Raining Cats, Dogs and Maltesers

Mother Nature wasn’t very happy yesterday. In fact, I’d go as far as to say she was pretty pissed off. If I was a guy I’d probably say it was a case of PMT, but I’m not, so I’ll just hazard a guess and say she was having one hell of a bad hair day.

Whatever the reason, Ms Nature certainly gave 2 fingers up to anyone in Perth who’s been moaning about the weather. Or more specifically, the 40 degrees of constant heat with not a drop of rain since November.

Now I do appreciate that to people in wetter isles, England lets say, the idea of nearly 5 months without rain might seem like something of a dream. But let me tell you, it’s not. When a total lack of precipitation is teamed up with temperatures more suited to melting iron ore, it can make for some pretty uncomfortable living. Not to mention a rather dry, dusty, brown and monotonous landscape.

So that said, I think it would be quite safe to assume that rather a lot of people in Perth (and some extremely dehydrated plants) were rather looking forward to the dry spell breaking. And break it did. With bells on.

With barely enough time to drag the dog through the fly screen, the blue sunny sky disappeared and the hailstones arrived. Hailstones the size of Maltesers, pouring out of the sky so fast you’d think God had accidently left his freezer door open, and a passing angel had carelessly tipped it over. We were lucky only to get Maltesers, in the city they were apparently the size of golf balls.

Then came the rain. Or should I say the downpour, pelting in at us from at every angle but up. Within minutes our garden was several inches under water, and there was, what could only be described, as a flash flood going past the end of our drive.

Being me, of course I tried to take some photos of the hailstones stacking up 9 inches deep at our back door. But the moment I opened the door to take the picture, the bloody dog shot off into the garden. How stupid is he? He see’s, what to him must have looked like a Noah’s Ark moment, and he still decides to go out for a quick dig in the sand.

Needless to say once he went out I refused to let him, or his soggy wet fur, back in again. He may be of the non-smelling variety of pooches, but even a soaking wet Spoodle has something of a whiff about it. So I hardened my heart and held my resolve – right up until the point where my daughter stood sobbing at the window, looking down at a pathetic excuse for a fur ball, trying to pin himself flat against the wall with his damp ears plastered around his snout. Two clean towels and a vigorous blow dry later and he was back inside and on the rug. I hope he’s learned his lesson, that nothing is worth the pain of a dig in the hail.

Dumb dogs aside, in the sort of weather that heralds the start of Armageddon the average person normally chooses to stay indoors, steer clear of windows and turn up the TV. Sadly I’m not average, so I grabbed the car keys, swam to the car and set off with oars at the ready.

Of course as the sky turned pitch black overhead and the odd branch blew past like tumbleweed, it did cross my mind that this might not be the most sensible decision in the world. But really I had no choice. My son, who isn’t partial to loud noises and the car wash at the best of times, was stranded at his nursery 8 minutes down the road. Even if he’d had the foresight to take his water wings with him that day, I very much doubted he’d have managed the journey alone.

“The clouds are very angry” he told me, over and over all the way home.

My poor husband arrived back quite a bit later than usual that night.  Something to do with me having his car, the train tracks being flooded, every cab being taken and the buses being fit to burst. I’m not sure it necessarily helped, when I pointed out that if he had had his car that day, he’d no doubt still be stuck in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, as the world and their wet dog struggled to leave work.

Needless to say the news teams and anchormen (I would be P.C. and say anchorwoman, but all the women sound like men anyway) were practically salivating with joy on the TV last night. Finally, something worth reporting in Perth that didn’t involve a drunken AFL player, a misplaced kangaroo and a runaway shopping trolley on the freeway.

As I know I’m rather prone to the odd bit of exaggeration (creative license and all), I’ve added the pictures below to show that for once, Perth really did have something happen to get excited about.

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Demon children and saintly spoodles

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Taking your child away on holiday can sometimes be a very dangerous thing to do. In only a few short weeks they can morph into a human being barely recognisable from the one you once knew. As routine, balanced diet and consistency goes out the window, everything you ever taught them seems to follow, including good manners, eating habits and general all round intelligence.

