A dog and a girl accompanied us tonight. The dog had a sparkly pink and gold scarf for a lead. The girl was in pyjamas which seemed fitting (though they were stripey, when really they should have had stars on them). She skulked with the dog in a doorway while we worked. She is the eldest daughter of my conspirator so she was fulfiling the role of child-who-is-super-embarrassed-by-their-parents extremely well. We planted a rather wet, but extra shiny, star this time on the (ssshhhh!) pavement. I think we're both a little too eager for people to begin to notice them and the gutter just isn't cutting it. I have wanted, these last days, to go with my three after school to the veg shop, or to get bread, or just use any old pretext to wander down the road in daylight in order that they might spot them. But this is the tired end of term and the small one can barely make it home, let alone go wandering around looking for stars. My eldest noticed I had a gold star on my phone wallpaper. She said excitedly to her friend "We saw that star in the road!" Maybe I should let her in on the secret. We could do with a shared thing, her and me, just now. We seem to be fighting a lot; cycles of shouts and rage and tears and hugs. Its easy to feel like a rubbish mum. And I think at the end of each hiatus she feels like a rubbish daughter. It breaks my heart. My star girl.
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