Not Far From the Madding Crowd

The 'F' Word

2012-01-19T13:38:00.000-08:00

Sometimes these blog posts just write themselves. No thinking or processing of ideas required when you have such a rich and ready resource available in the form of a four-year-old, a two-year-old and a four-month-old. You just need to tell it how it is. Today is one of those times. Out of the mouths of babes oft times come gems. Well, perhaps not quite a gem.

Gertie and Gilbert love playing around with language. They have their own code words and those that trigger helpless laughter. 'Pom pom', for example, is the biggest insult in the world, and what on earth is so amusing about the word, 'pie'? It can't be just its phonic proximity to 'poo', (one of the most intrinsically funny substances known to mankind) surely? Perhaps, knowing my children, it is. It certainly has the capacity to reduce my pair to uncontrollable fits of giggles.

The new focus, thanks in part I'm sure to current favourite reads, Hairy Mclary, Slinky Malinki and Zachary Quack, is to ensure that everything they say rhymes or is alliterative. To make the latter happen simply involves substituting the initial letter of words in a sentence for a single sound. Popular consonant choices are 'b' and 'd', so in the morning for breakfast we might all have Deerios in a dowl and deat them with a doon, and they're drobably derry dasty. Make sense of what you will.

I like to think that this demonstrates their creativity and willingness to explore and experiment with language.

Today's consonant choice was 'f', so the middle man kept referring to himself as 'Filbert'. That was no froblem at all. But it was in the swimming pool as his teacher handed him a duck that the fun really began.

Perhaps, on reflection, the first thoughts in response from Gilby's swimming instructor may not have been to do with creativity and experimentation.

Stop Hitting Me!

2012-01-16T12:36:00.000-08:00

Gertie and Gilbert have invented a great new game.

They simulate punching themselves in the face Fight Club style whilst shouting, 'Stop hitting me, Mummy!' very loudly and giggling.

Now, although I came down firmly on the side of Harry in The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas' novel and recent television drama, I can state categorically that I have never hit any of my children.

So bring back Hooker-Mummy, it's a far less damaging cry.

On Modern Chivalry

2012-01-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

We went mob-handed to collect Gertie from school today. Usually I leave the boys in the car (happily it coincides with a good time for Gilby to have a nap, and Eddie seems just to sleep whenever he is in the car-seat; it seems a shame to disturb them...) Today, however, we arrived in plenty of time and everyone was awake. So we trundled through the school gate en masse.

Gertie was one of the first out. She usually is, having been well-trained after a whole term of dashing to a dance class or swimming with but seconds to spare. Gilby ran up to his sister, gave her a big hug and then offered to carry her lunch-box.

All the other mums cooed. "Oh, what a little gentleman!" "Isn't he adorable?!" "Look at that. What a sweet thing to do!"

They weren't to know his gluttonous ulterior motive: to be the first to get his hands on anything that might be left over .

New Year, New Title

2012-01-04T11:24:00.000-08:00

First day back at school today, and a chance for me to attempt to return the house to some sort of order after the glorious chaos of the Christmas holidays. By the time I came to collect Gertie, things were ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Ish.

She had a friend round to play after school, and in their excitement they ran in, dumping coats and shoes on the floor in the kitchen. I had to trip over them whilst carrying baby in car-seat and was not best pleased, so I called them back to tidy up.

Gertie picked up both coats and handed them to me.

"That's not quite what I meant. Why don't you hang them up?"

"Because I can't reach. And anyway, you're the hooker-up of coats. Hooker-Mummy, Hooker-Mummy," she called as she ran back up the stairs.

Just hoping she doesn't remember to call me that whilst in the supermarket. I suspect it could be misinterpreted.

I Blame Mister Maker

2011-12-28T11:25:00.000-08:00

Now that the big day has passed once more, I find that not only is my house bulging with even more than our fair share of brightly coloured plastic but there are also more dangerous weapons lurking everywhere...

The pen is indeed mightier that the sword, since it can ruin new furniture in a matter of seconds in the hands of an enthusiastic two-year-old; and this Christmas seemed to have 'crafts' as a major theme. Mister Maker has an awful lot to answer for as paint pots, felt-tip pens, gloopy glue, sand art, crayons, glitter, felt shapes and items generally associated with 'messy play' now lurk in every corner, despite my protestations that works of art may only be created in the kitchen.

So I really do need to have eyes in the back of my head if my house is not to resemble a New York subway in terms of graffiti levels. And with three children all activities must be undertaken with military precision. Mealtimes provide an excellent opportunity to get the baby into the bath first, since I can be fairly confident that the lure of food will be enough to keep the big ones in their seats and away from potentially lethal crafts.

So it was that yesterday, Eddie had already had his bath and lay kicking on his changing mat in the bathroom. I prised Gilby away from the remains of his cupcake and got him into the water, whilst Gertie carried on at the table. She is eminently sensible and can be trusted not to autograph the walls, so I wasn't too worried. But I took the opportunity of hanging out some washing in the hallway whilst listening to Gilby's monologue in the bath.

"Right, come on then, Eddie; time to get you into your pyjamas!" I said, folding the last of the laundry in the hallway.

"Mummy, why are you talking to Eddie? He can't talk back to you," observed his big brother whilst blowing bubbles with his bath-water and covering the bath sides in wild red and green circles. Who knew that you could get soap-pens?

"Well I know that he's only a baby, but it is important that he learns how to communicate, and he will understand lots of things we say even though he can't talk yet," I explained as simply as I could.

"No Mummy. Why are you talking to him when he is asleep?"

Poor old Eddie had obviously got bored with waiting for his mother to return and get him dressed and had, well, nodded off. So much for my multi-tasking. Still, at least no permanent scribbles on priceless objects occurred in the interim. Though the bath took a bit of scrubbing...

Help!

2011-12-24T23:03:00.000-08:00

What is the correct protocol when one's four-year-old has found the 'Father Christmas' presents stashed in the under-stairs-cupboard on Christmas Eve?

Starry Nights, Red Wine and Birdshot

2011-12-11T02:17:00.000-08:00

Last night the two big kids got to stay with Grumps and Mumps, leaving Daddy and I in charge of one baby who sleeps from 7pm right through to at least 7am without a murmur.

The Saturday night excitement was palpable as we settled down with Thai take-away in front of 'Strictly'. Knowing that an easy morning and a lie-in of sorts awaited, I poured myself a generous glass of red wine whilst Daddy got a roaring fire going (one of life's true pleasures for this Hearth-mother).

The mountain of dirty washing resulting from Gertie's bout of sickness could momentarily be forgotten. I think it may have been caused by the overwhelming responsibility of playing the 'star' in her nativity:

Me: The Star? Why that's lovely darling, is it a speaking part?
Gertie: No, Mummy, but I have to lead the wise men!

So whilst the evening couldn't exactly be described as rock 'n roll, it was what counts as blissful these days.

Until Kempton, our still very puppy-ish golden retriever, knocked the red wine glass flying with an errant tail. Half a bottle of red wine (I told you it was a generous glass) over cream carpet doth not a happy husband make. Kempton was briefly banished and much swearing and scrubbing ensued. But I was cheered by the entry in 'IT MUST BE TRUE...I read it in the tabloids from Friday's The Week:

A man from Utah was rushed to hospital after being shot in the buttocks by his own dog. The unnamed 46-year-old was out duck hunting when the dog stepped on his 12-gauge shotgun, causing it to go off. Police said the man was hit from ten feet away with 27 pellets of birdshot.

It rather put Kempton's misdemeanour into perspective. The stain will always remind me that at least I wasn't shot in the buttocks.

Sack of Potatoes

2011-12-05T07:58:00.001-08:00

Saturday was our village 'fest' where the car park and shopping precinct are given over to stalls selling everything from olive oil to handicrafts to sponsored bricks for African classrooms. There are tombolas and home-made cakes and even a fair-ride. So my little people were happy, especially when, around lunchtime there was a cheer-leading display. After a couple of routines I suggested that it might be time to go home, but Gilby was adamant that he wanted to stay and watch more of the 'dancing'.

In an effort to stave off the now-frequent-terrible-twos-tantrum I acquiesced. How silly. Because then he just kicked off with even more of a vengeance when they actually finished. He sobbed in the street and refused to walk back to the car, stepping out behind parked cars shouting, 'No, no, no...' continuously at the top of his voice.

I think he was lamenting the dancing being over, but by this time he had lost most of the power of meaningful communication and wouldn't listen to reason. I was pushing the pram and holding hands with a skipping 4-year-old, and just wanted to be home. So - I picked Gilby up under one arm, pushed the pram vigorously with the other and let Gertie fend for herself. It wasn't a good look, and it certainly wasn't my finest hour of parenting. But we got back to the car in one piece, eventually. What I didn't need was a total stranger to wind down the window of a passing car and scream, "Don't hold him like a sack of potatoes!" at the top of her voice.

Who did she think she was? How dare she interfere? Don't scream out of car windows at stressed families!

On Onion Goggles and School Gate Snobbery

2011-11-25T03:30:00.000-08:00

People ask me what is it like with three children, and how we are all coping. 'Coping' is rather strong to describe our state of being from dawn till dusk on some days, but I usually reply cheerfully,"Oh it's utter chaos!" as if to suggest that although I don't have a minute to myself it is all jolly-bedlam-in-a Darling Buds of May type-way.

It reached new levels of absurdity though as I did the school run yesterday. Gilby and baby in tow, I noticed that some of the other Mums were giving me quite peculiar looks, focusing somewhere above my forehead. I reached up to find that a rather conspicuous pair of onion goggles was perched up there. "BUT I'VE BEEN MAKING CHRISTMAS CHUTNEY!!!!!" I wanted to screech (for the first time ever, actually, but nobody needed to know that bit) "AND I GOT CARRIED AWAY AND THEN WE WERE NEARLY LATE SO I HAD TO RUSH OUT OF THE DOOR..."

Instead I hastily removed them, smiling and nodding as if they were the latest fashion accessory but I really didn't like to show off. I then got chatting to another Mum whose daughter only arrived at the school a couple of weeks ago since they just moved to the area. I mentioned that Gertie talked about Lucy quite a lot, and hoped that she was settling in well.

"Oh yes," she replied. "And it's so good that Lucy gets to play with all sorts of children now." She must not have noticed my horrified look as she continued, "In our last village everyone was so nice, but here there's a real mixture..."

"ALL SORTS????? ARE YOU SUGGESTING THAT MY CHILD IS NOT 'NICE'????" I wanted to screech out, for the second time in about two minutes.

I know there's been much discussion of school-gate snobbery of late, but perhaps I'm overreacting. Maybe her perception of our family results from the slightly manic look and frequent desire to screech out loud that I seem to have recently developed. Or perhaps it was just a reaction to the onion goggles.

Olympic Sleeping

2011-11-22T01:56:00.000-08:00

Young Eddie had his second swimming lesson yesterday. He is just short of eight weeks old. It was not entirely successful...

Gertie began swimming when she was about twelve weeks old and was a complete water-baby, loving it from day one. Aged four and a half she is now a competent swimmer who can also dive with...ease if not grace.

Gilby started lessons at about the same age as his brother has: eight weeks. He loved it at the start but his first year was beset by ear infections and he has never quite achieved the confidence of his big sister, though he enjoys his weekly splash around in the pool.

It is fair to say though, that despite being born in the water, Eddie hasn't taken to it at all. He has now spent two lessons more or less screaming the whole way through, even though he hasn't been back under the water completely yet.

Though unlikely to make the 2012 Olympic pool, the fact remains that he has now slept through the night for eight nights in a row. I'm reluctant to even write that down in case it all changes, but he seems to feed between 5pm and 8pm, repeatedly, then sleep from about 9pm until just before 7am. That's nearly ten hours, and I don't quite believe it myself. He's also the first of the three to sleep on his back in the recommended way, unlike his siblings who both still sleep bottoms up.

So we won't worry to much about the swimming, but we'll concentrate on the sleeping. I wonder if there are plans to make that an Olympic event?

Remembrance

2011-11-15T01:30:00.000-08:00

Gertie's school-starter inquisitiveness is relentless. She was pre-occupied with poppies in the run-up to Remembrance Day, and wanted to wear one. But in typical Gertie fashion she also wanted to know exactly what it was all about. I tried to explain as gently as I could (after all, she is only four) that we were remembering all the soldiers who had died in war.

"What's war?" she asked.

Where do you begin? I was reminded of trying to explain the word 'hate' to her about a year ago, which really signfied the start of the end of innocence.

I gave as sanitised an explanation as I could and bought her a poppy.

She rushed home from school the next day and looked at me as if I was stupid. "Well you didn't tell me that poppies were a symbol and they were red to represent all the blood, did you?"

I suppose I should have been ready for that after she came home a few weeks ago in the run up to bonfire night fascinated by the idea of the 'plotters', the notion of being hung, drawn and quartered and heads on spikes.

On a happier note, there is cause for another day of national celebration: Eddie slept for nine and a half hours last night, hooray! This is impressive at seven weeks old, and particularly exciting after his nocturnal start to life. Mummy and Daddy high-fived in celebration upon waking this morning...

It may have been helped by the fact that he had his very first swimming lesson yesterday afternoon too. A big day for the little man, and a big night for his parents.

And let's not leave Gilby out; the big man has quietly got on with his potty training, does the whole thing without being asked and is now regularly having dry nights. Go Gilby!

Box Office Babies

2011-11-08T06:31:00.000-08:00

Eddie is six weeks old today, so as a special treat (well, really a treat for Mummy) we went to our local cinema which was screening The Help as part of their 'Box Office Babies' season.

This ingenious arrangements means that you can bring your baby along to the cinema for a day-time film for not very much money, safe in the knowledge that you can all scream along to the soundtrack together and nobody will mind very much.

I was a little bit late and was ushered in to the darkened studio just as the film was beginning. About fifteen other mums were already settled with their babies, strategically positioned around the room. Etiquette seeemed to demand at least eight spaces between each new mum, so I duly joined the fray. A constant background baby gurgle reached a cacophany of newborn cries at times, (usually at quiet and crucial moments of the film) but babies could be quickly settled by a discreet breastfeed or bottle. There was also constant movement...patting, soothing, sucking, standing and swaying in the aisles, even some singing as we all attempted to keep our babies under some degree of control. And then there was the changing bag relay. It seemed as though somebody was away from the film changing their babies at all times. And we gravitated towards the door towards the end of the film, as babies became increasingly fractious after two hours and twenty six minutes of being 'shushed'.

Two hours and twenty six minutes is significant, because I had only fed the carpark machine enough to cover two hours, but was having such a jolly old time watching the film (and the surreal sight of all these other mums) that I forgot to keep an eye on the time and came back to a parking ticket courtesy of Horsham District Council. So my treat for 'not very much money' suddenly turned in to a horribly expensive morning.

Still, the film was magnificent and the company hilarious. Quite the thing for a wet and windy Tuesday morning of maternity leave. I thoroughly recommend it, assuming that you choose your parking arrangements carefully.

Smashing Pumpkins and a Raging Raisin

2011-10-31T04:42:00.001-07:00

Here are Gertie and Gilby splendidly painted as pumpkins for Halloween.

Eddie, alas, is too new for face-painting, but it doesn't matter because when he screws his little face up for a good screaming cry he resembles a particularly scary halloween pumpkin anyway. His new nickname is the 'raging raisin' on account of his newborn wrinkliness combined with his ability to ratchet up the decibels. I wonder if this is typical third-child behaviour, borne of the need to be very loud to make his demands heard above the others...?

We are winning, finally, with Gilby and the potty training; though the timing of a severe bout of diarrhoea was not helpful to this process. Enough said.

Now Going Ga Ga

2011-10-18T07:40:00.000-07:00

So. We are driving along in the car and the radio presenter encourages the listeners to stay tuned for the Lady Ga Ga track coming up shortly.

"Mummy, I love Lady Ga Ga!" pipes up two-year-old Gilby with gusto from the back.

I'm sorry, did I mention that my son is just two? How can you love Lady Ga Ga at two years old? This is seriously worrying! Particularly when his mother isn't particularly a fan, and has never before had cause to mention Lady Ga Ga's name. Where has he got this from? I blame the Aussie.

Oh, and on day three of potty training: Carpet 3 - Potty 1.

Going Quietly Potty

2011-10-14T05:58:00.000-07:00

I may not have fully thought through the timing of this, but today is Day 1 of Potty Training Proper for Gilby. He is almost 2 1/4 now and really starting to show signs of interest, not least in the excitement demonstrated over the choosing of the 17 pairs of 'big boy pants' that we have invested in in readiness.

So. I've read Gina Ford (not usually a great fan, but Potty Training in One Week is exactly what I'm after, so I'm ignoring the patronising tone and trying to follow the advice). We have umpteen sets of spare clothes and pants (well, seventeen, to be precise). We are restricting ourselves to two rooms: the kitchen and the sitting room, both of which have been made as 'accident-proof' as I can manage. I have smarties with which to bribe, toys on hand to occupy, two potties at the ready, a cupboard full of disinfectant and a bucketful of patience in reserve. We're off!

