what you can do with a pile of sand

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Here’s a little gem from youtube that’s well worth 8 minutes of your time. I’d even go so far as to say I guarantee you’ll also end up watching it more than once… and utter the word ‘Wow’ at least half a dozen times.

The video shows the winner of 2009′s ” Ukraine ‘s Got Talent “, Kseniya Simonova. Her ‘talent’ – drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table – is incredibly mesmeric to watch, as the continuous flow of images tell the rather emotional story of how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II.

She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky – then war planes appear and the happy scene is obliterated.

It is replaced by a woman’s face crying – then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos, from which a young woman’s face appears.

She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier.

This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.

In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye.

During The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine, one in four of the population was killed, with 8 to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million. Little wonder then, that so many in the audience were moved to tears and this incredible artist went on to win the top prize of about $ 75,000.

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Click on the picture below to watch this truly amazing performance..

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Is it possible to parent without Prozac?

I’ve often wondered, what makes a good mother? And if I were to be marked out of 10, what would I get?

I mean these days are you considered a maternal goddess simply because you manage to keep your offspring alive, fed and watered till they’re 18, or is there more to it than just ensuring the survival of the young? Maybe it’s about teaching Junior not to knock every other child to the floor, in the stampede to get the last biscuit. Or how it’s unacceptable to spit at passing old ladies in the street, or hold up the local corner shop with a Swiss army Knife, for the sake of a pocketful of jelly beans.

Basic ground rules no longer seem to apply to kids today and it’s hard to know what will keep them from falling off the straight and narrow. Personally I concentrate on good manners, eating well, doing what they’re told – and the all important learning not to interrupt me when I’m on the phone. But who knows if this is enough.

Perhaps there should be a Parents Manual 101. A check list so we can tick off what we’ve done right, what we’ve got wrong and and what’s still to come. Actually scratch the last one. If we knew what was to come, the survival of the young would be put into jeopardy and Prozac sales would sky rocket.

I do sometimes feel that I probably fall well below the Mother’s Mark – that’s the parental version of the Plimsoll line, there to let you know when you’re about to drown in another child rearing disaster. These feelings of inadequacy are often as a result of me completely losing the plot, followed by my temper. Generally over something that is, in the grand scheme of things, really not that important at all.

Like my daughter sifting through her dinner as if I’m deliberately trying to poison her with an olive. Or my son deciding that the clean, cream wall is the perfect empty canvas on which to exercise his untapped artistic talent. The sort of stuff that I no doubt did at that age – and got a smack for.

So when one tearful child has gone to bed with no pudding, because he refused to eat any of the vegetables, or the other is glaring at me as she stomps to her room because I’ve abruptly switched the TV off – without giving a full  60 minute’s worth of warning – then I feel like crap. Well actually, lets be honest, initially I don’t feel that bad at all. I’m normally glad to have some peace and quiet at last and a chance to sit down without being talked at, tugged down to floor level or questioned over everything I say.

It’s about an hour later when I go into their rooms and see them laying there, all angelic looking with a tear still clinging onto an eyelash. Then I feel like crap.

Worse still, when looking for reassurance the next day, I ask my daughter, “So do you still love me or am I the meanest Mummy in the world?”

“Of course I do”, she says, looking horrified at the very suggestion she wouldn’t, ” you’re the very best Mummy in the world”.

And that’s when I feel REALLY crap. As I think to myself how important, on a scale of 1 to 10, was it that she ate that last piece of aubergine.

The trouble I find is that intending to be nice, loving and patience to my children every minute of the day, and actually achieving it are often about as far apart as the North and South Pole.

Sometimes it’s impossible not to be a bitch, even to them. I never mean it, but they seem to have this knack of catching me at a time when I’m especially stressed out, tired and hungry. They then  pull out all the stops and leap up and down on my very last, very frayed nerve. At that point, unfortunately for them, the most appetising looking thing to bite off just so happens to be their heads.

