BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID!

It may surprise you to hear that I don't live in the quietest of houses. This many people can make your living room feel a bit like the M8 at rush hour. I often dream of a quiet bath, alone (without plastic toys) with my thoughts. I imagined that as they grew up things might become more tranquil... until today when Léon (after a schoolday full of St Andrew's day celebrations) said seven words that put the fear of death into me: I would like to learn Scottish bagpipes! Normally the old adage Just say no! should suffice but I happen to be married a Dane (probably the only Dane) whose secret childhood regret is that his parents didn't take him seriously when at Léon's age he came out with: Jeg vil gerne lære at spille på sækkepibe! Maybe it'll be ok - as long as Thomas doesn't find out...

NOVEMBER SNOW

 There is something quite magical about little (and not so little) kids when they see snow, isn't there?

AND WHILE I'M RANTING...

When I was pregnant I signed up to a website that would give me a couple of lines weekly telling me what was happening with my unborn baby. I didn't know at the time that the web page would continue to send me updates after the baby was born. No problems there... except it turned out to be an American page and some of the ideas it sends me leave me open-mouthed. Take today's advice for example: What Might Concern You at 46 Weeks

Does your baby see you naked? If so, there is no need to be concerned. At this age your baby doesn't know what nudity is, nor will they remember what they have seen. This is true for kids through the toddler years.

However by the time your child could go to preschool, the opinions on this change. While most experts believe that a child seeing a parent of the same sex undressed is ok, they believe that a child seeing a parent of the opposite sex undressed should be avoided.

Sorry, but why do our friends across the pond believe the world comes to an end if a four year old child sees mummy's nipple? Nudity only becomes a problem when you make it one. I know it'll horrify them but my children (all of my children) are happy to walk in on me in the bath and ask what's for dinner or even sit on the loo asking for homework help while I get washed. Not only are they not traumatized by my wrinkly old body, they actually don't even notice it! Reading this kind of nonsense just underlines to me quite how European I am!

BUM SHUFFLING

Amaia's way of getting around might not be the most conventional but she's getting really quite speedy and can easily manage steps between rooms. It'll be interesting to see if she moves from this to crawling or if she simply shuffles faster and faster with time.

GETTING OLD

Do you remember the Billy Connolly sketch when he recounts finding his first grey pubic hair? He's appalled to realize middle age has crept up on him unnoticed.

Today I had my Billy Connolly moment...
This is Marcel when he was Léon's age. In my mind, when Marcel isn't standing beside me towering over me, I still think of Marcel as being a little boy like this. It was, after all, only a few weeks ago, on my time scale, that I gave birth to him.
Today I was sitting in the car driving with Marcel, Anna and Amaia to ASDA when I stopped at the traffic lights on the Eaglesham road. For the first time in about two weeks the sun was bright in the sky. I was in the driver's seat, Marcel was on my left, the sun was on his left.
As I looked to my left to see if the filter arrow had come on on the traffic light the sun lit up his face, and I noticed in horror that the sun was illuminating what can only be described as a definite moustache of blond fluff on my 'baby'! Oh my God, I'm getting old!

SIMULTANEOUS STOOKIES?

Well - almost. Anna broke her leg nine days ago as you know. Today I got a call from Marcel, who was meant to be with his father but when he was left with an injured foot after a football tackle today couldn't initially get through on his house phone, so rang me instead, leading to me spending another two hours of my weekend in casualty. (What did we do in the old days before kids had mobile phones?) I'm beginning to think I need a season ticket! It turns out he's pulled a few of the ligaments on either side of his left foot and won't be able to take part in any sports for four weeks. Having done that myself four or five years ago, I seem to remember it was about fourteen months before I could comfortably walk on my foot for a whole day. Hopefully he'll heal quicker as he's younger. Especially given he tried out for the school football team two days ago! Fortunately the East Renfrewshire school sports' competition was last week, otherwise he'd have missed out on becoming the region's bronze medal shot putter for the year. And Anna was a little disappointed his tubigrip wasn't pink, of course!

