how to talk to little girls

You're saved, I was about to post a maudlin Cure song before I fell into my bed, but I just yoinked this great post off facebook and it's much more productive for now.

Take note. Olivia has hated being told how pretty she is and how much people like her hair and outfit ad nauseum, and has felt really uncomfortable with that assessing, uncomfortably praising gaze ever since she was very small.

She'd rather talk about her achievements and projects and interests, I find

red letter day

I just made it through PMSville without any major breakdown type crisis - or even noticing that much! Yaywoo!

If I had this small cake, I would eat it in celebration.

do you know what's sad?

There's a lot of people I would have liked to develop friendships with, but never managed to - mostly because of the shyness, or awkwardness involved in the process of becoming close. And I think a lot of other people feel the same. There's so much effort involved in insinuating yourself into someone's life. It can be difficult, before a friendship becomes organic feeling.

I have a cousin  I like a lot, but despite living near to each other for a while, years ago, we only ever met up once, had a great night - then that was it. The effort of making plans, making small talk, getting to know each other, meeting partners who may or may not be great at accepting people into their social lives, trying to meld friends to friends... it all really takes a lot of work, and I find these days, people seem to have run out of that sort of time and energy.

It's not good, but it seems to just be the way. Investment in friendship is a big risk, I suppose. It might be worth it, it might not, it might just be easier to sit home and have a biscuit and facebook or blog or watch telly, in pyjamas, and not have to worry about going out and getting pretty or hoovering and making the house pretty and shopping for nibbles, and all.

Maybe it's because in Ireland we only know how to socialise over drink, and that means driving is out, and everyone drives everywhere because there's so little door to door public transport.

I do know people who DO defeat such malingering inclinations, they have parties, they go meet new people and introduce them to each other often and their lives are diverse and interesting as a result, no doubt. It probably makes sense to be able to dull that discomfort radar and power on through the initial uncertainty of the process of becoming close to someone you don't know that well. 

channelling waves of Zen calm

You know when something is upsetting, but there is no value to be gained from being upset by it? So you have to just accept it for what it is, and try to bypass any emotional reaction you might have to it? Because what's the point?

And yet, this anxious pressure in my chest seems to want to sneak up on me anyway. LALALALALALALA, I can't hear you, unconstructive bad feeling.

tooting my horn

I put that egg box of cakes together for the woman in work who organises the parties etc, in case she's ever interested. She was on holiday when I brought them in, so I gave them to the nice receptionist and asked if anyone would be interested, and if she'd pass on the word if they liked them.

I called in again the next day to see how they'd gone down.

Carmel's sweet, childlike face suddenly fell. It seemed to grow even rounder.

'Oh, Jo.'

Her big round blue eyes grew wide and grave, as if she was about to tell me someone had died, or I'd been fired.

'I've never tasted cake like that before.' She still sounded struck through with awe or horror. 'What's in the icing? Is it cream?'

We chatted about ingredients for a second, and she delighted me by saying one of the bosses (pregnant lady - score!) had come by and had some. Yes! Excellent.

So I wouldn't bother posting this because it sounds like boasting, but you want to have seen her face, it was fantastic. Such a dramatic moment. 

yoink!

thoughts

Why am I blogging so much?

Because I have involved work to do. Because the kids are... home and boisterous and no Axl here this week to absorb any of it. Maybe I'm a little bit lonely.

The other night a friend sent me a 'Buddhist money chant.' DO IT!!!!! she said.

As is my way, I said, hmmm, that doesn't sound very Buddhist. Isn't it a bit of a contradiction? And then I looked it up and found the actual prayer to the goddess of wealth, but I was still a bit iffy about it. And THEN, this morning I had the thought that there are millions of people in India living in poverty we can only have nightmares about - and if Lakshmi's going to bestow some wealth on anyone, it should really be the slum parent who's considering mutilating their toddler so they can beg more effectively, not any of us with our credit card debt and first world problems. Um hum.

And the other thought I had... was.... oh. I forgot.

I made minestrone and garlic bread tonight. Garlic bread is soooo underrated. God. I somehow underherbed (not underhebed*. Oops.)the minestrone, though, don't know how that happened. So the kids dipped bread and fished out the pasta. And I had WINE. Nom.

Check out my cupcaking too, for the school's graduation. I am so tired. How I would love to go to bed and sleeeeeeep right now.

AW. I peeled half the aubergine (eggplant) and then noticed it was a penguin, but this came out very dark. It reminded me of this penguin. 

Wow, Bodhi scoffed some amount of garlic bread. 

Vanilla vanilla with a blueberry on top

Chocolate. With giant chocolate button embellishment. Best taken off and eaten first, unless you like that soft icing/hard chocolate contrast. Which I do not. 

Strawberry, in golden light so you can't see them very well. 

