Archive for support for mums
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.”
The New Hat
Posted by: | CommentsArrived at school to collect Godzilla.
He was wearing a new hat. An Essendon Bombers cap to be precise. Because, despite our family being terribly un-Melbourneish and not ‘barracking’ for any team, he likes the Bombers.
I still don’t know where this hat came from.
Grumpy Pants asked.
“Where did you get that hat?”
“I won it,” Godzilla replies.
And that was the end of that. Except, I have to know everything, so I commenced the questioning process.
“Cool hat. Where did you get it?” I enquire.
“I won it,” he repeats.
“What for?” I ask.
“I dunno.”
Which is pretty much as I expected.
“So, did you maybe do something at school today that resulted in you winning a hat?”
“I dunno. A fell off the monkey bars today.”
“Right. So … anything else, anything that you might have won something for?”
“I dunno.”
“Ok. Um … so, how was school today?”
“I dunno,” is his now anticipated response. He often replies like this, and I often wonder if he was actually there, give he often ‘doesn’t know’ what he did at school that day.
I’m told this is common. It is still no less annoying.
“We did reading,” he tells me. They do this every day.
“And we did cross country today,” he continues.
Ah ha! We may be onto something.
“So, did you win the hat for cross country, maybe?”
“I dunno,” he replies.
ARGH! I think to myself.
“C came first. I just came third.”
“You came third in cross country?”
“Yep.”
“Did you win the hat for coming third?”
“I dunno.”
“Also, do you think coming third in the cross country is pretty awesome? I think that’s pretty awesome. Like, really well done,” I tell him.
“I dunno. I think I came third because I didn’t stop to get a drink. I don’t know why I got the hat. Are we going home now?”
My head hurts.
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!)
Product Experience: The Trash Pack – absolute garbage that’s absolutely awesome
Posted by: | CommentsA couple of months back, I was invited to attend a Toy Fair at an exhibition centre in Melbourne, courtesy of Moose Enterprise, who are responsible for such things as Angry Birds, Talking Tom, Annoying Orange and various other plush toys, AquaSand, Sea Monkies (I always wanted some of these as a kid! And last week!), Bakugan, AquaDoodle, Smubbles and … sooooo much more.
Anyhoo, after experiencing a guided tour of their stand (impressive) I was sent on my merry way with a bag containing an assortment of their products.
The children, all too aware that I’d been invited to a Toy Fair and hated me because I wouldn’t let them take the day off school to accompany me, and I farewelled them at the school gate with a “You weren’t invited, so ner!”, harassed me from the moment they returned home from school, until I handed over the goods.
I let them choose one item each from the bag.
Godzilla chose The Trash Pack, much to my amazement and disgust.
More shit to lie around the house and to be told to pick up, repeatedly, in a very loud voice, I had thought at the time.
What transpired has left me astounded, yet delighted at the same time.
He immediately opened the pack, and disappeared into his room and played. For hours!
Over the next few days he proceeded to nag me about getting some more. As he had some pocket money owing, I buckled. At this point, I was still a bit “hmmm, not sure about this” as they are, quite literally garbage. They are small, cheap and are “collectable”, which basically means there are a shit load of them for you to buy.
I was dubious about their longevity and I am vehemently against buying useless crap that will lie around and annoy me.
We returned home, his new packs under his arm, and proceeded to play … again for hours!
Let me sum up a few things before I proceed, things that have made me happy:
- he got off his iPod and played with stuff
- he created stories, themes, scenes and all kinds of imaginative play stuff. And things.
- he played with his younger brother, whom had intercepted the Trash Pack party with this Thomas the Tank Engine trains and they had a great little game together
- he played with his older brother, and they created a great story involving The Trash Pack newsreaders, a Zeppelin and a tragedy that befell the town of Trashpackia
- he made a series of videos, telling this story and various others, using his extremely vivid imagination .. and not just one of him dancing naked to Sexy & I know it, either, but stories involving The Trash Pack.
To put this into context, this stuff doesn’t happen very often off the iPod. You may get bouts of it, with his stuffed toys, or various other toy-like paraphernalia, but it rarely, if ever, lasts days, let alone weeks as The Trash Packs have been doing.
It hasn’t been all rosy. He had a near meltdown when Chippie took a liking to Moo Cow Disease and ran off with it.
Monkey Boy has, at times, attempted to control the situation and stories, and it has resulted in skull-bashing repercussions.
