...learn a bit more about parenting

Today I had coffee with my friend Rae. She's a new friend but sometimes we talk more often that I do with some of my oldest friends (thanks to Twitter and Facebook). 


Coffee and cake should be about incessant chattering, interspersed only by the mumblings of cake filled mouths and the clinking of spoons or forks on china. However, the addition of a 7 year old child, and a precocious one at that, means a longed for catch up is frequently interrupted by irrelevant requests that translate into 'give me your attention'!
So if you've read my daughter's blog post from today: 'Last Friday night', here's today's activities from my side of the fence.


Today we went to the Science Museum and we got to do lots of experiments - Today I took Bea to the Science Museum. She ran around like a 5 year old bashing the hell out of everything she could and feigning interest in the facts the 'experts' told her, generally nodding and saying yes so she could move onto the next activity. The exception to this was an experiment where she had to bounce a ball onto a metal plate and work out its trajectory, placing 5 hoops in a line so that the ball went through them all - she got it through 3 which I have to admit was pretty good. 


We met Rachel who’s Mummy’s friend and we went to the Hummingbird Cafe and we each had a cake - Bea and I met the lovely Ms Singh for coffee and cake. After a promising start where Bea educated Rae on all things Moshi, Rae and I caught up on life, cakes, French schools and our mothers. This was clearly a subliminal trigger for Bea to try every trick in her 7 year old book to be the centre of attention, ranging from 'can I have my iPod/paper/pens/magazine' to 'I need to go to the toilet now I'm SOOOO desperate'. We then wandered around a few gorgeous shops where every other sentence seemed to be accompanied by an echo that said 'Can I have this? Can I buy this? How much is this?'

I'm inside the Katsuma suit - a portable padded cell for coping with volatile youngsters

Then we went to Harrods and I had the Moshi Monster Guide signed by Michael Acton who invented MOSHI MONSTERS!!!!!!!! -  We arrived in time for Bea to be one of the first 200 kids in line and receive a special gift bag. After queuing for almost 2 hours, during which time Bea made friends with a lovely girl from SE London, we were at the front of the queue. Bea handed over her ideas for new moshlings and the Moshi Monsters press officer asked if she could film Bea for Moshi TV. The time came to leave and of course this was a completely unreasonable request. I mean why wouldn't I expect Bea to be cross, after all I had spent most of the day trying to make sure she had fun. The result was a full blown row where I of course lost my high ground by resorting to her level of commentary and Bea told me she hated me. Joy oh joy.


Then for our last dinner we went to Iberica and had some gorgeous ham and other bits and bobs of tapas - this bit is true. By the time we'd reached South Kensington on the tube, a delightful retired couple commented on how lovely Bea was and she turned the charm up to 11. I couldn't help but smile and we whiled away a couple of hours eating tapas, practicing Spanish and drinking pineapple juice (her) and cava (me). 


Basically as Rae's Mum said to her 'kids don't come with an instruction manual' but then even when things do we often dump the instructions in a drawer and muddle through without them. Tonight Bea's not in a drawer but I continue to muddle through. That said, I wouldn't swap her because truth be told I know I was exactly the same and as MY Mum would say, 'What goes around, comes around!'


Good luck to all you parents out there and here's a little something that sums up our lot in life :0) [Go to 5:16 for the bit on parenting].