Text Generation

Tantrums never stop...

2011-04-11T16:06:00.000+10:00

They don't stop. Tantrums start around age two, and then they just develop, grow in size and in their formidable nature. I should know, I'm a living, breathing TANTRUM. (Please refer to mama is a potty-mouth for details)
They're the venting, uncontrollable f^%k f^%k f^%k f^%k swearing, Coprolalia (ooh - nice word!) but for people without Tourette's. Isn't The Scream by Edvard Munch just a tantrum? Why not? It should be!
f^%k f^%k c*^t

I should probably proffer an explanation: the unhealthy obsession I have with tantrums is because my nearly-three-years-old son seems to be having an awful lot of them right now. And part of me just says 'oh well, it's age-appropriate' another part wants to give in, the other part wants to be incredibly stubborn and just say 'no' to well, everything, and the other part of me goes, 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Mama having tantrum! and I can do tantrum bigger and louder'
(by this stage you may well ask: how many parts can one person list? oh there are so many....)

self portrait

ho hum. what to do?

I think that quite possibly the best, easiest way out of this situation is to do as follows:

Eat a disgustingly large, obscene amount of chocolate-laden goodies
Stay calm when toddler having tantrum and then reiterate the fact that the tantrum will not have desired effect
Ensure that when parent (i.e. self) wants/needs/is about to have a tantrum, that I swear silently, indiscriminately and internally ( f^%k c*^t sh*t, so on and so forth...)
repeat step 1, often.

I could take up boxing to release all pent-up tantrum-energy, but who has the time? Anyway, I like my teeth as they are. (in mouth, still attached)

Although after step 1 repetition, they may well end up falling out anyway.

TANTRUM TIME!

Just airbrush me… please

2011-02-14T13:47:00.001+11:00

How is it that newborns have the uncanny ability to suck the life out of their parents in the space of a few short weeks? I’m not complaining, not really, I just… well … ever since having children I seem to have aged a helluva lot.

The general consensus is: don’t do drugs and that hard drinking and partying completely f**k you up and when you’re over 40 your face will reflect the life you have lived. To be sure, I have lived a rather, er… shall we say full life. But I have not aged so much back then as I have in the past 3 years.

The reason? No, my hard-drinking-partying-days are NOT catching up with me. Those past years feel, in fact, a good deal more sedate in terms of staying up late and wrecking the body than the rearing children ones. That lacrosse accident that I had in high school or that time when I partied all night with my friends, showered and then went to work for 8am in the morning have not caught up with me. You might think this is completely absurd but no! I tell you, these things are not ongoing sustained abuses of the body without the chance for respite and recuperation but that child-rearing is.

What I am trying to say is…

I used to be able to sleep in until 2pm if I wanted to and now I wake up at 6am (sometimes 5.30am) after I have been up and down during the night, as has my partner (er. ok, so NOT as much as my partner) and we do it cos we LOVE our kids but they are sapping all the collagen and vitamin young from our faces and, as a result I look like this:

What I am trying to say, is...

that I am getting OLD and WRINKLY and I have been seriously thinking about facial resurfacing for my skin and laser treatment for my rapidly diminishing eyesight but I'm afraid that it will all go expensively and horribly horribly wrong and that I'll end up looking like this:

or perhaps even this:

(let’s just not even speak about my hearing cos we ALL know that Caroline is a COMPLETE DEAFHEAD).

wot? oh yeah.

I am popping vitamins like they are lollies and eating lollies like they are, well, lollies, and all in all my diet has gone to God as has my figure and so I am wearing those suck-in-underpant thingies that only OLD WOMEN wear

NO! not the sexy ones but more like, you know...

yes, more like that, but squishier and in black because I can't seem to consider wearing anything flesh-toned, although I am sure that will change (but only if I find some good ones at a reasonable price).

Successful Toilet Train(ing); with trains.LOTS of trains. And perhaps a few construction vehicles…

2011-01-04T11:33:00.002+11:00

We have bitten the bullet. We say (with much conviction) After Christmas there will be no nappies. That’s it! No more!

Yep, Christmas came and we changed nappies all day, chanted the no-nappy-mantra in our minds, then as the haze of our sugar-loaded bravado waned, and we fell into sleep (read sleep as diabetic coma) we braced ourselves for the onslaught of poo-pants and wee-wee puddles; oodles of washing and perhaps a little poo-painting along the way.
Oh god, no more nappies.
What are we going to do?

But Boxing Day came and we opened the packet of Bob-the-Builder underpants and said 'oo look! would you like to wear Bob, Scoop or Dizzy?' to which he promptly replied 'Scoop!' and we all cheered that he had not chosen Muck and then had the little chat about how we were going to keep Scoop clean and dry all day and that there would be a reward for doing so.

It has been one week now and our boy is now sans-nappies (except for sleep) and it has been surprisingly easy.

The secret to our success?

TELEVISION.

We are simply replacing one addiction for another.

We have tried chocolate and cake as suitable diversions/incentives, but telly has won out I’m afraid.
Yes, in the same way that heroin addicts are given methadone as incentive to not jab a drug-filled needle into their arm, we are encouraging an episode of Chuggington for success with potty. (The going rate at present is one poo=one Chuggington. Wee-wees have lesser value at two wees for an episode). He understands the currency so well that when Chuggington finishes, he promptly tells us that he is going to try for another episode. We have had to instil the ‘wee-wee must cover the entire base of the potty to be considered’.

