Yesterday, I peeled a chunk of nail and flesh from my thumb with a vegetable peeler.

It hurt.

Rather a lot actually.

Also, and I should point out here that you are lucky that I am not providing a picture for your pleasure, there was a nice piece of my thumb sitting in the kitchen sink. We all had a good look at it. It was a bit yuck.

It bled and bled and bled.

Being without even one opposable thumb is actually a real pain in the bum.

This morning, as it was still bleeding and my blood soaked bandaid* needed changing, I yelled for my manservant** to attend me.

Whilst I was waiting for him to attend me, I removed the blood encrusted bandaid and this my friends, is where Pudding shared his wisdom:

Pudding: What happened to your thumb? (ah the temperamental memory of a four-year-old)

Me: I peeled it with a vegetable peeler.

Pudding: Well, I haded a bruise. It’s gone now.

Me: Yes, yes you did.

Pudding: Well, you should of goted a man to help you. (Accompanied by look of superior wisdom and paternal care)

Me: I beg your pardon?

Pudding: (shakes head and smiles condescendingly) A man! You needed a man to help you.

Me: (quite pissy by this stage) Ah, no. No darling, girls can do anything that boys can do.

Pudding: (laughs in my face) No! Boys are best at using tools and fixing Mummy. You should have gotted a MAN to help you!

Grrrr. The manservant insists he has not said anything that would have given rise to that sort of thought. He then went on to spout some insolent nonsense about Pudding observing the natural order of things, which earned him a sound beating stern talking to.

I can’t quite believe that came out of Pudding’s mouth. The child knows that I built most of the kitchen cupboards for frag’s sake. He obviously is too young to know what’s good for him!

* Sticking plaster. Beefcake kept heading into Boots in the UK and asking for bandaids only to be met with blank stares. He never did learn.

**Beefcake is a most slovenly, objectionable and quite frankly next to useless man-servant. He is not efficient or organised in any way but beggars with sore pelvises can’t be choosers.

I have written three or four beginnings to this post and deleted them.

I do not have my creative flow. My blogging mojo is absent.

I shall put a brave face on it, though and bravely push on with a bullet pointy type post that requires very little of my brain to be functional.

To make it interesting, let us divide the bullet points into two categories. “Awesome things that are great and happy and light up my life or are just funny” and “Whingey things that I could spare you but will not because I am selfish like that”

Awesome things that are great and happy and light up my life or are just funny:

• Grub has decided to cut me some small slack. She has cut down her overnight breastfeeding to between 0 and 3 feeds overnight – yes you read that correctly, she had her first ever night without a feed during the night – and she has agreed to sometimes sleep for several hours in her own bed. I will admit that this is a very new trend -  she has only done it twice – but I declare it to be the new norm. I will shortly be  the proud owner of one of those modern, new-fangled sleeping-through-the-night-and-putting-themselves-to-sleep children I have heard about. I can feel it in my waters.
• Spring has sprung. There is sunshine, there are butterflies, there are flowers (unfortunately with sniffle-making pollen to make my eyes water but let us not dwell on that). I feel as though a great grey shroud has been lifted from my person. Sunshine makes me happy.
• Beefcake has been working very hard this month, doing a bunch of very long days in order to haul some projects at work towards their deadlines. This may sound like it is not such an awesome thing but what it does mean is that the slight overspend that we had with the original kitchen renovation, which has been hanging over each month and making me feel stressed and depressed, will be taken care of. We will be back in fine shape. It hasn’t really been a big deal but it would be nice to have a month where I do not have to plan our spending down to the very cent. It will be lovely to be able to purchase one or two things I have been putting off for myself because they were not 100% strictly speaking necessary. I feel much relieved.
• The few extra dollars we might have will mean that I can perhaps paint the bathroom or re-tile the shower recess or re-enamel the very old bath. A bath should not have a rough abrasive surface. It will only be a minor bathroom refresh as opposed to a proper bathroom renovation as we will one day demolish this bathroom and it would be wasteful to replace it now but I am sure I can get it looking quite nice. I should show you what it looks like now – remind me to do that.
• Beefcake and I bought a rare and much appreciated coffee to get us through playgroup on Friday morning. In the cafe where we purchased our take-away beverages, there was a family (two older parents and an adult son) eating fish and chips. It was nine thirty in the morning. We thought maybe they were tourists, they had the look of being not quite local about them. We thought perhaps they had just arrived and it was dinner time where they come from, or maybe fish and chips is a breakfast food in their country. I don’t know but I thought it was a bit odd. Would you go the deep fried seafood and chips for brekkie?
• It is Poss’ birthday in less than two weeks and she has requested a shopping spree to redecorate her room with nice things. New bedding and cushions and such. Beefcake is completely puzzled that someone would want this as a birthday gift but I am excited  because it will actually be quite a fun thing to do. She has already chosen a new quilt cover and is planning a colour scheme she wants to work on – cute! I shouldn’t say that, she’s going to be eleven, that’s practically a teenager.
• Also on the topic of Poss’ burgeoning adolescence. The other day she was excitedly telling me about a school project when, to my delight, she threw in the tweeny term “totally random”. I have been unable to resist taunting her. She hates me. What fun.

