Storytelling

So I went to the theatre on Saturday evening with Screenwriting Mummy. 

My playwatching quota has plummeted since Tricky was born and that's just pants really, what with me being a playwright and all. 

Years ago I remember seeing a postcard that said: "Why are there no great women artists?" 

The postcard had a drawing of a woman in a long medievally type frock standing in front of a canvas. She had a paintbrush in one hand which was outstretched towards the canvas and a soup ladle in the other. She also had two kids dragging at her skirt and was unable to see anything much because there was a whopping big saucepan over her head. 

I guess, thanks to the Jolly Big Funshop that is infertility, I had plenty of time in the past to put brush to paper and be a 'great woman artist', if only I hadn't spent all that time rolling about on my bed crying because I couldn't get pregnant. And now, look! I've got the baby and I'm complaining that he takes up so much time. Sheesh. Ungrateful or what.   

Anyway, it was great seeing this play, Inside Out which was about a mother and a son. The son is funny, witty, arty and has a great relationship with his mother. Except, early in the play we realise there's something wrong. That something turns out to be him having schizophrenia and the play moves through a horrific nine month period with, thankfully for the audience, a glimmer of hope at the end. The writer (Mary Rachel Brown) interviewed carers, health professionals and people living with mental illness and you could hear that in the work, it rang frighteningly true. 

I looked around the audience at times and I could see shoulders shaking and hands rubbing at faces and I realised that these were those people, not necessarily the ones the writer interviewed but others, parents and friends who had lost people, and even here and there the lost ones themselves. They were seeing their story, and the story of those they loved.

And for me watching, with my tiny boy tucked up in bed, and for my friend with her even tinier boy, it was also like seeing One Of Your Greatest Maternal Fears playing out on stage, not just the illness but the way it affected the relationship between mother and son, the heartbreaking accusations and abuse, the enormity of patience, the depths of fear. 

In this story, this story made up of lots of stories, the mother got her son back. A woman I met a couple of years ago was not nearly so lucky and I will never forget her description of walking the backstreets of the city and finding the sad little corners and nooks where he had sheltered for a few days before moving on. Her only son. Her only child.

After the play we went out and had dinner in a noisy Thai restaurant where we ate squid and betal leaves and drank wine and shouted over the table at each other. It was a good night with lots of talk, not just about the play and what it meant to us, but about writing and mothering and finding a way to bridge the two without being a shitty writer and/or a shitty mother.

It could be an attitude, I decided later. It could be that the word "great" is too much baggage anyway and once you get rid of that baggage, the job's so much easier. 

And maybe we just do what we can, and take time off where we can and meet friends where we can and watch as many plays as we can and that will be enough.

But also I thought I might get rid of that big heavy saucepan, replace it with a colander maybe. 

Then at least I can peer through the holes.

boys things

C and I are at the local council getting a directory on kindergartens in our area and I see a poster for a kids' writing competition. 

It's for 12 to 18 years and you can win an iPod and so i think Naughty Nephew 1st might like to have a crack. Also you have to write about Inspirational Women and I approve of that, I think that's rather good.

So then I pick up an entry form and I see that it's for GIRLS ONLY and I'm a little torn here. 

On the one hand I think it's good for girls to be given opportunities and special events. 

I think if I was a 12 to 18 year old girl again, I might feel a bit shy and lack the confidence to enter something like a writing competition. I might also appreciate that fifty percent of the competition has just been knocked out of the ring and I might say that after all there are plenty of activities dominated by boys.

But why is it only girls who get to write about inspirational women? Boys can be inspired by women too. God knows we get to hear about a helluva lot of male heroes that both boys and girls can be inspired by. 

And actually i think it rather good if boys in particular are encouraged to think more about the inspiring qualities of women.

Thanks to some rather ghastly Australian football player shenanigans, there has been a lot of discussion recently about respect and attitudes towards women, but this is an old argument, an old discussion. I just think this competition missed an opportunity to encourage respect and positive attitudes.

The entry form says things like: Have you ever read a story about a woman's bravery and thought: "What an inspiration."?

and

Is there someone in your family who has had a profound impact on your life?

And these are good things for all kids to think about, genitals aside.

But in the end I think what really threw me was the literary quote on the front of the brochure. 

Sadly, competition organisers had chosen a quote from a male writer which seemed contrary to the whole girlpower thing.

And bizarrely that quote was this:

"The pen is the tongue of the mind."

And agreed at first i just glanced at it, and also I am one of two sleep deprived, overworked parents, but i cannot be the only person who looked at the quote on that page and read dick.

Scurry faster Bloody Mary elves. Faster!

I feel I have to add this because otherwise it may appear to the untrained eye that events described in my last post, written just after Tricky had finally fallen asleep, may have ended peacefully.

No, they did not.

Asleep, maybe an hour tops. 

And then...sweet mother of god... the crying started. But not crying as we know it. Whining moaning crying with eyes firmly shut. The kind of crying that cannot be shushed or cuddled or comforted in any way. 

What is the matter little boy? I would ask him and he just cried and cried and seemed to be trying to say something important but was impossible to decipher. Is it your ear? Is it your tummy? Do you have a sore tummy?

Sore tummy he mumbled back but then he also mumbled sore ear...

Should we go to the hospital? C and I looked at each other, worried, tired and then... Tricky seemed to settle.

For about ten minutes.

And repeat until 4am. 

There were slight variations on the theme. At one point he really did need to poo and this was done (in his nappy) standing up, clinging to my head and crying in my ear. When C changed him Tricky shouted THE LIGHTS ARE TOO BRIGHT. There was slight relief here, I understood this kind of shouting/crying.

