The past couple of months have pretty much been non-stop. In fact, there was a point when I hadn’t spent a weekend at home for about 6 weeks. We had Thailand, then Stone Roses in Dublin (I left Poppy with my parents for that one, much to her disgust), London, then London again, then Dumfries to stay with gran and granddad, then Ireland for a wedding…..and we have just returned from our most recent weekend away in the Highlands.
So, I’m officially hanging up my holiday hat for the year and getting back to business. Poppy has started school (will post about that later) so our lives will now be dictated by term times and her social calendar.
In the absence of frequent blogging during the course of these adventures, I’m copping out and posting a series of photos instead to illustrate the past couple of months.
The hair braids that took as long to take out as they did to get in.Kata Beach, Phuket.The waterpark that got her through the vaccinations.A lifetime dream come true – finally got to see The Stone Roses.Bowie in Brixton.Another trip to London, another boat trip along the Thames….Toasting marshmallows in Dumfries.T-shirt friends.Scrubbing up.This is going to end up costing me big-time….Checking out an Iron Age crannog.
Saturday went pretty much as expected. The Lily soft toy bribe was a resounding success (score) and she was full of bravado all the way to the clinic. Part of me felt slightly optimistic about the appointment, while the other part laughed in the face of such ridiculous optimism.
The doctor seemed to spend an eternity talking us through the recommended vaccinations for Thailand, all the while I was aware Poppy was taking every bit of information in and getting more and more uneasy with every passing minute. Eventually he handed over control of the medical chair in his office and she was quite delighted at being able to move herself up and down like she was on some kind of fairground ride.
When we finally decided that we were all going to go for the rabies vaccination (she’s also scared of dogs, so this seemed like a no brainer), the doctor suddenly announced that this particular jab requires a course of three.
Our faces fell.
“You mean we have to come back again? Two more times?”
I could have cried.
And then it was time. I went first, which was probably a big mistake as I am not the best with needles myself and apparently my face gave off the opposite vibe to the picture of serenity I was trying to create for Poppy’s benefit.
By this point she was in the classic self-preservation/psychotic position, knees up to her chest, rocking back and forth.
“I don’t want to go to Thailand, I just want to go home!” she repeated over and over, tears starting to form.
My boyfriend was up next. His (genuine) lack of fear did nothing to alleviate the situation either. Her increasing panic progressed quickly from crying to screaming as she realised it was her turn next.
There was only one thing for it. I scooped her up, sat down with her on my knee, asked my boyfriend to help me pin her arm down to the table, and told the doctor to just stick the needle in her arm. She was screaming. And I mean screaming.
And then it was over.
“Did it go in my arm or in my leg?” she asked. *face palm*.
The doctor said that was the loudest screaming he’d heard all year. We paid a small fortune for the privilege and booked two further appointments.
Then we got Poppy her last bribe – an ice lolly – for being “so brave”, drove to her dad’s, kissed her goodbye, and went straight to the pub.
Well, The Day of the Holiday Vaccinations (as I fear it will be forever known) is almost upon us. I booked us into a private clinic to get them done so that we could get a Saturday appointment, meaning my boyfriend can be there to help me pin Poppy down.
There was mild panic earlier in the week when he reported that the Lily Bobtail soft toy requested by Poppy as her vaccination bribe – which she had spied on our trip to London – was no longer in Hamleys.
Our text conversation went like this:
Him: “May have to get Lily online.”
Me: “Oh no, are there none left?”
Him: “They had a tiny one called Floppy.”
Me: “Do you mean Flopsy?!”
Him: “Yep.”
Me: “Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail are Peter Rabbit’s sisters!”
Him: “Will try somewhere else tomorrow.”
Me: “Getting nervous now!”
Him: “About the jabs? Or about no Lily rabbit?”
Me: “No Lily.”
Him: “Who’s Lily then?!”
Me: “She’s Peter’s clever, brave friend!”
Him: “There’s no Lily rabbit?! I’m confused!”
With the prospect of having to go through this stressful scenario again, he took to Amazon and found one that would be delivered in time. It has just arrived and is almost the size of Poppy…..which she is either going to love, or is going to moan about because it’s not the same as the one she saw in Hamleys.
The giant Lily.
So I remain in my constant state of nervousness. Roll on 10.30am on Saturday when this will (hopefully) all be over….
As my four-year-old daughter sat, breaking her heart, on the sofa, bawling at the top of her voice “I don’t want to go to Thailand, I want to go to Portugal”, I couldn’t help but wonder what I had created. I’m 33 and have never been to Thailand, and here is this pre-schooler turning her nose up at the opportunity. And the situation got even more ridiculous when my boyfriend called mid-meltdown and, on hearing her utter devastation, suggested we holiday elsewhere – a suggestion which I actually agreed might be the best option. But fear not, because I managed to bribe – yes, BRIBE – my daughter to allow us to take her away to an amazing country which she will thoroughly love and won’t want to leave.
