There are a lot of wild claims being made around our way at the moment.
Today, a man cycled past us in the park and Charlie said 'BIcycle!' all pleased with himself for knowing the word. I came over all dutiful Mummy of a sudden and said 'yes darling, the man is riding a bicycle isn't he?' at which point he ran after the poor bloke shouting 'STOP! STOP!!! MY bicycle, MINE!!! STOP!!' as if the poor chap was getting away with theft. Other fallacious claims of ownership have been made for buses, trees, the neighbours' car, aeroplanes and various other non-deliverable items. It's difficult as you can imagine, because toddlers aren't all that good at rejection and tend, for example, to lie down in puddles when they can't take a bus home with them.
Most of the above items are tangible and even somewhat desirable but we've had tantrums over less obvious items, my favourite being after he had a mighty and successful widdle in the loo; I pressed the flush and as everything spiralled into the bowels of the city he wept big tears of loss over 'MY wee-wee, MY wee-wee MINE!'
I'm glad he's dreaming big and impossible things and I hope he continues to do so. I'm just not putting my hand down the loo to retrieve any of them.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Monday, February 09, 2009
Chaperone?
It's difficult to say at two years old where the line between Best Friend and Girl Friend is crossed but I think you have to cross it in a ship christened 'The Wishful Thinker'... a ship I appear to be sailing in at the moment; or perhaps it's 'The Appalled Parent', my lenses need cleaning.
The spud rough-houses and squabbles with his friend (I'll call her 'L' for 'Lolita') just as he does with his other friends only just that bit less. He plays with her and asks for her the way he does with his other friends only just that little bit more. He hugs and kisses her... er... well they hold hands and kiss on such a regular basis that it can take 5 minutes of standing in the rain for them just to be finished saying goodbye.
They go to nursery together and they've known each other since they were about 10 months old when her childminder hung around with his. When she moved on he was in such agonies that I had to send a note through the childminders network to her Mum and we had a blind date - or rather, us Mums had a blind date; Charlie and L ran towards each other in slow motion calling each other's names and held hands all afternoon. It was so sweet I had to have a splenectomy afterwards.
He even wakes up calling her name sometimes... I mean, don't you have to be 21 and terribly misunderstood for that?
OK, so I'm totally projecting here and it's probably just that they're best best friends but the spud absolutely treats her differently then all his other mates - even the other girls and even his other best best mates.
I do wonder what sort of things they think about each other, what fledgling feelings bloom in their hormone-free little hearts. It's a good thing that she's absolutely lovely, I just hope it all ends well. In the meantime, we will be making a valentine's card tomorrow and posting it off just to hedge our bets.
The spud rough-houses and squabbles with his friend (I'll call her 'L' for 'Lolita') just as he does with his other friends only just that bit less. He plays with her and asks for her the way he does with his other friends only just that little bit more. He hugs and kisses her... er... well they hold hands and kiss on such a regular basis that it can take 5 minutes of standing in the rain for them just to be finished saying goodbye.
They go to nursery together and they've known each other since they were about 10 months old when her childminder hung around with his. When she moved on he was in such agonies that I had to send a note through the childminders network to her Mum and we had a blind date - or rather, us Mums had a blind date; Charlie and L ran towards each other in slow motion calling each other's names and held hands all afternoon. It was so sweet I had to have a splenectomy afterwards.
He even wakes up calling her name sometimes... I mean, don't you have to be 21 and terribly misunderstood for that?
OK, so I'm totally projecting here and it's probably just that they're best best friends but the spud absolutely treats her differently then all his other mates - even the other girls and even his other best best mates.
I do wonder what sort of things they think about each other, what fledgling feelings bloom in their hormone-free little hearts. It's a good thing that she's absolutely lovely, I just hope it all ends well. In the meantime, we will be making a valentine's card tomorrow and posting it off just to hedge our bets.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Bouncy Castle Friday...
This is a very cheap post... it's like, the video of yesterdays post... because I'm really inventive and creative like that.
By the way that's not me singing 'Hop Little Bunnies', that would be the lovely and enterprising friend who gave us this mammoth in the first place.
