Queenstown here we come

It's that time of year again - end of Financial year, and also annual family trip time. Last year we scooted up to Paihia via Taumaranui, we seem to make a habit of these off the beaten track tiki tours on the way to places, Easter weekend we went to Auckland via Ohaupo.

This year we're off to Queenstown and the excitement from the boy is growing as the 'sleeps' are crossed off the calendar at the dinner table. I love how you can relate time to kids in the form of sleeps, particularly since day sleeps have long become a thing of the past. We used to use the term 'big sleeps' up until then.

I've never been to Queenstown, and up until a couple of years ago, I'm ashamed to say I'd never even been to the South island. It's a shame that it costs about as much to head over the ditch as it does to go to the South Island, and so all things home grown are traded in for an overseas trip in many cases as people seem to feel somewhat less ripped off in heading abroad for a few days.

I have to pack the bags today, well actually it would have been bag had it not been for an 'on the scrounge' call to the parents to acquire ourselves another suitcase because I really didn't think our suitcase plus our second bag option of the Thomas suitcase was going to make the cut for two adults and two kids. And so, with bag packing of course comes clothes folding, I'm just hoping that by the time I finish writing this that the magic clothes folding fairy will have been and done it all for me, oh, that's right, I am the magic clothes folding fairy!

So on that note, I'll be signing off until we return, and I will be back with plenty of Queenstown antics... but not before I've tackled all the Queenstown washing!

Windows anyone?

It's exciting stuff building a house. A dream come true I would even say and yesterday the ball was definately on the roll when we had the very official sounding 'exterior meeting'.

When you move in to a home, everything is all set up, you look around and think to yourself - 'ah, yes, I could cook in that kitchen, bathroom's nice and big, oh windowsills need a paint, I'll put that on the to do list'... but when you build you get to choose things that I wouldn't have ever considered having a say on. For example - the windows, it was part of the exterior decision making process yesterday to choose which side the windows open on - left or right. What the? I thought windows were windows and that was all there was to it, but it appears not.

I'm glad that the man and I pretty much agree on colours and design (notice I say pretty much), I wasn't really all that concerned about the colour of the bricks for the exterior, or even the colour of the roof, but so help me if he doesn't like the same colour kitchen as me, there's going to be trouble! I think it's only fair that the person who spends the most time in a room gets the most say on how that room will appear, well, to a certain extent, the boy informed me yesterday that he wants a yellow bedroom and red curtains - cute if you're three, probably not so cute when you're 10, and absolutely positively not cutie cutie when you're 15. So I think we might have to come to some sort of a compromise on that one, I'm picking Fire Engines on the curtains might just about do it.

I think I'll be the Henry Ford of houses, not 'you can have any colour as long as it''s black', more 'you can have any colour as long as it's Mummy's.' Yep, sounds fair to me.

Eco Eco Eco Oi Oi Oi

I'm too lazy to use cloth nappies. There, as hard as it is to do, I admit it. I like to think I do my bit for the environment, but in the past 12 months I've only seen the bottom of my washing basket about four times, and therefore I cannot see much point in giving myself any additional loads.

When the boy was about 18 months old, I discovered Bio Nappies. Hooray, a guilt free disposable alternative for those of us who want to do the right thing but love the convenience of good old poop 'n' chuck'ems. In reading about Moltex Eco Nappies, they have similar impact on the environment as modern cloth nappies, and to top it off they're unbleached, so no nasty chemicals sitting against tiny little bottoms.

I ran out the other week, and so had to do the unthinkable and buy some treasures. They're so pretty, all covered in shapes and squiggles, but what a difference in the old rubbish bag department. Plus, with a lil' girl with eczema, I've certainly noticed a difference with irritation around the leg area.

I've been the recycling warden at our house this week, I'm quite proud of our efforts. We've been a bit slack of late I must admit, but not as slack as some people around the neighbourhood. Not that I go looking in peoples green bins, 'cause that would be a bit stalkerish, but I do notice when driving by that some houses have several blue plastic rubbish bags out, and the odd milk bottle in the green bin, and then there's the even worse offenders who don't use the green bin at all. (Or perhaps I've miss judged and they're completely self sufficient and have no recycling because they have no packaging.)

I want the planet to still be here for my kids, grand kids and beyond, so in an albeit slightly late New Year's resolution , I've decided that I'm going to make a more conscious effort to do as Bob the Builder suggests - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. It's really not all that hard.

Doof Doof

My memory is shot. It's all part of being a mum, and yet I'm amazed when I hear a song on the radio how memories can come flooding back, who, why, where, when, how, all from the simple art of putting pen to paper, microphone to amp and needle to vinyl.

