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Category Archives: Blimey!
Things you don’t know about parenting until you try it Number 63: Night Terrors.
One of the surrealist things about having kids is night terrors.
McMini is getting over a sick bug and has a slight temperature so it was pretty much a given that he’d have one. They are also more likely to happen to very active children and McMini is extremely active. He started crying in that certain way and I went upstairs and found him sitting in bed shaking with fear, sobbing his eyes out and staring at something only he could see. Normally I talk to him, sometimes he responds, sometimes I just sit with him to make sure he’s OK and reassure him when he wakes up.
“Mummy…” crying.
“It’s alright mate,” doing the special calm voice, “I’m here. What’s up?”
“Where am I?”
“You’re in bed. Are you scared?”
“Yes,” sobbing, “but Mummy, can’t you see them?”
“What?”
“The Power Rangers lined up in front of the curtains.”
“I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Why not?” still sobbing.
“Because you’re asleep mate and I’m not in the dream with you.”
“Oh.”
“Yeh. It’s OK you’ll wake up in a minute.”
“Will I?”
“Yes. Are you scared.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not surprised, I would be too but don’t worry, you’re just having a night terror. Would it help to sit on my lap until you wake up?”
“Yes please.”
McSmall climbs on lap.
“What’s a night terror?”
“A very vivid type of dream. I still get them sometimes. Mine are when I can see the room I’m in but I hear a noise which I know is not real (but is still very scary). To be honest you probably won’t remember this when you wake up. Do you want a drink of water?”
“No thanks.”
“Sure? It’d be nice and cold on your throat, might wake you sooner.”
A beat. McMini stops sobbing abruptly.
“Mummy?”
“Yep.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Ah, have you just woken up?”
“Yes. Why am I on your lap?”
“You got on here.”
“I don’t remember.”
“That’s OK, you wouldn’t you were asleep. You’ve just had a night terror that’s all. D’you remember what you were dreaming about?”
“No.”
“Well, it sounded very exciting because while you were asleep you told me it had power rangers in it.”
“Oh.”
“D’you want to hop back into bed now?”
“Yes please.”
“Right o.”
I hug him and give him a kiss.
“Night kiddo.”
“Night.”
Night terrors. So surreal. If you’re little one is having them fear not. I found a few things on the NHS website which helped me feel more relaxed about it so I thought I’d share them:
- It’s scary for sure but try not to freak out. This is easier if you can remember having them yourself. Just sit with the child, hold them if it seems to help. Speak calmly to them if it helps you – sometimes they talk back quite lucidly and calmly, even if they’re crying their eyes out.
- Their eyes may well be open.
- It’s NORMAL, don’t worry, your small one is fine. It’s basically, a normal nightmare but at a different stage of the sleep cycle.
- It’s tempting to wake them but most pundits agree you should let the terror run its course. It will take anything from 5 to 30 minutes if our own experience with McMini is anything to go on.
- They are more likely to happen when your small person is extra tired, has a fever, and is going to sleep more deeply. They can also be caused by things that are likely to wake them up, excitement or sudden noise, for example the huge firework some complete bastard let off outside our house just before tonight’s terror started.
- Once the attack is over, if they start sleeping peacefully again, it’s often useful to wake them as this can break the cycle and stop them having another one.
Filed under Blimey!, General Wittering
Yes, you can polish a turd… if you light it well.
— Caveat, the whole point to the less is more bit of this post was that the prop under discussion was the one used in the actual series of Dr Who. It wasn’t. It was built by a fan. Looking at the equipment available to the BBC props department and a chap in a shed, the whole perspective suddenly changes. Basically, a 19 year old lad has made something, himself, that I thought was an actual BBC prop. So it’s more on the freaking awesome level than what I call it. So what I say about attention to detail still stands but actually, the example might just as well be made up. So there you are. Check your facts. All of them. Even the ones you don’t even realise need checking. —
This week has been half term so all meaningful work on K’Barthan things has dropped in favour of doing stuff with the ankle biter. We went to a sci-fi exhibition at the local museum, great fun, and opened with a host of look a likes, Dr Who, Darth Vader, a rather handsome jedi knight, a cyberman, Boba Fett and McMini was pictured with all of them.