DOONA ON... TAKE DOONA OFF...I WANT A SHEET...SHEET OFF... eventually I was too slow to respond and he just lay in his bed shouting DOONA ON DOONA OFF. For the sake of the rest of the house I tried to calm him and quiet him and interestingly, despite the horror, I never lost my cool. Yay me.

Around 4 he was crying for milk and saying he was cold. I put him into our bed and told him to stay there while I got his milk and when I came back in he was asleep. Asleep and outstretched over my side of the bed. So then, the constant gentle shove routine so I could claim a few inches for myself and...we all slept. Till 7 when C and I woke because my car had to be taken to the garage (massive 4 wheel drive ute backed up on my bonnet, all ok but man that was some crap day yesterday.)

This morning, I stumbled downstairs to talk about the night with my sister in law. She said that Naughty Nephew 2 displayed similar strange sleeping-crying behavior that could go on for hour. What worked for them was taking him into the bathroom with the lights on and giving him drinks of water until he woke, often with a start and the grumpy demand: "Bed!"

Hand me my Bloody Mary pronto.

It is bed time. Past bed time.

The Screaming Tomato is back. 

The Screaming Tomato is angry. 

The Screaming Tomato wants his DIZZZZORT NOW. This should be YOGHURT or ICECREAAAAAAAM.

The Screaming Tomato wants his mother to GET AWAY FROM ME. Hang on, wait, are you actually leaving the room? Then in that case I WANT MY MUMMEEEEEEEEEEE. And also WHERE IS MY DADDDEEEEEE? Here he is making the shushing noises and trying to give me cuddles and saying in a soothing manly tone: here's your daddy. In which case DON'T TOUCH ME DADDY, JUST GO AWAY.

The Screaming Tomato does not want his bath.

The Screaming Tomato does not care to be placed in the bath when he has made his displeasure known.

The Screaming Tomato shall make his parents rue the day that ears were invented.

Cunningly, the Screaming Tomato suddenly transforms into smiling curly headed infant and bat eyes in fetching fashion. This shall be called: Story Time.

Story Time ends after a selection of fine toddler literature.

Screaming Tomato promptly returns.

Parents attempt to wrest Screaming Tomato into bed.

Screaming Tomato plays Trump Card. This shall be I NEED TO DO POO POO.

Parents have already caught themselves on previous nights crying wearily; "But it's so late. Can't you just do it in your nappy?" This makes them feel like Crap Parents. 

So once again Screaming Tomato is perched on potty. Pyjama trousers must be completely removed and preferably placed in another room, or state. More stories must be read to hypnotise the Screaming Tomato digestive system into, the much shouted about, motion.

NO POO POO. MORE STORY. GIVE ME MAISY.

Mummy of Screaming Tomato tells Daddy of Screaming Tomato that "that's it." 

Mummy then does something nasty to her back. 

Daddy attempts to re-clothe infant son and must suffer indignity of being told at top of voice: NO DADDY, GO BACK TO WORK.

And later, when he falls asleep, I think about different things we could have done; fed him earlier, bathed him earlier. I didn't smack him but maybe I should have, I didn't insist that he brush his teeth but maybe I should have. I wonder if we're spoiling him or if we're giving him confusing signals, or if he's going through a stage of temper tantrums that are only worse because he's bigger

And I think about his curls and his eyes filled with tears and his red straining face, and his soft kisses when finally finally he relaxes into his bed.

This just in (or out)

Potty Drought Officially Broken! 

Thanks go to:  fibrous diets, big boy underpants, Charlie&Lola stickers which enliven any small person's toileting and chocolate frogs- the official bribe for Number Twos.

I waited all those years for a day like this...

...cuddles in bed and appy muzzahs day mumma and what would you like for bekkfuss mumma and daddy pancakes and oh oh change of picnic plans cos its pouring outside and more cuddles proper ones with arms around necks and one thousand proper kisses or at least five with love and real coffee with frothy milk and hallo misselle appy muzzahs day hallo cordia hallo morgin hallo hallo and muffins and sandwiches eaten on the carpet and running up and down and up and down and up and down the hall and a break in the weather sends us scurrying to the playground and running up and down and up and down and up and down the playground and oh dear that little boy is drinking tricky's drink and home for dumping on da tampoleen and champagne for mummies and dadda and babycakes for small people and more dumping and dinner with nephews and more running up the hallway but with nephews this time and all in the bath and all out of the bath and bye bye and I DON'T WANT TO GO TO BEEEEEEEED and mummy use her firm voice and no more stories bedtime now and oh all right just one I mean just six and the gruffalo is the very very very last one cuddle cuddle night night kiss kiss...

...and lucky and lucky and lucky and happy and glad and love.

Tricky and Smeagol in Conversation.

(Tricky playing nicely on mattress with armful of stuffed toys. Mother spies him and hearing delightful chatter thinks it might be nice to write down what he says and does.)

It goes...

Which way it goes?

(Leaps to his feet and waves fetchingly. Mother smiles at gobsmacking cuteness. Assured career as actor in the hugh jackman style)

That way it goes. 

On top of hill. 

(Heaps doona into hill shaped lump. Mother impressed at improvisation skills and also potential engineering career.)

Go top of hill. 

You push this one here.

(Picks up Snoopy, abruptly bites his face and then flings him away. Mother deeply shocked.)

Which way did that go?

Hmmm...

(Tenderly retrieves Snoopy. Mother relieved.)

