Perspective

"Every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last"
Charles Dickens

My little bro is having a baby at the end of the year and the other day he said to me:

"I just saw a really ugly baby at the shops. I hope we don't get an ugly one."

To which I naturally replied: "Don't worry, you won't."

Of course, what I meant was: "Don't worry, you won't know."

I speak with authority on this.

When Miss Rose was born, the first thing I said was "Oh, she's so beautiful!"

At the exact same time my husband snapped this photo

And you know, it's still one of my favourite photos of her. What a shame I had to crop out the still attached umbilical cord, and the other surgeon already poised with needle and thread.

Yep. The most beautiful swamp creature ever born.

It was the best moment ever.

A Ruby Day

Today is my Mum and Dad's 40th wedding anniversary. Their ruby anniversary.

I asked my Mum how she felt about it and she said that she doesn't even think of herself as 40 yet, so it seems impossible that she could have been married for 40 years.

They would die if I used their actual wedding photo, so let me recreate the scene for you.

My Mum was all Ice Queen with long, flared sleeves and a fur-lined hood.

My Dad was all Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka with a lot more facial hair and a little less top hat.

In their original photos there is a lot of hair and a lot of confetti. Also a lot of Mickey Mouse because the photographer took all the family and group snaps in front of a poster of him.

Their reception was at a Scout Hall and the food was Kentucky Fried Chicken (it wasn't called K F C in 1971 guys).

Mum and Dad don't wear wedding rings because "We know we're married" like serious hippies, but really because Mum stopped wearing hers after Dad lost his one day at the beach.

They are an awesome couple, and I could not have picked a better example of married life to grow up with.

Happy Anniversary Mum and Dad!

A Moment of Awesome Housewifery

Today we made cupcakes. I was expecting to sprinkle the heart sprinkles over the top but Miss Jade placed every single one painstakingly onto the top of every peak of frosting.

Then in some freak event the girls didn't want to eat the cupcakes and asked for brown rice for lunch instead. I think I have entered a parallel universe.

Birth

I have got 3 birth stories.
That is a lot of birth.
Before I had my kids I would hear of some celebrities giving birth by Caesar and think "pfft - that's not giving birth!"
Well, karma certainly gave me a smackdown about that.

I 100% knew that I would be having natural births. I also knew I would not be having anyone stick a big fat needle in my spine in order to put drugs in. I was going to do this PROPERLY. As nature intended.
Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.

I have had 2 labors and 3 Caesars.

I went into labour with Miss Jade at home. A couple of hours later I went to hospital. A couple of hours of vomiting, pooing, moaning and groaning later the midwife proudly announced that I was 3 centimeters dilated.
3 whole centimeters.
Oh. My. God.
I agreed to some gas for pain relief. At 7am my obstetrician examined me and said I was doing really well, I was 7cm dilated and gave me a lovely shot of pethidine.
At 10am a different midwife announced that I was fully dilated and would have this baby by lunchtime.
Did I feel ready to push?
Um, OK.
A bit of pushing and an embarrassing bladder failure later my obstetrician was back.
Hmmm, baby's head isn't really coming down, let's just check you again. Oh, hmm, you're only 7cm dilated. Oh and your contractions aren't looking very productive, and let's give you something to intensify those (INTENSIFY?! What. The. Fuck?) oh and most people have an epidural about now. I grunted that I would "see how I go" , but I was begging for it by lunchtime.

A long, painless, heavily monitored afternoon followed. A procession of people came and went. Hubby "popped out for lunch" with his brother. Eventually at 5pm my obstetrician announced I was still only 8cm dilated and she was going to organize a Caesar. Finally my beautiful Miss Jade was born just after 7pm.

I felt approximately like I had gone on a massive bender, that ended with being stabbed and then someone had handed me a baby to look after. I mean, I couldn't even feel my legs. In the first photos I'm holding Miss Jade very very tightly. Just in case I drop her. All in all it was a pretty awful day. Everyone meeting the baby kept telling me it must be all worth it when you look at the baby but I didn't feel that way at all. I felt like that was a fairly hideous thing to do no matter what the outcome.

