Things have changed!

Both with this blogger formatty thing, and in life...but where to start?! Maybe if I start with what's stayed the same - * my password! Yey! And the anxiety at trying to remember my password to get in here, and the small joy at getting it first time. Yey. * the mess I live in. Still here, years later. I just read a blog post from 2011, listing things on the floor. If I was to do that now, I could take away all the baby paraphenalia but add colouring pencils, a drawing book, scrap paper spread from one side of the room to the other), a laptop, a pencil case, a tomato sauce bottle, a pair of pyjama pants, a Barbie, a football, my teacher basket (what's that you say?! aaah, I will explain!), 2 bowls (breakfast?), 2 plates (dinner?!) and a pair of running shoes. I can almost see the carpet. My tv is also still dirty, but Sid the Science kid has been pushed aside. These days Adventure Time and Gumball are all the go. * Still married with children, although obviously we have all got older. I'd like to say we have all improved with age, but that would only be 4/6ths true ;) I'm sick of writing already but was inspired by reading old posts so must push on. Things that have changed... * I work! 3 days a week. It all started almost a year ago, when after problems for C2 at school I decided to do a resilience course for children that was available to school teachers. Once I did that, I started getting used to having a life outside of the house and was almost dared to put my name down for casual work. I had to rise to that challenge, and before I knew it I was signed up to start the following week. I barely slept the night before, and the day was the most exhausting day of my life, but before the day was out I was again signed up for the following week, then the week after, then the week after! In Term 4 a 2 day/week job came up so I took that, along with my own class to prepare work for, and by the end of the year I was signed up for 3 days Term 1. Term 2 started, and while my other job had finished with the arrival of a new head teacher, another job popped up with some literacy/numeracy funding. That's where we are now. I love working, I feel like Linda Evangelista (was it?), who wouldn't get out of bed for less than $10 000/day. For the first time in 10 years, I wake up thinking I don't get paid enough to clean up everyone else's shit at home. Obviously this has not gone down too well, because someone has to do the usual jobs and if it's not me, then who? Kids are faster learners than husbands. * Back to C2, I can't believe I have never written about this before, but we have been through some very, very tough times with him over the past few years. He hates school, he has real anxiety about it and it's taken a long, long time for the school to attempt to understand that it is anxiety behind his ... less than desirable school behaviours. Thankfully, and without any clear answers as to why, things have improved HUGELY over the past couple of months. No longer do we cry every morning, do I have to peel him off the car, throw him into his bedroom screaming, am I weighed down with worry during the day whenever my phone rings, do I have to tickle his back and comfort him for hours at bedtime every night (while the other kids did...does anyone know who was looking after them these times?!). We've seen doctors, paediatricians, psychologists (yes, plural to all those) and were given no solutions to his anxiety. At the moment, he is all good but there is always a slight fear we will return to those days. C4 has started to not enjoy being left at preschool as well, which is a bit of a worry! If we had the answer for C2 then we could try that with C4, but we don't know what suddenly helped C2 so we are again flying blind. Boys. I will try and come back soon. Right now I've got a silverside boiling away and a cake in the oven, trying to fool myself that I love these non-working, quiet days at home by being some kind of super housewife. Some days Curtis and I go for walks or go out for lunch, but today is raining and I'm feeling a bit trapped by domesticity.

