It's Wednesday so it must be date night !

What did we do before the Orange Wednesday offer of 2 for 1 cinema and 2 for 1 pizza at Pizza Express ? We didn't go out on dates that's what.

There was a time before we had our beloved boy when going out for the night wasn't such a mission. We'd play softball together one evening a week during the season, we'd go out for dinner quite often and we used to go to the Clapham Picturehouse for free previews or occasionally we'd pay for a movie.  The only time we ever paid full price for a film was to watch In The Loop and thankfully it was worth every penny.

Now if we want to watch a film together we usually have to wait until it's on DVD or - as we discovered recently - we can pay a small fee to watch it on TV and have our own home comforts while we watch Argo from the sofa in our pyjamas. The gold standard of date night, however, is when we have childcare and can go out to eat and watch a film both on the same night. Tonight was such a night.

We do make the obligatory calls to ask the babysitter (my sister) if our boy is being good. Of course being modern and high tech parents we have a teleconference with our son from Pizza Express direct to his cot and can check if he has toothpaste on his pyjama top or if he's playing up while he's supposed to be drinking his milk. With these duties done and pizza and doughballs wolfed down and paid for it's to the cinema for the main event.

Now I used to go to the cinema every week come rain or shine and watched a new movie each week. In recent years I watch fewer than 3 films a year in the cinema, so when I do they had better be good. The trailers give me the impression that my attendance is hitting the most likely candidates for films I can sit through. Apparently, upcoming delights include; Fast and Furious 6, another new Superman (Kevin Costner is his Earth dad this time, not a Duke of Hazzard), a zombie apocalypse movie starring Brad Pitt and something about a magic trick / grand larceny involving Woody Harrelson, the kid who invented Facebook and Borat's wife. It really didn't inspire me to return to the cinema again any time soon.

The last cinema visit we made was to watch Avengers Assemble which was brilliant. Cracking dialogue, great action sequences and lots of super heroes. I have to say that Star Trek: Into Darkness was no less impressive. It gave me laughs, thrills and a story I could actually follow (no mean feat these days !) We upgraded to the premium seats for a treat and if we'd had any snacks we had two places to store them and extra wide arm rests too !!

In a return to my movie reviewing past after a 22 year hiatus here are the highlights:

• Chris Pine giving it the full Shatner 
• Bones played with tongue so far into his cheek it was poking into his ear
• Spock, Kirk and Uhura having a domestic in a small shuttle while trying to avoid a Klingon attack
• Scenes on moving vehicles reminiscent of Blade Runner 
• Costume changes so ridiculous that at one point Bones appears to be wearing his Gran's best dress 
• Benedict Cabbagepatch in action mode and giving it large with his dulcet tones and dreamy dark hair 

The best moment, though, was when Benedict's character reveals who he really is. In the hush of the cinema a lone voice said - with feeling - "oh Shit !!" it was what we were all thinking and it relieved the tension of the moment, albeit temporarily.

I love date night.

The modern poem for busy children (and their parents)

Monday's child is knackered from a weekend of activities organised by overzealous parents terrified of causing childhood obesity if their offspring spend any waking moment not playing a sport or learning something.

Tuesday's child sleeps in late causing chaos in the morning as Mummy tries to get him to nursery and herself to work on time. 

Wednesday's child has chilled out and gotten cocky - by the evening when Mummy leaves for Kettlebells he's run rings round Daddy at bathtime and even causes the cat to run and hide.

Thursday's child spends the day with Daddy or Auntie while Mummy goes to work - it's like a weekend with fun food and day trips.

Friday's child hangs out with Mummy at home - they're both quite tired so they stay in pyjamas until far too late and might eventually get out to the shops, but not always. 

Saturday's child goes to the park, plays football and goes to the library with Daddy. Mummy spends the day at a yoga course and comes home enthused and hippie-like.

Sunday's child goes swimming first thing - then shopping with Daddy and flirts with Maureen the lovely checkout lady at Sainsburys. After a fun family lunch everyone gets ready for the week ahead and it all starts again.

Learning all the time...

It's always nice to have a Bank Holiday as just that one extra day makes all the difference. Now I'm working again it also means a bonus day in the week that I can spend with my boys. This week we made the most of our long weekend doing lots of lovely things together. The best thing, though, was that I learned a few life lessons and had time to appreciate them. In the spirit of shared learning I thought you'd like to hear them.

I've been pondering the origin of the name Waitrose for a few weeks now. I mean all the other supermarkets are pretty well known, but I've never known where Waitrose came from. Until we were sitting in traffic for three hours on Bank Holiday Monday and I had time to look it up. Apparently the store was first opened in Acton (close to where I grew up) and it was started by Messers Waite, Rose and Taylor. When Mr Taylor parted ways with the others it was named Wait(e)Rose after the remaining partners. Pretty obvious really.
Lesson One: Sometimes things are as simple as you think they are. 

