Why Leaving The House Is Just Not Really Worth It

Leaving the house is not easy when you have children. The boys are that little bit older now, so while i no longer need to worry about packing a giant bag with everything but the kitchen sink, I am sorry to say that as Ryan and Harry gain more independence, it somehow has become a lot harder.

Today we needed groceries, not much, just a few things to go with dinner. I got myself ready to leave but I could only find one of my shoes.. I looked for its partner and found two other thongs, which didn’t go with the one on my foot or with each other. I figured it would turn up as I got the boys dressed. which was a mission in itself, Harry was already clothed and shoed so I pulled out an outfit for Ryan, then proceeded to chase him around the house for ten minutes because he didn’t want to wear red shorts. Finally i wrangled him into them and dear little Harry called out in his sweet angel voice.

“Mummy, I’ve done a wee. it’s all over everything.”

When Harry said everything, he meant it. pants, shirt, shoes and floor were drenched.  (I really do hate toilet training.)

I found Harry something new to wear and we had a big argument because he apparently (and i quote) “Loves to wear wee clothes to the shops.”

I just needed a quick trip to the bathroom myself and we’d be ready to roll. I was literally gone for a minute and a half.

“Hey Mum don’t come out here yet ok?” Harry called from the lounge room as he heard my footsteps approaching.

He had gotten a package of drinking straws out of the cupboard and scattered them everywhere.

A quick cleanup and we were finally ready to leave.

“I’m a big boy, I can walk I don’t need a pram.” Harry informed me.

Fair enough I thought, it’s only a five-minute walk. what can go wrong?

exactly one minute into the walk, Harry cried to be picked up.

“My legs don’t work! they are too tired! I’m only little!” he whined.

“I’m not picking either of you up, you’re both big boys.” I told them.

Then Ryan tripped over and grazed his knee, so I picked him up and carried him while Harry pulled on my shirt crying because it wasn’t fair. I felt a cool breeze on my chest and realised my left boob was hanging out because Harry had tugged on my shirt a little too hard. I mentally consoled myself with the fact that at least I was wearing a nice bra as I tucked it back in. while doing this i noticed that i was wearing odd shoes.

Fuck.

The shopping was smooth sailing as I loaded the boys into a trolley and grabbed what I needed as fast as possible, until we got to the checkout. Ryan climbed out of the trolley and I zoned out reading the trashy magazine headlines and when I turned I saw that he had helped himself to a packet of Tic Tacs. Since they were open and he was eating them I resigned myself to the fact that I’d have to buy them but I wasn’t about to let him know that.

“Ryan, that was naughty.” I scolded him.

“It’s ok Mum, they only cost about one dollar, don’t you have one dollar Mum?”

“No.” I answered as I begun to load my shopping up to be scanned.

“Excuse me.” I heard Ryan say and looked up to see him waving in the check out mans face.

“We have all this shopping and my Mum has no money, not even one dollar. What are we going to do?”

“Ryan shhhhh. Just get back in the trolley.”  I said and apologised and assured the man I could indeed pay for my groceries.

Embarrassed, I put my head down only to be confronted once again with my mismatched shoes.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

S*%t My Kids Say

My kids say loads of funny things. This is a compilation of some of their best.

 

 

Me – Right, so I have to pick up all this mess do I?

Ryan – Mum, look at my hands. now tell me, are they big?

Me – Well they were certainly big enough when it came to making the mess.

Ryan – My hands are tiny, yours are huge. people with tiny hands are good at making mess, big hands are for picking stuff up.

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Ryan (sings) – We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas.

Me – I love that song, where did you hear that ?

Ryan – I didn’t hear it anywhere I made it up myself.

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Harry – The cows have milk in their bums.

 

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Me- What shall we have for breakfast Ryan?

Ryan- Would you like to try my Dad’s nuts?

(There was a bag of pistachios on the counter…)

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Ryan- Mum, what would you like for Christmas?

Me- umm.

Ryan- Oh I’ve got a great idea. We could get you a rope so if anyone ever got stuck on the roof you could save them..

