A Life Less Duckey?

Okay, I admit it. I'm useless. I haven't posted here for ages. The shame is killing me. No, really, it is. I know some of you need a dose of GirlTalk every now and then, if for no other reason than to remind you that your life is so much more sane than it could be. Because, let's face it, my life is worse. It's full of cringe-factor moments, weirder-than-fiction moments, so-stupid-she-doesn't-deserve-to-live moments. I don't know how, I don't know why - it just is.

Which makes me wonder - is this my lot in life? Am I really going to go through life making blooper after laughable blooper, year in year out, until I drop dead with the exhaustion (or embarrassment) of it all?

When I was a kid I had this image of a grown-up me, poised and elegant and sophisticated, able to handle every type of situation with ease. All I had to do was get through my ugly-duckling teens and I'd metamorphose into this magnificent swan-like creature.

I'm still waiting.

I still have a startling ability to embarrass myself in public. I still feel awkward and clumsy in people-heavy situations. Bizarre things, I'm-sure-I'll-laugh-about-this-one-day things, still happen to me.

I keep reminding myself that ducklings get a bad rap. They're not really ugly - forget the swan comparison and all you see is cute fluff. Besides, ducks have plenty going for them. Like... um... well, they don't need fertility drugs to produce a whole family in one hit. And... (gosh, this is hard)... they're not too proud to quack for their food... Um... Their feathers are a versatile shade of brown that can be dressed up or down for any occasion? (Is it just me or am I going quackers?)... Ooh! Donald! He's a great duck! And Uncle Scrooge - now, there's a duck who can survive a recession. Ducks... what's good about them... um... paté?

Oh, hell, who am I kidding? Deep down inside, I'm still longing to be the swan I always imagined. But, you know what, duck or swan, it's kind-of irrelevant. We both swim in the same pond, see the same view, get our feet chomped by the same eel, and do the same feather-cleaning routine. It's how well we share the pond that's important. (Now I've just got to remind myself of that every time I look in the mirror, go to a party, take a customer complaint, reverse into a tree...)

Heroine Envy

I love movies. They're all about escapism and, let's face it, we all want to escape every now and then. (If you don't want to escape - ie you love everything about your sweet little life just the way it is - then you're an anomaly. You shouldn't be reading this. And BTW, don't even THINK about e-mailing me how sweet your life is, because I might be tempted to send hate mail.)

The best thing about seeing a movie is that I get to escape "me" for a while. No kids, no mortgage, no messy chaotic frenetic life, no panda eyes because I fell into bed without removing my mascara, no clothes that are four seasons out of date… When I immerse myself in a movie I'm able to be, for a fleeting couple of hours, a hot sexy mama with street savvy and an interesting life.

Oh, come on. You know it's true. Every movie you've loved featured a heroine who was young and slim and cool and had a don't-mess-with-me attitude (or grew one), right? And even if they were made-up to look ugly or fat or frumpy or old or whatever, they weren't even close to any of those things because Hollywood doesn't really do ugly/fat/frumpy/old. It wouldn't sell. It's not our dream.

And the heroes? (Speaking of dreams...) Mmm…

Where was I? Oh. Right. Bottom line: Hollywood produces what we (I use "we" in a broad sense) want to see. And we want to see hot-sexy-mama heroines with kick-arse attitude, not grumpy-frumpy-ugly old tarts with lemon-sucking skills. We want to see heart-stoppingly gorgeous men with you'll-only-cross-me-once determination, not wimpy weedy guys with inferiority complexes. Movies = escapism, remember?

Movie heroines always get their guy, and he's always hot. Movie heroines always save the day, or at least help save the day, and they don't get blown up in the attempt. They always have great shoes and even better one-liners. And they always end the movie looking like… well, heroines.

But movies aren't real. Sometimes it's easy to forget that and get caught up in the why-can't-I-be-more-like-her sulks - when what we should really be doing is celebrating. Because we're the real heroines and heroes. We're living it, doing it, solving it, feeling it. Every day. Bad hair, cranky mood, mismatched socks and all.

So if your made-for-the-big-screen life is looking a little less than perfect today - don't worry. You're in good company. And we my not be on a Jolie-type wage, but we're all doing star performances. (Pass the popcorn, someone!)

