Another, dsigusting night filled with lack of sleep.
Thankfully, Chippie ok in the morning and well enough to go to day care. Not happy about it, granted, but I put that down to the whole “it’s new” and “I’d rather fuck with mum’s head and make her feel like she’s dropped me off at some concentration camp where they torture me all day, instread of giving me cuddles and food and reading to me and letting me play with other children”
After two days of no credit on phone (as new one will be in this week!) I relent and purchase another month. Dither between waiting antoher day or two to be able to contact people when out, or having ability to phone out, given Chippie in daycare all day, and me being away from home. It is inevitable that should I have no credit, one of the children will do soemthing that will require my ability to be able to contact others via outgoing calls on my mobile.
Had to leave a good hour earlier than normal, which was interesting in itself, so I could ditch school-aged kids at friend’s house for dealing with, racing to drop Chippie off at day care, then heading off into city for seminar, where I have to detour via home to leave Monkey Boy’s swim bag at the front door, due to him telling me, as I’m screeching out freind’s driveway, that he left it at home, when he’d previously, before we left home, assured me he had it. On several occasions. Including one “Yes, I have it, now stop asking me!” rolly-eyed advising.
Head to seminar where I spend the day with awesome people, focussing on my business and self development with a pounding headache due to severe sleep deprivation that could not be fixed with coffee or coke.
Chocolate coated coffee beans are located in nappy bag and, therefore, not with me.
Inevitably, receive call from day care lady at 2.30pm, who advised Chippie has a temperature and when are we coming to get him. Successfully handball call to Grumpy, who will be available sooner than I will. Send numerous messages to Grumpy to let me know when he has retreived Chippie and if he is ok.
Received notifcation back at 6pm a am on way home from seminar.
Thanks.
Typical. But it does pay to whinge out loud.
By · CommentsUrgh. The last two days and nights have been awful.
Chippie has woken on average every 1 hour and 37 minutes (yes, I had a fair amount of time, lying in bed awake and unable to sleep to work out the exact average), temperatures, crying, clinging and the rest.
Three teeth coming through at once. No other symptoms.
He has daycare tomorrow. His second day. I really need him to go. I have a seminar. Grumpy is working. We have no other options.
I do have a rant to one of the dads at school about the typicalness of ’sick’ kids (I really don’t think he’s sick sick) and their inevitable crap timing with everything. He did offer, on behalf of his wife – so that was nice – to take the other two kids to school in the morning. Yay!
Although a huge help in that respect, I’m a terrible decision maker at the best of times, so deciding what to do if he’s sick (and I’m really convinced he’s not, but that damned Mother Guilt voice in my head is going “but what if he is, then you’ll feel crap, won’t you?” and will not shut up!) is just beyond my current capabilities.
And my new phone/mind replacement is still not available and won’t be till tomorrow.
I sadly suspect it wouldn’t make this sort of decision for me, anyway.
Bastard!
Pandol will help though.
Standard behaviour makes it difficult to determine
By · CommentsHe already has a gorgeous set of kissable lips, plump and rosy and go beautifully with his enormous blue eyes.
So I didn’t see the point, really. Especially given I was trying to get home as quickly as possible.
I detoured on the walk home from school to go check on the status of the new Mind I had ordered, with promises to check out a toy shop while up the street.
That done, I had to physically remove him from the toy shop so we could get home before Grumpy and Godzilla and start dinner preparation (in time for Grumpy to do the blokey BBQ thing with the steaks).
I hesitated at the cafe, the one that does the $1 very nice coffees on Tuesdays, and decided we really needed to get home. We cross the road, holding hands, Monkey Boy tries to push me into a tree, so I retaliate with a nudge to the left and push him into a pole.
Laughing and giggling away, he grasps my hand hard and pulls me back. I let him go and hear some spitting and yelling.
“That was a bee! A bee flew in my mouth.”
It took a bit for it to sink in, because … well, I blame the not stopping for coffee only seconds earlier … brain not function so good no coffee.
