Really? My Child?

Now that my firstborn is in full time school he frequently comes home with his jumper generously spattered with stickers in recognition of his good works and impeccable behaviour.

Obviously I always feel a smug glow of pride when he comes out adorned with stickers while other parents pick up their kids who aren't so beautifully decorated. (No doubt that'll be me next year picking up Eli, he's just not all that bothered about making people happy like our Thomas).

Of course in school I was always the model of perfect classroom etiquette (when I wasn't idly chatting to my classmates and ignoring the teacher of course) so I think Thomas is just following in my footsteps.

The other day as we were collecting his coat I enquired as to why he'd received a sticker of a dinosaur that said 'excellent-saurus'.

"I had the tidiest pile".

"What?"

"When we got changed for PE and had to leave our clothes tidy my pile was the very tidy one".

(Completely bewildered) "Oh, right!"

"Cos some of those kids just are not good at being tidy".

And that behaviour he did not get from me.

But I'm hoping it's contagious because my house would really benefit from a healthy dose of that.

(On a tangent I just barely got around to removing the 'your pregnancy' widget. Imagine my horror when I just checked it only to find I'd neglected it so long it was telling me I was 7 weeks pregnant all over again! I'd rather fracture my other shoulder than be pregnant all over again).

New evidence that nothing good comes from cleaning.

Imagine the scene.

A young(ish) Mother's first day with all 3 kidlets all by herself.

The 4 year old gets to school, clean, dressed and on time.

The 3 year old gets to nursery, somewhat clean, dressed and on time, albeit reluctantly.

The Mother delights in her efficiency and arrives home with 2 week old baby in tow feeling like maybe life isn't gonna be the chaotic existence she imagined after all.

She gazes at her sleeping baby and glances at her watch. She has time to quickly overhaul the house and get things all shiny clean and super tidy before the baby needs feeding then she can indulge in uninterrupted baby time before the 3 year old needs collecting.

Bliss, yes?

Until the part where the completely excellent Mother falls over who knows what bashing her head and fracturing her shoulder.

And that, friends, is why I'm never cleaning again.

(I wish I had it caught on camera because that tumble would be truly hilarious to watch I am sure, just saying!)

Because lately I'm just too lazy to Blog but my kids are really cute!

Au Revoir

I am officially in mourning.

You know life can be hard and I do try to maintain a cheery attitude, true as it is, most days I fail.

Like today when on the traipse home from school I saw my three year old headed towards dog poop. Not any ordinary dog poo but diarrhea dog poop! I guess the fact that it was diarrhea confused him and made him lose control of all the 3 ounces of sense a three year old possesses because before I could scream 'hand sanitiser' I saw him bending down. I almost managed to avoid the catastrophe, but only almost. I grabbed his coat by the hood and yanked hard in a manner that could have been categorised as child abuse, but it was after all an emergency. His fingertips had barely reached the excrement but small brown circles of dog faeces were evident.

I didn't have any baby wipes to hand and when I explained it was dog poo and shrieked 4 verses of 'what were you thinking?' it turns out he thought it was a stone. Yep, I always got muddled between a stone and dog diarrhea. Happens all the time. Easy mistake to make.

So now I will forever be known to those who have the downhill route home from school as the hysterical mother of that boy who puts his hand in dog diarrhea. Charming.

But that is only part of my trauma....

You know I waited all summer long for summer to make it's appearance.

It never really made it.

I know I shouldn't really be complaining though because we by far had the best of the weather during our family holiday.

1 entire week without rain, big-flaming-whoop!

Then Autumn came and for the first 5 majestic days I enjoyed the beauty of the change in seasons. Seeing the leaves turning brown and falling from the trees, enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sunshine.

This I could get on board with.

Then as quickly as Autumn had arrived it had departed.

