So the ceiling fell…

…on top of SR while he was sleeping.  I’m past the anger by now, but this is what happened:

 

On the one afternoon my fantastic does everything DG called me to show the cornice that had come down in the boys bedroom.  I told her to ask her husband to take it down and to nail the ceiling board back before it falls down too.

 

My fantastic does everything DG decided that I had told her to only do it the next day.  We were all sleeping when I woke up from a crash and SR crying.  The ceiling board had fallen right on top of him.

 

A brick also fell out of the roof, but luckily it got caught by the curtain rail and didn’t land on SR’s head.

 

 

The brick

 

Needless to say I’m not that fond of my DG at the moment…

 

PS: All Arts & Crafts should be supervised

I’ve got all the kids at home today.  Again!  BB’s best friend Funny S came over for a playdate.  SR and LM refused to go to creche, because they’ve got a friend over…

So, to try and get a few moments to myself, I decided to try out one of those easy home art projects.  Something simple, hassle free and above all foolproof.

Ha!  Making up three batches of side walk paint was the easy bit!  Some maizena, food colour and water.  Like I said easy.

I sacrificed my sponge brushes in the hope of half an hour’s peace.  But it never happened.  Before I even left them to it the fighting starts.

“Mommy, LM’s painting on mine!” SR’s got such a penetrating voice!

Practicing my best ostrich impersonation, I ignore all comments and disappear to the bedroom to enjoy the short lived tranquility.  That’s if you can manage to ignore the ever increasing volume of complaints from the stoep.

Five minutes and SR has joined me in the bedroom leaving his 2 year old sister alone with the side walk paint.  BB and Funny S having abandoned them to rather go play Wii.  I try working around him, but have to stop and play with him for a little while.  Next moment LM walks into the room… with the green (the one colour that I got perfect) bowl tilted in her hands… so that the paint splashed out with each step…  a decidedly green look to her feet, legs, shorts, hands and arms… there’s even green spots on her face.

Horrified I chased her out of my bedroom back to the stoep before rushing to the kitchen for the stain removing pine detergent.

So the moral of this story is:

1. Even foolproof arts and crafts need to be supervised in this house for at least the next 3 years.
2. My children can and will fight about anything
3. And food colour can and will stain slate tiles.

Thank God the holiday is almost over!

Dear Husband,

Please bare in mind that on the days you refuse to drive, you are also relinquishing your right to comment on my driving.

 

Your loving wife

Why I hate the Christmas Holidays

In short my whole life gets turned upside down.  But to expand a little on that…

 

• My full time, sort-out-everything, fantastic maid has left on holiday and I’m stuck with a house full of slobs.
• The Man is home and just wants to relax, ie do nothing at all… ever… the whole time he is on leave.  Okay, I’m exaggerating, but I swear more than one outing a week and he gets grumpy.
• I’ve got 3 demanding and extremely bored kids on my hands. Never mind the lists of fun activities I’ve planned before the holidays even started.
• I’ve got no time for myself.  Not even half an hour.
• I’ve got too many parties planned for a maid-free home.  Right, it is just two, but still Christmas eve and Christmas day.  Stupid, right?
• I’ve got my mom staying over for a week. Dread, horror and what the hell will I say to her thoughts.  Let me explain this just a little bit.  I had my mother committed in a mental hospital.  Her diagnosis was Schizophrenia with obsessive compulsive tendencies.  She now lives with my brother. But she still remembers that I was the one that had her committed…

 

Not a fun time at all!

On being myself

We had guests yesterday.  The husband is a stay-at-home dad.  Not necessarily by choice.  After they left, the Man told me that it was difficult to talk to this guy.  I must admit, it was quite painful to watch.   His low self esteem was visible by a mile and over compensated the whole time that they were here.

It made me realise that I used to do this too.  I’ve been so worried about what other people think of me that it made me doubt everything I was.  Made me believe that I wasn’t as good as other people. Trying to find things I was good at just to be part of the crowd.  In the mean time I was neglecting the things that I actually was good at.

A while ago I decided to stuff convention, stuff the rules of society and just be who I wanted to be.  It’s happening.  Finally I’m starting to know myself.  To not worry about how well I compare to the Joneses.

It’s not an over night success, because I still find myself comparing me against someone at times.

A few weeks ago I was asked to be the emcee at a charity event.  To put it mildly I was scared spitless.  But I did it.  I fumbled a few lines in the beginning. Then between a few glasses of champagne and the realisation that the only way to manage this was by not giving a shit what the people thought of me, I managed it.  Quite well actually.

