Thrifty thinking...

I'm a self confessed hoarder but even I was surprised when I found a pair of socks - with huge holes in the heels - that I had bought in Peru about ten years ago. Why hadn't I thrown them out? Oh well, it turns out, when sewn together, they make a rather fetching draught excluder!

English or American?

A while ago, Dom and I were asking Max if he was English or American. His answer usually just repeated the last word in the question so we could predict his response:
'Are you American or English?' Answer, 'English'.
'Are you English or American?' Answer, 'American'.
But then he got the gist of our responses: 'English', 'Yeaaaaah!' 'American', 'Noooooo'. Clearly our negative response held more appeal for him because he is now always American. In fact, he and Oli hold dual citizenship but here are a few of the facts;
Max got his social security number well before his parents.
Both Max and Oliver held US passports before British ones.
Fy engines go 'whhiiiir' not 'Neee Naaah'.
'Table cars' go 'ding ding'.
Halloween isn't scary.
Fireworks go off in the summer (4th July not Bonfire Night).
We get mail not post.
Grammar is dodgy.
Prepositions are scarce.
In fact, Max's American-ness is increasingly evident in his vocabulary. His first word was 'Hayo' (Hello) and even though his second utterance gave away his English parentage ('cup-o-tea') it is now the Rs that give him away as the yank in the family - CaR, DooR, MoRe (Or could it be the Cornishman in him?). Certainly the Rs are now creeping in all over the place - even where they don't exist. Thomas the tank engine, you may remember, has a big presence in this household and the other day Max pitched in with his ever present refrain of 'Where's Thomas? Where's Thomas?' But I noticed that 'Thomas' had actually become 'TaRmas'.
'Say 'o'' I said (as in 'clock'). 'o' Max replied.
'Say 'Tho'' I said. 'Tho' he replied.
'Say 'Thomas''. 'TaRmas'.
So there you have it, we are raising an American. Having said that, there is much confusion over tomatoes which started off as British, then became American ('tomaytoes') and are now inexplicably 'bonartoes'. The last frontier will be the loss of the T in butter and water, he isn't yet saying budder or warder although ask him where he lives and you'll get the sing-song answer 'San Fransisco Cidy'. But this country is, after all, the land of the immigrant and many a proper Cornish miner came here to try his luck during the gold rush 150 years ago. It is said that if there's a hole in the ground, you'll find a Cornishman at the bottom of it. So we are following well-trodden footprints (without the hole). Amid the cast of many extraordinary characters I heard about growing up in Cornwall's Penwith peninsula, there was one called 'Yanky Will'. I believe he was so-called because he 'went to there once'. So if that is the criteria upon which my family is to be judged, then it is clear none of us can escape our lengthy sojourn on this side of the Atlantic. Today is, in fact, our third Thanksgiving in America. It's a 'holiday' I like more and more. It lacks the commercialism that so often identifies American culture and that has become so blatant at Christmas. It is very simply about families getting together to eat. But I like it not so much for the turkey but also that it staves off the Christmas sprawl (Here, it's pumpkins til Thanksgiving, then fairy lights ONLY once the turkey has been devoured). Last year it was a proper family affair for us and like millions of truly American families we celebrated with a big bird, stuffing and the works. But this year, Dom is heading to London for his sister's wedding and I am parenting alone. Max and Oli, the true Americans in this family, may well feel cheated - I opted for lunch at a 50's style diner this year rather than a vigil over the oven punctuated by intermittent turkey basting. It is certainly evident that Max was very much ready to get into the Thanksgiving swing of things. I was told that although his friends had swiftly discarded the 'Turkey' hats they made at preschool, Max was the only child determined to wear his the entire day - 'I just want to wear my TuRkey hat, OK?'

Wrapping it up

This kept Max busy for a good ten minutes...we got out a set of stamps and went to town on the packing paper I saved from our move earlier in the year. Now we have some very distinctive wrapping paper for Christmas.

Puzzling Chit Chat

Last week as I picked Max up from preschool, one of his teachers commented on how talkative he'd been. She told me he'd been sitting next to her telling her the colours of things, but not just that one thing was green and the other blue, but that there were different kinds of blues and what a blue something might say to a green something and so on. A few nights before I'd been telling Dom that Max's chit chat had started taking over my head. I go to bed with his voice ringing in my ears as if I've been out to a concert. It reminds me of when my brother and I were home from school one holiday and it was raining. Mum got out one of those 4000 piece jigsaw puzzles and we spread the tiny pieces on the dining room table. Each one was no bigger than a 2p piece and each one had to be turned over and identified as sky or water or brickwork and matched up to something else to give it some coherence. We spent an entire day obsessively putting the picture together. And all day, while focusing so intensely on our task, we listened to the local commercial radio station with it's inane chatter and repetitive jingles. When we went to bed that night it felt like the noise from the radio had inhabited every corner of my head and I honestly thought I was going mad. I remember my brother laughing when I asked him if that was possible. I was sure I'd heard of that happening to someone. And nowadays I sometimes feel as though my life is a bit like that jigsaw day - I spend all day turning over the minutiae of childrearing; Has Max done a pee? Have I got his snack? What about his supper? Where's the monitor? Is there enough milk? Where are the keys? Where's his hat? Does he need suncream? And in the background is Max's endless commentary, mingled with the clatter of toy trains or boxes being emptied; "I want to make a SHOP. I'm going to step over Mummy. Hold ON! Go round and round. It goes ROUnd and ROund. I'm going to take these to the laundry. Then hide. PeekabOO. What's swiss one? That's Bertie. Where is the ulla piece, Mummy? I want to make a REINdeer, OK? I JUST WANT the reindeer Mummy. The kettle makes noisy, Mummy. I'm making a train track, OK? All right?" .....I feel exhausted just writing it down! And frankly sometimes I do feel a little insane from it all. Three years of motherhood, the picture is still being pieced together and I'm sure I'm losing brain cells. But I've done Max a disservice if I've indicated that his chit chat is inane. To the untrained ear he might in fact sound really quite profound. A while ago Max began reciting his bear stories ("'I'm up here Big Bear' called Little Bear, 'I've made my own cave.'') And now he's moved on to song lyrics. He was recently overheard saying "You can't break my spirit. It's my dreams you take." James Blunt. Inane or not, the moments of silence in our house are pretty rare. Before I became a parent I'd go round to people's houses where there were kids, or be out at a cafe with a family, say, and the noise level was all consuming, even debilitating. I found myself mute as I watched the source of those rising decibels. But now I'm the mother so the story is different. I was on the phone to my brother a few months ago (before he became a father) when there was an avalanche of lego followed by the jaunty rendition of the alphabet song coming from the fridge magnets - all that, above the din of Max's banter. My brother told me he kept on expecting me to suddenly have to rush off, or at least take cover, hadn't the neighbour's house just fallen down? No, that is the soundtrack to our life these days and now I'm even capable of having a conversation amongst it all. That's not to say the silence, when it happens, isn't appreciated. I'm sure I will delight over Oli's first word as much as I did over Max's but at the moment when Max is at preschool and I'm at home with Oli - whose vocab consists of a gentle rarrrh - oh, that quietness is wonderful!