Ten Years of Relentless

I have two babies turning ten this year – my middle daughter (aka Curly Mop – less a mop these days and more a Rapunzel clone) and this blog (aka Relentless).


Ten is an important number, a milestone if you will, and cause to pause and reflect on the past decade.


Relentless started in the computer lab of a Perth high school in October 2010. I had made the newly minted decision to become a writer, and had been encouraged by a good friend to attend her ‘Blogging for Fun and Profit’ course.


In hindsight I have only managed to achieve one of those goals (no prizes for guessing which one), but over the past ten years I have published almost 330 posts and racked up 716,000 views.


The law of averages says that means each post has received just shy of 2,170 readers but in reality 40% of those readers came to see just one thing  while my top five posts account for more than half my readers.


Suddenly the other 325 posts aren’t looking so flash. But that’s okay.


When I started Relentless (then called From Mum to Me, you can find out why here) getting readers was far from my mind (in fact I was quite terrified anyone would read it). With a nine month old baby on my hip and a four and a half year old in Kindy, its primary purpose was to plug the holes in my post-natal memory and create a permanent chronicle of the small moments that are easily lost and forgotten in the chaos of small children.


Relentless saw the birth of Baby Number Three, that post, renovations, becoming a ‘school mum’, returning to uni, the highs of my writing successes and the lows of motherhood. Of which there were plenty.


Over recent years I have been writing less and less here at Relentless. This is a combination of being otherwise occupied here and here, but also as the girls get older I’ve needed to be mindful of their privacy. That’s not to suggest they don’t do weird crazy crap all the time, I just can’t write about it.  

Out with the old

I thought that being so old and all, Relentless deserved a new cover image, and so in typical fashion I did one in a half-assed rush, rather than putting in any real effort. But it’s the thought that counts, and so you will see I have said goodbye to the nappy and dummy (diaper and pacifier) and said hello to car keys and phone chargers. Plastic cutlery has been replaced by stamps for the reward chart and a sleeping mask. Dora has been traded with a scary vampire hooker doll. My computer and books now take pride of place. The coffee cup and wine glass remain supplemented by the ubiquitous block of chocolate.


There’s also headache pills, because…. Life with three kids!

And in with the new

Diary of a Wannabe Dieter [Bodytrim review]

Before: 

I receive an email from a company asking if I’d like to write a blog post about losing weight with Bodytrim. My first instinct is to write back and say ‘no thanks, I’m too busy to lose weight.’ Then, just as I am about to hit ‘send’, I reconsider. 

I know I never do things like this on Relentless, but it's relevant for me right now and I am willing to give this a try – what have I got to lose? Just weight! I've got plenty of that.

Day 1:

Bodytrim is essentially a high-protein, low-carb meal-replacement plan. They provide both shakes and various snacks, and you sign up for a free 12-week program that offers guidance and support. It instantly sounds appealing because you don’t really have to do anything.

I admit that I had a peek at the program when I first received the email, and because of what I saw I delayed the start of my trial to begin after the kids went back to school. I believe they should learn about healthy eating, but I am reluctant to ‘diet’ in front of them, and besides – I knew they’d all want to have shakes for breakfast as well and I’m not too good at sharing.

There are three stages of the Bodytrim 12-week program. Basically you start with 3 meal-replacement shakes in the first few days, gradually dropping to two, then one shake per day. You are supposed to have learned by this point, to fill the rest of your day with healthy snacks, balanced meals and plenty of water. You never replace dinner, so there’s no problem with watching everyone else tuck into a roast dinner while you sip on a shake.

This is nothing new. I know how to lose weight. My problem is that I don’t like exercise and I really enjoy eating. I like baking with my kids. I like going out with my friends for dinner. I love a glass of wine or two. I’m a typical mum – I am busy busy busy with my kids and my work and my life and very, very neglectful when it comes to myself. And sometimes losing weight just seems like such hard work.

My first day is a mixed success. The shakes aren’t substantial enough to replace one of my normal meals, so I eat a bowl of raw veggies over the day. I’m also well behaved and skip my wine, but I scoff a piece of cake when no one is looking and still go to bed hungry.

Day 2:

I’ve never been terribly fussed about the numbers on the scale. I have always been heavy, even when I am at my slimmest. I like to think I have a skeleton made of lead, or rather a heart of gold. This is why I prefer looking at my measurements – and losing centimetres from my tummy and butt rather than kilos. You can’t see kilos!

I like it when my skirts zip up. I don’t like it when I have to leave them unzipped and hope that my top covers the big triangle of undies hanging out at the back. It’s good motivation.

Day 2 and I am still hungry, though I suspect that is the point. The shakes are small, about 1/3 the size of my morning coffee. I get ‘hangry’ while at the shops, but while I would normally chow down on a roast pork and crackling roll, today I buy some healthy sushi, so I guess I should be proud of making a reasonably healthy food choice, even if I am technically breaking the rules.

Day 3:

These are my numbers:

Number of children: 3

Number of pets/husbands: 3 if you include the fish

Number of times I have tried serious dieting: 3

Number of times I lost a heap of weight and gained it back again: 3

I’m beginning to detect a theme…

End of Day 3 and I am still hungry. Although I am technically in the Fast Start section of the 12 week program (3 days of three shakes and only 1 meal) I admit that I am scrounging around in the box of snacks they also sent me. The snacks are all high-protein, low-carb sweet items such as slice, cookies and protein bars. The texture is unusual, but they are definitely filling.

