No words today. I am tired, I have put my neck out during the night, I have a huge day ahead of me and I desperately want to be positive at all times, and so instead of my sarcasm and wit, today I am going to be quiet and thoughtful, kind and positive, only uttering warmth and love... gosh... just that is making me sleepy. Could so seriously go back to bed... I am aching for an uninterrupted sleep... no wee wakes, no children on the top step horizon, no barking dogs, no possums chirruping in the trees, no husband cuddling up to my back... How completely selfish of me... what a lucky person I am to have all that... shame on you Mother! Shame shame shame!

Phew!

I was chatting to a friend in the carpark at school. It was almost school pickup time and I was there to get The Little Man, The Middle Man was with me... he had come home early feeling unwell.

Chatting happily away to my friend as we got her baby out of the car, the conversation turned to Swine Flu, as she had a cold and was feeling lousy.

"I just don't want to go to the Doctor! I'm terrified. What if I had it? You know, people are dying from it! A nine year old boy died from it the other day!"

Behind me, in his talking to myself, mumbling voice, I heard The Middle Man say:

"Oh God... Lucky I just turned 10!"

He makes me smile!

OK?

Some things are great! Some things are good. Some things are just OK. Some things are downright unacceptable.

Let's see how we go:

For me, wiping a pooey bottom is OK.
A snotty nose? OK.
Soiled underpants? Difficult, but do-able.
Pet mice that eat each other and need to be disposed of?
Nasty, but can cope, just.
Dog poop on my shoe? Stomach turner, almost throw the shoe away, but with gloves... also do-able.

Dog tongue in my mouth... whether greeting or not greeting?

NEVER OK! NEVER GOOD! NOT ACCEPTABLE!

So, little one, please refrain from sticking that grubby little tongue into your aunty's mouth when she sits down in her chair. You may possibly find yourself flying (yes, I know you don't have any wings) across the room. I am being nice, I am being kind. Consider this your warning.

Hat Head

The Little man has the most amazing head of blonde curls. Even I, the proud mother, gets sick of hearing people go on about the hair. "All the girls are going to looove youuuu!" they say. Not to mention the touching... constant touching... I mean, I touch them all the time, I love them. But at the moment they are mine to touch. I will touch them until he says no, but other people? It's a bit like touching pregnant bellies... it's just not OK.

Anyway, on any given day, especially at the moment as it is really long, his hair looks like this:
And the new front teeth are coming along nicely too by the way, growing incredibly fast.

So, he's in the bathroom getting ready for his bath, when I hear:

"Muuuum? I need privacy. Now!"

Oh dear! I think to myself as I wonder what atrocity is about to be shoved in my face this time. Could be anything?

I walk in, he pushes me aside and shuts the door with gusto: "I don't want The Middle Man to see this. It's just terrible! Look!" and he takes off his peak cap which he has been wearing all afternoon.

"This is a problem. This is what happens every single day after lunch when we get back to the classroom. This is what I look like and I can't take it anymore. I need to know how to fix it!"

This is this:
Severe hat head.

I remember it sooo clearly from my own childhood. I was always told I looked so nice in hats... "You should wear hats more often, they really suit you." but nobody knew that deep inside I hid a tearful secret. I got hat head every time I wore a hat. People with curly hair suffer terribly from hat head. Thinking I had put it to rest and in a box in my past, I hadn't thought about hat head for a long time and now here is this little darling standing in front of me begging for help.

"Mmmmm.... I used to get hat head too when I was a little girl. I used to do this (fluff up my hair) and this (head upside down) or this (put water on my hair and scrunching like mad). There's lots of things you can for hat head. It's a bit like bed head, but it's at a different time of the day."

We played around for a while until he was satisfied that he could do it himself at school, and then he jumped in the bath and washed those curls till they almost fell off his head... shampoo is such great stuff when you're a kid and it's the first bottle that your mum has actually let you use yourself, isn't it?

Dobbing

We are always having lots of conversations about 'dobbing'.

Is it ok to dob?
Why do we dob?
When can we dob?
Who should we dob on?
Is it dobbing or is it being helpful?
Is it dobbing or is it being spiteful?
The list of questions go on and on and on.

So, we are in the car this particular afternoon and The Middle Man says: "I have dog poo on my shoe and it stinks" whilst waving it in the face of The Little Man.

After much giggling and squealing together The Little Man says: "You know, I thought that I trod in dog poo today too. But I didn't. I know that!" with quite a bit of force behind the statement.

"Oh. Really. How do you KNOW that you didn't?" says The Middle Man.

