Random Acts of Poo-mess

You have a few coffees, it's natural, it's going to happen. You're aware that it will and you plan accordingly.

I know my kid is only 3 but the instant urge he has to take a crap right then and there is still a bit beyond me.

Yesterday in the supermarket. I've got a full trolley.

Alfie: "mum, poo's coming out my bum."

Me: "ok, let's pay the lady and get you to a toilet."

Alfie; "it's coming out now. RIGHT NOW MUM. I can feel it!"

We abandon the trolley. The poo was coming out. I throw the Paw Patrol undies in the bin. I shouldn't have waited. It wasn't his fault. I just assumed he could hold it for 2 minutes and 48 seconds longer. 

He couldn't.

Today in the main street of Yarraville. Alfie starts riding his bike standing up.

Alfie: "mum. I need to do a poo."

Me: "ok, let's find a toilet. The pub's open."

As I rush towards the pub carrying his bike I turn around to see him doing a poo in a shopfront with a garden. I pick it up with a doggy bag and turf it in the bin. Let us never speak of this again.

I think I'm becoming a lot more patient as a parent. I can deal with things easier as they happen, I'm  crap when it comes to planning. 

And that's how I had a rad weekend. 

We had our first open for inspection at our Yarraville house. Loads of attractive bearded men and chicks with patterned socks checking out our goods while we peeked at the house traffic from 50 metres down the street in the pissing rain. The three of us held hands while Cheef Dog weed on the neighbour's fence.

I was an anxious mess before it happened. The inspection was planned. There was lead up. There needed to be a result. There was waiting. Someone recently told me that having an open for inspection was like holding a massive party and not knowing if anyone would turn up. 

Once it was over Alfie and I headed to the NGV with mates to lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling. Today a random massive bike ride lead to hot chips in the park watching sprinklers turn on and off in places where 'ginger turtles' live. Splendid, rancho relaxo stuff.

Reg finishes up at work this week. That's a big milestone. Hopefully we lease out our Yarraville house this week. Another big milestone. Then we settle at our Trentham house on the seventh of November and from there... golly, who knows?  We don't even have daycare let alone an inside toilet.

So in the meantime, I'm liking the 'winging it' theories of life at the moment. Going with the flow seems to be the only way we can get a grip on this tree-change. 

I'm not saying that if you need to take a crap, just drop your dacks and do it in a shop front, but there's something to say about not over-thinking the big things in life and just letting them happen. Even if it is a poo.

Have a most excellent week.

Ali xx

(You ain't no) Part Time Mother

I just worked my first FULL TIME, FIVE DAY week since Alfie was born and it hurt. I crashed hard on Friday night somewhere between 8.26pm and 8.31pm. I was zonked, my body ached and my brain was filled with way too much information. In short, full time working mums: you are fucking legends. Machines. Machines who are strong, amazing, powerful and admirable. May you rest your weary feet each Friday and treat yourself to a can of your coldest ale you can find. You deserve it. You're excellent.

Here's something I wrote JUST for you.

(You ain't no) Part Time Mother

The morning is crazy: brekky, dressed and bag

Some kind of mascara so you don’t look like a hag

You drop your kid at daycare, brush the crumbs from your seat

Arrive at the station, the train you just meet.

You get straight to it at your desk: emails, phone and print

Shoveling a sanga at the same time, quickly grab a mint

Then it’s meetings and chats and it’s busy as hell

And all these new young acronyms: BRB and LOL.

Your mobile phone rings and it’s a daycare call

It’s your son, he’s being too rough and he’s taken a fall

You ask if he’s ok; ‘yeah he’s fine, just an egg’

The teacher reassures you, then you notice your ratty leg.

Somehow in the busy morn, you’ve gone and ripped your tights

You’re now dressed like a rotten punk who has had a real big night

You duck out in your lunch break, only to realise...

You’ve got no bloody veggies to go with that night’s pies.

On the way home to daycare, you’ve got five minutes to spare

The guilt rises in your belly, coz your kid’s always the last one there

You have three choices to fill your five mins, it’s all a little muddle

To buy the veggies, do a wee or dive in for a cuddle.

