tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81979521687128229752024-03-14T04:37:44.818+11:00A cuckoo laid an egg in my nest!Melanie Mackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07976932490227621675noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8197952168712822975.post-44257804780239479332022-04-15T10:46:00.001+10:002022-04-15T10:46:38.975+10:00Things I never thought I'd do #315<p>There are many things I never thought I'd do in this life:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Lining up with the elderly and long-term unemployed to buy <i>Take 5</i> and <i>that's life! </i>magazines.</li><li>Buying containers to place inside containers in order to 'declutter'. </li><li>Pushing chunks of vomit through a plug hole.</li><li>Trimming matted hairs from my dog's anus.</li><li>Googling 'brush turkey mounds'. </li></ul><p></p><p>And apparently...taking a trip to an army disposal store while trying to appear 'normal'.</p><p>I'm not sure if it's just me (and it's a distinct possibility that it <i>is</i> just me), but this week I discovered that I cannot walk into an army disposal store without thinking that they're thinking that I'm a serial killer. </p><p>This was not aided by my forced 'upbeat' demeanour as I entered the store.</p><p>Me: "I have a bit of a weird request".</p><p>Army Disposal Owner (ADO): "There's no such thing as a weird request in here".</p><p>Me: *<i>scanning the locked cabinets full of weapons and catching a glimpse of a random, seated, bearded Old Mate straight out of Deliverance.*</i></p><p>Me: "I'm looking to buy a machete for my partner's birthday". (Followed by a lengthy over explanation about yard work, and living near the bush, and clearing paths and...<i>Jesus</i> - STOP!) </p><p>My brain: *<i>He thinks you look normal on the surface, but that you are actually one of those people who appears normal and then buys a machete and ends up on the news.</i>*</p><p>ADO: "I can help you with that. What sort of machete are you looking for?" (Followed by the unlocking of cabinets and a lengthy over explanation about size, price, saw edges (*<i>SAW EDGES</i>!*)</p><p>At this point, ADO led me to another locked cabinet and started placing each machete in my hand so I could get a 'feel for them'. Meanwhile <i>Deliverance</i> Old Mate was still sitting on his stool watching.</p><p>My brain: *<i>I am holding a machete. I am Jason Voorhees. He thinks I am Jason Voorhees. They probably sell hockey masks. Why are there SWAT team security caps in that cabinet? What else do they sell in here? Why is Deliverance Old Mate watching?</i>*</p><p>ADO: "I have my best seller coming in in a couple of days. We've had a bit of a run on machetes lately."</p><p>Me: "You've had a run on machetes?"</p><p>ADO: "Yeah, it's all the wet weather. Things are overgrown."</p><p>My brain: *<i>Of course they are.</i>*</p><p>Me: "I'll just take this one - in the case, please...and if it doesn't do the job, I'll come back and get the other one" (*<i>What am I even saying</i>?*)</p><p>At this moment, I considered looking around the rest of the shop, but I turned and looked deep into the soul of <i>Deliverance</i> Old Mate and reconsidered. (*<i>What is he even doing here</i>?*)</p><p>I managed to get the machete safely to the house and was greeted by Miss C, "Mum, you do know that if there's a machete murder, you'll be a suspect.</p><p>I rang my mother.</p><p>Mum: "Your finger prints are all over those machetes. I would've wiped them down."</p><p>My brain: *<i>Jesus, that's next level.</i>*</p><p>George was suitably impressed with his new machete, and no one has been injured thus far. </p><p>I have also added another thing to my list of things I never thought I'd do and that is utter the words, "Please remove your machete from the floor."</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj95olK0z-aEgg8NbmmbTcgLs0v4Fv7FgKJ01f7cZToU-XuZ-9JHEgm59No8dT-qqekayzwzbU7lZHh7KATmmPuzwCttkJzpm_omF8C4ErSzWSJn8EHDnRpQOS5HxemPiwUr_iHISk7WCZe-vYxrNZkMcBa9PsJ5sgsVXl0YoynZPb5eQo6XtWCZ629/s396/Jason_Voorhees_(Ken_Kirzinger).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="257" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj95olK0z-aEgg8NbmmbTcgLs0v4Fv7FgKJ01f7cZToU-XuZ-9JHEgm59No8dT-qqekayzwzbU7lZHh7KATmmPuzwCttkJzpm_omF8C4ErSzWSJn8EHDnRpQOS5HxemPiwUr_iHISk7WCZe-vYxrNZkMcBa9PsJ5sgsVXl0YoynZPb5eQo6XtWCZ629/s320/Jason_Voorhees_(Ken_Kirzinger).jpg" width="208" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Melanie Mackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07976932490227621675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8197952168712822975.post-76767771325406046602012-02-04T00:06:00.000+11:002012-02-04T00:06:11.237+11:00Some advice for my daughter<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Despite the occasional crucifixion from peers, there’s nothing wrong with being the ‘good girl’. Good girls might finish last initially, but eventually they win.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>However, don’t be so good that you never have fun. Revel in life! Push a few boundaries, take some calculated risks and try not to fear failure. You might discover something (or someone) amazing!</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>Intelligence is not something to be ashamed of. Don’t dumb yourself down to gain approval from others, but try to use it wisely and humbly.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>If you dress like trash, you will attract trash. Embrace your body and adopt your own style, but always leave something to the imagination.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>Always remember you are beautiful. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel otherwise.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>Be resilient in the face of adversity. I will always walk by your side but I won’t fight your battles.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>Don’t begrudge anyone their success or money. If you want something, work hard and earn it! You will be eternally dissatisfied if everything is handed to you.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>Be gracious. Manners are the most important lesson you will learn and they are the attribute people will remember.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>Appreciate what you have. So many people have so much less. Try to give something back.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>Try not to form preconceived notions about others. Everyone has a past.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>Take responsibility for your actions and own your mistakes. It takes greater courage to admit fault and apologise than blame someone else.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>Food is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Never make it your enemy!</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>Surround yourself with music. It will move you, inspire you, heal you and take you to places you could only dream of.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>You will meet many people throughout your life, but will end up with about a handful of friends who you will trust enough to share your innermost thoughts, desires and fears.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>There is no shame in seeking help. Suffering in silence will only hinder you.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>Never be afraid to love deeply and passionately, but don’t be blind sighted! Ensure the person you love has common core values, treats you with respect and loves you with as much depth and passion.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>Don’t underestimate the power of laughter. It will regenerate you.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>One day your eyebrows are going to look like mine and despite the fact my mother told me mine were beautiful like Brooke Shields’ circa 1984 – they weren’t. They needed to be waxed. And so will yours…every few weeks for the rest of your life. Believe me, you won’t regret it!</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8197952168712822975.post-65034734035080045482011-09-18T09:48:00.000+10:002011-09-18T09:48:45.564+10:00Let’s get physical…to a point.<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I am a relatively fit person. Not Jennifer Beals fit, but not too bad for 34. I run around after children. I run around the office. I generate a hefty dose of adrenalin just, well…existing, which is the main reason I recently joined a gym – to harness some of the adrenalin coursing through me and to release some endorphins. Anyone else would opt for some kind of illicit substance to quell a head full of circling thoughts.