Just recently I found my 2 year old daughter spitting on the floor and laughing. I told her not to do it and it wasn’t funny. Her response to me ‘It’s a little bit funny’
To be honest, it was a little bit funny. Not funny enough for me to join her, but a little bit funny. It got me thinking though – when did I become the ‘do right’ Mum and not the ‘good time’ Mum that I always wanted to be?
Look I am going to admit something here – I really think I might have been the ‘hip to the beat of the news on the street’ Aunt – until I had kids of my own. I used to buy awesome birthday and Christmas presents, let the nieces and nephews eat whatever they wanted, go to bed without cleaning their teeth, pop a few lollipops under their pillows..... Seeing myself with these little people and how relaxed I was made me believe that I was going to be the Mum of all laid back Mums – the kind that everyone else’s kids wanted to be around..... insert noise of a needle scratching across a record and we have this;
“Can’t stop and blow bubbles with you because this load of washing isn’t just going to hang itself out.”
Firstly, we don’t even have a washing line (fun Mum!), secondly, what’s more important clean clothes or blowing magical bubbles with a loved up wee one? Well hell you know it’s the clean clothes bit plus if we blow that shit around I’m going to be cleaning bubble marks off the walls and floors for days..... NO! Gah! What has happened to me?
Where’d the fun go?? When did I become such a stickler for the rules?? And why oh why do I say things like this;
“You got the lego out of your room, you put it back”
“If you don’t eat all of your tea there’s no ice cream for dessert”
“Right! Go to the naughty corner NOW, we use gentle hands in this house”
“Cabbage is good for you, just eat it”
“Because I said so”
“It’s go-‘ing’ not goin”
And my all time favourite
“I’m telling your Father when he gets home”
That last one is normally yelled by me from the floor as I sit legs akimbo and shoulders hunched, simply aghast at my inability to manage two wee ones, eye twitching and wine trigger finger at the ready, pity it normally happens around 10am.
I think sometimes about my own childhood and remember the times when I really wanted Mum’s attention after Play School had finished but she was busy soaking whites or something, did we stifle her relaxy-ness with our constant need to be fed and cleaned? I feel bad now for being cross with her for not building that working play dough/bicarb soda volcano that Benita so adeptly put together...
As a kid I loved that messy arty crafty stuff they did, mud pies, walking through paint all over the floor, chalky murals. It looked like so much fun through the eyes of a four year old, but now I know why Mum used to go pale at the idea of getting the water colours out, kids are not ambidextrous after all and things don’t stay quite as contained in the home environment.
My generation of mothers has to deal with a lot worse I think. You all know him, the smarmy git himself - Mister Maker. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets lynched by a mob of overworked mothers one day..... ‘This is for the paint soaked tennis ball pictures, you twerpy mess making know it all.........’ ‘glue covered string that looks like spaghetti! Well chow down bozo chow down....’
Oh ok I digress and am now trying not to hyperventilate by breathing into a brown paper bag.
For the sake of my wee ones I am going to commit to finding the fun Aunt again and making her into the fun Mum – I may just have to check with the nieces and nephews that I wasn’t deluded back then, nothing worse than a hip Aunt that isn’t all that hip after all....
Fun times ahead kids, strap yourselves in, we’re on the train to fun-ville – we just have to detour through Howards Storage world so I can organise the fun into neat little drawers.......
Disclaimer: Mum I know you are reading this - you were fun. Put the phone down, do not call the brothers for confirmation.
