Archive for bad parenting
Of poo and sand and tipping points
Posted by: | CommentsA few moments of quite at home to catch up on my To Do List, then I am left alone with Smallest Boy Child for many, many hours.
During this time, I am to ensure the house is ready for an Open For Inspection this evening, swimming bags organised for this afternoon and my sanity to remain intact in order that we may all survive it all with minal physical and psychological damage.
I was doing ok. I’d accepted that Time In My Office was a mere fantatsy, and I did what I could to tidy the house and clean bathrooms before Chippie discovered I’d put all his toys away, neatly, and entered the realm of the Toy Room, located the toys he was playing with yesterday, and a multitude of others he probably can’t remember we ever owned. The only place that can go is Toys Scattered Everywhere And Mummy Losing The Plot Completely.
So I took him for a walk to purchase coffee and milk instead. We wandered past a Kikki-K, which has the file organiser racks I wanted in order to safely house each of the projects I’m working on and keep them within easy reach on my desk. I was offered a ‘buy three get one free’ deal and found myself wandering the store, trying to locate post-it type notes that I could actually use and leaving, dumbfounded as to what the point of Kikki-K even is, aside from being “pretty, but useless”.
(And also explains why I created my own range of organisers …)
Arrive home, get the house in as tip-top shape as possible, leaving only the kids to put their clothes away and clear any and all surfaces in their rooms of any item that may or may not be (mis)construed as mess/clutter/personal/fun/enjoyable or that renders the impression that people actually live in this house that potential buyers, tire kickers and sticky beaks are wandering through later on.
Chippie, having been sent outside to eat his lunch of strawberry jam on toast, brings his plate, complete with uneaten crusts, inside. He yells, from the kitchen, that he would like more toast, please. He then wanders up the hall, towards the bedroom I’m tidying, and promptly tips the crumbs and crusts on his platein onto the Just Vacuumed Floor.
Yay.
Leaving plenty of time to do all that, I wander up to the school to collect said children, only to receive a phone call from the Vice Principal when we’re a block away, asking if I will be at school so we may discuss an incident Monkey Boy was involved in today.
“Sure,” I sigh. “Why the hell not?”
And sigh again.
The discussion not only cuts into the kids tidying time (although it does significantly reduce the amount of time we will be at home between school and swimming, thereby leaving almost no time for them to make any mess whatsoever) and leaves me feeling extraordinarily guitly, as I have been drumming into him for years about being compassionate and understanding of other kids, and not to take so much personally.
He’s like this naturally, so it’s not been hard. Except, clearly he’s been holding it all in and trying, as best an eleven-year-old boy can be, understanding. Today, he was pushed too far, trodden on once too often, and treated like shit to a point where he and a kid twice his size got into fisticuffs. The VP encouraged me to encourage him to “speak openly about how he was feeling”.
Excellent point, and I can’t help but feel I’ve totally fucked up.
I nearly cried.
Then I walked away and did. That was partly due to my calling for Chippie, who came racing over. What with my being all distracted, he’d had plenty of time to play. He’d chosen the sandpit. He was head-to-toe sand.
Even more Yay.
Home we go, where I stumble on a dog poo the size of a small chihuahua. What fucking arsehole lets their dog shit in the middle of a footpath across from a school?
I’m now fuming.
We arrive home, where I shout instructions from the front door as I strip Chippie of his sand-covered clothes before he enters, and hose my shoes off.
Fuckers.
“Put your clothesaway! Tidy your rooms! Get everything off everything! DO NOT EAT anything! Do not make a mess! No, do not use the toilet! Do not wash your hands! Put that away! Do NOT touch that! Hurry UP!”
And I cannot wait to leave. Am feeling like Nazi Bitch Face From Hell right now and wonder how long before anyone snaps.
We are now running minutes late for swimming lessons, so I encourage the kids to run in whilst I find a park.
Normally, I can’t wait to get home, but as the inspection time is at a stupid hour, I am forced to delay it all. I tell the kids we’ll get hot chips and chicken for dinner and attempt to time it so that we can be home as early as we are allowed, without crashing the inspecton.