“I don’t want to go to Thailand…”
Seriously, where have I gone wrong?
And what was her problem with Thailand, I hear you ask? A country which, just a few weeks ago, she was desperate to go to, and asked every morning if it was time to go there yet. The U-turn was all down to the fact I told her she will have to get vaccinations before we go. In a way, I can’t blame her for not wanting to get them – the poor girl was left traumatised after a four-night stint in the Sick Kids Hospital last year. At one point, when her cannula fell out and had to be re-inserted, it took about five medical staff plus me to physically hold her down as they tried and failed to put it back into her wrist and ended up having to stick it in her foot. And while the promise of a Lily from Peter Rabbit cuddly toy, a post-injection ice cream AND a lollipop may have resulted in her giving us permission to go ahead with our holiday, I fear at least one of us will need tranquilised come vaccination day.
We may well end up in the safe haven of Portugal after all…watch this space.
On the plus side, her sad faces are highly amusing.
I was 15 the first time I went to London. I remember the feeling of excitement being slightly eclipsed by the feeling of fear. I was a country bumpkin from Dumfries, and suddenly I was let loose in this enormous, terrifying city where nobody looked you in the eye or stopped to give you directions, and where everyone was clearly out to snatch your bag. In contrast, Poppy’s first venture to the big smoke took place at the weekend. I envied her four-year-old excitement that wasn’t in any way marred by the thought of coming face to face with a modern day Fagin. On our flight from Edinburgh to Stanstead (yep, I took to the skies again with her) I told her all about the underground train system. Her reply – completely verbatim – was “wow, my life is going to change forever”.
As we walked along the South Bank, she was in awe of the street performers (“is that a statue or a real person”?), the River Thames which may or may not contain sharks and stingrays and the London Eye (“can we go on it? Can we go on it NOW?”). It was just one big catalogue of new experiences.
We opted for a boat ride to Greenwich, where we were staying with my boyfriend’s friends. She seemed slightly underwhelmed by the experience – I think she would have liked it to go faster – and seemed aggrieved that we weren’t getting soaked by the dirty Thames water like the poor sods sitting opposite us.
Her mind was set on our plans for the next day as soon as she laid eyes on “the pirate ship” on our arrival into Greenwich Pier. To be fair, The Cutty Sark has been on my own London to-do list for some time, so I was much happier to oblige her with this request than I was with the London Eye.
Our sightseeing continued with a trip to see the Queen, which fortuitously coincided with the Changing the Guard ceremony. I’m not quite sure which one of us got the biggest kick out of that…ok, it was definitely me.
And no trip to London is complete without a visit to Hamleys, especially if you’re four years old (though I definitely went there when I was 15….) She was practically drooling, not sure which way to turn, what to look at, what to play with, what to buy…But as with any good female shopper, an hour after entering the store and scouring every single level, she went back to the first item she looked at. In this instance, it was a Paddington Bear teddy.
I think this weekend may well have been the first where we went the whole time without any tantrums whatsoever (besides a brief tearful moment when she needed the toilet and I couldn’t produce one out of nowhere) so that in itself made it a successful trip. It certainly felt like a turning point, so maybe she wasn’t wrong when she said her life would change forever….it certainly felt like mine did a little bit.
Two and a half years ago I made a vow to myself. I swore I would never, ever, under any circumstances, take my daughter on a plane without back-up ever again. But last week I broke that promise, the recollection of that hellish ordeal when she was just 18 months old slightly improved by the passing of time and the kind of memory that saw me go into the kitchen earlier, pour a cup of milk then return to the living room without it. That, and the fact I had no choice. If I wanted to take her to Ireland, as I had been promising for ages, then I would simply have to man up and get on another flight with her by myself. And to my complete and utter disbelief, it was actually a success. No tears, no screaming, no tantrums….and Poppy was pretty well behaved too.
It wasn’t just the flight I was nervous about. It was Poppy’s first time over in Ireland meeting my boyfriend’s family. And she wasn’t just meeting them – we were staying with them too. For four days. I’m generally nervous taking her to meet people she doesn’t know in environments she’s not familiar with because I just don’t know how she’ll settle and how she’ll react to certain people and certain situations. Basically, she’s unpredictable. There’s no rhyme or reason when it comes to who she likes and who she would rather hide behind my leg from. But thankfully she took to her new Irish family like I took to the Tayto crisps. And I *think* her behaviour was acceptable enough for us to be invited back…
And while Poppy got her fix of lollipops and ice cream and met “the real Mr Tayto” at Tayto Park (yep, they do love their crisps enough to have a whole theme park dedicated to the brand), me and my boyfriend got two nights out and lie-ins every morning. And I got a suitcase full of Taytos and Superquinn sausages to take home with me. Poppy said it was the best weekend ever, and who am I to argue?
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