Anyway, for the next few weeks, I’m going to take one rule at a time and see if a) it’s relevant b) I can do it and c) whether DH notices my attempts at 1950′s wifedom.

Rule #1: A Wife’s Duty
A man’s home is his castle and as such, he ought to be treated like a king. When he returns home from a demanding eight hours on the job (or more!), he rightfully deserves a bit of pampering. It’s every wife’s responsibility to dote upon her hard-working spouse, to show that he is truly appreciated.

Current state of affairs at DG Manor
DH returns home after a demanding more-than-eight-hours at work. (If this miraculously occurs before PD goes to bed, he throws off his coat, says hello to the dog and goes off to deal with PD.) He empties the dishwasher, cooks supper, deals with the laundry and puts the fire on then remembers to say hello to me, at which point I burst into tears of pain and frustration. To be fair this is abnormal: he takes on much more than his fair share when I suffer from SPD. Thank the Lord for Wedding Vows.

Conclusion
I am fully aware that being a stay-at-home-parent is NOT a cop-out, or an easy life. I know that if I wasn’t at home to run the house, look after PD and WH and make sure that DH is fed, clothed and the house runs ‘smoothly’ that he would not be able to concentrate fully on his job, which is demnading of time and brain cells. Still, I am very aware (sometimes I feel quite uncomfortable about this) that he is responsible for earning the cash that I spend making all the above happen. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to recognise this and give him the credit. I do pamper him: I tell him I love him, probably far more than he can really bear and, at the moment particularly, in a slightly clingy fashion. But I do tell him. I do make efforts to  give him a lie-in at the weekend and I do get him ‘little somethings’ when I am out and about, to show that I have been thinking about him. That said, when the weekend comes, after 5 days of looking after the PD for 12 hours a day, he gets all the smelly nappies. It’s the 2010′s after all!

Score
Not bad. Obvious disability aside, I’d give myself a solid 7/10 (can’t you just hear Len Goodman?!) for my efforts.

This was my original thought, though not very original at the moment (I’ll have you know I was ahead of the trend on owning this poster and have it in my downstairs loo.) It’s appropriate after a week of awful commuting experiences and poonami incidents from both PD and WH. The WH very thoughtfully rolled in fox poo then rolled all over my *gasp* cream sofa this morning whilst I was bathing PD and putting her in her third outfit of the day. And all before 8am. This evening I fell downstairs whilst trying to contain said WH (who is wonderful sometimes, honestly,) who was acting like a nutter because someone in the South of England was letting off fireworks, and thought this to be more appropriate:

Is it the weekend yet?

The books in the basket range from the hardback books the lovely DH buys me for my birthday to something I got free with the Evening Standard. At the moment the proportion of chick lit is slightly higher than average, since my brain cells seem to be diminishing with every day, and there are tomes to do with pregnancy and birth that I have read from cover to cover, found wanting and have yet to move to another bookcase or use as doorstops. It is with gratitude that, when I followed Nunhead Mum’s instructions to pick up the nearest book, I realised I had the abridged version and that it didn’t in fact have the requisite 123 pages. I can’t imagine three sentences from Clare Byam-Cook’s ‘What to Expect When You Are Breastfeeding and What If You Can’t?’ would be entertaining to the varied readership of the DG blog.

To explain a little better, I am required by NM to do the following:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag people to do the same, and acknowledge who tagged you.

Therefore, I came across the following quote from ‘The Short Life & Long Times of Mrs Beeton’ by Kathryn Hughes:

What a contrast is my frigid disposition to your generous, warm-hearted dear
self; it often strikes me, but you know I cannot help it, it is my nature…You
have guessed my weak point, for if there is one thing more than others I detest,
[it] is to be chafed in that quiet manner as you did in the note I received this
morning…Now my darling I must say goodbye, hoping you will freely pardon this
my first offence (at least I hope so), with much love,
Believe me my dearest
boy,
Yours penitently and most lovingly,
Isabella Mayson
Pray don’t
write any more cutting letters as you did yesterday, or I don’t know what will
be the consequence.

I think the book was a Christmas gift from my mother. I also think, on the basis of this extract, it will be a while before I get round to reading it! Now, for the last part, I have just to tag, since the acknowledging has been done. Who would appreciate the challenge?

Wakeup has a lot on her mind right now, but might appreciate the distraction; Gwen likes to read;and CJ likes to write… a short yet distinguished list. I have laid down the gauntlet, but feel free to step over it as you walk on towards more important things.

Well, I’m thirty years past one, but my little blog is one, or was last week. I was going to have a party- you know, pass-the-parcel, little sandwiches, a cake with candles, a few sugar-crazed kids and a bunch of parents necking Champagne. But then I thought, what’s the point? One-year-olds never appreciate the efforts you go to; they don’t remember their first party and they don’t really get what all the fuss is about. So I decided not to bother.

I did get a delivery of children’s books this weekend- Charlie and Lola stories that were on offer in a pregnancy magazine. As I put them on the shelf in the nursery, I considered all the lovely books that I was given at the Baby Shower. They range from the very contemporary ‘Everybody Poos’ to the more traditional ‘When We Were Very Young’. I took them down and flicked through the pages, even reading a couple to the bump. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t read; when there wasn’t a time that I didn’t see my mum or dad with a book in their hand or by their bed. I remember reading to The Lad when he was, well a Lad. I remember getting home from school with a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, sitting down on the sofa and not budging until I had read the last sentence. I remember getting my Danielle Steel books confiscated at Prep School because they were inappropriate reading material, despite the fact that my mum had sent me off to school with them- there really wasn’t the wealth of teenage reading material that there is now.

