Because I Said So, page 8
As we trudged towards his new classroom, he got slower and slower, biting his bottom lip while my heart filled with woe as I watched his shyness take over. By the time we got to the door, he’d surgically attached himself to the back of my jumper.
My dread rose in direct proportion to my thumping heartbeat as the uncertainties raced through my mind. Would he cry? Would he flee? Would he spend the rest of his life with his face immersed in my favourite fluffy jumper? Would snot come out of mohair with just a gentle wash at thirty degrees?
And that’s when it happened. HNC (Has No Clue) in Parenthood, Module 346 – Just When You Think You Know Your Child Inside Out, He’ll Prove You Completely Wrong.
The minute we crossed the classroom threshold, he peeked out from behind his maternal camouflage, grinned from ear to ear then bounded over to announce his arrival to a gathering of fellow newbies in the corner. He confidently introduced himself. He sang songs. He quickly acquired a name badge, eleven new pals and a school baseball cap that he insists on wearing backwards.
He had such a blast that over an hour later we had to invoke the sacred parental act of persuasion (‘If you don’t come right now you’ll miss the beginning of Scooby Doo’) to get him to leave.
So, of course, I’m now feeling relieved, confident and full of enthusiasm for the start of this new stage in his life. Okay, I’m lying – on the dread scale it still sits somewhere between the dentist and the annual gynaecological thing that makes your eyes water.
But at least I’m not alone. Having consulted several other parents, I’ve been reliably informed that the separation anxiety that mothers feel when their youngest child takes their first steps towards independence takes a while to subside. By their reckoning, I should be fine by the time he starts shaving.
In the meantime, I’ve got sixty-two days to psyche myself up, accept the situation and prepare myself for the inevitable… and stock up on those medicinal bars of Dairy Milk.
Howdy Pardner
Well, howdy pardners! Ahm, a-walking like a cowboy, so ah thought ah’d talk like one, too.
No, I haven’t taken up line dancing and got carried away with the whole Western theme. Although I did try that once – my granny dragged me there on the premise that ‘loads of young ones go’ (there were two people under sixty) and ‘it’ll keep you fit’. She overlooked the crucial fundamental error in that sentence, i.e. I wasn’t fit in the first place. After half an hour I was sweating like a polar bear in Benidorm, and thoroughly mortified that a seventy-five-year-old woman in an embroidered waistcoat was twirling like a Latin American champion while shouting at me to ‘keep up or move to the back’.
But the real reason for the increased sensitivity of the gluteus maximus and acutely painful quadriceps (translation: my arse is aching and my inner thighs feel like they’ve been cracking nuts) is down to something a bit more sporty.
It’s all Low the Younger’s fault. Since the moment he could talk – and despite never having been within a hundred yards of anything with udders – he’s wanted to be a farmer. This is also the boy who has a cleaning fixation that compels him to do the dishes every night, mop the kitchen floor on an hourly basis, wear only spotlessly clean clothes and run the Dyson round the house ‘just for fun’. Honestly, he could be the poster boy for Flash. Yet… he wants to spend the rest of his life in a job that requires daily contact with muck. I don’t think he’s thought this through.
Anyway, in keeping with my thought process that if he has a passion in life there’s less chance of him hitting puberty and deciding to hang about the streets in a shell suit, smoking ciggies and developing a high-grade tonic wine habit, I’ve been trying to get him interested in a hobby. I went for the obvious ones first. Football? He looked at me like I’d just suggested Buzz Lightyear was an ineffective guardian of the universe. That would be a no, then. Same reaction with rugby, golf and athletics. Okay, I was getting the message that pastimes in the sweat/potential for injury sector were probably out.
Knitting? (Hey, I’m all for cross-gender activities that break down outdated stereotypes, further promote equality between the sexes and result in a natty new scarf.) Another resounding no.
‘Well, what would you like to do then, honey?’
He thought about it for a second and then… ‘Horses.’
