CYCLISTS - GIVING CADEL EVANS A BAD NAME

I live fairly close to the Bay Run, so once or twice a week, Q and I walk it with a dear friend, our mouths moving as fast as our legs.
The other day my sister-in-law joined us, so I walked ahead pushing Q and yelled my comments back so we didn't walk 3 abreast and hog the entire footpath.
Which brings me to the point of this post - cycling etiquette on a shared path.

I have absolutely no objection to those using the Bay Run as a commuter route to work, their sensible office shoes in a backpack on their backs, their suit pants tucked into their woollen blend socks.

But the serious cyclists, identified by their Cadel Evans Silence Lotto uniforms (he's not with them anymore you ninnies. He won last year's tour racing for BMC), hooning around the Bay like it's the Champs elysees. Seriously?
Go find a hill.
The Bay Run is 7km of dead flat track. You can walk it in under 50 minutes. (To be fair, us three ladies are all at least 5'10" so we do have a long stride, but the fact remains that it is not one of Sydney's most challenging courses).

Perhaps I wouldn't feel so affronted by these MAMILS (middle aged men in lycra) if they didn't whizz past me so fast I got whiplash from their slipstream, and just the other day have one of them shake their head at my 16 month old girl toddling along on the correct side of the path and well out of their harm's way.

And as for the series of slow down gates by the Leichhardt Rowing Club, there is a sign that says DISMOUNT FROM BIKE. 
Not skid to a halt and chuck a filthie at the distinguished older gentleman who walks the route every day with his dog Missy.
His name is Peter, you bike-riding bullies, and he is a very nice man.

It would be my assumption that if you're wearing all the gear, sucking on a gel pack and sporting those ridiculous bike shoes, you consider yourself a fairly proficient rider.

Might I suggest then, one of two things.
Either you find a route that matches your outfit (all I'm saying is my daughter can walk 1500m of this 7000m track), or you stop picking on those of us with a slower form of recreational movement and learn to share the road.

As I'm always telling my girl, sharing is caring.

We went to Primary School together. I like to think he remembers me.

CAN Q BE LIKE JESUS AND RISE AGAIN?

It is 10.20pm at night and I am trawling through the desk drawers trying to find a texta that works so I can write Q's name in her hat.
The only ones I can find have had their lids left off, so the ink has all dried and 'Quinn' now looks more like Gwmm which is not a very nice name at all.
I also have to locate a water bottle that does not look like it has been chewed by a dog and add her name to that too.

I am doing all this because Q is going to daycare tomorrow.

For real.
Last week was just the dress rehearsal.
This time I actually leave the building.
And cower outside, hiding behind the Rhododendrons.

No doubt most other mothers have already stitched their hand crocheted name tags into their child's hat weeks ago.
It's not like I didn't know this was happening.

And they probably had stickers printed with their child's name on it, which can be easily and un-embarassingly added to a water bottle free of teeth marks, and preferably not the free one I got from the gym.

They also no doubt, were prepared for the change in weather and had already purchased winter shoes, that their child had worn around the house to break them in.

Q is going to have to wear socks and sandals which I suppose is fitting given that Jesus did and Easter is just over, but will she be able to rise again from being humiliated Day One in the playground?

What kind of mother am I?

I've done everything I can do sabotage Q's acceptance to daycare. I didn't put her name down when she was conceived. I lost the application form to the one place I applied to. I stalled on visiting. I didn't pay the deposit. I asked for a change of day...the list goes on.

And yet despite my protestations, tomorrow is the day and it's going to be bloody good for both of us.

I have always believed it takes a village to raise a child and I don't want to (nor do I profess to be able to) be everything my daughter needs.

So get over it Hart. You've wasted 20 minutes writing this sob story and you're still no closer to changing Q's name from Gwmm to Quinn and finding an acceptable water bottle.
As for the shoes...unfortunately for Q, there's nothing much I can do.

CLEARING THE CLUTTER IN MY MIND

If I had a job that required accuracy and precision, I would never have been able to return to it post baby.

Q stole by brain cells while I was growing her and she's never given them back. (She also stole the curl in my hair, which is really annoying because curly hair is a lot easier to manage. ie you don't have to do anything to it).