 

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Ryan – I have a sore finger.

Me- Ok let’s play doctors, oh dear that’s a very sore finger, here’s a bandaid and you’ll have to keep it clean and dry and not jump around, it’ll be better in three days.

Ryan – Thank you Doctor.

Me- Next patient please.

(Harry comes over)

Me- hello I’m Doctor Mum, what can I do for you today?

Harry- I’ll just have a coffee thanks.

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Harry – It’s too hot, i want to go to Botany Pool and shit in it.

Me – What?!?!?!

Harry – I want to go to Botany Pool with 3 boys and we will all shit in it.

Me – Harry! why are you saying that?

Harry – Because i want to shit in it.

Me – You want to shit in a pool??

Harry – NO! i just want to shit in it.

(I think he meant SIT in it??)

 

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(Changing Harry’s nappy.)

Me – One day you’ll be a big man, you will have your own house and your own little boys, you will be a dad.

Harry – Did you wash my balls?

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Ryan – Harry hit me.

Me – Harry did you hit Ryan

Harry- Yes.

Me – Say sorry to Ryan please.

Harry – Sorry bullshit.

Ryan – Mum, Harry said fuck.

Me – No, he didn’t but Harry you can’t say that, say sorry properly.

Ryan – Well he said bullshit and it’s the same.

Harry – This is bullshit.

 

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Ryan – Harry, do you like my butt?

Harry – no.

(Ryan bends over and sticks his bum in Harry’s face)

Ryan – How about now? do you like it now?

(Harry inspects Ryan’s butt closely,)

Harry – No.

 

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Me – So boys, what did you do at school today?

Ryan – I made a butterfly!

Harry – I did a fart.

 

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Me – Hey Ryan, how bout you be a big boy and put those things away?

Ryan – Or how bout you be a big boy and put them away and I will be a little boy?

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Ryan – Mum I’ve looked everywhere, I can’t find Mr Potato Head’s penis.

Me – Ryan, Mr Potato Head doesn’t have a penis.

(A few days later)

Ryan – Mum! I found his penis! I knew he came with one!

Me – That’s called a mustache…

 

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Me – Ryan is there a reason you keep kicking me?

Ryan – I’m not!

Me – What do you mean your not?

Ryan – I’m patting you with my leg!

 

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Ryan- Mum what are those? (points to my face)

Me- Eyebrows.

Ryan- Harry has some too.

Me – So do you, everyone has them.

Ryan- (crying) Don’t say that mum! I don’t want them! I do not have any!

Me- Look in the mirror

Ryan – Oh….. Yeah

 

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Me – Harry have you done a poo?

Harry – No.

Me – Are you sure?

Harry – I didn’t do a poo.

Me – Come here and let me check your nappy.

Harry – You can’t, you might get poo on your fingers.

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Me – Ryan did you fart?

Ryan – Yeah.

Me – That stinks.

Ryan – Yeah? well just don’t smell it then.

 

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Harry- I want my bottle.

Me- Ok. I’m driving, just wait till we get home.

Harry- I can’t find it, where’s my bottle.

Me- I don’t know, just wait.

Harry – Oh … (In a surprised voice) it was in my hand …

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Me – Harry, you need a haircut, would you like to get one today?

Harry – Yes.

Me- Should we see if Megan can cut it?

Harry – No, I want to go to the haircut shop.

Me – The barber?

Harry – What’s the barber?

Me- It’s a haircut shop, where a man cuts your hair.

Harry- Oh no I need a girl!!

 

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Walking along the street while the boys rode their bikes.

Me – Hurry up, let’s get home I need to pee.

Ryan – Just pull your pants down Mum, there’s some bushes. ( points into someone’s front lawn)

 

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Me – Ryan if you don’t pick up your toys I will throw them out.

Ryan – Can you get my hat out of the car on your way to the bin?

Tantrums, Tears and Torture

Imagine having your name called out as tribute for the Hunger Games, having your family fall to the ground crying, screaming your name in disbelief and horror. Having to hold back your own tears, knowing you need to try your best to walk forward, be strong and not look back because if you should happen to make eye contact with someone you care about, you just know you’ll lose your nerve.