Three Trashies have gone missing. It has been devastating.
There are fucking Trashies scattered all around his room at times. Thankfully, they are nowhere near as painful to stand on as LEGO bricks are. Phew.
He is learning responsibility and to take care of his things. He has them mostly (now) contained to one area.
He has not let up on nagging me until I completely lose my ‘nana about getting more Trashies. It is his birthday next week and his only requests have been ‘more Trashies’ and has stepped out of his comfort zone to tell family members and friends exactly what he’d like for his birthday.
We gave a couple of Trash Pack sets to a friend for his birthday earlier this year. His mum, a few weeks later, rang me to say “Thanks for that”. It may or may not have been loaded with sarcasm, but when this friend comes over to play, with his rapidly growing Trash Pack collection, they play nicely and stay out of my way for the entire time. Win-win, really.
Moose were kind enough to donate some Trash Pack sets to the goody bags for Mums Night Out! on the 13th of April. I have received – particularly from those attendees with boys as children – another few “Hmm, thanks for the Trash Packs”.
It seems they are loved by many … personally, I don’t get it, but if they kids are playing and not annoying me, then great. I’m happy.
It’s a bonus that they are using their imaginations and fingers and playing nicely together. The school holidays were also relativley pleasant, thanks to this utter garbage (I say that because they are, literally, garbage, not in any derogatory way at all).
The Trash Pack, in various sized sets, are available from K-mart and no doubt various other establishments like that. I only say K-mart as that’s where we go to collect ours, I haven’t seen them elsewhere, because I haven’t looked elsewhere. Oh, and my local Coles, but they have a limited selection.
Disclaimer: I was not paid to conduct this review. In fact, I wasn’t even asked to conduct it, but I was so impressed by my eight-year-old and his interaction with them that I was compelled to speak up about it. Aside from the pack of 5 Trashies in the Moose Enterprise bag from the toy fair, all other Trash Pack stuff we have has come out of Godzilla’s pocket money, present money, or bribery (i.e. my money). We now own in excess of 55 Trashies … *sigh* No doubt we’ll have more after the weekend.
I am also considering suing Moose for stress, given I have had to endure “can we get more Trash Packs today?” every single day for the last few months. So much so that on Saturday, by 9.43am, I had to put a ban on the words “trash” and “pack” .
More School Helping and What’s for dinner?
Posted by: | CommentsI helped at school today.
It was that LEGO Club thing that my eldest started and I agreed to. Encouraged him to follow his dreams and be all supportive and “You can do this, because you are so awesome and I love you”. That overriding joy at watching him overcome his fears and take this on (albeit with a friend virtually holding his hand, but still, he did it) was quickly diminished when the realisation that I had to be in attendance at each Club meeting, once a week in the school hall, descended upon me.
I thought I’d got out of it, because they said they needed a responsible adult. Huh. Yet they said “Thanks for helping” and there was no one behind me.
Today, they were organising their fundraiser, to raise more funds to buy more LEGO for the school. They thought of it themselves. I’m just there to facilitate. And listen to nine-eleven year old boy bullshit. And yell at them to “Finish your bloody posters cos I don’t wanna do this same shit again next week, ok?”
I also told them I rocked.
They laughed.
I told them they would know how much I rocked when I didn’t turn up to LEGO Club ever again, and then there would be no LEGO Club and so, ner.
So I told them an absolutely hilarious joke, because one of the kids drew a LEGO Minifigure and he hadn’t yet got to the arms, so I pointed it out that by saying “Look, he can’t hurt you, he’s ‘armless!” and they just rolled their eyes and asked me to please stop now. Kids these days just have no sense of humour. But at least they said please.
Then I went and helped in the classroom, where the kids are still working on their human body systems. They’re up to making life sized human bodies, with bits of crafty stuff stuck on that look like the particular system their group is working on. I was delegated the skeletal system. Monkey Boy had taken a balloon in for the diaphragm for his group’s body.
As part of the respiratory system.
The teacher asked “What are you going to stick that on with?” and gave me a sideways glance.
I asked if she’d said “stick that on, or stick that in”.
She contemplated asking me to leave, please, but asked that I tend to the skeletal system group, possibly to undo what misinformation Grumpy Pants had provided the kids with a few weeks back.
I stayed and learnt something valuable. Mostly, that my kids are quite normal and an entire classroom of children are capable of fucking around like you would not believe and not actually achieving anything. My group, at least, drew half a pelvis, rubbed out a badly drawn foot and stuck eight bits of packing polystyrene in the vague shape of a spine.
