Dear All
It has been a while since I have penned something to you all, and unashamedly so, I must admit. I no longer have feelings of being unfaithful to my followers. You may well ask how can I be so forward, almost arrogant – well that is because life is moving on very well for me and in the longer term, I will be able to pen you from a wonderfully sandy beach, some place on the other side of the globe on a daily basis with all the comical shenanigans as I can. Imagine this, Esther, sitting in a hammock, sun beating down on her brow, with a cup of ginger and sorrel tea to hand. Absolute bliss.
So, now that I feel the fingers of inspiration course through me, I am sitting here thinking what on earth shall I write about without boring the tail of you?
As always reflecting upon home life, is usually a good start and of late there has been plenty.
So here we go. My eldest son who is now a handsome 16 year old, approximately 6ft with a bulging torso and chicken legs seems to be going through withdrawal symptoms again. The aversion to doing the washing up or any household chores has kicked in again and I am not a women well pleased with this situation. I’ve tried to turn a blind eye. I’ve tried not to get too upset. I’ve tried not to carry on like a woman scorned.
Gone are the days when I would stomp around the house, looking to rip up and burn his favourite comic. Gone are the vindictive days when I have thought about dousing his bed in the wee hours of the morning with ice cubes. Gone are the days when I have thought about threatening to cut off everything other than his blood supply. I no longer rant and rage as much as I used to. For me, at that time, I was looking for sympathy and wanted to share my rage with anyone who would listen. I wanted people to share in my pain, so that when I finally erupted and did something which would involve the police never finding his body, in court I could justifiably plead the 5th amendment. If push came to shove and I had to make a plea it would be that indeed I had acted out of frustration and insanity and that my actions were not those of my own, but the actions of a “mad woman”.
My strategy over the years has become quite simple really. Silence has indeed become my “silent” weapon, if you catch my pun. Sleep with one eye open, my dear boy, my quiet rebel would hiss at my son, as he laid his lazy self down to sleep on many a night. Sometimes, I have slunk into my son’s bedroom, moseying around, looking to confiscate or even “destroy” so she says in brackets something that was very personal to him. I wanted to hit him right where it hurt. I wanted him to feel pain and why? Why did I feel I had to go to such lengths, using stealth and a range of other tactics usually reserved for those in the army, to deal with my son? Because in a nutshell, he was bone idol lazy and I was not going to allow anyone to help me raise my blood pressure.
Having been off from college for the past two weeks, after taking 4 exams, he seems to think he is on a sabbatical forever. Late to bed and late to rise. Then a few hours in front of the television, out with his friends until late in the evening, more television and then to bed around 1am. He has had the audacity on occasion to ask, in quiet naivety “mum are you cooking today” to which I could only look at him with half an eye. Cook, cook? My mind would scream as he would slunk back into his room for more tv. Cook?
The washing up was usually left sitting in the same wretched pile for a day or two, with empty promises of “when I come back from…. I will wash up.” Even to sweep the passageway seems to have become the most dreaded of all evils. On occasion when satan whispers to me in his dulcet tones, I have put tray and plate in his room on the floor. A reminder that his chores needed to be done and if that were not enough to move my son into doing something, then life in my household would come to a stand-still. Over the past few weeks, I have cooked about 4 times and more recently, my child has had the balls to complain that he was missing a good home cooked meal and that I did not cook much anymore. In fact, he commended one-day, I did not do anything anymore. Well, yes, of course, there was some truth to this.
So, rather than reacting badly and throwing the wok at his forehead, after his comment about not cooking, rendering him unconscious, I opened a tin of sardines, grabbed a tomato and headed to my room. Ummm yes…sometimes I go there myself. A mother of a slob – fish in the bedroom – not on really. But I do not have a man living with me at present, so I can choose to be a slob once in a while. (You really should see what I wear to bed on occasions. If the Police were ever to raid my flat one night – I’d be arrested and headlines the next day would read “Tramp arrested on breaking and entering. Found cosily sleeping in bed.” If my parents knew I ate fish in my bedroom they would certainly castrate me. But the message here is this. I am a very very busy woman in the throes of building an empire. For me life is about working together, in conjunction with each other. It certainly makes the journey much easier on everyone. Yet being selfish throws life out of sync for me and anyone in my household not pulling their weight, should expect gorilla tactics to be put in place. So I always advise my two boys to “sleep with one eye open” because they have upset mummy.
I am at the stage now where I will have to get all street and “Ghetto” and by that I mean, I am mulling over cancelling the contract on my son’s mobile phone without telling him. Vindictive, nah? I’d like to think I was being strategic actually. Cunning? Ummm no more like entrepreneurial!!!! I am thinking outside the box here. I need to hit him where it hurts the most without leaving any bruises. I need to make a statement that I am a woman to be listened to. Washing 4 dishes every three days and leaving a pile of dirty dishes around is not what makes a woman tolerant.
So, if you see me in my local paper in handcuffs – you know my plan of stealth and silence and strategic thinking has back fired and I have simply gone for the jugular.