I thought I'd try an experiment with eating as a family this week. On Thursday Hubbie was at home with our boy while I was at work during the day and I suggested that we all have an early dinner in the evening when I got in. Usually Hubbie is home later than the boy can wait to eat, but on Thursday I got back, prepared hot dogs and fries for all of us and we sat to eat together. Usually we only get to eat together at the weekend so this was a bonus family meal. It was pretty successful actually with the boy loving that we were eating with him and he had great fun adding mustard to his hot dog, which he didn't eat, but small steps.
Lesson Two: It's worth trying something new and if it works it might become a regular thing. 

My father-in-law and I rarely agree on anything at all, but this week he surprised me. In discussing the recent local elections he shared his dismay that they had no UKIP candidate locally that he could vote for so he settled on the Green candidate instead. Now I'm all for votes for Greens and think the more the better, but I was highly amused that he'd go from a party that loathes wind farms to one that is all about sustainable energy. An almost complete volte face if you will.
Lesson Three: An old dog might not learn new tricks, but if it's confused it might surprise you with a new trick anyway. 

Then there were the really quick ones:

• Any and all community meetings are boring - this does not bode well for a future in politics ! 

• Badly made toast is unforgiveable. 

• There is no new music - all the fuss about Daft Punk's single Get Lucky is just proof that old school disco music really is foot-tappingly addictive. 

• Brushing the cat does not mean he won't immediately shed tonnes of white fur when he sits on my jeans. 

And most important of all:

• Laughing and playing with Hubbie and Son are my favourite pastimes.

Learning is great isn't it ?

Arriba Arriba it's Cinco de Mayo (sort of)

I've heard of Cinco De Mayo, but it's not on the roster of celebrations we mark in our family - and we pretty much do them all if food is involved - but we do love our version of Tex-Mex food.  I say our version because it's made with Quorn instead of chicken or beef (I'm the veggie) and is always popular in our house even though the authenticity and similarity to actual Mexican food is questionable at best.

We were lucky enough to be sent a fab bag of goodies by Discovery to make a meal for Cinco De Mayo. Now in the interests of full disclosure I didn't make this on the 5th of May as I spent that afternoon with lovely friends in a sunny garden eating and drinking. Instead I cooked this meal the following day to have with my lovely boys at home. So we're calling it our Seis De Mayo meal instead.

As we like assembling food ourselves (and anything you eat with your fingers is always tastier isn't it ?) I decided to make fajitas.

Ingredients: 

Discovery fajita kit: includes wraps, salsa and seasoning mix
Quorn chunks (in place of chicken)
Mushrooms
Peppers
Onions
A little oil

To assemble: 

Grated Cheese
Mexican dips incl: guacamole, Salsa, Garlic and herb soured cream
Red Jalapenos

Preparation:

Chop the onions, peppers and mushrooms into similar size pieces - we prefer it quite chunky, but you can chop them finely if you like.

Fry the onions in a little oil, add the mushrooms and peppers. Once the ingredients are softer add the Quorn chunks and seasoning and mix well then pop a lid on and turn the heat down to let it all cook in some steam.

I like to let this sit for a while to soak up all the delicious flavours before warming the fajitas.

To assemble: 

Warm fajitas either in a large pan or microwave. Add the quorn mix, some grated cheese and dips. Hubbie and I fold them differently from each other, but they get eaten the same so it doesn't matter really. I also like to add some jalapenos to my plate for and extra bit of spice.

I have used the fajita kit before and like that it has been updated so the box is made of less cardboard. The contents provide the right amount of wraps for our little family - there are 8 of a medium size - and the seasoning mix is good for two lots of mix as I only use half a pack at a time.

For convenience and ease this kit is great and the additional ingredients including dips and jalapenos can be resealed and used again so there is little wasteage. If you don't cook Mexican (ish) food yet do give them a try.

Sombreros are optional :o)

How you like me now ?

"No, my NCT group didn't bond at all." It's the truth we don't tell isn't it ? We're supposed to say that they are the backbone of our friendship group. The ones who kept us sane during the baby bit and who we still have coffee with once a week even though Sabrina went back to her job straight away and Melanie and Mike (the nice ones) have twin babies now as well. Well my group didn't get on from the first meeting - we were all perfectly civil of course (we're not animals), but we weren't about to start meeting up for tea and baby chat and that was clear from the off.

I hadn't actually expressed this out loud until last Friday night. I met up with a friend I haven't seen for years - well not since she had the first of her two children - and we were trying to catch up on around 5 years in a few hours. We had a rapid and wide-ranging discussion that encompassed; our kids, our husbands, going back to work (or not), how long was it since we last saw each other ? the family support we have around us and the groups that we take our kids to. It was during this that she asked me if I had bonded with my NCT group and I uttered the words that you're just not supposed to say. Now, I realise that not all parents choose to go to the NCT pre-natal groups. If you do there is this mythology that they will become your best friends throughout the whole birth and after process and you'll be friends for life (well until you go back to work anyway).

