Unattractive kids and why I'm a bad person and, well, bye...

Sometimes my opinion pieces trigger a flood of negative comments. I very rarely see these coming. I never write pieces to be controversial. I write what I believe, and usually I imagine that most people feel the same way.

So when Essential Kids asked me to write a piece about a woman who was worried because her child was unattractive, I was amazed by the response.

I discuss it with Lana below. And I apologise to Lana for the way I ended the video. It seemed reasonable at the time. Watching it over... well... I have never laughed so hard in my life.

 

this will make sense when you've seen the vid

the sweet spot

Have you ever done a hill start in a manual car? It's very tricky to learn. You have to release your right foot from the brake whilst depressing your left foot on the clutch, but you have to find the sweet spot in the middle; release too quickly and the car will roll, release too slowly and the car will stall.

Well, for me, parenting is a bit like driving a car, and my love for my kids is the clutch, and my anxiety is the handbrake. And I am constantly needing to find that sweet spot between the two in order to drive smoothly and not roll down the hill.

Too much anxiety paralyzes me. I worry endlessly about my kids, I fantasize about worse case scenarios and I don't want to let my children out of my sight. If I wasn't constantly mindful, I could be consumed by anxiety. I can feel that person in the back of my mind, that crazy anxious parent who sees danger in every corner and awaits the day some terrible tragedy will occur.

But I won't be that person. I made that decision when my kids were born that I would not cripple them with my anxiety, and I haven't. I will not allow the dark thoughts to enter. I push them away and allow my kids to take risks. I send them down the road and let them play in the park and allow them to climb tall trees and encourage them to be independent.

I will not be that anxious person, not for their sake, and not for mine.

And yet... and yet... the anxiety is there. I won't allow it full expression, but it is there. And so I use it, I channel it, I hone it and I finely tune it so that it serves me and my children well. I access it when I need to. I allow myself moments of dread. I allow myself to think of what might be, just for a few seconds. Just enough. I release the brake, just a little bit.

I find the sweet spot. I find that sweet spot where I am not paralyzed by anxiety, but feel enough vulnerability to appreciate in every single part of me how lucky I am that my kids are okay. I find that sweet spot where I feel that surge of pure love, still so strong even after nearly 16 years of parenting. I find that sweet spot where I can stand over my sleeping child and feel overwhelmed with love and gratitude. Because anything could happen, and it hasn't. They are here.

The brake and the clutch. The anxiety and the love. I'm moving forwards. My hill starts are smooth.

My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Birth

I rarely talk about the birth of my third child. I did, however, include it in the book that was never published. And after Lana raised the issue of birth this week, I decided to haul it out and share it with the world. Be warned. It's traumatic.

 

My caesarean section was bizarre. There was no labour, no pushing, no transition, no process. One moment I was pregnant, and then, within a few minutes, I wasn’t. And there was my daughter, beautiful and healthy, emerging from the other side of the screen.

The baby was cleaned up, and shortly afterwards we both returned to my room. After twenty minutes or so my mum brought my big kids in to the hospital to meet their baby sister. Photos were taken and phone calls were made. I was light headed, but calm, and glad to have my daughter safe in my arms.

Then they left, and it was just my (then) husband, me and the baby. And suddenly, I wasn’t feeling so great. My stomach hurt, and it was grossly distended. And when the nurse came in to check my pad she noticed that my legs and my gown were soaked with blood.

 

“We’ll need to keep an eye on this,” she said, and I felt a tinge of alarm.

“Is everything okay?” 

“I’m just going to give your stomach a massage to help move some of these clots,” she told me.

“So I’ll be okay after that?”

The nurse just smiled. She massaged my stomach, but it was agonisingly painful.

“Stop!” I cried. “It hurts!”

“I’ll get you another shot of morphine,” she said, and left the room. My husband looked worried, and he never looked worried.

I counted the minutes until the nurse returned. By the time she gave me my shot, my pad was drenched again.

“I think we need to call the doctor,” my husband said.

“I’ll call the registrar,” the nurse told him.

“Call Kerri’s specialist,” my husband shouted after her, but she had already left the room.

Around twenty minutes later, an unfamiliar doctor pushed his way through the curtains. He looked about fifteen. I felt woozy, and my stomach was still sore.

“I’m Dr Amira, the registrar,” he announced briskly. “I’m just going to check your stomach.”

He felt around my stomach and I winced. Then he checked my pad. More bright blood.

The doctor chewed his lip, furrowed his brow and made some notes in my file.

“I want you to call Dr H,” my husband said.

Dr Amira paused. “We don’t disturb the specialists unless there is an emergency.”

“It is an emergency. My wife is bleeding.”

The young registrar looked profoundly uneasy. “Let’s give it another hour and see how she is, shall we?”

“Call him right now or I will go downstairs and page him myself,” my husband hissed at him.

Just then, my mobile phone rang. It was my son, calling me from my mother’s house.

“Hi Mum. How’s the baby?” asked my beautiful son.

“She’s good darling,” I said. “How are you?”

He answered, but I kept losing track of his words. I tried very hard to focus, but I felt like I was floating away. It’s the morphine, I thought. The drugs are making me fuzzy.

My son was saying something about homework and bedtime, but I couldn’t understand him. And I felt strange. Very strange. I was staring down a narrow tunnel, and I was being sucked into its vortex.

I was fading. I felt it. I was fading.

“I have to go now darling,” I said, and I let the phone slide from my hand.