Day 4

I am being sent daily emails from Bodytrim as part of the free 12-week trial. You simply sign up to the website using the code provided on the side of every shake container. There is a lot of good information on the site if you’re willing to read it – plenty of articles and discussions. One of the messages which I really like is that it isn’t selfish to think about yourself and take care of yourself. I think a lot of mums forget this.

End of Day 4 and I have gone totally off-track thanks to a rather delicious bottle of wine. That being said, I have been making smart food choices all day, which is rather unlike me. Could this be evidence of the ‘trim thinking’ you are expected to apply when trying the 12-week plan? Maybe this will work after all.

Day 5

Meal-replacement shakes come in two flavours – chocolate and vanilla. Three scoops of the powder and top it up with water. I quite enjoy the taste although they are quite small. If you follow the instructions and don’t try to sneak an extra scoop in, each tub makes nine shakes. Therefore, if I follow the plan as proscribed by Bodytrim, the three tubs will last 27 days. 

The real question though, is will I last that long?

End of Day 5. I am down to two shakes a day, 1 meal and 2 snacks. I feel this is much better suited to my normal way of eating. I work from home, and am constantly heading off to writing sessions, school, the library or having to drive my kids around. I don’t do well skipping food for long periods of time, and this stage two ‘trimsition’ is much more manageable for me.

Day 6

I have been sent enough Bodytrim shakes to last around 4 weeks, and I think this should be enough time to see how the system works for me in my life. The website recommends 12 weeks, as you need time for your body (and brain) to form new good habits. I might need more than 12 weeks, as I have spent the last 40 years forming bad habits.

One of the other mums at school stopped me today and said I was looking good. She asked if I had lost some weight. I’m actually not sure if I have, but it felt good hearing that anyway. Motivation to go another week.

Day 14

Constant snacking is a hard habit to break, and I’m not a huge fan of the low-carb, high protein snacks they provide. It’s a different texture to normal biscuits and slices, although the flavour is fine, and they definitely fill you up. However, being on the program (or attempting to be on the program) is making me re-think some of my food decisions, some of the time – which is better than me not thinking any of the time. So that’s definitely a win.

I think the amount of weight I have lost is negligible – maybe a kilo or so - but if your heart isn’t fully in it, then the chances of weight magically falling off is as unlikely as winning the lotto – lovely to dream about… but keep on dreaming. Weight loss is also meant to be slow and steady, otherwise it will all just come back again.

My thoughts about the Bodytrim Program? 

It’s not for me. Clearly I am not motivated enough right now. But I think if you’re needing some structure and a clear program to follow then perhaps this might suit you. 

There’s also not a lot of variety in the products – the flavours run the gamut from vanilla to chocolate with a quick detour to mint, and they’re all sweet. That being said, they go in your bag and could easily stop you making that drive-through for the cheeky burger next time you’re hungry. 

Thank you to Bodytrim for letting me try their products. You can find out more about the program here:  https://www.bodytrim.com.au/weight-loss-program-products/ 

Why I was Thinking About Ralph Fiennes late at Night

As the enormous summer holidays loomed before us last year I thought to myself ‘what can we do as a family that keeps us out of the sun and away from our iThingys.’ I decided to go old-school and start reading them a book, and Harry Potter seemed a worthy choice.

For some unfathomable reason, none of the girls had ever read Harry Potter. I think the fact that we had told them that Dad and I bought and read them ‘when we were younger’ instantly made them old-fashioned and embarrassing.

We got off to a great start, with the (then) five year old and (then) seven year snuggled under my arms, and the ten year hovering around in the background pretending she wasn’t interested.

It was going really well, until the local TV station decided to show each of the Harry Potter movies, starting with The Philosopher’s Stone when we were only halfway through the book.

Suddenly it was like we all had a ball to go to. The excitement of watching the first movie was palpable and we all talked about it like there was nothing else going on in our lives (there wasn’t). We even planned some special movie snacks.

The night came, and as the ending drew near, I found myself with a rather frightened seven year old on my lap. [Warning: spoiler alter] When Professor Quirrell took his turban off to reveal Voldemort’s head, well that was it. She was gone like a flash.

I found her playing in her room later, and when I spoke to her, she said she was ok.

Clearly that was a lie.

As the holidays progressed, my best sleeper suddenly didn’t want to go to bed anymore. She insisted on watching me lock the doors, made me turn the alarm on at night and tried to bribe the dog to sleep with her by hiding treats under the sheets.

But still she couldn’t even voice her fears, or put a name to the thing that was scaring her (‘he who shall not be named’ - well played JK).

By the time I figured out what was going on, I was faced with a sweet little girl who was now scared by bedtime, something I could strongly relate to. I was terrified of ET – the extraterrestrial living under my bed until I was about ten years of age, thanks to Mum and Dad taking us to see the movie when I was the tender age of three. They regretted that decision for years!

So I did what I tend to do when I am unsure, and I talked. And talked.

‘What you have to understand,’ I said ‘is that Voldemort is just a character played by an actor named Ralph Fiennes. And unlike Voldemort, Ralph Fiennes is actually quite handsome. To start with, he has a nose.’

A tiny smile.