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My only experience with public exercising thus far (apart from the time I decided I would ‘go for runs’ on our local bike track, which translated to ‘running <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to </i></b>the bike track and walking the rest of the way’) was the ladies’ gym I joined a year after The Ranga was born. This supportive, 80s-music- playing, female-only environment lulled me into a false sense of security. It provided me with the confidence to publically exercise again - this time in a co-ed gym - with people who take exercising VERY seriously.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I eased myself in to my new gym with a couple of low impact classes and a few brisk walks on the treadmill. And despite the fact I lost both of my legs on the treadmill and gained two leaves of recently soaked gelatine in their place, it wasn’t enough to get the endorphins going.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In a momentary lapse of judgment I organised my free assessment with one of the gym’s personal trainers. I honestly believed that ‘assessment’ meant sitting down for an hour to have a ‘nice chat’ with the personal trainer, to the point where I asked him if I would need to bring anything with me.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It was like the time the police chased me at age 18 for speeding. When I finally pulled over and was questioned by the officer as to why I didn’t stop, I responded with, “Because I didn’t think you were after me.” Because I really didn’t think they were after me. And I really didn’t think Personal Trainer was going to make me do anything at all.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If naiveté was a sport I could represent Australia. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Personal Trainer started by asking me what my goals were, to which I replied (with the words I would live to regret), “I wouldn’t mind a bit of toning in the thigh, butt and tummy areas.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">He then proceeded to drive his finger into the side of my thigh. “Does that hurt?” he enquired as I yelped like a Kelpie. He grabbed my hips and thrust my pelvis out to correct my posture and then started to formulate ‘a personalised program’.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It started with a cross trainer and a pen shoved just above my butt to keep me upright and continued with outrageous bursts of public skipping (I hadn’t skipped since 1988) - in front of a mirror - whilst wearing tights, which were interspersed with stepping machines and more pen poking, followed by public lunging - in front of a mirror – whilst wearing tights, and finally legs apart on the floor crunching some abdominals (did I mention the mirror and tights???) </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">He seemed pleased with my ability to handle the ‘beginner’s program’. I couldn’t walk for a week.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I have done some pretty undignified things in my time - slipping over on a beer soaked floor whilst dancing at a local cougar haunt springs to mind. As does lying on a bed stark naked trying to push a baby out, whilst a rotating door of medical staff filed in and out of my room to check on the status of my vagina.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">However, for some reason I can’t exercise publically without thinking of Richard Simmons or “Jazzercise” or people wearing leg warmers and g-string leotards. All of which trump my previous examples.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I decided to ditch the humiliating solo workouts for a circuit class, I expected it to be like “Flashdance” where we would all run really fast on the spot to “Maniac”, but when I arrived for the class I discovered my teacher was Personal Trainer who gave me a conspiratorial “Never Say Die” look and proceeded to play music with the kind of frequency that induces vomiting.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Smug Girl next to me asked if I’d been before and served the pitying “You Haven’t Got a Hope” look. I hit back from the baseline with the “I’ve Had Two Kids, Lady. Don’t Talk to Me about Endurance!” look. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And then it was on!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Personal Trainer started firing instructions from everywhere. Yelling out things like “RUNNING MAN” which translated to ’jump around using your limbs like a pair of scissors’. Then “DOUBLE GRAPEVINE TO THE LEFT WITH A LUNGE”, which sounded more like a coffee order than an exercise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Just when I started to coordinate myself he shouted, “GO TO THE OUTSIDE” and everyone scattered like lemmings and jumped on miscellaneous pieces of equipment around the outside of the floor. Smug Girl, sensing my horror, leant across and started pushing buttons and adjusting weights for me while Personal Trainer yelled “30 SECONDS. MAKE IT WOOOOOORRK!” And then I heard “BOXING ROOM, BOXING ROOM. GO.GO.GO.” and everyone was running everywhere. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I, along with around ten other people, burst in to the shoebox sized boxing room, which looked and smelled like an abattoir. My style, I decided, was more bovine than butterfly, and as I lumbered through the rest of the boxing session I saw Personal Trainer coming at me yelling “UPSTAIRS, UPSTAIRS, UPSTAIRS. GO.GO.GO.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And everyone was running and switching rooms and I was running up and down and up and down and up and down a staircase with a 65-year-old man - drenched in sweat - coming up the rear shouting, “C’MON GIRL!” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Jesus Christ!!! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Then I heard “BACK TO THE FLOOR, BACK TO THE FLOOR” and I was suddenly playing tug of war with the 65-year-old man and a medicine ball. Who uses medicine balls anymore? I thought they were only used to take out the ankles of your classmates in Year 7 PE classes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I then found myself doing Jennifer-Beals- style-running on an aerobics step and it was back to the floor for an obstacle course around the medicine balls, and then down on the ground for push ups and bizarre jump in the air and punch the floor manoeuvres, then God forbid…some public skipping!! Personal Trainer shouted, “CARDIO, CARDIO, CARDIO. GO.GO.GO.” And I ran on the spot shouting, “WHERE’S CARDIO? I AM SO CONFUSED!!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I was directed to a rowing machine by Personal Trainer (next to man who hadn’t left the machine for a week and a half) and was told to “DO IT LIKE TONY. HE’S A MACHINE!” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My rowing with Tony was interrupted by, “BACK TO THE BOXING ROOM, BACK TO THE BOXING ROOM. GO.GO.GO”. Then it was downstairs running and medicine balls and army-esque obstacle courses and Jennifer-Beals-stepping <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and Godforsaken skipping and outside machines and “Maniac”-running- on-the-spot moments and more rowing with Tony and people running EVERYWHERE. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And then it ended.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I felt like I had left my body and was hovering above myself.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I had a sudden urge to groan and vomit but unlike my birthing experiences, resisted the urge to do either. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">As I hung my head between my legs – in front of the mirror – in tights, I had a moment of reflection. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This never happened to Jennifer Beals. She exercised happily in 1983. What did she do differently? Perhaps if I donned a pair of leg warmers or a g-string leotard and threw a bucket of water over my head it might be more enjoyable next time? If, of course, there is a next time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8197952168712822975.post-7549632147823520252011-02-05T00:37:00.001+11:002011-03-02T22:39:00.776+11:00Empty Nest<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This week Miss C started school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She began the journey all shiny and new, open to endless possibilities with a wide smile and little blue bows in her hair. I knew (or at least hoped) she would be okay. She’s always been a stoic little thing. But being that she was somewhat anxious in the lead-up and with all of the hype surrounding the first day of school, I wasn’t sure if this time she might crack. But she didn’t. And the relief on her face at the end of her first day was a relief to me. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">What I didn’t expect was my reaction. I thought perhaps I’d cry. But I didn’t. I felt a surge of emotion when I said goodbye but swallowed it back down. What I have been feeling all week is agitated, irritable and anxious in the hours when she is not at home. I normally work three days a week but have spent this week at home because I wanted her to feel settled and unhurried. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I have sort of stalked around the house like a lioness, feeling edgy and overprotective. This is different to pre-school and daycare. More days, more hours, more influences, more independence. And I’m not averse to independence per se. It’s just that she is shiny and new with her pink Disney Princess lunchbox and her pigtails. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">At the moment she is amenable, very Snow White-esque. But one day, in the not too distant future, she’ll be skanking around here like Lindsay or Paris, wanting to wear inappropriate clothing and prefacing every sentence with “like”. One day her little heart is going to be crushed because her best friend hates her or because she loves someone unrequitedly. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I won’t be able to control it and suddenly she will be tarnished.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I understand these experiences must happen eventually (everything except for the use of the word “like” out of context) for her to learn coping mechanisms. I understand that I must continue to relinquish some control for her to grow and realise her potential.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But I wish she could just stay shiny.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8197952168712822975.post-89173832264346271032011-01-28T22:17:00.000+11:002011-01-28T22:17:41.167+11:00So apparently I dropped all the balls…<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It probably wasn’t the best time for me to start reading a book entitled, “How Not to F*** Them up” (by British psychologist, Oliver James) in my very fragile pre-menstrual state, but as I walked around the library with Miss C & The Ranga in tow - it literally leapt off the shelf and into my hand.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I thought perhaps it might have mystical properties – that by simply touching it, it would give me the power to create well adjusted children or at least help me to fix some of my monumental stuff-ups, but as I opened the cover I realised it was directed at those with children under three – those who still had time to correct their mistakes before everything went to hell in a handbasket and said child/ren reached the magic age of three and spontaneously combusted.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Despite the fact my children are five and three-and-a-half, I devoured the first 45 pages of the book with an insatiable appetite – hoping like hell that I got something right, but quickly came to the realisation that I need to seriously reconsider my nomination for Mother of the Year.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">According to the book, mothers can generally be split into three categories – Organisers (routine based mothers, full-time paid workers, baby works around them) Huggers (earth mothers, co-sleepers, stay-at-home mothers, works around baby) & Fleximums (a combination of Organisers and Huggers, part-time paid workers). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Apparently there are positive and negative attributes to all groups and some mothers will not necessarily fit the exact mould of a particular category. However, what James makes quite clear so far in the book is that genetics play little (if any) role in the personality traits of a child and that nurture is everything.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">He points out that the under-threes require a responsive, attentive adult to help them develop into a secure person. On a positive note he explains that it doesn’t have to be the mother, it could be a father/partner, a grandparent, a relative or an attentive nanny or carer, and that if a mother is depressed or unresponsive, or if she is unhappy staying at home full-time, that a suitable caring alternative is preferable for the child. However, he then goes on to deliver the old day care centre chestnut citing studies which show increases in cortisol levels and behavioural problems in regards to under-threes in centre based care.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So basically for the general population whose alternative care option is a day care centre you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I am the first to admit that I found mothering under-threes to be occasionally rewarding, but mostly relentless. I had two children 18.5 months apart and after the birth of The Ranga, stayed at home full-time for the next two years. I am almost positive I was suffering from depression a lot of the time. I tried my best to entertain and engage with my children, but know for a fact that personally I would have felt better if I’d been working part-time at that stage. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I painted a façade of happy families and sought therapy along the way, but I was so afraid of the propaganda and ‘studies’ that told me that day care was an ‘evil’ place where children suffered at the mercy of their ‘selfish’ mothers, that my children may have inadvertently suffered as a result.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Certainly there were times of enormous fulfilment in my early mothering career, but mostly it was hard yakka. Those who take to early mothering with aplomb will be aghast at my confession, I’m sure. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I may not have been the archetypal earth mother, but for what it’s worth I tried very, very hard. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When I finally allowed myself to send The Ranga to day care for two days per week at 2 years, 8 months, it was like a friggin’ epiphany. The staff was warm and caring. The environment was stimulating. Hell, he could do Mister Maker craft until the cows came home and I could go to work without burdening anyone, and safe in the knowledge that he was well taken care of.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">For my situation, part-time freedom meant better mental health, which in turn made me a better mother.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So yes – perhaps I fucked up (although no one has spontaneously combusted lately) - not because I sent my son to a day care centre but because I didn’t do it earlier.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8197952168712822975.post-35063814350091030952010-12-08T09:46:00.002+11:002010-12-08T15:48:02.156+11:00‘Tis the season for… chaos<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When I was a kid every day on the road to Christmas Day felt like an eternity. It was always stinking hot and my little sister (Sister Sledge) and I used to amuse ourselves with activities such as riding our bikes past the neighbours' house on the corner (the only one with the pool in the street) and shouting to each other, “OH, IT’S SOOOOOOO HOT!” in the hope that our passive aggressiveness would yield us a swim in the pool. It usually did!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And on one particularly long and languid pre-Christmas December Day in the 80s, Sister Sledge and I took the bikes for a spin down to the corner shop to buy craft materials – to cut into miniscule pieces – to create a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mr. Squiggle</i> board game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yep, the days were very, very long!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">What I don’t remember is when the days switched from being long, hot and languid to frantic, air-conditioned and chaotic? When did I stop lying on my stomach, creating a board game, in the middle of the lounge room for an entire day, and start trying to cram multiple events on every given day in the lead up to Christmas?