The One Word You Never Want To Hear

This blog post is going to make me the talk of the school yard, I can hear you all whispering and snickering behind my back now...still, it's a tale that needs to be told.  Even if it is still in progress....

My youngest son is a small version of David Attenborough.  he even recognises David Attenboriughs voice and will come coming to the TV if not in the room.  He makes his own video versions of Monster Bug Wars .  Have a watch below if you have a spare 3.05 minutes.  Especially if you are a hot shot Hollywood producer looking for new talent.

Anyhow, this boy knows a LOT about animals and we all tend to believe anything that he says about them.

So last night was a sleepy evening and we were doing our last wind downs to bed.  I was pottering away in our study, and The Husband was maybe 3 steps closer to the kitchen than I was (important point - you'll see why soon), when there was an almighty shout from Smith (who'd got up from bed to get himself a drink of water).

"Mouse, MOUSE".

Once that word registered I screamed to The Husband to "Go help SMITH"!!!  Everyone had come running now.  Apart from me who was listening in the study for updates. "Where did you see it mate?", "Where did it run to?" "Are you sure?"  I came through and trembled as I quietly asked "how big was it Mate?".

Our hearts chilled when he held out his hands, not a teeny mouse sized space apart, but a decent foot (or two) apart.  It got worse.

"And it had a pink tale".

Chaos reigned as we screamed and the males in the house went running for cricket bats and brooms.  But with no joy.  The very-large-mouse-with-a-pink-take-thats-not-a-rat is still loose in our house somewhere.

And it gets even worse.  The Husband is away this weekend.  His role in our house has and will always be Vermin and Teeth Extraction - I go near neither.

I said to my 12 year old "You're going to be the man in the house this weekend buddy, vermin extraction is a "Man's Job" in this family.  Then looked at my 9 year old son, "and if he's not here, then it's all up to you mate".

There are times that it's good to have 3 sons.  If only they were not as whimpy as me.

A Study

I know meals are a little nonexistent by the end of the week - we like to improvise then 

This year, the NEW me is organised.  Ok that's a lie, the wheels aren't turning as smoothly as I'd hoped they would, but I have the systems in place and that's a damn fine start.  It's just the follow through I'm a little lacking in.

I follow a very, very organised blog The Organised Housewife in the hope that some of her awesome organisation will rub off on me, and who would have thought, but some of it actually is.  I get daily tips, many of them I pop in the "I'll save that and come back to that" virtual file in my head, and some I actually have made a habit of.  But there is a lot of faffing and randomness built into my DNA and it's hard for this leopardess to change her spots.  But I am trying.

(Short burst of smugness coming up) - I have a hugely successful chalk board meal planner (I do love a good chalk board) and I use that to plan my weekly online shopping.  Which I actually do.  BOOM - I can use that 2 hours I would have been shopping doing something a little more meaningful (ok that part  is still a little aspirational but I will get there.  I will). I have routine lists LAMINATED and stuck on my kids bedroom doors (that 2 out of 3 boys follow which I say is a win in my books). I try and organise the kids shiz the night before, I have the recesses and lunch bags half ready to go, uniforms ironed, drink bottles chilling, all ready for that moment in the morning when like a military operation the call is out "go, go go, GO".

But here's my problem.  For some ungodly reason, I've been waking at 5.30'ish every morning.  I don't want to get up and start making noise, I want my kids to get as many more minutes sleep as possible.  Especially as one son's bedroom now has a door off it's hinges thanks to an exuberant game of "war" when one certain male who happens to be the oldest in the house and wears a suit, yanked the thing too hard when chasing one of the other males (it's a male kind of game and I'm soooo ok with that).  Anyone who knows us will know that door is going to spend a long time in that state since me , the supposed "handy' one has no idea nor intention of sorting it - if you're reading this my darling).

