No Giants
there’ll be no stories of giants
some parents say - to contaminate
their little minds - no fairies
no mystery or confusion
just reality
and the mother swoops down and
thrusts her face right up to the baby’s
who’s a little grumpy then?
plasters her nose against his
so his arms shoot up in panic
till he gets his breath.
and the father lifts him up
in the palm of his hand
high above his head, twirling
the baby gasps his breath in
just before he’s - tossed into space
to be caught
and given back his weight
wasn’t that fun?
“My patience, resolutions and beliefs are tested to the limits – sometimes daily.”*
Right at this moment one of my challenges is the constant, tuneless whistling from my elder son. When my boys were babies it was getting them to sleep or trying to figure out why they were crying. On any given day now, it might be squabbling, fighting, teasing, screaming, shouting or rudeness. Who’d be a parent? We might well question ourselves after the event, but we can’t very well put them back! Just how we find those inner resources, how we constantly demand more of ourselves, how we keep marching up that hill with a smile on our face and gladness in our heart at the sight of our ‘babies’ is one of life’s mysteries.
* © from Being Mummy by Anne‑marie Taplin published April 2007