Even Yogis Get The Blues

It's a truth universally acknowledged, that a mother during school holidays, must be in need of some distractions.

In my case - kiddie yoga, thoughtfully organised by my local council.

After trying to get in the building through the locked rear door, almost setting off alarms, which is always a good way to say hello, the Bombshell, Baldy Baby and myself front up for some 3-6 year old yoga.

I place our old yoga mat on the ground and the Bombshell promptly throws herself down on it and does a very respectable plank.

'Look at me, Mum,' she calls.

'Where did you learn that?' I ask her.

'Batman,' she replied.  Naturally.

She then starts following the instructor around the room, chatting non-stop.

'I'm on school holidays. You know I have two sisters.  I have a jumper my Gwan Jan sewed me.'

'A Gwanjan sewn jumper? What?' the poor girl asks.

'She means a knitted jumper, by her Grandma Jan,' I offer helpfully.

The instructor makes all the kids sit in a circle on the floor. The Bombshell is one of the eldest, and there are few that are pottering around in nappies.  I think she is a very brave woman.

'We will start by making the rules,' she tells them.  A very brave women,

'I think one rule should be that we stay on our mats, unless I say otherwise. Now does anyone else have a good rule?' she asks.

'You should always eat your dinner before going to bed,' pipes up a young lad in the front.

'Errr, yes that's a good one... not really for yoga though,' she says.

'When I ring this Tibetan prayer bell, I want everyone to immediately lie down,' she said.

Boooooonnnnnngggggg. Ten children immediately drop to the floor.  Amazing.

'Can I take my socks off?' asks a little girl.

'Yes, of course,' the instructor replies.

'Can I take my socks off?', asks the next kid.

'Yes,' she says.

'What about me? Can I take my sock...' a little boy starts to ask.

'Yes yes, you can all take your socks off,' she says.

'I don't want to take my socks off,' wails a little kid, not sure if it's a boy or girl to be honest.

'You can take them off if you want, or leave them on.  Whatever you want!,' she says a bit huffily. C'mon love, you've only had them five minutes. Try having them the entire school holidays.

'I'm going to give MY socks to MY mum,' the Bombshell tells the room.  Like anyone cares.

Boooooonnnnnngggggg. The kids drop to the floor. Truly astonishing.

So they start.  To her credit she has them doing salutations to the sun ("hello sun! hello earth!") and the tree pose ("I'm a banana tree") and then the boat pose, which I know I wouldn't have been able to do even before they sliced open my stomach muscles. Three times.

'What animals do we see in the jungle', she asks the kids, as she 'rows' her boat.

'A tiger,' shouts one kid.

'A monkey,' shouts another.

'A bunny,' shouts my kid. Of course.

'Let's do a tiger pose,' the instructor tells the group, as she extends her leg behind her, neatly whacking a small child squarely in the face.  Well, the rule was to stay on the mat...

Then she has them do foot phones.  I don't think this is the traditional name for the pose somehow, but it was impressive to see a bunch of kids sitting with their feet up by their ears, supposedly telling their friends about their crazy jungle adventure (with scary bunnies).

Then - and logic fails her at this point - she says that they should all talk on someone else's foot phone.  One small boy immediately takes the opportunity to give a hefty kick to the kid sitting next to him.  The Bombshell, teachers pet she is, has claimed her pozzie next to the instructor from the minute she walked in.  So it was the teacher's poor luck to have the Bombshell's foot stuck in her face.  There was no bath last night, and I suspect those socks came off the floor rather than out of the drawer.

Then, in another authentic yoga moment, she asks all the kids to do their best 'Darth Vadar' breathing. They all do really well at that one.

Back in the circle, she has them sit down, legs apart, to make a 'magical stew' which they all stir.

'What shall we put in our magical stew", she asks.

'Pepper,' says one kid.  'It makes your teeth strong and healthy.' Hmmm ok.

'Salt,' says the next kid. 'To make it salty.'  Ok.

'Carrots,' says another. 'They make you big and strong.' Yup.

'Pork,' says one kid, upsetting at least two families in the room. 'It gives you fast muscles.'

'Honey,' says my kid. 'It makes you brave and strong.'  Of course.

The class was nearing the end, and she decides it would be a good idea to have them finish in the corpse pose. But she's not quite sure what to call it, so she says they will all be 'corpses, dead people.  We will all lie still like we are dead.  Like corpses...'  Way to start them having nightmares lady.

