For a few years now, I have been rallying people who are clever with their hands to sew some love into Softies for Mirabel. Gorgeous Pip Lincolne of Meet Me At Mikes first made me aware of this initiative, and I was taken.

Last  year, one of my big-hearted practice members encouraged the sewing teacher at her school to get the kids to make some softies as part of their assessment. I imagine the project may have been met with initial trepidation: would the kids sew then donate the toys? Would they sew them well enough to be given to these young children? Would the Mirabel kids even want the toys?

Well they did and they did and then they did.

Softies for Mirabel is now it its tenth year, and if you have any sewing nous, then I encourage you to join. Or if you are sartiorially challenged like me, then perhaps you can become the food and bevvy biatch, keeping your crafty friends fed and watered, and then have the priv of posting the toys down to Mirabel.

But that is not what this blog is about.

This blog is about Flopsy.

Because, you see, as the children have become part of the Sofites for Mirabel drive, Mirabel has made softies of them.

Since becoming patrons for the kids who are often without, these Sunshine Coast teens have somehow changed. They now no longer care about keeping the efforts of their labour for themselves: they donate them freely and with all of their hears. They now no longer whinge about sewing class, saying things like, “When are we ever going to use this?” or “I can’t believe you have to get the thread onto the bobbin yourself”* They now run to class, expectant and enthusiastic about knowing precisely where they will use this: to heal the hearts of those who need it most.

This week my big-hearted friend delivered a bag of Easter softies, and before I sent them off, I had a look at the creations. Usually there are some with punter’s eyes** and uneven ears. Limbs askew and mouths agape. I got ready to have a laugh at the messy, imperfect cuteness of them all.

I dug in to the bag of cuddles, and out came Flopsy.

Flopsy

Can you see her?

REALLY see her?

She’s like a young Velveteen Rabbit, with wonky eyes and fur loved half off, except she is possibly even more wonderous. She has been made with pure love. The sign reads:

HI. My name is Flopsy. I’m here to bring you happiness and love. In my apron pocket there is a spell for happiness. I was made with TLC by Sasha. I love you forever. Flopsy

And yes, inside her pouch there is a spell.

Get a handful of bad memories and a pinch of sadness. Mix it together with some love and boil it. Lots of love.

Oh my heart. That spell. It really is the answer.

I don’t know if Mirabel will be able to pass Flopsy on with her label intact. I don’t even know if Flopsy will go to a child who can read. But in this age of disrespectful ‘youths’ and online drama and drug use and horror, the simple joy of Flopsy gives me hope.

Flopsy tells me that it will all be okay.

For if there exists a teenager who can conceive and then create a bunny such as her, if there exists a kid who cares enough to go far beyond the desire for a good grade in sewing to bring joy to another, if there exists a young person who can share such beauty with purity and love, then I know that we are all going to be okay.

Thanks Flopsy.

The world is safe in your paws, and the magic of your apron.

*Maybe that was me

**One each way

…From The Ashers

A brave kid in her Brave shirt

Some people measure time by the seasons, others by the phases of the moon. Some tick off numbered squares on a glossy calendar from The Courier Mail, or on the flick of an iPhone screen. I measure it by the cycle of the anaemic vampire child.

The new blood brings a thrilling energy of high-pitched hysterical laughter and cartwheels into somersaults into squealing Whip Nae Nae dance-offs. Those fresh red cells stretch the length of our days, where I can ignore the trauma of the tick tick tick, and we can listen to the rhythm of our bodies of when we wish to eat, sleep or sing, rather than clock watching to avoid fun stepping off its narrow tightrope into the abyss of hyper-fatigue.

The middle blood is just that. It’s the average that most people take for granted and that I sometimes crave like chocolate. It’s the time when the kid is like all the other kids, in the ups and downs of life and living. It’s made up of moments that are mundane and magical, boring and beautiful, and nothing means any more or any less than what it is in the moment. If she scrapes her knee skateboarding, I don’t rush to stop the bleeding like a loon, imagining that each lost drop is dragging us, minute by minute, closer to a transfusion. If she cries over an overcooked egg that just isn’t dippy enough, I know it’s because she is being bratty, not that she just can’t cope with one.more.thing.

