Soldiering On

I suspect there’s been a reoccurring theme amongst many households with young families this past week after the loss of a popular young mum from our community.

As one of her friends said: “I was busy doing paper runs for both my children, then making lunches for them and generally running around after them. ‘‘Gosh,” I thought, “Aren’t I lucky that I can do that!” I will never think of it as a chore again because of you!”

I have recalled these words all this second week of the school holidays – commonly a trialing time for stay-at-home parents.

After running out of excuses to give Miss Four who’d been begging to paint my nails (and fingers) in stripes of all the colours of the rainbow from the nail art set I’d (rather thoughtlessly in hindsight) given her for her birthday, I finally fell victim. Then reminded myself this was a privilege.

Despite being up to my elbows in meatball mixture, instead of telling Master Four, who was perfectly fine, I was too busy to come to him for yet another cuddle, I thought of our 32-year-old friend and her two precious pre-schoolers who, although with a wonderful dad, will no longer receive cuddles from their mummy and I washed my hands and went to him.

If I’m ever brave enough to catch another bus into town for a holiday treat and the boys, high on fizzy drink and cake from Tiffanys, laugh raucously about farts and bums all the way home on the otherwise quiet bus, I might be proud they’ve brought ill-suppressed smirks to the other passengers’ faces, instead of turning round to the one behind me and asking whose kids they are.

When we walked up to the shops yesterday and Miss Four was dragging behind I picked her up and thought she was giving me a little kiss, then realised she was wiping snot on my shoulder. Sure, that’s fine, I don’t mind wearing snot on my sleeve, I told myself and gave a giggling Missy a poke.

When the tenth fight erupts before 8.30am I’ll … well maybe I’ll draw the line there – I only have so much patience.

Another young mother who’s inspired me over the last two weeks is Anna MacDonald, sister of murdered Fielding man Scott Guy. Despite all the adversity she’s faced, she is still soldiering on as a young single mother of four kids and I watched her on 60 Minutes with admiration as she danced with abandon around the lounge with her children.

Nadia’s funeral service on Monday was beautiful, like she was, and I’ve put her photograph on the fridge to remind me to treasure those special moments.

And now I think of Nadia when I crank her favourite song - Sir Mix-a-lot’s Baby Got Back. Funnily enough, I’d just downloaded it the week before for the kids and, ahem, me to dance around the lounge to – Anna MacDonald-style.

Creating Memories

As parents, grandparents, teachers and caregivers we are contributing towards our childrens’ first everlasting memories.

It struck me recently that my kids are now of an age where they will start remembering things for life. Unfortunately and frustratingly for many of us, it’s the bad things that stick.

I still remember each and every growling I got at kindy and school, as they were few and far between. At primary school, they were mortifying if you didn’t receive them often. I remember sitting in the teacher’s office, at the same kindy my children now attend, for hitting somebody.  Then again a week later after the teacher’s pointed remark “Jodi, you can sit in the same corner you sat last week,” before she hauled us into the office.

That incident had been all my fault. I had a Winnie the Pooh record with accompanying  book I used to listen to at home. We had one of those big blue slides at kindy which you could stand underneath and I thought it would be a great idea to recreate a scene from my Winnie the Pooh story. In the scene Christopher Robin walked outside with upturned hands and said “Tut, tut, it looks like rain.”

As the word “tut” was not in our vocabulary, it fascinated me. A poor, unsuspecting child volunteered to be Christopher Robin, walking out from under the slide with upturned hands, while a bunch of us climbed to the top, leaned over and created the rain.

“Tut, tut, it looks like rain,” he declared as we spat down on him.

Needless to say, it didn’t end well and we were parked in the office for most of that afternoon.

But my earliest childhood memory (besides getting shampoo in my eyes) is at the age of three, walking into the dining room and seeing the startling sight of my mum sitting at the telephone table crying.

It turns out she’d just had a call to say poppa had died.

I don’t remember anything more from that day but mum recently bumped into her meter reader who does. Her name was Heather Knox and she was a courier driver at the time. Upon sighting each other they both remembered this scene from some 30 year’s ago. Just after I walked in that day, the courier came to the door, saw that mum was upset and consoled her.

That got me thinking. The job of a meter reader, in particular, is seemingly mundane but they must stumble upon many situations like that.

Because they are unlisted contractors, it took me a week to try and track down a meter reading company and finally one returned my call from Auckland and said she had a wonderful lady called Heather Knox who would be a suitable candidate to interview for a story.

Out of all the companies and their contractors, I’d managed to get Heather. It turns out she certainly has seen some sights – some of which can’t be printed – and you can read her story on page (story not included in blog)

Meanwhile I’m trying my best to keep growling limited and create happy memories for my children.

