Category Archives: Children

My hat trick on the airplane

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You may have noticed that BB wore the same hat all summer long.

It’s a mini pilot’s hat that we bought while living in the States.

He’s never really shown much interest in it until now and had only worn it once before, when we went trick-or-treating in the US.

But this summer he became so attached to it, he’d hang it on his bed post and, every time he got up in the middle of the night, would actually remember to put it on.

His hair underneath has even moulded semi-permanently to the shape of the hat and now forms a quiff at the front that I think looks quite cool, though DH isn’t so sure.

Since he’s never become attached to an object before, I did wonder if it was because he was missing his Dad during our five-week sojourn. How sweet, I thought, imagining it was a link to DH, whose busy flying schedule meant he was working out of Dubai for most of the summer.

But then we found out the real reason.

“Will the hat be coming back to Dubai?” enquired my mother one evening.

“Yes,” he replied adamantly. “There are birds in Dubai too.”

“Birds?”

“Yes, I don’t want them to poo on my head,” he said, almost shuddering at the thought.

Turns out that, despite laughing at his brother at the time, he’d been quite disturbed when we found a bird dropping in LB’s hair earlier in the holiday.

I did tell him that it’s actually good luck if a bird dropping lands on you, but, no, the hat’s staying on apparently.

Until a little incident on the plane ride home almost landed me in deep trouble.

It was all going really well, thanks to a very noisy baby nearby who actually made my two look quiet. So there I was, basking – for the first time in five years – in the glory of being the mother of the less disruptive children, when BB handed me the hat for a minute to put his headset on – and I lost it.

Somehow, due to being sandwiched between two boys, three meal trays and all our in-flight paraphernalia, I’d totally lost track of it. We searched everywhere. BB crawled on the floor. I got down on my hands and knees too. But to no avail.

BB thought he might have left it in the toilet, so checked every single loo on board. I asked a flight attendant if it had been handed in, but she didn’t quite catch what I was saying and thought I was after the captain’s hat as a freebie.

Until, finally – after landing – a lady three rows behind suddenly produced it. How it got back there, I’ve no idea, but, luckily, it let me off the hook and BB’s avian coprophobia (fear of bird poop – I know this, because, ever the journalist, I looked it up) is being kept under his hat.

Boys’ toys and vintage memories

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I was so impressed on holiday when my seven-year-old niece was given a kit of interlocking pieces and managed to keep all the bits together – apart from two segments that were duly searched for and located.

Lego bricks: Still popular after 79 years

Having produced two unruly boys, our toy boxes are a mish-mash of broken pieces, bashed-up trains and planes, crashed cars, severed Lego heads and stray batteries.

I do go through their vast toy collection from time to time and try to sift out the debris, but it’s a losing battle – the pieces seem to breed and I’m forever finding broken axles and airplane parts scattered around the house.

I can’t remember the last time we did a puzzle that had all the pieces. If a toy does happen to be in good condition, it’s probably because it’s ‘too boring’ to play with.

Then there’s the ‘creative’ way they use objects that aren’t toys at all: I’d already mentioned how, on a previous visit to England, oldest son rolled the living room pouffe everywhere pretending it was a boulder. On another visit, he hung mum’s entire silk scarf collection over the stairs, fashionably arranged as make-believe snakes.

Today, he found a novel use for a garden tent and raced around the garden with it on his head in a Dalek-like manner.

An antique when I was little, this rocking horse must be 100 years old!

All this brings me to something I do enjoy while staying at my parents’. My mum keeps everything, and while I may get frustrated when the drawers are full to the brim, I just love it when she pulls out my old toys.

There’s the antique rocking horse, my old china tea-set, wooden recorder, the Jack-in-the-box (which scared the living daylights out of BB when he was little!), my brother’s wooden train that you pull along by string, original Mr Men books, and my dolls’ house with electric lights (now used by my boys as parking space for the lead-paint-covered veteran matchbox cars that were actually ‘Made in England’).

