Who wants to hear about one of my weirder parental experiences? It begins with gardening and ends with the most unwanted complement I’ve ever received.
Dorothy has spent the afternoon dressed as Merida from Brave and I’ve spent the afternoon gardening. Not collecting seed pods or splitting primroses to make more plants. No, no delicate creativity today, today I’ve been doing the back breaking type of gardening that gives you Instagram worthy nails like this!
I’ll regret it tomorrow when my body won’t work (not an exaggeration –read this) – but today it felt like something that I needed to do, that couldn’t wait for a cooler day or a day when there were strong hands to help. It had to be done, now and by me!
So while I discovered how far I can throw rubble and how many tonnes of red valerian I can pull out of one flower bed – and it’s tonnes, tonnes I tell you – I curse the day I ever introduced the bloody thing – Dottie was shooting an actual bow and arrow over my head.
The bow and arrow has a rubber, sucker on its tip, so no risk of injury of course. Nevertheless Dorothy has never had a weopon-type toy before and we gave her very clear rules. You may point the arrows at things but never people or animals. If you do, there’s a one-strike policy. One strike and the archery set will be confiscated.
After a near miss, Dottie got a stern word from me and decided she wasn’t friends with me any more.
Then she shot an ‘arrow’ at me. The kid’s a great shot but now was not the time for praise, now was the time for following through. Which meant me (now limping) chasing Dottie (now screaming) around the garden.
Eventually I managed to get hold of the bow and ceremoniously placed it atop the kitchen cupboards until young Miss P remembered how to be kind. Young Miss P told me she didn’t love me to the moon and back any more and that she was moving out.
So I decided to take the opportunity while she weighed up her housing options, to run a bath.
Ahh a solitary, hot bath.
Meanwhile as I stood naked, inspecting the rather unfortunate tan lines I’d acquired, Phill must have been having a few words with our budding little archer.
Dorothy entered the bathroom with her usual subtlety. Wailing she explained that Daddy had made her cry by saying she hadn’t been very nice to mummy and that she felt this was a bit of a mean thing to say.
I reminded her that only by being a good girl, could she get back her bow and that perhaps Daddy was just trying to remind her of how to be good. She pondered this for a while and then it began.
She began to tell me every thing she loved about me. Not my hugs, my stories or the way I make her laugh – no, no, no dear reader, my child listed every part of my still NAKED of course, body and told me that she loved it. It’s nice to be appreciated of course but this, this was a pep talk I could have done without.
Dorothy: ” I love your red face Mummy.”
Me: “thank you very much, I’ll be sure to wear more suncream tomorrow”
Dorothy “Mummy I love your eyes”
Me: “that’s a nice thing to say”
Dorothy: “your feet are lovely and soilish (covered in soil)”
Me: “erm….”
Dorothy “and I love your hairy ‘gina”
Me: “sweetheart do you think you could just go to Daddy for a bit”.
I’m dying inside and tomorrow I’m sure to be dying in the outside too. Send gin please and wax apparently 😂
Love Rachel ❤️
