Puppychild still hasn’t been Christened, I’m hoping for a two-for-one deal, her and her baby brother in their whites with damp foreheads and sandwiches and bottles of Cidona.  I just have to pull my finger out, when the next blue moon occurs.

In the meantime, it only makes sense to introduce her into the Christian world in all its complexity, so for the last month I’ve been bringing her to Mass.  She plays quietly with other children where the tea-lights burn and asks me what a Holy Spirit is, and where does the basket money go?  I failed miserably at the ‘Who is God?’ line of questioning, so I’m hoping the congregation inspires her somehow, but it hasn’t.  When I asked her yesterday if she’d like to go to Mass again, she replied “No, thank you, if that’s okay.”

That’s why I left her to sleep this morning, bundled up warmly in her blankie in her girlie nirvana on the couch, and I skipped Mass to go instead to the cemetary behind.  Sir Fartsalot nuzzling in my kangaroo pouch, we climbed uphill to his great-grandparent’s plot for they had not yet been formally introduced.

We sat on their grave and gazed into the valley below and I bit his nails and dropped the tiny crescenty pieces onto the soil beneath so that their DNA may mingle forever, and we whiled away and watched the clouds until the congregation’s relief finally shattered our peace.  It was a morning well spent.

I think we may do that, my children and I, from now on.  We might skip mass and picnic above with our ancestors every Sunday instead and I’ll teach them about God through nature, it’s far easier to explain that way. 

The suits might wonder who the strange heathens are who float about in graveyards instead of sitting with them in their pews, and in time to come maybe my children will choose to join them, if not just to scout for boys or shelter from the rain.

It’s their choice, but I’ve chosen already.  I’m with the crosses, the Hawthorn trees and deer-droppings in the silence beyond in God’s own church, not Man’s.  Chocolate and daisy-chains and snowballs in February, memories by association attributed to God.  I might even bring a bible, for the skaa!

Sometimes when I’m walking around and talking to myself, as you do, I like to rehearse possibly awkward conversations I’ll hopefully be having with my kids someday.  The facts of life mainly… it’s important to practice these things so that when the time comes I’ll be cool and nonchalant and not a giggle-suppressing wreck when explaining what a vas deferens is. 

Then there’s the question of life, death, and that whole afterlife thing, which Puppychild blindsided me with last night.

Out of the blue, she asked me why my grandparents were dead.  Then she asked me when her own grandparents would die and asked if they wouldn’t rather stay alive forever instead. 

“Everybody dies.” I explained, in a roundabout way.

The information sank in slowly and I watched as she bonded with the rest of humanity and the millions who have gone before us, fearful enormity plopped onto her shoulders like a big bag of spuds and I felt sad for her.  Her teddybear’s lip began to quiver.  I explained to her that she must try to stay happy, to love every minute she has with her Grandad and Granny instead of worrying about their demise.  The information was absorbed and absolved.

“But what happens to you when you die?”

I told her that we dissolve and turn into skeletons and get chewed into dust and soil.  There seemed no point in mincing words, I figured it was better for her to learn it from me, rather than learn it from maggotty dead roadkill at some point in the future.  I softened the blow by telling her that flowers and trees grow from soil, life from life, life from death, that sort of thing.  It seemed to work.

Then I explained about Buddhist theories of re-incarnation and she chose that she should return in the next life as a puppy.  No surprise there then.

I didn’t get to explain about heaven, for she had fallen asleep by then.  I’m not sure whether this is a pity or not, she didn’t mention the subject again until lunchtime when I mentioned we’d be visiting Grandad.

“Grandad’s gonna die!” she said cheerfully. 

This means she’s now either a psychopath, or she’s figured out the meaning of life.  Either way I become famous, which is nice.

“Fuck off, you stupid fat bitch!”

I love watching Supernanny.  Okay, so she’s a tad twee and parents cry way too bloody often for their own good, but it’s wonderful to watch other parents fail.  It reminds me that even if I’m failing in some ways too, that nobody’s perfect.  Is there any such thing as a non-dysfunctional family?  Would The Simpsons be such a success if there were?

The above quote comes from a five-year old boy, spoken to his mother.  You can tell he’s potentially a good kid, his diction and pronounciation regarding curse-words are second to none, even with missing teeth interrupting his fricatives.  An intelligent kid, whose problem is that he’s just simply loved too much.  His mother takes it, every soiled little last word of it, and dies a little bit inside.

Isn’t that madness?  The running theme throughout most families of tearaway kids on the show, is that the parents can’t stand to chastise their children because they love them so much, they don’t want to hurt them.  That is a seriously cruel thing about nature, the necessity for tough love.  I don’t know how many times I’ve retreated to the bathroom in distress after I’ve had to dent Puppychild’s wee fairylike spirit with a firmly spoken NO.  Watching her features drop into a look of pure hurt like that – having her tell me that she hates me- she always forgets later about the extremes of her revolt, but I never do.  They should just extract the sympathy nerve from a mother during the birth of her first kid… that would soften the world’s problems entirely.

I don’t know why they don’t send Jo Frost to prisons, it’s never too late for tough love.  Anyone who looks at her sideways would have to sit on the bold-chair for as many minutes as years they’re alive…  listening to Celine Dion, maybe.  That would set anyone on the right path.

It’s a horrible fact of life that you often don’t realise you’re in love until it’s too late.

Maybe that’s the definition of love.  When suddenly a soppy film which you ardently took the Mick out of before, makes total sense, enough to make you cry because now you know what it might feel like to lose your husband, or your child, or even your dog.  Your empathy forces the point home.

101 Dalmatians did it for me.  I watched Mr. Whatsit celebrate the birth of Pongo’s puppies with pride and glee and suddenly I cried and had to switch it off.  I gazed at Wouldye lying on his blanket, once a dog as black as tar, now tinted with silvery shades of white and grey.  It hit home that there would be a day when he would find it hard to get off that blanket… a day when he would no longer have the enthusiasm to leap off a ten foot boulder into a river to retrieve his stick, and would no longer have the energy to switch to vicious alert on hearing a strange noise outside.  Someday I’ll lose my best friend and now I shed tears because of the day I gave the command; “Off with his balls!”

I should have thought twice about exactly how much of a pain in the ass his testosterone was when he was a puppy.  It would have been entirely worth it if I had just put up with that infuriating enthusiasm, and waited for a batch of puppies or two to appear (which makes me wonder… exactly how difficult would it be to pimp out your dog?)  I doubt Grandad would have put poor Sandy through the ordeal, though how amazing those puppies would be – it just doesn’t bear thinking about!

Poor Wouldye.  I’m so sorry, dude.  I should have given you at least one romantic fling before I condemned you to solitary.  There’ll never be another one like you.

P.S. Good dog.