1 month, 5 days, 19 hours, 13 minutes and 19 seconds smoke free. 700 cigarettes not smoked.

$191.33 and 5 days, 8 hours of your life saved!

My Twenty Wishes:

(stolen from Larston

1. A satisfying career that I love and that actually makes a difference to people.
   
2. To end up seeing that my kid loves me and doesn’t think I am irrelevant.
   
3. To play drums in a rock band and wear ripped muscle shirts with obscene slogans on the front. Oh and to have 70’s Suzy Quattro rock-chick hair. And wear feather earrings without looking like a try-hard.
   
4. To own a farm in Southern Ireland – somewhere near Dingle and Doolin. And close to a neighbourhood pub. So I can drink a lot of Guinness, which is the only beer I like.
   
5. To have a sculpture studio where I could work in metal and stone. Big big sculptures that only stinking rich people will buy.
   
6. To have a house on the beach in Northern Queensland – but without neighbours, just a big glass window and a screened in porch looking at the sea. And a kettle barbie with lobsters permanently on the grill.
   
7. To have my parents know and like me as a person and not their wayward daughter.
   
8. To have a body like Sigourney Weaver.
   
9. Fuck it; I want to BE Sigourney Weaver.
   
10. To have a farm in Vermont that I only have to go to when the leaves are changing and it’s Halloween.
    
11. To have all my wonderful friends around me, living next door, across the street, down the block so we can get together for dirt and dish parties over buckets of wine and Motown.
    
12. To have the luxury of being able to go back to school and study anything I want. Even Art History and Philosophy.
    
13. A professional chef’s kitchen. With Jamie Oliver on duty the nights I work.
    
14. To have at my beck and call, Dr. T. Brazelton, the world’s best child expert and my hero. Maybe he can stop me turning feral after 3 days stuck indoors with a toddler.
    
15. The worlds biggest bathroom with a spa, a huge claw footed tub, places to put drinks, a bar fridge and unlimited expensive bath oils.
    
16. A complete makeover.
    
17. A personal trainer.
    
18. The latest and greatest computer with all the gadgets and gear and wing dings.
    
19. A pilots’ license.
    
20. Dance lessons. I want to dance like Ginger Rogers AND like all of The Pips and The Spinners.

2 Year olds.

They can cheerfully wipe their nose on the back of their hands and walk around with cheeks glazed in snot, and it does not bother them.

They make up songs with no tune within the limits of what they know. “lalalala DUCK. lalalala COOKIE. blatherblather MUMMY. lalalasomething TEDDY.” A window into what they consider important. Notice I came after the duck and the cookie.

They drool when they sleep. Now, I want to know what happens to a kid who drools when they grow up. Cos my child can’t be the only one, and I have yet to meet any friends or lovers (past or present) who have big drool chapped places on their cheeks from lying comatose in a puddle of their own spit all night. Maybe these people just don’t procreate since it’s too hard to find anyone who didn’t birth them to stay with them all night.

They will play quite happily on their own, until you begin to do something that requires your utmost attention. Then they will fall apart and have half a dozen calamities all in the space of 10 minutes, which will necessitate you stopping what you were doing and in fact, giving up, since whatever it is, won’t get done as long as your child is conscious.

They must do everything themselves. No help. Never mind that they’ve never laced a shoe up in their short lives – DON’T FUCKING HELP.

They try to beat up kids who are bigger than them. What is WITH this? Do they not see that slapping a child who outweighs you and is 4 inches taller is going to end in tears? And why don’t they? Isn’t this some sort of survival skill that should have been programmed in them from birth? Someone messed up big time.

They only fart in church, in front of company or during lulls in grownup conversations.

They don’t have bad breath.

Some days, nothing you do is right. You should just give up and find them some other mother who will understand everything cos you are a rotten mother. Just give it up and go with it. Tomorrow it will change.

Tantrums are not funny things and you must not laugh, even when your child is doing Exorcist head spins because you won’t let her poke her eyes out with an electric drill.

They are either all negative or all positive. You can either ask them if they want to juggle chain saws (‘Yes’) or eat six bowls of ice cream (‘No’) and it has little bearing whatsoever on what they actually want. Nonetheless, you will be wrong, no matter what you choose.

They can sleep as little as you, but lo, they never ever sleep in.

