On living with Boys...

At the lunch table today I was not really concentrating on what Boys #1 and #2 were talking about, when suddenly:

Boy #1:  "No, I didn't do that.  I fighted."

Boy #2:  "Fighted?  What are you talking about?  You mean 'fought'.  'Fighted' is something a Boove would say.  Your grammar is as bad a Boove's!"

Boy #1:  "Yes, of course.  I was trying to sound like a Boove."  (He so wasn't). 

Me (not really having paid much attention up until this point):  "Hang on - what did you say, Boy #2?  Did you say Boy #1 sounded like a boob?"

Both Boys fell about laughing.

Boy #2:  "No, mum.  I said Boove.  Like in 'Home'.  Not boooooooob."  He paused for a moment, considering.  "Although, boobs have terrible grammar too.  All they do is sit there and look at you."

Me (what?):  "What?"  (We're not overly modest in our family but, apart from mine from time to time, when had he actually seen that many boobs?  And I didn't really want to think too much about the 'sitting there and looking at you' comment - that's the stuff nightmares are made of and which helps therapists pay their bills...)  "Which boobs are you talking about?"

Boy #1:  "You know, Mum.  The ones we saw in the shopping centre this morning."

I blinked.  Boobs?  In the shopping centre?  Again, what?

Me:  "Where was I when you saw this?"

Boy #2:  "Looking for shower gel, I think."

Suddenly it clicked.  They were talking about a large ad for Agent Provocateur perfume on the front window of a beauty store I was visiting.  But whilst it was a provocative image (the clue's in the brand name, I guess), I didn't remember any actual breasts on display, and I certainly hadn't paid much attention to it.  Then again, I wasn't an 11 or a 9 year old boy...

Me:  "Oh, ok.  But it was no big deal - she was wearing underwear."

Boy #1:  "Yes, but you could see the edges of - them..."

Me:  "Well, fair enough.  But it didn't really show her Booves.  I mean boobs.  Did it?"

Boys #1 and #2:  "Hahahahahahahaha!  You called them Booves! You meant boobs! Booves, not boobs!  Hahahahahaha!"

Reader, it definitely was not my slightly hysterical laughter that echoed theirs as I considered the imminent onset of my sons' adolescence and all the joy that it will bring...

I'm having a moment...

It's going too fast.

I look at my boys - now 10 and approaching 8 - and I think this almost every day.  What with the whirlwind calendar of school, music lessons, sports fixtures, after school activities, social engagements and just - well - Life, the weeks whiz past and suddenly what was the chaos of the beginning of term at the end of August is now a well-worn routine.  The alarm bell rings on Monday mornings and before I know it, I'm cooking Sunday lunch, without having had a moment to stop and smell the roses in between.

And all the time, my boys are growing up.

A few days ago, in an uncharacteristic fit of organisation, which may or may not have been prompted by the fact that Husband was working from home and inspiring me to show a sense of industry (of the 'Jesus is coming.  Look busy' variety), I cleared out a set of drawers that have probably had the same stacks of papers in since we arrived in Moscow nearly 4 years ago.

My reward - apart from the sense of achievement that always results in moving annoying piles of paper Out Of The House - was to come across some school photographs taken of the boys when they were 3 and 5 , the autumn before we left London.  They look, quite frankly, adorable.  If I'm honest it was bit of a relief to discover that my memories of them at that age were truer than I had imagined; I can't be the only parent who, when they look back on photos of their babies, is a little disappointed to discover that actually they look pretty much the same as everyone else's babies at that age, with the same rubbed out bald patches from when their birth hair falls out around 2 - 3 months, the same flushed dry cheeks from teething, and the same patches of dribble around their collar, surely?  I mean, Boys #1 and #2 were lovely at that age, of course they were.  Just not the beauties that I imagined them to be at the time, if the photographic evidence is anything to go by...

