Keeping it real – The Expectation Game

Isobel Grant - 5 Sep 16

Ever since I was a little girl I have had a vivid imagination as to how life should be. There is evidence of this in my childhood imaginary horse called James –a beautiful grey mare and the fact that I pretended to be a boy called Tom until I was about 6. I always did, and still to a point do, have an idealistic view that anything can happen – my numbers could come up on the lottery (must remember to actually play).

When my son was born two years ago I had it all planned out – my friendly imagination had the scene set – me the ever loving, always patient and calm mother, mastering everything from the get go, whether it be the relaxed hypnobirth to breastfeeding – mother earth I was to be. Rather disappointingly all was not as it had been in my head. Reality was a stark contrast and one that was very unattractive indeed.

Battling through the first months of torture with boobs that had no desire to feed my infant son and absolutely zero patience for all or any of it, something had to give and so I enlisted the help of a very amazing lady who supports new mums in the craziness that is the journey of motherhood. In our sessions together we worked through all my hugely idealistic visions of what motherhood was to be, me sobbing and her reassuring, until I found myself on much steadier ground and actually ready to embrace the true reality of what being a mum to my son was to be.

And all was not lost. As it turned out I actually did rather like him – no scratch that – love him – and so onward we went…highs, lows, smiles, screams, and a determination to “keep it real”.

I was reminded of this need to keep it real today. With my husband working this weekend I made a spontaneous decision to take my son out for a coffee this morning. Any city/town dwelling parent might think this quite the normal weekend activity to partake in, except for us in the wilderness of the West Coast of Scotland it’s not so much popping out in the buggy for a coffee, but more of a half hour’s drive to said coffee shop.

Regardless of this, and in an incredible example of not keeping it real, I played out the scene in my head as I showered this morning. We jump in the car (who actually jumps into a car? First error) and happily sing along to our new Disney CD as we navigate our way out of the Glen (please note this isn’t such a far fetched idea as we are big into a car sing along, just ask my long suffering sister) We then sit in the coffee shop taking in the picturesque view, me sipping a hazelnut latte and maybe even reading The Sunday Times while Jack enjoys an apple juice looking out to the boats and bird life….. You will be forgiven if at this point you think I have taken some hallucinatory drug to get me through my Sunday morning.

Yes, reading it back this does all sound a most unlikely scenario – a serious case of a great big WTF?

As we hit mile three, literally just out of our little village, I was feeling the first inklings of discomfort, even a little sweat if I must admit, that all was not as it had previously been imagined…We had sung along to King Louie’s “I want to be like you” twice when the appeal of an exciting trip to a café had all but deserted my son who announced “HOME MUMMY” and then proceeded to bellow that we were going “WRONG WAY”. Despite my best efforts and a rousing rendition of “Make a man out of you” from Mulan (maybe a bit of my younger “Tom” still left in me) my son was not to be placated and so I pulled over in a lay by.

The error of my ways hit me, cold and hard, in the face – my old muckers Expectation and Reality were reacquainting themselves again, and it looked very likely that Reality was going to be taking centre stage as she always did. Exit stage left please Expectation.

Where before this would have been the moment for angry tears and falling from a great height into the darkness of disappointment I made a stand at that very moment. Readjustment – hello to you.

Let’s work with this, I thought to myself. We have got this far. Let’s readjust. We are in the car, ok we didn’t gaily jump in but nevertheless we are in the car, and we are both fully dressed, yes my son insisted on wearing his bike helmet but that’s ok too. And I’ve remembered my wallet – bonus for that thank you – and we only have another 25 minutes of journey time…not so appealing but maybe we try a different CD, or go crazy and count some cows.

We drive on, the CD change helping the situation. As we drive I continue my readjustment. The sun is shining so even if we don’t necessarily get to enjoy that picturesque view at least we know it is there…the café does make a mean hazelnut latte, and I’m sure worst case scenario they do take away (longest round trip ever for a takeaway coffee but hey that’s alright). And who was I even kidding reading The Sunday Times – a big fat yeah right, I’m a daily mail app girl through and through (and I’ve already scanned through it this morning to distract me from Peppa Pig). And just like that we are turning into the café car park.

We sit at a table and in fact do take in the glorious scene of boats, sea and mountainous backdrop in front of us. My son sees a duck, which makes the whole journey worthwhile. I sip on my delicious hazelnut latte, my son managing to not only thank the waitress for his apple juice but drink it beautifully. It’s only two minutes later that my phone becomes the object of his desire but that’s ok, we’ll go with that, and so as he scrolls through my iPhone like a pro eventually settling on Fireman Sam, I sit there reflecting that this has all turned out rather better than ok. We had our moments getting here and who is to say whether we make it out of here in a respectable fashion but for now we’ve got this, my two year old and I, out for coffee in a café on a Sunday morning keeping it totally real. Eat your heart out expectation…I’m taking this game.

Isobel Grant

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