Learning to swim and learning at an early age is non-negotiable in our house. Ethan is now 10 1/2 and has been in lessons since he was 3 months old – kid is a fish! Nix began a little later but is now doing really …
After we had finished exploring the Auckland Domain E asked if he could take some pictures as we made our way back to the car. “PLEASE TAKE THE CAMERA!” I was screaming inside as I was trying to wrangle a very tired wee Nixie and …
Some days you just have to put on your overalls and go riding in the rain. Or Mama will go cray-cray. He won’t melt, he’s warm and so so happy, plus the potential for puddles is all a bit too exciting! It’s hard to remember to say yes and think outside the box but when we do it can be so rewarding right?
This is a familiar scene at our house. We are committed to having an open house policy for our boys and their friends, I mean, at Ethan’s age he’s much happier with his friends around and that makes my life easier so everyone wins. Nixon, …
Every time Dave goes away for work, which is far too often at the moment, I brace myself, I fortify my parenting intentions, I pray for congenial children, I clear my schedule and I cross my fingers. Dave left at 3.30am Monday morning and it’s …
Nix turns two in 2 months and he’s all about the tantrums. All. The. Time.
I can deal with this just fine, however, a grande mal paddy sometimes causes a bit of a time crunch when you are trying to leave the house by 9.30am. God that sounded like eons of time once in my life – getting on your way and in the car by 9.30? pfffftttt, nothing to it. Now I’m on struggle street with such an ‘early’ departure, I hate it.
Anyway, swimming at 10am + a multiple paddy morning = frazzled mama. I realized about halfway to the class that I had failed to pack Nix any swimming togs. I had a disposable swim nappy so that would have to suffice. But the LOOKS! I was officially deemed ‘that’ mother in the eyes of my peers, the instructor was quite horrified and every time I launched Nix out of the pool with gay abandon all eyes followed his nappy clothed, swimming trunk-less bottom as if at any time it was going to blow!
We survived the lesson and in the creepy silence of the changing room where no-one talks to each other, the Mum next to me began cursing under her breath. My swimming togs faux pas was trumped by a forgotten bra! My worst nightmare. It was obviously Monday-itis all round.
We emerged from our joyous time in the chlorine and headed to the mall to pick up a few things. Much like taking Nixon to a restaurant, taking him shopping is also an exercise in speed, distraction and mostly just speed. He hates being confined to his stroller with a passion. A very loud and vocal passion. When I saw there was no line at my $10 eyebrow waxing joint I made an executive decision – we were going in, stroller and all. I handed Nix my phone {breaking parenting rule #71 right?}, found him some videos of himself to watch and told the beautician it was Go Time – we had a ticking time bomb on our hands. She was totally the mistress of speedy wax jobs and I headed on my way, ready to brave the mall, with the addition of bright red waxing marks on my face. Such a babe.
It was then a caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and learnt a hard lesson; my trackies may be from Country Rd, but this does not make them fit for wearing in public. One word, pajamas.
So I was feeling really pumped up as we hit Kmart (not) and there were signs that Nixon was rapidly descending into shit-losing-mode. I found The Wiggles on Spotify and pumped it up to full volume and handed him my phone again, I know I know! I skipped the ‘trendy’ homewares section and powered through to the boys clothes department. Nix needed some winter play clothes so I wasn’t leaving until I had them.
By the time we left the shoes, it was all over. Back arched, screams at mega-decibel level, I ran to the check-out only stopping to demonstrate my next display of uber parenting – I grabbed a Kit Kat and a juice bottle and said ‘have at it kiddo’ {Breaking parenting rule #3 I’m pretty sure}. I had bought myself enough time to pay for the clothes, and power my way through another store to pick up Mum’s Mother’s Day gift.
So yeah. Monday. As I said to the bra-less mother at swimming, “it can only get better from here right?”.
Yesterday I turned 36. Ok. I’m cool, just had to let that sink in for a minute. Having 2 kids with an 8.5 year age gap means that the four of us often go in different directions. If Ethan has a rugby game and it’s …
Prior to Nixon’s pull-through operation to help his Hirschspungs Disease we were using cloth nappies. I invested the money, got my little system sorted and felt good about what we were doing. I was soon to realise that cloth diapering is very, very easy when you …
Last week saw the somewhat anticipated beginning of Term 2. After a lovely, lazy two weeks of school holidays E left the house last Monday happy and ready to get stuck in to another school term. Compared to holidays past, the Easter break was chilled and calm. I made no School Holiday Activity Lists as I have done in the past, in fact there were only two days of ‘planned’ excursions over the entire break. Quel horreur!
It was bloody good. And cheap.
The Problem With Last Week began upon Ethan’s return to school. See, I forgot to kick myself out of school holiday mode and spent the rest of the week trying to remove my head from my ass the clouds and get some shit done. Nixie was very busy getting shit done as he picked up another bout of rotavirus the week before, let the good times roll!
So it was the kind of week where permission slips and gold coins were scrambled for 5 minutes after E was supposed to leave for school, dinners were freezer-to-microwave affairs – unplanned and unremarkable, I was out two nights, further complicating matters and leaving me even less time to, well, not do Very Important Stuff. Like be an awesome mum and wife : (
Sigh.
The ‘work’ week ended with Dave and I having a big fight about an outdoor project we were going to be completing over the weekend. Ridiculous, but the culmination of a very stressful week for Dave and a useless, self-absorbed week for me. I’ve been focussing on all the wrong things, neglecting the right things and letting my beautiful family slip by the wayside.
This week will be better. The work week is already a day shorter so I’m winning already. We had such a great long weekend, Dave and I are totally back on the same page and aside from him smashing his face skateboarding in the weekend and chipping a tooth badly (read: $$$), I’m ready to rock this week!
I hope you guys are on track for an amazing week too xx
I am in awe of the many incredible Mum’s out there, doing a fab job of running their own successful businesses whilst simultaneously holding down the fort at home. I’m fortunate enough to have ‘met’ many of these ladies online and can’t wait to introduce you to some new …