Kidspeak

Kids are funny. Except when they aren’t. I have three, and one is my carbon copy.

‘Luckily’ for Miss 10, she is often reminded that she is my mini-me. When you tell her that she grins from ear to ear, confident that surely that must mean all good things. I often wonder if people are referring to her wonderfully strong will and boisterous exterior, her predisposition to embellish a good story, or simply the fact that Miss 10 is very much the image of me? In any event, I love her just the way she is, and I am sure everyone else does too. She also says some funny things at times and lately I have even wondered about setting up a blog for her to share her exaggerated version of reality – you know, in case we aren’t already alike enough.

 

Liv and I with my gorgeous niece in the middle.

At an after school football practise recently, she embellished a story about how she is left SORROWFUL (her word, not mine) every night because I NEVER (except for every other day) go in to her room to allow her to vent the days’ events. Sorrowful! Can you imagine? And then when the adults all chuckled at her response (or perhaps they were chuckling at the fact that today was MY day to have my worst parenting moments put on display) she continued, “I thought turning ten would be the BEST YEAR OF MY LIFE! It’s been nothing but HARDSHIP! I’ll have to make sure I warn all the nine year olds I know that turning ten is not all that it’s cracked up to be!” Oh the drama! (She assures me that the cruise she just returned from with her Nana is an exception to the rule).

I’ll have to tell Miss 10 that turning 37 isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either! I may be more confident in my own skin and happy with where I am in my life, but sometimes the constant demands put on a mum of three young children can suck a whole lot of fun out of a girl. (I can assure you that my recent trip to South America is also an exception to this rule).

Strangely though, I wouldn’t swap my children for anything; even when they are being funny or not being funny at all.

 

 

Things I Said I'd Never Do As A Parent... But Do.

In my life before parenting there were loads of things I said I'd never do. I was a text book expert, who had ideas about everything from birthing to raising a child. Plus I was a teacher, so with my 'wealth of experience' in education, I knew exactly the sort of child I was and was not going to raise.

1. I said I'd never swear in front of my kids.

 Did I really say that? Because I have sworn on many occasions in front of them. Mostly if I am just REALLY PISSED OFF about something, or if I feel like I am the only person in our house who ever listens to me. But also sometimes if I have hurt myself, or if I am in a wildly animated telephone exchange. I do TRY not to swear in front of the kids, and actually, they have become fairly proficient at pulling me up when I do let an f-bomb go. In our house, my kids think that 'stupid', 'fart', 'bum' and 'dumb' are also swear words, and as we refer to all swear words as 'f-words', I sure as heckfire hope that my kids don't run around saying "Mum said the f-word last night!", because chances are I didn't...

2. I said I'd never bribe my kids.

Little did I know that bribing appears to have the greatest success rate in me, as the parent, having a win! I will bribe for silence when I am on the phone. "Yes! Just take a packet of chips/piece of chocolate/popper but take it away from me while I am on the phone!" I will also bribe for good behaviour in public. "If you kids can try not to fight while I am doing the shopping today, and if you don't run a trolley up my ankles, or the ankles of any other person, you can have an ice-cream when we get to the car." I have also been known to bribe in regards to education. "If you can pull 20/20 on every spelling test for the next month, you can get something nice from the newsagent." To which Miss 7 replied, "MUM! Miss Betts would NEVER ask me to get 20/20 in my test! She would just tell me to do my best, and that's all that matters! I wish SHE was my Mum!" To which I speedily rushed into the school to justify my actions before poor Miss Betts thought I was running some sort of sweat factory at home for kids and spelling tests. I now bribe for any result between 18-20/20...

FYI - 'ass whooping' can also mean, 'time out', no toys/games/tv, silent treatment etc...

3. I said I'd never let my kid have a dummy.

Actually, none of my kids have ever had a dummy. However, I do have one thumb sucker (and if anyone has tips on how to get him to stop they would be greatly appreciated). But there was this one time during a long haul car trip where my baby was SCREAMING, so I stopped and tried desperately to shove a dummy in her mouth. We were so close to our destination, and after 6 hours in a car I just wanted to get there. I would have sold my soul to the devil if my baby had taken the dummy for me at that moment, but it lasted only a minute before it was out of her mouth and on the floor. I was not anti-dummies after that.

4. I said I'd never formula feed my babies.

I breast fed all three of my children for varying lengths of time, however there were the odd occasions where I resorted to formula feeds when my poor organisation left me with no expressed milk (or not enough expressed milk) to last while I was away. I once attended a wedding when my first baby was only a few months old. She was strictly breast fed and I had expressed enough milk for what I thought would last for the duration of the wedding. My mother was babysitting her for me. In the first hour all the milk was gone, and after screaming for however long, my poor mother was left with no other option than to go to a pharmacy and buy bottles, formula and the whole kit and caboodle to feed my poor, starving baby. While she dealt with that, I was stuck at the wedding, forced to go and 'hand express' milk into the toilets at regular intervals as my engorged breasts started turning to stone. I'm pretty sure I would have vowed I would never hand express into a toilet at a wedding too, had I known that was a possibility, but it's one of those things we find ourselves doing as first time mothers.