To make matters worse, it’s at these times that I come out with the most god awful things. Threats I have no intention of ever carrying out, character assassinations that are completely unfair and phrases that instantly morph me into my own mother. I hear the words come out, and even in mid flow think to myself ‘what the hell, shut up will you’.

I’m presuming, or rather hoping I’m not alone in all of this. Judging by some of the sad looking children and the angry, muttering mothers I’ve seen stalking around the supermarket and away from the playground, I’m guessing not.

In a perfect world I’d deal with stress better and never take it out on my kids. But the trouble is, as with most multi-tasking mums, half the time I’m too busy trying to work to play dress up with Barbies, and too busy cooking, feeding and clearing up to make necklaces out of pipe cleaners and the contents out of the ‘Bits’ draw.  By the evening I am certainly too bloody tired to discuss in detail, all those things that children find endlessly fascinating, and parents find, well, boring.

Yesterday for example, after a long day at the keyboard, my daughter informed me that for her latest school project she had to learn all about the banana. Now it’s not that I don’t care about the banana project, or wish to restrict her learning all about the cutting edge life cycle of this thoroughly nutritious fruit. But my brain just doesn’t have enough functioning cells left at the end of the day to process such an uninteresting topic.

I could let her lose on the Internet to find out more, but god only knows what would pop up if she Googled ‘ banana + picture’. I have images springing to mind, and none of them I wish to have burned into the memory bank of my 8 year old. I am tempted to just be blunt – ‘A banana grows, it’s peeled, it’s eaten – end of story’. But I suspect this just won’t cut it.

Besides that, it would be mean to crush her imagination and wish to learn. Particularly as I’m something of a witch when it comes to policing her homework and making her learn her times tables in the holidays – when all the other little girls seem to be out chatting with their friends on the street corner, wearing 2 inch silver kitten heels and eating sweets…

Juggling life and kids is an uphill battle at the best of times. Add to that a job, whether in an office or 10 feet from the kitchen table, and you may as well throw in a couple of knives and a blindfold. I wonder how many woman wish they didn’t have to do it all, or at least to be seen to be doing it all.

Given the choice, some days I think I’d rather go back to the Stone Age way of life. Sitting at home in my nicely decorated cave, with nothing to do but carving up and cooking whatever gets dragged back in through the door after the hunt. As long as there was Ebay that is, and Eastenders on the telly.

Anyway I have to say I felt slightly better about my mothering skills the other day, when I set eyes on this picture. I may bark, bite and occasionally smack my kids, but at least I’m not subjecting them to this type of beauty pageant child abuse. I ask you, what sort of self obsessed mother does this to her child? It’s freakish, warped and quite frankly creepy.

In comparison to these ‘eyes on the prize’ mothers,  I’m practically Maria Von Trap, with a little Mary Poppins thrown in for free.

When smelly children need surgery

Everyone has heard about those kids who stick something up their nose.

I’ve often thought what sort of idiot, albeit a pint sized one, does that? Images of a manky, sniveling little boy, with a crusted up, snot smeared face and unruly hair spring to mind. The sort of child who pulls wings of butterflies and feasts on worms and bugs. You know the type, they usually feature in the local paper, with a picture of the child proudly clutching the spanner set he somehow misplaced up his nasal cavity and his proud parents beaming away behind, quoted as saying “We wondered why all the magnets in the house kept sticking to his face.”

I also wondered what happened when this unfortunate event occurred. How did the child in question breath, when their nostrils were stuffed full of unidentifiable stuff? How did the parents not notice that little Jimmy had snorted his peas off his plate instead of eating them? And how on earth do they ever get the ‘foreign object’ back out again?

Last week I found out that I have one of ‘those’ children – oh what a proud parental moment that was. So off the back of that, I can now confirm the following. Yes, breathing is indeed restricted with something lodged up your nostril. It is easy to miss something different about your child, if it’s not visible to the eye. And believe it or not, it can take surgery.

