Christmas Eve, 2009

Let me be a child again, and today I'm doing this: Watching lots of TV (including a version of Cinderella). In the morning, my father cuts the top off one of the trees in the garden, and once it's put up, we decorate it with the same stuff as every year, including ornaments we children made (that's now been used around 25-30 years). There is now new 'themed' tree decor every year, it's the same always and it's good to see our old friend in its new incarnation. Of course, while we decorate, there's more TV. In the early afternoon, there's potato salad and frankfurters: yuck - but later there'll be lots of sweets so I'll be (more than) compensated. We are eventually banned from the living room. it gets dark, and there's a Christmas walk that sometimes takes us (without our father) to a church, but more often just through the neighbourhood. There's not much decoration on the outside of houses or in gardens, but we try to peep into the houses to see other people's trees. When we're back at home, Father Christmas has been, and our dad has let him in, entertained him and supervised the laying out of presents under the tree. Before we are allowed into the living room, we gather round the piano (mum palys) and sing some songs, or listen to a reading of the nativity story. Then, my mum will sneak into the living room - the tree is lit and its light shines through the tainted glass doors - ring a little bell, and we are finally allowed in and sing "Ihr Kinderlein Kommet". Sometimes we are asked too recite a poem, one by one, to contribute to the festivities and celebrations. The presents lie under the tree in little heaps, a heap for each, wrapped in different paper each, recycled from the year before and the one before and the one before. The table is full of special plates full of sweets, biscuits and citrus fruit, a plate for each. The room is dark - dark furniture, dark wooden walls, and lit by only the tree and maybe another small desk lamp. The light is special, cosy and promising. My mother shows us which heap is for whom, and then the presents are ours.
This is the Christmas I wish for tonight.

My childhood tree, 2009 - as so many years before

"Bunte Teller" (Two or three too few because we're not there)

But we live in England, and things are different here. Tara has been brought up to the English plot. She's learnt from Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas that Santa is on his way on the 24th, and delivers the presents at night, to be found in the morning. Nursery has her convinced that she must spend the whole night in her own bed, or else Santa will not leave any presents if he doesn't find her in - bit cruel really, and I've already spent ages telling her not to worry, we would make arrangements in case she is to be found in mummy's bed (as every night, without exception, from ca 10pm on). So, when in England...
It's the first Christmas we celebrate on our own turf, and we've put in some thinking as to how we'd like it. Mum and dad agree: as close to the German Christmas and Holywood (that's Jose's influence, due to a somewhat different Spanish celebrations) as we can, within the English plotline. I've had a look at suggestions of traditions on the internet, and chosen a few to adopt. It doesn't matter that it's researched and adopted - they will become authentic in their own good time. So we:

• Bake cakes with the intention of giving them to the neighbours as gifts. Although, by the time I've found fairy Tara (in a festive outfit of her own choice) has poked her slobbery fingers into the pink icing of half of them, I'm deciding that that part of the 'tradition' can just as well be added the next time round.

Who says festive cupcakes have to be red and green?

• We undertake one last shopping trip to get our offerings for Santa and his reindeer. Every member of the family gets to choose one item, so if Santa is tired of mince pies and too full in general, we get to eat some lovely things in the morning - obviously an adapted take on my family's plates of sweets, the famous, above mentioned Bunte Teller. Tara chooses - marshmallows. They are pink, and green. You can't eve say they're unorthodox as we are only starting the tradition this year!
• I want to bring the TV into our day, and Jose downloads a film (paid for! legally!) he feels is appropriate for all the family, then disappears into the kitchen "for only five minutes" to make dinner, and leaves us to it. The film goes like this: Divorced mother drops little son off at father's place for Christmas, parents fight, child is unhappy. Tara is puzzled. "Why are they shouting? Why is the mummy going away? Why is the girl sad?" (Boy has long hair.) There is a sound on the roof, father goes out to check and scares Santa, who falls off the roof and lies like dead. Tara is shocked. Next cut, Santa has dissolved. Tara is even more shocked. Conveniently, Santa has left his baggy clothes, a ladder to the roof, and sleigh and reindeer on the roof. Little boy and father get into sleigh. Tara cries. "I don't want she to get in there!" We abandon the film and comfort a traumatised Tara imstead. What kind of choice was that, Daddy! What were you thinking, Hollywood! Next year it'll be Cinderella, and I'm getting the film. Luckily there's another programme point to be actioned:
• Since we have no accessible chimneys - and Tara is hysterically worried about Santa trying to get onto our roof to come down one as of ten minutes ago - we lay a path of reindeer food through our garden, oats mixed with glitter (the internet promised the oats would blow away, which of course does not happen, and by mid-January we still have soggy oats and glitter everywhere), for them to follow from our gate to our back door. I nearly forget, so by the time we sprinkle them all over it's a bit late and I have to attach a headlight to my head (hand full!) to see what we're doing. Still. Tara is impressed. And relieved. And talks about Santa falling off roofs and coming through doors for the next week. Now, mustn't forget to leave a special key out for Santa... Leo sleeps through this, although there's a chance he would have liked the sight of his mother shining white light from her head.
  

