inside her mind...

I was driving down to Portsmouth to pick up Mol from her 2nd go at netball-after-school-club (she seems to have embraced Team Sport with gusto) (god I hate netball, but mustn't prohibit her total fulfillment of potential by imposing my dislikes upon her... Which reminds me of a loud argument I once had with Husband about how I'd inadvertently told Mol that maths was my weakest subject at school and OH how I'd hated it and sweated and fumbled my way through GCSE ("Is that what you do at university Mum...?" - endless conversations at the moment about what order education comes in, with which exams) and then bloody well failed after all that shit and how I was leaping for joy when I finally got the frickin C grade and could shove my calculater up the teachers self satisfied number-filled-arsehole... And Husband stopped me in my tracks "You WHAT? Oh you should NEVER let them know how much you dislike a subject at school. No no NO! My god woman. It'll ONLY lead to her not liking maths too. You IDIOT! WHAT FUCKING MORON tells their child that they failed at maths? DURRRRRH. (Tongue inserted in bottom-lip to pull stupid-monkey-face.) So now I'm very cautious about what I tell my children. Obviously they both still love numbers because so far it only involves adding up to 100 or telling the teacher that yes, it is a triangle. I enjoy that sort of maths too.)...

Anyway. I got distracted.

So in the car with me was Liz. She sits behind me in her little booster seat and I can just see the top of her eyes, her forhead and her hair... It ruffles in the wind as she sticks her hand out the window.

We chat about who kissed who in the playground and whether Roxy is really (she's one of the dinner ladies) a natural blond or not (Liz suspects not). And once all the big chat from the day is over we fall into companionable silence.

Liz trails her fingers out the window and watches the passing countryside, which looks particularly good today as it's sunny and autumnal. The colours are clear and the air smells just right.

In our silence my thoughts lead back to work, and income and my lack of funding and what happens if Husband should leave me for someone who's actually nice and seems to outwardly show signs of affection, how could I ever find a job that actually pays me money that could feed and house myself and two children, let alone pay for an N-reg car that costs £50 a week to run... I was feeling kind of gloomy as the enormity of my situation came crashing in through the flimsy Peugots' 25 year old windows. Could I survive on my own? Would social services be obliged to take my children away from me and would I have to go and live in a tent on Dartmoor dodging the credit bayliffs?

As the terror of my dependency clouded my head I suddenly came back to reality as I heard Liz say my name (well, she said Mum, because she doesn't call me by my real name, I mean, sometimes I ask her to call me Mrs, or Madam, or to at least curtsey before making eye-contact, but on the whole it's just Mum). She had to say it a few times for me to register that I was in the car, driving, and not in a tent on Dartmoor handwashing my 2nd pair of socks in a stream...

"Mum" says Liz. "MUM".
"Oh, yes! Hello you!"
"MUM! guess what? I think I've got it!"
"What's that Liz?"
"I've finally worked out how to train a dog to skip with a real skipping rope."

Well. Nothing more than dogs skipping to bring me crashing back to real life, eh?

Deep Discussions with a 7 year old

"Mum?"
"Yes"
"Mum, you know One Direction?"
"Yes"
"Did you know they are probably going to split up?"
"Really? How do you know?"
"Well. You know Alice?"
'Yes"
"Well. You know her bigger sister Loopy?"
"Yes"
"Well. She told us."
"Must be true then."
"Oh, yes it is. She's nearly 14 you know."

"Mum?"
"Yes"
"Mum. My jodpurs are too small."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. They keep falling down."

"Mum?"
"Yes"
"Do you prefer One Direction, Two Direction, or Three Direction?"
"?"

"Mum?"
"Yes"
"Who said Cyclists can't fly?"
"?"

"Mum?"
"Yes"
"Your skin is really white on your legs."
"Really? I was thinking they were quite brown... They're browner than your tummy skin..."
"Really? Oh, yes. But not nearly as white as my BUM"

"Mum?"
"Yes"
"Do you know, I think it'd be really difficult to eat myself?"
"Really?"
"Yes, I tried. But I think it'd be most hard to eat your head. You'd have to cut it off and then leave your mouth so that it could eat the head bit."
"But if you cut off your head you'll be dead and your mouth won't work."
"Ah, I hadn't thought of that."

