I am reading How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran and am guffawing with laughter. (I know, I know, I am the last person on the planet to read it, but up until now I have been too busy being a woman to find the time to sit down and read about how to do it properly.)
"What are you laughing at?" asks Small Boy. He has put his long-suffering Lavender Pekin in a wheelbarrow full of grass and is wheeling her around in what he calls her "luxury nest".
"Oh, it's just this author - she and her sister used to do exactly what Auntie C and I did!" I cry, wiping tears of mirth and nostalgia from my face.
"What's that? Pretend to go swimming in the bath by putting flannels on your tummies and saying they were swimming costumes? Pretend that your peas were people and take them walking in mashed potato mountains and diving in lakes of gravy? Pretend--"
"NO!" (This is one of the increasingly frequent moments in my life where I find I am regretting telling my kids anything about my own childhood as it is all, slowly but surely, coming back to haunt me. I feel I need to make it clear here that although, yes, I did do that thing with the flannel, it was in fact my sister that did the thing with the peas and whatnot. My food never got the chance to be involved in imaginary games.) "No, we used to put tights on our heads and pretend that we had long hair!" I squeal. "And Caitlin Moran says she and her sister did it too!"
Small Boy seems, inexplicably, to have lost interest in what I am saying and has picked up an old pashmina of mine. He is swishing it around, as if it is a cape and he is about to take to the stage and deliver a dramatic soliloquy. "Oh wow," he says. "Can I have this?"
"No," I say. "You look mental."
"I do not!" he protests. "And can I have a pair of tights too?"
"WHAT?"
"Oh, and do we have an electric fan?"
"Er, maybe. Why?" I am, as Miranda's mum would say, what-I-call-flabbergasted by this point.
"Well, if I had some tights I could put them on my head like you and Auntie C and that woman in the book did, and then I could wear this scarfy thing and then I could turn on the fan and stand in front of it and my cape and long hair would - flow - in - the - breeze!" He delivers these last four words in a tone of magic and mystery with a shake of his head and a rustle of his cape.
I hastily stow my copy of Ms Moran's book under a stash of newspapers and vow not to share any more of it with my son.
I don't want him getting any more ideas on how to be a woman.
"What are you laughing at?" asks Small Boy. He has put his long-suffering Lavender Pekin in a wheelbarrow full of grass and is wheeling her around in what he calls her "luxury nest".
"Oh, it's just this author - she and her sister used to do exactly what Auntie C and I did!" I cry, wiping tears of mirth and nostalgia from my face.
"What's that? Pretend to go swimming in the bath by putting flannels on your tummies and saying they were swimming costumes? Pretend that your peas were people and take them walking in mashed potato mountains and diving in lakes of gravy? Pretend--"
"NO!" (This is one of the increasingly frequent moments in my life where I find I am regretting telling my kids anything about my own childhood as it is all, slowly but surely, coming back to haunt me. I feel I need to make it clear here that although, yes, I did do that thing with the flannel, it was in fact my sister that did the thing with the peas and whatnot. My food never got the chance to be involved in imaginary games.) "No, we used to put tights on our heads and pretend that we had long hair!" I squeal. "And Caitlin Moran says she and her sister did it too!"
Small Boy seems, inexplicably, to have lost interest in what I am saying and has picked up an old pashmina of mine. He is swishing it around, as if it is a cape and he is about to take to the stage and deliver a dramatic soliloquy. "Oh wow," he says. "Can I have this?"
"No," I say. "You look mental."
"I do not!" he protests. "And can I have a pair of tights too?"
"WHAT?"
"Oh, and do we have an electric fan?"
"Er, maybe. Why?" I am, as Miranda's mum would say, what-I-call-flabbergasted by this point.
"Well, if I had some tights I could put them on my head like you and Auntie C and that woman in the book did, and then I could wear this scarfy thing and then I could turn on the fan and stand in front of it and my cape and long hair would - flow - in - the - breeze!" He delivers these last four words in a tone of magic and mystery with a shake of his head and a rustle of his cape.
I hastily stow my copy of Ms Moran's book under a stash of newspapers and vow not to share any more of it with my son.
I don't want him getting any more ideas on how to be a woman.
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