My new goal in life is to work on making myself happy.  To not give a shit what the world out there thinks of me and to do only what I feel like doing.  Oh and a few glasses of wine every now and then.

Growing old is definitely not for sissies

THERE’S A HAIR IN MY CLEAVAGE.

Thanks for breaking my kids’ hearts!

Things like this just piss me off!  Big time!

 

School closed almost two weeks ago.  Because I know my kids, I arranged several playdates and outings for the holiday period.  The fact that the school closed two weeks early didn’t really help at all.  Add to that the fact that I’ve been without transport for the last 4 weeks  and you’ve got a frustrated mom and kid.  At least the younger ones are still in creche.

 

Today was the first playdate.  Of the 9 mom & kids invites I sent out only one accepted. Bummer, but at least the kid coming was BB’s best friend.  Then the mom got the date wrong and wanted to drop him off on Friday…  the one day I had relented and let BB go to creche with the other two for a party.

 

Being fair to the other two I kept them home today, because SR also loves playing with this friend.  And I had a nice activity picked out for them to keep them busy.  The time I specified in the invite came and went.  His mom isn’t always the most punctual so I gave it another 10 minutes.

 

Then I sms’ed her.  “Is S still coming over for a visit?”  Just to get the reply: “Sorry, but he’s at home and there’s no one to bring him over.  Sorry”

 

I’ve got a sulking 6 year old, a crying 4 year old and a difficult 2 year old to cope with today.  BB has been counting the days until this playdate for 7 nights already.  Last night he told me he was going to take a bath, watch a little bit of TV and go to sleep, because his friend S was coming to visit tomorrow.

 

Fuming Le Chicken stopping right there before I say something extremely nasty!

 

That depression bug

The Depression

I’ve struggled with depression on and off for many years.  I remember climbing on top of my cupboard while in high school to get away from the sadness that was gripping me.  Or climbing to the top of the biggest tree in our garden.

 

Then in my twenties, living alone with hardly any money, I finally went and saw a psychologist.  Even though I got along with him quite well (he asked me some pertinent questions, gave me home work and prescribed anti-depressants) I just couldn’t afford to see him on a regular basis.  I remember describing one situation to him:  How I had walked through the shopping centre and got into my car crying my eyes out, because I couldn’t afford to buy myself a cup of coffee.

 

Background

Maybe I should give you a bit of background.  I come from a broken home, where violence wasn’t unexpected.  Booze on the one side and mental illness on the other.  Leaving me (as the oldest) the one that had to take care of the others.  One memorable evening dad was drunk again, mom was going at him again.  Things got worse as they always did.  I got our clothes together and I helped my siblings to get down to the car.  After a bit of a lull I got my mom away and told her to drive to my friend’s house.  As we were pulling away, my father ran after us hitting the windscreen with a bottle of beer.  That night we got away and we stayed at my friends house for a day or two.

 

But it wasn’t all bad and we had fun times as well.  I never doubted that either of them loved me.   I went through the requisite not serious relationships, then the almost serious one.  After another bout of depression (which I wrote off as a bad case of low blood pressure) after the break-up of a four year relationship, I finally met my husband.  We moved in together two months after we met.  We lived together for 4 years before we could afford the wedding .  Soon after we got married I went through another BAD patch.  I had stupidly gotten involved in office politics and couldn’t see my way out of it.  After a complete breakdown and two days sick leave I got tranquilisers from the doctor and managed to extricate myself from that vicious cycle by doing only my work and ignoring all conversations that did not pertain to the work itself.

 

Luckily I had a very understanding boss who supported me through this nightmare.  The day I left the person responsible for all my angst asked me how long it would take someone else to do my work, since I was always on my email, he didn’t believe I had a lot of work to do.  That being his main reason for being nasty and bitchy (yes, a guy) towards me.  I told him that if he had only asked me (instead of making my life hell with back biting, etc) I would have been able to explain to him that I had been using outlook as a workflow control.  All my work came in via email.  Work that had not been completed was left in my inbox, work that was completed, was moved to another folder.  It was my record of what was still left to be done and he was under the impression that I was constantly playing around during office hours. He thought one person would be able to do my work half day.  In the end they had to appoint two people full time to manage my workload.  You can imagine how vindicated I felt.

 

I had babies.  My oldest BB (Big Boy) who’s stubborn to a fault, SR (Sports Reporter) who finds himself incapable of shutting up, AB (Angel Baby) who died just over three years ago, and LM (Little Miss) the baby in the house who believes everything belongs to her.

