crisis averted

I have a fevered toddler, an extra child sleeping over, I have to get up early to go get the car that I left down the station and the aged, half blind and deaf dog just started making noises that to my untrained ear sounded like the hawking of a constipated polarbear. Some sort of bear like mooing noises, anyway.

Oh, god, this is the end, I thought, he's entering death throes, with no vet open til 10 am and me here alone with three kids, one fevered, one not my own.

A little bit later I walked into the kitchen to find him vomiting half a purloined pizza into his bed.

That explains that then.

Fuckerdog.

Sigh.

hidden treasure

So I am a little bit like one of those people you see on tv, who build pathways through the mounds of rubbish and odds and ends and second hand stuff that they randomly collect, and fill their house with til the vermin moves in and they're complete social outcasts*.

At Christmas my mother in law gave me a voucher for M&S (that's M&S, D, not the other), which promptly disappeared. I had no memory of bringing it home with the other stuff, and was convinced that some zealous tidier had swept it up with the wrapping paper in Betty's house (Betty is the mil, for those of you who don't remember).

I was just clearing the debris from under the little table in behind the sofas (socks, crayons, half a bag of paper-waste, toys, enough dust to make my eyes itch, half an hour's worth of wool to untangle, €50's worth of voucher!) and there it was.

I suppose I should keep cleaning now, and see if I can uncover a winning lottery ticket, and a forged will. Oh,, and a Golden Ticket too... all the chocolate could be ours!



*C, I know this post is killing you, I'm sorry :)

faces

So there's this woman I've seen around Bray a bit, in Tesco, etc. And you know how you see a face that's familiar and you wonder if it's someone you knew a long time ago?

When I was maybe ten or eleven, I made friends with a girl from the riding summer camp we did at the stables we went to. We were there a couple years in a row, and shared a couple sleep overs after. Most likely wrote letters, if you can imagine.

But that was that. Secondary school and new social lives took over. But I remember faces, and I've been wanting to ask her if it could possibly be her. And then Bodhi started playschool, and she was there with her daughter, so today I summoned my resolve (which was pretty much there to begin with, because as you might imagine, I'm not really so shy about these things) and asked if there was any chance she was Maria, and if it was her. And it was. She lives round the corner from me, more or less. There are promises of playdates and coffee...

I'm sorry I didn't get round to getting Bodhi in there earlier but ah well. But I like that I can find people again like that.

My best memory of her is sitting round at camp reading horoscopes, and someone reading out that she should beware of a small blue van. In a doom laden voice, she interrupted, saying, 'wait a minute! we have a small, blue van.'

crunchy pie

Oh, I forgot to say. I just made a rhubarb strawberry crumble, and the smell on my fingers of tart, custard-sweet rhubarb, and vanilla, and strawberry, and brown sugar and cinnamon is just ... ah, it's just beautiful.

We will have it at Cassia's birthday dinner tonight, in her granny's house. She just came in and asked me what was all this she'd heard about a crunchy-pie. I may be rechristening the crumble.

That's a google photo, as I haven't replaced my camera yet. I'm thinking I might get an iphone instead. My photographer friend Ciara is taking great ones with hers, and thinks everyone should have them. It's tempting...

Scooting all the way to Doomland

Bodhi asks me to take out Olivia's scooter. We establish that he's going to take it outside. I ask him where he's going to go, and he answers, 'To Doomland!'

'To Doomland??'

'Yeah, to Doomland, to fight the monsters, with my sword!'

I look around and he is indeed waving a sword, which hits me in the shoulder.

Rest safe in your beds, citizens.


There's a Happyland too, but it features in their games less often.

black rook in rainy weather

 Black Rook In Rainy Weather - Sylvia Plath



On the stiff twig up there

Hunches a wet black rook

Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.

I do not expect a miracle

Or an accident



To set the sight on fire

In my eye, nor seek

Any more in the desultory weather some design,

But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,

Without ceremony, or portent.



