Me Mol and Liz were on a jaunty country walk with my mum and her dog, about this time last week. Walking gayly through the village allotments admiring the beans and bulging beetroot and marigolds and rhubarb and feeling a bit envious that my garden in London is incapable of even bearing me a geranium let alone a Jerusalem Artichoke... when suddenly Mol started to choke and cough and wretch.
The noise of someone wretching is enough to make anyone wretch too. Even if you don't know the reason behind the wretching, its that hhhhhhhhhhhhhuh noise - so strong you can feel your stomach muscles clamping and your Bran Flakes on the verge of being regurgitated.
So Me Liz Mum and the Dog tried our best to ignore this dreadful noise pollution by walking on, talking loudly above the sound of air being gasped for and stomach-contents-imminent-evacuation. Although at the back of my mind, because I am after-all a responsible mother, I was thinking, hmmm, this doesn't sound too promising, I wonder why my daughter is gasping so loudly and revoltingly, I wonder if in fact she needs my help?
Eventually, after about an hour of this awful noise, Mol hadn't actually been sick but was still walking along sounding like a parrot with a pair of bellows stuck down its throat, I figured I ought to pull my finger out (of my ear) and try to solve the problem of the choking rather than ignore it.
So with nostrils shut like a camel, lest Mol vomit and the puke-fumes spark off a chain reaction in me, I made awkward loving movements to my eldest precious daughter to find out what the problem was.
At the same time, for some reason unknown to us, other than total fluky coincidence, Liz started to hum a familiar tune that we have on one of our really old nursery rhyme tapes in the car saved for traffic emergencies (these also have the effect of making people want to vomit).
"...I don't know why she swallowed..." hummed Liz;
"...yak yak yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak... I swallowed a fly..." yakked Mol.
Ah!
There was a young lady who swallowed a fly.
We all started to laugh and Mol was most upset by our unsympathetic reaction, so I gave her a hearty pat on the back and started singing with Liz - "...she swallowed a cow to catch the dog to catch the cat to catch the bird to catch the spider that wriggled and jiggled inside her..."
I was sympathetic enough to not sing the last verse where the (stupid) old lady swallows a horse, and now she's dead, of course! Because I thought that would push the boundaries of sympathy towards that of mocking, and that's really not nice.
Mol yakked like the old winded parrot all the way home, and I gave her a jelly baby to wash away the remnants of fly - which had probably just had lunch on a cow pat before it unfortunately flew down Mols windpipe.
Sunday, 29 August 2010
Saturday, 21 August 2010
the age of innocence
I was just doing a rather long run in the rain over dale and down dips in t'country, and for some reason started pondering the loss of innocence of my small girls.
Yesterday I met up with an old friend who has girls aged 9 and 11 - I hadn't seen them for a long time and so I'd forgotten what older girls are like. In fact, I have no idea really anyway - because I don't know any one much older than Mol. These girls are tall and gorgeous, and behave much older (obviously) than my little gals, with uptodate technology and knowledge of popular-music and they communicate in a way I'm not familiar, and y'know, are just more grown-up.
I was quite in awe of these girls (and vainly wondered what they thought of me) and then I turned to see my little Mol, who - still in a bubble of frank-innocence, Father Christmas features big and so to does the strange fairy who collects teeth at midnight and the concept of magic is way-believable - didn't basically quite know where to look as these exotic girls gyrated (in a slightly off-hand-way) around the kitchen to tz-tz-tz-pop muzac with an air of experienced-coolness.
I wasn't sure what awed me the most.
Was it their confidence with technology that I barely understand? - non-chalently thumbing through their tunes on the ipod? Was it the skinny jeans and jeggings? Their language? Body language? That they were taller than me (not difficult I admit)?
Or was it the fact that one day, very soon, my little Mol (and following shortly on, little Liz) would be thumbing her way over her own i-whatever, bopping in time to pop tunes which I've just about heard of and feel much disdain for?
And I wondered, as I skidded over some cow-pats which decorated the bumpy Hampshire tarmac, how long exactly is it that we have, as a family, before that gorgeous innocence - the belief that magical creatures DO exist, and that Dad really CAN do magic with cards, and that £40,000 is probably not much more than £40 or £4...?
Whilst we have been staying in Hampshire this week with my parents, my two girls have been hanging out with their cousins - a boy aged 6 and another 4 year old...
