So. Here is where I discuss the weather for a bit. Now I always assumed discussing the weather was the great go-to topic when you couldn’t think of anything else interesting enough to discuss with another human being. Until I moved to Melbourne that is. Here, it’s not just small talk; it’s a way of life.

And I’ve been here, in Melbourne, St Kilda to be exact, for nearly two weeks and I can honestly say, I do not know what in the fuck is going on. This place fascinates me, scares me silly and makes me wonder if people actually ever sleep. Wherever I look, there is something going on. I have been able to experience it as relatively single lass, a mother, a consumer, a drunkard and an outsider. The best part? There is no right or wrong way to do it.

The thing is, apart from about a thousand trips to Bali in my younger years and various interstate trips; I have never known anything other than the Gold Coast. And I love my home town, it’s part of the reason why I am the way I am today, but to me, right this very minute, it is thrilling to be experiencing something so vibrant.

Having said that, things are different here. Good different, but different all the same.

Example:

There is less fuckwittage on the streets. Now, I know, I’ve only been here for a couple of weeks, but I have driven an insane amount of peak hour traffic in that time in both fabulous and horrific weather. And you know what? People are cool. They let you in, they acknowledge you when you let them merge and as a general rule, just calm. the. fuck. down. I have also come to learn that Punt Road is one letter away from being very aptly named.

Example:

The service. Second to none. The other day, the waitress brought me a latte instead of a flat white which I was happy to take. I mean, one comes in a glass and has more milk, one doesn’t. Essentially. They gave it to me for free and 20% off my bill because they made “such a shocking error”. Um, no, a shocking error would be leaving a decapitated finger in my scrambled eggs. It’s cool. 1000 other scenarios have ensued since I’ve been here. Well not 1000. Sorry, I like to exaggerate a little, but you get my point, 99% of people in this town want you to walk away satisfied. Hmm. I’m not touching the adult stores in that sentence.

Example:

The weather. As I mentioned above, and I know Crowded House wrote a song about it but we all know the minute you can interpret the lyrics to any Crowded House song you have discovered the meaning of life and therefore, your life is over, so this does not help AT ALL. So, I digress, yes, the weather. So far, in two weeks, I have witnessed, without a doubt, winter, summer, spring and autumn. One day, when sitting in the Laundromat, I honestly thought the leaves I could see dropping rapidly outside the window was snow. It got that cold, windy and dark, THAT freaking quickly I started to freak out. Similarly yesterday, it was about 29 degrees. Everywhere you looked people were losing their shit at the unexpected fair weather. There were g-strings on grassy knolls, white legs exposed and dudes who had clearly been waiting an entire year to show off their polished guns, getting about inappropriately in their singlets. We went swimming as the bulk carriers out to sea made their way to Tasmania. It was insane. And lovely.

It isn’t all roses, just yesterday after a tough day, I had my first pang of homesickness and can honestly say I was prepared to pack up, tuck my fluffy tail between my legs and head home. Partly due to the fact that I miss Maddie like I’m missing a limb, partly due to the fact that it’s all just incredibly fucking hard. And I’m not one to complain, I just do, but sometimes, like yesterday, I just wanted to stop doing and go back to the easy.

But tonight, as I sit here and type this in the darkness of my 3 x 3 metre motel room with my family slumbering behind me, adjusting themselves from time to time due to the keyboard noise, I realise this is exactly what we need. What I need. A change. Will it work? Who knows? Is it scary as all hell? Yep. Will we ever regret giving it a go? No.

Aside: Phil and the boys joined me on Sunday. Was incredibly nice to squish each and every one of them after so long. Maddie will be down when she graduates.

Squishing the shit out of Jack. Clearly he’s loving it.

When the post-it note appeared on the fridge with the words ‘Book V Clinic’ scrawled across it, I knew my baby making days were all but over.

It appeared my husband knew me better than I knew myself and even though at that point in time (ie. Three months pregnant with baby number three), I had no intention of having a number four, he knew all it would take was a mere sighting of a cute baby and I’d be back on the newborn express.

