Photo A Day: my work here is done
Posted under Photo A Day 2011
The 6yo listening to the 4yo reading. Not shown: mummy loafing around drinking booze, smoking fags and cackling wildly.
Posts Tagged ‘Bertie’
How I became my mother
Posted under parenting
Bertie: “When can I have a DS or a Wii?”
Me: “Never”
Bertie: “But xyz has one”
Me: “So? I’m not xyz’s mother”
Bertie: “But that’s not fair. xyz has one, why can’t I”
Me: “Because I said so and I’m your mother”
Bertie: “But xyz’s mum lets xyz have one”
Me: “And if xyz had a big spot on the end of his nose would you want one too? If xyz jumped off a cliff, would you too?”
And in that 60 seconds time had stood still and reversed to the late 1970s and I’d turned in to my mother. It was always coming.
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Slipping away
Posted under People I love
1 September and, though the sun has shone and it’s been unusually hot today, I can feel the summer slipping away. The way the light moves around the house has noticeably changed in the last few days, the evenings come to a close quicker and the heat of the day slopes off with surprising abruptness. The glut of early summer veg is long gone, leaving a bounty of tomatoes ripening faster than we can eat them, a couple of sugar sweet melons, some stubbornly unripe peppers and chillis and a pumpkin patch which is threatening to take over the garden. We’ve just harvested the last of our main crop potatoes, and planted our seed spuds ready for Christmas Day. Last week’s holiday to Cornwall seems like a month ago, and the deliciously pure ‘fresh’ light in my photos seems like something from a lifestyle magazine rather than how it really was. Whichever way you measure it, summer is slipping away.
I’m fending off the back-to-school glums. It’s been a glorious summer holiday, gone all too soon…how I will miss my little chums. Only 5 more sleeps until my baby starts school and my big boy goes in to Year 1. Hardly seems like a minute since Bertie started school and, yet, here we are and Digby is about to join him. Having resigned, I have no job and no plans at this point. I’ve been waiting for inspiration to strike but nothing beyond a vague desire to feel ‘successful’ has presented itself. My measure of ‘success’ is also rather ill defined at the moment. I’m sure it will all muddle itself out for the best.
For now I’m clinging on to the last few days of the holiday, trying to erase the mental image of Diggy in his school uniform and wondering where the time has gone. Let me get through next week, Bertie’s 6th birthday and the eight (yes, eight) birthday parties in the calendar and then I’ll re-group and Make A Plan.
Really? My baby is going to school? Not right, not right at all…potters off quietly, shaking head.
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The School Sports Day one…
Posted under People I love
Ah, Sports Day…what lovely memories I have of my own Sports Days at school. Not. Who can forgot my record breaking shot put attempt (21cm)? Not me, that’s for sure.
Somewhat nervously, I attended Bertie’s first Sports Day and prayed that somehow he has escaped my ‘crap at games’ gene. He looked pretty anxious as he sat in his team, “Team Spots” (confusingly I dressed my child in Stripes. Fail. Also, I forgot to put him in trainers. Fail again.). Later he confessed he was ‘worried about losing’. Hmm, seems his competitive streak continues to be alive and kicking.
We started with that old classic: the playground climbing equipment (above). Start to finish, one at a time, as many laps as the team could manage before the headmaster rang a bell.
Next, the water carrying/hurdle race. A classic:
NB I’ve actually managed to put appropriate footwear on him at this point.
Ah, the build a wall, build it up..build it up..build it higher:
MrSpud and Diggy, cheering …’Go spots, go spots..go go GO spots!’ (repeat until hoarse):
Jumping:
Running:
Meanwhile Diggy and his new girlfriend were having their own races. Why should the big kids have all the fun?
Egg and spoon! Of course…what better way to finish…
And then it was all over, and it was time to add up all the points. And, despite his anxiety, it turned out that the Spots Team DID win. Bertie looked totally underwhelmed and not remotely happy. Turns out he thought they’d LOST, because the head teacher called out their team name last. A quick lesson in the tension building ‘reverse order’ announcement technique and he was, finally, all smiles.
And not a tantrum, or a record breaking shot put attempt in site. But here’s the PE teacher, having a moment…Okaaaaaaay…must have the heat…bit of sunstroke maybe?
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Silent Sunday
Posted under Silent Sunday
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Showtime!
Posted under People I love
There are many things that I adore about my oldest child … but his dogged desire to have dancing lessons, even though he’s the only boy in the class, is one of my favourite things about him. He just doesn’t care that he’s the only boy, I’m not sure it’s really occurred to him that perhaps it is a little strange to be one boy among a sea of pink. When asked to join the dance school, I told him he’d be the only boy. He said he didn’t care and that was that. If my mother were alive she would be so tickled, since she was a ballet/tap/modern dance teacher in her younger years.
