In front, originally uploaded by erase.

The Redster: Five and three quarters
The Cutester: Two and a half

I’m glad it seems to be cooling down. Sunshine is all very well, and I was a big fan of it as a child – especially as I associated the British climate with boarding school – but I have gone right off it now that I am the mother of a redhead. I am now so sensitive to heat and sunshine I feel I may have earned honorary redhead status. It started when I was pregnant with the Redster in that hot summer of 2003, when I couldn’t sleep unless I’d run my nightie under a cold tap just before I put it on, and for a long time I assumed that the pregnancy had effected some sort of permanent hormonal change. I now reckon it was a specifically ginger pregnancy which changed me forever in preparation for rearing a ginger child.

Everyone went on about protecting her skin from the sun – not least babyfather, who’s had the kind of sunstroke that makes you throw up – but despite all my slathering her with cream and insisting on hats, she got slightly reddish skin in the sun twice as a baby. One area, on her arm, developed into her first mole, and the other place on the back of her neck promptly sprouted a cluster of skin tags. I had been warned.
I now spend sunny days willing clouds to appear, or preferably rain to drive her indoors, and get laughed at in the playground because I am still smearing cream on her five minutes after the whistle’s been blown and the other children have gone inside. She spent a week smelling of chocolate liqueur because the school is Not Allowed to apply sun cream (?!?) so I decided to use the 10 hour stuff, but could only find the one for adults, which is mostly alcohol. (Hmm. Is that more carcinogenic than the sun’s rays, I wonder?)

She’s the kind of redhead who doesn’t just burn in the sun but wilts in the heat, and by heat I mean anything over 21c. Her sports day was over for her the moment it started – she told me as they trotted out into the sunshine (it was 26c that day) that she was thirsty and her legs ached, and despite drinking half a bottle of water, after one exhausted effort to throw a beanbag through a hula hoop she gave up and reclined on my lap in the shade. Her team came last.

If it’s true that redheads are dying out, it won’t be because of genes, but climate change. They don’t stand a chance.

Redster: Five and two thirds, or thereabouts
Cutester: Two and a half

You can’t win. The situation was explained to me carefully by Chilled Mum before I ever considered being pregnant: once you have children, you have the choice of going on holiday with them, which is hard work, or you can leave them with the grandparents and go without them, and then all you do is miss them.

I was put on the 14.00 at Kings Cross by the Cutester and her father yesterday. I’ve come solo to Scotland to celebrate Ganny’s 70th birthday, and high on my list of things to look forward to was the train journey. I was relishing being in the Quiet Coach (Coach B – no phone conversations please, and definitely no children), with my laptop, not getting up and down or having to sing or read books or arbitrate fights over stickers or retrieve squashed grapes from under the table or put back the seat reservation notices or generally apologise to fellow passengers. Especially so as I’ve been even more tired of late and a blood test shows rock-bottom iron levels, which explains a lot.

It was everything I’d imagined – no interruptions and lots of laptop time, a drink from the buffet car, then discovering all sorts of games on my mobile I never knew were there including a very soothing one in which you take photos of fish and which nearly caused me to miss my stop.

..but I hadn’t imagined how I’d feel. Ever since, too, despite enjoying sleep and time with my family that includes leisurely conversations and grown-up walks without pushing a buggy – it’s not so much that something is missing, like wondering if I left a suitcase on the platform, but something is severed. All my hair shorn off perhaps, or a lobotomy, or a limb amputated. However tired I feel sometimes – often – at the chores my children represent: I have to get them in the car, we’re late for school AGAIN; got to get supper inside them; got to run the bath; look at the time, they should have been in bed half an hour ago; blah blah blah – my world without them is strangely void.

See, once you have children you can never be happy again.

I skyped them with the help of Gandad’s webcam when we got to their house. It was lovely and I even got to read them a bedtime story, with some difficulty. Just shouldn’t have suggested eskimo kisses at the end. Not sure babyfather will ever get the marks off his screen.

The Redster: Five and a half
The Cutester: Two and very nearly a half

The Redster in her gardening gear

When we had that hot weather a few weeks ago, which is how long I’ve had this post in my head, I got the paddling pool out. We have neither a garden tap nor a hose, so I have to fill it up painstakingly with a bucket filled at the kitchen sink. And as the lawn is not exactly flat the pool developed a bit of a deep end / shallow end situation.

