Motherhood on the world wide web

I've been googling a bit recently. I've offered to make a friends wedding cake in February, I've possibly bitten off more than I can chew, but in the back of my mind is that great kiwi saying "she'll be right mate". I've googled so many wedding cakes for inspiration that I'm almost set on what I can and can't achieve, and luckily for me, the bride to be in question is about as far from bridezilla as you could get, so if the big day comes and I rock on up with a jam roll from the supermarket, she'll probably just hand me a beer and say - "ah well, you tried".

To get away from my new found obsession for googling wedding cakes, I decided to google poems about motherhood instead with the intention of posting one on my blog - hey why not? There were loads of them as you could well imagine, and after much deliberation, I settled on this wee funny about being a mum (well, mom actually)...



You Know Your a Mom When...

1. You count the sprinkles on each kid's cupcake to make sure they're equal.

2. You find yourself cutting your husbands' sandwiches into cute shapes.

3. You can't bear to give away baby clothes - it's so final.

4. You hear your mother's voice coming out of your mouth when you say,
"NOT in your good clothes!"

5. You stop criticizing the way your mother raised you.

6. You hire a sitter because you haven't been out with your husband in ages, then spend half the night checking on the kids.

7. You say at least once a day, "I'm not cut out for this job", but you know you wouldn't trade it for anything

Dear Blog

18th of May, surely not, surely I've written in you since then. Double check. Nope, 18th of May it was. How slack is that, I started off with a hiss and a roar, but now, like my washing pile, you've been left neglected as another hour, day, week flutters by.

I do apologise for not popping in sooner, I hope you've not suffered from boredom during my absence. I certainly haven't been bored. Tired, but not bored.

I have been woken from slumber untold times the last week or two as Lil' Miss has been either teething, growth spurting or sick. She even managed to wake her big bro one night with her 2am antics. She's not much of a crier, more of a 'hey I'm awake and I'd love some company, can you hear me... huh hmm, hello..." kind of a gal. Last night was the best sleep I've had for quite some time. 10pm right through until 3.45am - woop woop! Lucky for everyone else in the family because Mummy - sleep = grumpy monster, and although aside from the fact that I'm not a morning person, the man in particular has learnt to be extra tipey toey around his sleep deprived Mrs.

So Blog, hopefully from that small summary you'll see why I've not been the ideal blogger of late. I hope you'll forgive me and not do funny things with my fonts or other shenanigans in order to teach me a lesson for not being as devoted to you as I intended.

Even though this has been short and sweet, I promise I will write again soon, perhaps a little more next time.

Yours

Jo

kiss kiss hug hug

Payment in the form of?

I enjoyed some lovely time out yesterday in the form of a haircut. One whole hour of me time and being pampered was just the icing on the cake.

Now, as much as I want to have alone time, and put motherhood behind me for a short while, there are always those kiddie remnants left behind in my handbag reminding me that there are two mini me's at home who although not with me, are obviously going to be in my thoughts no matter how hard I try.

So, I'd had my hour long 'make over' and trotted on up to the counter feeling, well, pretty shit hot really, it's been at least six months since I even set foot in the hair salon, so needless to say I was feeling like a whole new woman.

Time to pay. I love it how when you go to settle your bill at an establishment, they are in the habit of asking you 'and how would you like to pay for that'? It's pretty obvious that the answer to the question is going to be eftpos, cash or gift voucher. But I wonder what would happen if I requested paying by way of handbag contents? Saturday's handbag was light, I'd manged to take out the nappy, wipes, drink bottle and spare size 3 undies before I left the house, however, with every good handbag comes zip compartments, and very early on in my career as a mother, I obtained the skill of shoving random objects into said compartments. Saturdays handbag also contained the following...

1 x used black drinking straw
1 x one legged army man
1 x drink bottle top
1 x iceblock stick
1 x old style 50c piece
1.5 x (very) soft cracker biscuits
1 x tissue (possibly used)
2 x previous weeks grocery lists
1 x lolly wrapper (guilty)
1 x little pink sock
1 x army man's machine gun

No, probably not much in there worth trying to pay with, but every random object in my handbag comes from a special moment in time, spent with special little people, and that's why, no matter where I am, they'll always be along for the ride.

Snuggles

As the weather cools down, and the nights get that little bit longer, it's starting to feel just that little bit more snuggly. The boy is over snuggling now that he's three, except on the odd occasion that he might hurt himself, or feel unwell. And lil' miss isn't quite at the snuggly stage yet, she's big enough to wrap your arms around but of course at five months, hasn't quite caught onto the concept of snuggling for the sake of snuggling.

I do manage to get the odd sneaky snuggle in with the boy in the form of when he's all wrapped up in a towel after a shower - kind of cheating in the snuggle stakes, but I'll take what I can get. There's something special about a kid in a towel all warm and smelling nice rather than freezing cold because they've been playing in the puddles at 5pm or smelly because they've been playing in the mud - both activities totally irresistible to three year old boys.

