Motherhood & The Girls' Minibreak Dreads
On assuming I'll die while on holiday...
What is it about motherhood and the dreads?
I’m off on a much-anticipated girls trip to the sun. That elusive, can-cure-everything, much-pined-for sun. And all I can think is that something dreadful will happen while I’m away.
Like I’ll be involved in a horrible plane crash or balcony disaster or abduction mystery. It’s (I’m?) crazy.
You would think my biggest thing was the logistics of the whole thing. Getting away for a couple of days is enough to give most mothers of young children a migraine even thinking of all the bits to be done. The little bits. The bits that matter only, really, to mothers but that are the little bits which make their lives all the better for having their mothers in them.
When I’m away my children will be more than well looked after. They have their Dad, afterall. And he is looking forward to having the gang to himself. When there’s just one parent ‘on duty’ it’s more intense, but its also more intimate and free-wheeling for that parent and the children. Plans can be made on a whim and without the consideration of another (more anal? I’m definitely more anal...) adult. He will obviously and rightly do things differently - I suspect the beds wont get made or pyjamas put under the pillows each morning or hair be brushed (though I hope he forgives me if I’m doing him a dis-service here, although I’m not because why should brushed hair and neat bedding even be a priority for everyone?). But there’ll be lots more outdoors-stuff, better food and little ‘jobs’ done whereby all the gang will basically have loads of fun.
(Reminder to up the ante in relation to being a ‘fun Mam’.)
I dropped the kids to school this morning, regretting every time I castigated them for STILL NOT BRUSHING THEIR TEETH (this might be the last morning they’ll have me to bring them to school). I lingered a little too long with the goodbyes outside the school gate (this may be our last ever goodbye, afterall) and in the car to the airport I keep rehearsing the voice note I’ll leave to convey to them how happy they’ve made my life, as the plane plummets to the ground in some weird, brutally-unfair, engine-failure scandal. (Aer Lingus has a fantastic record - that can only last for so long, surely?).
Did I mention I’m missing the soon to be nine year old’s birthday?
When you become a parent it’s quite obvious that your commitments and priorities change, but I wasn’t ready for this creeping dread that when life is so lovely I am surely tempting fate by being so greedy as to fly to the sun. Before, holidays felt like a well deserved break - in fact, I might have felt it unjust that my whole life wasn’t a holiday in the sun. We only get one, precious life afterall. But now, when my family have an entire weekend of activities and a few days of school to navigate I feel like Marie Antoinette before the guillotine. Alan working a full time job and juggling the house, kids and a plethora of pets? Let them eat cake!
If I do die on holiday (the decadence of it, the shame, can you imagine? Me on the front of the Examiner and everyone asking how I could go on holiday without my kids) let it be remembered that when leaving, Alan said to soak it all up - to not think twice. It did look like he was ever so slightly crying, but he assured me it was dust in his eye…. The dust I was creating with an over-eager rev from the car to make it in good time to the airport for a pre-flight drink.
'Love you’ I called as he dashed back in doors to get on Teams.
If I do die, I die a lucky gal.