It has come to my attention that my mother has been doing rather a lot of complaining about me on this blog thing. If you ask me this whole blogging malarkey is just one of her little tricks to avoid doing more important things like doing jigsaw puzzles with me or reading my Dinosaur Roar! book.
Lazy cowbag.
Anyway, as far as I can
tell, I am not coming out of this blog thing very well at all. Anyone reading it would think that I devote
my entire life to trying to drive my mummy to drink. This could not be further than the
truth. Obviously I do dedicate a small amount of effort to trying to
drive her to drink (seems to be working very well judging by the number of
empty white wine bottles in the recycling) but the vast majority of my time is
spent labouring tirelessly to help her to be a better mother, the mother I know she can be.
Take yesterday for
example. Now if she was telling the
story, I would no doubt be painted as the villain of the piece, wilfully
refusing to give in to her demands and deliberately winding her up. But let’s look at what actually happened.
So we went to meet Jamie
and his mummy at the café in the local shopping centre. Now Jamie and I are pretty familiar with this
venue – our mummies spent enough time there when we were little after all – so
we were looking forward to catching up without them hanging around us all the
time. I would have thought they could
have entertained themselves for a few minutes at their age while we pottered
around. But no, of course not. They followed us around like a pair of
particularly annoying lost puppies, shouting and stropping and generally trying
to get our attention by loud, repetitive behaviour.
And the constant
barrage of questions. What are you
doing? Why are you climbing that? Do you think that’s a good idea? After you’ve answered those same questions
several times – I’m climbing, Don’t know and Yes – it does become a little
wearing. If the questions were even
intelligent it wouldn’t be so tedious, but I am beginning to think that my
mother operates on a fairly low intellectual level. Whenever I try to engage her with
philosophical questions like “What does left do?” or “What did daddy’s bike
say?” or “Why is that other one?” she just starts moaning that she doesn’t
understand.
And she is so irrational. She says “Stop climbing on that train” so I
get down off the train and start climbing on the racing car instead, and then
she starts jumping up and down and moaning that I am climbing on the thing she
didn’t tell me not to climb on. So I
humour her and climb on the Noddy car and lo and behold, more shouting and
jumping up and down. Why can’t she just
say what she means and not keep changing her mind all the time? Jamie’s mummy is just as bad, mind you. And they back each other up. Just like mummy and daddy do. I ask mummy for a biscuit and she immediately
asks if I already asked daddy and what did he say? Honestly, one of these days she might
actually make a parenting decision without seeking validation from someone
else.
Anyway, Jamie and I
eventually had enough of their moaning and decided to be taken to the
park. This took a bit of negotiation but
we were firm and they eventually stopped flapping and got their things together
and we left the cafe. My mummy was a bit
difficult on the way to the park and I did get a bit riled with her. This was, I must admit, counter-productive as
she just had a huge hissy-fit and got down on the pavement and started yelling
and waving her arms about. I eventually
managed to get the situation under control by just getting up and walking away. Sure enough she followed. It’s just a question of knowing how to manage
them.
At the park it was
Jamie’s mummy’s turn for a bit of attention-seeking behaviour. I mean, in the scheme of things, did it really
matter that much if Jamie had cake before he finished his sandwich? But she latched onto the idea and went on and
on about it until Jamie was almost beside himself with fury. He held it together pretty well, all things
considered, and eventually decided that he would pick his battles and let her
win the cake argument.
They calmed down a bit
in the playground and we actually got to talk without them interrupting. We were having a bit of a manly joke and I
called Jamie a “cheeky, cheeky monkey”.
Jamie’s mummy made some wisecrack about “Pot, cattle, black” or
something like that. It was clearly
supposed to be funny as the pair of them tittered like idiots. We probably should have called them up on
their cheek but we just exchanged a bit of an eyeroll and let them get on with
it. If you argued every point with them
you would never get anything done.
On the way home mummy absolutely
insisted on going into a supermarket. I knew this wouldn’t end well and tried
to explain this to her but she just got the massive arse so I gave in. Sure enough she whinged at me all the way
round. Leave that alone. Stop touching that. If she didn’t want me to touch it, why did
she keep putting things within reach?
She was clearly trying to
provoke conflict.
When daddy got home, I
decided to tell him what had been going on.
Of course he took her side. She
did the whole “oh poor me, I’m so hard-done-by” routine and made him feel sorry
for her. He and I need to have a bit of
a talk about setting some consistent boundaries for her and making sure we are
working as a team when it comes to enforcing those boundaries.
So you see, I have a
lot to put up with. I just wanted to set
the record straight. No doubt she will
spin you all some tale about how it was me in the wrong, but you will know the
truth, won’t you?
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