Don't Pretend There's No Blood on the Bouncy Castle

Shoes in New Zealand are like everything else that is smaller than a car: pricy. I have been dreading winter shoe shopping and enjoying letting my boys be as barefoot as they are comfortable with. But I am going to have to change policy. I might also have to invest in some nose-protection gear, and never let the children into hardware store Mitre10 again without waterproofs (possibly also disguising them: I think the first-aiders might run for cover if they see us pull up outside).

It's a convoluted tale, and it starts the day before our visit to the hardware store. We are at home. Picture, for once, an idyllic scene. No one is tantrumming, and the boys and I are hanging out in the garden. The two littlies and I are at the front of the house, on the great expanse of tarmac where they like to ride their trikes and toy cars. The big boy is at the back of the house, practicing cricket. Apart from the cursed mosquitoes, who have migrated to our front yard with all the joy of the Israelites sighting Canaan, it all feels pretty perfect. Because we have a slight rise at the front of our house, I push my middle son in his toy car up the slope, so that he can have the fun of rolling down, squealing. It is the sort of timeless fun that I imagined myself doing when I made the decision to have kids.

So then the little one wanted a turn, so I took his toy car and briskly pushed it up the slope. I expect him to squeal with joy too, but he is strangely quiet: and, after a few seconds, he gives a little whimper. I look down, to where his little hands are pointing, expecting to see a mosquito bite. To my horror, his bare feet are covered in blood. I hate the cliched quality of a phrase like "to my horror" but there is no other way I can think of to describe the shock and fear that rippled through me. Because I knew instantly what it was, having seen the phenomenon before. It's a sensory issue, hyposensitivity (or undersensitivity, in layman's language, or delayed sensitivity, in my kids' case) to pain. You see, his bare feet had been dragging on the gravel as I pushed him. But because of a delay in sensation, he hadn't known what was happening, and hadn't known to move his feet. So by the time the sensation kicked in, his feet were scraped raw and bleeding. Nor does he cry for long: the pain is clearly not much, because after showing me he wanders off to play calmly, leaving little droplets of blood on the ground as he walks.

I feel sick, not because of the blood but because I know what it means: it's another sensory issue, and quite a worrying one.

Guantanamo Chic

The magic parking permit arrived today. It is plastic, and bright orange. Guantanamo jumpsuit chic. (Now I know why everyone looked blankly at me on arrival in New Zealand when I asked about acquiring a Blue Badge. Maybe they thought I wanted to join the Sea Scouts). It is, as you would expect, quite chunky and noticeable. Talk about labelling your kids. I stuck it on the dashboard (you are not allowed to fix it permanently to your car, for obvious reasons) and waited to see if the oldest one would notice. He didn't. He will, of course, and we will have to have THAT conversation. Maybe I will tell the truth, that it's not his fault but his brain does funny things sometimes, makes him act a bit crazy and dangerously, and that we are not expecting it to go on forever but until he grows out of it, this is to help us when we go out. If it looks like he is confused, I'll just tell him it's for his younger brother for now, and skip the difficult conversation until he's ready for it. Alternatively I may just pretend it's a car decoration I choose, and resign myself to years of Christmas presents made of bright orange plastic.

From Cloud Nine to the bitter depths in three hours: the politics of a disabled parking badge

Tonight I am bitter and frustrated, at a lower point than at any time I arrived in New Zealand. Which is a pity, because the letter, this morning, filled me with such joy. My application had been approved for a Disabled Parking Badge for the children: countersigned by the GP. Only it wasn't enclosed with the letter, because I'd written down the wrong digit on my credit card number, and they needed me to telephone and give me that first. So I didn't have a badge when I arrived at our swimming class, but I did have the news that I was entitled to one. The car park was crowded and my children were tired, so that I was primed to expect one or other of them would do a runner, meltdown etc. So I followed the practice I have done for years, when I've needed to: I checked with the reception staff that they were happy for me to use one of the two disabled parking spaces directly outside the door. (It is private property, so the spaces are for use at the discretion of management). Of course they were. They knew about us, or at least one of us: they said yes immediately, even before I had explained that actually, my other two children had issues too. Even before I'd told them that the badge was in the post and would be with us in a few days. "Someone might ask you," I pointed out, "I don't have the badge." "Oh, no, no one will mind," they said. And I was sure they were right, because no one ever does.

