Catching the Moment.

Clean girls, clean clothes, and a clear half hour before leaving the house. Mog awake. Little Fish happy, you'd think a nice photo would be child's play.
And then you'd remember how complex child's play really is.
And how much cooperation it requires.
And then you'd shoot whole series of these, and then you'd get increasingly cross, and the little one would stop smiling and start worrying, and the smile would get more fake. And the larger one would giggle but this would annoy the littlest one. And then you'd put the camera away and stomp off in a huff, running late.

But I will get a photograph of them both together. One day. Both smart, both smiling, neither suspiciously stained.

I just wish I knew how or when.
Tia

Move That Fish!

Today was one of the bestest kinds of days. The midpoint of the half term break; by lunch time we knew we'd broken the back of the holiday and could slide gently towards school starting again. And a day spent with the best kind of friends; ones who turn up and slide food into the 'fridge, whose children disappear off into the playroom dragging mine with them, and who will happily sit and drink tea and laugh with us when the beautiful fresh bread turns out not to have risen, and the jam tarts have stuck irretrievably to the bottom of the pan.

Just as the joys of CBeebies and Lego were beginning to pall, there was a knock at the door, and a postman delivering a parcel. We'd been warned to expect it; a cryptic email from my sister in law letting me know that "there's something coming, we tried it out with bicycles so it should be fine with wheelchairs" a few days ago. Perfect timing; the children unwrapped it together and and it proved to be an excellent bribing tool a useful motivator to get them to eat lunch before a trip to the park to try it out.

And look! You can use it with a wheelchair! The littler ones decided a long run up was necessary; we adults decided just jumping was enough. This may have had something to do with the different bodyweights involved; I couldn't possibly comment. It seemed to be popular; we had children from all over the park begging to have a go, small boys queuing up to stomp, and I'm sure we didn't really cause that woman to go into early labour. It wouldn't have been that early anyway.

More "fun" in the park. Fun for the children, backbreaking for those of us holding paraplegic five year olds up to the climbing bars for practice. And then back home for tea and cakes and cuddles.
Fun in the front garden with great enormous bouncy balls. Fun in the back garden with a fountain and pebbles. Fun inside with the toy kitchen and the bricks and the Lego and the puzzles and the paper.

The doorbell rang again at the height of the chaos, with small children everywhere and general debris strewn across the floor. Little Fish opened the door to Grannie "Oh no, we've got Visitors" she said, winningly. Despite the welcome, Grannie and Great Grannie tiptoed across the acres of clutter and joined us for another drink and more cakes.

And then they went, and the children decided it was teatime, and we decided if we fed them now we wouldn't need to later, and they ate more cocktail sausages and strawberries (for we are gourmet parents), and we drank more tea, and they started getting a little tireder and quieter
and happy to play sitting still games.

And then friends went, and bedtime happened, and my own two fell into bed and were both asleep before I'd finished hooking up their various night time bits and pieces. A good day had by all.

And the title? Inexplicable. The two youngest celebrating Ty Pennington with their own surreal twist at lunchtime.

Good times.
Tia

Little Fish Chat.

"Mummy, Mummy, I have got a little tiny elephant. I bought it from the little elephant shop. I have lots and lots of little tiny elephants and they are very nice....oh dear these little elephants are very hard work, I know, I know - I will eat them and then they won't need me to look after them any more."

"Mummy, Mummy, we need that Move That Bus man to come here and knock our house down. But we must not tell [our upstairs neighbour] and then her house will fall down and it would be really funny."

"Mummy, Mummy, excuse me, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy. Mummy? Mummy, Mummy, um, Mummy, are you listening? Mummy, Mummy? Oh I've forgotten now."

"Mummy, you are the best Mummy in the whole wide world and I love you very much acos you have made yummy dinner and you have a very pretty coat. Can I have some tape please and some more paper?"

