Reasons Eoin is Crying

I know, I know: it’s totally normal for toddlers to push limits, resist authority and generally have immense rushes of emotion which they are not adequately equipped to process. I know this in my rational mind. However, my rational mind becomes a difficult place to access when a small person is screaming, shouting, snotting and generally creating because he doesn’t want to wear a coat outside, even though it’s freezing, because his biscuit broke in half, or because the water in his cup was too wet. I am obviously not the only parent to experience this sort of situation (it’s a brain-befuddling toss-up between wanting to scream incoherently or laugh hysterically, in case you’re wondering), as is demonstrated by the existence of a site like Reasons My Son is Crying. There was a recent review in The Guardian of a book spin-off of this blog: the comments section contained a few rather snippy pronouncements, very much along the lines of this one:

Way to encourage your poorly disciplined brat. The reason they are acting like this is because you have been too soft and indulgent – taking photos of them somewhat reinforces that conception.

Now, I think I pull off my fair share of firm, disciplined parent moments, as do all of the parents I know. Even Stephen, the resident parental good cop, is perfectly capable of being severe when the occasion demands it. However, as other commenters on the Guardian review pointed out, there are times when no amount of calm, reasonable, logical argument works against the tide of scrotebaggery being unleashed by the smallest member of your family.

Eoin has been particularly tantrum-filled recently, and in the spirit of humourously defusing the situation, I hereby present some of the oddest reasons for his most furious outbursts of anger. Remember that I love him and I wouldn’t change him, but sometimes you just have to laugh at these things.

• The radio wouldn’t play the song he wanted. Neither would it repeat the one it previously played, which he actually liked. Rotten, stinking radio.
• I wouldn’t let him play with the blender (I also wouldn’t let him play with the oven, the breadknife or a pair of scissors, allow him to run his head repeatedly into a cupboard door, or stand by while he tried to hurl himself through the patio door). I am cruel and unfeeling.
• He wanted to be downstairs. “I want to go downstairs, Mummy! Why won’t you let me go downstairs?”. He was already downstairs.
• He wasn’t allowed to walk to his friend Noah’s house on his own. Not only is Eoin not yet 3, and far too small to walk anywhere on his own, but Noah lives about 8 miles away, on the far side of Cardiff.
• No matter how many times we explain (in simple terms) about the magnets on his toy trains, he cannot get two like poles to stick together. Turning one carriage round is not an option.
• An hour and a half of stories before bed was not enough: “But Ivor the Engine is a short book!”. 32 text-heavy pages may not be War and Peace, but it’s a lot for an over-tired toddler who has already had several other books read to him. “But Daddy said it was short! He did!” (He didn’t).
• We just barefacedly lied to him: we told him it was Sunday, when he knew fine well it was Saturday. How can he ever trust us again? (This one happened yesterday – note the date of today’s post).

One day, I’m sure, the tantrums will stop, and there will be a brief window of sanity before the teenage hormones kick in. Until that time, I’m going to keep trying to do the right thing, vis-à-vis sensible, fair and consistent parenting. There is, however, no way I won’t also be remembering the most ridiculous tantrum-pretexts, and laughing over them in the evenings. It’s really just self-preservation, you understand.

The end of an era

Today, Eoin had his first official haircut (me following him around the house with a pair of kitchen scissors, hacking chunks off his mullet, doesn’t count, I’m afraid).

He was pretty brave about it, considering that he had to sit still (not a popular activity with him) and let a strange lady wave some sharp things around near his ears, where he couldn’t really see what she was doing. He looks terribly grown up now with all his curls gone, and I have to confess I’m wondering if I should have jumped into the realm of the short back and sides this early. Fortunately, I took a few pictures of him before the deed was done: he looks a tiny bit 70s-ish in this one, but I think he’s lovely.

I do miss those curls, though.

