The Real Real Housewives Of Melbourne

I watched with fascination the reality TV series The Real Housewives of Melbourne and was struck by how unrealistic their lives seem to be.
I started comparing their lives to mine. Most of them have kids. Kids that seem to either be adults or cared for by nannies constantly. My kids just have to put up with me caring for them.
They are always in full make up and their hair is done perfectly and they are always in fancy clothes. I am lucky if I brush my hair.
They are always eating at fancy restaurants and buying clothes and shoes at fancy boutiques. You would think that would use up all their money. I just shop at Kmart.
These women seem far too busy gossiping, shopping and having big parties. I gossip to my toddlers about what the wiggles are up to and take them for riveting trips to Coles and well the only parties I ever have include a bunch of kids. And chocolate cake.
Their homes look like something out of a magazine, despite having kids and pets. Have you seen the mess kids make?
They are always in heels painful shoes to walk in while shopping and doing, well, anything really. Have you tried spending a whole day in heels? it hurts my feet after the first hour.
After they have finished shopping, gossiping and drinking coffee at overpriced cafes how do they find the time to cook, clean and work? and if they have personal chefs and maids then again I ask how do they afford them?

So as you can see The Real Housewives of Melbourne, for the majority of us really isn't that real. I hereby give you 'The real real housewives of Melbourne'.
The show would start with me desperately drinking coffee and yelling at my kids to hurry up and finish breakfast to get ready for school. I would then make school lunches (but only because i always forget to make them the night before).
I would then take my older kids to school and then return home and listen to my toddlers ask for chocolate milk and sing along to The Wiggles.
I will play candy crush while having more coffee to give me energy to do everything I need to do.
I become distracted by an article I see online and spend hours reading the comments, amazed by the cruelness of some people and kindness of others.
I will check my emails (but only if I don't get distracted by candy crush).
I realise it is my kids nap time so change their nappies and put them into bed. I sigh with relief and sit down with another coffee and watch The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
I write a blog post, well attempt to write one while i get distracted by facebook, my toddlers or both.
I then realise its time for school to end, the kids come home and I tell them to put their school notices next to my computer. I may remember to read them.
I cook my kids dinner. At least one of them will not want to eat it.
My kids have their bath and clean up before bed.
My kids go to bed and I sit down to watch endless episodes of Grey's Anatomy and dream of McDreamy (Oh My God, did you see last weeks episode? I still haven't recovered from McDreamy's death)
Plus you know, a hundred other things I forgot to mention here because my toddlers are currently trying to jump all over me.

Plus, I think the housewives are missing out. Where do they find the time to drool over McDreamy?

Discipline....Or something like it

I was reading a book on discipline yesterday. The theories are great. It is just that my kids do not seem to behave better no matter what sort of discipline I dish out. Only one thing has worked with some of my kids and not every time. That is rewards bribes. Now I do know that bribes are not the best way to go. Bribes do not always work. Especially with my 3 year old. I will ask him to do something. He will refuse. I will then bribe him to do it. This just makes him cry until I either cry or give in. Not the best way to discipline a child.

There are many forms of discipline to try. Before kids I always thought it was as simple as teaching a child right from wrong. How wrong I was. My kids know right from wrong. They just choose not to always do the right thing. Over the years I have tried the following:

• Time out. This has never worked.
• Star charts. My kids really do not care about stars
• Yelling. This is useless. It has never worked for me.
• Smacking. This never works and makes me feel horrible
• sending my kids to their rooms. This just makes them throw stuff around
• A rewards system. I have never fully understood the difference between rewards and bribes
• threatening to leave wherever we are and go home right away. Unfortunately there are times when I need to do something and cannot leave so it is pointless threatening them.
• Taking toys away. My kids do not seem to care.

I know parents do not often admit to having trouble with discipline but after talking to some parents, I have found that I am not the only one who struggles with this and that is backed up by the number of books and TV shows dedicated solely to discipline.
To all the parents out there I wish you the best when it comes to disciplining your kids. I shall continue to fumble around the wide world of discipline until something works, well works most of the time anyway.

No Winners

I just watched a story on Sunday Night about a girl who was 'kidnapped' by her mother 21 years ago and her mother had recently been put in jail. I have watched many stories on kidnapping in the last few years and they all seemed the same, this one was different.

There was claim of abuse from the father towards his daughter as a baby. The father claimed the mother was mentally ill, having had a mentally ill mother myself I can tell you right now that this intelligent, articulate girl was not raised by someone who is mentally ill.
The mother ran from America with her daughter and they eventually ended up in Australia. I don't know about anyone else but I would only do something like that - leave all my friends and family - and go to an unknown country with my child if I believed my child was in real danger.