‘What?’ My stomach dropped to the floor. In a family where a love of betting on the gee-gees is in the DNA (but I swear I’ve finally cut up my William Hill account card), this was the last thing I wanted to hear. I had visions of Saturday afternoons at Hamilton races with Low junior shouting, ‘Pocket money on number four, each way bet, and put the winnings on the outsider in the three o’clock.’
‘I’d like to go horse riding,’ he clarified. Phew.
So a-horse riding we went, and when we got there, I realised I had a choice – I could watch or I could indulge in an unfulfilled childhood longing and book a lesson for me too. And, anyway, as a seventy-five-year-old in an embroidered waistcoat should have said, it might even get me fit.
So I foolishly, foolishly joined in. I should have taken the hint when my horse was led from the stable, took one look at my rather big-boned frame, and asked for the number of the RSPCA.
The poor thing nearly buckled at the knees when I clambered on. Thankfully, I was too busy clinging on for dear life to worry. Thirty minutes of developing my ‘rising trot’ later (up, down, up, down, squeeze those legs), I felt like the horse had trotted over me.
And it’s not just my posterior that’s bruised. After the lesson, we debriefed my brother on our new hobby. ‘So what was your horse called then?’
‘Lucky,’ replied my beaming wee boy.
‘Guess what mine was called?’ I demanded gleefully, desperate to take my mind off the pain by joining in the fun.
He looked me up and down, obviously contemplating common horse names while absorbing a mental picture of his sister on a steed.
‘Er… Clydesdale?’
Ouch.
So what do I have to do to get my boy interested in knitting?
It’s a Mother of a Thing
Another week, another award slips through my unmanicured fingers. I’m devastated to announce that I did not – sob – make it on to the list of the nation’s top five Yummy Mummies. I mean, what have Nigella Lawson, Myleene Klass, Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet and Davina McCall got that I haven’t? I’m utterly inconsolable and I just don’t understand it. In fact, if I cry any more I’m going to get snot all over my shapeless fleece.
Okay, so maybe it’s not such a newsflash.
The only real surprise about the survey results was that the Material Girl wasn’t on there. Madonna? Definitely a top Yummy Mummy. She was even spotted last week, all glammed up, leaving an upmarket London hotel clutching a bag containing a sex aid. And no, I don’t mean a can of Red Bull to keep her awake. She had one of those things that makes strange buzzing noises and gives you a beamer when it sets off the security alerts at airports.
Surely that kind of equipment is the true, true measure of a Yummy Mummy. A Slummy Mummy doesn’t have the energy or the inclination, and she knows the chances of finding spare batteries are up there with the chances of locating her make-up bag without a search party and a compass.
I try to make time for a little spot of preening and pampering. I do. But somehow I’m one of those women who finds that running a house, two children under six and a full-time job puts me firmly in the grooming category labelled ‘Dressed in the dark – washable fabrics only’.
I have no idea how the organised mums do it. It’s like there’s a secret race of Supermothers out there who have twenty-nine hours in the day, several assistants, and the ability to pause time while they reapply their lippy every fifteen minutes.
Everywhere I go, I see these tanned, lithe women with yoga mats under their arms, breezing past in co-ordinated outfits with a two-week-old baby strapped to their backs. When my boys were two weeks old, I was still commando-crawling to the corner shop in the hope that no-one would spot that I was wearing a dressing gown, sporting two-inch roots and slippers in the shape of elephants that some comedian had bought me as a witty jibe at my pre-birth physique.
It’s not that I don’t have a thorough understanding of the criteria and the required standards of Superior Motherdom – I just don’t seem to be able to attain the entry-level qualifications.
Yummy Mummies don’t save their dry-clean-only clothes for weddings and funerals. They cook organic meals from scratch. They smell of Eau de Really Expensive. Their hair has never seen a split end and they have a house, a social schedule and a waxing regime that run to military precision.
