In which the children brawl over a magic mirror...

Life is fairly chaotic at the moment.  This morning we were running late for school and the kids were having an epic brawl in the back seat of the car.  I went to glance in the rear vision mirror to see what all the ruckus was about and then realised the mirror wasn't there.  So I glanced over my shoulder to find the two of them wrestling over the said mirror.  I don't even know how this is possible.

Turi (bless) doesn't know what to do with himself when his sister is at school.  When he isn't staging an epic tantrum to demand that his needs are immediately met, all he wants to do is veg out on the couch watching 'The Brave Little Toaster' until his sister returns.  I have to had to work very hard to divert his attention.  At one point he even watched half of 'Chicken Little' in Dutch because he was too scared to ask me to change the audio track to English in case I made him turn it of!!  Here he is, looking very innocent and playing with his 'box props'.  This brief contentment lasted all of ten minutes.  Thank god kinder goes back tomorrow.  I am exhausted.

The training wheels are off...

Everyone is smiling and laughing as we ride our bikes in the sunshine beside a crystal blue ocean.  If you added a boppy, uplifting soundtrack we could be on a commercial for bottled water or tampons… (although possibly not tampons since we are the wrong demographic and no one is wearing short shorts or a bikini).  Because everything is going so perfectly we ride further than usual, but with every meter we travel further from the house I am tempting disaster.

Suddenly it's less bottled water commercial and more Saving Private Ryan.  The smallest child has tumbled from his bike and scraped his elbow.  Nothing serious, but he is screaming inconsolably and stamping in a circle whilst flapping his arms. This strange chicken like dance is performed so that everyone will know he is certainly going to die… imminently.  I assess the wound, and assure him it's not that bad and everything is going to be fine, while internally panicking because everything is not going to be fine because we are a LONG way from home and I have to somehow get us back with this sobbing child in tow.

Now the sun seems oppressive rather than idyllic, and I realise we are all wearing way too many clothes.  The mix of sweat and blood acts like a barrel of burley thrown into shark infested waters and suddenly all the blow flies in a 20km radius are swarmed around us in a haze of black.

First I try my impression of a motivational sports coach, "hop back on that bike and ride home a champion"… this doesn't really work as the small child snivels between sobs, "what's a champion mummy?".  Then I try bribery, "if you can make it home you can have some jelly beans".  The number of jelly beans on offer steadily increases as the sobs continue.  In this manner we limp almost half way home, at which point the child decides even a truck load of jelly beans aren't worth it and gives up.  As he lies prostrate on someone's lawn, thoughts of putting my feet up at home with a cup of tea and One Hundred Years of Solitude flash before me, mirage like, tantalising yet unattainably just out of reach.  I am ashamed to say this is when I embrace my last motivational strategy… fear.  I absently note that the flies are 'eating' his wound.  Alarmed the child peels himself from the grass and examines his elbow with increasing horror.  "The only way to get rid of them is to ride fast enough so they won't be able to keep up."  The child is back on his bike and now I am Jillian Michaels on a bad day, "Peddle, peddle, peddle, balance!!', I bark as he weaves his way up the final hill.  For good measure I add, "…and if you make it home you can have a movie!"

I know he looks broken here but never fear he was back up and nagging to go to the local BMX track an hour later so the event can't have been too scarring!

Today I had a shower...

Today I had a shower.  By the time I emerged from the bathroom, both children had decided to dress up as zebras in drag, their costumes achieved by drawing stripes over their entire bodies with a black marker, and topping it off with some wildly colourful eye and face makeup also created with markers.  The two zebras were found in the toilet ineffectually mopping with small face clothes at a few litres of urine which was covering almost every surface of the room.  I really thought if you were old enough to make breakfast for the family and could read Hop on Pop, you could be trusted alone for ten minutes.  Clearly I am deluded.  First attempts at washing off the black marker have proved unsuccessful.  I'm not looking forward to leaving the house with my life sized graffitied cabbage patch kid dolls.  Time for another cup of tea.

In which santa fails to bring a pinacosaurus but no one really minds…

 

This photo was taken on Minty's last day of kinder.  It was such a special day for her.  She's loved this year of kinder so much and I think we were both a little sad to see it come to an end.  She was (somewhat ironically given her behaviour this week!!) an angel in the nativity play.

