28. Silent Sunday

27. Silent Sunday

26. A Mother or Somebody who happens to have Children?

Extra Curricular activities in the 70s & 80s: if you couldn't be bothered to take your daughter to Brownies, were you a bad mother?

I read unpublished novels and film scripts for a living.  At least that's what I do with two under two at home.  It's very enjoyable, but time-consuming and not exactly as lucrative as I would hope.  I need to find some extra 'from home' income, preferably that utilises my writing and editing skills.  Answers on a postcard please!   But I digress.  I read an incredible manuscript recently by an up-and-coming American writer (his second novel has already been optioned and is being made into a film with a starry cast), but in the name of professional discretion, I cannot name either the book or the writer.  However, the mother of the novel's narrator made a fascinating point, something that I have been ruminating on all week.  She said some women are mothers, while others happen to have children.

It made me wonder, if being a mother (by that of course I mean  a 'good' mother) depends on doing most of it yourself?  Or can you be a good mother if you have loads of childcare, and immunise yourself from the mundanity of certain aspects of mothering (dressing, feeding and bathing are the three things that occasionally I could really do without, but maybe that's because I've got terrible-two-ish twins)?

Fragonard's The Good Mother

I remember my father saying to me 'your mother is so loving, please don't be rude to her.'  My mother is a complex woman, but that's beside the point.  My point is she was most definitely immunised from a lot of the nitty-gritty of mothering.  She was a SAHM but had a full-time au pair from my birth until my sister (seven years younger) was about twelve.  We barely ever went on our summer holidays (always to Italy) without an au pair accompanying us. 

There is no doubt that my mother loves me and my sister to bits, but during our upbringing it was a love that had defined limits.  For example, she wouldn't let me or my sister be a Brownie because she didn't want the commitment of taking us (I was allowed to do tap dance classes as the venue was only five minutes from home).  I don't mean to be mean - my mother did the best she could and is now a doting and very capable grandmother to three grandchildren - but perhaps I envy her prosperity that I think she took for granted? 

If I could afford more help, would I take it?  Most probably.  But because I can't, I realise that one of the greatest virtues of a mother is patience.  And would I have learnt the same degree of patience if I hadn't needed to?  Probably not.  And that surely is a good thing?

25. Silent Sunday

24. Wordless Wednesday: it's all in the detail

23. Silent Sunday: Daddy, it's for you!

22. Terror Training School (Terrible Twos, anyone?)

Following on from an earlier post 'Turks don't wear Pink,' My daughters are in training for the joy that will be Terrible Twos.  Presumably they escape their cots at night and sneak off with a torch to some drafty town hall populated by a lot of 18 mth - 2 year olds (run by 3 year olds who should know better?)  It started earlier this week when I was in the shower.  I heard The Tank making a distress call from her cot.  Not an 'I'm in pain' distress call, but just a sound that meant something was up and I needed to come and check it out.

Grabbing a towel and flying into the nursery, I saw what the fuss was about.  Dear little Magpie had used the chest of drawers/changing table for purchase and had climbed out of her cot, but her bum was still on the side.  She hadn't yet made the leap which would have probably meant her getting stuck between the cot and chest.  So far, not so terrible, just a sign of things to come (NO MORE COT SIDES.  I live in fear of toddlers no longer incarcerated, meaning  I can no longer have a shower / bit of peace / phone conversation etc etc).

Children, and particularly twins, are put on this earth to surprise us.  Just when we think we've 'got their number' and know who they are and how they behave, they do something out of character.  The Tank is the climber, not Magpie.  Magpie doesn't push a new boundary first, her sister does.  So the Tank had not only not climbed out of her cot, but her distress call meant 'come look at my sister the surprise stunt girl!'

Earlier in the week I took the girls (like a crazy person) to a cold, windy and deserted playground.  Only mothers with dogs and a sick man at home would go on such an expedition (I tied Purdey to the playground railings after giving him a walk in the adjacent park).  Whilst I watched The Tank as she dived head first down a slide, I turned around to see a frighteningly deserted playground: no Magpie.  Just empty climbing frames and swings creeking in the wind.  As the playground was like an upside-down L, I noticed there was another, unknown entrance at the far right-hand side.  The gate was closed.  No sounds, nothing.  My stomach lept and lurched.  Had Magpie been abducted?  Just as the searing pain of panic set in, she appeared from behind a piece of blue appartatus, grinning impishly, with no knowledge that she had just been responsible for the most petrifying moment of my life.  Magpie didn't mean to be terrible.  She was just having a bit of fun.

Magpie hiding behind something I can thankfully see through (the solid thing she hid behind and gave me a heart attack in the process is barely visible in the background, but I didn't take a picture whilst I was having a heart attack.  Funny, that.)

Magpie redeems her hiding self by doing a quick check on Purdey tied to the playground railings.

I've saved the true terror for last.  Ok don't get too excited.  It's nothing out of the ordinary (unless you are me and have just seen one of two toddlers become Possessed by a Spirit that isn't Particularly Benign).

If The Tank didn't try to climb out of her cot this week, she did test me by refusing to get dressed.  Not just a gentle shake of the head or verbal 'no' but a fully-fledged spiral-twist manoevre, complete with floppy legs and a stunt dive onto the floor.  This ruse must be familiar to all parents of two-year olds.  We are definitely entering a new chapter where my children want to escape, hide and run away from either me or their cardigans (or both).

 Advice welcome.....