'sup?

This post has been sitting in my drafts to add some photos to and then post... I'm just going to post it, okay?  I'm glad you're going with me on this one, I'm trying to get posts up, they will never be perfect so just getting them published will have to be my goal, no more languishing in the drafts for months...

Things have been changing around here.  Wolf got a new (long prayed for) job.  Wolfs new job went from being contract to permanent.  Lion started a new year at school.  Dragon started a new year/class at kindy.  Monkey has grown up so very much.  Mummy has... done stuff... or something... I can't really remember, I am having enough trouble remember which classrooms my boys need to go to and dropping the right child at kindy and at school and making sure that at least one child comes home with me...

Anyway, part of Wolf's job now is weird shifts.  His old job meant that he was around in the mornings to help (a bit) with getting us off to school before he went to work.  He was then home about three quarters through the afternoon to help with dinner, bath and bedtime.  His new job has some shifts that I don't like very much.  I enjoy the perks of these shifts like starting at 7am means he's home at 3:30pm and we get lots more play time.  Starting at 2pm means we've had the morning to play and go for a coffee if we want to.  Unfortunately it also means that I get a little stressed in the mornings if he's got to head off early.  Or I flip out in the evenings if he's going to be home after bedtime.  The big boys are very light sleepers in the early hours so they wake up when Wolf is getting ready... at 5:30am.  Which means they wake their little brother about that time too... which means I am dealing with tired cranky kids from the start.  Getting tired cranky kids ready to leave the house is not fun.  But at times it does come with some entertainment.

One particular night we finished two separate boxes of tissues so the next morning beside the bin were the two empty boxes.  Monkey thought these were great and while Mummy was busy trying to convince Dragon that he really did need to wear clothes to kindy Monkey put them on his hands and went around the house banging them together to make as much noise as he could.

Lion always wears joggers to school, Monkey found his own joggers and decided that was what he wanted to wear today so I found him some socks and we put them on him, Dragon decided that since everybody else was doing it that he wanted to wear his joggers too.  The problem with that is he never puts his socks back in the wash.  Or one goes in the wash and the other disappears.  So I went hunting for two matching socks.  After a few minutes I called to him that I was having trouble finding two socks that matched and could he just wear his clogs today?  "No mum, I want two socks that are not the same as the other one"... well, that might also account for why none of the socks I can find match, they aren't even worn as a pair!  So, you can't get more mismatched than one blue sock pulled almost to his knee and one grey sock that comes about an inch above his ankle.  I didn't explain to his teachers at kindy what was going on, they see me drop him off twice a week, they probably figure that it's lucky we remembered to turn up each day... and that I don't accidentally leave the wrong child behind.

On the way to kindy there was a general cacophony in the car, I assumed it was coming from all three boys.  We stopped at the traffic lights and I glanced back and saw Monkey sitting in his seat, worn out look on his face, fingers in his ears.  I know just how he feels.  I thought I'd have a better listen to what was bringing on this reaction from him...

Dragon was burping "baa baa black sheep"... the whole song.
Lion was baaing (yes, like a sheep) the ABCs... all of it.

I wonder what effect this will have on my little Monkey, will he go for a "can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach?  Will he be "the quiet one"?  Will he raise his voice louder still to be heard above the din?  Who knows.


*Don't forget to check out my Walt Disney Studios Alice In Wonderland 60th Anniversary Edition giveaway here.  It ends this Sunday*

Parenting Lessons With Mummy McTavish

I don't claim to be a parenting expert and this is in no way a "how to" guide... more of a "how NOT to"...

Since this day Lion has been drooling over one very special police motorbike.  He spotted it on the Lego website, we checked it was available in Australia and checked the approximate price.  Then he had to wait... until we went to the shops that afternoon so he could buy it with his money he had saved up.  Thing is, it wasn't at that shop.  So instead of waiting until he found it at another shop he picked something else.  Mummy should have pulled rank at this point and said "No, save your money and wait until you find it" but she didn't.  Lion cried that it wasn't there, Mummy told him she couldn't change that it wasn't there and he could save his money OR PICK SOMETHING ELSE.  That was the mistake... he picked something else... but still had his heart set on his police motorbike.  Fast forward to Monday this week.