Not to be a grump (well maybe a bit!) but Winter has now officially arrived. I have been cold and I have been rained on more than I would like and it is only October 2nd. I am seriously considering homeschooling my children so that I don't have to brave the elements for the next 7 months (and partly to avoid the unenviable tag of dog poop mother). Why oh why does Thomas' school have to be up an enormous hill (well it feel enormous at least to my unfit self) and why does the wind always have to be blowing downhill just to make my journey all the more depressing? Of course on my descent the wind fails to blow at all. The wind it would seem is in conspiracy against me.

Yep, that's right. We may be lucky enough to enjoy all 4 seasons here in my homeland but for some unfathomable reason Spring is 4 months long, Summer a week or two at best, Autumn even shorter in length than summer if such a thing were imaginable and Winter 7 eternally long months.

So faced with the choices of eating my body weight in chocolate to make me feel better and hibernation I decided to choose the latter.

I'll be seeing you all in Spring.

And the sun had better be shining!!

The Best Invention Ever

I know what you're thinking how could I ever possibly single out one individual invention and give it the high acclaim of being the best invention ever?

It's true I'll admit there are a gazillion and one inventions that have improved my life immeasurably and if I have to endure another old lady at church telling me the tale of how easy life is these days for us mothers because back in her day there were no washing machines and they had to wash their clothes laboriously by hand and blah, blah, blah and so on I swear I think I will honestly spontaneously combust.

Yes I get it. I do. Life was immensely harder a generation or two ago but in those days they didn't have to contend with kids high on sugar or who knows what else that is contained in every item my child actually wants to eat without putting up a fight that has them bouncing off the walls from time to time.

Old ladies my life is hard too! Yes I have indoor plumbing and 3 televisions (2 of which we have lost the remotes for, now that is true hardship) in my house. But even these blessings come with their own disadvantages. Cleaning up pee residue left by boys and having to endure Max & Ruby is no walk in the park either I'll have you know.

Anyhow back to the point. Best invention ever?

Seriously....

Baby Wipes.

Now I had been considering this post for a while and then for 6 days our hot water boiler was broken and on day 1 I almost convinced myself that hot water totally eclipses baby wipes at the top of my best ever invention list.

For 6 long days we were showerless (unless we wanted to risk hypothermia) I had actually been sick so I hadn't showered for a day or two before that. I'm disgusting, I know! We had to resort to icy cold washes and washing my hair in the cold shower bent over double. It was so cold I had to come up with the ingenious idea of using my shampoo and conditioner simultaneously (apply shampoo get the bubbles bubbling then add a generous slathering of conditioner on top of the bubbles then rinse but do not repeat as needed in case you're wondering). It may not have been the best care for my hair by far but it vastly reduced my scalps exposure to the icy cold water spray.

My head is currently still thawing thanks for asking.

You know what got me through our hot water famine?

Baby wipes.

I for sure was never gonna expose my body to a subzero showering experience and baby wipes saved the day. They and they alone made me acceptable to be out in public.

Baby wipes have entirely revolutionised my life. There is truly no end to the uses these handy wipes have. I use mine for everything and anything.

Cleaning poo? Check.
Cleaning baby vomit? Check.
Cleaning toys? Check.
Cleaning windows? Check.
Dusting? Check.
Cleaning inside of my car? (thanks Rob) Check.
Cleaning leather sofa? Check.
Cleaning laminate floor? Check.
Cleaning all surfaces? Check.
Cleaning poop art of the walls? Check.
Cleaning the bathroom? Check.
Removing my make up when I am too bone lazy to take 8 steps to the bathroom? Check.
Styling my kids hair? check.

When Thomas was smaller and had somewhat crazy hair (though perfectly tame hair in comparison to Eli) we didn't wet and brush his unruly locks we baby wiped them into place and it worked a treat, honestly!

The multipurpose nature of the baby wipe has not passed my oldest child by. Recently I was off elsewhere baby wiping something clean no doubt and on my return I saw this sitting on the sofa watching Peter Pan. On enquiring what on earth was going on he replied:

"Well my feet hurt mummy and the baby wipes are fixing them."