But when I came outside, there was something new, something that has never happened to me before. I hope it never happens to me again. There was a handwritten note stuck to my windscreen.

On not being a very good Zen Buddhist: Parenting with a capital P

Had a very enjoyable coffee this week with an Irishwoman living here. She was lovely: if, like me, bemused by the whole "what New Zealand calls tea" thing. It was very cathartic to hear her doleful stories of arriving, and making her first cup of tea several times, because her husband and she assumed they must be doing it wrong, because surely no one would call something "tea" that tasted like that. "We like tea we can dance on in Ireland," she pointed out. Yes, rather like Yorkshire where we talked about needing the spoon to stand up in the cup. (Of course in Yorkshire no cup of tea would ever do anything as wildly expressive and Celtic as dance. Our cups of tea would merely glower, slopping around their cup complaining about the miserable weather and them tea-imposters down south, and no, I don't mean the Kiwis).

Another of the cultural shocks we have agreed we both experienced was Parenting. I don't mean the way people bring up their kids, because frankly, you know, if you have a child and you feed it, make sure it sleeps and doesn't bite other children that's the kind of average outcome everyone across the Western world seems to hope for. No, what I mean by Parenting with a capital P is the idea of Parenting as something that needs to be taught, that you don't just pick up by osmosis from the way your mum and her sister and your cousins did it. Now don't get me wrong, I think Parenting has much to recommend it. In the UK my husband and I even did a Parenting Course. The thing is that when we did it, everyone we knew was shocked/horrified/surprised/bemused but supportive/concerned for us that we were going to get brainwashed. Because parenting courses are still largely seen in the UK as something that OTHER parents do, you know, the ones that can't control their kids. Here it is the opposite. I can't walk down the street, well, OK, can't step into a community centre or church without seeing little rows of leaflets offering me help with "Being a Working Mother" "Parenting Teenagers" "Parenting Toddlers" "Parenting Yourself." If we had a dog, doubtless someone would be offering parenting classes for him too.

"You don't get this time again" and other statements of the painfully obvious

An English friend living in our city told me today how shocked her husband was, shortly after their arrival, when they were visited by two young Kiwi female relatives who had just been to an open-air concert. "Did you enjoy it?" he asked. "Oh yes, but the rain really made my thong rub, it was killing me," she explained. His eyes widened and she had to wait until the young ladies left to explain to him that down this end of the Pacific Ocean thongs meant a type of light summer footwear. As opposed to, oh for heavens sake, go and google it, Kiwi readers. This blog is quite explicit enough already.

I'm getting better at remembering that togs are swimwear, not a duvet layer, a park can be where you put a car. But sometimes it is not the differences but the similarities that strike one. I am often taken aback as I hear EXACTLY the same well-worn phrase as in the UK. Some, like the phrase in the title, were used incessantly as I walked the Cambridge streets with my proud new bundle, seven years and a bit ago. At the time I was touched and delighted by the number of old ladies (and men, to be fair) who wanted to observe with me how magical my life suddenly was. "Enjoy these precious years," they would say as they looked into my pram, after a slight double-take when they saw how skinny and small my premmie baby was. "They are so special. You have to enjoy every minute. Every minute, I tell you." And I would nod in agreement, and think how wonderful it was that they were sharing their wisdom with me, and promise myself that I would be one of the few mothers who saw the full magic of parenthood, and that I would enjoy every second of childrearing, until they grew up and left home, to the sound of classical music and nostalgic glimpses back to a perfect childhood. This, I now recognise, is of course as likely to happen as my ever feeling comfortable on a chair whilst wearing one of those Northern Hemisphere thongs.

