Change is a GOOD THING!

While I am unable to go into specifics, I have recently witnessed, yet again, fear of change in our community.  It's not something I really understand, given that change is what makes a life. Why fear it? Why not embrace it, or at the very least, give it a go and see what happens? Nay sayers just give me the bloody shits, I want to go the old fashioned "smack their heads together"...which they would probably enjoy, given their love of all things old. Anywho, just had to get that off my chest so I don't cause any social disharmony when I next witness ignorance and fear. Thanks, much appreciated.



New clothes for zero cost - who knew?!

I organised a clothes swap at my home today, inviting along some friends who are not adverse to hand-me-downs and maybe had some things that they no longer wish to wear for whatever reasons.  Given I have recently had a baby and my body is all kinds of different to the way it was prior to that, I had oodles of garments to offload.  Some I had loved, others not so much, but I was over having them clogging up my bedroom. They were stuffed into draws, hanging in the wardrobe, and hidden in suitcases under the bed. I had too much of things that may not ever hold my proportions in the again. It was time to offload.

In they came from far and wide (well, within 5km anyway) with their bags brimming with stylish pieces no longer deemed suitable. There were labels, no name, shoes, pj's, a fairly saucy bra - you name it! A room full of gorgeous women of varying shapes and sizes were in 7th heaven, spying an item that was "them" and shimmying up the stairs to the full length mirror for a try on. I am pleased to say that nobody left empty handed. I am even more pleased to say that I got rid of more than I acquired. Mission accomplished!

And what a pleasant way to update ones wardrobe, for the cost of a couple of hours of our time, some biccies and dip. Ought to be way more of it, and in the spirit of my year of clearing clutter, dammit there will be!!



New Normal

So the boys are back to school & kinder, and as I return to my now deathly quiet house (save the bleating of our pet sheep on the back yard), I am embracing this new normal that I have been begging for, for many a year.  I look around and see that I have already folded the last 53 loads of washing, done the dishes and all that I need to do now is more washing, dry the dishes, put all of the above away, vac the floors etc...but still, a vast improvement upon the holiday period, and I get to do it interruption free until Molly wakes up.

Now I have had several conversations over the past few years with older women who have assured me that once my children are at school and I have all of this free time, I will miss them, cry, take up charity work to fill the void and so forth. Now that I am here, to them I say...are you fucking kidding?! This is the first time in around 7 years that I have been able to have a though without having it shattered by "Mum, I'm hungry", "Mum, when can I get a new [insert name of useless, non-educational toy here]", "Whey can't I have an icy pole RIGHT NOW (at 9:17 a.m.)". I am about to make a coffee, eat a Weight Watchers Brownie and catch up on some recorded programs that, frankly, I did not even hope to view before 2015.

I'll be back, just gotta get all this done before Molly wakes up and I have to get Jacob from kinder, Mackay from after school care, and take Jacob's friend home from their play date, and wait for the bloke to come and fix the oven...

For goodness sake, be a child properly

Ok so now I am going to have a wee rant about one of those topics that, well, makes me rant. One has a baby. One has it drummed in that breast milk is the best thing you can do for said baby, and one goes through untold nipple horror (grazed nipples ring a bell, folks?) in order to do just that. Good. The weekly email updates pour in letting you know where your infant "should" be, developmentally. Your Maternal & Child Health Nurse does same. As do your Mum, In-Laws, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, the Checkout Chick at Woollies, the other Check Out Chick at Coles, Buba Desi (local colourful identity rumoured to be a Wizard, if you don't mind umpire), friends, husbands, Other People's Kids...you get the idea.

We want our babies to hit the milestones early, on time really isn't ideal these days. My younger sister is known throughout the lands for crawling at 4 1/2 months and walking at 9 months. What a super freak. She's normal now, thank Christ.  This is the kind of factoid that we hold on to and hope that our offspring "achieve", but don't you think that maybe we have it arse about? We push and cajole, but to what end? Sure, we can get online and order a system that will have a little ones reading before they can actually speak. Hell, not doing so is tantamount to child abuse, isn't it? I have heard smacking, giving cows milk and dressing a male in watermelon pink all called child abuse, so I am now unsure what that actually means. In my day, it was when an adult beat the shite out of a child, but clearly I be out of touch on that one.

