This kid:

How did he get so big?

Wasn’t it only seven months ago last Tuesday when I chucked that pregnancy test on the ground and went running along the beach trying to get some air back into my lungs once I realised my life was about to be changed forever, and I could not control how?

Wasn’t it only five months ago tomorrow that I held him in my arms, whilst chatting to the Ob/Gyn at my six week check up, looking down into those big chocolate eyes and saying, “I really like him. I mean, I love him, but I really like him.”  With a feeling of surprise of how much I genuinely liked the little guy’s company?

Wasn’t it only a few weeks ago that we were going through the kindy gate and he stopped, and stared at a sign, and chimed in his sweet little four year old voice “What does ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’ mean Mummy?”  And I nearly fell over, not realising he could read already?

Wasn’t it only a couple of days ago that he told me he wanted to do some busking to raise money for the World Eyes (World Vision) and then decided also to have a big garage sale of “all the toys that I’ve already had a lot of fun with, and even though I still like them, I’m kinda more of a Minecraft and Author kind of guy, so yeah, maybe I could sell them to other kids so that the World Eye kids could get some, you know, food and water and stuff.”?

I think it was.

And now, as you read this he will be taking the bag that he has packed himself, on a two night camp up to the hills to have adventures and make memories that are nothing to do with me.  He will eat, sleep, drink and play whatever he chooses without me overseeing every little detail.  He will have conversations with friends, laugh with teachers and test his limits in new and exciting ways and I won’t have anything to do with how he goes about it.  He will do it however he likes.

He will be his own man.

Already he knows all about how babies are made (or as he would say, “How to conceive a child”) but he hasn’t quite grown into his teeth.

So how did he get so big?

…From The Ashers xx

The Colobus Monkey looks perturbed about his tail too….

Ever had one of those days when you know you’ve just got it all going on?  I have.  I walk around the place mentally high-fiving myself because: I got it going on.

Like today, when I’d done all the menial tasks of changing sheets, loads of washing by two, dinner in the slow cooker (DO YOU HAVE A CROCKPOT YET?  IF NOT STOP READING THIS AND GET YOUR ARSE TO BIGW OR SOME OTHER CHEAP SHOP AND GET ONE RIGHT NOW.  GO ON, I’LL WAIT RIGHT HERE), notes and forms for the week filled out, including the stuff for school camp meticulously named* and neatly packed shoved in the bag… etc.   All that, but wait, there’s more, I also went to assembly EVEN THOUGH MY KID WASN’T GETTING AN AWARD!

I love days like this.  I can walk around being quietly smug, because: I got it going on.  In fact, I had it going on so hard that I had time to have a massage and still get to the school pick-up twenty five minutes early.  Just enough time to have a scroll through Facey/Twit/Insta before I waltzed down to pick up the Evil Geniuses cherubs.

Days like this I got it going on so well that I was able to swan about the shops for a bit, waving hello to all the people I know in my town.  In fact, I was probably humming People In Your Neighbourhood from Seasame Street as I went, a glide in my gait, with a light breeze tickling my arms that perfectly balanced the cosy Autumn sunshine that was giving me a little glow.

If I had to imagine what I looked like right then, I’d guess people would think I looked like Mother of the Year, who could possibly have been a Target model if I hadn’t been in such a good paddock since the nuptials.  Either that or they would’ve thought the carpenter had been home at lunchtime to, ahem, screw some wood in place.

As I said, I got it going on, so I thought I’d pop in and have a quick wee, check my hair and lippy before going down to the classrooms.  I was early remember.

And there I saw it.

Well, saw them, because there were two things, weren’t  there?

I racked my brain, trying to remember when I last went to the dunny, this is important, because: I had a whole lotta toilette tickets coming out of my knickers like some kind of Colobus Monkey tail.  You know what I’m talking about right?  We’ve all seen it.  The lady in a rush who pulls up her Reg Grundies too fast and leaves the evidence out on show.  That.  All I could  think was, “I’m glad I didn’t do a poo, I’m glad I didn’t do a poo.”

