We looked around preschools today. Mammy wasn’t sure about Preschool One but loved Preschool Two. Kiko, on the other hand, remained highly suspicious over Mammy’s sneaky plan to abandon him in “big play-play” for one day a week.

Mammy: But wouldn’t you like to go to play-school? You can play in a big sandpit and see other kids. It might be fun.

Kiko: (supercilious) I have to ask Knock-knock Dee-dee.

He scurries off importantly and Mammy hears distant yelling with the words “play-school” and “sandpit” featuring loudly. Kiko returns, carrying a teddy under his arm, the teddy he most often chooses to be Knock-knock Dee-dee’s mouthpiece.

Kiko: Knock-knock Dee-dee says yes.

Wow! Perhaps child psychologists would read all sorts into this. What I sense is that Kiko finds the idea of preschool strangely attractive but hates the thought of me not being there. On our way home from Playschool Two, I asked him if he’d liked the place.

Kiko: I like it. Big sandpit. But Mammy need to watch me.

Mammy: You want me to be there too?

Kiko: Yes. Need to watch. No go back. [i.e. don’t go back home]

I immediately felt like scrubbing all preschool plans and keeping him at home with me until he’s twenty-one five. He needs the variety, though, and I need someone else to take on the constant barrage of questions, if only for a few hours a week. The current question, which can be repeated up to a hundred times a day, is: “Mammy, where the clouds gone?” Whilst pointing at the clouds clearly visible in the sky…

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Scene: I’m trying to check my e-mails in five seconds flat before Kiko grabs the mouse off me and turns the computer into a gibbering maniac. The villain himself is hovering by my elbow, small hands poised to snatch.

Kiko: (points at the computer screen) Wanna see boobies, Mammy!

Mammy: (almost falls off the chair) WHAT?

Kiko: (adamant) Boobies, Mammy. Dere. Want to see them.

Mammy: What on earth have you been looking at on the internet?!

I am stunned, wondering when, where and how he can possibly have seen such rudey online content.

Kiko: (becoming exasperated) BOOBIES, Mammy! Boobies dancing! Wanna see! Wanna see!

Mammy: (choking) Boobies dancing?!

Kiko: Yes. Like dis.

He does a little dance. Mammy stares, speechless. He does another little dance, raising his arms out at his sides, pretending he is fat.

Kiko: Boobies dancing.

Mammy: Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

Finally the thick parent gets it. He was talking about Boohbahs. Dancing Boohbahs. Duh!

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I was pushing Kiko along the street the other day when we passed an orange Lotus, similar to the one in the picture above. This was parked outside a church, a situation I thought was quite funny. Does the pastor drive one of these, then? What on earth goes into the collection plate? Since Kiko is crazy about the colour orange, and orange cars in particular, the sighting caused much excitement and we had to stop and admire the Lotus for a while.

“Mammy,” Kiko informed me, as we continued our walk, “I need to buy dat car.”

“Oh, OK,” I replied, impressed, “and when you buy it, will you take Mammy for a drive?”

“No,” Kiko replied with a breezy finality. “Knock-knock Dee-dee drive it.”

Knock-knock Dee-dee, given his mischievous antics - having parties in the garage with Daddy Teddy while Mammy and Kiko were at the shops today! - would no doubt speed off into the sunset and leave us both on the kerb.

For some reason I’ve been feeling terrible physically. I have no idea what’s wrong with me - I can’t really define my symptoms, other than total and utter exhaustion. Maybe that’s all it is. Kiko has become so demanding lately, not so much in the naughty behaviour department, although there has been plenty of that, but mainly in that he never stops talking for a single second from morning until night - and the questions! They’re never-ending! By the time he goes to bed, I feel as if all sense has been wrung out of my brain. Who said that looking after a small child was mentally unstimulating? This is getting to be a bit too much mental stimulation.

He was in childcare for one day a week for three months at the beginning of the year but he hated it and so I pulled him out when we moved. Since then, on an almost daily basis, he makes me promise never to leave him on his own somewhere like that again. “When Mammy go back [home], I scared,” he says plaintively. (He also, cunningly, told me that the carers gave him sweeties to stop him from crying each time I left him. Ninety-five percent of me doesn’t believe this for a minute, but the less rational five percent can’t help but be horror-struck, and this child may be daft but is he a genius at manipulation or what?) Still, despite the vehement opposition and being on a permanent guilt trip about everything anyway, I am thinking I will definitely put his name down for preschool soon, with the aim of him starting next February. I need someone else to share the constant mental onslaught. Getting some writing done might make me saner too. Ha.

