Being THAT woman (ninja)

Ok, look.

When I became a mother, I didn't suddenly lose my sense of style or my personality.  I didn't become this dowdy, unappealing, uninteresting shell of myself, as some might have you believe.

I feel like I need to tell you all it's ok- even desirable to be THAT woman.  The one everyone judges but secretly wishes they had the kohunas to be like.

I didn't stop listening to the music I like, and I didn't stop being me (rad).  I still dye my hair crazy colours and I have a vocabulary just as colourful.  I just levelled up, that's all.  (learned to quell my enthusiastic swearing a little bit.)

It's probably time for one of those excellent DO and DON'T style posts.  In two parts- because this blog is overdue for a cliffhanger.  So here's what I don't.. do.

"Don't do what Donny Don't does!"

Um.....

Shall we?

Things I don't do. (Society.  LOOKING AT YOU.)

1. Join the coles/woolworths/other super-mega-corporation baby club.
Because having a super-mega-corporation tell me how to parent just seems like a bit of a drag.

2. Babywear because it's hip.
I do babywear.  Because I don't know how the hell not to.  My pram is beautiful but useless.  And how are you supposed to do 'jazz hands' to other random mums at the shops if you don't have both hands free? 

3.  Avoid pink things because I have boys only.
I like pink.  Do I need a reason to not abolish an entire colour from my life?

4.  Find ads about various baby accessories/products informative.
I find them misleading and kinda patronizing if I'm honest.  'All the best moms are feeding their baby [insert processed food here]'  is how it comes across.

5.  Critique every other woman's performance as a mother.
A lot of the judgement mums face is indirect.  Kinda like fear of being judged, before it even happens.  I don't know about you, but I'm not out there looking to scrutinize some poor sleep deprived woman.  I'm looking for coffee.  With cream.  If anything, I'm judging myself........

6.  Require a massive circus-tent style nursing cover for public feeding.
I don't buy a lot of crap I don't need.  People have necks.  People have boobs.  They should probably turn their necks if they're offended by boobs.

7. Spend $80 on a single nursing bra.
Again, no.  Crap I don't need.  Beautiful, but crap.  Nobody was looking at my bra.... they were too busy awkwardly shuffling, trying to avoid potentially seeing a boob.

8. Give a fuck if the other mums at kindy don't say hello to me.  Truth is.... I don't want to talk to anyone at that time of day. 

9. Adopt the fashion sense of an old lady the instant I reproduced.  (TARGET, KMART, BIG W looking in your direction...)

10. Understand why nursing tops have room for a 9 month belly in them.  Usually you're breastfeeding AFTER the baby is born.  Not before. 

Riveting stuff.  To be continued.....

How to take the day off

Today is my day off.  Both of the baby ninjas go to kindy on a Tuesday, and usually DaddyO has the day off too. 

Ooh.  Lah di Dah!  Two parents attempting to relax a little bit.  I know.  The controversial luxuriousness is enough to make you want to judge the shit out of me.  That's alright.  I understand.


Anyway, here's a quick instructional piece for those of you who might not know what a ninja does on his or her day off.


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Wake up super early and fumble around in the kitchen until you have two full lunchboxes.
Throw toast in the general direction of the children, and feign interest in Yo Gabba Gabba.
Find pants.
Apply pants to ass.
Repeat x2, until everyone is wearing pants.
Find shirts, perform sniff test, and apply to torsos.
Reapply any shirts you find thrown on the floor while you brushed your teeth.
Try to quell rage as somebody smears toothpaste on you and somebody else jumps on the bed.
Assemble children, bags and shoes in that order.


Usher everyone to the car.  Make sure to carry everything.
Hurry before one of the sippy cups rotates itself upside down and drenches your back and the contents of the bag.
Argue with Wonderboy over which way he should face in his car seat.
Beg Hurrikane to stop flailing so you can buckle the straps.


Execute a swift kindy dropoff.  Hugs, high fives and kisses. 
Run.  Just run.
Drive back home. 


Change out of toothpaste smeared attire, and reapply something else.
Attempt to look presentable.