Redster, as I empty in the 17th bucket into the ‘deep’ end: Mummy! Not on that side! It needs more water on the OTHER side!

Babymother: *considers an explanation, thinks better of it, and fetches next bucketful*

But this month’s best quotes arguably come from the Cutester. After lengthy sojourn in said paddling pool, she is dressed again and eating supper. But we should have checked her all over for debris lodged in delicate places, and she is shifting uncomfortably in her chair.

Cutester: Mummy, it hurting.
Babymother: It hurts? What’s hurting?
Cutester: My pants hurting.

And a day or so later:

Babymother: Someone’s put your hair in a ponytail! Was that Cathy at nursery?
Cutester: Not Cathy.
BM: Was it another teacher?
Cutester: Yes.
BM: Which one?
Cutester: The stripey one.
BM: The stripey one?
Cutester: Yes, the stripey fat one.

Actually, that doesn’t narrow it down much.

The Redster: Five and a half
The Cutester: Two and a third

This photo has nothing to do with the post. It’s just too beautiful not to use. The best thing is that a few minutes earlier she looked like this:

Yup – I may not have a full first aid kit in my handbag including anti-histamine cream, a sling and a defibrillator, but I do have wet wipes.

I am in bed while babyfather does childcare and shopping before picking up the Redster from school. Having done two days of proper mumflu, where you stay on your feet in a state that would have triggered complete bedrest in your pre-parenthood days, I actually asked babyfather not to go into work today. Now I feel like a bit of a loser on the hardcore mothering front, but the main beneficiary will be the children. The main symptoms of mumflu, I find, is a dangerously low bloodcount of patience, grace, humour and general maternal kindness. To avoid longterm damage to the children, the patient must be put to bed and kept there by means of the hourly administration of drinks, snacks and newspapers.

(Some gentle blogging is also recommended.)

Charlie & Lola time, originally uploaded by erase.

with a little help from Charlie and Lola.

The Redster: Five and a half
The Cutester: Two and a quarter

The Redster illustrates

Sorry about the horribly blurred photo of this masterpiece. Babyfather may well intervene shortly.

This week the Cutester started nursery (three mornings a week). I’ve vaguely both looked forward to and dreaded this for months. I even delayed her starting for half a term, deciding that she was just too little and it would be better to make the most of my time with her when the Redster is at school. On the day she would have started we drove past the nursery and she shouted, ‘I go nursery school!’ at the top of her voice. That’s gratitude for you.

Anyway, we’ve started, and she lets me leave her every morning without particularly seeming to notice. The nursery is gorgeous. It’s right next to my favourite park in the whole of north London, in a sort of wooden cabin, in a small field surrounded by trees. The children spend most of their time outside, the birdsong is actually louder than the traffic and the staff have sometimes seen deer. Not bad for London. The Redster comes with us to drop her off before school, and our favourite feature is the doorbell. It’s wireless, and the button is in a plastic bag tied to the fence. There’s something makeshift and hippyish about it that appeals to me.

As for the Cutester, I asked her what she was most looking forward to on her first day (she’d visited the nursery twice) and she said, ‘Doing a wee,’ adding, ‘in the little toilets.’ Unlike me she hadn’t forgotten that they have miniature toilets plumbed in. In the event she didn’t go the whole of her first morning – that child has a bladder like a horse. I asked her afterwards who she’d played with and she said, ‘Thomas,’ but she turned out to be referring to the train.

Now, how can I fill my two and a half hours per morning, three times a week? Lucrative home-based work? A session at the gym? Time with friends? Expressing my creativity? Read the paper in a cafe? Ah yes, the week’s shopping, cleaning the kitchen floor, and reading emails. Never mind. I think I might have found a bit of space in my head for my own thoughts, and for now I’m happy with that.

Redster: Five and a half
Cutester: Two and a quarter

Babymother, reading from a picture book about Easter: So Jesus picked up the cup and said, ‘This is my blood…’
Redster: It’s not really blood, is it Mummy? It’s wine.
Babymother: Yes, it’s wine. He meant that we should drink it to remember that he died for us.
Redster: Daddy must be really good at remembering Jesus because he drinks LOTS of wine.

