Seeing Past the Blur to the Beauty...

I have just realised that I can hear properly again! It's so nice, to be able to load up a song and hear it in its full intent. So I can say that I am over the worst of the last two or three weeks, my throat is back in shape and my voice no longer sounds awful or feels gravelly, and my ears aren't giving me a constant feeling of sea sickness. It's been a big cold!

But during it all, when I could hardly do a thing but sit with the kiddo's and enjoy the ability for them to watch tv, or when Ethan and I painted up our Fathers Day memory box, it was nice to still be looking past the boring every day and appreciating their beautiful natures. Alice and her daily need to get up, have a brief cuddle and then ask for "bekbas" (breakfast) before pushing Gypsy's legs apart and sitting with her back up to that adorable pooch's torso. Ethan and his nightly need - "I can't fall asleep without it" - for a story. He now knows the words to Where the Wild Things Are by heart. These things were daily rituals, even with a wobbly sense of balance and a horrid ability to fall asleep on a whim (thank god for locking doors and hidey holes for keys!), these things were stay-points to our days. I could see past their boredom, straight to their love and beauty.

Past that blur of hurried childhood and running for shoes to go to the creek with dad, past the want to have four apples for breakfast and let the fruit sugar high make them mental for several hours afterward.

Past all that, and in to their beautiful souls.

Moments, glimpses....beauty....

It's been a loooong week folks. A long one. We have all been sick, with a flu that has really tested everyone's ability to maintain some sort of energy level. So cooped up in the house, sick, tired, and bored, we have been hanging out at home. Oh. My. Goodness. Me, two kids, a dog, and a fenced in attitude.

Roar!

So today I thought a little retail therapy, and a lotta walking in the son, might do exactly what we need. Give us some sun, a stretched pair of legs each, and the nice fresh lungs would do us good. So we did.

And there were moments where their little hearts and minds were full, and their smiles were real and stretched all over their faces. It was beautiful. Truly gorgeous and beautiful.

And for that, I'm thankful.

Sleep...

I'm thankful for sleep today. Long, enduring, deep sleep. It only occurred to me the other day that it wasn't so long ago, I would have sold a kidney for a promise of long, enduring and deep sleep. At the beginning of the year, Ethan and Alice were sharing a room, and neither of them slept more than about 2hours at a stretch, and getting them to sleep was swear word and hair tearing out inducing.

But no more. I am lucky. Soooo frikkin lucky, that we are in an income bracket where we have to have health insurance in Australia. Our health insurance made it possible for me to take my kids to a sleep clinic, and the bill? $4000. Yeah, a 4 and then THREE zeros. But because we have health insurance, it was $250. So totally doable. So we went, and in only four nights, I came home with these amazing children I could never have imagined on the way in.

It's while we've all been so sick with this cold (and this cold is nasty, lemmetellya!) that I've become so aware, acutely aware, of how well my children have been able to still sleep. And I'm so thankful for that. Knowing that my gorgeous little Alice will pull herself on to my knee, cuddle up and say "I tired, need a bobble and a ni-nigh", and that Ethan will go and lay down in his room when he's feeling super emotional and wiped out, or at other times come and ask me to grab my knitting, help him put on a movie and sit with him to relax.

It's so good to have children who have learnt to relax. Sooo good. I can remember the days, not so long ago, when they would never have done it. And now I have the skill to know the signs, and they are able to recognise in themselves when they need the rest, too.

Thanks for the joy in a dogs heart.....

We finally got to go and grab our new baby today! She's a 3 yr old German Shepherd, and she is ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!!!!

I will never again indulge in thoughts of a puppy. We picked up Sasha at 10am, and by 12 we were out walking her with a pram, just me and Alice and her (yeah, how's my grammar, right?!). She toddled along quite happily, not sniffing or dragging, not pulling, not new to a lead and not stopping to have a poo somewhere because she is trained already to wait until she's at home for those needs.