Fairy Tara, flapping her wings and looking a bit of a hippie, takes carrots (must feed those reindeer well!), a drink of orange juice (riding a sleigh under the influence of alcohol? Not in our garden!), and a big plate full of marshmallows and cookies into the living room and places them under the tree. The table is still too full of stuff, and we hope that if we save Santa the trip through the chimney he'll manage to bend down for his snack.
And that's it. Tara flapps off to bed, Leo is asleep on mummy anyway.

'Tis done! Off to bed!

Hang on, Mummy, says Leo, what are you thinking dumping me in bed to go back down to watch a film with dad and nibble carrots (marshmallows and cookies)! I want boobies, I want cuddles, I NEED company in this big old lonely bed!

Don't go, Mummy!

It's been a bit of an exhausting day, and I fall asleep with Leo. This means I leave the field to Jose who, I think, convinced Father Christmas that marshmallows are bad for his reindeer. Father Chrustmas in turn convinces daddy that they are bad for his daughter and best returned to the cupboard, and that stockings are best left next to the tree so the big presents can spill over and sit under the tree. It's just lucky though that Jose made it through bedtime awake, or else Father Chritmas wouldn't have made it in - we've forgotten the special magic key to our back door! In fact, we HAVE NO special magic key to our back door!

...And our next entry will reveal if Jose managed to keep Tara away from the stockings and the tree until he, and he alone, decided it was a good enough time to get up and enter the living room, all as a family, as they do in Wunstorf and Hollywood... or do they?

Let It Snow

It's Friday before Christmas, the last day of nursery. (I know, I'm behind a little with my blog entries!) A quarter to three in the afternoon, I quickly peel myself and Leo out of bed to run to nursery, to get Tara and to start the holidays. Thirty seconds after I close the front door, it begins to snow. Another thirty seconds later, it is hailing. Christmas holidays, winter and the snow arrive all at once. I'm delighted for thirty seconds, then the hail comes down far too hard (on my naked arms thanks to fashionabley short coat sleeves and absolutely no time to go back home and adjust clothing) to be pleasant - but Tara is delighted for as long as there is the tiniest trace of snow anywhere. Her first snowball is collected out front with daddy, and brought into the house with loving care.

Tara's very first own, self-made snow ball

Mummy says: Tara, what do you want to do with your first snow ball? Put it in the freezer?
Tara says: No, I want to bring it into the house and put it under the Christmas tree.

So be it! learning should not stop with the beginning of term break, and Snowball Number One is granted a short but comfortably warm life under the tree. By the time Tara realises what comfortable warmth does to Snowball Number One, she tries to rescue her dirty little puddle with a quick transfer to the freezer, but looses half on the way. Alas, a lesson in physics learnt, and Snowball Number Two still sits in the freezer, bottom drawer, next to the bread and the ice cream, two weeks later.

The next morning, everything is white, and we are dressed and out in record time. We have snow men to build (however small), lots of snow balls to throw at anything on offer, especially mum at dad, and dad at mum: Jose aims and hits hard with 2 out of three, I aim hard and hit with nil out of however many. Tara laughs her head off. And then? More of the same, of course!

