Beginnings...

It's been really difficult to write over the past few weeks.  So much emotional baggage to deal with that it has been almost impossible to offload any more on this blog.  The reason for all of this is very simple, and probably (definitely) a natural part of childhood:  the twins have started school.


I have heard from helpful parents in the past so many times now that if I had a dollar for each time, etc., but it's true - they grow up too quickly.  You can remember the precise instant when they are first placed in your arms after they are born, their exact smell, and suddenly, in the next instant, it seems, you are expected to wish them well on their first day of school.  There is nothing quite like that feeling of bereftness as you walk away from them for the first time, leaving them in the care of a stranger for the better part of the day, the week and the rest of their lives.  I am not sure that they were aware of the import at the time at all - they happily waved goodbye and went to sit on the mat with their new-found friends.  It was me that was left to stand outside the class, looking through the window at my grown-up boys, feeling kindof silly and as though I had too many arms or hands and nothing to do with them.  It's amazing how you can still feel the imprint of their tiny hands in yours even long after you have left them. What's sadder though, is the feeling of them pulling away, wanting to run, to play, not to be bound to you by that ever-present hand.  How each time they run off, they tear a small piece of you away with them, as though they had been grafted there and are having to physically rip themselves away. No words have ever said it better than a poem I once read and have reproduced - it's by C. Day Lewis:

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away

Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.

That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.

I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still.  Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show –
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.

 

It's these last two lines that have given me hope and the courage to show a brave face instead of parading my aching heart.  

For selfhood to develop, they have to walk away.  And for you to love them fully, you have to let them go.

Just add water...

The high days of sun and summer are finally here.  I can't remember experiencing a proper summer in the past few years, but maybe that is just because I have mostly been inside with a child attached to my breast to be outside in the sun getting a (slight) tan and having fun in the sea.  But now, with the kids just that little bit older, the trips to the beach are not so much daunting as exhilarating, and everyone has fun for at least a morning without squealing to go home (I was always the first to do the squealing, let me tell you).

We have consequently been spending some halcyon days in the sun on the various beaches around us (and if you have not yet made the trip to Scorching bay, do yourself a favour and put that right immediately).  We were there recently and, apart from the teenagers who insisted on smoking something that had to be rolled up in paper and did not smell like tobacco, it was sheer heaven.  

We all swam, even the children ( which is unusual) and on the beach got into a conversation about God, much to the bemusement of the teenagers, who probably weren't functioning the best even when not high on what looked suspiciously like pot. 

"Could God drink the whole ocean?" asked Paddy.

"I suppose he could if he wanted to," I replied.

"Then he would get a very fat tummy," added Sam.

Little Miss Snoopy, bright as a button and obviously absorbing every word, threw in her comments:

"Just like Mummy," she said with satisfaction, patting my tummy happily.

Needless to say, the high-as-kites kids behind us thought this was the funniest thing they had ever heard. One even ended up on the sand, he was laughing so much.  I personally did not find it as funny as all that.

In the eye of the beholder...

Time for another post about the child's perspective.  I recently came across the following while downloading my camera images and realised that Little Miss Snoopy had managed to sneakily lift my camera from my bag, take a few photos and then turn the camera off and return it to the bag. I was totally confused by the photographs for a while, thinking "why on earth would I have taken that picture?"

A charming still life

Another "what on earth...?" moment

Almost some human life in there....

Until the culprit revealed herself on the photos...

Bear-ly funny

Once again, we were off doing a locum in another part of the country.  We have found it a great way to spend time together as a family without having to worry too much about anything.  The places we go to are usually so small that there is almost no chance that a pregnant lady is going to come into the hospital in distress, so the Sweetpea has almost the whole weekend to spend with us while ostensibly "working".  We get to stay in lovely motels, and it is a like a paid holiday.  What could be better than spending a holiday earning money for doing nothing?

This last time was exactly the same.  After spending the weekend visiting every park and adventure playground in the vicinity (it's a small town - there were only two), we were back at our park of choice, the one the boys' insist on calling the Giant's Castle.  It actually looks so much like one that we have actually thought about applying to the local council with our suggestion for the re-naming of their "Queen Elizabeth Memorial Park".  I am not sure they would go for it though.

We were playing in the one section of the park when we saw some people running around the park carrying a huge brown stuffed bear, at least the same size as one of the boys.  Curious, when they got near us, we asked what they were doing, leaving the kids to play on the Jungle Jim behind us.  Apparently, the people were taking part in some sort of dare, where they had to take photos of the bear "doing" as many interesting things as possible - already he had been down the flying fox, been on a scooter, etc, and was now making his way around the park swinging on the kiddies' swings and going down the slides.  The bear's people then rushed off towards the Jungle Jim on which our lot were playing.  The kids had not noticed the people with the bear before then and were happily playing on the top level.  There was some discussion amongst the bear people as to how to get the bear up to the top to let it then go down the slide.  Eventually one of the guys (obviously the one with the most to prove), swung the bear with a mighty heave and threw it up onto the top of the Jungle Jim.  The huge brown beast came flying down through the branches of the overhead tree with a vengeance, and our lot, packed onto the same top level, were speechless with horror as they saw this menacing creature literally flying out of the tree to jump on top of them.

Little Miss Snoopy, the closest to where the bear landed, was having none of it - she had such a fright that she started screaming at the bear - the naughty creature - how dare he frighten her?  And then she burst into inconsolable tears.  The Sweetpea and I tried to comfort her, but I am afraid the situation was too funny for us to be of much use.

A Whale Of A Time

One of the great things about a kindergarten is the trips.  Every term, our little ones get to go somewhere exciting, and normally, the teachers require parent helpers to go along and make sure everyone stays on the right side of the law.  It is a time filled with over-excited kids, crammed onto buses with long-suffering parents, screeching and laughing and generally causing havoc and mayhem.  And this term, the excursion to the local marine reserve coincided with an almost total eclipse of the sun.  The excitement knew no bounds.  