Suddenly there was a commotion. People gathering around. Loud voices, needles being stuck into my arm, thermometers in my ear. I floated in and out of the scene, trying to stay awake. And yet, even though I was losing consciousness – even though my eyes kept drifting closed – I was panicked in every fibre of my being.

I was haemorrhaging both internally and externally and I could do nothing to save my own life. I was completely in the hands of the medical team, and they had not inspired me with confidence. I could feel myself dying. It was my worst nightmare coming true. I was dying. I was going to die.

I didn’t think of the new baby, who wasn’t even real to me at that stage. And I didn’t think of my husband, although he was standing there next to me. I thought of my parents, who had just lost their only other child. And I thought of my older two children, and how lost they would be without me.

“You don’t understand!” I screamed to the registrar. “You can’t let me die! YOU CAN’T LET ME DIE!”

The registrar spoke firmly, but I could hear the unease in his voice. “Please try to stay calm, Kerri. We’ve called Dr H. He should be here any moment. Just hang on.”

Hang on? HANG ON? What was I supposed to hang on to???

And then I saw the most wonderful vision appear before me. My white haired obstetrician materialised in my room. He was already in his scrubs.

“We’re taking you straight back to theatre,” he said briskly, and laid a reassuring hand on my arm as the staff began wheeling my bed out the door.

“Am I going to die?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Absolutely not. I won’t let you.”
 

 Here is the discussion with Lana that triggered this post. More to come.

  

Stupid, stupid night

So you're in Bali and you've had a wonderful time, and you feel really blessed that you're able to take an overseas holiday with the kids. But you have to come home, and the only way to come home is a night flight on Garuda, leaving at 10.30pm.

You are not excited.

The bus picks you all up at 7.30pm. You are already tired and anticipating the hideous night ahead, but you try to be brave. You arrive at the airport at 8pm and check-in. Your seats are in the back of the plane near the toilets and you try to be more brave. Toilets are good. You often use toilets.

You kill an hour at the airport looking at shops and buying water, then head to the gate. There is nowhere to sit, so you and the kids sit on the floor. The floor is hard. Your kids start whimpering. You laugh internally as they ain't got nothin' to whimper about yet. Just you wait, kids. Just you wait.

It's all fun and games until the passengers arrive

The plane is half an hour late to board and you feel yourself getting more and more tense and more and more agitated. You don't want to get on the plane. You are tired and you want to go to bed, not sit bolt upright for seven hours in a capsule near the toilets. But you have to get on the plane. You have no choice. Oh shut up kids, stop whimpering, I'm more cranky than you.

You board, hauling your kids along with you. You find your seats fairly easily. (They are near the toilets.) You all sit down. It is cramped and stupid. Your head is hurting. The 7 year old is white with exhaustion. The 13 year old's eyes are hideously bloodshot. The 15 year old takes out his Nintendo.

You put on your seatbelt and turn to buckle the 7 year old's seat belt. She is fast asleep in the chair.

You breathe a sigh of relief. That's one less to worry about. You wait impatiently as the stupid pilot takes hours and hours (okay 30 minutes) to get the stupid idiotic plane in the stupid air. You finally take off. You don't crash, which is good. Everything else is bad.

You get out your neck rest to try to sleep. The 13 year old is almost crying with tiredness. She is uncomfortable and can't find a good position to sit in. But at least the 7 year old is sleeping.

You stroke the 13 year old's leg and put your seat back in the reclining position, which is about 3 centimetre's more 'reclined' than the upright position. It is about as 'reclined' as a ladder. A stupid, stupid ladder. You try to be brave. It is hard, because everything is just so stupid.

You shift in your seat, this way, that way, the other way. You put your legs on your tray table and your legs under your bum. You wish you could cut your bloody legs off so you can fit in that stupid seat. You get delirious with exhaustion, and pray for release.

And finally, finally, it comes. You fall asleep.

And then there is a tiny little jab in your side. A finger. "Mummy, mummy, I'm awake! I'm going to watch movies now!" It is the 7 year old. You have been asleep for 8 minutes.

The rest of the flight passes in a blur, a stupid, horrible, sick, headachy, cramped, backbreaking blur. You drift in and out of consciousness, waking up with a dry mouth and the smell of airplane oozing from every pore. You hate this aeroplane and everything in it more than you've hated anything in your life. And when the flight attendant turns on the lights to give you breakfast... at 3am Bali time... and who eats breakfast at 3am anytime?... you hate her more than everything else put together. Stupid, stupid flight attendant.

You finally arrive at 5am Bali time, which is 8am Sydney time, which is just as bad. You head out, revolting, fetid and blinking in the light. You collect your bags, go through customs, declare that giant wooden python you bought for $5 at the markets. It passes. You're so pleased. Now you can go back and smack the stupid flight attendant over the head with it.

But you don't. You herd the revolting, fetid, blinking kids outside, and wait about a day for a taxi. And then you get in the taxi, and arrive home, and you all collapse on your beds and sleep for about a year.

And then you wake up and do laundry. The holiday is over. Real life, in all its stupid glory, begins anew.

I Love Them

By now you will all be familiar with the terrible story of Luke Batty. As a mother, as a separated spouse, as a single parent, as a human being, I am devastated by his death.

I don't have anything to add to the commentary on the tragedy. And this post isn't designed to be controversial, or to get hits. I just need to write it, for me, and for my kids. It is about love. It is about joy. I love them. I love them.

