Going Back and Pressing Buttons

I spent most of Saturday morning helping to organise a friend’s childs birthday party and most of Saturday afternoon listening to 28 children giggle and shriek while they enjoyed the fruits of our labours. Most of Saturday evening slumped on a sofa with a large gin laughing over the days events.

Noo ate ice cream twice daily and visited favourite parks, he went to the best birthday party he’d been to in ages with the funniest magician. Played with friends from the moment he woke up until bed time without a moments falling out and there was even a kitten thrown in for good measure.

This weekend we went back to the North. I did wonder as we drove up the M1 Friday evening if we were putting our head into the lion’s mouth. Before I moved I worried, of course, how Noo might cope. People told me; children are resilient and adaptable. He has been, taking it all in his stride. Actually, I think moving has been good for his confidence. He moved, he made new friends, he fitted in to a new class and it was all OK. He hasn’t looked back and here was I driving him back to the North and giving him a lovely big slice of his old life, with smarties on the top.

It was a fantastic weekend, we stayed with good friends and I did lots of catching up. I feel as if I didn’t stop talking between arriving on Friday and leaving on Sunday, I did sleep so there must have been gaps in my constant chatter, and I do love to talk.

As a child, teachers often complained about my day dreaming, I’d disappear into my own internal world. I still have dreams but essentially, I think , I am sometimes who is less likely to think things over more someone who likes to talk things over. Talking stretches my ideas and my mind.

I love my new city but I have fewer people to talk to. I’ve been forced by circumstances to think more.

Do I miss having people to talk to? When I lived in London I could have spent a months walking up and down Oxford Street and not found anyone vaguely familiar. In years of travelling on the tube I ‘bumped’ into someone I knew I think three times. It’s a big city but it can feel lonely. That’s London. I am a Londoner and I don’t mind my own company and I don’t want to talk to people I don’t know on the tube, it’s just nice to occasionally see someone I do.

I moved North for a sense of community and it had that, it was a place where sometimes it was hard to avoid people I knew. Familiar people seemed to be everywhere. Even if they aren’t familiar they still call you “love”. Total strangers make conversation on the bus.

In moving we have chosen to start again and build from scratch that sense of familiar in a place. Being part of a community where the faces are friendly and known. I expected that and for me, the bonus of being here is that we spend more time as a family of three, doing things together. We are happy and we do feel settled. I don’t miss having people to talk as much as I thought I might.

Getting to know people and a place takes time and sometimes it would be nice to press a button and fast forward to a point when all the things I’d like for our life here are all nicely lined up, but there is no fast forward mechanism on life. You just have to find your direction and aim for it, and eventually you get there.

This weekend the sun shone and having spent much of the last three months in the company of two other people, it was a little strange to find us all in different directions. Noo fell into games with friends as if he’d never been away, as did I. Because the beauty of really good friends is, you don’t have to see them everyday or every week. Good friends are the type that you just pick off where you left off. The gap of time doesn’t matter.

I think Noo has more of an affection for his old city that I do, in the end I’d fallen out of love with it and this weekend proved that hasn’t changed. A long weekend was good amount of time and I felt no pang of regret in driving back.

Our home is in the South now (South West actually). I’m happy to be back here and so is Noo. His home is where we are, his toys and his familiar things. A bit of his heart will probably always be in the North, but once again he jus took it all in his stride; happy to be in the moment and it is good to be in the moment because there isn’t a rewind or fast forward button. This weekend was about pressing pause and taking it all in for a moment or two.

Take a Boy for a Walk

I have produced a child who loves to walk. When my son was a tiny baby he only slept during day-light if he was in a buggy. In those first months we walked the streets, while our baby slept. It was winter and in the late afternoons when the lights were on and the curtains are open we used to peek into people’s front rooms “ooohh nice sofa” “did you see that fireplace?”. Spring arrived blue skies and blossom made sleepless nights seem more bearable. And the buggy trundled on. Through summer days, weaving around the parks and bumped across woodland. A time for conversations with other adults without interruption.

He began to take naps in his cot. The buggy was replaced by a lighter model, easier to chuck in the car for exploration further afield. Our small passenger had become more alert and interested. While fresh air helped us cope with getting up at ridiculous o’clock.

