The Tube

I’m standing in the school line at 8.45 am with Youngest. He's crying. He says he’s ill. Again. I have a lot of work to do today and my mobile is ringing.

“I really don’t think he is ill,” I'm saying to the teacher as my mobile clamours for attention. "He was running around in the garden with his brothers yesterday evening."

“Tell him to come to me if he feels poorly,” she's replying. “On Monday, when he was sent home in the afternoon, he just crept down to M's room and I knew nothing about it...”

“Thank you,” I say, glancing down at the phone. Eldest’s name is flashing on the display. “Excuse me, I just have to take this.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Mummy!” he shouts.

“Pardon?”

“I need more money! For the tube, to get to work, you just left the house!”

Eldest is doing work experience at a friend’s production company in Soho at the moment. For two weeks.

“How is that my fault?” I reply.

“Well, you should have given it to me. You just left!”

“Actually,” I say, “I called up the stairs while I was getting Youngest ready but you weren’t up. You said you’d get yourself up this morning, remember…”

“Well, what do you expect me to do now? I don’t have money for the tube.”

“I’ll come home,” I say.

I drive home. Quickly. I pick up Eldest and drive him to the tube because he is so late. I give him money. He jumps out. I go home. I walk into the empty house. It’s a tip but I don’t care. I breathe a sigh of relief and start working. After lunch I get a phone call from the primary school. You guessed it.

I go down in the car and pick up Youngest. He says he really doesn’t feel well. He doesn’t look well either. I feel awful. He falls asleep in my arms as we sit together on the sofa. I fall asleep too, for twenty minutes, it’s delicious. Then I get up and go and get on with my work.

When Middle One comes home I go downstairs for a while to talk to him, then I go back up to work as he slumps in front of the telly. Much later the phone rings...

“Er, I have a problem!” shouts Eldest.

“What is it?”

“There’s no tube. How do I get home?”

“At Oxford Circus?”

“Yes.”

“It’s because it’s the rush hour. They close the entrance sometimes, because of the crush, you could wait or walk down to Tottenham Court Road, it’s…”

“I know where it is!” shouts Eldest. He hangs up.

I get on with some work. A short while later the phone rings again.

“There’s no tube at Tottenham Court Road!”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure!”

“Well…you could try walking down Charing Cross road to Leicester Square or get a bus. You need to walk south either way.”

“How the hell do I know which way is south!”

“Are you near Centrepoint?”

“Yes! I'm in front of it.”

“Well then, if you are looking back across at Oxford street…”

“What the hell are you talking about, ‘if I’m looking back at Oxford Street’? Are you mad!”

“If you are looking back at the street you just emerged from, then, when you came out of that street, Oxford Street, you needed to turn…”

“Mummy! What the hell are you talking about?”

He hangs up. I get on with my work. A few minutes later the phone rings.

“I’m at Cambridge Circus.”

“Good.” I say. “That’s good, you’ve walked south down Charing Cross road, you are very near Leicester Square. You can pick up the Northern line from…”

“I know! I know!” he shouts. He hangs up again.

About half an hour later he appears home.

“You made it then.”

“Of course I made it,” he says. “I knew where I was all the time.”

“Right, I say. “Did you have a good day?”

“Great. It’s fab. I love it.” He flops down on the red leather armchair in the living room and tells me about his day. He's very enthusiastic and animated. “And did you know that T is working at Sainsbury’s as a security guard!” he laughs. (T is one of his friends from school.) “He’s such a loser! He should have got something better than that!”

“Er, didn’t I sort out your work experience for you?” I say.

“Yeah, well…” he says.

He has one leg over the arm of the chair, he’s swinging it backwards and forwards, surveying the room like a King. “When I get my own place, I’m going to need some of this furniture.”

You might need to be able to get yourself up in the morning, find a job and learn to get around London first, I think to myself. But I don’t say this.

Family Meeting

I’ve called a family meeting. It's Sunday, approaching lunchtime. All three boys are sitting on the sofa in front of me.

“Right,” I say. “So, why do you think I’ve called this meeting?”

There’s silence. Youngest has a massive smile on his face. I don’t think he understands the severity of the situation.

“Because you’re really annoyed with us!” he beams.

Okay. He does.

“Well, yes,” I say, “but would anyone like to elaborate? Can anyone tell me what’s wrong?”

“We’re selfish and rude and unhelpful?” says Middle One, helpfully.

“Exactly,” I say. “Daddy is working really hard at the moment, on this new contract, he’s really tired. Do you think it’s fair that he should wash up every night while you three go and sit in the living room to watch the Simpsons?”

