Vowels Rise Like Balloons

Gertie turned ten earlier this week. TEN. I have a decade's worth of experience of parenting under my belt and I'm still none the wiser. The whole thing was, frankly, bewildering.

Her chosen method of celebration was a disco, for twenty eight of her closest friends. At home.

This took some strategic preparation: The borrowing of lighting systems to rival Blackpool; the sourcing of a playlist where not only did I not know many of the artists, but I couldn't actually distinguish between singers and song titles; the downloading of 'mixing software' in order to negate the requirement for a DJ; (Hearth-father secretly fancied the job, I reckon, but his lack of knowledge of contemporary pop rivals mine) the rearranging of every piece of furniture in the house to make way for a 'dance floor'; the purchase of more than fifty sausages, baps, and burgers for the accompanying barbecue. And so on. I feel that my new bookcases were enhanced no end by the sympathetic illumination. A 'bibliotheque', no less:

The allotted time came. I don't know what the collective noun for ten-year-olds is, but they arrived in their hordes. Initially there was a stand off: Girls in the sitting room (cunningly disguised as a nightclub), boys upstairs. There was a collective squeal everytime somebody new arrived. Then some ice was broken, after which they screamed, they sweated, they took selfies and slid down the staircase. They raided Eddie's toy box and had mock sword fights and gun battles. (Am I delighted to say that gender differences didn't seem to count? Not sure.) They charged around the house after the one person who has a mobile phone.

They did everything, in fact, but dance. Still, that's a disco for you.

After a while their noise seemed to float joyously, somehow, in a constant cacophonous chorus (the wine may have helped), clear vowels rising like balloons. Which rather reminded me of Plath's poem, copied below.

Ten years on from the 'birth day', I think I still feel similarly.



Morning Song 
BY SYLVIA PLATH

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I’m no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons





Currently reading: The Husband's Secret by Lianne Moriarty

Send in the Clowns, Carefully

Like most families, we spent half term coming up with ever-more creative ways to have fun whilst avoiding the rain. We saw the stage version of The Tiger Who Came to Tea and marvelled at how they had managed to turn 5 minutes of story-line into an hour-long show. (We have been doing tiger-aerobics ever since.) We had lots of friends round to play, and that kept Mummy very busy with the huge amount of tidying-up it seems to generate. We went to Fishers Farm Park a couple of times and monopolised the indoor play-areas. But the big success, and the one that has given me new insight into my daughter's character, was our visit to the circus.

Max Beecher, the impossibly bendy contortionist of 2009 Britain's Got Talent fame, was the star turn. His first act involved him appearing as 'Max, the swash-buckling pirate' and performing balancing feats on an ever-more precariously arranged tower of chairs. He tried to garner the support of the audience, miming the idea of placing a chair even higher for dramatic effect.

"Yes, yes, yes!" chorus dozens of gleeful children.
"No!" shouts Gertie, loudly. "You might fall."

Christie-Jane, performing on the 'silk tissues' high up in the big top, was the next act. Gasps of delight at each carefully choreographed somersault or stretch went round the ring. "How on earth is she going to get down from there?" was Gertie's serious interpretation.

Looking a little anxious?

The clowns were just about acceptable, though Gertie found one or two moments to pause and frown at moments of perceived danger whilst her peers giggled on.

She was very good at comforting her younger brother who burst into tears at the sound of cracking whips in another act, looking at me reprovingly over her shoulder as she cuddled him.

A future health and safety officer, perhaps?

Let Them Not Eat Cake!

In preparation for Eddie's baptism, we had to go and collect the cake the day before and deliver it to the party venue. As the picture shows it was a thing of beauty, a cut above my past efforts at Mr Bump, Peppa Pig and a Fairy Toadstool. As soon as they saw it, Gertie and Gilbert were desperate to try it so I had to explain, quite forcibly, how special it was, and how we'd have to wait until it was time to cut the cake after the baptism. There would certainly not be any cake-eating before that moment I intoned sternly, pushing visions of a half-munched cake firmly from my mind.

When we arrived for the party holding a newly-Christened Eddie aloft, a lovely buffet was set with the cake as the deserved centre-piece. The children soon piled up their plates with party food. Gilby kept coming up and anxiously asking if it was 'cake-time' yet. Eventually I said that it was and he looked mightily relieved as he reached up to take the final fairy cake from a nearly empty plate.

What a lesson in noble restraint. It seems that my sermon had hit deeply. He had waited all that time, thinking that he couldn't have any cake, watching all the other children repeatedly helping themselves, desperately willing the final one not to disappear.

Box Office Babies

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.

The Porthole Affair

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.