Fuck the veggies, fuck the wee, a giant hug will do

I’d take a cuddle any day, even over a solo poo

It makes sense when you feel the embrace, why you do all this shit

You might be tired, you might be zonked, but boy… it’s so worth it.

Sir Wrecks-A-Lot

Life got a bit chaotic. I found a dinosaur sticker, covered in dog hair and random fluffy bits (perhaps a feather), stuck to my bum. I found said sticker at around 3pm on my way to a radio studio. I had been at work for almost seven hours with a skanky T-Rex stuck to my big butt. It did not lie. I was tired. Life was chaotic.

So last weekend I overpacked the Trunkie and headed off to my folk’s house in country Victoria. The plan was to palm The Kid off to my mum while I peeled off my face and buried my sunken sockets into a pillow.

Alfie LOVES going to Granny and Pa’s house. Their house has ALL the things: a massive yard, lawn, rocks, a fireplace, a worm farm, a passionfruit vine, an orange tree and a trailer. Sometimes the trailer is filled with horse poo for the garden. But most of all, and the absolute highlight of the trip to Granny and Pa’s, is the dollhouse.

My mum built my three story dollhouse when she was pregnant with my younger brother. She thought it would keep me focused while she was busy with my little newborn baby brother. It’s painted mission brown and cream, the colours of the early eighties, and stands over a metre tall. It’s deluxe. I played with my dollhouse right through to my early teens, redecorating the whole three stories, putting floral fabric on the walls and corduroy down for carpet. It was super plush even for my Sylvanian Families.

When we arrived at Granny and Pa’s house Alfie ran into the spare bedroom where the dollhouse sits, pulling open its doors and sweeping all its contents onto the floor in one swift arm movement. I bit my tongue seeing all the teeny tiny porcelain cups and saucers being thrown across the floor, then swept up by my son’s chunky club hands only to be placed in the back of a plastic cement mixer truck. I felt the tension fill me to my brow as Alfie shook the cement mixer, allowing the porcelain set along with two Sylvanian Family baby bear cubs and a makeshift washing machine made out of an old Keen’s Mustard tin, clash against each other creating a big nostalgic milkshake of doom. Then he tipped the contents out and walked over the precious items, not even feeling the teeny tiny bear cub in its teeny tiny handmade gingham playsuit squishing between his toes.

He was on a mission. I could see it in his eyes. He was in T-Wrecks mode. He was looking to smash up a storm.

He grabbed two trucks, one in each club and drove them through the plastic windows, bulldozing the baby bear cub’s parents over and tearing through the corduroy carpet, knocking over the tiny vase of dried flowers, the miniature sink with teeny tiny taps and ripping the makeshift books off the tiny shelves.

‘Evacuate, evacuate’ I cried. I was too late, the dollhouse was on its side, its contents spilling onto the floor. I stood and stared at the scene like I was seeing Janet Leigh hanging out the bathtub in Psycho. 

I was devastated. My mum rubbed my back.

Alfie was already off and running. Apparently Pa was burying a dead rabbit under the passionfruit vine (apparently it helps them grow big and strong – country style blood and bone).

I spent the next hour resetting the dollhouse, putting everything back in its place, the way it should be. The babies were put in their cots, ma and pa bear were sitting in the loungeroom watching an eighties-esque TV (Alfie asked me what that was) in front of their cellophane paper fireplace. The three story house became warm and friendly. I felt relaxed again. I closed the big doors with a big satin bow. Sigh.

I went outside to play with Alfie who was building jumps for his trucks and digging holes in the garden. He was filthy, like he had been eating soil and drinking from the hose. The house had been turned inside out with a trail of destruction, like Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs, behind him.

Before we left the country to head back to Melbourne, I untied the bow of the dollhouse and took one more look inside. Everything looked just right, except, lying in the corner of the bathroom, next to the makeshift toilet made out of a matchbox with a circular hole cut in it, was a T-Rex sticker, similar to the one I found on my bum a few days earlier. I put it on the toilet. It felt right. Big butts don’t lie.