Starting well

B left at 3 am this morning.  He won't be back until after the end of term (only two weeks away up here) by which time I'll have survived (hopefully), three sets of sports days, one leavers' assembly (we're not leaving, but attendance is nonetheless expected), the summer disco, two birthday parties (none ours) and all the other paraphernalia and chaos that goes with small children and end-of-term-itis.

It has started well though.  A looked up at me over her rice krispies this morning:

"Mummy," she said "You deserve a medal".
"That's a lovely thing to say, poppet. Why?"
"Because you're so clever".

Not sure what I'd done to deserve that, rice krispy (krispie?  krispo?)  pouring being one of my core skills, but the others obviously agreed, because S chipped in:

"And you're lovely"
"And you're the best Mummy in the world" added L. 

By this time I was beginning to wonder if B had bribed them, but M too was not to be left out.

"And. And.  And...." he said.  He's just turned three and was clearly searching his ever-growing vocabulary for the right superlative. 
"And you're...
And you're my Mummy!".

I just hope we're all still thinking that's a good thing in two weeks' time...  

Feeling sorry for myself on my birthday.

It's my birthday.

I'm 37 today.

B is not here so I am single-parenting four children. He was working in Milton Keynes on Friday and then at a thing (the sort of thing you only get invited to twice in your life and that you don't, as a result, turn down, wife's birthday or no) in Oxford last night.  He is, I am told, now on the motorway heading home.  I expect him, with a delicious dinner he will have picked up at the motorway services*, probably around five-ish.
I am very tired, having been up 'til gone midnight wrapping presents and making an ice-cream igloo for those who don't like Christmas pudding.

The children are fractious and scrapping like small tigers, all teeth and claws and lots and lots of noise.

It is, in fact, just a normal day.  With the addition of a lovely new shirt, which I am wearing, and the promise of cake later when my sister and her boyfriend get here, the first of the Christmas arrivals.

So better than a normal day really.  And actually with four children under seven, an absent husband, and thirteen people for lunch in three days' time I probably shouldn't have expected anything else.

But it's my birthday so I'll cry if I want to.

Or laugh.  Because it appears that the children have internalised some of what B must have told them; as I type the screaming next door is taking on a topical note:

"STOP IT! IT'S MUMMY'S BIRTHDAY! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THAT! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

So near, but yet so far...

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*Tebay, so while that is strictly true, it is also much, much better than it sounds.

Big numbers for small people

B was in London earlier on this week.  He bumped into my sister on the tube.   They rang me together at the children's supper time and it made me smile.

"Girls", I said after they'd hung up,  "There are seven million people in London and guess who Daddy bumped into?"

They couldn't.  I told them.  They looked underwhelmed by the coincidence (although that sort of thing happens unstatistically often, don't you think?).  But it obviously got L thinking.

"Mummy?"  she said. "How many people are there in London did you say?"
"Seven million."
"Is that counting Daddy or not?"

On effective delegation

It is supper time.  S and I are in the kitchen.

I say:  S, can you run upstairs and tell the others that supper's ready?.

S doesn't move, other than to turn slightly towards the door: 

 L!  A! Supper's ready!!!!

She's a helpful child, is S.

Taxonomy of mythical beings

Mummy?  Said L this morning over the rice krispies. What's a gnome?
It's a sort of fairy.
Oh.  And what's a pixie?
Erm, that's a sort of fairy too.
Well how do you know the difference?  And is the tooth fairy a pixie or a gnome, or something else?

Of course, as any ful kno - and I realised, while pondering once she'd been packed off to school - a gnome has a beard and a pixie doesn't.  And neither of them  has wings, which a real fairy (and the tooth fairy, obviously) does.

But what about kelpies, or leprechauns, or sprites?  Or elves (I think they probably have beards too), hobgoblins and imps?

And why don't they cover this sort of thing in the parenting manuals?

The meaning of art

S brought this home from nursery yesterday...

...prompting one of those sentences I swore, in pre-children days, I wouldn't use:

That's lovely, sweetheart! What is it?
 A model.
I can see that. What's it a model of?
Bottle tops.

I'm thinking we'll leave debating figurative vs. abstract art for a few more years.

Appreciation at last.

My house, about five minutes ago.  B, having got the children up and dressed while I showered, is still upstairs getting dressed himself.

A asks:

Mummy, why do you do all the hard work?
What sort of hard work, Sweetheart?
All the things Daddy doesn't do.

