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Being a parent hasn’t always been what I expected and has certainly had its ups and downs, but I am very pleased to be taking part in this uphill struggle, even though I know that ultimately, even if successful, it will leave me alone on the top of a very high mountain and my kids will have paraglided away.
I’ve sometimes found it frustrating that my daughter doesn’t love me as much as I adore her. It’s a stupid thing to get frustrated about, because she can never love me as much as I love her. And nor should she. I am sometimes too keen to please her and she is cool enough to pity me for that. Things aren’t as bad as I like to comedically imply and I know under her jokes and withering comments that she likes me, but I do wish she was as affectionate as my ridiculous son.
But maybe it’s my own fault. Maybe I haven’t been as good a parent as I like to think I am and I haven’t made the effort to find the things that will make us click. It’s so hard. You’re tired, you’re busy, you’re wrapped up in your own stuff. It’s a lot of effort to really engage and often you feel you’re just trying to get through the next hour or to the next meal or bedtime without seizing the day. Because you’re too knackered to seize anything.
And lockdown hasn’t really helped.
We were all still a bit under the weather today and it didn’t feel unreasonable after a couple of months where I have been forced to take a back seat that I do the lion’s share of things. Even though I desperately wanted to stay in bed and felt like I couldn’t get through the day, I just got on with it and dug in and it was really rewarding.
We did watch some telly and play some video games, but we also played a lot. And this afternoon round at Catie’s parents house, Phoebe borrowed my phone and started making little films and then we spent the next couple of hours running around, making up stories, ripping off films we’d watched and discussing how we could edit this stuff together later and make a proper film. I don’t really know how to do that, but we had found something that we shared enthusiasm for and which we both wanted to learn about. Phoebe had worked out how to zoom in and out and I helped her to learn how to hold the phone so her fingers didn’t end up in shot and showed her how to use the little wheel to zoom. Although I was knackered I didn’t bow out and we then made a superhero film where I was Captain Exposition, Ernie was Fleaboy and Phoebe was Stickygirl and we were all part of the Superhero League. I think this might grow into the biggest superhero franchise ever created.
She’s got a great imagination and a good eye for a shot, and even the greatest film makers put their fingers in front of the lens to begin with. It will be fun to learn how to do all this stuff together.
The climb is hard, but it’s such great fun. You don’t always realise it. And though letting them fly away is going to be hard, that’s also the ultimate reward isn’t it?
At bedtime Phoebe told her mum that she liked me a little bit more now. It’s pretty obvious how it works really. And that little bit means the world to me.
I am glad I ended up in the universe with these two kids, rather than the other infinite ones where we’d have had different children. I would stupidly have believed those other kids were the best too, but I’d have been wrong. Because these two are the best. Even in infinite universes there is one that comes out top.
