Happy Monday, teamsters.
Here we go again, back on the merry-go-round of life for another spin around the week.
I hope yours is a good one. xoxo
A MILLION MILES FROM NORMAL – By Paige Nick
THE AUNTFATHER
Being a parent is hard.
Not that I would know. The only things I’ve ever given birth to have been a bunch of columns, some ads and a few books. But if the sheer back chat, attitude and sleepless nights they’ve given me are anything to go by, I can only imagine what rearing real babies must be like.
Most families have a mad aunt to contend with, usually an Aunt Credenza, or Aunt Pauline. I’m currently Aunt Poopy. I’m hoping for something a little more elegant when we grow out of the scatology phase.
Being an aunt is awesome, I get to hang out with all these incredible kids, and then hand them back when they get too snotty, smelly, tired or demanding. It’s the cop-out version of parenting. You get to own breakables, sleep, not share an ipad (except when you’re babysitting) and wear white clothes.
I just logged into Twitter and saw this tweet from @edeni: ‘My sister is at the Loeries and I’m watching Barbie Mariposa Fairy Princess. #rocknroll’
I couldn’t have put it better myself. Okay so I wasn’t at the Loeries Advertising Awards either *she says from her couch, in her pajamas*, but I could have been if I’d wanted to. #auntperks
I also think I probably make a better aunt than I would a mom. For starters I don’t have eyes in the back of my head, and I don’t think I have the words ‘just wait until your father gets home’, or ‘because I said so’ in me. But maybe those are some of the myriad of things that come naturally with pregnancy, like a mean sense of smell, a desire for pickles and acute cankles.
There are just as many reasons to have babies as there are not to. I’ve heard a lot of women say that they want to have a baby so they can have something that looks just like them. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, let alone my own flesh and blood, nobody should have this metabolism. I’m also probably not brave, strong, tough or unselfish enough to be a mom. I see my sisters and mother friends and the enormous jobs and responsibilities they take on. They’re superwomen, and not just because one of them wore her knickers on the outside once by accident. Major sleep deprivation will do that to a woman.
So, I’m happy just being the aunt, of course it doesn’t carry the same gravitas as the role of Godfather, but I can live with that for now. Anyway, that’s only because nobody ever made a movie called The Aunt, staring Dame Judy Dench or Queen Meryl Streep, with a catchphrase like ‘Make me a newphew I can’t refuse.’ I’m pretty sure it’s still coming though.
But I do have something a Godfather and most mothers don’t get to have, and that’s twelve incredible nieces and nephews of varying ages, plus all my friend’s children, who I get to watch grow into these phenomenal human beings, and teach the really important things in life, like how to drive, or which apps to download.
I babysat a batch of them the other night when their parents had to go to away on business. Either that or they just needed an excuse to check into a hotel and have the bed, food, bathroom and an uninterupted full eight hours sleep to themselves. Who could blame them?
So I found myself left in charge of three boys under the age of eleven overnight. Which I’ve learnt is the equivalent of aproximately nine adults in mess, appetite, noise and farting. I since have a whole new respect for parents.
They were angels. There were no trips to the emergency room, everyone went to bed, eventually, and nobody died. Although at one point I turned my back for one second to let the dog out, and returned to the bedroom to discover that the one had written ‘Suck my balls’ in large letters on the other one’s leg, in a (very) permanent marker. On the upside, at least he spelt it correctly.
Fortunately it’s the middle of winter, so they wore long pants to school the next morning. Although I pictured what was going through the other mothers’ heads at soccer practice later that day – that’s what happens when you get the porn-writing aunt to do the baby sitting. All I can say to my sisters and friends with kids at this point is I’m sorry, but Julie Andrews was already booked, you’re stuck with me for the next eighteen years.
