Never again

I recently convinced myself that taking our kids to a very large theme park would be a good idea, and on a bank holiday, what's more.  Tom was harder to convince, but we ended up going anyway.

Once on site, I insisted that Betty and I went on the first ride we came to.  We queued for an agonising hour and twenty minutes, behind a lady that Betty couldn't take her eyes off.  I feared she was going to give loud judgements on what this lady was wearing/saying at any given moment, and get us beaten up.  When we finally got to the front, I rationalised that to queue for this long, the ride must be bloody amazing.  'Hold onto your hat' I told Betty, as our carriage pulled away.  'Why are we going so slowly?' Betty asked, 'Is the ride broken?'  I was embarrassed, and even more so when literally 30 seconds later we were back at the beginning, and I had to break it to Betty that after all that standing in a line it was time to find something else to do.  'Isn't this all such fun' I said faux-cheefully.  Betty looked intensely annoyed.

From then on, the day just got worse: Dolly got bellowed at by another child who said 'I don't want you here, go away', Betty became increasingly frustrated/upset that she couldn't go on most of the rides, Dolly lost her sacred rabbit comforter, my new shoes were killing my feet, Tom had gone into a depressive state and wouldn't talk, it was hot, and busy, and Betty got temporarily lost.  It was at this point, once we had found her, all of us in tears, tensions at an all time high, we decided to throw in the towel and go home. 

As we sat in traffic on the M25 in uncharacteristic stunned silence, Tom announced: 'I am taking out that National Trust annual membership as soon as we get home'.

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Defeated at this job

I saw a friend on Tuesday evening; she said: 'So... two things happened today...'  I asked her to write it all down and share it:

I keep waiting for the moment, like in a new job, when I feel I have cracked this little job called parenting.

The other day my two-year-old locked herself in our new-ish car. I say locked herself because that’s exactly what happened – she waited for the exact right moment and having wiggled out of her car-seat (courtesy of four-year-old accomplice), crawled through the gap between the front seats, pressing the all-lock button as she went.

I watched, dry throated, as the windows all shut too.

The keys were in the ignition and I was locked out of the house with the four-year-old.

We banged on the windows, gesticulating dramatically while Issy selected the CDs she had been waiting to listen to, unencumbered by other passengers' chatter. She appeared to be laughing at us.

Having locked myself out on previous occasions I have a spare key with a neighbour so we did manage to get into our house and find the spare car-keys.

Phew. I pressed the button but no ‘plip’ – the keys in the ignition obviously override any exterior instructions. My heart began to beat faster – we were now in an official pickle.

Back, more comfortable, in her own car-seat Issy was still smiling along to the music.

Inspired I rang the dealership from where I had proudly driven my car months earlier.

Spluttering over my words, I explained to the nice man on the end of the line my predicament.

“Have you tried using the key in the lock?” he asked calmly.

Embarrassed, I realised how quickly I had forgotten the purpose of an actual key. Of course it worked, the door opened and Issy’s face fell. Her game was over.

“Thank you,” I said to the man.

“Is there anything else I can help you with today?” he professionally followed up.

“Well there is this matter of trying to lose a bit of weight…” I ventured, having regained my sense of humour.

“That, madam, I can’t help you with,” he cheerfully replied.

While I recovered from this frantic half-hour (it had taken a while for my neighbour’s husband to find our key) and made myself a cup of tea I let both girls play in their room. I reconstructed Isabel’s opportunistic strike in my mind, and convinced myself she had been planning it for weeks – she loves the car, and being in it unrestrained.

Tea made I realised how quiet things had got – rarely a good sign.

As I turned the corner into our bedroom I saw Bethan in the process of bathing her little sister, quite well as it happens.

Of course my mind ran into over-ride – scalding, drowning or perhaps, worst of all, hypothermia.

“It’s OK Mum,” Bethan said, “I didn’t let Issy use the hot tap.”

Having calmly pulled the plug and explained in controlled tones the potential to drown in 3 inches of water (or is it less?) I let Bethan get her sister out of the bath and put a nappy on her (the bit I dread most).

I felt defeated and like I'd failed but at least it was nearly the end of my shift.

Imparting wisdom

After hearing the cuckoo for the first time this year:

Me: That was the cuckoo - this means that it is definitely Spring!
Betty: Why does it mean it is Spring?
Me: Because the cuckoo comes in Spring
Betty: Why does he come in Spring?
Me: Because of all the pretty flowers
Dolly: Cuckoo
Betty: Where does he come from?
Me: From far away
Betty: Where?
Me: There it is again... did you hear it?
Betty: Yes. Where is the cuckoo?
Me: In the woods over there
Betty: Why is he in the woods?
Me: Because that's where he likes to be
Betty: Why?
Me: Because he likes woods
Dolly: Cuckoo
Betty: But why?
Me: Umm.... because he likes trees
Betty: Likes trees? Why does he like trees?
Me: Because they protect him from the sun
Betty: Why doesn't he like the sun?
Me: Because it is hot
Betty: Where does he go in the Summer?
Me: Far far away
Betty: Where?
Me: To another country
Betty: Which country?
Me: One across the sea
Betty: So where does he go in the Winter?
Me: Another country
Betty: The same country as in Summer?
Me: I have absolutely no idea

Reproved

Now that Dolly is older, long car journeys have become more bearable of late, and while the kids happily play with some plastic battery-operated gadget or other, and eat their way through copious amounts of snacks (starting from uber healthy to downright bad by the time we reach our destination), I mess around on my mobile phone and give mundane Facebook status updates about where we are on the M4 (purely for the novelty factor; I only ever write status updates on car journeys).  And all is tranquil.

However, just as I had become lulled into smug feelings of happy-journey security, on our last long journey to London at the weekend, the kids' antennae came out and they obviously sensed me being far too relaxed for their liking.
.
There we were, about 2.5 miles into our journey, me happily telling my Facebook friends exactly that, Tom with his slightly gormless driving expression, and the girls smiling sweetly while they ate their raspberries.  When...

'Mummy, I hate your music, please can you put our music on?' said Betty.  'No your music Mummy' said Dolly crossly.  After trying to negotiate with them and teach them the concept of 'fair', I turned Lily Allen off and put on the 'The Wheels on the Bus' CD.  Tom's expression went from gormless to despairing.  To distract myself from the slightly crazed singers on this CD (which has probably been played about 50,000 times), I phoned a friend.  'Me talk phone' said Dolly crossly, over and over.  'Don't talk on the phone Mummy, I cannot hear my music' said Betty. 

And this set the tone for the entire four hour journey to London.  Even when they were gorging on chocolate, I couldn't scratch my leg, look in my bag, have a drink of water, gaze out of the window, touch my phone, talk to Tom, breath or think, without being severely reprimanded.  That'll teach me to think that I can look at an old Tesco receipt found in the glove compartment, in peace.

I shall now be avoiding confined spaces with my sweet children for any length of time, and however much I love London, I don't love it enough...

A wedding commentary

Through the eyes of a four year old:

• I think the princess will be wearing pink with lots of pretty flowers around her head
• I think the princess might be orange
• Are we going to the wedding?
• Would I have to wear white when I get married?
• When is Daddy coming back with the Jaffa Cakes?
• Is Westminster Abbey as big as our house?
• I don't like those noisy people with flags
• Is that the princess? [it was Carole Middleton]
• I want to see the princess
• Is that grandma on the telly?
• Queens are not yellow Mummy
• Is the princess arriving in one of those taxis?
• Is the princess on that motorbike?
• I wish I was getting married - I want to marry my sister
• I really want a Jaffa Cake
• Can I marry my Daddy as well?
• And I want to marry you as well Mummy
• What are those yellow things?
• The princess is smiling and beautiful
• I think the princess has got a bouquet of Buttercups
• Is she holding the princess's dress so that it doesn't get dirty?
• Is the prinesss married yet?
• Why does that man keeping talking and ruining it? [the Bishop]
• Is this what happened when you and Daddy got married?
• Will the princess sit down?
• I don't know that song, do you know that song Mummy?
• Who is that man? [Elton John]
• Is the princess's mummy singing?
• Can I have another Jaffa Cake please?
• Do you know mummy, I have been to a church before
• I would now like to go to the palace in my Snow White dress
• Your wedding dress was just like the princess's dress Mummy
• What are they singing now? [her interest now waning]
• Can I have pickled onions for lunch?
• I am going to find Daddy

Wedding wallow

So, Will and Kate are getting married tomorrow.  I do keep wondering how Kate is faring under all the pressure and media frenzy.  I almost went to pieces several times in the lead up to my own wedding, and we only had 150 guests watching in a little unknown village in the middle of nowhere.  So with the world watching (bar my husband) I cannot even begin to imagine how she feels right now.