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Kiko has suddenly acquired an imaginary friend, whom he calls Knock-knock Dee-dee, occasionally shortened to Baby Knock-knock.

“Knock-knock Dee-dee mischievous, Mammy,” he informed me. Why am I not surprised? Yesterday, when I told Kiko to stop swinging on the washing line, Baby Knock-knock jumped up there and was doing tiny swings while Kiko watched for Mammy’s reaction. Today, when we were getting the train home and not into the city as Kiko would have preferred, Knock-knock Dee-dee jumped onto the city train and off he went! Somehow he managed to teleport himself back to our train and was running from carriage to carriage, to Kiko’s consternation.

“What is Knock-knock Dee-dee?” I asked Kiksy.

“Knock-knock Dee-dee.”

“But is he a boy?”

“No. No boy.”

“Is he a teddy?”

“No teddy.”

“Is he a dolly?

“No dolly.

“What is he then?”

“He’s no boy. Knock-knock Dee-dee.”

That reminded me of the poem:

As I was walking up the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d stay away.

which I’ve always said as “I wish that man would go away” for the last line but the text I found on Wikipedia differs. Anyway, this poem is quoted at the beginning of The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi, which is the scariest story about imaginary friends I ever hope to read (although excellent, I hasten to add). So I’m hoping that Knock-knock Dee-dee is nothing like the dreaded TillyTilly in that novel…

I also went on a minor guilt-trip, because I’m in that sort of mood, and thought: “Oh no, the inevitable imaginary friend of the poor little only child.” Then I thought, sod that, three cheers for his imagination.

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Kiko’s cold has rapidly turned into yet another ear infection, and the cough is here with full scariness. He is hovering on the edge of an asthma attack, so we’ll be monitoring him through the night. His new, stronger preventer appears to be helping him hold up against it but I know how quickly his condition can deteriorate if asthma gets the upper hand. I’m just hoping that he can last through to tomorrow morning when we can get him to the medical centre. I really can’t face spending tonight in A&E.

Somehow, throughout this, I’ve managed to write 2500 words. Only they’re not Surviving Kelly Tracey words, but for the sequel, Mireille. I am sure this will look like an ingenious form of organisation a year from now. At this moment, I feel like a tired, scatterbrained mess.

Kiko, despite being poorly, has a new phrase. I will make an innocent remark and he will cut me down in shocked, bossy tones with: “Don’t say dat word, Mammy!”

Kiko lines up his poor blameless little toy men on his wooden railway line.

Kiko: (delighted, pointing at one of the men) What’s dat, Mammy? What’s DAT?

Mammy: It’s your man. He’s on the railway track. Poor man.

Kiko: (horrified) Don’t say dat word, Mammy!

Mammy: What word?

Kiko: Man.

Mammy: Man? Is man a rudey word all of a sudden?

Kiko: (imperious) Don’t SAY DAT!

We’re on our way out to the doctor, and Kiko has prepared three empty plastic dosing syringes in his toy saucepan. All efforts to part him from this improvised “toy” have failed.

Kiko: (waves a dosing syringe) What’s dat, Mammy?

Mammy: (wondering if they will ever get out of the door before the 9000 walking wounded descend on the doctor’s open clinic and doom her to waiting there until noon with a grumpy asthma-monger and his syringe soup) A dosing syringe.

Kiko: Uh doting syringe.

Mammy: A dosing syringe.

Kiko: (warningly) Don’t say dat word, Mammy!

Looks like he’s still not convinced that “dosing syringe” isn’t some terrible insult. And the “What dat?” phase is showing no signs of waning, either…

Update (26/8/2008): Despite having a bad night on Friday with his breathing, Kiko was loads better by morning and has gradually improved since then. He’s still coughing and tires easily but is definitely on the mend. I believe the asthma did flare up this time but very mildly and he was able to fight back. I’m wondering whether the fact he went on antibiotics so quickly played a role in that.

