Where are all the Elves when you need them?

I could do with a little tribe just to pick up after his lordship . . . .as quickly as I go around decorating the christmas tree, picking up toys, cleaning the floor, putting back the drawers and cupboards there’s a little mischievous elf behind me creating chaos . . . . and we have one incisor down and one still cutting through – which means a little clingy, non-sleeping man and a very frustrated Mama!  It’s christmas morning here already and the house is clean (finally!) the lawn is mowed, I have spent all day doing a christmas pudding (my first!) with dried fruit that has been stewing in brandy for 18 months – it’s pretty potent!  Thank God for Google – wouldn’t have had a clue without the master at my elbow!  We are off to bed and still got to make the salads and the mayonnaise and the brandy butter and white sauce in the morning as well as enjoying Ben enjoying his presents.  It’s been a crazy week with trying to finish work, do the shopping, spring clean the house etc . . . and Ben is almost walking on his own!

Mummy's little helper

Walking Boy

Messy, me??

Blue eyed boy

Boys will be Boys!

Last Thursday not long after Sandra had arrived to look after the not sleeping (again!) Pickle for the afternoon, I was finally doing a wee when I heard a scream and sobbing and I raced out and grabbed my baby from her. His mouth was full of blood and he was hysterical so I just held him to me and reikied him and murmured ‘it’s all right, it’s all right’ in his ear while he cried  . . . and cried . . . and cried.  All I could see was the top of his golden head and the blood all over my white t-shirt and the stain kept growing and growing.

I had no idea what he had done and I wasn’t going to be able to look until he calmed down so I just kept holding him and loving him.  At one point I pulled off my tee shirt because I thought the blood must be upsetting him more so I was bare breasted Mama, fiercely protecting her cub.  Finally I took him outside because nature always calms him as it does me, and we stood by the flying fox and watched the river as he cried.

After a while he wriggled to go down and I let him and crouched down with him, but as soon as his feet hit the ground, the sobbing started again.  So I sat legs akimbo and pulled him to my chest again and waiting til he stopped.  He stopped and I pulled away and it all started again, crying like his heart would break.  I could even hear the emotions as they tore through him – ‘the world isn’t a safe place any more’, ‘I hurt’, ‘it isn’t fair’, ‘life isn’t supposed to be like this’, ‘I hurt’ and there was nothing I could do about any of it just be there – I couldn’t turn back time, I couldn’t make it go away and I couldn’t heal it – what sort of Mother was I?

Eventually he stopped and I took him back to the house and poor Sandra who had the guilt of being the one in charge eating her up.  More Emergency Essence and we stripped him and put him in a nice warm bath to get clean both physically and energetically – wash away the trauma, rinse away the pain.  Sandra played with him while I made a bottle dosed with Arnica, chamomile and more Emergency Essence and at last we could see what he had done.  Top teeth through bottom lip, one tooth right through to the outside by the looks of things.  Hard to say but looked like the teeth were all still where they had been.

OMG my poor child.  No blame, just sorrow – it could have happened with any of us, and once they start standing upright some big fall is inevitable.  But if I could turn back time  . . . I would in an instant.  If only we could erase all the pain and hardship from our loved ones lives, if only we could rewrite history and change the bad decisions we have made, the unnecessary pain we have put them through, the terrible things we say, the thoughtless things we do, the hurt we inflict whether knowingly or unknowingly.  If we could edit our own lives as easily as we edit words on a page, how different we, and the world would be.

Sad & sorry but still beautiful, two days later

End of a very big year

Looks like I was premature to be signing off the year in my last missive – it still had a week to run!
I have to admit that I was FOUL in the run up to Christmas (poor Ged!), over-tired, over-stretched, and as it now transpires, suffering from severe hormonal fluctuations.  I was dreading my first Christmas with the ‘out-laws’ and as always at that time of year I was homesick for the traditional rituals, aromas and rain of England.  After all, it is the traditional time for family and I wanted mine, not his!!
We opened our ‘stockings’ at home before heading off to his parents’ place which is a beautiful 400 acre farm they raise Santa Gertrudis bulls on, about 40 minutes away.  Due to a flat tyre on the way (heaven-sent!) we missed the sit down dinner and were able to have a more relaxed afternoon with a moveable feast of family members as we munched on our vegetarian lasagne.  We were embarassed to get gifts from all Ged’s nephews and nieces (I know now for next year!) and got away at a reasonable hour so we could have our ‘first Christmas’ at home.  We opened a bottle of my favourite bubbles and traded gifts – I got my long awaited handbag and a punchbag and baseball bat which now have pride of place in the garage (he knows me well!!) and I gave Ged a big A4 filofax and new halters, lead ropes and a carrot stick for his horses so we were both very spoilt.  We only managed a glass of champagne each before we were pissed . . . and so to bed!
I had invited all his family over on Boxing Day so we had a whirlwind few hours turning the building site into something vaguely resembling a home and cooking up a storm and then had a very relaxed and easy day.  The boys BBQ’d organic beef steaks and sausages from a local farm in Comboyne, and I did potato and green salads with my special vinaigrette and homemade tomato sauce which, amazingly, all the boys hoed into and loved (just goes to show, you don’t need sugar!).
The 27th was my birthday (42!) and Ged made me Queen for a day and waited on me hand and foot so I slept on the sofa all afternoon and we both just relished the peace and quiet of a day off.  Then we had to put in a couple of days of work on the house before driving down to Ged’s best friends’ annual New Year’s Eve bash on the central coast.  I swapped places with Phee on the way down – I curled up in the back of the Pajero and slept and Phee took the passenger seat and kept Ged company in the front!  To be honest we were so tired, we weren’t great company that night, although it was good to meet a lot more of his old friends.  We were clock watching ’til midnight (‘are we there yet?’) and glad to escape to our tent once the celebrations had died down a bit.  The die-hard drinkers kept going until the wee smalls, but we were safely off with the sand man . . .

The new bathroom under the Jacaranda tree . . .