But here, in the photos I found three days ago, they were practically perfect.  Clear-eyed, healthy, smooth skinned and reach-out-and-touch-me gorgeous.  Their open and trusting smiles for the camera warm my heart.  But time has moved on, and whilst they are still - in my eyes, anyway - heartbreakers in the making, they are growing up.

Boy #1, for example, doesn't need help with his homework anymore, and the fine down of dark hairs on his upper lip is becoming more evident.  He's getting taller, no longer one of the shortest in his class, and is even wearing trousers of the correct size rather than a year younger as he was doing until recently.  He's got a great sense of humour and a strong sense of ethics, is working well in school, and is addicted to reading in all it's forms (but particularly to anything from the 'Percy Jackson' or 'Harry Potter' series, which he will read - and then re-read - in bed, on the sofa, whilst laying the table and walking up and down stairs, given half a chance).  He shows a steely determination to take part in team sports, and has a confidence in his physical abilities that I never did at his age.  He's brave enough to face down bullies and to accept an apology from those who have wronged him, and is generous in his levels of forgiveness.

Boy #2 has a mostly iron-clad personality and a wicked sense of humour.  He's nobody's fool, and will not be forced into doing anything he doesn't want to.  At school he is showing increasing confidence in writing and that maths might be his thing, along with all the signs that in the next few weeks he will become a fully qualified bookworm like his older brother (although admittedly of the Asterix and Obelix variety, for the moment at least).  His love affair with all forms of transport continues, but nowadays instead of reading 'That's Not My Car', we've moved onto books about The Titanic and space travel.  He happily jumps on the trampoline and attends football and taekwondoe sessions with his brother, but when all's said and done he would much rather be upstairs in his room building lego creations.  We recently introduced him to field hockey, and were initially surprised by how much enjoys playing it, until we worked out that the stick provides him with a tool he can master, which fulfills a need in his engineering-inclined mind.

Why am I writing all this down?  Because I write less about the Boys these days - for good, privacy-based reasons - but it occurred to me that before I know it the next 4 years will have passed.  By that time Boy #1 will be 14 and Boy #2 nearly 12, and if the experiences of friends with teenaged boys are anything to go by, our levels of interaction may have changed considerably.  They will certainly need me less, and as much as the prospect of that saddens me, that will be as it should be.

Consequently I want to celebrate who they are now, so that when they need me to be less involved and stand more on the sidelines of their lives rather than to be intricately entangled in them - as they need me to be at the moment - I will be able to look back at what was, and remind myself of how our lives once were.  To remember when Boy #2 was unable to let me say goodbye to him in the school corridor without giving me 3 kisses and a hug, or when Boy #1 would still - just - let me hold his hand when we crossed a busy road.  To listen to echoes of the days when they still wanted me to read them stories at bedtime, or when they would still clamber onto my lap for a cuddle whilst watching Horrible Histories on tv.  To remember when 'Mama's pizza' was still their favourite meal, or when a burgeoning tantrum could be defused with the question 'Do you think your reaction to not being able to find that book/sweater/lego piece might be just a little bit over the top?' And when the sentence, during story time '... and a great big bear bottom sat down on the lid.'* would lead to gales of laughter and hiccups.

There's no doubt about it; it's going too fast.  But oh - what a ride...


*From 'It's the Bear!' by Jez Alborough

On Mixed Blessings

Sometimes it feels as if you'll never be free of them.

Your children, I mean.

From the moment they're born it's as if they are surgically attached to you, needing feeding, cleaning, comforting, every waking hour of the day.  You rarely consider it a burden, of course (or at least - rarely during daylight hours.  At 3.00am it's a different story altogether - it can seem pretty burdensome at that time of the morning).

And when you do think about it, you remind yourself that this is not going to be for ever.  "It's only until they can crawl / walk / are potty trained / can talk / start nursery / start school" you think.  But for each milestone they pass - going to the loo unaided, feeding themselves for a whole meal without requiring a complete change of clothes (for them and you), describing for themselves which book they want to reach down from the high shelf - it seems as if there is always a next one to be reached.