We walked to wear him out. We walked to escape the four walls and a small child bouncing off them. There came a non-discernible point and the buggy was redundant. We have a boy who is happy to walk. He loves to explore the small details that a walk reveals. He enjoys the space that following a path can take him to, high in the hills.

I love a walk, I love that it’s a family love. A simple pleasure that gives so much. Walking has taken me to some beautiful places.

All that pavement pounding now seems worth it. I’m proud of my boy who loves to walk and I have ambitions for him, to share the places I have only discovered through walking.

This post is for The Gallery ‘Walks’ at Tara’s blog. Pop over to Sticky Fingers and take a walk.

First School Shoes

 

First school shoes. Just grown out of.

It was such a monumental moment when he first slipped these on. Add to the black shoes, regulation grey trousers and three button top with school logo and there was a grown up boy in front of me. About to take a giant step forward. For me, like many parents it was emotional.

On the first morning of school it rained.  I played The Beatles very loudly in the car to distract from the impending 2 hours he was about to spent in school. Without. Me.

Tentative early days and then suddenly, the first week was done and then we were celebrating the first whole day with cup cakes in the cafe opposite.  Sitting outside in the autumn sunshine and the rhythm of school had begun.

Winter came and we’ve moved 150 miles South. Began the whole school thing again. Same grey trousers and black shoes. Different top. A more confident boy, now familiar with the routines and expectations of school.

I still find it strange that when a teacher shakes a tambourine the whole class stops. Still. Silent. Like. Magic.

I don’t remember that when I was at school. I don’t remember how tiring school is. My early riser no more.

I look at these shoes and think of early friendships and packed lunches. Excited retellings of the day. Days when “How was your day?” meets “I can’t remember” and I have to accept I won’t know. I untie my apron strings a little more.

Forming letters and reading first words. An index finger tapping below each word. Shared proud smiles as the page is turned. A mere breath ago I held my tiny baby in my arms and wondered. Now my son can read.

It would be silly to keep them. Wouldn’t it?

Cracking School

I think we have ‘cracked’ the whole going to school thing. Noo started school and being at school has been fine but actually going hasn’t been.


Prior to school we did all the things advised. Reading books, having conversations and playing schools in order to prepare him.

I had a slight niggles. It took Noo a very long time to settle at nursery and each morning he’d cry. When I picked him up he was positive but it took some time before there were no tears in the morning. That’s not uncommon in small children.

However, in the last few months of nursery he began to get very upset again. He would try to run after me and sometimes it would take a while for him to calm down. This seemed to stem from an incident when I was in hurry and didn’t wave as I walked away. A huge oversight on my part and something I very much paid for. My waving is now at an Olympic level. Never again will I forget to wave. Mostly I waved at a distraught boy banging on the window, tears coursing down his cheeks.

School began and the first day he was nervous but fine (I waved heartily). Day two he cried when I left and so it was; he cried every morning for the rest of that week. Gripping me, to prevent me leaving. A teacher or assistant grabbing him to stop him running. Shouting “I want to go with mummy”. I waved madly, pasted on a cheesy grin and give him big thumbs up. Whilst inside I’m dying. Of course, he settled after a few minutes and seemed to be enjoying school. His explanation was that he felt nervous and frightened. This was not the way I want him to start his school day.

I admit, despite jollying him along, my brain was in over drive. He’s only 4! 1, 2, 3, 4. It’s not a long time. In Scandinavian countries they don’t start school until they are 7 (with better results). Boys do less well in school. My own school experience was pretty negative. This, I told myself, wasn’t helping and I banished the negative.

As we began week two and he was now the only child crying. The settling in period was over and his experience of school about to change from half days to full days, 15 children to 30 children. Before speaking to the teacher I took some advice from other parents and received a myriad of brilliant suggestions. I wanted to be prepared. It’s important to me that he enjoys school, is motivated and encouraged to do his best.

Initially, his teacher suggested a sticker chart. Stickers didn’t do it and for two more days he cried. He took a special toy, something he could pop in his pocket for a bit of reassurance. No joy. On Friday he was given a special job to do when he arrived and ‘click’. No tears. I was so proud I almost cried (which would rather defeat the object of the whole exercise). We’ve been heaping on the praise and he was rewarded with a ginger bread man by me; clearly second place to and a Deadly 60 Scorpion given by Mr Noo, who seemed to score the winner in reward giving.

