last portion

Poor Andy was in the dog house again yesterday (for a change). I asked him to look after Kitty for ten minutes while I washed up. And he did look after Kitty (sort of). If you consider sitting the baby on your lap while you continue to surf the internet, looking after your child.

So I've issued a challenge: no computer on the weekends. (I think he'll struggle actually; it'll be fun to watch ;o))

I couldn't really ask him to ditch his computer time and not present myself with a similar challenge. So this post is the final chapter of my 'trifle' story. I've set myself a fresh challenge: to find other ways to be creative each day.

It's timely really, as Kitty's awake for longer stretches now, and when she is, she's so, so much more fun. I'm hopeful that we're finally reaching the good stuff - the communication, the cuddles and the creativity.

Being milk intolerant, there's still no trifle in sight for Kitty, but this morning we did get plenty of porridge on our dungarees. And on the high chair, the floor, the table, mummy...

like a proper mum

I seem to have got away with it: no one suspected a thing. 

I put Kitty in her car seat, drove to Sainsburys and parked. I transferred her to a baby-friendly trolley, then pushed her round the store, as if I did it every day.

I got both her and the bags of shopping safely home, hung up our coats and unpacked the bags.

I impressed myself, really. You might not have guessed that before today, I was a supermarket-with-baby virgin.

more than she can chew

Bread is her new favourite food, so when mum holds out another piece, not realising that Kitty's not yet finished the last bit, the little mouth opens wide. Mum's underestimating how long it's taking the baby to eat each piece, and Kitty doesn't want to refuse, as she loves bread and wants to show willing. 

Soon Kitty's cheeks are full. There's a great wodge of wet bread filling her mouth. She can't chew anymore, because the wodge is too big to move. She's actually having trouble breathing. This isn't working. She panics. 

Opening her mouth wide, (not caring that the sludgy wodge is now on display for all to see) she lets rip. Because she's over-filled her mouth and doesn't know what to do about it. She hasn't yet learnt how to reach up and pull the sludgy mess out of her mouth or how to push it out with her tongue. She's overloaded and overwhelmed, so she does all she can - cry.

Mum's wondering what the problem is - Kitty loved bread yesterday. A bit slow off the mark, she finally notices the whopping great bread gob-stopper and swiftly hooks it out with a finger. Kitty's relieved. She smiles. She opens her mouth for a spoonful of mashed pear, seemingly enjoying the sensation of having a manageable amount of food in her mouth.

What are the lumps of bread that I'm over-filling my mouth with? Requests that I can't say no to; problems that I pick up and carry around on my shoulders; expectations I have of how things will turn out; over-ambitious goals that I set myself. Heavy burdens that clog me up and leave me helpless. 

Until I reach breaking point and finally let God hook a heavenly finger into my mouth and take it all away from me.   

love the one you're with

Well, that's decided it then. The house we had our eye on has sold. 

I called Dad yesterday, to cancel his trip over to come for a second viewing with us. "You don't sound too upset about it," he noted, sounding a bit puzzled. And that's the strange thing: I'm not upset at all.

So we have a Plan B, about which I'm delighted. Instead of wondering if we might outgrow this house, we'll wait and see if we do. Then we'll think about moving or maybe even extend this one a bit. Sensible huh?

The biggest downside of staying put is that we wanted to have room for friends to stay, which we don't. Or do we? That living room floor's starting to look like a good place for a rest to me...    

life is sweet

Howies do a gorgeous t-shirt decorated with a cute gingerbread man standing next to the slogan, "Life is sweet - terms and conditions apply." Today was one of those sweet days.

Andy is now Kitty's P.E teacher. Her lessons include standing (practise needed, but definite improvements seen) and crawling (first movements seen today! She backed herself under the couch, but we cheered nonetheless.)

