earth angels

On the morning after I smacked my daughter for the first time ever (she’s five years old), I awoke and checked my social media group.  The first thing I looked at was a video clip uploaded by a new friend.  This woman is the mother of two children and one of them is Autistic.  She’d filmed a few short minutes of an everyday ordinary event – the bedtime of her son.  He doesn’t speak well and the video shows the sparseness of his bedroom (for safety and sensory reasons I would presume) and the two of them sharing a ‘goodnight’ moment.  She uses a combination of brief sign language, direct eye contact and short play to say goodnight and ask for a cuddle from her son.  I watched it twice.  It brought tears to my eyes both times.  I didn’t weep because I was witnessing any particular hardship (she’s a single mum) nor did I cry for the life of her beautiful son and the challenges he must and will continue to face.  I shed tears because my eyes always get wet in the presence of angels.  She is an earth angel.

The irony of watching such a deeply personal and yet so ordinary snippet of their every day life, caused me to reflect on my own life and family.  And myself.

I admired her patience and passion, her tenacity and dedication.

I smacked my daughter yesterday in a brief PMS snap.  I regretted it the second I did it.  One swift backward movement of my arm in the car caused me to connect with her.  Slap.  My daughter was shocked, but realised she’d stepped over a line.  And so had I.

We curled up on the bed at home after the scolding and I held her and she cocooned herself within my arms and we showered each other in kisses and hugs and love and I said sorry for hitting her.  She made me feel loved.  And she let me know that she knew I loved her.  And I felt guilty.  This isn’t how we live our life.  We are stronger than that.

This little darling girl is one of my angels and I don’t like to hit anyone, especially angels.

Shortly after viewing the video footage of a beautiful moment in time for a mother and son, I then scrolled through my Facebook and found a picture of another friends newborn baby, who died just a couple of days after birth.  It was a beautiful image, if not confronting.  Another snippet of time caught on film, though still.  I’m not sure if her beautiful newborn baby was alive or had already passed in the picture.  I would never ask because it really is of no consequence.  The message was received regardless.

We are all precious.

We are all miracles.

We all have hardship of varying degrees and at different stages of our lives.

I am blessed to have other friends who have no children of their own and face tremendous trials and tribulations and they continue to inspire me daily.

Everyone matters.

We’re all human.

We will always walk by someone who is worse or better off than us.

This won’t stop us complaining or wishing for something different.

It probably won’t stop us from screaming at our kids too loudly on the bad days either.

But on certain days, when we are fortunate enough to be given a glimpse into the lives of others, we should thank them for allowing that.  We should tell them how beautiful they are.

We should let them know we love them.

So, to old friends and new, to parents and children and strangers on park benches (who will probably never read this), I send you love.

And I thank you for being you and for allowing me to share my own stories with you whilst you share yours with me, in whichever way you do.

I am so thankful that we’re able to inspire and support each other, on varying levels.

Sometimes, we crawl into our own selves and hide away from the world and all of its confrontational happenings, but when we’re strong enough, we always climb out and allow our wings to expand.  And then we soar.

Be the metamorphosis that you are, continue to change, learn, grow and amaze.

You are amazing.

Love.

x

Scout

If I give you a little bit of rope, you’ll hang yourself.

It will be my fault, because I’m your mother.

Sometimes you tie pretty knots in the rope and impress me but sometimes things get so tangled up that I sit here for hours and hours trying to untie it all, getting frustrated and letting my tears flow into the fibres.

It makes it worse because the knots get all wet, sticking together and everyone gives up.

There are pieces of rope thrown in corners and under your bed beside the defiance and the new strength you’ve found as a teenager. I consider taking the pieces and tying it all together.

Perhaps I’ll hang myself with it and dangle above you just to show you how it’s done, how it looks and how ridiculous this strangling of our relationship is.

You don’t scare me with your threats and your acidic mouth but it saddens me when you give up and tie yourself like that.

You’re blue around the mouth and the rope is too tight and you need to loosen up and spit it out and sit and talk and let me build you a swing with the rope.

But it’s too late, you don’t sit on swings anymore and you’ve forgotten how you liked to swing so high in the park and laugh and lean back and frighten me. You’ve forgotten how we skipped rope and played quoits and dangled over the creek before dropping in when we were too heavy with laughter.

But I haven’t.

I’ve seen you at your worst and I’ve seen you at your best and I know every little trick knot you tie and I’m sick of it already but I know there’s a long way to go before we make it up the mountain with these tiny pieces of rope we have.

I miss you, even though you’re here beside me and I’m so tempted to tie the rope around your waist and then to myself, but I have to cut it and let you go and make mistakes and be your own person with your own journey.

I hope I survive it too.

© ryan

Notes:  this piece was written several years ago and i’m pleased to say we’ve all survived the thriving of said teenager, who now has grown into a sensible, intelligent and wise young man.  One down, three to go.  It’s a jungle in there.

What’s for dinner?

When I was a little girl, I was believed that if I didn’t drink coffee, I’d never be able to go on a date and meet a boyfriend.

I knew I didn’t like the taste of coffee and still to this day, I’ve never drank a cup of it.

I love the smell and I don’t mind making other people an aromatic blended bean drink, but I’ve never been able to stomach a mouthful of it.

“Mum, how will I ever meet a boy if I don’t drink coffee?”

My mother would laugh and shake her head.  She’d ask me why I thought such things.

“Well, on television, everyone always says ‘would you like to come in for a coffee?’.  And then they kiss.”

I’ve since grown to grasp the reality of boy meets girl, though I relish both the innocence of my once naive self and my ability to still not like coffee.

It’s everywhere.

I marvel at how I grew to appreciate the taste of pumpkin, carrots and stir fry.

I drink coca cola though and I’m told by many that it’s the same as coffee.

Just as bad.

Just as good.

It doesn’t smell the way coffee does, all bitter and pungent and wakey-uppy with just one whiff.  Though it cleans a coin with better efficiency.

Don’t mention my insides.  They’re clean.

Most nights, my own children partake in the ongoing war against what is served for them.

They’re fussy.

I made them that way.  I think.

My husband and I share the cooking and it’s not unknown that he’s an amazing cook with a flare for effort.

He cooks the things that I can’t.

He can julienne carrots and zucchini into the most proportionate and tidy little setting.  Like firewood stacked perfectly against a beach house wall.

My sticks always end up pointy or too fat, too short and inconsistent.

I make the comfort foods at our house – like baked potatoes, pasta and those amazing things you get in the freezer department at the supermarket.

(I did once make the most amazing beef pie ever and the recipe is within the walls of motherstuff.  I was THAT proud of it.)

We don’t eat like I did when I was a child.

Back then (when dinosaurs roamed) our meals were mostly basic and comforting.  Meat and three vegetables.

We don’t eat a lot of meat at my house.  I’m not a huge fan of it and it’s usually served in small and sporadic doses.

The kids aren’t huge carnivores either.

I can remember not liking what I was made to eat as a child, but if i didn’t finish it, I was told there would be nothing else to eat for the remainder of the evening.  And that’s how it was.

I have a tormented memory of me sitting at the (now tres chic and vintage) dining table, alone and with tears rolling down my cheeks and onto my plate.  I was sad because it felt like abuse and I was sadder because I couldn’t stop the tears that made my food colder.  I knew the added salt wasn’t helping the flavour.

My mother had a point to prove on this evening in the mid 1970’s.

EAT YOUR DINNER.

No.

EAT YOUR DINNER.

And so I gagged and dry wretched and regurgitated my mushy pumpkin and dropped further tears into it until she didn’t give up and I did what I was told.

I like pumpkin now.

But not when it’s mushy.

I’ve tried to force my children to eat things they prefer not to, and I’ve set out to promise them they’ll have nothing else to eat for the remainder of the night.  But, I always give in.

If they’re hungry, I feed them.

Perhaps too much sometimes.

Consequently, our eight year old son has developed boobs.

He was sitting in the bath three weeks ago and it shocked me to notice the extra weight he was carrying.

It’s not his fault.

