Telly is my crack

I’ll tell you what I love, shall I? Telly. I bloody love telly. To all those people who don’t own a television - and favour reading by candlelight, and lovemaking - I salute you, but it’s not for me. When I clock off from my half-hearted mothering efforts (at 7pm, and not a second later), Paul and I collapse on the sofa like the proverbial sack of spuds and watch TV until the day’s atrocities have faded, and I can dream about Come Dine With Me instead of my daughter stripping naked in a public park and pissing in the sandpit. Please, don’t begrudge me this. It’s either TV or crack.  

What I watch isn’t remotely high-brow or cultural. It used to be. I used to watch movies with subtitles and shit, but now … now I watch The Only Way is Essex. I know! What could I possibly relate to in a programme about botoxed bitches with puppies in their handbags gossiping about who’s had it off with who? I’m not watching this solo - Paul loves TOWIE too. Yes! Our pillow talk isn’t about our children’s milestones, or the situation in Syria, but rather the strange allure of Pirate Pete and how we’ll never, EVER, recover from Joey swapping Essex for the jungle. 

We also love - LOVE LOVE LOVE - Gogglebox, both the British AND Australian versions, primarily because we should be on it. PRODUCERS OF GOGGLEBOX: YOU NEED US. Seriously and for real. For starters, they need a Perth family. We’re a Perth family! Second, they need elderly hipsters of a certain age. We’re elderly hipsters of a certain age! And third, we’re fucking funny, especially when we’re drunk, and if you’re worried that we’ll be inappropriately dwarfist, or something, then don’t be, cos we’ll make a special effort to be polite about all people, even very small ones. Please can we be on Gogglebox? 

My love of television goes way back. Way, way back. There wasn’t such a thing as ‘recommended screen time’ when I was a kid, and even if there was, my parents wouldn’t have enforced it, cos I’d have had a tantrum and turned pink. I had a TV in my room, and I used to watch it ALL THE TIME, and I’d even get up late at night to watch Carry On films, ‘cos I could. I’d wake up early in the morning to watch He-Man and She-Ra, and rush home from school to watch Happy Days and the Brady Bunch and Mork and Mindy. Paul did this too. In fact, when he started school, the teacher commented to his mum that he had astonishing general knowledge. And Grandma Carole said proudly: “Well, he does watch A LOT of television.”

It’s for this reason - and the fact that Paul and I both turned out kind of okay - that we don’t curb our own children’s television watching. Shock horror! My kids watch TV until their eyes go square and they think that Spanish is their mother tongue. There you have it. Judge me as you will. 

To clarify, my kids aren’t watching TV all day, every day, but only because the little feckers get bored, and demand craft activities, or play-doh, or other interactive parental activities, at which point we switch off the TV and get out of the house, because I'm not having that mess in my living room, goddamit. 

And they’re not allowed other forms of technology, cos we got that completely fucking wrong with Ben, and there’s no way our little kids are getting near an iPad or a PlayStation. That shit’s evil. But telly? Telly’s okay. 

Hear me out here. One of the first lessons we taught our children is how to switch the TV on and find CBeebies at 5am. That is CLEVER PARENTING. The kids watch TV for a bit in the morning, and learn some shit from Andy on his wild adventures, and Justin in his house, and Baby Jake in his lighthouse, or windmill, or whatever, and eat their breakfast, and then we turn the TV OFF and we get ready and we get on with our day. (That makes it sound easier than it actually is, obviously. The mornings are like a fecking war zone. But you take my point.) And then we have an adventure (otherwise known as ‘collecting material for this blog’) and then I have a breakdown and then we come home and Alice has a nap. This is when Frankie watches TV, and swots up on his general knowledge, and his foreign languages, and his cooking skills (really, I can't recommend CBeebies highly enough). 

What you’ve got to remember is this: MY KIDS DON’T GO TO DAYCARE. And I work from home. I need to work in that couple of hours when Alice sleeps and Frankie watches TV. TELEVISION IS A WONDERFUL BABYSITTER, and if you haven’t figured that out yet, then you’re missing a trick.

And and AND, after a wild and crazy morning, a couple of hours spent chilling out in front of Mister Maker and his gang is therapeutic. It’s EDUCATIONAL. Frankie relaxes, and eats fruit (yes, bitches, FRUIT), and learns important life skills, like how to turn an egg carton into a pretend sandwich, or something.  

And then Alice wakes up and we pick up Ben from school and go to another park and have tea and do a bit of shouting and then it’s bath time and we don’t turn the telly back on until the kids are clean and in their pyjamas and need to wind down with a cup of tea and In the Night Garden. Is that so very, VERY bad? Nah, I dont think so either.

The Notorious MUM say RELAX

When I began this whole blogging adventure, I made the decision to not do any sponsored or promotional posts. By which I meant, I wouldn’t accept freebies - or indeed MONEY (idiot) - in return for a casually posed Instagram post saying how I stumbled upon these pet-worming tablets in Woolies and they’ve CHANGED MY LIFE, despite my absence of actual pets. Or an effusive blog post saying how I happened upon a new type of shower gel in Coles and, do you know, it’s really helped curb my swearing and general bad humour. 

As it turns out, this hasn’t been much of a problem. After all, who’d want me as their brand ambassador anyway? Gordons Gin? Valium? I’m hardly the unlined face of perfect parenthood. 

So anyway, there I was, all principled and holy, when I received an email asking if I’d like to try out Yummy Mummy Pregnancy Day Spa in the city. My friends, I ignited the keyboard with the speed in which I typed back: FUCK YEAH. 

In my defence, I’ve had a bitch of a fortnight, thanks to my eldest son, who appears to be trialling for the 2016 junior arsehole olympics. I’m owed this. My shoulders are knotted, my brow is furrowed (where the botox has worn off) and I’ve actually blistered the inside of my lips from biting down on them so hard (it’s either that or give my first born an actual Chinese burn). So I said YES. And NO, I’m not pregnant - JESUS - but I’d have stuffed a pillow up my jumper and pencilled on stretch marks if it meant half an hour of peace and quiet sans children. 

As it turns out, Yummy Mummy Pregnancy Day Spa (on Brisbane St in Perth, just next to NIB Stadium) isn’t just for pregnant mammas. It’s for all mammas, with babies inside AND outside of their bellies. It was created by mum of two Amy, who got a bit fed up with the lack of treatments available for expectant mothers when she was pregnant. I get that. When I was pregnant with Ben, my lovely friends Siobhan and Mairead (sisters, Catholic, generous) bought me a massage voucher. The masseuse didn’t have a fecking clue what to do with my big old belly. She was too scared to even touch my feet, in case she induced labour (NOT A THING, I’ve now discovered). 

At Yummy Mummy Pregnancy Day Spa, the therapists are qualified and confident. They’re happy to touch your feet. They have beds with big HOLES in them to pop your belly through, and are conscious not to lie you flat on our back in case the baby squishes your internal organs. Clever eh?

So anyway, I rolled along (LATE and STRESSED, as USUAL), thinking I was just gonna get a 20-minute foot rub, or something, but instead I got totally spoilt. This took me as far out of my comfort zone as is possible on a Wednesday morning before lunch. I had to force myself to relax. I had to forget about kids, and emails, and deadlines, and housework. I had to relllllllaxxxxxxx. It’s a thing. You should definitely try it. 

I had an all-over body scrub to start with. It was immense. I’d have been happy with that. But no! Then I had a shower (NOBODY SCREAMED AT ME TO WIPE THEIR BUM WHILE I WAS MID LATHER), put on a gorgeous robe and slippers, and went back to the room for a FULL BODY MASSAGE. My friends, I fell asleep. My head through the little hole in the bed, dribble dripping on the wooden floor, probably snoring. When I woke up, I got an attack of the giggles, remembering that bit in the IT Crowd when the masseuse kisses Roy upon the buttocks, so I made myself think sad thoughts. Like the fact that this would one day end. 

Disclaimer: this is not me. Although I'm sure she's a very nice lady.

Good news! It just kept going. After the massage I got an organic (organic!) facial and - be-still my beating heart - a head massage. I died a little, then. Life should not be that good. 

YOU THINK THAT’S IT? YOU THINK IT CAN’T GET ANY BETTER? Wait for this: I got dressed and was led into the lounge room, whereupon I DINED upon lovely nibbly things and sipped delicious juice and refused, point blank, to leave. I begged the therapist to let me stay, to not make me go back to those terrible, screaming creatures clawing at me for food and shelter and LCM bars. 

In the end, my parking ticket expired, so I had to leave. I left, however, on a little cloud of body scrub and bliss, and you couldn’t wipe the serene grin off my serene head for the rest of the day, EVEN WHEN I HAD TO HERD THE KIDS INTO THE CAR FOR THE SCHOOL RUN. I was like the Dalai Fucking Lama, all good vibes and tranquillity. 

I’m going to get vouchers for Yummy Mummy Pregnancy Day Spa for every mum and mum-to-be I know. It’s going to be my thing. I need to bestow this serenity upon my people, because my people need this.  

Lies! All lies!

How are you at lying? Not lying down (I am EXCELLENT at lying down) but telling lies. Me, I’m hopeless. I go very red in the cheeks (face cheeks) and end up making the story way more elaborate than it needs to be. Paul, my excellent husband, is the same. It gets him into trouble. 

For instance, Paul used to work for a horrible, ruthless label-printing company which had clients in the south-west of WA. When his boss discovered that we were travelling to the south-west of WA for a pre-Frankie babymoon, he asked Paul to deliver labels to a local winery. Which was bullshit, obviously, ‘cos they were pricks and why would we take time out of our holiday to deliver labels for a bunch of tosspots who could WELL afford to have them couriered?

