DID ANYONE ELSE CRY ON MOTHER'S DAY...TWICE?

I realise that was nearly a week ago, but i've been rather consumed trying to open a restaurant while still spending the same amount of time with Q.
Q, meanwhile, spent Mothers' day reminding me that it is still all about her and was so intense I cried. Twice.

This week she's decided we need more than the 29 hours a day we spend together by waking between 12.30 and 2am to talk about, whatever it is that consumes an 18 month old at 2 o'clock in the morning.
And the next morning when my eyes are gritty and my head hurts worse than the worst teenage hangover, I still love this motherhood gig.

But it's hard at the moment.
Really hard.

I don't want to work 5 nights and 2 days. That's too much time away from her.

But I don't have a choice, at least for the first few months. We need to earn money so we can give her the things she needs and deserves. And there's a nobility in that. In working hard to take care of those you love, and we're working hard at something we love. That's not a bad spot to be.

Yesterday I bought muesli bars for her for the first time in her 18 months. Typically I make all her food. I'm not saying that to brag. Quite the opposite. We've been on a pretty tight budget since she turned up, saving for the restaurant on one income, I like to bake, she likes to help me 'mix mix mix' and when the days are as long as they are with Q, you tend to have time for a lot of activities.

So tonight I took a break from the restaurant madness and made her some muffins.
I have just discovered I forgot the egg.
Do you think they'll still set?

It would seem mad to the outsider to spend half an hour making muffins when you've got an urgent 'to-do' list that is...well, urgent, but I needed to do this for her.
No I didn't. I needed to do it for myself.
I needed to reassure myself that no matter how tired or sad or poor or stressed or focussed I am, she's still my number one.

I might have forgotten the egg, but I'll never forget my girl.

RANTY PANTS OR NO PANTS. TAKE YOUR PICK.

It is 9am and I am already back from the playground because a 1 bedroom apartment gets boring for a 14 month old after an hour or so, so diversionary tactics must be implemented.

So, off we went to the park, Dad and mum with homemade coffees in hand (saving ourselves $7 a day people) and unsurprisingly we were the only people there.

Or were we?

Q headed straight for something far above her skill level and as I followed her to avoid a trip to the hospital I noticed a little girl a couple of years older than Q sitting quietly on the park bench while her mother sat next to her.

With her headphones in.

Talking on the phone.

And texting.

While her daughter sat still and silent beside her.

(I am reasonably assured it was her mother and not her nanny by their interaction and the big arse diamond ring I could see glinting in the early sunlight).

So, seeing us, this little girl hopped off the bench and wandered over to Q and I because - I suspect - she was bored.

This forced the mother off the bench to retrieve said daughter, take her promptly to the swings, strap her in and proceed to push her with one hand while continuing to text and talk with the other.

Now, dear reader, you may argue that clearly it was I not paying attention to my daughter because I was so consumed by somebody else’s, and you’d be right, so I left my daughter with her father and came home, full of righteous indignation, itching to write this blog.

I had planned to write about something else entirely.

I had planned to tell you the story of a dear friend of mine, who was explaining the finer points of the tale The Emperor’s Pyjamas.

Remember the one? He gets tricked into thinking he’s wearing clothes but is actually walking around naked instead.

‘It would be like if I walked down the street in my underpants,’ says my friend to her young daughter. ‘What do you think people would do if they saw that?’

‘They would cry,’ her daughter replies earnestly, and all I can think is, that other little girl’s mother would never hear such a witty response because she’d be on the phone.

Hear endeth the rant.

BOOB FAIRIES, BREASTFEEDING AND BETTER OUT THAT IN!

Totally lame and pathetic, but today has been busier than planned.
She says, like that's different to any other day.
So in a complete cop-out, I'm reposting the blog I wrote this time last year.
Last year, when I was carrying my little peanut safe inside, enduring the 6 weeks of pre-labour and starting to wonder just why I thought I was up for this gig in the first place...
Enjoy and apologies,

Happy Monday!

LAUNDRY - MUNDANE AND YET IT CONSUMES ME

There are a few things a SAHM (Stay At Home Mum for those not up with the latest acronyms) should be able to do.

1.             Whip up a microwave brownie without taking a single step because your human has permanently attached him or herself to your legs. (I’ve got some awesome matrix moves down as I arch back, brownie in one hand and open the microwave door with my nose).

2.             Get weetbix-cement out of the ridges in the table (such a bad idea to let Q feed herself, but her independent streak and 8 teeth by 6 months really work against me).

3.             Do laundry. And not just do the laundry. Do it successfully. ie things are clean after you’ve washed them.

