Ever had one of those days when everything went completely and totally to plan?

I had one today.

Today was transfusion day for Coco, and usually there is a comedy of close to errors.  All manner of things can go astray, from not being about to get a carpark within a five kilometre radius of the hospital (with an exhausted seven year old who is too heavy to carry and is too big for a pram), to thunderstorms, to the kid vomiting all over herself in the car (no, I do not carry a change of clothes in the car), to blood that has gone missing in action, nurses who rarely transfuse children and so (understandably) don’t really know the protocols (which incidentally, change often), doctors who choose not to listen to the kid on which vein is the best one, and so blow a few on the way in…

We got Coco’s blood cross-matched on Friday, and so had the weekend to prepare for today.  Call me crazy, but I decided to “manifest” over the weekend, so just like when I pull an arsey Member’s Park on Hastings Street on any given day, I visualised every last detail…

We got a spot in the underground carpark.

We got a private room.

They were running on time.

Cass the music therapist was there to play tunes whilst the doctors were cannulating.

The doctor listened to Coco and popped that vein first go.

The kid had invented a new process of listening to Aunty Hayley’s Song and holding her breath, as they punctured her skin so that she didn’t even cry.

The blood was in the fridge ready, and it was good stuff.

Coco didn’t run any fevers.

She preferred her home-packed lunch, so I got to eat her roast beef and it was pretty good.

The nurses knew the protocols, the dosages, the order of operation.

And it didn’t rain.

Oh, and I got to put in my two bobs worth by filling out a survey.

So all that, and we managed to get home in time for dinner.  All that manifesting took it out of me, so after the kids were in bed, I had a little lie down and listened to Coco and her Dad through the baby monitor that we still have in her room.  I could hear her cackling like a loon because Nath was being a “tickle buggy”, whatever the hell that is.  She didn’t want to go to sleep because she was “feeling too playful”, and really, after such a wonderful day, who could blame her?

There’s been a lot going on up here in the Sunshine State regarding wages and doctors and Campbell Bloody Newman.  I don’t know what the future holds for Nambour Hospital and the amazing humans who tend to our little girl, but I can only hope manifest that he leaves the place alone and lets them continue on in their own magical ways, leaving all our kids feeling “too playful”.

And we all know what a bloody good manifester I am.

…From The Ashers xx

This morning the kids were getting ready for school, doing their basics, and I was busy with my busyness.  We have eggs for breakfast every.single.day here, so I have a bit to do in the mornings, what with that, and making lunches, and making myself look like the radiant SuperMum you see before you, and oh, checking the internet incessantly to see if any of you have shared any of my posts.

We had already had one lot of tears when Liam’s April Fools Day joke was, in fact, just him ambushing Coco and shooting the shit out of her with this (thanks Uncle Darren):

The AK47 of Nerf (feet included in pic for scale)

It probably wouldn’t have been that much of a drama, except (of course) one of the bullets hit her in the eye.  From the sounds of it, it ruptured the membrane of her left eye, and there was Aqueous Humour leaking out all over the floor.  Imagine my surprise when I found that 1. There was no interstitial leakage and 2. There wasn’t even a mark.   I may have told her to have a cup of concrete (I had internets to be checking, remember).

Anyway, as you would envisage I was pre-occupied with getting on with my busyness (Internet popularity checking) when I heard Liam downstairs calling up, in a kind of shady sounding voice: “Go on Coco, DO IT.”  It didn’t sound much like a voice of a child who wanted to be heard by his mother.  And it didn’t at all sound like the voice of a child who was considering his best choices, evaluating the consequences and then making them.  It sounded like a child who was trying to get his sister into some kind of strife.

So I tore myself away from my important tasks and found Coco sitting on this:

Some shitty pool toy

At the top of these, preparing to have a little ride:

The stairs… 14 of them… Onto tiles at the bottom…

Of course I yelled at Liam, yelled at Coco, and then everyone cried.  I then popped the stupid pool toy, and everybody cried some more.  Except me; I felt invigorated in the most sadistic and satisfying way.  (I was sick of that pool toy.)  So, so much for being a Brainiac and ‘The Third Smartest Kid‘.  Turns out, our kids are friggin’ idiots*.