Poo-poos? He understands the excitement and reward of the chocolate snail (as he calls it) in the potty, and has been successful thus far, but I think both he (and we) find the poo a rather stressful occasion.
First, we need to locate the exact right area for placement of potty and then we are all required to be calm, remove scoop-undies, sit and wait for the poo to come. Easier said than done. As adults we know that the poo can, and sometimes does, take a while to arrive. We also understand the difference between a fart and a solid mass emanating from our botty, and let's be completely honest here, the poo may also involve a fair bit of pushing. We know this, we are prepared for it. Hell, some of us even consider it a great way to catch up on current affairs and use the time to read the local paper. BUT, the toddler cannot read just yet and doesn't really grasp the fact that the grunting and face straining that he has done up to now has resulted in the poo. Poos just happen, they smell, are relatively warm and squishy and they get cleaned up by parents.

We live in hope.

All hail the wordle!

2010-11-17T12:25:00.000+11:00

Even though we’re texters, (oops, sorry, txters) we’re a visually minded bunch! And I know they’re not new but… I have seriously and deeply fallen in love with the WORDLE. Why, well… I love words (er. DUH) but I also love they way that they can transform into a cloud( – takes me back to the good ‘ol days of watching re-runs of Monkey)

Back to the wordle.

I wordled my blog:

And then I began looking for better, funkier wordle-tagcloud-makers.

Yes, I am completely addicted, but then I found this animated flash tagcloud generator and have been desperately searching for a way to transform it into being blogger-compatable. But alas, alack, I will have to make do with the static cloud version. *sigh* . I think I like it so much because it's just a great visual, yet textual, representational... thingy. (Yes, all my love of words, of being text-enamoured yet the coffee just hasn't kicked in yet, er will it ever, so all I can think of as descriptor is... thingy.)

Well… I’ve been BUSY

2010-10-29T16:57:00.000+11:00

Doing what?

Writing a research proposal. Yes, the addiction to study has returned full force and has booted me fair and square on the butt. I have applied for a PhD. Will find out in December whether I am successful or not. Don't ask. Just know that I am completely nuts. Nuts nuts nuts.

Speaking of completely… we are completely up-the-duff again. Yes, partner is with-child. We are due mid-Jan. This time I shall include partner in the nuts nuts nuts / we are crazy description of self.
We don't get enough sleep with one! What are we going to do with two, I ASK YOU!

Writing a book. Still trying to finish. Have been researching lots. I write on the bus and at lunchtimes.

Er…

Would like to perhaps meditate on a calm image right now.
but instead shall leave you with this:

And THAT means that I shall just go stuff myself with pie.
Any kind.
possibly chicken, and then cherry.
in that order.
no, not on the same plate.

the party to end all parties...

2010-06-07T21:05:00.001+10:00

My son turned two on the weekend. TWO! My, how time flies... and we, like the gullible parents we are, decided to throw a party, a hoedown, if you will. Or maybe just a SUGAR-FEST. Yes, we had fairy-bread. We also had a gigantic Bob-the-Builder cake, and an OBSCENE amount of presents.

I even bought a rocket-ship pinata, but am very glad that we decided to forego this little treat because the idea of the gorgeous little munchkins all hyped-up on sugar, blindfolded and running around with sticks trying to bash things was probably not a good idea. We'll save that for the next time we ever decide to hold a party for our kids. Maybe we'll save it for when they get married. Yes, that sounds like a good idea. all I can really say at this stage is...

I AM EXHAUSTED. (so what's new?)

I tried to take photos and managed a few of the cake, but I was too busy burning the spinach and ricotta triangles, stepping over what felt like millions of children and generally trying to keep myself out of the state of party-panic that I was in. My son? I think he had a good time. I didn't really see him. He could have been sneaking shots of whisky down the side of the house for all I know. I do remember at one stage saying to someone who had asked for a 'job' to 'just make sure he's ok... that's your job.'

and GODDAMIT! To the family whose kids were generally rude, overbearing, poking my son's cake and who complained about, well... EVERYTHING, and who ran amok and who, at the end of the party asked if there were any lolly-bags, (LOLLY-BAGS! I am getting old. You didn't ask for things at parties, you went, you ate, you played, had a good time and behaved yourself, but you didn't ask for LOLLY BAGS! I'll give you lolly-bags you little...)
Deep breath...
Yes, to that family. I cannot wait until there is a party at YOUR house, because I am going to HAVE A GOOD AND COMPLETELY OBNOXIOUS TIME.
another deeeeeeeeeep breath.

Parties when I was a kid just weren't like that.
Maybe they were? I don't know. I can't remember. I am too old. My neck has started to sag. I've seen photos of it - it's true.

However, all ranting aside, it went off! My son had a great time and I got to see friends I haven't seen in years.
Next time (assuming there is a next time, I may have done my dash) I think I'll just stick with the chip-n-dip and say 'to hell with the spinach and cheese triangles and mini-sushi'

oh... yep. indeedy-doody. oh yes. uh-huh.

do as I say... not as I do

2010-04-14T12:39:00.002+10:00

Or should it perhaps be do as I do, not as I say?
(I don't think I ever got the hang of that maxim…)

and whilst I tried to ration my son's chocolate supply over Easter,
I did not ration myself and ate far too many creme eggs
and that's because I am a

hypocrite

I have not yet said this to my almost two-year-old son, but if I were to, I am sure he would repeat it.

repeat it.