I also have a 16 day-old baby. One who, up until this morning, has mostly slept through the day and kept us awake at night. But of course, Eddie has picked today to reverse the pattern, and has been awake since 7.15am, pretty much uninterrupted, aside from two 20 minute naps.

Which has meant that I haven't been able to devote quite as much time as I would have liked to Gilby's needs. And, though we have strict rules about television (as much of the bedtime hour as supper and a bath allow in the evening and some programmes on Saturday morning) I find that by 11am I have already succumbed to the controlling power of CBeebies.

By 2pm we have had three accidents and a grand total of no potty wees. Gilby has begged to have his nappy back. Eddie must be having some kind of growth spurt as I have been feeding him constantly. There is yoghurt up the walls (another story). I have just about managed to get myself dressed and my kitchen and sitting room look like an advertisement for Toys R Us.

I don't know about Gilby, but I am going quietly potty...and my bucketful of patience has only a few drops left. Ah yes. Maternity leave. I remember it now.

Mummy Isn't Magic (But There Are Enough Cuddles)

2011-10-08T04:57:00.000-07:00

Given that Gilby is very much a mummy's boy, we weren't entirely sure how he would take to his new little baby brother, Eddie. In fact, nursery had warned us that he had been saying that he wasn't sure if Mummy would have enough cuddles for him too (how to make your heart hurt!)

So it was with some care that we made the introductions. One-day-old Eddie was very generous in his gifts to his siblings, and showed a remarkable awareness for what they might like. That started things off well, but when I went to feed Eddie, Gilby came over and yanked my breast away, declaring firmly, "No Mummy, Eddie doesn't like that."

When Eddie subsequently started crying at having his supper interrupted, Gilby did make a little concession and suggested that I sing him 'Rainbow' (Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Gilby's favourite when he is feeling sad) so I guess there was some degree of empathy there.

Meanwhile Gertie (4 going on 40) was quite happy to mother her new baby brother, fussing over him with the muslin and demanding cuddles. My sister brought over a hamper of loveliness filled with nice things for Mummy including chocolates, wine and various pampering products, but it also had a little book in called 'My Mummy is Magic'. This is a lovely little tale guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye of a hormonal new mum, all about the little things that mummy does that seem like magic. Unfortunately there is no pulling the wool over Gertie's eyes with the new-found independence that school has given her. I read to them both in my best Listen With Mother voice:

"If I whisper a secret in my mummy's ear, she guesses it before I've finished telling her! That's magic."

"Well, no, that's not really magic, is it?!

I carried on, not wishing to break the 'spell'.

"When I hurt myself, my mummy kisses the sore bit, and ta-da! It's all better. That's magic."

"Um, well, that's not actually magic, either, is it?"

I suppose not...

Later on, Gertie was encouraging her little cousin to interact with her new baby brother. "Go on, he won't bite." There was a short pause before she added, "He hasn't got any teeth."

Gilby got into the spirit of it all eventually, and even came up with a gift-wrapped present for his mother. The fact that it was a packaged sanitary towel from the bathroom was irrelevant, as I believe it is the thought that counts.

And there were plenty of cuddles to go round!

Smashing Splashing Birth Story in Brief

2011-10-01T02:39:00.000-07:00

Well, last Monday evening, I 'SROM-ed'. I only knew this because I heard the midwife say it on the telephone to the hospital: "I need to book in one of my ladies who's SROM-ed." Spontaneous Rupture of the Membranes - or, my waters broke. This was bad news for me because my previous two deliveries had begun this way, both resulting in induction. It was the one thing that I really didn't want to happen. I SROMED just before midnight, but there was good news, because by early morning there were some weak and irregular (but encouraging) signs of contractions.

My midwife examined me, and described conditions as 'favourable'. I took the dog for a brisk walk, finished off a very spicy stir-fry (the previous night's leftovers) for lunch, and was sipping my raspberry leaf tea contemplating another half pound of pineapple for pudding, when things really began to get interesting. I phoned Daddy at work and when he returned at 3.30pm it really had all kicked off.

We began to prepare to go to the hospital (suddenly realising that it might be a good idea to get the baby car seat down from the loft, that sort of thing!) when the phone rang. It was the BT engineer who we had been waiting for for several days. "I'm about twenty minutes away, is that alright?"

"Um, twenty minutes you say? Ok..."

I sat contracting as quietly as I possibly could in the nursery, trying to stay out of the way as he tested lines and installed something (I was beyond caring what), desperately willing him to finish. Finally, we left for the hospital at 5pm. The journey took nearly an hour, and by the time we arrived, my contractions were about a minute and a half apart. I've got to be honest, I've had more pleasant car journeys in my life.

I began by loudly demanding an epidural, convinced that the midwives were going to tell me that I was about 5cm dilated and would have hours to go. Sensibly, they ignored my request, and began filling the birth pool. There wasn't even time for gas and air, let alone an epidural.

"I thought I couldn't have a water birth as my waters had broken?" I managed to gasp. "Well you're still within 24 hours, so there's no problem, if you would still like to try?"

I had written 'water birth' into the birth plan more in hope than earnest, and hadn't really considered the possibility that I might be able to have one. But the minute I got into the pool things improved dramatically, and my new little baby was born at 8.17pm, only about two hours after getting to the hospital. I say 'little' but he was 9lb 10 oz. And 'he' was a surprise as I really thought that I was having a girl. It was a really euphoric experience. What a difference from my previous labours!

So now I am a mother of three under-fives, and have two sons. How on earth did that happen?

Crash, Bang, Bllcks!

2011-09-19T08:18:00.000-07:00

As usual I am entertained by the relative linguistic expertise of both my children, surely one of the 'joys of motherhood'.

Gertie, newly elected to the School Council (just how exactly does that happen on Day 5 of one's school career?) came home for the weekend, marched up to the fridge and formed the word 'Friday' with the plastic magnetic letters, much to the astonishment of her mother. Two weeks' worth of education and she appears to be able to read, write and spell.

Meanwhile, Gilby has increased the use of one of his favourite phrases: 'Crash, Bang, Wallop!'; his immediate response to any loud noise, bang or dropped item. Except that he mispronounces it so that it sounds much more like, "Crash, bang, bollocks!"

Personally, I think that this is a much more articulate response to smashing something, or even life's general frustrations, and have therefore adopted it myself.

My due date has come and gone without so much as a teasing cramp...so frankly, all I have to say is, "Crash, bang, bollocks!"

40 Weeks Pregnant: Mouth is sore from excessive fresh pineapple consumption, to no avail.
Currently reading: Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Hyde Park Waddle

2011-09-12T11:53:00.000-07:00

I know this picture doesn't look pretty, but yesterday I took part in the adidas 5K Women's Challenge in Hyde Park, along with 15,000 other women.

I completed the course in just under 53 minutes. Not a particularly impressive time, but pretty good for 39 weeks pregnant, I reckon. I have been running this race for the last five or six years and felt that I might as well go for it, in spite of my protruding belly. It was a very supportive environment and there were plenty of well-wishers on the way. Gertie asked me at the end if I'd won! I felt like I had...

The scary thing is that I actually felt quite good afterwards. I 'ran' just over 1km and walked the rest, saving a little energy for a 'sprint' finish, and last night had more energy and less aches and pains than I usually would. I'm not sure that I want to explore the moral of this story!

I raised £222 for the MS Society, my biggest total so far. I am very grateful to all who supported me, and to the organisers for helpfully placing toilets just after the 3km mark. That was extremely important.

39 weeks pregnant: Wondering why a 5K run didn't get labour going...
Currently reading: The Two of Us by Sheila Hancock

First Day

2011-09-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

What is it about school uniform that suddenly makes them look so grown-up?

Gertie was very excited about starting school, and not in the least bit concerned by the transition; in fact she seemed to think her mother's slightly erratic and emotional behaviour distinctly odd at times, though she accepted the morning's photo shoot with a mature tolerance.

All went smoothly from her point of view, though there were two minor failures on my part: the carefully sewn-in name badge on her cardigan came off and I forgot her water-bottle.

She was so ready to go that I really had no worries about how she would get on. Yet a small part of me can't help thinking about what is lost. Just a few weeks ago she was asking why I never plaited her 'front hair' (she couldn't think of the word for 'fringe'), and why God was always so 'baggy'. It took me a little while to work out what she meant, until she pointed at the sleeves on her white shirt that were loose at the ends, "like this". All the representations she sees typically picture God or Jesus in white loose-fitting clothing.

The concrete construal reminds me of another story I heard where a school inspector asked a reception child what they were drawing. "God," replied the child. "But nobody knows what God looks like," challenged the inspector. "They will in a minute," responded the self-assured five-year-old.

But when Gertie came home yesterday she told me that we must always wash our hands when we have touched something that has been on the floor, even if we are not about to eat. (I knew I had been lapse at this parenting-lark) and that the planets are all spinning all the time but so slowly that our eyes cannot see them. Aggie MacKenzie and Professor Brian Cox would both be proud.

Mummy? Is proud and just a little sad...

Nearly 39 weeks pregnant: Wondering if it is just pregnancy hormones, but suspecting that the other 750,000 Mums were also a bit weepy this week
Currently reading: Annie Dunne by Sebastian Barry

Nous Sommes Back!

2011-08-26T03:44:00.001-07:00

I know that one shouldn't complain when one is on holiday, but here are ten things I have struggled with whilst in the South of France (in 38 degree heat) and very heavily pregnant...

1) Heaving my remarkable bulk onto a lilo whilst retaining some dignity.
2) Watching all around me drink copious amounts of rose whilst I look on enviously.
3) Not being able to kyak to the Pont du Gard for fear of disproving Archimedes' Principle (and capsizing).
4) Heaving my remarkable bulk up from a sun-lounger.
5) French squat toilets: difficult to negotiate with precarious centre of gravity. (Although I did find the fact that Gertie did a wee on her grandmother's foot the first time she attempted to use one more than faintly amusing.)
6) Avoiding all those delicious but 'illegal' cheeses.
7) Covering up the chloasma or pregnancy mask.
8) Trying to get my back as brown as my front: impossible with a bump this size!
9) Climbing to the top of the amphitheatre in Nimes. Highly ambitious given the size and quantity of the steps.
10) Looking glamorous in a bikini. Ha!

That's not to say that it wasn't all brilliant and worthwhile. The 14 hour drive home was interesting, although my husband probably didn't fully appreciate the urgency and frequency with which one has to pee in this condition.

37 Weeks Pregnant: Wondering why I finally have an 'outie' belly-button when that never happened with babies 1 and 2.
Currently reading: How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

The Pied Piper of Languedoc

2011-08-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

Well here we are in the south of France once more, staying at a fabulous house complete with pool in a tiny French village in the Languedoc region. All idyllic, and there are still two weeks to go.

The particular joy of this place is that it contains enough rooms to accommodate both sets of grandparents plus an aunt and uncle and neice or nephew or two. Admittedly, in some families this could represent a vision of hell, but with the constant vying for the attention of the grandchildren, Big-Fat-Enormously-Heavily-Pregnant-Mummy gets to have some proper rest and relaxation.

And my mother (or 'Nano' to the grandchildren) appears to have turned into the pied piper of Hamelin, merrily leading all the children off in the early morning to get the freshly-baked baguettes, pains au chocolat and croissants for le petit dejeuner, thereby leaving parents who inevitably stayed up too late the night before to have an extra hour's peace in bed. Though she brings them back later, so this legend has a slightlier happier outcome than its German counterpart.

Need to supervise a two-year-old and a four-year-old in the pool whilst you get on with the important business of sunbathing? Then there's an uncle or older neice on hand to fulfil that role. Bliss.

I just hope this baby doesn't come early. Usually I'm wishing these last few weeks away, just wanting to get on with the business of meeting the new arrival. Not this time!

36 weeks pregnant: Wondering if participating in the extremely competitive volleyball tournament was the most sensible idea, and pondering exactly how one can achive an all over tan when clearly lying on one's stomach is a physical impossibility.

Currently reading: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Things That Go Bump in the Kitchen

2011-08-03T10:37:00.000-07:00

Another year, another birthday, another mess in the kitchen, another baking triumph (but don't look too closely, it's a little, er, 'rustic' round the edges).

Yes, Gilby was two last week, and with a few days to go before the event he announced that he no longer wanted another train cake, but 'Mr Bump'. Good, I thought, at least it's round. Though blue was not the most appetising colour for the, mostly adult, guests at his tea party.

Pregnancy hormones must be kicking in big time, because I also MADE bunting for the occasion. I saw some for sale at the primary school fete and thought, 'Twenty quid for a couple of metres? Pah! I'll make it!'

So, having invested in a sewing machine and a selection of fabric, I reckon my bunting has set me back over £200. Oh well.

But the little man was on top form, dressed in shirt and tie for the day, and even going as far as to sit back up in bed, more tired than I've ever seen him, just after kissing him goodnight to say, "Thank you for my party, mummy," in the sweetest, most angelic little voice.

Now, lest all this sound too good to be true, and I'm even sickening myself with the homely baking and bunting imagery, let me just pronounce, for the record, that the terrible twos began in earnest the very next day as Gilby kicked and screamed and demanded, "More presents, more presents, more presents..." for hours. So domestic bliss was short-lived...

34 Weeks pregnant: Definitely not feeling the bikini body...
Currently reading: That Summer in Ischia by Penny Feeny

The Unbearable Excitement of Being

2011-07-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

Gilby has 'hand, foot and mouth disease'. A 'febrile illness(caused by Coxsackie Virus) with associated vesicle formation on the hands, feet, and mouth of affected children'. It began with a few chicken-pox-type spots around his groin area, and it sounds much worse than it is, but it did mean that the very first day of my holiday yesterday was spent in the company of a screaming, irritable child. It is mild and short-lived though, so I am hoping that by tomorrow (his second birthday) he will be a little more sociable. He wants a 'Mr Bump' birthday cake, which seems quite appropriate.

Thankfully, Gertie is a little cheerier, and her perceptions of the world continue to delight. She is very, very excited about the arrival in a few weeks of her new sibling. It will coincide with starting school, so her little world will turn upside-down, but she is ready for it all. Except that she did ask me a strange question this week: "Mummy, you know that baby in your tummy? What clothes is it wearing?" I can't escape the image of a fully-dressed foetus in there now.

She also made me smile when she came across me reading in the bath a few nights ago. "Um, Mummy? What exactly are you doing?"
"I'm reading a book. I find it very relaxing in the bath."
She looked dubious, and glanced over at the vast array of brightly-coloured plastic toys that adorn our bathroom these days, and that I had tried, unsuccessfully, to hide for my sojourn into the water.
"But Mummy, how can you possibly relax in the bath when it's so exciting? I don't know how you can just sit there when there's so much to do!"

Well, who knew?

33 weeks pregnant: Struggling to heave my whale-like proportions around.
Currently reading: The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

Life of Pie

2011-07-16T01:17:00.000-07:00

I have written posts about the exclusive language and silly games invented by the children before. 'Ow' was a particularly good one at the end of last year, though not as impressive as my personal favourite, 'Duck Chess'.

But now, from the makers of these two thrillers, comes the new and exciting, 'Pie'. (Best said in your most impressive James-Earl-Jones-alike voice.) There are two versions of Pie - Bath Pie and Bed Pie. The rules, as far as I can establish them, are thus:

One child holds out my bath pillow (supposed to be exclusively for MY use in long, luxurious baths, definitely NOT a toy, but intrinsic to the success of Bath Pie nevertheless) towards the other and says, "What would you like?". The other thinks for a moment, then replies, "Pie!", at which response both collapse helplessly into fits of the giggles, eventually recovering enough to hand the bath pillow over to the other so that the next round can begin. There are no variations in the answer (only in the length of time it takes for each to think about it) and it is always, always funny (to them).

Bed Pie is more complicated (very slightly). This involves standing at the headboard of Mummy and Daddy's bed and counting to increasing numbers. It might start, "One, two, three...", before both children launch themselves into a forwards topple simultaneously shouting, "Pie!" The next round might count to five, or seven, or eight, perhaps up to twelve. The strange thing is that both seem to know exactly which number they will be counting to next without discussing it beforehand. The important bit, as you are probably realising though, is the shouting of "Pie!", which, you've guessed it, provokes great hilarity every time.

Now, I would like to think that my genius children are practising their Greek alphabet, or developing their numeracy by playing around with this mathematic constant. I suspect, however, that they are not!

32 Weeks pregnant: Still craving tomatoes and bored by anaemia
Currently reading: Starter for Ten by David Nicholls

Hippopotamuses and Showers

2011-07-04T13:13:00.000-07:00

I find it hilarious the way Gilby acquires words, even faster and more furiously than his big sister did. The trouble with this incredible speed of language acquisition is that he occasionally gets it very, very wrong. I have tried to research this a little bit, but it is too scholarly and statistical for me, so I'm going with my own theories.

