The Swim

Children are the ultimate reminder of the passage of time. One moment you feel like you’re  desperately treading water, in survival mode, just managing to stay afloat in a sea of sleepless nights, pooey nappies and seemingly endless demands. Never in your life have you been so needed, so depended upon.

Somehow you adapt to these new conditions.  Miraculously, you manage to catch your breath and find a steady rhythm that allows you to keep pace until the seas become stormy once again.

When the wild weather hits, you inhale deeply, knowing from experience that you are about to get dragged under and there’s nothing you can do except hold your breath until it’s safe to exhale again. You become adept at moving with the tides.

Years pass after that initial plunge overboard, and with pride you discover that you’ve gone from merely keeping your head above the water to being a strong and capable swimmer.

Before you know it milestones come to pass that used to seem like a distant lighthouse in a faraway harbour.  The oldest is in school, the youngest now out of nappies, sleepless nights are a thing of the past.  The rough seas have calmed and there is time to float and let the lull of the waves carry you.

The moon waxes and wanes many times over.  Your youngest  child starts school. You’ve made it to shore. There’s now time to lie on the sand while the salty water that used to immerse you gently tugs at your toes.  The water tickles your feet playfully, an old foe now turned friend.  Except you realise now something you knew all along. The sea was always your friend.  Without it you wouldn’t have the taut strong arms that circle your children with love each and every day, or the solid unyielding stance that is their stability and their lighthouse in the storm. 

 

You roll over on the sand to explore your surroundings. Squinting, with one hand over your eyes you see the craggly outline of a mountain. The lofty peak is barely visible from where you are.  Ahhh it's the teenage years up ahead.

Lesson From a Stranger

Earlier in the week after a particularly haphazard day, I gave in to an urge to indulge and so drove myself around the corner to the shops to collect some chocolate and ice-cream.

I swung casually into the car-park, enjoying the peacefulness of being child-free for the first time that day.  Ahh, it was bliss! I’d left hubby at home to deal with the after- dinner, before- bedtime chaos of homework, showers, teeth, pyjamas, story book.  So naturally, I was in no hurry to return ;)

 I slowed down to allow a pedestrian to cross at the zebra crossing and then graciously allowed a fellow driver to make a right turn in front of me to exit the car-park.

However, it became apparent my agreeableness was not appreciated by the obnoxious driver of the black Mazda that had zipped up out of nowhere and was now sitting directly on my tail. The wild-eyed crazy woman behind the wheel began honking her horn at me and waving her arms, like an angry goose pitching a fit.

Picture retrieved from Google.

My mood quickly soured. “That ignorant, impatient twit”, I thought to myself, or something along those lines, can’t quite remember exact wording.

I pulled into a park spot and took a breath to regain my Zen.  However, the dying flames of self-righteous indignation quickly began to flare again and were threatening to escalate into an inferno of furious anger, Samuel Jackson style, when I observed the psycho pulling into the car space directly diagonal to me.

Picture retrieved from Google.

 

We both jumped out of our cars and turned towards each other like a Mexican stand-off. Then the woman ran at me.

 “Oh my freaking God, where are the toilets here!! I’m busting!!” she cried, jumping up and down.

Well, if that didn’t throw a wet blanket over the flames of fury! The anger drained from my body as I pointed out the direction of the lavatories to the desperate woman.

I watched as she ran across the road holding herself, legs together, before snorting with laughter. Then I silently thanked the passing stranger who had stirred up such ugly feelings of anger within me, for reminding me to never assume the intention behind people’s actions.  Sometimes we get ourselves so worked up in life over the actions of another human being, making up narratives in our minds as to why they do the things they do, when in fact their behaviour has nothing to do with us at all and everything to do with them and where they are at.

So the moral of the story is, never assume straight away that someone is a skid mark on the underpants of society. They may in fact just have gastro and simply trying to avoid skid marks of their own.

