So, we didn’t have a Special Sunday. It was more of a managed-to-survive, sicky, Silly Sunday. I think there may be some humour in the inane mundanaity (spelling?) of it – but there again there may not, so only read on if you really have nothing better to do…
Babe woke at six. Waking at six on a Sunday would be shitty if you hadn’t been doing it every bloody day of the week for the last two years, and given that we have, it was super-shitty.
‘Mummy, milk!’ he yelled from his room and I groaned, and the brain-ache I have spent so many consecutive days coping with, kicked in. I walked along the corridor, opened the door and waved vigorously. Which meant I could keep my mouth sleep-shut for a bit longer.
I put him down next to me in bed and gave him his beaker of milk. He took it and started drinking. This was a defining moment and I guess I now know for sure that he is no longer a baby – we have finally cut the bottles! Yesterday I bought him a purple sporty-drink bottle thing with a soft straw top that I thought might aid the transition from the bottle he has first and last thing, to cup of milk. I offered it to him last night and he hated it and tried to pull the top off, so I thought I’d try him with a beaker again instead, and he didn’t bat an eyelid – was just relieved to start downing the contents. Gosh, I had no idea it would be that easy. It helped, of course, that he was distracted by Charlie and Lola – he tends to have his milk in front of the TV these days.
So, there he sat in my bed, drinking his milk and scratching at the eczema patches on his legs while I tried to hold down the bottoms of pajama legs to stop him, and show him a picture of a bus which saved turning the telly on. I felt unable to tolerate even the tellytubbies. Babe is obsessed with vehicles, by the way. When he sees one, he repeats the word incessantly, and it becomes really bothersome. ‘Bus! Bus, bus, bus, bus………’ you get the drift. I wish I could find a route to nursery that didn’t involve walking past 500 or so parked cars, I can tell you.
Anyway, the door opened and who should walk in but… Other Half. A rare treat. He has been back in the spare room for a couple of nights as he hasn’t been feeling well, but having got away with spending most of yesterday in bed, ‘sick’, I think he’d had an attack of the guilts and wanted to do his bit. He picked Babe up and took him downstairs.
I rolled over and turned the light off. And then pulled the book and beaker out from underneath me. I should have felt delighted and able to stretch luxuriously under the covers and drop back off to sleep, but my brain kicked into overdrive. Within seconds I was stressing about work, money, impending Holiday of Doom XVII (much more to come on the that), the state of the economy, and whether the TV downstairs would be damaging Babe’s hearing and whether Other Half had thought to change his nappy.
After fifty minutes of tossing and turning, I went downstairs. 7.20.
‘You might as well go and lie down upstairs,’ I said to Other Half, who was lying on the sofa. ‘I can’t sleep.’
He went upstairs and fell asleep until 10.30.
I got Babe dressed, made us breakfast, hovered and cleaned the sitting room, emptied the dishwasher, put two lots of washing through, checked the tomato plants for slugs and watered them, tidied the toy box, and drew a large picture of cars, spiders and butterflies. All at an agonizingly dithery slow pace. It was a muggy day and I felt as though my head was blocked up. I needed to wash and dress myself – but I wanted to wash my hair – and try and get my brain into gear, but I just couldn’t shake the dreadful pain of wanting to be back in bed. Note to self: do not wake with greasy hair at the weekend! (Readers: I told you this would be boring…)
So, at half ten, we went upstairs to wake Other Half, who said he was still feeling ill, but gave me a shoulder massage and got dressed. By this time it was raining, but Babe was champing at the bit to be out of the house, so I suggested Other Half took him to soft play. In fact, I fancied going – I love the ball pit and the covered slide - but I needed to shower and get lunch. Like most parents, I do stress about getting enough of the right kind of food into my son. He has a penchant for the sweet things in life, and embarrasses me by waking from a nap in the buggy in the following way: stir, rub eyes, look around, and yell ‘cake! Biscuit! MUMMY!’ He is his mother’s son, for sure.
‘Wear him out for a while in the ball pit,’ I suggest, ‘and then bring him back at about 12. We can lunch together and then I’ll put him down for a sleep. He’ll sleep better and for longer if he’s not hungry, and then we’ll have got one good meal into him today. IF we don’t, he won’t eat properly after he’s slept, and will want to snack all afternoon…’
‘Ok,’ says Other Half. And I think we both know that the chances of getting Babe home, tired and awake, are slim. But because I’ve got brain ache and the air is muggy I put salmon in the oven, wash my hair, lay the table, and have a lovely meal ready for the ridiculously early time of 12 midday. Other Half turns up at half past, after several nagging phone calls – ‘we’re busy in the pet shop’ – and Babe is asleep.
So I get him into his cot, and we sit down, bickering and not really hungry, to eat Sunday lunch. See what I mean about ‘silly’? Just, I don’t know, ridiculous, daft, dumbass.
I can’t face more chores, and so I decide to go with my brain ache, and tell Other Half that I’m going back to bed. He isn’t tired – of course he isn’t bloody tired after a three-hour lie-in - but decides to come with me, so I make it really clear that my sole purpose of returning to the sack is to sleep. He looks at me and comes anyway.
We chat for a while, and he gives me another back rub, and then just as I am dropping off, Babe wakes. Other Half takes him downstairs and I hear him trying to administer cold salmon and broccoli. After half an hour I give up trying to sleep and go back downstairs.By three o’clock we have fussed and farted, changed babe a couple of times, packed and repacked a day bag and decided to go out. We walk by the river – for all of ten minutes as we forgot the buggy and babe refused to walk and is too heavy to carry far - take a little ferry to a teahouse where we buy huge slabs of not-half-as-nice-as it-looks cake that makes us all feel sick, and then drive back home, via the park, where I rest on the see-saw, wondering who Marjorie Daw was.