...doggy.

(Flings Snoopy away again. Mother concerned)

Which way did that go?

Off a bed?

Why did we throw it off bed?

We didn't throw it.

(Much effort as he tries to wedge himself in corner between mattress and wall and arrange stuffed toys around him. Mother feels faint hope, perhaps he will be a social worker.)

This one here... (selects small sad looking toy.)

(Throws it)

...is having long long...

(retrieves toy, returns to position, throws toy. Mother trying not to make eyecontact. Wondering if she stopped breastfeeding too early.)

It falls off again.

But we did...too...much.

(Sits Snoopy tenderly in his lap as he speaks. Throws him away. Gets up to retrieve him. Back to first position. Throw. Repeat. Mother sees dreams of child joining Medicine Sans Frontiers as music therapist go up in smoke)

Throw it too much.

(Puts pyjama pants on knees.

Sits Snoopy on knees.

Bites Snoopy's face. Gives it a considerable gnawing with accompanying noises.

Throws Snoopy.

Retrieves Snoopy.

Mother creeps out of room, muttering my precioussss and clutching at notebook.)

I found my scroll bar!!!

It's back because Anna suggested I look in my Word Preferences! 

And I did!

And lo, there it was.

Hoorah!

Also I am back online. 

Also I now have a gmail account so i shall never have to rely on server again.

Now I shall go write.

And...anyone remember the last line of the book above?

oh i am so embarrassed

Home is where the heart is

This is going to be one of those dull, whining, self indulgent posts that various non-blogging people will think is proof that bloggers really are dull, whining, self indulgent...I was going to say "fucknuckles" here but then i remembered some of the people I know who read this post (but never comment, thanks lurkers) and I know at least one of them will think this language a little, well, strong, so tonight...for you...I'm just going to ask you to replace the f-k word with the word "plonkers."

To start with...my new computer. I don't understand how it works, I am ignorant and therefore I hate it with a cold, intolerant, irrational hate. It has infiltrated every part of my writing life - take this blog for instance: I don't know why for no apparent reason, a brush of my hand against the mouse pad will suddenly shoot the font size up like swine flu stats on a cold day. Or why I can't put more than one picture on a post. I hate that I can't just cut and paste a document straight into the template like I used to and also I hate that there seem to be way less commenters. Yes, I shall blame that on the computer. It's what we rednecks do.

I also hate that the spanking new cord on the new computer packed it in almost from day one. No reason, although the people at the computer shop bagged on about the incorrect winding of the cord. What sort of bollocks is that, computer shop people? I have have had several variations of computer over much of my adult life and wound cords merrily as required and never had one just flake out like this one did.

Now I move on to briefly mention the way that the new computers Word program creates documents that don't have a sidebar. No sidebar, sidebars are so last computer. Thus when I create a seventy page script for instance I have to tippy tap through the document if i want to go back to the beginning say, or skip to the end. And for some reason this keyboard has no Home button. Even tho pressing the Home button (plus some other shitey little buttons) is meant to take me Home. So this makes me grind my teeth and froth and STOPS ME WRITING and yes of course it's all in the Set Up or other folder or drawer or pigeon hole BUT WHO HAS THE FUCKING TIME? 

(Replace the f-word with "jolly". You know who you are.)

But finally, tonight, what made me completely sully my pretty toddler worship blog is OUR SODDING SERVICE PROVIDER. Our new service provider has not provided service. Our old one has dutifully cut us off. I have about ten scripts that are supposedly emailed to me today. I have one script, written by me, that I am meant to be emailing to others. I am using C's wireless modem and racking up his bill just to type this post and alleviate some frustration but cannot get my emails out of the black limbo they have been banished to. 

Also, we can't call so called "service providers", because it's night.

I have run out of words to describe my fury. I blame that on them too.

Apple, Iprimus, Telstra - you're a pack of CUNTS. 

(You, replace the C-Word with "fucking cunts".)

feeling much better...

Tricky has moved through the vomiting stage, and the floppy stage with lots of cuddles and sleeping and has now moved into what I like to call the "Camille stage" where he lolls back on his bed and demands servants to adjust his doona or bring his sippy cup to his mouth or carry him to the couch so he can better see Charlie&Lola. 

Also he makes small groaning noises in between begging for jelly dinosaurs. 

Also every one of his toys must be brought to his bed for his viewing pleasure and then no no what are you doing mummy take them away take them away and YOU GO AWAY TOO.

I can't continue this post, young master is waving one lily white hand and calling for pancakes.

best laid plans

Yes well see that's the problem with leaving a sizeable gap between posts.

I was planning to write about all manner of cheersome frolics and mad capers but instead I shall be spending tonight wiping the spew off Tricky's face (and surrounding soft furnishings as well as myself) every...oh... hour on the hour it's been so far. Brand new tummy bug, gotta love 'em.

Of course my last post was a big whinge about ill health too so now I just sound pathetic.

Yup. Lesson learned Mr Blogger, lesson learned.

The Cough Of The Just

So we've been sick, both Tricky and I, and I really don't want to point a finger at anyone in particular but YOU C, YOU WITH YOUR TRIPS TO FREEZING COLD TASMANIA AND YOUR INSOUCIANT ATTITUDE TOWARDS VITAMIN C AND ECHINACEA, YOU BROUGHT THIS SICKNESS HOME AND SCATTERED YOUR MICROBES UNTO US AND YOU NEED TO PAY.

Sorry where was I? 

Yes, that's right, the VIRUS OF HACKING HORROR. 

