Pure Imagination

Forbidden from leaping tall buildings, Superboy contents himself with watching over his little city.

From about ages two to four, most little girls live in their Disney princess costumes. I've seen it countless times over the past two decades, beginning with my now 18 year old niece. She even had Disney names for all of the members of my family. She was Cinderella, my mum was Fairy Godmother, my dad Prince Charming, her mum was Snow White, my other sister was Sleeping Beauty, and I, possibly because I always had a book in my hands, was Belle.

My other nieces, goddaughters and Little A's classmates all went through the same phase. Boys, though, not so much. Yes, there was the occasional classmate who came to school in Spiderman pajamas, but this was an exception rather than the norm.

Little A was never one for costumes. Lately though, he has been insisting on wearing swim trunks around the house and sometimes to bed. Perhaps because they are comfortable, perhaps because he knows he can jump into the pool at any time, or perhaps this is simply his version of perpetually wearing a Princess costume.

Since he refuses to wear a shirt with his swim trunks (and I can see the logic, because one does not swim in a t-shirt, after all), we've convinced him to wear his swim towels, which are designed like ponchos. He agrees to this, as they do go together.

Now if only I could get him to wear "real" costumes as easily.

London Life

For 20 years, my parents co-owned a flat just off Sloane Square in London. As a boarding school student, I would spend half term breaks here, and when I was at university, my sister, best friend and I spent alternate summers using the flat as home base and visiting different cities in Western Europe.

It was very sad news when my parents decided to sell their share to my British foster father, but good to know it is still "in the family," so to speak, and may be available for use if a visit coincides with there being no tenant in residence.

Since then, my parents have been staying in the area still on their UK visits, since Sloane Square is very much our home on that side of the world. This trip, I walked by the old flat nostalgically and was glad to see that, like the rest of London over the past 12 years, much had remained the same, although there were very obvious things that had changed.

I mourned the absence of post offices and high street bookshops, which appeared to have been replaced by ubiquitous Patisserie Valeries. Even the book department at Selfridges, once a little piece of heaven on earth for me, was shrunken and modernised and now utterly bereft of charm. The Puffin bookshop at Covent Garden had gone altogther, though its neighbours remained the same.

For the first time in my memory, there were empty shopfronts in central London commercial areas, and very few supermarkets left on the high street, but Marks & Spencer food shops now appeared adjacent to nearly every large Tube station.

The best change was that the former military barracks on the King's Road, which we would walk past daily, had become a set of shops, cafes, and home to the Saatchi Gallery. It was at a lovely restaurant next to this gallery that I caught up with friends I had not seen in 21 years.

At home, Big A came down with the flu midway through the week, but Little A managed wonderfully in my absence, since my dad took him out trick or treating or just to swim at their house. We would chat via Facetime, or rather, I would watch as Little A ran around and jumped around.

In eight days, I managed to squeeze in six theatre performances. The new shows did not have the magic of the old ones, but it was wonderful to see the talent and the full audiences at every one.

All in all, an amazing break for me. I look forward to the next visit, whether it be five, ten, or another twelve years from now. And perhaps one day Big A, Little A and I can visit this wonderful city together. 

Fair Weather Friends

When Little A was just born, and I would take him to the playground to get some sun, there was a toddling little girl often there who refused to wear shoes. She walked unassisted at 9 months, and was a bundle of energy.

I never forgot this little girl, even though I stopped seeing her around, because my son too walked early, and also hated to wear shoes.

As the only mum on the playground amidst a sea of nannies, I never got this little girl's contact details, but presumed she had moved away, as many families do in our building.

Recently though, she was back for an afternoon, and she and Little A enjoyed each other's company at the pool.

Now seven and at big school, the little girl's nanny told our Au Pair that she only started speaking at age three or so, after therapy. With Little A, though, she was chatty and very sociable. At first my son ignored her and did his own thing as he tends to do, but she was insistent and kept bugging him to interact with her, until he discovered he enjoyed it. It was heartwarming to watch, as this is may be only the second time ever that any child has made an effort to play with my son.

While I was away, they swam together once more. Unfortunately, I still wasn't able to meet her mum or get her contact details. I would love to invite her over regularly, as this is the type of friend Little A really needs, one who is insistent and slightly forceful. There is a Filipino term for this that is perfect. Little A needs a friend who is makulit, someone who will pester him without giving up into interacting and sustaining interaction.

I look out at the pool every afternoon and hope to see her there. With a little bit of luck, she will come visit again before the year is out. 

Playing School

Little A has had a couple of tummy upsets in the past few weeks, causing him to miss two days of school. And then there are the national holidays and storms that cause classes to be cancelled.

Since this is his first year of 7 hour per weekday school, I don't push him to do academic-related work when he's home. But clearly, he does enjoy the school routine and miss it when he's home. Just the other night, I found that he spelled out IEP Room. They have 3 such rooms in school, where small group sessions are conducted in Literacy, Numeracy and Science.

Another day, he grouped items in threes in several parts of our flat. I'm not sure if they do multiple choice questions, but took this to mean that his "answer" was B) 3 animals.

The first round of parent-teacher conferences last week indicated that all seems to be well at school. I only hope things continue to move this way - onward and upward. 

Mummy Break

My eldest niece turned 18 this year. Ah, the memories.  My 18th birthday was spent at boarding school, where I was gifted with a bottle of booze and a few condoms (marking the legal age for alcohol consumption and consensual sex), as well as other, less memorable, presents.

That was the year I came home to enrol at university, as well as embarking on a professional ballet career. Most of my schoolmates went on to do the final year of school, filled with auditions and teacher training certificate courses, while others moved on to university as well.