Then the middle makes way for the end, and the weights start to settle on my shoulders. I study changes in the cadence of her breath like a crow at the beach-bins waiting for a stray prawn shell. I stare at the whites of her eyes being stained yellow with the bilirubin, drop by drop. I look for the underlying pallor in her cheeks, as gold replaces pink. I pull down her eyelids and watch, as the red fades like Nan’s curtains, whilst the oxygen skitters away to more important parts of her body.

The end part knows his stay is brief but impactful, so he makes his mark on the furrow of my brow, the skin of my face, the shadows in my collarbones and the pigment of my hair. He sucks away my vivacity as I try to wrest it back, night by night by night. He tries to leave as big an imprint as he can, perhaps to provide balance or understanding or compassion or expansion (which is what I say on my lighter days), or perhaps he’s just a prick.

Eventually the eventual happens and we start the process of transfusing. I make calls and wait for replies. We get blood taken to be tested and matched and mixed for her veins. We wait for a bed and then we wait for a successful puncture and we wait for the delivery of the donated ruby red cells. Then we watch and watch and watch like the 2am bourbon-fuelled blokes at the Rolling Rock, looking for any perceptible signs of things awry, ready and waiting to pounce.

After a time there is no need for pouncing. No more checking. No more waiting.

The blood flows and flows until the bags are deflated and her body is plump with the excess fluid, and the pressing on my shoulders and my mind grows wings or dissolves or something, and I won’t give Pyruvate Kinase Deficiency another thought for at least a month.

As the doors of the hospital puff shut behind us, we step into the fecund, humid air of freedom and Sunshine Coast sugarcane, leaving our baggage behind.

And we start our whirling dance of life. Like dervishes.

With abandonment. And redemption.

DONE

…From The Ashers

If you would like to help a kid like Coco, and a Mum like me, please consider giving the gift of blood.

Call http://www.donateblood.com.au on 131495 to book an appointment.

Thanks!

So today we went to the Queensland University bookshop.

Don’t ask. But yes, we are booknerds. And Uni bookshops are the best, aren’t they? All that promise. All that brain expanding material. All that DATA. Especially when you are no longer a Uni student, so there is no danger of anyone asking you a question from any of the tomes. There’s a tingly excitement that you can taste like metal on a filling at the back of your mouth. They make you zing.

I was slowly falling in love with an anatomy colouring book- adult colouring books are the new black right now, you know- laguidly stroking the pages and imagining soothing long strokes of colour along the Vastus Medialis, or perhaps bright little pops of colour for the eight different carpal bones (Yes I can still name them, but I do need the rude mnemonic to recall if the Triquetrum is actually next to the Lunate or distal to it. Sigh: Some things never change.)

I was awoken from my daydream by the kids who were mucking around with syringes.

WHAT THE?

I turned around to see Evil Genius One prepping to inject EG2 with some kind of red substance. “Here you go, Cokes”, he was saying in his best bedside manner, “just a little blood to top you up.”

I virtually lept over the mini skeleton in my path, screaming “Noooooo” in slow motion, like they do in all the good movies. I  say ‘virtually’ because I didn’t actually leap over the midget skeleton, more like, lept into it.

Oh well. As it turns out, micro-plasi-bones don’t do so well with leaping and crushing from 55kg women. (Osteoporosis?)

I blustered about, recovering some of the fractures, stuffing vertebral arteries back into their foramen, and attempting to put the spine back in line (I am a chiropractor after all, but fuck me if thoracics don’t just all look alike). I regained my composure as best as I could whilst blustering and promising to pay for it all. “No, no, I insist, I’ll buy the skeleton”, I said, all recalcitrant and embarrassed. “No, it’s fine”, said the lovely helper, “this kind of thing happens all the time.” Which of course it does not. Not even once, I’d suggest, by how quickly they tried to reassure me out of the shop sanctuary.

In the melee I had forgotten what had caused the original kerfuffle, and I looked over to see Evil Genius Two proffering the soft flesh of her forearm, and Evil Genius One attempting to administer blood. “What are you doing?” I screamed. “Stop it, stop that now, you don’t even know what blood type that is.”

The Geniuses looked up, their mouths: silent zeroes.

And of course they weren’t holding syringes with blood. Of course they didn’t find such things hanging about in Uni bookstores. They had pens. Red pens. Fashioned to look like needles. With red ink to resemble blood. For a lark. Because: Uni. (Cerebral Comedy.)

