I'm liking this. Doesn't look like much, does it? A noise maker perhaps? Telescope? Torch? Hmmm my socks are filthy, kindly ignore that.
It's Mog's Christmas present. And it does this. Pretty, isn't it? It arrived a couple of days ago, and I opened it up, checked it had the right number of parts, and posted it back into its box. And then Mog woke up, and started squawking. And being generally miserable and revolting. So I took it back out of the box again and set it up above her bed. And she stopped squawking, and started smiling, and settled down for long enough to listen to her music, and fell asleep again.
So it's playing a nightly light show for her now. Which is great - anything which distracts her long enough to trick her into sleep is just fine by me. But now she needs something else to unwrap on Christmas Day.
I am still learning my place in this family. Slow learner, obviously.
"Come on Mummy, it's tidy-up time now. Bit messy here Mummy." "You sit down there turn round to table. Turn round, sit DOWN Mummy." "Mummy Imi wants you NOW" "You do washing up now Mummy" "WIPE IT" "Mummy my glasses bit manky, you clean them Mummy."
So why is it, after a day spent in tidy-up time, washing, wiping, folding, sorting, organising, and cleaning, that I am sitting here surrounded by pieces of jigsaw puzzle, bits of glitter and Christmas confetti, three blankets, two cats, and a partridge in a pear tree?
Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, come, our Wisdom from on high, Who ordered all things mightily; To us the path of knowledge show, and teach us in her ways to go. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, come, oh, come, our Lord of might, Who to your tribes on Sinai's height In ancient times gave holy law, In cloud and majesty and awe. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, come O Rod of Jesse's stem, From ev'ry foe deliver them That trust your mighty pow'r to save; Bring them in vict'ry through the grave. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, come, O Key of David, come, And open wide our heav'nly home; Make safe the way that leads on high, And close the path to misery. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, come, our Dayspring from on high, And cheer us by your drawing nigh, Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death's dark shadows put to flight. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, come, Desire of nations, bind In one the hearts of all mankind; Oh, bid our sad divisions cease, And be yourself our King of Peace. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel!
The day got better. Two happy girls ready for an Advent Sunday Parade Service. Lots of small Rainbows and Brownies marching through the church with flags and banners. Wildly overexcited children now officially within reach of Christmas. Slightly less enthusiastic parents realising the countdown has begun. The first red candle lit and burning brightly.
A good lunch with Grannie and Grandad, and a prowl around a garden centre with the traditional annual purchase of a new decoration for the Christmas tree. Tin bells this year.
And now home, and ready to think about Advent properly. Ready to think about making time to prepare, not just by wrapping presents and chopping vegetables and getting stressed about making postal dates and mince pies, but to prepare for the coming of the Christ - Child and Adult. Ready to think about ensuring He is welcome in my house and in my life.
Our Advent Sunday service is always a family service, always a Parade service (meaning that the Guides and Scouts and all the junior versions of the same come in uniform, bringing parents and reading shy prayers and marching through the church), and always a toy and sweet service - children come bringing gifts which are then distributed via a local children's centre. It's a nice way of encouraging the children to think just for a few minutes about the giving side of Christmas, in amongst the wishlists and wantings. It's a nice way of bringing in families who don't ordinarily come to church (and one day the worship group will understand what we mean when we say "please play something all the children will know, not just those who come every week. But that's a separate issue). And it's a nice way of formally marking the beginning of Advent, pointing out that it isn't about a daily slice of chocolate from the first of December but that it does actually have roots in a far older tradition.
Today Our Vicar chose to illustrate his sermon by sharing invitations with the congregation.
"You are invited to a banquet by the Lord God Most High". Every child (and most adults) caught one and had to decide whether they were coming to the party or not. Little Fish of the literal mind is now convinced the vicar is throwing a party and wants to know when it is and where and whether or not there will be chocolate at it. I took her up to the vicar after the service and asked him to explain. "It's one long party, and it starts now, if you want it to" was his response. Little Fish is very happy about this but still rather confused.
Tomorrow we will start to explore this
and each day, we'll be reading the next chapter in the story.
As each story is read, we will hang it along a streamer and so as we go through the Christmas Story we'll decorate the house. I wonder if I can get away with just that as a decoration and not bother with anything else?. I would have unhooked the first to give a sneaky preview, but this happened
and so I couldn't.
