KERRE MCIVOR
WITH KNITTING FAILURES AND TURTLE TERRORS, KERRE TAKES ON NANA-HOOD
By the time you read this column, I’ll be in London. My daughter should have had her second baby and I’ll be in full grandparent mode, helping Bart adjust to being a big brother, and helping my daughter and her husband cope with all the extra demands a newborn makes on a household.
Kate’s had a remarkably easy pregnancy. For someone so little, she is made for this baby-bearing business. The only hiccups have been out of her control – my son-in-law broke his leg a week ago as he ran to catch his Uber, and a water pipe burst in their house just a few days ago.
But Kate is managing remarkably well and taking it all in her stride. Bart loves having his dad working from home and it means she can nap in the afternoon, she says. I organised meals to be delivered to their home until I get there so neither of them has to stand in the kitchen and cook. And she has given in to her husband’s suggestion that they engage a cleaner once a week, after she found herself stuck on the floor while wiping down skirting boards. With her centre of gravity askew, she really struggled to get back up, and her one-legged husband was no help at all.
It will be good to be in London being useful. I have failed in my mission to be a real nana and knit the new one a cardigan. I’m hoping to finish it over there, although I’m not sure how much knitting time I’ll have as there are so many parks to explore and kid-friendly museums to visit.
Bart fell in love with turtles when he visited an aquarium with his parents recently and I have packed a toy turtle away in my suitcase for him – which will help make up for the major parenting fail Kate reported to me.
She bought him a turtle from The Body Shop – a big green, turtle-shaped bath bomb. She told him he could put his turtle in the bath and he was so excited when he pulled it from the bag.
“Turtle, turtle!” he exclaimed joyously. (Kate captured it all on video.) “Throw turtle in the bath,” instructed his dad, and so Bart did. And within seconds, his joy turned to horror. “Turtle, turtle …oh, no! NO! NO!” he screamed as his little green turtle friend fizzed and vanished in front of his very eyes.
He was utterly distraught and Kate was mortified that she hadn’t foreseen the effects a dissolving turtle would have on Bart’s psyche. He flatly refused to get into the green bath – to be fair, who would want to bathe amongst the dismembered corpse of a friend?
Some time later, she found him in his pyjamas, leaning over the bath, uttering a few last sad “Turtle” words before Turtle’s remains were washed away forever. I’m hoping his plush toy turtle and his swimming bath-time turtle – both made of sterner stuff than the bath bomb – will help heal any wounds that remain.
I will have six glorious weeks – including Christmas – with my little family and I’m so glad that my sabbatical from work means I can spend that precious time with them.
My mum and aunt arrive in
London in early December and my husband Tom arrives two weeks before Christmas. I know how very lucky I am.
So for the next month or so, you’ll be receiving dispatches from London and as you start enjoying those lovely long summer evenings, I’ll be drawing the curtains against the cold and lighting fires – and getting as many cuddles and kisses as I can to sustain me when I have to return home.