Crappy mom chronicle

So there I was at the school gate at 07h15 in the morning – same as it ever was. The daughter was dressed warmly – we were talking about spiders and how they weren’t around on account of the cold.. And then.. She arrived, the principal, Ms Super-dynamic multi-talented fabulousness, the principal. We greeted (as one does) and then she turned to me and asked: “Do you work?”

“Why no, of course I don’t work, I lounge around the house all day sipping lattes. The only reason I’m here at this ungodly hour of the morning is to drop kick the grommet here into your school so she’s out of my hair while I do my nails.”

Sadly, that is not what I said, I became, instantly, all stammery and defensive and in a pathetic apologetic style affirmed that I did indeed work, that I start at 07h30 and the school gate opens at 07h15 which gives me 15 minutes to fight my way through traffic to get to work on time.

“What is it you do”? Once again in the same stammering apologetic tone whilst dragging foot in concentric circles on the tarmac - “I’m in drafting”.

Oh god – then it came, “It’s a very long day for this child, you know, she’s very bright but she’s so tiny and by the end of the day she’s exhausted”

Yes, I collect the child at 16h35 – this is only because my day ends at 16h30 – not because I’m hell-bent on increasing her stamina to ensure she can put in extra hours at the coal-mine on the weekend.

“It would be nice if you could collect her earlier – maybe at 15h00”.

“It would be nice if you would not discuss this in front of all the other parents now bringing their kids in at 07h17 – they will think me a monster – oh wait, I am one.

At that point she went inside and I commenced the self-flagellation.

Many beatings later, I phoned the school secretary with plan in hand. The husband will drop off the daughter at 08h00 in the morning. “oh yes, let’s try that” says she “a little girl like that should be getting 11 hours of sleep a night, do you have to wake her up in the morning?”

SHIIITTTEEE!

Err.. Yes..

And so it was that we went shopping on Saturday and bought the daughter Ensure, to ensure (hardy har har) she gets all her nutrients and her lunch box today is a culinary masterpiece that should be the basis for every child’s lunch ever in the whole world. And I still feel like crap.

Oh yes...

Blergghhy ick

This thing is circulating on blogs all over the place and it's so very obviously American! I am thinking of compiling one for South African Bloggers just so we (well, me) can feel less inadequate. Come on! The Alamo? I doubt many Americans have been to the Alamo and were I visiting the States I doubt I'd go there and, yes, I do know what happened there and no, I don't care.

Look at this list of 99 things you could have done, and BOLD the ones that you actually have done!

1. Started your own blog

2. Slept under the stars

3. Played in a band

4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Given more than you can afford to charity

7. Been to Disney World

8. Climbed a mountain

9. Held a praying mantis

10. Sang a solo

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch

15. Adopted a child

16. Had food poisoning

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

18. Grown your own veggies

19. Seen the Mona Lisa at the Louvre

20. Slept on an overnight train

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitch hiked

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not sick

24. Made a snow fort

25. Held a lamb - okay a kid - a goat

26. Ran a marathon

27. Went skinny dipping

28. Rode in a gondola in Venice

29. Witnessed total eclipse

30. Seen a sunrise or sunset

31. Hit a home run

32. Been on a cruise

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace/ home of your ancestors

35. Seen an Amish country

36. Taught yourself a new language

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied -

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

39. Gone rock climbing

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David in person

41. Sung karaoke

42. Seen Old Faithful erupt

43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant

44. Visited Africa - oh yes - not just visited either, actually live(d) there!

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Taken a ride in an ambulance -

47. Had your portrait painted - in charcoal

48. Gone deep sea fishing

49. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower

50. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling -

51. Kissed in the rain -

52. Played in the mud -

53. Gone to a drive-in theater

54. Been in a movie - well, an advert..

55. Visited the Great Wall of China

56. Started a business -

57. Taken a martial arts class

58. Visited Russia

59. Worked at a soup kitchen

60. Sold Girl Scout cookies

61. Gone whale watching

62. Gotten flowers for no reason

63. Donated blood, platelets, or plasma

64. Gone sky diving

65. Visited Nazi concentration camp

66. Bounced a check

67. Flown in a helicopter

68. Saved a childhood toy

69. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

70. Eaten caviar

71. Pieced a quilt

72. Stood in Times Square

73. Toured the Everglades

74. Been fired from a job

75. Seen the changing of the guards in London

76. Broken a bone -

77. Been a passenger on a motorcycle

78. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

79. Published a book

80. Visited the Vatican

81. Bought a brand new car

82. Visited Jerusalem

83. Had your picture in the paper

84. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year’s Eve

85. Visited the White House

86. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

87. Had chickenpox

88. Saved someone’s life - do insects count?

89. Sat on a jury

90. Met someone famous

91. Joined a book club

92. Got a tattoo

93. Had a baby

94. Seen the Alamo in person

95. Swam in the Great Salt Lake

96. Been involved in a law suit

97. Owned a cell phone

98. Been stung by a bee

99. Swam in the Black Sea

I am as boring as an owl city song...

Enter Sandman..

As a child I had a great fondness for ghost stories and would read them all day and then lie awake at night in a cold sweat of terror, certain the undead were going attempt contact, until I summoned up the courage needed to embark upon the journey to my mom’s room. Somehow things weren’t so scary in there – safety in numbers maybe?