The End.

*Some of you may remember this little beauty entitled “Liam’s Revenge”.

See point one.  Seems the claims of “I don’t even know what revenge is” may be spurious.

How was your First of April?  Did you prank anyone?

….From The Ashers xxx

I am writing this post in the middle of the night, because we have gotten to that time of the quarter when the bags of blood are looming, and I can no longer pretend that the kid won’t ever be getting another transfusion.  I know she will, and I know it is soon.  Her skin is golden and the whites of her eyes are almost green.  She has had some tantrums.  Once, when she didn’t want to leave a party, another because I hadn’t bought her an umbrella.  Minor slights that usually wouldn’t bother her, are blown out of all proportion.  There is yelling and stamping and slamming of doors… And that’s just me.

We know the behaviour is a result of a haemoglobin so low most of us wouldn’t even be able to leave the house, and yet we can’t excuse or gloss over it, because this is her life.  This is what she has to learn to handle for the rest of her days.  And someday, hopefully far off in the future, we won’t be here to explain her colour, her fractiousness, her fatigue.  In that someday, people will turn their backs on a person who acts like a diva for no apparent reason.  So we need to make her able, and not enable.

I have been by her bed for a lot of this evening.  Listening to her breathe, and breathing her in.  Smelling her sweet, strange smell and wishing that she could stay innocent of what comes next.  Measuring my breath with hers and willing her to take in large doses of oxygen for the few red blood cells she has circulating.  Patting her gently as she tosses and turns.  Tickling her legs and arms where the itchiness is becoming too much, to save her from scratching herself to blood.

You would think that her current state would make her bones tired and her sleep deep, but instead it seems to rob her of rest, and create a state of irritation.  Irritation of skin and of personality.  Perhaps it is the bilirubin scraping her insides, or her blood cells trying to claw their way to the surface of the marrow.

Perhaps it is just that she knows what I know.

It won’t be tomorrow, and maybe not even this week, but at the moment, we are limping along.  Tonight I will sleep with one ear and one eye outside her door, listening to the tossing of sheets and of fingernails on skin.   And of prickly sleep-talk.  And of breath.  Most importantly, of breath.

Because soon, it will be time for those bags of blood.  Soon.

 ….From The Ashers

If you are able to give blood, please do: Coco, for one will need some soon.

Call 13 95 96 or contact the Blood Bank online

There’s a meme that is doing the rounds at the moment, and if you’re a Mum and on Facebook you’ve probably had it pop up in your feed once or twice:

A little slice of Mother Guilt anyone?  Come on, just one more tiny wafer….

And rightly so, I say, because a lot of you are screwing up aren’t you?  Maybe not in astronomical ways, but in little, insidious ways every single day.  Sometimes without even realising, you are messing up your children’s brains and lives forever.

But not over here.  Up here (on the moral and ethical high ground) the view is perfect.  Over at The Asher House we are all neat, kind, well-mannered, successful, happy, wise, talented and, well, perfect.

I have delved into the archives my phone to find documents to regale and impress you.  And of course prove my superiority.

Exhibit A:

I found this little love note on Liam’s desk a few years ago.  Ahh Liam, my gorgeous, quiet, gentle-soul of a son.  In case you can’t read it, it is poignantly entitled Liam’s Revenge and even better than a sonnet, it is more of a To-Do list.  A list wondrous things that he will do to his little (then 4 year old) sister.  Just quietly, I was relieved to find the note and be alerted to the plans of the PSYCHOPATH before Check Box One was completed.  Please note the tasks Three and Four: “Brake (sic) the things she makes” and “Call her names” have been successfully performed.  We are so proud to have such a committed high-achiever for a son.  I think most of the pundits would agree that goal setting and completion of tasks are the marks greatness…. Or perhaps it is vengeance that is the sign.  Obliterate the competition.

