My kid broke

A year in which a global pandemic was the highlight, will forever be known as a bad year. This, my friends, has been a bad year. 

in February 2020, the school year began. It started well enough, with one child in year 9, one in year 3 and the other in year 2. Oh yes, it started well enough. And then, on the fourth day of term 1, something happened. I don’t know what happened. I only know that my eight-year-old son came home from school crying, fell asleep whimpering and woke up on Friday refusing to go to school. 

I’m not talking about a “I’d rather be playing Mario Cart” school refusal. I’m talking about an “If you send me back into that fucking hell hole I’ll die” school refusal. It was extreme and it was dramatic. He cried himself to sleep every night. Every. Single. Night. He woke up crying. He screamed and cried as he was wrestled into his school uniform. He screamed and cried in the car, kicking my seat and threatening the unthinkable. He screamed and cried when we arrived at school, pinning himself into the back seat of the car and refusing to move. I carried this child into school over my shoulder, under my arm, dragged along the floor. I got him there, but at what cost? I’ll tell you the fucking cost. It nearly cost us everything. My mental health, his mental health, our family, our marriage, my friends, my job (already on shaky ground), my general will to live. 

It broke us. 

The difficult thing to recount about this period is the lack of help that was offered. The sense of abandonment was acute and crippling. When Frankie had a panic attack and vomited at the prospect of entering his classroom, no one helped us. No one looked after him. No one looked after me. No, that’s not true. Other mums took care of me; they consoled me and hugged me when they saw me leaving Frankie’s classroom wobbly-kneed and tear-streaked. No one looked after Frankie. I begged them to look after him, but they didn’t. An older female teacher advised him sagely that “big boys don’t cry”, accused me of being the primary cause of the problem and promptly scarred him for life. 

I don’t say this lightly. 

Frankie’s trauma is so profound that our psychiatrist and psychologist – working in tandem over the last six months – believe that we’re wasting our time trying to work through it. Instead, we’re working around it. That’s a big call for a psych, but there you have it.

I can safely say – without exaggeration or dramatisation – that this was the worst period of my life. This was no monkey funk; this was hell.  

A particular highlight from this period was my public humiliation in the school mums’ Facebook Group. Ahhh, memories. Ahhh, Facebook. Ahhh, school mums. For every kind-hearted hugger there’s a brutal, hardcore bitch with a camera phone. On this particular occasion, the brutal, hardcore bitch was targeting BAD PARKING. Which is a good and constructive use of your time when you have no fucking life to speak of. Now, I dislike bad  parking as much as the next person (by which I mean, I can move on from it quite easily), but I believe that one should find out the circumstances behind each parking misdemeanour before one publicly names and publicly shames the parking violator. FOR INSTANCE, on this particular occasion, I parked in something of a wonky fashion in order to, kind of, throw Frankie into his class. He was hysterical; I was desperate – I didn’t know WHAT ELSE TO DO. The brutal school mum knew what to do, though! She knew! Rather than help a poor, broken bitch out, she instead snapped a photo, posted it in the school mums’ Facebook Group and accused the wonky parker (me) of PUTTING CHILDREN’S LIVES IN DANGER. Oh, fuck offfffffff. I’d parked in a bit of a wonky fashion; I hadn’t driven over a toddler and used a teenager as a fucking loading ramp. 

And I’ll tell you, there’s nothing a gaggle of bored school mothers love more than endangered children. They really get their teeth into that shit. Fuck. Those. Mothers. Fuck them. Until you’ve peeled a child out of a car’s footwell, while they simultaneously kick you in the face with one sock on, you can stick your sanctimonious parking up your middle-class Audi arse. 

Frankie’s final day at school was on March 20. I documented this day. It was a bad day. After I was banned from the classroom (“We believe, Mrs Shearon, that the problem lies with you, entirely), Frankie was dragged in by a teacher, whom he promptly kicked. Another teacher – her cruel sister-in-arms – took me to one side and patronisingly told me that the kicked teacher would have “one heck of a bruise!” and while it certainly wasn’t my fault, it certainly was my fault. If she’d looked at me closely, she’d have seen that she was patronising an empty shell of a human. There was nothing left to patronise. I’d vacated, checked out, LEFT THE BUILDING, which was abundantly clear when the school office lady rang to tell me I’d forgotten to pack Frankie’s lunch a couple of hours later. Of course I fucking had; I’d forgotten my own name by this point. 

Think it can’t get any worse than forgetting your child’s lunch? Well, I’ll take you your forgotten lunch and raise you a forgotten child. Two, in fact. That’s right. I forgot to pick the children up from school. 

That’s not entirely correct. I thought Paul was picking them up. Paul thought I was picking them up. We arrived at Frankie’s shit psychologist appointment separately that afternoon and said, simultaneously, ARE THE KIDS IN THE CAR, which, obviously, they weren’t, because they were both still at school, weeping. 

Ain’t nothing a traumatised kid needs more than being abandoned at school on a Friday afternoon. 

Ah fuck, that was a bad day. We rescued Frankie and he immediately announced that he wouldn’t be returning to school on Monday. He kicked my car seat and made me cry. Mucho tears later, I tried to run away from home myself, except I forgot to open the garage door when I reversed out, in a bid for freedom.  

As I said, that was a bad day. 

On Sunday, Paul, Frankie and I went for a walk along the coastal path. We tried to talk to Frankie about school; at the mere mention of the word he collapsed on the path and howled into the mid-morning sky. Thus, we decided to temporarily end Frankie’s primary-school career. 

The relief was immediate and profound – for Frankie and for us. Conveniently, a global pandemic took hold at around this same time, so I had a legitimate reason to work from home and look after the kid; it was only a couple of weeks later that the two other kids were sent home from school, and life under lockdown began. 

I feel a little sheepish to admit that what was a living hell for some was an isolated slice of heaven cake for me. As a socially awkward introvert, I’d been practising for this shit my whole life. The kids got on my nerves, yes, certainly, but they got on my nerves when they were going to school every day, so it didn’t make a great deal of difference. I didn’t bother with the home-schooling thing; frankly, they learnt all they needed to know from School of Rock and besides, I had bread to bake. 

This lasted – what was it? Two months, three months? The days merged from one socially distanced week into the next and the real world (remember that prick?) began to blur, until in June – or could’ve just as easily as been July – we got the news: school’s back, work’s back, time to face the shit you’d so neatly swept under the carpet a solid 12 weeks ago. It was at this point that I was forced to face up to the mess that had been made of my little boy. And god, what a mess he was. I thought it would be funny, once, to mimic a school siren to indicate that lunch was ready. The kid cowered and cried like a fucking grenade had gone off. Alice had to be taken to and picked up from a school by a charitable friend, because Frankie couldn’t pass within 100m of the place. I’m not making this shit up. We couldn’t even drop Alice off at kiss ‘n’ ride without Frankie hyperventilating on the back seat. Activities that Frankie used to do with ease became torturous – we made the mistake of going to Latitude (a jumping, climbing place) during the school holidays and Frankie crumbled. He gripped my arm and whimpered, “I used to be able to do this.” He couldn’t anymore. We had to leave. It was the same story over and over again, to the point that I wondered if Frankie would ever leave my side again. He followed me everywhere and panicked when I was out of sight, even when I was hanging out the fucking washing. It was suffocating. 

And then, the inevitable: after four solid months at home, Frankie forgot how to properly human and slowly morphed into a small, wild, jungle creature who wouldn’t get a haircut and ate with his hands. When his hair covered his face, Paul took the scissors to it, resulting in a jungle mullet. Appalled, I attempted to match the back to the front, giving my poor child a jungle bowl cut. Put him in a bucket hat and give him a maraca and he wouldn’t have looked at all out of place in the Happy Mondays, circa early 1990s. He looked a fool, and that was the least of our worries. 

Bear in mind, too, that I was supposed to be working at this point. I’d picked up more classes at the gym and was meant to be in the office as well, but it was almost impossible to juggle. Mum and dad picked up the pieces where they could, but I couldn’t ask them to become full-time home schoolers while I pranced about at the gym. I took Frankie to work with me (one more black mark against my name) and tried to balance a small child, gainful employment and a colleague who followed him around to correct his use of the shared toilet facilities. 

It was at this point that we – as a family – hit breaking point. A peculiar and debilitating type of despair descends when there is no end in sight … and there was no end in sight. We didn’t know what to do. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t write. I’d written my way through adolescence and first love and heartbreak and everything in-between, but – this time – I couldn’t write a fucking word. I think, perhaps, I was terrified of what would tumble out of my aching brain if I opened the trapdoor. So, I didn’t. Instead, I read books and I ran miles. I lost myself in other people’s lives through books and podcasts. That was my therapy. That got me through – reading, running and 5.15am F45 classes. 

Finally and eventually, a small army of well-meaning, well-paid individuals joined us in the battle to get Frankie back to school. The school’s associate principal stepped in, along with the school psychologist, plus the school psychologist’s boss. One could reasonably ask where these people were when Frankie was having a panic attack at the door to his classroom, but it became a moot point – when they were finally called to action, they did so admirably. Joining these soldiers on the battlefront were a heaven-sent psychiatrist and psychologist, who I really do remain forever indebted to. It should be noted that it was not the same psychologist to whom we fronted up to on that Friday afternoon missing a crucial component of the appointment (the child); we dumped her after four sessions, after which she’d seen and spoken to Frankie for a grand total of three minutes. That’s three minutes across four sessions, mind you, at $200 a pop. Fuck that psychologist. In desperation, I’d returned to our GP, who recommended us to a colleague in Subiaco. This guy – THIS FUCKING GUY – turned out to be the king of all psychiatrists. His psychologist – a lady he works alongside – is the queen of all psychologists. They fixed Frankie. I mean, Frankie fixed Frankie, ultimately, but they played a big part. So did Paul and I. And the associate principal. It was a team effort. We are all fucking excellent. 

Spoiler alert: there’s a happy ending. 

It took weeks, but there’s a happy ending. 

We went slowly. Very, very slowly, beginning with a re-introduction to the school (part of the desensitization process, I’m told), then building up to dropping Alice off and picking her up. Then, short sessions with a kindly EA, far, far away from his old class and his old teacher. Then – the big guns. The school agreed to change Frankie’s class and his teacher. One week was set aside for Frankie to build a relationship with his two new job-sharing teachers. An EA was brought in, just for Frankie, just for the second week. He wore his own clothes – the uniform still obviously meant something bigger to him, and he couldn’t go there. He went to school for an hour, then two, then until recess. All on his own terms. Then he stayed for a full day and the next day, “Yeah, I’ll wear my uniform today.” No bribery, no bargaining, no bullshit. All on Frankie’s terms. It had to be. 

Along the way, we were completely honest and upfront with Frankie. That was a mistake we’d made right back at the beginning of this bullshit; blurring the edges of the truth and sugar-coating lies hadn’t done us any fucking favours. Whereas once we’d waved our arms about and muttered about turnips in answer to the direct question: “Are you going to make me go back to school?” we now answered frankly and directly: “Yes mate, we are.” To his screams of, “I’d rather die!” we stayed calm and replied: “It’s not going to be like last time.” To his pronouncement that he couldn’t do it, we said, “Not yet, but you will. You will be able to do it.”

