Defying Gravity

This is the name of the song which has been sung around here so much recently that eventually I sent an email to the girls theatre teacher informing them that she was likely to get custody of them quite soon 😆 This week they were at a workshop, rehearsing a short version of the show Wicked (the trailer is well worth a watch) which is the story of how the witches of Oz came to be who they were. For the first time, all 4 girls went along and the big three were very happy to all get named parts. Fran played the treacherous teacher, Maddy played Bok, the character who becomes the Tinman and Amelie was Nessa Rose, the feet of the witch at the?beginning?of The Wizard of Oz 🙂

The show was given an extra something this time by the addition of an actor as one of the leaders, who really brought something else out of them. The dancing teachers are great, but their forte is dancing and singing and I always feel slightly frustrated when I watch these shows because, having been in theatre and having done lots of directing, I can always see the element that is missing. it was a more complete show this time. I so wish they’d ask me to help, I do offer 🙂

I cried – twice – the two lead girls were excellent and the show is right up my street. Going to see if we can work a trip to it before pregnancy and Christmas and school overwhelm us. And oh my, Maddy is such a fabulous little actress. I honestly think she has every chance of making that what she does if she wants. She can play a cameo role down to a T.

That house is ours; not only is it ours but I have one to give away too so watch this space.

But to be honest, defying gravity felt like more than a theme to the week. Announcing the pregnancy properly has given me wings and shaken me out of inertia. I’m making myself believe in it and I know I am, despite everything, managing that better than I ever did when I was pregnant with Freddie. I’m making myself believe this one could come home. I’ve even bought a chair that I know perfectly well is secretly a nursery/nursing chair. Not believing will no more make this baby come than believing in it will kill it. I’m going to have to believe, not least because the girls need to feel I have faith and hope. Josie is struggling, working through endless conversations about how Freddie kicked, will this one kick, what might or might not happen. She’s back to playing her feelings with all her baby dolls and the teddies we have for each child. She’s so transparently in need of making sense of it all.

I also had a week at work, something I don’t get to very often. I went back at times after I had Freddie, thinking work would be better than home for a bit, but of course it is full of baby gifts and people who phone up to talk about them and I really didn’t cope. Once I’d told one customer too many about Freddie, I knew I had to stop going for a bit. But going back this week was fun, as was getting to spend some work time with Max. I didn’t do a lot, mainly as the scan, our exploding hot water system and the relatively short days of the workshops meant I was mostly driving about or making pack lunches (or drying carpets 🙄 ) but I enjoyed being there. I’ve lost my mojo with the businesses a bit but in all honesty, as soon as I get there, I love it again. It still gives me such a kick to see the first three folding crates that held Hama Beads on the shelf in a business that now occupies nearly 3000sq ft of business premises, I still love to unpack goodies and write about them. (This week I got to play with our new Gotz Dolls stuff that arrived and fell hopelessly in love with a little crocheted dolls dress that arrived. I have to try and make one!)

It’s no mean feat to have achieved that business, I forget how amazingly we’ve done sometimes. It’s easy enough to launch a website, cut prices into a profit free zone and sell some stuff, but to grow a business, for it to be not just surviving but still growing in a packed market place and tough economic times is something else. It’s Max who has done that, I wouldn’t have lasted. Some combination of my ideas and his uncanny knack for figures has worked so far, though it’s certainly true we aren’t going to be retiring any time soon 😆 We were out talking to a supplier last week and ended up talking about our motivations. We aren’t about massive profit or building up something huge we can then sell on, we prefer to keep it a size where our customers know who they are dealing with, get a voice and a face not a call centre and a genuine personal service. Even more than that, we prefer to work just hard enough that we can employ people who need jobs and live a lifestyle that means we see our children growing up. We could do it differently, we could have all 4 in school, less staff but work our backsides off all day every day, but I’ve tried that (more or less) and it made us pretty unhappy. We’re not greedy people; enough money and a good but simple life suits us. And it’s still a joy to both of us to run a business that treats its customers the way we like to be treated.

You might have noticed that the blog grew a Kiddicare widget this week; I thought quite hard about this, not least that I ensured first that even if it was a baby stuff widget, I didn’t want it to have baby faces on it, because neither I, nor plenty of people who read here, will cope so well with that. In part, it was another small leap of faith that I will need some baby goods early next year. Another piece of defying gravity. Another thing is that Kiddicare is based in our town. When I bought our buggy, the only one we have had and which has had all 4 girls in it, I bought it in what was, at the time, a small pre-internet shop in the north of town. They ran their business in a way that inspired me; good service, good prices, good choice. I’ve watched them move and grow to two different sizes of warehouse, taking risks, being brave, expanding and developing. I went to the newest one once, to buy a couple of small things for Freddie (which he never used) and I was so impressed by what they had achieved there. So yes, for what it’s worth, putting their widget on the site for a while is something I’m happy to do, because yes, it is lovely to get the opportunity, but also because it came at a moment that suited me and because it is a business I have genuine feelings for. And I didn’t have to write this bit at all, that isn’t part of the deal, but it was my choice to do so – and I hope you approve.

So here we are at the end of a week that has been really quite important, a determined change of mindset. Back in the saddle, so to speak …. though not, I hope, of a broomstick 🙂