sift the ashes

I had a meeting with a director last week and when he asked how I was, I said; well, you know...these fires, I'm really disturbed by them.  He looked at me strangely and I said, trying to explain, well you know...it's throwing me off kilter, I'm out of whack.

And then he laughed, but kind of to himself. And the thing is, I wasn't making a joke.

The news of those Victorian bushfires has completely whipped my ass. 

Thankfully our tv reception is up the shit so I couldn't watch the news but I sure as hell surfed the net every chance I got. I couldn't read anything except about the fires and God knows I couldn't write, except stuff about the fires or emails to friends who were involved in the fires or emails to other friends about what they thought about the fires.

And every night I would lie in bed thinking about my family and I dying in a burning car or house. 

And then, mid week, a shark attacked a navy diver in Sydney harbour (last shark attack five billion centuries previously or similar) and he lost a hand, and another shark attacked a surfer on BONDI BEACH for fuck's sake, leapt from the water and tried to knock him off his board I heard, whereas everyone knows you're more likely to be knocked over by some dickhead in a hoon car racing up Campbell parade. Bondi is like two beaches around from where C takes Tricky swimming every morning, so now those half sleep burning dreams were alternating with seeing my husband and baby mauled by sharks, and then there was the plane crash in Buffalo killing everyone including the widow of a guy who died in 9/11 and we're back to the burning again.

I don't know what it is, I emailed one friend, but it's really bad. i can't do anything, I can't write anything, I'm incapable of cleaning or doing anything practical and I'm eating heaps and heaps of sugar.

And then she reminded me how after the Bali Bombings I was afraid to drive through the Sydney Harbour Tunnel (not the bridge for some reason, bridge was ok) but I had a tv writing job at the time which meant I had to drive through that damn tunnel twice a day and the stress it caused me...

And also after 9/11, glued to the tv (we had reception at that house), existing in this sort of suspended horror, permanent hand clasped to face, but even beyond that natural and widespread reaction there was the same post trauma-from-afar paralysis, the same but what is the point in doing anything?

Another writer friend, embroiled in Producer Shit, has friends in Victoria who were among the lucky -  who felt the wind change and saw the fire front, their certain death, turn away from their house. My friend shrugged when I asked How The Writing's Going, meaning How's The Shit Fight Going and simply said: It makes all that seem fairly meaningless.

It's the random violence I tried to work it out with my friend who reminded me of the Bali Bombing reaction, I think I'm freaked by how Bad Shit Happens and there's nothing you can do to stop it happening to you.

There's no real ending to this because the way I respond to what happens around me is part of who I am. I remember kids (boys, two) in my English class used to tease me about the overly emotional in my Creative Writing assignments, quoting back to me innumerable ghastly sentences that i had written, inevitably involving a tear making its way down some child's grimy face. Maybe even then the Empathy Glands were secreting overtime.  I dunno, thinking back, it didn't seem such a fearful time but I guess I was only about 14 and my mother was still alive.

Is it realising how much you have to lose? Life? Those you love most? 

With Tricky, having wanted and wished and hungered for a baby so long, is it fear that he could be taken, as randomly or as seemingly capriciously as he (and any other potential sibling) was withheld?

Is it knowing grief; deep scarring, heart breaking, gut wrenching, for one person and then imagining that multiplied again and again and again, hearing not just the cries of the dying but those of the people they leave behind?

And is it all that, and the fact that last week and then again this morning  I had the first of the pre IVF screenings, my forty first birthday on the horizon, my clock ticking again but my mind not made up properly, not sure that this truly is what I want..to be trying again, am i only doing this because i feel time running away from me, and i don't want to be left without a choice?

and am i not properly appreciating what i actually do have? 

when so many others have nothing?

when all that Random Violence roams the universe?

me, rubbed raw, stilled by other people's pain

and

still

eating way too much sugar.

and then there's this

Alongside the terrible loss of human life has been the devastating effects on the animals - livestock and especially native animals like the slow moving koala. Friends have forwarded on emails describing the harrowing sight of koalas falling from the trees, as they drove through the fires.

This photograph, of the firefighter and the koala, was sent to me today.

Click here for the clip.

burning and drowning

We went to Newcastle on the weekend to escape the heat. 

Just writing that makes me feel sick. 

The death toll for the fires in Victoria has passed 170, they're expecting it to top 200. 

I can't stop thinking about it, people dying in cars trying to get away, people dying in their houses trying to shelter from the flames, people dying with hoses in their hand trying to fight the fires. 

What happened to the preparations? 

How could so many people get it wrong? 

What about building bunkers or cellars to shelter in? 

We talk about it, shocked, unable to comprehend. 

There are always bushfires, everyone knows that, everyone knows...so how could this happen?

And then we hear 

about the ferocity of the flames, the speed, some people had ninety seconds warning, the black smoke that engulfed the roads everything went pitchblack, you couldn't see and people were panicking, the car crashes and the ember attacks -  showers of sparks and embers blowing against the house and windows, blown into every crack and crevice and then the windows exploded and the dying pets the children listening to their cats dying and the family who were well prepared who did everything right and built a cellar and everything 

and the fire came right over the top

and the neighbour watched as the house exploded

and we found them all dead in the cellar

and the couple who took their kids to the grandparents place and went back to their house to try and save it - and were killed, and the man who took his kids to their grandparents and lost them all...

we learn of escapes, the brother who went on his tractor to get his sister and seven kids and how it took two trips to race them back to safety, a family who sheltered in a wombat hole, a mother and her kids who stayed until the house was on fire then ran through the flames wrapped in wet towels and jumped into their dam, the people who ran from house to hose as one after another caught fire, a man and a woman losing everything and everything around them but their two children and they hold each other and stroke each other and smile

and we hold onto these stories, we cling to them, these bright spots of hope, these lucky escapes, because the dreadful finality of the other is incomprehensible

and one state above, the floodwaters are starting to recede and people there are saying but we're lucky because we're not in Victoria, we're lucky

we're lucky

Mummy Is A Work In Progress

Yeah, so apparantly something else I need to add to the list of Things I Shouldn't Say To My Child is:

Everytime you run away from me like that another fairy falls down dead.

Letter to a 30 Month Old Yes You Can Man

My darling Tricky

 This month you have managed to get quite an impressive handle on politely passive negatives (inherited from your mother I would guess)…

I don’t pink so…instead of: No. 

Let’s see how we go…instead of: Not Now

Mine don’t need it…instead of: actually I don’t want to do it at all, not one bit.

 Rather more worrying is another phrase you picked up this month, much worse than Daddy Is A Plonker and far less amusing. I don’t know where you first learned I can’t but it’s appearing quite frequently, delivered in a sort of frustrated whine, es

pecially when attempting to do something vaguely challenging like threading buttons or pushing playdough through the noodle extruder.  Yes you can, I chant back like some deranged Bob the Builder worshipper, and I help your little fingers to thread the button or extrude the noodles. I try to respond quickly to this because your next action is usually to fling to the floor whatever it is you can’t do. Yet another genetic trait inherited from your father along with hobbit feet and cheeky grins.

Most of all, we hear it in the bathroom because January has not only been the month of Ridiculous Heat it has also been the month of Big Boy Underpants.

Yes, for the record, toilet training has properly begun, with lots of urgent calls of  Mumma Wee Wee! interrupting  a game of trains or cars and ending, mostly, quite happily. The potty has been reinstated as an alternative to the toilet, the garden and the shower (when in tearing hurry). You are the king of Number Ones but so far Number Twos have whipped your butt so to speak, hence your polite refusals to perform on the toilet I can’t, no, no pank you, mine don’t need to do poos…

How it makes me chuckle to think back to a conversation I had last year with another mother of a toddler, where I told her I thought we would “get the toilet training done in the week before Christmas.” Haw Haw. Your mother is a prat.

