The other night a friend stayed over as it was more convenient for her to be close to the airport for her flight the next day.

It was the night of phone calls for me – I can go days without getting a phone call from an actual friend as opposed to the hangups from telemarketers that I screen out. So my friend was in the bathroom supervising JJ while I was talking on the phone. I must say it was great to be able to talk on the phone without being crawled over or nagged.

He had an itchy bottom and asked her if she could scratch it for him. Being an obliging friend and a fantastic psuedo aunt, she gave him a bit of a scratch on his butt cheek. He said that wasn’t where the scratch was, it was right in his crack and he couldn’t get to it so could she please do it.

She thought it was perhaps something I might do but decided against doing it anyway. I told her afterwards that there’s no way I would be scratching my son’s bum right in the crack – it’s his sacred space.

Tweet

Some people go home to escape from work. At the moment, I’m going to work to escape being home. More specifically having to deal with the misbehaviour of my son. He’s being a real ratbag both at school and at after school care.

I’m not burying my head in the sand, as much as I want to, but talking to relevant carers/teachers to try and sort out his behavioural problems.

My eyes are a bit puffy today from a frustrated teary session last night and I’m taking lots of deep breaths and saying the mantra, ‘alcohol will not solve this problem’.

Tweet

I regularly watch an excellent show called RocKwiz that’s on SBS on Saturday nights. If I’m out I try to remember to tape it but sometimes forget. I love it for a variety of reasons.

It’s filmed at the iconic Esplanade Hotel or the Espy in Melbourne. I’ve been there a few times myself to see bands on the occasions I’ve been in Melbourne and it is an institution not just for Melbournites. So I think because it’s filmed there it’s instantly a lot more informal than if it were filmed at a television studio. Plus I guess the audience can drink there so it’s instantly more like a quiz night than a light music entertainment show.

The host, Julia Zemiro is just fantastic. She’s funny, quick off the mark, intelligent and if I met her in person I’d probably just dribble and stutter instead of saying anything meaningful.

The Kwiz master Brian Nankervis I reckon has very similar taste in music to me as much of the music the questions are about music I really like – more alternative than mainstream that is.

The band are excellent. For a 45 minute show they have to know three songs and a wealth of bits and pieces throughout for the Million Dollar Riff segment etc.

And the Kwiz contestants are great – see I just can’t fault anything. Four of the contestants come from the audience and have to go through a minor audition type process. Some of them work really well and know some really obscure stuff, and Julia works with them really well too. The other two contestants are musicians who come out by themself after a Kwiz Who Am I question, sing a song, then play the Kwiz and at the end join up with the other musician for a duet. I cried recently when Archie Roach and Sara Storer sang Paul Kelly’s song ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ as they did it so beautifully.

If I lived in Melbourne I’d go along for sure. But that’s not what this is about. The credits are rolled during the duet at the end and as I’ll read absolutely anything I read the credits. Part of the credits thank the babysitters for looking after the offspring and they name the babysitters.

It got me to thinking that babysitters just aren’t usually recognised for the fantastic job they do. Most parents rely on someone or a group of someones to look after their offspring so they can go out and work or play. If these babysitters do it out of love then they should get even more kudos and they’re the ones I especially want to thank.

As a sole parent with no other adult in the house to mind JJ for me while I go out I have to rely on paid and unpaid babysitting help. I’m quite fortunate in having a wide group of friends, most of them with offspring of their own who will take mine for a little while, or for the night so I can go out and have adult time. I do return babysitting favours so it does work out two ways and with a couple of people it’s very one way, that is they’ve had JJ more than I’ve had theirs but I guess I’m on standby both to offer and to be asked.

So, to RocKwiz for a great show and for the fact they thank the babysitters of their crew, and to my babysitters, a big thank you.

Tweet

I’ve entered this into this week’s Photo Friday. After all I have plenty of photos of JJ and this one’s kinda cute. It probably won’t be too long before he poo poos the idea of dressing up as a fairy.

Tweet

JJ’s school shut down for the day today because of the Royal Adelaide Show. This meant that I either had to find childcare for the day or look after him myself. I chose the look after him myself option.

It’s therefore fortunate that I work four days a week and can go into work tomorrow instead. It felt like Friday to me today, so tomorrow I’m going to be a complete mess not knowing what day it is.

This is only the beginning of ‘pupil free days’. When I went to school I don’t remember pupil free days probably because they never happened. Now I hear about them all the time and will be experiencing them myself – the first one being in November.

The school staff don’t sit around on these pupil free days and drink martinis and gossip about how great it is they’re getting paid to sit around and drink martinis. I think they go and do staff development. I’m not quite sure why staff development doesn’t happen during the school holidays – the 12 weeks or so that teachers get a year? I’m not a teacher so I don’t really know and I’m sure there’s good reasons why the whole school has to be shut down for a day so this staff development can happen. Actually, they just need time out from the kids I’ll bet.

But it’s damned inconvenient for us parents. Not only do working parents have to find care for their children during holidays, but also care has to be sought for other days the school is shut. I wouldn’t mind if I had the same amount of holidays as school students get.