"Well... at first I smelt it on the mat at roll (roll call), and I thought it must be my shoe, so I went outside and cleaned my shoe. And when I came back inside the smell came too. I couldn't figure it out and then I remembered why, it was because Clare Bear was following me."

"WHAT has that got to do with anything pooey?" says The Middle Man indignantly.

"Clare Bare always does some poo in her pants, and so she always smells. Mum? Do you think it would be bad dobbing to tell Mrs P. that Clare has pooed her pants again?"

Lordy lordy lord! "Well, noooo... not really. I guess if you said it very quietly it would be ok. You wouldn't want to hurt poor Clare's feelings and embarrass her in front of everyone." I say diplomatically.

After a bit of thought..."Mmmm... Next time, I think I'll say 'Excuse me Mrs P. I think there is a bad smell following me, and I think it might be Clare.'"

Mum?

The Middle Man is all of 10 years old. After his bath, he came out in his towel and threw this at me:

"Mum? Do you and Dad still have sex?"

Splutter, cough, buying for time... what can I say? How can I say it? Why is The Big Man in India?

"Well... yes, we do."

"OOOOH!" shock horror on his face... "WHY?" Incredulous.

"Well, you just don't have sex to make babies, you can keep on doing it if it makes you both feel nice, and so lots of people do it after the babies are born... it's nice." Hoping, hoping, hoping this is enough information to get me through this night!

"Do old people do it?"

"Oh yes," I reply, quite flip and casual. "All kinds of people do it... old people, younger people, all sorts of people." I splutter as I realise that by saying young people to a 10 year who takes everything literally could be kinda bad.

"OK. Thanks." And off he goes to play cars with his brother.

GULP!

I almost burst today

We were working in the garden, well... I was working in the garden, the kids were trying to look busy... and we heard the dear old Mr Whippy song coming down the road. The Middle Man popped up in front of me, wallet in hand, and said "I'd like to buy everyone an ice-cream mum?"

WOW! This has never happened before! Offering to spend his money on us all... I said yes for him and The Little Man, purely for that fact... the sharing, caring and brotherly love. Off they ran to the other side of the road and I watched them as they stood patiently on the kerb waiting for the van to reach them. They looked so gorgeous. So innocent and eager... I literally couldn't have smiled harder had I tried. I was smiling on the inside, outside, eyes, mouth, cheeks, everywhere! It was soooo lovely to see, particularly because I am one of 'those mothers' who doesn't usually let the kids have a Mr Whippy Ice Cream thinking them full of crap and rubbish. Would much rather take them to a proper Ice Creamery and get the real thing. So it was incredibly exciting for them and The Middle Man felt very grown up shouting The Little Man and being 'the one' to ask for it all.

"I asked the man for two frosty, icy, slushy, ground up icy drinks please. And the man said "Yes, indeedy me, you definitely can have one of those each!"

All was well, until about half an hour into it, and The Middle Man decided that The Little Man would have to pay him back the $3 the Icy, Frosty Slushy Thing cost.

Oh... all out shoulders dropped, I was so disappointed in him, and The Little Man felt ripped off, "I wouldn't have had one if I'd had to pay for it MYSELF!" he says indignantly.

And it was such a good feeling, that smiling moment I had. The sun was shining on my face, I was SMILING! I don't smile much these days, it felt GOOD! We love the story The Good Humour Man. It's a Little Golden Book and we love it... always have... the boys hearing about the creamy, frosty, coconut swirls, and pineapple twirls and raspberry, strawberry, blueberry pops. It was just one of those Good Humour days...

Only when the last tree dies,
the last river is poisoned
and the last fish is caught,
will we realise we can't eat money.

Goodbye Daddy

Well before my birthday we farewelled Daddy on his exciting trip to India... camping, motorbiking through the Indian mountains (the Himalayas?). Should have studied geography, I was a history girl.

Two days before he was to jet off, The Big Man (Daddy) broke his finger being a bloke playing footy. Index finger, left hand. Off he trots to the hospital 48 hours AFTER the incident after realising it might be just a little worse than he anticipates and that the medical assistance in India may be somewhat harder to organise (#@#$U$#U????), and he returns with a cast from fingers to elbow. I cracked up. What else could I do? Too funny by far...

However The Big Man was very confident that 'they' would call him on the morrow to make an appointment for the surgeon to remove a tiny piece of floating bone that may (or may not) lodge in between the two knuckle bones and cause serious deformity.

I just smirked on the inside at that... heavens above... public hospital system... For Heaven's Sake... they took 5 days to operate on my mother's broken wrist... who was going to 'call' him and offer him service...