This is not the case with yours truly, and it’s actually starting to get to me. Worse still is that all Q’s clothes are second-hand and came to us in pristine condition. No chance I’ll be passing them on again.

How embarrassing.

Q’s a bit rough on clothes I’ll admit, but I spray, I scrub, I soak, I leave them to stew for a day or two, I even tried a warm wash and still some of the stains remain.

This is not rocket science. This is something most people do at least once a day. All over the world. And some people don’t even have washing machines.

What am I doing wrong?

Why won’t these stains disappear?

And why do I care?

Because I see it as a reflection on me as a mother that’s why.

How pathetic.

When is this mother’s guilt going to subside?

Oh never, I hear you say. Wait till you do something really dastardly like send her to school with the wrong type of socks.

At least now she’s too young to know people tut-tut me as they pass us by. Silently observing my child’s dusty knees, grass-stained top and dirt-mired pants.

Still, it’s a tough battle to wage.

In that case...I'm the supermum

Lazy parenting versus extreme cleanliness.

I suspect the two are mutually exclusive.

And so, I fear that nothing much will change.

Now excuse me while I go and hang out my third load of washing.

Is there such a thing as a clean stain???

CAR TUNE-UPS FOR MOTHER'S BODIES - COULD IT WORK?

‘I want to lose 13 kilos,’ says my friend the other day.

‘Wow. That’s a lot,’ I reply. ‘You’ll be really skinny.’

‘I know. I want people to look at me and wonder if I’m sick.’

Please take this statement in the vein it was intended.

This is coming from the mother of a ten month old who is determined to rid herself of the few pesky kilos desperate to remain friends with her waistline.

It’s amazing how attached they can get. Friends for 9 months and they think you want to be friends forever.

Of course sometimes you encourage them, by your breastfeeding-induced addiction to all things carby, starchy (and come 3pm) sugary, but it’s not a genuine bid for friendship. It’s a fickle one. Like so many you see in the playground depending on who’s got the latest cool toy.

Except extra kilos are not a toy. Even if your husband calls them love handles. 

(Although if he’s got half a brain in his head he won’t).

Some mothers breastfeed the weight away, others stress it out. Yet more walk it off with hours of incidental exercise otherwise known as ‘the desperate attempt to tire your child out’.

Whatever way you do it, the unfortunate truth is that while you may eventually breakup with those extra 13 kilos, your body will still never ever be the same again.

You grew a human inside you.

And then you got it out, one way or another.

Imagine pulling the engine of a car out through its chassis.

Would you not expect a few things to get rearranged in the process?

Muscle separation…hip rotation…scar tissue (or scare tissue as I think it should be called).

Bugger the thirteen kilos, I need a total realignment.

Wheels, bonnet, gear box and all.

LAZY PARENTING - IS IT REALLY THAT BAD?

Parenting is surrounded by buzzwords these days.

Honestly, if you saw an ad looking for a kid in the Herald, you wouldn’t apply for quids.

It’d read something like this:

Seeking young human. Primary care from external source accepted, but ability to grasp concept of self-sufficiency highly desired.

Must be capable across a range of disciplines including independent play, structured learning, language recognition and development, child socialisation and more.

It's all a touch much for this mama.

And yet still I get caught up amongst it, fretting I’m not exposing my child to a wide enough range of influences and experiences.

‘Am I doing enough?’ I ponder aloud to my father the other day as we watch Q entertain herself with the recycling box. ‘Should I be obsessively trying to get her to clap? It was a milestone months ago but Q is yet to show any interest in it, or sit still long enough for me to show her how.’

‘Imagine if everything she knows is because it was shown to her,’ replies my ever sensible father. ‘What about discovery? I prefer things to be caught not taught.’

Caught not taught.           

I like it.

Caught not taught.

Discover don’t dictate.

Or as some people would no doubt call it…

Lazy parenting.

If you’re down with this method, read on. 

If not, better scurry off to enrol your super-human in a cross-stitch course taught in Indonesian, squashed in between learning to swim and music appreciation class.

·               supervised play – throw your kid in the pram, stop off for the ever important takeaway coffee, meet likeminded primary carers in the park, turf the kids onto the grass and let ‘em have at it. Bonus points if you don’t stop them eating dirt. Because if that’s not an excellent way to discover the distinct lack of nutritional value in soil well then, I don’t know what is.

·               child socialisation – aka hang out with your family and get them to watch Q while you take advantage of having two arms and make yourself a cup of tea.

·               Independent play – plonk ‘em in the middle of the floor and see what they do. Bear in mind they’ll likely ignore the box of toys and head straight for the power cords, vase of flowers and wine bottles.

