Grown Up Writer Fail

One of the reasons I haven’t been posting so often on this blog as I would like is because I got myself a paid job as a columnist for a really-truly magazine. It still thrills me to get an email from My Editor, describing the requirements and deadline for the next column; it gives me such a buzz to have an Important Reason to go off to the cafe to write and edit; and it sends me through the roof to send off the finished copy to be published.

Because everything is done via email and from home, it almost doesn’t seem real. If my life were a movie, there could easily be a twist halfway through in which the audience discovers that the important Editor Kate has been corresponding with and writing so feverishly for is, in fact, a mere psychological construct, a delusion, built to fulfil Kate’s desperate desire to have her writing taken seriously. What we have been witnessing has in fact been a young mother’s school-lunch-and-laundry-fuelled descent into madness. Gripping viewing.

But there is one day in all the year that reassures me that it’s not all made up and I am, in fact, a writer. An after-work Christmas Drinks at the offices of Jesuit Publications. A place to meet other writers and have proper adult conversations. I couldn’t wait.

You might remember me talking about this epic event last year, when I brought the twins with me. This year, I would be child-free. A proper, grown-up writer. And even though Wednesday was a crazy day with everything on, I was going to make it work if it killed me. I even put together a timeline to make sense of it all. It looked like this:

1. (9:00am) Mum takes Annie to kinder, morning jobs and schoolwork done

2. (11:00am) Early lunch

3. (12:00pm) Drop Harry at his atrium session.

4. (12:10pm) Go to the shops to buy ingredients for the salad the children would be bringing to the scout barbecue that evening. Also get birthday present for Matilda’s friend.

5. (1:30pm) Pick up Harry.

6. (1:40pm) Get dressed up. Make salad. Prep swimming gear.

7. (3:00pm) Pick Annie up.

8. (4:00pm) Swimming lessons

9. (5:00pm) Drive to husband’s work

10. (5:15pm) Swap cars with husband. Husband drives to scout BBQ. I drive to city.

11. (6:00pm) Arrive at party. Acquire glass of champagne and fashionably bored facial expression.

It all went pretty smoothly until Step 6 (get dressed up / make salad / prep swim gear). I had put Matilda in charge of the salad preparation. I needed to put a lot of work into getting ready. I was going for ‘Sophisticated Writer to be Taken Seriously’, not ‘Dowdy Matron’. I even went to the trouble of putting shimmery bronzing cream on my arms and (shaved!) legs. The stuff was hard to open as I haven’t used it in over a year. I was as I was wrestling myself into a pair of magic underpants, designed to stop people from congratulating me and asking when the baby is due, that Matilda called up the stairs.

“Mum . . . I think you might need to take a look at this”

The salad stuff we bought was pretty straightforward – cherry tomatoes, olives, avocado and a large bag of pre-washed ready-to-go lettuce mix. It would only take a few minutes to assemble. But we had hit a roadblock. The un-opened bag of pre-washed lettuce contained a very large, very live insect.

Can you see it? Down, down, standards are down!

I sighed, tossed the salad bag into the car and proceeded to step 7 (pick Annie up). The kinder assistant was curious to know why I wasn’t in my usual uniform of jeans, sneakers and banana-spattered science-fiction t-shirt. I swelled up and told her about my grown-up writer event. The assistant looked genuinely impressed. This woman has seen me bring four of my children through the kinder and has been privy to all of my organisational fails – turning up late, forgetting forms and money, failing to provide family photos, failing at book week. I don’t often feel like a grown up when I come to kinder. But today was different.

It was with a jaunty swagger that I hurtled towards step 7.1 (return defective salad). I got myself a salad upgrade and a refund. I ignored the uneasy feeling that I was merely replacing the salad with more from the same poorly washed batch – I had no time!

I applied my make up at the red lights on the way to swimming lessons and managed to achieve a convincing ‘smoky eye’ over the course of three backed-up intersections. Whilst the children were in the pool, I put together one page of ideas on how I could revolutionise the magazine, just in case the conversation tended in that direction.

After handing the car, children and salad over to my husband, I drove off to battle the traffic. The Google Maps lady kept cheerfully directing me through bewildering shortcuts. One time she asked me to turn right from a side street onto a busy road with no traffic lights. Then she made me cross three lanes of thick traffic in 500 metres. I got the sense she was enjoying herself.

As I waited in a stagnant river of cars and painted my nails, I realised in dismay that I’d forgotten to do my homework. I’d planned to bone up on back issues of the magazine and its sister publications.   I’d wanted the work of the writers I’d be meeting to be fresh in my mind so I could pay them the compliment of being familiar with their work. Alas! I would have to wing it.

