3 Reasons NOT to have children?

Suburban residents look on as a gypsy family move on to their nature strip!

Last night I was videoing singing and dancing blue rabbits (as you do) without a care in the world, today I am sitting on the side of a road somewhere between home and the central coast wiping spew off a distraught toddler.

I'm not sure whether this was in the part of the hand book I chose not to read or maybe we are just "special" but "what the f*^k!!!!!!!!"

Look I don't want to put anyone off having kids and I can't actually imagine my life without my two inexplicably beautiful boys but I really do now understand why some people choose not to have children. I mean really all they are saying is "I like the idea of not being spewed, shat or pissed on".

As I continue another two hours in a car that smells so putrid I'm thinking of adding some of my own bile to the floor mats, I try and laugh. Life is absurd at the best of times but just when you think you've seen it all you glance at a toddler weeing next to a footpath, a husband working his way through a packet of wipes on a car seat, a smelly but surprisingly chipper creature cooing in your lap and a concerned old sticky peak one eye on us the other on the phone book as she looks up the number for DOCS!

The old lady and her beady eyes did it - she made me laugh. Now I just hope I can stop before it turns into blubbering hysteria that signals a need for a stay in a white room that happens to have padded walls... Mmmmnn comfy.

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SAD MAC: Apple ain't all Genius it seems

It seems the online gods are having a bit of a laugh with me of late. Firstly our telco decided to move our internet connection in such a way that once it was on the new system it didn't work. Look I used to work for a Telco and I know the spaghetti wire world that our internet connectivity is tenously balancing on, so the word 'migration' strikes fear into the hearts of most Telco workers because it loosely translates to call centre meltdowns and 24 hour days.

Secondly less than two days after getting back online, and being rightly credited for my downtime (Thank you iiNet) my infant-aged MacBook Pro, actually it is better described as 'my right arm' carked it. My little silver slice of former perfection is now telling everyone it comes across "I've had it, no more blog posts, no more tweets, facebook shits me too, and don't bloody start me on Google+! And do you think 11GB of photos is enough? no? Well just piss off then and leave me to die". Not so helpful from something that is currently storing the data from the last ten years of my life. And as it is our home computer it also has my whole family's life recorded on it.

But the real shite happened when I went to my beloved Apple for help. When it first died I called the Apple Ambulance and they tried CPR and then advised I rush it to Emergency, aka the Apple 'Genius' Bar. It seems 'Geniuses' are in high demand and I would have to wait five days to see one in the City. But if I felt like travelling 28km north I could see one that afternoon and the genius on the phone said they probably could have me up and running that afternoon. So off we went and 40 minutes later we were in the hands of a genius. This Genius was very friendly and kind and gave all the appearance of being as useful as a Mac itself. Problem was he's not really a genius, and it became apparant quite quickly that 'Genius' in an Apple Store could as easily mean 'Useless smiley fellow'.
Upon trying a data-transfer once and failing, they discovered the hard drive wasn't a standard Apple part and found it difficult to hide their relief at sending me on my way with my too-hard basket hard drive. Not before they made me drive all the way home though. So over 100 km later I said "It would be nice if you guys compensated me in some way for all this trouble given you have wasted my time and money and NOT fixed my computer, nothing drastic just a show of good will like an iTunes gift card or something?' With the smile never leaving his smug face "I'm sorry we can't help with that here".

If my Mac was fixed this pic would be so much funnier! May be it's a good thing they're not Geniuses.

Of course not, your customers actually don't matter any more because you have turned into a smiling robot. It would have made more sense if he said "That.is.outside.our.parameters.of.performance. Buzzzzzzz. Stop. Refusing.politely. Sign.here.thank.you. Have.a.good.day". "Well I was having a good day until I spent 3 hours of my life affected by Geniuses such as you. Thank you too for absolutely nothing".