Add dirty clothes to Mt Washmore.
Swear about Mt Washmore.
Prepare coffee.
Smear makeup on and around face.
Walk near some perfume and think about having some breakfast- but don't actually do that stuff.  No time.


Find the coffee you made and forgot to drink.  Pour that shit down the sink.
Almost lock yourself out of the house without your keys.
Drive to local shopping centre and attempt to find a park.


Drive around for 20 minutes and give up, realizing there actually are no parks.




No shit.  No parks.  Stupid Christmas eve-eve.




Pull over to enjoy watching the temperature gauge in your car falling from the HOT zone.
Have a quick sauna waiting for the car to cool down.
Start driving again. 
Decide to live dangerously and get yourself a fancy drive-thru iced coffee.
Overheat again on the way back from getting said iced coffee.
Drink your iced coffee free of regret.  It was worth it.
Pull over 3 times on the way home.
Swear a little bit.
Drink some more coffee.


Arrive at home, dump 2L of water into the........ place you put the water in a car.  *cough*
Agonize over whether or not to bail out on appointment to inspect a new rental property on the grounds of shitbox car struggles.
No!  Decide to power through.  Your middle name is danger.
Think about breakfast again.  But don't do it.
Bravely leave the house again and head in the general direction of your appointment location.  (30mins away).
Overheat within 3 minutes. 
Pull over and call the cavalry. 
Finish that coffee and update your FB status.  Why not?


Be escorted to the safe zone by the cavalry, riding his mighty steed.  (er, DaddyO, his workplace, and work van)
Overheat some more but just make it to the safe zone without pulling over.
Join DaddyO on his mighty steed on a delivery driving adventure.  Not exactly what I had planned, but Okay!




(Yes, DaddyO is working on his day off.  Because that's how HE takes a day off, apparently.  Lucky man he is.)




Complete our annoying mission of stopping at the butcher to pick up meat for elderly co-worker who can't take a hint.
Feel guilty for not feeling very Christmassy.
Arrive back to the safe zone and fill the radiator of the shitbox with water.




Alright it's not a shitbox, but I'm really irritated right now so let's not get all technical and dissect my choice of terminology.

Summon your courage to get back in the car and face the highway again.
Realize you don't know who you're praying to.
Drive all the way home without any more problems, and thinking about breakfast, still.
Arrive home and dress in your least decent attire.
Drink a litre of water and collapse on the couch.
Write a ranty, whiny blog post outlining the shithouse day you're having.
Feel slightly better.


Re-strategize the afternoon and think some more about a meal.
Realize there's no actual food here, and add food shopping to your afternoon strategy.
Decide to attempt a power nap until DaddyO gets home from performing his elderly co-worker home-droppage daily taxi service.
Feel smug and sarcastic.........................................................




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The moral of the story?




Ninjas don't do days off.  You may find you're actually a ninja too, after reading this easy to follow guide. Do you rise above the general annoyance that is summer, tourists, the Christmas rush and crazy car problems with style and pizazz?  Do you manage not to karate chop anyone in sheer frustration? 




If you answered yes to any of these questions- you're probably pretty badass.  You're also allowed to swear and stuff whilst awesomely overcoming adversity.  I know I do.


Hey,  I'm not a fricken wax model of motherly perfection.  I'm a ninja.

Attempted Laundry 101

It's like my laundry has sex with itself and multiplies.  This is especially true in the post-ninja apocalyptic zone of destruction.

It sounds simple enough.   Wash clothes.   Dry clothes.  Put clothes away.   Wear clothes.  Repeat as necessary.  Well... allow me to introduce you to reality.

It goes more like this :

Wash clothes.
Cram too much in the dryer.
Wash another load while first one dries.
Realize later that load in the dryer now stinks as it sat half dry for hours because you overloaded it.
Throw that on the floor.
Move second load from washing machine to dryer.
Put most of first load back in washing machine.
Kick the rest into the corner to stink.
Turn on washer and dryer.
Go to bed.

Return at 4 or 5am.
Note- dryer should be open now with half its contents hanging out.
Make mental note to nag partner about trashing the joint.
Procrastinate instead of emptying dryer.
Drink coffee.
Attempt to scrounge an outfit for the kids from the dryer.
Dress kids.
Empty dryer.
Get interrupted.
Move yesterday's first load back to-  shit.  it's all stagnant smelling again.  Procrastinated too long.
Re-wash first load for the third time.

