The Thirty Seventh Month: November 2007

1st
‘ Mummy a poo in the potty. I didn’t do it on the carpet.’

‘2 cakes!’ – fairy cakes (on seeing your birthday fare)

‘You will get my milk and come back in the bath. That will be ‘citing! (We had a bath together and had to get out as I’d forgotten your milk, which you then drunk in the bath).

You have been’ smoking’ bits of cut up wire that you found in the garden and snipped into 1 inch pieces – you are looking quite convincing now. You also demonstrate very well how to stamp out the fag butt, telling me ‘When you have finished your cigarette, you squash it into the ground like this.’ We don’t know anyone who smokes, but you accurately observe people in the street puffing away.

3rd Nov
Now you are 3. You opened your presents after breakfast, getting cards out of envelopes and then discarding them, not really aware of their significance yet. We gave you a wooden meccano set, lots of new books, and a palette of watercolours. I also made you a blond woolly haired Waldorf doll that you immediately took to. You wanted to start painting straightaway, and wanted the doll sat next to you while you painted. I had a job persuading you that it was a good idea to have the doll sitting a little way away watching, so that he didn’t get paint on him.

We had a family celebration for you on this, a glorious warm autumn day, not unlike last year. For weeks you have talked about Sol, Auntie Anna and Uncle Nick coming to your party. I did invite a couple of other children, but they were ill/otherwise engaged, so it was a family do, with Grandma, Grandpa and Bruno there too. It was all very exciting, and lively enough with just you, Sol and Leon crawling about. Papa, Anna, and I walked down the cycle track with you three to the little playground, where you and Sol climbed to the top of the rope-climbing frame. Then we came home for pizza’s and party food. I’d made a fruit cake as you had asked for a ‘raisin’ cake. There were carob raisins, popcorn, tortilla chips and little fairy cakes which you had helped to decorate with 100s & 1000s – you thought it was so exciting – and were thrilled at the prospect of bringing fairy cakes in to every one.

At 2pm you looked exhausted, but managed a walk down the cycle track with Grandpa and I – collecting sticks again. We’d walked there on Thurs with Rory. Afterwards we went to Joanna and Peter’s in Stroud to a bonfire party and firework display. You’d sat with your jaw dropping, but after several loud explosions, and me putting my hands over your ears you said ‘I want to go inside.’

Sunday, another beautiful day – walking in Slimbrige feeding black and white swans. You still tired from yesterday.

Woke up the other morning thinking how I should start documenting your play, like a project at a Reggio Emilia nursery. I have collected a couple of your drawings, the first few I have seen which are schema’s – you drew a pram with a baby in, and something resembling a stick figure, with a head and a body, I was quite surprised.

Just wondering if anyone else reads this, apparently they do, but I never hear from anyone.

6th 8.30am
Yesterday, your first day at Wendy’s playgroup Rowan Tree Kindergarten (Steiner playgroup). You didn’t want to stay in the room when we arrived and wanted to come to the loo with me. But once the painting things were out, you joined the other children at the table to paint. ‘You can go now,’ you said confidently to me and just as I was getting ready to go, you got down from the table and wanted to leave the room and play in the hallway, which is not allowed. Soon you were saying, ‘I want to go home’. But you were very happy in the garden, playing with logs, and didn’t want to be near me at all.

I chatted with some other mothers and watched you from a distance. All the children sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to you at snack time, and everyone had some of the cake I’d baked for Saturday. You seemed to fit in, sitting with all the other children at the table, but haven’t yet learned the rhythm of the morning, and soon wanted to get up from the table, or stop singing songs before everyone else had finished. But like the other children (who have all been there 6 weeks), it will take you a little while to adjust to the structure of the morning, and to conform to it.

You were so exhausted you fell asleep in the pushchair, as I walked to the train station. You had woken us all with your coughing at 5.30am so we were hanging. When we got home I went to lie down on our bed, and left you playing downstairs when you woke up. I managed to have a rest for almost an hour. You always come up and see me to tell me ‘I got a poo’.

You have been in cake heaven since your birthday – we have so many leftovers. Yesterday you ate a fairy cake after supper, and licked the paper till it was almost disintegrated. Even a mango stone was not enough of a distraction!

9th Friday 6.50am
On Monday afternoon while I was cooking supper, you stood next to me cutting up cardboard, and put down folded pieces on the counter, telling me they were chairs (which they did indeed look like). You started talking though a little scenario beginning, “good morning, children”, and I realise you were re-enacting your morning at playgroup. A few days later, while tidying toys away with me, you started talking about the gnome and tidying up at Wendy’s. On Thursday, your 3rd day at playgroup, you made bread with the others, while I read a story to a child who as a bit unsettled.