I know it’s a combination of genes and body shape and yes, bad food choices and not enough exercise.

He’s so cute and handsome and yes, overweight.

I buy cupcakes and donuts and microwave mac cheese and sometimes chocolate cake and I know he sneaks a can of coke on odd days.

I’ve found the empties underneath his bed.

We have hiding places for the good stuff.  I usually stuff a bag of lollies and a block of chocolate into the saucepan cupboard.  That’s the ‘boring’ cupboard apparently.

Every high cupboard is reachable with a bar stool.

Every lower cupboard is too obvious.

They’re smart kids.  They say, ‘We know you and Dad have treats at night when we’re in bed.  We hear you.’

Yes, but I’m supposed to have boobies.

I can remember hearing my own parents rip open the wrapper of a chocolate block when I was ten years old. I lay in bed then wondering why the cupboard doors open and close after dark and why I wasn’t given the good stuff.

I wish our children cherished fresh fruit and vegetables and nuts and …. actually, I wish I could live alone on those things too.  Truth is, I’m a cake girl.  I love carbs.  I love lollies.  I adore the velvety texture of too much chocolate in my mouth.

Everything in moderation.

And more exercise.

NO, YOU CAN’T HAVE ANOTHER BISCUIT.  NO.  HAVE A GLASS OF WATER.  HAVE A YOGHURT.  HAVE, HAVE, HAVE!!!

EAT SOME FRUIT!!

But, I only like banana’s.

OF COURSE YOU DO THEY’RE TEN DOLLARS A KILO.

Boys aren’t supposed to have boobs and yes, I think you’re beautiful no matter what shape and I know that you’re the intelligent child of the family and you amaze me with your  mind so mature and enquiring.  You’re sedate and hate sport and there lies the truth after school when you and your little brother walk in and he heads straight outside to bounce the basketball whilst you start planning your night in order of shower, reading, computer time and drawing.

And then you ask me what’s for dinner.

Oh.

How I hate THAT question.

When I asked that question as a child, I was replied to with – “Bread and butter and duck under the table.”

Or, “Food!”

My kids don’t understand the duck reference and to be honest, I like ducks too much to consider ever threatening to serve them as food.

I love the happy screams of joy when I say, “We’re having take-away!”.

I might like it best because it means I don’t have to think too much.

But no matter how much their happiness means to me.  Their health matters most.

And I know, that one day they’ll thank me for instilling healthy eating options AND for not making them eat duck.

Chicken, however, is different.

Chooks don’t fly.

Neither does bacon.

Or pumpkin.

Or boys with boobs.

And what also doesn’t fly is a mother who can’t take control of her families pantry.

I’m off to sort it out.

Starting with the saucepan cupboard.

that girl and all of her junk

Today I saw a house on fire.

The roof was collapsing and the flames were licking at the sky.

Two fire trucks surrounded the home, whilst a man walked away, head bowed and a child in his arms.

I drove away then, with my own memories and junk and best intentions tucked away safely within me.

As I idled my car into our garage, I looked at all of the boxes of yesterdays and tomorrow  and I was thankful of course, for what hasn’t burned.  And for what has.

I’ve never been victim to a large house fire.  By that, I mean the type that destroys most or all material worth.  Though, of course, my life has had several severe flames of destruction.

Some of it remains as ash, whilst small embers still manage to stir up a flicker.

And today, I promised myself that I would declutter and clean up the messy bits.

The fire hazards of my life.

When I was almost twenty years of age, I lived in a share house and my best friend at the time decided to clean out our fireplace.  She emptied the burnt ash into a cardboard box and poured some water on it as a safety precaution and then set the box down in the back yard, beside the house.

It was probably twenty minutes or so later that I arrived home and noticed the distinct smell of smoke.  I considered that she might have been cooking again.  As pretty as she was, she was never the best cook.  It didn’t matter of course.  We were too young to care about eating well.  Our waistlines actually thanked us for it.  We drank most of our calories in alcohol anyway.

After inspecting the kitchen, I was drawn closer to the smell of smoke in the backyard and was well alerted to the fire.

The outside wall of our rental property was ablaze.

It was a minor fire, though enough to draw attention from neighbours, who proceeded to climb surrounding fences with hoses and buckets.  My friends red face and the hapless saucepan in her hand were cute but of no use.

We contained the fire and cursed at the damage, but being young and carefree, we could only laugh.

In my childhood, I had a friend who had left her electric blanket on whilst she and her family went to church.

They returned after praise and the house had burned to the ground.

That was the first time that I questioned faith in someone I was taught to worship and believe in.

Yesterday, I was searching for an important document in my garage and I ripped boxes open and flung through all of the things that I so obviously had valued enough to pack and move from house to house, too many times.

I’m a hoarder of the heart.

I collect things from yesterday and I keep them in little boxes.

I have the first set of keys from my second car – a vintage little white beast with a wing tail and red leather seats.  The car never really got going well but it was an ambition of mine, better given away as decided by my parents.  I purchased that car from a rich man in Toorak, for $250 and I’d hoped to fix it up enough to take long cruisy drives down the coast and across country like Thelma.  Or Louise.

I also have boxes containing old flyers from clubs, a hair ribbon from the prom dress of my paternal grandmother, love cards from ex boyfriends, my fathers twenty-first birthday silver key, my children’s first booties and one pregnancy test stick – complete with yesterday wee.

I have photos of people I no longer speak to.  Art from my children, tax documents, mothers day cards, a leaf from that romantic day in the park, concert ticket stubs, broken jewellery, my fathers stop watch from 1983, old certificates and a few broken dreams.

But yesterday, I couldn’t find the one thing I needed.

I was searching for a certificate from a 12 month study course I had completed when I was twenty years old.

Every other little yesterday ghost jumped out of me though.  Things I’ve more than once searched unsuccessfully for, in a sentimental moment and could never find.  Yesterday, they fell out of a handful of things and lay on the cold concrete floor and stared at me.

Here I am.

Where are you?

 I destroyed the garage, so much so that I couldn’t fit the car back into it.

The bottom of boxes fell out and books and stuff and paperwork fell to the ground and it was a surmountable thing to pick it all up and fit it all back into collapsed boxes and not a wheel of masking tape to be found.

So I pushed it all to the side and left the car on the street.

When my husband got home, after he rolled his eyes and before he kissed my forehead for the silly thing I am sometimes, he asked me if I’d checked the filing cabinet for my lost certificate.

No, I’m not THAT organised.

 Well, it turns out that I am.

There it was, in its little green coil bound folder, neatly slipped between a plastic insert sheet.  And there were photocopies of it.

Wow, I forgot who I once was.

As a mum to four children, two pets and one husband, the last eight years or so have included me trying to be as organised as possible, whilst also doing what works best.  And most easiest.

Sometimes, that means throwing stuff into a basket on top of the fridge and then transferring it (when it begins to fall down the sides and back of the fridge) into a plastic bag and setting it aside for sorting.  One day.

Although, let me not sound completely self-deprecating and add that I recently cleaned the top of the fridge after hearing that what we accumulate there multiplies.  So, if we place bills to be paid, on top of the fridge, Feng Shui suggests our debts will escalate.  So I moved ours and since then, they’ve all been sitting in a messy pile on our large Indonesian wooden dining table.

Exasperating I know.

I’m a messy girl, though not unclean.

I think that I might need something (or someone) one day so I never really throw anything away.

I wonder how I would feel if my own house burned to the ground and I was left with nothing?

We have insurance for the things that matter and cost most, but the rest is of sentimental value and that’s always irreplaceable.  Right?

I know the value of a good clean out and don’t get me wrong, I’ve thrown lots of things away over the years of my life.  It’s just that some things really seem better kept in my heart and cardboard storage, tucked away but accessible.

Truth is, the bits of my life, which matter most, would never do well in a cardboard box.

Those things are here – my family and friends, my animals and my self.

All of the photos I have that need sorting into albums and smaller boxes (see, it’s a box addiction perhaps) are also important – they’re the things for tomorrow.  They’re the things I’m keeping for my children.  Though, I’m not sure if I should keep the hippy photos of me, dancing in a forest wearing tie dye and sporting yellow hair under an acid moon.  I can’t see why not.  That was me.  And I always hid the bong well in group photos.