“oh”, I said. As small as I could.

“Can we have them?” asked the Geniuses in perfect unison, “they’re ace.”

“Of course, of course you can”, I simpered, “grab them and let’s go.”

They did, and we almost did.

But not before one last question. From Evil Genius One.

“Can we also have Gon-or-he-a?”

I spun on my heel. “What?” Even in my altered state, and even with his pronunciation less than perfect, I knew he was asking if he could contract a sexually transmitted disease… And a crook, thick, weepy one at that. “What did you say?”  I turned to see him holding up a weirdly shaped plush toy.

My brain started to crease and fold in on itself. The sulci tried to become gyri, and vice versa. Nothing was quite right. And then some neurones from study-nights long since past, fired up, and I realised my first-born was holding up a Gonorrhoea soft toy. Nice one, Uni bookshop, nice one. And touche. I imagine there would have been a time in my life that I would have considered fluffy models of diseases de rigeur. But not now. Not today. Not with minors.

“No you can’t have Gonorrhoea,” I said, “at least not yet.” (I might not have said that part out loud)

He replaced the model, bereft. And I can understand. What mother doesn’t allow her pre-teen to cuddle up to a Gonorrhoea molecule at night?

“Well can we at least have this red blood cell?” asked the smallest Evil Genius? “it might give me goodluck next transfusion.” They looked up at me, eyes like ponds, willing me to allow them this faintly macabre teddy.

“Fine,” I said, wanting to appease and exit, “get the blood cell.”

So they did.

“I’m going to call her Cutie Reddy,” said EG2 “because she’s cute, and she’s red.” (As you can see, I don’t call them geniuses for nothing). They both smiled. Apparently Cutie Reddy was a good name.

I remember thinking as we drove off in the car, that all in all, that this wasn’t too bad. Because: science. I mean, a red blood cell toy, it is kinda cute after all. Isn’t it?

Moments later, my reverie was broken by one of the geniuses chanting in a voice that was a cross between Chucky and that creepy REDRUM kid from The Shining: “Two sets of friends must die together.”

I did not look in the rear-view mirror.

I did not ask who said that (for of course I knew it would be blamed on the eryrthrocyte).

I kept my eyes fixed forward. And I drove and I drove, and I tried not to think. For, in the last eleven years I have learned one thing: If you don’t want to know, then Just.Don’t.Ask.

Here she is. Cute? And red.
…And a little evil, it seems…

…From The Ashers

Transfusion Day: Before

In the lead up to Transfusion Day, things get a little tetchy around these parts. People might cry if they don’t get their hot chocolate in their favourite Bunnykins cup, or if the hot chocolate is too hot, too cold, too milky, too chocolatey, stirred too much, not stirred enough, or it is served without a spoon (Bunnykins of course). I can’t even begin to imagine what would happen if it was revealed that it was made with Oat Milk. So the adults do the best we can to make things smooth and easy and not get cross with her for feeling overwhelmed, because we know that she is exhausted.

As are we.

In the lead up to Transfusion Day, I get a little tetchy too. I don’t care much for frivolous conversations, and unless I’m at work, my mind finds a way to wander up and down the long white clickety-click lino corridors of the Children’s Ward, hovering over the stifling walls of the treatment room, where the child who will always be my baby will soon have her golden skin pierced and pierced and pierced until the cool smooth of the needle can slide along the length of a vein.

And so we wait.

We wait until we can avoid it no longer, and we book in for Transfusion Day.

And then something strange happens.

The child who might burst into tears, crying, “Why did Daddy put the salt so far away?” even when it’s directly in front of her, becomes a child transformed. She gives up a sample of blood for crossmatching, and it’s as if we are in Medieval times, and the blood-letting creates a space in her circulation to be filled with vitality. The child who would whimper if she was asked to pick up her socks, will put socks on her hands, in an attempt to do a no-hands cartwheel. She will run and play and laugh and craft. The bursts of energy are short-lived, and her chest will rise and fall in a way that my Motherduck instincts will watch like LASER, but at least there are bursts. She is preparing for her Coco-ness to return.

Transfusion Day: After

And so we wait.

We wait with a nervous energy that tries to escape and bubble out of our pores.

