Why Tom and Jerry are Now Banned in my House

‘If you don’t let me go on the computer later, I’m going to kill you,’ the Bombshell hissed at me.

I raised my eyebrows at her, and glanced back in the rear view mirror. My heart was racing at the thought of my not-even-seven-year-old using such violent language, but outwardly (for once) I maintained my cool. It doesn’t happen much – only when people at threatening to kill me.

‘Really? That’s not a very nice thing to say,’ I told her, Queen of the Understatement.

The Mop piped up: ‘If you kill Mum, she will be really angry at you.’

I could see I needed to speak with my four year old about what death really meant, but I was also a bit miffed that she wasn’t otherwise concerned about me being…  well… dead!

‘If I kill her, she won’t be able to do anything anymore,’ the Bombshell told her.

At least someone understood the gravity of the topic.

‘If I am dead I certainly won’t be able to let you go on the computer anymore, will I? I won’t be able to do anything for you anymore.’

There was silence in the car. Briefly.

‘I don’t think you should kill your Mum,’ the Mop finally said, quietly.

Inside I cheered, at least one of them didn’t hate me for not letting them sit in front of the computer for hours on end.

The Mop turned around in her car seat to see the Bombshell, sulking in the backseat. ‘How would you kill her?’ she asked.

What?

‘I would go and buy a big gun and shoot her,’ the Bombshell decided.

The Mop shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t get a big knife and cut her up?’

I had to intervene.

‘This is a lovely conversation you two are having. You realise I am still here, right? Driving the car. I can hear you both. By the way,’ I added, ‘there will clearly be no more Tom and Jerry for you two. Ever.’

Bloody Tom and Jerry, who keep coming back from the dead every episode. No wonder kids don’t think death is permanent and serious. Not to mention that threatening to kill people is a punishable offence in the normal world.

The Mop said quietly, ‘and if you killed mum, all her friends would miss her.’

‘I wouldn’t miss her,’ shot back the Bombshell.

‘The rest of the family would miss her,’ said the Mop, sadly.

 I wouldn’t,’ Bombshell said stubbornly, although her voices had lost its bravado.

We had pulled into the car park by this stage, and were sitting in the car, still strapped into our seats.

‘Please don’t kill me,’ I asked her, looking directly at her via the rear view mirror.

Pause.

‘Ok.’

Crisis averted.

You are now BANNED! from my house

My day in pictures

My Mothers Day in pictures... snapshots of the blessings that come with being a parent...

Badly Baby, The Blonde Bombshell, me and Miss Curly Mop

Steamboat for lunch, the most ambitious meal ever prepared in our house and I didn't have to do a thing

Wearable food, it's the latest fashion

Hand made jewellery from the kids, that I will actually wear

The reverse of a bookmark made by the Bombshell... apparently Mrs Meyerkort is as 'precious as a diamond'

Mothers Day at Kindy... this is how my middle daughter sees me 'Look Mum, I gave you a nose!' And what a nose it is...

A gift from my husband. I am trying not to read anything into his choice of foot apparel...

After listening to four verses of 'I love my mummy because she fixes my broken dresses' I took the hint and repaired a number of torn clothes

I don't want to talk about this

When Life is Perfect... oh, Wait... It's Normal Again

My two year old was beginning to look like Cousin It.

She was also behaving a bit like Cousin It, but the hair was slightly easier to fix. So I took her along to my hairdresser for a fringe cut.

Now back when I was a kid (don’t you just love starting stories like that… I can hear my kids eyes rolling when I do it), I am pretty sure my mum literally took one of her mixing bowls, plonked it upside down on my head, got her dressmaking scissors and cut around the rim of the bowl.

Don’t believe me? Have a look at this…

Yes, I am the one on the right

Now these days, the pudding bowl haircut is classified as a form of child abuse, so I take my kids to a hair dresser. She had insisted on wearing her older sister’s size 6 dress, so she was pretty unusual looking to start with when we got there.

She stood in the door, and silently took in the heat and noise of the hair dryers, the women with their hair wrapped up in alfoil and clipped in mad little bunches, the smell of the bleach and she did what most sane people did. She screamed and tried to run away.

But she’s also a sucker for people who smile at her, and suddenly there was a room of adults all beaming at this (hairy) little girl, with the dress down to her ankles, and casually flopping over one shoulder exposing a fair bit of décolletage (can you call it that when they’re two?)

She liked the attention but she didn’t like the look of the massive scissors that quickly came her way, so it looked like we would be going home in much the same condition in which we arrived, when I hit upon the idea of the hairdresser cutting BearBear’s hair first.

BearBear is one of those weird blanket things with a bear head. Not freaky at all.

