clever clogs

I can’t believe this.  I actually found myself this morning explaining loudly and clearly to Snooks that I Know More Than He Does Because I Am A Grown Up.

He looked astonished and a little hurt. He also managed to just about hide his disbelief at my making such a nonsensical statement.

I wince even now as I recall it though I stop short of regretting having said it. Idiotic as it is to claim to know more simply by dint of having been around longer (there is no obvious causal link – I could be a grown up who had never read anything, asked any questions, conversed with anyone) I simply had to stop him from contradicting every thing I say.

Where has this come from? Is it part of the four- year-old boy (don’t know about girls) journey or is it just Mr Snooks. Having had careful truthful answers to most of his questions from The Engineer and I over the last four years, he now thinks he Knows It All. I thought we got this at 14. (In the same wincing breath I recall my 14 year old self correcting my well educated father on any aspect of anything I thought I could pull off. I tended to aim for science as his knowledge of history, literature, philosophy and languages was boundless. My aptitude for physics came in handy though he seemed to somehow have absorbed most of my O level text book by osmosis).

Anyway I felt a bit sorry about it as I have praised and praised his cognitive abilities and then unexpectedly turned on him for trusting them. And then in the confusion, he cried.  Ouch.

Snooks and I were both intrigued and delighted by the news story earlier this week about the 11-year-old boy from Manchester who flew to Rome without his family. Something in the script of BBC Radio 4’s news item led both of us to think he had actually flown the plane out of Manchester airport, which really got our attention. However it turned out the boy had simply sidled up to another family and got on board without anyone noticing.

I called Snooks in to hear the news item on the kitchen radio and as I stood pondering how the boy’s family had felt when they realised he had eloped, Snooks asked “Did no one check his passport?”

This, it turned out, was the main gist of the news story as the pre Olympics security tension mounts across the country.   Step forward the new John Humphrys.

How Snooks arrived at this question, how he knew it was the vital part of the story I do not know but I congratulated him on his incisive thought.

I can’t have it both ways. I’d better retract my earlier statement.

high days

Today is the first day of the “summer” holidays when, according to all songs, novels, advertising and recovered memories it is supposed to be about barefoot gossoons playing in the brook, bees buzzing about picnics where mothers laugh warmly as their offspring dangle from trees in nicely laundered linens.

Actually, it has rained and rained and rained (“And the people all said sit down, sit down you're rocking the boat” the songs strikes up in my head) through the Wimbledon tennis championships, through the end of school sports day and now, apparently, through the coming summer holidays.

The look on mothers’ faces at pick up at the school gates yesterday was raw naked fear. We have six weeks ahead – that is roughly 30 days (if you discount weekends) of single-handed entertainment to provide with no let up. That means not one minute of peace until bedtime Every Day. And here’s the best part. As the rain dictates that most outdoor play is pretty much off, the indoor alternatives which are mostly in central London are also out of bounds due to the *@%@*^% Olympic Games due to start here next week. Crap security arrangements (the company actually admitted this, so I have no fear of a libel suit) and sheer volume of people in the capital have made the prospect of venturing to our favourite haunts – the Science Museum, the Transport Museum, the South Bank, Greenwich … er anywhere around here really, pretty daunting.

People looked at each other in desperation yesterday casting about for good ideas to engage their four year olds for at least some of the approximately 200 hours of free time ahead.

“There’s a bee-keeping course on at the local library this week if you fancy that. Maybe the hats will keep them going for a while…”

“I’ve booked a cab to drive us around and around the M25 for the next three Fridays. I’m taking my iPad and a pair of headphones…”

I have arranged and then unarranged three organised activities for Snooks, thinking each time for one blind stupid second that he might Join In With Stuff if I paid a lot of money and threw him at it.

The Engineer each time has brought me back to my senses. ‘Remember Playball,” he says ruefully. The vision of carrying Snooks kicking and screaming into a French class, a swimming class and a gymnastics class - and paying for the privilege swam up before my eyes and I cancelled each one with a sigh.

Instead we set off today at 8.45am in pursuit of our latest obsession – watching real steam engines fly through local stations on their way from London to the coast. We have managed to see two so far and each time it has been a huge success. The uncertainty combined with the inconvenient hour leads to a level of excitement which makes the fleeting appearance of the treasured locomotives all the more worth waiting for. The early start also served two further purposes – to wear Snooks out and to practise for when we have to get to school for 9am each day come September, a discipline Snooks has yet to encounter.

Unfortunately, this time I got the details slightly wrong and the train did not appear leaving us deflated on a railway bridge at rush hour. Luckily I had a back-up plan (I thought this through) and had our swimming togs in the boot ready for an emergency trip to the local baths, somewhere I hope to provide a regular safe haven during the rain-and-Olympics-soaked weeks ahead.

