Sadie and Holly carry the gene

A couple of weeks ago my sister, Rosemary, and I were in stitches at something our dad said. I was at their house and we were talking about what seeds we've sown inside and outside of polytunnels. My dad mentioned that he had sat four hundred and seventy-eight onions. I exclaimed, "four hundred and seventy-eight!" as Rose rolled her eyes at Dad. Dad told us that when he had said this to his brother, Gerard, that Ger had said he had sat a thousand onions. So, the laughing from two knowing O'Keeffe sisters started. Dad told us that his brother, Ted, was getting into growing vegetables too. And then he continued to make us laugh by telling us that he thought Ted wouldn't try to plant more but would try to grow the biggest of something, like a tomato or a marrow. Rose and I were unconsolable as this malignant competitiveness has often been ridiculed by the seventeen-strong next generation.

My dad is one of four boys. Johnny isn't part of this story but features here and here. To tell the truth Johnny needs a whole blog of his own.

I have often been mocked by my siblings for having unwittingly married my father as Martin is very like my dad in a lot of ways. Last week, a conversation with Martin elicited the same laughter from Rose and Dee when I phoned them to relate it. I had not told Martin about the conversation with my dad about the onions and yet a similar one occurred. Martin was telling me what he was going to do differently in the garden next year in terms of planting. I told him that he needed to start appreciating what he has now and not always thinking that it's not good enough. I said, "why do you do that? If anyone else looked at the veggie patch and polytunnel they would be impressed." Martin, matter-of-factly responded with, "sure I'm in competition with your father."

I immediately rang my dad, the man who didn't know he was in the competition, who, when reminded of the previous conversation, thought it was very funny. Martin asked me what my dad had said and I told him that he had found it funny and Martin said, "oh that's good, I can relax so" which, of course, made the story hilarious. This mightn't be so funny to someone who didn't grow up as a child of one of the O'Keeffe brothers but when I rang Rose and then Dee there was near-choking they laughed so hard.

Yesterday, Fathers' Day, my mam and Rose called to see us. They brought presents for Sadie and Holly from my dad. They were dolphin ice cube moulds (that's what it said on the pack....I know, the whole cube thing doesn't make sense!). Obviously they had to be filled with water and thrown into the freezer immediately. Rose is the best aunt any child could have and I think she would be considered number one by our nephews as well so Sadie and Holly got the very best out of a rainy day.

This morning, Sadie got out of bed without waking Holly so, unusually, she was eating her breakfast while Holly had a lie-in. The very first thing she said to me this morning was, "can I have a dolphin ice cube?" so we got one for her drink. Holly woke around half an hour later and as I was lifting her out of bed she said, "are the dolphins ready?"

The cereal was ignored as Sadie and Holly watched the dolphins swim in the drinks and then drown. When Sadie said hers was gone Holly declared in a lording-it-over-Sadie kind of way, "my dolphin is fimming around and around, he fimming forever" (fimming=swimming).....If this is an indication that they'll be as close as their grandad and granduncles and that they'll be as good to their nieces and nephews as my dad and uncles are then that is wonderful. Of course there is the possibility that they are just taking after their dad who seems to be taking after my dad....But.....Please let there be a little bit of blood in their O'Keeffeness streams!

I am fuming

I watched the Prime Time Breach Of Trust programme on RTÉ 1 last night. It made me sick. One of my soapboxes is the subject of childcare in Ireland. Since having children I've become aware of the two-tier (or seeming one-tier) system of childcare that exists in this country.

I decided to stay at home with my children but have often needed childcare. I made enquiries to a number of creches about leaving my children at their facilities for times like when I've had to go to the hospital and again when I thought I might have secured employment of two days per week. The particular job I was offered was for two days per week but they would be different days each week.

Eventhough I phoned five creches I got the same reaction each time. I was practically laughed out of it. I was told that a child has to be booked in for a minimum of two full days per week but those must be the same days every week. There was absolutely no chance of my being able to leave my child in any of the creches for a period of between one and three hours.

