Category Archives: Family

I Spy

December 1, 2011 By in Family Tags: , , , , , , , 9 Comments

DorkySon has become a bit obsessed about spelling things recently. We’ll be walking around town and he’ll say ‘Oooh, look at that bus, how do you spell bus Mummy?’. I’ve been getting a lot of odd looks from the good people of Harpenden as I push my son along chanting ‘c-h-e-m-i-s-t’ or ‘C-h-r-i-s-t-m-a-s-T-r-e-e’ or ‘z-e-b-r-a-c-r-o-s-s-i-n-g’.

Anyway, in an attempt to make the whole thing a bit more fun we decided it was time for him to learn about I Spy. What a mistake that was. Although he’s pretty good at working out the first letters of words – he knows that D is for Daddy and M is for Mummy and Gr is for Granny, just like Gr for Great and Green and Grumpy – he doesn’t seem to have quite grasped the concept of the game. Either that or he just likes winding his mother up…
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Things my Toddler Says…

November 28, 2011 By in Family Tags: , 11 Comments

I don’t very often get round to doing meme posts, but this one has been making me laugh a lot over the last few days. Helen over at Crumbs and Pegs has tagged me to do a list of things I’ve heard DorkySon say that I would never say myself. It was all started by another Helen, over at The Crazy Kitchen, so if you fancy a giggle at the ramblings of some other toddler types, then head over to her page and check them out.

DorkySon: Do you think ginger cats like to eat ginger cake?
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Happy Thanksgiving

November 24, 2011 By in Family, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

Today is the first time in five years that I haven’t been in the United States for American Thanksgiving. It wasn’t a celebration that I’d paid any attention to until I met DorkyDad, but it is one that I have to come to love dearly.  I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic, so I’ve had a wee look back through some of my photos from the last five years and picked out some favourites.
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Transition

November 2, 2011 By in Family, Harpenden, Scotland Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

This time a week ago, we were tucked into a wonderful – really wonderful – room at the Malmaison in Edinburgh. DorkyDad was using the free WiFi to check his emails; I was chilling out on the massive bed. Our request for breakfast in the room was hanging outside the door.

Our ‘last supper’ that evening had been at Fishers in Leith. DorkySon tasted sticky toffee pudding for the first time in his life. We drank wine, and had a wee wander along the Shore before heading back to our room, which looked out onto the twinkling water. Someone, somewhere, was setting off fireworks.

Earlier that day, a big truck had pulled up outside our house. DorkySon was beside himself with excitement. He said hello and shook hands with Andy, Mickey and Norrie – three perfectly named removal men – before I took him to spend the day down in Portobello with his Granny. I didn’t think he needed to see his life being packed into boxes.

We didn’t need to see that either, really. I distracted myself by making the guys endless cups of tea, and hoovering the empty rooms. DorkyDad and I went to say cheerio to some of the shopkeepers in Marchmont who have become good friends. There was a lot of backslapping and ‘it’s not goodbye, it’s see you later’.

I can’t believe that was only a week ago. Tonight we are sitting in the living room in our new place. I haven’t committed our new address to memory yet, but when I emailed it out to friends I got several replies saying that even Eliza Doolittle would struggle to say it correctly. There are a lot of aitches.

It has been a busy week. Two hotels, two trains, too many taxis to count, DorkySon’s first sighting of a red London bus, several large glasses of wine, and a lot of Peppa Pig videos on the iPad.

Mickey came back tonight – and packed some of our stuff back into the truck. Our table wouldn’t fit through the door of the new flat. Nor would my wardrobe; and there is no room for most of our books. They are going into storage for six months, somewhere near Dartford, until we find our forever house.

This is not a forever house, but it is fine, for now. It is comfy, and cosy. DorkySon has already taken over the hallway with his trucks. We have music in the kitchen; fresh flowers in the window (thanks Mum), and some of our pictures are up on the walls.

A new place always takes time to get used to. I planned today’s activities around a trip to the library, and DorkySon was jumping up and down with excitement at the thought of finding some new truck books. When we got there we discovered that it is, inexplicably, closed on Wednesdays. But instead we went for a walk and found a duck pond, and then a grand wee playground with a pirate ship.

I have been bowled over by the generous welcome of other mums in the area. We only got our internet connected yesterday, and from the one email I sent introducing myself on the local NCT list, I’ve already had a dozen replies with offers of coffee and walks to the park. I got chatting to someone in the queue at WH Smith this morning, and came away with a nursery recommendation.

God knows there have been a couple of wobbly moments. I am trying hard to define this new place by what it is – and the kindness of strangers makes that so much easier, I can’t wait to hear some personal recommendations for places to go – but I have had one or two moments when I’ve only been able to define it by what it’s not. It’s not the house I’m used to. Michael is not my butcher any more, Eddie is not my fishmonger anymore, and after tonight, the removal men are not coming back. It’s not Edinburgh. Not Scotland. And my Mum doesn’t live down the road anymore.

As DorkySon would say, that smells like poo.