After the play there was a visit from the big man himself.  As santa handed out gifts for all the kinder kids and their younger siblings, a horrifying thought dawned on me.  I had forgotten to bring along a wrapped gift for santa to give to Turi.  At that moment Turi turned to me with a look of unbridled joy and excitement and said to me, 'does Santa have a present for me!?'  He was virtually shaking with anticipation.  This was surely my greatest parenting failure to date.  I murmured something to the effect of, 'we'll have to wait and see', and then gripped the Mr's arm while we exchanged one of those all important parenting conversations spoken only with furtive glances and meaningful eyebrow twitches.  My panicked gaze said something along the lines of, 'sweet baby Jesus I forgot to bring a gift!!!', and his eyebrow mexican wave signalled back, 'seriously? Since you're in the habit of forgetting vital things do I need to ask if there is also a lit candle next to a curtain somewhere at home?'   

And then, ever the practical problem solver, the Mr swung into action. He surreptitiously cut a square of wrapping paper from a roll on the kinder craft table and disappeared out the front door for a few moments.  He returned with a frond of kangaroo paw he had cut from the bush out the front, which he then wrapped in the said paper and handed to the kinder teacher to slip to santa.  As I watched the other siblings unwrapping dolls, books and brightly coloured markers I was sure we were sunk.  I was mortified and certain that somewhere in the future a therapist would be secretly thanking me for funding his or her trip to Tahiti.  Surely an entire chapter would be dedicated to this incident in Turi's future memoirs.  And then the moment of truth arrived, Santa called Turi's name and he ripped open the package.  Shockingly he wasn't even the slightest bit disappointed.  He adored his kangaroo paw and clutched it lovingly to his chest.  When it came time for Santa to leave Turi flung himself on the floor sobbing and wailing, 'but I'll miss him'.  Ever since Turi has been proudly telling whoever will listen, that Santa brought him a kangaroo plant.

Crisis averted.  Moral of the story… don't leave me in charge of remembering anything.  And maybe (or am I reaching too far here?) materialism in kids is more a product of our own expectations.

In which there is food art and trust dies...

I think I mentioned in my last post that the kids have been getting up ridiculously, 4am, early.  A better mother would probably leap from the bed to watch the sun rise with her progeny, but honestly after a week of dealing with late night nightmares and people jumping on my face in the middle of the night to whisper 'I want my wheatbix', I am operating in somewhat of a coma.  At one point in the blackest of night Turi decided to practise his articulation.  He starting chanting, 'shit, shit, shit', and while I am fairly sure he didn't know what he was saying, it was a very accurate vocalisation of my internal feelings.  I digress.  The truth is that yesterday I let the kids get up at 4am and I, horror of horrors, remained in bed to sleep in until the scandalously late hour of 7:30am.  You might be wondering what the children got up to alone in the house during this time.  Let me paint you a picture.

So it's 7:30 in the morning and Turi trots into my bedroom and says, 'Mummy, wash my hands, I'm grubby!'.  Still in the befuddled haze of sleep, I roll over and say, 'ok sweetheart. Have you been playing outside?'.  Turi replies in the affirmative and I stagger out of bed to the bathroom.  At this stage I notice the intense smell of peanuts and notice that Turi is smacking his lips together in a way that suggests his mouth is dry and sticky.  I glance down and see that his shirt is streaked in green, (grass stains perhaps?) and his hands are caked with black (maybe from making mud pies?).  And then I notice flecks of white on his hands.  I look closer.  The flecks are oats.  A flood or dread sweeps over me and I am well and truly awake.

At this point Minty flits past and says in an ominously, cheery voice, 'don't go in the kitchen'.  Of course this in where I am headed.  The closest visual I can give of what I found is this Pro Hart ad for Stainmaster.

I know as bloggers we are prone to exaggerate for effect.  But believe me when I say that the kids emptied the entire pantry onto my kitchen floor.  They mixed several kilos of flour, five bottles of vinegar, brown sugar, caster sugar, oil, all my tea (loose leaf and bags), a kilo tub of peanut butter, wheatbix, pasta, oats, nuts, dried fruit, limes, baking powder, baking soda, creme of tartar, icy-poles, ice-cubes, and, perhaps most horrifyingly of all the entire packet of my precious matcha tea I had brought back with me from Japan.  Those green streaks on Turi's shirt were matcha.  

