Article from Kids Spot: Ruth Devine

There are lots of wonderful, unexpected pleasures that come with being a parent. These aren’t them. Below is my list of the things I’ve experienced as a mum that will haunt me forever.

1. Eat boogers

Not just eat boogers but eat SOMEONE ELSE’S BOOGERS. Picture the scene. Busy mum on the phone in the kitchen. Multi-tasking (naturally) so wiping work surfaces while talking. Toddler son with heavy cold has just inhaled a biscuit so there are plenty of crumbs to contend with. Absent-mindedly hoover up a few of said crumbs because I am a pig and eating standing up doesn’t count. Yum, yum, ewww. That one was salty. And chewy. That was no crumb! Excuse me while I dry retch. 10 years on and it STILL gets to me.

2. Lie. A lot.

• You won’t like that bun/chocolate/cookie, it’s full of carrots.
• No, Mummy’s drink is just water – but not water you’d like.
• It’s dark, of course it’s bedtime.
• I swear there are no vegetables in that pasta sauce.
• Not tonight, I have a headache/throat infection/my period.
• There’s no soccer training/ballet lesson/band practice tonight.
• The tooth fairy had a backlog.

3. Talk to an adult while knowingly having poo on my fingers

So Baby no. 2 comes crawling towards me with chocolate on his bib. Weird – I’ve never given baby any chocolate. Carry on convo with neighbour. Wipe chocolate from baby’s mouth with fingers. Smell fingers. That’s no chocolate. Oh, shit – literally. Hurriedly finish convo. Discover baby ate a lump of poo that had fallen out of his brother’s nappy. Decide that eating other people’s body waste obviously runs in the family.

4. Cry. A lot

I gave birth and my lachrymal glands went into overdrive. Cry Me A River has been my theme tune ever since.

Things I have welled up about in the last week:

• Kittens in teacups on Facebook
• The Voice
• Happy news headlines
• Sad news headlines
• Seeing an old lady shopping in the supermarket
• Today Tonight trailer
• A plate of brownies delivered by a friend
• A drowned possum in the pool
• Finding we were out of teabags
• Kids being on holidays
• Kids’ last day of school holidays

See? Pathetic. Pass the tissues …

5. Mount search and destroy missions for worms (note: not garden variety)

Faced with a wriggly, squirming child, there’s no choice but to search for the wriggly squirming creatures that are causing the er, wriggling and squirming. Just call me the worm whisperer.

6. Swallow vomit

See points 1 and 3. There’s a theme with bodily emissions here. My first mistake was to swing my baby son up in the air. My second? To do so while laughing. Do I need to go on? Suffice to say baby scored a bullseye.

7. Pretend to be deaf

It seems to work for the kids so why not for me? But in a household where my husband IS actually deaf in one ear – and sleeps on his good ear (see what he did there?) – Mum feigning sleep as a kid wakes up from a nightmare/because they’re about to pebbledash the bedroom walls/have fallen out of bed is not A Good Thing. Whatevs. I still do it.

8. Develop irrational hatred of small children.

Yes, I know I’m the adult in this but when someone is mean to my kids – be they 2ft or 6ft – I want to hunt them down and hurt them back. So no, I don’t practise what I preach to my kids (turn the other cheek, walk away, blah blah) but I have developed the ultimate in playground death stares and the ability to offer a few choice whispered words in the offender’s ear while maintaining a smiley mum face. Unhinged, moi?

9. Do lots of maths

I’m not a numbers girl. I can give you Pythagoras’ Theorem but the number of times I have needed to know the length of a hypoteneuse since leaving school? Cue: tumbleweed. But since having kids, I am the human calculator.

Q1: If a mum eats all the Tim Tams except for one, blames it on the ‘kitchen rats’ and still has three kids who are desperate for a biscuit, what fraction of a Tim Tam will each kid receive? Answer: 0. Mum stuffs remaining Tim Tam down throat and denies all knowledge of any such chocolate-coated goodness ever existing.

Q2: If there are 10 minutes before the school bus goes and teenage son is still in bed feigning illness, how long will it take for a mum to get him out of bed? Answer: 0.4 seconds. But only if the words ‘get out of bed now or you will lose all electronics privileges for the month’ are whispered in his ear. See? It’s that scary mum whispering thing again. I call it my Silence of the Lambs approach.

10. Admire nits

Most mums shudder when nits claim squatting rights in their little cherubs’ hair. I however love it and er, them. Their tenacity to hold on to each strand of hair when all manner of chemicals, cheap conditioner, steel combs and my fingernails have assailed them is second to none. Indeed, a life lesson for us all. In the words of Sir Winston Churchill ‘never, ever, ever give in’.