‘And in fact when Ralph Fiennes goes out on the street, he doesn’t have people running and screaming in the opposite direction, he has people (mostly mums, I added) running and screaming towards him, because he’s just so handsome, having that nose and all.’

The smile got a little bit bigger.

‘And in fact,’ I went on now acting out my story, ‘if you ever saw Ralph Fiennes, I think you might actually fall in love with him and his nose a little, and you’d be all like ‘Volda-who?’ And you and I would get into a fight over who could ask Ralph to be in a selfie with us.’ (I started pretending I was jostling her, and holding up an imaginary camera).

‘I’d win mum,’ she said.

‘Why on earth would handsome Ralph Fiennes and his handsome nose choose you over me?’ I asked, pretending to be mortally offended.

‘Because I’m cuter than you.’

Maybe she is, but I’m smarter – and she hasn’t had a nightmare ever since.

Ralph – she’s all yours!

thanks to https://celebrities.knoji.com/ralph-fiennes-trivia-13-essantially-fun-facts-about-english-actor-ralph-fiennes/ for this yummy picture

Is This the Worst Birthday Present Ever?

It looked totally awesome in the box. A marvellous contraption for polishing rocks, teaching kids not only about natural processes and turning dull rough rocks into beautifully polished gems, but then they could also turn the gems into their very own handmade jewellery. What could be bad about that?

Ah, how about everything…

When the box was unpacked my ten year old daughter eyed it suspiciously, glancing over at the outrageous monster dolls with terrifyingly high shoes and eye-popping outfits that her younger sisters had received for their birthdays. Instead, as the eldest child, she was unwrapping a pile of grown-up gifts, books, craft – things that educated and probably made her smarter, but probably rated high on the disappointing-gift register.

But this was a rock polisher. Looking like something out of a Pokemon cartoon, it contained an electronic tumbler, an assorted of rough looking stones, and four bags of grit.

What fun, I thought, as she pulled everything out of the box and began glancing through the instruction book.

A few minutes later, she wandered past, having poured the rocks into the tumbler and added the first, most coarse level of polishing sand. How educational, I thought.

The she turned it on and the entire house was instantly filled with a grinding, rattling sound as rocks bounced off plastic and a cheap motor guzzled up electricity. My smile wavered a bit.

‘So, ah, this first stage will take four to six days,’ she said tossing the instruction booklet in front of me and picking up a book.

Wait, what?

Four to six DAYS?

My husband shot me a dirty look and went to hide upstairs.

‘Yeah,’ she said mildly, ‘the whole thing should only take about four weeks.’

Four WEEKS?

With a nervous twitch I picked up the instruction book and began to desperately search for proof she was wantonly mistaken.

My daughter noticed my panic and pointed out that if left up to nature, polishing rocks would normally takes years, so really, this was very quick. I wanted to point out we could probably BUY lovely polished gems from the local market for a couple of dollars and save ourselves a lot of headaches.

I did some calculations in my head. Four WEEKS. That was definitely long enough to initiate divorce proceedings, I was sure, especially given the angry stomping coming from upstairs, where the vibrations from the rock tumbler were coming through the ceilings.

Ignoring the nasty looks and thinly veiled comments from my husband over the next few days, we established a buffering system which included boxes, cork mats, piles of tea-towels and shutting doors all in a desperate attempt to block the relentless, agonising sound of that damn rock tumbler.

After a couple of days my husband spat the dummy and turned it off at the wall.

‘I have a headache,’ he moaned.

I’m the one who works from home, I thought. I have to listen to it during the day as well as the night.

My daughter was beside herself. ‘I have to reset the timer now, Dad. It goes back to the start of the four days.’

I shot my husband a dirty look. He rolled his eyes and left for work.

We established that we could pause the timer overnight, a compromise that meant that the house would be quiet(er) overnight, but it would now take EIGHT days to complete the first step.

Suddenly, about a week later as I was working at my computer at the kitchen table, the house suddenly went quiet. It took a moment for my brain to adjust to the silence. The tumbler had stopped. 

The first stage was over.

That afternoon, my daughter unscrewed the chamber and poured out the dirty, gritty water. A pile of rocks followed. She was excited about the changes she could already see in the stones. I just saw a pile of dirty rocks.

‘The next stage goes for seven days,’ she informed me happily as she poured the Stage Two powder into the chamber and set the timer. Immediately the house started vibrating again and I felt my head begin to pound. ‘This is so awesome, I can’t wait to see them at the end,’ and she skipped off to school.

We are currently at the end of Stage Two and still have two packets of increasingly fine grit to go. As per our agreement the tumbler is only ever on during the day after my husband leaves for work, so I am the only one who gets to enjoy the brain-numbing repetitiveness of the worst present ever, penance perhaps and well deserved, considering I bought the damn thing for her…

NOT worth it!

73 Words Explaining How Important I am to My Children

We were driving home from swimming lessons and had barely left the carpark when:

Four year old: My seat belt! It's not done up. I will be arrested and they will take me to jail!

Me: Actually, I will be the one they arrest and take to jail.

Four year old: Good

Six year old: NOT good! Who will make us dinner?

And thus, my place in the world has been made clear.

My Barely-There Parenting Goals for 2016

Four days into 2016 and last year is already gone in a blur of over-eating, over-shopping and general over-consumption of practically every consumable product available. Good times.

