Ella has been in a feeding frenzy for the last 24 hours. Being pretty much confined to the sofa for large parts of the day gave me time to trawl through other blogs. Such a mistake. Don't want to feel fat? Don't buy fashion mags. Don't want to feel old? Don't be friends with people younger than yourself on Facebook. Don't want to feel like a failure as a parent, a slob as a house keeper, totally under accomplished in every single aspect of your life including in some areas which you never realised should be part of your life? Don't read blogs. It's not that these people are wizards with a glue gun, inspired play mates to and educators of their off spring, wonderful and frugal chefs and able to 'repurpose' old curtains into first communion dresses for their daughters it's that they are so freaking cheerful and organised and Pollyanna about every bloody thing. You know what it is? It's honest to goodness, darn tootin' wholesomeness. It makes me want to inject heroin into my eye.
Example - one woman decided to repaint her laundry. The previous colour was too 'country' so she decided to re paint it 'milk'. Well, that clashed with the colour of the the window sill so she repainted the whole thing again to some thing more 'exotic'. What's on my laundry's walls? Lint. Had it ever occurred to me that a laundry could be 'country' or 'exotic' or any thing other than a place where you keep your washer and drier? Nope.
They organise their kids lunches into muffin trays in rainbow themed colours instead of throwing whatever doesn't look too ratty in the fridge onto a hastily rinsed plate. They turn old dresses into blouses into a girl's skirt into a doll's overalls. These become heirlooms and carefully packed away in moth balls until their own daughters produce the next generation of happy home makers. They decorate jam jars with buttons and lace cut offs so that their husbands find their breakfast tray prettier. Ask me what my husband has for breakfast. I don't know. I'm not up by then.
But the real question is why? Not why do they do it - I don't care why they do it. But why does it bother me that they do it at all?
I think because deep down it's because I'm a pretendy adult. I'm not really grown up. I'm not really responsible. Things that adults should know or do - how to use a lawn mower, change a tire, toilet train a 2.5 year old, make a consumme, know what a consumme is, who to call when the smoke detector won't stop beeping, make a pair of lounge pants from an old T-shirt, recover a lamp shade or a sofa, remember to wash the sheets once a week, do the washing up twice a day, getting the Christmas tree up before Christmas Eve and down before Lent - I have no idea about. I've been on my red P plates for awhile now. When am I meant to move on to my greens? No idea.
Deep down I think I will know that I'm an adult when I can do every thing I remember my own mother doing. I suspect that she is the imprint in my mind of what a real proper grown up woman is like. So I guess it's reasonable to assume I will be that same imprint for Ella.
Who knows? Maybe she'll appreciate how far I've lowered the bar.
I get terrified thinking about what it would be like to have more than one child - I feel like I can barely hold it together with one and if I had more than one then everything would collapse. So, by having two, I think you are already incredibly capable and adult.
ReplyDeletehahahaha! I've been thinking the same thing for the last few..... months? years?! I always feel somewhat accomplished when dinner is ready when hubby comes home, most of the dishes have been washed, the kids aren't screaming at each other, the house looks only like a little bomb has hit it and a load of washing has been done during the day (if needed and weather permitting).
ReplyDeleteThen there is the vacuuming, mopping, the sorting the kids' clothes and finally packing them into the ever-growing stack of boxes in the garage. And then maybe dusting. Probably not. My mum will attest to the fact that I never dust. In some ways, I think the ascetic way of living is better- less to clean and dust!
But it's more my attitude. I feel like I'm still a kid cos I need praise when I've made a nice-ish dinner, if I've cleaned the toilet as well as the bare minimum stuff in the day and get grumpy if no one notices the effort I put into getting the crayon off the wall. Surely an adult just takes it on the chin and keeps going?
Where is my time to learn how to crotchet, silk screen, re-paint the dining room cabinet? Let alone try to read a novel or prepare myself for Masterchef 2015!?
Oh and playing with the kids I suppose!