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I only have one husband and two children and yet I feel like I am project managing a large corporation. Between my work and Pineman’s work and day care and pre-school and school orientations and birthday parties and Christmas parties and more Christmas parties and Christmas shopping, I am starting to feel like I’m on a conveyor belt which is creeping toward some dark and ominous pit and inside the pit are metres and metres of tinsel and an inflatable Santa.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am quite debilitated by the chaos this year. And my coping mechanism seems to be: inane shopping expeditions and popping ibuprofen (in no particular order).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I used to be quite a productive Christmas shopper, but this year, in the small amount of time I have had to shop, I have been faffing about, coming home with random items and forgetting things like the milk.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The other day it took me at least 45 minutes to walk from the bike section of Toys R Us to the end of ONE car aisle. It was not a great distance, but this is what I achieved in the process: I bumped into someone I knew and had a chat. Waited whilst The Ranga drove a large plastic car around. Idly threatened said child out of large plastic car. Waited whilst The Ranga AND Miss C drove large plastic cars around. Idly threatened said children out of large plastic cars. Was accosted by woman wanting to know all about electronic guinea pigs. Delivered winning sales pitch to not one but THREE women regarding electronic guinea pigs and up-sold matching accessories. Witnessed a little boy piss himself all over his bewildered father and the floor. Offered all spare wipes, pull-ups and shorts to bewildered father who had a little boy, a baby, a pram and NO nappy bag! Dictated the makes and models of the entire range of Matchbox cars to the eager Ranga, then promptly forgot why I was there and walked out with nothing!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have also found myself getting all antsy when I can’t find particular items, begging shop assistants to just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">check</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">one more time please</i>, trying to materialise a Jessie and Bullseye (from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toy Story 3)</i> double pack when I know full well that Jessie on her own would be quite adequate. And having loud conversations on my mobile in aisles that sound like this, “DO YOU THINK THE RANGA WOULD LIKE A <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">STAR WARS</i> DOUBLE PACK WITH R2D2 and C3PO WITH A BATTLE DROID HEAD? NO, IT HAS AN INTERCHANGEABLE C3PO HEAD. NO, IT’S NOT FROM THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY, BUT DO YOU THINK HE WOULD LIKE IT??” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If I have achieved nothing else this Christmas, I’m pretty sure I gave the poindexter father in the aisle next to me an erection.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But it’s not really the kids’ presents that pose the greatest problems, it’s all the tricky gifts like those for pre-school teachers and day care teachers and ballet teachers and even when they have been carefully selected, Miss C wants to value add with some homemade craft. I commend her for her thoughtfulness, I really do (season of giving and all). But her idea this year is to make individual paper doily people for her pre-school teachers, which involves glue and pom poms and large paddle pop sticks and cutting and pipe cleaners and oh my GOD, between that and the writing of Christmas cards when she cannot yet write, is causing me to reach for the ibuprofen quicker than Frosty the friggin’ Snowman can meet his demise in the Australian sun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We are eight days into December and we haven’t even put up the tree!! This never would’ve happened when I was a kid. The tree went up on the first day of December, and Mum would’ve patiently encouraged the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mr Squiggle</i> board game craft. Hell, she would’ve even cracked open the glue! I don’t remember my parents being this harried around Christmas (although my mother <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">did</i> line up at a shop at midnight on Christmas Eve 1984 to secure a Cabbage Patch Kid for me – I’m sure that was relaxing). Maybe they were and I just didn’t notice? Maybe my kids won’t notice?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8197952168712822975.post-61628722224778993872010-11-25T21:09:00.000+11:002010-11-25T21:09:07.234+11:00Colouring outside the lines<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I thought it was only my husband who was cultivating a household full of nerds - prepping them for a lifetime of geeky pursuits and school yard crucifixion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And admittedly he has played a major role.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Case in point:</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>The Ranga’s OBSESSION with Star Wars. He has only ever seen snippets of the movie, but can still re-enact pivotal scenes using Mega Bloks, plastic golf sticks as lightsabers, and a fake pumpkin as an explosion (flip one over and believe it or not it actually looks like one). He can name all of the characters, and can be found meandering around the house dressed as Darth Vader, draped in a quilt and wearing a bucket on his head. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>Miss C’s anal artistic endeavours. Pineman and I both have creative backgrounds. However, I am not the one who paints armies of miniature figurines and teaches the kids bizarre colour names.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Miss C dropped a pencil from our back deck the other day and when I asked her which colour it was so I could go and look for it, she responded with, “snake leather bite”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“What the hell is snake leather bite??” I demanded of Pineman who nearly collapsed with laughter (obviously some nerdy in-joke) and replied with, “I think she means ‘snake bite leather’”. Because that sounded far more reasonable! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Anyway, The Ranga banging on about how he can only be addressed as Han Solo, coupled with Miss C’s eternal meltdowns about people using the WRONG colour for faces and everyone colouring outside the lines, got me thinking.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If my children are this anal/nerdy/obsessive then perhaps there is more than one gene pool to blame. So I took a good hard look at myself and this is what I discovered…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I was not cool at school – maybe not the lowest common denominator - but certainly not far off. I played in the school band and sang in the choir. I took part in school musicals (anyone who has seen <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glee</i> will understand what that did for my reputation). I represented the school in debating for the annual interschool ‘sports’ visit (yes, in my mind it was a sport). I lived across the road from my high school and my dad was one of my teachers!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Amongst other achievements, I used to have to get up in front of the whole school to accept an ‘attendance award’ each year. Yay for me, fellow students – I have been to school Every. Single. Day. This. Year. Oh, and in case you hadn’t noticed, that’s my dad who just kicked someone out of the assembly.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Any wonder I never had a boyfriend?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And while everyone at university was wrestling in a jelly pit or sculling beer from a communal yard glass, I was in the library conducting research for my assignments. Need I say more?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But what I have found is that years of achievement in my youth has lead to years and years of underachievement in adulthood.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I have hopped from job to job to job, never knowing what to do next, never staying long enough to climb any ladders, terrified of failure, terrified of success.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I have realised that the types of people who truly succeed in life are the ones who are not afraid to push boundaries, take risks and dream big. The types of people who truly succeed in life wear thick raincoats to weather all manner of storms.