But here's the thing. Instead of being productive during that time, I lounge in bed reading the papers on my iPad and watching the clock tick over until it's sort of ok to make noise.  And then as I start to kick it up a gear until we hit that heady 5 minute countdown to being out the door, and I am a ranty, stressed thing, barking orders.  Like a light bulb moment I realised there is a correlation of time to effort ratio.  The more time I have, the less effort I put in, the less time I have, the more effort required. I think that should be called  Reverse Time to Effort ratio.  And as you can see by my clever chart below, my kids leave for school at 7.45am and 8.55 - no prizes there.

I thought I'd chart it.  This is an exciting find, I may even name it and try and get it put in some National Parenting Archive'y place of important studies.

You heard it here first folks.  This is where the important stuff goes down.

And I'll have you know that there was quite a lot of clawing back to my bad boy banking days to come up with this chart.  Excel and I have never been besties.

Do you get this?  Is this you in the mornings as well?

Changes

Last week was a big week in my eldest's boys life and that of many of our friends kids, as they all headed excitedly to high school.
Big changes.  I think for one brief moment, when I was in a stationery shop again, buying the wrong stationery again, I wished he was back at primary school, because I knew how that all worked, and I had a multi-leveled system of friends I could call  if I didn't know what book to take in, or what uniform they were wearing, and if that failed, I could call the school office, and apologise profusely for my failings as a mum, as they filled me in on what I should know.
But high school?....oh no no no.  We only have a minor role, we can't prevent the screw ups, nor sort them.  But I only thought this for a moment, because he has been so pumped about school, although to be fair, the excitement levels are dimming on a daily basis, as the reality of this new world sinks in.  His favourite subjects seems to correlate with the niceness of the teacher, and also the chance of overseas travel.  So on Day 3 his career choices may be changing to accommodate Italian as the Major for whatever he wants to do.

And even though I have done some incredibly dumb stuff in my frazzled state (see picture above) and attempting to give him a kiss before he headed into the school hall on his first morning, I love that the prize for the funniest parental incident goes to a very dear friend of mine who has generously agreed to share this cautionary tale with those who may find themselves in a similar situation.

So my friend is just about to head out for a swim, when she gets an urgent text from her son asking her to bring in his sports gear, he needed it and had forgotten it.  The text came at 8.29, with school starting at 8.30.  There was no time to make a plan with her son, she'd have to wing it.  She headed to school with the bag, and pops into the school office, who tell her to drop it into class as they were in changeover time, so there was a good chance she could sneak it in under the radar.  In her swimmers with a see through beach dress over top.  Now if you knew this friend, she is always immaculately turned out in the most gorgeous of clothes, she just has the knack of looking fab at all times.  Perhaps apart from when she's just about to head for a swim.

She heads up to the class.  But to her horror, class changeover is over and as she knocks on the class door, the kids are all sitting quietly at their desks.

"Boys we have a visitor, please stand up".  The class stands, she enters.  With her son's sports bag.  In her swimmers and see through top, the story is better without that part though.  Some survival instincts kick in and she turns to the class and puts on her best school teacher voice and thanks them, tells them to be "at ease soldiers" (ok I added that part), and I'm guessing throws the bag at the teacher, then runs.  She hears the teacher calling her son up, "Mr XXX, please remember your own bag next time", so the mortification is even worse as not only has she embarrassed herself and her son, but he's just got a bollocking.

Now even though this story is very funny, it's also very sobering, as I can imagine it's only a matter of time before I find myself in this situation.

And always trying to find the bright side, there is one in this story.  It was line ball whether she took the bag in before the swim rather than afterwards.  When she would have been in her wet swimmers, and see through swim dress.

You have been warned.

I could have had a whole lot of fun with this, but I think I've been quite kind.

Laugh

Every couple of years Katie, one of my BFF's (actually my very longest serving BFF - she showed me to the girls loos when I started a new school age 7) and I find an event to do that's about us, about pushing ourselves, about connecting - it needs to have some sort of physical challenge involved and hopefully a smidge of intrepidness.  So far we have done the 100km Oxfam Trailwalker, Mototapu, an offroad marathon in NZ,and this weekend gone, we competed in Tough Mudder.  I know many of you have seen photos and news stories about it, and yes, it really was as wickedly fun as it looked, as well as a physical challenge with electric shocks, mud and high things to climb while on a 20km run.  My marathon weary legs were a little weary, but managed even though I was always a few paces behind Katie.