“You should do it,” says Youngest.

“Yeah, it’s your job,” says Eldest.

I resist the urge to lose my temper. It won’t help.

“I cook it.” I say, “and I’m usually putting Youngest to bed at that point, and I’m trying to work too. We need you guys to help out more.”

Then I correct this.

“We need you guys to help out.”

All three boys nod, sagely.

“I’ll go and clear up the breakfast things now!” says Youngest.

“Yes, that would be great,” I say, “but after we’ve had this little chat.

I turn to Eldest.

“What do you think has been wrong with your behaviour lately?”

“I don’t do much to help out?"

“And he’s rude as well!” Youngest chips in.

“Yes, thank you,” I say, “but can we just talk about your own behaviour, not about your brother's, please?”

“..and I’m sometimes a bit rude as well?” says Eldest.

“Yes.” I say. "Anything else?”

“Um…” He thinks for a minute. “My school work?”

“Yes.” I say, “that’s right. Daddy and I think you could be working harder…”

“In the upper 4^th, I did two hours prep every night at your age,” says Husband.

We all turn to look at him.

“Yes,” I say, turning back, “and you need to work on your organisational skills, epecially with this Duke of Edinburgh thing at the moment, the camping trip…”

“That is just so badly organised! The teacher is rubbish!” says Eldest.

“Well, all your friends seem to know what’s going on.” I say.

“There was meant to be a meeting!” he says, “and it never even took place!”

“It did take place,” I say. “I rang the teacher.”

“It didn’t! I looked all over the school! And I wish you wouldn’t contact my teachers. It’s so embarrassing. Will you please stop ringing and emailing them…”

“If I didn’t ring them and email them I wouldn’t know what was going on.” I say. “Apparently there was a meeting, in the dining hall, the usual place. Everyone else in your camping group was there, and by the way, that was when they announced we could hire the equipment rather than buying it all, but it’s too late now. I spent £69 on Amazon.”

“Yes! Exactly! It’s just all so badly organised!” protests Eldest.

“No, it isn’t.” I say. “You are badly organised…you must stop blaming everyone else, you are never going to improve until you acknowledge there’s a problem. With you.”

“There isn’t a problem.”

“There is.” Husband and I chorus.

“Okay! Okay!” He surrenders. “I’m not very organised… and I’m sorry I broke the glass in your office window, I was only closing it...”

“You don’t know your own strength,” I sigh.

“...and I’m sorry we woke you up at 3.30 this morning.”

“Yes, well,” I say, “I said you could have that sleepover for your birthday on condition no one woke us up. We’re shattered, and that didn’t help”

I turn to the Middle One.

“And what about you?”

“Homework?” he says.

“Actually,” I say, “I think you’re okay at getting on with your homework but you have been rather rude recently, and not very helpful.”

“I offered to wash the car!”

“You offered to wash the car for money. That’s not the same. I think you should be helping out for free and you should keep your own room tidy and hang up your clothes when I ask you and not crash around the house all the time, just walk.

I turn to Youngest, who is still grinning.

“And what about you?”

“I should be less cryey and shouty all the time!” He suggests cheerfully.

“Yes.” I say. “Good. Daddy and I have found you very difficult this week. It’s been awful. You are always in a bad mood and shouting and moaning and crying about everything.”

“That’s because I have sleep problems. I’m tired.” says Youngest.

“Yes, I know” I say. “I don’t know what we can do about that, we put you to bed at a reasonable time. I want you to try to be calmer, and to do what Daddy and I ask you straight away. When we ask you to get in the shower, or get up in the morning, I want you to do it.”

“Right!’ says Youngest.

“Well, I think that’s it,” I say. “Anything you would like to add, Daddy?”

“I don’t think so,” says Husband. “I think you just said it all, very well.”

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s all go and clear up the breakfast things together.”

So we do.

Later, when I’m putting Eldest’s clean shirts away in his room, I find three dirty ones on the floor by his bed that he forgot, and when I go into Middle One’s room, to hang up his jumper, I find all the clean shirts I gave him earlier lying on the floor of his wardrobe. And at approximately 9.35 pm, an hour after Youngest went up to bed, as I finally treat myself to a sit down, he silently appears in the living room door way.

And after I take him back upstairs - all three flights of them - and lie next to him in the dark of his bedroom, stroking his hair and face and drinking in his lovely little boy smell (he still has it), he whispers -

“Mummy?”

“Mmmm.”

“That was fun. Can we have a family meeting every week!”

The babysitter

“Hi, I’m Vladimir,” comes a vaguely familiar voice from downstairs in the hall. Youngest has just answered the door while we’re upstairs getting ready to go out, it’s Friday night and we’re late, as usual.

