queen of a magical kingdom

Moms are required to take on all sorts of roles for their children. We are protectors, feeders, dressers, washers, kisser-betterers, nurses, lift-clubbers, life-lesson dispensers and handmaidens to their fairy princesses or horses to their knights, not necessarily gender dependent.

Lately, motherhood has required me to be the Fairy Queen and the Princess of Extreme Patience simultaneously. The steps taken to morph from your average human being into queen of a magical kingdom with the patience of a nun go something like this:

Day One 

• Rush to 4-year old’s bedroom, heart pounding, in answer to anguished cries.
• Check 4-year old for obvious injuries and bleeding. Find nothing.
• Ask 4-year old what is causing severe distress.
• Glean, through snot and sobs, that 4-year old has ripped the wings off the music box ballerina fairy you spent days searching for and two-hundred bucks on because she really, really wanted one for her birthday. Because Zinzi has one.
• When four-year-old has calmed down, ask why four-year-old felt it necessary to dismember music box ballerina fairy.
• Nod sympathetically while grinding teeth when four-year-old tells you wings were not purple.  Try not to roll eyes.
• Think of a way to use wing dismemberment to teach life lesson.
• Help four-year old write a letter to the Fairy Queen apologising for ripping wings off said ballerina fairy. Request Fairy Queen’s forgiveness and new wings.
• Place letter in music box and place music box on mantelpiece to await reply from the Fairy Queen.
• Congratulate yourself on great parenting.

Day Two

• Scour art shop for purple acetate. Find none. Settle for pink acetate and purple glitter.
• Cut out new fairy wings from pink acetate while holding ballerina fairy still so Swan Lake does not alert four-year-old to operation replace ballerina fairy wings.
• Smear new wings with glue and sprinkle with glitter.
• While glue dries, use needle nose pliers to twist plastic wing-holding-screw off back of music box ballerina fairy.
• Mutter words unbefitting of Fairy Queen when head of plastic screw breaks off.
• Glue new wings directly onto fairy. Apply pressure for several minutes.
• Place music box on top of cupboard (out of reach of four-year-old) so glue can dry. Pray glue is strong enough to withstand four-year-old.
• Congratulate yourself on great parenting.
• Post great parenting status update on Facebook.
• Sit in self-congratulatory afterglow of good parenting until unnatural silence permeating house sets off alarm bells.
• Find four-year-old sitting under rocking chair in bedroom, using foot to operate touchscreen on your cellular phone.
• Delete great parenting status update and replace with update requesting information on how to remove precious baby photos of four-year-old from inoperable phone.

Day Three

• Call cellular repair shop because Facebook friends have no idea.
• Sigh in relief when repair man says new digitizer only costs R140.
• Try not to calculate how much ballerina fairy music box has ultimately cost in petrol from driving all over Cape Town searching for her, retail price and repairs.  Because you can’t put a price on four-year-old’s happiness.
• Congratulate yourself on great parenting.