Tag Archives: #parenting

Irma

My hurricane virginity was popped by the goddess of war, Irma. She (sorry to my husband , He told me she was an “IT”) . But sod that, she was all female, she was strong, forceful, relentless, stubborn, temperamental and unforgiving. All the things a mother would be protecting her children, her babies. Fighting for her child, Earth . Ripping apart pestilence and reminding us mere humans, to not fuck with our planet, as she can rip us limb from limb in a heartbeat.

I officially have not experienced pure fear, before Irma, where I was so terrified for the safety and lives of my children, where the choices I made, would impact their lives directly and one false move by me as a parent, could damage them beyond repair. I was confused, disorientated, I wanted to vomit and shake and  curl in to the fetus position and only to uncurl when this was all over.

I actually blame most of this on the extensive and at times scare mongering media, the inundation of good will opinions of people not living here or who decided to evacuate early. It was a barrage of leave, get out, sending article after article, of things I had already read from the local News I was following. It just increased the panic 10 fold and each time I said thank you and each time I secretly wanted to just say please fuck off and enjoy your safe place and leave me to prepare. I know they were being kind, but man it was time consuming and mentally tiring.

And prepare we did, generator, gas, food, water, safe place, securing the house, washing all our clothes, shutting everything down, packing valuables and documents in ziplock bags, filling the freezer with zip lock bags of water, packing torches, batteries, sleeping bags, kid essentials, money… it was immense, scary, and overwhelming. 

Why did we stay? So many reasons, first  she was hitting the east coast and then switched, my husband is Chief Operations Officer for his company and needs to keep the office informed, secured and then operating again, we did not want to leave our home, we did not know how long it would be before we could get back home if we left, we wanted to be able to stay and help others in need, we did not want to get stuck on the I75 with no gas. There were so many factors and it was a heart wrenching and much debated decision, especially as we have 3 small boys.  

Decisions to stay or go are very personal and should never be frowned upon, I totally know why people left, she was a cat 5 Bitch called Irma, but it was amazing to experience her and to be reminded how fucking insignificant we really are.

Yes the aftermath is tiring and hot and it sucks, but we are able to work on our poor battered home and so  many people have been immensely kind. People out the blue, texting and offering help, AC, showers, washing, meals and a hug.

It’s been a wild ride, one we are still on as a family and one that has taught us so much already. And if you asked me if I would stay again, the answer would be yes. 

I’m that damn crazy 😄❤️

Mummy 

I am sure when my boys were born this was with the help of a daddy? He was and is very present, he changed them, played with them, bathed them, read to the them. He still does all of the above.

So how is it they do not know his name… The following is all said in a loud sing song/shout voice! “Mummmmmmmyyyyyyy I done poo poo, mummy I need water, mummy I’m hungry, mummy can you find my…. (fill in here as necessary)  This is all fine and dandy, but when I am in the middle of eating, showering, using the bathroom (oh to shit in peace and alone), they will physically, walk past, over, through and around daddy sitting RIGHT there !?! Like he is right  in the line of fire to get to me. I’m not sure if daddy has this amazing miracle invisible cloak on or is so quiet no one registers his existence. But damn I need some. Even when I say, go and ask daddy, they weirdly always manage to find their way back to me.

Shit, daddy is bigger, stronger, faster and smarter than I, surely a far better choice for help. It would be so lovely to make and drink a coffee in peace… one day and then that’s the day I’ll want it all back, the noise and chaos and fights and love …. 

Remember boys, daddy rocks mummy sucks 😂👍

China

When my solemn 5 year old K2 asks me “Why do you have a “China”?” 

I stop washing the floor and squint at him. “Um, I don’t understand, China?” 

To which he flourishes his arm, thrusts it forward and points at my short, clad groin region. Ahhhh my vagina I grin. 

Now I was not in the correct frame of mind to divulge and reveal the nitty gritty nature and mechanics of the “China” vs the “weinus” (Kids choice of penis word). So I come out with the lazy, get out of jail parenting explanation. “Because I am a girl.” He stares again, seems ready to accept, goes to walk away and stops. He looks at me and says “Why?” Oh shit, here we go. Do I do skim over details and give him the pretty, cute explanation or the scientific version. I decide on scientific and hope it answers all questions here and now and for the foreseeable future.

Here goes…. “Well, the “China”(vagina) …..”

Thunder

When Kid 3 (age 2.5 years) is terrified of thunder and you live in the lightening capitol of America – you make up songs, to ease his fears and tears.

Thunder, thunder you’re so loud, 

Thunder, thunder Pom Pom Pow. (this is how he describes the noise of thunder) 

Thunder, thunder shhhh be quiet,

Thunder, thunder please be silent….