The first clue that something was where it shouldn’t be was that my son smelt horrible, with a nasty whiff about his person that would come and go. The type of odour that simply refused to budge, even with much vigorous washing and twice daily teeth brushing. It’s hard to say exactly what the smell was even, somewhere between sour milk and a rotting vegetable perhaps. Fairly unpleasant in other words.

The pong went on for quite a while, until it escalated to such a point that my maternal alarm bells started clanging loudly in my ears. By this time I could no longer hug him on my lap without having to turn my head away to gasp for breath. Regardless of how much you love your child, no mother wants to sit and bury their nose into a compost heap every day.

Granted I do have a particularly sensitive nose, and could even detect a smoker walking 5 floors down and 500m away when pregnant, but this time it was more than me being fussy. So why wait till I was gagging you may ask? Well, apart from the whiff he was perfectly healthy. We checked him all over decaying flesh or rupturing boils, and like I said, he was washed and brushed regularly. Perhaps it was the fear of having a child diagnosed with halitosis that simply riddled me with fear.

So anyway, off to the doctor we went, where I told him that my son smelled horrible.

The doctor, as I expected, looked at me like I was something of a heartless cow when it came to my mothering care and concern. Then he looked into my sons mouth, and lo and behold spotted tonsils the size of walnuts. Or Brazil nuts. Or was it almonds. Anyway, regardless of the nut, apparently they were enormous and stopping all the air flowing down his throat. So the enlarged tonsils were blamed for the smell and I was referred to an ENT specialist to discuss having them removed.

A few weeks later we sat in front off the consultant. “He smells” I said, bracing myself for another raised eyebrow and resisting the urge to let out a “Mooo”, like the nasty Friesian that I am. The consultant looked at my son, turned him both ways and then informed me that he probably had something stuck up his nose. OK. Didn’t see that one coming. His nose certainly didn’t look any bigger than normal, and as far as I could remember, I hadn’t noticed him foraging around in the tool box and sniffing up a spanner. Perhaps it was a piece of Lego, or one of those wretched little Polly Pocket shoes I’m always telling my daughter to clear up.

Next stop for the doctor, the mouth, and his enormous tonsils were confirmed. They were then linked to his excessive sweating, loud snoring and irregular breathing at night, the long periods of time he spends awake and chatting in the early hours of the morning and his inability to shift a cold or cough. Well that cleared up all of those annoying habit’s then. I was told they needed to be whipped out ASAP, and as luck would have it, he had a slot to do it in a weeks time.

Marvelous, that would be the same day my husband was flying to Sydney for a week. Multitasking is one thing, but multitasking with a sick child alone is a whole other ballgame. By this stage, heartless cow was now looking more dazed and confused cow.

The night before surgery arrived, and with the bags all packed and ready for hospital, I promptly threw up. And then again. By 9am the next morning my husband had turned a rather sludgy shade of green. By 9.30 my daughter had been sent home from school. Or rather brought home, there was no way I was trotting into the school office to collect her dressed in my pyjamas.

I think it would be fair to say that so far ‘Operation Tonsil’ was not going to plan. With all of us (except the patient-to-be) now rolling around clutching buckets, the surgery was postponed for a further week. My son carried on watching Thomas, completely oblivious to the lucky escape he had just had.

A week later and into hospital we all went, lugging three enormous bags of essential items with us, only one of which was half unpacked. The other two sat in the corner completely untouched. My little boy was taken away by scalpel welding men in blue coats, and two nail biting parents sat in his dismal little room and watched the minutes tick by. Time does indeed go by much slower when you’re waiting for your precious offspring to survive.

On the way to be with him in the recovery ward I heard him long before I could see him. Weighing in at only 14kg, and just minutes out of a general anesthetic, I rounded the corner to find two nurses unsuccessfully trying to pin my little boy down onto the bed. Like a child possessed, he screamed blue murder and understandably thrashed around as he tried to figure out where he was and why he felt so odd. I have to say his show of strength was pretty impressive for his size, however it meant that he somehow managed to pull the tube out of his hand, and as I laid down with him to try and calm him down, he nearly catapulted me off the bed.