Tara's second snow man

Leo reasonably happy in his pram

Whack the house with snow balls

I invent a snow ball attack game: Place Tara against a (photogenic) wall and hit it with snow balls to have them rain down on her. She's enjoying it, and she's far too young, innocent and lacking in war film education to be reminded of firing squads as I am, ahem, but never mind, it's FUN!




While in town with a camera, I'm taking a few seasonal pictures for the record: Christmas trees on sale at the greengrocer's, the harbour in sunshine, a blurred Christmas tree with blurred 99p shops disguised as seasonal angelic creatures of light, and - oops - a hungry, tearful baby bundle in dire need of an emergency feed in the Christmas section of a shop.

In the box: Our own tree's old friends at £25, £30 and £35

Ramsgate Harbour bathed in winter sunshine

Emergency cuddle! Quick! Emergancy feed! NOW! Here!

Ramsgate Christmas blurr

(Blog should have had more text but guess what: The most beautiful baby boy in town wants a cuddle and a feed. Now.)

The Proof of the Pudding...

What do you do with a little girl ("Mummy I'm a grown-up, right?") who skips any dinner at the thought of any sugary pudding ("Tara, you've got to eat 5 more spoons full of your dinner to earn points for your pudding!") at Christmas? You buy her plenty cakes when you're out for coffee? Perfectly correct. But above all, you introduce her to the Christmassy art of baking. Not that I remember a single recipe of all those that we baked with our mother when we were kids, but they are easily gotten hold of (Christmas Baking with Children - recommended!).

Now, the dough comes first. I proceed like this: Prepare the dough in child's absence. Then, while trying to cook some dinner with one had, clutching a five-kilo nursing baby to one boob with the other, somehow manage to knead and roll the dough with the aforementiond first hand while supervising Tara's cutting out of cookies and helping out with, ideally, a third hand. Half way through I accept the fact that I cannot stop the flour from going onto every inch of floor and into every crack that presents itself on tables or chairs - I've reached the maximum of my multi-tasking abilities! For that reason, too, the decorating is postponed to the next day. I need a break! (Tara is upset.)

Decorating cookies in five easy steps:

1. Place infant on next-best surface that presents itself in order to free hands. Get out cookies and remaining ingredients as quickly as possible. Note: Placing infant on table in presence of older sister is a bad bad bad idea as older sister will pull infant off table in a well meaning attempt at placing as many kisses on her little brother as physically possible. Before disaster hits, proceed as follows: Take a picture for the blog, THEN save the baby and place him somewhere safer. Feel guilty for only the briefest of moments; we got cookies to ice.


2. Get daughter to prepare icing. Note (1): Baby safely stored in background. Note (2): It does NOT help to inform Tara that icing consist purely of sugar.


3. Follow instructions to "spread icing thinly onto each biscuit with a knife." Then, "sprinkle on decoration." Note: Baby in background, stored safely, happy.

"Tara, show me your first biscuit!"

3. Add more water to sugary icing; we're way too slow and it's dried before we get any decoration on. Actually, we're way too slow at anything and anyway, the intructions are ridiculous. Drop them. Following her first biscuit, Tara has stopeed decorating and has started eating; first her biscuit, then the sugary decoration. Bit by bit. Slowly. With great appetite. I'm doing this alone! Proceed as follows: Chuck all decorative sugary elements into one bowl. Dip cookie in icing, dip cookie in decoration - done - next. Note: Baby, stored safely, is NO LONGER HAPPY.

Hmmm, pink sugar, bit by bit

4. Pick up unhappy baby, clutch to chest and insert nipple into infant's mouth to lighten his mood. Proceed with double dipping process one-handed. Note: Tara has found a way of speeding up her sugar consumption as well, as pictured below. Great. We're nearly done.

