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.
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
Alice: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up, Bubba?’
Theo: ‘…I’m tall already.’
Alice: ‘I mean, what would you like to do for a job one day, when you’re older?’
Theo: ‘I’m going to fix a teapot and a CD player and a video player and a DVD player and robot tractors and space rockets and robot children and batteries and horses and robot books. And computers. And toy computers.’
Painting rocks from the garden.
And then sprinkling them with glitter.
Because childhood is serious business.
Outtakes:
I have so may helpers it’s a wonder I get anything done.
(I don’t.)
Evidence of the trickle down effect me roaring ‘SHARE NICELY PLEASE’ all day is having on the household.
The Wrong Trousers.
Sausage Dog Footrest. (Not available in Stores.)
Coincidence? Or something more sinister?
You grow so used to your role; which is ridiculous, considering it is ever-changing. Like that saying about the river; you can’t step in the same day of parenting twice either. Though it may all seem a vibrant blur of similarities; the same faces and foibles and fruitless searching for misplaced items and adjectives, it’s an ecosystem that is constantly developing. Somedays hugely.
Like this morning; when Theo got in the shower, and washed himself, and turned the water off when he was finished, and dried himself, and dressed. And I was like, huh? Aren’t you…Shouldn’t I…Don’t you need me to…? Nice work, Bubba! I’ll just sit on the couch for 5 luxurious minutes, shall I? Wait, who am I again?
You don’t have much cause, I find, to feel genuinely astounded. But parenting is like an explosion of astonishment. At first, you’re pregnant! You or your baby-mama are literally growing a person! In your/their body! Then, everything going to plan, you/they give birth to that person! From your/their vagina! I know! Then, you actually have a baby! …but what do you do with it, exactly? Oh! You do everything! Everything!
But with that Everything! comes opportunity of shameless astonishment. Of falling in love with everything about this tiny person you are getting to know. They have such tiny hands! They look like you today! You’re obsessed with their bowel movements! They were foamier than yesterday! But it is allowed. It is warranted. Because, wow, you know? It’s huge.
And then they do things like roll! Off the change table! And sit up! And get teeth! And you stumble through all these parameter shifts, clinging hopefully to established milestones for reassurance, where there is no certainty. Crawling, walking, communicating. It all happens, but on its own vastly broad and variable terms. But at its heart, it’s you and them. The same.
And though it is all you are doing, it often goes unnoticed that you are teaching them everything. How to be people. What to do, and how and when. So though it is your very mission, it is still cause for astonishment when they actually do it. Especially of their own volition. That they are learning to do everything. The very Everything! you have been so dedicated to. That the central goal of your role is to gradually do yourself out of a job.
Parenting is so immediate, even though you will always be a parent now. It is easy to lose sight of futures you are only able to imagine. Where you do not have to wash any bottom but your own, or remind anyone to share or say sorry or use their manners. Where you do not have to do Everything! But, everyday, those futures are finding their way to you. Slowly and surely. And for certain.
Theo: ‘Sing it, Mama!’
Alice: ‘I don’t know how it starts, Bubba. How does the beginning of the song go?’
Theo: ‘It starts at 000 and then the circle tells you to wait while it loads, and then you skip the ad and then it plays the song!’
Attack of The Pasta Faced Baby!
(No boogers, though. And I pretty much take any cleanliness win I can get at this stage of the game.)
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