I mean, I was totally amazed, astounded and in awe of Miss Jade. But that didn't change my birth experience. And also - recovering from a Caesar is where all the pain is, especially when the midwives fail to mention that you are entitled to anything other than Panadol for pain relief.

By the time I was pregnant with Miss Rose I knew I would never repeat that experience. I was not going to labour for so many hours to end up having a Caesar anyway. So I did the unthinkable and had an elective Caesar.
And you know what? It was a beautiful experience. And lightning didn't even strike me down when I wrote that. I was terrified beforehand. I didn't sleep the night before. But I had a fantastic anesthetist (Repeat after me: Endone, Endone) all went smoothly, and I was feeding the gorgeous Miss Rose by 10.30am.
The recovery had its sucky points, but I knew what to expect and I had booked in a lot of lovely R&R time to do it in.

For Miss Grace I seriously researched and considered a VBAC. But in the end I chose to have another Caesar. Then I went into labour 3 hours before I was due at the hospital. I mean, who does that? I had a very early morning surgery where Miss Grace came into the world screaming like a chainsaw. Someone put her cheek to cheek with me and i thought "i know you". Afterwards all I could think was "thank God I never have to do that again".

I don't think we have enough respect for birth, however it happens. There is really no easy way to get a baby from inside you to out in the world. I get so tired of hearing natural birth advocates demonizing obstetricians and vice versa. Yes, birth is natural, but it's not perfect. And also, it's a big deal. A huge job for the female body. Women need support to bring their children into the world safely, not attitude from the rest of the world about how it is "supposed" to happen.

So if you happen to be someone who does that - you should shut up.

So there.

Sent from my iPhone

An Open Letter to Coleworths

Dear Coleworths,

Consider yourselves on notice.

I understand of course that you have to advertise. You're running a duopoly here. How else would the general public be able to distinguish between your identical offerings. It's just that your current marketing leaves a distinctly bad taste in my mouth.

It's great that you're reducing your prices. Great in the way that it might be great if someone who has belittled, nagged and put you down for years tells you that they are going to do this slightly less often in the future. If you could do it, why not sooner? I can almost see your board of directors rubbing their enormous red rubber hands together with glee at their annual meeting - something along the lines of "we've fooled them for this long Roger and now we're going to make them happy about it" followed by maniacal laughter all round.

To add insult to injury of course - prices are NOT EVEN DOWN. They have just been shuffled slightly, which anyone who can read and count would have noticed. Yes Coleworths I realize that nappies, milk and bread are cheaper but when everything else is slightly more expensive I am not stupid enough to miss it.

So stop insulting my intelligence with your glaringly , outrageously misleading advertising campaigns. I have caught you big-red-rubber-handed. You are robbing me blind. As per usual.

Yours sincerely

Mumintheburbs

PS Please note I have edited this post to be 7 percent less offensive than the draft I wrote on the 13/08/11

Potential for a new blog - called "Too old for onesie?"

The Hierarchy of Cups

Possibly my least favourite childcare task is managing whose turn it is to have the best thing this time.
This could be made worse by the fact that I have three girls, the elder two who are in some kind of fight to the death contest for the pinkest, frilliest, girliest objects in the world.
I really try to buy multiples of things to avoid fights but it never works out. It's like the odd sock rule. Nothing ever pairs up as it comes out of the dishwasher.

This principle is at it's worst when it comes to cups. If you want to get my girls a drink you need to remember the rules at all times.

1. Character cups trump plain colored cups.

2. Girlie characters (princesses, ponies etc.) trump boyish characters (toy story, cars etc) UNLESS we have just watched Toy Story, then those cups will beat the girlie ones - for THAT DAY ONLY.

3. There is a hierarchy of girlie characters. Disney princesses beat Dora who beats My Little Ponies who beat generic girlie icons.

4. Plain colored cups also have a hierarchy, which is in descending order:
- pink
- purple
- red
- orange
- blue
- yellow
- green

5. Bunnykins cups are only permitted when all other cups are in the dishwasher.
5a.There are 4 bunnykins cups. 3 match, one is different. It has the highest value.

6. Categories can NEVER be mixed. For example, it's forbidden to give out a character cup and a plain colored cup

7. The girl who had the highest ranking cup last time, gets the lower ranking cup this time.

Got all that? Right. Once everyone has a drink, then you can start with snacks.