After we watched BearBear’s ‘hair’ be cut twice, she acquiesced to the idea of having her fringe cut, and 10 seconds later, we were finished and on our way out.

Except we weren’t quite done, because someone had apparently told my two year that after a trip to the hairdresser, you must stop at the café for a coffee.

So she stopped next door at the café, neatly stepped inside and pointed to the massive coffee machine. Then she looked at me and grunted.

‘What?’ I laughed. ‘You want a coffee?’

She nodded.

‘I think you’re a bit young for a coffee,’ I told her, rather pointlessly.

Ignoring me, she stepped toward the counter.

‘Hello,’ she told the barista. ‘Coffee pizz,’ then she pointed at me.

‘Do you do milkshakes?’ I asked him. He shook his head, trying not to laugh.

‘Perhaps she’d like a babycino?’ a rather helpful customer behind us suggested.

Duh.

‘Would you like a babycino?’ I asked my daughter. She nodded. ‘Ok, go find a table and sit down and I will be there in a minute.’

She walked directly to a table near the window and climbed up into the chair.

‘Hello,’ she said to the two businessmen outside the open window.

‘Uh, hello,’ one of them said, a bit shocked.

I took my seat and soon the world’s largest babycino arrived, complete with marshmallows and chocolate syrup.

‘Cankoo,’ she said and proceeded to spoon the foam and milk into the mouth.

I wish I could finish the story here, with this image of a tidy, neatly coiffed, well mannered toddler still fresh in my mind.

Unfortunately, it went downhill from this point, and involved a fair bit of crying over spilt milk, screaming and tantrums. She was pretty badly behaved too.

Still, for a few minutes there, I thought I had slipped into an alternative universe. And for those few minutes I was pretty happy. Even if it felt a bit like Stepford.

What was your 'favourite' Mother's Day gift?

[Disclaimer] I have a new writing gig, blogging for Poster Candy, where I get to chat about all my ideas to do with photography. Ah, you didn't know I was a photographer did you? Well, I'm not really, but I enjoy it immensely and I have lots of fun projects coming up. 

This post is about making a gift for Grandma (or yourself) that you actually like... Normally the articles will be on the PosterCandy website and not here at Relentless, but they are currently experiencing technical difficulties with their blog, something they assure me, that has absolutely nothing to do with my (lack) of technical prowess...

In Year Two I remember coming home from school with an old jam jar, filled to the brim with coloured sugar, a circle of fabric tied to the lid with a piece of string.

‘Happy Mother’s Day,’ I told my Mum proudly as I held my creation in front of me.

Her raised eyebrows perhaps should have indicated to me her confusion over exactly what she was meant to do with a jar of sugar, coloured with toxic and probably now illegal food colours. But as a six year old, I thought my gift was awesome. To her credit, my mother kept that jar of sugar on her shelf for many more years than was probably necessary.

To avoid the same raised eyebrows this Mother’s Day, why not use your kids’ creative urges and harness them for good instead of evil. 

There isn’t a Grandma on earth who wouldn’t appreciate a beautiful hand-drawn picture from their loving grandchildren, but by compiling their work into a single piece of art, she will have a beautiful reminder that lasts long after the grandkids have grown up.

The Great Wall of Art: At our house, individual pieces of artwork are regularly changed but if space is an issue, a whole year’s worth of artwork can be compiled into a single Poster

You can also make a new PosterCandy every year, as the kids get older and their talents improve.

The finished product: Happy Mother's Day Grandma

Hints and Tips when Photographing Kids Artwork

When photographing your children’s artwork and crafts make sure you have plenty of natural light and a neutral background. Pictures can be blu-tacked onto a wall for clear, shadow-free photography. Paper-maché and clay creations should be photographed in front of a plain background.

If your children tend to leave a lot of white on their pictures, then consider photographing each piece of art on a brightly coloured background, so the finished product is not devoid of colour.

If you want to make your Mother’s Day Wall of Art even more special,  include pictures of the children or their initials (these wooden letters are available at craft stores for a few dollars). Ask one of the kids to write ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ and the date on a chalkboard, or in brightly coloured letters and incorporate it into the Poster.

For some mess-free craft, let the kids decorate their initials with cheap gemstone stickers from the $2 shop

If your little artist is very prolific, start photographing their work now. By keeping an electronic record of their art, you can see as their skills develop over time, and even better, you can ‘recycle’ it later with a clear conscience. 

Save all the images in a single folder on the computer, and it will take less than ten minutes to build your Mum or Grandma a beautiful gift for Mother’s Day they will be proud to hang on the wall.