“OUCH! It stung me, a bee flew in my mouth and stung me!” he yells, whilst at the same time sticking his tongue out and wiping it. Impressive.
I take a look and, indeed, there it is. The stinger, stuck right in the middle of his lower lip. I don’t think it could have managed to get it in a more perfect spot had it tried.
I effectively recall my first aid training relating to bee stings and attempt to scrape it out, using my finger nail, which is near on impossible with a 9 year old who keeps sucking his lip back in, and when you ’scrape’ it goes all squidgy and presses in. So had to resort to the grasp and pull.
I had moment of wondering about allergy, and how I would go when being asked if there was any swelling of the lipes. Um, well, yes, actually, that’s where the
Then head back to the cafe we bypassed to get some ice to put on the sting (thankfully we know the owner very well). I know he’s ok when he asks for a milkshake.
We eventually make it home, and I make several attempts to check the status of lower lip.
It appears swollen, approximately twice it’s usual size, but difficult to tell, given every time I ask he finds something to whinge about and pouts.
My lip feels weird. I don’t want to do my spelling homework. I hate doing the dishwasher. Stop putting the cricket on, dad, I hate the cricket. I didn’t get that out, it’s not fair.
“Oh, for fucks sake, stop bloody whinging and pouting and put your lip like normal so I can see if the swelling has gone down or not!”
*pout* “But my lip feels weird …”
How To Get A Free Icy Pole
By · CommentsFirst day of family day care for Chippie today. Am feeling slighly better, slightly less guitly, and slightly more accepting (and remembering) of my need for such care.
I also have to make an additional lunch, for Chippie to take to care. Overwhelmed with my duties, slightly flustered and all the emotional stuff going on in the background, I was most annoyed to find the floor at my work area somewhat crunchy after Monkey Boy’s baking efforts of last night.
Unable to readily locate where Grumpy had parked the broom, I solved the problem by sending Monkey Boy to fetch my slippers, and I commenced the lunch making routine.
This pretty much consists of telling Grumpy to bugger off out of my way, and find a better time to make his own breakky, and making and eating my breakfast whilst making lunches, and yelling various instructions about putting the size 5 shirt back in the cupboard and change shirts, because I’m not letting him go to school with his bellly button on display.
Godzilla chooses this moment to inform me that “Chippie won’t like being left on his own”, you know, just to make sure I’m feeling really crap, and I explain to him that he will be looked after by a very nice lady and there will be other kids there for him to play with.
Ponder who I’m trying to convince; him or me?
Get Chippie’s shoes on where he throws a tanty about the concept and does his breath holdy thing which causes him to pass out again, panic for a moment, because I really don’t want him missing his first day of day care and don’t want the additional worry of him doing something untoward whilst there, he rights himself and goes back to being normal.
Drop kids off at school, drop him off at day care, go into that controlly mode where I commence informing her of every minute detail of everything, and her informing me it will all be ok and she looks after lots of kids every day of the week and knows what she is doing.
Which is why I’m sending him to her.
At a meeting all day, have just time to race home, grab snacks and gymnastics uniform, decide to pick Chippie up early today given its his first day, head in direction of gymnastics and double back to go get him.
Get to gymnastics, discover it’s very hot so they’ve opened the double doors that lead directly into the carpark. The one that crazy mums who are running late, or can’t find a park so race in and drop kids off with the firm belief that every other person driving in a 5km radius is after the last spot in front of the door.
Great. This will mean 2 hours of Chippie chasing.
He surprises me by eating everything he can find; the snacks I brought along, the snacks I was eating, and the lollypop left on the floor by the kid sitting next to us.
Bored with that, he then creates a game where he casually wanders off to the other end of the row of chairs, gives me a cheeky look and runs for the door.
Several methods of distraction and I resort to sitting on the floor and grabbing the back of his shorts whenever he tries the runner.
