The Thirty First Month

Mayday
What an amazing, special day. We drove to Oxford last night, around 7.30pm, to stay with M, J and C. Then got up at 5.15 to go into town to celebrate Mayday. We slept in their East Oxford attic. It was unusually quiet and we were woken at 4.40am by a rich and mellifluous chorus of birds. It felt like staying in the country and not the few miles out of the city centre that it is.

You were surprisingly compliant at being woken and dressed for so early in the morning, and chatted as if it was no different to a normal day. There was a mad panic at 6.30 when P couldn’t find the bag with 2 cameras he’d brought, so we had to leave without them.

We went to the steps of the Bodleian library where a motley band of musicians gathered to play spring music (cello, fiddle, clarinet, hurdy-gurdy etc and M on the accordion). A group of dancers were dressed in spring greens, wearing wreaths of white hawthorn blossom, looking like the sprits of the hedgerows. Even their children wore racing green velvet jerkins and shot silk frocks of bottle green. We did some impromptu Bore dancing (French Breton) and drank champagne (in the spirit of having been up all night reveling, like the local students). You sat on your papa’s shoulders and looked on bemused. We kept you going with bananas and marmite sandwiches, as there had been no time for breakfast.

I last went to this event 20 years ago, and had celebrated under grey –overcast skies. There, on the very same Broad Street I’d encountered the gaggles of Morris dancers and eccentric Oxford characters haunting the early morning. One had fallen at my feet and asked for my hand in marriage.

The morning sunlight shone on the honey coloured buildings lighting them up like gold. Oxford has not looked more beautiful. Afterwards we walked to Radcliffe Square and sat in the gardens opposite the Radcliffe Camera, eating a hearty breakfast at the Vaults café. It felt wonderfully liberating to be out in the world so early. The day felt full of possibility, indeed life felt full of possibility.

By 9am you were starting to keel over on your pa ‘s shoulders. We managed to buy you a new pair of sandals as the shops opened, and soon you were asleep.

5th
Camped in the garden last night. You very excited about it, and spent till about 10pm crawling round the tent talking about it. In the morning while Papa was still asleep, you lay next to me, saying ‘Hold me’, then you stroked my face and kissed me, saying ‘I will do strawberries under your belly’ (i.e. blow raspberries.) Much merriment.

8th
A lot of crying as I put you to bed last night. You wanted to stay downstairs – saying “ I want to do puzzles with Papa and Mummy’ (you hadn’t seen either of us all day as you had been at Grandpa’s.” P cooked supper and I tried to take you upstairs. ‘I want music downstairs’ was our next request. This after me taking you upstairs and you protesting violently.

I calmed you by sitting quietly on the floor with you; we put your animals to bed in the hedgehog’s basket and sang ‘bye baby bunting’ and ‘hush little baby’. You got upset when I got the words wrong, and corrected me. Afterwards we lay on our bed listening to lullabies. You lay right next to me, stroking my face, kissing me and we rubbed noses. You calmed down, and eventually went to bed very happily at 8pm. It had all taken an hour. (You had spent the morning with Elaine, lunch in the tent with me, and the afternoon at Sol’s - my first Tatty Bumpkin session at Zebedees nursery.

Another game at bedtime one night - wordplay – you began saying ‘ You are you, and I am me’ – and I replied ‘No, you are you and I am me’ – and it went round and round for ages, and made us laugh.

Tues May 15th
Too tired to write, and life packed jam full at the moment with trying to work and launch Tatty Bumpkin classes. We were in the garden again today, potting up sweet peas and watering. You enjoyed sweeping a mixture of soil and water across the patio, and I tried not to mind, but it got to me in the end. I try to be laid back about these things. Elaine painted your toenails with gold and silver nail varnish, as you had requested, and you managed to scrape some off before it dried to taste it. The other day you woke from your nap and said ‘I want to paint my toenails’. So we got the green paint out and you ended up with green toes and feet, green hands and cheeks.

