Ode to a Wet Wipe

I knew you helped to change a nappy

But now I know, I am so happy,

You’re there when OTHER things are crappy

Ready to weave your magic.

 

You clean my house in just a flash

When ‘round the furniture I dash

No need for water which could splash

(My other housework’s tragic.)

 

You clean my kids when I must hurry

No longer do I need to worry

If they are covered in McFlurry

There’s no mess that won’t suit you.

 

I could have saved a lot of strife

If sooner you’d been in my life

If I were male, you’d be my wife

Oh Wet Wipe – I salute you!

Call your mother; she worries.

My mum starts every phone call to my mobile with, "You're not driving are you?" before she will tell me what she's calling for. Before mobiles, when my sister and I walked to a friend's house, we would have to use their telephone to give her three rings to let her know we were there safely. If she heard an ambulance go by, you could see her do a quick physical and mental headcount to reassure herself it wasn't for us (we're both in our forties now and she still does this.) 

As my sister and I rolled our eyes at another of her 'worries' she would always say the same thing to us "You wait until you're a mother! You'll understand!"

And she was right. 

It began the minute we left the hospital and drove home as if we were balancing three dozen eggs on the car bonnet. Then I put our new baby in a crib beside my bed and spent half the night getting out of bed to check that he was still breathing. 

At the clinic when he was weighed, I held my breath to see if he had stayed 'on his line' on the graph in the red book. I filled a notebook with details of feed time/duration and nap time/duration in the vain hope it would give me some kind of important knowledge about this tiny creature for whom we were totally responsible. 

I kidded myself that it would be easier when he could do more but weaning brought a whole new raft of worries. I nearly divorced my husband when he put a rusk in William's hand at 5 months old. I then hovered over him for the next 30 minutes fully prepared to perform the Heimlich Manoeuvre. (On William, not my unrepentant husband.)  

Apparently, this never ends. I've heard frequently the mantra, "Small children, small worries; bigger children, bigger worries." and, whilst I don't think it's wholly true, I do know that the worrying doesn't stop. As my mum says, "You still worry about your baby when she's all grown up and having her own babies." 

At least I understand now when my mum wants me to reassure her that we've reached our holiday destination safely, that I've been to the doctors to check out some minor ailment or that I am 'being careful' when I go out for a drink with my (also in their forties) friends. When I feel my eyes begin to roll at her, I remember the gut wrenching feeling I had when William rolled off the sofa at a friend's house. She was absolutely right; now that I'm a mother, I do understand.  I also understand now that the worry springs from a deep, deep well of maternal love for which I am very, very grateful. 

So, here I am, resigned to existing on a sliding scale from mild concern to utter panic for the rest of my life. Fortunately I have a very pragmatic husband who talks me down from red alert when needed. Hopefully his calm and balanced nature will help me during the teenage years when they are out in the world alone and I have to worry from a distance. 

Is that an ambulance I can hear? 

Hide and Seek

I'm sitting in a cupboard which is underneath my stairs.

Hidden behind the camping gear so they don't know I’m there.

In the past, when they were small, I had to be quite nifty.

But I've much more time to hide myself now they've learned to count to fifty.

 

Of course they were the first to hide, whilst I counted slow and steady.

Managing to make a drink to their repeated shout “We’re ready!”

 

With mug in hand I answered them, “I’m coming, ready or not!”

And closed my ears to the giggles which give away their spot.

 

Wandering around the house and acting so uncertain.

Pretending that I couldn't see their feet beneath the curtain.

 

Lasting out the "seeking" stage as long as I could fake it.

The silence was so pleasurable, I was loathe to ‘find’ and break it.

 

Eventually they called out "Mummy, would you like a clue?"

"We’re hiding in the wardrobe at the bottom with your shoes."

 

So now it’s me they’re looking for and I’ve hid myself so well,

It’s given me some alone time whilst they’re out there raising hell.

 

(I even left some biscuits on the table in the hall.

Hoping they’d be distracted and forget to look at all.)

 

But I haven't got much longer, I can hear their patience dwindle.

So I quickly try to read just two more pages on my Kindle. 

 

Their footsteps thunder nearer and in moments I’m discovered.