Once they DO crash tho, it would take a hurricane like Dorothy’s to even rouse them. However, should you absolutely need them to sleep soundly, they will immediately wake to the sound of lint dropping into the carpet.

All food is yucky. No wait, only today all food is yucky.

They will dance to the sound of a train going over a bridge. They can find music anywhere.

Nothing is more fascinating than their own privates, unless it’s someone else’s privates.

They can’t read, but they know when you skip words, paragraphs, and pages in the nightly story in an effort to get them to bed sooner. The story is 20 pages long, and they know when you leave out a word on page 4. How do they do this? Will this skill atrophy by the time they are 16 and memorising stuff actually matters so they don't end up flipping pancakes for a living? I suspect NOT.

They don’t like the smell of ‘Mummy’s Juice’. This is a good thing, since Mummy’s juice comes in a wine glass, and appears promptly at Tantrum O’clock.

So Don't Do It.

Okay???

Harvard Study On Parenting Practice

 Thoughts.

I’ve been thinking, and this is what I think:

1. Little kids should eat the nutritious stuff before they get to eat chocolate.
   
2. Boy bands suck. Without exception. They all suck.
   
3. I have never met an attractive computer geek. Why is that?
   
4. People with the worst taste, never realise it. And they inflict it on the rest of us.
   
5. Women should not read romance novels. In fact, if they do read romance novels, they should be ashamed of themselves and hide them like they were pornography, which they are. Poorly written stroke books for women.
   
6. If you don’t eat it right away, don’t wrap it up in tin foil and put it in the fridge. It will only haunt you in 6 months.
   
7. Public transit delays are in direct proportion to how late you are already.
   
8. In business, the person with the biggest office and the biggest chair, is the biggest ass.
   
9. If someone begins a conversation with you that starts with ‘I hate to tell you this but’ – immediately punch him or her in the mouth. You might as well get it over with.
   
10. Warranties always expire 2 weeks before your appliance blows up and costs you the price of a replacement.
    
11. You will never ever get all the spilled sugar off the kitchen floor.
    
12. People who think they can write, usually can’t. Accept your failings, not everyone can write - I don’t think I can write. I just blather but it suits me. Which is why you should write in the first place.
    
13. All insect life is evil. I will canonise the first person that can justify their existence to me. Birds can eat other shit, like birdseed, or something.
    
14. Women who plan and long for their wedding days since they were pre-pubescent, are women who will never ever be my friends.
    
15. Women who care that the drapes match the floor match the sofa match the cushions will never be my friends.
    
16. Women, who can whip up a dinner for 12 at a whim and still be entertaining and not crabby about the extra work and then help me get stuck into the drink until 3am, will always be my friends.
    
17. There is very little good poetry that isn’t already published somewhere.*
    
18. If someone smokes and drinks and swears, I will probably like them.
    
19. I like women who smoke and drink and swear. I especially like mothers who do this. Go figure.
    
20. People with trendy haircuts are usually idiots.
    
21. I will never be a Buddhist, or a good Christian or a good Taoist, or anything that requires that I give up every single one of my vices. I need to make up my own religion – one of excessive indulgence and lack of self denial.
    
22. Christmas is never as good as you remember it. It was never as good back then either, so just get over it. The only person who thinks it was that good, is your mother.
    
23. The minute someone asks me if I am saved – I subtract 100 IQ points.
    
24. Most English Lit majors graduate and then read nothing but murder mysteries. Someone explain that to me.
    
25. Cover bands are not musicians.
    
26. I don’t have any regrets except for stuff I shouldn’t have done and was too afraid to. I hate cowards, and I am one.
    
27. The Internet is not real life. Real life involves people face to face with all their smells, bad hygiene, and uncontrollable behaviour. People who think that the Internet IS as important as real life, need to GET a life.
    
28. On the other hand, some of my best friends I met over the Internet, and we just haven’t sniffed each other yet.

*except Larston who should be published.

PUKE.

And while I was surfing around my fave sites, I saw this:

Whacked out Woman Breastfeeds Monkey.

Sorry, I am retching. She has some problem, okay? I do not care how much you love animals, this is just plain WRONG. Someone who loves her or cares one whit about her should get her some help.
And before y'all jump all over me, yeah yeah breast is best. I am a strong advocate of extended breastfeeding.