(image from here)

We were browsing the toy section at Target and he spotted it... his beloved police motorbike.  Problem: 80c in his wallet, another 50c at home.  Okay, mummy knows how his heart is set on getting this precious piece of plastic so she offers him a range of options...

1. leave it on the shelf until you earn the money.

2. leave it on the shelf and we go home and you can do lots of extra jobs over the next couple of days to earn it faster and get it another time.

3. Mummy buys it now and puts it in the Mummy Shop and you can earn money doing extra jobs and buy it from the Mummy Shop and have it as soon as you have earned the money.

Cue meltdown that Mean Old Mummy (M.O.M) wont just buy it for him and let him have it straight away and "I really will do extra jobs for you".  M.O.M sticks to her guns and reiterates the options.  Eventually he selects option 3 and we buy the precious piece of plastic.

Now,  should you have this scenario play out in your family DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT EVER DO IT THIS WAY.  I thought I was sick of hearing about the silly bike BEFORE we bought it, well I just about went insane listening to him beg and plead for jobs to do and "how long til I get it?" and "how much of it have I earned so far?" and "can I just have the pieces that I have earned?"

(created by Lion on the Lego website here)

I got him to clean the playroom (yes, something that he should do anyway) and he thought I should give it to him then... but I got him to clean his room (futile, but he did it and it stayed clean for about 10 minutes) and he thought I should give it to him then... but I got him to help set the table... and tidy up Monkey's toys... and a few other odd jobs.. and I was well and truly sick of him asking me how much to go.  I needed a BIG job, one that would test his patience, one that would require a lot more work than a quick tidy up, something that isn't on the vague list of things that kids should just do around the house... something that would make him realise the value of the item he was earning.  I had one job like that tucked up my sleeve.  I had a job that would be 5 minutes for an adult but a bit trickier for a kid.  I had a job that had been waiting for me to get to.  A job that needed to be done properly, to my standards not just something he could fudge his way through.  That job was wiping all those disgusting hand prints and ick off the doors, door frames and kitchen cupboards (they were bad, oh boy were they BAD).  I use a natural cleaner so it was safe for him to use.  He (along with his brother) put most of the prints there so he can reach them all.  It would keep him busy for a while and I could tell him once and for all that once this job is done to my satisfaction HE COULD FINALLY HAVE HIS POLICE MOTORBIKE!  He did the toilet door and frame, his bedroom door and frame, the garage door and frame, the wall next to the fridge and all the lower cupboard doors and drawers in the kitchen along with the dishwasher front.  I even made him re-do a few bits (because don't forget I am M.O.M) and chatted with him while he worked about doing jobs to earn rewards and doing jobs because we love each other and want to help to keep the house nice.  Then... FINALLY... he was finished.  He could have his box of plastic bits and bobs and put them together to create his bike.  It has since been made and unmade 15zillion times and it is precious, I believe all the more precious because he had to work so hard to earn it... I'm not sure he even remembers that bit anymore.

(created by Lion on the Lego website here)

So my advice to parents everywhere... I got this wrong from the start, do not offer to purchase a product for your child "until you earn it".  Thankfully this was a $7 product so with the money he already had plus his hard work it didn't take too long to earn.  Problem is, now he has designs on a MUCH bigger set... like $130 bigger... that's some serious work to earn that one!

Now I just have to deal with the "mummy, come and have a look at my police motorbike" and it's sitting on the top shelf of the bookshelf... "mummy, come and have a look at my police motorbike" and it's sitting on the middle shelf of the bookshelf... "mummy, come and have a look at my police motorbike" and it's on the table... "mummy, come and have a look at my police motorbike" and it's on the floor... "mummy, come and have a look at my police motorbike" and it's back on the bookshelf... "mummy, come and have a look at my police motorbike" and I'm guessing you get the picture by now!

It really is a precious piece of plastic... maybe, just maybe he does remember how hard he had to work for it.

Wolfs Martyrdom

In the previous post, Monkey was telling everyone about the great day he and his family was having. Cuddles, coffee and cake all in a loving atmosphere.

