Checking In

I have no idea where to begin with a post, after so long without one.

I could write about my current obsession with sea gardens. I should write a list of all the unfinished projects at the the current Funny Little Bungalow.  I could regale you with Boy Seymour’s daredevil surfing escapades, Mini Seymour’s new fondness for makeup, and the other two’s love of theatre and aspirations therein. Then there are the sad stories of the rabbit (he died) and the naughty cat, who went missing.

I think though, I had better just check in. Where are we now? Who is doing what? For my own benefit really, as I can’t keep track. Already today, I have sent three small Seymours off, one to the east, one to the south and the other to the west. They are all growing up, moving on and I am floundering somewhat in their wake, as their needs change, and I begin to wonder how I got to the stage where I have blinked and missed important stuff.

Mini and Boy are at secondary school, and Boy has announced that he is going to try hard this year. He is the classic coaster, but his coasting success is a bit hit-and-miss. Sometimes, he does very well, and sometimes his results are dire. He is clever, but lazy. Standard stuff. Yesterday, however, he showed me just how skilled he is when he taught me how to bump start a car, and between us, we managed to revive Minty the Polo, who is mostly decorative these days, and was temporarily dead as a result.

Mini Seymour, my baby, will be making her GCSE choices soon. This is scary for many reasons, but mostly because she is a child for whom formal assessments do not work. Her value is to be found elsewhere. That girl can make catwalk outfits out of scrap paper, jackets for cats, tree houses – she even decoupaged the Sindy car. Yes, the vintage Sindy car that may have been worth a few quid in its original state… but it’s done now, and we will have to embrace it.

Little Seymour Number Two has embarked on an animal-based college course, and hopes she will get her hands on the critters soon.  Her GCSEs were, cleverly, exactly what she needed to get to her college of choice and school is behind her. But her head is not really in her studies at the moment. It is elsewhere, on a stage, in a world of Victorian ephemera and catchy choruses, orphans, workhouses and top hats. We saw Oliver! at the weekend, and she and I both were inspired to the point of theatre job hunting. She, at sixteen, could set out to be the next Cameron Mackintosh – or so I have told her. And why not?

Number One is adulting. Swinging between home, Brighton and various other places: working, auditioning, applying. Throw in a few important hospital appointments and she is suitably occupied.

Big Seymour is juggling many different activities currently, from building pools to digging out ponds, erecting sheds, driving tractors, odd-jobbing for deceased local celebrities, fixing our herd of lawnmowers and re-creating Narnia in our garden , he is never, and I mean never, bored. Sometimes I ask him if it’s all too much… but he assures me he wouldn’t have it any other way. And then falls asleep.

I am now a teacher again. A Science Teacher. A proper one! I am pleased that I am using my qualifications, and I hope to give it my best, but the hiatus in my career has meant that in my head, I am still a young teacher in my late twenties, lacking confidence and doubting myself. Looking in the mirror tells me I am no longer in my twenties, but the confidence thing is not so easily solved. I guess I will have to work on it – especially as I am giving a presentation to parents tonight…oh crap.

So there we have it. In the cliched blink of en eye, my babies are big and I am a teacher again, and all those years in the toddler groups and the play park and on the other side of the school system, or in a support staff role, are behind me. Instead of feeling sad about it, I must embrace it. It is good! It is good. IT IS GOOD! I know it. And I am starting to feel it. I have a career, but more importantly, that career waited, whilst I did what I wanted to do most of all – be with my kids whilst they were little.

How lucky am I?

Now, those babies are full blown people who test me every day. Things are as challenging as they ever were – more so, dare I say. And I don’t expect or even want that feeling to change. But with the resurgence of my “career” (still feels odd to call it that) I have an opportunity to feel clever again – even if my brain was frazzled by kids and is now getting even more frazzled because I am old.

On this day in 2005, Big Seymour and I got married, and Number One child was the only Little Seymour we had.

Nineteen years, three more kids, four houses houses, nine volkswagens, some dog dramas and plenty of challenges later, we are fortunate to still be here to tell the tale. Success is a very hard (and pointless) thing to measure so instead, let’s focus on the fact we have survived. Happy Anniversary to us! We cannot grumble at all.

Paper Couture by Mini Seymour