Brace yourselves, readers. Mama Long is on the ‘rantpage’.
RANT NUMBER 1: Other adult humans and their unwelcome opinions
Scamp is two and a half years old. From the day she was propelled from my womb, she began to search for her thumb. My opinion on my daughter’s propensity to suckle on her digit of choice is this;
‘It’s her thumb; she’s young; it brings her comfort; her father and I shall start saving for future orthodontic treatments’.
Whilst I stood in the baby aisle, staring at nappies, trying to decipher what size Scamp’s backside was, my little cherub was quietly sitting in the trolley, sucking her thumb when an over-made-up creature from ‘Stick-ya-nose-in-ville’ came within four inches of my angel bear’s face and said;
‘Get that dirty thumb out of your mouth!’
I had a ‘What the fish did she just say moment?’ An eerie silence fell around us. The calm before the storm.
After throwing her the obligatory ‘hairy eyeballs’, I initiated ‘Lioness mode’.
‘Excuse me’, I said, calmly.
‘If my daughter wants to suck her thumb until she is 25 years old, she can do so. I don’t see how it concerns you? In fact, she can suck her toes for all I care!’
Needless to say, my mind was swarming with expletives and derogatory comments about the visibility of the woman’s moustache, but one must maintain some level of decorum in public.
RANT NUMBER 2: 15-minute meals, my booty!
I’m 36 years old. I have a tumultuous relationship with my kitchen (a.k.a. Hell-box) which is not going to change. It’s too late for us and now.
Prior to motherhood, I contemplated filling my kitchen with books, a record player and, adorning the walls with posters of Tom Hardy, Idris Elba and Eddie Vedder. Scamp arrived and all that remains of that is a pipedream.
I can cope with making meals and snacks for Scamp in the Hell-box. What I abhor is the incessant garbles from celebrity cooks and chefs about how easy and quick it is to prepare nutritious and fun meals for the family in less than 15 or 30 minutes.
Go away! Give me a break! Firstly, I don’t have a Hell-box the size of Kensington Palace with 25,000 ceramic bowls, copper plated frying pans and fancy casserole dishes.
Secondly, I am NOT battering the arse off a pomegranate with a wooden spoon. There are already squadrons of blueberries bleeding their guts into the carpet in my front room. Lines of rogue peas have rolled behind cupboards, never to be seen again. I can smell a fermenting apple in my car and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out where it is. So, quit it with the preaching!
RANT NUMBER 3: Throw away your throwaway comments
I’m sure you have experienced the slap of a throwaway comment. They usually come from someone whose brain is not completely connected to their mouth.
‘Oh your daughter is tall for her age, isn’t she? It could be a real hindrance for her when she’s older and she wants to find a man. And, she’s very shy. You might want to help her with that’.
Not unlike the supermarket incident described earlier, I try to maintain an outer air of calmness;
‘Yes, she is beautifully tall. Well, she may not want a man. And, if she decides there is room in her life for one, she can always do what Mummy did and find a tall one from South Africa. LOL, they grow them big over there, don’t they? Hmmm, yes. Oh, I don’t worry about her shyness at all. She’s only two years old. She’s hardly going to be full of chit chat, is she? Probably just a developmental stage”
'Uh! So what is she is tall?' Her father is tall so the likelihood is that she will be tall. That’s how genetics usually works.
Crikey! I didn’t realise that all men in Ireland were short? Those rugby boys on the T.V. look quite tall. Maybe that’s the camera angle?
All I care about is that she is happy, healthy, and content so why don’t you go shove your throw away comments where the sun don’t shine?
Thank you for indulging my frustrations.
‘Rantpage’ complete.
