mothers on the verge

Ever had one of those situations where you really want to say something but can't find the words? Then you come up with a brilliant response ten minutes after the moment has passed? Yup, that was me today. Eloquent, not. 

Like any badly behaved pedigree hound, The Player is in his element when running with the pack but is invariably a disaster in the domestic environment. Usually a handsome devil with scads of charm, The Player is the ultimate party boy. He can be found propping up the bar wherever hordes of young and gorgeous women are likely to gather, twinkling away determinedly at the best-looking and most skimpily-dressed babes whilst conspicuously jangling the keys to his beloved Porsche. In Dubai for a three-year contract, he's determined to make the most of everything this most glamorous and obvious of cities has to offer and that most definitely includes the lavish female buffet. Here's a warning, ladies. Any experienced dog trainer will tell you that it's possible to train your wilder breed of hound but a potential owner needs to go in with their eyes wide open. Domestication will take years of work and the regular doling out of tasty treats to reward...

Firstborn back in one piece. Yay! But ill with suspected dehydration and a mild temperature. Boo. Also mortified as she was sick on the bus home, so that kind of took the happy shine off things (8-year-olds are so self-conscious). I'm just happy she's home. 

Realised how utterly useless I am at navigation this morning when I tried to find the location for my morning appointment. Stood about feeling confused (where the f is building 8??) then realised that I was actually in the wrong area (Media City and Internet City - easily confused, right?). This was then followed by a sweaty panic whilst trying to find the other area - which on the map was practically next door - driving about cursing and attempting to follow stupid road signs that kept on inexplicably vanishing. I was finally forced to come to the unhappy conclusion that I was hopelessly lost. End result? I had to be 'talked in' to actual meeting location over speaker phone. Humiliation - 1, Me - nil. Think I made a brilliant impression all round, actually. Especially as I'd managed to spill Diet Coke down my top while making aforementioned sweaty curses, so arrived at meeting looking hot, bothered, hugely embarrassed and utterly disheveled (word of warning - do...

It's been an emotional morning. Firstborn has gone off on her first ever overnight camp. As we gathered in the school hall for the pre-departure pep talk, I looked over at my daughter as she huddled with her friends, drinking in everything the teacher was saying and occasionally glancing over in my direction. I kept a brave face on it, grinning manically at her in an attempt to communicate "Fun! Yeah! This is great! Yay!", but I felt a little more flat inside as each minute passed. Firstborn is a mere eight years young and today she looked tiny. Outside she was full of bravado but her big owl eyes and slightly pinched mouth indicated otherwise. I probably looked exactly the same. Last night we picked out Firstborn's clothes (many were dismissed as being way too naff - how did she get fashion sense this young?), raided the store room for torches and a sleeping bag, then I gave myself repetitive strain injury by sewing on name tags while she chatted away about the...

"Ow!" "Agghhhh!" "Eeek! Take that!" "YOU take that!" "Muuuuummmmmyyyyy! She hit me!" "She pulled my hair!" "She did it first!" "BOTH OF YOU BE QUIET! I'm doing 110k on the Sheik Zayed and I don't need this right now!" (loud sobbing) "It'snotfairyoualwaystakehersideshe'salwaysyourfavoriteandyouhatemeandIwantanewmummycosyou'rereallyreallymeanandyouhatemeandit'snotfairandIhatemylife!" (louder sobbing, escalating into snotty snort noises and dramatic groans) "Sh*t!" (As Toyota Yaris randomly swerves into our lane, missing my wing mirror by millimeters) "Mummythat'srudeyoucan'tsaythatnaughtywordi'mgoingtotellmyteacherandyou'llbeintroubleanditservesyourightbecauseyou'rethemeanestmummywhoeverlived!" (wail) "Nobody loves me!" (sigh) I'm off to buy that one-way ticket to  Buenos Aires . Toyboy optional. 

