Unreal TV

I don’t know about you, but I find a guilty pleasure in watching television shows like “Hoarders”. I mean, I get that there are serious psychological conditions that lends itself to collecting or hanging onto stuff. Lord knows I have trouble letting things go myself sometimes.  But it is in the watching of these almost hopeless homes that makes me feel somewhat better about my own housekeeping skills.

There is nothing like looking at a load of stuff stashed in someone else’s place that makes one feel that the piles parked around one’s own abode maybe aren’t so bad after all. Now I know my Beloved would have something to say about said piles, but since I don’t see him dashing about with a broom or duster, or dare I say it, even aware of where these items are kept, I don’t know that he’s in the best position to judge.

Anyhow, unlike certain other reality TV shows that make you feel pathetic by comparison (‘The Biggest Loser’ anyone?) Hoarders and the like have the ability to make one take a good hard look at your own surroundings, and see that they’re not too bad after all, as long as you have a clear path between you and the closest exit in the event of an emergency (and even then my Beloved would say we push the limit at times).

I always find myself inspired to get up and have a crack at that towering pile of something too, after I watch an episode or two. The kids hate it. Because the pile I am pursuing usually involves them.

Take the last lot of school holidays for instance, I declared that our New Year’s Resolution was to go through clothes, shoes, toys, books, whatever other clutter was clustered in the cupboards, and have a good old fashion Spring, I mean Summer, clean. Better late than never, right?

So I assigned both boychild and girlchild the task of starting in their bedroom closet, while I had a go elsewhere in the house. The instructions were quite specific- empty drawers, shelves, and hanging space, one at a time, and sort accordingly: keep or throw. Sounded simple enough in theory.  In practice you would’ve thought I asked them to climb Mount Everest! I swear, the preparation time was about equal, along with the potential failure.

So I sat, one bed at a time, and helped my precious progeny start sorting, with a new set of instructions to make it easier: Does it fit? Yes/No. If No, chuck it. If Yes, will you wear it? If No, chuck it.  Simple. (And here I really did start to swear, albeit under my breath so as not to set a bad example for the children.)

After about 6 years of sorting clothes (well it felt like it) we moved onto the shoes, then opened the toybox. Pandora’s Box more like it. Why is it that toys can lurk a long time under the lid, unplayed with, unthought of, unmissed. But as soon as it comes time to consider culling, it’s suddenly the Toy Of The Year and can’t possibly be gotten rid of?!

Anyway, it was during this time I realized that while my kids’ cupboards were looking good, we had somehow misplaced the bed. And you can forget the floor!  So at least on one occasion I had an extra body in my bed until theirs was uncovered again (luckily, or not, depends on how much sleep I needed) my Beloved often works at night a lot so there is a spot beside me.

On it went. At least the holidays were a full six weeks so we had time to make a dent in things. I have to confess though that even now there are little piles still awaiting donation or delivery elsewhere.  Yet while I was ultimately proud of my kids’ achievements in making their own rooms tidy, somehow, some of the stuff made its way into the Master Bedroom, so now MY room needs at least 6 solid weeks of sorting to make it habitable again.  But since we haven’t signed on to any episode of “Hoarders”, it can stay quietly hidden behind closed doors, as so much does in the lives of parents.

In the meantime I can settle in and see how someone else copes with the load, sitting smugly in my less-than-spotless place, and use it as a teachable moment for my children that this is where we’re headed without a few more hands on deck. Or until the next school holidays.

If all else fails, I’ll record a few episodes of “Wife Swap” or “World’s Strictest Parents”. 

That oughta do it.

 Jx

© 17 February 2014

Pins and Needles

Random fact: around 25% of women will suffer hirsutism at some stage of their life.

Geography, genetics, medications or certain medical conditions will up the ante.

I’m not sure what the percentage is for ladies who get told about it in a not-so-tactful way.

After almost 3 years of pain and nerve damage in my right leg and foot (from another apparently ‘random’ surgical mishap) I am still searching for a solution. I know I’ll never get permanent relief- the doctors have already given me that terrific news- best I can hope for is short-term benefits. I have tried physiotherapy, occupational therapy, hydrotherapy, and any number of alternative therapies in a bid to ease my pain and improve my movement. Some more successful than others.

A while ago I once again found myself flat out and face down on a treatment bench. My torturer, I mean therapist, today had already stretched and massaged my injured side within an inch of its life, and now decided to finish off with some ‘dry needling’. The very term also made my mouth go dry with apprehension of what agony may lay ahead.  Or should I say behind.

I’ll get to that, because here I should mention that I had to take my girlchild with me, being a pupil-free day at school, and no husband at home to have her (I had managed to offload my boychild on a playdate. Just as well as it turns out). She’d sat nice and quietly through the initial assessment and treatment thus far (as quietly as a 9 year old can anyhow) but when my physiotherapist brought out the needles she was all eyes, and all questions.