Monkey Boy has neglected to bring a change of clothes, so wanders to the car, wrapped in a beach towel. There goes my plan to send him in to purchase chips and chicken. Leave them all sitting in the car whilst I do so, and my order is taken by a man who had ordered the same thing, but he decided his need was greater than mine, and said “I was here first”.
Had it not been for my need to have quiet time, away from the kids, albeit standing in a brightly lit chicken takeaway place, he may have been tackled to the ground and had his meal forcefully removed.
I may also have sworn loudly at him. As it was, I was using all my energy to just breath, so he was in luck.
Make it home again, eat, have wine and feel slightly better.
Remember Monkey Boy has a test for a high school tomorrow, and he is being a right little arsehead.
My best of intentions aimed at having a calm, loving and empowering evening are shattered by his smart arsedness, my distress over the incident at school and the compounding stress of life as we know it right now … a screaming match ensues and I find myself on the kitchen floor in tears.
The only saving grace is that Monkey Boy is nowhere near as affected by my behaviour as I am, and he’s happily in bed. Reading.
Yay.
No Guns in This House!
Posted by: | CommentsVery early on in this Mothering Gig, I was the World’s Best Mother.
I followed a considerable amount of the ‘advice’ that was the loudest at the time … until my head broke and I ventured into ‘suicidal’, but that’s a different story.
For those early years, I was very Anti Gun without actually knowing why, just following along in whatever the latest fad was. What I quickly learnt was that it is near impossible to prevent children – mostly boy-type children (yes, I’m generalising, fuck off – I said “mostly”) – from turning all manner of thing into a gun of some sort.
Sticks, LEGO, textas, fingers etc etc etc. Name something and they’ll use it as a gun. If not a gun then a Light Sabre (saber? I can never remember the spelling of that one) or other implement of pain, torture, death or extreme annoying of others.
What I’ve come to realise is I, personally, don’t like the pretend gun play because I really, really hate having shit waved in my face and pointed at me at almost point blank range. I hate that my three-year-old talks about slaying and killing his brothers (although it is sometimes very cute, and other times I feel very much the same) and I hate the screaming and upset it often results in because, inevitably, someone gets hurt or someone “dies” and then they can’t play the game any more and gets upset, or because I end up with a bruise across my nose because someone can’t control his Light Sabre urges and accidentally thwacks me across the face on Christmas Day.
(I was also a witness to a shooting murder some years back, so whilst I appreciate it is ‘fun’ play for the kids, there’s a trigger there for me, ok?)
So, whatever … I have my reasons for not liking them and some of you will have other reasons and some of you will think “pfft, get over it” and some of you will be horrified that I have even ‘let’ my kids contemplate ‘gun’ play … whatever your take that’s all very ok.
The guns are becoming more and more frequent in our house and I do not like it. After letting go of my “Oh god you have a finger gun, I’m the worst mother in the world!!!” crisis and threatening to cut the kids fingers off if they used them as guns again, I was a little less anal and verging on blase when I said “no guns!” … but it’s really annoying me, so I’ve been a bit more firm. You know, like biting the fingers of the latest ‘gun’ shoved in my face and then being all innocent and saying “Well, it’s your fault! If you didn’t put them in my face, I wouldn’t have bitten them. So, ner.”
(To give you an idea of how bad it was when Monkey Boy was 3, he would run around the house, ‘shooting’ me and saying “pew, pew, pew” and I would verge on hysteria that ‘my little boy is playing guns, oh my lord, what have I done???!!!” and react in an equally hysterical manner and tell him off. He approached me one day, with a mandarin and I said “would you like me to peel it for you?” He looked at me, horrified, and said “you said ‘pew’!” It was bad. I’m way more relaxed now … o.O)
I’ve also been way more strict on them; in proportion to my pissed offedness and annoyance at their almost constant presence.
Sadly, I also have somewhat intelligent children. I have no idea where they get it from.