Alain Robert , otherwise known as 'The French Spiderman', is set to climb the 828m-tall Burj Khalifa today. He's doing it with a safety harness this time - he usually doesn't bother with such dull precautions - and he's got permission from the authorities so doubtful if his climb will end with the usual arrest, but should be exciting all the same.  Watch and weep, Tom Cruise ! Here's footage of Robert scaling the 137m Hong Kong Hang Seng building earlier this year:

"It wasn't me, honestly." "If you don't finish your homework now then I swear to you I'm going to have a major mummy meltdown!" "You can't tell me off! I'm your beautiful darling child!" "Why is the house such a mess? What do you do all day anyway?" "I'm h-u-n-g-r-y..." "GO TO BED AND STAY THERE!" "How many times do I have to tell you? Use your knife and fork! You're not a savage!" "Eugh... I don't like [insert dinner items here]. Why can't we eat nice food like other children?" "I'm leaving home so I can find a new mummy who's nice to me. You're the meanest mummy ever ." "Where's the s*dding corkscrew?"

Home alone, dancing to disco in the kitchen while my bemused baby looks on. You know, it's those small moments that can turn a bit of a blah day into a pretty good one.

We've written about the Fresh Air Fund before ; it's an organisation that does very valuable work, giving inner-city children in the U.S. positive experiences which will broaden their horizons and allow them to see very different worlds and ways of life to that of their own. FAF organises stays with volunteer host families and FAF camps for needy inner-city kids in the school summer holidays. Most of these children spend their whole lives in urban areas with little exposure to the natural world and animals, and few opportunities to swim, hike, climb and all the other fun stuff that a lot of more fortunate kids take for granted. FAF is looking for host families to volunteer for Summer 2011. If you think you might be able to help, watch the video below then go to the website to find out more.

Mid-life Mummy is a woman in crisis. If she's not careful, she sometimes muses, she's might well end up buying a Harley , dying her hair purple, getting piercings in odd places and hanging out with hookers. Since she turned 40, Mid-life Mummy has the feeling that time is running out and what has she actually achieved? Ok, she's managed to spawn a handful of sprogs, maintain a reasonable marriage (and if Jeremy put the toilet seat down once in a blue moon it would probably be the perfect marriage) and she had a half-decent career once, but she's hardly made a dent in her 'things to do before I'm 40' list and now that timescale is sadly out of date. Frankly, MLM feels old. She feels past it. And this is not a good thing. Suddenly having kids enrolled in one of Dubai's swankiest schools, two luxury holidays a year and a top-of-the-range Land Rover is not enough. Even the membership at the Golf Club seems a bit hollow these days, although when Jeremy...

Having lived in Dubai for a couple of years now, I'm confident I can claim to be a bit of a veteran of the infamous Dubai Ladies Night scene. Having done the rounds of most of the usual suspects (and some of them are very suspect), I'm happy to say that Nasimi Beach on Tuesday nights has the potential to be a truly great hang-out for the best sort of girlfriend gathering. Why? Well, picture this - on the beach, sand between your toes, lounging on beanbags and low sofas with a gorgeous view out across the water, attentive service, a decent menu of snacks and sharing platters, and a generous freebie of three cocktails per 'laydee' between 7-9pm (choose between the mighty Mojito, strawberry Daiquiris, Cosmopolitans or white wine). Happy days... or rather, happy nights. Then add a superb mix of music designed to take you all the way down musical memory lane and back - we're talking a toe-tapping jamboree of disco, funk and pop, including this rather excellent tune...

Off to Nasimi Beach at Atlantis on the Palm tonight with The Mummy Posse. I'm expecting a chilled-out night hanging out on the beach with good sounds and a relaxed crowd. I'll let you know if the reality lives up to the promise when I post a review tomorrow. Free drinks from 8-10pm, all you ladies out there. Grab your flip flops and come on down. 

Here's something for all you geek mamas (and everyone else!) out there: Dubai's annual Twestival , which will be held this Thursday evening (24 March) at the Intercontinental Dubai Festival City . All for a good cause as well - this year Twestival will raise funds for Dubai Autism Centre . As you will see from my Twitter page I'm yet to get to grips with the whole microblogging thing, so if anyone should be going it should be me. Sadly though I've got something else on, so if any of you do make it then I'd really appreciate it if you would email me at mothersontheverge@gmail.com with your impressions. Enjoy!

Never EVER take two children, both wired on Starbucks chocolate frappucinos (aka kiddy crack), to the Emaar Property office when you need to do some fairly important paperwork. They will: Pull each other's ponytails Give each other Chinese burns  Try to twang your bra strap and pull your top up in full view of the entire waiting room - whilst cackling like hyenas Shout loudly (it's a very quiet office) Get a limb stuck in the revolving door while running away from you, then scream blue murder and say it's all your fault Repeatedly kick the back of the desk of the woman serving you whilst asking endless questions in a silly high-pitched voice Reinforce every single stereotype about British expat brats ever held by the 25 other lemon-faced people in the waiting area, all of whom are giving you increasingly dirty looks  You will: Seethe silently whilst mentally reassessing your spanking policy Attempt to telepathically communicate with 25 cross people that it's No...

