Taking Kim's mind off the locksmith: Or: On Having Girls
One of the things I love about this joint blogging arrangement is that we work out things about each other all the time.
Now something I have realised about Miss Kim tonight, thanks to the wonderful, wonderful influx of kind, caring and compassionate commenters following her horrible home robbery, is this:
Miss Kim
Has been cultivating
Gasp!
Mothers Of Boys!!
There's Pea Soup, of course, and Blackbird, and Susie Sunshine, and Babelbabe, and A, and Sueeeus and others - you know who you are. (But not you, Surfie girl or you Lucinda or, wait, if I go one I'll ruin my argument!)
And let me tell you, I'm not in the least prejudiced against mothers of boys. Hey, I AM one, of one. But something from an earlier post of Kim's this week made me laugh and laugh.
You see. My mother had me and then two boys.
We moved to a town where, up 'til then, everyone played rugby league.
My mother - being that kind of woman, started a soccer club.
At first it had one team.
By the next season it had five.
By the sixth season, the rugby (mum called them 'thugby') league club members had started a smear campaign to try to stop the pestilent spread of soccer. It didn't work.
By which, I mean, it didn't stop me having to spend every Saturday from March to October traipsing from soccer field to soccer field in a diameter of about 200 kilometres.
Hours, and hours, and hours in the car to watch other people play not very good sport.
Things in Sydney today are not much different. If you have boys, and they play soccer, you travel to a different field every Saturday, and you often don't know until Thursday where that field will be.
This is what happens when you play a male dominated sport, organised along rules arranged by men. You never know where the hell you are, nor what time you're going to have to get up to be sure you'll be there.
Go on, prove I'm wrong: I dare you!
(and this is where the getting Kim's mind off her troubles part comes in because I know her well enough to know that, like me, a dare is very hard to resist!)
So. When I saw Kim's post about how grateful she was to have boys and NOT be standing on a netball court I had to laugh.
And laugh, and laugh.
You see, netball is organised by women. For girls, and women.
And do you know how it works?
Every week, you go to the same place. Unless you are foolish enough to have a sportily gifted child who plays in rep teams, you always know how far you have to travel and what time you have to be there. Always.
So I had to have a laugh.
Then I got over it.
Because I stuffed everything up by having a bet both ways - with two girls and a boy, and boy-girl twins into the bargain. So any sport we engage in on a Saturday MUST be unisex, like gymnastics, or karate.
There's Pea Soup, of course, and Blackbird, and Susie Sunshine, and Babelbabe, and A, and Sueeeus and others - you know who you are. (But not you, Surfie girl or you Lucinda or, wait, if I go one I'll ruin my argument!)
And let me tell you, I'm not in the least prejudiced against mothers of boys. Hey, I AM one, of one. But something from an earlier post of Kim's this week made me laugh and laugh.
You see. My mother had me and then two boys.
We moved to a town where, up 'til then, everyone played rugby league.
My mother - being that kind of woman, started a soccer club.
At first it had one team.
By the next season it had five.
By the sixth season, the rugby (mum called them 'thugby') league club members had started a smear campaign to try to stop the pestilent spread of soccer. It didn't work.
By which, I mean, it didn't stop me having to spend every Saturday from March to October traipsing from soccer field to soccer field in a diameter of about 200 kilometres.
Hours, and hours, and hours in the car to watch other people play not very good sport.
Things in Sydney today are not much different. If you have boys, and they play soccer, you travel to a different field every Saturday, and you often don't know until Thursday where that field will be.
This is what happens when you play a male dominated sport, organised along rules arranged by men. You never know where the hell you are, nor what time you're going to have to get up to be sure you'll be there.
Go on, prove I'm wrong: I dare you!
(and this is where the getting Kim's mind off her troubles part comes in because I know her well enough to know that, like me, a dare is very hard to resist!)
So. When I saw Kim's post about how grateful she was to have boys and NOT be standing on a netball court I had to laugh.
And laugh, and laugh.
You see, netball is organised by women. For girls, and women.
And do you know how it works?
Every week, you go to the same place. Unless you are foolish enough to have a sportily gifted child who plays in rep teams, you always know how far you have to travel and what time you have to be there. Always.
So I had to have a laugh.
Then I got over it.
Because I stuffed everything up by having a bet both ways - with two girls and a boy, and boy-girl twins into the bargain. So any sport we engage in on a Saturday MUST be unisex, like gymnastics, or karate.
But it's funny,
how the lens through which we view life can be coloured by such strange things as the way our children emerge from the womb.
And I was thinking all about this tonight because my big girl was allowed to stay up a bit later and watch New Inventors (favourite show, go figure) and while we watched it she brushed and plaited my hair.
And it was good.
That's all.
mtc
Bec
posted by Bec at 3/29/2006 10:00:00 pm
9 Comments:
God, will you just send over the Pea Princess *right now*!
I just know the only brushing I'll be getting from boy child (2) will be the brush-off.
And the only massage will be when he's walking over me to get to the front door and go out in search of cooler parents.
Geez, you're lucky!
Felix will, on occasion, tickle my back as I will do the same for him.
Soccer - the not knowing which field...
Picture this:
last saturday.
Turn up, 10 minutes late.
Set up chair, start breastfeeding
See other dad getting ansy
walks off
pulls other parents off with him
staring at a list stuck up on a brick pylon of clubhouse
I am sitting - ALONE - breastfeeding
Looking like a git
We are at the wrong field.
Saturday sporting fixtures suck.
Period.
Regardless of sex.
Except tennis, which never moves (yet) is over in half an hour and gives time for a lovely catch-up weekly debrief with Liam's mum.
I have been thinking lately (I swear it's true) that we need a joint blog for mothers of multiple boys, to be called My Three Sons. And I turn up here and you've written about it already! Spooky.
(Me, Kim, Blackbird and Babelbabe. Oh and Susie going one better).
I have already put my foot down and said NO SOCCER. (If they want soccer, H can handle it.) I will happily drive them to hockey and swimming and track, but soccer bores me to tears. I will go anywhere as long as I am not bored to tears. Because, clearly, being a mom is all about ME : )
Now I want to join the boys club! Not that I want to stand around watching rugby or anything but there might be a few too many shelias in the house if I have a third girl (if I have a third baby!). My daughter also plays with my hair ... and its wonderful :)
Let the record show that Kim's comment proves I am right about the constant, disorganised movement of soccer field draws, and that netball is superior in at least this one, stationary way.
oh BOY! A look at what lies ahead for me. Yikes! I'm still too naive at motherhood, so from here I'll still say it's all good. :)
If any of you EVER tell my wife these things, I SWEAR...
-J.
Joke - we're just keeping a file for future - ah - uses?
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