In the case of my 3 year-old, this certainly seemed to be the case. He left Perth a mild-mannered, book loving, happy eater, and arrived in England a screeching, uncontrollable terror. Who wouldn’t eat a single vegetable. Including beans. Coated in tomato sauce. Made by Heinz. Heavens above, what child refuses those?

What the hell happened up there at 33,000 feet you might ask? I’m still pondering the very same question myself – but looking back it’s easy to see where it all went so wrong.

A stranger to sugar and capable of sleeping for up to 4 hours in his afternoon nap, my son found his world being tipped upside down as he was dragged from his bed and shoe horned into the car on the way to the airport. There we were, in the middle of the night, singing to try to keep him awake. Dragging him behind us at speed, force feeding him cookies (albeit low-fat ones) to coax him on a plane he didn’t want to go on, and then telling him he must then lie down and go back to sleep, with bright lights and dinner trays clattering all around him.

It was a recipe for disaster from the start, and the rest of the holiday carried on in much the same vein. Erratic bed times, long stretches in the car, sporadic mealtimes containing all the wrong foods and a difference set of people every time he woke up. To say he was a fish out of water was an understatement. More like a little boy in a parallel universe.

As a direct result of this holiday madness, and so not really his fault at all, his behaviour often veered on the side of manic. Energy levels went through the roof, ears sealed off to reasoning and his mouth went into screeching overdrive. And all in a country where you are no longer allowed to ‘discipline’ your child in public … tricky.

He now saw eating – unless the food in question came under the food group ‘treat’ – as an unncessary inconvenience, and as mentioned before, anything that had once grown up from, across or dropped to the ground was now met with a pursed mouth and muffled cries of “Don’t like it”. A tad frustrating, especially as the week before he’d happily opened up for aubergine and olives.

The ‘highlight’ of this out-of-control behaviour came however, at perhaps the very worst time possible of our entire holiday. I’d go as far as to say, that in the collective 12 years my offspring have been alive, never have I wanted to hang my head so low in shame.

While visiting a potential school for my daughter, my son reached deep into his inner demon and pulled out quite possibly the worst behaviour that the inside of the headmasters office has ever seen. He spread crumbs far and wide (from a biscuit off the tea-tray he’d launched himself at), squeezed his juice box across the polished table and pulled himself back and forwards across the floor like the member of a crack commando team. He climbed on the window seats, threw cushions on the floor and very nearly pulled down the curtains – 4 times. He struggled when I picked him up, pulled at me when I put him down and slithered to the ground when I put him back in his seat. The entire time he screeched and shrieked and laughed like a nutter possessed.

It was pretty toe-curling stuff, as any parent could well imagine.

There we were, talking about school reports and untapped potential and trying to give a good impression. And there was  my little monster – who would also be eligible to go there in a years time – bouncing off the walls like Tiger on a mixture of crack cocaine and speed.

The only saving grace in this whole embarrassing ordeal was that the headmaster knew better than to judge the entire family based off of the actions of its smallest member. As well as being a parent,  he was also my old English teacher – the teacher who had in fact inspired me to start writing in the first place, many light years ago.

Should this worrying tale of holiday woe begin to put off any parent thinking of taking a break, then fear not, it does have a happy ending.

After the episode at the school, sugar was abruptly cut out of his diet (which was unfortunate for him as this happened before Christmas). Within days he started to ease off his high and calm down again – apparently it takes at least 2 weeks for somebody to go cold turkey where the sweet stuff is involved. Now back in Perth, my son is already back to his old self, and get this, better than before. His manners are perfect, he’s calm and controllable and best of all, he’s eating vegetables faster than I can get them on his plate.

Not that I’d ever recommend killing your child’s routine and dragging them round the world to help knock them into shape, but on this occasion, it seems to have done the job.

Incidentally, the same also seems to be true of Charlie. He went into the kennels as a naughty, barking, escape artist, and come out a changed dog. He is now well-behaved, quiet and far more obedient than the 2 year-old Spoodle that went in. He didn’t even make a run for it the other day, when I accidently opened the garage door without shutting him inside first.

Now, if my daughter had gone in the same direction as my son and the dog, I could have said I had a hat trick on my hands. Unfortunately the excellent behaviour she showed when away (which was enough to get her offered a place at the school) has worn off some, and been replaced with the somewhat emotional and pouting little girl of before.

