Farewell Etiquette

Apparently I’m so uncool Master Eight doesn’t even want to be seen with me inside the school grounds anymore.

Long gone are the days when he’d happily give me a kiss and cuddle goodbye outside his class. This evolved into a sheepish smile at age six, and then me chasing him and his giggling friends across the field, arms outstretched, at age seven.

It was fun embarrassing him then because he didn’t mind too much.

But this year it’s gone from requesting I give him a kiss and cuddle inside the car at school drop off to this morning’s: “Mum, can you say goodbye to me now?”

“But we haven’t even left home yet!”

“I know,” he said leaning over the hand brake to give me a hug while we were still parked inside the garage.

“Mum can I be second?” piped up Master Five from the back as we went up the drive.

This wasn’t because he finds me embarrassing – I don’t think the thought has crossed his mind yet – but because it’s a race to get into school.

“No, you will be third because you have to get out your sister’s side and you are going to be a gentleman and wait for her to get out first,” I replied.

 Every morning we have this trouble. With Miss Five seated closest to the footpath – the side they both need to get out - Master Five, always chaffing at the bit to race to class, pushes past while his sister is still trying to pull her bag out. This causes a tangle of limbs, bag straps and sibling abuse while I stand nearby giving Master Five a dressing down about manners.

By the time he lurches out of the car he’s in a fouler and doesn’t want a kiss and cuddle anymore, Miss Five is usually upset and Master Eight has already slunk off.

So this morning I began to lecture him about being a gentleman.

“You’re going to find it really hard to get a girlfriend one day if you don’t brush up on your manners and become a gentleman,” I said.

“I don’t want a girlfriend!” he declared while his siblings cracked up.

“You will one day – trust me. And so will your brother,” I added, because he was by now laughing hysterically at his brother’s expense.

But it was too late – Master Five had dissolved into tears. Apparently the thought of having a girlfriend – even as an adult – was unbearable.

I decided to save the lecture about opening doors and learning to dance equalling being a ‘chic magnet’, for another day when they were older and when it wasn’t directed at their retreating backs.

Because, for now, they were too intent on rudely tripping over each other to get into school.

Momentos

“Now I understand all the posts from mums wishing for school holidays to end, and it’s only kindy we’re on break from – Arrrrggghhhh! - :( Feeling frustrated,” read a friend’s Facebook post this week.

This was followed by a series of both empathetic posts – “Haha, I know, patience is my new mantra at the moment”, along with the number of times their child has been in time out, to the opposite reaction from those enjoying being in holiday-mode.

It’s always a challenge entertaining the troops during the rainy season holidays. In a bid at killing two birds with one stone – a form of entertainment, whilst achieving something the kids could help with - I decided to clean out their rooms these holidays.

Help out? Yeah right, and it was entertaining to them for all of one minute. Instead I found myself regrettably standing in the middle of a room that was knee-deep in toys and, err … paper.

How I got myself in this predicament was by pulling out the twins’ beds and unearthing all manner of material. I won’t go into detail here, although expecting to come across a dead mouse in Master Eight’s room the following day made for slow and tentative progress.

Although there were no dead animals or even decaying food matter (bar the standard raison), it turns out, underneath the beds is where they shove everything and anything they don’t want seen. This applies to contraband – (yes there were some ‘aha’ moments), long-forgotten home made cards which never made their way to the intended recipients, and all the items which they were too lazy to put away when I’ve told them to clean their rooms.

But most of all were all the stacks of paper – I’d say about half a forest’s-worth – and this, I realised, was my fault.

You see, at least two of my three are budding artists and it is not uncommon for one of them to produce up to 20 pictures a day. But what does one do with all this artwork?

Every night when they’ve gone to bed I edit their work and filter out the best ones, placing the more effortless ones in the recycling. (It is not uncommon for someone to pull a poorly-hidden picture from the recycling the next day and ask: “Mum, why have you thrown (insert name) picture away?!”)

More often than not they are too special to throw away (how can one bin a picture covered in love hearts and the word ‘Mum’?) So, already with my ‘special drawer’ crammed full of such momentos, I shove the others under their beds aiming for the pile I once started which has subsequently spilled out the length and height of their beds.

So while I was standing in amongst this mess, my friend came around. She gave a knowing look and said: “Ah, I did the same thing last week and it stayed tidy for half a day.”

It turns out the mere sight of all their unearthed and long-forgotten toys all lined up neatly where they should go is high-excitement and the kids go to town. Mine were no exception.

The next day I must’ve been a bit grumpy about the state of their upturned rooms because the twins, who’d clearly helped themselves to my stationary, produced a card printed: “With deepest sympathy. May the sympathy and love of family and friends comfort you at this sad time.” And scrawled in childish handwriting: “To Mum. Get better soon. I love you Mum.” This was surrounded in red love hearts.

Another one to add to the drawer.

The 'H-Word'

 "Mum, Jai said the ‘hih’ word,” narked Master Eight one day.

Hih-word? I wracked my brains to think of a swear word beginning with H.

“What hih-word?”

“You know – the hih-hih-hih - word!”

This was getting frustrating.

“I can’t think what it is, you’ll have to tell me,” I finally said.

“No, you said it’s a swear word,” he said sheepishly.

“Well just whisper it in my ear,” I bravely prompted, bracing myself for an expletive to come out my child’s mouth.

“Hate,” he whispered.

Oh.

I do loathe the word ‘hate’ and, because I think it’s a waste of negative energy, neither hate anyone nor anything.

Clearly I’d given this lecture to the kids on a previous occasion and clearly, for once, they’d had their listening ears tuned in that day.

Interestingly, kids’ selective hearing has a finely-tuned radar for such words as ‘chocolate’, ‘lollies’ and ‘park’. It will also hone in on a parent uttering an expletive.

As a result, a friend of mine will pretend she’s said the word ‘ship’ when questioned on her language.

“When I’ve used the ‘ship story’ (Miss Three) then questions me why I’m talking about a ship at soccer - “Where’s the ship?” Then more lies are told.” 

The measures we take to prevent a swear word coming out our babies’ mouths is understandable after you’ve heard it for the first time.

One day, we’d returned home from town where Master then-Two had thrown the mother of all wobblies. As I recall, it was after dragging him away from the trains in his favourite shop. He was irate and, unfortunately I’d parked a long way from the train shop - carrying a tantrum-throwing toddler for miles in public will always draw unwanted attention. Strapping a thrashing, writhing, disobedient child into their car seat is another challenge and this particular outburst lasted all the way home.

He leapt out of the car and raced down the drive looking for an escape from me. I managed to drag him, kicking and screaming, back onto the property and shut the gate, which he proceeded to try and climb.

After a while, he resorted to booting it with all his little might while shouting out obscenities in a not-so-little voice.

“You’re a horrible mum and I don’t like you!” he fumed for all and sundry to hear.

I let this go on for a while as I unpacked the shopping inside, knowing he was completely safe within the boundaries of our property and hopefully getting it out of his system.

“Dumb mummy!” he went on. “F***!” 

Did I hear him right?

“F***!” 

I dropped what I was doing and shot downstairs at lightening speed, scooping up my errant child, whilst casting a furtive look around the otherwise silent neighbourhood and hauled him into the safe-from-earshot confines of the naughty corner with a lecture.
After that, I must’ve installed the fear of god into my kids, should they ever dare swear because, apart from that one mishap, they’ve never dropped the F-bomb, uttered the “sh-word”, nor the “hih-hih-hih-word” in my company again.