Alice wears: The same outfit as last time, but with slightly different accessories.
…is that really what you’re wearing? Wednesday.
Category Archives: Parenting
June.
Winter arrived this month. I chase you around the house in the mornings, still dark; trying in vain to get you to keep your socks on; to sit under a blanket on the couch while you watch cartoons. You wear striped thermals under all your clothes; your super hero second skin. I tie towels about your shoulders at bath time, and fly you into bed.
I assembled your bunks this month; Theo on the top, Mabel on the bottom. Our nightly ritual now including me banging my head; catching a shoulder; injuring myself somehow, just trying to get to you for kissing; on your castle, in your little cave. They are a pain in the arse to make, to make nice of the nightly knots you make of your bedding, but I do, because doing so is a part of our rhythm. Like dance parties before dinner. Like 1000 kisses a day.
There are some parts of parenting that took no consideration for me. They arrived with a knowing, just like you both did. I knew I would have you both at home. I knew I would stay home with you once I had you. These decisions decided themselves. They were just what was going to happen. I never measured them alongside anyone else. I think we get so lost navigating by the belief that we are having a comparative experience with others. That my not doing what you have done is a judgement upon your choices, or vice versa. Where we are lucky enough to be empowered with options, what works for one may just not work another. It’s a process, not a competition. Try to remember that.
Mae; you are a party girl. When you were a baby, you thought that was your name. You responded to it; looked up at us, from where you bum-shuffled; hands full to treasure or contraband, usually one in the same. “What you doing, Party Girl? Where you going?”. You would invariably hit us with the full force of your grin, your whole face the Sun. Before scooting off somewhere new, ready to party; somewhere the chaperones weren’t such a drag. You can fall asleep standing up, and did so this month, further testament to your party girl powers, and some serious Darwinning. Most of your top teeth are chipped; from dancing, from falling, from your hereditary perilous sense of adventure. Your language is developing in leaps and bounds. You decided at 1 that you spoke English; ready to communicate, to express, to get together and feel alright. Now 4 months shy of 3 years old, you are all the time refining, elaborating, exploring language and all it can lead you to. Sitting on the couch last week, you danced in to the room and took me by the face. You took a deep breath before yelling, point-blank, ‘THESE ARE MY EXTRA SKILLS” apropos of nothing.
Theo; you know your left from right; which is often confusing and frustrating for both of us, because I don’t. Not without having to think about what hand I write with, anyway. You told me the other day that you wanted to be a doctor. And a digger. And to work at the dairy. You love Louis Armstrong and can tell the difference between a trumpet and an oboe, which is a pretty great party trick, for a 3-year-old. You have mastered the art of the leading statement, often opening with, ‘so, I’ve been thinking…’. You’d live at the library, if only they’d feed you. You asked me just now, ‘what’s the good news and what’s the bad news?’, which is pretty demonstrative of your thought process. What are my options here? Is there room to negotiate? What are the benefits? What are the drawbacks? You hate to be rushed, but are easy to reason with. Except for the times there is no reasoning with you. You get that from me.
You are all the colours at once, the pair of you. Flags held high, tales trailing behind you. Filling yourselves up. Forging new ground.
May which ever road you choose, always rise up to meet you.
I love you without measure,
Mama xx
January / February / March / April / May
May.
Dear Babies,
This month the washing machine broke down (because I washed too many couch covers too many…and at once) and my cellphone stopped taking calls (because I answered it with wet hands from running the bath) and the batteries for the home phone were no longer working (after they were used in an ‘experiment’) and the dishwasher all of sudden no longer washed dishes (which led me to discover, it was actually a fuse) and power points all over the house no longer had power and my laptop went to sleep and never woke up and the laptop I borrowed didn’t have all its keys (so I spent 3 weeks copy and pasting ‘L’s, ‘T’s and 9’s and do you know annoying that is, when you’re in a heated debate, over instant messenger?) and the USB keyboard I purchased today, because I had to write this post? Well, my darlings, I’ll be damned if the ‘A’ doesn’t work. So whenever you see one, think of me fondly; cross-legged and squinting, machine on machine, hunting for typos. Ctrl V. Ctrl V.