So, there we are, walking home from school, Monkey Boy with his arm outstretched, first two fingers pointed at Godzilla’s face and yelling some kind of “kill you” or some ramble and Godzilla retaliating with equal ‘in your facedness with gun-fingers’ and I said “NO GUNS! I’m frigging sick of it. Stop It. What is the rule?”
They glance at each other, clearly deciding who is going to be the one to set me straight.
“They’re not guns, Mum. Sheesh. They’re hair driers! Don’t you know anything? And stop jumping to conclusions.”
Necessary Life Skills
Posted by: | CommentsDay 3 of Not Being Able To Work In Effective Chunks and Week I’ve Lost Count of feeling crap. My head is now full of snot, the cough, whilst relenting slightly and not playing quite so much havoc on my chest and pelvic floor, is still there and my Levels Of Tolerance have all but vanished in a screaming tantrum.
I’m doing my best to hold it together, but fail miserably as Chippie, whom only 13 minutes earlier had insisted – insisted – he put clothes on instead of his bathers, as he usually does Thursday mornings before swimming, decided he could not possibly leave the house in clothes, and insisted, via screaming at me, that he wanted his bathers on.
However, he could not appreciate the need to remove his shoes in order to remove his pants in order to don his bather bottoms and insisites, via more yelling, that his shoes remain on.
As the experts suggest, I got down to his level. And I screamed at him, just like he was doing to me. Clearly, by being all calm and rational I just wasn’t speaking in a manner with which he could relate. I threw in the odd “fucking little shit” and “stop fucking around and make a decision” and he calmly replaced the shoe I had so horribly removed and went out to the car.
I pondered why I even bother with “calm and rational” at any time, and don’t just got for Screaming Swearing Fishwife first up, as it seems to get things happening.
Then I cried at swimming lessons.
In order to do something useful, I rang a local high school to find out some information, and was advised the information and forms I needed were to be completed and returned to the school tomorrow.
Ah, well, I thought, this will kill some time – phew! And we drove up, collected the forms, and I killed even more time by heading to Kmart to purchase some long pants for Chippie that would actually reach his ankles and, therefore, technically be considered long.
I was feeling much better, having achieved something I probably needed to do weeks ago, but with Melbourne weather being so fickle and inconsistent, it was hard to decide whether a few weeks ago was actually a good time for it. Still, it is now done and I can check that off my list.
My Feeling Much Better was shortlived, as the older two arrived home and proceeded to chip away at my resolve by niggling and picking on each other, until my Already Barely Existent Tolerance shattered and I told them if they didn’t frigigng stop I would either walk out the door and never come back, or, if they even contemplated touching each other again, I would bang their heads together so fucking hard they’d be rendered unconscious and if tha’ts what it took to get a moment of peace then I would fucking do it.
Then I asked them nicely to get ready for swimming.
And took several deep breaths.
They were now remotely tolerable and swimming lessons could ensue. Chippie went in for a play during lesson time and all was well. I had the added bonus of a friend there to talk to. So that was nice.
As the lessons finished and all the boys got dressed as quickly and efficiently as possible (Godzilla with the entire back of his shirt soaking wet, Monkey Boy without shoes etc) we were standing out the front, two families, five boys in total, as we mums discussed some catch up dates.
Chippie was running around with his similarly aged compartriot discussing bums and penises.
“Pull your pants down,” Godzilla tells Chippie.
“Leave your pants on!” I intervene. “And stop telling your brother to do shit like that. Seriously!?”
“That’s a necessary life skill,” says Monkey Boy.
“Isn’t it?” he asks, when we look at him, incredulous. “Knowing how to pull your pants down is necessary to get you through life.”
And, although by this point I really didn’t want to, I took them home … with a smile.
Birthday Parties – Trashed
Posted by: | CommentsYesterday, we attended a friend’s birthday party – Trash Pack themed.
