Bad Mum moment... (oh the shame!)

I had a great weekend celebrating my Small Boy's birthday. I even made a cake that looked like this.

Exactly like this. This is the actual cake. 

Anyway, it was back to school and kindy and work today - except for me who had a day off. Yay me! This particular day off meant that I could do something I've wanted to do for ages - accompany Small Boy to kindy.

So... late last night, after all the lovely birthday festivities, I set about making the obligatory 24 mini-cupcakes.

What can I say? It was late, I was tired and all birthday-ed out.

They looked a bit like little black golfballs, placed in odd-shaped and ill-fitting wrappers (I'd used all the 'good' ones at the party) and covered in drippy white icing. BUT. I did manage to find a new 4 shaped candle, popped them all on a cupcake tree thingy and thought to myself, "Well done you! You didn't even have to go to Woolies in the morning! You made cakes like a real mum!"

I mean, really. If I got to kindy late, the only people who were going to see the sad little cupcakes were going to be four year olds and their lovely, kind teacher. Who all presumably love cake. So who cares.

So you can imagine my horror when half-way through the morning another mum turned up.

"Can you give me a hand, please?" She asked. I went out to her car where she began to load me up with perfectly symmetrical, Peppa Pig adorned, iced miracles. Complete with Peppa Rocket cupcake stand. Beautiful. And set right beside my drippy black and white mess. You know - just in case anyone had missed the comparison.

Well done me, indeed.

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I might add, I had imagined re-using the pig figures I made on the kindy cake. Until I left them on the stairs after the party as I was bringing things upstairs to the kitchen... and the dog licked Peppa's ears clean off her head.

My day in exactly 100 words

Day off.

Woken - pinch and punch! Found coffee, lunchboxes. Milo and Belvita biscuits –better than Fruit Loops? Sigh.

School drop. Treat – breakfast with dear friend. Giggles, frowns, plans.

Shop! Work dress, fun dress. Bargain – hooray!

Pick up small child. Speech therapy across town.

Home – lunch. Dog fetch, child slide - photograph play.

Big kids back from school. Homework, referee.

Remember looming presentation. Panic. Search for notes. Feels like Cluedo for the insane. Found – with cookbooks in car boot (who’d have guessed?)

Coffee, TV.

Peeling, slicing, baking – hearty dinner with the family.

Watch HIMYM finale in bed. No doubt cry. 

Queen for a day

Today I was a lady of leisure.

Yesterday I made tonight's meal so that today I could just do the things *I* wanted to do... like play with my sewing machine, watch a movie that nobody else wanted to watch, sit in my pajamas all day and drink lots of coffee.

It was great!

The kids were a little bit confused but quickly got on-board when I explained the situation. One day to have a holiday from being a 'mum'**... they thought it was reasonable.

They made their own lunch (it was cereal but it could have been worse). They even hung out the laundry and unstacked the dishwasher WITHOUT COMPLAINING. Miss Piggy brought me a gong (a saucepan and an egg beater) so that I could summon her for random cups of water or biscuits.

It was great! Don't know why I hadn't thought of it before!

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** No housework, no taking of random requests, no cooking or cleaning, no chauffer duty... Kisses were still on-tap ;)

Linking up with Maxabella's Weekend Rewind

Party Shoes

I've just gotten in from a visit from my younger sister. She lives about 2.5 hours north of here - although yesterday it took me more than 3 hours due to a new 'upgraded' part of the highway which forced me to miss a turn-off, but let's not mention that now*.

I left my new party shoes with my sister. I almost physically winced as I handed them over - they were sooo pretty. Shiny black satin with a pretty bow at the front, a cute buckle around the back and sky high heels below. I've worn them once. So why was I giving them away?

Long ago I used to wear ridiculous shoes. Platform sneakers, Doc Martens, three inch heels and what I called my "Minnie Mousers" - a patent leather platform heel which was so heavy I once blackened both my big toenails during a seven hour dancing marathon.

For several years I have lamented the dust covering my 'party shoes' as I have carried toddlers and nappy bags and done the 'mum-thing' around town in my jeans and black tees.

This year, for my birthday (given that my youngest was now three and perfectly capable of tottering around under his own steam) I bought myself a pair of new party shoes.

 These shoes are available from ASOS

I'm too lazy to photograph my own shoes, so I found this picture!

Excitedly, I teamed the black satin heels with the bow with a short-ish teal dress and some dangly earrings and set off to our local Chinese restaurant with the family. "You look fancy," whispered Miss Piggy as we got out of the car. I felt fancy... almost.

The problem was that I'd forgotten how to walk in heels. Or maybe it was that my middle section was decidedly 'heavier' and it was harder to totter around. Or maybe I'd been looking back at high-heeled memories through rose-coloured glasses (most likely the latter - my friends like to remind me of several well-timed tumbles down the staircase at the Mary Street nightclub in the nineties).

I was exceptionally wobbly and didn't feel in the slightest bit glamorous.

To cut it short, I felt like a teal-coloured, baby giraffe.

Younger me would have snapped these up - also available from ASOS

No more sky high heels for me! I wish my younger sister luck with my fancy black heels. I hope she loves them :)

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*The kids are already telling everyone about how we took a detour around a whole mountain. A whole mountain!

Linking up with IBOT at Essentially Jess :)  

Terrible mother?

I'm not very good at reminding the tooth fairy to leave money, so we've come to an agreement that he*/she will only visit once my children have left a little note. That guarantees I've got at least 48 hours to get my act together!!!

Last week, Miss Piggy's front teeth fell out. Hubby and I were up late trying to work out how to... ahem.. contact the tooth fairy when we realised that in all the haste of writing a letter, our little princess had inadvertently literally lost her teeth!

