Note to Self. Subtitled: That's what tampons are for....

Oh God!  The LGBB has a friend over today. They're playing shops.

And I learned two new things today:

1. Check old handbag before giving to the LGBB as a play thing because, guaranteed, you'll forget a hidden zipped compartment and she'll find it. The day her friend is here. And they'll come to you asking what "these" are, holding a mini lip liner, the sample perfume that you've been looking for since your last office job 8 years ago, some Mylanta tablets (because you left said job when you were pregnant and had horrible heartburn you'd tried to forget) and, oh yeah... four "just in case" tampons.

You can explain the rest - Mylanta are lollies for sore tummies, perfume is to make you smell purdy on your wrists and lippy, well... I needn't explain. But the little blighters, they really wanna know what those tampons are for. So you reach for the easiest explanation that comes to mind. And you hear yourself say as convincingly as you can, "Those are for your ears." 

Cue: Confused looks from the two riveted five year-olds who want more information. 

"So that you can't hear," you say. And for good measure, you stick one in each ear... "like this" and you proceed to demonstrate by partially inserting tampons in your ears.

They are suitably satisfied and you are free to go. Good save, you think proudly.

But then.... another lesson:

2. You need to remember to choose your timing and your words carefully.

You all come home and your first stop is the bathroom, where someone has obviously done an "urgent wee" before leaving the house earlier and did not clean up the floor or the toilet seat. So you call your child to the bathroom to ask calmly whether this mess was made by them. "No" is the perturbed response. "Hmmm... must have been someone else then," you muse, not pleased but unable to accuse her definitively. She's free to go. You get cleaning. And then you hear her loudly repeating the story to her friend and you wonder whether she will in turn take the story home to her mother:  "Mum had a wee accident on the floor near the toilet."

So K, if you hear it from your daughter, I just want to reiterate: Nooo! It wasn't me who had the toilee accident! But I did stick tampons in my ears. That's a true story. If she ever comes to you asking to play with your ear plugs, this'll be why. Sorry. I thought that was better than explaining periods......

Got any pearls of wisdom arising out of your weekend that you'd like to share?

Worst cringe moment - what's yours?

I remember it clearly. I still recoil with embarrassment when I think about it.

Oh, and then there was that time I called out, "I'm on the toileeee!" when I heard what I thought were Steve's footsteps coming into the ensuite. They weren't Steve's. They were the carpet layer's. You may well ask yourself why I had a) not closed the door (not that the ensuite was anywhere near where anyone could see or hear someone was on "the toilee", b) why I had not remembered in the first place that there was a tradie in the house (for I had clean forgotten), and, most importantly, c) why I had called it a "toilee".

But I digress.

That was not my most cringe-worthy moment, no. No, that moment came when I was sitting beside my three week-old daughter in the NICU with Steve, enjoying a chat with my Obstetrician who had dropped by to say hello. He did this often, almost daily. It endeared me to the guy for life. In fact, he was the most frequent visitor we had. And I will never forget his care and kindness. Willing our girl on, with us. Come on, what's not to love about that?!

On this day, as we briefly chatted about this and that - his visits were never longer than a few minutes - he was talking about his wife (whose name I will change to save myself any further cringe-worthy embarrassment).

"Helen's left me..." was all he got out.

"What!? Is she insane???" I gasped before I could stop myself. It was involuntary. I couldn't help it. To this day, I desperately hope that if he remembers the speed with which I blurted out my sentiments and how ready I was to question his wife's decision, he will factor in my heightened hormones and that I was not of clear mind.

Everybody who has ever had a baby (rather, anybody who has been under the care of a nice Obstetrician to start with), I am sure, would be well aware of the phenomenon that is being under a giddy trance and loving him (or her?) with an almost fierce protective ownership. If you've had a good rapport with him during your confinement, chances are you take quite a shine - almost a worshipping - to the fellow by the time he delivers that baby safely. Particularly when you go into spontaneous early labour, like I did.

Well, anyway. Didn't I play my Blatantly Obvious card that day? In front of my highly amused, tight-lipped "You're On Your Own"-looking husband standing just behind and to the side of my beloved Ob.

AHEM.

My Obstetrician gave a polite laugh as he continued, "No, she's left me with the kids while she goes over to England to visit her aunt."

Oh. That kind of "left you".

Why does the ground never actually swallow you up when you want it to?

Can you tell me your most cringe-worthy moment? 

You know, the one that, when thought of, causes an involuntary audible groan to escape you. And makes you flap your hands or slap your knees or run on the spot or do the "la-la-la's" to drown out the image if you think about it.

Come on, spill. Promise I won't laugh. Much.

The Bitzer Post

Okay. Too many things I have to say... TODAY. So here they all are in one mash-up of a post.


• It's a start: I made a new page where I am slowly going through my old blog and categorizing all the infertility/loss/miscarriage, etc., posts. Please feel free to share it out and check it. Here (or up on the tabs up there ^^ ). And your feedback would be awesome - anything you're seeing/not seeing/want more or less of?

• Important: I HAVE LOST MY BLOG ROLL BLOGS!!!
I am quite beside myself. My beloved bloggers have been lost. My painstakingly kept and sourced fave blogs list. Vanished. Vapourized. Made up largely of those commenters who come here regularly. If I've not visited you for a while, this is why. And...... pretty please, can I call on you to comment on this post so I can start snaffling your blog addresses again? I'm really, honestly, all jokes aside, very upset about it! I fear I've lost bloggers in there that never visit here (despite me visiting them and quite regularly, but damn if my stupid - possibly sleep-deprived today - brain can remember half of them).

•  I have a really exciting special offer which I think I should technically write a new post for. So please come back tomorrow!

•  I went to a Bloggers' Brunch in Melbourne today. Took my LGBB and we had a ball. It was delightful to see her play while I mingled. It was the most guilt-free blogging thing I've done (because she was with me, technically).