There was a cake. It was magnificent (if I can get a photo of it, I’ll be sure to post it). It was a Trash Pack cake, professionally made and one of those creations that you wish you could replicate and that make you feel so utterly inadequate because the image you have in your head of the Trash Pack themed cakes you are going to make your own son the following day aren’t even close to this.
You also know the actual result isn’t going to come close to the images in your head.
Thankfully, after having hosted many, many children’s birthday parties, and made the cake/s eat each one, I no longer give a fuck, and have embraced that I can only do what I can do. Also, I love that my cakes look authentically made and no one could possibly doubt that I was solely responsible for them. And I shall continue to tell myself that until I believe it 
Two parties were had today; the friends’ one, where Godzilla was allowed to invite a small number of friends over for a play for two hours over a period where I would not be expected to feed them anything that could be constituted a ‘meal’. Like ‘lunch’ for example. No, I chose a ‘morning tea-ish’ time, so crap food is all that could be expected of me.
He had four friends, so that made five of them, plus Monkey Boy and Chippie. Seven all up.
Seven boys over two hours from 10.00a.m. until 12.00 noon goes something like this:
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10.00am children are dropped off “no, no, all good, we’ll be fine, enjoy your next two hours – see you at 12 and not a moment later, ha ha ha”
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10.07am – oh my fucking jeebus, how much fucking noise can they make “how about you take the chips outside and go and run around for a bit?”
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10.43a.m. Two hours is too fucking long for a children’s birthday party. 43 minutes and counting …
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11.01a.m. “Um, let’s go and play some games. Outside. OUTSIDE!” Oh, fuck, what games can I play …
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a game of Twister Scramble is set up
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a game of Twister Scramble is had …
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“Yes, yes, but it’s just a game, all fun, no need to be so anally fucking retentive about it, it’s FUN! Oh, look it’s 11.04 … um, what would you like to do now?”
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a game of hallway racing is set up … old towels are placed in the hall and they had to race each other from one end to the other on their bums on towels … this had the added bonus of polishing the floorboards.
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Oh, for fuck’s … “It. Is. A. Game. It. Is. Supposed. To. Be. FUN!” This is why I don’t do games at birthday parties. Or have them at home. Fuck. Me.
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“How about we do another heat?!”
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“And another heat!”
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“And another heat!”
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“Let go and play outside again,” and I say aside, to Monkey Boy, who has been doing a marvellous job of setting the games up whilst I went completely fucking mental “Drag this out for as long as you can, we’ll do the cake in 10 mins.”
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Ten minutes took us to 11.15a.m. The party finished at 12. The cake really needed doing at 11.45a.m. Wishful thinking. *sigh*
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Shit.
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Play several more games of Twister Scramble, Tiggy, Twister Scramble with 27 practice runs.
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Time for cake. Hoo-fucking-ray.
I attempted to create Trash Pack trash cans for the cakes. They didn’t work like I wanted to. I had lots of fun making them though; adding things like ‘garbage’ to the bins as I went along. Sadly, the ‘handle’ on the top had the effect of making them look like really bad cupcakes.
But the kids loved them 
Then they all left – Hurrah! – and I vowed never to do a party at home again (which is what I said last time I did one at home – exactly two years ago) … the reason I did, however, was The Party Part 2 … The Family were coming over at 1.00p.m.
During this time I had to complete Godzilla’s cake, think about getting changed, forgetting to get changed (it was about the 39th time I’d had that thought, each thought culminating in my continuing to wear the same outfit I had on yesterday, and only tossed on this morning whilst I iced cakes, so if I got any green icing on me it wouldn’t matter – I did get green icing on me, and it didn’t matter … I think), debating whether to have a coffee to keep me going, or a wine to keep me going, and making a salad.
I completed the cake (it’s a garbage bin lid, OK!) (except it hasn’t got the handle.) (Yet.) (That’s a whole other issue):
It even came with a “Vomiting Trashie” (I’m so proud of myself )
Whilst I made the salad, I organised for Grumpy Pants to make the handle for the bin lid. He had buggered off for most of the duration of the morning party, leaving me to it all by myself, and forgot to obtain the liquorice strap I needed for this all important component of the cake.
