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Well Done

11 month old Jack learnt to do proper bum-in-the-air crawling today (he’s been making do with SAS style on-the-belly slithering till now). A momentous day…but one he won’t remember. Just as he won’t remember the first time he ate solids or laughed or rolled over or blew a raspberry.

You won’t remember, but you’ve achieved a heck of a lot in your life. The current hill you are climbing may look like a mountain. The current issue you are grappling may seem all-consuming, but so did your first tooth, your first steps, your first night alive. You’ve done amazing things. You will continue to do so. Take a moment to marvel at your stunning abilities.

A clichéd existence

My eyebrows have merged into a monobrow; my non-work wardrobe consists of two pairs of jeans and a couple of T shirts. My make up bag contains an unidentifiable grubby cylinder that could be a lipstick, an eye shadow or perhaps even an ancient packet of polo mints…who knows…

…and yet a year ago I swore blind I wasn’t going to become the cliché of a middle-aged mum who has let her appearance go.

What is it about clichés? Perhaps it is because they are so blindingly obvious that we imperiously dismiss them as irrelevant or easy to avoid and then drift into becoming them.

“Of course I’m not going to take my partner for granted/become a wage slave/miss my kid’s school play/become unfit. Thousands of other people have fallen into that trap, but not me, no siree! I’m no cliché”

My monobrow is teaching me two things:

1. If you want to avoid becoming a cliché you’ve got to do something to avoid it. If you are driving towards a lake, the fact that it is blindingly obvious shouldn’t stop you from swerving before entering it
2. But, paradoxically the more important lesson is: what’s so bad about being a cliché? Right now there are more important things in my life than eyebrow plucking. I’m enjoying a re-prioritisation of my values which means I’d much prefer playing with my son Jack, reading a book or getting some kip than faff around with tweezers. In fact the next time I see a “lake” I might smile, hit the accelerator and drive straight on in.

Stupid Intelligence

My toddler son Jack went through a phase where he howled whenever he was more than a couple of feet away from me. It was painful…

• Mum goes to get a cup of tea…..howl
• Play with that toy over there…howl
• Go and hug grandma….howl

And then more painful still was the tutting and shaking of heads by some friends and family about Jack becoming a softie, a wuss, a namby pamby mummy’s boy. How silly of him to get so attached to one human being. How immature.
I don’t buy that. Jack demonstrated what I call “stupid intelligence”. It may be stupid to others, but it is pretty intelligent in his universe. “Mummy looks after me most of the time. She gives me food, gives me attention…she’s not as good as I am at peekabo, but hey, she’s learning.”

Now is this inconvenient for mummy? Yup. Inconvenient for other adults? Yup. Inconvenient for Jack? Nope. It is pretty smart.

Unburden yourself from other people’s labels. Don’t confuse their stupid with your stupid.
What do you do that is so highly intelligent that others label it stupid?
Enjoy revelling in your stupid intelligence

Wonderful versus Extraordinary

The word “extraordinary” according to the dictionary definition means “out of the ordinary” so everyday stuff doesn’t count. It’s got to be unusual, infrequent to be “extraordinary”. This means that:

• Women give birth every single second across the globe…so that can’t be extraordinary
• The tide turns daily….so that can’t be extraordinary
• You’ve lived with yourself every day… so you can’t be extraordinary
• Music is played continuously across the globe…so melody can’t be extraordinary

So I don’t care very much for extraordinary things. Big deal if something doesn’t happen very often. I wish we’d look instead for what’s “wonderful”, which the dictionary describes as “of a quality that excites admiration or amazement”.

• Cracking a joke with the person in front of me in the queue at the post office is wonderful
• The feeling of hot water on your skin when you are having a shower is wonderful
• Saying hello to a friend you’ve said hello to hundreds of times already is wonderful
  

Have a wonderful day.

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