There IS always a next one to be reached.  And few of them seem to result in your being needed less; they simply result in your being needed in a different way.

For example; you may not need to wipe your child's bottom clean any longer, but you are required to come up with new and interesting ways to get them to eat their vegetables - or new and interesting ways to keep from exploding with frustration when they won't.  You may not need to push them in their buggy when you walk down the street, but you need to help them understand how close they can be to the edge of the kerb on their scooter and still be safe at the same time.

Or, you may not need to play peekaboo for four hours straight to stop them kicking the back of the seat in front on that long plane journey, but you need to be able to come up with some kind of reasonable explanation for why you aren't emptying your entire wallet into the pockets of a homeless beggar hanging around outside your hotel when you reach your destination.

And when you do these things you know progress is being made, and that you're passing milestones, but you don't seem to get any closer to your ultimate destination as a loving parent; that of raising a well-balanced, responsible and independent  human being who can live without you.

This week, though, it happened.

I no longer need to drop my younger son off at his classroom door in the morning, or pick him up directly outside it.  It's not that I have absolutely needed to up until now; he's capable of getting there by himself from the front of the school and has been for a while, it's just that until now, we both preferred it when I walked him to the door.

But this term, his older brother has started to do it.

And I'm not needed.

Lost: One Friend

I lost a friend. Not today, not yesterday, and not in the eternal sense; as far as I know, she's still out there, somewhere. Scratch that: she's not 'somewhere' - I know exactly where she is. It's just that wherever she is, it's not in my life, not any more.

I don't know why she doesn't want to be in contact. I've turned it over and over in my mind, and am no closer to a real answer. Maybe it was when I did this. Perhaps it was when I said that. It was probably the time I didn't do the other thing. Possibly I wasn't forgiving enough of whatever, or understanding enough of 'that' situation. Or did she just finally lose patience with my attitude to something I didn't even realise was an issue for her? Was I so self-involved that I couldn't see her drowning / moving on / washing her hands of me when she needed me to?

I know friendships are often cyclical. People come into our lives and go out of them when the seasons change; as an expat I see that happen now with alarming regularity. But there are some friends that you imagine will always be present in your life; whether you see them weekly, monthly, yearly or once every 4 years, there's still that bond. The time in between your meetings doesn't matter when you finally get your feet under the same table with a bottle of wine or a cup of tea in your hands, and this friend was one of those.

I have others, of course, some as close and who know me as well as she did. Friends who've also been there for the mountainous highs and the lows so deep that walking into the kitchen cupboard, turning the light off, and closing the door behind me to shut out the static seemed the only viable option.

Thank god, they are still there. But for whatever reason, she's not. And it turns out that some friendships will stay with you, whether they are are active or not. So I think of her, maybe when I'm listening to a piece of music that reminds me of a shared memory (I'm listening to Adele's '21' as I write this and I just know she would bloody love it), and wonder what is happening in her world. I wonder whether it was a conscious act to cut me out of her life, or if that's simply how it turned out, and that I'm just not relevant to her situation any more. I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that question, actually.

From time to time, I wonder if she ever thinks of me & mine. I wonder if she reads this blog. I wonder if she's reading this post. But mostly, I just miss her friendship.

I've been thinking about this post for a while but was inspired to write it today by this piece over at Jane Alexander's Diary of a Desperate Exmoor Woman

Moving on #2

Boy #2's pearl of wisdom this afternoon, pronounced solemnly, feet on table, as he chomps (and burps) his way through an apple:

"If you eat the seeds you will definitely need to go to the hots-pital (sic)."

He's growing up - and I love that - but can I just say; when he starts to say 'hospital' correctly, I will mourn 'hots-pital's passing...

Note; this isn't the first time I've been here; I just realised that 18 months ago I wrote this post about the way he used to say 'helicopter'. Thank god for blogging so I can actually keep track of all this stuff...