So Paul said that he was very sorry but no, he couldn’t take the labels to the winery. His boss asked why. Paul went red in the cheeks (face cheeks) and said: “Because I’m going on a motorbike.” “Oh! I didn’t know you had a motorbike!” “I don’t. It’s Lisa’s dad’s.” “Oh! You’re taking your pregnant wife three hours south of Perth on your father-in-law’s motorbike?” “No! He’s riding. I’m going on the back. Lisa’s travelling separately.”

It was an elaborate story, I grant you, but I know where he was coming from. Paul and I both find it hard to say no to people. FAR better to come up with a far-fetched excuse as to why we can’t come to your 40th birthday party. “We’re babysitting a guinea pig! It needs feeding hourly! No we can’t bring it!” 

I think we ALL tell fibs, to a certain extent, particularly when it comes to our children. I mean, there’s the whole Santa thing, obviously, but we take it one step further. In our house, Santa’s watching the children through the security alarm monitor thingy in the corner of the living room - when it flashes red, it means they’re under surveillance, so they’d better fucking watch themselves.

And I’m not proud of this, but we have been known to change the clocks. All of them. If the State won’t give us daylight saving, then we’ll enforce it ourselves. So yeah, our kids have been known to go to bed at 5.45pm, no questions asked. 

And, um, we also told Ben that he was pronouncing the word 'bench' incorrectly, and it was actually a 'vench'. He believed this for many years, just as he believed that Paul used to be the drummer in Wham, because, um, we told him he was. 

I learnt the fine art of lying to my children from my parents. They told me all sorts of shit as a kid. For instance: when I was about three, living in England, we went to a Butlins holiday camp, and I participated in a dress-up competition. With half-coconuts on my boobs and a Hawaiian skirt made out of tissue paper, I was the clear and obvious winner … to everyone except the judges, who instead gave the winning outfit prize to a small girl covered head to toe in cigarette packets. I can only imagine her wheezing parents had forgotten to pack dress-up clothes, and just grabbed what was closest to hand. In any case, my mum and dad weren’t going to let a technicality like the judge’s decision spoil MY holiday (I’d have cried, and stamped my feet, and probably have knocked out fag-ash Lil), so instead fabricated their own awards ceremony, complete with a Lady Di dress-up book and Space Hopper as prizes. My mum only confessed to this ruse a couple of years ago, when I was reminiscing - once again - about my victory. My world crumbled, yes. 

Turning the tables, I’ve been known to fib to my mum, too. My mum, you see, is our chief and primary and only babysitter. If I have to go out to work, it’s mum who looks after the kids. If I get my hair cut, it’s my mum who looks after the kids. And if I want to go to the gym, it’s my mum who looks after the kids (they won’t go in the creche, the bitches). You see where this gets problematic. My mum has no problem looking after the kids while I work, but she takes issue with looking after the kids just so I can exercise. She considers this - validly - “taking the piss”. As such, visiting the gym or going for a run requires ingenuity. It requires wearing one’s gym kit underneath one’s work clothes, and making quick changes in carparks, and not sweating. 

I don’t lie to Paul. I’ve never lied to Paul. It’s my thing. Unless we count the Chopper thing. When we first started hanging out, Paul told me his favourite film was Chopper, and I was all, like, OH, that’s my favourite film too! Even now, he’ll quote a line from Chopper and I’ll be all - oh yeah, that’s a good one. Well, guess what? I’ve never seen the fucking film. I have no intention of seeing it. But let’s just play the game, for the sake of our marriage, okay? 

So anyway, what’s my point? My point is this. Ben’s started lying recently. Not very well - all red cheeks and wandering eyes - but lying nonetheless. “I didn’t wipe my nose on my school shirt!” - as snot drips on to his shorts. “I just woke up!” - as yesterday’s unread library book lies open at page 263 at 6am. And, my personal favourite: “I haven’t eaten a thing all day!” - as the remnants of two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese clings to his chin and puts MASSIVE, GAPING HOLES in his story of starvation. 

We’ve told him to sort this out. To STOP FUCKING LYING. Which might be considered hypocritical, given the fibs we all tell. But honestly, there’s a difference. Fibs are okay if you’re protecting someone (like my mum, after her recent and disastrous 80s throwback haircut. It has WINGS) or to make your children behave. That’s okay. Lying just for the sake of lying makes you a prick. You shouldn’t do that. Unless it's to convince your eldest son that his step-dad was the third member of Wham. Okay?

Pooing in a park: priceless

On Friday morning - in a pre-6am rush of blood to the head - I took the kids to the park for breakfast. This is what happens when you check Instagram before dawn; you suddenly buy into all this ‘making memories’ bullshit. You’re familiar with the concept of making memories, yes? It’s a cunning new way of crafty, interactive mothers making useless, TV-reliant mothers feel like shit. 

WELL, I thought, as I looked at the latest Instagram post of perfectly groomed mammas making perfectly styled Halloween-themed cake pops with their perfectly dressed, underwear-wearing children, I CAN MAKE MEMORIES TOO. I’M GONNA TAKE THOSE BITCH KIDS TO THE PARK FOR BREAKFAST, AND I’M GONNA PHOTOGRAPH IT, AND I’M GONNA ADJUST THE CONTRAST AND BRIGHTNESS OF THE PICTURE SO THE RAIN DOESN’T LOOK QUITE SO THREATENING, AND YOU CAN’T SEE THE SNOT DRIPPING FROM ALICE’S NOSE, AND I’M GONNA SMUGLY, AND WITHOUT HESITATION, HASHTAG IT ‘MAKING MEMORIES’. 

And I did, ‘cos I’m a smug bitch, when I want to be. But come on gang, let’s be honest, my kids aren’t gonna remember eating crunchy nut cornflakes and raisin toast in an empty park. Oh yeah, we made memories alright, but the sort that require years of psychological counselling to recover from. For example:

Frankie needed a poo. In the absence of toilets, I had to let him shit into my hands, protected only by a thin sheaf of kitchen roll. It was a runny poo. An elderly lady walking a dog handed me a doggy poo bag to deposit the shit. I believe this to be the lowest point of my actual life. 

Alice had decided this was the day she stopped wearing nappies, and dutifully pissed her way around the sandpit. I was like DUDE, stop pouring your juice into … oh. 

Seagulls ate our toast. 

Memories? Yeah, we made them alright, and all before 8am. 

Here’s the thing: we - us humans - don’t remember the good stuff. I mean the BRILLIANT stuff, like a trip to Disneyland, yeah maybe, but the run-of-the-mill, everyday good stuff? Nope. Without a single exception, my earliest memories involve tears. For example:

My Grandad Norman’s dog, Horace (who, I hasten to add, had recently been crowned SECOND-UGLIEST DOG IN BRITAIN), eating my sweets. I cried. 

Lady Di driving past our nursery school, but me disliking the nursery school teacher to such an extent that I refused to wave a flag. And cried.

My mum getting into a fight on the merry-go-round at a Channel 7 teddy bears’ picnic. Again, I cried. 

My Aunty Pauline blacking up for a street parade around the streets of Newcastle. (Different times, friends, different times.) Boy did I fucking cry. 

And finally, the Michelin man making an appearance at our Royal Wedding street party in 1981. HELL YES I cried. 

I asked Paul what his earliest memories were, and he said - without hesitation - smoking. And I was like DUDE, your EARLIEST memories, and he goes, ‘Oh, right, getting mugged for my earring. And falling out of a moving car.' I don’t know what this says about Leeds in the mid 70s, but clearly it’s only a matter of time before Mike Leigh makes a gritty urban drama about my husband’s childhood. 

Which got me to thinking: I think we need to stop putting too much pressure on ourselves to ‘make memories’. I mean, not me, I don’t do anything anyway, but you - you should stop making such an effort. When Ben was small, and Frankie was a teeny tiny human, and we were considering selling him to pay for a day out at Legoland, Paul’s sister wisely said: ‘What for? It’s not like they’ll remember it’, so we went to Lego WORLD, instead, which was basically just a glorified Lego shop in Manchester’s Trafford Centre, and perfectly adequate for our memory making. (As an aside, don’t tell Ben about his whole Lego world/land situation. He still thinks he went to Lego LAND. He can’t understand what all the fuss is about.)

My kids aren’t going to remember the zoo trips and aquarium excursions and Bali holidays. I’d like to think we’ll get some return on our investments, but that’s bullshit. They’ll remember shitting in a park, and having their elbow dislocated by an over-enthusiastic seatbelt putter-onner, and being whacked in the head by an unskilled cricketing sibling, and getting stuck at the very top of a playcentre climbing frame, and any NUMBER of parenting cock-ups by yours truly.

On that note: anyone fancy contributing to my kids' future psychological counselling fund? 

Ben: the champion of the underdog

Let me tell you about Ben. Not in a “we need to talk about Kevin” way, but rather, “let me tell you about my lovely and ever-so-slightly strange eldest son”. Ben’s had a wobbly nine and half years, what with parental breakups, and house moves, and step parents and new siblings, but he’s come out of his first decade relatively unscathed, with only a minimum of psychological intervention and intensive therapy. Don’t worry gang, he’s okay. (Note to my parents: HE’S OKAY. YOU CAN STOP BUYING HIM SHIT NOW.)

Ben’s defining personality trait is his attraction to the underdog. (And his propensity to breathe through his mouth. And kick shit. And drop shit. And refuse to do what he’s told. All stories for another day.) But: if you belong to a minority group, then you’ve got a friend in Ben. Kept alive by oxygen tanks and a drip? Ben’s your man! Don’t speak the native tongue? Not to worry; Ben speaks the language of the minorities and the misunderstood. We’ve seen them all, over the years. We’ve welcomed them in, overlooked their afflictions and administered their EpiPens. 