May 18th
From post it notes I keep beside the bed:

‘Mummy attic bat! Attic bat’ Repeated with increasing frustration. Then I realise you want to do Acrobatics (climb up on my knees while I stand holding your hands)

To Papa: ‘Don’t say ‘mmm’, say yes.’

To me: ‘I want to be a person’. (This has been said several times while changing your nappy) I think it means you don’t want to wear a nappy.) You often will only have nappy changed standing up, or you attempt to crouch in child’s pose, bum in the air, expecting me to change it, but I can’t – too difficult and messy.

24th
This morning I found you cuddled up, lying on the floor, wrapped in your duvet, quilt and pillows. We took the side off the cot, and you like to sleep very close to the edge and occasionally find yourself lying under the chair next to the bed in the middle of the night. This time you chose to be on the floor and were happy about it.

You have most of your toys laid out on a shelf under the stairs: sometimes I enjoy the ritual of sorting them out and tidying into a display of wooden farm animals, felt finger puppets, little cars and motor bikes in a metal box etc. But your thing or schema at the moment is making piles.
Today you got everything off the shelf and laid one thing on top of another and exclaimed ‘ Mummy I made a pile’. Later you spread the pile out over the wide area of hallway and proudly announced ‘I made a mess.’

Then you arranged the various camping boxes, bits and sweeping brush on top of the cool box and said you were doing building.

After bath tonight I put some oil on your back, and you said, ‘Can I put some on you’, and spread it out on my cheeks, arms and shoulders, rubbing gently. You often like to stick your finger in the bee balm cream, and spread it on your cheek and nose, and then some on me with your fat little fingers.

Bedtimes: difficult. We can have an oasis of calm for ages, lovely baths together, playing with towels (you like to sit with towels wrapped round you in pretend meditation, as Papa has taught you), and then I do something wrong, like try to dry you or put on you pyjamas, and you get cross and upset, then I become impatient, and shout, and all the calm crumbles and I feel I have failed.

You want impossible things, like suddenly deciding you didn’t want the story that I have just read you, or that you didn’t want to brush your teeth before the bath, but afterwards when you have pyjamas on. You want to dress yourself, but then get frustrated because you can’t quite get your PJ trousers up.

The thing that always gets to me is how you take every opportunity to play with water. Like not wanting to me to turn the tap off when you have had it one for ages, or that you drink water and then spit it out to see what if feels like, this usually when I am getting you ready for bed. Or that you pour your water into your food or onto the table at meal times. I know it is completely normal for you to be exploring the properties of liquid, and that it is fun and gives you pleasure. That’s the main reason for baths and paddling pools. I guess when I am desperately wanting you to go to bed, my patience is thin and my tolerance level for water play is low.

We fall out and you always want me to hold you or carry you afterwards, and I sit with you when you have gone to bed. Tonight I held your hand and you stroked my arm, and then I felt bad that I am not more tolerant of you little idiosyncrasies.

31st
Amazing camping in Dorset last weekend: Whitchurch Canonicoram at Voice Camp. A little community of singing people living round a camp fire for 3 days. We had the wettest, windiest weather I have ever experienced camping, but still you did really well, and only once asked to go home because ‘ the grass is too prickly’. You made lots of friends in our circle. One 10 year old girl said how alive the circle was when you were there, and how you were missed when you were napping. You even had fun with two 13 year olds who thought you were cute, and I saw how you obliged with their requests for kisses, by planting endless kisses on their cheeks.

You enjoyed the music and perfomance. One night we watched a couple sing to a guitar, and you stood up, with closed eyes, hands together and danced your fingers in a rhythm to the music. Afterwards you said ‘ that was nice music’.

Today we walked to town and you obligingly sat in the pushchair. You were very curious about the builders who are re-constructing Broadmead shopping area. You kept asking who were the builders and why they were wearing cycling jackets (i.e. high visibility jackets.)