Month: April 2009

We’re off!

So, I’m off like a bride’s nightie!

We’re going camping for a week.

It’s forecast to rain for most of that.

Two children are on antibiotics.

There’s a bottle of wine for each night, a bottle of rum, a dessert wine, a blackberry port

Fog lifting

So…

Got a text from the aide who went on the school camp tonight:
Oscar very happy – coping beautifully. C u thursday.

I know I reached the point of counting down the hours before he went on camp but as I sat on the lounge tonight without being asked 20 questions I realised that this family is not this family without him around.
*****
Mum had a colonoscopy today, something I hope I never have to experience. Not for the procedure itself but for all the fasting and drinking hideous fluids the 24 hours before hand. Bleuch.

The results were all clear, which is fabulous but it does still leave a very big fat question as to why her body is basically not digesting anything and has chosen this course of action since Christmas.
*****
Jasper has an ear infection of such impressive scale that the GP said, ‘wow, there’s an eardrum about the burst’.
He’s on antibiotics and panadol.
*****
Grover has a throat infection and a temperature.
He’s on antibiotics and panadol.
That is fine except for his complete aversion to any form of medication. You have to pin one of his arms behind your back, hold the other arm in your hand and grip his head and body with your body. Then you get the syringe of medicine and get it between his teeth. Don’t think about squirting small amounts in down the side of his mouth, he can aim the spit out right between your eyes, you have to get it in his mouth and not let him close his teeth. If he can close his teeth then everything you’ve got in there is coming out and then some. Such fun.
*****
All I seemed to do today was get me and the kids in the car, take someone somewhere, get me and the kids out of the car, go somewhere, get back in the car, rinse and repeat. It was exhausting and stressful and made me flip out a bit.
*****
I’ve realised that the baby and 2 year old is not the hard part, it’s when they’re 2 and 3 years old that the soul destruction of the parent truly is enforced. DEAR LORD make the hitting and the pushing and the shoving and the taking what the other has and the wanting what the other has NOW stop. Make.it.stop.
*****
What all you women go on about regarding Twilight I think I can say about me and Gossip Girl. It is ridiculous.
*****

Suse’s Banana Parkin

So I think it’s been well established that I am quite partial to a cake or sweet treat that is good on the tooth. You know, something that has a bit of body to it, something where the reality that cake = wasted calories is blurred by substance as opposed to sweet, light, fluffy air.

It’s one of the reasons I adore Nigella’s Chocolate Gingerbread and my Nan’s Boiled Fruit Cake.

I know, the only person I’m fooling is me but that’s OK. I adore cake. Cake makes everything better.

This is from a friend I have only ever known online and yet she sent me gifts when our fourth son was born and has three boys of her own, so we’re as good as blood.

It is now the only way I can ingest anything like banana cake. So get baking!

Suse’s Banana Parkin

  • 125g butter
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 2/3 cup golden syrup
  • 2 tsp bicarb
  • 1 1/3 cups plain flour
  • 3/4 cup rolled oats
  • 1 tbsp ground ginger
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup banana, mashed (2-3 bananas)
  1. Preheat oven to 180C and line a 19cm square pan
  2. Combine the butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan and heat until the butter is melted and it starts to bubble
  3. Combine the flour, oats and ginger in a bowl
  4. Mash the banana with the egg
  5. Take the butter mixture off the heat and stir in the bicarb until it’s dissolved
  6. Pour the butter mixture into the flour then fold through the egg and banana mixture
  7. Bake for 45 minutes

So good with a smear of butter and a cup of tea.

Boring

Well thank you for your collective vote of confidence and ‘just keep swimming’ messages – I am determined to keep going as similar to Badger I too am a stunning combination of Stubborn and Stupid.

I almost took the post down such was its pathetic wallowing nature, but instead decided to post today saying I am getting over myself.

I know a large part of this fug is because of current challenges w/ small boys and w/ Oscar. Combine that with the end of school term (this is the last week of Term 1) exhaustion and boredom and the Cranky is more understandable.

Last night we took the two bigger boys to the Swans vs Hawks match – a game that started off looking fairly dodgy and quickly became a goodie. It did go some distance to shake my fug. Nothing like sitting in the stands eating crap watching some live sport to make you feel better.

I also scrubbed the shower and mopped the two bathrooms and kitchen floors. They had been making my neck itch for months a long time and it did actually make me feel better.

And I didn’t eat that much crap at the footy (just some hot chips and a handful of potato chips) and I haven’t turned to food to wet the wallow. So that has to be a plus.

But the clincher for shifting my mood? Oscar goes on school camp tomorrow.
Six words which are music to my ears.
Do you know just how many times I’ve thought to myself the awful phrase ‘I just can’t wait for you to go on camp’ over the last ten days? Eleventy gagillion A lot.
It will be three blissful nights and four awesome mornings of no meltdowns about wearing his super legs, getting ready for school, eating breakfast, going to school, getting in the shower, getting dry, getting pyjamas on, getting ready for bed, insert any other completely standard personal hygeine or daytime activity here.

Bring.It.

Silence

Hey all!

Been quiet over hear because I haven’t had much to say. Huh. Go figure.

No really. I’ve been like a bear with a sore head crossed with a moribund great dane. Except I’m not big like a great dane and you certainly can’t see my ribs or hips.

Which is the predominant reason why I’ve been the embodiment of Cranky.

I’ve been exercising and I guess I could stop talking now as that explains everything. I mean, I actually like being fit and having muscles, I do, it’s just the getting there that I hate.

I hate sweating so profusely my entire body is wet. (It’s still freakin’ humid here so exercising = even more discomfort)

I hate Jillian Michaels in that way you hate something which you know is doing your body a whole lot of good. I guess she is to the body what bran is to the bowel.

But I’m not losing any weight. None. Not a gram.

And quite frankly it’s pissing me off.

Look, I know muscle weighs more than fat but the amount of exercise I have done this last 10 weeks – a LOT – over the last 18 months – NONE – I would have expected to have dropped AT LEAST five kilos. Bastard body.

So of course, as with so many other times I try to lose weight, it messes with my head first – the whole defeatist attitude and other boring predictable crap.

And that translates beautifully into the Cranky.

Combine that with being with Grover 24/7 and Jasper 24/7 bar two days and well – cue maternal tones – I’ve just had it.

Things with Grover have gone significantly downhill the last few weeks – at 21 months he is well and truly into that zone of climbing and getting into everything and anything as soon as your back is turned. So there’s drawing in crayon (that he must have a secret stash of somewhere) on the lounge, floor, table, chairs, walls, climbing up onto the outside table and dancing, throwing objects big and small, light and heavy at anyone and anything, screaming at the top of his lungs then looking at you to see your reaction, breaking things, tantruming and waging war against Jasper.

The upside has been the ongoing speech developments – “Oh WOW’ is a good one – and that we are finally getting more nights a week where he sleeps through than not.

God I’m even boring myself.

So yeah, I’m fat, sweating a lot, yelling at my children even more and just being generally morose.

Move along, nothing to see.