K: "Why did you say 'munch munch munch munch munch'?"

me: "Because it is more fun to eat you than listen to you whine."

Sometimes my parenting surprises me.

Angst in her pants

H is very good at putting two and two together. Sometimes she goes a little to far though and makes five. Our student nanny is from Melbourne, yesterday, when I went to Kelburn with H, I realised she had renamed Kelburn to Melbourne in her mind. This kind of thing generates wonderful malapropisms. She had a conversation with Damon about the "Terrible Arks" it took him a while to figure out she meant the "Wearable Arts".

One day I was on my own putting H & K to bed. They had just got settled and were sweetly snuggled down in their beds and I was just about to give them each a kiss, close the door and give a sigh of relief, when H leapt up and started wildly scratching her bottom. My heart sank. I thought I'd finished my motherly duties for the day and now there was a problem. I even knew the cause of the problem - overenthusiastic wiping. And as I pulled myself back into mummy mode I said:

"Do you have bottom angst?" I thought it was a rhetorical question. I thought it was a way to take it lightly, remind myself that some problems are unsolvable and lighten my mood.

"Yes." H replied with absolute conviction. "I have bottom ants."

Creature feature

Yesterday I bravely played Ultimate in the league a for the first time. I am on the Happy Creatures team.

10 reasons why I'm a happy Happy Creature

1. I played.
   
2. I caught the disc sometimes. Once, I believe, when the other team threw it which is extra good.
   
3. I threw the disc and someone else caught it at least once.
4. The person I was marking usually found it hard to make the throw they wanted.
5. I felt like I was in a sensible place quite a lot of the time and usually, when I wasn't, I knew what a sensible place would be (but wasn't fast enough to get there).
6. The other Happy Creatures were welcoming.
   
7. eloieli was a beam of positive support on the side lines.
   
8. I am the proud owner of a golden yellow t-shirt with a smiling Cthulu head/octopus on it.
9. H & K were given golden yellow t-shirts with smiling Cthulu heads/octopi on them.
10. Only my left shoulder is slightly sore today.

Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough

I've had a cold/bronchitis/asthma since 1o September and I AM SICK OF IT. I got a nasty cold my last week at work, took the drugs to suppress the symptoms and just kept going. Maybe this was a mistake or possibly I would have had this kind of post-redundancy, sickness catching up with me anyway.

I've been to the doctor who annoys me twice (who I will call Dr WAM), the after-hours doctor once (A-H Dr) and finally today my favourite doctor (my Dr).

First Dr WAM told me that I had asthma with my cold and to take Ventolin. I had childhood asthma so this didn't come as too much of a surprise. Then when Ventolin stopped helping I went to the A-H Dr who told me I didn't have asthma anymore I had bronchitis (probably viral). Then when I still wasn't better two weeks later Dr WAM told me I had asthma, put me on a preventative (steroid) inhaler and basically told me I'd be taking it for the rest of my life. I found this depressing and frustrating. I have enough chronic health conditions already. I do not need another.

I finally got to see my Dr today. She has given me a referral for a chest x-ray to get done if my chest isn't feeling better in 2 weeks, given me a peak flow meter to use at home to monitor my lung capacity, changed the dose of the preventative and given me more information about it including a plan to come of it again. My Dr is lovely but she only works two days a week and not on school holidays.

I'm better than I was, which is better than I was before that, but I'm just not well DAMMIT.

At the age of thirty-six years eleven months and twenty-nine days

Tomorrow is my birthday. I will be listening to Marianne Faithfull singing The Ballad of Lucy Jordon with the volume turned up loud:

At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair.
So she let the phone keep ringing and she sat there softly singing
Little nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair.

You, meanwhile, will be leaving a comment on this blog to wish me happy birthday. If you want a theme for your comment you can tell me something that you're glad you have done before the age of thirty-seven.

Please.

The world is not as it should be.

France beat the All Blacks 20-18 in the Rugby World Cup quarter finals.

A moments silence please.

Baby I miss you

I am helping out a friend who is a sole-parent with a 2.5 year old , J, and a 3 month old, T. She lives 90 miles from Wellington. I drove up Monday and I am staying for 10 days. It has been lovely spending time with J and T. T is a very good natured, easy going baby. The kind that the baby books promise but only a freak of nature delivers. J is a bright, determined and mostly very sensible wee person. He takes being a terrible two seriously and drives his mother to distraction as often as one would expect.

I am homesick for my children. The last few days when T gives me smiley gurgles or, to J's delight, my well placed suggestions enable him to conquer the tall ladder at the playground, I ache for my children. J and T are lovely and loveable but they do not fill the gap in my heart.

This physical longing for children of my own is deeply familiar. It is the feeling I had when I was facing infertility and trying to conceive. Now the ache is for specific children, H and K, but it is the same sensation. My friend told me to go home if it is too hard. Too hard? I put up with two years of this not knowing if it would ever go away, how hard can it be for a few days that I can end whenever I choose?