Month: December 2006

Happy 49th

Today is my natural mother’s birthday. Yes, I just turned 34, she just turned 49, you do the maths. I didn’t intend to write about this today, it’s not something I have actually written that much on and I’m not that sure why. I guess becuase it’s complicated, with multiple points of view, there are layers of time and emotion and so on and so forth. It’s also a subject that affects many many people, and – for once – I am very conscious of unintentionally upsetting people who maybe come at it from a different perspective or a different role in the whole adoption saga that is. Well, that was quite the disclaimer wasn’t it.

Anyway, I was having a really SHIT day today, peppered with incontrollable tears and blind rage. Delightful really. Then I finally rang H to say happy birthday, had a 40 minute chat with her and felt a whole heap better.

The end.

KIDDING. As a NYE special, here is the adoption story that is allconsuming’s.

I’ve known for as long as I can remember that I was adopted. My mum told me this story about fairies down the back of the garden and that there were some fairies that loved their babies so much, they gave them to fairies who couldn’t have babies of their own, because they knew just how special and loved those fairies would look after their babies.
That is probably the worst grammatical sentence I’ve written in quite some time and the likes of Bec and Suse have probably looked away in horror. Suckers.
Anyways.
Mum has a big family – six siblings – and Dad’s isn’t bad either – there were three of them. I don’t think my Mum will ever trully appreciate how alienating it was to see cousins who looked and were like your mother, when you had nothing. I see how sophisticated I have to be in dealing with Felix in particular (for you see, he is so like me) because I get his psyche. I never had this. I never had that compassion or understanding from my parents about who I was. They had NO idea that I had depression and quite frankly, by the time I was a teenager both of them were so caught up in their own personal worlds relating to divorce that short of a suicide attempt neither of them would have had a clue. That probably sounds pretentious, but this is my story, so fuck off.

My Mum’s family is deelpy competitive and not very nice to each other at all. It took a long long time for me to realise that their attitude and approach to me was very much related to the fact that I (and my brother) were an unknown quantity, and well, what you don’t know, you fear. Right? So, when me, the loud, sarcastic, drama queen with no arse and big boobs came along, the family of small waisted, big-arsed teacher/nurse brigade got seriously spooked.

The way they handled this was to treat me as the butt of most jokes. To pass judgment on my looks (and my weight) from around the age of 6. I’m sure it started earlier, but it was Boxing Day 1978, in my yellow crochet bikini which I LOVED at our annual family picnic at North Beach, Wollongong, that the first comment about my weight – and subsequent hearty laughs from the entire family, my mother included – was logged in my memory. It was the last time I wore a bikini and the start of life very focussed on my body and my weight. Thanks Aunty J, thanks very much. The last comment about my weight came at my cousin’s wedding two and a half years ago when I was in a size 12 skirt, size 14 shirt and some mighty fine kicky heels. My uncle – the husband of Aunty J – came up behind me as I was having a delightful conversation with my cousins, grabbed me around the hips and said, “ah, there’s a good bit of meat”. Yep. Mighty fine.

Now please, don’t get me wrong – I’m not even going to touch the whole arguement of would I/wouldn’t I have been better off with my natural family – this was the life I’ve had and I’ve gotten on with it, so really, the what if? hypothesis isn’t really that helpful.

Anyway, my natural parents H & L – were young randy things. Instead of going to the Easter show as they had told their parents, they stayed home and did it in L’s sunroom. It was H’s first time – and really, at only 14 you’d kinda hope it wasn’t happening at all – and the mentality at the time was you couldn’t fall pregnant on the first time. Apparently every time after that fateful evening protection was used. Too late!

H thought she was hiding my existence pretty well, but her Mum was clued in to the lack of – ahem – soiled underwear each month. Then she ran in the school cross country, and curiously, fainted. She was four months pregnant. When the school nurse asked her Mum if there was anything wrong, she collapsed in tears and wailed, “I think H is pregnant.” Which she was. So off she was packed to the single mother’s home. Curiously, they told the school she was going to a private girl school – the one where I went. Weird huh.

One of the most endearing parts of this story is that H’s two brothers, who at the time were only 8 and 10, or thereabouts, would every.day.after.school. make the trek from Sydney’s Northern Beaches to Sydney’s North Shore to visit her. On their own. Amaznig huh.

