life plan but, since the opportunity popped up, I thought it would be interesting to bring my two areas of experience (business and languages) together.

So, it’s 6.40am on Thursday morning and, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I climb into the taxi to go to the company’s offices in the business district of downtown Madrid where the company bus will take us to their posh new “learning campus” in the outskirts. It feels like the olden days when I’d catch taxis like it was going out of fashion.

I arrive at the offices half an hour early due to the unpredictability of Madrid traffic and because I’m borderline obsessive-compulsive. I take a walk around the area I used to know so well. Memories come flooding back as I pass the Corte Inglés, the detested department store where I had many a nightmare shopping trip ten years ago, buying mobile phones, printers, etc. to set up the business development office for our three man team -my boss, a colleague and myself. (No procurement department here, so the honour fell to yours truly. And by the way, I really hate shopping!) I walk on, glad that chapter of my life is closed, and find a café around the corner where I have a coffee to kill some time and get my head around what I’m about to do. 

7.30am soon comes around and I get on the corporate bus. I am like an excited school kid, craning my neck as we go past many of my old haunts. There’s “Sí Señor”, the Mexican restaurant on the Paseo de la Castellana, where my colleagues and I downed many a slushy margarita in years gone by. We go right past the Real Madrid stadium and my old apartment just opposite, where I used to hang off the balcony soaking up the pre- and post-match excitement (and hoping for a glimpse of the lovely Zinedine Zidane or perhaps señor Beckham).

In my enthusiasm for revisiting my old life, I almost forget my nerves about the course I’m about to give. I’ve come straight out of Mumsville and I’m about to stand out there in front of a room full of business folk, all experts in their field. The expression “deer in the headlights” springs to mind.

It's OK, folks. I survived. Despite the knots in my stomach, the two day course went quite well. I was amused to see that, whilst the business concepts are pretty much the same as ten years ago, there are a few new management buzz words that have since appeared. Some genius has come up with the terms “onboarding” and “blended learning” since I was last in that world. Snigger snigger.

It was fun to get a glimpse of my previous life and (whilst I’m not about to nick off with my friend’s job) it’s heartening to see there’s well-paid work out there in my field. It’s tempting: the work has the potential to pay more in a couple of days than I earned in a month at the uni for what is essentially the same job, just with a few more important-sounding meaningless phrases thrown in. All I’d have to do is put on smart clothes and be prepared to spout business school speak and convince someone to employ me. Oh yeah, and I’d probably have to polish up my bullsh*t bingo skills.

Will I go down that route? I doubt it, but time will tell, I guess. I have to admit, I rather like my cushty job working from home, where my only commute in the mornings (after school and playgroup drop-offs) is from the kettle in the kitchen to my laptop in the lounge. I feel very fortunate to have been able to dip into my previous life and to go back to the freedom of working in jogpants or even pyjamas if it takes my fancy.

But can I just say hats off to all the women out there who are juggling “proper jobs” outside the home and mum duties. It just about finished me off last week. They really are two different worlds. And what a logistical operation it was to get everything in place so that my kids were fed, looked after, dropped off and picked up at all the right times. Huge thanks to Ursula yet again and Alejandro, for doing all the ferrying around, meal duties and handovers. Thanks also to Sarah, for giving me a helping hand back into the corporate world. You guys rock.

My first triathlon

Yes, that's right folks. Om in Mom is a triathlete. Well, of sorts, anyway. It was a very mini one (300m swim, 8km bike, 2-3km run –nice bit of Spanish precision there, nobody seemed to know what distance the run was, but it certainly felt looong to me!). And no, you didn't miss the post about all the training I was doing. That would be because I trained the Wing-It-Weezy way. Oh well. It should make it easier to improve on my time next year. Because I definitely will be there again next year. I'm still on a high. It was such a fantastic day.

So, it's race day at siesta time and I haul my bike onto the train, find myself a seat and sit down to prepare myself for the afternoon's race. It is time to chill out after spending the morning baking muffins, buying running shoes (I kid you not) and sorting out childcare arrangements for a meeting I have in Madrid next week (big thank you to Ursula for covering the nursery-nanny gap).

I get off the train in central Madrid and ride my bike across a bridge over the river to the Casa de Campo park, where the triathlon is to be held. It feels wonderful to cycle along the shady avenues of downtown Madrid. I'd like to do this more often, I think to myself, as I take in the sights –royal palace, cathedral, cable cars, etc.

The event site in Casa de Campo has a festival atmosphere, except that instead of beer and live music the stalls have officials who check your ID card and give you a brown envelope with your swimming hat, running/biking number and a few freebies thrown in. I am all fingers and thumbs as I attempt to thread my number onto the elastic I bought for the occasion. I didn't realize that it was supposed to be thick elastic so the number won't flop about too much. Oh well. Spot the newbie.

