No experience necessary, apply within

Today was my last day of work for a while. I'm going to let my inner feminist come out to play and say that more accurately: Today was my last day of regular paid work for a while. Because we all know that the real job starts soon, being a mother. Yes, the poorly paying, crap hours, do it for love job of a lifetime.

Ellen Page said it best in the movie Juno when telling her boyfriend she was pregnant: “Cos you know... they say pregnancy often leads to... you know... infants” Its not that I'm just figuring this out, I've been aware of how these things work since I was about nine years old, but now its becoming more and more of a real thing as opposed to just a concept which it has been up until now. Assuming that Tricky comes on his due date, which is unlikely considering only a mere 2-5% of babies do, I have eight weeks to prepare. I can handle eight weeks; I can do some painting, decorating, re-painting because I've changed my mind on the colour scheme, and even clean skirting boards in that time if I so choose. But what if the little sucker comes early?

My sister (who I was keeping anonymous but insists on commenting as 'Aunty Penny') attended a farewell party of her work friend, Cass, who was about to have a few weeks off in preparation for the arrival of her bub. There were presents and cake involved, so understandably everyone had fun. But the baby had other plans and decided to come THE VERY NEXT DAY! As a result every time Tricky moves today I look down sternly and say “Not yet, kiddo!” in my best don't-mess-with-me-I'm-your-mum voice. Because we all know that would work.

Even the antenatal classes are still focussing on birth – yes I need to know lots of things about that, but in the scheme of it all, that is going to be a very small part of the whole having a baby adventure. What happens after? I'll have some midwives and nurses for the first few days but then I have to take this small, strange looking creature home and he'll be entirely dependant on me for EVERYTHING! Hubby has never changed a nappy in his life and only recently held a newborn for the first time (looking highly uncomfortable and completely sh*t-scared, I might add). Now the two of us are supposed to keep this thing fed, clean, warm, entertained and alive. When does the training for that start? It surely can't be all 'on the job' can it? This is slightly more important than my high-school job at Kmart and even that came with a three day training course! If you want to get a bit dramatic and go all 'A Current Affair' and 'Today Tonight' on it, this is the future of our country I'm raising and I'm expected to just wing it? Sheesh! No wonder new mums are tired, they spend half of their time caring for the baby and other half wondering if they're doing it right.

When leaving work today I was amazed that each person used the same words – they all wished me luck on the “impending birth”. But whenever I hear the word impending, my head automatically assumes the next word is doom. So that's all I heard all afternoon, “Good luck on the impending doom” followed by a smile and quick hug. Thanks, the doom thing freaked me out but that pathetic awkward squeeze makes everything OK.

How long did you have off work before bub arrived? Did he/she come anywhere near the due date? Leave a comment.

Godparent vs Oddparent

This post may prove to be my undoing, because I'm going to talk about one of those subjects that tends to get people very hot under the collar (and not because there is fresh baby spew there)... religion.

My beautiful friend, Emily, is becoming a Godmother in a few weeks time and allowed me to pick her brain about what exactly being a Godparent entails these days and how she thinks she'll respond to the challenge. The invitation to be little Evan's Godmother came as a bit of a shock to her since she was never christened and not religious in any way. So with her self professed heathen-ness, Emily sees her role as being a support person not only to the baby but the parents – something she would have done anyway even if not asked to be a yummy (God)mummy. Currently that support is shown in way of copious amounts of cuddles and baby talk. An excellent start I think. She won't be the sort dishing out unwanted advise and telling the parents that they're doing everything wrong, because as she points out, that's not a Godparent's job – that's the In-Law's job.

The role of Godparents seems to have changed to be more hands on in recent years. Or perhaps that is just my view since although I had plenty to do with my Godparents, it was more in their original roles as my great uncle and second cousin. Their status as 'the chosen ones' wasn't really mentioned. My childhood understanding of the reason for having them was if your parents passed away, you automatically got given to them. I remember thinking “Which one would I go and live with?” the bachelor uncle or the married with two kids cousin? I always felt a little bit bad after wondering, as if somehow thinking about it would make it happen (if you're wondering I chose the cousin, just because her kids had a Playstation – I'm that shallow).

These days when my friends have their children Christened the decision of who the Godparents will be has been known to cause massive rifts. Aunty Mary is upset that she wasn't chosen and your brother thinks that he'd make a much better stand in parent than Uncle Bob, despite his numerous convictions and drug habit. In terms of playing happy families, these decisions can have massive consequences. Perhaps that is why, in my own experience, its becoming more the norm to choose friends rather than family for this role. If you can't keep everyone in the family happy, don't choose any of them!