I made the point to a couple of the people I spoke to that childcare is meant to be a community service and that I didn't understand why they seemed to only offer their service to parents who work full-time. I was given the response from more than one person that I should "go away and do a little FÁS course" and do you know why? Because then I could leave my children for free while I was on my little FÁS course. The government will pay for my children's places at a creche if I do a FÁS course but I cannot be accommodated if I get a part-time job or indeed have an emergency.

So, the creches that I contacted would only accept my children if I was leaving them on a full-time basis or if I was on a FÁS course. In other words, the creches only wanted my business if it was a guaranteed big payout. They could not quote me the cost of childcare either. I asked each one how much it would cost if I got full-time work and each of the five creches told me that they would give me a quote when I told them what job I was doing. To put that another way, they would give me a price when they had an idea of what I was earning.

For me, the free Early Childhood Care and Eduation (ECCE, yes, the last E does stand for education, what a joke!) year doesn't save me any money. I don't want my children in childcare and, even if I did want to avail of it, I'd be driving to and from the creche for the same time my children would be in there. And now the government is talking about using the money it took from parents' child benefit to fund a second free year.

I need that money for basics like food. I don't understand why my child benefit has been decimated in order for it to be shovelled into a childcare system that is failing miserably. I have no sympathy for empoyees who might say that they're not paid enough. Practically everyone in this country is skilled and educated and the jobs that pay more than minimum wage are few and far between. In the first instance, why are these people applying for jobs in creches when they know what they will earn? Why don't they apply to other jobs that will pay the same but won't involve working with children?

When I hear people saying that we need to put a higher value on childcare and pay those employees more it makes me mad.....What about the childcare I'm doing every day? How come there is no value put on that? Why can't the government pay me and other primary carers far more child benefit so that we can make decisions about whether we'll stay at home or whether we'll pay for childcare. Why is the government going into partnership with these creches instead of parents?

What I saw last night made me cry. I can't begin to imagine what it did to the parents of the children featured or indeed to every parent in the country who pays for peace of mind, care, balance, fun, structure and safety. I can't begin to imagine what it did to those teeny child victims, subject to abuse every day at the hands of the carers who meet them at the door, smile at their parents and then lead them in by the hand. Those children learned every day how people treat each other, I hope the State realises that it paid for this particular brand of early childhood education.

I curse Nana's gift

We went to my sister, Averil's house a couple of weeks ago for a barbecue. We were lucky with the weather and a good time was had by all. My mam told me that she'd brought cardboard doll dress-up kits for Sadie and Holly but they had so much fun that day we decided to save them for the next time. My mam had listened to my advice on choosing gifts for the girls when I told her that I'd read about something called Magnetic Dress-Up on Awfully Chipper.



Scooby Doo in his pyjamas
 

I am worn down from the girls' insistence on dressing every single teddy,
doll and toy up in socks so I had been telling Mam that I was looking out for something that they could dress that would still leave a few socks for wearing.

I told Sadie and Holly yesterday that Mam and Dad were calling to see them. Sadie's immediate question was, "will they bring presents?" I am a little bit against always bringing something for children because I think it's important to just call to see them and keep in touch and I don't like that Sadie and Holly would always expect something. I told Sadie that Nana and Grandad might just want to see them and say hello to which Sadie replied, "and after they see us will they give us presents?"

I only mentioned the visit when I knew Mam and Dad were on the road but it was, of course, the longest hour ever for Sadie and Holly. They were outside and Holly, true to form, took off her shoes and socks to walk on the gravel and then started wailing that her feet hurt. I said, again (I say this every day) that that's what happens when you walk in bare feet. Holly shuffled over to Sadie's side then and boasted to her, "I have bear feet." Sadie shrugged, quite unimpressed, and said, "I have dog feet, dog feet are better."

