Having a smashing time

One of the phrases friends use about me most is 'spinning plates', as in, 'Sars, I know you're spinning plates right now, but do you think you could ... [insert appropriate request / favour]'. This year, the plates seem to have been spinning faster, and there seem to have been more of them, so that rather than spinning 'em I feel more like I've been smashing them all over the floor. Everyone assures me I'm doing an okay job, but I'm sure I can still hear the sound of tinkling china echoing in my ears. I can hardly recall everything we've been up to since I last uploaded a blog post, though I can say it has involved new beginnings - Ava learning about life through seeing eyes; all of us becoming camping addicts (even Paul!!); Ava returning to nursery, Nath starting in reception and lots, lots more. I can't believe it is already half term, that Nath is now firmly settled into life at school, that Ava is properly on her way to a normalised existence, and that we have all emerged from a pretty hellish first two thirds of the year relatively unscathed. I still feel tears spring to my eyes every time I cut up greens (don't ask me why, but the action of doing it, the sight and the smell of chopped, raw cabbage just reminds me of the particular way my Nan used to chonk it down in the collander with a plate, one of the plates I have now inherited, and carries associations with all the roast dinners dished up to me, and then my family, by my Nanna, who died this year in April) and I still find myself peering into Ava's eyes every time I dress her to check they look okay... But yes, I think to myself, basically, things are okay again. Paul and I passed a milestone in July with our fifteenth wedding anniversary, and now, belatedly, we are going to celebrate, with three days in Madrid... without the children. Of course, there is no such thing as unadulterated pleasure. The organisation and planning to enable three small children to spend three days with their grandparents seems phenomenal, and then there's the guilt about leaving them and the wondering how we'll manage just the two of us, away for only the second time in eight years for more than a night on our own.... But surely, it's got to be good, hasn't it?

Naughty but nice

I'm sure it wasn't quite proper to be SO excited about spending an afternoon with eight other chicks (okay, I know 'chicks' is a stretch, but indulge me, just this once) topped off by an evening singing along excessively loudly, waving one's arms, scream lasciviously and generally behaving like lunatics let out of the asylum for a day at the TAKE THAT GIG AT WEMBLEY the other weekend.... But to hell with it. Yes, verily, I kid you not, I went to a Take That gig, something I would never have done when they really were a boy band, but now seem to think is perfectly acceptable. The first time they came round they crossed my radar only so far as for me to sniff at them; I still pretended a certain amount of musical snobbery. Now that I'm nearly forty and have three kids, I have developed this ability basically not to give a shit what anyone else thinks of my taste, just as long as I am having fun. For having fun, as Paul rather sweetly pointed out to Eden the other night, is not something Mummy often gets time to do; not in an independent, non-child-related kind of a way (this was in the context of reminding her she shouldn't moan about Mummy taking one afternoon and evening off in about, ooh, five years or so). And when the eight not-so-secret-anymore Take That fans got together on Saturday, we all agreed that it was just this kind of feel-good pop that we all needed, along with an excuse to compare notes on which of 'the boys' we thought was dishiest and compete for the loudest scream prize.
And as antidotes for two or three months of stress go, it was just perfect.

Phew.

Ava made it through her two operations. She has emerged ever bouncier, seemingly energised by the ability to run with her head held high, looking to the horizon, rather than peering at the ground to check her steps; even chattier (if that were possible) as she engages even more energetically with the world around her, and, importantly, able to take her rightful place on the (new!) enormous family sofa, Simpsons-style with the rest of us, to watch TV, instead of standing directly beneath the screen, staring intently upwards. Whether I have emerged with my sanity is debatable (ask Paul, or my team at work, but please don't tell me what they say) and I definitely failed the numerous tests on my patience which Ava managed to pass with flying colours. Waiting with a two year old forbidden to eat and drink before an operation is possibly the longest wait you'll ever endure, except for the wait once you've kissed them goodbye as they fall asleep at the hands of the anaesthetist. But try helping four nurses and doctors to hold your baby down while they kick and scream and cry and almost faint with the hysteria as their eye is cleaned out if you really want to feel like you're finally cracking up. Ava's right eye had a harder job healing than the left. The stitches became inflamed and we spent a nail-biting couple of weeks as we and the doctors tried to ward off the now high risk of infection. Infection that would lead to her sight being irreparably damaged. I'm not prone to flights of fancy but I swear I began to imagine things every time I looked at her eye. And when Ava fell down the stairs - all the way from top to bottom - between the two operations, guess who cried harder, me or her? Yes, Ava has been a trooper, and I have been a certifiable flake. She's bounced back after every setback and charmed every nurse, surgeon and optometrist in the place. Last Monday, she started to turn a corner and by the time we went for her check-up on Tuesday, she got the thumbs up. The eye patches are still on, but we're down to only four lots of eye drops a day (!) and one of ointment (which I quickly learned to administer after she had fallen asleep at night). Her eyes, when they flash with fun, sparkle darkly, the cloudy patches gone. Importantly, her shiny, new, magenta pink, square-framed glasses will be arriving later this week. She will be the envy of all her friends.

