Unchartered territories.

I have entered a new phase in my life.


My eldest child started school this year, and with this monumental step comes a new world which I'm not afraid to say I fear and face with a great deal of trepidation. Do you know what I mean?


For the past 20 plus years, I've driven past school car parks and seen the lines of cars (or high end 4 wheel drives) and thought to myself "Thank god I don't have to deal with that". Well karma can be quite a bitch, because I now find myself in that very boat.


It's a completely new mind set.  Labelling everything your child possesses, preparing lunch boxes (healthy of course), working bees, parent teacher meetings, yummy mummies and wanting your child to fit in and not be considered different.


Quite frankly I think I'm going to need a week off to recover from the build up. It's been a very long time since I was in primary school and let me tell you, things have changed.  Like a lot.


I was required to purchase and provide to the school an entire years worth of stationery, tissues, sunblock and assorted items a five year old child may need in their quest for knowledge.  Simple right?  Nay friends.  Not for Mrs Nobody.


The dramas of December saw me losing the all important book list.  By the time I realised there were three days left till Christmas, the school had closed.  So I activated the phone tree and rang every mother in my mother's group.  Of course they had all submitted their forms in a timely manner, unlike me.  


So I rang the supplier direct and was advised that my only option was to put in an internet order and pay the obscene delivery fee to get my books.  So I sucked it up like an mother would and I did as I was told.


Fast forward the end of January and I had sort of forgotten that I needed the books.  Ok, yes. My bad.  But my focus had been shifted to school shoes, hemming uniforms (thanks Mum!) and trying to find the bloody labels I had ordered in November, which I had managed to put away so well that I had forgotten where I had put them.


I learned that my order had been delivered to an unsuspecting lady in a suburb about 30 kilometers away from where I live.  The manager of the supply company rang and was so apologetic about it all, but truth be told, I had no fucking idea what he was babbling about when he called.  So I did what any sane person would so.  I went with the flow and ended up getting my books couriered to my place at 7pm on a Friday night.  Now that's service for you, right there.


Unfortunately, being a really bad mother, I under-ordered the pencils, crayons, textas because I thought at the time "Why on earth do I need to buy 4 packets of textas?".  Thankfully, my stupidity was aided by one of my friends who informed me that the school requires that all the stationery be supplied prior to commencement.


Oh.


So after a hysterical and call to the same supplier, I put the balance of the stationery order on hold and enlisted the services of my mother to pick them up.  And that's when it all went wrong.  Mum turned up to get the damn textas and crayons only to be told that no one knew what the hell she was talking about.


So she rings me and I ring the supplier.  What the hell people??  Mummy needs the textas NOW!!!


The twelve year old sales assistant (ok, maybe she wasn't twelve but she sounded very very young and with not much life experience) says to me "Oh yeah, they are under the front counter".  Oh really?  Ya don't say??????


By this stage, my voice has gone super sonic and I demand to speak to the manager. After a very quick and incomprehensive rant, the manager kindly tells me he will wait for me to drive one hour from my place of work to get the supplies I need. My mother kindly decided to go back to get the stuff for me.


Seriously.  I almost lost the plot over some Faber Castell and some 2HB grey leads.  


This is what happens people, when your fledglings go out into the big bad world.  As a parent, you want everything to be perfect, in a world that unfortunately never is perfect, never will be perfect.


I don't know why we do this to ourselves.  Or to our kids for that matter.  But no matter how bad life is, it natural urge for any parent is to shield our babies from the life that is to come, from the disappointments and heartache that growing up will undoubtedly bring.


So every night we pack the lunchbox and we talk about this exciting new adventure.  I pray that my baby will grow and flourish with each passing day and that any pain and heartache will be days, weeks, months and years away.  I know it's not going to happen as I want it to.  Life never does go quite according to plan.


In the meantime, I encourage my child to show empathy, compassion, love to everyone that crosses their path.  I can only hope the other children will do the same.


Oh, by the way, I ended up getting the extra crayons, textas and 2HB child grip pencils for free.  Now that's customer service right there.