Parent Failure

Pssst! It’s GG and the Bug’s Mummy here. *Warning – this post may contain square-words…

The last week of school. It’s a nightmare, isn’t it? For the children it has been a week of excitement, drama (on and off the stage) celebrations, and gifts. For me it has been one parent failure after another.

Lets start with the costumes:

1. Old-fashioned bar owner in the Lemonade kid. She had to have curly hair apparently. As I struggled to get my pre-Romantics heated curling tongs (not seen action for 30 years) out of the matted burning mess of hair, I entertained the notion of an emergency elfin cut on my daughter’s tresses, carefully grown out over the last 12 months. She arrived late for rehearsals. With straight hair and a whiff of matches…
2. Piano concert. Formal dress. Against my better judgement I acquiesced to the long dress and killer sandals that led to the fall, which caused half the gravel on the car park to take up residence in her knee-caps.
3. Year 2 leaver’s assembly. For several weeks now I have been pootling around towns and markets in search of the perfect costume for the Year 2 leaver’s assembly. My daughter is Hades. Hades – you know, God of the Underworld, ruler of Hell? Part of me wonders whether the Gods of fate conspired to match her named lolly stick with that particular character, or whether her teacher is trying to tell me something. As she entered the stage Arthur Brown’s Fire was playing, and I recognised her immediately.

Feisty, fiery, and hellish at times, my daughter and her costume dramas have caused me headaches this week. Hangovers, to be precise, as I have emptied the fridge of sauvignon whilst stitching, hemming, and painting her stage attires. Concurrently there has been a requirement for my hair and make up skills prior to GG’s school disco, and the Bug’s own Moshi Monster birthday party:

Fancy dress was the biggest problem this week. Yes, I suffered parent failure when I scheduled the Bug’s entire class of 5 year olds into a 2 hour Moshi Monster birthday party in the last week of the school year. No, I will never do that again. Nor will I scour the country in search of a Dustbin Beaver outfit (don’t ask) for my daughter. The conversation went something like this:

• Me: I’m not buying you red jeans. You hate coloured jeans and you’ll never wear them again.
• GG: You’re the worst Mummy in the world. Everyone else will have costumes and I’ll be the only one not dressed like a moshling, at my own brother’s party. I’m going to tell all my friends how mean you are, and they’ll tell their parents, and their parents will hate you too, and you’ll have no-one to talk to on the playground!

Not wanting such a terrible fate to befall me, I duly went to every clothing shop and supermarket in the county to find the red jeans. Two days before the event, a sheepish girl approached me at my desk:

Mummy, no-one’s wearing a Moshi Monster costume and I don’t want to either.

I may have said a square-word on Twitter…

So I was in no mood to hear this as we approached the school this morning:

• Bug: Mummy!! We forgot to bring my superhero costume for my class party this afternoon.
• Me: There’s a party?? Why did no-one tell me? (oh, they did, I got an email last night, whilst I was drinking Sauvignon and putting red glitter on a trident).
• GG: And we forgot it’s Forest School! I have to wear non-uniform!! Mummy! Mummmeeee! MUMMMEEEEE!
• Me: Okay, okay, I’ll go home and get your things and bring them in to you before lunch, don’t worry, it’ll be fine!

I return home, tackle the mayhem that is my kitchen post birthday party, and head off to my grown-up meeting in town. Ooops.

Remembering my poor children, halfway through my second latte, I realise that there is no time to return home for the superhero costume or forest school attire. Never mind, there’s a H&M, I’ll buy a party outfit, he’ll love it. I’ll get GG something frivolous to wear by way of apology. It will be fine.

Here is the purchase of a guilty mother. God help me when she comes down dressed in it for forest school!