I mean, we’re in no position to judge. I’ve had my fair share of phonecalls from worried mums telling me that Ben’s right eye has swollen up to comedic proportions and he’s wheezing like an asthmatic smoker, and was there perhaps an allergy I forgot to mention? And I crack up laughing – because Ben’s little-eye allergic reaction is nothing if not hilarious – and ask if perhaps they’ve got a dog or a cat or a gerbil or a rabbit or a carpet or curtains or indeed anything from the 21st century – and they inevitably say yes, so I tell them to just hit him up with some antihistamine and carry on with the one-eyed play date. So no, I’m in no position to judge. 

But JESUS, the kids we’ve seen over the years. There was the kid whose mother forgot him. And when I asked him, as darkness fell, whether he knew his mum’s phone number or where he lived, shook his head sadly and asked to borrow Ben’s pyjamas. I ended up driving him around our suburb until he spotted a familiar landmark (his mum). My favourite, however – and the one I go on and on about, because I still can’t believe it happened – was the kid who came with an empty rucksack and left with a full one. He stole most of Ben’s possessions that day, and graffitied Paul’s work bench (with his name, duh) in the process. The next day, I was working in my office when his mum pulled up outside in her car. The kid came to the door with his bulging rucksack, pushed past me, and delivered the contraband back into Ben’s room. We exchanged no words.

He’s a funny kid, is Ben, and ridiculously good at spelling, too, and apart from a fiery little temper and a refusal to sleep past dawn, didn’t give us too much cause for concern until a couple of years ago, when he suddenly got a bit sad. He’d come out of school with his shoulders slumped, and a blank refusal to tell us what’d gone on that day. That started in year three. His teacher said he was lazy. I suggested he might be bored, and in need of a gentle push. She rolled her eyes and said: “I’ve got 24 other children to look after, I haven’t got time to push each and every one.” Alarm bells much?

By the time year four rolled around, and MacBooks were introduced for each and every student, it kind of felt like we’d lost him. He forgot how to talk, and write, and use his brain for anything other than illegally downloading inappropriate computer programmes. He stopped making eye contact, and couldn’t think about anything – ANYTHING – other than the shiny silver box on his desk and in his school bag. If you asked him what he’d learned at school, he’d grunt “geography” and go back to scratching his arse and sulking. I mean, I’m all for puberty, but not at NINE. 

A few months ago, on the way to football training, he said: “Mummy! We learned grammar today!” And I was like DUDE, that’s my area of expertise! Tell me more! Tell me what you learned! “Well, you know when you’ve got 52, and you take away 10, that’s GRAMMAR!” And my grammar-pedant heart shattered into a million pieces, and I knew our days at that school were numbered. 

So YEP, we moved house, in order to move school. Let me tell you about Ben’s new school. Let me tell you about the new Ben. He’s changed! In nine short school days, he’s changed. He comes out of school smiling – NAY, BEAMING – and asks: “Can I tell you what I learned today?” And I (pretend to) listen intently as he LOOKS ME IN THE EYE and tells me about seed dispersal, and climate factors, and long division, and – um – Steve Irwin Crocodile Hunter. It’s quite the transformation.

Believe me when I tell you, we didn’t take the decision to move schools lightly. Moving a sensitive, highly strung nine-year-old boy in term 4 of year 4 is a big deal. We both felt sick on his first morning, holding hands tightly as we were shown to the classroom.

But then the teacher came to us and said: “Hi Ben, we’ve been expecting you! Now I know you’re into reading, writing and football, so I’ve sat you next to Charlie, who I think you’ll get along well with!” And I wanted to cuddle the dear woman. For her to know Ben’s name, let alone his hobbies, was such a fucking relief that I got goosebumps and nearly cried. Okay, I did cry – on my way back to the car. And in the car. And the whole drive home. And when I got home. I basically didn’t stop crying all day, and when I picked Ben up from school and he said: “IT’S BRILLIANT! IT’S LIKE THAT SCHOOL IS MADE FOR ME!” I cried all over again. It was a very soggy day.

You just want your kids to be happy, don’t you? (And eat with their mouth shut, but again, that’s a story for another day.) And, while we’ve still got a long road ahead of us, and some serious paternal bullshit to deal with over the next couple of weeks, Ben’s on the right track. I reckon, with the help of this remarkable new school, we’ll fix him … just in time for puberty.

A short guide to moving with children

So I was GOING to write a post offering helpful advice to people moving house. Specifically, people with children who are moving house. It was going to be Lisa’s guide to moving house without killing your children or your spouse or your well-meaning parents or the bandana-ed TV aerial dude who set up a deckchair in the garage and refused to fucking budge until he’d watched the sunset and made Frankie cry. That kind of guide. As it turned out, it'd be a pretty short guide, comprising one single piece of advice:

Get rid of the kids.

Get. Rid. Of. The. Kids.

I mean, not permanently, obviously. Unlock the doors on their 16th birthday, or something, but definitely get rid of them on moving day. Maybe even moving week. 

That’s it. That’s my sole pearl of wisdom regarding moving house with children. 

Moving house is hard enough work as it is. We did it last week. Today, in fact, is our one-week anniversary in our new house. Which is brilliant, and beautiful, and blessed with actual ocean glimpses, but is very, very new, and very, very shiny, and very, very untouched by human toddler. At least, it was. It’s now covered in fingerprints and snot and jelly. I think my children see this house as something of a challenge: just how many bodily fluids can they smear across the glass - glass! - front door, and which implement will leave the deepest groove in the oak flooring. I’ve already gone through a bottle of Windex and a large part of my sanity. I’m not proud of this: IT’S JUST WHAT THEY’VE DRIVEN ME TO. 

But back to moving day. We actually took our own advice and got rid of the kids for the early part of moving day. My dad took them, god bless him, and left Paul and me and mum to the unenviable task of emptying the house of everything but the ghost of the Hungarian masseuse who died in the kitchen (before our time, but STILL). He could stay. It was all going swimmingly until the bank rang - while we were en route to the new house - and asked for more dollars. THOUSANDS more dollars. Do you have thousands of extra dollars stuffed in your knicker drawer? No, me neither. But what can you do when you’ve got a half-empty house at one end, a car-boot full of inappropriately sweary t-shirts (Paul’s), and a scullery - a fucking scullery - waiting for you at the other end? Yeah, you find the money, and resign yourself to a diet of beans and dust for the forseeable future. 

Oh man, it was a long day. The longest. The kids came back at lunchtime and went fucking nuts. Frankie introduced himself to the neighbour (a lovely guy with an uncanny resemblance to Alan Bennett, the mild-mannered author) by standing on the front verandah and weeing on the pebbles, waving to Alan as the house prices plummeted. 

Paul was faced with the not inconsiderable job of putting the kids’ beds up in time for bedtime, while they raced their bikes around the house (the INSIDE of the house) and stole important screws. We’d made the decision not to put Alice’s cot back up, and instead stuck her straight in a bed. Alice, being Alice, wasn’t phased by this AT ALL, but did fall out. Twice. I had to set up a crash pad of extra duvets and teddies. 

My temper became increasingly frayed as the day progressed. I lost my shit when mum put my clothes into my wardrobe willy nilly. Some might say that I’m an ungrateful bitch, and I’m lucky to have a mum who would take the time to put my clothes into my wardrobe at all, but SHIT guys, everyone knows the dresses go in the dress section and the jeans go in the jeans section and that my t-shirts and Paul’s inappropriately sweary t-shirts go on opposite sides. And don’t even get me started on the colour coding. 

At 6pm, when the kids were demanding food but I couldn’t find any, and the removalists were trying to lift a massive cubby house over a high brick wall, and the beds were in a million little pieces on the floor, and my t-shirts were mixed up with Paul’s formal trousers in the wardrobe, and Pirate Pete the TV aerial dude was still waiting for the TV bracket to be unloaded from the back of the moving truck, I felt a long, long way from normal life, and got the weirdest sense of homesickness. I wanted to go home, dead Hungarian masseuse and all. 

If there’d been no kids around we’d have just got drunk and slept on the floor, like the wild young things that we are (ahem), but the three kids demanded some semblance of routine. That was hard. That was not fun. That’s why my sole piece of advice is to leave the kids out of the whole moving house thing, and get drunk instead. Pirate Pete and disorganised wardrobes and greedy banks won’t piss you off half as much if you’re drunk. 

Banana willies and late-night AGMs

Do you ever get the feeling your children are conspiring against you? Like, for real? As in, they conduct late-night meetings in the older child’s bedroom to discuss their tactics for the coming week?

“Now Frankie, you’ve been waking mummy up at silly o’clock for the past two months. How about you hand over the reins to Alice, who’s been sleeping well past 7.30 since birth and is definitely due for some early morning Bananas in Pyjamas and swearing mamma action.”

“Ben, according to my notes, you’ve been a shithead for close to a year now. You must be exhausted. It’s definitely time for Frankie to step up and have a few public meltdowns over the colour of his ice cream.”

“And guys – guys! – no one’s shat their pants this season! Who’s up for it? All-in group challenge? Yeah!” 

“Finally, comrades: I’ve noticed that the mother figure’s been looking pretty complacent over the last week or so. Relaxed even. We can’t have that. It’s time to bring out those long-forgotten quirks. Frankie, I want you to refuse to wear anything that’s not a matching set. Leave the house naked if you have to, but coordinate to the death. Ben, I want you to refuse to pick up your feet when you walk. Shuffle my good man. Shuffle. And Alice, dear Alice, I want you to say no – with a smile – to every request made of you. Got it gang? Yeah? Then let’s go fuck shit up.”