When I finally pulled into the carpark at Jesuit Publications, I took a few moments to recover. I pulled my hair out of its ponytail-knot. I had washed my hair in the morning and tied it up when it was still damp. If my plan worked, it would be all tumbling waves when I took it out. But it wouldn’t last long, which is why I waited until just now. I looked at myself in the rearview mirror. My hair looked AMAZING. I can’t remember the last time my hair looked that good. I wanted to take a selfie. I finally understood why people TOOK selfies. But no time! Must go be a grown up writer and impress people. I tucked my one page of revolutionary ideas into my bag.  Just in case.

I must have been one of the first people to arrive, despite my fears of being late. There weren’t many cars about and the balcony seemed rather quiet. I slowed my step. I didn’t want to be too keen. I tried to open the door. It was locked. Strange. Slowly, very slowly, I pulled out my phone to check the date on the invitation.

Oh. What is WRONG with me?

You see, I had been telling everyone it was on Wednesday, I had made preparations for Wednesday, I had even emailed my editor and signed off with ‘see you Wednesday!’, I just hadn’t properly checked the date on the invitation. My “Wednesday” claim was not backed by solid evidence.

The drinks were scheduled for Thursday.

Tomorrow, my hair would be lank, my nail polish chipped and my dress would smell of day-old car sweat. I was never going to look as grown up and fabulous as I did in that moment, and there was nobody there to see it. I dragged my feet back to the car. If my life were a film, this would be the climax when the protagonist realises that there is no ‘Jesuit Publications’. She would rub her eyes and realise the office she was trying to access, was, in fact, an accountancy firm and the magazine had been a mere figment of her tortured mind.

I sat in the car, feeling rather bereft. I needed to find a bright side. In the end, I found four:

1. I hadn’t missed the event. At least it wasn’t scheduled for yesterday.
2. I had just experienced an outing without children.
3.  It actually wasn’t my fault. I said ‘see you Wednesday’ to the editor and he didn’t contradict me. He’s an editor. It’s his job to pick up on writers’ mistakes.
4. I would have time to read up on the other writers’ work, after all.

I felt a bit better as I drove back through all the traffic. When I got to the scout hall, I discovered another bright side:

5. I was totally the best-dressed mum at the scout BBQ!

Things weren’t so bad.  I was still a grown-up writer.  And if the kinder assistant asked me how things went, I could always lie through my teeth.  She doesn’t need to know.

I smiled smugly and fixed myself a plate of insect salad.

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Resolution

I’m really not enjoying the morning rush before school at the moment.  Today, I returned from my search for Christopher Robin’s grey socks to find Harry sitting in the corner at my little Repressed Creativity table with Mummy’s Special Oil Pastels spread all around him.  He had torn the wrapper off the one in his hand and held it in his two small fists.

“I snap it?”, he enquired animatedly, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“No!  Naughty!”, I exclaimed in horror.

“I snap it.”, the wretched imp asserted decisively and broke the pastel clean in half before tossing it on the table to join its fallen brothers.

I managed to get to Harry before he unwrapped his next victim, made a mess of disciplining him (it was mostly me shouting “how would you like me to break YOUR special toys??!” whilst Harry shook his head solemnly and reasoned “they’re MY toys, Mummy.”) and tried to salvage what was left of my lovely pastels.

As I matched aquamarine with aquamarine and crimson with crimson, it seemed a twelve-year-old version of myself manifested itself before my eyes.  There she stood, an awkward figure in her ill-fitting school uniform, clutching her A3 Spirax cartridge paper sketchbook and tin of 72 Derwent pencils to her chest.

“When was the last time you even USED those pastels?” she glowered at me,  “You haven’t even opened the box for months and months!  I think it’s been a YEAR!”

“Look, now’s really not a good time, Twelve-Year-Old Version Of Myself”, I muttered crossly.  And it wasn’t.  It was 8:25am and Matilda was still searching for her shoes, Christopher Robin’s reader still needed to be signed, Annie’s nappy was emitting a suspicious smell and Harry was off hunting for fresh mayhem.  But the sulky tween manifestation of my subconscious was insistent.

“Mrs Flannery said we were good at art.  She said it was in our soul”

It was true.  I had a wonderful art teacher in Year Seven who had been kind and encouraging.  She had looked past my crippling shyness and made me feel like I was special.   And it was also true: I hadn’t used the pastels in at least a year.  My house seems full of empty sketchbooks, untouched paints and blank canvases that my twelve-year-old self would have itched to play with.

