I Swear, We Brush Regularly. Promise.

Poor Boogie's teeth are a mess. Today we've taken him In for his third filling. As horrific as that sounds, he's due a fourth next week. He gets them done one at a time due to the horrific nature of making a three and a half year old sit still for the half hour each one takes, so it's spreading out over time. 

He got his first two a few months ago, convincing me that I was the worst mother ever and that he was doomed from early childhood, so since then he's been brutalised into brushing his teeth twice a day, and the odd flossing (a real skill when you're doing it to another person). It didn't help. 

Today's tooth went black over Christmas. BLACK. The dentist office didn't open till Monday, so I'm down to facebooking the receptionist and getting her to sneak into the office and make us an appointment that day (that actually happened).

Turns out in about 2 months the entire thing has rotted out. An X-ray of the tooth next door at the last appointment shows it was absolutely fine then.  An expected filling turned into a root canal, a quick snooze and blood all over the place. 

To destroy the dentists nerve before he'd even begun, Boogs felt the tickle of the anaesthetic needle in his gum, and tried to slap away the dentist like a fly, smacking the hand and needle across his face, tearing through his gum, a chunk of top lip and scratching across his nose. The dentist did a tremendous job of not letting Boogie know he was bleeding all over the place, and calmly convincing him to a) stop poking all his fingers into the bloody mess and b) don't slap the dentist while he's got a frikkin needle in your face!

The nurse and dentist finally manage to clean up all the blood, thankfully without him ever noticing it was there, an move on to the next stage of getting all the gunk out of the poor sore tooth. Further and further in they go, until they realise it's going to be more than an easy filling. I swear his tiny baby teeth are like a half centimetre square, and the dentist said they went 14mm into it. Gag. Although while I'm getting more and more grossed out, Boogie is getting more and more relaxed... And keeps turning his head to the side... And his blinks get longer... And longer... Wait a minute. 
Who falls asleep during a root canal?!?! What is going on? The frantic parent within starts to wonder if he's bleeding out somewhere, but it's soon apparent that he's just a bit bored of all this sitting still, so he's going to have a bit of a kip. I had to carefully position myself under the nurses left elbow in order to point his face in the right direction while he snored right through it. 

I don't understand how he manages to relax so much, at the same time as utterly shattering my nerve for the rest of the day. I've needed a drink ever since. Ive freaked out and made him brush all the non sore bits of mouth three times and when asked about his day, the most interesting thing that comes to his mind is that we saw an ambulance on the way home.

He just blows my mind. 

Stuff I've learnt in the past eight months (mostly stuff I've learnt this week be ause that's as far back as I can remember).

*Babies grow. Horrifically. Speedily. No matter how you malnourish them. No matter how their big brothers regularly squish them.

*Santa lets you down. 4 and a big bit appears to be the age at which you begin to notice the limitations of your life. Even though he got 'a hundred presents!' there's always something you can think of in the next 16 hours, that you might have liked. Not only is he meeting disappointment with his life, but he is also being taught how to be a chronic over consumer. Poor lamb.

*Gluten free is hard. But it kicks the screaming crying crapping arse of the alternative with your poor sick baby.

*regardless of how much of a Brady Bunch stereotype it is, being the middle baby is hard. All day long. Even when your three.

*Christmas for mummies is hell on earth. I'm convinced that the mummies who won't admit this are being all repressed in case they ruin the magic. I'm sure they wouldn't. Around here I AM the magic. And cook and events planner and MC and shopper and manager. They should have shelf available Valium in the Christmas aisles at Coles. Christmas shopping would rock.

*While your best blogging might occur at times of excitement, you're also too damn busy to do it when it all goes down at your house. Cross your fingers that with full time preprimary, part time 3yo kindy, an allergist at the local children's hospital and the magical fairy of housework I might actually come here once a month.

What else is there? Who knows? Can't think. Wasted on excess gluten free vegan mince pie, and post Christmas blues. Maybe I'll make more sense if I get a couple of hours sleep.

If you kick your brother, he will kick you.
If you pillow beat your brother, he will pillow beat you.
If you push your brother out of a tree, he will push you out of a tree.
If you push a coffee table at your brother, he will throw it back at you, breaking your thumb and leaving you in a cast up to your elbow.

You had to push the coffee table didn't you.

Campers of the future.

Things I learnt this weekend:

Further exposure will not teach Boogie not to fall off picnic tables.
Gravity is not that kid's friend. He falls off picnic tables every time he goes near one. His usual technique is to suddenly disappear between the chair and table, managing to simultaneously smack his face and spine, but he's open to faceplanting off the side and leaning backwards right off the seat.
4 times that kid came off. His forehead is purple and there's probably still a facemark in the dirt.

