Gay pirate squirrels ...obviously

Yes folks, it's school play time. Roll up! Roll up! And watch how mothers transform their 6 year olds into ... squirrels. I have no recollection of the Charlie & the Chocolate Factory scene involving squirrels but apparently they're vindictive little beasties who get rid of a vile child. Well done them.

All us parents were asked to do was supply a brown shirt and trousers. The school would supply the tails. Simple right.

Wrong.

We don't have any brown trousers in our house. We used to. But my six year old now has grey school trousers, blue jeans and one pair of cream chinos. That's it. My four year old has a pair of brown shorts. But they nowhere near fit his brother. So we headed into town in search of brown bottoms.

Funnily, brown is not a particularly popular colour for children's clothes in the height of summer. So we charged off to the British Heart Foundation charity shop in the hope of a cast off. Nothing. Then onto the Cancer Awareness shop. Nothing. Then Save the Children (save the mother more like it) shop. They were closed. In a last ditch attempt to find something by tomorrow's pressing deadline, I headed into TK Maxx. Twenty bazillion rows of pink clothes, just the one with boys stuff. And on that lone rail, hung one pair of brown trousers. And like a gift from the Gods, it was actually in age 6. Perfect.

Except that they're sort of shiny brown with patches on them with zig zaggy bottoms. I think it's part of a dress up outfit. Possibly a pirate. Or waif. Or street urchin. But it cost £1. So I bought them. Jobs a good un. Home we go, because at least we have a brown t-shirt.

Or so I thought. Apparently, the brown t-shirt which belongs to the 4 year old, is 'scratchy'. So scratchy indeed that 6 year old could barely stand it against his sensitive skin for longer than a nano-second.

So we tried on a khaki coloured shirt. Wrong colour and just as scratchy. So we tried on a teeny age 3 t-shirt. It looked fine apart from his exposed midriff. "Too small," was the lament. So we tried one of my plain brown Boden tops. "Too big," he cried. So we tried on his brown shirt with the camper van on front. "A squirrel wouldn't wear a camper van on its chest," he yelled. (Well they bloody do in Cornwall I'm sure). So we tried a sort of orangey shirt. Sigh. "It's ookaaay,"I guess he grumbled. "If I have to wear it. If there's nothing else AT ALL."

Insert very large sigh here from me.

So I rummaged in my old sailing bag and found a once white long sleeve t-shirt that had had its sleeves removed somewhere around the equator. It was slightly grey with sweat stained armpits, but he found it comfy. "I want this," one he said.

Marvellous. Except it's white. And I have to hand this in tomorrow and don't have any brown dye lying handily around the house.

Never fear. Twitter and Facebook to the rescue. General consensus is that tea will do the job. Sure he'll smell funny, but beggars can't be choosers.

I find a box of English breakfast tea that must have been won in a tombola a while ago because it was past its use by date. Perfect. 15 teabags go in in a bowl of hot water, including the strategic addition of a few Rooibos bags to add a slightly reddish tinge - after all, I don't know many brown squirrels, just red and grey varieties. And besides, his pirate pants are a more reddy brown anyway.

Well wouldn't you know it, the white t-shirt is now the perfect shade of brown to match the pants. What a result.

My son is insisting on setting off the entire ensemble with my brown faux fur gilet. It makes him look ever so slightly like a gay squirrel pirate on the pull, but whatever, I have fulfilled my maternal obligation and shall present him at school tomorrow with it all nicely tucked into a labelled bag.

Then I shall sit back and wait for the embarrassment of opening night when all the other mothers get to view my attempt at costume design...

Dancing mice and all things nice

Yesterday was the big day. The day of the school play: Abbaella. In case the title isn't clear enough, it was the story of Cinderella set to Abba music, a nursery take on the Mama Mia musical and film. Unfortunately Pierce Brosnan didn't star in our version but the singing was on a par.

Being the mother to a Reception year child, this was my first ever proper school play that I've attended as a parent (I qualify that because I have been to numerous school plays as a child including singing Japanese in the Mikado and having a bad scottish dancing part in Brigadoon). I do not count the pre-school nativity plays as they always consist of a flock of lost sheep bumping into each other and singing twinkle twinkle little star - which of course has its own very sweet appeal, but they're not quite a full on proper play.

