My daughter has some eclectic eating habits. This is not unheard of for children who are as spicy as she is. In fact, it is not unheard of for children at all. (I actually think that the only reason that it is not seen in adults so much is, adults have more control over their own diet and won’t buy food they have no intention of eating in the first place. So it’s still an issue, but better hidden.)

She does, however, love stickers, and her school dinner ladies give stickers out to any child that finishes their lunch. She wants the sticker, she doesn’t necessarily want the lunch. For some reason, the chocolate chip cookies in particular have offended her. 

She always has the option of eating her packed lunch, but this is something she’d rather keep for what she calls ‘a little snacky’ on her way home from school: she will picnic on it as we travel back. I should emphasise that she only has the maximum of a 20 minute journey home, but apparently this is long enough to require the contents of her lunch box. Or, at least, the parts that she hasn’t shed over the car’s interior. I am waiting for us to have mice in the back, given the amount of food that is there. 

With that in mind, she has taken to having school lunches, disposing of enough of the main course to constitute ‘finishing’ it, and hiding the cookie in her lunch box under her ‘after school snack’. At least, that is what she has told the staff it is. 

She has repeatedly come home proud of her stickers, with a lunchbox containing contraband. We now have enough individually wrapped cookies to start our own breeding program with the things. At one point, I asked her if that is what she was planning on doing with them, but she just blinked at me and went back to her trainset.

Still, she got another sticker today. I hate to imagine what she has done with the rest of the food. I just hope she has found a hungry friend to feed, because if she hasn’t, there is going to be a very smelly plant in the dining room after half term.

My daughter has found a new game to play when out in public, and I have to say I’m finding it hilarious. 

It’s called ‘being good’. The rules seem to be reasonably straightforward: when in public or semi-public situations and there are other children around who are “acting out” a little, make sure you are very ostentatiously being good. The more obvious the better. 

We were in the changing room after her swimming lesson and a little girl was running her poor mother ragged. She was hiding in lockers, running through the locker room, and generally doing anything and everything that she shouldn’t be doing. The mother was trying to get them both dressed and their hair dried, only to be met with insolence and disobedience. So my little cherub felt this would be an appropriate moment to emphasise her RP accent (we now live in North Yorkshire) and do everything in her power to show how little girls should behave. I had this blue eyed, blonde hair angel drying and dressing herself, asking if she could return her towel to the drop off, take herself to the loo.

Each action was a preceded with a “Mummy can I….?” and a big grin when she was done. She sat quietly while I brushed her hair out and wrapped it (she doesn’t do hair dryers) and she then collected all her belongings to leave. The final straw, I think, for the other parent, was when her child started to pull part of the wall apart, and my daughter turned to me and asked if she should carry all her bags as I have a ‘poorly tummy’. 

I could feel the resentment whilst I tried not to laugh. I had to cave and explain to the mother that this was her idea of a joke, and the seething expression of hate I was now getting from the other mothers was amusing to her (me too). 

On the way out, we passed another mum who was loaded down with her son’s bag, tennis racket, sports bag as well as her own gym bag and handbag. He then asked her to carry his drink and she looked at him amazed and asked him ‘how?!’ He huffed and marched away. She looked at me with astonishment and asked if they think we are made of arms. At which point, my little darling with her shining halo (balanced on pointy horns) appeared, dragging ALL her belongings. The lady looked on, amazed, from me to her stroppy preteen who was still protesting about carrying a drinks bottle. 

“How did you do that?!” She asked me, stunned.

I came clean.

“This isn’t normal, I had a hysterectomy last week. You have to lose organs for kids to be this agreeable, and it only lasts a fortnight.” 

We left a trail of stunned adults and raging kids who had been shown up.

I could feel the hate.

It was nice. 

We got home and she screamed until bedtime because I cruelly asked her what she wanted for dinner. The game is only played in public, sadly.

My daughter loves spending time doing classes at the gym. This has been something of a saving grace while I recover, but it’s also great for her: it gives her somewhere after school to burn off her energy – after spending the day doing things that may be mentally stimulating, but not so physically demanding. She does five days a week there, including the weekend, and more than one class a night on some days. 

I used to feel guilty about exploiting the gym, until one of the instructors told me she should do more, because they all love having her in class. So now, I shrug and sign her up to anything she shows an interest in. As I write this I’m clockwatching to make sure that she makes it to today’s class on time. This will require wrangling her out of soft play, down to the changing rooms, into her gym stuff and back to the tennis courts. 

I like her Wednesday night session the best, because the court they use is overlooked by the cafe. So I can sit and watch her, and see her interact with children who are not (necessarily) spicy.

Last Wednesday, I had a table by the windows to watch in that manner. A lady, who was obviously another parent, started hovering, and it became clear that she was doing the exact same thing that I was: wanting to watch her little one in his class. So, as I had the best table to spy, I offered her a place.

This, unfortunately, meant that she felt I was friendly and open to chatting, despite my Ipad open in front of me and a veritable wall of tech between us. She didn’t even seem perturbed that I was wearing headphones AND earplugs – from what I can tell as her lips kept moving. After five minutes of nodding, I sighed and gave her some of my attention.

