Pardon?

I’ve recently been spending a lot of my time with the Small Girl attempting to answer a series of increasingly unanswerable questions (“why is it Thursday all day today?”, "what are things?”, "is it getting early yet?" etc). Infuriatingly, if she doesn’t accept the answer I give, she merely asks “Pardon?” after I’ve finished my explanation.

This morning the Small Girl asked me “Mummy, why do we have hair?”
"Um, I’m not really sure” I replied, “we just do”.
“Is it so that we can do this?” she asked, shaking her head vigorously.
“Yes, I suppose it could be...” I said vaguely.
“That’s widicleous” she declared, and ran off into the garden to swing on her swing.

We’ve been spending some very pleasant afternoons in the garden now that the weather is warmer. It’s often hot enough for a paddling pool, and on the days when the Small Girl has friends over to play, the children spend happy hours wandering unsupervised through the house and garden whilst we adults sit and talk. We had some friends over for a barbecue yesterday, and as the Small Girl came stalking into the garden in her shorts and t-shirt, eating a handful of cucumber slices foraged from the fridge, I looked at her and wondered: who is this feral little girl who is my daughter? With her wiry frame and her tousled hair and her slender long limbs, smelling faintly of ozone and sun-cream and clambering lithely up the climbing frame, she seemed to bear no relation to her mother – solid, sensible and vaguely anxious.

At least for now, the Very Small Boy belongs wholeheartedly to me. If I as much as leave the room, he fusses and frets until my return, at which point he usually cries desperate tears of relief. Actually, he has got a whole lot easier to deal with recently. He took a great deal of managing in his first few months of life, what with reflux and colic and the ensuing evenings of constant crying. Now that he is seven months old, he can sit up unaided and play happily with his toys. He’s enjoying three meals a day and a couple of bottles (which he took to reluctantly after I was hospitalised during the appendix fiasco), as well as continuing to breastfeed (and I promise I will give that up some time before he starts college). He’s turned into a chilled-out, content little man – “a very jolly baby”, as one friend put it. Oh yes, and now that he’s seven months old, apparently he’s due another developmental check-up. That should be fun.

We were in the car the other morning, stopped at some traffic lights, when the Small Girl pointed out a shop front and asked “Mum, is that a hairdresser?”
“Yes darling” I replied “Very good; that is a hairdresser”
She thought about this for a minute. “But Mum?”
“Yes, Sausage?”
"Why is that a hairdresser?”
I thought carefully before answering “Well, the person who owns that shop must have decided they wanted their shop to be a hairdressers, so they got lots of hairdressers to come and work there and now it’s where people can go if they need to have their hair cut”.
There was a long silence from the back of the car and then: “Pardon?”
I sighed.
"Mum?”
“Yes darling?” I said, bracing myself.
"How's your temper??”

And, laughing quietly to myself, marvelling at this funny little person who is my daughter, I started up the car again and we continued on our way to playschool.

The Lost Month

It suddenly dawned on me the other day that almost a whole month has gone by since I updated my blog. Realising that I have absolutely nothing to show for my lost month, I thought I’d write down everything I do for a whole day and when I did, I could easily see how a whole month could slip by unnoticed. So, here it is: Friday 12^th June, a fairly typical day in the life of Mummy…

5.40am Woken by the Very Small Boy’s loud fussing. Decide to let DH sleep on, take VSB downstairs to feed him and change his nappy.

6.00am Make myself a cup of tea, which I drink while making up the VSB’s two bottles of formula for the day. Wash last night’s dishes, fix breakfast for the VSB and attempt to get him to eat it.

7.00am Take the VSB upstairs and settle him in his cot for a nap. Make DH a cup of tea and the Small Girl (who is now banging on the wall) a milky drink. Look online for finger food ideas for the VSB (who is now refusing to eat anything presented to him on a spoon).

7.45am Lay out children’s clothes. After much fussing and whingeing, the SG agrees to come downstairs just as the VSB wakes up.

8.00am Change VSB’s nappy and get him dressed as the SG plays with her cereal. Leave him to fuss while I chase the SG around trying to get her dressed (she is having a tantrum because I won’t let her watch TV). Toast a bagel for the SG to eat in the car.

8.30am Pack everyone into the car and give DH a lift to the station (it’s raining and he has a hole in his shoe). SG whinges all the way: “I don’t like this thnaaack!”

9.00am Drop SG off at Playschool, drive as fast as possible to the supermarket (with VSB whining uncontrollably in the back) to buy finger food.

10.00am Give the VSB a bottle and pack him off to bed. Unload the car, unpack the shopping, wash the breakfast dishes. Make chicken goujons and bake for VSB’s lunch. Start a beef stew for tonight’s dinner.

11.30am Just sitting down for a cup of tea when VSB wakes up. Offer him chicken goujons. He bursts out crying and ends up having yoghurt and toast for lunch as usual.

12.30pm VSB whinges all the way to Playschool to pick up SG.

1.00pm Make SG sit down and rest in front of the tv for half an hour while I change VSB and clean up chicken, toast and yoghurt from floor, walls and high chair.

1.30pm The three girls from next door come over to play. While they’re busy in the garden, I make chai and veg samosas for DH to take into work for visiting Indian colleagues, whilst entertaining the VSB with a medley of silly songs.

2.30pm Give increasingly fussy VSB his bottle and take him up for a nap.

3.00pm Finish making samosas, wash the dishes, make snacks and drinks for the 4 girls and take the younger two to the loo.

4.00pm VSB wakes from nap, take the girls back home and spend and hour tidying up the chaos they have left behind. The SG has a meltdown because she wants her friends to come back.

5.00pm Give the VSB and the SG their dinner. The SG is so incensed at the sight of my chicken goujons that she carries on the tantrum while the VSB throws his fingers of butternut squash over the side of his high chair.

5.30pm Make a soothing cup of tea which I drink while I clean up the VSB's butternut squash (more of which went on the floor and up his nose than into his mouth).

6.00pm Run a bath for the children (SG still having tantrum and refuses to get in).

6.30pm Fix their snacks and milky drinks while they watch tv and play with toys. SG demands 3 rounds of toast, as she ate nothing for dinner. VSB mashes his toast into my expensive Indian rug and giggles.

7.00pm Take the children up to bed. Read the SG a story in bed whilst breastfeeding VSB. Take the VSB to bed and clean up the bathtime chaos.

7.15pm Finish preparing beef stew. Pack up samosas for DH and put reheated chai into a thermos.

7.30pm Just sitting down in front of the TV when DH gets home. Serve dinner, eat dinner, wash dishes.

8.00pm Spend an hour doing the pile of ironing I’ve been trying to ignore for a week.

9.00pm Exhausted. Have a shower (I can’t do this in the mornings these days). Go to bed, read same three sentences of book I read last night, and just have time to marvel that it’s amazing I even have time to eat, never mind write a blog, before passing out…