• I've been up since the dawn of time. Or 3am. Whichever. Take your pick. By now, I am quite delirious. Yes, for 2.5 hours, our dear child had us either looking for or placating because of a spider. In her bed. "Tickling" her. It was either imaginary or quite real and just so invisible that I couldn't see it - nor could her Dad - the 40 dozen times we checked her bed. She climbed in with us for a time. Somewhere around 4am. By 4:45, neither of us asleep again, she declared she'd like to go back to her bed. Took her back. Five minutes later, those telltale kiddy-stomps came up the house. I took her back. I yelled. I'm not proud. But come ON, people. It was nearing 5am. I was supposed to be up and bagless (fat chance) and awake and with it (fatter chance) at a spritely 7:30am to get us both ready in time for the drive to Windsor for the beginning of the blogger function.

• Here's where you can hover your fingers above the number for DOCs if you so choose. I told my child, after the hour had passed 5am and I was there by her bedside - AGAIN (or was it still?? At this time of night, I really cannot be sure now) - that there was "NO BLOODY SPIDER, so GET TO SLEEP! NEEEOOWWWW!" Yes. I screeched. Like a bit of a bogan. And then I walked out. To bed. Not to sleep. My heart was racing. What was the point of trying to sleep now? This is the time my body naturally starts to stir, such is my love of early mornings. And then, there they were again... those bloody stompy footsteps. I was defeated by now. I'd played my best negotiating, Mother Tiger, beggy/pleady/angry cards. So I folded. I took the LGBB back again to her bed and told her I would sit in her room until she felt the "tickly (fecking) spider" again.
I waited, perched on her bed for fifteen minutes. And then all of a sudden.... "MUM! I feel it!! It's on my toes! MY TOES, MY TOES!" I peeled back the covers. Nothing. There was nothing there. Such an anti-climax. I had almost wanted to see a great honking black menacing, billboard-wearing "I Scare Sleeping Children" arachnid monster. But nope. Not a thing.

....... That is, unless you count the teeny tiny blob with the telltale single-leg-akimbo on the underside of my LGBB's foot. Where, I daresay, she'd smudged the fucker into her bedsheets when she did the kicky-tickle-dance.

She doesn't know. Still. She'll never know. If you don't tell her, the lot of you. I walked out of that room somewhat sheepish(er) and her none the wiser.

At 7:15am, into our room flounced Miss "I've had slightly more hours' sleep than Mummy" with a "GOOD morning, guys!" so chipper I could've whacked her. Had I had the energy.


More another time. I'm just gonna lay my head down now on the keyboard and........ adsflka;'aSDCFJKLIIOER8888888888888888888CFKLMM *SNOOOOOOOOOOORE

You know you're getting close to a blogger's conference when...

1. You're about to leave the house to take your child to kindy, head full of distracted thoughts about what you have yet to pack and need to remember, when your husband points to your bare legs and says, "Uh... pants or a skirt would be good?"

2.  You put a load of washing on, containing your conference/trip clothes, and realise five minutes later that - flast and buckit - you did this last week. At least your clothes will be doubly fresh and clean.

3.  You're having a rethink and kinda wishing you'd kept the reminder of your dorky past to yourself.... Hey, at least you know now that if you see me acting all grown up and serious, it's just for pretends. 'kay?

4.  All your failsafe methods of calming your nerves have gone out the window.

5.  You wonder why you think of other bloggers as stratospheric superstars? I mean, I'd be less excited to meet countless celebs than I am to be meeting some of my favourite people. For serious.

6.  You're starting to have palpitations about what shoes you can wear, given the limitations due to that dicky big toe that you broke 15 years ago but that still gives you trouble and prevents high-heel wearage... Hey, at least I know first when the rains are a-comin'.

7.  You're beginning to gather all your directions, tickets, passwords and various technological devices together and working out connections. Note to self: Don't forget your cousin's phone number or you'll be stranded at Epping station like a lost puppy. A puppy with 3 suitcases and 14 pairs of shoes because it couldn't decide which shoes were going to be best.

8.  You've scheduled a post to publish long after you've already left for the airport so that by the time people read this, you're well on your way to Sydenay for a long weekend to remember. Huzzah!

9.  You become so rushed by everything converging in the last couple of days that, in your haste to cook your family a hearty meal so that they don't replace you while you've been let off the chain attached to the sink you're gone, you tip scorching hot water over both hands and down your front. Tip: If your partner stands before you handing you an ice pack and telling you to step aside so he can finish for you, take his offer of help immediately. Don't waste precious burning-hot skin time shouting profanities and telling him you are quite capable, thankewe, because clearly.... right now, you're not.

10. Come hell or high water, swear to yourself you'll not rush. That you'll pack and be ready to make the 5am drive to the airport so that you're not rushing around the night before. And then spend that last night ironing your patooty off. Just see if you don't. Mark my words.


See you at the conference! And to those of you not going - I hope you don't get sick of all the Aussie blogs (and one US one) that are likely to be blathering about all things conference for the next whenever. There are a fair few of you who I WISH desperately were going so we could meet *wail* but oh well.

Perhaps a time shall come to pass when we will. Maybe next time, it will be somewhere more central to everyone.

International Blogging Conference 

in the Maldives in 2012, anyone?? 

Who's with me?

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

This is a trackback/rewind (whatever the kids are calling reposts of old blog posts these days) from a post I did on my old blog about four years ago. With such a new audience now, I thought it time I embarrass myself even more show my real identity before the Aussie Blogger's Conference. So that when you meet me (if you're going..... and damnit, other-Steve, I am still bummed you didn't try harder to scrape a spare $3,000 together to fly over here for the day! You sure you checked in your car ash tray? There's always surprise coinage in there), you can feel much more relaxed in my presence. For I may be standing before you in a dress (or pants... or a tunic... oh hell, I still can't decide what I'm taking/wearing), but know this: I have had the biggest wardrobe malfunction in the worst place a teenager can have.

Imagine that when you see me, yeah? Me and my tighty-whities. Scrunched up in my hand.... Enjoy! (at my expense)

------------------------

It's a little known fact that I am, in fact, a Superhero.