Entering the fray

Ava is soundly asleep and joyously unaware of exactly what's in store for her tomorrow. She has a very chic new 'princess haircut' (ie one which involves a fringe which won't go in her eyes), a bright new bunny rabbit to hold (thanks to our very lovely neighbours) and is looking forward with great excitement to "going in a taxi to the hopital to fix my broken eyes." Meanwhile, I am half way through my second glass of red wine and wondering why all rational powers of thought seem to have deserted me. So, think of us tomorrow, as we set off towards Moorfields Eye Hospital in the grey of dawn, and pray that I won't actually be sick when they apply the general anaesthetic.

Shit hits fan x2

It has been difficult to find an appropriate post to follow my last. I set myself up for a fall, really, with this blog, always trying to keep it lighthearted and a little bit witty, for there isn't very much lighthearted or witty to say when your Nanna dies. Somehow maintaining blog silence has seemed the only appropriate response to the passing of one of the most important women in my life. My gorgeous, kind, funny and serene Nanna was a constant in my life, and, I now realise, she will always stay with me. I hear exactly what she would be saying to me now, for instance, as I begin to grapple with my latest challenge, which is how to stay emotionally sane, not make myself sick with worry, and appear fearless for my little Ava, who is about to go through double eye surgery to remove the cataracts that have been slowly deteriorating her sight over the last few months. What Nanna would be saying is, "Don't worry dear, just think about how much better it will be for her after it's done! Isn't it marvellous what they can do these days?" Which would be her generous spirited and kindly way of telling me to pull my socks up, lift my chin and remember how good we really do have it these days. Perspective is a wonderful thing, and my Nanna always delivered it in bucketloads.
PS: To help me through my current exercise in maintaining perspective I have been reading what ought to be hailed as one of the best books of this year. The Flying Carpet to Baghdad by Hala Jaber (full disclosure, my company publishes it) is one of those books that you tend to become evangelical about after you've read it, because it does something to your insides at the same time as speaking to your intellect. It is an insightful war memoir, a gut-wrenching look at the impact on ordinary lives of the war in Iraq, but also an incredibly moving, tear-inducing story of a woman facing the ultimate clash between her professional life and her personal mothering instincts as she attempts to rescue just two small children out of the thousands affected by the chaos of war. If anything can help to put your own problems in perspective, this book can. All I can say is, please try to read it, even if you don't read anything else this year.

Nanna

13 April 1917 - 16 April 2009

Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other
That we are still
Call me by my old familiar name
Speak to me in the easy way you always used
Put no difference into your tone
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed
At the little jokes we always enjoyed together
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was
Let it be spoken without effort
Without the ghost of a shadow in it
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolute unbroken continuity
What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you for an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner
All is well.

Canon Henry Scott-Holland

Imagination

You'd forgive me for thinking I'm living in a parallel universe in which no parents exist, the drink of choice is pink milk, and the children are called things like Charlie, Lola, Lotta and Marv. In this universe it is ever so extremely important that you intone, gigglingly, in slightly pretentious toddler speak, putting a lot of extra emphasis on certain words in order to convey their importance and to show off that you know them.
Yes, my life is currently ruled by Charlie and Lola, Nath's current obsession and one eagerly adopted by his sisters. This means that when I return from work I am greeted by three small faces momentarily turned in my direction and then back to the TV screen, which is always showing one of Nath's new collection of Charlie and Lola DVDs. It also means that whenever I ask anyone to do anything I am treated to a very loud, "Sorry, I am just too very extremely busy", and whenever we eat a meal together (ie every day) I am regaled with a list of foods that will never be eaten ("I will never not ever eat a tomato"...etc) but whose fantasy counterparts are completely acceptable ("Ah, it's a moonsquirter - that's okay then.") Whilst in the shower the other morning I could hear a quite vocal discussion taking place between Nathan and Eden. They were speaking in unnaturally high voices and guffawing at each other conspiratorially. As I stepped out of the shower I could hear the words more clearly and realised they were reciting word for word an entire Charlie and Lola show, play acting the parts and enjoying themselves immensely.
You might wonder if all this is more than a little irritating but there are a number of things to be grateful for, here. At least Nath's captivation with Charlie and Lola has taken sway over his obsession with killer robot wars, and at least this all goes to demonstrate that TV doesn't kill children's imaginations, after all. Well not exactly, anyway. It just slightly warps them. It seems to be doing quite a lot of good for their memory and recall abilities, too.
Yes, the imaginative streak seems alive and well in the entire family at present. Whilst changing Ava's nappy in a restaurant's baby room over the weekend, she suddenly whispered, a propos of nothing, "Ssshhh, we're in a dark forest!"
"Oh gosh, are we?" I asked. "Are there any creatures in the dark forest, Ava?"
"Yes." She answered, in a stage whisper. "There are dark tigers and dark ducks."
And that was that. Funny girl.