WHAT DID THE RHINO SAY TO CUPID?

Nothing spells romantic like an entire day with my entire extended family of in-laws.

The dreaded V Day is on Sunday - No not VD Day, V Day, Valentines Day. You know the one. The 14^th of February which every woman commits to memory regardless of whether they believe in it, loathe it or love it.

As a young lady (yes apparently now I am a Nanna), I loved Valentines Day. Well I did when I thought I had a chance of receiving something. Otherwise I thought it was a bullshit day that was a big marketing scam to fill a retail void between Christmas and Easter.

But when I was young and had boyfriends it was a marvellous day full of Gigantic novelty cards, teddy bears, roses delivered to the office and dressing up in a black lycra dress (klarsy) to go to a restaurant that was usually too good for me.

It continued on like this for me for many years through courtship, or as I like to call it, the time we had our own cash and still had sleepovers. Then we moved in together, then we got married and then we had a child. And the underlying theme here is, what was mine was his and vice versa. And I no longer cared for 12 long stem roses that died within 3 days and a ritzy dinner whilst my baby was intermittently screaming for my lactating knockers. It’s not that I am longer into love, romance and surprise, but the whole one day of the year to express that to me, lost its appeal some years ago. It actually might have been the year I received a card from my oh so sweet husband that had a rhino on the front and inside “you make me so horny”. Way to be romantic asshole. From then on in, I put a ban on Valentines cards and gifts. I could see what shop my husband was heading to next if I didn’t.

Anyway, Sunday I will be downing a few champers with my sister-in-laws, eating too much and more than likely watching our husbands fall asleep whilst watching wrestling on the couch. Ahh the romance.

For all those of you who do believe and participate on February 14, Have a great day. For those who don’t - I guess a collective Screw you Cupid will suffice.

Goldilocks vs Mama Bear

I have three children. All three are very different. For starters, one is an entire different sex to the other two. But the main differences are their sizes. Of course one being 10, the next 7 and the last 3, there is of course, going to be a height difference. To an outsider however, it would appear we have one on the large side, one on the small side and one just right. They are the Three Bears of the Modern world and apparently Goldilocks, the critical little cow, has outstayed her welcome.

Often, I get the Spanish inquisition, often from family, about what I feed Sam. It’s never an actual accusation that I am deliberately being a shit mother; I just think they believe I am oblivious to the situation. There is constant advice on how I should get him to eat more. Eat better. Sam is perpetually small. Always has been. He has had various health problems growing up, especially in the crucial toddler years and just didn’t thrive. He is growing; it is just a very slow process. We have had every test done known to man. No result. And with food, well to be honest, he eats better than the rest of us put together. He prefers a bowl of nuts to a bag of cheese and bacon balls, grapes to malteasers. In fact it makes me question whether he shares the same genes as me; such is his natural ability to make healthy food choices.

At the other end of the spectrum, is Mad. She is 10, going on 16 and already has a ladies Size 8 foot. At ten. Christ, am I going to have to get special shoes made for her for her sweet 16^th. She’s quite tall, but she does have trouble getting jeans to do up over her tummy. As a Mum, I don’t care; I love her big, small, fat, skinny. But also as a Mum, I want her to be healthy and to be honest; I don’t want her to be any more of a target than necessary. Her father was exactly the same at her age and in fact, until he was around 16. He was mercilessly teased. He was Fat Phil.

The three year old is just totally average. Kind of tall, not fat, not skinny, just right. He eats, he drinks and he causes chaos. An exact combination of his mother and father.

So the problem here is we are kind of always trying to get Sam to eat and on the other hand, telling Mad she can’t have anymore. All this, whilst trying not to make a big deal out of it and lead her to an eating disorder.

So when I get the sly comments on my parenting abilities, I think I might just have to come back with “Oh yeah, we are in the business of making one big, one small and the other one JUST RIGHT.

The Aldi Olympics

I love Aldi – there I said it.