As far as rescue dogs are concerned, somehow I think I manifested the Cadillac of rescue dogs. She's technically not a rescue, she's a breeders dog that just doesn't want to have puppies, and her old owner is a man who seriously loves this breed. He spoke to me about 3 months ago about a dog he was trying to rescue from the pound, and she wasn't suitable for our home. And during that conversation, he mentioned that he had a dog he was currently breeding, but that 'he knew' she was wanting desperately to be in a family where she was the only dog. So I went and met her, and then I took each family member one by one to meet her as well, and well, it's been love at first sight every time.

The fella really struggled with this, because, well, to be honest, he's a little bit of a control freak. He's a fifo bloke (goes away for two weeks at a time and then returns), and he already misses So Much Stuff as it is, and then I found this dog, this dog I was totally sure was The Dog For Us. And he's a bit panicky about it, even still. It's totally slipped his mind that the boy we had for 13 yrs was a dog I'd found, and had to chuck a tanty to get him to agree to, and that Bruton was simply the best dog that not only we'd ever known, but that many other people had ever known as well. But I have to let him have a free pass on the freak-out factor with some stuff, because he just must feel so left out at times. It has got to be hard, being a family man who's away from his family all of the time, to sometimes realise that you don't have the reigns on every factor of life all of the time, even when massive decisions are being made.

So today I'm thankful for the joy in a dog's heart. She's just so relaxed, already. She knows, because, I guess, of the slow transition and because her previous owner was relaxed about us too, that here she is so well off. She's already going from house to car to school to car to house with so much ease I almost feel like I've had her a year. I actually felt so confident this afternoon that I took her to school to pick Ethan up - and got her out of the car (on a short lead, don't need anyone getting knocked over thanks!) and she walked up to the class with Alice and I and just sat and waited her new boy owner. Calm as you like. I swear, she just knows. She's even already learnt to sleep on the designated cushoin-y areas that we've popped around the house - including the one in Ethan's room because, well, he's an animal lover from way back and was quite insistent on this point.

So to evolution, I say thanks. Thanks for this fantastic bond that you have forged between people and dogs, and the dogs heart that you have made amazingly self-assured and loving.

Learning Curves....

I'm a little bit excited, and think I'm a little bit nuts.

We adopt our dog tomorrow, finally! After a couple months of waiting for her, she will be ready for picking up tomorrow morning after I drop Ethan off at school. Gives me a bit of time with just me and her, (and Alice, of course) without the loudness of a 4 yr old, and with the ability for her to join us on two car rides in one day to give her a taste of what there is still to come. She's going to change my life, in ways I'm sure I'm not yet aware of.

The kids will just blossom under the umbrella of a pet, we all know that. But it is also the companionship, the absolutely unconditional love, and the attention for exercise that is going to change us all.

And for the learning curves still to come, I am thankful.

Honesty....thanks and no thanks!

I am so amazingly impressed each day by the leaps and bounds a 4 year old can make. Well, and a 20month old, but more of that later.

It wasn't long ago that my son would fight, kick and destroy to get his own way. He now walks a bit calmer a path, instead he'll mostly remove himself from an irritating situation, even if it means I've seen him get annoyed and remind him that he has the option to do so. Not that I like him watching loads of tv, but I do like that he has it to turn to when he needs to 'switch off' and relax - I mean, I relax with knitting, blogging and reading, it's only fair he has his methods too, right? So imagine my surprise today when instead of coming out and playing with his friend, he decided to watch tv. Then when he did, and his friend deliberately annoyed him - he just turned and told him outright that what the friend did was annoying, and he wanted his friend to go home.

I was so very embarrassed! But straight up, that's got to be a silver lined cloud, hey? I mean, he didn't kick, scream or yell (not at first, anyway), he told this person what he honestly thought. It was just a bit embarrassing for me, but that doesn't worry him! So today I just have to be very thankful for the ability to toggle between behaviour that is destructive and behaviour that will get the honest truth out in the open.

It just feels like in the space of a week I've gone from having a toddler and a baby to having a child and a toddler....

