Random Words Wednesday

THE breeze is still cold, still briskly chasing the tail end of Winter. But if you stand in the sun, it’s warm. The sunlight possesses the kind of Spring warmth to make fern fronds unfurl.

For a few years, this has been my time to celebrate unions and new babies. It’s generally the time of the year my feet – once clodding about in office shoes – would itch for change. And as my single life evolved into a family and I ditched my work boots, every August or September I’ve celebrated life in its most fundamental forms. I met my husband, married him, had my babies.

I am Spring incarnate – full with the promise of procreation.

Except this year. Which is perhaps why I catch myself standing idle and not sure what to do; unsure how to feel. I want so much – and typically of me, have a timeframe – but it’s all so very long-term.

Therein lies the catch, things are long-term because I have things to do now – namely write a second book. But this feeling, this borderline moroseness makes writing tedious. Makes it hard. Makes the couch and a hot cocoa look far more inviting.

How can I be itching for The Dynamic Life and yet be filled with lethargy?! 

My timeline for book two - somehow feels more concrete when written on black board in silver pen.

Random Words Wednesday

THE supervised visit or the parental exchange… when one parent says hello and the other says goodbye… this is the coalface of broken homes.

I watched a young woman at the park with her two girls a little while ago. Despite the enormous playground not five metres away, the two girls spent the morning wrapped up in their mother’s cuddles, letting her whisper sweet things into their hair, gazing at clouds and giggling.

Then another woman, perched nearby at the tables, came to collect them. She and the girls got in a car and drove away. The mum wiped her face, got on her bike and rode home.

I’ve not been a party to supervised visits, but I’ve been the child standing between two parents in separate cars. My heart in my throat as they exchanged pleasantries and instructions. Each time it was a difficult process, each time I had to readjust, like a little wrinkle in my world that wouldn’t be smoothed out.

I’ve exercised diplomacy at an age when I shouldn’t have had such cares. But I did, even without the added burden of parents playing me for a pawn. Some days I still worry that if I demonstrate my love for one, what will the other think?

My child has a notion that they cannot love me if they love their dad. Similarly, I can’t love them if I love their siblings. And surely, we can’t all love each other at the same time.

I know this is a phase and soon he’ll discover the boundless depths of his own heart. In the meantime, I reign in my own childish notions of measured devotion and douse him in love, whether or not he reciprocates.

Random Words Wednesday

IT is considerably unfair that I, while holding a baby girl sporting a black eye, that I cast judgement on a tattooed father reprimanding his boy who had one eye swollen shut and one arm hidden in his jumper. Perhaps in a sling?

But that’s exactly what I was doing while shopping recently.

When my daughter busted her eye on the corner of our coffee table, I spent the next week telling complete strangers what had happened to her. But I was glad to have people actually ask, rather than give me critical looks and say nothing. In short, I preferred people to not draw their own inaccurate conclusions.

With the people brave enough to raise their concerns, I could give them the truth and we could go about our clucking, consoling tones and say how lucky she was that it wasn’t worse.

It was predominantly older people, grey-haired grandparents, who were comfortable approaching me. So I’m guessing younger people also noticed, but were slightly more judicious in their reactions.

As was I when I saw this other young boy.

I wanted to smile and coo and say ‘oh poor thing, what happened?’. But I couldn’t.

What stopped me was the way the father was speaking to him. I hardly heard the boy speak, but I heard his father’s reaction: “when you leave home, you can get whatever you want. Just remember that.”

Even as I’m writing it, I get a little chill. Was it just me, overly sensitive by my own daughter’s bruises, or did I perceive a threat in that father’s challenge?

Was it really little more than his version of my “when you’re older you can have softdrink”? Was I over-reacting or was it a thinly veiled bitch that his dad looked forward to his son – who couldn’t have been more than 10 – leaving home?

I heard another mum the same day, suggesting her little boy get a job, but she was guffawing over the price of cheese and smiling broadly as she announced it to others in the dairy section.

No malice there.

Was it that this man was covered in tattoos? Surely, I’m not that judgemental. I have a tattoo myself. Was it the distinct lack of humour in his voice? His son’s downcast look? The mother’s deadpan expression?

My instinct was to hug this boy tight.

Was that wrong, silly even – especially given my own experience with a battered-looking child on my own hip?

Why am I still hoping someone has reached out to this family? That someone has given this boy the hug that I wanted to give, but couldn’t?

I hope I’m overreacting. I hope I’m dead wrong. The opposite is too awful to consider.

 

Honey, I’m home

THIS is a “flying” post to keep up my Monday appearance and to say thank you to the various people who helped me over the weekend.

I had book signings in Bundaberg and Gladstone over the weekend and while the signings themselves were great, I and the kids were deathly ill.

