One of the many hats I wear in the average day as a mother of two is that of a referee.
Its not my favourite hat. I much prefer the "having-a-great-time-baking-with-the-kids hat", (as opposed to the "why-the eff-do-I-persist-in-this-bloody-buggery-baking-nonsense hat"), or the "sitting-gracefully-in-the-sunny-garden-while-the-children-amuse-themselves hat".
But today, after school pick-up and both children were hysterical with exhaustion, I had to don my "referee" hat. Sometimes when I have to referee a game of 'Mutual Sibling Irritation' while I am driving, I have to cut straight to the big guns: threats, promises (not the good kind), round the back of the seat slaps which invariably miss the legs they're meant for, and of course my least favourite: shouting like a crazy lady.
So, today I was going through phase one of Back Seat Battle: you know, the phase where you dont actually pay any attention to the grievance and dish out a few "stop-that's" and cut-it-out's".
All of a sudden I have a Mr 3 going from zero to FREAK OUT!
"WHAT." I bark, "IS GOING ON??" (As though I wasn't in the car the whole time.)
"She wont LOOK!" shouts Mr 3.
Miss 6 is now giggling which of course infuriates Mr 3 even further.
"LOOK!"
"NO!"
"LOOK!"
"NO!"
"LOOK!"
"NO!"
"MUUUUUUUUUUUUM SHE WONT LOOK!"
Now, its a matter of survival to work these coded melt-downs out quick as you can....
And so fairly suddenly I find myself having a first time experience: I am refereeing a game of 'Made You Look You Dirty Chook'.
If you haven't had this surreal experience, I highly recommend you keep you eye open for the opportunity. First, there is such a small repertoire of appropriate commands which one can issue to fix the situation. All I could think of was.... "Just Look Will You!" It really stretches your refereeing skills.
Well that was the end of me.
I could hardly see the road for the tears of laughter. Miss 6 had robbed Mr 3 of his big chance to declare her a chook...... What was I supposed to do? It was a Mummy-Refereeing dead end. I did feel sorry for him but in the grand scheme of things, what was the lesson I was supposed to impart on Miss 6? Just let him call you a chook, its good for his self esteem????
Very silly. And very jolly that a run-of-the-mill round of Mutual Sibling Irritation turned into the three of us racing for the loo, crying with laughter. Thanks Kids, you rock.
