The Responsibility of Football

The plan was for Little Mango 1 to go straight from school to football (it was a strange term to hear, I know, but I was a little bit happy he even wanted to). This consisted only of walking from his classroom to the oval, as if he would when he was going to lunch, or P.E, and so it seemed like an easy responsibility to put on him. Then, it hit me – he is seven. When I was seven I don't think I could have remembered what day of the week it was. And here I was now telling my son that he had to look after himself at the end of school, find his way to a football class he had never attended before, under the charge of a coach he had never met, and this was only if he received a message during the day to do so. If not, he was to go to where he normally got picked up from. It seemed simple enough to me, but when you think of the amount of parameters and possibilities that went into that it started to seem about as complicated as that scene in The Meaning of Life, where the teacher is explaining what the boys who have already had haircuts, who weren't staying over at a friend's place, and still needed to put their shirts on the peg that afternoon before the rugby game, if they were playing in it, were to do..... (excuse me while I uncross my eyes.) When this dawned on me, I was at work, had just organised everything including getting the message to Little Mango 1 in class that all systems were go. I suddenly realised he'd be doing this all by himself without us there and without a contingency as there normally would have been were we (like, for example: if he doesn't show up at the pick up spot at ten past three, park the car and find him). There was no buffer. There was only hope. Hope that the message got to him to go to football. Hope that he understood it and remembered to do it after school. Hope that, if he didn't, upon finding no-one there to pick him up, he would suddenly remember, or do the sensible thing and go to the office. Most of all, hope that there are no other factors that could contribute. He is seven, I thought to myself, only seven. Sometimes with his size, and his maturity, it's easy to forget, and easy to expect things of him that were, perhaps, too much to ask. So I worried all day, mulling on the thought of all the hopes coming true, and bringing me back to the point – he is ONLY seven. He is JUST seven. He IS seven.

Although I know it to be so, it still doesn't take the edge away from it. In a second, I've right there declared that I have no recollection of where the past seven years have gone, and yet I remember them clearly and distinctly. I know they happened to me, but it's as if I have been watching it from afar. I got this sensation putting him to bed last night, where upon I saw a very early photograph of me over the top of his hospital cot, looking down at him as he looks up at me. He looked completely different to anything I remember being familiar, and when I moved my attention from that photograph to the monster lying across his bed, massive feet poking out the end, head at a proportionate size to the rest of his body, looking like a real, life human being, it all seemed a bit unreal. I'm not going to use the world surreal here, because I think it gets used too much and often in the wrong context. The furniture wasn't melting, Little Mango 1 didn't have a tail, everything was actually quite super-real, which is what people usually mean: it's so real, that can't believe it to be, but that's not the same as surreal. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked again.

I shifted my head back over seven years and attempted to remember something clear and constant and very real that I could hold on to from that time. What that means is not just remembering what age he was when certain things happened, but actually making that connection with real time. It's a very difficult thing to do because, as I've said before, being a parent is a microcosm of existence, made up of moments that drift away from you as soon as they've happened. It's like you have an absolute understanding of who your child is, where they have come from and the context from which they live their lives. But the specifics..... that's another story entirely. Perhaps if you remembered every single moment of their life, you wouldn't really know them quite so well.

Here is an attempt to try and find those lost moments again.

When Little Mango 1 was born, our lives changed. Obviously. But how it changed was surprising to us. He was so quiet, so still, and so wonderful a baby that we took him everywhere with us - I called him Mr Moo. We would take him when we went to the movies and he would be silent through the entirety. When he started to sit up, he would stay in the same position for an uncanny amount of time – it was like he had no interest in moving whatsoever. And when he wasn't sitting still, or feeding like a buffalo, he just slept. New Years 2004, he fell asleep during the fireworks. We talked about travelling the world with him and how easy it would be because of how placid he was. In his first year, was bald with a massive head and grew straight, blonde hair; he scrunched his whole body up when he farted, and he loved Finding Nemo. I remember comparing the size of our feet on my first Father' Day and how amazing that was. He had a hollow point on his back that, when you tapped it, was his trigger spot for burping. He learnt to laugh and smile very, very quickly and it's a gaggling, cackle that I will never forget.