On one of our first, fledgling forays into the titillating area of our relationship, Steve and I got caught. I was 18, living at home with Dad. We were living in a rambling old '40s era house in an old leafy suburb, it was a great house. The front entrance was open to the lounge room to the right, the kitchen was accessed via one of two doorways, one straight ahead of the front door, the other facing the dining room and with a two-way swinging hinged door which opened onto that room. There was a sunroom past the dining area, tacked on the back of the open plan house. To get there from the front door, one went either straight through the T-shaped lounge room and dining area or, if in the kitchen, simply swung open the hinged door and through the dining room.


I am setting all this architecture up in your minds so that you can fully grasp the gravity of the situation that follows.


It was a typical school day afternoon. I was in Yr 12, Steve was supposed to be at uni, no doubt, and instead of doing something constructive we were fooling around in the sunroom. In broad daylight. Geez, those were the days *wistfully stroking severely distended belly with the painful welts - they're no longer worthy of being deemed mere stretch marks*

Anyway, I can't remember the specifics, suffice to say somehow I was the one who ended up pasty white and bare nekid while he had left on all his clothes and simply pulled down his jeans and jocks to his ankles (typically boy-style, complete with socks still on and all). It was late-ish afternoon, not nearly late enough for anyone to be coming home from work. Unexpectedly. With briefcase in hand.

But all of a sudden, there was the over-exaggerated coming-home noises being made by Dad. He (respectfully? fearfully? playfully?) was making sooooo much noise, I knew that he knew exactly what he suspected we were up to...... he was whistling a jolly, tuneless whistle, and in case that wasn't enough, he clomped very loudly up the three steps to the front porch (making the three itty bitty steps sound like full on steps to be reckoned with), and in case that wasn't enough, he was also loudly jangling/fumbling with keys for far longer than was usual.

I stood bolt upright, stark narkered, and ran to the far corner of the sunroom. Without my previously hastily-strewn clothes. Why I did that and not just throw on my clothes, I do not know. Guess I got the guilts. And I was no cool cucumber back then. Not when I was nude, anyway....

While I did prancy nervous steps on the spot, shaking my arms and flailing hands (like Homer when he's missing the Chili Cookout) and eyes wide with "oh God, oh God"s, I watched as Steve simply stood from his seated pozzy on the couch, hoiked up his pants in one swift move, did up the zip and sat back down to "continue watching the cricket" innocently.

Meantime, Dad was in the front door by now, putting keys away, whistling merrily. "Hello!" he bellowed characteristically joyously. I spurred into action and called out a greeting in reply, pulling my crumpled clothes towards me in a mad scramble (they were all inside out, which could have been deemed romantic because of the "heat of the moment" passion that got them that way but were now just a fucking nuisance to turn the right side out and make presentable again). Pulling on my top while Dad carried out some conversation with me as he slowly made his way through the kitchen to, I don't know probably grab a knife to skewer Steve with, I amazed myself in hindsight at how deftly I was able to use the chit chat as a decoy to what was really going on in the next room. Just that swingy-door between us.

I jumped into my pants and whisked them up, replying conversationally to everything Dad was saying about his day. Never one to just leave it at that, and I guess to prove to myself that I had triumphantly averted danger, I sauntered towards the closed kitchen door, chatting with Dad all the while as he stood in the kitchen reading the mail.

It wasn't until I'd almost rounded the dining table, hand outstretched at the door, that I felt my other hand brush past a rogue piece of material at my side. What was that? Looking down, as if in slow motion, I realised it was a pocket. It took me a second or two to realise that I hadn't pulled my pockets inside out in my haste.... oh no. Far worse. I had put my pants on inside out, complete with undies on the outside as had been the state they'd been discarded in originally. The hoppy, unsteady banging on the old stumped floor I made as I struggled to literally rip the stitching off my undies to get them down and step out of them brought me to not only Steve's very amused attention, but also caused Dad to sing out, "What're you doing in there?"

Needless to say, I waved that off with some excuse and breezed in through the kitchen door, undies scrunched in a tight tight ball in my fist, which was now stuffed inside my pocket. And I continued to, probably very flustered-looking and giving away eeeev-er-y-thing I'd just been doing, carry out my conversation with Dad.

I think I got away with it. He certainly never said anything. But then... he's too proper to, even in gest.

And from that day on, after I recounted the story to very amused girlfriends, I was known as Supergirl, given my supposed preference to wear my undies on the outside.

Please retract my Mother of the Year nomination

I'm so proud! Look at the words sounded out - "SOBH" for sorry, "ADICST" for asked... It's so exciting to see our child's expression in writing!!

This here is the Sorry Note that I was presented with most forlornly (and not a little manipulatively by my tongue-in-cheek smirking) four year-old daughter yesterday.

The events leading up to Sorrygate were your usual Sunday afternoon home life antics:

Mum and Dad, in kitchen, trying to work out about half a dozen things at once. Also hoping desperately to hear each other over the din of their dear-born, making as much noise as a classroom of roudy children on a Friday afternoon. Mum snaps, says to child, "Oh for heaven's sake, would you PLEASE go and find something to do! Just for ten minutes!" Child walks away, arms by sides, not swinging, shoulders slumped and feet dragging ever so slightly for added effect.

At moments like these, I do not go after my child and placate. I can't. I have to give it a few minutes at least and then, more often than not, I go down to her and sidle in while she's playing. It's rare, for she is usually with me, nagging to be entertained, every minute of the day when she is here. We are still trying fervently to explain that there are days, particularly during the long stretches of weekends, where she needs to learn to amuse herself using her own imagination. That it's important she does this.

Yada-yada. We're still hoping it'll sink in.

So then. The note comes. By way of a morose-looking (but ever so cheeky still) LGBB, presenting it to me and telling me it says:

Mum. Sorry I asked for food. (name). Happy birthday.

Well just plunge a knife in my heart and be done with it, why don't you! (By the way, it's not my birthday, it's just something the LGBB likes to offer, it's her version of "Have a nice day!") Asking me for food, were you? How was I to know, when I was listening to another adult and trying to make a coherent reply and push that little nagging voice to the side for thirty seconds?! How was I to know that you needed food so badly that you had to ask for it while jumping and jiggling and writhing around as though you'd already eaten a bowl full of jellybeans and downed a litre of red cordial?!

