The Incident

It is time, I fear, to tell An Incident from our recent holiday. It has nothing to do with the spud bar the fact that he was 20 feet away but missed it entirely. This is a Good Thing as seeing one's mother pulled naked from the ocean is possibly 'scar for life' material. But I digress.

It was lovely and hot in Biarritz that week. Sadly however work was the order of the day and so I could only manage to get to the sea quite late. Luckily it was still hot and sunny, less luckily the tide was coming in making swimming a bit iffy.

Late one afternoon we went to one of our favourite beaches; a beach with quite dodgy swimming as the sand shelves off quite sharply. This forces the waves to pound their way into the beach rather than roll beatifically into nothing and makes paddling almost impossible. There was a sharp cross-current and after the Frog lurched back from his swim with sand in his hair it was clear that the sea had teeth.

I am, however, made of the sort of stuff that is likely to see me swimming off the coast of Devon in March and jumping into freezing mountain pools for the fun of it. I'm a strong swimmer and secretly I rather thought the Frog was exaggerating and had just bungled his dismount.

The swimming flags were close together and probably 100 people or more were crammed between them, some on the shore, the majority just into the surf line and a brave few in the breakers.

Cockily, I (dressed only in a bikini that someone should have stolen and burned) waded in, expertly dodged the waves and was out beyond the surf in no time. The cross-current was perfect for allowing a good long swim without the dreary necessity of actually going anywhere. 'Heavenly' I thought to myself, swimming endlessly on the spot 'being able to stretch my muscles like this'.

Presently I felt I'd had a good amount of exercise and should probably go in. I monitored the waves. I rode the swell. I held back from the breakers. I was carried into the shore, perfectly vertical, ahead of a wave. I landed, en pointe, daintily in front of the crowd. Just as I was at my MOST cocky, a wave I'd ignored because, after all, I was walking up the shelf on dry land, knocked me flying.

As I got up, I realised with horror that it had pulled my bikini bottoms clean down to my ankles and I was now sitting, naked from the waist down, in front of 100 gurning tourists. I sat in the swirling tide hanging on to my kecks trying to pull them up discreetly and was halfway there when the next wave dragged me under. I emerged still hanging onto my knickers and nearly had them up when the next one came and took me for a proper dragging.

This time when I sat up, I realised my bra was now hanging by one strap and I was entirely nude. Feeling nothing but embarrassment I let the next wave take me, hoping to get back out into the deeper water but suddenly, what's this? Two strong arms had me from behind!!

Was it the Frog? Was it Superman? No! It was a young, handsome French lifeguard! Woo hoo! Sadly, he was trying to drag me out of the water. A wave came, he gestured with his head and we dove under, me still hanging on to my clothes.

At that point, a second life-guard joined the party... and THAT, my friends, is how it took two strapping young men to drag me from the sea, naked, resistant and shouting 'Non! Non! Mes culottes! Mes culottes!!!'

I think being 45 helps in these cases as I managed with some level of experience to both shrug back into my bra and pull up my pants before they stood me up in front of the over-excited crowd. I tried to maintain a semblence of dignity but within seconds realised that there was so much sand in my drawers that they were sagging down to my thighs like a wet nappy.

Lifeguard number one looked at me, puzzled and possibly put out that I wasn't melting with thanks. I looked at him. We looked at the sea. 'C'est dur' he said. 'Oui, c'est dur' I said, manipulating sand out of my labia and pretending nothing was happening.

Ursula Andress, eat your heart out...

No tears

I was woken up by a big kiss on my nose this morning, for a fraction of a second I thought it was the cat licking me - a new tactic to get me out of bed and over to his food bowl; but no, it was Charlie.

He wasn't that miserable that he'd missed his girlfriends leaving in the night (something he might be changing his mind about in another 15 years...) but he was very concerned about the where-abouts of his buses.