Meanwhile, L was kicked out of school half way through Year 11 and the principal tried to have him charged with carnal knowledge but due to him and a mate witnessing a bank robbery when they were about 10, and subsequent bravery awards, the local cops wouldn’t have a bar of it. Still, he never really recovered, dropped out of school altogether soon after that and went on to become a surfboard shaper – then a house husband. L and his wife S and their kids (my half sister and brother) just rock my world. I love them dearly.

When H had me, the hospital would bring groups of student doctors around claiming her to be the epitomy of a textbook labour and more people should be having children younger. Classy. She wasn’t allowed to see me, but said the glimpse she got was of these extraordinarily long fingers. L’s father and mother offered to keep me and raise me as L’s sister. H’s parents – her father – wouldn’t have a bar of it. She called me Lisa.

The day after she had me – her parents picked her up from the home and they went straight on their annual family holiday. Can you imagine? The day after giving birth, being picked up and expected to just go on with life as if nothing had happened, without your child? Oh, and that holiday? At the beach. H spent the entire time lying on the beach on her stomach because her boobs were leaking and like rocks and she didn’t know what to do.

Her mum and dad had counselling – the sum total of which was “the best thing you can do for H is pick her up and make no mention, no reference to the whole experience at all.” Nice. Can you imagine??? Here you have a 14 year old CHILD, and the advice is not to mention it? I mean, not even post-natal care. I get so mad about this on her behalf.

Cut to 18 years later. H was travelling overseas and got really sick in London. She was in hospital and this voice in her head just said, “go home.” So she signed herself out, got on the next available flight and got herself home. When she knocked on her mum’s front door, her mum couldn’t believe it. After all the squealing, hugging and kissing, she said to H, “Do you know what today is?”, to which H replied, “Lisa’s birthday” and for the first time ever, they talked about me.

Four years later I applied for my natural birth certificate, for no other reason than I discovered because I was a student and had a healthcare card it would only cost me $20 rather than $120. Sad but true. I mean, I always knew I’d look, but that was pretty shallow incentive, even by my standards.

My initial reaction was – OH MY GOD SHE WAS 14. The next reaction was “they called me Lisa, I had a name” – this was something I wasn’t expecting. And then their address – my neck of the words. Not the same suburb, but a nearby area. I was on the north shore, they were northern beaches. Yep, where we live now, L is about 8 minutes drive away and H is about 15.

I went to the state library and tracked her down in about 10 minutes. Then spent two hours looking harder, thinking it couldn’t be that easy. It would have been quicker but it took me a while to work out the microfiche. Then I looked up her mum in the phone book and got her number. I got home, rang, sounded all friendly and light – she gave me her new number. Then I rang her.

H: Hello
K: Hi, is H there?
H: This is H
K: I was after H
H: yes, I’m H
K: Oh shit. Oh. Sorry. Hi. Um. Look this is going to sound really weird, but did you give
H: is that Lisa?
K: Yes.