Whingey things that I could spare you but will not because I am selfish like that:

• My body is an unpredictable and vile hell-monster with it’s own independent and beastly identity. I was feeling fab on Friday and went to the park with the small kids and the friend that used to come to playgroup (you remember) and her two girls. I had a spring in my step. It was great. I felt as though things were on the up and up. As some sort of cosmic punishment for feeling good (yes, I am melodramatic) I dislocated my wrist when I picked Grub up off of the slide. No odd movements or anything. Just picked her up. I couldn’t bear to tell my friend. I feel like a hyperchondriac so I grabbed my wrist and we walked home – lucky the park is around two minutes away. My wirst was very swollen and purple that night but is beginning to feel better now. My pelvis has arced up again quite badly. I am on a neverending merry-go-round of crap.
• Beefcake is working insane amounts. It will not stop this week. He will not be being paid extra for anything he does now either and he is mostly picking up the slack for other, slackarse people. Very frustating but at the same time I must remember that he is here, at home with us and we are actually extremely luck – so shut up Ali.
• I have been comfort eating. It is a pain/depression thing. I am usually pretty good but I have dropped the ball with my eating and I feel quite grumpy with myself. It is made worse by the fact that I am still carrying the vast majority of my baby weight from Grub and I can not exercise at all really. I feel really guilty about it and sometimes that seems to actually make it worse. It is a whole self-perpetuating cycle of self-loathing. I need to take control of it but some days having to be really careful about what I eat seems like a step too far. Like it will just be the thing to push me over the edge. I need to get a grip.
• Also, my foot hurts.

There you have it people. You’ree lucky I don’t blog more often really, aren’t you?

I keep forgetting to blog. It is most odd. In this case there are a couple of factors to blame.

Factor one: Pelvis

I got some sort of bizarre hysterical urge to exercise last week. I got all inspired and decided that I would take action.

Action about my pelvis and action about the extra large arse and thighs that I have been lugging around since Grub was born. I experienced a dramatic improvement in the state of my pelvis once I was able to start exercising post Pudding. Whilst I am still not there in terms of my day to day pelvic stability I decided I could wait no longer. I called a couple of gyms and went straight out and exercised, quite hard – that same day.

Hah!

Eeeediot!

The trial run at the gym triggered a major episode which has left me contemplating a visit to the doctor. Let me just clarify that in order for me to even consider a trip to the quack I need to be in a very sorry state indeed. The pelvis is not behaving, not at all.

Factor two: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

Some time ago Katyboo recommended this book. Her praise was so high that I got myself straight down to my local library and tried to get a copy. Apparently this is a much sought after novel. There were NINE people ahead of me in the queue for the four copies of the book that the library holds. I reserved this book seven weeks ago, I believe. I was beginning to think that I would never lay my eyes on the book when I got a text from the library to say that my copy was waiting two days ago.

I have been alternating between lying flat on my back and moaning and devouring the book.

I have been unable to force myself to even open my laptop as the thought of interaction with the world made me feel all weepy and woeful.

I must be feeling a touch better I suppose as I feel tonight like saying hello to the internet.

I told Beefcake yesterday that I didn’t want to blog because I didn’t want to just get on and have a whinge about my pelvis

Yet AGAIN.

So, this may be a bit of a whinge about my pelvis but let us pretend that I have posted something hilarious about Rhubarb’s fear of pooping in the school toilets or Pudding’s current obsession with using the term “bumhole” every 2.4 seconds courtesy of one very annoying 13yo brother who introduced it to his vocab without a second thought.

Pretend I posted those things and comment accordingly.

I will  get my act together soon, I swear.

