Hello Stranger.

Yes I am still alive and I am pleased to see you are too! Whoever told me 2016 had to get better was a dirty rotten liar – in a general the world is going to hell in a handbasket way and whats with all the dying legends? RIP Bowie, Lemmy, Prince and all of my favourite ‘Uncles’ from my childhood.

But; I am not going to weigh in on the abhorrent Orlando massacre this time, or why I think Trump is the scariest thing since the clown in Stephen Kings IT. You get it. You my peeps.

What actually inspired me to post today was my afternoon with my lads, and is in no way related – or at least it is in a general everything is related way – but not to my particularly gut stuff or why I started the blog. I guess my original ‘stuff’ that I wanted to write about has gone by the wayside as my willpower or any desire to restrict myself to eating nothing but overcooked veges dwindled. Also I move much less. I run rarely and I have been thinking about breaking up with boot camp because I am so unfit but I love Nicole too much to quit (I know lack of fitness is exactly the WRONG reason to stop exercising but I’m a contrary bitch and I like to be GOOD at stuff not red-faced and puffing – who likes that?!) SO you are caught up on that stuff now.

Today I collected my children from school when the bell went at 3pm, a rare and special event (it makes me feel like one of those parents who ‘lunch’ and get to have gorgeous designer clothes while their spouse does something much higher paid and ignores them all*).

We had to go back to Ponsnobby rd to collect my drycleaning (I tried hand washing a silk dress and FUCKED it) and while we waited for the wonderful woman to save my dress I took them to a cafe, because I thought, naively that I had been missing them and it would be nice to have a short mid-week hang, just me and my boys.

Of course the kitchen was shut – I knew it would be because it was mid afternoon – and so I relented and let them choose cake from the counter and a hot chocolate. I won’t tell you how much it cost for three pieces of cake (Mama’s got needs too) and three hot drinks but suffice to say that I’m glad the parking was free!

We were having a lovely time – the boys loving their hot chocs and the selection of toys on offer (this place does kids well) and I even took this pic for Instagram so I could be all like ‘look at me hanging with my kids and being all super cool with my quirky photo angles’;

And three seconds after I posted this pic (#thelittledutchmen) things went to shit.

Literally went to shit. As in Master 5 shit his pants.

I saw his face change. He looked at me with terror in his eyes and whispered ‘I need to poo NOW’ but I could see that he knew it was too late. I whisked him to the bathroom,  I got him undressed as quickly and cleanly as possible. Shoes off. Trousers off. NO DON’T MOVE. Knickers off, one leg at a time, as carefully as if I was cutting the red wire in a bomb defusal situation. Not breathing. Not counting time. Just trying to get the job done and quickly and quietly as possible so I could erase it from my memory as fast.

Meanwhile the child was talking non-stop. If you have met him you know that he does this ALL THE TIME. I like to think of it usually as a sign of high intellect – he needs to process the world around him so he talks to it and you about what is happening and WHY it is happening and what might happen next time and mostly I can just drown it out as white noise. (I like to think if it s a sign of high intellect but I don’t necessarily have the energy to engage with it). But I was VERY conscious that we were a metre away from the kitchen and they could hear us talking about his shit and the fact that it was ‘warm on my legs mummy’ and the rest. His underwear was wrapped in multiple paper towels, secured in a thrice wrapped plastic bag and thrown away. His entire body was scrubbed with the hand soap, hand sanitiser and dried with paper towels. Jeans back on – ‘Mummy I LOVE freeballing’ and then I dealt to the toilet with all of the cleaning supplies I could find; Aside from a lingering odour (I left the windows and door open to create a through-breeze) you would never have know I was there. Goddes forbid I ever kill someone. Not a trace. Noone need ever know.

Home to our new house. We have moved. Whereas before we lived in a student flat with kids and made the best of it because we loved our hippy, coromandel living landlords – they had to sell the house so we have been forced to grow up.

Our new house has a working dishwasher (gasp!), a kitchen full of those oh-so-now subway tiles (ooooh) and polished wooden floors as opposed to the gross dark brown carpet of old. I love our new house – it’s SO purty look;

         

Our stuff looks so good in it and it’s almost worth paying twice as much rent as before oh my god. And we culled a LOT of stuff to live here and the boys love having a wonderful dry house (heat pump) and the GD and I do like having people around – we hated having people to our old place – and it all feels very grown up.

But. I have noticed. That despite our best efforts, I bathed with LEGO the other night. Not in the bath mind you – it was on the bathroom vanity – but it was there. A whole building, and the child responsible (I suspect the older one) had thoughtfully built little steps that led down to the edge of the vanity so the LEGO people could climb down. You can’t escape LEGO no matter how much your house looks like it should be in Home and Garden magazine.

And the cats have made my nice new blue couch patchy with white fur. And the dog sleeps on our bed when we are not home and makes the white duvet cover brown. He actually waited for me to leave the bedroom doorway this morning and was preparing to get himself settled in for the day when I shut the door in his face. He was most put out. He has no shame; Witness for me ‘Portrait of dog sitting on aforementioned bed and staring defiantly at his hooman father’ as he shouts for him to get off;

We also had all of our bikes stolen while we were moving in – not to mention all of the GD’s tools and the bloody dog (who we love dearly luckily for him) has slept through at least two property walk overs from randoms.

The house is smaller – it takes less energy to heat but we moved in on the cusp of Winter and we are seeing more of each-other than ever before. I mean, I love the GD but I almost need my own room. We haughtily elected not to install a satellite – we don’t need TV – and send the kids to the library** every ten seconds to watch Netflix because we can’t stand the invasion of personal space for ONE SECOND LONGER.

The boys have a playroom. The dog has grass. Mama has wine.

We can survive the brown stuff.

 

Disclaimers – I love you all;

*Yes I DO know that a lot of the parents who collect their children at 3 have full time jobs or work from home or are full time parents which I am not woman enough to handle so kudos to you.

**in our house – we aren’t making them LEAVE ha ha (but shame on you for thinking that!)