Never Going to be Sponsored by Donna Hay

Part of me feels bad to write this post because I have a Donna Hay cookbook and there are some really good recipes in it, but something bugs me about the way the Donna Hay brand is marketed.

For example, if her food is so Fast, Fresh and Simple as her TV show claims, then why is she telling me to measure my puff pastry with a ruler.  And in the very same recipe where she claims she has an aversion to washing up and is cheating by lining a baking tray with paper, she prepares roast vegetables separately, in individual bowls for each type. (I can only guess that her aversion to washing up is actually dealt with by the army of out of focus staff working away in the background of her test kitchen)

In her Cookbook, “No Time to Cook”, there are recipes for Double Cooked sticky ribs, (if you don’t have time to cook once, why would you be cooking twice?) and a lot of chat in the introduction about being a working parent and needing quick solutions – but the recipes only serve two adults. Maybe it assumes the kids eat with the Nanny before you get home?

And most of all, her new range of cake mixes are the shocking price (yes, I am a tightass) of $8+.  That’s a hefty price to pay for fast, fresh and simple, and you still need to add the butter and the eggs.

It's not really Donna's fault. It's just a symbol of how I get irritated by things that say they are "family friendly" and "quick and easy" because that sounds good, but that's not what you are getting at all.

I’d like to see Donna call a spade a spade and title her next book “Expensive and time consuming recipes – worth it because the presentation will impress your friends”.  You know, the product she’s actually selling.

Thoughts??

I Love the Smell of Baby Wipes in the Morning

One of the best things about  two year old Miss Rose getting more verbal is that she can have conversations with her big sister as well as me, and it is absolutely delightful and often hilarious.

Last week I bought a different brand of baby wipes and the girls were helping me clean up the baby after I fed her.  It went a little something like this........

Miss Jade (4 years old):  These wipes smell delicious. Do you know what they smell like?

Me: What darling?

Miss Rose: Chippies!

Miss Jade:  NO! They don’t smell like chippies. Mum, do you know what they smell like?

Me: What darling?

Miss Rose:  FEET!!

Me: Miss Rose, let Miss Jade tell me what they smell like.

Miss Jade:  Strawberries, they smell like strawberries.

Miss Rose: (Sniffing at a wipe) Mmmmm.  Schawbeeees...

For the record, the wipes smell like .......baby wipes.

An Indecent Proposal

*** Mum, stop reading this post. I’m serious, skip it. Thankyou****

One night this week, I may or may not have suggested to Mr MITB that he go to visit a Lady of the Night.  Now if you also saw me making a comment on Mamamia last week that insinuated I might be interested in swinging, you could assume that I have a very very interesting relationship.  Sadly I only accidentally indicated an interest in swinging and I was joking about sending my husband to a brothel. (Although, worryingly instead of responding with laughter he did ask me to ring him a Taxi.)

****Mum, you only have yourself to blame*********

So why would a Mum In The Burbs make such a joke?  Well at that moment in time the logistics of sending Mr MITB to a “massage parlour” or similar, seemed far more workable than getting the two of us in a room together without children.  For one thing, I could stay home with the kids and wouldn’t need a babysitter ( and therefore I wouldn’t need to spend a week expressing enough milk for a feed in 10ml increments only to hear that the baby wouldn’t take a bottle.)  Also it would beat trying to find a tiny window of opportunity overnight where we were both awake, in our bed and not breastfeeding, hitting snooze on the alarm or being manhandled by our four year old princess. OK, we would not have to be in our bed (we are not quite that boring), just not in our children’s beds.

As you might have guessed, our girls are not the world’s greatest sleepers. In between breastfeeding, night terrors, co-sleeping and bedwetting, me and Mr MITB sure haven’t had much alone time in the past four years (yes, yes, OTHER than the times we conceived our second and third princesses).  And I have to admit feeling a teensy bit jealous at the families who have kids that sleep from 7 till 7 every night. OK, not a teensy bit - overwhelmingly, murderously jealous. Imagine, all that time you could be spending as a couple, it would be like the honeymoon period all over again. At least having no alone time is a failsafe contraception.  So no more little princesses on the way, and hopefully these ones will start to sleep more as they get older. Otherwise I may have to put a call out on Twitter for escort recommendations for real.