Precious Moments

This week saw me struck down with a rotten cold. And while I am quick to tease my husband Eddie about man-flu, I am woman enough to admit I one big giant sook when it comes to being sick. Yet thankfully being snot riddled did bring with it a timely lesson, so it wasn’t all in vain. Yes, being sick forced me to slow down. I am always struggling with overload.  Too many commitments, too many jobs to do and not enough time to do them all in; well at least not in a composed, cool, calm and collected fashion. My life feels frantic.

So being ill forced me to prioritise and just do bare minimum for the day. We ditched music group, the kids and I stayed in pjs well past lunch time and I didn’t do any housework beyond the dishes and a couple loads of washing. The rest I decided could wait.

Caden took some snacks outside and we chatted as I hung up the washing. Leona rested peacefully inside and when I’d finished I sat down with Caden and we talked and laughed and made some videos of each other on my phone.  I looked at his sweet little freckle spattered face and thought about how his features all told a story of generations gone by. It was so nice to sit out in the sunshine and just be. I realised that these simple moments are the most precious.  When you are a parent, the days are long but the years are short. Our lives had become way over- scheduled and it was all my own doing. We didn’t need to be sooo busy all the time.

The next day I was no longer knocking on death’s door and practicalities set in. We were out of milk and cat food and I needed ingredients for that night’s dinner.  So the three of us got ready and headed down to the shops.

I decided to forgo the trolley, as usually the ones with the baby capsules are all taken, and besides I didn’t need that many groceries anyway.  I put Leona in her pram and Caden tagged along on foot. That was my first mistake. My basket filled up quickly and became rather heavy. Caden decided he wanted to ride on the front of the pram and make faces at Leona which was fine except for the fact that he was so heavy I could no longer steer the darn thing. So there I was growling at the 4 year old, carting around an overly full shopping basket and attracting knowing and sympathetic stares from other shoppers.

We were making our way through the checkout when Leona started to cry. She was a little unsettled as she’d caught my cold. I payed for the shopping before lugging the awkward and weighty shopping bags over to a nearby seat. Caden started whinging relentlessly that he wanted a donut from the bakery. I took Leona out of the pusher to comfort her when out of nowhere she power chucked all over me and the floor. Oh My God. She obviously felt much better because immediately she was all smiles again.  I wiped up the milky vomity mess with some baby wipes, strapped her back in, picked up the heavy shopping, yelled at Caden “no I do not have $2 for the Thomas the Tank Engine ride so get off because we’re going” and headed out the automatic doors.

We got outside and being a typical Melbourne day the weather had changed from sunshine to rain in the space of an hour. It was a torrential downpour. Well, this was enough to send me over the edge. The swear words I had been muttering under my breath were now being uttered out loud and with reckless abandon. I laughed scornfully at my romantic notions of yesterday as I dragged myself, the two kids and the shopping to the other side of the car park.

A few hours and a couple of stiff drinks later, I was able to contemplate the events of the last two days with an objective mind. And my conclusion was this: the cliché that parenting is one of the most challenging and rewarding tasks you can ever undertake is indeed true. Parenting is a verb and when done properly it is a lifelong labour of love. Every single day presents frustrations, irritations and annoyances but the days are also interspersed with precious moments, gems to be cherished for the rest of our lives. Moments that we will savour and reminisce about when the children are no longer children and we are old and grey.

Having a child is like entering a mineshaft. It can be a long and arduous journey.  Some days are dark and difficult but  the glimmers of gold are what keep you going. You have to get your hands dirty to reap the rewards. Rewards, such as when Caden sings the wrong lyrics to the Gotye song : “but you didn’t have to cut me up” or the way Leona's face breaks into a huge grin when she sees me first thing in the morning.

It's  important to stop sometimes and just take note of these gold moments.  Drink them in and relish them. These priceless moments are what make the mundane, tedious and even the “I’m about to lose my shit’” type of days so very very worthwhile. And when we look back on this journey it's these moments that we will want to remember the most.

 

Copyright 2012 by Yolanda Tentser