Afterwards, you came and sat on my lap, and a few other children joined me. I left soon after, and didn’t come back till you were all playing outside. You were obviously pleased to see me, and had been OK while I was away. (I’d peeked through the window at snack time, when you had been sitting at the table with all the others, and you seemed alright.
In the garden you found a large wooden plank, and started building a pretend fire with it with Joe, I overheard your conversation, and I was so pleased you had found someone to play with.

However, you are completely exhausted at the end of the morning, and in fact you lay down on the carpet at home and said ’phew I’m ‘sausted’. You also want to be right next to me, practically clinging to my ankles, as if being separated from me in the morning has been a rejection for you. I found that hard yesterday, because I felt I needed some space. About 4 o’ clock I lay down on my bed and had a cup of tea. You were outside the room saying ‘I ‘m tired, I want to rest’ (with me) but I had to have 5 minutes to myself before girding myself up for cooking the dinner – the 2 hour afternoon slot in the kitchen.

In the last few days you have called down to me from the bathroom, ‘ I did a poo and a pee in the loo. I didn’t do it in my trousers’.

20th Tues 6.30am
Every day of these bittersweet days are packed from one end to the other with activity. I can no longer write in the day, and all those other daytime tasks have to be done in the evening, only leaving the early morning to write. I lie in bed in the dark, thinking about everything, and sometimes if I can haul myself out of bed I manage to write.

We have grown out of our cocoon of love. As you separate from me and express your independence in a multitude of ways, I am adjusting to a new and different boy. I mourn the way it used to be and only by talking with mothers of older children find that I am not alone in that feeling.
We have our moments of connection and fun together- you like to me to get in the bath with you, and your way of being affectionate is often by holding my hands and climbing up me or jumping onto me when I ‘dm helping you get dressed. Often you end up bumping me, banging into my head in your enthusiasm, and I don’t know whether to shout or cry in pain and exasperation. In these moments you sometimes say ‘ I want my daddy home.’ He is generally calmer and more patient and is a rock of love and companionship for you.

Last weekend we went to Brighton to see Aunt Dominique, you delighted in her little Norfolk Terrier, Ziggy, and you both jumped around in excitement together – he bouncing around on 3 legs, you on your two. You helped Dominique take him for a walk on a windy wet day, along the sea front. The day before had been glorious sunshine, and we had walked in almost spring like heat along Undercliff Walk. Then we drove up to London to visit the Louise Bourgeois exhibition at the Tate Modern, and the Science Museum. You spent most of the weekend on Daddy’s shoulders, looking at aeroplanes and trains at the Science Museum, pushing all the buttons to make the ship’s engines work. I missed you, even though I could talk easily to Kriss when we went around the Tate.
Pete will always have that scarcity value, while I am like the air you breathe, just there.

I understand why some women keep having more babies, as the previous one grows into a walking, talking creature with its own will; to be in that place of total love and fulfillment.

You just woke up crying that your finger was sore (early morning). I came into your room in the dark, and as soon as you saw me you said ‘tie your hair up.’ – which seems to be a current obsession of yours. You have a growing awareness of our separateness – yesterday you said ‘ I am going to playgroup, Daddy has gone to work and you are going to do Tatty Bumpkin.’ I am so glad you have settled well at playgroup. When I came to collect you last week, you had such a smile of happiness when you came out.

23rd Friday 6.30pm
Just to recap the week- it would be nice to think that I can remember some of what we did.

On Monday after dropping you off, I dashed back to Kingswood to run a TB session in a new nursery, thereby not using the morning for time to myself – so the 3 hours you are away from me doesn’t feel like enough. But you had gone to play at Jed’s house, so I had until 4pm, which felt like a luxury. I went to Caroline’s yoga class which gave me an energetic glow for a couple of days.

Sometimes the afternoons after playgroup seem to drag out and I wish I could get you up to bed at 4pm. Mainly because as the day goes on your exhaustion transforms into boisterousness, and you start throwing things around, climbing on furniture and trying to climb up me, usually resulting in some sort of painful bump for one of us, and my response is often one of anger.

Weds 21st
Sandra & Ellen came to visit, and you enjoyed jumping on the new trampoline together, and fighting over a pair of battery operated torches.
Thursday –you helped me make flapjack – you helped me make a pizza the other day.

Today we went to a TB session together at a local pre-school where all the children are very enthusiastic and pleased to see us. You are a great helper, and often give things out, or collect things from the children. Although today you were very distracted and a bit disruptive, but I didn’t engage with your disruptiveness and things went well, though I was a bit stressed by it. Afterwards, I tried to do a few errands, and go to a picture framers, but you looked really tired and were flopping onto the pavement crying. You didn’t’ want to go to the park – it was a beautiful sunny, crisp and cold day. You refused flapjack that I offered, and I drove around for 20 minutes hoping you would drop off, but you didn’t.

