The Thirty-Fourth Month: August

7th
Back from festival Big Green Gathering. You fell over on the grass and said ‘I bamaged my fingers’. A cross between damage and bandage?

17th
We are in holiday mode, at home for a few weeks between family hols and P’s paragliding adventures. Great not to have to be anywhere and out of our usual ‘term time’ routine. This morning you came into our room all smiley, having taken off your je-jamas (sometimes wet), and told us to get up. “ I want to put on my clothes”, you often say. You are very specific what shorts you want to wear, and object to woollen cardigan’s for being to itchy. So it’s cotton and fleecy tops over t-shirts, and shorts whether it’s rain or shine.

This week: Monday – the train to the zoo, in a downpour of rain. We saw the lion and Mama gorilla with a baby born in Dec. You always tried to climb over the fence, and said “ I want to climb in and stroke their fluff”! I had to explain that gorilla’s are a bit fierce for that.

Tuesday: more rain – downpours all this week. Made a cake for the Sandra & Phelim for Weds visit. You occupied yourself with Elaine and I managed long phone call to Claire in New Zealand. Stayed in the whole day and I had to go swimming in the evening for the exercise. Body feeling unstretched and old. I can no longer do yoga without feeling it the next day. Will I ever get my flexibility back?

Weds: a visit to Weston, Bath to see Ellen and her new baby brother Tadhg (Tige as in Tiger). You and she played quite well together, except when you knocked her with a truck “ I said beep beep to Ellen”. A lot of crying – I couldn’t work out if it was an accident or not, but you did have quite a guilty look on your face, though Ellen said it was an accident. Holding Tadhg on asleep on my shoulder reminded me of you in your early weeks, how you liked to be upright.

Thursday
Sun shone, and we walked down the cycle track to the swimming pool. You spent half an hour clinging to me and were’nt sure about the floating ‘noodles’ and other devices, then just when I wanted to get out you discovered you could touch the bottom and spent ages jumping in to my arms from the side.

We left home around 9.15 and the pool around 11.30am and spent over an hour blackberrying on the way home. You wanted to eat all of them but I still managed to collect about a pound for a crumble. Everything was going well – a lovely, happy summer’s day. But we didn’t get home til 1pm, and then you fell apart over lunch, and eventually fell into sleep around 2pm. I then have to get you up, I think it was about 4.30, and you are often grumpy. I always feel a sense of failure when the day slides into the evening, and sometimes after these long sleeps you are not in bed til 8 – 8.30. Last night you were still awake at 9.30, with me holding your hand. Eventually I said I had to go and phone Sophie, you let me go, and then 2 mins later I heard your tearful voice: “You said you were going to ring Sophie and then come and see me, I want everyone to sit with me, cause I am on my own”!!!

Friday – today we had a lovely walk through the cemetery to Eastville Park with Kate & Indi. You two warmed to each other for the first time and wanted to do whatever the other was doing. You threw sticks in the lake, played hide and seek with us, ran around the boating café (non-existent space), and played in the playground. We shared a picnic of sandwiches and butternut squash soup on a bench by the lake, and you two children seemed to want to go right to the edge to pick grass and throw it in. Kate and I full of interrupted conversations about education, attachment, our histories, families, babies. We even nipped into Tescos to buy you some pants.

This is in excitement after being at the pool yesterday, and you telling me you needed a wee after changing into your swimming cozzie. So today no nappies, just shorts. 3 pairs of shorts and 2 pairs of pants later, I am less excited about the whole idea of you coming out of nappies…

We only got home at 3 pm and you were full of beans. I realised you wouldn’t sleep, but asked you to go and lie quietly in your room and play or look at books. I gave you some books, and though you said ‘ I don’t know this one, read to me’ (ie you can’t read them yet, and wanted more than the pictures), I went off to lie down. To my amazement you stayed quiet for half an hour or so, but I hear a crying voice, and came out to find what you wanted. ‘I want my pants’! (which I had been talking about since yesterday, and you had carried home from the shop..putting them on your head and over your shorts etc).

Anyway, in spite of our lovely, and tiring day together, my heart sank when I realized you weren’t going to nap and I felt desperate at the idea that you will soon be growing out of your sleep. While I managed to get supper ready (quinoa salad) by 5.15, and you in the bath by 6.15, you were not in bed until 7.50. However focused I try to be about supper, bath, teeth and bed, other things intervene. Phone calls, nappy changes, yesterday a glass breaking into the salad, or problems of the ‘twilight zone’, where I get cross with you for something or other that probably isn’t important – today playing with your food, and before that waving your fishing net around the kitchen.

Then there’s all the fuss about trying to do your teeth properly, and you running manically up and down the landing after your bath while I’m trying to get you to keep still. My mood by early evening is one of exasperation. And I find myself saying good bye and goodnight to you while I walk out the room to go to lie down on my bed because I am getting cross about it all. You then start crying. Tonight I shouted at you ‘ I can’t be bothered anymore’ because you wanted the nail clippers as I was trying to cut your nails, so I stopped and walked out of the room. You told me not to shout at you. What message it is sending to you that I absent myself in exasperation I do not know.


