March Fly on the wall

It's that time of the month again (no, not that time, get your head out of the gutter) It's time for Fly on the Wall. Everyone's favourite series.


For any of you not familiar with this, every month a group of bloggers join up and share all of the crazy, weird, and funny things you would hear were you a fly on their wall. Today there are 9 bloggers participating, so be sure to visit them all just to get a full dose of crazy.

Baking In A Tornado

Menopausal Mother                     

Eileen’s Perpetually Busy            

Go Mama O                        

Spatulas on Parade                    

Never Ever Give Up Hope                   

Bookworm in the Kitchen

When I Grow Up 

Mum: I think I have that thing in my foot, that plantar...
Me: Fasciitis?
Mum: Yeah. That's what stops me from being able to stand up. I get this pain in the ball of my foot.
Me: I thought you were going to say a pain in your balls then.
Mum: Well I am a lady you know, I don't like talking about those things.

A few weeks later...

Mum: What's that fasciitis thing I've got in my foot?
Me: Necrotising?
Mum: God I hope not.

I walked into the lounge one day to hear mum mumbling to herself.
Mum: I'm just talking to myself, discussing my issues.
Me: I know. To someone who cares.

Sam: Uranus is smaller than Earth isn't it?
Me: Well I certainly hope it is. (Dissolve into giggles like a child.) One of these days I'm going to grow up.
Sam: I'm not holding my breath. They've got a picture of Uranus here with rings around it.
Me: Yes I'm well aware of the rings around Uranus. (Further childish giggling). This is why I love owning my own business. If I worked for someone else I'd get in trouble for laughing about the rings around Uranus. I'm sure that would count as sexual harassment.

Me: Miss K, get that tea towel off your head and dry the dishes NOW!!!
Miss K: This is not my favourite idea.

I was complaining to mum one day after Miss K had been particularly whiny and defiant all day.
Mum: Now you know why they called my mum a martyr.
Me: I don't know how grandma did this with 7 kids.
Mum: Hey! I did it with 6 kids, and one of them was you.
Me: Yes, but I must have been a punishment for something mum, what did you do?
Mum: Where do I begin?

So someone tried to scam my little brother online, but luckily for him he was smart enough to check the scammer out and didn't end up losing anything. I was telling my little sister the story when this conversation happened.

Nat: It's getting harder and harder to scam people these days.
Me: Yep, everyone is too suspicious, except for old people, they're still confused by all this new fangled technology.
Nat: Yeah. That's why I think the parental lock needs to be something entirely different.
Me: You mean like please confirm you are under 16 years to continue?
Nat: Yeah. They could use questions about Justin Bieber to screen out the old people that would fall for any scams.

Nat: So I had my implanon removed today, but it was put in really deep, so they had to cut further in than they normally do. But once they'd removed it, they just stuck the cut together with sticky tape.
Me: Bit of duct tape, she'll be right.
Nat: They covered the sticky tape with gauze and I've already bled through it.
Me: Why didn't they give you stitches?
Nat: I don't know. Maybe it was too small a cut for stitches.
Me: Well normally if it's too small for stitches they just stick some super glue in that sucker and send you home, but I guess in this case if it moves and it shouldn't, just fix it with duct tape.

It's been nearly 2 months since Miss K started school, and her favourite thing now is reading. Lucky for us as she has daily reading homework, so if she hated it we'd have a nightly fight on our hands.  Miss K and I were reading her school book one night when she came across the word animal.
Miss K: an...im...al. Aminal.
Me: Close enough.

One afternoon I had an appointment scheduled with Miss K's teacher to check her progress. Miss K had wandered off with some friends and couldn't find me when she returned to the classroom despite my yelling and waving my arms over my head at her for five full minutes.
Me: You finally found me. We're going to have to get your eyes tested kiddo, that took way longer than it should have.
Miss K then went to her teacher
Miss K: I'm testing my eyes. I couldn't find mum with them.
Needless to say the teacher was more than a little confused by this statement.

Nat and her partner Dave went on holidays to Queensland a few weeks ago. Shortly after they landed I got a text from her
Nat: Do you want to hear an embarrassing story about me?
Me: Always.
Nat: While we were leaving the plane I starte doing that excited dance with my fingers that Ben always does. Dave goes "what are you doing?" and I replied "when I'm excited my fingers just need to dance."
Me: You're an idiot. Thanks for the story though.
Nat: Dave looked like he wanted to run away from me. It just slipped out of my mouth like word vomit.
Me: If only he knew just how weird it gets.

Miss K's Nonna is coming down this weekend to visit. I got a call from Ady a few days ago to check some details as she's staying at our house while she's here.
Ady: Do you want mum to cook anything for you?
Me: Nothing springs to mind.
Ady: She said she'll cook her chicken soup lasagne if you want it.
Me: Oh my God yes please. Tell her I will love her forever if she makes me her soup lasagne
Ady: Why don't you love me forever? I've cooked for you?
Me: Oh please the only thing you ever cooked for me was fried dim sims and you set fire to my kitchen. Besides it's been years since your mum made me her soup lasagne. I'd marry her for that lasagne if I could.

And the biggest thing that happened this month was my baby girl turned 6! Her birthday was yesterday but because it was a weekday and she had school, we're having her party today so while you are reading this post, I will most probably be running around my kitchen like a headless chicken trying to get everything ready. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some panicking to do.

Why abstinence based education is harmful at any age

So today I have a ranty post for you guys, and I'd love to hear opinions that aren't mine at the end of this, so pay close attention lovely peoples.

For a bit of a background before I get into the nitty gritty, NAPCAN (or the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect) are holding their annual child protection week from 4th to 10th September. As a part of the lead up to this week, and as a new initiative brought into schools, daycare centres and kindergartens, all children are being given lots of lectures about safety and healthy living at the moment. In Miss K's kindergarten in the last week alone they have used this as an excuse to discuss healthy foods, anatomy and exercise. They will also be holding various conversations about protective behaviour etc. One thing they have already discussed is acceptable physical contact, but I'm not impressed with the way they have handled this.

On Wednesday afternoon when all us parents went in to pick up our darling monsters, the head teacher informed us all that they had had to have a discussion about appropriate physical contact between the kids while at kindergarten. They had put in a total ban on hugging and kissing, and the kids saying I love you to each other.  This isn't the part I really had a problem with, I know that a zero contact policy is usually the norm at schools and kindergartens, so while bringing problems of its own, it is to be expected. It was when she told us that they had also informed the kids of the acceptable people to hug and kiss outside of kindergarten that I had an issue. Now I'm not sure if she was only giving us the abridged version for the sake of not holding us up too long, however when it was explained to us, she informed that the list of acceptable people to hug, kiss, and give admissions of love to outside of kindergarten consisted of parents, grandparents and siblings. That was the entire list she gave to us. Later on at home when I questioned Miss K about this, she repeated that list back to me, however given she has proven time and time again that she doesn't have the most reliable memory, she may have only been going off the abridged version that we were given at pick up. But even if that wasn't the complete list, that is what Miss K has taken from their conversation and I am mad as hell about this.

Number one, while I appreciate that they are madly trying to cram as much education about protective behaviours into a tiny window of space, with an audience not known for its attention span, it's not their damn job to dictate what my child does outside of kindergarten. I am the one who makes the rules outside of those four walls, and I do not appreciate anyone coming in and thinking they know better than me about what is best for my child. This new protective behaviours education is meant to be aimed at the parents, and not the children, so lecture me by all means, but don't do it through my child.