By the time we get home (half five-ish) Other Half is needing to rest again, so he sleeps on the sofa while I play trains, give Babe tea, and read books with him. We then play with a sticker book of fish, that provides us both with great fun. I love that babe seems to get what the pictures are of, but sticks them in really random places: stranded dolphin on the sand, treasure chest on the harbour wall, deep sea diver lying on the rocks etc etc, and then he decides he wants to stick the stickers on his pajama top instead of the pages – I can’t see why not and let him have a couple, and then he wants to stick a couple on me. For some reason he sticks them on my boobs.
After milk (yes, in beaker ;)), a bit more TV, another few books and cuddles and I get him into bed.
Then I do more chores, get things ready for a long day of meetings in London tomorrow, sniff the few presentable items of clothing I possess to make sure they didn’t need washing before I put them on tomorrow, and sit down to have a snack. The phone rings, I keep the call short, and then flop. I would like to spend some time on my Domestic Budget and my Life Plan but I haven’t got the energy. There is nothing on TV and these days I don’t read much. I look at the Michelin website, in a bid to persuade Other Half that we don’t have the time or money to drive to his home town when we have our holiday this September, but he gets excited and starts analysing the map.
So I push him away and start writing this blog as I just don’t know what else to do with myself. At least now it’s 11pm and hopefully I’ll fall asleep when I go to bed.
Goodnight!
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Didn't touch wood
The little so-and-so has woken three times while I tried to publish the last entry and is crying for me now. I sense a desperate night ahead. Arggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! I should have kept my stupid bloggy mouth shut :(
Contented weekends and Special Stuff
Ooh, such a lot has happened lately. Not! Such are the joys of wet weekends with Babe. And it doesn’t leave me with a lot to write about.
But actually, I can’t complain. Life is so much easier now than it was a year ago, when my weekends – wet or dry – were spent keeping Babe out of the house so that Other Half could continue digging to Australia underneath the kitchen floor.
If I listed here the work that properly commenced when I went into labour and continued for the first year and one month (yes, I was counting) of Babe’s life, you would be shocked. The sight of me turning into a human pumpkin over a period of nine months was not enough to make Other Half get his skates on, but seeing me writhing all over the floor once Babe was actually entering the world was what put his metaphorical foot on the gas. It’s just as well my labour lasted four days.
Yes, FOUR DAYS – from a few hours after I went to bed on a Sunday night to 10pm on the Thursday. And without pain relief. And after two sleepless nights in hospital with complications before labour started! I have to mention this, because surviving the experience has made me the woman I am today – frankly, a goddess of quite outstanding fortitude. I fully expected Other Half to spend the rest of his life kissing my feet and bowing most worshipfully before me for the rest of mine, having witnessed what I went through.
But in fact he spent the part at home digging like a maniac and the part in hospital in some kind of freaked zombie state. He spent eight hours massaging my back in the wrong place and irritating me to distraction (but I was concentrating too hard to communicate this to him), and then pulled the wrong lever on the bed in the moments before Babe arrived, forcing me into an upright position that my bump could barely accommodate, and was probably therefore responsible for his final arrival, seconds before the forceps made it into a part of me not designed to accommodate them.
So, back to our contented weekends. We have got into a comfortable routine in which I get up early with Babe, and do cleaning and housework around him while Other Half lies in. Then they trot off to the supermarket and the city farm for a few hours, while I do more cleaning and housework. We all have a sleep after lunch, and Bob’s your uncle, it’s nearly evening. Most satisfying! I should also point how here how very lucky I am to have an Other Half who comes homes from work every day overjoyed to see his son, and keen to take him out for a walk, or to the park for an hour or so, so that I can scrape baby mush off the carpet, shave my armpits and open the post etc.
The way I see it, you have two choices: live like relative slobs through necessity during the week, but make it into bed at a reasonable hour each night, and blitz the place at the weekend, or spend the week in overdrive keeping more than on top domestically so that your weekends can be spent in a sleep-deprived trance of Having Fun. The former works best for us.
We do aspire to having Special Sundays (as detailed in my highly-organised Domestic Year Plan) but they tend not to come to fruition. We fit in special stuff though, like dancing in fountains, singing in the rain, and sitting in the car outside the house listening to music while Babe turns the hazard warning lights and indicators on and off. Which is where we were, as it happens, when we took the photos I recently updated to my Facebook profile, and which some readers have said took them by surprise. ‘You both look happy and attractive, WTF is that about?’ asked one cheeky devil. I assured him that we had spent half an hour arguing about what my best angle was before said pics were taken. By me.
I think it’s time I went to bed. I’m aware that this is not the most exciting entry ever written. Despite the fact that for the first time tonight, I removed the internet cable from my laptop, so that I could sit in the window and see lampposts and stars, a la Carrie Bradshaw. (The resemblance ends there.)
You may, by the way, we wondering how the Sleep is going. It is much improved, thank you. Babe is now going down without a problem, during the day and at bedtime. So no more pushing him around to get him to sleep after nursery. And he now wakes for milk once per night, often at around half past five, and then sometimes sleeps for a further hour, which is quite joyous. I am feeling gradually recovered and definitely On The Up. So much so, that this week I have had to drop my own daytime nap, as it was giving me insomnia problems at bed time. Which means that I am finally finding time to cook and clean while Babe has his. So we may yet have a Special Sunday - perhaps even this weekend. Will report back next week :).
But actually, I can’t complain. Life is so much easier now than it was a year ago, when my weekends – wet or dry – were spent keeping Babe out of the house so that Other Half could continue digging to Australia underneath the kitchen floor.
