If You Love It Let It Go......

OK, so who was the smart a*****  d*** brain who said this then? Very good mate! Brilliant. Sounds great in theory.

I am having a hard time letting my butterfly go.
For one thing, I don't like the directions she flies in. Additionally, her wings are ever so fragile (though she is more from the 'My wings are like a shield of steel' school).

She rightly accuses me of hypocrisy (although I don't think I ever wore anything I had to be taped into) as I was a far from perfect teenager. Many have suggested that I may be reaping a severe case of karma, considering what I may or may not have put my own parents through.

All this is beside the point.

No. Actually. All this is exactly the point.

I am challenged by the  dichotomy of my own teenage (hell....let's face it...my 20s, 30s and even 40s) self and my feelings towards my daughter's developing identity.

It was all so much easier when she was a kid. Somewhere between here and here I was relieved of my Flaming Sword. It's still there mind you, in the background, hissing and spitting in a somewhat lacklustre manner. I can encourage you that, from time to time, I still reach for it.

Like last Sunday night when she came in and started to get ready to 'go out'.
Me: But it's Sunday....
Her: Oh Mum! I worked yesterday so I didn't get to go out.
Me: Ye-es. But...it's Sunday......
Her: Haha...yes Mum...don't worry, we'll have an early night...probably be home by 2 am
Me: (spluttering) 2 am??????? (This is obviously  some strange usage of the word "early" that I wasn't previously aware of).
Her: Haha...Mum you are so cute...
Me: No, you mistake me....don't you have work tomorrow?
Her: Yes but I don't start until 12pm...I can sleep in...
Me: But.....it's SUNDAY

So OK...that bit wasn't exactly me reaching for the sword.

Look, don't get me wrong, the BA is essentially a good kid. She volunteers at the Red Cross shop on Saturdays; she cleans up our kitchen (with a prompt); she gets to work on time; she is a loyal friend and enthusiastic employee. I just wish she didn't view the whole world through the lens of 'personal appearance/read: body image' and the motto 'I party therefore I am'.

I am hopeful that her overseas trip (when she gets to it) will sort out some of her priorities and help her settle to a more worthwhile purpose. It certainly had some effect on me in 1979 when I did my backpacking thing.

Of course her travel plans have been put somewhat on hold by the fact that this young man will be  back from Afghanistan in 2 weeks.

He has been away since March and he will have no doubt changed. I somehow feel that the BA will not commit fully to her overseas trip until she has run the course of things with this very nice, but inevitably 'not quite right for her', young man. Of course, I could be completely wrong and she may marry him and become an army wife.......
NAH....................

Now I wanted to finish with:
For those of you who visit this blog for wise insights into child rearing....could you please come back in about 5 years ad I'll give you the benefit of hindsight :-D;

but I suddenly realised I was thinking about this from completely the wrong angle.

The whole point of the Flaming Sword is that it 'sets things up'. What you do with these precious tiny souls throughout their formative years will have a major impact on their development at this end of the journey. Of course, you cannot really parent to totally avoid drugs and alcohol, you cannot parent to avoid stupid casual sex and you can rarely parent to avoid young men taking their motorbikes down the Norton Summit Rd at high speed (OMG I LOVE that you can just google that!) but you can know that underneath that veneer of testosterone or oestrogen, they are still the babies you nurtured.

Example in point: the other night the BA hopped into bed with me (in her onesie) to tell me she loved me. We discussed some of her friends and their choices, we reflected on her her various employments, we shared the excitement of Army Boy's early return date....

What she does on her 'nights out' is beyond my control. All that I can hope is that she has been imbued with sufficient sense of self to fend off the d*** br**ns and to conduct herself with dignity and self worth. There are definitely girls that age who do this. I know because I was always (sadly) bemused by them..........

The Last of The Roaring Forties

My friend sent me a birthday greeting on facebook this morning, reminding me that this birthday is the last of my 5th decade. Sheesh.

Happy birthday to me :-(

And how will I spend this birthday, this tenth day before Christmas? Well so far I have loaded the dishwasher; taken No 2 Son in to work; received phonecalls; placed a Nutrimetics order. Now I'm off to work, then to the hairdressers with the BA and finally I have a Sunday School meeting tonight.

About as exciting as befits the end of the forties.

Tomorrow it will be 39C and I'm having some friends over to swim and play boardgames. Himself will be forced to play 'because it's my birthday'! That kind of makes up for today :-)

Who Ya Gonna Call?

A few weekends back I offered to help a friend move house.

He had put out a request on facebook and sounded so miserable about the impending move back to his mother's house, complete with pregnant wife and 16 month old baby girl, I could not help but offer my services.

He seemed a little perturbed.
" It's mostly heavy stuff, you know, furniture and the like...we're hiring a truck."
"Cool. We hired a truck when we helped my sister move. Don't worry. I'm pretty strong. I once helped Himself lift a wardrobe up onto the top of the Jeep you know."

And so it was arranged. I turned up at the appointed hour on a pleasant Saturday morning as my friend (a work colleague) was reversing the truck into his long, curving, soon to be former, driveway. There were several other friends there to help and they hung about eyeing off the access, the shaky looking steps down from the uneven patio and the size of the first two items for packing.

They were all men. Youngish men at that.

This fact didn't register for a while as I had arrived in time to attack the first two really heavy items, a couple of tall wardrobes. We used lifting straps and four of us staggered down the front steps, down the patio steps and down the sloping curving driveway with only two stop/collapses on the way, none of which were my fault I might add. Back we went for seconds and before long we had a long queue of furniture lining the curving driveway, awaiting allocation in the back of the truck.

I rode the hydraulic tailgate up to truck level and, with another fellow who had obviously done this before, proceeded to work out a plan for packing the space efficiently, covering items so they wouldn't get scratched and receiving them into the bowels of the vehicle like so many 'Tetra' blocks. About 90 minutes later we swung up the tailgate and I hopped into the cab with my friend for the short drive to his Mum's.

On arrival we were confronted by a set of moderately daunting stairs leading up to the main house and an underhouse storage area which required us to navigate a tight gate, a narrow path and an entrance at the rear. What fun. The lads and I went back and forward from truck to house to underhouse storage area......

In the process of all this I met my friend's mum who was preparing lunch for the troops.

She is two years older than me.
My colleague could be my son. How depressing.

I had to leave at lunch time to pick up the Small Boy from the Yacht Club so I didn't get to help with the second truckload. I got home and had a quick kip on the couch, planning to do a bit of housework or something after my usual power nap.

Well. When I awoke I could barely move. I felt like I was coming down with flu or something. Every joint ached, I felt feverish, I couldn't get off the couch. What was WRONG with me? I slept on the sofa for most of the afternoon.

It was only later that I put two and two together. The Mother who was making lunch, only two years older than me; there was a reason why she was not out there hefting things into the back of a truck!

I think I am finally past it.

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