Mothering Sunday swept past in its usual chaotic manner.
Not because I’m the mother of three kids, they had to be reminded. OR because my husband, as a fully grown adult, is incapable of sorting out a card for his lovely Mum.
More so because our business can be a tad hectic over this particular weekend.
I may have mentioned before, but my crew are true gems. We’ve been a little short staffed due to Covid (when will it EVER end) so the fit and healthy gang and I had to pull some minor miracles out the bag to make sure everything went well.
Not good timing
Which, unless someone wants to tell us otherwise, we’re assured that it did. BUT can someone please grass up what comedian decided to schedule the clock change for Mother’s Day?? No need at all.
Not only, in my opinion, are mothers the most uncelebrated and under-unappreciated essential contributors to society, we (as a collective) are also the most sleep deprived.
Until children reach the teenage years, telling them the clocks have changed might as well be done backwards in fluent Swahili.
Especially if, like our amazing manager, you have a two-year-old party boy that believes the sun coming up is the cue to hit the dance floor.
Yet she, like all other mums I know, love, and admire, has managed. And continues to manage.
Never mind she had the wee man on the day the world shut down two years ago. Never mind she already had a toddler to contend with.
New-born cuddles
Never mind lock down removed access to her whole support network, save a husband who was working full time from home, leaving us with only the option to do door stop deliveries and ‘bagsie’ new born cuddles and sniffs just as soon as we were allowed.
And she wasn’t the only one. Another of our brilliant staff followed shortly after with her firstborn. How precious they both are. We adore them and we adore the wonderful mothers these women have become, especially considering the adversity they faced during their mothering journeys.
It brings nothing but joy seeing them reunited with their extended families.
The greatest grannies
Stories and photos from gatherings filter through. Babies, now toddlers, getting to be with grannies, aunties, great grannies even.
You know the kind. Those lovely ladies that smell of Vanderbilt perfume, Elnette hairspray and slip notes into your hand whilst acting like a drug dealer every time they want to give you some cash?
I’d better point out quickly that none of the grannies mentioned here entirely qualify. Two exceptionally glam grannies AND the great grans in question are absolute queens. Those with hairy chins or zimmers need not apply here!
Remember to help us keep safe
Covid19 may well be lingering, hanging about like an unwelcome house guest. It might, indeed, even be more prevalent, sweeping through while restrictions are lessened, removed even.
Regardless of how you feel about the removal of masks etc, it surely doesn’t need to signal the demise of consideration and kindness to those around us still working with the public?
We strive to provide a safe place to work. An environment to which these ladies could return, safe in the knowledge any time spent away from their babes wouldn’t result in being given abuse or returning home with a virus.
We hope we’ve managed, and the new wee team have been accepted with open arms into the family that is our crew. But now the important work begins.
On hand for advice
As a mother with, ahem, a few more miles on the clock, I am on hand to help with advice (wanted or not) through upcoming various stages.
How to shout ‘are you in the fridge again’ even though you know it’s unlikely because that’s not where you keep the crisps OR chocolate.
The tone to use when a cushion is out of place, and you need to declare the front room ‘an absolute’ tip. The correct level of quiet rage, hissed through gritted teeth, when telling kids to ‘get in the car’.
The speed at which to burst into the bedroom, without warning, and snap open the curtains, a stage only necessary during the early teenage years.
Motherhood. Because sleep is apparently unnecessary and who needs money anyway?
