Mocho-Choco-Latta-Yah-Yah

I recently read a book which made me think about a number of my food choices. Not of the "should I eat more ice cream?" choices (to which there is only one correct answer) but of the "should I go organic?" choices - and since I read this book, food and it's origin has been on my mind. So I was pleasantly surprised to hear that even chocolate can have a conscience. Green and Black's chocolate, which is organic, is now certified FreeTrade. So theoretically you can eat as much of it as you like and not feel guilty about what you might be doing to the world.... although if you eat enough of it you might feel a smidge of guilt about what you might be doing to your thighs!

The Green and Black's company were nice enough to send me a number of products to try - milk chocolate, dark chocolate, Maya Gold (dark infused with orange) and white chocolate (infused with vanilla). I'd be lying if I said I didn't crack open the milk chocolate packet within seconds of getting it in my hot little hands. I ripped it open, broke off a piece, put it in my mouth...and was sorely disappointed. Admittedly I have a very SWEET tooth - meaning the more sugar is in something, the happier I am. So I had a look and it turns out that their milk chocolate is actually 34% cocoa - which is pretty high compared to most milk chocolates I've tried and perhaps it was the extreme sweetness I was missing.

The white chocolate was pretty okay, but for me the other 3 flavours had a unpleasant after taste. I'm not even sure how to describe it other than just "yucky" ... it had a strange, strong after-taste and just wasn't all that fabulous to eat in the first place with a very 'flat' flavour. Since I'm not a huge dark chocolate fan I had DH and DD2 taste it since they are both dark choc addicts (of the "If it's not 70% or higher I'm not interested" types). DH agreed it had a very strange taste and then after-taste, and DD2 thought it was the nicest chocolate she'd every eaten. Hmmm. Inconclusive.

So I took it to the next level and decided to bake with it. I used the dark chocolate to make an amazing Mocha self-saucing pudding, which got rave reviews from the various people lucky enough to get a piece.

I still wasn't convinced, though... so I tried a chocolate self-saucing pudding (so the coffee could not mask the chocolate taste.) The pudding was okay and there was no evidence of either the odd chocolate taste or after-taste. I'd happy use the G&B for cooking purposes... but I still wasn't convinced we'd reached any real consensus about if this chocolate was any good to eat. Ethically, it was great...but I can't eat ethics. So we brought out what was left at a recent family dinner and had everyone taste the milk, dark, and Maya.

Hmm.

Half the table spit it out and said, "What IS this stuff? It's terrible!" and the other half said, "Yum! Can I have another piece?" and then gobbled the rest up, offering to take home any spare blocks. I'm not sure exactly what it is about Green & Black's which causes such a divergence in tastes - certainly I've seen and heard many a Melbourne foodie really enjoy it and refer to it as their go-to chocolate, but my personal experience is not the same. For me, I love that even luxury items like chocolate are being produced with social responsibility, and I applaud their efforts to be organic and free-trade. Now if only they'll go certified sweet, we'll all be happy.

Beautiful Poverty

I've neglected emzeegee & the hungry three for a couple of weeks because we all headed off on a tropical adventure, and since we've come home I've been stuck with the head cold from hell. DH thinks I'm attempting weight loss by mucus, since it's surely impossible that one person can blow their nose as often as I am and not lose something. While the idea of fat morphing into snot and then disappearing sounds appealing, let me assure you that going to the gym is far more successful and kinder on one's nose.

We spent 11 days in and around the islands of Hawaii - first on a 7 day cruise through the islands and then a scant 2 days in Honolulu. Yes, I know that equals 9, and I said 11... but since I live at the ends of the earth, it takes a day to actually get anywhere and another day to get back.

What struck me about our time in Hawaii is the incongruity of it all. We took a number of different tours and saw all sorts of amazing things... and yet what stuck with me was how many times we saw poor people, saw homeless people, and heard stories of people with 2 or 3 jobs who are struggling just to get by. I took some time to chat to our various tour leaders, bus drivers and locals we met, and for everyone the story was the same. Hawaii is hurting. I found myself quite shocked at the state of some of the housing there - ramshackle houses which look as though they would not survive the summer breeze let alone the hurricanes that come to that area. Of particular shock was the homes we saw around the big island.