And with the wedding, of course, comes all the street parties - there are many celebrations going on around us - all of which Tom refuses to go to.  I tried to form a royal wedding ally in Betty and enthusiastically told her that a real life prince was marrying a lovely girl called Kate tomorrow in a huge church, and that the Queen of England would be there too.  I asked her if she would like to watch it with me on the telly.  'Will there be Jaffa Cakes?' she asked. 

Just when I was feeling thoroughly deflated at the prospect of watching the royal wedding with an uninterested and fidgety four year old, while Tom and Dolly were out having a 'wonderful time', the phone rang.  It was my grandmother.  She asked me if I would like to go and watch the wedding with her on her TV.  I wondered whether Tom had put her up to this, but I felt mildly lifted anyway.  'Shall I bring bunting?' I asked.  'No,' she replied. 'I miss Diana too much.'

I had a dream (by Betty)

Do you know last night I dreamed of a car-house.  It had lots and lots of stairs in it and all my friends were there too and it was very wobbly.  We drove to the church because everyone was getting married and there was lots and lots of cakes and ice-cream and Jaffa Cakes and biscuits.  And all our Mummys were in the car-house going up the wobbly stairs.  And there were lovely beautiful carpets.  There was an old lady who was really really not very nice and she was so so mean to everyone.  The car-house turned into a train-house and the wheel was right on the top.  Me and my friends went right to the top of the train house and we were just seeing if the Mummys were doing the good driving.  On the train-house we went to the soft play centre. My friends amd I lived at the soft play centre.

Betty Button, aged 4

Happy Birthday Dolly Button

I am not going to bang on about how fast time goes and how I cannot believe that my baby Dolly is two (TWO!) already - it is universally accepted that time takes on a whole new pace when you have kids, we all know that too well... I find myself constantly in a perplexed state, trying to catch up.

I hadn't yet woken up this morning, when Dolly snuggled into me (she had come into our bed in the early hours) and sang the following stream of conscientious:

'Happy Birthday to me.  Happy Birthday to you.  Sunny out there.  Spider.  Betty kiss me.  Betty's bed.  Rabbit.  Kiss me Mummy.  Get milk Mummy.  Lid on Mummy.  Daddy's downstairs. I want to touch 'puter button.  My picture'.

Her early morning chorus basically sums Dolly up: She is excited about her birthday, but, as always, wants everyone else to share in the joy and be happy; she loves the sun and pottering around in the garden - when outside she insists on wearing her pink wellies and skipping everywhere; she is ambivalent about spiders; she absolutely worships her big sister (but also sometimes pushes her, yells at her and pulls her hair); her rabbit is her comforter and she strokes it across her face while sucking her thumb (Tom thinks she now has buck teeth - she doesn't); she is a cuddly and kissy little girl; she is sensible and observant; she is obsessed with sabotaging my computer but always asks first if she can touch the buttons (I let her when it is turned off); and lastly on her song list, she has recently unleashed her creativity and feels very pleased with herself about a picture she 'put together' yesterday.

Dolly Button, we are all completely besotted with you (sometimes to your irritation) and are slightly in awe of you: your humour (and humouring), your feistiness, your willpower and your bravery - we feel you are a little bit too cool for us, but feel utterly blessed to have you.

Happy Birthday my darling, beautiful, funny, sweet girl - I hope you enjoy seeing the giraffes and 'phants today, and your Betty Birthday cake...

The demise of Duckie

It is with great regret, and a tiny bit of relief, that I announce that Duckie and Betty, after a four and half year intense relationship, have parted ways. In a statement earlier today, Betty announced that Duckie was now happiest with his 'boy duck friend' resting in a little crib she lovingly prepared for them next to her bed.

He/she (the gender of the duck changed from day to day to suit Betty) hasn't been totally abandoned and is allowed to 'rest' in her bedroom, but no longer does he get to: be a player in all major decisions, go away on weekend breaks, watch CBeebies, partake in meal times, play fairies and princesses, and be breastfed, cuddled, squeezed, chewed and talked at, 24/7. And I very much doubt his little Christmas stocking that I dutifully made for him at Betty's request a few Christmases ago, to match her own stocking, will ever see the light of day again.

Although this is a time of great sadness (Tom is in denial about the whole thing) and we in the Button household feel this new development marks a huge transition in the life of Betty Button, this sadness also comes with a real sense of relief. The duck had become smelly, threadbare and discoloured and no amount of washing could remedy this. No longer do I have the stress of Betty coming to me (on a weekly basis, of late) to show me a new hole in his wing and asking if I can sew it up for her - it got to the point where there was no material left on his wing to actually sew up.  And no longer do we have to live in fear of the duck getting lost.

That duck, who hailed from H&M on Kensington High St, has been in Betty's life since before she was even born and meant more to her than her own parents.  Perhaps now, Tom and I will get the respect and love we deserve and crave from our first-born.

To mark the retirement of Duckie, and the end of an era, I leave you with a picture of him lovingly drawn by Betty, back in the good old days....

Home alone

Tom and Betty went away on a jolly to visit friends last weekend - I really didn't feel like going (very stressful week) and so Dolly and I stayed behind.  And for the first time ever, I spent the night in our house, with no other adults present.

I spent all of Saturday mentally preparing, and trying to hypnotise myself into not being scared of the bleating sheep, the rustling trees, and the people hiding in hedges.  I had to wait until dusk when the pesky chickens had retired into their hut so that I could lock them up before I could retire to bed myself.  Because I was on high alert, mine and Betty's newly-installed homemade scarecrow, next to the chicken run, gave me the shock of my life and with heart pounding I ran back to the house, locked all the doors, hid all the keys, turned all the lights on, took a swig of rum, and went upstairs with my new box-set of Benidorm, an Easter egg, and Heat magazine.

From my bed, I nervously watched dusk turn into darkness and kept giving myself pep talks.  I reasoned that it would be pretty unlucky to get burgled on the one night I was alone in eight years.  Plus, I wasn't actually alone, I had Dolly sleeping soundly in her cot next door, but she isn't even two yet and wouldn't be that much use during a break-in crisis - though saying that, with her Phil Mitchell thuggish tendencies, she would probably be a hell of lot more use than me.

Still I was scared so I decided to sleep with the lights and the TV on in the bedroom - I found a channel showing snooker, so decided that would be calming enough to sleep through.  At 2am I woke to the sound of balls being potted, and Dolly crying.  Spotting an opportunity to join forces against the unknown terrors outside, I went straight to her and asked if she wanted to come into my bed. She said 'no'.  I took her anyway.  I turned the lights and the snooker off and cuddled up to an annoyed Dolly. 

Next thing I knew it was 6.30am, Dolly was fast asleep and as far away as possible from me in the bed, and it was light.  I felt so unbelievably relieved we had made it through the night, and although I had had the help of Dolly, the medicinal rum, the snooker, and all the lights, and had hardly slept, I felt this was a real breakthrough.

In an hour

7.50am - wake up with a start, and remember that I forgot to do an online Tesco shop yesterday.

7.51am - with no bread and fruit in the house, I lie there and worry about what I am going to give the kids for breakfast, and what I can fashion together for Betty's lunch box, without pre-school staff thinking I am a neglectful mother.

8.00am - still in bed, I brace myself for my little darlings to start bellowing 'IS IT MOOOOOORRNING?' in unison over and over until I go to them. 

8.04am - 'IS IT MOOOOOOOORNING?' jolts me from my thoughts of Shreddies, the horrors of training pants, and rusty lunch boxes.

8.05am - unleash the children from their bedroom and put on CBeebies

8.07am - go into kitchen, put kettle on, wash-up, warm up their milk, make tea, prepare breakfast, make Betty's lunch, sweep floor, wipe surfaces/kitchen table.

8.20am - while the kids breakfast on breadsticks and raisins, I choose their outfits - preferred clothing is either in the wash, very creased, or can't be found.

8.25am - start the getting-dressed battle.  Dolly cries because she wants to wear her pyjamas all day and Betty tells me that the dress/leggings combo I have picked out don't work together.  Betty then goes into meltdown when I accidently brush her cheek, while doing her hair. 

8.32am - I tell them not to make each other cry while I go into the bathroom, have a 30 second shower, spray some Batiste (dry shampoo) onto my hair and slap some Nivea on.

8.34am - I get dressed, and search for my shoes and my sunglasses (needed to help hide my white powdery hair).  Dolly has hidden them again, and refuses to tell me where they are.  [She will produce them just before bedtime later, true to form]

8.37am - search for girls bags, coats and shoes, and yell a lot.

8.39am - put some washing on, and look for a consent form and some money for a pre-school trip that afternoon.

