Bring On the Clowns

We had just returned from the circus.

The Mop was disappointed. she expected it to be more like Madagascar 3. I had explained it was unlikely that a giraffe was going to do the high wire, but she hadn't believed me.

The Bombshell on the other hand, was in raptures. I had spent most of the time watching her watch the circus. She was enthralled.

Even the look on her face when we got sprayed with wood chips from a prancing pony was priceless. The Bombshell had picked the little pieces of wood off her lap, cradling them in her hand like they were jewels.

‘Did. You. See. That?’ she asked. ‘That was awesome.’ She then brushed the sand off her lap into my handbag.

Yeah, awesome.

The drive home was long. As usual, it was a competition between the girls. Who got sprayed with most woodchips. Who got the better prize on the clowns. Who loved it the most.

 

‘I’m going to be a sparkle ribbon girl when I grow up,’ the Bombshell declared.

‘Or maybe I will do the trapeze. No, I will work with the ponies. Or the puppies, that was cool.’

She sighed happily.

‘You can’t do that,’ the Mop informed her. Just to be annoying.

‘Yes I can. Mum says I can be anything I want when I grow up. I just have to try hard enough.’

In the rear view mirror I could see them sticking their tongues out at each other.

‘I can be anything I want when I grow up,’ the Bombshell repeated under her breath.

‘Yeah,’ retorted the Mop. ‘You can be a circus animal.’

Shall I let the Bombshell be a sparkle ribbon girl when she grows up?

 

How To Get Rid of an Unwanted Wobbly Tooth

Kids who have wobbly teeth are pretty cute, right? Big gaps in their smiles. Complete inability to eat apples, hilarious, right?

Except in my house, this is what I have had to look at for the past few weeks.

 

The worst, most disgusting, sticky-out, redneck, beer-bottle opening snaggle tooth. Ever.

There was nothing cute about this tooth.

The 4^th wobbly tooth belonging to the Bombshell began in the normal way, but every day it began to stick out more and more, until it was perpendicular to the gum. It would stick out between her lips. She would chew on it.

Strangers would grimace and stare when they saw it. It was freakily unnatural.

She looked like she belonged to Cletus the slack-jawed yokel. You know the one.

'Y'all get that damn tooth out now, hear...'
[image Simpson wiki]

 

It was very distracting and – and between you and me – I offered to add $5 to whatever the Tooth Fairy was going to give her if she could wobble it out before Show Day (tomorrow).

For a week I reminded her to wobble it, waving the idea of $5 in front of her. I’m not proud, but I was desperate.

She tried, she did. She would wobble with her tongue. She would wobble it with her finger. She would gross out every adult who made the mistake of asking to see.

Nothing.

I considered doubling my offer to $10.

As I resigned myself to the freak-tooth staying forever, a miracle happened.

Baldy intervened in the only way she could. She kicked the Bombshell square in the face coming down the slide.

Blood went everywhere.

The tooth was out.

It was the best five bucks I have ever spent.

 

Love your work Baldy...

 

 

 

Food Lines

LINE OF THOUGHT 1:

It’s one of those jobs you hate, but you have to do at least once a year. Sometimes more in my house.

The annual cleaning-out-of-the-food-cupboard.

If you’re a responsible shopper – and I’m not – you know exactly what is in your cupboard at any given point in time. You have manageable levels of tinned and packet foods, and never need to throw anything out because it’s out of date.

Let me reiterate, I am not one of those people.

In a snatched moment when the kids were all away, occupied or asleep, I battled my demons.

I unpacked and sorted. I groaned as I saw three jars of hoisin sauce, four tins of tomato soup, eight tins of creamed corn and fourteen packets, of varying sizes, of instant rice.

What? I get a little stupid when things go on sale.

And my kids really like rice. And they want it NOW. It’s a great invention.

I took the opportunity to dispose of a number of barely touched party lolly bags, snatched with such glee after a birthday, and forgotten just as quickly.

I tossed out the tub of fairy floss. My husband wanted to keep it, but I said that unless he was prepared to feed it to the kids before HE was about to spend the day with them, then it needed to go.

I threw out an obscene amount of food, and I am feeling very ashamed of myself.

LINE OF THOUGHT 2:

Food wastage is something we battle daily as parents.

We have all cooked the meal, full of healthy things only to have the kids say ‘yuck’ and demand a vegemite sandwich.

We have all swept up piles of rice and cereal from the floor, and had to tip it into the bin because it has been contaminated with pet hair – or, at our place - foot long strands of the Bombshell’s hair.

We have all found the mummifed half-eaten sandwich under the couch; the apple with a single bite out of it in the bottom of the school bag; the lovingly made fruit platter that the kids left out in the sun because they were too busy playing.

One of the biggest food battles we have is that fine line between teaching our children not to waste food but also teaching them to not eat beyond their capacity.

The three year old Mop has a canny ability to eat exactly 80% of what is on her plate. She will eat happily and then, with only a mouthful of two left in front of her, she will stop. It’s bloody annoying, and I used to push her to finish her meal, to ‘not waste food.’