So you do all of the "right" stuff, your child is reading at year 12 level by the time it is 4, has confidence due to its enrolment for several extra curricular classes (swimming, dance, karate, boxing, German, French & Mandarin) and has a best & fairest medal from Auskick, even thought you are not supposed to enrol a child until the year it turns 4, and has never watched television or played a console game. Brilliant. Wonderful. Then what? We then spend the child's teenage and early adulthood taking them to a shrink 3 times a week, so that they can connect with their inner child?

Can't we please leave our kids the hell alone, to a degree? I mean sure, by all means feed them, bathe them, read them books. And expect more from them, especially as they get older. But do not ask them to share when they are 2. Do not expect a 4 year old to be mindful that other children may have hurt feelings if they don't get a gift in pass the parcel. Let them go outside and run. Remember running? It feels ace. And I mean the "just because" running rather than the "I had a baby and now I need to get back to my best form within 2 and a half weeks" running. Take the training wheels off their bike when THEY are ready, not when a kid a year younger has so it means your child is an idiot. It doesn't, it never has, it's not important.

I have noticed, being that I have a child in preschool and a child in primary school, that there is a fair bit of worry about holding back/pressing forward when advancement through the education system is broached. I had our eldest at 3 year old kinder when he was two, at a Montessori school, for reasons I now see were nothing shy of crazy. He was there for seven hours, one day a week until he turned 3, and two seven hour days after that. He was two years old, people. TWO. And yes, I was shocked when the entire thing went pear shaped. Yup. I pulled the poor lamb out after three terms and found a local preschool that that did a more traditional program, for one day a week, three hours. He thrived. I thrived. We both made friends. No harm no foul, but for that nagging feeling that I put him in a position that left him feeling alone and lost in a strange world where nobody knew or loved him. No doubt that will come up during the therapy in years to come...

I don't understand why we insist on letting our obsession with competing and achieving the best outcome to take away what ought to be, in short,childhood.



Social

So I'm wondering, would the fact that rats have set up their family dwelling in your BBQ be a sign that you have been neglecting your social duties? It has been over a year since we last cracked open the heat beads and gas bottle...so I'm thinking yes.  I checked with the Groom that it was not a sign that we are filthy scum, and he assures me that this is not the case. He went on to tell me that it was the small, undisturbed space that did it. Part of me hesitates to believe him, given my dislike for cleaning, however the BBQ has always been his domain, so at the very least, I can allocate blame to him. Suits me fine. Except for the fact the RATS BUILT THEIR NEST IN OUR BBQ!!!!!!! I'm off to scrub myself down with Solvol and bleach, possibly a bit of caustic soda.

Home, James

What is it about home towns? When a young lass doing year 12, back in the day, I was so sure that I wanted to leave my small, friendly town that I enrolled in an Arts Degree in order that I could give my Mum a plausible explanation for getting out of Dodge. The real reason was that I had zero work experience or skills, so it was that or get some practice queuing for the dole. University it was!

Needless to say, with this barely acceptable "motivation", I didn't reach any great heights other than my inspiring work when sent Please Explain letters on two separate occasions by the Exclusions Committee. An Exclusions Committee, you ponder? Think a panel of teachers asking you why the hell they should let you remain part of the University community. But scarier. And in letter form. My written submissions explaining my poor performance was of such high quality that I was allowed to stay each time. Irony at its best.

Having spent the last two nights back in the town of my high school years, I arrived back to my current dwelling feeling quite weary, but a touch blissed out. I had visited my bestie, watching our offspring play/fight/bargain/almost die riding bikes down a paddock full tilt. I had watched her children while she attended a social event (OK, a funeral, but same thing), and afterward, made my way down the road to my Mother's house. I cooked her dinner. I rearranged her fridge. I looked through her jewellery box and found a couple of groovy broaches. In short, I did the sort of stuff I only ever do at my Mum's house, in my home town.

Purveying the rolling green fields and warm demeanour of the inhabitants, I began to wonder why I had ever left. Sure, I recalled the gossiping, the strange but very much present cast system and various other things that suck about small town life, but still...pretty hills and stuff.

