Wednesday 11 March 2015

10 Mothering Things I'm a Bit Shit At


The first time anyone told me I was fail as a mother was back when the man-child was only in Year Six. My crime was the patent child-abuse of not allowing him to have a computer or a gaming console in his bedroom. Truly. It’s a wonder there weren’t social workers beating our door down.

Nonetheless, a huge amount of angst was created when his peers declared me a fail tightarse, assuring him that they would totally own him in no time. Nice boys they were. And every one of them from a very non-fail family. Indeed, one of them was blessed with a mother who was so NOT fail that she was unfazed by the nudie pics he had chosen to plaster his room with,  because…well.. you know… boys will be boys.

But as the kids get older, I’m fail a lot more. A whole lot more.

Yesterday I was fail after devoting the day to repurposing odds and sods into one of Andie’s ‘volcanic ensembles’ from Pretty in Pink . (Today’s fundraiser at school is ‘Come as your favourite movie character or actor.’)

The day before that I was fail because the sport uniform that had not been put in the laundry was still dirty.

And the day before that I was fail because nobody else really felt like smoked chicken and spinach pasta for dinner.

So in an attempt to remind myself that there are ways I can avoid being epic fail all the time, or at everything, I thought I might just make a quick list of ten things I need to remember I’m a little bit crap at. So here goes.

I’m just a bit shit at:
1.     mind reading
2.     being in three places at once
3.     caring if the exact item of clothing required at any given second has been  ironed
4.     not getting annoyed when the dog decorates the house with slobbery fragments of the leftover lunches — both foodstuffs and wrappings—it found under the bed/in the bottom of a school bag/in the overflowing bin of someone’s bedroom
5.     realising that we have run out of a metric fuckton of things that nobody put on the shopping list
6.     remembering everyone else’s daily timetable
7.     whipping up cordon bleu meals every night
8.     having the car radio on the right station
9.     comprehending how the world can turn simultaneously around each and every teenager in the universe
10. being invisible on demand.

I’m sure there's plenty more I could add, but I reckon that will give me enough to work on for now. Wish me luck!