Can't Sleep?

Three things you shouldn't do late at night.

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#1 Make any type of decisions when you suffer from insomnia. One of two things will happen. Either you will forget said decision by the morning, meaning this whole point is null and void, OR it will bite you in the ass, in some way, in some form.

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#2 Facebook. Just don't go on it, at all. You will either end up lurking on the pages of those people who are your friends but for no real reason other than you don't particulary like them but want to know what's going on in their lives anyway,  or you will end up searching for ex boyfriends/friends/bosses/people and then stalk their pages, and in weaker moments, or moments of psychological shortage, otherwise known as the "brain fart", will send them a friend request. Now you don't want to be their friend! You know this, DO NOT I repeat, do not surcumb to your walks down memory lane. People make it to your past for a reason.

#3 Decide to have a crack at that new recipe that you have cluttering up your kitchen bench. You will be going really well until you put it into the oven to bake and then tuck yourself into bed forgetting that you have something cooking in the oven....On the other hand it's a great way to meet the sexy local fire brigade, but chances are they're not going to be too interested in a woman who can't cook, and who has woken up in a fright looking something like this...

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There are however lots of things that would be a great idea if you were having trouble sleeping.
Use that time to do the excersise you always complain you don't have time to do, hey that's got to wear you out right?
Scrub up on your knowledge and read a book or two. Hey at least you can get lost in a fantasy. Kinda like having a dream...only you're awake.
Use this time to become everyone's most wanted team mate for TV show trivia night. TV series are an addictive watch and I hear The Kardashians are good at getting people into bed.
Enjoy a little night cap. You'll either be so drunk you don't care about sleeping, or you'll be out like a light with the possibility of an early date with your porcelin friend.


What are some stupid things you've done when you haven't been able to fall asleep?
What works for you when you can't sleep?

The Day My Kids Had A Sword Fight, And It Wasn't The Kind I Expected...

Over the weekend I was introduced to a new term that I can honestly say I have never ever heard before.

Bluey was using the toilet, while I got their toothbrushes ready and Greenie rushed in all "I need to gooooo!"
I said, "Bluey is going, just hang on a sec."
Bluey pipes up "I don't mind if he goes with me, we can share"
I laugh and says "That's very nice of you mate but I think he wants to sit down." As Greenie hasn't really progressed to standing expect when we're stranded where there are no toilets and we water a tree or a brick wall or a car tyre.
Greenie says "Nooooo" pulling his pants down and whips his little fella out and squeezes on beside Bluey doing his thing.
I caution Bluey telling him to just be careful he doesn't wee on his brother, you know, that's the kind of shit I'm not fond of cleaning up. They finish up and Bluey says to me "Greenie and I had a sword fight!" I look at him and say "A sword fight? When? You know we don't do that because you might hurt your brother."
Bluey says to me "Not with swords, with our wee."
Mr Black overhears us at just that moment and chooses to pipe up with a laugh "Haven't you ever heard of sword fights."
I mumble something about not those kind of sword fights and that I am not the owner of a penis and so I think it would be hard as a sitter to have a sword fight with my urine.

So, have you heard of sword fights?
Am I the only one squirked out that my kids relish in urinating at the same time like it's some important bonding session?
Are men really from Mars and women from Venus?
If so, why do we go to Venus to get more penis?

The Gifted Mind Of A Child

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Children and maturity.

If you're lucky, you will never have to have a conversation with a teacher about your child's maturity levels.
Really, it's not a fun one to have, because what exactly can you do?

Sometimes, I feel completely overwhelmed with being a mother to Bluey.
The guilt that follows admitting this feeling is dark and empty. In honesty I am just not prepared to parent this remarkable child, and I have found that there is a great lack of support and idea's to help assist parents of gifted children.

There have been times when I have wondered if Bluey has ADHD. Mr Black has insisted on it quite a few times actually. And I know there is a constant worry that he is already showing signs of anxiety problems, as he is very sensitive emotionally.
He is often forgetful and losing his belongings.
He is a social child, very outgoing, but also easily influenced.
"Easily Distracted" has been mentioned to me far too many times by teachers that I finish the phrase off for them before they can get halfway through the first word. How the hell am I supposed to change if he is distracted or engaged from at home?

My answer to his boredom at school has been to let the teacher know he has expressed boredom, and then at home looked at way's I can extend his homework he is already getting.
Last year as the school year wrapped up I was pulled into a meeting with the Principal and the Assistant Principal for Stage 1 and told that Bluey would be in a composite class, that it was something they felt with his situation, and ability to cope in many social situations he would benefit from greatly from having some harder work more easily available to him, as well as peers who are older and would pull him up maturity wise.

