Most of the time, this working Mum manages to keep most of the balls in the air, the important ones anyway, in regard to keeping the balance between keeping my business afloat and being a good Mum to my darling six year old, Samantha. Every now and then though, you get thrown a curve ball that could just send you over the edge. One such curve ball came today in the form of the Junior School Flower Show. Sounds innocent enough, but for a working parent who doesn’t have the preparation time factored in, this could spell a complete family melt down.
I have fond memories of the Flower Show from when I was a kid. I grew up in a small town in the country and the Flower Show was run by the Country Women’s Institute for the whole community and was quite an event on the local calendar. Some elements of it are still exactly the same, thirty years on! I smiled when I saw the obligatory sand saucer in the programme, and there’s still the fruit and vegetable novelty.
But times have changed. Back in my day, everyone had big flower gardens, and it was held in November! We’d load up the car with as many buckets as we could find and go around different people’s gardens gathering flowers for our creations. Even without the factor that we happen to live in an apartment in the city and don’t have a garden, nor do we have any friendly family members to pilfer flowers from, it’s also only August! Isn’t that a bit ambitious for Spring, even for a family with a garden?
So when the lengthy notice comes home from school of all the things required (for tomorrow!) a time short Mum can end up tearing her hair out!
I had thought we were super organised a couple of days out, but that was when I thought we only needed to choose one creation off the list. I’d been quite relieved when Samantha had agreed that she’d like to make the multi-media garden scene. Fantastic, I thought, and we set about gathering all the creative bits and pieces that we do tend to have around home, and we were sorted, or so I thought. But, no. Actually we need to make everything on the list and that means real flora!
Hmmm, time to think outside the square, Mummy! A quick think about who we know with a garden and a look around the neighbourhood doesn’t come up with anything. I guess the obvious solution would be to go to a florist, but the idea of buying expensive flowers for a kids’ school flower show just seems ridiculous. I suggest an all green design as we can find heaps of different leaves and ferns at the park. Doesn’t illicit a particularly enthusiastic response. A trip to the supermarket, at least provides an assortment of vegies for the fruit and vegetable novelty. I look at the flower section there – still expensive, and really how do you make a sand saucer out of a bunch of droopy roses? Running out of ideas, I opt for a caring, sharing philosophy. We head back to the produce section for extra vegies. I figure if she turns up with plenty, she’ll at least have extra things to trade with her friends!
By Jacqui Thomas
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