This, too, is hilarious and he does a little dance on the spot, the attempts to crawl away, giggling lots. Until he slips and hits the concrete floor.
With his top lip.
Screams. Tears. Blood.
Cuddles and requests for ice, where, being a gymnasium, they hand me a largish ice pack, designed for various body parts, which he refuses to suck on. Apparently nowhere near as tasty as the dead fly in the corner he’d had a go at earlier. The canteen man gave me an orange icy pole, which did more for making a mess than reducing swelling.
Godzilla, most put out, stood an looked longingly and was handed an icy pole of his own.
Monkey Boy then demanded one of me when he completed his class, to which I informed him he’d have to smack his face on the floor and draw blood.
It was later on this evening, after we’d had dinner and baths and Chippie had crawled, fully clothed, into Monkey Boy’s shower, that I realised I didn’t get a free icy pole. And I was probably the one who deserved it the most.
*pout*
The only consolation is they didn’t have vodka infused icy poles, so no loss there, really.
Don’t let them get away with anything
By · CommentsA Sunday morning, planned as not doing much; hubby doing some gardeny type things, me doing some work, alternating care of the kids so we could both get done what needed.
Of course, a friend dropped by, the kids took the opportunity to ask if they could pay their DS/Wii/Computer and went to the other parent when one gave the answer they didn’t like.
I went off with friend for a while, Chippie sleeping and the older two set up on the Wii, to return 3 hours later to find them all in the same spots. Well, not Chippie, he had his hand down the toilet and Grumpy was pruning the pumpkin plant.
Requested they turn it off as we needed to go shopping for a birthday present (on of their friend’s, so no way was I going to do it on my own) and after several hundred of similar requests, I did the raised voice thing, causing Godzilla to cry and the mundane and repetitve “If you listened the first 86 times, I wouldn’t have to yell. I feel like I have to yell to make sure you heard me” and Monkey Boy to slip into lawyer mode.
Off we walk, up the street, two sheepish boys disappointed about having lost all access to DSes, Wiis, Computers and DVDs for the remainder of the day.
Monkey Boy couldn’t resist asking if he could finish watching a DVD he had on the night before, if he could finish a DS game, if he could jsut do some Wii Fit, which isn’t anything like “playing, Mum! It’s exercise!” and getting a firm “NO!”each time.
“How about a video?”
“NO!!!!!”
We shop, we walk home, we get in the door “So, can I watch that video?”"
I look at him in stunned silence and think “are you kidding me”"? which he obviously hears.
Because he replies “You never said ‘videos’. You only said DVDs, computers, the Wii and our DS. Don’t think you’re going to get away with that.”
So I sent him to his room, instead.
The pitfalls of the lazy afternoon
By · CommentsIt has been a big week for all of us, afterschool playdays and birthday parties, late nights, forgetting stuff, dealing with the debilitating guilt that comes with desperatelywanting your kid in childcare so you don’t go completely mental, followed by the subsequent guilt of actually securing a daycare spot for him and contemplating actually using it.
Oh, and the total inadequacy of my current status of mind and memory, the intent to purchase new apparatus to replace that part of mind, and inability to conduct said purchase due to lack of availability of mind replacing gadget at that point in time. Come back next week.
Needless to say, I was totally exhausted, physically and mentally. Therefore, the rest of the family were. Because I said so.
I made them choose a DVD to watch (Star Wars) so they could sit quietly and recuperate, and I could do the same with a good Marian Keyes novel, as I’m wont to do.
That done, a small nap partaken of and we can go about the evening routine in some kind of rested normality.
Sadly, the lack of supervision of this afternoons DVD watching has caused some dire consequences.
Chippie, the youngest at nearly, but not quite 18 months old, has self-taught himself to hum the theme to Star Wars, which he continues to do all evening, and driving me nuts.
Of course, at any point he stops with the humming, for even seconds, his edlest sibling starts it up on his behalf and encourages him to participate.
I really was hoping I’d have at least one normal child.
It’s not really admitting I’m a failure, is it?
