Thoughts on being a Mother in May

It is that time of the year again. Rain is settling in Cape Town, leaves are falling off trees and supermarkets are setting out boxed chocolate, dainty tea cup sets and Mother’s Day cards.

Magazines are carrying articles on which recipes to cook – perhaps a lovely bake or maybe a good ol’ fashioned fry up? Social media is busy too, loaded with soppy messages and pictures of moms and kids, puppies and hearts.

From the other side, being a mother is intimidating, and often difficult and sad. Most times though it’s happy and fulfilling and almost always, it’s really amusing.

American newspaper columnist Erma Bombeck famously wrote that she realised that being a mother consumes her life…when she leaned over and cut her husband’s steak into bite-sized pieces on a rare date night!

Most mothers can identify with finding a Barbie’s bra in the washing basket and sometimes seriously consider resorting to a shot of brandy at 3am after having carried a sleepless baby for hours. We also often feel tempted to run screaming from a supermarket queue with a badly-behaved toddler, or send a child to school with a stapled skirt and a lunch box with just a slice of cake…and can of tonic water.

It’s only when you become a mother, that you can turn into a werewolf, an angel or a fairy – depending on circumstances or the time of the day!

A mother is someone with five pairs of hands, a courier service, an Uber taxi, and an expert with in-depth knowledge on Googling stuff to complete late-night homework. We are however, also goddesses in the kitchen – turning a tomato, a cup of rice and a packet of soup into a gourmet meal. Voila!

At the end of it all though, reality might just step in when instead of that doctorate you dreamed of for your golden boy, he turns out to be a street musician; instead of marrying a wine farmer, your daugher elopes with an artist, and your youngest leaves school at 16 to pursue a career in holistic healing in Tibet.

So, the real message over this month for mothers is to just park off and please yourself. Make yourself a nice cup of tea; blow your grocery budget on new shoes and run off for the day.

On serious matters – when you get back home and you’re welcomed at the front door with open arms, let Spekko be there with a superb collection of easy one-pot meals; quick brunches and warming winter meals to make your life so much easier.