That’s how I feel every Thursday and Friday when Harry and Ryan go to pre school. If you have children who go to pre school you will know what I am talking about. My kids are the ones who scream at the gate, head butt the classroom doors and try to climb the fence. I send them somewhere twice a week where they are fully supervised by qualified staff, who are kind and understanding, to play with lovely children their own ages and do fun activities, many of which I don’t have the time or patience to do with the boys at home, but I pay for it dearly.

For some strange reason they would rather stay at home with me, listening to me yell at them to pick up their toys or to stop wrestling each other, play with the same toys they play with day in and day out, or watch Wreck it Ralph for the 645^th time. They remain convinced that come school days, my routine is going to change, i’m going to do something super fun and they’re going to miss out. (well actually they’re not wrong, I anxiously await school days, so I can shop in peace, lunch with friends without ending up covered in spilled juice or just have a long shower without little people watching and asking why my bum is so big.)

They will grow out of it, people tell me. Well, yeah I really hope they do because they ain’t going to be too popular at big school if they keep it up, but sadly I am not convinced it is a phase. Ryan has been doing the “Hunger games routine” for two years now and each week he just seems to get better at it and become more dramatic.

“Please Mummy! Don’t leave us”

“Don’t you love us any more?”

“How can you do this to me? I’m your son!”

“You’re ruining my life!”

He wraps his hands around whatever i’m wearing and drops to the floor crying as soon as he realises it’s time for me to leave. I unclench his little fists as he kicks at my shins, at this point a teacher usually comes over to lend a hand, and by lend a hand I mean lift my child off the ground as he is kicking and screaming, red faced and pleading with me not to go, as I make a mad dash for the gate with my bottom lip trembling, trying to be brave and hoping he calms down before i’m out of ear shot so I don’t have to feel too guilty for the rest of the day, but alas, just as I reach the gate is usually the time he shows up next to me having escaped his teachers clutches and mad a run for it.

“You only gave me three kisses” he cries at me. As the teacher catches up and wrangles my screaming child off me.

I leave the school a shell of my self, with Ryan, and sometimes Harry if he’s in the mood. Screeching at the gate and rattling the rails like tiny prisoners who’ve been sentenced to be tortured instead of kids, sent to play and learn.

On pick up, the boys are always full of smiles and animated stories about how wonderful their day was and I say “GREAT! Maybe tomorrow you wont cry?”

“Oh no” Ryan always answers. “we love to cry on school days.”

Me, Myself and Mummy

Yesterday Ryan asked for an ice block.

“No” I told him. “Mum’s just put dinner on”

“Who’s Mum” he asked. “Where is she?”

“I’m your Mum, silly” I answered laughing.

“Well maybe you should stop saying it like that.” He told me, and walked away.

I sat stunned, had my grammar just been corrected by a three year old?
It made me stop and think, and I realised how often I refer to my self in the third person when speaking to the boys.

“Mummy will get upset if you hurt Your brother”

“Mummy loves you.”

“Tell Mummy what you did at school today”

“Stop driving Mummy crazy”

“Mummy can’t concentrate when you’re shouting”

The list goes on.

could my children’s behavioural issues be because they think the only person they’ll offend with their actions is some imaginary friend I have who shares my name?

For the next week I will do my best to use proper English and refer to myself appropriately, and see whether or not it makes a difference.
I suspect however that the truth is just that I’m raising two very clever little smart Alec’s

Sit Down and Shutup

Ryan won’t shut up; he turns 4 in December and has reached the age where all he wants to do is talk. All the time.

Inspirational memes on Facebook telling us to listen to our children because one day they won’t be so quick to tell us all their problems and all that jazz are reminding me to be interested and enthusiastic, but it’s not easy, the kid can talk some serious shit.

He tells me about buses and trains, how many times he has gone to the toilet, and what his experience smelled and looked like, he tells me about anything and everything, and if I’m not giving him my full attention he knows about it and tells me off.