We then sent Monkey Boy up to the local ‘supermarket’ for some, and he returned empty handed. As they also had none.
My brilliant – yet equally ignorant - mind cause my mouth to blurt out “Just melt some chocolate and spread it out and make it curvy and voila!”
Easy peasy, one would have thought. I delegated, of course, and spent much of the time telling Grumpy how to do a job he knew how to do all by himself. That’s always fun and makes the atmosphere nice for everyone else who’d just arrived.
“It. Won’t. Work,” he told me for the 900th time. “I need some acetate or something.”
“Oh,” I said, and ventured into my office (now stuffed full of more shit than necessary to make room for everyone) and came back with a box of overhead projector film which I purchased to make one slide some years ago.
He looked at me, and set about his business.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of the finished product.
Godzilla loved it.
It got eaten.
No one died.
I stopped to think for a moment and became overly concerned about my ability to get into the minds of and relate so well to 9 year old boys. Scary.
Godzilla also did remarkably well in the realm of Trash Pack merchandise …
(and there are some missing from the photo!) (Argh!)
Boring Old, Normal Family Fun Day
Posted by: | CommentsSo … after yesterday’s adventures, Grumpy Pants and I felt it would be loads of fun to re-commence our Family Days.
Our aim is to do one every Sunday; get out, away from the house, do something fun or different or just spend the day as a family. We haven’t had one for a while.
Obviously, part of the fun is that I have woken with a slightly snotty head and mucousy chest, and no voice to speak of. So to speak.
Walhalla, and the historical goldfields railway was the chosen option. So I create a lunch of peanut butter sandwiches and carrot sticks, and off we go.
It is a very long drive. I am very tired. I try to sleep. I keep getting spoken to each time I try. Godzilla puts his arm on the arm rest of Chippie’s seat. Chippie has a conniption. I would yell at them. But I can’t.
We eventually make it to the historical train station, where Chippie is so pantswettingly excited he nearly stops breathing from speaking in such high pitched tones, pointing out the one diesel engine to me, repeatedly.
Monkey Boy has achieved that age where being seen with your family is so not cool. Also, Family Days suck, and he doesn’t like anything we do. On principal.
Godzilla has forgotten his jacket. The very jacket we asked him 35 times to get, but each time he found some new and exciting activity to partake in. Dancing naked to Sexy and I know it whilst filming himself on his iPod; playing Trash Packs with no pants on, but with t-shirt and socks in place, that sort of thing.
The trip from one station to the next is relatively uneventful.
At the other end, Chippie and Monkey Boy go to watch the train uncouple and so some shunting. Chippie trips over his feet and stops himself on the bitumen platform with his nose and upper lip. There is blood, but not much. He screams at a lady who approaches as I’m cuddling him, and says “It’s ok sweetheart, mummies can fix everything.” She leapt back in terror as he snarled at her.
Grumpy Pants wandered over as I’m hugging and consoling Chippie.
“No,” says Chippie. “I don’ wan’ you!” and climbs into Grumpy’s arms.
“Fuck you,” I say, but I’m not sure who to.
No one can hear it anyway.
Grumpy, Godzilla and Chippie wander off to where they’re not supposed to be to look at trains, and I chat to Monkey Boy about stuff. And things.
Then I see some awesome looking tree stumps and condemned buildings, so I get my photographer on and ask Monkey Boy to jump in the photos. Not, you know, literally jump. Rather “climb up that bit. I don’t care if it looks dangerous, climb up there. Now do this …” and I pull a pose he is supposed to emulate, but says “no way!” instead.
Then we realise the train is probably wanting to go, and everyone else has gone, so we race back to the platform, to find Grumpy wandering towards us, yelling “hurry up!”
Monkey Boy races up onto the train, Grumpy and I following. We hear the conductor say “Is that everyone?” and Monkey Boy replying “Yup, quick, go!”, and she saying “What about Mum?” and him saying “Don’t worry about her.”