This year will see some major changes in our household: my youngest, Baldy Baby (who is neither bald nor a baby anymore) will be starting kindy this year, I have finished my Grad Dip which means I will have more time for other things (like washing clothes and making school lunches) and this will be the last full year where I can still claim to be in my 30s.

I’m pretty lousy at making New Year resolutions. I usually make them around the 30^th of December and by 10am on January 1^st, while stuffing a huge muffin into my mouth as I muck around on Facebook I realise I have already broken them.

So I’m taking it easy on myself this year. And more importantly, I’m taking it easy on my kids.

Here are my goals for 2016:

Enforce a ‘one pair of underpants a day’ rule: while on holiday over Christmas, every time the kids got in and out of the water, out came new undies, until we had thirty pairs of barely worn knickers on the floor and everyone was complaining they had run out. One pair of undies per child per day = save washing and good for both the environment and my sanity.

No more fighting with my oldest daughter about screen time: I will only let her have her charger once a week – and she can decide when and for how long to use her tablet but when it’s gone flat, that’s it until the next weekend.

Practice what I preach: last year I was constantly telling my eldest to calm down, get off her tablet, to be patient with her younger sisters, control her anger, tidy her mess, to hurry up. She quite irritatingly (and correctly) pointed out that I do all those things myself, so I have decided for the sake of household harmony, to shut the hell up.

Throw out all kids’ dresses and bathers that have cross-over backs: no child can put this crap on by themselves, therefore they have to go.

No shoes with buckles or laces for anyone under fifteen: the time it takes for my kids to negotiate buckles and laces is directly proportional to my risk of an aneurysm. Velcro for everyone.

Limit my area of control: Mess makes me anxious and narky so I have made a deal with the kids that if they agree to keep the family room tidy and keep all their crap off the kitchen bench (my domain) then I won’t harass them about how messy their bedrooms are (their domain).

 

I think I should just about be able to manage that.

What are your parenting resolutions for 2016?

What Would You Have Said?

Sitting at the traffic lights this morning, we sat across from the University where three flags were fluttering in the wind. Usually it is the West Australian flag, the Australian flag and the Indigenous flag, but today the third flag had been replaced with the Rainbow flag.

‘What’s that flag?’ the Mop wanted to know. She always has good questions.

‘That’s the Rainbow flag,’ I told her.

‘And what does it mean?’ she asked.

Awesome question I thought, wondering how I was going to answer in a timely fashion appropriate to my audience of a three year old, five year old and eight year old.

‘It means that the things that are different about us, are the things that make us beautiful,’ I said.

‘It’s about treating everyone the same, regardless of whether you are a boy or a girl, what colour your skin is, who you love, what religion you are or what you believe in.’ 

There was a brief pause in the back seat.

‘Soooo,’ the Mop started, obviously trying to get a handle on it all. ‘It’s for people with pink skin who love cats and for people with brown skin who love dogs?’

‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘The Rainbow flag reminds us the people who love dogs are just as awesome as the people who love cats.’

‘I love bunnies,’ said the three year old.

‘Me too,’ piped up the eight year old.

‘Well, you’re awesome too,’ I said.

‘I like all the animals,’ said the Mop.

‘Animals are sooooo beautiful,’ sighed the eight year old.

‘And the Rainbow flag tells us it’s okay to love animals?’ asked the Mop.

‘And marry animals?’ asked the three year old.

Uhhhhhh. I felt the conversation was getting a little off course.

‘Well,’ I said as the lights changed and we headed off. ‘The Rainbow flag simply tells us that we are all different and that makes us special. After all, a rainbow wouldn’t be as pretty if it was all the same colour.’

‘I’m going to marry a rainbow,’ said the three year old.

‘That’s fine by me, as long as it loves you as much as I do.’

Vive la difference!

 

 

That Time I Talked About Masturbation at a Party

I was congratulating myself at having made it to 10pm at a friend’s 40^th. It was officially ‘past my bedtime’ but I was still going strong with a glass of champagne in my hand, although I occasionally had to step out of my towering heels, confusing whoever I was standing with at the time by shrinking three inches without any explanation.

We were discussing my good luck at being able to sleep in an empty house that night – my family were away and I wouldn’t be woken by small children.

I sniffed. ‘My youngest usually wakes at 5am, but it doesn’t matter – I have been waking up at 4am for no apparent reason.’

One friend shook her head sadly, ‘I have been waking at 2am! I can’t ever get back to sleep.’

We all clucked sympathetically.

‘What do you do?’ we asked.

‘I just lie there,’ she replied.

One lady leaned forward ‘if you find you are lying there for more than half an hour, you should just get up.’

‘And do what?’ she wanted to know.

‘Anything,’ was the answer. ‘Read a book, do the dishes, anything but TV.’

It was time for my five cents.

‘Masturbate,’ I said.

I had their attention. All their eyes were on me.

‘That’s what I hear anyway,’ I quickly covered. ‘But it focuses all your attention on one thing. Your mind stops wandering, and you stop thinking about all the crap you have to do, stop worrying about things. It focuses your mind and body.’

I nodded sagely. I felt like Dr Phil.

The conversation changed quite quickly after that – it is possible that people slunk away in search of companions who weren’t chronic over-sharers like me.  It’s possible people may not be able to look me in the eye on Monday.

It’s possible that now some people might get a better night’s sleep. You're welcome.

