When someone tells you your child is lying

There are many things I try to teach my child, almost every day. Ever since he was able to talk I have wanted him to know that what he says is important, his words count and that I believe him.

The reasons for this are numerous and obvious – of course he is important and should know that but there is something far more significant and important about him knowing that I believe him, I trust him and if he tells me something I will actually listen.

Some people may complain about the fact that our kids are too forward, that “back in our day” we would call our friends’ parents using the Mr or Mrs moniker, we respected our parents more and our relationships were different. Yes they were different – but they were not necessarily better. The idea that children should be seen and not heard, that they should not talk out of turn and that there were certain things they shouldn’t talk about at all surely caused more damage than it did good. Abuse and inappropriate behavior swept under the carpet – things that troubled us as kids never brought to light.
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The night a sociopath came to stay

teenage-brain

It is a little ironic that a few days after I wrote about not posing a threat to my son’s confidentiality and privacy I took to Twitter to seek help in regards to his behavior.

You see up until recently my son has been the most delightful child that you could meet. He’s been loving and caring, compassionate and kind and he seemed to really want to make me happy. I know it’s a bit selfish to want your child to make you happy but geez it was nice.

If we argued (and we did) he would be contrite and apologetic and genuinely seem to learn from whatever had caused the issue.

But that seems to be over.

Now he’s just a shit (although I think he’s just hormonal not genuinely shit)

When he is told off (generally for being rude) he shrugs and literally says “I don’t care”. It’s quite hard to handle.

Although to be honest the day after his major hormonal outburst now known in the Pencil household as “the night the sociopath came to stay”, he was so insightful as to his own behaviour that he made me marvel at him all over again. He also showed maturity beyond a sociopath level.

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I’ve changed my mind.

I need help from people who understand adolescent behavior and it seems to have been making it’s way to me almost as if there was a teen god sending it over. I’ve been stumbling across articles and essays that I may have seen around but never paid attention to. So much science and research into the brain which actually explains why the sociopath took hold of my son’s brain.

teen mouse

I remember people saying to me when Little Pencil was a baby – “small children small problems” and I wanted to whack them. It was condescending and unhelpful and not really true. All parts of parenting have their own issues and their own rewards. When he was small he was so attached to me, now that he is bigger that attachment has to change. I hope that is what they meant.

I love my adolescent son more than I could ever put into words. We have been lucky enough to enjoy an incredibly close and meaningful relationship. We have a bond that I am grateful for every minute of every day but I know that part of this stage of his life means our relationship has to change and that in some way I need to allow him to lead that change.

We don’t have to stop being close and loving each other an unhealthy amount but I do have to let him grow up. I need to allow him to be a teenager, to find his feet, to determine his strengths and his weaknesses, to come to me when he needs me and to pull away when he needs to find himself.

I just hope that he knows that I am on his side. And that I can still be a LITTLE bit scary when I shout only because I love him.

Facebook is literally messing with your mind

My son sent me this video the other day – he sent it via email with the subject heading “inspiration”.

I am not at all sure what point he was trying to make when he called it that but I really hope that he watched and understood it before he sent it to me. It’s something I try and drum through his head all the time so maybe he thought that this clip was my inspiration.

It certainly could have been.
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Thank God my mother never had Facebook

no facebookWhen I was a little girl I was apparently prone to a tantrum or two and there are a fair few photos of me mid total melt down. I guess being third child my parents thought it funny and tried to capture my ridiculous cuteness on film rather than give me that damn toy I wanted, but I digress.  One such photo exists of me naked and screaming in the backyard. It was printed of course because I am old and there was no digital imaging when I was in my prime tantrum years (although my husband might disagree).  I hated that photo.

I didn’t hate the fact that I was nude so much as I hated what I looked like, how sad and angry I seemed, how no one was listening to me but they were photographing me and how isolated I looked in that frame.  Clearly I have childhood issues which I bring to the photo but don’t we all?
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Getting close to building date.

The building project we are about to embark on is thisclose to happening. Every day we hear that the complying development certificate that we need to start will be ready the next day. We have amassed a following of people to nag the certifier including the draftsman and the builder and if we haven’t nagged them into submission it should be ready tomorrow. Or Monday. Or Tuesday. But it was meant to be ready last Wednesday.

I think that the council with all its red tape, bureaucracy and numbered forms actually help would be renovators and builders prepare for their projects by adjusting them, very quickly, to the fact that everything takes a long time and there will be endless days of absolutely no progress.
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The 14 emails I hate most

 

The other day during on of our more scintillating conversations (where more means less) my very close friend Kerri Sackville and I were discussing the relative sizes of our inboxes (where inboxes means the boxes where our email arrive – sorry to disappoint).