Friends who are Godparents themselves seem to take the role very seriously, and swell with pride when introducing the little munchkin - its not just their mate's kid but their Godchild. Because what better proof is there that someone thinks you're awesome? They've entrusted you to help raise their child or look after them if something terrible should happen.

The other option these days for the non-religious folk is to have a “Name Day” where you have a civil ceremony pretty similar to a Christening, just minus the man in the robes at the front with the holy water. You pick 'guardians' to take on the Godparent role and hey presto, you have a Name Day, complete with cake. But I don't see myself going down that road either – to me it screams “I want you to give me presents”. Because the people you would invite to one of these celebrations would normally be your closest friends and family, the same ones who a few weeks earlier probably gave you a little something for the baby's birth. How many rattles does one child need after all?

After all that though, I'm not bestowing that honour on anyone. Like the delightful Emily, I too am a heathen (doomed to spend eternity in purgatory according to my Catholic upbringing) and don't want to have Tricky baptised in to a system that I don't support. I'm attracted to the concept of adults making their own decisions about faith, so when Tricky is old enough to understand the complexities of religion, he can decide for himself what path to follow.

Having a pretty un-religious family this isn't going to cause any problems. I'm not too sure what I'd do if I had very traditional In-Laws that demanded their grandchild follow the way of the church. Would I fight it or just go with the flow for the sake of peace and unity? I'd like to think I'm feisty enough to stand up for what I believe in... but I'm so open to suggestion that if I was presented with a super cute Christening outfit for Tricky I'd probably at the church steps in no time. Again, yes, I'm that shallow.

The only problem I can foresee with the 'choose your own adventure' path is that Tricky will join some bizarre religious cult where you can only wear fuchsia and have to shave the left side of your head. That would make such a lovely addition to family holiday events, I'm sure. "Could you pass the salt please Lord Tricky of the Holy Fuchsia Order?"

Hippy Bottomus

I was going to wait until I got a chance to use these, but I'm overwhelmed with the gorgeousness and couldn't resist any longer!

Hubby and I have decided to go down the cloth nappy road for a number of reasons;

• better for the environment (even when taking in to consideration the extra washing and detergent used) - because disposable take up to 500 years to decompose
• cheaper in the long run – a set of 24 nappies has cost us $240 whereas disposables for two and a half years cost approximately $4000
• Hubby and his siblings developed very bad skin allergies to disposables when they were babies
• just as easy as disposables if you buy modern cloth nappies (no folding or pinning)

After much research on the types of materials used and the differing styles of modern cloth nappies available I chose to support a small business run by Sharon Moreno from the northern beaches of Sydney. The fact that her company had the coolest name also helped the decision... Hippy Bottomus! Not to mention a super cute logo.

Not only do her nappies come in a range of fibres ranging from organic cotton, hemp and bamboo through to super absorbent and quick drying microfleece, they are also adjustable to fit 3kg-13kg babies! So you buy one lot and that's it! These little gems are waterproof so you don't need those HUGE UGLY plastic pants over the top, they go on and off just as easily as a disposable but most importantly come in a range of super funky colours and patterns! I'll add a few more exclamation marks now because the paragraph just doesn't have enough!!!

The set that awaits Tricky

Even if pretty soon they are not going to be looking so funky (or should that be looking funkier on the inside?), for now they are lined up taking pride of place in Tricky's room, patiently awaiting his arrival.

Please note the above is my opinion and I was not paid or
influenced by the company in any way for writing this.

Great Expectations

This week has been a whirlwind of both weather systems and emotions, and like everything at the moment it has me thinking about Tricky and his future.

Hubby and I had a very short trip down to his home town of Albany for the funeral of his music teacher, friend and mentor, Peter Rasmussen.

Mr Ras (rhymes with jazz) was such an inspiration to everyone he met and his passion and great skill almost single handedly created the thriving music scene in the Great Southern - if I was to list the bands he was either in or was the conductor of, we'd be here for weeks.

Such was this man's popularity with both young and old there had to be two officials directing traffic on the road to the church where his memorial service was held! The Albany City Wind Ensemble comprising some thirty plus members were on the stage (with sheet music and tissues on their stands) providing the music for the service including the most brilliant farewell song called “Instant Concert” (played when the pallbearers removed the coffin to go to the burial).