Still, can’t win them all, and 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.

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Be good for goodness sake

With only a few days to go before ‘C Day’, yesterday I had to pull the big guns out of my parental bag and threaten the ultimate in punishments. Cancelling Christmas. Or rather informing my daughter that if she didn’t quit with the naughty and start delivering more of the nice, then she’d be waking up to find a rather sad and empty stocking at the end of her bed.

This is obviously not something I’d ever want to do. It would ruin my day for a start – and then leave me with the problem of what to do with all those presents rattling around under our bed.

But the problem is, when you spend a large percentage of the year telling your child that Father Christmas only comes for those children who’ve been good, it does rather put you in a difficult dilemma when they then go and act like the devils spawn.

To be fair it’s not that she’s particularly naughty, as children go. She doesn’t have a criminal record or a HASBO to her name. She doesn’t even wander the streets with a penknife and a can of spray paint, mugging old ladies as she goes. No, her problem – along with every other 8-year-old in the world – is that she just doesn’t bloody listen. To me. Ever.

Everyday, or so it seems, I am met with the blank look, sulky pout or miserable face of a child who just doesn’t want to do what she’s just been asked. Which I could well understand if the asking in question was about  going outside to kill a chicken for dinner, or working down a coal mine to earn her keep. But it’s not. It’s more of an eat your dinner / brush your teeth / hurry up and get into the car sort of ask.

Of course I’m sure when I was her age I was probably a right royal pain in the backside at times. But that’s a while ago now, my memory is sketchy and that’s beside the point. As I keep saying to her, I really don’t understand how hard it can be to just go along with what I ask, listen from time-to-time, and use her ears more than her mouth.

So what’s a parent to do? Threaten the worst and then follow through? Or fill them with the fear of a present-less Christmas, and then relent at the end?

My husband could probably quite easily go through with the first option, and still sleep well at night. I, on the other hand, couldn’t. Christmas for me has always been about the stocking.

Nothing beats seeing the sheer excitement on my children’s faces as they attempt to haul their body weight in stuffed stockings across our bedroom floor. It’s the highlight of my day. Or rather my night, as this inevitably happens a mere 15 or so minutes after we’ve wrapped the assorted presents, deposited them at the end of the beds and finally gone to sleep ourselves.

So once again I have had to explain and outline to my daughter the terrible consequences that naughtiness can bring. This was followed up by returning the ‘missed call’ I’d received on my mobile from Santa. With my incredibly concerned child hovering in the next room, her ears wildly flapping like an African elephant, I apologised for her bad behaviour, promised she wouldn’t do it again and wished him a safe flight.

What I hadn’t taken into account in my oh so cunning plan, was the steam railway trip we had planned to take them on the very next day -  to see the very man himself. My poor daughter was so nervous about being told off she practically had to be shoved  past the overgrown elf and into the grotto.

Not only did this make me feel like total and utter crap, but as I had to hurriedly reassure her that she hadn’t been quite bad enough to get no presents at all, it also made the whole point of my exercise completely pointless. Marvellous.

Don’t lie to me

Any parent worth their weight in low sodium salt would probably agree, that children should be brought up knowing that it’s wrong to lie. Especially to their parents. But teaching this particular right from wrong can be tricky, especially when trying to push the message home to your child often entails telling a whole range of elaborate and complicated lies to begin with.

Believe it or not, the reason that we lie to our children in this way even has a name.  It’s called ‘Parenting by lying’.

So why do we even lie to begin with? Mainly to shield our children from the harsh reality of the world, and to protect their innocence for as long as humanly possible. Children already have quite enough on their plate, trying to get a grasp on their own tiny world, without also needing the complete low down on war, death, natural disasters and the wonders of childbirth.

We also lie to encourage their imagination; to teach them how to fabricate new worlds and interesting characters in their heads, so that they in turn will grow up to concoct intricate tales to tell their own kids.

And of course there are also those lies that we tell because we don’t know the answer to a question, or because we have already lied once, and have to carry on just cover our tracks. And those lies, that if the truth be told, just make our day-to-day life that little bit easier.

Oh what a tangled web we do weave.

“I’ll know if you’re lying to me” is a classic parenting approach that I often use myself.

