This 'searching' is something that I think most parents should be able to put on their CV or we should simply be given the right to just add an S, to join any other letters people might have accumulated, at the end of their name. For instance, Polly English, MBA OBE S, because I am totally sure that I spend the majority of my mornings, afternoons and evenings fulfilling this task. China Black wrote a song about it, a song that often goes through my head as, under my daughter's instructions I just "look round the whole house, then you might find it". Seems reasonable to me.
On school days we look for shoes, coats, hats, gloves, scarves, school bags, swimming goggles, hair ties, hair brush, Taggi's etc. Weekends we look for toys, pencils, paint brush, DVDs, dolls, blankets, prams, things that they don't even know they have, but youngest comes to me and says "Mummy?",
"Yeeeees!",
"Where's my thing?",
"What thing?",
"You know, the pink one with the thing!",
"No, I don't know the pink one with the thing, that could be anything dear, can you be a little bit more specific please?",
"YOU KNOW!", she shouts now and stamps her foot to demonstrate her anger at my ineptitude.
It was at this moment in times gone by that I would have growled and shouted something like "I haven't got a clue about that which you are talking. Do you know where my thing is?",
"What thing?", she'd ask.
"You know, the thing, the one that you're talking about".
She'd look at me and just say, "You're talking rubbish".
Needless to say, we never get far with that line of questioning, I just have to drop what I am doing to get on and find whatever it is we might be looking for, because I hate lost things, it makes me feel panicky. The thing that we are searching for, helpfully, usually takes on several different guises during the search, until eventually she settles for and Autocar Magazine, piece of fluff or an expensive electronics item (or something of that nature) discarded by some other member of the family.
I can hear that some of you are shrieking "organisation Stuperior, organisation is the key here!" The problem with that one is, I lost my organisation 6 years ago, when I gave birth to the eldest, so I'm still searching for that too. Aren't we all indeed "searching, for that something that we'll never find, in another place another time, searching?".
On school days we look for shoes, coats, hats, gloves, scarves, school bags, swimming goggles, hair ties, hair brush, Taggi's etc. Weekends we look for toys, pencils, paint brush, DVDs, dolls, blankets, prams, things that they don't even know they have, but youngest comes to me and says "Mummy?",
"Yeeeees!",
"Where's my thing?",
"What thing?",
"You know, the pink one with the thing!",
"No, I don't know the pink one with the thing, that could be anything dear, can you be a little bit more specific please?",
"YOU KNOW!", she shouts now and stamps her foot to demonstrate her anger at my ineptitude.
It was at this moment in times gone by that I would have growled and shouted something like "I haven't got a clue about that which you are talking. Do you know where my thing is?",
"What thing?", she'd ask.
"You know, the thing, the one that you're talking about".
She'd look at me and just say, "You're talking rubbish".
Needless to say, we never get far with that line of questioning, I just have to drop what I am doing to get on and find whatever it is we might be looking for, because I hate lost things, it makes me feel panicky. The thing that we are searching for, helpfully, usually takes on several different guises during the search, until eventually she settles for and Autocar Magazine, piece of fluff or an expensive electronics item (or something of that nature) discarded by some other member of the family.
I can hear that some of you are shrieking "organisation Stuperior, organisation is the key here!" The problem with that one is, I lost my organisation 6 years ago, when I gave birth to the eldest, so I'm still searching for that too. Aren't we all indeed "searching, for that something that we'll never find, in another place another time, searching?".
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