And there ends my long, long, long love affair with Apple. See this is the problem with great branding. We forget that the brand is not our friend. It is not even human and the more powerful it becomes the less likely it is to give a flying f**k about you. How quickly they forget that the relationship between a customer and a company is symbiotic and therefore precious. The reality is the real customers are their shareholders and although customers have put them where they are, it is rare to have any real respect for them.

I thought Apple were different, and not just because of their ad campaign. Even they are starting to forget they are dealing with people, with busy lives, families, pressures and values. Values about courtesy and consideration for others. And making good when you stuff someone around. If you don't you lose that person, they are the rules of life. And while ever your customers are human - you have to follow them, no matter how automated you become, or you will lose them, like you have me, one of your most loyal.

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THE KEY TO A HAPPY BIRTHDAY: The Front Door

When you read this you could be forgiven for thinking I just make this stuff up. I wish I was making it up because I can't for the life of me figure out how I get this 'lucky'. I must just be special in a she attends a "special" class kind of way.

Birthdays come around once a year as you know, and so on this one day you can say things like:
"No dear, today I'm having a shower first so for once I get to spend 40 minutes in there and you get to spend 5 minutes after that while I yell at you to hurry up" or
"Oooh look Crash has done a big poo, I'm not changing him because it's my birthday".

In fact all bets are off when it's your birthday, well that's what I thought until today. It was all looking as I would expect from a family with two toddlers, I got a card and Happy Birthday sang to me, no present but that’s ok given hubby didn't get one last year (although I had a 3 month old I was breastfeeding so I was lucky to get out of the house let alone go shopping for a present, he doesn't have any such excuse).


Anyway I was even looking forward to the breakfast out with my boys until learning only minutes before that Boom had booked a Chiropractor appointment at 8.30. That’s when things started to feel less birthdayish and very every other day of the yearish. Even the breakfast at a nice café was the usual mayhem, where one of you is always lunging to catch a falling knife or save a full cup of coffee from ending up all over the table or you or both but little did I know it was about to become anything but an ordinary day.

I raced home as it was obvious the little guy wanted to sleep. With one toddler on my hip, another attached to my hand I somehow got the keys out of my pocket to get inside. But they looked strange, and as my conscious mind caught up to the vision in front of me I realised that the front door key had somehow vanished from the key ring.

It wasn't hard to put two and two together if you knew my husband. I quickly surmised he had taken the front door key off to take with him the night before as he was at a function. What the Einstein did with the key god only knows but I'd say it ended up on his key ring, next to his front door key.

After ringing him around 15 times I eventually tracked him down through an ad agency receptionist who was embarrassed to hear the story that I was determined to share with anyone who would listen. He was standing in front of her so I was able to "calmly" explain the situation. He was so “helpful” he said he would come out of his meeting if I got the boys back in the car and drove to him. Great! thanks sweet!

After staring at our 7ft metal side gate and imagining climbing over it using the bins as steps and then breaking a leg as I landed on the other side leaving two toddlers to play on the road, I started putting Crash back into his car seat. Then our elderly neighbour, Jack pulled up. "Wonder if I could jump their fence?" I thought. He was up for the adventure so all three of us bundled up to their backyard and Jack got his ladder out. The boys played with or really just got licked by their dog, as I scrambled over a 6ft paling fence landing unceremoniously in a magnolia tree on the other side. No doubt my tight, low cut cargos were showing an enormous amount of tradie butt crack, not to mention over-exposure of my mini-cleavage. What can I say? the outfit was not designed for scaling backyard fences.

I picked myself up and unlocked the back door and went and collected my little Irish twins who'd found the whole situation quite fun. I looked on the bright side I had sustained no splinters or broken limbs for my birthday, but I had also sustained no presents or relaxation. Hmmmm. So instead of being glum I put my boys down for their afternoon naps and started scheming an equally ‘Happy’ Birthday for my husband in a months time. That cheered me up no end, but I need some help so any ideas on how to make his special day that little bit more extra-special, you know like he did for me. (Revenge is sweet!)

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Friday Night Lights - Part 1: Lasers

Friday night 2004-style:
Notice amazing dance moves and alcohol in background, of course they are not related!

