Slippers for Mother's Day never go astray. Image by Magnific.
The first cold snap of the year often arrives right before Mother’s Day, just in time to make a nice new pair of fleece slippers or a cosy dressing gown a pretty desirable gift on the second Sunday in May.
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I don’t like the cold weather, so while I’m easing into it each year, having Mother’s Day to celebrate is quite a nice distraction and consolation.
It’s a day I can count on all three of my teenage sons, who are often hard to round up in the one place these days, being around to hang out with me.
Sure, it might be out of obligation on that particular day, but it’s always nice anyway.
With the cold that arrives around the same time as Mother’s Day, also comes hot chocolate drinking season.
I get to hold an accessory – a mug – for a few months and be pleasantly spared from the questions that plague me throughout summer about why I don’t come with this accessory in the warmer months.
Would you like a coffee?
No thanks, I don’t drink coffee.
Would you like tea then?
No thanks, I don’t drink tea either.
Blank stare, followed by a dismissive look that says, ‘Okay, weirdo.’
Sometimes, I use my lack of coffee drinking as an excuse to drink Pepsi Max at 9am.
I get my morning caffeine fix through this, I say, pointing at the black aluminium can.
As someone who overthinks, overanalyses and overshares, I also over explain.
Hot chocolate is the only hot drink I developed a taste for. Image by rawpixel.com on Magnific.
The only hot drink I drink is hot chocolate and only in winter. I did once believe I’d develop a taste for tea or coffee when I grew up, but sadly (or is it?) I never did.
And then I’m just left questioning myself about the possibility that, in my mid-40s, I may still not have even grown up yet.
I mean, when I was kid, I thought my parents (and everyone else’s) seemed old at 30 (sorry for my honesty on that one, Mum and Dad).
Many of them seem like young 70-year-olds now though, like they haven’t aged in the past 40 years, but got there quick, if you know what I mean?
I feel like my generation is different.
We tried to stay young and hip (probably doing nothing for my case using that word) rather than racing to responsibility.
Or maybe it’s all an illusion that denial has created inside my head.
Nevertheless, I see those quotes that say, “When somebody says ‘fetch an adult’ and I look around the room and then realise I’m the adult,” and relate that that’s how I feel parenting.
Sometimes I look at my kids, who are now 15, 17 and 18, and I think, geez, who let me take care of these humans, who are bigger than me, all by myself?
I have no idea what I’m doing.
But there are also benefits to being a “child” who is parenting teenagers.
When I’m surrounded by colleagues half my age, who (reluctantly) still giggle when someone inadvertently says ‘six, seven’ in a sentence, I giggle too.
None of us know what’s so funny about six, seven, other than six, seven became a thing simply because it doesn’t mean anything.
It’s silly and childish and something that would be completely confusing if I didn’t have teenagers who fill me in early on trends when they take hold.
Six, seven is just one, now outdated, example.
Other colleagues who are older than me with much older kids, or much younger kids, or no kids at all, don’t always get these things.
In a few years’ time, I won’t either.
So, this year on Mother’s Day, I reflected on just how much every year parenting looks a little different and revelled in the moment of being where we’re at as a family unit right here, right now.
The gifts of slippers might be predictable, the duty-bound presence on the second Sunday in May might be a given, but from one year to the next, I’m never quite sure what fresh parenting joys and challenges are going to arise.
This gig truly is one helluva ride.
And it is hands-down the best boredom-breaking gift a restless mum can get from her young.
That, and those new warm slippers for the cold winter ahead.
