Opposite Sex

According to my children the opposite sex is disgusting. 

Whether or not they change, or have already changed, their views is not going to make a difference – I have a feeling they will be in outward denial for a long time.

They are constantly giving each other grief about some particular boy or girl in their class, rendering the poor victim pink-cheeked and vehemently denying the accusation.

The oldest came home from his second week at Intermediate with some big news:

“Mum, at the end of Year Eight, we have to ask a girl to dance!” he declared with repulsion.

“How do you know this?” I asked.

“Because some Year Eights on the bus told us.”

I’m not sure if they were just taking the Micky but I decided to go with it. His utter dismay was amusing.

“So who are you going to ask?”

“No one!” Then: “Can I take you?”

Well this was saying something, considering I’m one of those embarrassing mothers.

“Sure,” I beamed.

It’s actually a good thing my kids aren’t early bloomers, like some of their classmates who follow them round with crazed crushes, much to their embarrassment. Thankfully, Master Ten is way more into his cat, affectionately re-named “Baby Girl”, who can do no wrong in his eyes.

As soon as Bella (her real name) walks into the room, it’s like a celebrity has stepped into our midst.

“Baby Girl!” one will announce and they all jump off their perches in front of the square box to mob her.

Today at 1am there was an almighty crash and I leapt out of bed to investigate. Too blurry-eyed to find the crash casualty, I focused on the culprit instead: ‘Baby Girl’ leaping from the windowsill, having arrived, rather ungainly, through her Master’s window.

“Meow” she announced in her overly loud pitch, to which all the kids sat bolt upright in their beds and simultaneously called her. But Baby Girl was more interested in making a beeline for upstairs to check out the contents of her dish, before making her way back down to my bed to annoyingly lie across my face.

The next morning I remembered to mention to Master Ten to check for any carnage in his room. He returned a little sombre.

“Bella has broken all my Lego base and my big space ship – now I’m gonna have to start again.”

It was true – his room is Lego Central and hours and hours of work had been destroyed in an instant.

But unlike when I accidentally broke his Lego jet boat while doing the hoovering one day, after which he didn’t speak to me for several hours, apart from reverting to her full name, his prized cat went unpunished.

Nevertheless, even if I am second-best in his eyes, at least Baby Girl won’t be accompanying him to the school dance, if indeed there is such a thing.

Intermediate Debut

When my first-born started school I wondered what was wrong with me. Besides feeling a little surplus to requirements I turned and left for home dry-eyed.

But as I justified it to myself, I had two-year-old twins to return to who would keep me busy and the school was just a hop, skip and a jump up the road. With his nana teaching there and surrounded by his kindy friends, he was in familiar territory, I had nothing to worry about.

Last week, I made up for it. It was Master Ten’s debut at Intermediate, a day I had been dreading. The day before, with the other kids back at primary school, the two of us had spent it together and what a special day it was. There’s something about one-on-one time that brings out the best in children, that no amount of X-Box and materialistic guff from $2 shops can deliver. These are the memories they hold onto and, unfortunately, too many of us are guilty of not creating enough of them.

But thank goodness I put that time aside to spend with my ‘baby’ before he is swallowed up by the big wide world. We went for a morning jog together, followed by sushi in town and then, on a whim, as we were driving past Ten Pin Bowling, I swung the car into the car park. His eyes lit up and for the next hour, we hit strikes and sunk gutter balls and he could see I was not just ‘Sadie the cleaning lady’. After that we returned home, where I had promised to have a game of X Box with him. By then my chores were stacking up and I was running out of time before the return of the primary schoolers but I put those thoughts aside and endured a couple of games of car racing (which turned out to be fun and addictive!)

I could tell this was a day he would not forget but, all too soon, it was over as the other kids descended and Master Ten reduced to the back of the pack as they bombarded me with stories about their day.

The following day, it was all nervous energy as he donned his new uniform and chitter-chattered all the way in to school. I had asked if I could drive him on his first day, not wanting to surrender him to the bus. On the way, he spotted lots of other WIS students, all wearing the same bucket hats, which gave him confidence to put his own on. Luckily, he ran into a number of his mates at the gate and we were welcomed onsite with a powhiri.

That’s when it hit me. Suddenly I was crying! I could hear other parents around me laughing and talking – what was wrong with me? But then his friend’s mum approached and I could see she was also feeling it.

“My friend went through this last year,” she told me. “And said all the parents were balling.”

That was all the permission I needed and the floodgates opened and didn’t stop until after the long ceremony. Luckily the school boy himself didn’t notice – I was treading a fine line being allowed on this territory after apparently embarrassing him on school turf in the past.

Everyone waited with bated breath as the names were called for the classes and I watched as he tried to hide his disappointment as, one-by-one, his friends left with their new teachers.

Surprisingly, he allowed me to come over to his new class, along with several other parents, one who I noted still hadn’t managed to switch off the tears. As I later pointed out to my mother, they must’ve been hardened back in the day as my first day I walked to the bus stop and caught the bus by myself. But today’s schooling encourages parental presence and, although I’m no ‘helicopter parent’, on occasions like these, I’m all for it.

After I’d seen him settled at his new desk, I retreated and cried all the way to the car … and home … and for the rest of the day.

There was something comforting about having all the children just along the road at the same school but, despite the daunting feeling of the bus taking your baby further away from you into unfamiliar territory where they’re exposed to new experiences and likely to come home with different attitudes, his new school has a good feeling about it and, so far, he is hopping back off the bus and coming home just the same kid.

It’s: “Hi mum!”, followed by a quick hug, then off to the fridge, before joining his siblings to frolic in the pool.

Phew.