I'll make a feminist of her yet....

Saying the wrong thing to my children (No 2,016)

There are times when I realise that I and my children exist on totally different planes.

Take this, for example.

Last Summer.  The day we got back from France.  The week before my period.  I hadn't slept for two days because I'd been sharing a bed (for which read bunk on a boat, the second night) with M.  He's adorable, but he's not the best of bedfellows.  B had had the other room in the hotel and cabin on the boat because he was doing all the driving, and because he had to work as soon as we got back.

So, anyway, we docked at 9 am. We got back here at 10.30ish.  By 11.15 B was back at his desk, leaving me with four (tired) children, and two weeks worth of unpacking, washing, post, shopping, phone messages, and everything that goes with them.  Oh, and did I mention the PMT?

All this is by way of justification for the fact that when, a few short minutes and about six loads of laundry later, I discovered that the the girls had destroyed their bedrooms as only a force ten gale or three small children can, I was perhaps not my entirely calm and rational self.

About a minute and a half of shouting later, I sank to the floor, head in hands, two parts ashamed, to three exhausted, to probably, if the truth be told, one still spitting bricks.

And L came up to me.  I don't know what she said, if anything.  I can't remember.  I just know I said, in tones of world weary, resigned exhaustion:

I can't do it any more.  Make a mess.   I don't care.

And she got up and skipped away, huge grin on her face, shouting with delight:

Mummy says we can make a mess!

Sometimes only your children can make you smile...

What can I do to stop the end of the world?

Mummy? 
Yes...?
Where do polar bears live?
In the Arctic.
Is that with the penguins or Father Christmas?

I dodged that one rather neatly by saying that it wasn't the penguins, because they live in the Antarctic, but that I thought Father Christmas lived a little South of the actual Arctic Circle, so not actually near the polar bears either.

And as I was saying it I realised that there's more than a possibility that by the time I'm having to admit that Father Christmas doesn't actually exist, I'll be having to admit that nor do polar bears.  Or not any more.

And I don't know how to stop it.  I don't know how to make it better. 

Because it is happening, isn't it?  Is there anyone out there who really seriously thinks it isn't?  I've hitherto been a bit head in the sand ('cos that's all that will be left in a few years time) about it all, but the news, last week, that the Arctic ice cap shrank 18% more than the previous record this year has really hit me.   This means, says Professor Peter Wadhams (who he?) of Cambridge University (oh, right), that: "The final collapse ... is now happening and will probably be complete by 2015/16," with, to my mind, although not to the scientists', who spell it out in terrifying detail, unimaginably catastrophic results for the entire world.

But what Professor Pete doesn't tell us, what none of the scientists tell us, is what can we do?  What do they do?  I don't mean ending drilling for oil in the Arctic (although frankly that does seem a wise idea), or reducing China's carbon emissions. I can't, personally do either of those things.  What can I, we, you, do? 

Because I have this conversation in  my head.  It happens in about twenty years time, and it starts familiarly:

Mummy?
Yes?
You know when the scientists told you you were changing the world's climate irrevocably and it was going to result in global disaster?
Yes.
Why did you let it happen?

I'm selfish, you see.  I can't bear the idea that my children will look at me, at us, in years to come and think we stood by and did nothing.  That the end of the world started on our watch.  But I honestly don't know what to do.

I don't drive other than when I have to (so yes, I walked my children to school in torrential rain and gale force winds this morning - provoking a tantrum when I said no umbrellas). I switch off lights in a doubtless infuriating sanctimonious fashion, normally when there are still people in the room. (Often B in the loo. He loves that).  I take my own bags to the supermarket.  I am adamantly not going to turn on the central heating until the end of October (the other end), despite the fact I had two hot water bottles in bed with me last night.  I read the information about where food has come from and only buy in season.   I reduce. I reuse.  I recycle.

But none of it's enough, is it? So what should I do? Should I never take another flight?   Should I vote green? (I don't think we even had a green candidate here last time) Should I join Friends of the Earth? Should I change my energy supplier?  Should I take my entire family off grid? (Significantly easier said than done, obviously). Or is none of that enough either? 

And if there's nothing I can do that'll ever be enough, how am I ever going to be able to explain it?

How to tell if your children are just being fussy.

B:    So what are we going to feed these children tonight?

Me (bored of thinking about it):   Pass

A (making her position clear):   I don't like pass.

Life lessons from the under fives

Oh fu-pause-udge, I've done that badly!

