The Thirtieth Month

April 2nd Monday

You have really changed in the last few months; you look different, move and talk differently. You like to be very independent; choosing certain favourite clothes in the morning (like your red bicycling jacket), and choosing not to wear the lovely woollen slippers I made you a year ago. You have suddenly gone off them. You protest hugely about having nappies changed, so much so that I sometimes dread it. You come out with such gems as “I used to be a baby but now I’m a big boy.” I ask you “What do babies do?” and you say, “ Babies cry and boys sleep”!!

I ran my first ever Tatty Bumpkin class in a nursery today, which went very well. I realise how much I enjoy storytelling and TB is a good outlet for my various creative interests. You went into the office today with Papa, which you always enjoy. When I came to pick you up at noon you were making a mountain out of defunct credit cards!

You were unusually co-operative in wanting to come home with me, as you often resist. Though you had a little moment when I opened the car door, when you didn’t want to go in. I persuaded you by saying that we were going to the car wash, but then totally forgot about it on the way home. Anyway you fell asleep in the car, and I ate lunch on the doorstep after putting you to bed. An amazingly, warm, spring day. Spent an hour or so making phone calls trying to make decisions about holidays.

When you awoke you were simultaneously cuddly and upset; you are full of cold at the moment. I chopped veg while you ate a snack – you love helping me these days; wanting to put the leeks in the pan, and clear things into the compost bin, and then afterwards wipe the table. Likewise, as soon as I sweep the floor, you want to get your broom out of the cupboard to help, usually sweeping the dirt in the opposite direction, but I enjoy the way you want to help me.

Next we planted bulbs in the garden, and watered the seeds we planted last week. You have found the perfect place to sit - a forked low branch of the Sumac tree, which catches the afternoon sun. We had a cup of tea there and you kept asking about eggs, and I realized that had talked earlier of decorating some eggs that I’d blown. We tore up coloured tissue, (“We have done it!” you exclaimed proudly, when we’d finished.) Then we dipped the paper in water and stuck it to the eggs, to be peeled off when dry. You held the eggs very carefully, and said, “This is precious”. (This after explaining that they could get crushed easily.) The whole task only took about 20 minutes, but I was impressed that it absorbed you so much.

Lovely to watch you playing with other children – Ellen in Llantony , Nina on Friday.

Bedtime was calm for a change; we had a bath together and read some stories I’d got from the library. You are still very keen to keep us holding your hand or back (“Hold me back.”) these days, but after a few minutes you seem to accept it if I say I have to go down stairs.

6th
Last couple of nights you have asked for Owl and Pussycat, and have surprised me by interjecting with alternate lines as I recite it to you in your darkened room. I love the way you say words, which you can’t possibly know the meaning of; ‘Pussy said to the Owl, you elegant fowl, how charmingly shweet you sing’.

This week we have done some lovely things together – planting bulbs in the garden, putting in lettuce seedlings, sweeping up the dead leaves, and watering the garden. You always following me saying, ‘can I do it, can I do it?’ Yesterday we drove to Broadmead, and you walked round the whole morning, helping me to buy you a sandpit in Argos, which we put in a trolley and wheeled back to the car. Then I spent about 20 minutes in a Waterstones reading guidebooks, while you clipped the display signs on and off the shelves. You occasionally run off and hide in a corner just to see how I react, but are very good at walking everywhere and much prefer it to being in the pushchair.

Friday 13th
You were such a sweetie yesterday. Singer, songwriter Cathy T was visiting, and she spent ages talking to you, asking you what you were doing and what you liked, and you really engaged with her. She played her guitar for you and we sang songs and nursery rhymes together. Soon after she began playing, you said ‘I’ve got a pi-a-no, and ran off to find it, but came back with your little tin drum. You really went for it when she sang the Grand Old Duke of York, and beat in time to the song. I thought of Jason the accordionist and how he said one could recognise the musical ability of children as they can recognize and repeat a rhythm when they are around 2 (he began playing accordion aged 6).

Later when Cathy and I were talking, you came to sit on my lap and put your hands round my neck and kept kissing me. You seemed to want to be in close contact and kept ‘collecting’ with me – making contact.