The depth of feeling I have for my children overwhelms me. It brings tears to my eyes as I sit at this computer. After nearly fifteen years of parenthood, it remains as strong. I feel grateful for my kids every second of every day. I get tired. I get sick of housework. I get frustrated. I get bored. But every time I look at those three incredible people, I am consumed with love.

My son is fourteen, and growing up, and becoming a man. But every night he wants me to kiss him good night, and every time he does I feel lucky. I go into his room and I run my fingers through his shaggy hair, and I kiss his still-smooth cheeks, and I tell him how much I love him. I am so in awe of that amazing kid. I feel ridiculously proud of who he is becoming.

My daughter is twelve, and is beautiful inside and out. She radiates warmth and understanding, she is generous and kind. In the mornings, if she is still asleep when I wake, I like to sneak into her bed and 'steal her warm'. In the evenings, when saying goodnight, I kiss her on the eyelids and pretend to eat her eyes. I cannot believe that I created her. She is the best person I know.

My six year old is just like me. She dances with abandon, composes poetry on the spot, laughs hysterically and cries passionately, and wants endless hugs and love. She has a heart-shaped face and massive saucepan eyes, and every morning when she emerges from her room it is like falling in love for the first time. I cuddle her like a dolly on my lap. I could stay like that for hours.

I love my kids. I feel so intensely lucky to have them. I can't bear that other people have been deprived of theirs. My parents lost a child. My sorrow for them is almost worse than the pain I feel at losing a sister. I want my parents to share in the joy of my children. They generate enough joy and enough love to go around.

I am so sorry, I am so hideously sorry for Rosie Batty. I wish her long life, and I hope that one day she will find peace.

And in the meantime, I need to say it: I love my kids. I love them. I am so lucky to have them. I am a woman truly blessed. I will sneak into their rooms and I will kiss them while they are sleeping. I will burst with pride when I hear their daily triumphs. My heart will constrict with pain when they tell me their challenges. I love my kids so much. I love them. I love them.

#MyFirst... Obsession

Each Monday I will be writing about a First. I will choose the First (first kiss? first drink? first fight? first phobia?)
I will post the topic here and write my own little piece about it. And I will invite YOU to write about your own First on your blog anytime during the week. If you have never experienced that particular first, write about why not. And how you feel about that.
Then add your blog post via the linky below, and/or tweet it under the hashtag #MyFirst.

Today's topic is My First... Obsession

It was Jodie. Then Tina. Then Lorena. And Vanessa. They fascinated me, to the point of obsession. I loved how they looked, what they wore, the way they moved. I wanted to see them, speak to them, be their friend. I wanted to know every detail of their lives and their thoughts. I wanted to get into their heads.

I wanted to be in their posse. 

Hell, I wanted to be THEM.

They were, of course, in the Young Talent Team, my sister and my favourite show throughout my childhood. We watched them every week, 6pm on a Sunday night. We went to their shows. Collected memorabilia. Bought their records. Practiced their songs. Each of the cast members had their own unique personalities, like real kids, only more. They were elevated to demi-gods via the magic of TV. 

The Young Talent Team were my first real targets of hero worship. And their celebrity entranced and confused me. They were famous. They were on TV. Clearly they werent like other, normal people. Clearly they weren't like me. But they were also, apparently, human children. They went to school, just like I did. They had homework. They lived with their parents. They went through puberty, they had bad hair days (actually, bad hair seasons), they forgot their dance steps, and they mimed really, really badly. 

My Tribe

How could such dichotomy exist?

 

I was obsessed with them. And, to this day, I still am, just a tad. I have kept all of my YTT memorabilia collected over the years. Sometimes I watch YTT clips on YouTube. I have read all the articles. I have watched all the documentaries. And I am still devastated about the death of Juanita Coco.

My recollections of YTT are certainly bound up in memories of my sister, who loved the show and the stars as passionately as me. The truth, though, is that it is just part of who I am. It represents my childhood. It feels warm and happy and safe.

"Close your eyes, and I'll kiss you.

Tomorrow I'll miss you. 

Remember I'll always be true.

And then while I'm away,

I'll write home every day.

And I'll send all my loving, to YOU."

 

Next week's topic: My First... Kiss
 

Could You Love a Surprise Package?

Years ago, I read a quote from my old nemesis, Nicole Kidman.

"My kids are adopted," she said, "so they are both surprise packages."

At the time, I didn't have children of my own, so that made perfect sense. If your kids are not your genetic material, then obviously you don't know what you'll get.

But then I had my own babies - three of them, in eight years - and I realised something quite remarkable.

'Natural' children are surprise packages, too.

My son was born the spitting image of his father. He was like someone had taken his dad's head, shrunk it with voodoo, and stuck it on a baby's body. It was weird. And his personality was a lot like his dad's too, only with a bit of his paternal grandfather thrown in for good measure. But of course, he became more and more of his own person, and now, at 14, he is no-one but Himself.

My big girl looks like her late auntie Tanya, and a bit like her siblings, and a little bit like me. In terms of personality, though, she is an outlier in our family. She is cheerful and laid back and easy going and relaxed, and I couldn't have predicted that in a billion conceptions.

As for my five year old, well, she's a maniac. And whilst that's not necessarily strange in itself - I mean, there's a little bit of maniac in me - it is the ways in which she is nuts that surprise me. She chats to chairs and does interpretive dancing in the street and gets massively excited about immunisations. I don't understand her a single bit, which makes raising her all the more fun.