Ahh how sweet.


Unfortunately as in all 'Utopian' societies there is always the minority who are sacrificed in order to make this work and guess who that was?


Yep, me.


While all this was happening in the McTavish household I was trapped in the Christmas Riots. It was not cuddles, coffee and cake for me but Christmas craziness, chaos and kooky-ness. When there was a break did I get a cappuccino? No, because of all the cuts at work it was a cup o' cold tea, without milk or sugar, in a cracked cup and all. Oh, when I say cup I mean I had to drink out of a rolled up newspaper. An' not even a dry biscuit in sight.

We don't wanna...

be on an airplane today.

Oh boy... Mummy had to come up with some similar trick ploy scheme fun naptime activity and quickly! We all had a late night (second day this week) and I needed them to have a slightly early nap because I have an appointment right when nap time would usually be wrapping up. We read a Tonka book for their story. If you have boys and don't have any Tonka books you are missing out! They help silly mums learn the differences between all the machines (it's a steep learning curve for me) and the added bonus is that you can read just the left hand pages and the book still makes sense and is heaps shorter! So back to what I was saying... we read a Tonka book and I thought I could get away with letting them pick which machine they wanted to be and then they had to close their eyes and sleep while they went along the assembly line to be made into that machine and they would wake up as a bulldozer and a forklift. It wasn't soooo successful, but still not the dramatics that an early nap usually brings (usually I don't even try, I let them skip their naps on those sort of days but with a late night it couldn't be skipped, they were beat and getting crankier by the second).

I will warn you here that this post is spanning a day. It has been written in little bits and pieces so sorry if it's a bit confusing.

I am taking them with me to the bank for my appointment... with a container of food and a pen each and some paper... and maybe some gaffer tape. I was told it would be a quick appointment so I figure this way it guarantees it doesn't it? This lady isn't going to want them in there any longer than she has to, they are good boys for this sort of thing (they amaze me with their good behaviour usually) but everyone has their limits. I'll probably bribe them with some nice healthy McDonald's shakes if they are really good.

I must remember to chug some tonic water tonight before bed. I feel like I've run a marathon but only with one of my calves. I think I woke up four or five times last night with cramps in that calf muscle, it's very sore and tired today. I actually liked drinking tonic water this pregnancy and have needed it less than with the other two. I had a glass a night while pregnant with Lion and I had to mix so much cordial into it so I could stand it. With dragon I needed a glass a night as well but I managed to just chug it down fast. This time I don't mind the taste of it (yet normal water is tasting yucky???) but I have had relatively few cramps. Until last night I guess.

The boys were amazingly brilliantly behaved at the bank this afternoon. The lady we spoke to commented on their behaviour right away when we walked into her office (she had seen them waiting for about 10 minutes outside being really good) and she got them out some pictures to colour in. Then when we left she was so impressed with their wonderful behaviour that she gave them each a set of colouring pencils and a money box. Woohoo boys!!! Very proud of my boys behaviour!

The boys were playing out on the patio this afternoon colouring it in with chalk. All of a sudden I hear..."Look at me, I'm a ball, someone, throw me"... "or kick me". It's just one of those things that you need to check on. Sure enough Dragon was laying on his back on the concrete, knees pulled to his chest, hands over his eyes acting very ball-like. Thankfully Lion didn't take him up on the offer of a kick. Unfortunately he didn't stay long enough for me to take a photo and wouldn't do it a second time. I can't help but think that he didn't quite think through the repercussions of his quest for ball-likeness.

I'll leave you with an insight into our marriage. I know Wolf loves me because he sends me sweet emails from work during the day. Usually inspired by things that have happened over his day. Sweet things like this fake email from his "publishing company". I reckon he has a career in book cover design, I know I saw this and straight away wanted to buy it!

Hi Guys,

Just thought you may be interested in this new release from my new publishing company.

He sent it around to a few folk in the other shops/head office but had to be careful because he was pretty sure that some of the managers might have not taken it as a joke and tried to order a carton lot!