This morning he is sitting on the sofa trying manfully to raise a single eyebrow. The problem begins with the fact that he can't even raise them both together quite yet - if he was a girl I might be encouraging him now to keep it that way; I've been able to raise a single eyebrow since the age of 6 and it amazes me that my son hasn't tried to drive one of his trains across my forehead; there are enough lines there to handle the traffic at Clapham Junction.

Oh my. We have to leave the house in 5 minutes. I am in my nightie. Another line hits the forehead...

Notes from Inside my Stress

OK, well putting pressure on myself to come up with something funny is like commissioning my own personal writer's block. 'Yes, it's Sparx here, have you got something dark that can come and sit on my creativity for a while? Really? Excellent, I'll take two'.

It's been a rough few months. I've been putting in some very long hours , the Frog has been booked up solid and our poor little boy is reduced to playing games in which his little buses beg his big buses to 'stop working please Mummy' and whenever his poor Father manages to nip into the loo for a quiet twenty minutes (he is a bloke, after all) I am informed that 'Daddy is at the Studio, Mummy, I will sleep in your bed.'

We tried unsuccessfully to take a 2-week holiday, thank gods we had friends visiting for the last few days or we would never have stopped working long enough to get out in the sun. Finally, while away we got the news that one of Charlie's best little friends has a brain tumour and while the emergency surgery was successful, she is now facing a year of painful treatments, so everyone is a little bit in shock.

Having said that, in general things are quite good at the moment, things are calming down, our little friend is coming out of hospital in one piece and remarkably, the cat is still alive. Boney, down half a kilo and covered in dreadlocks, but still jumping on us at 3-hour intervals day and night demanding whatever meal it is on his Byzantine meal schedule that he thinks we've missed.

Yes, it's all rosy here at Sparx towers. We had an accidental half-sleepover with two of Charlie's girlfriends tonight (a sentence I would never have imagined possible a few years ago) and yet again the gender differences became apparent. Charlie took two buses into the bed, the girls took their little purses and kept waving them around and making 'I'm a Lady' faces while he ducked manfully and made disapproving faces. It was highly comic. Both girls are now home with the parents and my little spud will wake up alone in the morning. I am prepped for tears.

Right. With this non-post I'm off. Will try to visit other blogs soon, time permitting - forgive the lapse.

Hello?

Well well well. has it been a month since we chatted, dear Internet? Close, I bet.

We've been larking about as usual, 'staying afloat on the great sea of life', I might say, if I fancied waxing poetic at 8am which is probably a bad idea.

I'm using a blog writing app which makes me feel terribly modern and ridiculous. The predictive text on this thing occasionally makes me wee with laughter to the dismay of my fellow passengers (and presumably the next person on this seat... But I digress).

We're off to France tomorrow, leaving our flat and our ageing puss in the capable hands of friends. Charlie has been waiting soooo patiently for this. The promise of a real airport has taken his mind completely off the bloody Transport Museum and for that I fear regular air travel may remain in our carbon-laden future.

We've done lots of things that might have been blog-worthy recently - camping, picnics, raids on our local ice-cream van armed with pound coins and hope, paddling, sleepovers, I've been away - oh, and the first copy of my book arrived in the post on Wednesday - hooray! If anyone owns, or knows a girl over the age of 8 who likes a bit of a read, let me know. I'm available for speaking engagements, parties... er... um.... Ok so anyway yes there is A Book. Fiction. Children's. Enough for now.

I have decided, at any rate, not to post on this blog anymore unless I think something is particularly funny. This blog used to be more like a 3 or a 4 on the 1-5 scale of 'is this a funny blog?' however is now more like a 1 or a 2. It's odd, because 3 year olds are actually quite funny. One of our local Dads is a stand-up comedian and we saw him last night, turning parenthood into the comedy fodder that it is, yet somehow it's been all too serious here at spud towers.

So, anon. This is where I get off. Nice to chat, have a lovely weekend and I'll try to drop in soon.

So wrong...

Playing Chuggington on the computer. Note the headphones and use of mouse pad...



I repeat: he is three. Is this the future?

