Another birthday, more memories ...

Another week, another rush of birthday memories. My second son was born on a bleak February day 37 years ago, exactly 4 years and one week after his brother. Writing that, it seems absurd that it was only four years, for in that time my life had changed so completely. For one thing, it seemed as if I had completed the transition from my Glasgow childhood - including university, work and marriage - to the adult life I've lived ever since. Not only that: I'd moved from the odd transience of our initial 18 months after moving to Dunoon with our 5 week old first child, 18 months when the fact that we were living in a council house used by the education department held out the promise of a possible return to the city - I'd moved from that to the house I still live in, overlooking the Firth, as solid a house as I'd lived in as a child. I'd made new friends, at least one of whom had already moved away to another life; I'd joined the church choir, become a vestry member. It was as if no-one had actually realised that I was a novice mum, a novice church member, a novice adult. From this perspective, 37 years on, I feel that four years are but a blink, but then they were a life-changing lifetime.

Having a baby in Dunoon - and are babies still born here, I wonder? - was very different from my

Glasgow experience. No due-date induction here; this was a GP maternity unit and you waited "until baby is ready". In my case, that meant waiting almost a fortnight past the due date that I at least had calculated with some accuracy: a fortnight of dragging my poor mother for walks up the Bishop's Glen in the hopes of getting something started, of complaining of the heat in our draughty sitting room of an evening when others were huddling round the fire. When I eventually reached the stage of thinking something was happening, it was the middle of the night; I phoned the hospital and was told to go back to sleep and come in after breakfast. Talk about anti-climax.

The morning was grey; there was light snow falling. I waddled carefully up the path to the car, waving goodbye to #1 son and grandma. I was admitted, the only patient on the maternity ward. And then it all stopped again. Another woman came in, I remember, clearly pregnant but convinced she just had a stomach upset. By teatime, she had a baby - she'd mixed up her dates. I was still unmoved. My GP arrived, told me he'd leave it to his colleague the next day if nothing happened before then. Nothing did. And so, two weeks later than I'd anticipated, I was induced after all.

But it was still very different. I was brought my lunch, and ate it between contractions. "You'll need all your strength", the nurse said. My husband arrived, suffering from flu and looking worse than I felt. Four hours later, #2 son was born, delivered by one of my lovely GPs in a pink shirt and a plastic apron. "You've got another great big boy here, Mrs McIntosh," he told me. We were left - husband, baby and I - in the delivery room, to get acquainted. We wondered at the red eyes of this large baby - the effort of birth had affected us both. He looked solemnly at us. Later, over a cup of tea, he was returned to me, clean and sleeping. "He's got all his bits," I was reassured. There was no-one else in the small ward - the other mother was next door.

In that half hour or so, while the nurses went for their tea (I presume) and the early evening darkened outside, I knew I was happy. This doesn't often happen - frequently we look back and recognise happiness after it's over. But I was suffused with a happiness that I knew and owned, and I've never forgotten it.

One sad memory from the week that followed: I could never bear saying goodbye to 4 year old #1 son at the end of afternoon visiting. He used to cry, and when he'd left, I cried too, in that bleak time in hospitals between visiting and teatime - and see how that is the same time when I was so happy on this date? And so began the juggling that is the lot of anyone with more than one child ...

So, #2 son, if you read this from wherever in the world your extraordinary job takes you, this shows once more how much more memorable your children's birthdays are than your own. Of course, you and your brother already know this - and you in your turn will still be remembering, God willing, in 2055.

How, I wonder, will you choose to record the memories then?

Traditional and effective

The photo accompanying this post records one of these satisfying grandmother moments. I'd been holding Anna (4 weeks old) in the hope that she would drift off to sleep, but she didn't appear to be able to settle. Perhaps her sister was too interesting, or she just didn't want to miss out, but she was tired and scratchy and it was obviously time for the Wise Woman to make a reappearance - and sing.

I've written of this before, when I was singing to that lively three-year-old in the background (can't help feeling it wouldn't work now, but I'll return to that). This time I sang another lullaby, Watts' Cradle Song, to an American (I think) tune arranged by Mr B for our women's choir, 8+1. The melody is in the alto range, and I've had it on the brain for the past few weeks. The words were somewhat random , as I'm hopeless at remembering them, but phrases like "here's no ox about thy bed" seemed suitably soothing, and after gazing intently at me as I sang, Anna's eyes drooped and in no time at all she was sound asleep. She was sitting in this upright position, too, so the sense of communication was very real - until she flopped. I continued singing quietly as I put her to bed, and that was that.