It saves me money (on average $120 per week), I buy the weeks groceries and randomly, sometimes, I get to buy an Ab King Pro or Wheelchair from the middle aisle.

My boss, you know who you are, refuses to shop there. She doesn’t want to be busted by someone she knows. Scared she’ll be labelled a bogan. I get that, I too, was there once, but I have told her to take her time, ease herself into it. You can’t jump into a full shop at Aldi; you need to do it slowly, just like raising a child. No one asks you to deal with a hormonal 14 Year old before you get the chance to deal with sleep deprivation and ripped nipples. OK, probably not explaining myself quite right.

The thing is Aldi is not a very satisfying shop. There is no lying about having a cigarette when you’re finished if you know what I mean. No? Still don’t have a clue what I’m crapping on about?

Let me explain. Everything at Aldi, bar probably Milo, Vegemite and Nutrigrain, will be a close clone of something you are very fond of that you would usually buy at Woolworths or Coles with a very random name. Like say, TV Snacks are called Wackos (Awesome) Or Huggies Nappies are called Mamias (and they shit all over Huggies – unfortunate pun - sorry) or Ol De Paso Tacos are called El Toro (Exactly the same) but all that is beside the point because if you’ve never been there before, you would look at the 6 aisles – yes that’s right, 6 aisles and think “what the hell is this shit?”

It started slowly. Before I went back to work more regularly, I went to quite a few “ladies morning teas” where more often than not I would be hoovering down a Sundried Tomato and Cashew dip only to stop intermediately to ask the host where she got “this awesome dip”. Aldi

And it happened more often. With all kinds of foodstuffs.

So I gave it a go. And I was disappointed. I mean, for every selection Aldi had for muesli bars, Woolworths had 7. For every selection of beautiful smelling hair products, Aldi had, if you’re lucky, one. I didn’t go back for months.

But then, my grocery bills each week increased. It wasn’t long before my grocery bill was almost outstripping our mortgage repayment and it was beginning to scare me. I mean, we don’t, as a rule, eat Eye fillet steak for dinner or caviar and prawns for lunch each day so I couldn’t understand why this was happening. So after many endorsements from friends (similar to this) I decided to do a full shop.

It all came down to giving in and just trying new things. And apart from specific milk we drink and a few minor items, I can do an entire shop at Aldi. And I am over $5,000 better off a year.

If you do start, at least try these:

Marinated Roast Chicken (from meat dept) Most succulent and delicious chicken EVA (and honestly you cannot fook this up. You just can’t)

Marinated Beef Roast (Santa Maria) Again, like the chicken, this is amazing and have NEVER had a bad one.

Chicken Korma in a bottle. Add some coconut milk and their jasmine rice (total of $6.50 – feeds 4) and this is better than any Thai Restaurant does.

Frozen Croissants – These are delicious as is their pancake mix.

The general meat, fruit and vegetables are great and cheaper than most of the generic Grocery Stores.

Then comes the checkout. You haven’t quite experienced life if you haven’t done the Aldi Checkout Marathon. You’ve got to be sharp, on your toes and ready to fling that shit into your trolley pronto.

See the reason that Aldi can keep prices is low and pay their staff incredibly well, is because you buy your own bags and then bag it yourself. And for this you must be prepared, because Aldi Checkout operators wait for no man. From the minute your trolley is in position, it is on. And you better be ready. Suddenly it’s like they’re competing in the scanning Olympics and they are flinging your goods at your while you try to keep up and place them back in the trolley. As a rookie, I made the mistake of trying to pack my bags as she scanned. With a deft look from the checkout chick, I soon learned that shit was NOT on. I’ve never tried it again.

If this sounds like a paid advertisement for Aldi it’s not (although I would gladly accept a year’s free groceries to keep spouting the good news), I just simply want people to see that a discerning family of 5 can shop there and eat well. Don’t go expecting to come out feeling satisfied or unhurried. You will though, due to lack of choice and the fantastic pricing, come out in front.