So Mam and Dad arrived and gifts of a version of Magnetic Dress-Up were given and greeted with shrieks of delight. Upon ripping open it was discovered that each pack contained 3 sturdy cardboard dolls in their underwear (The sight of the knickers was enough of a present for Holly, she was overjoyed) and..........squares of material to be cut into clothes for them, velcro strips to be cut and glued to the clothes (no glue in the pack) and a kazillion teeny tiny eensy weensy beads for making necklaces, bracelets and belts for the dolls.

As I have learned to do with crafts I decided to do a dry run later in the day when Sadie and Holly were in bed so that I could minimise any frustration when we'd sit down to dress the dolls. Thank you, Mam, I was up until half eleven last night cutting out clothes and cutting velcro and gluing it to the dolls and the clothes. The elves of The Elves And The Shoemaker fame had nothing on me. This morning I did a test by putting a top on one of the dolls and the velcro peeled away from each surface so the glue I used wasn't strong enough. I had to staple over every little piece of velcro. The beads have been hidden from sight for now and possibly forever.

Eventhough I was cursing my mother's decision to completely ignore my mention of the word magnetic last night, this morning was like Christmas morning for Sadie and Holly. They love dressing the dolls, they are having so much fun and are well impressed at the clothes I made.

Still, though, there's no reason why Nana shouldn't have all the fun next time we're at her house, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a suitable thank you present.

Holly finds the first strawberry

It's necessary for me to do some extreme positive thinking today. Someone (Holly, no doubt) put two nappies into the washing machine some time in the last few days. This morning I put on a full wash. Suffice to say that I nearly went spare at the end of the cycle when I saw all the nappy crystals in the machine, pouring out of the machine and on every item in there. At least I can safely assume that the nappies were unused (please let me be right. It was bad enough).

So, to the garden for positive thinking! I won't give you any overall views because we have a lot of areas of crap so I'll zone in on a few of my small projects.

After nearly six years we feel we have the back broken in the garden in terms of planting and digging beds. A lot of the trees and bushes are still small but they are established and will look amazing in two years' time. Hopefully at that stage, they'll also help to reduce the gales that blow through our property.

Inside the house, we have to be careful about moving ferocious creatures because Sadie and Holly go mad if you interfere with their setup. This often makes simple tasks very difficult.

Outside the house is no different, we have to watch out for toys and make sure they stay where they were put.

I keep any freebie plants that show up in the garden at the back door. We discovered the big holly at the back of the photo when Holly was born and there's another miniscule one that you can barely see. There's also thyme and rosemary here. The other pots are things I'm not sure will come on and ones that I'm not sure where to plant yet. I bet you didn't know that green plastic dolphins like sit in with the mint.

This old tractor tyre came with the house! It's our herb wheel outide the kitchen. It's very handy because the vegetable patch is quite far away when you're only looking for a few chives. Here we have chives, parsley, lemon balm, sage, thyme, watercress.....and a dinosaur of course.

I'm all for little areas within a property. Ours aren't that distinct yet, but as things grow they'll become more defined. Here is one bed with almost-boulders at the back and large stones in front. We have the tiniest hawthorn plants behind the fence (I got 30 near-dead ones in Aldi and they've all come on. Great value for €2) and in front you can see the soldiers of Summer, the gladioli. The beech tree is obvious in the photo but there is also euonymous, sage (we have lots of sage), rose and fuschia. At the very start of Spring a line of crocus dressed the front of the bed. The fence is only stopping the dog and children running through at the moment, it will come out in the future when this all comes together.

I'll ignore the veggie patch and lawn for the moment because we are still planting veg. and my plan for the lawn has only just begun. We have a
little orchard of four trees above the veggie patch and a lot of fruit bushes.

On one of the beds in the veggie patch we have some cuttings from last year (more freebies but from Martin taking them, not from self-seeding). There's dogwood, goosberry and blackcurrant and they're all doing well so we'll be able to plant those out or pot them for a while once Autumn arrives. This is a regular pitstop for toys who seem to prefer sitting in with the plants than risking getting soaked in the tunnel. As you can see today was a cape day in our house, Barney and the two plastic dinosaurs -that Sadie and Holly know the real names of- are sporting purple wrapping paper and stickytape capes.


