Sitting on the stoop
So last night I (with lots of neighbors) sat out on the stoop as part of a neighborhood crime prevention/awareness program called Fairmount Sits Out. It was brilliant — good neighbors, good chat, good beer and a lovely evening. I hadn’t thought that I would stay out as long as I did so I went out to the front steps without the baby monitor. When I came in later, it was pretty clear that D. had been out of bed and wandering, although he was then sound asleep. In the morning, when I came into the childrens’ room, he immediately demanded to know where I had been last night,
You left me, he insisted.
Well, the fact that I hadn’t actually, technically left him alone was almost beside the point, to him and to me. I felt terrible, like an awful abandoning mother, like that mother who left her children at home eating tuna fish for a week while she flew to meet some internet boyfriend and told them to hide in the closet if anyone came to the door. That’s what I felt like. I felt almost too bad to make coffee, although I staggered through the guilt somehow. And here’s the conclusion that was growing in my head as I galumphed through the first hour of the day:
Mummies must not have any fun at all at any time no matter what not even a little no way no how only watch worthy films and go to bed by nine.
This, even I could tell, was clearly bollocks. So the conclusion began to change a little:
Mummies must PAY for their fun.
(There’s an evil laugh playing in the background of this one).
Actually, I think I almost agree with this, although I wish it weren’t true. We pay for our pleasures whether in exhaustion, bad hair, irritated children who will blame everything on us when they’re 27 or stomach twisting guilt. I’m waiting for the effects of this rule to dissapate still.
But the evening was very nice. And I would do it again, so there. (Although next time I will actually CHECK to see if the children are properly asleep before skeddaddling to sit on the front steps.)