And then the other thing.

The biggest, reddest, plumpest, pus-filled pimple that ever a menopausal women did have.  It was practically flashing and pulsating like the disco lights at Blazers in 1992.  No wonder people were looking.  It was like a flare going off.  No wonder they thought I modelled for Target.  There was a bullseye logo.

So yeah, in case you were wondering: I got it going on.

*Scribbled with a permanent marker, that has bled through the fabric so everyone can see the kid is in fact called MAIL.

How was your post Mother’s Day comedown?  Did you have a Prosecco Pimple too?

…From The Ashers xxx

I’m too busy swanning about, drinking Prosecco and sweltering in my Mother’s Day ugg boots to write a blog today, but I won’t leave you with empty hands and hearts.  Here is something from Clem Ford that I think you’ll like.

Clementine has strong and passionate opinions on many things, and this is no exception.  I couldn’t have said it better myself.  (Plus, my Mum is still alive, and kicking otherwise, well, it doesn’t bear thinking).

I hope your Mother’s Day was full of froth and bubble.

Enjoy.

A Mother’s Love by Clementine Ford.

Here’s the hits of the week:

1.  Call me juvenile, but I’m reading another John Green book.  I’m not finished yet, and I know it’s going to be sad, but I can’t help it.  He is such a ripper of a writer, and, I love young fiction.  Always have, since I was a teen myself.  Maybe it makes me feel young again, or maybe it’s because the characters are just so full of potential.  I like the way they look at the world.

2.  The lovely lady who designed this blog, Anna Spargo Ryan won her category in the Writer’s Centre Best Blogs awards.  If you read her blog you’ll know why I love her so much.  Her prose just glistens with light and life and truth.  Well done Anna, you rock!

3.  This Sunday is Mother’s Day, and, not that I’m a control freak or anything, but just in case nobody in this house figures out the perfect present for me, I decided to get myself these babies:

I haven’t had Ugg Boots since about 1982.  Don’t worry, I won’t be wearing them out in public, but my goodness, I can.not.wait until Sunday arvo when the cool air comes in and I can get my little toes all toasty.  Happy Mother’s Day, me.

4.  The fact that the kids have forgotten about the Easter eggs they put in the fridge.  I moved them up the back, just in case they might forget, and then they did. Winning!

5.  And talking about books for the young people, look what I found in the local bookshop:

I can’t believe it’s still in print.  Do you remember sneaking a quick read when you went to your friend-who-has-an-older-sister’s house in the late 70s?  What a revelation in grossness it was.  I can still remember reading it with my eyes as big a moon.  My parents did WHAT?  Sweet baby cheeses, why, WHY?  So in the interests of sharing the love in all it’s gory details, I got it for the Evil Geniuses.  They have had the scientific “talk”, but I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces when they read about how they came about, in full cartoon colour.  It’s gonna be epic (as the young people like to say…or random, they like to say that a lot too).

What hits do you have this week?  Have you read any of my books of the week?

…From The Ashers xx

You know those days when you have so much going on that everything is all organised and planned down to the moment? You have not a list, but a run sheet of how the day will go.  Replete with times.  And items to tick off as you go.  So it’s satisfying as well as frenetic.

I have that day today.

Take the kids to school, chat with other Mums in case there’s stuff you’ve missed (there always is), go to post Office to post the Mother’s Day things, get some staples from Coles, go to BigW to get stockings for the kid because Queensland Winter has arrived, take the cat to the vet to have her frigging eye checked AGAIN, pay the bills, get the swimming stuff ready for after school, do two loads of washing, do a basic tidy of the house in case aliens arrive and assume all humans live in squalor, go to the solicitor to chat about the contract for the book deal you may have coming up, book the car in for a service, see if you can fix the moody printer that is stuffed (again), make some patient phone calls…

Hang on.  Wait.  What?

A book deal?

Yes, that’s right, maybe, just maybe, that might soon be a thing.

So I’m stopping EVERYTHING.

