Revisiting

Last weekend we returned to the Parental Home to have our last few days of fun with my sister AJ and the Nephews/Niece. My sister and her family live in a small, picturesque corner of New Zealand; a country seemingly made of nothing but small picturesque corners and the occasional large flightless bird. They were due to return this week and while I had detected a certain weariness amongst my parents, I could also see that they would be sorely missed.

AJ, being the mother of an 8 yr old boy, a 6 yr old girl and a 4 yr old gorilla, seems perpetually tired but in a sort of gentle, gracious Earth Mother-ish sort of way. Whereas I, mother of a screaming tomato aged 2 and three months, am also perpetually tired, but in a thrashing, writhing Earth Worm-ish sort of way.

On Saturday night AJ, our surfy naturopath sister T, our stepmum D and my husband C went off to one of the local pubs to watch a rather grumpy Australian singer play her 90's hits. Meanwhile, my dad and I fed the all kids, bathed them and put them to bed.

With Tricky's new jack-in-the-box style of sleeping and the NZ cousins' own sleep related pecadillos, it meant some clever tactics for the grownups.

For me it meant attempting to be more calm, more zen about the whole sleep battle thing. One of my friends has a pre-schooler and she described the crucial period when she would lie next to her toddler, patting her back, until she fell asleep. It took about twenty minutes and this particular stage lasted for six months.

"Six Months!" I had exclaimed in horror.

"It's ok," she reassured me. "Once I accepted that there was nothing else I could do I just lay there and came up with script ideas. I wrote two animation scripts in my head during that six months."

So as I lay next to Tricky on the Big Bed and stroked his back (more doking Mummy) I tried to ponder script ideas and exciting new plays. Instead, all I could think about was the frightening news my producer had shared with me last week when she told me they were making a 'behind the scenes' thing to go with the television series and the writers would be filmed talking about their episodes and also their 'process'.

What could I say about my episode, I wondered. What could I say about my process? And most important of all, what should I wear?

Give or take a few false sleeping alarms (Tricky can be practically snoring but has his eyes wide open and ears alert for any sound of escaping parent. Mummy! More Doking!) I was out of the bedroom by 8.30.

My dad, I noted, had set up a chair between the bedrooms of the NZ nephews/niece and was sitting there, keeping guard and growling if anyone dared to sit up. Which was not dissimilar to the technique he used on my sisters and I when we were kids.

The NZ kids aren't naughty per se, but like most kids they are...well... intense in small spaces.

Also quite adventurous and selectively deaf.

These two things combined can be fairly gutwrenching for a gentle soul like AJ. My sister took her kids on an outing to the Sydney Aquarium. After a good hour or so of examining the sharks and octopi and multitude of brightly coloured reef fish, their little group emerged blinking in the sunlight and stood for a few minutes by the edge of the wharf. When AJ stopped blinking she found that her youngest, the gorilla, was missing.

After calling his name in more and more desparate tones she decided he must have fallen over the edge of the wharf and into the harbour. As she flung her bag onto the ground and prepared to leap into the water she heard an answering call - naughty gorilla child had wandered back into the aquarium and couldn't understand what all the fuss was about.

At which point AJ felt her knees buckle as she fell to the ground and howled.

This was probably the lowlight of her holiday, there were a few sleepless nights and shouty mornings, one rather badly hungover day which she couldn't really blame on the kids, but give or take some conflicts over eat your dinner! brush your teeth! and stay in bed! I think they all had a great time.

This was perhaps measured best by the intense reaction that occurred on Tuesday when, AJ enjoying her penultimate day in Australia with a relaxing hair treatment and a final jolly catch up with our younger sisters (and newest Tiny Niece) before her return to NZ on Wednesday, discovered rather late in the morning that she had in fact got her dates arse about. She had drifted onto T's computer to check her bank balance and called out in a perplexed tone: why does your computer say today is the 28th? Answer of course being: because it is.

It seemed that in fact, Tuesday, ie the 28th, was the day she was meant to vacate the country.

Not Wednesday.

Cue a lot of frantic and hysterical packing of two and a half weeks of collected holiday shite into three too-small suitcases. Also some handwringing over failure to properly farewell Aphwa, visit Grandad etc. Also, just sort of random non-copeyness. My dad described her as looking like a rabbit in the headlights as she stood in the middle of the bedroom staring, helpless, at first one suitcase and then another while T and K packed like demons around her.

I was in Sydney at this point but discovered the situation when I rang to find out how Grumpy Grandad was faring - another post - and then, while dad drove AJ and the kids two and a half hours to Sydney Airport I got online to try and check them in (only for domestic flights) and failing that, try to find the right number to call someone and explain the problem (you want to speak to a human, are you joking?).

The plan was for C to drop me at the airport so I could be there to help wrangle the kids (and my sister) to the check in counter and help keep them together until they could be shepherded onto their flight. This worked reasonably well, although there was one horrid moment when I tried to find my 8 year old nephew who had suddenly gone AWOL and I stood in the middle of the airport searching for a glimpse of curly black hair and thin running legs and thought:

Maybe one really is enough.

But then he was found (I told you I was going to the toilet! I did!) and all was forgiven and Crispy Cremes were selected and packed into handluggage (you can only eat these when you are sitting in your seats on the plane, with your seatbelts on!) and then my sister was in floods of tears again and mumbling about her wonderful family and how she must be insane...

And then they were gone.

Later that night as I sat by my toddler, doking his back, and trying to think of script ideas, I thought about how close my sisters and I have become as we have gotten older, how much we like each other as adult women.

And I remembered how, when I first caught sight of her oldest son, dripping wet from the pool, face split with a huge grin as he ran up to say hello, I nearly laughed out loud because his face was AJ's face but her face as a child - a face I hadn't seen for more than thirty years. It was like being in a time machine and being taken back to Penang and Werribee and Carlingford and all the little corners of our childhood.

A new stage worth toasting... nightly.

Today I picked up Tricky's little friend, Midget Vampire Boy, from daycare along with Tricky and they had a nice play together at home with Naughty Nephew the 3rd on our new trampoline. Tricky calls it 'dumping' and I find it hard to contradict him because it makes me laugh when he asks if he can dump on the tam-peen.

I say 'new' because we bought it last Christmas, or at least Santa did, but after having four boys dump up and down and wrestle and fling themselves from mesh wall to mesh wall, the trampoline is looking a little on the sad and saggy side.

Not unlike me.

When Midget Vampire's mother turned up, the very beautiful and talented Opera Singing Mummy, she looked at me with concern and said I looked drab and weary and a small vertical frown had developed across my forehead. OSM can say these sorts of things because we have been friends since first year drama at Newcastle University, when she was a buxom virgin in wholesome gingham and I was still learning to draw my eyeliner on straight.

Anyway my point is that the two of us sat down and watched the toddlers at play and OSM saw how Tricky soon tired of innocent dumping and instead took to wicked flinging all the wooden train tracks off the table and onto the floor, all the while with an evil little smile playing across his lips.

And then I explained about the hellish no-sleep nights we'd been having and she nodded. Midget Vampire Boy has just turned 3 and indeed has been responsible for many a hellish night himself. So she knew and was sympathetic.

She leaned across and patted my arm.

"Tricky's just going through a stage but I'm concerned..." she said and her voice was warm and caring, "that you won't have anywhere near enough alcohol in this house."

Interestingly I had thought the very same thing - not that there wasn't enough alcohol because I knew there certainly was - but that as the mother of a toddler it would be so easy to become a complete lush.

And then tonight, I put Tricky into his bed, and led him back twice and stroked his back and sat on the floor beside him and tried to be calm and not think about a glass of wine and by 8.30 he was asleep.