Of course I won’t know, so that’s a lie for starters. All I’ll actually be doing is fine-tuning my Mummy Radar, making an educated guess and relying heavily on the fact that my trusting daughter still believes that I know everything that she does, says, thinks and feels.

Like a lamb to the slaughter, I’ve seen the fleeting look of panic pass through her eyes when employing this rather underhand tactic. I can hear her brain frantically ticking over as she quickly tries to weigh up whether she’ll be in more trouble for having finished off all of the biscuits, or for pretending that she hasn’t even been near the tin.

Luckily for her on that particular occasion, as she stood there with the last biscuit hidden behind her back, good sense prevailed. She confessed, apologised and promptly offered to make me a cup of tea. To go along with the last surviving biscuit.

Good sense wasn’t even in the vicinity however the time that she blamed her baby brother for the cup of juice spilt all over the floor. The fact that the ‘accused’ was strapped into his bouncer on the other side of the room, and come to think of it, unable to do anything more than wobble, didn’t exactly help her case. As I watched her suddenly clock her serious lack of judgement, the part of me that wasn’t telling her off actually wanted to take pity and explain that there’s no point telling a porky in the first place, if your story doesn’t even stack up.

Maybe I felt sorry for her because I’m probably to blame in the first place. After all, I’ve already shaped her whole childhood with white lies, fiction and complete fantasy. It’s what parents do.

It starts straight out of the womb. As babies they howl and cry. So we jig them around, rub their backs and say “It’s OK, it’s OK” over and over again.

“No it’s not OK”, the babies are probably thinking. “My tummy’s sore, my nappy’s full and quite frankly I’m starting to feel sick from all this bloody rocking”.

From that moment on the lies come thick and fast, tripping off our tongues like seasoned politicians.

Firstly there are those lies that fall into the category of far fetched and thinly veiled threats – If you don’t eat your vegetables you won’t grow up to be big and strong. If you eat your carrots you’ll see in the dark.  If you eat your crusts your hair will go curly. If you don’t look after your toys I’ll throw them away. If you hear the ice cream van playing a tune, it’s run out of ice cream. If you say another word you won’t get dinner. If you don’t go to sleep you’ll never wake up tomorrow. If you don’t stop that now I’ll take you straight home. I won’t tell you again.

And my personal favourite – Mummy’s can’t hear when they’re sleeping.

Then there are the 5 main brush off lies that I’m sure most parents tell on average at least 10 times a day.

I’ll think about it – loosely translated to mean ‘It ain’t ever going to happen’
We’ll see – loosely translated to mean  ‘You’ll have forgotten in a few hours’
Maybe – loosely translated to mean  ‘Never, never, never going to happen’
I’m listening loosely translated to mean  ‘I’m not even remotely interested’
I’ll be there in a minute  – loosely translated to mean ‘I’ll be there in half an hour when I’ve finished whatever it is I’m doing’

And then there are the Mother of All Lies. The ones that involve a fairy collecting teeth, a bunny dropping off chocolate eggs and a large fat man squeezing himself down the chimney (regardless of whether you have one or not) and leaving a suspicious looking package at the end of your bed.

That last one is actually the stuff of nightmares, is you leave out the flying reindeer and the ‘Ho Ho Ho’. After all, we drill into our kids the danger of talking to strangers, particularly big, bad men. And then we tell them that if they are good, one will be coming into their bedroom late at night and watching them while they sleep. Probably the worst case of mixed messages if ever I heard one.

But of all the lies, the best one that we parents have up our sleeves must be the one regarding those clever little eyes we have in the back of head. This one works especially well when you have as many mirrors in your house as we do. In some parts of our home I really can see round corners, and that includes the fridge, the food cupboard and the biscuit tin.

A few years ago, quite out of the blue, the very existence of my second set of eyes was even confirmed.

My daughter and I went for our visa medical check up, and the doctor in question was giving my eyes the once over with a torch. “So how are my other set of eyes?” I asked him, with a straight face and a hidden smirk. “The ones in the back of your head?” he asked immediately “Oh those look fine too”.

My daughters face was a picture. A mixture of complete disbelief and total awe. “Would you like me to check your other eyes too? he asked my daughter. “But I don’t have any,” she said.”Oh but you do,” he replied “everyone has them, they just don’t work properly until you have your own children”.