Slowly I uncurl myself and crawl out from the cupboard.

 

Then, before they run to hide again, I catch my little scions,

And suggest that next we play a lengthy game of sleeping lions.

The Lies We Tell

"I've been looking for that! It must have fallen in there by mistake!" I cried, when William found his latest drawing in the recycling bin. That was the moment I realized how good I've gotten at barefaced lying since having children.

It’s not just the expected parental untruths either. I expected I’d end up saying that carrots help you to see in the dark and crusts make your hair curly. What I didn’t expect was how good I would get at lying on the hoof. "No! Of course I'm not taking that bag of toys to the charity shop. I was just gathering them together so that I could put them somewhere safe."

I’ve heard it said that the Queen thinks the world smells of wet paint as everywhere she visits has just been redecorated in her honour. In the same way, my children think the world is full of children’s rides which are out of order, sweet shops which are closed and ice cream vans which have run out of ice cream.

Then there is the Father Christmas/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy lie. Now, before you strike me from your Christmas Card List, I am not suggesting we tell the truth about our imaginary friends a moment before we need to (although I wouldn't mind getting a little credit for the hours I spend looking for good stocking presents.) However, the lengths some of us go to in order to perpetuate these magical myths (footprints in flour, scraps of torn red cloth in the door jamb, ‘dropped’ gifts on the lawn etc.) are on a level of subterfuge of which the CIA would be proud. 

Research tells me that I should not be lying to them at all, but my parents told me the odd tall story as a child and I still trust them now. When we were young, my sister and I were given a dead (smelly) seahorse by an old couple who had found it washed up on a beach in Cornwall. By the time we arrived home from our holiday, the seahorse had magically disappeared from the boot of my parents’ car, allegedly to seahorse heaven. Surely this was a far more palatable story than the truth of him being rudely ejected by my dad somewhere along the M4?

Sometimes the truth is just too tricky. When we lost my dad last year, William (aged 4) was very upset at the prospect that, one day, he would lose me too. I lied that I had fixed it so that he and I would live forever. Although child psychologists would gasp in horror and tell me that I should have met his questions head on with gentle, considered explanations, I just didn’t have it in me. My instinctive lie was what he, and I, needed to hear right then. 

Therefore, whilst I will endeavour to be truthful as often as possible, I am not going to feel guilty about the odd fib. As they get older, the important subjects will be discussed and the less important, such as what really happened to William’s ridiculously large collection of pinecones, will be remembered as family myth.

Honestly.

 

 

 

Crying

There's a side effect to motherhood that no-one tells you about and that is all the crying. Not the baby. You. 

Sure, you expect to get weepy and emotional when you're pregnant. It's the damn hormones. 'They' even warn you to expect the 'baby blues' to cause unpredictable weeping a few days after the baby is born as these same hormones settle back down. I was still in hospital at this stage, hobbling around after a C-Section, struggling with breast feeding and wracked with guilt that my newborn had to be wheeled away for antibiotics twice a day. (I'm not sure why I felt that it was my fault, but I did.) I cried so much that week I'm surprised I wasn't treated for dehydration. 

However, that's not the crying I'm talking about. It's the other sort, the crying that creeps up on you when you're not expecting it. 

I'm not saying I was a tough cookie before having children. I cried watching ET like most people. Hard hitting stories on Children in Need and Comic Relief would leave me in a mess. But I didn't cry at 30 second TV adverts like I do now. 

Even happy stories involving people I don't know can get me started. My husband doesn't understand when I cry at the sight of someone winning a race or performing a song. He looks at me in disbelief. "Are you crying at THIS?" he asks. I nod and sob, "I'm just thinking how proud their mum must be!"

At each stage of my children's development there seem to be fresh opportunities for my tear ducts to kick into overdrive. The first time I tried to strap the baby seat into the car on my own I made a complete hash of it and spent the next 20 minutes wailing that I would never get the hang of it and would end up a prisoner in my own home. (The drama has always been there; just the tears are new.) 