By coincidence (and not because of OSM's observation) I am having my First Ever Facial tomorrow. I am taking my other friend from uni, Screen Writing Mummy, for her birthday treat. She rang me tonight and we discussed plans and lunch and clothing to be worn.

And my big tip, said Screen Writing Mummy, re the facial, is this: Don't Fall Asleep.

And I swear I'll try not to, because obviously one wants to experience one's full money's worth and also one doesn't want to do that embarrasing snorty snore thing where you just catch yourself dropping off, but lordy if I'm horizontal and even just vaguely comfortable without a toddler screaming in my ear for water, I don't really hold out much hope.

Night Terror

We are just back from visiting the family in Newcastle and potentially the most appalling nights' sleep ever.

Not just us, the motherperson and the fatherperson, but also grandparents, two aunties and three little New Zealand cousins. And not just the one night, but three, although to give Tricky his due he made sure that the nights got progressively worse.

Last week, after a couple of harrowing nights where Tricky had managed to throw himself out of the cot several times in an hour, C rolled up his sleeves and transformed the cot into a Big Boy Bed.

Cue much delighted shrieking from Small Brown Toddler and insisting that it was bedtime at 3 in the afternoon.

Mine Big Boy Bed! Mine have seeping! Mine seeping now! Doodnight!
On that first night he curled up in his big boy bed with a grin. C and I put an arm around each other's waist and simpered at each other. So adorable. So sweet.

Too easy.

He must have been chortling into his gingham doona cover.

One night and one night only of uninterrupted sleep. The next and the next and the next saw Tricky imitating a jack-in-the-box and us re-enacting a scene from Groundhog Day, probably one that hit the cutting room floor.

We had been advised that the best thing to do was to take him by the hand and firmly lead him back to bed without speaking or making eye-contact.

This worked well the first time. I led him back to bed and he obediently climbed back in. I did the same thing about 4 minutes later. Then C did it a couple of times. We were both aware that we were trying to instill good sleeping habits in our child, essential healthgiving skills that would ensure the wellbeing of all, and also we were gagging to watch the next episode of The Wire (series 2) in bed (with headphones).

C and I were quite calm and grownup about the leading back, taking it in turns, tipping each other off as we spotted him approaching our computers, muttering out of the side of our mouths like a couple of bad ventriloquists.

Ooh, here he comes, I can see him in the window.
Is he looking at us?
Yup.
Who's he heading for?
You.
Ok, both ignore him and then when he gets close enough I'll grab his hand and take him back.

But Tricky seemed to think that the silent treatment wasn't really working and on about the fourth or fifth curtain call he decided we needed a good prompt.

Come on, Mummy, he said, as he grabbed my hand and led me back to the bedroom.
Time for bed. Tricky's big boy bed. Seepy time. Det into bed. Shhhhh!

There was no Wire that night. Instead, C and I, finally, beaten, turned off the lights and got into bed only to hear the ominous patter of little feet, followed quickly by the rabid scrabbling of little paws.

And yes I got out of bed and led him back to his Big Boy Bed. And again and again. But at some point in the night, half asleep, I got confused and put him into our bed and so The Toddler won, at least until about four in the morning when I awoke to find his feet jammed into my stomach and I picked him up and carried him back to where he belonged.

Which leads us to our little holiday in Newcastle to meet lovely little cousins/nephews/niece and to see Aunty AJ again and Aunty K and newest Tiny Niece and, bonus: Aunty T down from Byron Bay. Aphwa and Poppy's house was full and so Tricky had to sleep in his travel cot in the same room with us and so the nightmare began again. Except this time, although he could climb out of the travel cot he couldn't get back in and it was hot and the walls were thin...

Yerk.

Last night, the worst of all, Tricky woke (in travel cot) suddenly, at 11pm, and started screaming about...oh look who knows. There was something about Mummy and Big Bed and quite a lot of Water and I think there was something about the Global Financial Crisis...but really, when you are wrenched from your sleep by a howling monster of a toddler who arches and kicks in your arms and then tries to hit you across the face and then when given a sippy cup of water throws it on the floor because you haven't held it to his lips as he expressly told you listen when I am screaming, how many times do I have to tell you my hands do not touch the loathsome sippy cup and then finally when you do hold it to his lips he bites down and uses his teeth to rip the lid off ensuring he and you will be doused in water and now he really will scream because I am wet dammit, change my trousers this instant!

I am sort of laughing about it now but in that moment, knowing that everyone, adults and kids alike had also been rudely woken and were lying there, wondering what the hell was happening, and water dripped through my pyjamas and my child howled and bucked and kicked and slapped, I felt like some evil fairy had slipped through the window and replaced my darling little bubba boy with some horrendous mythical monster.

I shouted at C through gritted, I Have Had Enough, teeth and he leapt up and grabbed Tricky and dragged him out into the loungeroom where I would find them ten minutes later curled together on the sofa, Tricky's eyes large and dark as he silently drank cup after cup of water.

But before then, I got up and turned on the light to get a towel and dry myself and the bed off, and I saw my angry face in the mirror and my ugly clenched-jaw scowl, and who, I wondered, was the real monster now?

Having Your Cake And Eating It (also the icing and sprinkles)

This attractively garish and slightly fuzzy array of anti-oxident rich cupcakes was the product of a few hours of quality time between Tricky and myself.

Yes they came from a packet.

They were (gasp) sans buttermilk. That's despite my previous cupcake making experience.

Nigella would be turning in her rose petal infused milk bath.

No I don't know if Nigella has a rose infused milk bath. I do know that she's not lactose-intolerant so she may indeed enjoy le douche de la vache-juice .

(Please feel free to correct. I have decided to continue to apprendre le francais via blog comments only.)

Like Nigella to milkbaths, so too Tricky to this nutritious blue icing.

Especially on the big spoon.

No I didn't eat any cupcakes. The very sight of them disgusted me.

Yes they were eaten by a selection of children.

Yes those children are all related to me in one way or another.

While Tricky is enjoying the remainder of his health-giving green sprinkles (strange that he won't eat his broccoli with such enthusiasm), I shall just add that the title of this post was originally going to be:

Contracting Yet Another Flu Virus And Hacking Tiny Droplets Of Phlegm over Your Toddler Ensuring He Bears Your Infection, Spikes A Fever, And Has A Meltdown Just As You Walk In The Door At Daycare.

But, it didn't really have much of a ring.

Plus... no photos.

Scenes from my life...

Last week exploded like an egg in a microwave.

It started when I got The Phonecall from my producer-bosses asking me for the new draft of my episode within a matter of hours.

This was followed by another meeting with notes for rewriting over the next 48 hours.

Day then followed night in the strange floating world that is Rewriting Scenes Very Fucking Fast. It was uncomfortable and I consumed way too much coffee and chocolate but in a strange perverted way, I enjoyed it.

'You were in The Zone' one of my fellow writers observed, and yay verrily I was there, I did the tour and I bought the postcards.

I didn't even get the Second Phonecall, it went straight to messagebank but the gist was: my baby sister K (aged 29) had gone into labour 4 weeks early.

The baby was breech, she went to have accupuncture on Monday afternoon to try and turn the baby and within a couple of hours she had a foot in her birthcanal and a nightmare car ride to the hospital ending with an emergency c-section and...a divinely beautiful little tiny girl.

Cue Tricky and I dashing to Newcastle as soon as I had submitted my script, seeing Tiny Niece, blubbering over baby sister K and her husband for good measure and all the other things one does when a new baby comes into the world.

Our sister AJ is coming from New Zealand on Monday to stay for two and a half weeks. She is bringing lots of sensible sleep advice and her three kids meaning Tricky will be well and truly clubbed with the Cousin Stick...he will have met four in a fortnight.

In between the arranging and the phonecalls, the photos and the release drafts, the show and the baby, I find myself musing over how unpredictable life can be, my life for instance, and how that's not such a bad thing at all, although can be difficult if one wants to schedule a legwax say or an apppointment with the dentist - which may explain why I've never done the first and the second was two years ago .