The Hazards Of Spring

It's spring and I'm grumpy. Why? Because it's warm and, much as I love warmth, it's more stifling than warm when one only has merino woollies on hand. See, all my short-sleeved tops and non-merino clothes are up in the loft.

The loft. (Theme-music from Jaws.) Enter who dares.

Well, I'm going to have to dare, because I don't fancy spending the next six months feeling like a sauna-on-feet. I did enough of that when I was pregnant.

The problem is - 'doing' the loft is easier said than done. First I have to make sure Mr Six isn't around (he'd try to follow me up there). Ditto for The Destroyer (at 16 months she's just discovered electric sockets and would no doubt jam a spoon into one while I was upstairs). Oh, and it has to be daylight - otherwise I'll wake one or other of them - and, trust me, I absolutely don't want to do that.

If by some strange twist of fate I do manage to find said opportunity, all I have to do is: a) find ladder; b) if no ladder, beg Beloved to return ladder from work; c) climb ladder, open manhole, turn on light; d) climb down ladder, open ladder to full height; e) re-climb ladder, enter loft; f) search for summer clothes bag, ensuring I duck to avoid roof and also stand only on framing (don't fancy falling through ceiling); g) shift other very important boxes of stored whatevers to access clothes bag; h) heave bag over to manhole, toss out of loft; i) check for signs of damage (the bag, not me); j) turn off light; k) climb down ladder, reassemble ladder at half-height; l) re-climb ladder, turn off light, close manhole; m) climb down ladder; n) remove ladder to garage without denting freshly-painted walls.

Sounds easy, right?

And it is - until you realise you've returned the ladder to the garage but left the loft light on. Or pushed a down-light out of the ceiling when you tripped up and landed on it. Or broken your kid's Christmas present. Or that family heirloom you've been saving.

But I've just thought of the perfect solution. No more loft-angst. I'll just buy new clothes. (Dreamy expression on face.) New. Clothes. For me, even. Wow. Imagine it.

(Now I've just got to work out how to hide the Visa bills for a few months…)

Conviction And Courage: Essential Writer-ly Traits

It's not easy being a writer on the road to publication. First, you have to work out how to craft a novel. Then you have to do it, and well enough that a publishing house will take it on alongside their established authors. You'll probably also have to find an agent who loves your work enough to represent you. Which means you have to do some serious research into agents and editors and the querying/submitting processes. And you have to do all this in your own time.
The quandary: writing a debut novel takes hundreds - no, thousands - of hours. You really need to give up your day job to focus on it. But you can't afford to give up your day job because until you're published you don't get paid. Sadly, even writers need to eat.

Worse, as you journey this rocky road to publication you constantly encounter failure and more rejections. I explore this further in  "Conviction and Courage - Essential Writer-ly Traits", over on my For Writers page.

QuakeZone

On Saturday 4th September 2010, at 4.36am, my partner and I woke to the biggest earthquake we've ever experienced. The pre-quake rumble was terrifying. Freight-train-through-your-lounge volume. Then the quake hit. Apparently it lasted forty seconds. To both of us it felt much, much longer. How to get to the kids in time? How to calm their terror, keep them safe? How to stay on our feet until we reached them?

Magnitude: 7.1 on the Richter scale. Depth: 10km (that's shallow!). Epicentre: 40km west of Christchurch. Effect on our beautiful city: devastation.

Miraculously, no lives were lost; the earthquake struck when Christchurch streets were at their quietest. The clean-up task will take months - possibly years. Many people have lost their homes, many have lost their livelihoods. But we still have each other. Thank God.

On TV, in the newspapers and online, new images and stories are emerging daily of the destruction that's been wreaked in a mere forty seconds. I'm struggling to comprehend it all. Twisted shop frontages, piles of rubble, torn buildings, silt and water where neither should be... it's unbelievable.  And the most unbelievable thing of all: our home is unscathed. A couple of breakages, a few doors that don't want to close... but seriously, it's so minimal it's almost embarrassing. How did this happen? How did our modest 1936 wooden house remain intact?

Five days on and the cracks are beginning to show. In me, not the house. To say I'm feeling fractious is an understatement. My nerves are completely shot! For how long will these freaking after-shocks assault us? For how long will any faint rumble have me freezing, then grabbing the kids and diving for doorjams?

