Faux Fun

Fetch me the cricket bat

I, The Kraken, must have lost my fucking marbles. Yesterday Kraken Junior should have gone to school dressed as a Fairy or Scary (how's that for a PC alternative to Halloween? Jesus). Course, I and the Conjugal Kraken completely forgot until hometime when KJ told us that everyone else had dressed up except her.
Well, fuck me if, in a fit of guilt, I promised that I'd spend today making her any costume she liked. Talk about over-frigging-compensating. It made sense when I was weeping over her mournful face. It made one fuck of a lot less sense this morning when I was bound to my promise.
And do you know what costume KJ wanted me to make? A rat. But not just any rat, no. A pink and yellow rat, dressed as a fairy. Course, I dangled the carrot of a Halloween witch, a pumpkin or a ghoul in the hope that Asda could come to my rescue. Ha. Like that worked.
So what have I done with my Saturday afternoon? Dragged KJ through fabric shops on the hunt for vermin-like fur (before she plumped for lurid pink fleece), hacked the living shit out of a cereal box to make a rat mask (whose ears were too small, KJ announced) and sewed a black button nose onto said mask (via the nail bed of my left index finger). I even wrestled with the hot pink sequins that KJ found, making her look like the Shirley Bassey of the sewers.
And what do you think KJ said when I presented her with her verminous disguise? 
"Can I have a hamster costume instead?"
Tell me, is it OK to say "fuck" in front of a three year old?

Someone Needs to Learn

"La la la la la la!"

Now, when it comes to parenting I'm a great believer in not having a fucking clue what I am doing. Yet, there are those moments when you just know that you can't be nearly as crap as someone else. 
Take today's experience as an example. I can't give too many details so suffice it to say that the following debacle occurred while on a school trip of three year olds with Kraken Junior. 
The tale begins on a coach...


Mother: "Tyson, we're getting off the coach in a minute. Put your coat on please."
Tyson: "No."
Mother: "Put your coat on."
Tyson: "No."
Mother: "Put your coat on! Now!"
Tyson: "No."
Tyson takes off his coat.
Mother: "I said put your coat on!"
Tyson: "No!"
Mother (louder): "Yes!"
Tyson: "No!"
Mother (louder) : "Yes!"
Tyson: "No!"
Mother (shouting): "If you don't put on your coat we're not getting off the coach!"
Tyson throws his coat on the floor. Mother relents and lets him get off the coach.


Lunchtime...
Mother: "Tyson, sit still to eat your sandwiches."
Tyson: "No." 
Tyson walks off with a crust in his hand.
Mother: "Get back here Tyson."
Tyson: "No."
Mother: "I said get back here!"
Tyson keeps walking.
Mother: (hollering): "Right, get back here or you can't go into the castle!"
Tyson: "OK."
Mother: "I'm bloody sick of you!"
Mother takes Tyson into the castle.


Hometime...
Mother: "Tyson, I've told you already, it's time to go home."
Tyson: "Don't wanna go home!"
Mother: "We're going home, now."
Tyson: "No!"
Mother: "Get here now!"
Tyson (shrieking): "Naaaaooooooo!"
Mother picks Tyson off the ground as he screams. Tyson starts kicking.
Mother: "Tyson! I'm bloody sick of you!"
Tyson: "Wanna stay!"
Mother: "Just shut it! Shut it!"
Tyson: "Arrrrrrgh! Arrrrrrgh! Nooooooo!"
Mother: "Right, that's it! I've had it! We're never going to a castle again!"
Tyson is bundled onto the coach by a teacher who immediately calms him. Mother steadfastly refuses to be mortified at her astounding lack of parental control. Well, fuck me. Someone needed a stiff lesson in discipline today and it sure as shit wasn't young Tyson.

(Not so) Hot for Teacher

Navy knickers anyone?

Whoa! I've just had the shit scared out of me. Today I started a tailoring and advanced dressmaking course and you should meet my teacher.Talk about being transported right back to my school days. She has to be forty years older than I am and insists on being called Mrs Williams. She also insists on calling us, er, pupils by our titles and surnames.
More than that we have to do things PROPERLY. I get the feeling that she'd take our hands off at the wrists with a wooden ruler if she caught us cutting corners.
Tales abound from those who have taken her class before; she'll unpick an entire dress that you've made if she thinks it could have been done better. I half expected her to rip what I was wearing from my body and declare it fit for puppy smothering. Christ, I even shared a cutting table with a girl who was made to re-lay and re-pin her pattern four times because Mrs W wasn't happy with it.
I swear, every time she came near me I started sweating spinal fluid. And even though it was a two hour class I got hardly anything done thanks to being struck senseless with fear. I've been known to run up an entire dress in two hours but today all I did was fumble over two metres of purple crepe and drop my pot of pins. 
Blimey, I may want to feel young again but being scared shitless in a dusty classroom wasn't necessarily part of the plan.