Spring Chickens

There comes a time in our lives when we’re awakened by the startling reality that we are no longer spring chickens.

This depressing moment came for me some years ago when I realised the All Blacks – who I’d always looked up to – were all younger than me.

For a friend, it came 25,000ft up in the air when she caught sight of her pilot, who looked all of 15-years-old.

It occurred again at the Eminem concert at Western Springs last weekend.

Present, were those like myself - fans since his first hit “My Name Is” broke out in 1999, which sparked the closely-followed Slim Shady phenomenon - who looked vaguely blank for most of the duration of the show as rap after unfamiliar rap played out.

And then there were the clued-up teenage homie g’s.

As an estimate, from where I was standing, I would guess around 80 per cent of the 55,000 swarming the hillside amphitheatre were in their teens or early 20s, which would mean they were practically still in their diapers when these earlier songs were hits.

This means that, either they’ve grown up listening to their parents’ CD’s or, sometime over the last decade Eminem had gone on to release more albums.

Where have I been?!

Last I heard he was taking a break and saying goodbye to Hollywood, still spitting venom at his mum every chance he got, his daughter Hailie was seven and he’d broken up with Kim for the umpteenth time.

“Oh no, his daughter Hailie is now in her late teens and a beautiful cheerleader,” some teenage girls informed me whilst waiting in the port-a-loo queue which spiralled up the hill into infinity.

I felt the need to explain my ignorance was due to being snowed under with babies and pre-schoolers over the past almost-decade and, therefore any extra noise, like the radio, had not factored in. However, despite the big gap, I had finally come up for air and had the latest new releases on my ipod, I proudly informed them.

Such was the wait, that they brought me up to speed on the whole lowdown of Marshall Mathers’ life over the past ten years-plus so I thanked them before we departed and re-joined my “geriatric” buddies to share my learnings.

It didn’t matter, the songs were catchy and, at times, he blew the crowd away busting out rhyme that defied the speed of sound. He pleased all by, not only playing his latest hits but belting out a remix of the original Slim Shady series, followed by his movie hit as an encore.

Many, including myself, agreed it was the best concert they’d been to and it says a lot about an artist to satisfy multiple generations.

This was evident the next time I jumped the queue at the port-a-loos and be-friended the lovely teenage girl who let me in.

She had travelled up from Wellington with her 50-year-old father – they were both fans.

And as I followed the mass exodus of teenage homie g’s towards the gates, I wondered if one day I’d see myself back here as a parent-pushing-50, accompanying my own teenagers.

That could be seen as tragic, but, actually I think it would be pretty cool.

Play Dates

Don’t you just love it when you walk in the door from school pick-up after a busy day at work and there are strangers camped on your other doorstep claiming their child has a play date with your son?

Evidently Master Seven and his new-found friend – somebody I’d never heard of – had concocted the play date and omitted to tell me.

“We thought we’d better check it was still alright before dropping him off,” his mother kindly said.

I looked from her to her son to mine, reassuring her it was fine whilst simultaneously trying to shoot my Master Seven a “You’re in big trouble!” look.

The multi-tasking proved unsuccessful this time and I gave up, admitting to her that I had no idea about the playdate or, in fact, who her son was.

Still, he seemed a nice boy so I welcomed him in and decided to save the lecture for later. As it happened he was no trouble and the fourth child balanced things out nicely, resulting in peace while I cooked dinner and made lunches.

Master Seven got his lecture once his friend went home but he kept it quiet that he’d already lined up another two playdates – a double sleep-over in fact.

But it wasn’t me that copped that one. His dad rang up some days later and asked if I knew anything about a tandem sleep-over that was apparently taking place at his house that Friday. It was the first I knew so Master Seven received another telling off.

The next afternoon when I picked him up from school he thrust several scraps of paper my way.

“What’s this?” I asked, looking at the bunch of phone numbers on each.

“You said you needed to talk to my friends’ mums and dads first before they come over for a play date so I got all their numbers.”

And it turns out he’d also given out our number to all and sundry judging by the way the phone was ringing off the hook all afternoon from 3.15pm.

Master Seven was stoked to receive his first phone call that wasn’t a grand parent. Off he moseyed down the hall to his room where, from what I could make out, he proceeded to share in great detail what was in it.

By the end of each call, they’d jacked up more play dates to ask their mothers and fathers about.

It’s looking as though I’d better stop being a party-pooper and jump on this play date bandwagon. After-all, as one friend – a mother or teens - said: “It’s the sneaking in the window, unexpected teen visits that you have to look forward to!”

Back to the Workforce

The honeymoon is over – it’s time to return to the work force after eight years of being a stay-at-home-mum.