Shaky handed leftover assortments

booklist

Caitlin Moran's new book. I never heard of her before. How is that possible?

New Roddy Doyle. Though the cover blurb suggests its about middle aged men dealing with Recession in Dublin. Which is a little predictable, maybe. Although, in fairness, it does have bullfighting in it, so that's different.

http://www.roddydoyle.ie/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/doyle_bullfighting.jpg

I feel I should be reading the new Anne Enright.

While this opening line of a review delights me - To read Anne Enright is to be glad that she is not watching you. - the book seems to be about the grimness of adultery... and ... well...

the shamefull truth is, I'd rather read the new Lisa Jewell

overposting!

Excuse the overpost - if I don't write things down at the moment, I will forget.

Tonight Bodhi angled for a third book before going to sleep. I said no, so he offered to read it. We have a book from the library about a duck whose egg falls off the conveyor belt in the Alligator Duck Factory. A Alligator -worker takes him home in his lunch box intending to fatten and eat him, but they make friends and go out to dinner etc. In the end the duck liberates the other ducks from Ducktown where they're being fattened for slaughter, gets them fit enough to fly to some sort of Duck holiday paradise resort and they escape. The Alligator and the duck follow in a plane and all ends well by the pool (the Alligator eats chicken instead!)


Illustrations

Bodhi narrates away, and turns pages. When he gets to the picture that has the pair going out to dinner, he said,

'and then they start dating.'

I looked at him, and said, 'did you say dating??' and he smiled at me with a merry and mischievous smile, said, 'yeah, they start dating,' and carried on reading.

On an unrelated note, Jesus, Google Images should rename itself Image Roulette. I keep getting traumatised by horrible things that pop up in searches for completely innocuous images. 

Of course you can't see the rain in this picture, just some washing...

Ok, so it's raining again. But the smell of wet green out my door, mingling with the buttery warm smell of fresh baked vanilla cupcakes, is quite something beautiful.

* Blogger wouldn't upload photos this afternoon, so of course, it's actually currently a warm and sparklingly sunny evening :)

Dublin, now and 50 years ago

http://www.photography.paul-walsh.net/landscape/Cushman/

Lovely photos. And yay  for trees!

wonderful article on writing YA fiction

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/06/09/why-the-best-kids-books-are-written-in-blood/

midsummer

Today is the Summer Solstice. It's raining. Or, well, maybe just threatening to.

It's also my wedding anniversary, or was. It's making me feel anxious, and like I have a dirty, shameful secret.

My parents got married on Halloween, for some reason. As far as I know, they didn't celebrate their anniversary. I guess I didn't really notice that they didn't.

I'm glad Axl's away this week. It's easier.


I got a text from a friend yesterday, someone I knew as a kid and met again recently when Bodhi started playschool. We don't see each other much, but I like her. She's had some post natal depression issues, she said, and she and her husband are doing the living-together-but-apart thing. She said she's happy with her own company and a partner to raise the kids - but her husband tried to kill himself on Saturday night and her 4 year old daughter found him on Sunday morning, Father's Day.

Ach. It's horrible. It's hard not to judge. Not that I don't feel sympathy too, and understanding. I am very grateful, that I feel no urge to leave a corpse behind for my children to find on Mother's Day, though. Very grateful.

http://rudegarden.blogspot.com/2010/08/landscape-of-summer-solstice-by-paul.html

chilly

I have a confession.


I have become cold. Possibly because I don't move around enough - well.... probably. But at night, this summer, I just can't get warm. For the  first time ever, I've not only kept the winter duvet layer on, I've actually added another. AND I'm still using my hot water bottle. Not every night, but I went to bed without it the night before last and couldn't sleep for how cold I was. For ages. I was so relieved when Bodhi woke up and climbed in.

I know it's my first year sleeping alone in a bed in many years, so I suppose that explains it, a lot. Big difference, temperature wise. And my house needs insulating. But maybe it's because the Gulf Stream has shifted too? The fearless Olivia seems less inclined to stay in the sea this summer than previous years.

Ach,  this post was meant to be a bit more meaningful than it is, but I don't want to get self pitying, so I suppose I'll just leave it at the fact that I'm cold. I'm even cold right now, dammit! Off to do stuff.

ah bollix

I just accidentally deleted my blogroll.

Update: Oh. Now the other format is available, the one with updates. Which is handy. But messy looking. Should I redo the parent blog one so it's the same? I don't knowwww...

Also, if you should be on my blogroll and you aren't and you'd like to be, um, let me know. 

alternate worlds

Bodhi wanders into the kitchen, encloaked in a blue dinosaur towel.

'I'm Magic Alex.'

'Can I pick you up and give you a cuddle, Magic Alex?'

'Yes, because I'm only a big boy - I have no parents...' He gazes into the distance, eyes glowing blue, face a stoic, yet tragic, chubby mask.