·               Language recognition and development – narrate everything with a really bad song. They don’t care how bad it sounds, and since their language is still developing, they can’t tell you even if they do.

·               Fine motor skills – dump out the Tupperware drawer onto the floor while you’re preparing dinner. (Or making 4 minute microwave brownies, whatever). Add a couple of tins of tuna and a few saucepan lids to round out the selection and watch ‘em go. No specific outcomes required.

·               Spatial awareness – plop them on the ground while you’re hanging out the laundry and time how long it takes them to find a Slater. Whether or not you let them eat said Slater is up to you. (See above point about dirt).

Jury is still out as to whether this laissez-faire attitude works or not.

Get back to me in another thirty years or so, because really, the measure of your success as a parent is really not determined until your child becomes an adult themselves.

Oh sure, some kids look like they’re better on track than others, but whose to say those others aren’t on their own path of self-discovery.

Forging a brave, unchartered front, highly intellectualised and thought out, based equal parts on instinct and laziness and without a single buzzword in sight.

Caught not taught people, caught not taught.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE

It could have been worse.

Does anyone remember Pollyanna anymore?

You know, the girl from the books. She was an orphan I think and went to live with her aunt. Or someone.

Anyway, somewhere in the town, lived a cranky old woman who was perpetually sick and as cantankerous as the bedsores she was probably sitting on. Pollyanna, in her impertinent way, made friends with this lady and introduced her to ‘the glad game’.

‘The glad game ‘is a game where no matter what the circumstance is, you find a way to be positive about it.

It’s completely cheesy, but I have to admit, for many years now, I’ve been playing it too.

I’ve always been a ‘glass is almost full’ kind of kid; I’m too lazy to be upset, it requires too much energy.

Here’s how I play the game with my recent experience…

·               I could have gotten sick when my mum was teaching and then I wouldn’t have had anyone to look after Q.

·               My husband could have been unwilling to move to his in-laws for 6 days so I could recuperate

·               It could have been glorious warm spring weather. Rain and cold meant I could lie on the couch in tracky-dacks and not feel like I was missing out on anything while simultaneously managing to cover my dreadful, ugly full-body rash.

·               It was only acute bronchitis. Very close to pneumonia, but it wasn’t. That would have really sucked.

·                Could have happened right before we were heading OS in which case I would have had to delay my departure for sure.

See how it works folks? Suddenly having breathing difficulties, a head to toe magnificently itchy rash and serious exhaustion doesn’t seem so bad after all!

Try it peeps, see if it works for you.

Have a great weekend. 

TIM MINCHIN, NICOLE KIDMAN AND SPERM BANKS IN DENMARK

A tinge of the ginge.

Tim Minchin says that only a ginger can call another ginger, ginger so as a card-carrying life-long member of the ginge brigade I am completely qualified to write this blog.

There’s been a bit of talk around the cyberhood about redheads this week, so I thought I’d be utterly original and join in.

I don’t quite know when the redheaded renaissance began. If, in fact, we were ever fashionable to begin with.

Perhaps it was due to Nicole Kidman in BMX Bandits, before she sold out to Hollywood and bleached her freckles and hair to smithereens.

What about Molly Ringwald. Now there’s a redhead to be proud of.

Breakfast Club anyone?

Maybe it goes all the way back to Anne Boleyn. She was after all a wife of the King. 

Never mind that her beheading was popular sport one sunny afternoon, we haven’t forgotten her have we?

I grew up in a small country town and attended an even smaller public school where the only other redheads were my brothers.

I don’t know if it affected them, but I still recall the pain of people calling me

Matchstick

Carrot top

Bluey – which seriously made no sense to me as a child.

Fanta Pants – which now makes me chuckle but back then was a torment worse than forgetting your sports uniform on Friday.

And as a teenager

Fire crotch (which honestly, took me a while to work out, but then again I am known for my naïveté and puberty was a little late to hit)

And most recently

Ranga.

I’m not sure you should be allowed to dye your hair red as an adult. It doesn’t seem fair that you get to do it when it’s cool and accepted.

You should have to suffer. Endure a decade or so of schoolyard bullying.

The redheaded ridicule has once more come to a head (pardon the pun) because apparently Denmark, home to the world’s largest sperm bank, is no longer accepting redheaded sperm due to a lack of demand.

How rude.

I however, have some insider knowledge on that exact sperm bank, as it helped grow the delightful daughter of some dear family friends of ours.

According to them, the bank is very definite on matching sperm as closely as is reasonably possible to the mother/s involved.

