Settling In

This week was an important (one might even say momentous) week for the Very Small Boy: he began the process of "settling in" at Playschool.

We've been working up to this for some time now. It was always our intention to send him in a couple of mornings a week, if and when we felt he was ready to take the step. And the time has definitely come; he has become incredibly sociable, stopping in shops to turn and smile as people pass him by; running up to strangers in the doctor's waiting room to make friends; chasing down the street after other Small People when we go for a walk. He is also becoming increasingly difficult to entertain, demanding all of my attention all of the time, and constantly adding new and treacherous skills to his repertoire (his latest, horrifyingly, being the ability to climb).

Little boys, I am discovering, are very different from little girls. The Small Girl, at the age of 14 months, was quiet, sweet and sedate; would tire easily and had no interest whatsoever in getting to higher ground. Her Very Small brother, on the other hand, is possessed of boundless vigour - he won't sit if he can stand, won't walk if he can run. And most of his ceaseless activity is accompanied by enthusiastic shouting and, preferably, the sound of objects being bashed mindlessly against other objects.

His first few tentative days at Playschool have affected the whole family in unexpected ways. I find it enormously reassuring that the Small Girl has been encouraged by Playschool to go on "visits" to spend time playing with her brother. And I've noticed that, even over a few days, their relationship with each other has become a lot more affectionate; he comforted by her presence and she feeling a great deal more compassion towards him. The two of them are beginning to enjoy their relationship and to understand the enormity of what it means to have someone who is more like you than anyone else in the world.

For me, although I have longed for a few hours to myself each week, it is also a period of adjustment. Just as, when the Small Girl started at Playschool, I would pace the house feeling lost and alone, so again do I have to readjust to being apart from the baby who has been at my side constantly for over a year. Wanting to keep busy, I went to the supermarket last week after dropping off the Very Small Boy. Walking down the street without a pushchair, wheeling a supermarket trolley devoid of Small Person, I felt lonely and somehow exposed ("as if your right arm is missing", as one friend put it).

I seem to have forgottoen how to deinfe myself, other than as a mother. (A few weeks back, I was in the slightly surreal position of being chatted up by a hopeful twenty-something in a bar. "Look, I'm married", I had said crossly, flashing my wedding ring. "And I have two children!". My forlorn suitor had looked surprised "I don't believe you", he had answered, and I had felt shocked that it might not be obvious that I was a mother - that my children were not somehow detectable in the air that surrounds me).

In the end, it's become a settling-in period for all of us; for the Very Small Boy as he takes a step towards independence, for the Small Girl as she becomes accustomed to the unselfish notion of empathy. And for me, as I struggle once more with my sense of identity and with the realisation that my children are growing slowly upwards, and, inexorably, away from me.

Daddy

The Small Girl came running up to us this morning as DH gave me a hug before he left for work.

“I want to join in the cuddle!” she cried with glee, so DH picked her up and the three of us briefly embraced before the Very Small Boy, sensing he was missing out, came dashing unsteadily over, shouted “hot!” and fell over backwards.

Five minutes later, the children and I gathered as usual at the sitting room window to wave goodbye as DH set off for work. It’s always a poignant moment; the Small Girl and her brother are as reluctant to let him leave as I am (and I often feel like joining them when they cling to his legs in desperation, shouting “please stay!” as he edges towards the front door).

Well, the Small Girl cries “please stay”; her Very Small brother is unable, as yet, to string two words together. And even if he could, the ability wouldn’t come in very useful: he only has two words in his vocabulary, and there aren’t really any meaningful phrases one can make out of “hot” and “Daddy”.

The Very Small Boy’s second word began as a kind of rolling “da-da-da-da-da”, and has evolved into a very well-enunciated “da-dee, da-dee ”, shouted with great gusto every time DH walks into the room, and accompanied by the pit-pat pit-pat of Very Small feet as he dashes quickly over with his arms stretched out to be picked up.

