Reality Bites (And Sometimes It Throws Up Too)

I remember clearly the moment that the reality of being a mother hit me. In limbo, adrift between India and Ireland, we were staying with family when the Very Small Girl had her first real illness: a nasty bout of flu. It was the middle of the night and not a single person was awake other than she and I. And sitting there, painfully alone in the silent darkness as I tried to soothe her to sleep, it struck me - this is what it means to be this child’s mother. Being her mother means being the only person who will do at 2am when she has a fever. The enormity of this privilege was not lost on me, even at that time of the morning.

Now that the Very Small Boy has started playschool, we suspected it wouldn’t be long before he started to come down with all the usual bugs (the first thing he did on his first day of “settling in” was dash over to a small snotty-nosed child and take a large swig from his beaker of juice). And I should have realised yesterday that something was afoot when, half-way through our daily walk, the Very Small Boy, usually so full of energy, gave up and whinged to be carried home.

“Mummy, slow down!” whined the Small Girl, trotting along behind me as I strode off with the Very Small Boy slung over my shoulder. I was trying to remain cheerful, but it wasn’t easy: the Very Small Boy had inadvertently trodden in dog poo, which I had then inadvertently got all over my trousers, coat and jumper as I carried him.

I changed into fresh clothes when we got home, throwing the soiled ones, along with the offending shoes, into the utility room to be dealt with at some later date. The Very Small Boy (looking distinctly red about the eyes) whimpered into his dinner, managing to eat just enough of it to do some serious damage a few hours later when it came back up again – all over his cot, sheets, mattress and pyjamas.

“My poor brave little soldier”, I whispered to him in the dark as I cleaned him up, thinking that the reality of being a parent is really just this: sponging sick out of your child’s hair at two in the morning.
“I’ll get up with him when he wakes” offered DH, bundling up the soiled sheets and clothes. But, a few hours of fitful sleep later, it was me that the Very Small Boy wanted; it always is when he is ill.

I really didn’t mind getting up with him at quarter past five this morning though – it really is astonishing to be so utterly required by someone. “Come on, Little Man” I said to my Very Small son as I carried him gingerly downstairs. “Let’s change your nappy and get you a drink. Then we can make a start on that enormous pile of laundry…”

Playschool

“Ni Hao, Mummy!” chirped the Small Girl gleefully when I picked her up from Playschool a couple of weeks ago.
“Oh!”, I replied, puzzled. “What does that mean, Sausage?”
“It’s saying “hello” in China!” she said, jumping up and down as I opened the car door for her.

The Small Girl, it turned out, had been learning about the Chinese New Year - on our journey home, she was full of excited chatter about dragons and parades and Chinese soup, to which I listened in amazement. Now that she attends a Montessori class five mornings a week, she has been finding out about all kinds of interesting things, each week based around a different (and apparently quite random) theme: hibernation; the food pyramid; Thanksgiving. I love the fact that she comes home so enthused about learning, that she’s getting such a great head start for Big School (which is looming scarily in September). It’s a fantastic playschool, and we were very lucky to have stumbled across it.

I remember so clearly when the Small Girl started there: she was just over one year old and we decided to send her two mornings a week to socialise with other toddlers and to give me a bit of a break. Settling in was a tough process; I used to walk away each morning in tears, wondering whether I was letting my child down by leaving her wailing in the arms of a stranger. But she very quickly grew to love her time there, playing with her friends and engaging in exciting activities I simply wasn’t brave enough to try at home (playing indoors with sand and water, messing about with shaving foam, and sticky finger-painting with a gloopy mess of painty Reddy Brek). In the end, I felt it was one of the best things we had ever done for her.

And so it was inevitable that we considered doing the same for the Very Small Boy. I always declared that I would only send him if he seemed to have the sort of personality suited to it and luckily, he is very like his sister was at the same age – outgoing, sociable and full of fun. He completed his second two-morning week last week, and each time it got a little easier for him and for me. I still walk away each morning in tears, wondering whether I am letting my child down, but I know in my heart that it’s healthy to push him away a little; to help take his first Very Small steps towards independence.

