Sometimes, I get ugly

Usually we go away with I and M (who do not approve of being named on the interwebs, so I will just use letters) for Australia Day.  Of course, usually we get a long weekend for Australia day.  Not this year.  This year, Australia day was on a Wednesday.  So instead, we went to I and M’s  house with Hannah for dinner, games, sleep (for some of us) and then breakfast, lunch, and more games.

Being a mom, I can now no longer stay up past 10.  Fine, I’ve never been good at that, but whatever, that is not the point.  9pm rolled around (I put Hannah to bed at 7:30, FYI), and I was already struggling to stay awake.

It probably didn’t help that I don’t really like the game we were playing.  Games with lore checks, this check, that check, and what have you (where you roll a dice to see if you can or can’t do something), bore the pants off me (not literally, don’t get too excited).  Sigh, they are so slow!  And when you have 8 people playing, it seems like 5 hours of people rolling dice before they can actually do something before it finally gets back to your turn, where you roll some dice, inevitably roll a 1, can’t do anything (or die), and then it’s someone else’s turn again.  Ugh, no thanks.  And I like board games. Most anyway.

No one could remember whose turn it was to bring drinks, so 2 whole cases of beer ended up coming, in addition to the home brewed spirits that Johno and Adrian brought.  Oh goodness, recipe for disaster.  Not for me of course, I know that drinking with a bun in the oven is linked to F.A.S., which I definitely don’t want my future child to suffer with it’s entire life.

Alcohol, and being quiet, don’t mix.  A lot of the people there that night are loud anyway, but add spirits, and bang, it’s like being next to a bunch of hyena’s who’ve had way too much catnip.  Eventually, I was so tired that I fell asleep anyway. Not a good sleep, a fitful, restless sleep that ended abrubtly at 1:30am when loud banging woke me up.  Not just me, but Hannah too.  Adrian was so drunk that he was banging his head on the table in attempt to be able think more clearly for game playing.

Hannah didn’t seem to mind being awake, she just laid in her port-a-cot next to the bed, rolling around, singing to herself and reciting her name.  I, on the other hand, laid in bed tossing and turning, fantasising about what I would yell at these loud obnoxious people if it were my house they were being loud and obnoxious in.

I don't mean for Hannah to shut up, I mean the loud people

Of course, I couldn’t tell them to shut their loud annoying mouths if I and M were there because that’s just rude.  I, wouldn’t like it if they came over to my house, and told me how to behave.  No, instead, I stewed in bed.  And I went to the bathroom because I have nanna pregnancy bladder and have to go at least once per night.  I did attempt to glare at them on my way out, but I’m not sure if they actually noticed since I wasn’t wearing my glasses and can’t see my own hand in front of my face unless I do.  Maybe they were doing an obnoxious ha-ha-we’re-going-to-keep-being-loud-and-obnoxious-all-night dance, I don’t know, to me they resembled blobs of fuzz, all meshed together.  I couldn’t even slam the door in passive aggressive annoyance on my way back in because I didn’t want to upset Hannah.

At 4am, they were really giggly and loud.  I wanted scream, yell, kick, bite, and scream at them some more.  How could they keep me up all night??  I listened in bed.  Hmmm….it seems I and M weren’t there anymore.  They must have gone to bed.  In the other house.  They would be sleeping soundly, with no interruptions from loud drunken people.  I could tell they were playing Telestrations (oh how I love that game.  So so funny).  Telestrations is always funny, but it sounded so much more funny when drunk (judging by the loud obnoxiousness anyway).  That was it, I’d had enough.  I put on my towel (it was 45 degrees celsius that day, there was no way I was going to sleep in clothes), went to the bathroom (nanna pregnancy bladder again), then I couldn’t contain myself anymore.