Cheeky little shit.
So we make them walk whilst we go in search of coffees and hot chocolates. This has the opposite of the desired effect, causing them to play nicely with each other, with a significant dose of added silliness.
Much “settle down” and “seriously, stop it now” is voiced. As best as I am able to voice it.
Chippie, clearly a little over me saying “I’m seriously getting stabby, stop it!” turns to me and says this:
Cheeky little shit.
(For those who didn’t get it, he said “What, whatcha gonna do? Stab me?”)
We make them walk some more, up stairs, down hills and back to the car, where we just make it as they’re locking the station up. Godzilla throws a plastic bottle into Chippie’s face, because “he is singing a song I don’t like and won’t stop.”
Welcome to my fucking world.
Then it’s the long drive home (we oft forget that however far we drive, we have to drive that far back), a dinner of pastizzi and salad, because we really need to go shopping again, and somehow we are out of pasta. Still, if you serve pastizzi with salad you can pretend it is a meal.
Just saying.
Monkey Boy kills some time whilst dinner is cooking, asking me about g-strings, which I cannot answer as I hurt too much, so I show him a pair of mine; delving into the very back corner of my knicker drawer where I’m fairly sure remain a pair from several lifetimes ago, then he puts them on and runs around the house in them. Chippie finds this hysterically funny and asks Monkey Boy to make his undies do the same.
Awesome. I’m tired, I’m snotty, I’m sore and I can’t speak and I get to watch two sets of bum cheeks run around the house.
Family Days are so much fun …
Bloggers Family BBQ Day
Posted by: | CommentsKids Business was at it again, only this time they’ve opened their Bloggery event up to blogger’s families.
It has it’s pros and cons … but as I’m regularly nagged to death by my eldest about “when are we going to another of those blog thing day things” and “when can I have my own blog” I thought I’d force them to come along with me.
So, today, after desperately needing a sleep in and not getting one, we head off to this Bloggers BBQ at the PowerHouse alongside Albert Park Lake.
I was accompanied by Grumpy Pants and my three children, only shortly after we arrived Monkey Boy vanished and I was regularly seen with Darth Maul (apparently of Star Wars fame and which I would know if I “was a good mother”) from then on.
He even had it written on his name tag, which were rather impressive, I must say.
Monkey Boy Darth Maul and Godzilla made the most of the samples that Lenard’s Chicken and McCormack’s were offering, then Godzilla helped himself to approximately 500 litres of Cottee’s cordial. Before lunch.
I, instead, went for something far, far less painful than dealing with my children at such a fun event, and had my eyebrows waxed, in public, whilst someone, I don’t know who as my eyes were shut, took photos …
(Ironically, it was Nads, who had featured prominently in my antics of yesterday, before the Digital Parents Dinner … so there you go! Funny!)
Chippie made the most of Ella’s Kitchen and her little coloured ball filled playground, and remained there for the majority of the function.
A Target fashion show and “styling” session went on up on stage, which I glanced up at only to witness Monkey Boy Darth Maul walk in with both hands full of food samples (after the delicious lunch we were served) and plonk himself in the seat, front and centre of the stage, and proceed to stuff his face under the noses of the waifs up on stage.
Repeat.
Three times!
I didn’t know if I should be proud or horrified.
So I just laughed. Again whether it was because it was funny, or a result of that horrible infliction I have where I laugh when things are pretty bad, I’m not sure.
The gorgeous Livinia Nixon was MC for the day, so I had a photo with her and asked her what the weather was to be like tomorrow as my husband asked me to ask her, because he was too wussy to. She made a good point of singling him out and asking if he was with me from across the other side of the room. Nice.
She was also treated to a photo with Darth Maul.
Then it was time to leave, which meant locating and rounding up all three children, extracting Chippie from the ball area, where he decided to help pack up and refused to go until all 8 jillion balls were bagged.
This pretty much left us last to leave, and allowed Godzilla time to collect whatever balloons were left lying around the place.