 

Back to today

I always thought that I was coping with the death of AB amazingly well.  Maybe I did, maybe I just delayed the whole issue.  For the last few months, I’ve realised that I wasn’t coping anymore.  Life held no more excitement for me.  Dealing with the rest of my kids became an unwanted duty that I did with resentment.  Dinner time became one of my biggest fears.  I still don’t know what to cook at night.  I’ve spent hours crying when I’m alone.  I’ve hated myself for what I’ve become and I’ve even wondered if it would make a big difference if I wasn’t there anymore.  I think the only reason I’m not actually suicidal is that I would be leaving behind my responsibility towards my kids.  No matter how terrible a mother I am, I’m the only one they’ll have.

 

I’ve been amazing at hiding my depression.  I had one of several asthma attacks in front of MIL.  I had to tell her that I’m stressed and depressed and have been suffering from attacks for weeks already, but it’s actually possible to give the lie to the truth by your demeanour.  Her advice was that maybe I should go and get a job.  I don’t even want to tell you what I thought of that.  DH is the only one that knows how bad my depression is this time.  And he’s worried.  Now I feel guilty for putting the burden of my depression on him.  I’ve seen a doc.  I’ve got tranquilisers again.  It’s been a week and I’ve already doubled the dosage that the doctor said I could do.  But I’m not seeing an improvement yet.  I think I might have to go back to her.  I might also have to take the plunge and go speak to someone that can help get my head right.  This time I’m broken without knowing how to fix it.

 

How did I manage to hide my depression?

• Pretend
• Always smile at everyone you see.
• Start the conversation with something light, like the weather
• Make a joke at your own expense
• Portray the image of a happy carefree person. People will always respond in kind.
• It’s actually possible to feel happy and forget that you are depressed while in the company of others. But there’s always that blanket of depression that falls over you the moment you drive away.

Lately it’s become to much hassle to pretend anymore.  I’d rather hide in my car at school when picking up BB than to get out and have to pretend happiness to the other mothers.  I’m struggeling to do funny these days.

You think I was a bitch?

Back to the heading of my post.  We were at our local Spur the other day.  Because my husband had spent a lot of years waitering (mostly at Spur and Ocean basket) he’s very adamant about giving a tip.  However, sometimes bad service has to be rewarded.  Our normal tipping method is 10% if service is passable.  If service was excellent we’d up the tip to 20%.

 

The first error was made with our drinks order.  I could still excuse it, since I did change my mind half way through the order. Sent my incorrect drink back and requested the correct one.

 

Then the kids food arrived and the wrong meal was brought for one of them.  PS: After I had told her the name of the dish as well as shown it to her on the menu when ordering.  I sent the food back.  When it came back corrected it was still missing the veggies that was supposed to be included in the meal.  I sent her back for it.  The missing veggie portion was brought in a seperate bowl.  After a while I decided to take a taste, only to find the veggies still cold and the piece of butter unmelted.  I sent her back to have it cooked.

 

With our second drinks order my husband ordered two of my type drink.  She just brought another round.  We had to send back hubs’ incorrect drink and requested the right one.

 

Our main meal was ordered, both of us ordered our meat medium rare.  Hubs’ meat arrived medium to well done, my showed up rare.  Although that was the fault of the griller and not the waitress.

 

Once the main meal was delivered, we didn’t see her again except when she was walking past to do deliveries to others.  We had to ask someone else to get doggie bags for the kids’ food and for the bill.

 

Hubs told me that I would be in charge of deciding on the tip, since I was the one that was most upset about the bad service.  So I took the 10% and deducted 1% for each mistake.  Seemed fair to me.  In the end she walked away with a R10 tip just under 2%.

 

So do you think I was being a bitch?

I’ll babysit your kids…

Ranting post beware!

PIL live right next door and we’ve been told that if we need a bit of time to ourselves that they’ll babysit.  Except that it never happens!  Forget it.  Half an hour and the kids are back.  If all I needed was half an hour I could have just put on a DVD!

The other person in our lives that has asked us quite a few times to babysit, has the most busy social life imaginable.  You literally have to make an appointment to see her.  Never mind the fact that she lives like an hours drive away.

Leaving us with this problem. Over and above MIL who lives RIGHT NEXT DOOR, but needs an afternoon nap more than me and DH needs a bit of time alone!  The only people I can ask to look after the kids for an afternoon or 2 hours (just to watch a movie that’s rated above 13LV) I have to drive a minimum of 35km ONE WAY!  PS: That excludes the aunt who lives a lovely 65km away.

Yeah right! You built your house right next to ours so that you can “see” your grandchildren regularly.  5 minutes through the fence all you want?

In 6 years the in laws have babysat for us a total of (to be extremely generous) 10 times.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!