Category: Obsession

Blog Seventeen

2/25/2015

Discipline Demanded and Restraint Required

Something is happening this week which is testing my mettle in possibly the most irksome way. This evening we have been been denied our usual Skyping privilege. The desperate fifteen minutes has been scrapped. The signal will be dead. Nothing.

We will have no communication for over forty-eight hours. I feel abandoned. This is because he is on a school trip, and the trip extends late into the evening.

So what? Deal with it! are your thoughts. But there is a twist ... naturally.

The location of the trip is 2.3 miles from our house - that is about 10 minutes by car, or 15 by bus including walking to and from the bus-stops on either side of the journey.

In fact it is right next door to where I go for my nearly-daily swim. I could be ploughing down the fast lane in my elegant but slightly splashy style, while he is only a few yards away. It's ridiculous.

He is closer to us than he has been all week, and yet there is no way of getting in touch, or talking to him, or having any type of contact. Of course the temptation is great. I could become one of those parents. I could stand on the side of the road and wave as he gets off the bus, loudly singing 'Coo-ee' and perhaps waving an unopened umbrella. Or, I could phone the school and insist they tell me when the breaks are, and insist - even more forcefully - that they allow me to see my child, as a conversation with me is clearly more important than chatting to his friends and behaving like a normal child. Or we could kidnap him. We could wait until he is getting back on the coach, and then grab him to allow him the indulgence of a night in his own bed; in his own home. This is my chance. My transformation is nearly complete. I can finally become the sort of parent who stalks their own child. It could be a new TV reality format - a ballet version of Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents.

Deboulé, Défilé, and Doting Dads.

Pointe, Pirouettes and Persistent Parenting

Why stop at the school trip? This surveillance could become a way of life. He could be exercising at the barre and my face pops up at a window. I could don a chef's uniform and hat and plate up breakfast in the canteen. And that suspicious looking gardner pruning the rose beds? That's me. Skyping will become redundant. My tools will no longer be wifi and iPads. I have rope, a grappling hook and a full range of disguises. I am Peter Sellers with a full range of flamboyant disguises. He won't have to tell me how it is all going, I'll have seen it all with my own eyes.

I just can't believe that it has taken me this long to have this innovational idea.

Of course I'm going to control myself. As hard as it might be, I have the discipline to stay at home and just watch telly. We will be Skyping again tomorrow. But this flight of fancy into a world of Ealing Comedy has served its purpose. It has kept me distracted while our son has been so near, and yet so far.

Next time is all about Fathers and Sons - just in time for Mothers' Day

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Blog Seven

1/23/2015

2 Comments

"Could you make it funnier?"

One avid and vociferous reader of the blog has asked if I could make it more amusing. She feels, perhaps, that it has a tendency to be earnest. This very attentive reader happens to be my own mother. I think her comment reveals as much about her own parenting style as it does about my writing. So this blog, Mum, is for you.

Over the last couple of years of being the parent of a dancer, I have developed several unexpected obsessions. These obsessions then lead to small but significant victories. Here is a list in ascending order of importance; the most urgent preoccupations come last:

Laundry bags. In less politically correct times, we used to call these 'Chinese laundry bags'. Of course I now realise what an insult this is to the people in China and perhaps other countries, and even people who work in laundries. These 'shopping bags' - as the label now declares them to be called - are essential. At the end of term everything can be just thrown into them and sorted out at home. It means we can do the end of term clear-out in less than thirty minutes. It takes us three weeks to sort everything out once we get it all back, and the unpacking sprawls through every room in the house. But, at least we get out fast. I also have 'bag-envy' - noticing that some parents have desirable Kath Kitson manqué laundry bags. Ours are an uninspiring brown plastic plaid, and the zips are really crap. I'm never sure if the pound-shop deals with returns.

The fridge and the food cupboard. Since he has been away at ballet school, I can only assume that our son's body is in a permanent state of ketosis. There are two words which stop me in my tracks and send chilling dread through my nervous system: I'm hungry. We keep the following in stock at all times: salad - washed and chopped; pasta (two different types) - parboiled; hummus; chocolate; nut-and-seed bars; fresh fruit; dried fruit; nuts; seeds and more mozzarella than might supply every Pizza Express in the South East. Our bread is either rye, spelt, or ... wait for it ... kamut. Hovis just isn't an option. I'm sure that I have heard the toaster groan as the seventh slice of the day goes in. There is a serious side to this urgency; if he is not fed promptly, he suffers from a migraine. Hence the ninja speed at which we can produce a cooked meal at any time of the day or night. He tells us that he gets fed at school. I picture it as a Dickensian scene in which everyone is terrified to ask for more. Apparently, professional body-builders carb-load on one or two days of the week - as do ballet dancers in training.

Weekend packing. If everything has been packed for the week ahead by Saturday evening, I am almost ecstatic with joy - congratulating myself on being a text-book parent and wondering if any other ballet dads (or mums) might benefit from my wisdom. A more frequently visited reality is finishing the packing late on Sunday evening. Sadly, I am most often just chucking stuff into a case at 5.30am on a Monday morning, praying that I won't hear the words, "Have you seen my..."

Risk management. We have become the caricatured parents of Horrid Henry. "No! You cannot skateboard / ski / ride a horse / go to the BMX track / go for a walk!" We worry constantly about injury - not in the ballet studio, he seems to be in really safe hands there - but in everyday life. I grin sheepishly in public spaces when I hear myself screaming "Be Careful! Watch out!" Only for other parents to turn around to see me warning my child about going down some steps. This is not helped by a talk I once attended which began with: Many Ballet careers have ended with a seemingly innocuous trip at the top of some stairs. I can't even stop worrying when he is in bed ... unless we move him into the bottom bunk.

Ballet socks. If an even number come out of the drier I am ecstatic. These thin white socks are made of a magic static-generating material. Once in the drier they will stick to anything. If an odd number comes out, it means that one might be stuck to one of my shirts and I am in danger of going to work with a sock attached to me all day. I then have to go through all the laundry and vigorously shake each item individually in the hope that the sock falls off. Of course, there is no guarantee that an even number of socks were put in the wash in the first place. Also, while counting an even number is a triumph, I still live in fear of setting off with two socks decorating the back of my shirt.

Writing this has revealed to me that the socks are more important to me than health and safety. We learn something new every day. I'm not too ashamed; it's the truth after all.

If you fancy writing about your own obsessions and victories in the comment box below, it will help me feel less alone.

Next time, Mum, I'll be returning to my usual mawkish soul-searching self, as I talk about the pressure to be perfect.

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Blog Seventeen

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