Emotionally abusive parenting aside, we’ve made it. The lightest of lighter shades of pale, but more or less intact as human beings. Physically at least.
I have to mark this milestone. At the start of the year, we had a newborn. Another one. We moved house. Again. My daughter started school. For the very first time.
And so began the juggernaut of morning, noon and afternoon school runs. Rinse and repeat. Every day. My husband consistently clocking up the air miles for work. Scrambling into taxis destined for the airport lugging his lurid pink Samsonite suitcase. Homework à deux and the trauma of trying to tutor my children with limited propensity and even less patience. Countless trips to ballet, swimming, football. Lugging a baby everywhere, with increasing and understandable resistance on his part. There have been tears and tantrums. Mine mostly. Occasionally my children’s. I’ve begged, bribed and bartered my way through my brethren’s brawls. With each other. And with me. And I’ve discovered devious ways to deal with dirt. Hide or ignore it. I’ve never worked harder. I’ve had never had less money. I've never had worse re-growth. It. Has. Been. Epic. It has also been one of the best years of my life.
I’m immensely proud at having emerged from a whole 12 months of parenthood with three children and no blue lights or sirens. Fist-pumpingly proud. I wish I could put it as a sub-heading on my CV, under key life experience, survival skills and superpowers. Maybe I will. It’s certainly relevant. Don’t let anyone say otherwise. Forget woman scorned. Try mother judged. Try them apples.
Ok so I do whinge. I do whine. I’m more than a little overt about sharing my disdain for dealing with human effluent. Just this weekend when my son dropped the rim blocker into the toilet while he was squatting monkey-style on the seat and I had to put my hand into the bowl, dodging his bobbing faeces, to try and retrieve it. I had a lot to say about that experience. Most of it not fit for repeating, in any syllable, shape or form. There was some retching involved too.
I go positively postal when my kids moan that they don’t want pesto on their pasta or pasta with their pesto or that the bowl is too big or not big enough. When they turn up their nose at a simple steamed carrot. Or waste perfectly good food because they suddenly “don’t like it” when just two days before they’d wolfed it down and declared it their absolute “favourite favourite”. I’ve resorted to showing the little imps images of starving African children I’ve gingerly Googled. Emaciated hollow-eyed souls whose desperation is as terrifying as it is touching. Children who are dying to live. I'll admit that it’s rather rough around the edges this method. But it works. Suddenly piles of pesto pasta start disappearing into little mouths and there’s no more talk about flecks of basil that look like bits of bug or pasta that pongs like puke. In fact there's no talk at all.
I’m not a martyr mother who silently soldiers through. I can’t parent with poise.
I do know though how fortunate I am. My issues are not real issues. They’re first world problems. In this country, never has there been a statement that can represent such a literal reality. We’re all healthy, we’re all safe and we have everything that we need. My husband argues that we need a Playstation 4, but then he doesn’t watch Downton Abbey and won't cry like a baby when it ends forever on Christmas Day. So what does he actually know anyway? Not much of any value. Obviously.
At least once a day, amidst the deluge of domesticity, I take time to acknowledge how incredibly blessed we are. I promise I do.
I’ve also got to recognise that had we not upped sticks and moved to The Not-Always-so-United Kingdom (talk to Scotland), I wouldn’t have this milestone to mark at all. We wouldn’t have our little boy Alexander. I wouldn't have experienced a rewarding and roll-with-it year at home with our children. I wouldn’t have been an often willing and sometimes reluctant witness to their lives. To all the moments that make up a childhood: the good and the best, the disgusting and disturbing.
I moan a lot about Britain – but thank you oh climatically challenged little island for this year. I will remember it forever. Parts I will treasure. And parts I will bury deep within the recesses of my psyche. I’m a full-time mother with three kids. Glorifying the great and repressing the repugnant are skills that come standard. They’re like factory settings. Part and parcel of the job description. Every mother knows that. Even the rookie ones like me.
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| The Ferals. Clothed, fed and intact. For now. |