And what merry times they have had. Running around the garden playing "Cheetah's" and "Lions" and "Babysitters" (Ok, so I'm 21, you're 18, Liz is 2 and Cherry is the baby... and I go out and leave you and Cherry starts to cry because her nappy is pooey, ugh! poo! ... - I mean, these games can go on for DAYS...). And then after a healthy supper of pasta and pesto and chocolate icecream and pringles they all jump into the bath together - having first run around the upstairs unclothing themselves willy nilly room by room...
No one notices that the clothes have come off. No one comments on the bottom (unless conversation turns to farting or poos but that's not in a self conscious way - maybe Liz has done a massive fart so lots of hilarity and fake farting follows...) or the lady bits or the boy bits. They just jump in the bath and carry on with whatever game they had been playing, but naked and surrounded by water.
And as I panted my way up a very steep hill through the pretty hamlet of Ramsdean, I wondered, will Mol WANT to have a bath with her boy cousin next year? She'll be 8.5, he'll be just over 7 - will they be too old to share a bath? I'm pretty sure I didn't have baths with my brothers after they were exiled to prep-school aged 7 & 8... (me being 5 at the time...)
And then I remembered, as I rounded the corner of the steep hill, to see that I hadn't yet reached the top and had at least another 300m to go, puff puff, that when we, as a young family - me (aged 8), my two brothers (10/11-ish) went to the South of France - mum had sort of strongly encouraged me to not buy a bikini top and just wear the bottoms -and I remember feeling mortified by this and totally self conscious and wanting to hide and not go to the pool in case all the boys saw my (nothing to reveal) flat as a pancake boobs. But I did feel embarrassed, and I remember that feeling so well. Please. Don't. See. Me. (I did swim but spent a lot of time in the water as opposed to standing on the edge doing dives...)
So, as I limped my way into the last mile of my run (legs a bit leaden I must admit) I came to the conclusion that we may not have very long before our childrens' bubble of innocence is popped and Mol decides that baths with cousins aren't such a fantastically fun idea and that she'd rather spend her time gyrating around the kitchen with an electronic gadget listening to some teen-hunk-crooner.
And playing "cheetah's" is a bit last year?
So now I feel a bit sad and wonder if we moved out of London now, to a remote coastal hut in Wales, we could extend the period of innocence till they're both about 15?
Or would that be a bit weird?
Yesterday I met up with an old friend who has girls aged 9 and 11 - I hadn't seen them for a long time and so I'd forgotten what older girls are like. In fact, I have no idea really anyway - because I don't know any one much older than Mol. These girls are tall and gorgeous, and behave much older (obviously) than my little gals, with uptodate technology and knowledge of popular-music and they communicate in a way I'm not familiar, and y'know, are just more grown-up.
I was quite in awe of these girls (and vainly wondered what they thought of me) and then I turned to see my little Mol, who - still in a bubble of frank-innocence, Father Christmas features big and so to does the strange fairy who collects teeth at midnight and the concept of magic is way-believable - didn't basically quite know where to look as these exotic girls gyrated (in a slightly off-hand-way) around the kitchen to tz-tz-tz-pop muzac with an air of experienced-coolness.
I wasn't sure what awed me the most.
Was it their confidence with technology that I barely understand? - non-chalently thumbing through their tunes on the ipod? Was it the skinny jeans and jeggings? Their language? Body language? That they were taller than me (not difficult I admit)?
Or was it the fact that one day, very soon, my little Mol (and following shortly on, little Liz) would be thumbing her way over her own i-whatever, bopping in time to pop tunes which I've just about heard of and feel much disdain for?
And I wondered, as I skidded over some cow-pats which decorated the bumpy Hampshire tarmac, how long exactly is it that we have, as a family, before that gorgeous innocence - the belief that magical creatures DO exist, and that Dad really CAN do magic with cards, and that £40,000 is probably not much more than £40 or £4...?
Whilst we have been staying in Hampshire this week with my parents, my two girls have been hanging out with their cousins - a boy aged 6 and another 4 year old...
And what merry times they have had. Running around the garden playing "Cheetah's" and "Lions" and "Babysitters" (Ok, so I'm 21, you're 18, Liz is 2 and Cherry is the baby... and I go out and leave you and Cherry starts to cry because her nappy is pooey, ugh! poo! ... - I mean, these games can go on for DAYS...). And then after a healthy supper of pasta and pesto and chocolate icecream and pringles they all jump into the bath together - having first run around the upstairs unclothing themselves willy nilly room by room...
