Double trouble

- MUMMY! COME!

And from the little parrot, two seconds later:

- MAH-MEE! CUH!

Hoo boy.

Explanation

This was me for the few weeks. Droopy.

Every night I went to bed hoping the next day would be different, but it wasn't. I was unmotivated. Uninspired. Couldn't be bothered. Chronically tired. For two whole weeks.

Finally, on Tuesday, whatever it was passed. I made a list of things to do work-wise, and crossed them all off! I opened a recipe book and cooked a different dinner! I recommenced work on the photobook/diary I am doing for the kids! I was back!

And now I am panicked - we're going a way in 3 weeks and, thanks to my droopiness, I'm way behind in my work.

So posting may still be light here.

Moments

I said hurry up.

Impatient, rude. Intolerable. I immediately snap back Don't speak to me like that Téo, and as the words leave my mouth, I simultaneously recognize his perfect mimic of my own rude, impatient tone, and remember how as a kid I hated this same hypocrisy.

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Sitting in the trolley at the supermarket, Lukan reaches out for me, puts his arms around my neck, pulls me close, hugs me tight, lets me go with a wide grin, kisses my cheek.

Later, driving home, I realize my weekly shopping trips with Lukan will be over once he starts at the garderie in August. I already start to miss this time with him.

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Téo has woken, after being asleep in Nani's car, which she left outside the house. He comes inside and collapses in tears, his neck sore, his head still groggy. He climbs into my lap, sobbing, and I hold him until he feels better.

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I'm on the toilet. Lukan is wailing into my lap, upset that I won't let him sit on the couch to eat his rice cake, smearing said rice cake, now mushy with tears, into my clothes. Téo has squeezed himself between the toilet and the wall, demanding a hug. I feel crowded and stifled. I'd just like a minute, half a minute even, to go to the toilet alone.

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Apropos of nothing, Téo calls down the stairs: I love you mummy! You're the best mummy in the whole world!

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I show Téo a grasshopper, perfectly camouflaged as an old brown leaf, in his new sticker book, telling him how this protects the grasshopper from being eaten by birds. He doesn't seem that interested, barely waiting for me to finish speaking before he's clutching the book away, wanting to look at something else.

But then afterwards, he shows the grasshopper to everyone who comes to our house, explaining how it looks like a leaf so the birds won't eat it.

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We're going upstairs. Téo races ahead to hide behind the bathroom door. Lukan toddles after him, giggling. When I get there, they leap out gleefully, shouting BOOOOO!!!!!

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We're talking about Téo's first day at school. I'm going to ride my bike to school, all by myself, he says. Not with you mummy, all by myself.

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Lukan is in bed. Goo-nigh tractor bom bom bom bom he sings, his rendition of "Goodnight Sweetheart", which we have sung to him every night. Good night mummy, sleep well, see you in the morning Téo says as I leave the room, preempting my own ritualistic repeating of these words.

Good night my boys.

High school angst

I didn't enjoy my time at high school. Not at all, not a bit. I remember when Year 9 ended, when I was 15, thinking Oh God, there's still three more years to go. A heavy weight descended at that realisation, and didn't lift until school was finally over.

What was wrong? Well, I wasn't that engaged in the classes (even though I did OK), it felt like torture having to go back and study the same things over and over for 2 whole years in preparation for the final exams, I hated the way the school treated us like children, I hated the whole crappy line (and numerous threats) that how we did at school would determine the rest of our lives, the uniform sucked, and I didn't like the caste system where you had your group of friends and that was that, even if the group didn't really get along. Toss in a regular dose of teen angst, the whole cool kids vs dags thing, and some teenage girl bitchiness (it was a girls' school), and, well, you get the picture.

Since leaving, I have kept in touch with just one school friend. There were a few more at first, I even went to a couple of weddings, but eventually we lost contact. We didn't seem to have anything in common. I had no desire to go to any reunions. I can't even remember the bulk of the girls in my year.

Which makes it kind of odd that, every now and again, I become intensely curious about how people turned out. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at a reunion. I'd jump at the chance to spy, with no way for anyone to see me. I can't figure out the motivation for this... do I want to mock? To gloat? To buzz in the ears of the girls I didn't like?

So anyway, this week, out of the blue, I got the chance to be that fly. Another friend from school, who I am actually very happy found me through Facebook last year, sent me an invitation to join the Facebook group for my year.

Only, I'm a fly trapped outside. I can see tiny faces of a few people, get small tantalizing glimpses of their lives now, but can't do a good close-up snoop. For that, I'd need to friend these people. And then they'd be able to snoop on me, too.

Oh the angst. Do I join the group? Do I friend? Do I just keep coming back to the window every now and again to see what I can glean?

And most pressing of all: why is a group of middle-aged women I haven't seen for half my life taking up so much of my thinking time?

Public service announcements

If, on a day when it has been raining heavily, you go to the shops and uncharacteristically decide to park outside instead of under cover, then even though it may not have rained for some time, the trolleys in the car park will all be wet, including the seat for your toddler.

If, while at the shops, you decide to visit the garden centre, and see some promising-looking pots for some plants you recently bought, and those pots have rims, and are stacked upsidedown on a high shelf, and the shelf is outside, then when you pick up a pot to get it down, the rainwater in the rim will pour down your arm.

The same thing will happen when you get a second pot down too. Only if that pot is bigger, there will be even more water.

If you shriek and jerk in an attempt to avoid getting drenched a second time, then the water will land on your toddler sitting in the trolley.

And you can guarantee that, when it's time to leave, and you have grocery shopping plus pots and maybe a few plants to load into the car, it will be pissing down.

I hear you little man

So I read a bit too late last night, and then C had to get up at something like 5.30 this morning, and even though he was quiet, I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. Then Lukan woke at 6.30, waking Téo too. Which led to Téo declaring over breakfast (15 chatter-filled minutes later, mind you):

I can't wake up because I'm too tired.

Illness

So I think I had swine flu.

Stop rolling your eyes - yes you, oh friends of many years. Yes I know I have been convinced I had leukemia. Yes I know my dad once diagnosed me with a brain tumour. So yes, OK, there is a slight tendency to hypochondria in my family. But just hear me out, and then tell me I didn't have swine flu.

You may remember I mentioned Lukan and I were sick the first week we were in Sydney. Well, we were pretty badly sick. My mum, sister-in-law, and brother got it even worse. My sister-in-law, for example, was in bed for 3 days.

Now, my mum and I puzzled over this bug, thinking maybe we were actually infected with two different bugs, because we had very sore throats and bad coughs, as well as nausea and for some of us, vomiting and diarrhea. Plus fevers, lethary, and lack of appetite for many days afterwards. We just couldn't imagine what kind of bug could be both cold-like and gastro-like.

But then, last night I thought I'd catch up on the swine flu outbreak... and found the following:

(Diagram from a very reliable source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_outbreak#Symptoms_and_severity)

Now, it's true we were not in Mexico this year, and actually Lukan - the one who got the rest of us sick - has never been to Mexico, and also our illnesses predate the current outbreak by a good month, and we haven't been in contact with any pigs... but apart from that, IT ALL MATCHES PERFECTLY!