mtc

News of the world

today I felt the baby move.
I see this as a blessing, as up until this point I haven’t really felt pregnant, just tired, cranky, sleepless (yes this is a feeling), emotional, teary, emotional, tired, sleepless, I’ve just been scared shitless about how a. we have no money, b. we are going to need a bigger car, c. we can’t afford a bigger car, d. GOD I HATE living with my mother, e. we have no money, f. how the hell are we going to manage this, repeat in finitum to the end of the alphabet and over again.
*****
Felix dances like me. This is worrying. Although on second thoughts of how his father dances, a true blessing indeed.
*****
Jasper is such a drooling snot factory at the moment I’ve resorted to him constantly wearing bibs and simply wiping his nose on it rather than constantly seeking out tissues. Yep. White trash and proud.
*****
If Oscar says to “Ogga eat” to me one more time I may well slaughter one of the other children and serve on toast and be done with it. Seriously, the child can eat. And eat. And eat.
*****
Every day I have been on holidays I have had at least one 10-minute catnaps on the lounge. The record is three, the longest was for an hour.
*****
I remembered the other day, that when I was young, I used to virtually live in our next door neighbours house (they were like grandparents to me). When their daughter was over (an elocution teacher I used to see as well) with her children, I would sneak in the front door, sneak upstairs, wake up the baby, sneak back down and then walk out into the kitchen at the back of the house and tell J the neighbour that the baby was awake – so I could cuddle and play with them. I’m being serious. How naughty is that. Only now, on having children, do I realise just how woeful this is. I have to restrain myself from walloping my own children if they wake a sleeping baby. The fact I did this every single week their daughter was visiting makes me love them even more – in that they never held me to account over this remarkable coincidence every.single.week.
*****
We went to the Fox (now with it’s own website!) for dinner last night with friends. There’d been a massive downpour/thunderstorm that afternoon/evening so we had free reign – in one of the most busy kids parks on the peninsula, to not have to queue for the flying fox was AWESOME. Apparently. Needless to say, the boys were soaked from playing in the rain/subsequent puddles-lakes but really, quintessential childhood memories to be had, colds be damned.
I can’t remember where I was going with this story. Sorry.
*****
The 2006 Edingburgh Military Tattoo is on the tele in the background as I type. I love bagpipes. LOVE. One (just one mind you) of the reasons I really really really want my boys to go to Knox is in the vain hope one of them will join the pipe band and play bagpipes. (I know, I KNOW – we can’t afford a bloody mini-van, we live with my mother, as IF we’d ever be able to afford private school fees for FOUR FREAKIN’ children! Let it go Kim, let it go.)
The Top Secret Drum Corps were amazing.
GOD I’m morphing into a senior citizen.
OK, it’s off now, some dude is singing the theme song from The Lion King. GAWWWWWN.
*****
OHMYGOD American Splendor is on SBS, I LOVED THIS movie/docu-drama/whatever-it-is-you call those movies.
Maybe we’ll call it Harvey if it’s a boy.
Seriously, any boys names you guys have hanging around – throw them our way.
Chef has taken to calling the baby Colin, which is making me nervous. Felix wants to call him Saxon, Oscar has chosen Max (which is a frontrunner) and I like Grover.
Yes, I’m just trying to accumulate kids with dog names or start my own Muppets/Sesame Street sideshow.
So boys names, bring them on.
*****
I really feel like mushy peas, mash and gravy from Harry’s Cafe de Wheels. Really.
*****
So grim am I feeling about our financial plight, I read this and seriously think it is a solution…
*****
That is all.

A Christmas winner – cherry pies

I made these for my Christmas Eve supper. I did mini ones in cupcake tins, which was a stupid idea I got from the King of White Bill Granger. Stupid because they were a bastard to get out and didn’t look impressive at all. But the flavour. OH MY.

The recipe for the filling I got from the Williams Sonoma website – which I had to track down as I had a recipe in a catalogue a friend at work brought back for me from a trip they did to the US (you see, I’m so easy to please, just bring me a catalogue from another country) but seem to have misplaced it. Which is irritating because there was another recipe in there I wanted to cook the flavour of which I have absolutely no notion of whatsoever. But it looked yum.

I think the pastry is from Bill as well, but I’ve been making it for so long I can’t recall.

Cherry pie

Pastry
The mini ones will require double this recipe (it’ll make 24), for a pie this is fine if you do a lattice topping rather than a complete pie-lid.

2 cups flour
175g butter, cubed
1/4 cup water
– process flour and butter
– add enough water until it comes together in a ball
– pat out to a disc and refrigerate for minimum 30 minutes.
It also freezes really well.

Filling
1 kg cherries, pitted (I bought one of those fancy little de-seeding conraptions and did this while watching Nigella’s Christmas bites – it was a cinch)
1 cup sugar
2 tblsp cornflour
2 tblsp arrowroot
– combine all the ingredients, let sit for 20 minutes.

– Line pie dish or cupcake pans with pastry
– fill with cherries
– put pastry over the top
– bake at 180C for 40-50 minutes for pie, 20 minutes for cupcakes.
– Let them sit for at least 20 minutes, then try and hold the crowds back.

Year in review

I’ve been bleak of late. In fact, since October. It comes in varying waves of intensity that are only exacerbated by, oh, life.

