Toddling through Greenbelt

I spent last weekend storytelling at Greenbelt. It was mainly fab. I mean, there was lots of good stuff. I got to meet Bridget and Adrian Plass and actually have tea with them; I got to perform a new show called A Special Pair Of Shoes; I bumped into plenty of people I know, which is always fun, and I enjoyed channelling my inner hippy in festival dresses, rainbow striped knee-high socks and multiple jangly bracelets.

I also had Abi Jane with me.

Now, two years ago I went to Greenbelt at 20 weeks pregnant, and I think that more people told me then that I was mad than they did this time around. But 20 weeks pregnant was easy. Sure, I "stood" in several queues for talks on my hands and knees because of the constant danger of fainting, and I developed a very close relationship with the nearest set of portaloos to my tent, but all in all, it wasn't difficult.

However, here is just a flavour of what Greenbelt was like with a toddler.

We arrived ("We" is me and my wonderful friend Bekki, who I should say at this point looked after Abi a huge amount and kept me sane), and needed to unpack the car and put up the tent, preferably before it rained. For a while, Abi Jane was evidently either going to scuttle off into the depths of the campsite as fast as her legs would carry her, or take the tent apart as fast as we were putting it together.

But then she found the bag of food. So that was OK.

Camping itself wasn't too bad. Abi got the hang of tent life with surprising alacrity, even though bedtime did not include the usual bath.

The first night, she and I both woke up at about the same time - 3am ish - mainly because it was freezing cold. I sat up and piled everything I owned on top of her, and she went back to sleep. I didn't. The second night, she woke at 5:45am and the third night she was awake between 1am and some other hour that I didn't care to look at.

It wasn't the nights, though, so much as the days. The main problem with taking a toddler to Greenbelt is that for every hour you get to spend doing things like this:

you have to spend about twelve hours doing things like this:

until you feel as if your brain is going to leak out of your ears. The festival programme sits in your bag mocking you: "Look what you could be doing if you weren't on your fourteenth circuit of the showground pushing a little plastic car!"

On the second day, I discovered the Parent Support Venue. That was lovely. You go in looking tired and harassed, and they give you free cups of tea and magazines to read while you watch your offspring bashing other peoples' offspring over the head with Fisher Price toys. They provided baby baths, too, but I didn't like to imagine the carnage that might ensue if I actually tried to fit Abi Jane into one of them.

It was also on the second day that I finished putting Abi Jane to bed at about 7:30pm and realised that I hadn't been to the toilet for over twelve hours. Because you can't if you have a pushchair and a toddler with you and your only option is a queue for a tiny, muddy portaloo. Unless, of course, you leave the pushchair and the toddler outside to the mercy of the queue, which was tempting at times.

Yet despite all my complaining, I still somehow contrived to enjoy myself a lot of the time. There were unexpected pleasures, like meeting a family of complete strangers because Abi Jane decided to wander into their tent. They turned out to be absolutely lovely people from Norwich, another clergy family, who allowed Abi Jane to mess about with crafty things while we chatted about rural ministry. They weren't in the Daily Diary, but they were one of the best bits.

I don't know quite what I'd imagined would happen. Did I entertain visions of Abi Jane playing happily at my feet while I listened to scintillating talks, or sleeping through late night comedy sessions, or dancing along to music at the mainstage? Did I really not suspect that she would be grumpy at being contained, sleepless and whingy? I'm not sure, but in my foolishness I am already starting to contemplate going back next year. Surely with a nearly-three-year-old it would all work much better...

To sleep, perchance...

We've definitely reached that awkward stage at which it's time to drop the afternoon nap, but impossible to actually do so.

The main problem is that Abigail is rarely tired enough to go to sleep straight after lunch, but is shattered by about three in the afternoon, by which time is far too late for her to go to sleep, as she will then sleep until suppertime and be up all night. And for everybody who thinks they have the simple, Supernanny answer to this (I could hear the sharp intakes of breath from here) yes, she really does sleep for up to three hours if she naps, and no, I can't just wake her up after twenty minutes or whatever the magic number is, because waking Abigail up turns her into a screaming, wailing, howling, red-faced demon who acts as if she is being tortured for the whole of the rest of the day. Last time I tried it, she cried for the best part of two hours without stopping. Once she's asleep, she's asleep and that's it.

Once it gets past midday, therefore, I only have one question to consider in all of my planning for the afternoon: will she sleep or won't she? This afternoon, for example, I realised that I needed to buy wine and parmesan cheese for tonight's dinner. Driving to the nearest town is no good; it's too far, she'll almost certainly fall asleep in the car and then I won't be able to go into the shop until she's woken up. It's too hot for her to sleep in the car today anyway, even with the windows down. I might just make it to the nearest village with a village shop, because at least if she falls asleep on the way there, I can leave her for two minutes while I dash in and buy wine and cheese. But what if she doesn't fall asleep? We could stay in the village and go to the park too, but then that increases the chances of her falling asleep in the pushchair on the way there, or if she doesn't, in the car on the way back, and...no, wait. All this information is too much for one small brain. It's much better expressed in a flow chart:

So that is how I plan even the briefest of excursions these days.

Not Me! Monday

This week I did NOT leave the dishwasher open while I went and attended to some other emergency.

I did NOT return to find Abi Jane climbing about inside the dishwasher.

She was NOT inexplicably covered in yoghurt.



What have you all NOT been doing this week?

Friday Firsts

This week's Friday Firsts are nice and easy!

This week was the first time I ever told stories to two cameras instead of an audience. So it involved all sorts of new experiences, including...