Yes, I do find joy in hunting down every last little critter or egg before squishing them in a tissue and yes, I probably should get out more. I can only assume I was a baboon in a previous life.

If there is one thing we as adults love to do, it is reading children’s books to our children and remembering how our parents read to us!!

What was your favorite book to read when you were a child? Here are some lists of some top children’s book you can read with your child!!

Happy Reading everyone!!

By Planning With Kids on April 18, 2013 in Life

Do you ever have the conundrum where you don’t seem to have enough space in your wardrobe, yet you struggle to put as many outfits together as you would like? For me it seems to always arise when I am making changes to my daily activity. If you are changing your lifestyle byreturning to study or work, it may be placing a new set of requirements on your wardrobe. I predominantly work from home, but I also do a significant amount of public speaking and consulting which requires me to wear professional dress. As I started needing more ‘work clothes’, the too-many-clothes, nothing-to-wear scenario reached its peak.

While my wardrobe is not exactly where I would like it to be, it is an improvement on where it was a few years ago. I think there is a direct relationship between my improvement and when I started reading some fab local fashion blogs! The biggest thing I have learnt is that I need to plan my purchases carefully, taking into consideration my work requirements, existing wardrobe and available budget. It is also an ongoing process I build on each year. If you need to revamp your wardrobe and are looking for a place to start, try taking the following steps:

De-clutter your wardrobe

My starting point was to be completely ruthless about what I was going to keep in my wardrobe. I went through and did the traditional categorisation of my clothes into:

• Clothes to keep
• Clothes to donate
• Clothes to bin

But I also allowed myself one bag which was for ‘Clothes I can’t quite part with now, but I never wear’. I bagged up these clothes and put them in the attic. I gave myself six months and committed that if I didn’t retrieve an item from the attic in that time, it would have to go. All of those items have now been donated.

As an aside, if you declutter your wardrobe and have great quality work clothes you no longer wear, consider donating it to an organisation like Fitted For Work. Or alternatively  if you are looking for work you may qualify for assistance from Fitted For Work. They are a non-profit organisation who aim to help women experiencing disadvantage get work and keep it. They provide free business clothing, personal outfitting services and a range of interview training, mentoring and transition to work programs.

Write your list

With much less in my wardrobe, it made it easier to see what basics I needed. I wrote a list, Google Drive being my preferred list tool to keep save my list to, because then I will have it with me everywhere I am when I have my phone with me. This is useful, as when I am out and about and see clothes on sale, which I think I need, I can see if the item is on my need to-buy list.  It provides a reality check for me as to whether I should really should be spending my clothing budget on this item.

If you are not sure what it is you need to buy, like I was, try some of these guides as to what wardrobe basics will help you get the best value for your money:

• How to dress corporate style
• Getting your wardrobe ready for work
• 13 wardrobe essentials every mother can’t do without
• How to create a capsule wardrobe that works for you
• How to create a capsule wardrobe on a budget

Buy in the sales

For the last three years I have attended the Boxing Day sales at a major shopping centre. Previously if you had told me I would do this, I would think you were mad, as I am not a really big fan of shopping at the best of times, let alone on the busiest day of the year. But as noted above, my work involves public speaking and I like to have two go-to dresses a year for that. My aim with the purchasing one or two dresses at sale time is to go for quality over quantity. If I only bought one dress at the Boxing Day sales, then I will use the stocktake sales in the middle of the year to add again to my wardrobe.

I also sign up to a few sales newsletters to keep my eye out for items I need that may be on sale. One worth checking out are:

• Missy Confidential
• Oz Sale
• Brands Exclusive

Attend a clothes swap

The basic premise of a clothing swap is as simple as the name sounds. You gather high quality garments that you no longer wear for whatever reason and are prepared to swap them with someone else. You could organise a clothing swap amongst friends and family or you could attend one of the growing number of clothing swaps that are held around the country. I have attended a number of events hosted by the Clothing Exchange in Melbourne (they also do Sydney and Canberra). They are fun, but you can never guarantee you will get an item you are after.  With that said, from each exchange I have been to, I still have items I wear regularly, including a lovely black dress and a great pair of jeans.

Google clothing exchange and the name of your city or town and see if there is one near you. You can also take the swap online at SwapStyle.com.

What is your wardrobe like at the moment, does it need updating?

Organise your life with more great ideas on Village Voices:

• How to get out of the house on time
• Helping the family manage change
• Setting goals that won’t drive you crazy