It’s all true testament to who their mother was.  And is.

The worst of the pictures these days involve some lounge room table top dancing with friends (clothed) though the wild remnants of me are always visible.  Most are hiding within the wrinkles on my face.

What about the grandmother ribbon?  Or the ticket stubs from bands and concerts and dance parties?  That’s also who I was and am.

I would’ve loved my mother or father to hand me a big box of who they were from yesterday.

Warts, sins and all.

I’m going to tidy up my garage boxes and try to condense it down to one for my children.  Something for when they’re adults themselves.

There will be a warning strewn across the top of the box.  It will read something about keeping an open mind and DO-NOT-OPEN-UNTIL-YOU’VE-MADE-PLENTY-OF-FASHION-MISTAKES-AND-HEART-ERRORS-OF-YOUR-OWN.

One day, it’ll all make sense.

Someone will burrow through my yesterdays and screw up their nose at the wee stick, the silly clothing, the photos of my old boyfriends and they’ll say, “No wonder she married Dad.  He was a cowboy, just like our grandfather was.  No, he didn’t ride horses but he tamed that girl.  That girl and all of her junk.”

Which nest is best?

At the age of fourteen and less than twelve months after moving from a country town to the suburbs of Melbourne, I became friends with a street kid.

His name was Martin and I first met him on a train bound for Flinders Street in 1985.  He was wearing a hessian bag as a shirt, cinched at the waist with an old and dependable leather belt.  Tied, not buckled. He also wore jeans and sneakers (not the trendy type).

Martin and I became friends for a short while and I’d meet him in the city, usually on the steps and underneath the clocks of Flinders Street Station.

We walked and talked and sometimes I bought him a burger and he let me tell him stories about my recent rough ride.  I listened to his reasons for sleeping in parks and stairwells and also the story of why he was wearing a hessian bag.

It’s warm.

It doesn’t get dirty.

I like the smell.

Someone I like gave it to me.

One day, I gave Martin my home telephone number.  He called too many times within the first week and my mother and stepfather soon became concerned about who my new male calling friend was.

Yes, the one with the strange voice.

I was never sure what was wrong with Martin, aside from the remnants of abuse. He appeared mentally retarded, speaking with a slur and slowness, as if his voice had been tormented as much as he had.  He had a great hearty laugh and what I guessed was a gentle heart, even if it was chipped around the edges.

I told my parents that he lived on the streets in the city and wore a hessian bag and that he was really nice and that I didn’t think they should be so judgemental.

He’s nice!

Being a vulnerable young teen myself, due to age and recent tragedy and emotional trauma, I related to Martin.

When I was twelve years old, I had planned to run away with a close friend who lived on a dairy farm on the outskirts of the country town where we both went to school.

It took us months of planning and scheming and collecting odd cans of food and toiletries from the family pantries of our homes.

We had lists upon lists of items we’d need for survival and we were well organised.

The day arrived when we purchased our one way bus tickets destined for the city.

SO exciting!

I was a naïve country girl, though tormented by the recent separation of my family and subsequent issues resulting from this.  I guessed that anywhere was better than the home where my father had lost his mind, his wife and most recently his dignity.

On the night before we were due to board the large greyhound bus, we had a school social (disco) and I’d asked my father whether I could sleep at my friend’s house whilst she had told her parents she was sleeping at mine.  Sorted.  We stashed our bags containing food and clothes and a first aid kit and an abundance of not much clue underneath the bushes near the school oval.

And we danced.

We winked and smiled and waved our hands in the air like we really didn’t care and we dreamed about freedom and happiness.

In the months leading up to our bus ride, she’d told me about the place in the city that we could soon call home.

Oh, it’s a MASSIVE old mansion and it’s in St Kilda and it’s near the beach and all of the street kids live there but it’s safe and we’ll love it.  It’s a bit dirty, you know, but we’ll make it nice and we will be living together how cool is that?

I imagined all sorts of visuals including some terribly deluded ones and of course most unrealistic.  I’d seen movies and read books and on the first or second and only occasions I’d been to the city in the late 1970’s, my father had driven the family car through St Kilda and had pointed out the street kids and prostitutes to us.  I remember being probably around eight years of age and winding my car window down to see better.  I almost fell out of the window.  I was in complete awe of the wild streets and that big city place full of mystery, bright lights and tragedy.

Yes, we’ll be there.

So, meeting Martin wasn’t strange to me.  He was the first of many oddities who introduced themselves to me; on the train, in the suburbs, at the bus stop or sitting on steps watching the world go by.

On the night that my girlfriend and I were dancing, in a country hall at a country catholic school, a friend tapped me on the shoulder.

Your dad is here.

I saw him sitting with his back to the wall, arms crossed and eyes glaring at me.

I turned away.

I pretended I didn’t see him.

Too many minutes later, extending the whole situation to awkward and beyond sensible, I looked again at my father.

He spoke to me, across the room and above the music.  His lips moved and I heard every word, despite the loud music.

Have you had enough? 

I’d had enough yes.  Though I knew he wasn’t referring to my ability to cope with life and it’s struggles recently.

He was angry.

I was scared.

My father was a man who angered quickly.  He was capable of violence and not listening well.

He spoke again.

Have you had enough?  Right, let’s go.

From behind me I heard my friend, partner in crime and supposed travelling and house companion for tomorrow.

You’d better go, he knows.  We’re in so much trouble.

Trouble and I had become acquainted lately.  In my quest to purchase a bus ticket, I really believed I was running away from it, not towards further strife.

In the last six months I’d seen things I knew I shouldn’t have.

My father couldn’t (in my opinion) care for me anymore.  I doubted how much he loved me and my mother was gone.  I didn’t blame her, but I wished she’d taken me with her.

I didn’t understand why both my parents seemed to have given up on me.

It took me almost two decades to understand that they never gave up.  They were only being what they could.  Weak or strong.  Right or wrong.  They were only human.

So, on the night that my father took me by the arm and marched me out of the school hall with a detour passed the trees beside the football oval to collect my overstuffed and misunderstood large sports bag, I was silent.

He drove me home and took me straight to my bedroom and I thought I was going to get the biggest whacking of my life but he sat me down and drew his face not too far away from mine and he began.

What were you thinking?  Where were you going?  How do you think you were going to survive?  Were you going to be a street kid?  A prostitute?  Is THAT what you wanted to be?  Is that what you want to grow up to be?  How do you think you would live like that?  Do you understand what you are playing with here?

No.  I didn’t understand.

I wasn’t sure.

I remembered the prostitutes with their short skirts and messy hair and bony knees and I knew I didn’t want to look like them.

I told him I had food and some money and a house to live in and then he screamed at me until he was red in the face and exhausted and before my tears attempted to drown me and then he reminded me about what is less.  And what is more.

And then he held me.

At school the next morning, my friend and I made it obvious that we hated the girl who had followed us to the bus stop whilst we bought our tickets.  We despised her because she had further ruined our lives.  She had spoken with the ticket lady soon after we’d left and she’d told her that we were running away to the city and that she should call our parents to stop us.

And so it was.

I don’t remember whom that little rat was, the one who gave our secret away but I am thankful to her and it didn’t take me until mid morning to realise that she’d done me a favour.

I really didn’t want to be a street kid.

Life wasn’t THAT bad.

Perhaps I was destined to meet Martin regardless?

I’m proud to say that on the day I met him, I’d left a home with a full belly and nice clothes and although there were issues within those walls, they would never surmount to the ones on the street and the ones tucked up within the fibres of Martin’s hessian shirt.

I’m also thankful that I wasn’t swayed to walk with him too far.

I related to him in ways and I also felt sorry for him.  I wondered what could ever make a person think that wearing a hessian bag as a shirt was preferable.

I offered to give him a t-shirt one day but he declined and said he liked his hessian bag.  We laughed when I shared with him that I grew up with horses and sometimes their food arrived in a similar bag.  I joked that if I had met him at an earlier age, I could’ve stocked a wardrobe full for him.