She is nervous about getting the canula in, and yet equally excited to open the Glitzy Globes I’ve bought her to play with to pass the long long day, I am nervous about a million different things that will never eventuate, and yet equally excited to have essence of my daughter back, with all of the potential and promise of an eight year old.

So there is a balance.

As always there is at times of transformation.

In the lead up to Transformation Day we are jangly and raw and open, with our hearts exposed to the elements. And yet somehow we are closer to something within us, than we are at any other time: our truth or our life force, or some invisible element that makes us human. I don’t know what it is, but it allows me to look at the world through eyes that have been scrubbed clean of filament, and I can see in razor focus.

It’s a Transformation.

If you read these words and think you might like to share a transformation with a kid like Coco,

call the Blood Bank on 13 14 95 to book a spot. You can be a hero.

…From The Ashers

Here’s a fun thing to try with your kids:

I was saying goodnight to the Evil Genius Mark I, and the light must have been casting a strange glow on the side of my face. He started to giggle. “Your face looks really weird, Mum,” he said, a comment I did not take kindly to, “you look like this,” as he proceeded to pull a really ugly face.

Quick as lightening, I replied, “Oh no! You’ve seen me without my mask. You see, I’m not really your mother, I’m an alien. I killed her a while back, and now I’m here impersonating her, and gathering information about you Humans. I take my mask off every night when you all go to bed (it gets a bit itchy). It must have slipped a bit. Here, I’ll fix it.” I put my face in my hands an mooshed my features around a bit, then turned to face him in the full light. “See? fixed.”

His brown eyes were as big and wide as a saucepan of melted chocolate, and for a moment there was a wisp of something- fear, or maybe understanding of all the times when he thinks I’m a little off- and then he realised how ridiculous that was, and laughed.

At that moment Evil Genius Mark II walked in, and asked what we were talking about. I told her to pop into bed, and I’d be in a moment to share my darkest secret. She was away in a flash, gleefully tucked up, waiting for the dirt. There’s nothing that kid likes more than being in the know.

I was enjoying my story so much, that I added some embellishments. I made her swear, that if I shared this momentous secret she could not to tell another living soul. I told her of how I had been accidentally discovered, but now that her brother (if, in fact he WAS her brother) knew, then it was only fair that she be included.

I told my story and I told it well, giving a brief history of my alien self, and how I had killed The Mother Figure so I could live amongst the Humans undetected. And then, I revealed my hideously contorted countenance.

She screamed, and  buried her head in her pillow.

I laughed as I had with Mark I, happy that she was playing along so well with the gig.

We are a family of imaginators and story tellers, we tell silly and scary stories all the time, often with the benefit of mood lighting (a torch under the chin), so I was pleased that she knew the correct fake fear to exhibit.

She started sobbing.

Proper, starting from your soles, and grabbing a piece of your heart on the way up, full body sobs.

“Coco, Coco, it’s just a joke honey, a funny story because Liam said my face was weird. It’s not real. I’m not an alien.”

She stopped sobbing long enough to gasp out, between hitching breaths, “But you’re so UGLY. I want my Mummy back. I don’t want a ‘poster.”

“I’m not an imposter, I AM your Mum, ” in my best Mum voice, calm and true.

“That’s exactly what a ‘poster would say!”

I allowed that this was true. So I told her to lay down and face me (careful to keep my prettiest countenance) whilst I told her three things that only her Real Mother would know about her.

This calmed her enough to stop sobbing and start to drift off to sleep. “Mummy, she murmured,” half in this world and half in the world behind the veil of sleep, “can you tickle my legs?” This was her soothing thing, (the thing she cons Nath into doing most nights), gently tickling the dry and irritated skin behind her knees where the eczema is worst. A thing that for some reason, I just can’t stand doing.

My hand went to her popliteal fossa, as if to lightly flutter over the angry skin, and help my little girl safely meander her way into the world of dreams, then a thought flashed into my head: she called me UGLY.

In a moment I was at the door, “I can’t. I never do that. And if I do it now you’ll KNOW I’m an imposter. Go to sleep.”

Teach that kid to call ME ugly.

I’m NOT ugly…. Am I?

Do you ever play tricks on your kids?

Do you wish you were an alien here some days, just collating information on the Humans, soon to return to your home planet Zoybidor (Okay, I think I’m liking this story a little too much now) ?

…From The Ashers