See, babies are my crack. One whiff, one sighting, one hold and I am hooked and need a more personal fix. My husband was onto me, hence the post-it note.

He had also done some logical thinking, damn him. Going from a family of five to a family of six would mean more than adding a new name to the Medicare Card. It would require a seven-seater car. It would mean a four bedroom home (at the very least). It would also mean that we would probably not retire until we were dead (although to be honest, we are fairly prepared for that scenario anyway).

Are these reasons, which essentially are material based, valid enough to veto child number four, five or even six? If you had caught me off guard in the post baby haze, three years down the track when the memories of vaginal tearing and sleep deprivation were conveniently forgotten, I’d have said, no, not a good enough reason. In the cold light of day however, knee deep in shitty nappies and having cleaned up my body weight in vomit, I’d probably quite happily snip the offending sperm carrying tube myself. So yes, I guess I’m saying three is the magic number for us.

It almost feels like three is the new two. Most of all my friends have three children and, like us, they went back for more punishment bliss at that comfortable, fuss free time of their lives when their other children were basically self-sufficient. And I can’t even say we had our third child because we wanted a child of a particular sex. We already had a pigeon pair and they were/are good kids. And then, perhaps just to teach us a lesson to mess with fate, we had the now Mr Four, the hurricane on two legs.

This boy came out born ready. He took no more than two hours to make his way out, nine pounds and I didn’t even require a single stitch. This either means I was totally ‘one’ with my breathing during labour or, probably closer to the truth, I was just a total loose goose. I digress, the fact is, this kid was jumping out of trees and breaking his wrists before he could tell me ‘No’. And he tells me ‘No’ A LOT.

Do I still hanker for another addition? Honestly no. I love that my friends are having babies and I am getting to enjoy them in an ‘Aunty Bern’ capacity. ie. I’m getting to give all the hugs, kisses and long holds and then sleep for eight hours. Sometimes nine.

In hindsight, that 20 minute trip to the clinic where the doctor pulled out his glorified soldering iron and burnt the pathways to fatherhood to render my husband infertile was both sad, yet necessary.

Where did you draw the line? Have you?

*Note – I had to google ‘vasectomy’ to find a picture for this post. What I have seen cannot be unseen.

They say getting married and moving are two of the most stressful events you will face in your lifetime.

Let’s just say that I’d dance the funky chicken at my 19th wedding rather than move house one more time. Because this time, we aren’t just moving house, which for some insane reason, we seem to do about every 4 years, we are moving State. Lots of states. We are moving to Victoria.

Have you ever talked so much about something that it actually turned into reality? I mean, like something so massive, so life changing, it will not only interrupt your own life but all of those around you as well? It seems that I may have done this.

A few months ago my husband and I sat down and realised we were getting nowhere. Building and construction here on the Gold Coast has basically stalled. People are sitting on their hands waiting for something to happen. In turn, Phil hasn’t worked a solid week since Christmas 2010. I’m pretty sure this is the story being told by any tradie on the Gold Coast right now. Confidence is thin on the ground, the Real Estate Bubble burst a while back and people are scrambling to sell at much less than they did two years ago. We could see it coming, but we’ve rode this out here a few times before.

The last time was in 2001 and we only had one child at the time. Phil moved to Sydney where he was offered a great job. I stayed behind and it was relatively easy. Well for me. Although to be honest, we were kind of running two households, flying to and fro and what not. And although I was fine working, running Mad to day care and looking after ourselves, Phil didn’t fare quite as well. What should be every man’s dream was his nightmare. I mean, nights to oneself, pub dinners, beers with mates and complete control of the remote control sent him nuts. So he came home.

So this time around we were realistic. The mines were an option, but that involved FIFO and weeks away from the family. No go. So we started to investigate. Before we knew it, Phil was offered a job. In Melbourne. Whoa.

So, in just over a week, I alone, will set off in my little car and drive away from the only place I’ve ever known. Away from my brother and two of my best friends in the world, my wonderful boss, all of our lovely neighbours and other friends and family and drive in a semi-straight line to Melbourne. In the mean time, I have, oh, one thousand, four hundred and fifty nine things to organise and very little time to do so. But winging it has always kind of been my MO, so I’m hoping it works for me this time.