WHERE'S MCSTEAMY?

Look, it just wouldn’t be normal week if there wasn’t some sort of emergency journey in the back of an ambulance for a Morley now would it?

Oh yeah, I don’t think we just ran down one china man. Oh no-no. I think we may have taken out most of Shanghai in a mass Hit n Run.

Yesterday at work, being the awesome parent I am, I ignored three consecutive “Unknown Caller ” phone calls to my mobile making the off-cuff comment to Miss C, “oh if they want me bad enough, they’ll leave a message”

Turns out they did need me badly. Well Sam did. Oh and they did leave that message. It went something like “Oh Mrs Morley, it’s Lyn here from Sams school. Look, he’s had an accident at school and I need you to ring me straight away”.

Stupid me, I was still under some false sense of security, that there would be some sort of “dramatic shit” amnesty on the Morley family (except of course, if that dramatic shit included winning Powerball).

Was all of this shiteness we were encountering because I never forward on chain emails? You know the ones? The ones that say “if you don’t pass this onto 78 people within 3 minutes of opening it, you’re first born will get rabies and your house will explode”, that kind of chain mail? I smashed a miniature mirror in my handbag about a year ago. Could that be what is wrong? If so I’ve got 6 more years of this shit.

What is it they say about saying negative attracting negative, positive, positive? We are definite shit magnets so not quite sure what vibe that means we are putting out there to acheive that kind of special. I haven’t had time to be a rotten cow to anyone, I’ve been too busy lining up the Emergency Department at hospitals. Clearly I just haven’t been reading The Secret enough and/or not sitting down meditating on the floor focusing on a picture of a Mercedes Benz and gigantic mansion.

Anyway, poor Sam, first foray into the Year 2 adventure playground kind of sucked for the little guy. He made it two rungs in, before he slipped and fell directly on his elbow. Probably most kids would fall, cry, get up and have another go. Not Sam. The doctors were telling us along with monkey bars, trampolines, skate boards and the new rip sticks are the most dangerous play equipment out there.

So on the scale of how badly you can break your elbow and your arm, the surgeon told us this was the worst. Good news, he still had a pulse in that arm and bad news, they might accidently sever either his nerves and or/arteries because of the area and nature of the break. Awesome.

Going in to the operation, Sam was most concerned about how they would put him to sleep. I told him “With Drugs”. He freaked. “But Mum, you’ve always told me to study hard and stay off drugs and now you’re making me take them?” Ahh pumpkin, let me rephrase that, they will give you medicine. After asking me if he’s going to die (the most heartbreaking question your child can ask you) he went off to sleep and under the knife.

So last night, at 11pm, Sam came out of the theatre, groggy but relatively happy. Massive thanks to the wonderful Doctors and Nurses at the Gold Coast Hospital. You all rock.

To avoid any more of this Mayhem, I have declared a No Go Zone on funeral Homes that have potential hazardous, out of control,ceiling fans, shoulder rides with men over 6ft and monkey bars of any description, actually scrap that, parks of any kind. Unless they have the Spinning Egg. Nothing bad happened on the Spinning Egg right?

The Smart State

So I checked out the myschool website - http://www.myschool.edu.au/

By the looks of things, my kids better brush up on some armed robbery skillz because they won’t be going to University anytime soon. So poor were the results.

Both schools were below average for years 3, 5 and 7. My first reaction? What the Fuck?

I have two school aged children. One in year 2, one in Year 6.

Sam, in year 2, has Aspergers and luckily he began Prep at a school with a Special Education Unit that is highly regarded on the Gold Coast. As such, a lot of kids at his school need extra attention. Some, like Sam, who is in a main stream classroom, need a teacher aid with them a lot of the time, so they can concentrate, learn their ABCs and 123s and not skiv off to the sandpit and play. Others need no help academically, but need a lot of help behaviour wise. Either way, this school has a very large proportion of children with varying degrees of academic ranges and the majority sat that test.