I use a large plastic trug tub to carry my fruit and veg home from our veggie group.  This tub had been the focus of their efforts.  It sat in the centre of the kitchen floor like a witch's cauldron, filled with a black lumpy slurry of food.  The smell took my breath away.  I sobbed a large gut wrenching sob.  Part of it was shock.  It had never even occurred to me that my kids were capable of such large scale destruction.  Part of it was the realisation of the scale of the mammoth cleaning task that awaited me.  A small part of it was grief at the loss of my matcha tea!  But honestly the true origin of that sob was fear that somewhere along the way I had gone horribly wrong in my parenting and discipline of my children.  Do I command no authority or respect in my own home?  How could my kids do this without any thought of consequence?  It felt like a big, sticky slap in the face.

It took me six hours, without stopping for so much as a cup of tea, to return the kitchen to some state of normality.  They hadn't merely emptied the canisters onto the floor, they had also made experimental mixtures inside each canister.  No corner of the kitchen was safe.  They had reached into the back corners of every cabinet with their sticky fingers.  All the mixing bowls had food caked onto them, my pizza stones had been used as mixing plates, there were dirty birthday candles in the cutlery drawer and the finger printed freezer door remained open as clear evidence of their destructive path.

I'm not exactly sure how to wrap up this post.  I'm still reeling 24 hours later.  I guess today is a new day.  Today I'll try harder to be a better parent.  It's 11am and no one has trashed anything yet.  Focus on the positives?

29

Turi enjoys the birthday balloons in his PJs (our new family uniform)

Sorry for dropping off the radar.  Minty has pneumonia.  I thought pneumonia was just one of those things like scurvy that parents use to threaten you into being more sensible, 'if you don't put your jacket on before you go out you'll catch pneumonia!'.  Apparently people actually do get it in 'real life' too.  She should be fine - just needs to have plenty of rest and antibiotics.

While I was gone I turned 29.  I spent the night of my birthday sleeping on the floor next to the toilet while my insides tried to find their way outside.  No I was not hung over.  Just another lovely side effect of the (swine/avian/rodent??) flu we've been fighting for the last three weeks.

29 is a funny age.  It's the last year before I turn officially 'old' and I feel like I should be making some kind of bucket list for my 20s.  Strangely though I can't think of anything to put on it.  I'm not sure whether that means I'm happy or just boring.  To be honest I feel pretty old already.

Just this morning I found myself listening to Alanis Morissett's Jagged Little Pill.  The album was released back when I was an awkward, angsty teen and at the time Alanis was the embodiment of cool.  Now I find the songs whiney rather than relatable and as a mother the whole album is a little scary.  It's like a musical warning that if I mess up my kids enough, when they're adults they'll write songs about how it's all my fault 'we'll love you just the way you are… if you're perfect', while they fling their greasy hair about, bum cigarettes, get into kabala and have an eating disorder.  Clearly I am mentally middle aged.

One thing I am going to try and do this year is take better care of myself.  I know it's a cliche but since having the kids I've put my health as a low priority.  For instance, in the morning I'm usually so busy making sure everyone else eats a balanced breakfast, that I end up scoffing a piece of toast and a coffee while I bundle everyone into the car.  From now on my body is a temple… so only come worshipping if you bring offerings of chocolate!  I jest… (sort of)

Nuts

For the kids' playgroup snack this morning I made these carrot muffins.  But in an epic moment of parental failure I put walnuts in the muffins… it is of course a 'nut free' playgroup.  So rather than risk causing anaphylaxis in someone else's child I rummaged in our empty pantry for an alternative.    Poor Minty and Turi ended up with a torn up tortilla left over from last night's dinner… and I forgot their drink bottle.  We were 40 minutes late.  I'm pretty sure the kids looked like victims of serious neglect, and their sad faces upon opening the lunchbox aroused pity from the other parents, who were kind enough to share some of their own kid's lunches!  So on the cosmic parental report card I think I'm scoring a D minus today.  Oh well - I'll try and make it up to them tomorrow.