Washing Wilfred

If you’re a long-term reader of this blog, you might remember Eoin’s beloved and much-snuggled elephant, Wilfred, of head-injury fame. Wilfred is a constant companion during dinners, nap times, bedtimes and gardening expeditions. He comes on rides in the car, and, on very special occasions, is allowed out and about into Cardiff. Not too often, though: new Wilfreds are not to be had for love nor money, even with the strongest eBay-fu, and I’m always worried that, given too much of a taste of freedom, he might go rogue and escape. That, as I’m sure you can imagine, would be Bad.

The inevitable consequence of having only one Wilfred available for snuggling is that it’s rather tricky to sneak him into the washing machine for a spruce up. In fact, so far, it has proven impossible. Eoin’s cuddly labrador, Breagha, was forcibly washed after the unfortunate incident during the nappy change (the less said about that the better), and he could be prevailed upon to understand that his owl puppet would have to go for a soak being enthusiastically but misguidedly dunked in a bowl of soup (cuddly owls aren’t very good at eating soup, it turns out). So far, though, I haven’t been able to convince him that, after over two years of snuggling, gumming and sucking, Wilfred was, to put it mildly, getting ripe.

Yesterday, though, we reached a crisis: Wilfred fell head first into a muddy puddle, and was subsequently run over by a toy wheelbarrow. Surveying the resulting damage, even Eoin could see that something would have to give. I brushed the worst of the mud off, and explained to that, tomorrow, while Eoin was out at playgroup, I would give Wilfred a lovely bath, and, by the time he came home, his elephant would be clean again. Eoin looked very teary about this. I assured him that it was necessary, and that Wilfred wouldn’t be hurt. Then, the real reason for the upset came out:

“Please don’t wash Wilfred in the dirty old washing machine with the dirty old clothes! Please, mummy, wash him in the sink! In the sink!”

True to my word, this morning I gave Wilfred a wash. In the sink:

After a restorative bathe in some Eucalan, with a smidgen of Vanish to treat the worst stains on his ears, Wilfred was carefully rinsed in cool water, loving patted dry with a fluffy towel, and then hung out by his ears in the approved, undignified manner common to newly-washed elephants the world over.

I hope Eoin doesn’t mind that he now smells clean: it’ll be a big change, after all.

Photomarathon 2013

I’m a bit late to the party on this one, as the Photomarathon was over two weeks ago, but I wanted to record my first attempt at a proper photography challenge. Having admired the results of previous Photomarathons on Emma’s lovely blog, and having tried unsuccessfully to enter last year (boy, those 400 spaces fill up quickly: don’t hang about, prospective 2014 marathoners!), I was pretty amazed that, this year, I not only managed to bag a place in the challenge, but also to take the requisite twelve photos in twelve hours. All this with a husband and toddler in tow, and with a minimum of fuss: there was only one very small tantrum from Eoin (who was tired) somewhere around photo number ten, and one from me (final photo: my plan to hang out under the pier and take cool perspective shots was scuppered by the fecking tide coming in).

I have no illusions about my chances: I’ve seen the winning photos for the last few years, and they’re all excellent. Also, I realised a few days after the challenge (why do I always suffer from this sort of esprit de l’escalier?) that all the highly-rated entries had a common theme linking all twelve photos, and weren’t just a series of random pictures of stuff in their house, their toddler, or, in one case, a seriously creepy plastic Krusty the Klown (coulrophobes, beware).

For what it’s worth, though, here are my entries: the gallery format crops them a bit, so click to embiggen if you’d like to see the whole entry.

Entry number/Who am I?

Poetry

Asymetric

Space

Out and about

Behind the scenes

Animated

A bit on the side

Shadow

Mixed message

Elegant

A different perspective

For “A bit on the side”, I really have Eoin to thank: I was going to take a pedestrian-enough picture of a piece of cake perched on a saucer next to a cup of coffee, so we all trolled off to Barker, and Stephen and Eoin waited at a table while I queued up to get the goods. As I was doing so, I glanced out of the window, and spotted two ladies in orange Photomarathon wristbands taking – you’ve guessed it – exactly the same picture. Returning disconsolately to the table, and entirely out of ideas, I decided to take the photo anyway. After all, I could always delete it if something better came along. Eoin, however, had clocked the slice of millionaire’s shortbread: he persistently photobombed my every attempt to take the darned picture, desperate to get at the cake which, for some inexplicable reason, I was photographing while he was trying to get down to the serious business of eating it. In the end, I gave up: you can probably see the teethmarks in the chocolate in this picture (it was several tries in), but at least there’s some humour instead of a just boring old shot of a cake on a saucer.

