Fairy balls, Star City and apologising to kids

I have not been a particularly good mother recently.  I may not have whipped my kids, or sent them up to clean the chimney, but I have had to apologise to them on a daily basis which is never a good sign.

I'm not entirely sure if you're supposed to apologise to children.  Parenting is basically a form of benevolent dictatorship, but it also holds true that kids learn from example and, if someone has been particularly rude, unfair or just plain hysterical, I think they should say sorry.  Unfortunately, that someone has been me. 

I shall put this down to sub-conscious stress over Gardeners' World Live.  As it turns out, this went OK.  I base this on the fact that no child was injured in the making of garden night lights, people didn't actually leave the demo garden when they realised I was not Alys Fowler or Carol Klein and I was able to answer all the questions people asked me afterwards (which was quite a surprise seeing as 90% were about sweetcorn).  I even got to go bowling in Star City - Birmingham's answer to Las Vegas (well, it might be the answer if you weren't expecting to do particularly well on the test) with the delightful James Alexander-Sinclair, Toby Buckland and Joe Swift. Let's just not dwell on the result, OK.

So I came back from the NEC determined to be a model parent.  Unfortunately, I also arrived home a little weary and not necessarily on top of my game.  This might explain why the fairy letters my children wrote on Friday had apparently still not been picked up by Monday morning.  Thankfully, I can be creative when necessary.

"Well... um... it's... er, oh, yes, it's June 21st!"

"June 21st?"

"Yes, you know, the longest day of the year... and... yes, silly me, of course it's the night of the midsummer fairy ball."

"Really?"

"Yes, you know, I'm sure we've talked about this before.  Haven't we? Well anyway, it's a bit like their Christmas so they'll have been so busy getting everything ready they'll just not have had time to pick up your letters."

Now, go on.  Tell me you're not impressed.  I would also like to point out that I had this conversation before I'd even imbibed my morning caffeine.

So after school yesterday afternoon, Ava, Oscar and I went around the garden gathering gifts to leave for the fairies in time for the ball.  To be honest, I'm not too practised at this.  I should have asked advise from Debs at Carrots and Kids - I suspect she has a Phd in the subject.  Still they did get a Lambs' ear sleeping bag and pillow each, three choices of Petunia skirts for Cherry Blossom and a rather prickly football for Brambles.

In fact Brambles had several footballs picked for him as Oscar kept losing them - as such, my display of Echinops ritro 'Veitch's Blue' will not be as good as it should be. But hey, that's what parenting is about - sacrifice.  Well that and humiliating apologies.

Comments

[Lia Leendertz]

And all this in a post that starts 'I have not been a good mother recently...'. You are setting the bar too high! This is not fair! As ever, I take off my hat, give a standing ovation and then retire to sit under the table and hit the gin.

[Helen]

By comparison I was a terrible mother, the tooth fairy was frequently late collecting teeth. The final straw was when youngest lost teeth two days running. First day, tooth fairy rememdered (albeit in the early hours!), 2nd day tooth fairy forgot - blast. My response to sad little face, well she wasnt expecting you to loose teeth two days running, she is so over worked, hopefully tonight she will be coming back this way. Result, tooth fairy remembered and son very happy!! Phew. I cant tell you how glad I was when all their baby teeth had gone

[Dawn/LittleGreenFingers]

Lia - watch the gin - that's the reason most often cited for 'dwindling fairy-based correspondence' in my experience...

Helen - I am already worried about half-hearted tooth fairies. We have our first wobbler and I don't even know the current going rate for milk teeth.

[VP]

Don't forget - hot on the heels of the need for tooth fairy visits will be your children discovering and reading your blog ;)

[Mark D]

Bowlings one of the many pastimes/sports that looks like its simple, no trickiness to it, but I bowl the thing and without fail it disobeys the laws of physics. Everytime. But I'm amazed if you didnt beat that collection of sporting clowns...tell me you're just being polite

[VP]

I consulted with my good GNO friends last night re the going rate for the tooth fairy...

1st one always is at a premium: £2 or £5 depending on how generous she's feeling (or how good they've been?), subsequent teeth £1

[Scented Sweetpeas]

You are not alone, I do have to apologise to my kiddies sometimes and do think it is good to do so as they learn it is OK to say sorry and admit you are wrong. Well done with your quick thinking :-)

[Dawn/LittleGreenFingers]

Mark - I'm not that polite... However, Joe Swift appears to have sold his soul to the bowling devil. Not only did he win both games but he even had the machine knocking over pins for him. Even James' sobriety and unique 'hop, skip and jump' action couldn't defeat him.

VP - £5!!! I am going to try super-gluing the teeth to the gums.

SS - But I have to confess I find it physically painful to admit being wrong.

[Elephant's Eye]

They are still talking about the dress Cherry Blossom wore to last year's Midsummer Fairy Ball!

[elizabethm]

Oh yes, often had to apologise to mine. Now just need to wait and see if they apologise to their own, when they have them. I would think so. It is a great taking wind our of sails tactic.

[Dawn/LittleGreenFingers]

EE - I know, it's going to be hard to top that acorn-based ra-ra skirt.

Elizabeth - Ah yes, the 'sitting back and watching your children be parents' - I imagine that can be very entertaining!