Aida Kaman Stephens
January 11, 2005, 04:04 PM
Oh the joy of parenthood!
I was going to compose something very poignant and thought provoking for today’s entry but I failed. You would have thought nothing could phase a seasoned mother of five young children like me but boy, how wrong can one be. I had charge of only one of my children yesterday as the others were off to their singing lesson and visiting Grandma. One child - two and a half year old boy - how easy peasy would that be.
Well, it took half an hour to convince him that he does not want to go out in the rain only in his pyjama top with no shoes on. Then, I promptly lost him as I was locking the door only to find him waiting - wet through - by the side of my car which was parked on the road. I discovered that I can not verbally rationalise with a car obsessed two year old boy that it is not possible for me to get anywhere fast if he were to sit in the driver’s seat, let alone allow him to drive the car. Nothing short of manhandling him into his carseat followed. When we finally got to the foodstore, I, in the true spirit of a facilitating mother, decided that there was no need for him to sit in the trolley. Fifteen minutes round our rather small local foodstore ( a place which I will have to actually return to unless we become self sustaining and grow our own food), Zak, my lovely boy managed to shake the grapes shelf so much that I think the fixings were actually loosening.
He then insisted that he carried my basket loaded with three juice cartons, 1 bag of new potatoes, 1 aubergine and root ginger. He eventually decided that he didn’t like very much falling into the basket every 2 seconds and gave it up for a pack of sandwiches.
While I was queueing to pay, Zak purposefully left me to check out the ExchangeMart magazine at the magazine stand. He then set off the alarm by shaking the security barrier at the cashier’s while I try to avoid the dirty looks I was getting from the lunchtime sandwich buyers. The journey home consisted of trying to drive on the right side of the road while retrieving his sandwich from the floor of the back of the car.
People always ask me how I cope with so many children, I think next time I might have to ask them how they cope with just the one!
COMMENTS
This is so like me. It is easier to look after all of mine in one go than one on their own.
Great site and look forward to hearing more.
Liz
xx