Grrrrrr.

The rest of the afternoon passed by relatively peacefully. And I am just quietly ever so proud of our girl. Her first 'letter' to someone! Pity it was to highlight my apparent shortcomings as a parent.....

Me time

For the past couple of weeks, my posts have been light on. Much of the reason for this has been a combination of workload and personal burnout. But the bigger, more important reason for this lack of www-time has been this...

Good old-fashioned attack of the guilts at some of the obvious things our little Lolly Gobble Bliss-Bomb (aka The LGBB) has been saying - imaginative, innocent and honest insights into her inner world - that have left my Maternal Radar in overdrive.

Exhibit A:
One morning last week, I was hastily patching together a section of my book which I had been working on before the house woke up at 7am. Not wanting to leave the train of thought hanging when Lolly had come up for cuddles and breakfast, I distractedly tended to her and made a dive back to the laptop before I lost my place in the story. She found her way to her Etch-A-Sketch on the rug near my feet and was happily lost in her drawing for a time, before I asked her, "Whatcha drawin', Lollypop?" I only had half an ear out for her reply, as I was still steeped in what I was doing.

"A baby dragon," she replied, not looking up.

"A what?!" I asked, incredulous and not sure I'd heard correctly. Lolly has no interest in dragons and doesn't speak of them. She repeated herself and had, indeed, been drawing a baby dragon.

"What's the baby dragon doing?" I asked, stopping my work and giving full attention this time to my daughter, who had still not looked up.

"She's curled up, reaching out for her mummy," she said, more just out-loud to the room than to me in particular.

"And... what's her mummy doing?" I hardly wanted to know her answer.

"She's working."

It's all I needed to hear. I dropped the lappy like a hot potato and made a casual dash (you know those ones, where you don't want them to know how eager you are to capture a moment?) for the camera, asking if I could take a photo of her baby dragon. She obliged politely by saying I could. The dragon was, indeed, reaching a 'paw' in the direction I had been sitting.

After an intensely trying weekend, in which everything basically piled in on top of me while I was down a pit, I surfaced to face a new week only to find that my daughter was deeply affected by my exhaustion. She has always mirrored me in this way. Even as a young, young baby, the LGBB would preempt me getting run-down or sick by going under herself. As she became older, she had spells that would force her to sleep for a day or two at a time - following the pattern for the past four years (and she has mostly grown out of these 'moments' now), they seemed to coincide with me being called in to be of energetic service to someone, somewhere in the world. Odd. Fascinating. Just The Way We Are. She is a sensitive, deeply intuitive little kid and I always, always seem to forget. I STILL smack the back of my own hand sometimes when, in hindsight, it always seems so clear.

And this time, there is a direct correlation between all this happening and all of my spare energy and time being frittered away on the strain that is sharing the house for this extended time with my parents inlaw. "Fourteen more sleeps," Steve tried to console me tonight. Dear oh dear. And it's not anything necessarily awful, it's just simply that feeling of not being able to completely relax in your own home - I hadn't quite realised how much it got to me, but my little sponge-child has shown me just how deeply it is affecting us all.

As her mother, part of my duty is to guide my child and help her to both embrace her gifts and abilities (as any mother would with her child and his/her own unique strengths and talents), to normalise what it is she feels, at the same time as helping her see herself as a special gift to the world, as much as she is a gift graced to her father and me.

I can't give her my undivided attention all the time - a difficult thing for an only child (for in essence that is how she is being raised) to understand because there is nobody else vying for my attention - but I can see by these utterings lately, as evidenced by her baby dragon drawing, that my balance of work-Lolly-me time is sorely out of whack lately.

On Monday afternoon, after four hours at occasional care (the only day she goes now), I knew exactly what she needed. I had told my mother inlaw in the morning that I would organise dinner. By 4pm pickup time, it was quite clear I was needed as a mummy first. I spent thirty minutes at the park pushing Lol on swings, riding on giant bendy-"necked" animals, applauding at slide dismounts and generally just hung out with my daughter. Then, as we made our way home, I phoned Steve and told him that he and I could grab dinner later and if his parents could please get theirs, as there had been a change of plans. As it stands, I'm still not quite sure they understand why I reneged on the dinner-cooking I had promised (for my mother inlaw had offered but, honestly, I was too tired to even do the "are you sure, it's no problem for me to do it... now, what do you want, where is everything, what does Lolly not eat..." caper that it seemed easier for me to just handle it myself). But I don't really care. My little girl went to bed that night much happier, having been absolutely soaked in an afternoon of my undivided, uncomputerised attention. We read stories, did Christmas jigsaw puzzles, had a bubble bath... reconnected.

It is difficult, I would gather, for all parents to get that balance "right" - and that is a rather dicey word to use here, but for want of another I'll leave it in - between attending to all of their children, if they are blessed with more than one, juggling work commitments, holding extended family at arms' length when needs of any of their children dictate it, and of course spend that all-important alone time together. Let's not even touch on how messy my house is right now, either. I can't do it all, I see that. We went to the library for two hours today and returned to the house exactly as it was at 10am when we left this morning before dropping in on friends prior to getting to the library. I despise a messy, unclean house. BUT...... I'm more concerned with a child who has begun to act out her need to see more of me via her pictures and toys.

This "me time" I keep hearing getting bandied about, I had let it go to my head. A reflection on myself only, which I am doing here "out loud" for the sake of reminding myself down the track if it ever happens again, I see now that I had begun to act out against all these demands placed on me as the family Maypole. Desperately clinging to whatever "me time" I perceived I had to fight for, I was missing the one obvious thing. This very blog, and the collective blogosphere (and ... er, Twitterdom, shall we call it?), this is my "me time" and I have previously been getting scads of it. I have simply allowed myself to incorporate "blog time" in "work time" and it's simply not the case.