Most people take sleep for granted. Some fortunate souls fall asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow. Others need carefully orchestrated wind-down time to get to the point where sleep is achievable. British ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was famous for sleeping for a mere four hours each night with no apparent ill-effects... sadly I can't say I share her talent.  Most parents know exactly what it means to feel properly exhausted, the kind of exhaustion that comes from a multitude of broken nights, that turns you into a zombie and dulls your thought processes, that strips away the happy shine on things, that blends your brain to mush and adds a good (bad) five years on to your crow's feet. Having not slept for more than a four-hour stretch for a few weeks now (and that's on a very good night), I'm desperate for the restorative bliss of an 8-hour sleep coma. But even when the baby sleeps through, even when the Small(er) One doesn't have a nightmare and c...

Botox Babe is a vision in silicone. Almost entirely hand-crafted by her favorite surgeon - the divine Dr X ("I'm not a doctor, darling, I'm an artist ") - at his famous clinic on the Beach Road, BB is a living monument to the single-minded pursuit of physical beauty. Once known as plain Jumeirah Jane, BB has managed to fix all her (self-perceived) imperfections. Wrinkles? Banished! Crooked nose? Begone! Tiny boobs? Hello  cleavage. Muffin top? Au revoir! Now, with regular trips to the salon for hair extensions, eyelash extensions, caviar facials and endermologie treatments ( so relaxing!), BB feels she finally has the looks she deserves. BB grins  toothily as she stands in front of her bathroom mirror (lit with peach lighting for the most flattering effect), thinking that now she could give that Angelina Jolie a run for her money. In fact, BBs own lips are far more pillow-like and, if she's to be entirely honest, after popping out all those sprogs poor An...

Oh no. I've been hit with the Big Question. I knew it would come along at some point but I'd really hoped for another year or so of blissful ignorance. Driving home from piano practice last night, a little voice in the back piped up out of the blue: "Mummy, what's s*x?" I look in the rearview at Firstborn's sweet little face, which is currently wearing a most interested expression. There's a moment of frenzied internal panic. My mind churns, desperately seeking an escape route or, at the very least, a clear path through the pre-teen minefield. I am totally unprepared for this. I struggle in a swamp of choice paralysis. Do I go for the blatant lie? Do I say it's something I'll tell her about when she's older? I could claim that s*x is something along the lines of 'snogging' - this could work, both girls find the very idea of sucking face with a ...urrgh.. boy absolutely revolting - leaving the way open for a super-quick change of...

To the lady who called me earlier to say how much she is enjoying the blog: a huge thank you, you made my day - especially welcome as I was feeling kind of gloomy before you called. I started this blog with my NY-based friend Lauren a number of years ago. Initially we simply wanted to explore what was then a new craze, but as the years passed blogging has increasingly become an important part of my life. There have been months when I don't have much to say so I keep quiet during those times of zero inspiration, and sometimes I'm just too busy to find the space to come up with something half decent. But the blog is a like an old, old friend... even when life gets in the way and we don't talk for a while it's always a welcoming presence to come back to. Right now, I have enough time and thinking space to devote to the relationship, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. As always, please get in touch with any suggestions or comments (criticisms too!). It's great ...

The summer of '96. I was in my early 20s, just graduated, wondering what the hell I was going to do with the rest of my life. Back then the rest of my life seemed like a long, long stretch but now, as I helter-skelter towards the big 40, I have a slightly different perspective. To fill in time until I suddenly stumbled across an idea of what this 'rest of my life' was going to look like (I was favoring the famous novelist route at that point) I was working in the Velvet Underground on London's Charing Cross Road. Stationed at the bar next to the DJ booth, I had the dubious pleasure of pouring Absolut and popping beers for the likes of Boy George and Bjork , along with a gaggle of DJs. It was a strange year. This was the soundtrack of that summer (although not sure I could dance to it now, these days it's strictly reserved for an emergency energy boost when exercise is attempted).

Most requested on the school run... gold-plated pop at its finest.

