Monday, July 28, 2008

At least it's a bit different

I wonder how many mothers spent about ten minutes positioned awkwardly up a tree this afternoon, as if playing Twister, shouting mournfully, at intervals, for their son to hurry up and emerge from the toilet to help them. At which point, having been handed the garden rake from below, they managed, after much manoevuring, to snooker the football from its perch in the uppermost branches and jump back down onto the muddy lawn.

And if they did, I wonder if that was after meticulously delousing their child (and themselves), explaining as they combed still-squirming giant bugs from fine boyish hair how The Simpsons reinvented a movie called Pulp Fiction in a recent episdoe they watched: leaving out The Gimp, of course.

And if they then decided, at midday, to keep their son home from school for the whole day, as so much time had passed in the process of delousing.

If the morning had stretched out partly due to one of their dogs digging under next-door's fence and having to be fetched home. If they had to finish serving up cheesy scrambled eggs for their son's breakfast VERY carefully, their fingernails embedded with damp black mud from having to fill in the hole their dog had dug, before returning to the kitchen to warm up the eggs and serve them.

I wonder.

9 comments:

Ms Batville said...

I'm guessing not many mothers - but plenty of great ones.

Kirsty said...

Did you see The Simpsons tonight? The Sid and Nancy interpretation was hilarious. Chocolate instead of drugs: "Let's go and get Snickered!"

Sounds like an eventful day. Brings back childhood memories being de-loused...

Anonymous said...

I posted a similar story a while back about how it's quite nice to have your little boy home sick, as long as he's not sick enough to be actually suffering, you understand - just enough to justify a mum-and-boy health day.

Anonymous said...

D'oh. I mean, Mental health day.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I was wondering last school holidays when I de-loused my step-daughter and the rest of the family, who were possibly infected by her, how many gorgeous wonderful stepmothers there were out there who would take days off work to squire their gangly non-sprogs out for coffee, shopping, movies and then home for an arduous 3-hour chemical treatments to the hair. You are not alone.

Ariel said...

It was quite a nice sick day to have. (And I remember that post, too, Helen!)

Anon, you sound like a brilliant stepparent. Well done you.

Great to see you back, Ms Batville!

And Kirsty, I didn't. But love it.

Anonymous said...

Ariel, you're not dead are you? Because that would be upsetting. Not that I've updated in even longer, but motherhood's innately more interesting than drunkenness.

Ariel said...

Hey Sean. No, not dead, just sleeping. (I wish.) Too much work to write anything coherent and a new resolve to try to stop procrastinating and to improve my focus. So, I hope to return to the blog when I have something to say and/or time in which to say it half-coherently.

That's funny, I always thought drunkeness was more interesting to read about than motherhood, especially to the childless. I'll chalk one up for being less old and boring than I thought!

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