Trying To Be June Cleaver - Just Snorting Laughter

I try to be what is commonly known as a Good Mother.  You know the type - you see them in advertisements laughing with their children, and they're wearing white tight capri pants with high heeled mules, and a crisply ironed linen shirt, and their make-up is immaculate, and the kids are laughing as they frolic through the sand.  The clothing is not rumpled, there are no crusty flecks of eye snot in the corners of the eyes, there are no thick mismatched socks to be seen, and most of all the kids are not trying to strangle each other.  This is usually a fleeting whimsical fantasy that lasts more briefly than most shutter speeds on a camera, and I end up thinking, 'Fuck this', and reverting to my normal slobby self.

But today is my day off, and it is school holidays after all, so I thought it would be nice to have some mother-and-son bonding with my kids.  I put on a blouse in a colour that suits my autumnal complexion. Hell, I even put on earrings (I work with dementia sufferers, so generally don't wear dangling jewellery).  'Get off the iPads, kids!' I called gaily in my best Carol Brady meets June Cleaver voice, 'We're going to get some chairs and then go to Coles!'.  Five minutes later, I gave an encore performance.  A few minutes later, my cry had lost its lustre.  Then I finally shouted to get off the bloody iPads because we were going, and told my groaning 14yo yes, he was coming along, too, like it or not.  Being conscientious, and liable to combust like a vampire in the sunlight, I got out the sunblock.  My kids took off when I approached them.  I try reasoning ('This is why Mum's so hot for her age; she wears sunblock'), but always end up threatening ('Get this bloody sunblock on or I'm taking the iPads away'). 

Although less than five minutes in the car, the trip seemed interminable with cries of: 'Mum, he hit me!', rebutted with: 'Well, he was annoying me!', and the summing up with: 'So, he annoys me and when I get mad he cries and I get into trouble.  Once again justice in this family is at work!'

I herded my offspring into a discount shop to get some cheap chairs for our back patio area.  I just wanted to get my chairs, get my groceries, and go to the park.  So I chose the chairs, and feeling generous, acquiesced to the request to purchase the $8 dart game set.  The chairs were heavier than I anticipated, and more awkward than I anticipated.   My oldest son and I got them to the car, and I set about stowing them so we could go to Coles.  I thought they could be packed stack-style on their sides in the boot.  I drive a Magna, and the storage space in the boot is fantastic.  Usually.  Not this time.  'Mum, they won't fit,' said my son in a burst of Obvious-Stating. 

'Okay,' I said, trying to remain calm and knowing we were taking up another car space standing around trying to get the chairs into the car, and anticipating myself for irritated honks, and wondering whether I would be able to refrain from telling the driver to go fuck him- or herself.  'Kids, I have to put cumbersome mobility aids in this car, so I'm sure I can get these chairs in.'

I took transferred the crap from the backseat into the boot, and set about trying to manoeuvre the damnable chairs into the car.  I was pushing, shoving, and grunting like the final set of a match between Monica Seles and Maria Sharipova.  My 14yo, a high achiever in the subject of Science, had a look for me, and worked out how to actually get them in.  It was a tight squeeze, but by God, he did it.  I smiled at him, and asked wasn't this much more fun than playing on the computer.  He emphatically stated it was not, and then glowered at his younger brother and complained he had done nothing whilst we had struggled to the chairs into the car.  My little one shrugged, then said, 'Well, you had it under control; there was nothing I could do.'

Chairs unpacked and positioned around my outdoor table, we set off to the park via the McDonalds drive-thru; the fruits of my womb quarrelling all the way.  My day was so not like those being experienced by the families depicted in those advertisements.  We found a bench, and sat with our food.  We weren't far from a family of I-don't-know-how-many, but they appeared to be aged 8, 9, 10, and 11, and were in the sandpit chucking sand at each other.  Then some mini-melee broke out between those kids:

'Stop fucken chucking fucken sand, ya fucken idiot!'
'Fuck off, will ya?'
'Fuck off, fuck-face!'
'Mum, he's fucken throwin' fucken sand at me!  Fucken make him stop!'

Their mother called out, 'Stop swearin', ya dickheads!'

Over our fries, my children and I looked at each other.  My mouth twitched.  My 14yo snorted a little bit of laughter through his nose.  My 11yo started to chuckle.  'Stop laughing!' I whispered, and then we started laughing again.  I was concerned the mother might want to challenge me to a scrag fight behind the lizard-shaped slippery dip if she knew we were laughing at her and her cubs, but we couldn't help it.  We huddled together and kept it was quiet as we could, but we could not stop laughing.  But it was an oddly beautiful moment.  It was the bonding I had been trying to achieve all day, and it was whilst we were trying to maintain our composure listening to the tranquillity being rent by the family of feral bogans throwing sand at each other.  We bonded.  It was a Hallmark moment.

Don't worry, when we got into our car and were able to succumb to the braying laughter that had been welling inside us at the park, I told my children if they ever spoke like that in public (or at all), I would drag them by the hair and scrub their mouths.

And when we got home, the children played outside with the new dartboard, instead of on their iPads.

I'm going to assemble some apple pies soon.  I really am having a June Cleaver afternoon after all.