The One Called Out

By April the 6^th, the year following Daniel’s birth, his feet had become big enough for shoes.    Our excursion to the supermarket to buy his first pair, was momentous.

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Had truly my own feet once been so little that not a shoe in the world fit them?  Had truly I once been so keen and proud as Daniel, holding the shopping bag containing his first pair of sandals, walking alongside the pram up Stirling Highway, Cottesloe with the all the posture of a dog carrying a thick, roasted thigh bone?

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I decided on impulse to stop in at the park just before our apartment block, with the hope that Daniel would expend sufficient energy to drop to sleep when we got home.   Necessary as it was for the young to have boundless energy by which to force through their sprouting inquiring minds, burgeoning personalities, budding grasp of life, it seemed a rotten misalignment of energies that just as I was fatiguing of my existence, a sprite should appear on my calendar, to announce itself into my life, to challenge my attempted surrender to the commonality of non-accomplishment.

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Daniel’s eyes sparkled as we turned the corner toward the playground and he ran ahead to not miss a millisecond of opportunity to play.  I had to call him back and temper him, as he began to ascend the rungs of the ladder to the enormous slide, still holding the bag with his new sandals in it.  How it could not cross his mind that there was danger in climbing some 12 rungs alone, I did not understand.  The only instinct of danger I had ever witnessed in his little being was the first time we were atop the slide and he clung to my thigh as I positioned myself to seated.  For just one moment while I was not sturdily behind him, fear betrayed his spirit; but which innate wisdom lapsed to abandonment as we whizzed down the slippery incline.

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Daniel obediently, but impatiently, doubled back to watch me settle our belongings under a tree.  He allowed me to steal the bag with sandals from his possession, on the understanding I would nestle that proof he was growing up safely beneath his blanket with the other valuables – my purse and keys.

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I joined Daniel as he ran to the foot of the slide and stood watch as he scaled the structure with all the confidence of a lemming off a cliff.  When he had made his way to the top, I stood ready to catch him should he fall, until he sat and allowed gravity to pull him pink feet first down to the ground.  With giggles erupting abundantly like champagne on new year’s eve, he ran to the back of the slide to climb it again.

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There were other kids at the slide, and I had to teach Daniel to wait his turn, during which it did not escape my notice that the two other babes about Daniel’s age were each under heavy guard of doting parents.  I felt overwhelmingly that the other parents were viewing me in their peripheral with horror at my carelessness.  I did not think I was careless, but conceded I was perhaps daring with Daniel.  However, we had been down the slide together often before and he was ready to go it alone.  I felt, perhaps dumbly, that if he believed he could go it alone, I should at least allow him to try.

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Despite my logic, albeit of timorous conviction, I felt inferior to the other parents who were playing with their children so much more carefully.  As Daniel made climb after slide after run back to the ladder, an anxiety began to creep over me.  While on the surface I exclaimed approval and encouragement to Daniel, I began to need urgently to go home – to no longer be under the covert stares of perfect parents.

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Over time, as Daniel tirelessly repeated his excursion, I began to wonder how I could end it.  I as his mother should be of such authority that he ceases fun at my command, and come.   I did not usually have difficulty with him, but as I grilled hotter and hotter in the company of mothers who had girl friends in support, or their own mothers – and one seemed to be there with her father – I began to panic that Daniel would cause a scene, thus cementing the evidence of my flawed parenting.  It was all of the reason I had not joined a mothers’ club – so that my inability to be a sound parent could not be witnessed, judged, whispered of behind my back, looked down upon, reproached in thoughts, agreed upon by the other mothers… also to not be rejected from the group, excluded as of not good standing in our positions of mother and child.

The anxiety went from nibbling at my toes to running all over my body like fire ants biting me at every doubt, fear, perception of inferiority.

“Daniel!” I suddenly said as he stood behind a little boy making his way up the ladder.  Daniel, together with the other kids in line, turned to look at me with surprise.

“Daniel, it’s time to go.”  I said it as if acting, as if I was acting as a mother.  “You can have this slide, and then two more, and then we have to go.”

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The other children looked from my face to Daniel’s, to see how The One Called Out would react.  Such a call from a parent can often preface a tantrum, or resistance of some kind which can be interesting to watch – mouths agape, some dribbling, eyes wide at the entertainment.  Daniel’s eyes flickered with comprehension at what I’d said, and then turned back to the slide.  He made his way up the ladder surely as a fireman, slid down, and rushed back to where I stood, two other children now in line.

“That was really fast!” I said, cheerfully.  “Two more, and we go!’

Daniel didn’t respond, just waited in line, and I flitted a quick look at a mother gently pushing her child on the swing.  She wasn’t looking at me, but I was sure she could hear me.  I was sure she was ready to watch me dragging a screaming Daniel from the playground, kicking, red-faced.  I had never had to drag Daniel screaming from any place – he was an extraordinarily wonderfully behaved boy – but that mattered nothing against my fear of being a spectacle of an incompetent parent.

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When finally Daniel had his last slide, as he ran to the back of the line, I turned and said, “Three!  OK!  Time to go now!”  He ceased his stride and looked at me.  For one second I saw indecision on Daniel’s face, into the very centre of which I fired my only ammunition:  “We’ve got to get home so you can wear your new sandals!”

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As one boy clambered up the ladder, his turn to slide disintegrating the interest value of Daniel and me, or potential thereof, a little girl stepped forward, her head turned to accommodate a fixated stare at us both.  I looked at her and said, “He got his first pair of shoes today – sandals!” with a big smile on my face.  Daniel took a couple of steps towards me.  “I see your feet are big enough for sandals,” I said to the little girl, and she looked down at her feet that were, indeed, big enough for sandals.  Daniel looked at them too.

“Well, now Daniel is all grown up, he’s able to wear sandals too.”

At these words, Daniel had closed the gap between us.  I turned toward our pram, waving to the little girl.  “Bye!” I said.  The girl said nothing.  They seldom do, which is one of the reasons I don’t really get on with children.  The only way I know how to be with children is animated and smiley.  I think that is how you have to relate to children (or you fail to relate).

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But for the times I have wept in Daniel’s company, unable to hold on any longer, waiting for him to fall asleep before I allow my secret of deep sadness its necessary expression – but for those times, I am usually overly jolly, sort of hyper-happy.  I just don’t know any other way to be, but facade.

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We successfully departed the park without any scene, and although I would never see any of those other mothers again, I was relieved that blessed Daniel was of such manageable temperament.  I had felt grateful again and again and again since his birth, all the while fearing what I had heard called ‘the terrible twos’.  I didn’t know what I would do then, but bear it.  Of so, so much in life we have no choice but to grit our teeth and bear it – and of that, I was well practiced.

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When finally Daniel’s energy conceded it needed rejuvenation – but only on its terms; i.e. by way of a 40 minute nap, as it turned out, I wrote in my journal:

Today your feet became big enough to wear sandals and you walked around and around and around.

I tried to instil pride in you by patting your cheeks, your shoulders, smiling and comparing the sandals on our feet. 

“Now you have sandals, just like Mama.”

Yes, you were proud.

I love you.  xxxN

                          MAMA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright, Noeleen&Daniel 50/50