I'm used to being invisible. You know, Mrs Nobody who magically makes sure every one has clean socks & undies, keeps track of who needs to be where when, puts food on the table, feeds the cat, has spare cash for the boat, knows where that all important document got abandoned, & will roll out of bed at 1 am so you & your mates don't have to stumble home in the dark. It comes with the territory once you have kids.
So I'm out of the house for a week & I expect to find the washing up piling up till we run out of plates, the laundry steadily growing from a molehill to a mountain, the cat in meltdown & psychotic puddles, while I wade Cass to & fro through oceans of mud & torrential downpours so she can shine, however briefly & brightly. The day Liddy realised that absolutely no~one was going to be home to drive her to work, let alone bring her lunch on the dot of one thirty, & that she would have to be very grown up & responsible & sort herself out I expected her wails of outrage, poor abandoned orphan. What was completely unexpected where the solicitious enquiries she got. Is everyone well? How is your family?
Liddy is not without her own ironic sense of humour & comic timing. 'Well, Dino's at sea, I haven't seen Theo since Sunday, Cass in a week & mum in 3 days but dad & I are doing just fine.' The things people notice while we're busy living our lives! And didn't work pay her out about her lunches not arriving! Yet these same adults ring me when there is a work party to assure me that they are being responsible & keeping an eye on Liddy when Liddy knows perfectly well we're only a phone call away ; she has only to ring if she's at all uncomfortable or just had enough.
No~one has said anything but an almost audible sigh of relief has gone through my house this week. All's well: there are dishes in the rack, mugs on their hooks, clothes folded & the cat's stopped attacking everyone; mum's back at the helm. So nice to know I'm missed.
1 comment:
Sometimes I'm flattered in thinking that things would fall apart if I weren't keeping my steady hand on them. Other times, like this week, I reach the boiling point. I have pretty much stopped having the kids unload the dishwasher anymore. It ended up being something they'd finally get around too only after nagging, begging and yelling at them. In the meanwhile, the dishes would pile up in the sink. (Which I can't stand!)
I have kept on top of unlading it myself so that there's not any reason for the dirty dishes to sit around on the counter or sink. I began telling them to put their dirty stuff in the dishwasher. (Of course, the way they load them up makes me crazy too. When they have unloaded it, they have never seen the dishes in the racks the way THEY put them in there!)
This week I made a sign and posted it on the wall over the sink.
"Please load your dirty dishes in the dishwasher. I am NOT your freakin' maid!"
Despite them laughing at Mom's use of the word, "freakin", mission accomplished!
Connie
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