But what is worse? Wasting a few mouthfuls of food, or teaching her that she must always finish what is in front of her.

I always finish what is in front of me.

And then I finish what is on my kids’ plates. And then I often get another helping.

I am more than a few kilos overweight.

Actually I’m a lot overweight.

So I am determined to not encourage my children to eat more than they need to. I eat because I want to, not because I need to and it had led to a lifetime of food issues.

I want my children to have a happy, healthy and uncomplicated relationship with food.

So I have started talking to the Mop about what her ‘tummy’ wants, as opposed to what ‘she’ wants. She is old enough to distinguish between wanting something because it’s yummy and her ‘mouth’ wants it, and wanting something because she is hungry and her ‘tummy’ wants it.

Clearly I need to start practicing what I am preaching. It’s something I fail at regularly.

Yesterday I had lunch out with my husband and the Bombshell. I tried my hardest not to finish everything on the plates, and when we left there was half a plate of fried rice remaining. I felt proud that I had not overeaten unnecessarily.

And then I ruined it all by eating an enormous ice-cream cone that I neither wanted nor needed.

Baby steps, Shannon.

 

 

Why Exercise, Housework and Childcare Should be Banned

I have long been a crusader against exercise, believing it leads to all sorts of injury and humiliation.

Take my husband for example, in the course of exercise he has sustained a stress fracture during a gym class (which he finished before going to get an x-ray, typical male).

He's come off his bike, tearing his arms down to the bone, and had the worst case of blisters known to mankind after the City to Surf.

Disgusting.

Clearly, sport and exercise are bad for you.

Now I am going to add housework to the list of things that must be stopped in the interest of personal safety.

Yesterday I broke my toe while putting the washing away. I walked into a door frame. Three toes went one way, two went the other.

I heard it snap. It was surprisingly loud.

It bloody hurts but you can't do anything except take prophylactic wine and sit down and watch ANTM.

I may also add childcare to my list of dangerous occupations.

To add insult to injury (literally), this morning the baby threw a book at me from her change table, and it landed squarely on my newly broken toe.

It's highly likely her next new word is going to start with an 'F'.

The Worst Parents in the World

It was a game of parental one-upmanship, the one where we try and outdo each other with how crazy the kids have been. Except we can play this game with the antics of just with one child: Number Three, Baldy.

My husband started: she threw the rice-bubbles everywhere. They were on the wall. I even found them in my shoes!

I followed with: she was climbing on the chairs at the dentist. She tried to climb up the vertical blinds.

Him: She ate food out of the bin.

Me: She insisted on having her teeth checked by the dentist like her sisters, but then she just stuck her tongue out.

Him: She belted the Mop in the face and was trying to ride the Bombshell like a horse.

Me: I found her sucking water out of a face-washer she had dipped in the toilet.

Him: She was sitting on the top of the toilet. Not the seat – the cistern!

We both looked over to the toilet, visualising the 18 month old sitting on top, merrily swinging her legs, smiling cunningly.

We must be such bad parents.

And to prove the point, I found Baldy 'cleaning' the toilet, and took the photo for posterity
before taking the toilet brush off her

 

Preaching to the Convoluted

I was loitering with intent.

I needed a key cut and was hanging around the key-cutting place at a nearby shopping centre, but the woman hadn’t noticed me yet. I was child-free but my head was pounding. I’d had way too much coffee and not enough water, and being woken at 5am by Baldy hadn’t helped.

Nor were the screaming kids at the little indoor playground right next to me.

Hang on, you may say. You have kids. You can’t complain about kids that scream.

Well, actually – I can.

My kids scream. A lot. Almost as much as I do.  However I like to do it in the privacy of my own home, or occasionally in the car on the way to school, where passing motorists can see by my purple face that I’m yelling but they don’t know what about.

These kids were screaming in the middle of a very public space. Not just happy-kids-yelling-and-laughing type screaming. Not even she-pushed-me-over-and-I’m-upset screaming. This was I’m-going-to-shriek-because-I-want-to-see-if-I-shatter-those-windows screaming.

The mums were sitting watching and having a nice chat. Maybe they were chatting, maybe they were lip-reading because their kids were quite loud, who knows.

Finally the key-cutting lady noticed me and she came to cut my key. She noticed me rubbing my temples.

‘They do that all day,’ she said. ‘Shrieking like that, and the mums never stop them. They don’t seem to care that we have to listen to that all day.’

Fair point. Those particular kids and their parents might be there for five or ten minutes and then move on. The people working in the shops nearby, like this lady in her pop-up shop less than three metres away have to listen to it all day.

And they’re trying to work.

She clearly hadn’t noticed my key-ring with a picture of my own three daughters at prime shrieking age. I don’t think she would have been so chatty if she knew I could well be one of the culprits.

Or maybe she had, because she had very clearly – and politely – made her point.

I had never stopped to think that people are trying to work in the shops next to this play area.

I will next time.