On being an interfering busybody

Interfering busybodies including teachers and health professionals could have, but didn't, rescued thousands - millions - of children from neglectful or abusive homes. Or stopped violent crimes. Or whatever the hell else.

I am definitely a fully signed up interfering busybody. The child hanging out the window of a fast-moving van, no seatbelt, no carseat, rubber-teated bottle of juice in their mouth - they deserved to be safer (I still don't know their sex). The woman who was knocked off her bike deserved to be looked after and to get home safely. The woman who was held against a wall by a man with one hand holding a smoking cigarette and the other holding her throat, she deserved to be rescued (and she was; I saw the police stop before I even got off the phone, that time, though I did not stop walking myself, because I was afraid). And always, I come back to the two little boys screaming in the night, and the man who drove them away shouting "I have to get rid of these fucking kids."

I never, ever want to have to say to someone's mother or lover or child, "I saw it, I heard it, but I didn't do anything, I could have gone out or phoned up or said something, and I didn't do anything."

Never.

And that means that sometimes I will get yelled at in public by people who think I should mind my own business, or I will phone for an ambulance and have to tell the 999 call-handler "Oh no, he woke up, he's fine, just drunk, send the ambulance somewhere else, it's ok, really, he's fine, he's - this is embarrassing - he's playing the guitar, you can hear him, listen," or something else. I might get hurt, sometime, though I never have yet.

I'm ok with that. I'm not ok with telling someone "I heard the screams and I didn't even go and look. Sorry."

Lower key

Today we all got up, made beds, dressed, breakfasted, brushed teeth, and then did not very much. The children asked for Mousetrap, and it was still on the table at lunchtime, so they had pasta and ratatouille from a tin at their little table. Both of them did a lot of alphabet stuff - Linnea's in a Remarkably Cooperative Display phase today - and some number things. There was an accident on the rug and so I had to wash it; it's a multicoloured striped one from IKEA and I hope the machine doesn't damage it. I also hope it will be dry in the morning.

I spent a while painting the first of a series of curves on the girls' bedroom wall, with some extremely ancient and lumpy purple paint. I'll dig out another shade tomorrow, maybe, and do the next one. I prefer to finish off other people's paints than buy my own, for things like this; if the children were choosing their own décor I might make a proper plan and do things properly, but this is just me making things a little pleasanter for them without their particular interest or input.

I think that wall will have two shades of purple and two of blue. The one opposite the window needs a fresh coat of bright white, to reflect light around the room. And I think the room needs some little mirrors on the walls; perhaps some cheap bathroom cabinets would do, because they could also use some extra storage. I must think about it.

Continuity

puritybrown's teddy's coat is on an otherwise naked doll, who is in the baby seat on the back of Emer's bicycle. Coat on, straps strapped - baby doll is all safe.

James and the Giant Peach

Linnea just asked me to read this, so I dropped everything and started.

I got 11 chapters - 30 pages - read before my throat hurt from all the voices. She spent most of that time in tears. Rob is reading to her now while I feed Emer and drink tea with honey.

Linnea was immensely relieved when the ladybird spoke kindly.

But when I paused, she started to cry again.

The parent death and cruelty and loneliness and hunger were too much for her, but she wanted me to keep reading. I think it gets easier after this, though; once he's in the peach I think no-one is actively cruel to him any more.

Emer was much, much less intensely affected.

Nollaig and Tadhg

In 20 minutes it will be the month of Tadhg's third birthday. I thought deliberately forgetting the precise date was a good idea, but it just means that I feel vaguely worried by all of October.

I think about them every day.

Working Mothers

Those researchers, who said that the children of mothers who work outside the home (that is, most mothers) do less exercise, watch more telly, and eat more junk food than the children of un-paid mothers?

They were SO not in my house today. I outslobbed any nanny-using filofax-waving checkout-clerking mother reliant on paid childcare (availability currently under threat in the UK, by the way) and did almost nothing from The Big Book Of Halcyon 'Fifties Mothering.