Yes, he has got the case of the copies. Copies. And everything that my partner or I say, say, is repeated, repeated, until it becomes a case of echo... echo... echo...

Although I do have to admit that there are some words I rather enjoy hearing him say, like: dungarees

Duggarees

Rungadees

Dungarees

third time lucky I suppose.

We have this A-B-C cat book at home that has all kinds of ridiculously long and unusual descriptive terms in it (describing the cats) and I am dying to read it to him. It has fragments like 'daringly eats dragees, devilled drumsticks and donuts' and 'his name is Wilberforce, he lives in West Wittering' and I want my son to attempt saying West Wittering because, well, I admit it, I find it AMUSING.

Does this make me a bad parent?

hell no...
...
hey - what can I say... he called me Caroline the other day. CAROLINE not MAMA!
the nerve!
the cheek!

I almost wet my pants laughing.
kids - they're great - you get a belly laugh a day.

It's a LUCKY DAY

2010-03-16T10:07:00.002+11:00

If I get extra change from a small business owner, then I give it back, always.

If, however, I get extra change... or let's say one of the items is not scanned... or... well... if SOMETHING happens to my advantage and the perpetrator of said 'advantage' is an employee of a large, faceless corporation that most likely has many subsidiaries that wreak awful damage to the environment in one breath and yet financially supports high-profile 'reducing carbon emissions' strategies on the other hand...

Er... what I mean to say is that if I go to a supermarket that shall remain un-named and they undercharge me, then it's a LUCKY DAY.

No - I do NOT give it back. In fact, I goddamn well think I deserve a treat of free tampons, or 'buy ten items get eleventh free'. No I do not think that this will karmically (is karmically a word?) seek to bite me in the butt (hang on... maybe it will... see last post to find out exactly how this karma could be returned)

Maybe it's their karma as a large, faceless organisation to have this happen to them.

If, however, I went to the newsagent and they gave me change from a fifty and I only gave them a twenty - I would let them know. Why?

Because I like them. Because it's their livelihood

Supermarket chains, however, are not people; so I say suffer in your mass-market-undies you corporate-[INSERT EXPLETIVE HERE].

what would YOU,

yes... YOU do if you had a lucky day at the expense of a large corporation?

I once bought an outdoor setting from a large hardware-chain-store that shall, again, remain un-named.

They charged me for one chair, not two. Every time I sit in that chair I feel lucky.

Call me dishonest, if you will. (Actually, please don't, I like to pride myself on my being honest and forthright for the most part, in fact if my friends saw me as dishonest I think it may well hurt my feelings.)

speaking of lucky... Happy St Pat's Day to all. May your day be filled with everything green and clover-ish, and may it be lucky lucky lucky!

Just don't do what some Chicago residents did to their river:

that can't be lucky for their fish.

just call me bubble-butt

2010-03-08T15:32:00.000+11:00

or, bubble-gum-butt to be precise.

When I got dressed this morning, I though to myself, hell, why not, wear your good 'going-for-an-interview' garb. Not that I was going for an interview, there are just some days when it pays to look smart. Maybe it's a self-esteem thing, I dunno. But TODAY was ONE OF THOSE DAYS. So here I am, avec white shirt, waistcoat, good pants. oh yeah... I look gooooood...

And then I sat in chewing gum... could be bubble gum, not sure, I didn't want to check the flavour of it. Especially because it's located in that particular spot that is right between the cheeks, oh yes, it is in seam-land.
I look like I crapped my pants. (Lime-green crap to be sure.)

And there aint nothin' I can do about it until I get home.

GODDAMN IT. TODAY, OF ALL DAYS WHEN I HAVE A TRILLION F#*%KING MEETINGS I LOOK LIKE I CRAPPED MY PANTS.

Had to spend an inordinate amount of time this morning picking my butt in a disgustingly concentrated sphincter-fondling sort of way. And every time I get off a chair I have a velcro-moment. All I need now is someone to write 'kick me' on my white shirt and quite possibly shave off one of my eyebrows.

mama is a potty-mouth

2010-03-03T15:38:00.002+11:00

F**K, sh*t, f**k, sh*t, f**k, f**k, f**k, c**t.

believe it or not, I am trying NOT to swear, in fact, I am attempting to eradicate all manner of foul language from my vocabulary, because I don't want my son thinking that saying c**t is the socially appropriate thing to do - at least in pre-school anyway. Thing is, I never realised exactly how much I swore until I tried to prevent these words from escaping. In fact, I may well be developing a sh*t-f**k-f**k-crap form of tourettes because whenever I feel an opportunity for 'swearing-in-this-context-and-in-this-company-is-ok' I seize it with all the power my potty-mouth can muster.

Is it alright for parents to swear?

No it's not bloody alright, in fact it's completely f**ked. We are also not allowed to drink, smoke or, er... have sex. We are perfect, not puerile.

But I love the puerile. I miss the puerile.

in fact...

Mmmm... NUM! NUM!

2010-01-28T15:47:00.002+11:00

These are the words I hear from my almost-two-years-of-age son who is in the back yard, with me, pottering about. I call it pottering about because, well… that’s what we do.