Earlier in the day Samuel had come to play for 2 hours – you played really well together with various small toys, collecting up elephant, small train, the mouth organ, each of you clutching them to his chest. Then suddenly you became inconsolable, and didn’t want to share anything, or play with anything. I changed the mood by taking you both into the garden and uncovering the sand pit. No sooner was my back turned then all the sand migrated to the grass, window sill and patio…then later lots of crying, and I found you had pushed Samuel out of the sandpit…soon resolved with a kiss and a cuddle – both of you kissing and cuddling each other profusely. There is more tension and sparring together when you play now, but on the whole you talk to each other and still connect very well. Soph and Chris moving to Plymouth next week, we will miss them a lot.

Some notes from the last week:

Putting you to bed – you still want to insist that we stay with you – ‘Mummy hold me’, ‘mummy hold me hand’ –which I do for a while but not till you are asleep, as you often lie very awake and spend ages arranging all you cuddlies. You still ask me to sing ‘Owl and Pussycat’, and when you are very awake will interject alternate lines to me, so we are jointly reciting it. It makes me laugh when you say lines you can’t possibly know the meaning of: ‘we must get married, too long we have tarried, but what shall we do for a ring.’

We went for a fabulous sunny walk in Lansdown on Good Friday, with Grandpa, Karen, Ronnie and cousins Gabriel and Madeleine. An elderly woman approached and commented how much you were enjoying walking, and said ‘what’s your name?’ “I’m called Theo” (or Seo as you say). The first time I have heard you reply with this.

Easter weekend we were down on the spectacular Dunraven beach in Wales. Huge rocks, rock pools, natural cobble formations and lots of ammonites. You spent hours scrambling over rocks, playing with the wet, gritty sand and endlessly washing your hands in rock pools. Glorious warm spring sunshine, all the buds out – we are all coming out of our winter shells.

Ate an Indian takeaway on Sunday night and you unintentionally bit into a searingly hot green chili. You cried for an hour or so, rubbed your face and nose continuously. Your face, arms and hands became totally red, and I wondered if it was an allergic reaction. Felt very bad for not having tasted the food, or seen the chilies – I had some too. Spent ages trying to calm you after giving you yoghurt and cake to take the taste away, but you didn’t want to eat anything after that. Eventually we lay down in a warm bath together and you put your head on my shoulder and calmed down – did n’t go to bed till 10pm. Then the next morning you slipped and banged your head on ‘a sharp bit’ – bedroom doorframe, and had an egg-sized swelling on your forehead. This doesn’t look so bad now – a graze and a bit of a green eye.


18th
Looking after 3 children at home this morning (including T). I feel completely fragmented – 2 x 2.5 year olds and a 3.5 year old. Try to stay relaxed as they ran amok in house and garden, debris of toys strewn everywhere, sand flung from sandpit etc. Made lunch and scrubbed horrible brown maggot bin clean in between running out to intervene in the scraps between S and T. Why did I get a sandpit?? If I’d got it last year Theo would just have sat in it and scratched around, now the appeal is digging and throwing sand, trying to fill mini-wheel barrow we have just acquired from Julia.

Is parenting at this age all about control? – maybe I should care less that my veg patch is being trampled on, the grass is being covered in sand and the solar lights are being plucked out of the ground to be used as trumpets.

S. and family left for Devon today – I feel bereft. The last few days I have been remembering all our shared experiences and realizing all the possibilities that will never be fulfilled. We didn’t get to go for a last meal, or drink, only a quick family picnic on the cemetery lawn the weekend before Easter.

I have remembered the ordinary, yet special times together – going for walks with the babies in prams, a few trips to the zoo, to Folly Farm, our own trips to theatre and meals out, going to yoga together when the babies were 7 months old, and the effort it seemed to get there.

It is hard to let go of a friend, especially someone who has shared so much of the early childhood years with us. ‘You have enriched our lives, we couldn’t have lived here without you’, S. said as they were leaving…that really touched me.