I marched up to the table (so I could see them a little bit) and let loose.  “Do you know what time it is?!”  I didn’t let them answer, I kept going.  “It’s 4am! FOUR AM!!! Do you have any idea how loud you people are?  Do you know how hard it is to sleep?  I went to bed at 10, and I have hardly slept all night!”  They all looked at me, like I was a lion and they were tiny little baby zebras, about to be devoured by me.

I pointed my finger straight at Aaron, “and don’t think that I’m going to watch Hannah all day tomorrow just because you stayed up all night!”

“Are you mad?”  He asked me.

“YES I’m MAD, I haven’t slept all night!  How can I sleep when you people are so loud and someone is banging his head on the table?!?!?!”  Everyone continued to stare at me like I was some sort of nutcase escaped from the asylum.

Then I huffed off back to bed.  And they packed up the games and went to bed too.

Sure, it seems really mean of me to point my finger at Aaron and yell at him like that in front of his friends, but at 4am after hardly any sleep and no good sleep?  No, it didn’t seem mean at all.

A book about muumuu’s?

I was driving home with Grandma and Hannah in the backseat (Grandma is scared to sit in the front because she thinks I may just kill her with my driving, and she doesn’t want to actually witness it.  She says she sits in the back because it’s more supportive to her neck).

“There’s a little girl.”  I heard Grandma say to Hannah.  I glanced in the mirror.  Grandma was pointing things out in one of Hannah’s story books.

“There’s a little muumuu.”  What?  Visions of a little girl wearing an awful might-as-well-wear-a-burlap-sack-for-a-dress muumuu filled my head.  What the heck kind of book was this?

MuuMuu House Dress – Modern Flowers Petal Sleeves Caftan Kaftan Hawaiian Aloha Pullover Cotton Lounger – Regular and Plus Size

I’m embarrassed just looking at this picture

“There’s a big muumuu.”  Why does Hannah have a story book filled with people wearing muumuu’s?  Yuck.

“There’s a baa baa.”

Oh, now I get it.

“Cow!” I tell Hannah from the front seat.  Not that she could hear me since my mouth was facing the windshield, and not her.

Sure, it may be cute if she calls cows moo moo’s now.  Not so much when she is like 5 and thinks that is actually what they are called.  I don’t want her to be that kid at school that no one talks to because she goes over to all the books and starts making animal noises and doesn’t know what people are talking about when they ask her if she has a dog at home (what’s a dog?  Oh, you mean a woof woof?).

No, a cow is called a cow, and it says Moo.  Now how do I tell Grandma that I don’t want my child thinking animals are called the noise they make?  I don’t want to insult her, or make her get cranky and hide in her room for an hour sulking.  How do I nicely let her know that a cow is not in fact called a moo moo?  Sigh, being non-confrontational is hard.

A hot New Years day

New Years day was stinking hot.  Ugh, grossly hot.  Turn-on-the-air-conditioner-and-it’s-still-way-too-hot hot.  39.1 degrees celsius (102.3F) hot.  Needless to say, we didn’t really want to stay in the house (or play outside) for fear of melting.  Instead, we went to Bunnings to check out BBQ’s.  They have little trolleys for kids to push around which Hannah loved.  They have an indoor playground, and lots of display cubby houses and slides that you’re not really supposed to play on, but everyone does anyway.  Hannah had lots of fun there, giving me a good excuse to try out my new little pocket digital camera that Aaron bought me for Christmas (that just so happens to be purple).

Hannah hung out with me in the bathroom while I got ready to go.  Unfortunately, she found my stash of tampons and decided it would be a grand idea to take every single one out of the box and open it.  I would have stopped her, but it was hilarious, so instead, I got the camera out.

In the afternoon, Grandma, Hannah, and I went to the club (Penrith RSL club), which isn’t really a toddler place, but it’s big, air conditioned, and has plenty of room for rambunctious toddlers to run.  “Can’t someone make that girl be quiet?”  A rather haggard looking oldish man said to me.  “No.”  I replied. He looked annoyed.  His friend smiled and gave me the thumbs up.  She wasn’t even being loud, she was just running.  Eventually she slipped, hit her lip on a table, and bled a little.  Time to go.