On the one hand, people are clearly struggling. On the other, I could not believe how inexpensive everything there was. Food. Drinks. Clothing. Souvenirs. Absolutely everything we came across was ridiculously inexpensive. Even tours - whole day tours for $75! Of the most shock - and joy - was the cost of clothing. I literally bought massive bags of stuff for my kids- pants, shirts, jeans, shoes, belts, sweatshirts... and the bill came to something like $130. School uniform pants for my son, for which here I'd pay upwards of $50, were $12.50. The shoes he loves (Keen's) are $200 here and less than $100 there. The exact same tennis shoes I bought for myself the day BEFORE we left Australia for a bargain of $80 (normally over $100, hence I thought I was the most fab shopper ever) were on sale at Nordstroms for $31.

$31. Less than a third of what I'd normally pay retail.

So in a country where everything appears ridiculously cheap.. why are people struggling so much? Is it the cost of housing? The cost of insurance? What? I just found it so difficult to marry the image of all those sad houses, and all those people sharing their stories of struggling - with the fact that I took my daughter out to lunch and both of us (with drinks) paid less than $10... and had plenty of leftovers. Why are these people not affording to live to a good standard? What is wrong with America? Why are Hawaiian pineapples now bearing a "grown in Costa Rica" sticker?

Hawaii, like Australia, suffers a little bit from being an island. So most things are going to be more expensive than on the mainland purely on account of transport. Not a whole lot is actually produced on the island, so most of it has to come from somewhere, and getting it there costs a heck of a lot. Australia has the same issue - so a lot of things here are crazy expensive simply because they are imported. Even accounting for "island living tax" - things were just crazy, crazy cheap. I bought my girls a hoodie at Gap for $11. I couldn't even get a hoodie for $11 here if I was at K-Mart AND it was on clearance.

Of course, not everyone is struggling - certainly as we left the tourist areas of Waikiki we saw some amazing properties. Huge, stunning, amazing villas. And we met people who are leading perfectly middle class lives and doing just fine... so it's not as though the entire place is falling apart or anything. It just seemed like there was this veneer of beauty and underneath was a struggling state. I have heard many stories from friends and relatives about the state of the American economy in recent months (years...) but Hawaii was truly an eye-opener for me.

Be Revolutionary

Imagine what our world would be like if nobody ever stood up for what they believed in. If women didn't have the right to vote, if African Americans were not free to mix with Caucasians, if many families did not hide Jews during Hitler's regime, if... there are endless examples of how someone daring to be be a revolutionary improved society as we know it. It's not just society, though.. it's science, too. Think of the scientists who dared to try new things, who went against the status quo in order to prove their theories. Many of those are the people we have to thank for vaccines, antibiotics... I could go on for a while here. What about those people who dare to be revolutionary right in their own backyard? Where are those people?

Over the past couple of years there have been some rather irritating things happening at the kids' school. Incorrect billing practices, disorganised events, major communication breakdowns - you get the idea. For some time now I (and many other parents) have chosen to remain silent, really only voicing our concerns to one another. Last year I made an attempt at bringing one of these issues to the attention of the principal - only to have her fob me off and tell me I didn't fully understand the situation. After it took over 6 months to get a reply to an email, a second attempt at discussion proved equally futile.

At a recent parent's association meeting, I asked the staff member present (not the principal) what the procedure was for parents who needed to voice a concern about administration. Long story short, asking that question was the equivalent to opening up a big bag of angry cats in a small room filled with cat-allergic people. The room erupted with people all similar in their frustration and dissatisfaction with various issues - and in no time at all it became obvious that this was not MY issue, this was OUR issue. Long story short, it was determined that the only action available to us was to write a letter to the governing Council of the school and hope we could get them to listen or at the least sit up and notice.

The letter is written. It's not derogatory. It's not accusatory. It's filled with positive language, with "we want our school to be fabulous,", with "let's work together," with "surely we can all improve" and so on and so forth. It's not at all the guns blazing letter I wrote in my head, but it IS the one I think we should send. Frankly, it's all gentle and nice-nice... but it's all true. We DO have a vested interest in the long term improvement and growth of our little school and we know that telling them off would achieve nothing other than making us look like hysterical complaining parents. Which we are - but it's an attitude which we know won't get us anywhere, hence the tone of the letter.

Why, then, are we finding it so hard to get people to sign it? Not only 'people' but the very people who themselves admit they are unhappy with the situation? One parent won't sign because her husband told her to "stay out of trouble," another is worried that signing will affect her chances for scholarship in future years...and so on. Of course, they are entitled to not sign - it's their right and I can understand their concerns. I don't agree with their concerns, but we all have our own moral compass - and we all need to decide for ourselves when to be revolutionary and when to stand on the sidelines. I know I'm brave, and outspoken, and extroverted...and I know other people are not. Some people just are not the type to stand up - and I appreciate that the world needs leaders as much as it needs followers. However, I'm still having a hard time swallowing this.