As we sat out on our deck, in our modest little seaside home this afternoon and had a beer, I wondered out loud if we were doing the right thing. The logistics are huge. Phil looked at me and simply said “Mate, if it’s not right, we can always come back, what have we got to lose?” Oh, just my sanity, but apart from that, nothing.

Have you ever made a massive move?

I remember being given a copy of ‘What To Expect When You’re Expecting’ when I was first pregnant. On the front cover, sat a serene woman in sensible shoes, rocking away in her wooden rocking chair with a fairly sceptical look on her face. Clearly she’d already read what was going on inside, ie. the very vanilla, straight laced version of what was actually going to happen when she got pregnant, had a child and then raised said child (followed up in the aptly titled ‘What To Expect In Your First Year’ and ‘What To Expect In The Toddler Years’). I can save you forty bucks. Just expect your life to change. Massively.

But here are a few more expectations I personally have found to be true:

Expect labour to hurt – a lot

Pinch that soft fleshy bit under your arm. Hard. Harder. Feel that? Hurt? That doesn’t even come close to the absolute agony that is labour. In fact, go outside, put your foot under a 4WD tyre and ask someone will very few scruples to reverse over it a couple of times. Painful? Nope, still not even close. Shit out a watermelon. Yeah, that comes kinda close.

Expect to never sleep in. Ever again

Look, just think of those last uncomfortable months of sleeping whilst pregnant as training. Training for the Tired Olympics. Believe me, your training will be so intensive you’ll be almost a dead cert for the gold medal. Expect to never sleep in past 6am ever again. Oh, wait, I take that back, *just* when your body is used to waking up at that time and can no longer physically break the 7am barrier, your child will start to sleep in. Until midday. This will enrage you.

Expect to be embarrassed in public

“Mum, why is there a snake coming out of your bottom?” I’ll set the scene. Public toilet at some brightly lit Megaplex in the burbs. Me, in sudden need of a toilet and believe me, if it could wait until I was in my own home, it would have. The 3-year-old, standing in front of me while I try to efficiently do as nature intends. He, when not trying to escape under the door, is peering into the toilet and in his best big boy voice, alerting my stable mates that I am doing a massive shit.

Expect to never see the bottom of your laundry hamper. Ever again

You know, if someone was smart, they’d make a laundry hamper with a big picture of your celebrity free pass at the bottom. Give you some incentive to make your way down there. Mine would be Jason Bateman or Mark Ruffalo. If someone was doubly smart, they would make it your husband’s Free Pass. Therefore I would find Natalie Portman at the bottom of ours.

Expect to feel guilt at code red levels

Mother’s guilt really needs its own postcode. Are we working too much, feeding them too little, not enough? Allowing them too much screen time? Are they eating enough dirt? Too much? It’s guilt central and we are our own harshest critics.

Expect to become the master of empty threats

You will need to find your currency when it comes to kids and threats. ‘Stop it or you go to your room’ rarely cuts it. ‘So freaking what, all my toys are in my room, do better Mum.’ So you have to find what they love the most and threaten to take it away from them. More often than not, these are empty threats. I mean you want to go to Dreamworld just as much as they do, but you can’t let them know that.

Expect to lose your train of thought. Which has just happened to me right now.

Driving the 11yo to school today I noticed another family walking along the street heading to the same destination. They were a little family with mum, dad, child in stroller and school aged child around, say, 7. I was waiting in the (godforsaken) traffic and my attention was caught by the 7yo who was turbo-ing up the grass hill and crawling on her knees above her parents. Immediately I thought “No! Dirty knees, dirty uniform, she needs to be stopped, what are you people doing?!”

Meanwhile, Maddison the 11-year-old, was absolutely murdering Papa Don’t Preach beside me in the passenger seat, earphones tightly in her ears, singing with abandon. I turned to her and with my pointer finger, indicated in an anti-clockwise circular motion to turn it down. I meant her singing volume. She did so, reluctantly.