I see a mother who did what parents are supposed to do - protect and love their child. Not everyone has that opinion. I read the Sunday Night facebook page comments on this story and people were divided about if she did the right thing or not. What made me angry was not that people were against the mother, everyone has a right to their opinion, but rather what some of the people had said about the mother. Noone knows what really happened so really cannot judge her. Sam, the daughter who was kidnapped could also read these comments and no one should see people saying nasty things about their parent, especially not strangers.
I wish Sam and her mother and father the best of luck for the future. There are no winners here, regardless of what intentions the parents had.

A trip down memory lane

Today is my youngest child's second birthday. It has been quite a busy day, Bubba had presents to open this morning and I still had kids to drop off at school plus make their lunches because I always forget to do it the night before. After the two older kids were at school we went to a toy warehouse, I, silly as I am took my two youngest kids and $60 later walked out after I was talked into buying some toys for two very excited boys. Then we got home and I sat down with a coffee and watched the boys play. Then I started thinking about the past two years.

It has been quite a busy two years. Two years ago I had severe depression, which thanks to a wonderful therapist and some medication is all but gone now, of course I still have my bad days like everyone but it is so much better now then two years ago, or even a year ago. My dad was diagnosed with cancer and passed away in October last year, I went through a relationship break up and then there was the everyday things like kids fighting, mess to clean up and school lunches to make and homework to help with. It was easy for me to think about how bad my life was but then I remembered a few things:

• My kids are all relatively healthy and safe and mostly happy
• My kids and I have a roof over our heads and clothes to wear and food to eat
• Someone I know lost their 5 year old daughter a few years ago. I cannot imagine the pain she must feel on a regular basis
• We live in a wonderful country with good education and health services.

So, really my life is not that bad. Sure, things happen. Sad things, happy things, disappointing things, but you get through them. You survive and most importantly, with most things, you learn something from them.

Something amazing happened this morning

I am not a morning person. I never have been. As a child I would stay in bed until I was dragged out by my parents and forced to get dressed. I would not wake up properly until about 11am. So when I was at school I never recalled my morning classes. I used to love weekends and holidays because then I could sleep in as late as I wanted. As an adult I need at least 3 coffees before I could form a sentence and I generally live in my pyjamas all day or at least until lunch time. Then this morning, it all changed.

This morning I felt awake when I got out of bed.....which has never happened before. I drank a cup of coffee and happily got my older two kids ready for school. Then I got dressed. I did my hair and even put moisturizer on my face....I know can you believe it? So now I am dressed and fully awake which does not happen unless I have somewhere to be.....and today I do not. This has never happened before. I have had barely any coffee and I am just filled with energy. It is rather strange....I really hope this happens again but knowing my luck tomorrow will be a normal day and I will struggle to keep my eyes open until lunchtime.

Anxiety...It sucks!

I am an anxious person. I have been anxious for as long as I remember. I get anxious about all sorts of things from imagining someone has died if they are late to what people think of me to crowded places. I get anxious talking to other parents and teachers at my kids school.

I had to go into the school yesterday for parent - teacher interviews. I hate parent - teacher interviews. I am sure the teachers will bring up the fact that my kids don't always have fruit in their lunchbox, that sometimes my kids fight with each other, we don't always get homework done. So i spend the week leading up to parent - teacher interviews very anxious. I worry about what the teachers will say about my kids. Do they behave? do they have friends? are they keeping up with their school work? It is rather distressing. Then I go to the interviews and everything is fine. My kids have wonderful teachers and they are genuinely happy with my kids. My daughter loves reading and she is well ahead in her reading, my son tries his best at everything he does. The teachers are happy and I am happy and we all leave happy. Except that I don't.

My son's teacher will mention he needs more confidence. So I worry that he has low self - esteem and he will never be confident and he will turn to drugs when he is older (no, I do not know why I think that). My daughter's teacher says she needs to work on being descriptive in her writing. My daughter constantly tells me that she wants to be a writer when she grows up, so I worry that her dream will never happen and she will be miserable the rest of her life, despite the fact that she is only 7 years old.

I worry about myself too. I worry that I am a terrible writer, I worry that no one likes my blog, I worry that I don't get comments. I worry that I will never be an author, that I will never write for magazines or websites. I worry about my health.

So I worry a lot. Then I picked up a book called 'The little book of anxiety' by Kerri Sackville. I felt a lot better about myself. Not because Kerri is an anxious person, I really feel for her and hope her anxiety is getting better, but because I no longer feel alone. For many years I have felt that I am the only one who ever gets anxious. Kerri's book really resonates with me and I understand exactly where she is coming from. I still get anxious, I probably always will but Kerri has made me feel like I am not alone. I am truly grateful to her for her book.

