And so I face the final curtain

Here I sit, half an hour until midnight, and as much as I'd love to say something profound and meaningful right now - to pass on some thoughtful insight on what I've learnt from this past year, or what I want to leave behind or take forward with me into the new year - my mind is a blank.

Wait... Wait...

A trickle of thought. Not quite the reflective kind. As much as I'd like to see in the New Year in a state of Zen-like calm, I'm currently worrying about the Teen who is celebrating New Years at the party of a friend of a friends. (I'll be picking her and her boyfriend up at 1am - they'd better there!!)

She's going to turn 18 in 2013. Eighteen!

Realising your very first baby is no longer a baby, and is walking the steps of an adult (but still with the tumultuous emotions of a teenage girl) brings a whole new meaning to parental anxiety. I'd quite like to wrap her up in tissue and pop her in the freezer until I'm old enough to deal with having an adult teen. Another five years should do it.

If I could have any kind of New Years wish, it would be that this year is a better one for her. She has all that teenage angst going on.. The bleak inner voice the tells her she's too fat, too ugly, too unpopular.. Fueled by the startling ability to make self-destructive decisions, and fanned by the fellow teen girls who cheer her on in her self-hate. The kind that are her best friend one moment, then spilling her deepest secrets to the world and telling her to go kill herself in the next. I hope above all hopes that 2013 will be the year that she sheds the fake friends and gains some inner peace and emotional stability.

New Years Resolutions? Haven't made those since I was a kid. I remember sitting up all night writing up a list of ways in which I would improve myself over the next 12 months, even at an age where there was very little I could do to control life's circumstances. Resolutions were never kept then, nor are they ever now. The only tradition I hold true to is a New Years Day swim. At the beach preferably, and even if it means just dipping my toes in the water (Let's be honest - I can't really swim.) Cleanse away the old year, start the new one with a clean slate. In theory.

I'm feeling bad for the fact that the Lad is sitting across the room channel surfing, and though we're in the same room, we're almost alone. Normally, it's perfectly comfortable for us to share the same room while doing our separate things. But tonight is not a night to be ignoring your loved ones while perched in front of a computer. I should have thought of profound realisations earlier, rather than try to scrape together anything now.

Quick - resolutions. Let's pretend I'm going to make one and actually remember it for more than a day.

1. Put Infinite Monkey Design on hiatus. It's stolen far too much time from the kids.
2. Remember to live, rather than simply exist.

3. And maybe, if it's not too much to ask... Maybe learn when to turn off the computer.

HNY..... :)

Onwards the Sun

As I first sat down to write, I became aware that the Lily Bug had ducked into the bathroom to paint her face with watercolours. I knew this, both from the clanking I could hear from down the hallway, and the fact that it's impossible to convince her to paint strictly on paper in a nice quiet contrived kind of way. It always turns into something more upon the of full body art with a generous helping of interior design.

The Lily Bug told me she wanted to be a vampire wolf, which is why she painted her entire face black. Then began working on her limbs.

I stopped typing to grab the camera - every creative endeavor (or disaster) is potential fodder for that future 21st birthday cork board?  And the coffee went cold as I snapped shots that will be of no interest to anyone except me.

But still, I captured irrefutable proof that we had done something constructive with our morning apart from zoning out in front of Dinosaur Train, dinosaur documentries, Monster Jam clips and anything in between, as per the suggestions of the YouTube sidebar.

I'm going to forget later in the week, the little things that we do. When I'm lying in bed feeling guilty that I've spent too much time working on websites, leaving the kids to entertain themselves and more often than not by splitting the computer with them. A child on each knee, one half of the screen taken up with Dinosaur Planet, the other half a space for me to work on tweaking HTML and CSS code until a website is cross-browser compliant enough to be satisfactory.

I think, once I've wrapped up my current website queue, I'm going to put Infinite Monkey {Design} on the back-burner. Of course, I say this to myself, quite regularly. Then I think of the additional income these sites provide. Income that supplements groceries, or provides the petrol to take the kids out, or allows me to buy a new camera so I can capture all the stuff I'm afraid of forgetting. Maybe I'll just put Infinite Monkey {Design} on a short hiatus over the summer holiday period and rethink my work hours.