Why Mummy?

Because driving backwards is difficult and it's not made easier by you three first messing around so we're late, and then whinging and fighting so that I can't hear myself think or concentrate on what I'm doing.*

 We-ell Mummy... (Were ever two words more calculated to raise a parent's blood pressure?)...you and Daddy should have been thinking about that when you did say "Let's have children".

She's right of course.  And I've been trying to remember that.  It was only yesterday, but I'm trying.

*and yes, I do talk to her like that.  I probably shouldn't, but I do.

You can take the girl out of England...

L and I are listening to the Proclaimers, unofficial patron saints of Scotland (where we have now lived for 18 months).

"Why are they singing in French?" wonders L.

Not fully assimilated yet then.

On helping Mummy

B, on leaving the house:

"L, are you going to be a good girl for Mummy?"
"Yes"

"A, are you going to be a good girl for Mummy?"
"Yes"

"S, what are you going to be for Mummy?"
"A mouse."

Oh good.

Lies, damn lies, and small children

Scene 1. Our house.


L pushes A.  A screams.  I enter, in time to catch the gist, but slightly too late to see the offence.


Me (cuddling A) : L, what happened? Why is she crying?
L: I don't know.
Me: Did you hurt her?
L: No
Me: A, sweetheart,  where does it hurt? What happened?
A: L push
Me: Did L push you?
A: Yes
Me: L, did you push your sister?
L: No.
Me: Are you lying to me?
L (compounding the crime, in my opinion). No.


Repeat ad boredom


Scene 2.  Our car. Me looking in rear view mirror, in time to see L hit S.  S cries.

Me:  L, that was very naughty.  Don't hit your sister.
L: I didn't. 
Me: Yes you did. I saw you.
L: How?
Me: In the mirror. That's not the point. Don't hit your sister. That's a naughty thing to do.
L: I didn't.
Me: Yes you did. And now you're lying to me.
L: No I'm not.

Scene 3.  Our living room.  A sitting on yellow cushion.  I leave the room.  A starts crying. I return. L is now sitting on yellow cushion.


Me: L, did you take her cushion?
L: No

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

So what do we do? Because, let's be honest, if I were nearly four, I'd do exactly the same thing. She's done something wrong. She knows it's wrong. Why would she own up? Because for all that I say "I won't be cross with you if you tell the truth" we both know that if she's hurt her sisters I'm going to be cross, otherwise I'm effectively saying it's ok to do so, as long as she tells me about it, which seems pretty shaky moral ground.

So how do I teach her not to lie? I can tell her that lying is not a good thing to do, but every now and then it probably works and she gets away with whatever it is she's done, so she's going to keep doing it, isn't she?

Dear So and So - 3rd week in December

Dear boss,

Nothing is actually going to happen if I don't get absolutely everything done by Christmas. You know this, I know this, the clients know this.

When is one of us actually going to come out and say it?

Yours, hassled.

Consultant and all-round dogsbody.

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Dear L

"Torch-er" is not actually the verb we use for "having a torch".

And if that's what you actually want to do to me, whinging is so much more efficient.

Mummy

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Dear B

I've had a word with Father Christmas and he reckons that you'll be happy with a packet of fruit gums and a satsuma.  I told him that'll be fine.  That's ok isn't it?

Loving wife

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Dear Postman

There are things I need at the moment:  Christmas presents (everyone's), Birthday presents (mine). And things I don't need:  twin breast-feeding cushions, printer paper.

Please can you concentrate on delivering the former and leave the latter to languish in a sorting office?  Just for the next week?

Yours, with cushion.

Non-breastfeeding mother

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Dear B (2)

Oh, and it's not just FC who's been rubbish about thinking of presents for you this year.

Loving (but inefficient and unimaginative) wife

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Dear Girls,

I realise you're now two. But could we not go for "terrific" instead?

Mummy

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Dear B (3)

Thank you for making me go out tonight.  You were right and I was wrong. The world feels so much better after three hours away from my children. Oh, and a half of lager.

Yours much more cheerily

Loving (and slightly tiddly) wife

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Dear weather

Just a little warmer? Please?

Yours freezingly

Pathetic Southerner.

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Dear Readers,

Head over to Kat's for more postcards.

love and Happy Christmas,

me x

More than a girl....

L's new friend J, to his daddy.  After an afternoon of naked paddling:

"Daddy, L's not a girl.  She's a woman."

I knew they'd grow up fast.  I just didn't think it'd be that fast.