'You can be my parents if you want to. I looked after myself. I made fires...'

I sympathise and put him down again.

'I have a red dragon for a pet.'

a little weary

One father gone off to the South of France, Father's Day crammed in to yesterday morning, before he left.

Olivia is full of regard for her father at the moment, excitement about Father's Day, and 'your the best Dad in the world', after a few years of coolness and defensive rejection. It's good, I hope. I hope it's all for the best. It means she feels safe to love again, I suppose.

And me - my father is miserable at the moment - his dog got killed, a fox got his hens, he lost his two directorships. And he may be sitting at home right now feeling bitter, because I didn't give him a father's day card or gift, and I always used to go out to lunch with my mother on Mother's Day.

I'm not a good daughter.

But I let him set the tone for how we interact. He doesn't recognise my birthday, or his grandchildren. I find it impossible to be sentimental. I don't have a daddy. It doesn't feel safe to love, so I'm left with discomfort and confusion, and he's left with bitterness and rejection and I don't have a thick enough skin to brazen it out and fix it. He has his little girl wife to do the job far better than me, anyway.

It doesn't feel good, but it seems best to leave it at that. 

brownie, triumphant

I have the Martha Stewart cookie book. I haven't baked much out of it today, but I thought I'd give her brownies a go.

I was sort of worried... what if they were really good? What if the kids liked them better than my recipe, and I never got to make it again??

Well. I might have baked it a few minutes too long - but they were resoundingly rejected by Olivia! Haha! In your face, Martha Stewart, I have a better brownie recipe than you!!

nice post

http://trishiekoh.blogspot.com/2009/06/secret-garden.html

I loved the Secret Garden.

We Munnot Waste No Time!!

We should reread it. Book Club, anyone? We could give ourselves a month, and then do it in the comments :) 

Art Day

Our school does this great thing, each summer it has an Art Day. This year, since the original organiser retired, one of the mums in Olivia's class has taken over, and it seems to be going from Strength to Strength. The concept is simple but a lot of work: parents and friends of parents/the school/old pupils etc come in and offer their services. Project areas are set up and the kids spend the day roving round trying their hand at things.

This year there were, among other things, mosaic, pottery, sugar work, fake wound makeup (that was so ghastly! Like a school bus load of crash survivors!), bunting making, sculpting, chalk art on the ground outside, sand sculpture (I think), tye dying, glass painting, bead jewellery, the list goes on.

Olivia was disappointed that I couldn't go, as I had to work, but I ended up being sent home early, so I popped in for the last bit of sugar work. I found Olivia painting her flag (all the bunting will be used for decoration for the school's 30th anniversary next year). She was splattered in clay splashes and red paint, and she showed me the beautiful bit of glass painting she'd done for her dad for Father's Day. She did some sugar work and made a pot too. The mum supervising glass painting said she'd been brilliant, and gave me that meaningful "very impressive, I really mean it look" from under her eyebrows.

I know what she means though. When she settles down to work Olivia is enthusiastic, smart, quick and concentrated - and creative and efficient in what she does. I'm so proud of her!

I wish school could somehow work the same way art day does every day, it's so positive and engaging and all inclusive.

wednesday

So. I got a text this morning before heading off to work from Olivia's school. A child from the school was involved in 'an attempted abduction' this morning, on her way in. My blood ran cold looking at that, fear for Olivia mixed up with general fear for whoever it was, even though I'd dropped her safely in a couple hours before.

It seems the ten year old girl was 'put in a car' (possibly a white Volkswagon Golf), but then managed to get out at the lights and escape. Sick, cold, horror.

The principal is very much down playing it, says in her 34 years of teaching, she's never had this happen before.

Still... the answer to Danielle's question of when I'll let Olivia go to school by herself, when she's 18... may very well be, yes, when she's 18.

The principal went round telling the kids about it and lecturing them on safety (she 'went on and on and on' about it, according to my friend's son). I talked to her briefly, as I am never sure exactly how much to frighten the kids about why it is so imperative they have to be ready to do whatever it takes in just such a situation. I wish they'd send in an expert to do role plays and discuss tactics. It's one thing to know never to go with a stranger, it's another thing to make the most of the split seconds you've got when some man has his hand on your wrist and is pulling you into a car.

We teach them to be polite and friendly, and nice and respectful, as well as fearful... say hello to the man, tell him what age you are, don't be shy - but then they have to know how to be assertive enough to be brave enough to yell and kick and scream and punch and use their voices and ask for help from others in the moment that they're in trouble. It seems like a conflict to me.

My friend was talking to me about this, and said that when she was seven she would walk the short walk form school to music class alone, and was so impressed by the 'don't talk to strangers' talks she'd received that one day when a woman pulled up in her car and rolled down the window, Anne grabbed her breath in her fist and took off down the street, reciting 'Run! Run! As fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!!' as she dashed to safety. Bless her :)

Still. Fucking scary.