Nerves are high before the race. I'm relieved to find my friend Stacey, who seems calm and prepared in comparison to my flustering. Our other friend Meredith arrived earlier and promptly got a puncture, so she is making a mad dash home to swap it for her husband's tyre, none of us having a repair kit to hand. The girl starting next to me has forgotten her helmet, and her boyfriend is rushing back home to pick it up for her. These are hairy moments, all adding to the nerves, but when the final call comes over the loud speakers both Meredith and my race companion slip into place just in time. Phew! They will get to participate after all.

We walk across a blue carpeted area to the lake where the swim will be. It's marked out by four gigantic orange buoys. I wonder to myself why they need to be so huge –surely normal-sized buoys would do the job? The race starts in three stages, at one minute intervals. We are the pink hats –the last ones to start. I wish I'd paid attention to the orange hats' start a minute ago. I am waiting for some Spanish version of "On your marks... Get set... Go!" But no. They cut straight to the klaxon –guess that was the "go" part. That'd be Om in Mom still standing on the blocks then...

I dive off the blocks into the lake, mere miliseconds after my companions. The water is cold, but there's not really time to think about that. There are swimmers thrashing about all over the place, and I've got to remember to keep the buoys on my left at all times. Now I know why they are so huge –it's virtually impossible to see where you're supposed to be going. This ain't no straight laned swimming pool. My goggles fill up with greenish water and I swallow a mouthful too. It tastes of weeds. I make a mental note to do the rest of the swim with my mouth shut.

I'm starting to think I should have trained for this. The swim is supposed to be my best of the three sports, and it's only 300m. But it's the longest 300m I've ever swum. I even resort to breaststroke a few times, can't believe I'm being such a granny but it really is quite a struggle. I pull myself out of the water at the end and run with leaden legs to the transition area.

OK, bike next. This is definitely my worst leg, but at least there's no more lakewater to swallow. I pull my helmet on first, chuck on socks, trainers and my floppy elastic number, grab my bike and off I go. If I hadn't seen my partner take the kid seat off my bike a few hours ago, I'd swear there's a giant toddler (or perhaps a sumo wrestler) on the back as I huff and puff my way up the first hill. I marvel at how many women are overtaking me. It's like I'm going in slow motion –backwards.

I spend the whole of the bike section surreally watching myself get further and further towards the back of the race. There's just one woman who seems to be as slow as me. She's faster going up the hills, but I am reckless on the downhill bits and keep catching back up with her.

As we pull into the transition area once more, I hear a little voice shout "Mummy!" and I spot my boys waving to me from the sidelines. Yay! They made it! This cheers me up no end (although I seem to be fighting back the tears –hold it together woman, not a good time to get emotional). I make a huge effort to look like I've got loads of energy left as I whizz past them, all smiles and waves.

In the transition area I jump off my bike, hook it on the stand, change my bike helmet for a baseball cap and turn my race number around to my front for the run, as per triathlon regulations. I start my run and I swear I've never felt less like running in my life. I wonder if I'm going to have to walk some of the way. Not now though, because I'm passing my boys again. Keep going Om in Mom, it's only 2-3km! (Never mind that the only running I've done in the last five years is when I've been late for the bus, the train or my goddaughter's christening...)

It turns out that the running course is a linear route along a road: 1-1.5km out, 1-1.5km back. It's horribly disheartening to see the elite triathletes coming into the finish when you're only just starting out. Maybe I'm a defeatist, but I find this really hard mentally, until I see Meredith ahead of me on her way back just past the halfway mark. This helps me to keep going and soon enough it's me who's on the home stretch shouting some "whoop whoop, nearly half way!" type comment to Stacey, who's not far behind.

The run gets easier towards the end. It may even be slightly downhill. As I pass my boys for the last time, I manage to pull out some more fake energy to show them how hardcore their mum is. By some minor miracle I have just enough strength left for a cheeky sprint to the finish line. Woohoo! What a feeling of elation. Meredith greets me with a nice sweaty hug –she finished just ahead of me. We turn around to cheer Stacey into the finish line and we're done. All that remains is to take a photo for posterity Facebook and drink a free can of Aquarius. Marvellous.

And that was my first triathlon experience. Almost no training whatsoever, brand new running shoes, bought the same day, and I don't know what other triathlon preparation rules may have been broken along the way. Thankfully I lived to tell the tale, with no blisters or injuries (but it's not big or clever, you know). What an incredible day though. I will definitely be back for more next year. Who's going to join me? You never know, I might even try training next time...

