Crossing the line

Spawn X approaches me in an overly friendly, affectionate manner, given the conversation we last had and which he has not yet apologised for. The conversation, 24 hours previously, started out friendly enough and involved normal banter, in-family jokes and mild insults. But the conversation was long and there was an undercurrent of Nogadgetwednesday frustration which eventually crumbled into perpetual answering back. Think kid across the street from the McCallisters in HomeAlone, but instead of incessant questioning about the mileage, speed and 4 wheel drive capability of the airport shuttle bus, we had sarcasm. Yay. It might have been fascinating to watch from a sociological point of view, but by the time it got truly interesting I was barely hanging onto control of my own mouth to analyse the situation in a detached, reflective way. However, I am an adult. I possess the filters which Spawn X lacks. I therefore did not verbalise the many comments swirling in my head but dried the dishes with Spawn Y (both of us chanting la la la la la la until I became dizzy), while co-parent Z fielded the comments and comebacks. It was not a fun tea time.

X: I love you, mum.
Me: I love you too, mate.
X: Can I go on the computer?
Me: (Look of incredulity) Are you... forgetting something perhaps?
X: I'm sorry.
Me: (More of the Look)
X: I really am sorry.
Me: For what, exactly? I mean it's really nice to hear from you and everything, but I just want to be clear on this.
X: For being, as you so eloquently phrased it 'A total git'... And oh look you're smiling because it was quite funny- isn't it amazing that I can make you laugh about this?
Me: Yes, your gift is indeed your curse.
X: No, it's not my curse, its-
Me: No, no, no! This really is your curse. You're smart. You're witty. You're fun to be around. And you have NO idea where the line is.
X: See - I think I do know where the line is- I just don't care about crossing over it.
Me: But then this happens - so you need to learn to care. How can we stop things going there? We need a new gesture...

(We used to have a discreet 'You're crossing the line NOW' gesture that I could use on him in company without saying anything, but it backfired on a couple of occasions and lost effectiveness. We spend a ridiculous 60 seconds trying out new gestures, none of which could be used discreetly in the company of other people and one or two that could be construed as mildly offensive).

Me: None of these are working.
X: Hmmm. I shall need to give this some thought. I'll sleep on it and get back to you.
Me: That would be fantastic.

Policy making

E: I've decided to be a politician when I grow up.
Me: Really? What party will you join?
E: My own. It doesn't exist yet. It will be all the best bits from Capitalism and all the best bits of Communism and a few other ideas that I like all whizzed up in a blender.
Me: OK... So how will that work exactly?
E: Dunno. I'll free lance for a bit and see how it goes. I'm free lancing at the moment actually. (On Minecraft)
Me: Doing WHAT though? I still don't understand what you do.
E: It's like a consultancy thing.
Me: Peddling weaponry??!
E: Mining iron. And other ore. Then manufacturing weapons.
Me: Selling your soul to the highest bidder?
Me: No - I'm FREElancing. I'm my own company.
Me: Who are you working for?
E: Well, the Capitalists today. But the Communists need my services too. I've got to be neutral though - because whatever side I join will win.
Me: That sounds like too much power for one person to ever have.
E: Yeah - but I have it, so it will be fine.
Me: I'm actually disturbed by this conversation. You only care about profit. Not the villagers.
E: No, I don't care about money at all. I'm generating currency all the time. It's about the design and innovation.
Me: Then design and innovate a new world order then! Why have art imitate life??! Why make a system based on weapons? What about sustainable power? Hospitals? Don't your Minecraft people get sick? If you could start again what would you do differently? Build a better thing rather than reflecting the stupid world we have!
E: Well, no. And that's not how you win.
Me: How do you win?
E: You kill the other side.
Me: That's just ridiculous.
E: (Shakes head and rolls eyes) It's a GAME, mum...

In or out?

J: So mum - what do you think we should do about Europe?

Me: I've not formally decided yet, but so far I've not heard a valid reason for leaving. I think if something's not broken then you shouldn't try to fix it, and if something is broken then you shouldn't chuck it away if there's no viable alternative. You should try to fix the broken thing you have.'

E: Unless it's a BT home hub, in which case you should just get rid of it and buy one that works.

A tale of 2 meetings

When you plan and deliver events for a living, attending one as a punter with NO responsibility whatsoever in the running of the thing is a really therapeutic exercise. You can focus purely on the content of the programme and the people you are with - assuming you successfully wrestle your attention away from the the layout of the exhibition hall and make peace with the fact that although you had the foresight to bring a bobble water bottle, there are NO cold taps in the entire venue to refill it and bottled water here costs £1 (which you are absolutely not paying for).