8.40am - have three gulps of cold tea, and sweep up the raisins from the floor.

8.41am - try to get kids' coats on, and wipe faces.

8.43am - with breakfast unfinished I tell them to eat it in the car.  I break it to Betty that what she is eating for breakfast is pretty much what she will be having for lunch (with the addition of some olives and a yoghurt).

8.44am - leave the house, kids coats under arm, and me wearing Crocs because I can't find my shoes (no standards), and Betty and Dolly wearing Crocs (because I don't have time to do up shoe laces/buckles, and can't find their shoes anyway).

8.45am - wait while Dolly (at her angry insistence) painstakingly clambers up into her carseat, gets legs caught in the straps, spills her breakfast all over car, loses a Croc etc. 

8.47am - with all of us strapped in and engine going, Betty tells me her feet are cold and could she have some socks.

8.49am - I return to the car with the socks, and have to break up a fight over a plastic horse.  Dolly tells me she needs a wee and I tell her to just do it in her pull-up nappy.  Betty implies that I am a bad mother for not letting Dolly use the toilet. I ignore her.

8.50am - we pull out of our driveway onto main road and Betty informs me her bag with lunch in is still on the porch step.

Making amends with the hens

Tom has been away for most of the week, and is back tomorrow.  Normally I quite enjoy his absence, mainly because I get to watch trashy TV in bed, while eating crisp sandwiches, in peace.  But since getting chickens, I now sightly dread him going away.

He gives me instructions on what I have to do with them, like: let them out at 7am, feed them, talk to them, don't kick them, find them worms, collect the eggs, and then lock them up again at night.

The first morning Tom was away I totally forgot about the chickens until midday, and I only remembered because Betty informed me, with basket in hand, that we were off to collect the eggs.  As we neared the coop, I heard some very angry hen noises - there was no mistaking they were pretty pissed off.  It sounded like they were throwing themselves against the hatch door in an attempt to get out.  I feared they may attack me, so I went in armed with a big stick and bravely told Betty and Dolly to wait for me outside the coop.  I opened the hatch and out they charged with an evil glint in their eye.  I had stupidly forgotten to put out their food, and so they pecked furiously at my shoes and surrounded me in a menacing manner.  I was terrified.  I flapped my arms in an attempt to get them away from me, but they, in turn, began flapping their wings.  'Mummy what are you doing?' Betty called.  'HELP' I called back.  I noted that Dolly was giving me a pitiful look.

I did eventually make it out of the coop, albeit a quivering wreck, and closed the gate firmly.  They still needed food though, but there was no way on earth I was going back in there.  So I grabbed handfuls of corn from the tub and threw it at them over the fence.  The clucking now getting more ferocious, they seemed incensed by my actions and they refused to eat the corn.  'I need to collect the eggs Mummy' Betty said.  'We are not collecting the blinkin eggs' I said. I then frog-marched Betty and Dolly back to the house.

Now safely inside, Betty continued to go on and on about the eggs and insisted that she needed to eat one for her lunch.  At that moment in time, I could not think of anything worse than eating an egg laid by one of those chickens - evil chickens who seemed intent on pecking and flapping me to death.

After a stern, but reasoned, talking to from Betty, and lots of sighing from Dolly, I began thinking a little more rationally about the whole thing.  I concluded that it was unlikely they were killer hens and were just plain hungry.  With my maternal instincts kicking in, I then had intense feelings of guilt, and so decided to cook up a proper wholesome meal for them by way of an apology.  So an hour later, armed with an elaborate vegetarian pasta dish, the girls and I headed back towards the coop.  I gently poured the food over the fence, and talked to them slowly and calmly.  And while they appreciatively gorged on the pasta, I sent Betty in to collect the eggs.

Ambiguity

Betty came home from pre-school the other day, and excitedly gave this picture to me.  Genuinely impressed, and getting rather good at interpreting her creations, I said: Wow that is a brilliant crocodile!'

She coolly replied: 'It's a swimming pool'.

A chicken revelation (by Tom)

As I stood outside my chicken run (the result of three years hard work, on and off) watching four new-to-us bedraggled pullets pecking around, I felt a very familiar but indistinct surge of emotion. The first time I had ever kept chickens! Why were they making that particular clucking noise? Were they good clucks or angsty ones? Were they happy in their new home? Was I hearing an angry or fearful noise? Were they desperate to scale the fence I’d so laboriously constructed?

Slowly, the thought crystallised that I was feeling pretty much exactly the same feeling of utter cluelessness that I’d felt shortly after the arrival on planet Earth of Betty Button. That feeling of being totally, viscerally responsible for another life, feeding it, keeping it warm, and happy, and safe, a feeling that I had assumed would not come around again until, or unless, grandparenthood descended.

I am glad to report that the feeling did not last long – these were ex-battery chickens, retail value £1, and given to us by the neighbouring farmer so we had even saved ourselves that four pound outlay. It really didn’t matter (apart from to the chickens themselves, and even then, after what they’d been through, it was 50:50) whether they keeled over and died right there, or were savaged that night by a crazy rampaging gang of foxes and badgers, or flew out of the cage to begin a new, free and short life in the field over the way. These were not actual human beings with a genetic link to myself and the rest of my family, in whom god or someone like him had placed a precious charge. No, these ladies could fend for themselves or they could face the consequences.

Thus, at least, ran the rational part of my brain. Yet the old familiar feeling niggled. I had just gone through the mostly enjoyable palaver of putting Betty and Dolly to bed, so perhaps I was feeling overly parental. I watched the hens strutting around, descended from jungle fowl, weird and bald from their lives in an absurdly cramped factory farm. I had thought I’d have a hell of a time herding them into the shed, up the crap ladder I’d cobbled together one evening, the sound of whacked nails echoing across the valley, but as I watched they took it in turns to scramble up the ladder and explore the inside of the shed. They seemed genuinely taken with the stick I’d wedged in as a total afterthought of a perch. I felt like cheering. Soon three of them were in. A fourth continued outside and I decided that this would be the problem bird. Things had gone too well and I had visions of cramming it into the shed only to have the other three escaping and so the Benny Hill style routine would carry on until dawn. But then, only a short while later, that last one stalked up the ladder and into the shed. I whipped away the ladder and closed the hatch. They were in. I braced myself for squawking chaos but none came. They were silent. Happy? Hard to say. Asleep? Unlikely at such short notice. But as I strode away from that chicken run, there was an undeniable stirring at a gut level, some atavistic satisfaction at having put a series of creatures to bed. 

Pet deprived

We were given a large lump of frog-spawn the other day.  There it sat in a black bucket next to where we park the car, neglected for several days.  I had totally forgotten about it, until the friend who gave us the spawn asked Betty how her tadpoles were getting on.  Betty, understandably, had no idea what she was talking about.

I promptly cleaned out a large clear plastic tub I found in the shed, and filled it with water from the hose, and in sploshed the jellied mass.  I was surprised to find that during its time in the black bucket the spawn was now literally hundreds of little tadpoles, some of which wiggled around in their new surroundings with delight, but most of which looked dead.  

Betty has been absolutely beside herself with excitement about these tadpoles ever since, and has been looking after them very well.  She has been giving them bread-crumbs, dock leaves, sprigs of rosemary, and twigs to eat, and a stone to sit on.  She then went on to do a picture of the life-cycle of a frog which she has now stuck on her bedroom wall, referring to it when she needs to.  If she is annoying me, all I have to say is: 'How many of your tadpoles have legs now?' and off she goes, and I don't see her for what seems like hours, while she tries to count them.

I was perplexed at her excitement - after some thought, I think she realises that because of my dislike of any animal-type creature, this is the closest she will ever get to having a pet.

The Cottage

On Saturday afternoon, Betty and I threw our sleeping bags and toothbrushes into the car and headed for the hills for the night. We were off to visit my Dad who had travelled down from London to spend a night in the cottage - a holiday cottage he has rented for 40 years, of which the lease will expire later this year.

After an hour long journey winding our way up into the mountains along narrow single track roads, we arrived.  We parked up, scrambled over the gate, and trudged up the muddy field with sleeping bags under arms.  We crossed over the wide stream using the wobbly stepping stones, up a muddy bank, and finally got to the cottage. We saw a wind-up radio perched in the branches of a tree blaring out some local music station, and we saw lots and lots of daffodils.

