Dialogue: If I only had time, I'd hide under the bed

By ROANNE PARKER

I'd like to take this opportunity to ask: are there any twenty-somethings left in New Zealand who haven't written a blah blah cafe scene column for a newspaper? And if there are, can we get them together and chop their hands off quick so they don't get the chance?

It's Tuesday night and I have been sitting here contemplating the week that is unfolding: trip to the
museum with Miss Five's class to draw insects; trip to ice-cream factory with Miss Seven and three-quarters to eat ice cream (well, I hope).

Animated discussions most mornings with little tykes about the long-term benefits of choosing Weetbix over fruit loops; 15 school lunches to prepare, keeping in mind the growing national furore against mini chip packets; dozens of evening meals to prepare catering for two meat-lovers, a vegetarian and an exponential combination of vegetable do's and dont's (after which I find a kilo of humus and a Dilmah usually does me).

One swimming carnival plus nine separate occasions when the challenge is set to find dry togs, towels, goggles and talcum powder-strewn rubber caps and stash them into the Foodtown bag and then into three overstuffed, horribly ineffective but terribly trendy over-one-shoulder backpacks.

Bake cakes for Mr Ten's class fundraising for school camp; give out cash so Mr Ten can buy other people's baking. Oh, and remember to send cash with Miss Five to pay back kind lunchroom staff who gave her a mince'n'cheese pie after she ate all her lunch at playtime.

Get to Guide shop, which only opens between noon and 2.45 pm, to buy Brownie T-shirt; cough up cash for good cause after having filled three 40-hour famine sponsor books with fake names (thank goodness we couldn't find a cardboard box for Miss Five to fit into so she could live like a refugee for the weekend, and had to settle for a famine from TV watching).

Counsel all three on the vagaries of school life and backstabbing friends who played with someone else today; harangue, harass, hurrah and help with homework and reading and tooth-brushing; sing times tables whenever tykes captive in car. Oh, and remember the tooth fairy visit tonight.

Pack very large suitcase with everything from stuffed yellow duckling to rollerblades and 12 changes of clothes for weekend at dad's.

Oh, yeah ... and go to work at demanding job all week.

I could go on Chat to girlfriends about how much sex we aren't getting and compare self-indulging techniques; offer spare bed to one contemplating single life again cos all men are bastards, especially hers; e-mail 15 that I haven't had a hance to see for sooooo long; just for fun argue at length for the affirmative that an MBA is a worthwhile pursuit; book date at a Hobson St bar for chocolate martinis; book weekend sojourn to take full advantage of tykes at dad's.

Now I know it's easy for me to assume that just because this is a tiny snippet of a normal week for me, everyone must be in the same boat, right? Well, frankly, it's where I am at and I think those twenty-somethings would drown in their 10 o'clock latte if they had to get through an average morning at my place.

And if you chuck in a career and a social life (yeah, yeah, I know - once your uterus has been a baby
incubator it's time to stop pretending your'e a real person but) you get a busy old thing to hold
together. But (and here's the thing) we do it, we hang in there and most of us don't beat or neglect our
families and actually have lots of fun with our kids.

On my kid-free weekends, I adore crashing a social circle that has no problem with the use of any of the usual expletives but recoils in horror at the k-word. It is quite a giggle to listen their theories about
kids: from conception to bedtime, these walking, talking, child-free zones know all about it - or don't
want to know.

I tend to the defensive when having to explain why an otherwise apparently intelligent woman would find herself a mother of three by 25. Like everyone else, at 18 I thought the meaning of life was an unequivocal 42. Now I know to my core what the meaning of life is - so next time you ask me prettily whether I have heard of contraception, don't be surprised if I blow a big wet raspberry at you and go and hide under my bed.