Alice has gone through an amazing personality change of late - soooo opinionated, so verbal, and so very, very independent! She is fast learning to try and push the point of her own way, with everything from being carried constantly to making me sit with her and do her favourite thing, which is mostly drawing. Her speech, in my opinion, is spectacular! So toddler-ville here we come! Hooray for being a Toddler (and yeah, remind me of that in a couple weeks)!!!

Thankfulness to the brim....

Running on the foreshore at Emu Point

So I took my lovely little kiddo's on a holiday. All by myself. Yep. Well, nah, really we went and we stayed with a friend of mine from many years ago, so we weren't 'on holiday' alone, which I cannot wait to do when they are older, we instead went to holidays alone. And the hysteria involved in that is quite funny, especially if you tell the right older woman who's never had her car license! But, I loaded the car up with the fella's help on wednesday morning, we dropped him at the airport and we bolted down to the lovely town of Albany. And what an excellent idea it was.

Alice loving pink milk...

The four days away was marked by fantastic company, beautiful food, walks along the beach and forest, and truly fantastic childrens behaviour. Really.

I mean, we stayed with a friend of mine. We all have one of 'those' friends, with the truly amazing and fantastically gorgeous inside and outside child that behaves in every situation and on every level. And when we don't have one of our own, man, visiting those kinds of people with kids can induce its fair share of anxiety. So when we got there, and for the last four days my children not only enjoyed their days, but were a joy for everyone to be with (give or take some shots of reality, folks, they're still breathing in and out, after all, so there is hiccups with the breathing!), I really have come home on a high. They were in love with the surrounds, with the joys of playing as a threesome, and with the pink milk that was served in most places we went.

Ah, I love and am greatful for pink milk. Amazingly indebted to the joy it bought my heart to have my son order his own pink milk and sit in cafes or on the park floors enjoying it, sharing it and blowing bubbles in it.

How beautiful was my holiday, I can barely say....

Thankfulness...in stages...

Today it occurred to me that my children, like everything else, are turning and stretching out in to this world in stages. They stretch, learn, explore. Look over their shoulder at me, and return to me, exhausted with the journey of learning.

It's my job to be a soft and consistent place to return to. Like a safe harbour for pirates that have explored great depths, found treasure, and then found themselves looking for a warm meal and a lie down.

Today I realised, to my amazement, that this exploration, this learning, comes in fits and starts, of each of them leaving me, either physically or mentally, to go off and learn these new things. These are sometimes things I know, but mostly stuff I forgot (like how to walk along a stone wall while singing Johnny has one hammer) and that's why they go off to do it. They return to me, knowing no matter where they've explored, who they may have met or what they found, I am in the same place, waiting with warm heart and ready arms to rest in.

I am thankful for the ability to do this for my children. The start to life that they've had has shown them where my arms and heart are, how to find me in confusing and tiring times. To have them aware of my all-encompassing love is so important to me, because I want them to know I'm never going to leave them alone.

I'm so glad they know that. I'm glad that when they fall down, they look up for me to help them stand again. I'm glad that in me picking them up, time and again, they never fail to try new things and have new adventures.

This all comes to me because today was the end of term get together for school. We went to the park, and the kids just all hung out, played, got filthy dirty and played some more. Alice is an adventurous girl, but a paralell player, unlike her brother, who could never just sit or explore on his own. She wanders off, speaks to people, 'borrows' snacks from our friends and wanders a happy little way. I've seen her entertain herself for an hour or more at a time, even here at home, with books, puzzles, and babies that seriously needed 'ni-nighs' many times over. And today, she was a happy wanderer around all the school parents, one of which has a puppy. The puppy was fine, until it saw another dog and accidentally knocked her over. To which she just got scared, and a little hurt. Immediately I saw her raise her head her eyes locked to mine, saying "I need you to come here, make me better", and I was over to her in a flash.