WARNING: This is where I demonstrate that I have no shame, or at least, very little, and if something is bothering me enough I just have to share. Please click away if you are easily embarassed or would rather not know this kind of thing about me. I won’t be offended, I just have to put this out there because, well, I have poor impulse control?

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I use a little thing known as an epilator. I have used it for some time. It is excellent.

My underarms and legs remain pretty much hair-free with a minimum of pain and fuss if I am nice and reg-a-lar about it.

However.

I am a bit squeamish when it comes to attending to my bikini line with my epilator. I do it, but if I have left it to grow back at all it is all together too painful for me to manage in one session. I have remembered this and have been keeping it well under control lately. Consequently, this morning it was time to have a quick tidy up after my shower.

Now, your skin needs to be completely dry in order to perform the whole epilation thing. It told me so in the manual when I first bought it and my brain has managed to fire that information at me every time I have used my epilator since. My brain did fire the information this morning. I did not take heed.

Just in case you are not familiar with the way an epilator works, it pulls the hair out by the roots with little rotating tweezer disc thingys- painful if you’re not used to it, some potential for maiming around sensitive areas.

I was in a hurry this morning.

I just have one phrase for you “labia mangling”.

The end.

I have now realised that there is another distinct downside to Beefcake’s working from home. I have become lazy and incompetent.

Yesterday he headed off to take Rhubarb to rowing camp, a trip that’s about 90 minutes each way. I was alone in the house with Poss, Pudding and Grub and had to feed them and keep them entertained until after dinner. When he worked in an actual office this would not have bothered me. I was used to being alone with them. Yesterday I was crapping myself. I realised I had become completely unfamiliar with how to juggle all the children on my own, as I never do for more than an hour or two at a time. After he left, I had a panic that they would overthrow me and I would be powerless to stop them. They did outnumber me, how could I ever prevail?

My paranoia is completely spaztastic as I still do all of the caring for the kids while he is working, it’s just that he’s there, as backup. I know this, I just was worried that if I had to wrangle them for an afternoon without a moments respite, I would end up hiding in my wardrobe or something to get away from them. It turns out that the children hadn’t picked up on my incompetence and terror and thought that I was my usual authoritative self. We managed just fine. There were few tantys and I hardly swore at all. It seems that mothering is much like the bicycle, only with more snot and vomit. I may have been cheating slightly this past year, by having a great big hairy helper, but I can still manage if I have to, which is reassuring.

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I’ve been gradually learning the lessons of owning a mobile phone. It’s taken some time, I first owned one a decade ago, but I think I am prepared to share some of the rules now.

1. Lock keypad so as not to call people accidentally at  inopportune moments.
2. Do not drop your phone in a glass of water. It will die. (This happened in January last year)
3. Do not buy cheap phone in Singapore. Two things will happen. You will find that you can buy the phone for a similar price in Australia and parts of the phone will begin to fall off. (March)
4. Do not give mobile phone to seven-month-old baby to play with. She will suck on it and when you go to use it, it will no longer work. (Yesterday)

Upside -I get to go and buy a new phone today. Downside – given my recent track-record it is likely to be something quite a bit cheaper than this.

It was the kid’s Christmas celebration at school yesterday evening. I dragged my headachey self along and tried to hide from the bright, bright sun using only my sunglasses. It was not that successful. It was worth attending, however, as the festivities included singing from Poss and the presentation of a pen and ‘graduation’ certificate to Rhubarb.

He is a bit “whatever” about this graduation from primary school (as he’s been through it all before in the UK) but I think he’ll be pleased that he’s taken part in all the fun by the end of the week. Tomorrow the graduating year 7’s head to a water fun park for the day, on Thursday they have a dinner and disco and on Friday the traditional ‘muck-up’ activities. Then it’s all over.

He’s such a moody little thing at the moment that I’m not sure I’m ready to embrace the high-school version of Rhubarb (pity I have no choice). I’ll take comfort in the fact that he is still willing to give his Mum a cuddle and tell me he loves me (when he’s in the mood, and I’m not being too annoying).

Here he is accepting his certificate.

I also just have to share this as it’s so OMFGworthy. On the weekend, an ergo-stool collapsed on my forearm. It really didn’t hurt that much but there was a suspicious swelling of a vein straight after it happened. Anyhoo, it has blossomed into this gorgeous (and very impressive) bruise. I bruise easily but this is just ridiculous.

Second shot just for some perspective on the size of it relative to my arm. Not small!