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Straight
Talk
The
Heat of December
Nadia
Kabir Barb
I can't
believe December is already here! It feels like I blinked
and almost missed the year 2004. In fact it only seems like
the other day we were all heralding in the new millennium,
making all sorts of plans for how we were going celebrate
the advent of not just a new year or even decade but the
21st Century. And here we are almost five years later. Where
does the time go?
December
always brings with it a frenzy of activity in our household.
There are the office dinners, annual school fairs, Christmas
concerts and school plays to participate in and attend.
This year my elder daughter's class has decided to provide
home made cakes and biscuits for the Home Produce Stall.
So like a good parent I was expected to show up with a fabulous
gateau or a tray of mouth watering pies. My initial reaction
was to cheat. I know you must be thinking that I am a terrible
parent but in my defence the thought only crossed my mind
because of a book I read a while ago. The author mentioned
that on one occasion when she had been unable to conscientiously
bake a cake, she had resorted to buying pies from the store
and reinventing them to look homemade. This was ingeniously
done by tapping the pies with a rolling pin to give them
a slightly uneven shape (home made pies are never perfect)
and then sprinkling icing sugar on them! As I said the thought
only crossed my mind but my conscience got the better of
me. Okay, so my conscience took the form of an eleven year
old girl--I could just picture her looking at me with a
"Mummy how
could you?" expression! As a result I ended up making
a couple of batches of biscuits. So my daughter was in high
spirits when she presented her box of cookies and I felt
rather virtuous at the end of it all.
That,
however, is not the end of our fun-filled month. My five-year-old
is currently practicing her lines for the junior school
nativity play. This in itself would be a matter of great
pride and joy for any doting parent and we are no exception
but there is a slight hitch. My youngest offspring has suddenly
decided that she would like to improvise some of her lines
for the play. I am very much in favour of encouraging children
to be creative and for them to use their imagination but
re-writing her school play may not be such a great idea.
I now have visions of her coming on stage and performing
an alternative version of the nativity play. Having explained
to her that it might be difficult for her friends to know
when to say their lines if she changes her ones, all I can
do now is wait for the actual event and hope for the best!
Talking of plays, it reminds me of my son's school production
of Oliver Twist last year where my mild mannered, easy going,
laid back son stunned us with his performance of Widow Corney,
a mean and strict old woman who looked after the orphans.
He was almost unrecognisable in his red wig and when he
ended his part with a bellowing, "To bed, ALL OF YOU!"
there was great amusement from the audience and much applause.
We were more than pleasantly surprised and had a good laugh
when the other parents jokingly asked, "Now, I wonder
which one of you he was imitating"!! My husband and
I behaved admirably by smiling back and shrugging instead
of pointing at each other.
The
kids are looking forward to the end of term, especially
as they know Christmas and New Year will follow hot on the
heels of the school holidays and have already been making
plans for what we should do. Ice skating is one of the activities
on their list. However, I am less than enthusiastic. I have
barely recovered from my last, less than impressive display
in the ice rink. As I recall prior to our arrival at the
rink, I was under the impression that as soon as I put the
skates on I would be able to glide effortlessly around as
gracefully as any professional skater. I mean, how hard
could it be? Well the picture of me in the rink with my
skates on was less than pretty. Instead of zooming around,
I was holding on to the sides for dear life. My husband
in the meantime had two of my children with him and was
faring much better than myself. He on the other hand was
gliding around the rink with both of them in tow. We were
with a friend who convinced me to let go of the rails and
actually venture further into the rink. Foolishly I complied
and no sooner than I let go, I found myself flat on my bottom,
incapable of getting back up. I had to send an SOS to my
husband to finally rescue me from my mortifying predicament!
Hence my aversion to ice-skating.
So maybe
this year the things I should put on my New Year's resolution
list are a) learn to bake a spectacular gateau, b) get my
5- year-old daughter to take popular novels and write a
script for a blockbuster film and c) learn how to stay upright
in an ice skating rink…
Copyright
(R) thedailystar.net 2004
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