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 am feeling indecisive.

I keep reading other people’s blog posts and then marking them to comment later because I never seem to have the time, right that minute. I mean to come back and comment later but I almost never do.

I have sick babies again, and Foxtel (to those who have enquired, we do have the IQ and it is now being well used to record things) both of which are keeping me very busy. Ooh and let us not forget the oven, which has been used to create something at least once each day since it was connected. There has been cake wallowing left and right.

I have had a rather all-consuming pregnancy scare. I am still a touch dubious about it but two pee-on-a-sticks later I must suppose that my bizarre pregnancy-style symptoms are either in my mind or a sign that my hormones are just doing something odd. Unfortunately, despite PMS style mood swings, I still have no periods so I am prone to paranoia about a fifth child. Especially when (as happened on my birthday) we have one of our patented “crap contraception moments”. So, I have what I call “burning tits of fire”, which has always been a dead-certain sign that I am up the duff. As I am not, I suppose it is just a feature of Grub’s around the clock feeding or something. It is messing with my fragile mind.

Beefcake is back working today, which has been surprisingly lovely. You wouldn’t think it would be different at all, considering he is still here in the house, cluttering it up. But it is. When he is working, everything goes just fine. There is total harmony. What terrible creatures of habit we are.

The big kids are still on holidays and, despite the fact that they are both noisy and smelly, I am mostly enjoying their company, although Rhubarb’s love of Spongebob is driving me slightly mental. Every time I leave the room with the tv on I come back in to find it (or something equally awful) on the screen.

I used to manage to blog almost every day, or at least several times a week. Where did I find the time to do that? How has that time just evaporated? Who bloody knows.

On this day, one year ago, you came into this world.

Your birth was the most profoundly joy-filled and peaceful experience of my life.

Born in the dining room of our home, the whole family watched you enter the world.

You swam from your comfort inside of my body and into my hands.

I have held you in my arms ever since, although often now you will stray away from my reach as you explore your world.

You are bold and strong-willed and independent.

You are always busy. My little bee. You love to run and to climb.

You are musical (we’re not sure where that comes from). You will tap out a beat on anything and you’ll play anything that makes a tune and sing along.

You have brought such joy to all of our lives as a sister and a daughter.

You were the missing element to our family.

Now that we have you, we feel complete.

Happy birthday little G.

You are one year old today.

Mama loves you.

Right now I am “looking after” the children. They are watching Playschool. Well, Pudding is watching Playschool, one hand in my cardigan pocket the other feeding his plastic builders ruler through the buttonhole as he nags me to put a youtube episode of 80’s transformers on for him. Thank you Beefcake for introducing him to that. Grub is slowly but surely unpacking the large bookcase in the corner, taking special care to tear dustcovers as she goes. Oh, hang on, now she is trying to scale the tv cabinet in an attempt to grab a dvd she has spotted. So, yes, the term “looking after” should be applied loosely here.

The problem is, I am finding it increasingly difficult to find two unencumbered seconds in which to write anything on my blog. By the time I have my hands free in the evening (which by the way never happened last night as Grub insisted she be held ALL NIGHT) I am too exhausted to talk or think or blog.

Pudding is feeling poorly. He…

….Slight break there where I was forced to dash across the room and rescue my precious, precious iphone from pudgy little hands (it is good for banging on the floor by the way) and then kiss and console very pissed off baby.

Yes, Pudding. He has a high fever. Probably the Swine flu. He is very lacklustre, demonstrated by the fact that he is sitting next to me as opposed to leaping about between the couch and ottoman shouting about pirates or boxing. Poor litttle love. His usually fair complexion is positively ghostlike in it’s paleness today. I hate it when he is sick, although I should be grateful that he is being still and quiet it’s too unnerving for me.

The big kids have gone to their Dad’s as he has returned from his European holiday. It is a public holiday. Everyone else in Australia is off work but Beefcake works for a UK company so he is working upstairs.

It is cold.

Time is up.

Being yelled at by baby. Must be held and boobed. Pudding saying Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy on repeat is now half on my lap.

I have no photos or anything interesting to post. It’s a wonder that I have bothered to write this but I am filled with guilt at the post free days on my blog.

There will be no proofreading. I’m living on the edge.

The end.

It was a lovely sunny day of about 20 degrees here today, which felt positively balmy compared to the freezy, frozenness we have been enduring in the last little bit. I am exaggerating of course. We have no real frozenness in Adelaide, sometimes in the hills but not actually in Adelaide. I am just a wuss. I am not a fan of the wintery coldness and do not cope well with the cooler weather over Autumn and Winter. I had to force myself not to hide inside for our entire time in the UK. I would have liked to stay inside wearing a hot water bottle suit, huddling under a doona/radiator tent arrangement. Anyway, I prefer the warmth.

Where was I? Ah yes, playgroup.

Playgroup was lovely today. I chatted to the other mothers. I would have made you all proud. Interestingly, Beefcake had an idea as to why I feel so very uncomfortable amongst other mothers. He thinks that my experiences as a very young mother to Rhubarb (I was only 18) have made me anxious around other Mums even though I am now a similar age to many of the Mums that I meet. I feel like a misfit still, despite no longer being one. I think he may be right, at least it’s an alternative theory to the one I’ve been running with -  “all other mothers are nasty moles”. Right, distracted from my point again, this is becoming a terrible habit.