And all this to say, sometimes you will have a mare. And you will get to the point where you say, gosh, that’s a fair share. And then more will happen, and you’ll think, really? But…really? And then more will happen and you may have cry; or you may be too tired to cry, or too stubborn; so maybe you’ll just be angry instead, and you’ll curse your lot and call your mother and swear and complain. And then more will happen and you’ll be like OF COURSE. COME AT ME! WHAT ELSE YOU GOT? Because you are my children; and that’s how we do.
And on and on it may go, a veritable avalanche, untill you get to the point where you no longer care, which comes as respite, but also, rewardingly leads into the point where you will find yourself laughing. And then it’s as if the secrets of all things are revealing themselves to you. Because if you can still laugh, for whatever reason, alone and your own, you’re doing okay.
Because there will always be times where things go wrong. Times the sheer relentlessness of the world will astound you. But there are also first kisses, and new ventures, and parties and books. And inspiration and peanut butter and jam sandwiches and really hard hugs, right when you need them. There’s conversation and collaboration and new party clothes and treasure and gold watches and do you know how many cat videos there are on the internet? There’s new bands and old bands and doing your best. There’s cleaning your bedroom and washing your hair. There’s new friends and old friends and family. There’s new friends and old friends and family, who have a full complement of working chattels.
There’s a quote, wrongly attributed to Buddha, that says, “When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.” And while it my not be from the source, there’s wisdom in it. Remember there is much to look forward to. And most of it will come as a complete surprise.
*
This month you said:
Driving somewhere talking about what we could see out the window:
Theo: Look at that truck Mama!
Alice: That’s a good one, Bubba. What do you like about it?
Theo: I like the engine and the started motor!
Mabel: I like the black it’s painted!
Sitting at the kitchen table; eating dinner:
Theo: Mama, what are prickles?
Mabel: Like on cactuses! (Then you laughed to yourself) Good thinking, me!
Sitting on the couch in the afternoon with Mae on my lap, when she turns to face me and pats my chest.
Mabel: Mama, your boobies were a milk container!
Theo came over to fix my fence (as played by the couch)
Theo: Hammer! Hammer! Hammer! There! All fixed!
Alice: Great! Thank you! How much do I owe you?
Theo: 20 box!
Getting in the car this morning, a Police car drives past.
Theo: You tell the Police to get lost!
Alice…You mean, you tell the Police when you get lost, darling?
Theo: Yeah! And then they’ll ring Simon!
Alice: …You mean…Ring the siren?
This month I overheard you say:
Theo: Is that the go-er?
Mabel: No! that’s the stopper!
Theo: I’m going to give you a haircut!
Mabel: Okay!
Theo: That sounds naughty and dangerous.
Mabel: Lets do it!
*
Theo; you have learnt to say and spell Bob the Builder in 5 languages, and to use the covers of our videos to copy the titles for searching on you tube. You are endlessly inquisitive; you asked me the other day why the mandarins had freckles, and asked your sisters feet why they were under her socks. “Feet? I’m talking to you, Feet!”. She made them reply in a silly voice and we laughed and laughed. You are such a good brother and son. I remember exactly, like some cellular memory, how I would burp you when you were a baby. Sit you up straight with my hand across your chest, lengthen you as best you are able to lengthen a slug, tilt you slighty forward and rub your back in an upwards motion. You’d wake every 2 hours, like clockwork. And I remember, so clearly that time; how everything changed, suddenly so focused. I remember the light from the lamp on top of the television, where I would sit on the couch and feed you those nights. The warm weight of you. I had no idea the little boy you’d turn into; though you feel it, somewhere. A knowing. I am so proud of the person you are.
Mae; you say ‘him is’ instead of his, ‘them is’ instead of theirs. Carrying you in, half asleep from the car, you pointed your little hand “Mama, the stars have them is lights on”. We roll around in my bed, most mornings, under blankets til the house warms up. One morning you sat up and said, very earnestly, “It’s a whole city and a whole world, Mama. It’s a difficult music. We need a day off”. I am so often struck by your wisdom. I never want to forget how you talk, you say things like “There is a yittle cup in your breadroom”, which makes me so happy. You have no ‘L’s, could just about be my favourite thing of all time, but still surprised me when you asked me the other day why I had a cock on my arm. “You mean a clock, darling? My watch?” “Yeah. Mama! Your cock! It’s shiny!”. Your favourite look at the moment is to wear tights with feet as pants, and I call you Edie Sedgewick and you say “No! I am Mabel!”. You told me, this month, that you didn’t want to be a girl, as I sat on the toilet doing a wee. That you wanted to have a penis like Theo and Daddy and Pappou, so you could wee in the ‘toilet hole’. And I wanted to reassure you, to extol the virtues of our sex. Damn the patriarchy! Girl power! I was almost shocked by the force of my own reaction. But instead, I said, “That’s okay, baby. You can be whoever you want to be”. And then we sat there a moment; you on the floor, and me on the toilet, and we waited while that information echoed inside us. I will always be there for you, to help it take hold.