“Listen to me mum, this is very important, look at me. Now yesterday, I ate dinner at the table, the table is brown, it’s wooden mum. You know wood? Yeah and it’s a table. I like tables. Do you like tables? Harry, do you like tables? Harry, are you listening to me? Mum, don’t walk away. Now this is very important. The table is where we draw sometimes. One I day I drew on the table and you’re not allowed to draw on the table and mum said go to the naughty corner, and then we ate breakfast at the table in the morning. Dad has a table at his house, so does Nana.”

I smile and I nod and “Oooh” and “Aah” at appropriate moments, but sometimes it takes everything in me not to just say “shut the f**k up” this mother is feeling terribly guilty, but my god, It never stops… actually sometimes it does stop. When he’s climbing and jumping Ryan loves to climb and jump, and his favourite thing to climb and jump on, is me. If I had a dollar for the amount of elbows to the boobs and knees to the face I have copped in the past few weeks I would probably have enough money to go out and buy a trampoline, which actually isn’t such a bad idea.

“I’m not a tree! Get off me!” I will cry in frustration.

Harry will squeal with glee, “Mum, you are hahaha you are a tree!” and join in the climbing. I miss my personal space so much sometimes I could weep.

I just keep reminding myself that kids have phases and like all the others, sooner or later this one will pass, until then I might have to invest in some body armour and ear plugs.

 

 

Sons and Selfies

Self-image is important, we all aspire to come across to people in a certain way and for people to like us, in this technological age we live in it’s easy with social media to become whoever we want to be.

What surprises me is how easily my boys are catching on, and that even though they are still practically babies, and will happily go out wearing their underwear as hats if I’d allow it, they’re starting to develop their own little identities and ways they want the world to view them.

Especially Ryan.

Recently I was getting ready to go out, I was wearing a new dress and had makeup on and my hair done. Ryan sat watching me mesmerised.

“Mummy! You look beautiful!” he exclaimed.

“Can you please wear that and take me to the shop?”

It wasn’t enough for him that I looked decent for a change and didn’t have food in my hair or snot on my shirt or one of the other tell-tale stains of motherhood. He wanted to be seen with me. To proudly show off his “Beautiful mum.” He can be a charmer when he wants to be.

He has also developed a disturbing obsession with taking “Selfies” which is odd because he doesn’t have a Facebook and I’m not much of a “Selfie-tron” so I’m not sure how he even knows about them, but sure enough ill often pick up my iPhone and find the photo album filled with Ryan pulling sad faces, happy faces, angry faces and much to my chagrin, a few duck faces.

Just last week I caught him standing in front or the bathroom mirror, he didn’t know I was watching and was having his very own little Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver moment. You know the scene.

“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?”

It was just like it, except he was pulling a mean face and saying “Bitch… you’re a bitch… Yeah ya bitch…”

I quietly backed away and tried not to laugh too loudly at the bizarre scene I’d witnessed. He had no idea what he was saying but obviously thought it was a word that fit in nicely with his little tough guy in the mirror routine.

I love the fact that my little babies are becoming little boys and establishing their personalities, and I will be sincerely trying to ensure that Ryan will not turn out to be a big bully who calls people bitches.

The Centre of Spanking and Unusual Punishment

I’ve blogged before about the difficulties I have disciplining my boys, apart from the fact that they don’t listen to me, I’m just not very good at it. I don’t have what it takes to instill the level of fear necessary to get my kids to behave. So a few weeks ago during a moment of pure desperation, I invented someone who could.

