I wasn't always good with deadlines. In effect I gave my very first one - my own due date - the two fingers by showing up two weeks later.
I cottoned on to the concept of working to a set schedule pretty quickly though, and despite (or perhaps as a result of) setting reminders on my phone for stuff as simple as putting on a wash, I'm now both used to, and pretty good at, deadlines.
I've managed to comply with a bunch of not unusual life ones already - getting the CAO form filled in on time, sorting out a working holiday visa for Australia before I got too old, arriving at nightclubs minutes before having to pay, applying for jobs before the closing date, making it into work for 9.30am every day...
As a journalist I work to a weekly deadline - 3.30pm every Thursday. It mostly works out fine.
My strangest deadline to date has been set for January 16 next.
That’s when Mario* is scheduled for arrival.
Of course, if he’s anything like me, he mightn't bother showing up in January at all.
Which could be a good thing, if he fancies celebrating his birthday in the future. If he has a mid-January birthday no doubt half the friends he’ll invite to the party won’t come because they’ll be getting by on noodles until pay day, and the ones who do won’t be up for birthday cake thanks to pesky New Year diets. Although on the other hand I’ve a feeling any person I’ve had a hand in making will be pretty persuasive. And will probably have more than one party per birthday, which could eliminate the whole pay day problem.
Anyway, January 16, there or thereabouts, is the deadline for when - all being healthy - I stop being responsible for just me and start being responsible for another, little, helpless person.
Me, who once - temporarily forgetting that eggs existed - hazarded a guess that farmers kept hens for their feathers. Me, who in a childhood essay advocated marrying a very old, very ill, very rich man. Me, who spent much of my twenties thoroughly testing my capacity for alcohol. Me, who sometimes picks mould off bread and toasts it (the bread, not the mould). Me, who doesn’t have a pension. Me, who has to go through a ‘phone, keys, wallet, lip balm’ check-list just to leave my own house.
I hope he’s not expecting a particularly sensible upbringing. Or even a particularly organised one.
On the other hand I’m pretty good at Lego. I can make basic train/airplane noises. I’m ok with singing songs in cars on long journeys, once they weren’t originally sung by a purple dinosaur or his friends. I’m cool with reading lots of books and watching some daytime tv. I’ll be a great partner-in-crime when it comes to being messy. And once he can talk and ask Sean if we can get a puppy I’ll be right behind him saying ‘Yeah, can we Sean, please?’.
It’s going to be a lot of fun.
*not his actual name
