Senescence (2)

In 2011, I wrote a post called Senescence 
which was about the decline of the quality of my pop's life

in the immediate years after the death of my nan.

This past week I returned home to attend the funeral of my pop after his sudden passing.

This was not my pop that I wrote about 4 years ago.

This was my other grandfather,

the last of 16 siblings,

who died suddenly, just weeks short of his 90th birthday.

In less than the waking hours of a day,

my nan went from living at home with her husband of nearly 70 years

to living alone.

Though there were rarely displays of affection between them,

though they were disagreeable with each other

and progressed through each day with little variation to their basic routine,

it was born of their lives almost completely being spent together.

They had been together for so long

that they were part of the same package.

You didn't get one without the other.

I rarely spoke of them individually.

It was always "nan and pop"

Five days after his death,

all the ornaments in their unit were in their place,

the kettle was as ever ready to boil for a cup of tea

and nan sat in the chair that she sat in every day.

But the table was hidden by floral arrangements and sympathy cards,

 the fridge was stacked with food that had been dropped in by well wishers,

and the chair that always, always, had my pop sitting in when we went to visit was empty.
His room, down the hall, out of sight, was as he left it
but within days his children will take on the task of sorting the material remains of his life.

I have always felt a small part of me change, revert to being a little girl when in the presence of my grandparents,

remembering their significant presence in my childhood.

But things had changed.

My nan was so lost, fragile and grieving.

She looked so dimished at the funeral.

It is true when people say that someone seems to have shrunk over night.

A little girl with flushed cheeks and episodes of overwhelming bewilderment.

Her children and grandchildren were suddenly the responsible adults,

the ones offering solace and comfort, the organisers.

My other pop still lives in his home

but he shouldn't.

In the past few years, his mental deterioration has continued

and the physical decline is taking hold as well.

Old friends no longer visit.

His brother has recently died but no-one told him
and he wouldn't remember if they had.

He still has his cat for company but he forgets her name.
He forgets to let her inside and forgets to feed her.

He forgets to feed himself.

He spent much of my visit sitting and watching me
with the intensity and curiosity of a young child

lacking the knowledge of social politeness.

His manners are forgotten, his ability to remember basic living rituals nearly gone.

But luckily, he has progressed through belligerence and defensiveness

to a more gentle, passive demeanour

and a child-like innocence.

His resolve to stay in his own house can now be negotiated-

thankfully, as it is now a necessity.

Another aged person who I have such fond memories of

but who is nothing like the personality that shared my childhood.

Another one whose child has become his parent.

The next time I visit, I will be thankful that he will be in a home

where there will be the full time care that he needs.

I am hopeful that there will be a new spark of life, of interest in the world because of daily interaction with others

But I left with a heavy heart.

All the memories of my childhood,

of the prime of my nan and pop's life,

that are around the house will be sorted, packed, culled.

He will take very few with him

and that will matter little to him.
 I know that now they have little meaning for him.

They are only material goods but they represent lives that are no longer,
lives that have gone or are fading away.

There is a quote that has always resonated with me.

"Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many" Anonymous.

But there are so many variables, so much "there but for the grace of God..." 

in our lives, that growing old can be the saddest thing.

Keeping the faith.

(www.youremyfavouritetoday.com)

We have entered that dangerous territory where

the two oldest children have admitted that the fairy dust has cleared

and that they no longer "believe".

Santa Claus? Easter Bunny? Tooth Fairy?

Nope. 

Not buying it anymore.

Our kids are pretty naive and we have had a pretty good run.

I have only forgotten the nudge the tooth fairy once

in the grand scheme of about 24 lost teeth.

The tooth fairy really needs to use the alarm on her smart phone 

a little bit more.

So far, not a single one of them has taken me up on my offer of wrapping it in thread,

attaching it to the door handle and slamming the door shut

but I am secretly happy about that.

In spite of the annual grumblings from Mr Boozle about how hard it is 

to sneak Christmas stocking onto the ends of beds

when they are laden with bells*,

we have never had to use our

"Just helping Santa out. He had to run- Rudolph was being a pain in the you-know-what" speech.

*It was cute when I was making them

and I will admit that I am into aesthetics rather than practicalities.

That's probably why we make a good team,

in those moments where we aren't exceedingly frustrated with each other.

I could have probably come up with some better explanations about

why the tooth fairy pays a different dividend to other kids.

The socioeconomic rationale didn't really sit well with the five year old.