On the bus, the boys and I put together a rudimentary pinhole camera which I patched together with some receipts and an old paperclip which I found in my handbag (see It's all in the bag...). The boys were fascinated as we tracked the position of the moon and the sun by using the camera, and shivered as the air got colder and the daylight turned to a weird twilight.

Then we got to the marine reserve and the leaders of the troupe advised us that, as parents, there was a job for us to do that only we could do.  Expecting it to be something about safety, none of us was prepared to be handed a hat in the shape of an extremely unattractive sea creature and told to put it on and not take it off for the whole trip around the reserve.  Mine was an especially unattractive specimen of crab, with long pincers that dangled around my ears.  Not my finest moment.

The twins were absolutely fascinated by the touch pool.  One of them picked up a large shell, and then dropped it just as quickly as a huge hermit crab emerged with an angry glint in his beady eye.  However, the hermit crab took one look at the crab on my head (ever so much larger and nastier-looking) and decided to make a bid for freedom. He scuttled back into the pool over the boys' hands, causing great consternation, upon which they promptly asked to be able to hold him again.

But what made the biggest impression by far was the octopus.  I have always heard that an octopus can squeeze through a hole as big as its own eyeball, and here we saw that it is true - the octopus flowed through the most minuscule of holes as though it was being poured through like water.  The boys were fascinated to learn that the mommy octopus stays with her eggs once she has laid them, never eating or going away until they hatch, and in the process gets very thin and sick and sometimes even dies.

They were very upset by this story, especially seeing the small clusters of eggs on the sides of the octopus tank.  "It's okay," I explained, "the people at the marine reserve will feed her and make sure that she doesn't get hungry".

As we walked back to the bus at the end of a wonderful day, Sam spoke his thoughts freely: "If you were thin and sick, Mama, I would feed you so that you didn't die!" he said.

Making tracks...

There are a lot of firsts in life.  The first smile.  The first word.  The first steps.  And then there are the firsts that are a bit further removed.  The first boat ride.  The first bike ride.  And the first train ride.

Living in a city where there is so much emphasis placed on sustainable transport, etc. I have to ask the question: how is it possible that the boys are four and a half and have never been on a train before?  It's a question I have actually asked a few times over their lives, but somehow we have never managed to make it as far as actually getting on the train before this time. It took the great-uncle coming out from South Africa to finally get us as far as the train station.  And what excitement there was (actually, I think it might have been the great-uncle that was the most excited, but I digress).

Making it to the station in time to actually catch the train was the greatest of feats.  Normally, even allowing for the extra fifteen minutes it takes to strap everyone into the car, I am routinely late for everything by about half an hour.  However, miracle of miracles, we were actually early for the train.  Which is how we by mistake managed to catch the wrong train and end up taking the fast train all the way, arriving in about three point two minutes.  As far as train journeys went, it could have been more exciting.  Not to mention the fact that we were in a carriage full of businessmen on their daily commute.  I can't help but wonder if their trip was made more exciting by the little voice piping up loudly as we went under each and every electric pylon (about three thousand in total on that trip): "We go under, we go under, we go under.." etc., ad infinitum.

As we got out, the kids were already begging to be allowed to go back on again.  Luckily we had the return journey still to come.  After our time at the water park, we had to run all the way back to catch the return train, this time at least making it onto the right one.  And this time, all the way home, the little voice piping up: "Are we there yet?"

You just can't win!

A star is born....

Accidents will happen, they say.  However, I am sure that, for a boy (or man, I'm just adding), no accident is as serious as when they lose face in front of someone else.  Even the most privates-clenching insult is nothing as compared to the fact that, although not seriously hurt, they are the source of great mirth for someone else who witnessed their moment of falling short.

Sam was flying around merrily on his scooter on the deck today, as both he and Paddy do on occasion. Yet today, they had set up a challenge course, racing in and out of the other various vehicles that make up the parking lot that doubles as our deck.  All three kids park their trikes there, as well as a large yellow tipper truck, two ride-on motorbike toys and a toy scooter belonging to Little Miss Snoopy.  As you can imagine, the course was relatively hazardous with all of this lying around.  Scooting too fast around the corners, Sam somehow managed to catch his back wheel on a tricycle and came off, head over heels, landing at the feet of his astonished brother.  Although unhurt, his brother's obvious lack of sympathy for his plight made the whole situation ten times worse and he let off a yell that one would only expect to hear if he had fallen off the roof.

His brother did not turn a hair at his performance.

Eager to encourage a bit more of a show of empathy, I told Paddy he had to pick Sam up and bring him inside to the couch, and then get him a drink and see if he was okay.  Paddy duly helped him to the couch and fed him the juice, asking him if he was fine, but Sam's wails continued unabated (a bruised ego is one of the worst injuries a man can acquire).  I sat next to Paddy and offered a suggestion: "You could try patting him on the head to calm him down."

Paddy was horrified at my words.  "But then all of his hair will wear off."  He obviously remembered my story of when they were both little (in God made some heads perfect, the rest He had to cover with hair...), and was obviously dismayed that I could suggest something that would so blatantly exaccerbate the situation.

I could not hold in my laughter at his comment, and, seeing his mother acting insensitively, Paddy also began to laugh too until we were almost hysterical together.  What kind of a mother laughs in the face of misfortune?  But unfortunately, the more I tried to stop, the more we laughed, and the more offended Sam became, and what was originally a little accident now was the biggest accident in the world.  However, on further examination, Sam's snorts of distress began to sound unmistakably like snorts of laughter,until all three of us were giggling together on the couch, accident forgotten.