The meaning of things

I keep forgetting how literal children are. Charlie hasn't the slightest idea about sarcasm, he doesn't really understand exageration or metaphor or parable or the difference between fact and fiction and this is making our poor boy very confused.

I recenty witnessed the breaking of one of his first fantasy bubbles when I gave him a tin of colouring pencils and he was awe-struck. "Wow!" he said "Magic pencils!!! Look Mummy, it will draw all by itself" and he proceeded to try to stand the pencils on their points so they could draw by themselves, the way they do on various children's art programmes. He was so let down, I felt like crying.

I'm learning slowly to watch my mouth for more than just swearing. The other night he was begging to play 'Chuggington' on my computer when he was already late for bed, so I said 'right, I'll cut you a deal, Chuggington and no stories, or stories and no Chuggington and he burst into tears screaming 'no cutting, Mummy, don't cut me!!!!'

It's led to a few interesting conversations, this total reliance on the meaning of words. When he talks about growing bigger, I often tell him that one day he might be bigger than me. I think he's worked this out to mean that he'll be a bigger version of me. A few weeks ago he started asking me why I don't have a willy. 'Because I'm a girl' I said. 'Girls don't have willies, only boys have willies. You're a boy, you have a willy. Daddy's a boy, he has a willy'. 'So' he said, after a moment of silence 'when I get big like you, I'll take my willy off'.

We've had a surprising number of 'when I take my willy off' conversations over the past few weeks, including one where he insisted that he didn't want to be a boy, he wanted to be a girl like his best friend and grow up to be a Mummy. I think this is less about gender confusion (he is only 3) and more about general confusion but one never knows (and I don't think we'll particularly mind either way). I do feel for the little spud though, it's obviously been really worrying him, wondering if his willy is going to be taken away at some point. He's now asking 'is he a boy?' 'is he a girl?' about nearly everyone and today appeared to be quite relieved that his willy is not detachable and that he will eventually become a man.

So, we're being a little more careful about what we say around him at the moment but one never knows when literalism might hit... today as we walked through the park the Frog shouted out to him as he wove through the grass eating his ice-cream 'Watch the dog poo Charlie!' and Charlie stopped and stood there, watching the dog poo.

Ah me.

The shame, the shame...

We're off swimming in the morning. Oh yes I feel like a satisfactory sort of Mother, the type who takes a day off to be with her child and takes him to earnest and stimulating events. Last week for example we took the train to Reigate. The train! A real train for my trainspotter son. Then, then, we went to the transport museum for the fourth time this year and bathed in wheeled objects. My love for my son is clearly beyond question. Tomorrow we swim with friends, eat at a local cafe and then who knows... Brixton will be our oyster.

Oh yes, it's all lovely... the sort of day bathed in glowy 70s sunlight... until one considers our third wheel, our little tag-along pal, our unwanted stow-away... the hitch-hiker on the sole of his foot... Charlie's verucca.

It's one thing to go swimming with a group of friends and their three-year-olds, it's entirely another to do this while a verucca squats darkly on the sole of his foot, uttering threats and imprecations at the pristine pads of their little feeties.

I try to make light of it. I carry anti-bacterial gel and make them all wash their feet in it. And they're nice about it. But it's there. Lurking.

We've tried Bazooka which worked but burned him, now we're trying DJ's banana-skin cure... if that doesn't work then sadly we're in it for the long haul.

See you at the pool - bring your disinfectant.

chocolate starfish

We're having swearing. I mean, proper swearing, the sort of swearing that he's heard on the bus, on the street and um in his house. Sometimes. I have been retraining myself in the art of swearing over the past six months and while 'Bumpers' is not really entering the vocabulary, 'botheration' works quite well. My default go-to swear though is 'crappity' which fills two swear-requirements in that it contains an actual swear word and is unrecognisable as such when fired off at top speed in front of a three-year-old with ear-drums the size of the sea of tranquillity.

Or so I thought.

