La La Black Sheep

I have recently decided, in my infinite 28 year old wisdom, that my daily disasters are the sign posts to all things important and sane. I try (and fail) to gather my thoughts on today's disaster with Wiggly Waffle playing in the background and the mornings standard dishes in the sink. I am admittedly being incredibly selfish and rather snobbish in my use of the word disaster. Compared to the "real" disasters affecting (or is it effecting...I never can remember that one) so many others, natural or otherwise, my "disasters" are insignificant and miniscule. But one of the side effects of today's disaster (being that I am almost positive that a family of cotton wool has taken up residence in the gaping cavity where my brain used to be) is that I can't think of any other word and am too lazy to be thesaurus-y. So am staking my claim on the term and plowing ahead...no offense meant.

I consider parenting to be a series of unavoidable disasters. But at least I do have some level of choice in the matter. I can choose, for example, whether the disaster will be 15 straight minutes of listening to my daughter sing her 7 year old version of Ba Ba Black Sheep (which has affectionately been re-worded in honour of her younger sister who's nickname happens to be La La) at the top of her lungs, or I can choose to deal with the disasterous guilt-ball that will no doubt drop to the pit of my stomach when I ask her to stop and she replies "don't you like my singing Mum?".

Now this is a real quandary, 15 minutes really is a very long time and there's no signed contract saying that it will actually end at 15 minutes either, that's just a well educated guess on my part predicting when her little lungs and not so little attention span will run out of steam. And I am tired, having not had much sleep last night, the noise grates on my every nerve to the point where I think I'm starting to visibly twitch. Surely one rendition of La La Black Sheep is enough?! But will I be scarring her emotionality for life by asking her to stop? Will this be one of the things she shares with her high school counselor as she rattles off the (no doubt) long list of things her mother did to screw her up? Could she in fact, have some incredibly singer/songwriter-y talent, and I, the supposedly loving mother am simply squashing her talent without remorse? Disaster!!

Regardless of my decision on the matter, disaster of some sort was unavoidable. And so whether I am now stuck with a permanent twitch accompanied by a permanent loop of the hit track "La La Black Sheep" in my head for the rest of the day, or stuck with the feeling that I may have somehow managed to selfishly hurt some deep down part of the fragile 7 year old entrusted to my sometimes not so caring care, I'm stuck.

And so off I go into the day, permanently stuck. Yay! Parenting is a gift I do not deserve and one that I really wish came with a detailed instruction manual, if the sandwich press I got for my birthday came with one, I swear my kid should have!

Decision: Embrace disaster.