If I listed here the work that properly commenced when I went into labour and continued for the first year and one month (yes, I was counting) of Babe’s life, you would be shocked. The sight of me turning into a human pumpkin over a period of nine months was not enough to make Other Half get his skates on, but seeing me writhing all over the floor once Babe was actually entering the world was what put his metaphorical foot on the gas. It’s just as well my labour lasted four days.
Yes, FOUR DAYS – from a few hours after I went to bed on a Sunday night to 10pm on the Thursday. And without pain relief. And after two sleepless nights in hospital with complications before labour started! I have to mention this, because surviving the experience has made me the woman I am today – frankly, a goddess of quite outstanding fortitude. I fully expected Other Half to spend the rest of his life kissing my feet and bowing most worshipfully before me for the rest of mine, having witnessed what I went through.
But in fact he spent the part at home digging like a maniac and the part in hospital in some kind of freaked zombie state. He spent eight hours massaging my back in the wrong place and irritating me to distraction (but I was concentrating too hard to communicate this to him), and then pulled the wrong lever on the bed in the moments before Babe arrived, forcing me into an upright position that my bump could barely accommodate, and was probably therefore responsible for his final arrival, seconds before the forceps made it into a part of me not designed to accommodate them.
So, back to our contented weekends. We have got into a comfortable routine in which I get up early with Babe, and do cleaning and housework around him while Other Half lies in. Then they trot off to the supermarket and the city farm for a few hours, while I do more cleaning and housework. We all have a sleep after lunch, and Bob’s your uncle, it’s nearly evening. Most satisfying! I should also point how here how very lucky I am to have an Other Half who comes homes from work every day overjoyed to see his son, and keen to take him out for a walk, or to the park for an hour or so, so that I can scrape baby mush off the carpet, shave my armpits and open the post etc.
The way I see it, you have two choices: live like relative slobs through necessity during the week, but make it into bed at a reasonable hour each night, and blitz the place at the weekend, or spend the week in overdrive keeping more than on top domestically so that your weekends can be spent in a sleep-deprived trance of Having Fun. The former works best for us.
We do aspire to having Special Sundays (as detailed in my highly-organised Domestic Year Plan) but they tend not to come to fruition. We fit in special stuff though, like dancing in fountains, singing in the rain, and sitting in the car outside the house listening to music while Babe turns the hazard warning lights and indicators on and off. Which is where we were, as it happens, when we took the photos I recently updated to my Facebook profile, and which some readers have said took them by surprise. ‘You both look happy and attractive, WTF is that about?’ asked one cheeky devil. I assured him that we had spent half an hour arguing about what my best angle was before said pics were taken. By me.
I think it’s time I went to bed. I’m aware that this is not the most exciting entry ever written. Despite the fact that for the first time tonight, I removed the internet cable from my laptop, so that I could sit in the window and see lampposts and stars, a la Carrie Bradshaw. (The resemblance ends there.)
You may, by the way, we wondering how the Sleep is going. It is much improved, thank you. Babe is now going down without a problem, during the day and at bedtime. So no more pushing him around to get him to sleep after nursery. And he now wakes for milk once per night, often at around half past five, and then sometimes sleeps for a further hour, which is quite joyous. I am feeling gradually recovered and definitely On The Up. So much so, that this week I have had to drop my own daytime nap, as it was giving me insomnia problems at bed time. Which means that I am finally finding time to cook and clean while Babe has his. So we may yet have a Special Sunday - perhaps even this weekend. Will report back next week :).
Fun and games
Babe head-butted me this morning and gave me a nosebleed. It was extremely painful and not, I think, an accident. One minute we were singing ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’, laughing and jumping, (on the bed, 6am, Other Half pretending to be asleep so that he wouldn’t have to join in) and the next he had lurched towards me and biffed me on the nozzer.
Shocked and in pain, I grabbled a tissue from beside the bed and wondered how to respond. I decided to do what Babe would, and curled up in a ball, stage-crying. Peeking out from between my fingers, I saw him watching me and smiling, with his finger up his nose. So I decided to up the ante and yelled a few times in what I thought could be described as pain. At this, Other Half shoved me onto the floor and I landed uncomfortably, on a small wooden engine. This really did bring tears to my eyes.
‘That hurt!’ I yelled. ‘Say sorry!’.
‘Sorry,’ said Babe, and leant over and rubbed my arm.
Other Half gave me a look that had not a whiff of apology, and I felt angry and confused. Which pretty much set the tone for the next couple of hours, for all of us.
Thank god Babe goes to nursery. He knows how to mind his ps and qs I can tell you. What's more, he can count to ten, tell us to ‘Stop, please’ with appropriate hand gesture to accompany, knows the difference between shreddies and weetabix and can describe this in words and shapes, and has recently started asking to sit on the potty, as long as I sit on the toilet at the same time. He even comes home with his hair brushed, where I had just started calling him ‘Sonic’ and resigned myself to him having dreadlocks before long. I think my work with him is done.
He is also taught the concept of ‘time out’, which he had to have today, because he was throwing the toys around and not helping to pick them up. I could tell they’d had enough of him when I went to pick him up, but for my part I was just glad he was doing something normal for once.
Seriously, though, he does seem to benefit hugely from going to nursery. He was a very quiet, reticent little thing before he started (at six months’ old, when I returned to work) and now he rules the roost. This makes me glad, because I do want him to be able to stand up for himself, as he’s got a tough time ahead with us for parents. (I use ‘us’ in the loosest sense of the word.) I am also hoping that he will have a Mind of his Own and be prepared to stand up and be counted, and do something about the State of the World, but we shall have to see.
I did say to Other Half, in an offhand manner, some months ago, ‘I do hope Babe won’t be one of those children who is bullied at school.’