Call it cruel if you must, I prefer to label it creative parenting and so far it works a treat. Every time Ryan and Harry misbehave I tell them a story about
Sargent Winter’s Centre of Spanking and Unusual Punishment. It’s a place you take naughty children, where they learn to be good, by being put in the “Big Room of Naughty Corners, or getting shouted at by Sargent Winter himself, the really bad kids get put on the conveyor belt and get put through the Spanking Machine.
Ryan and Harry are terrified of the Sargent and his house of horrors but also can’t get enough of it.
” Mum, Harry pushed me, should we take him to Sargent Winters Centre for Spanking?” Ryan will ask joyously.
I know it won’t be long before they realise there’s no such person as Sargent winter and that the Centre of Spanking and Unusual Punishment doesn’t exist. To prolong it a little I pointed to a poster for an energy drink advertisement with Dolph Lundgren dressed as an angry-looking soldier.
“That’s him” I tell them and they look at him in reverence.
“He looks angry” Harry said.
I agree and hope my ruse lasts a little while longer.
I am slightly concerned that Harry pronounces it the “Centre of Wanking” and really hope he doesn’t tell people his mothers taking him there to be punished.

Lyin’ Ryan

 

My son Ryan, (3 ½) has been lying to me, usually he lies to get out of doing things that he doesn’t want to, like eating his vegetables or picking up his toys, but occasionally he will lie when he is bored.

I suppose this is pretty normal for his age, the strange part is what he lies about.

Pooing.

That’s right, going to the toilet when he doesn’t actually need to go, the clever little bugger has realised that even if I don’t think he needs to go, I am never going to deny him the toilet because if I’m wrong, I’m going to be the one cleaning that shit up. Literally.

The first time it happened I had taken him to the movies to see the old Disney Peter Pan film. Half way through he whispered to me, “Mum, I need to go to the toilet.”

So we got up and tiptoed out to the restrooms. After ten minutes of standing outside the stall door I began to get frustrated.

“Ryan, are you finished yet?”

“five more minutes I think” he answered, which was hilarious in itself because he has a very poor concept of time, everything that happened in the past, be it an hour or six months ago, he will say happened yesterday.

“Come on Ryan, let’s just get back to the movie” I said, and we headed back in.

Not ten minutes later he told me he needed to “go” again.  So off we went. After another really long wait outside the door I asked him. “Ryan, do you actually need to go?”

“Um I think so… maybe” he answered.

“Ryan, do you like this movie? Or are you a bit bored?”

“I’m a bit bored, can we go?”

We left. I thought it was cute, he obviously thought I had wanted to see Peter Pan and didn’t have the heart to tell me he wasn’t enjoying it. Sort of weird though that he disliked it to the extent that he would rather sit on a public toilet pretending to crap rather than watch it.

The cuteness stopped when the faux poos began to become a habit, they happen when we are waiting for food to arrive if we’re eating out, always at bed time and my personal favourite, half way through grocery shopping, this happened recently and sensing a fib I told him to hold it in because we were nearly done.

“Please don’t make me hold it mum” he shouted…. Really loudly.

“It’s coming out! What If it falls on the shop floor?”

Everyone stared at us.

I dumped the trolley picked Harry up, grabbed Ryan’s hand and ran for the public toilets.

“Disgusting.” Ryan said as I ushered him in.

“It stinks in here, I think someone’s pooed” I rolled my eyes.

“What do you expect? Isn’t that what you’re here to do?” I asked feeling exasperated.

“Guess what mum? I don’t think I need to go anymore.” He told me.

Surprise, surprise.

Hurricane Harry

Ryan has always been my little maniac. Climbing, jumping, shouting and roughhousing. Harry has definitely been the more placid one. Mind you when they are together it’s always chaos, but today when they came home from their dad’s house, Ryan asked if he could go and spend a little more time with him, so it ended up just being Harry and I for the day.

It has been a while since I’ve had one on one time with Harry and to be honest I was very much looking forward to it. We snuggled up on the lounge and watched The Simpsons, but then I made a big mistake and dozed off for a few minutes.

“Look Mummy, I’m brushing my teeth.” I heard Harry say. I opened my eyes and found him proudly scrubbing away at his mouth with my toothbrush and the tube of toothpaste in his hand.

“Good boy, but you should do it in the bathroom in case you make a mess.” I told him.

I stood and ushered him back toward the bathroom and that’s when I noticed a trail of toothpaste across the floor leading from the bathroom, through the kitchen and into the lounge room.

