The third law of parental dynamics

The third law of parental dynamics makes child psychologists and entropists tremble in fear. It goes like this: each milestone, while initially exciting, will return to bite you in the arse.

Ali demonstrated the third law of parental dynamics with textbook precision last week, which was an unusual week at Chaos HQ for several reasons.

Most weeks, Britain is a small island perched under a large spigot in the sky. But last week it became a sunny paradise. Our local splash pool teemed with smiling children. Ice cream and Pimms flowed in excess. Grown-ups and children who had over-consumed either lay like wilted dandelions on park benches, still smiling.

Grandma, Uncle Rice, and Auntie A all had the forsite to visit England during the most perfect week of the summer. And for a brief time Chaos HQ - a lonely, wandering, turtle shell sort of home - was snuggled up in the warmth of the family net. A rare pleasure.

Considering the sunshine, we lived at the park for a week. My kin, being nice people, tried not to shout 'FAT LIAR!' when I explained that England wasn't always like this.

Amidst this blissful, pastoral backdrop, Ali uttered her first sentence. Her gullible family clapped. Angels sang the hallelujah chorus. Time stood still and the heavens bent low to get a closer listen. Then what began low, started to grow.

'WHERE DO YOU KEEP THE LOLLIES???'

She repeated her first sentence: 'I need a lolly.'  Pause. 'I need a lolly.' Impatience crept into her voice. 'I NEED a lolly.'

Angels cowered. Time slunk away in fear, suddenly realizing the danger of the situation. Sadly Papa and I were legally obliged to hold our ground. But we knew what was coming, and we shook like dry leaves before the hurricane.

'I NEED A LOLLY! A LOLLY! A LOLLY! I NEED A LOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLY!'

Ali needed a lolly as I wrestled her off the playground and into the buggy. She needed a lolly all the way home - a thirty minute walk and an absolute lolly desert.

Kids - like defective electronics - go off. It is just a fact of life: short kids, tall kids, kids who climb on rocks. They go off with persistence and awkward timing, like car alarms through loudspeakers from the pit of Hades.

The funniest thing about these situations is that passers-by look at you like: 'Holy cow lady, did you know your kid is going off?' A perceptive lot, those passers-by.

Ali has needed many things in the days that have followed. Two-ish being more an age of bulldozers than subtleties, we have been unable to explain the needs versus wants dichotomy to her. We will, I suspect still be attempting to explain this to her when she is 25.

Actually I'm still struggling to understand it myself. So this seems as good a juncture as any to say: I need Grandma, Uncle Rice and Auntie A to return again soon.

Guys: as an incentive, I have a lolly waiting for each of you. You'll be pleased to know that I didn't obtain it by looting my local shop. And I promise it won't turn around and bite you in the arse, as per the third law of parental dynamics.

In the meantime my dear family: may the road rise up to meet you and may the sun shine warm upon your face.

This week at Chaos HQ

We are fingerprinting culprits.

Motive? Chaos and world domination. 

Some of them are not as short as we initially suspected them to be.

Caught pink-handed. 

Mama culpa

Dear Mom,

I'm sorry. Years late, I know. Perhaps it will bring you comfort to know that your granddaughters are currently locked in a vicious intergalactic war with no exit strategy. I'll explain.

As Ana sees it, her little sister is Zuul, destroyer of worlds, habitat-thief and crowing monster. She is like the evil penguin in The Wrong Trousers, the one who takes all of Gromit's stuff and then convinces the Wallace - allegedly the responsible household adult - to behave like a complete tit and a bit of a criminal.

From Ali's perspective, Ana (who is actually just a giant hairball in need of vigorous hair-pulling) should adopt a more relaxed attitude. Ana's toys need a lot of breaking, because they are more fun broken, especially balloons. And if you rip the pages out of books, you get to make up your own story, right? Crowing to high heaven helps to drive this point home.

THIS IS SPARTA!!!

Their perspectives are clinically insane and totally irreconcilable. There is simply no way to communicate to them in Babish, their native tongue, that 'favourite' is a pretty dumb word to include in the same paragraph as 'I love you both more than the cosmos and would gladly go under a bus for you tomorrow - yes both of you - if only you would just stop squabbling about who gets to push me under.'

You see, all I really want is a little quiet. And to sit down. And for the bickering to go out with the tide, or on the breeze, or with the rubbish - I'm not picky about how it leaves. I suspect you know this feeling well.

Mom, I am guessing that you had a pretty relaxing life before my sister and I landed from Mars. Maybe you didn't enjoy separating claws from scalps on a daily basis for a decade and a half. Maybe the necessity to always have TWO OF EVERYTHING ALL OF THE TIME because we were too primitive to share ANYTHING drove you completely batty and left you with little option but to ABuse the CApslock FunCTION. Maybe as you went to bed each night, just the thought of waking up in the morning made you feel profoundly beat, because you knew we'd be up by 6 and locked back into our demented prizeless tussle by 6:15.

Keep your friends close and your frenemies closer. 