When I began writing this blog post, it was yesterday.

Yesterday was the umpteenth day in a row of glum grey sodden wet sky.

Yesterday our Taranaki family returned home and the atmosphere in our house was kind of sad.

The silence they left behind was too loud to be drowned out by dinosaurs and we were too drained and tired to run around the house playing indoor hide & seek. We tried, but only got as far as hiding under a blanket on the couch, then hiding beneath the same blanket on the same couch again.  By the third repetition, we were running out of places within the blanket to hide.

Nan stayed over last night after I convinced her there was too much food left over from the weekend for us all to eat, and we needed her company to help fill in the silence. And it did.

Today, it is a clear blue sky day. Moods have improved. Sites are still waiting to be finished, but today we're going out into the sun.

The Misadventures of Mummyzilla & the Brain-Sucking Zombies

WARNING: This is not a post filled with sun and laughter and jumping through muddy puddles while singing the Happy Happy Joy Joy song. I'm going to be frank. And not in a 'let's talk about perineal tears' kind of way. (Perineal Tears... Kinda sounds like a rock band.)

Yesterday evening I absolutely lost my rag. My brain combusted. Not in a scary Jake the Muss throw my kids around the room manner, but for a little while there I was pretty close to throwing MYSELF across the room in the grasping hope that knocking myself would give me a moment of peace and quiet.

The kids had been all over me like a fungal rash.  After a solid week of being sick, lethargic, clingy and increasingly bored, they'd regained their energy and, with me pre-occupied much of the day with trying to spring-clean the bedrooms, launched into stupid attention seeking behavior (the Lily Bug in particular - hitting and kicking at me every time she didn't have my full attention. Pushing me pushing me pushing me... Literally coming up behind me and giving me a shove, just for the satisfaction of seeing me lurch forward).

By 4pm I had stopped seeing two human children and had started seeing two brain-sucking zombie demons. Seriously. They were no longer my children. They had morphed. The Teen arrived home, and seeing that I was at some kind of emotional breaking point, she ignored my subliminal pleas for help (and my not-so-subliminal cries to the ceiling of "ohmygodsIjustneedabreak!"), went straight to the computer and stuck her earphones in so she could happily zone us all out.

By 6pm I had reached a "I know where people get that urge to smack their kids from" stage ( Do I need a disclaimer here to say I adore my children and despite a long moment of feeling like I was losing it, I would never Really. Lose. It?) So I asked The Teen to keep an eye on the darling delinquents so I could jump in the shower for ten minutes of peace and quiet. Five minutes later, Guy Not-So-Smiley was in the bathroom going "muuuum... muuuum" (which to me sounded like "braaaains... braaains") and two minutes after I was trying to get dressed with BOTH Smiley and the Lily Bug now right there in the bathroom with me.
I asked them to go back out to the lounge.
No one listened...
I asked a little louder. And louder.
I found myself screaming "Look just get out of the bloody bathroom and let me get dressed by myself for crying out loud!" so every neighbour in West Auckland could hear me scream irrationally at my pre-schoolers.

I really needed someone to take the kids away from me for half an hour - ten minutes even - and give me a freakin break. I had so much fed-up-ness choking me that I thought I was going to start popping blood vessels. Then I got so incredibly fed up at Char for never helping EVER and snapped at her "do you ever think about maybe saying 'hey mum, how bout I read the kids a story so you can have ten minutes to yourself?' Do you ever think about maybe offering some kind of help when you can see I'm at my fucking wits end?"

That went straight to a dead end street. She snapped at me for taking my shit out on her... Obviously completely missing the universal point that I was simply at my wits end...

Oh yes. That was the icing on the cake. I hear her teen angst problems every single day. She never asks how I am. She never raises a finger to so much as help wash the dishes. Never ever pays her sibs a shred of attention except to tell them get out of her face. I got on the phone to the Lad, balling my eyes out like I'd gone bat shit crazy...