Number two, if that was the complete list of acceptable people to hug, go to hell. In my family alone there are eight aunts and uncles and five cousins which were excluded from that list. Then there are the family friends who we love to give affection too. Then there are the ladies at the supermarket who are always up for a hug and a chat. By making any kind of list of acceptable people to give physical affection too, they make this a shameful act, which it isn't. It is an innocent show of love and friendship given by an incredibly friendly child, and to place limits on it changes it into something dirty which I refuse to allow to happen. This isn't like the list of people Miss K isn't allowed to swear in front of, this isn't something we have to hide. Physical affection is an actual biological need. Multiple studies have shown the importance of affection and physical contact to the human brain and body, and to limit it runs the risk of harm.

I already put zero tolerance physical contact rules right up there next to abstinence based sexual education programs, and this just cements my convictions. By teaching kids the best way to be safe is to not do something, you do them a disservice. You ignore a young person's natural inclination towards curiosity and experimentation, and you fail to keep them safe. By teaching abstinence of any form, you fail to teach children to know their own limits and the limits of the people around them. You fail to teach them self preservation, because it assumes that for the rest of their life, everyone is just going to comply to the rules they were taught, which never ever actually happens. You also fail to teach them about consent which is one of the biggest lesson we can teach our kids before we let them out into the big wide world. In the short term abstinence looks like the safest option, but we have seen time and time again that it is the most dangerous thing to learn.

The only silver lining I can see out of all of this is that it forced me to have a conversation with Miss K about consent. We sat down at home and I explained to her that people were allowed to not want physical affection, and that she has to accept their wishes, I also let her know that she was allowed to refuse physical contact, and that it was her right to have her refusal accepted. This is the lesson she was meant to learn that day, not that hugs are dirty and must be stopped. I'm sure I'll need to have this conversation again and again, especially as she gets older and I begin preparing her for a world where rape apologists exist, but for now it is simply about being allowed to say no to a hug.

I would love to know what you think. Am I overreacting in my anger at the kindergarten? Do you think they botched their attempts? Do you agree with them? Let me know down below in the comments.

This is what happens when you give me 3 days notice

So for anyone who read my last post you might think that was enough insanity for this week. Sadly there is no such thing as enough insanity in our household, so allow me to show you yet another moment that had me wanting to tear my hair out. 

Do I have any people in my audience who work for the Department of Education?? No need to out yourselves, especially after the rant I'm about to go on, but can this be passed on to the higher ups somewhere pretty please? I'm asking, no I'm begging you guys to stop organising dress up days at schools and kindergartens.

For anyone out there who thinks I'm just being a grinch right now, clearly you have never had the panic of being told THREE DAYS before a dress up event that your child is required to come to school/kindergarten this week dressed up as something from some random theme that there is no way in hell you have anything that relates to in your dress up box. Admittedly our dress up box is one fairy dress because Miss K really isn't into dressing up much, and she rarely wears the one costume she does own. She's just as happy putting on a pair of my shoes and pretending to be me. But when the theme of your dress up day is "Australian" it is difficult to put a national spin on a fairy dress. Short of teaming it with a pair of thongs (flip flops Americans, I know.) and a bottle of VB beer and going as a bogan fairy, I really struggled to come up with an idea. (For any non-Australians who don't know what a bogan is, please feel free to Google it.)

For any of you who aren't from Australia, you definitely have no idea what the heck I'm panicking about, so allow me to fill you in. Here in Australia we are about to celebrate book week starting on 20th August. I know this is about three months after you guys do, but we're always about a step behind so it's all good. This year the theme was Australian books/illustrators. I'm all for highlighting the local talent we have around here, especially for authors whose works I have enjoyed in the past like John Marsden, Paul Jennings, Andy Griffiths, and the wonderful Melina Mallos whose latest book I reviewed a few months ago. So for me that part was a big plus. The giant steaming bag of poop however was that I didn't find out until Monday of this week that we had to dress up on Thursday, and it had to fit the theme of book week. If I was any more fiscal than I actually am this wouldn't be a problem, I could just run down to the local shopping centre and find a costume. However given it is currently my off pay week, and any money I do have I've selfishly decided needs to be spent on food, this was not an option.

Luckily for me, this isn't my first rodeo. I have been given minimal notice of special occasions more than once by our kindergarten, despite the fact that we have a Facebook page and they have our email addresses so they can send out newsletters, so I know what it means to rush around like a headless chicken just so my child isn't left out of the fun. First I had to Google Australian children's books for inspiration and discovered to my joy that two of my favourite kids books are actually by Australians, Where is the Green Sheep and The Very Cranky Bear. My first thought was she could go as the green sheep, and just stay home and have a nap. (For any of you who haven't read Where is the Green Sheep and do not get my reference, please go out and find yourself a copy, it is a great book for kids, and it is so easy to read Miss K reads it to me nowadays.) But in the end I decided that would be too mean so we decided to dress Miss K up as the very cranky bear. I was able to do this with thanks to an empty egg carton, an old headband I had lying around and some icy pole sticks and toothpicks. It wasn't pretty by any means, and if Martha Stewart was grading me I'd get a C for effort and an F for enthusiasm. There is photographic evidence, just because this will look excellent on her photo board at her 21st, but that doesn't mean I can't share it now with you guys. I call this photos "This is what happens when you give me 3 days notice."

That's her best cranky bear face. Either that or she's impersonating the hunchback of Notre Dame, I really can't tell. 

Of course you look at the grin on her face in that picture and you realise she loves her costume, so I guess I can call it a win. What that photo does not show is the fact that one minute after the picture was taken the headpiece broke, so she ended up going to kindergarten with a bear nose. So my C for effort changed to an F.

The kindergarten very kindly told us that we didn't have to follow the theme if it was too hard. The only problem is they did it on Wednesday night after I had already spent an hour making this thing and I had no other alternative anyway so we went with cranky bear followed closely by her stressed and very cranky mum. I like to team with the theme you know. (Hats off to any Kath and Kim fans who read that in Kath's voice just now.)

So this is why I'm begging the powers that be to please stop making dress up days a part of the curriculum. You probably think you're doing something nice for the kids, breaking up the monotony that is learning, and giving them fun memories to carry on into their adulthood. What you don't see is the stressed out parents behind the scenes madly trying to figure out how to turn an old beer box and three empty tin cans into a cowboy outfit. We put enough pressure on ourselves to be perfect parents without you guys adding to that pressure by increasing our workload with all of these "fun" extra activities. 

Well that's all from me for now, there will definitely be more insanity to come soon, as I have so many more reasons to pull my hair out right now I'll be as bald as Bruce Willis before you know it. Is anyone interested in doing a reboot of GI Jane anytime soon because I'm sure I'll be a shoe-in for the lead. You'll even get my best crazy eyed stare for free. 

My child is an imaginary friend killer

So today I have to discuss my strangest parenting moment to date. This is so strange Google wasn't even able to help me. I'm sharing my story today in the hopes that if anyone else has come upon this problem you can come find me, bring me whiskey and we'll discuss how weird our children are together.  For any of you who follow me on Twitter, you may already know what I'm about to discuss because I mentioned it this morning, so you can just sit back while I fill you in on the rest of the story that I couldn't fit into 140 characters.

Miss K made some imaginary friends recently Mario and Baby Mario. These
friends have been named after Mario Kart for two reasons, 1. Miss K is absolutely nuts about Mario Kart on the Wii and 2. She is terrible at coming up for names for her toys and imaginary friends. I was first introduced to Mario and Baby Mario one night as I was getting Miss K ready for bed. She simply informed me that they were very tired and were also ready for bed. This was all fine, I probably made some small comment about them putting their pyjamas on and going to the toilet before bedtime (I don't like cleaning up wet mattresses during the night, not even imaginary ones).

Mario and Baby Mario made several guest appearances with us during the next few weeks, sometimes they'd show up while we were playing, or they'd accompany us to kindergarten, the usual imaginary friend stuff. I was never asked to lay extra places for them at dinner time, and they never asked for biscuits or snacks when Miss K was eating, so I have to commend them on their excellent manners.