"Liz?"
"Yes"
"I've got a question for you. Which came first. The chicken or the egg?"
"Oh, that's EASY. The chicken. Oh. Wait. No. The EGG! So easy."
"But who laid the egg?"
"The chicken. Oh wait. No! The egg! HA! Got ya!"

I went round to my parents house the other day to be met by not one but two sausage dogs. One was my mums dog, a girl, or tee-hee, a bitch; the other, a man dog, called Dud the Stud (or Dudley in polite company).
Why Mum, are there two dogs here?
Well, darling! Dudley is here to make babies with Kali! Can you imagine how sweet? Little baby sausage dogs!
Yes indeed, I can well imagine the sweetness, their little wet noses and baggy skin, wobbly tails,  and smelling of puppiness.
Mol and Liz were very excited at the thought and Liz automatically started to egg the two dogs on to get on and make the babies. Bear in mind Liz is 6 and doesn't know much about biology.
Mol, as a cool 10 year old hung back and assessed the situation.
"COME ON DUDLEY! MAKE THE PUPPIES!" yells Liz.
Dudley responds by humping the towel that is on the floor (it's raining outside so there is wet-dog-gear all over the kitchen). Dudley wags his tail and smiles as he looks at his new lady friend with lust, humping away on something that definitely will not produce puppies.
 Dudley's man-parts are very excited too and my daughters eyes are transfixed by the goings on in his nether-regions. Pink and glistening nether-regions. Mol again is quiet, while her sister graphically describes what she is seeing and then decides that she has to draw a picture immediately.
Almost like a court-room artist, she sits down at the table, grabs a notepad and biro, and starts to draw what very much looks like a human penis, with a large circumsized tip.
My mum and I giggle immaturely and wonder where Beth has got this image from, as it's not matching Dudley, who's penis is very dog like and certainly not circumsized. Beth then draws the rest of Dudley around the huge penis that she has drawn and we all laugh outright at the ridiculous image she has conjured up. She won't be exhibiting at the RA in any near or far future.
Meanwhile POOR Dudley.
It emerges that he is in fact a virgin.
"What's a virgin Granny?"
"Well, its when the person / dog hasn't, um, well, had sex before. So Dudley I guess he doesn't really actually know what he's supposed to be doing with his willy".
"Come on Dudley, get your man-willy near Kali!" shouts Liz, very close to the poor confused dog, who is now humping thin air.
"It's actually a dog-willy" snaps Mol who feels the need to chip in at this point - obviously to correct her IDIOTIC moronic sister.
"OH, he's pee'd Granny" observes Mol.
"Uh, actually, that's not pee Darling" informs Granny.
"Its, um, man-juice, um, sperm, its what has to get INSIDE Kali to actually make the babies..." I say, feeling awkward like an adolescent who's just caught her parents having sex.
"?" say my children.
"!" I say.
Kali has pushed her nether regions into a corner and Dudley has got himself into a new position... He's attempting to mount Kali's nose, at which point Mum pulls him away lest his precious and expensively hired out dog-parts see the end of their days during an act of loving (in his eyes) oral sex.

"Granny I don't think it's going to work is it?" says Liz.
Dudley has jumped up on to Mums lap and is about to hump her thigh.
"NO!" says Mum as the dog is returned promptly to the floor.
Mum opens the door and shoves the dogs out into the garden, where Dudley walks like he has a slinky stuck down his back bone, up and down up and down goes his back, such is his desire to hump everything in sight except for the dog he's meant to be servicing.

We left as Dudley was approaching a chicken with his parts all out and ready to go... Probably best to leave them to it. What's a cross between a dog and a chicken? Dicken? Chog?
Anyway - there won't be any sausage-dog puppies in the Meon for a while yet.
But what a splendid biology lesson we all had.