It's been a good day, a busy day, but a nice ordinary mainstream busyness rather than full of matters medical. I'm looking back today as well as forwards - it was a year ago today that we buried my Goldy. Today was the sort of day she'd have enjoyed a lot. Potential to cause mayhem at church followed by a good meal out, lots of fragile ornaments to grab and test for hidden chocolate, people to shout at or ignore, a candle to blow out, and then time to watch a favourite video before bed. I think she'd approve.
Forget six impossible things before breakfast, that's easy.
1. Feline mayhem - no, not catfights, they have all been apparently quite civilised overnight, each finding their own sleeping point and none of them eating the Super Chunks. But one of them who shall remain nameless vomited on my duvet at 5AM. I was underneath it at the time.
2. When unceremoniously turfed off the bed, said cat did not make his way immediately to the catflap, apologising for the inconvenience, but turned to climb back on the bed again, ensuring that with his second puke he caught the pile of clothing on the floor.
3. We went to the out of hours GP last night as Mog's cough appeared to be getting worse again - he had a listen and declared all well. I'm actually happy with that - sometimes the duty doctors just wave a stethoscope in front of her and magically declare her lungs to be full of grot. So to have one who listened careful and then decided she didn't have an infection was great. That's not the infuriating bit. The infuriating bit is getting back home with one grinning "hah, fooled you" little girl, putting said girl to bed and listening to her immediately start wheezing and obstructing and giving great big chesty coughs, none of which she produced for the doctor.
4. Our carer turned up early. It's a petty annoyance rather than a massive grievance, but those ten minutes before she was due I had earmarked for a shower and hairwash. So now I'm sitting here grumpy and grubby, and she is readying the bathroom for Mog's morning routine.
5. Mog is sleeping sweetly, breathing easily, silently, and without any hint of problems. This is possibly more annoying than any of the others - why? Because this is what I needed her to be doing at 9 o'clock last night. And 10 o'clock, and midnight, and 1, all of which times I got to see in either trying to reposition her in bed or finally giving up and putting her back in her wheelchair instead.
Now I can hear Little Fish making little murmurings from her bed, and as she has so far not annoyed or irritated me this morning, and as I have finished my first cup of coffee, she's probably a good person for me to go and cuddle. I wonder how long it'll take before she winds me up too. Perhaps I need an attitude readjustment. Or possibly just more coffee.
So, because my life just wasn't interesting enough, I came back home this afternoon to the sounds of many cats calling.
When I moved into this flat five years ago, I moved in with my cat Henry. Henry liked it here. He liked the flat, he liked the neighbourhood, he liked the neighbours. He liked some of the neighbours so much that he ended up moving in with them. Two years after we moved in, he moved on. Initially it was part-time; he'd disappear for 24 hours and come back ravenous, but as time went on he called in less and less.
Two years ago he came back for a visit after a gap of several months. He'd broken a tooth, so I took him to the vet, who promptly pulled all but one of his teeth out. Henry didn't much care for this, and ran off again. And that was the last I saw of him. It's been 18 months even since I've seen him outside.
I know it's been two years, because Little Fish has never met Henry. Or rather, Little Fish had never met Henry. She can't say that anymore. We came home tonight after a day out with the Guides. And were greeted by an interesting mix of hiss, growl, and meep. Henry is back. Goway and Comeback are not impressed. Henry is not impressed either, how dare I open his house to two more cats?
So now Henry is ensconced under the armchair in the corner of the sitting room. Goway is scratching and pulling at his skin, and occasionally peering under the chair to hiss loudly then run away, shaking. Comeback is sleeping with his head on my feet, worn out from not only shouting at Henry but also from the rather splendid fight he just got into with his own reflection in Mog's mirror.
There must be something about that mirror tonight - Goway is now boxing his reflection in it.
Henry, unpeturbed, continues to wash himself under the chair. He's both fatter and flatter than he was two years ago; scruffy with a tail that drags and a back paw which is either muddy or bloody, he won't let me close enough to work out which.
Little Fish thinks this is either deeply terrifying or possibly terribly funny - I'm working on the humour side for her and busy providing dialogue to accompany the cats' cries. Who knew that "YeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEaaaaaaaaoooorrrrowghroughrowwwwwWWWWWWWWWWwkkkkssssssssssssssssssss" could actually mean "hello you two beautiful cats who live in this house now will you let me live here too and be your friend?"
Mog is above worrying about such things - Norah Jones is skipping all over the place (there was an unfortunate incident with Lactulose and a CD case) and this is far more distressing.