So, in an attempt to be more positive and less narky I have decided to compile a list of events, things, experiences in 2006 that were good, made me laugh, bought me joy or made me cry but in a good way. As opposed to the things that were suckful, which you’ve all heard me bang-on about too long and too hard for our collective good.

  1. Oscar’s experience and growth from being in a mainstream class, and how his school and classmates have embraced him for who he is. The road is still long and rocky and bloody foggy, which irritates the shit out of me, but hey, i’ve trying to be upbeat here.
  2. Felix learning to read and writing stories about things we do on the weekend, which are so much cooler than the things we really did on the weekend. His calling of a family conference to change his name to Obi-Wan. The earnest asking on Christmas morning, “where is my second present from Santa? The laptop I asked for?” The emotional maturity in my little man that sometimes worries me more than being the heart warmer it normally is – e.g. tonight he said, “When someone dies you hold them in your heart so that you’ll never ever forget them.” The excitedness he has in him, which I recognise so clearly in me, that you can literally feel bubbling up inside you and leads to loud voices, even louder laughing and saying the wrong or inappropriate thing – and that I hope he learns to keep it in check a lot younger than I ever did but only when he needs to!
  3. I’m really quite relieved that I find the whole Star Wars concept entertaining, clever and watchable an infinite number of times.
  4. That another remarkable twist of fertility fate meant that, ahem, activities in 2006 will see the completion of our family in 2007.
  5. My friends – in real life – who when I am down, when shitty things happen, when great things occur – are there to share it with me, carry me when needed and always always always make me laugh. Their generosity of spirit takes my breath away.
  6. My family – yes, they* drive me completely bonkers, but again, their dedication to my children is astounding and something I am truly grateful for, to the bottom of my heart.
  7. The revelation that Jasper is each and every day. Did I miss this with the first two? The absolute joy of a personality being revealed each and every day? That he has clear word associations and can act on them – close the door, bathtime, would you like a bottle, are you hungry, where’s hippo, say nigh-nigh. The blowing of kisses, the obsession with being outside, the pushing dogs aside then tormenting them as they sit by and take it, the absolute love affair he is having with Chef, which neither of the older boys had until very recently. He will actually look at me with derision if Chef is present and therefore the go-to parent. I find this beguiling to say the least.
  8. Watching my husband grown as a person. This year he has been the man I knew he could be. As a parent he is stunning. As a husband, just wonderful and as a person, the loveliest I could ever know. He’s funny, sensitive and dedicated. My man.
  9. Here. This place is my solace. I believe it’s been important in not letting me fall completely over the cliff of depression many times over. Thank you for indulging me and my petty grievances with the world. They’re not much in the grand scheme of things, but they’re mine.
  10. This year hasn’t been one of reading for me. Children, work and life have kind of got in the way. I’m back at uni for one semester in 2007 which will force me into reading, but ’06 has been my year of mindless TV. Thank you America’s Next Top Model, Rockstar Super Nova, Grand Designs, Nigella, Love My Way, Spicks and Specks, This Old House, reruns of Seinfeld and Sex and the City, Arrested Development, Curb my Enthusiasm and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It’s been fun. I promise there will be more literature and less popular culture in 2007.

* only my family, Chef’s family ROCKS.

Festive rundown

I started a whole post about the lead-up to Christmas, the frantic last minute cooking, the not-such-a-hit Christmas Eve supper, the onslaught of the worst hay-fever on record which has developed (i.e. masked) into a fully-fledged cold with runny/sore nose, sore throat/cough, itchy mouth, scratchy eyes, itchy/achy ears, a chronic predisposition to crying which is even boring me and so on and so forth, but even I was bored by it, and we all know how much I love hearing myself whinge/moan/gnash teeth over the minutae of my boring as bat-shit life.

So I decided on a pictorial review.

But then Blogger decided to be SO slow.

So I got nothin.

Christmas was lovely, the time since a mix of absolutely delightful moments being with the boys to chunks of irritation, illness and domestic drudgery. So not really different to my normal life I suppose.

I will leave you, however, with the shrine to my husband’s masculinity. Built after a full day of work, a wee while entertaining (and drinking), in the dark and under a light drizzle of rain. This was taken Christmas morning, and the sheer gob-smacked wonderment of our children on seeing it, was worth every swear word uttered the night before.