On the home straight

Two more days till Back To School. I've taken the day off, giving myself a long weekend before the momentous day, in order to search Eden's wardrobe from her school uniform, check what, if anything, still fits her (her legs and arms both seem to have grown by about an inch over the summer), buy her new shoes (she's gone up one and a half sizes over the same period), put name labels in everything, search out the book bag and the PE kit, blitz her room so that we can actually find our way to the wardrobe each morning... and get a final few hours of QT in with her before she enters Year 1 and goes all Grown Up on me. The day off has coincided with something of a hangover, post celebrations last night with the lovely Anna and Keely, two oldest and bestest mates. Anna has just had her first short story published in a collection called 'Is This What You Want?', published by Bloomsbury and the Asham Trust, and very proud of her we were too: our friend, a Published Author! As I lay suffering somewhat this morning with a red wine headache and the impact of far too little sleep, Eden crawled into bed with me and whispered, "Y'see, you shouldn't have gone out last night because now you're all tired, you silly monkey!" Whereupon she cuddled up to me and contemplatively stroked my head till I dozed off. It's one thing when your five year old seems to have maturity beyond her years; quite another when she seems to have maturity beyond your own!

Scraping the barrel

Second week back at work after the holiday at home, and it's the last week of Eden's school holidays. Summer (and I use that term in its broadest sense after the dismal weather we've had this year) is sliding inexorably into Autumn, and already things are picking up a gear again at work as people return from their vacations and start looking towards 'back to university' season for academic books and the Christmas craziness that engulfs the mass market book trade each year. Meanwhile, as the pace picks up at work, I sense an increased stir-craziness amongst my family after seven weeks knocking about together in the same small south east London semi. Paul (put-upon house husband) has the air of someone on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Three kids all at home, no money and endless rain for seven weeks can do that to a person. He regards me slightly helplessly as I arrive home to survey the blue poster pain all over the cream sofa, the raisins and biscuit crumbs trampled into the floor and the general air of chaos that pervades. Last night he commented simply, 'I need a holiday'. The children are also restless. Trailing up the street after me in the mornings in their pyjamas, toast in hand, they cry, 'Don't go to work!' in plaintive tones. And it seems when I return in the evening that the mere fact of my arrival tips them over into hysteria. Ava (nearly one) almost always bursts into tears the moment I walk through the door - as if my sudden presence shocks her into the realisation that I have been absent for most of the day. Nathan (2 1/2) usually spends the next 20 minutes leaping all over me, legs flailing in all directions, irrespective of whether they are coming into frequent contact with both his sisters' heads. Eden (5 1/2) attempts to squeeze in a cuddle between the more raucous administrations of her siblings. And then we move on to the family supper, during which Ava cries every time I leave the room to fetch something from the kitchen, Nathan spreads his food liberally anywhere that doesn't involve his mouth and Eden again attempts to tell me about her day - generally without once being allowed to get to the end of a sentence. It's the price I pay for going to the work - a sense that the bit of the day I get to spend with my kids is the dreggy part; the bottom of the barrel. Thank goodness for three-day weekends!

Kid lag

Hello. I'm back on the blog. Y'know when I said the blog might be 'intermittent' over the holidays? Well, I lied. Turned out both in order to truly relax and to save my marriage from imminent disaster my unhealthy relationship with the laptop had to go. The Crackberry got less attention than usual, too. I didn't even read a newspaper. This was all to the good and I returned to work this week full of vim and vigour (or something). Only problem was, I'd tuned out so effectively from the 'real world', things seemed slightly surreal on my return. I'd immersed myself completely into that eternal summer holiday vibe that children seem to generate during the long break, where the days seem to go on forever, there's really nothing to rush for, no schedule is required, only fun must be had, and bedtimes retreat to a later and later point each evening. It's taken a couple of days back in the office to remember exactly what is I'm supposed to do there, and exactly why I do it. As a colleague sweetly put it today, "You don't have jet lag, you have 'kid lag'".