Yesterday I felt like I completely lost touch with how to be a mum. Today I'm sharing this tale because I figure I'm not the only one who has these days. Right?

The big stuff. And knickers. Seriously.

What's your favourite quote or proverb? And why?

Like about a billion other social media addicts in the universe, I stumble across a ton of meaningful quotes and witticisms and whatnot, pretty much every time I log in to Facebook and find myself scanning newsfeed. Drone-like fashion. When I should be doing more important things. *looks shifty-eyed*

But every now and then, a gem pops up.

Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what.
If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big,
because to them all of it has always been big stuff.
 ~ Catherine M. Wallace

It's a quote that really resonated with me. The kind that really makes me stop and think and go "woah. Deep man".

As much as my short attention span allows me, I listen to what the kids have to say, but there are times - many times - when I drift off and start thinking about what we're going to have for dinner. What do we need from the supermarket? How many dots of fly poo are on the ceiling? Am I wearing yesterdays knickers or todays?

And then my brain clicks me back into the present when I see an expectant face waiting for a reply. So I fudge it. "Oh no, that really sucks!" Assuming they just told me something sucky about their day.
"Oh dear... Hate it when that happens." That's often a winner. Again, assuming the story was one of woe. Because often it is. We're all goth at heart in this family.

Yup, try as I might to pay attention, I often completely miss what's been said to me. Or just as bad - I listen, but I brush off the story as inconsequential. 

THE TEEN: "And then so on said blah blah blah to rah rah rah, and oh my god I can't believe she blah blah blah with rah rah and he was my rah rah and now I'm gonna blah de bloody blah blah stab her in the face with a sharpened spoon next time I see her!"

ME: *blinks* "Oh. Yeah. That sucks."

THE TEEN: *frowns*

ME: *gulps* "But ah... Yeah you should just uh.... Yeah. You do what you think is right.... "

THE TEEN: *frown turns to expression of WTF?*

ME: "Because you're good at that... uh... right-thinking stuff...."

THE TEEN: *sighs and doesn't speak to me for the rest of five minutes*

^^ Luckily she has a short-attention span too. ;)


This is not the case all the time. Honestly. I try to listen and take the stories of my offspring seriously. I have learnt from the Teen that it is in my best interest to take heed of every last little detail she shares with me. Even - nay especially - the ones that don't directly concern her at all, but are in fact tales about the friends who I've never even met and who even live on the other side of the planet.

Because, Gods help me if The Teen spends half an hour telling me about her friend Lisa from England who was halfway through training as a mid-wife when she became pregnant and is only 17 and her boyfriend's dumped her and her dad's girlfriend hates her (have I lost you yet?) and I then one day say "wait, who's pregnant?" when she's unfolding a new chapter to the saga. Seven months later. Gods help me if there are sharpened spoons lying around.

And then there are the occasions when I'm so busy nodding and smiling that I unwittingly agree to something I'm fairly certain I would never ever agree to. If I were listening properly in the first place. Damn it.

 

I'm thankful that for the most part, I only really switch off from the Teen when she's telling me about blah blah blah who said rah rah to ya ya, and I do listen when she's telling me the real big stuff. The break up with her one true love. The bad days when her friends at school treat her like she's invisible to the point where her group forgets her birthday, but brings shared lunches to school for everyone else. The days she can barely drag herself out of bed because she's wading through a fog of teenage angst and I won't dare brush it off as 'just a phase' because I know of how she cuts herself and I'm well aware of her preoccupation with suicide. Often she's trying to pull others out of that frame of mind, but sometimes she's drawn to the idea of it herself.

So yes, listen to the little stuff while they are little, because this is the kind of big stuff you want them to tell you about, when they are big. 

Time Keeps On Slipping...