"Hey Mummy, quick, I gonna poo. I know, you take me and go round and round very fast, and my poo will fly out all over the room, is that a good idea? It would be very funny. Hey, Mummy, why you put me on the potty?"

Yes dear.
Tia

Mog's Moan

I am a mean, mean mother.

Mid fit for Mog's new wheelchair today. Since she appears to have shrunk several inches since it was cast, this took a little while, as cushions were first lowered then chopped shorter, mysterious wings which had appeared over her shoulders were clipped back, and a headrest was er liberated from another chair in store to make it fit.

It's good this communication thing. Mog's still got the Brownie Promise on her switch, still frowning at anyone who dares to suggest changing it for anything more useful like "Hello" or even"Oi YOU! Pay attention to me!" which is generally one of her favourites. So, clearly, we were checking that the mount would fit onto the new frame. And that the frame would fit through the doors, it being a good few inches wider than her old wheelchair. Happily it's both shorter and narrower than the buggy she's in at the moment, so pushing her around the house ought to be a dream again.

We shifted the headrest, discussed extra padding. Mog told us she wants it soft and snug, not loose. I pointed out that if she had it a bit loose, she might have space for a headswitch again, since she does seem to be turning her head a bit more these days. Big frown and legs kicking mightily, happily not quite concussing the hapless wheelchair technician who was attempting to shorten the footplates. Mog likes her foot switch. Point taken. Big grin, and her right foot pounding the footplate - "You'd like a switch for your other leg too?" Yes.

We'll look into it.

And then time for the most important bit of all - as far as Mog is concerned anyway. Choosing the colours of the cushion covers. I go through all the colours with Mog. She rejects school uniform blue, but declines to comment on the rest. I go through them again. She rejects red, after I point out it'll look evil with her purple tops. We go through the rest again, and the other blues are rejected. Another cycle, and she weeds out the pink. Eventually we are left with purple and black. not the subtle, tasteful, charcoaly grey/navy black she's had for the past six years, a solid, uncompromising, show every speck of tissue from accidents in the washing machine midnight down a mineshaft black.

Mog has, up til now, been fairly silent. Yes, there was the welly the wally who knelt at her feet wheelchair technician incident, but apart from that she's been silently smiling or frowning, and closing her eyes quite a bit to avoid the flourescent lights. But we're down to just purple or black. Two simple choices. The purple is a bit lairy, but if that's what she wants, fine. I double check. Black? "AAAAAAR". Definitely black? "AAAARRRRRR". Head back, arms straight, legs wellying away in double quick time; it's the black covers she wants. Wheelchair tech laughs and asks if she wants skulls and crossbones with it? YES YES YES YES YES YES YES would be the verbal equivalent of Mog's response. Closely matched with the NO NO NO NO NO NO NO he gets from me.

Mog sulks, and hits her switch. I tell her she has to be older. She says no. The tech says he can't actually embroider them onto the cushions anyway and he wasn't serious. Mog hits her switch repeatedly to ask for her talking book. She has a question. "Why not?"

Sensible girl.
She's still not having a skull and crossbones motif on her new wheelchair though. Why not? Because I'm the meanest Mummy in the whole world ever.
Tia

Autumn Days

Having a back to primary school moment. The freezer's full, and so's the pantry, there's a snap in the air and a thin crackle of frost underfoot. The girls went to school with thick snuggly blankets around their legs. Breathing out brings a cloud of mist, and breathing in brings clean cold wakefulness. The house smells of Gingernuts and lemon curd and sweet apples mulling gently. The craft fair is on, the pile of necessary knitting is growing faster than the blanket I need to finish before I can start on the rest of it, my winter coat has found its way out of the wardrobe, and the girls have gloves again.

And I hear the piano chords, and I'm jog-trotting to school behind Mum pushing the pram, pausing to shatter the thin lace of ice gathered at the edge of puddles, kicking small mountains of leaves up through the air and gathering the best to make leaf prints. A glorious burst of colour, new life and energy after the heat of the summer. Tingly ears and wind in my hair, the promise of excitements to come with Christmas close enough to be thought about but far enough away to just be the sniff of a hint of something possibly exciting.