He, of course, got a million and one things that bleep and whizz for Christmas (click here for details of last year's Christmas toy shenanigans) and my mantra for a while was ‘it’s tractor time! We’re off to the fields! Beep beep’ I have now succeeded in convincing toddler-son to accompany me and indeed help whilst I do jobs around the house. He rather likes to:

help me weed the garden: 'more weed?'

try to find the cat: 'cat?... gone!'

yes darling, she’s hiding… from you

or water the garden: 'more can?'

The only problem now is that if I stop to do something else, he doesn’t like it much. Yesterday I found myself putty-ing up the wood on an old stool that I had already puttied to within an inch of its life because he kept on chanting ‘more putty!’

Son is very bossy.

But sometimes… yes, sometimes he manages to amuse himself without my intervention and there follows a period of silence while he fiddles with whatever he is most likely not meant to be doing, like trying to pull out a tree.

He does finally get sick of this and finishes by saying ‘heavy!’

So when we were pottering in the garden and I heard nothing from the little tacker for a few minutes I thought I should investigate. I found him quite calmly and happily, sitting on the deck next to the cat’s bowl, eating her crunchies and saying ‘mmmmm! Num num!’

No darling, yukky! We don’t eat cat food.

I take away the bowl and he decides to throw a tantrum. (but will, fingers crossed, thank me for this later in life)

Thing is: he won’t eat fruit but he will eat cat food.

I want him to grab a strawberry and say num num, not the fishy vita-bites.

Would you, could you… with a goat?

2009-12-01T15:17:00.008+11:00

Since becoming a parent I have also become au fait with many different pre-school-age television shows, books, characters etc. Whilst some of these make me remember characters and shows I loved when I was a child. Some are just weird. Or am I just getting really old?

I have Dr Seuss playing round and round and round in my head. And if that were the worst of it, it would not be so bad. But it’s all mixed up with In the Night Garden and Teletubbies. And whilst I dream about taking a bouncy ride in the Ninky-Nonk, it is not a happy dream. I didn’t buckle myself in and I fear I may have a Pontipine stuck up my left nostril.

Why… how… do people come up with these ideas? Is the precursor for making a successful children’s character to (a) imbibe an extraordinary amount of hallucinogenic substance, wait for it to take effect, and then (b) sit in park with dictaphone, digital camera and notebook and just write what you see and hear (it should be a lot).

As soon as you come back to reality (assuming you do), don’t try to make sense of it, just (c) pitch the details as-is to a producer or publisher. Not that I advocate such a method (although Kekulé, were he alive, may well encourage such action).

And whilst my son does not at yet know Kekulé, he does know Santa. He does not like Santa, and will not ‑under any circumstances‑sit on his lap. No amount of bribery, even the chocolate sort, will convince him to sit on lap of said big-fat-man with cotton-wool facial-hair and general ho-ho-ho-ness for photo.

Can’t really blame him. He doesn’t know Santa. Santa does not tuck him in bed or read him books, and son can’t read himself yet so when he opens up the million-and-one presents that Santa has left him, he’s going to think: cool, toys! How does this work? I DO like that cardboard box… I wonder what it tastes like.

I’m tired,

Can I have more cake, and

All presents are mine.

He does not understand Christmas and fat men who wear red suits. So it is hardly surprising that lap-of-Santa is not a welcome prospect. If Santa was dressed as, say… Igglepiggle or Makka Pakka, then it would be a completely different story.

I think I have some synapse function left but I can’t quite be sure

2009-10-30T16:25:00.002+11:00

I wrote a thesis.

It was a little one.

It hurt my brain.

I think I may have a hernia in my frontal lobe.

I can’t stop thinking in footnotes.

No this is not a fucking poem.

You see I’m limiting myself to short sentences because as soon as I begin to go over one line I then find myself using terms such as ‘not only… but also’, and words like ‘juxtaposition’, ‘praxis’ and ‘discourse’. Yes, not only does this mean I have turned in to a wanker, but also I will soon have a piece of paper proving that I am one.

It’s dangerous this research thing. It pushes out some of the ability your brain has to do normal things like… oh, I don’t know… wash dishes… perhaps feed the cat (oh yeah – that’s why she's meaowing), or even feed the child. People with doctorates must have personal assistants and nappy-changers because I’m sure I’d forget to pee if I was doing a doctorate.

I would like to now leave you with a thought.

Something witty, something pithy, something intelligent, but I don’t think I have any smart left.

what about a picture?
yes.
one showing all the bits that have been irreversibly damaged through research.

Grey is the new mousy-brown

2009-07-03T15:14:00.010+10:00

I’ve dyed my hair blond for years, so many years in fact that I have absolutely no idea what my natural hair colour is. If the regrowth is any judge, then the true colour is somewhere between a dark, dirty blond and a kind-of nondescript auburn. It’s what most people call ‘mousy’ [squeek]
I guess there are probably a few grey hairs lurking in there, but I would really prefer not to think about it thank you very much. At least I’m not bald. (Apologies to all my balding friends)
I dye my hair and I don’t have to think, or care, about whether I’m going grey or not.

But shock, horror, [cue dramatic music] when I was in the shower the other day I found a grey pubic hair.

