Christmas update

The day itself I can hardly even recall exactly, just a week later. It was great, everything we wanted it to be. Relaxing and beautiful and somehow old... I wish I could give it a word. Presents included: A wooden drum, stacking houses and stacking cups, play silks, a cotton shopping bag and fabric pens, Miffy and Elsa Bleskow books, tree blocks, spinning top, clothes, small dolls and animals, dressing up things, little pieces of wooden jewellery... A reasonable ammount that we can both use and store. They were delighted with every single thing. :)

Boxing day was a bit of hard work really in the end. Lots of noisy toys, almost everything battery operated and everything plastic. Martin was furious - I was really worried about what to do with it all as there were some things we really couldn't keep (a tractor and farm animals that played a tune and made sounds, the least of all the reasons we couldn't keep it being that we already have the whole lot in wood lol). Especially the grotesque Vtech teddy that made scary growling noises and said the alphabet.

Totally inappropriate for a baby in every way to be quite frank (I am sorry if you own and like it but it's not coming into my home). Anyhow, Martin said that since we had gently and respectfully told them our boundaries on gifts (all we said was nothing electronic, they need clothes and books, we are avoiding plastic, Jenna loves board games, Morgan would like some musical instruments) and they had ignored us it wasn't anything to feel guilty about. We made a parenting decision, just as if we had said "no sweets" and they had given the children selection boxes.

We have had a pretty calm week since then though. My brother came back from Estonia for Dad's birthday and we all surprised him (he was shocked that his girlfriend, his mum, all of us kids, had managed to keep the secret). I do have to say though that three year olds deserve their reputation for not being able to keep quiet!

All morning every time a car pulled up she said, "That's Uncle Paul and Auntie Maarja!!" And my Dad said, "Don't be silly, they're a long long way away." I only told her because it was the only way to persuade her to leave the house that morning lol! When the door finally went Jenna said, "Maarja!!" Dad said, "Nooo! [long pause] oh Yes it IS!"

Morgan started properly walking some time in the last two weeks too, it's hard to tell a date because she has been able to do a few steps for ages but has just decided that now she actually wants to. It was Christmas day that we noticed though, she was walking across the room from toybox to sofa just for the fun of it. Now we find her walking round and round the room for no good reason, pure joy at the new skill and the sudden confidence. It's meant she is waking more at night for milk as usual, step forwards in the day equals retreat to safety at night. I don't mind at all though, just the happy expression as she shows off her dancing or does a little wobbly skip!

We have been eating appallingly since Christmas day though. There are biscuits in the house (about four boxes) and it's so easy for me to feed myself them instead of eating proper food. The girls are mostly eating cheese and raw vegetables, and lots of breakfast cereals (which Morgan still won't really eat lol so she has toast). It's strange, but this is probably the thing bothering me the most - that I'm not taking proper care of the children. Not so long ago I would have been more worried about my figure, but I'm noticing more what I'm doing to them I guess. I need to get back in the kitchen and stop buying chips on my way home.

MORE lurgies

We're all sick, yucky snotty poorly, throwing up. We haven't been out all week and I'm sick of these four walls. I'm not yelling though, not enough energy. And suddenly I feel like Christmas is just a day away, with that last straggling present to buy and no food in the house. I need a rest, a day off, to call in sick. If only. At least I'm not being woken at night at the moment!

Morgan is starting to talk a bit more, still the same words really (only she has learnt to say NO very well indeed) but she wants to communicate so much. She gestures and points and babbles about things in her own little language. It's lovely, but I wish I understood more of it. Not that she can't make herself QUITE clear if she feels the need...

Morgan, one whole year today my darling!

Happy Birthday, little one. What a long time to have been breathing our air. It seems barely possible that you were ever a few hours born and snuggling scrunchily-red for milk in the warm dark.

I have loved every day with you and been in the present moment with you frequently and joyfully and I wish there was more time, always I wish it lasted longer.