And there we are. Here we are. Frankie’s been back at school for close to a term now and he skips in, every day. He’s okay. Which leaves two questions: could we have avoided the events of 2020, and should we have handled the situation differently? The answer, of course, is yes to both, which is precisely the reason I’m writing this down, as I’m well aware that Frankie is by no means the only child to have ever had a mental breakdown, and Paul and I are certainly not the only parents to have been left floored and broken by their child’s fragility. 

So, friends, know this: if your child suddenly and inexplicably breaks, then you are not alone. You are not the first parents to have an inexplicably broken child, and you will not be the last. Don’t try and stick your kid back together with band-aids and lollypops; this is a problem that is beyond your capabilities and bribery. Get the proper help, from the proper people, and never stop fighting for your kid. Look after your own mental health and your own physical health (that one’s important). Remember: it will end; quite suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, it will end. You’ve got to hold on to that. That, and biscuits. 

One heckuva monkey funk

It all started when I turned 42. That IN ITSELF wasn’t bad. As far as I remember, I had quite a lovely birthday. We had pizza on the beach, at sunset, which is as close as I get to fine dining, thank you very much indeed. So, yes, 42 started WELL ENOUGH. 

And then, suddenly, sometime around mid-November, it all went to shit. The new girl at work told me that a monkey could do my job. I told her to fuck off and then cried in a park for a disproportionately long time. Obviously, there were other issues at play here, but the monkey thing really did it for me. A fucking monkey! (It’s still raw.)

I fell into a bit of a funk after the monkey thing. A monkey funk, if you will. Not to be confused with a funky monkey, which is quite a positive thing. The monkey funk weighed me down. Crying in the park became quite a regular occurrence, as did dark sunglasses and waterproof mascara. I just got really fucking sad. 

With the atmosphere in my office – shall we say – fairly fucking frosty, an external HR consultant was called in to calm the farm. This external HR consultant – with his shiny purple suit jacket, boot-cut jeans and arsenic smile – was a cunt. There’s simply no other word for it. I christened him JOHNSON (full name: Johnson the cunt), after the similarly styled manager in Peep Show. Fucking JOHNSON. 

Johnson, in his eternal wisdom and bootcut jeans, sacked me. He sacked me for being sad. Was my work suffering because of my monkey funk? OH NO, quite the opposite, my work was incredible, perfect, brilliant; OH NO, there were no complaints on the WORK side of things at WORK. It was the sad thing, you see – my employers had a duty of care to sack me if work was making me sad. It’s a novel employment law, I grant you, and certainly not one that I’d encountered before, but hey ho, every day’s a school day, eh? I cried as Johnson handed me my letter of termination, three weeks before Christmas. I cried and cried and then drove into oncoming traffic because it’s hard to see oncoming traffic when you’re blinded by tears and bootcut jeans. 

I sat on the freeway, in rush-hour traffic (in my car, mind you, not on my arse on the tarmac), and continued to cry. And then I contemplated coming home to my husband and three children and telling them that I’d lost my job three weeks before Christmas. I couldn’t do it to them. I mean, I could maybe do it to the boy children – they deserved nothing more than a lump of coal and a satsuma in an old pair of tights – but Paul and Alice? HOW COULD I DO THAT TO PAUL AND ALICE?

With that in mind, I begged for my job back.

It takes my breath away to even write that. 

I rang my boss and I begged. My boss handed the phone to Johnson, who requested further begging and a little grovelling for good luck. I did both. I promised to be a good, happy girl and Johnson said he was very pleased and told me I should go home and have a nice glass of wine and he’d see me bright and early at the office the next morning. And you know what I said? And I’ll admit, if I could rewrite history, I’d change this bit, because this is fucking gross: I said thank you. I thanked the bootcut prick. 

Oh hello, what was that, whizzing past you down the freeway? That was your self-respect, ma’am! It’s going to be a long time until you see that bad boy again. Cheerio, self-respect! 

And hello, self-loathing. Welcome back, old friend. 

I went home and I drank. I’m not sure I’ve ever drunk out of sadness and self-loathing, but on this night, I did. I sent myself cross-eyed and passed out on the sofa, still sobbing. And the next morning, as instructed by Johnson, I went back to work, bright and early. Still drunk and cross-eyed, admittedly, but bright and early.

I must say, my workplace morale dipped slightly after that.  

As we approached Christmas, my monkey funk only worsened. I’m not sure I’ve ever been sadder. I hope I shielded this from the kids, but chances are, I didn’t. With a face like a slapped arse (thanks dad, for that enduring metaphor), I may as well have had an “out of order” sign emblazoned across my forehead. If I was a shit friend/colleague/wife/parent/child during this time, I can only apologise. I was in one heck of a monkey funk.

I was suffering – I realise now – from heartbreak, of sorts. A heartbreak I’ve only experienced twice before: once over a boy, once over a baby. The baby was never meant to be; the boy dumped me after announcing that I wasn’t Lisa, which was strange, because I WAS Lisa (I still AM, for that matter), and the last words I ever said to him – aged 21 – were, “I can never be Lisa,” which, again, is an odd note to end a relationship on, given that I’ve spent a lifetime being no one BUT Lisa. (Confused? So was I. It turns out, Lisa was a former fiancée, who’d broken HIS heart a year prior. Bloody Lisa.)

Anyway, I collapsed in a puddle of monkey-funking heartbreak. In retrospect, I believe my grief stemmed from the stunning realisation, aged 42, that humans could be immeasurably cruel. That floored me. It still does, but at least I’ve stopped crying about it. 

It took me a while to stop crying about it. I began to dread the prospect of having time to think; I used to love floatation tanks, but suddenly the thought of spending 60 minutes alone with nothing but my negativity and nipples filled me with abject horror. I began to go to the gym at 5am – a cunning plan to avoid having to lie alone in bed with my dark thoughts and full bladder. 

I wonder, now, if my monkey funk may have impacted on then seven-year-old Frankie more than I initially realised. When we first started seeing a psychiatrist for the little fellow’s anxiety (READ ON, readers, because my shit year only gets shitter), the psych asked whether Frankie had any reason to worry about me. I replied, hysterically, “NO! WHY? SHOULD HE BE WORRIED? IS IT CANCER? DO I HAVE CANCER?” but in retrospect, MAYBE FRANKIE DID HAVE REASON TO WORRY ABOUT ME. 

(Note to self: must add this to my “parental blame” list.)

Anyway, don’t worry, ‘cos the GP upped my happy pills and I was ticketyboo by New Year. 

So, there we are. In rolls 2020 and things have got to start to improve, right?

Not. So. Fast …

Over the past seven weeks, you have been touched precisely 6,860 times. PER CHILD.

On the last day of the Western Australian school summer holidays, I want you to sleep on these unshakeable truths: 

• You have not permanently lost your mind. Temporarily, certainly. A small amount of your mind will return in time for it to be misplaced on Good Friday. But still, it’s a consolation. 

• You had one too many children. Even if you only had one. That’s still too fucking many. 

• Over the past seven weeks, you have been touched precisely 6,860 times. PER CHILD. I worked it out. That’s 140 times per day, which equates to 980 times per week. If you have three children, as I regretfully do, this totals 20,580, which is only marginally less than the number of times you’ve heard the word MUMMY, and only slightly more than you said: “I’m going to change my fucking name,” and only a teeny fraction less than you said, “This is not a fucking café.”

• You are done. Exhausted. Spent. 

• There ain’t no queue like a Kmart queue on the last Saturday before school goes back. Except, maybe, an Officeworks queue. Fuck me. I poked my head in the door to look for a library bag, only to retreat, swiftly. It was like a war zone.

• Speaking of library bags – NO LIBRARY BAG, AT ANY PRICE will be good enough for the library lady at the kids’ school, who tests the waterproof nature of each and every library bag by pouring water on each and every one. I applaud her commitment to the cause. 

• Teachers, eh? I don’t have the words to express my gratitude to teachers and their fine assistants. 

• You might have spent the school holidays showing your children the finest sights on this fair earth – the Queen might’ve been round for fucking tea – but when their teacher asks them what they did on the holidays, they’ll recount the gripping tale of the free WiFi in the gym’s creche. That’ll be their fucking highlight. 

• A 14-year-old boy can spend days – nay, weeks! – moving nothing but his thumbs. It would almost be a talent if he didn’t smell so fucking bad. 

• Your mum will get really, really wound up around about NOW (check your phone) because the kids haven’t had back-to-school haircuts. 

• You love your children fiercely and intensely, but you will fucking RUN out of that school tomorrow. You never thought you’d be that mum, but by the same token, you never thought you’d have such feral fucking children, either. Know your truth. Run from that school. Do not look back. 

This year can best be described as a vicious game of netball

This year can best be described as a particularly vicious game of netball. Which, given that netball is – by its very nature – particularly vicious, is fucking saying something. 

Stick with me on the netball thing. 

It has been a year of fouls, free passes and staggering obstructions. A year of razor-sharp fingernails, boisterous bosoms and sneaky sharp elbows in the ribs when the umpire’s distracted by non-regulation knickers.

Quite honestly, I’ve spent most of this year face first on the bitumen, trying to hold my glass of wine safely aloft.  

This year – with all my futile attempts to keep at least one foot grounded, while my mum screamed supportive obscenities from the sidelines – has been a bit of a pisser, much like a netball game in the bleak midwinter, warmed only by an ever-loyal Wing Defence (stoic, supportive, never wavering) and a hot Milo and a Twix to soften the blow of a 32-0 loss to those bitches from Gosnells.

On the one hand, nothing catastrophic has happened, unless you count that time all three children shat themselves dramatically and had to be hosed off, like cows in a field. That was bad. Oh, and my dad falling from the top of a ladder. That was also bad. 

My best friend moved back from France, two out of my three children excelled at school (another got suspended for odd socks) and we got a pool. A pool! Aside from the shitting and sniffles, we all spent 2019 in smug good health, while pennies – for the first time in our nine-year marriage – weren’t scraped and snaffled. We went to Bali. Bali!  

And yet – AND YET – it wasn’t the rosiest of years. People I loved, lost so much. People I liked, turned out to be deeply unlikeable. My son got suspended over his socks. I wobbled a bit this year, and then hated myself for being a 42-year-old wobbly woman. I shouldn’t be wobbly woman who cries in Croissant Express, but there you have it; this year, I was a wobbly woman who cries in Croissant Express. WHAT’S MORE, these tears were caused by other people, which made me both wobbly and fucking furious, because if I’m going to cry, I’d like it to be as a result of watching the Great British Bake Off; not because of cunt in cullotes. 

There will be no more tears in 2020. There will be optimism and appreciation. Because the BEST PART about shit situations, of course, is that the not-shit situations seem all the sweeter when they finally eventuate. You know, sunshine after the clouds, and all that jazz. Shit situations also force you out of your comfort zone. Shit situations compel you to come up with creative ways to get out of your current shit situation, because shit situations – and this is my best advice to you for the new decade – should never be accepted as permanent. You should always try your level best to remove yourself from shit situations. I’m trying to, certainly. I suggest you do, too. JUST THNK HOW LOVELY THAT NEW SITUATION WILL BE WHEN YOU GET THERE, FIRST AND FOREMOST BECAUSE IT’S NOT THE SHIT SITUATION THAT YOU USED TO BE IN. 

