The Mighty Worrier

I think we can all agree that there’s nothing like a Road Trip. Yep, nothing like it. Thank fuck. 

Especially when everyone in the car has started screaming – none more than you, the driver – before you even get to the end of your street. And then you still have two hours’ drive ahead of you with one child cheerfully announcing how many minutes are in each successive hour while another child complains about stomach cramps, and all you can think is “ Go Vomit On The Mountain” while still trying to show enthusiasm for the fact 16 hours equals 960 minutes. 

Still, as I’ve said before, getting there is half the fun. Which means that the other half of the fun is at your destination, right? 

Well, in this case, the destination – a beautiful holiday house my friends had rented – didn’t disappoint.

For one thing, there was a creek. My friend led us there on a pre-lunch walk with visions of us all gingerly dipping our toes in the water and maybe skimming stones along its glassy surface. But she didn’t factor in the instant effect any body of water has on my children – be it the size of the Pacific Ocean or a small puddle of unidentified liquid on the kitchen floor. Before we could say “sneaky little hobbitses”, Mr Justice had stripped off and was scrabbling around on the sharp rocks on all fours like Gollum with the others in close pursuit. And my friend also didn’t factor in the effect that my children’s water activities would have on my voice, making it all loud and very very shouty. Oh, happy days. 

But I always knew that bedtime was going to be the biggest challenge, for this was an overnight visit, you see. As night-time approached, I became a kind of Oracle and, in a somewhat trance-like state (i.e. slightly drunk), I predicted the following: “The youngest two children will run up and down the stairs until I grow angry and put the child-gate at the top. Then they will stand at the gate and shout. Maybe cry. Or do that shouting-cry that I love so very very much. And that will go on for a very long time indeed, maybe hours. After which, I will have to go up there and physically restrain them in their beds until they finally submit and accept Sleep as their Master.”

Which is pretty much what happened, although I skipped the child-gate/shouting-cry stage just to spare us all from permanent damage to our eardrums.

Anyway, I went on to spend the night flitting between beds: Tiddles McGee is a high-maintenance sleeper at the best of times and The Pixie got all restless and started running a fever. And then I remembered her stomach cramps complaint and began to worry she was going to vomit and tried to work out a Vomit Action Plan which identified the best vomit receptacle in the room, which items of furniture to avoid at all costs and whether I had brought enough change of clothes in the event of “splashage” (or worse). And then I started to worry about driving home the next day alone with vomiting kids (because already, I’d assumed that of course they’d all come down with it) and how I’d manage it after having no sleep. And then I started worrying that all this worrying about not getting any sleep was actually preventing me from getting any sleep and slowly, but surely, my mind got more knotted up than Tiddles McGee’s baby hair, all with a mosquito flying in and out of my ear and an angle-parking Tiddles McGee kicking me in the kidneys.

And after hours of this worry (or so it seemed), I somehow managed to remember that worrying about something before it happened was futile and how I should just roll with the punches and go with the flow (even if that flow ended up being a Type 3 Vomit). It was like so much of parenting – if I let myself be paralyzed by all the things that possibly could go wrong, then I’d never leave the house. Like ever. For example, I’d never have driven out to visit my friends in the first place and would never have gotten to sit on the balcony late at night, chatting and drinking wine and listening to the frogs and to the possums on the roof. 

And after that illuminating thought, sleep finally came – albeit punctuated by the occasional kick to the kidneys. And the vomit that I was so worried about never arrived. And the morning brought us a happy breakfast with friends ’round a large sunny table and then other adventures too, including an incident involving the purchase of sugar-coated jam donuts on the drive home. But that, my friends, is a story for another day.

Three

I think I understand the real reason why Samson never cut his hair. It’s because his mother wouldn’t let him. No, really. There’s something about a little boy’s first hair cut that jettisons him away from his mother’s arms towards adulthood and Samson’s mum knew that. 

It is not surprising, then, that I did some top-class procrastinating when it came to the cutting of Tiddles McGee’s baby hair. I’m really very extremely adept at avoiding things that I don’t want to do. Unfortunately, those very same procrastination skills were also applied to the brushing of said hair and it was rumoured there were many small birds in the neighbourhood who were seriously considering making it their summer residence. I even contemplated using the back of his hair as a cup-holder a number of times. Yes, it really was getting that bad. 

And so, last week, my husband manfully took charge of the situation and cut away McGee’s somewhat dread-locked mane with his clippers. And there, underneath all that hair, we found ourselves a Big Boy. 

And today, that Big Boy turns three. 