Dear Lily Bug,

Last night, just before you fell asleep, you began to cry. I reached out to hold your hand, and asked what was wrong. You told me you didn't want to turn five. You didn't want to stop having Unicornie and Bolt to cuddle at night. I told you that turning five didn't mean giving up your bedtime buddies, and you stopped crying - but only long enough to take a breath and start afresh. 

"What's up this time?" I asked.

"I'm afraid to be a big girl! I'm growing up too fast mum! I don't want to start school. I don't want to stop going to kindy. I love my kindy!" And again you erupted into sobs.

My heart broke for you, because I understood your fears - it's hard facing the unknown, and most of all it's hard that you have to step out of - and leave behind - your comfort zone in order to do so. I felt so sad that you carry these fears when you're still so very young. How difficult it must be to realise when you're only four and a half years old, that these are stages you'll be leaving behind as you grow!

I wanted to hug away your fears but I couldn't. I was pinned down by your little brother, who was clinging on to me in his own nearly-but-not-quite-asleep haze with a limpet-like ferocity. To leave his side at that moment would mean to set him into a melt down, and that wouldn't provide any consolation to anyone...

So I continued to reach across the gap between Guy Smiley's bed and yours, and hold your hand, and talk you through it. Reminding you that it's still a long time before you're five and so you have lots of time left to enjoy kindy (and it broke my heart to say that too, because it's not long at all, and I too would rather that things stay as they are now, than let you go!) and school will be exciting and fun... That too was a little white lie. I know you're going to expect school to be as awesome as the likes of kindy and Playcenter, and what a culture shock it's going to be when you discover you can't just play all day! But hopefully you'll enjoy the likes of math as much as you enjoy painting dinosaurs and rainbows ...

And even though positioning you in one spot long enough to practice writing your own name requires a titanium backbone and a wee bit of bribery at times, I'm sure the teacher's sharp voice will be more effective than mine... It's not that I don't have a sharp voice (which can probably be heard from four houses down when I used it) it's just fairly ineffectual most of the time. And that trick of using a serious but quiet voice doesn't work either, because neither of you can ever hear me over your own yowling.

Anyway, I digress.

The truth is, I don't want to let you go to school either. I don't. I try so hard not to think of next year because I want you and Guy Smiley to stay exactly at the stage you're at now. Not forever. Of course I want to see you grow into the beautiful young adults I know you'll become. But a dominant part of me can't help but wish these next six months could last for at least another year and a half. Unfortunately that's not going to happen. So I can only hope summer starts early this year, and we can make the most of your final months of being a pre-schooler, before February 4th shifts the tectonic plates of our comfort zones into a completely new formation.

Love always,

Mum

PS: At least my one consolation is that once you start school, we'll you'll be one step closer to total world domination. Whoo hoo!

In those quiet moments, fear eats me alive.

Guy Smiley made a bolt for the road a couple of days ago. 

We were on the driveway of a friends house, about to hop in the car and go to a park. Distracted, I jabbered away about car headlights until my friend noticed Guy Smiley had edged well away from us and was waiting for me to notice him meters from the driveway's open gate.  I headed towards him. He bolted. I could see a 4WD coming and I ran, but he had a head start and in the nanoseconds before he reached the sidewalk I knew there was no way no way I was going to quite reach him before he reached that road. And he would have run straight out on to it, if it weren't for the fact that he faltered slightly when he hit the sidewalk - a fractional moment of hesitation that gave me just enough time to reach his side and grab him, and within seconds of the car that drove past in almost that same instant.

For a moment there, as I ran after him and saw that oncoming car, I truly thought I wouldn't reach him in time. It was a waking nightmare that lasted only seconds, but it has quite literally become a waking nightmare. Every small silent moment that I've found myself trapped in between then and now has caused those seconds to play again in my mind, and all the possible "what if" scenarios have churned over and over until I've felt my stomach begin to churn. Over and over.

Yes, it was all a happy ending in the end; what with me scooping him up in time, and hugging him, and repeating "oh god oh god" while he happily laughed and smacked me playfully in the face, as I walked back up my friend's driveway and buckled him into his carseat. Safe and secure. Not to be set down upon a front lawn when a gate is wide open ever again.

