Second Best

It was just me and my eldest today. Not unusual, except for the fact that he was walking. One brother was at kohanga, the other at SN holiday club.
I had some GrabOne vouchers (for those of you who don't know me well, our entire family social life revolves around what deals GrabOne and GroupOn have got this week. I am the social and online equivalent of a US grocery-coupon addict. My children will grow up to think that this is how everyone makes vital personal decisions. "Will you marry me?" "I dunno, let's check if GrabOne has any bridal flower deals this week.") These vouchers I had been keeping for a month, they were for the Butlers Chocolate Cafe at Sylvia Park. So off we went. Two slices, two chocolates and hot drink, all pre-paid.
So far so frugal. But then a spirit of wild adolescent hedonism overcame me. Tomorrow my husband will be paid (unless there is something about his disappearance to Canada that he's not telling me). There was the grand total of twenty-three dollars left in our general account, that is to say it was available for everyday spending. "Do you want to go to the toy shop and get a toy?" I asked. I explained he had twenty dollars, and that if he wanted something more than that, fine, but he couldn't get it today).
He was very happy with that idea, and we went down to Whitcoulls. (He wasn't walking by then, was back in the wheelchair). Inside, he saw the book section and dived towards it. He'd found the BeastQuest series that currently dominates his reading. "Can I have this?" It was nineteen dollars-ninety nine. "Sure."
I like playing bountiful mother. He sat and browsed the other books for a while, then we wandered towards the checkout. There was a holiday craft activity, using one of those artsy multicoloured pens that look so cool when they are demonstrated. We were not in a rush, so we joined in. After a while I decided that it would be a nice toy to possess, thinking in particular that it would be fun to use to teach him about intrusion in geological layers. (Yes, I know, I don't get out much). We wandered down to the ASB branch, where I transferred ten dollars across from the "Doctors" account, deciding to trust that no one would get ill in the next twenty-four hours (or if they did, I could borrow from the "Repairs" account, trusting that if we then ALSO had a burst pipe that the plumber would be prepared to wait for payment for twenty-four hours. You get the picture). Then we went back and bought the pens.
The complicated layers of calculation made me think, suddenly: ooh goodness if I am going to be educating him part-time at home, this could get rather expensive. We don't have a budgeting account for "Random stuff that might be useful if he has a particularly bad week and I run out of free stuff I have found on the Internet." I started running through areas where we might cut back slightly, in order to afford this: and then tried to justify to myself the fact that I couldn't find any by telling myself firmly that it was a lot of nonsense, that I didn't want to spoil him, that it was more important that he had my time and attention than toys, and all that sort of stern-frugal-mother-talk.
I'm good at that, and it generally works, but my resolve faltered a little a while later, when we were up on the top of One Tree Hill, sitting side-by-side looking at the glorious view, and I tentatively raised the subject of how he was finding it, doing some work at home.
"Well I've been doing more at home than I have at school," he said, with a little tremble in his voice. It was true, the last couple of weeks of term had been particularly bad and he'd missed a lot of school days (so much so that I had forced him despite the acute pain into school on the last morning, it was such a disaster that after an hour the teacher and I agreed we should give up and send him home). OK, I said. Do you miss being at school? He nodded.
I won't ever keep you off school when you want to go, I told him. If you can get yourself down the steps and you choose to do that, you can always go in. But if you are too sore to manage that, or don't want to try, that is when you can stay at home. But you choose to do that, if you are too sore. Do you understand that? It's your choice, every morning. I'm not the one keeping you away from school.
He nodded again. Then he asked me if we could go and play in the school grounds over the holidays (you can do that, here in NZ). Yes, of course we can, I said. As long as you can get there. On a good day.
I sat beside him and looked out at the view. I'm such a shabby second-best, I thought to myself (once again irritated with prevailing medical opinion which holds that a child who is in too much pain for school must inevitably be a habitual truant in the making). I am so much not as much fun as your mates in the playground, with whom you run and argue and make clubs and hide. I am so much not as interesting as your teachers, who have the advantage of whiteboards and educational computer programs and carpet time and assemblies and music activities...there's just me. Me and a few ideas you have asked to learn about. Reluctantly, when I pushed you, because really you wanted to be left alone with your pain. I can't take you out and about, I can't join you to homeschooling groups, I can't do hands-on learning in the kitchen or garden. There's just you, on the sofa, and me. With no money to spend on resources and a paucity of time to prepare. As opposed to a whole school full of trained staff dedicated fulltime to making sure you spend time in an enjoyable, healthy, and sensible educational way. I really can't compete. No wonder you miss school.
You probably miss health, too, I thought. Six months ago, your world was looking so much better. You were on Ritalin for the first time, and your ability to manage life without stress and anxiety had soared. We were all happier. Suddenly, it was as if you had grown up. I felt a surge of optimism. The hard years were over, I thought. Then this happened to you. The crippling pain that left you unable to walk for months, then seemed to recede, and now recurs, up and down, like a cruel tide covering the sandy beach of your play. Oh, it goes down again. We get days off. But it always comes back again, regular and insistent. Destroying your ability to be a kid like others, just as you were being given the help to enable you to integrate successfully. Gee, thanks God.
And as I agonised over the wreckage of his healthy run-about childhood, I made my peace with the fact that we are going to need to spend money on stuff to do at home. Yeah, it might mean fewer frozen yoghurts from GrabOne. He might even get used to the idea of a toyshop being not just for Christmas and birthdays. He might, shock horror, start to expect these things. But jeepers, the pain in his legs has pretty much robbed him of school, of daily friendships with his peers, of the daily joy of running about and playing outside. The least I can do is find a way to manage to buy him a few educational toys.