Sadly it has entered life too late to prevent the 'f' word which is making frequent, shocking appearances in my son's speech. While I admit blame I cannot admit total responsibility having heard the word in his presence countless times in the past few days... outside his window, on the bus, while walking through the park and while standing in the queue to buy chocolate at the local shop. It's ubiquitous, everywhere and all I can do is disapprove and suggest he say something else... like 'poo' for example, which is both valid and funny.

The spud being no fool however has declined to make up a swear-word and would rather use one of mine. He demonstrated this ably today after dropping his fork at dinner. 'CRAB' he said, loudly and disdainfully. 'What?' I asked. 'Crab!!' he said, gleefully. 'Ah, CRAB! said I. 'What about starfish?' 'STARFISH' he said with relish. 'Chocolate Starfish' I said, and we both laughed.

I suspect I laughed a little bit longer.

Sad, isn't it?

Still, I think we're going in the right direction.

The Third Way

I subscribe to that popular and yet cock-eyed notion that everything comes in threes. OK, so possibly not everything. Socks come in pairs (although rarely stay so), also hands sadly... legs, eyes, ears, kidneys, cards when you're looking for a full house... Many things do however come in threes: book deals in airports; household Gas-Electricity-Water bills; er... er... well troubles invariably come in threes.

It's not, when something bad happens, that I stand around waiting for the next two things, however if two bad things happen, the third is inevitably ringing at the door before the first two have decently buggered off.

How it was therefore when Charlie nearly broke his arm only days after the discovery of a (gasp) verucca (the shame...) that we failed to notice his ear infection is beyond me, but there you go; we only suffered 4 nights of no sleep thinking, er, that his arm was causing an, er, fever... yes well erm.

We are nearly all better now except for the occasional need to over-react when faced with say, getting dressed or eating one's dinner ('I CAN'T put my jammies on, my ARM hurts... please can I climb up you and flip over 20 more times instead?'). It's not without it's trials, however, this recovery business.

Today he parlayed a little twinge into a post-breakfast ice-cream cone. After lunch, I had a lie-down and apparently he used his wild powers of persuasion to con his Father out of a second ice-cream. We then went to the park and, since both of us thought 'he's only had a little one at home and he's been so brave', he conned us out of a third from the ice-cream van.

He also conned us out of a third of our income at the local fun-fair, but that's another story. I rest my case.

Heading back to mormor...

Sunday. It appears that on this blog, it is always Sunday.

It's been a weird weekend. It's been a quiet weekend; strangely unsettling. Friday we had a long day, Charlie and I. We went swimming with friends in the morning and then had a picnic lunch in a friend's back garden; relaxing, happy, idyllic, flowing from garden to house to house to garden, the kids roving in a feral mass.

Afterwards, we went to the park where I bought him an ice-cream from the ice-cream van, the eternal ice-cream van that marks the passage of the seasons, the ice-cream van that has the power to change the very weather ("No Mummy, it IS hot, the ice-cream van WILL be there... can I hold your umbrella?") As he dripped strawberry and chocolate all down his front we met two of his friends and a final play of the day ensued.

Shortly after the stick from his ice-lolly was deposited in the bin, my little boy was run-down by a boy on a bicycle and has for a few days at least, lost the use of his left arm.

Before the xrays and the certainty that it wasn't broken he passed out twice and lay semi-conscious, rolling his eyes and moaning until we splinted it. In the hospital he would only talk about his bus to the doctors ("He's in his own world, that one...") and he has been sleeping 13-hours a day, so oblivion and dissociation are ruling the roost. It hasn't stopped him from consuming vast quantities of ice-cream and while we are trying very hard not to make a fuss, it's difficult as he can't really push himself up from sitting to standing and if he wants to use his hand he has to pick it up with the other hand and place it near the toys.

Every day he gets a bit better and hopefully he'll be back to mormor in a few days ("Are we back to mormor now Mummy?" as if normal can be found on a map). We're trying to act as if nothing has happened so he's not scared; but I tell you, as if I needed it underlined, bloody anything can happen to anyone in a fraction of a second.