Hmmmm, pink sugar, by the tongue full

5. We're done. Leave cleaning to the man of the house and get biscuits out of the way so some get to make it through to the next day. Find somewhere safe to put baby and make some dinner, quickly, in case the child that's just eaten half a ton of sugar can be persuaded to have some real food. Note: Put away £2 for dentists' bills later in life. We'll be paying for this. What's wrong with nuts and oranges, anyway? They're much tastie, and much, much easier to prepare for eating!!!

Mummy, my pink sugar is all gone!

So then, as the saying goes: The proof of the pudding is in the EATING! I've had to try that sugary stuff my daughter loves so much myself. It doesn't taste of sugar, it doesn't taste of pink. It tastes of CHILDHOOD!

(7.12.)

Snap: Smile

Possibly the cutest 6 week old in the whole wide world.

Snap: Where's the baby?

Hello and welcome to a peep into my pram. Looks a bit messy? Well, as long as you can spot a little nose we're all right... The plot narrative behind this cosy scene goes like this: baby sleeping soundly on bed. Mum realises quite late it's time to run to nursery to pick up big sister. Grabs sleeping baby, sticks it in the pram, covers little head with next best piece of cloth to protect against the cold without wanting to risk him waking up by putting hat on, and voila! One messy pram with a tiny nose and a warm baby - and we made pick up in time!

Christmas Tree

Guess what we've been doing today?
Well. Ok. It's not that hard, given the title.

What can I say about that tree? It's beautiful, and it's our first own tree ever, decorated by our first child ever, with lovely dangly bits that I'd already bought before the First Child Ever came along. Ah, the joy of anticipation: First anticipating the day we would get them out to have our own family Christmas at home, while they were hidden on top of a cupboard. And now anticipating the moment when beautifully wrapped presents lie under the tree, our First Child Ever enters the room, sings a Christmas song with/for us and joy and harmony abound.
For now we're quite well on the joy and harmony side. Only one fight so far about the decoration (Mum/Tara), only half a crown broken off the new nativity set's wise man (Tara/Jose), and only one bauble shattered (Mum/Leo). Tara did not protest (too much) either when we took the odd eclectic ornament back off the tree (her pink fairy wings, a blue dummy and a musical toy teddy), and the pink bauble she got to buy for pink's sakes was honoured with a place right under the angel. Also, Mum&Dad didn't tell Mum&Dad off for jointly opening and using the first present that amazon had accidentally delivered to Mum&Dad instead of Santa's workshop - a slow cook pot... Why enter cooking heaven only in 10 days when the gates have already opened now?

1. Fairy Lights

2. Ornaments

3. Finishing Touches

4. Festive domestic bliss

The only disappointment of the season to date is Tara's Advent Calendar. Never mind that I only managed to get it out on day 7, but it's Really Not Nice that I only fill one drawer a day, and only once. Tara 's question of the day, any day, is, "Mummy what day is it today?" She'll be standing in front of her calendar, opening drawer after drawer for the third time on the day, when she asks that, and accordingly my answer is not "Sunday" or "the 14th" but "There are no more sweets, you already had them all today!" Accordingly, the second big disappointment of the season will be sweetie cut-off day in early January (at the latest) - but that horror is in the future.

On that note, off to feed the baby seasonal biscuit and slow-pot dinner fuelled milk. Under the sparkling tree. Aah, joy!

Snap: a domestic snapshot

That's the kind of mother i am... Putting my babe down where we happen to stand when i need a hand more than he leaves me... Oh well... The table IS very clean after last night's baking session...

Snap: Little Man with Hat...

...on his way to pick up his big sister (and already one month and two days old!)