You'll have to imagine the nervous responses - but for some idea of the way our week has gone in QuakeZone - check out www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz. (Thanks to Gracie for passing it on.) This simulation says it all.

Self-Cleaning Hair, Anyone?

I once heard that if you don't wash your hair it becomes self-cleaning in about four-to-six weeks. It sounded pretty good to me. Maybe I should try it some time.

The perfect opportunity arose when my partner and I embarked on a year's travel. Nobody would know me while my hair was at the manky stage. Perfect! We flew in to Malaysia and the experiment began. No more shampoo. Water only.

It wasn't easy. Hell, no. I'm a daily hair-washer. I went through Itchy-Scalp Syndrome and Lank-Hair Syndrome. Four weeks passed. We crossed the border into Thailand and my hair was in such a state it's a miracle they let me in. Clearly my hair was going to take six weeks. I braced myself for Heinous Fly-Trap Syndrome and What's-That-Smell Syndrome. Think of the end goal, I told myself, think of the end goal.

Then we met Jo, an Aussie hairdresser who thought it took a bit longer. A couple of months, maybe. Oh God. Two months? I hoped she was wrong. But after seven weeks I knew she was right, dammit. We parted ways, and I wondered if my hair had something to do with it. I mean, Jo's a professional. I bet she wanted to hold me down and wash my hair by force.

Eight weeks, and we crossed into Vietnam. Thank God nobody knew me. And was it just me or was my partner more distant with me these days? We met up with Aussie Jo again and she couldn't believe it - a) that my hair still wasn't self-cleaning, and b) that I still hadn't washed it. It'll work soon, she assured me. Maybe it's, like, three months instead of two?

I didn't want to give up. Not when I was so close. So I tried to hide my hideous mop beneath my cap and re-set my goalposts to twelve weeks.

At the twelve-week mark we flew to Scotland. That's when Scared-To-Be-Seen-In-Public Syndrome hit. We were staying with family, visiting friends. These people knew me and loved me and couldn't hide their distaste. I felt like a freak.

At thirteen weeks I gave up. I washed my hair. It took three washes before my hair even felt like hair. It took a week before I felt normal. My experiment failed.

But what if it would've only taken another few days, another week? I came so very, very close. And I'll never know because I gave up. I still can't believe I put up with smelly, ugly, disgusting hair for thirteen weeks. Would you?

Non-writers must struggle to comprehend why writers keep trying for that pot of publication gold. It's crazy, but it's a bit like my hair experiment. I know the sensible thing would be to give up - but what if I'm really really close and I just don't know it? What if I only have to get through one more week of manky hair? What if?

My Lifeline With Sanity

On the odd occasion - you know, like 90% of the time - when things seem as if they're going from bad to worse, or from worse to desperate, it's good to know I've got friends who'll help get me through.

Take this week, for example. It wasn't enough that my Beloved was working out of town. Little Miss 13-month-old (aka The Destroyer) decided this was a good week to come down with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease.

No, our ancestry does not include any cloven-hooved beasts. (Though I do have a devilish streak - does that count?)

Who thought of the name for this virus? What were they thinking? Were they thinking? It's bad enough that we have to quarantine The Destroyer for over a week. (Ye Gods!) But suddenly she's got an illness that, by the sounds of it, will result in her baa-ing or moo-ing like a farmyard animal.

Which is quite funny, actually, because this week she developed a serious interest in the different sounds animals make. So at least two hours of every quarantine day has involved her repeatedly thrusting a Hand-Foot-and-Mouth-saliva'd book at me so I could point to pictures and make animal noises.

I studied my butt off, all through high school and university and a post-graduate qualification - for what? So I could make cute animal noises a couple of hundred times a day, that's what!

Who says education is an investment for the future?!!

My saving grace this week has been the daily school drop-off and pick-up routine. I probably would've gone mad(der) if I hadn't been able to laugh about it with other mums who've been-there-done-that with the illnesses, quarantine nightmares and animal noises. These friends have been my lifeline with sanity. You know who you are, girls! Thanks a million!

Tropical Paradise Holiday

So off we went. Our first tropical holiday in years. Our first ever as a family of four.

