Don't judge a mother by her cover

Today someone said the nicest but possibly the strangest thing to me.

'Gosh Ali, you always look like you have your shit together.'

Yes! The cover is working. Holy Helen of Troy. I thought I looked the OPPOSITE of 'together' most days, but this little comment put a spring in my step.

But hang on, is that what I really strive to do... cover up all my flaws with a cheeky grin and a shirt I've hung next to the hot shower to sort out it's crinkles?

So I'm going to be super honest,  most days I don't have my shit together. Most days it's a big egg scramble and it's freaking tough to do it all. I'm constantly wishing I was a carefree mum, cruising around  in my Seed Heritage chambray, puffer vest and soy decaf latte watching my son eat stems of broccoli and asking me if he can brush his teeth.

The last day my husband and I had off together was Father's Day - two months ago. We spent the day in Barwon Heads as a little family and it was ace. Our next day off together is likely to be Christmas Eve. We normally have three nights off a week together and the other nights we usually see each other during a high five in the hallway before one of us has to head to work, or sometimes one of us just doesn't get home until super late because we are at work. But it's ok. This is our life and it's a busy one. Most weeks it works, some weeks the logistics are so stressful I suffer hard from IBS thinking about the very limited options we have. 

But the truth is, most days are pretty grotty, snotty and now filled with potty (mouth and usage). Here's a snapshot of ONE day in my week. Let's say... today. Ok. Go.

5.50am    Alfie wakes up and comes into our room. His pants are wet. So I get up and he runs around.

6.00am    I have a pantless child refusing to put on a nappy screaming at me that he wants a sticker. I give in and he puts it on our fridge. I scratch it off, caring.

6.15am    I start making my lunch for work, Alfie knocks it off the bench by accident while trying to get my attention. I give up and we sit and watch some pulsatingly weird colourful kids show on ABC2. I look at Facebook on my phone, post something about it being Back to the Future day, feel guilty about why I care about that rather then my son sitting next to me and pop it in my work bag.

6.30am  Still no pants on my kid. He wees on the kitchen floor. Hubby gets up. He's running late and has to be at work by 7.30am. Bribe the kid into wearing clothes... something about Santa and parcels and maybe cake.

6.45am  We drink instant coffee and talk about how late we are but we are both standing in the kitchen in our Kmart pjs. The Kid shovels half a banana into his mouth, the rest is pushed into the couch. Cheef Dog arises.

7.00am  Hubby is in the shower and takes ages. I start getting annoyed as I need to use the bathroom. I pace past the door, which is open. No one in our house is allowed to close the bathroom door according to Alfie. Cheef Dog does poos in the yard. Alfie looks through the window and counts them as they come out.

7.15am  I'm in the shower. I have five minutes to get ready for work before hubby has to leave for work. I curse. Spend most of my time squeezing a pimple, only to make a big red bump on my face.

7.20am  Hubby heads to work, I wrestle Alfie into the pram while bribing him about seeing diggers/tip trucks /garbage trucks, put the lead on Cheef Dog and we walk and talk about diggers/tip trucks and chocolate cake.

7.30am  Guaranteed to bump into this one lady EVERY week who makes a comment similar to: it's too early to be out with a child so young/too cold/he's not wearing shoes/he looks sad/why isn't he in bed etc.

7.50am  I bribe Alfie into the car with promised he can wear his backpack, eat cheese, look at diggers/trains through the window.

8.00am  I arrive at daycare and ALWAYS park across two parks. I'm always rushing and I feel out of place in heels as I walk through the foyer. I chat to the daycare teachers, and as I leave Alfie always explains to his educators that 'mummy's going to work to talk on the phone'.

8.45am  Drop the car at the station, jump on a train. Arrive at work and the day is hard and fast, running but also a sweet, sweet break from domesticity. I eat my breakfast and check emails. Phone starts ringing and doesn't stop until I leave.

5.15pm  I leave work and run to the train station, get off the train and jump in the car and drive to daycare. Pick up Alfie, most likely in his third set of clothes for the day. We chat to other parents and the daycare workers and then we head home.

5.30pm  Alfie shows me a dance, how to drink out of the potty, pats the dog, shows me trucks, his paintings and tells me his fingers look like doodles while I start dinner.

6.00pm  We sit down and eat tea together with the TV off ALWAYS. And we talk about our day mostly surrounding trucks, diggers, who hit who at daycare and how  his fingers look like doodles. It's lovely, especially if he eats what I made him.