When I was single I looked forward to Friday night the way a junkie looks forward to their next hit. It was a night of dreams and potential that instead usually materialised into copious amounts of alcohol and embarrassing dance moves (strangely enough this never dampened my hope for the next week and one of them must have worked out as I ended up married with two kids seemingly overnight). Seven years on and Friday night still manages a small bleep on my weekly radar but for very different reasons, and although watching Better Homes & Gardens is a cause for a small amount of tragic excitement (I like the pet segment ok!), it is more that Friday night is the night before a day that my husband is at home to help with the boys. WOO HOO!!!!!!!

Friday night just gone was looking like it's usual slightly exciting self at 11.20pm. I had somehow dragged myself away from Twitter and was snuggling into bed when an unfamiliar green light flashed on the wall. "Hmmm, I am either having a flashback to the many nights I spent in my ad agency's free bar or some idiot is shining a laser in my bedroom window" I thought in my near-dream-state. Unfortunately it was the latter.

 

The normal amongst you would have closed their eyes, put earplugs in and ignored the increasing hum of drunken teenagers gathering on the street outside. As you probably have figured out I am not that normal. So I went out the front door in my PJs, barefoot and braless no less (although I don't really need a bra anymore it seems), stared across the street and above the rabble politely said "Guys I've got toddlers asleep here can you keep it down and stop shining lasers at the house ok?".

Friday night 2011-style
Lose the smile, ugh boots and toddler and this is what a party of teenagers saw!
No wonder they dispersed so quickly!

I remember women like me when I was a teenager, I remember how stupid and boring I thought they were and how they needed to loosen up and piss off, but that memory seemed to escape me as I pressed on. "Seriously guys, stop with the lasers or I'll call the cops". This inaudible whining of the mad woman in her PJs was met with dismissive giggles and a few throwaway "stupid bitch" type comments.

Unfortunately the swarm of hormones and alcohol in front of me had no idea who they were dealing with, the guys probably will still have that look of shock as they stare at their equally sleep-deprived wives in years to come, but the girls will one day understand...poor things. I stormed off and with drama fitting of a good stage play I called the police right in front of them under our sensor light which flashed on and off as I paced on the balcony.

The poor boys throwing the bash started ushering their friends home, one drunken male headed my way, but was held back by a friend. By this stage although I stood my ground, belying my peaceful sky blue, cloud covered attire, I noticed I had started to shake a little. The stupidity of what I was doing was dawning on me, I was exposing our house and possibly my family to harm. Panic was setting in. As the last two boys wandered towards our house on their way out, one of which was the threatening one, I thought I'd try to fix things. I called out to the boys and explained that the only reason I was freaking out was because I had two toddlers asleep inside and having lasers shined in their rooms was not ideal. They said sorry and said they didn't realise about the lasers and it all became very amicable. I apologised for being so boring and said I know what it's like as I used to party hard too. (Shit I'm a dag!)

So everything was looking right with the world again and even more exciting both toddlers had slept through the whole thing. I told my husband, who'd missed the whole thing as he'd been at the back of the house with his head inside the idiot box (well that's my way of saying he was watching sport...again), and it was my turn to have strips torn off me. Calling me stupid wasn't unique to Generation Y it seemed. We went to sleep abusing each other, as you do, but it was not long before we were awake again.

(Click PART TWO to find out what happened next! )

How has Friday night changed for you?

©MyIdeaLife 2011, All rights reserved

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Toddlers at 30,000ft: just flying "high"

Flying with children, especially very young children, is always a source of some anxiety for parents. Such was the case on Thursday when we woke at 5.30am to ensure we were on our early, but short flight to Melbourne.

All was going ok with the only casualty so far being the Virgin Lounge floor and a few very serious Lounge patrons (I love the looks I get when Bang or Crash make Pro Hart’s carpet ads look amateur, mainly because pre-child I was fantastic at delivering them too, karma).