Night times have been the worst of course, one minute I am comfortably settling down to read the most boring novel in the world (a direct result of writers' block) and the next I am threatening to cough up my small intestine except I'm pretty sure I lost that the last time C brought a hacking virus home. (Although to be fair he also brought home a very nice necklace for me, so...you know, swings and roundabouts.)

For a while I lie in bed with my face jammed amongst the pillows, trying to muffle the sounds of misery, but eventually I drag myself out and gargle something or swig something and sit upright until the coughing fit stops and I can crawl back beneath the doona. 

I'm not sure if this is a male habit or even a 40plus male habit or just one of C's own adorable pecadillos but whereas I, at the first hint of a sneeze, will start mainlining garlic and horseradish and drink gallons of water, C seems perfectly comfortable hurling his phlegm around the room and would not even think of sucking on a Vitamin C. 

Wouldn't cross his mind. 

So then I have to drag myself out to the shops, knowing all the time those microbe things are festering in my system and I am a marked woman and it's all just a matter of time, and buy bags of vitamins and zinc things and chesty cough mixtures. 

Even then it's not enough to clink them on the kitchen table and heave a great sigh of martyrdom and mutter about if only he'd thought to take this stuff before he came home and passed his lurgy amongst the family. 

I have to make up little bowls of tablets and vitamins and actually hand them to C with a frigging glass of water before he will actually take them.

Tricky has also been coughing like a fiend, albeit a tinier version, and initially there was also a bit of fever and general sickiness. The last time he had this sort of coughing virus the doctor prescribed him a puffer which came with an elaborate mask and spacer type thing. 

He wouldn't have a bar of it and the only way I could get him to use it was when he was asleep. I would hold the mask over his face and press the ventolin and count to ten. It felt vaguely creepy and wrong and so I was glad that this time, a few months after the last virus, Tricky was keen as mustard to use the mask. He presses the button himself and counts to ten - I think it's the echoey booming way his voice sounds in the spacer that holds all the appeal. That and the button of course. Kid loves a good button.

But all this night coughing and palaver has caused a bit of havoc in the sleep stakes. All the mummy attention at night during the early stages has registered with Tricky and now, as his coughing subsides, the demands, and the volume with which the demands are made, have increased.

Last night we were woken by shouts for water, mummy, doona and Charlie&Lola. Since I had done several of the earlier night calls, I nudged C into action and started drifting back to sleep.

Moments later I was woken more decisively by the sound of Tricky kicking his feet against the back of the bookshelf that makes up one wall of his "bedroom". 

DOONA! Thump thump thump. MUMMA! Thump thump thump. NO WATER, I DON'T NEEEEEEED IT. Thump thump thump. I WANT MY MUMMY.

Somewhere in the darkness C, half asleep, was lumbering about with a sippy cup of water in hand, feebly muttering shhhh shhhh. 

At some point he must have made actual physical contact with our child because then Tricky sternly and quite cruelly shouted:

NO DADDY, GO AWAY, GO BACK TO BED.

It was terribly harsh, this rejection by one's child, I thought. 

I settled myself comfortably upright against the mountain of pillows I had built in a bid to stave off coughing.

But frankly, terribly fair.

hunting stories

It is time once again for the Hunting Of  The Chocolate Eggs or at least it was last Saturday which coincided nicely with yet another visit north to see my family. 

This time my second sister T, the surfing hippie doing a Masters in Acupuncture joined us, as did my third sister Nurse K. 

K brought her husband with her which was jolly, not just because we don't get to see him that often but because a few days prior to that he managed to save one of his fishing mates with a bucket.

When I say 'fishing' I mean 'rock fishing' which started at dawn and finished abruptly an hour later when a freak wave washed over the rock and washed said fellow down into the water, and when I say 'mate' I mean 'friend who had never been rock fishing before and wasn't a great swimmer and indeed had only been in Australia a short wee while (Scotsman)' but when I say 'bucket' I think we can leave it at that. 

Although, sister's hubby hastened to add, it did have a lid on it the bucket, which made it a flotation aid. Also there was a rope tied to one end which didn't seem too useful since Scotsman was washed out to sea. 

Sister's hubby points out that in fact this is the safest option, the swimming out to sea bit, most deaths happening because washed off fishermen tried to climb back up the rocks where crashing waves did them in. And Scotsman did not manage the bucket first go and bucket had to be thrown to him again and when it landed nearby and he called that he couldn't reach it and he was done for, they had to shout that yes he could, yes he could SWIM FOR THE BUCKET.

Scotsman swam and held on for dear life and floated (despite his steel capped boots, inappropriate for being washed off a rock yet paradoxically quite sensible for standing about in one spot on craggy rocks for the previously planned several hours). In the meantime sister's hubby ran up to the highest ground he could find (naturally they were in some remote place that required an hour walking out in the dark through the bush carrying extensive tuna fishing gear which would be washed away in aforementioned freak wave) and rang emergency assistance. Luckily the local surf life saving club was contacted and an intrepid soul dashed out on a jet ski to haul in Scotsman And Bucket.

Sister's hubby who fishes from a boat on the lake most weeks and has done since he was a little tacker has married into a family of landlubbers who love eating fish and many a time have partaken of his catch. We listen to his story and grimace and wince at the right bits and some of us scream when we hear the additional information that the last time they fished in that spot a whopping great big tiger shark had been prowling around after the bait fish.

It gives the whole easter egg hunt a little extra frisson of excitement which is probably good since there's not much in the way of tension or real competition. There are after all only two children who participate and one is a six month old who has just started on solid foods. 