Now I'm not the kind of mama that removes a child from their fears. Don't get me wrong, I'm not throwing them on a rollercoaster when they're scared of heights or sudden drops, but I knew the dog had scared the bejeezuz out of her, and I didn't want this to ruin her usual unshake-ability of animals in the big wide world. So we sat, next to the owner, immediately. She was still teary, but the dog settled down and then eventually we got to speaking to the puppy again. I realised that it was me, I had taken her there, she had the confidence to explore and then became hurt. It could have ended badly, but she trusted me enough that when the time came, she found herself loving the puppy again and saying her words of conversation to it. It was a bit moment for me, to learn this about myself!

Because I have stages too, I guess....

Real Love...

I love enthusiasm. It can be about anything, really. Seeing your eyes light up over a colouring book? Done. Watching the corners of your mouth curl up because you've discovered how to turn a light switch on? I'm all over it.

And tomorrow, my son is aaaalllll over the School Play. It is a Big - nay - MASSIVE Deal. He knows all the lines of the big kids that I will be listening to while he stands still looking like a chef. He's so excited, I think I've learned the lines of the play myself. And did I mention - there is a Powerpoint Presentation? Well, what is a powerpoint presentation, mate? I dunno mum, but there are pictures - of Us! Us schoolkids. It just sounds brilliant, no?

I never, in a million years, thought I would be looking forward to seeing a school play so much. It's all in the theme of people of the community, and in a class that spans ages 3 1/2 to 6, I'm pretty aware that the teacher has deliberately left the more common to stagefright kids like mine with really important jobs like holding the chef's utensils and smiling. Oh, and there will be singing, thankyouverymuch! If I don't crack up when Ethan sings that Australians all have ostriches for they are cute and free, it'll be a good start.

So I am thankful for enthusiasm, about little things and big.

I'm also thankful for milk. Rich, full cream milk that soothes baby girls' throats and gums on days when they're cracking massive big back molars and getting too tired to eat much of an evening meal. I'm thankful that after she has a big ol' bottle of milk, she manages to get her little soul off to sleep, knowing, somehow, that anytime during the night she can roll over, fart, find a dummy and put herself back to sleep. She is just so beautiful.

They lead the way.....

Today Alice was bored. She'd had enough of watching me do housework, letting me hang washing, unpack the dishwasher and I dunno, just other stuff. So she came to me with her gumboots. She said 'shox....shoxx mummee' and pointed to her toes. So I got the socks, and put on the gumboots. Then she took my finger, walked me to the front door and tapped on it.

So we went for a walk. All her pace, except for a trip across the road and back. So we got about 200metres from the house, every now and again she'd stop and lean against my leg as if to say "mummeee, we have walked soooo far....mine legs are tired". And then she laid down. On someone elses driveway. A little bit of wee nearly came out, I laughed to hard. So then we walked home. Well, I walked home, carrying her on my hip for most part.

And after school I just sat and let Alice go through Ethan's lunch box and snack while he played. He then came and actually asked me if we could go home. I didn't have to round him up, stop him going off to harrass the school chickens, pick up his shoes, nothing. He'd had enough, he wanted to come home. And we played games and laughed in the car on the way home, just to keep the poor lil exhausted boy from falling to sleep.

When we got home, I'd forgotten to unlock the telly (which he doesn't know about, by the way, so sshhh! He thinks the tv is broken - broken tv = no nagging, locked off tv= whinge at mum til she unlocks it) so he just grabbed his sister, gave her a shovel and then they went out the back for a dig. It was actually harder to stop them and make them come in for dinner at 5 o'clock than it normally is, their synchonicity was so lovely to watch. But the weariness crept in for both of them, the hunger reminded them of the time. So he came in, and got a chair each for them to stand on because tonight was fried rice night, which Ethan cooks for us (all prepared, pre warmed veg etc). Then we sat and all ate together. Well, I ate, they inhaled. Fantastic.

So today I am thankful for children leading the way, being loving on the inside and outside, and fried rice.

This Thankful Day....