 I’m giving it a year .

Something For the Weekend

As I'm a newbie to blogging, I have never done this before so I thought I'd give it a go.

Here's a bloghop I found on Daisy, Roo and Two, who is on the list and also a great Twitter follow. Hope you enjoy xx

3 Princesses

One of the reasons I wanted to start this blog was because I have 3 girls and I wanted to celebrate it. When we announced that we were having a third little princess, some of the reactions we got were, well, less than enthusiastic. Everything from "Oh Well, to "Never mind," to "Oh no! Now you'll have to have four". The next question was always "Are you going to keep trying for a boy?" Um, no.
Look, I'm sure I would have loved a boy as well, if that's what we ended up with, but we really had no gender preference at all. I want my girls to know that we think girls are awesome and a family of all girls is awesome. So here's some of the things I love about having 3 daughters:

1. The clothes. Girls clothes are a massive amount of fun. Everything from their pj'sto their dress-ups. Miss Jade and Miss Rose are already unapologetically girly. Both are currently going through a phase of pants refusal. Dresses and skirts only thanks very much mum. It already amazes me how much getting dressed or dressed up is a creative process for them. They love trying on different colours, shapes, sizes and we can easily while away a whole afternoon on trying things on and being a "fashion girl", parading around in them. I try to let them choose their own clothes as much as I can, and even though the results are sometimes a little left of centre, they really are so proud of how they look.

2. Sisterly love. The girls are so loving and caring towards one another*. They love playing Mum and Baby roles and looking after each other. Unfortunately they also use this power for evil by ganging up on me. eg by both jumping on the lounge when they know I can't get both of them off at once. Also the way they look after Miss Grace just melts my heart. I often find all three of them just laying on the floor together pretending to be tucked up in bed under a blanket. I secretly hope they will be each others' bridesmaids and best friends when they grow up.

3. Concerts. Already at 2 and 4, the big girls love to put on a concert. They love to dress up and plan it. They love dancing around and showing us their tricks. They love when we clap the beautiful dancing girls. Then they love to repeat it. Again, and again and again. And again and again.

4. Talking. Girls love to talk and talk and talk. They tell stories, they tell you about how they feel, what they want to do tomorrow, who they want to marry when they grow up (At this stage it's Daddy, but I can live with that for now), what happened at preschool, what they dreamed about last night, what their imaginary friends are up to, and what their favourite colour is. My girls also love to talk on the phone when they are in the mood, and it gives me a giggle to hear Mr MITB or Granny and Grandad trying to get them off the line politely when they are in a hurry.

5. I'm a girl too, and it's a great thing to have in common. My girls like lots of the things I like (it was a glorious moment the first time we outvoted Mr MITB to watch a reality show about weddings), they like doing girlie things with me and want to be like me.  Being not a particularly girlie girl myself this took me a bit by suprise, but oh boy it has grown on me. It's so much fun to go for a babycino and do a spot of shopping, especially with Miss Jade who is old enough to really appreciate it.

Girls are also complex and intense and serious and funny. Sometimes I joke with my friends with daughters that they are high maintenance, and that we will have our work cut out for us in the teenage years, but I would really not have it any other way. At the very least I figure that girls are more likely to remember my birthday and take me to my Doctor's appointments when I'm old. So here's to my beautiful girls. Because girls are amazing. I love you to the moon and the sun and the stars and the trees and back. xxx

* Of course they do still yell,scream, pull hair and have turf wars over the prized baby doll of the week, but also lots of loving and caring.

A Tale of 3 Fake Boobs

At my local shopping centre there is one of those shops that sells everything. You know, the ones that have $1 greeting cards, buddha statues, cane baskets in all sizes and every piece of homeware you will never need. Some of my favourite items in this shop include seriously gothic walking sticks with metal skulls on the top, and figurines of dragons wearing judo suits. Because apparently when you are a fire breathing dragon, you still might need to use martial arts - luckily they are black belts.