I wasn’t looking for one, I swear! It just seemed to glow with an unearthly aura around it, so much so that I couldn’t miss it. I didn’t know what to do. Should I pull it out and hope that the other pubes don’t notice? What if the shock of having Grandma Pube ripped out from next to them makes all the rest of them go grey? I suppose I should just leave Grandma P there in the hopes that she will talk to all her little P’s in a ‘don’t live your life like I lived mine or this could happen to you,’ kinda way.
I could just shave the whole lot off. Or wax it. I just don’t know that I could live with the resultant stubble or in-grown hair.

Many, many moons ago I used to date this woman who shaved off all her pubes. I actually think this is why we broke up. There was something quite disturbing about sleeping with someone who is completely bald in their nether-regions. (ok, ok, vagina) Whatever. It was completely bald. Every time I went down there I had this horrible sensation that maybe she wasn’t my age at all, maybe she was pre-pubescent.
I’m all for waxing and trimming and general maintenance but this was ridiculous. It made me feel like a dirty old perv. It freaked me out. I had to stop seeing her. So I did.
I never used to worry about getting old – I guess that’s the thing about being young – you feel that you are going to be that way forever. I think having kids has pushed me in to an early mid-life crisis. No longer should I be asking what am I going to do when I grow up. I need to be grown up.
And yes, this thinking is turning me grey… everywhere.

So, whatever happened to Grandma P? She left of her own accord, no coaxing (gentle or otherwise) involved. Good riddance.

I cannot believe that he is one year old already

2009-06-04T12:54:00.021+10:00

that he says mum and mama and no and nan-nan-nan-nan and that I am yet to get a good night’s sleep.

He should have been born in May but there we were, 2 weeks after the due-date, still no baby. We tried everything (legal and non-surgical) to get him out.

Liquorice by the bucket-load (apparently meant to induce contractions. I actually think it only induces runny poo, but that’s just the one opinion)

Acupuncture (not so bad)

Accelerating before speed-humps rather than braking (because someone told us that bumpy car rides can break the waters and so we stupidly believed them like the gullible, doe-eyed parents-to-be that we were) I think we wrecked the suspension on the car.

Disgusting herbal ‘bring on those contractions’ preparations (aka raspberry leaf, aka tastes like licking the lawnmower clean after mowing an entire golf course in the rain) – ok, so I just added the in the rain bit but let me tell you, these tablets just made my partner want to hurl (chuck/spew/vomit/ride the porcelain bus)

Super-hot curries (= indigestion and FYI curries are only tasty the first time round)

Talking to the tummy (ok, time to GET OUT little one – you know you wanna).

If it wasn’t for the actual induction (prostaglandin gel… syntocin drip) then baby may well have stayed in-utero forever… gotten married, gone to college, and had his own children right from the dark, damp and (apparently) quite noisy safety of my partner’s womb.

Now, one year on, he is in a constant state of teething, crawling, crying, laughing and generally giving his 2 mums an excess of joy, stress and poopie nappies.

At present he enjoys eating the non-toxic crayons we bought rather than actually drawing with them. Soon he will poo in waxy technicolour.

I cannot tell you what this last year has been like, it’s all a blur. Thank goodness for cameras, note-taking and multi-vitamins. If I could do it over again there are many things I would change, but even more that I wouldn’t.

Celebration, with much noise and rejoicing, of the large, unattractive concrete pillar structure

2009-05-22T10:45:00.026+10:00

I think I was a Buddhist in a previous life. A bad, naughty Buddhist that did bad, naughty things to all the nice people. I was a beer-drinking selfish Buddhist who didn’t feed the hungry people or smile at every opportunity or chant for the dead people. And rather than coming back as say an ant or some type of vermin as penance, Buddha himself sat in his enlightened cloud-seat and decided that to atone for my wicked wicked ways, he would instead build a temple on the corner of my street as reminder of said previous life.

And Buddha said:

‘my people will park their people-movers and four-wheel-drives across your driveway; and every time a piece of my temple is completed, my people will rejoice VERY LOUDLY with tone-deaf-nasal-chanting through a loudspeaker at all times of the day and night and sometimes with firecrackers’

The temple is still not finished and I have lived in my home for 5 years now. Every few months a new piece of concrete is shipped in, put in place and celebrated. The concrete pillars are just the latest installment.

I am going nuts. The peaceful, happy smiling people are driving me insane.

Dear Buddha,
I apologise. I am sorry. I know I have a long way to go until I am enlightened. In fact, it will probably never happen. I am destined to stand outside the gates of Nirvana forever. I will set myself up with a little picnic mat, maybe some tinnies and a packet of fags. But I will walk there, I will be very quiet, my burps will be inaudible and I vow never to park across your driveway.
Promise.

EXHAUSTION – it’s a little like being drunk, just without the drunk bit

2009-03-04T14:10:00.028+11:00

(you know… the swaying, the inability to make sense, the vagueness, the eyes like road maps...)

If poos, wees and vomits make you squeamish then stop reading. Alternatively, you could set yourself up with potty, bucket and laptop.

I have survived the week from hell. (also known as the week from smell)

Have a look at this pretty picture:

Harmless, innocuous little green dots they are not.

These little bastards have had a monumental party in my gut, my partner’s gut and my son’s. They invited their friends and procreated at an alarming rate.

Viral gastroenteritis.