Incidentally, that’s a proper Vesper Martini in the penultimate shot, and, if you’re reading this Paul, yes, that is one of the cocktail glasses you gave us! I did not get to drink it, though: Stephen polished it off while I was on the seafront, swearing impotently at the incoming tide, and desperately trying to think of an alternative subject for “A different perspective”. Mind you, he did make me another one when I got home from dropping my entries off, proudly clutching my certificate of completion. I suspect that a rather lovely cocktail will be my only prize in the Photomarathon, but it was great fun nonetheless: I can’t wait to try again next year.

Eoin loves Jenny

The view from here

By now, I’m sure, you’re all aware of my propensity to sit on the beach and take photos of the sea, the sky, the pier, random pebbles… The image above shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, then. I took it a few days ago, about eight in the morning, just after I had dropped Eoin off for one of his mornings out with his very lovely childminder.¹ As you can see, the Pavilion Project is well underway, and the pier is dripping with scaffolding, ladders and netting. If the truth be told, it looks a bit of a state at the moment, but the knowledge that a shiny new Pavilion is around the corner does a great deal to take your mind off the mess of builders’ vans and portacabins which seem to have colonised the seafront in recent months.

As I sat beside the pier and watched the sun come up that day, I couldn’t resist making an analogy between the scene in front of me and my current mental state, trite though I knew that might be. I was on my way to an appointment with the doctor to review my medication, and, later that morning, I found myself well on the way to being pill-free for the first time in two years. This has been a long time coming: I’m not sure if it still counts as post-natal depression when you’re still a shaking, crying, vomiting wreck well after your child’s first birthday, but, whatever label you chose to put on it, it has been very, very tough. Two years down the line, I hope I can say that I am ready to go it alone. Like the Pavilion, there is still a lot of work to do: the metaphorical scaffolding (CBT and mindfulness exercises, a superhumanly supportive and patient husband and parents, good friends who understand and – hopefully – forgive) is very much still in place, but this time it really does feel as if the sun is coming up, and that things are going to be better this time around.

When I look back at the earlier entries I wrote on this blog, I realise that I wrote a great deal more about Eoin then than I do now. Of course, whether I write about him or not, he’s a constant, anarchic presence: mugging me for stories, charging around the kitchen wearing a mixing bowl on his head like a helmet, breaking my spinning wheel, eating all sorts of things he shouldn’t, and generally causing havoc. I think the point is that I don’t need to write about him so much any more. Looking back on those early updates, it now seems pretty obvious that I was trying to make amends in some way for the dissociation I was feeling. I was clinging on to every moment in which I could believe that I wasn’t crazy and detached, that I was a good mother and, however unbelievable I might have found it, that he did actually love me. Now, I still have dark moments, but they seem to be being outweighed more and more by the good times: the nonsense conversations, the unexpected cuddles, the fact that he regularly makes me laugh like a drain at the silliest of things (“The fan is broken: it’s a disaster, Mammy!”). Finally, it’s a relationship, and not an ongoing cycle of blind panic and fruitless self-flagellation.

It’s hard to write about this sort of thing without descending into cliché: good grief, I’ve even gone for the good old “sun breaking through the clouds” metaphor! I do honestly feel hopeful this time. My biggest fear over this whole period of illness is that my depression might somehow have damaged Eoin, that I might not have loved him enough or engaged with him in the right way. The fact that things feel so much better now, and that, for the first time, I feel calm at the prospect for stopping the medication, gives me hope that this is not the case. He is a happy, normal little boy, albeit one who remains slightly fanatical about trains, cars, and anything with a wheel on it. He is empathic, determined, intelligent and he has a lovely sense of humour.

