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Thursday 30 June 2011

Letting Go



I knew the time would come when I would have to let go of my blue-eyed boy, he has to move on with his life...





Whoops! Wrong blue-eyed boy. ( According to The Daily Mail, Tabloid to the Stars and Grandma Whacker), old Danny Boy has just married Rachel Weisz, but only because I am already married and am always too busy cleaning the floor of the downstairs loo to give him the attention he needs, as a Top Thespian).


I really meant I have to learn to let go of Boy 1 who is growing up fast and who has gone on his first residential trip with the school, for 3 days and 2 nights. Somewhere mysterious called PGL which Boy 1 unreliably informs me stands for Parents Get Lost. The trip involves lots of outdoor activities like abseiling, trip wire malarkey, den building and not opening washbags to use toothpaste or soap.

Boy 1 has been away from home before but only for one night at a time, on sleepovers with friends.  And sleepovers work like this:
6pm You drop off Boy 1 and hover nervously in kitchen of host family before being persuaded to leave
9pm Back at home you walk past Boy 1's empty bedroom and go all teary and sentimental before happily settling down to watch a romcom without being disturbed by Boy 1 shouting from his room that he has a sore/throat/arm/foot/toe/unmentionables*  and could he have some ointment/Calpol/soothing drink/herbal sleep drops/ lavender oil sprinkled on tissue/ mallet to head?*

*delete as appropriate

Next morning -
6am You wake Mr B and ask him if it is too early to go collect Boy 1; Mr B asks "why, where is he?" and goes back to sleep
8am You arrive at host's house to find host parents bleary eyed and in pjs, assuring you it went really well, the boys got to sleep by 11.30pm after having been told to be quiet for only the 54th time and they did not get up until 5.30am when they woke the whole household while playing a newly invented game of Toilet Cricket Ball Torpedo but were really good and watched a DVD till 6.07am when they demanded pancakes, egg and bacon and popcorn...you quickly remove Boy 1, thanking host parents profusely and handing over bottles of wine, self-help books on Post Traumatic Stress and the phone number of a good plumber
8.10am In the car on the way home Boy 1 informs you he hates his family and would like to be adopted by the host family and he would like Boy 2 to be sent away either to boarding school or preferably for adoption as he is ruining his life etc etc
10am Mrs B has to be put back to bed as overtired and fractious due to sleepover- related lack of sleep...

Boy 1 took packing for the school trip very seriously and started assembling the essentials.


I was glad these were the teddies selected for the minibreak.

Earlier Boy 1 had announced he was taking the imaginatively named Big Bear.



When I pointed out that Big Bear took up  the entire suitcase, Boy 1 then suggested he take Domino Dawg instead (fancy, a child of mine not taking things seriously!)


When I came to pack, I did notice a certain bulkiness in the front pocket.



This is the infamous Bertie, Boy 1's beloved sheepskin (in fact he has 3, all of which get dragged to bed with him but for travel purposes he has decided just to go with one.)  From lying on the sheepskin in his Moses basket as a baby, Boy 1 progressed to cuddling it, coveting baby Boy 2's sheepskin (there was a worrying moment when Boy 1 tried to pull it out from under newborn Boy 2) and now he is Lord and Master of no less than 3 Berties...

And he going to kill me if he finds out I have blogged about Bertie, as a man's Bertie is a private matter...



All seems to be going ok so far - I dropped Boy 1 off at school (Mummies have been banned from hanging around waving the boys off in their coach to avoid unnecessary tears and wailing, no one wants a lot of soppy, soggy mothers hanging around..).  Then I dropped off the suitcase which Boy 1 had forgotten...

Meanwhile Boy 2, who is tremendously cheerful now Boy 1 is Out of the Way so leaving Boy 2 as Top Dog, had his own excitement: his English Speaking Board Exam( reading chosen passage from book; talk on interesting hobby; say a poem by heart) . Final prep went quite smoothly - Boy 2 found he had lost his copy of the book excerpt; reverted to calling Chess "CHEST" throughout his talk; poem now recited at breakneck speed and final word fatally mispronounced so does not rhyme..

After all this I tried to do some much needed and therapeutic de-cluttering, FF style.  Now the charity shop bag full of de-cluttered clutter sits looking at me accusingly.


Think I am having trouble letting go of that as well...

13 comments:

  1. Dear Mrs Blighty, I know. Every day they get bigger and look further afield - we are no longer the fonts of all wisdom nor the most beautiful woman in their life. The grass starts getting greener elsewhere ie every other mother is cooler than we are. However, *sniffing*, it is good to know that we still have our uses even if this is only to provide valet services. Luckily, my children this morning are staging a complete revolt against going to school and the quality of their father's lunches; it is these little moments which assist with separation anxiety. love Lindaxxx

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  2. Linda, very well put! As usual! I think kids behave horribly at home so that when the day comes you are relieved they have flown the nest, must be an evolutionary thing? ( says Mrs B desperately, not wanting to confront fact that her kids are just horrid..) Am currently feeling v pro boarding school, as had lovely quiet evening last night with no boy fights - even Boy 2 can't start a ruckus all by himself..

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  3. oh blighty, so funny as usual. i think my fav line is when he announces that he hates his family and wants to be adopted. i heard that too and am sorry i didn't take him up on it.

    xo
    janet

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  4. I was just going to say something similar to Janet. It must be true for boys and girls!

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  5. This is so funny! It reminds me The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield. (And I thought it was only girls who announced their lives were RUINED, yes RUINED, by younger brothers.) ;)

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  6. Welcome SewingLibrarian, I love Provincial Lady so that is a lovely compliment! Just went over to your blog, so wish I could sew, broke sewing machine at school in first ever sewing lesson..
    Janet and Debs - sometimes Boy 1 asks in tone of utter disgust, pointing at Boy 2: "Tell me I am not related to that?!" Blighty xx

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  7. I once dropped Miss 4 at a friends for a sleepover. Toilet training etc. for this child is well and truly a thing of the past... HOWEVER, at 9:00am next morning when said child was to be picked up, we got the whole "we have been up washing sheets etc. because Miss 4 did an enormous POO in them last night etc." Yadda yadda, long story short, I forgot to mention if you let Miss 4 eat junkfood all night and consume litres of soft drink, and stay up till the sun comes up, Miss 4 does have a tendancy to lose all control of her bowels... I am still too scared to invite their daughter over because I wonder what one does to retaliate against such a god-awful experience as the once I gave them... hmmmm

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  8. Hi Blights,
    I told you ages ago that Rachel Weisz had her mitts on Daniel Craig.
    Sad to see her looking like Liz Hurley and Elle McPherson these days.
    I think Daniel should have waited for you.
    Just think how obedient Boyz1&2 would be with James Bond as their stepdad.
    Oops - sorry mr B - just joking.

    Apparently Wordpress is now talking to Blogger - so I can now comment happily without being kicked off the site.
    love
    louisexxxxxx

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  9. Bertie looks Like Bronsen when he packs himself in my suitcase.
    must do a post on that one day.
    L
    xxx

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  10. hey Louise so glad the technology is working again - the other day Blogger would not even let me comment on my own blog..probably on Elf and Safety grounds
    Farmer's Wife - that is a classic! but anyone with children would understand these things happen, just one of those things...the other day on a country walk I had to ask a complete stranger to let Boy 2 in their house to use their loo as things were urgent and he wasn't able to perform in the bushes...i have no shame and no inhibitions anymore (unlike Boy 2)..

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  11. Thanks for the welcome, Mrs. B, and for visiting my sadly out-of-date blog. I am better at commenting on others' blogs, I'm afraid.

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  12. I still call the word chest chess sometimes.

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