MotherSoup

Aaaaaah - holidays.

I know I’ve said it before, but that’s because it’s a consistent theme in my life. Take away the school run and the homework and the days feel very, very different indeed.

Yes, in my previous salaried life (I won’t say working because this is a working life too - just unpaid) I had deadlines and time pressures. But they were either within my control or subject to rational negotiation. With small children the control and rationality go out of the window. I can repeat the need to hurry when we are running late for school - they can still be brought to a standstill by the temptation to pick daisies.

And who would dare say that they don’t have the right priorities?

I feel they’re going to spend enough of their lives dealing with commuting and timescales. It’s such a shame that pre-schoolers are already living with these demands, because their parents and older siblings are already on the treadmill.

But even the holidays have time pressures. I’m torn between filling the days with activities - taking the chance to do things we just can’t do in term time. Nothing structured necessarily, just expansive messy play - and just letting the days drift by. Problem with that is we get to the final afternoon and a little voice will pipe up that they wanted to do some complex project, and by then it’s too late.

Losing the daily rush hours is one of the few aspects of my homeschooling friends’ lives that I feel I could embrace.

Picture by .scooter

I’m not still reading Moondust - but the Now Reading widget isn’t playing ball…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattbrett/92729376/

Like most houses, we’ve had bouts of illness over the recent weeks, although not as explosive as some seem to have been. With the tiniest Soups, this is still pretty anxious - too young to explain the precise nature of their misery, and too irrational to understand the need for the frequent fluids recommended by the pharmacist, they become pallid bundles of incoherent misery, wringing your heart and pressing all your hormonal parental buttons.

But an older Soup, who generally enjoys Rude Health is currently languishing by my side under a quilt, with book, a hot water bottle, a drink and - a rarity at this more sophisticated age - a Favourite Animal Companion. Said child limped through the final hours of school and barely managed this morning’s extra-curricular activity (and unfortunately it was an Assessment Week). Lunch was spurned in favour of a swift return to the Land of Counterpane.

I can’t say I’ve not appreciated the chance to curl up next to someone who is more usually a whirlwind of energy and constant movement. We’ve shared the laptop, playing its meagre repertoire of games, done some online quizzes, ordered some new goodies.

Now, alas, said Child is getting restless. But being a resourceful mother I’ve already lined up a boardgame as the next item on the agenda. Must go and trounce the Little Invalid.

                                    Picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/cookylamoo/432969435/

Bear with me - this may ramble…

In the car this morning I caught Archbishop of York John Sentamu talking about using the credit crunch to retake some of the basic meaning behind Christmas. In amongst this was the idea of appreciating the value of the truly important things - which are not necessarily material gifts.

And it got me thinking. I was on my way to Fort Kinnaird to buy Christmas presents for a family of dear friends. But although I love them very much, I don’t find them easy to buy for. They enjoy a far more affluent life than the Soup household. It is always hard to balance our tight budget against finding items that fit (even if they don’t match) with their style and interests. I am sure they are careful to judge what they buy for us, not wishing to overwhelm us with gifts that cannot be reciprocated. But welcome as those gifts are, my lasting gratitude will go to them instead for many acts of kindness over the years, which cost little or nothing, but which I will remember for the rest of my life. For instance this summer they gave time and expertise to support me in making some important choices. No money spent, but crucially useful. So the presents, I reminded myself, really are only tokens. Make them good ones, if you can, but don’t fret about them…

And while at Fort Kinnaird, we went into Borders and I picked up a kids’ book called Teach Your Granny to Text. I gave it just a quick flick. It seemed to be a 101 things to do… book with an ecological twist. The page I read was entitled ‘Love Your Stuff‘ about appreciating even your old and tatty things.

I put the book down, but found myself coming back to the idea of ‘Love Your Stuff’ throughout the day. It fitted with my general philosophies about the world. I know I’m a follower of the make do and mend ethos, and I’ve been a little amused to find that so much of the credit crunch advice being bandied about reflects the way we’ve been living for a long time (the downside of this is that it’s harder to find further ways to economise…) But, financial - and ecological - implications aside, I feel there’s a value to loving your stuff as part of a positive mindset.

Then in the afternoon, I took one of the Littlest Soups out for a walk, and we came past a place where we have previously found abandoned toys - discarded, I think, by the children in nearby group of houses. We’ve tried returning them to likely homes, without success. We’ve tried propping them up prominently to be reclaimed, only to see them moulder week after week. This time we spotted a naked, cloth-bodied baby doll, not dropped but hurled to the edge of some undergrowth. She wasn’t there the day before but, from the muck and the mildew, she’d been outdoors for some time.

There’s something tragic about an abandoned doll at any time, but when I picked her up I was struck by her resemblance to the computer-generated images of neglected injuries which have dominated the news in recent days. She summed up for me the antithesis of the ‘Love your Stuff’ ethos. Of all toys, a baby doll is designed to foster affectionate nurturing.

I remember the Council making a deal, some time ago about the provision of houses like the ones from where these toys may have come. They spoke forcefully about the need to supply ‘affordable housing’ for people who don’t have much money to spend. But is our society doing anything to support people in making the most of the things they buy with what little money they can spend?

Well, I’ve spent a little bit of money - I’ve checked out the website of that book’s authors and I’ve ordered a copy of ‘Teach Your Granny…’. As a family we’re going to think anew about making the most of things.

And the doll? I couldn’t just leave her there. She’s been bleached, washed, scrubbed and will be receiving fresh stuffing, a name and a new home somewhere. She’s as good as new.

I took the opportunity recently, while I happened to be in the right neighbourhood, of diverting off route just enough to swing past a couple of my old schools.

I’ve not bothered to do this for a long, long time - not since I became a parent (I had the Offspring in the car with me). What a strange experience it was. One school I had remodelled in my mind to resemble one of my Offspring’s schools, which reminded me of it. In real life I realised just how very different it actually was. One school looked very much smaller - and the grounds had been ‘edited’; one school looked very much bigger - but then it had been considerably extended!

I’ve not had the chance to visit these places, or to share memories with fellow pupils, for quite some time. As a result it had all taken on a slightly unreal, dreamlike quality, rather as if they were mental images from a book I had once read. And that links to one of my reasons for making a point of revisiting them.

One of my Offspring has reached a stage where they are reading many of the books I can so clearly remember enjoying in my schooldays. And for me the memory of these books and the memory of those schools are firmly intertwined. I don’t know what the room layouts are like inside now, but I could go back to the classroom and the very desk where I read particular books. I could point to the precise place where my favourites were shelved. I can practically smell them.

I’ve lost track of most of the teachers and pupils, few individual lessons stand out from my memory, but the memory of those books have come down the years with me. Once I had children I started to search the internet and began to build up a collection of the ones I hoped my children would themselves enjoy one day. They’re not going to read them in school: there’s nothing wrong with the school library, or indeed the public library, but a significant number of books which were popular among my class are now out of print.

Sharing books with my kids is one of the greatest joys of parenthood. I hope they can grow up with memories as vivid and cherished as mine.