As I held Tiny Niece and marvelled at her tiny ears and imagined nibbling off her tiny fingers (oh come on, don't say the thought has never crossed your mind) my sister K said to me...'do you feel like doing IVF again?'

'Of course I do,' I said, 'of course I do.'

And of course I don't, the last thing I feel like doing at the moment, in this crazy all-at-once dreamworld is pinch an inch and date the dildocam (and if I can't schedule my dentist how will I schedule Dr Lovely Accent) but I do, yes, feel like holding another tiny dancing baby that I call mine, and of course that sad soft yearning will never really go away.

Return to the scene of the crime...

No lasting trauma it seems.

waterbaby

Tricky is a water baby, born in July, Cancer, like the motherperson, much to her concern. (Oh dear, that means two over sensitive, moody as all get out, easily enraged, fiercely loyal, grudge bearing, easily spooked, crab people in the family. )

Thank God that C the fatherperson is a jolly Sag.

Tricky has not yet learned to fear water but that may come. His mother has nearly drowned twice thank you very much, Penang and Phuket, and every year when she joins her extended family at the beach be it Fremantle or Bronte, Newcastle or Byron Bay, she stays just that bit closer to the shore.

The water laps pleasantly at her knees and the fatherperson tries to entice her further in and when enticing doesn’t work, attempts violent abduction, but she is very good at the stern voice and the prune mouth and so he laughs and lets her go and stands on his head and waves his feet at her.

And now the fatherperson has a smiling toddler to ferry through the waves and carry on his back.

It is not quite swimming time here, the water is icy but already there has been fish and chips on the beach with the Naughty Nephews and sandcastle making at the beach and digging of personal puddles with new plastic spade and fork.

On the weekend there was a trip to Newcastle and that led to an excursion to the wetlands which was almost educational and may well have been if Tricky could read, say, or pronounce ‘catchment area’ or ‘biodiversity’. But instead it was all about walking with Aphwa and Poppy, the east coast grandparents, (as opposed to Gramma and Papa on the west) and a certain amount of dip netting aka “bishing”.

Despite many an effort with the dip net, the bishing was unsuccessful, in that no bish was actually caught although shoals of the things could be spotted weaving and darting through the swampy waters.

I didn’t bother taking pictures of the menfolk and their earnest, bloody-minded attempts to catch a fish for Tricky, I simply laughed.

The point with the dip net was really just to dip and empty into a basin to see if there was anything in the net such as weed, water beetles, leeches or damselfly nymphs.

The basin started embarrassingly with a bit of bark but as the day wore on a succession of sucking, wriggling, biting insect larvae were caught, examined, prodded and returned.

Back at Poppy and Aphwa’s house, the swimming pool (fenced yes, poster demonstrating CPR, yes) is also a great attraction, what with Poppy’s regular skimming (which is really just an oversized dipnet) and Jimmy the dog leaping in and dogpaddling from side to side.

And Tricky found a small broom and did some serious dipping and skimming with that. And it was good. Which is why, early on the morning before we left, with the fatherperson half asleep, and an extremely alert and cheerful toddler quite determined to dip the other side of the pool, there was a sudden splash and a roar and a very very loud and long cry for Mummy.

I did not see him fall and for that I’m quite grateful but I held his frightened trembling body and kissed his salty wet face and also the pale cold face of his father.

And that night, snuggled up together, C woke suddenly with a start and a gasp and the image seared into his head of his baby blithely stepping over the edge and sinking and rising to the surface and starting to sink again as C reached him and pulled him out.

Letter To A 26 Month Old DareDevil

My darling Tricky

26 months…wonderful yet terrifying.

“He (or she) is a real little person now!” others exclaim, as if, up till now, you have been another species. Possibly a meercat.

Perhaps this is because others now understand more of what you are saying. While we have delighted in your imperious commands and stern retorts for some time, not to mention your enormous repertoire of nursery songs, other folk have heard only a succession of goo goos and gah gahs with a few tinkle tinkles thrown in here and there. But now, when you sing ‘appy bir’day dear gamma,’ gamma does actually hear and understand.

You sing, you dance and jump on the spot (“I’m dumping! I’m dumping!”) And how you enjoy taking up new words, rolling them about your mouth and chewing on them eagerly as if each word was a warm tasty chunk: Avocado! Tomato! Medicine!

It's like we have gone back in time with the books because you are back in love with Commotion In The Ocean, not for the crappy poetry but for the hidden starfish that adorn each page.

"Where is the TarFish?" you demand of us. "It is somewhere here," and you swirl your chubby hand in an imperious circle over the page, helpfully allowing us to find the tarfish for the billiontieth time.

Just as we get excited about your language so too you kindly let us know when we have managed to correctly identify an item.

"Tricky is that your avocado you threw on the floor?"
"Yes mummy, it IS mine avocado!"

"Tricky is this your toothbrush in the bath toys?"
"Yes, it IS mine toosbwush!"

Of course along with all the rights of morphing from meercat into Real Little Person come the responsibilities. Frequent spontaneous expressions of joy for instance. (Tick) Also kissing of parents without being directed. I’m giving you a tick for this one too even though I note that your most recent version of giving a “diss” is you pushing your open mouth against my face, and rolling your own face from one side to another.

It’s like I’m a lump of shortcrust pastry and a small damp rolling pin is preparing me for a citron tart. I can handle it because you have the softest skin in the world whereas if your father decided to adopt this style of kissing I could be in danger of being grated to death.

And your other responsibility of course is to take frequent risks. Tick tick tick.

My heart went a little cold when the father of an 19 year old party animal (“I think she’s doing her degree in hard liquor”) told me last month that he could tell who among his toddlers was going to be Roger Responsible and who was going to be Petunia Puke In The Plastic Bag.

Even at such a tender age, he insisted, the seeds of Caution and the seeds of Bloody Minded Risk Taking were firmly dug in and already taking root.

I filled him in on your plastic motorbike exploits and he nodded grimly and went on to talk about his daughter’s early quest for thrills which seemed to involve rolling herself headlong down the stairs.

It made me go quiet and think about you and the way you seem to be utterly fearless and I wondered whether it will mean in years to come you’ll happily indulge in various self-destructive activities just because you can/it’s there/you’re bored.

There’s no fanfare around your stunts, no ‘look at me’ as you rocket down a concrete drive on your motorbike with your legs outstretched, or leap off the edge of the couch, or run full pelt up the hallway and throw yourself down so you go skidding on your knees like a rockstar.

I see you press your lips firmly together and take on an expression of great concentration (which I usually associate with you filling your mumpy) just before you launch yourself into the unknown. And when the thump comes, as it inevitably does, there are surprisingly few tears.

You’re not a wuss. Not with that sort of stuff. You laugh and bounce with your three big cousins on the trampoline and I dance around the edge of the net saying “gentle jumping boys,” “please don’t keep trying to make Tricky fall over,” “yes I can see he’s laughing but…I think it might end in tears”, “come out now Tricky that’s enough..” and you tell me loudly MORE DUMPING. MINE WANT MORE DUMPING.

See here’s the thing, I was/am the complete opposite to you. Fearful, cautious, responsible, wilts under stern gaze of authority. And these things were evident when I was two. I had a little sister I adored and was constantly reminded that I was mummy’s helper. And with all my meek, cautious ways, I still had accidents. I dropped bricks on my toes and had prangs on my bike. It happens.

I don’t want to be the mother who says No all the time, the one that says be careful darling and that’s enough and slow down. Because I think maybe I had a mother like that and while I can’t remember her telling me those things, in my mind that voice is still there.

