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

This week the Evil Geniuses have been playing in the pool a lot, so, as it is as the beginning of every Summer, we spend a good half an hour in head-spinning oxygen deprivation, inflating the pool toys from last year, and finding out which ones have slow leaks (which, of course, as is aligned with the laws of nature, is all of them).

So we traipsed off to the shops to make our annual plastic purchases.

This year they wanted donut-shaped rings ($5: tick) and “something else”. The something else was ill-defined. They didn’t quite know what they wanted, but they knew they would know it when they saw it. It turned out that the elusive something was tiny inflatable jet-skis manufactured for 3 years and up. (Replete with graphics befitting 3 year olds of faux Cars and Barbie: that’s what you get for 5 dollars it seems.)

No amount of explaining that these toys were too small for a 10 and 7 year old, that they would probably at best sink, and at worst pop on impact, were wasted on the Evil Geniuses. They had made up their tiny minds. And they had their own money.

So we came home with our cache of age-inappropriate floatation devices.

As soon as they helped us pump them up (by blissfully swimming in the pool, whilst we sat on the edge, sweltering in the midday sun, and almost fainting with carbon dioxide poisoning) they were away. They jumped onto those teensy jet-ski replicas and were off. Literally. They couldn’t stay on them for more than a second or two. And once the plastic grew slick with water, the chances of successful circumnavigation of the pool were significantly reduced.

Liam was quick to blame the faulty side floats and the lack of appropriately scaled handlebars for gripping. (He doesn’t like to be wrong, my boy. I’m thinking Apple, Tree)  Coco just said, “We’re too big for them Liam. They’re made for three year olds.”

No shit. It’s not as though anyone had said that IN THE SHOPS. BEFORE they were paid for.

Both of the Geniuses agreed that they “couldn’t do it.” And that they should give the toys to smaller children they know. I suggested that perhaps they could think of another way to use the toys, mainly because I was still light-headed from the lack of oxygen, but also because I hate to see five bucks wasted. They agreed that would be a good idea, and proceeded to try other methods of staying on.

After all of about five minutes of continued falling off, Liam said, “Well, that’s it. I can’t do it.”

I asked him how he could give up so easily, considering how much he had wanted those toys only moments before. He said, “It’s like this Mum: I find if I’m going to be good at something, I can usually do it on the first try, or pretty soon after. If I can’t do it almost immediately, then I’m never going to be able to do it.”

I conceded that he was probably right. He looked at me in disbelief. This wasn’t the usual party-line here at The Asher’s where learning and failing and repetition and then success, were valued. I said to him that if he had that belief, then that was exactly how things would come to pass. If he didn’t think he could, then he never would. If however, he wanted something badly enough, and with enough joyful passion, then he would probably find a way. We stared at each other for a long and loaded moment, and he said, “Oh no, it’s like Coco mastering the monkey-bars isn’t it? She took the whole year and had blisters all over her hands and bruises on her shins, but she did it eventually.”  I told him that that was exactly what it was like. Keeping focussed on a goal, and never giving up.

We were silent for a moment, lost in the reverie of all of the times we didn’t perservere. Of all the times we gave up too early.

We looked around the pool, to see Coco, feet wedged securely into what Liam was calling the ‘lateral stabilisers’ of the mini jet-ski, floating silently around, collecting the red berries that had been blown in by the nor-wester’. Immune to all of the doubts and insecurities and negative self-talk. Immune to everything really, other than the task at hand.

We looked at each other, my little apple and I, smiling at that weird little yellow kid in the pool, completely oblivious to all of the things she teaches us, and we said at the same time: “Tenacity.”

She really is a different kind of fruit.

Have you purchased your yearly stock of pool-toys, with their excellent repair “stickers” yet?

Are you tenacious like our little banana? Or do you give up easily like us apples?

…From The Ashers

If you are a RR you would know one of the Geniuses wasn’t quite so evil this weekend just gone, and he planned and presided over a Golden Garage Sale, to raise money for charity. He did well.