I'm getting old

I'm nearly 35. I almost nearly just wrote 'I'm nearly 34', which goes to show one sign of my ageing. I forget things. All the time. I wonder how people approached middle age pre-i-phone-note-or-even-Siri-technology, because I have to set reminders for everything. (And just an aside - I was just thinking while typing that how poignant this blog entry will be in 30 years when I really have lost my marbles. Will I even remember writing it, or will I just scoff in a nanna way and tell that young whippersnapper writer that she's got no idea what it's like to keep forgetting things?!). But Siri doesn't help me when I head towards a room in the house to get something, get there, and stare blankly, wondering what I was there for. I think a lot of people have headed to the shop for one thing only to come home with a boot full of groceries sans that one thing, but how many have gone and sat in the car ready to go and thought 'where am I going again?'. Most of the time the memory loss is just an inconvenience, but when it means I forget my favourite show is on tv and go to bed early instead it makes me sad. Because another sign of my ageing is that I CBF with new technology most of the time. We could get a TIVO or HDD recorder thing, and I'd never miss Parenting or Offspring again, but I'm not sure I want to read the instructions to figure out how it all works. Luckily Apple hasn't changed their i-phone too much from when I got my first one when I was a sprightly 32 year old. I found Siri by accident - I knew she was in there, I just CBF reading about how to get her out! Itunes is in the too hard basket. Speaking of music, I have been known to listen to AM when FM is playing current music that makes my ears bleed. I just don't understand Nicki Minaj. LMFAO was funny for the first few times, but don't get me started on Rhianna and the lyrics they allow on the radio - or wireless ;) - these days...or the images on the video clips that aren't appropriate for children...The funny thing is, part of me will always think Olivia Newton-John's Let's Get Physical is about aerobics so I don't know how much the kids are absorbing but it does give me one more thing to old-person whinge about. I wake up cranky. Not surprising really, considering this morning we had 5 people in a Queen sized bed and I spent most of the night removing C3's foot from my bum. Some time in the early hours C4 came in an excitedly announced 'Mum!! My hair has growed!' which was kind of cute but meant I had to squeeze him in somewhere too. I'm frowning right now, it's too bright, C1 playing my iphone is too loud, I need to wash my hair but because my greys don't blend so well in wet hair (and tend to spring up an out) that means I'll have to dry it too, the heater is drying out my eyeballs and I have a pain in my ear. All old people thoughts. Having so many old people cranky thoughts means old people wrinkles. I should have put $50/week away when I was younger to fund the things I do to try and disguise my oldness to the general public. Skin cleansers, moisturisers, hair treatments, colours. What I also should have done was appreciate what I had when I had it! Why do young people dye their hair anyway? They don't realise it's something they'll be committing 4 hours every month to getting their colour seen to once they reach middle age, until they get to old age when it's ok to be grey with a pink or purple rinse. In my long life I've been fat, then thin, then fat too many times to count and metabolism is not on my side anymore. Neither is motivation, which after so many fat to thin transformations has pretty much disappeared. But, here's something else to be all old-person about, now is the time when this poor old body could benefit from carrying 20kg less from my hips/back/cracked heels. So now is the time to go and thermal Olay my face, wash my hair in some expensive hair stuff, dry it, fight thoughts about 'what's the point of doing this? Especially now my hair is nice!' and get on the cross trainer while listening to some of that which the younger generation call music. I'm not going down without a fight.

I don't cook. I don't have any secrets to weight loss. I can't take beautiful photos. I can't draw stick figures in Paint to illustrate a parenting blog. I don't sew and my home style is nothing to write about. My fashion style is limited by budget and location (although I do love me a bit of online shopping). All I have is my kids, and the interesting things they do. Like -

* C3 started school this year. The principal saw me at pick up the other day and told me that at sometime during the day she had stopped my little girl and another little boy in her class, wondering seemingly aimlessly across the school grounds during class time. She went and asked them what they were doing out of class, and they replied that they 'had found a peg and were looking for the clothesline or laundry'.

* C4 thought one of our chickens was thirsty and needed 'water in her mouth' last week. Unfortunately, too much water was put in poor Elyse's mouth. That's ok, we got another one. C1 looked at her (almost identical) bantam and asked 'Do you think she suits the name Professer Elyse?'. Perhaps...now that you mention it, Professor Elyse is the perfect name!

* C2 has settled into year 1 beautifully this year. He has really matured, the biggest sign of this was his 'deal' that he would give up his beloved rainbow blanky for payment. For the first night without blanky, he scored $10, the second $5, third $2, fourth $2 and the final night $1. Loved his entrepreneurial spirit! He was initially going to use that $20 to buy a talking parrot toy from the local tobaccanist - I had previously refused to buy it for him because it is a rude talking parrot that tells people to shut up or whatever, but he figured he would be able to buy it with his own hard earned cash. He didn't end up with the parrot, I can't remember what he got now, but we dodged another bullet there!