‘No son of mine will be bullied,’ he said.
‘And how do you know that?’ I retorted.
‘Because he will be big and very strong. I will teach him to defend himself.’
Right. So the onus will be on me to build his self-confidence. And make sure he understands, despite the best attempts of his father, that he is not living in a communist state, does not need to fight for survival, keep supplies of diesel in the shed with the tomato plants or tins of lentils and bottled water in the roof. It’s a blessing they check the contents of your baggage at airports, or we’d probably have Grandad Filipe’s Kalashnikov hidden under our bed instead of his, and little cousin Armando’s hand grenades (which he tried to give me once as a leaving gift) in the toybox. Some cultural differences take a while to dissipate.
Anyway, back to the theme of fun and games. We have had a brilliant evening together. I have always been a lover of games, coming, as I do, from a family who likes to play games together at every opportunity. Christmas at home is a whirlwind of pic-up-sticks, connect4 knock-out, and quizzes and IQ tests. All of which my eldest brother has to win. But his competitive spirit has made him a millionaire, which isn’t something we complain about during the season of goodwill…
Other Half approaches games with reticence and healthy cynicism. But then he grew up having to fish and catapult pigeons to help his mum put a meal on the table, and at military school was forced to ski naked and sit in snow until he froze, within eyeshot of a huge burning bonfire.
My idea of a perfect evening would be a few rounds of Ludo, and I can’t wait until Babe is old enough for one of those ‘Simon Says’ games, as I’m in my element on that. But tonight we discovered a whole new plethora of family evening entertainment. I’ll list the ideas here, in case any readers who are parents who may like to try them out at home:
1 Fit the shapes into the spaces (you know, the sets of cut-out wooden shapes that you have to slot into the right place on the board) – who can place them all correctly in the shortest time?
2 Fit the shapes into the space with your eyes shut (as above, but in the dark)
3 Guess the nursery rhyme (which is coming next, by putting the CD player onto ‘random’)
4 Hunt the bear (i) (ie favourite bedtime toy, one of you hides it five minutes before bed time, the other has to find it)
5 Hunt the bear (ii) (hide it and then go out on the razzle)
You know what – I’m going to stop here, as I can see more publication potential appearing before my very eyes. Oh, so much talent and so little time. Talking of which, I better dash, as have got to get bags ready for outing to buy new sunglasses in sales after work tomorrow, while Babe has sleep and then eats the many canapés I am about to prepare for him to keep him occupied. Will report back on success or lack of, and may even offer those of you who have my Facebook details a pic of the purchase.
So, as Babe would say (accompanied by wave and firm look in my direction, in the style of Queen Elizabeth from Blackadder, and usually whenever Other Half picks him up): Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Shocked and in pain, I grabbled a tissue from beside the bed and wondered how to respond. I decided to do what Babe would, and curled up in a ball, stage-crying. Peeking out from between my fingers, I saw him watching me and smiling, with his finger up his nose. So I decided to up the ante and yelled a few times in what I thought could be described as pain. At this, Other Half shoved me onto the floor and I landed uncomfortably, on a small wooden engine. This really did bring tears to my eyes.
‘That hurt!’ I yelled. ‘Say sorry!’.
‘Sorry,’ said Babe, and leant over and rubbed my arm.
Other Half gave me a look that had not a whiff of apology, and I felt angry and confused. Which pretty much set the tone for the next couple of hours, for all of us.
Thank god Babe goes to nursery. He knows how to mind his ps and qs I can tell you. What's more, he can count to ten, tell us to ‘Stop, please’ with appropriate hand gesture to accompany, knows the difference between shreddies and weetabix and can describe this in words and shapes, and has recently started asking to sit on the potty, as long as I sit on the toilet at the same time. He even comes home with his hair brushed, where I had just started calling him ‘Sonic’ and resigned myself to him having dreadlocks before long. I think my work with him is done.
He is also taught the concept of ‘time out’, which he had to have today, because he was throwing the toys around and not helping to pick them up. I could tell they’d had enough of him when I went to pick him up, but for my part I was just glad he was doing something normal for once.
Seriously, though, he does seem to benefit hugely from going to nursery. He was a very quiet, reticent little thing before he started (at six months’ old, when I returned to work) and now he rules the roost. This makes me glad, because I do want him to be able to stand up for himself, as he’s got a tough time ahead with us for parents. (I use ‘us’ in the loosest sense of the word.) I am also hoping that he will have a Mind of his Own and be prepared to stand up and be counted, and do something about the State of the World, but we shall have to see.
I did say to Other Half, in an offhand manner, some months ago, ‘I do hope Babe won’t be one of those children who is bullied at school.’
‘No son of mine will be bullied,’ he said.
‘And how do you know that?’ I retorted.
‘Because he will be big and very strong. I will teach him to defend himself.’
Right. So the onus will be on me to build his self-confidence. And make sure he understands, despite the best attempts of his father, that he is not living in a communist state, does not need to fight for survival, keep supplies of diesel in the shed with the tomato plants or tins of lentils and bottled water in the roof. It’s a blessing they check the contents of your baggage at airports, or we’d probably have Grandad Filipe’s Kalashnikov hidden under our bed instead of his, and little cousin Armando’s hand grenades (which he tried to give me once as a leaving gift) in the toybox. Some cultural differences take a while to dissipate.
Anyway, back to the theme of fun and games. We have had a brilliant evening together. I have always been a lover of games, coming, as I do, from a family who likes to play games together at every opportunity. Christmas at home is a whirlwind of pic-up-sticks, connect4 knock-out, and quizzes and IQ tests. All of which my eldest brother has to win. But his competitive spirit has made him a millionaire, which isn’t something we complain about during the season of goodwill…
Other Half approaches games with reticence and healthy cynicism. But then he grew up having to fish and catapult pigeons to help his mum put a meal on the table, and at military school was forced to ski naked and sit in snow until he froze, within eyeshot of a huge burning bonfire.