Except, that distant voice has been superceded by my own booming foghorn: Don’t show your work, Don’t put yourself out there you’ll only be humiliated, It’s better not to do anything than to fail, You’ve been rejected and that’s your fault for trying in the first place…

And so while I don’t want you to be hurt or injured, I also don’t ever want you to be afraid of trying things, of taking risks, of embarking in a struggle, of putting yourself on the line.

Somehow your father (who was almost the complete opposite to me, with the scars to prove it) and I have to teach you how to weigh up the risks involved, how to value the potential wins and assess the potential losses.

And how to get up and try again no matter what the outcome.

And bugger me that seems a hard lesson because I don’t even know that I’ve learned it yet.

Wonderful, yet terrifying.

Love

Your very own

OvaGirl

xxxxxx

Every Second

Last night was my play reading and WOOO FUCKING HOO IT ROCKED!!

It was funny and people laughed and then laughed some more and one person was seen taking a sip of red wine and laughing and then having to SPIT THAT WINE RIGHT BACK INTO THE GLASS which is not just a sign of good gags but also a sign of serious fucking class and I think his mother would be very proud indeed.

But the things that pleased me included the fact that the audience was predominantly male and this was a story where the main character was female and talked alot about her feelings and some may have relegated this type of story to a sort of 'chick-lit' play but actually it appealed to blokes too and they laughed loudly (and in some cases hysterically) and I think that laughter is an instant sort of indicator that an audience is understanding what you are getting at.

Also...although this was not a play about infertility per se, it was a play where the four characters happen to be infertile. What I realised via the day long workshop, the reading and the discussion afterwards was that this play is actually about love and the dying of sexual intimacy and the resilience (or not) of relationships.

Not shiny sparky new relationships with all the rampant sex and giggles but the sort of relationship that's been going a few years now and for the four years previously has been subjected to the slow crushing glacial pressure of infertility which is starting to warp one character's general perception of what is normal, what is safe, what is suspicious.

And so these two people who fell into each other's lives and loved each other and adored each other and spoke the same language are essentially being wrenched apart but in a slow creeping insidious sort of way.

And then something happens. A terrible thing. An accident. And a secret. And the play begins from here.

And so again that kind of increases the universality of the play. Because...people have relationships, and secrets and things they want to tell their partner but just can't. And guilt.
And also, sometimes (perhaps more often than you might think) little hairy rat-like dogs who appear to be wearing eyeliner.

It is not Theatre In Education For The Barren as one of my friends observed.

But back to the jokes because as well as being tragic and dramatic, it's funny as well. In the feedback session one audience member noted that it was big laughs for three quarters of the play and essentially none in the last quarter. And that seems a fairly good equation to me.

Other observations:

Characters having sex on stage is reasonably interesting, but vastly improved by having one of those characters decide they don't really feel like it after all and the other character having to eventually scream: "But you've had quicker wanks in the shower. It's Day 14 and I'm ovulating so pull yourself together and give me some sperm!"

I do think the sperm ballet worked although I'm not totally sure why.

People who liked the monologue about taking long walks late at night to exercise your dog (but actually to avoid your wife) seemed to really like it and their faces became pinched and sad when other people tried to suggest that the dog monologue had no real place here.

Some people came up to me and said they thought the play was good to go. "Like now. On. Get it on stage. You will iron out any problems in rehearsal. Quickly go." Other people wanted to talk about "removing a subplot".

The actors were fantastic and made my lines funnier and sadder and more poignant and that's fine because THAT'S THEIR FUCKING JOB.

And finally, I got one of my characters to use the words: dildocam, foot long needle, trigger shot and lala in the same monologue.

It's the little things that count.

Cleanliness is next to Mummy-ness

My son threw me out of the bath last night.

Quite often Tricky has a bath with his cousin, Naughty Nephew the 3rd who is six. The two of them have great fun with the bath toys, both the purchased wind up variety and also the scavenged plastic sauce bottle variety. Oh yes, the laffs those two have. Possibly only bettered during the recent visit of le nephew and la niece.

La niece, NN3 and Tricky had several baths together where they perfected a game they called: crazy hairdressers. In this game, the two older children were the hairdressers (crazy) and the toddler was the unsuspecting but grinning like a maniac customer.

Squeals of delight, raucus chortles, fond parental smiles of watching adults etc etc.

Cut to last night when foolish motherperson suggested that it would be quite lovely for Tricky and Mummy to have a bath together. After all, Mummy has been quite sick over last week or so with ghastly hacking-cough, viral, sliceable-phlegm type thing and much of the childcare that hasn't been done by Marvellous Carer at daycare has been done by Excellent Daddy.

But now, the motherperson is feeling a bit more like her old self. Virus is gone with only unattractive yellow remnants in lungs and sinus cavities. She misses playing with her little boy. She wants to have fun. Here's a windup turtle weeeeeeee!

Tricky stares at me as if he can't quite believe what he's hearing and I naturally take this as a resounding, jumping for joy, yes!

"What japes we'll have," I tell him as I peel off my clothes and do a quick last hacking spit into the sink for good measure. "We can even play Crazy Hairdressers!"

I sink into the bath as C undresses Tricky, congratulating myself for sitting in front of the tap bit, as now there will be no annoying twiddling the cold water tap on, filling the sauce bottle and emptying it over the bath mat etc because my lumpen coughing body will form an effective, phlegm filled barrier.

The shrieking starts as C lowers Tricky into the water.

"What is it darling?" I say, wondering if I have made the bath water too hot.

Tricky's dark eyes fill with tears, his lips quiver, his face reddens.

"DET OUT MUMMY!" he shouts. "MINE BATH. TRICKY'S BATH! DET OUT MUMMY!"

"No darling," I say calmly. "This is Mummy's bath too. Let's play with these toys. Here's the sauce bottle!"

Tricky refuses to sit, instead standing over me, glaring and in full Screaming Tomato mode.

"WALKING MUMMY!" he kindly suggests to me, as a healthy alternative to a bath.

"Where should I walk?" I ask, idly pouring a bucket of water over myself.

It seems Tricky has no answer to this since luckily he hasn't yet learned the concepts of 'Hell', 'off a short pier' or 'up your own arse for all I care.' Instead he goes back to chanting his original mantra which involved me removing myself quickly from his bath.

I det out and dry myself off, a little sadly, I have to admit. Tricky is finally sitting down and calming himself by filling up the sauce bottle from a tiny trickle out of the coldwater tap. At some point in the next few minutes this will end up over the bathroom floor.

The clingwrap baby syndrome might be coming to an end, I muse, as I swab away at the sodden floor with C's towel. There was once a time when he'd scream if I dared to get out of his bath.

But of course once he's out, and dried, and dressed in his new big boy pjs, we have beautiful cuddles and kisses on the big bed and rounds of stories with his cheek against mine. So maybe it's ok not to have a bath together. And I feel a little emotional and blow my nose loudly and Tricky looks on with interest.

"Mummy dot 'not?" he asks casually.

"Mummy does," I say. "Buckets full. Will we have a bath together tomorrow do you think?"

He says nothing, instead diligently counting the starfish in his book.

And obviously, as his motherperson, I take this as a definitive yes.

Words Words Words

I missed writing a letter to Tricky last month, his 26th. First I felt bad and then I thought how ridiculous that was, with everything that's going on here. I write everyday and somedays that includes blogging but lately it hasn't because there's never enough time to write all the words I want to write.

The tv ep is going ok but slow, and the rewrites required are pretty huge. There are a lot of going back to the beginning moments and revisiting early notes and my desk aint organised at the best of times. But I'm still (mostly) enjoying this and everynow and then I remind myself that this is like my film and tv school and I'm learning an enormous amount... and I'm being paid.