Near the end of last year, the 9 and 11 year old offspring

admitted to their dad that they were no longer believers.

The oldest said that he lost a tooth at school

and didn't tell us.

The tooth fairy didn't come.

He told us the next day that he had lost a tooth and, lo and behold,

the tooth fairy dropped by that night.

Ergo tooth fairy = parents

(actually tooth fairy = mummy.

Credit where credit is due.)

Too bloody smart for his own good, I say.

Who needs to deal with that logic when you are trying to parent?

Like all good parents, 

we gave them the "Do the right thing and don't spoil it for your sister" chat.

The "If you don't believe, you don't receive"" spiel.

It was so far, so good... until this morning.

The constant tit for tat between the youngest two escalated this morning and

the middle child decided to tell his little sister that 

none of them were real.

She is luckily easily persuaded to believe what she wants

and, when talking to her about dicey topics, she can be easily distrac...oh, look, a rainbow.

Somewhat surprisingly, her oldest brother then saved the day when he contributed this pearl of wisdom:

Hey. They are like God. They rely on faith. They exist if you believe in them.

If you look up one of those books about birth order personality characteristics,

my kids' names would be right there in print.

I know the most Prime Ministers were first born children.

But I wonder if the most frequent child cut from their parents' wills

for being little s*$ts were middle kids.

(www.someecards.com)

Keep calm and place more blocks.

Sometime, I daresay in the not-so-distant future,

 my (more than likely adolescent) son will throw the

"You don't ever do anything for me" line at me.

I'm ready.

I'll throw back the

"Do you know exactly little square blocks of chocolate cake I cut up and iced to make

that Minecraft cake for your 11th birthday?"

Admittedly, that might be only after the

 "Do you know what trauma and irreparable damage my pelvic floor 

and nether regions went through giving birth to you?" line

(though Mr Boozle and I are currently negotiating at what age my offspring

need to be before I use that for the less than moral use of emotional blackmail).

But it will be a close call.

Because they were both excruciating.

One day, I might get over the trauma of natural childbirth 

but I will never get over icing all those bloody cake blocks .

Hairy bits.

(www.drewdahlman.deviantart.com)

Please believe me when I say that when I got up this morning,

I had no thought to write a blog post 

that was going to mention pubic hair.

Pubic hair in soap no less.

But wandering the supermarket aisles this morning,

my mind wandered,

and the posts about how I miss blogging,

about how sad I am at the passing of Phillip Seymour Hoffman,
about how grumpy/sad/ I am that John Barrowman is coming to Australia
but not to Adelaide,

and the one asking how many other people drive and walk around

and imagine what their neighbourhood would be like post-zombie apocalypse

just evaporated when I started to think about hair.

I have spend the last two years freaking out about the amount of hair

migrating to life in the drain every time I wash my hair.

Mr Boozle has been lamenting his every increasing male pattern baldness for years

but, at the end of the (not-as-much-gender-equality-that-we-would-like) day,

just like grey hair,

it is easier for a man to carry off the thinning hair look than a woman.

Ah, the cycle of life...

We are born, hair on our limbs but maybe no, or little, hair on our heads.

We grow, get hair on our heads.

We get hormonal and there comes the fuzz in our armpits and in our nether regions.

We enjoy a full body of hair for a while,

albeit apparently shaving/ripping off/dyeing a good amount of it 

for the sake of fashion/comfort/heck knows why else.

(My GP friend says that by the time our girls are teens,

they will be fashionably hair-free in the you-know-where.

Hands up if you haven't had a Brazillian?

I am not into pain and I am not into looking like a 

pre-pubescent kid so I haven't been there

and have no interest.

I am not too worried about my pink bits being out and proud 

for necessity of health and in the privacy of a doctor's room.

After 3 pregnancies and natural childbirths, I've lost count of how many people

have eyeballed the area and I are comfy with the idea.

However, someone standing there with hot wax

and no necessity towards my health and life prospects

does not make me want to ask my va-jay-jay to be out and proud)

Anyhow, I digress.

Then we start to lose our head hair.

Well, actually it relocates to the face for older women

and the ear canals and nostrils for older men.

The word hirsute no longer means a hairy chest or back.

Any hair left at this point turns grey and starts to grow at awkward angles.

So through our lives we pluck, we shave,

we wax, we dye...

Human beings are weird, really.

I am not really into makeup

and can often head into summer without breaking open the fake tan lotion

but I don't like hairy armpits.