It’s all been a bittersweet pill to swallow, my friends. A bittersweet pill, indeed – especially since Mr Justice has ceased to acknowledge me at all in public (see “Too Cool At School“). I mean, if he’s like this at seven, it’s entirely likely he will have changed his identity and moved continents by the age of fourteen just to get the hell away from me. 

Tiddles McGee has been my consolation through all this. 

“You still love, Mama… don’t you my iddle-widdle Tiddles?” I’ve often cooed to him, while trying to nurse him in my arms like a baby and vaguely wondering if Norman “Psycho” Bates was a youngest child. (Answer: highly likely). 

And Tiddles still does love his Mama. He still curls himself in a little ball on my lap and tries to tuck himself into me. He still cries when I leave the house without him. He still rushes at me with open-mouthed kisses, full of love and just a bit too much saliva.

And today he is three. 

Now I know you’re probably all thinking that Tiddles McGee deserves a nom de guerre more fitting a boy of his advancing years and Big Boy haircut than “Tiddles”. But sorry, folks, he ain’t gonna have one. No matter how big he gets, no matter how many degrees he receives or countries he invades or Cannonball-style roadtrip movies he ends up making, he’ll always be my Tiddles McGee. Fact. 

And now he is THREE. 

The road to three-dom has been hard for Tiddles McGee, who has had to endure a whole string of other (lesser) birthdays in the lead up to his own: his father’s, his brother’s, his sister’s and, most recently, mine. Why, just last Friday, he walked into my bedroom with the rest of the family, singing “Happy Birthday To You!” only to crumple into a heap of inconsolable sobbing at the end of the third line when he realised the song was for Mummy and not for him. The injustice of it all!

But today, Tiddles McGee, the song is all for you. Happy Birthday! Now, come give your mama a huggle and a big sloppy kiss on the lips. There’s a good boy. 

So, you’re really three now, huh?

Oh, my aching heart. 

39

18 years ago, on the night before my 21st birthday, I had a dream in which some unidentified person asked me to define God. My answer was this: “God is like playing hide and seek with your sister. You walk into the room and it feels like she’s everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.”

Now, before anyone goes thinking I am anything other than terminally agnostic, I should counter-balance this dream with the fact that my daughter asked me just yesterday what a Baby Teaser was. Turns out her friend has a favourite song about “some Baby Teasers in a manger”. Need I say more?

Anyway, I found myself recalling that dream the other day  - and not because my birthday was approaching and I was taking stock of the scant moments of profundity I’ve had in my 39 years on this planet (“There is such a thing as too much tequila” possibly being the only other one).

I thought of the dream because Mr Justice decided at the last minute that he wanted to take his remote-controlled Batman car in for Show And Tell. After a widespread search of the House That Ate Paris, we managed to only find the car but not the remote control. And in my mind, I had one of those cinematic montage’o'memories sequences as I remembered all the places I had ever seen the damn thing: languishing in a corner, at the bottom of the Barbie box, underneath Mr Justice’s bed, in “time out” on a high shelf… As Mr Justice himself exclaimed: “I’ve seen it at least four times in the last year!”

So yes, I found myself thinking that the remote control felt like it was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Just like God. Now I don’t know about God (terminally agnostic, remember?), but in the end, the remote control was mostly nowhere and Mr Justice was forced to change his S&T plans. 

Of course I managed to wander around the house the rest of the day, still searching, searching, searching … in much the way someone might wander vaguely about looking for scissors, making that scissors action with their fingers. I began cursing that the stupid remote control wasn’t attached to the stupid car, except then it wouldn’t have been a “remote” control and therefore be even stupider. And to add insult to injury, in my travels around the house, I kept finding all the other stupid items I’d recently searched high and low for without success – except now, when I no longer needed them and just the very sight of them hurt me. 

Anyway, all that aside, today is my 39th birthday. Unlike most people, I tend to make New Year’s Eve-type resolutions on my birthday. Mostly because my birthday is exactly seven weeks before Christmas and  I am incredibly unlikely to do anything rash or stupid like try to give up alcohol or butter. 

So here are my Birthday Resolutions for the year leading up to the Big Four-Oh:

• try not to use the words “ARSE”, “BUM” or “PISS” around my children or the Principal of my child’s school;
• stop wearing my maternity trousers;
• get a hair cut (since it’s been about 15 months since my last one, that’s harder than it sounds);
• keep this blog going without upsetting anyone I love or inviting legal action;
• find the perfect pair of red shoes to turn 40 in;
• stop calling everything STUPID except when really absolutely necessary;
• find the stupid remote control for the stupid Batman car. 

Happy Birthday, Me.