Kerri won that conversation because her box was bigger than mine (where box still means email depository) but I got a highly commended because of the contents of my email.  (By the way Kerri was, until the point that she read this post, completely unaware we were having a competition – she probably doesn’t even realise we are competing for best text messages either yet).

My inbox in not huge because I am fastidious and anal and keep it small and manageable and very good looking.  Also because I mostly communicate via Twitter, Facebook and Skype

But in order to keep this tiny, neat little box I have had to institute a hierarchy of emails so that I know how to deal with them as the come in.  They are (in very strict order)

  1. Your parcel has been dispatched
  2. Anything friendly or personal
  3. The meeting has been cancelled
  4. Thank you for submitting that piece we adore it
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  6. You have been paid
  7. Your order has been processed
  8. Something to do with the building process we are about to embark on. I never understand them but I am quite happy to receive them I believe somewhat erroneously that  it takes me that much closer to the process being over
  9. School emails – usually about a billion a week alerting me to anything from lice to menu changes at the canteen
  10. Group activity email – usually sent by one of my son’s friends parents who want to attend an event en masse. I wanted to put this at number 11 but in the interest of my son having a good social life I didn’t
  11. Everything I have ever subscribed to – still not sure why I do that
  12. Nigerians and Russians proposing to me
  13. Nigerians offering me money
  14. PR companies being paid to promote a product asking me to promote it on my blog or on Facebook/Twitter for free.
  15. Please pay this bill

I actually delete most of them but I file everything related to number 7 because my husband is more fastidious than I am and he might one day ask me what the builder said about the structural beam on the 6 June 2014.   I will find that filed in it’s own special folder titled “stuff I hate  – renovations”.

 

I remember

Tomorrow is my birthday, I am fast approaching very old in years but not maturity. This whole ageing thing has led to a lot of thinking and reflecting on past birthdays.

Turns out that my memory is not that great because I can’t even remember what I did on last year’s birthday. I am sure there was cake involved. There wont be cake this year *sobs about diabetes diagnosis and the sudden dearth of cake in my life*

I remember a few birthdays from my past – notably the one where I was around 8 and a magician came to our home and made a bunny appear out of a hat which was an incredible trick. Until the family dog ate the bunny. That was not as much fun. And to be honest that could have been one of my sister’s birthdays – they all seem to blend.

I remember the cake my mother made me one year for my pre-school party. It was a house with a roof made out of flakes and I swear there was smoke coming from the chimney. There were windows made of foil and lollies everywhere and now I am grown up I have diabetes. No, I am not bitter.

I remember very little of my teenage birthdays.  Probably better that way, my teenage years were a bloody miserable debacle.

But trying to go back in time without getting too deep has unearthed so many other “trivial” memories of my youth. Memories that could possible be imagined as a montage of my childhood without too much of the grit – I will spare you that for another time (read: never)

  • I remember the days before hair conditioner was invented and we sprayed our hair with No More Tangles before picking the knots apart by hand at great pain
  • I remember cutting tin foil shapes to burn into our skin in the sun after we had lathered ourselves with pure coconut oil. There was no SPF when I was growing up
  • I remember when my father first got a computer at his office and it had its own room which was set to a perfect temperature rather like a wine fridge. This room was just to the left of the telex machine
  • I remember the days before seat belts
  • I remember my father listening to the stock exchange prices over the radio
  • I remember getting my change at the corner store in chewing gum (Chappies for the South African readers playing along at home)
  • I remember wearing leg warmers without any attempt at being ironic
  • I remember my father crying when my parents got divorced
  • I remember when you could buy candles that weren’t scented
  • I remember drive-in movies and being secreted away in the boot of the car just before we drove in because you paid per person and I can only guess that my parents were trying to save money
  • I remember the emptiness of Sunday nights
  • I remember reading Beano and Beezer annuals
  • I remember being scared of the playground at school
  • I remember recording songs onto a tape cassette from the radio to make my own mixed tapes or even my own radio station complete with ads narrated by my sister and me
  • I remember believing in fairies
  • I remember playing with the chord of the home phone and winding it around my fingers, I remember the engaged signal and waiting at home for an important call
  • I remember being scared the Russians had stolen my mother and replaced her with someone who hated me
  • I remember eating sherbet out of matchbox with teeny tiny little spoons
  • I remember lying on the slastow next to the pool
  • I remember walking back home from the shop one day. One specific day that won’t leave my head
  • I remember when TV was introduced to South Africa where I grew up. Am hour in English and an hour in Afrikaans. And the test pattern the rest of the day
  • I remember getting my first doona. It was a huge novelty. My dad came home with one and we each got a turn to try it, it was like a cloud of softness.
  • I remember playing elastics
  • I remember my first day of primary school
  • I remember being scared that I would die before I got to year 6
  • I remember learning running writing
  • I remember the smell of new dolls at the toy shop
  • I remember that my mother got remarried although when I look at the photos of the wedding I don’t remember being there
  • I remember trying to black out the teenage years. It worked.
  • I remember the garden at my grandparent’s apartment was full of cats
  • I remember the best fudge in the world
  • I remember silly putty

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Hopefully I will remember all this and more as I grow older.