We entered the cottage, and immediately felt the warmth of the roaring open fire crackling and spitting, and the familiar smell of fried onions and paraffin from the oil lamps filled the damp air. Betty shook her wellies off and slumped into the big old brown leather armchair next to the fire, and asked me for some food. Off I dutifully went to the kitchen where I saw my dad's old bow saw with its orange handle, hanging off a chair. I carefully placed it in the middle of the kitchen table. The large dresser in the corner of the room caught my eye and for the next ten minutes I became completely immersed in my childhood. I opened the cupboard door and found the old metal train set, the wooden bird puzzle, the Rupert annual, and a neat little pile of very old, slightly warped, musty smelling Ladybird books. 'The First Day of the Holidays' (about a pair of penguin siblings called Pen and Gwen, who didn't want to shell peas and instead found a motorcycle to go for a joyride on) particularly caught my eye. I hadn't seen this book for almost 30 years. The nostalgia started seeping in. I held onto the book and decided I would read it to Betty at bedtime.

Completely forgetting Betty's food, I went up the steep narrow spiral stone staircase - the steps were warmed by the fire beneath - and was immediately drawn to a painting (by me at around Betty's age) hanging from a cherub on the bedroom wall.  It had faded with age, and I wondered what I was like when I was four, and what I'd been thinking about at the time.  I looked at the bunk bed I used to sleep in and affectionately remembered another picture I had drawn, of a jar of Marmite, stuck to the bed rail for many years. I felt the mattress and it was hard and lumpy, and I couldn't believe I had never noticed this before.  Memories of my dad kissing me goodnight, and the sound of the crackling fire and the kettle whistling early in the morning came flooding back.  This is where Betty and I would be sleeping tonight.

Betty called to me: 'Mummy, I am starving' which quickly snapped me out of my reminiscence. I went back downstairs and sat in the armchair opposite Betty. I looked at her sitting there for the first time, in a chair, a cottage, a valley, that has always been so unbelievably dear and special to me, a place I rarely come to these days, but spent so many happy times here as a child at weekends and during the school holidays. A place that has been ours since before I was born, but a place that will no longer be ours very soon.

My Dad then appeared in the doorway holding a broken wooden rake, and said 'Hey there you two, cup of tea?' I suggested we all went to the local pub instead, before it got dark, and I wondered if the pool table would still be there. 

I desperately wanted Betty to have a taste of everything I had experienced when I was her age at this magical place.

The following morning Betty and I woke to the sound of the crackling fire and the kettle whistling, and my dad clanking around downstairs.  We toasted bread on the fire for breakfast, played in the treehouse, raked the grass, explored the stream, and I took lots and lots of photos of every little thing: the food cupboard with its wire mesh front, the ancient calor gas cooker, the wooden cabinet holding glasses, mugs, tins of baked beans and toilet rolls, the oil lamps (one in particular with its big white berry-like shade), the table with lawn mower underneath, everything.  And when it was time to leave, I walked back across the stream, and down the muddy field, with Betty in one hand, and the Ladybird book about the penguins in the other.

Next Blog

Yesterday, Tom had been out all day helping his pig farmer friend put up a new pig fence half a mile long, so was knackered and went to bed at 8pm last night. I have given up wine for lent, there was nothing on TV (which is quite a statement coming from me), and I had no one to talk to. I decided to start a new stripy jelly creation, but as each layer takes over an hour to set I felt there must be more exciting ways to spend a Friday night.  Our house was freezing because the sun had been out and I had mistaken this for Summer, so I had turned off all our heating.  So through boredom and coldness I too went to bed, half an hour behind Tom.

In bed, Tom was in a heavy sleep, but I was not in the least bit tired.  So I sat up in the dark and turned on my laptop.  I began typing out a blog post, but in amongst his thunderous snoring, Tom somehow woke up and told me off for making too much noise.  Trying to think of things I could do that didn't involve actual typing, I cast my eye to the top of my blog page and saw the 'Next Blog' option.  I figured a bit of silent mouse control and the odd mouse click would not be detected by Tom. 

I spent the next two hours engrossed in the world of 'Next Blogs'.  I think I must have looked at around 100  blogs, and I made myself give each and every one a chance (unless they were written in a language I didn't understand ie. not English).

I was surprised to find that the majority of the blogs I came across were Mom blogs, and most had very similar styles: a photo of an immaculate Mom and Dad and their two kids, all smiling big perfect-teeth smiles in some idyllic looking setting as the blog header; lots of swirling colorful fonts, and lots and lots of photos of their kids' trips to butterfly farms or play centers. 

Every so often I would come across some fascinating reads: a blog that described a woman's lifelong obsession with women's pants, another woman's journey of adopting an Ethiopian girl, and a man writing about how he walks backwards everywhere and documents people's reactions. 

When I eventually turned off my laptop and lay down to sleep, my head was buzzing with the information from all these different peoples lives.  Annoyingly I didn't save any of the blogs to my favourites list, so they have disappeared into the big black blog hole, and so I will never find out how the walking-backwards-man got on during his upcoming trip to Snowdonia, for example.

Taking the fifth

Betty woke at 5.30am the other morning  claiming to be 'disappointed' with the temperature in her room.  The commotion woke Dolly up.  Tom stayed in their bedroom with Dolly, and sent Betty off into our bedroom, on the understanding that she would sneak into our bed and go to sleep quietly next to me (I was ill).

This was the conversation the following morning:

Tom:  Betty, did you let Mummy stay asleep when you got into bed with her?

Betty: Yes Daddy, I did.

Me:  You did not!  You nagged me for an hour about putting the TV on and then you informed me that 'you were not my slave' when I asked if you could find the remote control yourself.  You then went on and on about how Duckie [her toy duck] wasn't very well, and you became irate when I wouldn't switch the light on to find him some Calpol.

Tom:  Betty?  Is this true?

Betty:  No Daddy, it isn't true.  I let Mummy sleep.  I was a good girl, I went straight to sleep.

Me:  Betty!  You did not!  You are fibbing.  You must not fib, it is naughty.  I am taking away your treat today.

Betty looking panic stricken, thinks for a second

Betty:  But Mummy, I can't know what I am saying.

Long pause

Tom to Me: I think she is claiming the fifth amendment... or maybe trying to make out that she wasn't of sound mind at the time of the utterance? We seem to have either a great lawyer or a criminal mastermind on our hands here.

On a plate

A couple of  blokes in fluorescent jackets and hard hats appeared in my garden early this morning.  I shook Tom awake and politely asked him what the heck they were doing there.  It turned out they had come to put scaffolding up at the front of our house, ready for the solar panel installation people on Monday. 

The solar panels are part of Tom's save the world crusade, along with refusing to go on an aeroplane ever again, trying to stubbornly cycle everywhere on his electric bike, and having a go at me every time a lorry backs up our driveway and dumps on our doorstep 'more clutter that will only end up in landfill'.  I had to put my foot down when he tried to convince me that we could get by (as a family of four which includes two small children needing large cumbersome carseats) with just a Smart car and an electric bike.

Of course, I have total admiration and respect for everything he is doing, and I agree that things certainly need to be done, but not necessarily at the cost of making things impossible.

Having solar panels is the latest thing, and while I was nervous about it because of the huge initial costs, I am actually really pleased because it has given me peace of mind, that when the world does go completely tits up, I will at the very least still be able to watch TV.  Tom has been giving me pep talks for the last few weeks in preparation, and has told me that once the panels have been installed I am only allowed to use the washing machine and the kettle when the sun is shining, for example.

Anyway, after heaving Tom out of bed to go and see to them,  I then walked across the landing, which has one large long window running across it, to get to the bathroom.  I looked down and saw the scaffolding men outside, on the ground, drinking the tea that Tom had made for them and looking quite settled.

I had my shower, and then merrily strode back across the landing, with just a towel round my waist, like I do every morning, but this morning I came face to face with the two men , who were now at the window of my landing at first floor level.  I was already halfway across the landing when I clocked them, and so it was too late to turn back, as I would have drawn more attention to myself.  So I continued my stride, hunched over, and head down, and dived through my bedroom door. 

Outside the bedroom I could hear my darling children shouting things through the window like: 'Look men, do you like our shoes?' or 'Hello men, would you like my mummy to make you some more tea?' As I got dressed, in a mortified state, I went over and over it in my mind, did they see me, or didn't they?  There is no way they could not have seen me.  I hung around in the bedreoom for as long as I possibly could, until Tom bellowed up the stairs 'Elsie, it's 10 o'clock, I need you to take the kids, I have to get to work, WHERE ARE YOU?  I emerged from the bedroom, fully dressed, and casually took a photo of the men at my landing window as I walked past to go downstairs.

No sooner had this photo been taken than Dolly escaped into the garden chanting 'man, tea? man, tea?' and I had to run out after her to retrieve her and face these men in the flesh, when all I really wanted to do was disappear in a puff of smoke.

Jelly in the bin

Both Tom and I were ill with the same thing over the weekend.  However, he was the one convalescing in bed, and I was the one soldiering on.  As a distraction from how rough I felt I decided to make a stripy jelly with the kids (pictured left).  This creation took us all of Saturday. 