As for me, I found a ridiculously full stomach and being up to the eyeballs in champagne did the trick. And for the record – without the kids (and husband) being present I managed to sleep in to a record time of 6.45am.

Why am I so Quiet?

I don’t write here as much as I used to.

This is partly because I have lots of other writing projects. Partly because I have been finishing my Grad Dip.

But mostly because I feel like most of what I have to say, is already being said.

There were a few lucky bloggers who started their blogs back when the rest of us were still using smoke signals and morse code to communicate. By the time the rest of us caught on, there were over 152,000,000 blogs in the world. To put that in content, that is approximately how many pieces of Lego Friends we suck up the vacuum cleaner each week. Especially those tiny little purple bows and brushes. They shit me.

152 million blogs.

Of course, five of those are mine. One I gave up on a long time ago, and one I will never admit is mine (yay, internet anonymity).

But how are we meant to be heard amongst so many voices?

I started From Mum to Me primarily as a record of my children’s early lives – a way to capture forever all their little quirks, and all my major mistakes. What I wrote about was ridiculously important to me, but also completely recognisable to everyone else. For the most part, parenting blogs such as this, are universal stories told with different names. And we share and read them, precisely because we can see our own experiences in someone else’s words and think ‘thank god, I thought I was the only one who did that.’

You are not alone.

If we could sum up the messages of 99.9% of all the ‘mummy’ blogs and ‘mommy blogs’ and ‘parenting blogs’ in only four words – that message would be YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

It’s a pretty powerful message, even when wrapped up in stinky nappies and glitter glue.

Because even though I started the blog for me, I kept writing for you, because of those wonderful comments and emails I get every now and then, the likes on Facebook, the private messages – the ones that say ‘thank you for making me understand I am not alone in this.’

That has been very powerful for me.

I am under no illusion that what I write is Pulitzer worthy or compellingly unique. Usually, it’s full of speling mistakes.

But while I am lazily inactive here on the blog, I do still share and post things on my Facebook account. Mostly because it’s a lot easier than thinking up funny topics and then finding the time to sit down and actually write about them.

I find it fascinating to see what really makes people jump – the things that people get excited about. I should point out that it’s never anything that I actually write. Sniff. But that’s ok, I’ve dealt with that.

The memes and links that generate the most activity is like a spotlight, pointing out the major issues that affect us all. Because we (Relentless readers) are a rather homogenous group. Roughly a third from the States, a third from Australia and the rest from across the globe like the UK, NZ and Canada. Hi everyone.

And while we are not all women (hi guys) and not all my readers are actually mums, when something spikes I can see the issues we think about. The clever meme people may have made us laugh, but they also manage to capture our concerns.

The most recent thing I posted up on Facebook was a great quote from Jennifer Garner about the fact that she has a baby bump despite not being pregnant. She totally owned it, and everyone seemed to love it.

I recently published a book 'The Brutal Truth About the Third Child' (available on Amazon here). Yeah, I actually just did that. Anyway, in the book I wrote a completely new piece called ‘What does your body really look like after three babies?’. It was quite confronting, which is probably why I never put it up on the blog.

But, like Jennifer, I like to think that my scars and wobbly bits are just a badge of honour of being a mum. I’d rather have them, than not, and I think a lot of you feel the same way too.

But if someone as lovely as Jennifer Garner is writing it, then I don’t need to, which is why I am sometimes very silent over here.

But you don’t need to be. Please keep those messages coming.

My Mum Crush

I was sitting with two friends from my mothers group when I made an embarrassing admission.

I told them I had a Mum Crush.

Now, there are two ways conversations like this generally go. One is that people who have known you for years stare at you strangely, there is an uncomfortable silence and then suddenly everyone remembers they left a load of washing on and they all leave, never to speak to you again.

Luckily, this particular conversation went the other way.

‘Oh, me too,’ said one of them.

‘Hmmm, Simone*,’ sighed the other one

‘Yes!’ the other one said nodding.

I was a bit jealous they shared the same Mum Crush, but their kids went to a different school than mine.

‘Who’s your Mum Crush?’ my friend asked. ‘Why is she so good?’

I shrugged. I was hardly going to tell them that when I see her I think of the ‘Everything is Awesome’ song from the Lego Movie, cos she is just – awesome.

You have to remember Mum Crush’s aren’t about sex (what’s that anyway?) or anything physical, so it wasn’t that she was particularly attractive – although she is. To me, at least.

And it wasn’t that her life was something I coveted, or that her kids were better than mine, or husband was more manly. None of these things feature in a Mum Crush.

‘Well, I just find her fascinating. She talks about interesting things and we have actual conversations,’ I said. ‘Remember those?’ I said sourly as our three year olds raced through the room with handfuls of Tiny Teddies.

I said a LOT more than this (but have to maintain some level of dignity here, unlike at Mothers Group where no one expects me to have any dignity) until I realised I was gabbling like a school girl, gushing over the fact that *gasp* someone liked to talk to me.

But my friends were nodding. They totally got it.

A Mum Crush is different to a friend, probably because they’re just slightly outside your sphere. Perhaps your kids are in different classes or they go to a different school. But you probably share something – a relic of a life before you had kids perhaps – and she reminds you what it is like to be not a mum. And you love her for it.

Do you have a Mum Crush?

*Names have been changed to protect my friends. Actually, since I can’t actually remember the name of their Mum Crush, it’s entirely possible that is her real name. Sorry about that.