A Glorious Full Month

Hi! My name is Leo-Peo and I'm... Mummy, is my name really Leo-Peo?
No, baby, it's Leo Gabriel. Nice name, isn't it?
Oh. It's not Leo-Peo. It's not Schnuckel, kleiner Schatz, kleiner Mann, Suesser and Frump either?
No. Just Leo Gabriel. Leo for a Lion and Gabriel for an angel. Nice, yeah? I hope you like it anyway. I chose it with great care, even though your initials came out as LGV, not LEV like I wanted cause Tara is TOV but I only liked Eren and Elias for an E and you didn't look like either E when you were born a month ago, and your dad din't like them anyway.
Ah. I like Leo. What's wrong with LGV?
LGV is short for Large Goods Vehicle, that's a truck, and for initials that can go both ways but at least you're a boy so there's hope you'll forgive me for it, but like I said you didn't look like an Eren or an Elias...
What's a truck? And anyway, mummy, you're talking so fast, you're making me sleepy! Can you sing me a song?
Oh... well, I'm not very good at singing... what one would you like?
I don't know any but I like your voice. Mummy, what's the first song I ever heard?
That's Bah Bah Black Sheep, mein Schatz. I told you that your big sister Tara would sing it for you, and then I sang it for you so that you'd recognise her by it.
My big sister, that's the one who always wants to pick me up and give me cuddles?
That's the one. She loves you tons.

Tara: "Uuuugh... I can't pick him up, Mummy!"

She holds me funny. It's wobbly. It makes me cry.
I know, mein Schatz, but I'm always there to catch you, and I'm watching, and she won't let you fall. Ok... I'm nearly always there... sometimes Tara is a bit faster than me or I'm a bit stuck like, say, on the loo or so... and I've shown her how to hold you, and she knows when she's not allowed to pick you up, and it's all just because she loves you so much, she's not confusing you with her dollies, totally not, and she's so proud of you and... well...
Mummy, I'm hungry. Mummy, ouchy, what's that?
There's an ouchy in my tummy!
Sometimes you eat as much air as you eat milk, I'm afraid, and I don't know how to help you stop it, so it gets stuck in your tummy. But we'll see the breast feeding counsellor for a demonstration, I think, and I've already worked out how Pupsgymnastik (trump exercise ;-) can help you a bit: Every time you trump I push your legs into your tummy and more air comes out; it's particularly funny when you're naked...
Mummy, you're talking too fast again. And I'm hungry.
Sorry, baby. Wait. Here's a boob...
Oh YES! But wait, there's one thing I wanted to say: 'Hi. My name is Leo Gabriel and I'm one month old.' ... Mummy, I'm hungry AND sleepy now. Can I have a cuddle? And can I have my song now?

Leo-Peo, kleiner Mann, you can have all the cuddles and songs I can possibly give you.

Mummy Cuddles...

... and Daddy Magic (works when not hungry)

The above chat, of course, never took place. Expecially not the bit where Leo is presented a boob and says "wait." Hah! Truth is, I'm still getting to know him.
Tara, on the other hand, has the whole situation worked out. If any little cry gets in the way, she'll suggest: "I know! Just stick a bubu into him!" Well - it's very practical, and it works.
Me, I'm getting better at reading him though, although it took me a while to work out that not every cry is a cry for a boob. For the first two weeks, I fear, Leo-Peo found himself with a milky nipple in his mouth every time he was complaining about a bit of wind stuck in his tiny tummy. Still, Little Man is likely to accept the offer whenever it is made. But then, we're still only very new to each other, and I am getting better!

In celebration of Leo's first full month, we've made chocolate and orange cake with raspberries (no icing as calories would get too close to 4 digits per piece), and ornage drizzle cake. We've invited the neighbours round for tea and baby cuddles, and Tara has invited her collection of ponies round, too. The ponies line up with great discipline at first, then drift of to graze on both cakes... they have nothing to do with holes being poked into the chocolate cake where the raspberries can be spotted... and eventually show a strong preferrence for the orange drizzle. Strangely, just like Tara. Good job, too - there's already only half a cake left of the chocolate one, which, ahem, is my own seasonal favourite (recipe available upon request).


PS.: Tara's one month entry is here. All is pretty much the same, except that I weighed a whole lot less then and looked it, and I'm certainly nowhere near having my tummy back to normal and flat. All that cake...

Snap: Night Night

It's 11pm and I should be sleeping. Instead, i'm standing at the top of my bed adoring my brood all snug in their nest. The space in the middle is mine (it IS as small as it looks). I'll have to work out which duvet I claim a share off eventually, and carefully move one medium sized arm out of the way before I lie down. But I'm not quite done looking. So beautiful. So sweet. So mine... And such a good time of day to love them uninterrupted!