In his second year, he begrudgingly learnt to walk, though I think he would have been happy to sit and be carried place the rest of his life. We also noticed a dirt spot on his face that would not wipe off no matter what we did, before we realised it was a birthmark. He learnt to love going to bed and would race down the hall for stories, and even when we left would cry for a bit, but then fall asleep quickly. While he was teething, he would chew on the sides of the cot, so that it looked as if a rat had been there (we eventually had to sand that back). He would say “Mum”in a sustained, throaty moan, and prattle “dad, dad, daddy” like it was the cutest word he knew. When he got up in the morning, he would lie down with me on the lounge, and often go back to sleep. He loved Underwater World. Loved it? I mean, was obsessed with it! We would take him there several times a week, and he would drag us from tank to tank, to the things he wanted to look at, knowing where everything was. I spent several weeks with him playing house-dad with him, while Mrs Mango was off finishing university. He would go to the movies with us and not make a sound – he sat only my lap and shared my popcorn in Revenge of the Sith. The first time I had been on a plane in my life (I know, I know) was the same as my son's: I thought, although for me it was just plain sad, for him it was a good thing. We took him to Tasmania and travelled around the apple isle, stopping at every wildlife park along the way that we had free entry to – honestly, he saw more Tasmanian Devils that week than I had seen in my entire life. His general level of sickness since his birth was given and answer and reprieve as his tonsils and adnoids were removed, improving his condition immensely and almost breaking my heart seeing him lolling around after surgery, unsure and scared, and bleeding from his mouth. It didn't last long - he was eating solid food almost the same day, that's the level of his strength. He also learnt to eat with a spoon this year (although he still struggles with a knife), he laughed when I pretended to sneeze and drop my hat on him, and he was always there when I got home and made my long days seem so much better.

When he was three, we took him overseas. We holidayed at Vanuatu and explored in Thailand. Honestly, we dragged him all across that country and he was amazing. He took the irregular sleep patterns, the changing routines, and the constant prodding of the locals to his fair, white skin, with a grain of salt. He found happiness wherever he could, in puddles of water and Thai schoolyards, made friends with whoever he found upon the open road, and opened up like a delicate orchard, learning the versatility and entitlement to be a part of this world that a person will eventually use in real life. It amazed me how much it changed him from a shy, quiet boy to an outgoing and open little man. He started to like books about dinosaurs and watch documentary-style kids shows on VHS from the eighties about air travel, and firemen. He also fell in love with The Land Before Time, something I wish never would have happened because it meant watching those movies... a lot. And, sure you may be thinking – I remember those movies, they were awesome. Trust me, they were nowhere near as good as you remember. And he started being naughty. People say terrible-twos, but three is much worse. Sure, there was confrontation in his twos, but his discovery of free will from his twos was enhanced with a genuine need to fight furiously against it in his threes. We had a lot of arguments, a lot of tantrums and a lot of naughty corner - it gave us a bit of training, at least. He had his first fight, with the child of a friend of a friend... I remember, this little kid kept taking his bike without asking and Little Mango 1 was getting very upset about it. I pulled him aside after the obnoxious little twerp had done it again and said to my son, as plainly as I could, “(Little Mango 1), you are bigger than him, don't let him take your bike again. I don't want you to hurt him, but it's your bike, you don't let him take it off you.” Now, I'm a pacifist, and my son is quite gentle, and the problem with that is that he will always be at the mercy of kids who aren't, and although violence is not an answer, standing up for yourself is very important. So, even though I am a pacifist, when the fight had been and gone, and Little Mango 1 explained to me what happened hours later - “I punched him. In the head” he said shyly, not altogether proud of his actions – I had to feel a little happy with that.