So my point is this: natural children are surprise packages. Which make them not so different to adoptive children, or, for that matter, foster children either. And this is what I was thinking about yesterday, as I attended a Fostering Summit in honour of UN International Children’s Day.

I take my hat off to all those parents who give their love and support and time and energy to children who are not, genetically, their own. I wish more people would do it. Currently in NSW alone 900 new foster carers are urgently needed.

I heard a professor talk about a follow-up study of foster kids at aged 23. Those who did well were the ones who could name someone who had cared for them. Those who were not doing well were the ones who could not. No-one had ever loved them.

This broke my heart.

If you think you could care for a surprise package, make some enquiries. Because all children are surprise packages. Just not all of them are loved.

Note: This is not a sponsored post. I wrote this because I was very moved by what I learned at the summit.

Uncool - A Realisation

For the last couple of years I have been struggling with a difficult realisation.

I am uncool.

Now, I may not be uncool in the eyes of the world. Actually, I don't know how I'm viewed in the eyes of the world, and to be honest, I prefer it this way. I don't want to have my coolness status confirmed. This way, I can convince myself I'm, like, totally hip, and be cheerful in my deluded ignorance.

But I am profoundly uncool in the eyes of my children, and this saddens me quite deeply. I had always intended to be a super cool mum. My own mum was pretty cool, and I wanted to beat her at her own game. I wanted to be the kind of mum my children were proud of. The kind of mum they were proud to show their friends. The kind of mum they would want to take out clubbing. (Okay, maybe not that cool. That's kind of creepy.)

I did not write this text. But totes could have.

Instead, however, the opposite is true. My children see me as mortifying bordering on the tragic. I am banned from speaking in front of my 14 year old's friends due to general embarrassment, and am regularly chastised by my daughter for everything from dancing, to being naked, to trying to speak in rap (or, er, all three at once).

Despite my loftiest intentions, I am shockingly uncool.

I don't understand why I am such an abject failure. I have all of the outward trappings of cool. I wear jeans and cargo pants. I have tattoos, but not too many. I once had three earrings in the one ear (until, er, they all became infected). I like hip hop and The Big Bang Theory and Coke Zero and Matt Damon. I do cool things like meet famous people and go on TV and write books. And I do social media, for god sake. There is nothing cooler than social media! What on earth do my children want?

Well, they want me to stop singing and dancing, for a start, because I am 'useless' and it is 'horrible'. They wish me to stop telling jokes, because I'm not funny and it's just lame. They want me to never be naked, because that is just scary. They don't want me to swear, because swearing is rude. And they don't want me to talk about sex or puberty or any of the things that cool parents discuss with their kids. And I've dreamed of these conversations all my life, so who the hell can I possibly have them with now?

Still, being uncool is just something I have to get used to, like having wrinkles, and the fact that Simon Baker will never love me. And I'll be okay with it, eventually. I really will. Being cool isn't the most important part of parenting. It's about love, and communication, and honesty, and trust.

And besides, one day, I am going to be the coolest grandparent IN THE WORLD. And my uncool-parent children are going to be jealous as hell.

Real Life Techniques to Psychologically Damage Your Kids

These techniques are real. And they work. I know.
I have done all of them.

1. Forget to take off your mascara before bed. Forget to look in the mirror when you wake up in the morning. Spend an hour with the kids at breakfast time looking like Scary Undead Zombie Mother from the Black Lagoon.
2. As above, but only this time one of your kids has a friend over to visit before you've had a shower. This one combines fear with mortification. VERY effective.
3. Call out to your daughter "Darling, I'm stuck on the loo, can you bring me some toilet paper???" when she is on a Skype call to her best friend who can hear every word. (When your daughter's friend says "Your mum is really embarrassing", you know you've succeeded.
4. Stroll naked behind your daughter when she is on a video Skype call to her best friend. This scars both your child and her friend at the same time.
5. Be completely inappropriate at a celebrity sighting. For some reason, kids find the sight of their mother running towards Joel Madden screaming "Oh my god I love you!" super traumatic.
6. Murmuring "GOD I'd love to do him," in front of your kids* whilst watching said celebrity on The Voice.
7. Singing along to pretty much any contemporary song in the car in front of your kids and their friends. Add some Gangsta hand dancing for extra negative impact. 
8. Dancing. Anywhere.
9. Kissing the kids in public. Add a passionate "I love you baby girl/boy" and they will take days to recover.
10. Swearing. Your kids may love to swear themselves, but hearing you swear is intensely traumatic. One little 'F' word and suddenly you're living with the morality police.

*To clarify: You can murmur in front of the kids. You most definitely do not want to do Joel Madden in front of the kids. That is taking things way too far.

So what has worked for you?? What have you done to psychologically damage your children??? Let me know so I can try!

What Not To Do

The five year old was in the bath. She was tired. Then again, I was tired too, but I'm the mother so that is irrelevant. We mothers have to continue on undaunted no matter how desperately ever single cell in our body is crying out for unconsciousness.

But I digress.

I left the five year old in the bath (fear not, she can swim now) and crawled back to the kitchen to clean up after dinner. Just as I had hauled the last remaining plate into the dishwasher and cleared the final globules of tomato sauce from the table, I heard nothing.

Yes. Nothing. And that is never a good sign.

I ran back to the bathroom. And there was the five year old, happily playing in the bath. Happily playing with a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of bubble bath. Happily playing with a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of bubble bath that she had emptied all over the side of the bath.

Such Pretty Colours

No. No. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I yelled. I scolded. I curled in the fetal position and sobbed. But the five year old sobbed harder.

