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Every day of parenting an increasingly self-conscious seven year old is the danger that you are creating a trauma that will echo through their lives. Every day I upset my daughter with something that makes it her worst day ever (usually for no longer than a couple of minutes). Today I took her swimming. She had a new swimming costume which she was having trouble getting on. The straps seemed to be in the wrong place. I tried to help her, but it was like a super tough Rubik’s cube and if I pulled a strap one way it made the costume too tight in another area. It made no sense. But I am useless at this kind of puzzle anyway. We soldiered on, but to no avail and the lesson was nearly upon us. I wanted to take her out of the cubicle to see if one of the other mums could help me, but Phoebe, reasonably enough, did not like the idea of having her swimming costume messed with and possibly taken off in public.
I assured her that we wouldn’t reveal her naked bottom to the world, though she’s still a bit self-conscious about her healing chicken pox marks and aware that an upper torso is still a private area. The other mums all had a look, but none of them could work out how to get the straps in the right place, or what had happened to mess things up. I felt better because this wasn’t me being a hopeless dad, for once, but Phoebe did not like being the centre of attention in this embarrassing scenario. As usual she was quickly over it, but will my incompetence and this mildly awkward public encounter shoot confusion and repressed anger through the rest of her life. Not yet. But something I do definitely will at some point, even if my intention is always to make her happy and protect her from mortification.
We eventually managed to get the straps in a place where they were comfortable and covered her up, but were still definitely not right. She did the swimming lesson. It was all forgotten. She is excellent at swimming.
She is extremely funny and increasingly coming up with great turns of phrase and withering comments that I won’t bore you with - and they’re too numerous to remember, but I am loving hanging around with this sarcastic 7 year old. Tonight she wanted to find old baby photos on my phone (mainly as a distraction technique so she could stay up). The oldest thing we could find on my current phone was a video of me singing to the 2 year old Phoebe, spelling out her name and her joining in and laughing. We were having the time of our lives and it was lovely to watch it with her, though absolutely horrifying to think 5 years had passed. She also asked if we could play the game we used to play when she was little (probably the last time was only a year ago) where she was Peter Rabbit and I was Mr McGregor (complete with pitch-perfect Scotch accent) and she would steal toys from me as I “slept” and then when questioned she would hide the object behind her back and deny all knowledge of it. She was in the mood for nostalgia (and not going to bed) and I was in the mood for nostalgia (though I really wanted to go to bed). It was fun to go back in time with her. She is still a kid of course, but every day she becomes less of a kid.