‘Cos I don’t know if it’s a full moon, or a rising tide, or simply the result of my children’s midnight AGM, but my lot have been weird this week. Weirder than normal. Out-of-character weird. 

Frankie’s started sleeping past dawn! Yeah! Which means, of course, that Alice has turned the tables and done the opposite! Yeah! What’s WITH that? It’s like they’ve actually tag teamed – ‘you’re on the dawn shift, sucker!’ – and the chances of me ever, ever sleeping past daybreak are looking increasingly unlikely. 

Speaking of broken sleep, someone – and my money’s on Frankie – has tinkered with the home phone so that it now chimes WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS at two-hourly intervals. I was unaware our phone had this functionality until 12/2/4am last night, at which point I ripped it out of the wall.

My kids are also taking it in turns to be sick. Alice last week, Frankie the week before, and this week the baton’s been passed to Ben, who then passed it back to Frankie, who kindly decided it was my turn, which means there are three very, very unwell Shearons under one roof. And one (who shall remain nameless, upon request) who keeps shitting himself (“I trumped! It had lumps!).

Which is not great timing, because we’re moving house on Thursday. I’m not sure if you’ve ever moved house with three children, but it’s hard bloody work. And I tell you, the house-moving process would be a whole lot easier if my mum didn’t keep packing all our shit. I mean sure, pack away the non-essential items, like the ironing board, for instance, and the iron (do we have an iron?). But clothes? And food? And spoons? Yeah, we kinda need them.

It was the final inspection on our house last night, at 6pm. Yep, smack bang in the middle of the witching hour. We had it all planned out. We’d eat early, bath them early, have them all ready for bed and watching a movie so we could casually and in a relaxed manner show the new owners of our house how the reticulation and hot water system works (the exciting stuff). Taking a wild guess, how do you think that went? Yep, exactly. We went outside to demonstrate the finer workings of the pool pump, and came back inside to find Alice and Frankie – naked as the day they were born – dancing on the kitchen table with banana willies. Yes my friends, banana willies. I’m going to leave you with that image, just as my children left the future occupants of our house with it. You are WELCOME. 

Feeding time at the zoo

As a mother, my guilt knows no bounds. I feel guilty – in no particular order – about missed sports carnivals, forgotten free-dress days, neglected swimming lessons, and for checking Facebook while I push the kids on the swings. I feel guilty about not toilet training Alice yet, about letting Frankie poo in a nappy, and for still tying Ben’s shoelaces. I feel guilty for hating Play-Doh and despising Lego and refusing, point blank, to do any craft-based activities on the kitchen table (it’s the GLITTER, friends, I hate the fucking GLITTER).

Most of my mother guilt, however, revolves around food. I feel really, really guilty about what the kids eat. That’s not to say I feed them Turkey Twizzlers and Fanta – I’m not a fucking animal – I just don’t invest as much time and effort into their mealtimes as the holy mothers of Instagram. OH, I was all good intentions, once upon a time. There was no soft cheese for me while pregnant, and I ate ALL the broccoli, ‘cos what you eat while you’re pregnant affects what the kids will eat when they’re born, right? Bollocks does it.

And then, when the babies were born – all three of them – I diced and steamed and pureed like a boss. Weaned them at six months, started with veggies (‘cos if you start with veggies, they won’t get a sweet tooth, right? Wrong), and didn’t introduce sugar until long into their first year. Not one of my babies – and I say this virtuously, while asking you to punch me in the face – has seen (or indeed eaten) jarred baby food or formula milk.

Has it made any difference? Has it bollocks. My children are rotten eaters. Well, not so much Alice (she ate her own poo, until very recently), but the boys, certainly. Ben was TERRIBLE. Once we got the vegetable purees successfully out of the way, he made the executive decision to subsist solely on soft, beige food. No colours, no lumps. Chips and cheese and white bread and porridge and bananas and – just to mix things up a bit – hummus. That was FUN. Admittedly, he’s better now, but that’s just ‘cos he’s a greedy fecker, and likes eating.

Frankie, oh Frankie. He was AMAZING as a little person. Can you imagine my smug round head as he sat in his highchair munching on green beans and quinoa? Smoked salmon and asparagus? My kid was a superfood superhuman until he hit about 18 months old, and then it turned to shit, and he’d only eat crisps and cashews. For real. All he wants for tea, every night, is sausages. Just sausages. Or sometimes spaghetti. Just spaghetti. If I add sauce he makes me wash it off.

Which is why I’ve given up. Not willingly, and not guiltlessly, but yeah, I’ve given up. Ben’s lunchboxes are a pre-packaged anti-instagram nightmare. Not for him bento boxes packed neatly with home-dried fruit, finely chopped carrot sticks and home-baked cheese scrolls. He gets a ham sandwich (white bread) and whatever Uncle Toby’s got on special at Woolworths that week. Before you get all heavy on my ass, I’ll put him a bit of homemade cake in, if I’ve baked, and chopped fruit for crunch ‘n’ sip. He totally covers the food groups.

As for evening meals, it’s over. You gotta pick your fights, friends, and my days of preparing home-cooked meals for those ungrateful bitches are long gone. Before I had kids, I dreamt of jovial evening meals around the kitchen table, passing the salt and laughing about the day’s events. Instead I get three naked kids sitting on the table, throwing their carrots at my head and dangling their testicles in my moussaka. I’m out.

These days, Paul and I have a proper tea once the kids are in bed. I’ll cook for him, ‘cos he’s grateful and doesn’t dangle his balls in it. The kids have what they can catch. Sometimes spaghetti, sometimes sausages, sometimes porridge (piled with berries, weirdly). Most of the time it’s a selection plate of ham and strawberries and crackers and definitely NOT cheese, because Frankie says cheese tastes of floor. And I’m gonna say the next bit very, very quietly, in case the gods of domesticity hear and strike me down dead: they eat their tea in front of the telly. There, I’ve said it. Do with that information what you will.

I feel guilty about this, but then I remind myself that they don’t have rickets, their teeth are their own, and they have an encyclopaedic knowledge of dinosaurs, thanks to Andy and his wild adventures. They’re also way happy, which means I’m happy, which means WINNING.  

iPhones can't swim, toddlers can't sympathise

A week that begins with a three-year-old dropping your iPhone down the toilet and ends with him spewing and pooing in the marital bed at 4 in the morning is never going to go down in history as the BEST WEEK EVER, is it? 

My friends, last week was a DOOZY. The best thing about this week is that it’s not last week. For that I am forever grateful. And yes, on Monday, Frankie was watching those weird Kinder Surprise videos on You Tube (which, we’ve realised, are the reason he’s suddenly speaking in an American accent, and asking for JELLO) while I worked and Alice slept. He ran off to have a wee. He took the phone with him. He dropped the phone down the toilet. He weed on the phone as it slowly glug-glug-glugged down the u-bend. No amount of drying out in rice could save my poor, uninsured iPhone this time. It actually sizzled as I tried to turn it off. A phone that sizzles is a phone that’s been well and truly pissed on. 

That was Monday. On Tuesday I went into hospital for my lady operation (by which I mean, an operation on my lady bits, not an operation to BECOME a lady. Or an operation conducted exclusively by ladies). It was pretty painful, truth be told, and I had moments of wondering what the fuck I’d done to myself. Then the morphine kicked in, and I spent the rest of the evening wondering what the fuck my name was, and who the funny little people calling me mummy were. 

Morphine’s some heavy-duty shit, isn’t it? I had to WORK to get it, and it wasn’t until I was on my knees – with a pain score of 7.5, precisely – that the nurses would hand it over. And you try getting that shit from a chemist, even with a legitimate prescription. Paul took one look at the box and headed straight to eBay, to see what he could flog it for (JOKES, guys, JOKES). Yeah, it got rid of the pain, but it made me want to spew, and forget which day of the week it was. And I dunno if it was the morphine or the after effects of the general anaesthetic, but I was out of it for the rest of the week. Completely and utterly befuddled. 

On Thursday I had to interview a very posh builder at a very posh house (for work; I don’t just visit construction sites and ask men in hard hats their views on mortar), and it was a shambles. I forgot to take a pen. A pen! I recorded the interview on my battered and broken iPhone 5, which Alice once smashed on our limestone pavers, and I never bothered to get fixed. My shoe kept falling off. No shit! I couldn’t keep my fucking shoe on my fucking foot. And also: I forgot how to talk. I’ve just transcribed the interview. It’s mortifying. The builder introduces himself and I’m, like, ‘uh’?. It was not my finest journalistic hour. 

And here’s a thing: recovering from an operation - major or otherwise - is impossible with children around. They’re just so very NEEDY. Still wanting three square meals, despite my aching womb! I know, right! 

Which brings us to the conclusion of the week. On Saturday we drove a stupidly long way to see a stupidly shit movie, during which Frankie ate a stupid amount of popcorn and cake. Which he (we) paid for on Saturday night. Four o’clock in the morning and I’m grabbing bath towels for him to spew into, but can’t find the light switch, so somehow end up flinging the popcorn-chunky sick around our bedroom instead. So we strip the bed, and the toddler, and try to sleep on the electric blanket, until at 5 o’clock his bottom explodes - QUITE LITERALLY, IN NO WAY FIGURATIVELY - and we’re left standing, staring, open-mouthed at our bed - and small child - covered in shit. COVERED in shit. My first thought? If I ignore this, it will go away, right? Wrong. 

