Mabel: ‘Brrring! Brrrring! Hello, Mama?’
I answer my Banana phone.
Alice: ‘Hello, Mama speaking. Hi, Mae! What are you doing?’
Mabel: ‘Shopping and crying! And I am making my toy dog into an aeroplane – he’s a robot! I gotta go! I love you so much! Bye! Beep, beep, beep!’
Shopping and crying? We’ve all been there, sister. (Even though we’ve been home all morning…)
I had Montessori dreams.
The children would only have hand-made toys! From local artisans! It’d be nothing but Constructivism and natural fibres and sustainability around here, baby.
Then I actually had children. And with them came a veritable avalanche of tat.
For a long time, holding dear to my previous ideals, all of their toys were sorted into type and on display. I culled as best I could all the junk that somehow found it’s way into our home. But then they would fall in love with the most ghastly tiny wretched plastic treasure, and though it would break within a week, I still had to find somewhere to put it in the meantime.
It took me a long time to come to terms with the idea of a Toy Box – somewhere to throw it all! Where it cannot be seen! But recently, as I was tearing around the house in a desperate frenzy, just sort of flailing wildly at my intricate system of Piles of Associated Items Ready for Return to Their Rightful Place, and trying to prepare the house for a play-date, I was struck with the beauty of having somewhere to throw it all! Where it cannot be seen!
I found the box that had been used by the children for every purpose imaginable in the time since I bought myself a new hoover for Christmas; every purpose, except one – Storage! I threw everything that belonged in the childrens room in this glorious box and threw it all in everyones secret hiding place for what their lives really look like; the Spare Room.
It was a revelation.
But I believe that if you are trapped in a house with tiny dictators all day, the things your home should make you happy. Or perhaps because I have not left the house in 3 years, my Stockholm Syndrome coupled with my Cabin Fever have manifested themselves in wanting to cover everything with with a wipable surface, I naturally had to cover the Toy Box in contact paper.
I also made a fastener by punching a hold in either side of the lid and using a pipe-cleaner to hold a button onto one side and a loop of ribbon onto the other. Because if you are going to do something, you may as well do something that gives opportunity to use all those pipe-cleaners you have.
When I showed the children, Mabel was thrilled.
Theo was furious that I had defaced his space-ship.
You win some, you lose some.
Mabel: ‘You’ve got stars on your eyes, Mama!’
Alice: ‘Thank you, darling. Is it a good look for me?’
Mabel: ‘Yes! I want stars too!’
And we wore them for the rest of the day.
(Photo by Theo; so it warrants inclusion, even though I am looking crazy-eyed and thin-lipped. Which is often the face of those in my profession.)
Theo: ‘We have buried Otto, Mama! He is our prisoner!’
Alice: ‘Your prisoner? Oh dear. And what was his crime?’
Theo: ‘He is a bad dog! He ate Mae-Mae’s lunch!’
Alice: ‘Off with his head!’
(A warning, dear readers, about the nature of children: they will seize upon, with great ferocity, all the things you say that are best not repeated, oh, I don’t know, at the Dairy, say. And when you are waiting, as patiently as possible, behind a heavily tattooed gentleman who is paying for his two mince and cheese pies and a coke with what appears to be solely 20c pieces, and your son takes it upon himself to roar ‘OFF WITH HIS HEAD!’, you will know, you only have yourself to blame.)
Little lady feet in the kitchen sink.
Just know that I love you. We may not know each other, or maybe we do, and maybe you are reading this now because it applies to you, or it used to, or maybe it will in the future. I love you in those instances too. I love you even though you sleep in your clothes so much there now is no line between clothes and pyjamas and you feel so far away from the you you used to be, it is like a whole new life began with your babies. It did and it didn’t, and there is comfort in both. You are still you, you stinky wreck. And there will be a whole new you after this.
I love you even though your house is spotless but you know, for certain, your baby dosen’t love you. Your baby loves you, but this is the very beginning of your love affair, you know? It takes a while for these things to develop. Even if it was love at first sight, you still have to get to know one another, figure out what you like and don’t like. This is just like any new relationship. Remember that. Taking a while to fall in love does not lessen your bond. Because the most important thing to your baby right now? Food, comfort, sleep, working that poop/gas/vomit out. And you. Always you.
I love you even though you feel like this has all been some kind of mix-up. That you have ended up in a life that you were not looking for, or that you wanted so terribly, that the fact it does not feel like everything you imagined is the worst kind of wrong. A wrong that you feel like might never be right. Give it time. Give it 10 minutes. Give yourself a break. You are strong enough and good enough and you are doing this. You ARE doing it. Just do the best you can, on a case by case basis. Like with everything else. Be patient. Your good things are coming.
I know all the “one day’s’ or the “it’ll be different when’s…” seem so very far beyond imagination. Because you are here, or you were, or you are somedays. And there is nowhere so real as now.
