Firstly, give birth to a long awaited-for IVF baby. Watch that baby grow up during some dreadfully traumatic cancer fiascos and the deaths of a number of incredibly cherished people in your life. Then lose your mind, half your spirit, your faith, your marriage, your sobriety.
Keep re-building. Don't even question why or ask how - if you need a hint look to people who have struggled before you for a bit of hope. Especially strong, tough, feisty, unbreakable women. Will yourself to be like them.
Find yourself continually surprised that even when you KNOW you cannot go another day .. you go another day. And another.
After you've gone many days, you come to a clearing. And your baby is about to turn seven.
SEVEN.
Dimple.
Organise the biggest birthday party he has ever HAD. Change mobile phone numbers as soon as you send out the invitations so other parents cannot tell you if their kid is coming. #handy
Completely outsource everything - the decorations, catering, venue. Everything. Except the cake. Upon asking what kind of cake he wants, don't bat an eyelid when your child answers back "POOCAKE" because you wouldn't really expect anything less. This guy inexplicably shit over pretty much everything during his entire formative years, so you're down with a poo cake. How hard could it be?
In keeping with the outsource theme, buy everything pre-made. The cakes, the icing, and the packet of Flakes that you're just going to dump on top without caring one bit because it's impossible to stuff up a cake decorated with pretend turds.
Upon showing your child he will gasp and for a second you'll falter but when he yells out "IT'S SO PERFECT MUM!" you know that your job is DONE and you may fail, stuff up, and barely get by in most things in life but by God you can parent well. You just want to be a loving and supportive mother, and take the job of educating and loving and teaching your children so extraordinarily seriously that you would do anything humanly possible to shield them from horrors and heartache in the world. And you will fail. And you will talk about failing to them. And your children will keep loving you anyway no matter what ... because you are their mother and they know, they can just *feel* how much you adore them. So very much.
Even on dreadful days.
Ask your 13-yro to take some action shots of the candle-lighting and later at home you really, really regret wearing leggings as pants that day fml.
It's important to remember that if the birthday boy gets sweaty and bossy and shoeless and his hat breaks ... do not care, do not say one word. None of this matters, the only vital thing of concern is that he has the best birthday ever because lord knows he's watched a lot go down in his seven years on the planet so far. It's not important that you never found his other shoe - it's really not. What's important is out of all of the cakes you've painstakingly taken HOURS to make from scratch and decorate until 3am, crying ... including that particularly tricky Bart Simpson cake back in '08 for his older brother .. this is hands down the best, easiest, laziest birthday cake you've ever assembled. Don't even worry about not icing all of the crevices or you notice later there were fingerprints in it or the fact that it tasted much less nicer than it looked - you pulled it off.
And is that not what motherhood essentially is, in this increasingly crazy, sped-up, neurotic, competitive, bullshit world?
Successful mothering is a series of just pulling things off, one after the other. And hoping for the best.
You detest every single thing about this party. It's noisy, annoying, germ-filled. But it's worth it for the look on your kids face and the fun that he has, losing himself with joy on the slides and trampoline, surrounded by all of his friends.
You've been at this game for a long time now - you know to choose your battles. Do NOT sweat the small stuff, ride through the hard days and keep giving it your all. A lame, lazy, hastily thrown together poocake party at the local aquatic centre every now and then never harmed anyone!
And when your kid sits perched atop the table long after all the kids have gone with their crap lolly bags, and he complains that he wasn't ready to finish his party and no he does NOT know where his shoe is and how long until he turns eight? You look up at his dear little face, the face that formed in your womb and without even missing a beat you tell him he is banned from asked when his next birthday is. BANNED.
He just munches on popcorn, without saying a word.
Then you all go home and collapse and play video games. Order pizza. Fight. Love. Shout. Cuddle. The love you feel for your children is one of the last true and real things you have left in your life. Love harder. Keep going. And make them promise that you're allowed to come over and visit them when they grow up and move out of home because you're going to miss this gig like hell when it finishes.
Keep re-building. Don't even question why or ask how - if you need a hint look to people who have struggled before you for a bit of hope. Especially strong, tough, feisty, unbreakable women. Will yourself to be like them.
Find yourself continually surprised that even when you KNOW you cannot go another day .. you go another day. And another.
After you've gone many days, you come to a clearing. And your baby is about to turn seven.
SEVEN.
Organise the biggest birthday party he has ever HAD. Change mobile phone numbers as soon as you send out the invitations so other parents cannot tell you if their kid is coming. #handy
Completely outsource everything - the decorations, catering, venue. Everything. Except the cake. Upon asking what kind of cake he wants, don't bat an eyelid when your child answers back "POOCAKE" because you wouldn't really expect anything less. This guy inexplicably shit over pretty much everything during his entire formative years, so you're down with a poo cake. How hard could it be?
Upon showing your child he will gasp and for a second you'll falter but when he yells out "IT'S SO PERFECT MUM!" you know that your job is DONE and you may fail, stuff up, and barely get by in most things in life but by God you can parent well. You just want to be a loving and supportive mother, and take the job of educating and loving and teaching your children so extraordinarily seriously that you would do anything humanly possible to shield them from horrors and heartache in the world. And you will fail. And you will talk about failing to them. And your children will keep loving you anyway no matter what ... because you are their mother and they know, they can just *feel* how much you adore them. So very much.
Even on dreadful days.
Ask your 13-yro to take some action shots of the candle-lighting and later at home you really, really regret wearing leggings as pants that day fml.
It's important to remember that if the birthday boy gets sweaty and bossy and shoeless and his hat breaks ... do not care, do not say one word. None of this matters, the only vital thing of concern is that he has the best birthday ever because lord knows he's watched a lot go down in his seven years on the planet so far. It's not important that you never found his other shoe - it's really not. What's important is out of all of the cakes you've painstakingly taken HOURS to make from scratch and decorate until 3am, crying ... including that particularly tricky Bart Simpson cake back in '08 for his older brother .. this is hands down the best, easiest, laziest birthday cake you've ever assembled. Don't even worry about not icing all of the crevices or you notice later there were fingerprints in it or the fact that it tasted much less nicer than it looked - you pulled it off.
And is that not what motherhood essentially is, in this increasingly crazy, sped-up, neurotic, competitive, bullshit world?
Successful mothering is a series of just pulling things off, one after the other. And hoping for the best.
You detest every single thing about this party. It's noisy, annoying, germ-filled. But it's worth it for the look on your kids face and the fun that he has, losing himself with joy on the slides and trampoline, surrounded by all of his friends.
You've been at this game for a long time now - you know to choose your battles. Do NOT sweat the small stuff, ride through the hard days and keep giving it your all. A lame, lazy, hastily thrown together poocake party at the local aquatic centre every now and then never harmed anyone!
And when your kid sits perched atop the table long after all the kids have gone with their crap lolly bags, and he complains that he wasn't ready to finish his party and no he does NOT know where his shoe is and how long until he turns eight? You look up at his dear little face, the face that formed in your womb and without even missing a beat you tell him he is banned from asked when his next birthday is. BANNED.
He just munches on popcorn, without saying a word.
Then you all go home and collapse and play video games. Order pizza. Fight. Love. Shout. Cuddle. The love you feel for your children is one of the last true and real things you have left in your life. Love harder. Keep going. And make them promise that you're allowed to come over and visit them when they grow up and move out of home because you're going to miss this gig like hell when it finishes.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Write to be understood, speak to be heard. - Lawrence Powell