emma_in_dream

I would like advice from other people on a confidential basis *and not to be discussed in front of the children*.

The child who sits next to M in class is one of the kids whose father soaked him in petrol in a domestic last week. His younger sister was set on fire (survived).

To start with, Jesus fuck. He set his kids on fire. Jesus. *I* feel shaken.

So M is a very naive and kindly child who would find this unimaginable. She has clearly not taken it in (it was discussed in very vague terms at school) and I'm not telling her.

If she does find out, what advice?

Because, Jesus Christ, he set his own children on fire.

We went to the most amazing party on the weekend. Amazing magician, great face painter. I do think the DJ made some ill-considered choices though – Anaconda just doesn’t seem right for a seventh birthday party. ‘My anaconda don’t want none unless you’ve got buns, hon!’


Child: Is it about a hungry snake eating a sandwich? Me: Yes, yes, that’s totally what it is about.

I love R’s vocabulary. Yesterday she said was ‘nearly startled out of her skin’.


Also, she gave such a clever answer to I Spy. She said it began with S and had a face and hands, so I was guessing Sesame Street monsters. But, no! It was the sun!


Also, P said she was ‘feeling sheepish’ after making a mistake.

And this is how she learns. She asked what it meant when I said R had a 'hacking cough'. I replied it was a terrible cough, and she replied that 'she had a headache and felt hacking'.

Ten sugar-filled children trapped inside a tiny house in inclement weather does not make for a happy party! Child one was frightened by the thunder! Child two got her foot stuck in a box and hurt her ankle! Children three and four had some kind of fist fight (details unclear as it happened upstairs)! Child five slipped over and hurt her bottom! All the kids got wet and then their clothes had to be dried! Child three (again) and child six had a territorial standoff over the birthday girl which involved literally grabbing her arms and tugging her in different directions!


Man, I felt like there was no explanation when I handed them back to their parents – here is your hot, sweaty, damp, slightly wounded child. Her clothes are in a bag. Please, take her.


Perth received 70mls over the weekend, when the May average is like 130mls so. Bother.


Also, a hearty thank you to Baby_Elvis and Jenny_Bugs who nobly tried to tame lions. Also, my sister who made a cake that looked like Anna’s *Frozen Fever* cake and my parents who took care of Ruby.

Ruby and Pearl settled down the other day with a DVD which I thought would be about cute penguins. Unfortunately, it was more along these lines: See the cute penguins, see how sweet they are, all the penguins are going to die because of global warming, the dear little penguins are being killed right now!


Cue hysteria and me turning the DVD off after about two minutes.


Advice on informing them about global warming without making them (with justification) hysterical and depressed?


My tack was the weather is getting warmer because of global warming, but this is something we can do something about. This is why we turn the lights off and don’t make unnecessary trips in the car.

1. What did you do in 2014 that you'd never done before?
Stencilling? And a lot of fanfic writing, much more than before.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I can't recall what they were. Whoops, used to measure progress regularly.

I can't make them for next year, because what happens depends on how Ruby adapts to kindy. If it does not exhaust her, I can have every second Thursday morning to myself and can do exercise and creative things. If it does, I will have to reshuffle my work to fit her kindy schedule and will have even less time to myself.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, and I feel so fortunate about this.

5. What countries did you visit?
No holidays, as always.

6. What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014?
Energy, time, money.

7. What dates from 2014 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Lots of sweet moments with the kids being kind and cute. Pearl learning to read, the clever possum.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
This was the first year in which no one has been really sick (or needing diagnosis) so we had much more time. The girls did gym and Pearl had swimming lessons and I did a lot more art.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Being impatient with the girls. Failure to discipline them, so they run amok.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No, that was the great thing about this year.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Had to spend vast sums on a hot water system I did not want to get and which does not work very well - this is the opposite of the best thing.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
The girls, who learned to play together nicely at least a third of the time.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
The Federal Government who seem to be actually seeking out people to boot in the face.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage, bills.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
*Sleepy Hollow*, stencilling.

16. What song will always remind you of 2014?
Let it Go. All year.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier.
ii. thinner or fatter? Fatter
iii. richer or poorer? Still poor.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Seeing friends, exercising.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Being depressed.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
With my folks and the kids. I like having a small family over Christmas, it makes it much more manageable.

21. What LJ users did you meet for the first time?
None but I continue to post.

22. Did you fall in love in 2014?
Yes, with my girls.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Sleepy Hollow.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Only Tony Abbott.

26. What was the best book you read?
Not very good but unintentionally funny - the Elsie Dinsmore books.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I like Bruce Springsteen unplugged? I guess everyone else discovered this in the 1980s.

28. What did you want and get?
The children being healthy.

29. What did you want and not get?
Better mental health. More energy. I feel beaten down.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
I like Frozen. Saw Zarina the Pirate Fairy in the cinema and also the Hobbit movie.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 43 and I had lunch with some friends. It was one of the five times in 2014 I was not in the company of my children (excluding being at work and including having a pap smear).

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I had this terrible realisation that my kids are very naughty and undisciplined. I have spent all my energy on trying to make them not-sick and little on discipline. I just run out of energy for that. I had this terrible realisation that I am a bad mother.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2014?
I continue to wear the same clothes because - money.

34. What kept you sane?
Reading, art, fanfic, tv, going to parks and letting my children run free range while I read. I used to judge women who do this, now I see that it is literally the only time you can be alone.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
??