So, every Saturday, he puts on his smart white T shirt, his smart blue shorts and his special white ballet socks and off he trots to dancing school to spend an hour learning tap and ballet. I spent ages putting his name in his ballet and tap shoes. Why? He’s the only one with black shoes, there’s no chance of a shoe muddle! All the others are white or pink, of course.
Tap tappity tap. Here he is, today, giving us a little show in the kitchen. Diggy now says he wants to do dancing too. ‘The Brothers Spud’ … I can see it in lights …
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My 5 year old entrepreneur
Posted under People I love
Mr Bertie, finally mastering the monkey bars this afternoon. Until now any attempt at swinging across them has resulted in him hanging off the first bar and screaming very loudly for someone to come and rescue him. Not anymore. Monkey Boy woke me up from a tiny and delicious afternoon snooze to demonstrate his new skill. I applauded and confessed I’m not able to do the monkey bars, and never have been able to. He fixed me with a suitably scathing look and told me that it’s ‘easy’ and implored me to try again ‘with all my might’. I declined. Nothing like the sight of a 40 year old woman having a tantrum over the monkey bars to really put a downer on the day.
Earlier in the day Bertie set up his first business. It’s quite novel, I’m not entirely convinced he’s thought it through or established who his target market is but let’s leave that to one side. He’s decided that he should be a house moving consultant. He can tell you when you need to move house by looking at you and assessing if you’re ‘too high’ and should move house. We were a bit puzzled by this, but closer questioning revealed that he will be looking at your height relative to your house’s ceiling height and if you’ve grown too big then..of course..you need to move house.
He’s launching the business with a handwritten flyer, to be sent to all our friends and family and posted through the doors of unsuspecting locals who, I’m willing to bet, have never even considered whether they are getting too tall for their houses.
Here’s his flyer
For those of you not fluent in 5yo emergent writing it says:
“if yoo dont now wen too move house yoo need to col vis number” [if you don't know when to move house you need to call this number]
What a genius idea for a business! Providing a service you never even knew you needed and creating and cornering the market all in one. So, who thinks they might getting too tall for their house and needs assessing? Yoo need to col vis number….
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Career Clinic
Posted under People I love
Megaboys playing 'doctors' with a pencil for a stethoscope. Odd.
Diggy: “Mummy, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
Me: “Um…older?”
Diggy: “NO! What do you want to BE?”
Me: “Um…happy?”
Diggy, exasperated: “NOOOOOOO!!! What do you want to BE? Like I want to be a surfer boy and a parachute man, and Bertie wants to be a face painter…so what do YOU want to be?”
Me: “Oh, well I don’t want to be anything else. I’m already grown up and I have a proper job which is to [insert long boring description of my job]”
Diggy: [long silence]
Diggy, in a hushed and crestfallen voice: Â ”Mummy…that sounds really, really boring. So, what do you want to be when you’re a grown up?”
I might be 40 years old but my 4 year doesn’t think I’m a grown up. Does a happy little dance. What shall I be when I’m a grown up? Any suggestions?
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Swan song
Posted under Photo A Day 2011, Photography
Last photo from my camera before it broked, MrBertie looking shockingly grown up and rather handsome if I say so myself. I feel so twitchy without my camera and it’s going to be a good while being fixed, I’ll bet. A borrowed D90 is en route to me, and I’m having to hire another D700 for a shoot I’m doing. What a chore and a bore…
In the meantime I’m in limbo. Snapping with my iphone but, mostly, an old Pentax of The Wife’s which is loaded with film. At first I found the lack of an immediate ‘hit’ very bizarre and frustrating. Now I’m enjoying the anticipation of getting the film developed and how film slows everything down, not least because I’m finding the manual focusing really tricky. I’m spending a long time thinking about exposure and composition before I snap…only 36 exposures on the film and each one is going to cost money to develop…makes you really think about what you want the shot to say. I like it.
But I’d like my D700 back and working again please. I thank you.
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Photo A Day: Check mate
Posted under Photo A Day 2011
Well, not at this stage of the game but it was later on. “Check mate!” screamed said Bertie, with a note of ill disguised triumph in his voice. At which point, I’m assuming, MrSpud regretted helping him along earlier in the game. Defeated, in a surprise move, by a 5 year old. Oh the shame.
I absolutely love the final photo. The expression on their faces is priceless…Bertie is all ‘Right then Daddy, let’s see what you make of that then’ whilst Diggy is all ‘ra ra ra come on Bertie’.