I could have argued that I didn’t have the time, that was my usual excuse, but I knew twelve-year-old Kate wouldn’t buy it.  The truth is, I’ve become terrified of Inner Critic.  Inner Critic is another version of myself (it’s very crowded to be me) who usually tells the Twelve Year Old to sit still and be quiet.  She also says things like “what if it turns out you’re no good at art?  Wouldn’t it be better not to try than to find out you’re only average?” and she sighs and sneers and rolls her eyes a lot.  It’s hard work keeping her happy.

Twelve-year-old Kate didn’t have an inner critic.  She just liked to play with colour.

Later, in that beautiful calm after Matilda and Christopher Robin were delivered safely to school, I formed a resolution.  Throughout the month of August, I will create some sort of art once a week, photograph it and post it on my blog.  And if Inner Critic has any comments to make, I’ll just say “quiet, you!”.  I’m a great admirer of proper-artist Ruby Hoppen, she is creating a portrait of her son every week this year.  It’s amazing to behold.  That’s where I got this idea.  But I won’t be doing portraits, and I’m only going for a month, but other than that…

If any other of you lovely bloggers would like to “play along”, please let me know in the comments and I’ll link to you.  You don’t have to be arty, that’s the whole point!  I think I’m going to call it “Art in August”.  Or maybe “Amateur Art in August”

And, in celebration of this decision, here is my first piece.  It commemorates the destruction of my oil pastels and the miniature art festival this event inspired.

I call it “Shattered”.

Can’t wait till August!

Frugal Fail.

I’ve always wanted to be a queen of thrift.  Well, no.  That’s not exactly true.  I’m pretty sure at various points in my childhood I wanted to be a fashion designer, a movie star, a member of the A-Team and a boy, but since I’ve become a full-time mum, I’ve aspired to get really good at saving money.  I suppose I want to earn my keep.  I’d love to save so much money by making miracles out of rice and tuna that we would have EVEN MORE to spend than if I’d been working – that’s how clever I would be with the budget.  I pore over websites like Simple Savings and Cheapskates for tips on making a single income look sexy.  I see it as a kind of sport.  I have friends who are also trying to save money and I’ve noticed a subtle sense of competition making its way into our conversations.   It’s like the Frugalympics.

“I can make a million things with mince meat!”  I boast
“That’s nothing!  You should taste my spam-burgers!”,  says one friend
“You mean to say you guys can afford meat?”, the other friend exclaims in smug triumph.

Whenever I make an extravagant purchase like movie tickets, cappuccinos, décor magazines or disposable baby wipes, I try to keep a lid on it.  If news got out amongst the other frugalympians, I’d lose points for sure.

Having said all this, I’m not deluded enough to think I’m in any way poor.   I’m talking about first world problems here.  I won the birth lottery in a big way.  Australia has an extravagance of riches compared to the majority of the world’s population.  I wash my clothes and my dishes in fresh drinking water and, while I might agonise over which school to send my children, I never have to question whether they get an education.

I suppose part of this comes from a desire to resist a culture that has become rampantly consumerist.  I’m sick of getting told I need to put my marriage under pressure and outsource my mothering to an institution so that I can afford stuff I don’t need to impress people I don’t like.  I would much rather be frugal (and I appreciate that not everyone is in my position and I am attacking the pressures placed on working mothers, not working mothers themselves, please don’t write me angry letters, end disclaimer)

Grocery shopping has become a military operation.  I take stock of the freezer, pantry and fridge and try to incorporate it into my meal plan.  I write my meal plan, making allowances for any events or meals out planned for that week.  I look at the meal plan and any shopping list notes and make a master list.  On this master list, each corner of the page represents a corner of the shop.  I write the items according to their location in the supermarket (as Aldi really only has two major aisles, this is not quite as impressive as it sounds).  I pay close attention to the two “red zones” – the sweet biscuit and lolly section at the front of the first aisle and the meat section at the back of the second aisle, where everything is at toddler height.  I need to have a clear idea of what I need from these red zones and move through them at lighting speed as she who dawdles is lost (and buried under a pile of grocery suggestions from her helpful son).  Pay attention!  There can be no doubling back in this jungle.  But if you’re good you can get a vegemite scroll at the end.

Last week was a good shop.  Both Harry and Annie were enjoying their weekly ritual with cheerful enthusiasm.  Harry didn’t toss too many items into the trolley and Annie didn’t toss too many items out of it.  I stocked up on meat and even bought a whole chicken to roast (I’d read all about how you can make three meals out of one roast chicken and was longing to try it to boost my frugal credentials).  When I got to the end of the shop there were free fresh flowers on the packing bench (too old to sell, but still good).  I grabbed a bunch to brighten up the house and sailed home feeling unutterably smug.