Martin laughed.

Martin smiled.

Martin didn’t seem too unhappy.

My new life in Melbourne, although not perfect and still yet to become settled emotionally, was rich compared to his torment and challenges.

I have my own children now and I shudder with the thought of them ever feeling so despondent that they would want to run away and live in filth.

I have learned lessons from my own parents and I am thankful of the privilege of a new generation and awareness.

I talk openly with my children and try not to ever allow them to feel neglected.

This home is their nest too.

One day, they will fly away but I will never glide too far from them.

I haven’t been a perfect mother but does she exist?   Of course not.

I think there’s a large majority of society all better equipped emotionally than our own parents.  It’s the circle of life.  Hakuna Matata.  It means no worries. Generation after generation has improved and here we stand.  Stronger.

Imagine the difference of when our parents and grandparents were young.

We’re breaking chains.

I’m sure that when the day arrives and my own children become parents themselves, they’ll do things better than I have in ways and make their own mistakes too.

We’re all human.

Our parents, the street kids, the meister’s and the miserable.

Learning to appreciate our security, the fuck ups within it and the greatest gift of simplicity is something to nurture.

Our children are precious and vulnerable.  They are like small sponges, collecting both beauty and pain and they are also stronger them we give them credit for.

Sometimes they’re weaker.

Just like us.

I’ve not seen Martin for over 20 years but the last time I saw him, he was sitting on a tram talking to strangers and he was laughing and slurring and charming people with his eccentricity and vagrancy.

And yes, he was still wearing a hessian bag.

I always wondered where the people were who loved Martin, until I realised they were on the street.  And in his own heart and imagination.

Some days my own children look like nobody owns them.  Their faces might be dirty, their hair not yet brushed and their clothes only half worn.  But on those days, I smile because life is simple and they’re happy.

Their home is safe and full of love.

And I’ll never forget that they teach me things nobody else ever has or could.

My own mother is one of my best friends now and I love her so dearly it sometimes hurts to think I might one day live without her again.

I hold her pretty face in my hands and thank her for being mine.

My father died in a road accident less than a year after I attempted to run away and I’m the fortunate one to have such an beautiful angel looking after me no matter where he glides.

There are plenty of bumpy ride stories in life.  Lots of Martin’s, a heap of people just like my own parents and yours.  There are those who have had lives nothing like ours and there are millions who suffer worse than the lucky ones could ever imagine.

We really are blessed.

Hessian bag or otherwise.

Adventure is a must

When I was just a few months old, I was catapulted from my bassinet, through a rear smashed window of our family sedan, out onto the road.

It was 1971.

My father was driving and I’m not entirely sure how or why this happened, but the car rolled more than once and off I flew.

I landed on the road and although I can’t remember it, my brother once told me he remembers being in the front seat of the car, upside down, secured by a seat belt, whilst I lay on the road.  Screaming.

He said that he saw me, tongue hanging out, lungs belting out, wah wah wah.

Apparently I was uninjured, though some decisions I have made throughout my life, may suggest I suffered some type of head trauma.

I know, it’s no laughing matter.

Perhaps I may have caused myself further or more damage on the day that I fell out of a tree, scrapping myself on branches along the way to my descent toward the ground.

Thud.

Or, maybe it was on the day that I broke my wrist whilst dancing on the front nature strip.  I was spinning and spinning myself into an imaginary tumbleweed, until I became so dizzy that I had no hope of standing erect.

I fell onto the road and broke my wrist.

It was fortunate that I wasn’t run over by a car.

My wrist bone was no doubt already weak, due to the previous time I’d broken it whilst roller skating.

My mother saw me fall that day and thought that I had just hurt myself slightly.  When I skated over toward her, she inspected my wrist and said, “You’ll be fine.  Get back out there.”

I completed one very meek lap of the rink, with bent wrist weighing heavily, before returning to her.

She took me to hospital and an x-ray confirmed that she was a bad mother and I wasn’t a drama queen.  That time.

There was a day once, when I was riding a friends bike, aged about seven, and we were racing down a steep hill.  The bike I was managing, decided to manage me with a tricky episode of speed wobbles.  Finally, after a short fight, the bike won and the handlebars spun themselves into a complete three sixty degree turn, whilst flinging me up into the air, before nose diving onto the bitumen road.  I continued to slide down the steep hill, dragging the bike behind me at a considerate pace.  The stupid bike (it wasn’t mine) had managed to entangle itself into my foot, which was trapped within the wheel spokes.

Of course, I was wearing minimal seven year old girly summer clothes.

It was 1978.

My body was grazed along the entire front of me.

I felt like a burn victim.

My friend, raced into her house and returned faster, with her older sister and mother trailing behind her.

In the sanctuary of their house, at the bottom of the hill, I was told to lay down and relax.  The older sister then proceeded to slap margarine onto my skin.

She rubbed that margarine into my skin like lotion for the dehydrated.

It hurt.

I screamed.

And I’ve never been a fan of it on my sandwiches since.

On the day of the accident and margarine medicine, my mother – a nurse – (ahem, missed diagnosis of my broken arm at the rollerskating rink!) tore shreds from the older sister.  Apparently, she was a nurse in training.  My mother taught her a few lessons that day.

I’m not sure how my mother coped when I sped through the old deserted butter factory and down the ramp beside the road, on my roller skates, when I was eleven and lacking fear.

Nor how she managed to carry on with normality whilst I took my daily climb, to the highest branches of the trees at our country property, when I was younger than eight.

I am especially amazed at her ability to have avoided a nervous breakdown when I first started partying all night and didn’t come home until dawn.

Nor her lack of strength when I got my drivers license, aged eighteen.

I can’t imagine how trusting she decided to be when I started dating seriously and discovered how beautiful sex could be.

And especially how relieved she must’ve been when I walked away from car accidents with boys when I was sweet sixteen.

My mother is and was an amazing mama.

She has always given me enough trust and respect to follow my own road.  The roads which are full of bitumen and careless abandon.  The ones which bend and lead right back to where they started.  The ones which go on forever, into places unknown.  And she has waited right where I’ve left her.  At other times she has run ahead of me.  Somehow, she found the right balance as a mother.  Never too over protective, never too tolerant.  She has been the perfect mother.  For me.

I try to find that same balance with my own children and although some of our parenting patterns are very similar (it’s in the genes), I have – like every other mother, had to find what works best with each individual child.

They’re all different.

When my first born son was only two years old and I was a single mother shopping on a Thursday, I thought I knew everything about being a mother.

He was a near perfect child.  He rarely had tantrums nor was difficult to deal with.

I claimed full rights to the education behind his beautiful manners and pleasant personality.

One day, he threw himself on the floor of a local shopping centre and showed me his best tantrum.  I was genuinely amazed, because he was displaying behaviour that I’d not seen in him before.

He kicked his little feet and pounded his clenched fists into the cold and probably grotty floor of the shopping centre.

I turned to look at him and I gave him my best perplexed expression ever.  I said to him, “If you’re going to behave like that, I’m leaving.”

I began to leave, whilst hoping my ultimatum would work.

He showed genuine shock that I would walk away and soon stood up and chased after me.

I thought I had it all sorted that day and thereafter.

I believed I knew how to parent children.

I will be honest in stating that I remember seeing mothers with children having tantrums or being brats and I would judge them and assume it was the mothers fault.

That kid is walking all over you.

Nine years later, I was blessed with another near perfectly behaved little boy.  I dragged him along to solicitor meetings and shopping centres and doctors appointments without any stress at all.  He played nicely and like his older brother, picked up the toys in the waiting room before we left.  He sat happily in his pram or walked beside me without becoming lost.

Two years later, we had another little boy, and as he grew older, I learned more than a few lessons myself.

He is spirited.

If there has been any one thing that he shouldn’t have done in life, he has done it.  Nothing massively dramatic that points to a psychopathic future, really just innocent childish things.  Annoying things.  Embarrassing things.   Messy things.  Like, depositing everything and anything we own, over the fence and into the neighbours back yard.  The neighbour decided to start collecting it all in milk crates (they looked stolen) and gave it all back to us.