I cannot keep you here in this day, cannot even hold you still from change and growing and learning. Not for a second, and the sorrow at passing each stage is the sweeter joy in the instant. Stay here with me a while longer, don't let go too soon, but be free to make your own doors into the world and find your own paths there. Sweet precious Morgan.

School rants, and remembering a year ago

Yesterday was our Christingle service and it was gorgeous. One more reason I actually like to be in the old building with so much history and distilled tradition around me. Oh the candles, Morgan was in baby heaven (little eyes lit up) up on my back in the sling while I held her candle for her. It was so perfectly reassuringly warm, being together and sharing something from my own childhood. Celebrating something together on whatever level we understand it. Holding hands, one big family.

Jenna is astonishing me at the moment with the things she knows without me ever having told her. She told me that the cheese she had was "garlic cheese" even though she has never been explicitly told the ingredients that I'm adding or in what order or been asked to taste some raw or anything! She just knew. She has used the words "surface" and "ignorant" to me this week in conversation, and she said to my mother that something was "versetile - really useful!" It's incredible what she can absorb, and what she chooses to absorb too. Certainly not exactly what I'd have chosen for her. Hedgehogs, what they eat and where they live. Stones, what gems are called and how they are made. Bonnie Prince Charlie. Ancient Egypt. Anything to do with babies and giving birth. Amazing.

Yet she still feels helpless and not in control of her own learning. She tells me that she needs to go to school because otherwise she won't know anything. She says that she needs a teacher to tell her things. Why is the view of school so ingrained that even she feels like this in the home that she has grown up in? It's ridiculous, this idea that we can't know anything without being told it.

All of these programs about the current fad for phonics are symptomatic. Given time, of COURSE the human brain isn't capable of assimilating those groupings without explicit teaching! If it was, then all children might dare to learn at different rates though... Micheal Rosen said it for me - they may learn to read, remarkable. But who will then give them back the love of books for their own sake?

This time last year, I felt my waters break with a tiny faint pop. And I took myself off up to bed.

Christmas is coming and Jenna needs cake

We have given up on trying to have Mary and Joseph travel to the stable through advent; Jenna is too impatient and instead wants to play with the whole nativity set every day. She makes them talk to each other and we regularly have the scene enacted of Joseph asking Mary to marry him, and off angels making visits to all and sundry. The impatience for Christmas is coming out in other ways though.

She has been asking for a Christmas cake (she doesn't even eat fruit cake) so this afternoon we had a Christmas-can't-come-soon-enough Party. We baked chocolate cake and put snowmen on top. We made a nice meal of some more home-grown vegetables (in pasta sauce again), and dished up some breadsticks, salad and dips. We ate in the living room, on a picnic blanket, with the room lit up by all the candles we own.

The negative side is the advertising, everywhere, of everything we don't want for Christmas. We've really cut down on what, and what sort of things, we actually want the children to have. But somehow if she ends up seeing any television she loses all discrimination. She sits and says, "I want that, I need one of those, I need that, I want that toy," without even seeing properly what they are or what they do!

It drives me nuts and makes me wonder what on earth I did to turn herself into such a little consumer. It also makes me want more strongly to not watch television and not let her watch it either! I just say that I don't like it, and if she can earn the money she can buy it herself. She doesn't really earn any pocket money yet so it's a set-up. But it makes her feel better and less squished.

BRILLIANT behaviour at a birthday party

This is almost entirely a brag on Jenna. She has been flipping UNbelievable today and I can't stop grinning. Probably it was more her than me (no, definately it was more her) but I'm really proud anyhow. Talk about a good time to be on best behaviour, usually the public at large only get her worst days (and mine). We went to a birthday party. Where there were sugary things and bottled drinks and all kinds of opportunities for Jenna to refuse to share and have tantrums at having to wait her turn. None of my worries on arriving came true.

