Mabel: ‘This is so spicy I have to eat it with one eye closed!’
She says, of a kiwifruit.
Tag Archives: mae mae
Farts & Photographs: A Snapshot.
I just had my daughter scoot after me, bare-bottomed on her potty, across the wooden floors.
‘I CAN SEE YOU MAMA! I AM COMING TO GET YOU!’
I try not to laugh so hard that she can still understand me when I say ‘look out for the rug!’
Then, as she sat on my lap, readying herself for the bath, she did an enormous, resonant fart – omitting the type of smell that shouldn’t come from a person so diminutive – and literally laughed so hard she cried. ‘SMELL MY STINKY FART!’ she roars, desperate for breath. ‘SMELL MY FINGER!’…I don’t know where she gets this stuff. Honestly, I think it just comes to her.
Life is made up of moments like these.
I’ve just gotten a new passport – the old one suffering too many beer-soaked nights as my only I.D; all my stamps ripped out and given away with my phone number, over the last 10 ridiculous years attempting to be casually glamorous. Though I am fated to forever look like a German boy in my passport photo. Many a bouncer has sucked in through his teeth, ‘Geeze, girl!’. I know! I know! I was 19 and life was hard, you know? Yellow isn’t a flattering colour for me; I know that now. No one looks good under-lit.
Theo is looking over my new one; it encompasses so much that he enjoys: technology, the idea of travel; rules and regulations.
‘Mama? You look adorable in this photograph in your new passbook.’
Life is made up of moments like these, too, remember.
A Royal Visit: Mae-Mae Style
Mabel asks:
‘Who is the Queen?’
I explain.
‘What is her name?’
I tell her.
‘Elizabeth! Like your middle name, Mama! What’s her last name?’
I see where this is going.
‘Vagina?’
No.
‘Regina!’
But then
‘…Does the Queen have a fanny or a vagina?’
Which is a good question, really. But I explain, as best as I can, to someone who refuses acknowledge the proper terminology. (‘I JUST HAVE HEAPS OF FANNIES!’ she roars when the subject is anatomically discussed)
‘Yes. I KNOW. But what does the Queen call her one? …I’ll ask her. Where does she live?’
Well…
‘Why doesn’t she live in New Zealand?’
Uh…
‘Can we go to her house?’
Not really…
‘Well I’m going to!’
Dear Mabel Poppy,
When you were 3 years old, you were hell-bent on going to Buckingham Palace to ask Queen Elizabeth how she refers to her bits.
Please, never stop asking the hard questions. Your sense of fearless equality is something this world needs a little more of.
With adoration and allegiance,
Your Mother x
Pre-Party Ritual.
Mabel: Mama, have you seen my skirt?
Alice: Which skirt, baby?
Mabel: My skirt! The one I like!
Alice: Hmm…what colour is it?
Mabel: Colourful!
Alice: …Colourful?
Mabel: Yes! It’s colourful and it has a top and a bottom!
Alice: Colourful. Has a top and a bottom. Can you tell me anything else about it?
Mabel: It looks like a lily!
Alice: Colourful. Has a top and a bottom. And it looks like a lily? Oh! colourful has a top and a bottom and it looks like a lily!
Mabel: Yes, mama. Why was that so hard for you?
(She doesn’t like photos at the moment – so you’ll have to use your imagination…it’s an old one from Rock Your Baby. They still show up on Ebay sometimes x)
A Letter to My Daughter: when she found herself lost in the supermarket.
You’re carrying around a huge pink handbag, embroidered with flowers. Inside it are a small tan Pug dog plush (He’s your new favourite; you’ve named him Pug-Pug) and a Kelly green copy of the Heinemann’s New Zealand Dictionary. It used to belong to my grandmother. Her name is written, in her ever-elegant cursive, inside the front cover. You think this dictionary is best for telling your stories, and you flip open its pages and begin.
You have told me today that when you are older you will live in a windmill. That you will ride a purple motorcycle and you will look after yourself. You told me today, like every day, to remember that we are always in each others hearts, no matter where we are.
I reminded you of this when, yesterday, you found yourself lost, so ever briefly, in between isles in the local supermarket. I saw on your face, that expansion of reality. Saw you feel so lost, so alone. I swept you up; so wanting and willing to take that feeling from you. To keep you from it and have it never bother you again. To stuff you inside my t-shirt, where you lived for so long when you were cooking then new. I held on to you, laid safe in my arms, and kissed the tears from your ears and told you all those truths. All our old truths. Truths as old as ever, as old as you. And some new ones, too. Some new ways to find your way. Because you are, and you will and nothing will hold you back.
Because you’re a girl on a purple motorbike, riding home to her windmill. And in your handbag is your dog, he’s named Pug-Pug. And he’s wearing a helmet and reading aloud his favourite words from the your Kelly green dictionary. A book that’s helped 4 generations before you, find their words, so a part of your story. And you won’t need to remember because you’ll know it forever, we’re together. We’re in each others hearts.
You’re the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart.
Love,
Mama xx
A Snapshot.
From your Grandmother’s garden.
Always making.
You drew you and I drew me. Then you extended your hand.
Mama Long Legs.
Mabel: Mama, you’re my favourite. You’re my favourite because you get the spiders out of their webs so they don’t scare me.
A Snapshot.
You are reading books in a tent in the lounge. You both still have bottles in the afternoon.
Mabel has just come through to the kitchen, where I am sitting at the table writing. She mimed ‘I love you’. Her eyes. Her heart. Her mama. ‘Don’t forget to look after yourself’, she said to me, over her shoulder, as she left the room.
The Kale we sowed from seed has sprouted on the windowsill. 4 white plastic containers we filled with dirt, and watered and left to sleep in the sun.
You made your own sandwiches for lunch, tearing the crusts off and feeding them to the dog, as we sat here, all together.
And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.) – Dr Seuss
“How do you want to play this game?”, I ask her.
And she replies:
”WIN!”
Mabel Makes: Paper Pinecones.
Deeply inspired by the newest issue of Mollie Makes, though we hadn’t the materials suggested.
Proudly presenting Mae-Mae’s first guest blog.
Mabel’s Instructions: ‘Get the little scissors and the piece of paper and cut dem, and then I sticked it together, and then get Mama to help you. I love glitter! I sticked it with glitter. It’s pretty. It’s blue. There was a stick in the photo. I got one from the garden and I put it on’.
‘I wanted to make them because I did’.
ourtinylandscapes.com 