That night in hospital went as well as could be expected, considering the small and depressing room, the one colour suits all food and the rails of the bed that fitted in just perfectly between each of the vertebra down my spine.

For some unknown reason, all of the nurses also saw fit to raise their voices by several decibels as they barged into the room to check his stats, every 15 minutes throughout the night. To make continuous sleep even harder, each time they left they failed to close the door properly behind them. This left me with little choice but to climb over the rails of a ridiculously high bed, close the door myself and then climb back up and over and in again – in the dark. And all without waking the small restless child sprawled across the majority of a very small bed.

Did I mention this was a private hospital? No, I wouldn’t have guessed it either, if I hadn’t spotted the price list on the way in.

So now we’re home and I’m sitting with my little ticking time bomb of pain. Apparently he’s going to get a whole lot worse before he gets better, and he runs the risk of bleeding if he doesn’t eat toast everyday. Toast? I can’t even bribe him to open his mouth for ice cream right now. As far as he knows, his throat has just been attacked with a cheese grater.

This week is all about keeping him medicated up to the eye balls and preventing the dog from bouncing all over him on the sofa. It would be so much easier if he could understand why a day out ended in all this pain, but bless him, he doesn’t have a clue. Instead his sad little face looks up at me and I can just tell he’s thinking “What the hell did you let them do to me, you cruel and heartless cow?”

Oh, I almost forgot. The smell. That, I’m pleased to say, is gone. The ‘foreign object’ is still just that, as we have no idea as to what it might be. Let’s just say that if you blew your nose and that shot out onto the tissue you’d be somewhat alarmed, and probably feeling more than a little bit sick.

It’s sitting on the dresser right now, entombed in a plastic tub. I’m not exaclty sure why I’m keeping it, maybe so when he’s older I can whip it out and say “You may not have eaten worms and bugs as a child, but you did stick this up your nose. Happy 21st!”

Playtime

An Aussie influenced playground..

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Head, meet Wall

As the years tick on, and my daughter stretches and grows in front of my eyes, I find that every day I end up having to repeat just about everything that I say. Every day I then have to explain why I’m repeating myself. And every day I think that this is the day where I might have actually have got the message through.

Alas, that day doesn’t seem to be happening any time soon.

My forehead is now so flat from banging my head against the wall, I reckon I could easily get a job on the Starship Enterprise – and blend right in. Some days, as my words whistle through both her ears and I am met with another incredibly blank look, I have to gather up all of my self control to stop myself from leaping across the room and shaking some sense into her.

I’m frankly quite sick of hearing myself say “Why can’t you just listen to me”, or worse still, “What did I just say?” Utterly pointless things to ask a child when they are being reprimanded for not listening in the first place.

So yes, sometimes I do ask myself, what happened to my sweet and innocent little girl? The one who thrived on nothing more than love, hugs and praise. My incredibly tidy little girl, who liked to sweep the floor and rearrange the Tupperware cupboard for fun. The one who regularly arranged the contents of her underwear drawer so it was colour coded, and made her bed with military precision – spending at least 10 minutes lining her toys up in height order along the pillow.

Oh how things have changed. Her room now often resembles the second day at a Next sale, with her clothes hung up all over the floor. Her bed seems to look the same whether she’s in it or not, and her toys are, I think, expected to regroup and tidy themselves. She is going through a ‘Mary Poppins’ phase, so maybe she has been trying to ‘click’ them back into place.

Yes, Yes. I know this is all probably perfectly normal stuff. And yes, I admit that her earlier love of neatness could sometimes border on the side of obsessive. But still. While I was expecting to one day have to wade through her pit of a room, with dirty clothes up to my waist and week old toast crumbs under my toes, I just wasn’t expecting it so soon.

I guess I can live with the mess, as long as it stays behind her bedroom door. I can even live with the toys scattered aimlessly across the floor. That is as long as she doesn’t mind the odd Polly Pocket hat or shoe disappearing up into the Dyson. What I can’t live with however, is the losing things in the mess behind the bedroom door.