"I didn't know, Mummy!" she cried. "You never told me I can't do that! You have to tell me these things! I'm only five and I'm not as smart as you! I didn't know!"

So, for the elucidation of my five year old and five year olds everywhere, here is the List Of Things You Shouldn't Do. Please feel free to add your own.

1. Do not write on the walls. Even if it is 'very beautiful handwriting'.
2. Do not throw food. Even if it is 'disgusting'.
3. Do not hit your brother. Even if he is 'very very annoying'.
4. Do not hit me. Ditto.
5. Do not spit out food. See point 2.
6. Do not cut things with scissors without checking with me. Particularly hair, clothes, important-looking documents and the cat.
7. Do not scribble on your sister's homework. Even if it does 'make it very much better'.
8. Do not empty liquid anything onto the floor. I think we've covered that one.
9. Do not break things. Even if they 'weren't important'. Your definition of what is not important and mine are rather different. For example, I quite like my mobile phone.
10. Do not draw on my face with permanent marker when I am sleeping on the couch. It takes hours to wash off and I don't have time because I am cleaning up the bloody bathroom.

A Letter of Resignation

To My Family & Friends,

After around thirty seconds consideration and with a heavy heart, I have decided to resign from my position as Mother.

I have enjoyed working with my children for the past nearly fourteen years. Unfortunately, however, this latest outbreak of lice has made my position as head of the family (no pun intended) to be untenable.

There are several reasons why I have come to my decision.

1. There was no mention made of the possibility of lice when I took on the position of Mother. I feel that I was tricked into a role that I did not agree to.
2. Removing lice from my children's hair is virtually a full time job in itself. There is simply no time in the day to attend to other parenting duties, such as feeding my kids, bathing them, doing the laundry, and drinking wine.
3. Lice are revolting.
4. Lice removal lotions smell terrible.
5. My children are clean. Lice, apparently, like clean hair. This creates a paradox which leads to severe cognitive dissonance which causes me extreme stress.
6. I can't claim worker's compensation for my extreme stress because Motherhood doesn't come with insurance.
7. My children complain that their heads are itchy then they complain when I put the lice potion on them then they complain even more when I use the fine toothed comb. I can't win. What is the point of a job where I cannot win?
8. There is no pay. There has never been any pay, but this is completely unacceptable now that I have to remove lice.

So goodbye children, and goodbye Motherhood. It's been fun. Some of the time. The rest of the time has been lice.

I wish me the best of luck with all my future endeavours.

Kerri

Trampoline of Hell, Part: KILL ME NOW

I thought my days of trampoline assembly were over. I was wrong. Oh, how painfully, tragically wrong was I.

Due to some impending garden landscaping, our impossible-to-assemble trampoline was required to be disassembled and moved, temporarily, to a different location. The 'different location' is 'my parents' back garden', given that they are a) the ones who bought the bloody thing, and b) no-one else will have it as it is IMPOSSIBLE-TO-ASSEMBLE.

The Architect disassembled the trampoline with the help of our daughters. This, clearly, was far easier than the assembly, which is IMPOSSIBLE and DESIGNED INTENTIONALLY TO SEND YOU CRAZY.

I HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW

I transported the pieces of trampoline to my parents' place, where they waited eagerly, tools in hand. (Okay, so my mother was drinking a cup of tea and my father was asleep on his bed, but they were sweetly eager in spirit.)

The first part of the trampoline was simple to assemble, because the manufacturers are EVIL and TRYING TO TRICK YOU. My mother and I got the base up and attached part of the mat, and then things went hideously, catastrophically wrong.

For a start, we lost the special tool you need to pull the springs that attach the mat to the base. My mother, who is endlessly resourceful, fashioned a tool out of a metal clamp, which seemed to do the trick. However, very shortly thereafter, it became clear that we were simply not strong enough to pull the springs into place. My father was summoned to come and lend some Man Power to the operation. This irritated my 13 year old son, who felt deeply offended that we had not thought to seek his help, but the entire task was clearly beyond him as it was IMPOSSIBLE.

My parents and I laboured for over an hour in the scorching summer heat, trying all sorts of techniques to get the RIDICULOUS STUPID SPRINGS into the BLOODY CRAZY-MAKING HOLES. We failed. At one point, I was lying on the grass underneath the trampoline trying to assist with navigation as my mother wept in despair above me and my father complained of chest pains.

We still failed.

After a further five minutes, my parents quit the trampoline in a cloud of rage and disgust. I looked sadly at the pile of springs and decided to take my five year old for a walk whilst my mother took to her bed and my father locked himself in his study.

I returned after half an hour, and my 11 year old daughter greeted me at the door.

"Mummy, come see what we did!" she cried.

I called my parents and we all proceeded to the backyard. The trampoline was fully assembled. My two children had assembled it. They had done the impossible. And they said it was "easy".

I hate that trampoline. I do. I really do. But I love my children. If they can assemble that trampoline, they can cure cancer and save the earth from meteors. And I feel very lucky to have them.

I wish that trampoline would go and spontaneously combust, though. I hate it.

Gone.

My baby was almost late to her first ever day at school because I couldn't get my mascara right. I don't usually wear mascara, but my eyes looked like I'd been crying all night (which was not surprising, because I had). And so I slathered it on, then got teary again, so the whole lot smeared. In the end, I left the house with grey-rimmed puffy eyes, which will look truly memorable in those First Day At School photos.

