I sometimes feel as though I’ve lived several different lives. So much of  what has happened to me in my life does not fit with how my life is now. As I have changed and moved further away from those past versions of myself, I have developed a bit of cringe. I think there is a part of me that wishes to have had a ‘normal’ childhood, a ‘normal’ adolescence.  I feel false when I reminisce about childhood things, about teenage difficulties. I can either play along with everybody else, or confess to all of the things that set me apart. People don’t understand. When I tell them the things that I have seen and done. They can’t reconcile the adult me that they see with the younger me that I describe.

I have not had a life that most people can relate to. People, when they hear,  are embarrassed for me, sad for me? I don’t know, but this is my little room to sit and talk. To say the things that make  people  uncomfortable,  but are nevertheless part of me.

When I was fourteen I boarded a train bound for Melbourne, for a holiday on my own.

It was six weeks since we had moved “home” to Adelaide, after spending all the childhood that I could remember in Melbourne.

As I boarded that train I knew that I would not be returning to live with my parents. Not if I could help it. They had allowed this visit to my friends as a gesture of “trust”. To stop me from being so evil. I felt a small twinge of guilt at that, at betraying their trust, so maybe I was not pure evil. I still remember the nervous excitement I felt as I boarded the train, afraid that they would change their minds at any moment and drag me back, trap me. It was pure exhilaration as the train pulled away. They could not get at me now. I had escaped.

At the end of my planned holiday, I called a helpline for children. I told them that my parents had been abusing me. The details I told them were partially true, but I was afraid to share all the truth. I was afraid that my truth would not be considered serious enough, so I told them a story I thought would be easily believed. There was enough truth in it that my parents couldn’t dispute it. Even my mother, who dwelt so deeply in the fantasy, which she projected to the outside world.

I was lucky to have a friend whose family were willing to have me. They had fostered before and knew something of my family life. I was able to stay there for several months before moving on.They were kind to me, but I was a burden there, after a time, and had to find other places to go. I only lasted a little over a year. It was a good year, I have fond memories of my life then.

Sometimes family is not the best place for children. It took less than a year, after I returned to live with them, for me to be place in a psychiatric facility for children and adolescents. In retrospect, I should have fought harder to stay away. It can be easy to convince yourself, when living in less than ideal circumstances, that ‘home’ would be an improvement.

I have fought this internal battle, it has taken many years for me to see that  I was not an evil child. Happy children from happy homes do not go to such extremes. I was not a “bad child”, as I was led to believe. I reject the self-image that coloured my early adult life.

To leave my family was simply self-preservation. I was not selfish, well not more than the average fourteen-year-old girl. My parents still see it that way. I was a bad child and thusly, did bad things.

Just to clarify:

There were bad things.

My teenage self  was not one.

Today in Adelaide it reached 45.7 degrees celcius, it was the hottest day here for more than 70 years. It  did not fall below 30 degrees overnight last night.

Our pile of crap air-conditioner just barely cools the lounge room, the rest of the hous is a furnace. We are melting.

Our dog seems to think she is  a reptile, she spent the day heading outside at every opportunity to  bask in the sun until she was too hot to touch and panting like she might die. She is a black lab, she’s supposed to like cold weather. I don’t think she’s very bright.

Beefcake and I took the small children to the local shopping centre and spent time loitering in the frozen food aisle of the supermarket. Pudding was happy because he scored an ice-cream cone. There was hardly anyone about. Everyone is hiding at home.

The next four days are going to be over 40 degrees, they suspect tomorrow may break the all-time Adelaide record of 46.1. I hope not. Tonight I will be moving furniture so that we can fit our massive bed into the air-conditioned room.

When we were in London I whinged and moaned about the lack of a decent summer. This is not fucking funny.

Pudding is pretty much your average little boy – oh my, he’s a little boy and not a toddler, let me just digest that for a moment. Okay, moving on. He is an average little boy. I’m not sure what that means to other people but to me it means slightly insane. Okay, a lot insane.

All young children are a little bit insane. They all throw tantrums and make mess and yell and scream etc, etc. The thing that I have observed about both of my boys is, they take this to completely new level. They transcend ordinary childish crazies and inhabit the Land of Boy.