One day while I was brushing Miss K's hair getting ready for kindergarten she started throwing one of her daily "I don't need my hair brushed today mum, I'm happy looking like a hobo" tantrums. Everything was going swimmingly until she started yelling at no one to STOP LOOKING AT HER!!!! I asked her who she was yelling at and she told me Mario and Baby Mario were staring at her while she cried. This has always been one of Miss K's buttons, and she's never liked having an audience when she is having a bad moment. We usually combat this by getting Miss K to remove herself from the audience until she is calmed down and ready to act reasonably. Unfortunately given the audience this time was all in Miss K's head, I had no solution at the ready, other than to tell her it's not nice to yell at her friends just because she's having a bad moment. I gave the usual lecture about treating our friends nicely, while wondering to myself that if Miss K is the one who controls the actions of her imaginary friends, why not just stop them from staring at her, or don't imagine them staring at her in the first place.

But today things took a turn for the bizarre. We had a bad morning today. Miss K was feeling tired and grumpy, she didn't want to put her own shoes on, she didn't want to carry her bag to the car, and she tried (unsuccessfully) to slam the door in my face when we were leaving the house. She rushed ahead of me to the car, and tried to open the door. Usually I unlock the door by remote so that she can run to the car and get in while I'm locking up, just to save time, but given her behaviour at the time I decided she needed a lesson in patience and controlling her temper, so I didn't unlock the door until I got to the car. This just resulted in Miss K getting embarrassed when the door didn't open immediately for her, and we got the fifth tantrum of the day. This tantrum included her throwing invisible things around as well as the usual stomping and other fun kid stuff I get to witness that no one else believes me when I say my kid does these things. I didn't pay much attention to the throwing at the time, but when we finally got into the car she informed me that her friends were dead. Clue the light bulb going off above my head as I realise her imaginary throwing was her chucking Mario and Baby Mario onto the road. When I asked her why she killed her friends she told me it was because she was sad. Cue the obligatory lecture about treating friends nicely when we're dealing with tough emotions and the extra lecture about if she isn't nice to her friends they won't stick around just to be abused. This again was weird because I'm still aware we're talking about figments of her imagination.

The big thing about Miss K killing her imaginary friends and then telling me about it was she was implying their deaths were my fault because I was the one who had embarrassed her by not opening her door, and by always ruining her life in general. Given I am not that easily manipulated her plan to make me feel bad for pulling her into line failed, but to add insult to injury I then used my super magic powers to bring her imaginary friends back to life, at which time I claimed them as my own imaginary friends, because people don't like hanging around with anyone who kills them, imaginary or not. So now, not only has she lost two friends, she has to hear about me bragging about all the awesome fun we have together that she is no longer privy to.

What gets me the most about all of this is that Google was totally unable to help me sort through everything I'm dealing with right now. 99% of the posts on imaginary friends told me that either my daughter has schizophrenia or she is possessed by demonic spirits. I highly doubt the first one, and considering I already call her my little hell beast I'm not totally surprised by the second one, but am still ruling it out as an explanation given how quick she was to dispose of them in the most Looney Tunes way possible. Is it just an unspoken rule of parenting that we're not meant to discuss when our children straight up murder the figments of their imagination? Are there underground support groups for mums who have had to hide imaginary bodies or field questions from imaginary police officers about the whereabouts of these suddenly missing imaginary friends? Are there imaginary milk cartons out there with photos of these people? Can I call the imaginary crime stoppers and report my daughter for this?

I've spoken to Miss K's dad about today's events and his only response has been to tell me she is most definitely my daughter, and to congratulate me for making new friends for myself. So no help whatsoever. He couldn't even give me the number of a good imaginary lawyer just in case we end up going to trial. I can't be held as an accessory to an imaginary crime, what will the neighbours think?

So I guess the purpose of today's post is to give other parents who are dealing with their children killing off their imaginary friends a different place to land that isn't going to tell them their child is possessed or mentally unstable. Can I offer you a solution to your problem? Probably not. I can't promise that my solution is really effective as I'm still waiting for the therapy bills to start piling up and that could take years, so consider this a work in progress. If any of you have come upon the same problem and solved it differently to me I'd love to know what you did and if it worked. Did they make new imaginary friends? Did they also kill these imaginary friends? Did they end up in imaginary jail with a cellmate called Big Daddy? Do I need to start daytime drinking?

Well that's all from my crazy corner of the world for now, I'm sure Miss K and I will be back to make you all feel better about your own families very soon.

The week I tried to have it all (and why it sucked)

Today is International Women's Day, so I thought this was the perfect time to discuss being a woman. I know it isn't something I'm forbidden to speak about the other 364 days a year, but I recently tried an experiment, and its findings seem relevant on a day like today.

If you ask a woman what the three most important things in her life are, she'd probably have a hard time answering you. We all have so much going on, it's sometimes hard to put a number on anything in our lives, but I'm going to hazard a guess and say a pretty popular answer would be family, friends and financial security. That's just a total stab in the dark (and probably what I'd say if asked). But these are three very big things, and they can be hard things to juggle. Some women have an ability to do just that, and make it look easy too, but I don't think I've ever been that woman. If my career is going well, my housework is suffering, as are my friendships. If my family life is taking up my focus, my work ethic goes out the window, along with my cleaning schedule. (Let's face it, I'll take any excuse not to clean up after myself.) I've never been able to find that perfect balance, and I will quite often choose to sit on the couch and drink coffee rather than actually do any of the things on my mile long to do list. I'm an expert procrastinator, just ask me. (But not right now ok, I'm too busy staring at my eye worms.)

But recently I wanted to find out whether or not it is indeed possible to have all the things. I wanted to know whether there was a way to be the perfect woman we always see in the media. She's impeccably groomed, she has time for coffee with the girlfriends, she has wholesome home cooked meals on the table every single night, and I'm sure she's a tiger in the sack too, but they never really show that part during prime time television for some reason... So I decided to become that woman for a while, to step into her shoes and find out exactly how the hell it is she does all the things the television says she does. I was hoping that I'd find some secret formula to all of this, which I could then rush off and share to all of my female friends who at the end of the day always look the same as me; exhausted, overwhelmed and not a little bit crazed. So for one week I decided to become the "perfect" woman, I was going to be everything for everyone. I was to be the perfect mother, the perfect daughter, the perfect sister, the perfect housekeeper and the perfect employee. I'm sure you've all already guessed how this turned out.

In order to be the perfect mother, I decided I couldn't reprimand Miss K too strongly. You would never see a TV mum calling her kids bone headed for sticking their finger in the fan, so neither would I. (I did giggle while I was comforting her though, which is also something you'd never see a TV mum doing.) You'd never see her sending her kids off to school with junk food in their lunch boxes or serving convenience meals for dinner, so neither would I. All meals for the week were to be healthy and well thought out. There was to be nothing artificial pass our lips at all during this time. And all this meant was a lot more time spent in the kitchen for me. Of course there were some moments of pride like the night my carbonara fettucini turned out really well, or the day Miss K and I made popcorn for her lunches (no salt or butter though, that's just too unhealthy) but for the most part all I remember is pruny fingers from having my hands in dishwater, and sweat pouring off me while I slaved over the stove in 30 degree heat (86 degrees farenheit for my American friends) which immediately made me regret not trying this experiment in the winter when my kitchen is my favourite place in the house simply because of all the heat I can generate at once. I will say the time spent with Miss K at the end of the day as we ate our dinner without watching television, and cleaned the kitchen together were pretty pleasant when I wasn't stressing that she wasn't eating her vegetables, or was taking too long to dry the dishes (mainly because she was turning the cutlery into people), but listening to her constant chatter was always guaranteed to make me smile.

