At least they didn't ask what 'piss' means...

Selected vocabulary that drew a blank with my non-English audience at the poetry reading/discussion yesterday:
'flailing', 'polished off', 'neat', 'thumbprint', 'chopped', 'haiku'...

But considering the language barrier, they were attentive, perceptive and engaged. And I feel much more confident talking in front of a group these days. I guess when you've - somehow - ended up leading a whole parent-toddler group in renditions of Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses, Hickory Dickory Dock, and Five Currant Buns, chatting about poetry to a few Catalan teachers holds no fear.

Tonight, the part of Mum will be played by...

Seventeen months ago, I wrote about how I didn't really feel like a Mother - with all that word's associations. Not deep down. A lot has changed, and now I feel as odd and fraudulent if I'm walking somewhere WITHOUT Alice in the pushchair as I did then with it. Her health, safety, development, and bowel movements are constantly in my thoughts and I would do anything to protect her. I am her mum, no question.

But am I a Mother? When I was a child I thought about my mum, and other people's, as if a) that's all they were and b) they had always known exactly how to be it. I mean, SURELY there's a switch that goes on when you give birth, that makes you all-knowing, super-competent, infinitely patient, totally nurturing, and able to to sew on nametapes, make castles out of cereal packets and cook three nutritious meals a day - isn't there? Well, apparently not. I still feel like it's a ridiculous mistake that I have been put in a charge of a baby - a person. Far from bestowing new and perfect knowledge, parenthood has, like space exploration, only revealed even vaster areas of ignorance. Everything is improvised, accidental, piecemeal and experimental, full of compromise and error.

But I have gained ONE vital piece of knowledge in these past seventeen months. Which is that parenthood is that way for EVERYONE, always. I am not alone.

Nineteen months and two days

Another installment in the series 'Alice with fruit and vegetables'. She doesn't look too happy about the pear though:

Nineteen months and one day!

Okay, six months without blogging. That's quite a long time when I consider that it represents a third of Alice's entire life.

So, updates:

POETRY
Nothing doing. (I am giving a reading to 20 Spanish students next week but I don't think that counts as a major development compared to say, actually putting pen to paper.

NOVEL
I have begun my crime novel several times, and have been foiled twice by laptop meltdown and once (ok more than once) by a complete change of mind about plot, setting, tone and characterisation. Ha.

BABY
Alice is finally walking, with a determined John Wayne swagger. She goes to nursery 1.5 days a week, and loves it. Her favourite activities are looking at books (hm, don't know where she gets it from), eating and/or smearing food into every available surface, putting things into other things/taking things out of other things, throwing balls, and chatting to the ants in the garden.

She had her first speech assessment with the cleft team last month, and 'passed' with flying colours. Although the cleft palate is causing slight nasality, she can make all the key consonant sounds including the tricky 'p' and 'b', and her vocabulary and communication skills are very good for her age. Words mastered include: mummy, daddy, duck, dog, cat, rabbit, cow, mouse, pig, teddy, bear, ant, rain, star, ball, house, brick, book, bye, banana, please, bee, peas (the last three are a bit interchangeable), up, down, red, blue. The list grows daily. She's a constant babbler as well, but hasn't yet combined the conversational talk with the actual words.

Just lately, she is prone to instant tantrums if what she wants doesn't materialise, occasionally even before she asks for it, which is not a welcome development. I think we might have spoiled her a little, and now that she's not a baby any more and technically has other ways to communicate, I tend to panic when she does scream and just do whatever she wants. Oh dear.