And we ran, and chatted, and freaked out, and asked strong guys for help, and got muddy, and patted ourselves along the way as we realised that we were passing people who'd started an hour before us.  And we laughed.  At some points, we laughed so hard, we had tears running down our mud smeared faces.  One of us may or may not have  ripped the butt out of their pants resulting in an extra challenge when climbing up and over obstacles with their arse hanging out but it would be wrong for me to mention it here. This one will be long remembered for being fun.

Which got me thinking.  As we get older, how often do we have that kind of fun which makes you feel ageless.  Which makes you feel like you have no burden of responsibilities.  Which makes you feel light and blimmin joyous just because of the sheer fun of it all.  And I'm not talking about the kind of fun you have after that extra half bottle of wine - which is never quite as fun the next morning, (although Sister, the "flag dance" will be longstanding in our family treasure chest of happy memories). I'm talking about those moments that brighten your soul a little, and make you doggedly determined to do MORE OF THAT soon, ok, before you forget how good it feels?

Because I think in our busy lives of responsibilities, of raising children, of paying mortgages, of making our mark on the world, we forget to have fun. Or we have redefined fun as something that is really only a satisfactory attempt at "fun".  It's a little safe and a little controlled, and in my world, usually revolves around my kids and their version of fun.

I'm guessing that there are some of you reading this, who are happily shaking your heads thinking "nup, not me", well I say hats off to you, and I bow deeply, because you are my role models. Don't change a thing, just sit there smugly, because you can.

I ran over a marathon finishing line with my arms in the air and my face fill of joy last Sunday, and on Saturday, I ran laughing with my bum hanging out of my ripped pants, mud smeared all over my teeth, and a light heart.

It feels good to have fun.
When was the last time you had belly-laughing, pants-wetting fun?

Things you may not know about me #1

Definiton of claustrophobia: fear of small enclosed places that will cause spontaneous combustion into dignity defying panic attacks.  Can be created by older siblings holding the affected patient under blankets for periods of time as a child.

Interestingly enough, when I was a small child the Sister used to torment me by both a: holding me down trapped under blankets, doonas, or anything, and b: pinning me to the ground by her knees then ticking me in what she lovingly called "The Typewriter".  Net result was movement severely impaired and general freakout resulted.

So as I have got older and especially after 3 pregnancies, this condition of mine seems to be getting a little worse.  My eldest will always be scarred by the sight and sound of his mother losing her dignity while trapped, I repeat TRAPPED on a roller coaster at Universal Studios, for at least 10 minutes.  The murmurings of "what's going on", "hey shouldn't we be moving?" by the rest of the roller coaster riders was loudly surpassed by my "Get me OFF here", and "HELP" screams.  By the time we started finally moving, I had one arm untrapped and one son crying.  The rest of our holiday and theme park visits to the States was shadowed by memories of my freakout, and as the Husband doesn't like those hair-raising rides and I do, it was up to me to escort our eldest, who did his gleeful duty as the son who'd experienced a claustrophobic freakout by his normally controlled mum, to ask me every time "are you ok mum?  Don't freakout".  Which always reminded me that I was trapped and perhaps I should be freaking out.
Planes are another place that are rapidly descending into a high risk status.  Thinking economy class, middle seat, bags under feet, person reclining in front, and I'm sucking in the breath deeply, stretching my arms into the air (seems to help) and generally huffing and puffing and trying to go to a spacious place in my head.  Problem is I like flying and I love going places.
So The Husband and I have just got back from a work conference to Fiji, and before you start wishing bad stuff on me, the weather was a bit grotty, so not much sun baking, although it was nice to discover that pina coladas are just as enjoyable in cold weather as they are in the sun.
On our return flight, we were trapped in the back row, and as a passenger needed to get off the plane because they weren't well, and then the baggage handlers needed to find the bag (think Fiji time), it was an hour sitting squished up on board before we even moved.  And then they told us that the flight would be an hour more than normal because of strong head winds.

