Ideas for blog posts are like buses...

...you wait ages for one to show up, and then five come along at once. You stick your arm out for the first one but the driver sees you have a pushchair and some shopping bags, and tears past you, by which time the second has decided you were going to get the first and keeps going, so you stick your hand out somewhat aggressively for the third, until you realise it's not going where you want it to go, but it's has already come to a stop and the driver remonstrates with you for hailing a blog post under false pretenses; meanwhile the fourth speeds past, at which you waves your fists and yell obscenities, so that your final hope - the fifth - thinks better of picking up an irate Ugg-wearer and carries on by.

That was a rather long-winded way of saying that there has been a lot going on - exciting stuff, emotional stuff, and the usual mopping-the-floor stuff - which generally means my brain short circuits and I cannot put my thoughts into neat packages.

If it's any consolation, I feel bad about it. But it's no use, I shall have to ditch the idea of buses for now and get on that plane - I'm heading home in 6 hours. See you soon, London.

What Not To Wear, 2

I'm being terrorised by a fashion-conscious six-year-old.

First it was the Uggs. Since that horrifying incident, during which she tried to forcibly remove the offending footwear from my person, she has kept up her Ugg-tormenting. 

"You're wearing your Uggs again!" she shouts from across the park. Then she comes closer, and looks from them, to me, with such derision that I feel a bit tight around the chest. She does this every time I wear my Uggs to the park, which is approximately thrice a week. It has gotten so that I can't bring myself not to wear them, because what if sub-consciously I'm ditching them because a six-year-old who wears Little Miss Chatterbox t-shirts thinks I'm a geek?

However, even I draw the line at wearing sheepskin-inners when it's 25 degrees, so today I went to the park Ugg-free. I felt confident - I knew I wasn't wearing them for the right reasons, and that I could also guarantee no sneering looks.

Or so I thought.

It began well. She raced over to where I was crouching down to brush tanbark off The Boy's head (he and a friend had been playing It's Raining Tanbark with much hilarity until the rain got in their eyes). She wanted to know why The Girl and Boy had orange and black stripes all over their faces. I replied that it was oil pastel, and they were playing tigers earlier, and I couldn't be bothered to wash it off till bath time. All acceptable, so far.

Then I stood up.

"Oh - you look ODD," she said. I pretended I hadn't heard.

"I said you look ODD. Why are you wearing runners with a skirt? Why?"

"Um, they're not really runners. They're kind of sneakers."

"They look like runners. And with a long skirt. That just looks weird."

"Oh," I said, looking down at my feet, and mentally agreeing with her. "Oh well!" I breezed, as I turned and walked away, thinking "I'm telling my blog on you."

A Muesli Post

I was up early, at The Boy's insistence. We sat on the sofa; me bleary of eye and fuzzy of head, him raring to go. "Bugsla," he kept saying. "Bugsla," more earnest every time. I eventually worked out that he was saying A Bug's Life. It took me so long I actually agreed to let him watch it. Come on, it was 6am, not a time for wholesome activities like puzzles.

I ate muesli. He had three bowls of porridge. Goldilocks came downstairs at 7.30 and then the day really began, with getting dressed and packing morning tea and packing ourselves off to nursery, where I was helping out for the morning. 

I washed paint brushes, and made "Ooh, lovely" noises about the children's artwork. One little girl said to another: "I'm not playing with you today, I'm playing with her instead." I told her that wasn't very nice at all. She looked at me as if she could not give a toss what I thought.

We went home and ate pasta. The Australian made me a delicious coffee on our delicious-coffee-machine.

We played Barbies, and vets, and shops, and farms with dingoes and koalas and platypuses. I wondered if it was correct to say platypi, or platypus-plural, or platypodes. Then I stopped wondering and cooked the tea. 

They ate, they jumped off every piece of furniture while I shouted "Someone will get hurt." Someone got hurt. We went upstairs and did pyjamas and teeth and stories and cuddles. I sang "Truly Scrumptious". They went to sleep.

And then I came downstairs and signed the contract for my novel! 

It's not every day...

Mit of a bix up

The Boy (22 months): Mumma? Cop porn.

Me: I'm sorry what?

The Boy: Me cop porn.

Me: Please don't say that in front of the neighbours.

The Boy: Cop porn?

Me: Yes, don't say that.

The Boy: Me cop porn? Me cop porn! Cop porn! COP PORN!

Me: Shush!

The Girl: Mum, he wants popcorn.

Me: Oh. Thank god.

Sappy hunday.

Short Play

Scene: Dreamworld theme park, the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. It's a scorcher (ok it's only 27 degrees but it's a scorcher if you're blonde and prone to freckles...even if the blonde is largely bottled these days *heavy sigh*). 

Act 1

The Teenager: You have to come on this amazing ride I've just been on. Come on come on, you have to, you'll love it.

Me: No-no-no-no-no, I don't do rollercoasters. We've discussed this. I just felt sick on that kids' swing ride.

The Teenager: But this is amaaaaaaaazing. You have to! Please please please please please you have to!

Me: Um. No.

The Teenager: But I don't want to go on my own! Pleeeeeeease, I really really want you to come. You have to!!