A trip to the hospital

I was going to write about sleep. I had started writing a post about how little sleep I get and how my kids always come into my bed and keep me awake. Then last night I had to go to the emergency room at my local hospital.

My youngest son, who will be 2 in a few weeks stuck something in his ear. I heard an ear piercing scream, I went to see what had happened and he was holding his ear and a twig. I put 2 and 2 together. He ran off to his room after I attempted to look at his ear and spent the next 30 minutes holding his ear, with his thumb in his mouth and cried quietly to himself. I decided I should take him to emergency to make sure he was alright.

We arrived at our local hospital and as soon as we got to the triage nurse, he was his happy, normal self. The triage nurse told me even though he seemed happy now there still could be a problem with his ear, so we sat down to wait for the doctor. The waiting room was packed, it was a very busy night by the looks of things. There were a few parents there with their kids plus a couple of drunk guys who were singing (not very well) and nurses and doctors trying to get everyone seen in a reasonable amount of time.

As we sat and waited I was disgusted that the nurses were verbally abused by quite a few people because they felt they should be seen straight away and shouldn't be made to wait. Nurses and doctors in our hospitals are wonderful people who do the best they can. They do not deserve the abuse thrown at them.

We were finally called in and a doctor looked into bubba's ear. She saw a bug in their. Yes, a bug. I went in their because he stuck something in his ear and we find out there is a bug in there. My son did not want to have his ear looked at, or touched or any of that. He kept pushing the doctor away and told her to 'go away'.

The doctor told me we would have to get the bug out. They gave him something to relax him a little bit and a nurse held him in place while to doctor got the bug out. My poor child was screaming the whole time. I wanted to cry, I hated that he was distressed and there was nothing I could do about it.

The doctor got the bug out and we found out that it was a mozzie. Yes, my child had a mosquito in his ear. He calmed down considerably and we went home and he fell asleep perfectly happy. That was our adventure to the emergency room over.

Nurses and Doctors deserve out support and gratitude, they are life savers and angels and they work so hard to help people who are injured and ill. They deserve our gratitude and thanks.

CHRISTIANS AGAINST DINOSAURS: STOP TRYING TO MAKE CHOICES FOR MY CHILDREN

I recently came across an organisation called ‘Christians against Dinosaurs’. I thought it was a joke at first and I soon found out they were very serious. This group claim that paleontologists’ fake the fossils of dinosaurs by sculpting them, and that dinosaurs never existed and it is all a big hoax. They told me that people have been brainwashed since they were born to blindly accept that dinosaurs once roamed the earth. They say anyone who believes that dinosaurs existed are satanic atheists who are going to hell. Not the best way to get your point across.

Now, I have no problem with people having their own beliefs, we are all unique in this world, and I find learning about people’s beliefs very fascinating. However I do have a problem with this group or any group that does the same thing. You see, this group wants to ban dinosaurs completely. That is the bit I have a problem with. What gives these people the right to decide about other people’s children?

If these people do not want their children to have anything to do with dinosaurs then that is fine. They don’t need to give their children toy dinosaurs or let them watch cartoons with dinosaurs in them. Just don’t decide for other people.

I was told by one of the admins on their Facebook page that “allowing children to believe in dinosaurs is dangerous, they will believe in something that never existed and they will start to bite and stomp around like a dinosaur and they could put other children in danger”.  I do not agree with this, my son loves dinosaurs, he can’t get enough of them yet he is not violent in any way. That disproves that point right there.

Some of the members of the group claim dinosaurs never existed because they are not in the Bible. There are a lot of things that are not in the Bible. Elephants for example. Are they going to say that Elephants do not exist because they are not mentioned in the Bible? If they want to prove something they should have valid points.

Enough about them. My whole point is that I am sick to death of people trying to force their beliefs on other people. Especially when it comes to parenting. Everyone is doing the best they can; everyone has different values and traditions. Unless a child is in danger is it really anyone’s business what a parent does?

There have been numerous times over the last 8 years since I became a parent that I have walked away from a conversation or a news article feeling horrible. It started when I read an article by One Million Moms. They did not believe Grey’s Anatomy should be allowed on TV. I have a huge problem with this. 

1. It is my favorite show 

2. I love Dr. McDreamy  

3. Why should they be allowed to decide what people watch? If they don’t like it then do not watch it. It is that simple.

It is time to stop telling everyone how to live, embrace people’s beliefs and let people have their own minds.