And me? I want to know what is so utterly dreadful about Supermarket Premium Kitty Chunks in individual foil sachets that all three cats are now refusing to eat them, preferring to extract them from the various bowls and chase them across the kitchen floor.
It's been an odd kind of a day all round really. A man knocked on the door earlier, and when I opened it, he shook me by the hand for raising my autistic son. I'm still trying to work that one out.
Triumph. Mog managed a full week in school. The first full week since July. Here is the sweet face of success.Hmmm.
Not even the prospect of showing off these,her most fabulous princess boots, could raise a smile. I think I could even have gotten away with mentioning the fact we introduced some of our friends to the delights of the shoe shop without her finding the energy to frown about it.
I'd say it was a peaceful afternoon.
Well, I'd say it, but it wouldn't be true.
Little Fish, having spent the morning in awed silence following the sight of a clearly terrifying toddler (terrifying to her, he seemed more or less ok to the rest of us), decided to make up for lost time.
She had planned to come home and play some more with this stuff Which was absolutely fine by me; it keeps her beautifully happy and it dries to a fine dust so I don't need to worry about trying to tidy it up. But sadly our cleaner decided to bin it. I guess she isn't as relaxed about fine dust as I am for some strange reason.
So instead of sitting quietly in one place sorting fake snow into different containers, she beetled about the house in her chair chattering about how many buses and cars we saw in town, how Jack sat next to her and how she wanted more cheese and little bitta juice pleeeeeese Mummy and story and scissors and cutting and then a quick drawing of breath and oh tubbytubbies, tubbytubbies, until Mog and I got tired of the incessant whitter and decided she needed bed.
It's been a strange old week. I've opted out of much of it, some through choice and some through necessity. The girls have had to cope with having other people care for them - and I've had to cope with letting other people do the caring. I'm realising that there are holes in our system; too much of the girls' care is a case of finely tweaking things on a daily basis. That's fine as long as I'm around to tweak. But when I'm out of touch, things get left, tiny things in themselves, but they've mounted up. Little Fish was extremely uncomfortable yesterday as a result of several days of tiny things not being done. Tonight she's several pounds lighter and comfortable once more, but I hadn't foreseen that being a problem for her. We need a bowel management routine which isn't reliant on my personal judgement several times a day, but which is robust enough to cope with my absence. Sadly the one the doctors favour seems to involve surgery and I'm not convinced that's really the best plan right now.
For Mog it's been a good week. I had to throw school in at the deep end on Monday, having run out of alternative care arrangements whilst in court, and they coped. We were in contact, staff have received additional training, and I think it is safe to say she's reasonably happy about being back again. She even managed swimming this afternoon, which I think probably caused the energy overdraft, but was also a nice reward for her for managing school all week.
And me? I am thinking about dipping my toes back into life again. A lovely morning just sitting with friends watching the world go by and setting bits of it to rights. Carers and sitters and school have rallied around and thankfully I haven't had to do very much at all for the past few days. Now it's the weekend and I'm thinking that just possibly I'll have the energy I need to not just get through but hopefully enjoy it too.
That won't happen though unless I get my sleep. Little Fish is snoozing and her Nippy is puffing gently. Mog's music has just finished and she is snoring and snuffling. Two cats are curled up on different but equal cushions, and the house itself is making little night-time noises - the wind blowing down the chimney causing the boiler to flutter slightly, gentle creaks as the letterbox shifts with the breeze, water clinking through the pipes, and the computer's fan complaining quietly. I should let it, and me (and possibly the comma key), rest.
Skip the herring since he's veggie but let's make that the toast for G and Y too.
And after that, and a mammoth day on Monday, I am feeling like Little Fish
We are all feeling a little fragile here.
Lots of Mummy don't leave me. Mog is making her feelings known too - last night I ended up paying our babysitter not so that I could go out but so that I could have a bath without having to suction, reposition, or otherwise rescue her.
Even Goway has got in on the action by making sure that I can't go away and leave. Or that if I do I can't take Little Fish (it's her seat) or spend any money.
Doesn't look like much, does it? A noise maker perhaps? Telescope? Torch? 
Hmmm my socks are filthy, kindly ignore that.
Pretty, isn't it?
It arrived a couple of days ago, and I opened it up, checked it had the right number of parts, and posted it back into its box. And then Mog woke up, and started squawking. And being generally miserable and revolting. So I took it back out of the box again and set it up above her bed.
And she stopped squawking, and started smiling, and settled down for long enough to listen to her music, and fell asleep again.
