I often think that what I love most about children is their brutality. A searingly honest take on life, unsullied by any social expectations. My little sisters used to cry and protest when our mother sang them (tuneless but enthusiastic) lullabies. Last weekend I saw my best friend’s glorious meringues dismissed as ‘disgusting’ by her […]
Parenting is a lot about storytelling. Already there are family stories kicking around our house. They are a messy, good-natured, gleeful mix of ours and other people’s; assorted anecdote scraps ready to be sewn into one brilliant mismatched quilt of funny things toddlers/grandmas/parents/teachers et al have said and done. The beauty of babies, the naivete […]
Bestfriend, she of many previous wise words and catcher of tears, has embraced positive thinking about schoolgate-gate. She arrived with her family for pizzas and plastic car games in the garden last night. As our kids frolicked in the evening sun I realised she was toting a bottle of Champagne. Why? To celebrate getting into […]
Spider-boy has a place, and for that in our over subscribed borough we have decided to be grateful. A place at the school closest to his house, which might not be one of the darlings of schooling folk lore but looks safe, and normal, and colourful and fun. Phew. For all my waxing lyrical, and […]
Many blogs I follow take a day out a week for a ‘silent’ post, where the author puts a picture either taken that day or from their gallery to reflect their mood. Today, I’ll ask you to shhh, but must apologise for my inability to offer you a brilliant picture for your silence. Newborn is […]
Spider-boy went through a fabulous phase when he was a bit younger where he’d describe himself as a Lah-dan bouy. Brilliant. Our lad owning his ‘hood, proud of his roots and (bus) routes. It went so beautifully with his love of our city, which I share as a Londoner myself who also had an early […]
I posted a couple of weeks ago about libraries, and my fearful sense of a future without them. Especially without them in remote or unpopular places. I’m still shuddering. I fear this may look funny, but the bookworm in me has been drawn out of the earth again, as my local book store has started […]
First words are a difficult subject for me, and I don’t mean the first words said by Spider-boy (for the record it was ‘baby’, he’s such a glorious narcissist) or his brother. I mean the first words I said to my children. The first words they heard from me. I really believed, before I had […]
On a more instantaneously cheery note, two things today made me beam with pride. Firstly, spiderboy, my number1 son, was literally spidered today. His face painted red and black at nursery, with his playmates a rainbow of witches, superheroes, butterflies and cows. As I type I am still finding glorious face paint smears on my […]