In Praise of Single Parents
Single Mums and Dads I salute you, I don’t know how you do it! I had a small taste of single parenthood this week and it’s tough…. Nick went away to Morocco for 4 days and I was left in charge of Rory. Now, bearing in mind Rory *touch wood* is a great little sleeper and I had help from my Mum I still found it completely exhausting, not helped by picking up a steaming cold on the first day Nick was away. The whole situation was exacerbated by the fact that Nick wasn’t away working rather having the most fabulous time at a wedding and not just any old wedding, the wedding of our friend James to Hasna, daughter of the ex-finance minister of Morocco. To say this was a sumptuous affair was an understatement and to receive intermittent pictures of the all the feasting and merriment whilst drowning in snot and nappies did not, I have to say, put me in the kindest of moods!
Rory continues his ‘teenage’ spell of mood highs and lows, one minute giggling, the next minute sobbing his heart out. We made it through swimming class tear free this week but ‘stay and play’ was not a big success with Rory clinging to me throughout and bursting into tears when I popped out of the room for a loo break. He is definitely out of sorts with the same cold as me, a bit of a funny tummy and those wretched teeth so hopefully once we have cleared these bugbears out of the way Rory will find his old confidence. That said we are signed up for the MMR jab next week along with a couple of boosters at the same time so I am guessing 3 injections on top of everything else might not exactly encourage a sunny disposition!
This all said I am really enjoying Rory at the moment and feel we are forging a strong bond and, I have to confess, part of me loves the fact that he just wants his Mummy at the moment and no one else will do. We continue with an impasse on the walking front; I think the illnesses have made Rory a little reluctant to push himself in this area but we are starting to get lots of chat and big slobbery kisses which are just gorgeous (and I wonder why I have a cold ha ha!) Rory can now say ‘uh-oh’ much to the amusement of passers by and will now regularly hurl his water cup or anything else out of the buggy whilst innocently exclaiming ‘uh-oh’. He also seems to understand the word ‘up’ and will shout it out whilst holding things above his head. I thought I would try and work with some of the noises he can already make, giving him words and associated gestures – who knows he might be taking it in!
In other news we are all of a fluster with the house move, we are now exchanged with completion scheduled for Monday 11th July so this weekend will be mostly spent knee deep in de Ujfalussy debris.. although we may try and nip out for the village hog roast on Saturday….
Have fun in the sun, Emma & Rory x
Nigella – Eat your heart out…
This week I am proud to tell you that I earned my ‘mummy stripes’ in the cake making department! My chocolate cake for Rory’s birthday party was a huge success eliciting much cooing as well as complete disbelief from my mother in law that it was in fact all my own effort! However, I fared less well in the party games department and due to my deficient ‘pass the parcel’ wrapping I made a 4 year old cry….
Last week, you may remember, we trotted off to my sister-in-law (Lu) to celebrate a joint birthday party for her 2 and 4 year olds (the latter being the child I subsequently reduced to tears). At said party I interrogated my other sister-in-law (Kate) about the perfect construct of a ‘pass-the-parcel’. ‘It’s all about the anticipation” she said, “just stick some stickers in some of the layers and a small prize in the middle” she said – so that’s what I did.
Apparently there is a basic rule of thumb that you have one layer per child (8 in this case). I didn’t know this and had wrapped a good 20 or so layers resulting in some pretty bored party goers as we ploughed through layers of ‘Hello’ magazine. Additionally, it appears that everyone must receive a prize – I thought it was all about the anticipation? It wasn’t like this in my day (I double checked this with a friend and she concurs we were a lot more stoic on the prize front in our day). Everyone pretty much did get a prize (of stickers as we worked our way to the centre) apart from Emily, the most committed party goer and the most up to speed on party etiquette. Much howling ensued and no amount of ‘this is great practice for real life’ seemed to compensate her. Lesson learned – these days everyone gets a prize.
Rory is still going through a bit of a clingy stage and proved true the old song true ‘It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to’. Everyone turned up at once in a great typhoon of noise and kisses and poor Rory just burst into tears refusing to be cuddled by anyone other than Nick or me. He also completely unleashed at swimming class yesterday, screaming every time I put him on his back. I definitely think he is going through a ‘sensitive’ phase combined with two new teeth and a Summer cold.
I also haven’t ruled out ‘scarlet fever’ as apparently there is a dose of it going round nursery at the moment and it is highly contagious. I did notice a couple of rashy spots on the back of Rory’s hands yesterday. Incubation period is 5 days so we will just have to wait and see. The NHS has a useful page on scarlet fever if you think your child may have it http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Scarlet-fever/Pages/Introduction.aspx
Chicken pox is also doing the rounds so one way or the other I am sure we will spend July in spots!
Take care, Emma & Rory x
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