As I coughed and sputtered and sneezed over orange and pink and purple jelly cubes and waited patiently for each layer to set before adding the next one, Betty remarked 'But Mummy I don't even like jelly anymore'.  And it is a known fact that, like me, Dolly has never liked jelly.  'Ok' I thought, 'so you and your sister don't like jelly (although yesterday you loved jelly you fickle little four year old), but Granny and Daddy love jelly'. 

Once all the layers had set, I began turning it out of the mould and the nerves and excitement really started to set in.  Out glooped the jelly, and there it proudly wobbled, perfectly formed, in all its stripy glory.  I placed it on the table and stared at it in awe.  Jelly really is an exciting and versatile medium to work with.  Betty sauntered up and said 'Why have you made that yucky jelly Mummy?'  I ignored her. 

It turned out that Tom was 'too poorly' to eat jelly, and Granny didn't want to catch my germs that were 'more than likely festering all over it'.  So with no-one actually wanting to eat the jelly, I took hundreds of photos of it, then ate a token spoonful of it, before slopping it into the bin; rationalising that the whole thing only cost £1.20 and that it had helped take my mind off the feelings of wanting to stick my head in the oven.

I am now dreaming up my next jelly creation.  The next one, when I am better (for I have now succumbed to my illness, kicked Tom out of bed, and am under the duvet), will involve Betty and Dolly's castle shaped beach buckets. Having researched how to create new and exciting colours of jelly, the possibilities are endless.  For me, jelly is the new play dough. 

Dolly mixture

Dolly will be two next month.  Her first two years have gone in a flash, and suddenly, it feels like overnight, I find myself not with a Phil Mitchell look-alike baby, but a feisty, independent and very pretty toddler.  The term 'toddler' doesn't feel right when describing her, because although she is a little person who toddles, it feels too unsophisticated for her, or slightly patronising.

So, I have a little person who moves purposefully around, busying herself with making us all copious amounts of tea in her toy kitchen, and taking random items for walks in her toy pram; yesteray I noted she had strapped in a toy train, a felt tip lid, a toy sheep and a little metal tin.  And her dolls had been placed in her oven.

When she is not making us all laugh out loud with her sheer, and very deliberate funniness (and subsequently laughing at her own jokes), she is either holding forth in an argument with Betty, being naughty and not taking the blindest bit of notice if we tell her off, demanding that my yoga dvd be put on 'I want yoga on' so that she can stick her nappy bottom in the air, or demanding cuddles and showering us with kisses.  The kissing thing is always on her terms though - if I dare to give her a kiss without prior authorisation she gets stroppy and says 'No kiss Mummy'. 

At not quite two years old yet, the little lady's vocab is huge. Compared (and I know one shouldn't compare but it's often all you have to go on) to Betty who barely uttered a word until past two, she is talking in short sentences. Having said this, this advancement must almost definitely be attributed to Betty actively teaching her to talk - Dolly mainly talks about farts, poos, sweets and chocolate.

Although Dolly mostly refers to me as 'Mummy' she does sometimes decide to call me by my name, perhaps when I am misbehaving.  And where I am the one that can normally decipher everything she says, she often looks at me and says 'TART' and I genuinely cannot work out what she is trying to say.  She cannot be calling me a tart, can she?  Anyway, despite her thinking me a tart, she is a bit of a Mummy's girl and she looks just like I did when I was her age; it is a weird sensation looking at your child and constantly being reminded of hundreds of photos of yourself when you were little.  She also has this thing of wandering around with nothing on but her wellies; something I used to do.

I could go on all day long about this gorgeous little specimen of a child, but will finish here for now, by saying the little tyke melts me about 100 times a day, and both Tom and I (and Betty, though she probably wouldn't always admit it) are totally smitten.

Redundancy

Last Friday afternoon was Betty's first induction session at school.  In the hours leading up to it I was an emotional wreck.  I had an urge to listen to 80s music - the music from my own school days.  I imagined walking Betty up the school playground later that day for the first time and I cried.  I remembered walking up the very same playground on my first day of school.  I thought about my childhood and wondered how and when I got to where I am now, with two children of my own, one about to start school, and the other not that far behind.  I opened the cupboard to seek out my secret stash of chocolate buttons and they had gone.  I cried. 

It wasn't the physical act of taking Betty to school for the first time that was bothering me, for she is desperate to go and so ready for it, but the symbolism of it all.  I have spent the last four and half years in a blissful little mummy bubble (ok, not always blissful I know, sometimes bloody hard, as this blog documents, but totally blissful in retrospect) and now it feels like I am entering back into real life.  A life full of rigid routines that I will no longer have any say over, a life of my kids not being around nearly so much, a life of things becoming slightly more out of my control.  I know that my children are still only four and two and not about to leave home, but suddenly life seems a little more serious. 

No more whiling away the days making play dough, painting, throwing glitter everywhere, dressing up as fairies, having playdates, going to the playground, watching CBeebies.  Well not with Betty anyway.  Of course I still have my gorgeous delightful Dolly to do all these lovely things with, but both she and I will really really miss Betty's presence.  And even my baby Dolly (who will be two in a few weeks) will be starting pre-school after Easter, and embarking on her own rapid flight out of the nest.

So with all of this going on, I feel emotional, and sad, but happy, and a little bit like I am heading for redundancy in my current job.

Hydrangeas, my mum, and me

The Hydrangea, often associated with elderly people, is my favourite flower, and so I was delighted to discover a big Hydrangea bush in the garden of our holiday cottage last September. I made Betty stand in front of it for a good fifteen minutes whilst I took hundreds of photos. I'm not sure what I was trying to capture; maybe moments from my childhood, a time when there were no demands, no unbearable feelings of angst, no responsibility, no nothing, apart from being a happy, carefree little girl being well looked after by her doting mother.

We used to have a Hydrangea bush in our garden when I was little. I used to love looking at it with its massive pink and blue flower heads all bunched together - so striking and beautiful. I would pick the petals and create fairyland.

Now, whenever I see a Hydrangea I am catapulted right back to when I was a child and I see my mum, probably the age I am now, standing in front of the flower hugging a mug of coffee, and smiling and looking pretty, with the sun shining in her hair. This memory makes me feel warm, but also desperately sad. Warm, because they were happy times, and sad because those times have well and truly gone. I have lost my mum, as she was then. She no longer looks after me. It is now me who looks after her. To watch her suffering is horrendous, and I feel utterly helpless, and angry. I want her to be how she was; just the simple things like walking, cooking, driving, being happy.

I don't talk about what is happening with my mum very much at all (she has progressive MS) because I can't, it is too painful. I can barely bring myself to even say the word. She says that the one thing that keeps her going and brings her joy, is her beautiful adoring granddaughters.  I just wish she could share in the joy wholeheartedly.

Since discovering the Hydrangea in the holiday cottage garden, we then saw the flower absolutely everywhere, whilst driving around Pembrokeshire. And in all sorts of vibrant shades of pinks, purples, and maroons, colours I had never seen before. I have yet to see the exact same pale blue and pink version of my mum's garden all those years ago - so perfect and beautiful and unique.

Our debut animation

We were sent a webcam-based animation studio, and we had such fun with it - it is very addictive, and the possibilities are endless.  Read full review here

Betty and the bridge man (by Tom)

Elsie asked me to relay this slightly tragic tale.

Each day we cross over a toll bridge on the way to Betty’s pre-school. A man takes your money and gives you a ticket and then the barrier swings up. Pretty regular really. For some time Betty had been grilling me on why the man said a cheery ‘Good morning’ to me and my reply was a mumbled ‘Morning’. I told her it was because I was half asleep and didn’t really like the phrase ‘Good morning’ or some other such nonsense.

After several days of this exact same conversation I decided to throw it back at Betty. I wound down Betty’s window on the approach to the bridge and told Betty to say ‘Good morning’ to the man. This she did, incredibly loudly, and the man was quite startled, but also quite pleased I think.

This carried on for a few mornings until, pleased with the way I had shifted the onus of the greeting onto Betty, I decided to go a step further and got Betty to give the toll bridge man the money for the ticket. Betty was happy to do this and I told Elsie about the whole situation and for a while everyone was happy. After a while the man asked Betty her name and soon an entire conversation was taking place. Probably the pinnacle of this was as follows:

I would wind down Betty’s window and the man would say ‘Good morning Betty’, and Betty would say ‘Good morning’ and the man would say ‘How are you this morning?’ and Betty would say ‘Fine thank you’ and meanwhile the money-ticket exchange took place.

