Posts filed under 'Children'
It’s official. I’m back. Actually I got back on Monday but have been dealing with groundrush ever since. Stepping off a plane and into the arms of one long suffering husband and two small boys very happy to have their mummy back, I can honestly say that it was lovely to get home (the welcome home poster complete with pictures of flying fish was the icing on the cake). Since then it’s been straight back to situation normal. Day 1 at home saw me:
- cook three meals
- do four loads of laundry
- pack the dishwasher twice
- pick up three bags full of fallen walnuts
- winterise the swimming pool
- fix a broken toilet (with the help of a DIY guide on the internet)
- play about 15 games of snakes and ladders
- play a hotly contested game of football
- go to the park and push swings for ages
- play hide and seek
- delete over 1000 emails
- sift through mail to find most pressing bills
- handle a new business request
- book in some builders
- and chat to some family and friends
But despite really needing a week off to sort out my life AND a week just being with the boys, I feel as though I’ve got plenty of energy to tackle it all. The household chores that used to depress me (and no doubt will again soon) for now feel like a breeze in contrast to scrubbing out bilges and being on watch every night.
The boys have managed without me better than I could have expected and my husband hasn’t turned into a raging alcoholic. So all is well. When I asked my children what they liked best about me being home, they said: “Getting real kisses and cuddles” (rather than the kisses I blew them from the sea). The perfect homecoming present.
And when I asked them if I should ever go sailing again - expecting a loud NO from them - I got instead the considered response of: “Yes, as long as you take us. Maybe we could all sail around the world together!” I’m very pleased that the spirit of adventure has been well and truly seeded in their young minds.
So where to start on the mad sailing adventure? Firstly, thanks to everyone who commented on my blog while I was away. I sent short snippets home via email to my husband who passed them onto Rachel, the lovely lady helping me with admin in my absence and she posted them. But I had no way of checking comments.
I don’t have time now to write a full account of everything that went on - and I’m on a time ration as the boys are currently glued to the telly that will be going off shortly. But I will write follow up posts about how it all went.
Suffice to say that it was brilliant. Not the scary, challenging sailing as advertised on the brochure, but that was largely due to us having incredibly fair weather all the way. It was extraordinarily hot and all the little things that we take for granted in life were a lot more difficult. Like going to the loo, having a shower, washing clothes, washing dishes, cooking, climbing into bed, getting changed, standing upright…I could go on. But all that work and the extreme heat (i.e. excessive sweating) has seen me lose a stone in weight. Hooray! And it has made the household chores seem truly easy peasy.
There were many moments during the trip where I wondered why I was doing it, but there were even more moments where I was in tears at the sheer magnificence of it all. I cannot (in my current sleep deprived state) hope to describe the wonder of the night sky, the sheer awesomeness of an orange setting sun melting into the sea or the grace of enormous whales as they crash out of the ocean and back into it.
The crew on board were fantastic. Many a night was spent solving the world’s problems, discussing deep and personal things that seldom get an airing, laughing hard and being silly.
I kept waiting for the bolt of insight lightening that was going to give me the direction or profound understanding that I thought I might have, being so far removed from my normal life. But it never arrived. As we approached Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio, I realised that the lesson learned from the whole experience was simple: that life is there to be lived. I know that life with all it’s day to day humdrum and work craziness will go on. But I have resolved to quite simply have more fun. And if that’s as basic as cranking the radio up louder while folding the laundry, so be it.
I’ll be back with more details of the trip once the dust has settled.
Tags: home, life, rio
October 28th, 2009
For anyone who, like me, has had to watch Finding Nemo a billion times, you’ll be familiar with title of this blog post. However, I’d like to point out that I don’t believe fish to be either food or friends.
On the food front, I’m allergic to all sea creatures so even if I wanted to eat it, I can’t. And I don’t see me becoming friends with fish any time soon either. They’re not quite as skin crawly as birds with their pointy beaks, evil twitchy eyes, clawed feet and flapping feathers. But then again, birds don’t have gills that flap open and closed, slimy scales or quite as pungent an odour.