Shall we continue the netball analogy? Yes, let’s. If the last year has been a vicious game of netball, then perhaps it’s time to consider this: netball may not be the game for you. Perhaps you’re more of a bingo girl. Fuck netball; embrace bingo. 

I wish you well, hombres. Here’s to a new decade. And bingo.

Humans will steal your ice-cream

I’m not doing too well at the moment. I never do too well at this time of year. It’s a booklist/ elf on the shelf thing. I dunno though, this year feels a bit heavier. 

If I’m honest, I haven’t been doing too well for a while. The signs were there; I just didn’t spot them, until I woke up this morning with my stomach churning and little faith in my ability to make three ham sandwiches for three children for three school lunches. And breakfast! The little fuckers wanted breakfast, too. At 5.30am, that seemed like a really big deal.  

You just have to look at my hands to see that nothing’s right and everything’s wrong. I’ve nibbled away at the skin around my fingernails (cuticles? Is that your cuticles?) until they’re raw and throbbing. I accidentally tried to cover them up with fake nails – three hours and $50 later I came out of a small salon with claws that were useful for nothing other than knocking nails into a wall. I picked them off and now my hands are even more fucked up than before, and what a shame it’s too hot for mittens in Perth, Western Australia.

I’m tired. I’m really fucking tired. I’m tired writing this.

And I’m angry. 

But mainly I’m tired. 

I don’t know what you’d call this. Anxious, sad, weary, I don’t know; I don’t know if it’s me or it’s you or if I just really need a good night’s sleep and a cuddle. 

Whatever this is, it’s crept up on me. I was fine and now I’m not fine and I can’t quite figure out when one ended and the other began. I just know that everything seems very arduous. 

It’s the unfairness of the situation that takes my breath away. I dream about the unfairness of the situation, then wake up in the early hours with a racing heart and an overwhelming need to stamp my feet and shout, “It’s not FAIR.” (I’m not a popular bedfellow at the moment.)

I wake up in a fury because I’ve let other people make me sad. Again. For fuck’s sake. I’m 42 years old and I’m still letting other people make me sad. And as much as you say, “Don’t let them get to you! Be resilient! You’re a grown up! Etc fucking etc!” it doesn’t WORK, because at heart I’m still a fragile fucking toddler with a blind faith in humans. The same humans who’ll let you down and steal your ice cream. DO NOT TRUST HUMANS. 

So, in answer to your question, I am not okay. I will be okay, but I’m not at the moment. At the moment, I can’t do all the things. I can do some of the things, but I cannot do all of the things, because I’m very tired and quite cross. I hope you understand. 

Taylor Swift fixes everything, and other truths

1. You know how you’re a bad judge of character? You are – and that’s okay. It means that you assume everyone’s inherently good until they prove otherwise. What’s the alternative? You assume everyone’s a cunt until they adopt a puppy and prove you wrong? Stick with seeing the best in people, until they kick a puppy and prove you wrong. 

2. Exercise fixes everything. So does Taylor Swift. 

3. When did “straight-talking” become an admirable quality? It’s not. You’re a bitch. 

4. Never, ever mistake kindness for weakness. The kindest people in this world are also the strongest. 

5. Not everyone is ambitious. Not everyone wants a ballsy job title, a hefty pay packet and an erection-inducing LinkedIn profile. That doesn’t mean they’re not good at their jobs. It just means they’d rather be at home eating biscuits. 

6. I don’t want to hold your baby.

7. If you don’t do the clappy-hands bit during Violent Femmes’ Blister in the Sun, then I’m not sure we can be friends. 

8. You can’t win an argument with an idiot. 

9. You know how you feel better when you get everything off your chest and tell it like it is? Yeah, well, you’ve just made everyone around you feel worse. Fuck you. 

10. You’ll feel better if you eat less red meat. 

11. My daughter/Taylor Swift told me that if someone is being mean to you, you should raise your hand and tell them they can’t hurt your feelings, then walk away. She’s right, you know. 

12. Just because I won’t come to your birthday party doesn’t mean I don’t want to be invited. 

13. If your kids are being pricks, throw them in water. I don’t mean that you should drown them. Just, like, get them wet. It’ll calm them. 

14. If someone makes you laugh, keep them. 

15. Stop being so fucking grateful. If good things come your way, own them. Be thankful, but don’t be grateful. Grateful somehow implies that you’re not worthy of the good things that come your way. Yes, you are. If you’re a good person enjoying good things, then you deserve them. 

16. You probably don’t have cancer. You might, but you probably don’t. 

17. Coffee’s good, isn’t it?

18. There will be days when it all seems too hard; when the idea of having a shower makes you feel heavy and weighed down and sad. Those are the bad days, but they will pass. Exercise and Taylor Swift can help. 

19. Passive aggression is the worst kind of trait. Don’t be passive aggressive. Have a conversation, reach a compromise, listen to both sides of the story. Be like Taylor Swift. 

20. Have a large-breasted friend on standby for those days when you need a cuddle and a cry.

21. You’re not having a nervous breakdown; you just need eight hours’ sleep. 

22. Everyone is dealing with their own shit, none of which is reflected on social media. Fuck social media. 

23. Don’t ever feel indebted to anyone – especially friends and lovers. If you have to earn friendship and love, then it’s not friendship and it’s definitely not love. Fuck those friends and lovers right off. 

24. The ability to touch-type is the single-most-useful skill you’ll ever have. Apart from the ability to play the recorder with your nose, perhaps. 

25. Botox is good, isn’t it.

26. Write positive reviews. Scatter those stars like fucking confetti. 

27. Your kids are going to be just fine, with or without gymbaroo.

28. You’ll feel better if you eat less sugar.

29. No one in this world has the right to make you feel bad about yourself. Unfortunately, there are people in this world who seem to exist solely to make you feel bad about yourself. Fuck those people. Those people are making you feel bad so that they feel better about themselves. I don’t know why, I’m a writer, not a psychologist. I do know that the problem is with them, not with you. You fucking rock. 

I ACCIDENTALLY INVITED 30 SMALL CHILDREN INTO MY LOVELY HOME AND LIVED TO REGRET IT

Imagine, if you will, a home. A beautiful home. A beautiful home with unblemished Tasmanian oak floorboards, smear-free, transparent windows, and nice things. Lots of nice things. 

Now imagine inviting 30 children under the age of 7 into this beautiful home and telling them to run free! Run wild! Mi casa es tu casa! No, no, leave your boots on young man, it’s only mud! What’s that dear? You’re bleeding all over the rug? Never mind dear, never mind, it’s only a vibrant human fluid pouring from an open wound! 

YES, THAT’S RIGHT – I ACCIDENTALLY INVITED 30 SMALL CHILDREN INTO MY LOVELY HOME AND LIVED TO REGRET IT. 

I say “accidentally” because I mean “accidentally”. The party was supposed to be at the park. The parties are ALWAYS at the park. The sun always shines on my children’s birthday parties, even when they fall in the middle of winter. We’re the Shearons! The sunshine Shearons! 

On this occasion – Alice’s 6thbirthday celebration – the sun did not shine. The sun did not shine for the week leading up to Alice’s birthday and the week following Alice’s birthday. It pissed down. It rained relentlessly and without reprieve, to the point that I had to send out a message redirecting all children from the park and towards my home. And obviously, because I’m a social leper who doesn’t know the majority of parents, the message would not get to everyone, and some parents would be left in the park, in the rain, sheltering their small children from the storm and wondering where the fucking pinata was. 

So yes, it was a fucking disaster, which is why it’s taken me two weeks to write about Alice’s 6thbirthday party. It’s taken two weeks for my left eye to stop twitching. It’s taken two weeks for Paul to stop rocking in a corner, muttering expletives about pass the parcel. 

The problem was, of course, the children. The children were like wild animals with nut allergies. Take their parents out of the equation and add wanton handfuls of skittles and you’re left with a scene out of Apocalypse Now, if Apocalypse Now had a trampoline and conjunctivitis. 

Fuck me, it was chaos. Little girls kept following Paul around, telling him they had a sore finger. Paul didn’t give a shit about little girls and their sore fingers, asking them to go and find me instead, which they couldn’t, because I was hiding in the wardrobe. There were kids everywhere. I found one under a table, banging on Paul’s guitar like a tribal bongo and saying, over and over, THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE. He had a wild look in his eyes and he frightened me. Musical statues was a fucking war zone. YOU try telling a small child high on marshmallows that he’s out. YOU try that. 

And dear reader, if I had my time again, I would not introduce a pinata into the party mix. Dear reader, I would not. 

My message to you is this: inviting 30 small children into your home is never a good idea – not unless you want to find abandoned six-year-olds huddled behind your sofa days later, gnawing on the remnants of a Krispy Kreme and insisting that they bobbed first. 

I'm sorry for the pictures I posted on Instagram

I just wanted to say: I’m sorry for the pictures I’ve been posting on Instagram. 

I’ve somehow – inadvertently and quite without warning – turned into THAT mother on Instagram, all sepia tinted and hashtag blessed. Not that I use the hashtag #blessed. I wouldn’t do that to you. But I’ve done everything else. I’M PLAYING THE INSTAGRAM GAME.

For that, I am truly sorry. 

Here’s the thing, right: I treat Instagram as a photo album. On Instagram, I’m not arsed about likes or comments; I just like having a little something to look back on. I should probably set my profile to private; in fact, I WILL, just as soon as I’ve finished this wee rant

But that’s not the point – the point is, I’m playing the game. Angelic photos of an idyllic life that should – if all goes according to plan – have you thinking, “Oh, what angelic photos of an idyllic life.”

Which is bullshit, obviously.  

My life is good, yes. My life and my house and my children and my friends and my family are absolutely fucking brilliant, but they’re not as perfect as my Instagram profile would have you think. 

Which is why I didn’t post photos of our fucking brilliant day at the zoo yesterday. I almost did, but then I was, like, why are you posting photos of your fucking brilliant day at the zoo yesterday? How would you feel if you saw photos of The Notorious MUM’s fucking brilliant day at the zoo while you’re home alone with three over-stimulated children and a turtle who’s escaped from his new terrarium? And I felt bad, so I didn’t. 

Because, of course, the pictures only tell half the story. Yes, it was a fucking brilliant day at the zoo, but ask yourself, where was my third, eldest child? Why wasn’t HE playing happy families with us? (Reasons, so many reasons, one of which includes the fact that we’d have to take out a second mortgage to get a family of five into the fucking zoo. Another of which is the fact that Paul’s said he’d rather catch the bus than travel any distance with our three children in the backseat.)

And today. Let’s talk about today. That picturesque birthday party in the park, where my two youngest kids were angelically dressed to perfectly coordinate with the birthday girl’s balloons? Cute, eh? What you don’t see, of course, are the 90 minutes of trauma leading up to the point when Frankie finally – suddenly and without warning – decided to stop crying and start playing like a normal child. Strangely, I don’t tend to document the unrelenting anxiety that consumes my middle child. 

Why’ve I stopped posting smug photos of my smug family? It probably has something to do with the many, many smug photos of smug families that have saturated my own Instagram feed of late and left me with this strange feeling of inadequacy. You know this feeling, right? Of course you do. You know when you were, like, “We really should build a gingerbread house even though I can’t be fucking arsed and they’ll eat the icing as we’re piping it and it won’t stay up anyway”? Remember that? That was Instagram’s fault. 