Within species, people. Within the same gene pool or DNA strands.

When a monkey breastfeeds a starving human kid, then I might change my mind.

So yeah, I have issues.

Cowardice.

I just looked out the window to see my dog playing with a half-dead mouse. Now if any of you are animal lovers, stop here. I mean it. Stop reading.

The mouse and his buddies have been terrorising me for the past week. Scampering past me in the half gloom of early morning toilet trips, scuttling behind the computer so I type with my feet on the chair, and rustling under the kitchen sink so I snatch the potatoes out with my eyes closed. They are scratching at the cupboard doors at 4am with their little sharp claws and gnawing on the pantry door with their little yellow teeth.

I have humane traps all over the house, at least in places where I can see the mouse poop. Which is a constant surprise. Sort of like a turd for a Christmas present, actually.

So the poop is everywhere I look. I have caught three of the little bastards, and had to unsmoosh a head when the so-called humane trap WASN'T and that still has me retching.

(pardon me while I complete a dry gag at the memory) I am notoriously squeamish, okay?

So now you know how I feel about the mouse/meeses. on a par with big cockroaches, and those lovely denizens of the Australian bush - the Huntsman spider.

Nevertheless, it is incredibly disturbing to see my dog (Australian Kelpie) pounce on this little grey quivering THING and then letting it go. I mean, does she have to do it right in front of the window? Can she go and have her fun in private so I don't have to sit here, wrestling with my conscience as to whether to go out there and like... DEAL with this half chewed slobbery little morsel?

Would I have to pick it up? Would I use a shovel? And if I used a shovel would I have to bend down and get real close to it in order to scoop up all the bits? What if bits fell off? What am I supposed to do then? Pick them up with a spoon?What if bits fell off on ME??? What if they were gooshy?

Fuck it.

Law of the jungle, c'est la vie.

OH DAMMIT! She's brought it back and placed it right outside the screen door. Fuck.

The dog can stay out ALL night.

Boots.

My child is currently butt naked wearing a pair of gumboots that look like LadyBugs and holding a pink umbrella. The boots come to mid-thigh and the umbrella is as big as she is.

I can't take them away from her just yet.

Rain.

Notes from a rainy day:

So it's raining here for the 4th day in a row. And it's Sydney rain which is torrential, and defies any umbrella.

And have I mentioned I have an almost 2 year old?

Who gets up at 6am and then well... turns herself up to 'eleven' and just goes.

So we can't go out, because the rain would soak thru almost anything, and I have YET to buy her a raincoat and hat.

We've built a fort in the living room out of desperation, using a quilt and the dining room chairs. We've fed Bob the Builder and Elmo  some cookies but are having very little luck with the cheese sandwiches that I was convinced Bob wanted to eat.

The Sunday newspapers are crumpled all over the floor. Her tea set starts at the front door and ends at the back one.

We've had 3 tantrums, only one of which was bad enough for me to yell "SHUTTUP OR I'LL GET MY GUN". That one was the one where the mean mummy wouldn't let Mouse draw all over her face with orange crayon. Mummy is funny like that.

We've done jigsaw puzzles, and read stories and I've set up the train track to go around the sofa. We can't find the plastic little train driver tho - he was last seen suspiciously near the toilet, which doesn't seem to be working so well all of a sudden.

We've jumped on all the beds. There's a slat broken in the second bedroom and I have a bump above my eye.

I know that the smudges on the glass sliding door are little nose prints. A plaintive face looking out at the rain, deciding the world is very unfair to toddlers.

I stepped on a plastic goat and bruised my foot. The goat is fine but currently resides hanging off the bookcase where I threw him.

I think the damp spot in the carpet is orange juice. But then again, maybe not.

And there is a nasty foul smell in the air...how can that be when she's licked two pieces of cheese and ingested 1 cookie and a heap of newsprint?

We haven't even got to nap time yet.

Argh.

25 days, 18 hours, 24 minutes and 9 seconds smoke free. 500 cigarettes not smoked.

$136.67 and 3 days, 19 hours of your life saved!

Anyway, so I feel like ranting.

People who bug the crap outta me:

People who leave their turn signals on and on and on and on. There they are, blinking away in the middle lane. Hey doofus, that little rhythmic noise you hear is the sound of your TURN SIGNAL. How hard is it to flick it off, you moron, did you flunk that part of drivers ed?