“Keep the crates.”

He has ripped clothes and towels and sheets from the washing line, thus I secretly dubbed him Bluey – like a blue heeler.  No, of course I’ve never called him that to his face nor in hearing space though it pops into my head whenever he is destructive.  He reminds me of the little blue heeler pups we had when I was a little girl.  They ripped my favourite doll.  Broke things.  Made a mess.

He has painted his bedroom walls in his own poo.  He only did this once or twice when he was a toddler.  But he did it.  This experience particularly horrified me and I immediately dry wretched whilst thinking that perhaps my son had some type of mental disorder.  I wondered how a human would want to do that.

I googled it and wished I hadn’t.

But, after some safe reading, I found out I wasn’t alone.

There was a day when he found the hidden keys for the garage roller door, embarked upon a three wheeled pink tricycle without a seat and rode out onto the busy road, across into the parkland and away down the walking track.  Head back, giggling madly and having the time of his life.  He was two years old.

I chased him down the road that day, with one baby on my hip, no shoes on, I may have been sans bra too and I definitely had no ability to call after him because I’d just had my thyroid removed in the week before that.  I had no option but to catch him.  I did.  Of course, he made me laugh, like he always does and I was thankful for his safety.  I also found a better hiding place for the keys.

Another day, he encouraged his sister to join him and I found them both at the park.  Naked.

That was a low day.

I tumbled them into the car with smacked bottoms and stern words whilst having visions of it all appearing on a television affairs program later that night.

MOTHER ABANDONS CHILDREN.  KIDS FOUND NAKED AND UNCARED FOR AT LOCAL PARK.

I watched him like a hawk for years after that.

He’s quick.

He is agile and sporty and well witted and hilarious.  He has the devils glint in his eye and I love it.

We encourage his individuality and run him like a Labrador daily.  He needs the exercise.  That works best with him.

His acts have rivaled great magicians.  I have literally turned my back for less than five minutes and he has created something he considers to be magic I’m sure.

He has managed to find an over sized cardboard box (hidden) in the garage, jam packed with powder paints.  I’m not blaming my husband but it was on the first occasion when I’d left him home alone (seen the move?) with all of the children for longer than half an hour.  I drove in the driveway to find three wet rainbow streaked children.  Ah, the indigo children.  I always knew they were special.

He said, that he’d found them in the garage and that it was hilarious to see them standing there all lined up in a row full of guilt.  Three little powder monkeys.  Dusted from head to toe.  He hosed them off but of course once the water hit the powder it made a never ending supply of water paint.

We bought jumbo sized rolls of butchers paper after that day.

Best to encourage artistic merit.

With four children, I would expect plenty more drama’s and accidents, though we’ve been very lucky so far.  Perhaps I used all of that quota as a little girl myself?  I could only hope.

There have been the usual falls and cuts and a couple of ambulance trips to hospital.  Once, with my first born son when he fell from a climbing pyramid at the local park, aged three.  He fell with a thud to the ground and couldn’t move.  I immediately thought about wheel chairs and forgot about my own back jarring accidents as a younger me and I called the ambulance and ee-aw-ee-aw’d all the way to the hospital with my son wearing a neck brace and me wearing guilt, fear and a new found appreciation for praying.

He soon got bored and pulled at the neck brace and said, “I’m bored, when can we go home?”

That was the same year that he fell over and stabbed himself in the roof of his mouth with a broken plastic whistle and bled like something horrific.

It healed well overnight.

We’ve had items shoved into ears and noses.  In my first born sons case, it was a piece of cereal (nutri grain) wedged deep up in into his nasal passage.  He hadn’t yet learned to blow his nose, so it took some coercing to bring it out.

There was something in an ear once.  I think it was pop corn.  Un-popped.

Anyway, they’re all surviving and thriving and some days I look at my husband and think, we’re pretty amazing.  Those children are amazing.

And then I look to the sky and think, thank you.

I know the toughest years are ahead of us when our children are driving and dating and happily losing (or finding) themselves in whichever party they choose.

There will be sadness and heartbreak in their lives and all I can do is be there.  Love, listen, care.

One important thing I’ve learned about parents and children is that we are all on our own journey’s.  Despite which family we’re born into or where we grew up, we all have our own roads to travel.  Individually.  And whether you call it karma or kismet or gods master plan or just choices, there will be upheaval and challenging forks in the road.  Emotionally and physically.

I remember I had a new appreciation for my mother, when I was aged around thirty years old.  I really started seeing her not just as my mother, but as a woman.  I respected her needs.  I valued her journey in the world and where she’d been and what she’d had to travel through.  It took me a long while to differentiate between the two.  Mother versus another woman in the world.  I hope my children grasp that reality much younger than I did.  For my own sake.  And theirs.

Every being has lessons to learn and destinations to get to.

It’s tempting to shield our children from certain realities and keep them wrapped in a safe cocoon forever.  It’s also essential to remember to teach them to fly.

Alone.  Though of course, you’ll never be too far should they need you.

Let them grow up and wander along the roads of their life (not naked on a pink tricycle with no seat nor adult supervision) and believe in them.  And yourself.

You taught them everything they know.  And some of it, they are born with.

It’s their life and it’s going to be a magnificent one – bumps and all.

I wish you and yours the very best.

I hope those roads are travelled safely but not without adventure.

Adventure is a must.

watch me pull this woman out of the hat

Today I received a call from the primary school where my youngest boys attend.

Any mother of school aged children will know the first few seconds of gut wrenching feelings this call induces.

Broken bones.

Explosive diarrhea.

Your child has wandered away from the school and hasn’t returned.  The police have been called.

There was an accident involving the monkey bar and another child, slightly obese, well, he landed on your son and there was a lot of blood but he’s ok, he’s at the hospital.

Who is at the hospital?  My son or the … other child?

He choked on the peanut butter sandwich we repeatedly remind you not to pack into his green lunch box.

Someone else ate the peanut butter sandwich and they had an anaphylactic fit and it’s not looking good.

He really is fine but secretly has an urge to be at home on the couch playing wii.  Let’s go along with it.

Or something like that.

Whilst collecting my ill son from the sick bay near the office, I had to sit and wait for eight minutes whilst his school bag was collected from his classroom.

The teacher (pretending to be a nurse) sparked up a conversation with me which resulted in me sharing with her that I was a writer.

She expressed admiration and then told me that she wasn’t any good at anything.

Anything?

No, nothing.

I find that beyond believable, everyone has a gift for something.

No, nothing.

My eyes diverted toward the door.

Hurry up bag.  Hurry up son.

I looked at my shoes and noticed a large scuff mark near the toe.

I’m not good at polishing shoes.  I usually just buy new shoes and give the shit ones to charity.

Oh, I do that with shirts sometimes when they need a new button.

I pulled out my humanitarian shovel and began digging around the soil of this woman who professed to be good at nothing.

I wondered why my son was walking from one end of the school to the other if he was so unwell that he needed to come home early.

Well, you must be good with people and children otherwise you wouldn’t be a teacher.

Yes, I suppose so.  Yes.

See, that’s quite a gift!

Having children or working with children is consuming.  It’s easy to lose yourself in the amazing and all consuming magnificence of the youth.

They are like sponges themselves and soak up every new experience with gusto.

As mothers, we give so much of ourselves to our children.  It’s easy to forget about nurturing our own selves.

If there is one thing that I’d like to give to my children, it’s the importance of self.  Especially my daughter.

Gone are the generations of women who surrendered themselves only and mostly to the good of their husband and families.

It’s a tricky balance to find the middle ground.

We can appear selfish.  We also place an incredible amount of guilt upon our own shoulders for taking time out for ourselves.

We stress about how things will fair if we disappear for an hour each day and dedicate that time to us.  Perhaps a walk, a long hot bath, gym, study or visiting friends.

Oh yes, happy wife, happy life.

But who has time?

We’re probably our own worst enemy when it comes to placing ourselves first.  Just sometimes.