The end of summer

"Bye bye pool!" we find ourselves saying today, as the men begin to put the fence up around our swimming pool and pull on the blue tarpaulin. It's a sad moment that folks in southern Spain don't experience. In Murcia, where we used to live, you could swim all year round. (Theoretically anyway. After living there for a year, we went native and declared it way too chilly to swim in winter).

Anyway, I digress. What rhymes with "bye bye pool"?

"Hello school" right?

You'd think. But no. My 4 year old, who's been fit as a fiddle all summer, suddenly developed tonsils the size of golf balls and a fever last night. So we've been hanging out at home today, just the three of us, on what was supposed to be my eldest's first day back at school. Sometimes I have to wonder about his timing.

Oh well. Time to reflect on summer's end. I love the unhurriedness of long summer days. I love the creativity it seems to induce in children that are left alone to just be. I love the crazy things my boys have been up to with their cousins, both here and in the UK - running around barefoot, building a house for a slug (named Jeff), constructing dens and tents, catching frogs, and chasing lizards and butterflies and footballs... Happy days.

But September brings with it a new beginning and a feeling of excitement too. I remember going to bed with anticipation the night before the first day back at school, looking forward to seeing my friends again, wondering which teachers I'd have and being uncoolly excited by blank exercise books and new pencils.

I'm not sure my 4 year old feels the same way. But anyway, who's complaining that our summer holidays just got extended by a day or two?

Um... Me.

Where I'm from

I'm from clean sheets on Wednesdays, squirrels chasing across green lawns, from page-a-day diaries and green Fairy soap bars.

I am from tinkering sounds on the piano, singing and clapping in the kitchen, cake smells wafting and chlorine smells lingering.

I am from the sunflower, the daffodil and the forget-me-not.

I'm from first in last out, finish what's on your plate and give up your bed for visitors.

I am from midnight vigils with stinky incense that gets up your nose, from we-are-all-sinners and confess to the robed man in the darkened box. And little girls can tell lies.

I am from the dancer from Wales and the musician from Stratford. I am from the plane crash survivor and three generations of teachers. And a string of surnames that are no good for an aspiring writer.

I am from the dairy owner who gave free milk to the poor families, from the young Welsh military wife who became a mother in India and lost her husband shortly after on the battlefields of France. I'm from the company director and twice-elected golf club president who wanted "Cheeky Charlie" for his confirmation name as a boy.

I am from now-what-did-I-come-upstairs-for and I'll-just-double-check-that-to-be-sure. I'm from the list maker and the accounts keeper, although you'd never know it. From stiff upper lip on one side and effusive displays of affection on the other. And from massive generosity and daft jokes on both sides.

I am from many journeys with a pack on my back in hot sun and in pouring rain. A thousand farewells and reunions; snatched anecdotes and shared sympathies over pints of beer and cups of tea.

I'm from tears on my pillow and happy faces smiling out from photos in frames on walls and on sideboards and in fading albums stacked high on bowing shelves.

I am from here, there and everywhere; far away friendships never forgotten and simple acts of kindness to a stranger passing through. And I'm just trying to find a way to pass it all on somehow.

Inspired by OneZenMom's unmatchably beautiful words, and the Where I'm from creative writing exercise. Why don't you try it?

Ever screwed up?

I could write this post a thousand ways. I could come up with a hundred excuses as to why I went back to the UK for my goddaughter's christening and spent most of the day picking up a fricking hire car... but the bottom line is I screwed up. Big time.

I've always had a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of attitude to trains, planes and er hire cars, but why oh why did I not just pick the darn thing up the day before? Yes, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

To avoid blathering on unnecessarily about the so-awful-it-was-almost-funny farce of running from church to church in the ____ area of London before finding the right one, I will try and sum up the learning points here:

1. Don't rely on Google maps or sat nav predictions for getting from A to B, ’specially not in London. Ouch. 
2. Never fling the only set of directions and addresses you have at your partner in a moment of panic. (We are suddenly going in two cars –my bro’s and his girlfriend’s- as the queue to pick up the hire car is an hour and a half long and we only have just over an hour to get to the christening). If time gets tight (ha!) it may be necessary to by-pass the house and go straight to the church.
3. Mobile phones can’t be relied on in these situations either.
4. Don't believe a pensioner when they tell you a church is in walking distance –pensioners walk a lot. (I make this mistake three times, foolishly leaving the car behind at church number one – my bro’s girlfriend clearly thinking I am bonkers by church number three, but me insisting, ever the optimist and trusting the pensioners).
5. Never run in flip-flops. I've buggered my left foot due to this one. (Mind you, the beautiful red high-heels I brought with me from Spain would have been even less appropriate running footwear. They didn't make it out of the suitcase anyway –a logistical cock-up due to the last-minute time constraints).