In which silence is golden...

If there's one thing I've learned in my three and a half years of parenting, it's that if the children are quiet for any length of time something fishy is going on.  

After a wonderful afternoon exploring the rockpools with Minty's best friend Aerin, the kids were playing quietly in the bedroom.  We were in the kitchen having a cup of tea and remarking on how lovely it was that the girls were including Turi in their game and congratulating ourselves on their burgeoning maturity.

Then Turi emerged from the room looking like a cross between Eden Wood and this…

It turns out that during the period of apparent peace and quiet the girls had helped themselves to the bathroom cabinets and mixed a slurry of contact lens fluid and foundation.  Turi was elected as the test subject for their new cosmetic creation and they had applied it liberally to his face and caked it into his hair.

Somewhere after the third lather of shampoo I began to realise it wasn't shifting.  His hair had the texture of stiff carpet pile and there was an uncanny lack of tonal variation between his face and hair.  I momentarily considered giving him a buzz cut until Aerin's mum, in a flash of brilliance, suggested we try sorbolene cream.  It took around half an hour of massaging the hair mask until his hair began to return to its normal texture.  So no permanent damage done, but I think it goes without saying I now have a renewed distrust of silence!

In which there is spillage of cake batter and bodily fluids...

Today was one of those days.  

Whilst bouncing on the couch, clutching a little maraca, Turi gained a bit too much momentum and flew across the room striking his head on the window frame.  He is now sporting a blue, bloody, golf ball sized lump in the centre of his forehead.

Shortly afterwards, in a fight for my affections, both children simultaneously dove in to give me a hug, cracking their heads together like a pair of human cymbals.  More blood, more tears.

In an effort to salve the tears I tried to make a chocolate cake but it leaked through the removable base of the cake tin, flooding sticky cake batter not only into the oven, but through the oven door and onto my freshly washed kitchen floor.  Since this has never happened before I can only assume I inadvertently walked under a ladder, recently blasphemed or someone, somewhere has fashioned a small voodoo doll of me that is clutching a tiny leaking cake tin.

To top it off, across the course of the day, Turi urinated on the floor twice and knocked over roughly ten cups of water.  Despite all evidence to the contrary he has decided that he is mature enough to drink unassisted from a regular cup and to use the toilet like a big boy (though thankfully not at the same time).  If he is denied either of these requests he wails inconsolably and pounds his head on the floor.  Needless to say my patience is wearing thin.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to scour burnt cake batter from the insides of my oven.  Motherhood is bliss.

In which Minty is dumped and Turi hangs out in the john...

don't worry it's just face paint!

Do you remember Minty's 'boyfriend'?  Well she recently experienced whatever the three-year-old equivalent is of being dumped.  A new kid arrived at playgroup a few weeks ago and the group dynamics changed.  Suddenly it was supremely uncool to be friends with a girl and now instead of kissing and cuddling, the boys spend their time roaring in Minty's face and pushing her over.  Minty is fairly shell shocked and can't understand why her old friend no longer likes her.  It's sort of tragic to watch and impossible to explain to her why kids are cruel (I suspect it's inappropriate to say ' it's nothing personal, sometimes boys can just be assholes!')

So now I have the task of trying to distract her by finding new friends for her to play with.  I feel like some kind of booking agent or pimp, soliciting phone numbers from other parents and trying to set up 'play dates'.  My natural state is one of complete introversion and I would probably rather poke myself in the eye than try and make a new friend.  But much like wiping up poo and snotty noses, I find myself performing this unpleasant task for the good of the children.  Minty is a social animal and one of the first things she asks me in the morning is, 'who is coming over today?', followed by the announcement, 'I want friends!'.  I can't wait for the age when I am no longer required as an intermediary.  Here's hoping I can deliver the goods.  Anyone want to come over for a play date?

In which I don't win parent of the year...

When I first became a parent I had visions of creating a childhood bubble free from the trappings of our consumer culture.  My house wasn't going to be full of plastic crap, my kids weren't going to watch TV, the words 'control' and 'crying' were never going to be used adjacently in a sentence coming out of my mouth and I certainly had no intentions of bribing my children.   I guess it's easy to be idealistic in theory.  Reality is somewhat more difficult.

