Attention Seeking

Why is it that as soon as you pick up the phone or have visitors the little rugrats suddenly demand your attention?

It’s like they have a radar tuned into the most important phone calls – thereby entitling them to up the ante a notch or three. At times I’ll tear through the house shutting doors behind me with at least one child hot on my heels as I try to escape their noise and appear to be carrying out a normal conversation.

I’m sure the person on the other end can hear the wind whistling though the phone as I hurtle around or perhaps the panting is the dead giveaway.

Likewise when someone comes to the door: cue showing off time. Take last week for example - I’m standing in the doorway trying to have a conversation with the man from across the road who’s come to drench our cows while Master Three repeatedly lifts my skirt up while laughing uproariously.

I know I’m not alone in this as whenever I entertain visitors with small children they face the same problem with their kids tugging at their hemline wanting their attention.

I’ve read the answer to this problem is to say: “Not now, mummy’s talking. I’ll be with you in a minute,” whilst placing a hand on the child as you finish your conversation so they know you haven’t forgotten to come back to them. It sounded good in theory but didn’t work with my lot.

“Mummy!” they’ll lower their voice to a stage-whisper only but repeatedly get louder and louder until it’s impossible to concentrate on anything else.

I’m still yet to find a method that works for that one but today the tables were turned by Miss Three.

She was, apparently, making some important phone calls in preparation for a tea party and “phoning” up everyone and sundry to invite.

The twins enjoying a tea party
when they were younger.

“Okay bye,” she said brusquely snapping the phone shut.

“Hey Jayla,” I started not realising she’d replaced that call with another.

“Not now mum, I’m talking,” she said in an exasperated tone.

“Okay bye,” I heard her say again before: “Now, what did you want to say mummy?”

It’s fair to say I was duly put in my place.

Anyhow, the tea party went off without a hitch and, as I was uninvited anyway, I made sure to steer clear and not interrupt Madam and her guests.

Swearing

It’s always a shock to hear a swear word come out of the mouths of our babies.

Not that it happens often, but this latest came when I was making a delivery on the way to dropping the twins off at their nana’s.

I found the address and pulled up in the drive.

“Mum, how long are you going to be?” Jai asked from the back.

“Not long, I’m just going to knock on the door, hand something over to the lady and I’ll be right back.”

After a brief exchange with the lady I returned to the car where Jai said huffily: “I told you you would take a long time.”

“I wasn’t, I was quick.”

“No, we were worried a stranger might come and take our car and drive away with us.”

This is when Jayla, 3, piped up: “It’s alright Jai, you just tell the stranger to piss off.”

Taken aback and barely suppressing the urge to laugh I asked where she’d heard this from.

“Cadeyn told us.”

This sparked the hint of a memory which I gradually dragged from the recesses for the next part of the journey before it came to me.

A couple of months earlier there’d been a news item where a man had taken a car for a joy ride from a petrol station with a three-year-old and his baby brother inside while their dad was in the service station. Miraculously, they survived the subsequent crash and were returned to their family unharmed. The interviewer had asked the three-year-old what he said to the car thief, to which the boy replied: “I said piss off.”.

The hoots of laughter that followed caused Cadeyn, 6, who’d gone to bed, to return to the lounge to see what the commotion was about. I felt it only fair to rewind and show him while explaining it was a naughty word. But he must have later told his brother and sister.

After piecing this together I gave the same explanation to the twins who, realising they were onto something, began giggling and repeating the phrase to each other.

As their nana’s house came into sight, I hastily changed the topic thereby drawing that conversation and any blasphemes to a close.

Resilience

We need to be pretty resilient as parents. I should have a complex with the amount of times I’ve been de-friended, called a “poo-poo” or “sent to jail” on a daily basis.

I’ve even “ruined” someone’s day for cutting their pizza wrong.

One time last year when Master Five was making a card for his beloved teacher he asked how to write a ‘T’. Distracted with cooking dinner I told him it was like the goalposts. Boy did I pay for my mistake.

Unimpressed, his face crumpled before he dissolved into a down and out tanti.