Rather like a budget, where Groceries allowance can be separated into household items, nappies, cleaning products and the likes, so that your actual food allowance is much more healthy-looking, I need to make clearer boundaries in the way I am conducting my free time. My "me time". It's not entirely accurate of me to say I get next to none of it. In my own feeble defense, I recognise it's because my entire work life is also spent at the computer - the book and my paid work all cause me to be chained to this thing I'm sitting in front of at this very moment - but it's time I started clock start/stopping so that I can get a more accurate Time Budget going here. And if my computer time has crept into this so-called "me time", then I need to seriously ask myself if I am cutting my nose of to spite my face if I "just quickly check this blog to see if she's updated her comments" or "hop into Echofon to see who's on Twitter" because in my mind, I'm here working already and a brief drop-in on a site won't make much difference at all.....

But it does make a difference. A huge difference. I need to spend time to make time, this distance I have placed between me and other blogs (and my own) this past fortnight has really helped me see that. I'm thinking a whole lot more internet surfing and blogpost writing is going to be happening after a certain little someone's bedtime in future. And then, I will be choosing between sacrificing couple-time (which I will be answerable for to my patient, tolerant - up to a point - partner) in favour of "me time" and I will be forced to see that THIS, what I'm doing right now, counts as that "me time".

Confused?  I'm not!

And I'm raring to go with it, for I see that my work life is not about to change anytime soon. So the balance has to be redressed by me and me alone. I have to stop whining about what I don't get and don't have to myself and start looking out for those moments where I can make some more of this happen:

Ultimately, that toothy wide-mouthed, all-over-face grin is the reason I still live and breathe.



This post is also part of Naomi's Mother Heart linky - every Thursday at Seven Cherubs.

Now... let's go flogging on this fine Friday!

Tips from a seasoned Ebay seller

Okay, here are mine. You ready? Here we go...

Tip #1:  Remember to plug in your doorbell so it's in good working nick for the winning bidder when they come to collect their item.

Tip #2:  Remember you forgot to remember to plug in your doorbell.

Tip #3:  Best to do this before tips #4 through #10.

Tip #4:  When you hear the cat rattling the front security door to come in, do more than just mutter "That bloody cat" to yourself/your iPad-dabbling husband who's uselessly sitting on the couch.

Tip #5:  When the cat continues to bang on the door, instead of having a conversation with your husband about how "that bloody cat sounds like she's really knocking on the door" and then parodying a bit of a slapstick sketch that involves you rapping an imaginary door in front of you and curling your hand up into a paw (hiding your opposable thumb to make it even more realistic) while you put on a cat voice and go "Mar-raooow?", just go and check the front door.

Tip #6:  If you have already done tips #1-#5, or part thereof, DO NOT under any circumstances call out to your cat in a "mraowree" whining voice towards the door, "Jush a minnnute, Tabbzeeeee". Just trust me on this one.

Tip #7:  GO AND CHECK WHY THE CAT SOUNDS SO FRANTIC AND PERSISTENT. Again, preferably before you get to tip #5.

Tip #8:  It's best not to apologise profusely to the winning bidder standing on your front doorstep for "sounding like the cat". You'll only look more ridiculous. I tried it once this one time* and I think I got away with it, but it's not recommended.

Tip #9:  Get your husband to effect the Ebay transaction with the visitor who's been standing patiently rattling your front door while her sleeping baby wakes in the car - let no dickhead Ebay seller get between mother and her baby's sleep routine - and excuse yourself back to the kitchen under the pretense of checking dinner.

Tip #10:  Look for wine. If you find none, it's okay to curl your knees up to your chest for a little minute and cringe on the inside. Even wail a little. Don't forget to let your husband laugh at you. It makes the bond tighter.

Happy bidding/selling!


* Like, last night. I've never wanted a do-over of a situation so badly.

It's the dog who won't die

What the vet found? You may well ask....  She found:

The contents of half a 12kg bag of Pedigree dry dog food.

That's right. Yes. I shall put you out of your misery/suspense right now, unlike what has just happened to me over the past two hours of sheer agony as I waited on news.

When we arrived, they took one look at her and soberly led me to a tiny waiting room for one. The kind of waiting room that has a one-way arrow on it. Down the back. Closest to the .... well, I don't even want to imagine. And I cried. I cried and cried, as silently as I could. Then the vet came. Explained to me that they needed to listen to her heart. Each possibility was worse than the last - cancerous tumours, or heart failure, or .. oh I can't remember, something or other else. I began to accept that Pep had lived to see her last weekend. I told the vet, "Well, whatever it is, I have to take her home. I just cannot do that to my four year-old, she needs to say goodbye tomorrow." The vet gave no such reassurance that she would let me keep her to that promise. After a good 10 minutes or so, waiting on my own, the vet came back and said that there was so much body cavity noise (and breathing, oh the noisy breathing! as I type this, it is drowning out the tv) and that they needed to take an xray.

So I waited. I waited a whole hour and nobody even came to give me an update. It was good in a way. It gave me time to properly, honestly let her go. I told her that on Monday - I looked her square in the eyes and told her, through my tears, that she really could go if this was it. But I discovered tonight, waiting, that a small piece of me had been lying. So I sat there and contemplated Pepper's life and time with us. With me. All those days at home together. In the sun, at the beach, on my bed (ho, yes, the night before my wedding and I was nervous and couldn't sleep, it was Pep who consoled me as I tried to go to sleep on my own for the first time in years).

And then, out came the vet. "Her lungs are remarkably fine. Her heart, from what we can see and hear, is okay, although she is under enormous pressure right now..... She has an awful lot of food in there, what has she eaten???"

"Nothing!" I replied, shocked. I had been sitting there getting worried that my poor old girl would be getting starving by now, well after her pensioner tea-time and having had no meal for the day... But then, "Wait a minute.... I found a broken bag of dog food outside this morning...."

Turns out, my 17 year old, can't-walk-for-falling-over dog had worked on the plastic outer bag of the new dog food I bought them and apparently used it as A CHAFF BAG all night last night. Hence, she looked like Violet Beauregarde.