I looked back at the climber and her family who had now overtaken my crawling car. The complete joy on the little girl’s face when she rolled down the hill gave me pause for thought. Was I just a spoilsport? Did it matter if she had a bit of dirt on her knees? Did it matter that Mad was singing a bit too loud and could possibly make my ears bleed? Especially when she was doing so with such unselfconsciousness? Was I just being a big old wet blanket?

Yes.

Welcome to killjoy city people. Population: Me. When did I become this way? When did I start to care more about the practicalities of a situation and not enjoy it for what it essentially was, fun?

As a child I caught a lot of buses. This was mainly due to the fact that we only owned a car that was drivable sporadically as dad was either a) pissed b) broke or c) pissed. As I fancied myself quite the singer, it was quite common for me to sit on a seat in a bus and sing, in my loudest voice, any song I liked at the time. This was the ’80s, so there I was, belting out a bit of “Hello, is it me you’re looking for” when a teenager sitting in front of me turned around and told me to “Be quiet!” Or he could have said “Shut the fuck up”, I’ve blocked it out. But I do know from that day on I was less of an extrovert. I didn’t dance like no one was watching because there was always someone that was, and they were only all too happy to tell me I looked like a dickhead.

I was the one who was always begging her brother to stop mucking around or he’d get hurt or dobbing to avoid conflict. In short, I didn’t relax.

So now, I’m going to make a conscious effort to let my kids be kids. Stop sweating the small stuff. Let them wrestle on the floor. Not stress when they throw a baseball at to me with very little warning. Play the music a bit too loud. Live a little. Or at least a little bit more.

Father’s Day 2011

Bartrand Hubbard once said: “I’ve had a hard life, but my hardships are nothing against the hardships that my father went through in order to get me to where I started.”

My dad is in his mid 80s now. His body is telling him it’s nearly time, but his mind remains as sharp as the day. He grew up in a small rural community, riding a horse 10 miles to school every day.

A couple of years ago, I took my youngest son on a journey, to visit and spend time with his granddad. I wanted him to know about those early days. He remarked that my son was a walking magnet, with all the steel in his body, and that he had more ink on him than in the classroom he learned in (He has a couple of tattoos and at the time, two or three piercings).

So…I wanted him to open up to my son. I asked him about those informative years. “Hard years” he said and started to open up. I learned as much as my son that day. You see, I thought I knew my old man. Turns out I only knew what he decided I should know.

I never knew about the beatings he regularly got from his ‘old man’ – my grandfather. I did know about his brother chopping off his toe, but not about being chained to the chopping block because of it. I had always wondered about the truth of this, but when he started reminiscing with my son, I began to believe in the reality of life during the depression and those years that shaped my dad into the man he became.

He would over the years say to me on more than one occasion: “Your grandfather was a hard bastard – but a fair one!”

Somehow, that cliche ‘Like father. Like son’ rings in my mind. My old man was hard. But fair! I never really saw him show true affection to me or my five brothers all that often but then, I was not really around most of their growing years.

He did love us unconditionally, protected us and kept us safe. Many times he covered my arse – I just did not know it! Not then at least.

I do now, but it was to be many years later that I learned the truth. We never came to blows, but there were many harsh words. He was, after all just trying to instill the values he had been taught by his father, into me. I really didn’t want to listen. At 16 I knew it all and it was the dawning of ‘The Age of Aquarius’ and I had an adventure to begin.

Some years later, when he got the call that no father wants to hear: “Your son has had a very serious accident and may not make it through the night. You best get here quick” he just downed tools and come hell or high water was going to be at my bedside. No questions asked.

He was there and remained until I was out of immediate danger. He cared not for his business or any other matter, apart from getting to the hospital to be at the side of his eldest son.

As we drove that August morning some 2 years ago, my own son began to learn more and more about this kind, loving and compassionate man – my father, his granddad.

We stopped at a little country cafe for lunch and all my old man wanted was a cold beer and a plate of seafood chowder.

I have never seen that smile since. He was in old man’s heaven.

We got back into the car and he proceeded to ramble on about his lunch for what seemed hours, issuing directions with military precision on how to get to the family homestead. After an hour, my son and I looked at each other bewildered, as we were so certain we were just plain lost!!

