No fear

Yesterday was my 34^th birthday, yay! Careening wilding towards middle age (when does middle age start anyway?) and I am officially (after a debate with the man about when a decade becomes early/mid/late) now in my mid-thirties.

I don’t like pondering on my age, so I simply don’t do it. It’s not something I can change, and yes we would all love to be 21 again (although I was actually quite depressed at 21 having still not learnt to be happy in my own skin, so I’ll take 25), but why be down about leaving behind wrinkle free skin, a level of personal freedom that you just can't appreciate and being able to seriously wear a crop top in public, when there is so much more to look forward to in old age? Having perfect teeth (false of course) and not needing to worry about fillings, being able to get away with huge social faux pas without a murmur of complaint from anyone else and spending the day watching telly and grumbling about the new presenter on Countdown, entirely guilt-free.

So anyway, I hadn’t expected much from my birthday. There comes a point when you just have to accept that your birthday isn’t as big a deal as it was when you were five. You can’t expect the same number of presents or a huge birthday party and chores still need to be done. And you don’t go to bed plump from birthday cake, or with a smile on your face knowing that kids will be talking about your party at school all week and you don't get to wear a pound shop plastic princess crown for the day, because birthday’s as an adult are no different from any other day. But the man outdid himself this year, and organised a morning of rock climbing for the two of us at Reading Climbing Centre.

I’m not great with heights. In fact I have rather a long list of fears. Heights (although technically not heights, just falling from a height), flying (although technically not flying, just being in a plane when it plummets to the ground) etc… all the usual phobias many of us are plagued with.  But the man knew that I really wanted to give rock climbing a try. Not because I thought I would particularly enjoy it, or be good at it, but because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, despite being shit scared.

So when we arrived at the rock climbing centre, we were given harnesses and these weird shoes to put on and shown into a huge hangar full of climbing walls up to the ceiling and very serious looking people of all ages, all looking incredibly blasé about the fact they were hanging on a wall 40ft from the ground. There were a few bouldering walls (lower walls for climbing with no harness - “no way am I going on that with no harness!” was my instant response) and a large number of 40ft walls. We were immediately led to a small (!) 20ft wall to practice on. I was first up. There was a point half way through when I suddenly realised that I was actually wearing a harness and climbing up a wall, and not sitting at home watching The Fabulous Baker Brothers as I had been telling myself (my new happy place - food + posh totty = food pornography for women), and I panicked slightly. But I ignored that and got on with the job in hand. The feeling of relief when I quickly got to the top washed over me and I sat back in my harness and abseiled to the ground, grinning like a crazy person. Having proved we could do it, we were then told we would be climbing the big walls and I honestly thought the instructor was joking. And you want me to go right to the top? Er, no you’ll never get me up there!

But a strange thing happens when you are climbing and you think you won’t make it. There’s a kind of distance warp, where you’re so focussed on what you’re doing that you kind of forget where you are and how high up you are. You just climb, one foot at a time, one hand at a time. And suddenly, all muscles screaming for mercy, you reach that final hold and realise you made it to the top. And that’s when you can look down and see for yourself just how far you’ve come.  

Wearing a harness, I climbed 4 different 40ft walls, and I even managed to get myself to the top of one of those bouldering walls, without a harness. But I'm so glad I did. The feeling of pride and excitement that I had actually done something I thought I wouldn’t be able to do far outweighed the discomfort of being terrified or the embarrassment at having my arse stared at by complete strangers for a whole 60 minutes.

We can’t choose whether or not we’re scared.  But we can make a conscious choice about whether or not to continue in the face of that fear or allow it to stop us in our tracks. There’s no point in fighting fear, because frankly it’s not going to go away when you are 40ft up from the ground dangling from a rope, but you can go on despite being scared. One foot at a time, one hand at a time.