We spin ourselves into messy and tightly wound balls of control thread and of course sooner or later, it begins to unravel.

I’ve been a stay at home mother now for eight years.

It was possibly about two years ago that someone asked me whether I get bored.

No, only boring people get bored.

But don’t you go crazy being at home all the time?

I’m always crazy, it’s not geographically dependent.

Truth is, I’ve loved being at home with my children.  It’s something my parents weren’t really able to do when I was younger.  My mother worked very long hours as a nurse, often double shifts.  My father worked in an abattoir and trained horses or greyhounds.

There was always a parent at home to care for us, though it wasn’t consistently one or the other.

I feel blessed to be able to do this for my family.

Next year, all of the kids will (finally) be in school.  Actually, my oldest will have finished year 12 (gasp!) but our three youngest will all be in primary school.

Perhaps I’ll work in the canteen, volunteer my time in the Stephanie Alexander kitchen or devote some time to reading to the students if they’d like me to.

I won’t be joining any parent and teachers committee though.  Oh, I know, that’s not the spirit of community.  But, It’s just not me.

I’ve got so many other things I want to do with my time.

And that’s what it will be again won’t it?

It’ll be MY TIME.

Well, in between school runs and emergency sick bay collections and school holidays and house cleaning and grocery shopping.

I’ve been thinking about my long term dream to become a successfully published writer.  All consuming, lonely world of the writer.  It’s a juggling act.

Lately, I’ve been revisiting the idea of returning to study.

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing some type of psychology, justice or social work degree.

I’d like to work with abused/traumatised children or women.

See, there it is again – that incessant little urge inside of me to surround myself with children.

But you have four of your own!?

Yes, but I always wanted six remember.

How would you cope?

I just would.

I might not do things perfectly or bake the best cakes for the kids lunch boxes (you can buy fabulous cakes and biscuits at the supermarkets these days) but I would hope that there’s a balance between my life as a mother and my life as me.

I heard someone once say that you should never devote your life entirely to your children because one day they’ll grow up and move away and you’ll be left with not much.

I guess it depends on what YOU want for your life.

Every person is different.  Every mother is different.

Finding your gift, is a talent.

Finding the time and value in pursuing your gift, is also a talent.

I have many talents.  Being a mother is one of them.

Some days, being a mother feels like the thing that I’m least talented at.  It’s usually around THAT time of the month, when the smallest thing the children are doing causes me to throw my arms up into the air and scream like a madwoman at anyone who is in the house.  I will then completely over dramatise a simple situation and everything will feel worse than it actually is.  Then I sit back and realise there’s been no ‘me time’.

I think most mothers do that though.

We’re a tough bunch.

We lose ourselves completely in other human beings because we both want and need to.

They depend on us for life.

We gave them their life.

Eventually though, if we’re not careful, we began to deplete the true life within ourselves.

We forget who we ever were or who we could truly be.

And it matters.

I really did dream of being a professional mother.  I couldn’t wait to get out of the work force and be a stay at home mum.  Some might suggest that means I’m lazy.  I’d like to challenge anyone thinking that to pop my (scuffed) shoes on for a week and pretend to be me.

There is no such thing as a quiet day.

My days are far from lazy.

When friends ask me what I’m doing this coming weekend and I say, “Oh absolutely nothing.  Very quiet weekend ahead.”  Well, all mothers know there’s no such thing.

In between cleaning and cooking and bathing and combing knots from a daughters long hair and another supermarket run and some time out at a park and walking the dog and oh, shit I forgot that birthday was this weekend!  Bugger, I just have to zoom up to the plaza and buy a present that only costs $10 but looks like it’s worth $30 for this little girl that I’ve never met.

Well, in a large family, doing nothing means doing lots.

Whilst taking the time to write this, I’ve not yet made the beds, cleaned up the breakfast dishes from the bench nor put on a load of washing.

It’s all waiting for me.

And it does.

That’s the thing.  We place enormous energy into making things perfect around us.

The routines, the right clothes on our children, their hair cuts, their snack as soon as they want it, their must have new toy, their everything.

And of course, that’s what a mother does.

But remember you too.

You really matter the most, because as you all know, when mother falls in a heap or gets sick, most everything else falls apart.

Unless you have an amazing husband, which I’m also blessed with.

You’re lucky.

No, I’m smart.

Still, they can never do everything as efficiently as you can they?

If they had to.

I’ve had five attempts at writing this piece.  It would normally take me twenty minutes at most.  I’ll wrap it up now because there’s a load of towels that have been on the washing line for three days.  I keep forgetting about them, but this morning I had to choose between a not so fluffy damp bath sheet (which if I’m perfectly honest is beginning to emit a strange stench) or a primary colour hotwheels beach towel for after my shower.  It’s time I brought in the washing.

Things to do.  A cake to bake (the packet mix has been sitting in the cupboard for two months, perhaps it’s time).  House to clean. Beds to make.  Washing to hang, fold and redistribute back into the vortex of wash, wear, dump on the floor because Mummy will pick it up and make it better again.

It’s like magic.  We’re magicians.  We make things happen.

Don’t forget to pull yourself out the magic hat once in a while.  Before the rabbit and after the disappearing act (MUM!?  WHERE’S MY RED TOP?).

It’s where you left it.  Actually, it’s not.  It’s either in the washing basket or folded up and placed back in your drawers.  Otherwise, if you’re a teenager, it’s been placed just inside your bedroom door because I’ve ceased wanting to walk into the centre of your bedroom anymore.  It’s scary in there.

Today, I gave up a little bit and it felt good.

A friend visited and we sat and talked and let the entire afternoon drift by.

It was perfect.

The house however, is far from such today.

I only made one bed (mine) and although I’ve taken the mince out of the freezer, I haven’t considered what I might cook for dinner tonight.

Rest assured, I will serve something delicious and packed with nutrients, though it won’t be another bowl of cereal (although I know at least one of my children would prefer that).

As mothers, we need to pick our battles.

Let some things escape us, stand guard on other things.

Nobody really cares as much as we do if the house is messy.

And if they do, just remind them who is boss.

Or ask them to clean it whilst you go and concentrate your energies on yourself or that something else that you’re talented at.

Perhaps a long hot soak in the bath tub whilst you think about it.

Just try to take that bath when the kids are in bed asleep.

Otherwise it’s pointless.

Perhaps it’s safer to leave the house for a walk.

If you’re not too tired.

See, it’s easy to make excuses.

And it’s easy to fall into the ordinary (which we love so unconditionally).

I really wanted to end this piece with something thought provoking but the truth is, it’s now 4pm in the afternoon and the silly hand of the clock has just ticked around.

It’s mad hour.

I don’t exist anymore.

Only Mum does.

Bedlam Street

On the weekend we drove across town, like brave soldiers marching through trenches, on route to a relatives birthday party.

The traffic was thick (like city porridge) and from the backseat of our family sedan came the obligatory complaints.

Ohhh, this is taking SO long.

How much further?

Why is this taking so long.

I want the window down, I’m so hot.

Put the window up, I’m too cold.

Mum, she touched my arm.

Whilst the car idled along, at slower than walking pace, in bumper to bumper traffic, directly opposite a large city market, I wistfully looked toward the stalls of everything I’d like to buy and imagined myself trying to negotiate the aisles with three small children.

Forget it.

I’ll wait until I have a day to myself.

If ever again.

“Honey, how did we ever have enough money for shopping at the market and lazy city brunches?”

“That was before we had four children babe.”

Oh.

Did I really exist then?  Was that me?  It seems so long ago, are you sure that was me?

As I sat in the passenger front seat whilst my husband drove, I kept my car window open and soaked in the sounds and atmosphere from the bustling streets.

We were once a part of that.

I watched two teenagers walk by, all doc martin boots and casual steps.

They might have babies one day.  And then they’ll be me.  Driving by, seeing versions of themselves from another lifetime.

I saw three gorgeous young female backpackers, bronzed and without commitment.

They look so carefree and perfect.  Note to self:  they were once children.

I noticed a lady absent mindedly walk out into the traffic.

Grade one important lesson: Look, listen, think.