Then it occurred to me that our parents didn't have this option and both my Mother and Mother-in-law have been very honest about how lonely it was raising their first child. Neither of them had family nearby to help and both of them were isolated and caring for a baby without having their own mother around to help or advise. Neither my nor Hubbie's family live nearby so we don't call on them for day to day childcare, but they have been massively helpful with raising our son. My sister still takes care of my boy which enables me to go to work knowing that he is with someone he loves and who loves him. As we are fortunate enough to have families that are pretty internet savvy we use Skype so that they can chat to our son and see him running around playing at home when we can't get to them in person.

We have a great relationship with our neighbours who are very kind to our boy and help us out with childcare so I haven't really felt the absence of that group support that the NCT gathering is renowned for providing. I'm not critical of the NCT, far from it I think it's great and the course we did was invaluable in teaching us so many things we had no idea we didn't know. In fact I still keep in touch with my tutor and have met up with her a few times as well as interviewing her on my radio show. The other parents though, were a different story. I think it comes down to the twin issues of Hubbie's disinterest in 'joining in' and my seeming incompetence at 'fitting in.' Hubbie isn't bothered about making pals with new people so he is friendly, but not trying too hard. Me, on the other hand, I'm trying far too hard. I offer to make tea for everyone, make crappy jokes intended to lighten the atmosphere and talk far too much. It's only when I see people glazing over at another 'interesting' bit of info I just had to share with the group that I realise I've done it again.

What I've always wished for is that effortless cool that I observe in others. Those folk who just ooze confidence and social magnetism and whose entourage hang on their every word. I always desperately wanted to be non-conformist as I knew I wasn't going to be part of the popular crowd. At school this meant making my own clothes (not all of them, just the crazy stuff like a puffball skirt that I'd seen on the Clothes Show), spending ages on decorating my nails and doing my hair differently every day. At university I went a whole other way and found a few groups that I could be part of - the university newspaper, the radio station and my friends who I went to gigs with and dressed the same as. The latter were also the friends I lived with and it was very confusing when the washing consisted of similar goth skirts, black tights and floaty tops only discernible by the different sizes.

Now that I'm a grown up I have learned to embrace my conformism. I like it actually. I still talk too much and I still share too much. I still think that people who like me must have got it wrong. I slightly mistrust them for not knowing better.

So imagine how amazed I was that one of my Twitter followers is Dave Gedge of the band The Wedding Present. Then last night during a radio show I was presenting I tweeted him to say I was playing one of his songs and he tweeted this:

I'm not sure it makes me cool, but it does make me very happy indeed.

The princess and the pea revisited

Being back in work has given me a finer appreciation of the time management issues required when every member of the family has a separate schedule.

Hubbie is first up and has the longest journey to work, as a result he's the most tired of all of us. He leaves for work so early that he has to tiptoe around the kitchen making his packed lunch and having breakfast so as not to wake the boy too early. I get up a bit after him and try to get a few things done before the boy does wake up and starts yelling, "Good morning" from his bed.

On the days he goes to nursery the boy needs to be there at a certain time so that he can have breakfast and has decided this week to wake up at 6.30 (Mon) 8.00 (Tue) and 7.00 (Wed) then this morning because my sister was taking care of him he was up at 6am calling her to come and let him watch Postman Pat on her iPad. Tomorrow I'm at home with him so he's staying in bed until I'm ready for him no matter how early he's awake.

My schedule is looking a bit like the cereal advert where the Mum has already done half a day of sorting out before she gets to work. Don't misunderstand me, the boys are very helpful and pretty self-sufficient in the mornings. It's more the logistics of getting myself ready, the boy ready and to nursery, getting to work and then realising I haven't eaten yet and it's already ten o'clock. I used to get to work early so I could leave early in the afternoon. I'm not a desk hanger and have no qualms about leaving before everyone else, so arriving at work at 9.30 is entirely alien to me. I mean half the day has already gone !!

I'm not working on Fridays which is a blessing as I want to still get to have a day with my boy and it gives me a weekday to do things at home. Tomorrow we are having a new alarm fitted - with pet friendly sensors, so if the cat wanders round he won't set it off. Admittedly his manoeuvres are pretty limited at the best of times, but I don't want to be charged with wasting police time if we call them out to attend a moggy crossing the living room for a stretch and some cat treats rather than a burglar.

