Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 279, 15 February 1928, Page 3

Mundane Musings

Me and My Girl There are few thrills in life equal to coming home. Especially a home where a wee girl, all shiny-eyed and sleepy-headed, and cod-liver oily of rosebud mouth, cosy and warm in her sleeping suit, is sitting up in bed knitting a pair of dolly garters with two meat skewers and some string to keep herself awake . . . waiting to greet her long lost Mamma with Teddy-bear hugs and juicy kisses, and th*e news of how she ate all her crusts and polished off the nasty powders, and never crossed the road without looking both ways and didn’t push any of her friends into the gutter, and all about the neighbour’s new baby which gets so hungry that it eats its mother’s frock, and can I come into your bed, darling angel mumps? And both of us do a joyful creep up to the attic of our seaside cottage and go bye-byes. And every now and then I wake up to remove a pink heel reposing like a ton-weight on my Adam’s apple, and readjust her the orthodox way up, which is generally the sign for a wild craving for a drop of “dwink,” which is generally in the kitchen, and so on to the bitter, sleepless end. And that is some ungodly hour like 5 a.m., when a ton-weight annual is produced from under a pillow, and laid on my chest, another signal that lam expected to sit up and take oral notice of any of the contents she may fancy, even if it be uninteresting bits like “Copyright reserved throughout the World.” And then breakfast comes up, and we both giggle over our mail and the pictures in the Home papers, and sometimes one of us giggles too much, which means that the 4quilibrium of a softboiled egg gets upset on the parrot and plum-tree bedspread, which is the signal that one of us gest smacked. And there are crocodile howls . . . and one of us is confronted with a mutinous mouth and a look in tearstarry eyes which plainly says: “You may break my body, but you will never break my spirit.” Of course, then I ask her to forgive me, and we make it up with eggy kisses and prptestations of our joint sainted behaviour . . . until the next; time. Ah! Being the loving mother of a loving child beats anything else life has to offer a woman. * * * You know the first thing I do when I come back from an absence is to give her a jolly good bath from head to foot. I flatter myself there isn’t- anyone who can wash behind her ears and get the soap out of those curls, besides faithfully (as per fervent promises) steering clear of all agonizing bruises and “bleeds” quite like I can. And what a joy it is to soap the exquisite pink and white altogether of a pretty child until it is as fragrant and sweet as a rain-washed rosebud. , . Little thoroughbred bodies, before corsets, shoes, fashionable clothes, and too much civilisation have had time to stunt, thwart and mar their beauty! I always feel sorry for all the loving daddies of the world whose work keeps them too late to get home in time to have a finger in the order of the bath. People say to me: “Five, is she? Such an interesting age, isn’t it?” And I reply, concealing the polite pip, having listened to that sort of remark about 999,999 times: “My baby was wildly interesting to me from the moment I heard those; immortal words. ‘lt’s a girl.’ ” I always think that those who can find no “interest” in a child, whether it be a day or a decade old, must be exceedingly uninteresting themselves. I only want to love a child. Any child. And my chiefest concern when I am introduced to a little stranger, is that it will be “interested” in me. As for those mammas who say: “I prefer little girls. . . you can dress them so prettily.” Well . . . Poor little girls! In our cottage life wouldn’t be worth living for either of us if I got the traditional wind ub every time a brand new frock (complete with wearer) sat in the sea, or tadpoles were brought home in a new hat. Sound in wind and limb and heart, and no “best clothes in my maternal motto. , And the only inviolable rule In force is: Bed 6 o’clock sharp every night of the year and no nonsense about it. That’s all the upbringing I permit myself. I try to treat my little daughter as I like to be treated myself. I don’t snub her. Or sit on her. Or swamp her life with foolish, unnecessary restrictions or conventions. I never play the heavy mother. Or the wet blanket. I want to be her greatest pal. Because she is my greatest pal. My only ambition in life is to ensure for her a happy, care-free and serene childhood. Perhaps if I had brought her up according to the rule of thumb (and smack) she wouldn’t have been found as I -found her this morning, trying to stab the maid with the toasting fork: neither would she have been illadvised enough to throw her Teddy-

bear in the chocolate pudding at dinner, because ?[\e was too “f’lup” to partake of anj <*‘ierself. On the other hand, perhaps my happy-go-lucky motherhood is responsible for the fact that she doesn’t care a shake of a tadpole’s tail for anything or anybody; that she has courage, poise and assurance that many a grown-up might envy. The one thing the mother can do is to make sure, if she can that her child has a taste for worth-while things. The only women I envy are wholetime mothers. Whose maternity knows no restrictions . . . who can always stay with their .babes, and not have to spend most of their time away from them so that they may act as mother and father all in one for all time to one adorable babe . . . the hardest task that ever a woman had to learn. But I have one huge compensation. When I can steal away to my fiveyear old I’m young with her . . . and its dear to be young with your cuddley babe. She’ll have to wait such a long, long time yet before I get to the crotchety stage . . . before she refers to to me as “that dear, old-fashioned mother of mine” . . . before I tell her, as she buzzes off for a joyride on the tail of her young man’s airplane, that I never did such things m my young days! It’s my bedtime now. And the wind is getting up to cry over the sea like all the mothers bereft of their first-born. She always comes into my bed on creepy nights like these . . . it’s company for me tht, ,e ton-weight pink heels . . .