Sunday, November 11, 2007

Whinge, and Super hero stuff.

I'm tired. No, scratch that. I'm exhausted. I think I need a man.

No, not for that! Get your minds out of the gutter. (Though, now I come to think about it... it's been a long time .....)

It is an impossibility for one woman to maintain a house, full time job, car, lawn, whipper snipper, garden, veggie patch, kids' extra-curricular activities, novel, afghan and also attend to various motherly/daughterly/friendy/pet-ownery/'selfish' creative-y things and do them all well. As a Virgo this seriously messes with my mind.

I love my job. Seriously love it. Plus it pays the bills, which is very considerate of it. The downside to working full time is that it only gives you the weekend with any serious chunks of time to do everything that needs to be done. I realise that this is BIG NEWS to anyone reading this, because naturally no-one else has to juggle anything.

But it's weekends like this that make me wish that I had another able-bodied adult around. (Not enough to do anything concrete about it, but those of you reading this that know about my massive tally of internet dates will understand. I'm still on a break.)

This weekend I had to do all the housework, mow the lawns, do the edges, harvest the spinach before it went to seed, novelise, knit, bake cakes and biscuits for the kids for next week, go to the butchers and buy cat meat and make the patties for them (I feed my pets the BARF diet... great for them but a shitload of work for me), do all of the laundry/bedding washing/hanging/folding, take Jordan to a sleepover, come home and welcome one of Brennan's mates for a sleepover here, go to Mum's for a birthday party, take possession of Murphy while Mum and Dad go away for a month, finish off my year 11 correction, anything else I've forgotten to list ... etc.

I did some of the edging, until the f%ck*&g whipper snipper ran out of line. I have plenty. Unfortunately the kids cleaned the garage a few weeks ago and now no-one knows where it is. I didn't mow the lawns. Around the sideway the weeds are as big as triffids. I was wondering where all of the dandelions in the veggie patch were coming from. Now I know.

I made 6 cakes. Four are still around to be frozen and used for after school fodder for the hordes. No biscuits.
I knitted yesterday. Star Wars 2 was on tv, so I had a chuckle and a knit. Good times.
Cat food got made. Only because they would've starved next week if I didn't.
Washing got done. It's still on the line at 6.30pm. The kids don't know it yet, but they're about to be my laundry boys when I get off here. They can do the folding too.
Correction? No way.
Novel? You jest.
I harvested the spinach though. To look at it growing, you'd swear there was enough to feed an army. But once I'd cut, washed, blanched, chopped, weighed and bagged the leaves, I only had four 250g bags. For three hours work (plus a possible sunburned scone) (that means scalp for those who aren't Australian) I wasn't happy. Then I looked at the stalks. Green, fibrey and organic. I bet Ma Ingalls, who you all know by now is my personal hero, wouldn't have wasted them. So I chopped, blanched, bagged and froze them too. Four more bags. I've doubled my yield! Good on me.

I haven't stopped all weekend. No housework, no correction, no nothing. How long is it till the summer break?

But I have to tell you something funny that happened yesterday. Brennan's mate Marcus came over, and they went to 7-11 for a slurpie. They were gone for quite a while, and when they came back they said that a couple of teenagers had thrown waterbombs at them, disappeared, and then five minutes later came back riding bikes and chased them all the way to the oval near 7-11. The kids hid near the cricket players until the coast was clear, got their slurpies, and then came back home via a massively roundabout route so they'd avoid the little shits on the way back. They were terrified.

I listened, asked if they knew where they lived, and when they said yes ( Brennan said they were the same kids who tried to drag Jordan off his bike a year ago) I said, "Get in the car."

We drove around. The kids were in the back seat, and I heard Brennan say to Marcus, "We don't normally do this on a Saturday. This isn't a normal day!"

The kids stayed in the car while I knocked on the front door. I wondered if the door was going to open and I'd be confronted by familiar faces from the school I teach at. I wondered if I was going to get the crap beaten out of me. As I was standing there, a car pulled into the driveway and there were Mum and the two boys. Bingo!

For those of you who aren't teachers, I'll let you in on a little secret. Come closer, because I'm going to whisper this. We don't mind telling off other people's kids. We do it every day. We're professional at it. We do it every day, sometimes for entertainment. It was beautiful.

I smiled at the Mum, but spoke directly to the kids. Asked them if they'd been home in the last half to three quarters of an hour. I'll say it again. It was beautiful. Their Mum was there, so they couldn't lie. You should've seen Mum turn purple when I said they'd chased primary aged kids all the way to the oval.

"How old are they?" she asked. It made me wish (briefly) that Brennan was still in prep.

"They're grade sixers", I said, but then to make up ground, I hastily added in a grave tone, "They were very frightened. You boys are so much bigger."

"We were just having fun. We didn't know they were scared," said one foolish boy. He didn't know he was dealing with a fully trained Drama teacher.

"You didn't know they were scared???? Were they running away and laughing? I don't think so." Mum turned even more purple, and glared at them. Any more purple, and she'd be needing those heart starter paddles.