Apparently, when I was very small, I came rushing in to my parents' room very earnestly declaring that there was a 'hippot-mus in Teesy's bedoom'. Teesy was my name for myself, and I clearly struggled with 'r's. My parents were not convinced. Why would they be? In a second floor flat somewhere in north London, the appearance of this massive sub-Saharan African mammal would indeed have been most unlikely. But I was insistent. Very. Kept on repeating my claim. When they still wouldn't believe me I went to prove my case. I came back in with my tiny fist clenched. "Hippot-mus...HERE!" Upon opening up my hand I cried with pain as the wasp stung me. Quite how I had made the synaptic connection between the word 'hippopotamus' and the reality of a yellow, stripy, stinging thing is beyond me.

Gilby has repeated this feat, though with so far less painful consequences. He has inherited a toy-garage, one with a multi-storey car-lift. It is very exciting when you are not quite two. Except that, inexplicably, he insists on calling it a 'shower'.

Meanwhile, Gertie's current favourite programme is 'Little Bear'. At the start of each episode the episode's title appears, and being right on the cusp of reading it flashes up too quickly for her to decipher it, but she recognises some of the words and is always interested in what it is. "What does that say, Mummy?" she will inevitably ask.

Gilby has cottoned on to this, and must assume that it means 'what is that?', for now, when he doesn't know the name of something he will point at it and ask, "What does that say, Mummy?" just like his sister. Perhaps in some confused, mush-brained moment he asked me what his garage 'said' and I suggested a shower. Who knows?

Dancing Shoes

2011-06-26T08:05:00.000-07:00

Gertie has just taken part in her second Irish-dancing class. She loves dancing, and aged four, has already been doing ballet for more than two years. As a child I loved Irish-dancing, and carried on taking part in competitions until I was thirty, (albeit with a long break through my late teens and early twenties!) I loved the excitement of the feis and all the dressing-up that went with it. But at twenty-eight weeks pregnant with baby number three, my dancing days are well and truly over. So the item that has inspired this blog-post in response to Jodie's writing prompts this week are my tired and worn-out shoes, next to Gertie's shiny new and very, very tiny ones.

It is a personality cat-walk as I revist old loves: nostalgic, but memories faded at the edges, a little tarnished on reflection. And watch history repeating itself!

DANCING SHOES

A restless night: my hair in lumpy rags.
For this six-year-old white-dreadlocked dreamer
The unroutine 5am start
Prevents sleep more than the tight wound curls.
In the morning the ritual unwinding,
A mess of ribboned ringlets scooped to top-knot.
Not really a look for London, circa 1980.
Then soft leather shoes lattice-laced
Like twisted liquorice around poodle socks
Thickening my ankles. A racing greyhound,
Hungry for the hare. But my chase was for a trophy
In the jig; a shiny medal in the reel;
Highly commended in the horn-pipe,
And my mother: glowing, proud and smiling.

Now I see the glitz under glare of bare Whitechapel bulb;
Fuss and pomp and empty Gaelic line.
McEvoy by name: a tired cultural link,
Forcing Irishness under lure of dress and gloss.
As I enrol my daughter in her Irish dancing class.

Tie for First Place

2011-06-20T12:43:00.000-07:00

What is wrong with this picture of two beautiful princesses all dressed up?

Nothing at all, except that this is Gertie and Gilby. My son appears to be very much in touch with his feminine side: His other favourite costume is a mermaid one...

But we were at their lovely cousin's christening at the weekend, and Gilby dressed up smartly for the occasion.

I get the feeling that his father is much happier when the little man is wearing a shirt and tie!

Gangsta Nap

2011-06-11T06:48:00.000-07:00

Gilby is eight weeks away from his second birthday, but the terrible twos have well and truly arrived. My usually smiley, happy, very good natured little boy is occasionally kidnapped and substituted for a little horror who looks remarkably similar. But when this doppelganger is present, we have regular screaming tantrums, the comedy grumpy face, the inflexible torso, the poker-straight back, the kicking and lashing out, and the repeated no's regardless of what the question is:

"Would you like a biscuit?"
"NO!"
"Would you like a birthday party?"
"NO!"
"Would you like to stand up?"
"NO!"
"Sit down?"
"No, no, NO!"
"Would you like to scream your head off all day long?"
"NO!"
Well stop doing it then....

We had one such incident the other night at bedtime.

Usual bedtime routine - supper, bath, Bedtime Hour on CBeebies, then milk in the rocking chair whilst I read my Kindle. In case this sounds heartless, it is at his behest. "Mummy, read Kindle!" (Sentences generally take an imperative form at the moment.)

When he has had enough of his milk he thrusts it forward and whispers, "Finished...bed." At this point, I tuck him in, leave his little wind-up cot-music playing, turn out the light and gently close the door. He might sing to himself for a little while, but usually he is asleep within a few minutes. (Lest this all sound too good to be true, let me reassure you that he will be up at least once and probably twice later during the night...)

Anyway, on the night in question, instead of the cosy little scenario described above, a purple-faced, snot-ridden, screaming tantrum from hell ensued. Nothing could calm him, and I resorted to leaving him crying in his cot for a while. I couldn't pick him up anyway, given the rigid back, clenched fists and kicking (not great for my 26 week 'baby tummy').

But the little man has learned how to reach over from the cot, open his door and turn the light on. The tantrum meant that Gertie couldn't get to sleep, so I had to drag the cot into the middle of the room in an effort to keep the door closed and contain the noise. After fifteen minutes had passed he still didn't seem to have calmed down at all. I had to go back in, and I braved his angry lashing out. I sat stubbornly in the rocking chair repeatedly offering the milk and singing. (Somewhere Over the Rainbow, his favourite from tiny.) His reaction was to punch me repeatedly in the mouth.

I persisted. Eventually, the rigid, angry little body went limp in my arms and he reached out for his bottle, snuggling back into his usual position.

He slid the bottle to one side of his mouth so that only the corner of his lips was moving and, menacing like some mafiosa gangster, gave his snarling, whispered demand that I 'Sing that Song!'

Double Bean Surprise

2011-06-01T12:04:00.000-07:00

There wasn't much left in the fridge: half a tin of baked beans, some left over new potatoes from a few nights ago, a handful of green beans. Supper-time loomed, but we had had a lovely picnic whilst walking the dog earlier in the day, and I knew, or rather, suspected, that the kids wouldn't eat very much. What to do? Mix those three ingredients together, and call it, 'Double-bean surprise'.

I called them in from the garden, trying to muster as much enthusiasm for the dish as I could. 'Double-bean surprise' echoed Gilby with a shriek and a degree of excitement not really appropriate to the level of culinary achievement that awaited him. But, in his defence, he is at that stage where he just mimics absolutely everything I say.

A few minutes later there was silence in the kitchen. Gertie smacked her lips as her bowl emptied. "Mummy, I love Double-bean surprise," she gushed.

Oh. Right. Gilby mashed quite a lot of it into his shirt; still, 'Double-bean surprise' was clearly a hit. I probably need to be sending Annabel Karmel the recipe. Feel free to use it in the meantime!

Things That Go Bump in the Morning

2011-05-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

Gilby tumbled from his cot yesterday morning; a sure sign that it is time to move to his bed. I have tried to make that move as attractive as possible: he has a racing car-styled bed with dinosaur bedding. Wouldn't be my own first choice, but I have tried to appeal to the things he likes. It hasn't made any difference. The bravado displayed in the morning about wanting to sleep in his new bed has completed dissapated by the evening, and there is no chance of getting him to even try it.

Gertie was singing 'Jack and Jill' quietly to herself in the car this afternoon. When she got to the part about Jack falling down and breaking his crown, I couldn't help but think of Gilby and his dramatic cot-side topple. But as she got to the next verse about the mending of the broken head with vinegar and brown paper, she stopped.

"That's just silly!"
"What is?"
"Jack trying to fix his crown with vinegar and brown paper."
"You're quite right, it is very silly," I agreed, musing at her four-year-old perceptiveness.
"He'd at least need sellotape as well..."

Yes, of course he would. Perhaps I should get Gilby some until he is willing to make the move to his bed!

Testing Times

2011-05-28T04:14:00.000-07:00

Six months pregnant with number three and we have put our house on the market. What have we done?!

With the prospect of a lean maternity leave ahead, do we really need to increase the size of our mortgage? With two pre-schoolers running around, can I really keep this place in a fit state to be viewed by prospective buyers? In the current economic climate, isn't the housing market still decidedly dodgy?

Memories of moving house when Gertie was just six weeks old are surfacing regularly. And did I mention that we actually love the house we are living in? Umm...I ask again, what have we done?

Still, life is always chaotic; just excuse me whilst I try to embrace the madness...

Not Waving but Drowning

2011-05-22T00:03:00.000-07:00

It's a highly competitive world on a Wednesday afternoon at our local swimming pool. There are a series of lessons back-to-back for tots to teens, which means that virtually every parent in the village is there at some point.

Now that Gertie has reached the grand old age of four, she has just landed herself in the Level 1 class. This is an exciting new development because it means that we no longer have to get into the pool with her. I collect her early from nursery, where she takes great delight in telling everyone that she is going swimming, 'All by myself!" The nursery workers give me funny looks as she swaggers out of the building with all of her 'I've Just Had My Birthday and am Really Grown-Up' confidence.

But at the swelteringly hot poolside (I haven't quite organised an appropriate wardrobe for swimming supervision and usually end up looking red in the face and uncomfortably hot and sticky at the end of the half an hour) I can't quite believe the level of 'parental support' in evidence.

One Mum, dressed in baseball cap and and sports t-shirt, and looking more like an instructor than the actual swimming teacher, struts around the water's edge literally screaming at her son to correct his stroke/speed up/slow down/breathe differently. Whilst her garb marks her out as taking the whole thing just a wee bit too seriously, she is not alone in her vocalisation. In fact, at times I can barely see what is going on in the lesson for the number of grown-ups anxiously prowling the tiles and barking orders at their offspring.

Another mum, whose son clearly has an aversion to water and has sat on the side refusing entry for the last fortnight, now leaves him to endure this torture on his own, disappearing at the start of the lesson (presumably as she can't deal with the waterside tantrum which is now inflicted upon the rest of us.)

I confess that I want Gertie to do well in there, but mostly just feel relieved that I don't have to go through the rigmarole of getting ready for swimming without having the opportunity to actually 'swim' myself anymore. And any thoughts I might have harboured about wanting to encourage her swimming development are put on hold by the spectre of the super-coaches that surround the pool. I don't want to be one!

Gilby is obviously a long way from this point, and he goes swimming with his daddy on a Thursday morning. Happily, the swimming pool is right next door to where I work, so I try to organise a 'break' for some point during his lesson so that I can pop in and see how he is getting on. I managed to time it to coincide with the end of the lesson this week, so that I could give him big cuddles as he came out. I made the mistake of stripping him down before wrapping him in his towel so that my work clothes didn't get too wet. He rewarded me by weeing down said work clothes.

I handed him back to Daddy through gritted teeth, waving and smiling and wondering at the wisdom of my decision to try and juggle work and motherhood more successfully whilst simultaneously attempting to disguise the piss-stain on my dress.

Magic Mushroom

2011-05-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

It is that time of year again. Gertie is four at the weekend.

We have the party and the celebrations sorted. I finally managed to persuade her that the North Pole wasn't great at this time of year. So, she will have eight friends from nursery trailing round the local farm park with her in the morning; a visit that will culminate in a picnic lunch. Then, in the afternoon, we have planned a tea party with all Gertie's cousins and family. Hooray! Not a husky or an arctic explorer in sight.

Now this is all jolly exciting, except that it means I am forced to make my annual trek into the kitchen where I pretend that baking, icing and decorating comes naturally to me, and produce a cake to rival Jane Asher.

Last year's highly successful Peppa Pig appeared to be the pinnacle of my culinary achievement (well, when one's husband has appeared on Masterchef, one doesn't get much opportunity to experiment in the kitchen...) but I feel that I have topped it this year, even though it was fairy tricky:

Number Post

2011-05-02T02:46:00.000-07:00

Gilby's vocabulary is increasing exponentially, but some of his pronunciation is causing a few problems in communication.

Gertie and Gilby are both fond of Numberjacks, a Cbeebies special that I tolerate because it purports to be vaguely educational. The numberjacks are sort of animated superhero numbers who solve mathematical problems.

So when Gilby started putting 'number' as a kind of prefix to virtually everything he said, I thought it must be a side effect of bad parenting in the form of too much television. But I tried to answer him each time.

So, for example, outside the swimming pool on Thursday, 'Number bin?' a little voice said. The uplift at the end suggested a question. There were two recycling bins outside the leisure centre. 'Um, well, there are two bins.'

As we approached the car, he pointed at one on the other side of the car park. 'Number car.' The tone of this one sounded more like a statement, but one which needed some kind of response. 'Well, let me see. My eyesight's not really good enough, but it looks like a the registration is 'HY47 XXP'. It seemed to satisfy him.

A few minutes later, as we were driving along, he pointed towards the sky. 'Number plane?' He was really quite excited now.
'Gosh, I don't really know much about planes. Probably a 737...' I trailed off, slightly defeated, thinking that CBeebies had a lot to answer for.

It was only as I re-analysed those exchanges (which continued all day long, I might add) that I realised that he was in fact attempting to say 'another' each time, and pleased with himself for making connections between the objects - another bin, another car, another plane. Gertie used 'ummer' to represent this adjective when she was learning to talk, so I was temporarily flummoxed.

Still, we are going to have to ask Grumps for a 'Number pound', as it seems he took one from his eldest grandchild when he was looking after her on Thursday afternoon. She had one in her pocket that was no longer there by the end of the afternoon. He has admitted his guilt. Stealing from a three year old? He should be ashamed of himself!

It's Such a Perfect Day Until...

2011-04-22T00:25:00.001-07:00

Let me paint a picture of the Easter harmony and domestic bliss that issued forth from our home yesterday.

The sun is shining and we are in a kind of paradise, our very own walled garden. The children are having fun and their shrieks and laughter drown out the noise of the traffic from the A29 rushing past, so that you could almost imagine you were really in the countryside.

Both children had a sleep simultaneously following their morning swim, so that I have been able to get lots of housework done and do some of the enormous pile of Easter marking that I have brought home with me, so that I don't have The Guilt, and am actually able to sit outside and enjoy the afternoon.

I am on a sun lounger with a book. And although at 20 weeks I already resemble a beach ball with protruding limbs, my children are not judgemental. They are both smothered in enough factor-bastard suncream to last the England cricket team on an entire tour of Australia, so I don't have to worry about sunburn. Gertie is alternating between bouncing on her trampoline and splashing in the paddling pool with her little brother. We had the foresight to fill it up early this morning, so it is now sun-warmed and a very pleasant temperature. Gilby is content to sit in the two inches of water and steadily empty it out using a variety of plastic cups and containers onto the lawn (recently mown and not entirely overgrown). The bare patches of grass are covered with strips of turf, which, whilst not yet properly laid, at least give the impression of an expanse of green instead of a sea of mud.

The three vines we planted in a fit of optimism are still standing upright in their respective places rather than having been uprooted and dragged across the garden by the puppy as they have been most mornings this week. In fact, Kempton is uncharacteristically restrained, and none of the children's toys have yet been chewed today. She is not bothering the chickens, and the cat, in turn, is not bothering Kempton. The new garden furniture is fully assembled and in a shady part of the garden ready for when we all get too hot later on. It is 'rattan effect' and not the rattan itself that we thought we were buying, but we are over that now.

Peace reigns.

In my head, I hear the strains of Lou Reed: It's such a perfect day/I'm glad I spent it with you....

Gilby decides that he wants to strip off and be a 'nunga punga', and so his sister joins him. Together they run around the garden playing happily and cool off in the water from time to time.

And then, I suddenly hear, "Naughty Kempton, naughty Kempton!" I look up from my book. Something is wrong with the paddling pool. It has gone a funny colour. Strange things are floating in it. What on earth could Kempton have done? And then the truth reveals itself.

I mentally change the words of the song in my head: It's such a perfect day/Until Gilby does a poo...

I'm not sure which was worse; the fact that he did it, or the fact that he tried to blame it on the dog!

Gumps' Ossage

2011-04-12T22:28:00.000-07:00

I often write about Gertie because at Nearly-Four-Going-on-Forty, practically everything she says or does is inherently funny to me.

But my little man is now beginning to come in to his own. He won't be two until late in the summer, but the pair of them will now sit at the kitchen table together, falling about helplessly with giggles at something only they are complicit in, and being Actually-Not-Far-Off-Forty myself, I don't have a hope of understanding.