Take her golf glove for example – the one that I brought her a few weeks ago, to help improve her grip and keep the blisters at bay.

Buying the glove in the first place was a 3 act drama to say the least. Because her hand was so hot and sweaty from an hour on the driving range, we couldn’t work out which size was right for her. Think ‘The 3 Bears’ and you’d be halfway to the dilemma that unfolded, with open packets and assorted gloves flying all over the place.

Eventually she was taken off to wash and cool her hand, so it could shrink back down to a normal ‘Size Small’. Like I said, a complete 3 act drama.

The glove was eventually chosen and paid for. Later I was to learn I had paid more for hers than my golf loving husband had even paid for his own. Never mind, it was cute. And pink.

The glove was then worn home in the car, stroked lovingly the whole way. It was waved around, tried on several times during dinner, shown to everyone 5 times, and then taken to school the next day for ‘Show and Tell’. It was even used as a sleeping bag for her toy furry mouse, and positioned next to her pillow for the night. I think it would be safe to say that the glove was definitely the prized possession of the week.

What it wasn’t however, was put away with her golf clubs like I asked her to. So sure enough, the morning of her next lesson arrived, and the glove was nowhere to be seen. You could say that I was a tad mad at her for losing it. I believe the kitchen walls did shift slightly in fright as I made my point. I was also mad at myself for not preventing the incredibly predictable.

We both searched her room, her toy box, her bed, the garage, the garden and the dogs kennel. I searched in places that the glove would never be. Like on top of the dresser and inside the shed. Not a bleeding sausage – or glove, in sight.

Of course the woman in the golf shop remembered us when we went back in, how could she not. An identical glove was bought, this time paid for with the contents of my meek child’s piggy bank. I did explain why we were back so soon, and was told that if the missing glove reappeared, I could return it, along with the latest packaging and receipt.

Guess what. Several weeks later when we were out in the car, my daughter stuck her hand in her jumper pocket and pulled out the elusive glove. Hurray we thought.

Then I went to find the receipt and the packaging. Both of which I had tucked up high on the dresser shelf for safe keeping. Naturally they were both bloody missing and nowhere to be found. So now we have 2 gloves and no receipt, and I am admittedly feeling slightly guilty. Particularly as she had reduced the weight of her little piggy by many, many months. Never mind I told her, take it as a valuable lesson for you to learn, about the importance of looking after your things. I think she listened this time.

As for that missing receipt and packaging, I still can’t find them anywhere. I think perhaps that was a mild dose of parental karma, come back to give me a good hard bite on the arse.

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Hunting Skippy

One of the things that Australia is best known for, (apart from killer spiders) is its lean, mean, hopping machine. AKA the kangaroo.

When you first arrive in Australia, driving past the ‘Watch out, watch out there’s a kangaroo about’ road signs can be something a novelty.

They certainly beat the more mundane signs for cows, hedgehogs or ‘Men at work’.

My daughter to this day believes that whenever she sees such a sign, a kangaroo must surely be sitting nearby. Possibly filing it’s nails and waiting to leap out at the next car that comes past.

I’ve lost count of the number of times she has squealed “Kangaroo” at me from the backseat. “Where?” I yelp, slamming my foot on the break. “On the sign over there.” she offers up helpfully.

Roo spotting is indeed an excellent way to keep seat-belt bound children occupied for hours. The chances of them actually seeing one can be slim to none, but it is a golden opportunity to train up their eyesight, and stopping them asking “Are we nearly there yet?”

Now as far as that particular question goes, in my experience, as both an adult and a child, there is only 1 answer – “No, we only left the garage 5 minutes ago and we still have hours to go. Sit still, shut up and look out of the window.”

Oh, the power of parenthood.

If you live in suburbia, like we do, the likelihood of actually coming nose to nose with a kangaroo when you pop out to check your mailbox is nil. It is probably as unlikely as coming home to find one relaxing in a bubble bath, sipping a Baileys and listening to Norah Jones. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be found.