These are the broadbeans in the polytunnel. (Let me see if I can get this part right:) Martin's mother's cousin's husband, Peter, gathered the beans from his own plants and sent a packet of them to Martin from the UK. They're flying. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of insects flying in there. My dad recently gave me four courgette plants and a cucumber plant and also a recipe for a garlic and water mixture that I'll be able to spray everything in here with. I'll definitely have to do it soon. I'll put the cucumber plant and two courgette plants in the tunnel. The courgettes take up a lot of room so I'll harden the other two off  and plant them out.

Sadie and Holly like to check on everything in the polytunnel. I presume they're copying what they've seen Martin doing. They lift the leaves of some plants and ruffle others. Today, Holly shrieked with delight when she found a red strawberry. She's been begging to eat the green ones for a while and knows the ones outside are nowhere near ready so I reckon she's had her eye on the very spot she checked today.

There was fierce excitement as we hosed down the giant strawberry.

And then the washing-machine-crystaliser and her sister took a break from their labours.

Sadie and Holly say the funniest things

There is no way I could record all the funny things Sadie and Holly come out with. When I ran off to the toilet (yes, the one time I did that) yesterday I had just closed the door when I heard the running down the hall of two girls hellbent on not allowing me that two minutes. They banged on the door and breathlessly cried out, "there's a creature" and "quick" and "help us" between them. They had obviously designed the drama so that I would come quickly and I did.
They found my annoyance hilarious when the creature turned out to be something only they could see somewhere out there on the lawn. Eventhough I was annoyed I was impressed by Holly asking me, "did you fool yourself?" I told her that she had fooled me and she then thought that I was the one who put the sentence the wrong way and burst out laughing at me.
To add to the strawberries, carrots, broadbeans and potatoes already growing in the veggie patch and polytunnel, we planted sweetcorn, peas and onions yesterday. All went well until Holly realised what we were planting and wanted to eat everything and began raking over the drills with a bit of bamboo to unearth some food for herself. Please do not send us €7 a month, she really is well fed. Grateful as I was that nobody heard about Holly's desperate search in the dirt for sustenance I was more grateful that Sadie's question about Mr. Fothergill wasn't overheard.
Holly got distracted from her food search by the picture of who we must presume is Mr. Fothergill on the seed packet. She held the packet and showed it to me and said, "look at the cootie" (cootie=cutie). Holly's statement brought Sadie back from picking every single leaf off every plant in the garden and when she saw Mr. Fothergill she looked to the ground we had just planted and asked, "are they man seeds?"
I moved us away from the newly planted patch as worries about Holly digging for food turned to worries about Sadie starting to dig for little man seedlings. We threw sunflower and sweetpea seeds in all over the place. Holly decided she'd had enough after a bit and said she wanted "a hot drink of tea" so we went back to the house. Sadie isn't usually a tea drinker and said she wanted "a cold drink to cool me up." Sadie went back out and I asked Holly where she wanted her tea because often she'll want it in the living room eventhough Sadie will be outside. Holly thought about it and answered, "em, em, I want it......, em.....em, I want it.....in a cup."
Sadie and Holly are always excited when Martin comes home. Yesterday, for whatever reason, when Sadie heard the car she looked out the window and declared (yes, she declared), "oh, I missed him so much!" I don't know where that particular dramatic exclamation came from and she repeated it when she saw Martin, "I missed you so much, I want a hug." Martin told her he'd hug the daylights out of her and she ran down the hall screaming. From the apparent safety of the end of the hall she shouted up, "leave my daylights in me!"