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I am not that type of person. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My raincoat tears very, very easily, and I’ve never been a big fan of drowning.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I continued to ponder all of these things recently whilst attending Miss C’s school orientation session.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">What do I want for my daughter as she embarks on this new and formative part of her life? We are so painfully similar in some respects that it’s excruciating to watch.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I keep telling her that it’s okay to make mistakes and there are different versions of ‘right’. But I’m not sure I truly believe half the stuff I tell her.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I want to let her know that there are so many pathways to achievement. That she has so many options. That failure is not a catastrophic event.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I want her to find something she is passionate about – anything at all – and not be afraid to pursue it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I want her to feel like she can colour outside the lines, jump in the jelly pit and scull from the communal yard glass (or maybe not the latter – it just sounds naff!)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I want to send her to school armed with a bulletproof vest and the world’s thickest raincoat, to weather all the storms.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I’m not sure what ticks away in that little mind of hers - but when the previously anal artist presented me with a picture of a rainbow coloured mouse recently and said, “I’m going to start doing my art differently because it’s art” – I thought: perhaps the raincoat I’m sending her with is thick enough?</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8197952168712822975.post-50883223299033159472010-11-16T23:08:00.002+11:002010-11-16T23:41:42.668+11:00Much ado about poo<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When I was a little girl I remember running to the huge gum tree in our backyard and hiding behind it with my eyes squeezed shut and my fingers jammed in my ears because my mother had taken some asthma medication that had made her dry retch.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I also remember not eating Caramello Koalas, roast chicken, scones and a myriad of other foods for years because (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">on</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">one occasion)</i> I vomited after eating them and somehow associated them with being spew-worthy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And then there was the park I wouldn’t look at every time we drove past because (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">on</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">one occasion) </i>I ate some stale baked beans whilst playing there and proceeded to spend the night throwing up. Banned the park. Banned baked beans. You get the picture. Nutcase!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So the fact I can now hold The Ranga’s heaving head over a bucket every fifteen minutes for an entire night and scrape chunks of vomit from the fibres of bed linen makes me mighty proud!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">From the moment I witnessed my first meconium-filled nappy to the moment I wore my first projectile vomit – I realised I was going to become intimately involved with Another Person’s Bodily Fluids – For. A. Very. Long. Time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Miss C is fairly low maintenance these days. She can use the toilet, rarely vomits and can wipe her own nose. The Ranga, on the other hand, is like a fire hydrant squirting from all orifices. If he coughs too hard, he spews. If he throws an almighty tantrum, he spews. If he eats too much, he spews. He has only just learnt to wee sans nappy (at 3.5 years) and was found recently in the kids’ toilet at a resort, naked from the waist down, and ‘ice-skating’ in a concoction of soap and his own urine!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But it’s poo he has the most problems with. When he isn’t withholding for three days, he is unloading giant brown packages in undies, in nappies, in the bath, on the floor, and occasionally, in the toilet! He has ‘issues’ with the whole bowel movement arrangement and I get where he’s coming from. Poo does not have many endearing qualities. It’s brown, it smells, and in our house, it incites more hysteria than Beatlemania (for him, not us).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If I were poo’s publicist, I would slam the door in its face! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">However, because I empathise with my phobic son – having rejected spew-inducing parks and baked beans and chicken, myself - I am determined to put the positive in poo…and any assistance anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The only two poo role models I have come up with thus far have been:</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>“Mr Hankey, the Christmas Poo” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">South Park. </i>But I don’t really want The Ranga a) watching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">South Park</i> at the age of three or b) fishing his faeces out of the toilet or his nappy or whatever, to engage it in conversation.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span>A woman I saw on a documentary recently who was making sculptures out of cow manure – with bare hands – because she liked the texture!! WHAT!?! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So I Googled ‘poo’ to see what came up (as Google contains all of life’s answers) and found an array of links to poo and wee songs, poo arcade games, poo humour, stories about whale poo and climate change, Bristol stool analysis charts (with pictures!!!), more people creating art using faeces (what’s with that??) and bizarre YouTube videos that I was too afraid to click on.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And I still have nothing!!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We have always been fans of the no pressure approach to toileting, and The Ranga has willingly participated in the pooing in the toilet process three times, but he now equates defecating with losing a vital internal organ and no amount of cajoling will convince him otherwise.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The only solution I can come up with (besides bribery, nappies for life etc.) is to keep allowing The Ranga to watch people using the toilet until he learns that it is a perfectly natural and convenient human function. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Like I did on Saturday - when I was using the parents’ room toilet in a shopping centre - and he hit the button for the automatic door whilst I was mid-wee. Not sure how many people copped an eyeful, as I was too busy cutting off the stream (surprisingly good pelvic floor muscles), leaping across the room, cowering in a corner and screeching with my pants around my ankles.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The moral to this sordid tale: I may have overcome my childhood vomit phobia, but have now developed an irrational fear of my naked arse being exposed in public. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And…The Ranga has not pooed for three days! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8197952168712822975.post-16676030121786606342010-11-09T01:37:00.001+11:002010-11-09T01:38:57.749+11:00Birthday celebrations...post-kid style<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I am writing under pressure tonight as I set this personal goal to blog once a week. I thought that seemed fairly reasonable, but as it turns out…it is damn hard - made especially hard by our annual trip to Spew Central this week (which requires its own post)!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Anyway, my personal deadline passed yesterday and now I’m all antsy about missing the deadline when there really is no deadline at all.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So rather than wait to write a piece of moderate quality - I thought I’d rush and produce a piece of crap – just to meet my personal deadline. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">What I should be doing is writing the piece my therapist asked me to write on guilt and sabotage (why I do it to myself, not others), which is due in two days, and which I am feeling increasingly guilty about not completing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Is it any surprise I am seeing a therapist?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The other reason I wanted to rush this one is because today is Pineman’s birthday and we celebrated post-kid style.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Celebrating a birthday post-kid style is like waking up and celebrating a Monday. There was really nothing different about awakening today except the four squishy hands prising apart our eyelids were also thrusting presents enthusiastically at Pineman – oh, and no one was vomiting.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We washed and fed people and fed ourselves and packed lunches and packed bags and dropped kids at respective care centres and I forgot to take my lunch to work and Pineman had to drop it in and then he was home alone – on his birthday – watching a James Bond flick on DVD and eating takeaway for lunch. And then he picked up kids from care arrangements and I came home from work early – with a cake – to surprise him and he was standing at the front door, drinking mocha, and looking every one of his forty four years. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">He told me the highlight of his day was realising that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Octopussy </i>was not about a girl with eight vaginas. He later changed his highlight to witnessing my top falling down when I was dancing in the kitchen – his highlight, not mine.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">He washed more people while I cooked pork chops and carrot and potato and frozen peas and corn for dinner.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Ranga had a tantrum because he wanted to wear the pyjamas with the robots and the tractors and the monsters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Ranga threw his water on the floor because he wanted the Lightning McQueen cup and not the Batman cup. The Ranga threw his pork on the floor because…well because he has issues with food and certain cups and pyjamas and etiquette. Miss C started whingeing about peas and pork, and I got worked up and started using my OUTSIDE VOICE!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Pineman asked the kids if they cared about his birthday or just the cake, to which they replied in unison, “just the cake”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">They redeemed themselves momentarily with a round of apologies and a rollicking rendition of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Happy Birthday to You. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Ranga pulled apart his cake and squished it between his fingers because he doesn’t like cream or jam or small servings of cake.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Pineman got ready for a nightshift at work and walked out the door indicating that he might play his “birthday privileges card” when he gets home after midnight.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Well, it’s now 1:18am, no sign of Pineman – birthday privileges revoked!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Good night.</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8197952168712822975.post-67488571655276358202010-10-31T20:53:00.000+11:002010-10-31T20:53:55.214+11:00When life hands you lemons…<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Sometimes life hands you lemons. Sometimes it hands you the whole friggin’ orchard! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Seven years ago today we lost our first baby at fifteen weeks gestation to a congenital birth abnormality. It was a little boy. And when he died, a piece of me died too.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">His condition was called Megacystis, which in simple terms meant he had an enlarged bladder. In reality, it meant death was inevitable. We made an impossible choice.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">At the time I felt like a spectator watching a car spiralling out of control and slamming into a tree. Except I wasn’t a spectator, I was driving the car. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I tried desperately to crawl out of the wreck, grasping at anything that could help me escape my situation, but when pregnancy number two (another son) ended abruptly at fourteen and a half weeks gestation for an unrelated chromosome abnormality, I was emotionally spent. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It must have been some overwhelming instinctual desire that took over after that, because there was no good intellectual reason for trying again – the odds were certainly not in our favour. In that time I juiced thousands of lemons. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My third pregnancy was different from the beginning, but the vice-like grip around my chest never really allowed me to believe it. My focus was always on the finish line, and when I found out the due date was three days before today’s date, I knew my baby would be born late.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">As I laboured through the night, I realised my prophecy was coming true - my first living child was going to be born on the second anniversary of my first son’s death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt the planets align that morning. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Five years ago today I gave birth to a daughter. She was my daughter and she was tiny and pink and breathing, and when I held her to my chest, she urinated down the front of me just to let me know that her little bladder was working.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And now she is five, and she is one of the sweetest, most complicated little people I know. When I look at her I see myself, which both delights and terrifies me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is creative and inquisitive and caring, and at the core of her being is someone who loves with her whole heart – and I love her with all of mine.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Five years ago today, with the scars from the squeezing indelibly etched, I learnt how to make lemonade.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8197952168712822975.post-38536227816305838752010-10-24T21:02:00.000+11:002010-10-24T21:02:32.083+11:00Mister Maker has a lot to answer for!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I understand the value of kids and The Creative Arts. I really do. I studied music, art, and drama at school and have been known to break out in spontaneous song and dance numbers when the mood strikes me.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My husband (otherwise known as Pineman due to a questionable haircut that left him resembling the fronds on a pineapple) is not particularly dramatic but is incredibly musical and artistic, so I realise we must accept some responsibility for our kids’ artistic temperaments.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">However, I think someone else needs to take some responsibility for our children’s manic craft episodes, and that is a British television show host who sports a zany vest, has crazy eyes, and fashions crafty things out of inanimate objects from his ‘doodle drawers’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He paints, he sticks, he glues, he cuts, and somewhere in the middle of the program he wakes up some shapes that jump down from a shelf and sing, “I am a shape…la la la la”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">He is Mister Maker, and he is an enabler!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">At one stage my kids were so enamoured with Mister Maker that we had to record the show daily. They even assigned a shape to everyone in the family, and if I happened to be in the room at the wrong time, I had to be a square. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But it’s the way their little eyes light up when they see a ‘fake spilt milkshake’ being created using pink paint mixed with glue or a ‘donkey puppet’ made by sticking two boxes together and then plastered with paint, pom poms and googly eyes, that incites me to throw all easily accessible art products on a Very High Shelf. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Apologies in advance to my high school art teacher, but the three core reasons for my disdain for children’s Visual Arts are as follows:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Visual Arts are messy.