My idea of a perfect evening would be a few rounds of Ludo, and I can’t wait until Babe is old enough for one of those ‘Simon Says’ games, as I’m in my element on that. But tonight we discovered a whole new plethora of family evening entertainment. I’ll list the ideas here, in case any readers who are parents who may like to try them out at home:
1 Fit the shapes into the spaces (you know, the sets of cut-out wooden shapes that you have to slot into the right place on the board) – who can place them all correctly in the shortest time?
2 Fit the shapes into the space with your eyes shut (as above, but in the dark)
3 Guess the nursery rhyme (which is coming next, by putting the CD player onto ‘random’)
4 Hunt the bear (i) (ie favourite bedtime toy, one of you hides it five minutes before bed time, the other has to find it)
5 Hunt the bear (ii) (hide it and then go out on the razzle)
You know what – I’m going to stop here, as I can see more publication potential appearing before my very eyes. Oh, so much talent and so little time. Talking of which, I better dash, as have got to get bags ready for outing to buy new sunglasses in sales after work tomorrow, while Babe has sleep and then eats the many canapés I am about to prepare for him to keep him occupied. Will report back on success or lack of, and may even offer those of you who have my Facebook details a pic of the purchase.
So, as Babe would say (accompanied by wave and firm look in my direction, in the style of Queen Elizabeth from Blackadder, and usually whenever Other Half picks him up): Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Sons, friends and lovers
There is nothing like spending time with an old friend to make you feel reassured and warm inside.
We have had a lovely weekend, with my dear pal from student days and her three gorgeous boys. Babe didn’t know himself and had the time of his life, running around after them. ‘Guys!’ he kept calling, and paddle-paddle-run-trip-splat went his little feet, in hot pursuit. Never before has he had three chums to play with from the crack of dawn. He was overwhelmed, loved every minute and cried his heart out when they left.
Apart from making life feel Great Fun and most holiday-ish for a few days, which is just what we needed, it also gave Other Half and I a useful insight into life with More Than One. Golly! I thought we were running a tight ship, or whatever the expression is, but she is running something of much greater depth and magnitude. Respect! (Generally-speaking, by the way, my use of expressions, similes and the like is down the pan, thanks to Other Half. In his country, you run like a horse where we run like the wind, swim like an otter, and a car in the hand is worth three on the road, or something like that. These days I talk of feathers in my bonnet, bees in my cap and top potatoes instead of top bananas…)
When they arrived and jumped out of the bus outside our house, my first thought was, ‘Three tiggers!’. Gosh, such a lot of bounce. You have to have eyes all the way round your head, not just at the front and back. I found myself wanting to nod in time with some kind of invisible human biorhythm, just to keep up with the life force and energy they exude. And do the hippy hippy shake on the spot, to keep up with their literal, physical, wonderful, being aliveness.
There was a time when I had bounce. Would be the first onto the dance floor and the last off; run home instead of catching the bus, impatient to be doing something else to fill the time between after work and bed, and spend weekends walking up hill and down dale, come wind or shine. These days, I guess it inhabits a different dimension. I bounce back more easily. Smile and laugh and lot and navel gaze a lot less. (Trust me, this blog is nothing by comparison.) But I would like to re-capture some physical sparkle. I am in fact saving up for some swimming lessons that will help motivate me to up the ante in my fitness stakes.
But back to the boys, and their joie de vivre. Such wit! Laughter and intelligence in buckets. (Is that expression right as well? I have a feeling it should be spades, or droves.) And so street-wise. I must do more to keep abreast of trends that will make Babe feel assured of his own street-cred as he gets older. I lost mine some time ago, I fear. If I ever had any - and I don’t want to be a mum he’s embarrassed to be seen with, as his dad is sure to humiliate him publicly all the time. If that sounds a bit mean, just go with me on this one. If he’s jumping over park fences instead of using the gates now, taking potatoes from home for the pigs at the city farm in spite of the notices forbidding this behaviour, and singing ‘I’m a Barbie girl’ as he walks round Tescos, just imagine what babe has lying in store for him, poor thing.
We were entranced and I could see Other Half thinking, ‘This is what I want. A houseful. To feel completely, all-consumingly alive.’ He is one of thirteen siblings and says he’d like us to have a similarly large brood. ‘In your dreams,’ I have replied tartly on the many occasions that he brings this up. But, as one of four, I know what he means. What is life about, if it’s not about family, love and laughter? (Ok, and kicking the living daylights out of one another at times as well.) Living well into the moment, instead of the past or the future.
I was thinking, ‘This could be what I want. But if I never get it, or decide not to go for it, I could be very happy sharing other people’s from time to time.’ This realisation has left me in a very calm and happy place. Taken the pressure off. Left me caring less that all my friends seem to be pregnant again now, just as I’m starting to enjoy life again, and get a little more sleep, and feel in no hurry to further procreate. Que sera, sera, and all that.
Really, it was quite the nicest weekend I’ve had in years.
We have had a lovely weekend, with my dear pal from student days and her three gorgeous boys. Babe didn’t know himself and had the time of his life, running around after them. ‘Guys!’ he kept calling, and paddle-paddle-run-trip-splat went his little feet, in hot pursuit. Never before has he had three chums to play with from the crack of dawn. He was overwhelmed, loved every minute and cried his heart out when they left.