From what I could gather, she was worried her child may have ADHD, and would not necessarily do what was asked of him in his tennis lesson. I nodded along, and told her how good the staff were here and not to worry. I explained about my own fae child, that she was in sports club, and that the staff coped admirably. She asked me which one was mine as the children were lining up for an activity.

I turn, look and sigh.

”The one with the rubber mat on her head.”

She laughs before looking, and sure enough, out of the group of thirty, 29 children are standing on their rubber mat that denote where to be. And my fae child has picked hers up and is wearing it as a hat. She smiles and waves at us, and then takes her ‘hat’ off and bites it. Apparently, the texture or taste is acceptable, because she spent the rest of the activity with it hanging from her mouth. When told by a member of staff to return it to the box, she barked before doing as asked. 

She asked me what Chinese year we’re in this year (the snake if anyone cares) and that prompted me to look up what year she was born in. 

The dog. Figures. 

After explaining to our daughter that I was going to hospital for surgery soon, trying to soothe the resulting anxiety beast pretty much brought us to our knees. So, we reached out to her school teacher and asked for help.

I have to say that, despite any conflicts we had with the teacher she had last year, THIS year’s teacher is amazing. She gave us links to outside agencies that would be able to provide support, and took our Fae aside during school hours to explain what was going on. 

She also made what we found out was called a ‘social story’: a laminated booklet containing simple pictures and sentences explaining, from my daughter’s point of view, what was going to happen. It explained that her mummy was going into hospital; that she was having an operation to make her better; and that the doctors and nurses would look after her and make her well.

It went on to show photos of her grandparents and father, as people who would help both her and her mother – by taking her to and from school and clubs, and helping her mum recover. It gave her details of how long to expect mum to be in hospital, and how long the recovery would be – all with little pictures and, where appropriate, the photos of her family inserted. Finally, it gave her ideas of how she could help her mother recover, and what she could do to make life easier.

She clutched this thing like it was a bible, and kept referring to it. She was very happy when my mother arrived before the operation, as this was stated in the book. Seeing that reality was following The Book’s course of events gave her faith in the “map” it presented, and it was almost like watching the anxiety melt away as she began to trust there was a clear and planned pathway that we were now following along.

She still didn’t approve, and was unhappy with the idea of me not being there for one night, but she was no longer so worried about it, more like she was put out about not having the requisite number of cuddles and stories. It was a game changer, and something that I will be using in future if we know there are disruptions to routine coming up.

The change between the night of my operation and the morning after were also stark. I managed to FaceTime her before breakfast in the morning to wish her happy birthday. (Yes, my surgery was timed just that well!) She promptly talked me through the new toy animals that had arrived with her latest magazine, and explained that she and daddy ate their own body weight in popcorn the night before whilst watching a movie. What’s more, after barely eating for an entire week, she devoured breakfast. 

So, the relief was real. At this point, as a public service announcement, I would like to say from my experience it was not a good idea (in fact it may have been a decidedly bad one) to attend a birthday party for a manic 7 year old less than 24 hours after having a hysterectomy.

Lives and learns. 

So, my second week into healing after what I thought would be a minor surgery but apparently is quite a major one, and I am bored. I am bored with being in pain, bored of not having any fitness, not being able to drive, and most particularly not being able to lift anything, as this bans me from doing any of my normal activities: laundry, cooking, powerlifting, yeeting my fae child across the room, or catching her as she launches herself down the stairs etc. 

It also puts me at a loose end. I am not good with free time and, as I no longer feel the need to sleep continuously, I need to fill the times before my morning snooze and my afternoon nap. So far, I have built a wooden ship, a wooden lock box, and a wooden orrery; filled an adult colour by numbers book; and completed an old cross stitch that has been laying around since I was 16. I have also written 5 or 6 blog posts (which is why they are publishing like clockwork on Mondays right now), first drafts of three books and two 60k+ fanfictions. 

I have also listened to 12 audio books and am looking for more.

When I listed this little lot to a friend of mine, whilst bitching about the restrictions, she paused in her replies before asking 

“Don’t you like daytime TV?” Which got me thinking. TV… oh yes that IS a thing people do. It honestly never occurred to me to turn it on. I never watch TV, I stream stuff on a fire stick occasionally, but honestly it didn’t occur to me that this is something that can be done to pass time. The only thing our streaming service thinks I watch is Paw Patrol, Numberblocks and Walking with Dinosaurs (hyperfixation is real and a cruel master). 

So now I am sitting in the cafe area of my gym, ‘supervising’ my fae as she is at class because I am not allowed to attend those either (no I’m not jealous) and pondering why it never occurred to me to watch the idiot box. Other than there is never anything on it that I would like. Although Walking with Dinosaurs is ok.

This is, once again, one of those conversations I can’t believe I am having. I should probably back up a bit. For Christmas, once again, my fae child only wanted one thing. Her letter to Santa was as short as it was illegible and only asked for a toy baby giraffe. 

