Dreaming

My friend Mel left a comment on my last post. She was hoping I was feeling better. I was going to reply to her comment and say yes indeed I was but I woke up this morning feeling like I am dying from something that can kill me. I've been battling my usual springtime sinus infection which invariably leads to my chest but now on top of that I seem to either have another sinus infection or the head cold from hell. It's almost impossible to breathe through my nose. I think there's enough snot in it to fill a vegemite jar which I could then take to work to show to my work mates. I'll tell them I'm conducting a science experiment. Just like I used to at school. That ought to make them pleased I came into work.

The good news is Henry's ears appear to be clearing. Dr Helen took a look at them yesterday and said they were indeed improving. She agreed with me about holding off on surgery unless it was absolutely warranted. I felt a whole lot better after that. Well that was up until I had to go to the supermarket with Henry in tow on the way home.

When I collected Henry from daycare yesterday afternoon he was all alone outside the office of his teacher while all the other children were playing happily in the playground. I asked him what was wrong and he said "I was pushing my friends around and I didn't do what Charmaine said". At least he was forthright about it. I spoke to Charmaine who said she'd given him two warnings and when he didn't listen the third time she took him with her away from the other children for some time out. I found this time out thing a little unusual given that the other naughty child in their group, who carries a dagger to daycare, receives no punishment or time out for his bad behaviour. Maybe because he's special and has ODD (Optional Defiance Disorder). A child who threatens a teacher with a chair is best left alone to do what he likes.

Anyway I had always told Charmaine that I wanted her to use time out for Henry at daycare when he misbehaves as that's what we use at home and it seems to be most effective. So she did. I don't know if some kid had slipped Henry some stimulant drugs in the playground but he was suddenly ODD as well. He loves Doctor Helen and so is always very polite and charming with her but the minute we left there and headed for the supermarket he became the child every parent dreads. By the time we got to the checkout I was ready to chain him to the bike rack outside the doors while I paid for the groceries. He was driving me nuts. I began to wonder if he'd eaten a bag of sugar while I wasn't looking. The young girl at the checkout, who seemed not yet old enough to understand the word "children" let alone be serving at the checkout, glared at Henry while packing my groceries as if she were staring straight into the eyes of hell.

So it took some serious behavioural intervention when we got home to get him to settle down but he eventually did. By then I was almost dead and could feel my head cold getting worse by the second. I went to bed and tried to fall asleep so that I could dream that I would wake up in a new life.

Give me a pin

Sometimes it feel like things just get too much. When things don't go according to plan for a few weeks in a row I feel like I'm stuck inside an expanding bubble that's building momentum as it rolls down a steep hill. All I can hope for is that it jags on an abandoned stiletto and bursts.

The last few weeks have been like that for me. Yesterday was the day I felt the bubble had rolled long enough but I didn't stumble across any abandoned stilettos. To top of a few weeks of frustration I walk into the surgery of a specialist doctor I've been seeing at three monthly intervals for the past two and a half years and he says I don't really remember you and I should because your case is very interesting. I think my jaw nearly hit the floor. This was the supposed guru I had been told by everyone was the man to see, the person who recently told me to spend two days in the hospital so they could try to work out what was going on, the person who each time I have visited has asked me to retell my story. The last few times I did that I thought it was simply because he wanted an update. When he told me he didn't remember me I thought I was going to have to stand up and bash him stupid with my handbag. I was that frustrated. Mind you I was feeling a little fragile even before I arrived but I think I was justified in my anger.

So I ask him to check his files to refresh his memory. He tells me that would take too long and he wouldn't be able to find everything he needed in a hurry. I offer no response and just stare at him. He starts yawning. By now I've resigned myself to the fact that this visit, like all the others, is a complete waste of time and decide to remain silent. I won't offer anything. If he can't look through his files I can't help him. He talks about stuff I already knew. I walk out no wiser than I was before I arrived.

I spent the rest of the day getting in and out of the car driving kids around dropping them off, picking them up, doing the grocery shopping...I know, it's boring but all I felt like doing yesterday was lying on the couch watching the mindless banter on Ready Steady Cook with a bottle of wine, and a cold pack on my forehead.

Because Henry hadn't slept he was like some wild feral child who had been found wandering around the jungle communicating only with animals by the time I collected him from my mother and brought him home. He's been sick again and a recent visit to the ENT specialist has revealed that he'll likely need grommets in his ears. His entire winter was spent with an ear infection, treated by antibiotics. It just never cleared up fully and has now become "glue ear". We've booked him in for the surgery, on my birthday no less, but I'm hoping that it may clear up on it's own before then as I don't want to have to subject him to a general anesthetic if it's not necessary. It's possible that it will now that the warmer weather is upon us. If it doesn't and we don't get the grommets he could have permanent hearing loss and possible further infections elsewhere. The ridiculous thing is that the plastic grommets themselves - little plastic tubes - cost a grand total of $40. The operation to insert them will cost over $1000.

