Headspace Real Estate

For Sale: One highly cluttered apartment. Narrow views. Built in cupboards overflowing with useless information and copious amounts of guilt. Mostly crowded living areas. Current location somewhere near a toxic power plant which, on the one hand, provides fantastic amounts of power to function on a daily basis, and, on the other hand, fumigates the air with noxious gases (inhaling these fumes may lead to headaches, ravenous hunger, night sweats, panic attacks, inexplicable drops in blood pressure followed by vertigo and nausea, insomnia, confusion and the inability to control heavy machinery).

Wanted: Wide open spaces so I can breathe easy. Air-conditioning is acceptable, however, country air allowing for a fresh point of view would be better. Uncomplicated design an absolute necessity. Open and ample living areas leading to optimal living.  I seek a space where I can think clearly, sleep deeply, laugh loudly, live freely and love uninhibited. Preferably not located within asylum property. Space must sufficiently incorporate both adult and children's facilities. A short commute to reality preferable. Not interested in any renovator's dream - headspace must be spacious, uncluttered and in good working order. 

Just not that into me

I got stood up. This weekend, actually. Yeah, it was a date, of sorts. You know the kind: I bring my kids, you bring yours. Somewhere between the yelling and the wild antics, we'll pretend to have a "grown-up" conversation, then we'll wipe up the mess, pay for damages, and go our separate ways.

It was a once-postponed date, already. One that we had moved on by two weeks, five minutes before we were supposed to meet. I should have taken the hint then, I guess. Silly me! Trying so hard to be pleasant and accommodating.

We moved the date, true. It seemed like it would work out better for both of us that way, anyhow. The day before, I felt uneasy. I sent a message and got an appalling silence in return. And still, I refused to believe that I could be getting the boot. What? Me? But I'm so nice! As nice as a chilled mocha latte on a cloudy summer afternoon. Of course they want to meet with me.

On the day, I tried again. No response. My skull must be thicker than most, because the message just wasn't getting through. It did, however, permeate my cognition, when the date came and went. Just like that. The time, the venue, ignored in the heat of the day. It passed - as though it never happened. Well, it did never happen, but it was like it never did happened in the way of something that was never going to happen.

Ok.

Message received. Loud and clear. In a language I am not all too familiar with, but the cyber gestures assure me of the meanings. I think.

Sigh.

I am a nice person. Really.

My apologies to Queen

Many years ago, a friend told me about how she stalled her car on the highway when her 4 year old started singing, at the top of her voice, a new song she had learned at Sunday school:  

"Jehovah Jireh, my vagina!"

And you'd think that that would be as bad as it could get, right? That nothing could be more startling while winding your way through after school traffic. Right? Wrong.

Cut to today. After school. We're driving home. It's hot. The windows are wound down. The traffic is inching along.

"How was school?" I ask the two little faces staring at me in the rear-view mirror.

"We're learning about the letter "wuh"," whistles T-Bird. She starts whirring a list of 'W'-written words. 

AirBear, out of sorts for not having a wider 'W'-vocabulary to offer to the conversation, starts whining mercilessly.

"We learnt a new song at school," she says.

I'm stopped at a red traffic light. Cars all around. I wink at her in the mirror. "Let's hear it then," I say.

"It's also got 'wuhs' in," she states.

The opposite stream of traffic slows down. My green light is imminent. "Ok," I'm waiting.

"We will, we will, fuck you!" She croons. Loudly.

Green light. I stall the car. Badly. There's a Jeep Cherokee halfway up my exhaust pipe.

She didn't say it, I tell myself, and restart the car. I smile at her reflection, as I pull away in third gear. I wave at the guy in the Jeep. He's unimpressed. I mount the curb. "That's nice," I cringe. "But I think I missed one part of it. Sing it to me again, please."

"We will, we will, fuck you!" She's grinning. I'm rolling up the windows.

"My sweetie pie, " I've swerved into oncoming traffic, my knuckles white on the steering wheel. "I think the song goes like this: We will, we will ROCK you."

"Oooooh," she nods her head. She's quiet for a moment, contemplating. "But it did have a "wuh" in it, hey mom?"

Yes, darling daghter, it really did.

Through the eyes of a child

When T-Bird has ballet, AirBear and I entertain ourselves for the half hour we have to wait by doing anything from playing complicated sick-baby-role-play games, to building puzzles, to taking Pepper for a walk around the school (if we've brought her with us).

Yesterday Air and I had one of these half hours to kill. With the thought of possibly encouraging my child's arty side, I challenged my princess to a live portraiture exercise. We would each take a turn to draw the other one, as we were, right there on the grandstands in the shade. She liked the idea, so I scratched in my handbag for some paper and a pen.

I went first. All the while I'm saying, "Hold still! Don't smile. OK, smile! No, wait, turn your head this way. Oops! Too much!" and she's just giggling, thinking that she has the most bizarre mother on the planet. Here's the pic:

She catches a glimpse of what I've drawn and starts criticising. 

"You made me look like a boy!" 

"I didn't, look you've got that bow on your shirt!" 

"That doesn't look like a bow!"

"But it's all folded - look how your real bow is all folded!"

"But you didn't give me long hair!"

"But your hair's all tied up behind your head! Look, I put your pony-tail hanging over your shoulder. Here, you draw me!"

She grabs the pen, scrutinises my face and starts drawing. I direct her, just for fun. "Remember," I say, "I've just got one nose!"

 She keeps looking up to compare what she's drawing to what she's seeing. I make the mistake of telling her to draw EXACTLY what she sees:

She starts tapping her pen all over my paper face.