Although, I admit, I desire,

Occasionally, some backtalk

From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:

A certain minor light may still

Lean incandescent



Out of kitchen table or chair

As if a celestial burning took

Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --

Thus hallowing an interval

Otherwise inconsequent



By bestowing largesse, honor,

One might say love. At any rate, I now walk

Wary (for it could happen

Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,

Yet politic; ignorant



Of whatever angel may choose to flare

Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook

Ordering its black feathers can so shine

As to seize my senses, haul

My eyelids up, and grant



A brief respite from fear

Of total neutrality. With luck,

Trekking stubborn through this season

Of fatigue, I shall

Patch together a content



Of sorts. Miracles occur,

If you care to call those spasmodic

Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's begun again,

The long wait for the angel,

For that rare, random descent.

______________________________________________

There's too much language to love in this poem. What bits do you like?

pome

Pennies...


Men don’t spend them.

There is loose brown change all over this house.



I love to find them and bring them to the change jar,

An oversized wine bottle, drunk long ago and put away, til the man who came to fix the boiler

Looked at it in its case and said, you know what you should do with that,

You should keep your change in it.



And so I do, I bring the pennies, drop them in,

chingle clink ching.



No wishes on this one, I think,

As I eye the brown disc on the floor beneath the sink.



But then it occurs to me, maybe there is –

We all have the Euro now

And it is not unimaginable, beyond the realms of possibility

That one of your blessed pennies, the enchanted ones,

Could have made its way, through countless fingers,

unwished upon,

to my bathroom floor,

to me.

mommy blog alert

It was olivia's birthday party today. The sun shone, and shone, and shone,  and all was well. My feeet, though, oh, they hurt, I've been on them since early thismorning, and I am Tired. I even went out for a swim this morning (ok, I wasn't on my feet then, but there was other excercise involved) to balance out the future cake, and then I came home and cleaned and cooked and decorated and hostessed etc. and a lovely party was had.

I always buy too much food. Even in the midst of the party, I worry that I haven't got enough, and sent my brother in law on a mission to buy fruit and extra hula hoops - none of which got eaten, of course.

The highlight of the day though, in between host-parents being beaten with gold balloons, and mini cupcakes being devoured, was the Potion Class.

We had drinking cups, clear, and baking soda, and glitter, and stars and happy birthdays, and pearlescent purple bath foam, and hundreds and thousands and food colouring and gummy worms to chop like in the book. They mixed them all up with straws, and I poured in vinegar and they foamed up wonderfully and colourfully, it was great!

Then we poured them all in to a big cauldron and made a wonderful mess, that they all stirred up.

excuse my laziness, just tilt your heads, please...

the glittery blue ones were great  - and they all foamed up over the cups at first, it was v effective

I highly recommend this. It was cheap, and simple, and fun and took just the right length of time.

To continue with our simple Harry potter theme, we had a gold table cloth, and gold plates and balloons, and plastic goblets. And the cake, Olivia specified, would have a broomstick on it, and a scar at each corner. She alarmed my friend by telling her she wanted a Scar Cake :)

those are owls in side view. I'm not so proud of them head on either, but it was late. Shrug*

It was a good broomstick, but it was a little long for the cake. Oops!

What else? Olivia has really nice friends. I'm grateful for them, and their kind and fun and generous and sweet mums. And dads.

oh damn, it's hot!

I just, in all my wimpy glory, restrung a small trampoline in the burning midday sun. I am now scorched and sweaty and trembly-tingly fingered and thinking of the various strong armed men who could, or should be at my disposal for such tasks.

But no. Now I'll go do the mother-thing as well and turn on the oven, on this hot hot day, and slave over the stove to do the birthday cake. And rice crispie squares. And should I do mini strawberry cupcakes too? Everyone loves them...

You know what? I think tomorrow morning I will leave Axel to prize apart the children, and cut the hedge in the lane and tidy up and make things pretty as only he can (or rather, as I can't)  do and fuck off to the shopping centre to pick up my shoesies. Shoesies!

gig alert

I get invited to my husband's gigs by Facebook now...

