It's the thin line between reality and fantasy.
It's the thin line between sanity and madness.
It's the crazy things that make us think, laugh and scream in the dark.
Overheard between Small girl aged 4 and
Small boy aged 6 while in the bath.
Small boy: “Girls don’t have willies.”
Small girl: “We don’t need them.”
Small boy: “My friend only has half a
willie.”
Small girl: “Why?”
Small boy: “When he was born his mum
chopped half of it off.”
I was floored, speechless and apoplectic
with hysteria. That poor child.
Circumcision is a touchy subject.
Do you or
don’t you?
I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought until my eldest made his
appearance.
Unless it is for specific religious
reasons, circumcision is not offered in the United Kingdom. In South Africa you
give birth and the little tyke is whipped off to be snipped before you can say,
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
On the second day of my firstborn’s life in
London we took him to the hospital for his shots. The nurse had to draw blood
and my husband became more and more irate as she tried and failed. Eventually
he threatened to take her life if she so much as thought about putting another
needle in the fruit of his seed. There was no way he was going to let some
surgeon wield a scalpel anywhere near his son.
By the time the second son made his appearance
in sunny South Africa we had time to think about it. Once more we balked. Now I
reckon if either of them ever decides it is something they want to do, they
can. I do not want to be in a similar position to the parents of boy who went
to school with my husband. Said boy is now in his forties and suing his parents
for circumcising him at birth without his consent.
Parenting is one of those adventures
plagued with those pesky damned if you do, damned if you don’t decisions.
“The best days of all.” That’s a line from
one of my school songs, sang each year by the old girls. The sad truth is that
for many people they aren’t happy days at all and certainly not the best ones.
For some school is a 12 year-year-long nightmare. I don’t want it to be that
way for my children. I want them to enjoy learning, love reading, be in the
sports teams and do well. I fairly confident most parents are the same.
The problem is that my pride can get in the
way of what might be best for my children. I gave birth to them, of course I
know best. The thing is, sometimes I don’t. Like the time I made my son eat
oatmeal despite his protestations and he threw up all over me. Or when I did
battle with the school to force them to send my child into Grade 1 when he
patently wasn’t ready.
It’s now time to sit back and reconsider. I
sat in his classroom this morning and watched the other boys read. My son is
nowhere near their level of competence. His mathematics is fine, he seems to
grasp it well, but his language, sports skills and social interaction is not as
advanced as the older boys in his class. At break times he plays with the Grade
0 boys.
He was born in September and is the
youngest in his class. That developmental gap is huge now, although by the time
he reaches high school it will have closed. I was also one of the youngest in
my class. The others were always stronger, more confident, got boobs first, had
boyfriends first, got cars first. I was the last. It wasn’t great. I survived,
but an extra year might have done me the world of good. Who knows?
So, do I force him up to Grade 2 where he
will continue to struggle or do I let him stay back a year with a teacher he
loves, in an environment he beginning to gain confidence in? My gut feel is to
keep him back. He’ll be better at sport, better in the classroom and able to
concentrate on growing his self-esteem as he begins to succeed instead of
battle.
I have fought this every step of the way. I
have fought the teacher, the headmistress, the speech and language therapist,
the academic support teacher, the school psychologist and myself. I didn’t want
to be the one who made a mistake. I’m beginning to realise I was.
I put my son
in this position. I’m the one who has destroyed his confidence. I am the one
who let her pride get in the way of being a parent, a guardian and a mentor.
Remember
those ghastly riddles from high school maths? U2 is at the side of a river,
Bono can’t travel with the Edge, the canoe can only hold 3 people at once,
there are no oars and only a piece of rope. Get U2 across the river. I hated
those and never managed to get Bono across without him being eaten by
crocodiles.
As a mother
of three children I am now faced with similar riddles on a daily basis.
One car.
Three
children.
One party
at A.
Two swim-a-thons.
What to do?
Small boy
aged 9 has taken charge of his social life and subsequently demanded a lift to
his BFF. I told him to take his bicycle and go. I didn’t expect him to do it. Wonders
of wonders, he arrived at his destination unharmed, but much to the disapproval
of the BFF’s parents.
It’s not like I made him ride across town. Their house is
one block away. Independence cannot come too soon.
The
birthday party took place at Pennetones at the Zoo Lake Sports Club. I surmise that James Small sold it to the new owners, so it no longer has the celeb factor
going for it. It is an excellent party venue and family friendly spot for a
number of reasons. The food is good. The
children can either run amok on the playing fields or indulge in latent ape-like
behaviour on the jungle gyms. There is also a bar downstairs where parents can escape
for some Dutch courage and a peek at the rugby score.
I found
Small girl aged 5 in the downstairs bar negotiating with the barman for his
stash of beer bottle tops from which she plans to create a new line of jewellery.
A short while later on another foray to track her down I ended up in the ladies
where her gang had discovered the automatic soap dispenser.
Once
accepted into the inner circle I was made privy to the matchmaking plans of
five small females.
