AUTISM, VACCINATION, KIM KARDASHIAN & WHY WOMEN COMPETE.

Yesterday I finally got myself a new phone which is good because my old one didn’t ring (a fairly key function with a phone) but is bad, because now I have no justifiable reason for not answering it when it does ring.

Or do I?

I just find it impossible to have a remotely intelligent, cohesive conversation with Q asking me for ‘book, book, book’ or ‘up please, up please, up please,’ or ‘gumboot, gumboot, gumboot’.

Gumboots are her very favourite shoe, even in the blazing summer sun. 

Her ultimate outfit is a to be completely naked except for her hat and gumboots.

She grew out of her first pair, but not before Gregory (ever the chef and to avoid a tantrum) considered spraying her feet with cooking spray so he could slide her too-big feet into the boots. Luckily for all involved, a family friend also has a shoe fetish and gave us a fantastic red pair that don’t, unfortunately, quite fit.

‘They’re too big,’ I said to G as we watched Q rip off her nappy and clump up and down the street, happy as Kim Kardashian in a pair of Jimmy Choos.

‘Good. It’ll be like those kids in the polio shoes. Maybe it will slow her down.’

My husband is master of the inappropriate. It gets him into trouble all the time. 

But luckily, that’s not too controversial a statement because kids these days are vaccinated against horrible things like polio. Well, most of them are, but that’s a contentious issue all on it’s own and not one this sleep-deprived mother feels competent to tackle, but it does bring me back to the early days of owning Q, when another mother said to me ‘careful, not wanting to wear clothes is one of the first signs of autism.’

What is it with people? Women in particular. We just love to tear each other down don’t we? It’s a known fact. At least I think it is. Women are a competitive bunch, even if we say we aren’t.

Whenever I was dealing with green card, social security or visa issues in the US, and I’d been in line outside the embassy since 4am in a February snowstorm just to be sure I was one of the first 80 in line, I would stand there chanting ‘please let me get a man, please let me get a man,’ because I knew that if I got a woman my age who somehow, for some reason, resented my position, she could deny my request without any need for explanation.

(Luckily this never occurred because I would always let people ahead of me, to ensure I got the middle-aged father of 3 who just wants to do his job with a minimum of fuss).

But I began this blog talking about my new phone. The new phone that I have just discovered doesn’t work and I have spent the entire time I’ve been writing this on the phone to technical support while they try to convince me that I need to hand this phone in and wait the 15 days it will take them to send me a new one.

Really Opt#s? Really?

I might not answer it very often, but when I do, I would like my phone to work.