Apart from making life feel Great Fun and most holiday-ish for a few days, which is just what we needed, it also gave Other Half and I a useful insight into life with More Than One. Golly! I thought we were running a tight ship, or whatever the expression is, but she is running something of much greater depth and magnitude. Respect! (Generally-speaking, by the way, my use of expressions, similes and the like is down the pan, thanks to Other Half. In his country, you run like a horse where we run like the wind, swim like an otter, and a car in the hand is worth three on the road, or something like that. These days I talk of feathers in my bonnet, bees in my cap and top potatoes instead of top bananas…)
When they arrived and jumped out of the bus outside our house, my first thought was, ‘Three tiggers!’. Gosh, such a lot of bounce. You have to have eyes all the way round your head, not just at the front and back. I found myself wanting to nod in time with some kind of invisible human biorhythm, just to keep up with the life force and energy they exude. And do the hippy hippy shake on the spot, to keep up with their literal, physical, wonderful, being aliveness.
There was a time when I had bounce. Would be the first onto the dance floor and the last off; run home instead of catching the bus, impatient to be doing something else to fill the time between after work and bed, and spend weekends walking up hill and down dale, come wind or shine. These days, I guess it inhabits a different dimension. I bounce back more easily. Smile and laugh and lot and navel gaze a lot less. (Trust me, this blog is nothing by comparison.) But I would like to re-capture some physical sparkle. I am in fact saving up for some swimming lessons that will help motivate me to up the ante in my fitness stakes.
But back to the boys, and their joie de vivre. Such wit! Laughter and intelligence in buckets. (Is that expression right as well? I have a feeling it should be spades, or droves.) And so street-wise. I must do more to keep abreast of trends that will make Babe feel assured of his own street-cred as he gets older. I lost mine some time ago, I fear. If I ever had any - and I don’t want to be a mum he’s embarrassed to be seen with, as his dad is sure to humiliate him publicly all the time. If that sounds a bit mean, just go with me on this one. If he’s jumping over park fences instead of using the gates now, taking potatoes from home for the pigs at the city farm in spite of the notices forbidding this behaviour, and singing ‘I’m a Barbie girl’ as he walks round Tescos, just imagine what babe has lying in store for him, poor thing.
We were entranced and I could see Other Half thinking, ‘This is what I want. A houseful. To feel completely, all-consumingly alive.’ He is one of thirteen siblings and says he’d like us to have a similarly large brood. ‘In your dreams,’ I have replied tartly on the many occasions that he brings this up. But, as one of four, I know what he means. What is life about, if it’s not about family, love and laughter? (Ok, and kicking the living daylights out of one another at times as well.) Living well into the moment, instead of the past or the future.
I was thinking, ‘This could be what I want. But if I never get it, or decide not to go for it, I could be very happy sharing other people’s from time to time.’ This realisation has left me in a very calm and happy place. Taken the pressure off. Left me caring less that all my friends seem to be pregnant again now, just as I’m starting to enjoy life again, and get a little more sleep, and feel in no hurry to further procreate. Que sera, sera, and all that.
Really, it was quite the nicest weekend I’ve had in years.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Spoons
I’m a happy bunny today! Babe slept all night, like a rock, and so did I. Too tired and rock-like to argue with Other Half about who was crossing the imaginary line down the middle of the bed, or whether or not it was fair of me to need to sleep in a star-shape or the recovery position (my two favourites). Grandad has been to stay for two nights, which means that Other Half and I have been sleeping in the same bed for three (clean bed made up in spare room night before of course :)).
Do real couples actually spoon, I wonder? Don’t they get as hot as hell? The most I can tolerate is other half resting his foot on mine – and that only works when I’m making like a star. If anyone so much as lays a finger on me when I’m in the recovery position I growl like a bear.
Anyway… it has been a joy to see Babe playing with my dad. He is the ultimate eccentric, beyond unorthodox and as funny and as annoying as you’d wish any person to be. I wasn’t sure how either would find the encounter. But seeing them together (dad lying on the cold kitchen tiles because that’s where Babe was sitting and shouting ‘book!’) has reminded me of many good childhood memories of my dad. Fun and laughter in abundance. Never, ever, dull:
Party games which stretched kids to their physical and mental limits; Christmas encounters with Santa’s dwarves on the top of multi-storey car parks; long car drives wiggling Vik inhalers stuck up his nose and waving at other drivers; ghost stories on holiday that had all us bundling in with him for the night (because he had scared himself witless) – and I’ve never heard another dad scream, ‘Run for your lives!’, drop his kids’ hands and hurtle himself into a parade of Rhododendrons at the approach of a flock of Canadian geese in the park. One day I will write a series of children’s books, full of these stories. They will be called ‘Adventures with Mr D’, and will make us both rich and famous.
It’s a shame that Babe doesn’t see more of his extended family. What child doesn’t revel in the attention? There’s no such thing as too much love. I realise how different things would be if we lived near Other Half’s family. Aunts, uncles, cousins in abundance. It would give me a nervous breakdown, as I’m typically English and like my own space, but there’d be no such thing as childcare worries, or lack of sleep. My sister-in-law gave birth a few weeks after I did, and the females of the family (females, yes, and they all work) took it in turns to sleep in a chair by her bed in hospital for the days she was in; her mum slept on the sofa for the next two weeks to make sure she got enough sleep and her sister now looks after the little boy every afternoon so that she could return to work. I don’t think she’s had to cook a meal since little Alexandro was born. As I say, it’s all swings and roundabouts, and there’s a lot more I could discuss on the subject, but it’s interesting that in this country you’re not allowed to have anyone stay the night with you in hospital. Great start.