After picking them both up from Playschool last week, driving home in the car the Small Girl and I had our usual chat about her morning, while the Very Small Boy listened with interest:

“What did you do in Playschool today darling?” I asked
“We learnt about penguins!” she replied.
“Penguins!” I said “and what can you tell me about penguins?”

She thought for a moment, then: “If you drop a penguin on its head, it dies!” she said theatrically. Then she leaned back in her seat and spent the rest of the journey looking thoughtfully out of the car window.

Small Allies

I was pottering in the spare room last night, waiting for the children’s bath to run, when the Small Girl and her Very Small brother came wandering in. It’s a relaxed time of day for us – I usually put the stair gate up at the top of the stairs, and they dash about happily (and often bare) playing and, in the case of the Very Small Boy, flinging objects over the top of the gate and down the stairs, where they land with a satisfying crash.

“Mummy, what’s that?” asked the Small Girl, pointing to a dismantled baby play-mat balancing on the top of an ever-expanding pile of “things to go up in the loft”.
“It’s a play-mat, sausage. It belonged to you when you were a baby, and Baby Pie used it as well - but he’s too big for it now”.
“I remember that!” she cried, and turned to her Very Small Brother, who was tugging forcefully on the wires at the back of my computer.

“Pootle, you used to have that when you were a baby!” she said to him and, as she turned to leave the room, added over her shoulder “you were a nightmare when you were a baby!”. And shaking her head thoughtfully, she wandered off to check on her bath.

After the children were bathed and changed and sleeping peacefully in their beds, I thought about their relationship with each other and about how they are growing to enjoy each other’s company, play together and appreciate each other. And I drifted contentedly off to sleep last night, thinking about how lovely it is that each gets so much from the other.

My contentment was short-lived, however: somehow, during their pre-bath playtime, the two little fiends had managed to set the alarm on our clock radio to go off loudly at midnight. And five hours later, the Very Small Boy was wailing to get up; unfortunately it was my turn to rise with him.

Two hours after that, the Small Girl joined us downstairs, and the Very Small Boy’s delight at seeing his sister was obvious: he dashed across the room shouting “eh, eh!” and flung his arms around her waist. Half asleep, the Small Girl returned his cuddle and, while I fixed her a milky drink, the two of them wandered off with their arms about each other to find some toys to play with.

Tell Me a Story

When I was pregnant with the Very Small Boy, I decided it was important to start talking to the Small Girl about her own arrival in the world. I wanted her to understand that all this planning, preparation and excitement had happened for her, too (that her arrival had, in fact, been even more precious, as she was our first baby). It backfired on me somewhat, instilling in her as it did a love of improvised storytelling; her demands of “you tell me the story of when I was born!” eventually began to drive me to distraction.

We have since built up a complex set of the tales that make up our family history: the time we moved to India; the time the Very Small Boy was born; the time Mummy broke her arm ice-skating; the time Daddy was a naughty little schoolboy stealing ripe fruit from the neighbour’s plum tree. And I’ve grown to love these story-times with the Small Girl, DH and I tying together the threads of our lives, from our own childhoods to theirs.

I’m pleased to say that, where the Small Girl is concerned, the line between reality and fantasy is as fluid as ever, and these days, her story-telling demands are becoming increasingly imaginative and bizarre. While I was helping her with her colouring-in recently, she turned thoughtfully to me and insisted “Mummy, you tell me the story of when the dinosaurs died!”. After which followed a long and complicated tale (involving meteors, dust clouds and archaeologists) of the kind I couldn’t possibly have imagined ever having with a three year old.

“Mummy!” came the familiar demand yesterday at bathtime (the Very Small Boy was busily dashing in and out of his bedroom with a collection of toys, books and clothes to be flung vigorously into the bathwater).
“Yes, darling?” I replied, fishing a sodden hardback out and setting it out of reach to dry on a towel.
“You tell me the story of when your head fell off!”

“Aha!” I laughed, and began the story: ”it was bathtime on a Monday evening in Newbridge and Mummy had spent a long and tiring day chasing after Small People and telling endless imaginary stories…”