Well, I’m on week 4 or 5 of my maternity leave and so far I’ve been pretty busy. In fact this is the first week where I haven’t been back in at school for one thing or another (although I am going to a post-production meeting on Monday next week). On the whole I haven’t suffered too much from the ‘I’m bored when I’m not working’ syndrome that others have claimed to have felt. I’m actually OK with whirlwind days of reading, walks in the sunshine, preggie yoga routines, cleaning, laundry*, cooking, eating, making organised little spreadsheet inventories of baby items, all interspersed with a healthy dose of napping. It may not be exciting but it is preferable to work in many ways. However, too much domesticity and loss of the ability to intimidate teenagers seems to have unhinged my psyche somewhat. I have had a couple of experience that have been a little distressing and have made me regret my no-longer-teaching status. On two separate occasions this week I have been out at the shops innocently picking up supplies when I have spotted students blithely out during class time! Normally, when a teacher spies a wagging student, you have two options. One: chase them down and confront them. Two: watch with a smug sense of amusement as they run away or try lamely to hide, and you know you can just write it up when you return to school. However, the no-longer-a-teacher has only option one. On the first occasion, I boldly strolled up to a pair of truant youngsters and sternly asked them why they weren’t in school. Instead of making up an excuse or having the decency to look a little nervous, they smiled and started gushing at me in a disconcertingly friendly manner. Truant miscreant 1: Oh hi miss, how are you? (Squeal) Oh, you must be going to have the baby soon. Truant miscreant 2: (Gabbling excitedly) Oh, so exciting. What are you going to name him? Me: (Sternly) Shouldn’t you both be in class now? Exams are coming up soon. Truant miscreant 1: (Offhandedly) Oh, we’ve only got Tourism. Will you come and see us with the baby? Truant miscreant 2: Will you text us when you’ve had him? Chilling stuff. Former students not even remotely trying to hide their wicked wagging and worse they attempted to give me their cell phone numbers so they could come and see the baby! This was even more frightening when on the previous week I had been in at school and the worst-behaved kid in my Year 10 English class came running up to me excitedly. Trouble-making lad: Hi Miss. Are you going to come in and see us? Me: No, I’m only here for a rehearsal. Trouble-making lad: You should come and see us… My sister had a baby last year. She had to have steroids. Me: Uh, OK. Trouble-making lad: You should have your baby soon then you might get to have steroids…. Bye. (Runs off) The day before yesterday, I was at Pak’n’save, again during school hours, and another pair of senior truants became even more brazen in their friendliness. I was about to pull out of the car-park when two students jumped in front of my car smiling and waving manically. Rather than run them over, I was forced to wind the window down and have a conversation disturbingly similar to the one I had had with the previous pair of truant miscreants. It was pretty upsetting to realise that pregnant belly had in fact robbed me of all my former intimidating status. I was now nothing more than a source of curiosity to these overly clucky teens. Possibly it was this, as well as watching too much of The Shield, that led to today’s aggressive laundry-protecting plans. You see, on two of the last three days a bird has taken to pooping on my nice, clean washing as it dries on the line. The birds had taken out an otherwise clean towel on Tuesday and one of my T-shirts yesterday. Nothing fills the mind with unrelenting rage like discovering bird poo on your clean washing. I decided something had to be done. The cat and I were going to take out this dirty defecator. The influence of ‘The Shield’ was probably responsible for my first plan. Austen and I were to form a Strike team. We would knock down doors on every local crib, er nest I guess if you want to be technical, cuff and threaten the birds using a ridiculous number of expletives until one of them rolled on whichever avian was responsible, probably a starling called Dielle or Tyrone or similar. However, I realised that access to all the local nests was probably going to be difficult in my condition – it is not considered advisable to climb trees when you're 8 months pregnant. No, we would have to employ patience and go undercover. So I dressed in vaguely camouflaging green, grabbed the cat off the bed from her morning nap and headed out to the back garden to set up. I found a water-pistol, locked and loaded. Austen and I started waiting on a picnic blanket on the lawn with a full view of the washing line, baiting the bird with a fresh load of washing. It was a little dreary so I went inside to fetch a water-bottle and book to help pass the time as we waited to ambush the bird. I was confident that Austen, a fierce hunter, would be able to get the bird if it landed on the ground, but it was up to me to deal with any birds higher than ground level. I wondered about the range of the water pistol. What if the bird was using an aerial attack from a high distance on the washing? We had no way of dealing with a high-altitude bombardment of poo. Anyway, waiting for birds in the warm sun is a good way to put a cat to sleep. It also is quite effective at putting me to sleep. I woke up about an hour later and realised that neither I nor the cat had the mental fortitude to resist the sleep-inducing powers of the sun. However, our efforts were not entirely in vain as the washing was still there pristine and poo-free. We went inside to have a snack after our hard work. Maybe I’ll have to make a scarecrow to stick on top of the washing line. Neither Austen or myself are really up to this undercover business. * OK, laundry is my least favourite of all household duties. I think it is due to the stop-start nature. I like to do something and then have it finished. Laundry is high maintenance – it has to be sorted, stuck in the washing machine, washed, taken out, hung up to dry, ironed/folded and then put away. While none of these stages are particularly arduous or time-consuming, there are just too many of them. I eagerly await the design of some quasi-futuristic, self-cleaning silver jumpsuits that just require a wipe down every now and again to prevent stains.