Then disaster struck. To this day I don’t know what caused it. First of all Betty decided the money was too cold and insisted I took back the responsibility of paying for the ticket. I did so, but, for a while at least, Betty and the man exchanged pleasantries. Then Betty announced that she ‘didn’t want to say hello to the man all the time’. She said she was happy to greet him on Saturdays, knowing full well that she doesn’t go to pre-school on Saturdays. I tried winding the window down anyway, thinking Betty would soften when the man greeted her. However there was a very awkward moment when the man said ‘Good morning Betty’ and Betty just stared straight ahead. After that I didn’t bother winding down Betty’s window.

For a few days, the man glanced at Betty’s window, perhaps thinking of the good times, but when she continued to stare blankly ahead he finally threw in the towel. Now they completely ignore each other and it’s very embarrassing. I have considered trying to explain to the man that Betty isn’t normally so aloof, but it feels like any excuse would just sound hollow, so I have just pretended that nothing ever happened. I have made an effort to say ‘Good morning’ myself in a slightly more cheery way. Possibly this is what Betty had intended all along, and the man was just collateral damage.

Small steps

On New Year's Day, I sat in Pizza Express with Tom, Betty and Dolly finishing my final mouthful of pizza and announced to Tom that I was going to get back to a size 10 in 2011 (an ambitious statement). I wanted to go straight to the shops and buy an exercise bike after we'd eaten . As I ate my way through an enormous portion of Tiramasu, I felt guilt-free, knowing that my diet was going to start just as soon as we left the restaurant, and that the blood-type diet (recommended by my very skinny sister) and an exercise bike were going to solve all my weight problems.

So with the bike assembled and proudly in-situ, I sat and stared at it in wonder and awe: 'Wow my very own excercise bike, why didn't I ever think of getting one before?'  I then got to work and began to research on the Internet exactly what this blood type diet was all about. At first I was horrified to discover that being Blood Group O, foods such as bread, cereal, dairy, eggs, citrus fruits, and bacon, were all forbidden.  Having worked out that I could eat mackerel and kale for lunch and supper every day, I was genuinely baffled about what I could possibly eat for breakfast, other than wine and chocolate, both of which are allowed in this diet.  I discovered that a slice of bread is around 100 calories and an After Eight chocolate is only 35, which meant I could eat three of them for my breakfast, instead of my usual toast, which was now forbidden anyway.

Satisfied with what I could and could not eat, I stepped onto the bike, which I cunningly placed in front of a window, and began pedalling.  As I sweated and puffed my way through 4 miles, while gazing out of the window and imagining myself gleefully cycling through fields and woods, I became a little bit obsessed with the calorie counter. I worked out that having burnt off 200 calories I could legitimately go and eat a further two breakfasts (aka six After Eights), and so I did just that.

At the same time as buying the bike I also bought an Abs Roller.  I thought that for someone like me, who cannot normally do even one sit-up, this artificial aid would be the answer.  Betty's frustration at seeing me lying on this contraption, huffing and puffing and failing to lift myself off the floor by even one inch was very obvious, and she marched over to me, pulled me up with the bar that goes across, really aggressively and fast, and when I was obviously completely done in and out of breath she said 'Come on Mummy five more then we'll stop'.  My stomach, neck and back are now in agony.

And speaking of Betty giving me a complex, the yoga dvd that I was given for Christmas is a big hit with her. She insists on putting it on every evening before bed, and effortlessly and bendily carries out all the routines, while I sit on the sofa with a glass of wine, visualising a size 10 me, and watch her.

Christmas round-up

The last couple of weeks have been lovely, and despite the snow and ice, thankfully all grandparents managed to visit and share presents and Christmas cheer. My mum got more than she bargained for, and arrived at our house on 14th December for her birthday, got well and truly snowed in, and couldn't leave til the 28th when the snow thawed.

The much anticipated Christmas Day came and went in a flash.  I absolutely love Christmas day; spending a day at home, with just the four of us.  The morning was spent discovering bulging stockings and empty sherry glasses by the fire and then opening them up in our bed together - Tom and I sat back with a cup of tea and watched Betty completely overcome with excitement, and true to form gravitated towards Duckie's stocking first (his orange bath salts were the hit of the day), and Dolly matter-of-factly pulling different items from her stocking, sometimes sighing, and often only half unwrapping them before getting bored and then trying to steal the duck's bath salts, just to wind Betty up.  After a delicious breakfast, we then opened presents from under the tree. Dolly sniffed out some cheese from under the tree and I caught her hiding in another room, her little fingers desperately trying to unwrap it, meanwhile Betty was effortlessly carrying out a challenge set by Tom of bouncing on her new space hopper for a full hour.  We spent the rest of the day eating amazing food, playing with new toys, totally relaxing, and revelling in all the excitement, and carrying out our special little rituals and traditions with our children in our home - it is indeed my favourite day of the year.

I also love the week following Christmas, where visitors come, and the celebrations continue.  Sadly a lot of our visitors were put off this year due to the bad weather.  My dad was one that made it through.  He came laden with beautiful presents, and lots of his own homemade produce, including Victoria plum jam and sausage rolls, and copious amounts of chocolate.

After staying up til 2am with him, chatting and putting the world to rights, and then the girls waking him up early the next morning with their large Christmas cymbals and trumpets, we went for a bracing walk in dense fog down to the ice-ridden river.  It was pretty spectacular.  We then had a lovely lunch at the local farm shop, with Dolly donning a black eye (after falling on to the prong of a wooden boat) and slippers (we forgot to put her shoes on), and then sadly my dad went on his way.  Not before Betty and I went to the cafe loo and Betty exclaimed very loudly: 'MUMMY!!! YOU ARE WEARING ENORMOUS PANTS! - THEY ARE HUGE!'  And you know what four year olds are like, they don't tend to let things go in a hurry.

Last night, I sat down on the sofa in an exhausted heap, with a glass of wine and a pizza, and watched my new yoga dvd (to see what I am up against), given to me by a well-meaning family member, who I think may also have caught sight of my huge pants.

And now we prepare for our New Year's Eve celebrations.  Our pig-rearing friends are bringing their own ham for us to feast on, other friends are joining us with cheeses and puddings, and hopefully, with the kids fast asleep in bed, we can ring in 2011 with gusto.

Happy New Year!

Emotionally blackmailed by a toy duck

As I sat on my bedroom floor yesterday afternoon, wrapping presents, I had Betty's excitable words ringing in my ears: 'I wonder what Duckie will get in his stocking this year'.  Duckie is Betty's comfort toy that she has been inseparable from since she was born, and many a blog post has been written about him.

She is more excited about what her toy duck is going to get from Father Christmas, than what she might get herself.  This sets the tone for what her relationship with Duckie is all about.  He (and sometimes Duckie is a girl, depending on the situation) means the absolute world to Betty. There are times when none of us are allowed to make a sound because Duckie is having a nap, or none of us are allowed to sit down because Betty has made some elaborate bed for him out of ALL the cushions and chairs in the house, or none of us are allowed to enjoy our shepherd's pie in peace because Duckie has decided he doesn't like it. 

Duckie gets to blow Betty's birthday candles out with her, gets stories read to him, gets chocolate fed to him, and basically gets a hell of a lot of love and affection.  I have to be honest, I sometimes find myself resenting that duck - the duck that can do no wrong, the duck that has everything, the duck that is more highly thought of by Betty than her own mum, or dad, or little sister.

Anyway, I sat on my bedroom floor yesterday, wondering what to do about the duck and whether or not he should get a stocking this year - a stocking that I made for him last year, at the same time that I made one for Betty and Dolly.  I thought it would be a nice gesture for him to have a stocking too, but didn't think about the long-term consequences. Having set the precedent, this might have to be a tradition that will be carried through into Betty's adulthood.  And what if Dolly suddenly decides next year (she is thankfully too young this year) that if the duck gets a stocking, then so should her (comfort) rabbit that she has been inseparable from since the day she was born?  Well, it would only be fair (although I suspect that giving a stocking to a cuddly toy would be beneath her)

So what to do?  Risk breaking my little girl's heart, and possibly ruining her entire Christmas, by not facilitating a visit from Father Christmas to her duck? Or accept the fact that I now have not just two lots of presents to buy (which is hard enough), but instead I have three, maybe four?

I finished wrapping the last of the presents for Betty and Dolly, and then reached up into the wardrobe and pulled down a little stocking.  I then wrapped up a little bag of orange bath salts, a rubber duck, a tube of fairy dust, and a duck-shaped bracelet, and put them in Duckie's stocking.

Betty goes to Bethlehem

I was particulary excited about Betty being cast as Mary in the pre-school nativity play, mainly for the reasons mentioned in my last post, but also because when I was a child, I only ever played the part of an Olive Tree, or some other static, non-talking object.