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Pretty much every single thing the current government does.

37. Who did you miss?
My sister in England.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Some nice women at the kindy play group. Of course, the ones I like best have children whose ages don't quite synch with mine so the kids will be in different years. Boo!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2014?
You need time to recuperate from a long period of anxiety (ie. 2008 to 2013, the period in which I knew there was something wrong with the health of my kids and pursued answers).

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Let it Go.

The day was spent churning an endless supply of clothes through the washing machine and into the dryer. It rained all day. Why was the supply of clothes so over the top? Because Ruby is being ‘toilet trained’ in the loose sense of the word. She doesn’t wear nappies and she is taken to the toilet, where she sits and chats. Then she gets off the toilet and urinates copiously. Alas.


So there were a lot of weed-on trousers to wash. Also, every single one of our jumpers had to be washed because Ruby had accidentally defecated on the couch. The couch, people. The place I sit. And, foolishly, the place where our jackets and scarves were piled, all of which had to be washed and dried on a very rainy day.


Then Ruby threw one of Pearl’s toys behind the couch and I spent a good hour (but not a fun hour) pulling everything back there out before I found it. On the bright side, it’s now tidied and swept. We all had restorative ice creams and went to the library. Ruby came so close to success there – sat on the toilet in the community centre, widdled on the floor of the carpark. A quick change of clothes and we were off to the Ipad repair centre to deal with the totally smashed screen that was the result of Pearl dropping it on the stairs.


The girls behaved so badly there that it was just embarrassing. And when we left, Ruby opened her umbrella in the car in a way that obscured my view as I attempted to back the car around a corner, past a bin, in the rain. I completely lost my temper and leapt out of the car, took the umbrella and threw it in the boot shouting that she could never have it again, never, never, never. Not a very good threat as of course she needs it when it rains.


We went home and had lunch and then –thank God - the girls watched *Dinosaur Train* while I calmed down upstairs. In these circumstances, a change of pace is what is called for, so we set off for the park. We got to play there for about twenty minutes before the drizzle turned into a torrential monsoon which utterly drenched us all. Like soaked to the bone.


We piled into the car and somehow – and this was typical of the day – a swarm of some kind of insects came in with us. Dozens and dozens of small, flying creatures. I’ve never seen them before – like a tiny stick with wings, about a centimetre long. It was like that scene in *Teen Wolf* where the doctor is murdered by being run off the road when her car is filled with moths.


We drove off, with the car full of bugs. Ruby tried to have a drink. Her water bottle somehow – God only knows how – exploded. The nipple at the top stopped working and the whole lid burst off, covering her with even more water.


I figured we could try Plan B which was to go shopping for items to send off in Operation Christmas Child. This is a chance for them to choose presents to send to a little girl whose parents can’t afford to get her gifts. Pearl really embraced the concept but Ruby was much more interested in choosing stuff for herself. (Bear in mind, she is only three). She found a Roar-Roar monkey and then lay on the floor screaming that she wanted it. I was so weakened by that stage that I said yes, yes, she could have it. Screw the true meaning of Christmas being giving. The lesson I teach is that the most important thing is to get toys for yourself by tantrating. So then of course Pearl had to choose a toy as well which involved examining every single toy in detail and took so long that time actually began to run backwards.


So we walked back through the rain into our bug-infested car and went home. What an amazingly rotten day.


And compare it with the next day, where the only extra work I had to do was to find Pearl’s missing doll, which involved stripping her bed, moving and moving everything under it. Again, at least it has been swept up now.


We even did extra work. The girls helped me clean the shower and sweep the dirt up outside (in the rain). Once again, I kept the washing machine and drier running all day. But we went to church which meant, crucially, that the girls were in Sunday school without me for half an hour *and* I got to nap during the sermon. Rest my eyes, I mean.


And in the afternoon we went to an indoor playground, so I got to read *Three Guineas* while the children played.


From my point of view, there was 100% less stress on Sunday. From the kids’ point of view, there was 100% less shouting at them.

For purposes of remembering, Ruby calls hexagons ‘rexagongs’ and Pearl calls convertibles ‘bottom cars’.

We worked on the index card art challenge today.

Here are some of Ruby's cards:




Here are my two favourites of Pearl's art. She did a lot more on each individual card, whereas Ruby was happy with a cleaner look.

Pearl’s party went well, I think. I always get incredibly nervous before parties and it is even more nerve-wracking hosting a child’s party because you can’t tell when someone is going to have a melt down or give voice to power plays which would be left implicit at adult parties.


Pearl really enjoyed it and liked showing off her bedroom to the girls from school. She also enjoyed running about in the common area at those times when it was not raining too hard.


Most of the kids enjoyed themselves (not sure about a couple of introverts from school who seemed a bit overwhelmed). Pearl was very polite, even when she received three copies of the same Forget-me-not Fairies book.


My favourite food: rainbow fruit salad. How cool is that?





Pearl’s favourite food: Marshmallows.


My favourite present that Pearl received: The Rosie the Riveter picture book.


Pearl’s favourite present: A flying fairy.


My greenest achievement that was not noticed: Instead of plastic I used china plates (20cents each from the op shop).


My greenest achievement that was (unfavourably) noticed: One of the girls commented that there was very little in the party bags. True, because what I included was a fair trade woollen finger puppet rather than plastic junk.