Next thing, we are right outside the gate to the family farm. He had let us to this gate with pin point accuracy.

It was about this time that he demanded we stop for lunch because he had not eaten since breakfast and he was hungry.

My son told him he had lunch an hour ago and couldn’t understand why he was getting so agitated.

My dad now lives in a very comfortable retirement home. He has all his wants and needs met and is surrounded by loving family.

I hope the good lord allows me one more visit.

I for one, will be calling my old man this Father’s Day, to tell him how much I love him.

Yes…he did teach me well. I hope through him, I have taught my boys well.

I didn’t pick up my best friend’s call last Thursday, even though she rang twice in the space of 10 minutes. This is nothing new. She does it to me, I do it to her, figuring, as per usual, it would just be something trivial. It’s pretty standard that we both call each other at inopportune times for nothing in particular. I was at work. I was busy and I didn’t bother listening to the message she left me straight away. In fact, I only listened to her message later that night to get to another one I thought would be important. It wasn’t, but hers couldn’t have been more so.

Her thirteen-month-old daughter was at the Mater Children’s hospital having micro surgery on her teeny tiny thumb in an attempt to save it. It had been basically severed off when she attempted to pick up a piece of shattered glass.

But when I did eventually listen to the message, Jodi, my friend, still didn’t actually tell me what had happened. The message was fast and it was clear that she was upset and anxious. She was in shock but in auto-pilot mode which is, from my experience, the brace position we all take as parents when something truly awful happens to our children. No, see, the silly thing was, the message was an apology to me. Huh?

It was hard to interpret her words at times, but basically she was trying to stress that she didn’t think she had been around enough when my children were in hospital. She was leaving this message, pacing the hospital corridor while her husband cradled her daughter. I knew that feeling and I certainly didn’t want her feeling any extra irrational guilt for being a shit friend. Because she wasn’t. To the contrary, I always felt well supported and even more importantly, like I could count on my close friends and family when something spectacularly awful had gone down. I should be the one apologising.

And you know, had Jodi come around the corner 5 seconds earlier, gorgeous little Georgia would know for sure that she’d be able to make the A-OK signal with her hand when she grows up. But she didn’t. And that’s life.

Our own examples:

Maddison, aged 2: got her foot broken by a kid at Sizzler. This kid got up on the railing, jumped down and drove his knee down into her foot WWF style. Two broken bones and 6 weeks in a cast.

Sam, aged 1.5: RSV – in for three nights.

Sam, aged 2: intussusception (when the bowel telescopes back in on itself) Scary as shit to watch. Scarier when they find it hard to diagnose.

Sam, aged 2.5: hernia operation. In for a week.

Sam, aged 3: severe influenza A. Lumbar puncture. Weeks in hospital.

Jack, aged 3: fell from his father’s shoulders and broke both his wrists and busted his face.

Sam, aged 7: fell off the monkey bars, totally broke and disconnected his upper and low arms. Surgery to insert wires. Wires got infected (100:1 odds) and had to spend another week in hospital on heavy duty antibiotics. Further surgery to remove wires.

So that’s it. I think. There may have been other nights we rushed them to the ER that don’t stand out. Oh, once we had Jack taken to the hospital in the Ambulance because he couldn’t breathe. Equally tops.

And I guess it all comes down to the fact that to get through life unscathed and to never see the inside of a hospital for anyone is rare. To blame ourselves for not identifying certain symptoms in time, or to beat ourselves up for not avoiding the day to day accidents is just useless. Phil still finds it hard to accept that Jack fell from his shoulders on his watch. And I’m pretty sure he’s never forgiven himself no matter how much I try and make him see otherwise.

But Jodi, you have done a wonderful job of not only being my friend, but also being there when I have needed you. You are an outstanding mother and Jodi, be kind to yourself, it’s all going to be okay. And I promise to pick up every call in the future. x

Jodi, myself and Bonnie. Best friends a gal could have (and you too Bron).

It’s kind of universally acknowledged that a children’s play centre is one of the biggest misnomers out there. I mean, how much time do the kids spend actually playing as opposed to chucking tantrums or bleeding from an orifice?