We were trying to guess the year of a song just the other day, when it dawned on me that particular song must have been about ten years old because I remember driving to work at the Mount listening to Nick and Rog on the Rock and that song being on in between commercials.

A few minutes ago (not long before I caved and put Hi-Five on), Wilson Phillips came on the radio, I think the song's called 'Release Me' I remember when that came out, and how much I loved one of the singers bowl hair cuts, but wasn't quite brave enough to have my own locks styled like that. In hindsight, being non adventurous in the hair department turned out to be a good thing on that count.

Theres are songs I relate to people I know too. Like every time I hear 'Life is a Highway' I think of the day I followed a 'speedway chic' out to the local track when it was in its prime. I could see her jigging around in the drivers seat and her rear view mirror was set just right for me to see her lips singing along. When we arrived in neighbouring car park spaces, I asked her what she was listening to and she informed me it was 'Life is a Highway', she had it up 'full bore' 'cause the kids weren't in the car.

As a mum with 3.33 years experience under her belt, I can now appreciate her sentiment. I too can be seen roaring down to the post office or bank with my sounds blaring in the old cleche of a family wagon I call my car.

So now when I'm out and about and I hear a car approaching with music bellowing, I try not to jump to conclusions and pass it off as a 'blardy boy racer', I check it out, and if I see a woman riding solo, I say to myself - 'you go girl'!

Mr Mum

I'm always grateful for the chance to spend some time quietly working on the accounts while lil' miss is asleep and the man takes the boy out to the country for the day, but it always cracks me up the way a father organises for a day out with the kid(s). From talking with other mums, I know I'm not the only one in on this little joke I like to call 'Mr Mum'.

As a mum, you have the daily chore of making sure everyone is clothed, fed and toileted before even attempting to step foot outside the door - and it appears 'everyone' includes said husband. I wonder how society would be without mums. I know that the boy would have pretty much gone out in his jammies had I not stepped in. It's not every day the man has to hunt and gather the items for 'the bag', and I'm picking it's possible he likes to run with the ignorance is bliss approach to weekend parenting.

And so I ask... "has he got a drink"?
"Oh, that'd be a good idea"
"what about a change of clothes"
"na, you wanna get some"
"ok"
"hey, how long will he hold out for lunch"?
"hmmm, here take a banana just incase, have fun, love you bye"
(aside)"hmm, talk to myself"
"J, go and say bye bye to mummy"
Cuddles all round.
Suncream and hat still sitting on bench. I run to the door.
"you think he might need a hat and suncream?"
"Oh, I'll take it just incase"
"Right, have fun"
I close door and come inside for a rest.

It really is hard work being Mr Mum!

Diving for Sharks

It was quite the adventurous afternoon at our house yesterday. Two little men with imaginations only dwarfed by their personalities played together like good little friends do.

Quite brave little boys, willing to take on the sharks by diving underneath their pirate boat, wrestling with tigers, jumping over crocodiles. Gee, aren't imaginations great. Real life adventures on the other hand can be a little more frightening...

There it stood, on the outside table, all green and insect looking. A praying mantis, a big mamma of one too might I add. Its back was to them, dancing in the autumn afternoon. They taunted it, growling like monsters and watching the way it scuttled along the table top. But then the unthinkable happened - it about faced, creeping forward in rather a hurry. Then **poof**, David Edinbourough jnr & Steve Irwin jnr turned instantly back into a couple of screaming, giggly little preschoolers. It was without a doubt the most amusing part of the afternoon - and my bet is that they'll choose diving with sharks over exploring insects next time they play together.

I'm no Superwoman

I've never been good with numbers, and I get myself in this mindset of 'I can't' whenever they are placed in front of me. So obviously, being the office 1/2 of a self employed couple doesn't come very naturally to me.

I thought I was the only one who struggled, the only one who should have been looking out for a little yellow 'accounts for dummies' manual. Turns out I'm not alone.

It's a hard thing to reach out and ask for help, but when you discover another mum in the same boat as you, it makes it that little bit easier to give in to the fact that one isn't Superwoman, and nor should one have to try to be. My friend G is this other mum, she is also the genius who suggested we do a babysitting swap once a week each to help each other.

I had a weight lifted off my shoulders yesterday, a weight which I was ignoring, but knew in the back of my mind was there. Yesterday was the inaugural babysitting swap, and I must add, a very proud mummy moment for me because it was the boy's first time going to play at a friends house without me there.

Today it's my turn to return the favour, and I must say I'm quite looking forward to having two little blokes to entertain, truth be told, it's probably going to be me that's entertained by their antics!

