So there I am, congratulating myself because my two offspring are finally (finally) enjoying each other’s company. They’re pretending to be other people, shrieking and giggling and having a ball. Then Miss Four says, “Hi, I’m Mummy and I have a very big bottom.”
In the gales of laughter that follow I suddenly realise – it doesn’t matter a damn how much slimmer you think you are than last week/month/year, your kids think you’re enormous regardless!
Master Nine: What if there’s a fire in our house, Mum?
Me: We get out. Fast.
Master Nine: Would there be time to get a few little things first?
Me: No. Get out. Fast. (Thinking OMG WHAT???!)
Master Nine: Does fire burn everything? Even metal?
Me: Pretty much. It melts metal.
Last weekend I had two glorious days of uninterrupted writing with Carla, my writing buddy (waves madly). We hid out in a holiday home near Queenstown, and did nothing but write. Oh, and drink the odd creativity-enhancing beverage.
Just as well, because it’s been absolute bedlam ever since; pre-Christmas madness with a capital M. And I’m left wondering, as I do every year, why we allow ourselves to get caught up in it all. The desperate stampede for just one more gift, the frenzied supermarket bun-fights, the manic Christmas Eve wrapping routine . . . And, as we do every year, Beloved and I swear we’ll be finished in time to enjoy a quiet Christmas Eve wine. (Yeah, right.) If only our kids knew the half of what goes into the magic of Christmas . . .
Snow, glorious snow! The weatherman got it right, for once! We woke to that unmistakable Snow Silence and raced each other to the window because, although Christchurch gets chilly in winter, we don’t often get snow settling.
There it was. The largest snowfall Christchurch has experienced in 15 years. Beautiful. But deadly cold for those poor folk who, post-quake, haven’t yet had their heating replaced. My heart goes out to them. I just hope everyone has been able to keep warm with friends and family.
We’re lucky. Our logburner’s in, so we’ve been able to enjoy the snow the way it should be enjoyed. A snowman, snowball fights, snowflake-catching, and witnessing Little Miss Two’s sense of wonder. Magic.
You’d think God would be kinder to me. I mean, s/he’s thrown half a dozen significant earthquakes at me in the past nine months (hell, by comparison even pregnancy’s fun), and we’re being put through thousands of aftershocks, not to mention the loss of job security. Our city’s broken. Isn’t that enough?
I took on a part-time job. Just a little one. Hell, it barely even counts as a job! But it’s enough to let us have takeaways on a Friday night without a dose of the guilts – and that, folks, is a Big Deal for us just now.
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