Only problem is this doesn't seem to be working. He is still complaining frequently that he is bored. His teacher is already having him work with the older kids, but when you're five and in year one in a composite class, these children are up to three years older than him!
I am struggling to be his mum.
I don't understand why he does some of the stuff he does. Things he wouldn't even attempt here at home, and because I don't understand this, I don't understand how to help him, how to cater for him.

I know that I am not the only person who has a gifted child, or who may have some experience with this. Please if you have any advice, or directions you can point me in, throw them at me.
I've had a look around, but I am not finding anything to help with our situation, and the teachers have not been much help other than "encourage your child with positive reinforcement."
Something we have been doing from day one as I believe in praise for the positive and ignore the negative.
I've pointed out that the issue may be with the fact because of his learning capabilities being up here, that it is quickly expected that the rest of him is up there too when in fact he is a five year old acting like a five year old.

I am tired of my child complaining he is bored, and his teachers complaining about his behaviour.
I'm tired of feeling like I am a failure mum.

The Glass Bubble

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Glass is tough right?
It can shelter from the outside. It can keep things inside. Doesn't break at every touch, but if you strike it a certain way it can shatter.

Sometimes I feel like my amour is made from glass.
I've been shattered more than once, and the repair? It's slow going. Picking up all those jagged pieces, some that cut you as you try to put them back into place. And do not get me started on the tiny pieces that could fit just about anywhere but the place you're trying to stick them, and if you get one piece out of place, then it becomes bowed, and not quite right. Easier to break the next time.

The funny thing about having your glass armour all in place is that you still feel vulnerable.
Sure it may not look that way from the outside, and that's the beauty of glass armour, what you're feeling inside, it gets bounced around in your solitary confinement.
It can get nauseating.

Do you live life in a glass bubble?
Maybe you life life outside of the bubble? If so I bow down to you oh fabulous one.

Excuse me while my blog mirrors the current mish mash of my life. I do know that my regular posts will be returning shortly. I just need to get myself there. Please know I am trying very hard behind the scene's.

When Words Fail.

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Words.
How many words are there in the human language again?
And yet here I am struggling to find any.

I once wrote a post called Hermit Crab.
I am feeling exactly like a hermit crab right now, only more like the shell they leave behind.
Present, but empty watching everything pass by unable to absorb and form thoughts of my own.

It's quite frustrating to be honest.

It also makes me highly aware of everything going on around me. Not being involved. Slinking back into the wallpaper, and simply observing.
Sometimes I like these moments. Not so much right now.

Life Sucks, Then You Die.

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On a rare moment you see life and death crossing paths with the exchanging of an almost kiss.

Such has happened to me in the last week, with a death tainting some very meaningful birthday celebrations.
It has sent me wordless.
This being a post I have started five times now. Hopefully this one will make it to publish.



I do not cry over death.
That's not to say it doesn't make me sad. I just don't cry. I don't carry guilt with me for death. It is just another stage of life. It has to end for everyone eventually.
It sucks, and sometimes it happens too soon, or abruptly, which can be cruel, but who said life was fair?

Birthdays catch my breath. They have me feeling ansty, and unsure in a kind of backwards event.
Another year of memories has passed, will I be lucky enough to get another? A year is a long time for things to change. People to disappear.
I cannot wait for the blowing out of the candles signifiying the celebrations are all over.

Life. Death.
Are they really enimies?

Seems to me like they're actually close friends.

Change Your Perspective

Let me start this post by saying it may be triggering for some, or just boring to others. That's cool, skip on by if you don't like the ugly colours of the world. Also, I do not have, and never have been addicted to a substance. Unless you count icecream. Just so you know that neither I or my children are in any danger whatsoever. And if we were, you don't know where I live so ner ner.

I am not fragile. I'm a drug addict. I've fallen off the wagon twice and I have gotten back on. That does not make you fragile, that makes you very fricken strong. I am standing in a building full of pills right now. A fact that I am painfully aware of, but instead I'm doing this. That does not make you fragile!
- Greys Anatomy

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Addiction.
It isn't always the homeless scab faced beast that you are bombarded with on television.
I believe whole heartedly we all face addiction in some form or another. The woman who cannot leave the house without checking all the windows and doors are locked 5 times. The man who sits at the pokies instead of going home to his family after work. The woman with 500 pairs of shoes. The child who screams for sweets. The man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. The person overindulging in food. The drug addict.

Addiction takes on many forms. They're not always this unhealthy ugly monster. Sometimes they are though. Sometimes you resemble this monster yourself, sometimes that monster stays hidden underneath, growling away inside your head.