I didn't expect to have such a strong reaction to my youngest starting school. I was quite excited when my big boy and girl started Year K all those years ago. I was ridiculously proud, marveling at their uniforms, taking endless photos of them with their hats and bags. It felt like the start of a wonderful new chapter. There was no sense of loss, no sense of mourning, just fresh beginnings.

This time, though, this time it's my baby. My beautiful, precious girl. She was born when her siblings were already six and eight. Last year her brother started high school, and next year her sister will join him. They are growing up, moving forward with their lives. Every day I see them morphing from children into teenagers. Every day I am stunned by the passage of time. It rushes ahead, and they rush with it. It's magnificent and wonderful and incredibly quick.

But it's been okay, because I have had my youngest. The big kids could grow up but she would always be with me. She would always be cute. She would always want to snuggle. It would be okay because I would always have my baby. I couldn't even fathom my girl growing up.

Today my baby put on her uniform and shoes, hoisted her backpack onto her back, and walked into school. And it hurt. It hurt. I didn't want to let her go. I was careful to be positive and cheerful, but inside I was crying. I know it will be fine, I know she will have a fabulous day, but I'm just not ready to let her go.

Time, it goes so fast. And kids grow up. Even your babies. Even the ones you think will stay young forever.

In years to come, I'll look back on the pictures from today and laugh. There is my daughter, in her too-big dress and her perfect, shiny shoes. There is my husband, smiling broadly. There is our big girl, having run down from her classroom, proudly showing her sister around. And there is me, with my grey puffy eyes, clinging on to my baby with all I've got.

One day I'll laugh. But right now I'm still having a little weep. Until 3pm, when I pick her up, and she'll be my little girl again.

The Truth About Boys

I never had brothers growing up. Though I went to a co-ed school, and saw boys in their natural habitat, I never saw them alone, never saw the way they interacted together when there were no girls present. What do they talk about? I used to wonder. How do they play?

Well, now I have a thirteen year old son who often has group of friends over. And so now I have access to the secret world of the male.

At this very moment I am eavesdropping on my son and seven of his friends. I can say with confidence that now, people, NOW I know what they do.

BOYS (from, er, a backstreet)

• They yell. They whoop. They jeer. They scream.
• They play Wii with passion. It can get vicious out there.
• They make jokes about their testicles. Using the word 'testicle'.
• They insult each other. Gleefully.
• They mock each other mercilessly. "Heh heh heh heh heh," they say. With relish.
• They talk frequently about how awesome they are. "I am AWESOME!" they proclaim.
• They call each other weird names.
• They speak in funny accents and with funny voices. Loudly.
• They use in-jokes, all the time. They quote from school. They quote from YouTube videos. They quote from TV. They bastardize popular song lyrics. And they make up alternatives to Gangnam Style. It never gets old. To them, anyway.
• They get each others' attention by screaming "GUYS!" at the top of their lungs. No-one listens.
• They don't bother with niceties. "Put that down!" "Turn that off!" "Somebody press play!" "Shut up Alex". Nobody seems to mind.
• They say "flippin" a lot.
• They are very big on sarcasm.
• They rage quit when something goes wrong. They recover quickly.
• They threaten each other with violence. On occasion, they follow through.
• They laugh, about the most ridiculous things. They laugh a lot. It is a beautiful thing.

I'm Sure I Can Blame My Parents For This

When I go to my parents' house I fall asleep on the couch. Every. Single. Time. I can't help it. It's a reflex reaction, a Pavlovian response honed over years of walking in the door and handing over my children to their grandparents. I feel unencumbered and unburdened, youthful and vibrant  (or at least, the kind of youthful and vibrant that likes nothing more than a quick cup of tea and a nice lie down).

The system has worked well for me over the years. There is just one tiny flaw. On occasion, I end up at my parents' place with my children when my parents aren't there, and on these occasions, I find it almost impossible not to fall asleep. Which is a problem considering that my children are very much awake, and are quite capable of causing considerable havoc even with the briefest window of opportunity.

Cake Shown Not Blogger's Own
(it doesn't come out of the oven fully iced)

Take yesterday, for example. I had workmen at my house so went to hang out at my parents' house with two of the kids. My parents were out, so I took out some toys for the kids and sat on the living room floor to play.

But the soporific effect of my childhood home was too much for me. Within moments, my eyes got heavy and I could feel myself drifting off.

"Mum!" I woke up with my 11 year old was poking me in the ribs. "Can you turn on the oven for me? I'm baking a cake for Nana and Papa!"

"Sure," I mumbled, and stumbled half conscious to the kitchen. I turned on the oven, stumbled to the couch, and was immediately fast asleep.

About half an hour later, I woke to the sound of alarms and the smell of smoke.

"MUM!" my daughter was shouting. "THE CAKE IS ON FIRE!"

I jolted alert and ran to the kitchen. And yes, the cake was, in fact, on fire. It was fascinating. I mean, I knew cakes could burn, but I didn't realise they could actually burst into flames like a sweet,  flour-based bonfire.

I turned off the oven and tried not to panic. How, I thought, does one extinguish a cake-based fire? More importantly, I wondered, would said cake still be edible?

"THROW WATER ON IT MUM!" my daughter screamed. But the cake smelled delicious so I decided just to blow the flames out, much as you would with candles. And it proved effective, though did take considerably more energy than blowing out candles on an actual birthday cake. And about fifteen minutes longer.