Given a choice between biscuits and fruit she ate fruit. Given the only layer of the pass the parcel with no treat she did not complain. She waited her turn, and when given a sweet ate half of it and gave the rest to me. And it was a sweet she acutally likes. Offered a second sweet (Morgan's) she said that no, she had had one already. She passed plates at tea time.

She said please and thankyou and offered toys to the other children. She watched the babies and passed them back anything they dropped. This is so typical of her behaviour six months ago that I shouldn't be surprised but she has been harder work recently than she ever was as a two year old. I was delighted, and had to try not to make too much of a fuss of her (lest she think that she isn't expected to treat other children so nicely normally!).

She is a lovely child really! I am not raising a little brat! How can I forgive myself for thinking of her in such awful terms?

Don't lick Baby Jesus...

Jenna: "I'm getting baby Jesus all dirty - I need to lick the chocolate off Him."Me: "Jenna we don't LICK baby Jesus. Put Him down."

We've had another busy family weekend, though it feels like Martin worked for fully half of it. Jenna has been pretty tired and down, and keeps having little screaming tantrums. I'm trying to remind her to use her words instead of yelling back or trying to shut her up. There just seems to be no early warning system in place for these upsets because she's upset all the time! We need a week of routine, eating regularly, napping properly, and just hanging out for cuddles and stories.

On the up-side, Morgan is finally interested in food for other reasons than play. I have seen her pack away some major portions of pasta and she is sleeping much better too. I can't tell if it's linked and her best eating days can be her worst nights, but at least generally things that were worrying me a little bit now aren't. Only being woken once really helps with that as at least my stress levels are lower.

More age appropriate expectations revised!

Another shouting code breach to report. I was trying to teach Jenna to play snap, unwisely and adultly insisting that she play the "proper" way in spite of everything I know about how children learn (and fail!). Stupid, stupid, stupid. I got more and more stressed out until I just put the cards away, making her feel like I was punishing her and she was too young to be capable of the seemingly simple task. The problem is, she isn't ready to take turns like that, to be rigidly set to one kind of game. She wanted to pretend that she could already play the game, she wanted to be capable and right and not corrected and hassled.

All this, with hind-sight. Anyhow, after the usual apology and giving her the damn cards to use how she WANTS to use them (why did it even matter in the first place?) I have a new plan. I am going to notice sooner when she is getting stressed and when we are approaching showdown. That is the plan, in its entirety. That's all it really takes, to turn a conflict into a chance to be the parent I want to be - just to NOTICE.

We went to the gym again today, so that the girls could both swim with my mum and for Jenna's dance class. As I went to take her into the children's area for her group to meet up, I took Morgan out of the sling and let her sit on the floor to watch Jenna go in. A little boy said to me, "That baby can't come in here, she goes in the creche." I said, "She's coming with me, we're going to go and play together in the cafe." He said, "She can't - she has to go in the creche." I said, "She hasn't EVER been in a creche. She has me to watch her." He turned to the group leader as I left, and I heard, "Why doesn't the baby go in the creche? Is it poorly?"

From here in my usual chair I can see Mary and Joseph kissing on my mantlepiece. I wonder if Jenna put them like that; no, I know Jenna put them like that. Family life is full of these tiny events. Meaningless little moments that weave our hours and days into a rich tapestry of colour and light.

A moment of total wholeness

Thank goodness for that - all better. Still a bit twingey but I made it to befriending and walked into town afterwards and I'm not suffering this afternoon. The girls won't be back for another hour or two so now I'm going to take a nap in the hopes that no more back pain is coming my way in revenge for going out today!

I was thinking on my way home again, as I do every week, just how lucky I am. When you've been around someone with so many problems you start to realise that they're actually so normal. They didn't do anything to deserve how hard things are for them, they don't have some defect that makes them think that way necessarily. My client is a normal person who reacted to extraordinary problems with great courage and still had an understandable breakdown.