Go about your day and forget about it until the next day.
Re-wash a fourth and final time.
Move that load to dryer.
Gather stinking pile of rejected first load moistness from the corner you kicked it to.
Put in washing machine and add some more from the epic pile you've accumulated whilst the machine was occupado.
Carry dry clothes upstairs and throw haphazardly on spare bed.
Go back and collect everything you dropped on the way.
Almost fall down the stairs because you're rushing.

Later, check on dry clothes and realize they need a little longer.
Swear a little bit about bad weather and how you don't use the washing line when it's sunny either cause you ain't got time for that.
Go to bed and forget the load in the machine... wet..... stinky.....

It just dawned on me that I haven't completed the task of laundry in about 5 years.  Mount Washmore, and Mount Foldmore are permanent fixtures in my life.  In fact, they take up so much of my time,  they're like children.

When Wonderboy and Hurrikane are both at kindy, I'm always comforted in the knowledge that I'm in no danger of slacking.

Stay tuned for the next episode in this instructional series:  How to take the day off.

I just wanted pancakes

Sometimes when I'm woken up at ass-crack O'clock, (4) I feel like pancakes.  Here's the thing though.   A hot breakfast isn't something we ninjas are frequently partaking of.

Lucky I'm not the only ninja in the family.  We head off on the 40 minute drive to my sister's place.  Wonderboy (Ninja 1) and Hurrikane (Ninja 2) love visiting their Aunty.

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You'll understand the reason for the new ninja names later.  let's not spoil the magic of this tale.
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 We have our pancakes.  (Well I do.  Ninja Aunty sadly never gets hers...)  Everything is going well until Hurrikane takes a dive into a very pointy bit of skirting board/ bottom wall edgey part.  It's horrible and it's hospital worthy.

I just wanted pancakes.  Now there's blood and crying and I'm quietly freaking out.  Let's roll!  Let's roll!  We rush to the hospital.  I leave Wonderboy and Ninja Aunty (Ninjaunty?) in charge of parking and emergency beverages.

Hurrikane is reasonably cooperative at first but has major mood swings.  Wanting to boob continuously, then trying to run full speed around the waiting room and climb furniture.  I'll admit to thinking 'holy shitballs..'

Wonderboy does a good job of remembering where the car is parked and presents me with a fat coke.  Super refreshing.  I feel like I can get through this now.

While Hurrikane had a nap and some more free range mummy milk in the procedure room... Ninjaunty strategically maintained a steady flow of vending machine treasures and random strolls for Wonderboy.   Eventually someone came around with the glue.  No stitches, small victory!

The doctors were really quick and were happy to work around the crazy planking woman hovering over the baby's bed.  Yeah.  Me.  I had to bust out a semi-plank-pushup type manouvre and gymnurstically (it's a word) feed bubba. I don't usually perform strange breastfeeding stunts in public.. but in this case, I was going to do whatever it took to keep him calm.

Some people probably think I'm a whackjob.  I'm not super concerned about that though... mwahaha.  This ninja does. not. care.  Not today, or next week or whenever.

We're out in about 3 hours.  Nice.  I'm exhausted and Wonderboy is way overdue for an outburst.  The last vending machine triggers him, and I'm way too cranky and tired to be zen.  We get the hell out of the carpark and I say fuck a few times.

Seriously,  people.   I just wanted pancakes.

But no.

noooooo......

I ate the last half of my chocolate block stash with my head in the pantry when I finally got home at about 3.30.  I threatened to eat it at like 5am though, so really I have excellent willpower.

I think next time I'll have peany toast or something.

Solid plan.

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No ninjas were harmed in the making of this post.  Hurrikane is back up to no good and as usual, a total trooper.  Wonderboy didn't want to drink his milk at bedtime, and didn't believe that the water I replaced it with was actually real water.  Standard shenanigans.

Keeping it real.

Social media... an excellent way to maintain the façade of having it all together.


We all know that one person who has a pretty ordinary life- complete with the standard hassles, challenges and dramas we all have.  You know them outside of social media.  You know them inside, too.  And you know they're a fraud.




