Happiness is...

...passing by school at playtime with three year old. Usually avoid doing this as I neither want to embarrass six year old nor to see her sitting alone and start worrying that she's being left out of games.

But had to run some errands before school pick-up the other day so we passed by.

When she spotted us she came running over holding hands with two of her friends and beaming from ear to ear. She pushed her face into the railings for a kiss and smiled at her little sister.

Made me feel warm and precious. Lovely.

With thanks to Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of he infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Milk for the calves

Wahey, my first photo. Now at first glance you may think this is a bit random. But not so. What you see before you is powerful evidence of the immense power of the imagination - aged 3 and a half and six.

Each of these containers has been carefully filled with bathwater up to a designated level. Apparently this is milk for the calves. It is most definitely not for sale.

I love it.

Now that I have shared that with you I suppose the sensible grown-up in me must go and pour the water away and tidy the pots so I can get into the shower tomorrow morning..... oh, ok, not just yet.

Big bangs, sparkles and an accidental willy.

Bonfire night. Both girls had been promised a trip to a bonfire which, as it turned out, was cancelled for reasons not worth going into here. So, in an attempt to keep things calm I looked into local bonfires.

Up until now the girls have not been to a bonfire - six year old has always been mightily terrified of the bangs and anyway we live at the top end of a valley and can usually get a great view of at least three or four big firework displays from behind the safety of our bedroom windows.

I was told there was a local pub that usually has a small (and earlyish!) bonfire so made plans to go, despite reservations about taking a 6 and a 3 year old out after dark and having to suffer the repercussions of tiredness and post-bedtime giddiness alone. We talked about it, I asked several times if they really wanted to go, even offered the get-out that it had been rather wet during the day so maybe we didn't have to go.... But no, we still wanted to so we layered up to keep warm (although by this point 6 year old was already saying she wanted to watch from inside the pub) and opened the door to the dark, at which point several fireworks happened to go off in the near vicinity.

"Noooo, Mummeee I don't waaant to go!" says 6 year old. Hmm, thought this might happen. Ok, so we don't have to. "But I do want to go Mummy," says 3 year old. Oh, hadn't anticipated that one. 6 year old decides she would like to go, but only if we drive to the pub. Obviously it goes against the grain to drive to something so close, but we had been talking about going for days and maybe this would ultimately help her reduce her fear of the big bangs. So we climb into the car for the short ride down the hill. Stop the car, climb out.

"Nooo, Mummeeee I still don't waaant to go!"
"I doooo"
Bollocks. This is obviously one of several drawbacks to being a lone parent, or to being any parent who does most of the parenting alone, because if one goes somewhere you all have to go. Sometimes this can have advantages, and I am certain that it has helped my girls develop their wonderful relationship with each other. But at times like these it means choosing between them. Tough call.

Of course in the end I had to respect the genuine fear that my 6 year old was displaying over the disappointment shown by my 3 year old.
"Why don't we go home and drink hot chocolate by your bedroom window and see if we can see fireworks from there?"
Luckily that worked for both girls.

We went home via a shop that sold both milk for the drinks and sparklers as an added appeasement to brave little 3 year old.

It must be the first time I have held a sparkler in years so I enjoyed it once we got home, as did they, and in the end I reckon we had a more enjoyable time watching the show from indoors than we would have done standing in the cold or fighting through a busy pub.

Slight concern on my part though as I left the girls to run their bedtime bath and heard: "Mummy, I saw a man's willy!"
Erm, that wasn't supposed to be part of the show.... Hmm, the man who lives in the house behind us was getting into the shower in his fully-lit bathroom. Oops. All perfectly innocent, but somehow I know that's the bit of information that 6 year old will be sharing when she goes into school tomorrow... Yikes.

Ha ha bonk

Six year old: Why did the cow cross the road?
To get to the udder side.

Three year old: Why did the poo and wee cross the road?
Because they wanted to see the giraffe.

Mortality for the younger mind

I wonder sometimes whether all young children have as keen an interest in death as my two?

We have recently acquired a hamster - a birthday present for my six year old daughter who had been asking if she could have a pet for about two years before I finally caved in. Three year old has asked on numerous occasions: "When will Emily die?" in a fairly matter-of-fact way.

This morning at breakfast the topic was extended a little.

Three year old: "When will Emily die?"
Six year old: "You can tell when she's dead because she won't move, look she's still moving so she's not dead yet."
Three year old: "Oh."
Six year old (in a very matter-of-fact tone): "When Emily dies will we have to take her back to the pet shop or can we bury her in the garden?"
Me: "Erm, well I don't think they will want her back at the pet shop so I guess we can bury her."

Six year old (after a pause): "Can we bury her in the stony bit?"

More hummous please

Six years on I still struggle to understand why the two things my children rally against the most are two of the things I would happily spend the majority of my time doing, i.e. sleeping and eating.

I try to cook most of the food I feed my children myself and am fairly determined that one day our tastes will coincide more frequently, but we do still have a lot of discussion about food. And we do currently eat a lot of pasta.

Personally, I do not eat meat, but as the girls' dad does, I have never tried to enforce my vegetarianism onto them. Obviously now that I am the only adult living in the house I tend to cook less meat than I did, but occasionally I will buy some form of meat - mainly to make up for the fact that I struggle to get them to eat enough variety of vegetables and pulses to get all the vitamins and nutrients I reckon they need in order to keep growing.

On this particular occasion I had bought chicken breast (free range and organic to make up for my guilt at buying and also to avoid feeding my children the horrible things that are fed to non free range chickens). I cut it into strips and rolled it in breadcrumbs, and baked it alongside some chips cut from potatoes dug up from the remains of this year's half-hearted vegetable-growing efforts. Home-made chicken nuggets and chips. A rare treat for my children who mainly live on tomato-based pasta sauces and things with cheese.

Three year old tucked in heartily (in itself quite a rarity): "Mummy this is delicious can you make it again please?"

Six year old was more reluctant, dipping into the chips but avoiding the chicken.

Now, as a vegetarian it does gall me to be having to persuade my children to eat meat, but I had bought it and cooked it so didn't really want to be throwing it out just due to pickiness.

Finally resorting to bargaining tactics. Me: "Just eat one piece for me then."
Six year old replies: "I'll only eat some chicken if you give me some carrot and hummous first."

There's no pleasing some people.