But I think if we get some more pictures on the walls, and I reply to all those lovely friendly emails, and we go to the library on Thursday next time instead of Wednesday, we might just be alright here. It’s a big old adventure, and I’m willing to give it a shot.

 

I was planning on having a load of photos to go with this post – I kept my camera away from the removal men, with the intention of documenting our journey – but then I left it switched on all night by accident and ran the battery down before we’d even left the hotel in Edinburgh. I discovered that on the train, just as we were passing Cockenzie and DorkySon jumped up, pointed out the window and said “Look, look, it’s Granny’s ocean!”

That was the first of the wobbly moments. I’m hoping there aren’t too many more to come.

The One Where My Son Says He Doesn’t Love Me

October 19, 2011 By in Family Tags: , , , , , 21 Comments

‘I don’t love you, Mummy.’

‘That dress is ugly, Mummy.’

‘My dinner is disgusting, Mummy.’

‘I don’t want any more of this horrible juice.’

Last week, I spent a couple of nights down in London, continuing our flat-hunt. DorkySon stayed up in Edinburgh with my Mum, and by all accounts had a brilliant time. She texted me a picture of him on the first day, sitting on a bench, smiling and clutching an ice cream, and a picture on the second day of him sitting in the big red tractor at Gorgie City Farm, waving brightly at the camera. There is no one on earth he loves more than DorkyGranny – they are incredibly close – and I knew he would be absolutely fine.

But I don’t spend nights away from DorkySon that often – this was only the fourth or fifth time ever – so it always takes a bit of readjustment when I return. And this was by far the most difficult time ever. I’d brought him back a wee George Pig keyring that I spotted in a shop and thought he’d like.

‘It’s rubbish,’ he said, walking over to the bin and dropping it in.

Where had my sweet wee boy gone? It was as though I’d just skipped ahead fourteen years and was living with a short, angry teenager. He kept coming up to me as though he wanted a cuddle, and then swerving, pushing me away at the last minute.

It was a new thing for DorkySon to be deliberately mean – that’s just not his nature – so it hurt. But I also recognised myself in him. My parents separated when I was eight and, although I would never have seen it in myself at the time, I can admit now that I used to be completely horrible to both of them at changeover times, when I was switching from one house to the other. It was as thought I thought I would miss them less and find it easier to go if I fell out with them first.

DorkySon is doing brilliantly during a very unsettled time. He has had all manner of new people coming to his house, his belongings are being given away or packed into boxes around him, and his Mummy keeps disappearing for days at a time to ‘find a new house’.

I can at least try and articulate everything that’s in my head – all those mixed feelings of excitement and anticipation and nervousness – but even so I’m pretty tense and crabby and tired. It is no wonder that he has been feeling a little off too, and it’s expressing itself in a negative way. I take it as a compliment that I am the person he trusts enough to let off some steam with.

DorkyDad says that when he looks at me and DorkySon we are so close you couldn’t slide a sheet of paper between us. It is true. We love each other fiercely. Sometimes we are all tangled up in a mess of laughing and cuddles, other times we are pressing our foreheads against each other, locked eyes, trying to out-stubborn each other. ‘No,’ we say to each other. ‘No, no, no, no, NO.’

I had always imagined that I would be the calm parent, compromising, breaking up arguments, providing the necessary voice of reason. Not so. DorkyDad is the diffuser, the diplomat, and the joker who comes into the room to distract us both from whatever nonsense argument we are engaged in.

Anyway, it has taken a few days, but we are back to normal. DorkySon has returned to his usual, joyful self. When I threw on a scabby old fleece to drop him off at nursery yesterday, he said ‘You look beautiful in pink, Mummy’. Today I fixed one of his broken trucks with a dab of superglue, and he said ‘It’s great to have such a clever Mummy.’ And tonight, when I tucked him into bed, he smiled up at me and said ‘I love you so much.’

His language skills, his sense of humour, and his crazy wee brain are all developing so quickly, right now. He sings all day, and then lies in his cot before he falls asleep and recites as many letters of the alphabet as he can remember. He loves jokes about sausages and bananas. Yesterday he was very disappointed when he found a shoehorn in the wardrobe and it didn’t go ‘beep beep’ as all good horns should. He has discovered the word ‘why’, which is every bit as bad as I had been warned about. When we walk along the street he can identify a dozen different makes of car by looking at their badges (his favourites are Volkswagens and Mercedes, I’m not sure why). Today, in the space of a few hours, he asked me if it was winter yet, called me to the window to look at the sunrise, and greeted the rep from our removal company by saying ‘Hello man, I like your red tie!’

I wish I could bottle his laughter, and gift it to people to make them smile.

I am deeply, deeply sorry that DorkySon has learned at such a young age that he can say hurtful things. But I am so glad that all it takes to teach him that that’s not necessary is a couple of quiet days, reading books on the sofa with his Mum, remembering how much he is loved. And thank goodness I finally found the new house; next time I go away, he’ll be coming with me.

Sorry this was another very long post! The recommended length for a blog post is around 500 words, and this one was nearly 1000. Well done if you made it this far. If you’d like to keep up with me in a more concise way, then why not like my DorkyMum Facebook page for some shorter updates.