Tag parenting

Taken

Vonita 9 Comments

Taken

People come and people go

Some with notice and some say so

Others kiss you and walk away

Mothers hug you on their last day

I had a mother and then she was gone

Brutally left to fight on my own

Never again to hear her kind voice

Left with an emptiness, a certain black void

Moving along I live my own life

Free to be me, no one to advise

I heard her advice, in the time she was here

And now she is gone, I have nothing to hear

My dreams tell stories in a dark lonely night

The pain I carry, a never-ending fight

She left me, and never came back

I was left standing, gasping for air

The pain is buried, but somehow it’s there

In my daily life, my mistakes and torment

I will love, for that’s all that stands in the end.

Teenager

Vonita 27 Comments

It’s finally happened. Well, it happened a few months ago already, but yesterday it really happened. My title changed. I am no longer just a mother. Mom. Mum (in Australian terms). I’m a mother of a teenager. And yesterday morning I had my first real test.

I had a robot in the car. Incapable of speaking like a normal person, but using a deadpan robotic voice. Followed by the ‘I don’t know what to say because you are asking weird questions’. Questions about the day ahead. General conversational type questions. These are now suddenly weird questions, and I am not worthy.

Not impressed. So I did the only thing I could do. I dropped him off and never said goodbye. No ‘I love you’ and ‘have a good day’ and blah blah. Just nothing. He said thank you. And waited. Nothing. He repeated his thank you in his robotic voice. Nothing. And so he left. And I got on with my day. 

Different attitude when I collected him. He asked me are you going to speak to me again? Not if you are a robot, I don’t speak to robots. In general. And then it happened. 

I didn’t realize that was how I was sounding. I won’t speak like that again.

Random

Vonita 11 Comments

So apparently, according to my teenage, and soon-to-be teenage offspring, their mother is generally weird, and does random things. Like dancing at a concert. And chatting to the stranger next to her. And taking selfies with both hands. Who does that? And she says random things. In general. Nice to see my kids both in mutual agreement over something.

And they haven’t even read their mother’s blog, or anything she writes in order to confirm their view. (And please may they never).

Yeah. Random. That would sum up their mother in one word, I would say.

Never Again

Vonita 16 Comments

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I was brave when I fell pregnant for the second time (my first pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage). I decided to take on nature and ‘be one with it’. I can so do a water birth(!), I figured. So I dragged the lucky husband to class, invested in a birthing ball, and selected the ‘best’ maternity clinic in Johannesburg. I dropped my doctor who was chief advocate for Caesarian sections, and enlisted the services of a wonderful midwife whom I had read about in a maternity magazine. The big day arrived and time to put everything into practice. We arrived at the clinic at about 5am, and after a quick examination the midwife declared that we could have baby out in about an hour. An hour? I repeated. There’s no ways I’m ready for a baby in an hour. And then my contractions started real bad. She offered to run the bath for me but there was no chance I was leaving the security of solid ground. I don’t want to see a bath. Or water, I told her. That’s fine, she replied, and left me to my contractions. There was nowhere to go, but on the floor and cling to the bed. The bed was on rollers, hospital style, so even that was not providing adequate anchor to my body that was about to explode into a million tiny pieces. Husband was hanging around, not knowing what to do. Just leave! I asked him. He’s not going anywhere. I eventually pleaded, take the birth ball and get it pumped up. He, of the male species that did this to me, the enemy.  I wanted the ball as much as I wanted the bath, but if he didn’t leave the room and soon I was going to murder him. With my bare hands. The midwife returned and I begged of her. Please! Put a gun against my head, I would rather be dead. Kill me now! Cut the baby out, just make it stop! She called the anesthetist, who was stuck in peak hour traffic. He finally arrived and administered an epidural. After a couple of hours it was time to push. A few minutes before noon, my baby was born. I looked over and saw a tiny grey body, not making a sound. Is he alive? Yes, he was alive and I was Mother. And after that, I decided I will Never do that again. And I haven’t! Some things you do once, and learn your lesson. Caesarian section with my daughter, and a walk in the park.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/never-again/

Oh, the Smell!

Vonita 29 Comments

The plan was always to send my daughter to a girls-only school for high school. Now with my son in a mixed school, we are thinking of sending her there too. She spoke to me about it yesterday. Do I want her in a mixed school so she can find a boyfriend when she is older? I don’t think so, I told her. I want her to focus on her school-work, but the world is made up of males and females. So it is perhaps good for her to get used to boys now, instead of being separated until later. And good to get used to their smell, she replied.

Because they smell really bad, she clarified.

You Are My Company

Vonita 23 Comments

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This morning I walked my daughter to school, instead of dropping her off outside the gates. When we entered the road that her school is in, there was only a short way to go, and she is getting older now. I said to her, you can walk the rest of the way by yourself. And she replied, I don’t want to, I want you to walk with me, you are my company. One little sentence that made my heart soar, and heart sore for knowing that she will grow and fly away. Yes, my child, for now, I am your company, and you are mine.

❤