We searched high and low through her bed, under pillows and stuffed animals, under the bed amongst all the weird and wonderful things that lurk there. Under all the clothing on her floor. Under the mess of hair stuff on her desk.

No joy.

And the realisation that our little princess is as untidy as her mother. Well... I guess we don't call her Miss Piggy for nothing.

So here's what the tooth fairy ended up leaving her:

The following morning in my classroom, when the tale was told (joyously, I might add, by Mr Z) I copped a lot of scathing looks from my students who obviously think the tooth fairy is a little bit of a bitch harsh. Harsh but fair, I prefer to think.

I certainly got lots of messages of congratulation support from FB friends! And a few denouncing the fairy as a 'meanie'.

Hmmm... I'm conflicted. Pure genius..? or pure evil..?!

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* Having seen The Rock in Disney's The Tooth Fairy, my children are absolutely convinced that Dwayne has our house on his route. They've asked for him by name in their notes!

Baby Shows..? Yay or Nay?

You know how I said here and here that sometimes I regret starting things with my first, knowing I'll have to repeat them twice more with the other kids? Like the one-of-a-kind birthday cakes that represent what they're 'into' at the time... or the full-sized quilts for their beds (still got one to go there)... taping the entire Kindy Christmas concert for posterity...

I am just the kind of person who likes to be even-handed with my kids. I know there are times when they have to accept that life isn't fair, but I need them to know that I love them all the same. I like to think of the special things I do for them as evidence of my love. I admit, I get sentimental and a little bit hung-up on 'stuff'. I think losing a parent early makes you want to leave something behind for your kids. As I tuck them under the blankets that I've made, I tell them that each is a hug that mummy leaves with them when she can't be there. The cakes are to prove that I love them enough to sacrifice time for them in the kitchen (everyone knows how I hate to cook). Even though those things take time (eons of time, three times over) I take great pleasure in knowing that one day they'll look back and think 'my mum did that for me'.

My mum always made stuff for us. My dad was often busy with his own projects, but I remember he once entered me into a Agricultural Showgirl Contest. I felt so happy that he thought I was pretty enough and dignified enough to enter. It was one of the moments of my teenage years where I felt I had pleased my dad just by being me - and that I had earned his acceptance and his praise.

I hasten to add that despite this euphoria I also felt embarrassed and worried that everyone at school would find out... I was downright mortified when a boy in the year ahead of me asked me for some lined paper, "C'mon, it's the least you can do, Miss Mt Barker. Aren't you supposed to help the community?" haha. Sooo not funny at the time.

So the thing I struggled with the most is the whole Baby Show fiasco. I wanted to show my kids I thought they were special and unique and amazing too - but somehow it didn't feel right. Don't get me wrong, these aren't those OTT pageants you see on telly - just kids dressed up in their Sunday best, no make up or performing involved. Just a chat with the nice lady and off you go.

The first show I went to, I was just so excited to show off my gorgeous little guy - he was all chubby cheeked, blue-eyed smiles at the time (he's since grown into a gangly, green-eyed, lightsabre wielding jedi). And guess what. He won! My Z is one of those kids who will win you over with his enthusiasm and he came home with the BIG TROPHY. So exciting!

So the next time I went to one, I dressed my piggy-tailed, blue-eyed princess in my favourite little dress (black and white pinafore, I hadn't given into the monster that was pink at that stage) and took my chubby little two year old along to watch. At the door, the lady was charmed by my little man and convinced me to enter him as well - it WAS for charity after all. Despite the fact he was dressed fairly casually, I caved and handed over my ten bucks. Big mistake. Of course my wide-eyed, enthusiastic little boy came home again with the BIG TROPHY and my little princess came home empty handed. I was devastated but consoled myself with the fact that she couldn't possibly be old enough to understand that she hadn't been picked as the prettiest/best dressed/nicest eyes/blah blah blah...

However... kids are kids. Sigh. Mr Z *loved* playing with his trophies and soon enough Miss Piggy started to get upset that she didn't have one. So last year, we made a last-ditch effort to win her a trophy. I dressed her in a gorgeous red dress with a white crocheted cardi, combed her lovely wavy hair and put a skinny side-braid across the top of her head. She looked like a fairy princess - very far removed from the girl who usually gets told she looks like she's been pulled through a bush backwards at the end of each day!

And guess what? She got shy. She couldn't speak to the judges, she just stared at all the other pretty girls around her and looked scared. I felt sick. How could I do this to her at such a young age? Make her feel so inferior and worried and wonder if she was cute enough. It was absolutely awful. We went shopping and I bought her ice-cream to make up for the ordeal I had put her through. I told her that she was gorgeous and that she was the nicest girl I knew. I prayed that I hadn't hurt her fragile little ego.

And when we went back to hear the verdict they announced the boys first. This time her blue-eyed, blonde haired LITTLE brother had won the grand champion trophy. Along with three smaller ones.

I felt even sicker. Should I leave? Should I stay? I didn't know WHAT to do.

The girl's trophies were lined up to be announced. She squeezed my hand tight and I could feel her straining to hear her name. It broke my heart.

But... a miracle happened! Nicest eyes... my Miss Piggy! They loved her beautiful round eyes that had changed from a bright blue to a deep green the Summer before. She was so proud as she marched up to the stage to collect her trophy. I've never seen her hold ANYTHING so tight. I prayed a quick thanks before rushing to congratulate her.

And then I vowed never to go to a baby show again.

Don't get me wrong, they are a FANTASTIC fundraiser for all sorts of charities. They are a nice morning out with other mums (usually great cakes too). They are just not for me!

How do you feel about baby shows?