Tweet

A few weekends ago while reading reading the Weekend Australian I read an article in it that talked about a writer called Helen Kirwan-Taylor who wrote an article for the Daily Mail entitled, Sorry, but my children bore me to death!.

She talks about consistently lying to other people to get out of attending events related to her children. She says:

"The nanny was dispatched in my place, and almost always returned
complaining that my son had been singled out for pitiful stares by the
other mothers.

I confess that I was probably ogling the merchandise at Harvey Nichols
or having my highlights done instead. Of course I love my children as
much as any mother, but the truth is I found such events so boring that
I made up any excuse."

She goes on to say that children have become women’s careers after they’ve worked long and hard to get where they are:

"It’s as though motherhood is an exclusive private club and everybody is a member except for us few. But then, kids have become careers, often the Last Career, for millions of women who have previously trained for years to enter professional fields of business."

She says that her kids know her limitations and know that things they enjoy bore her rigid:

"They stopped asking me to take them to the park (how tedious) years ago. But now when I try to entertain them and say: ‘Why don’t we get out the Monopoly board?’ they simply look at me woefully and sigh: ‘Don’t bother, Mum, you’ll just get bored.’ How right they are."

This was the comment that tipped me over the edge of disbelief for her audacity in writing this. It makes me feel quite sick that she hasn’t found or written about any positives with her article. I feel really sorry for her two boys presuming they’ve read this. They probably just rolled their eyes and said, ‘It’s all right mum, you bore us too.’ In fact one of her sons has.

Having to deal with kids can be tedious. When JJ was a toddler I would sometimes stay at work a bit longer because he was going through a really awful stage and I was at my wits end to know how to deal with him when I got home. I would drive home and he’d just scream all the way home. I couldn’t then leave him with our nanny or his father because neither of those exist in our household. So when I got home, I’d feed him, bath him, I’d still cuddle and kiss him no matter how stressed or upset I was, and put him to bed then sit down like a zombie in front of the tv with a well deserved glass of wine.

Yes it can be boring having kids and having to sacrifice what you would really like to be doing for bringing them up. There are days when I’d much rather sleep in, then go to a cafe with the weekend paper and read it at my leisure over a cup of coffee and something nice to eat. Instead I take JJ and the dog for a walk, pick up the paper and might get a chance to have a look at it when he’s not yelling at me to see his latest trick on the bike or the slippery dip.

It’s the little moments that make being a parent really worthwhile and get you through the tedious and stressful times. This is why I try and focus on the positives (see ‘The things I love about him’ – you have to scroll down) with my son as it’s all too easy to focus on the negatives and let them consume you.

I know it’s a cliche, but my son has, and no doubt will continue to, enrich my life. I’ve become closer with other friends who have children, I’m getting to know more people in my community because of him going to school. He cracks me up with some of the things he says sometimes. Words can’t express how much I enjoy ‘huggle’ time and how much I love it when he says he loves me more than the sky.

Helen’s article was supposed to denounce the child-centric model of parenting and I suspect it was written to incite controversy which it has. Just do a blog search and see for yourself, but hopefully the controversy is not to the detriment of her boys.

Tweet

I’ve just spent the last five days or so sick. On Monday I thought I had a head cold so took the day off work to rest. It continued on Tuesday, and on Wednesday I went to the doctor and he gave me the rest of the week off. This is great if you don’t have to worry about other stuff.

Of course in my case, the other stuff is a five-year-old who still needs to be fed, washed and have school lunches prepared. On the Tuesday I felt so miserable – I’d had a headache all day that just wouldn’t go away – that I had to get my sister to pick JJ up from after school care. Luckily she was around to ask and was able to do this. Unfortunately she just dropped him off so while I gave him some leftovers I just sat at the table with my throbbing head in my hands. I went through the motions of whatever else I did that night and got him to bed and was in bed not much later myself. Luckily I’ve trained him such that he will go to bed and stay in bed without hassles.

Luckily JJ is at school and I have utilised after school care this week but my place is in the throes of being painted so I couldn’t even have quiet time at home. On Wednesday it was okay because I hung out at my sister’s place for the day but that option wasn’t open to me yesterday so I laid on the couch all day watching the painter hard at work.

Today wasn’t so bad. I’m almost back to normal but it does confirm that sole parenting is even bloody harder when you are sick. When JJ has been sick, that’s bearable, because so long as I’m well, I can manage. But when I’m physically incabable of functioning for myself, it’s ten times worse trying to look after another person as well.

The first time I really got sick as a parent was when JJ was just shy of two years old. I woke up about 3am and made it to the toilet in time to throw up. When JJ got up about 6.30, it was all I could do to get him breakfast inbetween me vomiting. I knew I wouldn’t function throughout the day tending to him and I racked my brains trying to think of who could have him. This was before I had any family at all in the area. I called upon a good friend who took him for the day with her new boyfriend in tow. I said to her afterwards, you’ve got to keep a hold of him because he was so understanding of you having JJ for the day. They are now married with their own child so she heeded my advice.

In situations like I’ve had this week I try and stay positive by thinking that the cold will be over in a few days and then I will be back to normal. Both of us are usually healthy and that’s what matters as things could be a whole lot worse. I will be glad when I get my sense of taste back though. It’s awful eating food and it tasting like cardboard.

Tweet