So then we sliced the top off the cake and sampled it, and it was, in fact, delicious. My parents came home and didn't notice anything at all, apart from the acrid smell of smoke throughout the whole house, and little piles of charcoal all over the kitchen floor.

And later when we returned home, my daughter offered slices of her cake to the workmen.

"It caught on fire," she told them, "but it still tastes good."

I do love my parents' couch.

I Like Big Butts And I Cannot Lie...

I like big butts and I cannot lie.

Except that I don't like big butts, so I am lying. I mean, I don't dislike big butts, I just don't particularly have a thing for them, you know? They're not something that I think about on a daily basis. I like big lots of things - big chocolate bars, and big glasses of gin, and big jars of Nutella, and big beds, and big wads of cash, and big muscles, and big brains, and big love, but not particularly big butts.

But I cannot get the stupid song out of my mind.

OR CAN THEY????

I like big butts and I cannot lie. All you other brothers can't deny...

Except I'm not even a brother! What's more, I don't even have a brother! I can't relate to this song on any single level, but it is playing in my head all day long. And to add insult to injury, whenever it starts playing in my head I have to dance. Yes, DANCE. And not just any old dance, either. I have to wiggle my butt.

I like big butts and I cannot lie! I sing, turning my back to whoever is in the room and shaking my booty in their face. This is endlessly amusing for my husband* but rather less amusing for my kids. The 11 year old rolls her eyes and tries to ignore me, which isn't too hurtful, but the 13 year old gets quite aggressive and threatens violence, which I find a little excessive, particularly when he has friends around. I really want them to feel like we have a warm and welcoming household full of love and acceptance, not one in which a simple butt dance leads to physical recrimination.

As for the five year old, well, she gets very distressed, putting her hands over her eyes and yelling 'Stop it Mummy, stop it!' Which, when we are in the supermarket, is really quite concerning, because then people think I'm abusing my daughter in some way, instead of just expressing my inner Gangsta.

I also find myself dropping I like big butts into general conversation. I saw a dog the other day and exclaimed 'I like big mutts and I cannot lie!' except that I don't like dogs much at all, and the big ones really scare me. And on the weekend I discovered that a friend had bought a large number of bagels. I like big bagels and I cannot lie! I texted him. I never heard back.

So the moral of this post is that some songs are dangerous and make liars of us all.

And if anyone has a way to get big bloody butts out of my tiny little brain, I would very much appreciate advice.

*who just read this post and told me it is not 'endlessly amusing' at all, but in fact he grew tired of it after the first 250 dances

RIP iPad. And My Sanity.

So yesterday I had to take my iPad to be euthanized fixed. It was an emotional time for me, because a) I am very attached to my iPad, and b) my five year old was screaming at me and hitting me on the leg because I didn't buy her a (second) chocolate.

I had made an appointment at the Apple store, and rushed like a crazy person to be there on time. Sadly, the twenty five thousand staff members didn't seem to have quite the same sense of urgency, because they sent me over to sit at a table with several other people (including one man who appeared to be a homeless person  who came to use the free WiFi and a woman who I could actually hear seething) for at least another fifteen minutes.

Artist's Impression Of My iPad Screen

I killed time swatting at the five year old on my leg and hacking into the Apple Store computer (which involved swiping the screen and pressing one button). I discovered that I was described on their appointment list as 'Woman In Multi-Coloured Singlet', which pleased me, as alternative titles could well have been 'Tired Looking Middle Aged Mother With Fuzzy Hair', 'Chick With One Enormous Sticky-Out Ear' or 'Person Attached To Extremely Loud And Annoying Five Year Old'.

Finally, a pleasant looking twelve year old dude with roguish long hair came over to serve me.

"So what seems to be the problem?" he asked.

"My screen is broken," I said. "I can hear the iPad working, but the screen is dead."

"Ah..." he nodded wisely. "That's difficult, because the screen is one of the most important parts."

I nodded too. "Yes," I agreed. "Because without the screen you can't actually see anything."

He nodded again, a little uncertainly this time. "Um... well, I'll just go see if I can restore the screen with *insert technical term I didn't understand here*".

"Okay," I said, and rubbed my leg where the five year old was gnawing on it.

A few minutes later the twelve year old returned with my iPad.

"Unfortunately the *insert technical term I didn't understand here* didn't fix the problem. You will have to purchase a new iPad at *insert price that made me weep here*."

"Okay," I said, and rubbed my eyes where the tears were flowing. Given, I had no idea whether he was telling the truth or not, as I a) didn't understand the technical term, and b) had no idea whether he actually performed said technical thingy that I didn't understand. But I had absolutely no choice. He was twelve, and I knew nothing about fixing iPads, so I handed over the money.

Which leaves me here, now, with my brand new iPad and a lot less money. Bruised, but not broken.

Okay, a little bit broken. But less broken than my poor old iPad. At least, according to the twelve year old. Who may or may not have been telling the truth....

Yup. Can somebody please pass the vodka?

Home. Vodka. Home.

Yesterday was our first full day at home since returning from hell Surfers Paradise. I was looking forward to a relaxing day after the trauma of the recent week.

I was sadly disappointed.

Here is a breakdown of my schedule yesterday. There is a thousand dollar gift voucher for anyone who can pick the moments of 'relaxing' that I actually achieved in the day.

7am - Wake to the sounds of Spongebob Squarepants. Feed & water children, put on 17 billion loads of laundry, unpack suitcases, regard pile of clean laundry to be folded and put away, sit in corner weeping for several minutes.