To say I am immensely embarrassed about racing in here in a flat panic a couple of hours ago is an understatement. And I couldn't let the night pass with any more of you incredibly kind folk out there worrying about us, or reading the previous entry and becoming sad.

She is incredibly old. She has acute deterioration going on. But she is not uncomfortable... well, save for this self-mutilating act of gluttony. She is mighty uncomfortable right about now, but that will pass. Literally. Hopefully. I mean, how can you not have some issues if you have gone from 18kg to 25.5kg in a day?  I wince at the thought. And she has to have a blood test ASAP so we can clear her for starting on medication to help with her incontinence.

My Finding Pepper In Her Forever Slumber Under The Lemon Tree hope is still alive! Thank you for your care and kindness, I really truly needed it and knew you were with me as I sat there, blubbering at the vets. I'm so emotionally drained right now.

Pepper lives to wheeze - and fart like a beauty - another day. And all I can say is, I'm glad I'm not sharing a tent with her tonight. Phewwww-eee.

But seriously.... CAN YOU BELIEVE IT WAS THAT??!! Food. Shaking my head. Laughing. Crying. Going insane.

Joy, bliss and dog's piss

My internet is going to be going down possibly today, for up to 10 days.....
Firstly, OHMYFREAKINGGODWHATWILLIDO if it takes that long?? Secondly, that will explain my absence if I just disappear and stop visiting your blogs/replying to emails. Cheers.

Welcome, FYBFers!

Yesterday, Melbourne threw out an uncharacteristically sunny, dare I say warm, day. So Lolly and I seized the moment and the good weather and hopped on a train to go to old bookstores. We're on an old children's book hunt at present and have found some fabulous old Ladybird series simple readers that she is loving - the illustrations are so much better in some of these older books, I really can't stand how smooth-lined and uniform all these remakes are becoming, like The Magic Roundabout and Winnie The Pooh to name just two.

In the late afternoon light, I captured these photos on our walk home.

Standing outside the house of a dear friend from kindergarten.

This is the pose Lolly takes when something so blisses her out that the only thing for it is to hug herself. I've never been able to capture it on camera and I'm so glad I have it.
I wonder sometimes if she'll still do this when she's 18.

Then she picked me a flower. I almost swooned from the cuteness. She handed it to me. And, as if in slow motion, I thanked her and brought the delicate daisy up to my nostrils, smiling at my sweet child. We locked eyes as I breathed the flower in deeply........

And recoiled as my brain made the connection that what I was smelling was, undeniably, Neighbourhood Dog Piss. I hurried Lolly along home, discreetly discarding the wee flower on the way, where I promptly washed my hands.

Joy.



p.s. There's a new post over at The Long Tweet... *taps nose*

I can't sleep

Thar she blows! Doppler at 3:15am, Melbourne time

I am surely the only person in Melbourne who left their child's entire wardrobe "drying" on the line. When 90km/h+ winds were forecast. And no let-up until at least daylight.

The wind is so strong it has woken me at 2am. I didn't peg anything that well that it will survive a night on the sodden, gust-blown line out there.

Someone in Gippsland sure is going to love Lolly's clothes tomorrow.

Nice one, Einstein.

Things you shouldn't say during KRudd's election speech

And I reference this recent post on my obsession with a little iPhone game to set the scene on this one:

"Oh, that's BULLSHIT! He DESERVES to die!!!"

Steve reeled around, thinking I was watching the screen and listening to our ex-Prime Minister as he made his acceptance speech. I didn't think you were this passionate about politics, I could see the words forming in his mind.

And then he saw me glaring at my phone.

I was really just on a supremely annoying level. With rocks that were bouncing down the precipice and missing all the pigs.

Those bloody green pigs! They are so hard to destroy with my birds! Again, this is not political hate I'm spinning....

It was supposed to be a routine Pap Smear

I put it off for over two years. Well, no, more accurately I forgot and a third year slipped past and I was almost too nervous to make an appointment.

But I went. And soon enough, I found myself in that undignified frogs-legs pozzy on the doctor's bed.

She was a new doctor. New to me. Not new to the profession. And I was grilled - as always - about my reproductive history, given we were looking at *that area*

So then, she's shifting the speculum around and making disgruntled noises, which I thought for sure should have been my domain, given she was poking around somewhere rather delicate, and then she said, "Hmmmmmm....... that shouldn't be there. Did you know you had a growth on your cervix?"

Whoops. Yes. In fact, I did. I was supposed to get that seen to surgically about 3-4 years ago. Ummmm.

You would think that a thumb-sized polyp up one's nether region would be felt. Now that I thought about it, it had been. I had been (ignorantly) ignoring it and willing it to go away.

To tell the honest truth, I have had that much "intervention" in that area of my body that I think I just shut up shop. One of my personal trainers once told me she had never met anyone more in tune with their body than me. This was at the height of my baby-trying, baby-making, baby-dying years. No flipping wonder I had a sixth sense so well honed in that area that I could have cut laser-dyes out of metal with it.

Now, I have to go face the music. Muzak. Whatever. Next Thursday, I will be in the frog-legged pose with my obstetrician - always a pleasure, seeing him *turn to the left and cough... no, wait.... that's not right* - and I'll be attempting to bargain my way out of surgery. I do NOT want another general anaesthetic if I can help it. I have already seen my Homoeopath and we have begun a protocol that hopefully will see the polyp/offending barnacle shrivel up and disintegrate. I need six months to be sure, apparently. Already, I have had pains and smarts and similar such things in my nether region - as the remedies prescribed by the Homoeopath go to work.

In saying that, I don't like my chances (my Ob told me 3 years ago not to let it go too long) but I will be giving it my utmost to avoid the meeting with the needle, gown and green cap. And Dr R knows better than to humour me. So .... we'll see.

Mother's ruin

Not as you would expect. Not in this house.  Mmm-mmm.

Not a clear liquid stashed in a bottle at the back of the linen cupboard (how inconvenient and at the incorrect temperature as well, just by the way).