“Mummy, Mummy! You have to come and meet the new babysitter!” Youngest bounces into our bedroom. “He’s from Russia and he can’t speak very good English! He’s never seen a DVD before!”

When I get downstairs I find that Vladimir bears a striking resemblance to our eldest son, but I shake hands with him anyway. It's a brilliant idea. Youngest responds so well to role-play, it’s one of the few things he does respond to. So when we asked Eldest if he would consider babysitting his two younger brothers for the first time, while we go out to a do at the school, I hit upon the sneaky trick of getting Eldest to go out the front door, stand on the step, ring the bell and come in again as ‘the babysitter’. But I can’t take credit for the Russian bit, that's his own idea: a brainwave.

Those who know Youngest in real life, or have been loyally following this blog (she knows who she is and I promise to pay for your cappuccino next time. Large, right?) will be familiar with Youngest’s penchant for pretending. Remember the goat? when he said nothing but ‘maaa!’ for two days and I had to put him to bed in a shed?

Well, the other day he managed to be two different people - at once. He was simultaneously a three year-old version of himself and a teenager called Jake (don’t ask me). It was confusing to say the least. Every time I thought I was addressing Jake, it turned out I was addressing the three year-old and vica versa. Until I discovered the genius wheeze of getting Jake to persuade Youngest to do all the things I couldn’t get him to do (are you following this, I will be testing you at the end, over that cappuccino).

It went like this:

“You really MUST get in the bath now! I’m not going to ask you again. It’s getting late and your hair really smells. It really is time for a wash.”

“I don’t want to! I won’t! You can’t make me!” etc. etc. Whine. Whinge. Procrastinate.

“Jake!”

“Yes?”

“Please could you help me get my naughty little three year-old here into the bath? I would be most grateful.”

“Oh yes, of course, happy to help,” says Jake (who is actually Youngest…still following?) and then Youngest jumps straight in the bath because Jake has told him to. And then Jake has to be called upon to get Youngest out of the bath, when I’m unable to do it, and then Jake manages to get him up stairs to his bedroom and even encourages him to brush his teeth (his own teeth, in fact). It really worked, even if it did feel mildly unsettling. Is this how schizophrenia begins? I wondered.

So, when we go out on Friday evening leaving Eldest (I mean Vladimir) looking after Youngest and Middle One for the first time, he is also minding a three year-old and Jake. Quite a houseful.

And we only paid him a tenner.

Exam stress

Can you write it by four o’clock, please?” says the editor. I look at the time. It’s 12.30.

“Um…” I say. “How many words?”

We’ll need about a thousand.” she says.

“Um…” I say again, “actually, my husband is having a vasectomy today. He’s just on his way home.”

There’s silence.

“And, um, my eldest will be back from an exam any minute for lunch.”

There’s more silence. I know this trick. I’ve done it myself.

“So, I’ll give it my best shot,” I hear myself saying.

“Great,” says the editor, “and if you could interview some other parents and a teacher or two would be fantastic, to get their perspective.”

“Right.” I say, “no problem, I’ll give it a go, I once wrote something for the Thunderer in two hours, so, how hard can it be?”

I put the phone down. There’s a voice somewhere in the back of my head screaming, ‘Oh My God How The Hell Am I Going To Do This!’ but I ignore it and start writing.

Eldest comes home.

“I can’t talk,” I say. “I have to write a thousand words on a mother’s exam stress by four pm.”

“Oh,” he says.

He has to go back for his English exam in two hours. I was going to go through it all with him. Instead, we negotiate what he wants to eat for lunch (I offer scrambled eggs, he counters with a sausage sandwich).

“Alright,” I say. “I’ll put some sausages in the oven, that will be easier anyway, but you will have to keep an eye on them, turn them over…”

I put six sausages in the oven: two for me, two for husband two for Eldest. Then I go back upstairs to the office.

I interview a friend whose children did their GCSEs last year (Eldest is doing Year 10 exams at the moment).

Husband comes home. I dash downstairs to greet him.

“Poor you!” I say. He is walking very gingerly. “I’ll put the kettle on but I can’t look after you I’m afraid, I have to write a thousand words for The Times by 4 pm.”

“Gosh.” says husband, bravely, then he sits down on a deck chair outside.

I go back upstairs. I interview a teacher who teaches GCSE physics and has a son in Year 11; I interview a friend of the editor who gives me lots of anecdotes. I write it all up. By this time it’s getting quite late and I’m feeling rather hungry. Eldest walks into the office.

“Any chance of a sausage sandwich up here?” I say.