I packed the groceries away, putting the bulk meat in the bottom drawer of the fridge to be divided into portions and frozen.  Then I got to work on the roast chicken.  I stuffed it with onion and half-eaten-apple, rubbed it with oil and salt and herbs and cooked it into a culinary masterpiece at only five dollars a kilo.  My smug levels rose ever higher.

After dinner I got to work stripping the chicken (for stirfry meat) and inspecting the carcass (for soup stock).  While there wasn’t nearly enough chicken left for another meal, I stuck it in the fridge for sandwiches and pulled out my phone to search for instructions on turning a roast chicken carcass into a delicious winter soup.  I was met with a bewildering variety of opinions on how to do it involving all manner of ingredients and equipment I didn’t have.  I drudged back into the kitchen only to find that Mr Knightley had tossed the carcass in the bin whilst cleaning the kitchen.  I hugged him in relief.

“What’s with all the meat in the fridge drawer?”, that worthy personage asked casually.

“I’m buying meat in bulk now.  It’s more economical, don’t you know” I gushed enthusiastically.

“You should probably put it in the freezer”, he said, filling the roasting pan with water.

I treated him to one of my best eye rolls.  “Of course I will!  I just have to separate it into portions first.  It’s all under control.”

Later that week, after I posted my Sticky Tape Pudding recipe, my levels of smugness had reached epic proportions.  Oh look at me – the mother who bakes with her children and makes it to the bottom of her laundry basket!  I’ve finally got the hang of this parenting malarkey!  Just call me Captain Awesome and be done with it!

And then it hit me all at once – the meat!

I scrabbled to the bottom of the fridge drawer. Surely it hadn’t been that long?  Surely it was still good?  I sought the fateful use-by date.  It was two days ago.  My bottom lip started to wobble violently.

Mr Knightley walked into the room to find me wailing amidst mince meat and sausages.

“How can I manage a family of six,” I hiccupped, “if I can’t even manage basic foodstuffs?!”

I may have been just a little hormonal.  Mr Knightley knew it and wisely chose not to say “I told you so”, but instead steered me to the couch and allowed me to sob tempestuously whilst he cast furtive glances over my shoulder at a repeat episode of Futurama.

In the commercial break, Mr Knightley gave my shoulder a squeeze, “Some women”, he said, barely managing to suppress a twitch playing on the corner of his mouth, “blow the budget on shoes or cigarettes or designer clothes.  You’re the only one I know who splashes out on budget meats!”

At Mr Knightley’s suggestion, I tried to find a dog in the neighbourhood to benefit from this tragic situation, but it would seem every dog in the area is on a special sausage-free diet.  So it came to pass that the sausages and mince stare up at me reproachfully every time I open the outside bin (along with the chicken carcass).

But I’ll be fine, really.

I just need to work out a way to keep the IFC (International Frugalympics Committee) from inspecting my bins…

Church Fail.

I would really love to get to the stage where I sail into church on a Sunday morning with four children all clean and combed and beautifully turned out in their Sunday bests.  All with shoes on and with a good amount of cash for everyone to put on the plate.  I will get there one day, but in the meantime, the best I can claim is that we turn up and that most of the time they behave themselves.  On this particular occasion, the best I can claim is that we turned up.

While we were in the process of turning up, as we were driving to the church, it dawned on me that the school term had started and I had not checked the roster for Children’s Liturgy (I help out once a term).  I pulled out my phone and jabbed away at my email until I found what I was looking for.  Here’s what I figured out:

1. I was on duty
2. I would have to present the gospel to a group of impressionable youngsters
3. I had prepared nothing
4. Mass would begin in one minute.

Thankfully, the gospel was one I had presented before and could talk on without too much trouble.  I dashed inside, grabbed the book, threw the cloth and candle on the little table, forgot the matches, and told Father I was there, thirty seconds before he processed into the church.

I managed to muddle through the Children’s Liturgy program without imparting too much heresy, I hope.  We had a good discussion where I told them all about shepherds in the time of Jesus and they told me all about lizards, chocolate, Roary the Racing Car and why Thomas is the best of all the engines.  After this, the children brought the gifts up beautifully in the Offertory Procession, even if half of them bowed backwards and sideways and one of them fell over,  before dispersing back to their families at top speed.

Now that the panic was over, it was gradually dawning on me that:

1. Harry’s face was covered in Vegemite.
2. I didn’t have any wipes or facewashers on me.
3. Well-turned-out children do not attend Mass with Vegemite on their faces.
4. I did so want to have children that people would describe as well-turned-out.  Especially Mass people.