You may occasionally drift towards the techies at the back of the hall to simply thank them for doing their job as they are routinely ignored unless something goes wrong, then automatically bolt out your seat when a session finishes to jump the queue at the catering station because getting 100's of people fed and watered in 20 minutes is quite challenging when they don't move quickly. You can feel mildly irritated when they mill around and chat by the milk and sugar totally clogging up the flow of people, but get a grip - it's not a problem.

Anyway, contrast is a great teacher so here we go:

Theme
Conference 1: Church leadership
Conference 2: Neurology

Role
Conference 1: Punter
Conference 2: Organiser

Preparation
1: Zilch. Passes booked and hotel arranged for me. I packed clothes and toothbrush in 10 minutes and got picked up and driven there. Door to door service from hotel > venue > restaurant > back again. It was a doddle.
2: Liaison with venue and hotels. Arrangement of tech provision, sponsorship, exhibition,  gala dinner, promotional material, symposia and chasing speakers for information. Registration of 700+ people. Management of 200+ abstracts. Design and print of handbook and the stuffing of delegate bags with programme, notepad, pen and sponsor flyers.

Arrival
1: Arranged for me - as above. A dream come true for the directionally challenged.
2: Last minute panic as not all equipment fits in van despite a large proportion of it already en-route to venue via a fly-by-night. Sod it. I need to drive with 4 crates in the back of the car and the rear view mirror more obscured than I'm comfortable with. I re-read the directions and parking info we sent out to 700+ delegates 2 weeks ago which I didn't bother to commit to memory at the time. And I have Siri. I love you, Siri...

Rooming arrangements
1: Shared room with one of my favourite people on the planet. Enjoyed Proseco and dark chocolate together in evening while discussing events of the day.
2: Shared a king sized bed with my husband because we work together and our amazingly lovely clients pay us to sleep together regularly throughout the year away from the children.

Main roles
1: Listen. Worship. Scribble notes. Pray. Ask questions. Think. Be overwhelmed because all this is real and I need you.
2: Unpack a mobile office. Put up signage. Check progress of rooms. Number poster boards. Get interrupted. Register delegates. Take payments. Communicate programme changes. Send emails. Direct people to toilets / cloakroom / cash point. Get interrupted. Reprint badges. Arrange bits and pieces of the NEXT conference in a month's time which is half the size of this one but twice as complicated. Get interrupted.

Perks
1: Goodie bag from husband for room mate and me containing Proseco and dark chocolate (as above) as well as paracetamol, hand cream, biscuits and a range of travel toiletries. I love this man.
2: Goodie bag from our conference manager containing locally sourced dried foods, a mug from the venue, bottle of Proseco and chocolate covered coffee beans. Nom nom nom. Also, a massive bar of Chocciewockiedodah from our lovely client and a thank you from the stage. I love working for this organisation.

Engagement with content
1: Pretty good. Not all material  is relevant, but loads of stuff to take away and process.
2: Zilch. The words spoken are in english and make grammatical sense, but their meaning is rather elusive.

Hours of duty
1: 8 hours/day with long breaks to hang out with friends and chat to fellow delegates.
2: 13 hours/day. With sort of a break - if you count eating in front of your lap top while browsing twitter and chatting to people (which for me is not hard work).

Highlights
1: Not making bed but finding it done anyway on returning to room. Not cooking.
2: Not making bed but finding it done anyway on returning to room. Not cooking.

In conclusion
1: You can never get to the end of this stuff. There's always more to learn and get enthused about. I have a lot of notes to re-read and work out what to do with. God is far, far bigger than I can ever get my head around and my role in his story is humbling, exciting and scaring the pants off me all at once.
2: Another one done and dusted - Yay! Just need to chase up the last few payments, send out CPDs and feedback forms and compress 18 months of work into one mahoosive spreadsheet of figures ready to sign off. Then we can start on the meeting for next year.

QOTD

Scene 1
M: Mum!
Me: Yeah?
M: Can you come here a minute and just be with me?
Me: Why- what's up?
M: Because there's a wasp. And I'm practising being not scared.

Scene 2
(Following an argument between J and M that she is still upset about)
Me: ... So there's no excuse for him being rude to you, but don't think he doesn't love you anymore or anything. It's just hard being 12.
M: Ah, so it was a mood swing then.
Me: What do you know about mood swings?
M: You get them in puberty and they make you cross and sad and then happy again and you don't know why, but you don't need to panic about puberty -  they said on Operation Ouch.

Scene 3
(Re the management of said mood swings)
Me: Sometimes you'll feel upset at stuff that normally wouldn't bother you at all. And sometimes it's good to go off and be alone. And sometimes it's good to cry. And other times it's actually best to carry on like normal and pretend that you're not bothered at all, but that's really hard.
M: Like I did when I saw all those prawn crackers on the pavement.