Back to Babe and our sleep. Not only did he sleep through ‘til six, he then slept in bed with us for an hour until seven! Unheard of! Rejoice! This means he’ll be due his nap when I pick him up from nursery at lunch-time. Hoorah! Of course it also means that between six at seven I didn’t dare move, and at half past six had to wake Other Half without stirring Babe. Ten prods with my big toe did it. He slithered out and landed gently on the floor. Picked up his clothes and crawled around the bed, so that if Babe opened his eyes, he wouldn’t see him there and howl. We held hands briefly, and he was off.
So, you may have inferred that the deadlock at home is broken. I’m not sure if either of us gave in first - I think we just decided to have a good shag and then everything was ok again. Other Half immediately perked up (so to speak), and cleaned the house for me, as I was “feeling extremely poorly and unloved”, and then gave me a lovely massage, as I was “still fit to drop” and then Babe and I watched through the window as he hoovered the car.
We have yet to fully the resolve the issue of whether I am his ‘number one’ or not – aha! Now I remember, that’s how the argument started: when he said Babe was his priority, at which I hit the roof and bought a massive t-shirt with ‘Number 2’ emblazoned on the front – but I might let it go for a while as, at the end of the day, actions speak louder than words, and he’s being extremely nice at the moment.
Roll on, weekend! Aubergines ahoy!
Do real couples actually spoon, I wonder? Don’t they get as hot as hell? The most I can tolerate is other half resting his foot on mine – and that only works when I’m making like a star. If anyone so much as lays a finger on me when I’m in the recovery position I growl like a bear.
Anyway… it has been a joy to see Babe playing with my dad. He is the ultimate eccentric, beyond unorthodox and as funny and as annoying as you’d wish any person to be. I wasn’t sure how either would find the encounter. But seeing them together (dad lying on the cold kitchen tiles because that’s where Babe was sitting and shouting ‘book!’) has reminded me of many good childhood memories of my dad. Fun and laughter in abundance. Never, ever, dull:
Party games which stretched kids to their physical and mental limits; Christmas encounters with Santa’s dwarves on the top of multi-storey car parks; long car drives wiggling Vik inhalers stuck up his nose and waving at other drivers; ghost stories on holiday that had all us bundling in with him for the night (because he had scared himself witless) – and I’ve never heard another dad scream, ‘Run for your lives!’, drop his kids’ hands and hurtle himself into a parade of Rhododendrons at the approach of a flock of Canadian geese in the park. One day I will write a series of children’s books, full of these stories. They will be called ‘Adventures with Mr D’, and will make us both rich and famous.
It’s a shame that Babe doesn’t see more of his extended family. What child doesn’t revel in the attention? There’s no such thing as too much love. I realise how different things would be if we lived near Other Half’s family. Aunts, uncles, cousins in abundance. It would give me a nervous breakdown, as I’m typically English and like my own space, but there’d be no such thing as childcare worries, or lack of sleep. My sister-in-law gave birth a few weeks after I did, and the females of the family (females, yes, and they all work) took it in turns to sleep in a chair by her bed in hospital for the days she was in; her mum slept on the sofa for the next two weeks to make sure she got enough sleep and her sister now looks after the little boy every afternoon so that she could return to work. I don’t think she’s had to cook a meal since little Alexandro was born. As I say, it’s all swings and roundabouts, and there’s a lot more I could discuss on the subject, but it’s interesting that in this country you’re not allowed to have anyone stay the night with you in hospital. Great start.
Back to Babe and our sleep. Not only did he sleep through ‘til six, he then slept in bed with us for an hour until seven! Unheard of! Rejoice! This means he’ll be due his nap when I pick him up from nursery at lunch-time. Hoorah! Of course it also means that between six at seven I didn’t dare move, and at half past six had to wake Other Half without stirring Babe. Ten prods with my big toe did it. He slithered out and landed gently on the floor. Picked up his clothes and crawled around the bed, so that if Babe opened his eyes, he wouldn’t see him there and howl. We held hands briefly, and he was off.
So, you may have inferred that the deadlock at home is broken. I’m not sure if either of us gave in first - I think we just decided to have a good shag and then everything was ok again. Other Half immediately perked up (so to speak), and cleaned the house for me, as I was “feeling extremely poorly and unloved”, and then gave me a lovely massage, as I was “still fit to drop” and then Babe and I watched through the window as he hoovered the car.
We have yet to fully the resolve the issue of whether I am his ‘number one’ or not – aha! Now I remember, that’s how the argument started: when he said Babe was his priority, at which I hit the roof and bought a massive t-shirt with ‘Number 2’ emblazoned on the front – but I might let it go for a while as, at the end of the day, actions speak louder than words, and he’s being extremely nice at the moment.
Roll on, weekend! Aubergines ahoy!
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Sex in the city
I saw the Red Arrows today. My God, they're good. I swear there wasn't a woman in the crowd who wasn't thinking, consciously or otherwise, 'Get me a pilot for a right old rogering, now!'. Well, that's what I was thinking anyway.
There is something terrifically sexy about the control, tension and speed; those perfect formations - and the tinge of fear where they shoot close and noisily overhead. The atmosphere was subtly heightened by the general 'Ooohing and ahhhing' that was going on and I joined in with gusto, noticing from the corner of my eye that Other Half glanced at me suspiciously more than once. I must visit their website later.
I guess failing a pilot, someone dressed up as a pilot would do. Strong and silent and, I don’t know, powerful. (And wearing a helmet, or goggles and hat or thick scarf at least – this would have to be an anonymous encounter of course.) Other Half is strong (and particularly silent of late – more on that later). He’d be a liability to the red arrows, though, as is in no way a team player. He’d be the joker who gets expelled from the troupe for letting off orange smoke in the middle of their red, white and blue, and impersonating a solo flight of the bumble bee while they execute a perfectly-formed cupid’s heart. He’d hang back as they zoom forwards, then start to speed up as they slow down. I can see it now – an aerial version of the way we progress down the street.