Gilby now has a bedtime ritual to rival Her Ladyship's: placing all his 'people' one by one in the cot (Iggle Piggle, Macca Pacca, Alien, a dinosaur, a crotcheted blanket and a stuffed bee with crackly wings) then gathering them beneath him mother-hen style to sleep on top of them all. They all have poky, uncomfortable looking bits, especially the dinosaur, but this doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest. I'm not entirely sure how the blanket constitutes one of the 'people', but it is at least soft. World War III breaks out if one of them is missing but as long as they are all in position, a simple, "Night, night Mummy," is followed by thumb in the mouth and lights out. This will inevitably be repeated when he still wakes for another bottle of milk somewhere between 1am and 3am.

He is exceptionally, at times, comically, polite, with an exaggerated, "No thank you Mummy," accompanying any food or activity offering not entirely to his taste. When playing he is regularly heard to insist, "My turn..." which he just looks far too little to be saying. At first this is cute and endearing, but when you realise that it is his turn straight away, always, it becomes less so. Other Mums smile at me in a congratulatory fashion the first time it happens over a disputed toy, then frown at me the next fifteen. Particularly when it is then accompanied by tears and a tantrum.

"Where's Gumps' Ossage?" is an oft-heard cry in our house too. Well, 'Gumps' only has himself to blame for this one. It has become Grumps' new nickname since their grandfather often arrives with a cling-filmed cooked sausage for each of them when he comes to visit. It may stick long beyond toddlerhood. I rather like it.

But my current favourite catchphrase and behaviour, clearly adapted from a well-known television quiz show with a distinctive presenter, is where he runs in to the room and without any preamble tells me, "You are weak! Bye!" before disappearing again.

I'm recording all this because I now know that it will change within a matter of weeks, and then I will probably forget, but I wonder about other parents' most remembered phrase and fable?

On Poultry, Politics, au Pairs and Picked Flowers

2011-04-03T00:28:00.000-07:00

I'm rather glad it's Sunday as it's been a helluva week so far. Kempton's still in her first season which seems to have been going on forever, and despite multiple websites suggesting that there won't be much mess: there is.

We discovered that Gilby's illness was caused by Campylobacter; I'd never heard of it before, but we will be looking at the storage and preparation of raw poultry in our kitchen from now on. A call from the doctor was quite apologetic since they had fobbed us off twice before taking a sample from him.

Gertie got in to our second-choice school, which in 1066 And All That fashion may actually be a good thing. Daddy's spin is that it was his first choice anyway, so I don't think that we will be going through the appeal procedure. And we have just calculated that I will be on maternity leave just after she begins in September, which, though unplanned will mean that I won't miss out on those precious school gate moments.

Possibly most dramatic of all is that Brenda left us on Thursday after fifteen months. She was our au pair/nanny from Australia. We are trying to adjust. She is in Las Vegas, at a Celine Dion concert in Caesar's Palace as I write this!

And Gertie presented me with a broken Gerbera plant for Mothering Sunday. Orange is my favourite colour, and it was clever of Daddy because we had these flowers at our wedding. I'm quite impressed that he knew and remembered that. It could be a lucky fluke, but he is claiming prior planning. Anyway, there were three flowers on the plant, but Gertie appears to have 'picked' one for me already, so that leaves two and a broken stem. Gilby made me a card at nursery which he carefully destroyed in the car on the way home on Friday.

Happy Mother's Day!

There's A Lot Of It About

2011-03-26T03:47:00.000-07:00

I have neglected by blog lately; the household has been plagued with sickness for the last ten days. Apparently, There's A Lot Of It About. Isn't there always? Only Gertie has so far escaped.

At first, Gilby had a number of what can at best be described as 'unhappy nappies'. I put this down to teething, and we had a couple of more-than-usually-unsettled nights.

When I started feeling unwell on Saturday with stomach cramps, I thought nothing much at first. With number three now on the way, I had expected a little nausea. I got worse. To the point where I started thinking about phoning midwives or doctors. I didn't remember experiencing this amount of pain with the previous two pregnancies.

Then Daddy started throwing up. I've never been so delighted to see anyone else being sick! (Sorry Daddy, but this meant an ordinary bug rather than something more sinister and complicated relating to the baby.) So - hooray! All was well. If you see what I mean.

But poor old Gilby was going downhill, and was in too much pain to let his extremely raw nappy skin be touched. "No-oo-oo-ooo," he squealed, trying to hold his body away. "It's all right, it's all right," I kept repeating, aiming to soothe the little man. This became his tearful mantra for a few days: "It's all right. It's all right." He tried to convince himself. Not even the Sock Game could perk him up. (This is the one where they both sit on the bed and Daddy bowls rolled up socks at the pair of them repeatedly amidst much squeals and laughter. I don't really understand it, myself.)

"There's a lot of it about," said the doctor, when we finally took Gilby along to be checked out.

"There's a lot of it about," said the nursery staff, as we explained why Gilby wouldn't be there this week.

And, "There's a lot of it about," said my boss, as I told him I was expecting.

When the Wind Blows

2011-03-12T02:38:00.000-08:00

Gertie is never short of a question, or an opinion. Here's last night's conversation over the dinner table.

"Mum, why can't you see the wind?"

(Stumped briefly) "Um. That is a very good question. Let me just think about that for a moment." (Racking brains for some kind of plausible scientific response...)

"Shall I tell you, Mummy?"

"Oh. Yes. Ok, then, please."

"Well, it's because the wind is actually the breath of a man with a big cloud head. So it's breath. That's why you can't see it."

Move over Professor Brian Cox.

Meanwhile, Gilby has been busy circumnavigating the safety gate put at the top of the stairs purely for his benefit. I caught him climbing through the banisters whilst the stair gate was closed. This is far more dangerous than simply going up and down the stairs.

Both gifted in their different ways...

Sport and Sleep

2011-03-06T04:51:00.000-08:00

Ssh. Don't tell anyone, but Gilby has slept through for the third night in a row.

This is the first time in his nineteen months. We have had the odd night, of course, but never three consectutive nights. Up until now we have taken it badly, too, since his elder sister had read the script, knew that you had to sleep through from twelve weeks old and did it perfectly. So we didn't know about these other babies, the ones that do not sleep.

I don't know whether to get excited or not...probably not.

Meanwhile, Gertie has decided that because her mother is such an Arsenal fan she will take on the persona of Arsene Wenger, frequently shrugging her shoulders, Gallic-fashion, and claiming nonchalantly, "I did not see it."

This is usually following a scream from a room where only Gertie and her brother were present. I am amazed by her capacity never to have witnessed what has just happened to cause her brother mortal pain or terror.

The Edible Woman

2011-02-20T10:43:00.001-08:00

Daddy has a black eye. A real shiner; a black to purple-hued lumpy swelling. I don't know what story he intends to tell at work tomorrow, but the actual version is this: His one-year-old son cracked Daddy across the temple with a mobile phone. It was an unlikely but extremely painful accident...and whilst Daddy was looking for sympathy, I was more worried about Gilby - who was mortified by Daddy's reaction.

Meanwhile, it seems, Gertie is concerned about the edibility of her mother.

She has a t-shirt, not bought by me, I hasten to add, bearing the legend, "Don't you think I've got a yummy mummy?"

Now that she can read a little - though she is nowhere near deciphering the whole phrase she can detect the word 'mummy' - she asked me what it said. And it is fair enough, after all, to have an interest in the motto emblazened across one's chest, I thought. After I had explained it, though, she became quite concerned.

"But Mummy, who's eaten you to know?"

Good point.

Gilby Says 'No'

2011-02-13T00:16:00.000-08:00

In spite of Gilby's rich and varied (and newly acquired) vocabulary that includes such gems as:

- All aboard!
- baby (applied to anyone the same age or younger than himself, with absolutely no concept that he might still be considered one...)
- ballet
- balloon
- breakfast
- control (for remote control; he doesn't seem to have adopted the household's preferred term, 'blibber')
- cricket
- like it (said with a screwy-up face that actually means 'I don't like it')
- penguin
- present

along with dozens of others, many of which are uninterpretable, there is one word that rings out loud and clear, and at least 100 times a day: "No!"

At certain times he seems to get in to a cycle of 'nos' that he cannot escape from. Even if the options offered are mutually exclusive.

Are you finished? - No!
Would you like some more, then? - No!
Would you like to get down from the table? - No!
Would you like to stay there all day? - No!

Sometimes as they build, they are pronounced with increasing petulance. At others, you can forget Carol Beer's 'Computer says 'no'!' Gilby's automaton-like negatives are a force to be reckoned with.

I know it's an assertion of his rights, a testing of the boundaries, a manifestation of his growing independence and individuality, but it's bloody funny. Especially after abouth the fifth consecutive one, when I can do nothing but stand back and laugh...because he combines his responses with his cartoon-sad-face: comically protruding lips down-turned at the corners; breathing heavily downwards through his nostrils as though blowing smoke; the excessively heavy frown, large eyes peering up accusingly beneath. He just needs to make mock horns with his fingers and push his leg backwards to complete the picture of a raging bull about to charge.

So, this is how breakfast ends, this morning. It's going to be a long day.

Party Ideas Are Poles Apart

2011-02-04T11:01:00.000-08:00

I was warned, way back in the very early stages of pregnancy, about just how competitive the birthday party scene is in parent-land.

So far it's been fine. We had a nice tea-party at home for Gertie's first birthday; more adults than children, more wine than squash. Perfect.

Birthday number two took place at the local farm park; a few friends and family and my mother, who works there, to help organise.

The third birthday was the most ambitious: We had a bouncy castle in the garden. It was great, because all I had to do was simply supply a bit of party food and watch the little people bounce. The sun was shining, but not so much that I had to worry about continually slathering on sun-cream, and nobody got bounced on. It was easy, and I didn't have to organise any games or prizes or anything.

However, the stakes have been raised somewhat, and we've now reached a bit of an impasse over Gertie's fourth birthday party. It's not until May, but I thought that now might be the time to get the plans made and do any organisation that might be required. The trouble is this. We had Abigail's party where there was a professional party-planner sorting out all the entertainment; Cameron's birthday party where there was a 'pirates and mermaids' theme; Sophie's at the village hall where there was a dressed-up Peppa Pig, and Adam's is next week and it's some kind of Toy Story 3 extravaganza.

So we began the discussions. They went something along these lines:

"What would you like to do for your birthday? Shall we have another party in the garden, or go back to the farm? (positively, head nodding in the hope of eliciting an affirmative response.)

"No." (Firmly) "I'd like to go to the North Pole."

"Um. Well that would be a little cold for everyone."

"That's ok. We just need to all wrap up warm. Like we did when it was snowing."

"Ye-es."

"And make sure that we're all wearing our hats and scarves and gloves."

(I can't really argue with the logic, and have a slight feeling of being 'hoisted by my own petard' but have another idea to attempt to dampen the enthusiasm.) "But it's a very long way away for everyone to travel..."

(Looking at me as though I am stupid) "We can get on an ae-ro-plane." (This is very deliberately in three syllables, as though to spell it out to the senile mother who can't quite keep up with the conversation.) We'll all fly there."

"Oh. Will we?

"Yes." (Abrupt shift in the direction of the conversation to allow no room for negotiation.) "Now. I've done some invitations already."

(Weakly) "What...?"

So. There we are. I am apparently flying fifteen-odd pre-schoolers to the Arctic for a fourth birthday party. I wonder if that's all-inclusive?

The End of the Affair

2011-01-29T02:10:00.001-08:00

Gertie was a bit sad when she came home from pre-school this week.

She shrugged her shoulders helplessly, arms outstretched in a curiously adult gesture as she told us that Harrison, corduroy-clad love of her life for nearly a whole year now, 'didn't want to get married'. In fact, he 'didn't want to be in love, or anything.'

Oh. "Did you have an argument?"
"No, mummy, don't be silly."
(That told me.)
"So is he still your boyfriend?"
"I suppose. We're still going to sit together at lunchtime."
I see. "Just no love and marriage?"
"No." She shook her head, sadly; an aged head on three-and-a-half year old shoulders.

One of life's lessons, learned very early.

She seemed to have got over it by the weekend, though.

Bunnies, Bangs and Things that go Bump in the Day

2011-01-22T10:24:00.000-08:00

You know how you have those days where the sun is shining, the kids are happy and everything goes right? Yes. Well, today was not one of those days.

We were heading off this morning to our local farm park to take part in a pet show, bringing along 'Bella' the rabbit. Except that we received an email to say that we couldn't bring the rabbit along if it hadn't had all its vaccinations. It hasn't. This news did not go down well, particularly as I had been using the pet show as a bribe for good behaviour during the week. So we had to take a toy rabbit instead. Needless to say, we did not win the show. No rosette for us.

And then on the way home...well. We've just paid a small fortune to have some new fencing done in order to create a larger parking area (the nice men finished the job at about midday), and yet I still somehow managed to hit our neighbour's car whilst trying to manouevre mine. It would not be controversial to say that they are not the most easy-going of neighbours. I have not plucked up the courage to make The Phone Call yet.

Daddy is singularly unimpressed. Especially given the fact that I now have about three metres more space than I did when we left the house. Though, to be fair, this would not be the first time I have alluded to my lack of spatial awareness, particularly where parking's concerned. 'Oh dear,' said Gilby, with characteristic understatement.

And then Gertie's little friend, Jenny, came round to play this afternoon. Her mum dropped her off just as Gilby was going down for a sleep.

'Perfect,' I thought. 'I'll get some ironing done while the two of them play nicely together.'

But then the next thing I heard was a terrific clatter and some horrendous bumps followed by some screaming. Both girls had been pushing against the stairgate and the whole thing had come away, so they had surfed down the stairs (no carpets as we are trying to sand the boards at the moment...) from top to bottom and landed in an undignified heap in the kitchen. End result? Two hysterical three-year-olds, lots of tears, an apologetic phone call to the other mum, chocolate, cuddles, plenty of applications of Mr Bump, and miraculously, no trip to casualty.

Glass of wine, anyone?

My Teenage Three-Year-Old

2011-01-19T11:30:00.001-08:00

I can remember as a teenager the desperation to look and be older: Hair (big), make-up (ridiculous), high heels (painful and unsteady). A combination of details that only served to make me look less mature.

Gertie, at three-and-a-half, is experiencing this same painful desire a decade too early as far as I am concerned. Here's tonight's conversation in the car on the way home from nursery:

Her: Mum, I look like I'm four, don't I?
Me: Um...I suppose that you could pass for four.
Her: Some people might even think that I was four, mightn't they?
Me: Yes, they might.
Her: (Sadly) The nursery people know that I'm not four though, don't they?
Me: Well, they do. They know you very well. They know when your birthday is, so they know that you're not four yet.
Her: (Brightly) But people who don't know when my birthday is could think that I was four!
Me: Well yes, they could.
Her: So what else would make them think that I was four?
Me: Well...I suppose it might be the way you behave. The better you are, the more likely people are to think that you are four.
Her: I'm going to be really, really good. Always. Like I'm four.

I know, it was a little naughty, but irresistible...

Alternative Nursery Rhymes

2011-01-08T02:35:00.000-08:00

Gilby is talking non-stop. He has reached the 'repeating-every-single-thing-he-hears' stage. The phase where you have to be extremely careful about what you say. This has so far not, thankfully, produced any howlers.

Though he has a great vocabulary now, he seems quite lazy with his pronunciation. In particular he seems to have some problems enunciating the letter 'p' clearly, sometimes turning it into a 'b', sometimes at 't'. His grandfather frequently goes to the 'bub' for a drink; I have to change his 'nathy' after a 'boo'.

But the worst, by far, is his rendition of the popular nursery rhyme, whose first line sounds, in Gilby's mouth, like 'Bra Bra Back sh$t'. He is fond of declaiming this loudly and publicly at every opportunity. He doesn't seem to be able to get past the first line, either, so he just repeats this over and over.

In front of teachers, nursery staff, and even the parish priest we just have to smile, talk loudly and hope that they haven't noticed. I promise I have not taught him this!

Getting Our Skates On

2011-01-03T04:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a really special day. It began with a typical exchange over breakfast, the kind that makes me marvel at my daughter's playful approach to language.

Gertie detected that the marmalade on her toast was "too blimpetty". When I raised an enquiring eyebrow she explained patiently that that meant that it "gets right on your tongue and makes it hurt a bit". ('Sharp', I concluded to myself, but chose not to share it, since blimpetty seemed a much more apt description.)

She then observed that marmalade was obviously for mummies, really, because it had the 'marm' sound in it. I didn't think I ought to mention Daddy's penchant for marmite at that point.

But then we headed up to London to visit Grandpa Mac and after a quick coffee and lots of presents at Victoria Station, we decided on the Natural History museum as a good way to spend the day. It must be twenty years since I have been there myself and although it might be a bit beyond Gilby, my sponge of a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter would certainly get something from it.

But it took us a long while to get there, because as we came out of the tube station at South Kensington we were confronted by the temporary ice-skating rink. Isn't that nice, I thought. We can watch all the other people skating round and it still feels Christmassy. Gertie had other ideas. "Can we do it, Mum? Dad?"