“Oh! Sorry.” he says. “I ate them.”

“What? All six?”

“Yes.”

“What about Daddy?”

“He’s in the garden.”

Eldest gets ready to go back to school.

“How’s your English preparation?” I ask. “Did you re-read Journey’s End like I said?”

“No,” he says. “But I read the notes.”

“Did you re-read Of Mice and Men?”

“No.” he says.

This makes me feel stressed.

He leaves. I ring a friend and ask her if she can collect Youngest from school today and hold on to him for an hour and then, when husband wakes up, I ask him to cancel the drumming lesson. Then I write up the article, interviewing another teacher at a different school and adding that bit at the end, and file it. It’s okay. Actually, it’s quite good. I feel great.

Middle One comes home.

“I just wrote a thousand word article for The Times in three and a half hours,” I say.

“Mmmm” he says. “Mummy? I thought I did really badly in my maths test, but it turns out I didn’t because it was all Level 7 stuff.”

“Oh.” I say, “Okay, well, let’s wait and see.”

This makes me feel stressed.

Eldest comes home.

“How did it go?” I say.

“Not very well,” he says. “The questions were really stupid. They asked what was dramatic about this particular bit, but there wasn’t anything dramatic about it.”

“Right.” I say. This makes me feel stressed again - and frustrated.

I sit down. I suddenly feel incredibly tired.

“What’s for dinner?” asks Eldest.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/education/article3007885.ece

Work

April 4th

I’m standing on a desk in a year 10 classroom in a secondary school in Sheffield waving a Chinese flag - and it feels fantastic.

It’s because I’m working again, as a producer/director, making a short film for a publishing company to promote a GCSE Mandarin textbook.

It was a phone call out of the blue that did it, just one little phone call. All those years of waiting: years in which I cried for it, buried it, mourned it and finally let it go. In the end I was content, at last, to move on from my old life as a TV director to be ‘just a mum’ and a writer at home.

I waited so long for the phone to ring that I decided it never would, that’s why I called my blog, ‘I don’t know how she doesn’t do it’, because I don’t feel I do ‘it’, not like so many other mums, the ones juggling families alongside exciting careers. I was just a mum stuck at home with the kids. (I wanted to call my blog ‘stuck in the house,’ but that was already taken).

And over the years I’ve managed to keep myself busy with journalism but it didn’t really feel the same as my old job. It didn’t fill the need to get out of the house, to meet new people, to create something from nothing - not in the same way that TV and film making did.

I’ve worked with P before, many moons ago. He said he was ringing with a question. Oh yes, I said. I thought it might be some advice, a contact he needed, a bit of info about an article, but then he said:

“Would you like to help me make some short films? It will just be some producing, writing, keeping an eye on the narrative and then directing on the film day with kids in schools and helping with the edit?”

Would I!

So here I am, up north, in a school, asking a group of Year 10 children to stand in a huddle and shout something in Mandarin. And it’s been a great day. I’ve been interviewing a teacher. I’ve been filming a Chinese lady writing Mandarin characters. I’ve been asking the children to do vox pops for the camera. It’s been fab.

And then we wrapped and I caught the train home to London, and as I walked up the long length of our road from the Tube at dusk - back to my house, my husband, our three sons - I was thinking about what it would be like to come home after a wonderful day’s work, now that I’m a proper I-don’t-know-how-she-does-it-mum. I will be pleased to see them. They will ask me how it all went. I will give them all a hug.

But when I walk in the door I see there’s mud up the stairs.

“What’s this?” I shout.

(This is not what I planned. I was going to call out: hello! I’m home! How are you all? It’s meee!)

I go the loo and there’s even more mud all over the bathroom floor (and the cleaner just came this morning).

“Why is there all this mud?”

There’s no answer. I reach out for the loo roll. There is none.

“Why is there’s no loo roll! Why am I the only one who ever replaces the bloody loo roll?”

There’s a lengthy silence…

“I’ve just got in!” I scream, like a harridan. “I’ve been working all day! Can someone please get me some loo roll?”

“Get it yourself,” comes Eldest’s voice from somewhere very close by.

Nuts

I’m on a train travelling between Reading and Oxford sitting between two men who are clearly nuts.

One of them is somewhere in front of me along the carriage loudly engaging a hapless young man from the armed forces in conversation. The other is somewhere behind shouting even more loudly down his phone. It is impossible to tune out. Believe me, I’m trying.

“Oh yeah!” Booms the first man, “The power of those Tornados, it’s just incredible, I used to live near RAF Lyneham in Norfolk, and I’d watch them coming in to land.”

