Strawberry Dragons - first contact

One day after school, Mum took  the children to the allotment.  She wanted to weed the carrots before they got too big.  She asked the children to pick some strawberries for tea.  It was a very hot afternoon and the children soon got tired of picking strawberries and went to the blackcurrant bushes to sit in the shade.

Sam was lying on his back dreamily watching clouds pass overhead. George was playing with two sticks for a violin.  Clara was watching ants and woodlice as usual.

Suddenly Sam flapped his hand.  'That was a big bee,' he remarked.

'Well don't flap at it,' said Clara, who loved insects, 'it will sting you.  It won't do any harm if you leave it alone.'

'Well you're a fine one to talk...'  began Sam when something large and red flew up and landed squarely on his nose.

'Don't move Sam,' breathed Clara.  Sam didn't answer.  He was afraid that if he opened his mouth the thing would fall in.  Clara moved cautiously closer.  'It isn't a bee,' she said consideringly, it's a kind of a strawberry, but it's got wings.  I've never seen one before.'

George looked up from his symphony.  'Ooh!  What is that?'  he exclaimed.

Clara was very close indeed by now.  She looked up blankly.  'He says he's the king of the Strawberry Dragons and he wants to know why we are causing an earthquake.'

A few minutes later the three children were sitting attentively in front of the blackcurrant bush where the King had perched.  They had to strain to hear him as he was small and his voice was difficult to pick out above the birds and insects humming all around.

'I can't be doing with this!' he was saying, you will just have to come to the Hall.  Follow me!'

Obediently, the children followed him as he flew slowly towards the strawberry patch.  As they got closer they noticed they were getting smaller, like Alice, and found themselves walking behind a suddenly person-sized Strawberry Dragon, as he waddled into an arched gateway hidden under a leaf.

To be continued...

Puzzles and the park

When George came home from playgroup, (or praygroot as he called it)  we would have lunch then games.  He loved watching puzzles come together.  He was particularly fond of an old fashioned puzzle of mice having tea in little frocks.  I think it was one of mine when I was small.

We had to do it over and over again, and after a while he would agree to try and put a piece in.  He was always excited if he could do it, but cried bitter tears of frustration when it was too hard.  He could see quite well where the piece should go but his dyspraxia made it really hard for him to place it accurately.  "I can't" was always countered by me saying "yes you can!" so eventually that was what he said - "I can't, yes I can".

I was always behind with the washing and ironing.  I think it is a normal state to be in when you have kids.  Our lovely friend Ian had did some plumbing for us and moved the boiler out of the airing cupboard into the kitchen.  It was great because we could stack the washing machine and dryer in the airing cupboard instead of having them in the tiny galley kitchen.  Even better, because I could close the door, there was no chance of one of the kids putting the cat in for a bath!

I am ironing in the conservatory in the picture.  It was a wonderful room, north facing, so light but not hot, and full of flowers.  It used to be a dank and dark outside area as was common with Victorian terraces.  It contained a double concrete coal bunker (with resident massive spiders) and a manhole for the shared drain.  Moss and snails grew there in abundance.  We got our next door neighbours' agreement and roofed and fronted the area from their bathroom wall to ours with glass.  Their house was warmer and ours was transformed.  A win win situation no less!

George loved to move around.  Especially bouncing. Despite regular bumps and bruises he adored going to the park which was luckily only a few minutes walk from our house. He found it exciting although he was an expert at falling off or out of any playground equipment.  It didn't matter that it had been designed by experts to be almost totally safe for his age group.  He didn't know that, so he fell out of it anyway in inventive and improbable ways.

He got stuck in this one.  Upside down.  I believe he was trying to get in on his own.  He also managed to roll down the slide, even though it was a curly one. I still cannot understand how.  I felt I had to go down the slide with him a few times every visit to show him how it should be done.  (That was my excuse anyway.  I would still do it if I could find a child to go with).