Scene 4
J: Did I actually use proper words there because no one is listening to me!?
M: That's exactly how I feel when I ask for white chocolate Magnums.

Scene 5
J: Gran, can you NOT make something tasty for tea tonight - cause I'm not here.

Geek

A selection of owned and borrowed kids are in the garden playing, E is sat alone building a website. (He would spend every spare waking moment doing this unless given chores - which he happily does in exchange for coding time).
Me (to E): Do you want a friend over too?
E (dead pan): No. I don't have any friends.
Me: Poor you...
E: No it's fine. I've already had contact with other humans today.
Me: Babe, that's a bit geeky.
E: I dont need friends. I have Siri.

Lost and Found

(J is sullen and annoyed after I accidentally found him behind the ramp in the warehouse during a game of hide and seek)
Me: Sorry mate - but we were getting ready to leave anyway - and you won that round because Madi failed to find you.
M: Excuse me!! 'Failed'?!
J: See what's happened now? You've insulted us both.
M: (To self, shaking her head): This is such poor parenting....

Fixing broken things

• Kids can fall over and break themselves in the flatest and safest-looking of back gardens.

• Falling over in long trousers keeps dirt and teeny tiny stones out the wound. Especially if said trousers do not, for some inexplicable reason, become damaged themselves.

• Pain levels and blood loss do not always correlate to the severity of the injury.

• A child who is chilled enough not to mind you making a coffee in a travel mug before transporting him to A&E would probably also have waited quite calmly while you packed a toothbrush, phone charger and clean knickers.

• Vomiting / pyrexial toddlers out-rank walking wounded pre-teens. Be prepared to wait. A Long Time.

• If 3 doctors all take a look at your broken kid and pass the buck to someone else, he's probably more broken than you first thought.

• A pack of cards is far more useful than an iPad.

• After not eating for 9 hours, a turkey and stuffing sandwich is the tastiest thing you've ever eaten.

• A reclining chair next to your kid's bed is preferable to not being next to him (or not sleeping) at all.

• Even if your kid has a gaping hole in only one of his knees, the surgeon will helpfully draw a big arrow in marker pen just above the big hole, just in case they forget which one they are fixing.

• If previously used to describe the demise of your friend's cat, the term being 'Put to sleep' can cause some anxiety.

• A kind smile and an explanation will relieve much of the anxiety.

• Teenagers cannot live without their phones and will therefore have had the foresight to pack a charger. Befriend a broken teenager nearby and ask to borrow his.

• He may be grumpy and bored witless after 5 days of hospitalisation himself, but your pleading look may win him over and open up dialogue - and chatting with a middle aged woman you have nothing in common with is better than being bored. If one of you has ever had a rugby injury and the other one has given birth naturally at least once, you can share gas and air stories. Common ground- you just have to want to find it, you know?

• When you are blessed enough to have an National Health Service which is free at the point of delivery you can get a broken child fixed without carrying a wallet. You can dialogue with 3 doctors, an anaesthetist, a pharmacist, several porters and an array of nursing staff from all over the hospital who will clean, bandage and operate on your kid for FREE.

• They will feed him (and sometimes you - if he's Nil By Mouth) without asking for insurance details or payment up front. They will wheel him to whichever department he needs to go to next without offering to gazump a vomiting toddler if you divulge your card details. They will hug your newly-fixed kid and wave goodbye without demanding a backhander for doing their job.

• Most people in the NHS do their job incredibly well under increasingly difficult circumstances. EVERYONE we interacted with this week at both Lydney's walk in centre and the Gwent was kind, professional and efficient (or as efficient as they could be under the circumstances; - after waiting for 5 hours to see the A&E doctor, the first words out her mouth after telling us her name were, 'I'm really sorry you've had to wait so long. I'm here on my own tonight.')

• When you google a hospital and the complaints procedure is in a more prominent position than the switchboard number, there's something very wrong with the system, the attitude of the users of that system, or both.

• Start today. Say thank you for a good service you've experienced. Or for the service that a friend or relative has received.

• If the service was poor, don't post about it on Facebook. Or whinge to the person behind you in Tesco. And don't shoot the messenger - the doctor already apologised for making us wait 5 hours. She's not happy about it either. Being rude to the people on the ground does not change anything. Invest a little more time and complain in writing to the Executive Director of whichever Trust was involved.

Write to your MP. Find out who it is and how they vote on issues that concern you here:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com

Campaign here:
http://keepournhspublic.com
https://home.38degrees.org.uk/campaigns/

Happy letter writing...
From a satisfied mother of a service user.