Brother

"Brother's week: If you have a brother who has made you laugh, punched you, stuck up for you, drove you crazy, annoyed you to no end, hugged you, watched you succeed, saw you fail, picked you back up, cheered you on, made you strong and is someone who has made you very proud to have in your life."
My daughter posted this today on her Facebook page about Kieron. It is just like him.
Kieron has a wicked sense of humour and always seems to know when someone needs cheering up. A favourite  tactic of his is to walk round with his boxers pulled right up to his chest, with his bottom hanging out. His pants are always too big anyway as he's so skinny, so the sight of these scrawny little legs sticking out of his boxers is guaranteed to make us laugh.
If Jade comes home upset about anything, he squares up and demands to know who has upset her so that he can go and sort it out for her.....yeah right!!
If anyone feels unwell, it's Doctor Kieron to the rescue with throws to tuck round us and drinks as required (or not as the case may be). He sits and strokes foreheads and sings lullabyes, although he tends to make them up to  tunes from a rock band. He lets us lie on the settee, with our feet in his lap while he does 'a spa'. This came about after I went for a spa day and told him how nice the pedicure was.So we get a foot rub.
Kieron gets hyper and annoying then suddenly apologises with hugs and kisses and sometimes 'sorry' notes pushed under a door or turned into a paper aeroplane and launched into the room.
Kieron is a little brother and a best friend. He is Kieron.

Sticky bits

I'm having a new kitchen floor laid in a couple of weeks, so now's the time to re-paint the kitchen. Last time, Kieron was on hand asking to help.....hmmm, little boys and emulsion...that's a bit scary.
Although I'm keeping the same colour, it's going to be hard because in several places are bits of lime marmalade. Kieron ate lots of lime marmalade, although I was generally under instruction to avoid putting the lumpy bits on his toast, so even though I was careful about digging out the zest, once Kieron finished his toast there would be a sticky edging of lime zest round the edge where I'd missed bits.
Kieron's knowledge of lime marmalade was quite impressive...it had to be Roses, no other one was the same. Curiously enough, with each pregnancy I've eaten lime marmalade on toast for breakfast. I don't normally eat in the mornings but when pregnant I did.
As Kieron got older, he made his own breakfast. It was always cereal, porridge or toast. With lime marmalade. And lots of bits round the edge of his plate.
Any bits that got stuck on his fingers ended up being flicked off, with total disinterest in where they landed. Hence I've found some on my under-stairs cupboard door, above my kitchen door, above his brother's bedroom door.....and they are still there. I can't bring myself to remove these still-sticky nuggets of Kieron's past breakfasts. So I need to paint round them. Very carefully.

There are Kieron's fingerprints round the light switches, how they got there I don't know. Kieron's idea of putting a light on was to whack the switch with the flat of his hand. But these fingerprints are part of Kieron. A little boy who was always grubby because there was always something new to explore...a shed to climb on, a fence to scale, jam to flick. So I will have a freshly painted kitchen with sticky, grubby bits...Kieron's sticky, grubby bits.

Sharks

Kieron loves sharks...great whites, sand tigers, hammerheads, basking, nurse sharks....you name them, he can tell you all about them. Their natural habitat, what they eat, how big they grow.....

A couple of years ago I redecorated Kieron's room with a shark theme. I found an online company that had a wallpaper mural of sharks and although I'm lousy at wallpapering, I set to with a will. The result isn't perfect, but Kieron was so proud of his room. We put up posters and other sharky things and he couldn't wait to have friends round to show off his own 'natural habitat'.
Part of the mural has a mermaid on it with rather large boobs.It wasn't long before nipples mysteriously appeared on them. A small goldfish tank got added and shark books were put on display.
We watched Jaws and laughed at the special effects and spent hours on the Discovery channel, learning about  sharks and other sea monsters.

Kieron educated me in the history of sharks and how they have been around for millions of years.

Last October, I went diving with sharks and sewed Kieron's baby teeth into my swimsuit so that he could dive with me.It was claustrophobic and I kept breathing wrong, so swallowed water and had a panic attack under water but Kieron wanted to dive with sharks one day and now he has. He's dived with great whites, sand tiger sharks, nurse sharks and manta rays. He's seen sharks mating and I smiled through my underwater tears at the comments I could hear in my head...'look mum, they've got 2 willies!!!'