And they still did better than my daughters school that we pay for.

My daughter who is 11 this year and in grade 6 was part of the year 5 Naplan testing last year at this Catholic Education School. We changed her from her brothers school due to one fact and one fact only. She couldn’t understand her teacher. This particular school is multi-aged, meaning it’s not about what grade you are in, but the stages. Early, Junior, Middle and Senior. It’s a great notion. The kids who are smart, get taught to their ability, not grade, the ones who are struggling, get helped along. So the theory goes.

Maddie is an avid reader. Massive reader. Out reads me. This is not a biased observation, it just is. Her division and overall maths are not so crash hot, nor her presentation of work or her physical education. So when her mid-year Year 4 Report came home and it showed a C for Reading and English, I was a little bit baffled. See, her teacher for that year, and the subsequent year was a male who is from Pakistan. I had had him as a client some years earlier and he got the total shits with me because I couldn’t understand him. So when I realised, by some weird cosmic force, that he was going to be Maddies teacher in year 4, my first thought was “How in the hell will she learn when she can’t understand her teacher?” I told her to tell me if she couldn’t work out what he was saying. She said she would. But she didn’t. Because she didn’t want to leave her friends. Excellent.

So turns out she couldn’t understand him for the majority of year 4. He was a lovely man. He really liked Maddie. He made her the mentor of other wayward children in her class, with the best of intentions, but at the end of the day, the realisation that my child was to be taught by this teacher again in year 5 and possibly not learn, concerned me. We were always going to send her to a Private High School anyway, so figured, Year 5 was as good a time as any to change her to our only affordable option – Catholic Education.

I know, it’s all a matter of prioritising and budgeting and yes I agree. But, we’ve got 3 kids, all of which would be in private schools at the same time, we have extra medical costs associated with Sam and you know what?, I can’t see how the kids are really going to be better off if we are stressed off our heads just so they can go to the “Best private schools” on the Coast.

See, this is the problem. When I was a kid there were private schools on the Gold Coast. Not nearly as many as there are today, but the major ones were there. But it wasn’t an issue. Well it didn’t appear to be. You went to the school you lived the closest to. Or, if you were exceptionally wealthy, you went to one of the private schools. End of story. Even then, everyone was still friends. There certainly didn’t appear to be the same sort of class system. Nor was the awkward conversation at dinner parties “Oh so where does your child go to school?” Fuck, isn’t it hard enough just to exist these days, let alone be judged by what sort of education your child receives? And isn’t it our right, as a taxpayer, as an Australian, for our children to receive the best of education and health regardless of wealth?

And most teachers at state schools are wonderful. My son has had the best teacher for the last 2.5 years I could ever have hoped for. She was wonderful. I truly believe it comes down to what suits your child. Only you, as the parent can make this call.

I can totally see the frustration on both sides of the fence for both pro Naplan testing and anti. Teachers are being raked over the coals for shite results that aren’t directly their fault. Some schools are getting awesome results due to the fact they deliberately wrangled for less academically gifted children to avoid sitting the test.

The thing is, we all just want our children to get a decent education. We don't want to feel ashamed because our children are attending under performing schools. We don’t want special attention or favours. We don’t expect to have sunshine blown up our arses about how good how child is. We do expect however, to get decent, fair and equitable teaching for our children. No matter what school that they attend. No child should get better marks because they have access to more equipment at home to process an assignment. No child should get favoured because they catch up with a certain childs mother from time to time. That crap has to stop.

So this website may eventually help average out the results across the country. If a school is particularly struggling, perhaps a crack team of experts will descend on the school and work out how to help the situation. That to me, would be a positive outcome generated from this site.

Apparently there is a frenzy of parents pulling their children out of under performing schools based on this website but, if you were happy with your childs school before this website went live but now have concerns, back yourself. You know what’s best because no one knows you child quite like you do.

