Schools started again this week.
Leaves have started jumping from the trees and every morning the world is soaked with dew.
Two little people who take up far too much space in this house are hurtling towards turning three.
And on Monday they graduated the final step in nursery and moved into the pre-school room. The next step from here is real, proper school, which they start in 2012. That will be an amazing time – uniforms and rucksacks and a school that it so cute it makes me want to squeal in sounds that only bats can hear.
You’d think I was upset about it, but my response was more balanced: So now that they’ve moved up a room, do we get a discount? Hey I can do sentimental. I overdo it when it comes to cots and toddler beds. I then get over myself and yearn for a reduction in their staggering nursery fees.
Their response: When they turn 3 you get £2 off per day. It’s in January that you get a noticeable discount.
So another lite Christmas then, it would appear.
It was an ordinary day for Nick and Nora. Alastair and I had met with their new carers, who are in the room next to the Toddler Room they had spent the last year in. They knew the carers anyway, the nursery is extraordinary in that almost no one leaves and the carers are huge-hearted women who have been there for ages and all the carers spend the snack times and lunch times and play times with all the kids of all the rooms.
The twins and I turned up to nursery and stood outside, waiting for it to open. Nick spun lazy circles in place and Nora stood calmly clasping my hand. The other parents greeted me and I saw a number of new babies and toddlers turn up, holding the hand of their mummy or daddy. It occurred to me that I am one of the longer-term parents here, an “old-timer” of sorts. One of the other old-timers looked at Nick and Nora and commented that he could remember when I would carry them in strapped their baby car seats, a twin hanging off the crook of each elbow. I remember those days, too.
Nick and Nora took to the new room with ease, much as they take to most things. They carried their new pack of Pull on Nappies into the room. They clasped in their hot little hands their new toothbrushes that they would keep in the nursery, as Pre-Schoolers brush their teeth after lunch every day. They had their Wellies and Macs as the doors are open all the time and children can choose to play inside or not. They sat down and took their shoes off (which both of them put on themselves that morning, and both of them put them on the wrong feet as well) and stowing them haphazardly on the shelf. They skipped into the toddler room, cheerfully waving hi to their previous carers. “Hi! I came back!” they announced, as though applause and gratitude should be forthcoming.
They ran into the room and shouted “I here! I came back!” to the new carers. They strolled up to the other kids and patted their shoulders like miniature politicians. I grinned at them and parted with £24 to the carers, £2 for their hour music session once a week that they absolutely adore (their rendition of “I Had a Tiny Turtle” is staggeringly funny) and £22 for their school dinners. A frankly shocking cost but thanks to Jamie Bloody Oliver school lunches are far healthier, far tastier, and far more expensive per week.
I knelt down and gave them each a hug and a kiss. I bribed them with the promise of one chocolate Cadbury button if they were good (I don’t overdo the sweets here). I smiled as they scampered off, Nick calling “Bye, Sannin!” over his shoulder, as he heard his father call me by my name the other day and is now being a cheeky chappie and imitating it.
I left the nursery smiling. I pulled my coat against the chill in the air. I said hello to more parents arriving. I walked down the ramp to the car and as I did I l heard a shriek: “Mummy! It’s mummy!” I looked up in the toddler window and two huge beaming faces were in the windowpanes of two windows, standing there smiling and waving.
I lit up like a Christmas tree. “Bye babies!” I shouted. I blew them a kiss, which they blew back. I put a hand on each windowpane and a tiny and undoubtedly sticker toddler hand came up on their side of the glass, opposite my hand. I stood there for a minute, smiling at them as they smiled back. I pulled myself away and went to the car, pausing to wave. As I drove away I pressed the image of their laughing faces in the window into my mind, and I rolled a window down and waved until I knew the car was out of sight.
It’s become our morning ritual – the chill, the falling leaves, and two cheeky monkeys laughing and waving mummy off.
Sometimes I feel like I am living someone else’s life.
Whoever they are, they can’t have it back.
-S.