Holiday at home

It's day two of my 'holiday at home'. I'm taking two weeks off, but the severe cash crisis caused by one year's worth of reduced (maternity) pay over the last two years is preventing us jetting off somewhere sunny. Thus it's a good job that a bit of sunshine has finally arrived in the UK. It's going to be an interesting experiment, seeing whether 'a change is as good as a rest.' I have this suspicion that spending two weeks at home looking after three children will definitely feel like a change, but almost certainly not feel 'as good as a rest'! We're going to be hanging out around the parks and cafes of south east London, poddling about in the back garden and maybe making a day trip or two to the seaside. Eden (5 1/2) is simply delighted to have me at home. Exotic holidays interest her not one jot. It just about kills me when she exclaims, "That was the best day EVER!', after accompanying me around Sainsburies and then going for a cycle ride in Dulwich Park. Oh, to be so easily pleased again! One thing I've noticed already is how much more I notice the little incremental changes in the kids when I'm hanging out at home with them. Nathan (2 1/2) is really growing into a little tyke; he pushes the boundaries just a little further each day. And quite how he ends each day smeared in mud, covered in poster paint and bedecked with bruises and cuts I really don't know. Ava (11 months now) has somehow managed to sprout six teeth in the course of the last couple of weeks (accompanied by much wailing, pooing and, yes, gnashing of teeth!) and suddenly seems to be attempting to crawl, stand up and talk all at once. The blog may be rather intermittent over the next couple of weeks. I may not be getting much rest, but I'm going to give it a damned good try!

Uuuuuuurgh

Have seen off nits. Hurrah! We are on the alert now, though, in case they return. In triumphant mode, we made the mistake of going out partying on Saturday night. V. stupid. The dancing in the street part was really good fun, but it went downhill from there. Got in 2.30am; got to bed 3.30am; first child woke - having a nightmare - 3.45am; came into bed with us and kicked us alternately in the backs until 4.30am; thereupon second child woke for a bottle and woke third child with the screaming; first child settled back into bed 5am; everyone else back to sleep for an hour, and then.... it was 6am. MORNING! Very, very tired. Something blog-worthy soon, I promise x

Nits cause radio silence

OK, this is going to sound totally pathetic, but the nits have now literally taken over my life. You'll have to excuse the radio silence over the last few days, but blogging simply couldn't compete with lice-killing. The infestation reached magnificent proportions this week as we proved the ultimate closeness of our family by each and every one of us succumbing to the nasty things one by one. Apparently, head lice cannot jump and are only passed from person to person by physical contact between heads. I promise you, even though we do love each other dearly, we really don't spend all our time rubbing our heads together. Nonetheless, the damned things have slithered and crawled their way from head to head, or whatever it is they do. Last night I lost my rag with the daily process of washing, conditioning and combing every single family members' hair on a daily basis. Bedtimes have been receding and mornings getting earlier and earlier to accomodate the processes involved. Time relaxing on the sofa has all but disappeared. Exasperated, I sent Paul out to buy the strongest nit-killing potion he could find. His deeply buried hunter-gatherer instincts exploded into action and he came home heroically bearing several metric tonnes of 'Hedrin', which we applied en masse last night. Having drowned the critters in the stuff, washed everyone's hair this morning (twice), and put every piece of bedding in the house through the wash, we now look forward with eager anticipation to round 2 in a week's time (this is 'critical' according to the instructions, if one is to avoid further 'infestation'). Oh, I also went to work today and did all sorts of stuff between lice-killing sessions. But the lice story just struck me as more entertaining. Or, at least weirder. Thinking about it, maybe I should have thought about another topic.... Hmmm.

The nits have landed

Oh, the shame! Two days ago as I stroked Eden's hair away from her face my fingers brushed across some surprisingly tenacious, tiny, hard grey pods attached to individual hairs around her hairline. Uh-oh, I thought. I'd been dreading this moment throughout the school year, as one by one several of her class mates were visited by the dreaded head lice. Eden had been scratching her head for a couple of days now, and I had wondered when we'd finally succumb. Last night, the eggs hatched, and, oh my goodness, I was sooooo not prepared for how this would make me feel...! First off, there's the sheer, unadulterated hatred for these very small creatures quite literally INFESTING your child's head (I couldn't help but cry, "Aha! Got another one of the little buggers!" every time I pulled one from her hair - thus teaching Eden a really cool new word to show off to her friends in the playground - ooops); then there's a degree of shock that such a condition can possibly still exist in the 21st century (shouldn't these things have disappeared with leeches / the plague, etc, some time around the middle ages or so??)... and finally, a rather pleasing sense of victory as you visit death and destruction on them through the wondrous miracle of DERBAC-M and a small plastic comb. Oh, the power! We are still waging war on the little critters, forcing me to rise yet another half hour earlier each morning in order to incorporate the lice-killing into my morning routine before work. Parenting, it's full of surprises, innit?