Twas Brillig

Welcome to dear Jo Beaufoix, a dear friend across the pond, who did not include a picture of Barbara, so I will have to do it here… 

Now, see why I love her so much?
———————Wow, I’m on Brillig’s blog.  I’m a little tempted to go through her drawers and check out her fridge, but I suppose that would be a bit rude.  My name is Jo Beaufoix, http://www.jobeaufoix.com, and I live in Nottinghamshire in the UK.  I’m mum to Miss E (7) and Miss M (3), and am married to Mr B, drummer and knower of weird facts.  I’m an aspiring writer and am just editing my first novel which is a book for children, and I also write daft poems.  Come and say hello if you get the chance, my Ostrich Bab’s will make you smile even if I don’t. 

I first ‘met’ Brillig about this time last year.  I think I may have found her through lovely Corey at ‘Living and Loving Every Minute of it’.  I thought she was kind of fantastic so I hung around.  I have met so many good blog friends through Brillig.  I nabbed an invite for cre8buzz from her and my world just widened.

The post I’ve chosen to share with you is one from June last year when I was very new at blogging.  It was an answer to a question set my Mama blogger, and I loved writing it, but a lot of people won’t have read it as it was in that tumbleweed period of blogging we all have near the beginning.

I promise it’s not too cheesy, so even if you don’t have kids you might enjoy it too.
‘3 things I want my kids to understand…’
1. That I will love them no matter what.
But that that doesn’t mean they can smear my lip balm all over the wall, Miss M (aged 2), or that they can have a food fight when their friends come to tea, Miss E(aged 6).
It doesn’t mean they are allowed to feed chocolate icecream to the gerbils, put raisins in their daddy’s sock drawer, or paint my face if I drop off for a minute.
It doesn’t mean that they can use my credit card whenever they want to buy bad music or barely there outfits.
It doesn’t mean they can borrow the car without asking or get very very drunk and vomit in their dad’s slippers.
But it does mean that if they do all these things, my love will not change.
But their view for the next month or so might.

2. I want my kids to understand that it’s ok to make mistakes.
Grown ups do it too and that is also ok.
As long as their daddy understands that mistakes do not include forgetting our anniversary, doing a whites wash with a pair of red boxers as company, or videoing over our kid’s baptism.
That would just be wrong….

3. I want my kids to understand that there is some stuff we just have to do.
I know tidying up is boring.
I now brussels taste a bit like old socks and can lead to unpleasant gaseous explosions.
I know homework time muscles in on fun time.
I know.
And Daddy would rather not be at work, or be stuck in traffic on a rainy day with only cheese on the radio, or play Barbie’s with his 2 small girls after a long day, (or probably at all.)
And Mummy would rather not have to wipe sticky hand prints from every visible surface, pick fruit flakes out of the carpet or read the nasty bill shaped letters that come through the door on a weekly basis.
But, all the stuff we don’t want to do is generally going to make our lives better in some way.
So yes Miss M, you do have to wear clothes, otherwise when you’re a grown up, people will avoid you.
Ask your dad….