- spending hours in a room with five other people, without EVER looking any of them in the eye
- watching Chip's hilarious stories without ever once laughing (or smiling, or twitching, or coughing or sniffing, or joining in with any of the actions!)
- having to start a story again because my stomach rumbled
- having to start a story again because the cameraman's stomach rumbled
- watching (and smelling) a fly cremate itself on a massive halogen lamp
- allowing a man I'd only just met to powder my nose for me (I know that sounds rather dodgy, but it really did just involve powder...)

Next week is going to be very boring by comparison...

What did you all do for the first time this week?

Not Me "Monday"

Today is NOT really Tuesday.

I was NOT doing my headless chicken act far too much yesterday to write a Not Me Monday post on the right day.

This week, I did NOT send The Rev to London to collect lots of furniture from my parents, who are moving to France. He did NOT arrive back with a van full of things, some of which were more unexpected than others, and not all of which were furniture. I did NOT have nowhere to put anything. I did NOT unpack it all with a rising sense of panic, and I did NOT have a fit of hysterical laughter over a chrome toothbrush holder. I do NOT currently have a double bed in my front hall because it needs to be taken apart before it will fit up the stairs. Abigail and I did NOT bounce on the mattress this morning.

Also this week, I did NOT take Abigail to the summer songs of praise service, even though it started at her usual suppertime and finished well beyond her usual bedtime. I did NOT achieve a quiet baby in each of the readings by repeatedly offering her a packet of blueberries. She did NOT decide she liked blueberries and eat every single one, and she did NOT produce a purple nappy as a result.

Oh yes, and when we left Abigail with some friends overnight so that we could go to the theatre and have a late night out, I did NOT leave my housekey in my car parked outside their house and so did NOT add twenty minutes to our homeward journey by having to go and collect it. I did NOT realise this just as we were pulling up to our front door. IT WASN'T ME!

What have you all not been doing this week?

Friday Firsts

A little while ago, in one of those random, slightly winey evening conversations, somebody asked me to think of one thing that I had done for the very first time that day. At first I scoffed at the idea that I would have done anything new on a perfectly ordinary day, but after a few suggestions I surprised myself by being able to think of quite a few first-time things – not huge events, mind, but still genuine first times.

The conversation has inspired this brand-new 'meme' of Friday Firsts. Each week I will try to think of some things that I have done or experienced for the very first time that week. If you are a blogger and want to join in, just leave a link to your own Friday Firsts in the comments here, and don't forget to put a link to this blog in your entry!

So, this week was the first time I've ever....

• Honked somebody else's car. I'm normally a nervous and fairly bad driver who wouldn't dream of judging anyone else's driving, let alone take my hands off the wheel for long enough to let them know about it. But on this occasion I was on home territory – my own road in fact – so felt entirely justified in honking the dangerous idiot who decided to overtake me when I was already doing just over 30mph in the 30 zone, and then speed off into the distance so that he was out of sight by the time I'd reached the corner.
• Played (rather than just singing) a duet with The Rev, who is learning the guitar. We worked out guitar and ukulele parts for Dinah Washington and Brook Benton's 'You Got What It Takes' and learnt it. It was fun. The ukulele part scrambles my brain, though, so we're not quite at performance stage yet – I can't seem to play it and sing at the same time!
• Performed in the rather scatological Dragon song from A Little Bird Told Me, the show that my very talented business partner is currently touring while I'm doing this stay-at-home mum thing. He kindly let me join in with the song at our business birthday party – four years! - and it was a laugh. I am now doubly jealous of the people who get to do it over and over again in theatres all over the country.

So, what have you all done for the first time this week?

Redistribution

Abigail's latest favourite game is redistributing various parts of the household.

It all started last week while I was doing various internetty things after breakfast, putting off tidying while she amused herself.  I became engrossed in something on Facebook, and after a while I was dimly aware of a repeated set of noises going on behind me.  They went: Sliiide...clatter...toddle toddle toddle...rustle...thump...toddle toddle toddle...sliiide (repeat ad infinitum).

I turned around to find that Abigail was very methodically emptying one of the kitchen drawers into the laundry basket across the room, one plastic cup at a time.  She would not be diverted from this: she went back to doing the same thing even after twenty minutes of getting dressed and reading a fascinating story about farm animals.

Over the week it has developed into something of an obsession, and very quickly gone from cute to extremely irritating.  Abigail is utterly convinced that her dinnertime paraphernalia does not belong in the white drawers where it lives.  We can never find a beaker, cup, bib or plastic bowl now except by accident: today I discovered three sections of sippy cup, two bowls, a lid and a bib in the washing machine.  They've also ended up stacked neatly on my coffee table, inside the Noah's Ark, underneath a chair and collecting soot in the fireplace.  One beaker even made its way up into Abigail's bedroom, although how that happened I have no idea as we now have a stairgate.  By the end of each day, the white drawers are completely empty.

Once again I find myself completely baffled by toddlerhood versus evolution.  Strange enough that, as I mentioned several posts ago, toddlers seem instinctively programmed to self-destruct, but what is THIS about?!  I mean, do baby apes spend their days happily moving twigs from one tidy pile into three not-so-tidy piles where their mothers can't find them?  And if they do, why do they?!  What future skill is it honing, or more to the point, what lost-in-the-mists-of-time, vitally-important-for-survival skill of our ancestors is Abigail recalling when she fills my washing machine with beakers?

While I'm working that out, I'm also toying with various solutions.  Put locks on the drawers, and hope that she doesn't turn to the cupboards which contain china?  Give up housework and cooking in order to follow her everywhere she goes and discover where she puts things?    Do my own redistribution, find a new home for feeding equipment and fill the drawers with toys instead?  Attach tracking devices to her bowls and beakers?  Wait until she can talk and then ask her where she's put everything?!  Answers on a postcard please...