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Charlotte has done this perception personality quiz, and so I did it too.

To be honest, the result isn’t all that true apart from the last two sentences, although I do like the man in the picture holding the moon so maybe that’s the “foreground” thing coming out. Or maybe I just like men holding moons.

(Yes, I’m still on asthma alert and really ought to be writing…)

Your result for The Perception Personality Image Test…

HFDS - The Coach

Humanity, Foreground, Detail, and Shape

Take The Perception Personality Image Test at HelloQuizzy

Ooh, I’ve just found this other quiz. This is totally cool! What’s my Steampunk fashion sense? You know, I’ve often wondered about that…

Your result for The Steampunk Style Test…

The Aristocrat

Take The Steampunk Style Test at HelloQuizzy

All completely true, of course.

Helen, stop faffing around on the computer and go and do something constructive - now!

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So Kiko is following his classic asthma pattern. Yesterday we had the sneezing. Today we have the snotty, laboured breathing. Now I’m waiting for the cough to start. If we’re on schedule, he’ll be having a fully-blown asthma attack by tonight or tomorrow morning. My theory is, the later the cough starts in his asthma pattern, the less severe the attack is. Every second that passes without him coughing feels like a gift. Saying that, if he’s coughing by tonight - and he probably will be - I’m cracking open the redi-pred. My main objective is to keep him out of hospital, especially after last time and witnessing how understaffed our local hospital is. Waiting nervously outside his door for the cough to start, I began surfing the net for extreme foolishness to take my mind off things, and came up with this. This, apparently, is what font I am.

You Are Andale Mono

You are a geek, pure and simple. You spend a lot of time online. In fact, you probably love the internet more than anyone you know. You are picky about design, mostly for readability’s sake. You are the type most likely to be irritated by a bad font.

Heh, I especially like the way I love the internet more than anyone I know! I’d better not let Kiksy’s Daddy see this…

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I have a rule. This probably sounds evil, but after a traumatic experience a few years ago when a charity mugger chased me out of a train station and rammed me into a wall, I will not give money to people who ask me for it on the street. This goes for both charity muggers and homeless people. Before the charity mugger incident, I had a skinhead yell abuse at me for not buying his Big Issue. I was so scared, and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t safe to bring out my purse on the street in case the money-grabber turned aggressive on me. I must have that kind of face that makes people think I’m easy to intimidate.

The only time I break my rule is if I hear a good busker, or if I see a sweet old lady quietly holding a collecting tin, or if the Big Issue vendor is visibly non-threatening. Homeless young men, able-bodied and in prime health, do not get a cent out of me.

This was until yesterday. As I was pushing Kiko into the railway station, I saw a man in his twenties by the ticket machines. We passed him and I heard him ask a male commuter in a suit if he had any spare change for a train ticket. The commuter handed him a coin. I paid for my $4.60 fare with a $5 bill and since I had 40 cents left over, I decided to give this to the beggar on the way out of the ticket office. But as I was checking the display for my train platform, he approached me.

Man: Would you have a dollar or two to spare for a train ticket?

Me: does a double-take at “a dollar or two” but hands him the forty cents

Man: (visibly recoils, eyeing the two twenty-cent coins as if I’ve handed him a poo) Oh. (Extreme disparagement) Forty cents. Well, thank you very much.

I was so on the verge of whipping the coins out of his hand and saying: “Shite, then! You’re young! You’re able-bodied! You’re mentally-competent and wearing a smart anorak. Get off the drugs and go out and get a job!”

But I didn’t, and no doubt he put my measly forty cents towards meths and crack, or Jack Daniels and ice, or whatever your average alcoholic junkie is on nowadays.

I did have to wonder, though, he asked the well-dressed commuter, who could no doubt afford a few bob, for “spare change”, but asked me for “a dollar or two” and then gave me attitude. What is it about me? I’m always getting this. I must look like a soft touch.

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I’ve talked about my favourite fantasy novel. I’ve listed my top ten science fiction films. But lately I’ve been pondering the question (especially when sat in front of the same page of redrafting for eight days solid) of which are the ten best science fiction books ever written.