It was driving home, whilst my kids rode, unsupervised (*gasp*!) that I considered my evening and became fully aware of just how crazed it was to be. Two lots of guitar lessons and an information night at school pertaining to enrolment for high school.
(I still think it’s evil to be forcing this onto parents now, because for the next 86 years we’ll be hearing about how we should be “enjoying every moment” and not “wishing it away” and “hang on to this time” … which is entirely impossible when you’re having to trawl websites and visit schools and stress about One More Thing To Fuck Your Kids Up For Life. *sigh*)
I had also not gotten anything out of the freezer for dinner. Mostly so I could say “nothing that a few slices of bacon and a tin or two of tomato won’t fix”. I think that’s a matriciana but I’m not sure. It’s what I call it, anyway.
So, I have 42 minutes exactly to prepare, cook, serve and eat dinner before we head out on the first lap of guitar lessons. At this point, Grumpy informs me he has purchased some minced beef and some chicken breasts for dinner.
I tell him to shut up.
And then I consider it, think meh, I’ll just create something again and get to it.
I dice some vegies and the chicken, crush some garlic and say “I don’t know, I’m making it up again so not only do Inot know what it’s called, but I’m not entirely sure it even has a name. Some chicken thing. And pasta,” when the kids ask “What’s for dinner?”
Half the time I think they ask it because they haven’t actually said anything for 3.7 seconds and the silence is killing them, not that they actually want to know what is for dinner.
I even manage, quite by accident, to create a One Pot Meal. Of course, that depends on whether you consider the pot I boiled the water in for the pasta as using a pot or not. The pasta never actually made it into that pot, as I accidentally tipped it into the pan that had my chicken and vegies and tomato happening, so … you know …
Anyhoo, it worked. I still don’t know what it’s called, but I called it a One Pot Chicken Thing With Tomato. And Pasta. And Just Shut Up And Hurry Up And Eat We Need To Leave.
So there …
Do you like green eggs and ham? Well, shut up then!
Posted by: | CommentsMonkey Boy has created his very own signature dessert.
This basically entails pulling all the strawberries out of the bag of frozen mixed berries, or using fresh strawberries if we happen to have any, topping them with a generous sprinkling of grated cheese and microwaving them, then sitting beside me on the couch and eating the concoction.
[insert gagging type noises here]
The thought is wavering between ‘meh’ and ‘blergh’, but the smell … oh, the smell is vomit inducing.
We went for a walk this morning, and he mentioned this delectable delight. I said “Euwww”, because I am so awesome at coming up with profound and thought-provoking things to say.
I conclude with “It’s revolting!”
“How come,” he says, looking up at me (because he still has to look up at me, for now), “how come you can say that, but when we say we don’t like something you tell us we have to at least try it first before we can say it’s disgusting.”
“Ummmmmm,” I replied, thoughtfully.
“Because you always say that,” he continues. “You tell us off if we hate something when we haven’t even tasted it, so how come you’re allowed to say it?”
“Ermmmmm,” is my clearly adequate reply to this observation.
“So, I really don’t think you can tell me it’s disgusting if you haven’t tried it,” he tells me.
“Shut up, that’s why!”
And that is the end of that conversation.
Or, it would have been, except he kept asking me “how come” … and he’s right.
*sigh*
Rantus Interruptus
Posted by: | CommentsThree kids, no voice, a late ‘can you come into work please’ for the hubby and school holidays.
Needless to say, this makes for one tired and grumpy mamma.
I entertain the children as best I can. Most of which involves me saying “Please stop asking me questions. I cannot answer you. You are making my head hurt.” Then I run out of energy to do much else.
Grumpy is let out of work early and arrives home. He is in a jovial mood. I am so far from ‘jovial’ by this point that the Grand Canyon sized gap between our levels of jovialness is evident.
All credit to him, he recognises this and makes some good attempts at resolving the issue. Unfortunately, his attempts rely on being a smartarse to ‘lighten the mood’.
The gap widens.
I commence making dinner, and they’re all hovering around the kitchen “What’s for dinner?”, “I don’t like that”, “I want milk”, “Why are you doing it like that?”, “Show me your tits”.
“ARGH!” I said.
Only it came out more like “ !”