Winter is great. Most people prefer summer, but in all honesty, I border on being a winter girl myself. Not that I'm a ski bunny or anything close, in fact, far from it, but I quite enjoy the dark nights, heater on, winter food - especially soup, kids in fleecy jammies, the adrenaline of the speed in which one has to dry oneself upon stepping out of the shower in order not to have to leap straight back in to warm up.

I've always enjoyed a nice hot long shower, another reason why winter is the perfect time of year for me. Being a mother now too, only adds to the niceness of the 'me-time' in the 900 x 900 square box of a shower. I've got clever too. I used to be a morning shower gal but with morning showers, the man is usually at work by shower time, and so with it usually comes "muuuuuuuuuuuum", and it's just not the same having the door opened mid shampoo rinse to disassemble a toy harbouring another toy jambed inside. So now, needless to say, I've switched to evening bathing. In peace and quite. It's quite a luxury, as only a mother would know. And just like snuggles with a three year old, I kind of cheat at showers too, you see, I am able to stay in just that bit longer at night, as by the time his head hits the pillow, the man is fast asleep, oblivious to the fact that water conservation is not my forte. (Sorry Green party, but we all have our once vice).

Colour Schemes, Friends and Mothers

Who would have thought that choosing the colour scheme for a house was so complicated. Enthusiastically, yesterday I headed down to the decorating shop to familiarise myself with their wallpaper samples, samples which I thought would be fairly simple to sort through, boy how wrong I was. There was a good 30 books I'd guess without counting, and after about a half hour of browsing while lil' miss slept and the boy entertained his Grandma at home with his antics, I returned home with a fried brain.

Now, I had a rough idea of what it was we were after, but when you combine, carpet, wallpaper, paint and then sub label them into categories of texture, colour, style & such like, it all becomes about as blurry as a shower door without the fan going.

So this morning, not unlike a contestant from 'Who wants to be a millionaire' we decided to call a friend for help. A friend in the form of a fellow mother, and interior designer. (Hi T if you're reading this!) Tonight I sit here happily with the sample books spread out on the living room floor, spread out much differently than last night, because tonight they're open to the most perfect colours for us. The colours of our new house. Nothing too plain, nothing too fancy, but the odd bit of wow factor thrown in to mix it up a bit. Wow factor that I'm now 100% sure will work just from having that little bit of input from someone who knows what they're talking about.

I love being a mum. Not just the cliche part about it being the most rewarding job in the world (it is, it's great, but of course has its moments like every other job), but something that's really great about being a mum is the network of friends you make, and the array of careers we have evolved from. What other form of employ (can you call it that if you're not on the payroll?) can you 'work' with so many interesting people, all with knowledge on different topics?

So while we all have been through (or are going through) nappy brain, sleep deprivation, tanties and teething, we can all enjoy proudly our pre-mummy days too, and look forward to returning to the workforce far more enriched than when we left it to endure motherhood.

Happy Mothers Day to all my gorgeous friends -
that includes you mum.

Sugar and Spice

I couldn't find the chocolate. Disaster. How would we survive our nightly cuppa without snapping a piece or two off the king sized bock? Only since being pregnant and having lil' miss have I acquired more of a fondness for the sweet treat. All of my life I've been more of an ETA Ripples kind of a gal. But now it seems sugar and spice and all things nice have become me.

Now, I knew I was the one who put it to rest last night (like everything else at our house hehehe), but where the hell had it gone? I searched high and low, nope, not in the pantry, not in the fridge, checked the pantry again, nope definitely not in there. Right-o time for the fridge to surrender it. I knew it must be in there somewhere looking out laughing, waving at me "yoohoo, here I am" then hiding itself back behind the marge. On further inspection, and much removal of fridge content, there it was, longways down a gap in the shelf which up until now I hadn't even noticed existed. Possibly a sign from the Gods that we didn't need sweets tonight, a sign I was determined to ignore.

Good things came of not being able to find the chocolate though, every cloud has a silver lining and the silver lining here being that the fridge got the decluttering it's been deserving for quite some time now. It was getting to the stage that if it was left for much longer, there would have been that mystery package of 'hmmm, wonder what that used to be' lurking in the back.

So that's one thing I can cross off my list of things to do before the weekend. But no doubt, by breakfast time tomorrow, I will have added something else to the bottom of the list.

Sigh. Crinkle, Snap, mmmmmmmmmm chocolate.

Rock Chick

We did it. We got to the concert on time!

Several weeks of stressing amounted to nothing as two children were fed, bathed and off to bed like perfect little examples.