Mum and Dad tossed for the pleasure. (Not entirely sure about that sentence; let me confirm that we tossed a coin...) I lost, and found myself clutching two pairs of skates while Daddy and Grandpa clutched a baby and a poised camera, respectively.

It did not begin well. The intervening time between me last donning a pair of skates is probably close to that of my last visit to the museum, so I wasn't exactly 'solid' on the ice. Gertie had no idea what she was letting herself in for, and it took us fifteen minutes to edge our way down to the little learner-rink with several slips along the way. Gertie had no balance at all. We finally got there and I left her clinging on to Daddy on the other side of the wall while I skated back to try and purchase a £5 stabilising penguin for her to cling on too. No luck. All the penguins were already taken. This was looking like a disastrous idea. Then some kind soul lent us their penguin, and we were off. Slowly, inching, but we were definitely off. The pleasure on her face as Gertie edged a few feet forwards without falling was amazing to see. And she picked herself up each time she did fall over with admirable determination. After another fifteen minutes she was ready to let go of the penguin, and skate over (very slowly and cautiously) to me.

"I'm doing it, I'm doing it!" She was thrilled and so was I. And it meant I got to skate off in the big rink for a few moments (badly and without the grace of many of the other skaters, but I was doing it, I was doing it, too!)

The museum was fantastic. How scary is that T-rex model? I struggled to explain volcanoes to Gertie, but she quite liked that exhibit anyway. Her favourite thing was the wave-machine. I think that might be on next year's Christmas list to Santa, which could cause problems. Daddy was in his element in 'Creepy Crawlies'. I can't wait to do it all again when Gilby is a bit older.

The two of them giggled all the way home on the train, even though it was an hour past bedtime by the time we got back.

Why do I have to go back to work tomorrow? Oh yes, because we wouldn't be able to do stuff like that if I didn't, I remember now.

A Failure

2010-12-31T02:47:00.000-08:00

A year ago I signed up to the 100+ Reading Challenge promoted here, pledging to try to read 100 books in a year. I fell sadly short at only 71, but looking at the lists February and September were the months that let me down. In February my maternity leave ended and I went back to work full time, and in September I began at a new school. Not excuses, but explanations as to why my reading patterns changed so much in those months!

January
1. Messiah by Boris Starling
2. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
3. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
4. Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6. The Reader by Bernard Schlink
7. No Second Chance by Harlan Coben
8. Dead Tomorrow by Peter James

February
9. Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka
10. Suite Francais by Irene Nemirovsky
11. Raise the Red Lantern by Su Tong
12. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

March
13. The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan
14. Over by Margaret Forster
15. Dubliners by James Joyce
16. Beyond the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn
17. The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon
18. Hold Tight by Harlan Coben

April
19. My Life Closed Twice by Nigel Williams
20. Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigiani
21. Innocence by Ian McEwan
22. Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
23. Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones
24. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
25. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

May
26. Cheating at Canasta by William Trevor
27. In Between the Sheets by Ian McEwan
28. The intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour

June
29. Possession by Peter James
30. Identity by Milan Kundera
31. DNA by Dennis Kelly
32. Martyn Pig by Kevin Brooks
33. Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
34. Heroes by Robert Cormier
35. Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
36. The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams

July
37. Bloodline by Mark Billingham
38. The White Tiger by Aravind Aviga
39. The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
40. Solar by Ian McEwan
41. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

August
42. The Wrong Boy by Willy Russell
43. The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville
44. Expresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith
45. England, England by Julian Barnes
46. Once in a House on Fire by Andrea Ashworth
47. Poetry Please editied by Charles Causley
48. The Snow Door by Charles Ashton
49. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

September
50. The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
51. A Scavenger's Tale by Rachel Anderson

October
52. The Crowfield Curse by Pat Walsh
53. The Warden by Antony Trollope
54. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith
55. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
56. Why the Whales Came by Michael Morpurgo
57. Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa

November
58. Tales of Beedle the Bard by J K Rowling
59. Tribes by Catherine McPhail
60. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
61. Snobs by Julian Fellowes
62. The Body on the Beach by Simon Brett
63. The Five People you Meet in Heaven by Mitch Absolom
64. Murder in the Museum by Simon Brett

December
65. The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell
66. Body Surfing by Anita Shreve
67. The Snowman by Jo Nesbo
68. The Day After, Barefoot Gen Volume II by Keiji Nakazawa
69. Dead Like You by Peter James
70. One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
71. Not the End of the World by Kate Atkinson

A quick scan of the titles shows a high proportion of crime fiction. Peter James and Simon Brett I enjoy because they are local. The stand-out read was The Snowman by Jo Nesbo, which I found to be a real thriller, a sinister, genuine 'page turner' that left me not wanting to be alone at night and which I felt to be far superior to Steig Larsson, to whom he is regularly compared. The other one I thoroughly enjoyed was Messiah by Boris Starling, but since he promised to read and give me some advice on my own crime novel over a year ago, and hasn't, I'm feeling less charitable towards this writer than I was!

I also noticed how many of the classics I seem to return to. Some of this is as a result of my job; I always re-read any book that I happen to be teaching. There was a disproportionately large number of titles by Ian McEwan, one of my favourite writers, though this year's novel Solar, that I was so excited about, didn't live up to my expectations.

My other favourite books of the year would be The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell. I enjoyed the structure of this dual narrative, and the way that you were kept guessing about how the two stories were intertwined until the final pages. One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson was also memorable: A twist on my usual crime fiction fare, with a whole host of characters to whom I felt some sympathy. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was engaging and unsettling and I am delighted to see it on the GCSE syllabus this year. Two Caravans was probably the funniest thing I read, and Lucia, Lucia the most heart-warming. Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a book that I return to again and again, so it was a tragic pleasure to read once more in preparation for my A-level literature group.

I hate not meeting a challenge and will definitely make 100 in 2011!

Dear Father Christmas

2010-12-20T06:51:00.000-08:00

This was dictated to me by number one daughter yesterday:

Dear Father Christmas,

I really have been a very good girl. For ages. I have tried not to be naughty. I haven't done any snatching from Jenna or Emily at nursery, and definitely no biting or scratching. I have used the new grown-up toothpaste that Mummy told me too, even though it makes my tongue hurt. I haven't got my clothes dirty. I have gone to bed when I'm told and I haven't got up in the night. I haven't had any accidents for absolutely ages. I eat up all the things that I am told too, and even when I really, really don't like them I will have three mouthfuls.

Because I have been such a good girl, I really hope that you will bring me a space hopper and a scooter and a Hello-Kitty-cat and a clock for my room. Maybe some toy food as Kempton chewed some of it. Toy milk, please. She chewed that up.

I think that my brother, Gilby, would like a football, a tambourine and cars and a tractor. He has been a good boy too and hardly ever cries now.

With lots of love, and I'm very excited,
Gertie
(Self signed, with nine kisses)

Luckily, Santa already knew about the scooter and the space-hopper. And I am touched that she thought to ask on behalf of her brother.

I have no idea what a Hello-Kitty-Cat is and I can't think why a three year old would want a clock, except that there was one on the wall in the kitchen when she was trying to think about what to ask for. I notice there is no mention of Peppa Pig, so Santa may have misjudged her (rapidly waning, it seems) affections for old Peppa.

And toy milk? I think that this is the last year we will get away so lightly...

The Leaning Tower of Gilby

2010-12-12T08:48:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Gertie learned how to write her name. Now, admittedly, I am probably the only person who is actually able to decipher the letters, given her unique style, but it was an exciting moment nevertheless.

This was overshadowed, however, by Gilby suffering his first nose-bleed. I say 'nose-bleed' as though that were the incident in itself, though it was in fact brought on by a tumble. Well, actually, he...er...toppled forwards out of the bath on account of his disproportionately large head making him top-heavy.

It happened whilst he was leaning out of the bath trying to reach a toy that he had dropped, and being wet with bath-water he was simply too slippery to catch.

So that was it. Blood everywhere. And not a pretty sight in the aftermath when the crusted dry blood around his nostrils was taken in to account alongside the refusing-to-be-treated impetigo and the just-appeared-oh-god-do-we-have-any-drops-left-from-last-time-conjunctivitus.

Poor Gilbert. Not looking at his most handsome. Lucky his sister's so clever.

Walking in a Winter-Floppy-Land

2010-12-02T00:59:00.000-08:00

Gertie's assessment of the wintry world this morning?

"Look Mum, it's gone all floppy!"

"Do you mean, the trees?

"Everything. And look, all the branches have dinosaur mouths!"

Oh to be three-and-a-half.

But I can kind of see what she means...

Gilby's New Game

2010-11-30T11:54:00.000-08:00

Gilby's communicative skills are developing fast, and I am definitely guilty of not giving him the same attention that his elder sister received. He doesn't get the quantity of books read to him, and it is hard to find that precious solo time when I am completely focused on him, and not splitting myself between the two. This does not seem to have hindered him though, and whilst slow to walk, he is gabbling for Britain , acquiring new (and surprising) words daily.

The fact remains, however, that he is a boy, and essentially likes to hit things. He will make as much noise as possible and seems to have an instinct to destroy...pretty much anything that comes into his path.

His new favourite game fits into these categories. He has made it up himself and it has very simple rules: He likes to gather together as many people as he can (Mum, Dad and big sis at once, if possible) and pat them firmly and repeatedly on the head whilst saying, 'Ow!' on their behalf. He will occasionally hit himself over the head, in the interests of fair play.

The amusement this game causes is difficult to describe. He seems to think that his victims derive some kind of anticipatory thrill from not knowing who will be next to be smacked over the head. It can provide high levels of entertainment for much longer than you might imagine...though only, generally, for one person.

And it doesn't work particularly effective if one of the 'hittees' is suffering from a hangover.

The Night-Time Ceremony

2010-11-22T11:24:00.001-08:00

I wonder if anyone else's night-time ritual is as complicated or as fraught with potential upset as Gertie's?

It begins straightforwardly enough, with the evening meal, followed by a bath every other night and into pyjamas; then back downstairs for one, two, three, and on rare occasions when we have been slick and professional and are ahead of schedule, four episodes of Peppa Pig. (These are 'series-linked' to record automatically, providing an endless supply. I believe that we have 167 episodes saved. The joy of watching a previously-unseen one is unparalleled. I think that goes for me as well as Gertie...)

The quantity of episodes correlates directly with the number of minutes remaining before 6.50pm; which is the magic time by which we try to get upstairs for the bedtime story. Whilst Gertie is engaged with the final programme, I nip up with Gilby to give him his final bottle and put him to bed. He is generally very quick and easy (until about 1am, which is when he comes into his own, but that may be saved for another post).

Gertie chooses one or two books which Daddy usually reads. And it is after this that the complications begin. To indicate that we are summoned for the good-night-kiss, Daddy performs an elaborate stamping ritual on the floor of Gertie's bedroom. Everyone in the house now recognises this as the signal, and it includes anyone who may be around, however tenuous their link with Gertie. Any current visitor and occupant of the house must assemble in the bedroom, in line, to bestow their night-time greeting upon the waiting lady.

But there are some important rules of etiquette which must be observed. Sometimes, she will have insisted that Daddy 'hide' prior to our entrance. Whilst her bedroom is small, and it would be perfectly clear to anyone without severe visual impairment that Daddy is in fact stationed beneath the sofa bed (feet and most of his body protruding for all to see) or behind the door (a giveaway since it will not open properly), all must feign incredulity at Daddy 's disappearance. He must not be discovered too quickly for that will incur the wrath of Gertie.

A variation on this is for Gertie herself to hide. This will, without exception, mean that she is lying on her bed beneath her duvet, but because she is face down she believes that she is effectively hidden, and therefore entirely undetectable. Again, 'discovering' her whereabouts too early will invoke a tantrum too terrible to contemplate.

Once the 'hiding' has been safely navigated, and believe me, this is much easier said than done, the actual business of the kiss must be carefully performed. This is a ritual which extends and develops on virtually a daily basis. Gone are the days of a simple peck on the cheek whilst she is lying down. No. Currently, she must stand on the end of her bed, jump off between your legs for 'squeezy leg cuddle' before coming up the other side for a kiss. Last week you had to do a bed kiss and a floor kiss and ensure that the transition between the two corresponded to a careful set of rules which only Gertie herself was fully party to. It is, to steal a well-worn metaphor, a mine-field.

But it is always over by 7pm. Well, ok, 7.10pm. Maybe 7.15pm if we happen to really need to be organised because we are trying to go out.

I wonder if we might just have been ever-so slightly indulgent of the whims of our first-born?

Double Announcement

2010-11-17T11:16:00.000-08:00

Though it is not quite on a par with the proclamation of a royal wedding, today I would like to announce that my son, aged 16 months, finally took his first steps.

Hooray! They were a long time coming, but worth the wait. Clearly he is now the cleverest little boy ever to have walked upon this earth.

There has also been a development with Gertie. She has decided that only Daddy has the necessary skill and power to wipe her bottom after a poo.

I'm celebrating this one with equal satisfaction.

Discussions in Lilliput

2010-11-11T12:58:00.001-08:00

Parents' evening.

As a teacher I'm usually on the other side of the desk for parents' evening, but this week it was my turn to hear about the shortcomings or otherwise of my children. Except that at three-and-a-half and one-and-a-third respectively you might expect the issues to be a little different.

My husband and I dutifully squash ourselves down into the low mini-chairs that the children use, flesh oozing unattractively over the sides, to hear that all is wonderful in the pre-school world of Gertie (apart from the fact that they are not allowed to encourage her literacy, but we didn't seem to be able to bring that up). She is good and listens and is extremely helpful and always polite. Oh. Do they have the right child? We look through her 'Learning Journal' at all the boxes that have been ticked. There are a scary amount of categories in which she is expected to succeed, but she, and consequently we, appear to have passed most of the tests.

So the first meeting goes well. Smiling, we move on to Gilby. And we learn that he will be staying behind in the Baby Room (oh dear, being kept back already) because though he is due to move up to 'Toddlers' in six weeks time, he's not yet walking so it wouldn't be safe. So his Learning Journal has not so many boxes ticked and he seems to be a little, well, below average, in a few sections.

I try to explain that his elder sister was just as slow at getting to her feet, and that perhaps Gilby is compensating by, um, being good at words. Whilst his 'key-worker' is smiling and nodding sympathetically, I can't help feeling as though I have somehow engineered this slow-walking situation and am responsible for his disappointing behaviour.

So he's gone from being the youngest baby in the nursery by a good few months to being the oldest by some way. Still, the ratio of staff to children is better in this room, so every cloud...

We eventually make it to our feet, escaping from the Lilliputian chairs, and wonder what parents' evening will be like when they are both actually in school; when there are many, many more boxes to be ticked and tests to be passed.

And it seems that perhaps the issues aren't so very different after all.

Hot Cross Mum

2010-11-04T12:03:00.001-07:00

A week ago I was delighted by Gertie's reading development. That was half term, and now that she is back at pre-school, I am cross.

She has a little 'communication' book, you see. The idea is that we write stuff in there relating to Gertie: special requirements, concerns, anything that her carers might need to know about. It's a good idea, though I don't really know how it works because I've never had occasion to use it before. But with the young lady making a sudden breakthough with her reading, I thought I should alert the staff so that they might encourage her to spell or sound out words if she was sitting with a book. So I made a little note to that effect.

Oh dear.

Because then I had THE SUMMONS. And THE TALK. About how the staff are not allowed to 'do' any letters or numbers or anything that might remotely be considered educational with the children. At all. Under any circumstances. Regardless of how excited they might seem to be about it. Oh.

And now I seem to have had my 'communication book' confiscated. Which seems to have put an end to any...communication.

Still, I did get to go swimming with Gertie over half term, which meant that I also got to smile as I heard her complain about how her ears were 'turned off' afterwards and she couldn't listen properly. She kept pressing them like buttons to turn them back on, so I guess that might have helped the water to drain away, because she announced in the car on the way home, to everyone's great relief, that they were 'back on'.

La-la-la-la-la-la

2010-10-26T05:36:00.000-07:00

Every mum gets really excited when her child does something for the first time and there are so many important milestones. We reached another one of those today.

But first, a quick example from the past. Ridiculous as it now sounds, Gilby's first poo was one such moment. How can you be proud of an ordinary bodily function, you ask. Well, easily, as it happens. Due to some minor complications at birth, the powers that be at the hospital were insisting that the young man had filled a nappy before they would allow us to leave.

In fact, we took it upon ourselves to discharge from the ward before that happened, and I think he was nearly a week old before the momentous occasion occurred. I was thrilled to finally see a little portion of the tarry black stuff. Needless to say, over the past fifteen months he has more than made up for this early reluctance in the nappy department.

But today's milestone was REALLY, really exciting: Gertie made a breakthrough with her reading.

