It’s time to wake my youngest up for school.
He’s asleep belly down, bottom up. It’s a beautiful sight and I smile even more as his buttocks clench, once…twice…thrice.
I move in to nuzzle him awake and eyes still closed, he smiles and nuzzles me back.
- Mummy, did you see my bottom saying ‘Good…morn…ing?’
Listen very carefully…I shall say this only once.
You can read the original Sweet Cheeks here.
The little guy is in tears.
Sobbing his heart out, he wanders into the office and climbs into my arms. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
It might help if you weren’t so damn optimistic all the time Mummy.
‘I’m your mummy. You can tell me anything.’
‘The thing is, I’ve realised that I’m going to have a terrible life.’ He’s off again. More tears, more snot, more chances to bury my face in his warm ginger locks.
Eventually I come up for air. ’You’re not going to have a terrible life, of course you’re not. I promise you’re going to have a good life. You’re healthy, you’re clever, you’re funny and you’re surrounded by people that love you.’
‘It’s not that! That’s not what I mean! The thing is I know that life is just school then bigger school then that adult school…’
‘University?’
‘…yes, university school, and then after that you go to work and you work and you work and you do that forever and then you die.’
He nestles his damp cheek against my breast.
I inhale more hair.
******************************
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lyu1KKwC74 (we’d been playing this in the car!)
Whenever I stay with my brother-in-law and my nephews, I pick up something from my late sister’s bookshelves.
George Orwell and her beloved Charles Dickens rub up against the fluffy female fiction she enjoyed when she was terminally ill – ‘send me something light, that’s easy to read and has nothing to do with death or dying!’
It’s her Chick Lit collection I turn to every time now, because Jenny Colgan and Lisa Jewell take me right back to our last afternoons together. By two o’clock she’d already be fighting exhaustion. I was desperate to see her rest, but she knew that giving in to the constant fatigue meant she probably wouldn’t wake up in time to collect her boys from school.
The logic of tricking a dying woman into sleeping is lost on me now, but I was always right in those days and used her inherent kindness against her. In her world the needs of a pregnant little sister trumped those of a young mother with only a month or two to live, so although I was there to help her, she’d spend half her time concerned about whether I was overdoing it.
If I wanted her to rest, I had to pretend my pregnancy was draining more life out of me than Stage IV cancer. “Let’s just sit down for half an hour and read. Recharge our batteries.”
“Okay, but whatever happens don’t let me fall asleep.”
We’d take a sofa each and within five minutes she’d succumb to the printed lullaby of a £7.99 Happy Ever After from Tesco. I’d put my book down and watch as the late winter sun caught the expressions on her sleeping face – anguish, bewilderment and confusion. When her features finally softened in the peace of deep sleep, I would put a blanket over her and sob my heart out solidly and silently for the next hour.
When the clock struck three, I’d creep past her tiny, snoring body, splash cold water on my face and waddle round to meet my nephews at the school gate. The victor collecting her spoils.
*This is the alternative prologue to my upcoming posts on Qatar. You can read the original here.
Isn’t it funny when we go to write one thing and something completely different comes out? I sat down earlier to knock out a quick post, simply to set in context where I’m coming from when I write about Qatar. It was supposed to go something like this:
Qatar – the prologue
Whenever I stay with my brother-in-law and my nephews in Scotland, I pick up something from my late sister’s bookshelves.
A week or so before leaving for Qatar (we left the UK in August 2011), I flicked through her copy of ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’. I thought that the three minutes it takes for my deodorant to dry was ample time to figure out what all the fuss had been about.
I read the following:
A traveller came upon an old farmer hoeing in his field beside the road. Eager to rest his feet, the wanderer hailed the countryman, who seemed happy enough to straighten his back and talk for a moment.
“What sort of people live in the next town?” asked the stranger.
“What were the people like where you’ve come from?” replied the farmer, answering the question with another question.
“They were a bad lot. Troublemakers all, and lazy too. The most selfish people in the world, and not a one of them to be trusted. I’m happy to be leaving the scoundrels.”
“Is that so?” replied the old farmer. “Well, I’m afraid that you’ll find the same sort in the next town.”
Disappointed, the traveller trudged on his way, and the farmer returned to his work.
Some time later another stranger, coming from the same direction, hailed the farmer, and they stopped to talk. “What sort of people live in the next town?” he asked.
“What were the people like where you’ve come from?” replied the farmer once again.
“They were the best people in the world. Hard working, honest, and friendly. I’m sorry to be leaving them.”
“Fear not,” said the farmer. “You’ll find the same sort in the next town.”
And that well-kent tale tells you all you need to know about where I’m coming from. I may point out some of the absurdities of life here, but I’m one of the lucky people in the world and as a result, I’m not much of a grumbler.
THE END
Instead, the first line brought up another piece of writing, which I guess says the same thing in a different way. It’s the alternative prologue and you can read it here.
Tell me the secrets of the universe and I’ll give you this old bit of sponge.
At the pool this morning: ”Daddy, do you know if mummy is ‘sixy’ or not?” [thank you Gangnam Style].
At the dinner table: “Mummy, if you get cancer when you are pregnant, does the baby get it?” I said no (I hope I’m correct), but that the drugs to cure the mum’s cancer can kill the baby. ‘Okay, so what would you choose – your own death or the baby’s?”
At bedtime: “Tomorrow can we invent a robot with super-soft hands, so that at night time I can take my top off, lie in bed and it can give me a massage?”
I started this blog with the intention of posting various witty and wonderful ditties about life in Qatar (hence the title).
I had a list of topics and absorbed all the rules about how to build a successful blog – you know, choose your niche and stick to it, ensure your posts appear on a regular schedule, monitor your stats to see which subjects get the most hits etc.
And I’ve pretty much ignored every one.
Instead, Warm Ginger is where I write whatever and whenever I feel like.
I spend my working day crafting words for other people and I love the different constraints and challenges that each project brings (most of the time!), but I need some writing down-time and Warm Ginger is where I find it. Here, I get to hang out with some truly talented and inspirational people who, even though I’ve never met them, continually enrich my world with their own writing.
Because of its randomness, this blog has given me so much more than I give it, but I’m now ready to include some of my thoughts on Qatar and expat life. So tell me what you want to know. Pose me a question and I’ll answer it, although if my husband discovers what we’re up to, he may censor some of the juicy bits!
And if you’ve come across Warm Ginger because you’re about to move to Qatar, I know how many random questions I had about things like car seats, deodorant brands and what to wear – so don’t be shy.
Ask me, I won’t say no….how could I?
Pantastic
My five-year-old informed me last night that he no longer needs to go to school.
-Mummy, that’s me finished. I know that I want to be a comedian and I’m ready to start work.
Saturday Night Live/Nobel, I’m coming to get ya!
Big brother (above, on the right) also set his intention when he was five. He’s going to Oxford University to study medicine, become a research scientist and win a Nobel prize.
Chalk and cheese. Marshmallows and spaghetti.