She may have children.

Don’t kill her darling.

Above the menagerie of city and traffic noise, I heard something so familiar, I smiled.

The unmistakeable sound of them approaching, from behind our sedan, drifted in through my open window and sat on the edge of my ears.

Hello anxious noise.  Like finds like.

A screaming newborn, fighting for the right to be heard over it’s complaining sibling; a toddler with practice.

The car idled slowly into the lane beside us.

Their car windows were all open.

Share the love.  That’s right.

In the front seat of the sedan, was a father, gripping the steering wheel with tense and raised shoulders.

In the front passenger seat, sat a woman.  She continually turned around toward the back seat, consoling irritated children, readjusting tilted drink cups and twisting herself into contortionist positions to reach a dropped toy from the floor mat behind her.

Oh look, it’s us!

I smiled at them, though they didn’t notice.  They were lost in the portal of that family sedan.

I wanted to hit the button for every window in our own car and open the windows wide.

Share the vocal harmony of our car with theirs.

See, it’s madness in here too!

Setting off from the family home, always seems like a wonderful idea initially.  The car is full of well groomed children, excited about the prospect of a day out.

Home is where the heart is.  Yes, but have you noticed the kids bouncing off the walls?

Usually, by a quarter of the way into your daring-to-leave-home-for-a-few-hours journey, things take a sharp turn toward regret.

The sweet harmony of happy family, all contained and structured soon becomes hell on wheels.

Why are we going out?

My husband drove well and negotiated side streets and alternative routes, beating the heavy traffic in the hope of arriving at least ten minutes earlier at our destination.

Ten minutes is a lot when your ears are bleeding.

MUM! HE’S ANNOYING ME.

MUM! TELL HER TO MOVE HER LEG.

DAD! MUM’S NOT LISTENING TO ME!

After a fun day out, we reloaded the car again, though this time the bullets were less sleek.

One shoe missing, twisted tights, bark in shoes, sticky lolly fingers from the party and the unmistakable whine of I-need-to-go-to-the toilet.

I THOUGHT YOU WENT BEFORE WE LEFT!

I did.  I need to go again.

YOU CAN HOLD ON (said through gritted teeth).

What’s that smell? 

Did someone step in dog poo?

Sometimes we sing songs in the car, though there is never a song suited to everyone’s liking.

Turn it down.

Turn it up.

Eye spy with my little eye is difficult with children who can’t spell yet.

Eye-spy colour gets boring and there’s always too many white cars and yellow taxi’s.

Ssssh, close your eyes and have a little nap.

Those days are gone too.

Ssssh, Mummy is having a little nap.

I wish.

Maybe when we’re ready to buy a new car we should consider a DVD player in the back seat?

We’d need three of them.

We never had DVD players in the car when we were kids.

I didn’t grow up in the city.

Let’s move to the country, buy chooks and have our food dropped down to us via air parcel.

Honey, if we win Tattslotto, we should consider the option of boarding school.

You and I could then cruise the world and pretend we’re working whilst our children visit for holidays.

Oh, I would miss them terribly.

No, we’ll buy a limousine.  One with a closing front panel, dividing the back seats from the front.

Ah, yes, that would be nice.

After the party and once again safely at home with closed windows and children happily dispersed into their comfort zones, I watched the evening news.

A man had died that afternoon in an accident and that was the reason the traffic was particularly hectic on city inbound roads.

It made me feel grateful for being at home.

Alive.

All of us.

Safe.

Our beautiful chaos.

Count your blessings.  Smile at the car beside you containing a fed up parent and rambunctious children.  Wind your windows down and share your chaos with the other road users.  It will make other parents feel less alone.  And it’s very therapeutic to let your stress leave the confines of a car.  It breeds in there.

If you’re driving in a car without children, turn your music up especially loudly.  The kids love it when we pull up beside you at the traffic lights.

We might think you’re a wanker but secretly we’re jealous that you’re blessed with youth and ignorance and can turn your stereo up to as loud as it will go without distorting.

It helps to drown out our noise too.

And smile ever so sweetly at that young couple.  The one with the darling young female who looks longingly at your feral children and hopes to have at least two of her own some day.

She doesn’t know.

Nobody ever told her.

Just like nobody ever told you.

Oh, you remember being in the car with your brothers and sisters, all hair pulling and kicking splendour of the back seat.  But it’s not such a bad memory.  Actually, it was sort of fun.

Perhaps you were an only child and didn’t realise that other children longed to be you so that they could lay across the entire back seat and have all of their parents attention.  When they weren’t fighting that is.

No, now that you’re a parent, it makes more sense.

It’s bedlam some days.

But it’s your bedlam.

And it’s beautiful.

The art of scissors in your hand

I never owned a Barbie Doll as a little girl.

Not one.

I did have a Rub-a-Dub-Dub Doll which I absolutely adored.

Her head and legs fell off one day.  I might’ve ripped them from her torso.  I’m still unsure.

My parents paid heart to my love for my treasured doll and so after she was ‘injured’ they took her to a doll hospital.

I don’t remember much about the doll hospital but it was in the 1970’s and the health system wasn’t as strained as it is these days, so there was provision for it.

Bath Doll (I will name her this in lieu of her given name which I’ve sadly forgotten) was admitted to hospital and returned to me with limbs and head securely attached again.

I remember missing her greatly whilst she was there.

I might need to sit down with my mother and discuss the ‘dolly goes to hospital’ story, though in the meantime we’ll let the story stand.

Perhaps she was replaced with a new doll?

No.

Doll hospitals existed.

Since having my own children, I have erected certain proverbial walls for the consideration of appropriate toys.

My sons have never had toy guns (those ones which look remotely real) though they have had space guns which shoot out ping pong balls or frightful foam coated spear heads.  See, not dangerous at all.

Because I grew up without a Barbie Doll and seemed to survive better than OK, I considered that my daughter would probably do well to not have one either.

Somehow, over the short yet bustling four years of her life so far, Barbie Dolls have found a place within her toy collection and bedroom.

It did start with me.

I obtained a ‘Spiderman’s Bride’ Barbie Doll and I don’t recall who gave it to me but it was perfectly packaged and unopened.

I accepted the doll into my home because I love Spiderman.

I also thought it would make a fabulous collectors item for the future.

Whilst packing up the contents of our house for a move, I found the box containing certain keepsakes and the Barbie Doll (oh, there was another one in there too though she was a Malibu Barbie with a long rider board beside her) and my daughter happened to be standing beside me as I was burrowing through the contents of the box.

“BARBIE !!!  MUMMY CAN I HAVE HER?  CAN I?  CAN I?”

“AND THIS ONE?”

Of course, she flashed those beautiful big brown eyes and fluttered her dream weaving eye lashes and within less than two minutes, Barbie was within her grasp.

And so the Barbie Doll gate opened.

Gifts from here and there over the years have included more Barbie Dolls, Barbie clothes and hair accessories.

I haven’t succumbed to supplying her with a Barbie Camper Van yet, though to be honest it should’ve been the first thing I let through the gate.

My cousin had a Barbie Camper Van when we were children and I loved playing with that.

I usually made mine out of empty shoe boxes (not because we were financially challenged, mostly because I had a great imagination).

Still, it’s hard to beat a candy pink van with flip out entrance steps and an annex.

Recently, my daughter and son (the two youngest with thirteen devilish twin-like months between them) were playing in her bedroom and in hindsight, I probably should’ve checked in on them five minutes before she came running out to show me her brown skinned Barbie, sans long hair.

Mummy, her hair was too long.

That was just before she also carried out the hands of a paler skinned Barbie and placed them on the table in front of me, hanging loose beside my Saturday night cocktail.

These fell off too.

It didn’t for a moment enter into my mind that I may have a sadistic pair of children.

OK maybe for a second.

It did however make the edges of my mouth turn up with amusement.

Of course, I hid that smile well.

Ah, the second haircut.

How cute.

The first haircut was given by the ruckman of ‘team twin-like’.

He cut her hair.

She was probably around two years of age and her hair had grown into a gorgeous little sandy blonde shoulder length bob of curls and long side fringe.