Hopefully I will forget all that I omitted to include this time.

I no longer have pre-diabetes

 

Today I went to the specialist again. The specialist was in fact an endocrinologist, because as much as I like trying to kid myself I go to the specialist because I’m special, I’m actually seeing an endocrinologist because my endocrine system is special. Although I just made that bit up.

I actually really wanted to see the Consultant guy below but my GP hadn’t written me a referral.

anti-ageing

Anyway I had been to the endocrinologist sometime back and he had sent me to have my entire blood supply syphoned by the pathology department. I also had to donate a LOT of wee to those pathologists. But that’s getting into specifics you probably don’t want to know about

Today I sat down across from the endocrinologist (whose parents must be my age )and I thought I heard good news

“You are no longer pre diabetic” he said.

“Yay me!” I thought fantasising about celebrating this win with a huge packet of fruit chews. And a jar of Nutella. And some marshmallows.

“You have diabetes” he said.

I still clung to my confectionery fantasy because I bloody love lollies and I thought I was going to need them to get through this diagnosis

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He gave me “gifts” of medication and books and glucose meters and a nifty set of needles and strips and asked me if I wanted to see a diabetes educator as well as a dietitian.

I  asked him if I was going to die. He didn’t answer no immediately. I think he sad something like “you have diabetes”.

I cried a little bit – because I cry whenever I hear any news.

He told me that I had diabetes.

And I walked out with a shopping bag full of stuff, a referral to a dietitian (who I will find it hard to listen to)  and a diagnosis of diabetes.

Nice. *sobs over lost opportunity to eat all the lollies*

lollies

 

 

This isn’t going to plan.

 

My day as Project Manager of the “big scary” renovation did not go well yesterday. It didnt’ go well at all and even though I constantly complained about how badly it was going, I was not fired.

It started when I went to the empty new house in the morning to meet the wardrobe man for a quote. I didn’t remember whether I was meeting him at 9:00 or 10:00 so I decided to take my laptop and get there early just in case. I tried to use my iPhone as a hotspot when I realised I had 9% battery power and no charger. So I fell asleep (this is my best way of dealing with stress.)

I woke up at 10:40 and the wardrobe company had still not arrived. I tried to call them which is when I realised that I didn’t know their number. Or their name. (I told you I am not a good Project Manager). So, I did what I always do when things don’t go according to plan – I phoned my husband and complained. He phoned the wardrobe company for me, because he had their number, then he phoned me back and told me they were scheduled to come at 2pm.

I had wasted my morning sleeping. Except no sleep is a waste (or so I told myself).
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I had a few things to do before going back to the empty house to meet the joiner so I decided to leave my laptop there and get the stuff done.

I arrived back at empty house just in time to meet the joiner who was coming to quote on the same stuff as the wardrobe man , just half an hour earlier. He arrived with the builder and I felt like I was on top of my game, so much so that when the builder suggested that the joiner take a photo of the plans I said quite emphatically “No, don’t worry about that! Take this copy, I have it on email I don’t need it”.

And as they drove away I realised that it was the only copy I had for the wardrobe man who I was due to meet in 15 minutes. My current house is not far from my new house so I raced home to print the plans again. Except when I got home I realised that my laptop was at the new, empty house.

And that my dear readers, is just part of the reason that I am a very shit project manager and will probably never have cupboards.

I’ve been forced to mainline Nutella

We recently bought a new house for which I am eternally grateful. It is a beautiful home and I can see myself playing with my grandchildren in the garden in billions of years time. That’s how long I plan to live there

We bought this stunning new house for a couple of reasons, one being that I was completely averse and almost criminally opposed to doing a renovation to existing house. I don’t like change, I don’t like mess and I don’t have even a smidge of patience. I also have perceptual problems meaning that I can’t read plans, I can’t imagine finished rooms and I don’t “read” drawings. To top it all I am so bad at math that I’ve developed a pathological hatred towards numbers so when people start talking about 2 metre walls or 1600cm spaces between neighbours I stick my hands over my ears and sing “nyah nyah nyah” (unless someone is watching then I just imagine doing it). I don’t get it.
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