Fat Cat

Kieron's cat, Molly is a little on the large side. A fat, heavy ball of black/brown fur, which is very similar in colour to Kieron's hair. When we got her, Kieron wouldn't leave her alone and right from the start, she took over his bunk bed. Kieron was just 9 years old and fully confident in his kitten-rearing abilities. How to raise a cat according to Kieron:
Let her spend most of her time tucked inside your boxers, with her head and front paws poking over the top.
When she gets bored with this, cradle her like a baby.
To keep her amused, spin round with her in your arms...when mum says stop, inform ignorant mother that 'it's ok, she likes it'.
Carry her round on your chest, with front paws on each of your shoulders.
Throw paper for her and train her in the art of returning it to be thrown again (just don't tell her that she's NOT a dog).
Kieron and Molly were practically inseparable. They sat on the shed roof together, they played in the garden, Kieron kept singing 'you are so beautiful' to her from the Bernard Matthews advert.
They still are inseparable: Molly spends a lot of the day lying in Kieron's room or next to his photos in the lounge and at night she lies on the otherwise empty pillow on the side of my bed Kieron preferred.
Since the accident, Molly has lost weight and often seems to wander aimlessly, looking for her buddy. She looks sad too, so I pick her up and spin her round. I cradle her as Kieron did, I put her paws on each of my shoulders. I carry her up to my room at night so that she knows she's allowed on my bed, on Kieron's side.
I frequently wake in the night and see Molly and for just a millisecond, I think it's Kieron's dark tousled hair  on the pillow.

If only..........................

Bacon rolls

Exactly a year ago today, Kieron and I went for a walk on the beach. I took my camera (thank God) and Kieron laughingly called our walk 'a photo op'. Sometimes, we would take the same route with Kieron on his bike, but this time we decided to walk.
We live near the beach anyway, but decided to be lazy and drive to the beach and walk along the promenade.
On the cliff top is a meandering walkway of grassy slopes and Kieron pushed his way through the bushes surrounding the 'maze', while I took the sensible route. Kieron ran up and down the grassy slopes, occasionally deciding to slide down on his bum as it was delightfully muddy and slippery. We took pictures of each other and headed down to the promenade.
We walked down a slope, with a railing at the end and I tried to sit on it and go upside down. Kieron was a bundle of laughter as I tried and gave up, before he showed me how it's done.
I was taking a photo of Kieron, with the sea as a backdrop,when a sweet lady offered to take one of both of us. I am so glad she did as this is the last photo of us together.
We walked along. Kieron getting confused and thinking he was a dog, as he ran ahead and turned back, before running ahead again. We wrote on walls with chalk and giggled at the ruder chalky postings.
Every time there was a bollard in the way, Kieron leapfrogged over it. An action that never ceased to annoy his older brother when he was out with us as it embarrassed him for some reason. I kept telling Kieron to be careful as I was worried that he would misjudge it and fall and hurt himself.
Halfway through our walk, I decided that we would stop and get a bacon roll for Kieron at the beach cafe. Our usual cafe was closed so we headed off to the next bay to the cafe there for sustenance, deciding to sit outside as it was such a beautiful day.
Kieron loves bacon, but not bacon fat, unless it's extra crispy, so as I ordered, he checked to make sure that I had ordered a CRISPY bacon roll along with his hot chocolate.
Food arrived, was bitten into and immediately the roll was opened up and inspected.
'Mum, it's fatty' came the howl of dismay before asking me to sort it out by pulling out the offending fat.
So. tummy full of fatless bacon and hot chocolate we headed back to the car.
As we walked along and talked about the hugely important topics in Kieron's world, we came along a pile of dog poo. Yes, Kieron had to stare at it and was fascinated by it's perfect shape. He grabbed the camera and took a photo of it..'That can be my profile pic on facebook' he stated with the earnestness that comes with age. 'Hmm, do you think that's sensible?' I queried even though I knew that to a 10 year old boy, it was completely sensible. I was given one of those 'oh mum' looks of which Kieron is a master.
To get from the promenade to the cliff top, we could either climb a gentle but long slope or a multitude of steps. Kieron decided to take the steps and ended up helping me by pulling me along and laughing that I was getting old, before running ahead again to beat me to the car.
When we got home, Kieron ran indoors shouting out to his brother that he had eaten a bacon roll and seen the 'most awesome pile of dog poo ever'. He looked at the photo with admiration and giggles, a typical, perfect little boy. My perfect little boy, even though he is obsessed by dog poo.

