Archives for July 2010

Growing up and making bad choices

July 27, 2010 by Lana 25 Comments

It is amazing to see my little boy asserting his independence. There was a lot of money on the chance that I wouldn’t let that happen. You see I am the quintessential over protective mother. Other than the fact that he had a hard start to life I am one of those people who does not believe that you have to teach your child to grow up the moment they land on the delivery bed. I am all for letting my child be a child for as long as he can be (and longer if it means I get extra time with him).

It turns out that all the over nurturing and all the over protectiveness in me cannot stop him from growing up. I see it happening and I can’t stop it.

It started when he told me that he no longer needs me to write him letters with his recess and lunch at school. I was mildly horrified but I could cope because, in truth finding a different way to say I love you to your son every single day, twice a day without actually spelling it out, is rather tricky.

Then it was the crossing of the roads. He didn’t want me to hold his hand, this has been a hard one for me to let go being the very anxious mum that I am. For a while we settled on me having my arm around him. He believed momentarily that this made him look more adult. Now I am allowed only to stand very close to him but make no actual physical contact on public roads. I am okay with this now as he is very responsible.

The freedom that he feels at being allowed to take his scooter and race down the streets is just amazing, worth letting him go just to see that huge smile take over his face. He positively beams with delight when I ask him if he wants to go to the shop for me.

The other day he told me that he is now old enough to stay in the house by himself because he can make his own toast. I’ve got to say I was a little bit taken aback that he considered my main input into being in the house with him was that I had the ability to make toast. Nevertheless I did leave him to walk around the block with the dog, and no bread was harmed (or even touched). He was so inflated with pride that he had grown about 3 cm by the time I got back 2 and a half minutes later.

But on Saturday all this growing up stuff stepped up a notch. And it went horribly wrong.

Little Pencil and I were strolling through the shops looking for some jeans. I bumped into a friend and started to chat and about 2 minutes later Little Pencil appeared at my side with the widest smile and an imploring face. He was bursting with news and was ridiculously happy. I followed him to find the source of this happiness and there in front of my eyes were the skinniest pair of jeans you have ever seen. I checked that we were still in the boy’s section. We were I checked that they were not shrunken pants. They weren’t. I checked to see that Little Pencil was being serious. He was.
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He told me that these are the jeans he wants.

I panicked.

He tried them on.

Now, as a little background let me tell you that Little Pencil weighs 19 kilograms. He is the thinnest person I have ever met. He wears size three undies, his waist is that small. But he is perfectly magnificent and looks particularly good in a pair of jeans that give the illusion of him having a bum and legs rather than twigs.

Skinny jeans are baggy on him, but they do not disguise the shape of his body. He looks like a stick with a head. A very happy, gorgeous smiling head.

He fell in love with the jeans, thought he looked “too cool for school”. I paid for them and he came home and posed the entire afternoon.

I cannot believe that my child is growing up, becoming such an independent and confident child, but mostly I cannot believe that he has such terrible fashion sense.

Filed Under: Little Pencil

Supermarket saviours

July 22, 2010 by Lana 33 Comments

When Little Pencil was a smaller pencil I bought him one of those cash register toys, a fancy one with a bar code scanner attached that made the requisite electronic noises. It was one of my favourite acquisitions perhaps because I always dreamed of being a “check out chick”. I often watched the women at Coles masterfully scanning packets and boxes, I was full of rapt wonder when the biscuits passed the sensor causing the register to acknowledge the price. And they always made it look like they were in such control, working with such purpose. I’ll admit that this does not paint my childhood in the most idyllic of lights but it definitely talks to my desire for routine and structure. Oh how I wanted to be the person controlling the scanner.

Nowadays you don’t need toys. Anyone can play “check out chick” at your local supermarket. In fact you seldom get a choice, not that you’d ask for one. I always choose the self scan checkout and I’ll tell you that their machinery is a lot more sophisticated than the Fisher Price model. It’s like reliving that childhood fantasy but you can’t pay with thick yellow discs of plastic as per the home version.

As much as I love playing with the scanner and the cash register I do feel sad for the people that will be losing their jobs through this advancement in retail technology. Fortunately I see many niche markets that the major chains may have missed where they could create further employment opportunities.

Enviro Bag Reminder

Supermarkets could create a brilliant environmental customer service by having a person roam the parking lots looking for people exiting their cars and approaching the supermarket doors. Their job would simply be to tap said shopper on the shoulder and say “go back to your car and get the enviro bags in your boot”. Simple. I need that person.

Calorie Converter

I recently went on a calorie controlled diet and I could not believe the huge differences in calorific content of even the different types of breads. If I had a friendly Calorie Converter person (not book or appliance) to point to various products and tell me the calories, fat and sugar content, I would cut my shopping time by at least two hours. This would be a specialised job only available to customers who request it.

Dinner Selector

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The Tall Shelf Selector

Supermarkets could easily provide one tall person per aisle that would rush to the aid of short people who can’t reach the top shelf without unbalancing several shelf displays. In fact the Tall Shelf Selector would ideally be very flexible and nimble so that s/he could reach the bottom shelves for older people or people with backs problems.

The Lolly Distractor

Not sure how the supermarket would feel about funding this one but perhaps we could get the Dental Society to contribute to this cause. The Lolly Distractor would have the unenviable task of standing around the queues and diverting children’s attention away from the rows of lollies put there to taunt them. They would be equipped with balls to juggle, bubbles to blow and all manners of magical equipment prepared by David Copperfield.