The Land of Boy is full of fighting and dragons, of dinosaurs and monsters, of Star Wars and aliens. To inhabit the Land of Boy you must be prone to climbing the side of the house, when no one is looking, so that you can adjust the antenna attached to the chimney. You must be fascinated with all things tools and trains and cars. To top it off, a trip to the Land of Boy would never be complete if one didn’t fashion a full arsenal of weaponry from whatever one has to hand. In our house, place mats are rarely used as such, they are invariably transformed into guns or swords and used to attack the kneecaps of those preparing dinner.

The whole family is accepting of Pudding’s crazy ways. He will mellow and chill out a decent amount over the next few years. In the meantime he is reasonably entertaining, if somewhat cringeworthy when he attacks members of the public whilst we are out shopping.

One of his favourite things lately is jumping. Jumping off of tables, jumping between pieces of furniture, jumping on his bed. The lad likes to jump. He will often shout “SuperPudding!” as he jumps from the couch to the ottoman and can frequently be found muttering to himself about flying and capes and such.

We had no idea , until the other day, that Pudding does not fully understand the difference between jumping and flying. This inhabitant of the Land of Boy fully believes in all honesty that he can fly. In fact, he believes he does fly, as he leaps about the house in his insanity and it is only his love for us that prevents him from flying off into the sunset to hunt dragons. The other day, Rhuabarb mentioned to him that it wasn’t technically flying. The resulting meltdown was so enormous that we found ourselves assuring him that he could, of course fly beautifully, just to get some peace.

Until this little phase is over I will be constantly watching out of the corner of my eye to ensure that he does not attempt to fly in a fashion that could see him injured or killed. It has me slightly paranoid.

The thing is, I can’t help being a little bit impressed with him, and a touch jealous. How wonderful must life be to be so self-assured (and delusional) that you can convince yourself you are able to fly just because you wish it? His little world must be a marvellous place to be.

Pudding did not care that this was our last morning to have a sleep-in. After coming in to our bed at 7am he tossed and turned for 20 minutes before climbing out, standing next to my side of the bed and whispering loudly in his best toddler style that he wanted “bekky”. I told him he’d be fine and could leave Mummy and Daddy to sleep and tide himself over with a cracker from the pantry (yes, I know, I’m an excellent mother). He left the room and stood in the hallway wimpering and moaning about his bekky and how huuuuuungry he was. I decided it would be far nicer to get up and make it for him unencumbered than to wait for him to wake Grub with his wailing and have to do it with her on my hip. So, here I am, it’s now 7.40am.

Pudding was actually very cute in the kitchen.

“Toast is not for bekky” he said to me with the sweet rising intonation that means, “I am asking for toast but don’t want to ask explicitly in case there is some reason I can’t have toast because I get put out easily if things don’t go my way and it is best this way”.

Me: “Toast is perfect for brekky, would you like toast?”

P: “Yes, but you can have it at night”

Me: “Toast is lovely at any time”

P: “Yes”

He sat munching his toast on the kitchen sofa while I tidied up and I mentioned to him that his knees were lovely.

Me: “Did you buy the from the shop?”

P: “No”

Me: “You did, you bought them from the supermarket, in the knee aisle”

P: “No, they’re from Ikea”

We giggled.

Rhubarb just emerged from his cave to tell me that he vomited during the night. Now all six of us have been afflicted, the circle is complete. I sent him to bed with a bucket just in case. He wanted to know what he should do with it as it had been “fermenting in his room all night”. Why oh why would he choose now abandon his monosyllabic ways. I was eating a bowl of yoghurt with lumps of peach and mango in it. I can’t finish it now. Did I mention how thrilled I am that school goes back tomorrow?

If there is anything more delightful than a vomiting, weak and dehydrated baby, then it is surely four other members of the family being struck down by the pestilence and becoming weak, dehydrated, vomitous masses of whinging and moaning.

It was particularly unfortunate that Beefcake, Pudding and Poss were hit within a few hours of each other. Does anyone remember the ‘vomitorium’ in the  film ‘Stand By Me’? That’s what it was like. We were forced to call a doctor to come and give Beefcake an injection in the arse. There was just no other way we could manage the vomiting children and his vomiting all at once. I was fortunate enough to remain vomit-free, however I am still quite nauseous and there have been other side effects. Enough said.

