Fragility

I am driving my 10 year-old to her weekly gymnastics class. We are not in harmony. She is berating me for refusing to allow her an iPhone. I am berating her for spurning the supper I'd painstakingly incinerated for her. As we draw up at the leisure centre I have decided, not for the first time, that I am not cut out for motherhood.

She stumps off to the gymnastics hall; I join a slumped row of mothers on the floor of the viewing gallery. I am nursing wounded feelings and read a novel instead of watching my firstborn with the raptness she expects of me. Later I look up. She and her class partner are performing backwards rolls. Her partner rotates clumsily and doesn't get up again. Teachers bend over her, cajoling her to stand, but she lies there, head bent to the floor, legs twisted under her, and she doesn't respond. I think she's malingering and watch with amused exasperation as she ignores all overtures. A group of lifeguards are summoned from the pool. They too try to coax her into movement and it occurs to me that noone could sustain that position without crippling cramp. I start to study the scene more anxiously as people mill with clipboards and a blanket is fetched.

The paramedics are arriving as we leave. The crumpled figure on the floor hasn't stirred. Her mother kneels beside her, stricken. The lifeguards are in a solemn huddle talking of neck injury.

My 10-year-old is incredulous. 'She is so lively,' she says. 'She was only joking with me just before she screamed.' I too am trying to understand the swift swipes of Fate. It could have been my daughter lying there unconscious and me weeping terrified at her side. It could have been our familiar weekly ritual ending with a siren's wail.

I tuck my daughter up with more than usual gentleness this evening. I don't mention the foul chaos that is her bedroom. I ignore the nail varnish stains on the bath tub and smile through a final sally about iPhones. I am not as skilled a mother as I'd meant to be and my daughter isn't the smock-clad paragon I'd planned, but I must remember not to waste time on regrets. Blessings can be ripped away in a second before we have even realised that we possess them and, for all her impertinence, I'm going to be grateful for my little girl. But no way is she having an iPhone!





Comments

  1. Older Single Mum26 June 2013 at 21:43

    Gosh, this took my breath away. Life is made up of moments. I understand your gratitude. When I got clocked on the head by littlest's badminton racquet and am still nursing concussion, I am grateful it is me, not him. Please keep us in touch with your daughter's friend's progress. So scary.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron26 June 2013 at 22:22

      I'm afraid I have no way of knowing unless they update the children next week since I don't know the family. Sorry to hear of your injury. Thanks again for shielding me from the frights of the awards party last week. I'd have scarpered without your ballast!

      Delete
  2. AlwaysARedhead26 June 2013 at 22:47

    I don't know what to say. So scary and sad.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron27 June 2013 at 15:27

      Indeed. I'm praying she is not so badly hurt as we fear.

      Delete
  3. Iota 27 June 2013 at 07:42

    Being constantly aware of the blessing of parenthood is one of its biggest challenges, I think.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron27 June 2013 at 15:28

      Isn't it just. No sooner had I posted this than I was telling my 10yo to get out of my sight!

      Delete
  4. Rachel Selby27 June 2013 at 09:38

    Man years ago when I was a single teacher, no children and not dating, I told a friend that I was content with my life for the moment but I just wanted to know that there will be some big changes and surprises to come - that this isn't it for the next 3o years. My friend works in a head and spinal injury hospital and had three small children at the time. She replied: I pray to God that nothing changes and that there are no big surprises. With a bit more maturity, motherhood and experience, I now know what she meant.

    I pray for your daughter's friend for a full and speedy recovery. This really shocked me, as it did all of us I'm sure.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Actually Mummy...27 June 2013 at 17:58

    Oh Gosh I'm desperate to know what happened to her friend now! This kind of story terrifies me, and yes, I know exactly the about-turn of emotion that you performed that evening. When push comes to shove, all we really care about is making our children feel safe.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron27 June 2013 at 18:07

      I'll let you know if and when I know. More congratulations on your win last week. I was so delighted.

      Delete
  6. Older Mum8 July 2013 at 17:27

    My goodness, that was so shocking. I really hope it isn't too serious. A back ward roll? Really? I can't believe it.... here's hoping she is okay, fingers crossed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron8 July 2013 at 20:25

      Actually she returned to the class tonight having only wrenched a neck muscle. And at the end of the session she did a mid-air somersault, missed the landing mattress and landed on her head. She was being tended as we left...!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daily Mail Columnists Should Wear Burkas

Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones has provoked the ire of Twitter with by declaring that mummy bloggers are blinkered dimwits whose lives are spiced by Napisan. I'm afraid I have to sympathise with her, for all of her prejudices echo my own: Writing about my life has pretty much ruined it. Supper last night was an elderly carrot glued to the fridge shelf by a pool of brown mucus and the floor was flooded when I left the bath taps running because Blogger has diverted me from domestic essentials. I've had to shut the children in front of the television when a new post has assailed me and some family members no longer speak to me because Twitter interactions leave me no time to reach the telephone. But there is a big part of me that thinks writing should be hard: you should cringe whenever you press that 'publish' button. Artists – and I'm sorry, I do consider myself an artist – have to wrench the dirtiest, most disgusting part of their inner soul and show it t...
Read more

The Various Uses of Rubber

I have ordered a new pair of wellies from Amazon for the daily walk to school. My current hardly-at-all-old pair has developed a fissure along one toe. I only noticed this when I was wading along the stream that flows brownly past bobbing Argos bags en route to the afternoon pick up, and I was not pleased. They are a glamorous pair with pink spots and white swirls, bought to ease my daughter's pain in ackowledging a wellie-wearing, stream-paddling mother in public. I now distrust wellies with spots and swirls, so order a safe-looking green pair. Better to be waterproof than glamorous. Royal Mail gets them as far as my door, thrusts through a 'Sorry you were out' card, and promptly loses them. Amazon is sympathetic and dispatches a replacement pair. This also makes it to my door and again a card is left. This time I decide to pick them up in person from the Royal Mail depot. The man behind the glass screen makes off with my delivery card and probably has a cup of tea and...
Read more

A DIY Guide to the Middle-Classes

I wonder sometimes what I am. I have lived the last decade on an inner city council estate, amid Oxford academia, in a remote country town and in London suburbia. In the first we were, with our relentless consonants and sagging bookshelves, regarded as aristocrats. In the second, as the 'squeezed middle'. In the third, as city sophisticates and now, sometimes, isolated in my tweed amid the Ralph Lauren and the hoodies, I feel myself a bumpkin. Class should no longer matter. Nowadays, for most of us, it's more a question of perception than birth. But the perception matters. My daughter battles to adjust speech, habits and dress to blend in with each new environment; the political parties compete to woo the amorphous throng they deem Middle England and Melvyn Bragg has started a television series on class and culture. The British, he decides, no longer define themselves by class, but by the music they listen to, the books they read. I listen to Dolly Parton and Beethoven....
Read more