Guardian angels

Lovely vintage scrapbook angel http://scrapworkart.blogspot.com

Lately Eliza's been having nightmares, or bad dreams as I guess they are when you're four.  Tilly's been up in the night too but I imagine that is anxiety associated with potty training and/or her own realisation that she is a girl not a cat which is causing her some disappointment.

So on Saturday afternoon we sort of accidentally watched a bit of Jurassic Park 3.  I'm not sure how this happened.  I've never been one for sequels and frankly TV on Saturday afternoons is what sequels were made for.  But happen it did.  In fact it was the bit where the T Rex is about to rip apart an aeroplane that has crashed. Nice lighthearted, kid friendly sort of stuff.  As soon as I engaged my brain I turned it off of course and we all went off and did something homely and rose-tinted like bake a cake (or there was a full scale tantrum over the TV being turned off I forget which).

But that night when I put her to bed I realised the impact Mr T Rex had had.  She was getting into bed when I saw that she was trying to be brave and not cry.

"What's up darling?"

"I feel bad Mummy."

"What sort of bad? Is your tummy hurting?"

"Monster bad Mummy."

"Oh darling there are absolutely no monsters so you don't have to feel bad."

"But Mummy are there dinosaurs?"  Presumably the mix of Jurrasic Park 3 and the trip him indoors took her on to see the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum merged into one overwhelming confusion about whether they were actually all dead or merrily ripping apart aeroplanes somewhere.

"No. They all died hundreds of years ago."

"But Mummy you mean a billion years.  Are there other monsters?"

"A billion, yes of course, how silly of me. No there are absolutely no monsters and any way you always have me and Daddy to keep you safe.  And your guardian angel."

"What's a guardian angel?"  You know that point where you just wish you could zip back just a couple of minutes in time and not say something? This was one.  It's not that I don't believe in God and angels and all that, I think I do, it's just that it's quite a concept to try and explain, also the idea of someone watching over you has the potential to be a bit weird in my opinion (are they there when you're on the loo?). But I tried as I always do.

"Well.  You have an angel that is always with you protecting you and keeping you safe."

"Why can't I see her?"

"Well because everyone has one so it'd be really crowded if we could see them all."

"Do you have one?"

"Yes"

"Does Daddy and Tilly and Grandma and Aunty Lucy and Primrose have one?"

"Yes. Everyone."

"Even people in China and Africa?"

"Er, yes I 'm pretty sure everyone has one."

"Like in Busy Angel?"  We have a book called Busy Angel which is possibly the most charming children's book I've ever read.  It's about a guardian angel who protects sailors.  But the sailors don't listen to him so they go out in a storm and the angel has to rescue them.

"Mummy, why do we sometimes not listen to our guardian angel?"  She's learnt this from Busy Angel, she retains information like a computer.

"Well, because sometimes we think we know better so although our angel tries to tell us not to do something we do it anyway.  Like the other day when it was raining and my angel told me it wasn't a good idea to cycle to the station, but I did anyway and got soaked.  That sort of thing."

She thought about this for some time. Her eyes looking up as she considered the possibility of an angel in her room.

"But Mummy you should listen to your guardian angel next time it's raining."

"Yes I know. We should always try and listen to our guardian angels."

"Mummy. Does Milo have one?"

"Er. Yes probably.  Now do you want Topsy and Tim or Mr Pusskins tonight?"

It was an interesting conversation to have with a 4 year old but one I enjoyed. It reminded me to listen to that voice in my head, my angel or my instinct or my gut feel, a bit more.  When I don't listen to it I cock things up.  Sometimes it's just a bit difficult to hear it amongst all the other voices in my head but I know it when I hear it.  I think we all do.

Help, I'm giving up

I seem to recall potty training Eliza was reasonably simple.  It took about a month all in and then a few accidents occurred.  But she got it pretty quickly.  She was about 2 and 2 months I think, but I can't be sure.  The same can not be said of her little sister.  Just getting her on the sodding potty was gargantuan effort and then after about a month she finally started to wee on it.  I thought we were getting somewhere. But the rate of accidents suggests I was deluding myself.

The thing that comes out in every article I read is consistency. You have to do the same thing and keep trying, so I did that, and I asked the childminder to do the same. Seemed to be working.  But Tilly only tells me she needs a wee after she's actually done one.  So I can cope with these accidents at home but at other people's houses and in Sainsbury's is a bit annoying.  But of course, according to other articles, you have to stay at home for a week and that'll crack it.  I'm guessing those articles weren't written by working mothers who can't take a week off at the drop of a hat.

So other articles say you're supposed to try a new strategy if the one you're using isn't working.  But the suggestions aren't exactly plentiful and in my constantly tired state (Eliza's back to her 5am mornings) I don't have the imagination to come up with any. Or other articles say you are supposed to be a mind-reader:

The parents who achieve potty training success without frustration and headache are those who can really look inside the mind of their little one and figure out what strategies will work on any given day.
So often, parents get frustrated with their child because he or she appears to be backtracking or was showing progress and then stopped. The fact is that children of this age are so complex and change so rapidly that it is almost unheard for a parent to apply one single principle or strategy to child potty training and enjoy success.