That, my friends, was Father’s Day. I can’t say it was the Father’s Day of Paul’s dreams. I tried to turn the day around with pork pie, but an unusual school mum dressed as a German fräulein gatecrashed our picnic, so we packed up and went home, whereupon Frankie spewed explosively (strawberries) all over my favourite rug. Again, we just stood, open-mouthed, and wondered what would happen if we walked away and left him to it. Again, we didn’t, and the week concluded with me standing in the garden, hosing spewed-up strawberries off my rug, while Paul hosed spewed-up strawberries off his son. Happy Father’s Day, daddy! 

Taking it back to the old school

When I worked in London, my then boss was so desperate to get her son into a decent school (by which I mean, one that didn’t have kids dealing crack at the entrance gates) that she sent him up to Birmingham to live with her sister. And I remember thinking, at the time, well that seems a little extreme; it’s just SCHOOL. Not long after that, another friend ‘borrowed’ a colleague’s address to use as her own, just so her kid could get into a good school in the right catchment area. Again, I thought, this seems a rather lengthy measure; it’s just SCHOOL. And then, just recently, a soccer mum admitted that she’d converted to catholicism so that her three boys could go to a decent (and affordable) school. And I was, like, GOD (sorry), the things people will do, eh; It’s just SCHOOL.

And yeah, it’s just school … until school starts to fuck your kid up (or, as I shall write in Ben's exit letter, have a detrimental effect on his attitude, behaviour, learning and wellbeing, as well as his handwriting, maths, social skills and dress sense). Once that starts to happen, well, hell hath no fury like a mamma who needs to get her kid into a decent school. 

And so I became that mamma. I flirted with catholicism. I’ll be honest, this did not sit well with me, a devout atheist. I considered anglicanism (is that a thing? I’m not sure that’s a thing) but their schools are EXPENSIVE, man, and for reasons that I still cannot fathom, Catholic primary schools are way cheap. I know not why. Right now, Ben’s name is on the waiting list of at least half a dozen Catholic schools in the northern suburbs of Perth. They have to take a certain quota of non-believers, you see, but we’re so far down the list you have to squint to make out the different surname. Yeah, that was an issue. “But your bastard son appears to have a different surname to you and your husband, who - may I also add - appears to be a BLUE COLLAR WORKER. We take two points off for BLUE COLLAR WORKERS.” This actually happened! Only at one school, but it did happen! I’m not precisely sure about the points systems, but I definitely had to categorise our professions. I was number 2, I think, and Paul number 3. It knotted up my stomach having to fill in that form, but I did it, because getting Ben into a decent school was my NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. Fuck social engineering, my kid will be at mass on Monday. 

Because I knew I couldn’t rely on the whole Catholic conversion thing, we also put our house up for sale. Yes, friends: that - primarily - is why we’re moving. I am so desperate to get my kids into a decent school that I’m prepared to go though the angst and aggravation of selling a house and buying a new one. The things we do, eh?

Let me clarify: I never thought I’d be THAT MAMMA. I’ve always thought of school - especially primary school - as just school. A nice place to send children so you can go to the gym. But somewhere along the line - specifically, term 2, year 3 - the school started to have such a negative effect on my eldest son that I was forced to rethink. When the MacBook policy was introduced in year four, and Ben provided most of his classmates with my dad’s iTunes password to download inappropriate apps and the Penis song, I knew our days were numbered. 

And so, we’re out! Nearly, anyway. I came up with an elaborate story to get Ben into the most recommended of all the local primary schools, but ended up not needing it, because our new house - quite by chance - is in the catchment area. I inadvertently went to the school interview with ripped jeans and a small boy dressed up as Spider-Man, but the new principal was so lovely that she pretended not to notice as she stamped ‘accepted’ on our application. The fact that this caused a champagne-cork-popping celebration tells you how much my priorities have changed over the years, and how important I now consider school to be. Yes. I’m THAT MAMMA, and woe betide the school that introduces compulsory MacBooks for nine year olds. 

There were three in the bed ...

It was never my intention to share my bed. I mean, with my husband, obviously; he keeps me warm in winter, and doesn’t snore, and only occasionally cackles and swears in his sleep (oh wait, that’s me), but with my children, NO.

In all his nine and a half years, Ben has NEVER slept in my bed. I’m serious! Even when he was really sick, as a baby, I’d lie on the floor next to his cot, holding his hand through the rails. Which wasn’t particularly comfortable, I grant you, but it never even crossed my mind to bring him into my bed (I’m an idiot, remember?). And then, when he went into a bed, it never crossed HIS mind to get out of it. He’d wake up and knock morse-code style on our dividing wall, but that was the extent of our bed sharing. And I’ll be honest, I LIKED IT THAT WAY. I like my bed. I like sleeping in my bed. And call me old fashioned, but I like NOT BEING PUNCHED IN THE FACE WHILE I’M SLEEPING IN MY BED. 

For the past, oh, two or three months (I’ve lost track), I’ve been punched in the face almost EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. By Frankie. Frankie, who was once king of the sleeping babies, but who never really took to a bed, and now sneaks into our bedroom at around 3am for the sole reason - from what I can tell - of punching me in the face. I say sneak. He used to sneak. We used to wake up to find that a small person (Frankie, not an intruding dwarf) had snuck up from the bottom of the bed, under the duvet, to sleep between us. Which was okay; I could work with that. 

Now, however, he THUNDERS into our room, which is saying something given that he’s lighter than a stick of fairy floss, and SLAMS the door open and BOUNCES into bed, with scant regard for limbs and pillows and faces. And then - from 3 until Paul’s alarm goes off at 5.20am (precisely) - we’re nudged and scratched and smacked and kicked and, last night, breathed on in a weird way. We swap spots, and rotate, and sometimes shout FUCK THIS and go and sleep in Frankie’s bed (me). 

I’m over it! And to those who say OH, they’re only babies for a short while, and you should treasure those moments with your babies before dawn, I say: you haven’t seen what a gun-toting bitch I am without at least nine hours’ sleep. You should not wish that upon my children. Yesterday I threw a jar of nutella, and a spoon. 

So you see, it’s in EVERYONE’S best interest for Frankie to stay in his bed. We will ALL be happier, and less bruised. The idea is - when we move - to put Alice and Frankie in the same room. As with all our parenting theories, this is based on nothing but blind hope and optimism. We think Frankie will be less inclined to jump ship if he’s supposed to be looking after his little sister, you dig? 

At this point, that’s our only idea, apart from sedation, adoption, and a lock on the door. Any other suggestions would be GRATEFULLY received, especially if they come with the offer of babysitting. 

In which I open my door to princes and paupers

I’m rapidly losing heart with this whole house-selling business. I think, perhaps, it’s not for me. You’ll remember that I’m a simple soul (see also: idiot) who leads a simple life. I thought buying and selling homes involved putting up a FOR SALE sign, a passerby saying “I’d like to buy your home for a reasonable figure” and us saying “well that seems fair enough” and handing them the keys, and then repeating the process, but with us offering a reasonable figure for a new home, near the beach, and with a scullery.

Well I don’t know if you’ve ever bought or sold a house, but it is NOTHING like this. People turn into real pricks. I’ve turned into a real prick. I’ll be honest: I’ve always had borderline OCD tendencies. Before I had children, I was a bit of a weirdo about home cleanliness. Three kids tend to knock that out of you (nothing like a handful of Monster Sticks wedged in a plughole to help you re-evaluate obsessive cleaning disorders). BUT, now that I have to open my home once or twice every weekend – and even on a Thursday night, once – those OCD tendencies are resurfacing. I’m a bit of a nightmare, truth be told (no shit, says my husband and my children, in unison, as I Dustbuster the toast crumbs from their pyjamas). I could do without this. I could do without being nuts. But the thought that someone could come into my home – MY home – and say: “Ooo, they’re a bit of a grotty family,” (just as I would), well, it makes my right eye twitch. I can’t deal with it.

So there’s that. There’s also the fact that FOR SALE signs attract weirdos. Real weirdos. Yesterday I was working in my office, which is at the front of the house, and I spotted a weird dude pull up in his car, and get out to inspect the for-sale sign. Which is weird, ‘cos it’s pretty big, and doesn’t really require a close-up inspection. And I’m thinking, this is weird, and a little unnerving, and where’s the big spanner that Paul keeps under the bed for occasions such as this.

So anyway, the dude then walks AROUND the for-sale sign, to inspect the BACK of it, and that’s when he spots me in my office. And he smiles a big, weird smile and beckons me out. I go to the front door (because I am an idiot, as previously mentioned) and open it a little, and think GOSH, this dude looks exactly as you would imagine those Nigerian princes who email to say you’ve inherited a million Nigerian dollars, you just need to send your bank account and blood group details to this email address, would look (ie, dodgy). And he goes: how much you want for house? And I go all middle class and snooty and say: we’re accepting offers above $669,000. And he says: I give you 500. And I say: fuck off. And shut the door. And lock it. I mean, what’s HIS story? Is this what he DOES? What’s his success rate?

This is Ben. Ben was asked to get his room ready for a home open. Ben took that to mean: write 'welcome to my room' and 'please buy our home' on his steamed-up windows. Ben is a dickhead.

And then Ben comes home from school (the same day) and says: “Rita’s mum wants to buy our house, she says can you meet her at school tomorrow.” And I’m, like, what the FUCK? This is not how we do things! And also: I haven’t been to the school since 2011! So I’m, like, err, NO. But then the next day SHE pulls up outside our house, and lies in wait for me. I mean actually LIES IN WAIT. Well not literally lies in wait. She wasn’t lying down. She was in her car, upright, but very, very still, and not taking her eyes off the front door, which meant I couldn’t go into my office and post a Facebook update about the weird school mum lying in wait for me outside our house. She hung around for ages, until she had to leave because the school siren was about to go. Again: THIS IS NOT HOW WE DO THINGS.