“Are you really going to stick those in mama?”

“How far do you have to stick them in?”

“Are you going to use all of them?”

“Does it hurt?”

“Will you make mama bleed?”

And so on.

So there I am laying there, half-bare-buttocked, twitching in direct relation to the depth of the needles (they were huge!), eyes closed, trying to remember to breathe, all the while pushing my face through the cut out in the bench with a lovely little sheen of perspiration breaking out; and what do I see when I open my eyes again?

My darling daughter’s face, about 2 inches away from mine, peering at me in concern:

“Are you ok mama? ‘cause you look like you’re really hurting!”

“I am hurting darling, but I’m ok,” I lie through my teeth and through that wicked little face-hole.

And yet Little Miss Chatterbox chatted on:

“Random question mama, but is it ever possible for ladies to grow a little moustache?”

How is that random?!  Her face is mere centimetres from mine, I can feel the beads of sweat on my upper lip, and yes I admit it, I am approaching that age where the females in our family start to sprout a few unwelcome hairs here & there (conversely, while the male members lose ‘em!)

So now am I not only in pain, feeling embarrassingly exposed, with enormous needles in my butt and back…I now am only too aware of hair somewhere!!

To both their credit, there was much denial - and no laughter- from either therapist or my daughter. And I have to say, as a distraction tool it worked wonders. Wasn’t thinking about the pain at all was I?!

Until the needles started coming out again, and my little girl gave a narrative about the various drops of blood appearing.  And how red and sore my butt looked.

Quick, let’s think about hair removal techniques again instead.

Oh and next time I’m going to make sure my appointment is on a school day!

 

Jx

© 2013-2014

Boys, Bubbles, and Butt-Cracks

If you can believe my Beloved, everything you ever needed to know about boys and friendship can be described in three simple terms: Snow globes, bubbles, and butt cracks. 

I guess I should explain.

Our boychild is on the cusp of, well something. Not entirely sure what yet, but he’s at the tail end of his primary school education and about to move into the high school years.  At the same time, as you’d imagine, he and all his mates are approaching puberty- that wonderful, wonderful time in a parent’s life.

Naturally, there are a lot of changes taking place. But it’s the out-of-body experiences that are causing the most concern.

As we all know, those who sat through sex education classes at school, or even more embarrassingly, “The Talk” our parents gave, boys and girls mature at different rates. In different ways.  At this stage of the game, boys seem to lag behind- physically and emotionally. Here’s the crux of the matter. Not even the boys in my boy’s group are moving at the same pace. Some just aren’t keeping up on the social side.

I won’t go into the gory details but this means a few, well, let’s just call them ‘moments’. And more than one conversation about how to deal with it all.

Since my Beloved has the same hardware as our manchild (if you know what I mean), I have been trying to encourage him to do the father-son thing, and talk to him not only about the physical stuff ahead, but also how to deal with mates. I suspect there is some Post Traumatic Stress about his own memories from a similar age (can’t say I blame him as my own experience wasn’t a walk in the park) so he’s been a little reluctant in approaching this task.  So imagine my utter amazement, not to mention amusement as I overheard their little chat the other night.

After a day at school with a number of ‘moments’, our son was feeling a bit low. I was in the process of settling the girlchild into bed when I wandered past my boy’s bedroom door to overhear the lad and his dad saying something about bubbles, and butt cracks.  “What the?” I muttered, only to be told to move along, it didn’t concern me.

On my return journey the topic seemed to have shifted to snow globes. Again the mystery was not to be revealed as I was again shooed away.

It wasn’t until my son came in the next morning for a chat of our own that he filled in the blanks.

Here’s how it goes.

At the start of every school year all the students are put into different classes, some end up with their friends, and some don’t. Our school’s Principal in particular likes to shake things up. As my Beloved explained, the kids are floating around like the flakes in a snow globe. Some settle pretty quickly, others take a bit more time, but there’s usually one that takes a lot longer to come down. Like our boy’s buddy, he’s taking a while to find his place this year. 

Not a bad analogy I thought. 

Now for the bubbles.  Our son has been with one group of guys since Kindergarten, they are great mates, get along really well for the most part and have stuck together. Like a little bubble. Over the years a few new friends have joined up with our lad, due to extra kids coming to the school, classroom placement, similar interests, whatever. There’s your second bubble.  OK so the two groups occasionally come together, but like two bubbles, never really join up - there’s a line down the middle. According to my Beloved, that’s our lad. A common denominator if you like. (There are actually a couple of the kids who would also make up that line, but for simplicity, and since he was only talking to our son at the time, he was in the middle.)  In imagining how the two bubbles look stuck together but not completely joined, and being typical males, they came up with the image of a butt, and the centre line was- you got it (do I really have to spell it out?)...