In fact, before the Gladstone signing my son and I were experiencing a new level of bonding as we were both on our hands and knees throwing up, my daughter screaming “I need you” as she clung to my butt. Un. Pleasant.

So, let’s move on from the horror (did I mention being thrown up on in bed? Vomit stings the eyes.)…

Anywhoo…

Bundaberg: Big thanks to Teresa at Dymocks bookstore for being such a great host and to Ben, for his help unloading and his optimistic outlook.

For Sue and Russ, Brock and Mitch who all came down – please don’t judge me by the first chapter!

I also got to see long-lost parentals Peter and Jill Menzies who had recently blown back into the country from visiting Europe and the UK. They sent me this pic of OT (occupational therapy) superstar, Susan Menzies, enjoying Wedding Etiquette For Ferals somewhere in Austria.

I also got to meet the very lovely Cheryse Durrant whose writing I have loved since subediting her contributions to the NewsMail’s Our Place section. She is a spunky little writer whose latest endeavour is “one to sink your teeth into”… It’s called Dental Care for Vampires and Other Awkward Creatures. I told her I thought she’d “make a killing” with it … and how we laughed!

So, I wanted to capture the moment “when genres collide” (and get along famously) and I thought I had, but turns out I had the camera set to video, so this is as close to a photo as we got.

Gladstone: Thanks to the lovely manager at Rusty’s Motel who kept us up with a never-ending supply of fresh towels while we purged unwelcome bugs from our digestive systems. To the restaurant staff who gave us a table even though they were booked out. And a huge thank you to the powers that be that decreed seven-day trading ought to start the weekend we were in town! The trip home would have been a whole other ordeal if we couldn’t buy buckets and more towels.

Thanks to the helpful Ashleigh Smith from Gladstone Festival and Events for including us in the Dermotique Wedding Expo, even if we had to bail out after only an hour.

And thanks to Robyn Sheahan-Bright who came along to the expo to meet me after years of email correspondance after she awarded me the winner of Queensland Arts Council’s New Regional Writer Scholarship way back in 2004. I suspect we looked a bedraggled lot – my son and I both sick, and my daughter, passed out with a black-eye in the pram (have I mentioned her face made close acquaintance with the coffee table the night before we left? Yes, we’ve been having a fun time!).

Robyn was the first executive director of the Queensland Writer’s Centre in 1991 and is again on the panel of judges for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. I would have really liked to look slightly more professional… sigh.

Finally, thanks go to: my mum for letting us crash at her house not once, but twice. She bats away my thanks every time, but I simply can’t leave her out – she put a blanket over me when I passed out on the couch. Nothing like a mother’s touch, is there? And, though this was not for my benefit, for having the sprinkler going on her lawn when we arrived… for some reason it made me calmer instantly.

And … drum roll please… to my sister who made the trip with us to Gladstone, keeping me entertained with a variety of stories of how creeks got their names. For generally trying to reign in the Mother Guilt that assailed me with brute force as I dragged my sick babies from pillar to post.

The best part of going anywhere is coming home.

Random Words Wednesday

THE bed creaks like we’re in the bowels of an old ship, not tucked up on a single, four-poster bed, swathed in pink sheets and blankets.

She stares at me in the half-light and I stare back. It’s been a hard day.

I smacked her today, not Social Services hard, but hard enough to leave two red fingerprints on her chubby thigh.

She cried real tears, she sucked in her lips like she didn’t want me to see her lose it. Her breathe shuddered and her chest heaved. I had ripped the world out from under her.

I cried then too and cuddled her close till she went to sleep.

You see, the promise of a much-needed sleep is a dangerous thing. It can make you desperate. And when a fidgeting baby who is fighting sleep is all that stands between you and a couple of hours of quiet rest, well…

So I smacked her.

I felt bad. But I felt even worse when I tried to put her back to sleep that night, and the same fidgeting was accompanied with cries that her mouth was sore.

She was teething.

She was teething and writhing, and I had smacked her.

To make amends, I was not only letting her rest in my arms, I was lying in her bed with her in my arms, making no motions to go anywhere.

I told her so.

“I’m not going anywhere. And,” I whispered. “Mummy’s sorry.”

I wondered how often parents show their apology to their kids, rather than say it out loud and remove all doubt they’d done wrong? Which of the wonderful things my mum and dad did for me was shadowed by a prior misdemeanour?

Which of my treats were guilt-induced?

Random Words Wednesday

EVERY so often, I am outside myself. I look at me, at her, and wonder what is she all about? Is she really just this fem-bot going about her motherly-wifely duties?

Who is this woman who ferries two kids to playgroup? Can she possibly be the same woman who would headbang to Rage Against the Machine in front of the club’s speakers so every angry note could reverberate through her body?

Is this woman, the one with bed-hair and a clothes basket on her hip, the same woman who could interview the Premier at a moment’s notice and remind him of election promises left unmet?