By the way that's not me singing 'Hop Little Bunnies', that would be the lovely and enterprising friend who gave us this mammoth in the first place.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Spud Fridays
Yesterday was another spud day and this time we didn't go anywhere or do anything exotic, unless you include the deployment of the spud's bouncy castle.
This thing was a present from a really good friend who snapped it up for the princely sum of £8. She left the price tag on so I'd know she hadn't spent a bundle and I can testify that the label really did ready 'Bouncy Castle: £8'. It fills all the floorspace in his bedroom, is about 5 feet high and takes half an hour with an electric pump to inflate. My friend and her two year old came over alog with another friend and HER two year old and it was madness. We had to use every cushion and duvet in the house to protect bouncing baby heads from nasty furniture corners - his room looked like '1001 Arabian Nights on Acid'.
You have never seen three toddlers so hyped up as three toddlers razzed up on chocolate biscuits with unlimited access to a bouncy castle. So hyped up that nap time completely disappeared, but so exhausted by the end of the day that we had an actual sleep-through night - two in a row, hold the front page.
This thing was a present from a really good friend who snapped it up for the princely sum of £8. She left the price tag on so I'd know she hadn't spent a bundle and I can testify that the label really did ready 'Bouncy Castle: £8'. It fills all the floorspace in his bedroom, is about 5 feet high and takes half an hour with an electric pump to inflate. My friend and her two year old came over alog with another friend and HER two year old and it was madness. We had to use every cushion and duvet in the house to protect bouncing baby heads from nasty furniture corners - his room looked like '1001 Arabian Nights on Acid'.
You have never seen three toddlers so hyped up as three toddlers razzed up on chocolate biscuits with unlimited access to a bouncy castle. So hyped up that nap time completely disappeared, but so exhausted by the end of the day that we had an actual sleep-through night - two in a row, hold the front page.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
To eat perchance to dream
The spud's new nursery has a dinner chart on the wall, onto which the women who manage the place list what one's child has eaten in a manner that requires one's own personal Engima machine to decode. Each meal has it's own section and each item within the meal has it's own line. Each child has their own column and various heiroglyphs at the intersection of child and food indicate... zzzzzzzzzzzgphpghph... wha? I'm sorry.
I much prefered the system at the old nursery - they just wrote next to the child's name either 'f', 'g' or 'v' for 'fair', 'good' and 'very well'.
There's a certain amount of pressure on when one picks up one's offspring. Firstly, there is the book. The various events of the day are read out haltingly by an harrassed key worker thus: "Charlie used his motor skills today building docks... I'm sorry, that's blocks... He did some role play in the corner and spent some time playing in the, I think that's the snow.. He had no sleep, please sign here" ...hang on... role play?
Once that's done, provided there have been no 'incidents' which require their own sheet ("Charlie hit his head, please sign here") one is talked through each and every trip, or failed trip to the loo, shown guilty little bags of dirty clothes and then one is dismissed to get one's child out from underfoot as swiftly as possible. This involves gathering possessions, checking one's bag for missing underpants and getting one's little darling dressed; no easy task when they are so overcome with delight to see their aged parent that they have glued themselves to a new train set.
In amongst all this one must sneak over and work one's way to the front of the parental scrum in the hope of decyphering exactly how hungry one's little pumpkin is likely to be for his tea, which as we all know is parental code for 'will he wake up hungry in the night God Help Me??'. The chart takes so long to figure out that most parents either stand there in an hypnotic daze or peer for a moment, mutter 'fuck it' and shepherd their little darlings home to stuff them full of fish fingers. Cough.
Today was a very hungry day. I couldn't work out what the spud had eaten but there were a lot of marks in his column which I think is 'v'. He ate a massive tea, demanding 'more loghurt, more loghurt' until we were out of the stuff and he is now sleeping like... well, like a child with a 'v' in their sleeping column. I hope. Not a baby, from experience. Or a cat.
I much prefered the system at the old nursery - they just wrote next to the child's name either 'f', 'g' or 'v' for 'fair', 'good' and 'very well'.
There's a certain amount of pressure on when one picks up one's offspring. Firstly, there is the book. The various events of the day are read out haltingly by an harrassed key worker thus: "Charlie used his motor skills today building docks... I'm sorry, that's blocks... He did some role play in the corner and spent some time playing in the, I think that's the snow.. He had no sleep, please sign here" ...hang on... role play?