Random things right now...

Okay, so I've stuffed up inserting photos. Add that to my list of things that annoy me.



(oops, adding the photo of my happy place kayak may not have worked as I wanted it to)
Things that annoy me
* C3 using her finger to get peanut butter off her sandwich and then slurping it in my ear
* C1,2 and 4 rolling around on the trundle bed in the bedroom. I can hear it rolling along the floorboards, lots of laughter (this should be a good thing??!) but you know the saying, 'it's all fun and games until someone loses and eye'
* Remotes out of reach and I don't want to watch Sea Princesses now that the majority have finished their lunch
* Sticky keys after spilling coffee on my keyboard a month ago
* the weather. C1 asked me this morning, after noticing once again it was raining, and cold 'is it still Spring?'. Well yes, it should be, it only feels mid June.'



* Wet shoes making my feet colder than they need be.
(if anyone related to me says I sound like nan with my whinging, well, you're probably right. Except I'm not threatening law suit on anybody for my whinges! RIP Nan)

Things that make me laugh
* The laughter coming from the bedroom...
* C3 just telling me her 'feet are needling again' lol When we were at Uluru and walking a lot, and she was being carried around on dad's shoulders a lot, she lost feeling in her legs and we explained about pins and needles. She remembers the feeling, but the term is a little muddled. Cute.


(picture of C3 on dad's shoulders at the Devil's Marbles, preserving his precious anonymity)

Things that I'm grateful for
* my kayak. We hung it up in the garage earlier, but I'm sure it will stop raining one day and I'll be able to try it out.
* that I have somebody around that can sort out pulleys and things. Man jobs.
* that I picked up on my brain freeze, where I spelled grateful as greatful *shudder*
* my dog. Love my dog


Things I'm looking forward to
* being bridesmaid at my oldest friend's wedding. She's not old, but we've been together since we were both skinny, then fat, then skinny, then fat etc etc so a long time. Only one month to go.
* consistently warm weather
* getting a new lounge. This one is dog bed. Not fit for human sitting.

Poetry

I was just sitting here trying to find some inspirational quotes for someone, and Peter says 'what are you doing on there?' to which I replied in great length what I was doing, along with a couple of quotes, yada yada. He tuned out, obviously, and when I'd finished he said 'Forget about your poetry and prose, here are my feet, tickle my toes' and shoved his foot in my face. Nice.
As a lot of 17 year olds, I went through a phase of trying to find myself through poetry. This included songs like 'Take another little piece of my heart'- Janis Joplin, 'I got life' - Nina Simone, 'Believe' - Lenny Kravitz, this was the soundtrack of my teenage life (along with burning incense and an embarrassingly angsty diary or 5!) but I was also quite into real adult poetry that I had to go to the library and read through volume after volume of (mostly crap) poetry to find. So, I found W.B. Yeats and I printed on a dot matrix printer and glued it to a picture in a child's storybook I found at the church market

“A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.”

It's been YEARS since I stuck that into a frame and hung it on my cupboard, but I couldn't bring myself to empty the frame when I came across it recently.
Another Yeats,

When You are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars

.

Awww - that one reminds me of one of our wedding songs, and another more relevant quote to life nowadays

They say time takes its toll on a body
Makes a young girls brown hair turn gray
Honey i don't care i ain't in love with your hair
N if it all fell out well i'd love you anyway

That'd be Forever and Ever Amen by Randy Travis.


I also found Desiderata on a bookmark around those teenage years - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderata
(I'm going to figure out how to link that nice and neatly later, you'll just have to google the song lyrics if you want to)
I related that poem to my life at the time so deeply that even today when I read it I think of certain people who were in my life then who were loud/aggressive and thus vexations to my spirit! And who I compared myself to here -

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

oh I just remember the jealousy of others more able, more beautiful, more funny, more skinny, more clever than I in my teenage years just like it was yesterday. I'm much more accepting these days :)

The noise (omg the noise!)

