Hi again

Despite assurances from K a couple of weeks ago that she was still here, the truth of this seems in doubt. I know she is still somewhere, but I'm not so sure about here. But that's cool. As Baby keeps reminding me, we're living in dark times, give a co-blogger a break!

In some ways it has felt like dark times. First there was the fear that someone I knew and loved would get sick with the dreaded CV. Then there were the more general fears about a society full of people out of work and suffering. Then there was the anxiety of working from home with children bothering me. And while the first of those fears has greatly lessened, the second adequately pushed under a rug, and third somewhat made peace with, technically I guess you could say I've been feeling better about things.

Due to a number of very first world problems like too much work, a bathroom renovation and three healthy children that are essentially in my care constantly now, I feel busier now more than ever and what with having to be in the same physical space all the time with the same people my brain feels jammed packed. At first when I'd hear people on the radio talking about all the Netflix they could catch up on and projects they could undertake my blood would boil. Fuck you and your Netflix. But I have realised, despite having no extra time for Netflix or personal projects, I do have time for small moments and they are pretty nice.

Without the commute to work I get home from work at 5PM. That is, I walk from my bedroom, where I work, to the family room where everyone else is and I'm done for the day. And then I have time to hang out with my darlings AND cook a nice dinner. Yesterday morning I went for an early walk with Little Bean before I had to start work. Usually there's no time for stuff like that. I can't tell you what a drain on my normal mornings making school lunches is. I love not making them in the morning. I love it. And Baby talks to me all the time about funny stuff. That kid is going to be ten in a month - if you can believe that - and he basically has a teenager's lack of desire to talk too his parents already. But now that he has no one to talk to anymore I'm really reaping the benefits. So I'm not going to hate people for watching lots of Netflix anymore.

Eat cheese

HAHA. Perv! Yesterday's post made me wonder if K really ate a lot of cheese on Tuesday night to have those weird dreams. And what kind of cheese it was. It also made me think about how Baby recently asked me what I wrote about on Miss Soft Crab. Or rather I asked him what he thought I wrote about. He said, "Your kids, your life...?" Yeah, I told him. And other stuff too. Things I ate or did. "Or thought about?" He asked. Like he somehow knew. Or jumped to the obvious conclusion. Yeah, I told him. All sorts of things. "Eating cheese?" He asked. He thinks it's funny to interject "Eat cheese!" all the time, so when he asked it was a joke. But I told him, yep! Quite a bit.  "Really?!" he asked. "Really!?" He thought he was being silly. And I guess he thought no one would write about eating cheese. Eat cheese. It's more than a hilarious joke to a 6-year-old. It's a way of life really.

The hell mouth

Before we had kids LB would often spend a week or two of the summer in Sydney. Sometimes working up there, sometimes just chilling with his fam l, a holiday for which I didn't want to use my annual leave. But it was good. I'd just live my life in Melbourne and watch a few seasons of Buffy. God I miss that luxury. 

During one such period I was at my uncle's place for some family gathering when my then 10-year-old cousin convinced me and Russeth and Chickpea to go across the road to a race track that had carnival rides set up at Christmas time for office parties and would give free passes to neighbouring residents to appease their response to the constant noise. By the time she dragged us along my lil' cuz had spent so much time there she bee-lined straight for her favourite ride, a sickening-looking one that had small capsules that spun around while sitting atop a circle that also spun around and was possibly in another circle spinning around. I can't remember the details but there was a fuckload of spinning and seconds after it began I just wished it would end. It seemed to last for ever, though it could only have been minutes. The whole time Russeth was sitting beside me making these kind of heaving noises which were a self soothing technique for him but really made my experience much worse. And the whole time, the minutes that felt like hours, I just kept wondering if somehow all that Buffy I'd been watching had somehow brought the hell mouth to Moonee Ponds and if that ride had sent me through that hellmouth into a hell dimension. And when I say that's what I thought I don't mean I was thinking of Buffy as a metaphor I mean I really started to wonder if a Buffy was real and I was in hell. That ride was awful and it was messing with my mind. 

I was reminded of it the other day when we went to Adventure Park and Baby went by himself on a ride that went fast around in circles and high in the air. Basically the ride pictured above. I could see his cute little face, teeth clenched, eyes shut tight. I could really feel his terror and sickness and I asked myself why hadn't I warned him properly. Why did I let him do it. When the ride finished he came off and told me he'd been terrified but by he end he'd loved it. By the end of the day he'd been on that ride ten times at least and I know that he hadn't been in the hellmouth. He loved it. 

I don't even like swinging on a park swing, I find it mildly nauseating. Being a kid is so different to being an adult. I used to love doing underwater somersaults for that sick feeling. Now I can't even bring myself to do one to see what it's like. Why is a kids fun an adults hell mouth? Life, ay?

Kids say the darndest things (AM)

So who knew Bill Cosby was such a rotten apple? Crikey. 

A little side note: I had a dream the other night that my boss called me in to his office to tell me that the big boss, the man in charge, had requested that I brief him on the Bill Cosby situation as a matter of urgency. I said "Of course!" but then thought shit, I need to get up to speed on Cosby because all I know is something vague about rape and qualudes. True story. 

Anyway, th allegations don't change the fact that the dude was right about one thing: kids really do say the darndest things. 

Last night, I was at Mum and Dad's house celebrating Mum's 70th birthday. Happy birthday Mum! Niecey and Little Nut were there, and in fine form because they are small children and therefore love birthdays. They also have strong views about birthday cake. Love it fully sick. They were talking about it all night including the whole time we were eating our roast chicken and vegetables, only they weren't eating their dinners, they were just talking about cake. Midbro made the point that if they didn't start putting proper food in their cake holes, then their cakes holes would not deserve to be called cake holes. Little nut got a bit teary over this but Niecey reassured him by saying "don't worry Little Nut, it's dinner time now so your cake hole is actually your Broccolini hole, but it will become your cake hole again after dinner ."

Ha.