Balloon World
We rush this two year-old too fast
at the market, eager to cram him sponge-like
with colours and sound and action, lift him
high to survey forests of broccoli
tumbles of red and green capsicums
yellow dunes of apples, laid out like a map.
Let down to wander, he is drawn to the snicker-snacker
of the barber’s clippers, and the tangles and curls
strewn on the floor.
At the pet shop he tries to tug the lids
off the fish tanks - he’s learnt that most things
give way under enough pressure. His hands hover
over two buckets of smooth aquarium stones
as if in blessing for this gift – but he’s whisked out
to the aisle, where an elephant suited man
sprouting white balloons, stoops to give him one on a stick,
pats his head but goes unrewarded.
Like a blind man the child taps his balloon
straight through the crowd dodging and tripping
around him - he is in total eclipse.
“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