Now Abbaella was most definitely a proper play. It lasted a full hour for a start. It was magnificent. It was so good I watched it twice. The matinee and evening shows.

During the matinee performance, our little mouse reverted to his former self and refused to participate. When all the rest of his classmates stood up and did a mouse line dance, he sat on the side and cried. I tried not to cry. He did sing valiantly throughout the show and even did the arm moves, which none of his friends did. At the very end - finale - to the poignant strains of 'Thank you for the music' he finally stood up and joined in. My heart melted. I weeped. A lot. I pretended not to. I coughed a lot and pretended that my cold had gotten a lot worse all of a sudden.

We had a good long chat in the afternoon about why he didn't want to join in. He explained: 'I've tried and I've tried but I just can't get it right.' Bless. So I said that it really wasn't important if he didn't get it right, it's important just to join in and have fun. It took some persuading (in the form of a gogo bribe) but he agreed reluctantly to have another go in the evening.

Off we went for our second performance of the day. This time daddy came too. And little brother. We didn't officially have a ticket for son 2 and I but we begged and pleaded our way in. Thank goodness we did.

Miracle of miracles, this time he got up and joined in the mouse line dance. He was right, despite his practicing he didn't get it right but that just made it even better. The beaming smile on his face lit up the entire room. He was even brave enough to join in the pumpkin hunt midway through and did a rousing performance once again to 'Thank you for the music'. And once again, I was like a pregnant woman watching Hallmark card ads. The tears just flowed. I was unstoppable.

The entire cast was excellent - just bad enough to be funny, but not so bad to be truely embarrassing. The enthusiasm was amazing and the soundtrack, well, what's not to like about a bit of Dancing Queen? I am so proud of them all and chuffed to bits that we've landed up with such a fab little local school.

But most of all it was the joy of seeing our little mouse (who has never in all of his almost five years of life joined in with anything) dancing his camp Abba dance moves up on stage. With a grin big enough for Britain and a veritable glow of pride beaming from his face, it was one of those moments that make all the nights of no sleep, poo wiping up, tantrum-tastic endlessness of parenting worthwhile.

To quote Mastercard:
Grey mouse outfit - £10
Two tickets to see the show - £3
Getting to see a small mouse belting out Thank You for the Music - Priceless

I am poorly

My coughing, sniffling, feeling a bit peaky former self of the last week has been replaced with shivering, sweating, sneezing, streaming, hacking, washed out souped up model of poorliness. I officially have man flu - without any of the lying arond doing nothing that goes with it. In fact I am so poorly that my husband actually noticed and made son 2's packed lunch today... without me even asking! This despite him still having a few last remaining strands of man flu himself. It's a Christmas miracle.

I am so poorly that I had to cancel a long awaited girls' night out last night. Sniff. And I had to cancel a business meeting today as I didn't think the client would appreciate my nose dripping into her latte.

But despite this poorliness, I've still not squirrelled myself away in my bed. Which is what I should do. I should be a man about this. I should simply say that I am too poorly to do another thing and assume that the world will continue to turn without my involvement. I mean it would, wouldn't it? The children wouldn't go to school or eat or have their bums wiped but the world would still keep on turning. It's a nice dream anyway.

I have to be better by tomorrow because son 2 is going to be a sheep in the pre-school nativity play. Apparently he's going to be singing Blah Blah Blap Bleep (which is his teenage-like scorn for the original Baa Baa Black Sheep). It could be a riveting show.

Meanwhile son 1 gets to be a mouse on Monday in Abbarella, his school Christmas play which combines the story of Cinderella with Abba songs. Being a massive Abba fan, I think this is fabulous, but it's getting a bit weird having our 4 year old poncing around with his hands of his swaying hips singing: Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight. I'm not too sure where the Christmas message fits in here. Perhaps Father Christmas is the man after midnight. Perhaps Mary's donkey is transformed by the fairy godmother into a pumpkin carriage. It's got all the makings of being a toe-tapper, that's for sure.

Anyway, I must go make another lemsip and get another roll of toilet paper to add to my snotty tissue mountain before writing a press release about washable menstrual pads. I know, the glamour of my life never ceases.