Plastic Bag Opener

If you have escaped the Enviro Bag Reminder person in the parking lot you will definitely need the plastic bag opener. There is nothing more embarrassing than taking 5 minutes to find the opening of your plastic bag. When there are hordes of people watching how fast you can scan your groceries and you cannot even manage to open the bag, it is really humiliating. Ask me. I know

Who do you need when you go shopping?

Filed Under: My Views Tagged With: shopping

Locked out and ignored

July 15, 2010 by Lana 8 Comments

Yesterday I was sitting at home working, feeling stressed and a little wrung out, I thought that the best thing I could do would be to walk the dog. Break the stress, get some fresh air and indulge Fluffy Pencil’s favourite pastime – leaving the house.

I grabbed my iPod, my phone and the dog and set off for a brisk walk. It was bloody freezing and I was not dressed appropriately. But I persevered because there is nothing Fluffy Pencil loves more than a walk (other than leaving the house of course).

Half an hour of exercise and freezing cold wind on my back and I boldly and confidently approached my front door, as you do when it is your own front door. I turned the handle. Nothing happened. Except of course my heart fell to the floor. I had locked myself out of the house.

You know that blind panic that sets in when you realise that you have just done something really stupid, the same panic that forces you to try open the same locked door repeatedly with the exact same outcome? I was deep in that panic.

I quickly thought to phone my sister who has a spare key. Saved. Then I remembered that she has a key for the real house – not the one we are living in. No one has a spare key for this house*

After I had tried the door about 8 times I realised it was not going to work. So I decided to test the security of the windows.

I removed the fly screens and this feeling of accomplishment buoyed me for about 12 seconds. I thought I had it nailed. What I did not take into account is that once the fly screens were gone there was still the glass to get through. I am happy to report to Little Pencil, who often sits up at night worrying about break-ins, that our windows are impenetrable. At least impenetrable to a 41 year old mother with a dog yapping at her feet.

The panic started to rise even more so I did what any confident, self assured and together woman would do – I phoned my husband, Mr Pencil to cry. He didn’t pick up the phone.

I took out 5 minutes of breaking and entering to explain to the woman across the road that I was not trying to break into the house I was just trying to get in. Without a key

Then I cased the neighbour’s house. We are living in a semi. You cannot climb over the wall of a semi. It is an internal wall. So I called my Mr Pencil and he didn’t answer

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So Fluffy Pencil and I walked around the block again and phoned Mr Pencil again. He didn’t answer the phone again.

I remembered that I had left the back door open so if I could just hop over the back wall I would be home and hosed. Well at least home.

The house behind me was locked and barred. There was no way of breaking into that one if I could not even break into my own one. So I phoned Mr Pencil so that he could ignore me and Fluffy Pencil licked my legs.

I decided to think positive. I would go and sit in the park and work on my very handy iPhone. Except I only had one bar of battery and I was freezing cold. I was even scared to keep trying to call Mr Pencil lest I use up all my battery and finally get through to him and manage to only sob before we get cut off. But I called him anyway and he didn’t answer.

About 15 minutes had passed (that felt like 30 days) I was preparing my speech for Mr Pencil. I was practising tone and everything. My rant was going to be about how it was his fault (I needed some time to work on this angle) and how impossible it was to get hold of him when I needed him. As I worked out how he would respond I heard his voice – “but there’s a spare key hidden on top of the …….”**

Of course there was. But I could not reach it. I went and got the huge green bin, did a quick prayer of thanks to Maria who had cleaned it with disinfectant and hauled it over to the ___**. I climbed on the bin, knocked my knee, my head and my elbow and through my tears I spotted the key.

I opened the door, the Fluffy Pencil fell asleep and Mr Pencil called me back.

*turns out I was wrong

** I can’t tell you where it is because you may want to break in and shout at my husband for ignoring my calls

Filed Under: My Life

School holidays – love them or loathe them

July 6, 2010 by Lana 25 Comments

There’s a lot of things I love about the school holidays. Problem is there’s also I lot of stuff, that I er, am less than partial to . Allow me to explore:

I don’t have to make school lunch and anyone that has ever wrapped a sandwich in greaseproof paper knows the joy of a day off
BUT
I have to make real lunch. Real lunch is far worse than school lunch. Somehow being home makes me feel like I have to make more effort. And invariably he will return his plate of freshly prepared food to the kitchen untouched and ask for a sandwich

I get to take Little Pencil to the movies and that is a real treat. Sitting together and sharing a large popcorn is one of life’s greatest pleasures
BUT
I have to see Marmaduke. Enough said

We don’t have to stress about homework and I admit that homework places a lot of stress on me. I like to get it done, and I like Little Pencil to be the one doing it. This always causes a bit of conflict so when we don’t have homework I feel particularly stress free
BUT
Little Pencil has to beat every level on the x-box game. This does not sound hard for me but you have no idea how seriously Little Pencil takes his gaming. The stress? I would rather do fractions homework

I don’t have to do a hundred lifts to school and extra mural activities and I like to think that means less time in the car and in the traffic
BUT
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We don’t need to have a freshly laundered uniform every day and this pleases me greatly because I iron school clothes
BUT
Little Pencil is likely to change three times in the course of one day. Each change of clothing will need to be washed and I actually iron all clothes

I don’t have to shout about bed time because after all it is holiday time so why should he have to go to bed at a decent hour?
BUT
I have to beg, cajole and scream about bed time because no matter what time he goes to sleep he will wake up at 6:30am and if he went to bed late he will be cranky and er, hideous.

I get to spend more time with Little Pencil. Always a plus.
BUT
He’d rather be with his friends. Actually maybe that is also a plus….

How do you feel about school holidays?