Most annoying is the fact that Q's hair isn't even curly, it appears my curl disappeared with the exhaustion of breastfeeding.
Yes, despite what the breastfeeding nazis might tell you, breastfeeding does drain the mother. Trust me, I did it exclusively for 14 months and my nails have only just started to grow again.

The original point being that ever since Q stole my brain cells (and particularly my memory) life has been a tad tricky.
Add opening a restaurant to that, and it becomes abundantly clear one needs to find a new way to survive.

And so I set about de-cluttering my life.

• I spent a good hour consolidating all my passwords into one because I had taken to recording them in a notebook and carrying it around with me so I could access things when out and about. (And no, it is not an easy password. It is unique and very Naomi-centric so you wouldn't have a hope in guessing it).
• I am cooking only things that immediately come to my mind. Any additional thought of new herbs, spices or (dare I say it) a recipe wastes precious brain power.
• Write everything down. Including where your daughter is going to be. Yes, typically she's right by your side, but sometimes you might forget that and that can be very awkward to explain.
• Systems. Have a 'to-do' box, a 'to-be-filed' box and a 'can't-deal-with-it-now, she'll be right, leave it till later' box.
• Stop making promises you know you can't keep. It will only cut into precious sleep time as you lay there stressing about how you've let someone down.
• Breakfast for dinner is perfectly acceptable. 
• Several times a week.
• Say 'no' if you have to. Less yes means less clutter. 
• Keep doing the one thing that gives you peace...for me that's running, but eating chocolate brownie is a close second.
• Reassess your priorities. Do the quilts really need dry cleaning? It's just another thing you have to remember to pick up.
• Don't take on other people's clutter. This is most easily avoided by steering clear of social media. Twitter and facebook updates are the ultimate clutter-ers. All of a sudden you're worried about somebody else's grandmother!

If you find any, all (or none) of these helpful, feel free to take them on board.
Just don't tell me, because then i'll feel obliged to check up on how you're going and that would be the ultimate de-cluttering disaster.

I SUSPECT THIS EXPLAINS WHY I'LL RUN FRONT OF HOUSE & STAY WELL AWAY FROM THE KITCHEN

We are working to a bit of a budget these days, which means I've returned to the glory days of Tuna Surprise, Veggie Surprise and anything else I can think of that can be assembled for less than 5 bucks and constitute a meal by the very basest of definitions.

In addition to being the modern day depression survivor, I also fancy myself a bit of a baker, and since we've roped family and friends into painting the restaurant this weekend, I figured the least I could do is make them delicious treats so that they don't resent us too much for spending the last vestiges of Summer getting a crick in their necks painting the ceiling of our livelihood.

In theory these are the same biscuit. But the first batch (those on the left) clearly didn't work, so I added more flour. Now they resemble soft hockey pucks. They're like a resistant sponge.

I genuinely don't know what happened. This time I was actually trying to follow the recipe. 
But Gregory (who, lets remember is a trained professional) gave me a baking book for christmas that has the measurements in ounces.
Who uses ounces anymore?

But, not to be deterred, I found a receptacle that records such ancient measurements (the old jug we use to rinse Q's hair in the bath) and I was off on my merry way.

It's so disheartening to mix and bake and crack eggs and spill flour everywhere and get the sifter wet by accident and have the oven on the wrong temperature and burn yourself on the hot tray and drop the muffin patty cases all over the floor and run out of milk and do countless loads of washing up, only to have your creations totally, utterly fail.

I've got one last card. My ace. My hidden hand...choc chip cookies.
The recipe I have seems to be Naomi-proof, and the result is always delicious.
I just can't be arsed doing anymore washing up.

WARNING. THE MOTHER IS CRAZY...CHILD CARE - CAN I LET HER GO?

This morning I had a casting for a toothpaste ad that happened to be at a studio right around the corner from Q’s new daycare. A daycare that’s so new it isn’t even open yet (owing to evil landlords and government bodies moving offices the week before easter), so I was able to bond with the owner over our mutual set-up and lease disasters and we are now fast friends.