Then I decided to gamble and said, "My kids say that you're the kids that tried to drag my older son off his bike last year."

They turned pale. "No no, that wasn't us!!"

I wasn't prepared to fight that battle, so I took the high moral/teacherly/motherly ground. I practically waved a finger at them.

"See what happens when you do something wrong? You start to get blamed for things you haven't done." Their Mum nodded.

"Do you go to (bleep)?" I asked. (Bleep being where I teach.) They shook their slimy little heads.

I looked at Mum and laughed. "Probably just as well. They wouldn't want to have me as a teacher after this!"

To their credit, they volunteered to go and apologise. They went up to the kids. I followed closely behind, just in case they were going to threaten them with death or worse. But all was well. They apologised, the boys said "That's ok", their Mum said to me, "Little idiots", and we left.

I'm now officially awesome Mum. I'm reasonably happy with that.

IMPORTANT QUESTION:
Does anyone know if we can post an audio thingy from Limewire on our blogs? Jordan played us the funniest thing I've heard in a month of Sundays, and I'd love to post it. However, he seems to think the police will send me to jail. Is this true? Please let me know one way or another....

11 comments:

Scott said...

You are hilarious! I prefer my weekend though, but yours is certainly much more entertaining!

Scott said...

...and by the way - the BARF diet? Sounds enticing.

Frogdancer said...

Idiot! I laughed so loud the kids were mad. Apparently I was drowning out Rove and Justin Timberlake.

BARF: Bones And Raw Food diet.

I'll do a post on it one day. It's the best possible way to feed your pets. )I'm a Virgo, so I know!)

Kin said...

Oh my, you are totally my Super Hero! Totally awesome.

And *ahem* why aren't your boys doing the housework? My kids (3 and 4) sort the washing, load the machine, fold their own washing and put it away. They stack the dishwasher and help me unload it. They help tidy every day and once week clean the bottom half of the windows. I'm trying to think of more things for them to do around the house.

Anonymous said...

lol @ being a professional telling off other people's kids!!

I may not be a teacher, but I have no problem doing it either and oh it can be fun!! lol

Frogdancer said...

Kin,
I totally hear you.

My kids used to do most of the housework (make the most of their willingness to be exploited while they're little!!!), and I was the envy of everyone at work, but sadly, as I was warned about but didn't believe,, things change when puberty hits. Ironic really, because with adult sized bodies one would assume they could do more work.....

Mine work for extra $$$ for me when they're desperate, but now they can work at their father's shop for $50 a pop, so the $10 for 2 hours work I pay is not much chop. They have to keep their rooms tidy, or else they don't get their pocket money. The younger two obviously forgot this last week, and felt the financial pain.

After I logged off I said to them that I'd been working all weekend and they'd done nothing.. (did I phrase it something like "you've sat on your arses all weekend"? I hope not, because I really hate the word 'arse, yet I feel it may have slipped out.

They unstacked the dishwasher, restacked it, brought in the washing and were about to do the folding when my Mum and Dad came visiting with news about how Dad caught a burglar!!! We opened the champagne and that was it for the night.

Enjoy your little ones' willingness to please and be grown up. The good thing about training them young is that you know that they will never be helpless. All of mine know how to clean a toilet, even though you wouldn't have guessed it this weekend......

widget said...

You have made me laugh a great deal today and it is only 8.45am. Who knows how the rest of the day will go.....

Keep up the work ethic - you will make the preotestants proud (te he!)

Kin said...

That definitely sounds much more like it. It didn't matter in our house how old you were - there were things you just had to do. One of them was as soon as you were tall enough to bring the washing in off the line.

Maybe we were just too good for our own good, but the amount of work around the house we did until we moved out. Sheesh, no wonder we were all gone by the time we turned 18 LOL. And pocket money? pfft. $17 a fortnight.

lightening said...

You rock!!! I remember getting beaten up at school when I was in year 7 (that's primary school in SA by the way - which gets kinda confusing in my life cos I did years 8-12 in Vic but I digress). I was "saving" 2 poor year 3 kids that were getting beaten up by a peer of mine. He decided that I would do to take his angst out on!!! My teacher blamed the whole thing on me!!!! So my parents did the whole "our GP said we should report this to the cops" which had her backpeddling a tiny bit. It's nice to enjoy being the hero while you can. That was about the last time I didn't die of embarrassment if my parents EVER intervened in my life (although I *almost* died that time - of embarrassment that is, not from being beaten up LOL).

River said...

Sunburned scone eh? Where was your HAT?? And good on you for tackling the bullies. In appreciation I think your boys should fold and put away all the washing, cook dinner, wash up the dishes by hand, vacuum the floors and clean the bathtub and....and.......and........

Frogdancer said...

River,
my Mum said the same thing when she and Dad came over the first time to drop off Murphy the dog. You know how some jobs take a bit longer than you think they're going to?

(I know... slip, slop, slap...)