The twubble with spelling

L is, for the avoidance of doubt, the cleverest, most beautiful and most advanced nearly 3-year-old in the Western Hemisphere.  I'd say the planet, but you'd think I was biased...

Anyway, the point is, she knows all her letters.  The problem though is she can't say them all.  A, B and C are ok, as are L, M, N and the other 18.  The tricky ones are those pesky Ws and Rs.

Hence this conversation with B:

L:  Daddy, please may you draw a D for Daddy for me...
L:  and a L for Lucy...
L:  and a W

B:  a W for Water?

L: No, Daddy, you know,  a  W for wRiggle...

I think it may be a while before we manage to sort that one out.

The secret of successful discipline

Not been here much recently. Mostly because I haven't been, well, for want of a better word: here.  So apologies for bloggy absence, but we were up in Scotland, looking at The House, seeing the in-laws, making plans and generally having a very busy, totally unrelaxing, but extremely enjoyable week off.

Anyway, it's all been a bit unsettling for all the girls, and especially L. We've been moving around a lot: she's been sleeping in different places, meeting new people, coming to the beginnings of an understanding about what moving is going to mean and generally having her routine totally blown to pieces.  So yesterday morning we woke up in East Lothian at her cousins' house, piled in the car and drove south, planning to stop for lunch with friends in Yorkshire.

L slept in the car and we made very good time, so I was confident that when we got there she'd be on splendid form. 

Not a bit of it. She was properly horrid. Whingy, moany, clingy, refusing to eat, refusing to sit down, refusing to do anything we wanted her to....

So I got cross.  And I find that there's something even more cross-making about ordinary toddler behaviour when you're with friends and you really, really want them to see what a lovely child you have, and that child refuses to cooperate...

After half an hour of detailed negotiations over precisely which bit of utterly delicious lasagna she would and wouldn't eat, I lost it and I told her that either she sat down and ate her lunch or I'd put her in the car. (I am officially turning into my mother).

I put her in the car.
I got her out of the car.

She didn't eat.

I put her back in the car.
I got her back out of the car.

I sat her back down at the table, and we agreed that I would "help" her eat "very little spoons" of lasagna.

She looked at me, put her hand under my chin and said:

"Tickle tickle"

I looked at her.

"I want you to smile, Mummy".

Whereupon all thoughts of being a strict disciplinarian vanish. In a puff of delighted maternal love. 

The Gallery - Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner...

...but only for a few more short weeks... that I'm beginning to feel nostalgic for this amazing, sprawly, angry, busy, friendly, noisy, indescribable city that I've been lucky enough to call my home for the last ten and some years.

So when I saw Tara's new meme/theme/gallery, and realised that this week she wants photos of Beauty, I ended up deciding to post this:

It was taken on my phone last Saturday, so it's not the world's best picture (it was taken by me, so it was never going to be the world's best picture anyway!) but it reminds me that even here, in the centre of London, surrounded by more than 7 million people, there is beauty. I love the the sunset and the tree and the crocuses, and L dancing carefully so that she doesn't tread on them, and then the fact that you can see the rows of Victorian houses and the fifteen stories of hideousness that is the hospital and you realise that yes, this is London, and I will miss it.

Oh, and ps, I wanted to post this one too,

 

because L asked me to take its picture so that she could remember that although it looks purple, inside it's "lello". And I realised that I haven't really looked at a crocus in years.  And I should.

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The rest of the amazing photos in the Gallery are here!!

Spot the difference

A and S are identical.  There are differences but you have to know about them. A has a double crown and a little blue mark on her nose.  S makes S faces, and is slightly smaller.  But if you don't know that, you might be excused finding it difficult to tell who's who.

B and I can now (since about their first birthday) pretty much always tell the difference straight away. They just each do things that are totally themselves.  A is incredibly kind.  S is incredibly cheeky.  A can stand up on her own;  S watches.  S can go downstairs backwards; A sits at the top and whinges.  And for those that don't know? Well, I dress them differently, and I'm quite happy to explain that S is wearing red and A purple, or whatever.

But L still can't tell.  She calls them "my sister" or "that one".  Or  says "is that one S?" and when I say "no", says "that one?", as though there were more than two options. I thought that this was an age thing.  She's only little after all.

But her friend F, at the advanced age of just 3, knows.  And he knows all the time.  In fact, he corrected me yesterday when I got them wrong.

Which leads me to wonder - is she doing it on purpose?