Well, luckily I hadn't been wearing a hat when I was smirking or I would have had to have eaten it! They did call, the surgeon did operate, the half arm cast became a finger cast and off The Big Man flew to India no worse off really than before the unfortunate sporting injury.

WHERE WOULD YOU READ ABOUT THAT? The public health system actually being pro-active, actually making something happen in a regular time frame... Go figure... I put it down to the fact that The Big Man has the gift of the gab and can sell spice to the indians.

Anyway, meanwhile The Little Man was busy busy busy in front of the heater (I thought for warmth, but later realised it was to soften the wax) making a goodbye picture for Daddy. So thoughtful. It is a tree with a bird's nest (3D) and a bird, a bridge, with Daddy on it, Nike shirt and all, with a shark circling in the water...

"Oh, I just can't wait any longer. I HAVE to give it to him!"


The Big Man accepted it quite graciously, in view of the fact that he was still packing and it was 9 at night, leaving in the morning and being shadowed by The Middle Man. I would have accepted the artwork with a lot more finesse and fuss, but The Big Man did a good job. We now have a breadboard in the bedroom with a 3D picture of wax that falls off each time we hold it vertical. Yep, so another dust gatherer enters our bedroom, like there isn't enough dust gatherers in my bedroom anyway. I think the dust monkeys could actually support my weight now... (I'm not a fan of dusting, or mopping, or vacuuming, or.... any of it... it just comes back!)

It's my birthday!

And there has been so much preparation for it... The Little Man has spent many hours on the phone to Aunty finalising the copy for his amazingly heartfelt card. And after all that, the little darling, did it all upside down, and back-to-front, BUT, for the first time in a LOOOOONG time, he laughed about it instead of having one of his famous hissy fits! Oh! What a birthday present!!! Brilliant. Is it the light at the beginning of the tunnel...

Aunty took them shopping yesterday and they painstakingly chose a new Pandora bead for me each. The Middle Man was sure that I would have a 'special feeling about this bead, as special as the feeling he has had about it... a connection Mum'. How thoughtful. His bead is the little monkey mother holding her baby... the baby is him.

The Little Man chose the little birdy for me. So nice. I like the birdy and the front of his upside down card was a blue wren, so he did well and was very pleased with all of his matching-ness.

They are now going mental letting of steam as they practically kill each other.

We are off to the chocolate shop for morning tea... yum! Shame about the diet, but hey, a liquid chocolate hot chocolate... that's enough I reckon.

Happy Birthday to me!

P.S. so much more to talk about, but with school holidays they hover all day... oh no... an injury... nope, laughing again... later

They're here!

"Middle Man? Can you please fill up the hot water bottles in the GP cage?"

"Sure Mum"

Out he goes and in about two seconds I hear:

"Oh My God! MUUUUM! She's had them!!!! The Guinea Pig has had her babies."

We all run out to have a look, and yes... it was an OMG moment!

Four gorgeous babies, all still wet and a little bloody, mother GP busy licking them clean and busily nosing them around.

The Little Man could not work out WHY are babies so amazing! Of course! He has had baby animals around him all the time. Even now, I am thoroughly in awe of this process. These little darlings are beautiful. I mean BEAUTIFUL! They have the BIGGEST ears... I am sure they will grow into them, but they are so big. They are just so soft and oh... so cute.

I want to tell the world! It makes me so happy.

Hangin' around

Here is Rita just hanging around. We had to take this photo as I just love Rita's little hind legs. They are so cute and very expressive when she is in this position. She can sit like this for ages, and when I pat her head she falls asleep like this... She came camping with us in her little travel cage. I don't know if she had a good time, we haven't really talked about it yet, but she did enjoy the insides of many boys' pockets. That is always good for a rat... other people's lint is an eternal interest for her I am sure.

She did have a small wander around on the ground, very tentatively until I rescued her, after being reminded by a fellow camper that the crows were circling...

Lordy Lordy Lordy

For those of you who did not believe me when I said that the Mother Guinea Pig is HUGE, here is a photo of her absolutely busting belly. When we put her on her back like this, she just stays there, she cannot roll over, she cannot move. The poor darling. She is so full her tummy is tight, like tight, like a drum!

She has to go soon... she has to. Every morning, every lunch, every afternoon, I race out to see if she is a mother again, but no... nothing. I turn away from the hutch downhearted and disappointed... spend a bit of time worrying about her thinking I should take her to the vet to get them out. She HAS to have them soon. We are going camping soon. She can't have them while we are away. That would be rotten luck!