Mothering Sunday dawned, well, more-or-less at dawn, thanks to LittleBear's propensity for waking up really early on the very days you'd really rather he didn't. Nonetheless, being a surprisingly biddable LittleBear, he remained relatively quiet and happy in his own bed until the sun-face lit up on his clock telling him it was time to get up. And then, with some gentle reminders from BigBear that this was a special day for being lovely to Mummies, I was left in peace in bed while BigBear and LittleBear got up. Ahhhh... a lie-in... blissful, guilt-free, uninterrupted sleep... a lolling drift back into gentle slumber... But no! My brain had other ideas. My stupid, anxiety-ridden, unco-operative bloody brain just started worrying instead.
Was I worrying about BigBear and LittleBear? No, in truth they often give me a bit of extra sleep on a Sunday morning, so I knew they were fine.
Was I worrying about work? No, since having LittleBear, though I still care about what I do at work, it doesn't assume the same importance in my mind as it used to.
Was I worrying about something important, a matter of life, death or taxes? No, there's really nothing of any great import occurring on any of those fronts.
I was worrying about making a phone call. Yes, a phone call. One of my Achilles heels (yes, I throw accuracy with my classical mythology to the four winds and I have multiple Achilles heels. Maybe this one is an Achilles elbow, or perhaps Achilles ear-lobe. No, not an ear-lobe, that's not a major enough body-part. I'll stick with heel)
Some background... the Bear Family, in the form of GrannyBear, AuntieBear and various Bear Cousins, own a holiday cottage some 250 miles from here. To avoid all the maintenance falling upon the shoulders of one Bear, we're trying to share it around a bit. And I have volunteered to take responsibility for the redecoration of the master bedroom. After some rather unfortunate failings in the watertightness of the roof, the master bedroom has suffered quite a bit of water damage, hence the need for redecoration. The kind of redecoration that's beyond the realm of DIY. Plastering and other Dark Arts. I now have the phone numbers of a plasterer and a painter/decorator recommended by local friends.
All I have to do is phone them.
All I have to do is phone them.
All I have to do is phone them.
But, they might think I'm an idiot. They might laugh at me. They might refuse to do the work because I asked the wrong questions. They might think I'm a fool for thinking anyone could possible do the work in a couple of months time, when everyone knows you have to arrange things at least 6 months in advance. Or they might think I'm mad for phoning now when I don't need to the work done for a couple of months as they could start next week. They might tell me it's going to be squillions of pounds and I'll panic and not know what to say.
Do you have any idea how many ways this phone call could go wrong? How many ways I could be laughed at and thought stupid? Can you imagine getting through life with every phone call you make being like this for days in advance? I can go a very, very long time between haircuts, or dentist appointments, or car services just because of the paralysing fear of something so nebulous I'm not sure I am managing to fully put it into words. My hands shake and I feel sick. My sub-conscious mind takes over and tricks me into "forgetting" the phone call I need to make, and gets me busy doing things somewhere away from a phone. Then evening rolls around and "oh dear! I've forgotten to make that phone-call!"
So, that was my lie-in.
Meanwhile LittleBear and BigBear went out together and LittleBear chose the biggest bunch of flowers he could find for me and when they got home he crept upstairs as quietly as he could and snuck into our room to see if I was awake so he could say "Happy Mothering Day!" to me. Admittedly he had ulterior motives. He has been looking forward to breakfast in bed for weeks. So he and BigBear went and made me fresh coffee and brought me a pain au chocolat and a cup of coffee. Oh, and a croissant for LittleBear. That would be in addition to the bowl of cereal and the two croissants he'd had for "first breakfast" already. And we snuggled up in bed together eating and it was lovely.
My day was then filled with cuddles and giggles and tickles and a very lovely LittleBear who decided that he was a baby tiger and I was a Mummy tiger. And it turns out that as well as having a tiger cave made out of cushions, sofas and blankets, what baby tigers like best of all is cuddles with Mummy tiger.
So LittleBear made my Mothering Sunday lovely (with some help from BigBear) despite my brain's best efforts.
But if you're a friend of mine and I haven't phoned you for a while... don't take it personally... I might want to really...
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