Parental influence? Teenage peers? Comfort?

The media? Partner's preference?

When do we make that decision

to shave that bit or dye that bit?

My folks are pretty laid back when it comes to most things when I was growing up

but my mum was an oppressive fascist tyrant when it came to her teenage daughter's beauty regime.

(OK, maybe she wasn't quite that bad but I was a teenager at the time

and that's how I remember it)

I was not allowed to get my ears pierced till I was 16.

That I could take with good grace.

Nor tweeze my eyebrows.

Taken with not such good grace

but accepted as I didn't (quite) have a monobrow.

But I wasn't allowed to shave my legs either.

When I was growing up, my mum bought into a lot of those old wives' tales...

sucking lemons will dry up your blood...

break a pin off in your splinter dig and it will go into your bloodstream and kill you...

shaving your legs will make the hair grow back faster and thicker...

(www.flickr.com)

So picture me,

the slightly dumpy, bespectacled, academic brunette nerd,

who may have also had a haircut resembling a mullet,

bleaching her leg hair through high school.

It wasn't enough for me to be dumpy, nerdy and wearing glasses.

I had to give the bullies a bit more fodder.

The only consolation was that my mother insisted on me wearing my school dress

at a hideous, longer length 

so that less of the bleached leg hair was showing.

That and the fact that the girl with the shortest dress in school 

had orange legs from fake tan 

so that diverted some of the attention,

more than the short dress alone attracted.

So I look at my 6 year old daughter

who has daddy's colouring so isn't a brunette

but has hairy legs all the same

and I think about the big decisions...

When will we give her the sex ed talk?

When will her boyfriend be able to sleep over?

When can she shave her legs and tweeze her brows?
When do we discuss pubic hair etiquette?

Mr Boozle and I,

like most partners, I am sure, 

follow the unspoken rule that head hair left on the soap is fine

but pubic hair is not.

Soon we will have 3 teenagers sharing one bathroom,

one shower

and quite possibly one cake of soap.

It does my head in now when the word "mum" is turned into 3 syllables...

"Mu-uuu-ummmmm, I can't find my hat"...

"Mu-uuu-ummmmm, he hit me again"...

But I should enjoy it.

I suspect that I will find that preferable to hearing it turned into 4...

"Mu-uuu-ummmmm, someone left a pube on the soap again.

I'm not touching it.

Can you come and get it off please?

...

...

Mu-uuu-ummmmm?

...

...

Muuu-uuuuu-uuummmmmmm? "

Of course, if my GP friend is correct,
we might not have to worry about it.

Parents would earn more badges than the best Scout in the world.

(www.today.com)

Imagine if, when you left the hospital with your first newly-born child,

precious little parcel in one arm,
amongst the nappy and baby shampoo samples, 59 teddy bears and bub's umbilical cord clip in your bag
was a shirt.

A really nice, brand new shirt, in your favourite colour,

a blank canvas front and back.

Imagine if, each time between that time

and the moment when that child,

as an independent-yet-still-living-at-home-just-turned-eighteen year old,

grabbed the car keys at 8pm on a Saturday night and said 

"See ya when I see ya",

you received a badge for each achievement as a parent.

Eighteen years after leaving hospital as a first time parent,

that shirt, along with some very old, curdled milk marks on the shoulder

is covered, 

smothered, 

limp under the weight of those badges.

(Eat your hearts out, you Scouts.

You can't compete with a parent)

The front and back are covered in them.

All the milestones of a parent.

You got your teething badge.
Your toilet training badge.
Your sleeping-through-the-night badge.
Your survived-the-first-day-of-school badge.
Your birthday cake decorating badge.
Your treat-the-whole-family-for-head-lice-more-than-once badge.
Your getting weed on badge.
Your tooth fairy and Santa training badges.

No wearing of curdled milk stains like a badge of honour.
You have a curdled milk stain badge of honour.

And, on each sleeve, the ooh-aah special ones.

Those badges you get because, as a parent,

you have done that extra little bit for your child

or have had to deal with particularly difficult circumstances.

I know that the time that I had to deal with toddler's poo in aisle three

of the local hardware store

would have been much easier to bear had I known that I was going to get a badge for it.

(OK That's a lie. It was messy and hideous and possibly mortifying at the time
and no bloody badge would have made it anything but unpleasant)

That third bout of mastitis would have been so much less excruciating
if I had just had a badge to look forward to.