Once that's done, provided there have been no 'incidents' which require their own sheet ("Charlie hit his head, please sign here") one is talked through each and every trip, or failed trip to the loo, shown guilty little bags of dirty clothes and then one is dismissed to get one's child out from underfoot as swiftly as possible. This involves gathering possessions, checking one's bag for missing underpants and getting one's little darling dressed; no easy task when they are so overcome with delight to see their aged parent that they have glued themselves to a new train set.
In amongst all this one must sneak over and work one's way to the front of the parental scrum in the hope of decyphering exactly how hungry one's little pumpkin is likely to be for his tea, which as we all know is parental code for 'will he wake up hungry in the night God Help Me??'. The chart takes so long to figure out that most parents either stand there in an hypnotic daze or peer for a moment, mutter 'fuck it' and shepherd their little darlings home to stuff them full of fish fingers. Cough.
Today was a very hungry day. I couldn't work out what the spud had eaten but there were a lot of marks in his column which I think is 'v'. He ate a massive tea, demanding 'more loghurt, more loghurt' until we were out of the stuff and he is now sleeping like... well, like a child with a 'v' in their sleeping column. I hope. Not a baby, from experience. Or a cat.
A short visit to India
Hello folks - I should have posted this earlier but my sister in law is in India at the moment volunteering for Families for Children at an orphanage and has posted some great things about what she's doing. For a little visit to the Land of Big Snakes, click here. She's leaving on Friday but there are three weeks of posts for you to read with your morning coffee should you wish!
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
snow go
Have a little peer through the trees and climbing frames there and you can see two little igloos which are the sum total of the inventiveness showed in our park during our record snowfall which put everyone out of work for the day on Monday. I, of course, cough cough, would have done something WAY more inventive if, er, you know, er, I had. And that.
I took the spud to the park today partly to get some exercise but mostly so that I could scope out the mass of snow sculptures that surely must have sprung up... I mean, nearly a foot of snow, an unexpected day off, a park full of people and... well I was hoping for snow mermaids and castles, dragons and elephants - at least a forest of snowmen. But no. No, what we have in our park is at least 100 Very Large snowballs. The place looks as though a busload of giant children have played in the snow and are now tucked up in front of their giant fireplaces dunking pillow-sized marshmallows into vats of hot chocolate.
Everywhere there were giant paths down the slopes ending in boulders which simply sat where they had ended up, presumably too heavy to go anywhere else, too large to lift anything on top of and too filthy to sculpt. Kinda says it all really.
Makes Brixton look lovely though, hey?
Monday, February 02, 2009
Stop the presses!
Holy cow, we have snow today in Brixton like anything. Here's some pics I took of my garden at 9am this morning which I've just stitched together using Autostitch... this programme is amazing (www.autostitch.net)
More pics and hopefully some vids to come once I work out how to get them off my camera.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Happy 101st
Today is Brigid, Imbolc, Candlemas, the 4th birthday of my best friend's daughter and would have been the 101st birthday of my lovely Gran.
Seems a bit early to be celebrating the first day of spring but this date traditionally marks the start of lambing season and the first signs of new growth. We've actually had snow today, unbelievably for London. In fact it's still snowing and outside, London is the most amazing colour - the light from the city is being bounced back and forth between the clouds and the ground and outside everything is a fantastical orange, despite being nearly midnight. Under the snow however we have the shoots of crocuses up already and our cherry and pear trees are in bud... spring is unbelievably nearly here. A time for looking forward to growth in our own lives but for me, a time to look back as well and remember my Gran a little bit.
I was thinking about her all day today and wishing I'd thought before her 100th to make a picture book of some of the great times we've spent together, me and my Gran.
Our first visit alone together was when I was 17 or 18 and after that I stayed many a time with her at her little lake house just the two of us; we would play cards and skinny dip and drink gin and each visit she'd teach me a little more about how to use her massive floor loom, which is now sitting in the attic at the studio waiting for me to string it up again.