You wanna be startin Something.

I’ve never had a brand new car. Well until about 2 years ago I hadn’t. We were sick and tired of buying other peoples “bargains”. It

probably came to a head in 35 degree heat, after the air conditioner in my 2000 Daewoo Nubira Wagon completely shit itself. In fact, it not only went on strike, it went on the attack by blowing hot air at me. Around that time, the electric drivers’ window also refused to open. Sometimes, when it wasn’t in a particular mood, it would open and

not shut, but it rarely co-operated in full.

So there I was, 3 kids, 40 degree hot hair blowing directly in my face like a hairdryer, my window steadfastly refusing to budge and a $2000 bill on the cards to fix my $2000 car. A couple of meltdowns that included me rocking in the corner later, and we decided it was time to bite the bullet and get a new car.

As we could only afford so much, or more, as we were being incredibly tight, we decided the smallest car in the Honda range would fit us as a family of 5. The Honda Jazz. Anyway that is a very long path to get to my main goal of telling you I got my very first ever brand new car and then someone crashed into it.

I had been out all day. I had dropped two kids off to school. I had picked Mum up and we had gone to a gazillion different places over the Gold Coast that as per usual, left me no time to go home and vacuum the house on my day off. Shame.

After dropping Mum home, I went back to school and carefully parked my car and walked in to the school to pick up the kidlets. This was only 3 weeks after I had purchased the car so of course, the kids were on a food ban inside it, so too were we having a texta, play doh and Lego embargo. I had washed it every weekend; I had vacuumed it lovingly and gone off my chops when the middle child emptied his sand filled sneakers onto the backseat of the car.

It was early days. Then some bitch ran in to it.

I had packed three kids into it and had driven all the way home before I realised. For some reason I went back out to the car, probably to just stare at it (kidding) and that’s when I realised, the front of the car was seriously fucked. How had I missed this? Could I be that dense that I didn’t hear the noise that would have sounded like a bomb going off when I hit what appears to be a silver pole?

I spent the next 30 minutes crapping myself and offhandedly dropped the bomb to my husband after he got home from work. Fortunately, as well as a plumber, it appears my husband is serious crash investigator because the first thing he said to me was “Nah mate, someone has backed into you”. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

So I was looking down the barrel of an insurance claim that I would have to cop the brunt of, both ratings and monetary wise. Bloody bastards. Not to mention, my car had been deflowered. Do to her what you want people, she is no longer pure.

Some weeks later, I was walking in to pick up Sam and one of the Mum’s I’m friendly with said, “Oh, that’s your car!” I probably looked at her a bit blankly. Blink Blink.

“Do you know how you got that massive dent in the front of it?”

Me: “No, someone ran into it, but don’t know who.

C’s Mum “I do”

She went on to tell me how her and another mum had been walking into the school when, let’s call her Lorena the Moron or LTM for short, had tried to reverse park into a non-existent parking spot between my car and the one behind me. Clearly she didn’t make it as a) she’s not a Polly Pocket and b) there was a massive fucking dent in my car with her paint all over it. C’s Mum then led me to LTM’'s car to show me my paint on her rear, smashed, bumper. What the Hell.

So, being the non-confrontational and peace loving person I am, I left a note on her windshield. You know – “Hey, I believe you smashed into my car a couple of weeks ago and I now need your insurance details to get this fixed”.

Nada

I knew who she was. She was the mum who used to, rather than get off her arse, shout at her son to stop throwing sticks at classroom windows. I knew of her well before she slammed into my car. It was often this “Benjamin, Benjamin! Git ere Benjamin. Put that rock down Benjamin! Don’t hit that boy, that’s not nice Benjamin. Cmmmmeeerre!!!. Um how about this mole, get off you arse, discipline your child and stop him from touching my child.

My car wasn’t the first to meet with LTM either. Another ladies car was backed into and a stationery motorbike was knocked over. Or course, I learned all of this much later.

