22 October 2009

apron-time

                                  
As the nights draw in and the going back (or is it forward? I'll never get the hang of it I swear, it's just useless, why don't we abolish this custom, who's idea was it anyway? Answers please!) of the clocks looms, we're not out and about so much. Instead we're at home more and generally busying ourselves with indoor activities. Or at least that's what I've been doing. The heating's on and of an evening we're already very well established in our light-the-woodburner-routine. It's kind of nice and you don't feel so guilty for resembling a sloth, as the weather really doesn't entice us to any sort of outdoorsey activity. Heavily engrossed in all these homely thoughts and non-activities, while proudly wearing one of my many aprons (you don't want to know how many cakes I've baked in the last week!), I got to thinking about my kids and how much time, effort and most of all parental love goes into ensuring that theirs are perfect lives. While we are all "of course" individuals, making our mark and making a difference where possible, we all tend to flock together when it's about what we want for our children. We all want the same for them, don't we? Coming from divorced parents I tend to overcompensate for a lot when it comes to my children's wellbeing and happiness but I'm pretty sure that the majority of us parents just want our kids to be as unburdened as possible ie. carefree, happy, stable and most of all safe (incidentally I am pretty sure that both my own parents, divorced or not, still want exactly that for me too). So, with our two sons slowly growing into young men, I'm savouring baking them cakes, cooking them lunches and generally sitting with them during homework-time or telly-time and even just perching on their beds while they sleep (I am hopefully not the only mum that STILL does this). I am of course hoping that all this will stay with them forever and that when they look back at their childhood, they will have warm and happy memories flooding through their heads. At one stage during this thought process I actually asked myself how I would know that they are living a happy childhood now...? "Hi darling, so c'mon, out of 10, how d'you rate your family life?" A blank stare would have been all I deserved for such an irresponsible question, yet I was tempted, if only to give myself a laugh and a pat on the back for having a wicked sense of humour.
Well it won't last forever this childhood thing, and let's face it, after my recent revelation that Patsy Stone's my evil inner twin, the homemaker personality won't last that much longer either as she'll soon be hit over the head with a Marc Jacobs 'Stam' or a bottle of gin. But realistically now, it will have to come to an end eventually as I'm sure the girlfriend or wife won't appreciate waking up to mother-in-law, sat on the end of the bed with a tender look in her eyes...
Maybe it'll be me who needs to let go of the apron.
I have a thing about aprons (vintage aprons, please) and while scouring for a suitable image for this post I came across the one above from a lovely blog dealing in exactly that, vintage aprons! Delightful.

4 comments:

dani said...

Now I really am convinced that if there's one person's opinions worth reading, well... you know. My comments are probably always the same, but I can't helping agreeing with you on this subject, too. And yes, I spend a lot of time watching my girls sleep...

J said...

Like this and yes I still check on A whilst he sleeps....

Anonymous said...

It is now my favorite thing to do...watch Ellie. While she sleeps, I either watch her, talk about her, or look over the many photos of her...all the while smiling. Thanks for sharing. Cindy

Anonymous said...

i am the same. everything for the well being of the children - young men. laurien

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