Anyway - there is a point to this, bear with me - I had an incident with a fish once when I was a young girl.
I was out sailing my boat, racing, doing well. I was at the furthest possible point away from home when a fish somehow jumped out of the river and straight into my boat.
It was shocked. I was more shocked. It lay there flapping its gills desperate for air. I sat there frozen to the spot, staring at it in horror. The longer I stared, the more it flapped and flopped. The more it flapped and flopped, the more I stared.
The sane and humane thing to do would have been to grab my bailer (a large plastic bottle cut in half used for scooping water out of your boat in high seas), scoop the fish out and throw it back overboard.
But I couldn’t. I am the world’s most squeamish person when it comes to small creatures, particularly small creatures in distress. This fish was in fact not small. It could have made a good size lunch.
No, what I did was attempt to sail back home for miles (or certainly what felt like miles) all the way back to the yacht club having abandoned any hope of finishing the race. Of course, as I’ve mentioned before, the river I sailed on wasn’t known for its calm surface and lack of wind. So I spent a lot of time with my boat heeling over in the wind. This was fine until I had to tack, which meant changing direction. Everytime I did this, the fish would roll with the boat and flop and flap its way over to the other side, narrowly missing my bare feet by millimetres.
It’s safe to say that by the time I got back to the yacht club, I was in hysterics, quite beside myself. A final large gust of wind hit my sail, capsizing my boat and both the fish and I landed unceremoniously in the water in full few of all the spectators. The poor, desperate fish, still alive amazingly, swam past my legs touching me as it raced away. That was the final straw.
I sobbed and wailed and could barely breathe with the stress of it all. Unfortunately, when trying to explain to my father and the several thousand witnesses what the matter was, instead of an outpouring of sympathy, I got side splitting mirth. My father in particular found the incident highly amusing and liked to share the story at any important event like 21st birthdays or weddings. Sigh
And tonight, I had to face my fish fear all over again. My husband has headed abroad for a week leaving me alone with the boys and a new tank full of fish. We’ve already had one fish casualty, which husband dealt with. But it is with some trepidation that I approach the tank every morning in case there are any floaters.
This evening the boys and I were looking at the fish when son 1 says: “Mummy, what’s that?” And there trapped behind the filter thingy and the glass wall was one dead fish. The other fish in the tank did seem particularly jittery, as you would be if there was a dead comrade rotting away in the water you swim in.
I knew what had to be done. Turning green around my gills, I attempted to pry the fish out of its fishy grave. It wouldn’t budge. I eventually had to stick my hand in the tank and try to wiggle the filter thingy, all while trying to avoid the other fish who thought my hand was something to be tasted (insert shiver and gag emoticon here).
The fish finally drifted free, only to be set upon by his hungry/curious friends. My stomach now positively heaving, I managed to scoop it up into the net, catching several others in the process, so I had to empty it out and try again. Several times.
At last I was the lucky bearer of a dead fish which got unceremoniously flushed down the loo.
We then had to say a little prayer for the fish, wishing him well in fishy heaven, before I could flee the scene.
Here’s hoping I don’t have any fishy encounters as I sail across the Atlantic…
Tags: fish, sailing, tank
March 2nd, 2009
On Saturday I finally had a chance to put the new exercise programme into action. On paper, it looked doable. I donned my finest aerobics gear, dug out my exercise ball, weights and mat and cranked the stereo up.
According to the instructions kindly provided by personal trainer EJ, it was a simple series of exercises alternating between cardio and various muscle groups. Muscles that until now, I didn’t realise were actually there.
After the first set I was streaming sweat, purple in the face with wibbly wobbly legs. After all the sets were completed I was officially a mess. But the glow of self satisfaction buoyed me.
Waking up on Sunday that glow had vanished, being replaced with sheer agony. Stairs became an object of pure evil. And the pain involved in trying to sit down on the loo meant that I pushed my bladder capacity to the brink. Being upright or being in a seated position I could manage, nothing in between.
