Monday, July 2, 2007

On motherhood and evil wasps

Saturday we finally had a small birthday party for Sun (Happy 7 - love you!). Everything started off well with picnic in the garden, Swedish "pancake-tarte" and the great game "putting the tail on the pig" i e the kids try to draw a tail on a painted pig when blindfolded (dont ever try it, it makes you seasick). Before the grand finale of fishing candy in the kitchen fishpond (with a stick made out of a broom) we were to engage in some good, old sack-hopping.
That was when the wasp saw his chance and stung me in the foot.
It really, really hurt. And that was when motherhood really kicked in. I saw myself trying to be a good sport, cheering the sack-hoppers from the side-bench while desperately trying to put melted aspirin on my swollen foot... You have no idea how irritating kids can seem when you have a triangle of pain in your foot.
It made me think of a few years ago, when I was correspondent for TT in New York and had to cover a live press conference on TV with George Bush on the Iraq-war. I have a picture of me sitting on the floor in front of the TV, typing like a mad-woman on the computer. On my back hangs Sun, like a rug-sack, trying to bite me in the ear. I wonder what Swedish unions would have said about that work-environment - or the working conditions of many parents... (although we smile ourselves through it since we LOVE our small princes and princesses so much).

PS. For those of you following Suns blog, it has a new address sunbjers.wordpress.com