I am generally several steps ahead of him (literally and metaphorically, and it’s not out of choice, you understand), and I just can’t bear to dawdle. He, on the other hand, walks at a snail’s pace unless I want to take in the scenery, in which case he will declare himself hungry or in need of a toilet and force us to move on quickly. I realise, writing this, that there was in fact a time when, despite our differences in tempo, we would walk around hand in hand. The closest we get to that these days is swinging Babe between us in an attempt to get him to speed up. Blinking heck, too much of life is spent hanging around waiting, or trying to catch up, but to escape it - how? Live in south-east Asia?
Hum. Back to the pilots. Much more fun and I’m not in the mood for nostalgia – I’m in a bad mood on purpose, original reason now forgotten, but cannot back down first as am on strike from being the first one to say sorry. Yes, that’s how grown up things are chez moi at the moment. And now, darn it, I just can’t get back into the swing of my earlier sense of frissance, as I’ve noticed my initial assumption that all pilots are male, and am also starting to feel worried by my use of the word ‘powerful’. I think I had better take some feminist theory to bed with me tonight.
So, any readers out there wondering whether I might be prepared to take it all the way with a red arrow can be reassured that no, of course I wouldn’t. Because it’s rare for me to go with flow and stop analysing what I’m doing and why. Plus it would, of course, be highly immoral.
You lot go to bed, and I’ll surf awhile…
There is something terrifically sexy about the control, tension and speed; those perfect formations - and the tinge of fear where they shoot close and noisily overhead. The atmosphere was subtly heightened by the general 'Ooohing and ahhhing' that was going on and I joined in with gusto, noticing from the corner of my eye that Other Half glanced at me suspiciously more than once. I must visit their website later.
I guess failing a pilot, someone dressed up as a pilot would do. Strong and silent and, I don’t know, powerful. (And wearing a helmet, or goggles and hat or thick scarf at least – this would have to be an anonymous encounter of course.) Other Half is strong (and particularly silent of late – more on that later). He’d be a liability to the red arrows, though, as is in no way a team player. He’d be the joker who gets expelled from the troupe for letting off orange smoke in the middle of their red, white and blue, and impersonating a solo flight of the bumble bee while they execute a perfectly-formed cupid’s heart. He’d hang back as they zoom forwards, then start to speed up as they slow down. I can see it now – an aerial version of the way we progress down the street.
I am generally several steps ahead of him (literally and metaphorically, and it’s not out of choice, you understand), and I just can’t bear to dawdle. He, on the other hand, walks at a snail’s pace unless I want to take in the scenery, in which case he will declare himself hungry or in need of a toilet and force us to move on quickly. I realise, writing this, that there was in fact a time when, despite our differences in tempo, we would walk around hand in hand. The closest we get to that these days is swinging Babe between us in an attempt to get him to speed up. Blinking heck, too much of life is spent hanging around waiting, or trying to catch up, but to escape it - how? Live in south-east Asia?
Hum. Back to the pilots. Much more fun and I’m not in the mood for nostalgia – I’m in a bad mood on purpose, original reason now forgotten, but cannot back down first as am on strike from being the first one to say sorry. Yes, that’s how grown up things are chez moi at the moment. And now, darn it, I just can’t get back into the swing of my earlier sense of frissance, as I’ve noticed my initial assumption that all pilots are male, and am also starting to feel worried by my use of the word ‘powerful’. I think I had better take some feminist theory to bed with me tonight.
So, any readers out there wondering whether I might be prepared to take it all the way with a red arrow can be reassured that no, of course I wouldn’t. Because it’s rare for me to go with flow and stop analysing what I’m doing and why. Plus it would, of course, be highly immoral.
You lot go to bed, and I’ll surf awhile…
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Apologies...
...for not updating this blog for the last couple of weeks. We are seeing a Sleep Specialist and I am focussing my every waking effort on getting through the day and hitting the sack as soon after Babe as I can.
I am also in a very dark and fed up mood, wondering where my life is going, how many years of my career (if you can call it that) are going to be interrupted by motherhood, how I can be more positive and put myself forward at work when the possibilities are few and far between, how will I ever be able to change jobs when I'm stuck in the trap of working part-time in an office down the road from nursery and where I live for quite a good salary, and when will I be able to afford to get my hair done. Etc.
In fact, now that I have just read that through I am feeling even more fed up. I fancy packing up the contents of our house and moving to live on the other side of the world. But as we generally rely on my salary that would hardly be a holiday for me. I need a new life, new aspirations, a change in focus, a new body, a new Cunning Plan.
I think it is time to start buying lottery tickets. And in the meantime perhaps I can flog Other Half's tap shoes on ebay to pay for my highlights.
I will endeavour to share the delights of sticker charts and power struggles with you all, dear readers, by this weekend. xxxxxxxxxxxx
I am also in a very dark and fed up mood, wondering where my life is going, how many years of my career (if you can call it that) are going to be interrupted by motherhood, how I can be more positive and put myself forward at work when the possibilities are few and far between, how will I ever be able to change jobs when I'm stuck in the trap of working part-time in an office down the road from nursery and where I live for quite a good salary, and when will I be able to afford to get my hair done. Etc.
In fact, now that I have just read that through I am feeling even more fed up. I fancy packing up the contents of our house and moving to live on the other side of the world. But as we generally rely on my salary that would hardly be a holiday for me. I need a new life, new aspirations, a change in focus, a new body, a new Cunning Plan.
I think it is time to start buying lottery tickets. And in the meantime perhaps I can flog Other Half's tap shoes on ebay to pay for my highlights.
I will endeavour to share the delights of sticker charts and power struggles with you all, dear readers, by this weekend. xxxxxxxxxxxx
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