I am soooo thankful for modern cloth nappies, I really am. My little Alice is soooo having a poo festival lately, and she is, when I get the quick sneaky chance to look, cutting through her back teeth. So that explains the exodus of poo that I'm currently dealing with about four or five times a day. Luckily for her, she doesn't ever seem to get much pain from it, just wakes a couple of times more than usual during her slepe routine but even then, I have nothing - NOTHING - to complain about with her sleeping! I am such a lucky mama when it comes to her sleep habits. I don't know how much I've shared in the past about Ethan, but he was the worst sleeper in the world. IN THE WOOOOOOOORRRRLLLLDDD!!! Bt this blog isn't about the hard shit, it's about the easy shit.

And Miss Alice, she is one eeeaaasy baby to get to bed. From about 1 she actively has told me when she is tired, and when she wants to go to bed. When we spent the week at ngala, she was the one who, although she did have a quick protest, really did get it so super quick. One night, no protests, no screaming, nothing. Just hand me my bottle of water mum, a dummy in each hand and turn on my glow worm...now, get out and leave me be. So very happy for that.

Ethan is making me thankful today for his amazing ability to articulate his feelings. He is still four, he still chucks the most amazing tanties that anyone has possibly seen in their working day (sorry, librarians who like to keep it to a dull noise level), but boy oh boy does he know how to talk to me about his feelings afterwards. He actually told me yesterday, after a bit of a barney with one of his friends after which I took him home (he had been told the consequence, and chose the route he chose) that 'I feel awful mum, because I really did hurt him and I didn't listen properly and I didnt know what to do about it'. And my heart just opened up to his. I promised him that I would try harder to focus him to help him not hurt others, and to listen real good. He promised kinda the same thing. But my point is, that kid can talk. Really talk. Use shitfuck hard words in the right context and continue a conversation that we were having before school after I pick him up for the day. He has this amazing ability, and I don't know why.

And I love him for it. To the core of my bone marrow, his ability to be verbal is what I am most grateful for today.

Join me at the Crayzeee.....

So I've been losing my God Damn Mind a bit of late. It's this mothering gig. It's quite smothering, if I let it be. I get no break. I just get more shit piled on my 'to do' list like I'm some crazed prozac popping happy '40's housewife who just can't get enough of silk stockings, baking for her kids and standing with a cocktail for the husband at 6pm at the door.

Problem is, of course, I wasn't born til the late 1970's, I don't know how to make a man's cocktail, I hate wearing stockings and when I bake, the kitchen needs to be empty of kids or I can lose my mind. So yeah, haven't blogged in a while. But, I decided, with a bit of Calamity Jane's inspiration, to let ya'll know that crazy has a new postcode - and it's right here, some days!

See, I was raised by wolves for the most part. Amanda Blake-Soule is a heroine of mine, but she'd probably be horrified by my meltdowns if she ever heard one, and up until recently I thought I was alone. In fact, until CJ's blog Apronstringz, I was pretty frikkin sure that I was the only freak in the playroom. That all the other stay at home mums had their shit firmly moulded in to a pile and sprayed with scented vanilla to make it not just look good, but to create more atmosphere in the room.

But now I'm starting to realise that I'm not alone. That every mother worth her salt is going to have reactions to the massive changes that mothering brings. That occassionally losing my shit, and then apologising for it, isn't the devils right hand. You see, before I had a family, I travelled far and wide across Australia. Alone. It was just me, the road and a two door daihatsu charade called Tennis that cost me about $800, my fairy cards and my journal and what ever fit in my backpack. I only moved on to attend the next gig for an entire summer of music festivals where I saw such amazing musicians my heart truly soared. And yet here I am, only 7 or 8 years later, and I can barely remember my own name sometimes. So I thought I would put in a couple of tips of my own, of what I do to keep myself from falling in to an abyss of self-loathing and try to stay on top of being a 'good' mum.