This morning you started daycare again after several weeks of being with either Mummy or Daddy or some other close family member like Aphwa or Aunty N. And so perhaps it should not have come as such a surprise when, after dawdling over your Weet-bix, you said rather nonchalantly: Mine don’t need to go to daycare today.

Yes, we said, smiling at each other, but we need you to go.

Mine don’t need to go to daycare, you said again, a little louder this time in case we’d failed to understand and then in a cheerful tone: where we go today Mumma? Mooseum?

We go to daycare today, I told you but there were no mor

e smiles. We buckled on your new sandals, we packed a spare pair of big boy undies and we bundled you and the two youngest Naughty Nephews into the car.

Off we go, we chirped in that maddening We Grown Ups Always Know Best tone as you frowned and tugged at your hair and refused to sing the National Anthem with me. (Have discovered it to be excellent lullaby and quite successful in sending you off to sleepy bobos.) And then, once at daycare, the waterworks began in earnest, the pouting lips and the angry screwed up eyes and buckets of tears cascading down from your cheeks and onto mine.  Your carer very sensibly took you by the hand and sent us packing, although I do admit to hovering outside the gate and peering through the slats of the fence to make sure you were ok. The tears had gone before we managed to close the gate but to be fair that gate has a very fiddly latching mechanism that takes all of …oh…ten seconds to complete.

January has seen you swimming at the beach with your Dadda, often beyond the waves much to your mother’s discomfort, suspended on your Noodle (not the play dough variety.) You kickaboo your legs and do your paddle hands and push the water away and you could do that all day, so much do you love the water and your dada and the sensation of floating self propulsion. You never say I can’t in the water. Although you do protest It’s Cold at times.

 You say: lie on my tummy Mumma and you giggle to yourself as I nod and yawn and say: ooh I’m so tired, is there a nice soft pillow somewhere? I position myself on your tummy and start to snore very loudly but before I can do the raspberry exhalation you laugh and squirm and bat at my head and then we laugh together for a while until I slyly manage to sneak the raspberry onto a bare patch of soft brown skin.

We go to the supermarket and you sit in the trolley with sultana bribes and help lob potatoes and miniature tins of baked beans over your shoulder. Once, you promised you would just walk…and instead you bolted from one aisle to the next with me in hot, embarrassed pursuit. And another time, carrying you against my chest, you wrapped your arms about my neck and held your cheek to my mouth and I whispered in your ear. And no actual shopping was done that day but the kisses were nourishing.

He’s still a baby, one of my friends gently noted the other day and I opened my mouth to protest, oh no he’s a big boy , to say how much you’ve grown and changed over the past months, but instead, seeing at your soft round cheeks and your wispy curling hair, I just nodded and smiled.

This afternoon, after daycare, all smiles again, we went to the beach and I looked with a sort of wonder at your footprints in the sand as you shrieked and ran to and fro from the waves.

Mine can run Mummy, round and round, mine can run!

And I thought yes you can, my big boy baby, running round and round, yes you can.

 

Love love love to infinity 

Your very own

OvaGirl

Cool Change

Sometimes, being a writer is the coolest job in the world but lots of times it's just hard slog. Writing under commission is one thing but writing on spec, just to have something on paper, to practise your craft, to tell a story that needs to be told, is challenging. I'm trying to write a new play, I'm trying to keep a journal, I'm trying to blog and I'm trying to write a new tv show and I'm not doing any of it very well just now.

Particularly this month, with Tricky not back at daycare and C face to the grindstone on reports and presentations. I am scratching for time. Everyday is another outing, another trip to the park or museum. These outings must be finely calibrated to ensure that an afternoon nap is also to be had, thus ensuring the chance of two hours of work.

But this must also be juggled with the heat. And in the loft apartment of The Big House the heat has been aggressively anti-inspiration. Temperatures have been soaring, along with tempers. If i don't write, I don't feel like a writer. Instead I feel like a bit of a failure.

Last week boasted weather so hot and stinky even the beach was rancid. 

We have had horrendous nights of unbeatable heat, nights where the air never becomes cool, the much anticipated sea breeze never eventuates and I have to get up in the middle of the night to have a cold shower.

On one delightful day we decided to overcome the heat by picnicking with friends and accompanying toddler in a park overlooking a beach. To reach said beach/park combo we thought it would be a marvelous idea to drive miles through traffic, crawl slowly the last mile or so, cruising for a car space, and then park the car several suburbs away because every man and his dog had come up with the same idea. 

As soon as we got out of the car Tricky started to whine. He did not want to swim, no, what made us think that was a good idea? No he did not want to put on his swimmers 'just in case'. He did not want to see his little friend swimming, no, yet another stupid parents' idea. He did not want a sandwich, or a drink, he did not want to sit quietly with Mumma under a tree, AND HE CERTAINLY DID NOT WANT TO LOWER HIS VOICE. 

In the end, and in the classic tradition of We Are The Parents And Hence You Will Love This, C and I struggled to peel his clothing from his screaming, writhing little body and slide on his swimmers (Too hot! Too tight!) and then wrestle him three metres down to the water (NOOOOOOO!) where....miracle....he was instantly transformed into Perfect Baby, all smiles and giggles and kickaboo feet.

Greatly refreshed we all stepped forth from the ocean and within ten steps were overheating again. It was now the turn of the four adults to start bickering and whining. 

We have to go, we wailed to ourselves. 

This is horrible. It's too hot! 

This was a stupid idea! There's too many people. There's not enough space for our towels. We'll get dirt in our chicken.

We glared, we spat, we mumbled and Sighed Heavily. It was H's idea to come to the beach but it was my idea to move the towels into this loathsome site. I had thought it better situated to catch a cool breeze. This was proved to be faulty reasoning. There was no cool breeze, only baking hot wafts of other cranky parents' B.O.

C had left the stroller at the previous less-loathsome site because the hot wind had made him shitty, and blind apparently, and he had to stomp back to retrieve it. B had chosen the first site, on the far side of the beach, out of boring predictable habit, which had started the whole chain of item movement and exacerbated stress levels. 

And another thing, how dare you call me a martyr? 

Why did you only tell me those pants made me look fat after I'd been wearing them for a week? 

When are you going to stop biting your nails? 

Recriminations flew.

What saved our marriages was the enormous old fashioned shower blocks, set back from the beach; heritage listed pavilions, cool and sheltered from the gritty dry wind that was biting at our bodies and faces. If we could have picnicked right there on the tiles under a shower head, we would have. Instead we decamped to the grass on the opposite side.

There under a fig tree we could at least pretend to be cool, we were walking on grass instead of boiling dirt and sand. We could be adults again, and speak cordially to each other and the children could frolic in the nicky noo-nah. How I wished we could frolic in the nicky noo-nah too but frankly it wasn't really the suburb for those sort of hijinks.

It got hotter and hotter. H started hallucinating about us all pitching in and getting a suite at the Sheridan. Room service, she moaned. And cable tv. And...air conditioning. There would be room for all of us... it's a good idea isn't it? Isn't it? 

Once we had managed to slap down her hysteria we drove to the shopping centre, still in our swimmers and beach wraps, where, in the air con, the toddlers fell asleep in their strollers. 

And now we will go to Borders, announced H. And the kids will sleep and we will read books and have coffees if we want and it will be cool.

She was right. 