I was feeling like a classic #mummyfail, singularly failing to potty train my 21/2 year old when I got a text from my childminder yesterday saying that she didn't have the time to give my daughter the one to one potty training she needed so she'd prefer it if she was in pull ups. I can see her point, it must be frustrating having to change her when she wets herself and having to anticipate when she'll need a wee when she has other children to look after too.  The irony is I was quite happy to leave Tilly in nappies until I felt she was really ready, but I kept being told that she was ready. She clearly wasn't.

So we're giving up on it for a bit, start again when she really is ready I guess.  I'm sure it will happen before she starts school.

But my point is this.  When you work you are often devolving responsibility for the major developments in your child's life simply because you are not present at these moments.  It doesn't mean you don't care, doesn't mean you are a bad person and the fact you work doesn't make you the antichrist of mothers.

So why does it always feel that you are?

Any working mothers managed to potty train their children?  If so I would be most grateful for you advice.

Solidarity

I was on the train home from work one day last week, feeling tired as usual (do I ever feel any other way? God I'm boring), I'd had a busy day and one that felt harder work for the desperately impractical shoes I was wearing.  They are rather high with rather thin heels and have the affect of making me look like a 'newborn giraffe' according to one colleague (less because I'm so tall and thin- I'm not - more because I was flailing around trying to stay upright).  The net effect was tired legs and feet that felt like they were bathing in molten lava.  

Autograph M&S Black Suede Shoe Boots

As I sat on the train trying to lose myself in some music and my book, I could hear a child starting to kick off. Adrenaline flooded my body as I looked around as if somehow Eliza had managed to get on the train, which of course she hadn't, but there's some instinct that kicks in isn't there? You hear a child cry and you think it's your own.  Anyway there was this little girl, about 3 I reckon and her patient mother doing her best to calm her very upset child on a commuter train on a weekday.  Poor thing.  Everyone clearly felt the same way, many offers of seats were given (bloody unheard of normally), and I looked around in my bag for something that might help her distract her offspring.  I found a fruit bar (one of those Organix things that my kids would laugh at  "what? but Mummy it's not chocolate or sweeties, are you kidding?).  I gave it to the mum, she thanked me as only a mother with a child in full tantrum can, and gave it to the little girl. It worked. For a bit.  But she got off shortly afterwards.  

Later that same night I went for a run with the local running group.  There I discovered one of the mums from Eliza's nursery, and we had a chat about 'difficult phases' and how frustrating, deflating, upsetting, insanity inducing they are.  I felt she knew how I felt.  Lately it's been tough with Eliza, it's getting better now, but we were definitely in a 'difficult phase'.  

It's funny how when you really need it this sort of solidarity presents itself.  Other people in the same sort of situation, struggling with the same sort of things.  I guess there's a reason there are so many parenting books, it's bloody tough at times. 

Still today, as ever, my kids managed to restore my faith in being a mother.  I took them to soft play locally, something I dread like the plague, but they love it and actually it uses up ALOT of energy.  I was milling around keeping an eye on them, whilst trying to avoid stepping on any babies (they are at feet level after all).  At one point they were in the bit with the sit-in plastic cars.  Eliza was pushing Tilly around carefully, even "stopping for petrol" at one stage.  She took the imaginary hose out of the pump and put it in the imaginary tank.  Tilly thanked her and they moved on.  It was amazing to watch.  Little sisters getting on, playing nicely, Eliza being the oldest and looking after her little sister.  

I spied on them for a while longer filling with maternal pride, until I got noticed and they reverted to being Whingy and Whingier. In a nice way of course. 

My little heartbreaker

She's peacefully sleeping in my bed, after a long and broken night, of bad dreams and losing Milo and covers falling off. I'm getting ready for work in the half darkness, just the hall light giving me some idea of where my tights are hiding. She's starting to stir, her teeth grinding, her arms starting to flail in the way they do when she's just about to wake up. Shaking off her dreams. She opens her eyes and searches me out, seeing that I'm dressed she becomes anxious. "Naughty mummy," it's a statement, directed at me for some reason I simply don't understand, getting dressed without her permission? Going to work? Probably. "Morning darling." Her eyes stay open now, just awake, she's seconds away from tears. I just know these things. "Mummy, will you take me to nursery today and pick me up?" I think about this for a minute. I could lie to hold off the tears and kicking and screaming as her only way of expressing her dissapointment. But that would be wrong. The truth is more brutal but it's the reality of our life. "Not today darling, on Friday." Her little face starts to crumple, I go to her and try and cuddle her, picking up her sleep heavy body with it's heavenly scent. But she's cross with me. "No go away horrible Mummy." I try a few more times but it's not going to work this morning. So instead I tell her I love her, and leave her to wake up. For someone who wakes up so eye wateringly early every day she's really not a morning person. I don't even get to see my littlest one, she's lost to the land of dreams and always sleep far later than her big sister. I wonder if she'll still have her wellies on when she wakes up.