A couple of weeks or so
before two of our tadpoles died my youngest son, the four year old, made a
picture of a tadpole. It was a simple picture drawn with red pen and with a bit
of toilet roll tube for its belly. The little creature had a bemused look on
it, as it trying to work out exactly what it meant to be a tadpole. I stuck the
picture up on the living room wall beside last year’s summer picture that had
been drawn by my eldest son. Yesterday my little one asked that the tadpole
picture never be taken down. ‘I don’t want to forget the tadpole.’
I well understood his upset. The tadpoles had been a big
part of our life over the spring and summer. Our life with tadpoles had begun
in March, when I was burned out from too many gigs and too many writing deadlines. My voice was
also causing me pain. I gave myself a week’s rest but
it was not enough. Ignoring my own advice, as we always do when stressed, I
tried to fight against being run down and permanently exhausted. From the doctor
I got painkillers then, when they failed, antibiotics for my throat – none of
which worked . I
tried to get written and performance work done only to see the quality go down,
which added to my stress levels.
And of course I made the big mistake that working parents
sometimes do: I began to resent my children always wanting to talk and play and
talk even more. Of course, children are never the problem, and many times they
are actually the solution. It took a while but then suddenly a light clicked in
my head and I knew what I just had to stop trying everything and refocus on the
solution that was always there: my children.
I stopped my storytelling work. I knew it would mean a big
loss financially in the short term. But if I wanted to save my throat it had to
be done. Instead I began telling more stories to my children, slowly and being
careful with my voice. It was good relaxed exercise as well as fun and stress
free. I cut down on the coffee, which had the weird consequence that my eyes began
dripping green gunk. It took two weeks for the gunk to clear, but when it did I
found my energy levels had become steady and level.
Instead of coffee I drank crushed and grated ginger and
garlic
with honey.
I cut back on the writing and shared my creativity with my
children instead. We made incredible stuff from rubbish; spaceships, vampires, scorpions. We chatted and made up stories and went for big walks
which really cleared the head. And of course as I played walked and talked,
ideas bubbled away for my projects. I made notes in my journal and then got back to the playing.
One
evening in late March, me and the lads went for a stroll around the estate.
Coming back to the house we came across a big fat frog flopping about on the
pavement. It was obviously wanting to get cross the road and into the farmland
opposite. ‘Why is it so big?’ asked my eldest who has a talent for questions
and finding things. ‘I think it’s a mammy frog filled with eggs,’ I explained.
‘She wants to go find a pool to lay them in.’
The road is a busy enough one and the odds were strong that
mammy frog would be splattered in front of my children. I scooped her up in my
hands. She was a little annoyed - doubtless she was impatient to get to the
whole frantic copulation party scene – but apart from a little cheeping croaking
noise did not protest too much. Of course now I had her, my two boys had to
take turns holding her, which they did very gently and calmly. Then I took her
again, told the boys to stay on the pavement, crossed the road and put her on a
grassy embankment.
I crossed again and stood for a bit with my boys watching
the dark shape opposite. The frog did not move for ages – though it was
probably only seconds, time does weird things when real magic is about – and
then suddenly with a mighty spring in her step, the party girl was off with a
scramble, hop, scramble, hop. And was gone.
It was a great end to our evening. We had rescued a frog
and now she could have babies. Little did we know the frog adventure – with all
its emotional drama - was only beginning.
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