THE BOTTOMLESS PIT

The WHO says I shouldn't start feeding Amaia (remember the 10lb baby) till she is 26 weeks old - ie in another 5 weeks. The WHO is barking mad! If I hadn't started her on solids I fear she might actually have eaten a member of the family by now - possibly Anna as she is currently the least mobile and the second smallest. Take today for example: it started with four rounds of breast milk from 2am onwards, then she had a cereal bowl full of porridge with blueberry compote at 9am, followed by more breast milk, at 1pm she was screaming again so had cauliflower, broccoli and cheese sauce with water, at 5pm she downed a jar (I didn't have time to cook her anything - she wouldn't let me!) of beef and root veg of some sort - I heated just half, then she demanded the other half, then a whole cereal bowl of yogurt with fruit and more of my milk (twice more). At 9pm I went up to change the other kids' bedding and came down to find Thomas feeding her a rusk dissolved in milk as she had declared famine once more. After another feed from me she fell asleep - no doubt to work up the strength to be up all night drinking again. She is a bottomless pit! Could I even contemplate not giving her any solids yet???

ANNA'S EYES

Anna has predominantly dark green eyes with little bits of slate grey and brown in them. Most people think because her eyes are dark that she has brown eyes, but she hasn't. In fact, much to my surprise I have no brown-eyed kids, just one medium green, one light green, one blue green and one blue grey, and Anna of course. The one thing that is different with Anna that you can almost see in this picture is that she has one eye that is darker than the other (her left). Again this is something that almost no one notices, but it is the first thing I see when I look at her. It is as if the right eye is 70% green with 20% grey and 10% brown, whereas the left is 70% green with 10% grey and 20% brown. I like to look at the unusual shades and nuances in all my kids' eyes.

THE PINK LEG

I went to a charity book sale that my friend was holding in aid of breast cancer in her back garden yesterday afternoon. Both she and her husband work for the NHS ironically. As the women sat around chatting, the many toddlers took turns on the big trampoline. All the kids except Anna were brave enough to have a shot. After everyone left I made to leave myself but my friend suggested I stay an extra hour as we hadn't got round to chatting. With only Léon, Amaia, Anna and her own four year old left, Anna finally decided she was brave enough, not to jump on the trampoline but simply to stand on it. Léon and my friend's son walked across the trampoline towards the exit to let Anna stay there alone. They were quite slow and quiet so as not to frighten her. The movement under her feet however made her wobble and fall to her knees on the surface of the trampoline. She didn't fall off, but started to cry. I figured she was just feeling a little scared as she often is around such things. My other friend carried her over to me, she cried for five minutes then sat on my knee hugging me. When we got up to leave she refused to walk but it had been a long, hot day so I carried her to the car and drove home. At home she still refused to walk. I made dinner, gave her calpol and thought that after an early night she'd have forgotten all about it. After all it wasn't swollen or bruised. This morning just before 8am we were awoken by a happy little voice shouting in Danish as always that she was awake. Thomas went up and took her out of bed as usual and tried to stand her down and she started to scream again. This just wasn't normal so I bundled Anna, Amaia, a buggy and a papoose into the car and was in Yorkhill by 8-30am. No one else was there so we were taken straight away. She refused to weight bear. No amount of coaxing worked, so she was x-rayed and they believed they could see a tiny hairline fracture above her knee. She was quizzed as to what colour of plaster she'd like and she agreed to pink. As soon as the doctors started to apply the five layers on this hot day she started wailing at them in mixed English/Danish My will ikke want that! She became ever more frustrated as she shouted ikke over and over to no avail. Eventually she calmed down and I took her home. She looked a little fed up most of the day as she was completely immobile. She didn't seem to be in in pain but was quite sad and clingy. She had seemed to be cheering up towards bedtime though we didn't put our finger on why until Thomas came in holding her pyjamas At last I can take this off she announced, assuming that the pink leg was part of the day wear that would be discarded along with the flowery dress. An inconsolable little girl was then carried up to bed wailing Why? over and over as she tried to get her head round it staying on till next Wednesday at the earliest.

PHOBIAS

Something to think about if you are a parent... When we were at Amazonia's animal-handling session the other day every single child who recoiled from the petting animals on offer (a python, a tarantula and a lizard) screaming and crying was accompanied by a parent (usually the mother) who also refused to touch the same animal, displaying fear, loathing and hysteria. Even children as small as three or four had picked up on their parents' fears and developed the same. I remember the same phenomenon from my childhood with friends whose parents disliked cats or dogs. Before you burden your kids with your hang-ups, ask yourself if they really need them?