Sounds easy, right? Well, it is until you understand that every request from this child comes with small print. In this case the giraffe in question had to

1. stand up on its own
2. be cuddly 
3. have a bottle to feed it milk
4. come with a nappy (does anyone make giraffe nappies?!)

So, with that in mind, the search started back in October for this sodding thing, and we found 3 of the four criteria with a bit of finessing. She got a mummy and baby giraffe, mummy was big enough to stand up on her own, and baby was cuddly. We also found some baby bottles that were roughly the right scale. I gave up on the nappies, and decided we would just go with “giraffes don’t wear nappies” – they don’t generally use bottles, either, but that’s neither here nor there. 

We had high hopes, and, sure enough, on Christmas Day, Santa was praised for doing an excellent job. The baby giraffe is called Applejuice and the mother is Mummy Giraffe (I just live here).

Today was Applejuice’s birthday – yes I know it’s been less than a month since Christmas, I am also aware that it is a cuddly toy, and even real giraffes as a rule don’t typically celebrate their birthdays. Nevertheless. I was informed it was her birthday, and she was having a party. Seeing where this was going, I informed my daughter that, whilst it was lovely it was Apple Juice’s birthday, she was NOT going to school, or the gym. Neither of these places were conducive to having a  2ft giraffe in them, and no, her teacher would not be pleased. 

Cue grumpy child, who spent the entire ride to school trying to argue she would sneak them into the building in her bag (how big does she think her bag is?!). I had negotiated far enough that they were in the car, or she would have never made it to school. Once at school, I insisted they stayed in the car. She stomped into the building without saying goodbye, past several members of staff who all looked at her and then me. When I shrugged and told them she was grumpy because of the lack of 3ft giraffe, they didn’t seem to know whether I was serious or not.

I would love to live in a world where these things didn’t happen. 

So, recently I ended up in a conversation with my fae child that had more of an effect on her than I expected. Whilst running around with a calculator (it was a Christmas present) she decided that it was a phone, on which she had entered a phone number. 

As an offhand comment (silly me) I mentioned that it couldn’t be, as there were only 8 numbers on the screen. Phone numbers had at least 10. She blinked at me, looked at the calculator and back to me and said ‘but there isn’t an 8’.

Crap. Well, this isn’t going away, as in her mind I have impugned her honour and dignity when it comes to all things numerical. I tried again to explain – despite the fact that this was meant as an off hand joke – that a. I had made an (in hindsight) poor joke and b. I was talking about the number of digits on the screen, not the figure 8. More blinking. This time accompanied by a high pitched sound effect I more often associate with cartoons. (See Stop this Sketch). She clears the screen and inputs another stream of digits and shows it to me 

“See, no 8.” She announces defiantly. This time there are 7 digits, I debate trying to explain again that phone numbers have 10 but feel I might be wasting my time. 

“Don’t worry, we have fallen down a rabbit hole of misunderstandings here, it’s not important. If you want that as a phone number, you can have it as a phone number” I say, trying to be conciliatory. Her eyes go wide. 

“RABBIT HOLE?! What rabbit hole we’re not in a rabbit hole we’re in a house!”

Oh. Dear. God.

She fixates on the idea that I think we are in a rabbit hole and goes off looking for rabbits while we try to make her finish dinner; my husband oscillates between amusement and cursing my name as we corral her back to the table to finish eating. The meal takes the best part of an hour and is completed whilst she insists on knowing where the rabbit hole fits into things and will not be placated with the idea of being read “Alice in Wonderland” as a bedtime story. 

Today, she found a business card and asked what was on the bottom of it. 

“It’s a phone number,” I say distractedly whilst wrestling her into socks and shoes. She looks up at me confused. 

“No it’s not, there’s an 8 in it”. 

I give up. 

So, happy new year. I hope you all had a wonderful season of giving, and celebrated the true spirit of Christmas. In our house, that is the commercial spirit. In all honesty, I have been buying presents for my daughter since October and squirreling them away. So by the time it came to wrap them, my husband took one look at the pile and informed me that half of them would henceforth be known as ‘birthday presents’ and I was under no circumstances to buy anything else for her until June. 

Her birthday is in January. So this seemed a little mean, but I dutifully nodded along, conveniently forgetting about everything else that I had bought but hadn’t been delivered. My daughter is also wanting a party, but that I am sure will end up being another totally different post. 

Still, we wrapped (it took the best part of two hours) and hid and basically got everything merry so we were ready for the festivities, and come the big day she tore into everything with wild abandon. 

On the 26th of December, she announced that Christmas was yesterday and why did we still have the decorations up? Nothing like enjoying the moment, is there? Well, we negotiated to the 27th on the grounds that her grandmother was coming over 200 miles to see her, so it would be nice if there was still a hint of Christmas spirit left when she got here. This was reluctantly accepted and we moved on. 

Our decorations didn’t make it to the 28th. Still, it was better than the year before when they were down on Boxing Day, so small improvements. 

Also, anyone know any good hiding presents for about 25 birthday presents that are still to come? Because I’m not sure there is any room left in the closet…