This morning Noo was bursting with pride at his own pleasure at starting the day without tears. Despite his tears and fears in the short space of time he has been in school I’ve seen his confidence grow. Something else that I can’t quite put my finger on, a development spurred by confidence, a change in his view of the world. At the weekend he asks me: “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”. As a mother I’ve often felt there is an invisible thread that connects me to my child with a depth beyond my connections with anyone else. I don’t expect school to be all ‘plain sailing’ but I think in the last week we’ve both turned a corner in our attitude to school.

I considered asking other parents to join me in a celebratory Mexican wave and conga and I almost clicked my heals as I headed across the playground but instead I waved madly and Noo and I exchanged broad proud grins.

A Little Bit Sad

Doing up his own buttons

I can’t help feeling a little bit sad. I accept that my role as a parent is to prepare my child for life and bit by bit pass on skills which create independence towards adulthood. Although in my head he’s my baby, always my baby. Actually, he is a little boy who in a few short weeks will start school. This week he finished nursery and another chapter closed. He left without a backward glance. I was given a book of his developments and a shoe book he’d painted. It is his ‘transition box’ the box that takes him to his new setting: school. We will fill the box with ‘treasures’ and it will give him something ‘real and relevant’ to talk to his new peers and adults about. An anchor in new seas.

Last press of the buzzer

The end of nursery is a milestone and I celebrate that but it hints and the new beginnings. We have an greatsummer planned and then school. His school uniform is here and it’s very special seeing him try it on. The excitement and the pride. School will be a great new experience and offers so much. I don’t want to change him, or hold him back. The joy of parenting is seeing your child develop and grow and yet I feel a little bit sad. I see my baby but he isn’t a baby. He is my boy. My role is to send him forwards. School is such a milestone and with it comes a lot more letting go. School will peel back the edges of our world as another takes a footing. New influences teachers and peers and our little bubble will shift and mould to the changes. I know in the future I will celebrate many other milestones of independence and this should be my focus, instead I feel a little bit sad and find myself wondering when he will no longer want to hold my hand. This is irrational and yet I can’t help but wallow in it. The time flew by so quickly and I’m left wondering if I savoured enough of it. Maybe it’s the rain. Maybe it’s me.
I just feel a little bit sad. Happy but sad.

celebrating the end of nursery with the chocolate of champions

Food

Like many parents I regularly experience the frustration of my son’s refusal to eat particular foods. Frustrating because his list of dislikes is mostly things he previously would eat. Toast was briefly rejected. Toast! Ketchup is no longer a friend of his chips.

“I don’t eat olives anymore”
“I don’t like grapes or hummus”
“I’ve gone off bananas”
“Rice. No. I’ve changed my mind”.

Baked beans loved, then firmly lost and have recently made a re-entry into our lives and are (currently) enjoyed with gusto. So there is always hope. Although he has never liked strawberries!

I was a picky eater as a child and barely ate a vegetable until my early 20′s. I feel slightly hypocritical extolling the virtues of broccoli to my four-year old. My child hood memories of food were of battles at school over uneaten dinners. Being circled by menacing dinner ladies and forced to swallow inedible stew. At home we ate ‘meat and two veg’ meals. I particularly remember Sunday tea; homemade scotch eggs and sandwiches followed fairy cakes and pastries made by my mother. I have very sweet tooth. A stand out memory from my child hood was our biscuit tin. We had a pale blue biscuit tin, it was tall and had a print of white romanesque figures on each of it’s six sides and golden knob on the top. I have clear memory as a very small child of seeing the biscuit tin on the kitchen worktop and of climbing onto a stool to get to it. Stretching out to reach the tin and losing my balance. Falling backwards onto the doorstep of the open kitchen door. I ‘cracked’ my head and had to have stitches. Despite this I loved the biscuit tin and the childish thrill of what goodies it might contain. Sponge fingers, fig biscuits or Garibaldi’s. The biscuits of my childhood. Now I am a parent, I have been for sometime in pursuit of the perfect biscuit tin. I love biscuits and cakes, I enjoy the ritual of taking the time to stop and enjoy. Time out from the day. It’s a pleasure I enjoy sharing with my son. Juice for him, tea for me and biscuits for us both.

I had been eyeing various rather cool Emma Bridgewater biscuit tins. Then I found myself in a hardware shop with my son. One of those old fashion hardware stores that has been in the same spot for decades and sells everything. I found a nice collection of storage and tins. Noo chose this one.