Something people with only one or two children can't begin to understand (much in the way I couldn't understand more than 4 kids, or multiples!) - the constant noise of playing/fighting/talking/crying etc etc Today at the park we had a lovely time with a friend, who has three similarly aged to my own. Out of nowhere, one stood still, hands by side, and squealed. High pitched, lengthy, ear piercing. Child number two joined in, then child number three. It was a practiced harmony, a game that it appeared they'd played once or twice before. My kids thought it was hysterical, and their laughing egged the other family on for rounds 2 and 3. My friend just kept talking to me over the noise, as you do when you want to have a conversation with children around.
Just then, I heard (as I lie in my bubble bath lol)-
C1 - it's your birthday next week!
C2 - yes it's my birthday next week!
C3 - no it's not, mum said it's your birthday today
C2 - oh yes it's my birthday today
C3 - but maybe it's your birthday next week? (to C1)
C1 - no it's definitely C2's birthday next week. It's my birthday today
C3 - nah, it's not
C1 - yes it is. And I'm getting a pony.
C2 - I've already got a pony
C3 - I've got a black pony
C2 - I've got a black pony too. C1 has a white pony
C1 - no I want a black pony too
C3 - ok, let's all have black ponies
There's going to be some posting malfunction here, as I can't edit on my phone the bit I've already typed. But just for a moment imagine there being no C3, and all of the discussion following whatever C3 has said or started being filled with silence! Of course it wouldn't necessarily happen like that, but there's no doubt there is less words spoken by 2 children than 3.

I have 2 in the bath with me now and they haven't stopped talking either. But the noise levels if my life are more than doubled as I hear discussions taking place in the kitchen, and Peter becoming involved as well.

I'm getting out to continue on the bed routine.
Now, just imagine taking C3 out of the equation and

House of sickness

I'm sick. My head is full of snot and my body is aching. I've done nothing but sit on the lounge and do credit card damage for 2 days. Every second step I take I'm knocking into something left where it's dropped on the floor - current inventory 1 pair of New Balance kids' size 13 joggers, 1 size 11 Target pink jogger (ugh I'll have to track down the other one later...), Sylvanian families paraphernalia, a towel that is covering the coke Curtis spilled while pouring the leftovers from fast food Friday/movie night from one cup to another, a small pound puppy, wipes, and a pair of size 14 New Balance joggers that almost perfectly match the child's but yeh, belong to someone who should have put them away instead of leaving them scattered. That's what I can see. Behind me is the craft table, and there's sure to be about 3 days worth of paper cuttings and crap underneath it. To my right, boys, quite handsome little boogers, but attacking each other while yelling fight fight fight.
I think I'm getting better, but I'm not sure I want to! Because getting better means cleaning up, and perhaps even scarier, looking after the sickies that will fall after me. Kimbal is showing signs of a sniffle, and Peter is resting on the lounge nearly asleep at 8.15. Oh no. And it hasn't been that bad doing nothing for 2 days, although you can only refresh facebook so many times and check the chat lists before you think perhaps there is something more productive you should be doing.
One enjoyable thing we did do today was sit and watch the photo dvd's my stepdad made for the kids. The first one was Kimbal's christening DVD, then last year he made one for Olivia's birthday and then Luella got hers made because she was the only one who was aware of the dvd's to wonder why she didn't have one. It was very predicably cute to see them all as little ones again, no feelings of dread, and we all oohed and aaahed and giggled at appropriate places. It's funny how they look so different to when they were babies, but still so much the same. It's also funny seeing the changes I've had over the past 7 years, the self cut ultra short fringe on black over dyed hair probably wasn't my best look.
Righto, I'm off to have a bath before Peter does fall asleep and I get the supervision of the kids by default.