Stuart says, "Gonna be a great night, sun setting in temple bar:) 1st big outdoor gig so come and support us, be great to see yas! cheers.".



Event: The Juice Live @ Dublin City Soul Festival


What: Concert


Start Time: Friday, May 28 at 8:30pm


End Time: Friday, May 28 at 9:30pm


Where: Meeting House Square
 
It sounds like it's going to be nice, I'm wondering if I could bring the kids, or if it would be too loud and drunk... what does anyone think?

Never say it out loud

Never ever.

Never tell anyone your baby's started sleeping through the night. They hear you.

Just yesterday I was thinking to myself that I haven't had a cold sore since I went to the homeopath, maybe six months ago? Maybe more? Since I took the remedy.

And this morning... I woke up with one.

Never ever ever.

Sigh.

I did find a picture one that looks just ,like mine gets, but I'll spare you that and suggest you listen to the song in my head today instead.

Baha, I nearly linked to the cold sore again by accident.

manfriend

The owner of the house next door rents it, but just built herself a little annexe on the end, for when she's here. Bodhi has fallen for her, and spent some happy hours helping her decorate. She's very sweet and smiley and generous and finds him adorable.

She spends the winters in India, and has only just got back. he was delighted to see her again, all happy and full of hellos. She arrived back to the house with a couple friends the other day, and he ran out to say hello. He stomped back in, disgusted.

'Jackie's got a man-friend,' he said in furious, injured tones. 'He kept talking to me.'

Clearly, he does not want to share.

I told Jackie this, and she was utterly charmed. Apparently the manfriend in question is gay and is sleeping in her kitchen, but I don't know that that really makes any difference for Bodhi.

an hour of my life

Up to the pool while Olivia does swimming lessons (and sits on the edge, waiting her occasional turn in the water)... I masterfully resisted the temptation to lay my head on the table and cry for a little, while my sympathetic friends stroke my hair. Instead I bemoan my fate and Anne tells me, 'Well you're an advertizzment for staying off the Internet!' It's true... 

She's trying out a radical new mode of Irish-Mammy-Therapy, after I told her about my trichotillomania habit and she declared 'Well, you're a lunatic!' It has its merits, this therapy, but sadly it's not teaching me anything I didn't know already.

I go to get Cassia dressed and she's shivering and crying. It seemed she banged her lip on the pool edge some time before, and the teacher told her to say 'bad!' to the spot she hit herself on (as if she's a two year old??) and then ignored her thereafter. So I had to go and tell the Spanish wan to let her come in to me next time. Tss.

Then I had to run to the bathroom because I have my peeeeriod, and I dropped my frigging mooncup in the toilet, so I had to sneak out and wash it, and secrete it in my pocket. They don't warn against that on the label. Though I'm actually kind of surprised it's the first time it's happened.

Then after that little delay, I whizzed round the corner to get back to my sobbing, shivering daughter, and nearly ran nose first into a young man in his swim suit. I apologised and he said 'Oh, Haiii' in a total lolcats voice, which made me giggle frantically into my hand as I ran back to the changing room.

It's a strange little world.

freakouts

I just ejected a Large Black Spider from the net curtain over Olivia's bed.

Axel conveniently went to work before I got a chance to ask him to remove it. Despite having heard all about it this morning. I was too tired and bewildered by life to face the task straight away and Bodhi came in and saw it. Well, ok, he heard me shriek a little and ran in and stared.  His little chubby frame shook with with fear and loathing for several seconds. And then he juddered. With his whole body, frozen but shuddering, if you know what I mean.

'I'M FREAKING OUT!' He said.
'I'M FREAKING OUT.
FREAKING. OUT.'

And he stood there and shuddered some more.

So just now when I went and chased it round the curtain trying to get it into a cup, I had a little freakout all of my own.

I hate the fucking things.

depth perception

Hmm. I didn't realise til I the checkout that I'd managed to buy 1kg of cornflakes yesterday.

Thankfully, I'm not blessed with a family of five boys or anything, so I don't really to buy cornflakes in bulk. Somehow I just failed to notice the box depth.