Thanks to Reading Climbing Centre for a great lesson, and thanks to the man for taking me. xxx

Little kids are just like teenagers, only smaller

My good friend Laurie Sontag at Manic Motherhood wrote this http://lauriesontag.com/?p=846 brilliant post last week about how teenagers are just like three year olds only bigger. It got me thinking, little kids are just like teenagers, only smaller…

They don’t speak, they grunt

Son number two, who is yet to perfect the art of speech, usually gets his point across with a series of “urr urr urrrrrr”’s and “nnn, nnn nnn’s”, often as a request for food. Son number one, a little older, regularly forgets his manners and morphs into Kevin. “Get me a drink” “Turn the telly over” “Come here now” are favourite demands. But right now, while they are little, I am willing to make the effort. I say the usual “what’s the magic word?” before answering their command. But after years of thankless slavery as a mother and being talked to like a piece of crap, I am waiting for the day when I can grunt back “Piss off and get it yourself. I’m not your slave anymore.”

They are more like you than you think

Fighting a stubborn two year old is hard enough without your mum merrily pointing out that you used to make the exact same face when you refused to put your shoes on. And I know there will come a time when my kids come home with a bizarre haircut that I can’t stand and mum will be at the ready with the picture of me with an elfin crop that I thought was so Demi Moore at the time, but in hindsight made me look like the Star Wars kid from You Tube. But tiny kids are just little mini me’s. Last week BFF was stunned when her son, also two, responded to her presentation of a flannel to wash his face with the much used mummy expression “don’t even think about it”. You can’t really argue with that.

They never sleep when you want them to

After a few years of motherhood you soon forget what it actually feels like to go to bed and wake up feeling refreshed and renewed. Little kids often can’t sleep through the night because they’re “scared”; want a drink or need to express more random requests like an overwhelming desire to sleep on the floor rather than in their bed. I relish the thought of the moment they want to sleep all day, and I honestly won’t care whether it’s in their bed or on the floor. Just being able to sleep past 5am is a luxury I am quite excited about. But as one friend recently pointed out, teenagers are no different from little kids except their routine is back to front. They stay up all night, then spend the entire day in bed when you want them to get up and clean their stinking pit of a bedroom. Which brings me to…

They are minging

Little boys are gross. They are gross from the minute they discover they can pick up all manner of hideous things with their curious little fingers, and then drop them when something more interesting comes along, right through to teenagers who wear the same pants day in day out and never clean behind their fingernails. I have given up wishing for a perfectly clean and tidy home, but there are times when I try to regain control. I once found a crusty old cheerio behind a load of books, encased in a deep layer of dust and of indeterminable age, but this didn’t detract son number two from swiping it up and happily munching away on it. There was a smell I couldn’t quite place coming from under the TV cabinet, so, approaching with caution, I investigated. I discovered, along with Mummy Pig and Miss Rabbit, 2 small plastic soldiers and a couple of dice (or die, whatever); a mouldy apple with two bites taken out of it, a vast amount of dust and I kid you not, a chocolate chip cookie stuck to the wall, defying gravity. Learning from the Cheerio incident, I kept son number two well away from the freak cookie and only narrowly saved him from feasting on the mouldy apple. Which brings me to my next point.

They will happily eat crap, but refuse a lovingly prepared healthy and delicious meal

No one wants to have fussy children, so we all work really hard in the early days filling our freezers with millions of tiny frozen cubes of liver casserole, salmon mash and a vast array of vegetable cocktails. But then suddenly your lovingly prepared meals are met with a solemn shake of the head and a bizarre list of rules; nothing can touch on the plate, nothing white, I don’t like potatoes I only like chips, I’ll eat cheese but only on pizza, I will only eat peas on a Wednesday, etc. Similar to teenagers who refuse your meals before rustling up random and disgusting concoctions in the toastie maker, then leave you to clean it up.

So yes, teenagers and little kids are very similar indeed. But at the moment I can always ask for a kiss or a cuddle and get one, and snuggle up on the sofa with them in front of innocent telly programmes, soaking up their adorable cuteness. Can’t see them letting me cuddle up to them when they are trying to watch Cribs and eat their tinned spaghetti and banana toasties.