And he stopped using nappies altogether, despite the best efforts of his useless swim school that enforced an “every child under 4 has to where a nappy” policy, in response to some floaters that had appeared during swim lessons and of which they had openly admitted knowing the culprit, who was older than four. Needless to say, we abruptly left that swim school because we were trying to prepare him for bigger and better things. Namely, becoming a brother. We didn't really know how he was going to take it, because of the gap between them, and the fact that he had us all to himself at that point, but he adjusted incredibly. He was helpful and understanding, and was then himself taught the compassion and responsibility of being the older one, that we had learnt from having him.

On his fourth birthday, Little Mango 1 received a Wii. I don't know if this was a good thing or not, because he developed a bit of a love for it.... actually, love? I meant obsession, although at that stage so did we. At that stage, though we had a rule that was if he was playing the Wii, he had to be standing up. It really didn't take long for that rule to disappear. He got more and more comfortable with the idea of being a brother, learnt compassion and a maturity that made him understand he wasn't the most important thing around. As I explained it in the lead-up – it took him down a peg. We started having Tuesday night outings, him and I, to the movies, bowling, mini-golf, anything to get out of the house together and keep that alone time up. He was a page boy at our friend's wedding and even got up to give a speech when he thought it appropriate – his choice of topic was how awesome Underwater World was. And it was a year when his speech in particular became a topic of contention, quickly solved by the surgical fixing of his tied tongue, of which we were told since birth was no problem. Obviously, there was a problem, and having to learn his speech patterns in a whole new light, he has never looked back. Although he still struggles a little, I think his abilities as a speaker are actually quite amazing.

His life as a five-year-old was a busy one. He had a younger sister who was toilet training, his mother was pregnant with the third little mango, and he was starting school. That took some adjustment, let me tell you. I remember, whilst talking about going to school five days a week, he inquired, “How long do I do that for?” I remember thinking it would be hard to explain that this schedule was.... pretty much for the rest of his life. In the end, it wasn't that hard. I said - “forever”, which pretty much summed it up. What taking up this schedule meant was leaving friends from Kindegarten behind as they all split up and went to different school, adjusting to new kids, a new teacher, and a completely new way of operating. And trust me, it took some adjusting. I think you know from previous posts of stories we shared from his first year in school; crazy mornings rushing out the door, screaming matches, chairs hurtling through the air.... but eventually it all got a whole lot easier. He also got a whole lot smarter, and even more interested in learning in any way he could. He would ask questions about all manner of things, and be generally interested in the answer. He made us read him kid's encyclopaedias about bugs, about space, about marine creatures. His teacher wouldn't believe us when we told her - “No kids like those books.” Ours did.

In his seventh year on this planet, that is from when he was six leading up to right now, a lot of big changes happened. Namely, we moved. I feared it was going to happen one day, had been trying for a long time to make it happen sooner rather than later, so that he wasn't established, with a social network and at school, but that's not how it all worked out. We at least got to tidy things up at the end of the year so that his prep year he was at one school, then grade one began in his new school. There was a lot of tears, which was hard to bear, but knowing it was thing that was best for our family's survival, it was a hard decision I had to cop - that's my job. But since then, he has developed incredibly. He has shown me his versatility on a huge scale - he could adjust to anything. Within days of living here, he had friends next door that come and play every weekend, who he plays boy games with and loves it! He loves learning, consumes knowledge, asks questions and tries new things. And, he makes bad jokes, and laughs at mine. He is a fantastic brother, protective, supportive, loving, and fortunately for us and Little Miss Mango, understanding when it's needed. I don't really understand how he's come to be this way, but my first response when I think of his name is proud. I suppose that is also my job, isn't it?

And that brings me right back to sitting at my desk at work, struggling to put those years back together and failing slightly with the order; biting my nails, wondering if those seven years that had passed, those thousands of hours together and hundreds of lessons learnt would have given him all of which I had simply expected him to have. Had I expected of him because of what these years had told me about him, or was I using them to justify my misjudgement? The truth was, he was old enough, he was smart enough, he was responsible enough to do EXACTLY what he had been told; he had lived up to the expectations and done so without a blink of his eye; he had shown me what an amazing child he was, how lucky I was to have had him, and why exactly my decision to force this responsibility upon him was a mistake.