EMPATHY

 Bitsy and Teeny Troll Originally uploaded by PhylB

The empathy gene has kicked in! I was taking a bath with Anna and Amaia tonight as I often do. In fact Léon is also usually in there too! I long for a bath alone, without ducks, mermaids and boats! Anyway I was washing Anna's hair as usual. I soaped it up with one hand, holding Amaia with the other. She looked on, curious. I gave Anna a sponge to hold over her eyes and poured a pint of water over her head, again as always. Anna flinched and whimpered very slightly. Amaia started crying hysterically, though Anna wasn't crying! The same happened every time I rinsed Anna's hair. I ended up having to console Amaia for having washed Anna's hair! I can hardly wait till Amaia grows some too :-\

FIRST STEP TO INDEPENDENCE

Today Léon went to school for the first time ever. The induction process began a few weeks ago with parental meetings which I have been attending and trips by his teacher to his nursery, but today was his own first trip into school as a class to meet his teacher in situ and his classmates, not all of whom attend his nursery. We dropped him at the school gate at 9-30. Many of the children looked somewhat apprehensive clinging to their mums and needed coaxing in. Léon stood beside me till he saw they'd to line up in the playground. He ran in. The head teacher gasped as he almost knocked her over galloping through the gate. Wow this one's enthusiastic, she commented. We went to the dinner hall for a talk and waited nearly three hours for him to return. When the dinner hall door opened most kids ran to their mums' arms for a hug of reassurance. Léon, too ran towards us. I bent down for him to throw himself into my arms. He stopped, put his head close to mine and whispered Do you have money for me mum? I'm just gonna go get myself a school lunch! He seemed more confident than I had been expecting. Did that make me feel proud or sad...? So off we went to buy school dinners. I watched in amazement as somehow he managed not to drop the tray of food onto which he'd heaped a bowl of chicken noodle soup, 4 meatballs, mash, turnips, a box of raisins, a carton of apple juice and a tub of ice cream, not to mention a knife, a fork and two spoons. I didn't know my wee man was capable of walking so far balancing things - he never seems to manage it at home. He sat down and ate the raisins, then took a spoonful of the soup. It was too hot so he ate the four meatballs, followed by the ice cream, then the mash and then a bit more ice cream and finished up with the chicken soup, an efficient if interesting way to eat. He seems to have survived and enjoyed his first step towards independence.

BUTTERFLIES

Anna has a bit of a butterfly obsession at the moment. She has two pairs of shoes with butterflies on them, several T-shirts and a rain jacket. She just thinks they are the most beautiful creatures about... or should I say thought. Yesterday in the garden, the first butterfly of the season flew down and perched on the handle of Léon's trampoline. Thrilled to please his sister, Léon ran over to her and told her to come quickly to see it. She bounded over, stopped dead in her tracks as it fluttered towards her, screwed up her face and ran to me wailing it was a yucky thing! Some things disappoint in real life, I guess!

NITS?

They all get nits at some point from nursery. Léon has never caught it and has only six weeks nursery left so I thought we were safe. Then last night I noticed he was scratching his head. I parted his blond hair to see lots of little black dots. Ho hum!
I dug out the old nit comb and forced the poor little bugger to sit still for half an hour while I combed each strand of his very thick hair. I removed bucketloads of the little black dots but found no eggs or beasties. How strange. I put on my glasses which I almost never use to see if I was missing something but still no bugs. Given his head was so full of the gritty bits I was astonished to find that the bugs had moved out en masse but there you go. I checked all the other kids and there wasn't a single sign of nits on them - weird again. I washed him and sent him back out to play with clean hair.
I looked out the window to see both Léon and Anna playing on bikes. Only Léon has a bike helmet because Anna has only started playing on bikes this week for the first time in her life. Léon has kindly lent her his bike helmet. Léon then cycled past wearing a dirty old flowerpot on his head. D'you like my helmet? he shouted as he passed.
I lifted it off and parted his hair - back to square one! It seems the nits were actually dried mud! Silly wee man - why do little kids not think to ask the obvious - I've just been wearing a plant pot mum - could it be mud?

