Aunt Flo

As my daughter is now 12, I know it is getting closer to the time we have that 'little chat'. I didn't really get the 'little chat' from my mum. I learned everything I thought I needed to know from Dolly magazines in the early 80s. I was in year 8 when Aunt Flo came to knock on my door. She took her bloody time. I knew something was happening to me. I ached. I cried. I thought everyone around me were morons. Some of them were.

I remember when I came home from school one day, shitty with the world as usual, and went to the toilet. My undies had a mark on them. My first thought was 'I'm going to die,' and then I thought back to Dolly Doctor telling some poor idiot that she 'wasn't going to die, it was just her first period' or some such advice. Don't quote my quote, though.

I threw away five pairs of undies that week. 

On day three, I was in PE class and I suddenly felt wet. Wet like wee wet. I ran to the gymnasium toilets and in a scene not quite as award winning as Sissy Spacek's shower scene in Carrie, I sat on the loo shaking and crying. With nearly an entire roll of toilet paper down there, I dressed and waited for the bell to go. Leaving the cubicle, I was positive everyone knew, just from looking at me, I had the painter's in for the very first time.

I stormed into the house in my usual pleasant mood, looked at my mum and ran to my room crying. She followed, the look on her face told me she didn't know what was happening. Oh, sure. That's just bloody typical. How can you not know? I'm bleeding. I'm dying. You don't care. You don't know what it's like. 

My mum was calm. As she always was. How I always remember her. I think she was more nervous about all of this than me. I don't remember much of a conversation, only of her drawing me a bath, leaving to go to the supermarket, and returning with various boxes and new underwear.

So, darling daughter, I want to tell you everything you need to know and everything you want to know. I want to tell you that for a while you may believe everyone knows when you have your period. Boys - bless their ignorant dickheadery - will sneer at your poise, confidence, assertiveness and will say over their shoulders to their mates, "What's up her arse? She must be on her rag" and if you are, at that exact period (pardon the pun) having your period you will think your secret identity has been exposed.

I want to tell you that your boobies will get sore and achy and heavy and feel like they have been punched a few days before your (whispers) monthly visitor pops by.

I want to tell you that, if you are anything like me, you will feel as though someone has taken a long hot needle and suddenly and swiftly pierced your ovaries each month.

You might get an ache in your back. You might feel bloated. You might feel tender. 

You will want me to be psychic and know exactly what you are thinking. 

You will not want advice from me. You will not want me to look at you, talk to you or breathe the same air as you. My being will be your torment and your embarrassment.

You will be going to school.

You will be doing everything you would normally do.

You will not feel like gleefully leaping through the waves, dancing and twirling the fuck around or riding a chestnut horse at sunset. The world will not feel like a Libra or Kotex commercial. You will want to hunt down the man who invented sanitary products (of course it was a man, right??) and teach him just how absorbent those mother fuckers are.

You will hate me and tell me I don't understand.

You will hate everything & everyone about a week before. Just as I do.  Sometimes I picture your dad floating somewhere shallow amongst the reeds with the tv remote embedded in his skull all because he crunched soup or didn't put the toilet seat down. 

You will learn that these feelings are normal. For some of us.

The truth is, growing up is a pain in the arse (sorry, couldn't help myself) and everyone's experiences are different. I don't envy you. I wouldn't want to do it again. No fucking way. 

Welcome to womanhood.

Happy Awesome Chick's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of you mother's, step-mothers, mother figures, grandmothers, mothers without mothers, not-quite-yet-mothers, working mothers, stay-at-home mothers and mothers of pets-that-act-like-children. 

Actually, fuck Mother's Day. Let's call today 'Awesome Chick's Day'. 

There is such a big emphasis placed on how wonderful and rewarding it is to be a mum (I didn't say that) and a day has marked in recognition of all the marvellous, caring and hardworking mothers out there around the world. I can tell you I am not one of them. Yes, I take the title of 'mother', but I don't see myself as an outstanding example of one. I complain, I nag, I argue, I bitch, I yell, I cry. I'm impatient, easily annoyed, and take pills each night to 'balance my emotions' while I rear five kids. I think I may be allergic to my kids. I come out in a light rash and nervous sweats just thinking about a whole day alone with them. I wish I were somewhere else most of the time and I often wonder what my life would be like if I could turn back time.

