Today has been one of those days where I seem to have started many things, finished nothing and found the day over with before it has really begun. It is ten o’clock at night and I am kind of sitting here thinking ‘what the hell happened?’ I seem to have watched a lot of television, eaten a lot of junk food and not a lot else.
I can’t say that’s a bad way to spend the day quite honestly, although I wouldn’t want to do it all the time. I just feel that there were crucial things that should have been done that weren’t.
Having said that, Tallulah got to her swimming party and didn’t drown. This is good. She cannot swim. For ages she was a nightmare to take into the water because she had an absolutely unshakeable belief that she could swim and was adamant that nobody was to hold her, teach her or even go near her. She would not wear arm bands because of course she could swim, so why would she need them? The general scenario would be that we would go to the edge of the pool, she would jump in with tremendous verve, and then sink like a stone. You would hop in, fish her out and shake the water out (she would of course be hollering all the way down), and attempt to keep her head above water. She would go mental because she didn’t need any help. Eventually you would let go, she would sink like a stone. etc. etc. etc. It all got very tedious and I stopped taking her.
When we had a nanny, she used to take her, which was very brave. But not much progress was made on the swimming front as she was too busy keeping her alive.
Then I had Oscar. This was just at the point where Tallulah decided that flexible thinking over the swimming issue might be rewarding, after years of positive mental thinking had done not much at all except allow her to get a taste for chlorinated water. Unfortunately I am not a brave enough woman to take three small children swimming on my own, so we rarely go. Consequently she cannot swim. I feel very guilty about this.
I keep meaning to take them for lessons. We have three pools nearby, none of which are on a direct bus route. This is something else I will have to do when I can drive. Even then it still needs two of us ideally, as Oscar is a great sinker now.
Today Tallulah took her armbands. I worried that the other children would tease her. Apparently not. Which is good. One mother I know, who is lovely, but a bit of a worrier, has a child who can swim, but still makes the girl wear arm bands just in case. She was at the party, which was a great help to Tallulah.
So was another mother who is a friend of mine. She is an exceptionally good mother (I do not know what she is doing hanging out with me frankly). Her children are always immaculately dressed and have everything ready for school. They are ironed and labelled and clean. They do lessons in useful things and are community minded. My friend goes to every single party her children are invited to and stays and joins in. Today she actually got in the pool with the kids. She kept an eye on Tallulah for us while we went to McDonalds (urgh! I was outvoted) and then went to look at Minis!
I admire this mother greatly. Truly. I do. She must have infinite patience and kindness and stores of benevolence that I cannot even imagine let alone access. She really, genuinely enjoys doing these things. I see it in her face. She is not making it up. I do not know how she does this.
I loathe childrens’ parties. Even my own childrens’. I Other peoples’ parties are more loathesome still I hate hanging out with parents I have nothing in common with, eating horrible food and sitting in plastic play places while the noise deafens worse than a teenage disco and everything smells vaguely of wee and ground in biscuits. I hate having to nod enthusastically at my child while she scrambles about showing off, when at home I could be secretly reading my book and pretending to look. There is nowhere to hide. It is barbaric.
Yesterday Tallulah went to a roller disco party. It was at another local leisure centre for two hours from six until eight in the evening with a McDonald’s Happy Meal thrown in. I had just come back from several hours of driving and as we were walking up to the entrance Tallulah looked a bit collywobblish and asked me if I wouldn’t like to go too? What could I say?
No. That was what I said. I gave her two choices, either she went on her own and we found her friends to hang out with so she would feel more comfortable, or she came home with me.
It seems mean, I know, but the place was heaving with small, sweaty bodies zooming about, the smell of Happy Meals wafted through the air and the disco beat was pumping. I’d rather spend two hours in a leper colony.
Yet again I ended up feeling guilty as I waved her off (she chose to stay). I spent the next two hours worrying that she would be rollered to death, or worse, stay in the toilets crying until someone found her and called me. As it turned out she had an absolutely fabulous time and is now an expert roller skater.
Today she had a fabulous time and can now swim under water. I am dubious about this claim and am now more concerned about the next time we take her swimming. Are we going to go back to the sinking like a stone business? I can’t cope. My feeble brain cannot manage it.
Still, at least she had a wonderful time. Next week she has another party at a kids adventure play place. I’m sure by then there will be something else to worry about, but at least I’ve got a week’s respite first.
Tilly spent most of the weekend at her best friend’s on a sleepover. They desperately needed this sleepover because her friend is on the school trip next week to the Isle of Wight and they won’t see each other for a whole week. A WHOLE WEEK. It is hardly to be borne frankly. There were wobbly bottom lips upon parting this morning and the subject of how come Tilly wasn’t allowed to go to the Isle of Wight was sort of mentioned, kind of, once more.
Tilly is not allowed to go to the Isle of Wight because a) I am an evil parent, b) it cost nearly two hundred pounds for four days in the ISLE OF WIGHT for God’s sake and c) I am an evil parent. I am also an evil parent who realises that not only could I get a package holiday in Spain for that sort of money and we wouldn’t have to do a project on Queen Victoria if we went to Fuengirola, but also it isn’t £200 is it? No it isn’t? Why isn’t it? It isn’t because every single school trip I let her go on, I have to let the other two go on as well. It’s six hundred quid is what it is. And that doesn’t account for the fact that next year it will be significantly more expensive when news breaks of one more school child who has died through someone not being attentive enough in an amateur pot holing day and insurance prices go through the roof again.
It’s bad enough having to sign four hundred release forms and sign in my own blood that it’s o.k. for her to climb up the inside of Glenfield church spire at Brownies next week. Who knows what I’d have to promise if she went on a ferry to the Isle of Wight? It’s not worth it.
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