Girl A is going to marry Boy B. Girl C is going marry Boy
D. Boy’s B and D are unaware that their destiny has been set and quite to the
small girl’s consternation do not seem keen to accept their fate. This is where
the rest of the gang come in. It is their job to round up these errant males
and if necessary force them to exchange vows. If only it were that easy.
My
kindergarten boyfriend was a little chap named Justin who hated vegetables with
passion only matched by my offspring. His job as my boyfriend was to pull me
around on the go-carts at break time. That was the full extent of our relationship
and it worked well for both of us. Also, I’d eat his veggies and sneak him my
ice-cream. Ah, simpler days.
Llamas are
in. Llamas are the new labradoodle. Everyone who is anyone needs a llama. They
are an icon for a new generation of pet owners and soon, I am certain, some
enterprising geneticist will engineer a miniature llama for us city dwellers.
Llamas are
essentially cute, cuddly, mini camels. Llamas are much nicer than their
cousins. They won’t get you across the Sahara, but they can get you up the
Andes.
About 5 000 years ago they were domesticated from guanacos making them
the oldest pets in the world. Not that they were kept as man’s best friend.
They were primarily beasts of burden.
If Christ had been born in the Andes he
would have ridden in to Jerusalem on a llama.
For a
reason I am at a loss to explain a previous post on llamas has received a
rather large amount of attention. I can’t help it, I am going to milk it for
all its worth.
Thought! Can you drink llama milk? It’s got to be better than
goat milk and the type of people who think the more you pay for something, the
better it is for you, will lap it up.
Just think
of it... Imagine here deep male voice over – a bit Brad Pitty.
Peruvian bells
in the background up and over.
From the
foothills of the Andes.
From the
land of the Inca.
Organic,
free range llama milk.
Taste the
difference.
So, if you’ve
got a llama, milk it baby, milk it. There’s potential here. Untapped, but definitely
just waiting for you.
I’d do it, but we don’t have llamas in Africa and giraffe’s
are notoriously hard to milk.
Aside from the obvious food and wool they
provide, llama poo is a very efficient fuel. If you have a llama you could sell
this too. It’s very eco-friendly.
Here in Africa the zoo turns a nice profit
from selling lion poo to urban city dwellers with cat problems. The
neighbourhood moggy gets a sniff of alpha male lion and he’s not going to come
and bully your Siamese anymore.
Llamas are
easy to train, but they won’t play possum. They are curious and like company.
They are very good with children, especially those with special needs.
They
only spit if they really don’t like you. This can be used to vet your teenage
daughter's dates. If the llama says they are okay, she should be safe with them.
The Receiver of Revenue is a lot like I
imagine being stuck in Escher's House of Stairs. Endless. Confusing. Pointless.
The Receiver of Revenue, despite all
evidence to the contrary, has a sense of humour. Its twisted and macabre, but
its there. I managed to navigate my way through the centre of town, found a
rundown parking lot and made my way to their offices. Only they aren’t there
anymore. There’s a post-it note stuck on the door saying they’ve moved.
I was not about to be deterred. I had
taken
a day off and I was going to make it count. I got back in my car, bailed
it out
for a substantial amount of money and entered the maze of city streets
all
going in the wrong direction. I found the new offices, which weirdly
enough are
where the old offices used to be. I bribed my way into a secure parking
lot.
Guard: “Where are you going?”
Me: “The tax man.”
Guard sympathetically: “This is a private
parking lot. I help you, you help me?”
Me: “How much does help cost?”
Guard: “Twenty bucks.”
Me: “Eight bucks.”
Guard: “Ten bucks.”
Done. This is why I love Africa. You can
always negotiate, except with the Receiver.
Off I traipse to the entry, only for some
reason they’ve decided to play switcheroo today and swop them around, so I
traipse around some more to yesterday’s exit. I stand in a queue.
Guard: “Wadda ya want?”
Me: “I have a dispute.”
He handed me a neon yellow laminated card
with GENERAL on it.
Me: “Where do I go?”
Guard: “Follow them.”
I followed the
people in front of me. We
went up a corridor and down a corridor, up a corridor and down a
corridor
following the signs to the exit. After about twenty minutes I was
convinced
we’d just be ushered out the other side none the wiser.
About 5 meters from the
exit we were suddenly routed into a large empty room filled with steel chairs.
It was surreal. I felt like I was in an episode of Lost or wandered onto the
set of Beetlejuice. I kept expecting to see Michael Keaton sitting next to me.
In silence we sat and stared at the screen
waiting for our number to be called. I was 4001. Lost ticket numbers circulated
on the bottom of the screen. I reckon number 722 had either given up and gone
home, or was the man slumped over his seat at the back who may have actually
have died there. Over the next half hour we shuffled along seat by seat.
I
logged onto Foursquare and became the Mayor of the Receiver of Revenue. Not
that it entitled me to anything.
Finally, the computerised voice assembled
from accents of all South African cultures into a bizarre audio intonation
called my number. It took me another twenty minutes to find my counter. I
stated my case. I pleaded. I begged. I showed the evidence in my favour.