One of the parents asked me what I would do if the Council did nothing about the situation - would I still sign if I knew that? Of course I would - because knowing I tried to bring attention to something, and then failed at that attempt - would still be more valuable than sitting and doing nothing. Council ignoring our letter would in itself speak volumes about the school, wouldn't it?

Someone else asked if admin problems are really going to affect my kids' education? Is not getting a correct bill (for more than 3 years now) going to really affect their day-to-day happiness at school? Actually, YES, it will. Fact is, a lot of these admin problems are the reason why the school is not growing - there has been no growth in a few years now. The current Grade 5 class has 5 kids in it. Parents are choosing to take their kids out of this school for reasons related to admin ... and ultimately, that DOES affect my kids and their education. If staff morale is low and great teachers leave .. that too affects my kids education. If they get to Grade 5 and there are only 5 kids (of which they would be 3), well, that's not really doing them any favours either.

So, I'm choosing to be revolutionary. Because someone has to be.

The Way The Apple Crumbles

On the same weekend as the ice cream cake extravaganza, DS decided to make a somewhat healthier dessert option. While he likes sweet stuff, he has an absolute obsession with fruit. All sorts of fruit - he could easily eat several pieces a day (and often does.) So if a dessert or dinner includes some sort of fruit, he's a happy camper (and we all know about the camping, don't we?!). When he helps with menu planning, he almost always picks some sort of fruit based dessert as an optional extra and this weekend was no exception.

As crumbles go, this one has the advantage of being easy and delicious. Maybe not the OMG WOW crumble recipe,but certainly the oh-no-company's-coming! dessert to turn to.

Apple and Berry Crumble

6 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1/4 cup sugar
punnet strawberries, hulled and sliced
2 cups frozen mixed berries of your choice
60g cold butter, cubed
1/2 cup self raising flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 tsp cinnamon (I added more)
1 T honey
cream, to serve (essential...although can be replaced by ice cream of course)

Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly grease a 6 cup capacity oven dish.

1. Place the sliced apples in a pot over medium heat. Add the sugar and stir until sugar dissolves. 2. Cover and cook for 5 minutes or until apples are tender but not floppy. Remove from heat. Stir in berries and spoon mixture into the ovenproof dish.
3. Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir in the oats, brown sugar, breadcrumbs, cinnamon and honey. Spoon the crumble over the fruit.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until crumble is golden and smelling so scrummy you can't take another minute of waiting. Serve with cream.

Is it Ice Cream O'Clock yet?

There is no point in trying to be kind, so I'm just going to come out and say it:

Vanilla ice cream is CRAPPY.

It is a rare event where I find a vanilla ice cream I like - because most of them are either flavourless, artificial-tasting, or just plain old' BLAH. A vast majority of commercial vanilla ice cream is just not worth the calories, which is not generally something I would say about ANY ice cream. There are a few premium vanilla ice creams which are mostly okay (Sara Lee, I'm looking at you) but most of them are just pathetic. As the inventor of 'ice cream o'clock' - which is the offical time of day or night when you feel the need to eat some ice cream - I feel I'm fairly well qualified to wax lyrical on the crappiness of vanilla ice cream.

I'm nothing if not fair, though, so when DD2 saw this recipe for an ice cream cake ... which involved copious amounts of vanilla ice cream.. I couldn't possibly refuse her, now could I? Plus I might have been just the tiniest bit influenced by the fact that this recipe also includes chocolate, 2 whole packages of sprinkles, and savioardi biscuits. Even bad vanilla ice cream can surely be improved by all those additions, right?

Absolutely right.

Chocolate Freckle Ice Cream Cake

2 litres vanilla ice cream
200g butter, softened
1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar
4 eggs at room temp
400g good quality dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup thickened cream
250g sponge finger biscuits
2 x 175g packets hundreds and thousands (sprinkles)

1. Remove ice cream from the freezer and allow to stand while you do all the other bits.
2. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until pale. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition - the mixture may look curdled but that's fine.
3. Combine chocolate and cream in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for one minute and stir, and continue one minute at a time until melted and smooth. Add to butter mixture and beat until smooth.
4. Sprinkle one packet of hundreds and thousands into the bottom of a springform tin (25cm base). Spoon over half the chocolate mixture, taking care not to disturb the sprinkles.
5. Cut all the biscuits in half, length ways to make two thinner fingers (as though you are torting a cake, not right down the middle but across the width.) Lay these over the chocolate mixture in a single layer, cutting some smaller if need be. Spoon over the ice cream and gently smooth.
6. Press remaining biscuits into the tin and then pour over the remaining chocolate mixture. The sprinkle over the remaining packet of sprinkles. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and foil and freeze overnight.


