beckity

'What's this Molly?' I run my finger over the bruise on her shin. 'In school!' she exclaims, eye wide and thoughts tumbling forward too fast for her to voice them. 'I... I... was in class. Se cogner !' she says. 'Oh, you hit yourself?' I clarify. 'Yes!' she grins, and covers her mouth as if she's made a mistake. ' Se cogner , it's in French!'

I'm having a supermum moment. After waving Marek off for a meeting in Luxembourg at 7am, I have managed to pack the lunches, wake the girls, dress the girls, feed the girls, brush our teeth and hair and bike to school - Molly on the back of mine, Elsie on her pride and joy: her bike with no stabilisers. We have got through the door before the bell, Elsie has been dispatched to her classroom and Molly and I are walking up the steps to the 'pavillon' where the littlest of the nursery children are. A girl from her class passes with her mum, a woman with a friendly face and enviable dark curls. Her daughter is a little thing, blond and tidy. We go in and Molly shows me the routine - coat and jumper on the hook, bag on the side, little square of carpet for their morning singsong. As she gives me a goodbye kiss, her little blond classmate passes us and Molly turns to me saying something I don't catch. I think she is telling me the girl's name, so lean close and ask he...