His inspiration came from a customer coming in asking "Do you have a face like a potato". YES REALLY!!! Eventually it turned out the customer wanted a book called "Face like a Potato". Wolf questioned him as to whether it was possibly "FAITH like Potatoes" that he was after he insisted that no, it was FACE like a potato. Wolf showed him "Faith like Potatoes" anyway and he conceded that yes, that was the right book and purchased it.

More than a Mummy.

I've added an edit at the bottom...

I was thinking this would be something that I just stash away in the drafts as therapy but my bloggy friend Lisa over at Boondock Ramblings has started a "thing" called Chime In. I have no idea what to call it coz I'm not up with the bloggy lingo thus I dub it a "thing". I'm not sure this is exactly what she had in mind but it was half written and seemed to fit close enough with her theme of "Stay at home Versus Working mums" no, it's not a showdown, or a no holds barred fight, just a bloggy conversation of sorts.

I've been mulling this over in my head for ages... Is there more to life than being a Mummy? Should I want more than to "just" be a mummy?

A friend said she wants to be more than her kids mum. I figured it was normal, I am sure some people felt that way, I didn't. Then at bible study it came up and someone without kids asked if it's normal to want to be more than just a mummy. Everyone nodded their heads and made comments along the lines of "yeah, I think everyone feels that way at some point". Well, I guess if that's the way it is then I'm just not at that point yet... and I have found that there are a few others out there who aren't either.

So some women go back to work, I can see how you can miss work (really I can, I have on occasions but always figured that going back to work wouldn't even pay for the childcare so we'd be worse off and what I am doing at home is WAY more important that any job I could have). Some women want to study, some call it craving knowledge and some call it bettering themselves or something else, I can see how that is attractive too, but it's not for me at the moment. I do Tupperware, but it was for a purpose and now that that purpose is not achievable anymore I will probably drop it (or drop back to the minimum sales because as Wolf said he knows that I will still buy Tupperware and it'll be cheaper if I can keep my discount).

This is why I am happy being "Lion and Dragon's Mummy" (yes, I secretly love it when I get called that)... Let me just drivel on about my thoughts on this for a bit.

When we were talking about getting pregnant the first time we discussed what our options would be post birth. Would I stay home for a time then go back to work, would I work from home if possible, would I be a stay at home mum and not return to work for the foreseeable future, would Wolf be a stay at home dad???? So many options and questions and different things to weigh up before we made a decision. I realise that things are different in Australia to other countries so our benefits for single income families are really pretty good, our "free" health care system means that we won't miss out on needed health care if we need to drop our private cover, all this is personal stuff for our family at the moment, not a judgement on what is right or wrong.

We decided that the most important thing was that we were the ones raising our child. We would have to make sacrifices to do this but if God was making us responsible for one of his precious children then we needed to do our best. Then Lion was born... I REALLY understood how some women could want to go back to work, this mummy thing was hard. Work was a breeze compared to being a mummy. Thankfully I knew how to do Wolf's job and could step in for him if he needed me to. Some Saturdays I would go to work and let Wolf be the stay at home dad. I only needed one week to know I couldn't do this full time but it was a little break for both of us. Sometimes if he had a really tough week we would switch roles on the Saturday so that he could spend time with his "little man" and I could go and relieve the pressure at work (Saturdays can attract all the crazies). Some weekends we would all go to work and Lion would sit in a plastic crate on a trolley and watch us work or he would sleep (yep, in the plastic crate) and make me wish I was at home asleep too but we got family time amongst the books and music and customers and stuff. Thankfully work settled down eventually so Wolf didn't need to work 6 days a week and could share the Saturdays with other available staff and we got some weekends to spend together at home.

Even through all the rough stuff at the start with Lion's reflux, 2 hours of broken sleep a night (on a good night), nappies like you would not believe (caused by an intolerance we hadn't found out about yet) and other such excitement I still didn't want to be anything more than "Lion's Mummy". I had a job offer that was still standing and was great money, I could have gone back at any time to my old job too but weighing up the sacrifice of our family versus sacrifice for our family we always came back to sacrificing for our family. There were comments from the big boss "when mummy McT comes back to work..." but we made it clear over and over again that this would not be our only child so it wasn't a case of "wait till he's in kindy and she'll be back", it was a long term commitment to our family and raising our children the way that we felt God wanted us to.