My arms started randomly stretching in the air, I started sucking in air, I ignored the husband and went to a vast empty beach in my head.  And then it happened...

The.... seat.... in... front ... reclined.

I hung in by a thread. Just.  And every time the panic started to flood over, I thought to myself, "not here, not now, I don't want to have the plane land on some random island because I'd turned into a screaming banshee.  Hold it in, breathe, wave arms, just don't lose it."  It helped to kick the seat in front of me a bit too.

The Sister has a lot to answer for.

What makes you freak out.  And I mean a total-don't-care-what-I-look-like freakout?

You spin me right round baby....

Nothing makes you feel your age more than a walk through the clothing shops at the mall and a look at the latest "on trend" looks.....you know the same "on trend" looks that you sported 15 years ago.  You get?
This year for example we've seen the return of the tube skirt/dress, immortalised by Mrs Woog of Woogs World as the now classic "Condom Dress".  We've seen slash necked mullet tops (and now jumpers as it blends trans-season).  We've seen bright jeans - and no matter how much I want to my short stumpy legs will not be lengthened by a pair of turquoise or orange skinny jeans, nay I can only imagine I would be rocking a shorter, stumpier look.  Stick to black Lise, it's what you know.  And we've seen the baggy harem pant or saggy nappy look, I have to own up to this one, I so want it to work for me, but in moments of lucidity I know that harem pants and my body are not BFFs.
Now I'm seeing baggy, floaty tops returning.  For me, this is very 1997-8.  I layered condom skirts with layered tops, little ankle boots, and fitted blazers. In fact the other day, I picked up a floaty top off a rack and swore that the shop had been rifling through the Vinnies bin and picked it up from my ruthless wardrobe cleanse I had only a month ago.
What's the next move - if we did some crystal wardrobe-ball gazing, what would we see coming next so we can anticipate the trends and get there in all our glorious vintage 40 year old-ness, before everyone else.
Sadly for me, I think I departed the fashion stakes at the next junction and unexpectedly free fell into a world of stretch maternity jeans and over priced maternity tops.  And then having mysteriously popped on a teeny 27 extra kgs with Baby No1, it was a long time before I shopped at normal sized clothes stores again. Although before long, I was once again heading back to my old overstretched and over washed maternity clothes again for Baby No 2.  I can remember wearing crisp white stretch shirts tucked into skinny work pants with chunky suede high heels (and carrying a bright blue filofax)...nope I think that was pre-baby because it was a while before anything skinny graced my wardrobe again....

But lucky old me was clever enough to hang onto a particularly favourite pair of shoes.  I brought them in London from a shop with a name I loved (Jones). They're suede desert boots with a stacked heel and a slightly square toe. I loved them when worn with skinny jeans and a loose jumper and I love them again now  (when worn with skinny jeans and a loose jumper).  I've had ample opportunity for adding them to the Vinnies bags, but I never once was tempted.  I knew their time would come again.

Have you hung on to any clothing that has come back into fashion?  What looks do you hope we might see again soon. And more importantly ...are my shoes naff and I've got it completely wrong?

Not the finest period in my life

You know that life is kind of shite at the moment, albeit in a packing our large, messy life into boxes to live somewhere temporary before we move permanently into a place yet to be determined.  Normally when you move house it's a step up, or sideways, right - meh, not for us this time.

I'm not going to bore you with the Husbands fixation on eating down the freezer food "because we waste so much food in this house", but I will show you an example of our nightly selection of what we used to affectionately call "freezer surprise", I have added another adjective juuust before "freezer" and it also behind with an "F".

Funny enough, most of the freezer surprise meals are still ending up in the bin because they are so bad so we're not really minimising waste anyway.

I'm not even going to describe to you how on Wednesday night the Husband and I instead of watching the state of Origin (him) or cleaning the fish tank and boxing up the kitchen (me), ended up scrubbing our faux plastic spa bath (circa 1983) out with a combination of Exit Mould and baking soda to try and get rid of the newsprint stains from the tub after two of my children decided it would be fun to play with newspaper in the bath, and then locked themselves in with paper through their hair, crying as they realised what they'd done, and tried to clean it before we busted them.  I think I was still happy at that point.  I'll never get back that two hours of my life.

