Peahen 4: What is that noisy thing?
Princess 2: It’s definitely not mine!
Gutsy9: MUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: Argh!
Okay, Gutsy9 is now around 4 days old. I have taken him outside to meet his potential mothers but none of them will take responsibility. They just look at him as if he is an alien and he keeps running back to me anyway. I will keep trying but obviously he will need to get a bit older before he is re-integrated.
In the meantime he is living on my shoulder. I love it!
Gutsy-9, the baby peacock, is now about 72 hours old. He has begun to cry, and I mean CRY, if he is separated from me. His crying is like the beautiful sound of birds chirping and tweeting – multiplied by a million, which makes it not so beautiful.
If I put him on the floor he looks at me as if to say how could you abandon me like this?
Control crying methods will be helpful tonight.
Ming-who-is-not-interested-in-birds has decided to re-name 9, Gutsy.
I can see his point!
Gutsy-9 will not leave my shoulder!
Godfrey: I’m sorry I bit you yesterday, Julie.
Me: No you’re not!
Godfrey: Yes I AM!
Me: No you’re NOT!
Godfrey: I think you are jealous of me, Julie – face it!
Me: Godsy, it is the other way around! I love the gang as much as you do but, and I hate to break this to you, they love me much more than they love you.
Godfrey: But why?
Me: Well, you scare them. You are so overbearing and bossy and your habit of biting the hand that feeds you is not fashionable anymore.
Godfrey: Oh I think I am going to cry, Julie.
Me: Let yourself, Godsy, and try to remember how we began….
Godfrey: I’m so sorry, Julie.
Me: Good!
My first brother, BJ, turns 52 today which is wonderful because for the next six weeks or so he will only be a year younger than I am – ha!
BJ is a chiropractor, like our father was, and he is now working in the Solomon Islands with his wife and two of his five children (yes, First brother and Baby brother surpassed me long ago in the baby-making stakes).
This is him with our mother a couple of years ago. He has taken to wearing a kilt because his eldest daughter is getting married in Scotland next year and I think he also quite likes the look of his own legs.
And that’s BJ on the left, Baby brother in the middle and me on the right – in our father’s arms.
Both my brothers have inherited our dad’s love of being a father.
Happy birthday, BJ!
As indicated in a previous post, whenever I get to the end of my tether, the first person I talk to is Anthony – always.
I think it is remarkable that when I am the needy one, he becomes incredibly supportive and completely forgets his own neediness.
This is Malay, our only remaining rooster. He has Anthony’s tenacity!
These two guys have a lot in common.
They both like to show off.
They both like to dance on the roof.
They are both gorgeous.
However, the second prince, despite all appearances to the contrary, is much more interesting!
Conversation between Ming and me this afternoon:
Me [timid]: If you could just stop being so angry – please! I think we need to go back for counselling.
Ming [sarcastic]: Oh, of course, counselling because I am a psycho and I need help.
Me: Everything seemed okay until a couple of days ago and now you’re angry again – I can’t stand it and I want it to stop.
Ming: But I am angry. I AM ANGRY!
Me: So what do I do?
Ming: LET ME BE ANGRY!
Okay.
That angry angel has a good point!
I have always found the concept of ‘normal’ problematic. As a child I was obsessively anxious that I might be abnormal and would constantly ask my mother, “Am I normal?” She would always reassure me but I still had my doubts.
As an adult I eschew the notion of normal. It is such a bland, boring word and it hardly ever makes sense on its own. Without context, cultural and social, it is a vacuous concept. Quite frankly I don’t like it and it doesn’t like me.
I’m not alone here am I. But normal rules doesn’t it. It boxes you in with its perfect corners. But ‘abnormal’ isn’t a very pleasant word either so it is a dilemma for children when they are measured on such a continuum with nothing in the middle. The pressure to be normal or the same as everyone else is a ferocious pressure and can torture the child/person who struggles with not being able to fit into the box.
If you are not normal in the stereotypical way, you are not abnormal, you are just different, unique, original, maybe a bit eccentric even. So what.
If you are ‘normal’ well good on you!
I’ve always embraced Ming’s various idiosyncracies. When his pre-school teacher informed me, in serious tones, that he didn’t conform, I pretended to be concerned but was secretly thinking ‘yay!’ Hell, he was only 4! When he couldn’t grip his pencil in the normal way, a psychologist was brought in to see him at the school. Again, I pretended concern but secretly thought ‘does this really matter?’ He was only 7!
Now, however, I struggle with whether it is normal for an 18-year-old boy/man to emotionally detach from his father. I have allowed this to happen because my only other choice was to force guilt on him. It has been heartbreaking to watch this transition from compassionate to dispassionate son. 15-year-old Ming said to the doctor “we will never put Dad in a nursing home!” with his eyes full of tears. 18-year-old Ming doesn’t even want to see Anthony anymore. “It’s not Dad now,” he reasons.
I bought one of those mini photo scanners the other day. My plan is to scan the best of hundreds of photos of Ants and Ming that I took over the years of Ming growing up. I will then organize these into a photo book for each of them for Christmas.
Last night I asked Ming, “Can you reconjure any compassion at all?” and he said, “No, Mum, but I can pretend.”
That is enough. That is normal enough.
jmgoyder 