You perked up a bit, when Indi and Kate came round, wanting to make a pretend fire and talking in your low, booming male voice. You did some printing together and blew bubbles at the cats, struggled to take turns on the trampoline, but nevertheless engaged with each other. We tried to go for a walk, but you kept sitting down on the pavement and I wondered how I would get through the afternoon. When I finally got you home with a combination of doing-my-back in piggy-backs, and distracting you by walking on walls and seeing bumble bees and cats, we got in the bath at 4.30pm and had a nice, relaxing play improvising watering cans from the plastic bits of a defunct breast pump I found. You lay in the empty bath for ages afterward and said ‘mummy can I have some cheese on toast.’ You pecked at bits as I made some supper, and were ready for bed by 6.15

The other day you were falling asleep in your dinner, and were asleep by 6.30. Unfortunately you were also full of life at 6am and I was furious that my occasional early morning time is now no longer mine. Against your will, I took you back upstairs to see Daddy, and you were crying in protest, but I so needed that time and had a plan for it.

Conversations:

This morning I told you I was going away next weekend and you were going to be looked after by Grandma, Auntie Anna and Daddy. Where will you be you asked? Then you said will you be at home? When I said no, you looked very crestfallen as if it had just sunk in that I would be away.
My heart melted at that moment.

Yesterday you came home with stories of a tree of happiness, something about putting the leaves on and climbing it. Then you kept calling everything the happiness cup, the happiness place. ‘Hello happiness’ you said.

In the car:
You: Is Christmas a birthday?
Me: Yes - Whose birthday is it?
You: Sol’s birthday
Me: No it’s baby Jesus’ birthday
You: ‘I don’t know that name.’ – said in a funny voice
‘Jesus did a poo poo on the carpet, he wiped it and put it in his jacket.’

Poo poo has suddenly come into vogue again as the end of every sentence, and in a kind of cheeky answer to anything I ask. Probably because you are aware of the whole excretory process and we have huge tussles to change you when you haven’t got to the loo in time – so far you have made it to the loo twice.

27th
Your Papa and I had a night to ourselves on Saturday, going out to the cinema (Beowolf), then for a lovely meal, while you went to play and stayed the night at Sol’s. You had some ambivalence about going – saying you wanted to play there, but not stay the night, but I know that in the end you had a very exciting time, going to switch the light on after you had gone to bed and getting into Sol’s bed to read stories. When I came to pick you up on Sunday morning, you wouldn’t look at me or speak to me, in fact you buried your head into Uncle Nick’s legs, and then ran upstairs to carry on playing with the toys. Sol looked sad too, and it was clear you didn’t want to leave.

When I said it was time to go, you started screaming ‘no, no, no’, and went into a huge apoplectic fit for about half an hour. It was quite disturbing, and I felt close to tears, because I couldn’t do anything for you, you refused my cuddles and explanations that we would be seeing Sol again at the end of the week. It was like you didn’t want my help. I think you felt ambivalent about being left, even though you had a really lovely time.

Monday: today we went to the pre-school to do Tatty Bumpkin, you were quite insistent in wanting to use my Tibetan bells, and after telling you quietly no, I put them up high, and when I had my back turned, you climbed up on a cupboard to get them. You were ‘saved’ by one of the pre-school leaders, and you looked rather embarrassed, and buried your head into my shoulders saying ‘ I want the bells.’

After getting dressed this morning, you said, ‘I want to go to the swimming pool with you.’ So we went and you were such good company. You were so inquisitive about everything, and enjoyed talking about all that you saw:

‘ This is the ‘mergency’, about the red cord in the disabled loos.
While I was making lunch, you asked for the ‘grabber’ – the tongs from beside the sink, which I gave to you, but you ended up flinging the cat biscuits around the room with them. I got cross and our lovely morning was rather spoilt, and you then lost interest in eating your lunch. But you soon perked up when we cleaned out the bins – spraying and scrubbing them and hosing them down, all jobs you love.

Indi came to play this afternoon and then you had a great time at Bearnie’s, being her commis chef, chopping veg, and later playing with Evan, surfing on a skateboard together across the wooden floor.
A great day in all.

29th
This morning I rather foolishly left you in the kitchen with a palette of water colours, and a drop of water, while I went to get dressed. Ten minutes later, I was ready to leave the house, and you stood at the bottom of the stairs exclaiming excitedly about the mess that you had made. I wasn’t’ too bothered, till I saw it – a large pool of black water on the kitchen floor, which you walked through making black water colour foot prints on the hall carpet. I was quite exasperated but realized it was my own fault for leaving you alone with the paints – I think you had helped yourself to the rest of your herbal tea and decided to add it to the mix.

Anyway, I am going away for a few days to do a watercolour course with Grandpa – I told you earlier this week. You have been saying, ‘ I go up the attic with Sol and Daddy look after me, and you go somewhere'. So you are discovering it's quite good for us to have some time away from each other.