Is this woman – the one scribbling furiously while a pile of wet towels stares blankly back at her – is she the same woman who spent hours in the library cramming for exams, filling her head with Inverted Pyramids, Ego-States and rules of communication?

Can this woman, the one wiping away tears and snot from a little face with ease and love, be the same woman who broke someone’s heart?

How can this woman, who travelled alone overseas, be satisfied with a life that demands she be home in time for naps every day?

Has she let the rigours of motherhood steal away her person? Does she recognise herself at all anymore?

You see, that’s the thing. I don’t see myself in the mirror anymore.

But I can see myself. Perhaps clearer now than I thought I could when I was young, self-obsessed and filled with verve.

I see myself at night, in the dark. I see all the things I did. All that I do now. Deciding that the rollercoaster of marriage and children is more rewarding than the rollercoaster of romance and office politics.

For me, at least.

I’m more whole this way. More wholesome. I may look like everything has evaporated, leaving behind this cardboard cut-out of every mother with a mop in her hand. But it’s all still here – all the same passion, fear, conviction that I always possessed.

It’s all inside waiting for 15 minutes to get spewed out onto a page, onto a keyboard, into a voice recorder.

In the meantime, I get to build this life around the people I love and be happy with my lot. But I’ll permit myself to dance with the kids to M-rated songs, just so they know I’m not just their mum, I’m that other woman too.

Random Words… Thursday

SORRY, I’ve been pretending I know stuff about self-publishing and social media.

Oh, and beating my head on desks while I work on news stories that had Walkley potential (okay, maybe Qld Media Awards potential), but was instead was sort of smooshed into high-school essay waffle. Can I just say “bombs”? Would that give too much away? Probably. Oh well. Journalism 101 – any story about bombs should probably have the word bombs in the very first line. Not At The End.

I’ve been trying to find a place to stay in Gladstone (accommodation prices, Lordy! Anyone would think I was on a miner’s wage! Hello BP? Want to foot my bill?) for my upcoming book signing there.

And what else? Oh yes…

Minding the Limpet and the Lion (apt descriptions of my cling-on daughter and her rambunctious brother).

Trying to agree on a cease-fire with my husband over who’s responsible for what on the nights I’m working from home. (We’ve decided that we love each other and the rest of the chaos will be coaxed into submission somehow!)

Getting up to the kids’ unrelenting sleep-deprivation torture tactics. In a direct revolt against the peace treaty between my husband and I, the kids were HORRIBLE last night. Waking up every 15 minutes or so.

Fixing the internet. Nothing makes me more GGGRRRRR than when the internet won’t work. And it’s ALWAYS on days I have to work and after the nights when I’ve had no sleep so am bound to unleash my fury on some poor unsuspecting AAPT lady (who says her name’s Jane, when you know it’s something like Rajeesh).

There are pluses though. My kids are playing nicely together today, using their chalk as Easter eggs and having an egg hunt in the yard. I ate FOUR chocolate croissants (because I’m entitled!) but I won’t disclose how many glazed donuts the kids and I ate, because the fact I ate four croissants and THEN any number of donuts is admission enough.

 I stumbled across a lovely little get-together of Mummy Bloggers yesterday and got to pretend I was having a “social event” that wasn’t in a park or McDonalds.

And now I must go and work (which much as I complain, I do love) and rescue my daughter who apparently “NEEDS WATER” like she’s in the Sahara and not our backyard.

 

Random Words Wednesday

I DON’T dispute that I’m crazy. Undoubtedly insane, certifiably coo-coo and unequivocally mad.

That said, I miss my kids sleeping with me.

Last Monday, I swallowed a concrete pill, hardened up and MADE my kids stay in their beds. All Night. It was tiring (understatement) and I’ve still got a sore throat (as happens when you’re running barefoot over cold tile floors in the dead of night). In fact, I sleep in my dressing gown, ready to spring out of bed and soothe one or the other back to sleep. But they did it and I’m so proud.

And yet….

I used to wake up wedged between two warm, sometimes sweaty bodies. Pudgy arms wrapped around my neck. Wayward legs thrown haphazardly over my torso. The blanket tangled amongst us like some sort of fabric Rubik’s cube. Their steady breath tickling my face or throat.

And as they stirred, I could cuddle them close, coax them into another 30 minutes of quiet, followed with a gentle prompt into the land of the living from my son.

“Mum, the sun is up.”

Indeed.

Since my daughter insists upon waking up around 5.30am, I still tuck her into my armpit (where she’s happiest – this is not my preferred position!) and she’ll go back to sleep for an hour or so.

But my son wakes up to his new Buzz Lightyear alarm (or he would if I could set it properly) and greets the morning with his Dad who starts on breakfast (since I have a growth still attached to my ribcage).