The Small Print:

The poster pictured above is 40x50cm and costs $39,  but there are seven different sizes available with prices starting at $15. All prints are in the iconic square shape, and have been designed specifically to work with your Instagram or Facebook account. Or, if you're a technophobe like me, you can use normal digital images from your computer.

The best bit, I think, is that the finished posters have all been designed to fit in frames from Ikea, so the entire thing ends up being cheap and easy to make.

The Pirate Room

At the age of (almost) seven, The Blonde Bombshell admitted she didn’t really like being alone at night. 

Considering the age of the house, the unblocked chimney in her room, the squeaky floorboards and high ceilings, I can’t say I really blamed her. My four year old was quick to repeat exactly what her older sister said, if it meant she got a roommate. As such, we made the decision to move our two eldest girls into the same room.

So as soon as school holidays started, they began ‘practicing’ sharing a room. The mattresses and sleeping bags were dragged out and each night they would move them from room to room, never wanting to favour one room over the other.

We kept waiting for the world to implode, but it didn’t.

In fact, the girls got up less in the evenings (for random drinks, cuddles, strange noises or banana sandwiches) and began sleeping later in the morning. Astonishing.

After a week of ‘practicing’ we began to finalise the room shift. Rugs were rolled up, chests of drawers migrated from one room to the next, toys and books were consolidated in one room, and the beds neatly lined up in the other.

The girls began to practice saying ‘our’ room, rather than ‘my room.’

‘So Mum,’ the Bombshell began. ‘This is now going to be our private play room. Just for us, right?’

‘Sure,’ I replied.

She turned to the Mop. ‘This is now our private room. We sleep in that room, and this is where we play. Okay?’

The Mop looked a little confused, but she nodded.

Almost a week on, things were going reasonably well. Even when they were fighting, they still wanted to continue sharing a bedroom, and they would often wake and go quietly into their private play room without us even realising.

Then the other day the Mop came to me.

‘Mum, would you like to play with me in the pirate room?’

‘Ummm, the what room?’ I asked her.

She gave me that puzzled look again. ‘The pirate room, the room that is just meant for us to play in.’

I considered correcting her, but these little word-slips are becoming increasingly rare.

And I’m going to miss them when they’re gone.

Scarred for Life

With the Bombshell’s 7^th birthday approaching it bought back some not-so-good memories of my own 7^th birthday.

Or what I thought I was my 7^th birthday*.

‘Do you want to hear what happened on my birthday’ I asked the girls as we drove to school one day.

Always eager for stories about ‘the olden days’, the girls quickly agreed.

‘I was allowed to have an ‘S’ party, since my name was Shannon, and everyone had to come as something that started with the letter ‘S’. I had one friend come as a spider, with legs made from black stockings filled with crunched up paper. Another friend stapled boxes of Smarties all over her top.’

They wanted to know if we got to eat the Smarties and I told them they were missing the point.

‘Your Grandma came as a ‘Supermum’, your grandad came as a ‘Scientist’, and your Aunty, at the grumpy pre-teen age she was, came as a ‘Sister’ and she refused to dress up.’

At the time this annoyed the crap out of me, but in hindsight, I totally appreciate her understated approach.

‘What did you come as Mum, a SuperShannon?’ the girls giggled.

My shoulders slumped.

‘You know what I wanted to come as?’ I asked them. ‘I wanted to be a Snowflake. I wanted to wear a white leotard and a big white tutu skirt and a beautiful hat in the shape of a snowflake. I wanted to be delicate and beautiful and fragile.’

‘So did you get to be a Snowflake?’ the girls wanted to know.

‘No. Your Grandma insisted I come as a Sausage.’

‘Uhhh what?’ they asked, quite reasonably.

‘A red sausage,’ I told them. ‘She sewed me a special sausage suit, that frilled around my neck and my knees, and I had to wear a red skivvy, and she made a special red sausage hat.’

There was silence in the car as they took in the enormity of what I had just told them. They understood my pain at being made to dress up as a sausage when I really wanted to be a snowflake. There is nothing delicate about a four foot frankfurter.

So that afternoon, when they came home from school, they drew me these pictures.

‘There you go Mum,’ the Bombshell told me. ‘You now get to be a Snowflake.’

‘Me too, Mum,’ said the Mop. ‘I drewed you as a Snowflake Princess Fairy.’

My heart broke as I stuck the pictures on the fridge. Three decades later, and I was finally a Snowflake.

A few days later, I showed my mum the pictures. We stood in silence for a minute.

‘I scarred you for life, didn’t I?’ she asked wryly.

‘Not for life, only for about thirty years,’ I replied.

I wonder what sort of damage I will do to my girls?

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* Turns out this wasn't my 7th birthday, but actually my 10th. We could find no photographic evidence whatsoever that I even HAD a 7th birthday.