Category: being a mother (good, bad, indifferent)

How much should I intervene in the games of Uno my two young boys are playing? They are five and seven years old. You know what’s going on: seven year old cheats; five year old screams; thirty eight year old yells. Or: seven year old places down correct card; five year old cheats; seven year old cries; thirty eight year old yells, this time with more force.

For a while, I was going down there, using calm reasoning to move the game along. Then I moved along to frustrated sighs. I’m afraid then it became a fed-up raised voice. And now, I am just leaving them to it. One of the problems seems to be the list of convoluted rules they have invented (all with the aim of getting the most wild +4s in their hands).

What do you do? And joining in is not an option. Honestly, I’ve played more games of Uno and Twister this last week than I’ve played in my entire life. I’m limiting the number of games I play each day. For my own sanity.

UPDATE: it’s not urgent that you answer, they have moved along to a new game which involves running up and down the passage spitting at each other. If you need me I’m on the couch, whispering my constant refrain: they’ll never be teenage girls, they’ll never be teenage girls.

I’ve been trying to get the cupboard of baby and toddler and pre-school clothes cleaned out before school starts. There’s almost zero chance of a third child appearing now, and I think it will be less hard on my heart to pass the clothes on now than it will once both of my boys are officially at school. I was going to tell you how it feels to take the clothes, worn by both of my boys, out of the washing machine and hang them on the line. But such sentences take a lot of time, and I’ve got lots of deadlines and not to mention the Uno games. So you’ll need to imagine the washing for yourselves. You’ll be fine. Just grab a whiff of the washing powder you used to use. Your mind will do the rest.

I’m sad about the absent third child, deeply so sometimes, not for any particular reason, just because I always thought there would be a third. Time is kind of taking care of the sadness though, because we’re so far from being a baby house now that almost every day a baby makes less and less sense.

And as if to prove it, PlaySchool has come on the television and Eldest Boy has started walking around saying ‘this show sucks the world…this is for babies…’.

And this from the child who was ‘totally creeped out’ during the whole of our visit to the pirate exhibition at the Maritime Museum.

…in the game of Uno, are you allowed to place a Wild +4 on top of a Wild +4?

I personally couldn’t give a shit, except that it might make things a bit less noisy than they currently are.

Thanks in advance interwebs.

…those voices do start to wear after about fifteen minutes or so. The thing is, if you are living with people young enough to be taken to this film, then those voices are – more than likely – your reality. Day after day after day.

Also, at those big cinemas, it costs over thirty dollars for one adult and two children to go to the movies. Why did I need to be reminded of that?

I was wondering about this space inside and the prickling behind my eyes.

And then I realised.

It’s the last day that Littlest Boy and I will be home together alone. After today, I’m no longer a preschool Mum.

Please excuse me for a while. I’ve got a child to hug.

The difference between the changerooms (boys’ and girls’) is not, as you might imagine, the giggles, but the hair.

I have just realised that in seven years I have not brushed my little boy’s hair once. But all these girls have their own brushes.

The air is shower damp and the smell is body butter. Almond. The blind is down, the light is on, the quilt has not been straightened.

My arms are twisted behind my back. One hand pulls down, the other up. My shoulder muscle cricks. Spasms. My mouth and my cheek do the same. I stop myself from swearing.

‘I think I’d better help.’ He pats the corner of the bed. ‘Sit here.’

I do. He sits on his knees, behind.

‘The tag is stuck,’ he says. He fiddles. Clumsily, because his hands and his fingers are small. He gives me updates as he works. ‘I’ve pushed the tag down.’ I feel his fingers on my skin. ‘I’m holding it down’. He pushes a deep breath out and I feel his fingers pull. They reach the top.

‘Got it,’ he says.

He bounces once then leans his head against my back. He says ‘you should make your clothes like mine…my zips are all at the front’.

We are in the hurry we always are. I close my eyes to slow time down.

And then he moves. There is: breakfast, socks, shoes, teeth, hat, reader-folder, lunch, in the car, in the car, I said in the car, why did you hit him, seatbelts, please just put your seatbelt on, until we’re at the lights and I say ‘we forgot the sunblock, we’ll have to do it at school’ and he says ‘mum, you should have remembered before’.

And so we stand at the lockers. He lets me do it, because he’s an Oldest Child, but his arms are tense by his side and his eyes are closed and he bites at his lip. I rub the cream down his lightly-freckled nose, and across his soft round cheeks and down to the point of his chin.

This is the face I kissed in the mornings, the nights, the evenings, the afternoons. He fed, then slept on my chest. It was my yesterday.

The children are a stream behind him and he whispers ‘mu-um, I’m the only one.’

I brush at his hair. I want to kiss his cheek and whisper to him I know my love, I know.

He joins the stream, but I know he knows I’m watching him. By the way he doesn’t look back.

So I’m pretty sure they won’t be going on any more bee hunts.

Though I seem to recall thinking the same thing about this time last year.

I look into his face sometimes. He lets me still, he’s five years old. His skin, his eyes, his thoughts are clear. He holds me when I hold him. He strokes my cheek like I stroke his. We read. He says ‘another one?’ and I say yes, because he’s warm and he holds my other hand. He laughs like no one else can laugh, and whatever else is in my mind, whatever fears, regrets, or stress, I laugh.

And I’m telling you this, because just now, he has yelled at me, and roared, and stamped his foot and slammed the door.