Out of all these weird and wonderful items that my family love to browse through, there is one that I have had to buy, replace and now need to replace again. It's supposed to be a stress ball, but one that is shaped like a boob. These boobs are both ridiculously inaccurate (perfect spheres, perfectly round nipples with evenly distributed lumps and bumps) and alarmingly accurate (when squeezed they swell and turn red in a perfect impression of mastitis). For some unfathomable reason, the kids love them.

When my husband first arrived home with one that the girls had chosen during a shopping trip I was unsure how to handle it. On the one hand, the girls see boobs all the time thanks to the very frequent breastfeeding that goes on in our house, so of course they don't see anything unusual about a stress ball in this shape. On the other hand, it's probably not a product that was designed with children under 5 in mind. Of course, I took the cowards way out and just tried to hide the damn thing whenever noone was looking.

This was working well, until our nieces (yes, all the cousins are girls too) came over to play, and the one year old took an enormous bite out of the boob. Red stuff went everywhere and my girls cried until I relented and agreed to replace the boob. Which I promptly hid again.

Then, 2 weeks ago, Miss Rose found my hiding place and spent the afternoon pretending to breastfeed from the boob. All good, until she realised it was funny to shake her head around like a dog with a chew toy while doing it and we had another boob explosion.

So now I have had to add a third fake boob to my shopping list for the week. I think if anything could put you off getting a boob job, this is probably it. Maybe I will buy my husband a walking stick with a skull on it while I'm there. His birthday is coming up, and he does keep pointing them out to me.

What weird things have your kids talked you into buying?

A Giraffe Post

As my Mum and at least 2 other people might have noticed, it's been a while between posts. In between Mr MITB working 7 days a week and the 3 princesses having some sort of cold and flu relay event I just haven't managed to drag my laptop out.

It was only tonight when I checked in to Blogger on my iphone that I realised that I already had this draft waiting to be posted. As I told Mr MITB about my draft, Miss Jade asked "What kind of giraffe, Mummy?" So here it is, a now slightly out-of-date giraffe post. More real ones to come soon, I promise.....

When you're a stay-at-home Mum it's easy for the days and weeks to slip by, leaving you with a feeling of "What have I done today?". This can get a bit disheartening sometimes, especially when people insist on asking "What do you do all day?" and you can't think of a single thing. So here's my list of top 5 achievements for the week.

1. Making homemade pasta for the first time. (OK, it did take up my entire Saturday afternoon to produce approximately one adult serve of linguine, but it tasted great)

2. Taking up the hems on 2 pairs of my husband's work pants . Hand sewn invisible hems thankyou very much. Maybe a slight overkill on high vis safety pants, but anyway.

3. Walked to preschool for the first time with the 3 princesses.

4. Filled out the enrollment forms for Miss Jade for kindergarten.

5. Emptied the fridge of all decaying items. Embarrassingly, Miss Jade's birthday cake from the end of March was still decaying in the back fridge.

Oh, and did I mention wrangling three little girls under 5. Every day.

Things I Learn From Miss Jade

Tonight we dropped Mr MITB off for a night out at the local Leagues Club. As we pulled out of the carpark we drove past a police car.

Miss Jade: What are the police doing here Mummy?

Me: (silent, trying to merge)

Miss Jade: Mum ...Mum..... MUM!!

Me: What?!

Miss Jade: What. Are. The. Police. Doing. Here?

Me: Well darling sometimes the Police go to places like pubs and clubs to make sure everyone is behaving themselves.

Miss Jade: Why?

Me: Because sometimes when people drink too much beer they misbehave and do silly things and the police...

Miss Jade: I know! Like poking their tongues out!

Me: Yes darling, like poking their tongues out.

God she's cute. Not that I'm biased or anything. I wish she could stay this innocent forever.

Silver Linings

As my status as a Sagittarian suggests, I am something of an optimist. When I run into an obstacle I like to find the silver lining. Fortunately my life gives me plenty of opportunities to do this. So here are the silver linings I found this week.

* When I got my $500 electricity bill because it was less than half the price of the previous one.

* When Miss Rose pooed on the floor because it was a nice, solid easy one to pick up.

* When Miss Jade woke us up at 2am with the crying and itching that can only signal worms, because I knew I would be able to use this as a reason to miss pre-school and therefore the preschool run.

* When I had to wash every item of linen and blankie due to the above worm infestation because we got a new dryer last week and would not have to peg it all on the line.