A Story About my Breasts

Thursday April 31, 2015

It’s been a little less than three weeks since I first noticed the changes in my breast, and with every day it occupies more and more of my life.

I had been changing in my upstairs bathroom, and as I lifted my left arm over my head to remove my nightee, I noticed the skin underneath my breast puckering, and pulling inwards as if something was preventing it from moving. There was no lump, no other changes. Except for the frequent dull ache that had plagued me for months? Weeks?

I simply observed it for the first few days. The puckering was only noticeable in the mornings, when the natural light came in through the bathroom window. When I showered at night and the room was lit from above, I couldn’t see the puckering.

And so it became part of my morning ritual. Was it still there? Was there a lump? Was the pain increasing? Every morning I would lift my arms and examine the bottom of my breast. And every day, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, the small hole would still be there.

I made an appointment with my GP for the first morning after school went back. It was less than a week after I first noticed the change and I felt nervous and ridiculous that I was making a fuss over nothing. I waited for her to tell me it was normal, nothing to worry about. Instead she wrote a referral for both a mammogram and ultrasound, with an option of fine needle aspiration (FNA) if required.

As I walked out of the room she smiled and said ‘I look forward to hearing that the results are nothing.’

I called my nearest radiological clinic early the next day and was told the wait for be up to four weeks. Four weeks and one day to be exact. I endeavoured to put it out of my mind. To wait the course. Four weeks feels like forever.

I have told no one except my best friend who lived on the other side of the country. I didn’t want to worry people. I didn’t want to be made a fuss of if it all turned out to me nothing. I didn’t want to be thought of as a hypochondriac.

Now it is all I can think about.

I can’t tell if thinking about my breast, and what the changes could mean has made me feel things that are not there, or if the pain is actually getting worse.  But it seems constant now, far from debilitating, but sufficient for me to consider taking a paracetamol. I am constantly touching my breast, both to ease the ache and to seek any forming lumps.

A couple times I have come close to mentioning it to someone. I worry about their reaction. I feel foolish for even worrying in the first place: am I ridiculous for even thinking the word?

Cancer.

There are many things it could be. It could be harmless fibroids or a long defunct blocked milk duct. It could have always been like that, and it just took me 37 years to notice.

So I am waiting.

But not patiently nor peacefully. It is beginning to preoccupy my thoughts, so I called more clinics until I could find one with an earlier time slot. I will now have to drive to the very northern suburbs for my scan, but I will save myself 10 days of worry.

But possibly, I will be gaining an extra ten days of something worse.

20^th May 2015

I feel a bit stupid. A time waster, not to mention the hundreds of dollars I have spent.

I have now been for not one, but two ultrasounds on my breast and both times been sent away. 

‘There’s nothing there, on your way.’

The mammogram was uncomfortable and borderline painful, but it was a small price to pay. It’s a strange thing, standing half naked in front of a stranger, being asked to manipulate your own breast, having someone touch you. ‘Hold your nipple out of the way, that’s it, now pull everything to the side.’

I was sent out to wait while the doctor looked at my mammogram results. Wrapped in a cold cotton gown, that barely stretched around me, I read trashy magazines. Then I was asked to come back for more scans. I felt even more nervous this time – had they seen something and they wanted a better look? No, sometimes the breast tissue fold over on itself, I was told, making it appear thicker than it really is. Back into the machine, a sharp corner pushed into my armpit, hand grasping the machine, angled sideways as to get as much breast into the machine as possible.

I was then sent for the ultrasound. Neither technique is 100% fallible, but when done together, anything over 1mm will be picked up. They poked and prodded and scanned and peered. Nothing. 

‘Go home,’ I was told, and I scurried away.

But still my doctor wasn’t happy. ‘I don’t know Shannon,’ she said. ‘I want to know what’s causing the puckering. I think you should get the FNA done as well.’ She glanced at my three year old on the floor, sucking on a lollypop – her reward for a flu vaccination. ‘You need to be around, you know what I mean?’

Not wanting to return to the first place, where I had been merrily sent on my way, I called a different group. No three week wait this time, I got an appointment within 24 hours. That was more like it.

The sonographer was surprised when I told her I had already been for a mammogram and ultrasound. 

‘And they didn’t find anything?’

‘No,’ I responded.

‘No lumps?’

‘No.’

‘And so you’re here because…?’

I’m here because my aunt had breast cancer when she was younger. I’m here because my breast looks abnormal. I’m here because I have a cautious GP with children the same age as mine and who is looking out for me.

The sonographer called the doctor in. Everyone was being very nice. They looked sympathetic and were understanding of my predicament, but they couldn’t see why I was there. Literally. With the dark shadowy rooms and overhead lighting, the doctor could not see the deep puckering which was so apparent in the sideways light of my bathroom. I felt like a fraud and that I was wasting everyone’s time.

‘If that were my breast, I’d be happy with that,’ the lady told me.

‘Without a lump or something to aim at, I don’t know where to put the needle,’ the doctor said reasonably. ‘And in the unlikely event something came back abnormal, we wouldn’t be able to do a re-test because there’s nothing to see or feel.’

I lay on the table, clutching the gown around me. I understood everything they were saying, which was basically ‘you’re fine, go home.’

It is the best possible outcome. Two of the best doctors in the state have reassured me there is nothing abnormal to see on the scans. Nothing to fear. No cancer. I should be elated and relieved, and most of me is.