I can count the number of times I've slept through the night in the past twelve months on one hand.  More often than not I (or Mr) spend several hours in the middle of the night tending to wakeful children.  When it comes to sleep Minty operates by the motto, 'outwit, outplay, outlast'.  In fact come to think of it Minty would probably make the ultimate survivor contestant.  She eats virtually nothing, would happily go for weeks without bathing, loves to go to the toilet outside and has more stamina and determination than anyone else I've ever met (adults included).  

Anyway, I digress.  Frankly it's difficult to keep high parental standards when you're extremely sleep deprived.  I've already broken my commitment for Lent.  The past couple of days we've watched more TV than I care to admit.  If I was going to make excuses I'd tell you it was because everyone has been sick, we've been cooped up in the house and I've been having trouble even keeping my eyes open let alone coming up with meaningful activities to keep the kids occupied all day.  But no one really likes excuses, least of all me.  So all I can do is wake up tomorrow and try again.  Try not to resort to ABC for kids, try not to operate on a short fuse, and try not to be that parent who garners scornful looks from strangers for her out of control children.

Pictures on our way to the doctor.  I thought I was being a responsible parent seeing as the kids have been sick for 3 weeks.  The doctor on the other hand seemed to think I was this lady.

In which the highland cattle and I wear our angry faces...

Sometimes I catch myself being particularly snappy and on a very short parenting fuse.  Tonight was one such occasion.  It had been a long day.  I was tired and I was cross with the Mint after she sat on my sun hat squashing it beyond all recognition.  She then proceeded to tip out a bag of beads I had just tidied up.  I started to shout at her and then caught a glimpse of myself through her eyes.  She crumpled and scrambled to try and clean up.  I realised she hadn't been intentionally naughty.  Sometimes it's hard to be good when you're only two.  So I took a deep breath, regrouped and decided I needed to take a different tack.  I closed my eyes and mustered all my inner calm to say, 'thank you Mint, you are doing such a good job helping to tidy up.'  I was more than rewarded for my efforts when she replied in a small voice, 'Thanks for letting me help…  I just love you guys'.  I'm really going to try harder to cut the kid a break… at least until she sits on another hat.

I took these pictures during our walk this afternoon.  We went to visit some highland cattle that live in a paddock near our house.  Unfortunately the cattle weren't up for having their photos taken.  It was hot and muggy and they were all sheltering under a tree on the opposite side of the paddock.  Minty thought they had their 'angry faces' on.  She was probably right.

In which I am assaulted and overly sentimental...

I wrote this yesterday shortly before I was hit over the back of the head with a wooden rainmaker by a certain small person who didn't want to have their eczema cream put on. As I was sitting on the couch with an ice-pack on my head ringing in the new year I was certainly neither happy nor content, so it felt a little disingenuous to post this. But after a good nights sleep and a little perspective it's feeling a little more like the truth again...

across the festive season I've been in quite a few social situations where I've been asked 'what's new with you?', 'so what are you doing with yourself now?' etc. I flounder around trying to come up with some kind of exciting and interesting synopsis of my life to try and stimulate the conversation but the truth is there isn't anything big or boldly interesting that's happened to me in 2010. I don't have a glamourous job, I haven't joined the peace corp, I haven't recently trekked around Nepal or bought a fancy apartment at Docklands. There isn't anything to write into the old collegians about or for my mum to brag about to her friends.

But my hard won wisdom for this year is that most of life happens in the inbetween moments - brushing your teeth, eating your weetbix, hanging out the washing, not in the large sweeping brush strokes we tell people we meet at parties. I can honestly say I'm happier in the 'in between' than I've ever been at any other time in my life. I'm not constantly wishing I was living somewhere else, doing something else, in a better job, dreading next week, the next day or the next hour. Sure there are things about my life I'd like to change but when the chips come down and it's me alone at the end of the night with my toothbrush I'm absolutely content. I go to bed happy with a full heart and if my life never holds anything but this, that will be enough.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2011 is a great year.

Saddle up readers, I'm getting back on my high horse...