Once they're laying down, she comes along and puts rocks on their tummies.

'No throwing rocks,' she cautions the boys in the front.

Dead people don't throw rocks, love.

'We're going to lie still and breathe for ten seconds,' she tells the group.

'Ten, nine, eight...'

The Bombshell doesn't even last until six.  She's lying in a contorted pose, it must have been a horrible death. She is wiggling around. 'Mum, look at my rock,' she says as it slipps off her tummy.

Ten seconds.  She can't lie still for ten seconds.

I'm going to have to get one of those Tibetan prayer bells.

Boooooonnnnnngggggg.

A Note To My 16 Year Old Self - If I Was Actually My Five Year Old Daughter

It's been school holidays for 8 days, 6 hours and 35 minutes, not that I am keeping track or anything.

On the one hand it has been a relaxing week in that I have not had to rush off to pre-primary every morning. I have also been able to spend some quality time with the Blonde Bombshell.

On the other hand, I have had to spend a great quantity of time with the Blonde Bombshell.

The Bombshell looks nothing like me.  She is tall and slim, energetic and athletic, with long straight blonde hair and bright blue eyes.  I'm more on the pudgy, slothful side of things, with (artificial) red hair, brown eyes and no desire whatsoever to hang upside down on the monkey bars.

She looks so different to me that I began to wonder whether she was actually my child.

But yes... turns out she is.

She is a walking, talking, back-chatting, sulking, highly emotional, miniature version of me. It's uncanny and very disturbing.

My friend Helen says that it is like 'holding up a mirror to ourselves, and not liking what we see.'

So true.

The thing is, the Bombshell's constant complaint these school holidays is that I 'don't understand her'. With her eyes rolling, and her hair flicking, she flounces around with her hand to her head that I am so unfair, and how could I possibly understand.

Kid, I understand you so well it's freaky.  You're a mini-me.

You're bright but you're lazy, and you scoot along on previous success knowing that you'll get there without trying too hard, but it means you never do your best. It also means you are shocked when you fail at something.

You want everyone to know how bright you are, so you throw your pencil down when you finish your work, so everyone knows you're first [sorry Larissa, I know you hated this about me in Year 6].

You are generally very thoughtful and kind, but you hate it when everyone takes advantage of you, so every now and then you blow a gasket and become a selfish witch, and stop communicating with the world.

You are quick to scream and yell and bitch - but only to the few people you truly love and trust. For everyone else you are well behaved and silent. You won't speak your mind. It means you will grow up to be lousy at confrontation.

You like things to be just so.  Some times that means being so particular it borders on OCD. You expect others to be just the same as you, you expect them to know 'the rules', and when they don't, you tend to lose it.

You live in another world, a made-up world.  You write and draw and sing and create.  You are constantly creating. Sometimes it is a fine line between imagination and delusion.

You love to give. You can be very generous. You also love to receive#.

*  *  *


I foresee great battles being fought between the Bombshell and myself when she is older, we will butt heads in a fiery and brutal way. 

Yet I also foresee that she will be my best friend, once she realises that I do, in fact, totally and utterly understand her.


#It's my birthday in a month!

Things They Should Have Told Us

You may notice that I have changed the name of my blog.

For some time now, probably since the day the Bombshell was born, I have come to the realisation that parenting is relentless.  It never stops. You never get a break, even when the kids are sleeping, because after you become a parent you suddenly start sleeping with one ear and one eye open, eternally vigilant, eternally paranoid.

From one stage to the next, there is no pause. You go from the indignity of being pregnant to the trauma of birth, to breastfeeding every few hours, to watching a baby start walking, then talking, then talking back, then they start having opinions on everything, then they are off to school, whereby starts a whole new host of issues.

It's not awful, or terrible and I wouldn't ever want to change it.

It's just relentless.  Hence the name of the blog.

Consider it my community service to all future parents: things you probably should know about being a parent.

The title Relentless sums up parenting pretty well, but it wasn't my only choice when it came to blog titles that provided an apt explanation of parenting.

Here are some others I considered:

FLAWED: The mistakes we make as parents, only make our kids better people. We hope.

ETERNAL OPTIMISM: What other choice do we have?

COUNTING THE DAYS: We spend our lives as parents counting the days, til baby is born, til they take their first steps, til they start school, til they leave home.


