My bucket list - in reverse

My Listmania exercise for this week is to write a 'Reverse Bucket List' - a list of all the awesome things I have already done - to celebrate my life. That's a very interesting task for a person with depression. In the wrong frame of mind, I will tell you that nothing interesting or awesome or successful has happened in my life, and that I am just going through the motions until the end of this perpetual nightmare. I know perfectly well that my life has been filled to the brim with wow factors, amazing experiences and personal triumphs. And when we link our blogs on Deb's Home Life Simplified website, we will all see that it is not simply moments of perfection, but more of personal bests and dreams that have come true. One person's 'normality' may be another's person's 'celebration'. 

If I EVER had my own classroom again, this would be on my door.

We spend so much of our time and energy on trying to be the best, to win, to perfect, to achieve, to travel to exotic places, to be rich, to be popular and in doing this we lose sight of all the brilliant things we do have and have done.

I still want to be rich, though.

So, here's a list of stuff I've done in my 41 years that I think were awesome moments in time and that you should think I'm awesome for achieving.

• I was one of the school captains of my primary school.

• I won the Drama Award in Year 12. I think that might be the non-academic version otherwise known as 'Student Who Consistently Brought Fruit For Recess Award'.

• I won a trip to Disneyland when I was in Year 12 (a competition on the TV show 'The Wonderful World of Disney') and despite having to take my family including my Grandma, I had an awesome time. A highlight was when my Grandma, little sister and I went to Mexico and my Grandma - bless her - wouldn't buy bottles of tequila with worms in them for me as I was a minor in the eyes of the States. She got nervous buying the alcohol and thought she was aiding and abetting a 'minor' and abandoned ship. Yes... bless her.

• I became a primary school teacher, teacher of the deaf, and started my masters degree. 

• I performed in some local theatre company's performances. I wish I could do that again. Something I thought I was really good at. Sigh.

• Won a Logie and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in... (oh, wait, sorry that hasn't happened. Yet.)

• Moved with Tim (my boyfriend) to Shepparton in country Victoria and taught at a Deaf Facility and as a Visiting Teacher for Hearing Impaired Students across the north-east of the state.

• I married my best friend who also happens to be a spunky superhero who looks after his massive brood and works stupidly long, unrewarding hours to do so while I get my hair done, sit around drinking coffee with my friends, the house gets cleaned by a housekeeper and the children are picked up from their private schools by their nanny. Ummm, no.

• I watched my Mum die. I know that doesn't sound like an uplifting and wonderful bucket list item, but I feel that I am truly blessed to have been there in her last moments. 

• I had five amazing, beautiful, loving, funny, annoyingly feral children - who I adore more than anything I have ever known, and who I would like to strangle more than anyone I've ever known. 

• Driven across the Nullabor and back from Melbourne to Perth with two smelly obnoxious 9 and 10 year olds, two cantankerous 15 month old twins and a husband. An award would be nice.

• Driven from Melbourne to the Gold Coast and back with two smelly obnoxious 11 and 12 year olds, two cantankerous 3 year old twins, a 5 month old baby who will not be driven at night and a husband. Seriously, give me an award.

• I started a blog and a Facebook page so I could stand naked (metaphorically) in front of the world and share my life and fears.

I haven't travelled across the world, taught in a remote African village, or been part of a touring circus troupe, and it is very easy to envy everyone else's lives, but I think I'm quite happy with what I have achieved. The moments above have been melded together with hilarious friends, memorable - yet fuzzy -nights out on the vino, tears of laughter and of heart-aching sorrow, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. 

Except to have been rich. 

That would've been really really sweet.

Road Trip

We had arrived in Queensland after a three day, nineteen hour drive from Melbourne. With five kids. For three days. Three long long days. I'm reminded of an episode of Outnumbered, "Five hours in an airport with children - that's five weeks in real time." I'm sure it applies to road trips, too. Possibly even longer. Definitely longer.

Before we could actually say that we were on the road to the most awesome of awesomest playground destinations that is the Gold Coast, we had to make our way through the suburban jungle of south east Melbourne. Normal people can make this journey in around an hour, but somehow we managed to get to the Hume Highway in a record two hours from the time we strapped the ferals in their restraints.

I thought it was suspiciously quiet in the back seat.
No, it wasn't my idea.

We had loaded the car with the essentials for a holiday with kids. Toys, nappies, bum wipes, nappy sacks, bottles, formula, steriliser, kettle - yes, kettle - toys, iPad, iPods, chargers for iPad and iPods, toys, dummies, spare dummies, lucky dummies, emergency dummies, Zoloft, Panadol, toys and snacks. Then we added the suitcases. Ella, our 11 year old fashionista, was not too impressed to have her two suitcases and overnight bag downsized to one suitcase. Campbell was not too impressed we had to encourage him to pack his suitcase with more than one t-shirt and one pair of undies by including - for the love of God - deodorant, his orthodontic care pack for his million dollar future smile, bathers, a few more pairs of undies and socks (preferably clean) and at least one other t-shirt (also preferably clean).