However en route Snooks spotted a playground we used to frequent in his pre-preschool days and asked to go there. My first thought was to say no. We were on our way somewhere. I had it all mapped out. Swim, beans on toast, asleep in the car on the way home. But like many of the unorthodox decisions I have taken in motherhood, an excessive amount of being told ‘no’ for no good reason in my own childhood, inclines me to say yes to Snooks, despite the disruption it may cause, unless there is a very good reason not to. (Indeed this is how we came to be flying a “UFO” frisbee on the Common yesterday dressed in shorts and wellies as the monsoon rain poured down and everyone else ran for cover).

So we headed for the playground where who should run up to Snooks calling his name with delight than the apple of his eye - a girl from his nursery class whom he once likened famously to a pretty daisy. The two played solidly for almost two hours until my bladder and their repertoire of shared games reached their limit.

Snooks and I lunched at a very chi chi Italian place we found in the nice part of town (he ate half the excellent penne and a tiny cake while I half a panini and the rest of his penne) and he fell asleep in the car on the way home.

In the words of the marvellous Scarlett O’Hara, tomorrow is another day.

top marks

As my aim here is to document Snooks’ world for his later perusal, regardless of how ...erm… smug I may sound, I feel it necessary to note the arrival of his first school report.

The Engineer and I stumbled across it by accident. Tasked with picking the boy up from school for the first time (I was otherwise engaged – more of this later), remembering the necessary snacks, the medicines which had to be taken within minutes of pick up time, the deal about the park (he can go sometimes, weather permitting and on our terms) and to actually be there on time, Daddy had come home with the enveloped clutched in his hand without opening it.

When we realised what it was we were transfixed. As I have said before, Snooks’ world when he is out of my hands is a mysterious black hole. I am occasionally allowed fragments of incomprehensible information, much of which could be imaginary. For all I know he could be sweeping chimneys all day. So this, this two sheets of typed A4 covering observations about his communication skills, his number work, physical and social skills made for a gripping read. Snooks overheard me reading aloud some of the comments, prompting him to come and shout at me to stop - his worst nightmare seems to be that his father and I might find out who he is.

But he had nothing to fear as the praise was high and the could do betters very few. None of it came as any surprise other than perhaps the keen interest he has shown in cookery. His disinterest (which seemed to be the issue) in writing could be a little embarrassing considering my profession, though I gather boys are often slow to get on with putting pencil to paper. The truth is, Snooks is disinterested in anything which involves sitting still and this includes Eating, Putting On Shoes and Watching Television. No, we have no worries.

Which brings me to my whereabouts on the auspicious day. Well I was on my way to a job interview, suited, prepped and nervous as a cat. The approach of full time education for Snooks and the hollow coffers left after four years of unpaid work and the worst recession in years meant this day had finally come. On the way into the Smoke, rather enjoying the familiar overground and underground route I asked myself this question; Does it matter that I have a law degree (LL.B), a teaching qualification (P.G.C.E), the industry professional qualification in journalism (N.C.E) and a City and Guilds accreditation in teaching adults to read and yet I am happy to be a ‘housewife’? Not to me, I thought. I am not sure whether this shows a startling lack of ambition or a healthy grip on reality. However, that is how it is.

Snooks seems to be on the right track at school and has some good foundations for learning in place. He is happy and has friends. That is good enough for me.

a kiss is still a kiss

Oh my. Poor Snooks. I just watched him try to give his best girl a kiss outside school and she shooed him away. I don’t think she knew what he was trying to do and from what I could see she was in the middle of a ballet dance, which didn’t require a male partner.

Am I alone in finding these things so painful to watch? Why can’t I detach from it better, just chat to the mums at the gate and put it down to experience.

Yet again Snooks takes a step towards somebody, is rejected and apparently, hopefully learns from it. Perhaps next time he will choose his moment better, or tell her first what his intentions are, or just leave kissing girls until later and do it out of sight.

My own kissing career started aged eight and was conducted mostly amongst the coats in the cloakroom with one particular boy. Love notes were passed during class and plans made to meet up under the duffels during break time.

Kissing was on the lips and lengthy but without tongues or any other frills. Mortifyingly the letters fell into the wrong hands one day and ended up with the teacher. After that we just gave each other the nod.

Astonishingly my little beau texted me anonymously just last year, having obtained my number from a mutual friend, signing off ‘…from the first boy you ever kissed.’  He then panicked in case he was mistaken about being my first and I thought the message was from some other boy in our class and replied as such, retrospectively breaking his heart almost 40 years after the event. I did reply rather curtly as I assumed it was a spam text, but then all was cleared up and I was able to confirm that he was indeed the first (his rival came two years later) and it was lovely to hear from him and how were his two wives and three children. But you see, this stuff matters.

