I pondered briefly with the idea of evolution, but since I’ve had children I am convinced there is a greater being who designed this interesting life we parents lead. They are someone with a great sense of humour sitting cross legged on a cloud having a good old chuckle everyday at our expense.
Someone who watched us as Dinkies (double income no kids), partying, holidaying, sleeping (oh remember sleeping?), reading undisturbed and then planted the idea into our heads that life would be all the more glorious if we had children – what a bizarre idea.
So look - there we are, swollen with pregnancy, vomiting and passing out and becoming more distorted in size – and how bizarre we look.
And – oh look at me now - going through the worst physical pain imaginable, an ordeal that should be rewarded with a couple of weeks in hospital but instead rushing home to get up every few hours to empty any goodness we have left in our bodies into a babies mouth – and how bizarre we look.
And there we are now sitting proudly showing off our newborn as if it’s the most beautiful thing, while others, more connected with reality, stare down at a screaming, purple rat and lie through their teeth at the beauty of it – and how bizarre we all look.
And – look at us now – we’re doing it all again - consequently spending years wiping poo and vomit off all manner of places and assuring ourselves that this is far more worthy than drinking cocktails by a pool at a Bali resort or shopping in Milan – now the big creator fella is really laughing.
And so it goes: freezing at sports fields in the weekend, sleeping in tents with rowdy children, baking muffins for plates in the middle of the night, modifying ballet costumes (also at midnight), regularly practicing the guitar when you don’t even know how to play it and on and on the bizarreness goes.
We’ll that’s as bizarre as I’ve got so far. But with ten years and more of this to come I could rewrite the lyrics to OMC’s top ten hit and make it my theme song. I just hope there’s somebody up there still getting some amusement out of it all.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Heading for a Fight
I confess that sometimes the parental taxi service gets so busy that we run from one thing to another without necessarily thinking it through. Ballet, swimming, drama, piano, guitar, soccer, netball – oh yeah, and school - and on it goes. So a few Saturdays ago when I looked in the diary and saw that a Tae Kwon Do tournament was next on the list, I was more worried whether the Dobok was clean and how we would fit it around winter sports, than what we were actually letting our children in for.
When we arrived boy-child boldly announced ‘my fight is at 4.30.’ “Fight? What fight?’ I said, suddenly becoming distracted about how close I was to a shopping mall. I proudly watched girl-child in patterns and thought about what a lovely extra curricular activity this was. But when I saw my son being kitted out in helmet and body padding, a cold sweat started to break out all over me. My anxiety levels then escalated off the scale watching one of his little school mates kicking the living daylights out of some stranger on an over sized mat. The fight was stopped momentarily while one of the wee boys wiped his tears and gained his composure. Mothers were silently crying and fathers were grinning proudly. This was surely not happening!
But there he was – boy-child – on the mat – psyched to the max, the buzzer went and the fight began. I cannot explain what I felt at that moment, but a voice inside my head kept saying ‘this jest aint natural.’ I am supposed to be a nurturing mother and yet here I am supporting my son in a ‘scrap.’ I decided to cheer for him to distract myself.
“Kick him Zandie, kick him,’ I called out and then recoiled in horror. ‘OMG what am I doing?” My sweet little boy won his fight and there was back slapping and hand shaking all around. Well – from the blokes anyway. The woman gave each other sympathetic looks and half hugs as we wondered how we had meandered in to this foreign land.
Logic says Tae Kwon Do is a fantastic sport for discipline, strength, self discovery, and, of course self protection. Logic is, of course, correct, but logic doesn’t always work for emotional mothers.
The kids love it – they’ll keep doing it with my full support. But next time there’s a tournament – I’ll be cowering in the toilets – or even better – heading for that shopping mall.
I confess that sometimes the parental taxi service gets so busy that we run from one thing to another without necessarily thinking it through. Ballet, swimming, drama, piano, guitar, soccer, netball – oh yeah, and school - and on it goes. So a few Saturdays ago when I looked in the diary and saw that a Tae Kwon Do tournament was next on the list, I was more worried whether the Dobok was clean and how we would fit it around winter sports, than what we were actually letting our children in for.
When we arrived boy-child boldly announced ‘my fight is at 4.30.’ “Fight? What fight?’ I said, suddenly becoming distracted about how close I was to a shopping mall. I proudly watched girl-child in patterns and thought about what a lovely extra curricular activity this was. But when I saw my son being kitted out in helmet and body padding, a cold sweat started to break out all over me. My anxiety levels then escalated off the scale watching one of his little school mates kicking the living daylights out of some stranger on an over sized mat. The fight was stopped momentarily while one of the wee boys wiped his tears and gained his composure. Mothers were silently crying and fathers were grinning proudly. This was surely not happening!
But there he was – boy-child – on the mat – psyched to the max, the buzzer went and the fight began. I cannot explain what I felt at that moment, but a voice inside my head kept saying ‘this jest aint natural.’ I am supposed to be a nurturing mother and yet here I am supporting my son in a ‘scrap.’ I decided to cheer for him to distract myself.
“Kick him Zandie, kick him,’ I called out and then recoiled in horror. ‘OMG what am I doing?” My sweet little boy won his fight and there was back slapping and hand shaking all around. Well – from the blokes anyway. The woman gave each other sympathetic looks and half hugs as we wondered how we had meandered in to this foreign land.
Logic says Tae Kwon Do is a fantastic sport for discipline, strength, self discovery, and, of course self protection. Logic is, of course, correct, but logic doesn’t always work for emotional mothers.
The kids love it – they’ll keep doing it with my full support. But next time there’s a tournament – I’ll be cowering in the toilets – or even better – heading for that shopping mall.
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