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">During The Ranga’s recent pre-school orientation session, he gravitated towards the painting table, and with a furrowed brow, started furiously striking the paper with the intensity of Vincent Van Gough. He layered and layered and layered and added A LOT of water from the rinsing cup and produced the masterpiece, ‘Anakin’s Footprints’, which looked suspiciously like his previous series, ‘Stars and Rope’.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Later when trying to wrangle two wet paintings, a backpack, a pair of shoes and the rescuing of The Ranga from a giant bindi patch, I copped the full force of a dripping ‘Anakin’s Footprints’ in the face; which brings me to my next point…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Visual Arts are hard to transport.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">As much as I adore pre-schools and day care centres for allowing my children to creatively express themselves without my presence, they really need to consider leasing trailers. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Miss C recently brought home FOUR egg cartons containing the inside padding from a bra (apparently beds for her dolls), two paintings, two drawings and two cardboard boxes covered in paint and glitter stuck together with an empty paper towel roll and some painted yoghurt containers (apparently a boat). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And once when it was pouring rain, I had to haul a saturated Ranga, a pair of sodden thongs, a handbag, a backpack, seventeen drawings, and a pair of cardboard and cotton wool bunny ears. Plus, Miss C had to trail behind toting an umbrella, a wet painting, and a toy chicken in a basket made out of an egg carton and a pipe cleaner.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Trailer anyone?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And sometimes the art just keeps on travelling with us…like Miss C’s paper doily people who have to be strapped into the car and attend her ballet lessons.</span></div><h3 style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span class="uistorymessage"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But possibly art’s most heinous crime is its prevalence!</span></span></span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Visual Arts are like The Plague.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My kids never stop creating and it’s like some insidious disease that has infiltrated the house.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Despite my best intentions to follow the advice of every parent and magazine and book with their ‘great ideas’ about displaying/storing/using children’s artworks - turn it into wrapping paper, take photos of the art and make a photo book, create a crafty display wall (which would involve me creating craft to store the craft!), frame it - to the parent of the prolific artist, it is all bullshit!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I have saved some, framed three pieces for Miss C to hang in her room, stuck them to the fridge, made numerous, subtle trips to the recycling bin, and yet we are still destined to be like one of those families who have to be rescued by a bulldozer and a team of cleaners and a television crew because we have horded so much crap.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The moral to the story…</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I can tolerate The Ranga’s made-up songs about Star Wars characters to the tune of Train’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Save Me San Francisco</i> for ten straight minutes, followed by a cry of, “Mum, I can feel another song coming on”. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I can even tolerate Miss C dressing up in a petticoat I wore as a flower girl in a debutante ball when I was nine, coupled with an old bikini top, and dragging herself along the ground pretending to be Ariel from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Little Mermaid</i>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But the next time I hear the theme song to Mister Maker, please allow me to rock in the corner and silently weep.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8197952168712822975.post-10592028119584149652010-10-17T22:27:00.000+11:002010-10-17T22:27:34.488+11:00How to deal with a visit from the great-grandparents…<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I come from a long line of perfectionists on my mother’s side – my maternal grandparents being the Patriarch and Matriarch of Perfection. They are always prompt and extremely polite. Their cars have always been polished until they shone, every log book service completed on the due date. When they had a lawn, it was always manicured, the plants pruned and the gardens weeded. The house was always pristine, and when I stayed with them as a little girl, I’d never slept in fresher sheets or been tucked in tighter.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My maternal grandmother is the quintessential 1950’s housewife – she has had weekly hair appointments for her entire adult life, she wears heels and stockings – all year round - even on the hottest Australian summer days. She always dresses as if she might bump into The Queen at any given moment. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">She and my mother are the most obsessively organised women on the planet. They diarise everything (my grandmother even transfers things from her handbag diary to her house diary) and both have supreme budgeting skills. They have always kept a rigid cleaning/ironing/housekeeping schedule, which my mother somehow managed to juggle with work.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, on the other hand, am seriously flawed. Yes, I inherited some of the organisational skills, my grandmother’s uncanny knack for remembering dates, and their obsession with details, but somewhere in the mix I lost the Suzy Homemaking gene. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My sister is the exactly the same. My mother has been known to place her head in her hands and utter, “I just don’t know where I went wrong”, like our lack of ability to iron, or more to the point, our lack of ability to care about ironing is somehow a reflection on her parenting skills.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I would love nothing more than to exist in a tidy environment, be able to find a matching pair of socks on demand, or pull something out of the wardrobe that is *gasp* already ironed, but sadly this is rarely the case. And having children has just exacerbated the situation. Most of the time it looks like a crazy dictator just released a nuclear bomb in the house, except that I have two crazy dictators and twice the explosive aftermath. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And that’s what the house looked like yesterday - at 11.00am - when my grandfather rang and asked if they could give Miss Curious (Miss C) her 5<sup>th</sup> birthday present TWO WEEKS EARLY! I looked at the clock. I was still in my pyjamas and my hair looked like a scarecrow. I looked at the bedraggled kids. I looked at the monumental pile of filing and paperwork and miscellaneous crap on the coffee table. I looked down at the suspicious brown stain on the kitchen floor, which had only been brought to my attention moments ago by Miss C. “When Clare (Miss C’s Best Friend Forever) comes over when I’m 10; I hope she doesn’t spot THIS!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I paused and then said to my grandfather, “sure, we’d love to see you. What time do you think you will be here? In 20 minutes……….great!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During these moments, I am torn between wanting desperately to impress them and really not giving a toss. Under the time constraints, I usually manage to satisfy both.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The kids are aware of the dire need to clean up at these times. They have learnt from experience that at some point I will spontaneously combust. So they started running through the house. The Ranga was throwing cars into a drawer at an alarming rate. Miss C cleaned the entire back room in a matter of minutes. I showered, threw the scarecrow hair into a ponytail and made all of the beds. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And then I saw them walking down the driveway. I glanced around but there was no more time. The kitchen benches were covered with breakfast dishes, left over fast food packaging from the night before, and another miscellaneous pile of paperwork (where do these piles come from?)The Ranga had also traded cleaning up all of his cars for emptying the entire contents of his wardrobe onto the floor. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On a positive note, I wasn’t naked. Last week, after showering, I was walking from the bathroom to the bedroom (in the nude) and noticed, through the bedroom blinds my husband had kindly left open, my mother, my aunty, my uncle and my cousin all arriving for a ‘surprise’ visit. I immediately dropped to the ground and commando rolled across the floor to reach my robe. But a robe wouldn’t have sufficed on this occasion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My grandparents don’t do nudity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I answered the door fully dressed and lead them through the bomb site to the back room where we made pleasantries and drank cups of tea and ate the ‘good biscuits’. I told them about The Ranga’s major toilet training achievement - the wearing of undies for two days in a row (even though he is three years, five months and they hail from the era of toilet training children at the age of one). The children then regaled them with lessons in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Star Wars</i> 101, reciting the names of ALL characters from the trilogy and the three prequels.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And then The Ranga disappeared. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The thought crossed my mind that I should check on him…and then he reappeared. His skinny white legs were moving at lightning speed. I scanned him up and down and realised he was wearing nothing but a <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>T-shirt. In the time it took for me to wish I could just wiggle my nose and materialise a pair of pants (and a clean kitchen), he streaked past, his weapon of mass destruction dangling from side to side. I lurched forward to grab him, but it was too late. My 82-year-old grandmother was clutching the side of the buffet and hyperventilating. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We promptly shuffled my grandparents down the hallway, kicking The Ranga’s bedroom door shut on the way through to contain the hazardous waste that was spilling from the doorway, and bid them farewell. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I slowly exhaled, glanced around, and thought: perhaps perfection is overrated… </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8197952168712822975.post-72582500702412712342010-10-14T22:41:00.005+11:002010-10-15T21:48:14.458+11:00It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye…or their hearing?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I dread the mere thought of indoor play centres during the school holidays. So what did I do the other day when a light hearted conversation with a friend and some hardcore entertainment for the kids were desperately required? I threw my children into a giant circus-themed menagerie for four hours. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Just walking through the Magna Latched gates, kids tagged like homing pigeons, was like heading into a zoo. My kids couldn’t get at it fast enough – leaping like little lemurs across the floor. My red-headed three-year-old son otherwise known as, “The Ranga”, was swinging through the oversized enclosure like his namesake orangutan within seconds. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Where does all of the energy come from?? And the noise!! The cacophony of squawking children was giving me a twitch and I’d only been there for five minutes. I glanced around and noticed some grandparents with earphones listening to an iPod! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The frenzied, primal rock concert (devoid of any music) continued while I waited for my friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then she arrived…with one, two, three, four, FIVE children. That’s five plus my two equals SEVEN! She has three kids of her own but had acquired a couple of ring ins. This disturbed me on a number of levels…</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1. </span></span>Is this what happens when your kids start school (as my daughter will be doing in a few months)? You have to look after Other People’s Children under the guise of a “play date”?</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2. </span></span>We were about to add seven children to the seven hundred children already darting, leaping and squawking around the room.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I scanned the room for a table but every single one was occupied by parents with backpacks and water bottles and prams and shoes and seventy macerated hot chips. I began to stalk the tables like a crazed woman and wouldn’t have gone past bribery and corruption to attain one. When one large group FINALLY decided to leave, I pounced on them, and much to their dismay, I was sitting down before they had a chance to clear their belongings. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not my usual style but it was survival of the fittest! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The food arrived and my friend and I managed to retrieve all SEVEN children, who in turn proceeded to squish another seventy hot chips into the furniture. God knows how we located all seven. I believe indoor play centres should introduce a large piece of elastic that attaches each kid to their parent or carer. This would alleviate the inevitable journey up a fully enclosed plastic tunnel to rescue a stuck or lost child, or a trip to the bottom of the God forsaken ball pit. Ball pits are cesspits – dig deep enough and you will find a veritable lucky dip. I know they are cleaned blah, blah, blah, but I have, in the past, penetrated the plump, colourful surface to search for a missing sock and have discovered a treasure trove of crusty socks, clumps of hair, nit-infested combs, and mucus-filled tissues.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The magnificent seven then stuffed their faces full of ice-cream and lined up for the carousel. They chanted and rattled the gate like caged animals and my immediate thought was hot chips + ice-cream + spinning = projectile vomiting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit; mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Ranga giggled with delight as he whizzed past and then suddenly decided that enough was enough and crawled out of the cup…WHILE IT WAS STILL SPINNING! I screamed and rattled the Magna Latched gate trying to get in, but discovered it was also parent proof.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By some sheer stroke of luck he came out of it unscathed, apart from being emotionally shattered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I braced myself for the vomit but it didn’t come!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My children are champion vomiters and don’t do well with dizziness, as I discovered one day at a local park when they spun themselves into a frenzy on a spinning thing. The Ranga fell off, staggered like a drunken sailor, face planted in the wood chip and then vomited. I was both amused and horrified and assured everyone that he did not have a gastro virus as I casually kicked some wood chip over the pile of vomit. My almost five-year-old daughter saved her vomit for the car park. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The kids darted off again and my friend and I tried to continue our staccato conversation, which was punctuated by toilet breaks and the comforting of squashed children. When we came to the realisation that we were flogging a dead horse, we rallied the troops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, EIGHT! My daughter had befriended a random child who was her “new best friend and could she please come for a sleepover?” NO! I had to explain that random children CANNOT under any circumstances come to the house for sleepovers.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After a final head count I cast my eyes over my children. All limbs appeared intact, only one squashed hand and a scratch on the forehead. Both were wearing TWO socks – matching and their own!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Ranga had a tub of tomato sauce and an entire chocolate ice-cream down his front, and surprisingly no one had vomited. I could no longer hear a word anyone was saying, but even with a lollipop shoved in their sticky mouths I could see they were smiling. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4