Then, of course, there’s the fact that you’re letting people into your home, and allowing them – nay, ENCOURAGING them – to criticise your fixtures and fittings. If you’re a bit houseproud – as I am – this is the equivalent of letting a dumb-shit stranger critique your outfit. People have complained because the pool’s too small, because we have a pool, because we don’t have enough bedrooms, because we have too many bedrooms, because the kitchen benchtop is the wrong shade of white. I can’t help but take this personally. And I can’t help but think: fuck off; you don’t DESERVE our beautiful, happy home. So there. 

Nine and a half weeks (of new parenthood)

Remember those blurry weeks after the birth of your baby? Nope, me neither. Seriously. Three kids and it’s a total blur. I know one of them took a dummy, and one of them had colic, and one of them may have been born with ginger hair, but beyond that it’s all a crazy haze of poo and milk and being so tired that I lost the feeling in my fingers. 

I was reminded of this on the weekend, when we Skyped Paul’s brother and his lovely lady partner, themselves the new parents of a brand-new baby (Eva-Mae, for future reference). Having clearly never read my blogs, and being under the assumption that we know something about parenting (ha!) they were asking our advice on naps and nappies and burping and shit (literally). And I looked at Paul and Paul looked at me, and I said: “Do you remember ANYTHING about having a newborn?” and he was, like: “We have children?” We mustn’t have done a bad job, because we all lived to tell the tale, but my goodness, we must’ve seriously just muddled our way through those first nine and a half weeks.

Which got me to thinking: just what DO I remember about having a newborn? Here’s what I came up with:

BOOBS. From what I remember (not much), the first nine and a half weeks were all about the boobs. This took me by surprise, first time round. Especially the leaky bit. About three days after Ben was born, I remember standing in the bedroom talking to my mum, and suddenly exclaiming WHY ARE YOU WETTING ME and then realising it was ME, it was my boobs, they’d turned on me, and were literally gushing milk. And I ask you: where is the dignity in THAT? Breast pads were no match for my prolific udders: I spent much of 2006, 2012 and 2013 with two massive wet milky patches on my blouse. Also: they’d squirt inappropriately. I would discreetly pop a bosom out to feed a baby, and the milk would shoot out like a nerf bullet. Again, Chris Burns, I can only apologise. So yeah, my boobs had a life of their own. I was probably known locally as milk boob lady and openly mocked by small children. I didn’t give a shit. Breastfeeding burns mega calories, so the joke’s on THEM.

DIGNITY. Speaking of dignity, I forsook it in the first weeks after my children’s birth. My babies breastfed so often, and for so long, that the aforementioned boobs were always on show. I kind of forgot that they were supposed to be tucked away. I’d do the school run with my boobs out, eat Sunday lunch with my boobs out, do the weekly shop (by which I mean, answer the door to the Coles man) with my boobs out. I basically forgot that this isn’t - in general - what humans do. Again, I didn’t give a shit. BREASTFEEDING BURNS CALORIES, remember? 

CLOTHING. This is the boob thing, again. You know you can’t wear dresses when you’re breastfeeding, right? Right? Cos you can’t discreetly get your baps out in a retro summer dress, right? I learned this the hard way. In Scitech. My friends, you know you’ve hit an all-time low when you’re naked in the baby changing room of a science museum on a bank holiday weekend, dress around your ankles, breastfeeding the fattest infant in the land. 

DELIRIUM. When you have a new baby, the nights are the weirdest, especially if you’re a breastfeeding mamma. I’d fall asleep with the light on, sitting upright, then wake up in a panic, convinced that the baby was under the bed, or under the duvet, or - as happened to my friend Alison - under the illusion that her baby had morphed into her husband’s head. She tried to CRADLE his poor sleeping bonce. 

THE WITCHING HOUR. This is a bit of a blur, but I seem to remember my babies hitting about four weeks old and then screaming a lot. Specifically, screaming between the hours of 6pm and 10pm, just to coincide with the Come Dine with Me omnibus. I remember this being vaguely equivalent to the seventh level of hell. One baby - I can’t remember which one - would only settle if you walked around with them, arms positioned JUST SO, jiggling JUST SO, and sssh-shhh-shushing JUST SO. And woe betide you if you tried to put that baby down. I remember that. I remember not enjoying that. 

DON’T WAKE THE BABY. The whole new parenthood thing? It lures you into a false sense of security. You bring your baby home from hospital and it sleeps, like, all the time, and you think, this shit is easy! I rule at parenting! And then, suddenly, they don’t. And you can’t get them to sleep. And you can’t get them to stay asleep. And you try and put them in their crib and their eyes PING open and - at that moment - life is the cruellest of bitches and your beautiful precious bundle of joy sux ballz. SO, you find yourself doing strange, strange things to keep your baby asleep. With Frankie we adopted a stop, drop and roll technique. Once he’d been shushed to sleep, there was NO WAY you could place him on his back in the crib. We tried that. We failed. The ONLY way he’d stay asleep was if we knelt down and - well - kind of rolled/kind of threw him on to our bed. This was not in the Gina Ford textbook. This is probably ill advised, but it worked, so up yours. You do what it takes. And that, basically, is my advice to all new parents, including the parents of my lovely new niece: just do what it takes. 

There's no other way

Paul has this tattoo – which is actually a Libertines’ quote, I think – that says: “If you’ve lost your faith in love and music, the end won’t be long.” But you know what? I kind of had lost faith. Not in the love bit, obviously, I’m all about the love, but possibly in the music. I’d just kind of forgotten about music, what with Peppa Pig and dinnertime and nappies and washing and homework and shit.

But music’s a massive part of my life. All the big decisions in my life have been dictated by music. Every boyfriend I’ve ever had has been selected for their taste in music, and how much they look like Damon Albarn, and whether they can complete the sentence: "I get up when I want, except on ... WHICH day? When you get rudely awaken by (a) the postman (b) the dustman (c) Liam Gallagher?"

So Blur. Yes. Blur are my band. I got them, and they got me, a chubby teenager putting on a fake English accent in suburban Perth. Twenty years later – in the SAME t-shirt I’d bought from 78 Records to wear to Britpop night at Planet Nightclub on Charles St (it’s a titty bar now, for shame) – I was at Perth Arena, to see my band: Blur.

To the tinkling of an ice-cream van they came on stage – Damon and Graham and Alex and the drummer – and I got goosebumps, and then felt like a bit of a dick getting goosebumps, for I am old, and I have three children, and when we'd walked into Perth Arena, Paul had pointed at the seats in the stands and said: "Ooooo, we're sitting up there for The Wiggles!" 

And they played their first song, which was a newish one, and that was okay, and then they played There’s No Other Way and I thought my heart would explode, and then felt like a bit of a dick having an exploding heart, for I am old, and a mother of three, with a home open on Saturday. And I tried to dance, but I was way too self-conscious about being old, so I just kind of swayed awkwardly.

A couple more newish songs followed, and then – praise be – the wonderful Coffee & TV, and the penny suddenly dropped that BLUR were old too. And they were fine with it! In fact, they were over the fucking moon with it. There weren’t four jaded old dudes on stage going through the motions to pay for the next round of hair replacement therapy (or as Shaun Ryder said when the Happy Mondays reformed, “new teeth”). Damon and Graham and Alex and the drummer were genuinely chuffed to be on stage, together, singing the songs that ruled my world.

So, when Beetlebum started up, I happily lost my shit. I danced. I sang along. I pogoed for Song 2 and Girls & Boys and I waved my hands in the air for Tender and The Universal and For Tomorrow. I acted like a fat little teenager at Planet Nightclub on a Saturday night. And you couldn’t wipe the stupid Britpop grin off my stupid Botoxed face.

You know what? I didn’t act my age last night. Neither did Blur. They were older, and cooler, and better than ever. And that’s why it was one of the best nights of my entire life, and why I’m still grinning like a middle-aged fool today, and why the entire Blur back catalogue’s been on repeat since we sobered up at lunchtime. Thank you Blur: you've restored my faith in love and music. 

Oh alcohol, how I have missed thee

While I don't wish to create an impression of having any form of alcoholic dependency, may I just say - LOUDLY and CATEGORICALLY - that after 30 days of not drinking, I am never EVER giving up booze again. 

I don’t know what I was thinking. No. Let me rephrase that: I don’t know what PAUL was thinking. It was his stupid idea. Let’s do Dry July, he said! It’ll be fun, he said! We’ll lose weight, he said! Well the joke’s on HIM, because for the last 30 days I have been the worst possible human imaginable. A megabitch, if you will. A moody, greedy, bad-tempered sugar fiend. Have we lost weight? Have we fuck. Have I now got a weird carbo-loaded sugar paunch and a twitch in my right eye? Damn right I do. 

To all those humans who don’t drink booze, I salute you. I bow to your pure livers and sharp minds. Because I simply can’t do it. I have a boss, and an under 10s football team of which I am the reluctant manager, and a house for sale, and deadlines, and three children who want dinner EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. I need something to soften the blow. 

Let me clarify: I don’t drink a lot. I don’t drink at all on weekdays. On Friday evenings, yeah, I’ll have a beer or a glass of wine. Same on Saturday. And maybe Sunday. But never more than half a bottle of wine and a Baileys. Honest, guv’nor. Well let me tell you something: come August, I won’t be imposing such restrictions. I’ll drink every single night, if I need to. 

Here’s the thing: I’m really, really highly strung. I’m oversensitive, borderline OCD and short tempered. I can’t chill out. BOOZE TURNS ME INTO A DECENT HUMAN. It also makes the kids less annoying. Fact. 