So, I thought, I’m just going to have to confront her. I really didn’t want to. She was unhinged at the best of times, fairly big Nurofen Plus addiction but she never showed. What I didn’t want was for hew to get anywhere near my vulnerable son, Sam.

I attempted again with the note on the windscreen. More forceful this time. “If you do not contact me by 5pm today, I will have no other choice but to go to the Police”. Then I sat, covert like, around the corner, watched her grab it off her windscreen, scrunch it up, and throw it on the ground. Oh it was on.

So I went to the Police station. Stood in line for over an hour whilst various grievances were aired and people on parole checked in. My turn. Explained my sitch. The young police man grabbed the phone and said “let’s see who owns this car then shall we”. Apparently her boyfriend gave her the car. He was in Melbourne. Awesome.

Look, long story short, the boyfriend tried to get me to say it was him who backed into me – Um NO. I asked him if she was pissed or on drugs. His response

“No, just a very nervous driver”. Well how’s this, I don’t’ want a nervous driver around my kids at school thanks. His next sentence?

“You’re lucky you didn’t confront her actually, she can get quite aggressive”. Um sorry, I’m the one she backed into and then fucked off on and SHE gets aggressive?

I got the details, got my car fixed and constantly got mega death stares from LTM.

But the spell was broken for me and my new car. Our dog scratched the bonnet about 6 months later, badly and I barely cared. No less than 6 trolleys have gone into it in car parks. My stilettos have ripped their way through the carpet in the driver’s seat. Meh. It get’s washed 6 monthly if it’s lucky.

It's sad for my poor Jazz. Innocent victim in the scheme of things. Kind of like me.

HERE FISHY FISHY

OK, so it struck me, whilst my seven year old son was feeding water, via a dropper, to Seabushy (aka weed from the ocean) that he may indeed need an actual pet to care for.

We have, of course, tried this before with other animals but for one reason or another, things just haven’t worked out. But to see a child first prepare a funeral for Seabushy Number 1 then resurrect her as a surly tween, aka Seabushy Mark 2, I quickly realised that this kid needed a pet that at least breathed from time to time.

Seeing as I have placed a self-imposed ban on myself adopting any new animals , and my husband has basically given me this as an option (read ultimatum) “get another animal and I walk out that door and never come back”, I was left with no other choice but get cunning. Well, he said no more animals. He said NOTHING about fish.

So yesterday, on a bit of a whim, I went to the local petshop, picked a very old school fish bowl and three very different fish who apparently live harmoniously together. Yeah, just like my three children do.

Sparkles (Named by the female ten year old) is your everyday run of the mill goldfish. Even though when I left the petstore, and for the entire drive home, Sparkles was happily burning around in her bowl, when I walked through the front door, she was laying on the bowl floor, lifeless. Shit Shit Shit. Could I be that spectacularly crap at owning a pet? Seriously? Did I knock her head when I got the bowl out of the car? Had she gotten wedged under a purple rock and had a heart attack? Just when I was about to shield the kids eyes, she got up, swam to the top and kept on swimming.

Jacob Wills Haunted House (aka Seabushy 3 for short) is a black, bug eyed goldfish. He is the most piggish fish I have ever seen. Blew the other two out of the water when it came to sucking up that fish food. He is currently working tag team with Sparkles to move the rocks in the bowl with their heads – conjoined twin style. The seven year old is in charge of Seabushy 3.

Georgia, the new name for the tiny unidentified fish Hurricane Jack selected, is named after his very serious girlfriend from Kindy

So this is kind of our trial run. If we do OK with Sparkles, Seabushy Mark 3 and Georgia, we can present our case to my husband. And maybe something with fur will be next. Although, this statement from my seven year old is not very encouraging. Right before going to bed tonight he came out, kissed the fish bowl and said “Goodnight Seabushy, I hope you don’t die.”