Holly puts Tilly straight

We were outside a lot of this morning and practically all of yesterday. It was hot and sunny yesterday and today was overcast and a bit chilly but both days meant the same to me, it's great to be outside. It now takes the three of us to water the plants, sometimes four or five if Scooby Doo and Roly Mo are holding on to the hose as well. I don't mind them but I'm not a fan of Sadie bringing Sparky along because, as befits a dinosaur, he roars with every movement.
As you can imagine this makes watering take far longer than it should and usually Holly gets bored holding the hose at some point and tries to go under the spray of water so it can take longer again. Holly sings everything now. From first thing in the morning when she and Sadie do the "wakey shake" (this is what they shout at me while shaking me) Holly will start singing "I way-ay-ked up and I got my mole and we jumped out the bed" and then she'll move on to singing, "I eatin' my sirilals with Say-aydie Wadie" (sirials=cereal) and so goes through the day in song.
Today, on our watering mission, she produced two farm animal figures from her pocket. She had a sheep that she calls Sheep and a cow that she calls Tilly. Apparently Tilly is different to the other nine plastic cows that came in the pack. We all know that Holly considers Sheep to be Tilly's mother. We don't know why. We have had discussions about the impossibility of a sheep being a cow's mother. So today Holly gave up holding the hose and started singing in what would seem to have been in Tilly's voice which was like Holly's but very high-pitched, "I lift my mom-meeee up to my face" and then she lifted Sheep up higher and started singing in what would seem to have been Sheep's voice and sang, "I'm not your mom-meeee. Your mommy is a cow."
I felt bad, like I had ruined a perfectly good mother-daughter relationship that worked for Holly as well as for the plastic pair of animals. And I felt bad that Tilly was so mercilessly denied what Holly takes for granted. When we came back in I said to Holly, "lift me up to your face" and she said, "I can't, you're too big" but she continued in song, "will you lift me up to your face, Mom-MEEEE?"

Today is World Meningitis Day

Touch wood, I have never thought my children might have contracted meningitis. But, until today, World Meningitis Day, I hadn't known of all of the symptoms of the disease and I also didn't know that the obvious ones like a stiff neck or non-blanching rash do not have to be present for meningitis to be.
Meningitis makes me think of Summer 2011 because we got a fright when Sadie suffered a convulsion. I had made the mistake of putting a blanket on her when she fell asleep on the couch eventhough it was quite warm. The convulsion was scary as Sadie's eyes rolled back in her head and had a fit in my arms. When I spoke to my mam later and told her what had happened, that we had been to the hospital, etc. she told me that I had had the same type of convulsion when I was about 1. She said that she had taken me to the hospital and that they had checked for meningitis via a lumbar puncture and, fortunately, had been able to rule out meningitis and confirm that it had been a febrile convulsion caused from making me too warm.
The conversation led to my mam telling me that my aunt, Rita, who is now in her seventies, was one of the first survivors of meningitis in Ireland. Her family feared that she would die when she contracted the illness. Today, meningitis can still kill within 24 hours. It is of vital importance for Irish parents to know that the main cause of meningitis is meningococcal disease and Ireland has the highest incidence of meningococcal disease in Europe.

So, what is meningitis? It is "an inflammation of the lining surrounding the brain and spinal cord. It is caused when germs infect the fluid which circulates around the brain and spinal cord. Septicaemia is the blood poisoning form of the disease, which can cause shock, multiple organ failure and tissue destruction."*

"Meningitis and septicaemia can affect ANYONE. However, the majority of cases occur in children under five years with those under one year most at risk."*

Please take a few seconds to become aware of the symptoms of meningitis:

 

Fever                    Vomiting                    Severe head ache                    Painfully stiff neck   

 

Sensitivity to light            Very sleepy                      Confusion                        Seizures 

 

Non-blanching rash (the rash doesn't disappear under pressure)  

This blog post is part of the Irish Parenting Bloggers blog march that asks you to KEEP WATCHING for the symptoms of meningitis. Please take a look at the Meningitis: Keep Watching Ireland Facebook Page .

*The definition of meningitis was taken directly from the Meningitis: Keep Watching Ireland campaign literature. The campaign is being run by the Meningitis Research Foundation Ireland, who are supported by Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics Limited.

Other posts for World Meningitis Day:
Awfully Chipper, Carmel Harrington, Debalicious, Glitter Mama Wishes, Looking for Blue Sky, Mama.ie, My Internal World, The Clothesline, The Dare Project, Wholesome Ireland