Being the perfect daughter was more of a challenge for me, because I'm pretty much perfect already. (I can hear my mum laughing at this statement already.) but I figured that given I know one of mum's biggest pet peeves in the world is a dirty kitchen, all the time I spent in there keeping it pristine would have made her pretty happy. Plus she had a whole week off from having to cook food, which is something all mum's dream of. (Trust me, I know.) I felt bad that I couldn't think of anything earth shattering to do to assert my role as the perfect child, so I had to take comfort in the little things like a (mostly) edible meal sitting in the microwave every single night, and a block of cheese in the fridge for her midnight snacks at all time. It clearly worked though, because she literally just called me a dick, so I'm obviously the favourite child right now.

As for perfect sister and perfect employee, they kind of ended up being rolled into one, as I spent the week helping my big sister who is trying to get a business off the ground. I'm hoping that by getting in at the ground floor, I'll be in for easy money once she's a millionaire. So for this part of my role, I spent my week studying up on contract law, and drawing up terms and conditions as well as a refund policy for her new business. I also drew up a business plan for her, and got started on the registration process for taxes and other boring stuff. Believe it or not this was actually the most fun part of my week, which makes more sense when I tell you I do my budget for fun, and I can write up legal documents in my sleep. This was also the area where I felt the most useful. There are definitely times where I miss being in a work environment, so having a chance to play secretary for the week was rewarding.

One of the things I learned throughout this week is that it takes a hell of a lot of organisation just to be remotely proficient in more than one of these areas. I had more lists running through my head and written down in my organiser than I knew what to do with. I would almost be happy never to see another list again. I also learned that when you're doing everything for everyone else, it is very easy to forget yourself quickly. My own needs eventually became low priority, simply because I can forgive myself for forgetting to shower more than once a week. (Another reason why this would have been a better experiment to do in the dead cold of winter.) I also became very protective of time I put aside for myself. Texts and snapchats suddenly became an intrusion during a time I wished to speak to no one, whereas once upon a time I was happy to be reachable right up to and even sometimes after bedtime. When you put so much of yourself into working for other people, those three hours at the end of the day when kids are finally in bed but you are not become a revered time that you spend all other waking hours dreaming of. When someone dared to take up that time by making me look at photos of their latest trip to the pub I started to feel just the tiniest bit stabby. I could have turned off my phone, but a perfect person probably wouldn't shut themselves off from the world like that.

But where did all of this leave me at the end of the week? It leaves me with a sparkly clean kitchen, a freezer full of pre-prepared meals I can pull out and defrost, it leaves me with lots of lovely memories of times I didn't lose my temper at Miss K like I normally would, and it hopefully leaves her feeling a little bit more secure about her place in my world. But most of all it leaves me feeling over tired and under appreciated. It's not like I went into this looking for praise or accolades, or even that people didn't recognise the hard work I put in during this week. My big sister even forced me to take the weekend off from working for her, simply because I was starting to look like a zombie by the time Thursday rolled around. It was more the feeling that what I just spent a week doing is expected as the bare minimum for women these days. We're expected to go find work outside of the house, plus keep doing the work we've always done inside the house, and look like a million dollars the whole time. I simply couldn't keep this up for much longer before I needed a week at the local psych ward. I definitely understand why women turn to alcohol.

 I certainly don't feel perfect right now, if anything I feel less perfect than I did before I started. It served to highlight all of the areas in my life where I don't balance things properly when I'm not watching myself, which is always a cheerful thing to think about. But I definitely came out of this with a newly found respect for women everywhere who do this for more than one week at a time. For the women out there who this is necessary each and every single day. Be it because they simply don't have the support network I am fortunate to have around me, or because they find doing all of this rewarding, instead of exhausting, or even simply because they want to prove that it can be done; I still think you're slightly mad, but I salute you anyway.

Now if you'll excuse me, this perfectly imperfect woman has just earned herself a perfectly long nap.

The week I wrote a book

I know, I know, I disappeared again. I keep doing this to you guys, but I promise I have a good excuse this week, I wrote a book. Don't start jumping up and down just yet, you won't see my name on the New York Times bestsellers list just yet, because my name isn't on this book. I don't know whose name is going to be on this book because I didn't write it for me.

I mentioned in a post at the very end of last year that I was unemployed now, and we are currently struggling to find ways to stretch a very limited income. Well one of the ways I have found is freelance writing. As I'm sure you guys are all aware, I love writing. It has always been one of my favourite hobbies (right after sleeping) ever since I was a kid. So when I found a website that gave freelance writers a place to apply for work, I signed right up. This was back in October of last  year, and while I got employed almost straight away writing articles for various blogs and websites, my new boss (or as we freelancers call them, clients) was shady as all get up, and I ended up doing a months worth of work for free, because he never paid me for any of the writing I did for him.

Fast forward to this year, and my current empty money bag. I decided that I don't want to write SEO articles for other people, if SEO was important to me, I'd be using it here for goodness sake and driving traffic to my own awesome corner of the interwebs. I decided what I really want to do is what I dreamed of doing back when I was young and optimistic, and that was write books. Of course I have a huge problem standing in the way of being an author, and that is the fact that I have nothing to say on any subject until you tell me to start talking. So in comes my freelance hiring website, and my best use of the biggest words I know, trying to impress e-book publishers and convince them to hire me to be one of their typing monkeys. And wouldn't you know it, someone took the bait.

Unfortunately for me, being a freelance writer means you have to write on whatever subject your client wants you to write about, and this client wanted a how-to book written up for a very popular computer game. Now I'm well aware of this computer game, I've even tried playing it once or twice, but I'm what gamers call "a total noob" so I'm probably the last person you want writing anything about games. Of course I can't admit this to my new client, so I had to panic quietly, and then I did the smartest thing I have ever done, I called my big sister, who plays this game with her son religiously. They watch YouTube videos, they go on public servers, they've even run their own server. They spent the next week schooling me on this game, and helped make sure I wrote something that was not only coherent, but also correct. I even had to learn the language these gamers speak. This was a crash course in nerd like I've never had before.

So now, I can proudly say I am a struggling artiste, as I sit around coffee shops stroking my neckbeard (what female hipsters can't have neckbeards? tell that to my European genes.) instead of simply a stay at home mum who relies on rice to pad out way too many meals. And just because there's nothing better than unwarranted advice on a personal blog to help you guys out, here is the perfect process for writing a book for someone else on a subject you know nothing about.

Step 1: Stare at the screen dumbly while you try to process exactly what you just agreed to.
Step 2: Have a brief moment of optimism as you ask yourself exactly how hard it could be to write a book about computer games/eliminating bedbugs using steam cleaners/whatever other crazy subject people apparently want to read about.
Step 3: Run around the room in a blind panic as you realise you're about to reveal yourself as an absolute fraud.
Step 4: Find an expert on the topic you need to write about, bribe them with chocolate (or alcohol, or even Pokemon cards if they're young enough).
Step 5: Begin writing, realise this is going to be harder than you originally thought.
Step 6: Spend a week hunched over your computer day and night pouring over wiki articles, YouTube videos and Google as you find difficulty after difficulty after difficulty in your way.
Step 7: Begin dreaming about the video game/topic you're currently writing about. (I'm not even kidding about this one.)
Step 8: Write the book, proof read the book, get someone else to proof read the book, proof read the book for a second, third and fourth time, Check it once more just to make sure you absolutely haven't left anything out.
Step 9: Submit your book and pray your client is gentle with their criticisms.
Step 10: Read the email telling you the client loved your book, and wants you to do another one on the exact same subject.
Step 11: Crawl into a bottle of wine and never crawl out again.

