The boy with the cynical eyes

I was lying on the floor when I noticed him. He stood nearby, dressed in school uniform, and he gazed at me with a tired cynicism incongruous with his youth. At first I felt embarrassed, like I’d been caught doing something very silly when I should be acting like the responsible adult that I am. I smiled at him, scolding myself for such thoughts and continued to thrash around on the floor.

I was feigning a crocodile attack. My young daughters had been arguing over the ‘big girl’ swing and in an effort to defuse the situation I had thrown myself to the ground near one of the stone crocodiles that line the playground.

“Help! Help! The crocodile has got me!” I had yelled, flapping my arms dramatically.

The game had worked, my girls running over to rescue me, bemused at first and then joining in with much enthusiasm.

But then the little boy arrived and the mood changed.

There was just something about him. The look he’d given me, so ahead of his years. The way he carried himself, defensive, indifferent.

I stood up and looked around, but the park was deserted. It was just me, the boy and my girls. He was alone.

He produced a tennis ball from his pocket and started a game with my feisty three and a half year old, G. I smiled as they played, but it wasn’t a genuine smile, I felt uneasy. There was just something about him. I watched as they played, following them round the playground, my younger daughter holding my hand, too cautious to join in the game.

I asked him his age. "I’m five" he replied.

I asked him where he lived. He pointed towards the other side of the park and ran off again, chasing the ball he had thrown. G followed laughing. I just watched.

I considered every possible justification. Perhaps his family are going through something difficult, something awful. I didn’t want to judge, but I did. Because it just didn’t feel right… five just isn’t old enough.

It was getting late and storm clouds loomed in the distance. I called G, and bundled C into the buggy.

“Bye!” I called as cheerfully as I could. “See you again soon”

He stood and watched as we walked away. The boy with the cynical eyes.

Later, after the chaos of dinner and the bedtime routine, I sat with my girls as they fell asleep. Their soft breathing slowed as they drifted into a peaceful slumber. I thought of the little boy, I wondered if he was asleep too, if he was warm, if his tummy was full.

I hope he is ok.

A Tantrum of Biblical Purports

Little C is rapidly approaching her second birthday. She is learning new words every day and stringing them together in ways that amaze me. She is interacting beautifully with her older sister (sometimes they share, sometimes they don’t, but if it’s to their mother’s detriment, boy do they cooperate). And the tantrums have started.

Sometimes they occur when her demands are not met, I sympathise, life just isn’t fair sometimes, especially when you’re a feisty twenty-one-month-old with very little control over your daily routine.

But mostly C’s tantrums are down to the sheer frustration she experiences when I don’t understand her. A bit like this…

“Nanna! I want Nanna!” she says, with considerable assertiveness.

“Oh, you love Nana don’t you?” I gush, making a mental note to email my mother. It warms my heart that they have bonded so.

C nods enthusiastically; “Yes! I love Nana!”

“Oh that’s so sweet” I pat her on the head.

C begins to getting cross “Nana! Nanna! I want Nana!” she is practically stamping her foot.

I feel for C, but I’m helpless. We can’t Skype my mother, it’s the middle of the night in her corner of the globe.

“You want to talk to Nana? Nana is sleeping darling! It’s night time in Wales”

C throws herself to the ground wailing “Nana! Nana! Nana!”

And so begins a tantrum of biblical purports. She thrashes on the ground kicking her legs with such determination that they begin to propel her around the kitchen. I briefly muse that if I’d dressed her in flannel it would be an excellent way to clean the kitchen floor, before dashing across the room to prevent her little head making contact with the wall.

I try and speak calmly, reminding C that her Nana loves her very much and would love to speak to her, but that it just isn’t possible right now.

The tantrum continues. I try and pick C up for a soothing cuddle. She tries to scratch my eyes out. I leave her on the floor and put the kettle on.

As the water boils she starts to calm down, whimpering, “I want Nana” between great sobs of disappointment. Finally she picks herself off the floor and runs towards me arms stretched out “Carry me?” she asks. Scared to set her off again I oblige, carefully balancing her on my hip as I make my tea.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” I ask,

“No! I want Nana!”

Then she points towards the fruit bowl… and the big bunch of ripe bananas that crown an abundant collection of apples, oranges and a solitary lime.

Oh. The penny drops.

“Do you want a banana?” I ask

C smiles like a crazed chocoholic who has just been offered a slice of mud cake.

“Yes!” She says. “I love ‘nana!”

Last week was not the best

We all came home from Thailand with varying degrees of tummy upset. It seemed inevitable given our location that we would get the squirts sooner or later, unfortunately ‘later’ turned out to be the day we left which made for an interesting journey home.

Poor little G was the worse affected. She sat on the toilet dismayed; “What is happening?!” she asked, frightened by the sheer velocity that poo poured from her little body.

It’s hard to explain. “You’ve got a poorly tummy, G” we told her.

She felt glum, no playschool until she is better and a note from the doctor to prove it.