Olivia's been doing drama this year, and made me feel quite satisfied with her answers as to what she'd do - she knows where to hit effectively, and what to say in what kind of voice.

I don't know, though. Maybe they should all be doing some training in school, assertiveness and self defense etc. I don't know how useful the theory is on its own.

I am in awe

of how Annie turns her episodes into hilariously poignant little slices of entertainment. As well as all her other talents...

They will simply feed on your eyelids...

a sappy though necessarily cryptic interlude

For a little while, there were bluebirds and light-heartedness and effortless weight loss and warm fuzzy glowing etc, but that was all a bit silly, really, and what was I thinking and so on. Still. I'm glad to have had it, misguided or not.

And things are different now, but still, every so very often, there blooms a little unexpected bit of clever sweetness, stops me in my tracks, slides me to the floor.

And I'm so grateful, for that. For you.

Oh, in a heartbeat

Though it does help that he looks like a John Lennon Jesus.

public service announcement

Now I don't condone Ali Brosh's stance on spider murder. But I do agree with the sentiment of this illustration. 

pulled this way and that

Ack

http://www.foodmatters.tv/_webapp_481652/Anti-Depressants_Linked_to_Suicide_and_Violence

I'm torn... 

I got a mail from a friend today

And it said:


Is it weird that I occasionally daydream about tidying your house?
I've never done that for anyone else...

I do appreciate the Monica style offer, but had to ask if this would be naked tidying. Sadly, either way, the dreamer is too far away to make the dream come true :(

I'm afraid google refused to yield a good picture of a man in a frilly apron. I recommend not clicking on the picture, I think it might just come from somewhere filthy. 

let's just have something amusing

the straw

I don't know what this post is about. The fear and hell that is sports' day? Me losing it? I'm not sure.

I haven't had a great week. The week before was bad too, because it was pms misery week. Money stress is wearing me down. I don't remember how long it's been since money wasn't an issue. Maybe not since before I left school.

Today was sports day. I've always hated sports day. I can remember holding on tight to the door handle, refusing to go to mine, torn between fear of my father and fear of sports day. I went. There's a photo of stocky little me, in the egg and spoon race, lagging far behind, face a picture of flushed concern and self consciousness and embarrassment.

Olivia does fine in the practices, but she seems to freeze up in the actual heats, stage fright, maybe. She came last in her race, and was well aware of it. She fluffed her bean bag throw and it went the shortest distance. She was in the three legged race with a little friend who is shorter than her, and not the fastest... they came last too.

But she won her heat of the egg and spoon race by miles, she did so well. A flawless performance. And she was so happy! So proud. I had to warn her it wasn't the final win, the final was to come. Yes, but I'm in the final of something! she said, smiling widely. That's all she wanted. First time she had been.

And in the final, it was close, but she passed everyone out, did so beautifully - got a little nervous at the end, looked back a bit... I thought she'd won, she was right there. she did too. But it seems she dropped her 'egg' two inches from the finish line, and her teacher sent her back to start from the start. Which she did, while everyone else finished, fighting tears. And then walked back, sobbing, red faced. And sat on the ground and cried.

She was so close. She thought she'd won, thought she'd got a medal for something after two years of coming nowhere. She didn't even get second place or anything.

I took her home, because I was starting to cry too, I couldn't stop it. I couldn't make her do a long distance run, and sit through the prize giving clapping for everyone else. I wouldn't have made it though, either. It was so awful. What do you say? What lesson did she learn?

Then at the car I opened the door for Bodhi, and he'd stood staight in front of it, so it smacked him in the forehead. So he wailed, and Olivia sat in the car and cried and I couldn't stop myself from crying. One of the other mothers came over because she heard him crying, and I couldn't stop, I sobbed. I never do that, normally I can't cry in front of other people at all. I've lost it completely, I spent all last week trying not to cry in front of the students I was supervising, and now I'm sobbing in car parks in front of parents I don't know very well.

As we got home, Olivia told me that her teacher had said that while you were meant to go to the start if you drop your egg lots of times, if she tells you it's ok to keep going, you can. She doesn't understand why she made her go back. Why did she take it away from me? she asked. I don't know. Is it because I caused too much trouble this year on Cassia's behalf? Was it revenge? I don't understand either.

Olivia's disappointed, but ok now. We went for ice cream. And I still can't get over her pain, and disappointment, and her plaintive misery. It's so horrible. I am not making her do it next year. And I'm not going to another sport's day without Xanax. And I think I'm going to the doctor soon to get something that stops me feeling anymore, because this is fucked. It's too debilitating now, and it's stopping me parenting properly. I give up, I give in. This is officially the day I can't cope any more, I think.

oh my god it's the most touching thing I ever saw