I go through all the people I know well enough to make the call - what would happen if it was them? Where is the support? Would I have reacted the same way? I can't imagine that I would have coped much better, any better. We are all somewhere walking a line and we could all be tipped over into what the rest of the world calls insanity and turns away from. Mental health is not a simple issue, not remotely cut and dried. Nobody is on the safe side of the line, untouchable by this, it's part of all of us.

More than this, how many small pleasures do we not count because they are the blessings that everyone has? Everyone like us at least. How many people could not do for themselves, or for any pressing need, the thing I did today? I walked, freely and feeling the youth and strength in my body, seeing the mundane brickwork and hearing people talking.

I saw markets, touched the fruits and smelled all sorts of things I wouldn't normally be pleased to. I saw a carpark. It was there and I was free to pass it, free to see what was there are look into the face of other free people. Did they know how very liberated they are? The feel of my jeans against my ankles, my coat against my shoulders. How very perfect, how very beautiful, to be alive and aware of the so many things that I can't usually see for them being everywhere.

Argh my back is still out...

I still haven't been anywhere and am very sore. I can't believe how much it aches and I feel like I'm prooving everyone right - I'm never going to hear the end of it from the family and assorted others who keep telling me she's too big to carry now. I only started carrying Jenna at this age!

Drat.

Emma came and saved me yesterday, spent all day pottering with the children and bringing Morgan to me to feed etc. I'm so worried about coping today, and I don't want to call in to befriending tomorrow either. How am I going to manage it? :(

Hard lessons about stretchy wraps!

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. :( I am now the advert for all the reasons why you should use a woven wrap for an older baby. Morgan is 1yo in a couple of weeks and obviously seriously outgrew it.

Yup, I went around town for three hours yesterday with Morgan in the stretchy AND carrying a heavy change bag and heavier library books. I'm not blaming the stretchy really, it was fine on my birthday for walking in but with bags as well... It was so tempting, the lovely cool water colours and I have missed it since she grew so big.

However now I am stuck here with a hot water bottle, can't take the children to soft play, barely made it down the stairs this morning (and Morgan can't climb down on her own yet!). *sigh* Ouch. I don't know how I'm going to take care of them, I may have to call Martin and beg him to come home.

Buy nothing new for a year challenge

I've had my 23rd birthday (I'm sure the age itself is shocking some people lol - it feels old enough to me though!). We've had Buy Nothing day (on which we bought food). Not a lot else, not a lot of anything I guess.

My birthday was nice, quiet and calm and a bit odd really. Last year I was hugely pregnant, the year before I was miscarrying, the year before that I had a newborn... It feels like I don't have birthdays any more. Maybe one year I'll do something just for me, but I kind of like it this way without too much attention being drawn to it or anyone making a fuss of me. The children are so much a part of everything for me, even a meal out without them seems like something I'm not ready for. I wonder when I'll stop wanting them so close?

We are actually still trying to not buy new unless it's ethical, and our food shopping is getting more local and organic every time. We tend to get the reaction that it's too expensive to live like that, not buying non-organic food. But we eat less meat, we make things last, we bulk out meals with other ingredients (one small pack of mince makes two meals, one small organic chicken is three meals!). We make a lot from scratch and the closest we get to a ready meal these days is beans on toast.

We caved and got some organic vests for Morgan when it became obvious that we wouldn't be able to find enough second hand ones to clothe her - Jenna didn't even wear vests at this age as she was walking so much and Morgan just won't. Crawling really pulls those little clothes up. And we're getting a couple of wooden toys for the girls, but we're hardly spending anything.

Social responses, death, and a visit

My in-laws cat has died, another sadness for Jenna and another hard lesson in loss. She seems very interested this time in what other people think of it, and how we are reacting. Martin hadn't really come to terms with it, hadn't taken in what I was saying (he grew up with this cat) and when we went to visit them it was still not really registering.

At the top of the steps down to their house Jenna said, "Everyone dies here." We said that no, of course everyone hasn't died. She argued that one of the guinea pigs had died last month, Larry-boy is dead... At this point Martin started to cry and we had to collect ourselves and give him big hugs before we could make it into the house. Jenna was surprised, Daddy doesn't often cry.

