Post by Girsha Girl on Jan 31, 2010 20:16:59 GMT
How many times did you loose a child? I don’t mean how many did you have that died. I mean quite literally how many did you misplace?
Ok, so it’s normal for parents to make the odd mistake. Maybe the small sprog goes missing in a crowded supermarket or wanders away at the Highland Games and has to be reunited with you over the tannoy at gate 3 in front of 1,500 people. Yes, we all do it. But just imagine leaving your brand new baby at the shops and going home without her and not realising until 20 minutes later that something was a miss! Yes! Your child!! It doesn’t do much for the confidence of a new mum to go to bed at night and wonder if the entire population of the village now thinks she is an ‘idiot’.
That precious child you love so much is now a part of a lottery. But there’s no cash prize here, just a life to live if she makes it that far. Falling off the bed not once but twice at 5 and 6 months happens to every small baby, doesn’t it? And we all know that bambinos and baby walkers are a risky combination when you are keeping an eye on them but a positively dangerous one when you leave the back door open and they decide to investigate what does go on in the outside world! Bye now we are at about 4 trips to A & E and so far no-one is suspicious at your lack of ability to keep this child safe. By day her life is a gamble and by night due to lack of sleep yours is a living nightmare. Maybe the reason she screams all night is that she is having flash backs to the dangers of the day. So when you are holding her in your arms at the top of the stairs and wondering if you threw her would she bounce, perhaps you would just be bringing forward the inevitable… I mean what are her chances of making it to adulthood? She just survived vomiting up peat from the basket beside the fire. She decided to see what it tasted like while you were out of the room. Oh and there was the day you walked into the kitchen and she was smiling away in her ‘bath’ in the sink and gleefully holding the end of the kettle in her hand. The other end was plugged into the wall!!. That was the fastest you ever moved in your life…. Or was it? It was definitely comparable to the day you were driving along the main A82 and saw your friend riding her horse in the field. So you pulled into a lay bye on the left and crossed the busy road to admire the new pony. Would you like a ride? Wouldn’t you just… and as you trotted round in a big circle you caught sight of a silver truck at the top of the road…YOURS!..with your 18 month old daughter in it. This child who had been fast asleep would (should she waken), be able to open the car seat and let herself out of the door! You threw your self off the pony and screamed incoherently at the shocked friend and ran for your life, (and possibly that of your child!!) This time you were lucky…
Back to the village again and by now you are gaining a bit of a reputation as a nutter. I mean there are a variety of other reasons they all talk about you, but having your 2 year old daughter returned from the park at 7.30am in the morning by a neighbor (while you are asleep in bed!) is bound to keep you right up there as far a village gossip goes. And how were you to know that said child would get out of bed, escape out the back door and the unopened garden gate, cross the road to the park and play in the sandpit in her pj’s?! And you never liked that old witch of a neighbour anyway…
So she made it as far as school. Ok so she never turned up with swimming money or even swimming costume, violin or cakes for ‘Bunday Monday’ but hell that walk to the school every day to drop off forgotten items was good exercise for the you! You were on first term names with the teachers ‘cos you saw them that often, and why the paranoia? You know they thought she got her brains from you!
And ok so she was mortified the day you dropped her off in the car and the head master had to come out and help you change the flat tyre. So what if you had on only your night dress, she would live it down. When you brought a pony to school and everyone got rides in the playground or you made chocolate cakes and took them to the canteen for everyone to enjoy it kind of made up for the embarrassing stuff..She was the only girl in school to have her ears pierced since she was a baby, and 4 times each ear and her nose pierced by primary 7! And come on who else’s mum let them wear a pair of spectacles to school each day for a whole year (with plain glass) and pretend to the teacher she needed them for reading?!!
And yes, there was the little problem of having to ask the piano teacher if she could phone her mum and ask her to come and pick her up (Every lesson!!) and then fact that the piano teacher only got paid once a year, but when she played the theme tune to Titanic at age 10 it brought tears of joy to the traumatized mother.