She has been fantastic at learning her alphabet and can recite her ABCs. She could also recognise the letters in her name. But today, finally, she has started to put those letters together to 'read' her first few words. It is amazing. I am absolutely delighted. She is nearly three and a half. I have no idea if this is good, or late, or normal, and frankly I don't really care. It has just made me want to tell everyone I meet. And sing 'La-la-la-la-la-la' to the tune of La Donna E Mobile or something equally showy-offy.

I think of the doors that reading opens up. She is already happy to sit for hours pretend-reading her books; how much more thrilling will it be when she can actually read them?

And of course, with the delight comes the inevitable guilt. It is half term and so I am on holiday and at home with her spending time playing and learning and reading, instead of thrusting her in front of Peppa Pig before a quick bedtime story.

It just leads me to wonder what would happen if I was actually here all the time....

Licking Drips

2010-10-20T11:27:00.000-07:00

Bath time never fails to provide some light entertainment.

It is a time when Gertie is really relaxed so she might come out with the strangest question or random observation about life in her universe.

I was busy playing the Dolphin Game with Gilby (not nearly as demanding as 'Duck Chess': You merely pass the plastic dolphin toy backwards and forwards. Gilby says, 'Mummy' as he does it; I say, 'Gilby' as I return it. That's all there is to it, but it seems to keep him entertained indefinitely).

I looked up and noticed that Gertie had her tongue out and appeared to be sampling the flavour of the wall of the bath.

"Um, darling, what are you doing?"

"I'm tidying up." (Her potential for OCD is well-documented.)

"Excuse me?"

"I'm licking off the drips for you."

"Oh, don't do that; it's yucky."

"No. It isn't."

"Ok; well what do they taste of?" (I was wondering how long it was since Mr Muscle had last visited; probably some time ago)

She looked at me as though I were quite mad.

"Water!"

Duck Chess

2010-10-10T23:46:00.000-07:00

It was bath time. I had run out of food suggestions for Gertie to mix up for me. Spaghetti bolognese, chocolate mousse, salmon pasta, a cup of tea had each been presented as a bubble-filled boat at which I was expected to slurp and make appreciative noises towards.

Suddenly the game changed. My beloved bath pillow was upturned and became some kind of gaming board. "What game would you like to play, Mummy? Fuzzy felt?"

"No, I'd like to play chess," I revealed, thinking this might floor her and we might make an earlier exit from the bath.

"How do you play chess?"

"We-ll; you have different types of pieces that you move across the board whilst trying to get the other person's king."

"Oh." She pondered my description for a moment. "Does it have ducks in?" she asked, waving a yellow plastic bath duck at me hopefully.

"Um, no."

"Well it does now. We're going to play 'Duck Chess'.

Ah. The impeccable logic of the three year old mind. Duck Chess. Of course.

I didn't win. The rules are quite complicated and known only to my daughter.

Baby Sale Hate

2010-10-10T02:33:00.000-07:00

It's a year since I wrote my first blog post: a whole twelve months of revealing little secrets about my children to a small community of strangers. It still feels like a rather odd thing to do, but I'm hooked now.

Yesterday we went on our bi-annual pilgrimage to the local 'baby-sale'. I have to mentally prepare for these days; a necessary evil, it seems to me. Children's clothes, shoes and general stuff is so expensive that the only way we can do it is by making considerable purchases of nearly-new goods at a fraction of the price they would be in the shops.

The trouble is that the baby-sale is not a pleasant shopping experience. It is a frantic, frenzied grabbing competition where only the toughest will survive, snatching out dangerously in an effort to locate that Jojo Maman Bebe bargain or Monsoon special.

In exchange for waiting patiently and keeping her baby brother entertained whilst I wrestle with clothing racks, Gertie gets to choose a toy to take away. So it was odd to hear her say, very firmly, "I hate baby sales, Mummy," as we were en route in the car. (Of course, I hate baby sales, but I can't imagine why she should have this strong reaction.)

I thought I should get to the bottom of this, so decided to probe a little further. "What exactly is it that you don't like about them?"

This floored her for a minute. She thought very carefully, then said, "What does 'hate' mean?"

"Um. It's when you really, really, really don't like something..."

Later, as we came out (me, armed with bags of winter stuff; she, clutching her new cuddly hippo, which she christened 'Vanessa'...?) she told me that actually she didn't 'hate' baby sales. I think she genuinely didn't know what the word meant.

I felt quite pleased that it had taken her three and a half years to come across the concept of hate.

Then, on reflection, worried that she had now encountered it too early in her little life.

Love and Infection

2010-10-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

Gertie has been suffering for the last nine months or so with something called 'Molluscum Contagiosum'. I say 'suffering' but it doesn't really bother her too much, and though it sounds terrible, it manifests itself as small clusters of pink lumps across her neck and underarm. Sometimes it can look very 'angry' and sore, and it can itch a bit from time to time but is not really troublesome. It is some sort of viral infection common amongst the little people with their underdeveloped immune systems.

We were visiting friends recently, who have a little boy just about the same age as Gertie. Although the two of them don't see each other very often, they seem to get on really well when they do. They tore off across the village green together, and Gertie even managed to briefly overcome her fear of our puppy, Kempton, in an effort to impress her young beau. It evidently worked, because they came back out of breath and holding hands, and I overheard him tell her, "I like your spots. I'm going to get some."

Well, if he gets too close, he probably will.

999, 990 to Go

2010-09-25T10:18:00.001-07:00

I remember last summer reading about the millionth word to be classified in the English language. There was some excitement prior to its announcement in the press. It was, apparently, 'Web 2.0', though there was controversy over the verification, with serious linguists challenging the count. Words like 'slumdog' and 'jai ho' were also in the running.

But back in my little world, little Gilby has reached his 10th word today - 'cuddle'.

Also on his list and just about in order of acquiring them, 'Mama', 'Dadda', 'arm', 'ball', 'badge', 'bath', 'hiya', 'bubble', and 'duck'. Ok, so the pronunciation of the final consonant isn't always entirely convincing for some of them, but he can make himself understood...to me. And yes, 'arm' and 'badge' are slightly odd choices, which I could explain and justify if I needed to.

I'm delighted that 'Mamma' was officially his first word, since Gertie's were 'duck' and, believe it or not, 'tractor', and something approximating 'Mummy' only came many months later, and long after her father had got used happily used to being named by her.

So. Ten down. Just another nine hundred thousand, nine hundred and ninety to go for the little man to learn, then.

Early Career Choice

2010-09-19T11:21:00.001-07:00

This is, unbelievably my 100th post.

I feel that it should be on a weighty subject, perhaps with some thoughtful insights about motherhood, or even blogging itself. Alas, no. It is, in fact, about fairies. Sort of.

I've been out playing stoolball at a tournament today, the last game of the season. For anyone not in Surrey, Kent or Sussex, this is a relatively obscure team game that involves wickets and boundaries and was a forerunner to cricket (allegedly). It is mostly just played in the south-east of England.

Gertie was a great spectator and in between games also unwittingly provided most of the entertainment. At one point I asked her, in front of the team, what she would like to be when she grew up. I expected her to say a teacher (like her Mum) or a farmer (she is obsessed by a local farm park, where Brenda, our Wonder from Down Under, works part time). I even half suspected she might say something to do with cars, like her Daddy.

"A fairy," came her immediate, and confident response.

I'm not entirely sure that she's getting helpful career advice at this early stage.

New Term, New Job and a Marriage Proposal

2010-09-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

I have survived the first week of the new term in a new job at a new school and I'm pretty certain that I was at least as nervous than the new Year 7 pupils.

But the benefits are already showing: the biggest one being the fact that the nursery that Gertie and Gilby have been attending since both were just a few months old is actually on site. So when I had the call from nursery on Friday afternoon to say that Gilby needed collecting since he had 'two bad nappies', I was able to pop straight over and see that he was fine. Not in fact, in need of collecting at all, but at least it prevented me from staying on for another hour and gave me the perfect excuse to get away at a sensible time for the start of the weekend.

And I cycled for the first five days, though I did take the car today due to the 'severe weather warning' announced this morning for West Sussex that never actually materialised. Much nicer than the forty minute car journey I used to have, and a little healthier too. Though I have become a figure of fun as the only member of staff to arrive by bicycle in the morning.

And the final piece of news is that Gertie has decided she will marry her grandfather.

We were discusssing marriage and I was explaining that mummy and daddy had got married as they 'love each other' and she came to the obvious conclusion that she would, by the same logic, marry Grumps. When I pointed out that this wasn't really appropriate she settled on her brother as a future spouse. I suggested that she wait a while to make a final decision.

Blood and Salad

2010-08-28T03:29:00.000-07:00

Gertie has these strangely precise ideas about the way that life will work out and what will happen when she is a 'bit bigger'. For example, though she currently fears Kempton, our new golden retriever puppy, she thinks that she will not be frightened of her by the time she is four.

She's quite convinced that she will like salad when she is six, though she will not touch the stuff now.

Yesterday, I went to give blood and as I was collecting Gertie and her brother from nursery she asked me about the plasters on my finger and my arm, so I explained the process to her as carefully as I could. She was intrigued.

"I'll probably give blood when I'm a bit bigger, won't I Mummy?"
"Yes, you might do."
"Maybe when I'm ten?"
"Well you have to be a bit older than that. Perhaps when you're eighteen."
"Oh."

She thought for a minute.
"So they just put a tiny prick in your finger first?"
"Yes, a tiny little prick."
"And it didn't hurt at all? It must have hurt a tiny bit."
"Well maybe a tiny bit, for only a second and then it is all better."
"Yes, but it did hurt a tiny bit for a little while?"
"That's right."

She thought for another minute.
"I don't think I will give blood when I'm eighteen. In fact, no. I probably won't."

So, a practice clearly not in the same league as liking puppies and eating salad.

I'm Busy, Darling.

2010-08-23T22:52:00.000-07:00

The things people say make occasions, and holidays, special for me.

I will not forget my daughter singing 'Five currant buns in the bacon shop' at the top of her voice all the way down to the south of France in the car. Just why they would be on sale there I was not able to establish.

She was also reluctant to practise any French words, until she discovered the rich rewards that simply uttering, "Gateau, s'il vous plait," might bring.

Gilby, at one year old, is not yet able to pronounce his name properly, but saying 'Gilber', with the softened final consonant was the perfect way to introduce himself to all the French girls.

But the best one came from my brother-in-law. With only sun, swimming and gallons of rose to enjoy, the boys had to come up with ever-more inventive pool-based sporting entertainment.

Diving to catch tennis balls mid-air, various races on inflatables and endless permutations of goal-scoring with an aerobi sufficed for much of the week, until he decided that it would be a good idea to balance a plastic chair on top of a lilo then attempt to sit in it to cross the pool. At the crucial moment with chair in place and he standing on the lilo, just as he was about to manoeuvre himself delicately in to position, his wife called down from the balcony. With not a moment's hesitation, poised in utter concentration, he did not even look up. "I'm busy, darling," he called, in convincing tone as he contrived to complete his operation.

He managed it too, for not quite as long as a second.

The Truth is Out Here

2010-08-14T00:34:00.000-07:00

We are on holiday in France: a few days in Paris, then a week in the south. I'm not entirely sure that Gertie and Gilby were ready for a long afternoon in the Louvre, but that is precisely what they got yesterday. So far all is good: Gertie was a little disconcerted by the fact that there were no lights on in the channel tunnel, even though we were in a brightly lit carriage; but no one has been car sick and Gertie has cleverly managed not to wet the hotel bed yet. Happy days!

But a few truths have emerged. A few posts ago, I was blogging about Gertie's capacity to make sweeping generalisations. I had assumed that this was her three year old mind attempting to make sense of her world by categorising things. It transpires that she in fact inherits this trait from her father, as a few short quotations should amply demonstrate:

"Right, I've got to be on my toes here, the French are all lunatics." (whilst negotiating large roundabout en route into Paris)

"They love a pharmacie; grooming, preening, waxing, they love it." (whilst driving past a street containing an inordinately large number of chemists)

Now my husband has lived in France and loves it and the people, so I don't think this is xenophobia. I think I have just never noticed this characteristic in him before.

But another truth that has been revealed came from Gertie herself as our plates in a restaurant arrived piled high with an assortment of vegetables. "I only like mushrooms and broccoli at nursery, not at home or in restaurants."

Oh. I see.

Teddy Did It

2010-08-08T05:05:00.000-07:00

Ah. A new developmental stage. I wasn't expecting this one.

"Gertie, pick up those cushions you've been playing with, please."

"It wasn't me. Teddy did it."

Right.

"Don't throw those toys around."

"I'm not. Teddy did it."

'Teddy' is just three inches high, but he has a lot to answer for.

Sweeping Generalisations, Anyone?

2010-08-03T05:33:00.000-07:00

Gertie has developed a profound capacity for the sweeping generalisation, and the tag question which ensures that you have to agree or disagree with her.

A prime example occurred this morning as we went shopping for a few groceries. I accidentally dropped a bag as we were walking across the car park, and she said, "Be careful that a car doesn't get your bag, Mummy."
"Thanks Gertie, I shall make sure of that."
"Because mummies cry if cars get their bags, don't they?"
I don't know how often cars 'get' mummies' bags, or indeed how often they cry about it subsequently, though it doesn't seem unreasonable that they might; nevertheless this appears to be a surety for my daughter.

Sometimes however, she is proved quite correct. The other purpose of this morning's excursion was to get her hair cut. So, on our approach to the salon she tried again.
"We get lollipops when we get hairs cut, don't we, Mummy."
"We-ell, I suppose we might if we are good."
The decision was not left to me however, since the young lad who performed the trim offered her just such a treat before I had a chance to intervene.

So, in fact, we do get lollipops when we get hairs cut, I was forced to concede.

Fright Night

2010-07-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

It is summer, moonless night in the small village, starless and bible-black.

Suddenly a violent shriek erupts from somewhere outside the bedroom. A loud yelp follows almost instantaneously; then a few seconds later, a prolonged cry from the nursery.

I am terrified, and push my husband from the bed to investigate.

Daddy discovers that Gertie has wet the bed. Kempton, the new puppy has somehow found herself upstairs, inspite of the forbidding stairgate at the top. Gilby has also woken. I go downstairs to make up some milk and find myself clearing up a puddle of puppy-widdle. It doesn't help that I knock over the first bottle, spill watery formula everywhere and have to start again.

A sequence of events emerges. A sleepy-headed Gertie must have emerged with damp pyjamas from the bedroom to be confronted unexpectedly by the puppy, of whom she has a deep fear. She gave out an involuntary (and inhuman-sounding) scream. This woke her little brother, who was terrified by the commotion and rendered inconsolable. The milk was not enough to allay his fears and it took a good forty minutes to get him settled again.

So if we include Kempton's yelp, that is at least four of us who were frightened out of our wits last night. And two of us who had to clear up wee.

Not the Youngest Now

2010-07-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

Gilby is a whole year old tomorrow, and we began the celebrations for the little man early with a small family gathering at the weekend. We also enjoyed a picnic at the beach yesterday, though the poor boy has a not insignificant amount of facial sunburn despite being smothered in cream, fully clothed and wearing a firmly-fitting floppy hat for most of the afternoon: naughty Mummy; failed again.

His birthday has accidentally coincided with the arrival of Kempton, our long sought-after golden retriever puppy, who, at eight weeks old, is one of the cutest things on the planet. Not quite as cute as Gilby in his sunnies, but not far off. It means we have a new baby in the house. One who requires regular feeds, cuddles and sleeps, and even cried in the night for the first two nights. So Gilby is no longer the littlest person; there is someone even more demanding than him.

In an effort not to make it seem as though this is a birthday gift, we have made it quite plain that it is in fact Gertie's puppy. She has chosen her collar and toys and chews and was heavily involved in the preparation for Kempton's arrival. Gertie visited Kempton at five weeks old as part of a litter of ten, and though she was a little wary at first she was happy to stroke the puppies and even got in the pen with them all at one stage. But now that we have Kempton at home Gertie is petrified of her, and insists on Kempton being shut off away from her (usually by a strategically-placed stair-gate, of which we have many).

Gilby seems to adore the puppy and is happy to crawl around with Kempton, have his toes licked and share toys. I'm not so keen on this last part, but he'll soon learn that they get chewed to bits when freely offered to the newest baby in the house.

But Gertie is really not so sure. It is only day five but she now feels that she has been 'really brave' if she tiptoes past the sleeping Kempton, and I wonder when, and perhaps if she will relax and enjoy the new arrival.

I Spy With My Little Eye Someone Who's Not Ready to Play 'I Spy'

2010-07-18T09:04:00.000-07:00

Gertie isn't really 'game-ready' yet. Board games have to be ridiculously simple and engineered so that she will win, within about five minutes of starting. Hide and Seek is....not terribly difficult, particularly if one is the 'seeker'.