First of all, I tell my kids I love them and that I'll see them in the morning when I tuck them in to bed. No matter what, I love that being the last thing I say, especially to my son, each night when I turn out their light. It means to me that I'm looking forward to tomorrow with them, that no matter how today may (or may not have) gone to hell in a hand basket, there is hope for tomorrow, especially considering I can't wait to see them again.

Second, I always try to have something - anything - for us to all look forward to. It doesn't matter if the whole week is a mash of crap jobs and catching up on housework, if I can remind Ethan that on saturday it's family movie night and we get to eat junk and watch a cartoon movie, we're already feeling optimistic. We recently missed the fella's birthday, because he was working. But the day he got back, while he was sleeping off night shift, we made a paper chain of coloured in paper, set the table real nice and made his favourite meals. We'd wrapped his gifts, written in cards and put them as the centrepiece ... then I had to set the timer to stop the kids busting in to the bedroom and yelling 'happy birthday' two hours too early. Ethan had looked forward to it for the whole two weeks his dad had been at work.

Third, I soooooo try to stay away from this evil-doin' internet during the day. It's the devil, ya know. The frikkin devil. This laptop lives on my kitchen breakfast bar, and my daughter has started to cry - actually cry a cry of what sounds like "ooooh, nooooo....you don't look at me when you're on that thing" - when she sees me turn it on. So I've been weaning, slowly, my grip off of the nets during the day especially. And before I know it it's already 5pm and then there's absolutely no point turning it on til they're both in bed anyway (Arsenic hour here is about 4pm til 7pm, every one's tiredness starts to get to them and it's the dinner/bath/bed routine). So as of tomorrow, no computer on during the day at all. I'm even kind of promising myself that I'll check in here when they're sleeping.

And my final thing to do, and also the reason I'm planning on checking in here at least every couple of days for a while, is that I need to remember I love my kids. I really do love them. There's no one else on the planet that I feel this way about, no one else that could be locked in a house with me that I wouldn't chew the heads off after this much testing and pushing. I love them like nothing else that has ever touched my life. And the focus of this blog from hereonin is to focus on at least one loveable thing that has happened from my kids that day. To tell you about it, even pop a picture in if I have one. So here goes....

Today Ethan came out to the kitchen with his new little cups and saucers, asked me to hand him down the drinking chocolate (Milo) and proceeded to grab out the milk. There were two cups, and two saucers, and he made himself and Alice a cold chocolate milk in these tiny little cups. That little boy, so utterly four years old, without prompt or hesitation, made them each a little drink, served it and made it with love.

And I can't even remember teaching him that.

That's what I love about him so much - his compassionate heart. It's almost like he knows how good life is, and doesn't want any one or any thing to miss out on his good life. So cold chocolate milks in tiny cups on saucers for everyone to celebrate.

Gorgeous.

SAHM and FIFOD

I've been asked a lot lately about 'coping'. So I thought I'd focus a bit on it, maybe there are mums out there that would like to hear the mindless drivel of a woman who spends 8/12 months of the year being basically, a solo parent.

Firstly I would like to clarify that I am not in a winner-takes-all whinge about single motherhood vs. sahming with a fifo partner. Solo parenting, in my book, (and here, I guess!), is the act of being the sole provider of care for a long period of time. Like days, or weeks, or in the case of women whom I envy but never want to be, the wives/partners of soldiers and their amazing class of folks that go for months at a time being away and having so little contact that even I would hide away and cry within the first week.

Ok, I'm sure I've forgotten some group or ten, but I'm hoping you get the point.

So I personally am a solo parent for 2 weeks at a time, with the fella coming home for one week each time he returns. The pattern is good. It's simple, predictable and has a rythym of it's own that we can fit around. If there are women out there, reading this, with a 'sometimes rostered' partner, my hat is off to you. I couldn't deal with a phone call in the afternoon telling me that the fella was needed somewhere else in the morning and there was no routine to it. It would drive me insane.

But anyhoo...