For the first time ever, I actually managed to see the top floor of Borders. Usually Tricky is with us when we duck in to buy a card or a birthday present, and he ensures that there is no extraneous browsing. 

Now, with him gently snoring in his stroller, there was browsing akimbo. There was skimming of magazines, there was perusal of pages. 

C selected a photography book and H collected a small pile of chick-lit and sat down in the comfy chair beside her equally zonked out toddler with an audible sigh. Her husband was running riot in the History section.  We smiled gently at each other, waved, nodded our approval at each other's reading material.

The drop in temperature was restoring our humanity.

Next picnic, H muttered, is either the library or the freezer section of Coles.

As I rounded one of the aisles, I had a quick peek and caught sight of...my book, Legs Up & Laughing. It was sitting up properly, amongst all the other books. I hadn't checked a bookshop in months and was scared that maybe all copies had disappeared and gone to the Bookclub In The Sky.

But there it was in Borders. 

And as I picked it up and ran my hand over the cover I realised it was not just the heat that had been bothering me. 

And sometimes, you can write something, on spec, because you have a story that has to be told. And it is hard, and it is a leap of faith, and it is scary but it can be done. And it's worth the juggle and the struggle and the heat...

Because one day it could be sitting on someone's shelf.

And that was very, very cool.

Scraps

In the interests of mentally stimulated toddlers and sane mothers, OperaSingingMummy and I take our kids to the museum.

Here we can ooh and ahhh and marvel at the trains and cars - and that's just on the walk from the parking station, we're not even in the building yet.

Obviously if i am taking my toddler on a four hour outing i must pack as if I am a normal person spending a weekend in the wilderness.

Into the faithful Kapoochi bag go the nappies and wipes and hand sanitizer (in case, i don't know, there is a display of cholera at the museum and Tricky tries to stick a petri dish in his mouth) and hat with strings and two kinds of sunscreen because I have forgotten there's already one in there. I will also have to throw in a variety of toys (why? We're going to the frigging museum you idiot, the place is full of toys) and a drink bottle and then several little plastic boxes that contain his sandwiches, two baby cheeses, two boxes of sultanas, two pieces of fruit etc etc.

Obviously I must take two of every conceivable treat just in case the other toddler wants one too. This is a strict rule of joint outings with other toddlers. There are also extra trousers, shirt and jacket just in case he a) falls into the bubbler and b)there is a sudden cold snap (true, we're in the middle of a near heat wave BUT YOU NEVER KNOW.)

OperaSinging Mummy packs in a similar manner and thus, laden with snacks and spare clothes, we lumber about the museum with our tiny, tyrannical offspring baying at our heels. Obviously ten minutes after arrival we must break for snacks ( two boxes of sultanas, two lollipops, two cookies) before spending another twenty minutes riding up and down in the glass lifts and waving to the people on each floor.

When proper lunch time occurs we make our way to the lounge area and in a piece of excellent timing, manage to snaffle a set of comfy chairs. We gratefully collapse as the children sit down to their three course sandwiches/fruit/more cookies lunch which is when we realise that neither OperaSinging Mummy nor I have actually prepared lunch for ourselves.

We could go outside and buy a sandwich, OperaSinging Mummy muses but I say no because it will take us a week to pack everyone up again and it's really hot outside and we shall have to fight the midgets to make them keep their hats on. And i'm tiiiiiiired.

So we slump in our seats and eye off Tricky and Sebastian's lunchboxes until finally they are done with gnawing out the soft centres of their cream cheese sandwiches and we are thrown a few crusts.

Crusts, i say to OperaSinging Mummy. Look at how low we have fallen. We are having crusts for lunch.

Yes, she says. And the great tragedy is...I had crusts for breakfast too.

Summer Pudding The Second

In Newcastle I catch up with Blob of the Summer Pudding.

Although now living on the opposite side of the country in Perth, he, his partner and their smiling baby with the (oddly enough) pudding bowl haircut, are spending the uni holidays on the east coast. We exchange post New Year greetings and I hold up my forearm and show him the brown peeling patch where I scalded myself with the Exploding Coffee Plunger on New Year's day.

Blob instantly counters with his third degree burn scar, also on the forearm, a small neat scar exactly the shape and thickness of the grill bar at the top of his oven. The flesh was perfectly cooked, he tells me. It even smelled good.

He goes on to applaud my meagre summer pudding efforts but hastens to amend my mental recipe.

After poaching the fruit you dip the spongy biscuits into the juice, he tells me. And that makes it easier to fit in the bowl. How did you make the dry biscuits fit together?

I tell him that I laboured for many moments, trimming them neatly into shape. This makes him chortle.

I ask him to clarify his stance on the sugar syrup. Could it really be a whole cup of sugar to a cup of water?

Blob waves his hand airily at me. His scar flashes in the air.
It could and it is.

We are staying at my parents’ new house. It is smart and modern. It reflects their changing lifestyle, as older people who are looking to their twilight years and so forth and so on.

This means they have basically moved from a sleepy university suburb to the one where the prostitutes and bikies live. Here, they are closer to the beach, they can walk to their favourite café, and they know where to get their amphetamines. They have a white tile floor downstairs and a shiny red glass splashback in kitchen. In their tiny back yard they have eschewed lawn for paved courtyard and a spa - or at least the hole which will accomodate a spa.

Also, they have a kickarse big fence so they can hang out their washing in the nicky noo-nah.
It is quite jolly and feels very cool and modern and all my friends whish they had one the same. The upstairs bit has a little sewing room and computer room but also two whopping big bedrooms for guests, and a lounge area too so that if we all have an argument we can separate and cool off, or alternatively one group of people can have scintillating conversation downstairs and other group can loll upstairs and eat chocolates and play Wii sport.

In Newcastle, I also catch up with grumpy granddad.

After leaving the main hospital he spent a couple of weeks just before Christmas in a sort of hospital holding pattern. He was transferred to a hospital out in the sticks; along with various other old, disabled and chronically ill people who have to hang around and wait until someone dies so that they can get their room. We were warned that he could be transferred around the region, from ward to ward until a room in the aged care facility he had requested (ie. paid for) became available. He was lucky. The Someone died fairly swiftly. This room is just across the car park from where Grandis was living before his leg was amputated.

At Christmas the family gather in his new room with gifts and babies and photos. We perch on chairs and on his bed and loiter about in doorways. We nibble on platters of dried fruit and cheese and nuts brought from home and my stepmum gives Grandis a container of diabetic friendly fruit cake.

Grandis accepts his gifts and hugs and kisses graciously. He has a chair to sit in but it is huge, an enormous high armchair on wheels, too heavy and bulky for him to push himself around. It is as if he is riding on a cargo ship.

How are you finding it? We ask him, hoping it’s all fabulous.
He nods, ok ok. BUT THEY DON’T KNOW ABOUT THE GLOVE OF WATER.

Story of glove and errant testicles has to be explained to newly visiting relatives and also stepsister’s brand new boyfriend who refuses to be alarmed at the image.

THE NURSES HERE ARE VERY RELUCTANT, Grandis concludes.

I pour Grandis a whiskey in his plastic sippy mug. My sister T and I give him our matching presents. We both bought books for him, bought them together, both squabbling in the bookshop over the best looking crime/spy thriller in the largest possible print.

My younger sister Nurse K, ever practical, gives him what he really wants; a large bottle of whiskey. This we tuck away in a drawer. When Grandis lived across the carpark, he was allowed to have his night time cup of whiskey, they overlooked it as long as he didn’t burst out of his room trouserless and singing I Did It My Way. But here, where the patients are wheeled around a massive plasma screen to watch Mary Poppins of an afternoon, we realise we are not entirely sure of the new rules.