And lets be honest, how many Europeans would actually be authentic redheads. Maybe a few Italians (unless my childhood language teacher was lying to us all) but who has ever seen a Norwegian redhead. Or a lederhosen wearing ginger.

It just doesn’t happen.

I think in fact, that the sperm bank is acting in the interests of the unmade children.  Performing a pre-conception civic duty if you will.

The only retort my mother would ever let me utter to those mean little kids was that old gem sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me, which was a complete lie because the words did hurt, and I wasn’t interested in testing the theory by being hit with a stone or stick either.

These days I’ve dealt with my pain, it’s made me a stronger individual, just as that other cliché my mum used to throw my way whatever doesn’t break you makes you stronger predicted.

These days I prefer to refer to this elite group of individuals as blondes with heart and brunettes with personality.

And as I gaze at my daughter and note the tinge of ginge in her few strands of hair, I wonder if that’s just the response I’ll be telling her to say in years to come.

A TALE OF TWO NEW MUMS

Once upon a time, (approximately 20 months ago) two Sydney women fell pregnant.
While they were busy growing their first ever humans, their mothers were busy telling anyone who would listen that their babies were now growing their own.

In an uncanny twist in this remarkable story, these two mothers of soon-to-be mothers worked at the same school and finally tried to tell each other that their daughter was pregnant.
'My daughter is pregnant.'
'No, my daughter is pregnant.'
'Nooooooooo.'
'Yeeeeeeeees.'
'When is yours due?'
'End of November. When is yours due?'
'End of November.'
'No way.'
'Yes way.'
'They should meet.'
'Yes, they should meet.'

And so it was that the two women growing humans at the same time, were bullied into a blind date by their well meaning mothers.

Several months later, (neither of them remember who contacted who first) they met at a cafe local to one of them and over decaf coffees and stale raisin bread (they didn't dare have caffeine in front of a fellow human grower, you never know the response their going to give, and will now both admit that the toast was horribly stale and they really shouldn't have eaten it at all) they got beyond the fact that they had walked their rolling their eyes at their mother's determination that they met and discovered the other person to be quite pleasant indeed.

Months went by and the ladies' friendship grew along with their stomachs.

Soon there wasn't any more room for their little humans and two delightful girls arrived on this earth in the same birth centre at the same hospital within twenty-four hours of each other.

And so now the cycle continues, and these two new little girls, just as their mothers were oh-so-many months ago, are forced to be friends several times a week, as their mothers muddle through this parenthood gig together.

But where one mother can sing, dance, act and write to an apparently mildly successful but not full-time employable standard, the other mother can also sing, write, and dance well enough to bust a move on the dance floor at a wedding.
But she can also make jewellery, baby shoes, toys and clothes.

Check them out at her blog.
She is seriously clever.
And she's also my friend.

GWYNETH, BEYONCE AND LINEN CLOTHES.

"I think it's good for kids to get germy and dirty, and that's how they build their immune systems. You can't be too overprotective. They have to be out there in the world."

This is what Gwyneth Paltrow advised in response to Beyonce’s pregnancy announcement.

But it’s not an original idea.

All mothers who quickly realised that maintaining an anti-dirt stance is a fast track to crazy, have embraced the idea that God made dirt so dirt don’t hurt.

(That’s also not an original, my mother-in-law owns that one).

We live on the second floor of a house and share the washing-line with the downstairs landlord.

All fine and fabulous except the yard in the winter is always damp. Obviously I can’t leave Q to her own devices while I hang out the stupid amount of laundry we seem to accumulate, so down she comes and I sit her on a big garbage bag.

Ghetto I know, but I refuse to wash a quilt each day because it gets covered in dirt.

Problem is, she doesn’t stay on the bag and very quickly finds the muddiest part of the garden and stuffs some in her mouth.

Nutritional value of mud is quite low I’d imagine, so our landlord is trying to train her to eat the asthma weed that’s slowly taking over the garden instead.

We went to a picnic last Saturday and there was another baby girl there who showed Q up so devastatingly I ended up fleeing in embarrassment.

This girl was dressed in pristine pink and white striped linen – linen for heaven’s sake.

Who (apart from mothers on the lower north shore) even wears linen?

Worse than that, there wasn’t a mark on it.

Q meanwhile, had gotten into the strawberries and looked like a little vampire with red juice covering her once clean top. She – of course – had to be deterred from eating more leaves, knocked over a beer, chewed on a young girl’s play wand and tried to climb on top of another guest’s dog.

Busy. Interested. Energetic. Lively.

Yep, those are all words I heard describing my little human that day.

An anti-dirt stance? Not a chance.

But as a fairy searching for middle earth, what else would you expect?