“Oh no!” I cried.

“I didn’t do it.” Harry answered nonchalantly, still holding the toothpaste tube in his hand.

I cleaned up and we settled back in to our Simpsons marathon, then Harry wandered into one of the bedrooms, a few minutes later he came running out holding a dirty nappy he had decided to try and change himself.

“Hey look at all this poo!” he cried with glee. “There’s poo all over my bum. You can’t catch me.” He called as he zoomed past me, hurling the poop filled nappy to the floor as he went.

“Just please don’t sit down on anything.” I called to him as I chased him and his crappy butt through the house with the wet wipes in hand.

Needless to say, as soon as I said that, he sat on something.

So I cleaned the poo and we went for a walk to get some groceries. We arrived back home and I went to the bathroom. When I came out I found Harry had gotten his hands on an almost full bottle of cordial and opened it, pouring the whole thing out on the lounge room floor, that was bad, what was worse was that he decided to get a blanket and pillow and try and hide the evidence by placing them directly on top of the spill, the sticky liquid that he hadn’t managed to cover, he chose to use as a kind of slip and slide. He danced and fell and slid around in it, as I looked on in horror at the mess that had taken two minutes to create but would take me half an hour to clean. I wiped and mopped and sprayed eucalyptus to make sure nothing sticky was left behind.

“I will help you Mummy” Harry told me. And before I could stop him, picked up the spray bottle and shot me in the eye with the eucalyptus.

I miss my innocent sweet little cuddly baby.

My Little Sons of Anarchy

My boys spent this weekend with their dad, and I missed them dreadfully.I missed their cuddles and their little voices and the sounds of them playing. The house felt empty and quiet. Instead of enjoying the solitude and peace that I constantly crave when I have them with me, I found myself, to be honest, feeling quite bored.

Then they arrived home.

We hugged and talked for the first fifteen minutes or so, and I told Harry I had gotten him the 101 Dalmatians movie to watch, he had seen the animated movie the week before and enjoyed it, so I got the live action version.

Ryan gets frightened really easily in movies but Harry for some reason thoroughly enjoys a good scare and always loves the baddies. He is a big fan of The Big Bad Wolf, Two Face from Batman and now thanks to 101 Dalmatians, Cruella De Vil.

Cruella in the animated film looks like a zombified version of Holly Golightly, very thin, wears an elegant long black dress and massive fur coat and smokes using a cigarette holder, her skin has a horrible blue tinge to it and kind of looks as if it’s melting right off her face, she says “Darrrling” a lot and Harry thinks she is amazing. He was not as impressed with the Glenn Close version of Cruella in the movie. So instead we watched a YouTube clip of the “Cruella” song about twenty six times in a row.

I left the boys playing alone for a few minutes only to come back and find they had overturned every chair at the dining table and all the stools from the breakfast bar, then had lost interest and run off to see what else they could destroy. Instead of shouting I got onto my knees so I was at their level and gently explained that they were not to play with the furniture and asked them to come and help straighten up, while I was kneeling, Harry took the opportunity to jump onto my back and instruct me to “ride like the wind” and Ryan climbed onto Harry’s back and nearly broke mine in the process. Once I extracted them I went about picking up the chairs then went in to the lounge room to find Ryan in there busying himself with a roll of toilet paper which he was artistically unravelling all over the room. I sorted that out and realised harry had helped himself to the honey from the fridge and had somehow gotten the lid off and was drinking it. I rectified that situation and found a game to distract him with, then turned and realised Ryan was now drinking the honey.

We had a pleasant dinner and afterwards I sat down to relax and was treated to Ryan pulling his pants down, bending over and asking me what I thought of his bottom? I explained that I was quite unimpressed and went to pull up his pants but harry already had his down and was ripping at his nappy, keen to follow his brother, the exhibitionist’s example. I sighed and watched them both run pantless and squealing around the house and found myself thinking that next fortnight when they are back at their Daddy’s cannot come quick enough.

Cruella De Vil (Photo credit: CamEvans)