This cake was, in a word, totally AWESOME and would make a great, quick cake for a kids' birthday or family event. In our case it was the perfect dessert for Oscars watching! A word of warning, you need to use quite a large springform. Ours wasn't quite big enough so we ended up in a delicious mess - all it meant was that the next day I had to flip the cake over and use the bottom as the top. No less delicious and fabulous but the sprinkles were not as bright as I would have liked.

Monopoly Is Awesome

It's entirely possible that the title of this post might have been "Monopoly SUCKS"... but since I ended the game like this:


I feel I can be more kindly towards what is possibly the longest, most boring, frustrating game ever invented. Seriously. Whoever invented Monopoly clearly had a warped sense of what is actually fun and what's not. In our case we were playing "the dot com" edition, which my Mom bought my DH several years ago. So all the properties are well-known websites...and it was very amusing to see that there is no Google, but there is a Lycos and an Ask Jeeves and a whole bunch of other sites which are now RIP. All the money is in millions and the cards are "Email" and "Download" cards. The whole game is actually pretty cute, and the perfect (and yet somehow most boring) way to blow a few afternoons with DS and DH.

Since I needed an excuse to get up every few minutes (or fall asleep at the table), I decided to also do some lovely Autumn slow cooking. So our game was enhanced by the delicious smell - and then heavenly taste - of Beef with Orange, Prines, Cumin and Green Beans... with a side of Saffron Pilaf.

Seriously, seriously good... and a seriously good diversion from my strategy which involved having no money but boat loads of property.

Did I mention that I won? No, I totally MOPPED THE FLOOR with my boys. Bwahahahaha, it's great to be Queen.


Beef with Orange, Prunes, Cumin and Green Beans
Originally from Good Taste magazine, June 2008

Serves 6
1/4 cup plain flour
1.25kg casserole beef (blade steak) cut into 5 cm pieces
1/3 cup olive oil
2 large brown onions, halved and thinly sliced
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 tsp ground turmeric
2 1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 cups fresh orange juice
1 1/2 cups beef stock
1 cup pitted prunes
400g green beans, trimmed

NB: 1.25kg = 2.4 pounds, and 400g = 1 pound

1. Place the flour on a plate and season with salt and pepper. Add the beef and toss to coat. Shake off excess.
2. Heat 2T of oil in a large casserole over medium high heat. Add half the beef and cook, turning, until browned (about 5 min). Transfer to a plate then repeat with remaining beef. Set beef aside.
3. Heat the remaining oil in the pot. Add the onion and cook until soft. Add the tomato paste, turmeric and cumin and cook for about 1 minute or until fragrant. Return the beef to the pot and add the orange juice, stock and prunes. Bring to a simmer.
4. Reduce heat to very low. Cook, partially covered, for 1 hour. Add the beans and cover the pot, and cook for a further hour or until the meat is very tender. Season with salt and pepper.

Saffron Pilaf
Serves 6

1/4 cup olive oil
2 T butter
2 brown onions, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups basmati rice
large pinch of saffron threads
2 1/2 cups beef stock or water

Heat the olive oil and butter in a large, heavy based saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and cook for 5 minutes or until soft. Add the rice, saffron and stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and cook over medium heat until liquid is absorbed. Set aside and stand, covered, for a further 5 minutes. Use a fork to separate the grains.

Enjoy!

Apparently, I SHALL pee in the woods

So Mr I-Need-A-Halo has been sticking to his plan and behaving like a perfect angel.

Damn.

When I told my sister that I was going camping, she only stopped laughing long enough to say, "You've got to write a book about it!" When I said that she was perhaps more of a princess than I, she just laughed harder and said, "Well, *I* can't write a book about it because there is no way in hell I would go camping in the first place." Awesome... so I can clearly count on her support, right? The good news is that next week's Mums and Cubs great adventure has been postponed to late April. Next week it's just the kids on their own, and they get to sleep in tents. Apparently in order to make the Mums more ... comfortable... THAT camp will involve dormitories rather than tents.

This does not make me feel better. Dorms involve things like bunk beds. I do not 'do' bunk beds.

However, I am heartened by the fact that DS seems to have finally gotten his act together (at least as much as I can expect him to) and my original plan worked. A little too well, but it still worked.