We will also be waiting in for the nice chaps from John Lewis to deliver a replacement mattress. I'm looking forward to a proper sleep again after a failed attempt to order a new mattress. A few weeks ago I decided it was time to get a new mattress for our bed and Hubbie pointed out that John Lewis were doing a free collection & recycling offer at the time. We had some vouchers kicking around so I ordered what I thought was a nice looking mattress for us. It arrived all rolled up and despite the kindly assurances of the delivery guys as they took our old - and four times thicker - mattress that it was meant to look like that I suspected something wasn't right. After a week of sleeping badly - and being increasingly bad tempered as a result - I finally checked John Lewis online only to find that the mattress I'd ordered wasn't intended for every day use, but as a guest bed (hence it arrived rolled up - that was my first clue).

Now being responsible types we had arranged for the old mattress to be collected and recycled at the same time as our new one was delivered so it's not even like we could put the old on back on and sleep on that. No, we've been sleeping on what is in effect a camp bed arrangement (albeit a king size one) until JL could arrange another delivery and collection of a proper mattress.

What this has taught me is:

• Ordering online late at night is not a good idea and simple things can go wrong

• A good night's sleep is more valuable than pretty much anything else

• All the planning in the world cannot compete with a toddler's body clock 

So fingers crossed that my boy decides to sleep in (at least a little bit) tomorrow.

Until the new mattress arrives I need all the rest I can get, even if it is on a camp bed !

Yes, yes that's very impressive, but can he play it on the piano ?

The other day me and the boy were eating noodles for lunch - I'm delighted he likes Chinese food as it will hold him in good stead in future life as a student (hopefully) and as a man who can cook for himself (again hopefully). He watched me eat with some wooden chopsticks and asked if he could have some. I remembered the very small ones I have left from a packet of sushi, washed them and popped them into his bowl of noodles. He promptly took them out and effortlessly began to use them to eat. He was absolutely delighted and I was flabbergasted !

Now I don't remember how old I was when I first tried to eat with chopsticks, but it wasn't when I was two and a half. I don't recall anything I could do at this age that he does now. We take him to football, we go swimming, he has a toddler tablet computer and more bikes and toys than is strictly necessary. It's an unfair comparison between my childhood and his as there are 40 years between them, but it's the only one I have. My boy is an active child who is constantly on the move and I have no idea if he is like that because we do so many activities with him or if we are responding to his natural buoyancy and energy by taking him out all the time. I do wonder what our children will be able to do to rebel or let off steam. We keep them occupied so much of the time as though we're worried they might spend a fraction of a second without an activity. As I child I did watch far too much TV (I still do) and I wasn't really a 'joiner' (I'm still not), but I did read a lot of books and wrote a fair amount too.

Parenting in this day and age appears to be about what other people tell us to do or judge us for not doing. We are given guidance from before our children are born on how to do everything and it's like parenting by committee. I consulted at least half a dozen Mums before weaning my son and at one point when he was still a baby my mother suggested I give him boiled and cooled water to drink. I recounted this advice to a hippie mum (you know the kind - batik print baby wrap and smells of patchouli and judgement) and was greeted with a sharp intake of breath as she told me in no uncertain terms " you never give a breastfed baby water." I was alarmed that I'd done something terrible then remembered that my mother raised four children so she must know what she's talking about. All this without resorting to tie dye sarong pants to show how much of an earth mother she was. Why did I even consider for a moment that my own mother might not know what she was doing ?

On any given day we see 'research' claiming that too much TV is bad for our children or that they have to eat certain vegetables for optimum brain function. In trying to ensure we don't expose our kids to too much of this or not enough of that we are also faced with other parents comparing how we do things. A friend asked me a while back what time our boy goes to bed and I told her - she responded 'Oh that's quite late isn't it ?' not intending to be mean at all. I pondered for weeks on whether or not I was failing as a Mother for not putting my son to bed sooner. When I saw her again recently she asked the same question and I sheepishly gave the same answer to which she replied, 'yes, that's the same as us.' So she was just checking in that what they do is 'normal' and not using the information to judge me.

I do wonder if the peer pressure from other parents has always been like this or if it's just a symptom of our need to be 'active' parents. We are so concerned with our sense of ourselves that we can't take a back seat to our children - we need to be 'involved and engaged.' I mean we've cornered the market in misery memoirs both as adults who were kids and as parents who can't stop moaning about how hard it all is. Isn't that what we're all doing on parenting blogs ? Mithering about how tough it all is. It's like leaning over a massive garden fence without having to share germs or make other people cups of tea and only half listening to the other person while waiting to jump in with our latest adorable anecdote about Jacinta or Tristan. 

I'm pretty sure our parents' generation didn't moan about raising their kids they just did it. Neither did they seek other people's approval or plaudits for how well they brought us up. If anything they are self-deprecating when talking about their own children and any part they may have played in bringing them up. 

Which brings me back to the chopsticks. I have no idea how my son knows how to use them, maybe he's a genius. 

If he is it's nothing me or his father have done.