5. I said I'd never let a room full of people see me naked.

The only time I would ever allow that was if I was in labour. That's how you know you're in REAL labour... when a room full of strangers enters the room and you couldn't care less. This happened to me with my first baby. Since then I have had my boobs out on show during breastfeeding,  (pretty much for the whole world to see at times), and now going to the doctors for any number of 'female tests' doesn't bother me at all.

6. I said my kids would never eat a whole bunch of foods.

Mostly my kids are pretty good eaters. They love fruit. One even loves all veges! They will eat almost anything put in front of them (almost...), but here I am, all these years later, and I could tell you what my kids will order from McDonalds when we are there (we lives 250km from the nearest fast food outlet thank goodness), and that they love (ewwww) Nutella. I do draw the line at a large number of foods, but the point I am making is that my kids have tried it all. Thy might not eat it regularly, but they still know what it all is.

7. I said they'd never be able to watch certain movies at certain ages.

I'm still fairly strict about it, but I have probably let them watch more than I said they would at their ages. They love girly movies, so sometimes we have 'rainy day movie days' where we watch soppy love stories like 'Ever After' and 'Mamma Mia'. Recently my 7 year old came into the lounge room while 'Jurassic Park' was on, and looked up just in time to see a man get eaten by a dinosaur. After a quick explanation about how that could NEVER happen in real life and the whole 'it's just a movie' speech, I have endeavoured to be more careful about this now...

8. I said I'd never have an uneven number of kids - specifically 3 - because someone is always left out.

WHY GOD WHY???!!! Here I am with 3 kids... and yes, they fight. Yes... they pick sides against each other and YES, I think constantly that surely 4 must be better than 3. But that boat has long sailed now...

I suppose the point I'm making is that EVERY DAY I break another of my 'I said I'd never do that' rules.

And to be fair, I think I've still done okay as far as parenting goes. These kids have their moments, but mostly they are pretty cool, friendly and likeable street angels. Yes, street angels. You know the ones... they do everything right in public and then the minute you get behind closed doors they spiral down into a mutated version of their former selves. This meltdown usually lasts until they are asleep. But I digress, these kids are almost exactly how I wanted my kids to be. They are happy, healthy, clever little people. We have a lot of love in our house, and eve though I manage to screw up daily, somehow these kids are resilient enough to wear it.

And I love them for it.

Is there anything you said you'd never do, that you do?

'Go To Sleep'

* This blog contains some coarse language. If you are easily offended, perhaps this one isn't for you.

Right now my new favourite thing is this book...

Me and a billion other people who have all rushed out and bought it.

This book isn't for people who are easily offended. If you don't like swearing, you probably won't like this book. If you have perfect children and perfect sleepers, you probably won't like this book. If you are a first time parent, you probably won't understand this book.

This is not a book for children. Any parent who reads it to their children is clearly missing the point. In case you really have been living on Mars for the last few months, here is a taster of what you've been missing:

You can also listen to it being read on youtube, but not by Samuel L Jackson anymore,  as audible.com have claimed copyright laws on it.

When I first read this book, I cried with laughter and almost wet my pants. It made me feel a sense of relief in that the guilt we feel as parents (and more specifically as mothers) are not isolated incidents.

With a little help from the media, us parents place enormous pressure on ourselves in our quest for perfection. It doesn't matter how hard we try, or how much we perservere, we always feel like we could be doing something better. And we are hard on each other. Should we deliver naturally or with a c-section? Home birth or hospital birth? Are we right to breast feed or bottle feed? Circumcise or not circumcise? Use cloth nappies or disposables? Immunise or not immunise? Control cry or not control cry? Do we smack or yell or do neither? Is bribery good or bad? Whatever it is, we all have our own ways of doing things and our own reasons for doing it. We are all trying to be the best parent possible for our child. We all just want to get it right. We want our kids to grow up and be healthy, happy and uncomplicated. And the arguments and passion parents (especially mothers) feel in relation to specific topics are all because we are so INVESTED in our childrens upbringing that we have to fight for what we believe in. The energy and conviction that goes into raising our children needs to be justified.

Being a parent is hard. Much harder than you ever think it is going to be. And this book acknowledges that.

I have three children. Two of them have been pretty ordinary sleepers. And now that they are that little bit older, we are going through the motions of 'sleep procrastination'. I should add that they are mostly pretty good, but this book still gives me piece of mind. We have a night time routine. We brush our teeth, have a quick sip of water, go to the toilet, do the 'tuck in' thing, tell a story or sing a song and after a kiss and a cuddle, THAT'S IT! In theory... We all know the truth as parents. Any parent who says they've NEVER hoped and prayed that their child would sleep through for a solid 8 hours at ANY point in their lives is lying!

The swearing in this book doesn't bother me. I do swear. I try hard not to do it in front of my children, and mostly I succeed. I'm not perfect though. Does 'Go The F&^% to Sleep' give parents everywhere the thumbs up to speak this way to their children? I don't believe so. No more than it is to be used as an actual children's bedtime story. Any parent who thinks that is the purpose of the book probably has other issues going on as well. And yes, there are groups who have been actively trying to get this book banned because of the nature of the text. I think those people are missing the point of the book though.

I think this book is an affirmation that parents everywhere struggle with this. This book has put into words, what I have spent years bottling up inside. And it feels good to know I'm not alone. This book is about giving voice to frustrated parents everywhere.

If you haven't already done so, do yourself a favour and go and check it out.