Happy Halloween

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Baba

'I not a baby mummy; I a big girl.'

Most of the time I do agree.








But, for just a few minutes after bathtime, she still is. Don't you agree?








(ok she will always be a baby to me)

Sorry

Sorry is a really small word and one that can be tossed around, often without thought, as a quick fix.

Recently, as I've mentioned before, Isobel has been a bit of a pickle and she has started apologising for her behaviour.

I often hear 'sorry mummy'.

Now, I know I should be pleased that she apologises and, that it is quite valid that I feel a little disappointed that it has been necessary (disappointed in both her and in me).


The thing is it actually gives me the fear. Maybe I feel like I am always apologising for being me; perhaps I remember that feeling if knowing that I have disappointed someone who I just want to love me; or maybe it's because I want Isobel to know my unconditional love.

Or maybe I do just want her to be good.






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My little ray of sunshine

This morning I was greeted by a grumpy little girl who could see no good in anything.

In fact I was even driven to ask 'what do you like today?'

The response to which was 'Daddy'.

So I pointed out the joyous news that she would see daddy this evening after nursery. But, even that wasn't quite good enough.

First it was 'Daddy come to our house, no go to daddy's house mummy please?'

When that was agreed, a new plan was contrived: 'we go cafe, westraunt, mummy daddy and mummy too. Please mummy. Okay. Okay mummy please?'

Now I didn't even know that she knew the word restaurant!

So we rung PD, who started his commute to the sound of his daughter requesting to dine out.

Luckily Isobel's idea of a restaurant is Pizza Express.










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Mummy calling Starship Enterprise

Every mother has moments when she wishes the ground would swallow her or better still that Scotty would beam her child up.

Every mother of a two year old has these moments twice as often.

Today I hosted, what used to be a regular, lunch. We had big news to celebrate: an engagement, a marriage and a baby on the way and I only had two couples as guests.

It was an opportunity for catching up and also a perfect time for one of those proud mummy moments when other people meet your angel mini-me and congratulate you on being such a fab parent that you have created a perfectly lovely little girl.

Well that was the plan.

Isobel had other ideas. She had just come back from PDs and she had only had half-hour nap and I had woken her up and she's two, and......

I can make excuses but she smacked little Sam on the Trampoline; she threw a ball at him when he was taking a turn on her bike, smacked him for .... I can't remember, my mind has blanked it out.

In the end Isobel was very eager for Sam to go home and he was equally pleased to have her hand him his shoes and dummy and wave bye bye. Actually they were so pleased to say good bye they kissed.

Our house

Has two floors: down-downstairs and up-downstairs.

And our garden has a big top:







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Mothers and daughters

Today is my Mummy's birthday. Isobel has been excited about Grandma's birthday, she has made a card and has so far resisted posting it as she wants to give it to her.

The relationship between a Mother and daughter has to be one of the most difficult in the world. I am incredibly close to my Mum but it's not always easy.

Maybe mothers and daughter's are too alike; they always know which buttons to press and often without meaning to can hurt the deepest.

I can talk to my Mummy about anything, I can run away home when life gets too much and I know she feels my hurt. I think we are even beginning to dress alike (she is copying me I hasten to add)

Happy Birthday Mummy, I love you...

But, I'm scared witless about having a daughter myself!

Out of the mouth of my babe

On Saturday my daughter called me a 'slag'.

Now I'm the first to admit that, in my past, I have had my slutty moments but I would never be described as a slag!

I (like to) think it was a slip of the tongue as PD was trying to teach her that term of affection he uses for me and his mum: old bag....

But I really can't fathom how she got to slag!


Oh, as I typed that I can: it's yet another one of PDs pet names for me.

(I promise he doesn't mean it, he is just misguided and sometimes it's wishful thinking in his part!)


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Birthday resolution

I believe birthday resolutions should always involve a positive action, not be something you will no longer do but something you will.

So, this year I resolve to believe a little more.

I will believe in myself, in love and in happy ever afters.

Birthday Boxing Day

Today is the day after my birthday and I should be up and at 'em, putting my best foot forward and brimming with positive resolutions for the next year.

But, my feet ache, my head is throbbing, my ears are ringing, my mouth feels like a badgers bottom (not that I have ever licked one -honest),and my diet red ambulance is in the fridge downstairs which is too far away.






Yes, I had a great night!

And I am giving thanks that I do not have a two year old bouncing on my head.

I'll make resolutions after my shower when my drinkers self loathing fades.

Things my daughter has said to me this week

Waking up time mummy. Stretch. Come on Mummy stretch.


Zabracadabra make mummy's hands dispear; zabra mummy's hands better again.
Zabrabcabra make Mummy's face dispear; ooh not like that mummy.
zabra mummy pretty again; Oh.


(me: have you played nicely today?) No, I fight Emily.


I don't like that dress mummy, nooo mummy. *points to dress I'M wearing*


So looking forward to her being a teenager - not

The End

Yes, yes I know that sounds awfully dramatic, but I do like a bit of drama.

It's just that this last weekend has had me thinking a lot about ends while trying to focus on the continuings.

Sunday was the fifth anniversary of the loss of my beloved James, an end that could not be more definite, the curtain call from which there is no encore. A lesson that love cannot conquer cancer but that it can allow you to hold on to memories, sad and happy, memories that show you have lived.

I was home for the weekend to celebrate (in advance) my birthday and to ensure I had enough love to wrap myself in when the worst of the memories come flooding back. There is always a lot of love when surround by my family, long may that continue.

Then on Monday I was literally stopped in my tracks by a sign that something else has come to an end. I drove down the lane to 5 High, my true north, to find the gates closed and padlocked. Indeed I didn't park in the yard as I always have. No-one lives there any more.

More memories: memories of the old wooden gates that were there when a studio formed a bridge over the top; the small yale locked door you unlocked to go in and open the big wooden gates; falling down the drain when standing behind someone unlocking the little door, my poetry book still tells the tale - I was clutching it at the time; catching the bumper of my Renault on the wooden gates as I reversed up the lane with Grandad yelling 'left-hand down' etc. - directions that never helped but served to fluster, he was a navigator and I can't tell left from right....

I guess the memories continue even when a part of a life ends.