I'm enraged. For some reason or another (now long forgotten) I was trawling The Age website and stumbled upon an article published back on August 2nd in the Sunday Life. The article by Jacinta Tynan, entitled, 'Is motherhood really that hard?', sported the tag line, 'quit moaning about your lack of me-time and unread novels… this motherhood thing is all a bit of a lark'. I kept waiting for the punch line when it was revealed Jacinta was being sarcastic. She wasn't.

The article even went so far as to imply that women who say motherhood is hard are simply whingers who want to fool others into believing they're working hard. The whole thing smacked of a lack of empathy and imagination for situations other than the writer's own. How much support a person has is a key element on how easy or hard motherhood is. Staying at home with the kids can be isolating and down right lonely if you don't have people around you to share things with.

As far as I understand it women's lib was all about giving women a voice, so that they didn't have to stoically and silently battle on unacknowledged and unappreciated polishing the silverware and fetching their husband's slippers. We've won the right to a voice so dagnamit I'll be using mine. To shout from the rooftops about women's rights and women's issues. And one issue is that some (read most) women do struggle at home… at least some of the time. I say this not to scare people or put them off motherhood, which I think everyone unanimously agrees is a gift and privilege. Rather I say it to inject a bit of reality into the discussion.

All too often when we discuss motherhood we seem to fall into the trap of veering to one extreme or the other. We either wax lyrical (as Jacinta did) about the joys of motherhood as though we are some saintly madonna whispering sweet nothings into our angelic babies ears, savouring the moonlight hours alone with the tiny 'love of our life', 'motherhood is a cinch', and really anyone who isn't managing to breeze through their mothering days, whilst also holding down some kind of paid employment and putting up a fancy dinner for their husband each night is frankly downright lazy. This kind of thinking sets up unrealistic expectations for the childless among us and feeds into the ever prominent cycle of guilt and self flagellation of those women who feel they're not living up to this ideal. News flash - no one lives up to this ideal all of the time.

I sometimes worry I feed into this cycle of supermumdom by writing this blog. I am probably guilty of feeding this fantasy by (for the most part) showing you the best parts of my days and shamelessly editing out the bits I'd rather you didn't see. I'm not trying to be dishonest, rather I use this to focus my mind and celebrate the positive aspects of my days.

On the flip side some women will rant and rave about the horrors of motherhood, and make you wonder why anyone would sign up for what is effectively a prison life sentence. I have to say I don't think these women are lying either. You've probably caught them on a bad day/week/month. We've all had them. Recently I recall sitting on the floor in a sleep deprived haze scrubbing poo from the walls of Minty's room, after yet another Pro Hart inspired faeces artwork installation and sobbing, wondering where I had gone wrong in life when a few short years ago I was decorating this beautiful nursery, enjoying daily intellectually stimulating exchanges with friends and colleagues and now I was faced with a wilfully disobedient two year old, who flat out refused to cooperate in the creation of the picture perfect magazine ideal of the family I was trying to create. I would hazard a guess and say that the women who tell these horror storries aren't trying to scare you, they are merely trying to lift the veil of unrealistic expectations or elicit a little sympathy.

Children are people, not dolls, and just like any other relationship there are going to be challenges, ups and downs. There are few things in life that can be simplified down into black and white categories of 'good' and 'bad', 'easy' or 'hard'. And frankly we probably wouldn't want them to be. Within any given day of motherhood you are likely to experience the whole spectrum of emotions, rage, boredom, hilarity, joy, peace, tedium, frustration and elation. I refuse to box this up and label it with a simple tag of 'easy' or 'hard'. It's beautiful, messy, ugly, and fun. Motherhood isn't a static state of mind, it's forever changing and adapting and entering new phases.

Frankly I feel like publishing an article like this is downright irresponsible. I worry about its affect on new mums who are struggling. What these women need is a little compassion not judgement. Thankfully those who are struggling as new mums are unlikely to have had to time to be reading the Sunday Life. It is about as narrow minded as writing an article claiming that 'I have a job' therefore anyone who doesn't is a lazy, dole bludging, whinger who needs to get off their backside and make a contribution to society. Actually that does sound like an article The Age might publish so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

And yes Jacinta, I do want a medal. What may I ask is wrong with wanting a little appreciation for the work I put in?