Therefore, come late April, I will be the MOST AWESOME mother ever to sleep in a dormitory...because, you know, they're so comfy and all.

I Shall Not Pee In The Woods

As I've blogged about before, DS has had a whole bunch of issues at school over the last few months. Many hours and hundreds of dollars later, it turns out that he's smarter than all of us. After all, he's had a gaggle of adults running around him trying to make him happy - while he just sits back and does whatever the hell he wants anyway. So you tell me which one of us is the clever one, right?

Needless to say things seem to be on the improve (and thank god for that, I was about this close --><-- to a nervous breakdown). However, DS doesn't seem to be getting that he is in fact as much a part of the solution as the rest of us are. Basically, if he doesn't come up with the behavioural goods, there is no point in all of us trying to help him. For several weeks now I've been trying to figure out how to get him on board with all of this and failing miserably.

Most child psychs tell you that in order to wield power over kids, use an item of value. An item of value to the kid, that is - so take away their Nintendo, don't let them have play dates, reduce their TV time, etc. Basically figure out what's precious to your kid and then take it away. The theory is that the kid will eventually fall in line because they want their item of value back. This theory fails miserably in my house. We don't own expensive or noisy toys, we already limit their TV time, we don't have a lot of play dates, and all their extra-curricular activities are physical and therefore necessary and not optional (IMHO anyway).

And then there was the camping.

About a week ago, DH sent me an email from the Cub Scouts which said that they are having a Mums and Cubs camping weekend at the end of this month.

And we all know how much I love camping.

About as much as I love Helicopter Mom, Other People's Kids, and the birthday cakes DH gets me. Actually I love camping even LESS than that, to the power of a gazillion.

I HATE dirt, uncomfortable beds, spiders, toilets which need gravity to flush, poor quality toilet paper, building a fire with anything other than a functioning 6 burner stove, eating stuff overcooked over wood, singing songs, mosquitoes, kids running around in packs, bus rides, duffle bags, sleeping bags, housing which requires construction and sticks and stuff, flies, creeks, mud, hiking shoes which give you blisters, and absolutely everything else which has anything at all to do with camping.

But I'm a Mum. And in the Mum guidebook, Commandment Number One is YOU SHALL SUFFER.

Like a bolt out of the blue I suddenly realised that there are in fact two things that DS values. Firstly, one on one time with his dear old Mum. As a triplet, one on one parent time is decidedly limited. Secondly, he absolutely adores travelling and camping and going away doing cool stuff, and he KNOWS how much I hate that stuff with an extreme passion.

And so the "Mum and DS Camp" chart was born. Between when we started and the dreaded camp, there are 14 school days. DS has to behave LIKE A FREAKIN' ANGEL for all of those 14 days, and the reward is that I will suffer 2 nights away in the woods. With other people's kids. Which will likely have more than one Helicopter Mom (but probably no birthday cake.) Now because I am a reasonable sort of person, I also gave him two 'get out of jail free' cards... because in his world, perfect behaviour for 14 days is close to impossible. He is, after all, human. Or at least I think so.

We're now onto Day 5 of the Race to Torture Mum, and so far he's been as good as gold. Literally skips out of school, grins broadly and says, "Another GREAT day, Mum!"

Fucking kid. NOW he decides to behave?

I hate it when a plan comes together.

No, I want THAT one

This past weekend I had the extreme pleasure of trying to flog (Australian slag for 'sell') a shit load of cupcakes. In case you're wondering about the actual numerical nature of "shit load," it's somewhere in the region of 1,100. On Sunday I took part in a kids' festival (which is where the bulk of the cupcakes were going to be sold) and it was fascinating to watch the behaviour of the parents. Over the course of the day, one thing became very clear - it's ADULTS who are poorly behaved, not kids.

Witness the parent who came up to the table (laden with loads and loads of kid-friendly, brightly coloured and totally drool-icious cupcakes) and spent AGES looking and commenting and asking and trying not to touch... and the kid whose eyes are bugged out of their head, mouth salivating, desperately wanting a cupcake. This same parent totally ignores their kid, and then turns and says, "Oh but you've already had your one treat of the day! Sorry!" and walks away.

Seriously. Surely that's a case for child abuse.