No one notices that the clothes have come off. No one comments on the bottom (unless conversation turns to farting or poos but that's not in a self conscious way - maybe Liz has done a massive fart so lots of hilarity and fake farting follows...) or the lady bits or the boy bits. They just jump in the bath and carry on with whatever game they had been playing, but naked and surrounded by water.
And as I panted my way up a very steep hill through the pretty hamlet of Ramsdean, I wondered, will Mol WANT to have a bath with her boy cousin next year? She'll be 8.5, he'll be just over 7 - will they be too old to share a bath? I'm pretty sure I didn't have baths with my brothers after they were exiled to prep-school aged 7 & 8... (me being 5 at the time...)
And then I remembered, as I rounded the corner of the steep hill, to see that I hadn't yet reached the top and had at least another 300m to go, puff puff, that when we, as a young family - me (aged 8), my two brothers (10/11-ish) went to the South of France - mum had sort of strongly encouraged me to not buy a bikini top and just wear the bottoms -and I remember feeling mortified by this and totally self conscious and wanting to hide and not go to the pool in case all the boys saw my (nothing to reveal) flat as a pancake boobs. But I did feel embarrassed, and I remember that feeling so well. Please. Don't. See. Me. (I did swim but spent a lot of time in the water as opposed to standing on the edge doing dives...)
So, as I limped my way into the last mile of my run (legs a bit leaden I must admit) I came to the conclusion that we may not have very long before our childrens' bubble of innocence is popped and Mol decides that baths with cousins aren't such a fantastically fun idea and that she'd rather spend her time gyrating around the kitchen with an electronic gadget listening to some teen-hunk-crooner.
And playing "cheetah's" is a bit last year?
So now I feel a bit sad and wonder if we moved out of London now, to a remote coastal hut in Wales, we could extend the period of innocence till they're both about 15?
Or would that be a bit weird?
Monday, 16 August 2010
those hazy halceon days...
today was warm and balmy and very gardeny and ice-creamy and the wasps were out a bit and the clouds were high in the sky and liz kept remarking upon how much she'd really like to eat the clouds and mol remarked back how she would probably now only eat cloud when she was in an airplane and then i dug up some of my dad's beetroot and cooked up some of his fine green shiny courgettes and warm tomatoes from the greenhouse (if that smell of tomatoes in a warm greenhouse could be bottled...) - (top-banana courgette & tomato pie I wizzed up by the way - recipe will be released with my book... - ha! fooled you! as if! like, er, never? I have one friend who each time I see him, maybe once every other year, he says, SO, MothersRuin, when is the big novel coming out? and I'm a bit like, uh, quoi? bless you, you fool! I have no imagination bar what goes into my brain [which is mostly inactive anyway, dulled by wine and chocolate] via my eyes and out through my fingers on the keyboard - no epic or sordid or thrilling or animal or kid stories stored up in this grey matter Mr RHS, no, but thanks for the encouragement...) - (so the courgette and tomato pie recipe is safe with me and goes with me to the incinerator) and lots of children under the age of 7 sat around my parents dining room table and ate their herb sausages and mash and beetroots and sweetcorns and courgette pie and then skipped out of the dining room merry and full in the belly and happy to "I'm just going to digest my food mum, in the garden" go do running races directly after eating meat and 2 veg (no one vommed although if they had the dog would've happily cleaned it up) and then 6 children under the age of 7 sat under the bulging tulip tree and melted icecream in bowls to make icecream-soup whilst making polite conversation with each other (what do they talk about? Russian politics? the state of the economy? why don't brits holiday in UK? what does the tooth fairy really do with old blood-encrusted-teeth?) whilst two grandparents and two mothers sat in the august sun drinking black coffee and talking about Russians and politics and holidaying in Europe whilst occasionally being interrupted by small people requiring understated attention such as a bottom wipe or a nose wipe or a tonka-truk or a quick escape from a dog on the hunt for bowls of icecream...
just one of those good english summers days where the hours are long but not hard and the sun is high but not burning and the kids are happy to idle and the wrinklies get some time to finish their sentences and enjoy watching their children being sweet and happy and child-like without knowing that they are the centre of attention as the wrinklies sit exclaming how sweet they look and how happy and how good it is for children to be outside sitting under a bulging tulip tree.
just one of those good english summers days where the hours are long but not hard and the sun is high but not burning and the kids are happy to idle and the wrinklies get some time to finish their sentences and enjoy watching their children being sweet and happy and child-like without knowing that they are the centre of attention as the wrinklies sit exclaming how sweet they look and how happy and how good it is for children to be outside sitting under a bulging tulip tree.
