So apparently I dropped all the balls…

It probably wasn’t the best time for me to start reading a book entitled, “How Not to F*** Them up” (by British psychologist, Oliver James) in my very fragile pre-menstrual state, but as I walked around the library with Miss C & The Ranga in tow - it literally leapt off the shelf and into my hand.

I thought perhaps it might have mystical properties – that by simply touching it, it would give me the power to create well adjusted children or at least help me to fix some of my monumental stuff-ups, but as I opened the cover I realised it was directed at those with children under three – those who still had time to correct their mistakes before everything went to hell in a handbasket and said child/ren reached the magic age of three and spontaneously combusted.

Despite the fact my children are five and three-and-a-half, I devoured the first 45 pages of the book with an insatiable appetite – hoping like hell that I got something right, but quickly came to the realisation that I need to seriously reconsider my nomination for Mother of the Year.

According to the book, mothers can generally be split into three categories – Organisers (routine based mothers, full-time paid workers, baby works around them) Huggers (earth mothers, co-sleepers, stay-at-home mothers, works around baby) & Fleximums (a combination of Organisers and Huggers, part-time paid workers).

Apparently there are positive and negative attributes to all groups and some mothers will not necessarily fit the exact mould of a particular category. However, what James makes quite clear so far in the book is that genetics play little (if any) role in the personality traits of a child and that nurture is everything.

He points out that the under-threes require a responsive, attentive adult to help them develop into a secure person. On a positive note he explains that it doesn’t have to be the mother, it could be a father/partner, a grandparent, a relative or an attentive nanny or carer, and that if a mother is depressed or unresponsive, or if she is unhappy staying at home full-time, that a suitable caring alternative is preferable for the child. However, he then goes on to deliver the old day care centre chestnut citing studies which show increases in cortisol levels and behavioural problems in regards to under-threes in centre based care.

So basically for the general population whose alternative care option is a day care centre you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

I am the first to admit that I found mothering under-threes to be occasionally rewarding, but mostly relentless. I had two children 18.5 months apart and after the birth of The Ranga, stayed at home full-time for the next two years. I am almost positive I was suffering from depression a lot of the time. I tried my best to entertain and engage with my children, but know for a fact that personally I would have felt better if I’d been working part-time at that stage.  

I painted a façade of happy families and sought therapy along the way, but I was so afraid of the propaganda and ‘studies’ that told me that day care was an ‘evil’ place where children suffered at the mercy of their ‘selfish’ mothers, that my children may have inadvertently suffered as a result.

Certainly there were times of enormous fulfilment in my early mothering career, but mostly it was hard yakka. Those who take to early mothering with aplomb will be aghast at my confession, I’m sure.

I may not have been the archetypal earth mother, but for what it’s worth I tried very, very hard.

When I finally allowed myself to send The Ranga to day care for two days per week at 2 years, 8 months, it was like a friggin’ epiphany. The staff was warm and caring. The environment was stimulating. Hell, he could do Mister Maker craft until the cows came home and I could go to work without burdening anyone, and safe in the knowledge that he was well taken care of.

For my situation, part-time freedom meant better mental health, which in turn made me a better mother.

So yes – perhaps I fucked up (although no one has spontaneously combusted lately) - not because I sent my son to a day care centre but because I didn’t do it earlier.

It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye…or their hearing?

I dread the mere thought of indoor play centres during the school holidays. So what did I do the other day when a light hearted conversation with a friend and some hardcore entertainment for the kids were desperately required? I threw my children into a giant circus-themed menagerie for four hours.  

Just walking through the Magna Latched gates, kids tagged like homing pigeons, was like heading into a zoo. My kids couldn’t get at it fast enough – leaping like little lemurs across the floor. My red-headed three-year-old son otherwise known as, “The Ranga”, was swinging through the oversized enclosure like his namesake orangutan within seconds.

Where does all of the energy come from?? And the noise!! The cacophony of squawking children was giving me a twitch and I’d only been there for five minutes. I glanced around and noticed some grandparents with earphones listening to an iPod!

The frenzied, primal rock concert (devoid of any music) continued while I waited for my friend.  And then she arrived…with one, two, three, four, FIVE children. That’s five plus my two equals SEVEN! She has three kids of her own but had acquired a couple of ring ins. This disturbed me on a number of levels…

1.   Is this what happens when your kids start school (as my daughter will be doing in a few months)? You have to look after Other People’s Children under the guise of a “play date”?

2.   We were about to add seven children to the seven hundred children already darting, leaping and squawking around the room.

I scanned the room for a table but every single one was occupied by parents with backpacks and water bottles and prams and shoes and seventy macerated hot chips. I began to stalk the tables like a crazed woman and wouldn’t have gone past bribery and corruption to attain one. When one large group FINALLY decided to leave, I pounced on them, and much to their dismay, I was sitting down before they had a chance to clear their belongings.  Not my usual style but it was survival of the fittest!

The food arrived and my friend and I managed to retrieve all SEVEN children, who in turn proceeded to squish another seventy hot chips into the furniture. God knows how we located all seven. I believe indoor play centres should introduce a large piece of elastic that attaches each kid to their parent or carer. This would alleviate the inevitable journey up a fully enclosed plastic tunnel to rescue a stuck or lost child, or a trip to the bottom of the God forsaken ball pit. Ball pits are cesspits – dig deep enough and you will find a veritable lucky dip. I know they are cleaned blah, blah, blah, but I have, in the past, penetrated the plump, colourful surface to search for a missing sock and have discovered a treasure trove of crusty socks, clumps of hair, nit-infested combs, and mucus-filled tissues.

The magnificent seven then stuffed their faces full of ice-cream and lined up for the carousel. They chanted and rattled the gate like caged animals and my immediate thought was hot chips + ice-cream + spinning = projectile vomiting. 

The Ranga giggled with delight as he whizzed past and then suddenly decided that enough was enough and crawled out of the cup…WHILE IT WAS STILL SPINNING! I screamed and rattled the Magna Latched gate trying to get in, but discovered it was also parent proof.

By some sheer stroke of luck he came out of it unscathed, apart from being emotionally shattered.  I braced myself for the vomit but it didn’t come!

My children are champion vomiters and don’t do well with dizziness, as I discovered one day at a local park when they spun themselves into a frenzy on a spinning thing. The Ranga fell off, staggered like a drunken sailor, face planted in the wood chip and then vomited. I was both amused and horrified and assured everyone that he did not have a gastro virus as I casually kicked some wood chip over the pile of vomit. My almost five-year-old daughter saved her vomit for the car park.  

The kids darted off again and my friend and I tried to continue our staccato conversation, which was punctuated by toilet breaks and the comforting of squashed children. When we came to the realisation that we were flogging a dead horse, we rallied the troops.  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, EIGHT! My daughter had befriended a random child who was her “new best friend and could she please come for a sleepover?” NO! I had to explain that random children CANNOT under any circumstances come to the house for sleepovers.

After a final head count I cast my eyes over my children. All limbs appeared intact, only one squashed hand and a scratch on the forehead. Both were wearing TWO socks – matching and their own!  The Ranga had a tub of tomato sauce and an entire chocolate ice-cream down his front, and surprisingly no one had vomited. I could no longer hear a word anyone was saying, but even with a lollipop shoved in their sticky mouths I could see they were smiling.