Alpha Dad: phenomenal force of nature Alpha Dad strides purposefully down the school corridors, leaving a plume of dust (and lesser parents) in his wake. The school receptionist winces and reaches for her Ray-Bans as he flashes his gleaming super-white teeth as he passes; a vision of corporate glamour with the soft morning light bouncing off the starched crispness of his bespoke Egyptian cotton shirt, she's not sure if she should feel overcome with lust... or fear. Maximising each second of the school run to ensure peak efficiency, Alpha Dad barks orders into his Bluetooth headset at an unfortunate minion whilst simultaneously tapping out an email on his Blackberry and checking stock performance on the i-Phone. Little Johnny Jr trails behind his paternal powerhouse, still reeling from that morning's in-car pep talk. A daily occurrence, Alpha Dad's morning lectures always leave Johnny slightly perplexed: how is it possible to 'seize the day'?; why would pulling...

Kids bouncing about unrestrained in cars are a common sight in Dubai, along with babies being held on the knees of passengers. I've even witnessed infants being dandled on the knee of the  driver.  You've probably experienced my rants about this before... but please keep reading. I recently met the very lovely Lesley Cully, the founder of   Buckle up in the Back Dubai , who inspired me to stop merely grumbling about the foolishness of parents who fail to strap their kids into car seat belts and actually help her, in whatever small (or big) way I can. The aim of Buckle up in the Back Dubai is to get the law changed so everyone has to strap their kids in to the appropriate child restraints, to provide continued education in schools on the importance of wearing a seat belt and to promote proper enforcement of any law that is brought in for wearing a seatbelt. In case you're not convinced, here are some hard, cold facts... Between 2000 and 2006, 450 children under 1...

Beautiful.

Slummy Mummy looks quite normal from the outside. You'd never know her shameful secret just by looking at her. But shameful it is, for Slummy Mummy is a bit of a slob with a range of shockingly bad habits. SM has been known to wear her nightie for the school drop-off (cunningly disguised with a big cardi in the cooler months), and she lives in fear of being subject to a rogue gust of wind due to the aged state of her underwear.  Common SM tricks are to colour in scuffed school shoes with a black permanent marker (she keeps one in her car for this very purpose), bash shop-bought cakes with a rolling pin to make them look home-made (always useful for last-minute bake sales), 'forget' to take her make-up off before bed so she doesn't have to bother to reapply in the morning (a q-tip and a spot of make-up remover makes quick work of panda-eye smudges) , and recycle the less appealing gifts received on her kid's birthdays for the endless stream of parties throughout t...

I did quite a few posts for my Dubai Stereotypes series last year, which you all seemed to like as I've had a number of requests for more, more, more! So, back by popular demand... THE DUBAI DISCOUNT DIVA (aka The Voucher Vulture) A close relation of the global Bargainista movement, The Dubai Discount Diva (aka DDD) is alive and thriving  in the UAE. Most often found lazily flicking through her dog-eared copy of  The Entertainer , the DDD is a shameless cutter-outer of all kinds of coupons. Her handbag is super-sized (Karama, obv ) so she can lug about her cross-referenced, colour coded concertina file stuffed with vouchers of all shapes and sizes - she never, ever leaves the house without it. DDDs social life is dominated by discounts. With mornings spent with like-minded friends who choose their brunch or spa venues according to BOGOF deals, afternoons at play areas or craft shops with voucher-friendly activities, and evenings spent at various ladies night venues acr...

Is it just me, or is calling a seafood restaurant 'Jimmy's Killer Prawns' a really, really bad idea? Think about it.

One of the most interesting things about living in Dubai is the driving. After two years here I am finally used to the dodgem'-style shenanigans required once you get behind the wheel, but it still has the power to make me mutter muted curses under my breath. Tail-gating, super-speeding, undertaking, overtaking on the hard shoulder, texting at high speed, stopping on the side of a 5-lane highway (usually to answer a call, once saw a family having a jolly picnic), unrestrained children bouncing about, aggressive 'out-of-my-way' flashing of lights, pointless lane changes, cars cutting each other up, general macho posturing, bullying... I've seen it all.  I once witnessed a man driving with his phone tucked under his ear whilst holding a baby on his knee- which can only be described as multi-tasking CRAZINESS. Yesterday a car was driving through our neighbourhood with a kid hanging out of the sunroof. The day before a Porsche was menacing a taxi, tailgating him at high s...