By · Comments*sigh*
Oh dear. I think I have completely lost my mind. Aside from the obvious things, like not only wanting to have a third child, but actually going ahead and doing it.
No, more along the Remembering To Do Stuff line of losing mind. Or, as it seems, Forgetting Stuff.
Completely forgot Parent Teacher Interview times I so vehemently aquired, it completely slipped my mind about a couple of after school playdates the kids have organised for tomorrow night, and the purchasing of a birthday present, also required for tomorrow night. Oh, and have a seminar to attend on the weekend, and I’m sure there’s something I’ve forgotten that has to do with that.
Oh, yeah … someone to suprvise the kids. Much as I would love to trust them, quite franky, I don’t on so many levels. Caring for selves is one of those levels.
Am feeling like a comlete failure in the Mothering stakes.
Worse, my thoughts are turning to contemplaing the purchase of a Blackberry – something I previously coveted, but only so it made me look like I was organised, capable and looked like I knew what I was doing (on a business level). The very fact I am now considering one as a mum, has it take on new meaning.
I’m having to resort to technology to replace a part of my previously functioning brain.
And that is why my head hurts
By · CommentsSometimes, I do fun things with my kids.
We watch movies, and play games and read books and eat popcorn.
And, sometimes these things do my head in. 9 year old has comprehension capablities beyond his years, so while he understand what peple are saying or doing, he doesn’t necessarily understand the emotion behind it. So lots of explaining on my part.
The six year old, on the other hand, takes things quite literally. Very literally sometimes. And can become fixated on things.
In both cases, I had to explain the “Shut up, Spalding” comment made by Alex the Lion in Madagascar, and how it is a send up of the similar comment made by Tom Hanks character in Castaway where, in his loneliness, he created a head out of a soccer ball (a Wilson one) and tells it to shut up, because, clearly, it as talking to him.
I digress. There I was making lunches in between yelling at children about shoes and pants and book bags and the like, and Godzilla kept telling me know that he needed help making a “Skullbib”
Given my pre-leaving-for-school state, I had no idea what he was talking about, and no inclination to find out.
However, he just wouldn’t let up on the way to school (really do contemplate finding a closer school, just so we don’t have time to have conversations like this!) and kept going on about this bloody “Skullbib”.
I eventually worked out what he really wanted was a “Spalding”, just like Alex the Lion had, made with one of his numerous soccer balls, or preferably one of Chippie’s.
After lengthy and significantly confusing discussion, he informs me that he doesn’t just want a Spalding, he needs one.
“Because, then I’ll have two people to talk to.”
Um, right. So far, aside from Spalding to have a bit of a chat to, the second person is “no one”, “I don’t know” and “my imaginary friend”.
I’m still not making a Spalding. My head hurts.
It most certainly is
By · CommentsThe usual Tuesday morning routine, where I am woken by Grumpy’s alarm.
Actually, slightly unusual awakening, as it’s usually Chippie crying an hour before the alarm where I am woken. Thankfully, he awakes just before Grumpy gets out of the shower, so they have breakfast together and I am reprieved of that particular fun-filled task.
Then its on to getting older kids up, yelling at them about various things such as breakfast, dishwashers, shoes, reader books and wearing pants to school.
Whereby Godzilla bounces around in various stages of dress and Monkey Boy heads to toy room to play with his Thomas set (brought out as Chippie has a harder time eating it than Lego and Monkey Boy loves it, even though he won’t admit it, because he’s far too old for that sort of thing now.)
And it is whilst the two of them – the oldest and the youngest – are in their playing that Monkey Boy informs me of something I already knew, but couldn’t quite place …
“Mu-uum! Chippie is acting all cutesie. It’s pure sign of evil!”
Mad Cow writes a very funny blog that all parents can relate to. I know that whenever I drop in to catch up I will end up in stitches (of laughter!) and head off to my day with a smile on my face. Thankfully, here is someone who tells it like it is. 