The weeks following the news that Betty was to play Mary, I obsessed over what colour and style Mary's head-dress would have been.  I trawled through google images and finally settled on the right shade of blue.  I fashioned a tunic out of an old sheet, hacked up an old blue pillowcase, and got Betty to try it all on.  She remarked that she looked like a nurse, and Tom remaked that she looked like a nun.  I rectified this by re-styling the head-dress, and subsequently cutting up an old fake pashmina hanging up in my wardrobe.

On the morning of Betty's nativity my stomach was in knots and I couldn't eat.  I tried my damnedness not to let my nerves show in front of Betty, but she is an astute little lady, and after breakfast, as cool as a cucumber, summoned me to the sitting room.  She calmly told me to sit next to her on the sofa, stroked my arm, whilst soothingly telling me the nativity story, asking me questions every so often to check I was listening: 'What were the colour of Joseph's shoes?' or 'How many donkeys were there in Bethlehem?'  'Shall we practice your lines?' I asked her.  'No Mummy' she said 

We arrived at the village hall half an hour early.  It was one of the longest half hours of my life - it felt like I was waiting for a really important job interview.  Betty said: 'Don't worry Mummy' before breezing off to join the rest of the cast on stage. 

The play began and Mary and Joseph belted out their two duets whilst having a bit of a fight over who was going to cuddle baby Jesus.  And the shepherds were having an inpromptu hay fight behind them.  Meanwhile Tom was chasing a wayward Dolly around the hall, and I was taking photos with a suddenly very loud camera (I am sure I saw Betty shaking her head at me at one point). 

Once the (fantastic) performance had finished all the children rejoined their parents. Betty came towards me excitedly wielding a chocolate bar.  'You were brilliant my darling, well done, how do you feel?!'  I said.  But as far as Betty was concerned the play was now done and dusted, and all she wanted to talk about was this blimin bar of chocolate she had been given by her teacher.

Meek to Mary

This time last year Betty went to a different pre-school to the one that she goes to now.  At home she was a happy, confident child, who loved to make us laugh with her impersonations, comedy remarks, and theatrical antics - she was life and soul, and would never shut up.

However, I became so concerned about her increasing lack of enthusiasm and defiance about leaving the house in the mornings to go to pre-school (sometimes in tears), that I asked the play manager if I could secretly observe her to see if I could get to the bottom of things.  I was shocked and upset to see a very timid, shy, and unconfident Betty - I didn't recognise her at all.  It broke my heart. 

I agonised for several weeks over what the problem might be, and what I should do.  She was once happy to go, but now she was not.  I thought perhaps it might be related to the birth of Dolly?  Or maybe she was being picked on?  Or she found it too noisy?  Or she didn't like the decor?  Or perhaps it was just her age and she would come out of it?

I spoke to the staff at the pre-school (who told me she was quiet, but happy), I spoke to family and friends, I spoke to fellow bloggers, I trawled different websites, looking for the right thing to do.  Nobody could really give me answers, but the best piece of advice I received was to simply respect and listen to my child, and listen to my gut feeling.  This wasn't rocket science, but these few words helped enormously, and the next day I nervously handed in our notice at this pre-school, knowing that with very limited places, it was highly unlikely I would ever get Betty back in if we were to change our minds.  But as I walked away from there, I felt a sense of overwhelming relief (if a little bit anxious about having both her and Dolly at home with me 24/7).

Shortly after this, we found another pre-school, slightly further away, but immediately Betty fitted in, she was back to her recognisable self, and absolutely loved going.   And fast forward one year, she was given the part of Mary in her first nativity play, and yesterday, she stood on the stage in front of a huge audience, totally unfazed, and belted out two songs with Joseph.  This is something I would never have imagined her doing a year ago, when I peeped through the little square window of her old pre-school, and saw her sitting in the corner, too timid to speak during circle time, and looking a little bit sad.

The do's and don'ts for a fourth birthday party

• Do not go into meltdown when your child casually drops a bombshell, the night before her birthday party, following three months of meticulous preparation, by informing you she would ‘really really love’ a Peppa Pig theme.

• Do bake the jam tarts, fairy cakes, chocolate brownies etc. at least two days before the party and then hide them away in an air-tight box. Slightly stale homemade cakes are more impressive than shop-bought ones. Alternatively, drop the supermum/domestic goddess routine and buy a load of cakes from the supermarket.

• Do not think, after a couple of glasses of wine, that it is a good idea to eat your way through the aforementioned box of cakes during a particularly grueling episode of Eastenders. You will feel a particularly acute type of guilt in the morning.

• Do hide away anything you would prefer not to get ruined, ie. the birthday child’s new princess fairy playhouse. Any boys attending will get confused and mistake it for a trampoline.

• If hosting a party during winter, do not stick to the rule of inviting one child per year of the birthday child ie. four years equals four invitees. Half the invitees won’t come due to illness. Instead invite 20 children, and then you might get enough children attending to warrant a party.

• Do treat yourself to a glass of wine (or, more cunningly, wine hidden in a teacup) during the party chaos. You deserve it.

• Do not put your husband in charge of the music for Pass the Parcel. He will panic, forget all party etiquette and, amongst lots of eager and excited children, will accidentally stop the parcel with its final wrapping on his own dad.

• Do put your husband in charge of the hotdog-and-chips party food. Try not to show your fury when he arrives home from the supermarket the night before the party with crinkle cut chips in batter (along with the extra batch of fairy cakes).

• Do not believe the claim that the ‘Egyptian Mummy’ toilet paper game is suitable for 3-4 year olds.

• Do not wait until it is raining before herding everyone outside to watch Chinese lanterns (billed as the Grand Finale) struggling to clear a hedge and float up into the sky.

• Do remember to present the birthday child with her much anticipated hedgehog cake, and sing happy birthday.

• Do not hold a birthday party next year. Instead, take the child to her favourite restaurant and give her a balloon.

Rocks

This was a conversation between me and Betty, at 3am the other night:

Betty:  Mummy, tomorrow I would really like to go on a picnic with you, Daddy, and Dolly, and Alfie and Rachel [her friends], to the desert.

Me: That sounds lovely my darling, now go to sleep.

Betty:  So can we go on a picnic to the desert tomorrow Mummy?

Me:  No.  Go to sleep.

Betty:  Why No?

Me:  Because the desert is a very very very very long way away in a very far away country.

Betty:  But mummy I really don't mind sitting in the car for a long time to get there.  I was a good girl in the car all the way to London...

Me:  London is just down the road, the desert is a very long way away.

Betty:  But I love the desert.  What is it made out of?

Me:  Sand.

Betty:  What is sand made out of?

Me:  Rocks

Betty:  You said the moon was made from rocks the other day.  Why is everything made from rocks Mummy?

Me:  It's not.

Betty:  Are there rocks in the desert?

Me:  No.

Betty:  But you said that sand was made from rocks?  And that the desert was made from sand.

Me:  Yes.

Betty:  Do you like rocks Mummy?

Me:  Not particularly

Betty:  So you don't like sand then, and going to the beach?

Me:  I didn't say that.  Go to sleep.

Betty:  And you don't like the beautiful moon?

Me:  Yes I do like the moon.

Betty:  But you don't like rocks.  Have you changed your mind?

Me:  Yes, I love rocks.

Betty:  I love rocks too.  Can we go on a picnic to the desert tomorrow Mummy?

Betty is four today!

For her birthday post last year I wrote about Betty's disappearing babyness. Well it's all gone now and I no longer look at her and cling to any remaining baby traits she might have. Instead I look at her and think 'Is she really only four?'

She knows every little road, T-junction, house, bend, within a 50 mile radius of our house. If I accidentally take a wrong turn, I don't know, say 35 miles away, whilst visiting her great grandmother, she is on it, before I am. 'Mummy stop the car, and turn around, you have got us lost again.'

She often points out to Tom or me, that what we are wearing 'looks terrible'. She then rifles through our wardrobe, tutting and shaking her head, and picks out a better contender to go with Tom's brown trousers, or my purple skirt. And the scary thing is she is always right.

She is obsessed with tights. If she is being naughty, I use the 'if you don't stop doing that you will not be allowed to wear tights tomorrow' line, and it works a treat, every time.

She loves to build dens, or rather 'nests' out of cushions and blankets and bean bags and chairs or whatever else she can find. I'm almost certain that she was either a bird in a former life (the way she pieces soft furnishings together is quite extraordinary) or she will become a builder in adulthood.

She now goes to ballet lessons and absolutely loves it. Before her first lesson I told her that she had to do what the ballet teacher told her, and that way she would become a ballerina. Betty told me 'But mummy, what can the teacher show me that I don't already know?'