JURASSIC LOUNGE, SKINNY JEANS AND HOW THEY CAN SAVE A MARRIAGE

Last night the joint CEO’s of QFL enterprises took a two-and-a-half hour break from the company and attended the Jurassic Lounge at the Australia Museum.

The evening began with Q falling asleep too early (because she only took one day nap) thereby ensuring a nervous female CEO as she anticipated a wakeup at any point during her absence.

That was followed by an extra long bus ride because we jumped on without looking at the sign, unfortunately allowing plenty of time for a discussion about G’s work which we hastily aborted before we got a divorce on the bus.

We made it to the museum just before 8 o’clock and I remarked to my beloved that our last outing had been Easter.

Oh we go out and see people all the time, (several times a day if you count my brothers dropping in) but just the two of us…not since the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection.

Marriages don’t survive on miracles, we surmised, so we’ve succumbed to using that very wankiest of terms – date night – and shall make it a regular thing.

It also occurred to me that it is important to get out more often, so I can accurately pinpoint the demise of society.

Since when did electric blue high-waisted pantaloons become fashionable? The woman in question looked like an uptight Hitler on his way to Studio 54.

Ditto the sensible lace-up school shoes our mother used to force us to wear to school even though everyone else was in sneakers or buckles.

I’m no stylist to be sure, but those things cut the line of your leg worse than a Sydney shark attack.

Tighty-tight-tight jeans are ever in vogue, but when swivelling your torso and dislocating your hips is the only way you can climb stairs, perhaps you should consider a larger size.

Perhaps.

The queue for the bar was so long this breastfeeding mum was fearing she’d never be able to down her one free drink, but it did give me ample opportunity to study these fine fashionistas.

It’s a bold move to open up a museum after hours, provide alcohol and entertainment and let people wander free…

Gregory and I were remarkably well behaved as you can see by this slightly blurry picture of me riding a bike that made a skeleton ride his.

He seemed to be doing a better job.

G was too much of a wuss to handle the stick insect in the learning centre (he’s got a bit of an issue with snakes and insects so it’s a shame he migrated to Australia I suppose) but I gave it a go.

No one got drunk and mounted a T-Rex which I thought was a sure bet, but we did see a couple getting hot and heavy behind the stuffed dingo.

A quick trip home – helps when you take the right bus – and we walked in the door to discover Miss Q in the arms of her aunt, talking away telling her all about the nap she’d just had.

We’d visited history but now we were back to making history, one Q day at a time.

VEGETABLE MUFFINS, PAST LIVES AND MIDDLE EARTH.

On Saturday Q and I went to our local markets to buy our certified organic, locally produced, pesticide free wanky produce because that’s the kind of mum I aspire to be.

Actually because it’s cheaper and better quality than the local grocer and I do try to support small businesses but that’s hard because none of them make cereal, toilet paper, toothpaste and ear cleaners, all which force me to enter the dreaded supermarket.

Anyway, there is a stall at the market that sells vegetable muffins and Q is a bandit for them.

Yesterday I hit on the brilliant idea that muffins are not in fact a feat of baking wizardry and tried my hand thereby – in true tight arse form – making a dozen for less than the $2.50 it costs to buy one of theirs.

You don’t know the genius you’re dealing with when you come into contact with me people.

Back at the markets, Q is sitting in her chariot, happily munching on her vegetable muffin, her doting mother lugging apples and pears in the backpack (bring on summer – cherries don’t weigh as much) when a lady comments on what a good eater she is.

‘Yes,’ I say proudly, ‘she comes from two very serious eaters.’

‘Does she eat everything?’

‘So far yes. Particularly leaves. She loves a nibble on an old dirty leaf.’

‘Ah, that’s because she’s a fairy.’

‘A what?’

‘A fairy,’ the woman repeats. ‘It’s plain to see by the way she’s eating that muffin. She’s definitely an earth creature.’

‘Right. Definitely.’

‘Yes, she’ll always have an affinity with soil and plants and animals. And you mustn’t deny her. That’s very important. She was a fairy in a past life. She’ll spend most of this life trying to get back to middle earth.’

At which point I stopped pushing the chariot and told the woman I was going to peel Q a mandarin.

‘You do that, she’ll like a mandarin. They come from trees.’

No shit Sherlock. (I didn’t actually say that out loud).

‘Have a wonderful, wonderful life,’ she calls out as she crosses the road. ‘I know you will if you just let her follow her true path.’

And that, my friends, is all I need to know.

Bugger the parenting books. Who cares about reading, writing and arithmetic.

My sole responsibility as Q’s mother is to guide her towards middle earth and let her eat leaves.

What could be easier than that?