My clothes are black and shapeless, alternated with black and shapeless, and if I’m feeling really daring I might go for something that’s, er, black and shapeless. Mealtimes are punctuated by the ping of the microwave. There are hikers halfway up my ironing pile. I carry a faint whiff of Eau de Flash-for-Bathrooms. And my legs have applied for a lottery grant and official status as Scotland’s national forest.
A Yummy Mummy’s stomach muscles ping back like overstretched bungee ropes the minute she gives birth. I’m taking a far slower, steadier approach to losing the baby weight, and plan to do it before my youngest son’s next birthday. His sixth.
I know I should disregard the whole Yummy Mummy ethos as a media-generated stereotype designed to make the more normal, exhausted, multitasking mother feel inferior, but the thing is, I want to be one of them. I’ve had five years of woeful mismanagement of my personal presentation standards and it’s time for change. Yummy Mummies of the world, I’m coming to join you… just as soon as I can get a make-up bag, a beauty therapist, a yoga mat and twenty-nine hours in the day.
I’m Dreaming of a…
Oh, it’s so close I can almost visualize it. Our boys will gently rouse us awake, with a whispered, ‘Good Morning, Mummy and Daddy’. The dulcet tones of Bing Crosby, crooning ‘White Christmas’ will waft through the house as we pad downstairs to see what Santa has left us. We’ll open the presents, taking the time to wonder at every little trinket and toy. And then we’ll bathe, dress and welcome the family, enjoy mid-morning drinkies and nibbles before the cook announces that lunch is ready. And what a banquet! We’ll feast on the most tender of turkeys and the finest vegetables, enjoying the company before rounding off the day with a brisk, crisp afternoon walk and… Okay, okay, so I’m lying.
I reckon I almost got away with it until the ‘brisk walk’ bit. If I’m going to put one foot in front of the other for more than fifty consecutive metres, there would have to be shopping involved and a cappuccino and a foot spa at the end. It’s not laziness – it’s post-traumatic stress after the infamous 2004 Boxing Day stroll/long white fake-fur coat/head first in a muddy lane debacle that scarred me for life.
Alas, our Christmas morning might just play out a little differently from the fairy tale above.
The kids will bounce on our heads at 5.30 a.m., screaming in the national tongue of the Planet Helium, the duvet will be dragged off, one boy will grab each ankle and pull until I land with such a thud that the Met Office will register an earth tremor in Glasgow that measures approximately 2.4 on the Richter scale. And at least 10 on the mother’s bruised buttocks scale.
We’ll race down to the living room and either husband or I will suddenly realise that Santa has once again forgotten to eat his biscuits and Rudolph’s tin of carrots remains unopened. Cue the need for an impromptu distraction – two verses and a chorus of ‘Jingle Bells’ usually does the trick – while said items are surreptitiously removed. The only exception to this annual oversight was the year we came down to a plate of crumbs – a scene that led to a devastating realisation and a phone call to Environmental Health to deal with the infestation of mice in our chimney.
The calming, spiritual strains of Noddy Holder screeching, ‘It’s Christmas!!!!!!’ will add to the atmosphere, while we unwrap the presents in the manner of a plague of locusts devouring a cornfield. Then comes the most famous of our quaint family Christmas traditions – husband’s annual strop because the garage/castle/fort requires a professional burglary team to remove it from the packaging and a consultation with NASA on how to put the 447 pieces together.
Drinkies and nibbles? Absolutely. An iced-top mince pie and a coffee from my swanky new coffee maker – the one I still haven’t worked out how to use properly so everything comes out tasting like watered-down Bisto. Don’t ask.
And we’ll still be in our pyjamas, watching that triumph of classic filmmaking, Monsters Inc., when the family start to arrive. I love my family. I do. But I have absolutely no idea why they subject themselves to Christmas lunch at my house every year. Last year, I misread the cooking instructions for the frozen turkey, so we had lunch at 6pm, by which time the vegetables were so overcooked that we had to bin them and resort to that famous festive combination: turkey with micro-chips and a side dish of Rudolph’s tinned carrots. Still, at least the watered-down Bisto-tasting coffee will come in handy when we discover that, once again, we could grout tiles with my gravy.