Fortunately, all the lying around holding babies has meant some book reading time. Unfortunately, I chose the most annoyingly written book in the world. I will not name and shame here, let’s just say the term ‘writer’ should be used loosely when discussing this tense-switching, drivel-giving craptastician. I will persist, however, I rarely give up a book halfway through, I won’t let it win.

As a side note, why are husbands so intolerable when they are unwell? Beefcake has just informed me that he feels he has pneumonia. He has no reason to suspect this, no symptoms, just his unshakable husbandly wussiness. He can moan like no other. Man-gastro is waaaaaaaay worse than a man-cold. He also suggested he may have some form of cancer this afternoon. I’ll have to spend the next week convincing him that he is hale and hearty.

School goes back on Tuesday. I wish I felt more sad, I just can’t. I’m sure I’ll miss them a bit but thank fuck.  We went during the week and spent an amount of money, too outrageously large to mention, buying the required school uniform for Rhubarb to begin High School. Seriously, I’m not really sure why a shirt with school logo is worth three times a plain white shirt. We are assured it is. He enjoyed his rowing camp, it seems, but came back even more grunty and monosyllabic as well as slightly sunburnt. It does not bode well for how the High School environment may impact upon his mood. I feel a bit sorry for the kids, actually. The weather is predicted to be over fourty on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week. School will be horrible. Better them than me.

Take one freshly bathed baby, infected with horrible gastro bug to induce vomiting. Allow vomit  to cover baby, you, the couch, the carpet. Shower yourself and baby. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat, but this time replace couch with bed. Repeat. Take 355 clean towels and make sure each one cops some vomit, requiring it to be washed. Spend night trying to comfort baby who wakes every ten minutes in obvious discomfort.

Seriously, once you try this recipe you will never want to sample it again.

Two things can be gleaned from this adventure:

1. There is nothing more distressing than a really sick baby (thank Toejam the vomiting appears to have stopped).
2. You can never have too much in the way of  linen, towels or pyjamas.

Katyboo and Home Office Mum both sent me a meme, which involves telling people ten honest things about yourself. I am, if nothing else, an honest person, however I take no responsibility for facts that I may omit in the name of my personal dignity.

Here goes:

1. I have two middle names, both hideous. Actually, all of my names are rather awful but since, in real life and in my  internetty travels, I go by the name of Ali then there is no need for anyone to suffer at the sound of them. In fact, one friend had known me for about five years when she first heard someone use my full name, and had to ask me who it was.
2. I have four tattoos. I love three of them. The first one I got when I was 17, which was illegal. Naughty me. The only one I do not like is one I got myself when celebrating having separated from my first husband. I will have to get it done over, it is one of those Japanese calligraphy jobbies, how original.
3. My tongue is pierced. Many more parts of me were pierced, now there is just my tongue and my ears. Although, I do believe I can still get a ring in my nose, I wore one for so long.
4. I was a vegetarian for around 9 years and still struggle philosophically with not being one. I’m not going to go into detail about this one as it is something I am working through at the moment. I’ll let you know if I reach any conclusions.
5. I love the band Electric Light Orchestra, most devotedly. It is very sad, but there you have it. When we were living in London, my friend emailed me a youtube clip of  ‘Last Train to London’ and it made me cry. Yes, sad.
6. I have never plucked my eyebrows. They grow very sparsely and I am afraid I will fuck it up and will be left with permanently mishapen eyebrows.  I have a friend who has a single line of hairs, I don’t think it would suit me. Also, I sneeze whenever I try.
7. I am addicted to dark chocolate. Really dark so that it almost turns your mouth inside out with the bitterness.
8. I am very clumsy, I injure myself all the time. Beefcake has tried to ban me from using knives (and scissors) but found it pointless as I only came up with new ways to injure myself.
9. I am afraid of boats, which is problematic as Beefcake adores them.
10. My vision is deteriorating. Beefcake finds this hilarious and delights in finding me holding items at arms length so that I can read labels properly.

Now, I believe the original idea was to tag ten people. Katyboo tagged two and I plan to do the same. So, Magic Marker Mom and Badness Jones. Have at it.