The model railway in the garage: Dad

But the thing train-mad BB loves most at our British abode is my Dad’s model train set, which dates back to the 60s. It now takes up the whole garage and BB can disappear in there for hours. And when he’s had enough in the garage, he comes outside to be the not-so-fat controller of the steam train running on Dad’s garden railway.

I was sure that somewhere in the attic there would be a Girl’s World circa 1982 – the styling head that gave me hours of make-over fun (and one of the most inspiring toys a girl could own back then!) – but I just found out she’s no more because I chopped all her hair off when I was nine. And there was me thinking that little girls always play nicely!

Operating the garden railway

INSOMNIA: What thoughts run through your mind in the dead of night?

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Two-year-olds – could they be any more mercurial?

One minute full of joy and laughter, the next minute angry tears rolling down their red-hot faces as frustration takes hold.

LB had a terrible tantrum yesterday. Everyone else went off on an errand, leaving him and me behind. To say he was devastated is not an exaggeration. He flung himself at the front door, his little fingers clinging to the letter box, and screamed like a banshee for a good 30 minutes.

The only thing that stopped his uncontrollable sobbing was spending the next half an hour standing by the road waiting for the car to come back.

Then, last night, he had another treat in store for me. I’ve mentioned before that he’s not a good sleeper. In LB’s case, it’s not a run-of-the-mill night-time disturbance that’s easily dealt with. He wakes up with full-blown insomnia and it keeps us both up for a couple of hours while he tosses and turns.

It’s really very annoying – and tiring.

Here are some of the random thoughts that went through my mind in the small hours last night, after my mum (who has also been getting up in the night, bless her) deposited a wide-awake LB in my room:

– “In the morning I’ll google diseases that make small children wriggle so much at night.”

– “Has my sister-in-law forgiven me?”

– “Should I get a proper job?”

– “Maybe I should research little-known reasons for night-time fidgeting right now. My iPhone’s by the bed.”

– “Why are beds in England so narrow? This double bed is only just big enough for LB and me. Someone – probably me – is going to end up on the floor.”

– “I wonder if my sister-in-law got my email. Perhaps it got lost.”

– “Is it worth trying to go back to Dubai via Nice and get DH to meet us there? I wouldn’t have to do the long Dubai flight by myself with the kids.”

– If LB goes to sleep in the next half hour and it takes me another half an hour to get to sleep after that, I’ll get another three hours’ sleep. That’ll be ok.”

– “I really had better research what wriggling could be a symptom of right now. Or would LB just want to play games on my iPhone?”

– “We could take the Eurostar to Paris. BB would love that. And do Eurodisney. Could I face it? How crowded would it be at this time of year?”

– “Oh god, it’s 5.06am. STOP fidgeting and GO TO SLEEP!”

– “Should I give him medicine?”

– “Perhaps my brother’s cross with me too?”

– “What should I buy my best friend for her 40th birthday. Crikey, I can’t believe we’re turning 40. How did that happen? Weren’t we just teenagers?”

– “DON’T kick me! You just nearly gave me a nose bleed.”

– “Why isn’t LB talking in sentences? He’s nearly three. When my friend’s boy was three he could read the health and safety notice at nursery. That’s amazing.”

– “I wish I lived closer to this friend. It’s been so nice seeing old friends with shared history while in England.”

– “Oh no, is that light creeping round the curtains? I’m not in the mood for the bloody birds to start chirr-uping.”

– “Should we try counting sheep together? 1-2-3. No, it’s just bonus stimulation time for him. Can I remember anything from that baby yoga class?”

– “If I had a proper job, I wouldn’t be in such a mess with my invoicing.”

– “He’s sleeping – at last! Only lightly, but he’s lying still. Now I just have to get myself to sleep. Right here goes.”

– “What if Catherine the Great doesn’t come back to us after her vacation in the Philippines?”

– “Can’t sleep. The edge of the bed is really uncomfortable and I daren’t move for fear of waking him. Feeling panicked about getting to sleep now.”

– “Omg, what will I do if Catherine doesn’t come back?”

– “Oh no, I can hear people going to work.”

– “Should I give myself some medicine?”

– “Agggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

This post was inspired by the very talented Mrs Dubai.
Image courtesy of animalclipart.net