Eventually, my impassioned tones reached the ears of a Receiver of Revenue
Lifer. She shuffled over to me and I resorted to reading her name tag and
deferring to her in my rusty Afrikaans as “Mevrou Mybergh, asseblief kan u my
help?”
Three hours after I entered the back door
I exited through the front one with… a form. A form! A bloody form! Which I
have to complete in triplicate! For every year since 1999! And yes it deserves
a lot of exclamation points. A form! I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I think some people get lost in that
building and never find their way out. I think it is place out of time stuck in
a void between worlds in a timeless loop. You could walk out the door clutching
your rebate and find that thirty years have passed while you’ve been inside.
There is a difference between tax evasion
and tax avoidance. I don't evade it, I avoid it because I have learnt that the road to hell is
paved with good intentions.
Watching buff young Springbok water polo
players splashing in the water, can you think of a nicer way to spend a
Saturday morning? All those wet, ripped six pack abs neatly packaged in lycra. Could
this be heaven?
Now, how can we ruin this blissful image?
Oh yeah. Make me put on my bikini and force me
to swim.
I don’t care if my son will drown without
me to prop him up.
I don’t care of the school needs me to cough up the cash to
pay for the water polo pool.
Nothing, nothing will make me endure the
humiliation of stripping down and flailing around in sub-zero water in front of
the Springbok water polo team. Nothing.
I may work in advertising, but I do
have some pride.
While we’re on the subject, would it kill
the school, would it scar my son’s educational development if just one weekend,
one lousy weekend, we didn’t have to go to a sports match, a craft market, a
workshop or a pom-pom cheerleader event?
My son wants to do Motocross. He’s good at
Motocross.
The school wants him to play hockey. He is crap at hockey. There’s a
reason both he and I played the same position – left back. It’s because that’s
where they stick the people who can’t play hockey. We’re better suited to
playing hookey. He can’t do both because, low and behold, Saturday is a school
day. The same goes for the horse riding and the rock climbing and all the
non-team sports my kids are good at.
From a purely selfish stand point, I’d like
a Saturday where I can get up late, go for brunch, do some shopping, have my
hair done and sip sundowners. It’s not asking much. My mom worked Saturday
mornings when I was little. My dad and I would sneak past my nanny (she’d force
us to eat 3 hour old fossilised scrambled egg) and go to Stephanie’s for
breakfast. Then we’d pop over to AD Spitz for shoes and a quick browse through
the bookshop. It was heaven. No doing that now. No, we’ve got to be in two
places at once at 07:30am for sports. None of this namby-pamby family bonding
stuff.
As for the day of rest – the day of what?
Homework. That’s what we do on Sundays. Everyone keeps going about how much TV
kids watch and too many computer games. I don't where these children find the time. I don’t why I bothered to buy the
Nintendo Wii or the Playstation. No-one has more than 10 minutes to spend on them.
So, I’m cool with Small boy aged 9 eking out an hour on Sunday to kill evil
aliens.
We tried church on Sunday for a bit.
It was
a disaster. There we were kneeling on those lumpy cassocks at the
communion
rail. The priest stood before me, my son knelt beside me. It was a
deeply
spiritual moment.
“The blood of Christ,” the priest intoned.
“Oh gross!” exclaimed my son, “You’re not
going to drink some dead guy’s blood are you?”
The silence was overwhelming, broken only
by father’s guffaws of laughter.
I was not going to be defeated in my quest
for spiritual sustenance for my offspring. So, I tried again.
“Today,” droned the priest, “The reading is
from the Gospel of Luke.”
“Not a chance!” exclaimed my son standing
up.
“No,” he said, “You are not. You read from
Luke last week and the week before. This week you read from James!”
“Yes!” shouted several other small Jameses
in the audience.
The poor priest was floored. He read from
James though. After that debacle my mother gently suggested that perhaps I
should educate them on pagan tradition instead.
Of course, they get it from me.
As a child
I hated asparagus. I still do. I equated it with all things evil. Therefore
when the teacher asked who betrayed Jesus I raised my hand.
She was surprised.
I never raised my hand.
Teacher: “Yes?”
Me: “Judas Asparagus!”
It takes a lifetime to live that sort of
thing down.
As a working mother, I am locked in
the
battle with the spectre of the ideal stay-at-home mom. I know she isn’t
real,
but it doesn’t seem to help. A stay-at-home mom laughingly introduced to
me to
another working mother last week. The SAH mom thought it hysterical that
we
working mums kill ourselves baking for birthday rings and overcompensate
for
everything. She couldn’t believe that we traipse out at the crack of
dawn to
watch interminable cricket matches. She just drops her lot off and picks
them
up later.
The other working mum had fallen into the trap when
her son was 3. He chose hedgehog cupcakes. These were a nightmare to make
involving a lot of Cadbury Flake. Three ruined batches later, his mother
finally had something resembling the picture.
“Thank God,” she sighed, “I’ll
never have to do this again.”
Her son is now 13 and every year he requests the
hedgehogs.
If there is anything in her life she regrets it was agreeing to them
the first time.
The SAH mom buys hers from Woolies.
There’s a lesson in there
somewhere if I can just find the time to learn it.