Tricky solemnly carries his basket from potplant to potplant and collects his righteous bounty while his mother, father, two aunts, two uncles and grandparents troop after him, crowding to watch him earnestly gather his eggs or hissing that he missed one, over there, over there. 

Last year he collected eggs with his cousins and had no idea they were there to be eaten, preferring to roll them like marbles and throw them about the yard, marveling at the shiny papers and bright colours. I was happy to forgo the chocolate experience and redistributed them among the naughty nephews. But this year, Tricky knows about easter eggs, he knows about chocolate and by george those eggs aint going anywhere else. 

Baby L, meanwhile, lifted up to find one egg after another simply laughs and pats at them and then turns away for a glimpse of her doting parents.

Sister's hubby is a quietly spoken fella, he loves fishing and he loves my sister and their baby. He says he'll never fish at that point again and he won't be rock fishing for a long time if at all. Hippie sister later suggests we all chip in to buy him a lightweight flotation vest, just in case.

When he brought his mate home from the hospital, the media were waiting outside his home, for comments, for interviews, for pictures of the bucket. Sister's hubby wasn't keen, he's a shy man, the quiet sort. 

They kept after him though, during the day and eventually he had his photo taken and his words recorded. As we watched the babies, he added in a surprised tone, the reporter kept asking him if he was planning another fishing trip and he kept saying no until eventually he clarified - not rock fishing no, but beach fishing, sure. His comment didn't make the television interview but hers ended the report...and he's already planning another fishing trip!

My sister's face is set as she listens to him tell his story again and again. Relief, pride, love and resignation play out across her features. Most dangerous sport in Australia, she mutters. He squeezes her hand.

And baby daughter, safe in her mother's arms, dimples and laughs and reaches for her daddy's face. All smiles and gurgles and love.

in the family

My grandfather is back in hospital. 

A couple of days ago when I intended to write this I was going to say I thought it was the end. Let the record state that I think it is grossly unfair and seven sorts of complete shit that having gone through the diabetic horrors of having his leg amputation it has just been one ghastly ailment after another, from infected testicles to phantom leg pain to catheter issues and now to enormous mystery weeping blisters. The man should be able to perch atop his enormous wheeled chair shouting orders to lackeys, arguing over what sport gets watched on the communal plasma screen and swigging back plastic tumblers of his semi illicit rum. He's probably only got a few years at best why can the man not be comfortable?

Instead, he looked horribly bloated and was covered from neck to toes in this god-awful rash, we're talking bubbling blisters some of which were the size of my palm. Skin samples had been taken from one arm and so in addition to the blisters the skin was bright purple. And he was wheezing and gasping for breath and slumped to one side and so very very uncomfortable.

My youngest sister K, the nurse, was with me. We stood by the side of the bed, rubbing the hospital disinfectant into our hands. Then my sister swung into action. 

There are moments when it's a bit shitty having a nurse in the family, like the time my sister AJ stepped on a pin that broke off in her foot and my mother attempted to excavate it herself with a home scalpel and a pair of tweezers, because she was a nurse and so she could. 

But there are excellent times too -  and this was one of them. K snatched up a pair of bright blue latex gloves from the box on the sidetable and whipped them on. HOW ARE YOU GRANDIS? She shouted at his ear as she peered beneath the sheets. This was not cruel, this was sort of comforting, Grandad's hearing aid, like the Tasmanian tiger - much discussed but never reappearing, had disappeared "in the move" and he had reverted to his customary shouting.

He rallied a little and yelled his hellos back to us. I leaned in to kiss his face. DO THEY HURT GRANDIS? I asked him and he shrugged his cheeks a little. THEY ITCH  and as if to illustrate he suddenly swatted at his chest and underarms.

WE'RE GOING TO MAKE YOU MORE COMFORTABLE GRANDIS, my sister announced and in a few seconds the pillows had been readjusted, the bed lifted and my grandfather hoisted into position. My sister is a small girl, my grandfather is a big man and I was no help at all really but it was done. 

AHHH CAN YOU JUST, OW UNDER MY ARM...

I reached across for the buzzer but K scooped up a handful of some sort of ointment from the table by his bed and matter of factly rubbed it into his torso.

THAT'S BETTER, THANKYOU LOVE...

Next my sister snooped at the drip, scanned his notes - showing me the photocopied pages describing various horrible blistering ailments and their possible remedies (boil ye a toad and stir it thrice widdershins under a cresent moon) and examined the canula in the back of his hand. 

A couple of nurses came in and my sister drifted into the background as they checked his blood sugar levels and made reassuring noises. There was some small talk with my sister, she works at this hospital too although currently on maternity leave.

Have you had a good look at these, one of the nurses said, I've never seen anything like it, and she whipped off the sheet to expose the raw weeping groin and thighs. My sister's face was a tight, professional mask. She nodded shortly and made little mmm hmmm noises, then she said in a seemingly casual manner: I was thinking, he sounded a bit...overloaded.

Yes, the nurse nodded back, I was just thinking that myself...we'll have a look at that drip, because he is drinking fluids after all...

...and with his cardio problems, K said, and I was just wondering how those bedsores were going...

They're so busy, my sister told me afterwards when we had said our goodbyes and re-disinfected our hands and headed toward the lift. And he's such a big man...it takes 2 or 3 people just to move him, and things get missed or get postponed because other stuff happens on the ward, but I did think they needed to do something about the overloading, that's way too much fluid...