(OK That's also a lie. It was foul and excruciating
and I'd much rather have the antibiotics than a friggin' badge)

We are currently working on our " Unswallowing" badge

(OK...yeah....the cleaning up your kids' vomit badge)

Obviously as parents with 25 years of "children time" under our belt,
we are not new to vomiting.

But we want to go for the advanced vomiting badge.

Want isn't the right word.
No choice in going for this badge.

We are 11 days in to a bout of gastroenteritis that has repeatedly affected everyone

 in the house apart from me

(I am claiming that I developed immunity to anything involving
my stomach or intestines last year.)

Now cleaning up someone else's vomit is one of those things

that is hard to stomach 

(Oh, that pun was oh, so, so intended)

There should be no expectation in life for anyone other than a parent of a child under the age of
?16 years to have to deal

with another person's upchuck.

Close friends and partners may chose to do so

(which I am thankful for after the way my hens' night ended.
But that's another story involving too much alcohol and very windy roads)
but only parents really have to do so.

(The Parenting with Unconditional Love manual

says so under Point 27: Bodily fluids.)

And, like poo, just because it comes from your offspring, 

doesn't make it any less repulsive a task.

In fact, I would argue that vomitus is more repulsive than poo
but that is only my personal opinion
and I am sure that you have your own.

One of my earlier memories as a young child was of the easy job I had (which was lying in bed
and vomiting all over the carpet)

and the hideous task my parents had (which was cleaning the carpet)

(www.picstopin.com)

I was interested to see that we, as parents, have passed on the carrot gland to our children.
That is right up there with the evolutionary benefits of wisdom teeth and appendixes
as far as I can tell.

One of the children of the house has an impeccable track record,

having never missed the bucket or the toilet.

Unlike the cats, she does not seem to have a substrate preference for carpets and hallway runners.

One child, however, couldn't get it into a contained space if you put him on the edge of an empty

Olympic sized swimming pool, leant him over and directed him to vomit
in the empty space stretching out before him.

He thinks, after the event, that his knack of spewing
360 degrees is really quite amusing.

So, while we don't have a badge-covered shirt to dangle in his face when his first child arrives,
and an advanced "Vomit cleaning" merit to point to,

we have told him in no uncertain terms that we will be laughing 

when it is his turn to earn his Unswallowing badge.

I am pretty sure that there isn't a Scout badge to prepare him for that day.

A new year? Ditch the Brasso.

(www.mcmillanhotels.co.uk)

Approaching midnight on 31st December,

the year is looking a fair bit tarnished and dusty.

I know that for most of us

there are glimpses of beauty and the brilliance that were there at 12:01 am 

on the previous 1st January.

But instead of reaching for the dusters and the bicarb

to try and clean it up a bit as we have done through the year,

we get to gently push the jaded, fading year to one side.

We can look back when we want to,

pick it up, inspect the end product,

but meanwhile focus on the shiny, brand new year,

dust-free and full of potential.

2013 had a lot of positives for us

but some of the lows were very low.

Mostly first world problems

(probably the most [over] used catch phrase in 2013 for this family)

but significant all the same.

Aside from severe food poisoning for me

and the effects on the family of a prolongued and very ugly business break-up,

the kids seemed to take the worst of it.

A broken arm, Queen Bees, negligent teachers,

bullies, unresolved emotional issues,...

probably to be expected with 3 kids over the course of a year.

You take it on the chin 

and hope/resolve/pray that the new year 

will bring an easier year for the young ones.

But when middle child lost a tooth on Christmas Eve,

 presenting it to a worn-out parent (that would be me) at the end of a year limping towards its use-by date,

my knee-jerk reaction was to announce 

that the Tooth Fairy took Christmas Eve (and Good Friday-

a pre-emptive strike seemed like a good idea at the time) as  a day off.

Obviously, I reasoned with said child,
 the risk of getting trampled by the big guy or his reindeer was just too great.

(My brain was pounding along...

seriously-the tooth fairy?-on Christmas Eve?- as well?-

hard enough to get those stockings onto the ends of their beds with their jangly bells-

yes, seemed like a good idea to sew them on at the time-

but we aren't home-where is the food colouring in this place?-

why does our tooth fairy magically change the colour of the water in the glass?-

reckon that idea was started at the start of a year, not the end-
if I tread on Lego in the dark, it'll be ugly-

tired, so tired- surely the Tooth Fairy can catch up tomorrow...)

