Eleven

 When he was three days old, I brought him home.

When he was 2 and a half years old, a policeman brought him home.

 In his first year of school he tried to buy $50 worth of cough lollies to share with his classmates.

 Our old neighbours still tell the story about how he successfully ran away from home at the age of three, and entered their housewarming party with a carload of guests.  He managed to eat half a wheel of Camembert with crackers before anyone realised that he didn’t belong to any of the people present.

  He likes obscure British comedy and can mimic Little Britain skits with alarming accuracy.  Particularly Bubbles DeVere.

 And although he is a mischief, and stubborn, and determined to learn the hard way EVERY time,  he melts me with his kisses even at my crankiest.

I am so proud of him that my heart sings when he smiles.  Happy Birthday, my Lad. 

May your life be bright as the sun.

Bad Mother Story #96

Did I ever tell you about the time last week when in the middle of a busy supermarket aisle, with children bugging me while I was trying to choose cereal for Pete’s Sake I finally lost the plot and told them in a very, very loud voice to ‘RACK OFF!’  Only, I was thinking another thing entirely, so it came out ’RUCK OFF!’ and it came out just as the overhead Muzac stopped and everything was quiet.  Including my children.  You could hear crickets.  Just like that I turned into a possible person of interest to Child Welfare.  And in the awkward silence my daughter said to me ‘Please Mum, I just want to go and wash the blood off my face,’ which then flagged me for a Child Welfare phone call, at the very least.  And you try saying ‘Oh Sweetie, did the blood from the nosebleed you got from picking your nose in the backseat of the car, far away from me, get your face all mucky, I’ve been so busy shopping, I hadn’t noticed and here’s a crumpled tissue and, whoops, a tamponthat might help, here, let me be motherly and spit on it for you and we’ll get you all cleaned up, hehe,’ you try saying that in a cool, casual way, like you know you’re children aren’t going to be snatched off you the minute you step into the carpark!

Earth Hour

On the eastern coast of Australia, Earth Hour has come and gone.  Sadly, the glow of the city on the horizon didn’t dim at all, but SH reckons I’m a little naive to expect it would ‘They can’t turn off the streetlights after all,’ he said.  I was disappointed to see our neighbours lights on, and felt let down when our automatic sensor lights came on.  I made SH turn the lights off at the powerboard to combat this, probably giving him more cause to wonder about the hysterical woman he married.

On the brighter side (haha) our house twinkled with candles, hummed with Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald and I sat outside with a beer marginally colder than the crisp autumn night and watched the stars appear in their millions.  I called the kids out and we counted 4 shooting stars and 2 distant satellites, and enjoyed the sheet lightning on the horizon to the east.  My middle boy said it felt like Christmas Eve, which was interesting given I do tend to put Billie on and settle down with a Baileys on Christmas Eve AFTER the kids are all in bed, asleep.  My youngest had her head tilted so far back looking at all the stars that I thought she would backflip.  And then she said ‘It’s like we are in a giant snowglobe.’
Out of the mouths of babes.