my-speck

Picture a SCREAMING child being pushed in a stroller around the suburban shopping center by a very harrassed and wild-haired looking mother. Wayward glances from strangers (some sympathetic – most, a few judgemental) as the loud stroller starts to go in indiscriminately crazy loops and the mother’s breathing increasingly becomes jagged as she initially tries to continue shopping (but is in reality just pushing the stroller round the same old stands of generic boring clothing with an increasing fervour while not actually seeing any of the clothes at all) and she struggles to retain any sense of composure and “I’m the parent & I’m in control” feeling before fleeing for the closest exit with the wailing trailing down the escalators to follow her out into the heat of the carpark.

That was us this afternoon.

After another night of sleeplessness and random feeding, I for some reason decided that today was the day to go to the shopping center to try to find some clothes that fit me.

What the hell was I thinking? Alarm bells should have been ringing for lots of reasons (but I guess my brain is still addled):

1. I hate clothes shopping at the best of times.
2. Taking a baby clothes shopping is nigh impossible. See 1. for why I forgot this – I think I’ve been once with you in tow before. I obviously didn’t learn my lesson the first time.
3. Clothes shopping on a total of four hours of broken sleep probably isn’t a good idea at any time.
4. Did I really think I was going to look fabulous in anything after so little sleep? Even if I made it past 2. to get into a change room and get some on.
5. Did I mention I hate clothes shopping?
6. Oh, and I think I forgot to mention that I also had shopping centers. Or Malls or whatever you want to call them.

AAAAAAGH..

Results?

1. Visibly further harrassed and crazed mother seen leaving shopping center car park jerkily in wrong gear endangering lives of herself, her child & any pedestrians silly enough to get in the way.
2. A new pet-peeve – All you people who park ultra close to the left hand side of cars with baby seats in them: you deserve scratches on the side of your car from where your attempting-to-get-the-screaming-baby-into-the-car mother manages to open her door into your too-closely and inconsiderately parked car. Though that is no admission of guilt. Just saying, if something like that were to happen.
3. New clothes for baby. Check.
4. New clothes for mother. Nada.
5. Food stains now on only remaining wearable-in-public shirt of mother from tussle when attempting to extract baby from badly-designed high-chair at ridiculously expensive and lousy-food cafe.

So now you’re in your room screaming as you haven’t slept since your 9.20-11am sleep this morning (it’s now 4:10pm) and I’m watching the little red LEDs in our bedside clock, wondering if I’m starting to hallucinate or whether the red light is indeed reminiscent of disco lights at a rave party when you’re lying on the floor chatting in the chill-out area. Dreaming of a life other than baby and shopping center…

…………………….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

PS> Oh and: Bad parent of the day award – of course. Mum. For dragging her tired baby around a bloody suburban shopping mall when it would have just been so much nicer to sit on the verandah and enjoy the rain and read some books together. .