I roughly grabbed an onion, slammed the chopping board onto the bench, yanked a knife out of the knife block and vented “Just. Fucking. Stop. I’m tired, my throat hurts, my head hurts. I’ve had him whinging and crying all fucking day, I’ve had him at me all day about his fucking iPod, he will not fucking shut up and stop asking me questions, you come home and just hassle me and won’t fucking shut up and I’m just …. FUCK!”
The last bit was because at precisely that moment I sliced through the top of my ring finger with the knife, and missing the onion completely.
Then I cried. It had nothing to do with the onions.
“Give me a look,” says Grumpy Pants, calmly. “Do you want a bandaid?”
“No! I want you to get out of my fucking kitchen!”
I really, really hate it when you’re in the middle of a good rant and you’re interrupted.
I never even got to finish what I was saying.
Humph.
Grumpy poured me some wine and Godzilla tipped his dinner onto the decking just outside the back door. Everyone felt the need to comment on it’s uncanny resemblance to vomit. I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not.
To Laugh or to Cry? Or to Vodka and Lime?
Posted by: | CommentsToday, I lost my ability to laugh out loud.
It was, at times, a bit of a ‘meh, nothing’ day, and other parts where somewhat stress inducing.
And one bit was particularly funny. But I couldn’t laugh.
My laryngitis has kicked up several notches, and whilst it is not an uncommon ailment with me, it is the worst it has ever been.
Grumpy Pants and I, with Monkey Boy and Godzilla, wandered up to childcare to drop Chippie off for the day. Then it was off to Puckle Street to purchase a birthday gift for a party Godzilla was attending later in the morning. We bumped into a neighbour on the way home, who made a comment to two that were quite funny … and I laughed, and nothing came out.
It was quite distressing really.
From there on in, the voice got worse. Grumpy Pants went to work, taking Monkey Boy with him and dropping him off at a friend’s house for a sleepover (that bit, obviously, was not bad) and returning Godzilla home.
Godzilla was in one of his Cheery Moods, which is not much fun for someone who is wavering on Uncheery. Or, even, someone who is in a state of Average. He bounces around, sings, dances and says “penis” a lot. He is LOUD, and doesn’t realise it.
Some days, it brings a smile to your face, to see him play with such uninhibited abandon and have so much fun. Today is not one of those ‘some days’. Today, every bounce on the floorboards and each word of his happy song is causing my brain to cringe in pain. I can’t even yell from my seat to “please be quiet, you’re breaking my brain!”
I get up, and have to try to grab his arm, gently, as he bounces around the place, so I may say “Please stop” where he can hear me.
“WHAT?” he yells.
My head finally packs it in and I go and have a lie down, issuing strict instructions to Godzilla about being very, very quiet.
I have to drag myself up to go and collect Chippie from childcare, Godzilla asking me lots of futile questions along the way about his new obsession, Trash Packs, and if I know such and such, and what so and so does.
Although my throat is not sore, per se, I go to make up a lemon and honey drink. We are out of lemon. Also, the chicken I got out of the freezer for dinner has been put in the fridge and is a frozen lump of ice, still, and the bench is scattered with sausage rolls that Grumpy Pants has made.
I text him re dinner whilst searching our groaning-with-unripe-lemons lemon tree in vain hopes of finding one ripe enough to use.
I make a lime and honey drink, which is remarkably revolting, and Grumpy rings me.
“Why would you ring me?” I ask, incredulous.
“WHAT?” he says. “Can you hear me? I can’t hear you. CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
I sigh as loudly as possible and hope he gets the gist.
“Oh, yeah,” he says.
Then, “See you later. Bye …. bye … bye, hello, are you still there? Can you hear me …. BYE!”
A vodka and lime is looking good.
Sadly, I used the lime in the Revolting Drink.
I toss Chippie in the bath, and when I come to collect him, he looks to throw a sopping wet facewasher at me.
I yell “NO!” but what comes out is a muted squeak.
The phone rings. Godzilla sits and watches TV. I have to race out and point rapidly and attempt to communicate “Answer the bloody phone!”
He does. Unfortunately, if he does not immediately know the person on the other end, he just says “Who?” repeatedly, then goes blank and either hangs up or hands the phone to the nearest … living being. Including, but not limited to the lopsided goldfish or the cats.
He handed it to me. Good thing as it was an important call that I needed to have. I had it as best as possible.
After this, I’m giving up. Things are not going well.
I do what I can with what I have, and use the only form of communication left to me.