I can't stress how important I think this live singing is for young children. It's not the same when nursery rhymes, lullabies and so on are played on CDs or - worse - distorted by electronic toys. The vibration, the tailoring of volume to the moment, the possibility for variety - these all contribute to what is, after all, as old as the hills.

Incidentally, big sister still loves to sing - though she does give me a row for using the traditional words as the end of Mary had a baby. You can't please all the people all of the time ...

On parenting, and further

On the way to the bus in the snow
Originally uploaded by Ewan McIntosh

I've borrowed this video* from Ewan because it has me and Mr B in it, doing what we did for the past couple of weeks: Grandparenting. You'll see our step is still quite sprightly - we were only on day 4 and neither had yet succumbed to the lurgie which subsequently befell us. And looking at it reminds me of the thoughts which swirled in and out of my consciousness during that time, and gives rise to the following reflection...

When you have a baby - and it doesn't need to be your first; the second merely re-awakes what came before - everything changes. You might, for insance,  do something totally crazy,  like moving house five weeks after the birth, selling your neat West End flat and taking up residence in a council house in Dunoon, hastily done over after the previous teacher moved out. A move such as this masks what might have happened anyway; I'm thinking of the impulse to comfort and convenience which has you buying a hideous pair of trousers (grey, with orange and black checks) merely because they have an elastic waist and don't need taken up (they seemed ok at the time because I no longer lived in the city and besides no-one knew me in Dunoon). I'm thinking of the effort it takes to wash, change, dress, undress, dress again your new infant, which leaves you too frazzled to do more than hurl an outer garment (only criterion: waterproofing) over your besmotered** top and aforementioned breeks before you heave the pram down the steps and hit the weather. I'm thinking of how suddenly it's ok to go our without a scrap of makeup on your face - something you haven't done since you were ... oh, fifteen? ... and sometimes without even moisturiser (a wee touch of baby cream, maybe?). Life contracts to a primitive level in which only the infant matters - and perhaps the food on the table to keep you, The Great Provider, topped up.

Ok, perhaps not every new mother lets herself go in such abandoned fashion. It took me years to get over the idea that I had moved to a seaside resort and therefore would never need to dress respectably again - maybe I never did. Get over the idea, I mean. Maybe the situation merely compounded a tendency that was already present. But while I was in snow-bound Edinburgh, being Super-Gran (ipsa dixit, I know), I  realised that I was in danger of doing it again. I wore the same pair of (warm, practical, techy fabric) black trousers every time I went out, and changed into the same pair of (warm, practical, supremely comfortable, soft techy fabric) trousers to be indoors. I had three other pairs with me that never saw the light of day. I rotated a trio of fleeces, and my jerseys and varied tops remained in the case. I washed what needed washed, and didn't think about what to put on. I didn't actually care. It might be midday before I realised that the tight stretchy sensation about my face wasn't a ski mask; it was my centrally-heated skin, drying out nicely because I'd been too busy making Peppa Pig and Grandfather Pig climb the side of the bath in valiant rescue operations of Little Brother George (blooming millstone that game turned out to be) to put on moisturiser - let alone warpaint. And suddenly it'd be dark outside again, and time for bedtime stories and an hour or so of stupor while Lord Sugar pronounced and fates were decided, and then we'd all stagger to bed again.

And that was before the addiction to Lemsip kicked in ...

*We were going to church (Spiky Mike's), BTW
** This word is found in Chaucer. I use it often. I'm not going to spell it out - you're an educated lot.

The waiting season

It's cold, tonight. At the end of this afternoon, the sky behind us grew in a wonderful flaming intensity over the still, shining sea lying like steel between us and Bute - and then died, leaving only the afterglow on the hills. Now the night is nailed to the sky with hard, bright stars - not my words, but taken from a poem by Vernon Scannell which I cannot for the life of me track down. It must've been in an anthology in school, and these lines come into my head often at this time of year, for it's an Advent/Christmas poem and the season is almost upon us.

As readers of this blog will know, I love Advent. I love it especially out here on the western fringes of Europe, when the darkness intensifies and makes all the more special the promise of light to come. I have written a new poem for Advent, but as it is to appear in Inspires magazine I shall leave publication online till after I've seen it in print. However, I shall not be beginning Advent in the west this year: I shall be in the city, in the East, waiting for another birth as the season of Advent begins.

I don't know how much blogging I'll be doing while I'm there, but the iPad will accompany me. It does little for the accuracy of my typing but much for my sanity. There is also a highly addictive game on it, for which I blame Ewan. But I'm going in order to be useful, so games and blogs may not be in order. Watch this space, though ...

