Saturday, June 07, 2008, 18:49

Manners

"Can I have another nut?" Tettie asks me, as we all sit around the garden table. She's finished hers quickly. Her sisters sit quietly on either side, mouths still busy crunching away.

I look at her and raise one eyebrow, hoping my expression will be enough of a prompt. It isn't.

I wait a moment longer then give in. "Ask nicely, please?"

"Please," she immediately replies, which would have been sufficient until recently. But we've moved on now, and are trying to get please added to requests to start with, and so avoid this whole ritual of asking for a "please".

"Uh-uh," I counter. "All together."

But instead of "Can I have another nut, please", all three girls reply in unison:

"Pleeease!"

I should know by now that it's not that easy.

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Thursday, May 01, 2008, 22:16

Getting Better

Thought I'd post a quick update. Evie is doing much better now.

For the last few weeks she has been terribly worried about anyone touching her shoulder, flinching away and saying "pick up on a bum bum" whenever anyone went to pick her up. And if J or I forgot, she'd scream and cry so hard it was heart breaking.

So concerned was she that she wouldn't even play Jem and TYettie's current favourite game - climbing onto the windowsill and leaping like monkeys over the back of the sofa to land on the cushions.

Speaking of which, her sisters' jealousy also seems to be subsiding. At first they were merely curious. Then they were concerned, asking Evie "Are you well yet?" and "Are you better, Evie?" throughout the first few days. And after that they both started developing injuries of their own, letting out anguished cries of "Hurt a shoulder!" and "Need to see a doctor!" the more attention Evie got.

Evie hasn't been vying for the attention she's got. She's quieter than usual and more anxious. For the first time she's stopped sleeping well, waking up several times most nights, crying.

When we were talking about their upcoming birthday, Tettie and Jem got really excited at the prospect of getting a present.

"What would you like if you could have anything in the whole, wide world?" I asked them.

"A great, great, great, great big Igglepiggle," Jem said at once. As you might guess, she's not one to think small.

I don't think such a thing had occurred to Scarlett but she jumped in quickly, as if the chance might slip away. "A really, really, really, really, great, great, great, great big Pakka Pakka."

"And you Evie?" I thought I new what was coming. They've divided the main Night Garden characters up between them. Evie's is Upsy Daisy. I was wrong.

She cuddled her teddy, Beer, close and began to suck her thumb.

"Well Evie?"

"Just want Beer."

A little later as we were about to go bed, we talked briefly about our wedding, telling the girls that they would have special dresses to wear just like Mummy, and that there would be a bouncy castle and all their friends there.

Evie looked sad again. "I will be all alone when you get married," she announced and clutched her bear tight again.

We never did manage to understand what she'd misunderstood, poor thing. I just hope that her shoulder healing makes her anxiety fade, too. Her fall has been a big shock. I'm just glad things seem to be getting back to normal.

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Monday, April 21, 2008, 14:55

Falling

I keep seeing it replayed in my mind's eye. Scarlett and Jemima running off, laughing, towards our bedroom. Me and J turning to follow them. I shout, "Come back, you two! It's time to go downstairs and get dressed." I think I might have called them pickles or, maybe, monkeys. The usual post-bathtime chaos. In the corner of my eye, I see Evie starting off downstairs on her own.

Then she falls.

I don't remember if she screamed. I do remember her cartwheeling forwards and landing on the side of her neck, arms thrown out sideways. Then over again, arms and legs still flailing. And bang! She hits the wooden hall floor with the back of her head.

Everything stops. I'm frozen, looking down over the banisters. Suddenly the stairs seem incredibly steep.

I glance over at Jemima and Evie, reflexively checking that they're alright. They haven't even reached the door to my bedroom yet. Everything has happened so fast that they've barely taken two steps. They look round, still laughing; but quieter now, as if they can sense something has happened.

At the bottom of stairs Evie draws in a massive breath and breaks the silence with a scream that makes my stomach tighten. Jan thunders down the stairs to pick Evie up. I scoop up her sisters.

"What's Evie done, Daddy?"

"She's fallen, love. She's fallen down the stairs. Don't worry. She'll be all right."

I hope to myself that I'm right.

By the time I've carefully picked my way downstairs, a crying J is sitting on the sofa holding s o tightly to an inconsolable Evie it's as if she's in danger of falling all over again. Tettie and Jem stand watching as I put my arms around them both.

I shudder every time it comes back to me; I forget what I'm doing; I find myself staring into space as I see my little girl tumble and thump down those stairs.

We spent most of that evening in A & E. The doctor we saw wanted her to stay up for a few hours to check she didn't start being sick or show any of the other more serious effects of a head injury. Evie had calmed down by then. In fact, she was remarkably perky, playing with the toys, chatting away happily. Probably because of the attention she was getting. We realised, as we sat in the children's waiting room, that this was the first time in her entire two-and-three-quarter years of life that Evie had been alone with both her mum and dad for any length of time. I can't say that thought alleviated my guilt very much.

