Kidzarama

Not what Wren had planned for today, the poor angel.

She’s had a temperature on and off and dozed her way through the day.
Not to mention headache and general aches & pains.

She has her water bottle and empty ice cream container (in case).

We’re keeping an eye on her and she’s going to sleep in with WonderHubby & I tonight.

No school tomorrow, either.

The school holidays start next weekend, and I’m not having us sick all the way through the two weeks like we were the last time.

Update tomorrow…

I have never been a big swearer, but when Wren came along seven and a half years ago, it was like going back to primary school.

That’s elementary school for the US audience.

I had to learn to furse all over again.

Fursing is fake cursing, in case you didn’t know. It’s a well known term, invented by me, just now.

Examples include: Sugar! Frig! Buggerigah! (with the gg pronounced the way it shouldn’t)

I also invented new forms of fursing, such as “bu~ottom”, and “fridge”.

And I thought I was doing so well, until Wren was 18mths old and dropped a crust from her highchair.

“Damn!”

That was my angelic little um, angel. Her sweet, innocent lips had uttered their first profanity, and I knew it was my own special gift that I had passed on to her.

It’s a continuing struggle. I was soooo proud of myself when she came home from school last year and asked what effyouseekay spells.

Proud because she hadn’t heard it from me.

I was especially proud of her, too. You see, she’d read it on the school wall.

Gifted. That’s my daughter.

So I’m teaching her to furse, too.

Or, My Grandma Has a Mean Right Uppercut.

That’s right, Grandma gave Wren a tap under the chin and knocked out the tooth that has been wobbling for six months. Go Grandma.

Not only that, but the tooth tap cut Wren’s gum slightly and the blood ran all down her white school shirt. That was what scared her and had her crying hysterically.

It didn’t bleed much or for very long, and the bloodstained shirt was quickly whipped off and into a bucket of cold water to soak. It looked a whole lot worse than it really was…

Of course, blood always looks so dramatic on a white background, don’t you think?

It made me think though, and I now realise that this is why the walls with bloody handprints on tv are always white.

It’s also why tv murder victims always decide to wear white tshirts on the day they’re going to have their throats slit. Much more photogenic.

But I didn’t whip the camera out this time.

We were too busy washing the floor with bleach like they do on CSI.

Well, almost anything. That’s our job as mothers isn’t it?

To be prepared for the worst and pleasantly surprised when it doesn’t happen.

To put in years of back- and heart-breaking work, in an attempt to mould a living being into a new, improved model.

That’s what I keep telling myself when I have days like yesterday.

Wren’s school had their annual Walkathon scheduled, and it kind of snuck up on me a bit. It was the night before and it was casually mentioned at the dinner table.

“Tomorrow? Really? Oh.” Furious (but foggy) thinking on my part. After all, it was pretty late… About 6.30pm.

WonderHubby caught my eye across the table & mouthed these words, for which I am planning to make him pay:

“Keep her home, she’s still got that cough.” Accompanied by mimed coughing performance.

I nodded. My first mistake.

The next morning on his way out the door to a day of blissfully coffee breaks and managing inventory, WonderHubby made his second wonderful, and yet somehow demented, suggestion.

“You should get her to do her homework & get it out of the way.”

Stupid nodded again. My second, and most fatal mistake.

I’m sure you’ll understand when I tell you that Wren had a radically different picture of how she was going to spend the day. Polly Pocket, Littlest Pet Shop animals and Nintendo DS games featured heavily, as did the television programs that she usually misses out on because of being at school.

I was generous. Or just apprehensive. I gave her until 10.30 before I mentioned it and got the expected knee-jerk reaction: “Nooooooooo!“. So of course I had to stick to my guns and make her sit down to it then and there. If I hesitated, showed any weakness, she would cut me off at the knees and feed me to the guinea pigs.

It was quite a while before all of her homework was done and I was able to collapse gratefully onto the lounge.

Have a guess how long the performance went on for. I dare you…

The other day Wren’s school had a visit from children’s author Christopher Milne, and I gave her half the money to buy one of his books.

She came out with a volume packed with over 100 different short stories and immediately began reading one to Mr Bump, Grandma & I on the way home.

About a boy whose “face was where his bottom should be”, and vice versa.

Hmmm, I thought.

Surprisingly, it actually had a valuable moral buried amongst the bottom jokes and giggles.

And she’s reading.

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