Then I look at them and I think I have five kids. They are alive. They are fed. They are (relatively) clean. They have picked up a few manners along the way, as well as a few choice words. Sometimes they show respect. Sometimes they show each other love. All in all, they are good kids. Which, I guess, does make me an ok mum. I'm no June Cleaver or Carol Brady. My house doesn't sparkle with the pride of a stay-at-home-mum and the scent of natural lemon. I see myself as a blend of Lucille Bluth from 'Arrested Development', Debra Barone from 'Everybody Loves Raymond' and Roseanne from...well...'Roseanne'.

In honour of some hilariously funny, hilariously annoying and model mothers that have graced our television screens and movie theatres, I give you some of my favourite mothers and their pearls of motherly wisdom:

Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development (Jessica Walter)
Lucille:   Get me a vodka rocks.
Michael: Mom, it's breakfast.
Lucille:   And a piece of toast.

Lucille:  I just went off my post-partum depression medication.
Michael:  You're still taking that? You had Buster thirty two years ago.
Lucille:  And that's how long I've been depressed about it.

Edina Moon in Absolutely Fabulous (Jennifer Saunders)
Edina:  Oh, darling, Mummy loves you. On the day you were born I knew I wanted you...
Patsy:  However, the day after...

Peggy Bundy in Married With Children (Katy Sagal)
Peggy:  Kelly, it's time we had a little talk. There is a thing men will want you to do when you get married; it's called work.
Kelly:  I'm scared; hold me Mom.
Peggy:  Once you do it though, you'll never have to do it again and there will come a time when your husband comes home smellin' like beer and wantin' some lovin'; you'll follow that fat butt up the stairs because you'll know that no matter how disgusting the next five minutes may be, it's still better than work.
Kelly: Thanks, Mom; you're so wise.
Peggy:  Well, you can't sit on the couch twenty hours a day and not learn something.

Lois Griffin in Family Guy (Alex Borstein)
Meg:  Wow, Chris, did you lose weight? You're wicked skinny, I'm jealous.
Chris:  Thanks Meg. I'm jealous of your moustache.
Meg:  Mom?
Lois:  Oh, it's fine, Meg. It makes you look dignified.
Meg:  But, Mom!
Lois:  Now I love all of my children equally.

Roseanne Connor in Roseanne (Roseanne Barr)
Darlene:  Yo Mom, the lunch lady at school's been sick a few weeks, I think she's gonna die soon, you interested?
Roseanne:  Let's see. Serving crappy food to ungrateful teenagers, how would I know I was at work?

Barbara (David's mom):  Listen to me. I don't want you butting in, telling me, how to raise my kids! Take a look at the two little whores you raised!
Roseanne:  Oh...uh, I'm in this now... You know, if your kid wasn't here, I would take the opportunity to remind you that people who live in glass whore-houses shouldn't throw stones. It's people like you that give white-trash a bad name.

Marion Cunningham in Happy Days (Marion Ross)
Marion:  Your father once even sent me a five-pound box of candy on Valentine's Day anonymously. He was a devil.
Howard:  I never sent you a five-pound box of candy.
Marion:  You didn't?
Howard:  No, I didn't.
Marion:  Then I must have married the wrong man.

Kitty Foreman in That 70s Show (Debra Jo Rupp)
You know I love my family, but sometimes I just want to get in the car and run them all over.

All families are embarrassing; and if they're not embarrassing, they're dead.

Claire Dunfry in Modern Family (Julie Bowen)
Claire:  If Haley never wakes up on a beach in Florida half naked... I've done my job.
Phil:  Our job.
Claire:  Right. I've done our job.

Luke is already the best at something: Being my son. It sounded a lot less lame in my head.

Alex, honey, when you're out shopping, you might want to pick yourself up a training bra. I know you don't need one now but your little boobies are going to come in soon. Mommy loves you, kitten!

Morticia Addams in The Addams Family (Carolyn Jones)
One house. Three children. So many windows.

You've had your shots? Measles, mumps, rabies?

Endora in Bewitched (Agnes Moorehead)
I detest sounding like one of those mothers who thinks they know it all. But unfortunately, I do.

Samantha:  That's what I like about your visits, Mother. You always bring a ray of sunshine into my drab existence.
Endora:  Well, that's what mothers are for, dear.

Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy (Lucille Ball)
Lucy:  Budget my time? You mean like I budget my money?
Ricky:  Heavin forbid!