It's a sick cosmic joke really: kids do the most damage to their captors in the early years before they are even capable of forming memories. It's a watertight defense - better than insanity and innocence put together. Which is why prior to having kids I never even realized that I owed you such a huge apology for all the million awful things I surely did to you in my pre-school years that I can't even remember.

Mom, I wish I could return to you the years of lost sleep and peace. However, rest assured that your revenge is currently being enacted by two very talented horsetoddlers of the apocolypse. Their dedication to the job is admirable, and you'd be proud to know that they have both been nominated for a Nihilist of the Year Award - they are currently trying to out-campaign each other, Miliband-style. They are clearly worth every fruit shoot you (or Zuul) paid them, and more.

'Would I fire my sister? No, but I'd sell her for ice cream in a Night Garden minute.'

Take solice in this: your years of exhaustion paved the way for a great life-long friendship - seriously - Tanta is my best friend. She is not even paying me to say that, although she will certainly dash off and pen something even nicer about me, and then we'll be stuck in a bitter flying compliments war that could last for weeks - who knows, maybe years. But seriously, I haven't clawed her scalp in over a decade and I don't know what I'd do without a friend like her. Or you.

With much love and thanks on this and every Mothers' Day.

Mama

*Not that I know what the word means. Seriously, is it Greek?

17: Cookies revisited

Day seventeen and by now you may have noticed that I come from a long, proud line of cookie enthusiasts: buttered sugar runs deep in our veins.

We cooked the cookies in the cookie jar.

If cookie baking was an Olympic event (and it should be), Grandma would be a serial gold medallist. As a girl, I remember how exhausted she was by the sixty-fifth batch, running on endorphins and will-power alone, flanked either side by an international clutch of talented and fiercely competitive cookie-mums. My siblings and I could merely watch in awe, throw energy drinks and towels from the sidelines, and cheer wildly (though this will give you one heckava sore throat because most cookies require at least ten minutes at 175c). Inevitably, Grandma always produced a beautiful deep freezer full of cookies in record time, and we kids applied them to our hoarse throats all winter.

Peppernuts, or pfeffernusse, are compulsory in my family. Happily, they are also delicious. Both Grandma and Great-grandma K excel at peppernutting. Credit for the following wisdom belongs entirely to them, and of course to the long, proud line of peppernutters before them.

Peppernuts are pretty easy. In a mixer, cream 1 cup of softened butter with 1.5 cups of sugar, then beat in three eggs. Then add the zest of one lemon, half a teaspoon white pepper, 1 teaspoon cream of tartar, and 1 teaspoon cardamom (optionally you can also add dashes of the following if you like: lemon juice, cloves, or ginger). Add about 4.5 cups of flour, a bit at a time, just enough until you get a stiff dough. Roll into balls: big and chewy or small and crunchy according to your preference. Bake on greased cookie sheets at about 350f or 180c for about 8 minutes, or until lightly brown. Consume immoderately.

Half baked. 

Sadly I don't think I'm ready for Olympic peppernutting yet: a wise neighbour tells me that my batch tastes like Farley's Rusks.

10: Gingerbread 2, the over-budget sequel

Day 10 in Advent photos, day two in gingerbread terms. As you can see, the infinitely wise Grandma included not one, but a handful of cookie buttons on the calendar.

 Sugar squared. 

The aforementioned baking mission is complete. This house is fully stocked with gingerbread individuals, every one of them a person of (toddler) interest.

Ample opportunity.

Ampelmann, by the way, is someone I met back in the carefree BC days, while hanging out with my lovely sister, Tanta, in Berlin. He is the old East German pedestrian crossing guy, who narrowly survived takeover by the very boring West German walk/don't walk dude, and is still hard at work on the streets of Berlin today. Ampelmann is not only an Ostalgie superhero, but the quintessential Berliner (and no relation to jelly doughnuts). Tanta gifted me a pair of Ampelmann cookie cutters last Christmas. Now with a house full of sugary Ampelmenn, I suspect I will doze off this Christmas Eve with visions of Mitte dancing in my head. 

Christmas patchwork

When I was a girl my family began December with an Advent calendar, as many do. But ours was special: a beautiful Christmas tree wall hanging made by my mum. Each year my sister, brother and I pulled treasures from the red felt pocket and snapped them into place on the tree: teddy bears, stockings, stars, snowflakes, angels—the flora and fauna of Christmas.

The given tree.  

Last week the postman brought us a special package from Grandma: a handmade Advent calendar, crafted in the style of the beloved one from my childhood. The girls tore through the wrapping, then spent the afternoon inspecting all the advent treasures in hushed, studious awe. Grandma has always been a talented quilter with an eye for detail. When I rang to thank her, she told me that it took her years to collect all the right buttons.

Adele of Mila's Daydreams has inspired me with her Advent photo calendar idea. So, although I am a little late starting this, I will post one of Grandma's charms each day for the rest of Advent, plus an accompanying wintertime picture.

The snowman is first up on the tree, followed by my favourite snow dude from last winter.

Buttons made of coal. 

Frosty the grillman.