And yet, the moment I come to leave, there are always tears. Not just little tears either, but the kind of tears that make you feel like you have sold your child into slavery. The kind of tears that have you taking deep breaths and maybe even sobbing a little yourself on the way back to the car.

I know that they are very happy at school. The end-of-day reports are always positive. they both join in, play with other children, boss the teachers around, all the stuff that you would expect. They eat their lunch, learn new things and are always sitting nicely when I come to collect them. They tell me happily about their days, eat a good tea, and go to bed exhausted. Only for it all to begin again the following day.

I have a very short routine, as the teachers and Nursery Nurses recommend: I take off their coats, sign them in, make sure they have everything. I give them a big cuddle and a kiss, tell them I love them, hope they have a good day and remind them that I will be back later to collect them. Then I leave so as not to prolong the torture for everyone. But it doesn’t seem to be enough.

In my online searches for something, anything, to help the situation, I came across the Kissing Hand inspired craft. I’d never come across the book before but ordered it right away and have been reading it with The Girls regularly. I knew that a card craft wasn’t really what I needed, that it needed to be something soft and cuddly, and came up with the idea to sacrifice an old blankie to the cause. I used these when The Girls were babies and transferred to their own rooms: conventional wisdom suggest that you put in their cot something that smells of you, such as an old t-shirt you’ve slept in for a couple of days, to help settle them in their new environment. As I wasn’t going to have my daughter towing a skanky old t-shirt around with her, I used a swaddling blanket, slept with it for  few days and The Girls have been Blankie Girls ever since.

So I spent a night sleeping with an old blankie then, using my own hand as a template, cut out two hands 1/4″ larger than the template (to allow for seams). I did the same with a handtowel I found in a charity shop. Then I paired up the blankie and towel hands, and stitched them together right side out. To avoid the frayed edges, could sew them right-sides together, leave a gap, turn them right side out, and sew up the gap, but I really like the rough edges.

Now I load them up with kisses every morning, and leave each girl with their soft Mamma-shaped hand in the classroom. The teachers have told me that it does seem to help, and LBG in particular, likes to smooth the hand out on her chair before sitting on it so that it helps her work!

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I don’t think I ever really got over the horror of the way that the disabled were treated in days of yore, and thus I was never really able to get into the book or to develop an attachment to the characters. The saddest thing for me is that the writer, Emma Henderson, based her first novel on the experience her sister had whilst institutionalised. That she was able to portray the horror that an utter lack of understanding and compassion can lead to so clearly that I was unable to finish the book is testament to her writing skills.

I’m hoping I’ll fare better with next month’s Love a Book read.

*which, incidentally, is a fascinating read with a really interesting hypothesis. Particularly if you are a parent.

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The book I read in 48 hours.

I loved it. Of course, it helped that I had saved it until we were on holiday, thus doubling the usual amount of parent (not a typo: there’s usually just me ) available to look after my children and therefore opportunities to ignore their tears and keep reading. Still it was an impressive start: since having children, it has been known for a book to take me months to read, page by agonising page, as invariably I fall asleep before I get beyond a few sentences.

But Water for Elephants had me spellbound, from the opening paragraph, searching for the reason for the title: why is water for the elephants so significant?

And it all comes down to a brief conversation in the dining room of the Old People’s Home/Rest Home/Care Home in which Jacob, protagonist and narrator of the story, resides. A new resident, on hearing the circus is in town, sets the women’s hearts aflutter when he tells them that he once worked in a Circus. He used to carry the water for the elephants.

Jacob’s response is to thump him. And to tell us his story, and why he knows that the interloper is lying. In some ways, it’s that classic fairytale that we all dream of: running away to the circus, riding the rails. It’s a story of danger, of passion and of family. It is beautifully written: the descriptions are such that I could see the 1920’s colour and glamour in my head as if I were watching it on film. It was fascinating to read about the cut-throat nature of the entertainment business during the Depression; of the long days and hard work, striking camp every night to get to a new destination.

But I kept coming back to Rosie the Elephant, gentle and charming, who captured Jacob’s heart; a consummate actress with comic timing, who understood Polish and drank lemonade by the gallon. And that’s when I realised: you can’t carry water for elephants; it would be much too heavy.

It’s the relationship between Jacob and his elephant that really touched me: they share such a strong bond that she would do anything for him. And she does. He protects her, cares for her, and encourages her. She and the Circus become his family. And although he and Rosie leave that life, it’s to the Circus family that he eventually returns. His love for Rosie, the real reason for his outrage at the lie.

If you have been inspired to read more, join the Love a Book Club at Freckles Family.

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World Book Day came and went without me really being aware of it, since I have been encumbered by a cold to rival the one that deprived me of a voice over Christmas and the New Year. Getting older has a lot to answer for, I tell you. But the Kidlings and I did mark the occasion, not that they were particularly aware of the significance either.

It was one of those wet windy days, and we had battened down the hatches and put on the heating when PD declared that we ought to have “tea in the sitting room.” Now that I have written that it brings to mind the awesome Cat in the Hat “Too wet to play out and too cold to play ball”, which is another truly mesmerising children’s book. Back to the story though: I can’t quite remember how, but from there it was a short leap to Going on a Bear Hunt. There are some books that you almost know by heart from your childhood and this is one of mine. PD also loves it, which has it’s uses, since when we are out and about and waiting for someone to go to the loo or come back from the shops, or just sitting at a table waiting for our food, I trot out bits of the book and we do the actions, and everyone is kept thoroughly occupied.