There’s a low reluctant murmur of ascent from hapless young guy from the armed forces.

“She nearly pooed herself when I told her!” yells the second man on the phone behind. And then, after a pause in which the person on the other end is clearly saying something, “Yeah! When he grows up he’ll learn the truth about his dad."

And after another momentary pause,

“Yeah! He’s two!”

I would like them to be quiet. I've had a very stressful morning. Two hours ago I didn’t even know I was going to Oxford today. I’ve had to pull some last-minute childcare out of the bag: not for my own three, who are all busy until after four o’clock when their father can take over, but for a three year-old and his brother and sisters who are under my charge until this evening because their parents are away.

Against all the odds I’ve actually made it on to this train from Reading, where I had to change, to the last leg of a journey that has so far included overcoming the suspension of the Bakerloo line and a fatality on the track outside Paddington Station. Now, at last, I’m hoping to relax.

I look at my watch, the meeting started ten minutes ago and I’m about twenty minutes from Oxford where I will have to get a taxi.

I close my eyes.

“Yeah! Those fighter jets based out there in Norfolk are incredible!” Comes the first voice from somewhere in front.

“She really looked like she was going to poo herself when I told her!” Yells the second man from behind down his phone.

“I can’t stand this anymore.” Says a third voice from somewhere very close behind my head.

I open my eyes.

“I’m going to have to kill them,” says the third voice. It is low and male and very menacing.

Is he talking to me?

“If I have this all the way to Manchester I am definitely going to have to kill them both, but especially that one...”

He is not talking to me; he is talking to himself. Out loud.

“He's an idiot,” he continues. “There are no Tornadoes at RAF Lyneham. And I happen to know that for a fact.”

Tomorrow

It’s 6.30 on Sunday evening and we’ve just got back from a meal out. It feels lovely not to have the usual mountain of washing up from the roast dinner. No hair washes tonight either because Youngest and Eldest had their haircut today and it was washed at the salon (Middle One had his done yesterday). It’s almost worth the exorbitant £21 each for the cut just to have someone else wash their hair.

So, all in all I’m looking forward to a relaxing Sunday evening. For a change. I decide to get on with some writing and I’m on a roll tapping furiously at the keys when Eldest swans into the office:

“Got any tissue paper?”

“No…..What for?”

“It’s for my art homework.”

“When for?”

‘Tomorrow.”

“Perhaps you should have thought about this before now?”

“But we were out having a meal!”

“No, I mean before that. Before today even. When the shop that sells these things at the end of our road was open.”

“I’ve been busy!”

“You've been skateboarding.”

He wanders off. I will not get riled. I will not get up and go and look for some tissue paper. I will let it all wash over me. I am writing…

About ten minutes later Middle One waltzes in:

“Mummy?”

“Mmmm.”

“Have we got any A3 paper?”

“What for?” I’m not looking up from the computer screen. I’m still tapping at the keys furiously. I will not look up.

“My geography homework.”

“When’s it for?” My teeth are so gritted I can hardly get the words out.

He says the answer out loud at the exact moment I mouth it silently to myself: “Tomorrow.”

“Nope.” I say.

He wanders off.

“Mummy!” Youngest is shouting from his room upstairs.

I ignore it.

“Mummy!”

I still ignore it.

“Mummy! Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!”

“What!” I yell back.

(I bet Jane Austen never had this problem.)

“What the hell are you shouting for? “ Asks husband coming up the stairs.

“I’m not shouting, he is.”

“Where is my Woody!” Comes the disembodied voice from above.

“I don’t know!” I shout back.

“You are shouting.” Says husband.

Youngest comes into the office.

“I can’t find my Woody doll. I haven’t been able to find him for ages. Will you come and look with me?”

“Please.” I say.

“Please.” He says.

Reluctantly I get up and go and look for Woody. I look everywhere I can think of: under his bed, in his bed, in his wardrobe, in the playroom…I can’t find it.

By now it is nearly bedtime: a long, lavish affair at our house as each child goes up at a different time and requires to be followed shortly after as one of us either reads a story (as in Youngest’s case) or tells the child to stop reading a story (as in Middle One and Eldest’s case).

It’s an exhausting process but one that is almost coming to an end as I enter Middle One’s room at about 9.30 and tell him to turn out his light.

“Mummy?” He says.

“Yeeees.”

“I’ve got something to tell you. It’s not good I’m afraid.”

“What?” I can feel my teeth beginning to grit again.

“What is it?”

“I lost my PE kit at school.”

“Right.” I say, as calmly as I can muster, “And when do you have PE next?”

But I’ve already guessed the answer.