Later in the day she kind of poked him and looking up with that winning smile said, "Daddy - Larry-boy is dead." And then she waited, watching him as if she wanted to see him cry again. I laughed, trying not to of course. She really seemed to be figuring out why sometimes something is really sad and sometimes the same event is OK to think about. Why had Daddy cried like that when he already knew? Why didn't he cry now? She's learning a lot from all this - not the fragility-of-life stuff we thought. But a lot of social rules, and something about context too.

Changing as a person

I can't tell you how much we laugh sometimes, at the glorious things they come out with. I was cross with Jenna (again) this morning, and she quietly said (not looking at me), "Mummy pleeease don't break my *other* baby gate!" I laughed and stopped throwing my toys out of the metaphorical pram.

I have to say, Morgan arriving has done a lot for my ability to organise but only because, deep down, I'm suffering from terminal confusion. I can never remember times and dates, they all have to be written down somewhere in bold. I can't even tell the day of the week if we don't go to a regular activity. I spend much more time wandering around the house saying, "what am I looking for?!" It's terrible. Yesterday I dropped Jenna off at her dance class with the words, "Don't worry if I turn up to pick her up early, it won't be because anything is wrong, it'll just be that I'm confused." As I closed the door behind me I was accosted by another mother who said, with evident relief, "It gets worse with every child, doesn't it? I can't remember what it felt like to know what I was doing!" What can I add to that summation? I can't remember the profound thing I wanted to say anyway...

I have been being organised with last minute Christmas makes though. The fact that I think it's last minute already tells you a lot about how I'm getting past the mushy brain with planning ahead. I've made some little dolls, felt animals, dyed some play silks myself (a bargain from http://www.rainbowsilks.co.uk/ transformed with some dylon), all sorts of things. I've been working more on the season table too and made some last little autumnal gnomes. We're feeling crafty. Something has to reconnect us after the shouting!

Anger and how to deal with it?

Something is not going so well as it should be - I feel like I'm perpetually losing my temper and I'm too frustrated to try to figure out the root of my problem. I keep saying I don't know what's wrong with me. It's tempting to think I'm just not cut out for this, I'm no good, I'm an awful parent. I felt so together until Morgan got mobile - well, mostly. Now I'm just mad at them both all of the time, always picking at things that don't matter and flying off the handle when they do normal kid stuff.

I managed to break the safety gate at the top of the stairs today. Jenna had been winding me up over really minor stuff and I can see now that she wasn't doing it on purpose. The urge to hit her was just so strong. I'm really ashamed of myself, I had a proper toddler tantrum and threw the washing I was carrying on the floor and kicked the baby gate. It fell off its hinges and then Morgan and Jenna were crying and I was screaming at them (if only I could take that back and go hit a pillow in private). What can you do when you lose it so badly? Well I had to ask myself what I'd want Jenna to do if she'd just done that... I said sorry and explained why I'd handled it wrongly and what I should have done. I asked her to forgive me, and hugged them both. I tried to fix the gate and then said that Daddy would help me do it later.

We only just got out of the house this morning without someone being smacked. I never thought I could come that close. Thinking about it now I can see that really I only wanted to hit her BECAUSE I knew it was wrong. In my anger I just wanted to lash out, do something terrible. Is this what my own experience of being disciplined has taught me? Has my adult life done nothing to take away the desire to act bad because I feel out of control and doing something naughty gives me the control back? What a failure.

Disobedience in a good way

I asked Jenna to stop Morgan from following me as I had a lot of washing to carry and needed to take it upstairs to sort. I thought I'd given really clear instructions, but perhaps too many? "Put the bubbles back now please. I need you to help keep Morgan safe while I go upstairs, so just let her sit with her toys and try to distract her from playing behind the door. You must respect her space!"