We used to be more all about the ricecrispies. So much so it took me two days to work out what Bodhi meant when he asked me for the Green Chicken cereal.

Poor child. His mother is so slow.



Now I have 200 essays to correct in the nexxt two days, so bye for now.

schwim schwim

I went swimming today. It was a beautifully sunny evening, the pool was just full, not too much, and everyone was swimming properly. They annoy me, the non-swimmer swimmers. Their splashing or slow sculling breaststrokes or hanging about disturb my swimmy flow. I like people round me to swim neat and speedy. Make me work to keep up with them. Make me admire their stroke. It might not be fair, but it is what it is.

I like that I can go faster as I warm up rather than succumbing to agonised exhaustion as I would if I tried to run.Swimming is the bomb. How I love it. And I'm considerably less wobbly than I was when I started again, which is nice. The only problem is it makes me violently starving afterwards. So I came home and ate dinner. And some things while dinner was getting ready... and then the family came home with pizza, and my resolve didn't hold. And the combination of hard swimming and too much carby goodness (or badness, rather) has made me so very very tired. Yaaawn. Oops. So that backfired a bit, but hopefully it did my muscles good.

Swimming in the sunlight is beautiful. Like swimming through light itself. Pushing under to touch the floor of the deep end and kicking back up again to go, all through the white light water that seems less dense than usual. Backstroke looking up at the blue sky and fluffy clouds through the skylight. On one lap I noticed the fire door was open. You could see trees, and the wall of someone's house. That was strange. Imagine looking out your bedroom window and into a swimming pool. Then I remembered the front windows all look on to a housing estate too. And behind that, the mountains. It's a strange perspective.

I used to, long ago, have a membership in the Glenview hotel, up on the hill in the Glen of the Downs. You'd swim towards the giant windows, towards that view. It was magic. In the sunlight, in the evening. One night my mother and I were there when there was lightening. But those days are gone, and now it's the community pool for me.

I put my face back in the water. Stick with the light and the water and sky.

nice day for a goth wedding

Wow. They're fabulous.

Help me!

Olivia's had some problem with parts of speech for a while now. She had beautiful diction when she was little, but outside influence eroded it.

She doesn't pronounce her r's properly. The English accent doesn't help. I've put her on the waiting list for the HSE speech therapist, but it will be 6 months before she's assessed and maybe another 6 before anyone sees her for, um, treatment?

It's all ok, I'm sure. Except. Yesterday, she started pronouncing her w's in the back of her throat. Not making the wuh souund with her lips at all. You know the one, like if you say 'way' without moving your lips. And she's doing that with her r's too. Like Johnathan Woss. What to do??



Wuv... human wuv...

fading toddler mysticism

Bodhi keeps saying that the dog doesn't talk to him anymore.

Bodhi is nearly three, the dog grows more and more decrepit.

Make of this what you will.

noise

I listen to the endless stream of bickering, screaming whinging antagonism and retaliation coming from the garden, the same as its been, with brief periods of respite in between, for days, weeks, months... I stir the soup and I fantasise about being at a Metallica gig, or something similar. Somewhere where the drums and the base and the angry lyrics drown out all other noise, all thought, and you just feel it.

I look at the electric mixer in my hand, and turn it up to five.

The noise of my children through the open garden dims, and the mixer vibrates against the side of the pot, making a mechanical, grinding noise.

It'll have to do.

I mix the soup longer than is necessary.

Imagine... seeing Dylan in Dublin in '66. Anyone?

A favourite song.



I love this... but to be honest, I wish I did a bit more just like a woman, and less like a little girl.

I'm endlessly amazed to still be finding songs that turn out to be his... incredible songwriter.

Sings like a cartoon rat, but I like it here.

And I had friends who did a great impression of two bob dylans fighting under a bridge.

neglect

My poor blog. I will attend to you soon. Working... like a turn spit dog.

moby

Ok, so he's an obnoxious Christian Vegan.

But I like this.

you know I love a good birth story

And here is a beautiful post from K8.