Meanwhile the playreading is going ahead in a week. Even though I swore I wouldn't do this I had a quick look at the rewritten script and immediately cringed and wanted to change stuff. Except I didn't. I held firm. I set aside the time for rewrites, that time came and went and the rewrite was done and any further changes will be made on the actual rehearsal day. I am interested to hear this play in front of an audience for a few reasons but one of the main ones is the subject matter. It's about two infertile couples, one of whom is about to go through IVF, and the effects of this on their relationships, as a couple and as a group of friends. It's also the play I was working on in a week long workshop (that sounds stupid but you know what I mean) where I started crying when I was reading out a monologue because I realised what a complete bitch I had been about my best friend (and flatmate) Michelle when she got naturally pregnant and I didn't. Which all probably sounds a bit dire except there is quite a lot of black humour involved in infertility as bloggers know so hopefully all that will come across too. I am unsure about how the sperm ballet scene will go, so will keep you posted.

But the words that mean the most to me at the moment come from Tricky and now they're flying thick and fast.

Last week, the words my and mine finally made their long awaited appearance as in my milk, my Bobo, my playdough but also as a substitute for I.

One evening he wanted to sit in the hammock on the verandah and when I put him in I said Darling I think you better lie down in the hammock, it's much safer.
No pankyou Mummy, he replied, mine just sitting.

No pankyou is Tricky's general response to everything he doesn't want to eat or do which is polite as well as cute and not entirely unsuccessful as a result...

Will you eat your dinner please?
No pankyou, mine eat bake beans.
Eat these nice carrots, look, yum yum...
No pankyou Daddy...
yum yum, carrots...
NO PANKYOU DADDY! NO PANKYOU! BAKE BEANS!! BAKE BEANS!!

When the fatherperson foolishly persists in spruiking the joys of the carrot, Tricky's bowl suddenly and mysteriously leaps from the table and rolls about the kitchen floor scattering hated orange root vegetables gaily about the floor boards. Now there is no dinner and because the motherperson is terrified that Tricky will starve to death a can of baked beans is hastily produced.

Would you like some baked beans?
No pankyou, mine eat yoghurt.

And so it goes on.
And each day more words, from him and from me, and more and more and more...

arrrgggghhhagleyargle....gluggggggg........

so that wierd gagging noise you can hear? That would be me struggling under the weight of several deadlines and writing tasks that have fallen like a tonne of bricks and prevented me from doing stuff like blogging and um...having fun.

Last week it was nose to the grindstone to finish a rewrite of my new play which is having a public reading in two weeks time. And I had to finish it last week because this week the producers of the tv show are "turning me round" (my, the dirty laughs C had over that one) so I can get cracking on the next draft. This is not so much 'nose to the grindstone' as face mushed to a bloody pulp. Eeeka. In a scant few seconds I am going to mainline my coffee so that I can do some loglining (I have all the jargon) and then head off to Day 2 of the turning around process.

Of course, life must continue on, for instance if you are a toddler you don't give a toss if the motherperson's brain seems ready to explode, you must have Charlie and Lola, also Eensy Weensy Spider and for good measure, dinosaurs, on tap. And why not, I say. So on the days Tricky is not in childcare and while C is away I must stop with the plotting and the crime scenes and the big story arcs and I must change smelly mumpies and heat up weetbix and paint pictures and play in the park.

Thank God.

Excerpt from Tricky's Upcoming Book: The Keys To Driving Your Parents Insane Are In Your Chubby Little Hand

#386
Clever Ruse For Making Mummy Come When I Am Meant To Be Having A Nap.

1. Peel off one sock. Now peel off other sock.

2. Throw socks over edge of cot. Try to make one land on the heater and one mysteriously disappear under the chair.

3. Now call loudly: Mummy! Socks Gone! Socks Gone!

4. When Mummy comes into bedroom heaving heavy sigh of the hard done by, smile winningly.

5. While Mummy is scouring floor for socks say Get up now. Mummy will say Sleepytime, make with the shushing noises, replace socks on feet and attempt to wrap doona round your body. Resist and instead call for teddy: Bramwell Brown
Louder: BRAMWELL BROWN! Try to inject a note of hysteria.

6. Mummy, now making irritable huffy noises, finds Bramwell Brown and puts it in cot.

7. Stare in surprise at Bramwell Brown, pick him up and wave at Mummy saying No!
When Mummy says in exasperated voice But you said you wanted Bramwell Brown, screw up your eyes and chant: put it away, put it away.

8. Mummy will snatch Bramwell Brown away. If possible call loudly for Rabbit, Sleepy Bear or BoBo. Repeat step 7 above until Mummy exits room calling for stiff drink and saying she doesn’t care that it’s only 1pm.

9. Wait 30 seconds then repeat all as above.

Rapid Eye Movements

I went to see David Sedaris the other night. He spoke at the Opera House Concert Hall and it was full. The woman who introduced him and also interviewed him after the reading was a comedienne who was, as she breathlessly confessed before he came out, a huge fan.

At the beginning of their chat she announced cheerfully that she wasn’t going to ask him any of those dull questions about his actual writing process and this made me want to throw something very hard at her.

Instead, we heard about their shared disquiet for (too) public toilets and cell phones which then allowed her to combine these things into An Hilarious Anecdote About Herself using a telephone on the toilet.

I expect I’m being unfair about her inadequate fan/love questioning but I don’t care. She had her hour in the Green Room to brown nose David Sedaris and tell him hilarious anecdotes about herself, I wanted to hear about his frigging writing.

My friend and I sat in the front row which was close enough to see the motifs on David Sedaris’ ankle socks and observe the neat row of pens peeking out of his breast pocket.

“But were you close enough to see him touch his penis?” someone asked me in the book signing queue. “I hear that when he does readings he compulsively touches his penis.”

“Um no, “ I said. “I saw a bit of pelvic rocking behind the lecturn but no actual hand/penis connection, no.” He seemed disappointed and soon after this conversation I left the queue without having my book signed.

It was a long queue and I was pretty hungry.

I have finally finished reading Thus Spake Zarathustra. It is over. And, eventually, it was actually good.

Or maybe it just felt good because it was done.

I’m not going to tell you to bung it on your bookclub list but, you know, if you’re in the mood for some obscure imagery, weird dreams, offensive conclusions about women, anti-religious rantings, deeply personal reflections on betrayal and un/happiness, spiders, mountains, dwarves, ass-worshipping and a few good gags, then Fred’s your man.

I still have no clue about why he had such an enormously ugly moustache but last week one of the other playwrights suggested he had no teeth and was self conscious. At first this seemed almost plausible and there were several mumurs of 'poor fred' amongst the group but now I recall he chose to live in quite a hermit like fashion for a number of years.

Solitude and deliberately nurturing facial hair that is the size of a small dog do not seem to go hand in hand.

This week I went with one of my playwrighting compadres to the university where we are doing a big collaborative theatrical presentation of TSZ (ie. a play). We met the students. We talked to the students. We watched the students as they improvised around aspects of the text. We reminisced about being drama students ourselves.

Some elements of student impro; loud shouting, taking your clothes off, going for the big pash... never grow old.

Despite the promising early enthusiasm, Tricky is now completely over the potty. It doesn’t matter how many Charlie and Lola stickers I paste on, he has decided that containment of bodily discharges is no longer his “thing”.

He asks if he can pee instead on the mat, in the “big bed”, and even “on Mummy”.

He has also decided he no longer wants to take a bath and became quite angry if any attempts to even sponge him are made.

I didn’t think they went through this stage until high school.

I was speaking to a parent with two kids who are 19 and 21. One of his kids was very calm and responsible but the other was a total party animal with some obvious alcohol issues.

“But you could see all that when they were really little,” he went on. “Tim was always very responsible and cautious and Cathy was wild.”

I had started zoning out while he was telling me this, my face wearing the concerned expression of a parent who doesn’t really care that much because it’s not their kid, but this last statement struck a nerve.