* When my brother-in-law turned up unannounced and slightly tipsy (Rolling drunk) with his ex-girlfriend in tow at 10.30pm because at least I would have a conversation with a grown-up.

* When my husband woke me up at some ungodly hour to talk in his excited voice about the results of the F1 race because it was the first conversation we'd had in a week that wasn't conducted over the top of screaming children.

What were your silver lining moments of the week?

Settling a Screamer

Today Miss Grace, who is 4 months old , rolled over for the first time. This means I really can't call her a newborn anymore. I have now done that phase 3 times over.I remember when Miss Jade was a newborn feeling like this phase was stretching on forever and wondering how I would ever get through it. In honour of this milestone I wanted to share what I did with each of the girls when they were clenching their fists, arching their backs, going stiff and screaming their heads off.

Miss Jade:

Put her in the baby swing( this worked so well that it was very very tempting to leave her there all day).

Leaving her to cry for a little while. Miss Jade was a baby who got very stressed when overhandled. As painful as it was to hear the screaming, she was often asleep after 15 minutes.

Rocking, wrapping, patting and singing Old Macdonald 4000 times.

Miss Rose:

Breastfeeding, cuddling, co-sleeping.

Miss Grace:

Holding her but only while standing up. The second your bum hits that couch she knows about it.

Sometimes breastfeeding.

A little bit of a leg or tummy rub.

Notice how nothing worked for all of them, and there were some days where nothing worked at all. In fact the only real cure for the screaming was time. Eventually every crying episode stopped and they eventually all cried a lot less. I guess it's true what they say " This too shall pass". I wish I had that kind of perspective the first time around. Now That would be a really great present to give a new mum at her baby shower.

Fatherguilt

In my sometimes paid sometimes job I have noticed a phenomenon since I became a Mum.

As a corporate trainer one of the topics I facilitate is about internal dialogue (or your inner voice, self talk, or whatever the current catchphrase is.)  One of the activities we ask people to do is share an activity that produces really positive internal dialogue for them, something they do well, or that gives them a sense of achievement. Eg Completing a run, playing a musical instrument well, etc.

One day I asked the standard question and a man in the room put up his hand and said “ I am a really great Dad”.

Had I heard correctly? For one thing, I had pegged this guy as a stoner. For another he was in a training room with me so therefore clearly not a stay-at-home  Dad who has decided to shun tradition to homeschool his children, teach them five languages and lovingly make three organic meals a day for his offspring.  Even more shocking , men in the room started to nod in agreement. What was this? And then it continued Every. Time. I. Ran. This. Course. All kinds of Dads - Married men, divorced men, men who quite frankly seemed to be surprised they had managed to make it to work at all – coming out in a public forum and saying they were great Dads.

And what really bothered me about this is that you would NEVER get women saying they were great Mums in this scenario. For one thing, they would be too busy worrying that the school lunches they had packed might have not enough fruit but too much yoghurt, and is this turning their children into sugar addicts? And have they ruined their kids chances on the social ladder by choosing the wrong birthday party to attend when there’s a calendar clash? And will little Bella be scarred for life by not being allowed to have a Bratz doll? And what will the other Mums say because they have missed canteen duty again this month? And.... oh, well you see where this is going.

Most of all though,  Mums would not out themselves like this because it would open them up to judgement from other mothers.  Other  Mums would then be entitled to say, “She’s not a great mum, her 4 year old won’t even poo on the toilet” “She didn’t even breastfeed” “She works fulltime, she doesn’t even see her kids” “She doesn’t even work, what kind of example is that setting”, And on it goes.

So it dawned on me. These Dads weren’t judging each other. They thought they were great Dads because they loved their kids. They were showing up and giving it a go. They didn’t feel guilty because they were doing the best job they could. They didn't have fatherguilt.

We Mums could learn something from this, I’m sure.  We could be less judgemental of other mums and so much less judgemental of ourselves. We are great Mums because we love our kids and we should be able to say it out loud.

Here’s hoping, I know I’m not quite there yet. I mean, I’m not even working at the moment and I’ve still got two kids in daycare today, and I’m writing a blog instead of enriching the baby’s cognitive experiences and.....