It was a long week in which I cleaned diarrhoea off a swing with old tissues and apple juice (I went back later with Dettol, which would have surely earned me some odd looks had the park not been deserted) and instructed G to poo into an empty ice cream carton so that I could collect a stool sample.

“But why does the doctor need to see my poo?” she wailed in protest as I screwed the cap on the specially manufactured container. It was a new parenting low.

On Friday G did a solid poo and I cheered and offered a high five (which G reluctantly accepted, perhaps sensing her mother was close to the edge). Within an hour I discovered a rash on little C that looked suspiciously like Chicken Pox. I experienced a brief moment of despair.

If I was prone to drama I would say that I spent the rest of the evening with a dark cloud hovering over me.

I spent the rest of the evening with a dark cloud hovering over me. I was fed up being stuck at home with poorly children. I had things to get done, people to see! But more than anything my big girl G was miserable. She desperately wanted to go back to Playschool and couldn’t understand why she was being kept away.

“I miss my friends so much!” she told me, stroking her back pack wistfully.

Little C fell asleep on the lounge room floor while I washed up. It didn’t look good.

This morning I braced myself for bad news….

But all is well – it’s not Chicken Pox! Just a manky old skin infection. Hurruh! G’s stool samples were clear and she was given a clean bill of health. The girls proved that they were feeling better by bolting from the doctors' surgery and down the road, intercepted by helpful strangers.

I dropped off G at playschool with her doctor’s note. She ran off happily. I missed her at once.

Last week was not the best. But now that things are back to normal, it doesn’t seem that bad. Just another week with my girls... and cleaning poo off a swing with old tissues and apple juice.

The Last Sunset

We gathered on the beach as the sun began a slow decent towards the horizon. It wasn’t sad, not yet, not when the day still had some light, not when the sea was warm and the children still had time to play.

Goodbyes are hard. I push thoughts of them away, but they linger in my sub-conscious, casting a shadow over the moment.

I don’t want to say goodbye to my sister, or her boys. I want to stay, to carry on our temporary beach life, passing slowly through each day, a routine of sand and sea and sun.

But holidays don’t last forever. G wants her own bed and her numerous teddies, her cousin GJ is desperate to visit the Sea Life Centre and cries out anxiously in the night. They’ve all got nasty bites and upset tummies. Their little tanned faces have started to look sad, they are home sick.

And yet, to take them home means saying goodbye. And watching from the beach as my sister and her family board the boat that will take them away from us. Back to their home, on the other side of the world from ours. And I’m not ready yet.

So I will the sun to stay in the sky, not to set, to give us more time together. We swim and we play and it’s just like every other sunset. Except it’s not, because even though no one is saying it, we’re all thinking about goodbye.

The sun sets. We eat fish and chips in the dark, flicking mosquitoes away from the children. We laugh and chat and everything is normal, except for my heavy heart.

In the morning we stand in the same spot and watch them go.

Goodbyes are hard.

The Post holiday wash....

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homeward bound

We arrived home from our family holiday on Sunday morning. Having flown through the night and across a few time zones we were all a little spaced out. My daughters were ecstatic to be home, reunited with the toys they missed and others they had forgotten all about. I was ecstatic to be reunited with a decent cup of tea, and downed several as we muddled through the morning.

Our suitcases sat in the kitchen. I ignored them. ‘The washing can wait’ I reasoned, enjoying some quiet time after an 18 hour journey by boat, bus, plane and taxi. The afternoon passed in a blur, we put the kids to bed and sat down to enjoy dinner and a glass of wine. I continued to ignore the suitcases.

On Monday the post holiday blues set in. My daughters moped; missing their cousins who had become treasured play-mates. We looked at photos. I took the suit cases upstairs to unpack… but left them unopened. I was too sad to face the washing.

On Tuesday morning, faced with dwindling supplies of clean underwear and a sudden urge to try out Dynamo Maximum, I finally summoned the enthusiasm necessary to tackle the post-holiday laundry. And, man, it wasn’t pretty...

Damp swimmers, hastily packed at the last moment had started to smell. My night-cream had broken and leaked over a favourite dress. The girls clothes were covered in ice-cream stains and grime of indeterminable origin and everything was covered in sand.

I have it on good authority that Dynamo Maximum has been has been maximised with even more cleaning power – which sounded good to me! I’m not one to faff about, I shoved as much laundry in to my washing machine as I could, eager to get the job done. I sloshed Dynamo Maximum into the draw, twiddled the knob to ‘try your best’ and made a hasty exit.

I’m not one to brag about my domestic skills (largely due to the fact that I don’t have any), but I can divulge that the clothes came out clean and fresh and nothing had to be re-washed… which was very fortunate as one load of laundry in a day is quite enough for me.

Now I just have to deal with the actual ‘putting things away’ - Meh - It can wait!

Dynamo Maximum is available in 1L & 2L bottles and in Front Loader and Top Loader variants. It can be purchased in all leading supermarkets across Australia.  RRP $9.99 (1L) and $16.49 (2L).

*This post was sponsored by Dynamo and the Digital Parents Collective