“My toddler has this plastic motorbike,” I told him, “and he loves to ride fast down hills on it. He’s always saying go fast and go down big hill. Even when we’re just driving in the car. That’s not what you mean is it?”

The other parent nodded.

“Sounds just like Cathy,” he said. “She started off rolling down the stairs.”

...you've got me wrapped around your finger...

Once upon a time it looked as if the world was being taken over by Chunky Dips.

Of course when I say 'once upon a time', I mean last year and when I say 'world', I mean my local supermarkets and when I say 'taken over' I mean COMPLETE AND TOTAL DOMINATION, BECAUSE THERE IS NO DIP BUT CHUNKY.

Where once we had slid our Arnotts water crackers into the humble hommous or perhaps a tangy yoghurt based dip featuring garlic and chopped herbs, now suddenly we were faced with a veritable barrage of Chunky Dips which came in several Buy Me Now guises: including the Chilli Red, the Roast Pumpkin, the Thai Basil and perhaps the most pernicious and tempting of all: the Roasted Eggplant. These Dips were made chunky by the addition of crushed cashew-nuts and parmesan and we were helpless beneath their thickened nutty mouthfeel and semi spicy flavours.

Dips are an important ingredient in the Big House because dips go with crackers and both of them go with WINE which is top of our food pyramid, just slightly above 70% dark chocolate. Hence my close observation of Chunky Dips, and their oppressive and monolithic march to the top shelf of the refrigerated section.

Yet even as I recognised the danger I could not stop buying the things. If I ventured into a supermarket that did not have the correct brand of Chunky dip (ie Chunky Dip) then I would make a second excursion to a different supermarket and probably even buy an additional Chunky Dip (Red Capsicum say, or Pesto) to compensate for the stress.

It has taken a long time and a renewed fear of saturated fats to drag myself away from the Chunky Dips and back to the salsas.

Now I am noting another foodstuff break away from the pack: the craison or dried cranberry. Tiny, red and wizened, not unlike the testicles of a small garden gnome.

They are generally full of added sugar and some sort of disgusting oil (to prevent clumping) and yet I cannot stop buying them. I have several different packs in the cupboard, a variety of brands and packaging. Every time I shop I find myself lingering around the health food section (in the hopes of organic cranberries that are ‘apple juice only’ sweetened) or if that fails, around the cake ingredients section, eyes on stalks, for that flash of dark red.

Where do the cranberries come from? Yes yes America, thank you, but why are there suddenly so many different packs available. This time last year I was lucky to see a scant pack of Craisons lurking among the prunes but now they’re everywhere. They’ve taken over from the apricot as common or garden variety dried fruit. And where there are cranberries, so too there is me with my wallet in hand and a yearning expression on my face.

I mentioned this to my friend George. He's American and thus has a good working knowledge of the cranberry.

“Ah yes,” he said. “I saw the way you were staring at the ones Dass gave me.”

I drew in a short sharp gasp.

It was true, we were at the park, Dass had pulled out a package and handed it to George, I saw what they were and could barely control myself. I stared at the cranberries, “and…” George continued, “you actually said at the time: are you going to crack those open or what?”

I laughed at this but it was the uncomfortable laugh of someone who thinks maybe they really are a freak after all.

“Why am I so taken with cranberries?” I mused. ”What’s wrong with me?”
“Well they were a very popular band in the 90s,” George pointed out.
“Yes, but didn’t the lead singer go mad?”

I told George about the Chunky Dip phenomenon. He waved this off. “Don’t worry, “ he said “it’s just your obsessive nature.”

I thought about this. My obsessive nature.

It’s true that I have always collected things. Batman cards. Baby jesus figures. In writing this I realize I am nudging a new bent for small windup toys. Some may call this hoarding but I see it as gathering the resources to make an artwork perhaps or in the case of the cranberries, a kickass salad. My stepmum had made me a delicious wholegrain salad a few weeks back that contained cranberries. Having only bought them once before, since getting that recipe, cranberries had become my number one shopping item, above milk, bread and nappies.

"So really I’m just collecting cranberries," I said to George. "It’s like at the moment I’m in the middle of a cranberry craze. And last year I was caught up in a Chunky Dip craze."

"That’s all it is," he said.

I found this new understanding of myself to be…comforting. Collecting cranberries wasn’t strange at all. It was just something I did. Like parking badly. Like hiding in theatre foyers. Like kissing my baby.

And now having thought about all this, I can even sense my appreciation for cranberries beginning to wane. There’s only so much wholegrain salad you can eat in the middle of winter.

Those little windup toys though….

Note To Smug Self

When dining at delightful local restaurant with friends and their toddler, do not secretly come over all self congratulatory and self-satisfied smiles when your toddler sits like a perfect angel eating his noodles and their toddler shouts: NO! NO RICE! NO NOODLES! and then has to be strongarmed out of the restaurant by his father for 'quiet time'.

Because, twenty minutes later, when you have completed your meal and are now all sitting in the icecream parlour for dessert, your toddler will go ABSOLUTELY APESHIT.

And just to ensure you get the message, you smug cow, he will wake you in the middle of the night, screaming at the top of his lungs: ICE CREAM!!!!!

The Never Ending Story

So I ring my sister AJ in New Zealand, just to catch up and have a general bitch about life and moan about being perpetually tired and having messy houses, and then we start to talk about my current Favourite Topic Of Conversation For The Married Lady With Children which I have entitled: Where Did The Sex Go?

I have already had versions of this conversation with my friends ScreenWriting Mummy and OperaSinging Mummy and the answers in short were: “missing in action” and “behind the clothes dryer, oh wait no, I thought you said socks…”.

So that I don’t sound like I’m completely obsessed I moderate this a bit with my sister and change it to Where Did The Sex And The Talking Go?

We agree that when one is knackered at the end of the day, having been awoken by a Screaming Tomato at the start of the day, one often chooses Sleep over Talk and almost always over Sex.

But this was bad, AJ and I determined.

This was to be strongly resisted, because as the levels of Talk and Sex dropped, so too did the level of Getting The Shits With Your Husband exponentially grow, leading to general shouting and much stamping of feet and shaking of fists and gritting of teeth.

"It’s like, when you stop having sex, you start to notice all the irritating things they do", I had said to OperaSinging Mummy. "All the idiotic, infantile, purile things that seemed so charming, so quirky, so downright hilarious in the courting years."

"Indeed", said OSM. "I had sex with my husband the other night for the first time in ages and it put me in such a good mood I decided not to be cross with him for the next two days."

Sex was a win/win situation for all, we agreed.

The hump in the road (so to speak) was actually 1) having the energy to do it and 2) overcoming all the residual irritation that was still hovering from the previous sex-free epoch.

"I blame it on having a child", I say to my sister, "and having no sleep in two years, but also feeling like all the …ahem… equipment has been, well, left out in the rain."

My sister agrees that this is true; she has had three children and so she feels like the equipment’s been left in the driveway, rained on, chewed by the dog and accidentally been driven over. Even now she’s not fully convinced that it all got put back in the box.

"But still," she gave me wise counsel, "you must find the time to get it all out and give it a good hard polish from time to time BECAUSE YOUR MARRIAGE DEPENDS UPON IT."

Leaving aside the coy metaphors, she goes on to tell me that one of the most romantic things she and her husband had done was to install a lock on their bedroom door.

"Ah yes," I say, "good plan. But I hope it’s a decent lock because your eight year old is pretty good with a screwdriver. "
"Mmmm," she says, "he takes after his father."

We leave this confusing and slightly troubling thought alone and then she tells me that, because this was indeed a vexed issue between her and hubby, she had even gone so far as to purchase …some porn.

There is a long silence.

Ooh, I say finally. What sort?