Hi
I found out Tuesday at my 7 week scan that I am expecting twins. Two sacs two heartbeats. I have a 27 month old little boy already. My reaction was to bust into tears and i have been on the verge of a panic attack ever since. Dunno how i’m going to cope…
Looking at your babies make me think its going to be ok i think.
Thanks!
M
Happiness….I loves it.
My girl actually pushes me out the door (we figured out that she needed some element of control or else there was frantic crying).
What a lovely way to start your days.
“Sometimes I feel like I am living someone else’s life.
Whoever they are, they can’t have it back.”
Sometimes, you are so staggeringly brilliant that I have to remind myself you are a real person. That line almost cut me to tears. Does every parent feel that way sometimes? I know I do. My miracle baby turned 10 the other day, and I still sometimes stop to catch my breath when I look at him.
Thank you for keeping up this blog after so many of us have hid ourselves away, for sharing your beautiful, beautiful, beautiful words and extraordinary life.
I love you, babe.
Wonderful babies. Wonderful Mommy and Daddy. Wonderful memories and stores. And it’s wonderful of you to share them with us.
Hold on.. Hold on. You pay $74 per day or $74 per week?
When I had my kids in full-time daycare it was $200 per week if I wanted the place that allowed them to eat cheetos and hot dogs for lunch and watch television all day. $400 per week if I wanted a nice place.
(And I know, different countries, different standards of living, etc. I’m just always fascinated by this topic.)
Jen – it’s £22 a week for the meals, so it’s about £88 a month/$135USD. And I thought we paid a lot!
Julian has started calling his dad “Patrick” (same situation – he heard me calling for his father last weekend and has decided he’s going to use that too) or “Dad.” And he’s suddenly turned off calling me “mommy” or “Mama” for “mom.” He’s only 29 months old – impossible to think that he’s this cheeky so young.
I’m guessing that is the rate per week for both tots? I pay $115US/week for my 3yo and thought I had a good deal. I know it’s different all over the world, but for some reason I imagined you paying $300US or more per week. (Although I also realize it’s all relative!)
The £88/month ($135USD) is for both tots, but it’s just for their meals. Their nappies and wipes are on top of this, as are the nursery fees, which I will be honest about and tell you that we pay rougly £1600 per month ($2450 USD/$2666AUD) in nursery fees for both kids.
Big happy tears of happy happiness for you! I can visualize the whole scene from your description and it is fabulous…
Ahh, then I DO have a good deal! That’s almost 3x what I pay for my 3yo. And, sorry for turning a beautiful post into one about daycare fees!
What a beautiful post! Almost made me forget that my own girls were whining and crying when they went to daycare this morning ;-) Fortunately it always stops as soon as the door closes behind me, but it’s hard.
I love the idea of the open doors, and toothbrushing at daycare…going to have to make some suggestions at ours.
Have a terrific fall!
I don’t have children and at 23 have no interest in ever having them but even this post melted my heart. Don’t ever give up this little bubble dream because it sounds really really sweet and warm and full of the memories you’ll cherish and think of when you need them most x
Over at PostSecret, they had a card come in where the sender stated an intention to commit suicide. I posted on the thread that I’d seen many cases where people had failed to commit suicide and looked back on it, glad that they’d failed. You were in my mind as one example.
It is “somebody else’s” life that you’ve got now. That’s because you’re Somebody Else now. The Girl Who Lived. The Mum. Just A Happy Girl, Sometimes.
And we’re glad to have you.
That was really very sweet. It reminded me of the time when I was the last one in our last house, we had moved out, and I was waiting for someone to come pick up the last thing. I was sitting in the window seat of the library, overlooking the street, the last place to sit in the house now that the furniture was gone, and the place where, sometimes, my little ones knelt or stood to wave goodbye to me as I would leave to go to work. So, anyway, there I sat on that cold and rainy day, waiting for this guy, and I was transfixed by a grubby and smudged child’s handprint on the window. And I was simply so sad. The ephemeral and sometimes evanescent imprints are paradoxically the longest lived.
Anyway, miss you, my friend and happy that you seem to be doing well!