That afternoon the dermatologist called our father and told him that they were pursuing an aggressive treatment for these mysterious blisters and rash. There could be sudden reactions. And then later the doctor in charge of  the second team, monitoring the diabetes and heart and kidneys and bladder infection rang too and they both asked about the same thing. The NFR sign, Not For Resuscitation. K took the second phone call, our parents were out and she was still at the house with me watching vampire movies.

We haven't broached that conversation yet, I heard her say and then the hmm mmm noise again. She asked about the medications he was on and then replied that yes she was a nurse too, at the hospital. And then I heard her say...well of course he's surprised everyone before...quite a few times actually.

The next day, after nearly 24 hours of the treatment we saw Grandis again and he was like a new person. The swelling was down, the wheezing was gone, the blisters were still there but less angry and he was much more animated, flinging his arms about and grilling C, and K's husband T, about football results and the view from his window. In fact he was almost a little too animated, I felt, like he was over compensating for my tears of relief or... maybe even...high. But whether it was the sensitivity to blubbering granddaughters or the heavy duty drugs coursing through his bloodstream, he seemed much more comfortable.

The new regime involved heavy duty antibiotics and steroids and cortizone creams rubbed into his body three times a day, being wrapped in dressings and warm wet sheeting and then covered in space blankets. That's three nurses three times a day. Extra staff were put on to the ward to ensure the treatment took place.

Extra staff? I exclaimed when my sister told me this later.

Yup, she said. The doctor told me she was very impressed with the care of nursing and I have to say...I am too.

Was it because he was your grandad?

Well in theory, she said, everyone should get that level of care, but I don't see it happen all that often. Maybe him being Grandis was just icing on the cake.

He's very lucky, I said. And I meant it in so many ways.

Mmmm hmmm my sister agreed.

Crushed Beneath My Mental Block

Ack. It's a new month and so many many days since i last posted. I have no actual excuse except I am so blocked up at the moment. It's the mental equivalent of that hideous two week period after Tricky was born when i became the constipation queen and found myself crying to my father-in-law for his stash of laxatives. 

I'm hoping there's some new significant work on its way because I have been huffing and straining over my laptop for the past few weeks and it's not a pretty sight. I keep pathetically googling such things as "How to write my book" and "great new play idea". 

And it's not even like I've got bulk eons of time to do stupid googling and idle research. I have three days of childcare a week and when C is away working like he has been on and off over the past few weeks, those three days are it. 

Except of course as soon as Tricky is whisked away (either by myself or his live in uncle or aunt) then I start to do laundry, or perhaps clean the bathroom which is so festy a colony of sea monkeys has taken up residency. Then I must have a coffee, do some stupid googling, phone another writer friend about procrastinating and mental blockage, make lunch... ok, I do actually manage to scratch a few feeble words onto a slate each day but basically I am an idiot and I should have got a proper job all those years ago when my father told me to.

Also i have just this minute given up wine and sugar. This is based on me reading a newspaper article that said two glasses of wine a night were enough to increase a woman's chances of contracting breast cancer. Nice one, science heads. Those two glasses got me through the day. I'm sure you're right but God, is there no fucking fun to be had?

The sugar thing was even more indisputable. I overheard a shelf packer at Coles supermarket talking to another shelf packer and saying that the weight just fell off her when she stopped eating sugar. I couldn't see these people, i just heard their voices floating vaguely from the next aisle while I was perusing tins of baked beans. 

Unfortunately it took about five minutes of anecdotal evidence about Shelfpacker One's horrid blimpishness and her nasty unsympathetic relatives who had been trying to tell her for months that she had to give it up (what? what? Just say it you cow). 

But then, miracle, the new fabulous svelteness, the putting on of clothes that previously no longer fitted (here I nearly fell face first into the tinned Heinz spaghetti shapes, so sharp was the prick of recognition that accompanied these words) and so i was forced to examine in minute detail those baked beans; the ham flavour, the reduced salt, the generic brands, before I finally heard the culprit named...evil evil fat-inducing sugar.

Two and a half years ago, it took me half a box of medically prescribed laxatives, gallons of water, a coffee meringue and a brisk promenade along Bondi Beach before I could get any kind of movement at the station. I'm not in need of the first (yet), I've just ruled out the second and I don't have the time to do the third. Interestingly, and quite unconsciously, the last few mornings i have found myself drinking loads of water and dosing my breakfast cereal with extra fibre. Almost as if, instinctively, I'm making the connection between brain and bum (most of my friends would of course point out that in my case this was patently obvious).

Letter To A 32 Month Old Wanted Man

Darling Tricky

It's March already which means I have completely missed over February in my efforts to record your own fabulous self in its ever changing, ever growing real life drama. Never mind, sometimes I also forget to put a banana in your daycare bag. And while we're on true confessions here's another little something that I need to get off my chest:

There are no "Broccoli Police".

This all sort of started last month around the time you loudly insisted that the big orange highchair was for wuss pussies and also that icecream was your birthright. 

Broccoli, which you had previously loved and devoured had suddenly become hated and loathsome and no matter how many colourful little side bowls I use to decant the poor rejected vegetable you were adamant that no no no pankyou none of its little green trees would enter your lips. Once again you reckoned without Aunty N who lifted you up and plopped you in your chair mid protest and then told you that indeed you must not eat your broccoli trees because if you did, the Broccoli Police Would Come.

Cut to Naughty Nephews around the table all nodding solemnly at this surprising news and to me, mouth open, at this obviously ridiculous bit of reverse psychology, and then to you reaching out slyly for a broccoli tree, waving it about in the air and then shoving it in your mouth.

Mine eat bockli tee, you confessed smugly.