Foot in mouth prompting Mummy – hmmm, FIMPM, that’s not a very good blog-name for someone, I will have to rethink that moniker. Anyway, FIMPM was there and she was very nice and we chatted and she didn’t appear to think I was horrible and boring at all. I am all chest puffy outy and air punchy that I have made a new friend. Yes, I am five.

It’s not just the making a new friend thing. I love that we have found a playgroup we love. We all love it, so much that I wish we had thought of going there earlier. I feel a bit ashamed to say that my own experiences of playgroups and things with the older children made me wary of trying this playgroup sooner. It is just nice to have a kid related activity that I won’t have to force myself to attend each week. I actually enjoy it and that’s pretty cool.

After 13 years, maybe I am beginning to get the hang of  at least this  aspect of the Mummy thing, hey? Yeah, probably not.

I am beastly.

I am a bitch.

I am experiencing some sort of hormonal surge. I believe it may be due to the impending return of my period. My boobs are killing me, in fact I believe something has caused blocked ducts in one as it is agony. I hate everyone. I mean loathe. I have yelled at every member of our family today, including the dog (except for the Grub of course because I am not some sort of inhuman monster* who goes around yelling at babies).

I had an argument with Beefcake while we were cooking dinner tonight. I knew I was being insane and he should have known that I am hormonal and if I am insane he should be agreeable and sweet and not arc up in response to my craziness. So really, it’s his fault and I am blameless. It was just an annoying bickering session about chilli and fat and nothing of consequence but I did have a little weep over placemats so emotions were running high.

I’m sure that this whole post is waaay too much information for most of you, which is fine, but I just need to come to grips with it a bit. Whilst there are positives. I don’t want my period back. It has been around 20 months since I last had one. This will likely be the last break I have from the relentless monthly hormonal roller coaster for DECADES!!! Waaaaahhh!

Beefcake has helpfully chimed in with the suggestion that I may be pregnant. He actually came home yesterday and said that while he was out he had been thinking about my moodiness etc and decided that was the logical conclusion. He then proceeded to tell me how nice he thought it might be to have five children. He is lucky to have made it out alive. I am not pregnant (or at least I bloody well hope not!)

So.

I am making a list of things that are good about being all fertile and menstrually again. Raging hippy that I am. Here goes:

• I lose weight more easily and my weight is easier to maintain when I have periods – don’t know why, just is.
• We are not good with contraception. A menstrual cycle that I can track makes everything sooooo much easier until Beefy goes for the old “snip snip” (mwahahahaha), which should be really soon.
• Sometimes it’s fun to buy tampons. In the UK they only sell them in jumbo size, enough to last you for six months boxes but in Oz they come in an array of pretty little tins and packages that I think are fun to buy (small things, small minds).
• I have an excuse for being bitchy – that probably won’t work too well but I can try.
• I have at least one guaranteed day of being able to be looked after and have Beefcake feel sorry for me. One day of hot water bottles and pampering.

Okay, that’s it. I was really stretching it with those last two. Can anyone else think of any positives? From where I am sitting it’s all bad really.

Bah and humbug.

*This is a word, right? Wordpress believes that it is not a word today. It is freaking me out because what if it really isn’t and I write a blog post including an imaginary word, the meaning of which only I grasp, and everyone thinks I’m a bit stupid??

We are going to listen to the lovely sounds that come from this man.

She has a baby girl 6 weeks younger than Grub.

It is very telling that we were both quite shocked, when we checked our tickets, to see that the doors opened at 9.30pm.

I got this email from her this morning:

We don’t get out much.

I must have been feeling particularly stupid when I forgot the sort of times live gigs usually happen. The ex-husband is a sound engineer for flips sake. I am all too aware of how these things work. Or at least I used to be, before my brain melted.

So, she will collect me at 9pm, we will be dressed nicely, we will venture out, unchaperoned.

Wish us luck.

* Okay, this might be a word. Shut up.

I do not fit in, I don’t care to try. I’ve always said that I do not wish to form friendships with people on the basis that we both have children and I hold to this.  I am not involved in the school generally, I am involved in my childrens’ schooling, I know what’s going on and will attend the mind-numbing assemblies and performances as need be, but I just am not that Mum. I think it’s my automatic need to be different from my own mother, who belonged to every committee the school could throw at her, and was false and shallow and boring.

I have hoped, over the years, that this doesn’t impact upon the children too much. They make friends and see their friends and I am chatty and have even been known to invite parents in for a cup of tea when required.

This year, Beefcake has assured me that Poss is old enough to walk to and from school alone. I was very reluctant, you will remember that this is the girl who last year collected urine soaked knitted toys on her journey home, and she was accompanied then! Although I may have let Rhubarb at the same age, she just doesn’t seem ready. He convinced me that she will be very annoyed if I try to baby her and insist on walking with her to and from school, I have been letting her. It is a very short walk and she has been very excited each morning.

This evening she asked if it would be possible for her to organise playdates over the phone from school in the afternoon. Cue me feeling like a complete and utter failure as a mother. Poss watches all of her friends arranging playdates with their mothers, who are there to collect them, directly after school. Oooh and guess what she said, go on, guess? “Maybe you could make some friends with the other mothers”. Okay. Devastated.

So say hello to the new me. You’ll find me hanging around the schoolyard cheerfully being bored into a semi-comatose state by all of the kiddy small talk. Ah, we do what we must, I suppose.

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.