Francine Smith in American Dad (Wendy Schaal)
May be blonde with great cans, but I'm pretty smart when I've had my eight hours.

Estelle Costanza in Seinfeld (Estelle Harris)
George doesn't work. He's a bum.

I go out for a quart of milk and I come home and find my son treating his body like an amusement park!

It's rude not to serve cake!

Marie Barone and Debra Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond (Doris Roberts & Patricia Heaton)
Marie:  Debra, I don't know why your rolls are all left. I liked them. The burnt part gave them some flavour. Don't worry about those pots and pans, honey. I know how to do those.
Debra:  Well, cleaning is cleaning.
Marie:  You'd think so.

Robert:  Hey, Ma. I told Nemo you were hurt so he threw in these breadsticks for free.
Marie:  These look old.
Frank:  You are what you eat.
Marie:  Robbie, give your father his order of miserable bastard.

Sophia Petrillo in The Golden Girls (Estelle Getty)
Fasten your seatbelt, slut puppy. This ain't gonna be no catwalk!

Sophia:  My God. That's the cutest baby I've ever seen.
Dorothy:  Ma! It's a pig!
Sophia:  Hey, you were no looker when I brought you home from the hospital either. I brought you anyway!

Mama Fratelli in The Goonies (Anne Ramsey)
Kids suck.

Irene Walsh in The Goonies (Mary Ellen Trainor)
Irene:  Brandon, I want you to keep your brother inside. I don't want him to catch a cold.
Brandon:  He should be put in a plastic bubble.
Irene:  I'm serious Brandon! That's not funny. If he takes one step outside and you'll be in the deepest, absolutely the deepest, shi, shi, shi...
Brandon:  Shit Ma!
Irene:  I don't like that language, but that's exactly what you're going to be in.

Caroline Butler in Mr Mom (Teri Garr)
Jack:  My brain is like oatmeal. I yelled at Kenny today for colouring outside the lines! Megan and I are starting to watch the same TV shows. And I'm liking them! I'm losing it.
Caroline:  Honey, I know what you're talking about. I've been there myself, alright?
Jack:  Well, if you're so unhappy, why don't you say something about it?
Caroline:  Because I wasn't unhappy! Look, maybe I was a little confused, maybe I was a little frustrated, but I knew what I was doing was important, because it means something to raise human beings. What saw me through was pride. I've pride in this house, I've pride with my kids, and I've pride being Mrs Jack Butler! Where are you going?
Jack:  I'm goin' downstairs to sleep on the fat couch if I can get through the door.
Caroline:  Yeah, well be sure to take pride in some of the FAT, Porky!

Kate McCallister in Home Alone (Catherine O'Hara)
Kate:  How can we forget this? We forgot him?
Peter:  We didn't forget him. We just miscounted.
Kate:  What kind of mother am I?
Uncle Frank:  If it makes you feel any better - I forgot my reading glasses.

Ellen Griswold in Vacation and Christmas Vacation (Beverley D'Angelo)
Sit down and shut up! Move outta that seat and I'll split your lip!

I'm sorry. This is our family's first kidnapping.

I don't know what to say, except it's Christmas and we're all in misery.

And finally (I don't want to get in trouble for missing this gem again!)...
Jeanine Stifler in American Pie (Jennifer Coolidge)
Stifler's Mom:  I got some scotch.
Finch:  Single malt?
Stifler's Mom:  Aged eighteen years. The way I like it.

I love screen mums. And I know I have missed other brilliant and inspiring mothers in this somewhat extensive list of my faves. A special shout out must go to Shirley Partridge (The Partridge Family), Elyse Keaton (Family Ties), Norma Arnold (The Wonder Years), Mrs Gump (Forrest Gump), Lindsay Bluth Funke (Arrested Development), Marge Simpson and Agnes Skinner (The Simpsons), Elliot's mum, Mary (E.T) and Pamela Voorhees (Friday 13th). Have I missed any?

Linking with Deb's Listmania at homelifesimplified.com.au


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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.

Chin hairs & prune juice

I'm 41. I told a friend I was 42. I couldn't believe I got that wrong. How did I get that wrong? I had to work it out - ok Tim is 2 years younger, so that makes him...how old is Tim? No. Hang on. I had Campbell when I was 28...so it's 2013 now, so that makes...wait...Ella was born just before I turned 30 and now she's 11...30 plus 11 equals 41. Yep. 41. We got there...