He peered into her eyes. “Yes, yours are growing quite nicely.” he confirmed.

My daughter was practically buzzing with excitement when we left the surgery. “I never really believed you Mummy, but the doctor saw mine growing so it MUST be true.” God bless child friendly doctors, they earn every penny and more.

That was of course only a harmless little white lie, the sort which are sometimes said just to be kind. But where I wonder do you draw the line, and how can you teach kids to know the difference between those lies that are ‘OK’ and those that will be categorised as a ‘lifetime grounded to the bedroom’ type offense?

Like when Mummy asks how she looks in her new dress, obviously it’s best not to tell her that her bottom looks like the back end of a bus. Or that the dinner she spent hours cooking tasted horrible. Or that Daddy is definitely loved more because he shouts less.

Needless to say I’m dreading the day that my children find out Father Christmas is just Daddy, a red suit and 3 cushions. Or that the lost teeth that were supposed to become stars, ended up at the back of my jewelery box. Or worse still, that the Christmas Elf that follows them around and watches their every move from October onwards doesn’t actually exist.

Oh how my life isn’t going to be worth living, not least because my daughter (who always likes to state the obvious) will undoubtedly be very quick to point out that not only has her life been one long lie, but I’m the one that’s been telling them.

I feel my payback may be right around the corner, just about the time when the hormones kick in.

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.

Loving Mother’s Day

So, did the flowers, chocolates and assorted lovely Mothers Day gifts from my 2 little offspring make up for the countless painful hours that I spent in labour on their behalf? Absolutely.

Nothing makes a mother feel more loved and appreciated than the handmade offerings that are slaved over for many days by her children. Nothing beats waking up to see two faces peering at you over the duvet, demanding that you get up straight away for their ‘surprise’. And no shop bought card could ever be as special as one that is made with 100% undiluted love – and a craft cupboard load of tissue paper, glitter and glue.

I know that out of all the breakfasts eaten throughout the year, none is appreciated more than one whipped up by your child. Whether it might be a soggy piece of toast and a beaker of milk or a congealed Weetabix that has taken on the texture of setting concrete, it all tastes that much better because you didn’t have to make it yourself.

I was actually treated to smoked salmon and a poached egg this morning.  Admittedly my daughter did have some help here, but, as I was immediately informed upon entering the room, she did wear the oven mitt and was in sole charge of rolling the salmon.

With an offering such as this how could you ever possibly hold a grudge over the mind numbing pain brought on by your pelvis shifting for hours on end and your muscles contracting like bellows.

It’s funny how when you are a child you believe that Mother’s Day is all about the parent. When you grow up and become a parent, you actually realise that the day is really all about the child.

In my daughter’s case, it really was all about the child. This was the day she entered the world.

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.

zfsdfsd

sdsa

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One of those nights

Last night was one of those nights that just makes you want to crawl under the duvet and sleep for a week.

It was one of those nights when your children don’t want to eat what you have cooked and you wonder why you bothered in the first place. It was one of those nights where their bedtime simply can not come soon enough, and then when they are in bed,  you are faced with a counter stacked ceiling high with a days worth of dirty plastic bowls, plates, spoons and beakers. It was one of those nights, when you do summon up the last remaining ounce of energy to empty and reload the dishwasher, you find that it never actually did it’s job properly the last time around.

Yes, it was definitely one of those nights.

So lets get past the bit where I had to hand wash all of the crockery, just to get yesterdays dry, crusted on food off. And lets get past the massive tidy up operation, namely finding, regrouping and re-boxing 40 Thomas the Tank Engine books, re-parking a ride on fire engine in it’s respective corner, rounding up 6 cars (of varying size and spec) that have been hidden behind each cushion on the sofa, and trying to contain at least half the contents of my daughters bedroom, which was by this point, now strewn across the entire dining table, and beyond.

I should say that this type of military operation is all pretty normal stuff in our house, or indeed I imagine, in any house that is inhabited by humans measuring in at 5 feet or less.