It struck me as I parked my car in my driveway that I had similar feelings of niceness upon coming home. The place smelt like my husband, who had long since gone to work. It was tidy...well as tidy as our place gets in any case. Don't judge me. Anywho, as I began to note a swelling in my throat of the pusy tonsil rather than emotional variety, it occurred to me that I am the luckiest of ladies. There is no place like home, and I have two of them.

Never say never...

At the end of 2009, a friend & I made a solemn, pinkie promise VOW to never, ever join another committee. Ever. Our first foray had seen tumult the likes of which I had only seen on Jerry Springer. Presidential autocrats, staff walk outs, drug scandals (OK, I may have made a bit of that up, but just for dramatic effect, you understand) were the meet in the AGM sandwich. By the end of that year, my cohort & I were of the opinion that we had to take the helm the following year and right the darn ship before we lost more lives...and by lives, I mean social death.

Nominating myself for an executive role, I was all revved up with the view that I was going to assist the committee in what our Julia would term an "Education Revolution". In short, I was going to sort out the filing cabinet, get some decent shelving for the office, and put an end to bitching in the car park via open and transparent leadership. In what can only be described as a quirk of nature, I became what locals term "Knocked Up". With this development, all that Bolshy enthusiasm was puked out of me via all day barfing and the air headed affliction that tends to characterise my pregnancies. I could barely form a sentence let alone bring order to an organisation, already nursing bruises from the trauma of the previous year.  Let's just say my position was vacant, without me actually vacating the role. I offered my resignation during rare moments of clarity, however my co representatives on the committee must have lost their minds too, and refused to accept it. Damn fool kids.

During the end of year AGM, my friend & I made our vow, after deep thought and some getting of wisdom. Looking back, it was all a little Rumpelstiltskin.

Fast forward through a year of childbirth, sleep deprivation and milk engorged jubblies. I now nursed not only a gorgeous female munchkin, but a hankering to return to the world in a guise other than life support to a baby and wailing wall to the Groom and two small lads. Hearing the occasional rumbling regarding the committee to which I did not belong, I sensed again a need for my insightful observations and ability to oil the social cohesion among my peers. Yes, it was time to start attending the local committee, tell some fart jokes and sink some Sem Sav Blanc. This would also enable me to get out of the house away from all three delightfully demanding cherubs and their father. Two birds, one Stone (geddit?!), happy days.

Knowing this may be my only means of escape without lecture or guilt, I began working on my friend. What if he joined me? It could be great, better than the last two times. No really. Wearing him down over subsequent months took cunning, skill and more that a few sessions on the lattes down at the local cafe.

As the AGM approached, I sensed I was close to successfully convincing him to again be my partner in crime. I even embarked on a campaign to have his spouse get in his shell like. Wouldn't it be wonderful to sit on the committee together as husband and wife? Mwahahahaha!  Crunch time came and although my friend was absent from the AGM, the opportunity was wide open when nobody else among the parent body volunteered for the role intended for my now powerless--to-resist buddy. I nominated him on the spot, garnered the support of his Mrs and sealed the deal. Success was mine.

Looking forward as we were to enjoying a scandal free term on the committee, we waxed lyrical about the potential for bonding with fellow representatives, our much loved staff, several varieties of ale, vino and perchance branching out to spirits at meetings. The world was our oyster, so long as we could achieve quorum of course.

Days after our committee was formed, the bomb dropped that made both of our previous dramatic terms appear fun and festive. Yes, the director and senior staff member submitted her resignation after 14 years at the helm.  My brain imploded. Here was all the proof I needed that my previous two terms had been disasters, not due to the noxious personal conflicts of other representatives and staff, but because I had lent my involvement to the process. In short, any committee to which I became a member was doomed to experience dramatic upheaval. Yes folks, it IS indeed all about me.  Putting this notion to the resigning member of staff was met with denial all round. I am still not convinced.

As for my poor, manipulated friend, now charged with finding a suitable replacement for our much loved outgoing leader...I am hoping my role in convincing him to come back with me to the committee fold will be viewed only as that of complicit negotiator, rather than the carefully planned project that it was, in truth. Now that he is knee deep in CV's from graduates around the state, he will not have time to view this blog and discover that I was the mastermind behind the greatest turn about our community has seen...since the last time someone changed their mind, anyway. Guess I'll be providing the booze for next 12 meetings then...red or white ladies? Beer anyone? I'm hearing good things about vodka and gin...