My Day Off

Today is Thursday. The day that is referred to in this household as ‘my day off’.  I love my day off. On my day off I get up, feed, dress and pack up all the kids. I drop almost 2 year old Miss Rose at family daycare at 8.45, then 4 Year Old Miss Jade at preschool at 9am and take 3 month old Miss Grace with me to get the groceries.  After that I race home, feed Miss Grace, unpack the shopping, and get to enjoy my indulgence of the week......

 A lunch that someone else makes for me and a couple of precious hours to myself while Miss Grace naps.

 It is absolute bliss, and so very very quiet.  At least until 2pm when I start to miss the big girls so I race to start the dinner, sort out the washing and head off to collect Miss Jade and Miss Grace,  unpack their bags and rush to give baths, dinner and get everyone off to bed so I can spend an hour or two with Dear Hubby where we get to complete a sentence and eat chocolate biscuits (although if I’m honest I usually fall asleep on the couch at this time and  DH has to wake me up to remind me to go to bed or go to the crying baby).

Before I had kids, I would have needed a day off after a day like this....

Myths Exposed! 4 Things That Do Not Prepare You For Parenthood

My little bro has just announced he's having a baby. Well, not him obviously, his partner I mean, and I am ridiculously excited. Not only because I am about to be an Auntie again, but also because of the fabulous opportunity it presents to start doling out unsolicited advice. So here's where I'm going to start. Although maybe this should be termed Anti-Advice. The six things that do not prepare you for parenthood, even though you probably thought they would. Catchy, isn't it?

1. Changing Nappies
For some unfathomable reason, the ability to change a nappy seems like the cornerstone of parenthood before you have children ie "I don't know how he'll go, he's NEVER EVEN changed a nappy." Look, let's face it, you will be changing a lot of nappies. It's a skill you have to have. But  no matter how good you are at changing nappies before you have kids (BK), it's a task that will pale into insignificance compared to constant rocking, wrapping, patting and worrying that your child will grow up to have serious psychological issues because you fed them at the wrong time.

2. Babysitting
This includes all forms of working in childcare, having godchildren or much younger siblings you helped with. There is nothing like the overwhelming feeling of being completely and totally responsible for another human being. It's just not the same with kids that you get to hand back. A family friend of ours ran the baby room of a childcare centre and was sure she was ready for kids. When Mum visited her post-baby she answered the door in her pjs, breakfast dishes undone and baby screaming in the background. It was 3pm.

3. Pet Ownership
Look,  at the risk of offending the owners of cats or small dogs, pets ARE NOT people. Pretty much the hardest work you will have to do with a pet is organize Someone else to look after them while you are on holidays. Not quite so easy with kids. For one thing, it's a bit more pressure on people to find a similar looking replacement child if they disappear while you are on your mini-break, so there are a lot less volunteers.

4. Staying Up All Night
"How bad can this sleep deprivation thing be?" you ask "i've stayed up all night before and it wasn't that bad." That may be true, but after that night did you sling your party shoes over your shoulder and skip merrily home  to "catch up on sleep"? Well, did you? And then the next night, did you go back to your normal, uninterrupted sleep? Well? Well? Well? Ahem. Sorry, it's just that I haven't had a full night's sleep for 730 days. Just saying.

So what can prepare you for parenthood? The short answer is, nothing. No one can tell you how hard and how amazing it is going to be. So I am just telling my little bro to take all the opportunities he can to eat out, go to the movies and oh yes, sleep before December rolls around. Congratulations little bro !!!!

Holidays from Hell

A few weeks ago, I strapped my 3 daughters into their carseats, and set off on our way to drive down the coast. After 5 hours we ended up ......... 
back home.
 We got stuck in traffic chaos after some flash flooding and ended up turning back when a landslide closed all roads leading south. They cried, I cried, the car overheated and we officially had our first "holiday from hell" experience as a family. 

But it's still not the worst holiday I've ever had.  