We coped with the 5am start. We mostly coped with the first six hours of our seven-and-a-half hour journey, thanks to drugs (for the baby, not us), an in-flight bassinette, and individual in-flight screens which Master Six loved.

Then the baby woke.

If you're a parent, imagine your child at their very worst. Then imagine holding them in your lap while they do it. For an hour, maybe more.

Okay, we won't talk about that.

Our destination was indeed a tropical paradise, with fancy-wancy five-star hotel and super-friendly staff. None of which made any difference when Baby decided she wouldn't sleep anywhere except her own cot back in Christchurch.

We soothed her. We ignored her. We tried feeding her up. We fed her so much she should've doubled her body weight. She should've slept like a… well, a baby.

She didn't. She woke every two hours, all night. EVERY night. For TEN NIGHTS. We ignored her some more. We decided the neighbours would kill her (or us). We ssshed her until we couldn't dredge up another bloody sssh.

Sleep deprivation is a horrible thing. It takes away the sparkle in your eyes, the glow in your skin and, ultimately, your will to live.

Master Six had a fantastic holiday. Why? Because, God knows how, he slept through our nightly hell, woke refreshed each morning and had a great time at Kids' Club.

Myself and my beloved? We paid somewhere in excess of $NZ6000 to lose the will to live. Then flew back without the luxury of baby bassinette. (It went to some tiny days-old scrap of baby who couldn't even roll, let alone create havoc.) We arrived home with bad necks, bad backs, bad moods and a baby who had decided life worked pretty well at two-hour intervals.

The moral of the story: just don't bother. Wait until your kids are five. Better still, make them save for their own damn holiday. In the interim, buy a bottle of non-duty-free, set up a deckchair in the lounge, and drink yourself silly so you don't feel the chill when you strip down to your swimwear.

The Lure Of A Holiday...

We could all do with a holiday; I know that. But I needed one urgently. I started obsessing about it. If I didn't get a holiday I'd… what? Throw tantrums? (already doing that) Go mad? (already there) Turn axe-murderess? (hmm, now, there's a thought…)

Would it be murder or a holiday? I took the holiday option and booked flights quickly, before my partner or bank manager could disagree. Hell, I didn't want to be responsible for any wayward axes.

Besides, I'd seen the magic words. CHEAP AIRFARES. I couldn't resist. It sounded too good to be true. Which - I know, I know - usually means it is… A minor detail I forgot in the heat of the moment.

(In my defence, it was the lure of the tropical holiday, with added enticements of Kids Club and babysitting services, that did it. I was desperate. You know I was. Remember my blog about our abortive Christmas camping holiday?...)

So I've learned a few lessons.

First Lesson: book a PACKAGE deal. Accommodation as well as flights. Cheap flights are great, but only if you have somewhere to stay when you get there.

Second Lesson: once you've paid for your holiday, expect an unexpected, unavoidable expense. A LARGE unexpected, unavoidable expense. That way you won't assume the cosmos hates you or it's karma for being an axe murderer in a past life or the government's conspiring to bankrupt you. You'll know it was just part of the plan.

Third Lesson: if you want a no-risk holiday, don't take one. The week you're due to leave there WILL be a nasty international plane crash, there WILL be a tsunami warning in your destination, and there WILL be a typhoid outbreak, too.

Fourth Lesson: if you really want a holiday that leaves you relaxed and rejuvenated, DON'T TAKE THE KIDS. Why? Read my next post to find out!

Maggie's Easy-Peasy Recipes Launched!

I like my wine. Well, living in New Zealand as I do, it's almost a sin NOT to like my wine. Big, buttery chardonnays… crisp, tastebud-awakening savvies… thumping big reds… liquid nectar late-harvests… yum, yum, yum!!!

And with both my sister and my mother allergic to alcohol - yes! Imagine! - I count myself lucky on the wine front.  Of course, thanks to pregnancy and breastfeeding, it's been quite a while since I've been able to enjoy any wine at all…

Which is why I've become a foodie instead. With food, there are no nasty hangovers, no telltale wine spills on the carpet, no OTT liquor store bills. Food is the new wine!

The great thing about food is that you get to enjoy the preparation and the final product. I know, I know, you hate cooking. But restaurant-delicious doesn't have to mean chef-difficult, nor does it have to mean mortgage-expensive. Truly. Let me prove it to you.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to share with you a few of my favourite easy-peasy recipes. I can't promise they'll appeal to everyone's palate every time, but I can promise they won't break the bank.