I have no solution, of course. It wouldn’t be a Notorious MUM blog if there was a solution. So I’ll just set my own Instagram profile to private and remind you not to feel bad for feeding your children so many additives over the festive season that their shit has turned a luminous shade of green. The end.

Happy birthday, Ben x

My darling boy, you’re 13 today. Surprise! 

But yeah, you knew that. You’ve been counting down. And to be honest, I’m probably more spun out by the fact that you’re a teenager now than you are. 

You should’ve turned 13 a couple of weeks ago, of course. Your due date wasn’t Christmas Eve, but rather, December 13th. You entered this world with the same amount of enthusiasm as you show for getting dressed for school (not a lot). 

I nearly lost you, did you know that? After three weeks in labour (alright, two days), you were worn out, and your little heart started to slow down. But the weird thing was, I knew you’d be okay. I knew that as long as I breathed, slow and steady, that you’d breathe, slow and steady. I don’t know how I knew this, but I did. It was the same a decade later, when I nearly lost you again. I just kind of knew that as long as I kept breathing, you would too. And you did. And you will continue to, with your mum beside you. 

Because, buddy, I’ve got a bit of bad news for you: I’m going to be right beside you for as long as you need me, and a bit more beyond that. That’s kind of my job. And you know what? You’re going to need me. Because – and you might want to sit down for this – being a teenager sucks. Yes, yes – you can catch the bus on your own now, and text your mates, and come and go to the skatepark whenever you want – but that’s small compensation for the five years or so of studying, self-doubt and spots. I’m sorry, but there it is. Adolescence bites. 

There is ONE THING that could help you on your perilous journey through your teenage years, and it’s not Arnott’s Venetian biscuits (sorry not sorry). Mate, it’s me. I can help you – but only if you let me; only if you talk to me. Don’t sweat the small stuff, buddy. Don’t lie in bed worrying about the pickles you’ve inadvertently landed yourself in because you’ve made big promises that you can’t possibly keep (and this will happen, because you’re my son, and we’re both dickheads). Just come and talk it through with me. I won’t say I’ll never laugh, because I probably will. I won’t say that I’ll never get angry, because I probably will. I will say that I’ll always forgive you, and I’ll always love you, and I’ll always help you. Trust me on that one. 

Mate, I know the last 13 years haven’t been the easiest. I’ve tried to smooth out the bumps along the way, but I wasn’t always successful. Sometimes I suck at being a mum. Sometimes I’m short tempered and impatient and tired. Okay, most of the time I’m short tempered and impatient and tired. 

But buddy – I love you. I loved you from the moment you first had hiccups in my tummy. I loved you from the moment you gave me the finger, seconds after being born. I loved you from your first smile, your first dress-up and the first time you stood on your head to see what the world looked like upside down. 

You’re a pain in the arse, Benjamin Thomas – let’s make no mistake about that – but you’re also clever, funny and kind. And you do a wicked volley, even though I’m not entirely sure what a volley is. Is it something to do with a half-pipe? In any case, you’re good at skateboarding, and it makes my heart burst with pride to see you sticking at something and practising and persevering until you get it right. Keep doing that, buddy. Stick at it. 

And please, keep talking to me. Tell me the truth, whatever that truth is, and I promise I’ll make everything okay, once I’ve laughed at you and grounded you for a fortnight. 

Happy birthday my darling boy. Love from your mum xxxx

My grandad is dying ... and I'm furious

On Friday – precisely two weeks, almost to the minute, that my mum had rung to say my dad had suffered a heart attack – my mum rang to tell me that my Grandad Norman – my dad’s dad – was dying. 

An hour later, Mum and I were at the care home where Grandad has lived since his dementia took over. He was twisted in bed, fighting a fever, clawing at the sheets, muttering incomprehensibly. We took a hand each and tried to calm him, telling him to sleep, please sleep, but he was beyond sleep. The carers wheeled in a poetically named palliative trolley, with candles and a stereo playing supposedly soothing music, but it did nothing except highlight the fact that candles and a stereo playing supposedly soothing music do not help in the slightest when you’re dying a slow, agonising death. 

That was Friday. Today is Wednesday. For six days my Grandad has hung to life, desperately and painfully. He fought the fever. God knows how, but he fought the fever. When the nurse told me, early on Sunday morning, that he’d fought the fever and could well recover, I was all, like, WOOHOO, but then remembered the dementia that had stolen Grandad from us years ago, and it felt like a slim victory. Recovered to WHAT? To a life half-lived?

By Tuesday – after days without food, and only sucking water from a sponge-topped lolly stick – Grandad was unrecognisable. He writhed in pain, pulling his knees up and holding his head, his mouth opened wide in a futile scream. His hands, which had held mine just a few days before, could no longer grip, and had turned an unhealthy shade of purple. There was no flesh left on his poor, fragile body. My mum kneeled next to him on the floor – they’d lowered his bed because he kept falling out – and stroked his hollowed face, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. 

I was furious. I tried to focus on the few photos on the shelf in his room – his children, his grandchildren, his great grandchildren – but they made me angrier. This man – this proud, hardworking man – was living out his final hours in abject horror, and we – the people who loved him – were supposed to just watch? It’s wasn’t right. It wasn’t dignified, it wasn’t humane, and it wasn’t right.  

My grandad continues to grip flimsily on to life. A morphine drip has provided him with some stillness, but he continues to simply exist. There’s no other word for it. He’s not at peace and nor are we. 

The image of his purple hands, the sight of his mouth opened in pain, the sweet, sour smell in that room – these are the things I’ll remember about my Grandad. I won’t remember the sweets he bought me, the TV shows we watched together, the German he taught me. I’ll remember his hands, his face, that smell. And that’s not right. This is not right. 

Sleep peacefully now Grandad. Please, sleep peacefully. 

Five go on an awfully shit adventure

It was the point at which my husband lay on the bitumen carpark of Jurien Bay IGA, writhing and howling in pain, that I realised our holiday – of which we were only 90 minutes into – was not going entirely to plan. 

In fairness, any holiday that begins with both parents threatening to turn the car around and go home BEFORE WE’VE EVEN LEFT THE DRIVEWAY is never going to be a roaring success. And, I mean, I never have HIGH expectations for family holidays, but rolling around in a carpark after Alice has somehow – inexplicably – managed to impale her daddy’s toe on a discarded bottletop? That’s something of a new low, even by our shit-holiday standards. And hey, we KNOW shit holidays. We’ve had shit holidays in Manchester airport hotels and rained-out farmyard cottages, but never – until now – a holiday quite as shit as this one. THIS holiday – perhaps because it was so desperately needed – set new standards in the shit stakes. 

We’d booked a holiday house in the charming seaside town of Jurien Bay, which I hadn’t visited for 35 years. Mum pulled a face when I told her we were going to Jurien Bay. It’s the same face she pulls when I say I’m going to park in the CBD on a weekday. You know that face? The GOOD LUCK WITH THAT SHIT face? Yeah, that face. 

But MATE, the house looked good. Modern, weatherboarded and featuring all mod cons, it was supposedly located – AND I QUOTE – close to the beach. The photos were magnificent. The photos were also taken at least 18 years ago and in a flattering light. In addition, the photos failed to capture the home’s location on a half-abandoned suburban estate outside of the town, which felt exactly like the suburban estate where we pay a third of the price to live every day of the fucking week, but much, much (MUCH) shitter. Finally – and most significantly – the photos successfully glossed over the fact that the house was a complete fucking shithole. 

The alarm bells rang when we turned up and were, like, where’s the front door? Oh, right, through that fucking jungle of weeds hiding what was once the path and – indeed – the front door. Oh, it’s a glass front door is it? That’s weird, because it’s so dirty that it’s completely fucking opaque now. We all walked in and said NOTHING, not even the kids, because we are nothing if not idiot optimists, and we were all thinking IT CAN’T BE THAT BAD, CAN IT? Even Alice. Alice, who hugged a bottle of shower gel because it was pink and bought just for her, was thinking, THIS IS BAD, THIS IS REAL BAD. And I’m walking around thinking DON’T LOOK IN THE OVEN, DON’T LOOK IN THE OVEN, and so of course I look in the fucking oven, which is the point at which I start thinking, DON’T LOOK UNDER THE SOFA, DON’T LOOK UNDER THE SOFA, so of course I look under the sofa, which is then the point that I think, DON’T CHECK THE BEDS, DON’T CHECK THE BEDS, so of course I check the (unmade) (stained) beds and text my beautiful French cousin-in-law saying I CAN’T FUCKING STAY HERE.

I realise – I hold up my hand and wholeheartedly admit – this makes me sound like the whitest, most privileged, middle-class brat in the first world. I’m okay with that. As my dear friend Mairead pronounced, when I told her when we were home after fewer than 23 hours away, it’s okay to KNOW YOUR TRUTH. I know my truth, and I know I can’t sleep in a bed that smells of fag ash and fanny.  

At this point in the holiday – after a two-hour drive and a 15-minute breakdown – family relations were strained. And then I turned to Paul and said, “I can’t stay here,” and he was, like, I KNOW, but I’m not ready to admit this yet, because I booked the fucking stupid place and paid upfront with a $500 bond. But we weren’t there yet. We are still at the GRIN AND BEAR IT stage, so we got back in the car and went to buy some butter, because as well as paying upfront for the house, Paul had also forgotten the butter. 

And so, the sad-angry family went to buy some butter. The sad-angry family, in a car driven by the matriarch (me, because I get car sick), turned off the half-abandoned suburban estate and on to the main road – the MASSIVE, BUSY main road which leads all the way from Perth to Jurien Bay. The sad-angry family then realised that they were being followed by an even angrier police car, beckoning them over to the side of the road. The sad-angry family were then told that the speed limit had dropped from 110 to 80 to 50 and – lo and behold – they were in the 50 km/h zone. They were not driving at 50km/h. To add insult to injury, the sad-angry family was then told it was double demerit points that very weekend, with a double fine, too. 

The matriarch (me) began to cry. 

Alice began to cry because she thought we were all going to prison. She still does. It’s like when I was five and my mum got into a fight with a man on a merry-go-round, and I spent a week waiting for the knock on the door. It’s obviously genetic. 

Paul said, “Come on, let’s go and buy some butter.” 

Which led us to the point where – and we don’t know HOW and we don’t know WHY – Alice managed to flick a bottle top in such a fashion that it wedged under Paul’s toenail and half-crippled him. 

The sad-angry family made the decision – even before they walked to a café that had closed three years earlier – to go home. 

The sad-angry family is now home, and happy again. 

The moral of this story: don’t try new shit. It ends in tears, demerit points and abject poverty. It does make you really, really love your lovely home, though. 

Stay at home! It's too peopley out there

I’ve always quite fancied the idea of being under house arrest. Like, so long as I could sit in the sunshine and maybe go for a run along the beach and also maybe go to F45 every now and again, then it’d be sweet. Like, I’d HAVE to stay at home. The LAW would dictate that I had to stay at home. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t come to your party/baby-naming ceremony/gender reveal [I’ve just discovered that these are a thing. Like, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? Who gives a shit?] because I’m legally obliged to stay at home. I’m not allowed to come to your made-up celebration. Goodbye and good luck.” To me, that sounds fucking blissful. 