He is fine.

I will be too.

¹They went to Techniquest, he got to press lots of buttons and make coloured lights flash, and she very kindly bought him a Volkswagen Matchbox car as a souvenir. He told me he now wants to live at her house full-time. I am pointedly not letting this bother me.

Two years and counting

Eoin’s second birthday involved all sorts of delights: presents (naturally), a morning in Cafe Junior with his friend Aurora, an unexpected trip to the Volkswagen garage where he got to admire all sorts of Ikea-cars in the wild, cake, neeps for tea, more cake… Barring the point where he tried to ingest Colin the Caterpillar (above) in his entirety, he has really been pretty moderate: there haven’t been too many teary interludes, and all in all it has been a lovely day. We toasted 4.46pm (the anniversary of him arriving, Superman-fashion with one fist in the air, through the biological sunroof) with tea and cake, and he seemed suitably impressed.

Happy birthday, little sausage: may there be many more like this one.

Love,

Mammy xx

Bracing

So, Snowmageddon™ didn’t entirely happen in Penarth: I understand it’s a different story in the Valleys, where they are further from the sea and therefore have Proper Weather, but here, everything is pretty much a mess of melty slush and the occasional icicle. Thank heavens the weather wasn’t too bad, though, as Eoin really did not like the snow. After some initial manifestations of interest, I took him out into the back garden for a little light snowballing. I was merrily prancing around, making snow angels and generally frolicking in our own little winter wonderland. Eoin, however, made it onto the lawn, and then stood rooted to the spot, massively suspicious and having apparently having forgotten how his legs worked. All encouragement to enjoy the snow failed, and, in the end, I had to carry him inside and ply him with hot chocolate before he cheered up.

Mind you, the brief snowy interlude did enable me to take a few pictures in which Penarth appeared to have been transformed into Penarnia. We even had a snowy lamp-post (with a slightly spooky halo to it):

The carved wooden eagle in Alexandra Park looked decidedly forbidding, with his cap of snow:

As for the sea… Well, you wouldn’t want to go for a paddle, would you?

Apparently more snow is due in the next couple of days: I can only hope that Eoin is more reconciled to it this time.

This is probably not what Peppa intended.

Over the last few weeks, Eoin has been talking more and more. While this is lovely for us, it’s also rather entertaining, as he has developed a vein of rather surreal humour. Over the weekend, he has claimed, with deadly seriousness, that his dad is inside the baby-monitor, that he is hiding behind the kitchen light and, most bizarrely, that he (daddy) left his bottom downstairs when he went to bed. Today, on a rather eventful walk in which Eoin fell hat-first into a large muddy puddle, we had a particularly odd conversation.

I was looking in the hedgerows for anything interesting to forage, and Eoin was poking around in the various patches of mud by the path, presumably reasoning that, if it’s good enough for his heroine, Peppa, it’s good enough for him. I heard a small voice exclaiming, “Ice cream, Mammy, ice cream!”, and was all ready to explain that we didn’t have any ice-cream at home, but that he could have a piece of cake if he wanted, when I realised he was wielding a large stick, topped with a lump of mud. “Mud ice-cream, Mammy!”. Nooooo! There was a slow-motion moment as he raised the stick to his mouth: I lunged to stop him, but didn’t get there quickly enough. I grabbed the stick and urged him to spit the muddy mouthful out. He looked me dead in the eye, chewed, and then announced defiantly, “Mud ice-cream yummy”.

Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have done him any harm…

Boxing Day

Eoin takes part in some traditional sports in honour of the day:I think he’s going for some sort of football/rugby/GAA combination. Certainly, handling the ball is encouraged, and goal celebrations are full of excitement. A belated happy Christmas to you all: enjoy those turkey pies and ham sandwiches this afternoon!