Click here for my first shared meal, and bon appetit!

Presidents And Assholes!

We had some friends around for a friendly (read "hellish competitive") game of cards in the weekend, and I learned how to play Presidents and Assholes. (I have no idea how I missed learning it until now. I must have been very, very busy… writing, of course… )

Now, as soon as you hear the name you know it's gonna be a goodie. And boy, is it a goodie! (Mostly because I became the President in the very first round! And managed to retain that lofty position for so many rounds the rest of the table started muttering about beginner's luck gone mad.)

The gist of the game is that you're trying to get rid of your cards before everyone else. The complicating factor is that if you're the President (ie you won the last round) you get to offload your two worst cards to the Asshole at the start of the round, and the Asshole (who lost the last round) has to give you their two best cards. (Want more details? Google it and you'll find the full set of rules.)

Why do I mention all this? Well, Presidents and Assholes teaches several important life lessons which it never hurts to be reminded of:
1  It's handy to have an asshole in your life.
2  Once you're the President, life gets a lot easier - and if you get ousted it's usually through your own stupidity.
3  Never trust your right-hand man.
4  Never think of the game as a game - it's cut-throat, it's dog-eat-dog, and every player is in it to win.
5  So much in life is luck - but you can still completely screw things up even when you've got it good.

And to my card-shark buddies: when's the next challenge? Bring it on!

Think You're In Control?

Think again. We all have days that remind us we're not Queen of the chessboard. Days when we feel like we've been backed into a corner, we're about to be taken off the board, and we don't know quite how it happened.

Take Wednesday, for example. My "post-the-Clendon-entry" day. I'm not likely to forget it any time soon. Here's how it went:
* 1.30am (Tuesday night) - got to bed after finishing the novel.
* 3.00am - woken by baby for a feed.
* 6.30am - woken by baby again. Gave up, got up. Sleep is optional, right?
* 8.30am - did the school run. No parking space. Gnashed teeth, grew horns. Still no parking space. Evicted tearful first-born from car to make own way into school. Guilty Mother syndrome.
* 9.30am - began formatting manuscript. Discovered weird paragraph spacing issue. Attempted to solve. Failed. E-mailed Clendon coordinator. Decided weird PS cute. Finished formatting.
* 11.00am - received e-mail from Clendon coordinator. Stop, she said. Go back to the start, she said. It must have this first little step, she said. Gnashed teeth, grew horns.
* 11.30am - reformatted entire manuscript. Baby in search-and-destroy mode.
* 12.30pm - began printing manuscript. Got to page eight (of 318). Out of toner. OUT OF FREAKING TONER????? Are you KIDDING me??????? Shook toner. Vigorously. Ditto printer. Gnashed teeth, grew horns. Still no toner. Braved midday heat and bought more blasted toner.
* 1.30pm - completed printing.
* 2.00pm - braved heatwave once more to buy packaging for manuscript.
* 2.45pm -collected first-born from school. Grumpy kids. Grumpy mother.
* 5.00pm - partner home. Hooray! Shot out in peak-hour traffic to courier. Lost mailing address. Gnashed teeth, grew horns. Miracle: found mailing address. Addressed package, sealed package. Discovered entry form OUTSIDE package. Decided I was OVER today. Gnashed teeth, grew horns, became screaming, wailing, hissy-fit monster. Beautiful, young, unruffled, disbelieving rep blinked at me, slapped packing slip on package, stuffed entry form inside. Oh. Right. Silly me.

Please tell me I'm not the only one to have days like this!

Yummy Mummies Take A Hike!

I blame the camping. Before camping I was functional. BC I was coping with life. BC I was zen mother and loving it. (Okay, maybe not the zen bit.)

And now? Now it ain't pretty. Yummy Mummy? Hardly. Scrummy Mummy? Not at my place. Instead we have a Real Mummy scale, modelled on the richter scale with slightly less catastrophic results. And I can tell you right now that "scrummy" and "yummy" don't feature (except in the Mummy's-gorging-herself-on-food-again sense).

