Just one day...

This is more a request on Billy's behalf, than from me, but I will not pretend that this would not make me happy too.

Please, for the love of all that's cute and fluffy and innocent, could we just have one day where some sound doesn't leap out of some corner and whack my kid in the head? Just one. One day. No tears. No sadness. No statements like 'Everything is wrong' out of a sweet, seven year old mouth.

I don't begrudge Billy's statements, and I don't take them for granted. I know how lucky we are to have language at all. But seriously, if there is some benevolent fella in a beard (or a lady in a toga, or an alien or whatever) looking over us, could you cut the kid some slack?

Today, I bought a frock, and being the person I am, I bought it online. There isn't a lot of mystery with me and clothing sizes. Let's just say I am at one end of the 'able-to-buy-clothes-relatively-easily' scale, and samples are not my friends. I have recently fallen in love with the work of an Australian designer called Leona Edmiston. She makes awesome, wearable dresses that make you feel like an actual woman (not a collection of forgotten details and 15 year old t-shirts). Fortunately, she also considers grown ups in her sizing. I am the least girly girl in the world, but these dresses don't scare me. So, I bought one.

It was delivered by courier, which requires (amazingly) a knock on the door. This makes the dog bark (the only time he does). This makes Billy cry. And it's not just the tears, it's the recovery time. It's the jolt out of the school work we are in the middle of, it's the sweating and the fear that it will happen again.

We went to the park. The Council has made a clever decision to schedule mowing and leaf blowing (WHY do leaf blowers exist? They're leaves, people, not chunks of poo...) when the tiny park was full of children. This makes Billy cry.  And it's not just the tears, it's the retreat into himself. It's the need to run and jerk and twist his head like Stevie Wonder mid-tune to try and shake the physical feeling of the sound free of his body.

We go to the supermarket. It's early afternoon. Time for babies of a certain age to be winding down for an afternoon sleep. Tired babies cry. This makes Billy cry. And it's not just the tears, it's the desperate need to get out of there ASAP regardless of where our shopping needs are at (too many times this happens before I get a chance to even look at the red wine... OK, so maybe that's a good thing).

We walk the dog. A dog barks. We walk down the street. Someone's doing their edges with a whipper snipper. We go to the pool. Someone blows a whistle again and again and again.

Enough, already.  Shush.

I want to put a sign up at the end of my driveway, saying, 'NO DROP-INS OR CANVASSERS (but not for the reasons you think)'. Give us some warning.

The drop-in means the dog barks, means we lose Billy. If I am home with just Billy and someone calls offering me home insulation or a better deal on my freaking energy bills, I have to restrain myself from throwing something at their head.

I want to say to people in parks, 'Can you please tell your kid to stop screaming just for fun?'

I want to grab small white dogs by their sparkly little collars and throttle the yaps out of them.

I know I can't, but I want to.

Instead, I tell my child everything's OK when in his terms it's not. I reassure him that he'll be OK, even when he assures me he won't. I push him into the world every day and count it a success if I don't see the tears.

Today was one day. Today was every day. Today was actually a good day. It doesn't go away. It doesn't really get any easier. We just get better at smiling through it.

Here's hoping we get closer to the red wine tomorrow. Or the chocolate at the very least.