All of which got me thinking about some of the children’s books that I have come to love over the years:

1. The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark- such a classic. My friends and I all get a wistful look in our eye when we talk about Plop. Of course the book never made me feel more comfortable about the dark, but I loved reading it

2. Guess How Much I Love You- a modern classic about Big Nut Brown Hare and Little Nut Brown Hare. The last line never fails to make me cry. And the illustrations are so beautiful.

3. The Magic of the Faraway Tree- more awesome illustrations. I was given a beautiful hard-back copy of the Enid Blyton Stories one birthday by an aunt and absolutely loved the idea of a tree that had different worlds stop at the top, and a slide down the inside.

4. I Want My Potty- Tony Ross hit a blinder with this one. The subsequent stories of the little Princess are very good at teaching small people.

5. Each Peach Pear Plum- another classic that weaves all the nursery rhyme characters that we know into a great tale.

6. The Very Hungry Caterpillar- needs no explanation. I have two copies.

7. Moving Molly- beautiful drawings by Shirley Hughes, and such a nice, old-fashioned tale. Plus my mum is called Molly, so I used to tell everyone that the book was written about her! I have a fondness for all Shirley Hughes books in fact.

8. All the Dr Seuss books- silly, irreverent and so much fun watching your parents stumble over the tongue-twisting stories.

9. Dear Zoo- a simple lift-the-flap book about animals, and which one is just right for you. Our house is insanely pro-doggy, so this is always going to be a winner.

10. Please Mrs Butler- A rhyme book that everybody gets to read at some point in school…Timothy Winters anyone?

Of course I could go on for page after page- every day a new kid’s book comes out that I love. It was one of my favourite things about being a nanny (that and keeping abreast of the latest Disney/Pixar releases) getting to read them all…Room on the Broom, Slinky Malinki, The Gruffalo, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Mr Tick the Teacher, Kipper. DH and I have always said that if you want to spoil our kids, buy books. There’s no such thing as too many. I’m really looking forward to having bookshelves that are full to bursting.

Well, I’m thirty years past one, but my little blog is one, or was last week. I was going to have a party- you know, pass-the-parcel, little sandwiches, a cake with candles, a few sugar-crazed kids and a bunch of parents necking Champagne. But then I thought, what’s the point? One-year-olds never appreciate the efforts you go to; they don’t remember their first party and they don’t really get what all the fuss is about. So I decided not to bother.

I did get a delivery of children’s books this weekend- Charlie and Lola stories that were on offer in a pregnancy magazine. As I put them on the shelf in the nursery, I considered all the lovely books that I was given at the Baby Shower. They range from the very contemporary ‘Everybody Poos’ to the more traditional ‘When We Were Very Young’. I took them down and flicked through the pages, even reading a couple to the bump. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t read; when there wasn’t a time that I didn’t see my mum or dad with a book in their hand or by their bed. I remember reading to The Lad when he was, well a Lad. I remember getting home from school with a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, sitting down on the sofa and not budging until I had read the last sentence. I remember getting my Danielle Steel books confiscated at Prep School because they were inappropriate reading material, despite the fact that my mum had sent me off to school with them- there really wasn’t the wealth of teenage reading material that there is now.

All of which got me thinking about some of the children’s books that I have come to love over the years:

1. The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark- such a classic. My friends and I all get a wistful look in our eye when we talk about Plop. Of course the book never made me feel more comfortable about the dark, but I loved reading it

2. Guess How Much I Love You- a modern classic about Big Nut Brown Hare and Little Nut Brown Hare. The last line never fails to make me cry. And the illustrations are so beautiful.

3. The Magic of the Faraway Tree- more awesome illustrations. I was given a beautiful hard-back copy of the Enid Blyton Stories one birthday by an aunt and absolutely loved the idea of a tree that had different worlds stop at the top, and a slide down the inside.

4. I Want My Potty- Tony Ross hit a blinder with this one. The subsequent stories of the little Princess are very good at teaching small people.

5. Each Peach Pear Plum- another classic that weaves all the nursery rhyme characters that we know into a great tale.

6. The Very Hungry Caterpillar- needs no explanation. I have two copies.

7. Moving Molly- beautiful drawings by Shirley Hughes, and such a nice, old-fashioned tale. Plus my mum is called Molly, so I used to tell everyone that the book was written about her! I have a fondness for all Shirley Hughes books in fact.

8. All the Dr Seuss books- silly, irreverent and so much fun watching your parents stumble over the tongue-twisting stories.

9. Dear Zoo- a simple lift-the-flap book about animals, and which one is just right for you. Our house is insanely pro-doggy, so this is always going to be a winner.

10. Please Mrs Butler- A rhyme book that everybody gets to read at some point in school…Timothy Winters anyone?

Of course I could go on for page after page- every day a new kid’s book comes out that I love. It was one of my favourite things about being a nanny (that and keeping abreast of the latest Disney/Pixar releases) getting to read them all…Room on the Broom, Slinky Malinki, The Gruffalo, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Mr Tick the Teacher, Kipper. DH and I have always said that if you want to spoil our kids, buy books. There’s no such thing as too many. I’m really looking forward to having bookshelves that are full to bursting.