Use at will… –  you are welcome 🙂

 

 

Noise

Some days I cannot cope with my children. I drown in the cacophony of  yells of happiness and shouts of bickering. Three, boisterous boys talking over me. Never listening, just  shouting. Staking a claim to their right to be here. Each fighting for the love I give readily and freely, equally and fiercely to them all. 

My head aches, my brain is crushed, coping with my own anxieties. Craving their understanding and love in return. Bequeathing me a gift of silence, a moment of tranquility. I too become a needy child, but I must be the adult I sometimes do not want to be.

I often fail them at this point and I fall into the shouts and release of noise that streams from my mouth, reprimanding, controlling them with my yells and repeatedly falling in to the abyss of my own frustrations. 

Love brings me back, love rescues me, love restores our peace. 

My kids are me, they love me, they teach me, as I must guide them.

Restoring sanity. 

It’s no use crying over “spilt” apple juice.

Every day I run the gauntlet of either being a complete and utter shit show or sporadically I can be freaking awesome, when all those planned, little moments, fall exactly in to place.

Each day I run and run and run at full speed and pretty much achieving “f” all in the grand scheme of my ridiculous, human aspirations and desires. Hair brushed – still looks a mess, kids all out the door to school – only 2 out of the 3 will have underwear on or have brushed their teeth, sweep the floor –  but it doesn’t reach the trash, washing done – but gets folded in 2 days time, put washing away, – well you might as well just put the clothes on as there are none left in your drawer; and so the hamster wheels turns and turns, relentless in its progress and never, ever stopping.

Today officially was a shit show.

8.00 am – kids to school – forget snacks and diapers for kid 3 – drive home, mild blaspheme.

8.35 am – leave again – off to swimming. I smile.

9 am – I swim, pick up K3 from childcare and he has pissed his pants (they are weirdly not allowed to change him in the child watch – bloody sucks) now I have urine all over my hands and washed for 50 Th time, I sigh.

10 am- K3 swimming lesson – kid screams a full 20 minutes in the pool, I hide.

10.30 am – my favourite sunglasses break as I chase crazy, escaping kid around the pool edge. I mutter.

11 am – coffee balanced in hand and croissant in kids mouth we brave Costco by singing the whole way round – head down, battle stance, lets do this. I run.

11.50 am – pick up kid 2 from school, K3 falls asleep in car, now I have to transfer him to bed, get out Costco shop and feed K2 lunch, I run.

12 noon – K3 in bed, K2 washing hands, me, I am being buried under a deluge of snack boxes as I pull open the trunk and they proceed to tumble all over the drive way, cooked chicken is ejected and explodes out of its bag and I am covered in meat juice. I swear repeatedly. “Hey, no swearing until you can drive, I warn kid 2”.

12.03 pm – lug shopping into the house and a 2 gallon apple juice falls to the floor. Balancing boxes I pick up the sturdy looking bottle, like a ninja in training. Only to realize its cracked and leaking, all over me, the floor and I now have this wonderful mixture of chicken, apple juice aroma emitting from my personage.

12.05 pm – desperately trying to decant at speed, juice in to drinking bottles and in among the over flowing sink of the morning dishes, I had not managed to clear up yet,  I knock a 32 oz filled bottle of rescued apple juice all over the counter. I stretch my arm out quickly to rescue it, I proceed to whack over the drinking glasses next to it and propel them clattering and smashing all over the oven…. I’M SOOOOO DONE!

12.08 pm  – I stand upright, I scream, I shout “fucking hell” as loud as I can, I bury my wretched face in to my gloriously sticky, chicken, apple hands and I sob and sob and sob. Wailing “I cannot do this, I just cannot keep up”. Like an absolute lunatic. 🙂

I am clearly prone to being a little dramatic, plus I think I scared the shit out of kid 2 with my emotional display. Seeing his wide eyes looking at me and the juice pooling on the floor, ready for an ant pool party. I begin to pull the frazzled strings of my mind back together and sit on the floor to breathe. I hug my little guy hard and we laugh at crazy mama. “Time for lunch”, I say!

There is no use crying over spilt apple juice……

School Mania

I cannot keep up with the shit I have to do for my kids schools, snack days, projects, PTO, providing supplies, presentations, school trips, book fairs, Christmas fairs, walk a thons, fund raising did I mention projects oh and projects and homework, homework and more fucking homework. Have you ever tried to coax a screaming, mid melt down 7 yr old to do a scrap of homework after a full day at school? Where my kid has to work extra hard, just to sit still in his seat and try very hard not build Lego in place of listening to his teacher, after only a max of 40 mins recess ALL DAY… I mean, just shoot me now, before he eats me during his crazy tirade of “I HATE HOMEWORK, ALL WE DO IS WRITE, WRITE, WRITE, I HATE WRITING” ARRGGHHHHHHH (I’m cowering under the table, with kid 2 and 3, who weirdly also need my attention, funny that?!?!?!?!?) I am very sure he would whip out the F word if it was acceptable to do so. Bloody give it here kid, I’ll do the damn math, science, writing, spelling for you…..

Really, there should be a sliding scale of school demands put upon parents relative to, if you have a full time job plus the number of dependents you care for, that includes grandparents, who I know for some people are as needy if not more so than their 4 yr old.

I would happily donate $250 at the beginning of the year towards all class activities and projects and sign a waiver that they will just leave me well alone. I have enough in my day just trying to get all children to the correct schools and activities on  time (invariably, I forget those also), let alone buying and lugging pieces of card, bigger than my body from “Michael’s” for my kids next assignment.

 

When I Secretly Weep

Mothering three boys is a wild ride of everything, every sense is attacked, smothered and then heightened from all sides, at all times. Clearly no one tells you how your boy mother journey will be or how the adventure unfolds. The beauty of the boy is comparable to a shooting star, spiraling out of control, poised to collide with a planet and be obliterated or avoid it and soar on wards, faster and brighter than it was before. You just know you can never catch it or quash its fire, but merely watch, hope and guide it on to a path of happiness and success.

My boys are young, my boys are complicated, they are so very different, but all willful, amazingly energetic and all have the selfish opinions of the young. Currently coming in at 8, 5 and 2 years old, I am still neck deep in bodily fluids, tantrums and copious amounts of dirt. To them I am mere maker of snacks, a huge hug and a crash test dummy that all their anger and frustrations can be hurled at. I am exhausted and elated everyday by these three amigos. Together they fight hard, play hard and love hard, all in very equal measures.

So it comes to no surprise that when, as a parent I have to provide guidelines, boundaries and limit the play they have due to bed time, food and homework, I very often become the target of all their anger and frustrations. I get screamed at, shouted at,  I have been hit, bit and kicked. I have been told I am hated and wished I was not here and I that “I am the worst mummy ever”. Note, that this can occur not just once, but  multiple times a day, as their young vulnerable bodies and minds figure out what the hell they are feeling and experiencing, hence I am their emotional punch bag of everything and referee of sibling jealously and punch ups.

My wildly individual, rule ignorer/breaker eldest is a huge ball of no emotion vs wild emotion, we have no middle ground. My sweet, kind 5 yr old, is also a raging maniac of aggression and eye rolling when he doesn’t get his way or gets broccoli for dinner. Then there is our fire cracker, I will never walk toddler, who thinks he can keep up with the other two and hence is going in with fists flying, teeth gnashing and will claw his way into the sibling mix. Our house is a cacophony of ball bouncing, fart noises, wild laughter and name calling.

Hence at the end of each day and each emotional episode I am spent, with each scream and hateful word thrown at me, I feel a little smaller, a little less sure of the correct path I must take with them. I understand they are children and I respond with a soft voice if I can, as I fight the rising panic inside, pushing me to run from the attack, “but mummy always loves you, but she does not like what you are doing right now’. I will then ask them to calm down in their room until they are ready to talk. At that point I turn away and walk to my room, desperately fighting the suffocating pain and tears poised to overwhelm me. I quietly shut my door to the wails of anger, curl into a ball and secretly weep.

 

Spider Beach 

Watching me at the beach with my boys, is like watching a spider on copious amounts of amphetamines and lunging for flies at super sonic speed to banging happy hardcore.. 

Every time as we leave any beach, covered in sand. Plus I’m chasing the toddler as he lunges for the ocean again whilst I am carrying all the gear like an untrained Sherpa. Plus I’m dragging, sweating , half naked,  a fully loaded stroller through the sand. Always some lovely person will say “Enjoy them while you can!” or “Wow that looks like hard work” or “You are amazing with three boys, they are hard work”! (Yes I fucking know that Sherlock)

Holy shit, where is the “Can I help you to carry something,” that’s all I want to hear or “Hey sit down, I’ll shower and dress the kids, get them in the car and buckle them in for you and hey here is 10$, go get a margarita!” Where is THAT person on the beach? 

😄🙌🏻

WOW

Sometimes when I look at my 3 boys, my husband and 2 male cats, I can feel their energy crowding my mind, ready to drown me with testosterone. 

WOW how the fuck did all this happen? Usually it starts with the former expletive. clearly I did not birth cats. 

So I fake burp the loudest, shout the loudest, lock the fridge, pee all over their toilet, make them bake and watch Frozen. My existence is once again noted…

Mama is back in the room.