Yes, lets get past all of that. There I was, at the end of such a day – a day when for every minute the clock ticked forward, it ticked back 2. I was, to put it mildly, rather tired. So, after spending my allotted ‘me time’ washing my hair, I re-emerged to get on with what was left of the day, namely eating, putting my feet up and watching ‘Greys Anatomy’.

Unfortunately, but hardly surprisingly, this was not to be. Before my soup could even hit the bowl, never mind make it into the microwave, my daughter appeared, scratching her head and complaining of an itch.

Now she had said the same thing the last 2 nights, but being the sometimes unsympathetic and always overtired mother that I am, I had sent her back to bed. The first night I gave her hair the once over and then gave her a spoonful of Claratyne, for the allergy itch that she always seems to get when she doesn’t want to go to sleep. The second night I just sent her back to bed.

Last night however a little voice (that would be the nagging voice sent to reprimand lazy parents) told me to check her head again. So I did. And ewwwwwww. There were nits, or head lice if you want to use the now more politically correct terminology, marching across her head.

Now having a child who has friends who sometimes have nits, this shouldn’t have come as such a shock. In the last 7 years however, she has somehow managed to sail, completely un-infested through every outbreak at nursery, kindergarten and school. I guess I had put this lucky streak down to her either having super resistant hair, or just a very uninviting scalp.

Winning streak obviously over, all the lights came on, the torch came out and I was forced to be the adult. I quashed my inner squeamishness and picked through her hair, strand my strand, until they were all caught, found and squashed in a tissue. My husband had the, I would say, slightly nicer job of going out on the hunt for nit killing lotion.

As I oiked out the little critters I tried to hide them from my daughter, thinking it would upset her. I needn’t have worried. She was, I believe, actually quite chuffed to now be in the ‘I’ve Been Nitted Club’. Children are odd like that. If I’d given her the option she might well have opted to keep one as a pet. She would probably have named it Fluffy.

We on the other hand, spent the evening with an imaginary itch. When we did finally get to sit down and eat, our heads were coated in conditioner and our scalps were on the verge of bleeding, after such a vicious combing with the metal contraption provided.

Like I said, it really was one of those nights. The sort of night you can well do without, especially when followed by one of those days.

Needless to say my daughter is having a hair cut next week, something as she rather smugly pointed out, that she had been asking me for for weeks. Yippee. After the recent hair related fiasco’s with both my son and my dog, I just can’t wait to make it a hat trick.

litt

Here’s some handy INFO on nits, and how to kill the little blighters.

litt

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Mary Poppins has nothin on me

I have to admit that try as I might to keep my handbag and it’s contents streamline and minimalist, it always seems to remain something of a bottomless pit. A black hole of the accessories world if you will, one with the spacial dimensions of a tardis.

I am sure that this is the same for women everywhere. It’s what we do. Trying to pack our entire lives into a small bag and preparing ourselves for every conceivable situation and emergency, one safety pin and a furry mint at a time. I do think some days that if I just added an inflatable bomb shelter and a years supply of loo roll, I could actually survive and outlast the fallout from a nuclear war, by living off and utilising the contents of my bag alone.

A man might think this is something of an exaggeration. A woman might see how this is possible. A mother would completely understand. Why mothers you ask? Simple. A mother knows how it is possible, and more importantly necessary to have so much stuff on or about your person at all times. A mother knows that to get ahead and stay ahead in the game, you must start to think, plan and pack on a MUCH grander scale.

When you expel a small and screaming infant from your body you (often reluctantly) resign yourself to the fact that it will be a good many years before you will be able to use a handbag large enough to only contain a mobile, a lipstick and a single front door key.

As baby arrives into the world, out goes the small and stylish shoulder bag and in comes what can only be categorised as a hold all. A large one at that, usually with a teddy bear motif on the front, with multiple pockets and a detachable fold out changing mat.

Stylish? No. Ever so practical? Yes. Heavy enough to put your back out? Absolutely.

Of course these baby changing bags don’t need to be quite as large as they are. I sometimes think that as they are targeted at new and hormonally imbalanced mothers, companies actually design them to provoke and feed every paranoid thought that you have and to guilt you into buying ALL of the accessories on the shelves next to them.