I considered giving my thumb a swift lick and using it to mop up the offending stain, but then I remembered that the Sign of Peace was fast approaching and I decided that the people around me might prefer to behold a dirty-faced little boy than to be forced to shake a hand covered in a mix of spittle and salty yeast extract.  Besides, I had bigger problems just now.

Annie must have disapproved of the new translation of the Eucharistic Prayer, because she started voicing her protest at the top of her lungs.  I tried all my usual tricks, waved little toys from my handbag at her, but they only made her angrier.  Then Father said “let us offer one another the sign of peace”.  Annie abruptly stopped shrieking and solemnly offered her small hand to the people standing behind us.

Now that handshake time was over and Annie had stopped crying, I set to work cleaning Harry’s face.  Accordingly, the quiet solemnity of the Liturgy of the Eucharist was punctuated by a loud shout: “No!  That’s MY VEGEMITE, Mummy!”

After Mass, Mr Knightley and I staggered with Annie into the gathering area for morning tea (the children had already raced there and were smearing biscuits across their faces).  Here we faced a gauntlet of opinionated old men which our late priest called the Parish Antiques.

First up, one of the Bills, Who’s as Old as the Hills, hobbled over for a grumble about the noisy baby.  As Bill is getting a little frail and senile, and is usually rather kindly, I let him have his rant in peace.

Next I stumbled into the path of Neville McKinnion, Who has Strong Opinions.  “You’re very courageous to be coming to Mass with the children” he smiled condescendingly, then added, with the air of one dropping a gentle hint, “when our four were small, Mavis and I would come to Mass separately and only bring the older ones.” As Neville raised his eyebrows impressively, I bit back the urge to enquire how many of these grown up children still went to church, as I knew it was a sore point for him.

I returned my tea cup to Barry O’Shane, Who Likes to Complain.  He was having a rant about how so few of the parish school families come to church on Sunday.

“They wouldn’t dare!” I snapped, and stalked out the door.

Except that that only happened in this blog post.  In real life, I smiled weakly and saved my angry rant for my wearily sympathetic husband in the car on the way home.  And in the two hours that followed.

I guess I’m not being entirely fair to my parish in this post.  I could have mentioned that Patricia Baelyn, Who Looks Like Sarah Palin, took Annie for cuddles and politely contradicted Bill for the parts of his rant that were readily coherent.  Or I could point out that most of the time people are warm and welcoming and that the Grumpy Old Men do have kind hearts and don’t shrink from hard work when it needs to be done.

All the same, we went to the neighbouring parish on the Sunday that followed.   Sometimes it’s good to go to an anony-Mass…

Cafe Fail.

I’ve given up coffee for Lent.  Not sure why I do this to myself, but I figure it must do me some good. I’m going to put my coffee money in the Project Compassion box and feel all virtuous and smug for forty days.  I’m three days in and already I’ve had enough.  I already wrote this post out in my everything-notebook and now in my coffee-deprived state I’ve gone and lost it and I just know it won’t come out as good this time around.

Grrr

Anyway, cast your mind back to Tuesday.  It was Shrove Tuesday and my last chance to have a coffee before Lent.  Unfortunately it was also a school half-day, so I would have all four of my darlings to share this special time with.  But I’ve got this situation to work well in the past and, by gum, I would make three-children-and-a-baby-in-a-café work this time.  Surely they owe it to me?

I went to the supermarket with them first and Harry and I played the game where Harry hands me random items which he considers essential and I systematically restore them to the shelves.  My sister called me at one point, but as the entirety of our conversation consisted of me yelling directions at my children, I told her I’d call her back at a better time.  Other than this, it all went pretty well until the last aisle, when I (rather stupidly) said aloud “and now all we need to get are the eggs!”.  Christopher Robin and Harry both exclaimed “I’ll get it!” and raced to the end of the (long) aisle.  I moved, as quickly as a person pushing a shopping-laden stroller can, through trolleys and old people, to the egg section.  There, amid a small circle of spectators, Christopher Robin and Harry were wrestling over a carton of extra-large, free-range eggs (“I’m helping Mummy!”, “No! I’M HELPING MUMMY!”)

Somehow, I managed to confiscate the eggs and administer some lame reprimands to the boys.  Miraculously, the eggs managed to escape their ordeal unscathed and so, seeing this as a good omen, I set off to our favourite child-friendly coffee haunt.