I have repeated this conversation to so many people that the Redster has asked me to stop telling them, leaving me no option but to post it on the internet.

It reminds me of a story I heard from a friend a couple of years ago – forgive me if I’ve told you before: A woman’s friend is visiting and they are drinking tea. The hostess’s little girl is with them, and whenever the guest picks up her teacup the daughter watches her closely.

Guest, finally: Why are you looking at me like that?
Little girl: Because Mummy says you drink like a fish.

It’s unbearable to see the Cutester’s toddlerhood slipping by unblogged.

(It’s my own fault – in a moment of weakness I delayed her starting date at nursery school until after Easter, and as a result any time not spent in her company is devoted to housework, admin, and unpaid editing, but mostly housework.)

She is changing fast. Her grasp of language is a phenomenon. She can sing the third verse of ‘Jesus Loves Me’ in its entirety (did you know it had more than one verse? ‘Twinkle Little Star’ has about five, by the way, but we’re not going there). She can sing ‘Twinkle twinkle chocolate bar / My dad drives a rusty old car’ and I’m grateful that the alternative songs the Redster brings home from school have all been completely innocent so far… She can sing most of the songs from the Redster’s Christmas show, out of season but mostly in tune, and recite the prayer the Redster’s school uses before lunch. Her response to saying grace at the table at home is pretty heart-warming – whatever is said, she responds with a resounding ‘Amen!’ before bursting into applause and offering to high-five everyone sitting at the table.

She used a conjunction for the first time last Thursday. I asked her if she was hungry (i.e. it’s lunchtime so hurry up and get to the table). She replied ‘I not hungry, cos I fixing the jigsaw.’ Sadly it’s not longer jig-jaw, despite all three of us trying to persuade her not to use the correct version. Happily, she still comes with me to the swimping pool, though she does not come with me happily, which is another story.

She has also taken to saying ‘Fantastic!’ in a thinly-veiled parody of her mother.

That’s my quarterly update then. Come back in June.

Redster: Five and a quarter
Cutester: Two

Nursery for the Cutester is approaching fast. One of the casualties will be our two favourite toddler groups on Wednesday and Friday mornings. At the Wednesday one I get to lead the singing every other week, a heady and glamourous occasion which strangely has not resulted in me being head-hunted by Cbeebies, but there’s still one more week, so watch this space. (The chap who led the toddler singing at the library with a ukelele disappeared suddenly one Tuesday and we all reckon he got signed by a major studio.)

My set generally comprises ‘Wheels on the Bus’, ‘Old Macdonald’ ‘Big Red Bus’ (toddlers can’t get enough of public transport), ‘Wind the Bobbin Up’, ‘The Dingle-Dangle Scarecrow’, ‘Zoom Zoom zoom’ and leads inexorably to ‘Sleepy Bunnies,’ which no self-respecting toddler sing-along can do without. For the verse the children lie on the floor (the Cutester loves this song so much that last week she was lying on the floor for the two preceding songs, in anticipation) until the cue ‘Wake up Bunnies!’ and then while the adults clap and sing ‘Hop little bunnies, hop hop hop’ the centre of the circle turns into a sort of infant mosh pit while they all go beserk, leaping up and down and laughing and shaking their shakers. I have to admit that that moment is my favourite moment of the whole week. There is something about a dozen toddlers all being overjoyed at once that sends my seretonin levels, or endorphin levels, or whatever it is that makes you feel blissed out, through the ceiling. I’m going to miss it.

Redster: Five and a quarter
Cutester: Two

for two minutes of unbearable cuteness as the Redster teaches her little sister to count to twenty. You’ll also notice that the whole gig is just a distraction from the pain inflicted on the Cutester by her big sister dumping her on her bottom, after attempting to lift her up (it’s the climax to the song ‘Zoom zoom zoom / we’re going to the moon’ but you really have to be a older than five to do the zooming part).

N.B. the small table they are sitting at is not a sort of quarantine zone for children to keep them out of the adults’ hair while they eat supper. They elected to sit there of their own free will, really they did.