Ok, some of us know people who genuinely have it all together.  This is not about them.  They rock, but it's not about them.






Most of us do it.  I catch myself only posting the cutest, smileyest, most 'got it together' pictures I have.  Most of the time though, I try to keep it real.  I spent a lot of my early motherhood struggling with the idea that I was the only one who didn't have it all together.  So I created a hashtag in the name of keeping me real.  #andthenthishappened .  That pretty much sums it up.  I have a pretty extensive library of kids getting into mischief, epic messes and other similar moments that would make anyone reach for the whiskey.






Whiskey?  So it seems I'm channelling my late Granddad today.  Alrighty.....






The introductory trilogy pretty much set the standard for this blog, and my general vibe in life.  Shit happens.  Trying to gloss over it doesn't mean it didn't happen, it just makes it harder for all the other mums trying to live up to some crazy unattainable standard.






You there, in your undies.  Solidarity!  And you, with the unrecognizable remnants of your baby's breakfast smeared on your shoulder- you're badass.  If you can reach under your couch and pull out enough crumbs and broken biscuits to make a cheesecake base......... raise your hand.  I see you there, all dishevelled looking, with your hair haphazardly strewn around your face.  You look fabulous.  You look like me!






Sometimes it's fun to maintain the illusion that I'm actually in charge around here.  I have lots of photos to document that, too.  But most of the time, this is what my life looks like.


[If I was tech savvy, this is where the images would be.]


Well, I can't work out how to get my pictures uploaded in a timely fashion.  Not under these conditions, anyway!  Naptime is oh so short and I fear I'm not going to make it.  Pictorial evidence will follow when I figure that shit out.


So, next time you're feeling crummy about the general chaos of your everyday life, remember- you're not crummy.  It's all the posing, editing, gloss-over-anything-that-isn't-impressive culture we're immersed in.  You're just fine.  It's fine.  Go and get yourself a cup of coffeecream and salute yourself.   Solidarity, sisters!


[EDIT- You may notice I changed my profile picture.  I used the one I took that one time I brushed and styled my hair.  Classy!]

Code Brown- toilet training a ninja.

It's been a difficult couple of weeks.  The title says it all.  I've lost count of how many times spew and poo bugs have torn through this household this year.  Due to my close proximity to various bodily fluids..... I have a 100% hit rate for catching illnesses.


All that screaming 'SHARE!! SHAREEE!!' has backfired on me, it seems.  Note to self.  Nobody has to share anymore.  It's ok.


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I just want to take a moment to shout out to my one follower.  Hey there, I see you. 
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Amongst the challenges of our recent illnesses, I managed to claim one small victory, in the form of a white porcelain bowl.  Toilet training!  It's happening!  I can almost hear the groans.  'Bout time!'  Yes, it most definitely is.  Now seems like a good time to praise Ninja 1 for his excellent body awareness and communication.  High five, buddy.


So here are my top toilet training tips.  Ninja style, of course.


1. Accept that there will be shit on the floor at some point.  You're going to have to touch it.  Deal with it.
2. Nudie time is best conducted outside.  You're less likely to find yourself touching excrement.
3. Forget about potties.  They're stupid and you just have to wash them out anyway with one or both ninjas clinging to your legs.  (See point 1- high probability of touching a turd in this instance).
4. Beware of teaching your ninja how to remove their nappy for toileting.  They WILL remove it after they've filled it.  It will be smeared everywhere.  (this hasn't happened yet but I can sense it coming.  Watch this space.)
5. Praise until your throat is sore. 
6. Don't bring chocolate or treats into the mix.  It's just another opportunity for your ninja to attempt to outwit you and gain access to the stash.
7. Become a proficient rapper.  Make up a phat rhyme for each and every toilet trip.  Dance moves are optional.
8. Ninjas don't care about reward charts or stickers.  So don't bother.  A simple high five and an inversion/somersault is enough of a payoff.


The next step of course, is ditching the nappies altogether and trialling undies.  It breaks my heart to think that spiderman is going to bear the brunt of some major accidents.. but alas, it can't be helped.  I'm sure he'd understand.


Stay tuned for future developments!




Riveting...