As this was to be the last coffee I was to have before Easter (or at least St Patrick’s Day), I was going to make it count, so I ordered I larger size than my usual small cappuccino and added extra fancy flavours (deluxe).  The barista chatted pleasantly to Matilda, Christopher Robin and Harry as he put together their custom-made free babycinos and my children, cheerfully and all of one accord, failed to say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’.

I sipped and savoured and spoon-fed Annie with chocolate-dusted milk foam when it occurred to me that now would be a good time to call my sister back.  It would seem I was having an abundance of stupid ideas on this day.  But I love my sister and she lives far away so we don’t get to talk as much as I would like.  I didn’t want to become the Boring Older Sister who is so wrapped up in her children that she can’t possibly take an interest in anyone else’s life.  This was ‘Jan’, by the way, not ‘Cindy’, so it’s not like I’d scored sister-points by recently making her a hat either…

Accordingly, I contrived to continue chattering merrily whilst the following occurred:

1. My three ambulatory children promptly absconded from the table and climbed onto an evil coin-operated Spiderman helicopter at the entrance of the café
2. The weight of shopping bags caused the stroller to overturn, taking my remaining, rather startled, child with it.
3. Matilda managed to climb her way to the top of the evil Spiderman helicopter and perched triumphantly on the rotor blades.
4. Annie began to howl and I remembered that she needed to be fed (plus she’d just been for a ride in an unstable stroller…)
5. Matilda started to clamber down again as I gave her the evil eye (as evil as one can give when one’s arms are full of fallen grocery bags)
6. Matilda got stuck halfway down and then rescued by some random man
7. I felt everybody’s eyes on me and realized with dismay that I had become That Woman, who talks on her mobile phone whilst her children misbehave.

I had to end the conversation when

8.  I couldn’t see Harry anywhere.

But then I could (he was climbing all over the cake fridge and Christopher Robin quite happily joined him in this endeavour.)

After shouting random threats and gathering up groceries and offspring, I stalked off to the car.  Once everyone was strapped into place and I sat in the driver’s seat.  I launched into a tearful and incoherent rant about “coffee” and “your aunty” and “just for once in your life”.

Matilda piped up in a  small voice, “you can listen to what you like on the radio on the way home, Mummy, and we won’t complain at all”

“That’s COLD COMFORT!” I snapped.  But I put the radio on anyway.

I felt better by the time I got home.  At least I could get a blog post out of this experience.  And it was probably a good thing we weren’t going back to that café until after Easter.  I sent the children upstairs to clean their rooms and started unpacking the groceries.

Hmmm.

It would appear the eggs did not survive their adventure in the stroller.

 

When I told my mum this story, she suggested I find an all-natural organic substitute for coffee: “like, you know – whiskey”

So if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to have an Irish coffee without the coffee.  Because I’m being good.

Clomp, Clomp, Clomp.

Time for another God post. I went away on retreat last weekend and felt all peaceful and inspired. But, now, regular life is back again and I’ve just about forgotten it all and settled back into my usual habit of ignoring God until I need him for something important (like a car space at Chadstone). So I thought I’d better write this down quick before it all falls out of my head.

We were talking about one of St Paul’s letters (1 Corinthians 12: 12-31)  in which he writes about the church being like a body with many parts. Everyone has a different role to play and all the roles are important, no matter how humble.

I think I’ve spoken before about how I tend to struggle sometimes with the many invisible and menial tasks involved in my vocation.  Pegging out a load of washing does not really make me feel like I’m building the Kingdom of God.  It’s not like I’m a missionary in a developing country building wells or giving soup to the homeless or tutoring refugee kids.  But according to St Paul, my job is still important.  I think, as part of the Body of Christ, we mothers are a bit like the feet.  Not the most glamourous feature and often taken for granted, the feet just keep plodding on, supporting the rest of the body and helping it do what it does so well.  I think I’d find it easier to be a nice, loud mouth – shouting about my accomplishments and eating up all the recognition.  But God doesn’t call us to do what is easy, he calls us to do what we need to be whole.  So I’m a foot.   I could even take the metaphor further and suggest that it’s important to take care of our feet and have the occasional pedicure, because corns and ingrown toenails affect the whole body.  It’s easy to mistake playing the part of a martyr (which helps nobody, even though it comes with a bonus sense of smug self-satisfaction) with true selflessness (which is not too proud to ask for help).  I’m not so good at this – I need to give myself permission to put my feet up more (OK, I’ll stop with the overworked metaphors now, I promise!)