(Do not lick the screen)

We knew something was seriously wrong when my son metamorphosed into a geyser. A tomato-pasta-breastmilk-geyser to be exact that rushed forth vomit all over the kitchen floor and son’s pyjamas. Whatever we put into the little guy spent approx 30 minutes in his tiny tummy, then it would re-appear – complete with stomach acids – charging jet-like out of his mouth and on to whatever was in its path.

Needless to say we wiped both him and the floor clean, and rushed regurgitating child to the hospital.

At this point I digress: my son seems to become instantly better as soon as we enter a hospital emergency department. He is happy, distracted and completely forgets that he is ill.

The triage nurse tells him he’s putting it on and sticks a thermometer in his ear. He doesn’t have a temperature. He giggles and gives her a cute smile. His mouth is aimed right at her face and I would give anything for a warm, frothy vomit waterfall right now, but no such luck.

Instead we are ushered into the waiting room and it takes my son all of 2 minutes for the excitement to wear off. Now he is cranky but we are stuck. So we sit slowly calcifying over the next four and a half hours.

We give him something to drink in the hopes he will keep it down and see the triage nurse again. Not long after this we are directed to a cubicle and this time he knows to vomit when medical staff are present.

Geyser-boy then has naso-gastric tube inserted and hands bandaged (boxer-style) to prevent him ripping out tube. He protests and it breaks my heart. There is nothing like the blood-curdling scream of an infant in distress.

At least he doesn’t vomit.

Six hours later, tube is removed and we go home.

The exhaustion? Yeah well… we were all pretty tired after that.

I won't discuss the next bit in detail, I will just say this:

once it stops coming out one end, it comes out the other...

Post-graduate student seeks BabelFish text translator

2009-01-28T13:28:00.010+11:00

(refer to http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3930815 for details)

Anyone? Anyone?

And really, if you don’t understand what I am writing, then you’re not the only one.

I have started (finally) to wade through the theory-ooze of literary and cultural works of Mikhail Bakhtin. I say ooze, not in the sense of… say… a weeping sore. No, more like that slippery, squelchy mud that you get after a torrential downpour. But seeing as we’re in drought, I am really only relying on the memory of such rain-events.

Maybe I should call it sludge (the mud not the brain. Although come to think of it, maybe the brain too). Yes. And so you see how it is affecting my thought.

Whatever I call it (theory-sludge? THludge? THooze?), it’s the down-in-the-WWI-trenches kind of sludge. The pre-battle charge where you crap in your pants prior to being slaughtered by the assessors.

Yes. I have to write a goddamn thesis.

I have no one to blame for this unfortunate turn of events but myself. I even chose the theorist.

I must be nuts. MAD. Bloody bonkers.

The ironic thing is this: my theorist is Russian. My current creative writing deals with the cruelty of the Russians during WWII. So by reading a dead Russian’s words I may well be continuing the torture and slavery of the Polish soul. Even in death the Bolsheviks exercise their iron fist. My only consolation: at least the theorist I am using was exiled from Russia. Seems he was also an enemy of the state. We might agree with each other after all…

Hang on… this isn’t ironic … it’s just melodramatic. Oh god.

And so you see what this theory-imbibing has done to my brain. (Will I ever think normally again?)

Back to the confusion.

I am yet to find anybody who really truly understands theory. People say they understand, but no-one can explain to me what the hell it’s really about. The world is awash with a myriad of books, essays, theses and so on, all claiming to analyse and understand and make sense of it all. (Note: theses rhymes with faeces for a reason).

Yet the language is so dense (see sludge) that it is impossible to try to extract any kind of sense or meaning from the words.

And no, not even psychotherapy or ECT would help me now.

What I really need is a BabelFish. Will pay top dollar for one. Will check e-bay now.

Eat your greens (but steer clear of the reds)

2009-01-16T16:12:00.002+11:00

My son has spots, and it’s my fault.

We’re experimenting with foods – some oatmeal, pureed fruit, tiny bits of pasta, mashed broccoli with no seasoning at all, all pulverised to smithereens – you know the drill. We wait until it is lukewarm and then we open our mouths in the hope that he’ll emulate us and spoon the mushy goop into his waiting mouth. We chant ‘yummy!’ like some deranged housecoat-wearing cheerleader (housecoat in case food is spat out in a spray of ppppppppprrrrrrrrrrah. He hasn’t yet learnt the word for ‘no’ but ‘no’ will most likely be his first word).

Lately, we’ve been a little lax in the ‘wait a few days before new food introduction’ routine. Yesterday, I let him hold a piece of red capsicum. I didn’t let him chow down on it. But what touches the hand touches the mouth and so on and so forth and now he’s covered in an allergic rash and red capsicum is the only thing I can attribute it to.

I feel really guilty, but I must remember that no- I did not give him a toilet brush to lick or rubbed his face with cold sores. Still, the guilt is there and I feel like a bad mama. (FYI: I am mama and tummy-mummy is mum or mummy. They’re different enough, yet are also both ‘mother-ish’ names so as not to spark confusion or questions from nosey people who have no business in my family life but who will – because they are just ‘like that’ – invariably end up asking us all kinds of impertinent questions. Note to such people: fuck off, none of your bloody business.)

Back to the spots.

Child seems happy enough and trip to the hospital with mum (ie not me) ended up with the diagnosis of ‘allergic reaction… probably. Nothing to worry about… probably. Unless it gets worse… which it probably won’t’.