I have a 3 1/2 yr old that still likes to sleep in my bed, and an 8month old that would not like that at all. Their sleeping habits couldn't be more different - one's a mummy kid, the other a lay-me-down-and-leave-me-alone kid. They eat different, play different, but thankfully they get along just fine. The hardest times are when I am tired, or distracted, or heaven forbid- want to do something that doesn't have a participant need (blogging, anyone?!).

But then there is day ten. By day ten I am soooo over being on my own that I am a downright bitch. It's day ten today, which is why I thought I'd write this instead of chewing the head off of nearby toddlers.

So here is my coping list of do's and don't's (if I can find any don't's)...

*Eat properly. Make meals, not microwavable bits of plastic crap, and leave spaghetti in a tin (and the nutrient-empty things like it) to collect dust at the grocery shop. If the only way you can get a balanced meal on the table is to get a slow cooker, then get that thing cranking. By the end of winter, my slow cooker is hurting. It's wanting to go to slow cooker holiday school. My son is shocking at trying to get dinner in to after about 5pm, so I shove vegies and some meat in that thing in the morning, turn it on about lunchtime and that's dinner. I find the days when I have dinner prepared by 11am (not cooked, but veg peeled, meat thawed and ready) are our best days. Kids get needier as the day wears on, the cartoons or telly doesn't hold their attention and they want to get to the park or a friends, which, in all honesty, is an angsty mum's worst nightmare if she's not prepared for the dinner/bath/bed rush. So I beg you, make your dinner early, and if you don't like eating at that time of day then keep yours til later (with a glass of red, no?!). By making vegies appear in your diet every day you will have more energy to keep being the solo parent.

*Have a routine, and break it only sometimes. My kids, I am convinced, are going to learn to tell the time pretty soon. At 5pm it's bathtime, for about 15minutes, and then dinner, and then Ethan can watch the Simpsons (which I know is awful, but jees, we all have some crap we enjoy and it gets him to eat dinner at least!). After that godawful show is over, we retreat to the loungeroom and the tv is on and we begin to relax. By about 6.45pm I've got him to organise his book, and we brush his teeth, he wees in the toilet and the story begins. It's rare that he's out of bed after 7. He might be awake for a whole lot longer, but unless he needs to wee, he stays put. I won't go in to how I acheived this, but it took a lot of work. Alice fits in there, the whole time, because she's that annoyingly easy bub that at 6.30 I can lay in her own bed and then Ethan and I have some time doing the other stuff. The week is broken up usually, by things like school, my knitting group, gymnastics and Family Movie Night. The flow of the week is good because Ethan knows, for example, friday is gym day and we need to do certain things, and that after he finishes school on mondays he's going to be either hanging out with dad or he'll have the day off the next day to pick dad up from the airport (the in-between monday is a bummer, but we deal with it anyway). Family Movie Night was started about 4 months ago because I was sick of 'doing nothing' on weekends when the fella was away. So now Ethan and I visit the movie rental store on saturday afternoons, buy junk food (usually chips, godblesshissaltytastes!), and then we come home, clean the house and have 'easy tea' (code for a slack dinner of maybe savoury scones or scrambled eggs and fried mushrooms). After that we have our usual routine but instead of bedtime I pull out some big cushions, make him a bed on the loungeroom floor and we watch a movie together. Again, some nights are harder to keep him still, but usually he's wrapt and it all goes to plan.

*Have a fall-back plan. When Alice came along I had found myself being a lot more honest with my friends. I wasn't coping. So along came my friend that said 'if it's going to shit, call me and you can always visit'. So she's my "I'm about to kill this kid if I don't get him doing something with anyone else" fall-back plan. I can throw us all in the car, drive to her house and her kid will go feral with mine and tire themselves out while we have a cuppa and gush over our babies. It's friggin brilliant, because we have a pact that is two pronged...Our kids are both as 'bad' as eachother (Read: just cos you saw mine hitting yours doesn't mean it's the start or the end of the story), and Never Fall Out Over Kids - the kids will be friends and enemies 50 times an hour, but if you have an argument with a grown up over who's kid threw sand in the hair of the other kid you can find yourself in the shit with them for years. Or you'll dread them coming over. Either way, if your kid is painted as a villian by either you or your friend, you won't visit. And those friends are better saved for your days when every thing is rosy and you're going well. If your falling apart, on day ten, then the last thing you want is to visit someone who's gunna yell at your kid because they never see what their own is doing. So if you want a fall back plan, make it with someone who's as laid back as you are or it won't work because the relaxation you were looking for (the fake kind, but fake is still ok!) won't be there!