Kids will never remember that tent doorways start a few inches from the ground.
Every single time they go through the door, they will land on their faces. This doesn't stop them from going in and out seventeen billion times, but if you hold a small hand and help them through it will lead to them gasping in astonishment "I didn't go bonk Mummy!" like they didn't know it was possible.

You can't convince them that the neighboring campers aren't listening to poosic.
This is because even you know it's true. Unfortunately they will also tell said campers this the next morning. And cheer when their batteries go flat.

To be continued..

The boy who cried wasp

Turns out, the euros have friends. Many of them. The department of Agriculture has been as forthcoming as it can manage (one fella doing the whole city, trying to catch them in plastic cups) but considering we're all still alive so far, I'm not so worried.
I had a moment or two of fright when Boogie came up to me pleased as punch, holding a writhing live wasp between his index finger and thumb, grinning ear to ear, squealing "Mummy, lookit bug!" How he managed to catch a live wasp like that I'll never know. Look out Mr Miyagi. I myself only managed a horrified gurgle before stuttering to "put it down, it's a bitey bug!"
I'm too late! He flicks it away, bursts into tears and stuffs his suddenly dewasped fingers in his mouth. Whisked to the kitchen, pegs and washing falling from me like dust behind the RoadRunner, he's dumped on the bench and thoroughly inspected. Through the wailing and tears he hears my demands to know where he's bit, producing a tear-and-slime covered finger trembling with apparent horror. Whatever am I to do? Icepacks right? Surely. Although all the icepacks appear to be in the sandpit (along with everything else we value). Peas? Nope, ate them. A steak? Chips? Iceypoles! Just made for freezing little fingers till they feel like they'll drop off. The moment I whip the top off and shove it into his damaged paw he bursts out laughing. Tears, snot, trembling and laughter! The utter little bugger! If I had a stinger, I'd sting him my bloody self. I fell so damn hard for it!

It's bloody hard to appreciate signs of intelligence when they're used to screw with you.

Sadly they also get taken advantage of when only a few hours later you're telling him, for the twentieth or so time, that if he looks into the popcorn maker while it's going the popcorn will burn him. He cries, he shows you that same hand that caused all the trouble earlier. He pours water from his bottle all over it (learnt from an experience with the iron that will remain unmentioned). Mummy remains firm as the whimpers subside, and dances on the inside, convinced that Boogie recognises that I'll not be falling for any funny shenanigans. Gloats even. Mummy is in fact, setting herself up nicely for when the 'imaginary' burn turns into a great fat blister nearly as wide as the finger it's on.

Now. If you'll excuse me... I'll be restocking the first aid kit.

A snifflette

Thanks to the wonders of mobile technology, blogs can be written while lying half flopped out of a toddler's bed as you bodily prevent him wandering across the house to sleep in yours. I have one muscular little hand holding me by the ponytail, a long, heavy leg pinning down my side, Elmo wedged into my spine, and a growing need to pee, but all will be worth the joy if my own side of the bed in 10 minutes... Or 20 if a warm seeping feeling requires me to re-shower before bed.

I'm taking full advantage of a small germ that has knocked about all 5 of us. It's great, with absolutely no sensible parenting everyone was asleep by 630 and we got to watch a whole grown up movie. Not only that, but they've been too docile all day to get a decent tackle on, and have had to read books to each other all day. It's like having children from an Enid Blyton novel, without the questionable hallucinations enticing your kids to climb up trees. Not that mine would make it up one today, they'd lie about at the bottom thinking about it before wandering back to pass out on the couch, dropping iPhones mid-game onto their own faces.

I feel I should share the love and invite all the local kids over to collect and farm a few germs themselves, earning various mummies a day off, rather reminiscent of the chickenpox parties of a few decades ago. Surely we're not the only parents who value a mild sniffle so highly?

Hoping it's a two day virus,
MM

The only today you're ever going to have

Difficult days suck. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to say things you don't mean. You're going to hurt yourself, your relationships and the people you love. You're going to let down those who depend utterly on you, for their entire being.

And you're not going to get today again to do it right. You're not going to get a chance to scream less, to take a deep breath when you need to, to see your mistakes coming and bypass them. You can hope you'll learn from those mistakes, and really try to, but those mistakes arent going to be unmade (and lets be honest, your track record for learning from them doesn't look promising).

For future reference, however:
A 2 year old cannot understand the instruction "For two minutes, two godforsaken minutes, just pull your crap together, just chill out, ok?"
You don't like your crockery that much anyway.
The kids at playgroup had it coming.
Who gives a damn if the children EVER go to bed? If you're making them go to bed cos you're sick of them, then it's your problem. Go drink all of MrsNextDoor's booze instead.