I’d like to think that my friends would describe me as easy-going. I’ve got a ‘whatever’ type attitude towards most things. I don’t care where we meet, what we eat, what we do… most of the time.
I do wonder how Lacey would describe me as a mum though. I’m laid-back, I guess. I don’t wrap her in cotton wool. But I most certainly have my moments.
And my ‘moments’ aren’t limited to just Lacey either. On Christmas Eve I made a whopping big ham, and while it cooked, it sat on a big piece of aluminum foil. Once it was cooked I placed the foil in the kitchen bin and went about doing other Christmas preparations {or lying on the couch, I can’t remember}.
You know when things are oddly quiet that something has gone wrong. As a parent you know if you hear a big bang, and then silence there’s trouble. Someone has fallen, or something has happened that shouldn’t have. But if you hear crying, or a loud “Muuuuuum!” then everything is probably OK or fixable. So back to the silence on Christmas Eve. I soon discovered that Bronte {our dog} had opened the back door {we raise them highly intelligent here, or sneaky}, made her way inside and snuck back out with that piece of foil. When I went to check on her, a good part of it had been digested.
And the freak out began.
I collected the remaining foil, consulted my family, “Oh my god, she ate some foil! What will I do? Why do these things happen on Christmas Eve?!”
I decided I’d wait about an hour and see how she was traveling, and then call the vet.
That lasted about 3.2 minutes and I found myself on the phone. “Hey, it’s Chantelle, Bronte’s mum {I always say that and it’s ALWAYS awkward}….” and I told the story, frantically.
They told me to give her some laxatives, watch her and it should all be fine but if not, then we could always rush in for emergency surgery to remove it. If she got REALLY sick.
I fed her some laxatives, so over Christmas and the following days she left sparkling little deposits all over the back lawn. So very festive. All was OK.
And my most recent moment? It was just last week. Lacey was at swimming lessons. She does lessons at a small pool, with a handful of kids and a bunch of parents sitting around watching. There were 3 kids in her class and while the teacher focused on one of them, the two others stood on a platform in the middle of the pool. The little girl with the teacher was finally putting her head under water for the first time, so all the parents were cheering… and I noticed in the background that the platform was tipping over and the two other girls were falling into the {not very deep} water. Now, both girls can swim enough to look after themselves but something inside me kicked in and I freaked out.
“OH MY GOD THE PLATFORM HAS FALLEN OVER!!!!!” I shrieked, my arms flailing around pointing to the middle of the pool.
In that moment I knew I’d overreacted. The teacher turned around {they were within reach, it’s seriously a small pool} and lifted the platform up. I felt my face go red, the other parents looked at me like a crazed women, and the teacher mustered a “thanks” with a weird expression on her face. An expression that read: Dramatic much?
Hubby sat beside me, and didn’t look at me or acknowledge my reaction. All I wanted was a knowing nudge or smile. But nothing. I hoped that it would be one of those moments we never spoke about. It took the rest of the lesson for my beetroot red face to return to normal.
After swimming we did the grocery shopping, picked up some mail, had some lunch and headed home. At that stage I thought I’d made it through and Hubby wasn’t going to bring it up. But it was when the groceries were packed away, and we were sitting together that he thought he’d raise it.
“What was that at the pool? No, hang on. Let me do a re-enactment…”
And so he did. Mortified I dropped to the ground in tears of laughter, my face beetroot red again.
“Your voice turned into pitchy Mariah Carey and you were SO over-the-top. Chill out woman,” he laughed.
So, while my friends {hopefully} call me easy-going, I think Lacey is just going to tell her friends that I’m one of those mums, capable of breaking out in a freak out moment at any given time. Red face optional.