The only thing for it was to try and work the muscles out, so I went for a gentle walk. Anyone watching me might have thought I’d had an unfortunate meeting of a carrot and my backside given my ungainly stance. All the walk did was result in my calves, butt and knees aching too. I gave up and resolved to stay in the upright or horizontal position for the rest of the day. The children were bemused when I didn’t hop up to get them their million daily requests and said: ‘But I thought exercise was good for you mummy?’ Indeed, as did I.
But my husband needed me to feed garden cuttings into the chipper. As this was a vertical job it sounded doable. It wasn’t. It merely served to remind me that I have no hand or wrist strength as snapping green branches proved impossible. I soldiered on realising just how much bending over there was when it cames to picking up sticks.
I got out of gardening duty that afternoon as I had to take son 1 to a birthday party. It was a fabulous party with lots of party games all set to thumping tunes. My son, always reluctant to join in, wasn’t overly interested in taking part unless I did it too. Once again, my legs made themselves known to me as I danced the hokey cokey and whizzed around playing musical statues.
Having not won a single game, my son was about to stage a revolt when musical bumps kicked off. Fuelled by E-numbers and sugar, he danced like a fiend. By dance, I mean doing star jumps and lots of high bouncing with groovy hand gestures. He did this with incredible energy for a full three songs. It came down to him and a little girl. Despite the little girl hitting the decks before him at the end, the party organiser (bless her cotton socks) recognised the glint of sheer determination in his eyes and announced that my son was the winner. The joy on his face was priceless.
This morning, I hobbled my way downstairs bright and early thanks to shooting leg pains waking me up. While sitting downstairs nursing a cup of coffee, I heard son 1 making his way down the stairs saying:
‘Ow’
‘Ow’
‘Ow’
‘Ow’
with every step.
Upon seeing me he said: ‘Mummy, I think I’ve got what you’ve got….’ and clutching his legs, he stumbled over to the sofa and collapsed. That’s what about 300 star jumps will do to you mate. Glad to know that even fit five year olds aren’t immune to the joys of excess exercise.
Am off to get the heat rub now…
Tags: exercise, muscles, pain, party
February 22nd, 2009
I had to go to the doctor today for a health assessment so that I could be signed off as fit and healthy for the race. This was a particularly good day for it because I just happened to have done a 3 mile run this morning and then met with EJ, the personal trainer who kindly gave me her time for free. This is so that I can start to build up some muscle strength because right about now I battle to get the lids off kids’ medicine bottles much less hoist heavy sails up masts.
Son 1 wanted to come to the doctor’s with me and given I’ve barely spent a moment with them this half term, I said yes under pain of death that he was good and quiet. He was both. Exceptionally so. So quiet in fact that he got to listen to the whole conversation between the doctor and I. Which just happened to talk about the fact that I was planning on sailing on a boat.
Nothing gets by a five year old. The minute we left he wanted to know why we were talking about boats. I have mentioned the trip to him before but it was all theoretical then. So I explained that I was going to go sailing for a while but only in September.
He promptly said: “I don’t want you to go, who will look after us?” Sigh.
So I said: “Daddy and we’ll get a nanny, someone really, really fun and lovely who will spend loads of time playing with you guys.”
“I don’t want a nanny,” he said. Sigh. “Who will take us to school?” he continued.
“The nanny will,” I said gently.
“But she doesn’t know where the school is,” said he, and melted into tears.
This is why this is a challenge. Not the sailing. This. Right here. The guilt.
We had a long chat and he seemed to warm to the idea when I explained that the nanny’s only job would be to play with him and his brother.
Later at bathtime I asked him what he’d like in a nanny.
“Someone old,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I want to know what old people do,” he said very philosophically.
“What do you think old people do?” I asked.
His 3 year old brother listening to all of this earnestly said: “They die.”
Son 1 and I looked at each other and fell about laughing. Classic chirp from pipsqueak.
I fear we have many, many of these conversations to come.
P.S.
I got my first donation today (thanks Vicks!) and first offer of a corporate ad. Yay! Plus lots of offers of promotional support. So thanks to everyone.
Tags: doctor, guilt, personal trainer, son1, son2
February 18th, 2009