Now back to being "just a mummy"... I am not "just" a mummy. I am their teacher, their first-aid administrator, their private chef, their voice of reason, their self esteem builder, their mediator, their feminine influence, their construction site foreman, their daddy liaison (yes, they need him to be their mummy liaison too sometimes), their interpreter, their comforter. I explain the way the world works to them and I soften the blow with a cuddle and gentle words when they find out that it's not quite as wonderful as they thought. I get the joy of reminding them to talk to God about anything and everything. I get the frustration of watching them forget that as brothers they need to have each others back. I am learning as they learn (who knew a catalytic converter cleans the waste gasses coming out of a car???), and I am working, oh boy am I working. I am not just a mummy, I am Lion and Dragon and Peach Blossom's Mummy and frankly, they probably could have done a lot better than me but God thought that I was best for this job so I am going to give it my all.

We don't want the values our children learn coming from a daycare centre. We don't want them to learn right and wrong from someone else. We don't want them to feel like they don't know when we are working/studying/whatever because the line between home and work is so blurred. We want them to come to us when someone hurts their feelings, we want to be there when the just want a hug for no reason at all, we want to be raising our boys to be men that we can be proud to call ours and that are godly husbands to some lucky women some day.

I have so little time with them. I know I am with them all day every day but really, they are going to start forming their own opinions soon (well, they already are actually but nothing big yet) and I want those opinions to be shaped by what they have been taught in our home.

I have so much more to say but I don't want to go on forever... I have repeated myself and I have left stuff out... It's all in my brain but getting it out on "paper" is harder than I expected.

I'm not saying that you can't have a job and still do these things or you cant do more study and still turn out a morally upstanding child or you can't want more for yourself without wanting less for your child. I'm just saying that I don't need those things, I don't know if it's right now or if I'll be fine being mummy forever, but I am Mummy McTavish and I am a very proud stay at home Mummy!

My little men of God "testing the water"

Comment if you wish but like I said, this was going to be left in the drafts just for me but I decided to share it for Lisa's Chime In post this week. I am not after assurance that I am doing the right thing or to be chastised for doing the wrong thing, this is a post for me. If you agree, that's wonderful that we share a common passion, if you disagree, then we may just have to agree to disagree, I hope that doesn't disappoint you.

Edited June 11th to add: I knew Lisa's Chime In was supposed to be about Stay at Home VS Working Mums and the main point I originally wanted to make was not so I fiddled with what I had to make it better fit the theme. The point I originally wanted to make was...

I am happy being JUST a Mummy. So please, Society, stop telling me that I should want "more" for myself than to be just a mummy. What more is there? What can you offer me through education, vocation, etc that is worth more than the lives of my little boys? My "life" may be on hold in your eyes while I wipe noses and make peanut butter sandwiches but to me this is THE LIFE. I am fortunate to be living this life, I will not crave for your approval. Society, please move on, harrass someone else and leave mummies alone, you need not bother us anymore. Thank you.

That one paragraph was probably more the therapy I needed than the rest of the post. I don't care much what path anyone else takes (working vs stay at home) and I wont try to change anyones mind because I don't know what their lives are like. I just don't think we need all the pressure that we get from society.

This edit has not come from any of the comments written, just from me mulling over what I had written and reading other blogs and articles on the subject and realising that I lost my main point along the way.

Can someone find me a genie???

I have decided I need a genie. I will henceforth be rubbing every lamp, teapot, bottle, pickle jar, milk carton, etc until one appears.
This week I did some invitations up for an evangelism event our playgroup/bible study is putting on. I started with wine and cheese on the front since it's a wine and cheese evening but then I got the title from the speaker and decided that it may just look like we were inviting them to an AA meeting. I had a great time doing this! I really miss that sort of work, I miss editing my photos, I miss having the time to take great photos, I miss having kids that would co-operate to get their photos taken (I got maybe the first 3 months out of each of them), I miss all things photography.