We had the pleasure of children’s party number 1506 on the weekend for Jack, the four-year-old. At the very same time, Maddison, 11, had also been invited to a party that started 30 minutes later, 30 minutes away. At the very same time as this, Phil was up in Brisbane, helping my brother do stuff to his house. So I was the parent who left her four-year-old at the party unattended and arrived back, 30 minutes before the party finished. Daggers. Oh yeah, I saw a few aimed my way. Luckily, one of his kindy teachers was there and was more than happy to keep an eye on him for me. She also informed me she’d only call if there was blood or a concussion.

I have written about kid’s parties and ants in my undies HERE. I guess they say write what you know and this is what I know:

I know there will be at least one musical instrument planted inside a party bag that will make you want to shove said musical instrument so far…I mean, dispose of the mini piccolo/mini xylophone/ear piercing whistle the minute you get home. Basically this is an inside parent joke that passive aggressively tells you, the attendees parent, to go and get fucked. I am trying to source mini bagpipes for Jack’s fifth.

I also know that more often than not your child will have their face painted in such a way that you will require sugar soap and a wire brush to remove it later on that night. Exhibit A:

I know that at least one parent will tell you a not so funny anecdote about your own child. Like how they found your son in the bushes at kindy comparing “doodle sizes” and how he may or may not have tackled their child to the ground when said child stole and ran off with the communal drumsticks.

I know that one child will almost break a bone. Or actually break one. It’s a given. These kids are going freaking nuts. They are hopped up on kiddie crack, aka, red slushies, terrorising old women and young babies and are one step for shitting in a hotel hallway Nate Myles style by the time the party comes to an end. It’s a madhouse.

Lastly, from my experience I know that ironically, nearly every child leaving the play centre called Smileez will exit crying. As my friend Sarah pointed out, this may well be because “they are obviously very distressed at the bastardisation of the English language”, and even though this is a good point, I reckon it’s because these gin joints aren’t play centres at all. No, I think they are were cooked up by some sadist who likes seeing tiny children, a UFC smack down and too many tiny teddies combined in a confined space.

So that’s me on the play centre topic. Got a story to share?

I have a three year old.  Therefore I am fairly used to monumental scale meltdowns in public places.    I wouldn’t say that they embarrass me anymore, they just gives me the shits.  And actually, after three children, I think I’m pretty used to situations where large scale humiliation is the norm.  But every now and again, I get a lovely surprise and it becomes obvious that these children aren’t quite finished with me yet. 

First up, it needs to be said that Jack is a very loud child.  I know, I know, all kids are loud, but do they all nearly make your ears bleed when they talk at you?  I start to feel uncomfortable these days if a perfectly good conversation isn’t interrupted by Jack at a thousand decibels.  And before you ask, his hearing is fine, he just wants to be heard.   And heard he is.

He was certainly heard when, at a recent visit to the Ekka, in a crowd of thousands, he yelled in his best big boy voice “Mum, you don’t hurt my doodle anymore!” {Clarification: When he sits on my hip, it must squash his nuts, apparently this stopped happening at the Ekka}

Only just the other day he told his kindy teacher that “Mum makes me bend over and touches my bum” {Clarification: I ask him to turn around so I can wipe his bottom after he does a poo, nothing as incriminating as he’d have his teachers believe}

Kindy is certainly fertile ground for embarrassing a parent.    I ask Jack every afternoon he attends, what he did that day at kindy.  Without fail his response is “I didn’t play pull your pants down”  {Translation: it probably means he did play pull your pants down and like you, I assume this  involves pulling pants down – MORTIFIED}

And of course there was last week when, happily perusing the jam packed DVD section at our local Big W, he came out with this pearler directed at me: “Who are You?”  I vaguely replied with “Your mummy silly”.  He then used his usual deafening tone to exclaim “You’re not my Mummy, I don’t have a Mummy, leave me alone, Lady, Man. Helllllp!!”  and leaned out and latched onto a young couple who were mortified.  They weren’t the only ones.  Hello Store security.