In the playground, French elastic and giant skipping ropes and hopscotch and endless games of tig. In the classroom, walls a riot of colour and complicated sums about how many leaves it will take to fill a sack if each sack needs three loads from the wheelbarrow, and each wheelbarrow holds 45 leaves. At home, baked potatoes and the promise of bonfires and fireworks, gingerbread and parkin.

And now, thirty years later, it's my daughter enjoying that same Autumn snappiness, and celebrating it with her own picture, beautifully signed without any help from others.
Tia

20.10 20/10 2010

One hundred years ago (give or take a few months), a group of girls had the audacity to turn up to Baden-Powell's Boy Scout Rally. They told him they were Girl Scouts; he was adamant they weren't and they couldn't be.

And then people persuaded him that really he might be able to do something for the girls too. And so he persuaded his sister Agnes to do something, and she wrote a tediously worthy little book called "How Girls Can Help to Build up The Empire". And that might have been it, but it wasn't, and Girl Guiding grew anyway, and eventually his wife became involved.

And now, a hundred years later, we celebrated by renewing our promises as Guides, Brownies (not Rosebuds), and Rainbows at 20.10 on the 20th day of the 10th month, in the year 2010.

That first rally was outdoors, muddy, mostly boys, and the girls came in long skirts with packs on their backs. This ceremony was managed via internet link, and our girls were in their uniform of pink and navy, with jeans and trousers and hot pants and miniskirts. We had a Glowsticks campfire, and the only men a handful of parents come to see their daughters receive Baden-Powell Awards. Although, as we were using the theatre belonging to a local independent boys' boarding school, I suppose the ratio of boys to girls in the wider vicinity was possibly not dissimilar.

I wonder what Lord B-P would've thought about it? About GirlGuiding as it is today, and about the celebrations we had. Such an outdoorsy man; I'm not convinced a warm centrally heated theatre would have been an acceptable option to him. But I hope the continuance of the movement he started, however reluctantly, would have brought him pleasure. And I hope he'd recognise some of his ideals in what we have today.

But for now, Day is done, gone the sun, from the sea, from the hills, from the sky. As we go, this we know, God is nigh.

Tia

Another year, another letterbox

Out into the void I send this year's newsletter. A few short pages to summarise a year in the life of one small child. A letter to people who created this my youngest child, people I catch a glimpse of in her features and expressions, yet people I have never met.

I write this blog, and the majority of you who read it are people who have never met me. So why does this feel different? I suppose because I have come to know some of you through comments here, others through your own blogs; those of you who read and yet don't comment are equally welcome. This is however my story, my blog, a glimpse into my life. You see my girls through my eyes, and I edit life to avoid telling other people's stories.

In theory, I write a letter to strangers every time I hit "publish". But it is so very different to writing a letter to these most intimate of strangers. Are they reading this as well as my annual "here we all are again" note? Should I just send a note telling them this exists, and inviting them to follow our adventure here, where they'd have far more frequent updates?

Do they want these letters? Am I getting them right, are they long enough, informative enough, photographic enough, honest enough? Do they include the full picture, or do I withhold information which might concern them? Do they wish to know this, do they collect them from the letterbox drop or are they sitting in a file somewhere? Do these letters open fresh heartbreak each year or ease the loss?

And I wonder at what point I ought to include this little person in the writing of them. She can write her own name now, ought I to have included her signature or a picture she has drawn? She's still fairly convinced I'm talking nonsense when I tell her she didn't grow inside me, would including her in this project help her to make sense of it, or would she expect a reply and would it unsettle her?

Should I have asked the questions I have for them? Ought I to share my hopes and dreams or stick to describing past events?

I don't know. But, it's done, for this year at least. And can be shelved for another twelve months.
I"m tired.
Tia