I have actually been embarrassed to admit on here that I once was a photographer because of the state of many of my photos I post on here. I say “once” and it makes me sound like I’ve retired and now I just potter around the garden. No, I did the degree, got the letters after my name (have never actually put them there) did a stint as a clinical photographer, needed to give that up to do the mission work that we love and unfortunately have pushed the photography further and further aside. I have been asked to do endless weddings but I’d rather gouge out my eyes than hand myself over to overbearing mothers and bridezillas and meddling family and questions about why I didn’t take any sunset photos “because my friend had sunset photos and they were really great but you didn’t take any…” when it would seem obvious to me that if you had your wedding at 10am there wont be a sunset to take photos of. So, I hand the weddings over to other photographers and wait for someone to commission me for some piece of fine art or some great graphic masterpiece or well funded medical research (okay, my tastes are a little eclectic) but it just isn’t coming. So this week I am doing some staff photos for a friends company. Eeeeek, photos of people. But I need the time to do more of this, I always feel relaxed after I have messed around with photos, I feel like I have had some time to myself but at the same time I have been doing something “useful”. So here’s where the genie comes in. I need three wishes…

1. Time. I know that isn’t in the rules, I’ve seen the genie movies, you can’t have more time, they can’t bend time, turn back time, stop time or anything like that but I need them to, just for me. I want time for all the regular stuff that you need to do with photography but I also want time to spend on my black and white work. I want to be in the darkroom, by myself, with some good music, printing up pieces that I love.

2. Opportunities. To be paid for doing the photography I love would be great, unfortunately for the casual photographer the money is in the people shots. Weddings, portraiture, that sort of thing. Made painfully obvious by the fact that my works from uni are almost all hanging on my walls instead of being sold to well paying customers.

3. Chocolate. Okay, not really related to everything else but that never ending packet of timtams would be great!!!!!

I could possibly add a faster computer to the list to handle the editing stuff but if I had the chocolate I could cope with whatever this beast of a computer dishes out!

I have always imagined my walls filled with beautiful black and white images of my family that I took, I developed, I printed by hand. I imagined teaching my kids to use a REAL camera and showing them how to develop and print their own black and white works of art (still time, I would never let them in a darkroom at the ages they are now). I have a darkroom, it's just not at my house and is currently storing a lot of stuff of mine and other peoples.

So if you come across a genie, HE’S MINE!!! Send him this way and I’ll give you some of my timtams!

Whoo-hoo, Free Stuff !!

A colleague send me this message on Friday.

'...there is a "Clearance" table in our South-Western store for all the old stock Jock has been finding in the store... a customer said to him
"oh this is great that you have all this free stuff"
Jock:"no its on clearance"
Customer: "yes that's right clearance, for free"
Jock: "no clearance doesn't mean free, you still have to pay for it"
Customer: "oh i thought clearance was free"
Jock: "no it's spelt differently"

Good on you Jock, sometimes I wish I had the audacity to say similar things, instead I would have patiently explained to the customer that nothing is free. I know I live up north in Hicksville, but come-on where in Australia does Clearance = Free, especially when you are in a shop?

-Wolf McT

Our Friendly Help Desk Staff

I often go and visit Daddy at work. He doesn't mind, too much. As far as I'm concerned he doesn't do much work anyway so I need to create some for him, which is why, when I leave he says 'Well, I better clean up now and put everything back were it came from.' I think he enjoys it.

One day Daddy said that I am here often enough that he should be putting me to work. I was more than happy to sit at the computer and do his job. I did it so well that one of Daddy's associates in a town 5 hours away knew I was there. (I had to call someone on the VoIP and let them know I was doing a good job!)

Daddy took some photos so here they are:

Here's two of me at the manager's station, more than ready to run the show and tell people what needs to be done. Daddy said I did a better job that most of the people he works with.

Are apartments getting smaller these days?

Now that I have a job I better go and find a place of my own. Mmmm, yep this place is kind of small but it will have to do for now. I would have preferred the penthouse but the one on the ground floor was the only one left. When I tried to move into my new apartment Mummy used her favourite noise again. No. One of these days I will have to learn to read and look it up in the dictionary. -Lion McT