Nostrils

Wherever possible, I try to avoid the challenging experience of supermarket shopping with both the Small Girl and the Very Small Boy at the same time. However, one of the unfortunate consequences of the Small Girl moving to a Montessori programme is that Playschool is now governed by a school timetable. To my horror, I discovered that I am expected to entertain her for whole weeks on end during Playschool holidays, as well as trying to get things like shopping and cooking done with the "help" of two Small People.

We started gently this week with October half term, Monday being a bank holiday and therefore leaving me with only four days of entertaining to do. So, in-between the art assignments, stimulating outings, baking projects and play-dates I had scheduled in advance for this frankly daunting few days, I tried to make my own mundane chores as exciting as possible for the Small Girl, for whom even the most trivial task can become exciting if given the right imaginative stimulus. We made a den under the bedcovers whilst changing the sheets, we pretended the vacuum was a monster, chasing the Small Girl around the room while I cleaned, we dusted together and then gave ourselves stickers for Good Cleaning.

By Friday, having put it off all week and sick of spooning the Very Small Boy’s formula powder into my coffee in place of milk, I decided we really ought to go to the supermarket. With no imaginative ideas left to keep the Small Girl amused, I fell back on the last resort of the exhausted mother – chocolate. So, with the Very Small Boy sitting in the supermarket trolley eating a breadstick and the Small Girl running along beside me with a Kinder Egg, we set out for the Dairy aisle.

By the time we got to Beer & Wine, the Very Small Boy had finished his snack and was leaning precariously over the side of the trolley, pointing to the ground and screeching to get down. Whilst singing him soothing songs, pushing the trolley and trying to remember all the items from the shopping list I had, as usual, left at home, I had somehow managed to assemble a miniature woolly mammoth, complete with detachable tusks, from inside the Small Girls’s chocolate egg.

“But what are these called?” The Small Girl was shouting, running along behind me as I grabbed a bottle of wine and hurried towards the till.
“Tusks” I replied, feeling flustered and unloading the shopping, “they’re the mammoth’s tusks”.
“No they’re not tusks, they’re nostrils”, she said, waving them about angrily, her voice rising in agitation.
“OK, you can call them nostrils if you like”. Trying to make myself heard over the Very Small Boy’s screeches, I arranged my facial features into something I thought might resemble "calm and reasonable mother".
“But where are they?” she cried, bending over to scan the floor and sounding really upset now.
“What? Where are what?” I asked in desperation, trying as quickly as possible to calm the Very Small Boy and pack up the shopping so we could leave.
“The nostrils! I dropped them…where are the nostrils?" she continued, "where are the mammoth nostrils? Mummy, where are my MAMMOTH NOSTRILS?”

It was one of those moments when the world seems to stand still. And, in the silence that followed, all eyes were on me (even the Very Small Boy had stopped screeching and was regarding me inquisitively). I looked at the check-out girl.
“I need a glass of wine”, I sighed through clenched teeth.

She smiled and nodded sympathetically. “Or two” she said, and handed me my bottle of Merlot.

It's Been a Long Time, Baby!

Somehow, whole months of my life seem to have elapsed recently without my being aware of the passing of time. Preoccupied for a while with the daily routine, I suddenly realised that the Small Girl was becoming terribly grown-up and that the Very Small Boy was actually just that – a little boy - and no longer technically a baby. Slightly disturbed that my whole life might pass me by in a blur of cooking, cleaning, playschool runs, nappy-changing and general domesticity, I decided I’d better try and get back to appreciating the small things in life and actually noticing the little changes which mark the passing of time.

Certainly in the case of the Very Small Boy, some of the changes that have taken place have been enormous. We had an extremely pleasant few weeks where I discovered that he was able to sit up unaided and, surrounded by a sea of toys, would happily amuse himself for whole minutes at a time. It didn’t last for long – he was soon using the furniture to pull himself up to standing and within a month or two, he had taken his first tentative steps. Now, at just under eleven months, he is dashing noisily around the house, keeling over regularly (ten month old babies are simply not designed for running, I’m afraid) and getting himself into all manner of trouble.

The Small Girl has started a Montessori course at Playschool, which she’s enjoying enormously and which has provided just the sort of new challenge she was ready for. With more of an emphasis on learning, she’s showing an interest in letters and numbers and using increasingly complicated language. We’re also encountering the kind of irritating arguments and name-calling that I didn’t anticipate for a few years and I was slightly dismayed last week to be called a “poo-poo head” (I did wonder briefly whether to teach her some more imaginative insults, before deciding we would have plenty of time for that in the years to come).

The Small Girl is usually terribly sweet though, and the other day said to me “Oh I like your pretty necklace, Mummy!”
“Thanks sausage”, I replied, “it belonged to my Grandma!”
“Who’s your Grandma?” she asked, looking slightly confused.
“She was Granddad’s Mummy and she lived in Australia” I said. The Small Girl thought for a moment.
“Do I know her?” she asked.
“No darling, you never met her and” - I chose my words carefully – “she’s not alive any more”.
“Is she dead?” she asked, her eyes growing wide.
“Yes sweetheart, she died a long time ago” I said, not feeling entirely comfortable with where the conversation was going but feeling I ought to be upfront about things.
“But where is she now?” she persisted “is she in her house?”
“Well no, she died so she’s not in her house.
“But where is she? Is she in her garden?” I could see that the Small Girl wasn’t going to give in so I decided to end the conversation with a decisive statement:
“She’s not anywhere darling, she died and after you die you’re just gone. But you don’t need to worry about that, it only happens to people when they’re very, very old and they’ve lived a very, very long time”.

The Small Girl processed this and then started to look worried. “But Mummy, you’re quite old!”

I laughed, scooping her up for a cuddle. “No darling, I’m still very young! And as for you and Baby Pie… well, your lives haven’t even started yet”.