House arrest sounds appealing not – I hasten to add – because I’m agoraphobic or any of that other medically diagnosed shiz. I just like being at home. I like my own company. I am happiest in the company of a cup of Yorkshire tea, a good book and BBC 6 Music on the radio. And maybe some biscuits. Biscuits are good. 

I don’t wish to over-dramatise, but I hate leaving the house. I really have to psych myself up to head out for the school run, a day of work or – good god – a social engagement. And let’s not even mention social engagements after – shock, horror – dark. 

But that is not the point of this story. This is not a blog post subtly (not so fucking subtly) suggesting that you never, ever invite me to another social engagement, after dark or otherwise. 

No. On the contrary, this is a blog post suggesting that leaving the house is a GOOD IDEA, even though every fibre of your being is hoping that the other party falls ill and cancels your social engagement, right up to the point that you’re politely kissing them on the cheek and saying HOW LOVELY IT IS TO SEE THEM AGAIN. 

Here’s why: last week, I reluctantly left my house on three different reluctant occasions. On three of these occasions, I hoped, prayed and fervently wished that the other party would cancel. C’mon, surely a pet could, like, DIE, and get me off the hook, right? No, apparently they couldn’t, the selfish fuckers. 

But! And here comes the point of this stupid blog post: on each of these three occasions I found myself in the company of the most incredible humans I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet. I LEARNT shit and laughed and related and thought OH MY GOD, I REALLY BLOODY LIKE YOU AND I AM SO GLAD THAT YOUR GERBIL DIDN’T SUDDENLY DIE. 

IF their respective gerbils had suddenly died, I wouldn’t have found about the wonders of naked yoga, the perils of online dating (WILLIES! WILLIES EVERYWHERE!), the reality of communist Yugoslavia (actually quite jolly!), the number of mothers faking their post-natal depression questionnaire, the joy of infected tonsils (PUS! PUS EVERYWHERE!), the appearance of a body after 12 days in a freezing river and the undisputed fact that humans are fucking brilliant, if you make the effort to get to know them, which of course you won’t if you never leave the fucking house. 

And so, I have made a resolution. While I will NEVER answer the phone to have a wee chit-chat (LOOK AND LEARN ELLA KENT, LOOK AND LEARN) and I will RARELY, IF EVER, leave the house after dark, I will, at a push, make the effort to meet people, both new and old. By which I mean, both people that I’ve known for a while and people that I’ve never met; not PEOPLE WHO ARE LITERALY NEW AND OLD, like infants and old people. I have little to no interest in infants, not even my own.  

You can have whatever you want if you go to sleep on your own

Dear Diary, I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while, I’ve been very busy. Ha! I used to start pretty much every diary entry like this when I was 11. And I mean, for fucks sake, what was I so busy with? The fucking Babysitters’ Club? Sweet Valley Fucking High? Milo? (Probably Milo.)

In all honesty though, I’ve been busy. To give you an idea, this was the email I sent to my mum while I thought she was on holiday in Phuket:

Everything's fine. Here's the news: 

Nan had a haircut today. She's very pleased with it and got home just before the rain started. She’s just put the bins out. 

Grandad's fine, he's just had his tea. 

Frankie now goes to sleep on his own, in his own bed. 

Alice no longer goes to sleep on her own, in her own bed. 

Ben, Frankie and Alice all got EXCELLENT school reports. I’m as surprised as you are. 

Frankie was back at the hospital today and he's fine. The new hospital is very nice but totally chaotic and nobody knows where to go, including the doctors and nurses. Also, the automated system is very fancy but totally ineffective. 

DON'T give Ben $100 when you see him. We've put it towards a new scooter. He'll try and tell you that he's still owed it, but he's NOT. 

THAT'S ALL. 

In addition to the exciting news I told my mum, I had a two-day migraine. That was shit. And time-consuming. But mainly shit. I ran out of my magic migraine tablets so was forced to swallow anything vaguely promising a modicum of pain relief, which meant, of course, that I was off my fucking tits for a solid 48 hours. A 48 hours, I should add, that I attempted to work. This resulted, I’m sorry to say, in me telling a client that I spat in her glass of water. I don’t know why. I didn’t spit in her glass of water. She just said, “Oh, this water tastes weird,” and I replied: “That’s because I spat in it.” She looked so confused. 

As it turns out, my parents weren’t in Phuket last week. They were in Bali. I only figured this out when they texted to say that THE VOLCANO HAS ERUPTED AND WE’RE STUCK IN BALI. And then I was, like, oh fuck, my parents are not in Phuket, they’re in Bali. They’re stuck in Bali. Their flight got cancelled along with every flight into and out of Bali, and – when my dad announced that he’d run out of his staying-alive tablets – we were all, like, OH FUCK, capital letters. And then – god knows how, but THEN – they managed to get on the one airline game enough to through a steaming volcanic eruption, and got home SECONDS before the airport was shut for the foreseeable. That is good luck. 

Here’s another piece of good luck that came our way recently: our coffee machine broke (bad luck) so we bought another one (good luck) but it blew up almost instantly (bad luck) but the nice lady at the coffee-machine shop replaced it without complaint (good luck). It’s weird that a brand-new, not-cheap coffee machine blew almost instantly, am I right? And yes, it was weird. We brought the coffee machine home from the coffee-machine shop, and Paul said to me, “Tell you what, you nip to the shops to get bits for tea, and I’ll have a nice coffee waiting for you when you get back.” Exciting, no? Except when I got back, there was no coffee, just a blown-up coffee machine. “It just stopped working!” Paul exclaimed, with a look of blue-eyed, middle-aged innocence. “One second it was on, the next it was off!” It was decided, as such, that I would take the coffee machine back to the coffee-machine shop the next morning. Paul told me to tell the coffee-machine-shop lady that it simply STOPPED WORKING. He didn’t do anything. He was quite clear about that. The coffee machine’s lack of power had absolutely nothing to do with him. At all. Nada. Nothing. 

“Hello!” I said the next morning, at the coffee-machine shop. “This coffee machine doesn’t work!”

“Did you do anything to it?”

“Nope! It just will not turn on!”

“Have you made a coffee with it?”

“Oh no, madam. No coffees have been made with this machine, on account of it NOT TURNING ON.”

“Well,” she replied. “That is interesting, because there are ground coffee beans in the machine, and evidence of a coffee having been made.”

“Oh.”

“Have you made a coffee with a machine?”

“I was at the shops getting bits for tea.”

“Has someone else made a coffee?”

“I believe someone else might have made a coffee.”

{I love my husband dearly, but at this point, I did not.}

When Paul got home from work, I recounted my conversation with the coffee-machine-shop lady. 

“And it’s WEIRD,” I said, “because there was CLEAR EVIDENCE OF A COFFEE HAVING BEEN MADE.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I made a coffee.”

“Did you blow the machine up?”

“No.”

“Sir, I will repeat my question. Did you blow the coffee machine up, and make your long-suffering wife fib to a coffee-machine-shop lady the following day?”

“Maybe.”

BAD HUSBAND. SILLY WIFE. EXCELLENT COFFEE-MACHINE-SHOP LADY. 

As previously mentioned, Frankie now goes to sleep on his own, his own bed. For the last SIX MONTHS, or thereabouts, someone (Paul) has had to lie with Frankie in bed until he (Frankie) (although more often than not Paul too) fell asleep. This started after Ben showed Frankie IT, and Frankie developed a not-unreasonable fear of killer clowns. 

The last six months have been a fucking nightmare. Lying with a kid until they fall asleep is torturous, time-consuming and fucking annoying. In desperation, we said to Frankie: “YOU CAN HAVE WHATEVER YOU WANT IF YOU GO TO BED ON YOUR OWN.” “An iPad,” he replied, without hesitation. “I want an iPad.” “Done,” we said. “You sleep on your own, we’ll buy you an iPad,” thinking smugly that there was no fucking way this kid was going to be able to sleep on his own. 

Except, of course, he did, the little sod. Kids are little sods (with iPads).  

You left your coffee beans in

Our suburb has a vigilante residents’ Facebook page. It’s fucking ace. Like, not the vigilante aspect – that’s quite disturbing – but the fact that humans allow themselves to be riled by the smallest and most inconsequential acts. That’s gold. 

Once, a woman took to our vigilante residents’ Facebook page to bemoan the VERY LOUD family that disturbed her viewing of Today Tonight every evening at 6.30pm. At first I panicked, because I HAVE A VERY LOUD FAMILY, but once I’d established that she lived far away from my VERY LOUD FAMILY, I relaxed and enjoyed the ride. 

Another time, a teenager was witnessed littering. The crowd went wild, baying for said teenager’s head on a stick. No actual shit. One woman suggested that the littering teenager in question should be “strung up”. And while YES, I abhor littering as much as the next human, I felt that the punishment was a little extreme, no? 

And then there was the time someone was caught on CCTV pinching a lemon. The threats directed to this citrus-loving human still make me giggle. Cos really – a public lynching? For nicking a LEMON? What have we BECOME?

This week, our suburb’s vigilante residents’ Facebook page took crazed excellence to a new level. At 7.01am on Thursday, an extremely cross gentleman took to the page to declare that local residents should BEWARE, because he’d just chased off a TWAT IN A SLOW-MOVING VEHICLE, undoubtedly scoping out properties to rob. At 7.02am, an extremely bewildered gentleman took to the SAME page to declare that he’d just been chased by an extremely cross gentleman who’d threated to KICK HIS HEAD IN for DRIVING SLOWLY TO WORK. I’m still laughing about this. I fucking love idiots. 

Both my mother and my husband had to pretend to be Alice’s teacher last night. Alice worked herself into a small state because she thought she’d have to get changed from her dancing clothes into her uniform at school, and that someone might see her “insides”. I said I was SURE that the lovely teacher would not force Alice to show her insides unnecessarily, but Alice remained unconvinced. “Do you want me to ring your lovely teacher?” “Yes I do.” “Okay I will.” I rang my mum, and put her on loudspeaker. “HELLO, is that Alice’s teacher?” God bless my mum, she thought fast, and said “YES IT IS” in a polite lady voice, but Alice was on to us. Her howls got louder as she cried IT’S NANNYYYYYYY. Then it was Paul’s turn, and TO HIS CREDIT, he did an even better teacher lady voice than Nanny. It didn’t work, and I was forced to write up and down my arm – in green texta – “Remind Alice’s teacher that Alice does not want to show her insides to either of her three boyfriends.” Sigh. 

Frankie (6) has a penchant for hip hop, r ‘n’ b and bad rap – in particular that TERRIBLE Chris Brown and Little Dickie song, in which one goes into the other’s body. It’s BAD. It also contains the n word, on repeat. We’ve told Frankie that he can’t use the n word because he’s not black. According to that theory, he reckons, Alice SHOULD be able to use the n word, because she IS. She’s not, she’s just olive skinned. 

My nan walked right in on me having a shower yesterday. The shower was making a funny noise, and she came in to see what the noise was. I was, like, NAN, not cool! She refused to budge until I’d given her a full explanation re: the state of our pipes. Not cool, Nan. 