Sunday, 15 August 2010
sparkles and cake
is it possible to have a birthday with no tantrums or tears or fights?
(I ask that in reference to children aged between 1-7... rather than as an adult 36(give or take a decade...)
(I ask that in reference to children aged between 1-7... rather than as an adult 36(give or take a decade...)
Thursday, 5 August 2010
back to life
Here I am back again.
Life as I know it.
No more crystal clear warm agean sea to splash about in with Liz & Mol.
No more Amstel beer to neck after a long slog on the beach.
No more over-sized tomatoes that ooze Mediterranean-delights.
No more factor 50.
No more hot nights listening to mosquitoes honing in on my legs for their supper.
No more hunts for the goggles - the biggest stress of the day.
No more skies as high as can be filled with stars that twinkle in such a cliched way its almost not real.
No more skies filled with bright azure blue and bright blazing sun.
No more no-skimmed-milk.
No more hot tip-toed-runs across slippery sand.
No more wondering whether to have coffee or 7-up or beer for 11-enz-ees.
How do holidays go by so incredibly quickly?
You book the flights and before you can blink its like a dream and already you're back at home doing the washing hanging up the washing ferrying grumpy kids around rummaging in the freezer for fishfingers again listening to the sirens blaring up and down Green Lanes endlessly buying skimmed milk because its there in the Tesco cold-box under bright lights all sterile and impersonal.
The photos come back and I think to myself was I really there? I can just about smell the sea and feel the texture of the white bread in my mouth and the warm tiles of the veranda under my toes, but it doesn't feel real any more. Did Liz really swim with no arm-bands? Did Mol really spend 4hours a day laughing and splashing in the sea as though the sea was her home not the land? Did Husband really not have a single conversation with work for a whole 8 days? Could it really have been possible.
Apparently so.
The problem with really brilliant holidays is that you have to come home. And however lovely it is to come back to your own bed and sleep really well again, the grime of the streets, the constant having-to-do-things, the computers, the work, the phones - all the clutter comes back so quickly - and that is the bad thing about brilliant holidays. There is no clutter on holiday. You need only fret about which beach you're walking to and which bikini to wear.
Right now all I can think of is Shirley Valentine.
Life as I know it.
No more crystal clear warm agean sea to splash about in with Liz & Mol.
No more Amstel beer to neck after a long slog on the beach.
No more over-sized tomatoes that ooze Mediterranean-delights.
No more factor 50.
No more hot nights listening to mosquitoes honing in on my legs for their supper.
No more hunts for the goggles - the biggest stress of the day.
No more skies as high as can be filled with stars that twinkle in such a cliched way its almost not real.
No more skies filled with bright azure blue and bright blazing sun.
No more no-skimmed-milk.
No more hot tip-toed-runs across slippery sand.
No more wondering whether to have coffee or 7-up or beer for 11-enz-ees.
How do holidays go by so incredibly quickly?
You book the flights and before you can blink its like a dream and already you're back at home doing the washing hanging up the washing ferrying grumpy kids around rummaging in the freezer for fishfingers again listening to the sirens blaring up and down Green Lanes endlessly buying skimmed milk because its there in the Tesco cold-box under bright lights all sterile and impersonal.
The photos come back and I think to myself was I really there? I can just about smell the sea and feel the texture of the white bread in my mouth and the warm tiles of the veranda under my toes, but it doesn't feel real any more. Did Liz really swim with no arm-bands? Did Mol really spend 4hours a day laughing and splashing in the sea as though the sea was her home not the land? Did Husband really not have a single conversation with work for a whole 8 days? Could it really have been possible.
Apparently so.
The problem with really brilliant holidays is that you have to come home. And however lovely it is to come back to your own bed and sleep really well again, the grime of the streets, the constant having-to-do-things, the computers, the work, the phones - all the clutter comes back so quickly - and that is the bad thing about brilliant holidays. There is no clutter on holiday. You need only fret about which beach you're walking to and which bikini to wear.
Right now all I can think of is Shirley Valentine.
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