So when Gertie announced in the car earlier today that she wanted to play 'I Spy', it was with some trepidation that I agreed.

"You go first, Mummy."
A convoy of motorcycles roared by at that moment, providing just the inspiration I needed. "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'M'."
"No Mummy, you don't say a letter you say a colour."
"Right. Of course you do. I spy with my little eye something that is..."
Gertie eyed me pityingly, and spoke slowly to make sure I understood. "No Mummy, you don't say 'that is' you just say the colour."
I was slowly getting the hang of the game.
"Right. I spy with my little eye something pink."
"Is it my cardigan?"
"No."
"Yes, it is, Mummy. It is!"

Clearly there is a rule somewhere about the guesser also deciding on the object that I am not familiar with, knowing only a more traditional form of the game...

Things Can Only Get Better

2010-07-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

The day began with a very wet Gertie, a stripped bed and a hasty hose-down shower to rinse away the evidence that last night was not a 'dry-night'.

I was up early anyway because of the marking, but this was interrupted by the discovery of a number of fleas in the dining room, (one even had the audacity to hop onto an exam paper) prompting early morning vacuuming undertaken by Daddy under, it has to be said, some duress.

A few minutes later it was Gilby's turn to wake up and a pungent smell greeted me from his bedroom. Gilby is sick, again, and the diarrhoea, though it hadn't woken him had clearly been there a while. So it was a hastily run bath this time, and a second stripped bed.

In the midst of this my mobile rang. A colleague was ill and not going to make it into work today and could I take down the details of his lessons for whoever would be covering them? No problem, let me just wipe away the poo.

All this and it wasn't even 7.30am. Surely things can only get better today!

We Can Parent But Not Own a Puppy!

2010-07-12T05:50:00.001-07:00

I hope I am not tempting fate by writing this. My husband and I have been trying to get a puppy for the last four years. In fact, since before the arrival of the children. Until now we had been refused on the grounds that we are not suitable and had managed to get ourselves 'blacklisted' (if such a thing is possible in the dog-breeding world).

As children we both grew up in 'doggy' households; I remember our first dog from the age of about five, then a golden retriever from the age of about twelve. They were both great friends to me. My husband also had retrievers as a child. So there was no discussion about the breed. The only problem was that that our house was quite small and the garden wasn't really big enough for a large dog. So - we put the house on the market. It took a while to sell, and in that time I became pregnant. We now live in a place with a large garden, in a rural location, just across the road from 70 acres of woodland: perfect for dog-walking. Gertie arrived and we settled in happily. We waited till she was a little older before thinking about a puppy again.

We went through the kennel club to find a breeder. It took a while to find one, but when we did the pups were due in six weeks. We waited anxiously for news. We were a little way down on the list, but when the puppies arrived there was nine in the litter and plenty for everyone.

We saw the photos and Gertie was really excited about the prospect of the new arrival. Then disaster struck. We received an email to say that there weren't enough bitches in the litter and we couldn't have one. But that's ok, we replied immediately. We didn't mind too much about the gender. My husband grew up with bitches whilst we had a dog, so actually it didn't matter too much whether it was a dog or a bitch, we just wanted a family pet. 'No', came the reply. We were not having a puppy.

My husband spoke to her at length. It transpired that she wasn't happy about sending one of her puppies to a household with such a young child. What? Aren't golden retrievers known for being family pets? I was devestated.

We tried again. We got to a similar stage before the breeder let slip that she had spoken with the previous breeder (small world) and didn't think we would be suitable. By this point I was pregnant again with Gilby which complicated matters further. We wouldn't be able to give a puppy enough attention with a new baby. What? How dare you judge us! This time I was furious.

Our household is something of a managerie already. We have a ten-year-old cat, Iggy; two chickens, Cecily and Isolde, and two fish, Percival and Tristan.

Now finally, we have found a breeder who is happy to let us have a puppy. We underwent a two hour 'interview' to ensure our suitability and had friends put in a good word for us. We have been to visit the litter of ten. Gertie was a bit intimidated by the bigger dogs, but loved being in the pen with the puppies and was happy to stroke them. Gilby was fascinated and couldn't get enough of them, pointing and giggling and gurgling with delight at their antics.

Gertie's grandfather is also having one of the litter (as their last retriever sadly passed away last year) so the sibling puppies will spend a great deal of time together.

They are beautiful and gorgeous and we are about three weeks away from expanding our household to include a dog. I can't wait. There won't be a more loved family pet.

Markin'

2010-07-06T21:27:00.000-07:00

I have been terribly neglectful of my blog of late, and whilst I have occasionally popped along to read and comment on some from time to time, it has been furtively and with a slightly guilty conscience.

This is because I am in the midst of marking A-level papers. Nearly three hundred of them: something that I used to find difficult and a burden before children, let alone with two of the small people around. The idea is that it is, at my own behest, supposed to be paying for our lovely summer holiday to France. The reality is that it has taken over my life and I will need a holiday more than ever at the end of it. And why did I pick a World Cup year? That coincided with Wimbledon and the one day cricket series against Australia?

The structure of my day has changed dramatically. I have to do a couple of hours in the morning before everyone else gets up, then work through the evening after the kids have gone to bed, perhaps sneaking in a couple during the bedtime hour whilst Gertie and Gilby are otherwise engaged with Peppa Pig, 64 Zoo Lane and occasionally In the Night Garden (though Gertie only 'tolerates' Upsy Daisy et al these days, for the sake of Gilby).

So Gertie sees me sitting at the dining table, red pen poised, quite a lot at the moment. Especially if she happens to wake up early and see a light on downstairs. The initially repeated, "What are you doing, Mummy?" has been substituted for, "Are you 'markin' again Mummy?"

'Markin' has now become one of her favourite games. Pen in hand she will take herself off quietly somewhere and go 'markin'. The back of an envelope or Daddy's latest print out of World Cup scores will become well and truly...marked. It has also become an excuse for not doing other things. (How quickly she emulates her mother's behaviour.) "No, I can't tidy up those things, I'm afraid, I'm markin". She has the degree of concentration just right, and embarks on it with a relish that has begun to wane in me.

As of today, 80 more scripts to go; shame I can't give her a few...

New Technology

2010-06-27T02:29:00.001-07:00

Preparations for the viewing of this afternoon's game involved some movement of furniture in the sitting room to ensure maximum capacity around the television.

Behind one of the arm-chairs, pulled out from its usual spot nestling against the wall, Gertie found a little sequin that must have dropped from an item of clothing months ago. It is a shiny silver disc with a minuscule hole in the middle, prompting Gertie's comment, "Oh look; it's a very tiny CD!"

I know that she belongs to a technological age where everything just gets smaller, but I haven't yet come across the technology that might play this 'micro-disc', unless it exists on Lilliput.

World Cup Bet

2010-06-23T02:24:00.000-07:00

If you google 'World Cup Bet Richard Enticott' you come up with all sorts of links to stories about a chap living in New York who has put a bet on his as yet unborn son scoring for England in the 2034 World Cup. The £100 stake will see him net £1 million in the event that master Enticott is able to live out his father's dream.

This chap happens to have been the best man at our wedding, and so we are familiar with his passion for football and his...self-belief, now transmitted to his child. (Still in the womb, but due any minute now!)

This has got me thinking about the pleasures we experience in the success of our offspring. My husband (and one of Rick's best friends) is fully convinced that Gilby will one day open the batting for England in an Ashes Test Match. His initials and surname, 'A A P Gooda' are apparently an important aspect of the dream since they 'sound right' for a cricketer. So you can see, these future ideals are quite specific. My as yet unsuspecting son is under a lot of pressure. I say 'unsuspecting'; he did in fact attend his first cricket match aged just five days old.

Until Gilby arrived last summer, poor old Gertie had to do two hours of throwing and catching practice each night when Daddy came home from work. Aged two. (You think I'm joking?) In fact, now I come to think about it she was only four days old when she first went to a game. Thankfully she is now able to concentrate on ballet, which she is much more excited about...

But given his best man's bet, I'm just waiting for my husband to come back from the bookies with his version of living the dream!

Things That Go Bump In the Night

2010-06-17T14:26:00.001-07:00

Gertie has begun sleeping with her light on. This has only happened in the last few weeks but we've some how allowed it to become accepted practice.

One of us has then slipped in a couple of hours later and turned out the light, just before we go to bed. Sometimes we get caught and there is a small drama; most of the time there is no problem.

Gertie has been more tired of late however, and I had begun to suspect there was more to it than a simple fear of the dark. This was confirmed this evening. Gertie had been 'asleep' for a good hour when a large 'thump' was heard overhead.

This interrupted our football-viewing and required some investigation. Daddy tiptoed upstairs and slowly turned the door-handle of Gerties's room...to be confronted by a guilty Gertie, clad in bunny ears, fairy wings and iggle piggle trousers.

"I was just....dressing up." (Nothing, if not honest.)

It's lights out from now on!

Sausages

2010-06-13T01:18:00.000-07:00

One of Gertie's favourite foods is sausages. Her 'habit' is fed by her grandfather who never fails to bring her a ready-cooked sausage wrapped in cling-film whenever he visits. He has even, on occasion, gift-wrapped them; much to her delight.

At breakfast this morning, (sausages, obviously), Gertie suddenly noticed that I wasn't eating any. I am vegetarian and have been for twenty-five years, but Gertie had a slightly different take on things.

"Don't you like sausages, Mum?"

"No, not really..."

"That's because you're a teacher, isn't it?"

Now I can only assume that this three-year old logic stems from 'sensible' comments about her level of sausage-consumption. But perhaps there is some correlation between teaching and sausage-dislike that I have been hitherto unaware of?

Just 'Desserts'

2010-06-02T10:19:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine, Candy, was watching Gertie eat her lunch. Candy seemed horrified.

"What is she doing?"

"What do you mean? I've just given her some mushed up veggies and she's eating them."

"I can see that. Precisely. She's eating them. Why isn't muck smeared around her face? Up the walls? Matted in her hair? How can she do that?"

"Er...I don't really know. She's always done it; as soon as she could pick up a spoon she wasn't happy with me feeding her."

She looked at me peculiarly, and left muttering under her breath about how it 'wasn't fair'.

She had two boys of secondary school age by then, but the memories survived, and I now now think I know what she was talking about.

Gertie would have been about ten months when this exchange took place. The same age as Gilby is now. I can't say for sure that this is a gender thing, but where Gertie sat demurely and fed herself with only the occasional mishap, Gilby seems far more interested in a minute examination of the texture and composition of any foodstuff he is offered. He does not want a spoon (for anything other than as a bangy-thing) and he seems to have only the vaguest idea of exactly where on his face his mouth is located.

My kitchen looks like a war zone, with the colours of the rainbow spattered up the walls behind the high chair. The high chair itself requires jet-washing and steam-cleaning on a regular basis, and the state of the tiled floor is...indescribable. No matter how much I scrub.

So, Candy, I would like to invite you round to witness mealtimes now. I am sure you will be more than satisfied that I am getting my just deserts. (If only it were 'just dessert'.)

Swallowing Sunshine

2010-05-25T05:51:00.000-07:00

Gertie announced the arrival of good weather at the weekend by rushing back into the house after a few moments in the garden, claiming,
"Mummy, mummy, mummy! I've just swallowed some sunshine!"

The consumption of sunshine has continued with lots of outdoor playing. Daddy compounded his knee injury with some competitive keepy-uppy; suppers have been cooked and eaten al fresco, and, in the run-up to Wimbledon, Gilby has decided that his preferred surface is grass - on which to hone his newly discovered forwards-crawling skills.

But best of all has been Gertie and her 'skipping'. This consists of running forwards in gleeful circles around the garden, waving the skipping rope vaguely in front of her. At no point do her feet 'skip' over the rope, since they are a good foot behind the equipment at all times. It is an interesting technique; but she is quite happy, and assures me that she is 'very good' at skipping. I wonder: At what age can the little people learn to skip with a rope?

For 'Transition' Read 'Chaos'

2010-05-20T11:34:00.000-07:00

It's a 'period of transition' in our house at the moment. Is that the diplomatic expression for 'chaos'? Gertie turning three seems to have coincided with the delayed arrival of the 'terrible twos'...anyone got an explanation or a thought on that? But, in addition, the stair gates have gone up, the low-level ornaments are put away, the cot mattress lowered and the teething gel has come out.

Several things have happened simultaneously. As Gilby, at ten months, has finally recovered from a prolonged period of illnesses (very boring, no need to recap, but he now appears to be fighting fit for more than a week for the first time since January) it seems he has done all his development in one go. Suddenly, today, bottom teeth have broken through, and at the weekend he at last worked out how to crawl forwards. Fast. (The backwards shuffle was frustrating us all.) So he is off; suddenly no longer a helpless baby, but a teeth-gnashing infant who can go wherever he wants.

Usually Gilby goes down to sleep with no trouble whatsoever. (The trouble comes later in the night, but that is another story.) So I put him down to sleep a few nights ago and he didn't really seem to settle properly. There were a few mumbly-grumbly cries which gradually over a period of about ten minutes became more insistent.

Usually I would leave him; he sucks his thumb so is generally fine once he has found that. But no, this began to sound more distressed, and so I eventually went in to see what was going on. He had somehow managed to climb up and pull his entire cot canopy from its railing, and was sitting up in bed covered entirely with a white floor-length drape - giving him a ghostly profile in the semi-darkness. Very funny - and he seemed to find it so too as he watched his helpless parents collapse into fits of giggles.

I know I shouldn't laugh and it could have been dangerous, but it is just an example of how nothing is now safe, not even bedtime in his cot!

Kitchen Confidential: Operation Peppa

2010-05-13T12:53:00.000-07:00

There is a long list of domestic things that I am not very good at. Sewing is quite near the top, closely followed by ironing. But cake-baking is right up there too. In fact, the legendary 'cricket pitch' cake I made for my husband's birthday a few years ago was immortalised by the comment, "Why is there a salmon on top?" in relation to the shortbread cricket-bat I had lovingly crafted by way of decoration.

But Gertie will be three at the weekend. And so the dormant domestic-goddess lurking deep inside me was determined to bake the perfect 'Peppa Pig' cake. I knew I needed to make it in several sections and so I began making sponge on Tuesday evening. Something went wrong (I blame Nigella and her insistence on adding milk) and the mixture wouldn't set properly. It wobbled out of the tin into a crumbly mess. Close to tears, I did what any other self-respecting woman would do, and phoned my mum.

She came to the rescue as mums do, and arrived at my house this evening with several sponges already prepared. All we had to do then was cut them up into the shape of Gertie's beloved Peppa and roll out the icing.

Simples. And personally I was delighted with the end result. I have surpassed all previous efforts. Dare anyone even make reference to green icing or fish-shaped cricket bats on Saturday at the party.

What a shame that the recipient of the cake doesn't look that impressed then...

Oh No! I'm one of Them...

2010-05-09T02:28:00.001-07:00

I have become one of those mothers who rushes to the GP's surgery every five minutes. When Gertie was a baby I used to despise them: the new mums who made an appointment to have their offspring examined every time a hair was out of place. What I didn't understand then was that I was blessed with a very healthy child.

This week I took Gilby to the doctor's twice with chicken pox. I spent a long time on the telephone to NHS Direct, then had to use the out of hours service at the hospital on the bank holiday. Because despite having had chicken pox myself, and recognising it immediately when Gertie came down with it a year ago, for some reason it looked different on Gilby and my inner medical expert was convinced it was something more sinister. When the diagnosis came I was relieved: only chicken pox. That was easy to deal with. A few blobs of calamine lotion and some bicarb in the bath; no problem. Except that Gilby was much, much more sick with it than his sister had been. He tore at his clothes and didn't sleep for two nights, crying all the time because he couldn't get any relief from the itching. His ears bled where he scratched and pulled at them, and he couldn't close his eyes properly because of the bulbous lumps on the lids. He had a high temperature and I couldn't console him at all. So I took him back to the doctor. Who suggested a few blobs of calamine lotion and some bicarb in the bath...

So I felt a bit silly. Where did this over-anxiety come from? Because prior to this Gilby has had a succession of unpleasant ear infections (five lots of anti-biotics) and a horrible vomiting bug that meant he just seem to waste away in the space of a week. Gone is my bonny, plump baby; he is now a spotty bag of skin and bone. And of course all his illnesses have happened one after the other since he began at nursery in January. No surprise there. But the result is that I have become one of them: the mothers who clog up the waiting room at the doctor's for minor ailments.

My father-in-law has a good way of expressing the way that anxiety lessens with experience. "If your first child swallows a 5p you rush it to casualty; if your third child swallows 5p you dock its pocket money." Unfortunately I seem to be going the other way. So this week I shall be aiming for some rational judgement and perspective, and hoping that no coin-swallowing occurs.

OMG!

