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.

Bricks and Mortar of Melbourne

They’ve been labelled the ‘Ugly Duckling’ of Australian architecture, but I am fascinated with post-war cream brick houses of Melbourne.

Moving to Melbourne from country Victoria when I was just 17 I remember thinking how foreign these houses felt. I had grown up in Victorian-esque houses from the 1890s with massive wrap around verandahs, embedded history, creaking boards, fireplaces and ghosts.

The first time I ever stepped into a Cream Brick was to ask my elderly neighbour, who  lived next to my crappy Richmond rental, if I could please have a lemon.

The lemon tree with its painted white stump stood pride of place in the centre of the trimmed lawn, surrounded by a garden edging of yucca-like plants with the leaves braided towards the middle. It was always fully laden when in season. My neighbour gave me a 4 litre ice-cream tub of lemons, as well as fresh rosemary, a jar of sandwich pickles and tomato relish with a red checked fabric top cut with pinking shears. I didn’t understand a word she said, except “too skinny, you eat. Eat.”

Years later I moved to Yarraville and was thrilled to bits seeing two immaculate cream brick houses at the end of my new street, sitting tall and proud like twins in pressed sailor suits.

Both houses had fully formed rose bushes standing strong, vibrant and pruned in the front yards. The driveways were washed every weekend and the footpaths swept within an inch of their lives each morning. The nonnas in each house had so much pride, working hard each day in their floral aprons and knits buttoned to the neckline. I had so much admiration and respect for these beautiful houses and their widowed homemakers.

Then, as life goes on, one of the nonnas passed away and quickly we saw a for sale board go up, then slashed with a SOLD sticker. It sat like this for a while. The neatly trimmed lawn grew weeds and became patchy. The rose petals fell apart and the thorns grew thick. Rubbish blew into the driveway from the footpath and the brick fence started to crack. Some kid tagged the real estate sign, then the letterbox, then the fence. The decorative stone concrete porch started to sink and the house number lost a screw and flipped on its bum. Someone knicked the letterbox. I couldn’t believe how much the house deteriorated in just a few months.

One morning my son and I walked past and a digger was sweeping its bucket right through the front curved corner window, ripping the house guts out and pulling out a wall which had built in laminate shelving still attached to it. On our way back home just an hour later, the house had been demolished, piles of bricks lay across the block. The fully laden lemon tree out the back had been bulldozed and there was a strong smell of citris, but because of all the dust, it smelled like Airwick. Lemons lay across the ground like a war-zone.

But what punched me right in the guts was seeing a ceramic fish with a soft pink and mint green glaze lying amongst the rubble. The fish must have been sitting on the shelves when they were ripped out.

Three three story townhouses will be built on the block, complete with carspaces, artificial grass, hired artwork, and ‘pops’ of colour. They will look pretty and shiny and will sell for over a million dollars. We will have new neighbours to meet and hopefully new kids to play in the street.

There are two cream brick houses remaining on my street. Will they be there in 20 years time? Who knows? While they are still standing I’m going to take advantage of the stunning hospitality of my elderly neighbours and share garden produce and tips on pruning roses while they enjoy watching my son grow and water their gardens wearing just his nappy and gumboots. 

Photos by Paul Large.

This article first appeared in the September 2015 issue of The Westsider.

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

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?

Dental teeth

I am trying to teach my son to be gentle.

Last Sunday we went to the Farmer’s Market in Willy for some fresh fruit and grub. The centrally located petting zoo looked like the perfect spot for my kid to test out his gentle patting skills.

                    

We have been here before, quite a few times actually, and the petting zoo owner recognised us saying: “This time, please don’t let your kid open the guinea pig gate. My babies get anxious when they run free.”

We got our little cup of animal seed and instantly my son poured this into his gumboot. He was so disappointed; he pulled off his gumboot and started eating the seeds. The minute he did this all the petted animals came sprinting over to him licking their lips (beaks).

Baby lambs, chickens, bunny rabbits and some tiny furry thing, perhaps a rat, came running at my son pecking him in every location trying to find a grain. My poor son. I reached down and grabbed him and realised he was laughing hysterically. He was enjoying being wrestled by farm creatures, rolling around in their shit with a mouthful of seed.

So I let him go and boy did he squeal. He chased after the animals, running them around in circles like a sheep dog, scarring the bejesus out of them, clapping like a mad man, all the while I’m shouting ‘gentle Alfie, gentle’. It was so joyful to watch, I was able to relax with another mum while our kids ran riot.

Then Alfie started getting rough. He is so obsessed with holes lately, that he realised the hole in the gate allowed him to reach the clasp. So he unlocked the gate. The hole in the pole along the side of the zoo fence allowed him to reach the fence peg. So he pulled the fence peg out and the side fell off. And the hole in the lamb’s backside was wear the poo came out. So he chased after the lamb, catching the poo.

Then he saw the teeny tiny baby guinea pig come out of a tunnel hole.

I went to grab him with his pooey hands and he saw me coming for him with my ‘time to go home’ face. He grabbed the baby guinea pig before I could reach him and held the animal close to his chest and ran to the corner with his back to me. I feared for an ‘Of Mice and Men’ moment where my son’s undying love for tiny furry animals would come to a sweet end. I released his grip by tickling him and the guinea pig coughed and ran back into his hole, scared forever more. My son eyed the hole off.

It was time to go. One near death experience was enough for this mum. Those poor, poor animals.

We got home and Cheef Dog was happily waiting for us at the side gate. He came running inside and Alfie ran after him, squealing and shouting ‘mumma, mumma’ (he calls the dog ‘mumma’ – let’s not go into this). Cheef Dog sprinted to the couch and I caught Alfie just before he got there. Alfie reached out his hand and firmly patted Cheef Dog across his back saying ‘dental teeth’ which I will take as ‘gentle Cheef’ over and over again.

‘Dental teeth, dental. Dental teeth, dental.’

Perhaps the petting zoo has helped him to get this gentle thing down pat?

This post first appeared on Bubba West.