Imagine, if you will, being married to an anti-hoarding minimalist freak. And then, if you will, imagine being the daughter of a hoarding anti-waste super freak. And THEN, if you will, imagine being stuck in the middle of these two freaks. Basically, Paul (my husband) throws EVERYTHING away. He’d throw YOU away if you stood still for too long. Mum (my mother), now that she’s retired, spends her spare time going through our bins to reclaim the shit that’s Paul thrown away that week. Not the recycling bin – the GREEN bin; she digs through potato peelings and soggy teabags to retrieve old t-shirts and underpants “to give to the poor children”. Those poor fucking poor children must dread the sight of my mother approaching with her over-stuffed car-boot of soiled undergarments. In fairness to my mother, she doesn’t ALWAYS give away our cast-offs to the poor children. Once, not that long ago, we went round to my parents’ house and mum was WEARING – fucking WEARING – an old, worn-out t-shirt that Paul had been using to clean the car with for at least a year. 

So anyway, you can IMAGINE the state of panic that my mother is in knowing that we have a SKIP this weekend. A fucking skip! Paul’s walking around the house with a crazed look of wild excitement in his eyes. He’s going to fill that skip, by hook or by crook. As we pile item upon item upon child into the skip, we say “MAKE SURE IT’S COVERED PROPERLY” because we both know full well that my mum will be fucking IN IT as soon as she’s finished afternoon tea with her friend Norma. 

AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, our coffee machine of eight years broke this morning, which meant we had one more beautiful item to put in the skip. I mean, it’s BROKEN, you know? Like, FUCKED, beyond repair. She couldn’t complain about that, could she? It went on top. Complain about that, MOTHER, I dare you. An hour later, I get a message: “YOU LEFT YOUR COFFEE BEANS IN.” FFS. 

I’m pleased to announce you’ve been shortlisted for Mother of the Year

Remember that time (why would you?) I took Frankie for a hospital appointment, and the receptionist asked if I’d like a second go when I gave the wrong date of birth? Yeah, I just topped that. I had a speech-therapy assessment for Alice today, because I’ve finally accepted that even though the way she says “twigs” is so, so cute (“fwids”), it might be time to cut her teacher some slack, and get it sorted. 

The assessment started with a nice lady telling me she was going to ask some questions about Alice. I was, like, YEAH, I’m ready for it, having written down the important dates on the back of my hand beforehand.  

“Now then, Mrs Shearon. Can you tell me: did Alice babble a lot as a baby?”

“Say what now?”

“Was she a noisy baby? Gooing and gaaing?” 

“Um.”

“Go on.”

“I mean, Ben wasn’t. He’s my eldest. He was a very quiet little chap.”

“But Alice?”

“Alice?”

“Your daughter; was she noisy?”

“I’m so sorry, I’ve got nothing.”

Sighing: “Okay then, Mrs Shearon. What age was Alice when she said her first word?”

“Ah! I know this one. Fourteen months, and the word was ball.”

“Excellent.”

“No wait, hang on. That was Frankie, my middle child.”

“And Alice?”

“The same?”

“It wasn’t, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Accepting defeat: “I don’t suppose you remember when Alice began to put words together into sentences, do you?”

“I don’t, no.”

“In that case Mrs Shearon, I’m pleased to announce you’ve been shortlisted for Mother of the Year.”

“Oh really?! I’m honoured! Overwhelmed! Humbled.”

SOMEONE in this family has been depositing the pineapple from their pizza in a corner of the toy cupboard. Not the bin. The toy cupboard. NEAR the bin, but not the bin. The toy cupboard. I found a neat little pile when I was hoovering up last night. 

Here’s what happens when Frankie (6) gets a party invitation. 1. He says HOORAY, I’ve been invited to a party! 2. He gets really excited, and starts counting down the days until the party. 3. He chooses a present for the birthday child, and insists on the same for himself. 4. He becomes less enthusiastic about the party as the date approaches. 5. He wakes up on the morning of the party and declares that THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING WAY ON GOD’S SWEET EARTH HE WILL BE ATTENDING A PARTY THAT DAY, NO SIR, NOT ON YOUR NELLY. 6. He is bribed, begged and blackmailed. 7. He stands firm. 8. He refuses to go. 9. His parents lose their shit and say FOR FUCK’S SAKE IT’S NOT LIKE WE’RE TRYING TO TAKE YOU TO THE FUCKING DENTIST. 10. He shrugs. 11. His mother admits defeat, and is forced to text blatant untruths to the party mum, because “my kid is an anxious fucking wreck who would probably really enjoy the party once he was there but only after he’s tried to climb inside me for two solid hours” is just too, too hard to explain, and leaves more questions than it answers. Sigh. Being the parent of an anxious kid is not without its issues. 

Alice has changed her name to Mia. Just so you know. 

Today I was in Chemist Warehouse (cheap drugs, shit-house service) and – after queuing for three-and-a-half days – the lady behind the counter greeted me with: “Are your hands cold?” I was, like, “Uh, no,” on account of my hands not being particularly cold, and on account of having queued for three-and-a-half days and really wanting to get to F45 on time. “Your hands must be cold. It’s cold today. My hand WERE cold, but they’re not anymore!” “Oh right, okay.” “My hands aren’t cold because I’m using HAND WARMERS. How about that? Wanna see them?” “Your hands or your hand warmers?” Without hesitating, she turned out her pockets, to show me two weird flimsy pieces of paper. “They’re my HAND WARMERS, and they’re available to buy HERE,” she said, gesturing to a pile of HAND WARMERS on the counter. “You know what’s EVEN BETTER? You don’t have to use a microwave!” I had no response to that. None. 

Did I ever tell you about the time that Alice was invited to a birthday party of a child who neither myself nor Alice knew? And we went along to the play-centre party, and I gave the present to the wrong person? Like, not even a person from the party, but a person from the gym? It didn’t really go that well, truth be told, but now Alice wants to invite the same child to HER birthday party, except I think I’ve given the birthday invitation to the wrong child? Like, same name, but wrong child. She’s RSVPd, anyway, so someone’s coming along for their share of the fairy cakes. 

Escalators are a long way from home

I’m on the plane/bus on my way home. I started off hating the small mining town of Tom Price and ended up quite liking it. I did not like the price of their coffee though. The price of their coffee sucked balls. $5 for a medium flat white! Pffft. I ask you. But actually, it grew on me, in the 24 hours that I was there. Not the price of coffee - the small  mining town of Tom Price. I went for a run this morning and covered the entire length of the town in, like, seven minutes, max. And that’s cool. They’ve got everything they need there – a primary school and a high school and a Coles and a café and yeah that’s about it, but what else do you need? Oh, they don’t have a bakery, which is a controversial issue, because they’d really fucking like a bakery, but hopefully one day they’ll get a bakery and then they’ll never ever have to leave, not even to get fresh bread. But can you imagine how nice that would be? Never leaving the town that you’re born in, and knowing everything and everyone? Some people might think it’d be claustrophobic, but I found myself feeling quite jealous of the Tom Price people and their small town. Even though some of the kids in that town might never have seen an escalator. That’s a possibility. Tom Price is like a million hours away from the nearest city. You have to get on a PLANE to get the city. Escalators are a long way from their home. Escalators and bakeries. 

The guy sitting next to me just paid $6 for a titchy bottle of wine and then spilled the whole thing across his tray table and, as a result, his lap. He didn’t swear, which is ADMIRABLE. 

I liked Tom Price, but I did not like its hotel-motel. It made me itch. Its accompanying pub had a bouncy castle next to the bar. Like, inside. There were loads of fucking kids in there, and it made me feel weird and sad. My room was – I imagine – worse than prison. If prison is crawling with ants. ‘Cos if it isn’t, then my room was worse than prison. I don’t ever feel scared on my own, but last night I felt a bit scared, ‘cos it was a very MASCULINE environment, and I am not that masculine – despite my haircut and inability to apply eye makeup – and for probably the first time in my life I felt like a vulnerable female. It was a weird and unnerving feeling, not helped by the fact that I had to use my crackers to eat my peanut butter because there was no cutlery in the room. 

At last night’s workshop – which I presented to four people – I made a cup of tea from the hot water button of the water cooler. The lady told me to make my tea that way, and provided paper cups, tea bags and that weird milk that lasts forever. I made my tea but then couldn’t drink it because it was NOT ACTUALLY HOT. But then, at the end of the workshop, I was faced with a dilemma: what should I do with my cup of tea? I couldn’t pour it away, because there was NO SINK. I couldn’t put it in the bin, because the cup was full of weird cold tea. I kind of half put my cup in the bin and then thought no, what are you DOING? Don’t put a full cup of tea in the BIN. So I took it out. But then what? I ended up leaving it on the table and now I feel like the worst human ‘cos who leaves their rubbish just lying around like they expect someone else to clean up after them? The worst kind of human, that’s who. 

The plane/bus is full of miners, but this time they’re going HOME from work rather than going TO work. There’s an entirely different vibe. They’re tired but jolly. I have the most awful sense of empathy with these miners. I have really not liked leaving my family to go to work, and I’ve only been away for 36 hours. These guys are away for weeks at a time. And there’s so much pressure on them going home. Like, not perhaps on them, but on their families and their wives and yeah, them I suppose, in the sense that they must feel like they’re on borrowed time on their week home from work, and everything has got to be great and perfect and fun and lovely when, fucking hell, what are the chances of that? Am I overthinking it? I’m possibly overthinking it. And what if their wives don’t feel like putting out tonight, but kind of feel obligated because these miners have been imprisoned for a few weeks and would really like their wives to put out? So much PRESSURE, from every angle. I don’t ever want Paul to work away. 

The air hostesses on this plane/bus are BEYOND LOVELY. I can’t tell you! I just asked for a small bottle of water and they gave me two! NOW THAT IS SERVICE. And when I got drug tested at Paraburdoo Airport, the lady was SO APOLOGETIC. She swabbed me and my belongings three times, and apologised more effusively each time. I felt bad for her. 

Today’s workshop finished at 3pm. My flight home was at 6.50pm. The drive from the workshop to the airport was scheduled to take 45 minutes. Which left the question: what the fuck was I supposed to do for three hours, given that the only café in town closed at 3? I could go to the pub, yes, but that would mean returning to the scene of my cell and the bouncy castle, so fuck that. I ended up just driving. I drove in the general direction of the airport, but turned off at the sign for Karijini National Park. I’ve heard incredible things about Karijini National Park. When I wrote that book about artists, they all went on and on about the fucking LIGHT in Karijini National Park, so I thought fuck it, I’ll go there. I drove for a long way but then realised that my phone had no signal and freaked the fuck out, so turned around, stopping on the way back at a “view”. It was a designated “view” so that’s how I knew to stop there. I said WOW as I looked around at the undeniably spectacular view, but I don’t know if it was a real, genuine wow or a designated wow. It’s hard to really be present in moments like that, don’t you think? It feels like you’re looking through a viewfinder; a bit surreal. Maybe I’m missing the landscape-appreciation button in my brain. Anyway, I was more interested in all the commemorative rocks piled up at the designated view – each one dedicated to a dead person. There ashes must’ve been scattered there, I reckon. It was quite moving, especially the one with the construction worker’s helmet and two bottles of beer next to it. The helmet had “Eddie” scribbled on in black marker pen, and it made me feel impossibly sad. Poor Eddie.   