Next stop Kmart.  Again to look at BBQ’s.  Only they ran out and didn’t even have any display models.  We grabbed a large ball and I gave it to Hannah.  Kmart of course, is an awesome place to kick a ball around if you’re a tiny toddler in need of lots of space.  She also enjoyed the pets section, particularly the dog shampoo which had pictures of “dog-dogs” on the front.  People probably thought I was mad letting my little girl kick a ball around Kmart, but whatever, I don’t particularly care, she had a great time.  Plus it was nice and cool in there.

It finally started getting a bit cooler when we got home, so Hannah helped Daddy wash the car.  Give her a task to do and she is in heaven.  Actually, we didn’t ask her to help, she just started helping.  That is Hannah.  She helps me put all the clothes in the washing machine, she washes up any spills she makes, she helps sweep the floor, she tries to clean the bath tub when she is in it.  She just loves to clean.  She gets cranky if I don’t let her help.  Despite the disgusting heat, we had a great day.

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The towel apocalypse

Aaron’s mum  (YaYa as she is now known when Hannah is present.  Hannah has a lot of grandparents, so we have to differentiate somehow) is coming tomorrow to visit for Christmas.  Sounds exciting right?  Well, it is, until Grandma turns into a shaking little ball of stressed out craziness.  Grandma has this overwhelming urge to make everything perfect for anyone and everyone who comes to visit.  She has this need to feed people until they almost explode.  I suppose that comes from being married to a greek for so many years.  Or maybe that’s just Grandma.  I’m not too sure.  She made “salmon” patties and some eggplant and tomato thing just so YaYa can “open the fridge and have a snack whenever she wants.”  It’s like  she is expecting the queen to come and grace our presence while tasting Grandma’s abundance of food. Stress is oozing out of Grandma, in the form of yelling and short-temperedness.  You can feel the stress from about 10 feet away.

Before we moved in with Grandma, we stopped telling her we were coming for a visit and started just showing up instead.  If we let Grandma know we were coming first, she’d spend all day cleaning and then greet us with a roast chicken, roast potatoes, sweet potatoes, bread rolls, pasta salad, regular salad, gravy, boiled vegetables, and of course, pavlova for desert.  We don’t care if the house is dusty, some dishes are in the sink, and mess is on the floor.  We’re family.  We just want to have a nice time together.  Same goes for when YaYa visits.

Grandma keeps bags and bags of “bedclothes” (as she calls them, aka sheets etc.) in the top of the linen press (linen closet) just for when YaYa comes to visit.  Aaron climbed up the ladder to reach them, pulling out bag after bag of, well, I’m not sure really.

“What’s in this bag Grandma?”  Aaron asked.

“Towels.  Good ones, brand new ones.”  Grandma said.

“So why don’t you use them?”

“I already have plenty of towels.”

“Umm…So why don’t we give them away to the needy?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’ll need them sometime.”

“What if I have to go in a home?  I’ll need to bring my own linen and towels!”  Oh Grandma….

(Laughing) “Grandma!” Aaron exclaimed.

 

Some of the bags at the top of the linen press

“But I’m poor, and I have enough towels to last me the rest of my life!”  She was starting to get really cranky now.  It’s like she thinks there will be a towel apocalypse and she must keep every towel she comes in contact with or else she will be wet and cold and may not survive.

 

“You’re not poor anymore Grandma, we’re here!”

“You never know what can happen, you never know what things you’ll need.  If you keep something long enough, you’ll find a use for it.”  Sigh. This is a prime reason for Grandma’s hoarding.

We didn’t persuade Grandma into getting rid of anything in the linen press,

Bring it on, we're ready

even though she has an entire shelf full of towels, another full of sheets, and of course, the top section full of plastic bags which are full of new all of the above.  Aaron, Hannah and I have one half of one shelf.  Total.  Bring on the towel apocalypse, we’re ready.