I dream of Sports Days

I have just gotten the news that there is a new addition to the clan, a new nephew and cousin for MM. That brings to 6 in total with one more on the way. But we will have to get busy to get the numbers up for a decent showing at the sports days I intend to organise every summer!
You see it falls to me, the one living abroad, to ressurect this excellent tradition. When I was young our Uncle in Australia would come home every four/five years or so. A sports day would be held in one of the fields around Granny's house. It was great because there wasn't more than ten years between the oldest and youngest cousins. There were always a few of us in the same age category so races were organised accordingly. The competition was fierce, at least I was determined to win, and I'm sure I did....!
We would watch in awe at the older brothers/sisters as they pounded with leopard like speed down the track. The best of all of course was the parents race. This is when the family loyality really came into play. You could laugh at the gait of them galloping around the track but secretly your own mother/father was your one focus. There was no shortage of competitiveness among the parents either. I have no doubt that they all remember who won the parents race that year when I was around seven. We all do!
Anyway dear family, what do you think? Can you imagine reliving those days through our own children? Will we be able to keep our own favouritism at bay? I doubt it! And of course we all know that I am a favourite for the parents race, being the youngest and most spritely! All I have to say is, keep the babies coming!

"Milk pots"

As I look out into my back garden the word pot comes to mind and not for the reasons you may think! Dandelions have reigned supreme. The post "clock" stage has left a mass of towering stems laughing down menacingly on the lowly grass and moss below. "Milk pots" I think. Such an innocent image but yet they have taken over what once used to be a fairly civilised lawn. You may think that I myself have gone potty but no. Dandelions are literally "pots of milk" in Danish. A typically literal yet imaginative way of constructing a word in the Danish language.

The word "pot" has occupied my mind since. "The world has gone to pot", "she's gone potty" or of  course you can also sit on a potty - an experience which is in store for my little one in times to come. You can smoke pot, you can eat yoghurt from a pot, you can plant things in a pot and I am sure you can do many more things with this very versatile word - as the Danes have shown.

The dandelions will be left alone for another while as the weather has prohibited any mass massacre as yet, enabling the newly planted seeds from those clocks to plunge their much maligned roots deep down in to the soil. "You have to get down to the root", I can ear my green fingered aquaintances say. I know, I know but you have to admire those milk pots and to be honest they are not that ugly to look at. Anything that resilient demands respect.

Don't be silly

So I am gradually getting used to the whole motherhood/maternity leave thing. I am, by nature a control freak so of course the minute MM arrived I wanted to put a "routine" in place. Oh that word "routine". It sounds so ordinary yet magical to a newly baked mother. "Oh she'll be in a routine before you know", one hears from many wise heads. It involves of course being able to predict when ones baby will wake up, how much it will eat, how long it will sleep etc. I am, as I write still waiting for that routine to fall into place. Some days she will wake up every two hours, today she is sleeping "too much", according my own routine of course, and there we have it, I want her to comply to my routine I suppose. I would like her to wake up half an hour after the dinner is ready, not on the dot the plates are on the table. We are convinced that the minute the fan over the cooker is switched off singnalling the end of the cooking process, MM gets her cue and demands to be fed as well. It's understandable of course, why shouldn't she be included. I have a feeling our little person will be a determined young one, but sure I wouldn't have it any other way I suppose. She is too young and innocent to submit to the mondanaeity of a routine, she likes the excitement of the spontaneous awaking. Catch them off guard is her motto as her parents watch on the side lines realising they have lost their beloved control on the life they once had. How wonderful it's going to be!