Nor did the doctor asking flatly whether it was normal for her to be allowed to walk down steep stairs on her own.

I told the doctor that I was worried about her shoulder, but she could reach up when he lifted a toy so he didn't pay much heed. When I'd first held her, her shoulder had felt horribly loose, like it wasn't in its socket. But by then it was back to normal and although she said it hurt, we assumed it must just have been bruised.

That night she slept in her parents bed, between J and I, where she couldn't possibly fall out.

A couple of days afterwards, she was back in A & E. Her shoulder had been making her cry at night (I'd last been woken with "Daddy! Shoulder hurting! Need to see a doctor!" cried over and over). She screamed if any weight was put on it when she was lifted. This time the hospital x-rayed, which revealed a break in her collar bone.

I don't think I've ever seen anything so pitiable as her sitting there having her arm strapped up in a little sling.

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Monday, March 31, 2008, 22:23

At Home All Day

I've had a few comments recently asking if I'd post a more recent photo. To be fair, it's about time I did. The girls have changed an incredible amount in the last few months. Every month sees them grow upwards by an astonishing amount. Trousers that were too long a few months ago are now ankle swingers. Age 2-3 clothes rarely fit. Puppy fat's long gone.



This is from a day out me and the girls went on to possibly their favourite place in the World: Tropical World. Terrapins, bats. Crazily huge Amazonian fish. Meercats. They know every inch of the place by heart, rushing through it, dizzily excited by the prospect of what's coming up, at such a pace that we're through the whole experience in half the time it takes most families.

On the day I took this picture, we'd got to Tropical World so early, in our excitement that we were there an hour before it actually opened so instead went exploring and found a fountain (or "mountain" as the girls call them) in the grounds which kept us entertained for a while. Until, to be more precise, the game of seeing how close you could get before the gusty wind sprayed the water into your face had us all shivering with cold.

Fortunately Tropical World is (as you'd expect) nice and warm inside.



And here they are having their favourite story read by their one of their favourite people: Rara.

Rara is what they call their grandad, a leftover nickname from when "grandad" was too much of a challenge to pronounce. Actually, it's generally said "nanarara", nanna and grandad being conglomerated into some kind of super-relative.

Nanarara came to visit today as it happens despite it being Monday. They come every Wednesday to look after the girls during the middle part of the day so I can do the half day of my two and a half part-time days.

When I announced that they were coming over breakfast, everyone's faces lit up. What a fantastic surprise. Then a worry crept in.

"Are you going to work, Daddy?" Jemima asked.

Three questioning faces turned to regard me.

"In a minute," Evie pronounced on my behalf. They know the routine.

So when I said, "No", they all looked astonished. "Not today, " added, quickly. "Daddy's at home all day. And Nanarara, too."

The grins returned. Mine the widest of them all when Scarlett announced, "I love you, Daddy. I love you at home all day."

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Saturday, March 29, 2008, 22:16

Told Off

Nappies lay scattered across the bedroom floor. I'd had to run for a new pack, leaving Tettie lying on the change mat waiting for a nappy to wear during her lunchtime nap. As I came back, I'd pulled perhaps a little too hard in my haste to get them open and sent the entire plastic-wrapped pack of fourty-eight flying in all direction.

Jem and Evie - already in their cots - burst into hysterics. Tettie though looked at me with only the trace of a smile dancing at the corner of her mouth. I could see she was thinking of the right thing to say as she raised a finger and wagged it at me. "You..." She paused, still looking for the right word. the worst word she had learned in her short life. "You blooming... ". Almost there. "You blooming bad, Daddy!"

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Friday, March 07, 2008, 14:59

Potty Training... Done.

I was rather expecting to be updating my blog on how potty training was going for at least a few weeks. In my mind, poo and wee would assault our house on a biblical scale, accidents and false alarms would send our routine into chaos and J and I would emerge from the experience in a similar state to men returning from the trenches in World War I (both terms of shell shock and appearance).

As it was, I think that buying sixty pairs of knickers may have been somewhat overcautious. It took Evie and Jem just a couple of days to get the hang of using their potties, and just a few more of detemined potty-sitting for Scarlett to join them.

Poos have been a little more difficult but we're getting there. In a surprise turnaround, this time Tettie has been the first to come to terms with pooing on potties, while Evie prefers to wait until she has a nappy on and Jem has used the potty a few times but only after running around, flapping her arms and making melodramatic squawking whoops for about ten minutes first. Not entirely sure what that's all about.

So, apologies for lack of anecdotes but there hasn't been much to tell really.

So, in the style of Gordon Ramsey, I feel safe to say: Potty Training... Done.

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