Inside the exibition they had the actual control console from the Tardis. There have been several, anyone with kids who remembers the beebatron on CBeebies, or who has subsequently seen Cari and David’s Pop Shop will know what happened to the one out of the 5th Doctor’s Tardis. The one in the exhibition was the current one. Here it is. So what do you notice?
That’s right. It’s really shit. And close up, it looks like this?
and this….?
So this is what amazed me; the difference between the way it appears on film and the way it looks close up.
On film: slick, sparkly and kind of steam punk with all that shiny brass and bits of 1960s telephones. Of solid, robust and more to the point cool.
Close up: shit.
And here’s the magic.
It doesn’t matter how hit looks close up because, it’s designed to be seen on film and the minute I take a picture it ceases to become a load of old tut and turns into to something else.
And what does this have to do with writing?
Well, my point is this. It’s easy to get hung up on world building and character back story when you write spec-fic. But what this teaches me, at any rate, is that the trick is not so much what you put in as what you leave out.
Yes, the Tardis Control Console looks terrible to the naked eye but on TV it looks bloody brilliant. Sometimes, less, or a hint, is more and the reader – or viewer’s – imagination does the rest. The secret is selecting the trigger details, the odd snippet here and there which people reading it will embellish for themselves. The real Gods are the writers who do that in a way that will have every reader seeing the same picture.
Filed under About My Writing, Blimey!
Look what I found!
Am I going to eat it? You bet your arse I am.
Few things are lovelier, fried, with onions, bacon, a little potato and a touch of garlic and pepper. It’s actually a bit of a tiddler, they usually grow to the sort of size that would dwarf the toaster there in the background. Today I found three young ones and a biggie that had been squashed. I’ll never eat them all so I left the rest and took a small one. The biggie had gone to spores and I’m hoping the small ones I left will get to do that as well.
It came from a National Trust property near here. I found one there a few years ago, too, in the middle of a beautifully manicured lawn… which was quite bizarre. This one was on the other side of the estate, in a field.
It’s always exciting, finding one of these.
Filed under About My Writing, Blimey!
It’s a snurd, Jim: but not as we know it…
A light one, tonight. Last week was pants. Sunday my computer hard drive failed, suddenly and irrevocably. Tuesday Chewie, the cat, got ill, also suddenly and irrevocably. The long and the short of that is that I now have a new computer – which is nice but my writing software doesn’t work very well on it and I’d have preferred not to buy one three days before shelling out every penny I have on a new car. The three of us are not happy to find ourselves suddenly ‘resting’ between cats either.
Yeh, not much time to think so it’s a light one tonight. A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, on this post, I wrote about how you should always Google your made up names.
Recently, for interest, I thought I’d try Googling one of the made up names I’d already… well… made up. Hmm…. good sentence that one (not).
Anyhow, I decided to put the word ‘snurds’ into Google and where once it was stacked with nothing but references to my books and pictures of flying cars now I find this… I don’t actually mind at all but I am slightly worried that the Snurds – or Manchester School of Art – may be upset about their K’Barthan namesake.
Naturally snurd also has a definition in the urban slang dictionary – but then so does everything.
So to clear it up. If anyone is wondering what a snurd is, it’s this:
Or should I say these? Then again only the grey one’s a snurd – the other is the Interceptor and is made by the Grongolian Military rather than The Great Snurd (of K’Barth) Company Ltd – to give it its full title.
Actually, did you know that K. Barth is a mathematician. Nope, neither did I. Although I did find out when I checked – before publishing this time – and decided to leave it. Sorry Mr Barth.
Filed under About My Writing, Blimey!, Interesting, Other Creatives
M T McGuire Authorholic 