So that's it. I am now trying to find a nice way to tell my new client that I never want to write another computer game based book as long as I live, but I think I'm just going to take the chicken's way out and tell him I've now moved on to other projects. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to play a computer game, because thanks to this stupid book, I'm officially addicted to this game. If you're interested to learn more, all my tips and tricks are yours for the low, low price of a bottle of Jack Daniels. (or $0.99) if you can wait for the book to come out on Kindle.

When your angel returns from custody visits a devil

You know what they say, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. 2016 was meant to be MY year. I started off with such grand plans, of how I wasn't going to let anything get in my way, and then I hit my first roadblock; my first full day of the year with my child at home.

Miss K spent from Boxing Day to New Years Day with her dad in Melbourne. I spoke to her every single day and she was cheerful and happy and excited. I don't know where that girl ended up, I think she got left behind in Melbourne, because the little person that was returned to me at the end of her holiday was neither cheerful nor excited. She was rude, she was stubborn, and she was destructive. I have a name for this little person, Grumpus. You see this isn't the first time my darling daughter got left behind in Melbourne after an access visit with her dad, so I know Grumpus well.

Grumpus does things Miss K would never dream of doing, like telling my mum she refuses to speak to her when mum tells her off for being a brat, or complaining when I ask her to do a chore. Grumpus is quick to get frustrated or angry, and slept a lot her first few days here. Once the exhaustion wore off and she felt alert enough to raise hell, she started with her antics. It started with refusing to go to the toilet on her own, a skill Miss K mastered some time ago, then she decided she couldn't go anywhere in the house unless I followed exactly a metre behind her at all times. I don't know why she needed an audience to pour herself a drink, but then preschooler logic has never been my strong point. Grumpus decided that 3am was a perfectly acceptable time to start the day, regardless of anyone who felt otherwise, and one morning when I refused to get up at 3am to entertain her, I woke up at a more respectable hour to discover Grumpus had destroyed a 30cm block of Styrofoam, and scattered little balls of foam from one end of the house to the other while I was asleep. I looked like a yeti who was moulting that morning, because of course she decided my bedroom was the perfect place to discover what the inside of a Styrofoam block looks like (little hint, exactly like the outside, just bumpier.) so my bed, walls and floor wore the brunt of the foam, as did I. For the first ten minutes of my day I looked like I had a severe case of gigantic dandruff as I shook the balls from out of my hair. I have never wanted to spike my own coffee more than I did that day. My only salvation that day was that now that Miss K/Grumpus is a little bit older, I could make her clean up her gigantic mess as punishment, and I sat down for half an hour and watched her struggle to work a vacuum cleaner that is nearly as tall as her, barking orders every now and again when she missed a spot, or got distracted by vacuuming her own hair.

The final straw came the next day (yes, I managed to keep my head from exploding after waking up in my own foam cloud) when I tried to send Miss K to her room as punishment for fighting with her cousin. Grumpus appeared and defiantly told me that SHE would not be going to her room, because SHE was a big girl. In the interests of keeping things real around here, I will confess that I did not handle this like Mike Brady, where we all sit around and discuss our feelings like rational human beings while muzak plays in the background. I lost my temper so quickly I actually surprised mum, and made my opinion of my daughter and her attitude very well known. Well Grumpus/Miss K ended up running to her room in tears after I had finished, and to be honest, I haven't really seen much of Grumpus since. Any time she tries to show up, all it takes is my meanest glare (trust me, I have a scary face when I want) and things get done without complaint, and without a single hint of attitude.

I know that what I have been experiencing this fortnight is far from unusual when kids split time between two houses. I was actually expecting this behaviour, and possibly worse because the last time Miss K spent a week at her father's house she came home displaying signs of regression, as well as an increase in night terrors and bet wetting, so I was expecting something, I just wasn't sure what. From my time working for a family lawyer, I knew that this was actually a pretty typical reaction from kids after being shuttled from one house to another, from one routine to another, and from one set of rules and restrictions to another. One of the most common complaints I heard from our clients was that their ex always returned their children home exhausted and feral. But expecting it and coping with it are two entirely different things. Unfortunately for me, my preferred method of coping with it which was to hand Grumpus back to her father and tell him to return her when she wasn't such a pain in the rear didn't go over well, especially after he revealed that she had behaved the same way with him all week, (his exact words were "You're the primary parent, it's your problem.") so as usual it was up to me to remove Grumpus from my home. If I could now transfer my methods of extermination to other kinds of pests I could be a very rich woman.

So for now peace has returned to my house, and we're even beginning to see glimpses of a new and slightly more mature little girl running around. I'm certain this isn't the last time I see Grumpus, but with perseverance, I know I can send her running the next time, and the next time, and the next time, until she's at an age where the shift from one house to the other isn't such a shock to the system. In the meantime, for any of you out there who are so inclined, I would not say no to donations of bottles of whiskey to help me keep from ending up in a straight jacket the next time Miss K comes home from a visit to Melbourne.

Making your bed the right way

I bet you didn't know you've been making your bed all wrong all these years. I know I was surprised when I received an email from Terrys Fabrics telling me this. I also wondered briefly how they knew how bad I was at making the bed. But after a quick scan of my general area showed up no hidden cameras in my bedroom, I figured they have just been reading my blog long enough to know that domestic goddess is one title you will never find on my resume.

Now I can get a cover on my doona (or duvet for my American friends) thanks to the burrito method. (for anyone who doesn't know what the burrito method is, please google it.) Before the burrito method came around and changed my life I used what I call the ghost method which involved me climbing into my doona cover and stumbling around my room moaning like a disturbed ghost while I tried to get my doona to fit nicely into the corners of the cover. I know one woman who was relieved I never married her son after she watched me get a doona into its cover this way.

I know all about hospital corners and how to do them, although thanks to the genius Bertha Berman who invented the fitted sheet in 1959 I've not had to do a hospital corner except when I make the bed after staying in a hotel. (I know they are just going to strip the bed as soon as I check out, but I still hate leaving the bed unmade when I leave.) But I will admit to you right now that my bed is currently an unmade mess because my alarm clock thinks it is hillarious to rip my blanket right off me to wake me up in the morning, and I got tired of having to wrestle with my big queen size blanket every single morning, so it just lays where she throws it until bed time. If I was any kind of house proud, this would bother me I'm sure, but considering the teaspoon of sugar I dumped on the counter this morning while trying to make my first coffee of the day is still sitting there waiting to be cleaned up, we all know that ain't gonna happen any time soon.

But for any one of you out there who actually does like having a pretty bed, and always wonders how the designers of the world always manage to get the beds they make to look so perfect, below is a handy dandy info-graphic that Terrys Fabrics very kindly shared with me, which gives you everything you could possibly ever need to know about making the perfect bed. As for me, I will always be the sweaty person standing on her bed grunting while trying to wrestle a fitted sheet onto a double mattress. If someone can please invent a fitted sheet that goes onto the bed easily without me having to summon Satan, please contact me, I may want to marry you.


Bed Making Hacks by Terrys Fabrics.

August Secret Subject Swap: Perfect?

Hello again my lovelies, I am back for another month of Secret Subject Swap. Today sixteen brave bloggers are writing posts on subjects given to them by another blogger. I don't think I've ever been in a secret subject swap this large, so there's lots of great stuff here for you guys to read. I know that reading everyone else's posts is going to take up a great portion of my Saturday, so I'm excited to finally say I have plans this weekend!