 I came away from school feeling wretched. I knew Snooks was seeking comfort from a gentle soul as a situation with another friend had left him a bit sad and confused the previous day. I just have to believe that he takes all this in his stride and it is good for him.

And it was not just any old gentle soul either. This little girl won his heart when she dressed up as Rapunzel for the World Book Day and her own lovely long dark hair looked ‘quite beautiful” he told me. I later heard that the two undertook some kind of marriage ceremony but have never been able to confirm further details of that. Anyway, no self-respecting fairy tale handsome prince gets to walk up and kiss the girl without some kind of character building struggle first. Right?

here comes the sun

It’s not just about the weather (though it is forecast to hit 30 this afternoon). Nor is it just about our latest Mediterranean jaunt,which saw us hitting the beach at 4pm each day to avoid the 42 degree heat.

But the title for this post is there because when I came to look at some notes I made with a view to writing it while we were away, it read like a song list. And it made me realise something about Snooks; He lives, as I do, with a soundtrack playing permanently in his head.

I have suffered this handicap for many years now and became known, when working in a crowded office, for my sudden outbursts of song. Embarrassingly, they often clearly related to what was going on around me. It was a kind of musical Tourette’s, which caused amusement and no doubt some offence wherever I worked. And I can say with my hand on my heart that I honestly did not know I was doing it. One canny editor used to detect which story I was working on by listening to my lyrics.
The syndrome was captured in the brilliant US show Ally McBeal (sorry, so 90s I know) where she eventually started to hallucinate Al Green’s very presence singing her life to her, and was prescribed Prozac for her trouble.

So I am interested to see Snooks has inherited or simply copied my tick and seems to sing aloud a least half his waking life. At the moment it is Crush, a song he picked up from an iPod play list which had him asking me what “raising my adrenalin” meant and will one day set some girl’s pulse racing if he continues singing it into his adolescence (though of course by then he will be mute until he hits 25). He did make a start on this kind of accidental wooing during our break when he asked a pneumatic bikini-clad, peroxide blonde he met on the beach if she was a “Moscow girl”.

“No,” she answered, confused and I would say a touch piqued. She was Greek. We were in Greece. Only the Engineer and I were to know that the question sprung from a discussion earlier where Snooks had asked me why Moscow girls made Lennon and McCartney “sing and shout” and I had explained ... to the best of my ability.

Then came the Great Mosquito Massacre carried out by my gallant swains (the Engineer and Snooks armed with rolled up towels) each night in our apartment before bedtime to the tune of Freefalling by Tom Petty. Followed by Jack Johnson’s Staple it Together and Call it Bad Weather which denoted my feelings about the dinner I was able to rustle up on the lethal two ring electric hob provided in our apartment which required little culinary talent but a good deal of spatial awareness, logistical planning and sheer courage.

In a different vein (or perhaps not), the many rounds of London’s Burning required to get me through the two mountain passes and five hairpin bends negotiated to reach some of the more remote and spectacular beaches on our faraway island, resulted in a fascination for 17th century England and the production of no less that seven drawings of the Great Fire of London at the kitchen table that evening.

The surprise celebration of Father’s Day at our favourite restaurant, the moment Snooks swam in the sea unaided (the catalyst, we found, to push past the plateau of swimming with armbands in the pool was to give him half a bowl of M&Ms and head for the beach) and the point when we realised we had driven our hired motor boat past the tip of the island and out of the safe water jurisdiction the very strict boat hire lady had laid out, were all times of such high emotion I am not sure any song could do them justice.

And then finally and contrarily (for it is he) the most played and frequently sung song of the whole holiday was Snow (Hey Oh) which Snooks requested for a family pre dinner dance each evening. Though something tells me the Red Hot Chilli Peppers were probably not singing about the weather either.

from Russia with love

We are back on trams. Not literally, though no doubt that will come soon too. But Snooks loves a tram.

 It all started when he first clapped eyes on a die-cast model of the Munich tram at the London Transport Museum, which I bought for him and he carried with him pretty much everywhere for two years. That one eventually broke in two at the ‘bendy bit’ in the middle (the bendy bit is the reason for their supremacy over trains, cars, tractors etc.) and was replaced with a new one, which appears to be sponsored by the sweet manufacturer Haribo, and hails I am told from Nuremberg. This was bought in lieu of a larger red model, which simply won Snooks’ heart but was sadly beyond any reasonable non birthday/ Christmas toy price range. He has been promised it when either of these days next arrives.