Anyway things started to turn ugly when all the planes behind and in front of ours started boarding – the space next to ours…empty, the only clue to the delay was the ever-changing departure time. Three amendments later we were called and then seamlessly aboard, phew!

Things just kept getting better, takeoff was a breeze with a bottle shoved in Crash and cloud-spotting with Bang, I was feeling very smug and stupidly proud of my brave boys. Other than their desire to climb all over the aircraft once the seatbelt sign was turned off, we were coping pretty well. Then Crash passed out which was perfection.

Even the pressurised water bottles that turned into one metre high fountains at 20,000 feet weren’t going to dampen my spirits.

But then we looked away from the ocean, that is my 2 year old, for only a second. As my hubby and I were patting ourselves on the back for a race well run, a huge wave hit in the form of the seatbelt sign flashing on. We still didn’t see the magnitude until it was too late, but the simple and unavoidable act of strapping Bang back into his seat unleashed a screaming tsunami. No amount of “listen for the wheels!”, “ooooo look a digger, did you see the digger!?” and so on could stop the deranged song he intended on entertaining the whole plane with until we hit the ground.

I went into this adrenaline-filled state, eyes darting around frantically looking for distractions, my mind-spinning thinking of calming things to say, all in an overly animated voice that when I think back sounded like Giggle and Hoot on speed.

We got some respite as we taxied towards the gate as there were planes and trucks to be wondered at. But the hysteria that was sitting just below the surface was triggered again when we had to leave the window full of big planes to watch for the baggage carousal. At this point I almost forgot I had another child. Refreshed by his nap he just quietly looked on slightly bemused as his big brother writhed around lunatic-like. When it was my turn to take Bang for a walk to calm him down while we waited for the straight-jacket, I mean pram to come out of oversized baggage, I spotted a cherry picker and with insane hope and excitement headed towards the beeping equipment. My dreams of a screech-free world were quickly shattered by even more intense screams and I found myself sort of insanely walking in circles towards the cherry picker and away again as I tried to decipher the reactions and tear-filled shrieks.

This is when I started to laugh, which of course didn’t help my poor exhausted boy, but I couldn’t help it. It was so insane it was funny, and the picture of me doing circles with a toddler that had lost his nut just tipped me over the edge.

The pram arrived and we strapped our inconsolable little man in there and left him to cry until the hire car arrived and then ten short minutes later as we drove, all shattered in our own way, Bang passed out. His exhaustion demon was quiet for the first time in an hour and beautifully replaced with the angelic peace of sleep.

We can’t wait for the flight home. 

If flying with toddlers your armory should include:

A bottle or dummy for infants or lollipop for toddlers during takoffs and landings - A laptop or iPad with Toy Story DVD on pause - Small toys, favourite books and sticker books - A fun way to explain why we all have to put our seatbelts on - Snacks - Water bottles that don’t have pop-up straws - An imagination that would rival the writers of Shrek - An off-the-wall sense of humour - Did I miss anything flying parents?

©My IdeaLife, 2011, All rights reserved

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Blogging and the bright side

There are two groups of people who have an unlikely but uncanny resemblance to each other they are:

Eternal optimists you know the glass-half-full types that can turn being shat on by a bird, for example, in to a life lesson. “Bird poo in your eye, a lucky day is nigh” they sing song, smiling a smug smile, as they reach for a tissue.
And Bloggers normally the glass-half-empty types but that was until they started blogging! Now every “bad” situation is an amazing opportunity for a blog post of comedic proportions.

Tripping over slippery dips, previously a painful shock, now at the very least a hilarious tweet. Locking yourself out of the house, once a terrible and frightening inconvenience, now the basis for a soon-to-be-documented fantastic adventure to Mr Shu-Fiks. Being caught naked by a lorrikeet, usually relegated to the top ten dreaded moments in life now becomes what you live for. Being terrorised by a small furry creature, other than your husband, becomes the stuff you only thought you couldn't read about

There’s only one disclaimer, one red light in your new world of greens, that is: did you get it on camera? Those dark moments can suddenly turn dark again if you didn’t have the foresight to whip out your iPhone mid-spew, slip, spill, crash or poo moment.