*
And so, my loves, take heed: it’s not the life in your appliances, or even the appliance in your life – because where there is a will, there’s always a way; even if it’s not the way you had planned.
That I stay home, Friday nights, and write love letters to the best people I know, is proof. Ctrl V. Ctrl V.
Everything’s gonna work out, you’ll see.
Love,
Mama xx
A Letter to My Children on Mother’s Day.
I am sitting on the front step of our house, in the sun, writing this to you. It’s Sunday morning.
When I brought this house, at 22, I didn’t realise then that it was for you. That one day you’d be what filled it up, what pushed life into its every available space. You did the same with me.
The camellia tree, that was planted at the same time this house was built, some 80 winters, is filled with sparrows. These details; what it is to sit on the front step of the house you own, filled with the life you have made, watching sparrows dance; this is peace to me. That’s how I know I’ve done alright.
“It’ll be alright” was always the great standard of measure in my house growing up. And I use to feel somehow diminished, like things improving to the standard of just being alright was all there was to look forward to. But I see now, what my own Mother was teaching me was to have hope. To hold on to your hope and to let it lead you to where you are supposed to be. And that is the foundation I draw from everyday. It’s what brought me to this house and how you became my home.
I had no idea this was where I was going. And I am confounded with good fortune that it was here.
Thank you for bringing me home.
Mama xx
April.
Dear Babies,
You don’t always have to be right. You won’t always be. In every new season of my life I realise how much I don’t know. But those gaps have a way of filling themselves. There’s this Kafka passage Tom Robbins quotes in Still Life with Woodpecker; “You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
Here is a secret that’s not really a secret (people will try to tell you that’s wisdom); you don’t always have to know what you’re doing either. Or what you want to do, or where you’re going. It is perfectly okay to just sit with that not knowing. To wait it out. To think it over. To try a bunch of things. To like them or not like them. To succeed or fail. Where and who you are supposed to be will find you. Your future is waiting, and you are the only one it wants. It’ll come to you. It always does.
We are all here; worrying the same worries and feeling the same feelings and thinking the same thoughts. The best you can do, at all times and anywhere, is to be kind. To yourselves especially. Be patient. When it all feels too slow or too hard or too much, try to remember that everything you have done has brought you to now, and you managed all those other times that felt too slow or too hard or too much, didn’t you? You kept breathing in and out and putting your right foot in front of your left foot until you found yourself somewhere else. Somewhere where maybe it was easier to breathe. Remember to breathe. It may sound too simple to be meaningful, but that’s a another lesson for another letter. Try and appreciate the good things, even in the bad times. Because they are there too, just as much and as ever and the hard things.
Read widely. Listen to all sorts of records, especially if someone you love loves them. These are the secrets people will share with you without even realising. Take a lot of photographs. I began the 365 project I’ve been doing this year, to help and mend a broken heart I was holding. One day at a time is a powerful thing. It’s enough. It is so easy to get caught up trying to figure out the future, when you’re headed there anyway.
Mabel; I think we all forget sometimes how young you are; only 2. But you have reminded us this month, with your tantrums, your demands, so seemingly out of character, but so suitable for where you are right now. Being only 15 months younger than your brother, you have almost rolled into a twinship. But you are you and our very best you at that. You come up to me sometimes, and take my hand and say ‘best friends’. You like to build towers from all my library books and when I give you a carrot dipped in hummus, you eat the hummus off and hand me back the carrot, “More pwease!” you tell me, rather than ask. You’d live on crackers, if I let you. I woke up the other day, to find you sitting on my bed, crumbling a mysterious piece of polystyrene all over my bed covers. “It’s snowing, Mama!” you told me, as a million uniform snowflakes drifted over us. They stuck in your eyelashes, like some kind of Man Ray, and oh, I just can’t get mad at you. You overwhelm me with happiness. Your face heralds it.