I guess it’s easy enough to glorify things in hindsight and call it a ‘honeymoon’ when, in the early days, it was actually nothing of the sort.

Functioning on two and a half hours broken sleep whilst dealing with endless cycles of washing and being at the beck and call of three under three is hardly my idea of a honeymoon.

But then, as we emerged out the other side of the baby stage, it got easier and, apart from the fighting – inevitable amongst siblings – life was great.

They could dress themselves, take themselves toilet, belt themselves in the car, make their own breakfast and even entertain themselves and then, hello, next minute they were all off to school and I was suddenly a surplus to requirements.

At first it was bliss. I’d come back to my empty, quiet house, do the morning chores and give it a good tidy, go for a run, turn out a story or two and have their afternoon tea waiting for them when they got home.

But this wasn’t achieving a lot for the length of time I had to myself and I was beginning to feel guilty. It was time to get realistic and get a life.

This week, and with a shock to the system, I returned to the workforce.

I have never been so disorganised in my life. If I thought mornings were a mad rush before I had no idea how manic it is to get out the door with kids when you’ve got a job to go to.

Each day I vow to set the alarm an hour earlier for, despite having lunches and togs packed the night before and school uniforms ready, we still leave the house with beds unmade and washing whizzing round in the machine, where it remains all day instead of drying in the sun. And my least favourite job of all that I always procrastinate until the last minute – pinning the kids down and sun screening them – is still yet to be achieved.

I’m lucky that my mum teaches at the kid’s school and she has received a few calls from me this week with such requests after I’ve dropped the kids at the gate.

Likewise with the other grandparents. Having a sick child on day two of your new job is not what you want.

“Are you sure you’re sick?” I asked Master Five for the umpteenth time that morning.

“Yes,” he moaned, rolling around on the coach and looking admittedly pale.

I concluded that, with me being the worst nurse in the world and therefore there being nothing in it for him, there was no reason to fake it. He really did have a sore tummy so a contingency plan that I hadn’t even had time to dream up, unfolded.

Their other nana and poppa were awakened with a call for help.

Master Five’s siblings got dropped at the school gates with the increasingly customary call to their nana to sunscreen them up before we headed across town to meet the other grandparents in the car park to hand over the sick child. It was a close call but I just made it to work on time.

At the other end of the day I’m now cramming in all the things I used to do at my leisure, on top of afternoon tea, dinner, homework, baths, stories and “talking about our day”.

And still the wet washing sits in the machine.

It can only get easier as we adjust and I drop some of the habitual high house-keeping standards, although, at this point, it is hard to imagine.

Looks like I’ll be setting the alarm for 4am next week.

School's Back!

I think it’s safe to say that parents and caregivers across the nation will be rejoicing the re-opening of the school gates this week.

Perhaps some will be bidding farewell with a twinge of sadness, but ultimately I’m willing to guess there was a collective sigh of relief.

I won’t go on too much more about how I’ve been driven round the bend these holidays trying to work from home with the kids tearing around. It reached a point where, on the last day, I looked around at the carnage – discarded chip packets on the floor, felt pens lieing around with their lids off (you get the picture) – and realised, by constantly picking up after them, I’d brought up a bunch of sloths who would not make their future spouses happy with this lazy carry-on.

“Do you think we live in a rubbish dump? Why would you just drop your rubbish?!” I ranted.

“Oh sorry mum – here you go,” said one, handing me their empty raison packet.

“Oh so I look like the rubbish bin now?” I asked.

It was time to do something about this. Wishing I’d done it sooner, I lined them up in front of me army boot-camp-style.

Trouble was, they found this hilarious and began saluting me. It did look rather ridiculous and reminded me of the Von Trapp family pre Fraulein Maria so I laughed despite myself.

That completely lost the effect I was hoping for and so I had to start again – this time with a prop.

“Right, I am going to set the oven timer and you have ten minutes to clean up this house,” I ordered, rapping the wooden spoon on the bench for effect.

As usual, the respect they have for the oven timer (which still baffles me) had the desired effect and they shot into action.

The house was tidy in no time and they were ready for my inspection before the beeper went off.

Despite the day not starting well – their stationary hadn’t arrived and we discovered a uniform was still left at a friend’s house from the year before – both these problems were solved by day’s end with the arrival of the courier and the return of the uniform and I had three packed lunchboxes lined up in the fridge the night before and three excited kids tucked up in bed.

“Have you had a good holiday?” I asked each one as I tucked them in.

“Yes, but I’m going to miss you when I’m at school mum.”

And strangely, I realised that despite all my complaining, I was going to miss them too.