10am - Book tickets on the internet for son and husband to see The Hobbit at 12.20am. Sweep up rabbit poo and clean the fish tank. Weep for another couple of minutes when I realise a piece of poo has fallen down my tracksuit pants.

11am - Go with husband and 5 year old to visit a friend who is on weekend leave from hospital. Scream in horror at 12am when I realise that the movie starts in twenty minutes and husband and son are not there.

12am - Drive extremely fast safely back home with husband and 5 year old (and, inexplicably, friend's 8 year old daughter) to pick up son. Drive son and husband to movies. Get there only two minutes late. Drive home in cold sweat. Sit in corner weeping for several minutes. Supervise 3 little girls in the pool whilst the pile of laundry grows like the magic fucking pudding.

3pm - Go to pick up husband and son. Stop to pick up house keys from kind friends who were bunny sitting in our absence. Drive back home with husband and son (and, inexplicably, friend's 5 year old daughter). Arrive home. Husband announces he is going to work for a few hours, leaving me alone with five children and a now dangerously teetering mountain of laundry. Sit in corner weeping for several minutes.

4pm - Realise I am out of some vital supplies such as alcohol, milk, bread, medication, alcohol, fruit, bunny food, and alcohol. Further realise with growing horror that I am trapped in the house with five children. Further realise with tears of fear in my eyes that I will need to take at least two of the children with me to the shops.

5.30pm - Arrive home from Westfield with several bags of shopping, two five year olds high on sugar, and the loss of at least eight years off my life after chasing said five year olds around the supermarket for an hour. Throw some sushi at the kids (who, like the laundry, seem to be multiplying like the magic fucking pudding) and crack open the vodka.

6.30pm - Husband arrives home and enquires politely about dinner. I respond, less politely, and have another vodka.

7pm - I can't remember because VODKA.

8pm - Um... Vodka?

Trampoline of Hell

We've come close in the past but this was the real test. The Architect and I had set aside the day to assemble the new trampoline - one of those Anxious Parent ones with safety nets, and mats over the springs, and zips to make sure the kids don't fall out of the ten centimetre doorway.

The trampoline was a present from my parents for their grandchildren for Chanukah. Chanukah is the Jewish festival of lights, traditionally celebrated with gifts of coins and doughnuts - or, in my offsprings' case, gigantic, expensive trampolines.

The gift was a surprise for my girls, but my 13 year old son was in on it - firstly because he guessed when the truck arrived with a giant box bearing the logo 'Trampoline' (I know, the kid is smart), and secondly because my husband and I were scared to be alone together during the assembly, and needed our son as a referee. So the girls were told that the giant box bearing the logo 'Trampoline' was a 'table', and were shipped off to friends down the road. This wasn't an issue for the 5 year old, who cannot read, but was worrying when accepted by the 11 year old, who clearly either needs remedial English tuition, or is quite frighteningly gullible.

Our trampoline doesn't fly. But it did lean.

The first part of the assembly went very well. We removed all parts of the trampoline from the box and counted the parts carefully. Unfortunately the next part of the assembly - actually assembling the fucking thing - was slightly more complex. It took about 45 minutes to get all the springs into place, and then another 25 minutes to remove all the springs once we realised we were supposed to put the safety net on BEFORE the springs went in. We assembled the poles with the elastics facing in the wrong direction, which means nothing to you but meant something to us when we were unable to hook the net to the poles. And we couldn't screw in the screws properly, because I broke the special screwdriver trying to unhook the prematurely-installed springs.

However, the greatest fail was that of The Architect, who dug a ditch in our uneven garden to level the trampoline's surface. As we don't actually have a shovel, he was forced to do this with a pink plastic spade and a drinking glass. So focused was he on his task that the ditch turned out to be several centimetres too deep, causing the trampoline to lean dangerously to the left.

So the pink plastic spade was re-engaged to fill in the hole, and eventually the trampoline was leveled. And neither my son or I said one word to The Architect about his monumental stuff-up, although we *may* have done an interpretive dance of scorn around our perfectly constructed trampoline.

In the end, though, the girls were thrilled and the assembly was a huge success. My back is broken, The Architect's spirit is crushed, and my son has sworn never to work with us again, but they are but minor hiccups along the path to family bliss.

So Happy Chanukah to all, and may your Christmas presents come pre-assembled. And if they don't, may I suggest that you invest in a spade?

Vault: Why We Don't Do Dogs

I am not posting for a while as I am processing some bad news.
So I thought I'd give some of my very first posts a re-run, as a) no-one ever read them, and b) you can see why.

"Mum," my kids ask. "Why can't we get a dog?"

"Because, children...

1. We killed our fish.
2. We killed our fish because we forgot to feed him.
3. It took us a full day to realise our fish was dead.
4. We killed all the ants in our ant farm.
5. We actually thought we had killed all the ants in our ant farm, but when we emptied it, it turned out half were still alive. In other words, we can't distinguish life from death - not ideal when you are caring for a living being.
6. We still have no idea why half the ants in our ant farm died - again, not ideal when you are caring for a living being.
7. The small members of our family tend to attack the small members of other people's families, dog owners are litigious, and vet bills are expensive.
8. We don't like walking anywhere.
9. When we do walk, we frequently lose our toddler (and she doesn't have four legs).
10. We can't think of any good names. (Our last fish was called 'Fishy', and 'Doggy' is just stupid.)
11. If there is food in a bowl on the floor, the toddler will eat it.
12. If I have to clean up one more poo off the floor I will end up rocking and moaning in the corner."