So before I get into my subject I'll link you to everyone else who is participating in the swap today. Be sure to hop over to the other bloggers too, and share some of your lovely love around.

http://www.BakingInATornado.com                          Baking In A Tornado

http://themomisodes.com                                          The Momisodes

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com                    The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/                 Stacy Sews and Schools

http://dinoheromommy.com/                            Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/                  Spatulas on Parade

http://www.southernbellecharm.com                        Southern Belle Charm

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com                               Never Ever Give Up Hope

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/                                 Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://www.silenceofthemom.blogspot.com                    Silence of the Mom

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com                      Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/              Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com                The Angrivated Mom

http://morethancheeseandbeer.blogspot.com           More Than Cheese and Beer

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com                           Climaxed

So today my post is For the first time ever, everything is going right today. While it's wonderful it's a bit scary. Do you want more perfect days or do you want your normal life back? and it was submitted by the wonderful Karen over at Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

So anyone who knows me knows how hectic life around here gets. With juggling work, kindergarten, my own scrapbooking business, speech therapy appointments, visitation schedules, and everything in between, I barely have a minute to scratch myself. It's why I so often fall asleep in front of the computer of an evening. I shouldn't complain, but it gets old real fast. I've learned a few cheats over the years to make life a little easier, which usually involve throwing some electronic device in Miss K's general direction just to get five minutes of peace and quiet to get a job done, or five minutes more sleep, but I have things more or less under control. which is what made yesterday's bad day worse. First of all Miss K spent the whole day giving me sass, arguing back at me, and getting under my feet. Any request for assistance from me prompted running and screaming from her as if I was asking her to donate a kidney for me. To make things worse we ended up late to our speech therapy appointment thanks to her antics, which threw me out for the rest of the day. By the time I got to my night time class I was absolutely fried, and I still had to teach a scrapbook layout to my workshop ladies.

Usually spending two hours comparing our battle scars from the past week leaves us all refreshed and ready to fight the good fight the next day, but I couldn't help but still feel unsatisfied with my lot in life as I drove home late last night. I sat in my car in the dark driveway for five minutes too exhausted to get out and start unloading all my tools from the back seat. I looked up at the sky, which was void of sparkly lights for some reason, and searched the black until I found a solitary star winking at me. "I just wish life was easier" I said out loud before letting out a large sigh and hauling my tired behind out of the car. I ignored the boxes in the back seat, figuring I'd get them tomorrow and dragged my feet towards the door. After completing my normal night time routine I went to bed early and fell fast asleep.

When I woke up this morning the sun was streaming through a slit in my curtain. This alone was odd, because I'm usually woken up by Miss K pulling my covers off me at 4:30 in the morning demanding a drink and a banana. Once I got my bearings I pulled myself out of bed and went over to Miss K's room, worried she was sick. Instead of finding a mayhem of toys or books all over the floor, I was greeted by the sight of a spotless room, with Miss K in the corner stacking her books into their shelves according to size. "You OK kiddo?" I asked her. "Yes mummy, just cleaning my room thank you" came the reply. I shook my head, wondering if maybe the exhaustion was beginning to mess with my mind, and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. The mess of coffee powder and sugar that had coated the bench the night before was missing, as was the pile of clean dishes that had been drying on the rack for three days now. "Miss K has grandma been cleaning this morning?" I called out. "No mummy, that was me." she called back. I wandered into the lounge room to find a similar scene of tidiness that hadn't been there the night before. "You cleaned the whole house?" I asked incredulously. Hearing noise from the kitchen I turned to find Miss K preparing herself some breakfast. "You want me to do that for you?" I asked hopefully "No thanks" she replied and continued on pouring milk on her cereal. At a loss for words, I decided to tell a joke. "Knock, knock" I said with a grin. "Not now mum, I'm a little busy" Miss K said as she walked past me carefully balancing her bowl in one hand and a cup of juice in the other. She sat down in her little blue chair, and I waited for the inevitable request to push her seat in. Instead she did a weird little jump in her seat and managed to pull herself closer to the table unassisted.

The rest of the day passed in the same way. Miss K refused my offer to play a game of Mario Kart with her, something she usually jumps at the chance to do, and instead decided to rearrange her sock drawer. She declined my suggestion to pull out the kinetic sand, instead sorting through her toy chest and throwing out all her old unwanted toys. I was so bored I decided to drape a blanket on myself and pretend to be a ghost. This was only met with a dirty look from my suddenly mature 4 year old. Gone were the requests to follow her to the toilet for no particular reason, gone were the spontaneous games of tag, gone was the cheeky sass I got on a constant basis. I was horrified to realise my little girl had morphed into a middle aged woman, right in front of my eyes. This thought caused something in my head to snap and I screamed in the middle of the quietest dinner I'd had in a long time. "What in the ever loving hell is going on? Where is my baby and who are you?" "You said you wanted life to be easier. This is what you wanted" Miss K said in between mouthfuls of mashed potato (a dish I'd never been able to get her to eat before now) "Well I changed my mind" I cried. "I want my old life back. I want the mess, and the arguing, and the laughing, and the fun. Easy is boring" With this I ran to my bedroom and buried my head in my pillow. I know it was incredibly childish of me, but this day had been so horrible, I didn't know what else to do.

I lay in silence for a few seconds, until I felt something pull the blankets off me, and the shock of the cold air jolted me out of my sleep. Miss K jumped on my back and yelled "Wake up mummy I'm thirsty." I reached for my phone and checked the time, 4:30 in the morning. "I want a banana and a drink please mummy" Miss K said as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, and before she could repeat herself I grabbed her up in the biggest bear hug of her life. "Never, ever, ever change Miss K, got it?" I cried burying my head in her tiny shoulder. "Ok mummy. Can I have a drink now?" she asked. I jumped out of bed, relieved that everything was as it was meant to be, and last night's dream was only that. As I poured Miss K's drink, the little voice came from my bedroom. "Don't forget my banana mum." "Some things never change" I said to myself smiling. "And thank God for that."

The one where I say everything about everything

It has been too long since I wrote to you guys. I decided to take the month off from my writing challenges because work has been crazy busy this past month, with having 20 cases going through Court in one week and then spending the next three weeks madly trying to catch up on everything we stopped doing just so we could shove these 20 matters through the system, and I'm now only a week behind on all of my work, so I'm starting to find my energy again. Yay me.

I have actually started several posts over the last three weeks, unfortunately each and every one of them has only gotten so far before I lost my enthusiasm, so they are all just sitting dormant in my list of posts waiting for me to come back and love them. I have decided to just come on now and drag several of them together into one larger post and just spew absolutely everything that has been in my head for the last few weeks out at you in one large go, to save wasting any more time agonising over when I'm actually going to post again.  So in no particular order, here are some of the things I've noticed happening in the world recently.

Victim shaming is still a thing
Now because I'm not actually in America and I get all of my news from over the ocean via click baits like the best people always do, I'm never sure whether what I'm reading really is as prevalent as the sensationalist news websites want me to think they are. But one theme that has come up time and time again is instances where girls are being made to cover their bodies up, for fear of exciting any men within a 3 mile radius. You're going to have to pardon my French here, but for once I don't really care if this is a really widespread thing. For this to have happened even just once pisses me off. I hate that women are once again being made responsible for the actions of men everywhere. Blaming victims of rape for the actions of their rapist is NOT ok. Ever. And to force women to cover their shoulders, or their knees, or their chests just to make sure they don't get raped is not good enough. It would be a better use of people's time and energy to teach people not to rape. But that's too difficult. It's easier to make women cover up than make men man up and treat young girls with respect. Of course I do not think that all men are rapists, that's just silly. It's just as silly as expecting women to control their bodies as well as the urges of the whole male population. When I was a teenager I could barely even control my own hair, let alone the behaviors and actions of any and all males I walked past. To expect this of our daughters now is as unfair as it has always been and it needs to stop.