It made me remember when I was a fresh-faced youngster. Yes kids, I was a child once, too. I didn't escape the womb as a cranky old tired 41 year old, nor was a created out of spite by some pissed off mad scientist from the waste products of all things evil and bitchy. Nooo. But I can see why you may have thought that.

When you're a kid, you know your age. My twins spontaneously announce it in supermarkets to checkout chicks or to strange men with man boobs.

I'm 3. 

I've noticed a difference in the way four of my ferals announce their age. Lily and Grace hold up three fingers and say proudly, "I'm 3." Ella will tell people that she is 11 and three quarters. Campbell adds on a year: "I'm 14." They'll go through the rite of passage of calling themselves 18 so as to be served alcohol and to be let into nightclubs. Then they'll say they're younger to get cheaper entry fees to amusement parks and movies. But once you reach 40, well, you can write off even being admitted into a swingers club. Just too damn old for that kind of funky lovin'. Obviously, they don't cater for walking frames and incontinence.

I'm not really phased about being in my 40s. I don't feel 41, whatever that's supposed to feel like. Physically, I'm feeling a little slower, but is it my age or the excess of excessive weight I'm lugging? Mentally, I'm a sharp as a tack - sharper even - I'm finding it easier to learn new things. My brain is ready for biology and physics, whereas 25 years ago I couldn't tell my arse from my head with anything scientific.

Let's hope that by pulling these feckers
out I haven't encouraged more to grow.
And, yes - they ARE from my head.

After having pulled out two enormously thick pube-like grey hairs from the top of my head and examining myself miserably in the bathroom mirror-that-tells-lies, I thought about my mum and how she never gave me all the facts of growing up. Oh, she told me briefly about (whispers) periods and growing boobs (the rest I learned from Dolly magazine in the 80's) but she never got around to telling me about the other important stuff - like what happens after our babies grow into teens and we start to get all like, totes embarrassing and old all of a sudden.

We all know that growing older is inevitable, but this is my list of things I wished my mum had told me about it. I have entitled it:

Things I Wished My Mum Told Me 

About Growing Older

We all know about the possibility of our eyesight and hearing getting weaker, our bodies slowing down and the sudden desire to eat prunes and sing along to the golden oldies of the 1980s & 90s, but I wish Mum had've mentioned some of these seriously awesome perks of ageing (un)gracefully:

• Your body will start to hurt in places that never hurt before. And what doesn't hurt will probably stop working.

• Your mind will become delusional and will think your body can handle the alcohol and exercise you were used to when you were in your 20s.

• Your eyebrows will begin to fall out and reappear on your chin. Thicker.

• Your feet will become rough and your toenails harder to cut.

• Course grey hairs will not just grow on your head. They will appear on your chin, your arms, your cheek, and with a surprising amount of speed. You will look in the mirror and suddenly they're there in all their grey pube-iness.

• You might grow skin tags anywhere the skin tags decide to grow. Don't think of ripping those bastards off. You will bleed out. Accept them. 

• You will wake up feeling hungover without actually being hungover.

• You will sneeze, cough, laugh and wee at the same time.

• Your perky little boobs may be perky now, but wait until you're older and have had kids.

• You'll sweat more than you ever imagined humanly possible. Even in winter.

• You'll Google everything, from 'my knee clicks when I bend' to 'should my wee be that colour' and other ailments that lead you to believe you are dying.

• You will think that the perfect evening is an early night in bed. Alone. With a book.

• The music you liked will be called boring and old by your kids.

• You will be called boring and old by your kids.

• You won't understand today's music but if you sing any of today's music you will be told to stop.

• You will begin to say "When I was your age..." "In my day..." and "If I spoke that way to my mother..."

• You will gain great pleasure in listening to and telling stories of recent surgeries and illnesses.

• You will understand why a hot windy Australian day is the perfect day for sweating it out washing shitloads of clothes to hang out to dry.

• You will have riveting conversations with friends about mortgages, the lack of respect from the younger generation, the price of petrol, stretch marks, bargain shopping and recipes. 

I would have laughed and laughed if my mum took me on this ageing joyride, rolled my eyes and called her old and boring, and would have thought, nah, not me. I'm so cool and awesome that I will always be this cool and awesome. And how dare you tell me C&C Music Factory and Smashing Pumpkins wouldn't be cool either. 

Not by the grey hairs on my chinny chin chin.