Warming Up

A lovely almost Christmas lunch with my mum, dad, sister and niece and my lot at my childhood home, before the drive back to my kids' childhood home. My sister is a big hit with my daughter and had bought her (amongst other things) a Where's Wally style book with poo instead of Wally. Which to be fair is a big improvement. Both kids proved pretty adept at finding the cartoon faeces in the pictures and they (correctly) found the whole concept uproariously funny, 

The drive home was uneventful, which is the best kind of drive, although we hit some pretty flooded country roads as we approached our house and had to drive through pools of water. It's been a lovely but exhausting weekend, with none of us quite over the bug that's been hanging over our house for the last fortnight and the last thing we needed was to be Doctor Fostered at this late stage.

But we got home for Christmas, as now, it seems the days of Christmases at my parents are part of Christmas past.  We're into the next chapter. The Christmas hosts now and no longer the Christmas guests.

The kids are really looking forward to the next few days, of course and it was only on this break that I looked at my daughter larking around, thinking she was successfully playing Jingle Bells on the penny whistle, wanting the door left open when she improvised on the piano so everyone could hear the beautiful music and realised how big she is. There's nothing quite like the self-confidence of a four year old and I wish it never left, because what a funny world that would be. But she is nearly five and she's a proper person. It takes a long time for them to grow up, but they grow up so fast. She's not a baby any more.

And she's smart as a slightly silly whip.

Yesterday she'd said to me, “Are you Father Christmas?” Not because, I think, that she thought I brought her presents, but because she suspected I was the actual Father Christmas. She hoped I was so that I'd bring her presents first and then bring some to her best friend Matthew. She knows something is up, but not what.

And at home tonight she started telling us she wanted to give away the toys she no longer plays with “to the poor children”. Which is funny and sweet in equal measure. Partly funny because that used to be a Lee and Herring “joke”. For example when I finally procured the moon on a stick for Stew he said he didn't want it and I should give it to the poor children.

I am not quite sure where she got this idea, but she started gathering up unwanted toys and books and making a pile. I concur that it's very unfair that she has so much when others have so little, but I am pleased that she's somehow come to this realisation herself. Even if she's just playing at charity or trying to offload stuff she doesn't want.

But where did that come from? Certainly not from me. I hate the poor and burn my unwanted items to stop them getting them. I should never have sent her to school.

But she's not a baby any more.