America finally gave homosexuals the same rights as everyone else
Yay America! Congratulations you guys for recognizing that this needed to happen. Now if somebody could have a quiet word with the people who run my country, that would be great. Of course Australia has always been the younger sibling to you guys, we're always several steps behind, running madly in your wake just trying to keep up with our cooler big brother, so the fact that you guys have changed your laws can only mean that it is an inevitability down here too. I am very happy to say that the dialogue is already starting, and while it is still only on a small scale here, from little things big things grow. I was actually really excited that I was alive and old enough to understand the world around me when this change happened. To be there to watch history  happen is an amazing thing, and I hope that by the time Miss K is older and more aware of her world, the idea that homosexual people are not allowed to get married will be an outdated and ridiculous concept for her, just like the idea that people of different races being banned from marrying each other is outdated and ridiculous to me. Now I know that not everybody is happy with this history changing decision the Supreme Court has made, and the insults are flying thick and fast. This will change. It will take time, but it will become less and less as time goes by, so keep riding the storm people, you're doing great.

We're all going to die
I get a teensy bit tired of all the news posts that try to tell me the next big thing that is going to kill me, or my children, or my pets, or the entire world. It's usually always cancer, and it's always depressing as all hell. Well I've got a news flash for you guys, and just a warning, this is a huge spoiler, but we're all going to die. That may come as a surprise to some people, but none of us is immortal. Sometimes I think the fun part is discovering exactly what it is that gets us in the end. Right now I'm banking on lung cancer or emphysema being the bastard that sends me to my pine box, but it would be a delicious twist if I was struck down by an errant toilet seat falling out of a plane. Scientists will never find a cure for death, because overpopulation is a bad thing, and we need people to die. Mainly because you horny buggers won't stop having sex, which ultimately leads to more babies, and we're really running out of room already as it is. (Except in the centre of Australia. There's heaps of room there, so if you're feeling a bit cramped, and don't mind living somewhere that even most animals refuse to inhabit, come on down.) But the point is we all die. Our bodies are only built to survive for a finite amount of time, and we need to come to terms with this.

Phew, I feel better for having got all of that off my chest. I'm sure I've noticed other things that I'm forgetting about right now, but I have a comfy bed, and a chocolate bar calling my name, so I'm off to enjoy my night. Stay tuned my lovely readers, because the next time I appear out of the mist it will be to do one of my incredibly rare reviews, this time of an amazing product I've just discovered, and I can't wait to share it with you guys.

May Secret Subject Swap - the eternal struggle

Welcome one and all to the May Secret Subject Swap.  This week 16 brave bloggers have swapped subjects with one another, and today we are all revealing what we wrote.


Below are links to all the other bloggers participating today. Be sure to visit them all and see what they have written.

http://www.BakingInATornado.com        Baking In A Tornado

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com    The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com       Spatulas on Parade

http://dinoheromommy.com/                     Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://themomisodes.com                           The Momisodes

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/ Stacy Sews and Schools

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/                Sparkly Poetic Weirdo 

http://gndisney.wordpress.com                  Disneyland in Kentucky

http://www.southernbellecharm.com         Southern Belle Charm

http://thelieberfamily.com                          The Lieber Family

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com        Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com         Climaxed

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com               Battered Hope  

http://www.smalltalkmama.com                Small Talk Mama

So today my subject is: Everyone has their own struggles and battles. While each person's experience is unique, the types of battles are often similar e.g. the same physical illness, depression, losing a parent or child, losing a job, divorce, etc. If you were selected to give a speech to a group of people with a struggle similar to yours, what struggle would you discuss? What would you say? 

And it was submitted by the wonderful Jenniy over at Climaxed

We all have struggles. Some days are nothing but a struggle. I wrote this during one giant day of struggles, all the time wondering how in the heck I was going to get up tomorrow morning and do the exact same thing again. Sometimes the list of struggles is endless. And some days the list seems so small and manageable you wonder why you were so stressed last week facing the same hurdles. It seems impossible to rate all my struggles, to give them an order from most to least easy to deal with, but I guess that's why they call them struggles, and not mild inconveniences. That's a whole other list.

I can't say this is my biggest struggle, nor can I say it's my smallest, but one thing that comes to my head when people ask what do you struggle with? is juggling. And before you ask, no I'm not a wannabe circus clown, I'm just a person with too many fingers in too many pies. And one of these days I just know one of those pies is going to blow up in my face. I happen to be a lot of people. I'm a secretary, a teacher, a writer, a mum, a sister, a daughter, a friend, an ex, and a font of useless knowledge just to name a few. All of these people live in a delicate ecosystem and prop each other up. But it takes just one slight breeze to send the whole house of cards toppling over. And it's always the ones I love the most who suffer. And the guilt that brings out in me is almost a physical pain.

Right now I am sitting in a room full of fallen cards. I'd say that my most important job, and the one that gives me the most joy is that of motherhood. But when you've got so many other duties to complete on any given day, something's gotta give, and more often than not it's my parental responsibilities that I fall short on. I'm not saying I'm a bad mum, maybe a lazy one, but I always have the best intentions in my heart, even if I always seem to come up lacking. It's easier to have a piece of fruit for lunch than try to actually think about coming up with fresh, nutritious ideas for meals to feed a finicky four year old. It's easier to keep silent when my little one forgets to brush her teeth before bed rather than remind her that she's forgotten a step in her nightly routine and have to spend an extra five minutes on getting her to bed. It's easier to give in to a screaming pre-schooler and give her an extra biscuit rather than lecture her once again about the importance of a healthy diet, and be a horrible person yet again. It may seem that all of these things on their own are tiny infractions, that wouldn't hurt anyone, but they build up quickly and before you know it you're lying in bed crossing off sin after sin and kicking yourself for being such a terrible person.

So how do you fix this? How do you fix being an imperfect person in an imperfect world? Is there an answer to this question? To be perfectly honest I have no idea. I'm still searching for it. I know none of us have all the answers, and some days we have none of them, but all we can do is get up each morning and try again. Resolve to be a better person, to not take short cuts, to do the hard work, simply because it must be done. It sounds incredibly boring, and trust me, it can be sometimes, but it's a necessary monotony, and one we must all do, simply so that the very threads of our world don't unravel entirely. I'm sad to say I can't tell you how to fix your own struggles, simply because I'm having enough trouble fixing my own right now. But I'm trying. Each and every day I try to do better, even when I fail so fantastically I deserve my own made for TV movie about being the worlds largest screw up. And that's all any of us can do. So hold your heads up high, and be embrace your struggles, because each and every one of them will make you a better person one day.

Why I love my electronic babysitters

I'm having one of those months. You know the kind, your four year old decides this would be a perfect time to regress back to the age of 2, your boss feels that the 200 clients she manages on her own simply aren't enough, and it's up to you to figure out how to juggle the bulging diary of an overworked boss, your backside breaks yet another chair, same old thing really. But as any mum will tell you, sometimes when life keeps handing you lemon after lemon, you need a few things to save your sanity. For the housewives of the 1950's it was bottles of alcohol hidden in laundry baskets, but for me it's electronic babysitters.

These days it's a cardinal sin to admit that you allow your children free range of any electronic entertainment that their little heart desires. To the point that I actually resisted buying my daughter a children's tablet for a year, simply because I didn't want the other mothers at the store to judge me. But I'm here to tell those Judgy Mcjudgersons that they're missing the bigger picture by insisting that their children entertain themselves rather than plonking them in front of a TV screen so you can retire to your happy place for an hour or so. (or in my case go to the toilet without an audience). So today I am here as an advocate for every television that remains switched off during the day, and video console which gathers dust on weekends while children argue in their bedrooms over who can do the louder armpit farts. So below is a list of exactly why I love my electronic babysitters.