Other parent, high on the prospect of a new, self-improvement project,

quietly announced after the kids had gone to bed 

that there was enough magic for both Santa and the Tooth Fairy 

to come on the same night.

One mummy duly chastised.

OK, so I'm not going to get that "Parenting of the Year" award anytime soon.

But I am going to try my best to keep this new year absolutely luminescent

for as long as I can.

Keep it dusted frequently and with enthusiasm.

Even sprinkle it with fairy dust every now and then.

That is, once I have gotten rid of the head lice and the gastro that partied in this shiny new year
with us.

(www.sharpendullsworld.blogspot.com)

Let them eat cake. After beating it into submission with a rolling pin.

It has been a long time since I have done any "real" art.

The sort that you do with pencils and paper or paints.
I reckon it was 1987 the last time I did anything significant like this drawing.

It is always something that I am going to get back to when I have the time.

My creative outlet these days comes in the form of sewing, knitting

and making birthday cakes.

With the exception of the occasional purchased ice-cream cake,

each year I wear like a badge of honour 

the hours that I spend making

then decorating a themed birthday cake for each child.

This year we had a request for Pokemon

(note- well worth doing the homework to find the simplest Pokemon character in existence...)

and my daughter wanted a Dolly Varden cake

(not Dolly Parton cake, as one friend thought.

Barbie's boobies are a tad more discrete than that version)

I was secretely chuffed as I had one of these as a girl.

and you would understand that, in an accumulated 17 boy requested birthday cakes,

my sons had never asked for a pretty doll stuck in a cake.

(note- well worth investing in a doll that has legs which are disarticulatable

[possibly not a real word, that]

It is not worth the time and effort trying to reason with a 6 year old fairy princess

as to why Barbie's legs had to get sawn off
and no, no glue stick in the world would reattach them)

I am not a girly girl

but I did love the idea of re-creating a cake that my mum made for me

nearly 40 years ago.

While I take a pride in the results I achieve,

I admit that, as the year passes

and as the years pass,

I mark the passing of each set of birthdays with a celebratory booyah

as I get a break before the next round starts.

So when the last cake request for the year involved some creature that was 

pink and round and Japanese and apparently needed to be made from ice-cream,

it seemed timely that I came across a recipe for a pinata cake.

It wasn't a hard sell.

"Hey, lovey.

Wouldn't you prefer me to make you a giant choclate crackle filled with goodies

that you get to whack with a rolling pin then pig out with your mates?"

It was fun to make

and quite fast too, compared to the half day I usually spend decorating the cake.

The end was brutal and it was ugly.

But it was all over very quickly. 

I have to be honest and confess that a cake was definitely harmed in the making

of this 10 year old's birthday.

The siblings have requested their own pinata cakes for their birthdays next year

so I might get to spend a bit less time cake decorating

and maybe pick up a pencil again.

I really hope that blogging is like riding a bicycle.

I've been more or less missing in (real life's) action
for the past 6 months.

I reckon that I have thought about blogging daily.
I have written long and- I swear- hysterically entertaining or thought provoking posts in my head
as I got on with life.

...things like buying Australian products,

the indignation that John Barrowman didn't get a call up
 for the Dr Who 50th Anniversary special,
 sex ed.,
palm oil,
why some blood isn't thicker than water,
why my child waits until I leave the state to need the emergency room,
 human nature at its very, very best and its very, very worst...

But things just happened.

Things like broken bones
(yes, that would be plural...bones*)
 5 year old Queen Bees,
an overseas visitor,
an education crisis which almost caused me to consider home schooling
(and if you know me, you know that "home schooling" is not a phrase that is compatible
with my temperament.
There is a reason that I became a vet and not a teacher)
four birthdays,
a fiftieth wedding anniversary,
family stress,
seemingly never-ending, non-resolvable business stress,

a trip to Fiji,
a trip to Kangaroo Island
 and the Barossa Valley,

 my annual interstate sewing weekend,
and then a general and ongoing apathy when it came to just sitting down and writing a post.

How can I want to do something so badly
but just can't be bothered?



I have managed to sew and knit
to let off creative steam.

So really it has just been...life.



I am hopeful that the next six months will be a little less hectic
with no broken bones
and a lot less apathy
and that I will start blogging again.
Surely it is just like riding a bicycle.