“You hurted my feelings mummy. You’re not my friend. I don’t love you anymore. I’m not your baby anymore. You’re going to jail. You’re a poo-poo, bum-bum and you’re not pretty. I’m gonna hide your pillow.”

And with that, he scribbled over his hard work, screwed it into a ball, tossing it on the floor and stormed off upstairs before I could mention the word Twink.

I later found my pillow hidden under the bed.

Then there was the day, as a two-year-old, he was particularly peeved at something I’d done. I’d sent him to his room and, after hearing an awful lot of activity going on inside, went to investigate. There, it turned out, he’d waged a personal vendetta on me, ripping every photo off the wall that mummy happened to be in and throwing it across the room. As I stood looking at the carnage, he made his escape, shutting the door and locking it. I had no choice but to climb out the window.

According to word in the playground, I’m not alone with the insults – whether they’re intentional or not:

Last night Master Three was sitting on the couch lovingly stroking my stomach when he asked if I had a baby in there.

“No, why?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“Because you have a fat tummy.”

Despite this, I should be thankful that most of the affronts have been aimed at me and not a member of the public. Until last week.

We were pulling up outside kindy when Miss Three noticed a masculine-looking woman using a pram to deliver leaflets into letter boxes.

“Mummy why is that man pushing a stroller?” she asked.

“It’s not a man, that’s a lady and she’s delivering mail.”

By the time we got out of the car the woman had caught up to us and Jayla again asked what the man was doing.

“It’s a lady,” I whispered.

“No it’s not, that’s a man,” she said even louder.

Horrified, I almost wrenched her arm out of its socket as I dragged her through the kindy gates.

But the one that takes the cake (which I certainly will be steering clear of from now on) was when we were grocery shopping one day when the oldest was four.

“Mum,” he declared accusingly. “You told me you only get a big nose when you tell lies.”

With a burst of speed I pushed the trolley past the man with the big nose and round into the safety of the next aisle before asking: “Why’s that?”

He looked sheepish before answering “Because you have a big nose.”

Charming.

Too Much Tele

You know your one-year-old watches his fair share of television when he chants “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one – blaaaaast off!” (as opposed “blarst off”.

Five year’s later, apart from the odd American word, like diaper, coming out in their language, it hasn’t been a problem.

Obviously the friend of a friend whose young kiwi lad spoke his everyday language with an American twang may have turned on the tele a tad too much. Then there’s the friend whose twin’s primary numeral language was Spanish thanks to Dora the Explorer.

Sure you’re not supposed to use the television as a babysitter but, so long as they don’t stay glued to it for hours on end, if it’s going to keep them safe and occupied while you duck off for a shower then I’ve never seen what was so wrong with it. Besides most of the programmes nowadays are educational and interactive and my kids have actually learnt a heck of a lot of knowledge that didn’t come from me.

So, safe in the knowledge that I’d okayed these educational programmes several year’s ago, I’d long tuned out to what was transmitting into our house via the tv in the way of childrens’ programmes.

Until I began to notice slang sayings such as “You’re a loser dude,” (said with an American accent of course) coming out my childrens’ mouths. The final straw came when Master Six asked me what “sexy” was. (Have you ever tried to articulate the meaning to a young child? I was stumped.)

That was when I refocused on the screen and realised that Master Six had, unbeknown to me, upgraded to the more “senior” Cartoon Network channel which was filling his and his younger brother and sister’s heads with absolute trash.

There were no morals or lessons learned like channel two’s little turtle Franklin who constantly finds himself in trouble, no teamwork with Nick. Junior’s Team Umizomi interactively teaching them what a pentagon shape is - this was utter bollocks.

Whilst probably in need of a good shake up to bring them up to today’s pc standards, cartoons of the 80s such as Alvin and the Chipmunks, Hong Kong Phooey and Road Runner were far more decent (although I always wanted the Coyote to catch the road runner just the once).

So, as it’s looking like Master Six won’t be giving up the remote control anytime soon (he presses pause, then hides it before toilet breaks) it’s looking like I’ll have to give up the luxury of pre-recording, pausing and rewinding live tv by canceling our MySky subscription instead.

I’ll just have to wean myself off the E (entertainment) channel first.