You have to hear the song to truly understand how brilliantly uplifting it was to say goodbye to Mr Ras with this song (the clip below shows the song being played by the South Australian Police Band) a fitting send off for someone with, I'm told a wicked sense of humour. Because that's the thing – I only met him on two occasions and didn't actually know him, I only knew of him through the countless stories told to me by Hubby and his friends.

My first time meeting Mr Ras, I could see Hubby swell with pride to mention to his musical mentor that he had married a muso! The fact that I play saxophone and not the trumpet was quickly glossed over, as both Hubby and Mr Ras were partial to the brass. But I was a muso none the less, and I got Mr Ras' approval. I was thinking this as the music swelled toward the end of the ceremony and felt Tricky do somersaults every time the timpani was struck. When I mentioned Tricky's response to the timpani a wry smile crossed Hubby's face to be quickly replaced by a look of fake disgust when he whispered to me “Oh no, our child is going to be a percussionist!”.

With musical parents Tricky will be exposed to many genres from birth, and I would love for him to experience as many instruments as possible. Its never to early to start I'm told, which is why you can get such tiny weeny little violins. So what do I wish for him?

Other than the standard health, happiness and the hope that the teenage years aren't too atrocious, I do have little daydreams of him playing an instrument (normally the trumpet because that would suit my budget – we already have one!) and taking him to band practice, although the day dreams stop before I have to bake a cake to help raise funds for the next band trip. I'm not too sure of the reasoning behind these dreams – do I want him to follow in my footsteps as a way of confirming to me that I made good choices? Or do I want him to have those experiences because in my memories the ones with music in them are the best?

Music opened up a whole new world to me and brought many friends and experiences not limited to “this one time on band camp” stories. The feelings of pride and accomplishment that would come when you'd mastered a difficult piece of music or won a prize in an eisteddfod were addictive.

I suppose all I can wish for is that Tricky finds something in life that he has a passion for, be it music, sport, science, art or the thousand other fields he'll have to choose from. If he is anything like his father he'll be a strange mix of a few very different areas: science and technology, music and V8 motorsport.

In loving memory of Peter Rasmussen
13th September 1947 - 16th March 2010

“And then he ran in to my knife...”

There is a fantastic scene from the fourth series of British comedy, Coupling, where a very pregnant Susan is having a fight with her partner, Steve. Steve mentions that its unfair how now she is pregnant she has an excuse for everything: all she has to do is say “HORMONES” and suddenly she's off the hook. He laments further, claiming if she can say that when he too is full of hormones (like everybody else) then why can't he, during an argument say “Sorry dear, testicles”.

Which brings me to my point (yep, I've got one). I've always thought that the excuse of “hormones” was a bit pathetic. I've never really been a big PMS sufferer so have never had to grasp the concept that strange chemicals being released by your ovaries could change your behaviour so much. So pregnancy and its trillions of hormones have created a very steep learning curve for me. To put it bluntly, I've turned in to a bitch.

We've all had those days when everything goes wrong; you're running late, the car in front stalls, the woman putting through our groceries seems more interested in telling you her life story than actually scanning your Weetbix box and you're ready to snap. At these times we (meaning I) smile politely and nod, while in our heads we are saying nasty things we wouldn't dream of ever saying out loud. It's a handy mute button feature that saves us from being punched in the face. These days, even after twelve years of Catholic schooling teaching me to turn the other cheek and 'do unto others' etc, my mute button has started to fail.

So far I've been able to restrain myself and this faulty volume control has not been unleashed on an unsuspecting public. No, much worse than that – it is directed at those people who least deserve it (not that the check out chick deserves it, I'm sure she's lovely). Hubby has so far had to deal with the majority of it, albeit with what I believe are truly courteous warnings before hand such as “Watch out I'm cranky and you're within striking distance”.

The other person to be on the receiving end is my sister, although I'm not actually being mean to her, I just use her to vent to. Its quite cathartic for me, and she gets a kick out of getting the latest gossip about whomever has pushed my buttons that day.

But are these victims people actually pushing my buttons? Has everyone suddenly gotten stupider and more annoying? Plain and simple answer is no, I've just turned in to a super sensitive hormone filled sack without an ounce of tact.

It reminds me of my favourite song from the musical Chicago which I was lucky enough to see on stage this week for the fifth time (slightly obsessed). It's called 'Cell Block Tango' and its women singing about the men they have killed – they say that it was a murder but not a crime - would 'hormones' hold up in court as grounds for justifiable homicide? For Hubby's sake, maybe don't tell me the answer. “...He ran in to my knife TEN TIMES!”