She loves to write out all the letters of the alphabet, and can write her own name unaided, and she will often nag me to get out her writing books so that she can practice. Her artwork is also pretty mindblowing, as is her dancing and singing and sense of rhythm. (Yes, I am blowing my own daughter's trumpet, but it's her birthday, so I'm allowed.)

Tom and I visited the school that she will be attending next year, and met with the head teacher. We were introduced to her future teacher and shown her classroom. The words 'Betty' and 'school' make me want to shout 'NOOOOO' and sob into my pillow.

Betty is growing up unnervingly fast.

Happy Birthday my darling, gorgeous, funny girl - I hope your day is filled with fun and happiness. And I hope your hedgehog cake, party, and presents, all live up to your expectations.

Your mummy and your daddy and your little sister all love you very very much.

Pregnant v Fat

We had friends staying for the weekend, and we took them to the pub on Sunday for lunch.  Tom and I had an utterly relaxing and indulgent couple of hours, eating lovely food, drinking wine, and actually managing a proper conversation, without being interrupted every two seconds by children who seem to take exception to us doing just that.  Meanwhile our friends chased Betty and Dolly round and round the pub.  It was wonderful.

As we all walked through the bar to leave, feeling happy and full, I bumped into an old school friend.   We had a chat about her children and then I pointed out my children, who were both now perched up on bar stools.  She said 'And you're expecting again I see, how exciting!'  'No I am not pregnant, I am just fat' I retorted.  However, she obviously thought I was having a laugh, and then said 'Oh come on, when's the little baby gonna pop out?'  I then found myself desperately and rather pathetically trying to convince her that I was not up the duff.  

Having finally convinced her, she tried to remedy the situation and asked how old Dolly was.  I told her 18 months.  'Oh well, there you go, Dolly is still very young, which is why you haven't lost the baby weight yet' she said.  I felt there was nowhere left to go with this conversation, so I grabbed my children and walked out, rejoining Tom and our friends in the carpark. 

I have written before about being mistaken for a labouring lady by a midwife (A MIDWIFE!!) on the maternity ward, whilst I was being a birthing partner to my friend a few months ago.  It is actually really rather crushing, that you are so fat you could feasibly be about to give birth.

Yesterday I bought some of those shaping knickers that come all the way up to your bra.  I wore them today and my mum remarked: 'it is a definite improvement, you no longer look pregnant, just fat'.

Gone are the days...

You are 25 years old, and you have a day job from 9am til 5.30pm.  You get home at 6pm and you don't have to do anything if you don't want to - you can just sit and stare at the walls if you want.  Or you can read a book, watch TV, chat on the phone to friends, have a nap on the sofa, or sit and listen to your 80s records whilst eating crisp sandwiches. 

Your flat is tidy because it is only you and your flatmate who live there and you don't really have that much stuff that could cause a mess.  Your flat is relatively clean - you clean about once a week (ok, maybe once a fortnight) but you are two women and women are generally pretty clean. 

If you fancy a sandwich or a bowl of cereal or a Chinese takeaway for supper that's what you have.  In the mornings when you are bleary eyed you just have yourself to feed, and sometimes you even skip breakfast and grab a croissant on the way to work.  While at work you have your lunchbreak, which means you get a whole hour to go shopping or sit in a cafe with friends.

You go to bed at night, fairly confident that you will get a full night's sleep, only to be woken by the alarm clock at 7am.

Fast forward five years.  You are married to a man, and you quickly realise that men (in your experience) are untidy and a bit dirty.  Empty drinking glasses are left all around the house, as are dirty socks.  Shavings are left all around the sink, and hair in the bath, and the toilet starts to take on a life of its own.  The area around the cooker and the kitchen sink becomes a bit sticky, and crumbs litter the surfaces.  Books, bits of paper, and garden tools are scattered around the house.  And your laundry doubles. 

OK, so things have changed a little bit, your house isn't as tidy and clean as it once was, but a little bit of extra cleaning does the job.  You still go out to work, have your lunch hour, come home, and your time is still yours and your husband's. 

Fast forward another five years.  You have two children, and as with men, you quickly realise that children are untidy and dirty, a hundred-fold.  Your husband now looks like a saint.  You also quickly realise that if you want to stay on top of things and run an efficient household, and one that you are not ashamed to invite guests into, you have to learn the art of serious multi-tasking.  You also learn that you can never ever stop with the tidying, and the cleaning.

You find yourself cooking, hoovering, making playdough, doing the laundry, washing up, wiping bottoms and clearing away lego, simultaneously.  Gone are the days when you can just simply walk through a room, without having to stop and wipe peanut butter off the floor, or pick up some plastic fruit, or remove wee from a potty, or put the sofa cushions back in their rightful place.  Gone are the days of skipping breakfasts, indulgent lunchbreaks, and peaceful evenings/nights.  Gone are the days of silence, and sitting and staring at the walls. 

But am I complaining? NO WAY.  And would I ever want to change it?  NEVER.

Supper slackness

Late yesterday afternoon I was merrily chatting away to a friend of mine on the phone, whilst my children were brawling over some stickle bricks, when I realised it had gone way past their supper time. 'The kids are hungry and monstrous, I've got to go,' I said. My friend asked me what I was cooking them for supper and I told her cottage pie. She told me that she was so knackered she was going to give her child a carrot and some ricecakes with humous. 'Outrageous neglectful parenting,' I said, and put the phone down.

I dished up the cottage pie, and although both girls were starving neither of them would eat it. Betty wouldn't even try it and said just the look of it made her tummy hurt. Dolly, being the trooper that she is, had about three mouthfuls before pushing the plate away angrily.

They both looked at me expectantly, awaiting something edible. So, feeling a little bit annoyed (I thought the pie in question was perfectly ok) gave them a digestive biscuit and some ice-cream. I thought about giving them the trusted pasta and pesto combo, but frankly could not face yet more washing up, and also Betty saw me looking in the cupboard where the pasta and pesto are kept and said: 'Pleeeeease don't give us pasta AGAIN.'

Later on, when the girls were asleep, I phoned my friend and confessed about the biscuit and ice-cream dinner. She told me that I had made her feel so guilty that she had practically whipped up a roast dinner for her boy.

Baby haze

One of my best friends has just had a gorgeous little baby girl, and she's in that hazy period of baby sick/poo, lack of sleep, and constant feeding - a period of not really knowing what's what in the outside world, and one that we all go through.

It reminded me of a time shortly after Betty (now almost 4) was born. I had braved going into town with her for the first time, and was feeling pretty euphoric about leaving the house, but also terrified that my uterus might drop out. Tom, Betty and I were wandering down the street and something caught my eye in the window of Woolworth's.

There in the window was a full set of Gracco baby equipment: pram, pushchair, carseat, highchair and baby bath. I stopped and stared. I blinked and stared again. Tom had wandered off. I called after him and said: 'Look, you get this whole set for just £40! - we spent a fortune on all our stuff, if only we'd known about this - it's unbelievable!' Tom looked at the set on display, and then looked at me. 'What are you more surprised about?' he said, 'the fact that you get the whole set for £40? Or that each item is so small?' I looked again and realised that the set was for a doll rather than a human baby.

Little boxes

We took the girls out for an evening meal last night. After our recent camping trip, Tom and I are thriving on the fact that Dolly (now 17 months) can now cope with being up later than 6.30pm, so we thought we would take the bull by the horns and dine out. It was a much anticipated dinner date with our children. We had heard that the food was good and that there was a lovely family atmosphere. As we pulled up after a hard afternoon's den-building on the beach, we were very excited to see a well-designed sign outside the pub-restaurant.

Despite our slight nervousness that the evening would descend into chaos, and knowing full well it wouldn't compare to an evening out with just the two of us (ie relaxing and indulgent), the girls behaved pretty well thanks to a few bribes - crisps on their plates before the meal arrived and felt tips and toy cars to shove across the table.

With hindsight (perhaps we were too busy trying to distract the little ladies to notice), the carpet should have sounded the warning bell. It was pure McPub. That and the soundtrack, which either was, or was the equivalent of, Best Love Songs Of The 80s Ever, on repeat until the end of time. When the food arrived, it was horrible. No more to say about it, just horrible. Even Dolly turned her nose up at it. I had two glasses of wine to numb the pain, and Tom (who was driving) had half a cider and kept shaking his head in despair at his overcooked trout. We were guttted, and the children cried.

It was the drive home that made the whole outing worthwhile. It was late, so both girls started moaning and whingeing. Clutching at straws, I turned on the stereo full volume, and out blasted 'Little boxes' (by Malvina Reynolds). We all laughed, and clapped along and heartly sang 'Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky...' all the way home. It was a memorable moment and one that I won't forget. Our car was a very happy and jovial place.