Theodore; this time next year we will be preparing you for school. Just as I am beginning to feel as though I am getting this thing right. As our rhythm is finding us and carrying us over. That’s how these things happen, my love. The music swells, and our lives along with it. You say the most tremendous things, all day, without pause. “Where are my formal pants” you asked the other day. I had to tell you I didn’t know, because, formal pants? Where are you off to? The theatre? I ask you a lot of questions back, wanting you to look for your own answers, wanting to show you the possibility not knowing offers. And then there are some things, like when you say ’emergent seat!’ instead of emergency, which make me smile too hard to correct. Try and remember humility, Bubba. Never let yourself be shamed into it. But know that there is a connectivity that comes with it. Something relateable. Because when you are singing ‘heyyyyyy, sassy neighbour!’ as the lyrics to Gangnam Style, there is always going to be someone who thought those were the words too. And then you can laugh about it. Together.
I think I write you these letters as a way to hold on to you. Or to hold on to myself. To try to preserve something that is both fleeting and forever. I am sure, when you’re old, and I am trying to explain to you all that we find and feel over the course of all things, you’ll throw back to me, over your shoulder and out the door, “Yeah. I know, Mama. You covered that in Newsletter 57”. “Consider yourself lucky”, I’ll call after you, never to old to kick your ass, “that I was so consumed with love for you, I had to tell the whole world our story”.
Our tiny landscapes.
I love you all the love,
Mama xx
I am scratching myself where I am itching.
Theo: ‘My bottom is itchy.’
Alice: ‘Hmm? Oh, always wash your hands after you touch your bottom, darling.’
Theo: ‘No, just the edges are itchy. Not the middle. Not my poo-hole. What are these bits called?’
Alice: ‘…They’re your bumcheeks, darling.’
Mabel: ‘BUMCHEEKS!’
Theo: ‘I am scratching my bumcheeks!’
Mabel: ‘BUM! CHEEKS!’.
We are in public.
We Make: Mistakes. A Pantry Make-Over. And a Give-Away.
Step 1: Find, in your possession, some adorable kitchen labels from Stuck on You.
Step 2: Stand, forlorn, in front of your woefully disorganised pantry. Your Spare-Room Policy of ‘if an area is a total mess, but I don’t have to look at it, does the mess really exist?’ has clearly been extended here. Look from your pantry, to the cuteness of the kitchen labels, and back to your pantry. Resolve that drastic action must be taken.
Step 3: In a flurry of activity, remove every item from your pantry and place them, haphazardly, all over your kitchen surfaces. Preferably an hour or so before you must prepare a meal for your family. This will lead you to discover that the lid of the washing machine makes a perfectly adequate chopping board.
Step 4: With hot soapy water, scrub all hardened jam, flour, crumbs and fingerprints until sparkling clean. As if on cue, have your cat walk over your freshly washed surfaces. Rinse and repeat.
Step 5: Get up at 5.30am, two days in a row, to undercoat your pantry before the children wake up and try to ‘help you’.
Step 6: Go to your local paint store for test-pots. Do not let the fact that, on returning home, you discover you do not have any of the other tools required for painting a decorative feature. You know, like painters tape. Or a ruler. This is the point where most people, on having a freshly painted pantry, all white and inviting, would just say, hey, maybe I don’t need to paint a Chevron stripe in here. But you are not most people. Devise that, alongside your can-do attitude, a record sleeve and some ordinary cellotape will do just fine to fashion a guide for your stripe. Be pleasantly surprised with the results. Feel a little smug once you have finished. Go and have a shower. I can’t believe you left the house like that.
Step 7: As you stand under the warm water trying to wash the paint out of your hair, think to yourself what a shame it is that it overcast; that now you will have to wait until tomorrow for your paint work to be dry enough to get to the fun part of the make-over – the organising! Wonder if it’s normal to feel so genuinely excited about your kitchen cupboards. Realise suddenly that you seem to have completed a whole thought. This has not been possible during the children’s waking hours…ever before. Feel immediately and overwhelmingly suspicious.
Step 8: Expletives.
Step 9: Thank your ‘helpers’ for the ‘fine job’ they did ‘helping you’. Worry that perhaps the tone in which you write about parenting on the internet is somehow drawing these experiences to you. Try not to think too much about Thomas theorem.