Bloggers are the new paparazzi for their own disasters among other things. Here are a few I was lucky to catch.

I can't work out whether the Emu attack or the poo bath(not shown)
is my favourite disaster life lesson...

So once a whiney negative moo moo, blogging has transformed me into an annoying optimist, cheerily philosophising “well it’ll make a great blog post” as I get splattered with projectile poo...Tissue please!

What are some of your favourite proverb-making moments?

©My IdeaLife, 2011, All rights reserved

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A very useful engine... for mental asylums

As I write my 11mth old (Crash) whimpers in his bed, as his brother (Bang) yells ‘Maarmmm’ ‘Maaarrmmm’. I sit here glued to my seat, scared that if I move I will transform into a seething, green monster that eats children that don’t sleep, or at least throws them out windows.

Before you run off and call DOCS* to have them farmed off to parents who are always calm, patient and kind, you know the ones that live in la la land, we only live in a single storey house, so at worst they’d get a broken arm. Ok so I’m not really going to throw them out a window despite having had the worst few months of my parenting life and being at the end of my proverbial tether. 

Most days the shinnanigans on the way to sleep would not bother me so much and to be fair I have been the kindest and most loving of parents at all hours over the last 48, but today I am working off all of 4 hours sleep after a second trip to Sydney Children’s Hospital in as many weeks and why, because I choose not to lock my children in a cupboard. Yes you read it right, a cupboard; a large, cozy, disease-free cupboard.

Instead I let them out in the fresh air, the beautiful, warm, fresh air, of course “fresh” in the sense it is teeming with millions of airborn viruses and bacteria. I let them go to playgrounds, I let them touch ride-on toys in shopping centres and I let them talk to other children. I therefore am destined to be dishing out anti-biotics, paracetamol, ibuprofen or more commonly a combination of all three, multiple times most nights for at least four years, apparently.

That’s right, I am on the infection train again. And it is a really useful engine but mainly for torturing children and sending parents insane. I can just see the Fat controller proudly stating it as another mother jumps in front of Percy, “Well done Thomas, you’ve driven another one to the brink, you are a really useful engine.” 

A mob try and take down Thomas Tonsilitis, they fail...

I’ve spent 18 months trying to get my boys off without us being run down by Percy but the sneaky little engines are always trailing after us and just when you think you are taking a step towards a healthy existence one of them rattles into Sodor station and picks you up again. It's enough to turn me permanently into Cranky the Crane Mummy!

Between them Bang and Crash have been on Henry hand foot and mouth three times, Emily ear infection six times, which lead to Fergus febrile convulsion and Gordon grommets giving us a whirl, Crash is currently on Thomas tonsillitis, while Bang is waiting for Neville nits to pick him up, which could happen this week according to an email from kindy, but our favourite is an untreatable ride on Fearless Freddie Flu, which we take at least once a month. And so as we don’t miss him while we’re on the other engines he leaves gooey green train tracks behind until he comes back. Thanks Freddie.

I don’t know the answer to all this misery, (masks, clean hands, tissues, actually taking carers leave?), I know they are going through hell to build an immune system but I think this post itself is testament to the extent of damage the infection train can inflict, all I hope is that in about three years time I will still have my marriage, my sanity and that my boys will be happy and well. Until then … we’ll be down the hills and round the bend with Thomas and his friends. 

Are you on the infection train? Maybe we could have a drink or twenty?

*Department of Child Services
©My IdeaLife, 2011, All rights reserved. Thomas image copyright DB King

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One blind housewife

As I sit here on our dining table, lotus-style and all zen (not!), a small brown furry creature is likely working up the courage to scoot across the family room floor in search of cup cake crumbs. And I’m not talking about Bang, Crash or Boom* although you could be forgiven for thinking so.