Luckily, it doesn’t get worse, but this doesn’t lessen the worry., not only because it could have been more serious, but because had it been more serious, had I rushed him to hospital, there would have been nothing I could have done. I am not even allowed to authorise the use of children’s paracetamol.

Spotty child is content to sit in high chair, eat pre-allergy tested porridge with apple, and bash table with green plastic spoon.

boing-weee-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-bleep-bleep-whizzzzzzz (I need to buy shares in Fisher Price)

2009-01-08T16:40:00.013+11:00

There’s a toy in the car that won’t switch off. It’s possessed by the boing-ha-ha-ha demon, and it’s not happy that it has to share it’s space with the whiz-bleep-bleep lion thingy or the da-di-da-da plushie giraffe.

I am living in a baby rave party. Babies all over the world, come on down to my pad ‘cos it’s a hapnin’ scene, there’s lights, music, songs (all with prerequisite American accent) and even the shape-sorter plays a tune.

The green frog is on ecstasy and its eyeballs look botoxed. Kind-of reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange.

Happy hands it’s fun to play!
Count to three! Clap away…
One! … (clap-clap-clap)
Two! … (clap-clap-clap)
Three! … (clap-clap-clap)
Happy hands… Hooray!

The green frog is freaking out my son. It’s bigger than him.

Everything needs batteries, myself included. But nothing comes with the precision screwdrivers that are required in order to pull the darn toys apart so that the batteries can be put in and why oh why are we even thinking about putting in the batteries anyway?

I can’t stop thinking in bleep-bleep mode.

Happy pills are fun to take!
Prozac keeps me sane all day…
One! … (in the morning)
Two! … (just for luck)
Three! … (what the hell)
Happy pills… Hooray!

My son’s fave toy: a small green plastic spoon that was part of a green-frog plastic bowl-and-bib set. Spoon fits nicely in his had and is good for both bashing things and chewing; it doesn’t get soggy and sometimes comes with pureed apple.

Crazy-makey-Friday

2008-12-01T16:03:00.003+11:00

Ok yes, so now it’s Monday. I did need the weekend to recover.

I thought that maybe it had something to do with the phase of the moon – you know the ol’ must be a full moon – that’s when all the crazies come out. But actually no, it’s the complete opposite of a full moon. It’s a new moon.

Which means… er… time to start something?

Crazy-makey: if you are a crazy-maker or somewhat crazey-makey, then YOU ARE A NUTJOB. Pure and simple. In particular, you take pleasure in driving other people up the wall, or you don’t even notice that everything you do drives people up the wall because you are that much off the planet. (i.e. not playing with a full deck of cards… a few sandwiches short of a picnic… the lights are on but nobody’s home…)

You most likely need therapy, a lot of it, and you are annoying, the kind of annoying that drives people to do crazey-makey things themselves. (Think: John Wilkes Booth.)

Occasionally I’ll see this elderly lady at the supermarket who’s wearing a lot of pink: pink tu-tu, pink stockings, pink lipstick. I don’t think she showers regularly. I think she thinks she’s a pretty-princess-fairy-doll.

She probably is.

Back to Friday crazey-makey episodes.

Crazy # 1: was a weird freak of a man who rang the University’s information number (which, by the way, I only look after for one hour a month). Anyway weirdo phone-man was quite possibly using the call as a free sex-line because it took me about 30 seconds to realise that oh… I thinks he’s … eeeeeeeeeew!

Crazy # 2: was a junkie (with friend) who politely asked how far away Smith Street (notorious drug-purchase-location) was and whether they should walk or catch public transport.

I told them to catch the bus.

They then thanked me quite nicely, didn’t try to steal anything, and left. (At least I don’t think they tried to steal anything).

Casing the joint? Probably. (oh but they were so nice those junkies… MUCH nicer than masturbatory-man)

The neighbours have been deathly quiet. Not even the creak of rigor or a car-door slam to speak of. Nuthin’.

Crazey-makey-next-door-lady seems to have lost her voice, or broken her speakers, or bought some headphones.

She wrote us a letter last week. I thought that maybe it was going to be an apology. (Why I thought this – I really don’t know.) Instead it was a ‘fuck you’ letter. The specific kind of ‘fuck you’ letter that doesn’t actually use any swear words, and on first reading actually looks like it may be a misguided attempt at an apology, but on further inspection, the creepy, rank odour of screw you buddy, I’m gonna do exactly what I want, and I don’t care if it shits you wafts in and burns your nostril hairs. Oh yes, lovely. Chaaaaaarming. Nice, nice nice.

She rounded off the letter with a bit of ‘actually I am a nice community-minded person with a social conscience, and it’s your fault that you don’t get to see it.

Well hell! My apologies to you.

So before I let crazey-makey-next-door-lady infiltrate my brain cells too much and turn me into a pink tu-tu wearing nanna, I wrote to the council and asked them to deal with it.

I think they did.

Never take the front seat in a taxi…

2008-11-18T14:18:00.005+11:00

Not if you’re on your own. I used to always, always, hop in the front, not wanting to seem rude. Politely engaging in short conversations with the driver – whatever their topic-du-jour – I was in the cab, next to them, agreeing, commenting, adding my opinion to theirs. No matter how homophobic or racist or sexist they were. I just didn’t want to be considered rude or snobbish.

Are you married?

Yes. I reply (omitting the fact that it’s to a woman).