It’s a dvd, she says, and I bought it online because if anyone ever saw me in a shop I would die of embarrassment.

"Just say that again," I respond, "I’m writing this up for my blog."

"The thing is," she goes on, "I researched. I didn’t just get any old dirty movie. I wanted quality. I went onto a special site that sells movies for women. Good movies. With stories. And good lighting. The one I bought has won an award."

"What, for good lighting?" I ask.

"No, for the story," she insists. "That’s what I’m saying. I don’t want to just see a bunch of people rooting. I want to watch a story."

"And then you want to watch a bunch of people rooting," I clarify.

My sister, who had never bought any form of porn in her life until now, then gives a strangely impassioned argument for the worthwhileness of the modern porn industry; the way they were now catering for the married couple, for the discerning, needy, loving couples who just needed a little stimulation now and then because they were sad, time-poor, sleep deprived, irritable parents.

I want to laugh at this but deep down I suspect it might be true and maybe we aren’t the tiny niche audience I think we are.

"Even so," I persist, "you cannot tell me that your porno dvd has a story. It may have good lighting and it may even win an award for just that, but I find it impossible to believe it would have a strong narrative, dramatic tension, believeable plot, engaging characters and a bunch of people rooting each other."

"There is a story," she argues, "and it is something about pirates, but I can’t remember the name."

"Butt-Pirates 0f The Carribean?" I helpfully suggest, just off the top of my head. I have no idea if such a film exists but I think it might have a market.
"No," she says. Her voice seems a little strained. "It's nothing like that."
"Pearl Divers 0f The Carribean?" I am starting to feel like I could be onto something here if the tv writing gig doesn’t work out.

"That’s it," my sister huffs, "I’m going to get it."

A few minutes later she is back. The film is nowhere near as luridly named as I have suggested and she reads the blurb off the back cover which sounds half way intelligible and promises adventure, passion and even humour. Also hot extras.

"What, like a story?" I ask.

My sister ignores this. "You know what the sad thing is though? I haven’t even taken it out of the plastic yet. "

"Oh dear," I say. "That is sad."

"Even sadder," she adds, "I’ve got the receipt here and I actually bought it in May."

I tut and say mmm mmm and make other sympathetic noises. "See this is exactly what we started off saying," I tell her. "You know, what’s the point of putting a lock on the door if you never have to use it? Or ordering a dirty dvd online if…"

My sister is galvanized into action. Perhaps it’s all the discussion, perhaps it’s my pity, perhaps it’s because she can’t stand to see good money go to waste. There is a sudden crinkling of plastic over the phone.

"There," she announces, "I’ve now opened the pack and WE WILL WATCH IT TONIGHT."

"Ooh," I respond. "Good luck with that. Don’t forget to report back about the story."

My sister makes a sudden cry. "Oh no! Oh God! Now that is really sad. How embarrassing!"

"What is it?" I ask, alarmed, wondering if she’s discovered some unexpected freebies.

"It’s the receipt," she groans. "I’ve just realised I actually bought it in May... 2007. "

We laugh about this and then we sort of stop laughing and we end the call pretty quickly after that.

My sister's got the kids to pick up and worries about their family business and various health concerns about to rear their ugly heads and I've got to get back to the deadlines and pick up Tricky. And we're both still tired. And both here, and there, our houses are still a mess.

Space Invaders

Le Nephew, La Niece and French Auntie V have gone now.

This is sad of course, with much kissing and weeping on the part of Le Nephew and much squirming on the part of Tricky, but probably best, especially for Sydney's drivers.

I don't really know what's happened to my driving in the past few years.

Actually the driving is ok, it's the parking bit that seems to have gone into rapid decline. Generally I manage to laugh gaily as I admit this, I have other skills I announce, as if a well written birthday card is indeed a suitable substitute for a reverse park.

But this week, as I forced my visiting French sister-in-law to get out onto the road and measure the distance between my car and the car in front so I could exit the space, I realised I had reached a new low.

The French sister-in-law is not herself a paragon of good driving and is infamous for her three billion driving tests before achieving her licence but then again, that was in London.

I got my licence in Raymond Terrace which in those days was neatly summed up by having its highest star acommodation entitled "The Sleepy Hill Motel".
And I failed the first go round. Damn those reverse parks, I say.

As I apologised profusely, French SIL repeated various soothing mantras to me like Take Your Time, and You Are A Good Driver Just Not A Very Confident One and Don't Worry We Can Turn At The Next One. She also took it as read that everytime I stopped the car she would need to get out and measure the distance for me and then wave me into the parking space. I don't know how she thought I parked the car when I was the only one in it but then again I did tell her that once I couldn't find a space in an underground carpark that I was completely comfortable with and so I simply drove home again.

Once parked, my anxiety faded and we then proceded onto frolicsome japes...right up until those last fifteen minutes before the meter ran out.

Then it was time for Le Nephew to come into his own.

As I scurried the party through the city, scouring the streets for parking rangers and mentally preparing myself to tackle them to the ground, a loud piping voice asked me how many minutes remained on the meter.

Oh, about ten, I told him.

And how many minutes will it take us to arrive at the car?

Oh, about fifteen, I told him.

Le Nephew did some swift mental calculations and made some tutting noises.

I'm sure we'll be fine, I said as chivvied them all just that bit harder.

Well, said Le Nephew, this reminds me of when my dad parked the car in London and put some money into the meter.

Very similar, I said.

But, said Le Nephew, the money did not register and then when we came out, the car was gone. Then my dad had to find where the car was hidden.

It was impounded, I said with a fixed smile.

Yes, impounded. And, he went on struck with yet another similar situation, there was the time when my dad put some money in the meter in Bulgaria and we went to buy my mum a birthday present and it was very expensive and when we came out the money did not register and there was a ...yellow thing...on my dad's wheel.

It was wheel clamped, I said between gritted teeth.

Yes! Le Nephew laughed jovially at the memory. Wheelclamped! And so that meant my mum's birthday present was very expensive indeed!

My how I laughed at this, in between the shooting pains from the stitch in my side.

By now we had rounded the corner and were on the home straight for the car.

And at that moment, my French sister-in-law, gripping Le Niece by the hand, started to run.

French sister-in-law is not into running, or indeed physical exercise of any sort, and it took me a second or two before I clocked that she was running towards two men in yellow coats who were delivering brown envelopes to the cars on either side of mine.

I kicked Tricky's stroller into topgear and we sprang after her. F SIL meanwhile, I was quite impressed to see, had flung herself across the windscreen of my car and was saying to the two parking rangers in a pleading girlish tone that was unmistakeably French (nay, Parisien)
Stop what you are doing. I am here!

I wanted to save her the humilation of begging a parking ranger to stop issuing a ticket, knowing too well the futility of such a task, but I was curious to see if her accent and flickering eyelashes would work. Also, I didn't want a ticket.

As I approached, wheezing asthmatically and batting my eyelashes in a sort of hopeful B-Team backup attempt, the parking rangers smiled and waved and walked away leaving my windscreen, miraculously, ticket free.

Wow, that was beautifully done, I thanked French sister-in-law as she collected herself and also picked up her daughter from the kerb where she had been dropped.

Eagle eyed le Nephew stared hard at the ticket I had placed on the dashboard a scant 2 hours previously.

Actually, no, he informed us, this does not run out for fifteen more minutes. We don't need to leave straight away.

We do, I told him firmly. It will take me at least fifteen minutes to get out of this space.

I May Not Know Art But I Know What I Prefer My Child To Paste.

We have visitors at the Big House.

Because there can never be enough Naughty Nephews under the one roof, we now also have the French/English cousins: Le Nephew(8) and...just to be completely wild...La Niece(6). I last saw these two three years ago, in the month before C and I began IVF. They lived in London then and were both cutely bilingual and still carrying the nightmares of the London train bombings.