Oh no! The Nephews were aghast. You ate your broccoli tree! Now the broccoli police will come!

You nodded, laughing dangerously, and then without anymore fuss finished the contents of the little pink plastic bowl.

Honestly. Strap me to a pack rat and call me squeaky, I have never seen such a blatant yet effective lie (although there was that weapons of mass destruction porky a while back). 

Aunty N then told me (under cover of icecream) that this lie had been passed down from some wise and obviously highly creative friends and used very effectively on all the nephews...at least for a short window. We're well in that short window now and I'm clinging to the teeny weeny flyscreen for as long as I can. 

Because you can be, there's no denying it, a little picky with your food. If you notice something suspicious in your bowl (and it's pointless to really list these things because this list will change like the wind and also they call the wind Mariah and how confusing is that?) you will peer at said object, then carefully extricate it from surrounding, and acceptable, baked beans or rice, and then you will fling said object over the table or perhaps, if you're feeling particularly revolted, over the side of the verandah.

If by some chance you are distracted, by your cousins practising the Tumpit or surreptitiously sliding their bowls of pudding onto the table because as well as being picky you are slooow, and Said Object finds it way into your mouth you will suddenly stop chewing and then, expressionless, you will delicately tilt your head and let the previous, now horribly tainted, mouthful plop back into your bowl. It is a gesture as graceful as it is contemptuous.

These past two months have seen your language skills go skipping and leaping forward, no broccoli police needed here to encourage your chit chat. 

There you go Mummy, you say as you hand me a train or your Charlie & Lola dvd or the slipper I asked you to pick up. And you tell us about your friends and family; We are driving Mummy's car and Daddy is having a shower and Papa has a beard but Grandma has a chin. Toby was a bit rough, Ruby went to Sweden...

And you love to run and shout and whoop and dump dump dump on the trampoline. You rough and tumble with your cousins. And you sing. In the bath, at the dinner table, in the car, even in the aeroplane as we began to land in Perth and you let rip with Tinkle Tinkle Little Stah.

(Compared to our last plane trip this is a joyride - another development)

But for all that I realise, you're a shy child.

In the park at Fremantle you rush to climb the slippery slide but you pull up short when you see another child loitering at the top of the slide. I watch your face as the gleam of excitement suddenly melds into a polite, expressionless mask of sudden indifference.

Iss another little boy, you run back to tell me and I nod and smile and say yes that's ok, just say Hello my Name Is Tricky and ask if you can have a turn on the slide. 

But I feel like a hypocrite telling you this because the truth is, I was a shy child too and a shy adult and it is only in the past few years of my life that I have felt more confident, more able to strike up a conversation with a stranger. There have been times I have hung back or turned away because I was unable to say hello. And this is not something I wish upon you.

I had younger sisters, much more feisty, much more confident than me. And at school they dealt with bullies and meanies on my behalf. They did the shouting and the loud negotiating. And you have your older cousins who are all like brothers to you and if you go to school with the youngest he will still be in Grade Six when you are in Grade One. But you have something more valuable still and that is your father's side; optimistic, gregarious, confident and sociable - all things I can be when I try really hard or, alternatively, drink.

You go back to the slide and you say, wavering a little, hello... and I hover nervously on your behalf and suddenly you are laughing and sliding and climbing up again. And later when we are back in the same park and your father takes you over to the slide the same thing happens again. But this time you know what to do and it's all a bit easier but also this time you suddenly know all the kids names and their mothers and where we can contact a babysitter last minute - and that's your dad in action. 

As we leave the park you pick up feathers, soft and white. They've been shed by the huge flock of noisy corellas that perch in the magnificent Norfolk pine trees. You catch these feathers, skimming the grass, with glee and wave them triumphantly and I make an effort to supress my immediate response - drop them, they're dirty/covered in lice/allergenic blah blah blah and instead watch as you delight in the texture, the light flimsy fly away essence that is feather.

You are growing so quickly our darling little boy. And your silly, loving, fallible parents watch you grow and we wonder and we marvel and we fear and we hope. And we love.

So forgive us our games and our falsehoods. We so want you to have all the things that we know are good for you, the exploration and courage, the sensitivity and compassion, the confidence and the optimism. 

And the broccoli.

Your very own

OvaGirl

xxxxxx

We're Not In Kansas Anymore

In fact we're over on the other side of the country because I have a play opening tomorrow night. When I say "a play" it is basically "the play" and if you casually peruse the photos on my side bar of various productions it's the name that comes up a few times. Just to add to the excitement I am typing this on someone's computer in the theatre office while the director gives the actors their notes. This is cutting edge, seat of your pants blogging my friends because I told the administrator I was just going to check my emails. Not only that, i wasn't in Kansas to begin with.
We're like that, us Sydney blogging theatre types. Dirty liars.

This scalp's not big enough for the thirty billion of us

It seems that for now, Tricky is nit free. 

His Aunty N is quite the Headlouse Wrangler and armed with a fine tooth comb and a bottle of tea tree oil conditioner she let loose a flurry of splodging and combing that wreaked havoc and dismay in the follicle settlements.

As she combed she wiped the residue conditioner upon a neatly folded paper towel and showed me the body count. 

I saw adults, nymphettes(which I believe are the 'sullen teen' variety), eggs and assorted scalp debris that was left from Tricky's babyhood. The adults were the real problem (as ever), eggs and nymphettes never done no one no harm but those dirty big adults were whooping it up; leaping from head to head, sucking blood, fornicatin', and spittin' eggs aplenty. 