It is with great shame that I admit this: we have a mouse. This little rodent that Bang will probably want to keep as a pet, embodies my complete failure as a homemaker or Tom our builder’s complete failure as a builder, neither of which comes as a great surprise.

What is surprising though is my reaction and the little guy’s speed. He really motors along, seemingly turbocharged by my screams. Before today I always laughed at people who were scared of mice. I had one as a pet and it was sweet, his ever-moving whiskers tickling me as he crawled around my neck and through my hair, and the only reason they were banned as pets now I’m a very tall child grown-up is they smell really, really bad. That single reason has now exploded into a thousand little reasons perfectly encapsulated in my ability to jump from comfortably seated to teetering on the sofa balancing the laptop. 

So with this sort of new found fear sparking mega-production of adrenaline you’d think I’d be brick in hand ready to squash my little Beatrix Potter friend into a meat patty, but no. Surprise number 2. – I don’t want to kill it, I don’t know whether to blame 'The Green Mile' or whether I’m just a life-loving creature at heart but all I can think is “I bet he has a little family waiting for him to bring home the bacon or in this case half a cup cake". So what to do? "What about opening the backdoors and mustering it cattle-style into the corral, that is our backyard?" I propose to my newly materialized hubby. Pretending once again that I hadn’t said anything, let alone screamed my head off, he says "Do you want me to go and buy traps?" I stared at him not knowing what to do, so he took my silence as a yes.

He returned with surprise number 3. Evidence of complete love, consideration and devotion in the form of humane traps!!!! This from a guy brought up on a farm! Actions therefore very worthy of an out-of-character show of affection and I was planning all sorts of tomfoolery when he pulled out the murderous kind as well, still hopeful I said "we can try these humane ones first and then those right?" Wrong. "I’m not risking a mouse running around while we're away, I’m putting out both."

I slumped back to my normal state of ho-hum and realized there was no point in fighting a country boy – I would just have to live in hope the little guy liked cheese more than peanut butter, the brown furry thing that is, the Beatrix potter character, the scurrying rodent, no I’m not talking about my hubby I would never refer to him as a Beatrix Potter character, I meant the mouse.

UPDATE: At last count all traps are empty, maybe the broom tunnel to the back door combined with Bang’s remote control helicopter and Thomas the tank engine worked? I hope so as the alternative is a toy story style takeover of our house in our absence yet this time the toys do poo – great! 

*Bang = our gorgeous 2 yr old, Crash = our cheeky 9 mth old, Boom = my long-suffering hubby

© MyIdeaLife, 2011. All rights reserved.

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that light at the end of the tunnel...it may be just a train

My GP said this to me this morning and it's not yet certain whether she is extremely insightful or some type of witch doctor that cursed me because the rest of the day so far has confirmed that the light everyone refers to at the end of the proverbial tunnel is in fact a train about to run us down. 

So things have been tough lately, my country-bred husband got sick and that never happens, he even went to the doctor which is also pretty rare and asked for antibiotics. As his course finished my eldest screamed his way through a suspected ear drum perforation Friday night and was promptly prescribed antibiotics the next day. The GP appointment I booked on Tuesday for my normal doctor to check what the local toupee-wearing medical centre practitioner had prescribed turned into a mercy dash for my youngest who was also put on antibiotics.

Add to this me being sick while all this is going on and my brain deciding that keeping me awake from 1-4am every night would be a good way to fight whatever viral or bacterial infection I was harboring and you'd think you'd have that train heading my way. Well we're not quite at the trainwreck stage yet. 

After another terrible night consisting of 4 hours of broken sleep, a constant headache and stiff neck I woke begging my husband to work from home to help. He looked as bad as I felt, so obliged. Am trying to get minutes more sleep when I hear the familiar sound of a chair scraping on tiles. Knowing that my husband is changing my eldest I know it's our 8 month old trying to climb on the kids table and chairs. So I jump up and run down the hall only to watch in slow motion him keeling over backwards, chair on top of him. Tears and screaming ensue. Still no train though, just a gentle Thomas-like 'hoot-hoot' in the distance maybe. 