Now they live in Bulgaria. They're taller. They're still cute.

On Friday Tricky and I accompanied Le Nephew and La Niece (and La Auntie V) to the museum. Here we had a fine time frolicking amidst the dinosaur bones and butterfly displays.

Tricky and La Niece settled down in the children's play area to make a picture of a wide mouthed frog out of paper plates which they were encouraged to paste over with coloured squares of paper.

Le Nephew frowned at this, knitted his half Gallic brows, and informed me that he was "much too old" to even be in this area which was for children. He went for a quick huffy walk around the space and glared at the dressup dinosaur tails and plastic starfish dotted here and there for childish amusement. Then he sat down and started pasting his frog with much dramatic sighing. This provided my own little childish amusement.

La Niece sat quietly and carefully stuck the correct coloured pieces of paper onto the correct areas of her frog picture. Blue for the water. Green for the frog, and so on. She even managed to curl up the red paper tongue that she had pasted inside the paper plate mouth.

Tricky meanwhile had discovered the pastepot. This pleased him far more than the actual frog. Despite my best efforts he gave all the love he had to the paste. Not to the actual frog. This puzzled me. Disturbed me even. I could almost hear his inner monologue as he worked steadily on his masterpiece.

What this sucker needs is a good coat of paste. Maybe two coats. Wait...what is the motherperson trying to do. Tongue? Why is she trying to stick a paper tongue into my frog. My frog needs no tongue. It needs paste. That's all. Leave it alone woman! Do you think Mrs Picasso kept hanging around her son, criticising? Being "helpful"? "oh Pablo...those eyes are pointing in the wrong direction, oh Pablo why must you make the woman weep like that. Make her smile, everyone loves a smile"....argh! Now she is taking the paste pot away. She's making me "share". Why must I share? Did Leonardo share? Did Modigliani share? I need paste! Give me the paste! It's not about the damn frog, I don't give a shit about the frog, the frog is merely a vehicle for the PASTE. Wait! Dear God in heaven! Now she is sticking COLOURED BITS OF PAPER OVER THE PASTE! MY PASTE! MY PASTE! MY BEAUTIFUL PASTE...

Yes, I did all those things.

I made him share.

I stuck on a tongue.

I tried to mop up the half inch layer of paste with bits of coloured paper.

The truth is that I was enviously watching La Niece and her calm quiet green frog in the blue water. I wanted my child to calmly paste a green frog in blue water.

I was tempted to leave the resultant monstrosity on the drying rack but French Auntie V would not have le bar of it and all three frogs came home to the Big House.

And even then I am ashamed to say I could not leave the thing alone. That night, quite absent mindedly I picked up a thick blue texta.

AND I DREW IN THE EYES.

Mrs Picasso would be rolling in her grave.

(Late) Letter to a 24 Month Old Potential Best Friend

My darling Tricky,

Lo you are Two.

This makes me want to sit very very still and gaze off into the distance for a good hour or so.

And also do some heavy sighing. Two. Yikes.

There’s a sense of graduation here, a lot of the how to baby books I inherited when you were born seem to be finished with you and your ilk. Your kid’s two years old already? Then we’re done, move along, nuthin’ to see here.

You’ve already been moved along in Target. Instead of fruitlessly searching Baby wear for clothes in your size that are not emblazoned with trucks, rockets or The Wiggles, I now get to extend my pointless and endlessly frustrating quest amongst Boy's wear.

And of course there’s the potty, use of which really sorts out the tots from the men.

We introduced the potty in a fairly ad hoc manner, by which I really mean: lazy but cunningly disguised as being casual about where you chose to put your wee.

In our laid back, Gen X way, we were all: ‘sure you can sit on the potty if you want but like…it’s cold…and boring…and you’re wearing nappies anyway, why wouldn’t you just wee in them, god knows we probably would if we had the choice.’

But you, you of the two years of age and of the driven, environmentally aware Gen Zeds, you’re all: wee in the potty, wee in the potty, wee in the potty… and frankly that was hard because we found the whole thing very cold and very boring, even with all the stickers I bought to decorate your potty whenever you managed a little offering.

You would sit at stool, but then you would get up to inspect the three drops you’d managed and when we tried to praise you fulsomely and encourage you to get dressed and let us go back to the computer already you would fix us with a look of distain and announce: “more wee wee”.

This can’t be good for his bladder I would mutter to your father and then try and body tackle you as, for the tenth time in as many minutes, you got up to stand at the toilet and rest against the porcelain and proclaim grandly: wee wee in the toilet! But there was no wee wee in the toilet and so after a minute of cold resting it was back to the potty to sit it out.

There were times, I have to admit, when both your father and I even forcefully removed you from your beloved plastic throne and attempted to attach the clean mumpy (your version of 'nappy') to your shrieking writhing body and both those times we broke and took it off again and let you sit back down and concentrate on the business.

And both times you came up with the goods and we felt like mean, impatient, bastard parents and now we’ve learned our lesson and if you need to sit there then fine, sit, and I’ll get on with my reading. Or sort the washing. Or have my shower. Or write my second book.

This past month saw you make a very long and arduous plane journey full of tears and teeth gnashing and extreme discomfort. Oh wait no, sorry that was me. You had a fine time. And once we got to Perth you threw yourself into the coffee culture and fine dining and fish admiring and all that comes with a visit to Gramma and Papa.
You are fearless, a trait you share with Naughty Nephew the 2nd, and unfortunately we have fed the fire by giving you the plastic push round motorbike for your birthday.

Love is not too strong an emotion for the affection with which you greet the plastic motorbike each day. During the first few nights it even had to be placed near your cot at night where you warmly wished it a “Doodnight Moderbike”.

Riding the motorbike has also extended your vocabulary you now say “Go Fast!” which is both an observation and a demand.

You also say “Go Down The Hill” which is both a demand and a cold gripping vice like hand upon my heart

Now that you are Two, you are also developing a certain formality in the way you address us.

Yes the old imperious command is still there, but there is now nuance in your commands which I put down to you realizing that actually we are people too. People whose glory days may well have been back in the eighties but people nonetheless.

I casually mentioned to you one day, somewhere between watching an old episode of Seinfeld, playing Twister and humming a classic Duran Duran song (Girls On Film if you must know) that though we, the motherperson and the fatherperson, are your Mumma and Dadda, they are not actually our real names.

And…it’s not my preference at all but I have to admit it is very cute when now and then you call out: “Nessa!” “Tisstafer!”

Although it loses its appeal somewhat when you follow that with: GET UP! CHANGE MUMPY, WEE WEE ON POTTY.

Current fave book is Duck In The Truck which Aunty AJ gave you and which you seem to have mostly memorized and Raven which is a book that Gramma and Papa brought back from Canada and is about tricky old Raven who wants to bring the sun to the poor people who live in the dark and the cold (obviously waiting for their toddlers to finish on the potty) and so impregnates the Sky Chief’s daughter in the form of a pine needle (same old same old assisted reproduction in indigenous mythmaking etc) and then when reborn as a toddler, is given the sun to play with… ahem. You love this book which you call: Waven.

Green Eggs and Ham, (Gineggsahum) also, still kicking goals.

This morning, when you got into the Big Bed with us, as you do every morning, we had a good old rave, you and us, about…oh…why we have snot in our noses and why we don’t kick people in the face or do wee in the bed and why we should have lots of cuddles and kisses and how the puffing billies are waiting at the station and where is the moon when the sun comes up.

That’s what I notice most about you and Two. We’re speaking the same language. I mean, we’re even on a first name basis now.

I just need to get you hooked on a bit of New Romantic music and watch some Seinfeld together and I reckon we’ll be best friends forever.



So Much Love (No really!)



Your very own
OvaGirl (aka: NESSA! WEE WEE ON POTTY! GET UP!)