Meal Times

Our family is at risk of becoming as dysfunctional as the 80s sitcom Married With Children the way we are going. Ok, slight exaggeration but busy times can make us seem like passing ships in the night

So I decided the least we could do was sit down to a meal most evenings together in the good old-fashioned traditional way. It took a while to get used to: (“No, you are not allowed to leave the table and walk around with your food when you feel like it”) but eventually the kids got the hang of it.

Self-designed pizza is an all-time favourite.

Mealtimes at our table are not a lengthy affair. Unless we have pizza or hamburgers it has so far proved impossible to find a meal that goes down well unanimously. For example, our oldest is not fond of meat or potatoes but, oddly, loves cauliflower and broccoli and the twins vice-versa. Therefore, whoever is digging that night’s meal has gutsed it while the other is still sliding mashed spud around their plate moaning and casting evil looks my way. The ‘winner’ then demands their pudding before us adults have even got halfway through our own meal.

There’s something to be said for the “Kids are to be seen and not heard” adage here …

To try and lengthen out mealtimes we introduced talking about our days. This used to be carried out at bedtime but the kids soon realised they could drag it out enabling them to stay up longer. By the time we’d talked about the third day it was too late for any downtime.

So Cade is in charge of choosing the speaker via “Eeny meeny miny mo” and it will go something like this:

Jayla: “Well, my day I went to poo-poo,” (giggles). “And then did a poo-poo.” This being her new favourite word, you can get the drift.

Jai: “Well, my day I went to the supermarket with dad.”

“No, he’s lieing!” accuses Cade loudly. (Jai says the same thing every night.)

Next it lands on me and hubby, suppressing a smirk, rolls his eyes to the heavens. He’s heard my long, drawn-out stories one too many a time and doesn’t appreciate my attention to detail.

Ten minutes later I wrap it up and it’s their dad’s turn. He keeps it brief and then hands the floor over to Cade, who always struggles to remember his day.

“Well what did you write about at school today?” I prompted.

“I wrote ‘I went to Old McDonald’s’.”

“Did you teacher know what that was?”

“Um, I think. But she doesn’t have any kids and you only go there when you have kids.”

“Adults can go there too,” I explained. “But it’s actually just called McDonalds. Old MacDonald is the farmer in the song.

After some thought he looks visibly perturbed by his error. Then: “Oh bother!” he finally exclaimed.

It's Not All Bad

Last week my nana gave me a wee lecture.

“Jodi,” she said, waving the newspaper in her hand. “You know, one of these days I’m really hoping to read something positive from you. After all, it can’t be all bad,” she said, giving me a meaningful look.

She’s right, of course. I had become aware that some of my horror tales could unintentionally be providing verbal contraception for childless couples.

I usually start off on a positive note, before it all somehow turns pear-shaped. A bit like my day really. Oops – there I go again.

Take two:

On Saturday Cade (5) scored his first try and I was so proud I cried. I will probably cry again when he is one of only two kids from his class to deliver a line in his school production at the Event 33 centre this month, although I won’t be able to hide behind sunnies this time. Even after his teacher euphemised that he was chosen partly because it “would make good use of his loud voice” I was still proud as punch.

And never was I prouder than when he delivered a speech in front of hundreds of people at my father’s funeral in June.

Some say that kids are not meant to be your friends – your role is to be their parent but this has always confused me. When it was just me and Cade during the day, he was my side-kick. I can still parent and guide him but he will always be my little buddy.

Despite going through the terrible twos in tandem, the joys of watching toddlers develop side-by-side are immense. Life would be a lot easier if we had them in separate rooms but I keep them together at their mother’s expense. That’s part of the fun of being a twin isn’t it?

Occasionally I stand outside their door and eavesdrop. Their conversation might go something like this:

“Je-ja, you awake Je-ja?”

“Shoosh Jai-Jai, I’m trying to go to sleep.”

“Je-Ja, Jessie’s on your bed.”

“I know, Jai. I’m a little girl and Jessie only goes on little girl’s beds.”

“Can I come and pet Jessie Ja-ja?”

“Only if Mummy doesn’t catch you. If she catch you, you go in the naughty corner.”

“She not catch me.”

Footsteps.

“Jessie purring.”

“Ahh, he so cute.”

“Yeah, he brave.” (Word of the week)

“Mummy coming!”

“Arghhh”

At this point I walk in as, giggling, they both dive for cover.

I happened to catch a glimpse of Oprah recently where one wise guest said kids can tell when you’re not paying attention because you wear a certain distracted look on your face.

“Kids are supposed to light up a room,” she said. But it rarely ever shows in their parents’ eyes. Instead the mother is often looking to see if their trousers are buckled up right or their face is clean.

From what I gleaned the message was to live life in the moment and show your joy, for kids are more perceptive and sensitive than we realise.

Now, I’m off to find my trio and embrace them in a big bear hug.