Sheds

In my garden there is a large shed. It's a replacement for one that burnt down a couple of years ago, along with my potting shed and greenhouse. I'd been working in there, taking down a shelf that was in the way as I had turned it into a games room for the boys, complete with pool table. I went out for 20 minutes, leaving Kieron's big sister in charge of the boys and came back to see flames from the back of the house and fire engines.
The fire had started suddenly and Kieron decided to be the hero...he went running up the garden, dragging the garden hose trying to put out the fire, knowing how upset I would be. Jade dragged him away and made the boys wait outside on the road, until the fire brigade had arrived.
What upset Kieron most was that his grandad's old hand tools went up in the blaze. They were left to him and full of sentimental value, especially a hand drill which he used to use to drill holes in bits of wood.
The sheds and greenhouse were eventually replaced and Kieron could go back to climbing on top of the sheds from where he had a brilliant vantage point over the neighbours gardens. Lord of all he surveyed.
Kieron spent a lot of time just sitting on the shed, throwing bits of shingle at the little girls next door to attract their attention. Often, one or other of the cats would deign to join him as he played on his Nintendo DS or Game Boy, passed down from his older brother.
Kieron would call out to us as he clambered over the shed roofs, using a well-thought-out path to get from ground to roof...onto the wall adjoining my neighbours house, swing up onto the roof and sit in comfort.
When the new shed was erected, I painted it but couldn't reach the apex on one side as by then the replacement greenhouse was in the way. So I enlisted Kieron's help. Up he climbed and I passed him a paint-laden brush. He lay on his tummy and leaned over the side, carefully applying paint to the tricky part of the apex. There's just one tiny part that he couldn't quite reach. Although he valiantly tried but I stopped him for fear of him falling headfirst into the greenhouse. It remains bare of paint, a testimony to Kieron's littleness and inability to reach out that few extra inches. I often look out at the shed now and in my mind's eye, I can see Kieron there still. Cross legged and smiling, bag of crisps in hand.

Back to School

Tomorrow is the start of the spring term.It hurts saying that as Kieron died at the end of the spring term last year.
Today should have been 'buying school shoes' day. I used to coerce Kieron into coming with me as it generally also involved sweets or a comic once shoes were bought or the spending of what was left of his Christmas money.
In earlier years, Kieron's big brother came too and they would nag me until I let them go into the computer games shop. They would spend ages working out the best deals and Kieron would let Callum decide what to get and hand over his financial contribution. Kieron would carry their purchases as he thought it was cool to walk around the town with a bag advertising the fact that they had bought PS2 or in later years, Xbox games.
Off to the shoe shop and the battle would start..
'I want those ones that look like trainers'
'you can't have those'
'WHY?'
'because they look like trainers and you might get in trouble at school'
'Kyle wears trainers to school'
'well you're not Kyle and you're not having those. How about these ones with velcro?'
'only kids have velcro, I want laces'
'they haven't got your size in lace ups so it'll have to be velcro for now and it's quicker to get them on and off anyway'
'okaaaaaaaay' (mouth turned down in defeat).
Battle fought and won, we head home. The games are unwrapped en route and the debris litters the car amongst admonishments to take the rubbish indoors and to put it in the bin. There were always stray bits of wrappings left in the rear footwell despite my request, but that's what kids are about.
Run indoors, new shoes left in the hall still in their bag, an obstacle for everyone to fall over and a race upstairs to try out the latest purchase. Demands to move them unheeded. Not out of malice, but out of the knowledge that mum 'expects' to fall over the new shoes.
Today I went in a shoe shop, I saw size 5 school shoes and tears filled my eyes. If only Kieron was here for me to buy him shoes...with gold plated laces.

New Year's Day

I have always taken down the trees on New Year's Day, working on the theory that the New Year is a time for new beginnings.
So this morning, I got up and got started. Normally Kieron would be up early, irrespective of how late he had gone to bed and would offer to help by dismantling his own tree, leaving trails of lametta over his carpet, ready to clog up the vacuum cleaner. So cereal munched he would get started. This could take most of the day, depending on how side-tracked he would get by playing in his room.
Once I had finished, he'd hoover for me, catching all the stray bits of tree and the occasional bauble. This led to me having to dismantle the cleaner and poke pencils down the nozzle to free the offending decoration.
After everything was boxed away ready for next Christmas, he helped put everything in the loft. My loft is on two levels: the main loft was also my office and the kids computer and dartboard area. The lower level is dark and cramped and this is where all the Christmas bits live eleven months of the year.
Other things are also stored in there: the children's old school stuff, baby clothes that I couldn't part with, Jade's party dresses from her 'little girl' years, items of my parents and even things from my childhood.
Because it's so small and awkward for an adult to get into, last year Kieron climbed in there, using an old settee cushion as a crash mat so he could tumble head first into the depths without hurting himself. In previous years, I've squeezed in and passed everything out to him in readiness for Christmas and after Christmas he would pass it all back to me to put away.
I lifted the boxes and trees up into the loft and Kieron pulled them into the dumping ground. I remember asking him to try and stack everything fairly neatly round  the sides so that he would have room to move around and also to make it easier when they all had to come out again. He didn't, instead he found the odd  treasure that just HAD to be liberated and that took precedence. In the end I told him not to bother about it being tidy and that we could sort it all out at a later date.
This Christmas, I climbed into the loft's depths and pulled everything out. I found a treasure that just HAD to be liberated...one of Kieron's socks, left behind from a previous excursion that I wasn't aware of, smelling of trainers and little boy feet. I didn't put everything back there today. I left it all in the main loft. I don't go up there now unless it's absolutely necessary, because that is where I lost my son. It's where my life ended too.