For the remaining two hours and 45 minutes I sat in my hire car in the Paraburdoo Airport carpark, listened to podcasts (Hip Hop Saved My Life), ate protein bars and pork scratchings (plural) and answered work emails. I should’ve felt miserable but I was okay. I was definitely more okay than I was at Perth Airport waiting to board my flight to Paraburdoo. I did feel miserable then. I’m just happy to be going home now. I’m not good away from home. Please don’t make me leave home again. 

Poor tired miners

Thursday

Have you ever been on a plane smaller than a bus? ‘Cos right now, I’m on a plane that’s smaller than a bus. It’s unnerving. Fun fact: I am the only person not in a fluoro vest on this bus plane. Another fun fact: Not only am I the only person not in a fluoro vest, I’m also the only person without a penis. Yes, I’m on a bus/plane full of miners. I am not a miner. 

Truth be told, I’m so far out of my comfort zone that I want to weep. Everything is wrong. I’m on my way to Paraburdoo, and even spellcheck is like, FUCK THAT, I got nothing. From Paraburdoo I have to drive about an hour to Tom Price, which frightens me, because kangaroos and trucks and what if my phone doesn’t have reception and I get lost, which admittedly would be hard ‘cos it’s, like, ONE ROAD, but that’s not the point. 

We just got served food on the bus/plane, which came as as surprise. It’s a beef, feta and kate fatayer and it’s hotter than the sun. 

Also worrying me is what I’m going to eat tonight. I’m staying in one of only two hotels in Tom Price, which I made the mistake of reading the reviews of. It’s also not a hotel. It’s the Bottlemart Express, which as any good traveller will tell you, IS NOT THE NAME OF ANY FIVE-STAR HOTEL I’VE COME ACROSS. There’ll be a pub in Tom Price, certainly, but I’m not entirely sure they’ll have quinoa salads. Parmies and boobies, yes, undoubtedly, but low-carb super-meals? Probably not. I’ve packed some crackers and peanut butter in my case for emergencies, and I’ll be sure to Insta-story the grand occasion of pro-star super-blogger (not really) Lisa Shearon eating crackers with peanut butter at a bottle-o in a mining town. #livingthedream

The guy behind me on the bus/plane just asked for a second beef, feta and kale fatayer because he FUCKING LOVES THEM. 

It’s been a weird old week. I’m not sure if Mercury’s in retrograde or Jupiter’s up my arse but everything’s WEIRD. It started on Sunday night, when Alice feel asleep on the sofa at, like, 5.30pm. We were making tea and were, like, where’s Alice? And there she was, curled up, fast asleep. That was weird. I put her to bed, then went to check on her an hour later. She was sitting up in bed, staring into the distance, with this mad glazed look about her. I was, like, “Alice, you okay darling?” And then – steady yourself – she started making weird devil noises at me and sticking out her tongue. Well, I was fucked up. I shouted for Paul and he and Frankie came running in. Paul thought it was fucking hilarious, but Frankie and I were scared shitless. I wouldn’t have been any more freaked out if her head had spun a full 360. And then – straight up – she just lay back down and went to sleep. That was weird. 

Monday was a public holiday, but not one worth remembering, because EVERYTHING WAS WEIRD. Ben lost his phone and I lost my shit – both with him and the automated phone system at Optus. God, did I lose my shit. There was no option for “report my phone as lost or stolen,” and every other option ended with, “I’m sorry, we’re experiencing technical difficulties,” or “we don’t know what you want, you complete fucking loser, so we’re hanging up now. Good luck with a being a loser, loser!” Well, I shouted at that fucking robot, let me tell you. It’s the last time she’ll disconnect me! (It’s not.) In the end, I resorted to “live chat” on their website, which ended with me typing in capital letters to a grammatically challenged fellow called Odin words along the lines of: “I’M STILL NOT CLEAR WHAT YOU’RE ASKING ME TO DO, ODIN” and “THOSE WORDS DON’T FORM A COHERENT SENTENCE, ODIN.” Upshot is, Ben doesn’t have a phone and the fuckers who took it out of his bag at Kinross skate park are merrily using all my internet allowance and the REST. Paul says I’m being a dick for worrying about the Kinross skate park fuckers using up my internet allowance. He says Kinross skate park fuckers have better things to do than google with gay abandon, but I’m not so sure. 

Once I’d calmed the fuck down, and apologised to Odin, we took the kids to glow-in-the-dark dinosaur golf. Now, I’m not necessarily sure those two things need to go together. In fact, I’m almost certain those two things don’t go together. It was not the place for me. It was weird. Frankie threw the MOTHERFUCKER of all tantrums because he didn’t get a hole in one, which culminated in him ditching a glow-in-the-dark golf ball and its accompanying club across the room, narrowly missing a dinosaur and a dad. I was, like, fuck this, and left him to it, only to walk straight into an old lady spewing dramatically into a spotted (possibly glow-in-the-dark) bucket. And just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder, we made the mistake of spending money at the café, where the kids ate food items so dry that they actually crumbled as you looked at them. Note to self: cafés with handwritten signs offering muffins with a free “can of drink” are not to be trusted. 

The week got EVEN WEIRDER when Ben and I appeared on SBS Insight, talking about technology in schools. I’d kind of forgotten we’d done that, about a month or so ago, in Sydney. It was weird when it popped up on Facebook and TV, and even weirder when I read the comments accompanying a clip of me saying that kids shouldn’t have computers at school. First rule: NEVER READ THE COMMENTS. One motherfucker was, like, “Ha ha, blogger’s just another word for unemployed,” and I was, like, FUCK YOU, DWAYNE, I’M ACTUALLY GAINFULLY EMPLOYED SO FUCK OFF.” It really got my back up! The vast majority of people seemed to think I was saying kids shouldn’t be learning tech skills at all, and should be writing essays with a fucking quill, or something, but that wasn’t my point AT ALL. My point was, kids shouldn’t be totally fucking reliant on technology for their learning. Ben’s old school was. The kids were on their MacBooks before the siren went, for all their lessons, during lunchtime, and after school. It was FUCKED. That was my point – everything in moderation. But that message got lost in translation, with the result that silly fuckers were commenting that I was a fuckwit, “because don’t you know that every single job in the future is going to be tech-based?” Which is bollocks, obviously, because what about: 

Hairdressers

Beauticians

Musicians

Writers

Artists 

Piano tuners

Carpenters

Tattoo artists

Cobblers

Cleaners

Personal trainers

Printers

Chefs

Baristas

French polishers

And don’t tell me that those jobs will use technology because yeah, they might, but they’re not going to be solely reliant on technology and humans are going to still need basic fucking life skills you PRICKS. 

Also don’t tell me that we need to future proof our children for jobs that haven’t even been invented yet because GUESS WHAT, my job didn’t exist when I was a kid – or even a teenager – and I’m doing okay, thank you very fucking much, you silly fuckers. 

As you can see, the issue got my back up, ever so slightly. Sorry for the excessive fucking swearing. 

And now, here I am, on a bus/plane, really really needing a wee but there’s absolutely no fucking way I’m going to wake up the sleeping miner next to me to get to the toilet. Do bus/planes even have toilets? I mean, they have beef, feta and kale fatayers, so they should have toilets, am I right. 

Here’s another weird thing: Alice has been watching HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALICE songs on YouTube all week. On repeat. Believe it or, there’s a whole raft of them. She uses the speaker thingy to search for songs and all you can hear is her saying, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALICE,” and then the song. It’s been a weird week. 

I did inappropriate swearing this week too, which I feel bad about. A mum gave me a birthday invitation and it was for the same day that I’d planned to have Alice’s party (but hadn’t got my act together to write the invitations for) and I opened it and said, OH FUCK, in front of the mum and her two small, charming daughters. She looked shocked and I felt bad, even though I apologised profusely. 

The miners are all asleep on the bus/plane. All of them. Poor tired miners. 

You didn't stab anyone this week, Keith. Well fucking done.

Friday

When I got home from Sydney at around teatime on Wednesday, Frankie (6) had a wobbly tooth. At bedtime, the tooth was gone. Like, gone. Vanished. Devastated, he left this note for the Tooth Fairy: 

“To Tooth Fairy, when my dad just notist that I have a lost tooth and I miht of swalowed it please find it from Frankie.”

The Tooth Fairy – to give her her dues – did in fact find the tooth (she didn’t), and left $5 and a note by Frankie’s bedside. Her note read: 

“Dear Frankie, I found your tooth! It was lovely and clean. Keep brushing! Love from The Tooth Fairy.” She’s a good egg, that Tooth Fairy. 

Frankie got a merit certificate today. I fucking love merit certificates. Ben’s old primary school stopped giving them out, because they said that merit certificates made the dumb kids feel dumb, or some shit. Fuck that school. I like when it gets to the end of the year and the teachers are forced to give out certificates to the kids who least deserve them, and they have to come up with legitimate reasons for the certificates, like: “Congratulations to Keith, for making some good choices.” Which can basically be interpreted as: “You didn’t stab anyone this week Keith. Well fucking done.”

Ben has just experienced heartbreak for the first time. It is HARD to know what to say. I went with: “Girls can be weird,” which is ultimately not that helpful. I asked Paul to talk to Ben, but Paul reckons every time he tries to sound like a mature adult offering fatherly advice he just sounds like Jay’s dad from The Inbetweeners, talking about fingering. 

Saturday

The very first thing that Frankie said when he woke up this morning – before he’d even opened his eyes properly – was: “Do you want to know the WORST swearword?” And I was, like, yeah, go on then. And he goes, “It’s BAST-something but I can’t say it because it’s the WORST swearword.” “Oh yeah, who taught you that then?” “That guy,” Frankie replied, gesturing at Paul, his father. “The big guy. AND THAT IS WHY I LOVE HIM.”

Paul wore tights to F45 this (cold) morning. You can call them leggings, but I’m gonna call them what they are: tights. I was, like, “THIS CANNOT HAPPEN,” and Paul did his sad face – the one that makes you feel like you’ve kicked a three-legged puppy – and goes, “Okay, I’ll just have a sore knee then,” which made me feel all bad and shit, so I didn’t take the piss out of him anymore. Except when we turned up to F45, I said to the manager – “HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT PAUL IS BOTH WEARING TIGHTS AND CARRYING A PINK GIRL’S DRINK BOTTLE?” and I left it at that, ‘cos a man has his dignity. Paul says that the men of Sydney and Melbourne ALL wear tights to F45, but I’m not so sure. 

Frankie says he’s saving his pennies to buy a Nintendo Switch. And if he can’t afford a Nintendo Switch he’ll buy an X-Box. And if he can’t afford an X-Box he’ll buy a murder knife. I asked him how a murder knife differs from a normal knife and he rolled his eyes and said, “It’s sharper, obviously.”

When Frankie cut into his poached egg at the animal farm café today, he was rewarded with soft, running, yellow yolk (as is right and proper). “I have hit the JACKPOT,” he announced. 

In the car on the way to the animal farm, Frankie (6) goes to Ben (12) – out of nowhere – “If you were a rockstar, you’d be Elvis – eating hamburgers on the toilet.” 

Alice (4) is hand-writing personalised birthday invitations for every single person in her fucking class, and the rest. She says that everyone is her best fwend, therefore everyone needs personalised, hand-written invitations. This shit could take a while. 