This is taken while covered in the baking soda mix, I was too traumatised to take photos of it in it's raw state.

But I will show you gladly, where we're NOT staying, only because the dates didn't quite work, thank gawd.

Because I don't do bad bathrooms or kitchens and in this particular place, the bathroom was the lesser evil of the two, even though it was pink and baby blue. And had a shower curtain. 

And I will show you the place we are temporarily moving to, and even though it has an unexpected lodger living in the rear, and has the world's worst parking, and I think may have a little negative spirit stuff going on (just a feeling, in one particular room).  This will be our haven for the next 1-2 months.  It's not all shite really.

My next post will be all about living life happily and dancing.  Oh I so want to dance.  And be nice.

Big mistake, huge.

Dear Retail People,
Just thought I'd drop you a quick note for completely ignoring me in your shops today.
Just because you're such a "fabulous" shopping location does not mean that you have only one type of customer.  Remember there are other stores nearby, and there maybe people shopping there for other kind of stuff who also shop at your fabulous shops.  Who actually like to wear nice clothes when they're not wearing trainers and trackies.

Also just a tip, if you see someone popping in to your store wearing jeans, thongs, a birds nest of a hair do and a bright pink t-shirt (because she's rocking colour this week), just a thought, she may not have planned to do any shopping in your fabulous shops, but decided while she was the area by chance, to poke her head in anyway.
You never know where your next deal will come from.  It may have been her.  But you'll never know now because you IGNORED her so rudely and completely as you chatted on the phone or to more fabulous people than her (who may not have been going to buy anything).

Sometimes, it's important to remember that some people don't take rude treatment lying down, and that that woman with the birds nest hair and look-at-me pink t-shirt actually likes to vent about this stuff, and got another retail person in BIG BIG trouble when she told about a million people once who read a newspaper where she had written about the rude treatment she got.  Just a thought.

Sometimes people don't need much, just a simple "hi can I help" and that's it. And that's only 4 words.  Easy.
And to the retail person who in a nano-second looked me up and down, formed a judgement and then blatantly ignored me, I had credit cards in my wallet even if it wasn't Prada.  But those cards are capable of buying Prada (ok, that's a lie and if The Husband is reading this, it's only for effect).

Yours truly,

The Woman in jeans, pink tshirt and birds nest hair.

ps. To the Retail Person in the shop where I looked at the thin, cotton navy asymmetrical jumper with a $495 price tag, it was ok that you ignored me, I was cool with that.

Gone Bush

Actually, thats a lie, in fact one of the camping grounds may even have a 'Big 4' in front of it, and I'm pretty sure that my blow up bed will only resemble the image above, in my shivering dreams.

We've loaded up the car so much that I was contemplating a mid afternoon dash to the Roof Capsule Shop to buy one of those roof capsule thingees to deal with the over flow, but seeing it's Sunday and a public holiday I figured I had as much chance of buying one as I do sleeping in the bed pictured.  Anyhow, by the time we hit the road I'm hoping The Husband will be talking to me again, just as I hope that the whole family will enjoy the camping table I brought that has filled up a decent share of the boot space.

And the best part - we're heading inland, with far cooler overnight temperatures than our already cool temperatures at home.  We all have new slippers though so can face the evening chill with warm toes at least (and if any of the kids attempt to wear their new slippers into the toilet block, I can't even begin to describe my reaction - camping ground toilets are right up there in my "Things that gross me out the most") Sadly it's not the middle of summer so I can't guarantee I'll be able to swim daily, therefore avoiding the toilet block and dreaded showers (with big wads of other peoples hair and black globs of yuck lurking in the corners).  I may attempt to go for for the whole time with no shower (and maybe the occasional sponge bath in the cleanliness of our tent), but as I need to churn out some decent runs, this could be unpleasant for all of us.

So, I'll be back in a week.  I'm hoping to see a little Country Australia, and some sheep.  I think the last place I saw sheep was New Zealand, and the Easter Show.

Have a good week Peeps, see you back here soon!