We did other things together though, me and my Gran. When I moved back to England in 95, she came out for a visit (she would have been 87) and we spent a week in the Lake District. We got a room in a little B&B and every other day we would have an outing. We took a guided mini-bus tour and I have a great picture of her up by the standing stones at Kendal. We took a boat across Windermere and sat wrapped up and reminiscing about times we had both visited as children. Every other day we would stay in, have our meals delivered, drink sherry and play cards while she rested.
For her 95th, she and I and my parents took the cruise from Vancouver to Alaska and the two of us shared a cabin. Gran, who by that point would convince anyone who didn't know better that she was a complete tea totaller, brought 3 bottles of sherry on board for the week and left nothing but dead soldiers. I may have helped a bit. One night we were reading in bed when she knocked her sherry into the base of her bedside lamp which promptly hissed and started sparking blue flames. I dashed the switch off at the wall and before we called the steward she begged me to clean it up so they wouldn't know she'd been drinking. I obediently sponged down the mess, dried it and we rang for the steward, telling him all wide-eyed that it had just started sparking. He promptly turned it back on to test it and the smell of hot sherry filled the room while the two of us wept with silent laughter and tried not to catch each other's eyes. That same trip we took a helicopter ride - the first one for each of us - and at 95 years old she climbed out of the damn thing and walked on the glacier with her stick.
When she went last year, I was glad for her as she was really ready to move on. She'd lived well, left an amazing legacy of life and laughter and was hopefully at peace with God. Had she lived to today I suspect she would have had some serious words on the matter with whomever was fortunate enough to finally meet her at the pearly gates and take her across to the summerlands and so today I remember her fondly and happily but, nonetheless,with no small measure of loss.
.
Seems a bit early to be celebrating the first day of spring but this date traditionally marks the start of lambing season and the first signs of new growth. We've actually had snow today, unbelievably for London. In fact it's still snowing and outside, London is the most amazing colour - the light from the city is being bounced back and forth between the clouds and the ground and outside everything is a fantastical orange, despite being nearly midnight. Under the snow however we have the shoots of crocuses up already and our cherry and pear trees are in bud... spring is unbelievably nearly here. A time for looking forward to growth in our own lives but for me, a time to look back as well and remember my Gran a little bit.
I was thinking about her all day today and wishing I'd thought before her 100th to make a picture book of some of the great times we've spent together, me and my Gran.
Our first visit alone together was when I was 17 or 18 and after that I stayed many a time with her at her little lake house just the two of us; we would play cards and skinny dip and drink gin and each visit she'd teach me a little more about how to use her massive floor loom, which is now sitting in the attic at the studio waiting for me to string it up again.
We did other things together though, me and my Gran. When I moved back to England in 95, she came out for a visit (she would have been 87) and we spent a week in the Lake District. We got a room in a little B&B and every other day we would have an outing. We took a guided mini-bus tour and I have a great picture of her up by the standing stones at Kendal. We took a boat across Windermere and sat wrapped up and reminiscing about times we had both visited as children. Every other day we would stay in, have our meals delivered, drink sherry and play cards while she rested.
For her 95th, she and I and my parents took the cruise from Vancouver to Alaska and the two of us shared a cabin. Gran, who by that point would convince anyone who didn't know better that she was a complete tea totaller, brought 3 bottles of sherry on board for the week and left nothing but dead soldiers. I may have helped a bit. One night we were reading in bed when she knocked her sherry into the base of her bedside lamp which promptly hissed and started sparking blue flames. I dashed the switch off at the wall and before we called the steward she begged me to clean it up so they wouldn't know she'd been drinking. I obediently sponged down the mess, dried it and we rang for the steward, telling him all wide-eyed that it had just started sparking. He promptly turned it back on to test it and the smell of hot sherry filled the room while the two of us wept with silent laughter and tried not to catch each other's eyes. That same trip we took a helicopter ride - the first one for each of us - and at 95 years old she climbed out of the damn thing and walked on the glacier with her stick.
When she went last year, I was glad for her as she was really ready to move on. She'd lived well, left an amazing legacy of life and laughter and was hopefully at peace with God. Had she lived to today I suspect she would have had some serious words on the matter with whomever was fortunate enough to finally meet her at the pearly gates and take her across to the summerlands and so today I remember her fondly and happily but, nonetheless,with no small measure of loss.
.
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