Limericks in the Night

My baby girl is a model baby. The saying 'sleeping like a baby' was made for her I'm sure, so it's not often I have to get up in the night to feed her, she mostly sleeps through. Last night (or should I say early this morning) she had different ideas.

Today started when the boy woke at 4.30am, the man got him back to bed no worries, phew, crises averted, but then the girl decided she wanted up too - so up gets Mummy bright eyed and bushy tailed - not.

It's funny what you think of sitting quietly in the dark in the middle of the night. Thousands of thoughts run through my mind, some profound, and some rather silly, like this limerick I made up while I was waiting for lil' miss to finish 'side two' - (inspired by her reluctance to take a bottle and my liquid gold going to waste each day after somewhat of an effort to 'harvest' it).

There once was a baby from Whiti
And drinking from bottles made her sh!tty
Mummy wants to go to a concert
But baby just never wants it
And if Mummy misses out that'd be a pitty

Now the idea of a limerick of course, is that it is a nonsense poem, so hopefully by writing a limerick about something that's true, it might somehow cancel out and our bottle feeding woes will be over.

She did show signs of cottoning on to the idea last night. So fingers crossed that in a few weeks time Mummy will be rocking along to the sounds of her youth.

The Paper Trail

Could there be any more of a paper trail? I thought computers were supposed to cut down the hard copies cluttering up the place, but it appears not.

I went and cleared the PO box yesterday, and granted it had been a few days since I last emptied it, can you believe, I spent the best part of an hour last night opening and sorting it, and as per usual, the bulk of it was bills, with just a sprinkling of cheques.

I should be grateful for the paper trail being that my pre-mummy career was in the printing industry, but when you're on the receiving end of the paper, it is not so welcome. As if I don't have an overflowing recycling bin as it is (adjusts halo), now I have a whole pile of envelopes which I'm going to have to either squeeze down one side of the bin, or leave on the bench with the couple of bottles that just didn't make the cut this week due to lack of space, and the fact that it's persisting down sways me towards the latter.

I'm thinking paper making might be a nice mid-winter inside activity, something new and exciting, something other than hut making, playdough creating or cake baking to keep us occupied (and me sane).

So maybe I'll save those envelopes after all and give them a second life at our house, motley flaky paper has got to be more fun than gleaming cutty paper, and if recycled paper is good enough for loo rolls, it's good enough for the crayolas.

Kachow!

Lightning McQueen. Not since Herbie has a race car been so popular with kids, and this morning Lightning is the order of the day. Mr 3 was given 'Mac' the truck for Christmas, and has acquired various other characters from the movie in the four months since then.

It appears to be reenactment day at our house today. It's raining again, so outside activities are on standby, and Mr 3 is busy lying on the lounge room floor (one of his favourite spots) reenacting a scene from the Cars movie. It's the part where McQueen falls out the back of the truck. He's got it down pat, he has a mega memory, my son, and could very well make a good actor himself one day as studying scripts won't be a problem if his short term memory stays as fantastic as it is at age three.

I have often wondered (as I'm sure most parents do) when I see him playing, what he will become as a man. Will he follow in his fathers footsteps and be mechanically minded? Will he be artistic or musical like me? Will he make a career of some job that hasn't even been invented yet? I guess only time will tell, at present, he's going to drive a really really really big truck, a Mac, with 3 steps, to his work, and park it up, and fix cars.

Ah the world in the eyes of a three year old...

Kachow!

The glass is always cleaner...

I often wonder what the ritual is at other peoples houses in the hour or so leading up to visitors arriving. Is it a mad dash tidy around like I do, or are other people just that little bit more organised, or here's another idea, perhaps they don't mind if their house is in a state of disarray when others come to visit?

I've been meaning to clean the ranchsilder for weeks now, the glass is about as far away from clean as you could get - I'm talking little hand prints and food smears on the inside, and splattered bugs and dust on the outside.

I have this disorder - well, that's what I'll call it, particularly when it comes to cleaning windows and ovens. I just can't seem to motivate myself to do it. In my list of top 10 worst house keeping jobs, oven is at #1 and windows comes a close second. There are a zillion excuses as to why not to clean them, trust me I know, I've used them all. I've even lured myself into a false sense of security telling myself 'I'll do it tomorrow' - and as James Bond well knows, tomorrow never comes.

So there's some food for thought - Is the glass always cleaner on the other side of the ranchslider? In my case, no.

Lego Lego everywhere...

So the weekend has arrived and the heavens have opened up. As if the house wasn't a mess enough as it was, now we will have two whole days of insideness and the inevitable mess that comes with that.

Lego is all the rage at our house at the moment, and it was every three year old boys dream come true earlier in the week to receive a late birthday present of his very own box of the world famous blocks to add to his fathers collection saved up from years gone by.