I wouldn’t say it was my first choice in the style stakes but he likes it and it is certainly a better place for the various packets of biscuits that until then lived in the cupboard with unromantic practical plastic clips around the top to keep their freshness. Biscuits got a new home and snack time got a new focus. Biscuits have to be selected from the tin. Immediately, Noo decided the tin was “magic”. Tellingly “It can do what ever it wants”. I suspects this means ‘it’ can eat and endless amount of biscuits.

What’s in the biscuit tin today? Currently plain digestive (Noo’s choice) and milk chocolate digestive (mine).

What’s your biscuit of choice? Where do you keep them? Is there such as thing as too many biscuits?

This post is for The Gallery at Tara’s blog. Pop over to Sticky Fingers and enjoy the other entries.

The Every Day

Our journey to nursery. A year ago I lost my job. Our mornings changed dramatically. From the pressure of being out of the house at a certain time. Into the car. Dashing back to grab forgotten items. Stress levels rising. On the accelerator to nursery. Drop. Wave. Gone. Next focus the traffic. The clock ticking. That routine was replaced by a walk, the hours are different and if we are little bit late, no problem, time is ours. My son scoots and I walk. We chat. In the past few weeks, at his request, (I am assuming it’s a boy thing) we have used to walk to learn the symbols and names of different makes of cars. His time at nursery is ending, soon to be replaced by summer holidays and then school in September. His understanding of letters and numbers has developed considerably. This morning we played I-spy, rather than “I-spy something blue”, we played with actually letters; T for tree. F for Ford. A for Audi. It made me smile a big proud Mother smile. I treasure the every day routine of our journey to nursery. I don’t remember much of my own time at nursery and I imagine school will create an explosion of new experiences, friendships and memories. I am very grateful for the every days I’ve had over the last year. The time for ordinary stuff. I appreciate it can’t last, but I am hoping the memories will.

This post is for The Gallery at Tara’s blog. Pop over to Sticky Fingers and enjoy the other entries.

 

Day out in South London: Horniman Museum

There is something special as a parent taking your child to places you visited as a child. Experiencing it again, reliving memories and watching your child make discoveries that you made. When I was a child the nearest museum to us was a Victorian curiosity; Horniman museum in South London. It has long been on my list of things to do. Noo is now at the age where he really enjoys and is interested in visiting museums.

I went back to Hornimans to find it has a modern extension, rather lovely new cafe with an outdoor seating area. The room of preserved animals dominated by a slighted worn walrus was as I remember.

The walrus of my childhood.

I didn’t remember an aquarium, it’s small and that is reflected in the entrance cost a mere £2.50 for adults and £1.00 for children, while the museum itself is free. The aquarium has been designed from the perspective of children and has a mixture of brightly coloured fish and British coastline charms. One area fills and empties with water to replicate the tide and this seemed to be a particular draw for children.

We loved the display of musical instruments, Mr Noo is a musician and we left him to browse at his leisure. The collection is the biggest in Europe. Noo and I enjoyed the side room where there are drums to bang and unusual instruments to strum. I do admit that my enthusiasm for this waned very swiftly as a small room with small children “playing” various instruments with the gusto only small children have to untuned random noise and I had to leave.

The museum has characters in Victorian dress who wander the corridors to capture the imagination of children. Various temporary exhibitions come and go when we visited; “The body adorned. Dressing London” was a more adult experience, with a mixture urban street photograph and traditional dress, I would think it would be interesting to many style conscious teenagers.

We really recommend the Hand on Base room. Before going in Noo was told be “sensible in the room but not too sensible”. The room is full of things to touch and try. Stuffed animals out from glass cases to touch with little fingers. We loved the fox and his great bushy tail. Various dressing up clothes and masks. More music instruments to try. An array of objects all accessible in plastic boxes or on shelves. Just ask staff and they will pass the object down to the child and explain more about it. Proper hands on experience.

If the weather is good stroll the extensive gardens and across the road a nice park “Hornimans Triangle” with a little cafe selling teas, coffees and homemade cakes. When you’ve had enough of the enclosed space of a museum but aren’t quite ready to go home there is plenty to do outside. 
A gem in South East London. I would really recommend a visit.

Hornimans Triangle. Park & sand pit.

Parents, where from your childhood would you take your children?

