summer evening

A sunny day, a sunny evening, can be such a blessing. I was going to bring the kids to the park this evening, but it took the cheesecakes longer than anticipated to bake (and it took me longer than anticipated to get off the computer and in to the kitchen, so we left it pretty late, and I was worrying about dinner, and exchanging the wrong eggs I got in Tesco, and traffic on the way home. So when Olivia suggested going to the beach, where we've been about twice this rainy summer, it was perfect.

I didn't bring swimming things, unfortunately. I popped the trousies off Bodhi and he made a speedy beeline for the water. When he tried to sit down in it, I took his nappy off, and then he crawled straight for the waves and got his tshirt wet, so that was that. He was so happy! Loved it - his first time in the sea proper, as he was so chesty all this year.

Olivia went in in her pants and made a friend, as she does. A 7 year old girl and her four year old brother, who was an angelic, curly haired kid, with big blue eyes and dark hair. He kept coming up and delightedly, excitedly telling the woman with him how lovely it all was, how much fun. I felt the same. I chatted to their minder, who was laughing at Bodhi's waterbaby antics.

She told me she had looked after them since he was born - premature, and their mother died giving birth to him. So tragic. He's alright, but the little girl still gets sad and misses her mother.
The woman minding them was sweet - she said she'd been there since he was a baby. I wondered how she could ever leave, and instantly found myself having Jack and Sarah type fantasies about her marrying the rich, heartbroken father. My brain always struggles to try and make it alright, I suppose. I want the pain to not be true.

I felt motivated to set up a playdate, make friends, but then I hesitated - was it some sort of trite pity for the motherless babes, or the minder who was raising them that made me want to do it? But on the way home Olivia asked if we could go see them again, and as their minder told me their address when I asked where they lived, I think I might send a card seeing if they'd care to meet.

That poor family.

Still, I was meant to be talking about my blissful seaside evening. They lent us a towel, I had a jumper for my shivering babe, we got an icecream - I had to go get the car, and parked it in front of the ice cream shack. Bodhi sucked his thumb while Olivia and I got our respective icecreams (malteser/lemon sorbet) and a mini vanilla for Bodhi. When I came to his window carrying it, his finger shot out and pointed at it and he made an almost cartoon surprised face. Punctuation mark eyebrows and mouth, so cute!

I was reminded of being on the beach in Frances and getting glaces from the sellers on the beach with their little carts. Chocolat and citron for me every time.

I hope we get a few more weeks of an Indian summer. We deserve it! And Bodhi's only one once...

doings at the homestead

I haven't been letting Bodhi play in the sandpit for the last while - it's been too wet, but worse than that, the tree above the pit has been been oozing sap, which I can only assume is sugary, as it's been crawling with flies and wasps for the last couple weeks. Boo, the sun finally comes out and the garden's not really safe. Last night Axle was out having a smoke and noticed that it was covered in slugs. Ugh. Tree of evil. He described it as oozing pus (pronounced puss), which was going a bit far, though.

So it was a cool, grey evening, no wasps in site, and as the babe was clad in a nappy and shirt he'd dribbled soup all over, I let him climb in. I ran a bath and came back to get him. While I was brushing all the sand off, I noticed he had something that resembled a spider leg on his chin. And that he was chewing something.

Having once removed a (hopefully) dead beetle from his lips, when he wouldn't let me take whatever it was out, I had to just look the other way. Gah!

memo: admin: family names

Memo

To: readers
From: me

Re: admin

It occurred to me tonight that anonymity, such as it is, is irritating. I'm always writing down my family's names and then having to delete, or worried that I've missed one. Worse still, I hate saying 'my husband' all the time, it's cringy. It feels both unconvincing and, I don't know, sort of trophy-wifey somehow. My daughter never leant herself to nicknames, and while my son does (though Smarshmallow never stuck - my daughter's insisted on name for the unborn baby, if it was a boy, or a girl), it's all too time consuming.

So I've taken a decision. A derivative one. In the form of better bloggers than I, I think that my family deserve fictive names.


Henceforth, my son shall be known by one of the names I wanted to call him by, Bodhi. If we were Californian I would have gone for it, dammit. For Wicklow, we accepted that it was a little much.


My daughter refused to indulge me in this matter, insisting that she would be called NOTHING, EVER, so I think I'll just call her Olivia. Pronounced O-livia.


And the rock-star husband may as well be known as Axle. Feck it, why not?


This is fun, maybe I should write a novel.


Finally the dogs better get their second in the sun too, though I don't mention them much - two Jack Russells, a mother and son, 12 and 13, shall henceforth be known as Twinkie and Winkie.


That is all.

Rumspringa

I was reading in the paper yesterday, that the Amish population is doubling, due to bigger family size - they're spreading out incredibly successfully.

I can see the appeal of living an Amish life - the simplicity, the honest work, the farming, the baking, not so much the constricting and repressive religious aspect, but the spirituality, yes.

Michael Longley's poem An Amish Rug is one of my favourites.

As if a one-room schoolhouse were all we knew

And our clothes were black, our underclothes black,

Marriage a horse and buggy going to church

And the children silhouettes in a snowy field,

I bring you this patchwork like a smallholding

Where I served as the hired boy behind a harrow,

Its threads the colour of cantaloupe and cherry

Securing hay bales, corn cobs, tobacco leaves.

You may hang it on the wall, a cathedral window,

Or lay it out on the floor beside our bed

So that whenever we undress for sleep or love

We shall step over it as over a flowerbed.