18th
Joanna and Peter’s wedding at Cripps Barn near Bibury. You found a friend in 4 year old Rory and disappeared for hours running around outside and on the muddy grass. I kept popping out to check on you and found you playing in the rain soaking wet, but you were oblivious to that. It must be the first time I was aware that you were happy to be away from us for hours on end. I hardly saw you between 2pm and 11pm – you ‘d gone with Rory to play in their van. Occasionally I felt I couldn’t quite relax as I didn’t know where you were – especially after dark in the rain. As dusk Rory came in to find us saying ‘Theo has hurt his self’. I came out to the car park to find you face down in the gravel, crying, but you were OK.

Pinker drinker what a winker (on seeing a pink cocktail drink in your dad’s hand).

Next day we discovered Rory and family at the trout farm in Bibury, and though we were exhausted, you really wanted to go fishing. We all caught a trout each, which was very exciting. Rory’s sisters loved the thrill of the catch, and didn’t want to stop, in spite of Madeleine saying she was a vegetarian. Killing the trout was grim, a job only for the adults, but you talked about it in a matter of fact way, as if you had immediately grasped the process. ‘You catch the fish, then you get the stick and it is dead’ or something like that.

21st
Emotionally draining day. We had to rush to leave house this morning as we were catching train to the zoo to meet Sol and Aunty Anna. You were being insistent about not wearing a nappy, not putting on shoes etc and we ended up shouting at each other. I had to force a nappy on you, which is no easy task, and strapping you forcefully into the pushchair so we didn’t miss the train. A lovely sunny day, and you were fine once we got to the station.

Then on the way home it was the same thing. You began to cry because you hadn’t said goodbye to the train. Then as we arrived home you were regretful about not having a go on the roundabout at the zoo. You had sat on the horses a few times, but hadn’t had a ride, but then I hadn’t offered you one either. Then I asked you if you wanted to climb on the ‘roundabout’ (raised round wall) by the cycle track, but you didn’t. Still when we arrived at the front door you were screaming that you wanted to do that, didn’t want to leave your pushchair or take your shoes off. About half an hour later you fell asleep next to me in our bed.

These are exasperating times, and its almost as if the older you get, the harder things are between us. Since the 21st there have been other days where my exasperation has led to me screaming at you. Even as I do it I know how pointless and horrible it is. It’s like something inside me snaps and I feel mad and alone and guilty about my raging. I wonder if there are mothers who have endless patience and are better at tolerating their small children’s wills. I had a long chat with Kate the other day. We sat in her garden one evening, it was the end of another exasperating day and I was desperate to get out of the house and talk. I had been looking forward all week to going out, then Pete told me he wouldn’t be home till 9pm. I was determined to get out, so I waited till you were asleep at 8pm (which took only a couple of minutes as you didn’t nap) and then I carried you to the car and you slept on the floor of Kate’s office.

We talked about why it’s so hard at the moment, because you have a growing awareness of your autonomy and know that you can choose to do the opposite of what I ask you to do. You are so independent; you like to choose your own clothes and put them on yourself, sometimes getting a little frustrated when you can’t quite do it, but then are ambivalent about asking for help. Sometimes you are insistent about wearing pants, but then you’re not quite ready and I have to insist on nappies when we go out, but you don’t always co-operate. Recently you have screamed whenever the phone rings as you are desperate to answer it, then kick up a fuss if I do, so that I can’t hear whoever’s speaking. I have had to shut myself in another room to talk. I’ve realized I can no longer make calls or answer them when you are around, as you impatiently jump and down saying ‘I want to say hello’.

When I was on the phone to Grandma yesterday, you threw everything (washing toys etc) down the stairs, giggling, as a way to get my attention. A few minutes later you were climbing on my back as I was trying to make a copy of CD as a child’s birthday present. The lesson is that we have to do things together and that you don’t like things that exclude you. You can play alone really well sometimes and you also need to be able to do that. I know I also need more time to myself.

I am also anticipating you no longer sleeping in the day with a certain amount of anxiety, as I realise that I have been able to be with you all this time because my day was always structured around the knowledge that you slept for 2 or more hours in the afternoon. Now you don’t sleep everyday and I am wondering how I am going to manage without that time. It’s one of the reasons I don’t write here so often.

31st August
Train to zoo today. We had an hour in Clifton Down while waiting for Jackie and family. It was lovely to have some leisurely time there, as we are usually rushing to get the train. We did the charity shops and Elisa’s shop, where you enjoyed getting all the small objects out of baskets while I bought a present for Anna. We bought buttered scones from the bakery, that you ate in your pushchair, picking out the raisins first. “I’m making a mess here.”

Zoo heaving, as last day of school holidays – we were there for 5 hours, so a tiring day. You loved running after Rory (4.5) and repeated absolutely everything he said, parrot fashion. You both liked climbing up the fences outside the enclosure and running down the corridors under the seal pool. At this point you both ran ahead of the crowds, dodging legs, far out of our sight, and we lost you both for about 5 minutes. I waited outside the enclosure with 6 year old Bea, while Jackie looked for you. I always begin panicking immediately in these, so far rare, situations. Rory had run off in the other direction, with you following, and was crying in the entrance – you were apparently fine, probably because you didn’t know you were lost.

Jackie remarked how animals seem to be a combination of lots of different creatures, and how human the are, like when seals scratched their faces with their finger like flippers. It was good to really watch the animals for a long time. We say the Mama gorilla eating lettuce, with the baby on her back. You are now more interested in really looking. Different to how Sophie and I used to wander round less purposefully when you were a baby. We left at 5pm, and you fell asleep in the buggy immediately. I put you to bed when we got home and you slept right though till around 6.30am!