PARENT LOSES WILL-TO-LIVE AT INDOOR PLAY CENTRE

When I was a child-free, busy career-woman waking up to the sprinkling of rain on a weekend was kind of romantic and the perfect excuse to stay in bed longer. The worst that could happen is a picnic or BBQ would need to be moved undercover, but to be honest I wasn’t really rolling in picnic invitations. In fact most weekends I was suffering from at least a minor hangover, so really the world could have frozen over outside and as long as I had a doona I’d be happy.

Then two tenacious little wriggly things changed all that when they found their way through the perils of my uterean landscape into ovum heaven. Rain on a weekend now means only one thing and it is no longer a nice warm lie in, it in no way resembles a snuggle as you drift between hazy consciousness and la-la-land, and it causes worse brain damage than any amount of alcohol consumption. ‘IT’ is the INDOOR PLAY CENTRE.

Three simple words that in isolation are all quite innocuous, they could even be seen as quite positive, but when combined in this particular order contain the power to strike fear into the hearts of the brave, reduce the stoic to cowering messes of tears and transform the cool, calm and collected to hot, bothered and berserk.

Funnily enough the truth of this doesn’t prevent desperate parents from once again venturing into the fray at the slightest hint of rain. For some reason the last memory of play-centre insanity is overshadowed by the more recent hell raised by two trapped banshees, I mean boys, in the space formerly recognised as the home. Which, after a morning of rain, is easily mistaken for a small landfill site. And letting them loose in a ball-filled pit of despair seems like the better option to living in a tip for a day…until you arrive.

The noise itself, something akin to the screams of a thousand cats being strangled, would send any normal person running in the opposite direction, but to a parent on a rainy day, they stay the course, wildly hanging on to the hope that this time, despite blood pouring from their ears, it will be fun for all.

It really isn’t until you are through the door and you lose sight of one child in the multi-level tunnels, nets and padded shapes and the other disappears under a rainbow of germ-infested plastic balls that the horror returns and you realise the error of your ways. By then it is too late to retreat as your hell, is your children’s idea of the most fun they have ever had in their whole life.

On this particular morning I looked jealously at parents sitting at tables, relaxed with coffees, smug in the knowledge they can leave there over-four year old to fend for themselves, which is code for my child is now big enough to run into, push over, throw balls at everyone else’s children. Conversely I removed my shoes and ran around on padded vinyl, batting big kids out of the way and diverting incoming missiles as my 16 month old giggled his way through mazes and ball pits. My only consolation was knowing my hubby was currently squeezing himself through a wobbling, netted tunnel three levels above the ground in an effort to keep sight of our 2 year old, who was about to disappear into a mess of mangled bodies hurtling themselves down a 30ft slide on hessian bags.

Don't be fooled by the pretty colours and cute monkeys...this is HELL on earth.

There is always an island of respite with a sign above it stating, “under fours only”. Again a glimmer of hope returns as you drag your child towards the single level, fenced in, near empty toddler area, and almost hysterically sell-in the excitement of what is obviously the most boring area in the centre, even a dirty cup off the floor is more captivating, because god-forbid you could be allowed to relax for more than 5 seconds. Their sudden possession by the spirit of hell drawing them back to the rampaging levels of mayhem drives you back through the gate to hell again. And you watch as they head, giggling for certain injury.

We escaped this time with only a four year jumping on our 16 month old’s head from height no less, but xrays were not required, and other than the obligatory “Damien” impersonations as we try to extract our little energy balls from their extremely fun “pinball machine”, we escaped with our lives only just. But I know I left about ten years of my life in there and if I ever consider going again I require you to smack me in the head with a large shovel.

 ©2012, My IdeaLife, All rights reserved

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MISSING TV REMOTE BREAKS HEART: A Mum's Grief

My little people fixated by their beloved Brum.

We couldn’t find the TV remote to turn off a morning of 'Big Cook, Little Cook', 'Raa Raa, the noisy little lion', 'Show me, Show me' to name just a few. This single small failure was about to set off a tidal wave of emotion. Boom had taken the boys to the park and I was pottering about with the overly-enthusiastic soundtrack of children's shows playing in the background. Then this music came on, it was clever, funny orchestral music used to introduce a small vintage car that happens to be the local superhero in Birmingham, his name is Brum.

Brum has been pivotal in my life as he has captured the imagination of both my boys in a way no other show has. Initially Bang was very taken with 'In the Night Garden', but by the time Crash came along, Brum was and still is the preferred viewing choice of both. Other shows come and go, but Brum fighting baddies, saving kittens and flying through the air to stop out-of-control trains never grows tired.

Brum taught both my boys how to eat, his attention-demanding antics, hilarious music, sound effects and cute storylines allowed food to enter their mouths without resistance. All sorts of healthy items passed their lips as they smiled at Brum.