New baby, new poem

It's funny how a phone ringing in the night can have you lucid and wide-awake in seconds, especially when it's news of the safe arrival of a new grandson. James McGregor McIntosh was born in the wee hours of this morning - yes, it's been a long day: you don't really slip back into sleep after such news! - and I've been looking at his photos and thinking of the great mystery of life and birth. A new baby is somehow much more mysterious than the child he will become - all that potential, all that personality waiting to unfold but for now held in the precious bud that is a newborn infant.

I've posted a poem I wrote this afternoon here, thinking of it as a conversation with his brother Alan, who is, of course, far too young to worry about such ideas just yet. But I sense that he is still trailing traces of the clouds of glory that he might just recognise in his new wee brother.

New poem and procrastination

I had intended blogging about the activities of the day, but it has suddenly become rather late for all but bed, so I shall content myself with flagging up a new poem at frankenstina.

I realise that though it was written absolutely as a result of my first meeting with my new grandson, it could have another association entirely in keeping with the season. And I may return to church activities tomorrow - if my duties as domestic goddess cum perfect grandma let me.

Music hath charms ...

Shall we go out now?
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

It is completely fascinating to watch the development of a young child. Our grandchild, at 10 months, is showing among other things (like... climbing skills, like 'satiable curtiosity*, like ...) an extraordinarily marked reaction to music. We've watched her bopping to Mozart's Turkish Rondo on one of her fave toys, we've seen her move in time to the complex rhythms of her dad's latin american tracks, and she's now completely fascinated by her grandpa's piano-playing, adjusting her rhythmic movements to accommodate quavers or big, important tunes.

This morning we tuned in to the middle of a quiet, still, contemporary setting of the text "Viri Galileai" on the radio. Catriona had been crawling with early-morning energy round the wooden floor, but she immediately stopped, sat stock still, then swayed gently to the flowing movement of the piece. When it drew to its pianissimo conclusion, she breathed deeply and looked up.

It's magic. In fact, I think I need to take up playing my violin again...

*There's a wee literary reference here. Anyone?

Angel!

Angel
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

What a terrific atmosphere we had in church this Christmas morning! I personally love the Midnight Mass, the darkness, the candles, the incense - but this morning, with the sunlight outside dimming the candle-flames, was the most perfect Christmas morning service I've attended in years. Why? Because we had half our family, including our baby granddaughter, with us. The effect on the otherwise elderly congregation was wonderful - not least because Catriona was at her most captivating and barely made a cheep throughout the entire proceedings.

I suspect there was a fair amount of substitution going on as we sang of babes in the manger, tender infants and so on - it was hard not to think we were singing of the baby in our midst. But maybe we were right. There was a real sense in which the miracle of the Incarnation was underlined by this smiling child who gazed at us as we sang, gurgled happily at the candles, and snored quietly during the sermon - and by the palpable happiness in the church and the warmth of the smiles of friend and stranger.

Happy Christmas!

Lullaby

Beautiful, no?
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Yesterday I was grandmothering again. I fear it may become a habit – for it’s very addictive! A look at the photo here should explain all … Up at 5am, off on the 7am ferry (thus neatly avoiding Cowal Games), we had time to shop for such varied items as olives, strawberries and cot sheets before arriving in time for coffee in Leith. And so it was after a very long day indeed that I found myself postponing our departure to have one final cuddle – and ended up singing a lullaby as I lay on the sofa with the baby lying on my diaphragm. What this did for my singing I don’t know, but it was obvious that the vibration as well as the sound had a soporific effect on Catriona. Actually I found it pretty soporific myself, and we left for home a full hour later than we had intended.

I have to note here that “soporific’ was one of my first long and wonderful words – do you recall the opening sentence of The Flopsy Bunnies? (“Lettuces are very soporific”, if you weren’t brought up on BP) But yesterday I was not really singing words, for the original words of the tune would have been in Gaelic. However, it seemed natural in all sorts of ways to sing the wonderful “Christ Child’s Lullaby” – the song Mr B has been working on of late for performance at Christmas in the Albert Hall.

I don’t think I sang lullabies to my own babies. Maybe I was too harassed the first time round; I certainly sang at Ewan, but it was because I had a performance coming up and had to get back in trim after he arrived rather later than anticipated. And so it was that the poor infant Edublogger had to put up with the alto solo from Britten’s “Rejoice in the Lamb" – the one about the valiant mouse. And soporific it was not.

Maybe that explains a lot …