They talk to me about property values, the state of the economy, immigration, roads, and all I want to do is stare out of the window and disengage. This relationship that we have is both fleeting and annoying. An invasion of privacy. But it’s my fault none the less. Sitting in the front of the taxi gives licence for conversation.

When my neighbours sold their house, all I wanted was that it not be bought by property developers. When the property developers bought it, all I wanted was for them to improve the house, not sub-divide.

They’re building a new house in their back yard. My small, 2-bedroom dwelling will be dwarfed, surrounded by beige-brick monstrosities.

We, of course, objected… to their plans, to their noisy renters who drink far too much on most weeknights and continue their party into the weekends. We objected, and rang the police to send someone out when at 5 in the morning the bloody noise was still thump-thump-thumping in our bedroom, even though our bedroom was the farthest room from next door.

As I get older, I realise just how precious my privacy is, and just how much I need to preserve it in order to also preserve my sanity.

There’s little I could do when the council decided to approve the development plans, except negotiate for a taller fence. But at least now I choose to sit in the back of the taxi.

I’m not being rude, I just like my space, that’s all.

seven silver sleepers

2008-10-29T13:33:00.006+11:00

My friend's mum just died. Correction, my ex-girlfriend’s mum died last week but I only found out about it this morning via text-message. I was in the bus on my way to work thinking how I should reply, or even, should I reply? I didn’t know her at all and I’d met her only once. She’d commented to my then-girlfriend on the ‘metal junkyard’ in my ear. I don’t think she thought much of me at all, which was somewhat of a shock. I had always been the kind of girl that people wanted to take home to meet the parents.

Not this time.

I had seven piercings in one ear, three in the other, and a stud in my nose. And back then, (god, I make myself sound so old… back then… yes I suppose it was thirteen years ago, if not more…)

Back then that level of facial piercing was considered unusual, quite possibly the mark of a serial-killer or handbag-stealer.

I was neither. I just happened to have a good deal of scrap metal in my head, and none of it was for medical reasons.

Prior to the piercings, parents considered me intelligent, interesting, hell even nice. I wasn’t going to remove my piercings just because I might offend someone. On the contrary, they became somewhat of a bullshit-detector.

If you were going to judge me on appearance then by all means you could just bugger off. Besides, I was, and still am, deaf in my left ear. Completely and utterly. No surround sound for me.

It gave people a signpost: ‘don’t walk on her left side… don’t talk to her left side, she’s deaf… I said she won’t hear you…’

I liked to tell people that I used the earrings to stimulate all my acupuncture points in the vain hope that somehow it would trigger a regeneration of the nerve in my ear. Yes. I was trying to cure my deafness, could they not be so cruel as to comment on it? Just how superficial and shallow they were.

Late last year I removed all my earrings, my nose-piercing was taken out many years before. I did this for my partner’s sister’s wedding so that the photos wouldn’t have the shiny reflection of seven silver sleepers in the lens. I just never put them back in. Not for anything but sheer laziness.

Beginnings... beginnings... beginnings...

2008-10-24T08:38:00.002+11:00

There is much to be said about the keeping of a diary, thoughts, phrases, ideas. All to be recorded in a notepad and saved for later. I have done this for years. There is a forest of unclaimed notes and general word-guff collecting dust on many of my bookshelves. Every time I move house (which hopefully now will NOT be often) I lovingly pack the books and lug them to their new residence. In short - I am a hoarder. Occasionally I will take them out, have a read, get awfully embarrassed and wonder why I kept them in the first place. Sometimes though, I am proud of what I wrote, and it marks the beginning of a new piece of writing.

This blog is the electronic version. (Oh duh! I hear you say. And... do we need these ramblings?)

No, you don't. But I think I do.

My shoes don’t match, that’s not to say that they’re not a pair. They’re in the style of the Mary-Jane: flat, rounded toe, thin strap across the foot. Very comfortable, very sensible. On the body of the left is embroidered three gold stars, on the right – a crescent moon, and hence, they don’t match, but still are most definitely a pair.

This morning he looked at me , smiled and burped. I waited the customary two seconds before the vomit that goes with the belch to appear. ‘You made cheese!’ I say. Though strictly it is much more like yoghurt, curdled milk. He smiles again and I wonder if I’m giving him a cheese-phobia. Not that he has to eat cheese when he is older, just that I don’t want him to be scared of it or think that it is made from vomit.

This is the beginning, I don’t know what happens next.

I caught a reflection of myself in the glass doors as I was walking past. The cut of my pants don’t seem to go with my shoes and the covering skirt is a different length on both sides. I don’t think I strive to be asymmetrical, it happens by accident.

It has been almost five months since his birth, and when I tell people this they look at me with incredulity –impressed that I have so quickly and easily shed my ‘baby-weight’. It is at this point that I correct them‑there was no baby weight. (Could they shut-up about the baby‑weight?) In fact it was my partner who gave birth, not I. and still, she had no baby-weight. Only three tiny stretch-marks to prove that he was ever in there to begin with.

Does it make me jealous? Yes, I suppose it does. I think I would have liked to feel the kicks from the inside, and known that there were two heartbeats; one- rapid-fire, the other somehow calmer, if not just slower.

But the jealousy doesn’t mature into the now. When my shoulder gets covered with yoghurt, freshly made and regurgitated with a smile, I know that he is also mine.

The blue eyes and blond hair surprise everyone. He even looks like me.