Still feeling like death warmed up I start on feeding the bub and master 2 turns up, chirpy and chipper thank god, and keen to eat his oats. 'Wow, things are looking up' I think, little did I know. So both are now fed but my stay-at-home-to-help husband has disappeared. Now if you've read my previous posts you know this is usual so I suspect nothing and just get mad, and get even madder when I find him in bed. 'What are you doing?' I bark. I'm so cheesed off, 'I'm in flu-hell and he decides he needs a lie down' I fume. 

Next thing he's on the loo, then he's in bed again, then he's on the loo, then he's in bed. So I ease up figuring he must be a little sick so leave him to rest until I have to go to the GP. At this point he's making me look like a picture of good health, still a little mad and not very sympathetic I ask if he is well enough to look after Master 2, he groans which is not much use and I'm running late as usual. So I sternly say 'It looks as though you won't be able to look after him, can you please answer yes or no.' He feebly responds ' I think it would be best if you took him with you.' So off we go to the GPs, again. (I swear the receptionist will be asking us over for dinner soon I know her so well).

Get to GPs five minutes late but spy a parking spot within metres of the surgery - score! I brake, put my blinker on and put car into reverse and wait as is customary in case the car behind wants to go around me to get the lights, which happen to be green. This is all not good enough for Mr. tradie in white, beat-up ute. He pulls up almost to my bumper and expects that his intimidating carry on will make me give up the park and allow him to get the lights. He doesn't know the morning that I've had, so I begin to reverse into the park, he still doesn't move. I wind down my window and ask him to move back. He pretends he's forgotten where reverse is and throws his hands in the air. I motion a distance of 10 cms and not sure whether it was the wild look in my eye or what, but he found reverse and I parked the car. And all I can say is he's lucky the lights changed again or he would have got an earful from a mad woman with a toddler in her arms as I walked past him. 

Doctors' appointment was usual - you rush to get there and then wait for 20mins trying to keep a toddler from licking chairs and disease-infested toys. When I got home is really when the train hit. By now it is lunchtime and having convinced my toddler not to do some 'driving*' and come straight upstairs for lunch, I was feeling hopeful again until I saw my husband, who was sort of green-coloured (this is not normal) and was shuffling down the hallway. I got the kids seated and food in front of them, hubby was trying to help but he then sort of jogged off towards the bathroom and the sounds that emerged. O.M.G it was awful - he was so sick, this time heaving up incessantly. I ran to his aid and felt terrible for being nothing but a biatch all morning. On returning to the table to sounds of 'Ohhhhh nooooo, Ohhhhh noooo' I saw my toddler pointing to my bub who had managed to grab his food bowl and with great satisfaction was decorating himself, the table, the floor and the highchair with a pumpkin concoction.

I got my husband some water and helped him to bed, I cleaned up the baby and his surrounds, I bundled up my toddler and put him to bed. I got the baby's bottle and put him to bed. I breathed a sigh of relief and went to the kitchen to clean up. Everything was starting to feel normal and calm, the dishwasher was on and I started filling the sink to wash the bottles and teats. Suddenly the spout flew off and a fountain of water blasted a metre into the air. In the seconds it took me to turn the tap off the window, the floor, the bench, the appliances and I were soaked. 

Tap looking innocent...don't be fooled

Normally at this point you laugh because if you didn't, you'd cry. I didn't laugh I just stood in shock and then got some paper towel and mopped some of it up, but then I knew what I had to do. I had to make myself a cup of tea, find some chocolate and sit down and write a blog post. Now that's done I can laugh and I do although somewhat hysterically, which I suppose is normal given my day.

*Driving consists of toddler insisting on climbing into front seat as soon as we park in the garage and staying there for at least 10mins. Mama has to sit in the passenger seat and turn the vanity light on and off, before luring him upstairs with offers of food or 'toot-toots'.
© MyIdeaLife 2011

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