Like I said, being a parent of small children is a license to have fun in a way which adults normally can't .  I really miss being able to be silly without anyone giving me a strange look, or edging away.

Nursery teas again - a great institution

When the kids were little I earned money by any number of jobs that could be slotted in while they were at nursery or school.  I had two and a half hours so I went and worked for my sister who had a whizzy and well paid job which took all her time.  I was a dab hand at decorating (you wouldn't think so to look at the spacing on those bricks!) so I carried on with her lounge.  I seem to remember being very sticky afterwards.

I also cleaned houses,  and took in ironing for a business man.  He was not a good client.  He wore the best quality heavy linen/cotton shirts, up to 20 a week. Sadly he tumble dried them to such an extent that I had a lot of trouble opening them out from their stiffly crumpled state ready to iron.  In the end I used to run them through the washing machine again and iron them damp.  At 50p or 78 US cents a shirt, he wasn't grateful enough, so I was secretly rather glad when he told me that he couldn't afford me any more!  The best money maker was cleaning as I charged a hefty £8 an hour (the average was about £6).  I used to take the baby with me and
                                                                          arrive early to put up the playpen.  I could earn £16 for two and a half hours out of the house, which was quite good in 1992.  Twenty or so years on  I can't imagine working that hard physically for so little reward.  What it is to be young and springy! But it gave me some pocket money for things like new clothes and presents which gave me back a feeling of independence.  I found it hard to be reliant totally on Jim and felt I shouldn't spend any money on myself.  He couldn't understand that I felt it wasn't my money, he was fine with me spending it.  I don't think I would have such a problem with it now.  Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?

George's paintings were always very wet, and totally indescribable, even by George.  "It's a sort of a thing you get in one of those caves" he would say mysteriously.  Sometimes it would be of Mummy,  or a spider, but the painting was always the same.  I put them up and admired them anyway.  He was artistic in his little soul.

He still is, but now he does it by pressing keys on a computer and constructing huge complicated cities in Minecraft.  He is also writing a book so I guess that the encouragement to be creative paid off in the end.

My mum knitted that jumper. It was green chenille with orange boucle leaves.  It had a tendency to sag, so it was a lot shorter when I first got it. I thought I looked amazing in it with the green leggings to match.  I really should have known better, after all I lived through the 70s!

I know for a fact the dining room was never that tidy.  I have also missed off the crusts of weetabix on the yellow booster seat.

Marmite is one of those things that you either love or hate.  George and Sam loved it.  Sam still has crumpets with Marmite and honey when he feels he needs comfort food.  And yes I do mean together!

Everyone has their favourite nursery food I think.  I used to love Heinz baby dinner.  I have no idea what it was really called but I used to ask for it if I had been ill as my first proper food.  If I close my eyes I can still taste it, and the soft, white, thickly buttered bread we had with it.  I would happily eat it even now, but it is long gone.

I have just asked the grown up "boys" what they remember as the best nursery food, George says weetabix would be his, but it makes him ill nowadays, so he can't have it. After a short but intense discussion that results in a quick snack, they say unanimously sausages and pasta.  They do agree that Marmite and honey crumpets is a close second, so I wasn't too far out.

Fur cuffs and swords

It was a lovely kind sort of school.  They were really good to Sam, and helpful when it came to getting him a statement of special needs.  I had no idea there was any need for this as he seemed so fantastic after his heart operation. But no.

One day his teacher came out and found me after school.   "Sam can't skip", she confided.  I looked at her blankly.  "He can't hop either" she said, "Or turn a roly poly, or run."
"Should he be able to?" I asked surprised, (I thought that walking to school was pretty amazing).
"Come to PE tomorrow" she said, giving me a look which I can only describe as pitying.

Well I was never so shocked!  The other kids were like little rockets zooming around, falling over and then getting up and carrying on running, etc etc  "Everybody hop like a bunny", called the teacher.  They all hopped like a bunny.  Sam flapped his arms up and down and put his top teeth out.  "Now skip like little lambs"  she instructed.  The children dutifully skipped like little lambs.  Sam wobbled vaguely, looking at the others sorrowfully, then, with some trouble he got onto his hands and knees and pretended to eat grass.  "Everyone sit down quietly and when Miss Busby plays the music, all grow up like flowers" said the teacher.  Sam sat down OK, but when the flower bit came he had to be helped to his feet.  I knew he couldn't get up off the floor easily, but I hadn't really focused on it being a problem.  Being a flower was not going to be something he could excel at.

It turned out that not only did he have a dicky ticker, but also fairly severe dyspraxia.  He was given a statement of special educational needs in double quick time, and acquired a lovely lady who looked after him at school in work and play time to make sure he was warm enough, could access the lessons and did his exercises with the others, but at a less intense pace.

Statements of special educational needs such as Sam's are designed to make sure that children all get the same chances to thrive in school, even if they have some kind of physical or mental difficulty.  I have known many children with statements, for things as varied as blindness, ADHD, dyslexia, Autistic Spectrum Disorders the list goes on.  Once the team of child psychologists, doctors etc have assessed the child they recommend  what kind of help they need and the local authority provides the funds to the school to do it.  They used to be pretty common, but they are getting more and more difficult to get as the money gets tighter.

Sam was lucky.  His statement lasted through school until he left and went to college at 16.  It gave him extra time in exams because of his slow handwriting, and some in class support all through school.  I have no idea how he would have managed without it.  As it is he is a geologist with a masters degree from a good university.  I am so proud of him.

"George, don't do that" was a thing Joyce Grenfell used to say in one of her hilarious school monologues.

My George preferred puzzles to hitting the others so I was grateful for that.

I recognise the coat I am wearing.  It is my first ever coat with sleeves that were long enough.  I got it in Long Tall Sally.  I am not specially tall these days, still 5'10" but at that time I seemed to tower above everyone, and if the fashion industry were to be believed, I had the arms of an orang utang with knuckles which were barely clearing the floor.  Sleeves rarely came to my mid forearm.  I loved the coat because my mum had not had to add fur cuffs to make it fit.  Mums have a hard life. If they are not fashioning fur cuffs, they are  having to walk home carrying a sword and pushing an empty pushchair.  I expect I would be arrested if I carried even a plastic sword in public now.  Maybe it is one of those things for my list of "things to do before I die".

Mornings

George was convinced that Sam was omnipotent so "making it morning" was quite easy for him.  Getting George out of his cot, opening the curtains and taking him into Mummy and Daddy's room was something only the most godlike people (Mummy, Daddy and Sam) could do.  This lovely strategy gave us at least three or four extra precious seconds in bed!

I was charmed by this and pleased to think that George so looked up to his brother.  I felt it would be good for Sam to have that responsibility for someone.  In a way that was a bit too much to hope for, as Sam took full advantage on some occasions and took it all far too seriously on others.  Sometimes, Sam would lie outrageously to George, making him believe all sorts of appalling things. At another time,  Sam went into hysterics when we insisted on taking George into a military museum at Duxford, which sported a tongue-in-cheek notice  "children found climbing on the exhibits will be shot on sight".  Sam truly believed that we would not be able to restrain George from climbing on the tanks and therefore being shot...

Actually I am quite lively in the mornings.  The sleepiness in this picture is caused by lack of sleep. George was apt to wake in the night for extra food.  On advice from the health visitor, we never gave it to him after our bedtime at about 11pm.  The idea was that if you didn't ever give in to the child at night,  he would stop waking. It took some months of screaming vainly for milk to convince George that it wasn't going to happen.  In the meantime I became sleep deprived and forgetful.

I hated ironing shirts anyway so they were the easiest things to forget!  At one awful stage of my career as a stay at home mum, I was ironing 15 white shirts a week.  I bless the person who decided that polo shirts were a good idea for school uniform!  Sam had shorts at this stage, but later the uniform changed to allow long trousers.They were made of grey flannel and were a pain in the neck as well.  George used to fall almost every day when he started school so there was always a pair in the sewing box waiting to be patched on both knees!  They ought to make school uniform trousers of something much tougher than wool. Kevlar maybe.