WAITING FOR GRANDKIDS: There has to be a pay-off for all this mess.

WE'RE GOING TO NEED A BIGGER CAR: Life with three kids.

WEETBIX AND JATZ: Keeping my kids alive since 2008... 


What lessons do you think new parents need to know?

When Words Come Out Wrong

Last week we received our daughter's pre-primary school report.

One comment by the teacher was the fact that sometimes the Bombshell is difficult to understand.  We have had her assessed by a speech pathologist and apart from a bit of a lisp, all her verbal failings are normal for five year olds and we were told not to worry.

So yesterday when I was outside on the verandah chatting to our builder, I was mortified when the Bombshell joined us outside and told me:

'You're a dick, Mummy.'

The builder stopped mid-sentence and just stared.

'Um, pardon?' I said, stunned.

'You're a dick, Mummy. Let's make jokes.'

The builder almost choked.  He discreetly turned around so he could laugh without encouraging the Bombshell and her potty mouth. 

'Do you know what you are saying?' I asked her, incredulous.

And fully expecting her to say 'school' I then asked her 'Where did you hear that word?'

'You said it,' she replied.

The builder was practically bent over double by this stage.

'Let's make jokes,' she repeated.

Now, the Bombshell is not known for her sense of humour.  I don't think many five year olds are.  They're too literal and don't understand things like sarcasm and subtlety, let alone what is appropriate to joke about.  A 'joke' she told me the other day went like this:

'Let's pretend the baby is dead.  Oh, there's a spider on your head!'.

Um, not funny.

But I needed to get to the bottom of this dick thing before the builder called DOCS on me.

I crouched down her height and looked her in the eye. 'I'm not sure I understand what you mean, can you explain what you are saying?'

She rolled her eyes at me and gestured towards the back of the house where we had a wooden deck.

'You're a dick, Mummy. Geddit?'

Oh.  A deck.

Not funny. 

Maybe we need to go back to the speech pathologist for another assessment.

How To Make Your Mother Proud

I’m not sure if I should be writing this post.

Don’t get me wrong.  I have written about some pretty inappropriate posts and some plain dumb ones. I have even plastered a photo of my boobs on the internet.  But my mum took the photo, so I guess it was ok.

But this one – I wonder – if I should keep it to myself.

Bombshell – forgive me if this mortifies you later on in life.

Yesterday I was handed my daughter’s pre-primary report.  It was bursting with work samples – writing, drawing, numbers, spelling. She is a good kid, bright and the teacher had some lovely things to say.  

But tucked at the back was a self assessment where the child reflects on how well they are doing, the things they are good at, and the things they could improve upon.

The Bombshell was confident that she did her best at sharing and taking turns, at helping others, and having good manners. She felt she played nicely, listened carefully and always tidied up.

She then was asked to say what she was good at.  She said she was good at writing stories and drawing pictures. So far, so good.

Then, at the very end, was a space for her to say what she wished she was better at.

My daughter’s first academic report:

‘I wish I was better at wiping my bottom when I do a poo’.

So proud.

How To Get A Five Year Old To School On Time

Sometimes the universe makes up for all the crap we shovel on ourselves and gives up a bit of a laugh at someone else's expense.

Today, it was my darling [argumentative, petulant, sulky] five year old.

She was deliberately dragging her feet: she knew she was making us late for school.  She didn't care because she obviously thought (quite accurately) that I was quite powerless to do much about it.

As I ran through my list of threats, I hit upon a winner.  I would tell her teacher the real reason we were late for school. 

She didn't like that and within five minutes we were out the door.

She moaned Every. Step. Of. The. Way.

WHY were we walking? Her legs were soooo tired. Why couldn't we take the car like everyone else. Her toe hurt. She likes to sit down in the car. I was a mean mum.  No one understood her.

The bell had already rung when we were making the final push towards the school. Every step was torture as she ranted about how horrible and mean and bossy I was.

Then, in an excellent display of karma, the deputy principal appeared on the horizon, hurrying towards us.

Now, she was actually on the lookout for two year seven boys who had wagged school but that's not what the Bombshell thought.

I looked down at her and said that we were so late the deputy had come to look for her.

The deputy looked worried, then mentioned that she might need to make a call to the police [about the boys].

You can imagine what the Bombshell thought about that.  She looked at me with a newfound respect - that not only had I managed to inform the deputy but that the police might also get involved.

You can bet that next week we won't be late for school.