I was in and out of the casting within minutes, which could be a good or a bad sign, you never can tell, but at least it was disaster free in relation to Q…except that she drew on all their application forms and stole their pen. But relative to some of her other performances when left momentarily unattended, that was pretty tame.

So then we toddled off to the daycare because yesterday when I’d gone in to return her forms, the delightful carers in her room suggested I bring her back today to familiarise her with the space…because I was talking a mile a minute and they had me pegged as a neurotic over protective mother the second they laid eyes on me.

I am having a tough time letting my girl go.

A really tough time.

Particularly given that she has more stamina than an LED lightbulb, craves other people’s attention and adores other children, loving them till they run away and hide or cry.

As I said to them, ‘it’s the mother having the problem here, not the child.’

And so I took them one of my famous four-minute brownies so that at least now they might say; ‘well she’s crazy, but she did make us brownie,’ rather than just saying she’s crazy, which is what they would definitely have been saying yesterday. Filing it away in Q’s notes, ‘warning. OOTM (one of those mothers).

Look, it’s nothing new. I’m certainly not original in my distress, and mine runs the whole gamut of concerns from:

·               What if nobody likes her?

·               What if somebody steals her? (Slightly arrogant to assume that out of 70 children a baddie would choose my girl over every other delightful child to steal, but I think I’ve established that not much of this is rational to begin with).

·               What if she needs me and I’m not there?

·               What if something happens? ‘Something’ being anything at all really, from not eating her sandwich to aliens landing in the sandpit.

·               And of course the real clanker…can I allow anyone else to care for my child? Freud told us that not wanting to leave your child with anyone means you don’t trust them.

No shit Sherlock. I thought Freud was meant to be a smart guy. Of course I don’t trust them. At least not initially. And then it’s not trust exactly, but I certainly doubt everyone else’s ability to do as good a job as I think I’m doing. Even Gregory. My husband. Q’s dad. Yes, I might be crazy but I’m also her mother. I don’t reckon I’m alone in this belief, I just might be the only one willing to publicly admit it.

So when we turned up at daycare, (me layden down with Q, her backpack, my handbag and a brownie) Q promptly got down, found herself a baby doll, told everyone around to be quiet because the baby was sleeping, walked up to Daniel the carer, coerced him into sitting down, climbed into his lap and read him a story.

For a while his name stumped her, because her baby cousin is called Daniel and she knows to be quiet around him because he might be sleeping, so we’ve established that this guy is Big Daniel instead.

Jeez it must be complicated in a kids’ mind.

Then she terrorised the outdoor area, marking her territory by driving any movable object until it hit and marked a freshly painted wall, and we rounded off the whole experience with a tantrum because I tried to make her eat lunch when clearly there was a puzzle to put together.

She regrouped, and we left with her waving and saying bye-bye-bye to everyone she had introduced herself to.

As I said before, the only person with a problem in this situation is the mother.

And so next week we go for real. I’m planning a half day at first, so I’ll drop her off around 9, find myself a local café and sit there, anxiously waiting for them to call and say she’s flipping out.

Seems like I could be sitting there for a rather long time.

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS - THAT EXTRA 60 MINUTES IS KEY.

Im gonna try my darndest, but if I'm not here, you'll find me over at Hartsyard, keeping a diary about opening of a restaurant.
Stop by and follow our ride, but more importantly, stop by once we're open.
We'd really love to have you.

I CAN DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN DO...JUST IN A COMPLETE STATE OF MANIA

In my mind it was entirely possible to;

• be mum to cyclone Q, my 16 month old dazzler.
• open a restaurant - which continues to be more work than I ever wanted to anticipate (and I was anticipating it was a fair bit)
• keep the home fires burning. (Not gonna lie. That has involved the dryer almost every day this week. May as well use the bloody thing since we just paid $125 to get it fixed!)
• and maintain two blogs - this one and the one for the restaurant.

Some days this is all just a bit too hard.

Where are the night elves to help me out with a bit of this stuff overnight? If you've got some sitting around idly cleaning magic dust out of their navels, can you send them on over?

Thanks. I promise I'll stick to union guidelines.