Author: McPikelets

Playhouse excitement

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Sometimes I get really excited about stuff to get or do with the girls, and it backfires on me. Like the time we excitedly took them on a geothermal walk and they whinged for 85% of it and screamed that the steam was stinging their eyes (it wasn’t. My girls just love to sprinkle every day with a bit of drama). So after months of planning for a playhouse to be built and delivered as a big surprise for the girls, I had a little moment of doubt and wondered if a beautiful weather-board mini-house was more about my childhood dreams than theirs. Then Tilly did THIS face/fist pump combo when she saw it and I knew it was a dream come true for them, too. We couldn’t be more thrilled about the house (painted to match our house, which absolutely is more about the parents than the children, #sorrynotsorry) made by Uncle Greg’s Playhouses in Tauranga. Let the tea parties commence!

A Mummy Misdemeanour

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Following an afternoon filling up on popcorn, M&M’s (peanut ones, chosen for the protein, obviously) and fluff off the cinema seats, I made a low-key dinner of peas, carrots and sandwiches. The five year old thought “lunch-dinner” was hilarious. The two-year-old shot me a mutinous look while making bee-beep noises as she pretended to call the cops on her hand. “Hello, p’lice?” she said into her hand-phone, “Mummy made us sammiches for DINNER, so come and take her and lock her up”.  Meanwhile, her big sister wailed “Don’t take my Mum away! She’s a good mum! Beeeeeliiiiieeeeevvvve meeeeeeee!”  She cried actual tears.  I think we now know which child will be given power of attorney one day. She’s currently top of the leader-board for inheriting my wedding rings, too. 

The Indignity of Motherhood

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I heard the phrase “you check your dignity in at the door during childbirth” bandied about a few times when I was pregnant. Sure, I’d seen the antenatal class photos and thought I knew what was up (and down, and sideways, and is-that-even-part-of-a-human-body?!), but after four endometriosis operations, a myriad of tests and a round of IVF, I already felt like my dignity was that unclaimed suitcase you see going around the luggage carousel at the airport. “It’s okay – you’re growing a baby!” Pregnancy introduces new levels of embarrassment to women the world over. Maybe you opened a car door and threw up in the gutter of a busy street while in the throes of morning sickness. Perhaps you kicked your shoes off under the desk at work then found yourself unable to cram them back on your swollen tootsies when it came time to attend a meeting. It’s not unusual to burst into noisy sobs during TV ads. Inappropriately timed and completely unexpected burps that rival those of a drunk first year university …

Rumbled.

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For nearly five years I’ve been secretly performing an elaborate regular ritual of making sure the stunt-double Snuggly looks the same as the Snuggly about to be put in the washing machine. My heart beats a little faster on swap-over day, ready to field suspicious questions: “Mum, does Snuggly seem a little…pointier nosed than usual? Does the bit of his hat I chewed off look…different to you?” Etc. Today during the Snuggly swap over I got rumbled by the cat. Now I feel like I’m the mother in a “Switched At Birth” made-for-TV-movie where a plucky young journalist knows he’s uncovered a Hidden Secret and is about to break his first Big Story then get hired by the NY Times. I’m going to have to buy Frankie’s silence with grated cheese and tuna brine (dolphin friendly).

I’ll leave that one uncorrected for now

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I know I’m supposed to correct pronunciation and mis-hears, but sometimes getting it wrong works in my favor. My top-40 music junkies have been meaningfully belting out “snuck out a little wee on the couch in the bathroom”, and asking questions about why someone would have a couch in their bathroom, and why someone else would wee on a couch in the bathroom when the toilet must be, like, RIGHT THERE. I’ll leave explaining that the actual lyric is “smoke a little weed on the couch in the back room” for another day.