Or witness the parents (many of them) who offer their kid a cupcake, the kid points to the one they want, and the PARENT then spends the next 3-4 minutes pointing out all the other ones available. "Oh, Joey, what about THIS one? It has a dinosaur!" "Do you want a dinosaur? No? Okay what about a racing car? A smiley face? A pink flower? A smarties one? A coconut one? Come ON, honey, you need to decide!" Never mind that this entire time, the kid is patiently standing there, pointing to the one they want. It was quite amazing to see just how many times this same scenario played out. The damn kid already TOLD you which one they want - why are you making it so freakin' complicated?!

Or...witness the parents who think their son cannot possibly eat a pink cupcake, or their daughter can't eat the one with the sugar skull on it. Seriously? Who knew that gender rules apply to cupcakes?!

Or... the parents who haggle over the price of a handmade, gorgeous, amazing cupcake... but then happily pay $3.50 for a cup of coffee. Which is, as we all know, WATER.

Or... the parents who buy themselves a half dozen cupcakes but tell the kid, "None of these are for you!" and is deadly serious about that.

Admittedly most of the people we met were lovely, friendly, normal parents... but then it would be boring if I blogged about them, wouldn't it?

Instead I'll leave you with the tale of the parent who was angry that we did not discount the cupcakes at the end of the event - "Aren't they all stale by now anyway?" and proceeded to rant about the event itself, her sick kid, the fact that they were running late, and a whole bunch of other stuff which we neither cared to know about or needed to know.

We're all worried about the kids, when really it's the adults who need a time out.

Stop The Music

The children's school was given a grant which enables them to give free music lessons to all children, starting from Grade 3. Four days ago, my kids began Grade Three, and as of this evening, I am living in my own personal version of musical hell.

They got to choose from four torture instruments - cello, violin, flute and clarinet. This evening we had to go and listen to a sample of each of those instruments, and then the kids got to list their preferred devices of torture. We also got told that they have to practice up to 15 minutes a day, and that they will only really progress if parents sit in front of their child and listen while they play. They then further dug my grave by telling me that they would be emailing a list of musical tasks which had to be done 5 nights a week.

Oh. My. God.

I hate music. Seriously. I enjoy listening to the radio, and I even enjoy the odd concert (my first date with DH was in fact at the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra)... but on the whole, I'm not into music. I've only ever bought 2 or 3 CD's - in my entire life. I don't own an iPod (or any i-anything, for that matter). As a child I played piano for exactly long enough that even my poor mother had to concede defeat. I've gone to a few concerts - but mostly I go for the experience more than the actual music. I don't download anything illegally or otherwise, I don't look at YouTube all that much, I've never seen more than one episode of anything ending in "Idol" or "Talent"...I'm just a total music pleb. Add to this the fact that I banned all noisy toys from my house from the very minute my kids were born. Literally if we were given a toy which sang, played a tune, squeaked, whistled, squawked or hummed, the damn thing was out of here faster than you can say, "I hate those freakin' noisy toys!" Either that or I would deliberately take out the batteries and/or purposely break the part of the toy which made noise.

...and yet now, my kids are 8 and I still can't get rid of the damn noisy toys. Heck, this time they're compulsory - and shiny - and require me to sign a release form.

Oh, crap. I think when you sit at the "Introduction to Music" night, and whisper to The Neighbour's Wife, "Can't watching an hour of VH1 count as music education?" you're bound to have two things happen:

1) The music teacher will hate you forever more, and
2) You'll have some good blog fodder.

Now, someone pass me some ear plugs.

Sniff Sniff

The people who know me in real life wouldn't say that I'm a terribly emotional person. They would say I'm not one for grandiose gestures of love and affection, that I'm not a "softy" and that I don't do well with outpourings of emotion. While it is true that I didn't grow up in a very touchy-feely household, and I'm terrible at expressing empathy, the fact remains that I am a total emotional nutcase.

The truth is that I'm very emotional, very huggy-huggy-cuddly-cuddly, and I like nothing better than a good cry. I always cry in movies (even animated ones), I've been known to cry at commercials (notably this series - the damn things get me every time), and even reality TV also brings on the water works (we call Extreme Home Makeover by it's more correct name -"weepy homes"..as in, "Oh no! Mum is watching weepy homes again!) It's not unusual for DH to find me in bed at night, crying over a particularly emotional passage I've just read in a book. Often even going to temple makes me cry, especially if we're singing Ha Tikva. Although there are times when I want DH and the kids to get the heck out of my face, most of the time our home is one that is full of love, hugs, affection and plenty of emotion.

Recently I've discovered that I've passed this trait onto at least one of my kids. The other night DS walks into the room, his face full of distress, his eyes dropping tears. Given our recent dramas, I was immediately worried - "Oh my goodness! Boy, are you okay?"