Maya is home for the next two weeks because it's school holidays. She's planned shopping trips but has no money because she hasn't worked for a couple of weeks as she was sick and then away at school camp. She's going to ask me for some but I have none to give her either and even if I did I wouldn't be handing it over as she will only buy more clothes she doesn't need. She has her school semi-formal coming up - in November- but for some reason all of her friends bought their dresses like way back in grade 8 (not quite but very early) and Maya has been nagging me to take her shopping so she could buy hers. We did last weekend and bought something fabulous that was also fabulously priced. I had been discouraging her from trying to get it so soon as I know her too well. Once she owns something she is over it and wants something else. I had advised her to leave it until only a couple of weeks prior to the formal so there was less chance she'd grow to hate it and want something else. But no...mother's don't know anything. It had to be bought soon, like now, because everyone else had theirs. We searched through what seemed like several hundreds shops, some of them Maya declared too old lady, some just plain ugly. Just as we were about to give up we spotted a dress - she loved it, tried it on and it looked perfect. Beautiful! We both agreed that it was just right. We hadn't yet looked at the price tag of it and I was expecting maybe $150 at least. I snuck a peek and when I saw the orange sale price tag that said $9.95 I couldn't believe it. I rushed outside to the rack to check the others and found that it was indeed marked down to $9.95. I ran back screaming to Maya - Oh my God, it's like only $9.95, oh my God. She cringed and hid down in the corner of the dressing room.

We paid for the dress and left. As we were walking out of the centre only five minutes later Maya says "I'm not really in love with that dress." I knew it, I knew it was going to happen but I didn't think it would be so soon. I thought it might take a day but five minutes. I blew my stack right there in the shopping centre, in front of all the shoppers, who were shopping - I said all the usual things like I knew it, I knew you would do this, that's it, if you want another dress you have to ask your father, I've done my bit. God, you're so ungrateful. I just spent a whole $9.95 on a dress for you and this is how you show your gratitude. Just like it doesn't matter that I nearly went broke for you.

Poor thing, she skulked to the car, came home and took the dress to show her friend who declared it beautiful and perfect and stunning. She was fine after that and hasn't asked me for another one yet. She will though.

I hope my bubble bursts today so I can breathe again.

A year makes all the difference

While recently babysitting a friend's four year old who was inserting a game into the XBOX console.

C: This game's really old. It was my dad's game when he was three.

Me: I didn't think they had XBOX when your dad was three.

C: Oh, he must have been four.

Boy Meets Girl

I'm slowly learning that my son can be completely charming when he wants to be. This cute little bundle of sweet girl child that Henry was lucky enough to spend some time with recently survived his hurly gurly madness.

Eva, and her parents were in Australia this past weekend all the way from New Zealand. This was the first time we had met her because she was born in New Zealand after her mother moved back there three years ago. She is so incredibly sweet that it almost makes me want to try for another in the hopes that I can reproduce her. Not only is she super intelligent but she is gentle, quiet and reasonably calm. If it could be guaranteed that any child I gave birth to was like her I would do it a million times.

Her parents left her with us for a night while they went and enjoyed some adult time alone. She went to bed here in a strange bed in a strange house with nary a peep. When she woke in the morning she behaved as if she'd spent oodles of time with us. She was happy and comfortable in our presence and Henry didn't try to beat her up even once.

Since she left he's been wandering around the house finding things that she didn't break (as if she would) and declaring everything to be ok.

Ben has only said approximately 23 times that Eva was the sort of child he expected Henry to be when he first learned we were pregnant. Still, I love the one we did get.

The Gender Difference

I have a son and I have a daughter. That means I have one of each. No need to say duh! out loud because I already said it to myself. I know that one daughter and one son means that I have two children, one of each sex. I've been lucky enough to get one of each with only two attempts at it. I often wonder though what it may have been like if I had two of the same sex, born close enough together to like each other enough to play Barbie, or trucks at the same time or at the very least, in the same room. The two I have don't like to play together very often and I'm left wondering about their differences. One is their age, the other is their gender. My girl, when she was Henry's age was delightful, smart, funny and cute but she also had that thing that only girls appear to have - a very short emotional fuse. She was active but wasn't trying to kill herself by climbing on ladders while carrying a screwdriver that she thought would help her fix the light socket. She was more of a sensitive, caring and temperamental child - meaning that she would scream the house down when she was tired and couldn't have chocolate for dinner.


Henry, my boy child, well he's just more like - look here you people, this is the way I like and this is the way it will be. There is no room for negotiation and if you try to stop me I will likely snub you for up to 24 hours.

Henry also NEVER SITS STILL EVER. He should have been born with a danger label stuck on his forehead and some yellow and black luminescent tape holding his legs and arms to his body rendering him incapable of jumping, climbing and running through automatically opening doors just as they're about to close. If someone had told me that I would be trading the emotional blackouts for having to constantly be on my guard in order to keep my child alive I would have made sure I gave birth to only a girl child. At least I could sit for hours with earplugs in my ears while Maya wailed about not being able to get Barbie's undies over her hips. With Henry I have to be on alert at all times. As a result of this not much gets done around here. Dinner has become a free for all - if you can find food that has not yet turned rotten, eat it but do it quick because you might have to save Henry from getting his head trapped in the washing machine.

I have a teenager and as far as teenagers go I couldn't ask for a better one. She's sensible, smart and thoughtful (I know this could end at any minute) but I just know I'm still going to have to follow Henry everywhere when he's Maya's age to make sure he comes home alive. Henry's smart and thoughtful too at age three but he just needs to fix things and he doesn't think yet about how he's going to fix them and I'm not sure he ever will.

Doritos to the rescue

When you spend all day cleaning your firetruck and rescuing stuff you need to refuel and the only way to do that is with a pack of Doritos.