Children, goody bags and balloons packed in the car, minus one that just happened to be Chippie’s and caused much distress and screaming all the way home.
I was ready for bed when we arrived home. The children, however, decided to create a Zeppelin with the balloons, which had been cut free from their moorings and were scattered around bedroom ceilings.
The did manage to create a floating ship of sorts, only to let it go to see if it worked.
It did …
Thank you, Kids Business and all the companies involved in today’s Blogger’s BBQ. We had a great time.
And just in case … um, sorry!
My To Do List and My Did List
Posted by: | CommentsI like to start every day with a To Do List. It helps me to finish the day feeling as though I have achieved something I love doing. It also makes sure I achieve something that has been doing donuts in my head since 3.00a.m. for the last six weeks.
Handy.
Sometimes, I even make a list after I do stuff and tick the items off, because each little tick is ever so satisfying.
This is also a handy way of doing things, because sometimes I achieve great things during the day, that I haven’t planned on achieving, and it’s nice to have them in writing.
My To Do List for today, because I have made HUGE progress in terms of not giving myself too much to do and creating unreaslistic goals for myself, and being a bit of a crazy day with three-year-old hanging around for most of it, conists of not very much at all. Two biggish items, a job for someone else and getting my newsletter out, followed by “get whatever writing you can get done, done!”.
My Did List, however, was quite different.
It included:
- waking with a nasty chest cold and snotty sinuses and feeling crap
- trying to sleep in but Grumpy Pants refused to get out of bed until I was past the “I could stay here all day” phase and got up
- worked on job for other person
- got asked to attend a fashion show and blog about it
- wet my pants laughing at this concept
- replied and said “yes”
- changed pants
- secure awesome goody bag sponsor for Mums’ Night Out! – hurrah!
- wrote newsletter
- sent newsletter
- discovered, at some point in the newsletter creation phase, it had reverted the title to include “February 2012″ and not “March 2012″
- *sigh*
- drove Grumpy Pants to work
- arrive home to find mobile phone missing
- ring Grumpy in a panic, he leaves his kitchen, wanders across the road to where I dropped him off and locates phone
- *phew*
- photographer from local paper turned up to photograph Chippie and I for an Easter story
- he bribed Chippie with one of the largish chocolate rabbits so he would cooperate. Also the photo required Chippie to take bites of rabbit
- despite feeling shit, and because no one else will do it for me, I whip up a pot of chicken soup so I feel better
- burn fingers
- try to convince Chippie to eat some, but he is still going with his rabbit
- try to convince Chippie to rest for a bit, but he has just eaten a chocolate rabbit the size of his own head
- deal with some three-year-old shit
- not, obviously, shit that has been there for three years, but shit more recently created by my own three-year-old
- get shit on my hands again!
- stop around a swear a bit
- hang out washing that has been sitting in machine since last night
- get some writing done … with sore, burny fingers
We need to leave to collect Godzilla from school soon. Grumpy Pants will ring me when he is coming home … this will be interesting…
So, I guess I’m pleased to say that I not only achieved that which resided on my To Do List, but much, much more … my Did List was way bigger!
Shit on my hands is a bonus, right?
Right??????
Difficult Questions? A penis curling she devil?
Posted by: | CommentsI, personally, don’t believe there are any “difficult questions” from the kids.
Sure, there are questions that you find difficult to answer for a plethora of reasons, but the questions, really, aren’t that difficult at all.
Of course, my children like to ask me questions when my mind is otherwise occupied on something totally unrelated, or quite possibly the opposite of what they are requesting an answer to.
Tonight, I was ploughing through a massive writing project, trying to be all creative and inspiring, when Monkey Boy staggers in, giggling hysterically and sayign “go ugly up someone else’s house you penis curling she devils!”
He could barely breathe he was laughing so much. Also, because he was trying to say this to me as many times as possible before I turned and asked him to shut up, so taking a breath would have reduced the number of times he could say it.
He giggled and giggled and with a final, sudden snort, he stopped and asked “What is a ‘penis curling she devil’?”