People who drive down the shoulder of the road or in the transit lanes so they can jump the queue. They must be really important people. We must all be idiots to let them in. Next time this happens, I am going to smile and flip the finger. And tell all 60 of my friends driving behind me to do the same.

People who stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk as if they are transparent and you can walk through them. The next time this happens I am going to keep on walking. I probably pass right through them like a whisper. Hey if it works for them, it must be catching. Maybe I’ll open my umbrella at the same time.

Bosses who set deadlines and then fail to meet them, themselves. Hello, I worked solidly through the weekend so you could review this piece of shit and you tell me you ‘might get to it ‘ THIS weekend? Pardon me for intruding on your free time. Sorry you can’t fly your helicopter and have to read this pile of doo-doo that you requested from me. I had about as much interest in writing it.

And on that subject, after ignoring your part in my deadline, you getting on my case every hour to see how far I’ve progressed. Ever hear of project dependencies? If you are late, then I will be late – oh wait, I can always spend another weekend on it. I was only planning on licking the fish tank anyway.

People who have cutesy poo graphic and sayings in their email signatures. I don’t want a fucking flying pig with a tutu and some trite twee crap from Precious Moments infecting my eyes. YOU may have had an epiphany when you read it, but I find it pathetic that you can sum up your life’s philosophy in a line or two and then want everyone to read it. Short and succinct is the key, okay? You aren’t changing my life with such crap, and I am not impressed you can make letters blink on and off.

People who send me email chain letters or forwarded shit about angels, flowers, or God’s Wishes for My Life. Fuck all angels and flowers and I am all too familiar lately with what God wants do to with my life. Do not send them to me or I will forward it back to you and all your friends with a heading that says “Stupid People Think This Stuff Matters”.

People who go to lunch and leave their mobile phones on at their desk with some cute fucking ring tone like ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Batman’. Listen, after hearing your phone go off 12 times between 1 and 2, you are lucky I don’t tape it against your face with duct tape and then put my computer on autodial.

People who drive with their windows down in some lame ass big-dick car with a loud stereo system and even louder music. Why is it that those folk’s musical preferences are firmly wedged in their colons? I don’t want to hear 'Bootylicious' at normal volume, I certainly don’t want to hear it reverbing off the dashboard in MY car. They should be punished with 12 hours of John Denver songs at triple treble and no bass.

Old ladies and public transport. It’s not that fucking hard to get the change out before you get on the bus, you old dears. It’s the same fare it was yesterday and I am holding a 30 pound toddler and some groceries so I don’t really care how the bus drivers knees are faring in this damp weather, Move yo old wrinkled ass to the back of the bus and siddown before I propel you with my foot.

Stepford mummies at playgroup/daycare and the park. When I smile at you, it is considered polite to smile back, you cow. Just because my hair is streaked bright red and I am wearing my Iggy Pop t-shirt doesn’t mean I am some sort of pond scum. In fact, sweetie with the large khaki ass, I am probably a better mother than you, since I don’t have my kid in every class known to mankind to avoid spending time with her. Oh yeah, and the emerald on MY finger is REAL. Take your helmet hair and your Kmart shorts and fuck off. Oh – and I don’t drive an SUV, I drive a Saab. Neener, neener.

Women who dress like they are 20 when they are 40 PLUS. Lookit, I am all for flaunting how well you’ve aged, but let’s have a little dose of reality here. Crop tops look great on a 16 year old. With a few rare exceptions, they do not look great on a 50-year-old mother of 4 kids, okay?

People who tell you in the middle of a conversation to hold on cos they’ve got another call. If you need to take the call that badly, hang up and call me back later when you can give me your full attention. And while we’re on the subject of telephone etiquette, please don’t assume I know who the fuck you are. I am sleep deprived and old, and I don’t think so fast first thing in the morning.

People who touch my kid. She is not a doll; she is not YOUR grandchild or YOUR daughter. Yes, I know she is a cutie, but she is her own cutie and keep your gnarled germ-infested hands offa her head. Or I will bite you.

 *whew*

I feel much mo better.

Update.

He's off out with his mates as usual tonight.

Apparently I am going out with him on the weekend 'some time'. After I got a little uptight about his plans for tonight.

And after I gave him his card.

Am I being a total bitch? Is my head firmly up my ass?