See, absolutely no end to their uses. Though I haven't tried them out personally for hurting feet Thomas assures me they are very effective.

Now if the old ladies wanna spin me a tale about how tough life was without baby wipes that is one I am willing to listen to over and over (without fear of spontaneous combustion) because life without my baby wipes is completely unimaginable for me.

I'm telling you Best. Invention. Ever!

Clearly Life Gets No Better Than This

Our kitchen/family room has laminate flooring. It is mostly easy to keep clean which is after all essential with the boys traipsing who knows what, who knows where all the live long day. So I have to admit laminate flooring has made my life slightly simpler.

What I am not so keen on though is the sweeping (though I vastly prefer sweeping to vacuuming). Every time the kids eat anything I have to sweepy sweep sweep because my kids are unable to eat anything without turning half of it into big old crumbs.

So on Saturday I was sweeping the floor for the bazillionth time. Rob had just got back from football training and the boys were running all over in celebration of their favourite parent returning. (Charming, right?)

Me:(Exasperated) "Thomas be careful don't run in my pile of dirt!"

Thomas: "Oh sorry mummy."

Me: "That's OK you just need to be more careful."

Thomas: "What you doing with that dirt mummy?"

Me: "Well I'm gonna sweep it up and put it in the bin."

Thomas: "Oh, that's so nice for you mummy!"

Me: (Thinking silently to myself) 'At least one of us thinks so, son!'

Deeply Sanitised/Sanitized (A bilingual post)

My very last recycled post. I will be back blogging current events this weekend!

I know cleanliness is next to Godliness but I can't help thinking we're all going a bit OTT.

When I was a child I had a weekly Sunday evening bath in preparation for the new week of school. It was sufficient. We were posh though, we each had our very own bath water. I recall going to sleepover at a friends house and being told we needed to go get in the bath that had been vacated firstly by my friends father and then her older brother. Even to this day I am suspicious that third hand bath water probably has very few cleansing properties. I actually think I needed a bath when I got home to cleanse me of my earlier third hand bath.

When I was a child and went to the farm or Zoo there were no signs telling me to sanitise my hands every 10 metres, or child height sinks provided to give my germ infested hands a good scrubbing before exiting. I fed goats and pigs from my hands happily and didn't wash them. In fact I probably fed them and then sat down and had a picnic without considering the fact that I had pig saliva on my hand and subsequently my sandwich.

But guess what??

I survived!

When I worked at the hospital we had a big change of policy from washing our hands every 30 minutes to using hand sanitiser every 15 minutes. Sometimes I'd go a good 45 minutes between doses of sanitiser because frankly it's just not good etiquette to leave someone in mid Barium enema to go sanitise yourself up to your wrists. To my knowledge nobody ever died from my lack of hand sanitiser diligence.

I attended the wedding of my dear friend John in February. The last person in the welcoming line had a big old pump bottle of hand sanitiser to protect us from the germs we just contracted shaking hands with the Bride and Groom and the rest of the wedding party. My friends dad sent me on my way with a handshake and a complimentary pumping of sanitiser.

So if cleanliness really is next to Godliness thanks to that unexpected dose of hand sanitiser I'm happily one step closer.

It's Official

Yesterday Rob had the day off because he was going to see Foo Fighters (Yes, his life is vastly more exciting than mine) and amongst other things he decided to give our bedroom some TLC. It is a really neglected space, used only for sleeping and dumping. The furniture needed shifting around to maximise the space and make everything feel a little less cluttered.

In the process the bed has ended up with Rob's side up against the wall, which has the bonus of increasing the space in our room but the distinct un-bonus of making me the only available parent whenever a child visits our room. Generally they come straight to me anyhow but at least the option of daddy was available so occasionally (the sweetest moments of life) I was off the hook, now it's all just me, lucky me!