So right now? Open your windows. This was very good advice once given to me. If you can’t do anything else, you can still air your bedroom. Call your person. The person that will listen to everything you have to say, and then tell you a joke. Or tell you they love you. Or who will change the subject completely. Or will ask your opinion on something in the world outside your right now, and value it. Call the person that will make you feel good. Text everyone you know. Shine your sink. Put your kid in a ridiculous outfit. Commune with your dog. Write a list of all your favourite songs as you hear them. Listen to them often. Dance with that bloody screaming baby. Put flowers in every room of your messy house. Be honest with the people who love you about how you are feeling. Be generous enough to let them love you back, even if they don’t say or do all the right things all the time. Remember that sometimes the most important thing is just doing it. Go outside. Change your sheets. Chase your happiness. Say, aloud, ‘it will not always be like this’, because that is true of every situation, and we should choose to see the freedom in that.
And know, when you are crying at the sink or staring at this expectant little face as it screams commands at you in a foreign language, or dying with jealousy at strangers holiday photos, or nothing feels quite right, I love you, and I have been there. And it is going to be okay.
It’ll be better than okay.
One day you will be grown.
You’ll go on adventures. You’ll get on planes with plans or with no plan at all; both are good. You’ll count down the days to your departure, crossing off the calendar, or one morning you will just get up and go.
You’ll fill your heart and senses with stories. You’ll fall in love, with places and books and people and ideas.
You will have a great big life. It’s how these things work.
But when you were 3, and you caught Chickenpox off your sister, and you were so good about it, really; the only soothe you did insist on, was to sleep in my bed at night. You are there beside me now.
So you should know, no matter how far you go, or how hard things can seem sometimes, I am always there. On your side. Right there, with you.
I don’t know which of your first ‘Hello’s’ thrilled me more.
Dear Babies,
This month has flown. I heard someone say recently, ‘the days are long but the years are short’, and that is exactly how it feels sometimes. The days become undiscernable from one another; a steady roll of mess and laughter and telling the hound not to eat your crackers. But they all have their shining moments, which is in part why I started writing all this. That, and wanting to tell people this story. The story of what all this really looks like; how ridiculous and whole it is. Because it is the biggest story I have ever had to tell. And the one I am most proud of. I am so proud of you both, it is as if the sun is rising in my chest.
You are so good to one another, so kind and generous. It makes me feel like I am doing something right, even though all I am doing is going by feel. Listening to you and hoping I make you feel heard. You are both quite insane, I am sure of it. You chase me around the house every day and do not give me a moments peace. You follow me into the toilet. You yell at me while I am in the shower. You run around and around me on the bed shouting ‘GO TEAM GO’ while I am just trying to write. You cannot take a hint and the hints you do take you completely disregard. You only want to eat dreary old bloody pasta every night for dinner, but will devour whatever I make for myself with ferver and gusto. You make the most noise of any children ever. You never stop asking questions and you say the funniest things I have ever heard. For a full week this month you were obsessed with saying ‘BUMCHEESE!’ and would roar it at one another constantly. I have no idea where you got it (this is a lie – I was very tired, okay? And one cannot be expected to recall all the bloody names of all those bloody trains. Thomas, Percy and Bumcheese seemed feasible.) You do this thing where I am trying to have a lie-in and you run full tit from the lounge into my bedroom and smash your little bodies into my bed that fills me with an impotent rage, but you find it so hilarious I am powerless against it. Even now, you are sat either side me, Mae just fell into me and poked a Christmas card up my nose. She keeps saying, ‘goodness you!’ for reasons I do not understand but am enjoying. You laugh all day. It’s exhausting.
Mae calls lipstick ‘slippers’. This one took me a while to figure out. Among your favourite things to do is to inspect my every beauty spot and freckle with your index finger. My ‘sticky spots’ you call them. You are bright and fearless. If you were a Shakespearean quote you would be ‘And though she be but little, she is fierce!’. That is you down to the ground, Lil’ Boss. You are so kind and gentle and show the greatest concern if anyone gets hurt. You kiss Otto on the cheek and when you say I love you, you say ‘I love you so much!’. It almost hurts how precious you are. I can’t believe you are real. It’s like you got lost on the way from one fairytale to another and decided you’d stick with me. I promise to do whatever I can to live up to how good you are. How good you both are.
Theo, there is nothing you would rather be doing that using the telephone. Or discussing using the telephone. You love the concept of electricity. Your brain goes 100 miles and hour and I know what that’s like. We talk all day. And at night, the nights when things are going too fast, I lie down with you and answer question after question until they are no longer pressing so hard upon you, and then you ask me to pat you for a while, and I do, and you fall asleep. You are bossy and brave. You tell jokes and shake hands with people and say ‘nice to meet you’. You can eat 4 hard-boiled eggs in a single sitting. You always know where everything is. When you don’t want to do something you tell me that you are not feeling well, and when I ask you what’s wrong you tell me that your bones are sore. I know what that’s like too, Bubba. To feel something so deeply it is as if it begins in your bones. But we are together, and we’ll work it out. Like always.
I don’t know if this is how every parent feels. But it is how I feel about you. Right now, in our messy little house in the Summer filled with questions and ice-blocks and 3 in the bed.
If I ever hear ‘WHY, MAMA? WHY?’ again it will be too soon.
Love, Mama xx
Mabel: ‘Mama! I’ve got a big black fanny!’
Alice: ‘Do you, darling? That’s wonderful.’
Mabel: ‘I’ve got a big big huge green fanny!’
Alice: ‘Oh, it’s green now? That’s marvellous.’
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