My son, who is less and less likely to give impromptu kisses and cuddles, is growing up. My daughter, obsessed with the potty and cups that have no “sippy” prefix, is also growing up. In fact, between the two of them, the only things that say “baby” anymore are nappies and her dummy.

Suddenly, I’m watching everything with a timer. I watch them with intent now. Each new word uttered and every challenge they overcome.

And I’m sad.

I’m cherishing every “Mummy, mummy, mummy!” that gets shouted at me, because I realise that that too won’t happen forever. The meals that I lovingly prepare which are, without exception, fussed over, mauled, spat out and thrown on the floor are no longer the frustrations they were before.

It’s just food and I’m much busier trying to imprint on my brain, “Son, age 3, engaging with a celery stick”, like a mental polaroid.

My daughter sits on my lap as I work, smooshing my cheeks between her grubby fingers, and pressing her face into mine with giggles and snorts. The game is to try and see past her, try and do my work, when all I really want is to hold her tight, stare into her eyes and smile.

I’m grateful for all the new games – impromptu discos in the dining room, making a “man house” for Son’s Lego men, drawing faces on potatoes – but can’t help but hold a place for the desperate cries of my babies.

Mothers hold their children’s hands for awhile, but their hearts forever. I used to think the saying was a bit naff, but I see the sense in it now. Sometimes we need to cling on to our kids just as much as they need to cling to us.

Random Words Wednesday

HOLIDAYS always have that delightful way of making me pine for the luxurious life of JUST a Stay-At-Home-Mum. Not working and minding the kids, not trying to make a deadline and putting on tea (or forgetting to put on tea), or trying to draw neat pages while my one-year old swings off my arm (always the arm using the mouse – why is that?), not squinting at the computer screen while I etch out some footballer (and apologise as I outline his crotch) and ignoring that smell that’s obviously a dirty nappy and will result in nasty rash if I don’t get to it soon; not trying to read a laborious budget story that requires full concentration while kids scream in the background.

Being Just A Stay At Home Mum sounds soooo wonderful.

It’s been on my mind. It’s not a matter of money, more a matter of mind. As in: would I lose my mind if I was Just A Stay At Home Mum? Or am I actually losing my mind trying to keep up this dual lifestyle?

And wouldn’t you know it. Wise words came from the handyman today, here to fix the locked bathroom door (which is a WHOLE other post, let me tell you!), who said: In 10 years you won’t be remembering what the newspaper did for you, you’ll be remembering what the kids were doing.

Hmm, nodding sagely. “Thank you Yoda in a fluoro shirt.”

More thinking to do.

PS In trying to find an appropriate photo of a working mother, I uncovered it’s either a woman looking impeccable and just happens to be holding a baby, or a woman who is usually frowning (why, I never!) and maybe pulling her hair. There are none that captures the noise, bedlam and general frustration that compounds an already difficult task. So I took our own!

Random Words Wednesday

I don’t think that I’ve done an ACTUAL wrap-up of the book launch recently. It was crazy, scary, cool. You can click on “Wedding Etiquette For Ferals” page under the banner and see all the lovely piccies courtesy of one Sharee Heath.

Given that I was feeling quite overwhelmed and terrified, it all seemed to go well and the feedback I’ve received has been very complimentary. In all the marketing madness I forgot that people would actually be reading my book. The idea was surprisingly frightening, given that people have been reading my words in some form or another for very many years now. But this was different.

About 20 minutes ago (when I wrote this on Monday), I got my first feedback from a non-family/friend and it was GOOD. Holy crap-a-doodle! I want to send this woman a bunch of roses, such is my gratitude. Of course, I’m bound to get a bad review at some point and I’m hoping that all the “I’m pinching myself” good stuff will also result in a tough skin.

And then there’s this… Australian Writer’s Rock founder Kelly McLean attended the launch and was just the most eager and lovely interviewer. She put some very nice words on her site, here, and again, I want to send out another bunch of sweet-smelling flowers that would brighten her day almost as much as she has brightened mine.

I’ve been thanking everyone who covered the book and the launch lately in magazines and newspapers, but I wanted to pay special mention to: Karen McPaul who, despite being in the thick of her first pregnancy (YAY!) and fresh from a stint of media wrangling for none other than Prince William, was my right-hand gal on the day; Sharee Heath for being good enough to capture the day for me… and lastly, a hearty hug and too many kisses on the forehead (that don’t result in bruising, Cav!) to my mum and sister who came all the way from Bundaberg to see me on stage.

Husband, I haven’t forgotten you… but the book is dedicated to you. So you’re not allowed to complain!

So you know, the whole reason I self-published and marketed my book was to feel I could “get on with” the second book. And it’s worked, the creative juices are flowing people and it feels really, really good.