It's a simple life

Life, at the moment, is a fairly simple affair for me. I sometimes wonder if I should be doing more; if life is perhaps ‘passing me by’. But then I remind myself that my children are small and that everyday brings a stage in their lives that will pass and never return.

I wish I could remember each of their little misunderstandings that make us roar with laughter. Like Rosie yesterday saying (when I brushed something off her ear): “Don’t touch my ear! That’s disgusting!” Me: “What does disgusting mean Rosie?” Rosie: “Don’t know. But don’t touch my ear, that’s disgusting!”

Rosie, who is three and nine months, has just started school and, after initial angst on both sides, has settled in well to the routine of going in the afternoons. Hannah, five, is enjoying her role as the big sister who ‘knows’ about school and, in the car on the way home yesterday, was trying to explain to Rosie about the end of the school day rituals. Rosie didn’t like putting her hands together under her nose and closing her eyes.

“That’s prayering,” said Hannah, knowledgably.

“Don’t like it,” says Rosie.

“Yes,” adds Hannah, “It’s prayering, like Amens.”

One day I will explain that ‘Amens’ are usually called angels, but Hannah’s word is descriptively better and it doesn’t bother her at school because I expect she knows the correct term in Welsh.

This morning, in lovely warm September sunshine, Rosie and I planted the seeds which will hopefully turn into cabbages for next spring. Then Rosie picked an armful of sweet peas which are now spilling fragrantly from a vase in the living room. The sweet peas are just about in full bloom production; they’re a bit late because the first batch of seedlings were cleared overnight by a plague of voracious slugs (is there any other sort?). It is rather lovely to have them flowering so enthusiastically at this time of year. It makes the house smell like summer.

The ducks were allowed out to roam around the garden in the warm sunshine dabbling for slugs and taking it in turns to splash in their ‘pond’. ‘Pond’ gets inverted commas because it is the girls’ old baby bath. Three ducks can fit in it alongside each other, while the other three look jealously on. I wonder if I should offer them some soap and a loofa, or possibly some white fluffy towels for after their dip?