When your chest

is touching mine

the beat of your wee heart

fluttering and thumping

so close

and you are sad

and you have been screaming

and it’s been oh, such a long day

(it’s only 9am)

and I am sad

and I have been screaming

time calls a truce.

An infusion of love happens

electric,

unbreakable.

We pull apart –

always you first;

there’s a lot of stuff to do

when you are three.

I linger,

your heartbeat still resonates

in my chest,

and I think –

I needed that

quick-wire kick

of love

more than you.

I’ve written here before that I try to modulate my turn of phrase with my children, as per parenting advice of the day – or really, just common sense if I want to keep my kids out of therapy when they are older. So, if the situation calls for it, I say ‘that’s naughty behaviour’ instead of ‘you are a naughty boy’ or ‘that was a mean thing to do’ instead of ‘you are mean.’

I slip up all the time, of course. I was brought up in the late Seventies and Eighties, when it was still ok to hit children to stop them misbehaving. On that, recently my mother observed that my three boys ‘never listen to a word you say.’ Disheartening but true; they mostly don’t. I slide around on language, and more than a few times I’ve called these creatures, born perfect and pure, ‘naughty’ or ‘bad’. If I do, I catch myself. In the midst of such linguistic wrestling last week, I said to my middle son, ‘I love you, always, even when you are angry like this,’ trying to convey – which I hope they feel anyway – this baseline of love, so that they know that their frequent foul and stinking moods can be tethered to something strong and constant.

He looked at me and said, ‘Mummy I still think you are beautiful even when you are angry.’ Mmm, ok, I thought. What a lovely thing to say, I said to him, his big blue eyes blinking with pleasure as he realised that his words could have such an effect. The older one walked in, wondering what this lovely thing was his brother had said to me, so I repeated it. Then, the older one casually said to the younger one, ‘You should use my line. I always tell her that there is lightness inside the darkness.’

The younger nodded sagely, as if to say, this is a good line indeed to use when my mother is cross with me. But – wow. You should use my line? What in the name of the good lord am I teaching my boys? To spin women lines? To sweet talk them? They are three and five! The five year old got the lightness in darkness line from one of the Lego movies, and kudos to him for spotting that I would be an absolute sucker for such a line, wheeled out at the right time. The three year old obviously got it directly from me; I’ve somehow taught him to throw out a few select words, like bait for a better mood, when we are in a state of emotional fray together.

I think of them as adult men, having a conversation with their other half. Their partner is annoyed about something, wants to discuss it, get it out into the open. They want to be taken seriously. ‘You look beautiful when you are angry.’ Can you imagine? ‘Darling, whatever. I’ve told you this so many times. There is lightness inside the darkness.’

I don’t know; it starts here, with me, doesn’t it – how my boys will relate to their partners in the future. It’s back to language again, perhaps the final layer in the nuances of parenting, for it is clear children instinctively read levels below that, lies which cannot be told, love which cannot be dampened – but language is important. Words have such power, and we often just throw them away like discarded shells, the oyster still nestling within.

I was in the countryside yesterday, visiting a relative. There was a cherry tree. Pots and pots of muddy things, seedlings of vegetables like radishes, kale and carrots. Scallions stood in a row like soldiers, their tart green tops fading into pristine white bottoms, nestled smartly in the warm brown earth. There were large, unidentifiable tubs and old containers filled with stagnant rainwater, leaves, floating bits of moss and sticks. A toadstool. There was an ancient, discarded tractor, such a dignified old workhorse, resting proudly, a relic in the muddy field – its once-majestic utility long rusted over. Ghosts of past men who worked the land hovered around it, beckoning me to peek inside, use my imagination to see that where now stood wild daisies and tufted roots of grass, knotted hands once shifted the gears and turned the giant metal wheels, day in and day out.

While my other two boys ran free, I followed my one year old as he wobbled and toddled and fell with joy into the damp grass, one chubby baby hand clutching a sausage stolen from the stove. He watched the horses in the field, wide-eyed at their muscly, gentle beauty. The clouds shifted swiftly, revealing a cool June sun, shards of its rays streaming down into the land, catching the light on his blonde baby curls and the royal blue glint of tiny wellies on his feet.

All the while, in the sleepy, slow country morning, he kept emitting that very particular baby squeal of delight. It is the sound of how you feel when you are completely in the flow of nature, of the seasons, of the earth around you. It’s kind of an ‘Ah-ooo’ sound, with the ‘Ah’ higher than the ‘ooo’. It was the sound of him and the world, together, interchangeable.

A sound like this, uttered out loud, is something we forget as we grow. As adults we can only revel in its cadence second-hand, when we hear a child sing it like this, or an animal. But we absolutely still feel it. How could we not? We don’t make that ‘Ah-ooo’ sound, but we feel that deep joy, that contentment, often when we least expect it. We might feel it when we are sitting in the sun, or walking on the beach, or pottering in the garden, poking in the mud. Or in a moment when we catch the wind on our face and feel oh! so alive: there was a scent, a touch of the moving air, that brought you out of your head and back to yourself.

‘Ah-ooo’ is the child’s song to the universe, it’s like they are talking to nature itself. They are saying: You give me the cool grass under my feet, these big-lashed horses, these pink and purple and blue flowers, this outdoor soup, this mud with things that grow in it – and I howl thank you. ‘Ah-oo’. I am happy in this earth.