I love-love-love an article written by Rachel Jankovic called “Motherhood as a Mission Field”, in it she writes:

“At the very heart of the gospel is sacrifice, and there is perhaps no occupation in the world so intrinsically sacrificial as motherhood. Motherhood is a wonderful opportunity to live the gospel. Jim Elliot famously said, “He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” Motherhood provides you with an opportunity to lay down the things that you cannot keep on behalf of the people that you cannot lose. They are eternal souls, they are your children, they are your mission field.”

So perhaps, like Mother Teresa would say, instead of getting pre-occupied with the great things I am not doing, I should focus instead on doing small things with great love.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to peg out a load of whites for Jesus.

Label Fail.

I have this thing about label makers.

Something about those neat, white strips, calmly stating important facts in no-nonsense typeface just speaks to me.

I figure if I were to own a label maker, I would finally become Organised Lady. My household would run like a well-oiled machine. My children would arrive on Book Week Day wearing elaborate hand-sewn costumes. Friends would pop over for a spontaneous catch-up to find me relaxing in an immaculate house, the smell of a delicious, healthy treat wafting out of the (shiny, clean) oven.
I wanted that label maker.

But, I remonstrated with myself, such things really are an expensive extravagance. There really isn’t much I can achieve with a label maker that I can’t also achieve with a permanent marker and a roll of masking tape…

And I almost believed myself.

But then, last week, Mr Knightley casually commented that he’d seen label makers on special at the local stationery emporium. Was that something I could use?

When I had fully recovered my powers of speech, I reassured Mr Knightley, in an abundance of words, rapidly spoken, that I did indeed covet – er, need – such an object.

Oh, just look at it.

I didn’t know it was going to be pink. I know it’s childish, but I love it when things are bright pink. I was thoroughly over-excited by my new acquisition.

But I wasn’t the only one.

It started when Harry took my label maker to a quiet corner, typed out the entire alphabet and then printed several labels to commemorate this achievement.

I admonished Harry, confiscated the label maker and placed it high out of reach.

Harry watched and waited.

The next time I pulled down the label maker, Harry was ready. The first moment my back was turned, Harry absconded with it to further investigate this mechanical wonder. This time, he managed to jam it all up. I firmly resolved, as I extracted scraps of twisted labels with my eyebrow tweezers, to keep the precious contraption out of reach at all times on the top shelf of the pantry, next to the Milo tin.
Which brings us to this morning.

After coaxing a particularly reluctant Annie out of a dirty nappy and into her cot for a sleep, I returned to the kitchen to find Harry covered in Milo. In the moments that followed, I took in the following information:

1. A kitchen stool had been pushed into the pantry
2. The label maker was now on the bench
3. Harry had merrily printed off THE REST OF THE TAPE whilst sitting at the bench eating Milo

Here’s what happened next:

1. I started yelling and storming about the house like a demented rhino, firing off abusive texts to my husband.
2. Harry burst into tears and then rubbed his tear-stained Milo face all over my top.
3. Christopher Robin walked through the floor-Milo and tracked it through the house
4. Annie woke up.

I had a read over the warranty, but there’s nothing in it to cover the wanton destruction brought about by insane two-year-old saboteurs…

My one consolation is that Dymo – or, indeed, Milo – might approach me with an endorsement deal for introducing my readers (yes, both of them!) to the wonders of their product.

Perhaps they could pay me in label cartridges?

Panic

So, I guess it all started when I got a hankering to make a crochet bell.  One of my favourite decorations on my mum’s Christmas tree is a little red crochet lace bell and I wanted to see if I could make one too.  So I started trawling the Internet and found this pattern and then I dug through my shamefully oversized yarn stash and came across just the right amount of cotton yarn in a lovely turquoise colour.  So what if turquoise isn’t the most christmassy colour?  I’ll dress it up with silver – ooooh, and little clear buttons – and it will look a treat.

The yarn was in my nan’s old stash (well, actually, she was Mr Knightley’s nan, but she was such a warm and loving person that I like to think of her as my nan too.  The smell of the inside of the yarn bag when I first opened it made me cry and cry).  So THEN I got an idea:  what if I made the Christmas bell with Nan’s yarn and then gave it to my mother-in-law as part of her Christmas present?  Oh!  Yes!  Where’s my hooook??

So I got stuck into it on our drive to South Australia.  I was in Robe and up to the second-last round when I dropped my 3.5mm hook under the car seat.  Ack!  It never surfaced despite much grunting and scrabbling.

At Victor Harbour, I bought a new hook in a smaller size (it needed it – the first attempt was too big and flopsy) and started from the start again.

In Glenelg, I got to the last round and ran out of yarn!  Ack!