(*My toe, which lost the fight with a door frame, has healed now
but my son's arm, which lost the bout with his bed frame,
is still healing.
I think falling over in your bedroom and managing to fracture your arm
in a nasty manner is somewhat freaky
and yet somewhat expected from a kid.
Luckily their healing capacity is also somewhat freaky
in a fabulous way)

Out of the mouths of (growing-up-oh-so-quickly) babes

(www.wordsfromwillow.blogspot.com)

My oldest child is nearly 10.

A really awkward age when he (mostly) knows how to throw an insult out there
but often doesn't know how bad it is
or even what it means.

In the past 2 days alone,
thanks to assorted friends and books,
he has managed to offend practicing Christians ("for the love of Jesus Christ"),
elderly people (his grandparents are"fossils")
and pretty much anyone in between.

His best to date, however,
was to tell his little brother that he had a big dick.

A teasing fail firstly because his younger brother didn't even know what the word "dick" meant.

And secondly...well, for obvious reasons.

It proved very difficult during the parent-child talk about not using adult words
to restrain myself from explaining why this wasn't actually an insult
and why, one day, he might be praying desperately that someone might say it to him.

Breathing on my own.

When I took the kids back to my folk's place in the new year,

my parents were very keen to have the children visit by themselves.

Yes, all three, easily bored, demanding and hyperactive children visit by themselves.

There was a suggestion of me flying over, leaving them for a week and flying back home 

but I recognise the limitations of both the grandparents and the grandchildren

and felt that it was in the best interests of healthy relationships for all concerned

if I wasn't that far away and if I wasn't gone that long.

So I took myself off to Hobart for two days.

Two days.

All to myself.

No kids.

No commitments.

Not even a hubby to please.

And oh, it was soooooo good.

Being a mother,

I feel a certain obligation to announce that I miss my children.
Do you know what I mean?

But in the short term it really is a general absence makes the heart  grow fonder kind of thing.

Apart from being displaced at knowing that I couldn't actually get back to them,

did I spend two days wondering what they were doing at any given moment,

keen to get back to them

or wishing that I was there to tuck them in?

In all honesty, I didn't.

I have to be honest and admit that, 

...while I love my kids more than anything on this earth,

while I will defend and protect my children ferociously ,

while I would die to save them,
the whole mother's pledge of honour...

 I sort of thrive when I am apart from them.

I spent 2 completely self-absorbed days.

I shopped.

I wandered.

I sat in cafes and knitted and watched people.

I sat in my undies in the heat in my hotel room

sitting up late watching movies and drinking iced coffee for dinner.

I wrote blogs posts in my head and started sketching.

I read.

My world, standing on busy city streets, was suddenly a quieter place

without demands of life and family

and it cleared my head.

I swear that I could almost feel my creativitiy returning.

Something else happened that I wasn't expecting.
I felt really nostalgic about my childhood.

I spent of lot of time in Hobart as a young child

as my working parents sent my brother and I off to nan and pop's for the holidays.

My nan is gone now,

 my pop is drifting away

and it is dozens of years and two houses ago since they lived in this city.

But I remember how much I loved it then

and still love it.

It has history. 

Beauty. 

And, for me, many memories.

We used to ride the ferries when they were working boats

but now the couple left are taken out as tourist attractions

We'd stroll around Salamanca Market,

which is still big...in size, quality and personality.

We used to wander around the docks after the Sydney to Hobart yachts arrived,

though back then it took a lot longer for the boats to get to the finish line.

These are the strong memories,
so many others faded and gone
now that I can no longer have a conversation with my nan and pop
and have them remind me of some experience we shared that I have forgotten.

All memories of times not shared with my mum or dad
which seems fitting in the context of this post.

I guess I have a guilt thing happening

that I can actually be away from my offspring and be doing a happy dance.

I feel like it is not what I am meant to feel.
I imagine it is similar to what some women feel when, for whatever reason,
they had a C section or bottle-fed their baby.

But my kids are with me in my heart and mind

and I wouldn't have it any other way.

It would seem that I am just a person who needs to breath on my own for a while.

Talk the talk.

(www.articulate.com)

People who know me well will tell you that you can't shut me up

or get a word in edgeways, upside down or inside out once I start talking.

This is true and yet as a rule I find it very hard to make ongoing, polite conversation with people that I don't know in social situations

(in part, I admit, because I just can't be pfaffed)

I am blessed to be a stay-at-home mum

but in those 6 or so hours while the 3 kids are at school,

I thrive on being a loner.

I love pottering by myself

and enjoy my own company probably more than is good for me.

I get to be in my own space,

(usually a bra-free and fluffy-slippered place)

accompanied by a never ending cup of coffee 

and the ipod cranked up to play everything from show tunes to synthesizer music from the 1980s.