Sam had to take drugs every day to help his heart.  They tasted horrid but it had to be done.  We still have some of the tiny syringes I had to use to measure out 2ml of medicine. They come in handy for injecting mince pies with brandy!  I found out years later that you are supposed to brush your teeth afterwards.  Oh well.  He has a fine set now so no harm done.

Gloves on strings.  How cute.

George always liked to have something to wave about in the pushchair.  This was his favourite sword  at the time.  Shortly after it was a book about Captain Hook and then a Captain Hook finger puppet.  Big things were better.  The tiny finger puppet caused a long trek in the rain one day.  George was inconsolable one morning when we got home from taking Sam to school.  "Droptit!" was all I could get out of him.  Finally I realised the Hook puppet was missing and we set out in the rain and trudged our route to school.  We found him caught up with the twigs and rubbish of the deluge at the edge of a drain.  George took a fervent interest in the washing and drying of Hook, having him back before he was really ready.  Then it was time to go out into the murk again and fetch Sam.  A strangely unproductive morning.

Growing up and hand me downs

Sam got very hungry for certain things. He always asked for "fresh white bread" as if he thought I would give him stale brown bread by accident.   He seemed to be hungry all the time, but so was George so it may have been a competitive thing!  He certainly started to grow, I was forever finding clothes that didn't fit.  Luckily my friends from the babysitting circle had boys of the same age who were all a good bit larger, so we had hand me downs.  When the second group of kids came along, we had the same ones again doing the rounds between children.  It made it tricky to identify which child was which in group photos!

Sam was growing pretty fast for the first time in his life and had crept up from the 3rd centile in height to the 10th which was lovely.   George was born on the 97th centile and stayed there.  By the time George was four, he had overtaken Sam (who was eight) in size so Sam had to wear George's cast offs.  I don't think he has forgiven me even now.

Since his heart was functioning properly for the first time ever, Sam had the ooomph to do things without flaking out every few minutes.  He wanted to use his new found energy to do so much, he was suddenly and unexpectedly into everything, but his bedtime was still 7pm and he really needed it.

One day he came home from school in great excitement. "Mummy"  he pronounced in his precise little way, "if you get me the wood I will build a boat for the whole family, and we can go on the sea in it!"  I felt so sad to think that such enthusiasm and excitement would be crushed when he found out what the reality was.

Nursery tea with tomato sauce and peas.

Peas were always passengers, because they flew on the aeroplane fork into the mouth.  George's food generally just flew into the carpet, Sam's hair, the wall etc.  We used to get through industrial quantities of tomato sauce.  It was difficult to find the really large bottles in the supermarket, so we had several in storage waiting just in case we ran out.  It was not a good idea to run out...

I still haven't got the knack of putting the conversation bubbles in the right order!

Although George had dyspraxia, we didn't know at the time, so I followed the rules and let him eat by himself, which was terribly messy.  He needed a good long soak to get the Weetabix out of the crevices and his hair every day.  I remember that at least half of his food accidents were just plain naughty throwing and playing.  Sigh.

Jim used to go shopping on his way home every night to get tea for us.  I was only responsible for the nursery tea which was not interesting or rewarding.  George was not always a good sleeper especially if he felt that he could get more milk out of me or Jim. He so loved his milk!  I suppose he was building his enormous bones ready for later.

I was happy to let Jim cook in those days, although even then I had reservations about us eating separately from the children.  We couldn't have done much about it because Jim didn't get home until after they were in bed most evenings. Dinner was an important relaxation time for him so I let it slide until it became the norm.  We ate together at the weekends and on holiday, but it was always a bit stressful.  Kids simply don't enjoy long leisurely meals.  I wonder how the Italians do it?