In Adelaide, I frogged a few rounds

As we drove through Keith, Nihill, Bordertown and Horsham, I had another go with tighter stitches (and then frogged a few more rounds and tried it again)

By the time i got back to Melbourne, I had a little blue bell, ready for blocking.

In retrospect, this probably would have ben a good time to check the instructions – but I’d only printed off one page and anyway, it was all too exciting to stop and do something as sobering as looking up the pattern.  As a result, the bell turned out a little misshapen and wonky.  And lame.  And I couldn’t find a silver bell anywhere, so I had to use a gold one (pilfered off one of Christopher Robin’s kinder Christmas cards), which wasn’t as good.

Which would have been fine, I would just be giving it as an add-on to the main present, a quiet aside, hardly worth mentioning really, just a small bonus gift.

Except then Mr Knightley bought a miniature Christmas tree as the main present.  “And you can hang the ornament on it.” he added, cheerfully.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!

If I hang the wonky bell on the Christmas tree and give the present just like that, then the wonky bell becomes the FEATURE.  It says “Look at me!  Aren’t I clever?  I made you a lopsided Christmas decoration!  With its own tree: it’s that special!”

And it’s FAR too big for the tree!  It looks ridiculous!

Oh panic: the more I look at it, the more it seems like the creation of some kinder kid looking for a gold star.  The kinder kid who’s not allowed to play with scissors…

What am I going to do??

Stay tuned for the sequel…

What the?

Matilda and Christopher Robin are having a fight in the back seat.  Matilda is pretending to be Julia Gillard, putting on a voice and saying “Moi fellow oi-strayl-yens”.  Christopher Robin is pretending to be Tony Abbott, saying “No more Carbon Tax!  Your Carbon Tax is STUPID!”

Is this normal?  Is this how kids are supposed to argue?

Maybe I should ask Mr Knightley (news junkie) to ease up on the NewsRadio a bit…

Vegetarian Fail.

It all came to a head on Friday at 4:15pm.  Annie was crying in the highchair, Christopher Robin and Harry were practising extreme wrestling on the trampoline (“I wasn’t biting him, Mummy, I was hugging him with my teeth!”), I was desperately trying to get dinner together and Matilda was looking grave and pensive.

“Mummy,” she announced solemnly, “I’ve decided I want to be a vegetarian.”

Now, I can’t pretend I didn’t see this coming.  Earlier in the week, a sign at the butcher’s advertising “wild rabbits” sent a tired and tearful Matilda into hysterics (“you mean people KILL cute little bunny rabbits and then they EAT them?  That is just so MEAN!”) and no talk of ‘introduced species’ or ‘feral pests’ or ‘circle of’ bloody ‘life’ would calm her down.  The night before saw Matilda wide awake well past her bed time, wracked with guilt after eating a plateful of roast lamb (It was moist and nice and not at all burnt like last time)

So I knew Matilda had been considering vegetarianism.  I had already laid down the law that she couldn’t only choose to be vegetarian for some meals just to get out of eating them (like beef stew, which she calls “beef spew”),  I just hadn’t anticipated her making this commitment the day before shopping day – an hour before dinnertime – while I was elbow-deep in meatloaf.

So I scratched my head and had a think.  I had half a tin of lentils.  Surely that had to count for something.  Vegetarians are always banging on about lentils.  And I had a muffin tin.  Maybe I could make a mini- lentil loaf?

As I mixed the lentils with all the stuff I usually put in the meatloaf and added plenty of egg to hold it all together, I was struck with a wonderful vision of myself.  I could get really good at this!  I could be That Amazing Mother who whips up delicious vegetarian meals effortlessly for her mature, sensitive and intelligent vegetarian daughter.  I saw myself floating through organic wholefood markets buying bulk packs of tofu whilst hippies and hipsters alike nodded their approval.  What if I’m actually a creative genius in the kitchen, creating small miracles out of chick peas and eggplant?  I imagined myself on the cover of a glossy recipe-and-anecdote book, wearing a mildly ironic 1950s-style apron and smiling benevolently at the camera.  Of all things, I think putting out a recipe-and-anecdote book is a true sign that you’ve made it as a domestic goddess.

I wish I’d taken a photo of the perfect muffin-shaped little lentil loaf after I took it out of the oven.  It was truly a thing of beauty.  Matilda exclaimed at how pretty it was and ate it wordlessly whilst I radiated smug all over the kitchen.

The next day, Matilda was making herself a ham roll with extra ham.  ”I’ve decided not be be a vegetarian,” she said, “that lentil loaf you made yesterday was pretty yuck”

Incidentally, I’d be happy to publish the recipe if anyone is looking to turn their child off vegetarianism.

Maybe I could make a book…