But the most unenviable position that I imagine every parent, no, actually scrap that, every adult has found themselves in, is the public toilet shaming.

You know how it goes.  It’s a toilet, you’ve got business to do and let’s be honest, if it could wait until you could get home, you wouldn’t be there. But there you are minding your own business when you hear this from the adjacent cubicle from a booming 3 year old:

“What’s that smell?”

Me: “Nothing, we are in a toilet Jack!”

“No it’s your bum mum, it stinks, is that a snake between your legs?”.  Kill me now.

But at least they come in handy from time to time.  Just yesterday I had one of those shirtless, punkified  windscreen washers approach me to wash my car windscreen.  I motioned with a very fierce NO!  He still continued over to my car with his squeegee raised.  He should add lip reading to his cleaning resume, because he got the message and walked on by.  That’s when Jack thought he might just clarify the situation, put his window down and say to the guy walking past  “Keep on walking dickhead”. Ot Oh.  My bad.

How about you?  Have your kids dropped you in it?

As  I write this, Phil is out getting me a birthday present.  Now, we kind of agreed a few years ago, after the kids came along, that we wouldn’t exchange presents.  Because, let’s face it, if either of us want something, we  generally just go out and get it.  Bunnings and Phil have quite the history of this.   And well, on top of that, his money is my money and vice versa. 

Don’t worry, we’ve never actually stuck to this plan.   I even made it dead easy for him by getting a Pandora bracelet a couple of Christmas’ ago.     There is always a sneaky present of some sort that comes out for him though.  In fact, previously,  I had become increasingly creative with my  present ideas for him.  Twenty laps in a race car with a racing legend, Jet boating, deposit on a surfboard of his choice,  you get the picture. It seems though, these kind of gifts require forward thinking and well, a bit of motivation. 

But this year I just don’t know what happened.  All of a sudden, it was the day before his birthday and I had Jack Shit.    No, not just the saying, I literally had Jack shit.  All over the toilet.   In his pants, on the sheets, in fact, there was so much of it, he was ready to star in his very own Gastro Boy.   So we made a mercy dash to the shops and all I could manage to get him was a plain block of Cadbury chocolate.  Regular Size.  And NOTHING ELSE.

I knew he was disappointed.  I think he might have even  been thinking as the day went on, that I would surprise him game show style, with a snowboard and trip to Perisher.   Bupbow.

The other thing is, we are really trying to finish this house and therefore any unnecessary spending has been ruled out.  We discussed this and I thought he was on board with the plan.  I guess not if todays comment of “I only need 5 minutes to get your present.  I know where the lolly aisle at Woolies is”  Shazam.

I have heaps of friends who just go out and buy the coffee machine they want and tell their husband when he gets home  to “Go look in the kitchen and see what you got me for my birthday big boy”.  Or “Check out these diamond earrings, Happy Birthday to me, thanks darling”.  Whilst I reckon this saves the bullshit of pretending you love the gift you get, (hello earrings from mothers day), it also takes away the exciting part of birthdays – the surprise.

And I think I get my fill of surprises with the kids.   I just about spoil the living shit out of them.  When they ask for toys during the year, I always tell them, “How about you ask for it for your birthday”.  So when the birthday does eventually roll around, I want to deliver.  And when I say spoil, I’m not saying stacks and stack of money on presents, I mean I want them to feel like they are the most special person in the world, for an entire day. 

I’ve always thought the best presents are the ones you can’t buy.  And my only request every year from Phil is a “no strings attached” massage.  Or as someone put it the other day “A massage with no happy ending”.  There is nothing I covet more.   That and a new handbag.  But, just quietly, I’ll be picking that one myself. 

In reality though, as much as I wouldn’t say no to a “Bradley Cooper  jumping out of a gigantic birthday cake surprise”, I’m thinking my present may be more along the lines of a snack sized packet of Cheese and Bacon Balls.

Seriously though, it’s just stuff and on most days, having each other and a roof over our heads is enough.   

“The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything… They make the best of everything they have…”  (Thanks Emily)

Addendum:  He has just returned home with a jumbo sized ladder strapped to the back of his car.  For Moi??