Step 10: Spend another two days preparing all the meals in the wash-house because you cannot face painting the pantry for the eighth time.
Step 11: Just do it already. This is getting ridiculous. You haven’t seen the bench in a week.
Step 12: Paint over Jackson Pollock Jr and Jackson Pollock Jr. Jr.’s masterpiece, ignoring their cries of protest. Realise this may well be the first in series of instances wherein you ‘don’t understand their art’.
Step 13: Once your pantry is completely dry, enjoy with great relish the grand reorganisation. Know now that this was the reason you had been hoarding all those jars. Stand back often to admire your work and to take a series of poorly lit photographs. Ignore the realisation that you could have just used washi or another decorative tape to create your Chevron stripe, and saved yourself a whole heap of trouble.
But where’s the fun in that?
And now! A Give-Away!
Stuck on You have kindly donated a set of their gorgeous personalised kids pyjamas. Head over to their website and check out all the styles available here. Then come on back leave your preference in the comments for a chance to win. I’m crazy about the Circus themed ones!
The winner will be picked at random next Thursday the 18th of April. Good luck!
For more from Stuck on You checkout their homepage. Or say hi to them on Facebook or Twitter.
Three Hundred & Sixty Five: Days at Home / Ninety-One.
Creating a gallery wall is a great way to cohesively display art in your home. Here I have clustered artwork made by friends, favourite cards and a paper bag my best friend gave me my birthday present in (it was a tea cosy). Your children may wish to add incredibly adhesive Toy Story stickers to your woodwork. Embrace their creativity with savoir-faire. I mean of course, drink a glass of wine and spend a tortuous hour trying to peel them off once they have gone to bed.
March.
Dear Babies,
When we are dancing, to records I used to play, on Saturday nights; and your little bodies are spinning, spinning and your little faces are laughing, laughing, I am filled with the knowing, that there is no where so sweet as now.
I have never just loved where I am. Not known how to be still, have rushed and pushed and run toward a future; always desperate for ‘something to happen’.
And then there was you; and you slowed me down. Made me look up and out, instead of down and in. Connected me.
And the more I listen to that, to you, to all the lessons you have brought with you, the happier I am.
Mabel; you are infinitely sweet. When you were a baby, and you lived in my lap, I could literally kiss you to sleep. 1000 kisses a day seems to be your requisite – we’re the same in that way. I am doing my best to get you to stand up to your brother, when he does something you don’t like; making sure you have a voice, and the confidence to use it. You told him the other day, ‘Don’t treat me like a toy! I’m a robot!’, which was so cool and empowered I would have given you a high-five, but I like to let you just be in your own radness sometimes, to find solidity there, in who you are; to trust your own reactions without need for affirmation. You boss us all around, constantly. You don’t like to wear dresses, but on the occasions you do, you tell me they are for dancing, so we try out a few moves. You say ‘ya’ instead of ‘you’ and the other day when you couldn’t remember the name of your tounge, you told me you didn’t need your face washed because you’d ‘Use your licker’. You make me cry with laughter. You’d rather be a pirate than a princess.
Theo; your comprehension is incredible. You process best when given all the information, which I can see you sorting in your mind, adding up, finding validity within your understanding, working out how things are. You are perceptive and persistent. You have great big feelings – we’re the same in that way. I do my best to support you through them, to provide you a place of stillness, to be the constant you can always come back to when you’ve gone to far. Remember, little love, no matter how far you go, you can always turn around. You ask me amazing questions all day. ‘Why are the crackers being quiet?’, when we haven’t sealed their container properly, and the air has made them lose their crunch. ‘What is that light dancing in the water?’, the windows reflected in the bath, I say. ‘That’s interesting’, you tell me. ‘What’s that hook for?’, it’s for a chain to connect the plug with the bathtub so you don’t lose it, I tell you. ‘That’s clever’, you say. You’re three, I tell myself.
We are constantly learning from one another. All the time finding out how to best be ourselves. You have brought out the best in me. Your very existence has made me finally appreciate my own.
Thank you for being you. And thank you for being mine.
Love, Mama xx
Reasons for Happiness: New Paints.
Alternative Title – Reasons for Happiness: Wooden Floors.
ourtinylandscapes.com 