Exercise does the same thing, to a certain extent, but exercise is a fickle mistress, and sometimes lets me down. Take Saturday morning, for instance. I always - ALWAYS - go to the 8.15am body attack class. It’s my thing. On the Saturday morning just gone, the class was full. Never mind, I’ll just sneak in, I thought smugly, because I am a REGULAR and I OWN this class. But no! The fuckers had put a door bitch at the entrance to the studio. A door bitch! I was all, like, oh, can I just go in, and she didn’t even speak, just slowly shook her head. And I thought FUCK YOU, but didn’t say it, for I am British and repressed, so went on the treadmill instead, thinking I’d just sneak in when she got bored and went back to being reception bitch. But she was on to me, the door bitch, and we ended up in what can only be described as a Mexican stand-off: her glaring at me and me glaring at her (from the treadmill, over my shoulder, on a 15-degree gradient) until I gave up and went home, whereupon I kicked the washing machine and swore at some children (my own). Exercise let me down. Booze never lets me down. 

So why, then, have I stuck at this whole not-drinking thing? For a WHOLE month? Well, for all my foibles (washing machine kicker, child swearer atter, door bitch glarer) I have some serious willpower. So does Paul. We’re kind of superhuman in that respect. I was reminded of this when my friend from round the corner, who shall remain nameless (Sharon), only managed, like, 10 days dry in July, or something. Piss. Weak. Oh, she kept up the pretence, sending texts saying how much she was looking forward to a drink, with wine glass emojis and EVERYTHING, until I bumped into a mutual friend, who said: Sharon? Sharon’s been drinking since the Ashes started. And I laughed long and I laughed hard, and sent her a very smug message - with smug face emojis - and knew then that I could never give up, not ever (or at least not until the Blur gig on Thursday night).

Paul - in his infinite wisdom - has decided that we should give up something every single month from here on in, just to kind of reaffirm our superhuman willpower over lesser humans, I think. In August, it’s sugar. I’m cool with that, now that I know that the sugar in beer and wine doesn’t count, and I can drink these with gay abandon. He’s also scheduled in a carb-free month, and a meat-free month, and a vegan-uary, and other such nonsense, all of which raised only one question: can I still drink? If the answer’s yes, then I’m in. Because - and on this you have my word - I’m never not drinking again. I’m just not that kind of gal. 

The day the swearing died

Let it be forever known that today is the day I STOP SWEARING. Things have reached crisis point in our house, and desperate times call for desperate measures and all that, so I'm quitting swearing. Which will make my blog posts short and sweet, I'll grant you that.

I have always sworn. I mean, possibly not in nursery school, but for the most part, yes, I’ve sworn. When Ben was born, I thought about curbing my swearing, but then thought, fuck it. My theory was that as long as Ben knew swearing was a grown-up thing, and that only grown-ups were allowed to swear, we’d be peachy. Like all my parenting theories, this was based on nothing but blind hope and optimism. And it worked! I can honestly say that in all his nine and a half years, Ben has never sworn. Never! He made a rude Chinese hand gesture, once, but that was the fault of a boy in his class, who told him he’d emptied a Chinese restaurant by waggling his little finger. Ben thought he’d try it in McDonalds. It didn’t work. 

So I was feeling SMUG, yes, thinking that my children were superhuman, and knew the grown-up/small child boundaries … until Frankie stood in the playground shouting at Alice to go down the fucking slide. And I made the NUMBER TWO MISTAKE OF PARENTING (after "never test a nappy with your finger"). I laughed. I ROARED with laughter. And that was it. Now Frankie will simply not stop swearing - in context, and with joyful enthusiasm. 

“Can we go to the fucking park?”

“I’ve dropped my fucking biscuit!”

“Fuck’s sake mummy, get off the fucking phone!”

“Fucking hell Alice, you're standing in front of the fucking Wiggles!”

“Where’s my fucking breakfast?” 

And so on and so forth. 

Frankie, for the record, is three and a half. He has NO swearing regulator. He swears at home, he swears in the park, he swears on Skype to his grandma in England, he swears in my grandad’s hospital room. This shit is getting embarrassing. And awkward. 

Also, two-year-old Alice is copying him. Alice’s vocabulary isn’t huge, and is based for the most part on third-child gobbledegook, but she’s THIS CLOSE to asking for her fucking porridge. I can tell.

We've tried discipline. I’ve tried being really, really stern and saying NO, these are grown-up words, but Frankie just laughs and says “fuck’s sake”. I’ve tried putting him in the naughty tent. I’ve tried ignoring him completely, which is actually the most effective method to date, but sometimes I’ll let out an inadvertent guffaw, and if Frankie hears even the slightest giggly snort, he’s off again, swearing his way around kindy gym. So you see? I’ll just have to stop swearing myself. Which is possibly the hardest parenting challenge I’ve ever set myself, and I’m doing DRY JULY, so I know all about hardship. Wish me fucking luck! 

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Paul and I decided, a little while ago, that we were DONE with dramatic life decisions. For the first five years of our relationship, we made one dramatic life decision after another, with barely a head scratch or sleepless night between us. We’re not prone to giving major life decisions a great deal of thought, truth be told. Which meal from Wok in a Box, YEAH, now there’s something you want to get right, but getting married, and having babies, and - hell - leaving your job and your flat and your family behind in England to shack up with a chick you met while you were on holiday in Australia, well, they’re the sorts of life changes best left to a close-your-eyes-and-hope-for-the-best decision-making process. And, for the most part, it’s all turned out pretty well. Yes, we’re idiots, but we’re LUCKY idiots. 

As an aside, I think there’s a lot to be said for not giving things a great deal of thought. As a rule, people think way too much about stuff. I have some friends (yes! I do!) and they’re marvellous, and they don’t have kids. They’ve thought about it way too much, and they’ve talked themselves out of it. And jesus, yes, if you THOUGHT about having children you’d never do it. It’s insane! So these friends, a few weeks ago, spontaneously - and totally out of character - took ownership of a cat, and now they bloody love it (the cat, not acting spontaneously). I’ve tried explaining that child rearing isn’t THAT different to cat ownership, but they won’t be told. 

But anyway, my point is that Paul and I crammed an awful lot into the first five years of our relationship. And this year we said we were DONE, and we would put our feet up, and we would do nothing with our adulthood but watch back-to-back episodes of Orange is the New Black, and drink. 

But then we went to a new park in a beachside suburb of Perth, and the park was WONDERFUL, and the people friendly, and before we could even say, “Should we?” we’d put our house on the market with a friendly estate agent who once gave Ben a $100 Toys R Us voucher for drawing a particularly charming picture of the Easter Bunny (THAT was our criteria on choosing an estate agent. THAT. My mum’s hit the roof, because his fees are astronomical, and we should have negotiated, and shopped around, but fuck it, he’s got a nice smile, his picture’s on our bus-stop, and he made Ben happy, once).

And then we spent our entire Saturday with a builder, redrawing en suites and requesting double plug sockets in the kids’ zone. I’m serious. I was all ready to sign off on this house, but fortunately - FORTUNATELY - I’d dragged my mum along, because - as you might recall - we are fools in grown-up bodies (albeit wearing children’s underwear), and she is the voice of reason. We didn’t sign for this new house, which is fortunate, because it’s really, really fucking expensive (I wasn’t listening to that bit). Also, we’re probably not the home-building types. My mum has since explained to me - in very simple terms, as though she were talking to an idiot (she was) - that building a home requires many, many decisions, and you can’t just say: “Oh, you choose,” to the builder. Who knew? So seriously, I don’t think this is the project for us. 

Which is why, on Sunday, we put in an offer on a house. The second one we saw. I would’ve put an offer in on the first one, because it was clean, and I felt bad for the lady selling up, because her husband (a bus driver with an extensive and immaculate collection of Vans shoes) had clearly left, so she was going back to England to be with her elderly mother, and taking her complete and perfectly ordered My Family DVDs with her. You can discover A LOT from a home open. But Paul didn’t like the vibe of the place, so we put an offer in on the second house instead, which had a fucking SCULLERY, goddammit. 

I feel a bit bad selling our house. It’s a nice house, despite the Hungarian masseuse who died in the kitchen. We love our neighbours, and our park, and the massive toy cupboard that hides a multitude of sins. We’re not quite so keen on the local primary school, or the tree-haters (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) and the spirit of the dead Hungarian masseuse that hangs around the bathroom after dark. BUT, it’s time for a life change, and a sea change, and a new league of school mums to piss off all over again. Off we go! 

Don't grow up! It's a trap!

My friends: I have a question for you. What makes a grown-up a grown-up? I’m 37 with three children and a mortgage and a job and a propensity to write VERY STERN complaint letters, but I still feel like I’m playing at the whole grown-up thing. It surprises me when people ask me grown-up questions involving the square metreage of my house, or the timing of my reticulation, and my inclination is still - STILL - to say, “Ask my mum.” And, to be honest, I still do ask my mum. My mum is a proper grown up, and I am but a fool. 

Sometimes I think it’s all to do with the shoes. And maybe the jeans. My mum (there she is again) certainly seem to think so. More often than not I’m in skinny ripped jeans and converse, and my mum - and even my nan - and even GRANDAD, who’s had a STROKE - all roll their eyes and ask when I’m going to start dressing properly. (Those weren’t my nan’s exact words. Her words involved swearing about “modern fashion, and cold knees”.)