This is was that we used:

Sheepskin rug for the grass

Waterproof playmat on the waterproof side for the river

Uh-oh, a river!

Pile of cushions covered in a blanket to create a mountain (not in the book but a lot of fun)

Fan for wind

Blanket thrown over the gap between footstool and sofa to create a cave.

Uh-oh, a cave!!

And at the end? That’s Not My Bear (turns out that PD is quite afraid of bears.)

And a picnic tea on the waterproof play mat.

Uh-oh, a picnic tea

It’s true that all you need is a little imagination and you can bring a story to life. Going on a Bear Hunt can be quite exhausting though.

A well-deserved rest.

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Anyway, for the next few weeks, I’m going to take one rule at a time and see if a) it’s relevant b) I can do it and c) whether DH notices my attempts at 1950′s wifedom.

Rule #1: A Wife’s Duty
A man’s home is his castle and as such, he ought to be treated like a king. When he returns home from a demanding eight hours on the job (or more!), he rightfully deserves a bit of pampering. It’s every wife’s responsibility to dote upon her hard-working spouse, to show that he is truly appreciated.

Current state of affairs at DG Manor
DH returns home after a demanding more-than-eight-hours at work. (If this miraculously occurs before PD goes to bed, he throws off his coat, says hello to the dog and goes off to deal with PD.) He empties the dishwasher, cooks supper, deals with the laundry and puts the fire on then remembers to say hello to me, at which point I burst into tears of pain and frustration. To be fair this is abnormal: he takes on much more than his fair share when I suffer from SPD. Thank the Lord for Wedding Vows.

Conclusion
I am fully aware that being a stay-at-home-parent is NOT a cop-out, or an easy life. I know that if I wasn’t at home to run the house, look after PD and WH and make sure that DH is fed, clothed and the house runs ‘smoothly’ that he would not be able to concentrate fully on his job, which is demnading of time and brain cells. Still, I am very aware (sometimes I feel quite uncomfortable about this) that he is responsible for earning the cash that I spend making all the above happen. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to recognise this and give him the credit. I do pamper him: I tell him I love him, probably far more than he can really bear and, at the moment particularly, in a slightly clingy fashion. But I do tell him. I do make efforts to  give him a lie-in at the weekend and I do get him ‘little somethings’ when I am out and about, to show that I have been thinking about him. That said, when the weekend comes, after 5 days of looking after the PD for 12 hours a day, he gets all the smelly nappies. It’s the 2010′s after all!

Score
Not bad. Obvious disability aside, I’d give myself a solid 7/10 (can’t you just hear Len Goodman?!) for my efforts.

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This was my original thought, though not very original at the moment (I’ll have you know I was ahead of the trend on owning this poster and have it in my downstairs loo.) It’s appropriate after a week of awful commuting experiences and poonami incidents from both PD and WH. The WH very thoughtfully rolled in fox poo then rolled all over my *gasp* cream sofa this morning whilst I was bathing PD and putting her in her third outfit of the day. And all before 8am. This evening I fell downstairs whilst trying to contain said WH (who is wonderful sometimes, honestly,) who was acting like a nutter because someone in the South of England was letting off fireworks, and thought this to be more appropriate:

Is it the weekend yet?

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The books in the basket range from the hardback books the lovely DH buys me for my birthday to something I got free with the Evening Standard. At the moment the proportion of chick lit is slightly higher than average, since my brain cells seem to be diminishing with every day, and there are tomes to do with pregnancy and birth that I have read from cover to cover, found wanting and have yet to move to another bookcase or use as doorstops. It is with gratitude that, when I followed Nunhead Mum’s instructions to pick up the nearest book, I realised I had the abridged version and that it didn’t in fact have the requisite 123 pages. I can’t imagine three sentences from Clare Byam-Cook’s ‘What to Expect When You Are Breastfeeding and What If You Can’t?’ would be entertaining to the varied readership of the DG blog.

To explain a little better, I am required by NM to do the following:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag people to do the same, and acknowledge who tagged you.

Therefore, I came across the following quote from ‘The Short Life & Long Times of Mrs Beeton’ by Kathryn Hughes:

What a contrast is my frigid disposition to your generous, warm-hearted dear
self; it often strikes me, but you know I cannot help it, it is my nature…You
have guessed my weak point, for if there is one thing more than others I detest,
[it] is to be chafed in that quiet manner as you did in the note I received this
morning…Now my darling I must say goodbye, hoping you will freely pardon this
my first offence (at least I hope so), with much love,
Believe me my dearest
boy,
Yours penitently and most lovingly,
Isabella Mayson
Pray don’t
write any more cutting letters as you did yesterday, or I don’t know what will
be the consequence.

I think the book was a Christmas gift from my mother. I also think, on the basis of this extract, it will be a while before I get round to reading it! Now, for the last part, I have just to tag, since the acknowledging has been done. Who would appreciate the challenge?

Wakeup has a lot on her mind right now, but might appreciate the distraction; Gwen likes to read;and CJ likes to write… a short yet distinguished list. I have laid down the gauntlet, but feel free to step over it as you walk on towards more important things.

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