He trimmed her fringe to above her ears and tried to restructure the back too, but it was sadly uneven.

We were playing hairdresser Mummy.  I asked him to cut my hair.

A real hairdresser did her best to mould the design into something more presentable.

On Saturday night, tanned Barbie went from long and luscious locks, to a hip and happening blunt cut rock star.

Pale Barbie suffered a less graceful change and lost two hands.

Yesterday, I conducted (another) toy cull and I was pleased to see my daughter pick up the hand (icapped) doll and suggest she might need to go in the bin.

And this one has drawing all over her face too mummy.

Chuck her in the bin.

I admire and nurture their artistic ways though I am quick to sit them down and have a gentle chat about respect and destruction.

We keep the sharp scissors out of sight though the children’s ‘safety’ scissors still sit within the art supply container.

The true art has been that they have managed to hack through nylon hair AND a set of plastic wrists with what one would describe as a blunt pair of scissors.

Perhaps, Barbie and her relatives are making their own tragic exit from our home.

One by one.

Nobody’s perfect right?

Son, tie this apron string around your car for safety

I am teaching my seventeen year old son how to drive a car.

He has his learners permit, though ‘permitting’ him to take control of the family sedan which contains the life of me and his little siblings is quite the challenge.

Yes, I’m afraid.  I am however a lover of risk.

Thankfully.

I threw him into the drivers seat of our second family car – a small, five speed, manual Daihatsu.  It felt like I was throwing my first born to the lions.

I had driven us to a secluded and underdeveloped section of a new housing estate and I pulled the car over to the side of the road and said, “Right, let’s go.”

He looked at me with the eyes of a lost man.

My instincts were correct, he is a good driver though knows everything.

A few near misses soon brought him back to reality.

Yesterday, I allowed him to drive ‘my baby’.  My car is a Subaru Forrester.  Turbo.  With flared guards, a low front and nice wheels.  It’s an automatic, so it basically drives itself.

He managed to veer off the edge of the road, flirt with the gravel, over steer and end up back on the other side of the road with a wobble of the vehicle, which for a few seconds scared the shit of me.  Almost.

I reached for the steering wheel and pulled it sharp left.

Keep on your side of the road mate.

There was no oncoming traffic, though a few cars trailing closely behind us and I might assume that they might’ve assumed that the driver of our Subaru was drunk.

It appeared that way I’m sure.

Dear world, please note the yellow LEARNER plate which has once again fallen off the back window.

It’s necessary for us to teach him how to drive, as well as paying for driving lessons with an instructor, because learner drivers now need a total of one hundred and twenty hours practice within Victoria, Australia, before they can apply for their probationary license.

It’s a different process to when my mother first learned to drive.  She tells me the local police officer laughed when she almost killed them both and so then flicked her a license in the 1960’s.  She may have flirted with him.

It’s different again to when I obtained my license.

My driving instructor and testing officer weren’t good looking at all and I’m not that much of a flirt.  Plus, my driving instructor was female and she played opera music whilst I drove.

It unnerved me greatly.

My mother taught me how to drive and I also had lessons.  I did practice in both an automatic transmission and a manual, though I obtained my license with an automatic.  Not the gun.

That was twenty two years ago.  These days, you have to choose which transmission you’re going to drive.

He is going to drive a manual car.

Every male should know how to drive a manual car.

Actually, I believe EVERYONE should be able to drive a manual.

There’s a difference in skill.

I think there’s more control over the vehicle when you’re driving a manual.

Although, luxury cars these days are lovely to drive when they’re automatic and it’s so much easier especially if the car is filled with children and McDonald burgers which need the pickle removed at traffic lights or a milk shake which requires standing up again after it’s spilled all over the rear floor mat.

See, you need more hands.

Anyway, I digress.  This isn’t a road traffic authority blog.

It’s about being a mother.

So, this mother was more than a little tense sitting in the front seat of the family sedan, whilst a seventeen year old son drove.

He took a few corners with too much speed, which resulted in him entering into a suburban street in the wrong lane.

Fortunately there were no other cars driving in the opposite direction.

He crunched the gears, let the clutch out too fast, too slow, bunny hopped well and didn’t grip the steering wheel correctly.

Plenty of time to look cool later mate.

By giving him the opportunity of driving a manual transmission first and then having a drive of the automatic, he was able to choose which he preferred.

“It’s boring driving a manual.”

Ah yes, that worked well.

On our fourth driving lesson, we argued.

He asked me if I was premenstrual.

I was, but that was beside the point.

YOU’RE NOT LISTENING TO ME !!!

(note to self:  from here on in, don’t give driving lessons in THAT week)

After some suggestive points for consideration, he stopped the car sideways in the middle of the supermarket car park and got out whilst huffing.  Leaving the door open and the car idling.

“You can drive home”, he said whilst pretending he didn’t really care.

Great.

I tried to make him get back in the drivers seat but you can’t make a teenager do things they don’t want to do.  Especially when they’re trying to prove a point.

So, I drove the car home, all premenstrual and silent.

I drove a little faster than I should and tried to impress him with my Ferrari like skills.

Note how I’m using the gears unnecessarily?   I’m trying to impress you.  I can change gears up and down at every corner and turn and I don’t even have to think about it.  I can check the rear view mirror, change gears, drive with one hand AND have the stereo up loudly.  If you didn’t get out of the drivers seat son, you’d be driving like this.

“Mum, you’re speeding, this is a residential zone and you can only do fifty kilometres an hour.  You’re doing seventy.”

Right.

Teaching someone you love how to drive is a challenge.

There is a fine art to appearing confident, giving confidence, remembering to relax your white knuckle fists in your lap whilst trying to stop the instinctive push of your foot into an imaginary break peddle on the passenger side floor.

What Mum?  Relax Mum!

Fantastic mate, excellent, you’re doing really well.

I am certain to offer plenty of praise and some decent scare tactics.

Yes, if the right hand front corner of your car hits the front right hand corner of an oncoming car it is considered a head on collision and both cars will spin into oblivion. 

My life is in your hands now.

An accident can cause death or worse I may end up in a wheel chair and you’ll have to care for me for the rest of your life.

Don’t hit the edge of the road because you’ll get caught in the gravel and the car could shoot off sideways and into a tree or it might roll.

Don’t over steer.

Keep both hands on the wheel.

Turn the music down, you need to hear the engine so you know when to change gears.

Listen to the engine, can you hear how it sounds like it’s about to blow up?  That’s right, you need to change gears now.

What gear are you in?  I don’t know, you’re driving. 

No, that’s reverse.  You can’t go into reverse whilst you’re doing eighty kilometres.

Don’t dangle your thumb off the steering wheel like that.

BREAK!  BREAK!  BREAAAAAAAAAK!

It’s hot in this car isn’t it? 

Don’t worry about your iphone.

Yes, I’m taking a photo of you driving, don’t worry just keep driving.  Oh, you look so grown up.

Oh, your eyes look closed in that photo.

Are you driving with your eyes closed honey?

I’m sure he can’t wait until the day when I’m no longer travelling in the car beside him. I remember when I was younger I couldn’t wait to zoom off, out into the world on my own, without anyone instructing me.

It was out there that I made plenty of mistakes and learned well.

A few scary episodes challenged me to drive both carefully and more skillfully.

So many of our youth lose their lives on the road.

Over confidence and distraction lead them to tragedy.

I am fortunate that my son has an extremely wise head on his shoulders and will be driving a good car.

The rest, lays within the hands of the universe and his driving.

I’m not sure how many fingernails I’ll chew down on the day that he obtains his license and drives off and out into the big adult world of roads and highways and hoons and slow-down-out-there-it’s-raining.  Without me.

I am learning to let go, though instinct tells me to hide him away and buy him a new pair of sneakers.

Fred Flintstone had the right idea.  He ran everywhere with his car.  He could only drive as fast as his little fat legs could run.

My son and I are going out driving again tonight.

I’m just warning you, so you can keep off the roads.

I’m not premenstrual though, so he will drive well.

Toot Toot.