It's one of the myriad things I don't do well as a parent, as a human. The going out, the meeting up. Today Eilidh needed me, my driver's license and much too large van, so that her friends could get together for a movie. My job was to wait somewhere, anywhere, until they'd finished, and then drive them back home.
They talked a lot as we drove. Mothers checking their messages on Facebook is not cool. It is, in fact, none of their business. They hope they get at least one friend in their form class this year. One Direction have a new album out! Nicki Minaj tries to sound so British sometimes. Miss G thinks her voice sounds like a little girl (darling. even in that skirt, with that makeup, and that belly button, you are a little girl), and Miss M's mother is so technologically incapable she can't even plug in a radio. She also believes that Miss M. shouldn't work hard or have dreams for the future because the rapture will happen any minute and there is no point. I am dubious of Miss M.
Mothers, in general, are highly irritating.
Eilidh shouted a big fat 'love you, Mum!' in front of the whole shiny lot of them as they got out the car. This rates high on my list of top parenting moments.
I took Iona along for company, and because she needs a pencil case. She's needed a pencil case for weeks, and we have checked out every single possible stationery supplier on this side of the equator. Bar one. Bar the overpriced label stationery supplier who happens to have an outlet in this particular mall, and wouldn't you know it? She found the only possible pencil case for her right there. It had chevron stripes, so I couldn't fault the girl's taste.
We still had forever to wait for the movie to end, so we window shopped and had a drink at the food court. Suburban humanity in all its glory, and I found myself wondering how many closed door dramas were sitting right there, right next to me. Hundreds. And right in front of of our table were two young boys with knotty bedhead hair dining out on McD's and sharing their tattoo'd Mum's sushi. Five, maybe six years old, and already way cooler than I'll ever be.
At least I am not 14 anymore. Because that would, like, totally suck.