Sunday

In June 2017 – so a WHOLE YEAR AGO – a friend of Paul’s announced that he had weeks to live. It wasn’t a close friend of Paul’s, but a friend nonetheless, so when he (the dying fellow, not Paul) asked for donations to complete his bucket list, Paul was the first to offer up our hard-earned dollars. I asked what exactly was on this fellow’s bucket list, but it wasn’t made clear. Paul said that even if this fellow wanted to spend our money on crack and hookers that was entirely reasonable, given that the fellow only had weeks to live. I said yeah, okay. Well, let me tell you: this fellow is still alive. And kicking. So my question to you is: when is reasonable to ask for a refund? 

Dying fellow’s bucket list reminds me of this woman at Paul’s old work, who used to raffle off meat trays and fish crates to raise money … to bring her family out on holiday from New Zealand. Paul gave her so much money, because he’s Paul, and he couldn’t say no, despite the fact that he never actually saw a meat tray OR a fish crate OR, indeed, this woman’s family. Paul is a sucker. 

I had a moment of proper fucking contentment on the beach today. The sun was warm and the kids were splashing and the coffee was good and the husband was handsome and I acknowledged that there was nowhere I’d rather be, nothing I’d rather be doing and no one I’d rather be doing it with. And then we got home and Ben had tried to cook croissants in the toaster and the kitchen was wrecked and I lost my shit, so who’s contented now, eh? 

BYO-teabag man

Here’s something that happened today: I met three dear Facebook friends in real life. In all honesty, I’m still emotionally rocked by the last time I met a Facebook friend in real life, but this went WELL. THIS WENT MUCH BETTER THAN LAST TIME, although to be fair, they didn’t come and stay in my home, insult my coffee, and tell my children that she’d crush them like a bug. These three were excellent. Marvellous. Overwhelmingly lovely. I’ve been extraordinarily homesick since I’ve been in Sydney, and it disappeared for the brief time (VERY BRIEF; 45-MINUTE BRIEF) I was with these three. They felt like family. I gave them each one of Paul’s best-selling Guilty Feet Have Got No Rhythm t-shirts, which of course weren’t best-selling at all, which is why we’ve still got a crate left. What I’m trying to say is: don’t underestimate online friendships. They’re precious. Treasure them.  

Walking back from F45 this morning, a woman stepped directly in front of a car. She was in a real rush to get in the queue for Centrelink, and was very nearly squished. 

I’m on the plane going home to Perth now. I’m glad to be going home to Perth. I’m not overly impressed by the air hostesses on this flight, although I could be swayed by the man who looks likes like a small, round Freddy Mercury. To clarify, Freddy is an air host, not a hostess. Like, he's an actual male. I like his moustache. The lady hostesses are not young, and I think perhaps have lost their zest for air travel. One lady hostess told me I couldn’t put my laptop in the front pocket for take-off and then got a bit snooty when I said I didn’t have a laptop bag, just a plastic carrier bag from Newspower, which also contained the kids’ guilty-mamma presents. 

The well-dressed gentleman sitting next to me on the plane has brought his own tea bags. I admire this. I could never ask for hot water to make my own tea, just as I could never ask for a drink outside of regular drink-delivery hours. I would rather die. 

I need to be at home now. I’m all peopled out. I have done too much peopling in the last 48 hours, and I need to unpeople. I miss my own people: large, middle-sized and small. 

I didn’t much care for the F45 I went to in Sydney, just as I didn’t much care for the F45 I went to in Melbourne. I love my F45, which says more about the fact that I don’t like situations outside of the norm than it does for the totally fine F45s around our fine country. I know where I am at my F45. I know where to sit and where to stand, where to put my keys and where to wee. I didn’t know any of these things at the other F45s, and it was unnerving. Also, EVERYONE high-fived at the end of F45 in Sydney, and truth be told, I would rather die than high-five, FACT. 

I’m sitting in the emergency exit seats, which means that my TV is tucked down in the armrest. I really want to get my TV out to watch Nigella Express, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it without knocking the leg of BYO-teabag man next to me. It’s not a risk I’m prepared to take. 

During the Change the World work event yesterday, I found a quiet table with two comfy chairs to hide and unpeople for five minutes. Then, weirdly, given that there were LOADS of quiet tables with accompanying comfy chairs, a young Asian man sat down in a comfy chair at MY quiet table. Directly opposite me! And then, when he’d finished his coffee, he left his paper cup on the table and walked off. I found the whole situation most unsettling. 

I really want to watch Nigella Express. I’m also really cold, but there’s no way I’m standing up to get my coat out of the overhead locker. I’d have to stretch up and there’s every chance my belly would be exposed and my belly button would be at eye level with BYO-teabag man. 

So, here’s a thing. I left Sydney with two massive suitcases filled with random Change the World event shit. I can’t be any more specific than that, because I didn’t check the interior of the cases; I just picked them up and checked them in (frowned upon). When I arrived in Perth, I stood by the luggage conveyor and had a moment of abject panic, because I realised I had no idea what either of the suitcases looked like. Aha! That was okay, because my boss had sent me a photo of them, earlier. So that was good, that was fine. I knew what I was looking for … and it was the exact suitcase a lady was picking up from the conveyor at THAT VERY MOMENT. “Excuse me,” I said, “there’s every possibility that’s my suitcase.” “It could also be mine,” she replied. “Hmm, okay, let’s open it and see.” We did just that, exposing a male wardrobe of underwear and those funny flip-flops that people wear after sport and showering. “Is this your suitcase?” the lady asked, to which I was forced to reply: “I don’t THINK SO, but it could be.” “It could be?” “Yeah, it COULD be. I don’t KNOW what’s in my case. It COULD be male underwear and funny flip-flops. I mean, it’s UNLIKELY, but it COULD BE. Like, the thing is, I’m actually picking up my boss’ case. She’s still in Sydney. She asked me to take this case back to Perth for her.” “And you don’t know what’s in it?” “And I don’t know what’s in it, no.” At that EXACT moment a young man approached us, quizzically, and said, “That’s my stuff!” Which was awkward, yes, and left both me and the other woman in exactly the same predicament we’d started this encounter with (sans suitcase). 

No stars for Ahmid

There’s a man on the plane with a bad attitude. The lady air hostess asked him nicely to switch off his phone for take-off and he said no, it was unnecessary. She was, like, dude, it’s really fucking necessary, now switch off your phone. They may not have been her actual words. He’s already rung the bell twice, accidentally, with his elbow. His face is the colour of melting snow.

Small children and babies generally leave me quite unmoved, but there’s one on this flight that’s melted my hardened heart. It’s a little round baby person, and it’s asleep in its mum’s arms, as she stands swaying by the toilet on the plane. You know? The bouncy bouncy please stay asleep sway? It was obviously angry when it went to sleep, ‘cos its little round head is still screwed up into that overtired grumble. I love it, and I want to eat it, whole. (I miss my children already.)

I paid for a large coffee at the airport and received a small one in return. I didn’t say anything, just as Paul didn’t say anything at the shops yesterday, when the friendly sales fellow asked if he wanted to buy the jacket he’d just tried on (Paul, not the friendly sales fellow). Paul said it wasn’t his size, even though it actually was (just not his pricetag), and the friendly sales fellow offered to ring around the other stores and Paul said okay, that would be really helpful. And the good news is that they have Paul’s size in Joondalup, and we can get it from there. Paul says it’s okay that he wasted the sales fellow’s time, cos the shop was really, really quiet and it gave the friendly sales fellow something to do for five minutes. 

Once, at the shops, Paul took a trolley off a man whom he thought was a trolley-collecting man. Paul said a cheery THANKS MATE, and took the trolley clean off him. The man was not a trolley-collecting man, just a man doing his shopping. 

I don’t remember ever teaching Frankie or Ben to read. They just READ. Alice, on the other hand – let’s just say that it’s a good job she’s cute. Last night, she was sounding the letters out in her MAX MONKEY school reading book. S-I-T-T-I-N-G. “Climbing?” Try again. S-I-T-T-I-N-G. “Climbing.” Alright, climbing. Max is climbing. 

The food on this Qantas flight from Perth to Sydney is OUT OF THIS WORLD. I can’t tell you. There were three options for lunch. Three! I couldn’t decide between the chicken stir-fry with ginger, or the quinoa salad with warm smoked salmon (the pasta with bacon and onion didn’t really ring my bell) but the decision was taken out of my hands by the fact that the man in front of me took the last chicken stir-fry with ginger. Joke’s on HIM, though, ‘cos the quinoa salad was actually the best thing I’ve ever eaten, ever. Top three, anyway. Choice of drinks, alcoholic and otherwise, too. Living the DREAM. 

When we arrived at Sydney Airport there was a big sign saying TASMANIA! GO BEHIND THE SCENES! and my first thought was FUCK, we’ve caught the wrong fucking plane. They should consider idiots before planning their advertising campaigns. 

There is a handwritten sign on the till at the hotel restaurant saying, “No room charges for 1606. CASH ONLY.” WHAT DID ROOM 1606 DO THAT WAS SO VERY, VERY BAD? I need to know. 

I’ve had four coffees today. I was up at 5.30am Sydney time, which was 3.30 Perth time, which was fucking early, whichever clock you’re on. I chose my last coffee based purely on the font of the café. Good font. 

The Uber driver from Sydney airport to our AirBnB in Redfern was a bad human. The relationship was doomed from the moment he told me I was waiting for him in the wrong place, despite the fact that I was waiting for him in the RIGHT place. Then he asked what I knew about Catholic schools. Despite being Muslim, he wanted to send his son to a Catholic school, but was concerned about their views on gay marriage. “Oh right,” I said, “because you want your son to know that we’re all equal, yeah?” “No,” he answered. “I do not want this. Gays are bad, and gay marriage is wrong, and I don’t want my son to ever think think being gay is normal.” He then went on to say – after learning that I’d travelled from WA – that he would kill himself if he had to live in Perth. Perth or Canberra; he’d up and kill himself. I did not rate Ahmid five stars. 

I am in Sydney for a work event. It was quite extraordinary. Called Change the World, the event teaches charities how to tell their story. That’s my job – teaching charities how to tell their story. Fucking OATH. ANYWAY, at the event, three charities had the chance to win a $5,000 website. To win, they had to deliver a 30-second pitch. Charity number one pitched; it was pretty good. Charity number two pitched; also excellent. Then came charity number three, represented by a lady called Eryn. And Eryn – with her voice shaking – goes, “I don’t want to win this prize for my own charity. I want to win the prize for the gentleman sitting next to me, who told me his story at lunchtime.” She went on to explain that the gentleman – Ralph Kelly – had founded a crime-prevention charity after his son Tom was hit and killed in King’s Cross. She explained that the Thomas Kelly Youth Foundation had prevented thousands street crimes in the past few years. Well, the crowd went fucking wild. Eryn won – OBVIOUSLY ERYN WON – and, as she handed over the prize to Ralph, everyone lost their collective shit. Then Ralph told his story – including the part where his younger son committed suicide after his brother died – and – god – 350 people came together in a moment of collective grief, respect and admiration. It was one of the best moments of my entire life, and almost made up for getting up at 3.30am Perth time.