No, in this house, it's something far more geeky and anti-social.

This obsession of mine is costing me valuable points, for instance, at my brother's house - where I was to be found perched *hee hee* on the couch, phone in hand, trying to get past this one blasted level that I had been stuck on since the day before. All at the expense of any coherent conversation from me. The most my bro and his lovely wife got from me last weekend when we were over for lunch and an impromptu computer install (that was where Steve came in handy) and concert (that was where the LGBB came to the fore) were improperly interjected laughs and grunts (they were from me).

As if I was keeping up with all their nattering when I had little green helmet-headed pigs to destroy! Ha-har!

I speak, of course, of.......  Angry Birds. An iPhone app/game that I just. Cannot. Get. Enough of. Right now. And I am here to say, I am going to make it through all of these locked levels if it renders me insane.

They say acknowledging the addiction is the first step. Right?

What about you? Do you have any phone app's you're ashamedly fixated on?

In which I issue a formal public apology

It is time I admitted something I've known for a couple of months now.

The LGBB is in love with DJ Lance Rock. Despite expressing my extreme displeasure with the show in 2008, I actually even find myself rather comforted by it. Perhaps it is because Lol isn't using it as her sole source of vocabulary learning - otherwise, she'd be asking me for something eat like this: "I want it in my belly, my belly, my be-lly. Food. In my belly. MUMMY, IN MY TUMMY!" and so forth - but something in me has softened towards the somewhat ridiculous repetition and condescending tone of DJ Lance Rock (whom I still cannot warm to).

However, Lolly is firmly enraptured. How can I deny it when she smiles at the quirky cartoon fillers and the little segues showing the kids riding various bright and colourful modes of transport? Laughs out loud at the animated robots? Has a look of utter glee on her face for the entire half hour? Says, without fail at the start of the show when DJ Lance walks across the white screen, "I like yer shooooooooooes", with a rhythm you could set a metronome by. Because she does it the same way. Every day.

So. I guess all that is left now is for me to ask all those who knew the magic of the show and read that original post of mine, ranting at the awfulness of Yo Gabba Gabba, to please line up with trousers dropped so I can pucker up and kiss butt.

Oh dear, a cyclamen. You shouldn't have...

Oh, how you very shouldn't have.

Steve knows (or he should by now, but sometimes he forgets) that I kill cyclamen. Not that it's something I'm necessarily pathological about. I don't plan it. I don't deliberately treat them poorly. I don't overwater them, I twist the stems of spent flowers carefully so as not to harm the mother plant. I do all of that.

And still....I kill every single cyclamen that's ever been given to me. How can it be, that I am most often given the plant that meets its demise in my care? Why am I never gifted a lovely maidenhair or a daisy or, better yet, a native of some sort? Nope, 'tis always these poor little blighters, so perky and upright with their beautiful leaves all nice and stiff and healthy looking.

I'm looking right now at the gorgeous white cyclamen I was given last night at my birthday dinner (hold your wishes, peeps, it's actually this Sunday ;). I know it's probably not going to see out the winter.

I always get so nervous when people give me potted plants to care for. Just about the only one that has ever survived has been Ella's rose - thank goodness, oh I wouldn't have been able to bear losing that one - and it was given to us by an old friend who never comes over so doesn't see the plant in its thriving glory.

The friend who gave me this cyclamen visits our home quite regularly, though. This puts added pressure on me to keep it alive! Unless anyone knows of a fake cyclamen shop where I can get a decoy (preferably dish washer safe, that'd be handy).

Either that, or...... any green thumbs particularly versed in the best care for these sensitive little beasts?? I'd be ever so grateful to learn what I'm doing wrong.

In the meantime, there is a paper on Cyclamen, I'm sure of it. I'm going to go dig it out now. What's the bet, the Plant Wisdom in this is something I need to really listen to? Crap. Forgot about all that...

Help! Does our cat have her... period?!?

Ummmmmmmmm... Okay. I don't quite know where to start with this, so why don't I just jump in! Tootle-pip.

Tabby the (black) cat just followed me in to the ensuite and jumped into our now disused bath*, sniffed out the plug hole, squatted over it despite my loud protests and flapping in front of her face .... and proceeded to take a pee.

I was so aghast that I left her to her business (forgetting to ask if she wanted me to reach over and get her a square of loo paper, how uncouth of me) and called out to Steve to "come take a look, this is SO weird!"

By the time we got back in the room, Tabby had finished and trotted off to have her dinner like the elegant Lady she is. We peered over the side of the bath and (forgive me for saying, but) fuck me, there was red. As in, blood red. In the urine that hadn't quite made it down the hole - she was a bloody good aim, by the way.

Am I right to be alarmed or perturbed by this? The only reason I had any idea that animals have their period was because Charlotte's Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Elizabeth Taylor, got hers during the dog show. I guess it's a trip to the vet for her, either way, for we can't have an un-sterilised cat. She already looks to have had at least one litter, judging by the tell-tale untoned flab she is carrying that flaps uselessly to and fro when she runs (don't we all...).

But she is also micro-chipped. I was under the impression she couldn't be micro-chipped (or is it registered with the council??) if she wasn't spayed.

So, ummmmm... Help? HOW bizarre! Though, totally, it's just that I'm new to it, having never had any animal at all that isn't sterilised as a young'un - she, apparently, has been visited by Aunt Flo for, oh, about 5-6 years now so no biggie for her, I'd gather.

Either that, or she is not very well at all and needs prompt veterinary attention. Anyone got experience with this?




* the new bathroom in the extension has been finished for some weeks now and is divine, we no longer use the bath in the ensuite and are planning to remove it (it's very old) to make it into a super-deluxe water-tank filled fish pond soon.

Stranger on my porch

A few days ago, a ridiculously large lightning storm ripped through here. There's something about the ranges we live underneath - they seem to attract lightning. And thunder. Loud, echoing, cracking thunder like you've never heard before, that bounces off all the hillsides round here.