After narrowly surviving “The” talk when he was seven, and having endured much more questions considered by most as “difficult”, all I was left was think of how to respond in a way that was age appropriate and took into account the repurcussions of the answer.
And delay, delay, delay answering it.
“Where did you hear it?” I questioned, as I always do. It allows me to either put it into context and answer within that context, or totally discredit the kid from school he has more than likely heard it from in the first place.
I should have guessed, tonight, however.
“The Simpsons. Homer just said to Patty and Selma ‘Go ugly up someone else’s house, you penis curling she devils!” he tells me.
My only difficulty in answering him is that he is still (oh, thank you, thank you!) still of the opinion that ‘girls have germs’ and that my reply would not make sense.
I also strongly believe in telling them like it is.
“Well, it pretty much means they’re so so ugly and nasty that men’s penises curl up when they walk into a room, to get away from them.”
See? That wasn’t hard at all.
Giggle. Giggle. Giggle.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the proceeding questions.
“Cool! Can I say that to N and A when they are being stupid at school? Can I say it to that kid who is nasty to everyone?”
“Um, no”.
Although I did kinda figure the answer was gonna be fairly evident.
“Well, when can I use it?”
“Hmmm. Let me see. How about … never?”
Things to learn at school
Posted by: | CommentsI’d been left alone with Chippie for the morning, but after completely losing the plot last night and embarking on a crying, sobbing, verbally-vomiting rant about Life As We Know It Right Now, Grumpy Pants offered to perform the LEGO Club and School Parent Helper in Monkey Boy’s grade 5-6 class this afternoon.
With my To Do List rapidly expanding at the same rate in which my Available Time is declining, and what with the diaphragm incident of last week, I was more than happy to oblige. I don’t think I even bothered with the “are you sure?” and just locked myself in my office and turned Aerosmith up very loud.
Warning me he may be home immediately after LEGO Club, I requested he advise the teacher I would not be coming. He wasn’t home by 3.45p.m. so figured he’d replaced me for the afternoon. Whatever.
When they did arrive home, Chippie was in fine form, running around the house, crazy. He barrelled towards Monkey Boy and, nose-to-nose, yelled “GO TO HELL you naughty brat!”
Monkey Boy tried to get me to intervene, but, sadly, Chippie probably had good grounds and was just being honest. Chippie proceeded to race around yelling “go to hell!” to anyone. And mostly to no one.
Warn out from that, he commenced slamming his trains into things and yelling “Shit!” when they fell off the couch.
I’m not sure I want to know what happened at school today … *sigh*
All I know is that he doesn’t come home like that when he comes with me.
Softening the blow
Posted by: | CommentsMonkey Boy decided he needed a cuddle. So, at bedtime, and in order to obtain me purely for himself, he asked for a cuddle in my bed, away from the frivolity and jumpiness of his youngest brother.
I relented and we were snuggled under the doona, having very important discussions like What Would You Do If The Droids From Star Wars Invaded Earth? I’m pretty sure I asked how school was going, but obviously not.
Then, he farted.
I called him on it.
“Noooo,” he says innocently. “It wasn’t me.”
Then, to prove it, he grabbed the doona and pulled it up hard.
I was Dutch Ovened by my eleven-year-old!
In the process he also managed to punch me in the face. Equally as hard as he pulled the doona up, and square on the nose. This forced my jaw to snap shut and smash my teeth against each other.
I tired very hard not to cry, as the experts tell you not to do stuff like that in front of your kids. I’m not sure why I put so much effort into it, as he was giggling hysterically and probably wouldn’t have noticed.
Not long after, he climbed out of bed, leaving me there to die, and walked out the door. He stopped, looked over his shoulder and said “I love you, Mum. You’re a good mum.”
I’m not sure if he meant it, or if he was just feeling really, really guilty and had to make up for it.
Or maybe he considered me a good mum because I didn’t attempt to suffocate him with a pillow or kick him in the kneecaps.
Just so we’re clear, I would have, but I was incapacitated.