Just another day in Deadwood really.

The Naughty Nephews also went under the comb and a pleasant and jolly sight it was to have them lined neatly up on their barstools, hair slicked back, eyes bright and fixed on the mini-dvd player where Charlie and Lola were up to usual hijinks. 

Memo to BBC: Charlie and Lola. Possible episode (with book, plush toy and plastic lunchbox tie in) where Lola gets nits from her friend Lotta and passes them onto her big brother. "I have this little sister Lola. She is small and constantly scratches her head. My friend Marv says she's doing a lot of hard thinking but I say she has been possessed by Beelzebub...." etc etc) 

Mini dvd player/C&L combination worked a treat for all of them, ensuring stillness and quietness with little to no whinging that the comb huuuuurts.

But this was Thursday and the lifecycle of the nit rolls merrily on.

On Sunday they were all back up on the stools for further inspection. 

This time, they also underwent a herbal treatment, a sort of natural napalm for headlice, except it was foam not flame and also had a pleasant aniseed-y scent. 

Amongst the Nephews a couple of adult headlice were retrieved, unsurprising since the Nephews had been back at school- that great big headlice melting pot- since Thursday's teatree conditioner massacre. Tricky who did not have daycare on Friday, boasted little more in his coiffure than a couple of eggs and a swaggering nymphette. 

Following this treatment and more pitiless combing, they are all now pronounced CLEAN. 

At least, until the next time a child has head to head contact with another child and a high leapin', gun totin', baccy chewin' louse rides into town. Which will probably be... today.

In our suburb there exists a person whom I like to think of as The Secret Nit Lady. I have never seen her advertised, nor her name spoken aloud but she is whispered about amongst tidy people who don't like to talk about nits. (Which is not me, obviously.) The Secret Nit Lady comes to your house and de-nits your entire family. She carries her own comb. She drives an unmarked car. She charges seventy bucks an hour.

I realise how lucky I am to share a house with my comb wielding sister-in-law when two of my friends try to tell me that they think the Secret Nit Lady is good value for money. That's ridiculous I tell them, it's just headlice. It's not a disease. You just have to accept that you can't truly get rid of them because it's too easy to catch them and buy yourself a heavy duty comb. 

One of my friends made the universal wincing gesture for Can't No Yuck. Would rather pay someone else to do it than eat.

The other shook her head sadly.

It wasn't the nits, she explained. It wasn't the kids squirming when she tried to do their hair. It wasn't even the endless washing. It was trying to get her husband to comb nit treatment through her own hair.

As soon as he runs his fingers through my hair he wants to have sex.  

I'll see if I can get hold of that number I told her promptly.

Even by Deadwood standards, that's just plain wrong.

A Milestone

When I was in Year Six my best friend's name was Julie. She had beautiful long blonde hair and I remember one day combing it with her little red plastic comb as we sat in the classroom. Her hair looked so pretty, shining under the fluorescent lights, almost hypnotic, and I absent mindedly twirled it round and round the comb, as one does with spaghetti on a fork, say.

Later, as I watched my teacher doggedly sawing through the little red plastic comb with a hacksaw and Julie wincing and holding onto her scalp in a vain attempt to stop the pulling, I realised that long hair, although pretty, was at times, also a heavy burden. 

Tricky's hair is long and bouncy with soft baby curls framing his face. I love it and although I have trimmed a couple of wispy straight bits from the back that detracted from the general curly goodness, there has been no actual "haircut". This, despite the subtle encouragement of grandmother and even carer, who make comments like...ooh your hair's getting a bit long isn't it?

When Tricky ran his fingers through his locks one day and said to me: My hair Too Long, mine need hair cut, I had to fight fire with fire. After a little coaching he was able to shake his head fetchingly and shoot back Mine have bootiful curls.

Last month we went to a birthday party for twin three year olds and as part of those celebrations the little boy had his hair ritually cut. They are a Jewish family and it was beautiful to be there at this important milestone for their child and to be invited by the rabbi to join in and bless our own children. 

I can't help but think it must have been an odd moment for the three year old, with his huge mob of abundant blonde curls, when first his parents and then friends and family in the crowd grabbed the scissors and snipped away but then, life for the toddler is full of odd moments. 

In fact life for the forty year old is full of odd moments too.

This morning I ran a fine toothed comb through Tricky's hair. I was pretty sure of what I would find. He's been scratching at his head for a couple of weeks, not manically, just every now and then. Just enough for me to shrug it off as being a debilitating scalp disease or a mild case of galloping shingles. But finally, I could put it off no longer and I reached for the 'Nad's Nit Comb' (with bonus magnifying glass) that I had thrown into the shopping trolley the week before.

As Tricky flicked his Thomas Tank Engine snap cards (there's Gordon! There's james, ooh there's two Jameses) I methodically combed and wiped the debris onto a piece of paper towelling - just as I had seen my sister in law do with the Naughty Nephews time after time. 

Outside, the sun was rising, the garbage trucks were rumbling. Black cockatoos swooped and dived. It was not an entirely unpleasant way to spend an early morning. 

Just me, my son and the small six legged friends who have taken up residence amongst his follicles.

trying to see the world another way

and now I understand why we see the grace in small things...

in my toddler's weetbix smeared grin

in the exotic flavour of crushed coriander seeds mixed with dry roasted macadamia nuts

in the way my body feels grateful and virtuous after yoga

in the satisfaction that comes from giving a birthday present I bought in plenty of time

in the giddy sensation of  nausea mixed with anticipation that permeates a spanking new Word doc.