Bringing up boys – I’m old but not THAT old!

Wrinkles

“So did you do that in the olden days?”

The question just pops out while we watch a war movie on TV.

I look at him. “I know I’m old but I’m not THAT old you know.”

He looks at me blankly obviously not understanding a word that I have said and resumes watching TV.

After a while, he pipes up: “Well did you? Before you were a grown up?”

‘Olden days’ I fear is an elastic term in our household it can take in what happened only a few years ago before Bog Boy was born or it could go back to prehistoric times and lighting fires using flints.

And Grown-ups to Bog Boy are an amorphous blob. They are just grown-ups rather than people of differing or even different ages. It dawned on me that he may not be able to work out people’s ages just by looking and I got kinda scared. What if he thought  I looked just like MY Mum and that in fact he thought I was as old as her?

I had to ask if he thought Granny was older than Mummy or vice versa.

This is the same Granny who was only complaining suggesting at Christmas that I dye my hair to cover all the grey, not because she thought I would look better but because she felt she was too young to have a grey-headed daughter.

This is the same Granny who for the past thirty years has weighed less than her daughter – though having lost a whole bunch of weight I am now redressing that balance.

So this age issue takes on a certain amount of significance.

I wait with bated breath.

“Well you say you’re 21 and Granny has to be older than you because she’s your Mummy…..”

Oh what a relief!

“…So she must be 29….”

I think that’s a good an answer as any don’t you?

"Old fat furry cat-puss..."

I get so frustrated with my cat. She’s wonderful and I love her to bits but where once her movements were sure and swift now they are hesitant and kinda clumsy. She falls off tables and chairs, mistimes her leaps so that she falls short and there is a mad scrabbling or else lands too far in knocking over ornaments and frequently breaking them too.

She always seems to be in the wrong place and either needs to be let in or out as the whim suits her. When you do let her out, you see her hesitate on the other side as if to say: “Now why did I want to go here?” or else “Where the heck is this?” Sometimes she shakes herself and carries on to wherever it is she is going. Other times she simply turns back immediately bumping her head on the closing door. I know this because I can hear her thumping into it and she usually yells at me indignantly as if it were my fault.

She yells at me a lot. Mostly for food sometimes for reasons I cannot fathom. She is always hungry but there are times she is persistently hungry. It’s almost as if she forgets she has just eaten. I know she can’t be truly hungry because I have to watch over her while she eats so the dogs don’t knab it. She will eat until she’s stuffed then leave the food she doesn’t want. I then put the bowl away only for her to yell at me she needs food again barely five minutes later. I give her the bowl again, she turns her nose up at “OLD food” I clean bowl refill it with “FRESH food” and she takes one mouthful then stalks off or else looks at me as if I was barking mad and why would I think she needs more food when she’s only just eaten…

She is increasingly fussy about her food and any old stuff will not do she prefers Whiskas Oh So Fishy Senior, will not tolerate Felix and don’t try to fob her off on normal Whiskas or indeed any other cat food for that matter. She won’t eat gravy only jelly and she hates rabbit and whitefish. I usually give her whitefish first thing in the morning as I know she is SO hungry by then that she’ll eat just about anything within given parameters.

She has decided she likes Hellman’s Mayonnaise. As soon as you get it out of the fridge she is there with her head virtually in the jar. You barely have time to spread it on your sandwiches before she is plaguing you. She mithers and bothers you by pushing herself into your personal space. And you can put her down as many times as you like within seconds she is back again. It’s just easier to leave a dollop and let her get on with it.

I do get cross but then again I look at her and say to myself: “Well it comes to us all.” I tuck her up at night and she purrs in her sleep. She’s happy and seems not to notice the fact that she is not as dignified as she once was…