Bet you’re glad you’re getting the condensed version... We finally make it to the right church. This is church number five –we skipped number four because we’ve made mobile contact with the other half of the party and we now know where to go. There are still people milling around outside waiting to go in. Phew. Only fashionably late then. But still no hire car. (And we’re going on a family holiday to Wales the next day, stopping over in the Midlands that night.)

The ceremony goes well, except that my eldest spends most of it lying stretched out plank-style on the front row pew. I leave him to it and hope God won't mind too much. At least he is being quiet –for a four year old. My youngest starts playing up immediately the service begins, so my partner scoots outside with him and they spend it eating blackberries from the church garden. (Evidence of which is clearly visible all down my son’s smartest shirt –not that smart anyway, ’cos I forgot to pack posh outfits for the boys...)

After the christening I walk back to the house with Nic (my best mate and my goddaughter’s mum) and we get a chance to chat. Why don’t I click when she tries to convince me to find another solution to the hire car problem? Why do I imagine the after-christening party will just be folks standing around in the garden eating sausages on sticks? Why don’t I get that there will be speeches, toasts and a cake, all of which I’ll miss if I bugger off to get the sodding hire car?  

Anyway, there it is. Off I go with my ever-patient younger brother (who’s been lurking around outside the church in his Sunday best Monster Munch t-shirt in case I need more ferrying around) and I eventually pick up the stoopid rent-a-car. It takes a “mere” three hours, thanks to London traffic and Europcar’s pitiful customer service. So yeah, I messed up monumentally. I ended up missing most of the party back at the house.

My sweet goddaughter didn't seem to mind. I had a quiet play with her on the floor when I sidled in at the end of the afternoon feeling like a giant fool. We didn’t get a photo together –I felt way too sheepish to ask, as if trying to fool posterity into thinking I'd been there the whole time. And now I’m kicking myself for that naïve sincerity –when will we be in our posh frocks again, the two of us? (Actually, I plan to get plenty more use out of mine, but I don't suppose a 9 month old gets much chance to wear her frilly number again).

Much soul-searching and self-flagellating later, I realize the main issue is that I need to slow right down and smell the roses. I have a long-held tendency to overload my plate, both metaphorically and gastronomically. The latter I’m loath to give up but seriously, will I ever learn to stop trying to cram so much into my days? And next time things go belly up, I need to remember to stay calm and not make rash decisions in panic mode.

The main reason I'm writing this is to say a ginormous sorry to Nic, Dan and my beautiful goddaughter and to our mutual friends Sarah and Russ, all of whom I’d been looking forward to spending the day with. And a massive thank you and apologies for all the faffing to my bro and his girlfriend, who taxied my clan and me all around London in two cars at a moment’s notice. Thanks also to my beloved partner, for not completely despairing of me. Ugh.

So, will Wing-It Weeza learn from this fiasco or will I be back in a few months to tell the tale of my next collossal bodge up? I sincerely hope it's the former, but I ain't promising nuffink.

What's that scratching noise? Om in Mom being crossed off people's potential godmother/bridesmaid lists everywhere. Damn.

Special day

One thing you don't realize as a kid is that every time your birthday comes around, your parents remember back to that long night or day however many years ago, when you arrived and their lives changed forever.

It was my eldest's fourth birthday the other week. We decided to forgo all party shenanigans and just have a special day, the four of us. In the morning we gave him his present, all wrapped up except for the underneath part -well how do you wrap a bike anyway?  He spotted the opening straight away and dived underneath. He came out grinning "A bike!" The most original way to open a present yet.

He was so excited with his new wheels, and his little brother was pretty pleased with his hand-me-down balance bike too. They wanted to spend all day zooming around the tennis court. Eventually we managed to persuade them that it would be fun to go to the zoo.

I have mixed feelings about zoos but I put them away for the day and just enjoyed the magic through the eyes of the kids. As he hopped along holding our hands, our eldest looked up at his daddy and me and said "This is a great invention for my birthday!"

The highlight of the day had to be the gorillas. I saw one of them clutching something to her chest. I'm not normally that observant but something compelled me to keep watching. She held the thing we couldn't see close to her and did a sort of pencil roll over towards the window, right next to where we were standing. Her fierce scowl said it all: no messing with mummy gorilla. Eventually the poor tired gorilla loosened her grip and a teeny-tiny black foot emerged, soon followed by the most achingly cute face of a newborn gorilla.

And I was transformed to the day, four years earlier, when I had held my own baby on my chest the same way mama gorilla was holding her baby now. Um yeah, and I must have got something in my eye then. Ahem. We were so privileged to have got a glimpse.

The gorilla carer and the zoo photographer came up behind us to try and get a good look at the zoo's newest member. They told us that the baby gorilla had been born that very day. "Like me!" exclaimed the birthday boy, his eyes shining. And that just about put the lid on our perfect day.