I find it desperately moving that the children love their Daddy so much. Sharing the undisguised glee they feel when DH returns from work each evening is the most joyful part of my day, and seeing the delight on the Very Small Boy’s face moves me especially: it’s as if he were thinking to himself "thank God – there’s another man here at last!”.

He has even perfected a Very Small wave to use each morning as we assemble at the window for our ritual goodbye: arm raised, little fish clenching and unclenching. Words fail me when it comes to explaining to the Very Small Boy where DH has actually gone though – there is no language I can use to help a 14 month old baby understand concepts like “work” or “later”.

And so it is that I often find myself, during the day, standing before the window comforting the Very Small Boy as he tries to make sense of his Daddy’s absence, his little chubby hand raised forlornly as he waves at the indifferent, leafless trees outside.

The World Comes Rushing In

I’ve been feeling very emotional recently. I drove, sobbing, to playschool this morning, listening to a poignant song on the radio, then shed embarrassing tears of pride as the Very Small Boy inelegantly rearranged the Playschool office while I discussed with the owner when he could start attending. I’ve come to the conclusion that this excess of emotion is all down to the fact that two weeks ago, I decided to stop taking the anti-depressants I put myself on when the Very Small Boy was six months old.

And if I haven’t mentioned this before, or made any reference to the daily dose of pills that have kept me sane for the last eight months, it’s not through some misguided sense of shame, but merely that it seemed of little relevance.

I knew as soon as the headaches began that I would need medication. The same thing had happened after the birth of the Small Girl in India; apart from the other, more obvious symptoms of unhappiness, I began to suffer with migraines. These were of such awful intensity that the face of the person to whom I was talking would appear to be melting; the mouth turning down at one corner and a single eye drooping alarmingly. There, I didn’t even bother with a doctor, but went to our local chemist stall (dustily doing business at the corner of a raucous intersection), where I handed the shopkeeper a slip of paper upon which I had written the name and dose of an antidepressant researched on the internet. I bought a six month supply: thankfully, the regulation of prescription drugs in India is somewhat lax.

Two and a half years later, the Very Small Boy was born. Less than two weeks after I first met my chubby, beautiful little boy, DH had to return to work and suddenly I found myself utterly exhausted, recovering from a cesarean and alone with an extremely headstrong and disgruntled toddler and a constantly screaming baby (the Very Small Boy had both colic and reflux). I had thought the enormous mental adjustment I made after the birth of the Small Girl would enable me to cope, but apparently being a parent requires an almost continuous modification of one’s sense of self.

So often, friends have said to me of motherhood “why does no one ever tell you how hard it will be” and “I didn’t realise it would be so difficult”. But the truth is that nothing can prepare you for the sheer selflessness that is necessary to give your life over utterly to other people, no matter how much you love them. Being a person of extremes, I feel the lows of parenthood as acutely as I feel the euphoria of the highs. And, for eight months, my pills have taken the edge off both.

I was handing out milky drinks to the children one evening last week, when the Small Girl heard DH, home from work, closing the front door.

“Pootle” she cried, leaping up and holding her hand out to the Very Small Boy, “It’s Daddy!!”. Holding hands, they dashed off together to greet him, both shouting “Daddy! Daddy!” as they ran, and I busied myself over the stove so he wouldn’t see my tears of pride when he walked over to kiss me. Because now I’ve stopped taking my pills, I find the world comes rushing in at me in vibrant technicolor, and sometimes the beauty of life overwhelms me.

Happy New Mummy

No longer having the patience for jostling late nights and expensive drinks, DH and I saw in the New Year in our usual way: quietly, with a take-away and a bottle of wine. Over which, we talked about the past year and, in fact, all the past years: because New Year’s Eve is our anniversary and this naturally makes one feel rather indulgently reflective.

We’ve done some stuff in our eleven years together: lived in different countries, been on diverse holidays, done up a couple of houses, had countless different jobs, got married and of course, had two children. But looking back over the past year, I couldn’t help feeling slightly let down.

“I just feel like a whole year’s passed and I haven’t actually got anything to show for it” I said to DH after several glasses of wine. “I mean, what have I actually achieved this year?”.
“What do you mean?” he asked “you’re bringing up two happy, healthy children… and you’re doing a great job of it!” he replied.