I had a flashback to these conversations when I heard the phrase again. It was as I left a toddler group. On the way out, I said casually to one of the elderly helpers what a nice time I had had. "I really look forward to this," I said truthfully, "it is the one time of the week when I can really focus on enjoying my youngest." Her eyes lit up, and I realised my mistake. "Oh well," she said, putting on her good-advice-to-young-mothers voice, "It's so important to do that. Because you know, you don't get this time again."

No, I am aware that I won't get this time again. I am also aware that I need to clean my teeth, and brush my hair. Funnily enough, having spent the last seven years doing increasingly hectic and demanding mothering, I am fully aware that early childhood is a magical time. I have just spent a wholesome half hour snuffling into my little one's curly hair, watching with awe and adoration how his little fingers curl around my hand. And even more beautiful, I have been watching him communicate with me, the early words coming out of his mouth with a clarity that may sound muffled to others, but is simply beautiful after the years of verbal dyspraxia with his elder brother. I have been relaxing in his company, the way it is hard to do with three small children. And the reason why I have been focusing on that, Old Lady, is that I ALREADY KNOW I WON'T GET THIS TIME AGAIN, and I ALREADY KNOW IT'S IMPORTANT TO ENJOY MY CHILDREN, because that is how I have retained my sanity over the past six or seven years.

"Now don't tell me you'd rather have a nice cup of tea than an orgasm"

Well, er, actually, that's a really difficult question, I think. I mean, how could you possibly compare such different things? And anyway, of COURSE I wouldn't rather have a nice cup of tea than an orgasm. I mean, I can't possibly make a meaningful comparison. Well, not unless I had more details about the precise brand of tea.

But it seems I am missing the point, because this statement is made during a high-octane presentation on YOUR RELATIONSHIP AND MARRIAGE. There are whiteboards (decorated with love-hearts) and handouts and everything. Even homework (don't ask). I am a bit confused, because I thought I was just coming to a toddler group, recommended by a friend. And I was really looking forward to it, because it was going to be a NORMAL MUM morning, doing the stuff that other mums do, chatting and drinking tea in a church hall whilst our children run riot. Instead here I am listening to a relationships seminar. Run by a woman with six kids. (Can't escape a slight disquiet at a woman who decided to have six children being regarded as a good source of advice). To make it worse, we were given a tiny cup of tea on arrival which I hardly drank. Now it is sitting in front of me, cold. I don't want to drink it, but I can't go and get another one until the seminar is over. I don't know whether I prefer tea or orgasms, but I damn well prefer a nice cuppa to an unexpected seminar about relationships.

This isn't really a relationships seminar. It's about sex. Good heavens, is this what New Zealand mothers discuss at their toddler groups? Maybe I'm a repressed Brit but back home conversation tended to centre on other issues, like the weather, the general uselessness of men, and the weather again. But here it is sex, and frequent sex at that.

Clone Warriors

When I met my husband, he regularly wore a rugby shirt which he'd won in a competition. He was very proud of the NZ rugby league team they represented. He was so proud of them, I discovered when we got married, that he would get up at midnight or three am to listen to sports radio on the Internet when they were playing. If there was no sports radio available, he would watch diagrams of little stick figures moving around, representing what was happening on a field in the Southern Hemisphere. In Yorkshire, he adopted a local team (Leeds Rhinos) and took our son to see them. But the team in New Zealand remained his first love. I got used to these funny little stick-men, and the wild range of emotions that they aroused in my husband. Since I never saw a real game, and no one else wore their shirts in England, I kind of forgot that this was an actual team, and regarded it as a lovable personal eccentricity, like stamp-collecting or Subbuteo.

Of course, I had to hear about the history of rugby league. This was an ordeal. Hearing about rugby league history is slightly akin to the failed attempt I made, when a teenager travelling around Europe, to get in touch with my Jewish ethnic roots by taking a tour of every Jewish quarter in the capitals we visited. This had to be abandoned when my travel companions pointed out that they were on holiday, and that they had no intention of spending every second day in tears as they listened to another heart-rending tale of ghettos and pogroms.