I serve up three large bowls of ice-cream and put a movie on.
Then send Grumpy Pants another text saying “Please hurry home, so you can read to Chippie!”
Relative peace for the next hour and a half.
Bringing back school memories
Posted by: | CommentsLego Club started up at school again this week, and required a responsible adult to be in attendance.
Unfortunately, the only adult they could get was me.
Also unfortunately, it started back last week. Only the responsible adult didn’t show, so they had to cancel it at the last minute.
So I sat and supervised as much as a small group of 10-12 year old boys need supervision. That is, not much at all.
Monkey Boy asked me if I could please come into his classroom to help during the last session of the day, because I never did last year.
“That’s because I don’t like your teacher,” I replied.
He gave me an odd look and said “But you do like my teacher this year, don’t you?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, I didn’t like your teacher last year, so I don’t wanna do it.”
I asked his teacher if she needed and hand, and she said ”no” but the prep-1 teacher might like me to listen to her kids read. So I went in and listened to kids read, while Chippie drove his trains around the floor, said “come and play with me” and poked me repeatedly in the boob.
Up the other end of the classroom, the end Monkey Boy’s class is, I could hear them using words like “skeletal system” and “endocrine system” et cetera and my ears tuned in. I love anatomy and discussion about body bits; but only when the correct anatomical terminology and discussion of the various systems is involved.
I feigned Chippie needing to go to the toilet so I could wander up that end of the room and have an excuse to talk to the teacher about it, and, ahem, offer my availability as classroom helper for the duration of this particular topic.
I sat and listened, rapt and attentive, to the Teacher’s wind down of the topic, and of the day. She read out some of the questions the kids had written down in relation to the various systems of the body.
She made it to the endocrine system and lots of questions about the hormones.
My school days came rushing back to me … and all I could think of was the joke; How do you make a hormone?
The answer, of course, being kick her in the twat!
I cannot wait to be helping out with this unit!
Sleeping Aids and Stress Relief
Posted by: | CommentsAfter a week of bugger all sleep and zero opportunity to “rest” – although I did give it my best shot, by yesterday afternoon, I was fuggered.
I’d just come home from a rather productive meeting, which had followed the first basketball game of the year, and sat. Just for second. It was all I was afforded.
I calmy explained increased levels of stabbiness should all other family members not piss off and give me 20 seconds to myself, and could we please, please refrain from using my boobs as jumping bags. Please?
Needless to say, by 6.30 I was near on falling asleep on the couch and levels of grumpiness were approaching homicidal. Given the week’s foregiving nature when it came to my sleep; snoring, buzzing mind, waking children, hot nights, missing elephants etc, I thought I’d give myself a hand and took two (slightly out of date) sleeping tablets.
I don’t usually resort to this, only when needed. I used to worry that something would happen whilst I was in a drug induced state of slumber, but I know I have a capable husband, the children’s father, who can handle such disasters should any befall him. I could sleep.
I fell into bed at 7.30, such was my level of fatigue, and immediately pulled the note pad and pen out of my bedisde table drawer and take some notes. And more. And a few more.
This was not looking promising for a night of relaxed repose.
I must have fallen asleep as I was woken by a thump, a cry and a “Dad! Chippie fell out of bed!”
I must have fallen back to sleep, as not long after that (and I looked at the clock – it was just two hours later) I heard Chippie wandering in.
He clumped to Grumpy’s side of the bed, as he tends to do. He knows he will receive no love if he comes around to my side.
Obviously, he does not get what he wants, and does come around to my side. I have no energy, I just want sleep. And Grumpy, being the wonderful person he can be will let me sleep and deal with it.
Chippie climbs into bed, placing his knee firmly on my face in order to assist him in getting over my body. Once there, he promptly proceeds to kick me in the back of the head. Repeatedly.
I’m tired. I can barely move. I reach back, grab his foot and manoeuvre him into a more “lying in bed” position; i.e. straight up and down.
I spend the next few hours indulging in deep sleep, interspersed with regular kicks to the back. Chippie has managed to work his way upside down, feet on the pillow, and to push me to the very edge of the mattress.
I wonder what Grumpy is doing, when I am woken, yet again, t0 him hoisting Chippie up and out of bed, returning him to his own and climbing back into ours. I spend the next two hours being woken intermittently by terrible snoring. A byproduct of his still slightly infected throught.
And that is why there is a mud cake in the oven at just past 7 this morning …
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. 