"What are you doing?" I asked, "don't ruin your lovely picture!"

"I'm not ruining it," she says emphatically. "These are your pimples and your spots."

Oh.

Then she sticks her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and proceeds to draw, what I imagine are a set of beautiful eyelashes. "Wow," I say, "I've got a LOT of eyelashes!"

"Mom," she shakes her head. "I drew your eyelashes long ago. These are the lines on your forehead."

Oh. Right. Wrinkles. Ouch.

I have a feeling I'm supposed to have this revelation here. Some out of body experience where I am converted from a life-time of frowning and poor skin maintenance, and sign up for a chemical peel and an extra strong age-defying night cream. But I don't. I look at that drawing and smile. Yip, that's me. Pimples and wrinkles. So. What are you going to do about it? 

And anyway, it's not every day you get your picture taken...

After School Dilemma

As far as extra-mural activities go, everyone warns of the danger of "over doing things". For instance: Your five year old does not need to do one (or more) extra-mural activity every day. Don't overload them, the teachers say. OK, I get that. As a mom, I'd be pulling my hair out if I had to dash from one activity to the next, ensuring correct uniform and equipment for whatever it was my sweet angels were getting up to. Not now, anyway. Later. Maybe. But not now.

Look, the list for this age group is ample: art, ballet, brownies, chess, choir, cooking, drama, fishing, golf, gymnastix, hiphop, horse-riding, judo, jui-jitsui, karate, kindermusik, modern dancing, modelling, music appreciation, piano, pilates, playball, pottery, surfschool, swimming, tae kwon do, yoga, so you can appreciate that any parent would second guess what they sign their kid up for.  

But, from all this finger-wagging, guilt-presenting talk, two questions have arisen, for me. 

Question number 1:

Too much is too much. But is too little too little? I guess what I'm trying to say is: how much structured activity, really, should a child be doing after school? And we're talking pre-school here. Pre-homework aged children. Children who have a stay-at-home mom dressing up and doing puzzles and making fairy cakes for teddy bear tea parties. These kids don't have nothing to do most afternoons, is what I'm saying.

From the day she learnt how to walk, T-Bird (now 6 years old) has been a tippy-toe kind of girl (and no, she never spent time in a Jolly Jumper or a Walking Ring). She is just a natural fairy. She flits and flutters wherever she goes. So, naturally, she was a good ballet candidate. For the last 3 years she has been taking ballet classes on a weekly basis. And she loves it. She wants to do it. She gets great exercise through it. She has learnt grace (questionable), self control (doubtful), and poise (when it suits her). But the point is that she is doing something. This year her ballet takes up an half hour slot twice a week. Monday and Wednesday.

OK.

Furthermore, this flitsy little wisp has asked to learn how to play the piano. A) We have a piano and B) I'm not patient enough to teach her how to play, so she has enrolled in piano lessons with a young (and patient) teacher once a week. Half an hour. On a Thursday.

So she has: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday. Sport, sport, culture.

As far as my 4 year old fire-cracker is concerned, AirBear takes part in a sport program aimed at improving eye-hand co-ordination and other skills in most sport disciplines. Once a week. During school time. And that's it. No ballet (she's procrastinating). No gymnastics (although she has expressed an interest). No swimming (I'm going to get moaned at for that, I know). Just Play Ball. She has told me that she would like to learn to play every instrument in the world, starting with violin (emphatically), but her age is against her as far as music teachers in the neighbourhood are concerned. Personally I think that she has a private fantasy involving Andre Rieu, but I might be mistaken.

So AirBear has: Thursday. Sport.

I have dedicated Tuesdays to the Library in the hope based on a faded memory that this will keep them interested in books. Which gives us something to do every afternoon from Monday to Thursday.

But the question is, should they be more sporty? Should they be having swimming lessons? We have a pool, and both girls swim every afternoon (just about). Neither are particularly elegant in their stroke, but I can see how they improve in their own styes from week to week. Also, TV is not necessarily always an option. In fact, TV as is, is no option at all. The kids watch DVDs from time to time. Depending on how their mother is doing, the girls will watch 2-3 DVDs a week, 47 if Mom is taking strain. Usually, there afternoons are spent playing together. Imagination-based games are generally the order of the day, but now, with the arrival of Princess Pepper, games have moved outside and involve a dog (and usually a scraping or two of poo under their shoes - aaargh!) So I can safely say that they aren't couch potato types. They get to run around, breathe fresh air and have those inquiring little minds stimulated.

That's OK, isn't it?

Which leads me to Question number 2:

What, exactly, is the best after-school activity for my children? 

I feel a bit guilty about the swimming thing. Just about every second kid in Durbanville is signed up for swimming (CA's making a killing). Mine aren't. But they are swimming. Not Olympic-style, but they have fun and get from A to B. Should they have better instruction? If they don't have stroke-training now, will it undermine their chances at competitive swimming later?

And that, blogfans, is the crunch of it all, isn't it? If we don't push them to do it now, are we ruining their chances later on? Is that why so many 5 and 6 year olds are exhausted by the end of the week? Is it because they are being given every opportunity their parents can possibly afford to give them? Do they need it now anyhow? And how do you know what field your child will excel at anyway? Do you have to read their Baby Bush Tea leaves before they can walk? Or do you just choose for them and push them to do whatever you, as the parent, have chosen? (I'm thinking Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters here).

Perhaps the real question is: where the hell is that blasted parenting manual anyway? I swear I have two copies rotting away in my womb.