He just shook his head and looked even more despondent.

"Come, give me a hug. Tell me what's wrong."

... and by now I'm starting to get a little worried. I didn't hear the usual cries of "he pushed me!" "she hit me" "stop it" and "get off" - in fact, it was blissfully quiet until my son walked in looking as though he lost his best friend. So what could possibly invoke this sort of reaction?

He looks up at me, with his huge blue eyes brimming over, and wails, "It's just so SAD!!"

It took a second to realise he was talking about the book he was holding - Isobelle Carmody's A Riddle of Green, part of the Little Fur series. My kid was standing there, clearly distraught...and me being me, I started to laugh - "You're upset about a scene in a book?" He nodded. And kept crying. "It's just so SAD," he said again. It actually took several hugs and several minutes for him to gather himself together, and even though the book was upsetting, he kept on reading well into the night.

Then it occurred to me that this is the same child who cries at the end of movies... even the animated ones. When we have kids, we hope and expect to pass on some of our better traits - the colour of our eyes, our naturally straight teeth, the calm nature of our partner. We don't expect that we will pass on our less positive traits... but then, if what I have given him is a love of literature and a soft heart, I'm pretty okay with that.

Roll on February

This morning (at 9am. What childless person gets up at 9am on a Sunday?) my friend The Good Doctor called me to see how I was doing. Not because he misses me, not because he forgot about plans we had last week (slacker), not because he just wanted to say hi... but because he saw me "whining on facebook" about how shit my life has been lately.

Hmmm.

I wasn't actually offended by that comment - mostly because we've been good friends for years and we're right into the 'tell it like it is' stage of friendship. I was, however, kinda taken aback by the word whining. He meant it in jest - but the idea that I would be whining, was, well... totally unforgivable. Not to mention it just left a bad taste in my mouth. And I realised that I have indeed spent a hell of a lot of time whining lately. Now I could go all moral and lovey-dovey and happy gumdrops on you and tell you about the great things in my life which are totally worth focussing on... but where the hell is the fun in all of that? I could also tell you how grateful I am that I do not live in Haiti and that to the best of my knowledge, my husband is not involved in a secret swingers club (hello Mr Rockefeller...!).

Instead of all of that, I'm just going to say this:

THANK GOD that 1) school holidays are officially over, 2) I'm finally finding the time to get a hair cut and 3) February starts tomorrow.

And So It Goes

I had hoped to return to blogging with some hilarious post about how my life is completely funny and wonderful and sane and fantastic and - all you people out there in blog land, you should be jealous of my totally fab-o life.

Well, best laid plans and all that.

Instead I am blogging to you from the eye of the storm. I've reached a point where I just don't know what to do next - and while I'm a great proponent of "just start somewhere instead of whining about where to start" - I find I'm at a loss.

Today, my Mom went back to the US after 4 weeks here in Australia. While she was here I tried really hard not to think about my Dad too much, because it was really important to me that she and I just enjoy one another's company and not dwell too much. I mostly succeeded, but now that she's gone, I'm left with my tears. Alone. Again.

Yesterday, I smacked my son. More than once. All summer we've been trying SO hard to help him get through his unnamed issues, to support him and love him and try to understand why all of a sudden he is a confused, frustrated little boy. I am not, by nature, a patient person.. so trying to be loving and patient and kind to someone who pushes your buttons is hard. I think he deserves my love, my patience, my understanding... and so DH and I are trying very hard to support him... but yesterday, he tried my patience one too many times - and so today, I can't get the sound of that slap, and the look on his face as his flinched - out of my head.

Yesterday, I got a nasty-gram from a client who is upset about a cake I made. A letter filled with accusations and threats. It's a long story, but suffice it to say this has the potential to drag on for a while... and getting that letter made me feel as though the many hundreds of cakes and thousands of cupcakes I've made before that one are somehow worth nothing at all. Intellectually I know that's not true, and it's just negative emotional self-talk... but with every moment I am now filled with self-doubt.

Two days ago, I said out loud to DH what I've been wondering in my head for a few weeks now: Am I actually cut out for business ownership? Several months ago I spoke to my Dad about this very subject, and his opinion was that perhaps I had the smarts, the skills, the drive... but not the right personality to be a business owner. I suspected then that he was right and as the months have worn on I've been unable to get that comment out of my head. I'm just not sure I'm cut out for the extreme emotional stress involved in running the show.

Truth is, I have no idea what I want any more, and logic tells me that there are steps I should take to work this out. Every time I sit down to do it, though, I become paralyzed by feelings of failure and I just kinda sit there, looking for displacement activities.