Then today, as a result of that, something wonderful happened.

Liam received something in the mail from a beautiful lady who knew about the garage sale via my Facebook Super-Spamming on Sunday. She took the time out of her day to write Liam a lovely letter, and to make a donation to his cause. When he read it, he did a little fist pump. When I read it, I got all teary.

I tend to get a bit emotional about lots of things these days. I blame The Menopause, rather than admitting that I could be going a bit soft. But this action really touched my heart.

And it got me to thinking about how it is relatively easy to perform and act of kindness, and to change someone’s day. Liam is taking what he calls “the full-on letter” to school tomorrow to show his teacher, and then he wants it put in his memory box. I can tell by the way he proudly read it out to me that he has started to see himself in the way she described him. He is considering himself to be the type of guy who does good, who makes the world better. Psychologists have a term for it: The Pygmalian Effect. I have a term for it: A Bloody Grouse Way To Build A Kid’s Self Esteem.

So this letter? It changed Liam’s day today. But who knows what it has done to change his perceptions of himself in all of the tomorrows.

BJ Palmer once said, “We never know how far reaching something we may think, say, or do today will affect the lives of millions tomorrow.” Who knows what these little charges we have inherited will become; pilots, plumbers, painters, publicans, politicians? Regardless of what, experiences like these will define who. And most likely how.

I appreciate you, lovely lady.

What can you do to change a kid’s life for the better?

Or an adult, for that matter?

…From The Ashers

Golden

Sometimes kids can be annoying. They can be silly, they can make annoying noises, laugh at inappropriate things, get ALL of the toys out, not eat their dinner, have to be reminded to do basic, basic stuff, and, you know, just be kids. So annoying.

And other times they aren’t like that at all. They are amazing, and you get a little sideways glimpse of the adults they may become.

We had a weekend like that here.

On Saturday Liam went to a coding workshop at the library. It’s something that he has wanted to do all year, but the course fills up quickly and he has been on a waiting list. It finally began this week. I can’t tell you how excited he was to go, and how bubbly and light he was when he came home. At ten years of age he was one of the younger kids there, yet still he put his hand up to present his coding results at the end of the course, in front of everyone. Who does that willingly? I suspect he is not of our making. He has somehow, in the ten years he has been under our care, made himself.

At times I forget to parent the kids that I have, and try to parent the kids that I think I should have. I try to stop them from reading and writing stories and playing make-believe games with sound effects and mess. I tell them to “get outside”, to kick the footy, ride a bike, run around. And of course they do do those things at times, but that is not what comes naturally to them, or at least, not always. Today is a day off and I asked them what they would like to do, open slather, anything you want. Answer: a resounding chorus of “Pajama day”. So, in trying to parent some other mythical children, I said, “How about a bike ride instead?” They both just looked at me blankly, and Coco said, “Why did you ask us what we wanted, if you were just going to make us do something else?” Fair question. And why would I want my little dudes to be anything other than who they truly are?

For those little dudes did something pretty cool on Sunday.

They planned out an event called ‘The Golden Garage Sale’. They culled their cupboards and collected bits from other people to sell. The made signs, they dressed in gold, and they sorted things into themes. (Coco is still gutted that the goods in her “Pinkatorium” didn’t sell out.). When customers were scarce, they went out onto the main road and danced around with their signs, to drum up business. Liam did some busking, and Coco jumped up and down.

Ready for business

And they did all this for charity.

For gold coin donations.

This was all without direction from us- Liam chose to do it and how it would go. He explained what was going on to all of the customers, and managed to get quite a few donations, as well as sales. Several times during the planning I tried to add things, change the charity, or just generally make it how I thought it should be, and he would quietly say, “It’s my garage sale, Mum.”

And he was right.

This life is theirs for the taking.

They should be allowed to play this game however they like. It’s their game. Their days are just how they should be, the most perfect way for them. Not me, not Nath, not some other kid up the road. Them. And these days are just fine.

In fact, they are golden.

…From The Ashers