This cheery little fellow is perfectly designed to make people smile, unfortunately for me, today he has had the opposite affect and I am a whimpering mess. As I leave behind a couple of years of being a SAHM and return to work I now realise that I may never see another episode. I may never be able to watch on as my boys eager eyes take in the action, frowning when there’s danger or smiling at the happy ending. I won’t see them wave at Brum the way the cast do or clap at the end once he’s saved the day. And I will never hear that haunting Oboe trill at the start of a new adventure.

It is the end of an era and I know we will all adjust and get used to seeing each other less but for today I am just going to sit here and cry my eyes out because time moves too fast and I wish I could stay home, me and my little men together forever.

© MyIdeaLife, 2012, All Rights Reserved

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POSITION VACANT: One Housewife

As the lovely Andrea from Fox in Flats-infamy highlighted last week on Twitter I am returning to work in January after 15 months Maternity Leave, and wait for it...fulltime. I know collective gasp from many including me sometimes. But despite a bit of a go, I am being sacked from my role as Domestic Goddess (actually my job title was Domestic Avoidess but no point in getting caught up in semantics).

This lack of natural ability in grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing, tidying etcetera has caused the constant hum of guilt to overshadow my time as a Stay-at-home-Mum. Who knew that housewife and Mother were synonymous! I didn't and nothing really prepared me for the expectation that if you are not working out of the house, you are working in it.

Don't get me wrong, everyone has to contribute so it stands to reason that who ever is at home, Mum or Dad, gets lumped with the home management. Problem for me is I have always viewed housework with particular disdain. Probably because society places no value on a well-run home. Who nowadays really cares if there are a few crumbs on the ground or toys are not neatly put away. As long as nobody is sitting around in 3 day old food or worse then you are doing ok as far as I'm concerned.

But it runs deeper than just lack of acknowledgement. When I was a child I remember feeling so confused and hurt by the fact that my brother never had to do the things that were expected of me, like sewing, ironing or cooking. My constant question "Why do I have to do it, when he doesn't?" was usually met with “Because I said so”, which to my mind translated to “There is no logic or reason behind this unfairness”. The reality was when I was growing up girls were still expected to learn and know things about managing a home and at most, boys were taught how to mow the lawn, change a tyre, but most importantly how to sit on the couch, watch sport while drinks and snacks magically materialising next to them, usually courtesy of the nearest female.

This injustice and my determination to overcome it rendered me slightly crap as a "housewife". Luckily my husband has no such hang ups about chores. He doesn't question his validity as he hangs out the washing, he doesn't associate stacking the dishwasher with discrimination and he certainly does not feel like he's giving up on fulfilling his potential by changing the bed sheets. Unfortunately I do, albeit in a subtle way. But as I look back at my 15 months 'off', I can see clearly that for some reason being a housewife makes me feel like a failure in a way work outside of the house never has. It is not logical, in fact it is the opposite as what could be more rewarding than working for the benefit of the people you love the most in the world?

But there you have it, I prefer the paid work to the house work.

Luckily, as I hand one of the household reigns back to my hubby, I can take comfort in the fact that 'Housewife' and 'Mother' are two different roles. Just because I am no longer at home with my children, does not mean I am no longer 'Mum'. In fact with the extra help we are getting I may find I get some more 'play' time with them, rather than yelling at them from the laundry to stop trying to impale themselves from a great height on to Lego towers.

If I stayed home and continued to feel anxious about my missing-Goddess, and the relationship that has with my Mother-role, then I would not be doing them the huge favour some assume. A Mother feeling like a failure around 24/7 is far more dangerous than a confident, secure one who is away for 38 hours a week, I’m sure.

Now to the task of securing contentment… hmmmm… maybe I’ll go and fold some clothes.

Is housework your mental disorder too?

©MyIdeaLife, 2012, All Rights Reserved

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ARE YOU IN THE MUMMY BLOGGER ASYLUM?

My love of blogging is bittersweet. It has enabled me to write which I love, but with all things that one falls heavily for, measure needs to employed at some point. Blogging is so the mother of all rabbit holes. It leads to twitter, a Facebook page (don't start me on Google+), a newsletter, instagram, constant website improvements, getting published, interacting in communities, functions, conferences and hours and hours of publicity and marketing and so on and so forth. Writing actually becomes the least of your worries, and then suddenly it becomes a huge worry because you find you have no time to actually do what started the whole thing, that is just tell a story, share an anecdote, talk to the world.

There is definitely so much value in keeping it simple. The complexity can really burn you out of the blogging world as fast as it took you to set up your blogger or wordpress site. But giving up on blogging is not the worst thing that can happen. What is worse is losing touch with real life. Valuing your three-dimensional relationships less, especially those closest to you. You see a bit of attention from a virtual community of people can do crazy things to people's minds. When you are getting compliments from strangers and people want to meet you - you can get a weird sort of invincible out-of-body type feeling that leads you to devaluing the people you actually need the most.

So upon recognising this I decided to write myself some rules, that hopefully will guard against ending up living in a box next to a power outlet at the local wi-fi spot with only my laptop as company.

Any addicts out there got more tips? Please share!

Image background source: http://lady-himiko.deviantart.com

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