This is what we arrived home to, the LGBB and me. We made it into the driveway just as the first drops started. We watched with a bit of trepidation laced with trace amounts of fear as it got instantly heavy, with lightning now hiccupping across the landscape. It was daytime and not particularly dark with the storm clouds, but the lightning was even more blinding - sheet lightning - not hitting the ground. But then it did start to hit the ground. Somewhere, close. And we were still in the car.

The LGBB began to whimper and look to me. Her big, brave, capable Mummy. Still sitting behind the wheel of the car and saying absent-mindedly, "Oooh, well, would you look at that, then," whilst simultaneously doing the wee dance (that wiggle-in-your-seat dance that you have to do when your bladder knows you're home and your seatbelt's just come off and those pelvic floor muscles that got ripped so violently during the birth of your second child just aren't as effective as they used to be to hold back the Hoover Dam... one false move and it's all over).

And then, as we were sitting there and I was contemplating when to make a dash for it with the LGBB, a young woman passed the front of our driveway. With her shopping in one hand and a most pissy, pathetic umbrella in the other. It was at this moment that we were out of the car and dashing to the porch, Lolly and I. So I called out to the woman, who could barely hear me even those few short metres away.

"Do you want to come wait on our porch?" I called out again, gesturing with my free arm. Lolly was gripping me like a tree monkey on my opposite hip, headbutting me at every new lightning strike and rumble from above. The woman called out her thanks and started heading towards us. The poor thing was drenched. I had no idea who she was.

So I'm thinking myself very ... very neighbourly, very community, at this point. I'd seen this girl walking our street before (ours is a bit of a thoroughfare and I love the diversity to be seen). She was a bit of a rock chick - perhaps a retired/settled down one, she looked about my age - and had rings on her fingers and out her ears and mouth and you get the picture. And she laughed appreciatively at my attempts to allay any discomfort about standing on our porch - we were strangers to each other but we had a good old laugh. I wasn't uncomfortable with her being there, I was quite happy for her to stay there for as long as the storm was around and felt quite relieved for her that she was out from under all the huge trees that are up and down our street (last year, a week before Black Saturday, a huge storm passed through and hit the oak in the yard next door - blew up most of our electrical equipment, even stuff that hadn't been on at the time).

But I needed to get inside. Really. Urgently. Lolly was now sitting on my side and squeezing my kidney.

Then, in one of those moments when you wish you could rewind and make yourself a bit clearer next time, I said to the LGBB, "Would you like to come in?" I wanted her to get inside and off the porch, it was really so loud, with the teeming rain and angry thunder. She nodded. And the woman uttered a gushing, "Oh thank you, you're so kind!" and bent over, bundling up her shopping bags.

Er.... It was too late. Or I am too nice. Or something. So I let this stranger in, all of us a little wary of each other and quite amused at the gusto with which she strode in, put her wet shopping on my neat floor, had a browse through our rogues' gallery in the front entrance and then helped herself to standing on *my* side of the kitchen, that is, the one I usually stand on to assume the role of hostess to guest. I wonder if she thought it was as odd of me to invite her in as much as I thought it was a bit strange that she'd thought I had asked her in.

I couldn't go to the toily either. Not with her now in the house and my scared child at my feet (not that the child thing in the toilet has ever stopped me before - cripes, I'd have to hold on until Satan announced the next Winter Olympics were being held down there if I was going to wait until the next pee in peace, without demands, requests for stories to be read.... you get the picture and, I'm sure, many of you can sympathize).

So I did the only thing I knew to do. For the next 20 MINUTES, PEOPLE (that is a Herculean effort for my bladder.... though possibly a bit bad for it.), I made polite chat and kept the laughs coming. Thank God it was her laughing and not me, or I would have been in a very embarrassing predicament. And she would have walked past our house from that day forth and remembered when the nice woman who lives there invited her in and lost control of her water. Whoops.

What you don't want to hear

Me: I can't find these pants I've got to send! Someone's expecting me to mail them today.
He: What pants?
Me: Lolly's old jeans. I sold them on Ebay. This girl's paid and she's waiting for me to post them.
He: Mmmmm...I dunno. Where did you last see them?
Me: Here *gesticulates to immediate, mid-renovation-cramped vicinity* I had everything that sold piled right here to send.
He: Ah.
Me: What?
He: Well...
Me: Wait, where did you get Lolly's pants from this morning when I asked you to dress her?
He: Eh... here *gesticulating in the same area*
Me: I THOUGHT they looked ridiculously short on her! LENNY!!

And with that, I went over and took off the LGBB's Harry high-pants, now soiled from the day and requiring washing. Again.

Ohgodohgodohgod, I hope the girl who bought them has a good sense of humour, considering I had to send her an email just now that began, "Dear Toni. I'm utterly mortified, but see, it's like this...."

The Thieving Magpie

One of my greatest untold delights is also a part of motherhood I never imagined.

Checking my child's pockets before the wash.

Now, I'm sure this will become a scary chore and sometimes, hey who knows, it might be positively heartbreaking in future. But for now, I am cherishing turning out the pockets of a 2-3 year old.

Our little Nature Lover usually pockets earthy treasures, like stones and leaves. But sometimes, like this one time recently, it is something rather more sinister. A few weeks ago, I was horrified to discover an expensive bottle of nail polish she had swiped at the local chemist. Shame-faced, I took it back to them long after the LGBB had forgotten she'd even decided it was hers (there was a fierce "YES IT IS MINE!", "No it is bloody NOT" tiff between us when I found it in her jacket pocket and she tried to wrestle it off me) - and when I say 'long after' she'd forgotten, I mean, like.... 10 minutes. She gets distracted easily at the moment. Blessedly.

Today, doing the washing, I found the cutest little pairing of treasures. I asked her where she'd found the rock.

"In the garden. At the kids," she said factually. The Kids is her name for occasional care.

Alongside it was a little hologrammed sticker of, I think, a reindeer. It was just the loveliest little token of her childhood - things that had so caught hold of her during the day that she couldn't bear to part with them - that I had to capture it in a photo.






So, what have been some of your pocket finds? Have they equally delighted and terrified you? Made you giggle? Share!