Archives for November 2005

I’m one of those people who do their grocery shopping with the kids.

I’ve heard of lots of crazy stories about what kids do on shopping trips. They tear open flour bags, pour liquids out of bottles, rip open pasta packets, squeeze out the shampoo, poke holes into the mince meat, and get stuck into the ice cream etc.

But thankfully, I’ve trained Callum (from a very young age), to sit quietly in the basket, munch on a bucket of hot chips, and arrange all the bits and pieces into size and shape categories. It’ll only last an hour though. Then he’ll get restless and start demanding a strawberry smoothy.

I also go first thing in the morning. So that I’m first in line to get a new supermarket trolley – a super specky shiny one with new baby buckles, no crap smudged between the bars, no rusty twisted bits of metal sticking out, and with all four wheels that move in the SAME DIRECTION. There’s nothing more I hate in this world than trying to push a bashed and broken shopping trolley.

So today, we began our cruise through the shopping centre in our prized new shopping trolley. After a few minutes, I felt a tingling sensation in my hands. Ugh, poor circulation. I flick the feeling away. Then my arms and elbows began to tingle. I thought I should find a seat and sit down, in case I was about to faint or something. Then my upper arms and shoulders began to tingle too, and I started to get worried.

I looked down at my hands, and my hands were covered in ANTS. HUNDREDS OF THEM. EVERYWHERE! CRAWLING OUT FROM THE TROLLEY HANDLE! EEEEP!

I flung my hands around, smacked, brushed and waved my arms in a frantic flurry of panic. Then I looked at Sean, and HE was covered in ants. So I frantically brushed and smacked him too. It must’ve looked ridiculous. I was trying not to draw too much attention, but Callum was so shocked, that he started shouting “HELP! HELP! BUGS ARE EATING SEAN!! BUGS ARE EATING ME!! GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

Then Sean started to cry. The ants crawled into his mouth. I was still smacking the ants off his head. And I could feel them crawling up my neck and hair. And not to forget the bites, the dead ant smell, and the layer of dead ants smudged on my palm. Eeeeeew. Oh yes, it was a disaster.

It took me ages to get the last of the ants from my hair. We ditched the trolley. We sat on a bench. We cleaned ourselves up and calmed down. Sean stopped blubbering. Callum slurped happily on his smoothy. And I decided to go home, because I think being eaten alive by ants counts as too much of an adventure for 8am in the morning.

Eeep. Lately I’ve been getting heaps of emails from my visitors.

People asking me all kinds of questions, and topic requests for posts. Lots of people want more kid photos and stories. More fashion and jewellery photos. Advice on kids and pregnancy. Lots of people want to know how I met my husband. How did he propose. Whether I can post up my wedding photos. Whether I’m going to have more children. How do I cope being a stay at home mum. How did I lose my pregnancy weight. How do I feel about giving up my career to be a mum. Whether I ever dated Asian guys (hahaha!). What Australia is like. What Perth is like. And lots of design and web related questions.

Anyway… I’ll try to answer most of your questions. I’ll probably weave some of them into my regular posts rather than interview style, after all much can be said for subtleness.

(Ha! Subtleness! – Says she who posts pics of herself on the net.)

I drove out to the city this afternoon. By myself. Sun shining on my shoulders. Music blaring from the speakers. I had a sudden craving for some alone time. So I left the kids with my husband. I felt a little bad.

I had already been out to dinner with some friends on Wednesday night. We chatted, caught-up and laughed about random and inane things. We shared a huge platter of various tandooried animals and garlic naan. It was gooooooood.

And then my husband and I went out on Friday night. Dinner and movie. The Proposition. It was fantastic – beautifully crafted. Loved it, even though I’m not a Nick Cave fan.

So there I was. Parked on the street. Sitting in my car. Waiting for my song to finish. And… I felt really really happy.

Not because I was away from the kids. Or that I was about to go shopping. Or that I just created a somewhat spontaneous, slightly excessive, couple of hours for myself.

I think it was because my chi had finally settled.

These last few weeks I’ve been battling a constant spell of gloominess, depression, frustration, and overall emptiness.

I know it’s purely the roller coaster ride of post-pregnancy hormones. And I know our life is pretty sweet at the moment. And if I think about it, my week was actually filled with lots of happy, positive stuff.

But… eh, who can know the answer to the mystery of women.

Anyway, I found a super cute shop in the city. Bought a nice vintage top. A mini skirt. A couple of other things. Replenished my makeup supplies. And who knows if retail therapy actually works anyway. As long as the men believe it…