Although I still don’t have an explanation for the pain or the puckering, and a small part of me is still worried, I am grateful I can move on. I am also indebted to my friend whose own story has reminded me to be breast aware, and now I share mine in the hope that maybe someone else might benefit.. 

This post is dedicated to all the women who are living with and fighting breast cancer. 

You are in my thoughts.

To everyone else: please remember to be breast aware.

Becoming Public Enemy #1

Have you ever bagged out your boss? Criticised your husband?... or your mother-in-law? 

What about that bitchy mum who parks across two bays at school so no one scratches her precious car? I bet everyone has broadcast a dig at the PM or some other public figure.

Have you ever complained about your kids? Publicly? And how did that work out for you?

How come it is perfectly acceptable – even encouraged -  for us to trash talk other adults but the minute you say anything other than love and bunnies about children you are publicly maligned? 

And god forbid you are a mother who complains about an aspect of parenting: suddenly you are the epitome of evil.

Bad mothers are as evil as Joffrey,
image from http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Joffrey_Baratheon

Last year I blogged about not liking playing with my kids. Rather benign really. I don’t really like playing tennis either but no one really cares about that. I didn’t write about locking them in a cupboard or starving them of food, or beating them when I was angry. I admitted that playing imaginary games with my daughter drove me nuts. I wasn’t the first mother to ever admit this, and I am pretty sure I won’t be the last. 

It was re-posted on mega site Scary Mommy and while there was a collective sigh of relief from hundreds and hundreds of mums admitting they felt the same way, there was a seam of comments from people accusing me of being a bad mother and questioning why I even bothered having kids if I wasn't going to play with them.

Society doesn’t like it when mothers admit truths like this. 

Mothers are meant to remain perfectly happy and grateful for their fortunate position. 

Society trashed British mother Isabella Dutton when she admitted that she didn’t love her children and regretted having them. Admittedly, calling them parasites in the national tabloid where they – and the entire world – could read it, might have been a judgement in error, but she cannot have been the first women to have children to please her husband and then spend the rest of her life wishing she hadn’t.

When US mother Lenore Skenazy let her then nine year old son catch the subway home by himself, she was quickly vilified as America’s worst mom. Why? For publicly admitting that she felt the way we currently parent our kids was stifling them.

Throughout history there have been bad mothers. There have been ambivalent mothers. But it is primarily in recent years with the rise in blogging and greater access for the average person to find a platform that suddenly we are able to talk about things that women have been thinking about for years. Topics that were once considered taboo are finally being talked about – albeit slowly: miscarriage, post-natal depression, gender disappointment. Genuine discussions about difficult topics that people find challenging to talk about and confronting to listen to.

And where we should be celebrating that opportunity to air some of our grievances, it would seem you cannot find a more judgmental crowd than a group of mothers. Every time a woman admits that she is not as fulfilled as she thought she might be, every time someone divulges she perhaps was a better employee than she is a mother - instead of letting her have the opportunity to fess up to what is probably a major source of angst, she is attacked.

Why aren’t parents, and in particular mothers, allowed to admit their flaws? 

What are we afraid of? 

I’m Going to be a Tena Lady

I’ve been pretty fortunate when it comes to pre and post-partum disasters: no prolapses or haemorrhoids. My unmentionable varicose veins went away after the baby was delivered. I made it through three pregnancies relatively intact.

Yet today, almost three years after my last pregnancy, I discovered what it was like to have a little leak, shall we say.

You know those ads, where the elegant older woman with silver hair and neat blue suits stand around laughing over some witty comment, and one turns to the screen and whispers, that whenever she laughs or bends over and jumps, she has a little leak, but it’s okay now - because she has Tena Lady.

Yeah, I was that lady today. Except I didn’t actually have a Tena Lady handy, because you know, even Mums sometimes forget to carry around incontinence pads in their oversized handbags on the off chance they will spring a leak.

The Curly Mop and I were on a date night. Once a month, my hubby or I take one of the girls out to spend some quality time. The Mop’s version of quality time apparently, was watching me waist deep in foam, tugging my track pants up, as I struggled to climb my way out of the foam pit at the local trampolining joint (and when I say local, I mean it was a 45 minute drive).

I tried so hard to have fun, but between losing my pants in the pit, being laughed at by four year olds, stared at (not in a good way) by the young bloke in charge of the trampolines and experiencing an ominous trickle every time I jumped, it basically sucked.

The first time it happened I stopped jumping suddenly, afraid of what would happen if I continued. But trampolines don’t tend to let you stop on a dime, they want to keep going, so I ended up falling onto my face (not for the last time), legs flying up behind me, all elegance and grace and wondering who the hell was going to make a million bucks by selling the video on YouTube.

The second time it happened, I squeezed my legs together slightly and looked at the clock. After that, I just accepted my fate, and hoped that this wasn’t going to become a regular thing.

Maybe it’s just me getting older. Maybe it’s because I had three kids and never bothered doing pelvic floor exercises. Maybe I have just been damn lucky up to now.

But I can tell you one thing for sure. You will not find me trampolining with my four year old ever again. Or if you do, I will be cheering from safety of the trickle-free sidelines.

The Six Essential Lessons to Surviving Mealtimes [Mamadoo]

There was a time in my life when I used to enjoy cooking. 