He says about it:

When I was in Lancaster County in the 1980's, I bought an Amish rug as a gift for my wife. I wrote a poem about it some time later, a love poem which is in a way almost religious. There is something devout about making anything well. The Amish rug maker who pieced together our rug out of rags all those years ago now lights up our lives every day. He really has created for us a cathedral window.

And if you'll excuse the further digression, I love how Longley empathises with the rug maker, blends his experience with his own, and the sanctity of the Amish marriage with his own love for his wife. Such romance in this marriage poem. The rug becomes a flower bed, a symbol of fertility, the continued blossoming of their relationship. His insistence on the speaker as human, humorous, as real rather than caricature or stereotype is masterful as well.

But! Back to my point. The article discussed the concept of 'Rumspringa', which I think basically means room to run - and also refers to adolescence, and how one explanation for the growth of the population is that teens who decide they don't want to adopt the lifestyle and faith of the group are cut off from the community and their families. So they stay.

I'd like to talk about this a little more. I saw a programme on Rumspringa a few years ago. Initially I thought, great. The Amish don't baptise their babies - they let their teenagers have this period where they go out of their communities and live as any modern teens do -they drink, they do drugs, they listen to modern music, they get to drive cars and doubtless sleep around. Then they get to come home and decide whether they want to stay Amish or go out in to the world, having seen it for real.

I thought, how balanced. An informed choice. Except, it's not that clear cut. If they do decide to go out into the world, they can't come back. They can come home, but no one will talk to them, they're dead to the community. Fair enough, you might say, how else would the the Amish ways survive - you can't really live that lifestyle if your 19 year old's in college, and is bringing girls home to listen to rock and have a shag in their bedroom, while you're getting up at four to bake bread or milk cows or pray.

But when I looked at it closer, I saw one major flaw. The teenagers are sent out into the world, after their cloistered childhood, without any familial support. They're thrown out there, without protection - it's not a realistic view of a modern teenager's life. I think that adolescence is a time for experiment and testing of boundaries, but for me, what's important about it is that there's a safety net. You find your feet, but you have parents, family, a support network behind you, to reign you back in. Role models. The Amish kids are thrown out there into a wonderland of pointlessness they have no preparation for - sure the drink and drugs and partying and driving are fun, but it's a pretty nihilistic experience all on your own, and so far removed from everything you grew up with. Some of the kids on the programme got pretty messed up, dealing, getting in trouble, struggling terribly with their choice of stay or go.

And I felt the attitude of the Amish community was 'see, see what happens, our way is so much better'. But it wasn't a balanced view, it wasn't the experience of the average teen who balances dating and partying with household chores and exams, with their parents leading the way, being a safe target to rebel against. Of course it's going to be negative if you're just thrown out there - so the kid who got in trouble had a lot of issues giving up his life in the world, but felt like he had to come home, he needed the guidance. Less clear cut was the girl who loved her family, but wanted to go to college, she wanted to be a social worker. So she had to choose between that and her family and community. It was really sad.

I think there's a message here about how we need to treat our teenagers and keep them safe and coming home to us. Enough freedom, but always with unconditional strength and support from us in the background so they don't freefall. We are the bungee chord!

parenthood saps the youth from our souls

My husband woke up half an hour before he was meant to be in work today - our little boy was so pleased to see him - cuddled right up and wouldn't let go. His dad was holding him in his arms while brushing his teeth. He looked at him and said 'I look at you and I see myself, and then I look in the mirror and see an old, tired face I don't recognise'. It's so sad this aging. Aging without growing or achieving, it feels like.

In fairness, it's more crappy work and bad lifestyle management that does it though, I know. Long days in work, late night gigs, not enough proper nutrition. Man cannot live by cheese sandwiches alone. And all the bits that should be good are really just riddled with stress.

I need to work a lot more this year, I really want to be able to take the opportunity to make some money. Childcare... childcare... and the prospect of working every hour I can in between feeding and entertaining children is daunting. I need to find some time to swim and walk, and (yeah, right) work on story illustrations, work on doing something with my stories.

The problem is, my being here is taken for granted by my husband, who will say yes to any gig first, then tell me about it. No consultation. I can book a night out, but if a gig comes up he'll take it anyway, and then it's up to me to make other arrangements, or find a babysitter.

So we're all losing our youth, but at least he's got a creative outlet.

memory

I was watching tv last night and I saw this video. I was delighted, because in the States, when I was on the way to the airport my uncle drove us through the suburbs of L.A, and it was strange as I kept trying to take in the fact that I was in L.A, I couldn't get a handle on the reality of it. If you know what I mean. I was seeing buildings and streets and people but it didn't quite click that I was really in this famous city.

But there was a guy by the side of the road, a sign holder, whatever they're called, the modern equivalent of a sandwich board, who was flipping and spinning and catching his board, in constant motion. I'd forgotten about him til I saw this. I wonder if it's the same guy?

blog births

pop pop pop... little baby blogs, bursting to life all over the place. I loved how Holemaster's started, and you might have witnessed me being the midwife to Boggle's blog last night - well, you probably didn't because it was friday, and you were off living your fabulous lives (ngrgnrng). He wrote a Haiku! I'm down with that!

Two good opening posts. I looked back at my first post to see if I'd done anything special, and ... I really didn't. Just jumped right in there. God, if you look back, I was soooo pregnant.