Up in the northern suburbs for instance, the bushland that runs along Burns Beach is home to quite a few. They can often be seen out and about on the hills, normally kicking back, having their tea and watching the sun go down. Connolly Drive is also meant to be a great place to spot them – so we keep being told.

So far, despite keeping my eyes peeled back up to my eyebrows and driving at a speed that would put my age at about 80, I have seen only 2. One was disappearing at a rather brisk pace behind a bush, and if I’m honest, could have just been a figment of my imagination. The other one was dead.

Poor thing, it was rather unsettling to see. Partly because it had most likely gone into battle with a bumper (and obviously lost), and partly because rigamortis must have kicked in with lightening speed. It was laying there on the edge of the road, rolled over on its side, but still in an upright seated position.

Granted this wasn’t the best example of wildlife to shows the kids, but hey, you have to take it where you can get it. Of course kids being kids, they weren’t at all fazed. My son, who was only 1 at the time, ignored Exhibit A, and carried on eating his rice wheels. My daughter, who was 7, was fascinated by the whole idea of it actually being real and dead.

I, on the other hand was deeply disturbed – all the way to the end of the road and up the next hill.

Another close kangaroo encounter came about on Lakeside Drive. We were driving back from Joondalup hospital in the middle of the night, (that would be night my husband tried to die on me) when a rather large kangaroo shot out from the bush and straight in front of the car. Luckily I wasn’t traveling quite as fast as I normally would, or we would have had a freezer full of Skippy steaks to keep our dog going for several years.

Of course there are many other places you can say ‘hello’,  if you don’t feel like patrolling the roads at night. Or if you already have a permanent crick in your neck, from trying to distinguish what is living, breathing mammal, and what is only a piece of drift wood by the side of the road.

Whiteman Park has a kangaroo enclosure which allows you to get up, close and very personal with a whole mob of them. Yes, ‘mob’ is the collective noun for kangaroos. I know, it sounds like they should be wearing football shirts, chanting stupid songs and drinking in the streets.

This is an ideal photo opportunity – a chance to stick Junior as close as he can go without being bitten, and then jump back as you tell him to smile. Yes, I admit, this is coming from personal experience. This hopefully adorable image can then be sent home, as your ‘Look where we live’ photo. Now, if you could somehow manage to pop a Santa hat on the kangaroo, think of the potential for your next family Christmas card…

Yanchep National Park is another great hot-spot. Here the kangaroos are just wandering around, without a fence or an entry ticket insight. Not so easy to get close enough to pat these, but a lovely setting to see them hopping around. The downside of this place is you are effectively walking on a carpet of Roo poo, but it’s a small price to pay for getting so close to nature.

It was on a visit here that my daughter asked one of those question’s. “What is that, hanging down from all those big kangaroos?”

“That would be their balls,” answered my ever so helpful, smirking husband. Great, thanks for that. How to open up a whole avenue of questions that I have absolutely no wish to answer yet.

There is one more place where you can be certain to literally lay your hand on a kangaroos leg. The supermarket. Or any good pet food supply outlet. OK, so maybe it’s not how you imagined wildlife to be – culled, chopped and cellophane wrapped – but it’s still a genuine kangaroo encounter nevertheless.

If you would still rather opt for those with a pulse, then happy hunting. But remember to wash your hands afterward, they can be more than a little whiffy.

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9 months in a nutshell

Whether it was planned like D Day, the aftermath of tequila or a weak moment with Barry White, the invasion of your eggs by an over zealous sperm will be a turning point in your life as you knew it. As the strains of ‘Jackpot!” can be heard echoing from the furthest reaches of your fallopian tube, your body will begin to metamorphosis into the very shape you have eaten next to nothing for years to avoid.

As the nausea takes hold and commands hot and cold running biscuits, the egg and your ankles will grow. Like a trucker after a hunger strike, you will eat. Wherever, whenever and whatever takes your fancy. As your skin stretches in protest and your backside inflates, you may struggle to squeeze into the shower cubicle. You will feel like you are hot housing a watermelon and that melon is playing pogo on your bladder.