When I came down there was no baby behind the door, no crying, no mess... I was shocked - I fully expected to be utterly ignored. Then I saw why they were quietly giggling together. The bubble mix was still out and Jenna was blowing bubbles for Morgan to pop! How could I be cross with her? This is what I like to call, "following the spirit of the instruction but not the substance"!

Nothing at all to say

We planted trees today with Emma and Chris. A lovely cold wintery day, out in the garden and enjoying each others company. These are the days when nothing to write and nothing to say take nothing from the memories. Bliss.

Jenna prooves that she needs her inhalor

Yesterday Jenna traumatised me by having an asthma attack on the bus. We were in a hurry and I packed the inhalor (with us all the time now as the season to be poorly is upon us) but walked too fast to get to the stop. She was a bit puffed but OK when we got on, but then she had to sit a few seats away from me as it was packed and I could hear her coughing her guts up. She started to wheeze but there were people standing between us now and stupid as it sounds I didn't want to ask them to move, I just called to her to breathe slowly and stay calm...

I don't know how we got through it, it was like a bad dream. When we pushed our way out of there she was still calm and just asked for her "breather". And it was over, and I have never been so scared for her or felt so helpless. Ten minutes later she coughed until she threw up, and we went straight home figuring that it wasn't worth being out in the bitter cold any more even for the sake of getting to swimming.

Morgan is still playing the on and off nursing game. I'm a bit worried she might be weaning or that something might be up with my milk supply. I can't figure it out; she wants to feed but as soon as I put her on she messes about and comes off again. Maybe I'm just being paranoid - this is after all the first time I've just gone with the flow completely. We're sleeping four in a bed too, down to the cough and cold thing, which isn't helping her night feeds! It's a bit squashed and I'm glad for the extra space from the cot. I've been thinking about going to mattresses on the floor but it seems like hassle taking the bed down.

I am definately calmer with Jenna right now, my no shouting plan is mostly based on trying to stop being a child and arguing back at her! I also need to let her own her own feelings a bit more and stop telling her not to feel a certain way. I don't want my no whining rule to turn into, "I don't care if you're unhappy" because I do care... My mantra today has been, "tell me with words" followed by, "I hear you"! I wish Martin would hold me to this though, because he really enables the yelling sometimes. And he seems to come home so very tired.

It's not about the MMR

I just feel I need to comment on this whole Chicken Pox vaccine news coverage today. Don’t take this as my willingness to get off the fence (lol) but rather as heartfelt upset at how the non-vaccinating parent is viewed by the rest of the world. Please, my dear and much loved pro-vaccination friends, read this carefully.

It is not about the MMR.

I don’t want to explain to every person who thinks they have an interest in my child’s health that I am not particularly credulous and don’t buy into any cultish fearfulness (on either side of the fence). I personally don’t think it’s likely that vaccines cause autism, though I accept that I may be proven wrong some day. MMR is not “it”. It *isn’t* the only cause of mistrust, and it isn’t the only doubt that is ever raised about the efficacy and sense of the vaccine program.

Thank goodness I am not called on to explain myself in all but the friendliest environment – I would gather from the news programs today that anywhere else I would be seen as both superstitious and careless. As upset as I feel about the misrepresentation of anyone who does not has not or might not accept the CP vaccine, I *was* very interested to hear a representative of the medical profession utter the phrase “there is no risk from vaccines”. And then seconds later say that “it isn’t always effective, no vaccine is, and there are of course sometimes side effects”…

After two days of being confined, we are feeling much better now and are back to operating on shockingly good terms. :) I have had two whole days without shouting and YES today DOES count even though the children were out all morning. :P I am feeling, in the words of a friend of mine with children similar ages, all earth-mothery. I may even make bread.

LURGY!!

We are all really really sick and are confined to the house. It is 1pm and Jenna got up about half an hour ago. Before this she had ventured downstairs only to take herself back to bed with a sick bowl and a cup of hot juice. She is hot and miserable and so is Morgan. Oh, and my knee still flippin hurts.