1. It's the only time children sit still
I'll get the obvious out of the way first. You turn on the television, and your children instantly become mute zombies. They also desire that you become a mute zombie, because every time you speak over the television they miss yet another glorious few seconds of Hulk and the agents of S.M.A.S.H (and let me tell you, the dialogue in some of these shows is pure gold.) When you have a child who only operates on two speeds, super fast and at the speed of light, then you will do anything you can to make them have an occasional rest, short of tying them down. The TV is the perfect solution to this problem. It also puts a stop to the million questions children ask you over the course of a day. Suddenly they don't want to know why you're calling the guy letting his dog take a dump on your nature strip horrible names, because they've got more pressing things to worry about, like how is Batman going to save the day yet again when he has no real powers. You can also rest safe in the knowledge that they won't take the choice phrases you yell through your curtains to school or kindergarten the next day because when the TV goes on, they hear nothing else. It is truly magic.

2. They learn things you don't have the energy or patience to teach them
Thanks to the wonders of children's television Miss K is gaining a wealth of knowledge I have no ability to teach her.  Waybuloo is teaching her yoga (or yogo as they call it, which is confusing around here, because that's a brand of chocolate yogurt), something which will benefit me greatly when I decide to enroll in a mummy and me yoga class one day, and my daughter can do the downward facing dog while the other children are sitting on the floor sucking on their thumbs.  Thanks to the psychedelic shows like Teletubbies and Baby Jake she's learning the dangers of doing psychotropic drugs like LSD (because you cannot tell me all of the people involved in those shows weren't tripping balls the whole time they were making that crap.) The access to the child safe videos on Miss K's Leap Pad have educated her to the awesome wonders of screaming goats, and excellent physical activities such as parkour.  I will admit however that after watching some of those videos I had to rescue her from the top of a mattress that was stacked on its side against a wall in our spare room, as she decided one viewing of these videos was enough to make her a parkour expert. (Either that or her cousin's obsession with Spiderman is really starting to rub off on her.)

3. You can subject your children to countless hours of lectures without losing your voice
This one actually bugged me at first until I realised I could use it to my advantage. Every children's show these days has an important take home message, whether it be the uplifting always be yourself, even if you are a barely evolved caveman, or the more surreal never impersonate a multi-millionaire CEO of a large corporation, as you'll end up in a wacky series of hi-jinx that will be next to impossible to explain to your parents, and may end up with you losing your computer privileges for a week. These days I take special note of all of the messages that come with Miss K's favourite shows, simply so that when she inevitably breaks one of the cardinal rules set out by her beloved TV, I can just sit back and say "Well you should have done what Elmo told you, and you wouldn't have ended up nearly cracking your own backside on the pavement." It hits home quicker than the hour long lectures I used to have to give just to drive a point home, and it comes with pretty colours and spontaneous singing, which is something I haven't attempted since my last night spent drinking butterscotch schnapps.

So people, please go easy on the electronic babysitters, they are more valuable than you realise. I think there are some of you who owe your televisions an apology, and maybe a little hug. Go ahead, I won't judge.

Discrimination or genuine concern

I promise I'm still here guys. I'm still alive and kicking (just barely some days). I am actually writing this to you from in the middle of a circus. (A metaphorical one anyway.) My sister in law and her daughter are camping out at our house at the moment, there are dramas going on with the house they live in with my little brother, so we've taken them in for a few days until some stupid paper work can get sorted out and they can return to their house. (Have I ever mentioned how much I hate bureaucracy?) Given that my niece is only 3 months older than Miss K, it's been good having a friend in the house for her to play with that is so close in age to her. Of course given that they are both only 2 and still learning about the delicate art of sharing, (something they both hate as they get royally screwed any time they have to share anything) we've had a fair few dust ups the past few days, but for the most part they get on really well.

Movie time. I was hoping they would actually go to sleep but no such luck.

So the point of today's post wasn't just to talk about the babies, it was actually to share something that happened to me at work last week. Yes I'm still employed, and according to my boss I'm doing a good job. But she still felt the need to call a staff meeting last Wednesday before we turned on the phones for the day and rush hour began. I was terrified that I was going to be given my marching orders, and had been since the day before when she locked herself and the office manager in her office for five minutes without me. I knew something big was coming and I spent the whole of Tuesday wracking my brains trying to remember anything I had done that was bad enough to get myself fired. Luckily for me I wasn't about to face the firing squad (ba boom) but there were a few things the boss wanted to bring up. One was I needed to tidy up the place a bit more, this one didn't surprise me, I hate housework so I avoid it at all costs, but I'll cop that one on the chin. The second one was that I smell like cigarette smoke. That one doesn't surprise me, my boss is a militant anti-smoker and a health nut to boot. I am very aware of the cigarette smoke, but considering I am unable to douse myself in perfumes at the office because she is also allergic to a lot of the chemicals found in deodorants and perfumes there aren't a lot of options for me. I'm still determined to quit smoking for good and this may give me the boot up the backside to go the last few yards. 

But the third and possibly strangest part of this meeting was the one where she disapproved of my work outfits. Now it wasn't strange that she didn't like my attire at work (I've had that complaint at several places that I work. I hate shirts, being so ample in the front and all, I find it difficult to find shirts that fit nicely all over so I tend to not bother wearing them at all.) Her solution was the strange part of the day, and the part I still shake my head over even four days after the fact. Normally when a boss tells me to change my work outfits, they do so with much hemming and hawing and looking at the floor. (Mainly because most of my bosses have been men who find talking about women's outfits about as comfortable as discussing their emotions.) but then they walk out of the meeting patting themselves on the back for being so tactful and leaving me to figure out exactly what the hell it is they want me to wear. But with my current boss, her solution was to have the office manager take us shopping to a local office clothing store down the road from where we work and pick out my new uniform with me. And then she paid for it.

On one hand I'm totally grateful that the boss was picking up the tab on this excursion, especially given that one new jacket, one pair of trousers and four new tops (the office manager grabbed two for herself) cost a whopping $500. But on the other hand I can't help but feel the entire process was entirely wasteful. I nearly fainted when the shop assistant tallied up the final bill, and I don't even know if that price includes the tailoring they need to do to my new trousers. (I am what the office manager calls incredibly short, but I call midget, so I always need new pants taken up.) They will quite possibly need to do the same to my new jacket when it finally comes in, and then we are getting the office logo embroidered on all the tops. It will all look very professional and when I am in the office, we will look like we have a uniform especially with the office manager and I dressing alike now, but I don't know what if anything this new look is going to accomplish except to tear me away from my nice warm duffel coat. (It is pink which happens to be the least favourite colour of my current boss, and I suspect the whole reason this make over happened in the first place.)

Now the boss was very careful in holding this meeting. She made sure that the office manager was in the room with us so that there was a witness to the whole proceedings (gotta love solicitors for preparing for the worst case scenario at all times) and she was very tactful (or as tactful as a no nonsense solicitor can ever be) about the whole thing, but it still stung. It still felt like I was being told I wasn't good enough just as I am. I have never put much stock into my appearance, and even less goes into it now that I have Miss K. My motto has always been as long as it's clean it's all good. The fact that I manage to put make up on every morning before I go to work is nothing short of a miracle for me these days. I have always thought my performance on the job mattered more than my appearance, but apparently this isn't the case any more. I don't know if I can even get enthusiastic about clothes any more, because they just mean more work when it comes to laundry day. (especially if the jacket is dry clean only.) But it looks like I'm going to have to fake it at the very least because my successful passing of the probation period now rests on my ability to smarten up my appearance. 

So I am trying. I bought myself some new gel nail polishes, I may even invest in a new eye shadow and lipstick, and this week I am going to book an appointment at the best hairdressers in town. (The fact that she has been my hairdresser since I was ten makes her the best.) And then I am going to go to work and pretend that I don't feel like mutton dressed as lamb. And hopefully that will be enough to make the boss happy and keep my backside in a job for a little while longer. I'll keep you posted.

Image courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

Mutton dressed as...well mutton