But the "what ifs"... They're going to torment me for a really long time. And rightly so.



                                                                                 End note: I'm terrible at self-editing. As you can probably tell by 90% of my waffle. However I have managed to remove about 9 paragraphs of what I wrote here originally, as I decided I didn't want to burden the world with all my self-doubts and blinding anxieties after all.

When Life Hands Out Lemons...

I can't - and don't ever wish to - imagine what I would do if a visit to my doctor resulted in a worst-case diagnosis and a death sentence. Like most people I'm sure, I tend to bumble along through life assuming I'm going to live forever; watch my kids grow, spawn grandchildren for me to fuss over, look after me when I'm ancient and senile whether-they-want-to-or-not-ungrateful-little-sods, and then pass away peacefully in my sleep. At the ripe age of 307. No less.

This is the way it's going to play out. Don't try to tell me any different.

A recent article about Natalie Murphy, a young mum dying of cancer, reminded me of how fragile life really is. It can be so easy to overlook the things that really matter - especially when you assume you'll live forever and so allow yourself to procrastinate on actually living (and how many of us do that? Spend each day going through the same motions as this same day last week, and all the while functioning in a perpetual state of 'existance' rather than 'life'? Many of us, I'm sure. Not every day perhaps. But far too often.)

Not that I'm suggesting hot air balloon rides should replace conventional motor vehicles when venturing to the supermarket and white water rafting be the next thing to take place each day after brushing ones teeth, but sometimes it's easy to overlook and find happiness in the smallest most simplest things in life. Such as conversations with the three year old about the best way to get back down to earth if you happen to find yourself stuck in a cloud (so far it seems riding the back of a friendly dragon is the preferred mode of transport. Followed closely by 'overly large albatross' and 'very tall bean stalk'.)

Natalie's story is a heartbreaking one, but she amazes me with her upbeat attitude. I'd like to think that I could be so positive if I were in her situation - for the sake of my children if not for myself.  Though if truth be told, I try not to picture myself in her situation at all; for fear that envisioning myself in such a scenario, even fleetingly, may invite the Cancer Monster in.  Because there's always a small niggling worry at the back of my head, that one day an accident or illness will befall me and I won't be around to help my kids grow, and eventually partake in all those awesome parties they're gonna be throwing me each time I enter a new decade of infirmity.

This is a sombre topic to blog about, I know. But I just can't get it out of my head. For Natalie, this is the reality: She's been given two to eight weeks left to live.

I keep trying to run that through my head - how I'd cope in the face of such a grim reality - but there's that fear of jinxing myself again. Don't think of the Cancer Monster, don't invite it in. Because once I start thinking about it, anxiety starts to kick in. My life is not perfect, as such. We don't have a nice house, or a fat income, and our family have far more in common with the Adams Family than the Brady Bunch. But it's my perfect life to me, and I'm so so afraid of Fate doing anything to take that away.

There was a point to my ramblings tonight, though I started to waft off after the second paragraph (as did anyone reading this, I'm sure). But just in case there's still someone out there...

There is an auction for Natalie Murphy and her family, which is being run right here, by Mila Jean Denim & Cool. Many craft-minded people have donated their gorgeous hand made products to the cause. The auction will be held on 17 Dec and meanwhile, I believe crafty donations are still being added if anyone would like to contribute.

Totally off topic: Here's my favourite song of the moment. YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO IT. So far I have chucked it on repeat approximately 13 times tonight. One night I kept the Teen awake until 2.30am because of I just kept listening to it over and over... Bet she regretted introducing me to it, huh?

"Please learn from my journey. Learn ahead of ‘time’ what is important and appreciate your life, your loved ones. Appreciate the partner that drives you crazy sometimes cos you know you don’t actually want to live without them. Appreciate your children that often whine and exhaust you because you love them more than life – you’d probably sacrifice your own for theirs." ~ Natalie Murphy: