'Are you sure you want to know?’ asked the German doctor as I stared up at the squirming, leaping form on the screen in front of me.
‘Yes, god yes please yes’ I begged, thinking pleasantly of the gorgeous pink, frilled things I’d spotted in Carter's baby shop the day before.
The four children sat silently wrestling each other in the corner, squashed into two armchairs, watching the show. Occasionally there would be a muffled giggle as someone would whisper ‘I see its butt!’
I started to daydream- ‘I’ll call her Delilah….or Jezebel’ I mused, ‘and she can share a bedroom with nine year old girl…it will be perfect….all pink and sage toile de jouey I think…’
‘I see a little penis’ said the German laconically, jolting me in to reality.
I fell silent for a moment, confused and disoriented. I had been absolutely certain this child was female, the pregnancy to date having been a carbon copy of my first.
‘Oh!’ I quickly adjusted myself, brightening, ‘lovely, another boy… hey! another brother kids!’
My daughter started to silently sob in the corner and the boys, unmoved by this news, continued to wrestle each other.
I love my sons. They are a joy; loving, gentle and devoted to me without agenda or complexity. But four!! It just feels a tad, well, excessive!
When I imagined motherhood as a young woman, I pictured myself with a gaggle of little girls, dressed up in pink tutus (me included) in a fairy tent with wands, wings and ballet slippers. We would wear matching fabrics from Joules and go for high tea with cream cakes and hot chocolate. They would fall in love with all the same books I adored as a little girl such as ‘Ballet shoes’ and ‘The twins at St. Clares' and would be fanatical about ballet and musical theatre.
Their bedroom would be a shrine to all things girly, decorated in a palette of pinks with white painted furniture and lace canopies.
To date we've had a bug theme, cowboy theme, superhero theme (several) and currently on general transport theme (cars, trains..that sort of thing). And my daughter isn't much better. Apparently at school the worst thing you can be is a girlie-girl so pink is OUT as is anything remotely feminine.
Oh I've been short changed, and that's for sure! DH, of course is in his element and revels in taking them to the cinema to see the latest Marvel blockbuster and regularly arrives home from work bearing the latest PS3 games 'for the kids' (this is a man so bad at gifts and surprises that on the day of my birthday every year, following months of heavy hints and blatant comments such as 'I want a pink laptop for my birthday', he'll phone me from the mall, on his lunch break, to ask 'so, what is it you wanted?')
So motherhood has given me the insider track on super heroes and action figures and well, boys in general. They're simple creatures, like their fully grown counterparts. And they play in a totally different way to girls - it can only be described as, well, autistic, and mainly involves playing with the same toy/stone/piece of plastic for hours on end, running it up walls and along floors with accompanying noises. It's bizarre but easily accommodated.
When I discovered my second child was to be a boy, I wondered how I could possibly love him. My daughter was so pink, perfect and delicious that I struggled with the idea of how I could love any other child, regardless of gender.
When he was born he was red, scrawny and yelling and I couldn’t help but recall the pink, plump calmness of my newly born daughter 20 months earlier as she lay staring up at me, wide-eyed and beautiful.
I think it's fair to say I went through a sort of crisis for his first few months, dressing him in her caste offs and generally not accepting that he was male. On many occasions I was asked ‘what is her name’ by passers-by as they stared down at the plump little boy dressed head to toe in pink.
But I adjusted and by the time boy-child number two arrived, I had realised how much easier these beings were to care for.
As boy-child number three was born I was honestly overjoyed at the appearance of yet another little man. He is loveable and delightful and to be honest, his gender is secondary to his gregarious personality.
But this time it just felt like it was time for another female, if for nothing else but to balance out all that testosterone at home.
But it must be said I am tired of this pregnancy at this stage, it's much too long particularly when you expand at such an alarming rate. The other day I was in a changing room trying on a dress which I wouldn't even glance at in peace time. As I wrestled the thing over my head, three-year-old, who was crammed into the booth with me, eyed my tummy and enquired 'are you going to upsplode mummy?' to which I replied gravely, 'Yes, darling, I rather think I am'.
Our showtime channels have been cancelled and we don’t know who to phone to get them back so we’ve been watching a lot of Oprah lately. Last night we watched open-mouthed at the story of the women in America who starved her four boys over the course of several years. It was heart-rending to watch how they suffered and I couldn’t help but wonder how you could possibly do that to your children. Obviously, nurturing instincts and basic decency aside, how on earth would you keep them quiet? I think its fair to say the only reason my children are fed regularly is because they start fighting when they’re hungry; particularly in the car.
My car is testament to this and can only be described as a rubbish tip. To open the door is to risk being buried under an avalanche of crisp wrappers and empty drinks cartons; DH, who pampers his car like a spinster pampers her cats, refuses to go anywhere near it. I'd like to take the advice of one of those nice parenting magazine which recommend colouring books and puzzles to keep the little'uns amused on a journey, but the reality is that drinks and snacks are the only way to stop them either jumping out of the moving vehicle or strangling each other on any given journey.
And its not just in the car. I use drinks and snacks as a pacifier for any number of eventualities whether I'm on the phone, typing an email, chatting with a friend or whatever it is, 'here, have this' is sure to make them go away and stop bothering me.
Customer service...again...
I know I’ve ranted about this on more than one occasion, but really I can’t not mention it. Again we went to buy school shoes for the children and again I requested that their feet be measured before trying on any shoes. Reasonable enough request considering the fact that children have an irritating tendency to get bigger.
However, the shop assistant, looking slightly put out at such an outrageous request, took my five year old over to the foot measuring thingie and placed his foot on the measuring board WITH HIS SHOE STILL ON!! I'll take a wild guess and say that the staff training at Centrepoint is confined to half a day's training on how to follow a customer around the shop in a most invasive and irritating manner without any training on how to actually assist.
That's shopping UAE style!
‘Yes, god yes please yes’ I begged, thinking pleasantly of the gorgeous pink, frilled things I’d spotted in Carter's baby shop the day before.
The four children sat silently wrestling each other in the corner, squashed into two armchairs, watching the show. Occasionally there would be a muffled giggle as someone would whisper ‘I see its butt!’
I started to daydream- ‘I’ll call her Delilah….or Jezebel’ I mused, ‘and she can share a bedroom with nine year old girl…it will be perfect….all pink and sage toile de jouey I think…’
‘I see a little penis’ said the German laconically, jolting me in to reality.
I fell silent for a moment, confused and disoriented. I had been absolutely certain this child was female, the pregnancy to date having been a carbon copy of my first.
‘Oh!’ I quickly adjusted myself, brightening, ‘lovely, another boy… hey! another brother kids!’
My daughter started to silently sob in the corner and the boys, unmoved by this news, continued to wrestle each other.
I love my sons. They are a joy; loving, gentle and devoted to me without agenda or complexity. But four!! It just feels a tad, well, excessive!
When I imagined motherhood as a young woman, I pictured myself with a gaggle of little girls, dressed up in pink tutus (me included) in a fairy tent with wands, wings and ballet slippers. We would wear matching fabrics from Joules and go for high tea with cream cakes and hot chocolate. They would fall in love with all the same books I adored as a little girl such as ‘Ballet shoes’ and ‘The twins at St. Clares' and would be fanatical about ballet and musical theatre.
Their bedroom would be a shrine to all things girly, decorated in a palette of pinks with white painted furniture and lace canopies.
To date we've had a bug theme, cowboy theme, superhero theme (several) and currently on general transport theme (cars, trains..that sort of thing). And my daughter isn't much better. Apparently at school the worst thing you can be is a girlie-girl so pink is OUT as is anything remotely feminine.
Oh I've been short changed, and that's for sure! DH, of course is in his element and revels in taking them to the cinema to see the latest Marvel blockbuster and regularly arrives home from work bearing the latest PS3 games 'for the kids' (this is a man so bad at gifts and surprises that on the day of my birthday every year, following months of heavy hints and blatant comments such as 'I want a pink laptop for my birthday', he'll phone me from the mall, on his lunch break, to ask 'so, what is it you wanted?')
So motherhood has given me the insider track on super heroes and action figures and well, boys in general. They're simple creatures, like their fully grown counterparts. And they play in a totally different way to girls - it can only be described as, well, autistic, and mainly involves playing with the same toy/stone/piece of plastic for hours on end, running it up walls and along floors with accompanying noises. It's bizarre but easily accommodated.
When I discovered my second child was to be a boy, I wondered how I could possibly love him. My daughter was so pink, perfect and delicious that I struggled with the idea of how I could love any other child, regardless of gender.
When he was born he was red, scrawny and yelling and I couldn’t help but recall the pink, plump calmness of my newly born daughter 20 months earlier as she lay staring up at me, wide-eyed and beautiful.
I think it's fair to say I went through a sort of crisis for his first few months, dressing him in her caste offs and generally not accepting that he was male. On many occasions I was asked ‘what is her name’ by passers-by as they stared down at the plump little boy dressed head to toe in pink.
But I adjusted and by the time boy-child number two arrived, I had realised how much easier these beings were to care for.
As boy-child number three was born I was honestly overjoyed at the appearance of yet another little man. He is loveable and delightful and to be honest, his gender is secondary to his gregarious personality.
But this time it just felt like it was time for another female, if for nothing else but to balance out all that testosterone at home.
But it must be said I am tired of this pregnancy at this stage, it's much too long particularly when you expand at such an alarming rate. The other day I was in a changing room trying on a dress which I wouldn't even glance at in peace time. As I wrestled the thing over my head, three-year-old, who was crammed into the booth with me, eyed my tummy and enquired 'are you going to upsplode mummy?' to which I replied gravely, 'Yes, darling, I rather think I am'.
Our showtime channels have been cancelled and we don’t know who to phone to get them back so we’ve been watching a lot of Oprah lately. Last night we watched open-mouthed at the story of the women in America who starved her four boys over the course of several years. It was heart-rending to watch how they suffered and I couldn’t help but wonder how you could possibly do that to your children. Obviously, nurturing instincts and basic decency aside, how on earth would you keep them quiet? I think its fair to say the only reason my children are fed regularly is because they start fighting when they’re hungry; particularly in the car.
My car is testament to this and can only be described as a rubbish tip. To open the door is to risk being buried under an avalanche of crisp wrappers and empty drinks cartons; DH, who pampers his car like a spinster pampers her cats, refuses to go anywhere near it. I'd like to take the advice of one of those nice parenting magazine which recommend colouring books and puzzles to keep the little'uns amused on a journey, but the reality is that drinks and snacks are the only way to stop them either jumping out of the moving vehicle or strangling each other on any given journey.
And its not just in the car. I use drinks and snacks as a pacifier for any number of eventualities whether I'm on the phone, typing an email, chatting with a friend or whatever it is, 'here, have this' is sure to make them go away and stop bothering me.
Customer service...again...
I know I’ve ranted about this on more than one occasion, but really I can’t not mention it. Again we went to buy school shoes for the children and again I requested that their feet be measured before trying on any shoes. Reasonable enough request considering the fact that children have an irritating tendency to get bigger.
However, the shop assistant, looking slightly put out at such an outrageous request, took my five year old over to the foot measuring thingie and placed his foot on the measuring board WITH HIS SHOE STILL ON!! I'll take a wild guess and say that the staff training at Centrepoint is confined to half a day's training on how to follow a customer around the shop in a most invasive and irritating manner without any training on how to actually assist.
That's shopping UAE style!