Here’s the thing: I did try to do the whole dressing like a grown-up thing, once, just after Ben was born, and I moved back to Perth from London. I was all, like, let’s DO THIS, and bought clothes from Sportscraft and Country Road (or rather, I let my mum buy my clothes from Sportscraft and Country Road) - I may have even worn SLACKS - but it only lasted about a year, and I felt weird in my own skin, and very un-Lisa like. Mum-like, yes, but in a “let’s talk about appropriate child restraints for toddlers” kind of way. (As an aside, I hear those conversations ALL THE TIME amongst grown-up mums in cafes and playcentres and grown-up mum locations. When did mums get so shit boring? I heard a grown-up mum tell another grown-up mum about the convenient and functional spout on her daughter’s drink bottle the other day. A fucking SPOUT. Wouldn’t you rather talk about Orange is the New Black? And drinking?)

As such, I tend to avoid grown ups, and instead seek out the slightly dishevelled humans in teenager’s trainers and novelty t-shirts. And children's underwear. It might be said that one will never feel like a grown-up while they’re wearing teenager’s underwear. That’s certainly the case with me and Paul. Yes: we wear children’s underwear. By which I don’t mean that we wear underwear belonging to children - that would be weird, and in all probability illegal - but rather that we wear underwear from the children’s section of popular retail chainstores. Go with me on this! LARGE teenager’s underwear is the same size as SMALL adult’s underwear. They’re the same SIZE, but cost LESS. Hence Paul wears large boy’s underpants and I wear training bras. Who’s laughing now, eh? Eh? 

So yeah, I’m all for not acting your age. Look at our neighbour, Peter. He’s nudging 50, but more often than not can be seen whizzing past on a skateboard, or listening to Weezer with a beer in his garage on a Sunday afternoon. Peter is my ‘don’t grow up’ idol, and as long as he’s skateboarding down our street, I’ll be wearing ripped jeans and converse. Don’t grow up! It’s a trap! 

On the subject of age gaps

You’ll have probably noticed by now that I don’t know much about parenting. I don’t know much about anything, except, perhaps, Coronation St (area of expertise: Steve McDonald and his many wives).

So it kind of surprises me when people ask my advice on stuff. Parenting stuff, especially. One question I get asked a lot is about age gaps, and what works best. And I get why people ask me this: there are six years between Ben and Frankie, and 17 months between Frankie and Alice. I like telling strangers this. I enjoy the raised eyebrows and the “what’s YOUR story?” expression on the faces of ladies of a certain age. Because of course there’s a story – babies aren’t like buses; you don’t wait for years only for two more to come at once.

My point is: I actually am a pretty good person to ask about age gaps. I’ve experienced both ends of the spectrum: one massive gap, and one teeny-tiny-what-the-fuck-just-happened-THERE gap.

Which one’s best? Okay, here’s my take on it. Pregnancy is easy when one child is already at school. I struggled through the mornings, sent Ben on his way and – for the first few months, anyway – collapsed in a heap, only to stir when the school siren went (it’s okay, we live opposite the school, and I can run fast).

I’ll admit though, I was worried what effect Frankie’s arrival would have on Ben, who’d been an only child for six years (he has a different DAD, okay, you happy now?). I expected there to be jealousy and resentment issues (from Ben, not me, I was fine with the whole thing), but it was surprisingly smooth sailing.

My theory is that Ben was old enough to “get it”. Present a three- or a four-year-old with a new sibling after years of having mummy to themselves and I reckon it’d be on. Ben was cool. I mean, as cool as Ben can be. I still remember throwing a loaf of Tip Top at him when we came home from the hospital, but my milk had just come in, and I throw Tip Top at Ben on the best of days.

From a parenting point of view, having a big age gap makes life eaaaaaassssssy. I cannot overemphasise this. I reckon it’d be even easier if your older child was a girl, and able to help out, and pass you shit while you’re breastfeeding (ask Ben to pass a baby wipe and he’d end up wandering down the street, kicking a stray ball and looking for homeless children to bring back for dinner). I was only dealing with one baby, and one fairly (FAIRLY) independent little boy, who went to school every day (a point worth considering!) and didn’t need his nappy changed every few hours. So: big age gaps have their benefits.

Right then. Tiny gaps. Frankie was only nine months old when I fell pregnant (on purpose!) with Alice. This was tough. Morning sickness is hard to deal with when there’s a small, breastfed, crawly person nipping at your ankles. I kind of feel bad about this. Sorry about ignoring you for three months little dude. But, Frankie still had two sleeps a day (I think), which helped me (I think). Napping is good. I napped when he napped. He was also a crazy easy baby, and slept through the night and shit, which was also helpful.

Now, I would LOVE to tell you what it’s like to have a newborn and a 17-month-old, but I have no flipping clue. Those first six months are a total blur. I remember my dear Irish friend bringing me pumpkin soup and another dear friend bringing me zucchini slice (people! If you know someone who’s just had a baby, take them food! You will be remembered!), but that’s about it. I remember trying to take both children to my parent’s house one afternoon, and failing miserably, and crying. Such a simple task! Such a massive failure! And I remember Frankie being really, really weird with me, and loving Paul more, and me crying about it. I believe I may have cried a lot in those first few months.

Oh, I remember going to visit a friend – after I’d finally figured out how to get both kids in the car without crying – and when we arrived I couldn’t figure out how to get both kids to the front door. Do I take Frankie, hand him over, run back and get Alice, tag team style? Whatever I tried, it didn’t work, ‘cos Frankie ended up standing in the middle of the road, only to be rescued by a passing tradie. I cried that day, too.

Those first six months were really, really fucking tough. Then Frankie turned two, and became more human like, and Alice started sleeping through the night, and the fog cleared, and I stopped crying. And NOW, well I’ll tell you, now I wouldn’t have done it any other way. I LOVE having two little people at home with me. They’re never bored, and never lonely, and always SO MUCH FUN. I’m dreading Frankie going to school next year, because I’ll miss our little gang.

So yeah, I’ll put my cards on the table and say that close-in-age is best. You have to work for it though. 

On the occasion of my baby girl's second birthday

My baby girl turns two tomorrow, and I have all manner of mixed emotions about this. There’s the obvious HOORAY, we kept another child safe for two whole years, which considering our parenting style (absent minded) is no mean feat. Well done us! Then there’s the YAY, we don’t have a baby in the house anymore, which means I’ll never have to breastfeed, or sleep train, or wean, or look out for obvious choking hazards ever again. Which means there’s also the OH MY GOD, NO, we don’t have a baby in the house anymore; I’ll never get to breastfeed, or sleep train, or wean, or look out for obvious choking hazards ever again.

I’ll never get to bring a tiny bundle of baby home from the hospital, so small she gets lost at the bottom of the pram. I’ll never get to feed a baby in the middle of the night, just me and her, cuddling in the cold of the wee small hours. I’ll never get to hold my breath and watch, captivated, as my baby takes her first spoonful of homemade pumpkin puree. I’ll never get to let go of tiny hands to watch a little creature in dungarees take her first, tentative steps. I’ll never get to celebrate the first tooth, the first roll, the first sitting up, the first crawling steps, the first “mamma” and “dadda”. The first “wuv oo”. I know there’ll be plenty more firsts – for all three of my children – but none quite so precious as the tiny baby firsts.

I’m not sure if you’ve picked up on this, but I’m having trouble dealing with my baby girl turning two. Perhaps if my babies had been little shits I’d be a lot more okay about Alice growing up, and waving goodbye to infanthood. But my babies – all of them – have been pretty close to perfect. Soz and that.

Alice, in particular, we’ve barely noticed. She’s the classic third baby, or so I’m told. Being only 17 months behind Frankie, she kind of had to fit in or fuck off, to quote Australia’s far-right racist contingency. We really didn’t notice her until she started walking, aged 10 months, and even then I’m sure she took her first steps so early because she was all, like, GUYS, GUYS, I’M HERE, REMEMBER ME?

She never peeped, as a baby. Never bawled, or grizzled, or demanded attention. She sleeps like a boss, entertains on demand, and eats what she’s given. In fact, she’s learned to eat like the youngest of three, stuffing Tim Tams in whole before her big brothers can hoover up the crumbs. It’s funny to watch.

Alice is my shining light, although there’s every chance she doesn’t belong to us. Seriously. I was knocked out for the birth (that’s a story for another day, when I’m feeling more emotionally resilient. If I talk about it now my heart will crumble and you’ll have to scrape me up from the floor to make the birthday cake), and didn’t come round until a good hour or two after she was born. They kicked Paul out of the delivery suite, and the first he saw of her was when they handed her to him in the corridor. And honestly, a more Oriental baby you’ve never seen. Bearing in mind my two boys are so fair they’re transparent, to be handed a dark-skinned newborn with a head of black hair and dark, almond eyes, well, you’re gonna be asking questions, no? We always say there’s an Asian family wandering around Joondalup with a fair-skinned ginger child, shrugging and saying, “Genes, eh?”

But, parentage aside, she can stay. She is perfect. To me, she is the epitome of true beauty, with her big eyes and curly hair and olive skin. But her real beauty goes deeper. This beautiful, beautiful girl has the kindest soul – comparable only to her brothers – and a deep, dirty laugh that would melt the hardest of hearts. She is FUNNY, this kid, and has spent the last two years perfecting the fine art of making her family stop what they’re doing and just laugh. She’s feisty, yes, but that’s what you want in a girl, no? Not for me these meek little creatures who won’t say boo. Alice is a baby girl powerhouse, with such charm and character that people literally stop in their tracks when we’re out and about to wave and say hello. She makes people SMILE.

Every night, at bedtime, I sing her a song (Close to You by The Carpenters, or sometimes Kooks by David Bowie, if I'm feeling reckless) and then I tell her that she is beautiful and kind and smart and funny, and she nods, as if to say no shit, and I tell her to never, ever change.

To my wonderful, beautiful, kind-hearted two-year-old daughter, I say HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Please can we keep you?