I cried when I realised that breast feeding was going to be difficult to get the hang of (although, in my defence, part of that was actual physical pain) and then I cried again when, a year later, the breastfeeding stopped. I wept when the purées I had spent hours cooking and mashing were refused or spat out; despite everyone telling me that a 'baby won't starve itself' I was terrified that mine might be the first recorded case. And don't get me started on the first time the boy said "Mummy." 

When William started school, I tried to prepare myself. I was determined to keep a happy smiling face as I waved at him from the school gates. I was doing really well until we turned to go and a two year old Scarlett started to cry, "I want my brubber!" Clutching her to me like an extra in made-for-TV film, I cried, "I want him too!" 

It's beginning to dawn on me that this is not a temporary state. Becoming a parent has scratched the surface of my heart and it's beyond repair. Before me, I see a life of waterproof mascara and handy packs of tissues. My children will see every milestone greeted by a blubbering mother. I am prepared to be a complete embarrassment as they learn to ride a bike, star in the school play, graduate from university. 

However, it’s not all bad news. According to popular science, the fact that we cry is one of the reasons women live longer. Which means, with the frequency of my sobs, that I'll probably be around, still crying, by the time I have great great grandchildren.  

 

 

A Parent's Advice

Find something that you love to do and do it every day.

Be well informed and interesting, have worthwhile things to say. 

Try to keep your focus, concentrate on every task.

And if you've tried your very best, that's all anyone can ask.

Seek advice when you are lost, watch how others take their turn. 

But don't be scared to take a chance, mistakes are how you learn. 

Chase those who run in front of you, whilst encouraging those behind.

When deciding how to act or speak, think always "Is it kind?"

Speak out against injustice and protect those who are weak. 

Hold your tongue when angry, in case cruel words you speak

Don't let anyone tell you that there's something you can't do. 

For everything is in your grasp, the one who decides is you. 

Be loyal to those who love you whilst you also make new friends.  

And if you hurt somebody, you must always make amends. 

Not everything comes easily, sometimes you just can't win. 

But the only time you really lose is when you throw it in. 

No-one likes to hear you boast that you're the best on Earth. 

But be proud of your accomplishments and always know your worth. 

Be bold and brave and try things new; don't ever live in fear. 

For if you fail and things go wrong, I'll always be right here. 

Fly far and high and wide and deep, the world is yours to roam.

Remember forever you are loved and here you'll have a home.

Laser Tag: Mummy goes to war

It was with some reluctance that I took William to Laser Quest last Saturday. For the uninitiated, this involves running around in a dark room, attempting to ‘shoot’ other people with a laser gun whilst avoiding them hitting the target on your vest. Usually the husband plays wingman to our boy's cannon fodder approach to battle ("Hello! I'm William. Oh, I'm shot again.") But this time he decided he wanted mummy to go.

We paid for two games and the first was surprisingly civilised. Apart from William and I, there was one other family, therefore we had lots of space and time to trot around. I even managed to get a few shots on target. (Admittedly, this was made easier because the other family included a teenage girl who had obviously been coerced into joining her mum and two small brothers. She was an easy target as she didn't even bother to raise her gun the whole time she was in there.) 

For our second game, we were joined by three other families. With dads. Suddenly everything changed; there were tactics, positions and battle formations. Us amateurs had no chance, no sooner had I recovered from one hit (you had to wait four seconds after being hit before your gun was active again) before I was hit and immobilised again. Sometimes I couldn't even see where it came from. Put it this way, should there be an alien/zombie attack, I'll be one of the first to bite the dust. 

However, this new seriousness was infectious. I found myself hiding behind walls and firing through windows like a wannabe Charlie's angel. I even took advantage of William's propensity to run headlong into enemy fire by hanging back and picking off the small soldiers firing at him one by one. At one point I heard someone shout "Down! Down!" at my teammates - then realised it was me. 

All in all, the boy and I had a great time together. Normally I'm a poor substitute for daddy in games of war, but something about the heavy vest, large gun and surrounding darkness brought out a whole new side to me. Quite a turnaround for a mother who declared her newborn son would never be allowed to play with guns. 

I'm not getting too smug about my performance, though. After the game, I asked William who had been better to play laser tag with, me or daddy? 

 "You." He said. "Because I can beat you on points more easily."