SCHOOL GALA DAY

I like school gala day. It isn't that beat the goalie, rides on a pony and a raffle for a bottle of £2 shampoo are my thing, it is more the opportunity to surreptitiously offload old toys to their toy stall that appeals. Rather than the guilt at binning old and broken toys, you can convince the kids that letting the primary school sell them for school funds is a noble act.
This year however it came back to bite me in the bum. We usually leave before the end but somehow Thomas and I were still eating our strawberry cakes in the dinner hall when the clock struck 12 and they reduced every piece of rubbish in the hall to 10p and Léon and Anna proceeded to spend all the money I'd given them on toys more hideous, bulky and useless than anything I've ever handed in, with first prize going to Anna for choosing this mangy, demonic, jaundiced clown-baby doll that is already giving me nightmares!

A NEW BABYSITTER

We've been watching the TV more than usual - that is to say more than an hour a week - since the election. Obviously that means mainly news and debate programmes. Normally Marcel watches things like Heroes or 24. The kids tend to watch cbeebies. The difference with news, of course, is that you have a presenter staring straight into the camera and talking to us in our living room. Amaia has fallen asleep on a cushion in front of the TV almost every night since the election, convinced the newsreader is her new babysitter talking to her till she falls asleep. (Dad will probably argue they are boring her to sleep of course!)

THE COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP OF SISTERS

Today I had to take Amaia for her second set of vaccinations. Last time round I had taken her alone but today I had Léon and Anna in tow too. I explained to both as they sat in the health visitor's room that Amaia would get two jags in her leg and that although she'd cry for a minute or two, she was ok and it was to keep her healthy. As expected, the minute the needles went in the face crumpled and a scream was mustered from her big toe. Anna cheered and clapped when she received her jag! Amaia cried for 30 seconds or so, slowly calmed down and then we left. A whole half an hour later Anna let out a huge scream from the back seat of my car as if she'd jammed her finger in the door or window. She was inconsolably trying to tell me what had happened but I couldn't make out a word. Had Pudge stolen a toy? Had she been stung by a rogue wasp? Bitten her tongue perhaps? Eventually she calmed down enough to sob That lady hurt my Amaia!... wait a minute - didn't she cheer and clap at the time? Crazy, mixed-up girl!

I'M SPEECHLESS

For goodness sake! What kind of planet are we living on???? I'd be horrified if I had an 18 month old who couldn't identify fruit and veg. This is unimaginable to me. Mind you, I have tried to teach them from early on about good food and of course Thomas grows it in the garden so they know exactly where it comes from too!
I have to say that one of the major advantages of having a big family is not being able to afford ready meals so the kids get to see how to make food from the bottom up and of course it also forces the big ones into having their own cooking days which further advances this knowledge. Tell them to go cook a meal for ten from raw ingredients, they are completely undaunted.

ONE OF THOSE SURREAL PARENTING MOMENTS

The little car decided the trip to nursery this morning at 8-45am was the best possible time to blow a tyre... thanks little car.
I considered changing it myself for about 25 seconds and then decided that's what I was paying Tesco breakdown for.
After a 45 minute wait with Léon and Anna dancing round and round on the pavement, a very nice gentleman from Hamilton Motors turned up to rescue me.
He took off the hub cap and jacked it up. The kids were fascinated and wanted to stand in the middle of the road to watch the wheel being removed. Obviously that wouldn't be safe so the man put the hub cap on the pavement and told them their job was to look after it. They took their task very seriously, sitting down instantly and staring at it without blinking. After a few minutes Léon said 'It's a bit like a pizza', and from there a whole pizza game ensued. They put on toppings, cooked it and took turns at pretending to eat slices. The mechanic commented on the wonders of infant imagination...I should have seen it coming when Léon mentioned his had more tomato on it than her slice... Suddenly Anna burst into hysterical sobs. 'What's up?' I asked, assuming she'd jammed a finger somewhere or suchlike. 'Léon finished the whole pizza!' she blurted out heartbroken and indignant. She turned to him in disgust. 'Why did you eat all the pizza?' she cried before pushing him and trying to slap him. I could see the mechanic chuckling behind the wheel as I dragged her off him before she physically injured him for stealing her pizza!
Gimme strength!

DECAPITATED SNOWMAN

I went out into my garden and found this sitting on the garden table. I have to say it reminded me of many of the old Calvin and Hobbes snowman sketches. Should I be worried about Charlotte's psyche?