It's amazing what you can make out of Lego, well, perhaps not so amazing when I make it, but when the man and the boy get together, it's cool what they come up with. The lounge floor is covered in trucks, a crocodile, a penguin, a dog, a house and that's just to name a few. Little hands and big hands working together on mini projects, the world is their Lego oyster.

Only down side to Lego of course is the pain it can cause to the old feet in the middle of the night, that lone naughty piece that even with the best pick up efforts managed to escape the bucket. And then there's the lovely truck mummy broke yesterday when she backed over it with the office chair. And as history would have it, mummy isn't the worlds best Lego put-back- togetherer.

On that note, I'm off to hang some washing up in the garage, I'll try my best not to trip on Lego, a three year old, and a 30 (something) year old scattered about on my lounge room floor.

Life is too short

I don't like to dwell on things sad and negative, but a tv current affairs show I watched last night
moved me so much that is my blog inspiration for the day. It was a story of a mother who knew she was dying, she had stomach cancer, the same illness that had taken her sister, mother and grandmother before her, all in their 30's. She was a fighter, shaking a stick at the universe several times because she wasn't quite ready to go yet. She had made a video diary for her children, telling them how much she loves them, and even seeing the humorous side of things advising them to 'not be too mean to the lady' should their dad get a new girlfriend one day.

I was in tears by the end of it, not something one wishes to think about really - leaving the kids behind - not yet anyway, not 'til you're old and grumpy, and in your sleep, that's how it's supposed to happen. And of course it made me think how precious every day is and how lucky I am to have such a beautiful family, amazing friends, and fantastic belongings.

So as I look out the window on this beautiful crisp autumn morning, I'm thinking "stuff it, the housework can wait, we're going to the park". Life really is too short.

Pepper and Salt

So, this is it, my new ritual, am I hooked - perhaps, how will I know for sure - only time will tell.

Dunno when the best time will be to write things down, but here I sit with "Go Show" in one ear and baby music in the monitor in the other ear, enjoying my cup of tea while everything is quiet on the home front, well, about as quiet as it gets around here.

It's starting to feel a bit nippy around the edges in the mornings now. I think back to my pre-kid days when I had the luxury of staying in under the covers for 'just a few minutes more', but of course back in those days, I didn't have the luxury of morning family cuddles in bed. There's something quite special about all squishing in together and the laughter as little iceberg feet go up the back of your jammies. (Note to self: see if they make mummy sized all in one stretch n grows.)

I had a phone call early this morning, from a freight company, we've treated ourselves to a new dining suite. Exciting stuff, our old one is on it's last legs (excuse the pun). Oddly enough, it appears our chairs will be arriving separately from the table, and here was me thinking they would come as a set. But what would I know. Anyhow, that got me thinking about what other things couldn't function quite so well without the other. Like pepper and salt; knives and forks; left shoe and right shoe; clothes line and pegs; car and petrol; armpits and deodorant; bbqs and tongs; bikes and seats; stubbies and the 80's; air planes and sky; fish and chips; wine and cheese; tv's and remotes; parents and kids ... .

Ok, I've reached the bottom of my cup, so I guess that means times up. Time to go and rip into the day ahead.

Here we go...

I'd heard about blogging before, you know, with all the internet talk these days, of course I had, blog this, u-tube that, trade me something else, but I hadn't really read much into it - or actually read one to be completely honest, until a friend of mine text me this avo with her blog address.

Well G is a great writer (and not just because I felt humbled to be mentioned), but she is one of those captivating writers who uses big words, but not too big though and not too many - unlike me, with my mummy brain I have trouble writing the grocery shopping list at the best of times, however, I've been thinking since I read her one - 'hey, there's no reason I couldn't do that'. So surely once a day (or so) I could sit here in cyber space and do a bit of typing, there won't be much 'text talk' cause I'm a bit old for all that abreviated business!

So, what have I got to say that's worth writing down - I do always have a lot to say, hell, I've got two kids (three if you count the hubby) to gas bag about. A lot gets said in any one day in this house. Probably the most of it by Mr 3.

I'm burning the candle at both ends - up early with kids, although the man's pretty good at taking charge of Mr 3 first thing so I can feed Lil' Miss. My days are taken up by all that mummy come housewife stuff, some fun, some not so, then at night I morf into 'office lady' and try to make head or tail of our business accounts, and being that it's not my forte, it is quite the challenge.

So, like I said, here we go, I'll give it a try and see how I get on. Watch this space, who knows, I may even come up with the odd big word or two - but don't expect me to spell them right, I lost my spelling brain function during child birth.