I had pre-prettied myself and all that was left to do was to change out of my mummy top and into my rock chick top. Brother in law in doorway jingling keys, sister in law reassuring me all would be fine, the man tapping his feet already in anticipation, and me, well, I was in a flap trying to work out a solution to every senario that may (or may not as it turned out) play out while we were gone.

So we were off, and on time too. Excitement set in as we crossed the harbour bridge, the realisation that not only were the man and I having a long time awaited night out without kids, but we were also off to see our favourites the Foo Fighters. And we weren't disappointed. The Vector Arena was jam packed with rock fans, a good percentage of them of our vintage. The band played for a good two hours with hilarious comedic interludes, and get this, part way through, a whole stage dropped down from the rooftop, instruments and all, talk about wow factor, the band then proceeded to play a set right there in the middle of the stadium - great for those of us down the far end, but not so great for those general admission folk up the front who'd queued for hours prior to get their prime spots, not to despair though, as eventually the band did make their way back to the original stage.

So all in all a fantastic night, and like our recent trip to Queenstown, I could rave on about it for ever. Next time they come, hopefully the boy will be old enough to take along. Through no fault of his own he is the worlds youngest Foo Fan, and I will speak for him when I say that his parents are very cool to have attended the worlds best rock concert!

Photo Enthusiast

I've recently joined the VIP club at the local photo processing place. Now this is great for me because I get photos developed really cheap, but I have to wonder, how often does one have to be at a shop before they are considered a VIP? I hope they don't see me as one of those annoying customers which all the staff mumble - oh no, here she comes again to get her three prints done urgently and not pick them up until tomorrow. No, I don't think so, I've actually spent my fair share of dosh recently getting prints done, and our local photo lab guy understands my enthusiasm completely, because apart from being a photographer (albeit slightly, no, 100% more professional than me), he is also a dad with two young children for subjects.

They're offering a new service of having photos screenprinted on to canvas. I've seen it before in a magazine, but yesterday I had a look at one of the real things, and now I'm all inspired to go out and take some arty snapshots to hang up in this manner in our new house, the personal touch. I'm easily swayed away from my rather expensive taste in art I saw at The Mount a few weeks ago. All the paintings I like are well over the $1000 mark. Sigh.

I guess I could take the camera with me to Auckland today, yes, we're off again. Right jet setters at the moment. As a mum, I tend to pop the camera in the bag no matter where we go, just on the off chance that a cute shot may arise, and I did get a couple of good ones at the sister in laws last time we were there, a really nice one of her holding lil' miss, including a fresh baby badge atop her lovely handwash only jumper. Hehehe, ah, handwash only, those were the days.

Ok, now sitting here obviously isn't getting the bag packed. So, off I go down to the haystack that is our washing pile, to find those ever asked for black socks which I always remember to pack, and yet am always quizzed on whether or not I remembered them!

Postcards from Queenstown

Ever been for a holiday in a painting? I have, Queenstown in Autumn. One word can sum up my opinion on the place and that's simply - wow.

Beautiful autumn trees jutting out from the mountains waiting for their first dusting of snow, in auburn, gold & crimson, quite possibly the most beautiful trees I've ever seen.

We set off to Auckland on Friday with 'one more sleep' up our sleeve, a very well behaved boy in the back didn't even kick the back of my seat, not even once, ah the power of the bribe.

Saturday morning we headed off to the airplane port as the boy likes to call it, not having to rush or stress too much as my sister in law who works for the airline managed to pre-book seats for us, so all we had to do was check our bags in. All of our bags, and the stroller.

To try and make life easier, in my wisdom I decided to go with the hands free option of putting lil' miss in the front pack, this turned out not to be the best idea, in a combined effort between her domes hidden underneath layers of clothing, and my bracelet that only comes off with the help of a little bit of butter, we managed to set off the security beeper. Needless to say on the return flight, the front pack was checked through with the luggage.

On arrival we were spoilt with a gorgeous crisp midday view of the remarkables. I can see why they call them that. Rental van arranged and determined to only make one trip, the men managed to squeeze 6 adults, 2 kids in car seats, 8 bags, one hired port-a-cot, and one stroller into said van. If we had an accident, even me sitting in the centre middle, unable to reach my seat belt, and a v line to the front windscreen, wouldn't have fallen out, we were packed in like sardines.

Sightseeing was great, picture postcard perfect, the Crown range via Arrowtown offered another fantastic view, and Wanaka, although cold was a wonderful place to have our picnic lunch.

We shopped, tried the local wines, cheeses & fudge, we explored the toy and transport museum, lunched at the wharf, rode the gondolas, the man even took the boy on the luge, thrice, much to my over protective despair (dork).

Queenstown was a hidden treasure for me, I can't believe it has taken 30 years for me to discover it. It won't take another 30 for me to go back that's for sure.

I could write forever about our adventure, but rather than babble on about it, I've just included some photos of the scenery, after all as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.