Despite his reassurances, I still had the nagging feeling that I was merely treading water; barely managing to keep a lid on the chaos that was threatening to engulf me and on a personal level, not really getting to grips with all the things I had wanted to do and somehow never found the time to get around to.

Still, I felt decidedly smug the next day when, having woken to a beautifully snowy morning and glorious blue skies, all four of us made our way outside at 8.ooam for a pristine walk - well rested, full of anticipation and definitely not hung-over. And I decided then that this was going to be my year, a time to do more for myself and less for other people. A time to do all of those things I have been meaning to do for a long time (taking a writing course, finding the time to go running, learning to knit and generally making more stuff out of paper maché). To do lots of things that could be summed up with the resolution to Be More Selfish.

“Let’s play letters!” the Small Girl cried when we got home, running for the fridge where we had stuck her new magnetic letters (a Christmas stocking-filler).
“Good idea!” I said, and spelled out “Happy New Year”.
“What does it say Mummy?” asked the Small Girl.
“It says Happy New Year!” I explained.
“Oh! Now let’s write “Mummy”” she said, and I showed her how to spell the word.

The Small Girl took the “Y” away from “year” and asked:
“Now what does it say?”
“It says “Happy New ear!”” I replied, and we both giggled.

She moved the word “ear” away and pushed “Mummy” up into its place.
“Now what does it say?” she asked again, looking pleased with herself.
“Happy New Mummy!” I said, laughing. And, feeling tentative whisperings of hope, I scooped her up for a buoyant cuddle.

A Family Christmas

"What is it? What is it?” shouted the Small Girl on the morning of Christmas Eve, as she opened the second-to-last door on her chocolate advent calendar.
“Um, it’s a Christmas… tractor!” I replied, happily noting that it mattered not one bit to the Small Girl that the chocolates in her calendar (which I had purchased, in an uncharacteristic fit of fiscal restraint, at our local discount supermarket) were not Christmassy in the slightest.

But this is usual for children at Christmas; the thrill of it all is in the expectation and the finer details aren’t important. The cheap stocking-fillers are the favourites of the day; the wrapping paper is of more interest than the carefully-chosen present.

After scattering the presents from both her own and the Very Small Boy’s stockings all over our bed, The Small Girl came joyfully dashing downstairs the following morning. She headed straight for the Christmas tree, under which a sprawling mass of presents had appeared overnight. And quivering with barely contained glee, she seized the plate we had set out the previous night with a mince pie, a bottle of beer and a carrot.

“The mince pie is gone! And the beer is drunk! And… someone took a bite out of the carrot!!!” she squealed.
“It must have been Santie and Rudolph!” said DH, passing her a milky drink and carting off the empty beer bottle to put in the recycle bin.
"Was it Santie, Mummy?" The Small Girl asked me
“Of course, darling!” I replied in a tone of exaggerated shock, and winked at her.

I spent a happy morning pottering in the kitchen, cooking and setting the table while DH and the Small Girl built a fire and played with her new toys, and the Very Small Boy carefully examined the wrapping paper from his presents, turning it over in his chubby hands, his earnest little eyebrows furrowed in frowny concentration.

Christmas dinner, I later realised, is also more about the expectation than the detail. I went to far too much trouble for the four of us; making stuffing and steaming puddings and cooking bread sauce and doing interesting things with cranberries. But the Small Girl had a ball pulling all the crackers and the Very Small Boy had his first taste of turkey and in the end it didn’t matter at all that nobody liked the bread sauce or that we were all too full to eat any Christmas pudding.

Later that night, when the children were finally in bed, DH and I sat down, exhausted.

“So do you think they enjoyed their day?” I asked him.
“Of course. They loved it!” he replied.
“Well, that’s all that matters. Bloody exhausting though…” I said.
“Yeah”, he sighed wearily. “Shall we have a top-up?”
“That’s the best idea you’ve had all day darling” I said, and handed him my empty wineglass.