Today, I sit and type this and I just feel overwhelmed. I feel overwhelmed by the need to think, to decide, to weigh up options...but at the same time, I know that making any major decisions in my emotional state would be silly.

And so it goes.

Didya Miss Me?

Time flies, or so they say... which is why I didn't realise it had been almost 3 weeks since I last blogged. I have been reading loads of other blogs, all of which talk endlessly about resolutions and then a few days later about broken resolutions. I solved this problem last year with the achievable resolution solution and this year I briefly considered using the random resolution generator in an act of extreme laziness. I managed to keep almost every single one of my achievable resolutions, except I totally forgot that one of those resolutions was to order my own birthday cake this year...and so the task was left to DH.

...and we all know how well he's done in the past.

Now to be fair, he managed to:
1) order a cake
2) make sure it was not vanilla and not from Crappy Dairy Bell
3) have it arrive at our house on my actual birthday

However, the cake was:
1) less than 2 inches high, and even I didn't know that birthday cakes come that low
2) it had these random multi colour blobs on it (possibly balloons?!)
3) he did not pick it up himself, yet again out-sourcing
and
3) it was just kinda crappy, although improved over last year.

At dinner with some friends a week later I told them about Birthday Cake Debacle 2.0, to which The Neighbour's Wife wanted to know why I have yet to figure out that birthday cake ordering should be left to my friends and not my relatives. She might have a point there.

With that minor fail in mind, I think it's fair to say that the achievable resolutions worked pretty well for me. So, without further ado, here are my achievable resolutions for this year. Please feel free to join me in the comments of this post, since last year you guys came up with a few crackers of your own:

1. Actually start The Supper Club. I've had this idea in my head for ages, where a bunch of women get together every 6 weeks and do something out of our comfort zone. A new restaurant, a play, a concert - whatever. But the deal is you have to invite an equally fabulous woman to come with you (and thus widen our social circles) - and I'd like to add another rule that you have to wear something new but I'm not sure how achievable or affordable that is. So I'm going to start this up, because it's been in the back of my head for ages now.

2. Bake fewer cakes, bake fewer cupcakes, and decorate fewer cakes and cupcakes. I know, this sounds ridiculous for someone building a custom cake and cupcake business....and therein lies the key. I'm building this business, and I can't do it by spending so much time in the kitchen. So this year I'm going to hire clever people, invest money and time in the business, and become a business owner rather than a woman who just bakes pretty cakes but makes no money.

3. Because so much of my life is bound up in kitchen time - either commercially or personally - I tend to wear fairly utilitarian clothes, keep my hair in a ponytail, and wear no jewellery other than my wedding band, sleeper earrings, and a gold necklace around my neck which I tuck under my shirts. On my recent shopping adventure, I made a big effort to buy some pretty things, some fun things, some things which are crying out for accessories. My sister sent me some beautiful jewellery for my birthday, I bought myself a few pieces from a talented jewellery designing friend, and I even bought a ... beret. No, I'm not kidding. It's a soft grey cashmere beret. I was totally overtaken by some sort of momentary madness when I bought this thing. So this resolution is simple - to wear more accessories, to wear beautiful pieces, to bling-ify my life more.

4. I recently watched a special on TV about a woman in the UK who had lost 350lbs via diet and exercise. No special pills, no surgery, just good old hard work and determination. She then endured 5 YEARS of plastic surgery in order to revise her body to a point she could be happy with. She attributed her success to one simple thing - a kind of mantra, I suppose - which was this: What the mind believes, the body will do. Now I realise this is basically saying that it's all mind over matter, but I still love the phrasing.

So this year, I'm going to be the "do-ing" parent. The one who joins the kids on the water slide, who runs into the surf at full pelt with my jeans still on, the one who is never too tired or lazy to climb the stairs for 'just one more' goodnight kiss, the one who ISN'T sitting on the sidelines reading a book instead of actively engaging in her kids gleeful lives. The one whose mind believes she is still young and silly, because, in reality, I AM young and silly... I just sometimes forget that.

..and of course...

5. Get my friends to buy my birthday cake.

...and that's it. I think I can achieve those, and while they are not as amusing as "eating more chocolate" or "ignoring the laundry more often" I think they are a lot more true to the person I'm hoping to be in 2010. Someone who eats chocolate, but still runs around in the backyard with the kids and the hose (although don't tell anyone about the hose, Australia is in a drought you know...)

So, who is in?