After Rob was finished I was taking Thomas to the toilet (thanks to his broken arm he can no longer get on and off unaided) and our bedroom door was open.

"WOW, look at your tidy room!"

Initially I thought he was just impressed by the change in layout, it does after all look so much better. But now that repeat identical comments are in double figures (from our 8000 toilet trips, and we're only on Day 4 of broken arm) I have come to the assumption that even he noticed the disaster zone that our bedroom constantly was.

A three year old will always tell it how it is,

We are slobs!

Thanks for the confirmation.

But this does come from the bizarre child who just turned down chocolate because "I'm a bit busy tidying my room (yes, even with one arm) right now" and couldn't possibly pause for a chocolate break. Clearly he is more like Grandma Deb than we thought.

Oh and don't worry the chocolate didn't go to waste I happily paused from my chores to eat it.

Invaded

We are currently dealing with an ant invasion. Lucky us. Where? In the garden perhaps? Nope, in the house and even better (and even more hygienic?!) in the kitchen. We have dealt with this before, two summers ago, but unfortunately neither of us can recall what we did to kill (literally) the problem. Last year we didn't have any of our ant friends come to visit us for their summer vacation so we thought our unwanted house guests were firmly in our past. Wrong....again!

Thomas and Eli both think it's tremendous fun to have all of these fun 'ant pets'. I'm glad they are so easily pleased. Rob gets itchy all over whenever he comes across one but me, I am totally unfazed after turning up in San Antonio to work at EFY and being greeted and given a can of Raid to kill any unwanted visitors that might be in my bed for the duration of my two week stay. Delightful, and what a welcome!

So we're left with tackling the invasion all over again. (Which currently involves killing each one at first glance.) Now if only I could get Eli to stop dropping whatever he eats all over the floor constantly I'm sure we'd see success far sooner. But, maybe , just maybe I'll have to call those friendly folks in San Antonio and get them to send me some Raid.

Invasion may be a bit on the dramatic side (so unlike me of course) considering really it's only 6-8 ants a day (which is 6-8 more than I'd ideally require taking up habitation in my kitchen). I'm just simply not up to scratch on what is actually defined as an invasion and what clearly isn't. But I feel invaded so I'll continue to refer to it in such dramatic terms, I just wouldn't be me otherwise.

Charity Occasionally Faileth

In our congregation at Church if you spilt all the women into two groups which I'll call 'The Post-Menopausal' and 'The still very fertile' I'd quite obviously fit right into the second group. After all in this day and age being 32 still qualifies me as a spring chicken in the world of reproduction. (I am no longer shocked when I read headlines like '60 year old woman has triplets!' Shocked? No! Appalled? Indeed!!) In my self designated group I am currently in the vast minority. The reason being that just about everyone that is capable of child bearing just had a baby or is incubating one as I type. As I am neither of those things I fall into a sub-group with a mere handful of other ladies that I'll term 'The sane'.

One of these babies happily incubating is the offspring of Rob's cousin Neil and his wife Katie. Considering we had two babies closer together than anyone should actually legally be allowed we accumulated lots of baby kit. We never plan on having kids so close together again so half of what we have we'll never ever need to use. We still have two highchairs and seeming as Neil is at University and we had two babies while Rob was at University we know that any help is greatly appreciated. (Plus who doesn't like a freebie?) So we offered one to them. After spending what just felt like two hours scrubbing the highchair to remove every last trace of chocolate milk (which gets everywhere I now realise) and removing a secret stash of raisins that Eli was accumulating under the seat cover (and he kept attempting to eat when I brushed them onto the floor with moderate success) I realise being nice isn't the easy option by far.

Now our highchair is ready for it's new home and family I am not left with a feeling of having done something kind for someone I am left with a feeling of dread that I missed a spot of chocolate milk and that it just would have been so much easier if we just donated it to the local tip instead!