For nearly 20 years now, my brother and I have been mercilessly guilting our Dad about "the trip from hell". It was a canoe trip. Look, for me, this post could end right there. A canoe trip, while all the other kids at school were going to the Gold Coast or Hamilton island to tear it up in the kids club, seemed a poor second. Let me also emphasize that this was a survivor style canoe trip which was to involve 5 nights, in the Winter holidays, at a campsite you had to canoe to, that would therefore have no toilets or ANY AMENITIES OF ANY KIND.
Right, so, already reluctant we set out from our house, collected by a slightly deranged guy with some canoes tenuously attached to a trailer. How tenuous became obvious as we wound our way down Cambewarra Mountain and the canoes disembarked. Have I mentioned that this was the man my parents had paid for canoe hire and drop-off and pick-up at Tallowa Dam?He wasn't a random guy off the street or anything, he even had an ad in the Yellow Pages, indicating that he normally did this sort of thing for a living.
So, canoes re-attached we arrived at the dam(n) and set out into what could only be described as the largest freak windstorm of the mid 90's. And I am not even exaggerating much. Waves were breaking over the side of the canoes. We were rocking, tipping and generally paddling as fast as we could to get nowhere, or at the very least to avoid getting closer to the dam wall. My brother and I were crying, Dad was yelling "JUST PADDLE!!!" and Mum was fence-sitting by alternating between the two. After literally hours of this we finally crossed the damn and managed to create a makeshift campsite just before dark. Everything was wet and several loose items of clothing and luggage had been lost. Miraculously though, we were all OK. At least until the return trip when crazy canoe man was UNCONTACTABLE when he was supposed to be collecting us. I have never been so glad to see the end of a holiday.

Even though Mum and Dad did compensate for this trip in later years by buying a holiday house at the coast that produced much less death defying mini- breaks, it's the trip from hell that we always talk about. There  must be a lesson in there somewhere. Something about family unity, teamwork in the face of adversity, yadda, yadda, yadda. Just don't tell Dad. We're still guilting him. 

The Mates Rates Debacle

Appliances come to my house to die. As of now we have had no hot water for 3 days.
 
We have lived at #7 for six years. In that time we have had to repair or replace the following:
the oven
the stove top (x2)
the dishwasher (x2)
the toaster
the kettle
the dryer ( ok, it's still broken
2 different fridges,
a video player
a cd player
a computer,
a TV,
the ducted air conditioning (every time I turn it on when the seasons change)
and the hot water system.
I'm not talking about this time. It's happened before. Also lightbulbs tend to randomly explode and something drips out of the rangehood light when it's on for more than 45 seconds.

As I was saying, at the moment, no hot water. For 3 days so far. As of now, the electrician has not even looked at it. This is because of what I like to call "the mates rates debacle" 
Here's how it works: something breaks.
I ring husband who says, I'll get my old tradie mate such and such to come and look at it. Of course they're never a close mate, usually a brother's mate's cousin. Who doesn't do that work anymore, but their best mate does, so they'll pass on his number. 
So after several reminders from me my husband will call the tradie and then relay to me that they will be here this afternoon, or first thing tomorrow or, at worst tomorrow afternoon. Or, you know, whenever the hell they feel like it. The tradie inevitably fails to show. 
Cue increasingly desperate calls from me to hubby to "remind" him to follow up with tradie. 
Eventually he will arrive, attempt to fix the problem, require cash to buy the needed parts, fix the problem on a different day and be paid in further cash (that inevitably has to be withdrawn from a credit card, thereby immediately cancelling out any mates rates discount you might be getting) and a case of beer. Because, you know, he is a mate. 

Anyway, i'm trying to look on the bright side, because this electrician has done work for us before, and at least I am not related to him. Ring related to a tradie seems like it would be great, but it's not.I know this because my Brother-in-law is a plumber. A plumber who has lived with us on and off for the last 5 years. One time he lived with us, the ensuite toilet stayed broken for 3 months, and let's not forget how much fun we all had turning the shower on with a shifter for over a year. Although, when the kids $5 stocking filler paddle pool was not spraying water correctly on Xmas day, he nipped out to the work ute and welded up a copper attachment to sort the problem out in under 3o minutes. Approximately $400 in parts and labour. What the...?At least I didn't have to pay him. My heart goes out to all the poor women who are married to builders.

Fingers crossed the hot water comes back on today. The sparky is due to come at 4, or, you know, maybe a bit after. Worst case tomorrow morning....