6.30pm  We clean up together (i.e. he gives Cheef Dog his leftovers) and I run the bath. We have a fight about how many stickers he can have for sitting on the potty until I give in and give him four. He sticks them on the fridge. I scratch them off, trying to care.

6.45pm  I finally get him in the bath along with all of his favourite trucks and we sing some songs and he drinks the water. He tells me his fingers look like doodles. Sometimes he wees in the bath then drinks the water again.

7.00pm  He runs around the house using up the last of his energy.

7.30pm  We read Richard Scarry books about villages and hot air balloons and animals wearing clothes and acting like people. 

8.00pm  Alfie decides he wants to get up and drink milk and do some more dancing.

8.10pm  He runs around the house inviting me to catch him. He takes off his pants. I'm tired.

8.15pm  I get him back into his bed. He wants Cheef to sleep in his bed with him. I make up some story that Cheef won't dream about carrots or some shit if he sleeps on Alfie's bed. Alfie nods.

8.25pm  Alfie wants to get his handbag. It's got something in it he wants to show me - a chocolate cake. My work phone rings, I know who it is and really need to answer it, but I need to get my kid to sleep.

8.30pm  I make up a song about chocolate cake and somehow the kid crashes. As I walk out of his room I step on some squeaky toy and my heart stops. All good.

8.40pm  I turn on my computer and check my work emails and sort out any lose ends from my day.

9.00pm  I write a story for the local paper and check in with my favourite photographer to see if he can shoot some pics. 

9.45pm  I pack my lunch for tomorrow and order my fruit and veg box for the week ahead.

10.00pm  I do the dishes and tidy the house, chuck on a load of washing. Fold the washing from yesterday.

10.30pm  Bed time. I'm reading a book called Toddler Taming...

11.00pm  Hubby gets home from work. He smells like oil from the kitchen. We have a nice cuddle and he crashes.

1.30am   Cheef Dog wants to do a wee. I let him outside and he chases a possum and barks.

4.30am  Alfie comes into our room, he's cold. We let him pop into our bed for a cuddle... and it starts all over again.

So to  the person who told me I looked like I had my shit together - thank you. It's tough working under cover but sometimes you've just got to do it, no one is going to do it for you. I like my job and I'm good at it, I like being a mum and I think I'm ok at it. Both my hubby and I have solo parenting days with Alfie so he gets a lot of our individual attention and it's special. 

Sometimes I fuck up, most days I laugh  at myself, but the best bit of all is at the end of the day, when that gorgeous kid of ours is fast asleep and the pep tea is brewing and the housework is done, I can use my undercover skills to find that secret square of Lindt chocolate hiding in the cupboard which has been saved just for me.

(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.

Craning for Glory

Many years ago I wanted to be a romance novelist. I wrote a story called Crowning for Glory about a dentist, his wife and his mistress. I submitted it to Harlequin Mills and Boon, without success. Perhaps they didn’t publish it because of the word ‘crowning’? I didn’t know what that really meant back then, just that it sounded like a dentisty term rather than a reference to a baby’s head making its first appearance.

I am now conquering this parenting thing with a new term, which I like to call Craning for Glory.

Let me tell you all about Craning.

Craning can be used anywhere and everywhere. It is a simple but lifesaving tool, you just need your arms and your hands and your best robot moves.

So how do you ‘crane’?

Simple.

Ask your child to pick up their toys. If they respond with a ‘no’, start your crane engines. Bend your elbow into your best ninety degree angle and start your reverse beeps. Head towards the first toy, and shape your hand into a grapple (Google if you don’t have a construction site-obsessed kid). Lower your grapple palm above the toy and pull up using your best rhythmic beeps (a little bit of robotic movement works well here). Release grapple and toy above the toy box and repeat. But this time get your kid to do the craning.

Craning can be used in many situations. Here are some examples:

• Tea time crane: crane food into mouth
• Bath time crane: crane your child in and out of bath. Crane water into cup. Release grapple over your kid’s head.
• Tantrum-on—street crane: use a full body crane and lean over your child and double grapple under their armpits. Move crane up and out and transport child swiftly to car.
• Planking on supermarket floor crane: this makes craning easier. Transform your crane into a forklift tray and scoop up under said child craning them up, elevation style. Ensure you use grunting sounds to show just how epic this move really is.
• Car seat crane: this is a bit of a specialty crane as it requires a lift and swivel. We start with a ‘cradle crane’ (carry child like a baby) and then move into the ‘circle of life’ crane (Lion King style when Simba is lifted high to the people), then a swivel and delicate swoop into the seat. Robotic arms help to add excitement to ‘straps-on’. Works best if your kid is holding a tiny digger.
• Change in direction crane – Great for when your kid wants to run the other way. Use your magnetic grapple and place this on your child’s scone. Beep to signal reversing.