I have found a cosy cafe, with a spare spot in the window, where us writerly types can sit and watch the world go it’s way… I can look, wistfully out, whilst I muse about.. my musings.  The sun has come out.  It’s Queensland Winter and I am sitting here in a t-shirt, about to slam a capp and a benny, the warm of the sun touching my arms and making my skin tingle as I feel the Vitamin D metabolising, the warm of my very insides bursting out to a smile that I can hardly contain.   I am cradling a contract in my arms as if is my firstborn.  I have a book contract.  Unsigned and incomplete at this stage, but still, a starting point.  So I am hitting the stop button on this day of lists, and for a short while I am going to smell these roses coffees, and imagine that a secret secret that I’ve always held quietly in the deep convolutions of my intestines, mightcouldmaybe happen.

It might never amount to anything, but for today I am gonna play the imagination game that I’m so good at, and pretend that it will.

‘Cos Mark Twain reckons sometimes ‘Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.’  And that sounds all right to me.

What is your secret secret? (You don’t have to show, but I did show you mine…)

How good is a good list?

…From The Ashers xx

Sunday nights in 1991 were something special.  They were the night when I returned back to the freedom and frivolity of uni life after spending the weekend at the place I still called home, where I’d been catching up with the friends from my childhood and earning my drinking and petrol money for the week.  I would unpack all of the frozen and packaged food, that I’d foraged from my parent’s pantry; hearty stews, pasta sauces and cartons of eggs, and load up my bar fridge for the week.  I would unpack my freshly laundered clothes, (somehow they always managed to get back into my bag stain-free and ironed with precision), and give my time-table for Monday a quick once-over to make sure I was up to date and ready, for the day ahead.

All of this was done with a sense of urgency and delicious anticipation, for Sunday nights on 4 West at Menzies College were the best night of the week.  Forget Uni night, Bar night or even Wednesday nights at Chasers.  Sunday night was Simpsons night.

We used to rotate rooms, and the screening would be held in whoever’s room had the home brew in it.  That was the other reason Sunday nights were sacrosanct, they were Home Brew Night.  Someone, sometime had procured a beer still, the original owners had long since graduated (or not) and the skanky, yeasty thing was now owned by the collective.  The brewing instructions were written on the side in texta, and when it was your turn to have the thing in your room, bubbling and stinking up your clothes for the fortnight or so, you were the host of Sunday nights.

As many of us that were back from our expeditions to the real world would crowd into the host room, and if there was any brew left from last time, we would partake of a sensible and responsible amount, to lubricate the evening.  If a new brew was hatched, then we would do just the opposite.

Back then The Simpsons were hilarious.  They were edgy and almost risqué and captured the gestalt.  We thought the makers were funny and clever, and by being in with the joke (unlike the purveyors of our weekday food and washing) we were also funny and clever.  And of course if there was brew to be imbibed, were were funnier and cleverer.

I haven’t watched The Simpsons in a while, probably because I am too old and cynical to think the jokes are still funny.  Or maybe I’m scared that I won’t even get the joke.  Whilst I was watching some middle class middle aged tv just then, I saw an ad that said The Simpsons has been running for 25 years.  WHAT?  Twenty.Bloody.Five.  That is an awful lot of writing lines on the blackboard for Bart.  A lot of ‘hmmmm’s from Marge.  A helluva lot of ‘DOH’s for Homer.   I’ve never done, or had anything in my life for that long.  Oh, except a pair of Doc Martens, but they would survive the nuclear winter, so I guess they don’t really count.

So Cheers to the creators of The Simpsons.  Happy quarter of a century.  Thanks for all the laughs.

Here is one of the original cells, that captures one of my fave Simpsons moments.  Any time I look at it and hear Homer in my mind’s ear saying “Argh, Shark Boy!” I laugh.  Still.  I think that is a sign of funny and clever if there ever was one.

Oh, and thanks a LOT Simpsons for making me feel old… And yet somehow young again.

Do you have a fave Simpsons Ep?

Who is your fave character?  (Mine is Ralph.)

…From The Ashers xxx