2010-04-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

I have to make a confession. I'm not really a fan of text-speak. My husband and I always text each other in 'full words', no abbreviations whatsoever, complete with careful punctuation. I know that the format requires brevity and doesn't really lend itself to this, and that I give my age as well as my profession away in doing so, but the English teacher in me won't allow those time-saving contractions.

Not so Brenda, the wonder from Down Under, who has happily settled in with us and looks after the children for three days a week now.

Oh no. Being still a teenager (for a few more days, at least) she is quite happy 'lol'ing with the best of them. In fact, AIH, I get into a right old 2n8 trying to decipher her texts. All this is a bit TNC, but I was surprised, nay distressed, to disover that my not-quite-three-year-old is now using 'OMG' in speech as a descriptive term for anything a little bit shocking or out of the ordinary.

Like, "OMG, Mum, I fell over today."

Or "OMG, have you seen what Gilby's just done with his biscuit?"

Right, Brenda, you might be brilliant with the children but we are going to have words about their linguistic development. Is this Australian, or just young?

The Porthole Affair

2010-04-21T11:44:00.001-07:00

The year is 1935 and we are travelling across the Atlantic in RMS Olympic, sister ship to the Titanic. Yes, last weekend we hosted a murder mystery evening: The Porthole Affair.

Never done one before, and to be fair, we don't do a great deal of entertaining these days, so it became quite a big deal. I was playing the maid, 'Dawn Trodden' (oh, how appropriate) and my husband was playing the butler, 'Eamonn Etonion'. That gives a flavour of the calibre of the characterisation. Frilly apron and bowler hat at the ready, respectively, and three courses of food prepared the day before; we were ready to go. I had laid the table in the dining room early in the morning, and whilst we had perhaps not quite achieved the 'feel of Edwardian splendour' indicated in the murder mystery box of instructions, the scene was set.

But of course we hadn't factored in the little people. I picked Gilby and Gertie up from nursery on Friday afternoon as usual. Gertie had won a special prize for being a good helper and volunteering to buddy up with a new boy to help him settle in at pre-school, and the staff told me what a wonderful day Gilby had had, 'chatting' away to everyone with his baby-babble and general being very contented. Excellent. All going according to plan. I can work, have happy children and entertain. Go me.

On the way back we had to collect two of our guests from the train station: Auntie Bob (don't ask) and 1-year old cousin Milly. Uncle was arriving later on with Daddy, and all three were staying. Gertie had to give up her bedroom to allow this level of hospitality, but she did so with good grace and it was all turning into a happy adventure.

5pm. Now just to feed all three kids supper, get them into bed, and jump into ridiculous costume prior to the arrival of the other guests. Still going swimmingly.

It was at that point that Gilby decided to start vomiting, violently, in the fashion of a large hydrant gushing on free-flow. I got covered, and changed, three times. The kitchen floor took a battering. Auntie Bob was brilliant at entertaining the girls while I cleared up successive waves of sick. This, surely, was an unnecessarily realistic degree of preparation for the role of 'Dawn Trodden'?

Since I now had more than just carrot in my hair, a shower was required. I couldn't put Gilby down even for a second as he had gone all sort of floppy and pathetic as they do. He also wouldn't touch any food (understandably) but did want to suckle at the breast without taking very much milk. Brilliant. Torn between concern for my baby and the imminent arrival of five more guests, including the wealthy heiress 'Angeline Desguys', and the Russian-German-Jewish emigre, 'Esau Hytall', I didn't know what to do. Should we cancel? Call a doctor? Pour a large glass of wine? Laugh hysterically?

Well of course, then the door went. Toby O'Notoby and Ed Butte had arrived. Cancelling was now not an option. The phone rang almost simultaneously. Enid Ann Hallaby needed to know where to park her car as the driveway was full. The surgery was closing; no doctor until Monday morning. Large wine and laughter the only remaining options. We weren't a sinking ship yet. Threw some crisps in a bowl to keep the guests happy. Eventually got Gertie and Gilby to sleep. Rustled up a toffee sauce for the sticky toffee pudding. Hid wet hair behind frilly maid cap and got on with it. One moment scrubbing baby sick from the floor, the next dining amidst the great splendour of the Captain's quarters amidst one of the most fabulous ships ever built. Ish.

P.S. Gilby recovering well.

Order! Order!

2010-04-15T01:29:00.000-07:00

Gertie has an obsession with organisation and cleanliness. I am a fan of order myself, though this luxury has been removed by the arrival of my children; it must be genetic though, because my classification-conscious daughter notices immediately if anything is out of place in the house, and becomes quite disturbed if I have rearranged furniture or just had a move around of things in the kitchen.

At breakfast time she is physically unable to eat her cereal if I have inadvertently left the cupboard door open, and will burst into tears until the crisis is addressed.

She is dreadfully offended if anyone dares to walk into the sitting room with their shoes on, and is obsessed by what belongs to whom and where things have come from. She is quite happy to 'help' with housework, takes delight in pointing out where I have 'missed a bit' and is highly critical if any area of the house is particularly 'messy'.

If she spills food down her clothes, a complete change of outfit is required immediately, and she is fixated by her various aprons. She has a 'cooking apron' and a 'painting and colouring apron'. Woe betide me for suggesting that the wrong apron be used for a particular activity.

They even commented on it at nursery when we went for parents evening a few weeks ago. They noticed that she is not happy to do finger painting or anything likely to get her really messy. She does like painting but will always ask for a brush and is fastidious about removing all the paint afterwards.

I am not unduly worried by this behaviour. I see it as her trying to make sense of the world around her.

My question is simply this: why do the same rules clearly not apply in her bedroom????

Up To Her Neck

2010-04-11T07:48:00.000-07:00

We have just spent a gorgeous few days in Dorset staying with family. Glorious weather meant that I turned into Bad Mummy and let Gilby get a tiny bit sun burned on Friday. I prefer 'sun-kissed' in an attempt to alleviate the guilt.

We had a tranquil walk around the Blue Pool (one of Dorset's best kept secrets, I think), enjoyed the Dragon Easter Egg Hunt at Lulworth Castle; avoided falling off the edge during our cliff-top walk at Durdle Door; dodged difficult questions about the anatomy of the Cerne Abbas Giant, splashed in the sea at Weymouth, and caught a fleeting glimpse of Corfe Castle.

But on Saturday afternoon on Chesil Beach, this was one way to keep Gertie quiet!

Hair Cups

2010-04-05T02:50:00.001-07:00

Gertie was a very bald baby, and she still didn't have any hair by her first birthday. I remember putting a hat on her for her birthday party in the vain hope that people wouldn't notice. When it eventually did come it was a bit wispy and grew in a sort of a mullet, that took repeated visits to the hairdressers to sort out. I am happy to report that as she approaches her third birthday she now has a lovely full head of hair that I can put clips in and dress up with pony tails. It's not quite long enough for plaits yet, but it won't be too long. She has loved going to the hairdressers, from the very first time when she asked to have a 'hair-cup'.

Gilby has also been quite bald, (I blame their father) but he's looking a little more hirsute than his sister. In fact, aged eight months, he has now developed something of a little Mohawk on the top of his head. Perhaps 'Mohawk' is a little ambitious to describe the sticky-uppy fluffy bit that has appeared, but I used to think that babies who sported this style had been carefully coiffured by their mothers. This is not the case; it seems to have grown all by itself and will not sit down whatever you do to it. I quite like it. The trouble is that it is complemented (or not) by some funny little curls growing around the back. (Gertie could so have done with those...) So perhaps it is time for a hair-cup for Gilby too.

Happy Easter Grumps and Mumps

2010-04-03T01:38:00.000-07:00

Dear Grumps,

Mummy tells me that you and Mumps have gone on holiday to Australia, but I think that really you are still in your blue house. You wouldn't have got on an aeroplane without me, and anyway, I have't had a postcard yet. Are there lions in Australia?

But if you have gone away, please come back soon because I haven't had any salmon dip for three days now so Mummy can't say that if I eat any more salmon I'll turn into one. She likes saying that.

I certainly won't turn into yoghurt, that's for sure; she only lets me have one a day and you let me have two after each meal! I accidentally let that slip at lunch today, but I think I got away with it. The sausages are pretty thin on the ground, though, so please hurry home. Oh, yes: And I miss going to the pub.

As it's Easter tomorrow we are going to have an Easter egg hunt in the garden. I am planning to eat lots and lots and lots of chocolate. (Well, as much as Mummy will let me, anyway.) And the big news is that after Easter I go up to pre-school full-time. Hooray! Then I can be with Emily Smith all the time. Her mummy has just had a baby so now she has a baby brother just like me - though he doesn't do as much as Gilby as he is only two days old. You should see Gilby - I think he will be crawling by the time you get back.

Anyway, I hope that you're getting under the skin of it, and you've got your show on the road. Oh, and don't forget to seize the day.

Love and kisses,
Bunks
P.S. I didn't see you in church this morning!

Get Up and Go

2010-04-01T11:02:00.000-07:00

We have been very lazy and haven't yet made any plans for the Easter weekend. So, as Gertie was finishing her bath tonight, I asked her what she thought she would like to do given that Mummy didn't have to work tomorrow. I was expecting her to ask to go to the local farm park, or perhaps to have one of her friends to play. But, no.

Her reply was quite clear, "Get on an aeroplane and go on holiday."

Go girl; definitely her mother's daughter. Not going to happen, but nice try!

Ketchup Lips

2010-03-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

I hate supermarkets.

Really, really hate them.

I know that I am not alone in this, but I can only manage about three quarters of an hour before I start going mad. I think it is the lighting, the terrible acoustics, the other shoppers, (particularly the grumpy trolley bargers) the queues...collectively.

And then if I factor in Gertie, who won't stay in the trolley but likes to 'help', and Gilby, who will go in for about ten minutes then cries unless I am carrying him, which makes adding groceries to the trolley whilst chasing after a toddler even more difficult, then the whole thing becomes some sort of horrible nightmare.

I can't cope with it and so I usually shop online. But every now and then I am forced to go. And when I do, I have to treat myself to something; a reward for having survived the ordeal.

Today it was a new lipstick. I was really pleased with it. The colour was 'hint of red' and as soon as we had got home, unpacked the shopping and put it all away, I rushed up to the bathroom to try it on.

I came back downstairs. Gertie noticed immediately. "Oh mummy, your lips look a bit sticky." Short pause as she studied my face more closely. "Are they ketchup-lips?"

Maybe more than a 'hint' of red, then.

A Little Bouncing Between Friends

2010-03-25T12:22:00.000-07:00

Gertie loves to bounce. On anything. Bouncy castles and trampolines are good, but a bed or a pillow will do as a last resort. The best bouncy thing in the world though, is the 'jumpy pillow' at our local adventure farm park. There is a toddler version and then a bigger one for older children (and grown-ups...)

We were there for a little while at the weekend, and as usual, Gertie headed straight for the jumpy pillow where she spent a good hour, jumping. UP and DOWN. Up and Down. Up and Down. I have no idea where she gets the energy - or what the fascination is. Surely after five minutes the novelty should wear off?

Anyway, whilst bouncing, she made 'friends' with another little girl who apparently shared her penchant for all things springy, and they leapt around together for ages, with little communication other than giggles when they both contrived to fall down on the same bounce.

Eventually it was time to leave, and I had to drag Gertie away. Her new-found-friend waved us off, sadly. "Bye then, little girl," she sniffed. (They hadn't got around to exchanging names.) And then, very politely, "It was nice bouncing with you."

I was left reflecting on the happy simplicity of relationships between two-year-olds.

Home Alone (For Forty Minutes)

2010-03-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

I experienced a small and totally unexpected and ever-so-slightly-guilty pleasure today.

I have been back at work for two months now, and Brenda, the wonder from Down Under has been living with us for about the same length of time. (She is amazing, but doesn't look after the children all the time as they are still attending nursery for a couple of days a week; she has just begun another part time job at a local adventure farm park.)

Anyway, she was working at the farm this afternoon and I had to do the nursery run. I also, happily, finished work a little early today. Usually I have to pick up in a mad dash on my way home, but today I just went home first to get everything ready. I could turn lights on, have supper all prepared and then just hop into the car and get the kids.

I couldn't work out was odd as I came into the house. Everything was as it should be. Except that it felt different. And sort of smelled different. And definitely sounded a bit different. And suddenly it dawned on me: this was the first time I had been 'home alone' in nearly eight months. Ever since Gilby was born, in fact.

And I had a whole forty minutes there - in my own house - with only my self for company. I had completely forgotten what it was like. There was just silence and everything was tidy and I was in control. It was really, truly odd. I sort of savoured it, but then it was over oh-so-quickly and once again the house was filled with noise and colour and mess and 'hecticity'. I'm sure that's not a word but it features regularly in my vocabulary.

So now I can't wait until the next time I am able to sneak home alone. Why didn't anyone tell me how great it was?

Living in A Box

2010-03-20T01:25:00.000-07:00

I was very excited this week to receive the new dining room curtains that came via a courier from Great Auntie Susie in Scotland. GAS works in a fabulous fabric shop and has the ability to make curtains. Since I am challenged by the simplest needlework tasks, I find this feat terribly impressive.

Anyway, the curtains have transformed the dining room and I am delighted by them. Quite sad, I know, but these days I am apt to get disproportionately animated by small home improvements (I leave you merely to speculate over the extent of last summer's ecstacy generated by the completion of the new patio).

However, (whilst not as appreciative of the patio as they might be, in my opinion) Gilby and Gertie are genuinely thrilled by the new drapes; but their delight is because the size of the curtains meant that they arrived in rather a large box. I know it is a cliche, but the packaging has provided, quite literally, hours of fun.

Gertie enjoys becoming a 'box monster' in the spirit of Little Nut Brown Hare in Guess How Much I Love You in the Autumn, and 'roaring' at unsuspecting passers-by. Just how long I can pass for an 'unsuspecting passer-by' remains to be seen, but it has lasted for four days so far.

Gilby is quite happy to simply sit with his sister within the confines of four walls of cardboard. And Gertie thinks nothing of just crouching in there for up to fifteen minutes at a time, with the lid on. I can't say I see the appeal myself.

There were squeals of delight when I suggested getting the box out again this morning. What a weekend awaits!

The Little Battles

2010-03-11T11:22:00.000-08:00

Thankfully, there is no major war being waged in our house currently, but there are a number of key strategic battles being played out on a regular basis. Here is a small selection:

The struggle for a 'dry night' for Gertie. We have taken the plunge and are nappy-less, but my goodness there is a lot of washing as a result.

The crusade to get a vegetable inside her. Fruit is not a problem, but you would think it was the outbreak of World War III when I offer carrot or peas.

The area surrounding the laundry basket is a military zone that requires regular patrol. Why, why why can the dirty clothes just not make it in? I know that I am not alone in this particular battle, but I am certainly 'fatigued' by it.

The fight for sleep. Gilby now only wakes up once or twice a night. But he has never, ever gone through. Oh, for just one night's unbroken sleep.

The daily clash over the brushing of teeth. I have tried so hard to make it fun, but Gertie is not fooled and there is an ongoing battle of wills that sometimes becomes physical!
The nightly skirmish over what time we eat. The children eat around five, when Daddy is not even home, so we always sit down to eat later after they have gone to bed. We are lucky if it is by nine o'clock. My husband does all the cooking, and is a perfectionist, demonstrated in his fleeting appearance last Thursday on Masterchef...

This post is written in response to Josie's writing workshop this week at Sleep is for the Weak, and inspired by Vegemitevix's PS3 house invasion.

Underwater Rescue

2010-03-06T06:49:00.000-08:00

Well, our underwater photographs arrived and they really are very good.

All apart from this one.

This is the one where, in order to try to get a shot of the two of them together, I had to let go of Gertie as she held on to Gilby underwater. The one where, by the time we arrived at nursery in the afternoon, and we had praised Gertie for being so good in the water and holding on to her little brother, it had turned into a great tale of how she dramatically 'rescued' him.

Generally, and I am clearly biased, I have very photogenic children. On this occasion, however, it appears not. Rather than a spectacular underwater rescue, it looks more like Gilby is desperately trying to escape the clutches of his big sister before he runs out of air. And she, bless her, is clinging on to him with all her might, just as she promised her mother she would.

The photographer warned me, as he looked though his viewfinder, that this one might have 'comedy value'.

My Teenage Toddler

2010-03-03T10:19:00.000-08:00

My toddler is displaying all the characteristics of a stroppy teenager. I can see exactly how things are going to be in a dozen years' time.

Tonight I called Gertie in to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She wouldn't come because, she moodily informed me, she was "a bit busy". She was 'a bit busy' having a tea-party in her room, but no doubt in a decade it will be the latest games console that is distracting her.

On the way home from nursery tonight she told me defiantly when I asked after Harrison (the courduroy-clad two-year-old love interest from Valentine's weekend) that he is now her 'ex-boyfriend'. Where did she even learn a concept like this?!

She won't be three until May, but at this rate I am fully expecting the first dismissive "Whatever!" when we discuss plans for the celebrations.