16.8.10 ~ 500 word diary (forget dread, just let it pass over you)

When I woke up this morning I was hit by dread. It was the opposite of what I’d felt yesterday. While cooking dinner, I'd looked out the window at the sky and was hit by an odd feeling – a mixture of excitement and sadness – as I realised that things won’t always be this way. We won’t always be living in this flat, I won’t always be standing in this kitchen, Jake won’t always be a toddler, we won’t always be doing what we’re doing right now. Then today, this dread. It was cold and cloudy and plans to meet with a Mummy friend in the park were cancelled. I couldn’t think what to do with Jake. As much as I love him all I could see at that point was the dread of “nothing happening” in my life, of life passing me by while other people get on with careers or arts projects or house buying or writing their novels or whatever. Then it passed.

Teaching the cat about trains

I watched Jake as he wandered round the flat aiming my camera at everything, everything a delight, taking the occasional snapshot. Then I watched him teach the cat, using his memory cards game, about cats, dogs and trains. And while trying to put his train set together and having some problems, Jake watched me and repeatedly reassured me that “It’s okay.” Then, while trying to bribe him to let me change his nappy and struggling once again with my worries about when to start potty training and how, I decided to bite the bullet and just do it. We’d been explaining to Jake what the potty is for anyway, so I did it again today. I left him without a nappy, put his big boy pants on and told him what to do. While we were in the bathroom standing around the potty, he had a crouch down over it, then stood up and lo and behold, there was wee! He hadn’t pulled down his pants first but he did his first pee on the potty!!

Later, he asked to go out so I put him back in his nappy and we did a few chores. I think we’ll start by having him in a nappy while out and about and while sleeping, and in pants at home and at nursery. On our way home and after he’d had a mini-milk ice cream, he said he was hungry so we went to Daisy’s café on Hoe Street. We haven’t been to Daisy’s since he was 10 months old. We’d tried a few times but it was always packed. This time it was empty and we had the whole children’s area for ourselves. Jake had fun playing with trucks and helicopters and cars and didn’t object when I asked him to help me put everything away when we had to leave. By this point, the sun had come out so he asked to go to the park. But then he fell asleep on the way there.