Exhibit B:

Coco has just started violin lessons, which makes our ears bleed brings much joy to our home.  This morning I was pleased and impressed to see she has penned her very first song.  It is without a title so far, but I think you will agree, it is the work of a prodigy.  There is a fair bit of crossing out, so perhaps the final words are still under review, but the chorus is truly wonderful.

In case the meaning escapes you the lyric is:

Verse:

Pop, cha cha

Fart, cha cha

They mean the same thing

They come out of people’s bums.

Chorus:

La La La La

La La La La

La La La La

(The chorus went on for quite a while, like any good ‘pop’ song… see what I did there?)

So there you have it, THAT is what perfection looks (and smells) like.  If you feel like you aren’t keeping up, feel free to drop me a line.  I think this year I’ll run some courses on pyshco and maestro hot-housing.  I’m clearly onto something.

At school this morning there was a cute toddler playing next to the sand pit.  She had those chubby little legs with no knees that really don’t flex properly, so she waddled around with that helpless, defenceless, gait that new walkers have.  She had milky skin that the sun hasn’t really fluttered over yet.  Her Mum had wrangled her hair on top of her head into a spiky blonde whale spout.  She ate sand.

I watched her from my vantage near the play equipment of death monkey bars (not yet banned) as she swelled in confidence, and slowly moved further and further from her mother.  She checked over her shoulder from time to time, but she was separating.  Becoming a little bit less of her mum, and more of herself.

And, in that very instant, as I watched that puffy nappy-clad bum climb up and up and into the sandpit, I lost all my oxygen.

I looked over at the mother who was chatting with some others about the coolchange/homework/whostocksthebestchillijam and I saw that she missed it.  She missed the moment when her little girl realised she was her own person.  She made her own choice.  She chose her own path.

Sure, there will be more.  There will be fights and disagreements and negotiations and compromises that number the hundreds (and yet they will feel like millions).  Where they will pull apart, and come back together, like a piano accordion.  Sometimes they will make a strange music of their very own, and sometimes it will just be a bloody big gush of hot air.  Yet this moment, this very moment passed in a beat, and she missed it.

Just like I probably missed the moments my own children become their own selves, and a little less of me.

And that made me lose my breath.

The evil geniuses copped it a bit today… I might have been up singing Sing Star until around 1am.  And I might have been a little bit tired today.  So I might have been a little bit hasty in imposing a house-wide technology ban, given that a free-for-all-technology-a-rama would have been like having a virtual aspirin.

Anyway, we reap what we sow, and once a thing is banned in this joint there can be no going back.  I know what you’re thinking: just ‘unban’ it.  No.  Consistent follow-through is what is needed people.  Even at the expense of my brain cells clanging against each other with every small head movement.

So after the banning, they had to play.  Together.  Which, of course can go either way.

During Witching Hour (aka Wine Hour) I was preparing dinner and they decided to play some newly invented game: Mousey Jumpy or something.  Basically it involved them jumping over cushions in the lounge room, which is tiled.  Unit One set up the cushions and Unit Two (the least co-ordinated of the two) had to jump over them.  Onto tiles.  From the vantage point of my advanced age, wisdom and clingclangcrashing head, I just knew what was going to transpire, and I was faced with the parent dilemma: Let ’em do it and sort out the broken teeth later, or stop them for the sake of peace, and stifle their learning just a little bit.

I left them to it.  (Cringe)

Can you guess what happened?  Something extraordinary, that’s what.

As Unit Two was saying she couldn’t make one of the jumps, her big brother, who is mostly snide and often bossy toward her, said, “It’s okay Mousey, it doesn’t matter if you don’t make it the first time, just keep on trying.  Don’t say you can’t do it, you have to believe in yourself Mousey.  Come on, give it a go, and visualise your success.”

What?

Who said that?

Did a commentator from The Superbowl sneak in, and broadcast through my son’s mouth?  Did aliens abduct my children and place themselves here in their place, waiting to suck out my dehydrated corpus callousum as I sleep this evening?  What just happened?

          Dear Aliens,    

          I want my children back.  Now please.  This is freaking me out.  

          Love