*Finally, be kind to yourself. I just told Ethan that he needed to leave me alone for 10 minutes, because I'm busy. OH NO!!! I told my child that I'm busy? What kind of a monster am I?!!! Well, an honest one. Because I Am Busy. I'm trying to get the word vomit out of my head and on to the screen so that the yelling in cyber space can be done. He's not going to grow in to Ted Bundy because of it, he's not going to be found in a corner sucking his thumb and not dealing with the world. So if you are not coping and have to have some time, TAKE IT and make it yours. I have a friend who knits while her baby is sleeping, and reads to her toddler while she's doing it. She gets the kid to turn the pages, and that gets her through the day.

Now, what do you do to get through? Please share. But right now, I'm off to the park...

You know you're a parent when....

Last night I drove to the airport to drop off my brother for his holiday to Tasmania. On the way there and back, there was a radio station asking people to call in and complete the sentence " you know you're a parent when... ".

And boy, did I find out the 'when' this morning. And tuesday night. And wednesday. And currently, while I'm trying to write this post for inspiration (of myself, I think, more than anyone else!).

See, the fella flew out on tuesday morning. So what better a night than tuesday night, for the dog to suffer heart failure and need a vet by wednesday morning, and what better a night than tuesday for the ridiculously cold weather to shatter my back glass door. So that was tuesday.

You know you're a parent when you manage to juggle a sick 35 kg dog, a glazier, a 3 1/2 yr old, an 8 month old, glass everywhere (mental note to self - the glazier knows much easier ways to get the shattered glass out of the door than I do). And still manage to put three meals and two (or lets be honest, 'unlimited') snacks on the table, do washing, clean the house and still manage to knit some at night just to wind down.

Then thursday came, and with it a vet's diagnosis that the dog has heart failure and we now have to watch him for different signs and fluid in the abdomen, and all other crazy things (think: having an elderly parent here that you can't keep inside because they really don't like it!), a trip to the shops with my brother and two children, a trip to the dreaded family assistance office, cooking, cleaning and all that jazz, and then a trip to the airport to drop off said brother at about 8pm.

So last night the kids were a little needy, to say the least. I have slept a total of 6 broken hours, and at 5.30am my son had woken but not managed to pee straight in the dark and instead of the toilet he peed on the floor. Ensue lots of crying for his mum and dad. Maybe because he really wanted to just hop in to bed with me but I am trying really hard not to let him. And then he woke his sister. So here we are, up for nearly 3hours already, and I'm pretty sure I'm running on coffee and the comfort of dairy products (thank you, farmers who still make real butter, it's just so comforting!).

You know you're a parent when you can't actually remember the last night that you did sleep more than 3 hours straight, without one of either of your kiddo's kicking, or crying, or just needing a bottle. And we're all still alive. There's honestly no way I'd let someone who I didn't give birth to do this to me and still love them - or even speak to them. Still deliberately make toast for them, even thought they say they don't want it (and you know that they do and will as soon as you sit and take your first bite), and go out of my way to make sure that they are happy, no matter how low my eyes are hanging out of my head!

Ok, hope you folks out there are having lovely weeks. It's just bucketing down with rain here, and I'm meant to be taking the kids to a farm about an hour out of the city, but we'll have to see about it first I think as it's getting a bit wild and wooly. But hope you all have a great weekend, and maybe sleep longer than 3 or 4 hours at a time!

two little monkeys, that don't like to be in bed!