Easter

At four days Easter is the perfect break, the joy of a long weekend and for us no pressure. Our plan for the weekend; no plan, just to let the weekend unfold.

Friday turned out to be Good, very good. Noo and I went without any expectation to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, it was crowded and the weather was bleak but no matter, we met with my best friend and her children and had an ‘Easter’ day out. Spring lambs and baby animals at the farm. The children completely caught in their own imagination in the playground while parents caught up on news and gossip. We tried Easter crafts and best of all a great Easter egg hunt, we didn’t find the golden egg but did find a good haul of small chocolate ones.

One the joys of parenthood is rediscovering traditions such as Easter and reshaping it for our little family of three. We’ve developed our own small tradition for Easter Sunday, chocolate for breakfast and our own indoor Easter egg hunt. This Sunday we shared the afternoon with old friends, joining their family walk across the moors. I watched my son run amongst the group and chatter with other adults and I smiled a proud smile at his confidence and engaging ways.

Just us three ventured to the woods in unrelenting Bank Holiday Monday rain our mission to find bugs. Tramping in the wet amongst early bluebells, lifting logs to find creatures kept briefly for inspection in a plastic container, we found centipedes and beatles. Delighted we spotted two woodpeckers just like the ones in the deep dark wood where the Gruffalo lives, we didn’t find a mouse or a Gruffalo but did find a miniature steam railway. Mini trains run by elderly gentlemen enthusiasts, taking coaches of children, parents and grandparents on short rides around a track. Grinning inanely and waving obligatory.
Happy Days.

This post is part of The Gallery, pop over to Tara’s blog Sticky Fingers and find out how everyone else spent Easter.

 

Shooting Guns

As a parent you become a moral compass guiding your child through the rights and wrongs of life. As you into plunge into parenthood and there’s an expectation you have a view on everything. It begins with birth plans and develops through feeding and sleeping arrangements. Progresses to sharing and manners. Your child asks you the trickiest of questions about the ways of the world, the behaviour of adults and you (hope) you have the ‘right’ answer and can equip them with the tools and information to develop their own moral compass.

We made a decision that we would avoid gender stereotypes. We painted the room where the baby was to sleep a deep blue, because we liked the colour not because we knew what sex the baby was, we didn’t.

From the beginning it’s difficult to avoid clothes that don’t present a gender bias, I avoided T’shirts with words such as on “menace”. I’ve brought toys without a view on whether they be for boys or girls, hence we have a favourite baby doll and pram (admittedly the pram is blue). My son has a doll’s house, which I like because it encourages more imaginative play than shoving a car down a track and making ‘broom’ noises but we have that too. I suspected that the doll’s house would have a short lifespan and while ‘baby’ is still played with, the doll’s house, largely gathers dust. His choice is much more cars down the track.

My view has always been to offer a wide range of toys and let him choose and increasingly his choice is boy toys.

Other parents have told me that whatever boys will play guns and fighting. Boys make guns out of anything. This has not been my experience, however, nursery has brought the advent of “shooting guns” in that they have been mentioned. Personally, I’m not comfortable with ‘play’ guns and so showed little interest, other than to say I don’t really like them. Just before Noo turned 4, we went to a party for an 8-year-old. Friends of mine, Noo knew no one at the party. I watched as he wiggled his way into a crowd of older boys who were dividing up toy guns. Noo secured him self a couple of ‘guns’ and spent the rest of the party grinning broadly and ‘shooting’, mostly, at me, while I attempted a disinterested face.

The general parental view seems to be you can’t avoid toys guns and eventually you give in.

Last week we went to another friend with older children and Noo spent a happy hour playing with a Nerf gun (a plastic gun that fires foam bullets for the uninitiated).

I have made my view on guns fairly plain. I don’t like them.
“Why don’t you like shooting guns, Mummy?”.
“Because guns can hurt people.”
“But these are ‘atend”. I’m having a conversation about guns with a child that can’t even pronounce pretend. This seems a bit premature.
“I don’t think it’s nice to play a game where you pretend to shoot people, because real guns can kill people” I retort.
“It’s not the same, it’s not real, it’s only a’tend”.

I think it’s important for children to have choices and I think that sometimes denying them something can make it more attractive.

At the weekend we purchased two Nerf guns. The two males in this house have happily been playing at “shooting guns” for hours. The laughter and the giggles have been boundless.
While I feel a bit grumpy.
What’s your view?