I don’t know, but now that I am a parent I am remembering those feelings when, in the dead of night, I am woken by a little hand gently pulling my hair, “Mommy I had a nightmare, can I sleep with you”? Without a second thought I pull her into the bed and hold her tight until she falls asleep.

She has her own room and it’s lovely and very close to ours, she has a night light and many teddies, dogs and elephants for company but they are no match for whatever it is that sends her into our room.

It gets me to wondering why it is in the modern age that children are expected to sleep alone. Now that I am 36 I am not nearly as frightened of the undead as I once was and yet I get to sleep with a big man and a wooly dog – we are both warmer and safer and if I have a nightmare, I simply roll over and wake the husband up. Now, the four year old with the super-vivid imagination, gets to wake up alone, deal with whatever terrified her and then get out of bed into the cold night and go searching for comfort. It seems almost barbaric doesn’t it?

sour times

Black moods aboundeth. Here is why:

• Big ass cars being driven by inept tossers who can’t decide what lane they would like to be in and when they finally do decide, proceed to cut you off and then take up two parking spaces.
• Just Letting – Come on guys, what’s with the monopoly? Your website is fine, you don’t need to hog ‘Gumtree’ and ‘Private Property’ too. Give other people a chance – I just may not want to rent through you.
• Eddie! Come back to work! I know you’re still recovering and stuff but I suck at doing your job, my surfing time has been cut in half and I miss you on Fridays.
• A certain higher education institution run by such bungling, short-sighted idiots that the husband is severely stressed and not himself at all..
• Kennel cough virus thingy that has made my wooly little boy cough and have to go on a course of anti-biotics.
• MANNERS! No need for charm school or silver service just ‘please’ and ‘thank-you’ – manners are good to have and if you don’t have any, well, I spit on you!
• My self-inflicted daily lunch of muesli, pumpkin seeds and fat free yoghurt. It tastes like the wood shavings BUT it aint gonna make me fat and I’m so so so sick about worrying about getting fat. I just want to slap myself.

In fact I’ll do that right now and promise myself to whine less when I blog!

A tale of Thursday

Woohoo! I am really excited to be going on a leetle holiday tomorrow - only two nights but it's going to be fantastic! The daughter and the wild and wooly beast are being shipped off today to their respective holiday destinations and the husband and I will be leaving tomorrow at lunch-time.

Somehow we shall work around my needing to finish the last book in the Tawny Man trilogy and the husband's pressing need to watch some or other rugby match on Saturday night.

The story below, Garlands and Graves, was written a year ago as a 'snap-shot' entry in the Witness "True stories of KZN" competition. Needless to say I didn't even make it into the semi-finals and , on reflection, it is a bit crap. I got a lot of enjoyment researching it though and so I'm putting out there to be read - mostly by my mom and maybe by her family. Enjoy.

Beautiful boy

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace.”

Milan Kundera

Wolves

The daughter recently refused to sleep in her own bed on account of wolves! “Wolves”, you may cry, “but there aren’t even any wolves in South Africa – unless you count those hybrid uber-glam husky dog X timber wolf DOGS that abound of late for security purposes”. No, not those wolves – we’re talking the howling embodiment of evil kind of wolves.




The daughter was convinced, having heard it from many reliable picture books, that wolves were very bad news and were now seeking refuge and perhaps a girl-sized snack in her room. So, I trawled the web searching for pictures of wolf cubs and reports of their love and loyalty to each other and even found that awesome picture of Rama And Raksha from Jungle book (see Friday’s post) to show her how lovely and actually non-scary wolves are. You see ,I don’t want her growing up with fear, it’s part of my whole free-range effort but it is fraught with difficulty. I am very very afraid of the gheckos that live in our house – there are so many and they make me feel quite ill with fear but I have told the daughter that these lovely lady reptiles are also moms (their offspring are legion – oh happy times!) and are so concerned for her welfare that they station themselves in her room to catch all the mosquitoes before they bite her. Now if only I could convince myself to believe in the benign mommy-ness of the ghastly things. But the daughter is not afraid and so I congratulate myself. I have also managed to eradicate the fear of monkeys – despite the efforts of her pre-school to the contrary – those kids are practically hiding under the tables when the monkeys visit - but they are way too frequent callers to fear. So instead of pelting them with cooked potatoes or spraying them with the hose I talk to them in a civilised manner – suggest they move along and then point out their extreme cuteness to the daughter. These vandalizing thieving critters (who have on more than one occasion trashed our house in search of lunches) are actually JUST LIKE US and look at how the babies hang onto the moms when they run across the telephone lines – too adorable!

Okay there is a point to all this self-congratulatory bollocks and it is this: I can talk the daughter out of some of her fears but I still can’t keep her safe. I can’t stop her from watching another child at pre-school kill a ghecko for fun. I can’t stop her engaging in the doctor-doctor games or from discussing child-birth and boobs and kissing with her girl-friends and I can’t stop her from wanting to grow up quickly . Last night she told me that she is going to be a mermaid when she grows up and that she’ll also have boobs! I told her that yes, she would have boobs one day but that there are many years ahead to worry about boobs and that she should concentrate on her swimming rather if she was planning to become a mermaid. In my head of course, I’m taking her out of school and putting her into a nunnery until she’s 25. Why do they have to grow so fast? I feel like I’m spending my time with her doing damage control! And I still have to properly coach her in ‘stranger danger’ – it’s just exhausting!

Then this morning the little face looks up at me and says; “Mommy I had a bad dream”
“What happened”?
“There was a big scary snake”..



No problem!