There was even more excitement at lunchtime. I decided I'd try to teach Kitty to feed herself. Loading the spoon up with food, I slowly moved it to my mouth and gobbled it up. I repeated the demo again. "Kitty do it!" I suggested, offering her the re-loaded spoon. She regarded it silently before reaching out and offering it up to my mouth. So it was the wrong mouth, but I was delighted nonetheless. (I wonder if she might have reached the stage where she's brighter than the cat?)

Another moment of pure brilliant sunshine, was test-driving the Green People eczema cream that arrived in the post today. There were no tears as I put it on. Her skin didn't turn red. She's not scratched all afternoon. Okay, she looks like an oil slick survivor, but I don't care. My breath is well and truly bated...

To round off a lovely day, we met a magician on the bus home from Nantwich. Okay, she wasn't an actual magician, but she did pull a toy rabbit from her bag, saying she wanted Kitty to have it. How often do I choose to brighten a complete strangers' day like that? Not very often.

I'm not sure what the terms and conditions are, but today, life does truly feel sweet.

coloured lights

I was staring at the house, transfixed, until I noticed that the owner was stood in her driveway, regarding me quizically.

 

"It's your tree," I explained quickly, "It's so beautiful - I can't take my eyes off it."

It was stood in the window of their living room, smothered in lights the colours of Quality Street sweets. 

I had been taken back in an instant to a time as a child, when I was curled up on the end of our velour couch in my pyjamas, face right up close to our Christmas tree. I remember letting my eyes relax so that the lights and silk-covered baubles* became a haze of sweetie colours. I was busy working out which colour light I liked the best. Red? Green? No, blue. Or red. And which bauble did I think was the prettiest... the deep pink one or the red one? Or that green one? No, it was the white one.

My parents kept our decorations in a big box in the loft. Each year, the wonderful day would come when Dad would 'get in the steps' ("He's gone to get in the steps"), and emerge from the loft, bearing the dusty treasure chest full of forgotten friends. The baubles were nestled in sheets of tissue paper (I can almost smell it) and the contents never changed; we'd have been heartbroken if they had. My brother and I would open the box with cries of "Oh, I love this one!" and "Hey, look, the snowman!" Decorating the tree was an incredibly exciting job, and one we were always keen to help with. We would sit patiently while Dad did the lights; then we were off. (Did mum re-arrange them all into a more orderly fashion after we'd gone to bed, I wonder?)

As much as I was taken with my neighbours Smarties-explosion Christmas tree, I've always played it very safe with my choice of decorations, now I'm old enough to have my own 'treasure chest'. As with the rest of my taste in decor, I favour a traditional Scandinavian red and white scheme at Christmas. Red-jacketed soldiors. Candy canes and gingerbread shapes. Glitter-dipped pine cones. On a green tree (none of your fancy white or upside down ones for me). Pressies wrapped in utilitarian brown paper, tied with red ribbon. Very Shaker. Very Country Living (I wish).

I've never really explored the area of outdoor decorations. I'm not sure why. Money, maybe? Or the fear that my effort would be so half-hearted and tasteful that it wouldn't be worth it. But I do love wandering around and enjoying everyone else's efforts and the tackier the better, to my mind.    

Because it's so joyful, isn't it? The owner of the house is making an effort for everyone else's benefit, which is really kind. I'm afraid I'm too penny-pinching (tightness masked as eco-consciousness) to add to my electricity bill, when it's not even me reaping the benefits. But I'm glad other people aren't so mean.

People moan when folk start decorating their houses as soon as the November page of the calender has been ripped off, but I think it's wonderful. Religious or not, most of us love Christmas and look forward to it. It's a hopeful thing, isn't it? The promise of a celebration at the end of a long year. 

Is Christmas genuinely the time when we celebrate Jesus' birth? Is Jesus my focus at Christmas time? I certainly give Him a thought, but I'm not sure He's the reason I enjoy the holiday. As a youngster, I loved going along to midnight mass with my mum, and I think that tended to give the experience more of a Christian focus. Only a bit of a focus, because I'll admit that the real reason I was so happy to go along, was because I liked sitting with my mates in the row behind the cute youth group lads. (We brightened up the service by kicking them, then pulling innocent faces when they turned round.)

