I’m sitting with my good friend, let’s call her Beryl, a few years ago, our kids are running around together in her backyard. I love her backyard. It reminds me of my childhood. Of a 90s childhood. When kids would play outside and use their imagination. Before kids playtime got super-safe, uber-clean and tech-savvy.
Beryl’s backyard has a big, old-school trampoline with a black bouncy bit and steel frame, complete with exposed springs and not a safety net in sight! A character-building, risk-taking, dust-yourself-off and-try-again kind of trampoline. The tramp is set between two fully grown, weeping jacaranda trees and between these trees is a rope bridge with mesh netting underneath (like a circus tightrope). Timber palings have been nailed into the tree on the left side, to help reach the highest forks and limbs. The tree on the right has a ‘lift’ made of old pallets into a large box (big enough to fit a kid) and a pulley system has been rigged up with a besser-block counterweight to raise and lower the lift. Behind the trampoline is a series of timber forts, linked together with ladders, at different heights, tall enough to see over the 6ft timber fence and into the back-neighbours’ yard. Off the front of the trampoline is a slide, and beside that is a series of planks set up as balance beams on the way to the clothesline. The old, silver, hill hoist clothesline has sheets tied up on opposite corners to be used as slings, for running around and swinging in circles.
Whenever we go there, the kids play for hours. Her daughter and son are similar ages as my two eldest and the 5 of them have the best time. As do we, the Mums, having a couple of beers, and enjoying a vent and a catch-up about the week that was.
In the hot weather, Beryl sets up a sprinkler on the tramp, and the kids eat watermelon, slurp ice blocks, and play until the sun sets, and it’s time for us to go home and think about dinner.
Anyway, I’m sitting there with Beryl one summer afternoon, watching the kids play, and I remember a conversation from last night with my Middle Man.
“Mum, my bum’s itchy!” he shouts from the lounge room, while I’m getting dinner ready.
“Maybe you have bum worms”, I say “We’ll get some bum worm chocolate from the pharmacy tomorrow”.
He comes out and climbs up onto the step next to me while I’m prepping dinner. He goes to grab some cherry tomatoes and sliced cucumber.
“Get out of here!” I shout, disgusted, “and go and wash your hands, or we’ll all have bum worms!”
I tell this to Beryl, as you do with your good friends. The ones you can be real with.
“When was the last time you wormed them?” she asks.
“What do you mean? I’ve only wormed them when they’ve had worms, so like once?
“Oh, I worm the kids once, sometimes twice a year, if they need it” she says.
“What! No way. You mean, you have to worm your kids regularly, like cats and dogs?”
“Yeah, I just do the family once a year. My GP told me if the kids play in the dirt and sandpits, play with pets and animals, and don’t wash their hands before eating, that sort of thing, they’re very likely to get worms” she explains.
“Oh, so like everything my kids do on a daily basis!?” I ask.
“Yep” she answers.
“Holy shit. I had no idea. I’ve been worming the pets and not the kids. I missed the memo about that. Too bad parenting doesn’t come with a manual” I say, both amazed and slightly miffed.
“Totally”, she agrees.
I swigged my beer thinking about this revelation. My kids were 6, 3 and 1 at that time. We continued to have a great afternoon, chatting about other non-bum-worm-related topics.
Initially, I felt a little Mum-Guilt about not knowing this, and like a shitty parent. But, then I laughed, remembered that I’m human, and decided tomorrow would be our annual family bum-worming day. I’d get some worm tablets tomorrow morning at the pharmacy after school drop off, wash the sheets, and we’d have our bum-worming chocolates after dinner that night. Maybe it could become a celebration, each year, until our children are old enough to stop being feral!?
You can’t know what you don’t know. No point beating yourself up about it.
Happy Annual Bum-Worming Day!