Automatically I’m at a disadvantage because, even though I’m reasonably well-read in science fiction, I haven’t read everything and my tastes seem quite one-sided. I’m ashamed to admit that while I tore through almost every Arthur C. Clarke book as a teenager, I haven’t read a single thing by Isaac Asimov. There are also books that I remember not being able to put down - A Fire Upon The Deep by Venor Vinge for example - but now I can’t recall a single detail of the plot. Then there’s a book called Perseus something that I remember with crystal clarity (a man shifts sand around a spaceship cell in order to discover the meaning of life) but have no idea about the correct title or the author.

So I’ve decided to list books that had a big impact on me, and that fit a definition of science fiction as being about space, aliens and/or mad new technology, for example, time travel. I’ve also given myself the rule of having only one book per author on the list, to avoid it becoming an Arthur C. Clarke and John Wyndham bibliography… but as you can see, I have cheated… twice.

Helen’s Top Ten Science Fiction Books

1. Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

Helen wins the prize for lack of originality. Surely this must be everyone’s favourite science fiction book? But Rendezvous With Rama made such a huge impression on me when I was fifteen. Science, suspense, amazing ideas. I held my breath, as I turned the pages, desperate to know who the creators of the spaceship, Rama, were.

2. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

I read The Time Machine at age fifteen too, and remember being drawn in by the fast-paced plot and wild themes, then being astounded that it was written in 1895.

3. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

I like stories where the main character wakes up to find that their world has changed beyond recognition. Although perhaps finding a triffid in your back garden is a bit too much change in the wrong direction. John Wyndham is a writer I admire so much, and I could easily add The Chrysalids and The Midwich Cuckoos to this list. When I was in UK at Christmas, and looking around a bookshop, I overheard a group of friends talking about The Day of the Triffids and wondering who wrote it. Normally I’d be too embarrassed to say anything but I couldn’t resist turning round and saying: “John Wyndham!” I’m sure they must have thought: “Wow, that Mammy is a science fiction geek.”

4. The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

Just sheer brilliance. I could build a monument to this book, which is about a brilliant yet bored games champion in a far-future society, who takes on the challenge of his life to play a game with an alien species. I especially like Iain Banks’ spaceship names. The Unfortunate Conflict of Evidence was my favourite one here.

5. Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing Of The Dog by Connie Willis

Yes, I’m cheating. I love both of these books equally. They both deal with the theme of time travel into history, but are written in completely different styles. I’m impressed by an author who can do this, and love the way she presents a mass of details yet retains the fast pace. What I like about Connie Willis novels is that every character has their own agenda.

6. Glasshouse and Accelerando by Charles Stross

And I’m cheating again. The fact I can’t choose between these novels might seem strange - when I’ve read reviews of Accelerando on Facebook and Amazon, quite a few people have said that Glasshouse, a novel about a future society’s experimental recreation of twentieth-century life, is much better. Accelerando is set in the same universe in an earlier era and deals with the technological tipping point when human society becomes super-advanced. Never have I read a book so slow to warm up. The title Accelerando is certainly fitting in that, until page 100 or so, the pace is like wading through concrete . Then the story takes off and turns into absolute genius. Don’t knock Accelerando! Both books, to my mind, are just as excellent in their own ways.

7. Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick

I like the way Philip K. Dick deals with the theme of autism.

8. Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan

I congratulate Richard Morgan. Altered Carbon cured my pregnancy sickness. Nothing else worked except for Richard Morgan books. Amazing! The man ought to patent himself.

9. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

Jesuit priest in space in an asteroid! What I especially liked about this book is the idea of how a society would evolve if descended from intelligent species that are predator and prey.

10. Keeper of the Isis Light by Monica Hughes

This was my favourite science fiction book when I was in primary school. I borrowed it from the library and was so impressed that the story revolved around a girl and that the author was female and that “pretty” was turned on its head. Later I found a copy for ten pence in the library withdrawn bin and still have it somewhere, although unfortunately not to hand.

What are your favourite science fictions novels? Does anyone have a recommendation for me that I’ve missed from my list?

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On TV, two Olympic synchronised divers jump from the high board in slow motion. Kiko watches them intently.

Kiko: (about to crack up laughing) Oh! Silly!

That was even before we saw the two-man kayaks.

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