Then – my toes are curling at the thought – the after-dinner powder keg. Some family get-togethers are blighted by drink. Some by deep-rooted feuds. Ours? Board games. My brothers and I have a genetic flaw – we can’t be in the same room as Pictionary without erupting into a ferocious battle involving threats that would result in a trip to casualty to surgically remove a Christmas tree.
But peace will be restored when we re-bond over an ensemble rendition of ‘Summer Nights’ on the karaoke.
And at the end of the day, I’ll crawl into bed, count my blessings and vow once again to add some special essentials to next year’s Christmas wish-list: a chef, a house-keeper, a foolproof coffee maker, Kofi Annan and a NATO peace-keeping force.
Oh, and some kind of miracle cream for those bruised buttocks.
2008
Musical Toys and Domesticating Boys
Growing Pains…
I want to make an official complaint to the MP for Motherhood. When I signed up for this whole parenting thing I was under the impression that I could look forward to at least sixteen years of unconditional love, footie games in the park, sneaking into Disney movies and using the kids as an excuse to go to Pizza Hut. And all it would cost me is a lifetime of mother’s worry (breast or bottle, working versus stay-at-home, and will my cooking scar them for life?).
Apparently not. This week, a new study has revealed that childhood is effectively over by the age of eleven. Noooooooo. In future years, who’s going to come with me to see High School Musical 6 if my boys are too busy doing typical thirteen-year-old stuff like applying for their first mortgage and researching pensions?
Depressingly, though, I think the researchers have a point. In fact, in some cases childhood can end even earlier.
8 a.m. at the Low house: the air resounds with a panicked, ‘Where’s my hair gel?’ Husband? Me? Er, no. Low the Elder, aged seven, he of the boyband barnet, the one who inherited his mother’s shallow and superficial genes and prays every night to the Gods of Nike and Lacoste that I’ll buckle and let him have designer trainers.
Although close in age at six and seven, my boys are at opposite ends of the maturity spectrum. My youngest still believes that you should regularly smother your mother with kisses, still sleeps with a menagerie of furry animals, and is saving up his pocket money so he can adopt Scooby Doo.
But the older one? Witness the scene: the noise of football studs marching down the hallway announces his arrival home from football training. He strolls into the kitchen and, with a casual, ‘Hey Mum,’ bypasses me on the way to the fridge. There he pulls out a fajita wrap, ham, and a tin of corn, plops them on a plate, pours a glass of fresh orange juice, closes the fridge door and announces, ‘I’m just away to watch the game.’ The game. That’s the footie match on Setanta that he left a note for me to remember to Sky+.
He grabs the paper first every day to read the sports pages. He’s happy to have a two-hour conversation about the merits of the transfer window system. When I’m clothes shopping, he taps his watch and tuts every few minutes. That’s not a Primary 3 kid – it’s a miniature middle-aged man.
How did this happen? In the age-old tradition of maternal guilt, I’m wondering if it’s all my fault.
I’ve tried to avoid lavishing them with the perks of adulthood; much to their disgust, they don’t have TVs in their rooms, ditto DVD players, and I’m absolutely paranoid about the damage mobile phones may or may not do to the brain, so they won’t be getting those until they’re thirty. And at the first sign of fresh, dry air I still wrench them away from the computer games and prod them out the back door with a football.
On the other hand, however, I have encouraged the mature traits of independence and self-sufficiency, thinking that I was instilling valuable life skills. Since they could walk, they’ve been making their own beds, putting their clothes in the laundry basket and tidying their rooms. We haven’t put them down a mine, but they do have to set the dinner table, clear up afterwards and pitch in with the housework. And my youngest, completely unprompted by us, has taken to making the packed lunches every night and running the Dyson round the kitchen. He’ll make a lovely husband one day… as long as his new wife is prepared to accept the stuffed animals and adoption of Scooby Doo.
