I joke about my children being hellish and tantrummy and rotten most of the time but I harbour a deep dark secret. I really 110% adore them, even in their horridest moments! I am blessed with 2 very very funny, intelligent, caring girls who never fail to make me smile or my heart melt.
I was having a very bad day the other day, really bad. As I was emailing a friend I couldn't stem the flow of tears, at least not until Clara came up with a little concerned face asking "what wrong?!" and climbing up on my lap to wipe my tears away, stroke my face and give me a huge cuddle!
The day before I was having a really bad coughing fit and Phoebe raced upstairs with a "Be right back!" and came back 30 seconds later with my inhaler and telling me to use it.
I adore putting them to bed, Daddy does bath time and gets them dressed in PJs and hair brushed then I come up to read a story for Phoebe (Daddy does Clara's) and we have a little chat about what kind of day she has and what she is going to dream about. I love her imagination in this twilight hour, how she rolls her eyes when she "feeds" her baby doll and the cheeky expression when she makes the burp sound. I love how she helps me with the story and how we talk about it afterwards. I love that last cuddle and her whispering "Love you Mummy" in my ear. Then I love going into Clara's room and lying with her on her bed and making her butterfly mobile fly by blowing at it. I love how she always gives me a suck of her dummy and a cuddle with monkey before agreeing I need to go and cook tea for Daddy (because if Daddy doesn't have tea he gets gruuuumpy! Or so I tell her anyway). I love how her little arms snake around my neck in a last squeeze before bedtime.
It isn't just me who sees this caring side I am glad to say. At the weekend whilst Paul was doing the guttering I was out helping him briefly (I had swine flu... I was of very little help generally and couldn't do long periods outside...) and the girls were with me. A little further down the road an elderly lady and her friend were having a little sit down and rest before carrying on. Phoebe spotted them, picked 2 flowers and ran down the road to give them to them. I like to think it made that old lady's day. I asked Phoebe why she did it and she told me so she could help the lady find her smile.
By far my favourite thing about the girls is their manners. Clara's first real words were Please and Thank you. Phoebe is very good with hers too, she was delayed speechwise and barely said anything until she was nearly 3 but we taught her to sign thank you instead and she rarely needed prompting. Even now (as demonstrated in the "smear" entry) their manners come out for a lot of things and very rarely need prompting. Alas when they do and the "where are your manners?" question is asked I do wish Phoebe would cease with the slightly sarcastic reply of "In France"... still can't have everything I suppose!
4 comments:
Hmm, you see this sounds idyllic, I'm not sure you're the right person to be writing a blog about surviving your children's childhood! Where's the coping with a 2 year old who has never slept through the night and will not sleep at all unless someone sits with him, usually til 10 or later. Where's the having to then cook and eat dinner before he wakes again? Where's the child who then wakes before 6 and tips a 2 pint bottle of milk over your table at breakfast "for fun mummy"?
Sorry it's been a bad 12 hours.
Ah but in order to survive your children's childhood, surely at times one needs to remind oneself of the good times?
I think it's on the money. They're exhausting, exasperating, your life is no longer your own... but in order to make it through the day, occasionally it's worth noting the little sweet moments. Otherwise we'd all make like that mother that booked her flight to Majorca and swanned off, wouldn't we? ;)
It's a rare occurence when I don't have a day + evening + very broken night like you describe Tilly. Reading this entry has reminded me to sit and take stock and count my blessings though. No doubt as soon as I get up from the computer screen the fishwifery and frustration will resume, but this brief interlude of grateful reflection has been a tonic to help survive (yet another) 'one of those days'.
So lovely to read this. It has made me smile.xxx
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