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If you read this and think “oh no, not me“, then think again. This is the process, the side effects are not optional extras and unfortunately for the majority, blooming and glowing equates to bloating and over heating. And as for those urban myths about women who stay a size 8 till the delivery suite and don’t have a clue till the waters break. Only one word. How?

Then just when the end seems unreachable and you have resorted to cornering your petrified Daddy with a manic and desperate glint in your eye, nature eventually steps in and ups the ante. Much like a dodgy curry, (also eaten the previous night) what goes in must come out, and your bundle of joy will start making tracks to the birth canal.

Needless to say the exit is not quite on par with the entry, regardless of whether you decide to out do Mother Nature or pump yourself with the entire contents of the pharmaceutical cupboard. Every fibre of your being will simultaneously go into overload and meltdown, and you will, along with every other reproducing female in history declare the automatic ownership of the ovaries to be an unfair responsibility. Whale music will haunt you forever and your dignity will go out the same door that a group of eager young students have just filed in through, to watch and take notes.

Then, whether you are sliced and diced or squatting and pushing, what comes next will shock you to your hormonal core. That melon that you have carried and prodded and talked to for all these months finally materialises … as a baby.

You will now lay awake at night, worrying about the disappearing ozone, feel toe curling remorse for the terrible treatment of your own mother and a deep sympathy for those with triplets. Only now will you have an appreciation for uninterrupted sleep, tiny handbags and hipster jeans.

So there you are, one day an intelligent human being with a sense of togetherness, in command of your life and hairbrush and with shoes that match your bag. The next it will be all you can do to string two decipherable words together. You will act and react like a sleep deprived idiot, you will look like a Womble and the only thing in your wardrobe that will match will be the regurgitated breast milk on your baggy t-shirt and slippers.

And yes, all of this is absolutely normal.

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the club

Parenthood is a club which to the uninitiated remains shrouded in mystery, and it is kept this way for good reason. Unknowingly, a secret oath of silence is sworn by every parent before the placenta even hits the deck. ‘Tell not of the stress that prevails, lest the childless run screaming for the hills and their clocks stop ticking.’

Yes, sometimes it really is best to let ignorance prevail.

Now, back to this club. Not unlike many fitness centres, this particular set up comes with a couples automatic lifetime membership, and a host of non optional add-ons. A list of rules and restrictions as long as your arm, a strict code of conduct and a need for such self sacrifice that even the most devoted disciple will be tested.

The contract is and remains iron clad, watertight and completely non negotiable. Even if you could read the incredibly small small print, you most probably wouldn’t understand one word of it. The joining fees that seem reasonable, even good value at the on set, can and will increase at an alarming rate as the years go on, with no particular rhyme, reason or warning.

In short, much like the mafia, this club is defiantly not one for the faint hearted, flighty or indecisive. It has no backdoor escape or payout clause, and the term ‘lifetime’ in your membership does actually refer to the remainder of yours.
So

So just to be absolutely clear…

When it comes to parenthood, there is NO instruction manual, NO complimentary allen key and NO 0800 Help Line. And there is defiantly NO ‘Oh My God what have I done’ 30 days satisfaction or your money back guarantee.

So

So

Now that we have covered the realism of it all, let me quickly say that there are of course a 1000 positives to parenthood, not least that to join this club there is no interview or intimidating panel to impress, and no limit to the number of times you can reapply. It is undoubtedly the best thing since the coco bean was first discovered and Ebay introduced couch potato shopping.

Becoming a parent is like entering a world where everything trivial that you ever thought mattered, no longer does. Your life and your priorities change forever and the universe ceases to revolve solely around what side of the bed you got out of that morning.

But the best thing about being a parent is that, even when you realise your carefully planned and structured life is in utter chaos, you also realise that you wouldn’t change it for the world.

Pa

Pa

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