20th
You have said ‘I love YOU!’ a couple of times this week, when I put you to bed and say I love you to you – how lovely is that…

Here’s what you said the other morning:
‘I did see a bird making a nest in the garden, in the soil where we did do planting’
‘What kind of bird was it’ asked Papa
‘It was a pigeon’ (and it was)

About 10 days of dry, gloriously sunny weather. We have been in the garden everyday. Yesterday, planting seeds – spinach, rocket, salad, radishes…you are an enthusiastic little helper, but occasionally (unintentionally) sabotage my efforts. . Standing on the seedlings, digging up seeds already planted…and the other day pulling up the lettuce seedlings. Yesterday I got so frustrated trying to direct you to do the right thing that I chucked everything down and went into the kitchen to have a cry. ‘Mummy where are you?’ came your voice a few minutes later. I was sitting in the dining room staring into space. Poor you, it is not deliberate.

Sometimes I wonder if I could just let go, and not mind the house /garden being wrecked – but that would be sabotaging my creative efforts. I make it sound like you are really destructive, which you are not. It’s just your lack of awareness and dexterity that can be challenging.

I remember a year ago, how you were my pal and would follow me around everywhere, and we would do things together easily – eat snacks on the patio, go for little walks, and everything was easy because you were co-operative.

Now you say No to everything I ask, feign refusal to get in the car, get in your car seat, or have your nappy changed. Negotiating with you and persuading you is a long, drawn out, process and at the end of the day I feel mentally exhausted and emotionally drained. In many ways, these times are harder than your babyhood, which flowed so easily for me much of the time.

We have our moments though – yesterday I offered us a snack of hot cross buns, and you asked to sit outside in your favourite place under the Sumac tree. We sit here catching the sun and you talk about the things you can see, the woodlice, and birds and the people on the bicycle track.

28th Sat 6.45am
I have been sat at the computer between 2 – 5 hours a day for the past 2 weeks, and feel drained and rather sick of it. It isn’t good for me – designing the CD cover for Kismet. Whole process always takes longer than you think.

Your every other word at the moment is poo-poo, which I am heartily sick of – not quite so charming as your other linguistic developments. You are becoming particularly defiant, and cheeky. Poo poo is often the riposte when I tell you not to do something – like yesterday I stopped you trying to continually put a 5p coin I your mouth, to which you would reply poo-poo and continue to do it. In the end I took it away, and there was much crying, which I have had to harden myself to.

You are good at dressing yourself – putting on shorts, trousers, tops, shoes and socks. You are adamant that you don’t want help, then a second later cry in frustration to get the socks or shoes on right, and say ‘I can’t do it’, so ask for help. But I am not allowed to help you up to this point!

Yesterday you went to play at N’s. I came to collect you after 3 hours to hear screams coming from the house. N was having a full-blown tantrum, a screaming fit on the floor. Something about sharing the push chair, which up to that point you had been pushing around happily together. I came in to find you sitting in the pushchair, tears rolling down your face, and the side of your face covered with scratches. My heart did a little leap, I felt so protective towards you. I know you were both tired and apparently you had missed me after an hour and a half, crying for mummy. Three hours is a long time, especially if you are not enjoying yourself.


In the past week, we have made bread, and flapjack, planted peas, hoed the garden, put up a mini plastic green house and done endless watering of plants. You also love to sweep the kitchen and wipe any surface with any cloth you can find. You are my little companion and helper. We do all these things together.

I can a real sense that you want to have a structured activity to do now, when you wake from your nap, and you want to do things with me, rather than potter about on your own as you used to.

You also seem to love washing and wiping your hands in a rather obsessive way, so much so that I worry about it.

30th
The weekend: manic house sorting, garden-tidying. Pete climbed in to the trees to prune them and I spent beautiful sunny hours in doors doing on Quark and Photoshop, so I am now heartily sick of it.

Put up a huge canvas tent in the garden, that has been donated to us – you were very helpful banging in the pegs with a mallet, and also helped Papa planting an acacia, and sweeping up the soil.

Went for a lovely walk in Prior Woods nature reserve (Portbury), to see a whole field of bluebells and a huge pink blossomed apple tree. We fed a little black pony in a nearby field and you had your fingers nipped, which made you less adventurous for the morning. By the end of the walk you had recovered your usual exploratory self, and were carrying a bag of twigs on your back. We plan to have a little fire next weekend and camp in the garden.

Mon
We looked after cousin Leon today (7 months). You are less enthusiastic about walking when we go out for our morning stroll – and keep asking to be carried. Is it because Leon has taken your place in the pushchair.? But you always want to be the big boy, and hold him, carry him and put him in his chair. It is sweet to see you sitting with your arms around him.