I've struggled with an unhealthy addiction since I was 14. That's over 10 years. 10 long, tiring years. For five of those years I could not escape my addiction. I gave in every single time. Which was multiple times a day.
I used to hate myself because I thought I was weak. I used to hate the world for not understanding me. I used to find comfort and solace in my addiction. I personified it, and it became my friend.
Please don't call the guys in the white jackets just yet, hear me out.

Now I look at my addiction differently. I am strong. I am strong because of my addiction. For it to take me to my own personal hell that I have walked, that I feel crackling just under the surface of the ground I walk on every single day. For all the times I've fought it, regardless whether I won that fight or not I was strong for stepping up to the fight.
I am still fighting that battle every single day.

So why is addiction seen as a weakness?
We all have one.
You have one. The person closest to you? They have one too. So does your neighbour. Your boss. Your child's teacher.
It doesn't always destroy. Sometimes it does and what is rebuilt is more beautiful than what was originally created.

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Gonna Take Her For A Ride On A Big Jet Plane

I'm not here today, instead I am sharing an old story over at Accidental Wonderland, that I have had in drafts for a very long time and loved too much to delete but felt it not very relevent to my here and now.

Please head on over and have a read, leave a comment, and have a snoop around Ames' place. It's quite a lovely blog, one of my favourites, and she has just welcomed her daughter on the 29th so there will be lots of cute baby goodness to add the the cuteness of Lufflump, her toddler.

The New Girl

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I'm not a social person. I avoid many many social situations, that when I do show up to something you have got to know that I've put a lot of hard work into getting myself there, and that I obviously really wanted to do it or I wouldn't have bothered.

Recently a school mum friend dragged me along to her play group. I had expressed before about how I just don't do that shit. I don't do small talk, I lack the basic niceties that people so easily blurt out
"Hi I'm ...."
"How is your day?"
"Is that your little one? How old are they?"
"Would you like a tea or coffee?"
"It was nice meeting you."

Things you will never hear me say. I rarely ask questions about others for fear of being too nosey. I usually say shit I shouldn't, make inappropriate jokes, say what's on my mind which tends to come out in a blunt critical way when really it's not meant that way at all.
Oh yes, I will make a fun old lady sitting on my porch telling all the passer-by's what I think of them.

Anyway, I expressed playgroup just wasn't my thing. I don't do the competitive talk, the small nice stuff, pretending to be interested, and so I was happy to take my kids to the park, or library for interactions. Places I don't have to actually interact myself.
Yet she dragged me along.

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It was ok.
That's all I can say. It wasn't awful or anything, everyone was friendly, but I was definitely "the new girl" and they were happy to catch up with their friends and hear the goss. Which is ok.
Greenie had a ball though, and asked again last week if we were going. I told him no. It broke his heart, which in turn broke my heart, and so I took him this week saying to myself  'Maybe if I just do it every other week, ease myself into it, he is getting what he wants without me getting too overwhelmed.'

This week the rift was clear as day to me.
Again everyone was nice, small talk was attempted. It's hard, I get that, when I don't do the chatty small talk questions back. I smile, I answer, but it's all a foreign language to me. There are only so much small talk you can make with a stranger.
But the kids? They love me.
I set up an obstacle course for them and had them doing all sorts of fun stuff. Then we played an impromptu game of pirates in a big boat going through the waves, running from snapping crocodiles, we even survived a hurricane! We landed on our island and quickly found our treasure, musical instruments, which we practised playing loud and soft, fast and slow. We buried out treasure before heading off for a feast of decorating our own cupcakes with fairy dust, and clouds and rocks (sprinkles, marshmallows and smarties).
While the kids sat around eating and the mothers chatting some more I did a quick tidy up between sitting with the kids marvelling over their tales and encouraging them to keep eating all their food. Before long we were back to playing, hide and seek this time and singing songs and I found myself exhausted being pulled this way and that and realising that I was essentially the hired entertainer. Only I wasn't getting paid.

And it was easier. It was easier to spend 2 hours in a child's world than to make small talk. I laughed with these gorgeous children, and they listened to me if I spoke. Greenie had a ball and asked me if we could "come back again and again".

One mother said as she was leaving "You were great! You should get a job in childcare." I smiled and gave a soft laugh.
I know I can do kids. I know to some that it's such a hard thing. But I can't do adults. I want to so much, I can see the charisma ooze from people, the way others can work a room, the suaveness of some. I can't do any of that.
And it hurts.
It hurts when you ache for friendship.


Can you do small talk? What are your thoughts on playgroups? Do you love them or avoid them? Are you a kid or an adult person?