So if you see me craning around Yarraville, popping reverse beeps in the local IGA or using my hand sized grapples, give me a wink as you will secretly know that I’m craning for glory.

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.

Pants for grots

My son's a grot. He's outside all the time, loves to eat with his whole face, sit in puddles and has had a runny nose for about two months. It's totally cool. I think we all wish we could be grots most days. So this got me thinking; if I was a grot, what would I wear? Stretchy pants, absolutely. Pants I could high kick in, pretend to karate kick-n-sweep, jumping pants, climbing pants, scratch and sniff pants, and pass out in the hallway on my face pants.

So I decided to make some Pants for Grots for Alfie. Here they are. They cost me $4 each to make (thanks to a ripper sale at Spotlight) - the price of a cup of coffee. They took thirty minutes to cut, sew and elasticise and presto, here they are! 

And here's how I made them:

• Grab a pair of your grot's current jeans. 
• Measure the length and add an inch on the top and on the bottom. 
• Trace out a big letter 'U', like a harem pant. 
• Sew the sides of the U together, turn over the top of the pants an inch for the elastic, and same for the bottom of each leg. 
• Measure the elastic around your kid's waist and ankles.
• Cut the elastic and weave it with a mega safety pin through each folded cuff.
• Cut off all the loose threads, turn inside out and WHAM... Pants for Grots.

I'm hoping the elastic waist is going to be ace when it comes to toilet training. However, let's start with the basics... trying to get my kid to wear pants in the first place!

Enjoy!

xx

Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina

It’s a famous line in the Kindergarten Cop flick

You know the one, where the little boy’s so slick

When he states to Arnie, in the classic one liner

That ‘boys have a penis, and girls a vagina’.

It’s stuck with me for all of these years

A line that’s shouted with peers and beers

But now with my two-year-old boy in tow

He thinks it’s something that everyone must know.

While standing in a very long bank queue

My son (who is also fascinated with poo)

Went up to a stranger, and pointed at his dacks

And shouted ‘doodle?’followed by sniggers and cracks.

The man looked at me, unsure what to do

I explained that my son had just turned two

That he was curious about the thing in his nappy

But talking about it seemed to make him happy.

The tantrums themselves are awkward enough

But how in the hell are you meant to handle this stuff?

There’s a time and a place for this chat, to be frank

But it’s not the time, nor the place when we are in a bank.

It’s no different at all when we go to the zoo

Where there are plenty of doodles and a whole lot of poo

We explore all the gardens and eat picnic feasts

But it all gets exciting when we check out the beasts.

Just last week, we watched the elephants play

My son glued to the fence on this rainy day

Then a male elephant weed and boy it was a hit

And on top of that he took a massive shit.

Oh the squeals of delights, from my son and other boys

Who were all lined up, attracted by the noise

The other parents and I all rolled our eyes

I was thankful that the excitement was no surprise.

In my household filled with blokey gents

Where it’s rare if anyone is wearing pants

I feel left out because I’m ‘missing a tail’

But at the end of the day, I’m proud to be female.

This ode first appeared on BubbaWest.

Dinorarium

Someone once told me that to cure worms you need to wave a torch light in front of your bum at midnight, while holding a Boston bun nearby. Apparently the worm is drawn to the light, but makes his decision to escape your body from the sensational delights of the sweet bun.

I think about this all the time when I see my son scooting around the house. Running, crashing, burning, jumping, smashing, wriggling like a worm. Does my son have worms? Has he been spending too much time with Cheef Dog?

Great Expectations

I recently went on a little holiday to Queensland with my family. It was hilarious, like watching the Griswald family get ready for Christmas. Why is it that you can never fully pull your shit together when you have a toddler in tow?

We left Melbourne on Christmas Eve at 8pm. My hubby Reggie had a huge hangover from his work Christmas party the night before and he had had to work the whole day, leaving me to pack (probably a good thing in hindsight). During the day, Alfie had a massive stack, scoring a huge egg on his forehead. To calm down the tears, I decided to get him to help me pack.