And she made it…In spite of the dangers she grew up and left home. Now she spends her days having babies. They paint and draw and make cakes and laugh and play and survive……
Ok, so it’s normal for parents to make the odd mistake. Maybe the small sprog goes missing in a crowded supermarket or wanders away at the Highland Games and has to be reunited with you over the tannoy at gate 3 in front of 1,500 people. Yes, we all do it. But just imagine leaving your brand new baby at the shops and going home without her and not realising until 20 minutes later that something was a miss! Yes! Your child!! It doesn’t do much for the confidence of a new mum to go to bed at night and wonder if the entire population of the village now thinks she is an ‘idiot’.
That precious child you love so much is now a part of a lottery. But there’s no cash prize here, just a life to live if she makes it that far. Falling off the bed not once but twice at 5 and 6 months happens to every small baby, doesn’t it? And we all know that bambinos and baby walkers are a risky combination when you are keeping an eye on them but a positively dangerous one when you leave the back door open and they decide to investigate what does go on in the outside world! Bye now we are at about 4 trips to A & E and so far no-one is suspicious at your lack of ability to keep this child safe. By day her life is a gamble and by night due to lack of sleep yours is a living nightmare. Maybe the reason she screams all night is that she is having flash backs to the dangers of the day. So when you are holding her in your arms at the top of the stairs and wondering if you threw her would she bounce, perhaps you would just be bringing forward the inevitable… I mean what are her chances of making it to adulthood? She just survived vomiting up peat from the basket beside the fire. She decided to see what it tasted like while you were out of the room. Oh and there was the day you walked into the kitchen and she was smiling away in her ‘bath’ in the sink and gleefully holding the end of the kettle in her hand. The other end was plugged into the wall!!. That was the fastest you ever moved in your life…. Or was it? It was definitely comparable to the day you were driving along the main A82 and saw your friend riding her horse in the field. So you pulled into a lay bye on the left and crossed the busy road to admire the new pony. Would you like a ride? Wouldn’t you just… and as you trotted round in a big circle you caught sight of a silver truck at the top of the road…YOURS!..with your 18 month old daughter in it. This child who had been fast asleep would (should she waken), be able to open the car seat and let herself out of the door! You threw your self off the pony and screamed incoherently at the shocked friend and ran for your life, (and possibly that of your child!!) This time you were lucky…
Back to the village again and by now you are gaining a bit of a reputation as a nutter. I mean there are a variety of other reasons they all talk about you, but having your 2 year old daughter returned from the park at 7.30am in the morning by a neighbor (while you are asleep in bed!) is bound to keep you right up there as far a village gossip goes. And how were you to know that said child would get out of bed, escape out the back door and the unopened garden gate, cross the road to the park and play in the sandpit in her pj’s?! And you never liked that old witch of a neighbour anyway…
So she made it as far as school. Ok so she never turned up with swimming money or even swimming costume, violin or cakes for ‘Bunday Monday’ but hell that walk to the school every day to drop off forgotten items was good exercise for the you! You were on first term names with the teachers ‘cos you saw them that often, and why the paranoia? You know they thought she got her brains from you!
And ok so she was mortified the day you dropped her off in the car and the head master had to come out and help you change the flat tyre. So what if you had on only your night dress, she would live it down. When you brought a pony to school and everyone got rides in the playground or you made chocolate cakes and took them to the canteen for everyone to enjoy it kind of made up for the embarrassing stuff..She was the only girl in school to have her ears pierced since she was a baby, and 4 times each ear and her nose pierced by primary 7! And come on who else’s mum let them wear a pair of spectacles to school each day for a whole year (with plain glass) and pretend to the teacher she needed them for reading?!!
And yes, there was the little problem of having to ask the piano teacher if she could phone her mum and ask her to come and pick her up (Every lesson!!) and then fact that the piano teacher only got paid once a year, but when she played the theme tune to Titanic at age 10 it brought tears of joy to the traumatized mother.
And she made it…In spite of the dangers she grew up and left home. Now she spends her days having babies. They paint and draw and make cakes and laugh and play and survive……