As the years passed, I kept in touch with these friends through letters sent in the mail and visits every other year or so to London, until I started working and had less time for travel.

My last trip to Europe was in 2001, to visit my sister who was then doing a degree in Public Art, and to see my old friends. Big A and I had started dating a few months before this, and he was in France and Spain with a friend to run with the bulls and drink plenty of wine at the same time I was in that part of the world. We met up in Paris, and then he spent a week or so with us in London.

In the intervening twelve years, my sisters and their families, and my parents, have been back to the UK countless times, but I've not managed to make another trip there, for budget or timing reasons. Until now. 

My parents decided to gift their eldest granddaughter with an overseas trip, and London was the location of choice, since she'd been to Paris and Germany over the summer, and my folks normally visit  the UK in October to celebrate my mum's birthday.

Last month though, they decided it might be more fun for an 18 year old not to travel with two people over 60. So I was elected to take my dad's place. In two weeks, my mum, my niece and I go off to London for eight days. It's hard to tell who is the most excited.

My mum had grown used to spending weeks in London visiting a daughter at school. My parents usually travelled separately unless the entire family was together, as the other would need to look after the kids at home, but since my dad retired, they have always travelled together. Not the best thing for my mum's shopping habit. Since opening her little shop, their European trips have been scheduled around the spring and autumn buying fairs, so none of these have been "proper" vacations.

This will be the first one in a long time - mum can browse the shops to her heart's content, I can see West End shows and visit art galleries, and my niece can come with either of us or go meet her godparents in London.

Naturally, I'm apprehensive about leaving Big A and Little A to their own devices, and have warned them both not to overload the Au Pair with too much responsibility.  I will be doing all the laundry and buying an excess of groceries before leaving, and will be gone over Little A's half-term break, so there will be no school.

I pray there will be no medical emergencies or accidents, and that all goes well. It will be Little A's longest time to go without my putting him to sleep since he was born. I hope we both manage the separation anxiety. Wish us luck!!

And On His Farm He Had a...

One of these things is not like the other - can you spot the real animal among the toys?

Here, kitty.

My son is an animal lover. He is fascinated with farms especially, but safari/zoo animals and underwater creatures come next. One shelf in our living room is dedicated to his LEGO farm, to which he attempts to add live insects that come into contact with us. Once it was a butterfly trapped in the laundry area, though we set that one free outside, and last week a grasshopper they found on a plant outside.

He regularly visits the dog obedience school down the road and the veterinarian's clinic around the corner. Lately, he's been spending plenty of time with a stray cat that sometimes lives in our parking area, and recently, he found a kitten of his very own.

While playing outside with the Au Pair on Saturday, they heard mewing coming from the bushes. On peeking inside they saw a tiny kitten that had been abandoned. Apparently it had been found in a car's engine and left in the bushes with its grey sibling, who was picked up by another kind soul.

I was away at a meeting, and on arriving home for lunch was introduced to the new member of our household, which had already been given a bath. We took the kitten to the vet's office, coincidentally at the same its adoptive owners took the kitten's sibling. Both were given de-worming medicine and had their claws trimmed.

We then marched home with our new kitten, who seems to be adjusting well to its new surroundings after a night of whining plaintively for its mother. Little Boy and Little Kitten now spend afternoons playing happily together. 

You Have Not Been Successful

While my son has a long way to go before he communicates at the level of Carly Fleischmann, it is interesting to get quick flashes into his thought processes every so often.

At his last preschool, there was a programme at every term's end, when the children would prepare a dance number, go onstage class at a time, in costume, and perform for their parents. This happened at the end of October, before Christmas break, and in March when school broke up for the year. As Little A attended that school full time for three years, he had many a "programme day."

While he generally did not like the noise and mayhem, Little A did like being around his classmates and having people there to show how proud they were of him. The feeling of being a part of something mattered, and we could see that.

As part of a self-imposed desensitisation programme to the sound of applause, he took to finding videos of children performing for parents. He searches youTube for videos of his favourite nursery rhymes performed by live children (or, for some unknown reason, Hindi cartoon characters), and recently typed the name of his school into the search bar as if to say, I no longer go to Toddlers (his old school was called Toddlers and Teachers), but I'm watching them perform anyway.

Over the weekend, on one of his many trips a day to play with the stray cat he befriended in the parking lot, the feline was not there. It sometimes disappears for a while, only to return a little later. Little A has taken to sitting in a particular spot and waiting for the cat to come out, asking me to call it by saying "Pah, pah," which basically means, "Meow, Mummy!" When I bring my mobile with me, he types "Cat meow."

This time, after sitting patiently for about 10 minutes (a huge feat for a child who can't watch a half hour tv show in its entirety), Little A gave up and stalked moodily back into the building. On the way, he gave a quick, annoyed scream, grabbed my phone, typed in a word and showed it to me. The word was "Fail," but before I could say anything in response, he deleted it and carefully turned on the caps lock key to spell "FAIL." He screamed again, once, quickly, to express his frustration, then calmly walked into the building.

It's funny how even non-verbal children pick up on the slang of their time. I never use the word "fail" colloquially, but he knows it means something didn't happen, as when our Internet connection is slow and the phrase "Failed to Open Page" pops up. He sometimes spells this phrase out with letter tiles, as if to tell us that the Internet is acting up again.

Lately, I've been explaining to him that he has Apraxia, and that's why it's hard for him to talk. I have yet to spell it out, but I know my clever boy will quickly see that this word contains the same letters as one of his current favourites - "Pixar" - and hopefully he will intuit that being non-verbal is not too bad, as long as there are other ways in which he can use his words to communicate.