I would spend hours surrounded by piles of cookbooks and magazines, creating menus and writing shopping lists. I would cook for adoring crowds, and except for that one time I made cauliflower soup (which my husband and I agreed we’d never mention again), I have done quite well at pleasing the people in front of me.

And then I had children. And a little piece of me died inside...

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The End is Nigh

I have a bathroom book.

It’s usually a non-fiction book, occasionally what you might call a coffee-table book, but usually a parenting book that I read after my shower, while I brush my teeth, an opportunity to learn something (but really just an excuse to delay going back downstairs again).

My current book is ‘All Joy and No Fun’ by Jennifer Senior.

I am over half way through and there are a few dog eared corners already, as I fold them down, for that inevitable point in the future when everything goes to hell and I feel the need to refer to a book to help me find a solution.

Because that’s where the solution is, right? In books.

But last night I read this:

It’s not an accident that most parenting blogs are written by mothers and fathers of small children. Part of it, yes, is that these parents are responding to the novelty of their situation. But part of it, too, is that the challenges they’re writing about are usually so generic that they’re betraying no confidences in revealing them. It does not violate your children’s privacy to say they detest peas, and it’s not a particularly poor reflection on your parenting either. Whereas writing about adolescents is different. They’re incipient adults, with idiosyncratic habits and intricate vulnerabilities; they’re unlikely to welcome daily blog posts from their mothers and fathers about their lives. Their parents are no longer inclined to share these stories, either, at least not publicly…

Apart from the bit about daily blog posts, this entire paragraph could be about me. And quite possibly, about you too.

It is something that I think about every time I lash out at my eldest daughter, every time she does something or says something that makes me want to throw something at her. She’s seven but is already behaving like a teenager. A shitty teenager.

Notice how I don’t write any of those stories? I am reluctant to share them, partly because unlike complaining about my baby throwing poo out of the shower, stories about my relationship with my eldest does reflect poorly on my parenting.

And the reason why it reflects poorly, is because I am her primary role model, and almost every hideous thing she does, can be directly traced back to something I have done or said.

I realise that at some point in the future, as all my children grow up, and can read and trawl the internet, Relentless will inevitably finish. I don’t want it to finish because I find such relief in sharing stories and also knowing that my memories have become concrete, that the special moments of being a mother to small children won’t turn to dust in my mind.

But just as Senior writes, writing generic stories about young children betrays no confidences. My kids love hearing about the dumb stuff they did when they were younger. I doubt they will feel so enamoured when they are pre-teens and the bitchy girls at school discover this blog.

So, even now as you watch the number of blog posts drop away, it is not because I don’t love writing for you (or writing for me).

It is because I am treading the fine line between sharing and over-sharing as the girls grow up.

What are your thoughts?

Why I Don't Find You Inspiring (Sorry About That) [Mamadoo]

Recently I wrote a post about why I will never use the ‘D’ word in front of my children. Readers really responded to it, and used words like ‘inspiring’, and my husband, bless his warped man-view of the world, recently bought me a Women’s Fitness magazine, presumably to support me in my journey back to a healthier place.

Despite the concentrated ‘fitspo’ attitude running throughout the magazine, I found nothing inspiring in those pages. I saw a lot of thin women, or women trying to be thin, but none of their stories made me do anything different, because – quite simply – none of those women were me.

Fitspo (look it up, it’s now a real word) is short for fitspiration, which isn’t actually a real word either. It’s about being inspired to get fit by looking at women in their gym clothes or underwear, who take selfies of their lean and muscular bodies.


If I look at an attractive women in her underwear, probably the last thing I am thinking about is picking up a pair of dumb-bells or jumping on a treadmill, but maybe that’s just me...



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Unwanted Help in the Mornings

For the past eleven weeks I have been getting up at some ungodly hour, turning on the DVD player and throwing myself around the room in an ungainly fashion. Some people call this exercise. I call it painful.

I don’t like getting up early and watching lycra clad Michelle Bridges telling me to ‘suck it up’ as her pumped up assistants drip sweat from their rock hard bodies. But I like what it has done for my health and waist line, so I am persisting.

I get up at the very very very small hours, so I can do it in private, because let’s be honest, most things that make you sweat when it’s dark outside should be done in private. Unfortunately, Baldy Baby (now two and a half) has the nasty habit of also waking at ungodly hours, which means I often have an audience as I wobble and groan my way through burpees and squats.

She is very supportive and as such, likes to get involved.

Often this means climbing on my back when I am doing a plank and yelling ‘giddup’, or when she is feeling more sedate, waiting for me to lie down to do sit ups or stretches and using my tummy as a pillow, her little head going up and down as I huff and puff.

Some days I am lucky and she takes herself off to the playroom to watch Dora. She will regularly come out to check I am still there, cocking her head when she sees me upside down in a downward dog. ‘Orright mum?’ she’ll ask, concerned about the colour of my face.

‘I’m alright, thanks Sweetie,’ I’ll reply.

When the DVD is over and I turn off the TV I will sometimes collapse back onto the floor, watching the fan circle overhead (yes, even in the middle of winter). She will lie down on the carpet next to me and put her head on my arm. We will lie there together in silence (except for my heavy breathing).

Then she will lean over and kiss my sweaty face. ‘I love you mummy’ she will say, before licking her lips and grimacing.

‘Yuk’, she will say, and disappear back into the playroom.