Have you ever heard of these mothers, especially in years gone by, who would say: “I laboured for forty-eight hours [or however long] to bring you into this world, now you can do x for me/now you’re not even prepared to do x for me!” I love using this one on my kids, but there’s a twist to it.
All three times I gave birth, it went pretty quickly. J was four hours from show to hello. I was then determined to cut that time in half with the next birth, and after reading a snippet in some parenting magazine that walking about fifteen kilometres a week during pregnancy can seriously shorten the duration of birth, I walked three kilometres a day, five days a week. Pushing little Jonathan in his pram. L’s birth took one and a half hours.
Then N came along, and really broke records by taking forty-seven minutes from first contraction to here-I-am. Seeing as I have a really stupid sense of humour, I find it hilarious to tell the kids: “I laboured for forty-seven minutes to bring you into this world, now tickle my back!” That and brushing my hair. I love it, and always cajole them with the ‘I laboured for…’ thing to get them to indulge me, laughing about my silly joke every time.
L is not stupid, though. The other day as she brushed my hair, she says: “Mommy, you know, you took four hours to give birth to J, one and a half hours with me, and forty-seven minutes for N. We’ve been tickling your back probably once a week for five minutes each for the last six years or so. That’s a lot of time, if you put it all together. I reckon you owe us two babies!”
I love that girl of mine so much. She has a wicked sense of humour.
No comments:
Post a Comment