Bethan: "Mummy, I am the teacher"*
Me: "Ok; who am I then?
Bethan: "You are the children"
Me: "If only"
Bethan: (pointing her finger aggressively at me) "You children get to the door!"
(*Bethan is wearing her Red Nose Day Alien bobble head band whilst telling me this. She certainly is a chip off the old block. I feel like setting her on Michael Gove; he'd crap himself).
Actually, I was a little worried because I was wondering where this strict, bordering on coercive, tact had come from. It really didn't help that later that evening I got an e-mail from a parenting website that I had just subscribed to which sent me an e-mail with the heading, "What to expect from your 3 year old". Now, I'm not known for my adherence to these websites; I am very satirical about them (ok, sardonic then).
They are useful for one thing though; telling you how many weeks your baby is. With Bethan I knew the day, minute and second by heart, never mind the week. However, with baby James I am a little more vacant when people ask me. I feel awful but that is the way it is. My mind, especially since going back to work, is everywhere. At least by writing this blog I know that I can look back on things that I would definitely forget.
Anyway, I digress again.
Back to the e-mail from the aforementioned website. The information was actually really useful and pertinent and I could totally relate to what was being said. This may account for my guilt when I read the following statement:
She will devote her days to trying to be like you, copying how you go to work or look after the house or talk to your friends on the phone. This is the process of identification by which she will pick up all your bad habits and retain them until she gets to be a mother, so your inadequacies can be revisited on the next generation.
Now, maybe it's the fact that I am an English teacher and always read between the lines; maybe it's the fact that I am extremely sensitive. However, I felt that the final line of that particular paragraph is borderline apocalyptic. Well, you can imagine that the timing of this e-mail couldn't have been worse. I spent the rest of the evening trying to ascertain where her strict role playing from earlier had come from. Subsequently, I spent the whole night trying to work out when I had been so strict with her.
Rob, as ever, with his Welsh dulcet tones and the voice of reason, exclaimed, "Don't be so daft!" as he poured me a glass of cold, crisp Sauvignon Blanc. Hmm, now what's the likelihood of my perchance for wine being an "inadequacy" for my future offspring's offspring? ...