But if I do have to (God forbid) don a bra and actually leave the house, 

watch out anyone who makes eye contact and hesitates in their stride.

It is like an uncontrolled craving for human interaction takes over me once I enter the real, functioning world.

It doesn't matter which complete stranger ends up being the deer to my headlights.

I am off and chatting before they have a chance to retreat.

Admittedly, some individuals do rise to the challenge of  a two-sided conversation.

In others, however, I can see the physical change of eyes glazing over,

as the smiles and nods become an automatic reflex

and their brains daydream them to happier places.

I have had a lengthy discussion about boob jobs with a complete stranger behind the counter

at the local newsagent.

I have discussed the pros and cons of my post-natural-childbirth toiletting habits with a lady 

at the local chemist.

(Luckily it was at the chemist.

The person serving at the bakery might not have been so soothing and sympathetic)

I have discussed the likelyhood of vomiting on my children

(yes, vomiting on my children) with other parents

in a waiting room.

Don't get me wrong.

It isn't all bodily fluids and ablutions.

I have chin-wagged with various victi.....er, individuals about global warming, 

ever increasing supermarket monopolies,

Pokemon versus Skylanders,

men's sex drives, online shopping, 

the crap printed in the gossip magazines,

the tastelessness of tomatoes...

I could go on.

(They might say that I do go on)

Sated, I come home,

get back into my comfy slippers,

at peace knowing that I can still hold a conversation with other real human-being-adult-thingies,

and resume playing "Defying Gravity" at high volume.

But what has really struck me this past year

is that my kids are growing up

and with that, the conversations are growing up too.

No more discussing if Bob the Builder's Lofty the crane is a boy crane or a girl crane.

No more talking about "tana" toast and "nana" bread.

We have finished the chats about why one should wee in the toilet rather than in one's undies.

While a small part of me is mourning the loss of my  sweet babes,

a big part of me is running around with my shirt over my head 

shouting booyah at the top of my voice.

In the past month, we have discussed racism and acceptance, Christianity and faith,

circumcision, home-branded products and supposed "Australian made",

where babies come from (as in physically- where they actually come out from)

umbilical cords and belly buttons,

the implications of losing your belief in the tooth fairy when you have a young sister

who hasn't even lost a tooth yet.

Even Hitler, albeit a very sanitised version, got a look in.

I get to talk lots.

And as a bonus, it is really interesting stuff.

But it is really interesting stuff laden with responsibility as a parent.

This is our chance to teach our kids the real facts 

and to shape that moral compass that will make them better human-being-adult-thingies.

And I can do it all from the bra-free, slippered-feet comfort of my own home.

I can get my fix without having to bail up neighbours and strangers 

in the supermarket aisle or in checkout queue.

Now I am just going to enjoy these conversations until I need to start talking to my youngest,

my daughter, about boys and "women's things" in general.

That is, I hope, more than few year's away yet.

Before then, my boys will want to talk about (or more likely not want to talk about) girls and "men's things"

but that is sooooooo Mr Boozle's job.

I'll be changing out of my slippers, putting my bra on and heading out the door and leaving them to it.

Peripheral.

Growing up in Tasmania meant two things.

(Well, three...if you include the ever-lasting bitterness at being left off the map

by our own countryfolk at the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane)

It meant that you were very familiar with two-headed, incest jokes

and it meant that you were cold for a lot of the year.

Most people associate Tassie with being cold and wet.

It is generally a fair call. 

You can be there in summer and need jumpers and tracky daks

in the middle of your beach holiday.

I always prefer to go there for winter as you only need to pack for one season.

Mr Boozle and I sniggered 5 years ago when we were visiting the rellies and the radio announced that it was going to be "a scorcher" at 30 degrees.

But things are changing.

Yes, the weather is still unpredictable

and yes, it is still bloody freezing down there in winter

but it is a common misconception that it is a lush, wet state

and that it is always cool.

Early in the new year, I took the kids home to my folks' place

just outside of Coles Bay on the east coast of Tassie.

Driving from the airport to the coast,

you could see how dry it was.

Not yellow. Just brown.

Vibrant greens of the winery vineyards dotted the thirsty landscape.

After a couple of days,

I headed south to Hobart for a couple of child-free days.

It just so happened that it was the hottest day on record for Hobart

and it was the day that the major fires broke out.