In the meantime he has satisfied his yearnings with repeat viewings of the tram footage available on You Tube which includes three short films of our local line, the one we have traversed many a time for no good reason other than to reach the end and come back. We are also now acquainted with most of the Manchester routes, in person and on film and have watched lovely footage of the old London double deckers meeting their sad end on the scrap heap, a scene which kept Snooks rapt with anguish for some time.

Now, today, we have been watching his latest favourite, a short film about the demise and resurrection of trams in Russia, all of which is conducted in Russian, of course. Snooks is undeterred. He loves the scenes of snowy Moscow and St Petersburg where the locals, clad in great coats and rabbit fur hats, tell the sad story of the ripped out tram tracks. That ability of young children to easily cross language barriers, it would seem, translates to film . He has never commented that he does not understand what they are saying. I am waiting for him to spout his first Russian words and for the first (but I am certain not the last) time have out-languaged me.

At this rate, I can see that his cousins who all speak three or four languages a piece will have to be drafted in to translate by the time he reaches puberty. As we watched the clip together I felt the thrill of his unknown future, an unknown that used to fill me with dread in my own youth. I wondered if he might one day design a new eco-friendly transport system for our cities and travel around the world promoting it. I tried to imagine him living in some foreign capital, a grown man, handling it.

“Maybe I could drive a tram one day, and then I could walk from one end to the other to go back the other way,” he said, snuggling up to me on the sofa. Yes that will do nicely too. So long as it has a pantograph and a bendy bit in the middle, we shall have all we need.

last revolving year

Pull yourself together (it’s ok, I’m talking to myself here) you’re all right. It is a beautiful summer’s day, Snooks is well, the Engineer is employed and you have all you need.

To misquote Sophie Ellis-Bexter, ‘If this is love, why does it feel so bad?’ I have just walked Snooks to nursery school through the 27 degree heat chatting about this and that. He scooted absently in his shorts and white polo, freshly washed hair blowing as he went. It could not be a mellower scene. We spent the morning in our garden, playing football, swinging on the swing and drawing faces with chalk on the ground. The halcyon mood was broken for a short while as I browbeat him into the bath for a seaman’s shower (he stands there while I scoop water from the sink over him) as I finally bowed to social pressure not to send him out in public looking like a tinker. A new insistence on children wearing helmets following an accident involving a local girl had left his hair matted and sweaty and an unscheduled dip in the Common pond yesterday during a post-school fishing expedition which involved Snooks, myself and a net with a very short handl necessitated it.

So all is well. Very well in fact. And yet … I know what it is. I know because the song which tells it is going round and round (appropriately) in my head. The Circle Game. I feel like Joni Mitchell has taken up residence somewhere between my ears and is determined to keep on singing it until I listen and finally give in; “OK OK I get it, I know. He is growing up, he is growing away and for the first time in a few months he will spend more time each day with someone else than he does with me.”

You see, just saying it has unleashed one of those burst-out-crying moments you can only have when no one else is around. By the time Snooks is old enough to read this it will embarrass more than upset him. We came close just the other day as he was standing on the stairs getting ready for school and I was explaining how, at Big School, he will stay for lunch with his friends and what fun that will all be. I stood up to find him looking at me at eye level. “I will miss you,” he said, as earnestly as any leading man in a classic love and a parting scene. I answered that I would miss him too but it was all going to be jolly fine.

And I have been holding on to that ever since, just stopping short, each time Big School is mentioned, of running through the house shouting: “I don’t’ like it, I don’t like it, I don’t like it.” I want to make it stop, which is where Joni comes in. You see, I made the decision when Snooks was born, to hurl myself in, heart, line and sinker. To give him my all. To more or less let go of the sides and let the tide of motherhood wash over me, total immersion, and see where it took me. It meant having no anchor, no safe shore, no shelter from the powerful force of maternal love, which has wiped the floor with me well and truly. The past four years have been like a dream, in all senses of the expression. I have felt removed from reality, strangely powerless and yet suddenly imbued with new magical strength I didn’t know I had. And it has fulfilled many, many wishes I made a long time ago which I never believed would come true. Snooks and I have spent little time apart. Not one night has passed when I have not kissed him goodnight, nor one morning when he has not been the first person I touch. We have covered a lot of ground literally and figuratively, talking ceaselessly (since he started at about 10 months) about everything we see and experience. I have made it my purpose to give him what he needs, at almost all cost and consequently to lay myself open to that freefall moment when that no longer means me.

“And the seasons they go round and round…” and today’s lovely sunny weather, our last summer before the system takes him away, brought that day a little closer. The Engineer calls this having “big feelings’. He says that it is worth it, that opening up your heart without an anaesthetic and hanging onto the tiger’s tail through the ups and downs that that brings, is being truly alive. And what could be better than that? So there it is. I did it. And you can stop now Joni.