I remember thinking that if there were so many pockets, then surely they must all needing filling up with essential ‘life saving’ baby supplies. On my first trip out with Baby No.1 the bag was so overloaded that it nearly up ended the pram. If memory serves me right I had 3 changes of clothes, at least 10 nappies, a huge packet of wipes, 2 bottles of milk, 1 bottle of water, 3 dummies, 2 blankets, 4 soft toys, a rattle, a soft book, 10 sachets of Calpol, a thermometer and a fully stocked First Aid kit.

Why? I have absolutely no idea. Bournemouth wasn’t due to be hit by a freak hurricane anytime soon and my baby was highly unlikely to break free from the confines of her pram and dive head first into a dirty puddle, requiring a complete new outfit, or 3. She also wasn’t unwell or even slightly feverish when we left, so the chances of her making her way through 10 nappies and enough Calpol to subdue a small horse were about on par with me getting a good night sleep anytime soon.

As I said, these baby bags feed your paranoia and strip you of all your everyday, non lactating common sense.

Over the years I whittled down what I took out, even getting to the stage where I would stick a backpack on my daughter so that she could carry her own nappy, wipes and water. A cruel and heartless mother maybe, but one that by this stage had a bad back. Then finally came the day when I treated myself to a new and tiny little bag. It was lovely. I could actually carry it on my shoulder without it digging into my skin and cutting off my blood supply. I revelled in the fact that I could now leave the house without packing supplies and no longer lived in fear of finding the contents of my wallet saturated in milk.

Then Baby No.2 arrived. Along came another wretched baby bag, a slightly trendier one this time with it’s camouflage pattern, but nevertheless huge by comparison and full to the brim of things I didn’t need. Yes, even I had thought I would have learned from previous experience, but apparently not. Those bloody hormones seem to have the power to completely override all rational thinking.

These days I have weaned myself down to a bag that actually resembles something I would have used in my baby free days – on the outside at least. Open it up and my entire life falls out all over the pavement. Try as I might I just can’t keep my bag below 90% capacity. I just stuck in my head and had a poke around and this is a summary of what I am currently carting around.

One overstuffed wallet, full of bank cards, old receipts, an albums worth of family photos and the necessary plastic to gain me access to the cinema, library, hospital, gym, swimming pool and Spotlight. A stack of my own business cards, a voucher for a free scone at Bakers Delight and a paper cutout of the words ‘Good luck Forever’ that my sister covered in sellotape and gave to me way back in 1987. Strangely enough there is no money in there to be seen.

3 tubs containing sultanas, rice wheels and apricot squares. A water cup with a valve that doesn’t know it’s supposed to be one way. A cereal bar that looks like it has gone under the wheels of a tank and a teething rusk so old it has fossilised. Approximately 9 and a half tissues (in various state of use), 5 hairbands and a broken hair clip. 4 pens (one with a missing cap), a couple of IKEA pencils and a ‘Green Tea’ bag. 2 nappies and a resealable sandwich bag of wet wipes. An overused nail file, the handle of a hairbrush, a plaster that has lost all it’s stick and a rather grotty twig that somehow made it’s way in at the park. 3 contact lenses, 2 lip balms and and a compact (in case I should every have a day where I find time to apply make-up). A ‘lift the flap book’ about baby animals (minus the flaps), a chewed train carriage, a Polly Pocket shoe, a potentially very dangerous bottle of bubble mixture and at least 8 toy cars of varying makes and models. A school excursion permission slip, a letter that is waiting to be posted and a mobile phone that looks as if it has done 10 rounds with a toddler….

Now you could be forgiven for believing that this cluttered bag of mine is as old as time itself and the ‘stuff’ has accumulated over many, many years. Not so. My husband bought it for me several weeks ago. I simply transferred the ‘stuff’ from the old bag to the new one, manky looking tissues and all, and then carried on where I had left off.

Once again, if you’re a man you’ll be shaking your head at the very idea of keeping such rubbish about your person everyday.  If you’re a woman you’ll no doubt be empathising. If you’re a mother you’ll know that what I carry around with me is actually just the everyday essentials needed to keep your kids happy, quiet, entertained and fed when more than 10 feet from your own front door.

Now, taking a trip away with kids for more than 24 hours is a whole different story. THAT requires months of preparation, packing with military precision and a vast array of luggage on an even greater scale.

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