Me: But...

The Teenager: YOU HAVE TO!

Me: [follows Teenager to ... THE TOWER OF DOOM]

Act 2

Me: How could you let me go on that? How? You knew what it was like. You know how I feel about going fast: I scream at you if you go over 30 in the car! Why why why did you let me do that?

The Australian: [sniggers, while taking photos of my hair in disarray and my eyes wild with panic]

Me: You're a sadist! A sicko! I had to keep my eyes shut the whole time to stop my eyeballs from falling out! And it's like I'm still moving - I feel giddy, I feel awful - what if I always feel like this and it's your fault for not stopping me?

The Australian: But you agreed to go.

Me: You know I can't say no to teenagers! You know I'm only 15 inside! It was peer pressure.

The Australian: [shrugs]

Me: Look, thanks to you I just went 160kpm in 7 seconds, AND up 38 storeys, AND back again. 160! 7 seconds!! So as punishment you're going to have to do something that you don't want to do...I've got it: when we get back to Melbourne you're coming to the theatre with me. AND NO EXCUSES.

The Australian: Sure, I'll see a play with you. As long as it only lasts 7 seconds.

A Head For Heights

When they're not growling at each other because one wants to build a tower and the other wants to knock it down, The Girl (4) and The Boy (21 months) are heartbreakingly nice to each other. She often calls him simply "Brother" and seeks him out for comfort if I've told her off; she tries to heave him off the ground in order to show how strong she is (she manages half an inch, him being only 2kg lighter that her). Last thing at night they do a duet of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. She takes the main part, and he interjects at HOW (I wonder what you) ARE, UP A (bove the world so) HIGH, etc... He listens patiently to her various renditions of Advance Australia Fair, and gives her a clap.

I've noticed recently how The Girl imitates my nauseatingly enthusiastic way of encouraging my children - Wow this and Cor that and general You are amazing's... She applauded The Boy's first steps months ago, and laughs and woo-hoo's along with me at every new word or cute new facial expression. But this evening she took enthusiasm and confidence building to a new and hilarious level as only a child could. We were examining his teeth (he was very slow to get any so it's still a bit of a novelty) and we had an all-round hi-5 for his having 10 pearly-whites. Then she started spouting excitedly about what a big boy he was getting, how very grown-up he was, with her eyes ever wider and her voice beautifully dramatic:

"You're nearly as tall as me!" she exclaimed, using her hand to measure a line from the top of his head to just below her chin. "Wow, Brother!" she said, "If I didn't have a head, we'd be the same height!!"

Do-It-Meself

It came to my notice recently what a consistent approach I have to all creative projects - consistently mad, bad and stressful, with incredible highs and lows and a basic fingers-in-my-ears Lalalalala attitude to anyone daft enough to offer guidance along the way.

The thought struck me as I wrestled (almost literally) with a chest of drawers I'd picked up cheap on ebay for the children's bedroom (their clothes having been stored in those enormous blue IKEA bags ever since we emigrated). My intention was to pay next to nothing for them and, somehow - despite a glaring lack of D.I.Y skills - turn them into a work of art. I had a vision: I would transform them into, not just an ordinary chest of drawers, but OUTER SPACE. Outer Space with clothes inside - the picture in my head swayed between foggy and slippery but I believed in it.

As I conveyed my vision to The Australian, the look on his face told me that he was a non-believer and I determined to block him out completely - he just wanted to spoil my fun with his 'you're going to have to strip it first' mentality. As I toiled away in the garden, with the drawers placed on an old sheet, my sleeves rolled up and my energy for the project so high there was a slight buzzing noise in my ears, The Australian observed from behind the safety glass / French windows, screwing up his face as I grappled with spray-paint, mini-rollers and masking tape. I could tell what he was thinking: 'You haven't thought this through'. Lalalalala!

Three weeks later, the damn drawers were still on the damn sheet in the damn garden. Owing to a small oversight - which could also be seen as incredible attention to detail *ahem* - the drawers would no longer slide into the chest and the whole thing had to be re-done. I was horrified. Zapped of all enthusiasm. My vision was slipping away - the joy of chasing it was nearly gone. There was paint everywhere, and did it look like Outer Space? Not even if I squinted.

So I kicked it a bit, swore at it a lot, and decided to leave it there until it magically fixed all its own problems.

A further fortnight later I caved and went to The Australian with despair in my eyes and some sob-story about how I had only wanted to make something nice for the children and how it was so unfair that no one had told me that painting the sides of each drawer (so they'd look nice when you pulled them out...) with three coats was a really, really bad idea. The drawers were now covered in garden debris; I'd used so much paint that my ebay bargain was turning into a costly nightmare. So I finally took my fingers out of my ears and took his advice, mumbling 'yeah yeah, whatever' to his charitable 'well done' when the drawers were finished and carried to the bedroom. 

The scary part of this is that I still don't think I'd do it any other way, even with hindsight. That initial rush, that joy, the chasing of that slippery but irresistible vision, makes up for the wrestling and the hard toil that inevitably follows if you are allergic to planning. Chests of drawers, novels, umm, life in general - I guess I'm a buy-now-pay-later kind of woman.