And indeed, the next time I visit, his fruitcake has been thrown out and his whiskey confiscated.

My stepmother is greatly annoyed. That fruitcake was for diabetics! Grandis shrugs a little. I suspect the fruitcake is secondary to the loss of his whiskey. Not all of it, he hastens to tell me. The other bottle is in his wardrobe. The problem is, he can’t get out of bed on his own. My stepmother has Words with the management. Confiscate! Can they really just take away his food and alcohol like that?

Management is slightly contrite about the fruitcake but can only allow the whiskey if the doctor agrees. They will hold the bottle and return it when doctor gives the ok.

This time when C and Tricky and I visit, I bring along a bottle of medically approved whiskey which my dad has given to me. There is a little sticker on the side, stamped and dated.

Except, it’s actually rum which was another of his Christmas presents, the original bottle of whiskey having been emptied. Grandis has requested this decanting just in case he is only allowed to drink whiskey. Such is the life of the rebel Aged care patient.

When I show him the dodgy bottle he nods his head slightly and slides his eyes from side to side in case anyone is watching. There are twenty people around us in chairs and wheelchairs. They are all, to a man, either asleep or glued to the screen watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang…

THINGS ARE OK, Grandis tells me as we watch Tricky wind his way through the room, gazing from one crumpled old face to another. One or two gaze back, soft smiles, sad eyes.

Grandis has ordered some custom made shirts that are easier to slide over his head, and they come in a range of colours. He has ordered “pillar box red, royal blue, bottle green, and a champagne or beige colour”. It makes him cheerful, buying clothes. The lady who makes them comes in nearly every day.

Oh, does she work here?
HER MUM'S IN THE DEMENTIA WARD.

He tells me that the problem “down below”, the one that needed the glove of water to begin with isn’t getting better. And it seems to have fascinated the nurses.
THE OTHER DAY I HAD FIVE OF THEM DOWN THERE, ALL HAVING A LOOK, he booms.
I glance around but frankly nothing can distract these people from Truly Scrumptious.
I SAID TO THEM: IF WE GET ANY MORE COMING I’LL BE CHARGING ADMISSION.
I snort at this but Grandis shakes his head in sorrow.
WENT RIGHT OVER THEIR HEADS. NO ONE SAID A WORD.


I realize he misses the main hospital. Even though he lost his leg and almost died there he had an appreciative audience.

You’d have got a laugh at the ‘John, I say sympathetically.

When we leave I ask Tricky to say goodbye. Grandis is high up in his chair and unable to lean himself forward very far. I hold Tricky up and he obligingly makes himself as stiff as a board so that he can reach him. Grandis says: KISS GOODBYE? and Tricky turns his face a little so that his cheek is suddenly mashed against Grandis’s mouth.

Back at my parents place I make Summer Pudding the 2nd. With Blob’s words ringing in my ears, I soak my spongy fingers in the juice. Having learned from my last attempt I have found the bowl and appropriate squashing plate well ahead of time. With my sister K jiggling Baby L in her arms I swiftly assemble the pudding. We discuss perhaps using such things as chocolate custard. K says she dreams about making deserts with sponges and chocolate custard – the kind you buy from a supermarket.

Yum yum I say. Supermarket chocolate custard.

K suddenly beams at this. Her husband says it sounds horrible and won’t let her make it.
I secretly agree with him but I am trying to be supportive here – I remember what it was like having a 10 week baby, so if she thinks supermarket chocolate custard works, I'm with you sweetie.

Several hours later, SP2 plops easily from the basin. Like some swollen internal organ. Something vulnerable about it.

It sits, gleaming darkly under the kitchen lights. The berries I suppose. Not an attractive colour but it might be the reflection from the red splashback.

I cut quickly.

...two dawns later...

7.15 the next morning, 7.45 today.

Em's right, it's a combination of the lower temperature and the white noise. Bedtime is later generally because it's holidays here but even with a late bedtime Tricky was still waking at 5.30 to 6 every morning.

Tomorrow we're going to visit Poppy and Aphwa again, for a few days, and we'll see if I can keep the system going.

He still wakes in the middle of the night at times. It's like sleep talking or to be more accurate - sleep screaming.

The other night I woke with a start when he yelled at the top of his voice: CUDDLE ME!

Still half asleep myself, I sprang out of bed and leapt to his side. I knelt down on the floor, leaned over and put my arms about him, gently whispering shhh shhh...

He did not shhhh.

Instead he shrieked into my ear: TOO MANY HANDS!

New dawn breaking...?

We are on the brink of an outstanding scientific breakthrough.

For the last two mornings, that's 2, count 'em, one for each weary parent, Tricky has slept in until 8.00am. The first morning i woke like a good little Pavlov's dog at 6.30am and wondered why everything was so quiet. On the second morning I slept till 7.30 and still managed to leap up, make the tea, eat my cereal, check the emails and make the bed before Tricky had even stirred.

It could be...I don't know, the sleep-in fairy, but I think more likely it's the portable fan we've had whirring away in our bedroom for the last two stinking hot nights.

Tonight the temperature's dropped but the fan's going on regardless...

Cooking With OvaGirl

And so the lazy days of summer continue. Here we are, home again, in the Big House. It was with heavy hearts we bid farewell to my dad and stepmum in Newcastle after a wonderful 12 days and 11 nights at their new house.

12 days of lounging about, eating chocolate, visiting friends and inadvertently boiling ourselves over the coffee plunger. 12 days of babysitting - not continuously mind - we're not complete sponges, it's just that we know how much Tricky adores his grandparents, and they him.

From the moment he woke at 6 am it was their names on his lips (more so Aphwa than Poppy it has to be admitted) and many times during the night it was their names he shrieked as he thrashed and rolled about on his mattress by our bed.

They didn't need us to tell them of his great, megavolume love - in this new house their bedroom is situated almost directly underneath.

As we kissed them goodbye on the street outside their house my stepmother hugged me and insisted loudly that Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without family and also that it was a wonderful thing to have family as the first guests in the new house. My father also hugged me and told us to mind how we go on the freeway that led us home.

Because I knew how much PLEASURE it would give them, I made a Summer Pudding on our final evening. And since readers have asked, this is how i did it, as recalled from that rather hazy New Year's Eve where I bullied Blob(pudding maker) into explaining the recipe.

Obviously there are no measurements or actual amounts called for, you just sort of make it up as you go.

BLOB'S SUMMER PUDDING

Ingredients:

Italian Sponge Finger Biscuits.

They have got a name, it's pretty common but buggered if I can recall just at this moment. They come in small packs and large packs. I used a large one for 8 adults and had a few broken bits left over. Some use "stale white bread" instead of spongy fingers and I cannot think of anything more disgusting.

Berries.

A pack of frozen mixed berries was my choice but i think in Blob's Boxing Day Picnic extravaganza he used real ie. unfrozen ones. He's such a showoff.

A Sugar Syrup.

I vaguely recall Blob saying half sugar, half water. Well how does that help anyone I ask you? I put a mug of water in a saucepan to boil and added nearly a mug of sugar and hoped for the best.

Cream

Whipped to billy-o

Method.

Get puddingy shaped bowl and pretending the Spongy Fingers are a curious 3D jigsaw, lay them in and around the bowl.

Trim where necessary and eat some of the trimmed bits before you click that you can use them to wedge into gaps. I actually dipped the first few biscuits in orange juice so that they were a bit soft so that I could make them fit together perfectly. This was a bit unnecessary frankly, it was an instinct born of panic, and it meant that the very top of my pudding was an unsightly orange colour. This step will take longer than you think it will.

Add your berries to your boiling sugar water.

Move around berries indolently with spoon, make pouty lips face and feel vaguely Nigella-like. Turn off heat immediately. Berries are officially poached. At this point you may feel moved to add splash of appropriate alcohol. I felt thusly moved but then realised that Tricky may get to eat some so instead I poured it into a glass and drank it.

Pour berries into charmingly arranged spongy finger pudding bowl.

Add last lot of Spongy Fingers to make lid.

Hunt up heavy plate to weigh pudding down.

Hint: do this first, otherwise you will be running round like blue arsed fly calling out "ooh ah! Is there a plate that fits this bowl?" Also you will find yourself using plate after plate and flattish bowl after flattish bowl, trying them on the pudding for size (it has to fit inside the bowl) and leaving a great trail of washing up in your wake since the pudding will leave a small smear of berry juice on each attempt. You will also, at one point, desperately reach for the dog's dish and try to fit that into place only to find once again that it is that bit too big. Half an hour later your father will work himself up to Full Mutter as he searches in vain for the missing dog's dish. God knows where you have put it.

Put weights on top of heavy plate and place in fridge...

Cans work well for this. Try and make the weight even else you might skew the pudding and gobs of berry juice may come streaming out the side and drip over your dad's bottles of wine and the rest of the holiday drinkies that are stacked beneath. This will take some time to wipe off. And because you move the cans to redistribute the weight, the same thing will happen on the opposite side. More muttering and some heavy sighs, but no harsh words because this is the holidays afterall and also you and your toddler are leaving the following morning.

...for quite a while.

My pudding was refrigerated for nearly 4 hours and I think this would be the minimum time to ensure good berry saturation. Overnight would be better.

Serve with whipped cream.

Turn out onto plate. Get brother in law to whip cream because frankly by then you are knackered and just want to enjoy effect. Make husband serve up pudding and cream and also lead hearty chorus of approval.

The Way To Pleasure

The New Year has started very promisingly indeed. 

A major achievement was the survival of all the toddlers who celebrated New Year at the lake house. We knew this because written in large letters on a piece of paper attached to the fridge were the words THE WAY TO ENJOY YOUR NEW YEAR'S EVE IS TO WATCH YOUR CHILDREN. 

I asked my friend whose family owned the lake house, if her mother had written this message specially for us, a group of 40 to 50 year old professionals, and she nodded.

Despite the close proximity of house to water, despite the sheer drop from lake edge down to actual water, no child was lost, although some parents did lose years off their life as they caught a glimpse of a wandering midget, choked on their champagne and swiftly ran to tackle the little darling  who was meandering towards the concrete edge. 

As the children fell asleep or were sedated or restrained as appropriate, we adults gathered around the table and remarked on the beauty of the lake and the serenity of the sunset and the brilliance of the assembled company. We ate extremely nice things culminating in a Summer Pudding, and ended just before midnight with the drawing of a 'destiny card' for the new year, which would perhaps give us a focus and direction as we considered what was to come. 

C selected DETAILS which made him frown as it reminded him that we need to do our tax almost immediately. I drew PLEASURE which made me very pleased indeed and reminded me that I still have Lucy's voucher for a pedicure and massage waiting for me. 

I decided to increase my capacity for PLEASURE by forcing the friend who had made the Summer Pudding tell me the recipe, exactly. 

He had made the same pudding a few days earlier for our traditional Boxing Day picnic. At the time of eating he had briefly left the picnic rug to attend to his toddler's needs. Someone, I'm not pointing fingers here, had said "Let's eat the Summer Pudding." Someone Else made the first incision and, adding freshly whipped cream to their bowl, tasted the pudding and gave their response which was favourable. 

What followed, on that hot Boxing Day afternoon, was a frenzy of Summer Pudding gorging that could only be compared to a scene from Lord Of The Flies. The pudding maker returned soon after and feasted on the few scraps remaining. For days after I had been dwelling on that pudding. Even on New Year's Eve, in the car on the way to the Lake I had talked to C about the pudding, remarking yet again, on the frightening mob mentality that had overtaken seemingly civilised people. Some cream, some berries, a little sugar syrup and those chunky Italian sponge finger biscuits, that's all it took. Maybe some sherry.

"There's no way, he'll make that pudding again for us," I gloomily muttered to C as we parked under the trees by the house. "We just don't deserve it."

So imagine my delight, when dessert time had come and out rolled the familiar rounded pile of purple soaked sponge with accompanying basin of cream.  

"Tell me how you do it", I slurred at the pudding maker. "Just tell me, and don't leave anything out." He did so, quite jovially, and then again, a little less so when i told him I didn't hear the first time because I was guzzling my champagne. And then I loudly told it back to him just to make sure I had it right.  

The next morning, bleary eyed and desperate for caffeine, I decided to extend the PLEASURE by making everyone coffee. As I leaned hard on the coffee plunger I thought a little ruefully of all the chocolate and alcohol and fat filled products I have consumed this festive season. And how much I enjoyed them. 

There is a fine line between PLEASURE and PAIN as I discovered when boiling coffee suddenly exploded out of the pot burning my left wrist, my right underarm and various spots on my torso. 

I decided bugger the coffee, what I actually wanted was a cold shower and some ice.

Some may see this as an ominous start to the year but I prefer to think of it as a 'wake up call' or perhaps even an encouragement to take up my idle notion of giving up coffee and alcohol. Also it reminded me that cold showers are refreshing and invigorating, and that coffee plungers should not be pushed dow hard when there is resistance.

However, I have made one definite resolution, apart from that one of destroying all coffee plungers in the known world. 

I have decided that THE WAY TO ENJOY 2009 IS TO MAKE THIS THE YEAR OF THE SUMMER PUDDING.  

Even in Winter.

Letter To A 29 Month Old Barista

My darling Tricky

 

As I type this you are struggling with your father who is trying in vain to give you dinner.

You are kicking him and shouting NO I WANT STORY! There is something very poetic in this scene, something about art before bread or somesuch and being your mother and a feckless artiste herself I, of course, understand your passion, but also it's a wee tad annoying because we are actually at a friend's house on Lake Macquarie for NYE and all the other kids are eating outside and I'm trying to blog my last post for the year, as well as your monthly newsletter which is a trillion days late.

It's bad enough that I've abandoned our friends for the computer without having you loudly drawing attention to the fact. And frankly, i thought you loved tortelini (I know the tomatoes are a stretch), or at least you did at lunch.

Also Mummy's a bit pissed, can you tell? Nothing serious, two glasses of champagne, that's all. Since having you I've become the proverbial two pot screamer and whether that's due to the sleep deprivation or some hormonal biz I couldn't tell you. Also my feet are bigger. How wierd is that?

As are your feet. And your legs. And your lovely mop of curly hair. You seem so tall when you stand beside me, at hip level, with your arm wrapped around my thigh. When we arrived at the house today you stood like that for a long time, even though you know all the kids here and all the adults, coyly gazing at the floor. It's such a far cry from your loud shouting, specific demands, intricate songs and secret language raves. Like your mother you take a while to warm up.

For posterity I shall record your latest song which i'm pretty sure is completely made up and not a bastardisation of some daycare melody:

Oinka boinka oinka boinka

da da da

Hairy Scary Hairy Scary

da da da

What does it mean? No idea, but the other day I casually started singing Oinka Boinka and the grin on your face was fabulous. It was like you'd cracked a joke a while ago and I'd brought it up again and then we sort of sang it together, chuckling. My how we laughed and I'm hoping that it's a clean joke and not for instance a reference to that day you got into the shower with me and loudly pointed out my missing appendage.

You adore trains and the whole ritual of boomgates and cars stopping and the ding ding ding. When we go out to coffee in the mornings you ask if we can go to the 'train cafe', a groovy little place in the carpark of Hamilton railway station. We sit so we can see the track and the boomgates and as soon as we see the red lights flash Some Convenient Adult must whisk you up and rush you out to stand on the bridge. It's a complete bugger and hell on the thighs as we run up the steps with you in our arms and thank god the coffee is good.

This Christmas was lovely lovely lovely and yet there was a lot that could have gone wrong wrong wrong, your grandparents having moved into their new place and nearly killing themselves in the process. Your favourite present, hands down, was the wooden garage your Uncle P gave you. His dad gave it to him when he was a little tacker and he still had it some 20 or so years later. He found it shoved in the back of the cupboard of his old bedroom during the move and decided to repaint it for you. Your Aunty R and Aunty T gave you cars to match and the result was nothing short of sublime. You moved cars and drove cars and fixed cars and had tiny wee roadrage episodes. 

It was all very typical boy stuff which is fair enough. You played and played and then... you got out your pink teaset and utilising a firetruck with extendable ladder as a moveable boomgate you suddenly were running your own 'train cafe'. 

This morning you gave me a cup of coffee which you 'spilled' and 'wiped up'. When I complained and asked for a caffe latte you gave me a plastic knife. You also offered me banana bread but failed to deliver. I'm giving you one more go and then i'm writing a letter to management.

We are having a bit of a session with rules at the moment. As in: No Screaming In The House. My parents new house is quite sturdy but it's a little small and the sound travels like nobody's business especially at 5.30 in the morning. Other rules include: We Don't Push and We Don't Pull Hair. One rule I haven't activated is We Only Do That When We are Alone And In Our Bedroom but it may well be on the horizon.

At the beach today you said to me sternly; We Don't Eat Sand.

That's right, i nodded as I towelled him dry.

And We Don't Eat Dirt.

Neither we do, I agreed.

And...We Don't Eat People.

Quite true. Although exceptions are made for footballers who crash land in the Andes.

We were at Newcastle beach and for a few moments we stood together, the three of us, by the large round kiddy pool, carved from rock. I wrote about this pool once before, long ago, here, Your father and your mother, standing together, kissing in the moonlight at the start of their relationship. I wrote about fear and about wishing for a child and and about despair and how maybe it would only ever be the two of us. 

But today, on the last day of the year, we were three.

We saw a pelican and seagulls and you held a tiny starfish in the palm of your hand and we were immeasurably happy.

It's a new year coming and so your parents are reflective and regretful and hopeful and appreciative.

But it's just another day for you and so you shout and laugh and ask for dinner when it's been cleared away and run away from putting on your mumpy and you sing and smile and love, just like any other day. You have no idea why we're here, all these shrieking pint sized kids, your little friends Claudia and Sebastian, Morgan and Jack. 

And their mothers and fathers, watching with loving smiles, all made parents in their late 30s and 40s. Grateful. Tired. Happy. And much to celebrate.

Worth another glass of champagne at least.

Your very own

OvaGirlxxxxxx

Book Review: Emily Waits For Her Family

The literary world of Tricky is a turbulent place, full of fast paced action and lurid colour. Here oceans are in commotion and rumbles occur in jungles. Yes Bobo gets his hug and Hannah gets taken to the zoo to see her gorilla but not before much adventure and emotional upheaval. 

If Lola is allowed to look after Marv’s dog Sizzles, it’s dollars to doughnuts that Sizzles will not only be lost he’ll be mixed up with another dog that looks exactly like Sizzles. 

It’s a crazy, green eggs and ham eating world.

 And it is here, amongst all the noise and chaos I find myself reading out loud a small mint coloured book. A quiet gentle book. That rhymes. 

Emily Waits For Her Family is the first in the Emily The Chickadee series. I’m a little behind the 8Ball here in Australia, I’m pretty sure we have no chickadees here (not in Sydney anyway) but there are any number of delicate pretty little birds all at various stages of extinction so I get the gist. 

In this book, a little girl spies a chickadee who builds a nest in a window box and there, nestled amongst the flowers, lays three eggs that eventually hatch into the ugliest boggly eyed chicks you’ve ever seen. That’s not really part of the story but it certainly made me laugh when I got to the picture. Time is a great beautician for the chickadee brood and quite soon they are just as attractive as their mother. And now all four can flap above the head of the little girl who spends her time lounging about in flower beds and gazing up at her feathered friends. End story.

 I have to admit I did not hold out high hopes for Emily et al on my first read through. Where were the lost dogs? The gorillas wearing hats? There were eggs yes but they weren’t green and no one was being exhorted to Eat Them. 

And also the rhyming. I am not a natural fan of the rhyming children’s book. I often find the rhyme overtakes the story and it happens a bit here too with a lot of enforced rhyming with “chickadee”.

 Gentle, charming, delightful. These are the words that spring to mind to describe Carol Zelya’s book with illustrations by Kristin Metcalf. The author’s note indicates her aim of “educating children about nature’s precious gifts all around us when we take the time to notice” an intention I would applaud but perhaps not necessarily feel the need to mention since it seems a tad preachy. Luckily this is in the back of the book, not the front. 

I did very excited by the bonus chickadee checklist for readers to log the movements of the chickadee in their own back yard (we scored a fat zero sadly).  

 Finally I have to put up my hand and admit, to my surprise, Tricky enjoyed this book – to the point of throwing aside Lola and her search for Sizzles the dog, and asking for “the birdy book.” 

He listened, he counted the eggs and the birds, and he asked me to read it again when I was finished. Which was a gentle reminder to this book reading mother that stories do not always have to be high concept or fast paced to be engaging for children.

 

Emily Waits For Her Family

By Carol Zelaya

Illustrated by Kristin Metcalf

Richlee Publishing

www.emilythechickadee.com

Say so

Tricky's vocabulary has been increasing in leaps and bounds.

Many's the time we sit and chat, he and I, perhaps over a chilled sippy cup of milo milk and a zucchini muffin.

Early in the morning we might discuss a passing garbage truck ( iss got fashing lights!) or ponder the mysterious opening and shutting of a neighbour's garage door (door go up and car comes out. Now door go down!).

We might lightly debate the pros and cons of watching Charlie & Lola before we have our weetbix (YES! Mine watch NOW!) , or playfully spar over whether or not we really need to wear trousers. (NOOOOOOOOOOO!)

Of course I am not particularly essential to his conversation skills, he'll happily yarn with his teddy bears or his dinosaurs, and often in the bath he likes to have an indepth chat with his penis.

Every now and then he will come up with something unexpected. For the past week he has been shouting at me, apropros of nothing, Jinx! and then, even more intently, Personal Jinx!

In the car, if he spies a telephone box, he will call out Red Fox!

The other day I put Tricky on the phone to speak to his father who has been working for the past few days back in Country Town.

Say hello to Daddy, I said. Tricky did not say hello.

What he did say was: DADDY IS A PLONKER.

It seems Tricky has also been been doing a lot of vocabulary practise with his cousins, the Naughty Nephews. Three days a week they travel together to and from school/daycare. It's a fifteen minute car ride but this is ample time to teach your baby cousin about spotting red foxes and casting jinxes and personal jinxes, not to mention plonkers. I have asked the NNs not to say this anymore, with particular emphasis aimed at Naughty Nephew 2.
("Even if you do change it to John Howard, I don't care, no more plonkers.")

This morning it was my turn to drive them and after an obligatory round of Twinkle Twinkle and a few Red Fox! spottings, Naughty Nephews 2 and 3 got down to brass tacks.

Say Ferrari, says NN3

Say Honda Odyssey, says NN2

Fahwee. Ondassee

Say Father Christmas... say Al Qaida... say Plonker... HEY! I call over my shoulder.

Ok, just say Father Christmas.

Lessons halt as we park the car and everyone gets out. Tricky is fascinated by school and loves walking in the gate with the Naughty Nephews. He is facinated by all the big kids in their matching clothes.

It makes me a little moist-eyed to see him, hand in hand with his cousins. In his big hat and shorts he almost looks like a junior version of them, except instead of school colours he has on his stripey shirt with the robot and his hat is lime green, not institution blue.

Bye boys, I call after them, come on Tricky - time to go to daycare. Say goodbye.

Say goodbye, says Naughty Nephew 3.

Say mustard gas, says Naughty Nephew 2.

But Tricky, all big eyes and stripey robot shirt, says nothing at all.

I won't have what he's having

It was lunchtime when I went in to visit Grandis again. He was sitting upright in the chair beside his bed. As I entered the door I smiled hello to the three other elderly women patients sharing his room, pausing by one woman who had been bedridden almost as long as him.

HELLO THERE. HAVE YOU SEEN MY STUMP YET?

Grandis waved me over impatiently to sit in the chair beside him and started twitching at his hospital gown.

Actually I have, I hastily replied, when you were doing your physio. How are you today?

NOT BAD, he shrugged.

The lunch trays arrived and I busied myself with releasing his salmon sandwich from its packaging and fixing the spouty lid to his Vanilla Sustagen.

As he ate, we made a little small talk about the earthworks going on outside ths window (SOME SORT OF TRENCH I’D SAY), the weather (I HEAR IT’S REAL SWEATY) and the fact that the clock on the wall facing his bed had finally been fixed. (ABOUT BLOODY TIME I SAY!)

With Grandis it's often a case of the louder the voice the higher the spirits and I was pleased to see how well he was obviously feeling. So well in fact, he was going to be moved out of the hospital bed to a high care facility as soon as possible. Further enquiry about why he was not suitable for rehabilitation had been explained as only available if he was going to return to his own home (no) or to the same low grade care facility he had occupied before (no, needs help showering and toileting). There didn’t seem to be another alternative but Grandis was quite cheerfully matter of fact about what would come next.

You look so much better, I smiled at him.

He gestured to me to sit closer and, looking furtively about the room, lowered his voice to a bellowing whisper.

LOOKS LIKE I’VE DEVELOPED A BEDSORE ON MY TESTICLES.

Oh dear, I muttered. Is that… painful?

I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW. IT WAS ONE OF THE NURSES WHO DISCOVERED IT.

I nodded, hoping that might be the end of the report. It was not.

SHE WAS WORRIED ABOUT HOW IT SHOULD BE TREATED.

Bit of cream? I suggested helpfully.

NOPE. SHE HAD A CHAT WITH SOME OF THE OTHER NURSES AND CAME BACK WITH SOMETHING THAT LOOKED LIKE A RUBBER GLOVE FILLED WITH WATER. I SAID “WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO TIE THAT TO?”

I glanced around the room where the other three patients, all with perfect hearing, were staring fixedly at their lunch trays.

BUT SHE JUST SLID IT UNDER THE AFFLICTED AREA. YOU SEE, THAT WAY WHEN I MOVE, THEY MOVE TOO.

I did see, and I smiled and shook my head a little, as if in wonder, at the clever ideas of these nurses.

Well hopefully that’ll do the trick, I said.

Grandis nodded and we sat in companionable silence as he knocked back his Sustagen.

He stopped mid swig, a sudden thought having come to mind.

BUT IT WASN’T ONE OF THOSE BLUE GLOVES THEY WEAR, IT WAS ONE OF THOSE FLESH COLOURED ONES, YOU KNOW THE ONES?

I did indeed.

The Screaming Tomato Fights Back

It started with a plug.

Just an ordinary bath plug, black rubber and some sort of metallic bit on top plus that ring thing you pull to remove the plug from the bath.

All part of the night time ritual - lovely warm bath, hijinks with bath toys, hijinks with peeeeenussss, too much splashing, sodden bath mat, wrapped in big coloured towel, mumpy, pyjamas, story, bed. However the crucial step missing from this list is the one where Tricky pulls the plug out of the bath. By himself.

This step was passed over because, stupidly as it turns out, I decided that the whole getting out of bath routine was taking way too long, it was late, last episode of The Wire (series 3) was waiting to be viewed on dvd, there had already been a fairly unpleasant experience the night before which was put down to toddler spending three nights in three different beds, I was tired blah blah blah...

So I pulled the plug myself and said...Right that's it, out you get, we've got time before bed for one quick...

...story was the word I was about to use but Tricky, indignant beyond belief that I had usurped his plug pulling duties, obviously assumed I was about to say nuclear meltdown.

So he did.

Sweet mother of god.

It was the return of the Screaming Tomato but a louder, heavier, screamier Screaming Tomato. One with teeth. And pummelling fists. And tactics.

My god, look at it! It's thinking! It can actually think!

As fast as we formulate a strategy, the Screaming Tomato formulates one back. A better one! With laser beams and rockets!

Throughout the screaming he kept up a running tirade of immediate demands and loudly disappointed observations of our parental methods.

I want water, give me water. WATER PEEEEASE (parent hastily fetches orange sippy cup of water) No, not water, no no no water. (parent quickly takes loathsome cup away) GIVE ME WATER! (parent rushes back with cup) Mummy hold! No, Tricky hold, NO, MUMMY HOLD WATER, HOLD WATER MUMMY! (parent holds cup to Screaming Tomato's lips, Screaming Tomato snatches at cup and flings it to ground.) Where is water?! Mine want water! WATER PEEEASE! MINE WANT ORANGE CUP. MINE NOT WANT ORANGE CUP. (Repeat several times until other parent appears to find toddler and mother on floor surrounded by several sippy cups in varying hues, none of which seem to be wanted. Action now moves to bedroom.)


We tried to ignore him, he screamed louder. We tried to calm him, it seemed to enrage him. We cuddled him, he slapped our faces. We put him in his bed and he stood up and jumped on the spot, all the while howling at the top of his voice.

At one stage, bizarrely, he told us he wanted to wee on the toilet. Alright, I said, thinking this change of strategy might break the circuit.

This has been a slow process, the toilet training, we have had success with wees for instance but not with poos. And suddenly, the tears stopped and Screaming Tomato suddenly turned into Angelic Aubergine, all winning smiles and shining eyes.

Mine not crying now, mine happy. Mine do wee wees and mine also do poo poos. They go plop.

C and I cowered on the tiles by his feet, almost weeping with gratitude.

Oh they do go plop! Yes darling, you're so clever! Good boy. Are you finished? You can push the button on the toilet, now. Wow. Clever clever boy.

But minutes later when he wanted to come off the toilet, there was no poo and within a minute there were no more smiles and we were tomato agogo and back to the MINE WANT WATER refrain.

At which point, in true B-Grade horror movie style, our brains exploded through our skulls.

Sheer exhaustion saw him finally fall asleep in his bed, we got to watch our episode (everything they say about this show is true) and then, a few hours later, it all began again.

Except now it was some ungodly hour in the early early morning.

And now it was time for the big guns, the MINE WANT CUDDLES routine. This is not toddler asking for the quick comfort of a loving hug. This is a demand for Mummy to squat on the floor by his bed and drape herself on him so that he can cling to Mummy's wrist or, even better, Mummy's hair, and Mummy shall stay like that until Screaming Tomato has dropped off to sleep, or better, ALL FRIGGING NIGHT.

I did resort to some stern speaking through gritted teeth, i did try and smack his bum at one point. I managed to not lose it completely because I kept saying, in my head, i will win this, I will, as I put him to bed yet again.

But man he was good. He was, as Omar himself would acknowledge, fierce.

And I tried to call SHHHHH from my bed and say in a quiet but firm voice SLEEPYTIME and eventually he wore me down to going over to his bed and patting him, and from there he got me down to the "cuddle" (but with intention of returning to bed) and then it was a slippery slope to allowing him into our bed until he fell asleep and carrying him back to his bed, and half an hour later when he woke screaming again it was game over, and he slept in our bed until eight oclock in the morning.

I know he's not posessed, I told Screenwriting Mummy, on the phone this morning after he was removed to daycare by his uncle.

At least I think I know that. But could it be autism? Or bipolar?

And I feel terrible just writing those words, but the truth is, last night and this morning that's how I felt.

Who was that angry toddler? What was going on? He was completely out of control. And what about the wierd Smiling On The Toilet routine. In retrospect that was what freaked me out the most because he seemed so happy. But I guess it did seem over the top at the time, happiness of the wound up, gleaming teeth, glittering eyes sort.

Screenwriting Mummy also has an angry toddler, slightly older, of the female variety, and she swapped back some of her own tales of Notorious Meltdowns. And we talked about all the changes in Tricky's life at the moment and also that maybe some sort of rapid development was happening. And then we also talked about how losing control of your toddler makes you feel like you also have no control over yourself.

He may be a screaming tomato, but he's my screaming tomato.

The thing is, I only get one go at this.

And I really hope I'm not screwing it up.

I'm baaaaack

I am back from the holiday in the country.

I would love to wax lyrical about the darling little house, the tranquil open fields, the nippy little horses, the cunning electric fences and the frigging flies, but sadly I have left my homage to pastoral living just that tad too late. It is now more than 48 hours since our holiday concluded and hence all residual created calm has been officially leached from my system.

Since our return I have managed to lose a book, a set of keys, a vital phone number, and my wallet. These were all found, eventually, but geez the stress.

I could be wrong but I think I can pinpoint the exact moment I lost the very last vestiges of calm.

It was this morning at 3.10 am when Tricky started kicking hard at the wooden bookshelf between his bed and ours and shrieking at the top of his voice: MUMMY! GIVE ME A CUDDLE!

seeing stars

Yes it is a holiday but it is only about an hour from grumpy grandad's hospital and so i decide to visit him, because i am feeling a lot better.

His hospitalisation and subsequent amputation was probably the last bowl of emotional spaghetti on my great big mental tray. i talk to my stepmum about this and I find myself saying that seeing him in bed so helpless and so sick and thinking early on that he was trick or treating on death's doorstep has probably brought up old scary stuff about mum dying, and the looking after, and the waiting for, and the watching her die, day by day by day.

And also, also...the future fear, the ms stuff, the fear of one day being bedridden and helpless and dependent and maybe that's why suddenly i was all gungho about seeing grumpy grandad daily, being not just independent but indispensible.

And these are heavy meals i'm trying to balance on my tray, stodgy, sloppy, carb-laden unpalatable bowls.

Which may explain why, on this holiday, i'm eating a lot of salad.

And meanwhile, i note these things about my grandfather:

Dad has shaved his head with clippers (at grandis's request) and now he looks like more of a pirate than ever. My sister K takes a photo and sends it to me via her mobile phone; shaven headed grandis with K's 8 week old baby on the pillow beside him.

i knew this was happening (the shaving of the head) but even so, i receive the photo in sydney while i am in mid-conversation and it is so startling I exclaim oh fuck mid sentence and then have to explain myself.

I am with my grandfather when the young spunky physio comes in to give him some exercises. Suddenly i am privvy to his stumpleg waving about, out, in, out, in. It is not quite as startling as the photo of his shaved head but it looks like an escaping lamb roast, uncooked.

I note that he is quite jolly with cute sassy physio whereas he is quite rude to the male nurse whom he refers to as a WASTE OF SPACE, I say shhhh Grandis and so he lowers the volume to a gentle roar . He instructs me to write down the exercises that cute sassy physio gives him to do. I do so, in large letters, and then he gets me to borrow some surgical tape from one of the other nurses (one of the ones that he likes) so i can tape the exercises up next to his bed.

The blonde doctor with beautiful skin and flawless pores comes into the room. She tells me that Grandis is her star pupil. He pretends he can't hear what she is saying so that she has to say it again, louder and closer to his ear. His eyes are twinkling. I begin to tell her about how well he did with his exercises but he bellows over the top of me. It's almost like the Grandis of old, before the falls and the nursing lodge.

STAR PUPIL HMMM? WELL EVERYONE NEEDS A STAR, WHETHER IT'S A RISING STAR OR A FALLING STAR...

I glance across at Dr Flawless Pores and she actually giggles and says...mmm very wise.

Good lord, i think. My grandfather is flirting with his doctor.

Today i come in to visit him again and he tells me all about his day, the staff who have been visiting, the doctors, the specialists. I tell him about the wonderful holiday and the horses and paddocks and we talk about my parents and how they are moving soon into their new house.

IT WILL BE CHRISTMAS AND HOUSEWARMING ALL IN ONE he observes.

We talk about his options, the future, he wants to just focus on getting from POINT A TO B THAT'S MY FIRST PRIORITY and I nod, yes that sounds a good plan. We talk about false legs and wheelchairs. we talk about him needing help to shower and toilet .

And we talk about christmas, how that may work, where he might be. I can't help thinking how sharp he is, his mind whirring and clicking, he's bored but he's still here. Mentally he's better than i've seen him for months, even before the operation, and the falls.

As I leave the hospital i talk to the discharge nurse and she tells me that he's been rejected for rehab. Not an appropriate candidate. Bed and chair only. Next stop will be the nursing home.

I stare at her and my face must crumple a little. i tell her that he is focusing on getting up, getting from point a to point b. She nods and repeats to me, not unkindly, (she's one of the nice ones after all) he's only suitable for bed and chair.

And i nod and thank her and leave.

One thing about being in the country. You do see a lot of stars. Tricky likes to be held up at night so he can point them out.

Tonight, back at the holiday house, i will be watching stars alongside my toddler.

Both the rising and the falling.

gone country

C, Tricky and I are having a wee little holiday in the country. We have a cottage for a week and it is surrounded by paddocks and horses and trees and other such oddities.
Also vineyards and although this was not a pre-requisite for holidaying it certainly adds a little flavour to the resting and relaxing.

I am feeling very in need of the resting and relaxing and despite my brave post about putting down the tray blah blah don't put the seventh bowl on top or you risk losing the lot blah blah the truth is, my tray had crashed about two weeks ago and how I get that spaghetti sauce out is anyone's guess.

Luckily I won a holiday in August. This is a bit like winning a chicken in that I won it in a raffle and also in that my chicken is coming home to roost ie. holiday now being had.

We have packed up our toddler and all our stuff and our computers although we have solemnly sworn not to do work on them (what?) and I have included my special foot massage rub and quite a lot of vitamins and so forth as I am still yes still hacking and spluttering away.

But we have left our worries behind. Mostly. And although i sometimes hear them tippy tap on the window at night I think they're a wee tad scared of horses. And chickens.

and that's good.