Fifteen minutes into the trip:

Grace: Where are we going?
Ella: I'm hungry.
Tim: We're going on a holiday, Gracie.
Ella: Can we get a snack?
Lily: What's a holiday?
Me: Eat one of the snacks we packed.
Campbell: Those snacks are crap.
Me: Don't say crap.
Ella: Campbell's kicking me.
Campbell: I am not.
Lily: When are we going on a holiday?
Ella: All this talking is not getting me a snack.
Me: We're not stopping for a snack yet.
Ella: That's so not fair.
Campbell: Bad luck Ella, you retard. You should have had breakfast.
Ella: Muuuuuummmmmm! Campbell called me a retard!
Me: Don't call Ella a retard.
Campbell: Can we stop for a snack now?
Lily: I want a snack!
Grace: I want a snack!
Tim: We're not getting a snack. Honey, can we stop for a coffee?
Ella: Good. We can finally get a snack.
Grace & Lily: Yay! Get a snack!
Ella: Who farted?

18 hours to go.

We did stop for a snack.
It still didn't shut them up.

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Night one

It's been a while since the whole family has spent this amount of time together in such close proximity, and I think I know why. As I lie here in our motel room, baby snuggled into my chest, Lily across the foot of my bed, and the rhythmic serenade of my husband's snoring (please read that with a hell of a lot of sarcasm - it sounds like a pig mating with a cow on a train in a tunnel) I am able to see, hear and smell just what I have been missing all this time.

I note that my son talks in his sleep. Grace can search and find her dummy while very much asleep. Someone's junior parmigiana keeps creeping like a silent brown cloud over to my side of the large bedroom. Someone else isn't so silent. Ella suddenly will sit upright, rub her nose, and crash back down to her pillow. Tim, banished to the small couch in the kitchenetteloungeroomentrance area, breathes heavily, holds his breath...7...8...9...and bursts with a grunty snore. 

Night One.

The 10 hour drive to Goulburn, New South Wales, from Melbourne was better than I thought - but I have had a glass of wine.

I had aimed to leave Melbourne this morning as early as possible to get to Goulburn by 5:30pm. We got here at 8 and I don't think that was too bad considering we were traveling with five wild and constantly hungry animals who smelled and argued a lot. And if you think chewing gum is fun to get out of hair, try extracting a marshmallow from a 3 year old who in her tantrum is shaking and matting the goo deeper and deeper into her locks. And I need to get it out to make room for the next tasty morsel she'll lose in there tomorrow.

It's the little things you take for granted when you travel long distances. Like having a car stereo that doesn't have a Wiggles, Hi5 and about 70 cents of loose change shoved in it together. The USB with the Glee soundtracks can only last 

so long, yet I think we may actually have listened to about 10 hours of it already. Lucky us - it's about another 13 hours plus kid factor which equals around 17 hours that we can get our Gleek on. 

Yay.

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Mental

To celebrate Mental Health Day yesterday I went out with my kids. We didn't go far. They're mental.

I find the biggest challenge living with a mental illness is living with a mental illness. 

I was diagnosed with severe postnatal depression when Campbell was born 12 years ago and with postpartum psychosis, much like schizophrenia, when Ella was born a year and a half later. It will surprise you to learn that when the twins arrived I was the sanest I've ever been. At least while they couldn't walk and talk. Now that they can walk fast and talk back, and I have my new little gummy bear permanently attached to my left hip, the world has again become mental.

I joined a mother's group when Cam was but a wee ball of butter and was told to put on a smile, get over it and don't go telling people I had a problem. These were mums who loved being a mum, thought breast feeding was the only way you'd bond with your baby and who swore they would never give their child dairy, gluten, egg, artificial colours, sugar and flavour. I hated being a mum, bottle fed my baby and gave him his first Happy Meal at 10 months of age (don't judge me, he was a hungry baby). Campbell loves his mummy.

Feeling under stress and overwhelmed with the whole mother deal lately, I booked the hotel where all seven of us will be staying on our Queensland holiday in a few weeks time. Each year, when my husband takes a couple of weeks off work, we head off on a family holiday to unwind, recharge and make some wonderful family memories. A few years ago, when the Wonder Twins were 15 months old, we loaded up the Grand Carnival and headed off on the three day trek across the Nullabor to visit family in Perth.

We stopped for a much needed brew in Glenelg, SA.
Lily wasn't driving.

A couple of thousand kilometres later, and after a brilliant time spent with my aunt, uncle and cousins, we set off home to Melbourne vowing we would never speak of the holiday again.

Traveling to Perth

Traveling from Perth

But now, in the hazy memory of that long, long, long drive across Australia with young kids, we've decided to play in the enormous theme park that is Queensland. I can't wait to walk around them with Scarlett and overtired overstimulated twins for 4 days. 

Unwound and recharged? Pffft. 

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