The Little Things

I went on a cake-decorating course for the first time yesterday.  Not really the type of thing I ususally do.  My husband is king of the kitchen, so I make only the occasional foray into the world of baking, usually just around the time of the little people's birthdays, and then I ususally make it up as I go along, often to the great amusement of my husband.   So the cake-decorating course was probably more about having a few hours to myself and doing something new. 

But thanks to a great teacher and lots of expensive cake-decorating toys, the results were astounding.  Look, I even made the roses!  By the time I was on my way home, (driving at 20 miles an hour to preserve my precious cupcake cargo) Gertie was due at a birthday party and Daddy had taken everyone with him, so I had a few more unexpected hours on my own.

Joy of joys - this meant that I could tidy the house whilst no-one was there to mess it up as I went along, (and admire the greatness of my cup-cakes in solitude).  Such peace.  I even read the paper.  It's the little things.

So for a little while I could pretend that I was one of those cupcake mums who has a tidy house and is in control of everything.  Calm down: I said, 'for a little while'.  By 4.30pm everyone was home, chaos ensued and the cupcakes were demolished in a hundredth of the time it had taken to create them. 

And we discovered that Gertie had head-lice...resulting in a mad dash to the chemist and the destruction of my smug, 'I-can-do-this-motherhood-lark' feeling.  See - it's the little things.

On Growing and Throwing

Much of this blog is devoted to exploring and recording the little moments in the lives of my children that mark their growing up, but it occurs to me that it is simultaneously about me growing up too.  A mortgage, marriage and proper job should all have been outward signs of that, but of course I felt that I was just playing at it most of the time.  Still do, in fact.

But a definite sign of being grown up comes in the news that (and you need to hold the front page here) we have finally bought a new mattress for our bed.  Prompted by an aching neck and back (other signs of growing up, or at least growing old...) and a mere twelve years on from our last one (which came with the bed itself and was probably not top of the range, given our financial state at the turn of the millenium). What a transformation this has made to our lives.  I would never have believed it.  Goodbye giant lumpy old paillasse, hello orthopaedic mattress, and with it the forgotten joy of actually sleeping through!  (Something we celebrated in each of our children, but forgot to notice that we were not doing.)  The delight of waking up feeling vaguely rested.  The ecstacy of not being catapulted towards the ceiling because one of us turns over in the night...  I could go on, but suffice to say after four nights it has been worth every penny.

Speaking of catapults, Eddie is developing a powerful throwing arm, much to the delight of his cricket-loving father.  This does not, however, make for easy mealtimes, since I now have to recover crusts, bits of banana and any other unwanted food from much further afield than I did before.

A Very Surprising Kinder Surprise

Yesterday we celebrated Eddie's first birthday.  All went well, (you can invite the grown-ups you like to a one-year old's party, as opposed to other children you don't, as they get older) apart from the fact that Eddie ate so much cake that he made himself sick.  But I suppose you should be able to do that at your own birthday party.

Atthe end Gilby was given the very important job of handing out Kinder Surprise eggs to all the children.  I had carefully calculated to allow at least two or three extra, so that Gertie and Gilby could have one too. 

Shortly afterwards, Gilby came running up to me clutching two little yellow 'surprise' pods and looking mightily pleased with himself.

"Look, Mummy, I have two!"

"Yes, I can see that.  And how, exactly, did you manage to get two?"

"They were there together inside my chocolate egg!"

I didn't bother to talk him through the impossibility of that explanation.

His first deception!  Aaaghh!  And not even a very clever one.  He will need to learn better spacial awareness if he is going to get away with those sort of fibs in future...

Welly Rack

This is the latest installation at our house:

My twenty-year old self would have mocked such symbols blatently promoting domesticity. Nearly two decades later I find it strangely comforting: suggesting order from chaos and dog-walking and safely splashing in muddy puddles.

Actually, I think it just makes me feel grown-up...

New Term, New Life

I have been somewhat neglectful of this blog of late: a combination of the start of a hectic new term and managing the fallout from the GCSE English debacle, with family illness and well, stuff: The general chaos of life, the universe and everything. But that general chaos has just increased exponentially.

We 'borrowed' a broody hen sitting on eggs from friends who really didn't want any more chickens - whilst we could do with a couple more; plus we thought the kids would like to see baby chicks growing up. We had a mild panic when we discovered that 'the black one' (our friends are not so keen on naming all their animals as we are, probably sensibly) was in fact sitting on fourteen eggs and not the four or five that they had thought. But somehow it all went according to plan: just two little babies were born about ten days ago - one black and one yellow, both monstrously cute. So all good.

But about three weeks ago, Arabella, our little black rabbit escaped. She was only in the garden and we kept catching glimpses of her, but we didn't catch her for a couple of nights. So today, I came home from work to Gertie enthusiastically telling me that Bella had two babies.

Well, I knew that was impossible as she lives all alone and always has done, but then I remembered those two wild nights out. In fact, Gertie was wrong. Bella hadn't had two babies. She'd had seven of them!

Half wild rabbit, anyone?

I Wish I'd Never Asked...

Earlier today, Gertie and Gilbert were gallumphing around the kitchen on either end of the feather duster.

 

 

 

"What are you doing?" I was foolish enough to ask.

"We're playing the willy game!" came the reply in unison.

Right...I don't think I even want to know the rules.

The Restless Pillow

Sleep has become a problem in our house.  Gilby's very much in the Virginia Woolf frame of mind in relation to bedtime, seeing sleep as 'that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life' though of course he doesn't express it quite so articulately.  Here are his top five reasons for not going to bed.

1. "I'm not tired."  This one is particularly favoured after a long, busy day of lots of physical exercise and will be accompanied by enough tears, tantrums and general misbehaviour so as to suggest that 'tired' is exactly what he is.  This is my favourite since it usually means that he'll be snoring inside ten minutes.
2. "I don't like rooms."  This one's a bit trickier.  We moved him from his own room into sharing with his big sister a few weeks ago, because it began as "I don't like my room". When he persists with this one I usually offer the garden or the shed as alternatives.
3. "My duvet's not on straight."  There's enough OCD in this household to ensure that a not-straight duvet is extremely problematic for getting off to sleep.  Much fuss and smoothing over.  Calmly. Easier said than done.
4. ""There are people walking round and they're talking about trying to get me."  This one makes my heart hurt as I remember my own irrational night terrors.  It requires cuddles and headstroking and the promise of leaving the door open.
5. "There are monsters in here." As for 4.

Good night.