Here it is. The Real Mummy scale:

1  Dummy Mummy - Nappy brain has taken over. Thinking hurts. Serious thinking brings on anxiety attacks. Even a trip to the supermarket represents a threat to your (barely-firing) neurons.
2  Glummy Mummy - It's too late to shove the kid back in, demand a refund, or get an exchange card. This is your lot. Sleepless nights, sick on your shoulder, sex deprivation (worse, you're happy with that) and a life that doesn't feel like your own. Forever. You've got every damn right to feel sad. Wallow in it, Girlfriend.
3  Crummy Mummy - You've decided you suck as a mum. You're grumpy, you're tired, you still haven't worked out what your baby wants, the washing's been on the line since last Friday, and you haven't vacuumed in a month. It's baked beans for tea again, and don't you think you should get back to work and bring in some money?
4  Numb-y Mummy - It's been so long since you had a full night's sleep you've forgotten what it feels like. In fact, feeling is an optional extra that just doesn't fit into your life right now. You're so tired you can't even rouse the energy to cry.
5  Tummy Mummy - No matter how hard you try for the Yummy Mummy I'm- already-back-in-skinny-jeans image, you've got a spare tyre - no, a flat spare tyre - hanging off your waist. Liposuction sounds good, only it costs way too much and it won't shrink your saggy baggy skin. This isn't what you signed up for, this doesn't feel like your body, and you wish it would all just go away.
6  Rummy Mummy - Okay, so it ain't good for the quality of your breastmilk, but it sure helps calm the (frayed) nerves. It also helps you forget about your tummy (see 5 above) for a short time.
7  Hummy Mummy - It's official: things are really bad. Random tuneless humming indicates a) your brain-cells have completely broken down (what song are you humming, anyway?) and b) your sanity is in serious doubt. Maybe it's time to take a wee break. A week or two on a deserted beach with a good book, plenty of your favourite drink, and no hint of kids should do it.

Sound familiar?

Hints For Campers With Kids

1   DON'T be casual about departure time. Packing ALWAYS expands to take up all available time + twenty percent.
2   DON'T assume thick black clouds on horizon won't come your way. They will. Thick black clouds = rain. Rain = misery for five-year-old over-excited campers.
3   DON'T assume swiftly-moving thick black clouds will bypass campsite. They won't. They'll just arrive fast. Swiftly-moving thick black clouds = wind + rain. Wind + rain = bad news if erecting tent and minding over-excited five-year-old and fretful baby simultaneously.
4   DON'T take mobile phone with only one blip of battery left. It won't last the day, let alone the trip.
5   DON'T believe you'll survive without your mobile phone. You won't. You're addicted and needy, just like all those pesky Generation whatever-they-are's.
6   DON'T use five-year-old son's new Transformer mug as handy vessel to transport hot water in. So what if it's handy? It's a TRANSFORMER mug = magnet to son.
7   DON'T forget location of nearest cold water supply. IF son burns himself you need readily available cold water. Especially if it's your fault (see 6 above).
8   DON'T assume you'll sleep longer than 40 minutes in one stretch during night; not if you have six-month-old baby with you, anyway.
9   DON'T believe (even for a moment) that baby needs to adjust to your life. Forget  articles and expert opinions. Baby doesn't need, or want, to go camping. Baby doesn't need, or want, to sleep in portacot or tent, to play on hard ground, to amuse herself, to enjoy outdoors or experience weather extremes. Baby doesn't enjoy sand or grass. Baby doesn't enjoy camping. Get it?
10  DON'T expect five-year-old son to eat anything cooked over camping stove. Five-year-old son doesn't like change. He doesn't like charred, or even mildly-blackened, potatoes or sausages. He doesn't like anything that looks different. He doesn't want to expand his food repertoire. He doesn't intend to be less fussy just because he's camping. Son would rather starve.
11  DON'T decide starvation is fitting punishment for son. Son disagrees. And soon, when son's blood-sugar levels get low enough, you will observe carnage and also disagree.
12  DON'T conclude camping is bad idea. Kids will look back on these days with fondness. You will recall sleep deprivation and hard work. Kids will recall endless summer days of trampolining, cycling and playing with friends, long evenings spent playing instead of sleeping, long nights feeling cosy in tent as wind whipped through trees outside.

Oh, the joys of camping!