After the laughter, our son seemed to get it.

You see, in my Beloved’s opinion, as long as the kids realize that they can all still be friends, even if not totally stuck together all the time, things should settle down eventually, once that last flake finishes floating.

So there you have it. Everything you ever wanted to know about boys, bubbles, and butt cracks. And how to solve friendship problems in adolescent lads.

You can thank me later.

Once you get any unsavoury images out of your head.

Jx

© 2014

Sobbing in the Shower

I had a moment this morning. Well if I am being completely honest, and is there really a better place to do so than anonymously on the internet (unless you count Confession and that only applies if you are of that religious persuasion and feel the need to save your soul)…I had more than a moment.  I had a full-blown Good Cry. That term, I feel, should be trademarked if it hasn’t been already (and if it isn’t, and someone does, and makes a lot of money, I call dibs on commission for the idea), as there are few other terms that instantly bring to mind the precise scenario you try to define.

Don’t say you’ve never been there: lip quivering, nose tingling, eyes brimming, with the bonus chest and stomach pain reserved for those really special occasions. Whether you’ve been holding it in for a while, or it’s brought on by a sucker-punch of a situation, there is nothing so overwhelming yet cathartic at the same time. A Good Cry is best kept until you’ve reached the privacy of your car, your bedroom, or in my case the bathroom. 

Coincidentally (or not, perhaps) it was while I was standing under the shower, spraying cleanser onto the screen, that I felt the urge to weep.  Faced with the task of scrubbing soap scum that no one else in my family seems to see, I felt a somewhat inexplicable and unfamiliar tremble in my lower lip, burning in my eyes, and off I went.  (On the upside, it's a great place to let the tears flow, along with the runny nose that always seems to accompany A Good Cry, and while it's not a great look at the best of times, at least there's no one there to witness it, unless you've invited others to your Pity Party. I mean, with the mirror fogged, even you can't see how bad you look...)

Anyway, as I attacked the scaly screen I started thinking about all the other household jobs awaiting my attention, started plotting the best order to do them in, dreading the energy expenditure required, and being overcome with an enormous sense of failure on multiple levels.

Long story short, yet relevant to this tale: a Special Needs son (another term that sums it up but one that I’m not so fond of), an unexpected permanent disability of my own, a husband who works split-shifts/dog-watch/14-if-not-24/7 with no massive financial return to show for it, a young daughter who I desperately try to not get lost in all of the above- means our home is not a castle by any stretch of the imagination. Not a Hoarders’ Hovel either, but gives a good impression of one at times- I simply cannot keep up with the housework. Which means that I actually actively discourage visitors, and sleepovers are out of the question altogether. There lies the rub.

Kids are supposed to hang out, have playdates, and stay up all night after too much junk food and rubbish TV. Heck, I did all that and then some when I was young. Not my kids. Our 3 bedroom house does not lend itself to extra bodies, not when in the wisdom of the architect the bedrooms barely hold a bed, let alone extra bedding. With the aforementioned revolting shifts, my Beloved comes and goes, and makes coffee, at all hours of the night, so a kids’ camp in the living room is not doable either (allowing that they will eventually drop off to sleep at some stage).

Add to that my screaming lack of pride in our place, and the never ending load of laundry looking at me on the lounge, and I don’t feel able to offer invitations to other people, or their children.

Why precisely this all caved in on me in the shower this morning, I’m not sure. But the trigger was a photo of 7 smiling faces on facebook- showing all the other girls in my daughter’s class at a birthday party this weekend. Every other female except mine. I know they all play sport together, do various other events, and “face time” for hours on end.  They are a nice group of girls really, they all seem to get along in class, all happily accept the annual invitation to our Halloween Party, and begged my child to get some sort of ‘iProduct ‘ so they could include her (which she did, which they haven’t); and yet the photos keep coming of the rest of the class (of the female variety anyway) hanging out, without my girl.

And I know it’s because our lifestyle- or rather the circumstances of our life- means she cannot join the sporting teams, go on shopping trips, or concerts, or just hang out. There's always another appointment to attend, or not enough time, energy, or money at the end of the day.

So while I have to trust that we are doing the best we can raising our children to hopefully head into adulthood as community-minded, well-educated, decent mannered and socially aware human beings, it’s this in-between period that’s stressing me out.  If they are missing out.

Which brings me back to my scrubbing and sobbing simultaneously in the shower.

And now sees me sitting here scribbling with a sick feeling in my stomach, knowing I’m going to have to come up with some sort of explanation, or a big box of tissues, when my little girl comes home from school tomorrow knowing she was excluded again, and quite possibly needing A Good Cry of her own.

At least the shower's clean should she need it.

Jx

© 16 February 2014