Along with most other people at Christmas, I think my reason for celebrating has more to do with appreciating life, my family, the good things that I've been given and the hope of more good times to come. Which I hope might still be okay with God.

* Why do shops not sell those silky baubles anymore, I wonder? I only ever see them in charity shops these days, and they're so beautiful.

family

That's funny. The yearly family (Andy's) Christmas get-together has left me all thoughtful.

I only realised today, that Andy's family are my family. I mean, I knew that they were, sort of, but today it felt like it for the first time. It suddenly occurred to me, sitting round the dinner table, that I belong in this group, I'm part of it. I guess because Andy's family are Kitty's blood relations, her arrival has had the unexpected effect of knitting me in more too, as her mum.

The other funny thing, is that our 'stock' at such gatherings has risen, now we've got her. We've suddenly graduated from being 'the kids', to being the gateway to the most adored and desired creature in the room. It's an odd kind of power; choosing to pass her to someone for a cuddle, knowing that you're making that person's day. It's as if I've handed them the crown jewels, they're so delighted.

A friend at Baby Club told me, with some sadness, that her parents were absolutely besotted with her little lad, bending over backwards to look after him, until the day when she gave birth to his younger brother. Almost overnight, all their enthusiasm disappeared. Looking after two rowdy lads was apparently a much less appealing prospect than one boy on his own. (I suppose can see their point - one grandchild must be fairly easy to appease with indulgence; keeping two out of trouble might feel a bit more like crowd control.)

I adored my little cousin Jack when he was small. I'd pick him up, give him piggy-back rides round the house and grab him for cuddles and kisses. Then, in the blink of an eye, he became a hulking great bloke. A fantastic one, certainly. But all of a sudden, I found myself shy with him, not quite knowing how to relate to this emo man-child (who, I'm sure it was only yesterday, was a giggling, dimpled boy). When your language with someone has always been hugging and stories on laps, it can be hard to know how to 'be' with them, now they're sort of an adult too. 

Being a pro with teens, Andy's way better at it than I am. I hear myself attempting to ask the right questions in order to get a conversation going, but I'm cringing, even as the words are leaving my mouth. I may still feel 15 on the inside, ("I'm still one of you! Don't be deceived by the outward appearance - I'm only pretending to be an adult!") but everything I say makes me sound like some whiskered old woman. "What music do you like then? Who?" (I'm old and out of touch) or "How's school? What's your favourite subject?" (could I be more boring?) or "Got a girlfriend then?" (embarrassingly over-personal).

I'm not looking forward to my niece, Alex, becoming a teenager. Because at the moment, I'm 'cool auntie Susie', who's funny, but (I think) in a good way. I know I'm going to blink, and she's going to have morphed into an intimidatingly beautiful young woman, who realises that auntie Susie isn't actually very cool at all, and her jokes are really pretty naff. Perhaps it'll just be a case of the relationship needing to change: instead of talking about High School Musical and Bratz, she'll maybe show me how to do my make-up properly or how to use hair straighteners without frying my hair.

Alex was very much the sweetheart of our family until her little sister arrived and (at least, in the eyes of the grandparents) nabbed her crown. Is there a rule with families that the littlest, chubbiest person in the room is the most appealing? I felt a bit sorry for Kitty's big cousin today, who at last year's meal, being the only child in the room, was paid the most attention. (Having said that, he didn't seem in the least bothered, as she seemed to have worked her magic on him too...) 

At what age Kitty will become less appealing to the family, I wonder? Will it be when she starts throwing toddler tantrums? When she outgrows her dimpled baby cuteness and becomes a rangy schoolgirl? Or will it be when she's the eyeliner-ed goth chick, sitting sullenly in the corner with her head in a book, wishing she was anywhere but at this boring family meal she gets dragged to every year?