(It also just so happened that I had no air conditioning in the car

and my ipod informed me that it was turning itself off as a survival measure)

In Hobart, it was hot.

And it was windy.

A strong, dry wind that made it hard to stand upright.

The sun was glowing that brilliant, stunning orange

that you know is a masquerade for the smoky atmosphere

which heralds fire somewhere not too far away.

Then it got surreal.

Turning on the news, I found out that the road leading down the peninsula to Coles Bay

was closed.

The Bicheno fire was sweeping south west and heading towards the northern end of the road.

My children were not in any danger but it was unsettling to know that I couldn't

physically get to them.

The winds would have to change direction and it would take some time to reach my parents' house

and they had good access to wide beaches and shallow water if need be.

I got messages from mainland friends who knew that we were going to Coles Bay

and had heard that the road was closed
and worried whether everything was OK.

City life carried on but the topics of conversation over coffee and at the markets had altered 

beyond discussing how hot it was to how awful the fires were.
Tourists were redirected towards areas not closed down.

I heard one man on the phone informing his son that their beach shack had gone up in flames.

When I headed back up the coast on Sunday, 

I was driving not knowing how long I would be waiting in a pull-over till the road into Coles Bay opened.

The drive was eerie.

As I drove further out of Hobart, the smoke got thicker

and we were passed by local fire trucks.

 A fire had broken out not far from the road further north

so there was new smoke to add to that drifting up from the huge southern fires.

Traffic was thin and I can't tell you how unnerving it is to drive into a gully road,

surrounded by a smokey haze,

with one half of your brain telling you that the road is open and that it is all good

while the other half is wondering where other cars are

and knowing that there was no way out until you reached the end of the gully.

Even when I finally hit the coast, the pervading smell was of smoke.

I had to drive a lot further up the coast before I could trade that smoky smell

for the refreshing smell of ocean salt.

It was short lived.

The road that I had driven along less than a week before was now a dry yellow landscape

with a dingy brown-grey haze,

broken only by the flashes of brilliant green of occasionally vines.

I didn't see any traffic moving in my direction.

A large convoy of cars passed me at one point

and I honestly wondered whether I should be turning around.

I felt like I was driving into a fire.

Views that I took for granted each time I passed them had been swallowed.

When I arrived at the road closure,

the official word was a one to five hour wait.

Luckily it was only a little over an hour before they let us through.

We drove past pine fence posts still burning 

and plastic road markers doubled over from their exposure to the heat.

When I got back to my folks' house,

it was unsettling to see that my mum had packed the kids' suitcases just in case.

There was never any sense of urgency or panic;

just a recognition that if it happened, they would need to go.

My folks were pragmatic enough to know that if they got themselves and the kids

(and hopefully some family photos) to safety, the house didn't matter,

unlike their elderly neighbours who didn't seem to appreciate that any fire that was heading up the hill
towards them would not be stopped.

So I found myself back at our annual beach holiday,

building sandcastles,

following sting rays in the kayak,

admiring the large flocks of birds, temporary visitors

until they could return to see what damage had been done to their homes.

But we were surrounded by ever shifting smoke.
The tourists had gone and the wind had dropped.
It was so quiet and so still.

We wondered when the power would go off again.
While our only road out was closed,

we checked to see if the police were still stationed at the corner to make sure
that no-one would attempt to use it.

We wondered if the town across the bay had lost their power

but really knew that it was due to the thick haze between us and them.

We assumed that the smoke coming over the nearby hills was due to back burning but checked the

website over and over just to be sure.

I am a city girl
with a home in a built up area away from the coast and the hills.

I consider myself safe from fire and flood.

(Our house is, however, built on one of Adelaide's two fault lines

but there has been no action there since 1954

so I am choosing to ignore the fact

that the my geologist-father-in-law reckons that it is time for another quake)

But it had never occurred to me to consider the fact that my parents

have retired to a small township on a peninsula of densely wooded national park

and that one day the winds may not be so benevolent

or that fire may not be so far away.

I was only on the periphery of those fires.

But it gave me an awareness that I didn't have before.

While I cried for the livestock and the wildlife that would have perished,

above all else, I found myself be thankful each day that no human lives had been lost.

Let me state the bloody obvious-
because it came to me with perfect clarity last month
somewhere on the drive down that gully...
No matter how much we get caught up in our possessions, our earthly goods,

when it comes to the crunch,
there is nothing that comes close to knowing that your children, your partner,
your friends and your loved ones are safe.